PGT: President-Elect Donald J Trump

[photon]

Don't fail me Google image search.. ahh..

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by jammies

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.

Even if it wasn't explicitly designed to allow rural voters a greater influence that's what it does today. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing because it's not hard to see how interests in the heartland could get completely overridden by urban interests.

In regards to the college it might be a good idea to do away with it, but electors enacting their power to completely supersede the election results would not be a prudent move in my opinion. Also, your implicit assertion that trump is the worst candidate ever elected to office is completely subjective. Living in a democracy means that you have to accept being led by someone you find unfavorable. Trump has been pushing the boundaries on just how " unfavourable" people should tolerate, but not enough in my opinion to override what the people voted for. Any argument for electors not voting for Trump can be used against any subsequent president elect in the future, which is a scary thought for democracy. The best option to get rid of trump would be to impeach him, armed with solid evidence of wrong doing(s) once he's in office.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

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

Oh, I'm not accusing Trump of being one, but rather a huge proportion of his supporters.

Or at least, they pay lip-service to being Constructionists, favour Constructionist judges, and point to the Constitution as being the be-all and end-all of Democracy and Americanism, without really understanding what a Constructionist is or even what the early debates about Constructionism entailed.

Trump is ... I don't know what Trump is yet. My feeling is he's a narcissist - like, clinically - who is going to quickly discover he has no interest in anything other than the "bully pulpit" of the Presidency and real responsibility is going to quickly devolve onto his Cabinet, Mike Pence, and Congressional Republicans in varying order of prominence depending on the issue, and then periodically Trump will swing his proverbial fists around wildly whenever some issue gets his dander up, causing no end of problems for his Party and the nation as a whole and quite possibly the world, and ultimately he'll go down as a terrible one-term President who enriched himself and his children while in office, managed to survive impeachment only due to the cynical partisanship of Congress, and left a legacy of further intrenchment of the major issues America is facing: de-facto segregation, environmental degradation, erosion of the middle class, anemic economic growth, global political instability and hyper-partisanship.

[photon]

^ I think that's a best case scenario, adding in damage to institutions and maybe irrevocable harm to the climate.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by photon

^ I think that's a best case scenario, adding in damage to institutions and maybe irrevocable harm to the climate.

I'm an optimist.

[JohnnyB]

That weathervane is awesome. Whoever made that obviously put a lot of care and thought into its creation.

[SebC]

If "President Pence" is the best-case scenario then things are worse than I thought.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Back to the Middle East Part 3: This Time We're Taking the Oil

Katy TurVerified account
‏@KatyTurNBC
Sr intelligence source says real concern is antagonism among top Trump picks toward Iran. Says its eerily similar to Bush admin towards Iraq

https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/statu...76879481835520

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Even if it wasn't explicitly designed to allow rural voters a greater influence that's what it does today. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing because it's not hard to see how interests in the heartland could get completely overridden by urban interests.

How many accommodations should we make for small states? They already have an entire half of congress where they have equal representation, and some even have proportionally more representation in the house due to low population and the minimum of 1 seat per state. (full list here )

Not to mention in the current political climate we allow small states to have the early primaries so they can garner more attention. The power there is pretty huge as well. Candidates are made or broken on how well they poll among a bunch of white farmers in Iowa as if that's representative of the whole of the country????

I grew up in downstate Illinois where this very same issue was talked about all the time. Everyone outside of Chicago felt that they were ignored because all attention went to metro Chicago. Everyone in Chicago felt that the downstate people often sandbagged laws that they really needed. At the end of the day though, all lawmakers have to make tough decisions that impact people of all types. It is their job to rise above the NIMBY attitude that individual voters take. We don't need rules to ensure rural voters are respected. We need to elect honorable people into the positions that make decisions with everyone in mind.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I think it was zamler who did not like the implication that Trump fully expected to lose the election. Well this should more or less confirm he expected to lose: His lease at the DC hotel will be void if he is sworn in as President without selling his interest.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by photon

The most recent Off Message podcast from POLITICO is interesting, they have David Brock on and they talk about many different things from what he thinks the Clinton campaign did right and did wrong, to things that he wanted to do with the organizations he controlled but was told not to do, to more views on how the media did.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/...987591126?mt=2

They briefly brought up a Harvard study which I hadn't seen which had some interesting observations about the media coverage. Over the course of the campaign, Clinton received quite a bit more negative coverage than did Trump. Trump got more negative coverage during the general election, but Trump was almost even positive/negative during the primaries while Clinton's coverage was almost the same mostly negative during both the primaries and the campaign. Both received equally negative coverage about fitness for office which is a false equivalence IMO. And Trump overall got more coverage.

Also raised an interesting point that when the message from the media about government is negative, that intentionally or unintentionally reinforces a campaign message about the government being negative (drain that swamp). If the negative media coverage creates anxiety, dissatisfaction and distrust that's something a populist (or fake-populist) can tap into, which Trump did with great success.

Anyway here's the study, I haven't read it all yet:

http://shorensteincenter.org/news-co...eral-election/

Which jives with the other tidbit I found interesting from the podcast, he said the internal polls from Clinton's campaign were saying that people were responding to the dark rhetoric and campaign ads from Trump. Typically politicians try to avoid that darkness and try to focus on the what we're going to do stuff because the dark stuff doesn't poll well.

EDIT: Negative vs positive news coverage over the years:

This is a good podcast. Everyone should listen to it.

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Back to the Middle East Part 3: This Time We're Taking the Oil
https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/statu...76879481835520

There's no way, is there? They can't be that dumb?

Iraq - as painfully stupid as it was and as bad as the outcomes were - is a cakewalk compared to intervening in Iran.

They wouldn't... would they?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I think it was zamler who did not like the implication that Trump fully expected to lose the election. Well this should more or less confirm he expected to lose: His lease at the DC hotel will be void if he is sworn in as President without selling his interest.

Or the Democrats jumped the gun on this conclusion since the GSA said they haven't determined yet:

https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/st...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

[photon]

First Lady Ivanka Trump?

Via @SaraMurray: Ivanka Trump to get office in same space reserved for First Lady in WH; Ivanka's title still TBD, per transition source

...

Some have speculated that Ivanka, one of the president-elect's daughters, will fill a role similar to first lady's during her father's presidency. The New York Times reported this month that she may be one of the most powerful first daughters in history.

In early December, she met with former Vice President Al Gore, a prominent climate change activist, at Trump Tower in New York City. The first daughter reportedly plans to make global warming one of her main issues.

Trump has said he'd "love" to have Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, involved in his administration.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...e-reserved-for

I guess there's nothing saying the First Lady has to be the president's spouse is there? But if she does anything outside the general stuff a First Lady does doesn't that run contrary to the anti-nepotism laws? Not to mention her husband.

[accord1999]

There is some precedent, unmarried Buchanan had his niece do the duties. And there was some small speculation that if Hilary Clinton won, Chelsea would do the normal first lady social duties.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.3ad7bac604af

[troutman]

Donald Trump is bribing inauguration performers by offering them ambassadorships

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/1...bassadorships/

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by troutman

Donald Trump is bribing inauguration performers by offering them ambassadorships

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/1...bassadorships/

Pretty sure Ted Nugent would take him up on his offer.

[photon]

He should get the St Petersburg Philharmonic just because that would be hilarious.

[Tacopuck]

Originally Posted by troutman

Donald Trump is bribing inauguration performers by offering them ambassadorships

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/1...bassadorships/

I'd also take this with a grain of salt as its a music website referencing a Hollywood "entertainment news" website that is using anonymous sources that were self admitted Hillary Supporters

Both men who spoke to TheWrap about the ambassadorships asked not to be identified, and both, like most in left-leaning Hollywood, supported Hillary Clinton in the election.

[photon]

Heh twitter isn't at Trumps tech summit today because they wouldn't make a #CrookedHillary emoji apparently.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...-valley-232599