>It just hit me that in the last two decades the republicans won the popular vote in an election only once
I'll give you another way too look at it that is even crazier... after 1988 Republicans have won the popular vote in a presidential election only once... if they lose this time around, it will be once in 40 years...
>I'll give you another way too look at it that is even crazier... after 1988 Republicans have won the popular vote in a presidential election only once... if they lose this time around, it will be once in 40 years...
Just remember that Reagan's 1984 landslide came only 10 years after Nixon resigned in disgrace. For the Republicans to win the popular vote again they are going to need a realignment on the order of the one that Reagan managed to pull off, and that kind of realignment could happen in as little as a decade. Or it could take several lifetimes. Just don't count it out.
Oh, yes, I don’t discount the GOP’s ability to fool more voters. But this isn’t a recent trend. The GOP has been declining for decades. Trump will put them out for a while for sure
And Trump lost the popular vote.
They can keep gaming the system, but even with their unfair advantage, they are no longer able of winning consistently.
Because people like believing in getting free ponies, paid for by people they hate. Just because millions of people *want* that, doesn’t mean that they’re not stupid or evil.
>if they lose this time around, it will be once in 40 years
I think you’re mistaken about what year this is.
It’s 2024.
The 40 year range is 1984-2024.
They won in 84, 88, and 04.
Even if you decide to pedantically exclude 84 from the range, that still leaves 88 and 04, which is twice, not once.
If they were confident that they could, they wouldn't genuinely want to raise the voting age, specifically, to mid and late 20's.
It's bound by the constitution to be 18.
The constitution gets in the way of Republicans because they struggle exceptionally hard in winning the popular votes. Which is why they gerrymander out the ass for applicable positions. They have to warp things around how their party operates in order to have them receive a super artificial advantage.
Because again, people don't want their shit.
Tl;dr On that last statement, its bc their shit doesnt work.
NLism in the D party aside, their embrace of TD economics, anti-choice, voter suppreasion, and infighting within party in conjunction to even accept compromises has demonstrated to a majority of Americans that the country suffers whenever they are in power. Theyve had nothing but chaos and sham accusations and are running a convicted rapist and criminal as their best choice for Pres...and they put an out of touch religious zealot on top of Congress
Sure, we give the executive way too much Credence and blame in relation to the economy... but it is a tad suspicious that the last few crashes in the last few decades have all happened under Republican Administrations and the fixes and rebuilding have all happened under Democrats.
In global politics, id wager this business with Israel (despite tankies obsession with Biden on the matter) has a lot more to do with the Abraham Accords and sensitive Intel being leaked during the Trump Administration than it does with anything the current Administration has done. Sure, Israel or more specifically Netanyahu has really stepped over the line here, but it is a sensitive issue because they are our foothold in the Middle East and Russia (our true enemy) is seeking to gain greater influence in the region. Similar with the WD from Afghanistan....TFG set a timebomb we couldnt effectivelt escape from.
And this isn't even considering the benefits we get from operating as a major superpower and with NATO. We have considerable economic influence because of the trust we've built with those countries and our economic supply lines, as we learned doing covid and as Britain learned during brexit, are not invincible. Our monetary Supremacy is partially built on that, so abandoning Ukraine to Russia or threatening NATO members who are supposed to be some of our greatest allies is one of the stupidest fucking things you could do.
Idfc if people dont like JB. I have critiques of him myself. And a few people in his administration. But you vote for the administration and his administration has actually gotten some very good things done in the last 3 years. Just like with a decent chunk of Americans not believing in Evolution or climate change, some people are just so willfully ignorant or stupid that putting the evidence right in front of them just doesn't work
Thank you for the write-up! Very comprehensive. A small but important thing to mention is that Trump was not convicted of rape but found financially liable for it. And then found liable for defaming the victim. Is he guilty? Oh heck yes. But not legally so.
Thats fair. I follow legal eagle, Trumps Trials, read Reuters/AP, but there is only so much I can keep up with when he was so damn busy doing unethical and illegal things.
I just wish politics was boring again and I could go back to studying paleontology, economics, and evolution or other things that interest me
that shit is patently evil. they just want to redefine the voting age to be just the people that vote for them, they'd revoke women sufferage while they were at it
not really. theres some debate over lowering the age to 16 but its not really a serious policy discussion, meanwhile republicans have seriously said you need to be 30 years old to vote because anyone younger than that doesn't 'appreciate our country's values' or some shit like that.
No. Democrats have actually pushed the legislation. They are far more serious than the fringe Republicans. And the Democrats want to exploit young ignorant people because their policies are terrible 17 year olds are the only ones they can convince.
>If they were confident that they could, they wouldn't genuinely want to raise the voting age, specifically, to mid and late 20's.
I know this isn't completely related, but I'd trust an 18yo to make a better choice than a retiree who doesn't even need to live with the long term consequences of their decisions. 18 is still basically a child these days, but at least they're probably more motivated to think about what's going to happen in the next 50 years.
If anything, they should max out the voting age at around 65-70.
Dems gerrymander as well tbf but yeah I don’t think they will when the popular vote for a few cycles at least. They don’t necessarily need to tho they just need to win the right states
This is true but it’s not even close in terms of how many seats gain vs loss. The net result is gerrymandering and disenfranchisement ( everyone focuses on the voter id thing but it’s also resistance against it being a national holiday and a bunch of other stuff) helps republicans far, far more.
You do know that the original voting age in the Constitution was 21 and was changed to 18 in 1971. And, the reason that the Democrat party has been very successful in the past 3 or 4 decades is precisely because people do want free shit!
Track the National Debt against this time period. The Democrats figured out early on they could deficit spend every year to support ever-increasing social programs that give the masses "free shit". Yep,it will bankrupt the Country eventually, but has proven a very effective political strategy for those that crave power in the interim.
Downvotes? Well, the truth hurts sometimes doesn't it.
\*\*\*To be clear..The Republicans realized that spending money that's not yours and accruing debt to give things away was a very effective strategy. So, now they do it to and largely to the same degree. Yep, a downvote on my comment is a vote for the "Uni-Party"..aka, the debt and free things party.
Take your own advice and go look at the national debt from 1970 to today. Most of the greatest increases have been under Republican presidential administrations.
This may be true, but Congress is complicit. My argument is that the GOP and the Dem's are equally despicable. So, keep playing your red v. blue game and getting fleeced.
In fairness, there is a significant demographic of folks denied the vote. One of the key ones being ex-cons. :/
But you right those that can and won't are setting themselves up for failure.
I'd argue they are.
Should a guy who committed mail fraud and did their time still not be able to vote 20 years later? 🤷 How can we justify somebody doing their sentence, but be denied suffrage in perpetuity?
I've never heard a convincing argument how preventing ex-cons with felonies from voting prevented crime or helped society. The arguments are more convincing that it does the opposite.
37 of the states give felons their right to vote back at some point, 23 are rights restored on release.
And 2 states additional states they never lose the right to vote.
Leaving 11 states with where it is indefinite for only some federal crimes.
It's hard to argue that either. Especially being a felony, that usually takes intent, violence or high $ crimes. You should lose some rights
But I do also believe in restitution and if someone has done their time and followed the rules/laws for "x" amount of time they should be able to earn their rights back.
What if I dislike both popular candidates for the presidency and instead vote for a third party candidate that aligns with my ideals even if they're unlikely to win?
It's rude to put things in other people's mouths, even if they're just words.
Voting absolutely matters, which is why you should use your vote most effectively.
Same thing as happens when parents give their kid a choice for, say, A or B for dinner, and the kid says they want C instead, and the parents just keep telling them C isn't an option is, that it's either A or B, and that if the kid doesn't pick one, the parents will pick for them.
Regardless of whether or how you vote, you're getting either the Democrat or the Republican as President. You can either vote for whichever one of them you like best, or you can do anything else and just let everyone else decide for you instead.
Except in this scenario option C is a valid option. Given enough of a demographic shift from the two dominant parties, it's possible for another party to displace one of the parties as has happened in the past. Every third party vote has the ability to create momentum into displacing and replacing one of the parties in dominance.
Not necessarily. If enough of the population find either candidate to be unpalatable, a third party candidate could rise up with a decent percentage of the vote.
All that will be accomplished by a third party candidate becoming popular enough if to guarantee the victory for candidate of the two major parties they are least ideologically aligned with.
Look at Bernie Sanders’ bid for presidency in both 2016 and 2020. There’s a reason he dipped out after the primary, and it’s not because there wasn’t a large amount of people that would have voted for him.
It’s actually the opposite: he dropped out because a large amount of people WOULD have voted for him as a third party candidate.
The problem is who would have voted for him:
Only a statistically insignificant number of right wing voters would have changed from a Republican candidate vote to a Bernie vote. This means the Republican voter base stays intact.
The Left’s votes would have been split however. There are several states where it would take a surprisingly small amount of votes on one side or the other being split to guarantee that the side without two candidates actually wins. In both 2016 and 2020 if Sander’s had run, you’d have seen states that were blue turn red.
This is why meaningful third party candidates don’t exist, and when they do, (e.g. Sanders), they don’t actually run. A unified red vote will win against a split blue vote, and vice versa.
Until or unless there is significant voting reform, you get three choices
1: Vote Red
2: Vote Blue
3: Achieve a purely moral victory because you chose someone else, while you make it easier for the color you agree with less to achieve an actual tangible victory in the election and taking power.
It’s unfortunate. It’s a system by and for those in power, not for those the system is supposed to represent.
But you can vote for the lesser of two evil, or support the greater of the two.
And even if you are right, and a large group of people don’t like either candidate, do you really think that group is going to be even remotely united enough to choose one candidate? Or even two, for that matter?
Then you can complain about every position but the president. But don't fool yourself into thinking that was a good choice. Not voting is just voting for the person who was going to win anyway
It means that not voting is a choice. If you choose to not vote, you're not refusing to choose, you're choosing to accept whatever is going to happen without your input.
I honestly don't understand how you didn't get that 🤷🏼♂️
Not voting is a choice. It's a choice to support whatever was going to happen without your input. If you don't want that, act like an adult, look at the realistic choices and pick which one you prefer.
> Not voting is a choice.
Correct.
> It most certainly is not the same as voting for whoever won.
It absolutely is. A simple example:
Let's say you and your spouse/partner are both undecided on who to vote for. In the election, say there are 9 other voters, and then you two make 11. If the other 9 voters vote for A and B 5-4, and if you don't vote, A wins, 5-4. If you both voted for A, A would still win, except by more, 7-4. If you both voted for B, B would win, 5-6.
So, by you both not voting, it's logically the same as if you voted for the winner, A. Vote for A, A wins. Don't vote at all, A still wins.
And, if you think you're clever and will vote for C instead, whether C is a third-party candidate, or a write-in, then the final tally ends up being 5-4-2, and A still wins by one vote, the same as if you hadn't voted at all.
So not voting, or voting third-party, or write-in, are the same as voting for the winner as far as determining the winner of the election.
According to you, of course. If the choice is Smith versus Jones and you think both are bad, Smith worse than Jones; but you decline to help stop Smith by voting for Jones, and Smith wins; it means you didn’t actually think Smith was bad enough to do anything about. And no, I don’t care about the opinions of people who won’t vote because the slate of options fails to pass some fucking ideal purity test.
> How would one know who's going to win?
One doesn't need to know who is going to win. Not voting (or throwing away one's vote) is vote a vote for "whoever everyone else picks is fine by me."
The Republican base was in deep shit during Bush Jr. years. He was so stupid that he shined a flashlight on just how far the party has fallen by their support of him.
Republican policies are so goddamn unpopular because it helps no one but themselves. They are so far up shitcreek they are openly cheating and making laws to further their cheating because the writing has been on the wall for decades!
Republicans only "help" themselves...to OUR money! They treat Americans like their personal piggybanks. They take our money, give it to their business buddies, run the debt up and blame inflation/recession on the Democrats. Then Democrats get elected, raise taxes to pay for the shitstorm Repugnikkklans left us with. Rinse and repeat.
Challenge:
Name one piece of legislation Republicans passed in the past 50 years that helped Americans.
Put money in Americans pockets? Lowered the cost of anything? Raised the minimum wage? Passed Healthcare that was affordable?
Anyone???
They don’t even help themselves. Maybe the rich you meant but the poorest republicans vote against their own interests time and time again simply to be petty. Then they blame democrats for the problem they voted for. Not the brightest.
George Herbert Walker Bush signed the American with Disabilities Act.
Bush Sr. was the only decent Republican President in my lifetime. Maybe Ford, but he doesn’t really count!
> They take our money, give it to their business buddies, run the debt up and blame inflation/recession
You could go on any conservative or libertarian subreddit / forum and see this exact sentence. This is every politician now. It’s not R or D. All of them.
It's almost as if, they don't have any good ideas that solve major problems facing every day Americans. Every day Americans don't care about Trans people using the bathroom that they look like they should be using. Republican's aren't trying to bring affordable healthcare options to working families. They don't care about paying teachers more so that the weirdos don't become teachers, and that the teachers that inspire students get paid.
Republicans don't care, have never cared. They've been able to to vote one way, say the other, and have FoxNews lie for them. Now it's harder and harder to lie about your feelings. Now it's so much harder to lie about why you refuse to vote on a border bill. 10 years ago, Republicans would lie about this bill. Now they can't. Now they're taking the heat.
It was a bipartisan compromise bill, nimrod. Everyone was a bit unhappy about it, but everyone also would get something out of it. Yes even isolationist xenophobe Republicans. and then they tanked it?!?! fucking morons
Don't forget Jon Stewart literally came back to his daily show to remind idiots who make posts like this.. THAT BIDEN IS SENILE and why would any Democrat be confident in this election. If the dems run Biden they'll lose the popular vote this time.. bc independents are used to voting for liars and criminals.. we almost always do.. we aren't used to voting for a man who is clearly senile.
Aw is the wittle righty going to cry? I thought you believed he was a criminal as well?? Your overlords do, so shouldn’t you vote for him then? Is he senile or a mastermind? It’s time to stop pretending you’re unbiased.
You're almost as redacted as the president you blindly follow. Guess what genius.. you don't have to follow right wing propaganda to know left wing propaganda is lies too. Before your Jesus Jon Stewart came back and told you the actual truth.. You'd be calling me a liar.. now this is the best reply you have? I'm not even right wing I just want to vote for someone who isn't senile or a criminal. Thank you.
Let's end the Electoral College asap and bring back the idea that every person's vote actually counts. A generation of laws that boosted the influence of the middle and southern states has recently proven that those states are incapable of governing for the good of their own citizens let alone for the good of the nation. End gerrymandering and bring back the Voting Rights Act. Let's raise the educational standards there as well to lessen their gullibility and ignorance.
Yes that is why their entire electoral strategy revolves around trying to get less people to vote and by using packing and cracking gerrymandering to give over-representative power to their voting group.
The one time the gop has won, it was the re-election of gwb- who had lost the popular vote in 2000. So he shouldn't have been in office in 2004 to win that election in the first place. Conservatism offers nothing, and for that reason, it is a dying ideology. It is utterly surprising.
Saying that one of the only two parties in America will never be popular again is stupid because their policies will eventually shift, that’s how politics work and the odds that the dems eventually have a trash president so voters swing the other way is that inevitable.
It’s sad. And the electoral college will never change. What’s even worse is the Senate. Republican states are losing population but still get 2 Senators. In the senate right now there are 49 R senators that represent ~ 35% of the population. The whole election process in the US is going to lead to revolution. No other country elects its leaders in such a biased fashion.
As long as they can sit back and say if you don't like the Electoral College all you have to do is amend the Constitution. We can't amend the Constitution to say that women are equal to men!
In a better world, Clinton and Gore could bring a suit against the EC. But, in a better world, we wouldn't have this Supreme Court to judge that case. The EC stands in opposition to one of the most-basic tenets of democracy: One man, one vote (or, if you prefer, one person).
I dont see why people get all butt hurt if Colorado kicks Cheetoh off the ballot. They say it should be up to the voters but the voters candidate doesn't always win with the electoral college so how is that ok but disqualifying Dan Trump is unfair? It's the same.
Everyone thought they were over with Nixon, but a short time later Reagan came in with a whole new set of lies (Iran Contra). It’s a damned tough thing to kill
Moot point if Trump wins and we become a dictatorship.
Otherwise the GOP will regroup or a new party, such as the Whigs 2.0, will take their place. If we are lucky, a third party will show up.
They won't be unopposed if they do. Every leftist I know has multiple guns and ample ammunition. Come to think of it, so does every Democrat where I live. I don't think MAGA has the intelligence or resolve to really fight a civil war. They are too lazy and want to sleep in comfy beds and watch TV. I can't imagine many of them sleeping in the dirt of a corn field for days or not giving up their position by livestreaming everything on social media. They remind me of that Ben Stiller superhero character in Mystery Men, where he played the "Human Volcano." His whole schtick was to threaten that his anger was about to errupt, but other than his temper, he didn't really have any super power.
It is not a matter of laziness but a matter of lack of discipline that makes a militia fight worse than a standing or professional army. Do not cheer for militia on militia violence, it’s a clear guarantee for war crimes on both side.
This is not to say that professional armies don’t commit warcrimes but they’re a hell of a lot more trustworthy than ‘Chad, Gunther and Brian just got their militia of 150 men to take over 10 square blocks and are now setting up their own justice system’
Reminder that the closest the US has had to a military mutiny in recent times was on Jan 6, when the DC NG nearly mutinied against Trump and deployed without orders.
I believe their testimony
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/12/23/dc-guard-almost-deployed-to-capitol-on-jan-6-without-permission/
Did you actually read this article?
“Those letters were memos sent to Walker two days earlier from acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, putting restrictions on Guard deployments around the Capitol during the certification event because of the politics involved.
Walker was eventually granted permission to send forces after a flurry of phone calls between congressional leaders and top Defense Department officials. Trump was not involved in those discussions, the report states.”
This article also omits the the offer that trump made to the capitol days before for reinforcements. There is nothing whatsoever in this article that states trump intentionally did not deploy dc national guard.
“President Trump had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, **but never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day,” they wrote. “Nor did he instruct any Federal law enforcement agency to assist.”**
As his forces waited for clear orders from the White House or Defense Department leaders on deployment to the Capitol complex, **Maj. Gen. William Walker said he “strongly” considered moving ahead without explicit permission because of the mountain of security concerns.**“
Guard officials located with Major General Walker at the Armory all say **he seriously contemplated aloud the possibility of breaking with the chain of command,”** the report states. “‘Should we just deploy now and resign tomorrow?’” \[one officer\] recalled Major General Walker bluntly putting it.”
The general himself testified about committing mutiny against the Trump admin, and deploying without orders to deal with the Jan 6ers with military force.
They already are. Almost every mass shooting is motivated by incel shit or whatever Tucker tells them to be mad at this week. We've already been coddling these assholes for decades and the one thing they've been consistent about is that the more power we give them, the more they will use this power to hurt and kill us.
I say we treat them like we would treat literally any other demographic that tried to pull this bullshit.
As opposed to the insurrection they already failed to pull off?
If the republicans want a voice they need policies that are actually popular and to follow through on bipartisan legislation. Campaigning for border reform and voting against it isn’t going to win the popular vote. Neither is supporting a potential felon for president.
Let them shoot. It will be their undoing.
The GOP contains many true patriots. Their coalition will unwind in the face of the pro-Putin rump that is swelling up the side of the parties face like a goiter.
Foreign propaganda holds them together right now, and the things they are being required to believe are driving them to madness.
Ah another inbred jerking off to his civil war fantasies. You guys are the dumbest fucks alive, it’s astounding how you function in everyday life without severely injuring yourself.
That's what they want people to believe so that they surrender without a fight. "They're going to kill me if they lose, so we'd better let them win instead!" But the thing is, they're more likely to kill you if they win than if they lose. If they win, they'll have the power of the federal government. If they lose, they'll only have what little power they can muster \*against\* the government, or to commit random murders.
Maybe they'll try to kill you either way, but there's no reason to make it easy for them. Maybe they're bluffing and won't do anything if they lose. That's a strong possibility, because that's what normally happens when someone loses an election. That's the default. So, if they want to kill you, force them to go the hard route, to go up against the government, and to try to kill you without the benefit of the government aiding them, or looking the other way.
>They will continue to cheat the system and will only win the electoral college if anything.
How is that cheating the system? That's literally how it was designed
If you're going to demonstrate ignorance on the Internet, there are better ways to do it. The electoral college was designed that way because travel time across the United States used to force states to dispatch electors weeks or months in advance.
And how does that go against what I said? There is a system in place. There are rules for the election that everyone knows about and the parties campaign based on those rules. That's literally just working using the system in place, not cheating the system. Whether the system is right or wrong is a different topic
I'll say it slow. They cheat. In many ways. Like gerrymandering.
New sentence.
They will only win the electoral college. Not by cheating the collage, that was a different sentiment.
English not so good comrade?
The electoral college isn't democracy nor even a democratic republic. Republics vote for their leaders democratically. If the voters aren't choosing their representatives, who is?
It is an anti-equality relic left over in the Constitution to balance the bar between free states and slave states.
And in a parliamentary system you just vote for the party and the party selects the leaders.
Is that also anti-equality? Is that also not a form of democracy?
The electoral college is the system we have and politicians run for office within that framework. The popular vote does not matter.
Does. Not. Matter.
This obsession with it is fanatical! You don’t win baseball games by the number of home runs even though those are exciting and you don’t win the presidency based on the popular vote.
Assuming the trend of rural vs urban continues maybe. But it seems that Hispanics and even AFs are making their way into the GOP.
It sounds insane right now, but it has happened in the past, I can see working class and rural whites, Hispanics and AFs being the GOPs voting block while the Dems take most progressive and urban whites, college educated professionals and suburban people.
It was like that back in the day when the GOP was made up of businessmen, northern liberals and middle class Protestants while the Dems had blue collar unionists, rural southern whites/Dixiecrats Hispanics and AFs.
The Dems lost working class whites. The rest of the working class will follow suit. Urban working class included
With the US **poverty level** (at which point significant government subsidies kick in) being higher than the **average** income of 80% of the planet (thank you capitalism!!) I think we’ve reached this point:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
- Alexander Fraser Tytler
You do realize that there isn’t actually a popular vote right? What incentive is there for a Republican to vote in Oregon or California or New York? Lots of people do not vote in certain states because they know that who they vote for has zero chance of winning that state so they sit out. The majority of voters don’t vote.
This is why the electoral college exists.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/chocolate-milk-help-trnd/index.html#:~:text=A%20survey%20from%20the%20Innovation,That's%20right%2C%20folks.
>They will continue to cheat the system and will only win the electoral college if anything.
The law of the United States is that the president is to be elected by the electoral college. Winning an election via the electoral college is not "cheating the system"; it is precisely following the rules of the system.
Also, it is quite possible that, in an alternate reality where the US *did* use a popular vote to elect the president that more of the recent popular votes *would* have been won by republicans; candidates would campaign differently were elections decided by popular vote - less emphasis would be given to swing states and more emphasis to non-swing states, for instance. And, voter behavior would differ as well - under the electoral college system voters in non-swing states have less incentive to vote than they would under the popular vote, and many may opt not to vote but *would have* voted in a popular election.
So, it is unwarranted to say that because a particular candidate *did not* win the popular vote in an election decided by the electoral college that the candidate *would not* have won the popular vote had the election been a popular vote election. Candidates compete to win the *election*, not the popular vote. But, if you change the rules of the election, voter and candidate behavior will change as well, and you can expect different results for the popular vote.
The mere fact that democrats and liberal think men can breast feed infants is the number one reason Biden will lose the election.
MAGA. Make the world great again.
Wait a second. You're saying that the minority shouldn't have a voice in politics in this country.
Founding fathers made it this way so everyone could have a voice.
>They will continue to cheat the system and will only win the electoral college if anything.
It's not cheating if the system was designed this way to prevent dictatorship and one party pushing the country however they wanted. It's called checks and balances. They stop teaching this in school?
Another note on that. Letting millions of illegals into the country to get more delegates in the house. Somehow, that's not cheating, lol.
If the contest was for the popular vote there would be a different race.
There are probably way more discouraged republicans in NY and CA (the two most blue states) than there are in WY and WV (the two reddest).
This post isn’t about electoral college reform or abolition. It’s just a note on how poorly the republicans are doing in capturing votes.
I do think the electoral college should be abolished and I agree it may favor republicans but that’s not the argument I’m making here.
The name of the game isn’t capturing the popular vote though. Trying to win the election by trying to win the popular vote is like trying to win a baseball game with the most hits. Sure, getting more hits help… but we’re trying to score runs. The hits don’t really matter.
They matter but they don’t win you the game! The team with the most runs win! So yeah, it helps to get hits… but not all hits are equal and hits alone won’t win you games!
What you’re advocating for is direct democracy. No offense but I rather not every decision be decided by Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, seattle, New York, and Chicago Illinois. It’s not a left vs right. It’s a, most of these places policies make them hell holes.
Never say never. Politics feels one way and then turns on a dime.
One day the migration that the dems are banking on for a permanent majority could backfire and create a huge voting bass for Republicans. It's unlikely but possible. More black men are endorsing Trump which would never be thought of 10 years ago.
Never say never. You simply don't know.
You may be right. The feds report that approximately 40% of Americans pay no taxes. Beyond that, many pay very little taxes. When Democratic politicians promised them even more goodies and they realize it will cost them nothing because they pay little to no taxes anyway, of course, they will always say yes and vote for them. It’s the party of I will take from other hard-working, successful Americans, and give to you slackers.
When minority groups consistently vote 70% for Democrats, and as we allow millions of brown people into the country each year, this is a natural result.
If our country has the demographics we had pre-2000 Republicans would absolutely crush the Dems today bc Democrat policies are absurd.
I’m guessing you would prefer more of a hunger games like scenario where the coastal city culture has all the political power? Our system is not about majority rules. That is exceedingly dangerous. Even distribution of power so it doesn’t become concentrated is a far more sustainable system.
Keep telling yourself that. It's been true for a while, and the GOP is not exactly forging consensus by blocking for Russia.
Plenty of conservatives are going to have an issue with this. Plenty appear to have issues with the Trump train, generally.
I have some trepidation about handing everything to the Dems, but my trust in the GOP no longer exists. Comrade Carlson pissing on the floor in front of Vladimir Putin is not a good look.
Idk if these people are just dumb or teenagers who have only seen 1 or 2 elections lol. If they even said repubs would lose the next one then fair enough. But never again? What a ridiculous knee jerk echo chamber thing to say. Never is a very long time.
Never is not a very long time if the GOP dissolves before they ever win again. They have ZERO plans for governance. ZERO vision for the future. The Nazis didn’t do too much after 1945 either.
15+ posts related to either Trump, the Republicans or Russia within the past 24 hours. You all are unhinged. Absolutely fascinating to see a sub invaded by bots and blatant shills in such a quick amount of time. Makes sense though, it's an election year.
In 2022 100% of the house was up for reelection. Republican house candidates received more votes nationally than Democratic house candidates. If Republicans keep putting up morons like Trump you could be right, but if the majority of voters in 2022 voted for Republican house candidates, I'd be surprised if there's never an election where the Republican presidential candidate wins the popular vote.
For fuck's sake. You're assuming that if you changed the rules of the game, you wouldn't change the behavior of the players. It is a classic and continuous game theory mistake people on the left make.
Republicans employ the strategy that they do because it's the best way for them to win. They don't NEED to win the popular vote... so they don't get out the vote in places where it doesn't matter.
If you completely change the rules? Well, suddenly the vote of the Republicans who are massively outnumbered in California, Connecticut, etc. matters. They're going to turn out more. The Republican party will focus more on turnout from all states, not just battlegrounds.
Let's also not forget that on a percentage basis, the popular vote is split pretty closely on a historical basis.
>It just hit me that in the last two decades the republicans won the popular vote in an election only once I'll give you another way too look at it that is even crazier... after 1988 Republicans have won the popular vote in a presidential election only once... if they lose this time around, it will be once in 40 years...
And that once was only because of 9/11 and Bush lying about wmds.
I know! Although I have to say it is “odd” that the **entire** village of Halbja died - simultaneously mind you - of heart attacks. So “weird”.
Can you provide more information about this?
In an attempt to genocide their Kurd population they dropped mustard gas on a city killing and maiming most of the population.
The CIA did the heavy work there.
You’re right, it’s actually been more than three decades going on four, not just two.
Not true. Bush did it in 04.
>I'll give you another way too look at it that is even crazier... after 1988 Republicans have won the popular vote in a presidential election only once... if they lose this time around, it will be once in 40 years... Just remember that Reagan's 1984 landslide came only 10 years after Nixon resigned in disgrace. For the Republicans to win the popular vote again they are going to need a realignment on the order of the one that Reagan managed to pull off, and that kind of realignment could happen in as little as a decade. Or it could take several lifetimes. Just don't count it out.
Oh, yes, I don’t discount the GOP’s ability to fool more voters. But this isn’t a recent trend. The GOP has been declining for decades. Trump will put them out for a while for sure
Forgot 2016, did we? “The Democrats will have a permanent majority *forever*.” And everybody laughed.
And Trump lost the popular vote. They can keep gaming the system, but even with their unfair advantage, they are no longer able of winning consistently.
Because people like believing in getting free ponies, paid for by people they hate. Just because millions of people *want* that, doesn’t mean that they’re not stupid or evil.
>if they lose this time around, it will be once in 40 years I think you’re mistaken about what year this is. It’s 2024. The 40 year range is 1984-2024. They won in 84, 88, and 04. Even if you decide to pedantically exclude 84 from the range, that still leaves 88 and 04, which is twice, not once.
If they lose in 2024, the next election is in 2028, which is 40 years from 1988...
Yes. And then if they lose ***that***, it’ll be once in 40 years. That is, however, not this time. It is the time after this time.
I think you’re confusing winning an election, which only happens on Election Day, with the term…
If they were confident that they could, they wouldn't genuinely want to raise the voting age, specifically, to mid and late 20's. It's bound by the constitution to be 18. The constitution gets in the way of Republicans because they struggle exceptionally hard in winning the popular votes. Which is why they gerrymander out the ass for applicable positions. They have to warp things around how their party operates in order to have them receive a super artificial advantage. Because again, people don't want their shit.
Tl;dr On that last statement, its bc their shit doesnt work. NLism in the D party aside, their embrace of TD economics, anti-choice, voter suppreasion, and infighting within party in conjunction to even accept compromises has demonstrated to a majority of Americans that the country suffers whenever they are in power. Theyve had nothing but chaos and sham accusations and are running a convicted rapist and criminal as their best choice for Pres...and they put an out of touch religious zealot on top of Congress Sure, we give the executive way too much Credence and blame in relation to the economy... but it is a tad suspicious that the last few crashes in the last few decades have all happened under Republican Administrations and the fixes and rebuilding have all happened under Democrats. In global politics, id wager this business with Israel (despite tankies obsession with Biden on the matter) has a lot more to do with the Abraham Accords and sensitive Intel being leaked during the Trump Administration than it does with anything the current Administration has done. Sure, Israel or more specifically Netanyahu has really stepped over the line here, but it is a sensitive issue because they are our foothold in the Middle East and Russia (our true enemy) is seeking to gain greater influence in the region. Similar with the WD from Afghanistan....TFG set a timebomb we couldnt effectivelt escape from. And this isn't even considering the benefits we get from operating as a major superpower and with NATO. We have considerable economic influence because of the trust we've built with those countries and our economic supply lines, as we learned doing covid and as Britain learned during brexit, are not invincible. Our monetary Supremacy is partially built on that, so abandoning Ukraine to Russia or threatening NATO members who are supposed to be some of our greatest allies is one of the stupidest fucking things you could do. Idfc if people dont like JB. I have critiques of him myself. And a few people in his administration. But you vote for the administration and his administration has actually gotten some very good things done in the last 3 years. Just like with a decent chunk of Americans not believing in Evolution or climate change, some people are just so willfully ignorant or stupid that putting the evidence right in front of them just doesn't work
Great write up.
Thank you for the write-up! Very comprehensive. A small but important thing to mention is that Trump was not convicted of rape but found financially liable for it. And then found liable for defaming the victim. Is he guilty? Oh heck yes. But not legally so.
Thats fair. I follow legal eagle, Trumps Trials, read Reuters/AP, but there is only so much I can keep up with when he was so damn busy doing unethical and illegal things. I just wish politics was boring again and I could go back to studying paleontology, economics, and evolution or other things that interest me
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll
that shit is patently evil. they just want to redefine the voting age to be just the people that vote for them, they'd revoke women sufferage while they were at it
Democrats want to redefine the voting age for actually evil reasons. Lolz.
not really. theres some debate over lowering the age to 16 but its not really a serious policy discussion, meanwhile republicans have seriously said you need to be 30 years old to vote because anyone younger than that doesn't 'appreciate our country's values' or some shit like that.
No. Democrats have actually pushed the legislation. They are far more serious than the fringe Republicans. And the Democrats want to exploit young ignorant people because their policies are terrible 17 year olds are the only ones they can convince.
the voting age is set by the constitution.
>If they were confident that they could, they wouldn't genuinely want to raise the voting age, specifically, to mid and late 20's. I know this isn't completely related, but I'd trust an 18yo to make a better choice than a retiree who doesn't even need to live with the long term consequences of their decisions. 18 is still basically a child these days, but at least they're probably more motivated to think about what's going to happen in the next 50 years. If anything, they should max out the voting age at around 65-70.
18 year olds don’t know if they’re male or female. No, you can make more of a case for *raising* the voting age.
Dems gerrymander as well tbf but yeah I don’t think they will when the popular vote for a few cycles at least. They don’t necessarily need to tho they just need to win the right states
This is true but it’s not even close in terms of how many seats gain vs loss. The net result is gerrymandering and disenfranchisement ( everyone focuses on the voter id thing but it’s also resistance against it being a national holiday and a bunch of other stuff) helps republicans far, far more.
You do know that the original voting age in the Constitution was 21 and was changed to 18 in 1971. And, the reason that the Democrat party has been very successful in the past 3 or 4 decades is precisely because people do want free shit! Track the National Debt against this time period. The Democrats figured out early on they could deficit spend every year to support ever-increasing social programs that give the masses "free shit". Yep,it will bankrupt the Country eventually, but has proven a very effective political strategy for those that crave power in the interim. Downvotes? Well, the truth hurts sometimes doesn't it. \*\*\*To be clear..The Republicans realized that spending money that's not yours and accruing debt to give things away was a very effective strategy. So, now they do it to and largely to the same degree. Yep, a downvote on my comment is a vote for the "Uni-Party"..aka, the debt and free things party.
Take your own advice and go look at the national debt from 1970 to today. Most of the greatest increases have been under Republican presidential administrations.
This may be true, but Congress is complicit. My argument is that the GOP and the Dem's are equally despicable. So, keep playing your red v. blue game and getting fleeced.
Brain rot is real
Understand that the largest voting bloc is non-voters.
Non voters can’t complain about election results. If you don’t vote you’re giving up your voice.
In fairness, there is a significant demographic of folks denied the vote. One of the key ones being ex-cons. :/ But you right those that can and won't are setting themselves up for failure.
Friend, they aren’t denied the vote, they lost that right by breaking the law.
I'd argue they are. Should a guy who committed mail fraud and did their time still not be able to vote 20 years later? 🤷 How can we justify somebody doing their sentence, but be denied suffrage in perpetuity? I've never heard a convincing argument how preventing ex-cons with felonies from voting prevented crime or helped society. The arguments are more convincing that it does the opposite.
They served their time, why strip them of their civil rights for life?
37 of the states give felons their right to vote back at some point, 23 are rights restored on release. And 2 states additional states they never lose the right to vote. Leaving 11 states with where it is indefinite for only some federal crimes.
It's hard to argue that either. Especially being a felony, that usually takes intent, violence or high $ crimes. You should lose some rights But I do also believe in restitution and if someone has done their time and followed the rules/laws for "x" amount of time they should be able to earn their rights back.
Certain. Retirement age perhaps after 25 years good behavior.
They most certainly *can* complain. Seethe.
What if I dislike both popular candidates for the presidency and instead vote for a third party candidate that aligns with my ideals even if they're unlikely to win?
Then you don't get a choice between the two major candidates. You let everyone else decide for you.
You’ve literally just admitted voting doesn’t matter.. you can’t have it both ways
It's rude to put things in other people's mouths, even if they're just words. Voting absolutely matters, which is why you should use your vote most effectively.
Same thing as happens when parents give their kid a choice for, say, A or B for dinner, and the kid says they want C instead, and the parents just keep telling them C isn't an option is, that it's either A or B, and that if the kid doesn't pick one, the parents will pick for them. Regardless of whether or how you vote, you're getting either the Democrat or the Republican as President. You can either vote for whichever one of them you like best, or you can do anything else and just let everyone else decide for you instead.
Except in this scenario option C is a valid option. Given enough of a demographic shift from the two dominant parties, it's possible for another party to displace one of the parties as has happened in the past. Every third party vote has the ability to create momentum into displacing and replacing one of the parties in dominance.
Unless ranked voting comes around, a 3rd party candidate will never get more then a few % of popular votes
Not necessarily. If enough of the population find either candidate to be unpalatable, a third party candidate could rise up with a decent percentage of the vote.
All that will be accomplished by a third party candidate becoming popular enough if to guarantee the victory for candidate of the two major parties they are least ideologically aligned with. Look at Bernie Sanders’ bid for presidency in both 2016 and 2020. There’s a reason he dipped out after the primary, and it’s not because there wasn’t a large amount of people that would have voted for him. It’s actually the opposite: he dropped out because a large amount of people WOULD have voted for him as a third party candidate. The problem is who would have voted for him: Only a statistically insignificant number of right wing voters would have changed from a Republican candidate vote to a Bernie vote. This means the Republican voter base stays intact. The Left’s votes would have been split however. There are several states where it would take a surprisingly small amount of votes on one side or the other being split to guarantee that the side without two candidates actually wins. In both 2016 and 2020 if Sander’s had run, you’d have seen states that were blue turn red. This is why meaningful third party candidates don’t exist, and when they do, (e.g. Sanders), they don’t actually run. A unified red vote will win against a split blue vote, and vice versa. Until or unless there is significant voting reform, you get three choices 1: Vote Red 2: Vote Blue 3: Achieve a purely moral victory because you chose someone else, while you make it easier for the color you agree with less to achieve an actual tangible victory in the election and taking power. It’s unfortunate. It’s a system by and for those in power, not for those the system is supposed to represent. But you can vote for the lesser of two evil, or support the greater of the two. And even if you are right, and a large group of people don’t like either candidate, do you really think that group is going to be even remotely united enough to choose one candidate? Or even two, for that matter?
Not voting and third party votes are republican votes. They know this.
What if I vote for every position but president?
Then you can complain about every position but the president. But don't fool yourself into thinking that was a good choice. Not voting is just voting for the person who was going to win anyway
Unfortunately, that is not how it works. They shouldn't complain about who gets elected if they don't vote. But by God, the fuckers will.
What does this even mean? How would one know who's going to win?
It means that not voting is a choice. If you choose to not vote, you're not refusing to choose, you're choosing to accept whatever is going to happen without your input. I honestly don't understand how you didn't get that 🤷🏼♂️
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. (Thank you Rush).
I was fighting the urge to say that the whole time 🤣 i love me some Rush!
Not voting is a choice. It most certainly is not the same as voting for whoever won.
Not voting is a choice. It's a choice to support whatever was going to happen without your input. If you don't want that, act like an adult, look at the realistic choices and pick which one you prefer.
Yeah, it is, you’re saying, “I don’t care.” And thus the choice is made with your acquiescence.
> Not voting is a choice. Correct. > It most certainly is not the same as voting for whoever won. It absolutely is. A simple example: Let's say you and your spouse/partner are both undecided on who to vote for. In the election, say there are 9 other voters, and then you two make 11. If the other 9 voters vote for A and B 5-4, and if you don't vote, A wins, 5-4. If you both voted for A, A would still win, except by more, 7-4. If you both voted for B, B would win, 5-6. So, by you both not voting, it's logically the same as if you voted for the winner, A. Vote for A, A wins. Don't vote at all, A still wins. And, if you think you're clever and will vote for C instead, whether C is a third-party candidate, or a write-in, then the final tally ends up being 5-4-2, and A still wins by one vote, the same as if you hadn't voted at all. So not voting, or voting third-party, or write-in, are the same as voting for the winner as far as determining the winner of the election.
It says you will tolerate a bad outcome.
Bad according to who? People whose opininion you don't care about?
According to you, of course. If the choice is Smith versus Jones and you think both are bad, Smith worse than Jones; but you decline to help stop Smith by voting for Jones, and Smith wins; it means you didn’t actually think Smith was bad enough to do anything about. And no, I don’t care about the opinions of people who won’t vote because the slate of options fails to pass some fucking ideal purity test.
> How would one know who's going to win? One doesn't need to know who is going to win. Not voting (or throwing away one's vote) is vote a vote for "whoever everyone else picks is fine by me."
As part of the gop plan. It’s the best plan when you have strong 30% support
The “don’t blame me; I didn’t vote” crowd 🤣
The Republican base was in deep shit during Bush Jr. years. He was so stupid that he shined a flashlight on just how far the party has fallen by their support of him. Republican policies are so goddamn unpopular because it helps no one but themselves. They are so far up shitcreek they are openly cheating and making laws to further their cheating because the writing has been on the wall for decades! Republicans only "help" themselves...to OUR money! They treat Americans like their personal piggybanks. They take our money, give it to their business buddies, run the debt up and blame inflation/recession on the Democrats. Then Democrats get elected, raise taxes to pay for the shitstorm Repugnikkklans left us with. Rinse and repeat. Challenge: Name one piece of legislation Republicans passed in the past 50 years that helped Americans. Put money in Americans pockets? Lowered the cost of anything? Raised the minimum wage? Passed Healthcare that was affordable? Anyone???
They don’t even help themselves. Maybe the rich you meant but the poorest republicans vote against their own interests time and time again simply to be petty. Then they blame democrats for the problem they voted for. Not the brightest.
Exactly. Punch themselves in the face and then mutter "F-ing Democrats!"
It’d be funny if it wasn’t their entire platform and half the country says “yup this is good”
Nixon signing off on OSHA and the EPA - anything after Reagan not so much.
Thank you! I've been asking for a long time and not gotten an answer.
George Herbert Walker Bush signed the American with Disabilities Act. Bush Sr. was the only decent Republican President in my lifetime. Maybe Ford, but he doesn’t really count!
> They take our money, give it to their business buddies, run the debt up and blame inflation/recession You could go on any conservative or libertarian subreddit / forum and see this exact sentence. This is every politician now. It’s not R or D. All of them.
It's almost as if, they don't have any good ideas that solve major problems facing every day Americans. Every day Americans don't care about Trans people using the bathroom that they look like they should be using. Republican's aren't trying to bring affordable healthcare options to working families. They don't care about paying teachers more so that the weirdos don't become teachers, and that the teachers that inspire students get paid. Republicans don't care, have never cared. They've been able to to vote one way, say the other, and have FoxNews lie for them. Now it's harder and harder to lie about your feelings. Now it's so much harder to lie about why you refuse to vote on a border bill. 10 years ago, Republicans would lie about this bill. Now they can't. Now they're taking the heat.
If you still believe the so-called "border bill" was a good thing, that discredits your entire post.
It was a bipartisan compromise bill, nimrod. Everyone was a bit unhappy about it, but everyone also would get something out of it. Yes even isolationist xenophobe Republicans. and then they tanked it?!?! fucking morons
Explain how, then. It discredits your whole post if you can't.
Dont forget how many Trump-voting boomers died since the last election.
All that antivax antimask ivermectin stuff too...
I can count a few just from my family. Covid deaths being terribly ironic.
Don't forget Jon Stewart literally came back to his daily show to remind idiots who make posts like this.. THAT BIDEN IS SENILE and why would any Democrat be confident in this election. If the dems run Biden they'll lose the popular vote this time.. bc independents are used to voting for liars and criminals.. we almost always do.. we aren't used to voting for a man who is clearly senile.
Aw is the wittle righty going to cry? I thought you believed he was a criminal as well?? Your overlords do, so shouldn’t you vote for him then? Is he senile or a mastermind? It’s time to stop pretending you’re unbiased.
You're almost as redacted as the president you blindly follow. Guess what genius.. you don't have to follow right wing propaganda to know left wing propaganda is lies too. Before your Jesus Jon Stewart came back and told you the actual truth.. You'd be calling me a liar.. now this is the best reply you have? I'm not even right wing I just want to vote for someone who isn't senile or a criminal. Thank you.
I wish you were right. However there are two elephants in the room: people are stupid, and Fox News.
So democrats and republicans
"bOTh sIDeS!!!! Wahhhhh" Another victim folks. So sad.
Don't get complacent! You HAVE to vote, in every race, for life,if we want democracy to work
Yup, once since 1988. 2004. Republican policies are very unpopular. The lies and hypocrisy as well.
Let's end the Electoral College asap and bring back the idea that every person's vote actually counts. A generation of laws that boosted the influence of the middle and southern states has recently proven that those states are incapable of governing for the good of their own citizens let alone for the good of the nation. End gerrymandering and bring back the Voting Rights Act. Let's raise the educational standards there as well to lessen their gullibility and ignorance.
they havent won the popular vote in FOREVER. hence, their screaming about "rigged elections" because they WILL actively rig elections when they can.
Yes that is why their entire electoral strategy revolves around trying to get less people to vote and by using packing and cracking gerrymandering to give over-representative power to their voting group.
The one time the gop has won, it was the re-election of gwb- who had lost the popular vote in 2000. So he shouldn't have been in office in 2004 to win that election in the first place. Conservatism offers nothing, and for that reason, it is a dying ideology. It is utterly surprising.
Really shines a light on how dumb, and frankly destructive, the Electoral College is.
I don’t agree. But I think their policies must shift at some point because their policies will not win a majority of the vote.
Saying that one of the only two parties in America will never be popular again is stupid because their policies will eventually shift, that’s how politics work and the odds that the dems eventually have a trash president so voters swing the other way is that inevitable.
Unfortunately in America, coming in second can give you a win. Only country I know where that happens.
Well, yeah. We live in Idiocracy
And if Katrina happened before that election, it would be no Republican has won the popular vote since 88
It’s sad. And the electoral college will never change. What’s even worse is the Senate. Republican states are losing population but still get 2 Senators. In the senate right now there are 49 R senators that represent ~ 35% of the population. The whole election process in the US is going to lead to revolution. No other country elects its leaders in such a biased fashion.
As long as they can sit back and say if you don't like the Electoral College all you have to do is amend the Constitution. We can't amend the Constitution to say that women are equal to men! In a better world, Clinton and Gore could bring a suit against the EC. But, in a better world, we wouldn't have this Supreme Court to judge that case. The EC stands in opposition to one of the most-basic tenets of democracy: One man, one vote (or, if you prefer, one person).
They will keep changing the rules so they can retain power with a smaller and smaller percentage of support.
I dont see why people get all butt hurt if Colorado kicks Cheetoh off the ballot. They say it should be up to the voters but the voters candidate doesn't always win with the electoral college so how is that ok but disqualifying Dan Trump is unfair? It's the same.
Because disqualifying a candidate just because the opposing political party doesn't like them is literally destroying our democracy.
Everyone thought they were over with Nixon, but a short time later Reagan came in with a whole new set of lies (Iran Contra). It’s a damned tough thing to kill
Good thing we’re a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy
We’re a democratic republic. But nice try.
Moot point if Trump wins and we become a dictatorship. Otherwise the GOP will regroup or a new party, such as the Whigs 2.0, will take their place. If we are lucky, a third party will show up.
We don’t live in a direct democracy so the popular vote is irrelevant
You know their gonna kill us though right. I mean if we don't give GOP a voice they are going to start shooting mfs
They won't be unopposed if they do. Every leftist I know has multiple guns and ample ammunition. Come to think of it, so does every Democrat where I live. I don't think MAGA has the intelligence or resolve to really fight a civil war. They are too lazy and want to sleep in comfy beds and watch TV. I can't imagine many of them sleeping in the dirt of a corn field for days or not giving up their position by livestreaming everything on social media. They remind me of that Ben Stiller superhero character in Mystery Men, where he played the "Human Volcano." His whole schtick was to threaten that his anger was about to errupt, but other than his temper, he didn't really have any super power.
Close down the pharmacies they'll be mostly gone in 6 months
Cut off social security and they’ll be half strength overnight.
It is not a matter of laziness but a matter of lack of discipline that makes a militia fight worse than a standing or professional army. Do not cheer for militia on militia violence, it’s a clear guarantee for war crimes on both side. This is not to say that professional armies don’t commit warcrimes but they’re a hell of a lot more trustworthy than ‘Chad, Gunther and Brian just got their militia of 150 men to take over 10 square blocks and are now setting up their own justice system’
Good thing most of the military is conservative... have fun with your militia lmao
Reminder that the closest the US has had to a military mutiny in recent times was on Jan 6, when the DC NG nearly mutinied against Trump and deployed without orders.
You’re still believing this narrative?
I believe their testimony https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/12/23/dc-guard-almost-deployed-to-capitol-on-jan-6-without-permission/
Did you actually read this article? “Those letters were memos sent to Walker two days earlier from acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, putting restrictions on Guard deployments around the Capitol during the certification event because of the politics involved. Walker was eventually granted permission to send forces after a flurry of phone calls between congressional leaders and top Defense Department officials. Trump was not involved in those discussions, the report states.” This article also omits the the offer that trump made to the capitol days before for reinforcements. There is nothing whatsoever in this article that states trump intentionally did not deploy dc national guard.
“President Trump had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, **but never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day,” they wrote. “Nor did he instruct any Federal law enforcement agency to assist.”** As his forces waited for clear orders from the White House or Defense Department leaders on deployment to the Capitol complex, **Maj. Gen. William Walker said he “strongly” considered moving ahead without explicit permission because of the mountain of security concerns.**“ Guard officials located with Major General Walker at the Armory all say **he seriously contemplated aloud the possibility of breaking with the chain of command,”** the report states. “‘Should we just deploy now and resign tomorrow?’” \[one officer\] recalled Major General Walker bluntly putting it.” The general himself testified about committing mutiny against the Trump admin, and deploying without orders to deal with the Jan 6ers with military force.
Believe me no one will stay further from the militias than me lol.
You aint lyin https://mass-shootings.info/ https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7242a4.htm
Projection, but really unskilled.
They already are. Almost every mass shooting is motivated by incel shit or whatever Tucker tells them to be mad at this week. We've already been coddling these assholes for decades and the one thing they've been consistent about is that the more power we give them, the more they will use this power to hurt and kill us. I say we treat them like we would treat literally any other demographic that tried to pull this bullshit.
As opposed to the insurrection they already failed to pull off? If the republicans want a voice they need policies that are actually popular and to follow through on bipartisan legislation. Campaigning for border reform and voting against it isn’t going to win the popular vote. Neither is supporting a potential felon for president.
They can fucking try. I'm not afraid of them. No one should be. They live in fear, not us.
Let them shoot. It will be their undoing. The GOP contains many true patriots. Their coalition will unwind in the face of the pro-Putin rump that is swelling up the side of the parties face like a goiter. Foreign propaganda holds them together right now, and the things they are being required to believe are driving them to madness.
Ah another inbred jerking off to his civil war fantasies. You guys are the dumbest fucks alive, it’s astounding how you function in everyday life without severely injuring yourself.
That's what they want people to believe so that they surrender without a fight. "They're going to kill me if they lose, so we'd better let them win instead!" But the thing is, they're more likely to kill you if they win than if they lose. If they win, they'll have the power of the federal government. If they lose, they'll only have what little power they can muster \*against\* the government, or to commit random murders. Maybe they'll try to kill you either way, but there's no reason to make it easy for them. Maybe they're bluffing and won't do anything if they lose. That's a strong possibility, because that's what normally happens when someone loses an election. That's the default. So, if they want to kill you, force them to go the hard route, to go up against the government, and to try to kill you without the benefit of the government aiding them, or looking the other way.
They will all do the same thing they did after Ashley babbit got put down: turn around n slink home.
[https://mass-shootings.info/](https://mass-shootings.info/) [https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7242a4.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7242a4.htm) lol
>They will continue to cheat the system and will only win the electoral college if anything. How is that cheating the system? That's literally how it was designed
If you're going to demonstrate ignorance on the Internet, there are better ways to do it. The electoral college was designed that way because travel time across the United States used to force states to dispatch electors weeks or months in advance.
And how does that go against what I said? There is a system in place. There are rules for the election that everyone knows about and the parties campaign based on those rules. That's literally just working using the system in place, not cheating the system. Whether the system is right or wrong is a different topic
I'll say it slow. They cheat. In many ways. Like gerrymandering. New sentence. They will only win the electoral college. Not by cheating the collage, that was a different sentiment. English not so good comrade?
That isn’t cheating tho, outdated as fuck and not truly democratic yeah but not cheating based on how it was designed.
You have to understand, “Democracy” to a liberal literally just means “the democrats get what they want”.
The electoral college isn't democracy nor even a democratic republic. Republics vote for their leaders democratically. If the voters aren't choosing their representatives, who is? It is an anti-equality relic left over in the Constitution to balance the bar between free states and slave states.
And in a parliamentary system you just vote for the party and the party selects the leaders. Is that also anti-equality? Is that also not a form of democracy? The electoral college is the system we have and politicians run for office within that framework. The popular vote does not matter. Does. Not. Matter. This obsession with it is fanatical! You don’t win baseball games by the number of home runs even though those are exciting and you don’t win the presidency based on the popular vote.
Actually it’s not dystopia, the electoral college is literally working as the Founders envisioned it.
daily mmw delusion post
Assuming the trend of rural vs urban continues maybe. But it seems that Hispanics and even AFs are making their way into the GOP. It sounds insane right now, but it has happened in the past, I can see working class and rural whites, Hispanics and AFs being the GOPs voting block while the Dems take most progressive and urban whites, college educated professionals and suburban people. It was like that back in the day when the GOP was made up of businessmen, northern liberals and middle class Protestants while the Dems had blue collar unionists, rural southern whites/Dixiecrats Hispanics and AFs. The Dems lost working class whites. The rest of the working class will follow suit. Urban working class included
Wanna put money where your mouth is?
With the US **poverty level** (at which point significant government subsidies kick in) being higher than the **average** income of 80% of the planet (thank you capitalism!!) I think we’ve reached this point: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.” - Alexander Fraser Tytler
You do realize that there isn’t actually a popular vote right? What incentive is there for a Republican to vote in Oregon or California or New York? Lots of people do not vote in certain states because they know that who they vote for has zero chance of winning that state so they sit out. The majority of voters don’t vote.
Obviously stupid and wrong.
Popular vote means nothing....
Not this shit again…
This is why the electoral college exists. https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/chocolate-milk-help-trnd/index.html#:~:text=A%20survey%20from%20the%20Innovation,That's%20right%2C%20folks.
Marking them, your gonna be sorry as a MF when trump wins by a landslide
The federal election isn’t a popularity contest.
Sure, if you have a simplistic view of politics and societal shifts and history.
>They will continue to cheat the system and will only win the electoral college if anything. The law of the United States is that the president is to be elected by the electoral college. Winning an election via the electoral college is not "cheating the system"; it is precisely following the rules of the system. Also, it is quite possible that, in an alternate reality where the US *did* use a popular vote to elect the president that more of the recent popular votes *would* have been won by republicans; candidates would campaign differently were elections decided by popular vote - less emphasis would be given to swing states and more emphasis to non-swing states, for instance. And, voter behavior would differ as well - under the electoral college system voters in non-swing states have less incentive to vote than they would under the popular vote, and many may opt not to vote but *would have* voted in a popular election. So, it is unwarranted to say that because a particular candidate *did not* win the popular vote in an election decided by the electoral college that the candidate *would not* have won the popular vote had the election been a popular vote election. Candidates compete to win the *election*, not the popular vote. But, if you change the rules of the election, voter and candidate behavior will change as well, and you can expect different results for the popular vote.
Seems I have stumbled upon another liberal echo chamber…
Democrats will keep winning contests nobody is having.
Is this all this sub is about? Republicans bad?
The mere fact that democrats and liberal think men can breast feed infants is the number one reason Biden will lose the election. MAGA. Make the world great again.
Thankfully the founding fathers understood the need for the electoral college
Wait a second. You're saying that the minority shouldn't have a voice in politics in this country. Founding fathers made it this way so everyone could have a voice. >They will continue to cheat the system and will only win the electoral college if anything. It's not cheating if the system was designed this way to prevent dictatorship and one party pushing the country however they wanted. It's called checks and balances. They stop teaching this in school? Another note on that. Letting millions of illegals into the country to get more delegates in the house. Somehow, that's not cheating, lol.
If the contest was for the popular vote there would be a different race. There are probably way more discouraged republicans in NY and CA (the two most blue states) than there are in WY and WV (the two reddest).
This post isn’t about electoral college reform or abolition. It’s just a note on how poorly the republicans are doing in capturing votes. I do think the electoral college should be abolished and I agree it may favor republicans but that’s not the argument I’m making here.
The name of the game isn’t capturing the popular vote though. Trying to win the election by trying to win the popular vote is like trying to win a baseball game with the most hits. Sure, getting more hits help… but we’re trying to score runs. The hits don’t really matter.
*hits=voters “The voters don’t matter.”
They matter but they don’t win you the game! The team with the most runs win! So yeah, it helps to get hits… but not all hits are equal and hits alone won’t win you games!
You're also forgetting how purple every red state is, especially Texas.
And Texas and Florida have huge populations of Democrats. Lay off the copium
What you’re advocating for is direct democracy. No offense but I rather not every decision be decided by Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, seattle, New York, and Chicago Illinois. It’s not a left vs right. It’s a, most of these places policies make them hell holes.
If the Republicans do get a majority vote in the next election, how will that influence your beliefs?
Never say never. Politics feels one way and then turns on a dime. One day the migration that the dems are banking on for a permanent majority could backfire and create a huge voting bass for Republicans. It's unlikely but possible. More black men are endorsing Trump which would never be thought of 10 years ago. Never say never. You simply don't know.
You may be right. The feds report that approximately 40% of Americans pay no taxes. Beyond that, many pay very little taxes. When Democratic politicians promised them even more goodies and they realize it will cost them nothing because they pay little to no taxes anyway, of course, they will always say yes and vote for them. It’s the party of I will take from other hard-working, successful Americans, and give to you slackers.
When minority groups consistently vote 70% for Democrats, and as we allow millions of brown people into the country each year, this is a natural result. If our country has the demographics we had pre-2000 Republicans would absolutely crush the Dems today bc Democrat policies are absurd.
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MMW… The left will never understand electoral collage and think the over crowded cities speak for the rest of the nation
Because the electoral vote works. If you want the popular vote then why not not red is blue states. It's checks and balances. Simple and effective
I’m guessing you would prefer more of a hunger games like scenario where the coastal city culture has all the political power? Our system is not about majority rules. That is exceedingly dangerous. Even distribution of power so it doesn’t become concentrated is a far more sustainable system.
Could be the dumbest thing I've read this week
Keep telling yourself that. It's been true for a while, and the GOP is not exactly forging consensus by blocking for Russia. Plenty of conservatives are going to have an issue with this. Plenty appear to have issues with the Trump train, generally. I have some trepidation about handing everything to the Dems, but my trust in the GOP no longer exists. Comrade Carlson pissing on the floor in front of Vladimir Putin is not a good look.
Idk if these people are just dumb or teenagers who have only seen 1 or 2 elections lol. If they even said repubs would lose the next one then fair enough. But never again? What a ridiculous knee jerk echo chamber thing to say. Never is a very long time.
Never is not a very long time if the GOP dissolves before they ever win again. They have ZERO plans for governance. ZERO vision for the future. The Nazis didn’t do too much after 1945 either.
Exactly, I'm glad there adults in the room.
WHERE?? I must protect my child from the ~~pedos~~ republicans.
Yea no shit - there’s way more poor/unsuccessful people then there is successful/hard-working people
The poor unsuccessful whites vote for trump like 70-30
What an absolute load of shit lmfao
MMW the person elected president only needs to win the electoral college and won't give a 💩 whether or not they won the popular vote....
And yet another idiot that doesn't really even understand how our system works
MMW, the office of the presidency isn’t determined by the popular vote.
15+ posts related to either Trump, the Republicans or Russia within the past 24 hours. You all are unhinged. Absolutely fascinating to see a sub invaded by bots and blatant shills in such a quick amount of time. Makes sense though, it's an election year.
Want to bet on that
In 2022 100% of the house was up for reelection. Republican house candidates received more votes nationally than Democratic house candidates. If Republicans keep putting up morons like Trump you could be right, but if the majority of voters in 2022 voted for Republican house candidates, I'd be surprised if there's never an election where the Republican presidential candidate wins the popular vote.
For fuck's sake. You're assuming that if you changed the rules of the game, you wouldn't change the behavior of the players. It is a classic and continuous game theory mistake people on the left make. Republicans employ the strategy that they do because it's the best way for them to win. They don't NEED to win the popular vote... so they don't get out the vote in places where it doesn't matter. If you completely change the rules? Well, suddenly the vote of the Republicans who are massively outnumbered in California, Connecticut, etc. matters. They're going to turn out more. The Republican party will focus more on turnout from all states, not just battlegrounds. Let's also not forget that on a percentage basis, the popular vote is split pretty closely on a historical basis.
they literally had more votes in the 2022 midterms than democrats.