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[PTTG??]

Well, unfortunately, Americans live in interesting times. Pretty much crossing the states off as a place to immigrate to.

I dunno, Ameriland looks like the best developed nation to immigrate to still in my books. Europe is going to get done in by its domestic cells and demographic bombs, god knows where the UK is gonna end up with Brexit, Australia is full of mosquitoes and venomous creatures, China is overdue implosion, Russia is precarious and pending Putin replacement, Canada is acceptable, but USA has great weather, great economy, ironclad security but I worry that its food regulations are a bit... Abysmal.

Dude, Arab here. A country trying to roll back LGBT protections and while also making it pretty clear they wanna target arabs, at least from the top down is going to be off my list. And I say this even when spending time in Virginia really changed how I saw Americans as a loving and accepting people. It just feels like the government is run by that guy in the apesuit constantly holding a sign by a road in a traffic jam saying they need to bomb more arab countires and kick the muslims out.

Firstly, I am so very, very sorry for what my country has done. I have fought against it every step of the way, but that does not shield me from what has been done in the name of my country. You have my personal apology.

When we get our country back, you will be welcomed.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Where are we going with any of this again?

[Loud Whispers]

Dude, Arab here. A country trying to roll back LGBT protections and while also making it pretty clear they wanna target arabs, at least from the top down is going to be off my list. And I say this even when spending time in Virginia really changed how I saw Americans as a loving and accepting people. It just feels like the government is run by that guy in the apesuit constantly holding a sign by a road in a traffic jam saying they need to bomb more arab countires and kick the muslims out.

Go for Canada then. I'd consider Malaysia but they're really getting more and more Sunni hardline, but still has beautiful weather and environment
As to intentions, I dunno if he's planning on bombing more Arab countries, time'll tell whether he'll be any different to Hillary. I'm intrigued, how have you perceived this threat? In London my experience is very different, with my Arab Sunni friends either indifferent because they don't care, disgusted because he is as diplomatic as baboon ass or pleased he intends to destroy ISIS whilst Clinton was aiming for countries

Where are we going with any of this again?

It's bad to deploy violence on people with different opinions. All this talk of retaking our country back does not bode well for jolly cooperation between progs, libs, nats and cons

[Reelya]

Is there a truth, a way of cutting through this ignorance? Is there a way even, a wise electorate could break through such a system, especially in lieu of the simple power of money, and in light of such things as the DNC rigging against Bernie or the RNC being incapable of providing an alternative to Trump? If the truth is unknown, how can the truth be found? I don't mean this rhetorically, just interested

Well the latter would be solved by reforming the primary process to include alternative vote. e.g. if you have three mainstream candidates and a radical candidate, it shouldn't be possible to split the vote, because people can't decide on exactly which mainstream candidate to back, so the radical wins even though most of the party would have preferred basically anyone but him.

Also, If that had been the case then Trump might not have gotten up, and the fact that Sanders polled higher against the Republican candidates than Hillary did would have counted for much more, as the race would have been closer. Democrats largely push a less-overall-popular mainstream candidate because they thought they had it in the bag. If Cruz or Rubio was running, Clinton may not have looked like such a safe bet. It would be Democrats then with more to gain by running Sanders to pick up the un-served populist vote.

Also, things would clearly be different with either per-congressional seat voting or national popular vote. Swing states etc wouldn't be a thing then, and anyone who did win would be able to say they had a mandate already. Due to the quirks of the Electoral College some frankly insane outcomes are possible, where e.g. only about 5% of eligible voters voted for you, but you still won. Ironing out the quirks would change the landscape considerably.

(Note the 5% trick is to run as a third candidate, and target all your efforts at bribing half of the 17% of voters who live in the 26 smallest states. Neither big party picks up 50% of the vote then, and then the tie-breaker vote is per-state, with one vote per state, and since you won 26 states, you win with about 8.5% of the voters, which would be about 5% of the eligible voters).

[Baffler]

So do your powers only allow you to identify exactly what Hillary would have done, or does it include future events in our timeline? I presume it's both, because apparently you're able to forecast that a miracle will endow Trump with the mental capacity to turn his entire approach to governance around in order to do things like acknowledge that climate change is real, that the people he hurts with his magnificently incompetent executive orders are real, and maybe even a measure of diplomatic tact that exceeds the ham-fisted threats he's been doling out today.

As to Clinton I'd say her stated policy from her campaign are a precise enough forecasting tool for her presidential policy. The promised no fly zone is what I had in mind specifically.

As to the rest, it's far too late for me go have got involved in this conversation in the first place so I guess the last word is yours, but I will say that someone completely new to politics is going to fuck up. He isn't developmentally disabled though so I expect he and his team will take on experience quickly, especially once the executive bureaucracy gets unfucked. It's not even all bad, he's already made decent progress on his anti-corruption platform (at least to the extent that he can without Congress) and ge seems to have put a stop to the """"winning"""" strategy of arming whatever jihadi groups in Syria managed to amuse the spooks.

[Loud Whispers]

Well the latter would be solved by reforming the primary process to include alternative vote. e.g. if you have three mainstream candidates and a radical candidate, it shouldn't be possible to split the vote, because people can't decide on exactly which mainstream candidate to back, so the radical wins even though most of the party would have preferred basically anyone but him.

Would you keep the primaries opened or closed to non-party members? Closed primaries may work for countries where multi-party politics is a common feature, but with two-party democracies it seems inevitable that candidates will be selected that will continually manifest divergence between the two until the two think so inimically of the other, that they are willing to go to violence to eradicate the perceived evil. Moreover, it could still lead to the situation where both candidates selected are some of the most reviled people in US politics as occurred now, ensuring that whoever won, the nation would be faced with immense political instability. The prize as well, of winning - is total. Donations from corporations and governments coupled with the fact that the ruling parties seem eager to boost their support not by appealing to voters, but by creating and deleting voters with immigration, immigration control, gerrymandering, vote fraud, vote suppression etc., I don't think any attempts at spreading some noble "truth" would make it past this system without the majority finding good cause to distrust it.

Also, If that had been the case then Trump might not have gotten up, and the fact that Sanders polled higher against the Republican candidates than Hillary did would have counted for much more, as the race would have been closer. Democrats largely push a less-overall-popular mainstream candidate because they thought they had it in the bag. If Cruz or Rubio was running, Clinton may not have looked like such a safe bet. It would be Democrats then with more to gain by running Sanders to pick up the un-served populist vote.

It's probably safe to say just ignore polls and listen to common sense. Polls failed here and failed in the UK repeatedly, at least until such time as pollsters stop finding answers before they ask the question

Also, things would clearly be different with either per-congressional seat voting or national popular vote. Swing states etc wouldn't be a thing then, and anyone who did win would be able to say they had a mandate already. Due to the quirks of the Electoral College some frankly insane outcomes are possible, where e.g. only about 5% of eligible voters voted for you, but you still won. Ironic out the quirks would change the landscape considerably.

That sounds like it could be highly achievable and a step towards a system all could agree is superior to the current, though not a npv, npvs suck - much the same problems as EC. Per-congressional seat voting could do well, hell, parliamentary systems work wonders

[chaoticag]

Firstly, I am so very, very sorry for what my country has done. I have fought against it every step of the way, but that does not shield me from what has been done in the name of my country. You have my personal apology.

When we get our country back, you will be welcomed.

No need to worry about yourself really. Post election does feel like most the American people are charged up about righting wrongs at least. Which is a nice fresh breeze after the election ennui that hit. Secondly, you really don't get to apologize for others. You're only responsible for that which you have power over in the end. Lastly, given the outpouring of support at the various airports, there does seem a fair amount of people willing to do welcoming, but in the end it's a fault of the government that's keeping me away at the moment. That and well, I wanna build up some funds before I can even consider going anywhere.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Also, things would clearly be different with either per-congressional seat voting or national popular vote. Swing states etc wouldn't be a thing then, and anyone who did win would be able to say they had a mandate already. Due to the quirks of the Electoral College some frankly insane outcomes are possible, where e.g. only about 5% of eligible voters voted for you, but you still won. Ironic out the quirks would change the landscape considerably.

That sounds like it could be highly achievable and a step towards a system all could agree is superior to the current, though not a npv, npvs suck - much the same problems as EC. Per-congressional seat voting could do well, hell, parliamentary systems work wonders

Fuck to the no. Per-district voting = permanent corruption of the Presidential elections. At least with the Congressional elections each seat is only individually skewed by gerrymandering.

It manages the feat of being even worse than the electoral college. Popular vote is the only acceptable basis.

[muldrake]

It's amazing how hostile he is in fact to governments he should be allied with. The ruling party in Australia are anti-immigrant pro-business types, who also include the Christian Right and rural types in their coalition. Yeah, but Trump snubs them and only has glowing words for Duterte and Putin ... which is worrying. Center-right isn't right enough for him. Basically that's the biggest warning sign: that Trump isn't in fact making friends with the governments that he should be friends with, given his ideological stances.

This is why I'm of the opinion that he has no grand plan and is, in fact, exactly the imbecile he looks like.

[PTTG??]

Going back to the protest, while I still feel that Steve Bannon needs to be drawn and quartered, like with the four horses and everything, the University of Berkeley hasn't done anything wrong. The anarchists who turned a peaceful protest into a riot were only helping the cause of fascism. The initial protestors themselves should not be blamed for having their event stolen from them.

[Toady One]

PMd some people regarding conduct in these threads.  I'd prefer to see an end to the various personal attacks, trolling and other nonsense.  If there's room for a reasonable discussion, we can continue to have this thread.

[Reelya]

Also, things would clearly be different with either per-congressional seat voting or national popular vote. Swing states etc wouldn't be a thing then, and anyone who did win would be able to say they had a mandate already. Due to the quirks of the Electoral College some frankly insane outcomes are possible, where e.g. only about 5% of eligible voters voted for you, but you still won. Ironic out the quirks would change the landscape considerably.

That sounds like it could be highly achievable and a step towards a system all could agree is superior to the current, though not a npv, npvs suck - much the same problems as EC. Per-congressional seat voting could do well, hell, parliamentary systems work wonders

Fuck to the no. Per-district voting = permanent corruption of the Presidential elections. At least with the Congressional elections each seat is only individually skewed by gerrymandering.

It manages the feat of being even worse than the electoral college. Popular vote is the only acceptable basis.

I don't think it does. It would bring things more in line with all the parliamentary nations. The President would effectively be the same as Prime Minister then. Ya know, all the nations with parliamentary systems seem to do as well or better than the USA in encouraging small parties and avoiding gerrymandering. The fact that parliament chooses the executive doesn't seem to really hurt them.

The current EC rules allow one to receive literally less than 10% of the total votes and still win, admittedly rare but that's the possibility. Even with the worst-case scenario (100% of seats gerrymandered to suit just one party), with a per seat system for a per-seat vote (e.g. where half of seats are 100% Democrat, and the other half+1 of seats have 1 more republican than total democrats), you'd still need at least 25% total support in a congressional-seat based system.

But let me explain why that's not as bad a problem as it sounds. With the current system, the bulk of attention gets paid to only 4 states, the swing states. But with a per-seat system, you need to pay attention to all seats that are close. And if the system is gerrymandered to hell, then what happens is that the party controlling the gerrymandering ends up with slim majorities in 51% of seats, therefore they actually have to pay attention to what residents of 51% of the seats want. And to avoid needing to do that, they have to undo part of their gerrymandering. So gerrymandering isn't as all-powerful as it sounds.

[alway]

That actually ends up as a smaller portion of the population due to the highly heterogenous regions. Only 10% of the house districts are considered in play due to gerrymandering.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think it does. It would bring things more in line with all the parliamentary nations.

This is not a parliamentary nation.

Ya know, all the nations with parliamentary systems seem to do as well or better than the USA in encouraging small parties and avoiding gerrymandering. The fact that parliament chooses the executive doesn't seem to really hurt them.

Something about correlation and facts. Other parties do not function in the US because both the left and right are under a big tent, lack of need, and FPTP.

Aside from allowing Congress to choose the executive being a horrible idea beyond words, that's not what's proposed here. What's proposed is in replacing the EC of states with an EC of Congressional districts.

The current EC rules allow one to receive literally less than 10% of the total votes and still win, admittedly rare but that's the possibility. Even with the worst-case scenario (100% of seats gerrymandered to suit just one party), with a per seat system for a per-seat vote (e.g. where half of seats are 100% Democrat, and the other half+1 of seats have 1 more republican than total democrats), you'd still need at least 25% total support in a congressional-seat based system.

But let me explain why that's not as bad a problem as it sounds. With the current system, the bulk of attention gets paid to only 4 states, the swing states. But with a per-seat system, you need to pay attention to all seats that are close. And if the system is gerrymandered to hell, then what happens is that the party controlling the gerrymandering ends up with slim majorities in 51% of seats, therefore they actually have to pay attention to what residents of 51% of the seats want. And to avoid needing to do that, they have to undo part of their gerrymandering. So gerrymandering isn't as all-powerful as it sounds.

Why the fuck would the electoral board controlled by Congress change the boundaries of Congressional electoral districts to support the Presidential election? Besides, the basic logic of gerrymandering goes unchanged (give up one district entirely to claim all other districts in relative safely).

You want to know what would ensure the highest level of support for who becomes President? Counting the popular vote. Bam, all votes count towards victory, and the most popular candidate will win 100% of the time. This isn't difficult. It's very clear, and is how everybody thinks the system should work anyway.

Introducing diversions like "mutilate the American political system so that it will more closely resemble a parliamentary system" just takes us further away from abolishing the EC and much further away from the glory of instant runoff voting.

[Sergarr]

I still find it weird how many "pro-equality" people are okay with violent suppression of free speech when it's used against them. Maybe that one commie was actually right about the political degradation of USA...