President Trump

[smartcooky]

How would you make it work for 50 states?

Sorry, I don't understand what you are asking. That is the system they currently use AIUI. The number of EC votes depend on that state's number of Senators and House Reps, which I think might be ultimately dependent on population.

Are you asking me how I would change it and still have it work for 50 states?

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

There is nothing Trump, or any politician, can do to help them. They are uneducated in an information age and under-skilled in a global economy. They are screwed and nothing can change that. Their jobs and way of life can no more be brought back by any political policy than we can stop puberty or the tides with a new law.

So, considering their way of life and small town economy are inevitably doomed, I had hoped they would vote for larger issues of progress and equality and not for their own personal wants and needs.

Look at the data county by county nationwide. Not one county with a college of any size went red.

 

[smartcooky]

First, each state can allocate their electoral college delegates however they wish. The simple majority rule is not required and two states do not use it.

OK, but as far as the Presidential race is concerned, is my understanding correct; that if a party wins a state then, regardless of the winning margin, all that state's EC votes go to that party's candidate?

 

[newyorkguy]

Sorry, I don't understand what you are asking. That is the system they currently use AIUI. The number of EC votes depend on that state's number of Senators and House Reps, which I think might be ultimately dependent on population.

Are you asking me how I would change it and still have it work for 50 states?

Each U.S state has two senators. Congressional members are apportioned by population.

People have looked at the change you suggest. Looked hard at it. The problem would be -- if the presidential election was decided by the popular vote -- the biggest, most populous states would pretty much control who was president. The candidates could ignore the smaller states and just concentrate on a few big states. The Founding Fathers wanted each state to have some voice in electing the president.

 

[Spindrift]

No and neither is states like Montana, North Dakota and Alaska all having less than 1/53 rd the population of California yet all having the same number of Senators (2)in the US Senate. Or DC having no Congressmen or Senators at all and they have a larger population than Wyoming which has 2 Senators and a Congressman.

There are all kinds of unusual idiosyncrasies in the government of the United States. Our form of government stinks. It's been copied, but not very successfully. It is shocking in many ways that it has survived this long. Parliamentary systems are better in my opinion.

You would think right thinking conservatives would be against the Electoral College. Twice in the past 16 years it has enforced the will of a minority on the country.

 

[Spindrift]

OK, but as far as the Presidential race is concerned, is my understanding correct; that if a party wins a state then, regardless of the winning margin, all that state's EC votes go to that party's candidate?

No, in Maine and I think Nebraska, each congressional district gets 1. You win the district you get 1 and then 2 go to the overall state winner.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Your idea of "will receive attention" sounds outright dangerous, if not condescending. You are using the excuse that if one has done one unbigoted thing, one can no longer be or act a bigot.

I don't know how you got there from what I said. I'm not presenting any excuse, and I'm most definitely not presenting *that* excuse. Seriously, all I said was that this is already a hot social topic, it's already a thing under scrutiny. There are already investigations beginning, and they will (and should) continue. Whether it's Trump or Clinton in office is going to have absolutely zero impact on the progress we do or don't make with respect to racial equality. The government aspect of this issue has been done, it's a social issue now. And it will continue to move forward with all the growing pains, challenges, and false starts that we're seeing. Trump isn't going to be able to stop that. He isn't even going to be able to influence it. The US isn't going to magically turn back into a racist, segregationist country. Not going to happen.

In response to unfiltered fear mongering, not fact.

Okaaaayyyyy I suppose. I mean, it's not like it's been almost exclusively democrats who have proposed and enacted the various bans and restrictions we've seen in my lifetime. Right? Right????

Well, econ is not your strong suit, I reckon.

You really seem to be in assuming that my perception of what many americans want is the same as what I want.

Sorry, but anyone who paid attention in 10th grade European History class knows enough. I studied that in the US. At public school. What, they only thumb-suck and pop opiates, now?

What does this even mean? What does 10th grade history have to do with it? Does that somehow make it acceptable and palatable that a pile of liberals are busy slathering condescension on half the population?

None. There is a global labor surplus. I believe this was discussed some time ago on ISF wrt to unemployment insurance and so on. Very different approaches will be needed. Right now, with structural issues unattended, you get the highly and increasingly disparate incomes.

I genuinely have no idea what this has to do with what I said.

Given that the very real issues America faces actually relate to becoming a more pragmatic, fact-based, reasoned place, what do you suggest? The 21st century is decidedly not the 20th, even if it may face similar dangers, or worse. Trump is the imaginary Maginot Line against the dangers of the world. We all know how fighting and working on yesterday's assumptions can lead to catastrophic failure.

The game is geopolitics, power the currency. This currency is backed by cash and influence, only partially by muscle. Cash accrues best to those with large internal markets from which to gain the production volume and economies of scale in innovation and research to outcompete others. This is what the USA did in the second half of the 20th century. This is the 21st century, the largest market is no longer the USA, that old motor will no longer win all the races, even not for lack of trying. That new world is a result not just of trade agreements good or poor, but from contemporary market structure.

Now, USA, plan your future. My guess is that you could use friends of similar mind, exactly those you plan to push furthest away right now, exactly those who are in shock.

Again, you don't seem to be picking up what I'm laying down. I believe you have read my post with a completely different inference than what I intended. I'm just not sure where the disconnect is.

 

[acbytesla]

You haven't a clue, the jobs they have will always be around, the trick is getting their wages up.

No, they are not logger. The coal mining industry jobs are mostly gone. Both from demand as its growing uncompetitive with photovoltaic and a glut of natural gas. Manufacturing in the US is more than double what it was in the 70s yet there are 7 million fewer manufacturing jobs. Automation is destroying those jobs at a feverish pace. Even in China.

To me the big challenge facing the world is how to deal with with the loss of markets caused by the loss of income caused by the loss of jobs through automation.

My guess is you're or were a logger. I've seen forestry practices in my state of Washington and Oregon and most of those jobs have been destroyed through automation. Instead of dozens of hard men doing the dangerous job of cutting and bucking trees, one guy operates an excavator like machine that grabs a tree by the base cuts it and removes all the limbs in seconds and then repeats the process.

People need more money but the system mostly rewards investors not workers. The division of income is continually growing and it's reached a point where something has to give. I don't have a clue how to create more jobs and I assure you Trump doesn't either.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I do think the Electoral College system seems like something of a sham.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, if you have a state like California which has 55 (?) Electoral College votes, and one party wins that state by 1 voter, then that party's candidate gets the whole 55 college votes for that State. This hardly seem very democratic to me.

How would you make it work for 50 states?

I've rolled this around in my mind-brain, and I don't know if there's even an answer possible. There are pros and cons to each.

The electoral college creates situations where the person with the larger percentage of people-votes can still end up losing. But going with only the popular vote ends up with some problems too. In particular, the largest population densities are in very small geographic areas. The items of interest to inner-city people in dense metropolitan areas are not the same issues faced by people in suburban or rural areas. If you go with the popular vote alone, you end up with a very small portion of the actual land being the sole deciders. You disenfranchise the entirety of the center of the country. Alaska and Hawaii have no voice at all. We end up with the US brought to you by LA and NYC. As someone living in Washington, the issues and interests of the average LA dweller aren't the same ones I face.

I don't know how to balance the diversity that exists across the US with the density of a small number of cities.

 

[smartcooky]

Each U.S state has two senators. Congressional members are apportioned by population.

People have looked at the change you suggest. Looked hard at it. The problem would be -- if the presidential election was decided by the popular vote -- the biggest, most populous states would pretty much control who was president. The candidates could ignore the smaller states and just concentrate on a few big states. The Founding Fathers wanted each state to have some voice in electing the president.

I haven't made any suggestions, I'm trying to understand how it works.

Why, for example does California have 55 votes, Florida 29 and Nevada only 5? In this determined (ultimately) by population?

In the California election Clinton got 61%, Trump got 33%. Did all 55 EC votes go to Clinton, or were they somehow apportioned? That is what I am asking.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Look at the data county by county nationwide. Not one county with a college of any size went red.

Are you by chance defining "of any size" to be the size above which they're all blue?

 

[acbytesla]

You would think right thinking conservatives would be against the Electoral College. Twice in the past 16 years it has enforced the will of a minority on the country.

I'm not sure that matters. How do you get rid of it?

1. It's part of the Constitution and amending it has become close to an impossibility.
2. The popular vote has issues as well, but it might work today.

 

[dudalb]

No, they are not logger. The coal mining industry jobs are mostly gone. Both from demand as its growing uncompetitive with photovoltaic and a glut of natural gas. Manufacturing in the US is more than double what it was in the 70s yet there are 7 million fewer manufacturing jobs. Automation is destroying those jobs at a feverish pace. Even in China.

To me the big challenge facing the world is how to deal with with the loss of markets caused by the loss of income caused by the loss of jobs through automation.

My guess is you're or were a logger. I've seen forestry practices in my state of Washington and Oregon and most of those jobs have been destroyed through automation. Instead of dozens of hard men doing the dangerous job of cutting and bucking trees, one guy operates an excavator like machine that grabs a tree by the base cuts it and removes all the limbs in seconds and then repeats the process.

People need more money but the system mostly rewards investors not workers. The division of income is continually growing and it's reached a point where something has to give. I don't have a clue how to create more jobs and I assure you Trump doesn't either.

That's the point. A lot of the manufacturing jobs that Trump wants to "Bring back" don't exist anymore.Automated out.
I think that having a stronger manufacturing base in the US is actually a good idea, but don't expect it to bring back thousands of jobs. Donald is selling them a line.
And, BTW, this is pretty much accepted by economist of all stripes,liberal and conservative.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I don't have a clue how to create more jobs and I assure you Trump doesn't either.

Why, by the FORCE OF HIS MAGNIFICENCE, of course.

 

[dudalb]

I'm not sure that matters. How do you get rid of it?

1. It's part of the Constitution and amending it has become close to an impossibility.
2. The popular vote has issues as well, but it might work today.

Then there is the divide the electorial college members by the percentage of the votes in the state each candidate gets, not winner take all..which a couple of states do and you don't need a constitutional admendment to do it.

 

[Spindrift]

I'm not sure that matters. How do you get rid of it?

1. It's part of the Constitution and amending it has become close to an impossibility.
2. The popular vote has issues as well, but it might work today.

The Constitution has been amended 27 times. The last time in 1992. It's difficult but not impossible.

 

[acbytesla]

I haven't made any suggestions, I'm trying to understand how it works.

Why, for example does California have 55 votes, Florida 29 and Nevada only 5? In this determined (ultimately) by population?

In the California election Clinton got 61%, Trump got 33%. Did all 55 EC votes go to Clinton, or were they somehow apportioned? That is what I am asking.

The number of votes is equal to the number of total Congressmen and Senators each state has. Congress or the House of Representatives is based on population. California has 53 Congressional districts or representatives, Florida 27 and Nevada 3. Add two votes for the 2 Senators each State has.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I haven't made any suggestions, I'm trying to understand how it works.

Why, for example does California have 55 votes, Florida 29 and Nevada only 5? In this determined (ultimately) by population?

In the California election Clinton got 61%, Trump got 33%. Did all 55 EC votes go to Clinton, or were they somehow apportioned? That is what I am asking.

My understanding is that the number of electoral votes is roughly based on population, with a little squish. It's actually the number of congressional seats (2 senate per state + house seats based on population).

Most states use a "winner takes all" approach - whoever wins the popular vote within that state gets all of the electoral votes within that state. It's this mechanism that causes the disconnect between the popular and the electoral votes. For example, it's possible to end up with a less than 1% difference in votes in every single state... but have one person win every single electoral vote.

It also means that if one candidate has a very large majority of the popular vote in a very big state, but loses or is very close in all the others, they can have an overall larger number of popular votes for the nation as a whole and still lose the election. This is more or less what happened yesterday. It's hard to pin it down exactly, but I'd say that California is the biggest driver in the popular vs electoral discrepancy for this election. Clinton won California by a margin of over 2.5 million votes. At the end of the day, however, the popular vote was only about 200 thousand different - that's a whole order of magnitude difference. So at the end of the day, the huge lead that Clinton saw in CA was mitigated by a smaller, but more widespread preference for Trump in most of the rest of the US.


ETA: There are a couple of exception to the winner takes all approach, as was previously pointed out. Maine and Nebraska give one vote for whoever wins the popular vote in each congressional district, and the winner of that tally gets the extra two. That's closer to representing the popular vote overall, but is still a little bit off.

 

[acbytesla]

The Constitution has been amended 27 times. The last time in 1992. It's difficult but not impossible.

Maybe it will be amended now that this has happened.

People only think about it every 4 years and it has only mattered once before I think.

 

[phiwum]

Look at the data county by county nationwide. Not one county with a college of any size went red.

Where do you get that idea?

Oklahoma, for instance, went red in every county. The state has large state universities.