Minority rule
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I want to repeat a statistic I use in every talk: by 2040 or so, 70 percent of Americans will live in 15 states. Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent. Unsettling to say the least https://t.co/EGPD5nE4qG
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) July 10, 2018
In the age of minority rule, a Supreme Court justice appointed by a president who got fewer votes is confirmed by a party in the Senate that got fewer votes, to validate policies opposed by most Americans: https://t.co/HoCoFnXnZV
— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) July 10, 2018
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Within the next few months, Brett M. Kavanaugh will get a vote in the Senate to determine whether he joins the Supreme Court. In all likelihood, that vote will be close but will work out in Kavanaugh’s favor. Republicans currently have a 51-to-49 majority in the Senate, and even if the ailing John McCain (Ariz.) doesn’t vote, if they hold the rest of their members (and they will) the result would at worst be a 50-50 tie that Vice President Pence would break.
That vote will be a vivid reminder that we are living in an age of minority rule. In fact, that is one of the central features of this political era. The Republican Party represents a minority of the American electorate, yet it controls not only all three branches of the federal government but also most state governments, as well.
Why do I say that a vote in Kavanaugh’s favor is an example of minority rule? Because the body that will confirm him is built in its current formation to almost guarantee Republican control, despite the fact that most American voters selected Democrats to represent them there.
Using Dave Leip’s invaluable election atlas , I added up all the votes cast for Democrats and Republicans in the 2012, 2014 and 2016 Senate elections, which put the current Senate in place. I didn’t bother with the few special elections since 2012, which in total wouldn’t change the results much, but I did include Bernie Sanders’s and Angus King’s last elections, since they are nominally independent but caucus with the Democrats. Here are the results:
Republican votes: 102.3 million
Democratic votes: 117.4 million
In the elections that determined the current Senate, there were 15 million more votes cast for Democrats than for Republicans. Yet Republicans maintain control and therefore get to confirm President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
Well, that’s just how it is, you might say. Blame the framers. And that’s true: They set up a system in which Wyoming’s 580,000 residents get two senators and California’s 40 million residents also get two senators.
But that doesn’t mean it’s fair or right or that Democrats shouldn’t be livid in cases like this where it leads to such an antidemocratic outcome. And the GOP’s built-in advantages combine to make the country much more hostile to the policies the majority actually wants.
So we will now have an intensely conservative Supreme Court in which five of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, despite the fact that in six of the past seven presidential elections, the Democratic candidate won the most votes. That’s because of the electoral college, another feature of our system with a built-in Republican advantage.
Were it not for the skew of the Senate, Mitch McConnell would not have had the ability to refuse to hear the nomination of Merrick Garland, in which case the margin would have been 5-4 in favor of Democrats. Were the presidency determined by which candidate got the most votes — as it is in every other democracy on earth — Hillary Clinton would be president right now, and the margin would be 6-3 in favor of liberals.
There’s a related situation in the House, where most analysts believe that in order to take control Democrats will have to not just win the popular vote, but win it by a huge margin of 6 or 7 points. And all this is why enormously popular policies like minimum wage increases, greater funding for education, and universal health coverage never see the light of day, while our national legislature eagerly cuts taxes for the wealthy and corporations whether that’s what the public wants or not. And one of the things you can absolutely count on from the newly (even more) conservative Supreme Court is that they will approve every step Republicans take to suppress the votes of those inclined to oppose them, making their continued hold on power all the more likely.
In other words, our entire political system is built to give the Republican Party a series of advantages, even when they represent a minority of the public, as they now do. In some cases that’s by their design, and in some cases it’s a happy accident, but it all points in the same direction. And when Republicans have power, they work ceaselessly to make the system even less democratic and more rigged in their favor.
So every time the Supreme Court issues another ruling that cheers conservatives, whether it’s restricting reproductive rights or gutting campaign finance laws or undercutting environmental regulations, we should remember that it was made possible by a minority president with the aid of a minority Senate.
When he ran for president, Donald Trump told his voters that they were the victims of a rigged system. Nurture your rage, he urged them, and strike a blow against that system by voting for me. In truth, he was the product of the rigged system, not its enemy. So maybe it’s time for liberals to finally get angry about it.
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The facts in this article are indisputable.
It may be time to dissolve the US Senate and find a new more meaningful for Americans to be politically represented.
You have a false premise as the basis for this article. That premise is that the US Senate is set up for Republicans to hold office. There are ZERO districts in the Senate, each state has votes on EACH Senator where ALL eligible voters in the state all vote for the same office and candidates for that office at the same time. For instance, all of Pennsylvania will vote on keeping Casey or replacing him this November. There will be no district that can vote for Casey and be overruled by any other district(s). There is only a popular vote that Casey has to win. If he wanted to, he would only have to campaign in Pittsburgh and Eastrn PA to win re-election. It depends on what he feels will win him re-election that will determine how he votes on Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Facts emanating from you??
In 1790 when the US constitution was written 95 % of Americans lived in rural areas
1790
URBAN POP. - 201, 655
RURAL POP. -3, 727, 559
URBAN % 5.1 RURAL % 94.9
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This is one of the reasons that the Constitution should not be viewed as set in stone as something that must be adhered to according to "original" intent. America has changed drastically since then.
The Senate is the deliberative body, and was established to give each state equal representation. Assuming the rural/urban numbers are correct, nothing has changed since 1790, other than distribution. The same fear is present now, as it was back then, mob rule. You want popular representation, look to the house.
Such a fine job of adding the numbers up to make it seem like the 53% of the vote democrats received over the course of 3 elections proves an out of whack system. What he fails to show is that California accounts for the entire surplus. Take California numbers for those 3 elections out, and the Republicans come out on top by these stats. What's the point? This is exactly why the Senate is set up the way it is, to prevent a large mass of people on the West coast from determining things on the East Coast. 6.4 million votes from LA and Orange County alone for Ds in 2012 and 2016.
I get what he is saying, but he paints it as if the Democrats should hold a significant number of seats more than what are currently held, based on the vote. What he should really be bitching about is the fact that 50+1 gets you there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thank-god-for-harry-reid/2017/02/02/b2b58906-e97c-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html?utm_term=.6e2c1c4312a0
Yeah, I'm getting tired of being told how "radical" I am. Gee, what a radical idea. Protect the little guy by giving him equal standing in one arm of the bicameral legislature. I read through the tweets on dudes page. The number of calls for doing away with the system, and allegations that it is broken, is striking. I don't know, I took out several spokes in my bicycle tire, never imagined that it would warp a little because of that.
Yes it has and not for the better. Our murder rate is much higher per person than it was back then and if we removed 3 cities from the statistics this country would be one of the safest countries in the world.
Are you saying that everyone in an urban population agrees politically and people who live in cities should be in control of national elections?
I believe John is saying that everyone should have equal representation rather than folks in less populous states having disproportionate representation as they currently do. Same thing for the gerrymandered districts which the GOP designed to advantage themselves and to disfavor Dems and racial minorities. I agree with him.
Where the population of the nation is represented is in the house of reps side of congress, its size is dictated by their own rules of how many members they will have , they use the census to determine how many representatives a state will have in the house. the minimum any state will have is one irregardless of population .
The senate side of congress represents the states , not the people, they are to look out for the interests of the state , sometimes whats good for a state might not be good for the people and vice versa. it is also called the upper house of congress , because it is the chamber where each and every state has exactly the same representation irregardless to size or population, each state gets 2 senators , by virtue of statehood and is represented as a state equally and its size is dictated not by its own rules or limits , but by the number of states in the union.
some may think that there is an over representation or an under representation , but they fail to remember the different things both houses are suppose to represent. and what their respective jobs and duties are.
In other words the Senate is disproportionately skewed towards the views of the rural residents in the low population states, the majority of which are red. That means on key issues like the confirmation of federal judges, SCOTUS justices, ambassadors and other key federal employees the confirmation is unfairly and improperly skewed to the right and thus doesn't represent the views of most Americans.
Correct because that would accurately represent the will of the electorate.
Ok so we are talking about the role of the senate , in confirmations and the making of treaties and the likes .
The branch of congress where each state has an equal number of votes irregardless of geographic size population size , economic importance , etcetera .
right now , it is the states populus that elects the senators so it is the will of the MAJORITY of the voters of that state that choose the representation they send to the senate, it is that states voters choice who they vote for , if it appears skewed , then work to get a candidate elected that mirrors whatever political flavor is desired, but remember it is the voters within the state that will do the voting , not outside the state interests .
another reason it could be skewed ? maybe the party platform , on both the state and national level , is not attractive , I find that usually the biggest reason one party or another fails to win elections in a state, so maybe , look at those platforms and change what needs to be changed to fit the voters in a particular state.
About the only advantage I have living in the least populated state over one more populated , is that I might have a better chance of having my 3 representatives actually listen to me and consider it , versus , them having to listen to multimillions in the area they represent.
the votes of my 2 senators carry no more and should carry no less weight than the 2 senators from California , or New York all 3 are equal in weight when it comes to a vote.
What it means is that your vote has disproportionate effect on the rest of America compared to the votes of Californians, which is pretty obviously a tragedy and causes important issues to be decided the wrong way.
I believe that John is not saying, but really supports, is that just because Hillary Clinton lost the electoral votes of states that she took for granted that it is imperative that we change the rules and maybe give her a do over to see if she can pull a rabbit out of a hat and become POTUS before she dies.
I agree with Paul Waldman, the Washington Post columnist in the seed. His facts and logic are irrefutable. It has nothing specifically to do with Clinton although that is a recent example of what goes wrong. The founders never foresaw the population shift that makes the distribution of senators ( 2 for every state no matter the population) so problematic.
John,
Do you believe that the founders were aware of how the population was distributed in the original 13 colones and took the uneven population among the various states into consideration when setting up the government?
There were no political parties in 1770 (or 1790), and I don't know of any founder's understanding that America would one day become a modern predominantly urban society.
It really doesn't make any objective sense to claim that the distribution of US senators is something that should be set in stone.
only if you think that senators represent the people and not the interests of the state . which I believe they represent the state as the Constitution dictates , in which case both states have equal representation and say in the senate.
In which case, the founder's did not expect the city dwellers to ever have more power than the farmers.
It did not take long for the men, who wanted to have their way. to form political parties and begin fighting along ideological lines - fighting that continues to this day.
he has a better chance to catch a unicorn fart.
The push to change the election process because of Clinton's loss is illogical.
The US electoral map shows a history of some pretty lopsided elections. The US electorate voted overwhelmingly for Nixon in 1972. Maine and DC were responsible for the 17 electoral votes that went to the Democratic candidate that year. There weren't any "true blue" states back in 1972.
In 1976, it was predominantly the South that elected Carter. California voted Republican. In fact, California's electoral votes helped elect Reagan twice and Bush once. So for all of this rhetoric about how wonderfully "liberal" certain states are, it is not necessarily so. We have old vs young, we have educated vs. less educated, we have warmongers vs peace lovers, we have no more and no less divisions among our fellow humans inside and outside of the US than we ever did.
Map history at the link below. Click on the map for info about that year's election. I love that website.
and some info from 1972....
and
It was a largely rural society and the founders made a devil's bargain with the slave states to give them disproportionate representation in order to get them to join the union. The electoral college, number of Senators and 3/5ths compromise were all part of that white supremacist bargain. The founders never envisioned that the 39 million people in California would have the same number of Senators as the 1/2 million people in Wyoming. So each Wyoming resident has 80 times the degree of control on the makeup of SCOTUS as do the residents of California, something which really skews our democracy into the bizarro land of the wingnuts.
It's a fundamentally flawed formula which has significantly held back American progress and I say that as a rural resident in a largely rural state.
... which is self-sustaining, since any change in the representation rules would require the agreement of the small states.
I give the USA another decade or two before it breaks up, as did the USSR. As peacefully, I hope.
Most of the states were slave states when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Most of the signers were probably slave owners.
Virginia had 20 times the population of Georgia and at least twice the population of any of the original thirteen states.
The founders originally wanted to restrict the right to vote (therefore the right to rule) to white male landowners. The founders also preferred white immigrants from their home countries.
Warping the history of the US in an attempt to change election laws today because Clinton lost an election, when she shouldn't ever have the nominee, is ridiculous and borders on insane.
Your comments often show an irrational hatred of Clinton. Are you going to vote against the Democratic Party in November?
What responsibility do you accept for Trump winning the presidency? ( I assume you did not vote for the only person who had a chance to beat him).
Susan Sarandon famously said that she would rather have Trump than Clinton because Trump would bring about the "revolution" from the left. How is that working out?
I live in the rural Bible Belt.
What has held back American progress in the Bible Belt is lack of education and lack of opportunity to use that education.
My science education has benefited immensely from internet access. Evolution was not taught in my Bible Belt school. I was taught to scoff at the idea that my ancestors were monkey. I remember reading for the first time that whales had originally had legs and actually laughed, but wisely did not type some inane reply to the poster who was arguing with a religious fundamentalist who I believed was making some good points at the time.
I googled evolution, read and watched videos, and then research the origins of the Jewish religion and then became an atheist around 8 years ago.
Education, followed by the ability to learn, is key to American progress.
I am a work in progress. So is everyone else.
Back at you.
Clinton lost to an unknown black man in 2008. Clinton bought the nomination in 2016 in a largely uncontested primary.
Clinton was a bottom of the barrel candidate who should never have had the nomination. Clinton would not have had the nomination if Warren, Biden or any other mainstream Democrat had challenged her.
Hatred of Clinton's warmongering and propensity to privatize government services with an eye to giving Social Security money to Wall Street gamblers are among the valid reasons that I did not support another Clinton presidency.
Donald Trump was and is obviously completely unqualified to be president of the United States. His disqualifications go far beyond anything that could be applied to Hillary Clinton, and this was well known prior to the election.
"Clinton haters" are about to give us a ideologically right wing Supreme Court. Good job Susan Sarandon.
Donald Trump would not be POTUS if the Democrats had nominated an electable candidate. Congrats for this mess rests squarely on the Clintons and the Clinton supporters who put their own interests ahead of the Democratic party and the country.
Clinton was probably the best they had. The rest of them are even crazier. I can't think of one of them that would have been able to tap into the conservative movement that gave the Republicans the most seats at all levels of government since the nineteen twenties. It wasn't just the top office that was affected by the swing away from socialism.
I don't believe that.
Clinton had to run on the "I am not Trump" platform because her economic platform was aligned with the Republicans. Even some of her most ardent supporters admitted that.
Warren or Biden would have left Clinton in the same place that as Bush - the bottom of the pack. The US electorate wasn't interested in supporting a political dynasty. Bush seemed to be able to accept defeat - at least, I haven't been reading headlines about Bush blaming voters for not supporting his personal political ambitions.
On election day the two choices were Trump or Clinton. Anyone who voted for anyone other than Clinton are the only people responsible for the asshole we now have in the office.
It may have been better for the Democrats to nominate someone else. Doesnt change the fact that people who voted in a way that benefited Trump (Trump or Stein) are the people who put him in office.
unpalatable.
Seems the left still hasn't learned how elections work yet.
Sorry, but the Presidency will never be determined by popular vote. Nor will "fly over country" allow the leftist coasts to diminish their numbers/power in the House and Senate.
I know it is the leftist dream to turn fly over country into political wasteland by disenfranchising millions more voters than the left cries about now. Since it will never happen you might want to convince your candidates to not ignore fly over country. To stop/campaign/meet/and (gasp) listen to their concerns. Or, you can continue to dream of a world in which they are powerless; call them names; and try to relegate them to 3rd class citizens. Good luck with that, we tend to hold grudges.
Yeah, because the most fair and logical way of electing a president would be totally unacceptable...
The Senate? Holy friggen cow Batman! Power in the Senate is heavily tilted in favor of the less populated states. In the most egregious and oft cited example, the people of Wyoming have something like 68 times the representation in the Senate that the people of California have, based on 2017 population estimates. 68 times the power!
The Electoral College system is what forces candidates to ignore most of the country and focus mainly on a handful of swing states, giving the people in them much more leverage over the candidates in exchange for their votes. An election based on the popular vote wouldn't do that.
In other words, politicians would have to be genuinely concerned with the popular majority. Heaven forbid.
The constitution can be amended. I'm not saying it will be any time soon, but it can be.
And that's not the only possible reform. Short of amending the Constitution, I'd be more in favor of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact than anything else, which has been adopted by 11 states and DC thus far (presently accounting for 172 electoral votes).
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is already constitutional and doesn't require any action from Congress.
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..."
Electors in states where the compact is enacted would be specifically appointed by their legislatures to vote for the winner of the national popular vote.
Everything the author says is true.
Unfortunately, nothing can be done. America is now, and forever, a single-party plutocratic oligarchy. The authoritarian tendencies we see now will gradually become more harsh.
The only question is how quickly the authoritarians will shut down all pretenses of rule of law.
The lawless administration has left the house or building if you may.
The right is also running a project to make people believe that they can believe in... nothing.
As part of that project, the Unthinking Faithful TM are required to lie about more or less everything. Debase truth. Say that up is down, that hot is cold... in politics, science, culture, education, ...
But you already know all about it, don't you, six. Much more intimately than I, I would bet...
Sounds like you're getting close to your boiling point to me and you know what that means, don't you?
How do you figure? I don't think I've shown any anger because... I'm not angry.
All the liberals I know are angry, unhappy, or both.
I'm sad... because my grandchildren aren't learning Chinese. That's a mistake.
I'm a firm believer in fair representation. The House and Senate really should be populated on a more per-capita basis. Unfair representation is blatantly unjust and a guaranteed source of civil unrest, even revolt if it's bad enough.
The Electoral College should be abolished as well. The Presidency is a singular, national office. Everyone gets the same president, so everyone's vote should count equally when it comes to selecting said president.
And let's not forget about campaign finance. Maybe we should make it a public thing and simply allot the top few primary candidates equal resources and air time and force them to compete for votes on a level playing field.
While we're at it, election days should be moved to weekends, and polling stations should be easy to access and sufficiently plentiful to keep wait times under 15 or 20 minutes.
Our representation ratios and electoral processes are pretty fucked up when you think about it. We can do better. No, scratch that. We should do better, shouldn't we?
So you're suggesting mob rule? Based on your comment, I can see you are akin to Harry Reid when he used the Nuclear Option or Obama and Company for not persuading Ginsberg to retire while he was still in office. Foresight is something we should be proud our Forefathers were well blessed with when designing the United States Constitution.
You have your Unthinking Faithful TM talking points mastered perfectly, don't you, six?
If "political systems" is to be discussed, the Unthinking Faithful TM are to frame the topic as a binary choice between mob rule and ... well... something else, which you are not supposed to describe, because readers might just be turned off...
No... You are to just insist that democracy is mob rule, and therefore democracy is bad. BAD!!!!! BE AFRAID of democracy!
I'm sure you have a whole library of texts, ready to post, to show people how evil democracy is.
I wouldn't call them unthinking since they are based on the Founder's understanding of the potential disasters which could arise and topple this country by those who would gain enough control to allow as many people to get on the ice cream wagon as necessary to assure them totalitarian control of this country into the foreseeable future. I wouldn't call yours unthinking either, since Socialism is an ideology of deceit.
How did the Socialist Party do in France this last election?
As some desire to rewrite history making the United States a democracy .. which it is not and was never intended to be. The founding fathers did not use the term Republic in the Constitution as if it were synonymous with democracy...
If you have a problem with using public elections to fill public offices, then you have a problem with the entire concept of a republic.
How do you equate a free and fair election to fill a public office, in which every vote cast has the same power, with mob rule? The 'mob' isn't ruling, the citizenry is choosing someone to hold office with limited powers, and for a limited period of time at that. We do it that way for every major public office except the presidency. An election is held, votes are cast, votes are counted, the winner gets the office.
That's how republics are supposed to work: Government as a public matter. Voting is how the public authorizes and installs their own government, from within, as opposed to having one forced upon them by some powerful minority, foreign or domestic. That's what makes a republic different from autocratic or oligarchic forms of government. The people themselves (the public) get to decide. One person, one vote, equal in power to every other vote.
But that's not the way the Electoral College works. Votes are not equal in power across the board, and ultimately they don't even matter because they're not officially binding. Electors are not constitutionally required to respect the vote. The vote is essentially a sham, a mock election. The Electoral College has to be one of the least republican (small r there) ways of filling a public office ever devised.
Exactly. The public office you're referring to are representing the people voting for them. That is a democracy. The President is representing the states and the people within them, so that all the people are represented throughout the USA, not just in the most populous areas of the country. I hope this clears this up for you.
Each state has an electoral college and a state like California has 55 delegates and and the reason why is because they have a much higher population than a state such as .... these 14 states plus the District of Columbia.
Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia*, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Nebraska and New Mexico which have a total of 54 electoral votes between them.
California's vote for President has 14 plus times the number of votes for the President as all of the states above put together, so that's why we have the Electoral College to give the more populous states more voting power and still not exclude everyone else from the voting process. Smart, don't you think? Let all Americans be a part of the voting process of electing the President.
You seem honest enough and may not have understood this before. I hope this informs you enough to come to a logical conclusion now.
I think the Founders knew what they were doing.
Yup. You ticked the box!
You know... when I first encountered this meme, quite a few years ago, I couldn't figure out why the right was so insistent. It took quite a while to to realize that it isn't a historical error; it's a blueprint for the future. It is a clear declaration of intent from the right to put and end to democracy in America.
You're succeeding. You may have already passed an irredeemable tipping point toward the destruction of all that made America the light of the world.
So... be happy!
The Constitution defined the form of the government. It's a blueprint, not an anthem.
Fifth grade civics taught that "republic" is a "form", as is "monarchy" or "theocracy". Fifth grade civics also taught that "democracy" is a "nature" of government, as are dictatorship, oligarchy, ...
So we have a democratic monarchy in the Netherlands, a dictator-ruled republic in North Korea, a democratic republic in Brazil, ...
But you know all this already. You are not debating civics definitions. You are campaigning for the suppression of equal rights in America.
Yeah, you bore me as well … Have a nice rest of your day....
Yes, a Republic is the form of government that gives individuals rights .. not mob rule … I never said democracy was a bad thing - I am against mob rule, especially when electing a President for the United States of America...
Interesting ….
... or doesn't.
The Republic of South Africa didn't respect the rights of the majority. That seems to be the White Supremacist model for the right in America today.
What are you thinking that clears up? I said the presidency is a singular national office. Everyone gets the same president. Geography is irrelevant.
I think you mean the less populous states get more voting power, and no, I don't think it's smart... at all.
Imagine a mayoral election in a city divided by a river, let's say with 30% of the population on one side of the river and 70% on the other. It's the same mayor for everyone in the city, so would it be 'smart' to set up a system whereby the minority across the river automatically gets some kind of voting advantage, like each person getting 3 votes, simply because of their geographical location?
See what I mean? That would be ridiculously unjust, right?
Um. Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Let all Americans cast equally powerful votes, and let their votes determine the victor. You know... ethics, justice, all that jazz. Not to mention about as obviously logical as anything could ever hope to be.
Well, they were trying to create something new and thus did not, in fact, know what they were doing. Not exactly, anyway. The Electoral College has been messy since the very beginning. What we have today isn't even what they originally had in mind.
I know there are plenty who wish right now the forefathers were not so insightful as to let a large group of centrally located moonbats decide the fate of the rest of the country but I assure you amending the constitution in this way would be just as short sighted, and cause as much or more harm than the "nuclear option" that is currently biting you in the ass. (and that will continue to) .
I wonder if the seeder would post these outlandish idea seeds if democrats had the White House? My guess is there would not be a peep.
You can't get your way and throw constant tantrums simply because the President's name is not Hillary.
It's because of the President's victories. They never thought it would happen, they never thought he would still be in office, they never thought he could be elected! It's all they have now.
Not living in the US?
Well, you see, we have this very prosperous economy right now, with record levels of unemployment for minorities. A GDP well on the way to hitting a number predicted by this President, who is about to appoint his second Supreme Court Justice. Speaking of Judges, this President is filling a lot of vacancies in the lower Courts as well. You know, the lower courts which were overruled on their blatant attempts to obstruct this President. He has defeated ISIS, engaged North Korea in talks for removing nuclear weapons, and has begun to renegotiate our one sided-trade deals. We now have a tax cut for the American people as well as an incentive to get American corporations back to America. The heavy handed regulations which have stifled enterprise have been removed.
You have now been updated on a year of victories
Trump won a "victory" BECAUSE of the issues laid out in the article. Not surprisingly, you have it bass ackwards.
That's correct because the President of the United States represents all of the states and the people within them, not the most populous areas of the country alone.
I thought because of some imaginary CoC of yours, you are not allowed to respond to me. Are you in violation of your CoC?
No one told me. You could just disappear. That would work.
Nope...twice now you posted that the CoC did not allow you to respond to me. Seems like you have violated your imaginary CoC.
BTW...when are you going to accept my challenge to post one seed that has proven one of your hundreds of accusatory seeds? Are you not allowed to respond to that because of your imaginary CoC?
Do you get some sort of thrill out of inanely pestering people?
How so? You insanely post seed after seed of "I hate Trump" articles and opinions, but have NEVER shown proof of any of your accusations. Simply trying to keep you honest.
Bugsy, the "rules" prevent me from responding to you with what you deserve.
I have made more seeds and articles that are true than you have made seeds or articles or comments.
I have no idea what you are talking about, and am actually quite content about that.
OK, so show proof of the truth of just one of your past seeds. That's all I'm asking. You can do that, right?
Absolutely not. If Hillary had won the election, we would have not discovered 2% of the corruption that had gone on over the eight years of Obama and they would have been completely satisfied with everything the way it is at this moment in the election process. And then they would have continued their goal of loading the government down with dependents on the government at an unprecedented rate to assure them absolute control or a totalitarian government into the foreseeable future. The sooner we see the Democrats of today as to who they really are, the better off we will be.
The democrats of today are not true democrats of yesteryear. Before the democratic party stood for inclusiveness for all, true help for those who need it, worker's rights and really was an all encompassing tent. Those people were those that were born in the 40s and before.
Today's democrats, however, are more along the lines of socialist, especially those that were acid strung out hippies of the 60s and 70s that have passed on to their children that everybody gets a trophy, no matter what they do or don't do, and if they don't get their trophy, it's OK to destroy people's things and assault those who simply have different outlooks than they do. They cheer for those who cowardly cover their faces while committing those crimes.
The democratic party is a dinosaur from yesterday. Those that have been true democrats for decades need to wake up and see that their party has been hijacked, and not in a good way. If their strategy of "we don't like Trump" to take the President out of office stays like that until the midterms, then the democratic party will definitely be a thing of the past.
That's very true. The southern Democrats of yesteryear were far more like the bigoted Republicans of today. What hasn't changed is that conservatives are still the group which opposes equal civil rights for minorities.
You have been proven over and over how wrong you and many wayward liberals are. The democrats of yesteryear that fought to keep slavery are the same bigots today who fight to keep blacks on the liberal plantation of government reliance.
If you are capable of presenting seeds , articles and comments that are factual and detailed, why is it that you never do so? As far as I can see your main function here is to complain (erroneously) that other people don't have sufficient "proof" for your tastes.
Would that imaginary plantation include the millions of white folks on welfare (SNAP)....
Yes it would. What's your point?
Good to know that it's an imaginary plantation. BTW, are those white folks slaves or overseers?
BTW a huge portion of those white folks are republicans...OMG, now isn't that shocking.
Nope...not at all. Many people need temporary assistance once or twice in their lives. Difference is, many democrats/liberals have made it a career and generational.
Now, if you really want to get into numbers, do you want to take a look at the percentage of population by race that is on welfare?
Before you go on a tirade, you are the one that brought up race, not me.
BTW...white people can be on plantations too, or is it to liberals that only blacks are associated with plantations. Seems kind racist, huh?
Not racists at all...Simply pointing out to you that you made it political and I pointed out to you since your a RW person that your political party is part of the plantation and draw welfare (SNAP) as well as others.
Please try to keep up before you bring up racism. Oh, and BTW you're the one that first brought up racism...How soon you forgot...LOL
Your welcome.
yes, i guess it does seem racist since someone wrote:
in which they brought up race and only associated blacks with plantations... i suppose it could be racist, huh ? (hint: look at 8.3.4, the first post to bring up race (for this line of discussion), which means that:
in 8.3.9 is wrong as well since race was brought up in 8.3.4, huh ?)
OK, you're right I did bring it up first. My apologies.
Should I cite the percentage of race by population that is on welfare, or do we not want to talk about that?
It's a discussion site so you can post most anything on here. I know that you have to try to defend your ''position''....LOL
Yeah......that must be why across the economic spectrum black folks overwhelmingly don't vote for your party. Your guy got what, something like 8% of the black vote? Who knew that black folks were unlikely to vote for the racist King of the Birthers or for a party which tries to make voting as difficult as possible for minorities?
You calling Hillary a guy now? She might not be too happy about that.Watch out...if she finds out, you might get "Fostered".
So we will now have an intensely conservative Supreme Court in which five of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, despite the fact that in six of the past seven presidential elections, the Democratic candidate won the most votes. That’s because of the electoral college, another feature of our system with a built-in Republican advantage.
Were it not for the skew of the Senate, Mitch McConnell would not have had the ability to refuse to hear the nomination of Merrick Garland, in which case the margin would have been 5-4 in favor of Democrats. Were the presidency determined by which candidate got the most votes — as it is in every other democracy on earth — Hillary Clinton would be president right now, and the margin would be 6-3 in favor of liberals.
The fact that the minority party ( surveys consistently show that there are less Republicans than Democrats or independents) holds all the power in government is ridiculous on it's face. Democrats have gotten more votes in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections. That in itself shows us that AT BEST the nation is divided politically. Yesterday some Trump lackey yelped something about him having gotten a "mandate" from "the American people". Ridiculous.
This is not a democracy, thank God.
The USA is already ruled by a minority. The top 15 populated states in the USA have 260 seats in the House of Representatives. That means 15 states have more power in the House of Representatives than the other 35 states. And furthermore 15 of the top city and metropolitan areas of the USA have 108.4 million people and there are 383 cities and metropolitan areas in the USA. I would say that would be a pretty good indicator of the minority rule when 15 cities have 1/3 the population of the entire USA and you would have to have up to a dozen or more of some of the smaller states to even compete in an election against any one of these cities with the number of votes these larger cities can produce. That's minority rule, when one city can produce as many votes as up to a dozen states or more.
And the electoral college has 535 electoral votes. The top 15 states have 317 electoral votes. The other 35 states only have 218 electoral votes.
It's not hard to understand the objective of the Socialist Democrats. Both of their candidates were for open borders and both would have supported giving citizenship to all the illegals in this country because they knew they would be supporting them from cradle to grave and would have their votes at every election, thereby giving them more and more power to reach their Totalitarian rule over the USA.
As LBJ once said, "We'll have those ****** voting for us for 200 years." Today's Socialist Democrats are no different in this respect. They figure they will have those undocumented Democrats voting for them until they no longer need their votes.
I would compromise for the time being and give the smaller states one senator instead of two. They would still be over represented but it would be a step in the right direction that could be reevaluated in 5 or 10 years.
We should not be looking for originalist interpretations of the Constitution. It is not the same country now as it was then, seen by the fact that the vast majority of the population then were farmers.
LOL!!!
In other words you think that the Senate should be represented based on population rather than equally as a separate state. Like the house of representatives
well there is the amendment process of which there are 2 ways to do that , but can you think of 13 states that would not ratify an amendment that would in essence reduce their representation in the senate? I am sure the small state of Rhode Island and any state that has but 3 or 4 electoral collage votes would not only laugh in your face , but do so while pissing on your shoes.
lets not forget the amendment to change who senators actually represent , would have to change it from representing the state to representing the people .
Think it is bad now? imagine if senators were selected as written before it was amended , How many govenorships and legislatures are now held by republican? multiply that by 2 and that's how many senators would be on the opposing side of the democratic party, it would be over 60 GOP senators unless I am mistaken.
I will translate that to what I hear .
"since you wont vote the way we want you to, we should take away one of your votes."
My answer to that is start winning some elections that the states voters have control over within those states so you can count on those votes.
BUT,BUT, Russia , facebook, fake news , deplorables...… anything and everything except shitty candidate that didn't do the work.
I am glad I didn't vote for either of them. and I am sure that would lose me my other senatorial representative …...
Minority rule it’s always been that way. Originally Senators were not even elected by the general population they were elected by state legislators.
And it should have never changed in my opinion.
The reason every state gets two senators is to prevent the larger states from dominating the smaller ones. It was deliberate and it works well. All states are equal in the senate and I want to keep it that way. When it comes to actions that only the senate can take, like confirmation of judges, then no state has more voting power than another and action is based on majority vote of the senators present. I wouldn’t change that either. The system isn’t broken just because liberals can’t get their way. So with regard to liberals’ complaints, my response is “F**k em.”
Translation: Democrat voters cluster in states where they don't earn enough to pay much in taxes but take a huge amount of assistance. Maybe the Dems shouldn't have turned their states into welfare Meccas and sanctuary states.
Like San Francisco, where the two biggest populations are the rich and homeless.
It is absolutely true that the situation cannot be maintained in the future. Something will have to give, because when a government lacks the support of the majority then violence is inevitable.