2020 US Election Thread

[jwb]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Goddamn people are obsessed with pretending they’re a part of something that could really happen.



That’s a real option?

When you beat off do you only fantasize about people you’ve already ****ed?

Bruh the "everything is equally impossible" angle is very myopic and lazy. You're just inserting a sense of hopelessness to justify not examining how realistic or practical your ideas are. Stop looking for the easy way out, you know better.

[OccultHawk]

having any interest in any of these conversations is utterly pointless

4sho

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

to me it's more a lesser of evils than an inherent virtue. I don't care about everyone having equal say as an ideal. But the alternative of dictatorship just has more potential to go drastically wrong.

I'm fine with representative democracy as a compromise but I don't see the point in weighting the input of certain states over others. I've yet to hear anyone here offer any compelling reason why the electoral college is actually preferable to the popular vote...Big3 just made a vague appeal to mob rule not being ideal but I don't see how mob rule on the state level is somehow preferable.

Isn't it just giving the rural mob an edge over the urban mob? No mobs have been taken out of the equation.

[jwb]

No, it's doing two things.

1) giving an edge to smaller states overall
2) making it so that in all but a few states voting is actually pointless to the overall result. Whether you live in rural Wyoming or Los Angeles, your state is pretty much either solid red or solid blue every year so voting is pointless. Only swing states have any potential to actually change the election results.

Also, what is the rationale behind giving the rural mobs an edge in the first place?

[OccultHawk]

Hitler was elected by one vote. Cast by Bernie Sanders.

[jwb]

I don't necessarily disagree with you in general I just care less about the ideal than the pragmatic results. I wasn't aiming the electoral college part at you btw.

I do think it's questionable calling elections in authoritarian states elections tbh

It's like calling show trials actual trials. Elections aren't just the performative act of voting but the functional act of actually selecting leadership through said votes. The game way trials are the functional act of allowing a process of examining evidence to try to determine guilt, rather than the performative act of trying people where the evidence is irrelevant and the verdict is pre determined.

So with that said, while the US is more democratic than say China, its elections are rendered less legitimate to the extent that voting doesn't matter. Which is obviously most of the country thanks to the EC, imo.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

it should be kept in mind that the Republican Party as it is could not exist as a majority at any level of Gov if the system was just slightly more Winner Takes All

Like I said, they'd either adapt or be replaced by another party that could compete. We've seen this sorta shift happen before. I don't buy that there wouldn't still be enough of a gap in popular opinion to warrant two parties if the EC was scrapped and we went with the popular vote. The difference in terms of culture and politics exists to a large extent even within states, not to mention on a national level.

[jwb]

Biden was fairly competent and didn't break down during the debates so I guess that counts as a win by Biden standards, even though really I felt Trump was the dominant presence and communicated much more strength than Biden.

Really it felt like Trump spent the entire debate bullying both Biden and Wallace and neither one was ever able to truly exert any dominance over him.

I mean typically a disagreement would lead to a back and forth where both parties get a say in these types of debates... In this case Trump would just force the last word on Biden and Wallace would make a panic stricken attempt to push the conversation onto the next topic.

Dunno if it's gonna really change anything but it was definitely fairly entertaining at least.

[TheBig3]

Exert dominance over him? What was Biden supposed to do? Piss on him?

[Anteater]

Trump and Biden were both pretty weak, but Trump's weakness ended up propping up Biden by default because the latter was more measured and coherent. I guess they took different drugs before waddling out on stage.