Black Mamba
Member
We should just elect the president based on how many licks it takes them to get to the center of a tootsie pop
We should elect the President based on how similar their internet handles are to "eBay Luckster"
Hm, eBay Muckster would do pretty well in that race I think.
More to the point, do you feel that the Republican districting system is as reasonable and fair as a national popular vote?
-- The NPV picked up a ton of steam when Gore lost. And continues to have momentum in a country becoming only more and more urban.
-- Thus, both changes benefit one party systematically.
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But there were SO MANY STATES THAT WERE CLOSE IN 2000. To make a blanket statement that Gore won the popular vote but lost the election thus the system sucks ignores that Gore was literally 2,000 votes away in New Mexico or New Hampshire or Florida and he would have been President.
Hm, eBay Muckster would do pretty well in that race I think.
For Qazaq's benefit, I present a rational argument against using the national popular vote as a means of electing a president:
There are many ideas in the world which are potentially reasonable but are nevertheless minority. It is very common for these ideas, beliefs or trends to begin regionally and, if popular enough, to spread outward.
A national popular vote system would make it very hard for these minority views to be relevant to a Presidential candidate unless it had nearly 50% of popular opinion on its side. This would not be about protecting specific demographics -- protecting rural voters, for example, or black voters -- it is about protecting ideas which may not be very popular right now, but may be just all the same.
I can certainly see how electoral systems enfranchise less popular ideas, which may begin in (as an example) Vermont but which would never be noticed in a national popular vote because all that would matter would be the nation as a whole. I think protecting those ideas is something worth doing.
This post is not necessarily intended to argue against a national popular vote -- I could also argue for it -- but simply to show that an NPV isn't an obviously and clearly better system in all regards.
Your third point doesn't follow from the first two
Sounds like it benefits the American people systematically, yes?
In 2004, Kerry almost lost the popular vote and won the EV vote.
You know who would have benefited? Bush.
The change only systematically BENEFITS THE REAL WINNER.
... The trend is fairly obvious. We don't need to keep having this debate. It's been repeated ad nausea.
A national popular vote system would make it very hard for these minority views to be relevant to a Presidential candidate unless it had nearly 50% of popular opinion on its side. This would not be about protecting specific demographics -- protecting rural voters, for example, or black voters -- it is about protecting ideas which may not be very popular right now, but may be just all the same.
baldly partisan motivations
"We need a handicap so the unpopular party has a chance to win because of arbitrarily (or devilishly planned) lines. That way they don't have to adjust their policies to what the people want, they just need to move the lines!'
Thank you, I think this is well put. I had trouble stating it partly because I wanted to focus on how it affected the parties, and two because I was very hung up on how people literally felt like it was some obvious fact that NPV is "more fair".
Well, Obama’s speech didn’t talk much about the fiscal issues of the day and really seemed to focus on a much more social agenda. These issues seemed to be focused on the rights of gays, climate change, immigration, and even a small nod to guns control. And you know what? Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are right to say that this was a very liberal speech.
For 1950.
But it’s not 1950, it’s 2013. These are no longer issues beholden only to the left or liberals. These are the social policy issues taken up by the median voter or the center of this country.
...
The conservative position, by its very nature, is the position of an eventually dying belief. As time passes, we reform and change. It is part of societal progress. This is being reflected in the polling of a lot the issues up for discussion today. Conservatives didn’t want to end slavery, let African Americans to vote, women to vote, blacks and whites to marry, and now they don’t want homosexuals to marry or women to control their bodies or to listen to science. And like the conservatives before them, they will become extinct. Many republicans actually realize this or have naturally changed but the leaders of the party (in Congress or media) are the last to see what’s in front of them. It is imperative that the party on the right recognizes the shift in American values if they wish to remain relevant on a national stage.
treating ideas as equally weighted for the purpose of evaluation is murkier.
It was a point that's no longer relevant if you weren't arguing from popularity as I had assumed.
Techno, I keep getting frustrated with you because you keep saying these things that if you just extend one step further you realize that that's a) not quite what we're saying, no one's saying that all ideas are equally weighted, b) the whole point of making sure the ideas that manifest in different parts of the country have the opportunity to be represented in government was such a huge question (and the weight to which to give these regional ideas) that it helped result in the bicameral legislature.
Can I just add, though, that we can't act as if there isn't a very, very strong correlation between demographics and certain ideas. No, it's not about literally "just protecting black voters or rural voters" for just the hell of it, but I guess I felt like I had already made the point that regional farmers in Kansas have different interests, ideas, and need a seat at the table that shouldn't just be drowned out by the urban majority in this country.
Part of the reason why people seem sensitive about this, Qazaq, is that it has inklings of false equivalencies which have plagued political discussions for some years now.
What does it matter? This is a naked plea to "weigh" some votes more than others. The whole point of democracy is that the minority loses.
Moreover, there is no system that adheres to the one-person-one-vote principle that would accomplish your apparent objective of weighing conservative votes more heavily than liberal ones.
You support gerrymandering, I oppose it.
By the way, your desire to weigh rural votes more than urban ones
is ridiculous in light of how tipped in favor of rural voters the current system already is. You do realize that people in Wyoming and Alaska get as many Senators as people in New York, right?
Even Opiate's argument assumes that the views which are being marginalized have an additional criteria for evaluating merit besides popularity that says that they are worth consideration, which is why the marginalization is "bad". And I believe this is the sort of thing you evaluate on a case-by-case basis and that ideas/schools of opinion should not receive this weighting based solely on their source or current status as "minority views". (After all, I know there are minority views that we all agree should not be seriously considered, ranging from the extremely bigoted to the hypothetically insane)
Even Opiate's argument assumes that the views which are being marginalized have an additional criteria for evaluating merit besides popularity that says that they are worth consideration, which is why the marginalization is "bad". And I believe this is the sort of thing you evaluate on a case-by-case basis and that ideas should not receive this weighting based solely on their source or current status as "minority views". (After all, I know there are minority views that we all agree should not be seriously considered, ranging from the extremely bigoted to the hypothetically insane)
^^ I have no idea what argument you think we're having here, but I'm not involved in that, no.
WHY AM I STILL A JUNIOR? What on earth is the threshold?
Uh, yuppers, I do. That was the point, I believe.
It's based on votes but unfortunately for you it's through a heavily gerrymandered process. You actually would be a full member if it was based on total votes.
Since I've been talking about the median voter, I think this is a good time to segue into what I just wrote about for DHB regarding the median voter no longer aligning with the GOP platform and how McConnel's comment that the "era of liberalism is back" is wrong.
Whole thing here of course: http://deadheatpolitics.com/2013/01/24/is-the-era-of-liberalism-really-back/
What's striking is how in many polls the GOP median voter is starting to align with the national median voter but the GOP powers seem adamant about ignoring it.
Which is why I keep pushing on this site that they will need to suffer a devastating loss (hopefully within the next 4 years) before there is that reformation. The stage of denial can only last so long.
Also trying to get discussion away from the NPV thing as it's getting repetitive.
I think this analysis is true for social issues, and I've been pleasantly shocked at how quickly gay rights as gained in approval recently, but I don't think the American center has realigned to the left much at all economically (unfortunately).
I'm still worried that, if the Republicans could manage to drop some of their dogmatic and archaic social policies, they could sweep up elections on their economic policies. In part because I don't think there's been any prominent Democratic politicians willing to push back against the old Reagenomics arguments. Obama's put some effort into pushing back against that ideology (winning an election where he ran on raising taxes on the wealthy is a good start, and a lot of the wording in his Inauguration was certainly liberal economically), but he still gives into Republican messaging on the deficit and entitlements way too easily. I realize you can't change people's minds overnight, and I think Obama's actually been decently effective at changing America's views on economic policy, but it's been progressing a lot slower than the social issues.
A lot of GOP voters are 1 issue voters (abortion, gay rights, or gun control)
I don't really think this is true. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find almost ANYONE who is a "single issue voter". Sometimes certain issues absolutely outweigh everything else, I guess, but it doesn't really strike me as human -- the way you're putting it. I think more accurately, ESPECIALLY among Republican, is that those voters tend to adopt the viewpoints of the majority of the party depending on how ensconced they become in the rightwing political sphere.
I mean, some of that is obvious -- you hang around with more people of similar ideology, the more viewpoints from them you adopt -- but I think this is particularly true with conservatives given how quickly that base has rapidly adopted the talking points being given to them by right wind media that thus spreads through the base.
I agree that Republicans could still win on economic arguments (not that they'd be right, just that people would listen and often agree). Not on everything, like taxing the rich or cutting entitlements, but in other aspects.
But in some ways it is the reason why the GOP is in such trouble. They've built a coalition around guns, gays, and religion. A lot of GOP voters are 1 issue voters (abortion, gay rights, or gun control) and any economic argument they make is irrelevant to them and some libertarians who will vote for anyone in favor of less government than the other person. At the same time, there are a lot of people out there who either don't give a fuck about any of those social issues or believe what the current majority believes on those issues but at the same time are less likely to buy into the liberal economic arguments. However, the combination of scariness from the position on the right on those issues along with the fact that the Democrats as a matter of public policy aren't very left economically right now pushes them to vote Democrat.
To go further, if they abandon those issues (along with others like immigration), what happens to their coalition? A lot of their voters also tend to be less well-off economically and may stray towards the democrats if the social issues are off the table (over time). We've all seen how a lot of the so-called welfare is used by white, southern republicans. What ensures they stay republicans?
I'd be very curious to see how an election would turn out if social issues dominating today were irrelevant in the national discourse. I wonder if we'd see a Reaganesque win for Hillary in 2016 if that was the case or if it would stay pretty divided based on the GOP candidate's economic arguments.
I think in this recent election without race and the social issues, Obama would have won in a landslide if both parties stayed the same regarding economics and foreign policy. Obama came from a centrist position pretty much everywhere. But a more traditional left vs right argument would be interesting.
I don't really think this is true. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find almost ANYONE who is a "single issue voter". Sometimes certain issues absolutely outweigh everything else, I guess, but it doesn't really strike me as human -- the way you're putting it. I think more accurately, ESPECIALLY among Republican, is that those voters tend to adopt the viewpoints of the majority of the party depending on how ensconced they become in the rightwing political sphere.
I mean, some of that is obvious -- you hang around with more people of similar ideology, the more viewpoints from them you adopt -- but I think this is particularly true with conservatives given how quickly that base has rapidly adopted the talking points being given to them by right wind media that thus spreads through the base.
What was the purpose of having an electoral college anyways? To just make it easier to focus campaign funds in areas that are purple?
But it's the only say things will be fair!No, the purpose of the Senate was most definitely not to weigh rural voters more heavily than urban voters.
I don't understand how the current system better represents minority ideas than an NPV. What examples do we have of minority views being picked up by a presidential candidate because it appealed to a small state? Aside from New Hampshire Iowa and Neveda, nobody pays attention to small states anyway.For Qazaq's benefit, I present a rational argument against using the national popular vote as a means of electing a president:
There are many ideas in the world which are potentially reasonable but are nevertheless minority. It is very common for these ideas, beliefs or trends to begin regionally and, if popular enough, to spread outward.
A national popular vote system would make it very hard for these minority views to be relevant to a Presidential candidate unless it had nearly 50% of popular opinion on its side. This would not be about protecting specific demographics -- protecting rural voters, for example, or black voters -- it is about protecting ideas which may not be very popular right now, but may be just all the same.
I can certainly see how electoral systems enfranchise less popular ideas, which may begin in (as an example) Vermont but which would never be noticed in a national popular vote because all that would matter would be the nation as a whole. I think protecting those ideas is something worth doing.
This post is not necessarily intended to argue against a national popular vote -- I could also argue for it -- but simply to show that an NPV isn't an obviously and clearly better system in all regards.
What does it matter? This is a naked plea to "weigh" some votes more than others. The whole point of democracy is that the minority loses.
Hate to break the current topic but I cant think of a better thread for this question.
What exactly are the republicans so upset about with this Benghazi stuff? I see them saying the American people need to know what happened and that the Obama administration is being dishonest, but I feel like everybody understands perfectly well what happened. Are they really just being shitty over the semantics of not calling it explicitly a "terrorist attack" immediately?
Again, you're overly hung up on "bad", "worth", all these judgmental terms of ideas.
I don't think electing racists and bigots is good for the country. But in a democracy, people have the power to elect people that hold those ideals. That's the point. This is all first amendment free speech stuff. That's why getting rid of the distinctions of regions can very much diminish voices necessary for a democracy. You need the variety of ideas. And you don't stop to consider that sometimes those fringe and minority ideas are ones that come to be held by the populace at large now. They have to start somewhere.
I don't understand how the current system better represents minority ideas than an NPV. What examples do we have of minority views being picked up by a presidential candidate because it appealed to a small state? Aside from New Hampshire Iowa and Neveda, nobody pays attention to small states anyway.
Representative democracy and the minority view would be represented perfectly in Congress itself. It's not like it would just go away with a National Popular Vote.
Under a NPV, I think we'd see campaigning shift entirely from "swing" states to large metro areas.
What would legally have to be done to switch to that model nation-wide? A constitutional amendment?