US Elections 2020 (geopolitics, informed debate, no ad hominems)

Biden

14 (66.7%)

Trump

7 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Voting closed: November 02, 2020, 06:25:59 pm

[Alan Klein]

He is deliberately and deceptively referring to votes cast by the states following the election, which are awarded differently than those cast by voters during the election, in an apparent attempt to give the impression that Trump won a majority of something in 2016.  This meaningless formulation was previously debunked here.  Donald Trump became president despite receiving fewer votes than Hillary Clinton because we don't have a national election: we conduct separate elections in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and almost all these jurisdictions choose the "electors" who will subsequently represent them in the selection of the president on a winner-take-all basis.

I was not deceptive.  I was responding to John Camp's post where he inaccurately said Hillary won a majority of popular votes.  That isn't true.  She only won 48% of the popular vote to Trump's 46%.  The other 6% went to other candidates.  She had a plurality of votes.  You need more than 50% to have a majority.  Her husband Bill Clinton only won 43% of the popular vote in 1992 when he became president.  But like Trump, he won a majority of the electoral vote.  Trump won a majority of the electoral votes that are required to become president. Trump won 57% to Hillary's 43%.  Bill Clinton's electoral vote majority win was 69% to Bush's 31%.  So Bill Clinton won more electoral votes that Trump did even though Trump had a larger popular vote percentage.  Mixing popular votes with electoral votes is fraught with mistakes.  You know better.

The national popular vote is a feel good measure.  But it's the electoral vote that counts.  We're a Federal Republic of 50 sovereign states.  To win the presidency you need to win more popular votes in enough states that provide you with over 50% of the states' electoral votes.  So you're getting more popular votes on a state by state level if not on a national level. That's what Trump did. Arguing that Trump didn't win a majority of anything is false and is what's being deceptive on your part.

[RSL]

The real problem is that, for the young folks, there is more history to learn than when we were young. Who can keep up? It is relentless.

And it always will be “relentless,” Fab. But fortunately there’s a lot of recent history to learn from. Venezuela is a classic. Until Chavez brought in socialism it was the wealthiest country in south America. Now its people are starving. There’s a similar history for Cuba over a longer period of time. The lessons are right there, but a lot of people aren’t learning them. Unless people with an understanding of history can hold on, everyone’s going to have to learn the hard lessons all over again. But so it’s always been.

I'm outta here again.

[Alan Klein]

You're almost certainly right, but it's risky to say "never".

Would you ever have imagined hearing an incumbent President claim at a nationally televised debate that the upcoming election was a fraud? I mean, if it's not true and he says it anyway, shouldn't be put into an unmarked SUV in handcuffs? And if it is true, then shouldn't he as President be trying to fix what's wrong? At best, it's a huge red flag that the current government is dysfunctional. The fact that 300 million Americans seems to shrug and say, "That's just Trump" is telling all on its own. My main point being, a lot of unprecedented things seem to be happening.

If enough people in the county decide the that electoral college is no longer fulfilling a useful role, there's no telling what will happen in the future when all the current fogeys are dead and buried and someone else has the reins.

It's not the old fogeys that will keep the electoral system.  It's all the residents, young and old, living in the smaller populated states that will object as they will be marginalized if we switch to a popular vote.  They will be giving up power and influence that they won't want to do. If we go to a national popular vote system, these small states will be ignored as candidates focus all their time and energy trying to please big state needs.  The needs of people in these smaller state will be ignored.  If you lived in a small state, would you want to give up your state's power and be ignored by Washington DC? This is why we have the electoral system originally.  It was to satisfy the concerns of the small states then when we founded our country.

There are additional problems with a national popular vote.  The two party system will disappear and become a multi-party system since the need for majority vote will no longer be needed to win.  Like a parliamentary system, the Democrat and Republican Parties will become less powerful as third and fourth parties develop.  That's why in the end, both Democrats and Republicans won't want to give up the electoral system.  Their power will be significantly reduced.

Also, rather than having the winner get the most popular votes, they will get less and less as more candidates run.  So the power to run the country as a mandate of majority electoral votes will no longer happen.  The electoral system gives the winner a majority over 50% win.  That will end.  Then you could have a winner with only 35% of the popular vote running the country.  65% of the people voted against him or her.  What kind of mandate is that?

[faberryman]

So Trump is mad at Meadows for revealing his true condition. As CNN reports:

"A separate White House official confirmed Trump is unhappy with Meadows, as the chief of staff is now viewed by Trump advisers as having damaged the credibility of the current medical briefings on the President's bout with the coronavirus."

Imagine the truth damaging the credibility of the briefings. The doctor evading the oxygen question was what damaged the credibility of the briefings. He was a lousy evader. He'll get better at it with practice.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/04/politics/trump-mark-meadows-chief-of-staff/index.html

[faberryman]

According to a recent study, Fox News uses the word "hate" five times more often in its broadcasts than MSNBC. It's hardly a surprise; their presenters are frequently apoplectic. Get a grip. I wonder what the statistics are for having a stroke in the middle of a program. And the viewers. I don't know how anyone makes it though a whole show without getting up a least twice to kick the dog. Wowser.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-shows-fox-news-really-brings-the-hate

[Robert Roaldi]

Trump's campaign seems to be defending lack of Covid protection measures, https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/519538-trump-campaign-defends-lack-of-covid-19-precautions-before.

Huh?

[TechTalk]

According to a recent study, Fox News uses the word "hate" five times more often in its broadcasts than MSNBC. It's hardly a surprise; their presenters are frequently apoplectic. Get a grip. I wonder what the statistics are for having a stroke in the middle of a program. And the viewers. I don't know how anyone makes it though a whole show without getting up a least twice to kick the dog. Wowser.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-shows-fox-news-really-brings-the-hate

The Daily Beast article was blocked for me as a non-subscriber. Here's a link to another article on the study...

https://www.salon.com/2020/09/29/is-fox-news-obsessed-with-hate-study-finds-network-uses-this-word-five-times-more-than-its-rivals_partner/

And this is the study that is referred to in the articles...

https://cdn.theconversation.com/Hate_on_Fox_News_draft_report_9-28-20.pdf

Excerpt from the conclusion

"Using “they hate” in the way outlined above serves to dismiss potentially valid criticism of Republican policies and personnel as being driven by irrational hatred. The “the hate” heuristic might therefore help explain (Rand et al., 2014) why so many Republicans resist corrections of Trump’s false assertions (Walker and Gottfried, 2019). As our data shows, intensely partisan hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are more likely than others to use the phrase. Nevertheless, it appeared throughout evening programming, uttered by hosts, interviewees and Republican sources, all using the same heuristic to paint Trump critics as literally unbelievable enemies making bad-faith assertions.

Fox News constructs two dueling imagined communities(Warner and Villamil, 2017) for their audiences: “Us,” a community arising in part from the common, irrational hatred directed at them by the nefarious "Other" community: Democrats, liberals, the left and mainstream media, the “elite” that is ruining the country (Bahador et al., 2019). Repeatedly telling Fox viewers they are bound together as objects of contempt from large, powerful groups of fellow Americans likely fosters an in-group mentality (Happer and Philo, 2013) as it deepens feelings of antipathy towards the hateful out-groups (Pew Research Center, 2016). Fox personalities and guests appear to use this roundabout way of rousing viewers’ emotional involvement, constantly reinforcing a commonsense view of good folks under siege. Fox may be boosting its ratings (Lahut, 2020) at the cost of undermining American social capital (Gopnik, 2020) (trust among fellow citizens)—just when democratic legitimacy and values (Durante et al., 2020) are under particular stress, and state institutions confront crises like Covid-19 (Bartscher et al., 2020).

More research is needed on how diverging news diets (Jurkowitz et al., 2020) might be asymmetrically instilling a belief (Flynn et al., 2017) that the Other side hates Us and how this fits into the larger picture (Yudkin et al., 2019) of heightened polarization (Barber and McCarthy, 2015), negative partisan affect (Abramowitz and Webster, 2016), and policy paralysis (Werner, 2020) affecting the US."

[Alan Goldhammer]

No, it reflects the understanding of the current state of affairs in the USA.  I wish everyone would mask, however I also realize that’s just not happening nor do I expect it to happen here anytime in the future.  As such you make the choices that suit your beliefs and health needs.

Yes, and as people accept this COVID-19 infections will continue and people will needlessly die.  If you are not part of the solution trying to convince people to wear masks then you are part of the problem.  Pretty simple public health 101.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Clinton did not have a majority of the popular votes.  She only had 48%. That means more people voted against her than for her.  Trump had a majority of the electoral votes, approximately 57%.

A sure road to dissolution of the federal republic if this continues.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Absolutely, Robert, but when you look at the population as a whole you realize that a lot of people become fogeys all the time, meaning they wise up as they get older. But as George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Nowadays the reason people cannot learn from history is that it's no longer taught in our schools. There's a lot of repeating coming up.

The one thing we know for sure is that old white men are one of President Trump's main source of support.

[faberryman]

The one thing we know for sure is that old white men are one of President Trump's main source of support.

Trump is their hero. He banged a Playboy bunny and a porn star. Just thinking about it keeps those old guys alive.

[PeterAit]

It's not the old fogeys that will keep the electoral system.  It's all the residents, young and old, living in the smaller populated states that will object as they will be marginalized if we switch to a popular vote.  They will be giving up power and influence that they won't want to do. If we go to a national popular vote system, these small states will be ignored as candidates focus all their time and energy trying to please big state needs.

That's the exact and precise opposite of the truth. C'mon, think! With the electoral college, there is no motivation for a candidate to campaign in a state that is sure to go for him or for his opponent. With the EC, 10,000 more GOP votes in NY, or 10,000 more Dem votes in Oklahoma, won't make one whit of difference. With a popular vote, 10,000 votes will matter no matter where they come from. As it is, candidates DO NOT spend time trying to please "big state needs," but rather to win votes in swing states.

There are additional problems with a national popular vote.  The two party system will disappear and become a multi-party system since the need for majority vote will no longer be needed to win. 

Sez who? There's no reason we cannot have a pop vote that requires a majority. And no one is suggesting a parliamentary system.

Also, rather than having the winner get the most popular votes, they will get less and less as more candidates run.  So the power to run the country as a mandate of majority electoral votes will no longer happen.  The electoral system gives the winner a majority over 50% win.  That will end.  Then you could have a winner with only 35% of the popular vote running the country.  65% of the people voted against him or her.  What kind of mandate is that?

Yet again, non-issues. We can require a pop vote majority or we can use a ranked voting system. But you are right in that we certainly don't want a leader who won only a minority of votes. Like now.

[faberryman]

Latest on Trump. He is having a Driving Miss Daisy moment. Apparently he is taking a car ride around the neighborhood waving at people. For the love of God.

[James Clark]

Latest on Trump. He is having a Driving Miss Daisy moment. Apparently he is taking a car ride around the neighborhood waving at people. For the love of God.

So.. willfully and knowingly exposing the secret service guys who have to drive him around so he can have a photo op?  Sounds about right.  (What an asshole.)

[James Clark]

The Daily Beast article was blocked for me as a non-subscriber. Here's a link to another article on the study...

https://www.salon.com/2020/09/29/is-fox-news-obsessed-with-hate-study-finds-network-uses-this-word-five-times-more-than-its-rivals_partner/

And this is the study that is referred to in the articles...

https://cdn.theconversation.com/Hate_on_Fox_News_draft_report_9-28-20.pdf

Excerpt from the conclusion

"Using “they hate” in the way outlined above serves to dismiss potentially valid criticism of Republican policies and personnel as being driven by irrational hatred. The “the hate” heuristic might therefore help explain (Rand et al., 2014) why so many Republicans resist corrections of Trump’s false assertions (Walker and Gottfried, 2019). As our data shows, intensely partisan hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are more likely than others to use the phrase. Nevertheless, it appeared throughout evening programming, uttered by hosts, interviewees and Republican sources, all using the same heuristic to paint Trump critics as literally unbelievable enemies making bad-faith assertions.

Fox News constructs two dueling imagined communities(Warner and Villamil, 2017) for their audiences: “Us,” a community arising in part from the common, irrational hatred directed at them by the nefarious "Other" community: Democrats, liberals, the left and mainstream media, the “elite” that is ruining the country (Bahador et al., 2019). Repeatedly telling Fox viewers they are bound together as objects of contempt from large, powerful groups of fellow Americans likely fosters an in-group mentality (Happer and Philo, 2013) as it deepens feelings of antipathy towards the hateful out-groups (Pew Research Center, 2016). Fox personalities and guests appear to use this roundabout way of rousing viewers’ emotional involvement, constantly reinforcing a commonsense view of good folks under siege. Fox may be boosting its ratings (Lahut, 2020) at the cost of undermining American social capital (Gopnik, 2020) (trust among fellow citizens)—just when democratic legitimacy and values (Durante et al., 2020) are under particular stress, and state institutions confront crises like Covid-19 (Bartscher et al., 2020).

More research is needed on how diverging news diets (Jurkowitz et al., 2020) might be asymmetrically instilling a belief (Flynn et al., 2017) that the Other side hates Us and how this fits into the larger picture (Yudkin et al., 2019) of heightened polarization (Barber and McCarthy, 2015), negative partisan affect (Abramowitz and Webster, 2016), and policy paralysis (Werner, 2020) affecting the US."

This is really fascinating stuff.  In a just world there would be more discussion of the real role that media can/does play that didn't devolve into "the liberal media" and "Faux news."  Though my political affiliations are pretty clear, I'd be curious as to what, presumably more subtle, turns of phrase come from nominally neutral and left-leaning media sources that work their messaging in a similar manner.

[degrub]

No change from the past.
Only difference is the communication diarhhia

[Craig Lamson]

Yes, and as people accept this COVID-19 infections will continue and people will needlessly die.  If you are not part of the solution trying to convince people to wear masks then you are part of the problem.  Pretty simple public health 101.

No, it’s not my job or yours.  It’s no ones job except those who chose to or not wear a mask, until it becomes against the law to not wear a mask. Even then some will choose to ignore the law.

My job, and yours is to make the choices that best suit you and yours.  Period.

[Craig Lamson]

So.. willfully and knowingly exposing the secret service guys who have to drive him around so he can have a photo op?  Sounds about right.  (What an asshole.)

Is he still contagious?

[Craig Lamson]

This is really fascinating stuff.  In a just world there would be more discussion of the real role that media can/does play that didn't devolve into "the liberal media" and "Faux news."  Though my political affiliations are pretty clear, I'd be curious as to what, presumably more subtle, turns of phrase come from nominally neutral and left-leaning media sources that work their messaging in a similar manner.

Do you guys actually spend any real meaningful time watching Fox?

[Alan Klein]

Yes, and as people accept this COVID-19 infections will continue and people will needlessly die.  If you are not part of the solution trying to convince people to wear masks then you are part of the problem.  Pretty simple public health 101.

I think you're right. People should stop driving. After all, when you drive, people will continue to needlessly die.  Are you contributing to the death of others? Pretty simple public health 101.