Senate and the EC are extreme examples of the same DEI that the right constantly complains about.

Interesting responses. If population is all that matters, then let’s vote county by county and let voters decide which of a two-state solution they want to be a part of. No? Of course not, because landmass and resources matters as much if not more than population.

Landmass shouldn't matter when it comes to social issues.

Then free us all, disband the EC and allow us to reform our perfect unions.

I mean, I don't think anyone is saying disband the Senate (well, some may). Sure, keep your two senators there, even if state borders are arbitrary and other countries are fine with redrawing them. But president is a nationwide office. There is no reason anymore why states should have a weighted say on that outcome (and even within the current system there is no reason states need to be winner-take-all).

I can accept a counter-majoritarian element to the system, even though I don't really think it's the best process. We, though, have so many counter-majoritarian elements that a winning party can't do much of anything, and that helps breed the cynicism with the system. I think it's much better for a party to present a platform, if elected implement that platform, and then have the populous evaluate and vote again. When a party wins a majority and then isn't able to pass laws because of the Senate, the filibuster, gerrymandering, etc. it makes people give up on voting.

And this results in the party willing to game the system and ignore the norms being the party that is able to establish the most control.

In our current system, the minority is pushing nationally unpopular policy and decisions on the minority. That's not democracy in any functional form.

The reason is in our name. The United States. We are a Republic and we not only were formed to defend the weak but to give them a stake in the process. If the Democrats believe they have acquired enough people in New York, Chicago and LA to rule everyone, all the time, then disband the EC. It’s that simple.

re·pub·lic
/rəˈpəblik/
noun
a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

Say anything about an electoral college in there?

Is France a republic? They elected Macron based on popular vote. Brazil? I believe their executive selection is based on majority/plurality. Hmm, what about Mexico? "The president is elected by plurality voting in a single round."

I dunno, according to this link there are a lot of republics out there.

Republic Countries 2024

Do all of them have electoral colleges?

Going back to the definition of a "republic" - is there anything in there that stipulates that selection of an executive can't be by direct vote? Yeah, wiki isn't the end-all be-all on things, but:


Direct vote on president...we still have political power resting with representatives, no?

https://www.threads.net/@mrhunterwal...SNanhz92tHJlVA

These are the people who have put in their names to compete for the Democratic nomination. It does certainly look like Kamala Harris will win. But let’s wait until it’s official.

[quote=Dutch;3438203]
If you ever forced a vote based on sheer population we would no longer be a Republic and would force all states to re-evaluate their entry into this Union.
/QUOTE]

A republic is a representative democracy and does not require an electoral college system. For example, no state uses a similar electoral system for local elections (they are prohibited from doing so per Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims) and yet they are still republics.

Dont count out Robbie and Robby if they decide to run together.

Well this is pretty disconcerning

I can't wait to hear from the right what he really meant.

Why would the default definition a republic have language about the very unique implementation of our Federal Republic? The great compromise ensured smaller states that it wouldn’t be a nation run by Pennsylvania and New York. They didn’t believe those population centers would even care what people in Maine or Georgia or Rhode Island thought. Which was true before the compromise. Afterwards, those big population centers at least cared a little bit more, which was all the less powerful asked for. They knew Democracy large population centers would harvest the smaller states resources for their own gain but at least the smaller states had been granted some ability to ensure the the new boss wouldn’t be the same as the old boss. The gained a small sense of representation.

A truly unique form of the classical Republic.

The removal of the EC would eliminate the American version of the Federal Republic and embrace True Representative Democracy, no doubt, but make no mistake, we are a big country with two different very powerful population blocks that want two different things. A power grab by one 50% group would be nothing short of a dissolution of one of the bedrocks of our constitution and one of the most important reasons why we even got to a place where anybody would want to do such an all-in power grab. But we shouldn’t be tempted by more power at the reduction of anyone’s representation.

Instead its been chipped away with power grabs though the judicial branch and gerrymandering.

What we need is doing away with the electoral college going hand in hand with the reducing of presidential power. We also desperately need to fix gerrymandering to make congress more accountable to the people.

Ahh, yes - we ARE a Federal republic. But...I thought your emphasis was on the Republic part, not the Federal part? (I don't see "federal" in that sense in a search of the last three pages of the thread...)

Anyway yes, yes we are unique in that regard. But apparently, we didn't used to be.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...still-has-one/


Countries tend to lose this sort of system...after some sort of emergency/catastrophe. The question is if we are going to head for one or not. Obviously something like doing away with elections altogether would qualify (they could well be reinstituted under a differently functioning system). Would the pressure of a system where a minority party regularly wound up in power? Dunno.

Nahhhhh, we just have corporations for that.


(edit: which are all probably headquartered in Delaware)

The three top vote count states in 2020 were the same for both parties, CA, FL, TX for Dems and CA, TX, FL for the GOP. We live in a country where 55-45 is the extreme split. Either party could win a majority, they just may need to moderate their most extreme positions to do so.

Already heard it. He’s going to permanently fix the issues that important to christians in a way that democrats will never be able to overturn with legislation and so it won’t matter if they vote again or not.

That's Vance talking about his wife. He's so bad at this.

That’s fair, I wasn’t clear that I meant in the context of our form of Republic.

What would be the point in having a national bitcoin stockpile?

This:


and this:

How is this different from the current situation where you get special benefits as a swing state? The auto industry doesn't get their $25 billion bailout from Obama if they're not a vital state to his re-election hopes. We don't have this huge welfare system for farmers if they aren't located in vital swing states (including Iowa which was vital in the primary cycle). And a huge chunk of our military spending goes to curry favor with specific districts and areas that are important.

This doesn't balance power in the country, it just shifts it. Your vote for Senate is 80 times more powerful in Wyoming as opposed to California. We have like 7 states that even matter in an election and both candidates will cater exclusively to them. Large states have to provide billions in welfare to smaller states.

If you like the system, that's fine. But don't pretend it's being done to be fair. Most of this shit was put in place to protect slave states anyway.

Welfare for cryptobros.

Each square mile of land should be worth 3/5 of a vote. States can decide how that land decides to vote on their own.

Closing remarks in Minnesota from JD Vance tonight.

Kamela Harris questioned my loyalty to this country. That’s the word she used, “loyalty”. It’s an interesting word … Semper Fi … loyalty, because there is no greater sign of disloyalty than what Kamela Harris has done at our southern border. And the question I have for the vice president, is what has she done to question my loyalty to this country? I served in the United States Marine Corps for this country, I went to Iraq for this country, I built a business for this country, and my running mate took a bullet for this country. And my question to Kamela Harris, is what the hell have you done to question our loyalty to the United States of America? And the answer my friends, is “nothing”.

JD Vance also looked up dolphin porn for this country while maybe banging a couch for this country.

lol he was a photographer for the Marines in a war we lost. And his business was a vulture VC firm funded by Peter Thiel. Thank you for your service JD. Not sure we would have survived without you.

Sir, permission not to take rafterman with me?

I didn’t know that was his job. My son serves in the military as a photo-journalist right now. Why is that funny? Or why should he feel ashamed of that and not mention it? And does that open him up to being called disloyal?

No, but saying he'd do what Pence refused to do would count as disloyal to the Constitution/USA in my book.

She said Vance would be loyal to Trump instead of the country. Wouldn't both Donald and JD agree that he'll be loyal to Trump first? I mean he's already said repeatedly that he would have refused to certify the election.

Kamela refused to secure the border like Trump would do. We can play that game all day I suppose and we perhaps you’re right. But if you are, can you think of anything Kamela has done that you would consider disloyal?

Anyway, for those making fun of Vance for being proud of his time served, here a glimpse into what he gained from it. It’s not a story about Sgt Rock, it’s a story about everyday Americans that choose to serve.

J.D. Vance: What I Learned in the Marine Corps | Military.com

THAT's your "both sides" argument? Holy crap, dude.

Also, LOL at "like Trump would do." You mean, like he would have stopped Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 1 day? Suuuuure.

It is good that he served. It is sad that he is betraying that service for a 4 time draft dodger that called military members that gave their life to their country "losers" and "suckers" and mocked John McCain for being a POW.

My EC solution

Keep the Electoral Votes the way they are (i.e. giving advantages to rural states)

Every state allocates their EVs proportional to the percentage vote in that state.

One of the problems with the current system is that a 10,000 vote margin in one state can flip the entire election. That is less likely to happen under my system.

My system also keeps the whole country in play. Suddenly, the GOP has an inventive to campaign in Los Angeles and Chicago. The Dems have an incentive to campaign in Oklahoma City and Nashville. And the voters in those states will matter.

This system is better than a national popular vote because each election is still administered by 50 different states, making it much harder to hack.

Are you purposely misspelling Kamala or do you just never read and don't know how to spell it?

Did you serve? Don't shit on someone's military service unless you were in.

We're talking about a guy whose running mate shit on the service of millions of veterans, most notably John McCain's. I don't think Vance has any moral high ground here, unless he's going to upbraid Trump for his far worse crimes against veterans.

Not relevant in this case. Attack the candidate all you want (and I personally think he is a terrible VP pick), but I take specific issue with the "lol he was a photographer" comment. You don't make fun of someone's service record unless you too served (or if they are blatantly lying about what they did, and even then, that's better left to being challenged by actual veterans).

What, like this? The States That Are Most Reliant on Federal Aid

There you go again, trying to educate someone with FACTS!!!

You can make fun of anyone, whether it is respectful or not is another matter. I think this whole you can't mock or be critical if you weren't in the same shoes is a bullshit argument.

He may have been dilligent in the service, but when I read what he tries to imply and what his actual work was, it's bullshit.

This is no different then when Hillary claimed she was working "under fire" as Secretary of State but then it turned out while she may have been in a hostile area, she wasn't under fire. Splitting hairs but over embellishment of service.

Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman and Tim McVeigh all served in our military and each of them was a piece of shit. It's not a badge that gets you out of criticism for doing or saying stupid or shitty things.

Agree with CW on this matter. But I also think it's cheesy to brag about your service

Im sorry, wasn’t meant to offend you.

Here’s Kamala’s plan to secure the border.

"I am meeting with a lot of folks. And the work that we have begun is the work that is going to be ongoing. There is no question, and I said this from the beginning, that our approach to this issue has to be with a commitment to a long term investment and it has to be a commitment to consistency, the United States has to be consistent. There were times when were more engaged and we saw good results, less engaged, and we can see where the work and the partnerships then deteriorate. So I am committed to ensuring that we engage in an active way on the root causes, on addressing the cause and effect, and also being partners in the western hemisphere, understanding that we have a responsibility and if we ignore that responsibility it will visit itself upon us in a very domestic way."

Thank God for the EC. Yes, we know the vast majority of the rich and the biggest GDP is secured in Blue States. I can imagine without the USA’s version of a Republic, that the money would dry up in a heart beat. So again, if you want all the power, do what you think is best to secure it and if the poor are of no value, then break them off. Your disdain for the flyover states is noted.

This isn't a policy, it's from a speech in 2021. Nice try but I see who you follow on twitter now.

OK, we can throw out the 14 GOP-led states that have refused that federal food aid, right? That sounds pretty disrespectful to the poor, Dutch. I'm sure your very real compassion for those poor and volunteering to keep those benefits has kept you extremely busy.

On the military front, I certainly don't disrespect veterans, and I fully understand that conservatives have to honor them vocally, since they actively vote against their pay, support and benefits, have nominated and elected a draft dodger & regularly denigrate them from their grandstand, but I am also a pacifist and my respect extends as far as contributing my fair share towards their wages, food and housing without complaint.

Service can be commendable, especially if you are sacrificing something else to do it. At the same time, I don't know that short stints should automatically grant a lifetime pass for reverence.

Enshrined in the constitution that the Vice President is in charge of securing the border. Shouldn't you be comparing Kamala's border work to what JD Vance will be doing on the border?


Taking photos of people in Iraq isn't some shield against criticism for your beliefs and disloyalty 20 years later. Nor is any kind of military service. Timothy McVeigh isn't a loyal American because he served in Iraq.

You're literally defending a guy who wrote a best selling book that shits all over the flyover states. Nothing anyone has said in this thread is anywhere near as negative as what JD wrote about them in his book.

You can absolutely criticize Eddie Gallagher, Charles Graner, and Lynddie England's service record if you didn't serve. It's the cornerstone of a civil controlled military.

He brought his service into the campaign. He is the one that thinks being a photographer for 4 years in Iraq should make you immune from criticism over taking the rights away from millions of Americans. That it gives you the right to discard the constitution and the votes of millions of Americans.

If you gave a shit about any soldiers instead of the faux-patriotic platitudes, you'd be furious over them being in Iraq in the first place and for those who had to lose their life or be irreparably injured in vain.

Sorry for pointing out that the thing you said would be horrible if it happened, is already happening in the other direction.

The rest of your post is baseless speculation of my motives and not worthy of a response.

Funny, I go from this comment to seeing this. I have been using Peacock, and it is somewhat confusing but everything is there.






Wrong thread, but I'm making the same face reading that tweet as reading some people's posts in this thread.

I have a hard time listening to Vance talk about his service when he's supporting a draft dodger with a history of talking shit about veterans, called General Mattis overrated, and called General Kelly dumb.

He doesn't respect the military or veterans so it's difficult to take anyone supporting him seriously when they play the vet card.

I’m sure Trump will enjoy watching Fox today as they review their latest polls. pic.twitter.com/8GbIap6Erh

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 28, 2024

Wait...are we seriously arguing that veterans are some sort of super-citizen who, dependent on the circumstances of their service, can only be evaluated and/or criticized by other folks of the same status?

I'm old enough to remember that all of my buddies who joined the military after high school were broke, had no prospects for getting into college -- or no interest in going to college -- but looked at the personal benefits (i.e., I can afford a new truck with the money I bank after basic training) and made a decision that might create the best future for themselves.

Just like the rest of us who had different options we wanted to pursue.

(For context, I graduated HS in 1989, so that was pre-Kuwait and a time of relative peace. I might feel differently if we'd have had an active war going on. But "patriot" and "service to country" weren't the words my cohort was using. The weightiest thing on their minds was having to cut their heavy metal hair and whether that investment in their future was going to be worth losing out on all the female attention they'd lose along with their hair.)

I think both of these are spot on. He fired all 3 generals who served under him because they wouldn't DO what he wanted, and wanted him to READ and LEARN about the places we had our military so he would understand more and make better decisions. He didn't like that, he thought they were slow, and boring, and talked too much. All three (Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster) all ended up hating him and he them.



He's a shill, out there using the military rah, rah, rah, to drive up votes. The party of trump has more in common with McVeigh than they do with the Democratic party. That's the real shame in all this. Look at what McVeigh stood for, what he wrote about. This is the new heart of the party of trump now.

Isn’t Trump going to fire all the generals anyway and replace them with NASCAR drivers and football coaches?

Jeff Fisher definitely has Trump Energy.

I mean, this isn't that hard to explain. Arizona and New Mexico get a ton of federal funding to support the border. I'm guessing it's a little more expensive to protect Arizona's southern border than it is to protect New York's. Even Maine spends some on the northern border. Texas and California have similar costs but a much bigger population to spread that out against. Montana and the Dakotas also have a pretty substantial federal park bill (that ends up being a higher % when you account for their smaller population and average salary).

All this graph shows is the states on the border, with more parks or with very small median salaries (Bama - 41K, LA - 41K, MS - 37K) use a higher percentage of federal funding that places like New York (57K) and Massachusetts (61K). It's just math.

This is funds given directly to the state for funding, so things like the border, National Parks or military instillation aren't included. This is Medicaid, housing assistance, education, transportation, etc. And you are right, it shows states with lower incomes,which usually correlate with lower education levels, which means more Red voters.


Which states rely the most on federal aid?

I hear the University of Southern Mississippi has a nice volleyball facility through federal funding.

Goodness, those facts again!

This is way better messaging than the "Love Trumps Hate" crap from years past.

THESE GUYS ARE JUST WEIRD.

JD Vance and his Project 2025 weirdos want to control your bedroom. Will you let them? pic.twitter.com/JnNbuRzkAH

— Won’t PAC Down (@wontpacdown) July 29, 2024

Does Brett Favre know about this!?!?!?!

Today, I'm guessing Doug Burgum had a chicken salad sandwich on white bread for lunch while he read over some white papers on business tax reform proposals.

Might have been a touch harder to make these ads stick if Trump had given some thought to his choice.

That is a high level creepy ad.

Also, it is . . . I don't even know what that the Dems have spent since 2016 trying to attack Trump and MAGA a thousand different ways and none of it breaks through.

And Walz is just like "Hey. Have y'all noticed that they're weird?" and it feels kind of game-changy.

I am seeing a lot of pro-Walz stuff on the very online left. And I think they are missing something. Their argument is that he is actually very liberal (which I think is true). But he looks like an old white Midwestern guy so all of the moderate and conservative leaning swing voters are gonna go for him. Basically, they are painting themselves at the people smart enough to vote for policy, but painting moderate and conservative swing voters as too naive to look past the packaging.

Seems like the new line of atatck from the right is to paint Kamala as 'thee most liberal Senator'. I wish, but sure go ahead and make the Dems sales pitch for them.

The thing with Walz is he's not afraid of his positions. A lot of liberal politicians are terrified to admit what they support and constantly play defense. It's kind of refreshing to have a politician just come out and say "I support free school lunches" or "I think everyone has a right to health care" and be passionate about it.

"We're not gonna stay in their frame... We're not gonna play their game. We're gonna call them out for the weird stuff they believe and we presented a different argument to the American public. One where everybody matters." 🙏 make this man VP #wewantwalz pic.twitter.com/5lSC76p1cH

— Evan Sutton (@3vanSutton) July 28, 2024

It was something that people have been asking Democrats to do for awhile. They focused too much on cringe-worthy stuff that just didn't hit. That you're better off just saying "hey, it's weird how obsessed they are with children's genitals" then trying to find some cheesy motto.

Some of this also comes from polling and analysis of suburban voters since 2020. What they found is that people in the suburbs hate weird. They just want to vote for the more normal candidate, even if they don't necessarily agree with their policies.

I do think laughing at them instead of treating them like a boogey man is the way to go. The obsession with bathrooms, genitals, porn, birth control, etc is weird.

They had a weeks long meltdown because they couldn't jack off to the green M&M anymore.

This. Just make a mockery of them. It’s what Trump and people like him hate the most.

I'm really happy as a clam that Harris is pretty much an unknown I mean before she was VP.

Hillary had so much baggage to contend with because of her name that made her easy for moderates to hate.

Harris is pretty much a blank slate and I think thats a great thing. It's really what we need especially with how good she is and speechmaking and staying on point what's wrong with things (and esp trump)

One thing I've noticed is that prior Dem attacks have also roped in the GOP supporters, which makes them more defensive. "Cling to guns and religion." "Deplorables."

A crucial difference with "they are weird" is that the "they" refers to the politicians and NOT the supporters. It makes people want to distance themselves from the GOP, not get defensive about it.

The first ad above highlighted their weird voters voting


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

True. It is subtle. And different outside groups are all going to approach it somewhat differently.

Personally, I do think that there's space to say "Hey, you don't want to be like those guys who want to inspect the genitals of high school chess teams, right?" that works in a way that "Hey, you don't want to cling to religion, right?" does not.

I still think this a key reason why Tim Ryan lost to JD Vance in the Ohio Senate race.

The messaging was basically

Ryan - "I am technically a democrat but not really"
Vance - "This guy is definitely a democrat"

Also Tim Ryan's ads had him throwing footballs at TVs for some reason.

Obama is the only Dem politician who should go within 100 feet of sports equipment when cameras are around.

Here’s what you should know about her senate record. The most leftist of all senators, not according to Fox News or CNN, but this non-partisan review where they used the same logic against all senators (that landed Ted Cruz one of the top senators to the far right). So it seems legit.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200816...port-card/2019

You know what's not on her record? Trying to overthrow election results to remain in her position, repeatedly lying about an election being stolen to this very day, and already stating that the only way she won't win in November is if the other side cheats (which Trump is doing to set up another likely meritless challenge and sow the seeds for further inflaming a bunch of right-wing gun nut/anti-government/revolutionary types in preparation for not having another J6 failure).

Pretty much all that matters to me. And I'll go on record as stating that from a personal perspective, I think I'm still in the middle enough that neither side is going to really hurt or help me greatly, but from a professional/job perspective, I'd be much better off with the GOP in charge of the executive branch. But that pesky business about making up stuff about a stolen election, losing every legal challenge, and still wanting to prevent the rightly elected person from being certified the winner kinda complicates things, ya know?

Also, as "liberal" starts to mean "ok with kids getting school lunch."

And "conservative" starts to mean "the government, not parents or children or doctors, should make health care decisions for families," I wonder if "liberal" will continue to be the smear that it has been for the last 30 years.

Probably why Dutch chose "leftist." More evocative of, I dunno, Che Guevara than FDR I guess.

(Unless he sees kids being fed as "leftist", which he very well might.)

C'mon we know kids that eat lunch are to lazy to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Put them to work in factories and they'll be able to afford school lunch.

I'm old enough to remember when Obama was a radical, "most liberal Senator" in history. That crazy leftist, Obama, sure was radical.

So legit you had to pull it off the web archive.

GWB threw that heater after 9/11. Possibly his greatest achievement.

...now watch this drive.

Wasn't there a state legislator who recently said something in defense of pulling the state free food school program (or maybe opting out of the federal program) that they didn't want kids to get too comfortable, or something along those lines, and another argument is that there's already too much obesity? Any excuse to keep poor/unhealthy people poor and unhealthy while distracting them with shiny culture war objects.

I still remember back in 2015 when Bevin was elected governor in KY and had run on an anti-Obamacare "socialist healthcare" platform and promised to dismantle KY Connect (which was put in place under Andy Beshear's dad as the previous governor). And when word got out to eastern Kentuckians through local media showing up about a week after the election to ask what they thought about losing their healthcare, all of them were horrified to learn what was about to happen, and practically every one of them voted for Bevin.

Dutch just copy and pastes from twitter. This is funny:

We retracted our single-year legislator report cards after warning about their unreliability - GovTrack.us

Work study! They can put on a hair net and dish out the food, then eat their own during recess. Or apprentice to the janitor. Safety patrol? Required, if you wanna eat.

The take us backward thing is 100% spot on and the right doesn't even want to do it for the actual reasons parts of America was better. They look at gay people in the closet, black people knowing their place, women not having rights, and children having jobs as the reason the country prospered.

The reality is it had more to do with new deal socialism, strong unions, child labor protections, job safety regulations. All things their parents fought for to make their lives better. They want to undo all of it mostly out of bigotry and fear.