President Joe Biden

[Postman Pep]

I can't wait to go on the LA Galaxy forum to see what they are all thinking of Keir Starmer and loads of articles there about the British Police.

If there's a brexit thread and a poster called LAG1632 send us a link please....

 

[Mike Cledford]

No one’s stopping you.

Cant find any thread. No one is interested in others country's politicians on sports forums.

 

[Mike Cledford]

If there's a brexit thread and a poster called LAG1632 send us a link please....

Cant find anyone interested.

 

[lasereyes]

I generally understand the Electoral College, mate. Well, as much as any non-legal and/or constitutional scholar can, really. ;-)

I live in the US and have taken quite an interest in American government and elections since coming here, so do not need additional information. I understand how it differs to our system of government (and Spain’s, as I am also from there).

I was merely providing insight as to why it does not necessarily perform the function you were originally referencing in the post I responded to. The corner case I linked to is a good review of the possible issues with it — less extreme outcomes are possible and are *still* highly problematic. I think the Electoral College method is flawed — and a straight popular vote is flawed — as are most all direct or indirect democratic election methods.

Your response just seemed to be arguing that land area was more important than people, so I wanted to clarify.

FWIW, when I asked a professor friend that teaches American Government here in the states if they had a good primer for the Electoral College, they sent me this (among other links about the structure/process itself) — I found it very helpful.

The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists

The Founding Fathers had something particular in mind when they set up the U.S. presidential election system: slavery

time.com

By the way, as you seem very interested in American politics, as well, if you haven’t already, I would give 538 a look. Every now and then they provide probabilities for winning based on popular vote scenarios for Biden and Trump — in the context of practical Electoral College outcomes — and they are quite enlightening.

ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News and Videos

538 uses statistical analysis — hard numbers — to tell compelling stories about elections, politics, economics, and American society.

fivethirtyeight.com

This is the last one I saw which I shared in here:

This is really good stuff - enjoyed reading it all. A few thoughts:

1. "I think the Electoral College method is flawed — and a straight popular vote is flawed — as are most all direct or indirect democratic election methods."
Agree totally. Like Winston Churchill's proclamation that "Democracy is the worst system in the world ... except for all the rest"

2. The Time article was very informative and shows how much slavery pervaded everyday life all the way up to the Constitution. It always amazes me that the Constitution, which was written at a time where the world and America bore no resemblance in way of life or principles to today, remains sacrosanct. Even the most ardent of liberals will not contemplate repealing the second amendment for instance.

3. 538 - yes I've seen Nate Silver's pieces. The electoral college probabilities are interesting. Because the country is so polarized, it raises the possibility of a bigger than usual electoral college inversion. But I suspect that won't be the case. I think Biden is very likely to win a comfortable victory, with a popular vote margin of 5%. I could be wrong - just my 2 cents :) My real eyes are on the Senate - that one looks like it's going down to the wire.

Btw, I live in US also - in Connecticut close to NYC. Grew up in Cheshire - hence my City allegiance! Can I ask where you live?

 

[Scottyboi]

I agree and can't understand the need to pander. It's a trait so despised.

"Who's your favourite rap artist alive?"

"No idea who's out there as I stopped listening years ago/ Don't listen to rap, it's not my style of music!".

Job done, no lies and more respect garnered for not playing a game for votes.

" I hate rap music it promotes crime and misogyny " would be vote winner lmao.

 

[lasereyes]

Given the industry I operate in (finance) and having a lot of shall we say connectivity to one one of the firms most caught up in the CFPB’s initial casting of nets, my heart agrees with you. However, the idea of protecting consumers broadly from the vagaries of more unscrupulous financial institutions — especially non-bank lenders (and ESPECIALLY pay day lenders) in a world where financial products proliferate rapidly and faster than Treasury or financial regulatory bodies can keep up with them makes good sense to my head . . . if the agency is run properly. The agency was used to punish the wrong-doers of the late 2000s (an issue which spurred a lot of Warren’s demagoguery) but is hopefully better-designed to prevent future wrongdoing IMO which is where it’s real worth will be. I can of course understand how and why one might be skeptical about such an outcome.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is a needed concept with a catchy name, but its creation was political demagoguery. I am not aware of the CFPB per se punishing anyone - I thought it was the Fed and SEC who imposed fines on the big banks and the Basel Committee that passed reforms requiring them to increase their Capital levels?

 

[lasereyes]

Honestly, I'd put Trump winning 4 years ago almost entirely on Hillary being a woman and a massively unpopular woman at that. Even then she still won the popular vote by a fair way. Also the fact that it was on the back of a black man being in charge for 8 years didn't help either.

Trump has lost that "chaaaaange" vote that he had before and he's lost the ability play off the unpopularity of his opponent. Pretty much no one except Bigga actively dislikes Biden, he's very vanilla. He would have absolutely loved the Dems to put a leftwing candidate up against him so he could have played the anti-American, socialist, anti-patriot card against them, but you can't do that with Biden, it doesn't stick. All he has left is vaguely associating all Dems with Antifa and anarchy, which doesn't particularly stick with Biden either.

So Trump has lost the ability to get people to vote against his opponent (while getting huge amounts of people to vote against him), while also losing the impetus of the change crowd. All that is left is the far right, the cultists, the racists and now the anti abortion crowd. Problem for him is, those are generally all the same people.

His only real hope is rigging the system, or making it so clear he intends to rig the system that voters stay away, as turnout will kill him. He just doesn't appeal to enough demographics anymore, while his opponent is a very palatable choice for most people, even if he's not exciting

There's really quite a contradiction here. If you assume that there is quite likely to be overlap between a misogynist and a racist, you have to explain why so many people voted twice for Obama and then voted for Trump. The answer lies in Clinton being one of the all-time corrupt people - even by Washington standards. The Clintons had got away with Whitewater, Castle Grande, insider trading on Cattle Futures, and a whole host of corrupt dealings. The chickens finally came home to roost. She was possibly the only major Democrat who could have lost to Trump.

 

[lasereyes]

Conversations with people like yourself are pointless.

Especially when you utter such shit as "the loony left" in a place called America, where everything is right, extreme right and slightly left of right.

What does "everything" even mean? The people? The media? Washington DC?

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is a needed concept with a catchy name, but its creation was political demagoguery. I am not aware of the CFPB per se punishing anyone - I thought it was the Fed and SEC who imposed fines on the big banks and the Basel Committee that passed reforms requiring them to increase their Capital levels?

It is, but the immediate punishment was being dragged before the Senate Banking Committee in chains, and the idea of the CFPB was to create an organization that would hold finance institutions accountable later. The punishment IS the additional red tape/oversight/cost/threat to investigate the CFBP brings — its the additional security camera/watchful eye as opposed to its legislative/executive ability (ie its fourth branch power).

 

[lasereyes]

People say that, but you don't win by getting the loony left really excited about you, you win by being an acceptable face for people across the spectrum to vote for you. The far left are loud, but frankly they are shit. They can't agree on anything, they attack anyone not as extreme as them and are hugely off putting to pretty much everyone. Not sure how many times and how badly Corbyn has to lose, to the worst candidates ever seen, before people realise this.

They are also completely divorced from reality. The hate capitalism and corporations. Yet 90% of people in US or UK work for corporations. Many (maybe most) of them also milk the system they claim to despise. Bernie made millions from book sales. He has also nicely sheltered his income to minimise his own tax rates.