At this morning's National Prayer Breakfast, a traditionally serious and somewhat somber event, our president spoke to a room full of lawmakers, foreign dignitaries, and religious leaders. He asked them to pray for the displaced refugees across the world.
Just kidding, at about the 2:50 mark of the video up above, he took the opportunity to brag about his former show's television ratings ("Celebrity Apprentice" -- a scripted reality show he's still a producer on), slam its current show's ratings, and ask everyone to pray for Arnold Schwarzenegger's ratings to improve.
Are you guys that voted for him getting at least a LITTLE embarrassed yet?
This is how Arnold Schwarzenegger's responded to Trump's ratings jab.
The National Prayer Breakfast? pic.twitter.com/KYUqEZbJIE
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) February 2, 2017
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The population of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, and Idaho is roughly 12,000,000 people. That is 3.7% of the U.S. Population.
Those same states get 41 electoral votes. Texas, which has fewer electoral votes at 38, has a population of 27 million.
You get it? The 12M people in those states have more of a say as to who is president than the 27M people in Texas.
You can like the electoral college because it "is the way it has always been", you can like it because it tends to elect your preference even if they lose the popular vote, you can like it because it makes the election more exciting to watch on TV. But don't try to use math. You'll lose every time and badly.
With the electoral college you can become president with less than 22% of the popular vote.
In relation to the land mass vs population. This is something that the last US ambasoder to Australia commented on just before his tenure was up, and, iirc, I commented on one of the political threads on here at the time. He mentioned that it would be wise for the US to adopt a system comparable to Au in terms of electoral boundaries. In AU, we have the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission). This is part of the govenment beurocracy, but is entirely independant of the administration, ande apolitical. They work within their charter, and within the law and constitution, to ensure various points of law are adhered to for fair elections, and part of their responsibilities are electoral boundaries. The different elections are based on population, not land mass, in order to ensure equal representation for all Australians. One role of the AEC is to monitor population variations, and adjust the electoral boundaries as a result; either making an electorate bigger or smaller, merging electorates into a new electorate, or creatin new electorates based on population shifts.
The point is that each elected member of the house of representitives has a constituancey of similar size to the next. Which is why urban electorates may only be a few sqare miles in area, wheras rural or outback electorates may be hundreds, if not thousands, of sqare miles in size.
Not saying this is how you guys should do it, it's not my place...but as the Au system was brought up in discussion, I thought I'd clarify our methodology.
I live in TX, we get hosed. We have a population of 27 Million people, yet out vote counts for less. In addition to that, something we see here all the time and I am sure it happens in other areas too, is constant re-drawing of the district lines. The Republicans here do that to make sure that each district has more Red than Blue votes, resulting in things like the map up above. If they moved the district lines in a different way, you'd see way more Blue in TX, especially around Austin.
So not only do our votes here count less than other people, they are able to play with the numbers in other ways, because of the electoral college. It's a shit system, really.
You simply could not be more wrong. The Electoral College ensures that some citizens' votes are far more important than others. For example, the vote of one person in Wyoming is worth the votes of four Californians.
This video, which has already been posted on IAB, does a good job of explaining the problems with the Electoral College. (Several of us IAB'ers, by the way, have already checked the facts and math in the video and found them to be accurate.)
Look at a state like Michigan, where neither side actually had over 50%, the difference between the sides was a fraction of a %. Yet Red got ALL the votes? Where's the blue on the map representing nearly the SAME AMOUNT OF PEOPLE?
Did you watch the video? You might want to watch it. It badly fucks up your argument. For example, the 100 biggest cities in the country are less than 20% of the population. So......?
Also, the county map you're using to base your opinion on is a distortion. Those red counties in the middle of the country? Not everyone in them voted for Trump. A representation of the county votes that's more reflective of reality is shown below. What the map illustrates is that this notion that Clinton support existed only on the two coasts is a fiction. There are swaths of Clinton support across the nation.
But even this map (above) is a distortion as it's illustrating acreage and not population. If you adjust the map further to reflect people, and not acres, you get the map below.
One merit of this population-weighted map is that it makes it easier to see how Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million people, something completely hidden by your first county-acres-all-or-nothing map.
What a meaningless, bullshit map the second one is, literally looks like 'spin art' and is just as informative.
The Electoral College is there FOR THIS VERY REASON to prevent a few large States from over-whelming many smaller ones. IT DID ITS JOB so quit BITCHING AND MOANING ok?
You don't like it? Change it! But retroactive crybaby tactics just make you Dems look like sore losers, which you are.
The red areas represent your brain when it's thinking "I am fucking brilliant!" and the blue areas are where you're ignoring reality when it's different from your preconceptions. And the black? Well, that's where you're getting ready to type words in full caps, like "SPECIAL LIBTARD SNOWFLAKES."
What could possibly be more equal than each persons vote counting THE SAME or as should be said EQUALLY.
As soon as you do anything to change each persons vote being exactly equal to everyone else's vote you have made peoples votes less equal, not more, because in a popular vote, all peoples votes already are equal.
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas appear to be solid red on your map, correct? 29% of those in Oklahoma voted for her. 36% of those in Kansas voted for her. 34% of those in Nebraska voted for her. 34% of those in Arkansas voted for her.
There are 3,142 counties in the united states. That means in an election you could be statistically tied in the popular vote, but with one candidate getting 50%+1 in each county. That would result in your map being ENTIRELY ONE COLOR while the candidate only won by 3,142 votes.
You would look at that map and say "the other candidate wasn't represented at all".
I'm no "expert" like you smart guys but i don't think that has ever happened or will ever happen.
Seldom are threads this amusing. This bodes well for IAB's future. Good job, Fancylad.
I can't understand how you can make the argument that "People's votes are far more equally represented in an Electoral College system than they are with a popular vote." That's just counter to fact. Holygod and I are both encouraging you to watch that video because it does a good job of explaining faults of the Electoral College, something you still don't seem to be grasping.
Lastly, let's look at the current state of affairs from another perspective. You are arguing that some people in cities should not be able to dictate their presidential choices to the rest of the nation. There are a number of problems with that statement, as the video makes clear, but let's go with it: That is your position here, right?
I'd ask this question instead: Why should a minority of people living in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota have far more say in elections than people in California and New York--particularly when the people of California and New York provide much more of the money to fund the government than the people in the first group of states? Why should people who pay far less into the government have more say than others in who's president?
Understand that I'm not advocating this view, I'm just asking the question. It seems every bit as fair a question to ask as your question, viz: Why should people in the cities tell the rest of the nation who their president should be?
Frankly, I think any argument on whose votes should count more based on taxes paid, or education, or city vs. country, or acreage is bad.
My answer to all of this--my answer to both your original assumption and my inversion of it--is the same: One Person, One Vote. That is how you make people's votes equal--something you, yourself, seem to be in favor of.
Option A isn't happening because its counter to modern political theory, which has moved toward democracy and away from paternalism. So we're left with Option B.
Coincidence? You be the judge.
You act like I'm complaining about something of no consequence like who won American Idol or a basketball game. Respect in America matters to me. Bigotry in America matters to me. Our relations with other countries matters to me. Whether we go to war matters to me. Our economy matters to me. Why doesn't it matter to you? Or do you think he is doing / will do a good job?
I can't remember you once calling 5Cats out as a "whiner" for posts about Obama holding a coffee cup. Despite your constant insistent that you are an "independent" you sure is shit side with one side on every argument or issue.
Change the rules after the game is over = liberal-left's cry every time they lose.
I addressed specific issues the Obama Administration did poorly. I never once cried "the Russians hacked the election to make the negro win!" or claimed "Obama is not MY president" and you know it.
So... you put words in my mouth and think you're a big man for refuting them? How sad for you...
I'm guessing you would be pissing and moaning non-stop if the situations were reversed for Gore / Bush and Clinton / Trump.
"Make him look bad"? You mean like posting unedited video of him speaking? He makes himself look bad enough, there's no need to "make" anything.
For 8 years on this site I dealt with pissing and moaning about the president chewing gum, golfing, saluting with a coffee cup in his hand, not wearing a jacket in the oval office, having Jay Z to the white house, fist bumping, vacationing in his home state, etc, etc, etc. Never once do I remember you saying "get over it let him get on with the job"
If you don't think turnabout is fair play go right on ahead and fuck yourself. You numb-nuts elected a national embarrassment as the leader of the free world. You're going to get what's coming to you.