US Presidential Election 2020

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Constantly throws me that Democrats are blue and Republicans are red.
 

Do they use the phrase ”Reds under the bed”?

It's because the parties flipped sides on issues in the early 20th century around the time of Taft, but the colours remained the same.

 

Republicans used to be the more progressive party and Democrats were the more conservative one as you'd expect from their colours. Hence why Abraham Lincoln and the anti-Slavery movement was Republican. Teddy Roosevelt didn't like Taft's more conservative approach and they ended up having a big rift and I guess the Republicans became the more Conservative party from Taft onward.

Edited 7 November 2020 by Sampson

[ozleicester]

2 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

There are arguments for and against first past the post when it come to electing representatives in a parliament, but it surely makes no sense at all for a binary choice of a single individual as president.

 

The US system may have made some historic sense at the time it was adopted, but in the modern context, what on earth is wrong with one person one vote?

[Countryfox]

On 05/11/2020 at 22:58, Countryfox said:

 

10 hours ago, Costock_Fox said:

Also, incase it’s not been posted yet...

7 pages too late ..   

[Unabomber]

[Buce]

 

You seem to know your stuff, @UPinCarolina, so a question for you:

 

From what I can gather, Trump - as a 'lame duck' president - still has the power to make executive orders; are there any fears over what he might do between now and Jan 20th?

Edited 7 November 2020 by Buce

[StanSP]

 

 

 

[WigstonWanderer]

4 hours ago, ozleicester said:

All in favour of single transferable vote, or whatever. The point is that in the current US system, they don’t even try (as I understand) to ensure that each person gets the same weight to their vote, the number of voters per electoral college vote varies from state to state. Also, most states allocate all their electoral college votes to a single candidate regardless of the voting split in that state.

 

Just having one person one vote for the whole of the US (so each state reports the number of votes for each candidate and then they get summed nationally) would be a huge step forward. A scheme like the Australian one above, whilst being the fairest IMO, might be difficult to arrange if you want to keep voting state based. Not impossible but it really demands a whole of country vote.

Edited 7 November 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[Countryfox]

[shen]

So the media are heralding this as a historic election due to the sheer volume of votes cast. The US is still ridiculously low in voter participation  compared to other exemplary democratic states. I'm having a hard time listening to either party praising the US system when such a large section of their population still isn't voting! 

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

70% is a massive turnout for an election. 

[trabuch]

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

You seem to know your stuff, @UPinCarolina, so a question for you:

 

From what I can gather, Trump - as a 'lame duck' president - still has the power to make executive orders; are there any fears over what he might do between now and Jan 20th?

I'm sure @UPinCarolina will know more about exactly what he is able to do. But this interview with his niece is pretty chilling.

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/mary-trump-on-donald-trump-if-he-thinks-hes-going-down-hes-going-to-try-to-take-the-rest-of-us-down-with-him

[Countryfox]

15 minutes ago, trabuch said:

I'm sure @UPinCarolina will know more about exactly what he is able to do. But this interview with his niece is pretty chilling.

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/mary-trump-on-donald-trump-if-he-thinks-hes-going-down-hes-going-to-try-to-take-the-rest-of-us-down-with-him

Jeez ..  scary stuff ...  but not in the least surprising ...   

[Countryfox]

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

You seem to know your stuff, @UPinCarolina, so a question for you:

 

From what I can gather, Trump - as a 'lame duck' president - still has the power to make executive orders; are there any fears over what he might do between now and Jan 20th?

Anything from having Biden assassinated to starting WWIII ....    

[shen]

25 minutes ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

70% is a massive turnout for an election. 

It is far below many other democratic countries and I suspect has been fuelled by the massively polarizing effect of having Trump as your president. Not sure why you think it's "massive".

 

[Innovindil]

4 minutes ago, shen said:

It is far below many other democratic countries and I suspect has been fuelled by the massively polarizing effect of having Trump as your president. Not sure why you think it's "massive".

 

Probably because American elections rarely hit 60% turnout. So it is massive for them. 

[shen]

8 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Probably because American elections rarely hit 60% turnout. So it is massive for them. 

Which is exactly my point. The US media and politicians are quick to blow their own horn, but it's still pretty far below a plethora of democracies around the world. 

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

More than the UK is all I know. I don't know turnouts in other countries. 

[WigstonWanderer]

36 minutes ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

More than the UK is all I know. I don't know turnouts in other countries. 

Compulsory here in Aus on pain of $200 fine

[Bellend Sebastian]

This is fun:

 

 

[urban.spaceman]

 

[shen]

1 hour ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

More than the UK is all I know. I don't know turnouts in other countries. 

I expressly said compared to other democracies and you compare it to one country, which is equally on the lower side of voter turnout ?

[Alf Bentley]

For anyone who's curious, graph of UK general election turnout since 1918 here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1050929/voter-turnout-in-the-uk/

 

Every election from 1922 to 2001 had a turnout over 70%, but none since then - though 68.8% and 67.3% at the last two, and 72.2% at the Brexit referendum.

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

4 minutes ago, shen said:

I expressly said compared to other democracies and you compare it to one country, which is equally on the lower side of voter turnout ?

Yeah you're right I'm not saying you're not, I openly admit I don't know much about turnouts in elections. 70% seemed a lot to me, going on what limited knowledge I have on UK and US turnouts. Clearly it isn't all that much. I expressly apologise for my ignorance. 

[shen]

7 minutes ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

Yeah you're right I'm not saying you're not, I openly admit I don't know much about turnouts in elections. 70% seemed a lot to me, going on what limited knowledge I have on UK and US turnouts. Clearly it isn't all that much. I expressly apologise for my ignorance. 

No worries. It's my personal frustration at the navel-gazing and self-heralding that usually comes from the bullshit US media. If they truly believe they are the envy of the world and that they are the model democracy, then they are deluded to the core.

[urban.spaceman]

Kicking and screaming it is then.