American Presidential Elections 2016

[sausage]

Hey Llap...would you mind posting the links to the rampant voting fraud you mention ? I was not aware of this evidence being in the public domain and it may well change my opinion on things....I am surprised that criminal charges have not yet been instigated if this is so widely known....

[llap]

I'm not basing it on a single source or some pundit making the claim. I've read countless articles and watched countless YouTube videos throughout the current election cycle relating to individual, local voting fraud cases. I'm sure you can Google it and find examples; or maybe not, given that Google is well known to have politically biased search algorithms in place. There are states with voter ID laws where you don't need to show ID to vote. There are cases of "dead" people voting. There are lots of people who have spoken of how they tried to vote Trump but the machine kept coming up with Clinton, etc. The NYC Board of Elections Commissioner (a Democrat) was recorded on video back in October saying there is rampant fraud going on because of the voter ID laws, where there's no vetting of people before giving them voting ID cards which are an alternative to usual forms of ID, and that they bus people around from polling station to polling station to vote multiple times.

[Chinahand]

Ah the post truth world. Take rumour innuendo and limited facts and spin them into a rotten whole to confirm biases far beyond the weight of evidence provided.

 

Of course there is some voter fraud in the US. But the idea it is some huge systematic conspiracy stealing the election rather than sporadic and limited with only local effects isn't evidence based but rather an insight into the mind of the person making the allegation.

[Declan]

Ilap asks "If Hillary Clinton had won the vote, but Trump got a majority of the popular vote, I wouldn't be on here attacking it."

 

I think you would. You're even bleating about whether she won the popular vote without any substance to your moans.

 

But let's imagine, for once, you resisted your inate desire to argue that black is white, you can bet Trump, Fox News, Farage and thousands of Trump supporters wouldn't.

 

It's like Brexiteers moaning about Remain supports continuing to oppose exit of the EU or wanting to influence the terms of the exit. Do you think the Euro Skeptics would have gone away had they lost? Would Farage have wound up UKIP and retired to the nearest lounge bar? No they'd dust themselves off and continue to make the case for leaving the EU. But Remainers can't even discuss the terms of the exit?

[asitis]

 

Maybe this explains things in a manner which the left don't understand !

[Chinahand]

@asitis ... Cough

[asitis]

@asitis ... Cough

 

OOPS !! Sorry !!

[Declan]

It was crap first time around anyway. Typical angry shouty man bollocks.

 

It's all the nasty liberals fault! Yawn! It's not the fault of Trump, and the people who backed him and voted for him that Trump got elected, no it's the people who voted against him.

 

What else? There wasn't racism until Liberals pointed out racism was a bad thing?

[pongo]

Typical angry shouty man bollocks

Absolutely. That ugly piece is only about that man and his huge shouty ego.

 

More importantly - the idea that politicians should be offering big simple economic solutions is erroneous. A more honest politics would be about explaining how anyone offering to solve economics is, at best, mistaken. Mrs Clinton was not an ideal candidate - but she was absolutely right not to be arguing for a shift away from market economics.

[llap]

What a bunch of intellectual lightweights. Anytime I post a refutation or commentary that you can't argue with, you ignore me; then when I say something you think you think you can pick at a minor 1% little point on, you jump out and attack me while ignoring the other 99% of the post. Pathetic, really. I'm especially looking at you, "Chinahand".

 

The whole point of the electoral college is so that one town or city (which is what a mere 0.5 % of voters amounts to) can't dictate their will over the union of states as a whole. There is nothing wrong with the electoral college at all. If you remove even one of the major Democrat states from the equation, e.g. California, you knock out 2.8 million voters. So, should California dictate the will of the union?

 

The United States is what it is: a union of states. It is not a single entity. Your talk of a "popular vote", just because your desired candidate (a complete warmongering bitch) didn't win, is laughable. The United States is a republic, a union of states. It has been for over two centuries. Get over it.

 

TRUMP WON. Get that into your tiny pea-sized brains. Time to move on and get over yourselves.

[llap]

 

More importantly - the idea that politicians should be offering big simple economic solutions is erroneous.

 

 

Oh, so I assume you bothered to read Trump's published manifesto which is actually very detailed? No, of course you didn't. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[Donald Trumps]

There's a manifesto? Fuck me

 

Some loose policy ideas here https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies

 

I expect old Globetrotter to mouth a few of them in Tynwald this week

[quilp]

Trump's presidency will involve compromise and amendment; recently he has indicated a change in his previously radical attitudes to Obamacare. A massive issue. Surely this shows that once he is more informed, he is open to compromise as such issues arise?

 

He is also surrounded by expertise, by learned people who know the job. It'll be a learning curve for him as well as the nation. As it was somewhat with Reagan's appointment.

 

He needs to be given a chance, the hysteria needs to quieten and the fear-mongering of the soundly-beaten 'elite', ignored. Time to make the best of what is, not ruminate on what was. Trump is as the Knave suddenly finding himself King.

[Declan]

Ilap - the electoral college doesn't prevent California from dictating it ensures Floridians and Ohioans do. The media, the candidates, the campaigns all focus on these swing states, so their concerns have greater weight than those people in California, New York or Oregon.

 

But it also means if you're a republican in California - your vote doesn't count, if you're a Democrat in Texas your vote doesn't count, if you're a Democrat in California it counts less than a Democrat's in Virginia does. One person One Vote should not be mitigated by which state you're in.

 

The purpose of the electoral college was to ensure the Northern States (where every man had the vote) did not overwhelm the South (where most of the population were slaves and didn't) in a Presidential ballot. Is that still a concern in 2016 ? The constitution has been amended many times - to emancipate blacks, and extend sufferage to woman for example. It can be changed.

 

I agree Trump is President now and the faithless elector thing is futile and daft. But this 18th Centuary anachronism should be changed.

[llap]

The United States is not a nation-state. It is a union of states. There is no such thing as a vote that doesn't count. If you are in a minority and therefore your vote doesn't win in your state, that's because the democratic system favours a majority of the state, rather than a minority.

Whether that minority might match up with a majority in some other state, and potentially constitute a majority across the various states is irrelevant. They're a union of states, not a singular state.

Also, there is nothing stopping a minority voter in, say, California or Texas, from promoting their political view and generating more votes. Votes and affiliations are not set in stone. Saying your vote is wasted because a majority of other people in your state disagree with you, is simply not true. Would it make any more sense to allow a minority of Floridians to go against the majority of Floridians just because Florida's minority happen to align with a majority in the other states? No, that would itself be anti-democratic against Florida. Again, the United States is a republic, a union of states, not a direct democracy (which is basically communism).

 

You can't just scrap the electoral college system based on a union of states and replace it with direct democracy based on the notion of a singular state. It is not a singular state. You can't just change the entire political system and most importantly the question of sovereignty based on the latest presidential result. The states have sovereignty.

 

Your argument could be put another way. The majority of constituencies in England are Conservative. However, as a whole, the UK often shifts between Labour and Conservative. Would it be democratic to stop the electoral college system in the UK (parliament is basically an electoral college) and get rid of parliamentary democracy, and push for a popular UK-wide vote (so-called direct democracy) to put MPs into Westminster who reflect the popular vote rather than local consistencies? It's an insane proposition. It would undermine local representation, the same way state representation works in the United States.

 

People here just don't seem to grasp how politics work and are spitting out their dummies because they're not getting their own way.

 

Yes, Trump is now the president elect. Let's get over it. And stop pushing ridiculous, ill thought out constitutional changes.