President’s campaign just sent this text message to supporters re @AOC
Let us not forget the President is from New York, has a tall building with his name on it on 5th Avenue and owns a luxe club on the coast!
Also 10 of the 20 largest cities by population aren’t on the coast pic.twitter.com/qSG4zSiDTi
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) August 27, 2019
It’s now part of the official GOP program for keeping “America” in the hands of the rich, white, and Republican. Once again, Trump says the quiet parts out loud.
No it wouldn't. Eliminating the Electoral College would free the majority, multiracial Americans who live in our urban and suburban centers from minority rule. #onepersononevote https://t.co/dxBn5wUQ5z
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) August 21, 2019
"Silence our voices" Iowa has less than 1% of the total U.S. Population and even in a popular vote system they'd still have 2% of the total voting power in the U.S. Senate. And Iowa would still be a trove of hundreds of thousands of votes for either candidate. https://t.co/QgxuFOuCCz
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) August 22, 2019
For what it's worth, there are 4.7 million Republicans in California — which, taken together, would make them the 25th most populous state in the nation, about six spots above Iowa — and no president will come campaign for their votes, because there is no point. https://t.co/7RVn8PcPh7
— Matt Pearce ?? (@mattdpearce) August 21, 2019
The Electoral College is basically exhibit A of why we are technically a constitutional republic, not a majoritarian democracy. Which is fine! But defending it in the name of "democracy" is gibberish. https://t.co/jUc3FpLGtR
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 22, 2019
Yeah, DC's peasant status is current law and constitutional precedent, but it's not exactly "democracy" unless "democracy" means "THE FOUNDERS WERE GREAT SHUT UP I AM CALLING THE POLICE." https://t.co/nlu3tjgc1i
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 22, 2019
Exactly. The idea that the EC represented some kind of carefully considered consensus of the framers is absurd. https://t.co/iN9SyYlB93
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) August 22, 2019
here’s what i had to say about this argument https://t.co/eKoerojxOp pic.twitter.com/7s75aBAohW
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) August 25, 2019
The sensible Democratic candidates agree.* Excellent framing argument by Buttigieg:
Buttigieg says we should end Electoral College: "I would go so far as to argue that in a democracy it would be appropriate to elect our president by just counting up all the votes and giving it to the person who got the most."
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 24, 2019
*Axios calling Kamala Harris’ answer here a ‘mixed message’ is one more data point in my impression that Big Media is biased, however unconsciously, against her candidacy.
TenguPhule
Welcome to Modern Democracy.
debbie
Calling himself “jasoninthehouse” seems kind of goofy.
Ohio Mom
Not only all that, but Iowa always retains the ability to govern themselves. Go ahead, pass a law that everyone in Iowa wear a beanie at all times or whatever.
Be the laboratory of democracy you were meant to be Iowa. You show those coastal elites you can run a state better than they can.
trollhattan
Iowa has two senators, three members of the House of Representatives, and Steve King! What more do you want, Joni?
SFAW
As a devout atheist, I would SO become religious, were whatever God that may exist to smite ALL THE ANTI-AMERICAN REPUBLICANS. Start with Traitor Turtle, but the list is almost endless.
Grease spots is what I’m looking for, but will accept a reasonable approximation thereof.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Awfully convenient for you Joni that by the very nature of the EC, combined with voter suppression and dark money, your party has won the presidency twice in the last 20 years. Weren’t the voices of 65 million people silenced in 2016 because of the EC? Is it any more fair that a reactionary rural minority runs roughshod over the majority? Especially when this same minority is destroying the country? Somehow, I don’t think you’d feel the same way about the EC if the shoe were on the other foot, you fucking hypocrite.
Other nations that have representative democracies elect their heads of government/state without an EC. They do just fine. Why does the US need one? What other developed, representative democracy has an EC equivalent? I don’t know of one.
jl
Winner take all system for allocating electoral votes in most states mean that a few swing states get all the attention. Which has turned out to be pretty random, IMHO, since different states tend to move in and out of swing state status over time.
Maybe we could enlist swing state voters driven insane every four years from nonstop election hectoring to the cause of getting rid of pernicious influence of current electoral college system. I think the state laws to divide state electoral college votes by state population, once a critical number of states do the same thing, is the best most direct way forward. I know lawyers here will say it will be challenged in court, but It’s still a worthwhile effort, I think. Builds morale that something can be attempted right now.
Weigel has a good point. GOP arguments on any change at all that is not 100 percent in their favor amount start with ‘SHUT UP’ shouted in feigned, or ignorant, outrage.
Jeffro
Just keep pounding on the anti-democratic nature of the EC, and how the GOP would NEVER accept this situation if this were reversed, and that their arguments are bullshit, and keep pounding and pounding and pounding some more.
It (along with ending gerrymandering, protecting voting rights, etc) needs to be a major part of every Democratic campaign everywhere until we get where we need to be, period. Pound pound pound.
trollhattan
Does NRO still do cruises?
I love everything about this story.
jl
@debbie: Attempt to convince these dang kids these days that he and his cause are very hep and cool. Better jump on his bandwagon or be a square, a wet blanket, ya know, daddy-o? Kind of like Ryan wandering around in the RX370, or whatever, gym gear, with a baseball cap on backwards.
PIGL
I follow our evil twin blog, LGM, obsessively. The learned political scientists there have taught me that the present system of entrenched minority rule by a usually republican Senate majority, backstopped by an immovable reactionary judiciary can not be changed. The EC can not be abolished, the structure of the Senate is unchangeable, the last 20 years of Federalist Society court stacking can not by any means by undone or in any way mitigated over any time horizon likely to be provided by the unfolding of larger scale events.
This is what us 70s radicals learned to call a Legitimation Crisis (thanks, Herr Docktor Professor Habermas).
I would conclude by asking two questions.
1) How can the United States of America possibly survive as constituted for another generation?
2) Why in hell should it?
Baud
It wasn’t a mixed message. It was a noncommittal message. It’s a poor choice of words, but she wasn’t the only one tagged with it.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
SFAW
If you truly believed that, you lying, fascistic motherfucker, you’d be trying to do something to change the current situation, where 46 percent (you motherfuckers and your voters) is/are bossing around the other 54 percent (Dem voters, including those who were suppressed).
Until you start putting your money where your mouth is, liar, best you shut the fuck up.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@PIGL:
I’ve found many of the commenters at LGM a tad defeatist. At that point, when the system is so irredeemably corrupt and unchangeable, the only recourse is to overthrow it.
I’m hoping it won’t have to come to that
Another Scott
Twitter:
Yup.
Cheers,
Scott.
PIGL
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I’ve really been meaning to ask this question there, but this audience is friendlier.
I should mention that the Legitimation Crisis occurs when the majority start asking my question 2. It is resolved by their answer. And this is the so kind of question that is answered by the very act of being asked.
jl
@PIGL: “1) How can the United States of America possibly survive as constituted for another generation?”
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson wondered the same thing.Came to different conclusions.
Hamilton, use some damned common sense when interpreting the Constitution, and interpret it in the light of the times.
Jefferson: need to change it every generation.
But.. they were commies, losers and cucks.
jl
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: thanks for finding the Trump opposites world tweet. There is always one, at least one.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jeffro:
Exactly. That’s literally the best counterargument.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Jeez, jl, you know better than to use the “H” word around these parts.
germy
@SFAW:
He prefers a system where 27% get to boss around the rest of us.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@PIGL:
I understand. It’s just a question of how we go about undoing the GOP’s damage. This couldn’t have come at worse time. Worst of all, the GOP thinks it owns the world. That they can boss the world around and we’ll always be on top. This is absolutely stupid and won’t always be the case, but the power of whiteness insulates a lot, until it doesn’t and reality inevitably ensues.
germy
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/trump-campaign-remind-aoc-electoral-college-our-country-not-theirs.html
Mike in NC
My old Navy roommate, retired VADM Mike Franken, is officially running for a US Senate seat in Iowa. I made my first contribution this morning.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: A good sequel to Hamilton would be WWE pro-wrestling fantasy with H and J in a death cage match. Thrash metal music. Smoke and fireworks. It’ll make a mint. Probably can work in Wolverines and the Hulk.
Edit: Mel Brooks writes it.
patrick II
No, but it would turn down the volume on your loudspeaker.
Right. It means 40% get to boss around the other 60% of the population.
zzyzx
Even if it didn’t have all of the other problems, the Electoral College would keep me up at night.
538 people. People who are known if given enough research. That’s a ridiculous problem for a country that has an enemy that has been shown to be willing to assassinate people in other countries. When 20-30 people are enough to overthrow an election and plunge the country into chaos, you just need to kidnap a few kids and have some deep sleepers mixed in who have been waiting for the right day. After 2 months of talking about the Warren Administration, what happens if the EC suddenly votes Trump in? How do you explain to the voters that when they thought they were voting for Booker, they really were voting for some random person they’ve never heard of?
For that reason alone, this must be stopped. Rules that are technically still in play but that everyone’s forgotten about are exceedingly dangerous.
debbie
@germy:
Or, as intoned by Dick Cheney, “It is our due.”
zzyzx
@PIGL: that’s a question I wonder if the Republicans are even asking. At what point as minority rule becomes more entrenched via the Senate does the rest of the country get frustrated and find other approaches? What happens if it becomes 40/60 or 30/70 votes but the majority still loses? At some point, it won’t be sustainable.
Ohio Mom
@jl: Re: “I think the state laws to divide state electoral college votes by state population, once a critical number of states do the same thing, is the best most direct way forward.”
I agree but important to note the vote has to be divided across the *entire* state. Every now and then I see a stealth proposal that the votes be divided among each congressional district. In a gerrymandered state like mine, that would be worse than the current system.
zzyzx
Also what happens if one party gets enough safe states? Suppose Texas, Arizona, and Florida (due to Puerto Ricans) suddenly become blue states. Elections are foregone conclusions in the electoral college even though no one knows who will win the popular vote. How would that be sustainable?
TenguPhule
@jl:
And this was the part where the plan failed.
TenguPhule
@PIGL:
It won’t. In our generation this mess is going to start coming apart at the seams.
trnc
Their outsized loudspeaker.
germy
@debbie:
One tumbleweed, one vote. I don’t why you libs can’t accept it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: jl’s a dreamer, but he’s not the only one
Adam L Silverman
@PIGL: Elect a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate in 2020. The next president will have 2 or 3 Supreme Court nominees and will also begin to replace the Bush 41 and Clinton appointees on the lower Federal courts. All McConnell has done is replace the Reagan and Bush 41 appointees. Now he’s replaced them with young reactionaries, but the line can be held and then reversed if the presidency and senate change hands in 2020.
Adam L Silverman
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: that tweet was doctored. The original says this election, ie the 2012 election, was a disaster for democracy.
zzyzx
@Adam L Silverman:
In theory, sure. In practice, flipping the Senate in 2020 will take a lot of lucky breaks. Either we have to keep AL or everything has to go our way.
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
Who is retiring? I thought maybe RBG if a Democrat wins, but who else?
matt
Not holding a tyranny over the majority is ‘silencing’. Boy, these sure are some entitled doughy, rural people.
jl
@Ohio Mom: thanks. I checked the Wiki article on it. Now that the project is more than half way there, looks like it caught the attention of the likes of the Federalist Society and ALEC. So, you’re right, we need to watch for dirty tricks.
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
RAVEN
@germy: me
Cheryl Rofer
When we became Trumpistan, I thought that the Electoral College would never be changed. I’m beginning to think it can. A constitutional amendment is clearly out of the question for the immediate future, but there is the National Popular Vote movement, which is gathering steam. More and more people are recognizing that this compromise with the slave states has to go.
I’m feeling optimistic today. Not much noise from the toddler in the White House, some time with friends, leisure with the kitties. But the feeling that we’re done with the Electoral College has been growing in me for some time.
jl
@zzyzx: ” flipping the Senate in 2020 will take a lot of lucky breaks. ”
At least Trump is trying to bring on a recession. So, he’s pitching in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Of course in 2012 the EC and the popular vote results elected the same person.
The EC could be pretty much ignored when most of the time when they delivered the same result, with an exception maybe every 100 years or so. But the results have differed twice in 16 years.
Brachiator
Trump has homes in New Jersey, New York, Florida. Doesn’t this make him part of the coastal elite?
JDM
I’m not a huge Buttigieg fan, but he has regularly done some good replies like this (might be a generational thing, since we also see things like this regularly from younger pols, like AOC etc.). That one above is good, has a mild edge of snark to add spiciness, and is pretty damn simple to comprehend, and difficult to refute in any way that seems fair.
Ohio Mom
This is another one of those carnards that irritates me no end: “we live in a republic, which means 51% of the population doesn’t get to boss around the other 49% of the population around.”
“Boss around”? The 49ers always get their rights protected and they have the court system as well, assuming they have actual legitimate concerns. And again, they also have opportunities on the state and local levels to influence matters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@germy: I wouldn’t be too surprised if Thomas leaves to spend more time with his RV in the next 6 months or so(after the current term).
SiubhanDuinne
Ernstsplaining.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: There may be some I’m not aware of, but I think all of his “resorts” are on the coasts as well.
ETA: (checks wikipedia) Looks like the one furthest from the coast is Charlotte NC.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Please re-post this story in one of the overnight threads when Omnes is around to appreciate it.
Miss Bianca
Reposted from dead thread below, because I needed to vent:
Well, speaking of “frivolous political gossip”, I got quoted AT LENGTH in the Denver Post today by their fuckwitted “federal government reporter”/political gossip columnist without my consent and without my verification of the quotes. This from the email exchange I shared with you. Yesterday the Democratic Party, and Balloon Juice, today THE WORLD. At least I wasn’t quoted trashing Governor Hickenlooper, which another county official was.
I didn’t exactly tear the State Dem chair a new one as a result of this debacle, but I did tell her that in her “county officers call” this evening, she had better be prepared to discuss security and ethics, and a rousing discussion of “AND THIS IS EXHIBIT A FOR WHY WE DON’T TRASH OUR DEMOCRATIC OFFICIALS, KIDDIES – EVEN AMONG OURSELVES.”
So I find myself more oddly in sympathy with Senator Sanders’s journalism reform impulses than I might have expected.
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
You may say that, but …
Jay Noble
At some point in the EC argument someone needs to point out “Acres don’t vote”. And all those EC maps showing all that red distort that. Start putting up more of those “50% of the Country/State lives here” maps.
Nebraska is probably a pretty good study case on how things might work (or not) without the EC.
Ohio Mom
@jl: If you look at a map of Ohio’s congressional districts, you don’t have to know anything about the state to immediately spot the urban areas.
They are the places the districts’ borders become tiny, interlocked, twisted fingers, with the tiny fingers attached to bigger shapes.
Each (Democratic) city is divided up and the small pieces each attached to a large expanse of (Republican) rural area.
The result is that while the total number of Democratic votes is larger than that of the Republicans, we send many more Republicans to Congress.
If a right-wing proposal to divvy up Electoral votes according to Congressional district results ever passed, Ohio would never be a swing state again.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: RBG and Breyer will age out. As will Thomas, who is the third oldest justice and has some serious health issues.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
Governor Cordray disagrees.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
Thomas will retire this summer to give Trump an chance to replace him.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: I should add that the Ohio Congressional districts are drawn in Columbus, by a state legislature that is its own perpetual gerrymandering machine.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t done so already; ya know, spend more time with his RV.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne: .
Troublemaker ;-)
cmorenc
The electoral college was devised as a compromise scheme to get smaller states to agree to bind themselves into a constitutional union with larger states, along with giving each state (no matter how small or large) two Senators, and a provision counting slaves as 3/5 “persons” for purposes of allocating the number of representatives each state got to send to the US House of Representatives.
The current function of the Electoral College is to permit the citizens of the dozen or so states with a close enough partisan divide to potentially swing either way to be the only ones who really count for deciding Presidential elections. The substantial minority of Republicans in California are more numerous than the entire electorate of some of these “swing” states, maybe even a few of them combined together, yet California Republicans can go piss in the wind for all their votes count. Ditto for Democrats in Texas, though within another couple of election cycles, Texas may no longer be so reliably Republican in Presidential elections – with a modest but not entirely unrealistic chance this may happen as early as 2020. We’ll see how Republicans feel about the Electoral College when Texas finally turns blue, and makes it much harder to win Presidential elections without sweeping nearly all the swing states.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ohio Mom: Don’t y’all have the initiative process in Ohio? That’s how we got rid of the legislature choosing their voters here in CA.
cmorenc
We’ll see how Republicans feel about the Electoral College when Texas finally turns blue, and makes it much harder to win Presidential elections without sweeping nearly all the swing states.
Tazj
@Brachiator: Oh no, he worked he way up to the top by himself and is for the working class, even when he didn’t pay them. He is also not a celebrity, just ask him.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
They do, but they’re unfortunately imitating Kentucky.
JPL
@Brachiator: Nothing matters because they just make up shit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I misspelled “initiative” and chose the wrong correction, I will go away and hide in shame.
(I’ve corrected my mistake, but will live with the shame of making it forever.)
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I wrote an assessment on that for someone the week after the Kavanaigh hearings.
david
Instead of eliminating the Electoral College, why not just take advantage of it?
In the mid 19th century, California saw a huge immigration of people searching for gold and other treasures.
In the early 21st century, the state needs a huge wave of emigration to neighboring states.
In the last two presidential elections, the state gave Democrats wins by 3 million and 4.2 million votes.
In those same two elections, the states of Alaska, Arizona, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and
Wyoming all voted Republican by a combined 600,000 votes.
If there were a concerted effort, a grand Calexit into its neighboring states would flip 10-12 Senate seats
within one 6-year senatorial cycle. Permanent Democrat majority.
But, hey, it may require some discomfort. Those non-Cali homes may not be near a cool bar or night club,
and there may not be a Starbucks on the corner. But, on the bright side, business does follow population.
So make the dive, liberal friends. Telecommuting and skyping are a real thing in they year of our Lord 2019.
And taxes are lower in those neighboring states, you can actually keep more of your earnings from your efforts.
Save the nation. Flip the Senate. Leave California and move to any other Western state. The entire West,
sans Idaho and Utah, can be flipped to solid Blue if only 1 million of that 3 million excess were to relocate.
mrmoshpotato
@Ohio Mom:
Please tell me this is a request for Iowa to secede.
Bye bye federal farm welfare!
cmorenc
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A factor to consider with “initiative” states is the extent to which their respective state constitutions also create loopholes whereby a gerrymandered state legislature can effectively nullify passed initiatives. For example, Florida and ex-felon voting, and IIRC Michigan has a loophole involving insulating laws involving financial appropriations from being overridden by initiative, and so surprise! matters powerful state legislators don’t want to be vulnerable to citizen initiative will have financial appropriations attached to them.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: Mea culpa. Maybe I am mixing up my part of the state with the rest of it.
I will say that Cordray did not run a very spirited campaign. His campaign might be the only Democratic one which never called me. Now part of me was glad to be left alone but the other part of me wondered about the voters who needed that extra encouragement.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@david: As a native Californian, ah no.
Miss Bianca
@trollhattan: OMFG, I *love* this story. It sounds like Pennywise on the Titanic. And what is “patriotic” partying, anyway?
Ohio Mom
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We had an iniative on redrawing the districts, our side won, and then…things stalled, IIRC, because of the Supreme Court decision. Maybe in 2022, I’ve read.
Patricia Kayden
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Very well said. It’s amazing that a political party which so aggressively suppresses minority votes is now claiming that getting rid of the EC would dilute rural voters. How about one man, one vote when it comes to presidential elections?
Mary G
@david: I’m a Californian who has semi-seriously considered moving to Kentucky or Maine next year, but not many people are in my position.Better that Democrats in those states get busy getting out the vote. Republicans will have a stranglehold on red states until they don’t.
Dan B
@Miss Bianca: Ah yes, you have discovered “the Media”. I got quoted a lot in “the Media” at several periods in my life. It was almost always a mind-f**k of how to het things wrong. It’s amazing we can elect anyone sane. You are not alone in your despair at our media. I’m moving more and more towards organizing small groups – small enough that we can know each other’s stories and character. MSM is good for yhe public to get a general impression of reality but shouldn’t be relied upon.
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: And Colorado has joined the National Popular Vote movement. Along with passing red-flag laws. Now all of a sudden, state reactionaries are screaming that Governor Polis needs to be recalled because GOVERNMENT TYRANNY ZOMG. Coincidence? I think not!
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: We sure it wasn’t Parliament? Sounds like Brex-mummifiedchickenfajitas-it is coming along nicely.
CaseyL
@Mary G: Let’s talk. I’ve thought about moving to Maine; gone so far as to browse the real estate there. Love the rugged rocky coasts there. Only thing is, most of the houses seem to rely on oil furnaces for heat.Pfui.
SiubhanDuinne
@RAVEN:
How many sleeps remaining until R-Day?
Sab
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We tried that twice. Then the legislature jumped in with a counterproposal. Currently we are supposed to be using a better reformed system, but not until after the 2020 election and census, so we get to go another 10 years with the phucked up system we got in 2010.
Elections have consequences, and Dems staying home in off years (2010) can really mess things up.
Jay
Sorry, but it’s the FTFNYT
Origuy
@trollhattan: “an emergency tannoy summoned security staff ”
I learned a new word today. Tannoy is a maker of loudspeakers in Britain, so a tannoy is what we in the US call a PA system.
A Ghost To Most
They can scream all they want. If they don’t like it, Kansas is right the fuck over there.
David Koch
@Adam L Silverman: How do you doctor a tweet – did Twitter HQ change it? Here’s a link to the tweet (link)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sab: Basically, what we did here is get the Republicans on board by also including the “Jungle Primary” along with redistricting being decided by a panel of retired judges. The “Jungle Primary” is stupid, but it’s also not(with one or two exceptions) worked the way Republicans thought it would.
Baud
@Jay:
Bouie is good though.
Steve in the ATL
@Origuy: it’d be a lot easier if the English just spoke English.
Jay
@CaseyL:
Lots of places on the Maine Coast can get by all winter with passive solar, superinsulation or geothermal. Most of those places arn’t for sale though, so you would have to either build or renovate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: I agree, and learn how to spell properly.
Dave Empey
@Jay Noble:
I think a good response to those maps is the XKCD election map, although I think I would replace the stick figures with colored dots.
Van Buren
@david: I am doing my part. I was born in California and now live and vote in New York.
Okay, so my effort needs tweaking, but it’s a start!
Omnes Omnibus
@Origuy: @Steve in the ATL: Everyone knows what a tannoy is. Jeepers
sylvainsylvain
@david:
I’ve been saying this for awhile…get a few of our billionaires together, ones who see the writing on the wall re: climate change, & have them set up a company that pays people to work from home, making decent $ living in Montana, Idaho, etc. Hell, it wouldn’t cost them anything in the end, you could write most of it off as a loss. You just need the cash up front to move them & set up the living arrangements/job.
Anne Laurie
@Miss Bianca: Congratulations? Condolences?… at least it proves that your argument was striking!
The ‘new normal’ journamalism seems to be adopting the slogan “Everything’s online these days, so everything is public, unless of course it would make *us* look bad.” Which is gonna bite them inna butt, sooner rather than later.
Y’ever read Terry Pratchett’s The Truth? It’s a brisk little parable about what people want from ‘the news’, how ‘the news’ is actually collected / produced, and not least when “the news” becomes necessary — once a community gets too big for gossip chains, there needs to be a counterweight to what The Powers That Be would prefer ‘everyone’ to believe. (Yes, Pratchett got his start in the newspaper business… )
P.S. The Truth is pretty much a standalone — people who’ve read other Discworld books will get more of the jokes, but you don’t *need* to know the characters in advance.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
A what?
Anne Laurie
@david: Easy to propose, hard to accomplish. Remember the Libertarians’ Free State Project, which required a lot fewer volunteers.
Boussinesque
@sylvainsylvain: I’d been thinking about something along those lines for the past couple months, so I’m glad to see it’s occurred to at least two other people (which means there are probably even more people not on this site that have had the same thought). I think that straight white dudes probably need to be at the forefront of those efforts, actually moving—because how fair would it be to ask minorities, women, or LGBT people to move to one of those locales where their rights aren’t protected? At least until enough people follow through and can elect the local politicians required to repeal the most egregious laws and “religious” exemptions for bigotry.
PIGL
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, Dr. Silverman, for your positive read of the situation. I surely hope you are proved right.
daveNYC
Getting rid of the electoral college would be nice, but it’s baked into the constitution and therefore rather difficult to change. However it can be defanged a bit by changing the The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. A massive bump to the number of Representatives would decrease the influence the Senate has on the number of electors and would mean each state would have (roughly) the correct number of electors to represent its population.
Going to a pure popular vote would be better, but doing so would require a constitutional amendment since I don’t think the NPV plan being able to pass constitutional muster.
Uncle Cosmo
@Adam L Silverman:
As many as s/he can manage in something less than 2 years.** Beginning NLT 4 Nov 2020, the same bastards that gave us the Tea Party will be building TP 2.0, while any Democratic electoral victory will be litigated ad nauseum in the courts, whose Federalist apparatchiks will “slow-walk” the endless appeals to delay the seating of the winner as long as possible. The bought-&-paid-for media will rail against anything the Democrats try to accomplish, & the courts will void any legislation passed. Come January 2023 the Thugs will be in command of Congress once again, on their way to the Presidency in 2024, & Obama’s legislative achievements of 2009-10 (notably the ACA) that seemed to us so slow & weak will look like a near miracle of activist energy by comparison.
The people that own this country won’t go down without a fight – & they own most of the weapons & soldiers.
Tell me I’m wrong, & why.
**ETA: How long did we have between the seating of Al Franken & the death of Teddy Kennedy?