straightUp Loc: California

That law states that the popular vote, which is the true reflection of the people's will, doesn't count. So you CAN say that Trump won according to the rules, but that doesn't mean "We The People" have been represented fairly.

trucksterbud

Trump, is a genius who knows how to press the establishments buttons. And push them he does, and push them he will. And, oh, BTW, Obama, Hitlery, and Mueller are headed to their own special cells. In Gitmo...

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

For a unhindered democracy..the United States would have abolish the electoral college..and the ultra socialists on the east and west coast would dictate to the rest of America....No Thanks..

straightUp Loc: California

OK, fine... so he won most of the states. But states don't have an equal share of people, so stop trying to make this about people, when it's not.

I'll try to make this simple... Say you have three states, one with 10 people, one with 5 people and one with 500 people. If a candidate wins the first two states it means he won most of the states, right but since those states only have 15 people versus the 500 in the other state he CAN'T say most of the people voted for him.

Jean Deaux

Babble on you nattering nabob of negativity. What makes you think "all" the polls are going anti-Trump? I remember a similar situation during the last election, when your highly lauded candidate lost her hat and spats to a champion of the people! And he still is, in spite of your protestations, polls be damned!

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

[quote=Jean Deaux] "Babble on you nattering nabob of negativity."

Wow, the ghost (or reincarnation) of Spiro Agnew

After becoming Richard Nixon's choice for Vice-President, Agnew would rocket from obscurity to national prominence with scorching speeches and off-handed slurs against Japanese Americans and Polish Americans. His dismissive comment about impoverished inner-city neighborhoods - "if you've seen one slum you've seen them all" - drew harsh criticism. In office, he assailed intellectuals as "an effete corps of impudent snobs" for coddling student protesters. He labeled congressional opponents of the war in Vietnam "radic-libs" and denounced Nixon administration critics as "nattering nabobs of negativism."

As vice president, Agnew became a leading administration proponent of law and order - a role that ended abruptly on Oct. 10, 1973, when he resigned after pleading "nolo contendere" - no contest - to a single charge of tax evasion stemming from bribes he pocketed as governor. Prosecutors produced additional evidence - denied by Agnew - that he had been taking bribes from his days as a county executive through his first term as vice president. His downfall offered a tawdry distraction to the burgeoning Watergate scandal that would lead to Nixon's resignation less than a year later.

"He gave voice to the anxieties of that amorphous sociological entity, Middle America, on such issues as crime, race, radical demonstrators and the communications media," The Washington Post wrote after his resignation. "It was the saddest of ironies that Spiro Agnew, a thunderer for law and order, had to end his political career with the admission that he cheated on his taxes."

Smedley_buzkill

Smedley_buzkill

Smedley_buzkill

Presidential elections have been decided by the winner of the electoral college in every election since the first one. If you don't like it, there is an amendment process for changing it. All you have to do it get enough people to agree with you. Rots of Ruck.

straightUp Loc: California

None of us want an unhindered democracy. I think we are all pretty happy with the idea of a representative democracy. But what many people don't understand about the Electoral College is that it was never intended to give small populations an unfair advantage over larger populations. The one and ONLY intention behind the Electoral College is to provide surrogate voters in place of politicians. The Constitution states very clearly that Congress elects the president not the people. But that introduced the possibility of collusion between politicians and candidates, so... the Electoral College was created in which every congressional district was provided with one surrogate voter.

The problem arose after the 1913 Census when it was decided that congressional seats would remain at 435 despite the growing population. After that point any region where populations boomed the ratio of representatives to citizens declined. This gradually led to what we have today where a vote cast in Wyoming is worth 5 votes in California... In other words there are five times as many voters sharing a congressional district (or one electoral vote) in California than there is in Wyoming.

So, where I hear some of my fellow liberals complaining about the Electoral College, the actual cause of the problem is the evolved lack of parity in the congressional districts not some intended design.

I also find your conclusion to be very self-serving. If you're part of a smaller population that feels threatened by larger populations, unfair representation is not a just solution. A better solution is to try and remove issues of conflict from the federal system and try to make them state or local issues.

The hard truth of all this is that the United States is too damned big. Governments simply can't represent the needs of super-large populations. Look at China, they suck. Look at India and Indonesia, they suck too. Look at Russia they suck too. I hear this all the time from the right who are always pointing out that socialist democracies work better in smaller countries like Sweden and Switzerland. Well, of course they do. the same can be said of ANY democratic system.

But the reason why the U.S. remains at 350+ million and growing is because empires operate differently. Empires like to apply their rules to as many people as possible and that includes the commercial empires that we never seem to consider. "Big Oil" and "Big Pharma" are two examples of commercial empires that benefit from the size of the population that one government can control. Not just in terms of market regulation but also in terms (at least for Big Oil) of how much military might can be extracted from the tax base.

For us "little people" there really is no advantage to remaining such a large nation. I advocate the break up of the U.S.A into sovereign states. There's no reason why all those fly-over red states couldn't do better of they united into a sovereign nation of their own while states like California stand on their own. It's high time, for us all to go our separate ways.

Smedley_buzkill

The Electoral College was put in place so that populous states could not have an unfair advantage over those with fewer people. The Founders, unlike so many of today's Liberals, realized that different states have different needs and priorities. Los Angeles County CA has far more people than, say, Blackhawk County IA. California has different needs than Iowa in general. Using your popular vote, the vote of California, a state that is basically out-of-step with much of the rest of the country, would have determined the presidency. Trump was ahead in the popular vote also until the California votes were counted. You are supporting not the will of the people, but a tyranny of a few heavily Democratic urban areas.
So your "fair vote" is one in which a closely contested race is decided by a a minority of heavily Democratic urban areas which have little in common with the rest of the country.

straightUp Loc: California

Apparently, you didn't understand anything I said. I am not opposed the Electoral College. Check your reading comprehension pal.

archie bunker Loc: Texas

I agree with your last statement. It's time for a peaceful divorce with no joint custody, alimony, or wetback support.

Smedley_buzkill

Nothing wrong with my reading comprehension, pal. If you support the popular vote in a presidential election then you oppose the Electoral College in a situation where the two are contradictory.

straightUp Loc: California

Incorrect. I JUST explained all this. So either read and dispute my claims or I will write your rants off as typical right-wing ignorance.


Can you really not see the stupidity in what you are saying? You are actually saying that if one state has more people than any of the others, they should be ignored.


A minority..? Seriously?
Look, the MAJORITY of Americans live in heavily Democratic urban areas, which makes the rural populations the minority. So it's accurate to say that the MINORITY populations in rural areas have little in common with MOST of the country (that is, if we're counting citizens and not squirrels, birds and trees).

You are relying on geographical divisions to make excuses for ignoring the majority of American citizens and I can see right through it. Get a brain.