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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: deficiT | tryptakid | Foreigner

The 2018 Trump Presidency thread

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I admit i didn't even really glance at it and assumed that since its the 'official' site for it that it would do at least a decent job explaining it and everything. I need to do better and better vet stuff like that before posting it.

Hopefully one of these will do a better job explaining it and all:
https://www.salon.com/2017/05/07/wh...-the-electoral-college-with-the-popular-vote/
https://www.politico.com/magazine/s...-college-national-popular-vote-compact-215541

Being at work makes vetting links a hassle. Excuses, excuses, i know. I need to do better.
 
I think I know what it does. When I read the part about it only needing a majority of electoral votes, I immediately assumed that it would be some requirement that the electors of states that are part of the compact vote according to whatever the majority vote of the country is. So once the majority of electors are from states that have joined, the electoral college will always elect the president who won the national vote. I did a little bit of external research that seemed to verify that that's what this is, then wrote my reply.

If so it's a very smart idea.

I'll probably see if I can get a copy of the actual bill later. So I know in more detail how it works.

EDIT: I just read the first of the two new links you posted which confirms what I thought. Though I find it a frustrating reflection of how ignorant most people are of how their system of government works keeps talking about replacing or getting rid of the electoral college. This does no such thing. It uses the thing people most hate about the electoral college, it doesn't reflect the will of the majority, to make it into a rubber stamp system for the candidate who wins the majority vote.

It's "like" getting rid of it, but it's not actually getting rid of it.

The trouble with the official site, or you might say the brilliance of it, is that it's aimed towards the majority of voters. So it doesn't get into technical details. Most people don't understand the electoral college systems anyway. So it focuses all its energy on convincing people. Which is probably the right call, but frustrating for the few of us who do understand the system and are interested in the details beyond "it makes it a popular vote...somehow".
 
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While I would love to see the National Popular Vote come to pass because it would eliminate the concept of "battleground states," and make the entire country competitive, it's difficult for me to believe that large states with reactionary legislatures i.e. Florida, Texas and Ohio would pass it, and I don't think many of the sparsely populated midwestern/western states would be in favor of it because it takes away their power. One could argue that the electoral college was set up to prevent the more populous states from always picking the president. I think coming up with states totaling 105 more electoral votes is a tall order.
 
aihfl said:
While I would love to see the National Popular Vote come to pass because it would eliminate the concept of "battleground states," and make the entire country competitive, it's difficult for me to believe that large states with reactionary legislatures i.e. Florida, Texas and Ohio would pass it, and I don't think many of the sparsely populated midwestern/western states would be in favor of it because it takes away their power. One could argue that the electoral college was set up to prevent the more populous states from always picking the president. I think coming up with states totaling 105 more electoral votes is a tall order.
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Actually the electoral college originally came about due to concerns that having the president elected by congress, which was the original idea, would be seen with suspicion by the public. So instead it was decided that the states should send electors, people who meet for no other purpose than to decide the president. Electors would be ordinary people chosen by their state to choose the president.

The US as it exists today is very different to how it was originally intended. Most of these sorts of things started with perfectly sound reasoning that failed to anticipate future changes.

It's a good and common argument now that the electoral college prevents the most populous states always deciding the president, but that's not the original reasoning.
 
the point of the electoral college was to prevent a demagogue from ever getting the office of the presidency. since they failed at their sole constitutional duty the first time it really mattered, there's no reason to keep it.
 
JessFR said:
Actually the electoral college originally came about due to concerns that having the president elected by congress, which was the original idea, would be seen with suspicion by the public. So instead it was decided that the states should send electors, people who meet for no other purpose than to decide the president. Electors would be ordinary people chosen by their state to choose the president.
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And who chose the electors prior to around 1880? The state legislatures! Not much of an improvement over having Congress pick the president.

JessFR said:
The US as it exists today is very different to how it was originally intended. Most of these sorts of things started with perfectly sound reasoning that failed to anticipate future changes.
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Even with the weaknesses of the winner take all system we have now, it's better than having the state legislatures picking the electors with no regard for the will of the people.

JessFR said:
It's a good and common argument now that the electoral college prevents the most populous states always deciding the president, but that's not the original reasoning.
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States with smaller populations in 1787 when the electoral college was approved like Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut did favor the electoral college because it could theoretically prevent the more populous states from picking the president.
 
My point was simply that it wasn't where the idea started.

And I never suggested having the state legislature pick the president was better.
 
aihfl said:
It was most certainly part of the debate.
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True. To be honest, rereading the last several points, I feel like I made a mistake somewhere and thought the original claimed reason it was set up was something more controversial. My fault, I've been writing the last several posts while watching TV so I wasn't paying proper attention. I mean it's still true that it's not the only reason and arguably not where it started, but reading it again now I wouldn't think it worth nitpicking. I'm not sure what was going through my head at the time, but my bad.
 
We are experiencing what I call trump-lull . We are waiting for his next overtly racist acts or him to incriminate himself firther via some unprecedented possibility illegal acts in government
 
Trump's Unparalleled War on a Pillar of Society: Law Enforcement
In the days before the 2016 election, Donald J. Trump expressed ?great respect? for the ?courage? of the F.B.I. and Justice Department for reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton?s private email server. Sixteen months later, he has changed his mind.

The agencies have been ?disgraceful? and ?should be ashamed,? President Trump declared Friday. Under attack by the president, the deputy F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, was pushed out in recent days. Mr. Trump has hinted that he may fire the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein. And his aides fear that Christopher A. Wray, his F.B.I. director, may resign over the dispute with the bureau, although associates doubt it.

The war between the president and the nation?s law enforcement apparatus is unlike anything America has seen in modern times. With a special counsel investigating whether his campaign collaborated with Russia in 2016 and whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in 2017, the president has engaged in a scorched-earth assault on the pillars of the criminal justice system in a way that no other occupant of the White House has done.
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And related to trump and his rhetoric...

Yes, your ancestors probably did come here legally - because 'illegal' immigration is less than a century old
When Nathalie Gumpertz arrived in New York in 1858, she was 22, single and ready to build a life in her new country. Without thinking twice about her legal status, she got off the boat, made her way to the Lower East Side (then known as Klein Deutschland, or "Little Germany," due to the preponderance of German immigrants in the neighborhood) and eventually married, had four kids and settled at 97 Orchard St., the historic tenement house that is now the heart of the Tenement Museum, where I serve as president.

More than six decades later, in 1925, Rosaria Baldizzi arrived in New York to join her husband Adolfo at the same building, 97 Orchard. Baldizzi had a cloud hanging over her head that would remain there for the next two decades, one that Gumpertz never worried about: She had not entered the U.S. legally, and therefore had to worry about possible deportation.

What happened to make these two women's experiences so different? In the years between their arrivals, "illegal" immigration was invented
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Why the Majority of Americans Despise Trump's Washington
Donald Trump, never lacking in self-esteem, bragged in 2016: "I know words—I have the best words."

Well, sometimes he does put together a coherent sentence, using some very fine words that convey great promise, such as this one: "I'm going to fight for every person in this country who believes government should serve the people—not the donors and special interests." And if those words are too highbrow for you, Trump made the same promise with some punchier words, declaring he would "drain the swamp" to rid Washington of those creepy, crawly corporate lobbyists.

Excellent words! But words only matter if the speaker actually means them, backing their rhetorical promise with action. As we've seen though, far from draining the swamp, this president proceeded immediately to convert the White House itself into a fetid cesspool of self-serving corporate executives, lobbyists, and banksters.
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Not that I don't love some good trump bashing, but acting like the FBI are the innocent good guys is in stark contrast to their history.
 
JessFR said:
acting like the FBI are the innocent good guys is in stark contrast to their history.
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republicans are the ones that have always insisted upon their innocence and the innocence of all law enforcement officers and how everyone should blindly trust them because they're law enforcement. you know, the whole "rule of law" and "police are always right" shit they've been parroting for decades, until only just recently.
 
tathra said:
republicans are the ones that have always insisted upon their innocence and the innocence of all law enforcement officers and how everyone should blindly trust them because they're law enforcement. you know, the whole "rule of law" and "police are always right" shit they've been parroting for decades, until only just recently.
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So? Does that mean as soon as they stop doing that anyone who opposes them has to immediately take the opposite stance? We stand for whatever's the reverse of what they stand for? I'll admit that's long been what I've kinda suspected was the case.
 
JessFR said:
So? Does that mean as soon as they stop doing that anyone who opposes them has to immediately take the opposite stance? We stand for whatever's the reverse of what they stand for? I'll admit that's long been what I've kinda suspected was the case.
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what makes you think thats whats going on here?
 
No you're right I am speaking fairly generally.

I assume that basically what tathras saying is that it's hypocritical bullshit for people who are normally so enthusiastically pro law enforcement to suddenly reverse position as soon as said law enforcement starts enforcing laws they're breaking. Which it is. I'm just making the point that it's kinda funny to suggest trump is fighting honorable the honorable servants of law enforcement at the FBI given the FBIs history.
 
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