The Reign of Trump

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Forty Two » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:11 pm

pErvin wrote:Rigging implies it's directed. It's not, as far as I can tell.
Well, this year we saw a member of the Democratic National Committee feed debate questions to a candidate ahead of debates against Sanders. And, we saw the head of the Democratic National committee resign (and subsequently immediately join the Clinton campaign) after it was revealed that she broke the rules and actively supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

The system wasn't rigged in the sense of someone changing the vote count. But, it was rigged in the sense that Democrat Party power behind Hillary Clinton broke the rules to support her over her opposition, when they were required to remain neutral.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Forty Two » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:20 pm

pErvin wrote:How does it favour the red states?
The Electoral College does favor red states (given present demographics). I'll illustrate how.

Wyoming only has a few hundred thousand people. Yet, it still gets 3 electoral votes. One is the minimum, and two for having two Senators. That's how they get to the total number of electoral votes. If electoral votes were allocated exclusively in proportion to population, then Wyoming would get less than one electoral vote, and California would get 64.56 electoral votes. With the electoral college system, wyoming gets 3 electors, and California gets 55.

The reason being is that each state gets electors in proportion to its population, plus 2 (one for each Senator).

This is designed to reflect the fact that we are a federal republic of 50 separate states, which are the entities that are electing the President. It's the same kind of justification for having a Senate as part of the legislative body. The Senate represents the States (2 each as coequal members of the Union), and then a number of "Representatives" in the House of Representatives (like the house of commons in parliamentary system) who are proportional to populations of the various states.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by pErvinalia » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:32 pm

Do the number of electors per state ever change with changing population distributions?
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Tero » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:48 pm

There is a formula:
Wiki:
A state's number of electors equals the number of representatives plus two electors for both senators the state has in the United States Congress.[40][41] The number of representatives is based on the respective populations, determined every 10 years by the United States Census. Each representative represents on average 711,000 persons.[42]

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Svartalf » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:59 pm

pErvin wrote:How does it favour the red states?
Because population for population, the red states got more delegates than the blues.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Seth » Mon Nov 28, 2016 7:52 pm

Svartalf wrote:But the system IS rigged, how else could the loser of the popular vote still be elected?
Because that's not the way the system was designed to work. It's not a failure, it's a feature.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Seth » Mon Nov 28, 2016 7:54 pm

Svartalf wrote:
pErvin wrote:How does it favour the red states?
Because population for population, the red states got more delegates than the blues.
That's the way it's designed to work. It's the whole point in fact, which is to ensure that heavily-populated urban states do not become the defacto rulers of the nation and that the less-populated states are properly represented. That's one huge reason the US isn't a democracy. The electoral college is deliberately ANTI-democratic, and for very good reasons.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Hermit » Mon Nov 28, 2016 8:28 pm

Forty Two wrote:So, quite often, a parliamentary system will have it's head of government or head of state (depending on terminology) chosen who (a) has never been put to a vote at all, and/or (b) is chosen by coalition of minority parties, such that someone who belongs to a party who didn't even win the majority of seats in the Parliament gets picked as Prime Minister by compromise.
Parliamentary systems are representative democracies. In Australia, the parliamentary democracy I am most familiar with, we have 150 of individuals who make laws on our behalf in the lower house. By virtue of the preferential voting system all of them gain their seats through a majority (rather than a plurality) of the voters in the area they represent. The 76 members of the upper house are also elected by popular vote. The twelve candidates of each state and two of each territory who get the most votes in their state or territory get to sit in it. The role of the upper house is to review laws initiated and formulated in the house of reps.

A Prime Minister, who is indeed not elected to that office through a popular vote, is not equivalent to a president of the sort you find in the US. For a start he must win a seat in the lower house. We had cases where Prime ministers lost their seat and therefore were ineligible for Prime Ministership. Also, if the Prime Minister loses a vote of confidence, not only must he resign his Prime Ministership, but also a general election must be called. There are no legal, let alone constitutional requirements to do so. It's just a matter of convention, but I dare say all hell would break lose should someone break it. A Prime Minister can also be sacked by a vote from within his own party. This happened three times in the past six or so years. So it's a bit silly to compare the way an (Australian) Prime Minister attains office to the way a (United States) President does. Executive power is not so much vested in him as with the 150 members of the lower house, who do get elected by popular vote.

By the way, head of government is not synonymous with head of state. A PM is our head of government. Our head of state is elected by nobody at all. It's the reigning monarch in the UK, who is represented by the Governor General. Although the GG must sign every Bill in order to have it ratified, that has never been refused, again by convention, and since the changes made on account of the skulduggery that took place in 1975, the reserve powers have become an empty letter. Our head of governments role is restricted to opening hospitals, hanging medals on people, making ceremonial speeches and making fools of themselves at the Melbourne Cup.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Hermit » Mon Nov 28, 2016 8:42 pm

Seth wrote:That's the way it's designed to work. It's the whole point in fact, which is to ensure that heavily-populated urban states do not become the defacto rulers of the nation and that the less-populated states are properly represented. That's one huge reason the US isn't a democracy. The electoral college is deliberately ANTI-democratic, and for very good reasons.
Yeah. Right. So, instead of running the danger of being tyrannised by a majority you get the danger of being tyrannised by a minority. Brilliant.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Seth » Mon Nov 28, 2016 8:46 pm

Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:That's the way it's designed to work. It's the whole point in fact, which is to ensure that heavily-populated urban states do not become the defacto rulers of the nation and that the less-populated states are properly represented. That's one huge reason the US isn't a democracy. The electoral college is deliberately ANTI-democratic, and for very good reasons.
Yeah. Right. So, instead of running the danger of being tyrannised by a majority you get the danger of being tyrannised by a minority. Brilliant.
Well, even if true, which it's not, tyranny of the minority is always easier to put down than tyranny of the majority. The major vulnerability of the cult of personality is that when the personality and her sycophants receive bullets to the head, the cult usually quickly dissolves.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Forty Two » Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:00 pm

pErvin wrote:Do the number of electors per state ever change with changing population distributions?
Yes - each state gets 2 for each Senator - corresponding to how each State has two Senators.

Periodically, as the census changes, the number of population-based electors changes as a proportion of the remaining electors. So, if 10 million people moved to Wyoming, the electors for that state would change dramatically.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Forty Two » Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:20 pm

Hermit wrote:
Forty Two wrote:So, quite often, a parliamentary system will have it's head of government or head of state (depending on terminology) chosen who (a) has never been put to a vote at all, and/or (b) is chosen by coalition of minority parties, such that someone who belongs to a party who didn't even win the majority of seats in the Parliament gets picked as Prime Minister by compromise.
Parliamentary systems are representative democracies.
So is the congressional system in the United States. It is no "worse" to have an electoral college system to elect a President than to have members of Parliament elect the Prime Minister. Heck, we could just have the members of our Congress elect the President, and then people living in parliamentary systems may stop carping about the electoral college.
Hermit wrote:
In Australia, the parliamentary democracy I am most familiar with, we have 150 of individuals who make laws on our behalf in the lower house.
We have 435 members of our "lower house" which is called the House of Representatives. They make laws on our behalf. We also have a Senate, which has two members per State, which participates in the lawmaking process. The Senate and the House together is called the Congress, which members are elected by popular vote.
Hermit wrote: By virtue of the preferential voting system all of them gain their seats through a majority (rather than a plurality) of the voters in the area they represent.
members of Congress in the US are elected by strict popular vote.
Hermit wrote: The 76 members of the upper house are also elected by popular vote. The twelve candidates of each state and two of each territory who get the most votes in their state or territory get to sit in it. The role of the upper house is to review laws initiated and formulated in the house of reps.
Similar to the US, and if the number of upper house members is the same for each of your states, then it's very much the same as our Senate.
Hermit wrote:
A Prime Minister, who is indeed not elected to that office through a popular vote, is not equivalent to a president of the sort you find in the US.
Yes, and no. The Prime Minister is, generally, a head of government, as is the President of the United States. The Parliamentary system marries the legislative and executive branch, whereas in our system, they are separate and equal. I would not suggest one is better than the other.
Hermit wrote: For a start he must win a seat in the lower house.
Sure, usually in the 10s of thousands of votes, like any member of parliament or Congressman.
Hermit wrote: We had cases where Prime ministers lost their seat and therefore were ineligible for Prime Ministership. Also, if the Prime Minister loses a vote of confidence, not only must he resign his Prime Ministership, but also a general election must be called.
A vote of no confidence is akin to impeachment in the US; however, in the US it must be for high crimes and misdemeanors of office.
Hermit wrote: There are no legal, let alone constitutional requirements to do so. It's just a matter of convention, but I dare say all hell would break lose should someone break it. A Prime Minister can also be sacked by a vote from within his own party. This happened three times in the past six or so years. So it's a bit silly to compare the way an (Australian) Prime Minister attains office to the way a (United States) President does. Executive power is not so much vested in him as with the 150 members of the lower house, who do get elected by popular vote.
Yes, but they vest him with "Prime" Ministership, and he is the head of government and the holder of supreme executive power. The notion of a queen or monarch holding that power is really not real anymore. The Prime Minister of the UK is the foreign policy head, the mouthpiece of the country, and heads up the government ,which he puts together. He has all his ministers, just like the US Prez has his "cabinet" (ministers of varying aspects of government).

They are not 100% the same, but they serve much of the same functions. There is no reason for it to be all hunky-dory to have your legislators elect the Prime Minister, but it be ridiculous for the US to elect its President by vote of Congress, is there? If so, why is it o.k. for one, but not for the latter? And, if is reasonable to have the legislature vote for the President, then why can't there by a marrying of a popular vote system with an electoral college to adjust it a bit?

If it's ridiculous for a Congress to elect a President, then why no complaints about Germany using its Bundestag to appoint a President and a Chancellor? O.k. for Germany? Reasonable? Why?
Hermit wrote:
By the way, head of government is not synonymous with head of state.
That depends on the system, but it generally is synonymous in practice
Hermit wrote:
A PM is our head of government. Our head of state is elected by nobody at all. It's the reigning monarch in the UK, who is represented by the Governor General.
Yes, that is why I have pointed out in other posts that the Queen is the head of State of the UK (and same with Canada, they have a Governor General). However, that is not a powerful position. The powers of the "head of State" in the UK are really in the government. The Queen doesn't really wield power.

Heck, if she did wield real power - or if she really does, and I'm wrong - then everyone pointing at the US and the electoral college system really can go fuck themselves sideway. Nobody living in a country that accepts a hereditary monarchy in any real sense of the word, other than as a figurehead and nod to tradition, has any standing to criticize any electoral system of any kind. Get rid of your "power by right of birth" or "divine right of kings" before you go pointing fingers at a system that happens to shift a small, usually insignificant bit of power to small states so that their relevance is maintained in a broad, large, and diverse country.
Hermit wrote:
Although the GG must sign every Bill in order to have it ratified, that has never been refused, again by convention, and since the changes made on account of the skulduggery that took place in 1975, the reserve powers have become an empty letter. Our head of governments role is restricted to opening hospitals, hanging medals on people, making ceremonial speeches and making fools of themselves at the Melbourne Cup.
Yes, the GG doesn't hold real power. If he tried to exercise it, there would be a major problem and Oz would likely rid themselves of it. I'm sure you're fine with the figurehead and nod to tradition, but the "head of state" doesn't really do anything, does he (or she, the Queen)?

Your head of government is the Prime Minister and his or her role is not limited to hanging medals on people or opening hospitals. Maybe you meant "head of state," and yes. That's because the head of state doesn't do jack shit and all the real functions of a head of state have long ago effectively been transferred to the Prime Minister and his ministers, and the Parliament itself.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Hermit » Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:36 pm

Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:That's the way it's designed to work. It's the whole point in fact, which is to ensure that heavily-populated urban states do not become the defacto rulers of the nation and that the less-populated states are properly represented. That's one huge reason the US isn't a democracy. The electoral college is deliberately ANTI-democratic, and for very good reasons.
Yeah. Right. So, instead of running the danger of being tyrannised by a majority you get the danger of being tyrannised by a minority. Brilliant.
Well, even if true, which it's not
Of course it's not true. When I wrote "brilliant" I was being sarcastic.
Seth wrote:tyranny of the minority is always easier to put down than tyranny of the majority.
Not when it is deemed legal by virtue of the way the electoral system is designed. What you are essentially arguing is that a decision put into force by a minority is better than a decision put into force by a majority because it is put into force by a minority.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Seth » Mon Nov 28, 2016 10:04 pm

Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:That's the way it's designed to work. It's the whole point in fact, which is to ensure that heavily-populated urban states do not become the defacto rulers of the nation and that the less-populated states are properly represented. That's one huge reason the US isn't a democracy. The electoral college is deliberately ANTI-democratic, and for very good reasons.
Yeah. Right. So, instead of running the danger of being tyrannised by a majority you get the danger of being tyrannised by a minority. Brilliant.
Well, even if true, which it's not
Of course it's not true. When I wrote "brilliant" I was being sarcastic.
I know, but liberals are not big on comprehension of sarcasm so I think it's important to point it out unmistakably.
Seth wrote:tyranny of the minority is always easier to put down than tyranny of the majority.
Not when it is deemed legal by virtue of the way the electoral system is designed. What you are essentially arguing is that a decision put into force by a minority is better than a decision put into force by a majority because it is put into force by a minority.
Not at all. I was not in that passage rendering judgment on the "betterness" of the decision, I was pointing out that it's easier to kill a single tyrant than it is to kill ten thousand tyrants.

I prefer my tyrants to be easily identifiable individual targets. It's more economical that way...not so much ammunition is required. That is at least one benefit to a tyranny of the cult of personality as opposed to a tyranny of ideology. Our biggest international problem today is that the most dangerous tyrant of the moment is actually an ideology, not an individual, which makes it very difficult to put down. That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to to do however, it just means a more protracted and costly cleansing of society.
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Re: The Reign of Trump

Post by Hermit » Mon Nov 28, 2016 10:30 pm

Forty Two wrote:Yes, but they vest him with "Prime" Ministership, and he is the head of government and the holder of supreme executive power. ... They are not 100% the same, but they serve much of the same functions.
Yes, there are similarities between your government and hours, but to say they are not 100% the same is a gross understatement. You don't seem to appreciate the extent of the structural and procedural differences between our government and yours and our Prime Ministerial powers and functions and your Presidential ones that I tried to outline.

To recapitulate: Neither executive nor legislative power is vested in our Prime Minister as Prime Minister. Both are vested in parliament as a whole, of which he is just an ordinary member for those purposes. He has no formal legislative, let alone executive powers that any other member in the house of reps does not also have. Without the concurrence of a majority in the lower house and the approval by the majority of the upper he can do nothing whatsoever. Unlike your president he cannot decree anything either. He can be sacked in any number of ways before the expected term of his office is over, and the only way he can attempt to get stalled legislation through after failing to do so in three readings is to declare both houses vacant (including his own seat), which means calling an election. It's called a double dissolution. If the previous government gets re-elected, it can try getting the stalled law(s) passed again. (We had one of those a year ago. The previous government got re-elected, but because it has not won a majority in the upper house it faces the same problems getting legislation ratified as before without the help of several independent senators.) Yes, the Prime Minister is the head of government, but his powers and importance is not comparable to your President. The office is so insignificant in relation to the rest of our governmental structure that it is not even mentioned in our constitution.
Forty Two wrote:Maybe you meant "head of state"
Yes. My mistake.
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