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Bernie Sanders urges progressives to seek more electoral wins

Perotista said:
It was a fair election according to the rules and laws that were in place since 1789.
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Which means absolutely nothing.

The Electoral College was and remains an anachronism. A true democracy would rid itself of it as well as gerrymandering.

How a nation of "intelligent people" could keep such electoral methods legal is beyond comprehension to even the most simple-minded.

From Pew Research, Among democracies, U.S. stands out in how it chooses its head of state - excerpt:
Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election this month – in particular, his winning a clear majority of the Electoral College vote despite receiving nearly 1.3 million fewer popular votes than Hillary Clinton – prompted readers of another Pew Research Center Fact Tank post to wonder how the U.S. system compares with the way other countries elect their leaders.

The short answer: No other democratic nation fills its top job quite the way the U.S. does, and only a handful are even similar.

Besides the U.S, the only other democracies that indirectly elect a leader who combines the roles of head of state and head of government (as the U.S. president does) are Botswana, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, South Africa and Suriname. (The Swiss collective presidency also is elected indirectly, by that country’s parliament.)
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Lafayette said:
Which means absolutely nothing.

There are plenty of statutes on the books that are idiotic from that period of time.

The Electoral College remains an anachronism. A true democracy would rid itself of it as well as gerrymandering.

How a nation of "intelligent people" could keep such electoral methods legal is beyond comprehension to even the most simple-minded.

From Pew Research, Among democracies, U.S. stands out in how it chooses its head of state - excerpt:
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To each his own. If I were a Clinton supporter I would be complaining too. Pew doesn't really apply to us. Almost all the other democracies are multi party democracies, they don't have a two party system where the choice is one or the other. Either A or B, or should I say R or D. France has what, 14 viable parties, England at least four. We really have been stuck with just two parties since the days of Andrew Jackson.

I don't think we need to do away with the electoral college. But I would like to see changes made to it. One change would be for a state to award all their electoral votes to a single candidate, that candidate would have to win a majority of the votes, 50% plus one. If any candidate failed to win a majority of the vote, then go by congressional district. Award each candidate that districts electoral vote who won it. The remaining two would go to the candidate who won the state with a plurality. I haven't taken the time to see how that would of effected last years election, but around 11 states would have awarded their electoral votes via congressional districts instead of a winner take call plurality. Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
 
Lafayette said:
Hillary WON THE POPULAR VOTE - which is the only measure of voting in every other democracy on earth. She won the popular vote by the largest margin of anyone who lost the election in the Electoral College - which was 2%!

Are you daft? Nobody can call that a "fair election"! Nobody in their right mind, that is.

(Meaning lobotomized Replicants ...)
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I have noticed from some of your other posts that you do not seem to understand that the USA is not a democracy. This simple fact has been explained to you before, and you somehow seem to think that typing in colored capital letters makes your irrational statement carry more weight. You did add a nice little insult for those who disagree with your politics, good for you.

If I ignore your adolescent rantings, and look at some of the points you are trying to make, we might be able to have a discussion.

Here goes -

I have always found the cherry-picking of statistics to be a weak argument. I concede that Clinton won the "popular vote" (a statistic without any legal meaning). So as you are advocating for change based on one isolated statistic that supports your politics, how about you analyze the following equally meaningless statistics -

50 US states - Trump won 30 or 60% (a 20 point margin of victory).
56 electoral districts - Trump won 34 or 61% (a 22 point margin of victory).
3,147 counties - Trump won 2,661 or 85% (a 60 point margin of victory).

In terms of meaningless statistics, your 2 point margin of victory argument seems pretty shallow to me.
 
Perotista said:
f I were a Clinton supporter I would be complaining too. Pew doesn't really apply to us.
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Your ignorance is showing.

Of course Pew applies to us. Why should it not, we are a lopsided democracy with far too much power at the top and far too little at the bottom. Even a superficial glance reminds one of the similarity between the US and Rome. Rome ignored the poor as well - the plebeians had none whatsoever:
In Roman society, the aristocrats were known as patricians. The highest positions in the government were held by two consuls, or leaders, who ruled the Roman Republic. A senate composed of patricians elected these consuls. At this time, lower-class citizens, or plebeians, had virtually no say in the government.
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We, the sheeple, have allowed our governance to degrade into the same design. Both elements of governance - the Executive and the Legislature - belong to the rich. The lowest classes are simply road-kill on the highway of life. By design.

History:
In ancient Rome, the plebs was the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. From the 4th century BC or earlier, they were known as commoners (part of the lower social status).

Literary references to the plebs, however, usually mean the ordinary citizens of Rome as a whole, as distinguished from the elite—a sense retained by "plebeian" in English. In the very earliest days of Rome, plebeians were any tribe or clan without advisers to the King. In time, the word – which is related to the Greek word for crowd, plethos – came to mean the common people.
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Wakey, wakey. While the rest of the world is enhancing its democratic principles, the US is playing a sad power-game simply to assure the status-quo of the Income-to-Wealth Taxation Mechanism intended for the rich and super-rich ...
 
Lafayette said:
Your ignorance is showing.

Of course Pew applies to us. Why should it not, we are a lopsided democracy with far too much power at the top and far too little at the bottom. Even a superficial glance reminds one of the similarity between the US and Rome. Rome ignored the poor as well - the plebeians had none whatsoever:


We, the sheeple, have allowed our governance to degrade into the same design. Both elements of governance - the Executive and the Legislature - belong to the rich. The lowest classes are simply road-kill on the highway of life. By design.

History:

Wakey, wakey. While the rest of the world is enhancing its democratic principles, the US is playing a sad power-game simply to assure the status-quo of the Income-to-Wealth Taxation Mechanism intended for the rich and super-rich ...
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When comparing democracies around the world who have multi viable political parties to one who has only two. That is an apples to orange comparison. Our two major parties have a monopoly on our political system. They have all the money, write all the election laws, have a strangle hold. You take what they offer or nothing.

It has been said that here in the United States there is only one political party, but it has two wings. The Republican wing and the Democratic wing.
 
Perotista said:
When comparing democracies around the world who have multi viable political parties to one who has only two. That is an apples to orange comparison. Our two major parties have a monopoly on our political system. They have all the money, write all the election laws, have a strangle hold. You take what they offer or nothing.

It has been said that here in the United States there is only one political party, but it has two wings. The Republican wing and the Democratic wing.
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Sez you. Otherwise it is useful in all other discussions regarding comparative economic matters; and especially when one has the pertinent referential data-base from the OECD.

Face it, you don't know diddly about matters economic.
 
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