You guys are acting oddly similar to how Hillary supporters were in 2016

Not even close, but you know even if Trump doesn't win for some reason. I, individually, will be ok. Terrible for the country though.

It really would be foolish to assume the election a sure thing for either side. A lot still hangs in the balance.

If I had to put odds on it today, I'd go with 50:50.

yep. odds sounds about right imo.

what does that say about the system though? a historically unpopular president STILL has about a coinflip to get a second term.

would be a completely different thing if every american citizen had the same opportunity to cast their vote, and if every vote had equal weight - but hey, who would want a leader who actually has the support of the people, right?

If the electoral system of the United States allowed the big urban centers to electorally dominate the smaller and/or more rural states, then there would be no United States today. The smaller states just wouldnt have joined the union.

Also, the race still being a coinflip is not only because of the electoral college. A large factor is the Democratic primary field, which doesnt offer a candidate without glaring weaknesses. And the primaries have forced almost all candidates to take on stances which are widely unpopular with the public, and the more conservative half of the country in particular. The dems are setting the stage for a lot of undecided voters to once again consider Trump the lesser of two evils in 2020.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 18 2019 05:57pm

even IF i just accepted that ridiculous assumption as true, in what way does that refute the massive flaws the system keeps alive in today's political landscape?
again, you have to learn to distinguish between relevant historical context, and obvious deflection attempts.

concerning the stances and candidates, not a single one of the democratic frontrunners has positions that are more unpopular than trump's, or is a more flawed candidate on a personal level - not even creepy corporate puppet joe biden...
sure, the cult would rationalise trump as 'the lesser of two evils' even if he ran against jesus himself, but the narrative that truly undecided voters would favour climate change denial, corporate tax breaks, cronyism and corruption, bigotry, blatant violations of ethics and laws, authoritarian tendencies... over universal healthcare, campaign finance reform, addressing manmade climate change, raising wages, and making college affordable for everyone... that's borderline insane - and the only way you people can fight that is with moronic misrepresentations of actual 'lefty' policies...

Is it a flaw? I'm not sure if Dems would be the dominant force if both sides ran campaigns which seek to maximize the popular vote share. If both Trump and Hillary/the 2020 candidate camaigned more New York, California, Texas, Washington, Illinois, etc. - I dont know who would gain more from it.

Furthermore, I'm not sure if it really is a flaw if an electoral system requires candidates to build a coalition with geographic diversity instead of just dominating the big cities. The bigger issue imho is the Senate, where Wyoming has as much weight as California. And even in the Senate, this wasnt a big problem until recently when American politics started to be increasingly sorted around the urban-rural divide.



And since we're arguing about historical context, what about birthright citizenship? That's another provision in the constitution which made sense in its historical context (protecting slaves in the aftermath of the civil war by granting them citizenship), but is nowadays causing a distortion of the political system (to the Democrats' benefit).


I'm not gonna address the other stuff, we've already discussed those points numerous times.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 19 2019 05:47am

the EC is actually preventing that. it makes sure that a vast majority of campaign funds, as well as a disproportionally high percentage of federal funds are spent in a few battleground states. particularly (but ofc not exclusively) republicans tend to tailor their policies towards a couple of thousand swing voters, rather than trying to maximise the wellbeing of millions in solid red or blue states, whose votes are basically worthless.

basically every single country has rural and urban areas that come with somewhat different interests and priorities. but no government outright neglects one area in a way that completely screws those people over - and why would they, that'd be counter-productive for the entire country.
the whole 'it prevents a tyranny of the majority' talking point not only doesn't make much sense in theory, in practice it even results in a de facto 'tyranny of a minority' - so great job...

This post was edited by fender on Nov 19 2019 06:29am

what I meant was that the set of battleground states typically contains a healthy mix of different regions and states. florida has huge cities and suburban areas, and a high number of hispanics. it is dominated by tourism and services for the elderly. north carolina has a ton of blacks and is mostly rural. ohio and pennsylvania are industrial states with a high share of working-class whites. colorado and virginia, on the other hand, are dominated by college-educated voters. one of them is a coastal state, the other a mountain state. nevada is dominated by non-white working-class voters.

the only region that is really underrepresented in the EC is the west coast; and hispanics are somewhat underrepresented in the traditional battleground states. other than that, the various battlegrounds reflected the country fairly well. it wasnt until 2016 when Trump shifted the battlegrounds to include MI, WI and PA that the midwest/the white working-class became clearly overrepresented in the decisive EC states. prior to 2016, there wasnt much of a "representation issue" with the EC, candidates had to do well in various regions and with various demographics to be competitive in the swing states.

not only has that literally nothing to do with the EC itsef, and is therefore pure chance, it also doesn't address the point about disproportionate spending in battleground states. again, the EC actually promotes the focus on very specific policies that benefit a minority, rather than securing balanced policies that benefit everyone.