USA Election 2024

Eric said:
Looking more and more like Trump may actually have to take this debate.

www.nj.com

Harris vs. Trump latest presidential poll: 7-point turnaround gives surging candidate big national lead

NBC News drops a new survey and it's more good news for one side
www.nj.com www.nj.com
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Unfortunately, in a flawed election system, a large national lead does not mean much. It upsets me knowing that despite an obvious advantage in popularity, and the other party being clearly incompetent and dishonest, Harris is still far from certain in achieving victory.

Not accepting the debate while continuing to spread lies and misinformation, and at the same time working on subverting the democratic process in key states might be a good strategy for Trump.
 
leman said:
Unfortunately, in a flawed election system, a large national lead does not mean much. It upsets me knowing that despite an obvious advantage in popularity, and the other party being clearly incompetent and dishonest, Harris is still far from certain in achieving victory.

Not accepting the debate while continuing to spread lies and misinformation, and at the same time working on subverting the democratic process in key states might be a good strategy for Trump.
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Writing a full historical analyses of the Electoral College is beyond my endurance right now (and Wikipedia's is pretty good). But suffice to say, history is not without its ironies.

Some of the people who came up with the Electoral college as a compromise between the slave/small states and the others actually thought it would serve to block someone like Trump from becoming President. See instead of voting for President you would vote for an elector, who themselves did not serve in office, who would vote for President and because these would be presumably be people of better quality than the "riffraff" and would have time to make an informed decision, someone like Trump would be cast aside even if he captured the popular vote. In other words this was to prevent a wealthy and powerful demagogue from taking power as had been seen so often in previous republics and democracies. They also thought it would help against the foundation of political parties which again the Founders didn't want but themselves quickly formed once it became apparent there wasn't a better way to organize political action. Further, in practice many states just had the state government pick these electors outright and the popular vote simply became an advisory opinion of the people. That this original form of the College, regardless of how the states/people chose the electors, was even more undemocratic than the one we currently enjoy is how we got the one we currently enjoy. That in and of itself is a long history, but to summarize it briefly: no states wanted to lose electoral power by diluting their votes proportionally. Even the current inter-state compact to throw the electoral vote to the popular vote winner only kicks in once enough states have signed on to make that matter (it's legality will be decided once it gets over that finish line if it ever does).

Our Constitution has always been a pain to amend, although is now even harder (which is why the last successful amendment was so long ago), so we've been stuck with this shit despite its flaws and some of the original reasons for its compromise no longer existing (but other newer problems making it harder).
 
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leman said:
I’m sorry my friends but your election system doesn’t make any sense. It is literally designed to aggravate the division. No wonder the US got into the current mess. Makes me really worried about us moving to US next year 😭
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Depends on where you are moving to, and how good the community is. Not all of the U.S. is a mess.

I agree with you though, if I were to look from the outside I'd be worried as well. However after just coming back from Scotland and hearing about all the recent scandals in the SNP party I think they are pretty screwed up as well.
 
dada_dave said:
press.coop

The Seattle Times :press: (@seattletimes@press.coop)

Liz Cheney suggests a new political party may be needed Former Rep. Liz Cheney, who has emerged as perhaps the most vocal and visible conservative critic of former President Donald Trump, suggested Friday night that a new political party might need to be created to replace the Republican Party...
press.coop press.coop

View attachment 31505

First we have to win … but yes, this is probably true.
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Liz Cheney is what you would expect any normal Republican to be, she will side with Trump on 99% of the issues but also believes in the principles of the party which include law and order. We'll never fully agree on issues but it's hard not to respect those who actually stick to their core beliefs like she has.
 
dada_dave said:
press.coop

The Seattle Times :press: (@seattletimes@press.coop)

Liz Cheney suggests a new political party may be needed Former Rep. Liz Cheney, who has emerged as perhaps the most vocal and visible conservative critic of former President Donald Trump, suggested Friday night that a new political party might need to be created to replace the Republican Party...
press.coop press.coop

View attachment 31505

First we have to win … but yes, this is probably true.
Click to expand...

Agree in theory, but it isn't the Republican party that needs replaced, but a new party that represents the middle 60% is what is needed.
 
Herdfan said:
Agree in theory, but it isn't the Republican party that needs replaced, but a new party that represents the middle 60% is what is needed.
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Everyone was hoping that the MAGA bunch would spin off into their own America First Lions Not Sheep party, but alas. They metatasized, and now it's the old line conservatives without a home.

For a new middle of the road party, we'll have to see the hardline progressives invade the Democrats in much the same way, which doesn't look to happen anytime soon.
 
Herdfan said:
Agree in theory, but it isn't the Republican party that needs replaced, but a new party that represents the middle 60% is what is needed.
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Yeah, by and large people don't want to associate with either party. I mean they lean one way or the other but the Independent party is the only one that really implies being actually independent, and we already have that party.
 
Eric said:
Yeah, by and large people don't want to associate with either party. I mean they lean one way or the other but the Independent party is the only one that really implies being actually independent, and we already have that party.
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Not really. Being independent in America means that you sometimes vote for Democrats, or sometimes vote for Republicans depending on what you think is necessary at a given moment, and put up with whatever downsides you believe that may entail.
 
Eric said:
Liz Cheney is what you would expect any normal Republican to be, she will side with Trump on 99% of the issues but also believes in the principles of the party which include law and order. We'll never fully agree on issues but it's hard not to respect those who actually stick to their core beliefs like she has.
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Name suggestion, The Whig Party.
 
Eric said:
Yeah, by and large people don't want to associate with either party. I mean they lean one way or the other but the Independent party is the only one that really implies being actually independent, and we already have that party.
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Renzatic said:
Not really. Being independent in America means that you sometimes vote for Democrats, or sometimes vote for Republicans depending on what you think is necessary at a given moment, and put up with whatever downsides you believe that may entail.
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When people have studied this historically it turns out that wasn’t actually true, the more moderate people were actually members of the party, but would switch votes. The largest chunk of the ones who were “independent” were actually further to the wings than the party and either voted with the party or didn’t vote at all if they thought they weren’t represented (ie they weren’t independent because they were more moderate but because the Ds/Rs weren’t liberal/conservative enough). That was 8-10 years ago though that I was reading this and I don’t know if that still holds.
 
Renzatic said:
Not really. Being independent in America means that you sometimes vote for Democrats, or sometimes vote for Republicans depending on what you think is necessary at a given moment, and put up with whatever downsides you believe that may entail.
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Agreed, as one who looks at each issue individually, some supported by Democrats and some by Republicans, it's frustrating that I have to tie myself to a party that requires you to support all their other causes.
 
Do you mean American Independent Party? Maybe they should have named themselves the Anarchist Party? (which would be equally ironic). The point of being an Independent is that you vote whichever way you feel best represents your constituents. Parties have defined policies on virtually every issue.

Now, wouldn't that be something if all parties were abolished and every politician had to have their policies published and people voted for their representatives for their own constituency based on how well those views matched their own?

A no party system. One less way to divide us. :)
 
Herdfan said:
Agree in theory, but it isn't the Republican party that needs replaced, but a new party that represents the middle 60% is what is needed.
Click to expand...

The two-party system is poisoning US social and political dynamics. It might have worked for a while, now it’s broken. A new law and order party that represents conservative (or whatever goes as conservative for the fine folks in US) values would be a way out. But breaking generation-old traditions is hard. The US population, especially the conservative part, will not easily accept a transition from the two-party system. Framing this new party as a “new” or “traditional” Republican Party is an easier sell.
 
fischersd said:
Do you mean American Independent Party? Maybe they should have named themselves the Anarchist Party? (which would be equally ironic). The point of being an Independent is that you vote whichever way you feel best represents your constituents. Parties have defined policies on virtually every issue.

Now, wouldn't that be something if all parties were abolished and every politician had to have their policies published and people voted for their representatives for their own constituency based on how well those views matched their own?

A no party system. One less way to divide us. :)
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Doesn’t work I’m afraid - that was what our founding fathers had wanted and they themselves quickly formed political parties. It’s just too difficult to organize and get things done otherwise.

leman said:
The two-party system is poisoning US social and political dynamics. It might have worked for a while, now it’s broken. A new law and order party that represents conservative (or whatever goes as conservative for the fine folks in US) values would be a way out. But breaking generation-old traditions is hard. The US population, especially the conservative part, will not easily accept a transition from the two-party system. Framing this new party as a “new” or “traditional” Republican Party is an easier sell.
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Having multiple parties would require us to get rid of first past the post and/or geographically linked House seats. The former is possible as the States can determine their voting process and some (mostly Maine if I remember right) have switched to Ranked-choice voting but not enough to matter. And that requires going state by state. The latter would require a constitutional amendment ... which won't happen anytime soon. The Brits have a similar system and a 3rd party, but barely and beyond the similarities the structural differences* make that impossible for us without major changes to our voting systems/government structure. Basically we've ossified and it's unclear how to change the system as the system makes it hard to change.

But there's no doubt that the current system is ... not great for anyone. Unfortunately though the far right is gaining ground everywhere, regardless of voting system. Our issues exacerbates the problem, but it isn't the underlying cause.

*The Brits are mostly single cameral with the Lords being sort of there as a delaying body and primary governance in the hand of the prime minister rather than a president. This allows for a weak 3rd party, currently the Liberals, to technically exist but only rarely matter. The Brits also thought about changing their voting system under pressure from the Liberals, but rejected it (this was the grand bargain the Liberals made with the Tories to give the Tories power which eventually led to Brexit, all to try to get rid of First Past the Post which failed - the one time the Liberals mattered).
 
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dada_dave said:
Having multiple parties would require us to get rid of first past the post and/or geographically linked House seats. The former is possible as the States can determine their voting process and some (mostly Maine if I remember right) have switched to Ranked-choice voting but not enough to matter. And that requires going state by state. The latter would require a constitutional amendment ... which won't happen anytime soon. The Brits have a similar system and a 3rd party, but barely and beyond the similarities the structural differences* make that impossible for us without major changes to our voting systems/government structure. Basically we've ossified and it's unclear how to change the system as the system makes it hard to change.

But there's no doubt that the current system is ... not great for anyone. Unfortunately though the far right is gaining ground everywhere, regardless of voting system. Our issues exacerbates the problem, but it isn't the underlying cause.

*The Brits are mostly single cameral with the Lords being sort of there as a delaying body and primary governance in the hand of the prime minister rather than a president. This allows for a weak 3rd party, currently the Liberals, to technically exist but only rarely matter. The Brits also thought about changing their voting system under pressure from the Liberals, but rejected it (this was the grand bargain the Liberals made with the Tories to give the Tories power which eventually led to Brexit, all to try to get rid of First Past the Post which failed - the one time the Liberals mattered).
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Very interesting, thank you for the overview! I would be curious to learn more about the history of the political systems in the Anglo-Saxon world and the historical circumstances that led raise to the current US model. Do you have any reading tips?
 
leman said:
Very interesting, thank you for the overview! I would be curious to learn more about the history of the political systems in the Anglo-Saxon world and the historical circumstances that led raise to the current US model. Do you have any reading tips?
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I’ll be honest it’s been too long since I’ve done any formal reading/training on this to recommend a good book - although I have the Chernow biographies off Hamilton and Washington sitting on my shelf which are supposedly excellent (the former was the inspiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s play). For myself, the best sources for what’s happening now with respect to how political systems function (ie not politics but political theory) I’ve found are the Economist/Guardian/very occasional US article - like 538 used to have some interesting data analysis about how US voting is structured beyond just doing polling predictions (my earlier reply to @Renzatic about the makeup of independent voters I’m pretty sure was from one of their papers awhile ago). Maybe they still do, I honestly haven’t checked recently. I’ve generally found Wikipedia to actually cover the history of this topic pretty well … but maybe that reflects my own shallow understanding. :)

Most of my historical reading/watching in Youtube these days is on ancient and occasionally medieval societies, military history throughout the ages (the ACOUP blog is great) - a lot of stuff on the Roman republic, which is a little less relevant to the topic at hand except in the broadest of possible strokes and which was fucking complicated. It isn’t even fair to say that movies/tv shows don’t capture it. It would be almost impossible to do so.
 
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This is why my wife has a zero yard sign policy. You'll bring out the crazies and divide yourself with neighbors.

www.thedailybeast.com

MAGA Sheriff’s Post About Harris Yard Signs Gets Department Booted From Election Duties

Bruce Zuchowski, a Trump-supporting Republican, likened migrants to “human locusts” and called the vice president a “Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena.”
www.thedailybeast.com

MAGA Sheriff’s Post About Harris Yard Signs Gets Department Booted From Election Duties​

 

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