If there was ever a year a third party could make traction... (2 Viewers)

[tenordas]

surely this is it.

One party is running a man half the country hates - no, despises, the other is running a woman even most of the other politicians in her own party can't stand.

Where are you Libertarians? Green Party? Hello?

I thought 2016 was a real shot, but the two most viable third parties both put up unelectable morons.

All one of them needs is someone actually viable and IMHO they could sway a lot of people away from these two...

 

[coldseat]

You're not serious saying that, are you?

Have you seen the compound where he lives? Do you know his insane net worth? Do you know that he and his wife illegally write off the insane speech fees they receive? Have you not seen the videotape of him bragging about getting the inspector who was investigating him and his son fired by threatening not to give the money to that country until they fired him?

Please, Biden is a poster child for politicians who play the money game. He has been in the pockets of corporations and other countries his entire career.

Right wing propaganda doesn't infect this board to the levels necessary for those accusations to be understood or accepted on any rational basis. You have to go to other boards for that.

 

[tenordas]

Well it did provide for that before electricity

But since you all lost the civil war, things have changed.

Now we allow the massive majority being held hostage by a 20% of the population and forces those that make this country work to follow their wishes.

California matters more than any southern state by a lot. A whole lot.

The electoral college is the only way those with antiquated ideas stay in power.

The R's haven't won the popular vote since '92 so I get why you don't want the popular vote to matter. but it's because you like minority rules since you are in the minority

Hillary was not a strong candidate- she still got 4 million more votes than the bloated diaper wearer. The coward won by getting 40k over five states. Biden won by 7 million but only the EC by 70k across five states. That is bull shirt.

You talk about how California matters more than any southern state under the EC. But if you do away with the EC and Presidential candidates will only campaign in California, New York, Florida, and probably Texas. They won't bother going anywhere else because the swing states that matter now will not matter at all any more, only the big cities will matter. And that means rural America, which provides the food urban America eats will become de facto servants to those big cities because they will never have a voice again.

 

[tenordas]

Right wing propaganda doesn't infect this board to the levels necessary for those accusations to be understood or accepted on any rational basis. You have to go to other boards for that.

There's plenty of right-wing propaganda, I avoid both right and left propaganda as much as possible, but nothing I mentioned is propaganda. Those are all facts one can look up. You can easily find the video I mentioned, you can see his home on google maps, you can look up his net worth, and even left-wing media outlets mentioned the tax thing when that story broke.

 

[Infoman]

Anyone who is not a complete liar or brainwashed zombie...

Please tell me with unequivocal sincerity that there has been one Presidential election since 2016 (Including this one) where you said to yourself....

"Wow, these are some great candidates... Tough choices... These 2 parties have their shirt together... Of all possible people in the USA, These are the people I would have chosen to be on the ballet to chose from... For leader of the free world, commander and chief, and my voice of freedom!"

Say it here and now with sincerity... and I will stop posting about this... LOL

 

[bird]

You're not serious saying that, are you?

Have you seen the compound where he lives? Do you know his insane net worth? Do you know that he and his wife illegally write off the insane speech fees they receive? Have you not seen the videotape of him bragging about getting the inspector who was investigating him and his son fired by threatening not to give the money to that country until they fired him?

Please, Biden is a poster child for politicians who play the money game. He has been in the pockets of corporations and other countries his entire career.

Take your conspiracy theories back to Freeperville.

 

[coldseat]

There's plenty of right-wing propaganda, I avoid both right and left propaganda as much as possible, but nothing I mentioned is propaganda. Those are all facts one can look up. You can easily find the video I mentioned, you can see his home on google maps, you can look up his net worth, and even left-wing media outlets mentioned the tax thing when that story broke.

I'm sure you believe all of that, but your framing on the inspector accusation gives you away.

 

[bird]

You talk about how California matters more than any southern state under the EC. But if you do away with the EC and Presidential candidates will only campaign in California, New York, Florida, and probably Texas. They won't bother going anywhere else because the swing states that matter now will not matter at all any more, only the big cities will matter. And that means rural America, which provides the food urban America eats will become de facto servants to those big cities because they will never have a voice again.

Wrong. They will have to put forth policies that are tailored for all people. How about policies that benefit everyone? Just because there appears to be more Democrats than Republicans and the Democrats tend to live in cities is beside the point. Representation in the House and Senate certainly exists for rural areas.

The Electoral College was created for two reasons:

As a sop to the slave states
Allegedly according to the Federalist Papers to prevent bad candidates from becoming president

It failed miserably at the latter.

 

[Infoman]

The EC was created because the founders understood what it was like to have large (concentrated powers - and folks that fancied themselves superior) groups of elites with great wealth and power far way from them with no empathy for how they lived their lives... Make all the decisions on how they lived, were taxed, and their quality of life...

In fact, I think there was a small war fought over that very concept... LOL

 

[bird]

The EC was created because the founders understood what it was like to have large (concentrated power) groups of elites with great wealth and power far way from them with no empathy for how they lived their lives... Make all the decisions on how they lived, were taxed, and their quality of life...

In fact, I think there was a small war fought over that very concept... LOL

Incorrect. The slave states WERE concentrated wealth.

 

[Heathen]

Anyone who is not a complete liar or brainwashed zombie...

Please tell me with unequivocal sincerity that there has been one Presidential election since 2016 (Including this one) where you said to yourself....

"Wow, these are some great candidates... Tough choices... These 2 parties have their shirt together... Of all possible people in the USA, These are the people I would have chosen to be on the ballet to chose from... For leader of the free world, commander and chief, and my voice of freedom!"

Say it here and now with sincerity... and I will stop posting about this... LOL

Yep.

I feel as though the “lesser-evilism” push that we’ve seen especially since 2016 just expedites the troublesome path we’re already on as citizens who (hopefully) value some semblance of a choice in politics.

Increasingly it’s difficult to buy in to the “if we’d just elect Democrats across the board, we’d get what we want” narrative - when that’s been close to the case many times with results that speak more to the interests of capital than of working Americans. Seems like quite a burden to continue recycling that theme - but I’m open to understanding why I’m off about that.

That’s not to say it isn’t the better option than it being the opposite situation with the GOP in power - primarily because they’re open and honest about their intent, but that bar’s already disturbingly low.

 

[SaintForLife]

Claims the party who just circumvented the entire democratic system by selecting a Presidential candidate that didn't receive a single vote from any regular voting people.

They don't like to be reminded of that.

Their protect democracy narrative is nothing more than a campaign slogan.

 

[coldseat]

They don't like to be reminded of that.

Actually, it's just that we don't care. Nothing about what happened was anti-democratic. The only ones making those claims are MAGA, which is why we don't care.

 

[Infoman]

Incorrect. The slave states WERE concentrated wealth.

When was the Electoral College created 1787?

The Electoral College became part of the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, when delegates assembled to devise something to replace the Articles of Confederation.

How many states were there in the United States in 1787?

The first states to ratify the U.S. Constitution were Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in December 1787, and they were joined by the remainder of the thirteen ex-British colonies by 1790.

I don't think any of the 3 US states that existed/ratified in 1787 were slave states when the EC was adopted...

 

[SystemShock]

Yes as with every one. See how that works?

There is clearly a discussion to be had around the decision to vote, the lesser evil or third-party every election cycle. This isn’t as binary an issue as some people make it out to be.



Much more nuanced than this take portrays also.

For instance, and I’ve mentioned this many times so I’m not going to go into great detail - but someone in a state that is overwhelmingly red has a very valid case to vote for a third-party candidate. If voting third-party is a “throw away “vote, then vote Blue in a state where red votes outnumber those blues by many hundreds of thousands of votes could also be considered to throw away vote as well.

I guess there's nothing I can tell you that will make you see what's at stake. If everything you have seen happening since 2016 doesn't convince you, nothing will. And you obviously only see the importance of the "protest" vote if you vote 3rd party (because you very well know Jill Stein will never be POTUS, ever).

But, hey, if Trump wins, I am sure we'll see you here complaining about all of the things the Republicans are doing... I know, I know, there's nothing you can do, just like the people who thought there was nothing they could do in 2016, and gave us a 6-3 SCOTUS and the overturn of Roe v Wade.

 

[Optimus Prime]

You talk about how California matters more than any southern state under the EC. But if you do away with the EC and Presidential candidates will only campaign in California, New York, Florida, and probably Texas. They won't bother going anywhere else because the swing states that matter now will not matter at all any more, only the big cities will matter. And that means rural America, which provides the food urban America eats will become de facto servants to those big cities because they will never have a voice again.

I disagree with this

Do away with the EC and a republican vote in California matters, so does a democratic vote in Alabama

We've had members both here and PDB say they don't vote because of the political demographics of their state and their vote won't matter one bit

But what if it did? The single biggest voting block is the non voter

How many of them would vote if they believed that their vote could actually make a difference?

 

[coldseat]

If you want to keep the EC because you think it's important and make our election system work, the only way to do that is to make it so that EC votes in states aren't winner take all. In other words, split up the EC votes for that state as a reflection of that state's actual popular vote. That would actually force presidential candidates to compete in all states and infuse democracy into voting even in traditional red or blue states. People would be much more motivated to vote and the votes would matter.

Do any of you who want to keep the EC have a problem with that?

 

[zztop]

The EC was created because the founders understood what it was like to have large (concentrated powers - and folks that fancied themselves superior) groups of elites with great wealth and power far way from them with no empathy for how they lived their lives... Make all the decisions on how they lived, were taxed, and their quality of life...

In fact, I think there was a small war fought over that very concept... LOL

Founders would be most displeased if they could see how that all turned out. Special interest groups, lobbyists, big corp making large political donations, massive tax cuts for the rich etc.

 

[tenordas]

Anyone who is not a complete liar or brainwashed zombie...

Please tell me with unequivocal sincerity that there has been one Presidential election since 2016 (Including this one) where you said to yourself....

"Wow, these are some great candidates... Tough choices... These 2 parties have their shirt together... Of all possible people in the USA, These are the people I would have chosen to be on the ballet to chose from... For leader of the free world, commander and chief, and my voice of freedom!"

Say it here and now with sincerity... and I will stop posting about this... LOL

Well put, Truth is, I haven't said that in a single election since I've been able to vote.

'84 was the first time I could vote, and while I cast a ballot, I didn't vote for President.
In '88, I held my nose and voted for Dukakis because I didn't want Bush because of my strong distaste for Reagan.
In 92, I voted for Ralph Nader, same in 96.
In 2000, I voted Democrat even though I can't stand Al Gore, but because I had a lot of respect for Joe Lieberman.
In 2004, I again voted 3rd party.
In 2008, I voted for McCain because he was a moderate who often voted against his party and didn't mind angering them.
In 2012, I voted 3rd party.
In 2016, I voted "for" Trump, but in truth I voted against a Clinton returning to the white house.
In 2020, I abstained. This old racist white guy or that old racist white guy? This is a choice?
And, no, there isn't a good choice this time around either.

In none of those elections did I feel like there was a candidate from the two major parties who clearly was Presidential material.