Electoral College

You bloody idiot. If you don't like it the Constitution, change it. The instructions are inside. I'm sure you've never read it, or understood the reasons for it.

They're still not. Senators should be appointed by the state legislatures, too. The 17th amendment is an abomination.

Idiot. The USA is *not* a democracy. It was *intentionally* designed to be a republic. Learn something, stupid.

Krw has got the message that the US constitution was designed by a bunch of fans of the Moderate Enlightenment to be a republic, somewhat insulated fr om the vagaries of ill-informed mob opinion.

He hasn't noticed that this wasn't a particularly good idea. Subsequent con stitutions embraced the Radical Enlightenment from the start. While the US constitution has been amended to reflect some Radical Enlightenment ideas - like universal suffrage, it's still a rather half-baked compromise.

The particular weakness of US democracy isn't so much the constitution as t he education system. Universal education became practicable - and popular - after the US constitution had been written, so universal education spread through the US on a community-by-community basis, and it still gets paid fo r by the local community. Rich communities can afford good schools (and oft en have them). Poor communities have the schools they can afford - and ther e are a lot more cheap schools around for poor communities to copy than the re are good schools.

US education is "variable". The best can be very good indeed. The worst is diabolical, and there's a lot of poor-to-middling education.

Robert Lowe said "we must educate our masters" rather before the UK passed the 1867 Reform Bill that greatly enlarged the electorate. Nobody in the US seems to have had the same insight.

A constitution that was conceived rather before universal suffrage became p opular is unsurprisingly inadequate in coping with the implicit requirement of universal suffrage, which is universal education.

Trump is effective as a demagogue precisely because the voters he has been lying to are too ill-informed to recognise that they are being lied to.

Krw does happen to be one of them ...

Please don't try to educate Richman. He's a free loading leech and pretends to know what he's talking about. (con artist).

It's going to become obvious in the near future, this country has shit loads of Richman's in it. Yes, I said "Shit" because that is just about what they are.

The Dems have done well in brain washing these people to ensure their dominate place as they destroy what was made by sweat and blood. I feel sorry for those that lost service men in the line of duty to protect this country and the interest of, to have it twisted and riddled down by the like's of Richman's. Richman is an embarrassment. Jamie

schools around for poor communities to copy than there are good schools.

Another brainless noise maker.

I hope they cut the cord to his internet connection..

Jamie

As long as Jamie and krw can keep on posting, I'm relatively safe.

Jamie doesn't seem to have a brain at all, and krw's brain seems to be incapable of processing anything new - which at least allows him to reject new age lunacies, like vaccination causing autism.

Jamie hasn't noticed that while he may not see himself as free-loading leac h, he's a prime example of somebody who lectures on subjects that he knows little about.

Most of us had noticed that Andrew Wakefield's insights into the damaging e ffects of vaccination were bogus - to the point that Wakefield was struck o ff the UK medical register for presenting incorrect and misleading data.

Jamie hasn't noticed that he's a representative sample of a rather larger g roup that is a great deal worse-informed, and a lot more confident of their ignorant misconceptions.

Blaming Democrats for technical progress may be fair, but they do try to re

-educated and retrain workers who have been made redundant by technological innovation. Trump was promisg to restore jobs in the rust-belt by raising tariffs on Chinese imports, which isn't going to work.

I think he meant Rickman

A bizarre image. The last US president to waste the lives of a lot of US s ervicemen was George W Bush. He doesn't seem to have had the interests of t he US as a whole at heart, but rather the interests of the US oil industry, who wanted to get their hands on the Irak oil fields, which didn't actuall y happen.

Nowhere near as much as Jamie, who can't even work out how to spell the nam e he is slinging off at.

Why are you so afraid of an open discussion? You and a few others here seem to want to bash everyone else over the head with ideas rather than to discuss the ideas and come to a rational conclusion.

Just so.

Unfortunately such people will feel, correctly or incorrectly, that they have been given free reign to to do that in many less harmless circumstances.

That's the recent UK experience :(

You're misinformed by the worthless and ignorant trash in the media who nev er get anything right. The electoral college has nothing to do with "the fr amers felt the average voter was not well enough informed to select a natio n wide president." The electoral college was designed to preserve the ident ity of the individual states, to prevent an outsized federal government or mega-size states from bullying the small states into political non-existenc e. That's why the electoral college is composed the same way the Congress i s put together. If you went by popular vote, you would have CA NY PA and FL pretty much running the election for president and everyone else might as well stay home! The election may be nationwide but it is not a national ele ction, it is 50 individual state elections wherein people are voting on how they want their state to vote its electoral allocation. All this stuff abo ut a nationwide popular vote is ill-informed garbage.

The electoral college was designed to preserve the identity of the individ ual states, to prevent an outsized federal government or mega-size states f rom bullying the small states into political non-existence. That's why the electoral college is composed the same way the Congress is put together.

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Dan

Jamie is incapable of rational discussion. He knows what he believes (though he is less well-informed about why he believes it) and that's exhausted his repertoire.

The argument that people make, about the outcomes of elections being not-their-way because of the ec, is silly. We have the ec, so politicial parties optimize for the ec vote. If we had a popular vote, the parties would optimize their campaign for that, and the actual popular vote numbers would be different. Trump might well have won the popular vote if he'd fought harder for hopeless California.

But it's not going to change.

Who are you and what have you done with F. Bloggs?

idual states, to prevent an outsized federal government or mega-size states from bullying the small states into political non-existence. That's why th e electoral college is composed the same way the Congress is put together.

Yup, I do like what Maine (and Nebraska?) have done. Make each congressio nal "electoral" vote go as the district goes. Of course the chance of that hap pening here in NY is slim.

George H.

Any state doing that would be crazy (yes, Maine is...).

ividual states, to prevent an outsized federal government or mega-size stat es from bullying the small states into political non-existence. That's why the electoral college is composed the same way the Congress is put together .

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appening

When they break up the vote like that they dilute the impact of that state, because the net vote for the majority candidate of the state is now less. This is probably why most states do the all or nothing thing.

I have no idea why you bring the media into this. They are not at issue here.

I acknowledge that part of the reason the electoral college was established this way is to give the smaller states more power than they would otherwise have. However, it clearly does *not* prevent them from being bullied. Even in 1792 Vermont had only the minimum possible number of electoral vote, 3 while Virginia had 21. Vermont hardly mattered then just as now.

To suggest that the electoral college was the solution to that problem ignores the fact that the popular vote was not used at all! If they simply wanted to balance the power of the states they could have assigned presidential votes per state the same way as the electoral college. So the question is, why have intermediaries do the real voting? That is where the perceived capabilities of the electorate to choose their own leader were doubted and removed one level.

There is a movement afoot with a few states signing up to assign *all* the state's electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote. The agreement does not take effect until some minimum number of states have agreed. This will solve the problem without a constitutional amendment.

Apportioning the electoral votes according to the popular vote in each state will make it less likely to have the popular vote not agree with the electoral vote, but it doesn't eliminate the possibility.

ndividual states, to prevent an outsized federal government or mega-size st ates from bullying the small states into political non-existence. That's wh y the electoral college is composed the same way the Congress is put togeth er.

ssional

happening

e, because the net vote for the majority candidate of the state is now less . This is probably why most states do the all or nothing thing.

I understand why it won't happen. I like it because it puts all the states back into "play". There are not a few battle ground states.. but battles all ov er the country. All the congressional gerrymandering makes it less "playful".

George H.