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Trump vs Biden 2020, And the winner is.......... (pt 4) Read OP

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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,089 ✭✭✭✭y0ssar1an22


    The electoral college makes a lot of sense.

    And no, posting your meme youtuber won't make your argument look good and people aren't going to go to it.

    did you even read my post?

    it was referencing how the electoral college is nearly gone.


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    Quin_Dub wrote: »
    In it's current form - Yes.

    I totally understand the need for each state to have a voice and the ability to influence the election , but it's currently out of kilter given the demographic/geographic shifts over the last 20/30 years.

    Something has to change to make it more equitable for the actual people rather than the monolithic "States"

    The real problem with the electoral college is one which doesn't in my view get talked about nearly enough - the "winner takes all" paradigm which exists in almost every state. That's the real reason the college is such a mess. Take Pennsylvania for example - it has 20 votes at the federal EC level. The issue is that if either Trump or Biden gets 50.5% of the vote to the other candidate's 49.5% of the vote, all 20 of those EC votes go to that candidate.

    This is absolutely mental. It's First Past The Post on steroids, and is the real reason American presidential elections are such sh!tshows.

    The idea of weighting different states so as entire swathes of the country aren't irrelevant at election time is actually a great idea, IMO, but by making it winner takes all, they've made large swathes of the country irrelevant at election time anyway, just via different criteria. That's what gives rise to the whole idea of "safe states" vs "swing states", where some people can cast votes which have no effect whatsoever on the election's outcome even if their votes mean, as stated above, that their preferred candidate gets 49.5% of the vote. Those voices go entirely unheard when the electoral college votes are divvied up.

    Two states, Maine and Nebraska, aware their votes by congressional district, which is somewhat better than the usual winner takes all system but it's still very, very far from representative - for example, right now, Nebraska is roughly 60/40 in favour of Trump. It has five electoral college votes. Under any sane system, this would grant Trump three votes and Biden two, but because it's done by congressional district instead, Trump has four votes and Biden only has one.

    In my view this is the central issue which needs reform, and would be a perfect compromise between those who feel that the national popular vote should be used, and those who still feel that different states should be weighted in order to avoid urban areas controlling the entire government and rural areas being shut out entirely from executive politics.

    To be honest, in my view this is all symptomatic of a much bigger issue - the United States is simply too large a country to be adequately governed by a federal government. Political views and culture are too diverse. Even without the FPTP system, in my view you're asking a handful of people to control the lives of far, far too many others. No one is ever going to be truly happy with their government under those circumstances - indeed, it's one of the reasons I've always opposed any further centralisation of power towards the EU and away from national member states' governments. The larger a group of people a government is in charge of, the more each person's influence is diluted to the point of irrelevance. When people feel irrelevant in a democratic system, that's when the trouble begins.

    In short, Gigantic blocks such as the US are simply a bad idea in democratic terms. They inevitably give rise to the kind of problems we're seeing, when one attempts to squeeze such a ridiculously large breadth of political and social cultures into a box in which they can be treated as one.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭Ashbourne hoop


    is_that_so wrote: »
    About 400K but a lot of big Dem areas.
    Boggles wrote: »
    Melania is in the bunker with Barron.

    Daddy is upstairs chomping down on McDonalds throwing random shít at aids.

    Maybe he thinks it'll cure it....


  • Registered Users Posts: 20,090 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    is that in total or just afganistan?

    Afghanistan, but if you are fishing for a win on the big picture, you are going home with an empty basket:
    The United States has dropped a record number of bombs on the Middle East, roughly 10 percent more under Trump than his predecessor. The U.S. strategy against ISIS is now defined by "annihilation tactics," Defense Secretary James Mattis recently said.

    For Trump, 2017 has already been an explosive year: The U.S. has said it dropped over 2,400 bombs on Afghanistan, up from 1,337 last year. In the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. has already dropped 32,801 bombs, compared with 30,743 in 2016. And the U.S. has also conducted more than 100 strikes against Al Qaeda in Yemen in 2017, compared with 38 in 2016.
    https://www.newsweek.com/trump-era-record-number-bombs-dropped-middle-east-667505

    Now imagine adding another 3 years of ordnance and strikes to that.
    In 2020, ‘Antiwar’ Trump Launched More Airstrikes on Somalia Than Bush & Obama COMBINED

    Matt Agorist November 2, 2020


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,216 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    The electoral college is a relic of the pre technology age. But it'll never be got rid of, because Republicans know they wouldn't see the inside of the White House again for a hundred years.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,040 ✭✭✭Smee_Again


    did you even read my post?

    it was referencing how the electoral college is nearly gone.

    I havent watched the video but any change to the it would agree agreement from 38 states which is very unlikely.

    Republicans have only won the popular vote once since Bush Snr, those Republican led states would be mad to abolish it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,643 ✭✭✭quokula


    hmmm wrote: »
    It's a cry of rage similar to a toddler when they can't get something they want. I doubt he knows what he wants other than to not lose.

    It's his family and minions who are running around trying to make him happy which are the really dangerous ones.

    I think it's more than just a tantrum. He actively encouraged his own voters to come out on election day rather than postal vote. He's been sowing the seeds of doubt in postal voting for weeks. The republicans have been trying to reduce the postal service's capacity to ensure more postal votes arrive late. Republican legislatures in a number of states tweaked counting rules to make sure postal votes got counted last, even if they arrived early.

    This has all been premeditated to create the impression that the election has been stolen from him. It may not matter to the actual result (assuming the various judges the republicans have put in place don't completely undermine the rule of law), but it creates a martyrdom narrative that the republicans can carry into 2024 after Biden's spent most of his 4 years cleaning up Trump's mess and the coronavirus aftermath.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,099 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    DeanAustin wrote: »
    Assuming he wins, I can’t wait to see how Biden refers to Trump in his victory speech. Usually, the winner will say something nice about the previous person/challenger and their character. I’m not sure that Biden will be able to do that with any degree of credibility.

    Will Trump even turn up for the inauguration?

    Can see him making a dash straight for his last flight on AF1 the moment he's no longer president and escaping somewhere. Guaranteed he'll make some comment about how his inauguration crowd was bigger though, even if they end up doing the formalities behind closed doors with no crowds due to Covid19.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,845 ✭✭✭DeanAustin


    The real problem with the electoral college is one which doesn't in my view get talked about nearly enough - the "winner takes all" paradigm which exists in almost every state. That's the real reason the college is such a mess. Take Pennsylvania for example - it has 20 votes at the federal EC level. The issue is that if either Trump or Biden gets 50.5% of the vote to the other candidate's 49.5% of the vote, all 20 of those EC votes go to that candidate.

    This is absolutely mental. It's First Past The Post on steroids, and is the real reason American presidential elections are such sh!tshows.

    The idea of weighting different states so as entire swathes of the country aren't irrelevant at election time is actually a great idea, IMO, but by making it winner takes all, they've made large swathes of the country irrelevant at election time anyway, just via different criteria. That's what gives rise to the whole idea of "safe states" vs "swing states", where some people can cast votes which have no effect whatsoever on the election's outcome even if their votes mean, as stated above, that their preferred candidate gets 49.5% of the vote. Those voices go entirely unheard when the electoral college votes are divvied up.

    Two states, Maine and Nebraska, aware their votes by congressional district, which is somewhat better than the usual winner takes all system but it's still very, very far from representative - for example, right now, Nebraska is roughly 60/40 in favour of Trump. It has five electoral college votes. Under any sane system, this would grant Trump three votes and Biden two, but because it's done by congressional district instead, Trump has four votes and Biden only has one.

    In my view this is the central issue which needs reform, and would be a perfect compromise between those who feel that the national popular vote should be used, and those who still feel that different states should be weighted in order to avoid urban areas controlling the entire government and rural areas being shut out entirely from executive politics.

    To be honest, in my view this is all symptomatic of a much bigger issue - the United States is simply too large a country to be adequately governed by a federal government. Political views and culture are too diverse. Even without the FPTP system, in my view you're asking a handful of people to control the lives of far, far too many others. No one is ever going to be truly happy with their government under those circumstances - indeed, it's one of the reasons I've always opposed any further centralisation of power towards the EU and away from national member states' governments. The larger a group of people a government is in charge of, the more each person's influence is diluted to the point of irrelevance. When people feel irrelevant in a democratic system, that's when the trouble begins.

    In short, Gigantic blocks such as the US are simply a bad idea in democratic terms. They inevitably give rise to the kind of problems we're seeing, when one attempts to squeeze such a ridiculously large breadth of political and social cultures into a box in which they can be treated as one.

    Very good point. My brother in law is a Republican voter in New York. If he lives to be 100, his vote is never going to count. It's the same in all but a handful of states.


  • Registered Users Posts: 20,090 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    Penn wrote: »
    Considering Biden is almost 4million votes ahead but Trump could still win the election.... Yeah.

    UFOs / Trump - same thing - 'I want to believe.'


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  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 51,578 Mod ✭✭✭✭Necro


    Earlier people were saying that he just meant voting should stop and of course he isn't saying that legitimate votes coming in after election day shouldn't be counted. Well, he's saying it now:

    https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324368202139357186

    Any guesses as to what he "really means" this time? Because it looks to me like he's outright calling for legitimate votes to be thrown out.

    Anyone with a modicum of sense knows what he has been saying since his 'victory' speech on Wednesday morning.

    The problem simply is Trump hasn't the intelligence to understand how mail-in votes work.

    Republicans should be jettisoning him from the ship, he's dragging them down with him the longer they hold their tongues.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 309 ✭✭Dressoutlet


    Is there a count due?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,643 ✭✭✭quokula


    Smee_Again wrote: »
    I havent watched the video but any change to the it would agree agreement from 38 states which is very unlikely.

    Republicans have only won the popular vote once since Bush Snr, those Republican led states would be mad to abolish it.

    It's quite a simple idea actually. States have been committing in their own law, that they will give their electoral college votes to whoever won the national popular vote, rather than their own local winner.

    Once 270 electoral college votes worth of states have done that, it doesn't matter what the other states do. The exact number of states needed depends how big they are (you'd need a lot of Alaskas but not many Californias), but my understanding is that they're not actually massively far away from getting there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 20,090 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    DeanAustin wrote: »
    Very good point. My brother in law is a Republican voter in New York. If he lives to be 100, his vote is never going to count. It's the same in all but a handful of states.

    When Tim Cook, CEO of Apple votes for a senator, his vote has 1/89th the signifigance of some hay seed in Wyoming.

    Sounds fair.


  • Registered Users Posts: 83,578 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Press conference now in GA


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 309 ✭✭Dressoutlet


    Overheal wrote: »
    Press conference now in GA

    Links


  • Registered Users Posts: 790 ✭✭✭OscarMIlde


    tigger123 wrote: »
    Its like something you'd see in a banana republic; armed thugs patrolling the streets to ensure the correct election result is achieved.

    Yes, it's crazy how far America has devolved with Trump's encouragement. I actually felt a chill down my spine when I read this, it's straight from the nazi playbook.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/armed-groups-planning-to-monitor-polling-sites-on-election-day-2020-10?r=US&IR=T

    Stewart Rhodes, the leader of a far-right group called the Oath Keepers, told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday that his members would "be out on Election Day to protect people who are voting." He said some would be carrying concealed weapons.Rhodes said he was worried about "the radical left" targeting voters. A Pew Research survey at the end of July found that Trump supporters were more likely than Biden supporters to prefer in-person voting this year.

    "I'll be voting in person and so will everybody else I know, and I think the radical left knows that," Rhodes said.

    Rhodes said that his group would report issues to the police initially but that he's "not confident police will do their job."

    He said if his group noticed, for example, protesters at polling sites with guns, "we're going to intervene."

    "We've done it before," he said. "If the cops are doing their job, we'll just stand by. If they're not, we'll step in."


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,798 ✭✭✭✭DrumSteve


    cnocbui wrote: »
    When Tim Cook, CEO of Apple votes for a senator, his vote has 1/89th the signifigance of some hay seed in Wyoming.

    Sounds fair.

    Tim Apple, you mean?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,690 ✭✭✭ElChe32


    cnocbui wrote: »
    When Tim Cook, CEO of Apple votes for a senator, his vote has 1/89th the signifigance of some hay seed in Wyoming.

    Sounds fair.

    You mean Tim Apple surely?


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,089 ✭✭✭✭y0ssar1an22


    Smee_Again wrote: »
    I havent watched the video but any change to the it would agree agreement from 38 states which is very unlikely.

    Republicans have only won the popular vote once since Bush Snr, those Republican led states would be mad to abolish it.

    it needs the agreement of states that total to 270 electoral votes, 11 at the very least


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  • Registered Users Posts: 10,798 ✭✭✭✭DrumSteve


    Georgia must be going to Joe if Trump is coming out with that


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,864 ✭✭✭✭nacho libre


    Necro wrote: »

    Republicans should be jettisoning him from the ship, he's dragging them down with him the longer they hold their tongues.

    I think it's only a matter of time before Mitch says something. It's funny how Donald is not concerned about states that went his way after a close call. They must be the right kind of mail in ballots.
    It will be interesting to see what Donald and his team say if the supreme court rule against him. Will it be that the republican leaning Supreme Court was part of the conspiracy?

    I saw a meme a few weeks back about Donald having to be removed kicking and screaming from a creche by Mike Pence, the way it's going his removal from the White House won't be too far removed from whats depicted in the meme.


  • Registered Users Posts: 40,236 ✭✭✭✭Boggles


    Overheal wrote: »
    Press conference now in GA

    61K left.

    Not enough votes for Biden I reckon, will come up just short. Will be tight.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    I know some of these people and to be honest I don't blame them. The "left" (I hesitate to use that term because in my view authoritarianism really has no place in modern leftist politics) have spent the last ten years describing anyone with socially conservative views as stupid, subhuman, worthless pieces of sh!t. I've been saying this for years, but the alt-right did not come into existence in a vacuum, they are the inevitable equal and opposite reaction to the identity politics left attempting to close the Overton Window to exclude legitimate conservative beliefs from mainstream acceptance.

    My ex girlfriend is one of them, actually. She has extremely solid conservative views particularly on abortion (she regards herself as a survivor of same because she is certain her mother would have had one had it been legal in Ireland at the time) and when I met her ten years ago, that was her only die hard conservative belief. She is now a fully fledged far right activist for one reason and one reason only: She has been socially ostracised, humiliated and shunned by her family and social circle for being outspokenly anti-repeal over the course of the 2010s. She is extremely bitter and angry that, as she sees it (and as a leftist unfortunately I'm inclined to agree) the right is currently capable of separating the political from the personal, but the left refuses to do so.

    The reason she's eager to "own the libs" is because so many of those 'libs' have become insufferably arrogant, holier than thou and condescending towards anyone who disagrees with them. And anyone with any kind of confident personality reacts to being bullied by doubling down. The more people tell her her beliefs are "wrong" and "unacceptable", the more extreme she becomes in them.

    I could write a whole feckin' essay on this to be honest. I find it truly sad how anyone with right wing beliefs is treated by today's society. This woman is a good person, a good mother, a good friend, a committed activist, and literally all she gets from a lot of people in her life is abuse. She will try to talk about neutral things - movies, music, the social scene, the feckin' weather - and from what I can tell most people, one of her sisters in particular, will always find a way to swing every single conversation around to an attack on her conservative ideology. She can't get through a feckin' dinner without someone having a go at her about it. And when the left held such an immense balance of societal power in the earlier half of the 2010s, the gloating, condescending rubbing of her face into it was truly repulsive.

    By and large, it isn't the right wing who will look down on an entire human being for their political beliefs if they otherwise like them and get along. But many on the extremist identity "left" are willing to cut people out of their lives for "wrongthink".

    So to answer your question, yes, many conservatives are fuelled by spite. And that is an inevitable equal and opposition to the spite they faced from liberals earlier this decade. And that's coming from a die hard far left liberal myself, as anyone who recognises my username will know - I actually spent most of the Repeal referendum imploring my fellow Repeal advocates to campaign in a positive way instead of guilt bombing, bullying or attacking undecided and pro-life leaning voters.

    Nothing creates extremists faster than telling them that they must change their political beliefs or be punished for it. Nothing.


    If you (and your girlfriend) are from Ireland then what I find sad about this is that you and she are allowing your thinking to be straitened into the polarised either/or decision-making process that is a feature mainly of the Anglo Saxon democracies but which is less applicable elsewhere.

    If you think that the answer to "left-wing" or "liberal" priggishness is voting for Donald Trump, then you really are asking the wrong question!

    Sadly in America, the system is skewed to a binary choice between one or the other. It is to America's detriment that this is so. Many people over there are beginning to realise it themselves. I normally wouldn't piss on a neoconservative's head if his brain was on fire but David Frum, a former "Dubya" speechwriter, who claims authorship of the phrase "axis of evil" was even pontificating in The Atlantic on that very topic. I can agree with him on this.

    Britain has a similar problem. You can really only vote for one of the two main parties. Anything else is a waste, unless you have a party with concentrated local support. Even Nigel Farage can see that. (I would never get tired of hitting him in the face with a baseball bat either, but he is right about the British electoral system).

    Look at the knots in which they are tying themselves in Britain as they try to superimpose a vital question of identity politics (Brexit) on to a binary choice between socialism and free-market liberalism which is essentially a completely different question and you see the chaos it generates.

    It could well lead to a breakup of the UK as we know it, or at least a potentially violent discussion of same. This is highly probable in Northern Ireland and possible in Scotland. Less likely in Wales.

    In the more advanced democracies (Yes, I said it and I mean it) of Europe, including Ireland, there are more representative systems. They don't produce Utopias but they do help to put manners on politicians. The "Civil War" politics that have endured in Ireland, a perennial tribal spat between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail regarding whose side their grandparents were on 100 years ago, has been shown up for the anachronism it was with the majority of people voting for alternative parties at the last election.

    We didn't have to vote for one or the other, we could and did vote for different parties altogether. Now you may say with some justification "Oh great! We wanted neither and we got both!" but at least we curbed the excesses of each and let them know that they can't be guaranteed of our support simply by denigrating each other ad nauseam, which is what happens in America.

    It is highly likely that neither will be in the next government. Unless they get their act together and do something about the really important stuff, like housing and health.

    So if your girlfriend lives here and chooses to indulge in what I call Anglo Saxon Bipolar Disorder, then I have no sympathy. That is a British/American disease which is not applicable here. We are as better placed to deal with that pestilence as we are at combating Covid. (Not great but not as bad as those two dysfunctional democracies)


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,065 ✭✭✭funnydoggy


    Georgia looking good for Biden!


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,040 ✭✭✭Smee_Again


    it needs the agreement of states that total to 270 electoral votes, 11 at the very least

    No, it needs a super majority. 38/50 states.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    Links
    It was on CNN, a list of where they have not finished counting - total of about 61K. They plan to finish the rest of the count today.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Boggles wrote: »
    61K left.

    Not enough votes for Biden I reckon, will come up just short. Will be tight.

    61K left to count, not to report.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 416 ✭✭vojiwox


    froog wrote: »
    i have to say though, states should be able to get a final count in 24 hours, mail in or not. Florida and a few other states managed it. this waiting 3 days for a state to get a result in just adds to the chaos and division.

    Florida don't have a final count though do they?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,089 ✭✭✭✭y0ssar1an22


    cnocbui wrote: »
    Afghanistan, but if you are fishing for a win on the big picture, you are going home with an empty basket:

    https://www.newsweek.com/trump-era-record-number-bombs-dropped-middle-east-667505

    Now imagine adding another 3 years of ordnance and strikes to that.

    wasnt looking for a 'win'. just when i see stats to backup a claim about total bombs but the stats only reference afghanistan, then yeah, i will question that.


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