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Old Yesterday, 01:57
dodrade
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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
According to Trump supporters Californians don't count as Americans for some reason.
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Old Yesterday, 01:58
mimik1uk
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I think they very much envisaged businessmen would become President - not career politicians and community organisers. So not sure what your point is
somehow i am not surprised that you would fail to see the point in anyone doubting Trump has the "requisite qualifications" to be president ...

after all he has been appointing all those global capitalists, goldman sachs execs and party donors to his cabinet, just the type of characters you love
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Old Yesterday, 01:59
oncemore
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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.
Good lord, I'm not sour grape-ing his win, or debating that he didn't win a resounding victory, I'm merely pointing out that a majority of voters did not, in fact, choose him to be President. I agree that he played the electoral map well and as a result will be the next POTUS (sad as I find that fact), but when people state that whatever thing he does is somehow representative of the American people it's important to point out that he lost the popular vote.

Y'all can stop being so fragile any time you'd like.
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Old Yesterday, 02:04
mimik1uk
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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.
we dont have a system where the FPTP is used to elect a single person to be head of state tho do we ?

bit of a desperate justification in your last sentence btw ...

i haven't actually argued against the electoral college, but it is undeniable that the electoral college system does not reflect a majority view or that it gives equal weight to everyone's vote

and for someone that has done nothing but whine that the FPTP system in the UK is unrepresentative its a bit rich you now defending it because the electoral college got your man into the White House
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Old Yesterday, 02:05
Bob Paisley
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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
I'm very sympathetic to the argument that the Electoral College is outdated, unfair and should be abolished. I also think the loss of the popular vote should give Trump pause for thought and restrain him from acting like he has a massive mandate.

But I'm afraid it won't. The Republicans are a ruthless bunch of bastards and as far as they're concerned a win's a win's a win. They'll govern like they won by a landslide. They always do. Eventually they'll overreach and do something monumentally stupid - like they always do - and there'll be an inevitable reaction. It's the way it always works in the States...

As long as we don't all die in the flames of a Trump-inspired nuclear apocalypse in the meantime of course.
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Old Yesterday, 02:25
johnny_boi_UK
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Ted Cruz is wanting to amend the constitution to cap term limits on congress.

"It is well past time to put an end to the cronyism and deceit that has transformed Washington into a graveyard of good intentions.”

actually quite sensible depending on what the cap would be
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Old Yesterday, 02:50
Alrightmate
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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
That's not what I'm arguing. I'm saying that's what was decided a long time ago and was agreed upon to be the fairest way of doing it....according to them.

To address your second paragraph, maybe it is a more democratic way of doing it due to the geography and social structure of the USA. Maybe it actually is.

But as I said, you have to remember that the USA is not a democracy in the same way that other countries are, it's a representative republic. It will use some democratic processes and speak about upholding the spirit of democracy, but it is a patchwork of different states which make up a republic. Those states are huge in size and are the size of some countries in the world. California itself is comparable to a country in that it supposedly has the 6th largest economy on the planet.

When you're talking about a country of such a vast scale you perhaps need to look at things a bit differently and examine whether local government is going to be significantly more important than it would be with a small nation.
It may be the case that yes local power is going to be very important when you're talking about America.

Don't forget that In the UK we felt that power needed to be devolved in the cases of Scotland and Wales. Not just in terms of fairness, but no doubt due to the challenge of management.
Do we think it's wrong that power is devolved to Scotland and Wales? If we don't then why should we see it as wrong when a country as massive as America believes that it's important to be representative of all congressional districts?

It's what they decided upon a long time ago, and in fact the Democratic party was more than happy with the status quo in the run-up to the election. In fact they and the media were jubiliant on the night of the election when they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win. Not a peep from them about the rules of the game they put themselves forward to play in.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, or the best way or the worst way. But it's their way. They decided that this was the best way. To only complain when a result doesn't go your way is probably more revealing about the Democrat state of mind than it is about the actual fairness of their own system which they were defending when they thought Trump was going to complain if he lost.
If it's an unfair system then it would have been an unfair system when they were defending it and when they thought it was serving them.
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Old Yesterday, 02:58
Alrightmate
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somehow i am not surprised that you would fail to see the point in anyone doubting Trump has the "requisite qualifications" to be president ...

after all he has been appointing all those global capitalists, goldman sachs execs and party donors to his cabinet, just the type of characters you love
Well he must be displaying that he has the requisite experience by doing exactly what Barack Obama did when he first came to power.
Surely you should be saying so far so good shouldn't you?
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Old Yesterday, 03:04
Alrightmate
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Good lord, I'm not sour grape-ing his win, or debating that he didn't win a resounding victory, I'm merely pointing out that a majority of voters did not, in fact, choose him to be President. I agree that he played the electoral map well and as a result will be the next POTUS (sad as I find that fact), but when people state that whatever thing he does is somehow representative of the American people it's important to point out that he lost the popular vote.

Y'all can stop being so fragile any time you'd like.
Excuse me? I wasn't talking about you. For you to answer as if I was makes it sound as if you're a member of the Democratic Party. Which is who I was referring to.
(As it goes I don't necessarily think that's the case, I just think you took it a bit personally)

Hmm......."Y'all can stop being so fragile any time you'd like"
"Good lord, I'm not sour grape-ing his win"
Who's being fragile? I wasn't even talking about you. Or at least I wasn't aware that I was. I'm perfectly fine and content with the result, I'm just trying to have a conversation where hopefully people calm down a bit. I have nothing to be angry about. To be honest I personally don't think anyone has. And that's the problem I see.

I also didn't say anything about what Donald Trump does being representative of the American people.....we're speaking about the voting system being representative of the American people.
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Old Yesterday, 03:11
Alrightmate
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we dont have a system where the FPTP is used to elect a single person to be head of state tho do we ?

bit of a desperate justification in your last sentence btw ...

i haven't actually argued against the electoral college, but it is undeniable that the electoral college system does not reflect a majority view or that it gives equal weight to everyone's vote

and for someone that has done nothing but whine that the FPTP system in the UK is unrepresentative its a bit rich you now defending it because the electoral college got your man into the White House
But it's not supposed to do. It's state based.

The FPTP system in the UK is something I questioned before, but I didn't vote on it because I don't think it asked the right question at the time. If it popped up again as an issue I'd rethink the subject using the American election as something extra to bring to consideration. But as I've said before the UK is not the same as the USA, and what may be right for the UK may not be right for the USA, and vice versa.
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Old Yesterday, 07:19
John259
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No, they're getting it right. It's you who are getting it wrong.
We're not disputing that he won the Electoral College. We're pointing out factual errors consistently made in posts by Trump supporters. For example, false claims that the majority of US voters supported him.
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Old Yesterday, 08:18
mimik1uk
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But it's not supposed to do. It's state based.
so if you agree its not supposed to reflect the majority view why are you getting so defensive any time someone suggests that Trump's victory does not mean he represents the majority of americans ?
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Old Yesterday, 08:51
paulschapman
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No, I'm saying it's rich for them to come at him with this what with their candidate's form.
Anything specific. I am aware that subpoena was raised to investigate the Clinton Foundation - but not that anything came of it.

Had she won do you really think that they would have been bothered?
Had she won it would not have been relevant. It is only relevant because Trump did win and will now be President. It is not just the charitable foundation that is a problem (which in the case of Trump has been accused of self-dealing, and had to pay a fine for making a payment to an official). It is also Trumps extensive business practices.
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Old Yesterday, 09:44
Alrightmate
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so if you agree its not supposed to reflect the majority view why are you getting so defensive any time someone suggests that Trump's victory does not mean he represents the majority of americans ?
I wasn't aware that I have been. As far as I'm aware I haven't responded to what you say in that way at all. If you think that Trump's victory doesn't mean he represents the majority of Americans then who am I to argue? Knock yourself out.

I've simply made the point to the people who are being defensive of the idea that it's not fair that the majority vote didn't win that the system they currently have is designed the way it has been for a reason and was agreed on a long time ago.
I don't see how that's me being defensive. I don't think I've felt the need to defend myself personally in any way. Even if you attacked me I'm not really sure what I'd be defending myself from.

I haven't even said that I myself favour either system or said it was right or wrong. I've said that I can see why it makes sense due to the size of America and its cities, and put forward the reasons why perhaps the USA's system is the way that it is and that was what they agreed upon.
It's up to them if they think FPTP is better, but that's just not how it currently works right now.
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Old Yesterday, 09:51
MARTYM8
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we dont have a system where the FPTP is used to elect a single person to be head of state tho do we ?

bit of a desperate justification in your last sentence btw ...

i haven't actually argued against the electoral college, but it is undeniable that the electoral college system does not reflect a majority view or that it gives equal weight to everyone's vote

and for someone that has done nothing but whine that the FPTP system in the UK is unrepresentative its a bit rich you now defending it because the electoral college got your man into the White House
A popular vote system would not necessarily reflect the popular view either - assuming it was a plurality system. Merely the most popular minority.

What I am concerned to ensure is that we have a system which ensures that parties and candidates whose votes are spend more evenly across the country rather than focused on particular areas or regions also get fair representation in government. Otherwise as would apply in the US you risk everything being focused on states like California with people in smaller states getting ignored.

Our electoral system rewards concentrating your votes not spreading them more evenly across the country. I believe the electoral college avoids that better than a nationwide popular vote where one or two states would get all the attention.
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Old Yesterday, 09:51
Alrightmate
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Anything specific. I am aware that subpoena was raised to investigate the Clinton Foundation - but not that anything came of it.

There have been big donations by foreign countries to The Clinton Foundation.
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Old Yesterday, 09:52
batdude_uk1
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So who here has "password", as their password on anything important?

If the Democrats want to portray anyone in a bad light, perhaps they should be doing that to someone who had the single most easy password to guess?
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Old Yesterday, 09:56
MARTYM8
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So who here has "password", as their password on anything important?

If the Democrats want to portray anyone in a bad light, perhaps they should be doing that to someone who had the single most easy password to guess?
Why did Clintons campaign chair send his emails from an insecure private email account that could so easily be hacked? Why didn't the campaign arrange a secure network for campaign staff that could be monitored and secured - they had enough money.

What is amazing is how the focus moved to who leaked their dodgy dealings - as opposed to focusing on the dodgy dealings exposed. Essentially how the DNC rigged the primary process to help one candidate win.
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Old Yesterday, 09:59
John259
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Otherwise as would apply in the US you risk everything being focused on states like California with people in smaller states getting ignored.
States with the highest population figures should have the most influence in the choice of president. Any other system would be grossly unfair, because the value of each person's vote would then depend on which state they voted in.

That could be achieved by adjusting the number of Electoral College votes per state to be proportional to each state's population. But having done that, the Electoral College would no longer serve any purpose.
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Old Yesterday, 10:00
mimik1uk
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There have been big donations by foreign countries to The Clinton Foundation.
and ?
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Old Yesterday, 10:01
John259
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So who here has "password", as their password on anything important?

If the Democrats want to portray anyone in a bad light, perhaps they should be doing that to someone who had the single most easy password to guess?
Is there any evidence that the password was "password"? Link, please.
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Old Yesterday, 10:03
mimik1uk
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i see we still have the denials going strong about the russian involvement in hacking despite the fact that republicans in congress have accepted the evidence provided and not only support the sanctions against russia but actually want more stringent sanctions to be applied
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Old Yesterday, 10:08
paulschapman
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I've simply made the point to the people who are being defensive of the idea that it's not fair that the majority
Nobody as far as I can see is saying it was not fair - just that you cannot say Trump was the most popular, since clearly the voting figures demonstrate that this is not true. Nobody is saying he did not win.


I've said that I can see why it makes sense due to the size of America and its cities, and put forward the reasons why perhaps the USA's system is the way that it is and that was what they agreed upon.
It's up to them if they think FPTP is better, but that's just not how it currently works right now.
One of the primary reasons why the Founding fathers created the Electoral College was to ensure that a populist, but unqualified person did not ascend to the Presidency. The irony is that is precisely what the Electoral college has delivered against the stated wishes of the majority.

That in no way says Trump did not win. Many can see that the way he behaves does demonstrate that he is just not qualified and is psychologically unsuited for the role.
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Old Yesterday, 10:15
batdude_uk1
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Is there any evidence that the password was "password"? Link, please.
Google is your friend in case you missed the interview:-

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.mar...roid-orange-gb
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Old Yesterday, 10:24
John259
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Google is your friend in case you missed the interview:-

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.mar...roid-orange-gb
Assange! Not exactly a credible source to put it mildly.
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