PGT: President-Elect Donald J Trump

[calf]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Those electors are mostly symbolic, who are they to override what the population voted for?

Didn't Clinton win the popular vote?

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

So if Bernie runs and wins in 2020 you'd be fine with people making the argument that he's a populist candidate that needs to be thwarted? According to who's definition?

I'll admit that Trump has pushed the boundary on what constitutes a proper candidate but he won according to the same rules that every other President won with.

From my post above

This isn't simply sour grapes, there are legitimate questions that the president elect has conflicts of interest that are giving foreign governments undue influence on how US policy will be decided.

This is not just the"populist" word you continue to get hung up on. There are serious issues that may involve foreign powers not only interfering with the US government but also the very integrity of the office being called into question. The electoral college was set in place specifically because people are stupid and needed to be protected from being swindled by a fast talking con artist.

These issues could all easily be resolved mind you. If Trump were to release his tax returns (as every presidential candidate in most of our lifetimes had done) and divest himself fully of all of his business interests (as he ethically and possibly constitutionally should) then it would be just people mad about Trump. As it stands now though he refuses to have any transparency and that refusal only raises very worrisome questions. You should read the Newsweek story that the_only_turek_fan posted. It should help explain what some of these problems are to you.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

I'll admit that Trump has pushed the boundary on what constitutes a proper candidate but he won according to the same rules that every other President won with.

Well, not quite yet. All but two of the past presidents have received the Electoral College vote.

Originally Posted by calf

Didn't Clinton win the popular vote?

He's obviously talking about the population that the elector is voting on behalf of.

[DiracSpike]

Look, I think Trump is going to be a crappy President. I'm fully aware of all the allegations swirling around him now, I'm not pretending that the unprecedented oppostition to him taking office is coming from left field. I'm just getting annoyed that a subgroup of people are trying to move the goal posts post-election. If a credible group can sift through all the hysteria and find solid evidence linking Trump to unscrupulous or treasonous behaviour then he should be impeached. Key word there is solid. Until then follow the will of the people the same way every other election has followed it.

[photon]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

There are people attempting to be autocratic but unfortunately it's not the DEMOCRATICALLY elected President-elect. Can you seriously not see the hypocrisy here.

Electors don't answer to the president, they by definition do not hold federal office. Yet Trump is allegedly trying to threaten them with negative consequences he will create with his power if they do not do what he wants. That's pretty much the definition of autocratic. Many (most?) of these people are private citizens, I don't think it's appropriate for the president to threaten private citizens with reprisal if they don't do what he wants.

I don't see the hypocrisy there. With regards to Clinton supporters being upset if the situation was reversed, yeah if they did then that would be hypocritical but that's kind of beside the point.

[DiracSpike]

The definition of autocratic I found was:
"taking no account of other people's wishes or opinions"

Which sounds a lot like overriding the majority choice in your state because you disagree with it.

[photon]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Until then follow the will of the people the same way every other election has followed it.

There's been plenty of electors that haven't voted for the candidate they were 'expected' to. Over 150 voted against their pledge/or and what their state voted, many others stepped down instead of voting their pledge. The electors from an entire state have abstained from voting before.

So it's not something that hasn't happened before, and unless they change their system it'll happen again in the future.

[photon]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

The definition of autocratic I found was:
"taking no account of other people's wishes or opinions"

Which sounds a lot like overriding the majority choice in your state because you disagree with it.

That's not autocratic if it's your job definition to override the majority choice in extraordinary circumstances, and a single elector doesn't have the power to be an autocrat. And even if I granted it, tu quoque doesn't justify Trump's actions.

The US isn't a direct democracy. By that broad a definition it's autocratic for the Republicans to repeal Obamacare when the majority of people don't want that, but I wouldn't argue that because they're operating within the system.

It seems pointless for it to be a point of contention since (barring new information) the result of the election won't be flipped due to faithless electors, and I don't see anyone from either side (in an official capacity) encouraging electors one way or the other.

[Senator Clay Davis]

So who else do we have for this one? Laura Ingraham, Jeffrey Lord, Ann Coulter, that blonde chick from CNN, that other crazier blonde chick from CNN....who am I missing here?

Jim AcostaVerified account
‏@Acosta
Katrina Pierson is at Trump Tower to make her pitch for press secretary, I'm told

https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/808786361255952385

[photon]

She's the one that thought Obama and Clinton traveled back through time and cause things that happened before they were even President/SoS. And that Clinton has dysphasia.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

who am I missing here?

Ugh David Martosko...

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by photon

She's the one that thought Obama and Clinton traveled back through time and cause things that happened before they were even President/SoS. And that Clinton has dysphasia.

Can you prove that they didn't travel back in time?

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by chemgear

There is a good link in that interview article I linked earlier. Didn't click on it originally.

http://www.vox.com/science-and-healt...bamacare-trump

Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump

Kathy Oller is so committed to her job signing up fellow Kentuckians for Obamacare that last Halloween, she dressed up as a cat, set up a booth at a trick-or-treat event, and urged people to get on the rolls. She’s enrolled so many people in the past three years that she long ago lost count.

But Obamacare’s success in Whitley County and across Kentucky hasn’t translated into political support for the law. In fact, 82 percent of Whitley voters supported Donald Trump in the presidential election, even though he promised to repeal it.

Oller voted for Trump too.

“I found with Trump, he says a lot of stuff,” she said. “I just think all politicians promise you everything and then we’ll see. It’s like when you get married — ‘Oh, honey, I won’t do this, oh, honey, I won’t do that.’”

And part of their anger was wrapped up in the idea that other people were getting even better, even cheaper benefits — and those other people did not deserve the help.

There was a persistent belief that Trump would fix these problems and make Obamacare work better. I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them.

In southeastern Kentucky, that idea didn’t seem to penetrate at all — not to Oller, and not to the people she signed up for coverage.

“We all need it,” Oller told me when I asked about the fact that Trump and congressional Republicans had promised Obamacare repeal. “You can’t get rid of it.”

And this right here sums up the issue with Americans. I use this. I need this. I deserve this. Screw all those other people, they don't need it. But I need to get mine.

It's the lie that undocumented immigrants are getting free healthcare. They're taking our healthcare and our jobs and if we could just get rid of them, we'd all be better off. Despite the fact that none of these things are true. Immigrants aren't getting free healthcare, and immigrants aren't taking any jobs that these people would be willing to take. (I'm sure someone would hire you to pick fruit for $5 a day if you really wanted to stick it to them illegals and take their job)

Trump said everything explicitly, but his shtick worked because Republicans have been pushing this narrative more subtly for years, so when he just said it openly, people ate it right up, because they've been conditioned to believe it's true.

So now, as usual, they vote against their own best interests, and they blame government as a whole for failing them, when it's their own fault the guy promising to take away their healthcare won. They blame liberals and democrats and the elites and the illegals--but they voted to dismantle the ACA by voting for Trump and by voting in GOP legislators who promise to do the same. I've lost sympathy. The really sad part is while they made their own bed and will be forced to lie in it--millions of people who did not vote for Trump will also lose their insurance.

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Those electors are mostly symbolic, who are they to override what the population voted for?

If there was a movement to have electors not vote for Hillary had the election gone a different way people would be crying bloody murder.

The population did not vote for Trump. At the last count I saw, Hillary was winning the popular vote by over 2.6 million (a couple hundred K less than the entire population of Utah).

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

So if Bernie runs and wins in 2020 you'd be fine with people making the argument that he's a populist candidate that needs to be thwarted? According to who's definition?

I'll admit that Trump has pushed the boundary on what constitutes a proper candidate but he won according to the same rules that every other President won with.

Bernie doesn't have shady connections to Vladimir Putin. Bernie doesn't have businesses all over the globe that would create conflicts of interest in his governance. Bernie wouldn't be attempting to get security clearance for his kids, or having his daughter meet with world leaders. Bernie wouldn't be calling heads of other countries without any guidance from the state department, etc, etc. It's not that Trump's a populist, it's that he's flat out dangerous and corrupt through and through, and there's a damn scary connection to a foreign enemy to boot, and that is why he should be thwarted.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

The population did not vote for Trump. At the last count I saw, Hillary was winning the popular vote by over 2.6 million (a couple hundred K less than the entire population of Utah).





Bernie doesn't have shady connections to Vladimir Putin. Bernie doesn't have businesses all over the globe that would create conflicts of interest in his governance. Bernie wouldn't be attempting to get security clearance for his kids, or having his daughter meet with world leaders. Bernie wouldn't be calling heads of other countries without any guidance from the state department, etc, etc. It's not that Trump's a populist, it's that he's flat out dangerous and corrupt through and through, and there's a damn scary connection to a foreign enemy to boot, and that is why he should be thwarted.

Hilary winning the national vote doesn't delegitimize Trumps electoral win, in fact it is almost irrelevant. The US elections are decided, for better or worse, by the electoral college. More states wanted Trump as their president, and the aggregate votes based on those states have Trump a pretty decisive victory. The electoral college functions to allow rural voters and small states to have some say and not get overwhelmed by the Nyc La Chicago and bostons of the USA. i just don't understand this argument, trump won the election fair and square. Regardless of what you or I or anyone thinks of the guy.

And I could make a bunch of arguments about Bernie being a radical ideologue out to destroy the fabric of a strong western economy and say he needs to be thwarted. Because after electins people are going to disagree, they need to honour the votes of the people according to the pr agreed format of winning, whether it be electoral college or national vote.

[photon]

If all the electors vote for who their state voted for, Trump will get 56.88% of the electoral votes, which is 46th out of 58 elections, closer to Bush Jr. than Reagan and Bush Sr. so I'd say that it wasn't very decisive either. I only bring it up because Trump keeps claiming he won in a landslide.

As an aside I think one of Trump's saving graces is that he isn't ideologue.. he's an autocrat but he's a weather vane, which seems to me like is less potentially damaging to institutions and such.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

The electoral college functions to allow rural voters and small states to have some say and not get overwhelmed by the Nyc La Chicago and bostons of the USA.

The electoral college was instituted when rural voters far outnumbered urban voters. That it now acts to disproportionately weight rural voters over urban is an unintended effect, it is not at all accurate to claim that its "function" is something it was never intended to do. There were no polities at the time where cities dominated demographics, the possibility undoubtedly did not even occur to the American founders.

Further, weighting rural voters over urban (even if you think that's a good thing, which it really isn't) is pointless in a presidential election - you're electing one person, not a slate of people. The choice was between a New York robber baron and a Washington career politician, there's no more Abe Lincolns coming out of the backwoods to mystify the city folk and energize the yokels.

The college was intended to act as a veto on an unsuitable candidate who won the vote. If it doesn't even do that in this, the most opportune moment in two and a half centuries, it might as well be abolished.

[photon]

Otherwise why aren't Senators and Governors elected by a state electoral college so that rural voters in a state aren't dominated by the cities?

[driveway]

Hamilton laid out the purpose of the Electoral College in Federalist #68

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp

It has nothing at all to do with rural vs. urban votes, nor is it in anyway symbolic.

The Electors are not symbolic.

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

The Electors will be better suited to choosing the President than the People as a whole:

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It is better that the People choose Electors, rather than the President:

The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.

The primary purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent foreign influence in the election of the President:

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?

Again, the People do not vote for President, they pick Electors.

the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President.

The secondary purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent the Office of the President to be filled by someone unfit for that office, in particular someone skilled at the "little arts of popularity."

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.

There is absolutely nothing about the Electoral College which is meant to address questions of population distribution, equality between the States, nor is it in any way intended to merely be a rubber stamp.

It has obviously become this over time, but for a person to be - on the one hand - a strict constructionist, and - on the other - opposed to the Electoral College choosing anyone other than the winner of their State would be a rank hypocrite.

[Bootsy]

Something tells me if Clinton would have won the electoral college and Trump won the popular vote, the debate would still be there but depending on who they voted for their positions would be flipped.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by driveway

It has obviously become this over time, but for a person to be - on the one hand - a strict constructionist, and - on the other - opposed to the Electoral College choosing anyone other than the winner of their State would be a rank hypocrite.

Trump isn't really a strict constructionist. He has no principles except that he's in favour of whatever's good for him.