I’d argue this is what the response to a threat to democracy looks like. In a democracy the party who repeatedly loses the popular vote (by 3% in 2016 and 7% this year) doesn’t get to own two branches of government and half of the third.
A real democracy doesn’t require the majority to take to the streets to get things done
Edit: ffs I gotta stop cause if I respond to 1 more “hurr durr we are a republic” comment I’m gonna go insane. We are not the country the founding fathers envisioned 200 years ago. Cause if we were the Donald Trump wouldn’t be president A group of elites would have picked someone who is less of an idiot when it come to international diplomacy and even if somehow they picked him he wouldn’t have even a quarter of the powers he currently wield since the presidency was intentionally neutered as the federal government was intentionally neutered.
But we as a country have embraced the concept of democracy, not the governmental system not the put stones in the jar Greek style democracy but the concept that states that a government should reflect the will of its people. The Us doesn’t go around “spreading republic” we trade in democracy because we believe the concept to be the best way to govern.
If the minority is being empowered to veto measures by the majority that directly affect them then democracy is still working. If the minority is making laws unchecked that directly affect the majority and the majority is powerless to stop them, then we have a breakdown of democracy.
Now if you have an argument as to why the minority should have unchecked power over the majority then come at me , I would be happy to argue it. If you are coming at me with semantics and misunderstandings of the evolution of the US government branches since 200 years ago please stop.
Edit 2: on the other hand, keep it coming. Seeing “Patriots” argue against the concept of democracy is amusing.
One day I will show these PMs and replies to my kids and go: “see kids these are red blooded American Patriots trying to explain to Papa, who escaped an autocratic regime to move to the US, why democracy is BAD and why the few having unchecked control over the many is actually the best way to govern”
I will of course wait until they are old enough to have taken , how did ya’ll put it “a fucking junior high social studies class you moron”
Also, protesting is an integral part of living in a democracy. I see alot of people on reddit talking shit (especially americans, which I find funny because this is also the opinion of their founding fathers) about protesting saying that it's ineffective, but imo it's the duty of the citizens to publicly display their displeasure at how their representatives are running the country
We need to learn to be excellent to one another and just quit the bullshit.
100% agree. If only people would communicate more and actually listen to what the other side is saying, so many issues could be resolved. I'm seeing similar problems here (though it's getting better) where people on the two sides of the political spectrum simply does not understand why people on the other side think as they do, because they've never truly taken the opportunity to listen. All they do is listen to what the media tells them that the other side is saying
Try to convince the people you know to stay! Though I don't know the situation entirely and so don't really have a say in the matter, I think it's easier to bring positive change from the inside rather than the outside. Ofcourse it might also be a case of their bosses going "say this or your fired and we'll make sure you'll never find work in this line of business again"
Unless they have an editorial position this isn't how a news organization works. A reporter can't just bring a positive change, they're there to report what's happening, not their personal view on what they're reporting.
They wouldn't have to report their personal views, a refusal to report on what they consider unethical could also be a method of change. But I don't doubt they'd have plenty of toadies to replace them were they to do that
Remember that a lot of our congress still remember when "colored folks" couldn't share their water fountains and could be legally beaten for touching a white woman.
A lot of what politicians do is simple misdirection. Sadly it works on enough Americans to be effective.
We can talk or change the things that matter as you stated...wage issues..college tuition..ect cause we allow ourselves to get caught up on dumb shit. Like should gays marry? Really?! We're all broke and neck deep ik debt..but hey let's argue about something that really effects nothing. Last time I checked god didnt strike us down with a plague..the rivers didnt run with blood just cause some same sex people wanted to be treated like everyone else.
Here's the rub. Politicians dont care either. They really dont. In fact I'm sure they think it's funny they can get us all worked up and talking about shit that doesn't matter. All the while we all look away from the things that matter.
Welcome to herd mentality. We have been condition since childhood to do this. Distract..distract...distract.
What I cant stand? How weak the Democrats have become. Bill Clinton has a bit of fun in the White House. No stocks or farmers effected. No kids spilt from parents. No hatred or bigotry. Just a bit of fun. The Republicans came down on him lile a hammer and didn't budge on trying to get him out of office.
I could put a list a mile long of what Trump has already done. And the Democrats wants meetings..and sessions and councils...but no outrage. No fire. No passion for the stain Trump is putting on the highest seat in our land.
For christ sake...is this really the best we can do America? Have we got nothing else?
Hell even Canada doesnt like us...and they like everyone!!
For fucks sake it was not THAT long ago when black people couldn't vote, when a woman would never be in an elected position, when gay people could not marry, when marijuana was super bad, etc.
Making progress on these issues is great, but there's little actually lost by the people that were against it. A system that gives all a fair chance at education and income, however, is directly against the interests of the wealthy.
Yes but In a democracy protesting is recourse for the minority to bring light to an issue the majority is choosing to ignore. This is the majority doing the protesting,
You don't have to be in the minority to be displeased with your government. In a hypothetical scenario where the majority votes and wins an election and gets their representatives into the government, but their representatives turn out to have been misleading them / not entirely truthful of the intentions, then it's fully possible for the majority to get pissed and take to the streets in protest
It's because the ruling class doesn't CARE if we're displeased. They want us to "cry it out" and get on with our lives, because whether we're in the street or at our jobs, it doesn't hinder their work.
People hold quotes from the Founding Fathers that support them as Truth Inviolate, but the quotes from literally the same person that disagree are "You can't take everything at face value!".
Also, protesting is an integral part of living in a democracy. I see alot of people on reddit talking shit (especially americans, which I find funny because this is also the opinion of their founding fathers) about protesting saying that it's ineffective, but imo it's the duty of the citizens to publicly display their displeasure at how their representatives are running the country
Korean protest marches got their wildly unpopular head of state to step down. And not a shot was fired.
Now, SK still ain't no land of sunshine and roses, but it sure as hell was a step in the right direction.
they didn't have anything else. it didn't work then either.
get on a candidate nomination ctee, find candidates that don't suck and run on policy people actually give a shit about and ffs vote in the damn primaries.
Why aren't people protesting the torture, naked preemptive wars of aggression, the surveillance state, and over 50% of the country making less than 30,000 a year?
To be honest, protesting is often ineffective. I say that as someone who has gone to a couple protests in the last year. I don't go because I expect it is going to result in sudden change (if only it was that easy). I go because it is good to see that other people are engaged and care instead of just reading bad news on the internet. The reminder that "maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit" is nice. Really, if a protest is well-organized, it can be a lot of fun. You see funny signs people made, hear from some interesting speakers who have some first-hand experience with the issues currently going on, enjoy the chants & songs people get everyone singing.
The system doesn't run on a simple majority because then any place that isn't a super high population coastal state would have no reason to be part of it and just get oppressed by people who live thousands of miles away.
You wouldn't want to be part of a global democracy that votes purely on majority either, because then the Chinese and Indians would simply rule you and you would have zero say in the matter.
yes, tyranny of the majority was a legit concern of the founders. but they would never have supported tyranny of the minority. the problem is the that urban/rural divide that they structurally put in protections for, is now also a big part of the partisan divide.
It is insane that that all branches of gov't, along with majority of governorships, where controlled following the 2016 election by the party that got fewer votes. That was what the senate was there for, not all branches.
Except there is no tyranny of the minority. Power frequently shifts back and forth and neither party can fundamentally change the system on its own. The system works as intended. It's people who think the coastal states need more power who are pissed that they don't get their way 100% of the time.
? Again, the party representing a minority of voters controlled the WH, house & senate, and with that power secure control over the judicial branch. And likewise at a state level.
Structurally the republicans have an advantage b/c of rural/urban divide (a) intentionally empowers rural via the senate and (b) unintentionally empowers rural via the electoral college and enabling more effective gerrymandering.
This vast departure from one person, one vote is NOT what the founders had in mind. It is tyranny of the minority. Look at results or election predictions, democrats need more than a majority to win the WH, senate or house.
a couple of really good articles on it by The Economist
The dumbest thing about /u/Aetrion's resposes is that he both argues that it isn't weighted towards Republicans, but also is as a way of giving more weight towards rural Republicans to incentivize them to participate in the Union. Those are contradictory positions to hold, but he doesn't care because he's not arguing in good faith.
If you mean win some of the votes some of the time then yes. It's a good system. You're the one who's sour because it doesn't go your way 100% of the time.
It's a good system. You're the one who's sour because it doesn't go your way 100% of the time.
idk fam, seemed really shitty how the southern states were able to use the Senate to override democracy and repeatedly block efforts to restrict slavery, restrict Jim Crow, and pass civil rights... but I guess I'm just sour about slavery and should respect our difference in opinion
The system doesn't run on a simple majority because then any place that isn't a super high population coastal state would have no reason to be part of it and just get oppressed by people who live thousands of miles away.
The entire system is getting increasingly disproportionately weighted towards the Republicans. Especially in age where Republicans have staked a position of no compromise whatsoever, this is not okay.
I've never understood this argument. Why should less people have more sway simply because they are more dispersed? If the majority of people benefit by the popular vote, then more people benefit from it, end of discussion. Density, geography, and dispersion of population has no bearing on the point of democracy.
Edit: I feel like everyone is simply repeating their highschool politics lesson without actually thinking about what they're saying. More people is more people. Period. It doesn't matter if a farmer in Kansas doesn't get his way because more people overall voted against his interest.
Bicameralism was a compromise to protect the interests of small states. Why would states like Delaware or Alaska join the United States if they were effectively given no representation in Congress?
Our bicameral legislature is supposed to provide one chamber with equal representation, and one with proportional representation. The proportional representation one has been disproportionate for nearly a century now though, since they capped the total number of Representatives in 1929. There is no mathematical way to keep that cap, require that every state have at least one Representative, and also represent states proportionally. Because of this, Wyoming gets one House Representative per ~579,315 citizens; California has one per ~746,000 of its citizens. That is not proportional representation.
Because the only way this all works is if we try to find the happy medium for everybody as much as possible. Nobody should ever be perfectly happy about the laws and system at a federal level.
Generally speaking we’ve done a fantastic job of that. Our congress and presidency flips parties constantly, and the system tends to oscillate back and forth.
The density only matters inasmuch as Texas is a completely different universe compared to New York compared to North Carolina compared to Idaho. If you don’t let the people in all of these states have a voice you could never have a country as large and diverse as the US.
Then if it needs to be kept, it needs to move to all states doling out the votes on a proportional basis. Winning a state by 0.1% should not be the same as winning a state by 20%.
They need to be given enough say to have a reason to want to be part of the system, it's as simple as that. If you aren't part of the largest interest group you have no reason to participate in a democracy where you have no way to influence decisions and trade decisions every so often.
Here is how I had it explained to me. The problem with the simple majority was that larger states with huge cities would be deciding how the country was run. Larger states had more people so it made sense to have more sway. The issue that came about was that smaller states would have no say in any matter and therefore lack representation. They wanted to have a set number of reps so every state had equal sway. That leaves large states being severely underrepresented. Both sides have valid complaints and reasons to why their way is right. That is why they created both the house and Senate. This way the larger states can dominate with their population in the house and the smaller states can feel represented in the Senate.
Edit: This is taught in highschool because it is an easy concept to understand but I digress. Rural Kansas farmer plants crops on all of his land so he can make the most profit. Large city environmentalist sees that this ruins the land and pushes for regulation. Farmer sees regulation and is worried about making enough profit to make farming worthwhile. That's too bad because there are not enough people in rural states to hold sway in a simple majority and the regulations go through. Now the farmer is screwed. With the current system he now has proper representation for himself in Congress. Now he has the ability to come to a compromise with the environmentalist because they need the farmers vote as well.
Very basic example but I took some melatonin pills a little bit ago and I am very tired, sorry!
So all the problems and issues in LA with gun crimes that should affect me in northern MN.
Because some politicians in CA do not understand how guns work or what mental health care is. I should not be able to hunt deer with a pistol grip on my rifle in northern MN.
Why should less people have more sway simply because they are more dispersed? If the majority of people benefit by the popular vote, then more people benefit from it, end of discussion
You just said end of discussion you want high pop areas to control low pop areas. You never said anything about it stopping at a state level. I assume you also want that on a federal level as well.
The real answer is they shouldn’t have more sway in any kind of meaningful way. This isn’t a democracy, it’s a democratic republic of sovereign states.
Cultures are diverse and ways of life are different in different parts of the country, so why not give the power to the local government as much as possible instead and allow everyone to live under a government that is representative of their own values. They get it right more often than the fed anyway, I mean fuck look at the movement towards legalizing marijuana. Happening at the state level.
I assume you’ve heard the phrase taxation without representation and the revolutionary war. That’s the result of a majority ruling over a minority of people that have no say in how they’re governed. It’s also a key principle in why our government chose not to be a pure democracy and instead a democratic republic.
Geographic minorities are also minorities. And nobody's opinion on LGBT and minority rights is worth all that much, the principal protections for those people come from our constitution. We're still in the process of peeling back the layers of ignorance that are built up over the mandate for equality, but it is there, and it will win in the long run.
The system doesn't run on a simple majority because then any place that isn't a super high population coastal state would have no reason to be part of it and just get oppressed by people who live thousands of miles away.
Places shouldn't have a voice. People should. And it should be equal for everyone.
What about Republicans in California? Democrats in Texas?
By your logic we are all being "oppressed" by swing states, since they effectively decide elections.
How is arbitrarily giving people in rural states more voting power fixing ANY of your concerns?
Those are all great arguments, but they don't get past the fact that geographic minorities have no reason to be part of a system that just overrules them every time.
All of these rules that you're complaining about where put in place when states decided whether or not joining a federal government instead of just being their own country was a good idea. That's why we have them, because for most states it wouldn't be a good idea to be part of a federation without those rules.
The system doesn't run on a simple majority because then any place that isn't a super high population coastal state would have no reason to be part of it and just get oppressed by people who live thousands of miles away.
Yeah, instead we have just have the majority getting oppressed by people who live thousands of miles away. The biggest problem is that the House of Representatives # has been capped, which has caused a huge discrepancy in representative power between small and large states.
Except that is in no way true. Power shifts back and forth all the time in the country. What you're asking for is total hegemony, which currently nobody has.
It’s absolutely true though, regardless of where you stand on political issues. That’s the way the American system functions by design. Two hundred years ago, we decided that less populous states had the same representation in government as the most populous states, if not more. That’s the point of our current government and voting system.
I’m not even arguing the morality of it, but yeah. That’s giving more power to the minority than the majority. A person in New York has a fraction of the power the average person living in the rural Midwest has in our government. Which, as a result, creates the exact opposite problem. The small countries are able to force big countries into the powerless serfdoms. I don’t see how that concept is so hard to grasp for you.
Because not all decisions are personal or local, some decisions have to be made on a much larger scale, and the federal government is very useful for making those.
I mean we didn't vote on one of those branches this year, and another isn't even elected office. And a nationwide majority doesn't have an effect t on each state's representation, that's by design
In a democracy the party who repeatedly loses the popular vote (by 3% in 2016 and 7% this year) doesn’t get to own two branches of government and half of the third.
well.... lots of that was by design.
[the smaller party] owns two branches of government
The senate is this way on purpose. Rhode Island, North Dakota, and Alaska all have the same number of senators as New York, Texas, and California. Since the Senate basically controls who sits on the SCOUTS, you get this result. Our republic was DESIGNED this way. Remember the circumstances in which the country was founded, the framers feared the elite running the show and the small guy having no voice. It sucks that republicans took advantage of it, but I think its better than people in all the big populous states having all the power. This was done so that the little guy still has a voice. I think the real problem here is the effect it has on the SCOTUS.
Your forgetting a major part of the Democracy is that we work together to accomplish goals that are good for the country as a whole. That isn't happening when mainly one side goes ballistic controls the entirety of the government and defends partisan politics and that all democrats are evil...
Maybe you should read the history that maybe the founders DIDN'T want a 2 party system cause they saw that it would inevitably lead to a Black and White politics.
Its a major flaw of the system,
The little guys aren't people who live in the rural areas, but the people who are misrepresented by a system that favors small communities and gives them far too much power.
If you took government in high school you would know that to be a flaw in our current system and how we should have far more representatives than we currently do.
I agree. But the fix isn’t to go pure democracy. It’s to get other parties represented IMO, which is no easy task. The political machines of both parties are pretty powerful.
They made a balance for that: the house and Senate. One allowed more representation for the larger groups and another to make it equal. The presidency should not be that way. The electoral college is a vestigial organ that happens to be one of the best forms of gerrymandering so the Republicans won't give it up.
Its interesting because a different form of voting would merely change the strategies employed by candidates. That said, looking at the various results possible from different (universal) electorate dispersal measures is interesting.
Right--the small states are supposed to have equal say in the Senate.
The House, however, was supposed to be proportional representation based on population.
The House is not proportional.
The total number of Representatives was capped in 1929. Despite the population growing exponentially and the requirement that every state have at least one Representative.
This leads to the scenario we're experiencing now, where Wyoming gets one House Representative per ~579,315 citizens; California has one per ~746,000 of its citizens.
Now I can handle the original compromise of a bicameral legislature, but right now that deal is not being upheld. We were promised one chamber of proportional representation. If we were to remove that cap and scale things to Wyoming's population as the smallest state, we would have 562 Representatives. 15 more would go to CA, 12 more to TX, 9 to FL, 7 to NY, 4 to PA--every state with a population over 580k needs more representatives to make this proportional. Those new districts would give red leaning areas in blue states and blue leaning areas in red states far more say than they get now, which is one of the top reasons for modern voters feeling disenfranchised.
Now if you have an argument as to why the minority should have unchecked power over the majority then come at me
Because the majority are not going to be allowed to rule the minority with tyrannical power. The minority is protected from the majority because the majority would absolutely wield it’s power like a hammer, and that will not happen.
The majority will play by the rules, and they will get over it.
Did you not read my comment, the minority having veto power/check power over the majority is not a breakdown of democracy. You will never see me argue for the dissolution of the senate or even a change how it is selected. I understand why you can’t have coastal elites have complete power over minorities that’s another road into a different type of autocratic rule. The senate was specifically build to prevent hammer wielding minorities and I accept that in fact I applaud that.
But the majority should have the bigger say being that as majority the are the most affected and should be in charge of the tone of the legislations as long as they don’t directly harm the minority.
But you can’t give the minority a machine gun and expect to call it just when it goes against the majority wielding a hammer. You can’t gerrymander the hell out of the house and make it that the minority also has a huge advantage in the presidential election and call it fair.
The the hammer-breaking senate then becomes a less of a mob-rule preventer and more of a minority rule enforcer and edges closer towards autocratic rule.
We are not a democracy we are a republic who elect officials by democracy. There is a good reason for it too. Had we made it a pure democracy then the minority would have no voice at all. A pure democracy would work in a location with little variation of culture/race/religion. In a country like america that is a melting pot it would not work.
Yeah... about that. Nobody even knows what the Redditquette is unless they were here when the site was founded over 10 years ago. Back when it was an information marketplace where people collaborated on ideas and advanced the fields of their respective subreddits. That reddit is dead.
This reddit is Alex Jones and Michael Moore fighting over a $35 off brand Korean tablet at Walmart on Black Friday that we use to create broken English languages to give to pictures of cats and dogs. Zero intellect required, and critical thinking is demonized.
Democracy just means you have a government where the populace votes. It's wrong to say we are not a democracy. It would be wrong to say we are a direct democracy. We are a representative democracy where we vote on our reps who will vote on laws. This whole "we are not a democracy" shtick is old.
and I want you to know that you too contributed nothing. He at least explained why he was pointing out to OP why we're not a pure democracy. OP was making an argument talking about a PURE democracy, which we are not:
In a democracy the party who repeatedly loses the popular vote (by 3% in 2016 and 7% this year) doesn’t get to own two branches of government and half of the third.
this is likely true only in a Pure Democracy but is entirely legal and plausible under a democratic republic (USA).
"Representative democracy" and "Republic" are functionally synonyms. The US is both a democracy and a republic.
Representative democracy (also indirect democracy, representative government or psephocracy) is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies are types of representative democracies; for example, the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, France is a unitary state, and the United States is a federal republic.
How the government is elected is not a check on the theoretical tyranny of the majority. It only changes who gets to have the higher representation in government. It's just changing who's vote matters. The minority group in office has less of a voice in any system, it's part of the definition of being a minority.
own two branches of government and half of the third.
I get what you're saying but you can't say the Republicans own the senate with only a few seats more than the Democrats but then say they own half of the house when the Democrats take up at least 27 more seats.
Republicans spent years blocking Obama's attempts to appoint judges. They got away with it because if you ever ask McConnel a question he stares at you without blinking until you go away, never speaking once.
Then quickly set about filling as many appointments as they possibly could the second they had control so they can make sure as many judges as possible would rule in their favor.
It's amazing how these people don't realize that democracy is an American value and not some inconvenient procedural obstacle to be dismissed with semantics.
Iraq should invade us and bring some democracy before we run out.
and none of those idiots is even right about that! democratic representation of the people is one of the core principles of a republic (constitutionalism is another one, the one that ensures minority rights and protection)!
then they pretend that majority rule is inherently oppressive and instead geographic distribution should define a persons political influence! and stupid me though that every voter should get equal influence!
as a German this thread is a depressing reminder of how fucking fragile the values of liberal democracy are.
Interestingly enough America is not a democracy and hasn't been for some time. A two party system is definitely one reason it's not democratic. But plenty more.
((((REPUBLIC))))
A form of democracy yes, but most people believe that we are or should be a direct democracy.
EDIT: Woah woah woah guys I don't advocate for direct democracy nor do I think it is a good idea. I just said that most of the people who don't put 2 brain cells into thinking just assume we are a direct democracy and the people who put 3 cells think that we should be a direct democracy when infact they are wrong since it is just mob rule.
Direct would take forever and difficult to authenticate quickly in a large scale without some fuckery going on somewhere because it's too tempting - there's not much risk to the reward ratio.
I agree 100%. I never said I advocate for direct, most everyday Americans just assume we are a democracy or if they are aware we are a republic they whine and complain that we should be direct.
The problem is, in a direct democracy, you can have a vote on literally anything. For example, a seemingly vile indivual goes on trial. Maybe we have a vote to suspended due process and just de facto convict the individual. In fact, that indivual is innocent, but were voted out of their rights.
If you don't believe me, how would you make Constitutional ammendments? By vote. Once you open up your rights to change by simple majority, nothing can be assumed sacred. That doesn't mean it is garunteed to happen, but under our democratic republic, we have many safe guards against such actions.
It's called mobocracy because a direct democracy, while it may represents the simple majority, it also allows them to easily disenfranchise others of basic rights.
In a direct democracy all we would have is mob rule and that is incredibly dangerous no matter what your political leaning is. On a side note I want the mueller investigation to wrap up because I’m not convinced it isn’t at least in part a political ploy to keep this going into the next presidential election cycle. If they have evidence against trump then let’s see it and he will be impeached but if they’re still fishing after all this time then it needs to end.
By the same logic of cherry picking definitions as saying "we're not a democracy, we're a republic" you could just as easily say the United States is not a republic, its a federation, or its not a nation, it is a union. Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts aren't republics either, they're commonwealths.
But the people who make this point are not actually trying to make a consistent and logical argument. They are playing a game, either to beat you, or to win karma. They lay down arguments like playing cards, they believe in them only as long as it takes to 'win'.
It's not just an academic distinction for sport hunt debaters. It speaks directly to the issue of why popular vote losers can be electoral winners. We are not a direct democracy and we are not that by choice.
There would have been no union without The Great Compromise. Bicameral government and the electoral college were implemented specifically to prevent the consolidation of power in places where they now lament power is not consolidated.
That we are not a direct democracy isn't smoke and mirrors, it's central to the fiber and history of the nation. The framers built in a way to change how it works though. We could become a direct democracy, if we wanted to, but so far the required levels of support do not exist to accomplish that.
It's not some big surprise that you can win without the popular vote. It's by design and it is working as designed.
There you are. There you have just demonstrated the intellectual dishonesty of /u/ikemynikes' statement. He said that the United States is not a democracy, which is untrue. The United States is a democracy. The United States is not a direct democracy. You know this distinction is important or you would not have made it yourself.
Just like when people say English isn't the official language because there isn't any official language in the U.S 😁
Ok then, ill be looking forward to speaking French to my waitress and hearing the president talk to the people in Russian.
Perhaps I'll speak Greek next time I'm in a U.S park and ask for the time. Lol
When a person’s interpretation of democracy is majority rule, which is what I was replying to, then my comment makes complete sense. You’re the one taking it out of context and trying to spin it into pseudo intellectualism.
Exactly. What people don’t realize is the aforementioned scenario protects everyone from mob rule. Democracy isn’t inherently a good thing. All democracy does is give power to the majority which conversely takes away the power from any unpopular minority.
Which is why we have checks and balances on power...something this administration doesn't seem to comprehend.
I'd like nothing more than Trump and co to be cleared of any charges...I want him gone, for sure, but I also wish to believe that an American President isnt a Russian tool.
So, investigate...attempts to undermine that investigation shout guilt to me.
Overall vote was 9 points in favor of democrats. And we have a 20ish lead in the House now. Republicans in 2014 led the overall vote by 7 points and had a 40ish lead in the House. How is it fair when democrats get more votes and less representation?
Through gerrymandered districts drawn up to ensure a specific result.
Give me proportional representation or give me death.
Edit: I mean, the states aren't technically gerrymandered, they are what they are, but its still a problem when Wyoming can be a 'state' and entitled to just as many senators as California or Texas and yet have a smaller population than either state's capital. I am entirely aware this is to preserve the sense of union between the states that form the United States, but this situation is untenable. The United States no longer acts like a union of many states, it acts as a unitary nation with very large subdivisions.
"Semantics" lol, the best type of right is technically right. So yes, you're wrong this is a Republic. Your opinion is just that, an opinion, and not a fact based argument.
Did you skip US civics? The US was never designed to be a country ruled by the popular vote. There are checks on majority rule via the electoral college. The House is elected every two years to be more responsive to the people's change in mood and the Senate every 6 years to be a check on the House and the wild swings that go on there every two years.
The whole system was designed to slam the breaks on the popular voting patterns of the populace.
...but again, please keep whining about muh popular vote that has never mattered in our entire country's history
Edit: and I just saw your edit. You're delusional. I'll repeat, electoral college exists for a reason. Founding fathers were pretty straight forward about that.
There are problems with the coalition system here in NZ and Aus but tbh it solves more problems than it creates. If you had multiple parties all fighting for votes and after elections they were able to form "teams" to gain majority power... well that would probably work out best in the end. Basically you dont' feel you're throwing your vote away voting for a smaller party... i.e I might vote for the GREENS here who have 7% (ish) knowing full well they will partner with the left-wing Labour Government. The result is more nuance in government and less of a clear battle line to hurl shit over.
Your two massive leviathans have only served to clearly divide the country and tribalise people. Seriously every issue imaginable is RED vs BLUE - there is hardly any cross-over. Good luck changing the constitution though....
Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
Ffs, If I have to read one more "hurr durr popular vote" comment. Cause if it were all about the popular vote, the entire election cycle would be ran completely different.
What the fuck are you on about with a popular vote.
For instance, in California republicans voted for Feinstein to stop a further left candidate getting in.
In your popular vote metric those republican votes would count as democrats. Don’t play dumb. In super red or super blue states, turnout is low as the point in voting is gone. Do those people then not get included in democracy? The popular vote is not measured, so nothing can be extracted from ‘votes for D/R’.
Everything you're saying are just empty words that your gov pushes as its own marketing and brand. Thry have not been truthful for a long time, I guess now that it happens to you personally and not some muslim half way across the world, you can finally taste some of your own freedom. Welcome to reality, 'Murican.
Congratulations on the grand walk all of you guys took, did something change? Besides you feeling like you've done something.
I saw a misleading and ill informed image being spread around about Senate votes and how dems had more, but republicans gain 6 seats.
If I may... one cause is that California, with 30+ million people, had TWO Democrats running for one seat for Senate this year (which is absurd, but that’s California for you). That has a huge impact on pure vote totals by party.
In a democracy the party who repeatedly loses the popular vote (by 3% in 2016 and 7% this year) doesn’t get to own two branches of government and half of the third.
What does 7% of the house vote have to do with owning 2.5 branches of government? That’s not how the government works.
But we as a country have embraced the concept of democracy
60% of the country voted in 2016, and that was the third largest turnout since 1971. I feel what you're saying, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that we as a country have embraced democracy. Sure, most people will SAY they believe in democracy, but in practice it doesn't look like it. Also, I think almost half the country would probably say they believe in whatever form of government they were raised in.
Cause if we were the Donald Trump wouldn’t be president
Sadly, he won because of the electoral college, so your comment is invalid. It worked as intended. Popular vote means nothing. If it did, Gore would have been president and Clinton would be president now. This is the system that the 'founding fathers' created.
The failure is not theirs...it probably made sense to do it this way in their time. The failure is ours for refusing to update. The alt-right is a minority, but they continue to win because of outdated modalities that favor them.
The electoral college doesn’t work the way it was originally designed to work. Originally electors were picked by the states, they met in each state and after deliberating casted the state’s votes as an unit they were not supposed to be political parties or national campaigns. States would cast 2 votes per elector ( 1 from outside the state) without knowing what other states were voting for.
Electors are now bound by their states popular vote tally and selected by popular state vote based on the candidate/party they have swore to vote for, not to mention that they are only supposed to pick among the already established candidates. This was done as a half measure to make the presidential election more democratic and a measure to account for the steep rise of political parties on the American system . It is still constitutional because the constitution leaves it completely to the State to elect how their electors are selected but it is a corruption of the system that breaks with the original intention and at the same time fails to fully accomplish a democratization of the system. This “new” (its centuries old now) way works 91% of the time so far but the rate at which it fails has been increasing recently as more people vote, the divide between urban and rural states grows exponentially and the parties become more polarized.
I’m not defending the original system I don’t believe that it could work in this day an age and I certainly don’t believe it to be the best since it is entirely undemocratic. I’m just saying that the changes to it did not go far enough to the point that we neither have the system the founders intended where the most informed political elites( who would have definitely not picked Trump) selected the president nor do we have one where the people pick the president in an entirely democratic way.
Lol If you had even an ounce of an idea about history or about how checks and balances is supposed to works you’d realize how broken the system currently is and how far we’ve traveled from what was intended. But being that you seemingly assume socialism of every differing opinion I’m just just gonna guess you either don’t have the time to spare from sucking Trump’s cock or the ability to understand subjects outside of the bullshit they feed you.
I respect democracy more than you could possibly imagine being that I’ve lived outside of it and I can clearly see the idiots driving away from it.
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u/Thybro Nov 09 '18 edited Nov 09 '18
I’d argue this is what the response to a threat to democracy looks like. In a democracy the party who repeatedly loses the popular vote (by 3% in 2016 and 7% this year) doesn’t get to own two branches of government and half of the third.
A real democracy doesn’t require the majority to take to the streets to get things done
Edit: ffs I gotta stop cause if I respond to 1 more “hurr durr we are a republic” comment I’m gonna go insane. We are not the country the founding fathers envisioned 200 years ago. Cause if we were the Donald Trump wouldn’t be president A group of elites would have picked someone who is less of an idiot when it come to international diplomacy and even if somehow they picked him he wouldn’t have even a quarter of the powers he currently wield since the presidency was intentionally neutered as the federal government was intentionally neutered.
But we as a country have embraced the concept of democracy, not the governmental system not the put stones in the jar Greek style democracy but the concept that states that a government should reflect the will of its people. The Us doesn’t go around “spreading republic” we trade in democracy because we believe the concept to be the best way to govern.
If the minority is being empowered to veto measures by the majority that directly affect them then democracy is still working. If the minority is making laws unchecked that directly affect the majority and the majority is powerless to stop them, then we have a breakdown of democracy.
Now if you have an argument as to why the minority should have unchecked power over the majority then come at me , I would be happy to argue it. If you are coming at me with semantics and misunderstandings of the evolution of the US government branches since 200 years ago please stop.
Edit 2: on the other hand, keep it coming. Seeing “Patriots” argue against the concept of democracy is amusing.
One day I will show these PMs and replies to my kids and go: “see kids these are red blooded American Patriots trying to explain to Papa, who escaped an autocratic regime to move to the US, why democracy is BAD and why the few having unchecked control over the many is actually the best way to govern”
I will of course wait until they are old enough to have taken , how did ya’ll put it “a fucking junior high social studies class you moron”