But political power translates into economic power. If you can collect enough in bribes or extortion, wages become irrelevant.
The Roman empire wasn't well governed, and in particular it didn't manage the process of replacing older politicians with younger ones all that well.
Armed revolts and wars of succession aren't good for the economy.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Tue, 8 Mar 2016 19:17:42 -0500, M Philbrook Gave us:
Wrong again, dumbfuck fillabrook. I have no such belief and am smarter than the entire 98% set.
That's no different than the Obama voters. They hear what they want to hear.
On Tue, 08 Mar 2016 19:53:07 -0500, krw Gave us:
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Depends on how you define a nut job. Voting for Trump isn't the only way of proving that you are a nut job, but it's certainly one of the stronger dia gnostic tests.
If Obama is any good as a politician, he's telling potential voters what th ey want to hear.It's not the only constraint on what he has to say, but it does make sense for any politician to package what he wants to say in a way that makes potential voters want to hear it.
If krw had wanted to construct a coherent objection, he'd have to have incl uded some comment to the effect that the politician was saying stuff that h e couldn't deliver, purely because it appealed to the voters - as Trump see ms to. That fact that Trump does say different - and inconsistent - things to diff erent audiences does suggest that this is the way he's working.
Because krw doesn't agree with any of the stuff Obama says, he thinks that Obama is constructing his narratives in the same shoddy way that Trump does , but that says more about krw's problems than anybody else's.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
So they made up for it in graft....
-- Les Cargill
A lot of voters will vote the party line regardless of the candidate. So the election always comes down to a handful of large swing states like Florida and Ohio.
A lot of it comes down to which candidate has the higher negatives. When you look at the polls of the various match-ups, the only Republican losing to Clinton is Trump, all the other Republicans beat her. Kasich beats her by the most. This is in electoral votes. In popular vote, Hillary is ahead of course, because of the large Blue states.
What's really interesting is that Sanders beats EVERY Republican. That's because his negatives are so much lower than the negatives of all the Republicans, as well as much lower than Clintons. So he loses few crossover votes, and gains a lot of Republican votes.
Depends on how you define a nut job. Voting for Trump isn't the only way of proving that you are a nut job, but it's certainly one of the stronger diagnostic tests.
If the alternate is voting for Hillary, then voting for Trump may just mean that one is sane and perceptive.
Still smarter and richer than you.
Dan
I don't want to be too pedantic, but your last sentence distorts things a bit. If Hillary is ahead in the popular vote, it is because she has more people who will vote for her. The distortion caused by grouping votes into states affects the electoral votes. A perfect reason to get rid of the electoral college.
So if Trump wins the Republican nomination, it doesn't matter what the Democrats do, they will win? Where did you read all this?
-- Rick
Oy, not that again. It'll never happen so stop talking about it. What could happen is that a state could decide to move away from "winner takes all" and award electoral college votes proportionately. Two states allocate electoral votes by congressional district. No state wants to be the first to do proportional electoral votes. If all states did it then it would be to the advantage of the Democrats since there are a lot more Democrats than Republicans, and the trend is continuing in that direction. Most millenials want nothing to do with the Republican party.
It depends how fast Trump can move to the center and disavow all the crazy stuff he had to say to get the psychopathic right-wing nut cases and evangelicals to vote for him in the primaries.
Trump actually does have a message that goes beyond abortion and building a wall, but the media thrives on reporting the crazy stuff he says. You have already seen him softening his stance on a lot of key issues. Trump has a history of being quite progressive. He's pro-choice, he favored the Iran deal, he's not a hard core Christian, he was willing to admit that W lied about WMDs, he supports amnesty for illegals, and he supported the Dream Act.
That's silly. Of course we can change the electoral college or even get rid of it.
Won't help so much. He has created his image in everyone's mind and that will be *very* hard to change. Harder than changing the electoral college.
-- Rick
This is a pretty meaningless poll in terms of election results. It is only popular vote and we all know how the electoral college can distort the popular vote. Also many of the races were within the error estimate and so not really indicative of anything.
-- Rick
Only via a revolution. A constitutional amendment to change the way a president is elected would never pass. The small states, which have disproportionate power in the amendment process, and are mostly Republican, would never agree to it.
People have short memories. Think of all the people that voted for Trump despite the fact that not very long ago he was a) a Democrat, b) pro-choice, c) pro-amnesty, d) pro-dream act, e) pro-Iran deal.
Trump's rhetoric on trade is very appealing to blue collar middle class workers who have seen living-wage factory jobs move to Mexico, and in some cases Canada. Toyota moved Corolla manufacturing from the U.S. to Canada, and sold the factory to Tesla. A lot of auto companies have moved a lot of production to Mexico. A lot of appliance makers have moved factories to Mexico. Trump won Michigan because of his stand on free trade.
Even though I would never vote for Trump, I understand his appeal to low-information voters.
As usual, it comes down to Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. States where there are large minority populations, and where there are more establishment Republicans than Teavangelicals.
The electoral college keeps the big states from running over the small states.
It is theoretically possible to change it, but it is not going to happen. The small states will never go for something that shrinks their influence.
Dan
You have it exactly backwards. The electoral college *allows* the big states to run over the small ones. Win in the big states with just a 1 vote margin and you don't need to get any votes in the small states. Why do you think the relatively small number of miscounted ballots in Florida was so important in 2000?
Going with the popular vote means everyone's vote matters in every election.
-- Rick
If you think that voting for Trump could ever be sane or perceptive, my tentative hypothesis that you are in senile dementia just got rather less tentative. "Smarter and richer" is then senile self-delusion.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Voting for Trump is bad, but better than voting for Hillary.
You seem to swallow what ever the New York Times publishes.
But if you really think I am not smarter and richer than you, just put up $10,000 in U.S. currency and I will do the same. It is put up or shut up.
Dan
tentative hypothesis that you are in senile dementia just got rather less tentative. "Smarter and richer" is then senile self-delusion.
What on earth makes you think that? Trump hasn't got a clue and Hillary was Secretary of State from January 2009 to February 2013. You may not like he r character, but - however bad it may be - Trump has to be worse.
I don't read the New York Times. I do have a subscription to The New Yorker , which doesn't think much of Trump, but - despite your delusions - I am a critical reader, and don't take anything for granted.
$10,000 in U.S. currency and I will do the same. It is put up or shut up .
There's no way of establishing that you are smarter than I am - the fact th at I've got a Ph.D, and you haven't would trump any IQ test result, but sti ll isn't definitive. The question of who is richer could be answered, but o nly if I were prepared to reveal my financial details to you, which wouldn' t be a smart move.
Betting $10,000 on the outcome would be even dumber.
The fact that you bother to make the claim makes you pretty dumb.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
The smaller states have far more electoral votes per resident (or far fewer residents per electoral vote).
For example, Vermont is about 203,000 resident per electoral vote while California is about 616,000 residents per electoral vote, more than 3x the residents than Vermont.
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