someone with integrity

however judging by the last couple of days i don't hold out much hope. the only silver lining is that the Republicans have complete control so nowhere to hide and no one else to blame

. also looking forward to what Trumpcare will be

He might not be a king, but he is (or very shortly will become) the President, a very powerful role whereby people do what he asks or tells them to do, if it is to do with the White House, and how he wants things to be done.

I think he will be in for a very rude awakening when his ideas start to get questioned by the House and the Senate, as despite being Republican controlled, that doesn't mean everything will go through smoothly, that is when the angry tweets will appear at 3am!

Still it should make for a compelling watch this side of "the pond"!

The trouble is that the people Trump has surrounded himself with owe their jobs to him, and since most come from a military background where there is a clear chain of command, and you definitely do not question your superiors, then I think that might be the case here as well sadly enough.

Let's hope that entertainment is all that Trump will give us.

Yes, that's one of the things that makes the election such a huge deal, pretty much the entire cabinet and most high-level civil servants are purged and the new person's people are brought in.

Are we going to keep this up.

Trump won under the electoral process which everyone knew was the case before the process started. All the networks talked constantly about the road to 270 - not the popular vote.

An election based on the popular vote would be a totally different election requiring consistent voting processes and timings across all 50 states - and might well result in a totally different outcome. There was no point in Republicans turning out in New York or California as there was no chance Trump could win and in the latter the final two Senate candidates were both Democrats - same with Democrats in Kentucky or North Dakota.

Each state had different poll closing and opening times
Some had early voting some all on the day
Some needed photo or voter ID - some like California required no ID at all
Some let felons vote some don't

The only consistent measure is who won each state - as the processes within each state were all broadly the same.

Maybe if Hillary and her team had understood the electoral college and spent more time and money on tv ads in Wisconsin and Michigan than California she might have won.

All the time that Trump supporters post incorrect statements, other people will keep posting corrections.

Nobody is arguing that Trump didn't win the Electoral College, or that his win isn't legitimate, or whatever else. But when people on here post like "This is what Americans wanted", we can very clearly state that, no, more Americans voted for his competitor and that gives us a clear signal that he does not, in fact, have a mandate from the people.

He clearly knew the rules better or played the geography game better, and he won as a result. But please get that populist 'will of the people' crap outta here.

Anyone got a bet on what time his next Tweet will be?!

It surely cannot be too long from now!

No, I'm saying it's rich for them to come at him with this what with their candidate's form.
Had she won do you really think that they would have been bothered?

He isn't in office.

Sean Hannity went to the Ecuadorian Embassy to interview Julian Assange:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGlYf7UPTM4

whereby Julian reiterates once more that Russia is not the source of the leaks.

I know who I believe in all this.

It's a very good interview. Now that we've seen Julian, where's the gorgeous @embassycat at?

No, they're getting it right. It's you who are getting it wrong.
I'm sure that you are the sort of person who arrives at the truth based on how many people agree with something. I'd imagine that you'd been told something 'umpteen times' and thought that must make it true.

Hillary winning the popular vote means jack shit. That's not how the American system, operates.
It's not a direct democracy, it's a representative republic. Their system is designed to prevent a tyranny of the majority.
America is a huge place and it's deemed to be unfair that one or two big city states should rule over the affairs of the entire nation. Many states are very independent and the idea of the electoral college is for those states to not be dictated to by the big cities. It's not like the UK, there is good reason for it to be the way it is.

As it goes earlier last year two Republicans tried to change the system to more of a direct democracy and were turned down....by Democrat judges. If they had won their case then things may be very different now.

But as it stands America is a representative republic and this is their system. Winning the popular vote and not winning the presidency is entirely fair according to the system that has been agreed upon.
It's not even the first time it's happened.

The geography of the United States is very important. You don't seem to be trying to understand why.

There's also the matter that if people voted under a different electoral system then the approaches to the campaigns would be completely different. As it stands the candidates played the game according to the rules of the game they understood at the time they approached their respective campaigns.
If Hillary Clinton thought the best approach was to simply appeal to the apparently safe blue states who she knew had cities with high populations and alienate everybody else, then it looks like she took the wrong approach. She knew the rules of the game and she chose how to play her hand according to those rules. You can't blame the game just because you played it badly.

I'm surprised the news wasn't revealed on the 21st January.

Pointing out that Trump lost the popular vote by a large margin is not "getting it wrong". It's a simple statement of fact.


So why was the tweeter-in-chief so exercised by this inconvenient truth that he claimed he only lost the popular vote because of fraud?

That's an interesting new take on democracy. Presumably it must be enshrined in their constitution. Where can I read about it?

It was a key reason why the electoral college was introduced by the founding fathers - the electors of the President are and remain the electoral college.

Who are we to doubt the reasoning of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jeffersons or their motives!

They also wanted to protect the interests of all states and small states. If you exclude the votes of just one state Trump won the popular vote by 3 million. Back then the founding fathers didn't want New York and Massachusetts deciding the President all the time - now we have California with it's lax voting laws - if we had a popular vote system - overturning the result in the other 49.

The electoral college served its purpose - preventing a demagogue like Hillary Clinton winning on the back of Californian Populism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

there is any interesting quote from Hamilton in that article Marty that suggests the system failed miserably this year

this whole argument about the electoral college is fascinating to a degree

people actually arguing that the system is MORE democratic because all votes are not equal and depending where you live its ok for your vote to have a varying amount of influence on the outcome of the election

Ah ...........so Julian Assange that fine, upstanding, decent individual - yep - gotta believe him over the US intelligence agencies

His tweets are strangely compelling

They don't sound remotely like they're coming from a President Elect though, more like a slightly inarticulate pop singer or reality show contestant

Or some goofy kid from 'Wayne's World'.

That is why it is so funny and entertaining!

Plus the reaction from the Democratic Party politicians!

Just pure gold all round really!

Sounds like the exact same system we have had in the UK for the last 184 years? Safe seats and marginals.

The electoral college is the system used as presecribed in the US constitution. And the US hasn't done too badly by it.

Systems where all votes counted equally ended up delivering Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. So no system is perfect.

I think they very much envisaged businessmen would become President - not career politicians and community organisers. So not sure what your point is