Cont: The Biden Presidency (4)

The Great Zaganza said:
Continued from here.
Posted By: Agatha


Republicans have won ONE popular vote for President in the last 35 years.
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Does it count that Republicans have won the majority of governorships for 26 of the last 30 years? Does it count that in the last 30 years, Republicans have controlled the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 of those 30 years and have controlled the U.S. Senate for 16 of those 30 years?

BTW, in 1992, Bill Clinton got only 43% of the popular vote while George Bush Sr. and Ross Perot received a combined 56% of the vote. IOW, 56% of the Americans who voted did not vote for Clinton.

In contrast, in 2000, George W. Bush received 47.9% of the popular vote, 4.9 percentage points more, or 11% more, than Clinton received in 1992. Yet, I've never heard Democrats claim that Clinton was an "illegitimate president" from 1992-1996.
 
mikegriffith1 said:
In contrast, in 2000, George W. Bush received 47.9% of the popular vote, 4.9 percentage points more, or 11% more, than Clinton received in 1992. Yet, I've never heard Democrats claim that Clinton was an "illegitimate president" from 1992-1996.
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You sure as heck heard it from Republicans from 1992-1996.
 
But the point is that while Clinton didn't win the majority of the vote he won the largest plurality of the vote. He was the biggest choice of voting Americans.

In a race where there are 3 candidates who poll respectable numbers (even if Perot was never going to win) the largest plurality is the most legitimate winner.

What if during that election Bush Sr had won the electoral college? That would be a more apt comparison to Trumps first victory.

Of course winning the actual majority is a better indicator of who the people want but if no-one hits that target the one with the largest vote share is the most legitimate winner.

I don't understand how this could possibly be disputed unless you had an axe to grind.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Republicans have won ONE popular vote for President in the last 35 years.
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mikegriffith1 said:
Does it count that Republicans have won the majority of governorships for 26 of the last 30 years? Does it count that in the last 30 years, Republicans have controlled the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 of those 30 years and have controlled the U.S. Senate for 16 of those 30 years?
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Of course not. The fact that, simply assigning a lot of offices to areas with few people allows few people with few votes to be represented by a lot of office-holders who got put there by few votes, is such a bare-basic fact of how elections work that anybody paying any attention to elections & politics should be able to see through that nonsense without effort.
 
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Delvo said:
Of course not. The fact that, simply assigning a lot of offices to areas with few people allows few people with few votes to be represented by a lot of office-holders who got put there by few votes, is such a bare-basic fact of how elections work that anybody paying any attention to elections & politics should be able to see through that nonsense without effort.
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What Mike glosses over is that in every Congressional election cycle for the last 30 years, the number of votes cast for Democrats was significantly higher than for Republicans. Republicans have only held majorities in the House and/or the Senate due to gerrymandering and the undemocratic nature of the Senate.
 
acbytesla said:
What Mike glosses over is that in every Congressional election cycle for the last 30 years, the number of votes cast for Democrats was significantly higher than for Republicans. Republicans have only held majorities in the House and/or the Senate due to gerrymandering and the undemocratic nature of the Senate.
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Not quite. There have been several elections where the Republicans have gotten more votes, most recently 2022.

It is interesting to not however, that their current majority is the result of gerrymandered maps that were declared illegal before the election.
 
Random said:
Not quite. There have been several elections where the Republicans have gotten more votes, most recently 2022.

It is interesting to not however, that their current majority is the result of gerrymandered maps that were declared illegal before the election.
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If that election were free and fair, I doubt that the repugs would have gotten any majority in a state with more people than sheep or cattle.
 
Yey! Aother chance to oust Mike Johnson!
Congress faces its third shutdown deadline of the month this week, as much of the federal government is expected to run out of funding by Friday at midnight.

Both chambers of Congress must approve six appropriations bills before Saturday to get the legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and avert a partial shutdown.
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Guardian
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
If that election were free and fair, I doubt that the repugs would have gotten any majority in a state with more people than sheep or cattle.
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To save others the trouble of looking this up, the following states of the US have more cattle than people:
  • South Dakota (4.32 times as many cattle as people)
  • Nebraska (3.29)
  • Montana (2.51)
  • North Dakota (2.45)
  • Wyoming (2.18)
  • Kansas (2)
  • Idaho (1.36)
  • Iowa (1.20)
  • Oklahoma (1.12)
Texas has about 7 times as many humans as cattle.

As for sheep, I leave that to someone else. I've made my contribution to this fourth discussion of the Biden Presidency.
 
W.D.Clinger said:
To save others the trouble of looking this up, the following states of the US have more cattle than people:
  • South Dakota (4.32 times as many cattle as people)
  • Nebraska (3.29)
  • Montana (2.51)
  • North Dakota (2.45)
  • Wyoming (2.18)
  • Kansas (2)
  • Idaho (1.36)
  • Iowa (1.20)
  • Oklahoma (1.12)
Texas has about 7 times as many humans as cattle.

As for sheep, I leave that to someone else. I've made my contribution to this fourth discussion of the Biden Presidency.
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The reason why I included cattle was because when I looked up the numbers of sheep in the country the latest figures, 2021 IIRC, stood at five million. For illustrative purposes, Ireland, a country of 5m, has 4m sheep.
 
I ran into a few headlines & brief comments about a new EPA rule proposal for vehicle pollution for the next several years. They were describing it as requiring all new ones by 2032 to be either electric or hybrids, even specificly plug-in hybrids. I went to the EPA website, and the summary of the new rule that I found there didn't mention any such requirement. But it did include a table of CO₂ emission requirements for different vehicle size classes and years from 2027 to 2032, which I think some people have interpreted as an electric/hybrid requirement because it's such a reduction that it won't be achievable any other way. We're already squeezing as much out of internal combustion as we can, and the 2032 emission numbers were around half of the 2027 numbers.

I generally like the idea of going to mostly plug-in hybrids. All-electric will be necessary someday, but getting there without an intermediate stage is just not a possibility. We'll need a bunch more total electrical capacity which will take time to build up, much of the population lives where plugging a vehicle in or even installing a place to plug one in just isn't a possibility, and plug-in hybrids increase the incentive to start actually working on those issues instead of just saying "oh well" and using them as arguments against ever going electric at all, while still being perfectly usable by drivers who simply can't go electric. Of course, they are more expensive than ICE vehicles, but there's really no way to make any kind of move on this issue that isn't more expensive.
 
Biden wisdom. Those that can't afford gas or groceries and are struggling to pay the rent, buy a $100K electric car.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Biden wisdom. Those that can't afford gas or groceries and are struggling to pay the rent, buy a $100K electric car.
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Right. The cost issue is major, and there are hard limits to what you can do there with many battery components existing in limited quantities on the Earth's surface. Substituting ICE cars for electric cars will not be enough in and of itself for this and many other reasons.

We need to get to a model where the vast majority of Americans do not have to drive at all. Not easy since our existing infrastructure has been built around cars for almost a century.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Biden wisdom. Those that can't afford gas or groceries and are struggling to pay the rent, buy a $100K electric car.
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He should have promoted hybrids. mainly because we can build hybrids for tens of millions of drivers. We have the lithium for those batteries.

Pay 13-17 000 for hybrid:
Used 2017 Chevrolet Volt LT w/ Comfort Package
75,417 miles
43 mpg City / 42 Highway
$13,919
 
The administration opened up the requirements for manufacturers to include hybrid cars and ICE cars provided they meet a mpg criteria.
 
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