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Total difference of .5% voted for Hillary based on current NPV. That's up from .2% the other day when there was a difference of about 200k votes, currently the difference is closer to 600k and just for totals this equates to 50% Hillary and 49.7% Trump.
That aside, we are a republic and not a democracy. States are democracies in how they individually function but together they form a "republic". Therefore states elect the president and regardless of their population the EC allows each "state" to have an equal say. It's not fraud, it's not irrelevant, it's functioning EXACTLY the way it is supposed to.
Nonsense. the EC was planned as a College of elected wise men who would elect the President. That is not how it works today. No one even knows who the electors are.
Republic and Representative Democracy are interchangeable terms. The founders objected to direct democracy. But we do not have that.
Candidly, in most elections, I would say that a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college, should step aside. This is not most elections, however.
Trump can do much damage to the U.S. and the world, but there is one issue on which his position is catastrophic, perhaps irreparable in its consequences for humanity. It's an issue that the American media and even the Democratic Party has been incompetent, with Clinton only paying lip service to the issue during her campaign and in the debates. Trump and the Republican Party is atrocious on this issue.
This issue is climate change. As someone who has read much of the scientific research, and transformed from a skeptic to someone who believes that climate change scientists are being too conservative in their warnings, I'm appalled by Trump and his supporters on the climate change issue.
Clinton could produce a white paper on climate change alone and present it to all members of the electoral college forcing them to confront the actual choice and implications of their decision. We should then keep a record of the individual members of the electoral college for posterity.
For anybody other than a Trumpie, consider just the methane issue, typically not quantified in the scientific research...yet.
<<Methane is an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas, with up to 25 times the warming power of carbon dioxide.>>
Ocean acidification, the "evil twin" of climate change, likely will destroy ocean fisheries.
The talking heads in this country typically give climate change little attention. Lesley Stahl, in her interview of Donald Trump for "60 Minutes" pressed Trump on the Mexican Wall, but not on his promise to pull out of the Paris climate accord and his claim that climate change science is a "hoax."
<<"Until January 20 when this administration is over, we intend to do everything possible to meet our responsibility to future generations to be able to address this threat to life itself on the planet [emphasis added].">>
I wonder if John Kerry won't begin another campaign for President within the next few years, despite his age.
Given the ignorance of the American people on climate change, and their consequent indifference, climate change likely will result in the mother of all "black swan" events.
Millennials would have voted in mass against Trump if they had understood what their world will look live in 2050, if not sooner, as a result of Trump's mindset, let alone his anti-environment crusade.
Clinton owes America a white paper plea to the electoral college on climate change, in order to clearly set the debate on Trump's anti-environmental agenda. She has the moral right to do so given her win in the popular vote, and she should accompany the plea with a mea culpa given her shoddy campaign on this most important of issues.
First off, I get it. It is a hard way to loose...twice. As a libertarian who votes Republican, I am less than in love with the electoral college. I would be happy with doing away with it. But, before we do, please consider a few things, and BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF about them:
1) You are missing the big point. The republicans also retained the Senate, will retain it next election since the cycle is favorable, retained the House, will probably retain it for another 6-8 years, increased its majority of governorships, is setting a record on having a monopoly on state legislature, and is dominating in local governments. This is 8 years after we were told that demographics made us obsolete, and we would never win another election. You party is out of touch, and the results of the popular vote in a presidential election do not mitigate that.
2) The electoral college serves a purpose. The founders created the electoral college so that candidates would not spend all of their time in New York. Perhaps Hillary should have visited Wisconsin at some point?
3) It is part of federalism. We are a republic, which is a very stable system, not a democracy, which is not. The Roman Republic lasted 500 years, the Democracy of Athens a few generations. There is not a single pure Democracy in the entire world. It doesn't work.
4) Trump had a strategy to win the system we had. Had the system been different, he would have spent more time in the Central Valley of California and upstate New York, fertile ground for Republican recruiting due to grievances.
5) The electoral college helps suppress REPUBLICAN turnout. Being a California Republican, I can tell you that a lot of GOP members don't vote on the west coat. What's the point? I show up every time as an exercise in civic virtue only.
6) You can't retroactively chance the results of an election because you don't like the system
NOW, HERE IS THE BIG ONE:
7) Republicans would have more sympathy if you favored voter ID laws, and your president was not on air before the election telling illegals to vote. We don't think of your popular vote total as legitimate--FULL STOP. If we want to talk about the vote as a sacred things, then there is no reason whatsoever to pretend that a citizen should not have to show an ID, which they are legally required to have.
Please, let's put this to bed and move on. Your candidate lost. I think it would take a constitutional amendment to end the electoral college. If there is an easier way, I would consider voting for it. But this cycle is over, and the Dems need to do a lot of soul searhing and understand that they have to stop crying racism and insulting white people if they want to be relevant in future elections. That is, and will always remain, the lesson of this election.
I agree totally....the electoral vote system is a necessary evil.
I agree totally....the electoral vote system is a necessary evil.
The Founding Fathers largely created the electoral college because slave states demanded a system for choosing the President where slave states would get some credit for their slave population even though slaves weren't allowed to vote in elections. And, of course, smaller states wanted to be over-represented in the decision of selecting the President (e.g., every state regardless of population gets at least 3 electoral votes, one for each senator and one for at least one Congressperson).
It's not a fair system, and today serves only to suppress the popular will of the people and to minimize the vote of those located in states which don't have divided political opinion.
It would be interesting to see how much voter participation would increase IF there were a popular vote for the President.
Greater turn-out generally benefits Democratic candidates. So the vote-suppressing, gerrymandering Republicans will oppose any provision for a popular vote for President with all of the anonymous Super-Pac dollars that they can muster.
Hillary WON? Boy, i bet she feels stupid CONCEDING THE ELECTION TO TRUMP. Oh well, more time to rip off the world with her Clinton foundation scam..she will have more time to give $300k speeches to those evil wall street types who she decryed while they were directly funding her election..
The Founding Fathers largely created the electoral college because they wanted southern states to get credit for slaves even though they weren't allowed to vote in elections. And, of course, smaller states, wanted to be over-represented in the decision of selecting the President (e.g., every state regardless of population gets at least 3 electoral votes, one for each senator and one for at least one Congressperson).
It's not a fair system, and today serves only to suppress the popular will of the people and to minimize the vote of those located in states which don't have divided political opinion.
It would be interesting to see how much voter participation would increase IF there were a popular vote for the President.
As greater turn-out generally benefits Democratic candidates. So the vote-suppressing, gerrymandering Republicans will oppose any provision for a popular vote for President will all the Super-Pac dollars that they can muster.
Look at the geographical map county by county of the 2016 election...the EV works exactly as intended.
With a straight popular vote you would end up with a sliver or small enclaves of coastal areas dictating to the rest of the country.
Not to mention that the election were fought with the EV system in place so with strategies aimed at winning the EV....this is the way it is and Hillary lost so this discussion is pointless.
The Trump Presidency may be over before it ever gets started. The beginning of the anti-Trump revolt is well underway.
Trump, the Republicans and the alt right have for the last eight years elevated partisan politics to a level not seen in the U.S. since perhaps the Civil War.
I lived through Vietnam era, and I suspect that what's coming may challenge the political loathing of that period. Hopefully, it won't become as violent.
Before his term as President is over, my hunch is that Trump will learn how he's as much the victim of his years of vicious attacks as his political opponents.
Children already are gleefully destroying Trump pinatas.
And Trump's Republican doormats are just waiting for the opportunity to replace the Orange Man with Mike Pence, especially if Trump's approval ratings threaten their Congressional hegemony.
With a straight popular vote you would end up with a sliver or small enclaves of coastal areas dictating to the rest of the country.
Oh, but it's okay if a bunch of sparsely populated flyover states act as dictator and tell millions of people in Calif., Ore., Wash., and N.Y. how to live their lives?
Please explain how any state (or group of states) can tell any other state (or group of states) how to live. As far as I know, the President and Congress can dictate and so can the Supreme Court, but states can enact their own individual laws so long as these do not conflict with national laws.
For example, if California can manage to pass laws that ALL public information statements must be spoken/written in every language spoken by at least one percent of its population, Maine (just for example) cannot say, "Oh, no, you can't."
And, conversely, if Maine passes an "English Only" law, that does not mean that California must follow suit.
Another good example are marijuana-friendly states. Colorado passed it, and now other states are joining in, but Colorado had absolutely no say in their decision.
Personally, I would be very happy if the national government would let the state and local governments decide more things for themselves, and I would just as soon have the liberals stay or go to California and the big cities, and let the conservatives live elsewhere. (Up until about ten years ago, I was a big proponent of integration, but not any longer.)
Last edited by katharsis; 11-14-2016 at 04:02 PM..
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