Who should challenge Trump in 2020? - Part 1

[moviedoors]

I wonder what this country would look like now in terms of representation if we had Instant Runoff Voting.

 

[Silvermoth]

Based on how democrats are reacting to everything, I'm pretty much convinced the democrats are going to run a far-left individual in 2020.

That's a shame and independents in center left or center right (or both) will decide the 2020 election.

I think a more left politician is more likely to win than a centre one. We've seen in democracies all over the world when people try to go for the middle the voters go extreme right and the only thing that stops them doing that is a decent left option. So sticking to proper left ideals would bear some fruit I reckon

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I think a more left politician is more likely to win than a centre one. We've seen in democracies all over the world when people try to go for the middle the voters go extreme right and the only thing that stops them doing that is a decent left option. So sticking to proper left ideals would bear some fruit I reckon

I dunno.

Wouldn't the popular vote be enpugh in most democracies?

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I did my 2017 taxes and then did multiple calculators to estimate my 2018 tax return and it looks like I'm going to get back a whole lot more $$$ this time 2019. I can't wait for tax return time in 2019.

I make a total annual gross of 90k. I'm not rich.

Once a ton of middle class Americans also realize this, Trump is going to have a much better chance of being re-elected.

I guess CNN bombarding us with "the tax cut ONLY helps the rich" isn't true.

You make at least twice as much as 65% of Americans.

And most of them live check to check.

They don't need an extra 800 bucks. They need a social safety net, entitlements and higher wages.

 

[Silvermoth]

Well said messiahdecoy

 

[Aximili86]

I dunno.

Wouldn't the popular vote be enpugh in most democracies?

You clearly have no idea how most western democracies work. In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, all of the Commonwealth/former colonial countries, you vote for your local member of parliament. The party with the most seat-wins at the end of it becomes the government, and the leader of that party becomes the prime minister.

That's a regional system. Representation! Just like us. The most areas that side with a particular party determine who wins, doesn't matter if some areas have a denser population than others.

There are plenty of places in the US where the city will go one way, half an hour's drive out of that same city they leaned the opposite way. You want both having their say, rather than the cities just dragging the rest of the state along with them no matter what the country bumpkins think.

The U.S. isn't alone in recognizing this as something you have to consider. Other countries have a different process, but basically any country affiliated with Britain at one time or another (and I'm sure there are other non-colonial nations that do in addition to this) operate on representative democracy.

A quick google search shows these as the countries that vote purely popular. I thought France did, but looks like I'm wrong on that.

• Argentina.
• Brazil.
• Chile.
• Columbia.
• Cyprus.
• Georgia.
• Ghana.
• Mexico

Not exactly beacons of democratic enlightenment there.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

You clearly have no idea how most western democracies work.

It's almost as if I was asking a question.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Let's say America had always used the popular vote.

90% of the presidents would've been exactly the same.

People like Dubya and Mango Mussolini would be out.

Not a bad trade off if you ask me

 

[Matt]

Sure, totally.

He'd never be winning any general elections though. That's the thing. Plays well on the coasts (even then, only parts of the coasts), he or someone with his particular brand of leftism would never pull the country as a whole.

Not to mention that the oppo research that the GOP has on Sanders is absolutely damning.

 

[Schlosser85]

I keep seeing people saying Sanders would have beat Trump in 2016 and could beat him in 2020 and I'm not convinced at all. Sanders is unabashedly Socialist and people hear that and hear dirty Commie. Plus how old is he gonna be in 2020?

 

[Lily Adler]

Both Trump and Sanders would be considered retirees when either tries to run again.

 

[Aximili86]

It's almost as if I was asking a question.

My response answered your damn question.

No, no it wouldn't. Not unless the popular vote happened to be the same result as the totalled up areas/seat-districts. It's how many area seats you win in the Britain-and-all-their-former-colonies countries, not the popular.

But that was all covered the first time. Not like it's going to sink in now.

 

[Matt]

I keep seeing people saying Sanders would have beat Trump in 2016 and could beat him in 2020 and I'm not convinced at all. Sanders is unabashedly Socialist and people hear that and hear dirty Commie. Plus how old is he gonna be in 2020?

Sanders won't be able to win the Presidency. If the DNC senses that Trump cannot be beaten, some of the bigger names like Booker, Gilibrand, and Harris may not run. They may instead let Sanders be the sacrificial lamb for Trump (which will shut his supporters up). Sanders is too flawed of a candidate to win the Presidency as a Democrat. In fact, Clinton's biggest tactical error of the 2016 election was, IMO, her handling of Bernie Sanders, but not in the way most people think.

Clinton thought he could be easily disposed of by working through back channels of the DNC to undermine Sanders. It makes sense to do so in the moment, mind you. It makes sense for the DNC to work to block the nomination of a guy who adamantly refuses to be a part of the Party, unless he is running for its nomination for President. And it makes sense for Clinton to try to dispose of him quietly rather than get in a street fight with a guy who would rather see Rome burn to the ground than compromise.

Of course, there was a pretty big factor Clinton didn't count on: Russian hacking resulting in her use of the DNC becoming exposed and Sanders's base being motivated resultantly. This led to the very street fight Clinton was trying to avoid.

Once it became apparent that a street fight was inevitable, in January or February, before the hacking but after Sanders started screaming about what a corrupt, conservative sellout Clinton is (really going after her character and actually laying the ground work for the "Crooked Hillary" narrative), rather than ignore him and continue to work with the DNC, she should've just hit him back. She should've used the mighty Clinton machine to rain fire and brimstone down on Bernie Sanders. The oppo research that both the DNC and RNC has on Sanders is overwhelming. It would destroy him. Even the little bits I've seen (which aren't the worst of it) are enough to sink him with all but his most devout followers. I'd go so far to say that it is so bad that if the Democrats had a viable challenger, they could use it to primary him out of his Senate seat. Its that bad.

But Clinton didn't do that. I suspect the reason is two-fold:

1) She wanted to be perceived as the adult in the room/presumptive nominee and getting in a street fight with Sanders doesn't serve that purpose;

2) At that point, Democrats saw Trump and thought that he would hurt down ticket races so much that the Democrats could retake the Senate. The margin for that would become much smaller if Sanders, destroyed by the Democrats during the election, opted against caucusing with them. So I think they were playing the long game by going "easy" on Sanders and thinking that the behind the scenes operations would never be exposed.

Suffice to say, there is a lot of hubris in these decisions, which take a lot for granted. And the decision to hold off on attacking Sanders may have made sense in the moment. But it really did set off a chain of events that cost Clinton the presidency.

 

[Matt Mortem]

I really don't want Sanders running. He's a spoiler that would do far more harm than good and could very well guarantee another Trump victory.

 

[Matt]

I really don't want Sanders running. He's a spoiler that would do far more harm than good and could very well guarantee another Trump victory.

I don't think he'll play spoiler. If Trump is truly vulnerable (jury is still out on that question), the DNC will release the kraken and destroy Sanders in the early stages of the primary in order to make way for a viable candidate like Booker or Gilibrand. If he is not vulnerable, then there is nothing to spoil, so they will sit back, basically hand him the nomination and let him be this cycle's John Kerry.

Its simply a matter of how the race is being read. But yeah, one thing is certain. If Democrats have a shot, they aren't going to let Bernie Sanders do what he did last time. They will go scorched Earth on him very early on in the process.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

My response answered your damn question.

Why are you being so "damn" condescending and disrespectful when someone asks you a "damn" question?

No, no it wouldn't. Not unless the popular vote happened to be the same result as the totalled up areas/seat-districts. It's how many area seats you win in the Britain-and-all-their-former-colonies countries, not the popular.

But that was all covered the first time. Not like it's going to sink in now.

Lmao.

Using the popular vote would prevent 3 people from being ever becoming president: Tilden, Dubya, and maybe Trump.

These 3 people supposedly justify why we use an undemocratic system.

Let that sink in.

And why should geographical location with 80,000 extra Trump voters have more power than 3 million Hillary voters spread across the nation?

You still haven't addressed that one.

 

[Aximili86]

Once again: you asserted the USA was some outlier in having a form of electoral college system.

Not ****ing true, at all. Virtually the whole English-speaking world does it on area seats - it's a different process from ours, but the same concept. Not the popular vote.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cypress, Georgia, Ghana, and Mexico are the countries google shows as using this pure-popular way of doing things you're advocating.

If you truly feel those countries somehow have a fairer, less-corrupt, less-able-to-be-messed-with form of democracy than ****ing Britain or Australia or whatever, nothing can be done for you. It's irrational "angry militant Farrakhan-guy in a dashiki 'down with the great satan USA'" at that point.

First-world nations generally speaking do not use the popular, and for good reason. It's that simple. There may be an exception or two, but it wasn't showing up when googling election systems.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Once again: you asserted the USA was some outlier in having a form of electoral college system.

Not ****ing true, at all. Virtually the whole English-speaking world does it on area seats - it's a different process from ours, but the same concept. Not the popular vote.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cypress, Georgia, Ghana, and Mexico are the countries google shows as using this pure-popular way of doing things you're advocating.

If you truly feel those countries somehow have a fairer, less-corrupt, less-able-to-be-messed-with form of democracy than ****ing Britain or Australia or whatever, nothing can be done for you. It's irrational "angry militant Farrakhan-guy in a dashiki 'down with the great satan USA'" at that point.

First-world nations generally speaking do not use the popular, and for good reason. It's that simple. There may be an exception or two, but it wasn't showing up when googling election systems.

But if we used popular vote it only stops 3 people from being president.

90% of America's presidents won BOTH the electoral college and the popular vote so why do we need the EC?

 

[ludovica]

First-world nations generally speaking do not use the popular, and for good reason. It's that simple. There may be an exception or two, but it wasn't showing up when googling election systems.

First-world nations generally speaking do not have a presidential system.
This does not mean anything negative about it, but you are making an argument with void premises.

 

[Aximili86]

That's true.

Their Prime Ministers still aren't elected on popular. And their Governor Generals, their true heads of state, are appointed by the ****ing queen.

Tell me again how ours is any less "will of the people" than that? Our President is elected on the same regional & representative principle their Prime Ministers are, and at least our guy is the actual head of state, not determined by a lady in a crown across the other side of the world.

 

[Donner]

"True" heads of state is a bit of a stretch. GGs and the Queen are figureheads.

 

[ludovica]

That's true.

Their Prime Ministers still aren't elected on popular. And their Governor Generals, their true heads of state, are appointed by the ****ing queen.

Tell me again how ours is any less "will of the people" than that? Our President is elected on the same regional & representative principle their Prime Ministers are, and at least our guy is the actual head of state, not determined by a lady in a crown across the other side of the world.

You do not know the basics of political science.
And I'm not even baiting you.

It's not a matter of who is more "will of the people", the parliamentary system is, as the name says, parliamentary, and it is there where the people express their vote. It's a proportional system most of the time.
A presidential system invests the head of state with vastly more powers, the more reason to have it awarded to the most voted option.

The prime ministers not being head of state and not being elected directly is the whole point in the parliamentary systems, we are quite happy with that.
Checks and balances.

And most of the first world is not part of the Commonwealth, so no, our head of states are local.

 

[Aximili86]

Right, Elektra.

But even then, casting aside them being symbolic rather than pragmatic, you're still conveniently ignoring they elect their Prime Ministers under a system that, like us, doesn't operate on sheer numbers alone but "seats", regions. They vote for their local MP, the most MPs that win their areas determine which party wins, whoever the leader of said party is becomes Prime Minister.

That's an electoral college. Not the same as ours down in the weeds with the details, but one nonetheless.

Ludo, I never said most of the first world was part of the British Commonwealth. I focused in on that as an example. Even then, outside of the Commonwealth, most first world democracies use a regional system in some shape or form. But yes, I covered that too, you'd rather bring the snark than go by what's been said.

 

[ludovica]

Right, Elektra.

But even then, casting aside them being symbolic rather than pragmatic, you're still conveniently ignoring they elect their Prime Ministers under a system that, like us, doesn't operate on sheer numbers alone but "seats", regions. They vote for their local MP, the most MPs that win their areas determine which party wins, whoever the leader of said party is becomes Prime Minister.

That's an electoral college. Not the same as ours down in the weeds with the details, but one nonetheless.

Ludo, I never said most of the first world was part of the British Commonwealth. I focused in on that as an example. Even then, outside of the Commonwealth, most first world democracies use a regional system in some shape or form. But yes, I covered that too, you'd rather bring the snark than go by what's been said.

Regional system?
I'm not sure what you mean but outside the Commonwealth it's almost never first past the post, so not an "electoral college" at all.
You do not understand the implications of not having a presidential system and how that changes the procedures on every level, it's more than I have the time or English capacity to explain, sorry.

 

[Aximili86]

We've all taken high school civics, can do without the smugness princess.