He had the entire media juggernaut behind him as well -- talk radio, Fox News, millions of social media followers, and help from foreign hackers. — Xtrix

And main stream media whores giving him free air time just because he know how to play them like a bitch.

P.S. Liz Cheney: more conservative than the lot of them, and bigger balls to boot.

US elections wouldn't be polarized dumpster fires if we didn't have such an incoherent and broken election system.

If we went via the popular vote, the GOP would have won one election in a third of a century. The one election they did win was by the slimmest margin in that period, with the benefit of an incumbency they picked up despite losing both the popular vote in 2000, and, based on the most comprehensive recounts released, also the electoral vote.

So, the GOP would be forced to rebrand in a more democratic system because they simply aren't capable of winning national popular votes anymore. What was once a quirk of the US system that appeared every 30-50 years, is now the entire GOP strategy.

But then the certification process, which allows room for myriad constitutional crises, like state legislatures overturning their elections, or the old Congress that was conceivably just voted out getting to throw out the electors and pick a new candidate, opens up a whole list of horribles. It's possible for a party to lose, and still use majorities from a previous election to overturn the current one.

A majority of Republican House members did indeed vote to throw out the electors and appoint Trump president. Of course they did this safely knowing it would never happen, but one could see it happening next time around. Nor will Democrats be immune. Their leadership is obviously losing hold of the party to the extent that it now seems possible they will pass absolutely nothing in terms of infrastructure or a budget, because a small minority of progressives wants their perogatives to come first, despite representing a fraction of the country.

I certainly could see a Democrat making the case that the Congress should throw out Republican electors because of voter suppression, or because they won the popular vote in the future, now that norms around the process are broken. Indeed, Democrats helped erode these norms by pulling stunts requesting George Bush and Trump electors get thrown out and replaced previously.

I think it's a silly mistake for Republicans to rally behind this guy still. But they're pretty much out of ideas, and they're afraid of those voters who still love the guy. They're really caught in a bad spot in this respect. All the better for the country, in my view. — Xtrix

The present situation in the Republican Party is...silly. Yet as said, the party has been hijacked. And of course it is true that there's still time until 2024 and much will happen.

US elections wouldn't be polarized dumpster fires if we didn't have such an incoherent and broken election system.

If we went via the popular vote, the GOP would have won one election in a third of a century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And there's the reason just why it will stay like it is. At least if it comes to the GOP.

US elections wouldn't be polarized dumpster fires if we didn't have such an incoherent and broken election system. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The electoral college merely failed to do the job it was created to do, to override the popular vote if the people made an atrocious choice. The people did, and the college didn't. Whether the college could, or could ever, get away with an override is another question. So, broke, but not altogether incoherent.

The more fundamental problem is the broken, ignorant, stupidity of around half the voters in the US. In my opinion it's mainly (must be) an education problem. There never was a respectable reason for even one vote to be cast for Trump, not one. The US, then, champions the voice of the ignorant and the stupid, and worse. And from George Washington to Barack Obama, it's survived that. But maybe it's time - long past time imo - for voters to earn the right to vote by passing a basic test. And from the number of people who believe in nonsense, and the way most of them seem to vote, such a test would pretty much make the Republican party as now constituted just disappear.

For Republican readers here, I'll translate: you are too ignorant, too stupid, too fond and gullible, and too vicious to be allowed to vote for anything beyond clam-warden on a remote beach. And if you disagree, then you should have no problem with a voter qualification test.

But maybe it's time - long past time imo - for voters to earn the right to vote by passing a basic test. — tim wood

How can you think that such discrimination could be democratic? We'd have a 'democracy', but only those who pass a specially designed test would be allowed to vote. What would that test consist of?

Discrimination? Three questions. What discrimination? What's wrong with discrimination? What democracy?

The test, high-school diploma or acceptable alternative, pass/fail on basic citizenship, knowledge, government, current events at time of testing, and mental health/maturity. Pass good for life. Fail re-take in six months or at six-month intervals.

To say that you can't vote if you don't have high school equivalence is discrimination based on education.

Pass good for life. — tim wood

Why good for life? What about the senile old agers with dementia, don't you think we should discriminate against them as well?

a voter qualification test — tim wood

I believe the Soviet Union administered such, with critical acclaim. I wish I could have lived there too.

Are you anti-discrimination?

I don't totally disagree with the sentiment but there are a few things to consider:

1. The GOP base would be the one less likely to be dissuaded by a test. Democrats have far more low propensity voters. Additional barriers, such as having to vote in person versus via mail or drive through, needing to get some form of official ID, etc. all hurts Democratic turn out more than Republican. Trump likely squeaks by on narrow swing state margins if a new, major barrier to voting is implemented. As is, the mail in voting boosted turn out rates arguably cost him a second term, although they also surely boosted his vote total, which he is so proud of.

2. All the same problems hold for minority turn out.

3. A test that successfully weeded out Trumpism would have to actually be rigorous, something analogous to the FSOT with its wide range of questions on basic historical, legal, and economic issues. The test isn't super hard, yet it has a 1% pass rate. People not particularly interested in politics already self select out of voting, so any test that would uplift the quality of candidates would necissarily restrict suffrage, probably by more than half. Your median Trump voter his higher income and more likely to be educated, so education as a metric fails.

4. The plan is going to be accused of racism due to the history of poll tests being used to eliminate Black voters. Although, I don't know if this is particularly fair since those generally weren't actual tests anyone could pass, but Kafkaesque riddles designed for failure. You'd almost certainly end up with disproportionate exclusion of minorities with any test though, which is a real political issue.

IMO, a much better system would be to not let people vote for the chief executive. Professional city and county managers vastly out preform elected officials at the local and regional level. Professional managers already administer large US political units with millions of people living in them, mostly out West. You could avoid the problem of elections being popularity contests by having people elect a small panel (based on popular vote and region, maybe 6/5 seats) who in turn hire a president and have the power to fire them. Selection is then done by merit by a party small enough to actually deliberate. This keeps regular accountability via elections and removal, but introduces a buffer to populism.

Also, I wouldn't put it all on the GOP. If a liberal Trump could exist (far harder because everyone would try to cancel them to out flank them), I don't doubt many Democrats would love them.

I look forward to pitching my system when, following Rome and Byzantium, and Avignon and Rome, we have new systems inaugurated in Mara Lago and Washington. I will say, the "Mara Lagonian Empire" does have a cool ring to it. Rather than the legal titles of Caesar and Augustus from the Dominate, the rulers shall be proclaimed the formal titles of "Donald" and "Trump," but maybe it can be reformed from the inside after the death of the king.

I'll be interested to see how mid terms go. Trump voters are mad at the GOP leadership, rightly intuiting that they despise their "God Emperor." Meanwhile, the party is following him on campaigning on an election he clearly lost, not a good issue. Sure, 60% of the party will at least tell pollsters they think he won, but having 40-50% of your party split on your main campaign issue, indeed, having them think you are telling bald faced lies about your main issue, does seem disastrous. And as we saw in Georgia, railing about fraud that hasn't occured kills your turn out. So a big upset could be on the way.

The GOP doesn't need the Electoral College. They win majorities of House votes. The Democratic dream of minority votes surging against the GOP has never materialized, and by the third generation, new immigrants are far more attracted to the party. Their problem is that their loonies keep winning primaries, and their variously insane and racist messaging is killing them in national elections.

However, the President's party usually loses in mid-terms, the economy faces major risks in the form of historically high corporate debt, the pandemic won't go away, and worst of all, the Democrats seem unable to govern, so I can see them getting wiped out. It looks 50/50 that the AOC bloc of the party tanks an infrastructure bill that was already passed by the Senate and ends up giving people absolutely nothing. That bloc seems unaware that if a race was run with Trump, a centrist Republican, a centrist Democrat, and a hardcore progressive, they would almost certainly come in a distant last place. Like Trumpism though, this can all be explained by the oppression of their base, the evil media, and voter suppression, clearly it couldn't be that they just aren't that popular and need to compromise...

The test isn't super hard, yet it has a 1% pass rate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

According to our friend the internet, a 30 - 50% pass rate. A test that fails 99% is not a useful test - the 1% figure thus a red flag.

Maybe the right to vote should be earned, somehow. Perhaps part of a mandatory public-school curricula. The earning a civic duty, the having a point of pride. And voting mandatory for those that can.

Since Nixon, Americans have regularly voted bad to atrocious men and a few women into office, all Republicans. (Can you think of any democrats as bad?) And the democrat that makes it into office thwarted as policy, whatever the cost. Either America is that bad itself, or we need both an improved voter and voting system (I don't think professional managers will do.) The founding fathers anticipated the possibility of a bad president and planned for it, building in remedies. But the Trumps of the world they'd have tarred and feathered one way or other.

It might be enough to make explicit the duty of the electoral college not just to rubber-stamp the popular vote, but to approve or disapprove it. That would have made the 2016 election interesting indeed!

If you want a check on bad leaders being elected, a body of people chosen for party loyalty and donations who only meet once every four years, with no deliberation, is really not what you want. Even if the Electoral College was supposed to serve some function at one point, it has no instructional legitimacy in doing so and no functional ability to vet candidates, or even its own membership. You'd have something even more chaotic than the election, a bunch of small business owners who donated to their state party getting to choose the future leaders.

I don't even have to think far outside places I've lived for bad Democratic elected officials. Charlie Rangel, censured by the entire House, a rare unanimous Republican and Democratic vote, for corruption. Bob Mendez, corruption he was able to avoid prison for (reasonable doubt standard) but can surely be held to have been involved in (preponderance of evidence standard). Rod Blagojevich, almost comically incompetent corruption trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. Bill Clinton, if a decent executive, also with multiple sexual harassment and assault claims against him, made more credible by his confirmed behavior.

Whereas there have also been competent Republican leaders. George Bush Sr. responsibly raised taxes when deficits rose, had realistic, limited war sims in the Gulf, managed the collapse of the USSR expertly. I would argue he was the best foreign policy President since Truman developed Containment.

Fair enough. But while democrats seem to run to run-of-the-mill corruption and criminality, would you agree that republicans appear to be in a separate class of their own? Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell exemplars. None indicted for anything but each a bottom dweller. And the current slate of republican governors, excepting Massachusetts' Charlie Baker and most other republican Mass. governors.

It's inexplicable that Trump and the ringleaders of the Jan 6th insurrection haven't been charged with felonies related to secession and interfering with the lawful processes of government. It's astonishing that Trump has never been convicted of a felony to this date considering his transparent malfeasance and misgovernment. Hopefully the Jan 6 commission will assemble sufficient evidence for pressing charges.

Cf. Emerson on consistency. Or for Harry's sake:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. ” — tim wood

I know this is from quite a while ago; The Trump thread appeared on the first page and I wondered why people would still be posting on it. When I opened the thread this was the first thing I saw. I am familiar with the first sentence of this quote from Emerson. " A foolish consistency"; I have always wondered about what is meant, about what would make consistency foolish. Pedantry perhaps?

The second sentence speaks of consistency as such, no "foolish" qualifier. Should we tale Emerson seriously here; is it OK to be inconsistent in your thoughts, opinions and beliefs? If Emerson really thought that, then he might have been a precursor and role-model for Trump (albeit far more brilliant), to bring this thread back to its topic.

Any day now….

But when we see that you have fallen for numerous such hoaxes it is entirely explicable.

I agree that delusions are impossible to detect for those inside them. Yours is a textbook case.

It's inexplicable that Trump and the ringleaders of the Jan 6th insurrection haven't been charged — Wayfarer

Trump was impeached.

Twice, but in case you don't know, acquitted both times by the Senate. (Salutations to the principled Republican senators who voted to convict.)

Thanks for the update. Prosecutung Trump would put him back in the spotlight. That would serve no one but him and his supporters. Plus it's not your fucking country so why are you riled up about it?

I'm not the one swearing. Just making an observation on a public forum. American politics have global impacts, and Trump remains a threat to democracy.

American politics have global impacts, and Trump remains a threat to democracy. — Wayfarer

How does American politics affect you?

Plus it's not your fucking country so why are you riled up about it? — frank

It's mine, and it's me, I hang him.

If, for instance, Congress didn't agree to increase the debt limit - looks as though they will, but if - this would instantly destablise the entire world economy and create another global recession, probably a lot bigger than the 2008 GFC. The world is a global village, America is one of its leaders, what American governments do and don't do have global impacts on the whole world.

Trump clearly tried to engineer a coup - actually, a very specific kind of coup, called an autogolpe, 'when a head of government, like a president or prime minister, attempts to seize extraordinary control over that government from within.' Clearly and unarguably. He has succeeded in convincing a large proportion of the American populace that the Presidential election was fraudulent, even though it's been shown again and again that it was not, thereby undermining faith in democracy. He's still poisoning the Republican party from within, corrupting its officials, lying about the election. He should be in jail. Over and out.

If, for instance, Congress didn't agree to increase the debt limit - looks as though they will, but if - this would instantly destablise the entire world economy and create another global recession, probably a lot bigger than the 2008 GFC. The world is a global village, America is one of its leaders, what American governments do and don't do have global impacts on the whole world. — Wayfarer

If Japan defaulted it would bring down the global economy. Are you as fascinated by their prime minister?

Trump clearly tried to engineer a coup - — Wayfarer

Yes. He miscalculated. The US probably will become a dictatorship eventually.

The US probably will become a dictatorship eventually. — frank

Cynical? Me? :roll:

The Japanese are a lot less rambunctious than the Yanks. They'd never do anything like that, it would be impolite.

//besides, the problems caused by an American default would dwarf anything the Japanese could do, as the US$ is the world's default currency. An American default would instantly destablise the global banking system, it would be a financial armageddon.//

The Japanese are a lot less rambunctious than the Yanks. They'd never do anything like that, it would be impolite. — Wayfarer

Are you aware of Japan's situation wrt their debt?

besides, the problems caused by an American default would dwarf anything the Japanese could do, — Wayfarer

A Japanese default would take out the US.

So it's not really the threat the US poses to you. You appear to be oblivious to the real threats on your doorstep.

Australian politicians are never in the news. Do they even have politicians?

Not for a while.