Current Affairs The 2020 United States Presidential Election

[Prevenger17]

One for the Americans here. Why shouldn't the presidency be decided by popular vote? Seems vastly fairer.

Tbf, I do understand why they would need a system like that. America can't be viewed as a country of 320 million people, it's a union of 50 states which are, in character and needs, often as vastly different as countries to each other. It needs to be refined I reckon, but the idea is fundamentally right

 

[Blue 1]

Tbf, I do understand why they would need a system like that. America can't be viewed as a country of 320 million people, it's a union of 50 states which are, in character and needs, often as vastly different as countries to each other. It needs to be refined I reckon, but the idea is fundamentally right

Aye I get that, I've lived there, but you've got the senate and the house for that. The president is head of state for all of them, so why not popular vote for the presidency?

 

[Martin Alvito]

Aye I get that, I've lived there, but you've got the senate and the house for that. The president is head of state for all of them, so why not popular vote for the presidency?

Because it takes a constitutional amendment to change it, and good luck getting the necessary supermajorities in a two-party system where the change clearly favors one party at the expense of the other.

 

[Prevenger17]

Aye but you've got the senate and the house for that. The president is head of state for all of them, so why not popular vote for the presidency?

It's a fair point. But most states are fairly suspicious of federal powers, and it would be hard to keep the likes of Wisconsin or Delaware content with having every President effectively chosen by California and New York.

 

[Sassy Colombian]

So who’s to blame? The voters or the politicians?

Let me enlighten you. The electoral college is to blame, the past two Republican presidents (Bush and Trump) have lost the popular vote but won because of the electoral college.

 

[Blue 1]

Because it takes a constitutional amendment to change it, and good luck getting the necessary supermajorities in a two-party system where the change clearly favors one party at the expense of the other.

I understand that the practicalities make it damn near impossible. I'm just positing that for the presidency alone, popular vote would be fairer.

 

[AsiaAsia82]

You’ve just came on to a generally liberal to moderate forum spouting crap about crying liberals etc, you don’t have the right to comment on maturity.

What is your definition of liberalism then? Listening to what you want?
The point is to stop crying and do something about it, pick a better candidate than Biden.
Spouting crap seems a little pot and kettle to me - but let’s wait for the next intelligent moderate liberal insult

 

[MikeH72]

You asked how it would have been different with someone else in charge. My point was that if your leader is a reality TV show host whose response to a global pandemic was to ignore it for 10 months, ignore all expert advice, tweet 70 times a day while hundreds of thousands died and advised his followers to drink bleach, then someone else being in charge probably would have made a difference to the quarter of a million corpses America has now piled up.

I do not remember this happening.

 

[AsiaAsia82]

Let me enlighten you. The electoral college is to blame, the past two Republican presidents (Bush and Trump) have lost the popular vote but won because of the electoral college.

So why didn’t Clinton or Barack stop that?
Or did it suit them at the time?

 

[ChesterBlue]

What is your definition of liberalism then? Listening to what you want?
The point is to stop crying and do something about it, pick a better candidate than Biden.
Spouting crap seems a little pot and kettle to me - but let’s wait for the next intelligent moderate liberal insult

I’m putting you on ignore. I’m not wasting any more time engaging with a Trumper.

 

[Prevenger17]

I do not remember this happening.

Sorry, "inject disinfectant". His followers merely took that to mean "drink bleach" afterwards. My apologies to Donald for misrepresenting him

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Prior to the Covid outbreak I actually thought Trump would've had it in the bag tbh. He's had a bit of a mad 2020 really.

 

[AsiaAsia82]

I’m putting you on ignore. I’m not wasting any more time engaging with a Trumper.

I’m no Trumper, but to vote him in again is a failure of the people to act instead of just commentating.
You get the leaders you vote for, via the system your nominees support.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

Gonna be chaos in here next 24 hours

 

[Sassy Colombian]

So why didn’t Clinton or Barack stop that?
Or did it suit them at the time?

Because it takes an amendment to do such a change and it would have been a political outcry from Republicans. Obama would probably had gotten lynched by even making the suggestion. Obama was also too much of a moderate to make such a change. That's why we needed someone more radical as Bernie to make such changes. Maybe this time around if Biden wins, and we also win a great number of seats in the Senate and also the House then Democrats stop playing nice and push for such a change but it will take 2/3 of them to approve such a change so it is not an easy task.