I figured let's create a master thread for the world event of the year. After all, who won't be watching people jockey viciously for the position of most powerful person in the world?
As of now the situation is as thus:
Republican - Trump running ahead of the pack surprisingly.
Democrat - Less clear, Clinton and Sanders are still duking it out, though Clinton has many more super-delegates to her name.
So this is a thread to post about anything related to the race. Have a favourite candidate to plump for? Feel the system is biased? Angry at the political establishment? Post it here. Hopefully we can get more discussion going when things get heated up!
Personally of all the candidates, I like Clinton the most, and failing that, Trump. Of course, like is a very subjective and relative word.
Say what you like, Trump won in an election fairly (Barring future investigations which aren't concrete yet). The system itself isn't rigged; more people voted for Hillary, but the EC is structured to give a voice to states that traditionally did not have a high population count. Democracy is also about accepting losses and accepting a fair result even if you dislike it. It's time to accept this bitter but fair pill.
Democracy isn't simply a case of having a simple majority, there have to be check and balances to protect the minority. Again, this is barring any actual verified investigation that Trump was on the Russian payroll.
What is more worrying is that voter turnout has always been frustratingly low, 50-60%. This isn't the way to build a vibrant and sustainable democracy. Don't cry foul about a result when you can't even mobilise the people to vote! This is a country that prides itself on a rich democratic history, yet fails utterly when push comes to shove.
And it certainly did matter. Whilst both parties couldn't mobilise as many voters as the 2012 campaign, the Democrat camp "lost" a few million votes more than the "loss" suffered by Trump since the Romney days.
Make voting compulsory. Give all the choices possible, every party on the ballot and the null option. Then no one can complain about unfairness, a voting culture is ingrained and people are better educated politically. This might impinge on a person's "right" to not vote, but an election is one of the only precious few chances you have to decide how your country is run for four years. Isn't that far more important than a small trifle of "freedom" being trampled on? What's the point of having a democracy if only half the people vote?
We see this in the UK as well during Brexit - lots of people started coming out after the referendum to complain, yet they said they did not vote. Well that ship has long sailed! Seize your chance with both hands when you have it!
This might impinge on a person's "right" to not vote, but an election is one of the only precious few chances you have to decide how your country is run for four years.
Some people don't want to take part in this or just don't have a say. They may not have an opinion. It may be ignorant, senseless from a certain point of view but it is what it is. After all, it's already kinda unfair that everyone's opinion counts the same, it's just the most fair it can get. Making voting compulsory will only allow more uninformed opinions to sway the outcome.
In my opinion the real problem lies in not being able to convince people to vote anymore. Despite the fact that it's only once every 4 years and it's the only small decision the people can make, politics has ended up such a pile of corruption, broken promises and lies that it can barely convince 50 - 60% of the people to vote in the US. The true problem is in politics, not in the people.
I think I've stated before, that in my opinion this is happening because of the (possibly perceived) lack of justice. People cannot take the elections as seriously as they should when the higher-ups in the government are (or just seem to be) untouchable even by the law. But there are various explanations as to that I suppose
Say what you like, Trump won in an election fairly (Barring future investigations which aren't concrete yet). The system itself isn't rigged; more people voted for Hillary, but the EC is structured to give a voice to states that traditionally did not have a high population count.
Some corrupt Republicans in certain swing states have made changes and reorganized some voting district and made it so that the Democrats wouldn't get as much votes. As if it wasn't enough, this party of criminal has tried everything to make it harder for minorities to vote.
So in other words, the Republicans re-organized the rural districts where the population (hicks, hillbillies, rednecks) live under a rock or in a cave and is stuck in the 50's will get more delegates than the population who actually lives in the big cities and in the present and are more informed about technology and reality and of course, contain more African Americans and minority groups who are most likely voting Democrats.
Why should hillbillies and rednecks and other Republican groups not have a say? They are citizens as well, and democracy is about giving everyone a voice, barring dangerous fringe groups that peddle racism and terror. The latter are in the minority.
The reality is that these groups don't care about the climate (Because many come from coal/oil states), they've lost out in the last few years because of the closure of industry, etc. They do have genuine grievances and whilst we don't agree with their views, either a) The government starts doing something for them that gets them to change their views or b) More political education is needed. Or even better, get Democrat voters out in force like the Obama days. The solution isn't to stamp out the voices of anyone that disagrees with you and deny them the vote. That's just faux democracy and favouring one group (The city dwellers), over other people.
It's also not as if the Democrats are completely innocent. Lots of gerrymandering, pork barrel politics and corruption passes through the hands of the Democratic party.
Voter turnout has been at 50 - 60% since the better half of the last century. Like I said, give the option to not vote for anyone as well, and make it fair. But a person should jolly well vote and have a say who he wants to occupy the most important office in the world.
The solution to negating misinformed and uninformed votes isn't to make voting non-mandatory. It is precisely the opposite, giving people political education in one form or another. Democracy doesn't start and end only at the ballot box and the few months before and after a presidential campaign. A viable and healthy democracy is permanent, it is a constant journey of education and information.
But if people are still not convinced and cry foul about the result when they don't vote, it really is too bad for them. Indeed, there is research done that suggests Democratic leaning voters are more "lazy", and the party will benefit from compulsory voting. It's much fairer with compulsory voting because everyone will know what the opinion of the people is.
Perhaps it's my own strong opinions because compulsory voting is present in my country. And so far it gets the job done, we quibble over the results, but not because a few million people don't show up to vote.
Like I said, give the option to not vote for anyone as well, and make it fair.
That's the problem. I agree with you that in an absolutely fair scenario compulsory voting would yield far better results. But such a scenario is near Utopian in nature in my opinion. Politicians, a least the corrupts ones (so helluva lot of them) always try to abuse the system, any way they can. For example here, null options all go to the winning party after the tallying of the votes. That happens in an attempt to give the winning party more seats in the parliament and to allow it absolute majority. Not even invalid votes help, since if you do submit an invalid vote (by ticking too many people, spoiling the paper, etc.), you indirectly increase the percentage of all parties and most of all, the winning party again (since the invalid votes are ignored so if 8% of the votes are invalid the 92% of the rest of the votes 'becomes' the 100% with the percentage being spread across the political parties in the elections).
But a person should jolly well vote and have a say who he wants to occupy the most important office in the world.
They should as responsible adult citizens in a 'democratic' environment. It's a responsibility, but you cannot turn that responsibility into an obligation. Some people might just not have an opinion, or want to form one. Like I said, it is pretty senseless but it is what it is. Democracy offers far more freedoms to its citizens than obligations. Besides, in the US, even with the parties that are not Democrats or Republicans, it's pretty hard to find a political movement with which you agree completely.
The solution to negating misinformed and uninformed votes isn't to make voting non-mandatory. It is precisely the opposite, giving people political education in one form or another. Democracy doesn't start and end only at the ballot box and the few months before and after a presidential campaign. A viable and healthy democracy is permanent, it is a constant journey of education and information.
Of course it is and you are right to attempt to find out why we have so many misinformed and uninformed votes as well a large percentage of people who don't vote at all. The cause of that phenomenon is the key (like most things) to understanding how it works. But that's where things become a little subjective. For example, while proper political education would help things dearly, you cannot force any type of education on anyone. We cannot even force people to go to school, let alone actively participate in that. The number of people who don't vote has various different causes and some of them would indeed cease to exist with proper education. For example, people who don't vote because they don't see their lives really changing, people who don't vote because they don't think anything is going to change, people who cannot vote because they cannot decide. How many of those can be educated? With corrupt politicians always trying to make the best out of a failing system? You have watched the US Elections far closer than I did, but I think both Parties (and particularly the Republicans) have many ridiculous lying sacks of trash who wouldn't try to make things fair even if their life depended on it.
But if people are still not convinced and cry foul about the result when they don't vote, it really is too bad for them. Indeed, there is research done that suggests Democratic leaning voters are more "lazy", and the party will benefit from compulsory voting. It's much fairer with compulsory voting because everyone will know what the opinion of the people is.
The people who cry foul about the result when they don't vote are stupid but they are a minority. Even if that minority included the entirety of the 40% or so people who didn't vote in the US (and of course it doesn't, it's way lower than that). What I am saying is that you cannot change things so radically for such a minority. The voting was, given the circumstances like you said, as fair as it could be.
So really, what you are proposing demands a lot of radical changes that most politicians wouldn't even dream of. In the end it would definitely be more fair than the current system but it is so difficult to make those changes that I consider it near Utopian like I said. That's partly due to the US political scene and its protagonists of course A possible exception (which is just from what I hear) could be Bernie Sanders but he was shot down fairly quickly.
Well, the US system is slightly different, since the presidential and state elections are separate, so I doubt there will be an attempt to give null votes to the winning side. In any case, it wouldn't make any difference since only one office is being contested, and extra votes won't contribute to more seats.
I still think mandatory voting is the way to go, because it will force people to be slightly more aware of their political situations, even grudgingly. And sometimes horses need to be led to the water and forced to drink. Like I said, the null vote will be there for the dissatisfied people who feel the system has abandoned them, who feel they don't have the knowledge to vote, or those who simply don't care.
I really don't understand Western society at times. Freedom and rights aren't absolute and sacrosanct, they come with obligations, responsibilities and sacrifices. Democracy is both about giving and taking, you can't have your cake and eat it. The voting was fair as can be, but the results would have been far more different if people actually cared about the democratic system, barring any perceived idea of corruption. People want voting rights? Excellent, but make it mandatory to use them, or risk having them taken away in the next election. Everyone, American or non-American was surprised at the result, just as they were about Brexit. What does that tell you? It tells you that people were taking for granted that Clinton would win outright, that no crazy nutter like Trump would ever win. And that's why they stayed at home. The numbers don't lie - Far fewer people turned out for Clinton than Obama; and now the world is stuck with Trump for 4 years.
People say they don't vote because they think they're votes are ineffectual. Well, this defeatist attitude certainly didn't infect the Trump campaign because turning out in force did help his cause. So is voting really that ineffective? In many states the results were on a knife edge, a few thousand votes, a couple of states flipping blue, and the result would have been very different.
The US is going down the bipartisan road too recklessly and furiously, both the liberal and conservative media give far too much biased news about each other. Perhaps an outsider like Trump really will do the States a world of good, in the slim chance that he still is that outsider.
You're right though, no politician will risk his career to introduce such a scheme. Which is sad for a country that prides itself on a rich history of giving people voices. I was really surprised when I first learnt that voting in most of the Western nations, where democracy was so trumpeted, is not mandatory.
A British spy found some info on Trump while he was in Russia and brought it to a private firm originally hired by a Republican who ran against Trump in the primary. Apparently the spy found something so bad that it scared him.
He went to the FBI with the info which mean that the FBI director James Commey knew about it since July but he never told anybody.
Instead he came public with some BS about Clinton to make sure she would lose the elections.
If this is true then Commey is a traitor and so is Trump and his candidate for the Secretary of State job.
The British spy is so scared that he went into hideout or he was killed.
Nobody seems to be willing to put an end to this.
Can't the NSA do something about it?
There goes the Obamacare. Very first ruling of Trump Administration Inc.
There goes my insurance.
That ******* has appointed all the rich unpatriotic parasites he could find to be part of his cabinet.
Now we have an EPA hater in charge of the EPA, a public school hater in a charge of education, a criminal from exxon to be secretary of state, etc.
I'm surprised he didn't appoint someone from Monsanto in charge of agriculture.
Also, goodbye Net neutrality because the rich criminals who own ISPs want to charge more and more money for services people enjoy (Netflix, Amazon Prime). They will charge these companies more money to use their bandwidth which will result in an increase in fees for the customers.
This is just the beginning of a series of crimes against the American people.
Congratulation racists who voted for Toenail Fungus aka Trump, aka dictator orang, aka groper in chief for president!
This may come as no surprise to most of us, but it is still interesting - and sad - to follow the changes done to the White House website [1][2][3]. I'm afraid those who thought he'd be more moderate once in office were lying to themselves...
aka dictator orang,
You're wronging those poor orangutans with that comparison
You're wronging those poor orangutans with that comparison
You're right, I apologize for that.
This may come as no surprise to most of us, but it is still interesting - and sad - to follow the changes done to the White House website [1][2][3]. I'm afraid those who thought he'd be more moderate once in office were lying to themselves...
He sees himself as a dictator so, no surprise there.
BTW, as anyone seen the protest all over the country? And all those people around the World who shows their love and support for the American people, that's amazing.
I wish people would do it for an entire week, paralyzing everything and making those greedy Republicans lose money. That would send a message to those spineless cowards in Congress.
There's this issue with how many people came to visit Trump's inauguration compared to previous years, especially compared to Obama's first inauguration. You may think that this is a funny, but ultimately rather pointless issue and not worth making a fuss about (which goes both ways). However, the way Trump and his new press secretary handled the issue is instructive. Not only does it show once again their open animosity towards the free press, but Sean Spicer, as the new press secretary of the White House (!!), has managed to:
- attack the press
- flat out deny the evidence
- use non-comparable figures to support a fake claim.
Now we've seen how the Trump administration handles a silly trifle. How will they fare with the actually important issues?
I noticed that too actually. Heard that he called reporters 'the most dishonorable people on the planet' or something along those lines and I was like "god, seriously, it hasn't even been 2 days... -_- *bangs head on desk*"
