This is an extension and continuation of the basic principle that only conservatives/Republicans can legitimately rule. The mainstream press, and even Democrats to some extent, buy into this. As an independent, I'm appalled.
Well... Democrats also had their idea of the "permanent Democratic majority", which contains the idea that any time they lose an election, they were robbed or defrauded. This is a triumphalist dream that both sides are prey to.
Note well: While both sides dream of power forever, Trump is at a whole new level, both on the "liar, liar, pants on fire" scale, and also on the scale and determination of trying to make it reality. The dream and the temptation are common; Trump's words and actions are not.
This both sides do it rhetoric collapses when one of the candidates refuses to accept the result of an election, pushing the country to the brink. There has always been accusations of rigged elections, there has never before been an individual so depraved as our last president in his refusal to accept defeat.
In many cases the Democrats are right. At the national level, the Democrats have won the popular vote for president 7 out of the 8 last elections. At the state level, states are being gerrymandered in favor of Republicans but Democrats just win on the merits.
Democrats never gerrymander? Or just "not anymore"?
And, the popular vote for president is meaningless, just like "most yards gained" is meaningless at a football game (or "shots on goal", if you prefer the other kind of football). And that matters. People don't gameplan to get the most yards; they don't campaign to win the popular vote. Why fixate on a statistic that is not how elections are judged? Because your side is losing elections the way they are judged, and you think they shouldn't be? (I don't want to be jumping on you, but I don't see how else to take your words, and it's directly relevant to the topic at hand.)
The election rules are what they are. You can try to change them (Popular Vote Compact, or amend the Constitution), but until then, why even waste the breath to complain that you would have won under a different set of rules? Those weren't the rules.
> why even waste the breath to complain that you would have won under a different set of rules?
Because the other set of rules would prevent a political minority from seizing complete control of all branches of the federal government. It's perfectly reasonable to want to point out the fundamental unfairness of the current system which allows this to happen.
You're technically correct that we don't know for sure that the GOP wouldn't win the popular vote if that's what campaigns were optimizing for, but I think we can infer the result of such a vote by looking at the popularity of policies that the two biggest parties disagree on.
That boils down to "we don't like the result, so we should change the rules". That's... not a great argument in a discussion about how one side refuses to accept the results of elections.
It's a bit more nuanced than that. The argument doesn't start from a position of "we don't like the result" (although I'm sure many people are primarily motivated by that), it starts from a principal that the government should generally reflect the wishes of the majority (while protecting minorities with constitutional rights that require a super-majority to change).
I would argue that this is the opposite of "we don't like the result", as it's saying (if steelmanned) "we support this higher ethical principle, regardless of what results that leads to". Also, the fact that one side wishes to change the rules actually is a great argument in this discussion, because changing the rules (through the approved process) is completely different from breaking or ignoring the rules, which is what the other side is accused of doing.
> Also, the fact that one side wishes to change the rules actually is a great argument in this discussion, because changing the rules (through the approved process) is completely different from breaking or ignoring the rules, which is what the other side is accused of doing.
Fair point. I just fear that the people who are primarily motivated by not liking the result are going to not be content with following the approved process.
> it starts from a principal that the government should generally reflect the wishes of the majority (while protecting minorities with constitutional rights that require a super-majority to change).
It goes a bit further than that. It's a republic, not a democracy, and it's that way for a reason. The founders feared direct democracy, and deliberately did not set up the US to be one. The Electoral College is part of that, but it shows up in several other places (like the existence of Congress itself).
So when you say that you want to eliminate the Electoral College to make things more democratic, I get nervous. It's a more fundamental change than many people realize, and takes a much more nuanced evaluation than just "democracy good".
And that's where I'm going to stop. Political science is a long way from my specialty, and if you're going to ask me to defend why the Electoral College is preferable to its absence, you will very quickly get me out of my depth. All I will say is, it needs much more careful consideration than just "look at the last N elections".
> The Electoral College is part of that, but it shows up in several other places (like the existence of Congress itself).
I'm not an expert, but I would say that the existence of the Electoral College mostly reflects the practicalities of trying to run multiple simultaneous elections within semi-sovereign states that have their own voting rules. The existence of the Senate (especially before the Seventeenth Amendment) is a much better argument for the founders' resistance to direct democracy.
> It's a more fundamental change than many people realize, and takes a much more nuanced evaluation than just "democracy good".
You're absolutely right, and I too have my concerns about reforms like the NPVIC (in particular how it clashes with states' efforts to adopt RCV). My personal preference would be for a more modest reform like the bipartisan Lodge-Gossett Amendment proposed in 1950. By keeping each state's apportionment of electoral votes unchanged, it introduces fewer moving parts, while still encouraging more citizens to vote.
If the the popular vote mattered you'd have a point. The system in place attempts to balance the concerns of different areas instead of giving a veto to large cities.
>gives the veto to rural, conservative areas instead
How? Last I checked Democrats still won several elections without receiving the majority of rural votes. Instead, they can't simply rely on only winning the urban centers. Where as on the state level places like New York and California are run exclusively based on the whims of the major urban centers. Would you prefer to enable politicians to avoid the rural areas and the very different concerns in service of the urban areas which happen up have more people? As it stands the politicians must campaign in both areas if they want a chance.
The establishment and mainstream media led by Hillary Clinton pushed the completely fabricated “Russian Interference” narrative that included the fake Steel Dossier, an FBI investigation, and undermined Trump’s Presidency as illegitimate for the entire 4 years!
Now we have people calling the Conservative members of the Supreme Court illegitimate as well because they disagree with the Dobbs ruling.
I’m just not seeing evidence of a widespread Conservative bias, and plenty of evidence of widespread Liberal bias.
Russian interference has been absolutely proven, and was in plain sight to see being openly invited by 45. The Mueller report’s conclusion was that there was interference from Russia, read it.
The current supreme court has lost it legitimacy considering how some justices were appointed, and how Mcconnell blocked Obama from appointing his own judge he was entitled to appoint, and how Thomas has refused to refute himself from a case where he clearly has a conflict of interest.
