Republicans going full anti-democratic. Want to get rid of one man one vote.

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by Ancalagon, Jun 20, 2022.

  1. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    (As FF with over-the-top whine voice)
    But..but..BLM! Antifa!! :dendroica:
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  2. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Look, Nazis, Thomas Paine was a founder, and he believed in anti-slavery and social spending.
    Our ideas go back to the start of this country, we're "real Americans".
    You can take this "leftism is treason" shit, and pound it up your asses with a rubber mallet.
    :bailey: :brood:
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  3. Ten Lubak

    Ten Lubak Salty Dog

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    This guy is a communist's wet dream - punishing companies financially for exercising free speech, controlling what can be taught in classrooms, registering your political views with the state - yet @Federal Farmer and millions of other "conservatives" will be masturbating furiously lining up to vote for this guy, like a bunch of idiots :lol:
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  4. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    Hmm, taking action to ensure that those who answer affirmative to being Republican are represented in a politically correct quantity. Sounds like the type of program the right loves defending.
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  5. Demiurge

    Demiurge Goodbye and Hello, as always.

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    'Like'? :)
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  6. Demiurge

    Demiurge Goodbye and Hello, as always.

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    New polling out by Pew - 65% of Americans support the repeal of the Electoral College. Only 33% support retaining it. A 2-1 majority.

    Maybe if this happens the GOP would have to actually start following politically popular agendas that people actually want.

    Which of course is why they will oppose that with every ounce of their being.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-r...-to-favor-moving-away-from-electoral-college/
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  7. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    Last time I checked, Lanz was a big backer of the EC.
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  8. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    Last I checked Twitter is still burning. Go get your fix junkie. chop chop, those tweets are not going to post themselves to wordforge.

    Fucking junkies thinking they are part of the discussion.
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  9. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    I definitely oppose it with every ounce of my being.
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  10. tafkats

    tafkats scream not working because space make deaf Moderator

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    Of course. We can't have the minority lose their ability to dictate to the majority. That would be un-American.
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  11. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    Which means you really don't give a shit if a third-party candidate ever wins the Presidency or not. Because, if we're lucky, what we're absolutely certain to get in the next 10+ years, if the EC stays in place, is one political party that on a national level will be reduced to an ineffective rump (at some state and local levels, it'll have power, but there's a significant question if those states will remain part of the US or try to break off), while the other party will not merely be rife with corruption, but it'll also become increasingly authoritarian.

    I need to point out that it doesn't matter if Republicans or Democrats become the dominant party in the Federal government in 2024, this is going to be the end result. The only difference between the two of them will be which one happens faster. Toss out the EC? Pretty soon, every Presidential election becomes a really contested hot-seat between multiple candidates from different parties. You know what happens when someone realizes that it doesn't matter if they're a Libertarian in CA? They realize that they might have a chance to get a Libertarian in the White House, regardless of how people around them vote. And folks who're Communists can vote for a Green Party candidate, or a Democratic Socialist candidate, or a Communist candidate, and know that there's a chance it could really make a difference in the election.

    Seriously, dude, stop and think about it. Doesn't matter your party, there are huge advantages to ditching the EC. Not only does it improve the chances of a third-party candidate winning (and since last I checked) the Libertarians were the third-largest party in the US, so from where I'm sitting, they've got the best chance of gaining a lot of ground, since they've already got a lot of infrastructure in place. But even if the Republicans and Democrats remain the two largest parties, they'll have to work a lot harder for every vote.

    Let's say that to be elected President, you have to get 51% of the popular vote. If no one does, then there's a runoff election in 30 days with, and wait for it, this is an idea to make it harder for any one political party to easily game the system. The number of candidates in the runoff election is randomly selected, with the provision that it must be more than two and has to be at least one less than the number of candidates who qualified on the ballot in at least 26 states. And we'd keep holding runoffs under those same rules until one candidate did get 51% of the vote.

    What happens the first time no candidate gets 51% of the vote? Holy shit! Things just got interesting. How many political parties were able to get a Presidential candidate on the ballot in at least 26 states? We'll say 14, because I think that might be right, though it could be wrong. You get the point, though, right? In such a situation, there could be as many as 13 different parties on the runoff ballot, or as few as 3. What then? How much fun do you want to make this? Because one way of doing this would be to have the total number of candidates on a runoff ballot be random, the candidates wouldn't be as random, since it would be based on the total number of votes an individual candidate got. So, if it was only three candidates on the runoff ballot, then it would be the top three vote-getting candidates. What if the Republican and Libertarian candidates came really close to one another? Which party would be able to peel away enough voters from the other to make a difference? Maybe enough Libertarians like the idea of legal drugs more than they do cutting food stamps that they might hop over to the Democratic candidate on the runoff ballot. I don't know.

    Now hear me out, if we took it a step farther and said that not only will the number of candidates will be random, but the candidates themselves will be random. Suddenly, the advantage of a particular political party goes away as well. Now, you've got to worry about every motherfucker on the ballot at every step of the way. Because if there's going to be a runoff election, you want to make damn sure you pick the person you think is going to do the least amount of fucking damage. And the odds of there being shittier candidates on each subsequent ballot can potentially go up.

    Yeah, so not only do average Americans have to pay more attention to politics, but politicians have to pay closer attention to what average Americans want than they do now. Does that sound like a win-win to you? Because it does to me.
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  12. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Pft, FF ain't gonna read that.
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  13. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    Because he’s not really interested in learning anything.
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  14. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Ironically, he can probably chew through 6 hour binges of his alt-right Youtube swill.
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  15. 14thDoctor

    14thDoctor Oi

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    Are you suggesting land doesn't vote? Because obviously land votes. That's in the constitution or something. :bergman:
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  16. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    Not really so under a plurality winner system which would be the most likely replacement.

    That’s a much larger step than just getting rid of the Electoral College. It's... well, not quite disingenuous, but at least not very realistic... to ask someone to base their support for getting rid of the EC on an unlikely hypothetical replacement that's not even in use currently anywhere. And that's not even getting into the specifics of that plan, which I could do a whole other post on, but suffice to say, it's bizarre and at first glance several kinds of awful.
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  17. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    Wouldn’t it make more sense to lift the cap on representatives in order to get more diverse political parties? If we eliminate the EC, then the Democrats will get a permanent majority and only pander to California, New York, Texas and a few other states.
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  18. 14thDoctor

    14thDoctor Oi

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    "Democrats will get a permanent majority" is only true if you believe that Republicans would make no effort to appeal to a majority of voters. And why should a party that doesn't make an effort to appeal to more voters get to win elections in the first place? I thought participation trophies were bad.:shrug:
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  19. Ten Lubak

    Ten Lubak Salty Dog

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    Or maybe the republicans should do better in order to get more people to vote for them

    I love how you don't even consider this option :lol:
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  20. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    The modern advocacy for the EC is all based around preemptive affirmative action, because it's proponents are terrified of being treated as a minority.
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  21. tafkats

    tafkats scream not working because space make deaf Moderator

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    So you're conceding that the majority of this country wants Democrats to be in charge? Interesting.
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  22. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    Yes, but that won't do it alone.
    No and I have shown why previously in this thread. Hint: it's the same reason that they couldn't just "campaign in the big cities".
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  23. shootER

    shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

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    It's like a guy who isn't confident enough in his charm and personality to woo a woman so he resorts to roofies.
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  24. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    "But doncha see? If I don't use the roofies, communism will fuck her first!".
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  25. 14thDoctor

    14thDoctor Oi

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    I don't think the girls Federal Farmer likes are old enough to have alcoholic drinks for him to drug. :unsure:
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  26. Dr. Krieg

    Dr. Krieg Stay at Home Astronaut. Administrator Overlord

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    The Two Party system is a failure, and the Electoral College is a sham. :neroon:
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  27. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    Que? More Californians voted for Trump than Texans voted for Trump. The national party doesn't give a shit about keeping California Republicans happy because with the EC, California becomes a Democratic lock. Suddenly, all those CA Republican votes become a lot more important. How many people are going to start casting votes for different Presidential candidates once the EC is gone? Log Cabin Republicans still haven't figured out that playing nice with the GOP isn't going to get them anywhere. (And why should it? It doesn't matter how many of them in CA, NY, or other left-leaning states vote Republican, it's not going to shift the EC.)

    Ditch the EC, and those votes become important. You absolutely have to think about those, because while they might not vote for the Democratic candidate, they might very well vote for the Libertarian candidate, or someone from the No Labels Party, or another political party that springs up in the wake of ditching the EC. What are the odds of someone outside of the Big Two parties winning the White House? I don't know, but if enough votes for one of the major party candidates gets siphoned away by a bunch of third-party candidates, that could mean the "sure win" candidate doesn't.

    Lots of people undoubtedly argued in the past that democracy instead of a king was several kinds of awful.

    Right now, the biggest problem in American politics that we have today, and this is true regardless of party, is that too many people in government do not have the same life experiences that the majority of Americans do. Most members of Congress are lawyers, most Americans aren't. Most members of Congress went to the same small number of expensive colleges and universities, most Americans didn't. It might not be the most pressing issue now, but it will be key to our survival as a nation if we don't work to ensure that our government is staffed by people from the broadest backgrounds as possible.

    One way to change this is to ensure that there's some randomness inherent in the system. You can't make it completely random, but adding some to the process can help increase the chances that we get someone who's not an Ivy League lawyer, and didn't hang out with Biff and the others in the country club.

    Shit, man, I think that we can both agree we need more people in Congress who can write computer code and understand technology. I'm not saying that the politics of a candidate shouldn't matter, but in a primary situation, or one where the candidates from opposing parties have many of the same views on certain things, one candidate being able to say that they didn't go to an Ivy League school to become a lawyer might give them an edge. I would argue that there probably should be a cap on how many people who went to a particular college/university being able to run for office, because you might have studied fine art at an Ivy League school, but you probably still hung out with Biff and the others at the country club. That's a difficult sell but ensuring that there's a chance someone on the final Presidential ballot didn't go to an Ivy League school and/or isn't a lawyer, that's a pitch you could make to people all across the political spectrum, I think.
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  28. MikeH92467

    MikeH92467 RadioNinja

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    I've argued for many years that this also a huge problem for American journalism. During the "Citizen Kane" era it was a blue-collar trade. Now it's become a profession. Better training and education is not necessarily a bad thing, but it leads to journalists who don't know a rifle from a pistol, what kind of work a plumber really does, what's the difference between Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, MMA... It takes a lot of technical knowledge to be a journalist these days, especially a TV reporter, but people who have that skill may not have any idea what the person who lives in a trailer park deals with on a daily basis. There's this thing called "diversity" that's almost as much of a hot button as "woke" for right wingers, but when it comes to hiring the bosses are looking for training first, instead of finding people with real-life experience from different parts of society and that's one of the reason the "Mainstream Media" are such an easy target. Of course this is just a case of me :horse: but I feel better now, so I guess that's something. :carryon:
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  29. Uncle Albert

    Uncle Albert Part beard. Part machine.

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    The problem is "journalists" and their corporate overlords seeing nothing wrong putting their thumbs on the political scales.
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  30. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Plucky reactionaries with conspiracy theories going back to the 40's will save us!!!
    :soma:
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