Should Trump Resign Over "Hellhole" Comment?

[carpedm9587]

Well one side has more objective evidence in support of their view than the other. Reality exists, and so two people who think the other party is more corrupt than theirs cannot both be right. Noting both sides say this suggests that one side likely has a severe disconnection from reality.

Unless, of course, they have different views on what constitutes "corruption."

It is difficult for a multi-party system to thrive in a plurality voting system. My country and others have managed to move beyond two-parties by changing away from a plurality based voting system.

I would suggest an STV (aka "FairVote") system would be best for the US, as individual states could implement it legislatively rather than a federal constitutional change being required (which seems impractical). In an STV voting system everyone would rank as many congressional candidates (1, 2, 3...) as they wished according to preference, and the math algorithm spits out the set of most-preferred candidates who then become the elected congress-people for that state. Same for Senators. The math algorithm gives even better and more representative results if you group existing congressional districts together in chunks of about 3, and so you then elect 3 congress-people all of whom represent the larger district.

Preference-based voting allows people to rank someone outside the 2 parties as their first choice (and second, and third etc if they wish), and then rank their preferred candidate within the two parties as their final choice, safe in the knowledge that their vote "counts" and they are not "throwing it away", because as the algorithm parses their vote and determines that their first choice is simply not a viable candidate because that person hasn't received enough votes it will go to their 2nd choice and reinterpret their vote as a vote for that person.

Obviously prior to computers such sophisticated voting systems weren't viable, but now they are trivial to implement. Here we use that voting system for local elections (we use a different one that is IMO worse for general elections and which would require a US federal constitutional change to implement I think) and in Australia they use that system for federal Senate elections. Changing election systems instantly increased the number of parties in my country - previously (1993 election) it had been 2 parties with a few independents and it instantly (1996 election) went to 6 parties with representation (and the 2017 election was unusual because a couple of minor parties got no seats giving us only 4 main parties and 1 independent - 3 of those parties are now working together to govern).

I think that process is called an instant runoff election in the U.S. It has been debated many times, but never moved forward. I personally agree it would be a good idea.

I also think it is time for us to re-examine our electoral college. I do not think it should be abolished, because it could serve a purpose. However, the purpose it was intended for has been defeated by its implementation. If electoral votes were allocated by district, plus two for each state, they would achieve what was initially intended. As it is, all it really does is give voters in small states 3-4 times as much voting power as voters in large states.

[carpedm9587]

Yes, I did - just not by the margin I thought.

Just out of curiosity, if Trump were running in 2020 against someone like Sherrod Brown or Chris Murphy, neither of whom seems to have a taint of scandal to them and both have impressive political track records, would you still be likely to vote for Trump?

[Cow Poke]

Just out of curiosity, if Trump were running in 2020 against someone like Sherrod Brown or Chris Murphy, neither of whom seems to have a taint of scandal to them and both have impressive political track records, would you still be likely to vote for Trump?

Way too early to tell - so much can happen between now and then, like another SCOTUS vacancy, Pence becoming POTUS...... but I might well just stay home.

[Sparko]

I was on page 7 on friday and haven't had time to read all of the intervening pages when I got on this morning, but apparently nothing has changed since page 7. Same ol' same ol.

[carpedm9587]

I was on page 7 on friday and haven't had time to read all of the intervening pages when I got on this morning, but apparently nothing has changed since page 7. Same ol' same ol.

Presumably, that did not come as a surprise...

[shunyadragon]

Ya know, Shuny, repeating the same thing over and over doesn't make it true.

Your failure to read the news concerning what Senator Graham actually said, does not make it false.

[Cow Poke]

Your failure to read the news concerning what Senator Graham actually said, does not make it false.

Your failure to read it correctly is sad. But I guess you make up for it with your vivid imagination.

[Sparko]

Presumably, that did not come as a surprise...

The surprise was 30 pages in just a couple of days.

...and nothing accomplished.

[demi-conservative]

Nothingburger.

[Starlight]

I think that process is called an instant runoff election in the U.S. It has been debated many times, but never moved forward. I personally agree it would be a good idea.

Yes, it is called instant runoff when applied to a single-seat electorate.

However it is generally viewed as working ever better with 3-5 seat electorates (i.e. bigger electorates where multiple politicians are elected to represent the electorate), and STV is the name for the multi-seat version of instant runoff. The advantage of larger electorates is that the math algorithm can give you better proportionality.

e.g. with a 1 seat electorate you might have just got 1 dem in it, which means up to 49% of the voters in the electorate who voted republican had 'wasted' votes and nobody they truly felt represents them. Whereas with a 3 seat electorate the algorithm can take in everyone's preferences and spit out, e.g., a dem, a republican and an independent as the winners. The larger electorates give better proportionality with how the election results match the votes, and also makes it easier for 3rd parties to get some representation.

I also think it is time for us to re-examine our electoral college. I do not think it should be abolished, because it could serve a purpose. However, the purpose it was intended for has been defeated by its implementation. If electoral votes were allocated by district, plus two for each state, they would achieve what was initially intended. As it is, all it really does is give voters in small states 3-4 times as much voting power as voters in large states.

I think you're wasting your time overthinking that one - just abolish it.

[Mountain Man]

Source: Breitbart

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/...im-acosta-get/

© Copyright Original Source

Acosta tried to stir up controversy, but Trump was having none of it. If CNN keeps this up, they're going to have their White House press credentials revoked, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving news network.

[Tassman]

And my soul is still safely in God's hands.

[MaxVel]

[Tassman]

[NorrinRadd]

It says we understood we were not voting for National Pastor.

I suspect Mitt Romney also got a large majority of the white Evangelical vote, even though we consider Mormonism to be a pseudo-Christian cult.