And so it begins. Nine months still to go before the next US presidential election and already the Republican party favourite and former President Donald Trump is sending eyes rolling skywards with his seemingly outlandish statements.
And yet they will delight many of his supporters.
Suggesting at a rally in South Carolina that he would “encourage” aggressors (for example Russia) “to do whatever the hell they want” with Nato countries that fail to pay their dues has prompted an immediate slap down from the White House. A spokesman called the comment “appalling and unhinged”, saying it was “encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes”.
Nato Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has also responded forcefully, saying: “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”
But we are going to elect him anyway, because the other guy forgot a thing once. Just like we elected him 8 years ago, because the other one ran her own email server.
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She ran a shit campaign. Everyone likes to forget that part
Everyone also likes to forget that she won the poplar vote. She lost the electoral college, an anti-democratic institution that Democrats seem to think is really important to keep, despite the fact that keeping it often makes them impotent.
It frankly doesn’t matter whether they want to keep it or not. It would take a constitutional convention to change and in the current climate that’s going to go make things worse, not better.
There is one interesting workaround I’ve heard about from time to time, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It’s a state-level agreement where all the participating member states commit to allocating their electoral college votes to whomever won the popular vote nationally. No need for a constitutional convention since the allocation of electoral college votes is in the hands of state governments, they can decide to do this under the existing constitution.
But you need states to agree to that, which runs into the same issue as an amendment does.
You don’t need as many states to agree to it. Just enough to swing the election.
However the states likely to agree are the ones that reliably vote Democrat, and the GOP has only won one popular vote in the last 30 years. So again, it won’t make a difference.
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We can also double the size of the House (if not more). Electoral college votes are distributed according to the number of House districts (plus 2 for the senators of each state). Congress can simply pass that law. This is a good idea, anyway, since it was last set in 1911 with a total US population that’s less than a third of what it is today. It becomes harder gerrymander lots of smaller districts, as well, and it dilutes the effect of small states having outsized influence with their guaranteed 2 senate seats.
Would probably need to build new chambers for the House. The current one has 450 seats on the floor, plus 500 in the gallery that are normally for staff and guests, not elected members.
It’d be nice to ditch the electoral college system altogether instead of coming up with these workarounds.
So what? The popular vote means nothing. Her campaign was incredibly arrogant. She took the entire rust belt for granted and lost because of it.
“Pokemon GO to the polls.” causes me physical pain to think about.
And then used Russia as an excuse and got away with it, as evidenced by the downvotes here.
Not if we beat the drum about him being insane, instead of letting him get away with it as just another wacky thing
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Sorry, but no. You elected him. You don’t get to no-true-Scotsman the responsibility of the American voters for this, enough Americans support this loon that he can indeed win elections.
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What a rigorous and convincing refutation.
How, specifically, did Trump “cheat”?
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I mean, the people did elect her. She won the popular vote, but as I understand it, the electoral college had different plans.
We’re going to get Trump again (barf) because the DNC insists on running shit candidates and refuses to acknowledge that they are bad, instead insisting that the voters are just too ignorant to understand how good their candidates really are.
Hillary Clinton was a horrible candidate: immensely unpopular even with the Democrat base, running on a status quo platform right in the wake of disappointment with Obama’s failure to deliver on “hope and change”, and acting as if she was somehow entitled to the position.
Biden is not as bad as Clinton in most ways, but is utterly lackluster and feels more like a moderate Republican. His unwavering support for Israel during their campaign of atrocities is despicable and shameful. The fact that he’s totally ancient and losing his mind isn’t helpful in the least. Why can’t we have a more compelling candidate from the DNC?!
This post will get modded down and ignored, as will the incredibly common and widespread sentiment that it expresses, and we will get Trump again as the nation and the DNC acts shocked yet again. It’s so predictable and infuriating.
Despite how abhorrent Trump is, what if he actually got elected again simply because Americans are that fed up with establishment politics status quo? Maybe Americans are desperate for change, anything but the same abuse by corporate overlords we’ve suffered since the 1970s, even if we know it’s going to do more harm than good?
Also, if you think the main reason Hillary lost is because of email-gate, consider that your own point of view may be compromised by Republican framing.
Are you going to pretend the genocide being carried out in Gaza is a non-factor?
If Trump wins and dissolves NATO, and Russia, China, North Korea and Iran start a massive conflict as an axis of evil, tens of millions, if not a hundred million or more could die. More, if nuclear weapons are used.
Russia alone lost 24,000,000 people in the last war alone.
40-50,000,000 were killed in WW2. And that was with ancient technology, by comparison. Going to Normandy and seeing the endless rows of graves stretching as far as the eye can see shows the incalculable loss of global war, something that must not ever be repeated. Far too many paid the ultimate price to keep evil at bay.
I’m not campaigning for Trump. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that Gaza isn’t a problem will not help Biden win re-election.
Biden is not complicit in Israel’s attack on Gaza.
Biden has bypassed congress to sell arms to Israel.
Doesn’t congress know those artillery shells aren’t going to be fired into Gaza? Are they just antisemitic?
https://time.com/6551227/biden-administration-bypasses-congress-israel-weapons-sale/
Biden and most of the leaders of the western world are absolutely complicit and some dumbass on YouTube isn’t going to change that fact lol.