Donald Trump is the President Mark IV (Read Mod Warning in OP)

pixelburp

Problem is, there neither seems to be the appetite nor the publicity to have that discussion in America; so while the results continue to be a grossly inaccurate reflection of the raw numbers, we'll continue to see these kind of results.

Americans appear utterly infatuated with a myth of their political system essentially being infallible - that theirs is perfect, requires no change (and anyone criticising it is instantly labelled anti-American or unpatriotic). They desperately need something akin to a Constitutional Convention to iron out the obvious flaws in their ageing, buggy system, yet it would be so skewed by partisan zealots there'd be no guarantee of fairness.

kilns

I always have a laugh when Americans declare their country the greatest democracy in the world

Pussyhands

B0jangles wrote: »

https://twitter.com/mat_johnson/status/1060044120528310272

How is this supposed to be fair and democratic?

Well for example if you had a straight number deciding the winner, you'd have the major cities deciding the winner and the less populous areas vote wouldn't matter. I'm talking about the presidential election but this is the same idea.

Kiith

So what can the Democrats actually do with the House now? I read that they can get Trumps tax returns directly from the IRS, and it gives some protection to Mueller? Anything else of note?

Any time you read about decisions in American politics, it seems to be the senate making them.

kilns

Like how can states like Rhode Island, Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii have the same amount of senators as New York or California, its crazy really

kilns

Like how can states like Rhode Island, Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii have the same amount of senators as New York or California, its crazy really

Captain Obvious

kilns wrote: »

Like how can states like Rhode Island, Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii have the same amount of senators as New York or California, its crazy really

American Nationalism starts at state level. You can't treat one state less favourably than another. Seems to be really fragile country internally.

kilns

Captain Obvious wrote: »

kilns wrote: »

Like how can states like Rhode Island, Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii have the same amount of senators as New York or California, its crazy really

American Nationalism starts at state level. You can't treat one state less favourably than another. Seems to be really fragile country internally.

My point exactly that is why it is a very flawed country, the very few have control over the masses.

Penn

B0jangles wrote: »

How is this supposed to be fair and democratic?

In fairness, that's less egregious than how Hilary won the popular vote in 2016. The numbers in the tweet you've shown above are spread out over votes for numerous different candidates, and doesn't even count for all the seats in the Senate as only some of them were up for election yesterday. Same can easily happen here where for example Fianna Fail could win more seats in the Dail with fewer votes than Fine Gael if the FGs won by more votes but over fewer seats.

Whereas with the 2016 Presidential election, a 1v1 choice where Trump could beat Hilary with 3m fewer votes due to the electoral college system, well that's just a big load of nonsense and completely outdated.

Christy42

Penn wrote: »

B0jangles wrote: »

How is this supposed to be fair and democratic?

In fairness, that's less egregious than how Hilary won the popular vote in 2016. The numbers in the tweet you've shown above are spread out over votes for numerous different candidates, and doesn't even count for all the seats in the Senate as only some of them were up for election yesterday. Same can easily happen here where for example Fianna Fail could win more seats in the Dail with fewer votes than Fine Gael if the FGs won by more votes but over fewer seats.

Whereas with the 2016 Presidential election, a 1v1 choice where Trump could beat Hilary with 3m fewer votes due to the electoral college system, well that's just a big load of nonsense and completely outdated.

It is tough to win in Ireland with less votes. Only possible to a limited degree.

Having said that New York should not be able to effectively run Kansas. However the gaps are getting a bit extreme at this point as people move to the cities.

Eric Cartman

Luckily it will finish 220 for the dems in the house, just over the line and a small pool to lobby to get anything over the line, no blue wave, barely even holding.

However , How Ocasio Cortez got elected is beyond me, she can't even articulate her looney left ideology. Thats a one termer if I ever saw one , ineffective at best, dangerous to her constituents at worst.

Havockk

Eric Cartman wrote: »

However , How Ocasio Cortez got elected is beyond me, she can't even articulate her looney left ideology. Thats a one termer if I ever saw one , ineffective at best, dangerous to her constituents at worst.

How? At a guess I'd speculate it's because the electorate voted for her.

Eric Cartman

Havockk wrote: »

How? At a guess I'd speculate it's because the electorate voted for her.

In a similar way to what Im sure a lot in here see trump or other GOP members , I feel she is the least qualified for the position, her ideas are an afront to what even the american moderate left believe and she has no understanding of the needs of the majority of her constituents.

B0jangles

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Luckily it will finish 220 for the dems in the house, just over the line and a small pool to lobby to get anything over the line, no blue wave, barely even holding.

However , How Ocasio Cortez got elected is beyond me, she can't even articulate her looney left ideology. Thats a one termer if I ever saw one , ineffective at best, dangerous to her constituents at worst.

Aren't you still a Trump supporter? He literally cannot articulate a coherent sentence, let alone a policy or ideology.

Water John

The term moderate left is what would be applied to her in any European country.

MayoSalmon

Eric Cartman wrote: »

In a similar way to what Im sure a lot in here see trump or other GOP members , I feel she is the least qualified for the position, her ideas are an afront to what even the american moderate left believe and she has no understanding of the needs of the majority of her constituents.

This category of people is barely recognizable anymore to be fair, I would go even as far to say it really doesn't exist.

Eric Cartman

B0jangles wrote: »

Aren't you still a Trump supporter? He literally cannot articulate a coherent sentence, let alone a policy or ideology.

I have always explained that any support I had for trump was based on him being better than the alternative, which is still the case. I also combat the hysteria and willingness to just believe any half truth that gets shilled by a lot of news sites.

Ocasio Cortez's ideas havent been articulated near as well as trumps and like it or not are far more dangerous for america than almost anything that has come out of donalds mouth.

Havockk

Eric Cartman wrote: »

In a similar way to what Im sure a lot in here see trump or other GOP members , I feel she is the least qualified for the position, her ideas are an afront to what even the american moderate left believe and she has no understanding of the needs of the majority of her constituents.

Your feelings have no bearings on the issue. You can feel the moon is made of cheese, but that feeling wont make it true my friend.

The truth being of course, you're an ideologue, how could you ever hope to understand a socialist getting elected?

Eric Cartman

Water John wrote: »

The term moderate left is what would be applied to her in any European country.

It really wouldnt, shes hard left by any countries barometer, has more in common with paul murphy than say joan burton.

B0jangles

Pussyhands wrote: »

Well for example if you had a straight number deciding the winner, you'd have the major cities deciding the winner and the less populous areas vote wouldn't matter. I'm talking about the presidential election but this is the same idea.

In a democracy, it is supposed to be 1 person, 1 vote. The way the senate works, voters in less populous areas have far faaaar more voting power than voters in more heavily populated areas.


Apparently California's senators each represent 1,980,000 million people, while Wyoming's represent only 290,000, yet each of those senate votes has the same power.

Eric Cartman

Havockk wrote: »

Your feelings have no bearings on the issue. You can feel the moon is made of cheese, but that feeling wont make it true my friend.

The truth being of course, you're an ideologue, how could you ever hope to understand a socialist getting elected?

Regardless of me being an ideologue or not, I dont understand how anyone could elect a socialist and I don't think anyone else should either, every person on the planet has access to information about the horrors that system has caused on the world.

B0jangles

Eric Cartman wrote: »

I have always explained that any support I had for trump was based on him being better than the alternative, which is still the case. I also combat the hysteria and willingness to just believe any half truth that gets shilled by a lot of news sites.

Ocasio Cortez's ideas havent been articulated near as well as trumps and like it or not are far more dangerous for america than almost anything that has come out of donalds mouth.

I've seen enough of your opinions on this board to get a fairly strong idea of how you judge coherence of policy, and iI don't think it's really based on linguistic ability or basic logic.

Leroy42

So overall a bad night for the GOP in terms of the House, and a slightly better than expected, but not totally unsurprising given the type of deats up for election in the Senate?

It is very clear that the voters are moving away from the GOP. Whilst the botched system, gerrrymandering etc can contain it, it cannot continue that the GOP suffer such big drops in support.

Trump has found it very difficult to get things done when he has had full control of both houses. He now faces a DNC controlled House and whils the Senate is now more in his favour, the opposite of this election will be around for the next, meaning that mroe GOP seats will be up, so those Senator will need to be more wary. Do they continue to believe that Trump, no matter what, will carry them through?

On the other hand, given all that is wrong with the GOP and Trump, it is depressing to think that so many people are still so willing to vote for them. It is very clear that many many Americans are clearly happy with the levels of racism, nepotism, corruption, lying, division, bullying, incompetence, wasting of money, failure to plan for the future and many more issues that are currently in place in the US.

That they would put all this aside on the altar of tax cuts or gun control staggers me.

Captain Obvious

Anyone popping out as a strong contender for the next presidential? Rep or Dem?

Eric Cartman

B0jangles wrote: »

I've seen enough of your opinions on this board to get a fairly strong idea of how you judge coherence of policy, and iI don't think it's really based on linguistic ability or basic logic.

Look up any interview with her, she cant even explain her own ideas without stuttering and contradicting herself, took 3 interviews of being asked what is socialism before a media trainer bet a coherent answer into her

Havockk

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Regardless of me being an ideologue or not, I dont understand how anyone could elect a socialist and I don't think anyone else should either, every person on the planet has access to information about the horrors that system has caused on the world.

Of course you don't. That's what I said, you think that everyone around you should share your ideals, and that they should instantly gratify your needs above all others. It's literally a metaphor for the current state of the world.

B0jangles

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Look up any interview with her, she cant even explain her own ideas without stuttering and contradicting herself, took 3 interviews of being asked what is socialism before a media trainer bet a coherent answer into her

Were those the edited or unedited interviews? I know there were quite a few heavily edited versions of interviews she did that were doing the rounds on rightwing social media, but the editing was so obvious it's hard to believe anyone fell for it

BabyCheeses

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Look up any interview with her, she cant even explain her own ideas without stuttering and contradicting herself, took 3 interviews of being asked what is socialism before a media trainer bet a coherent answer into her

Still not understanding why a Trump supporter would dislike her. Sounds like they have found their 2024 candidate.

Leroy42

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Regardless of me being an ideologue or not, I dont understand how anyone could elect a socialist and I don't think anyone else should either, every person on the planet has access to information about the horrors that system has caused on the world.

So you are against Trump $12bn hand out to the farmers I assume?

Or what about the police. Surely that is simply the overall looking after the weak?
Or the military? Why should the people continue to fund others that can't defend themselves?
Or the fire service? You must hate all this hurricane relief efforts? Silly people shouldn't have lived near the water/coast?
And schools. It must drive you insane to see your tax dollars being used to educate others? Let people educate themselves.
And the roads? Getting everyone to contribute to a singular pot to build interconnections between cities thus helping better move? Although I assume you don't use the roads? Or railways? OR local parks? OR support your NFL team which probably had state funds to help build the stadium.

Socialism is everywhere, in everyones lives. People who claim they reject socialism actually mean they don't want to contribute, but they are fine to keep what they have.

Trent Houseboat

BabyCheeses wrote:

Eric Cartman wrote:

Look up any interview with her, she cant even explain her own ideas without stuttering and contradicting herself, took 3 interviews of being asked what is socialism before a media trainer bet a coherent answer into her

Still not understanding why a Trump supporter would dislike her. Sounds like they have found their 2024 candidate.

Apparently it's because someone taught her to give a coherent answer, a task which has yet proven beyond the grasp of the great teller as it is.