As a foreigner, the Electoral College has always looked like the weirdest concept ever.

Yeah, I do know who "those people" are, they're the fucking morons who voted for Trump.

See, here's the thing. I'm no longer interested in bringing them round or convincing them. Fuck 'em. We've had centuries of social progress from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage to the civil rights movement to SSM. If they haven't got the message by now, I really don't give a shit.

But as a culture and a society we need to stop fucking pandering to these assholes. The idea that "everyone is entitled to an opinion" is a very important idea. But somewhere along the line that got mixed up with "everyone's opinion is equally valid".

I don't really have a solution for this. Part of me is actually considering what I would classify as extreme, abhorrent measures. Most of me just thinks that liberals or SJWs or whatever you want to call them, just need to stop being so fucking meek and apologising for being right.

Either way, we don't have time for this bullshit anymore.

This is what a fucking Trump presidency gets you.

At this stage, as utterly undemocratic as it is, I'm just hoping the Electoral College ignores the election (which it can totally do) and elects Hillary.

Yeah, she's a pretty poor candidate and she's in the pocket of business and blah, blah, fucking blah.

I don't care.

She's not an insane climate denying buffoon.

I find it... grotesque, that many of the "disenfranchised" men voted for Trump, even though he is only going to line the pockets of the few. That is what Trump does, he is only in this for himself and/or people like him; he is a cult of personality & a greedy businessman completely disconnected from reality. How he actually connected with such a vast ocean of morons is mind-blowing - 1) Fuck the two party system 2) Fuck the Electoral College.

I like that Chomsky points out that these people don't like being talked down to. But, if they would have opened their fucking ears - they would have heard Sanders talking about the MIDDLE CLASS, over and over and over again. Sanders actually wanted to do something for the majority ---- along with these IDIOTS --- that voted in Trump. Whom, yes, is going to get them temporary coal jobs and natural gas jobs...

Is that what they really want? Some shitty job that will ruin the environment so badly that their children will be living in a glass bubble with Amazon teleporting breakfast, lunch & dinner as they look out across black skies, thinking the images of the world they see on Google are a fantasy?

@eoe

As ironic as it may be to say this, I think that the Republican Congress will be a strong bulwark against Trump's more nationalistic impulses if it turns out he actually wants to act on them and they weren't just part of demagogic campaigning.

If for no other reason that they know demographics are against them in the longer term. They may have won the election on the electoral college but lost the popular vote - even with all the attempts at voter suppression. In the longer term, winning with their party base becomes harder and harder.

They know if Trump enacts genuine deportation measures against Latinos then the frankly astounding 1/3 of voting Latinos that supported Trump will turn sharply against the Republican party. That group represents the fastest growing demographic in America and they can't afford to lose them for a generation.

In contrast, they will be also act a constraint against any of his ideas on infrastructure spending, congressional term limits or curbing trade. Since it's already clear he's filling his cabinet with establishment Republicans and he has little knowledge of policy, he will likely acquiesce to their suggestions for lack of any other policy advice.

I'm as surprised as most everyone at how the election turned out. In the week or so leading up to election night, I considered the possibility that Trump might win the popular vote but lose the electoral college, but not the other way around.

Still, as someone who thinks the electoral college is bullshit, consider this thing from all angles:

Hypothetical Possibility 1: At first, when I thought that Trump might win the popular vote but lose the electoral college, I thought that would be a good thing going forward. Both sides would have been screwed out of a victory by the idiotic system in recent memory, which might push for bipartisan support to scrap it.

But thinking further ... I don't think that would have actually panned out. The GOP establishment wouldn't have seen that as "their" candidate getting screwed, they would have been happy. They might have had to pay lip service to the idea of reconsidering the electoral college to pander to angry Republican voters who felt cheated out of a Trump presidency, but they could easily have just left it at that and sat on the issue until apathy took over again.


Possibility 2: The likely reality. Trump will win by electoral votes but lose the popular vote, and that will stand. The Senate and House are both Republican controlled, and the Supreme Court will very likely swing further in that direction. Possibly a LOT.

That sounds terrible. And it definitely means that in the short term, there will be absolutely zero traction for anyone wanting to push the idea of getting rid of the electoral college. BUT -- it also sets up a gold-plated opportunity to see real, actual movement on that front in 2 years. Think Trump is going to be horrendous? Think GOP-controlled Legislature will be abysmal? Look on the bright side -- if those expectations are correct, the blowback in midterm elections won't be a "wave". It'll be a fuckin' tsunami. And that's what we need to have a shot at killing the electoral college.


Possibility 3: Faithless Elector rampage. You can argue, with some merit, that the electoral college was intended to prevent or safeguard against exactly the kind of situation that we are in now. And I'd love to see President Bernie myself. But what would actually result if enough electors swapped to make that happen?

First, NYTimes projects Trump getting 306 electoral votes. That would mean that 37 faithless electors would have to happen to flip the election. You have to go back more than 100 years to find an election where there has been more than 1 faithless elector. There has only been 1 election with more than 37 faithless electors, and that was in 1872 because the candidate died. So realistically, it would be close to impossible to pull this off. (all info from wikipedia)

But forget the odds and just assume that it did happen. I think that would be a strategically terrible idea for Democrats, liberals, etc. Trump won because enough people didn't like the prospect of President Hillary and/or actually wanted to see what Trump himself could do. In either case, his voters generally aren't going to give him a whole lot of leash to screw things up or fail to deliver on their expectations. It will be next to impossible for him to keep those swing people happy. If Trump is 1/10th as terrible as the average Democrat expects him to be, he will alienate all of those people in very short order.

But if faithless electors "stole" the presidency from him (and you know that's how it would be perceived)? Oh, man ... he'd effectively be a political martyr. The anger and backlash would likely be apocalyptic and/or lead to revolt. Worse than almost any realistic way that Trump himself might fuck things up as the President. Even if that was somehow avoided, which I tend to think would be impossible, whoever got installed as President would have the shortest leash of all time, and a massively hostile and motivated Legislature that they would be forced to attempt to work with. Better have some sacrificial lamb to put in there that has zero political future, and even then they would probably cause massive damage to their party by association when they inevitably fall.

No, I think the clear best option is to let Trump (and the GOP) dig his own grave over the next year or two, and then graciously ride the wave of comeuppance.

If only I agreed with you....but sadly these things are NOT off the table, clearly. In fact, it's the minority rights being infringed upon that may have determined this election, so to say they are settled is simply wrong.
They SHOULD be settled, and among educated people they are, but the state of education in this country is pretty sad, as you can see from the results of this election. Trump won among the uneducated, and they are the majority.

What should terrify people is a statement he made last week, that" won't it be great when we are one nation, under ONE god", implying he plans on somehow making us monotheistic as a nation.

The electoral college is set up for EXACTLY this eventuality....that a smarmy snake oil salesman might dupe the uneducated masses into electing someone dangerous, so we are supposed to have a firewall of educated thinkers that, no matter what the vote, can elect any candidate they wish. Unfortunately, they have never done that, and now seem to have forgotten that elections like this are the sole reason we have an electoral college, not a direct democracy.

I wonder what happens when Trump gives his deposition about raping the 13 year old girl in the early 90's in December....if he admits to raping her, or is found to be guilty of it, does he still get sworn in, or do we have President Pierce? Can someone please accuse him of multiple felonies and get him convicted quickly? That seems to be our only hope, and President Pierce doesn't sound much better...only slightly more sane.

Thailand by way of Kansas. Just sent in my absentee ballot a couple days ago.

I agree that the idea of the video is to suggest that "protest votes" are either A) entirely counterproductive always, or B) particularly counterproductive in this election. And they chose to focus on Johnson because he fits their narrative of suggesting that policy-wise he is very different from Bernie Sanders, and they make the unspoken assumption that many people considering "protest votes" are Sanders fans that are disgruntled with Clinton.

I'm still very comfortable with my 3rd-party vote, and fully aware that there is a chance that it could "spoil" things for one of the main 2 candidates. Although realistically, since my vote will be counted in Kansas (very red track record, polling 47/36/17 Trump/Clinton/Undecided at the moment) that is incredibly unlikely to happen either way.

I understand people that would feel motivated to "hold their nose" and choose the lesser of two evils (whoever they determine that to be) if they were in a swing/tossup state, but personally I would stick with my vote even if I was in such a state.

If the election is "spoiled" one way or the other by 3rd party votes, it would send a pretty clear message to both parties: give us better choices, or face the consequences. Then again, maybe I'm being overly optimistic about the parties actually getting that message... Democrats should have been highly motivated to push for getting rid of the electoral college and/or considering a push for ranked-choice voting when Gore "lost" in 2000, but failed to do either.

Right, so you're basically advocating shutting down the federal government to get your way. Sorry, elections have consequences. The GOP lost control of both houses in Obama's first two years. They could have had positive influence on Obamacare, but they decided to claim instead it was a socialist takeover of health care, intended to kill grandma. That's the Republicans' fault for getting their butts handed to them in the election. That wasn't because they backed down.

Obamacare wasn't shoved down your throat. You had a vote like everyone else. Boo hoo, your side lost. Do you see me saying everything the Republicans and GWB did was shoved down my throat, even though I didn't like a lot of it? Nope.

Your sister has Crohn's. I never said she didn't. My wife had diabetes for most of her life and recently went through years of dialysis before having a simultaneously kidney and pancreas transplant, which she's still dealing with the anti-rejection meds.

Your sister's medical condition doesn't make your BS story true about what Obamacare did to her premiums. I laid out EXACTLY how Obamacare would work in her situation, and you introduced nothing that proves what I said wrong. Instead, you thought you'd claim the righteous indignation ground and assumed that my immediate family didn't have very serious medical conditions to deal with as well, and then resorted to name calling.

Just remember, your friendly neighborhood HeroPsycho told you Clinton will crush Trump in the electoral college. You can try and ignore reality all you want, but the inevitable is coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

I'm voting Trump but I'm anti political correctness, anti sjw , anti hypersensitive

But I'm not in the electoral college so votes don't matter anyhow, an elector can vote any way they wish, there is no rule they have to vote how the state tells them. It's happened a few times in past.

They are called "Faithless Elector" , they have Wiki and bunch of sites on them

An elector can ignore the state popular vote and give the electoral to whomever

It was never sold as the answer. You're flat out lying. It was never sold as that. When the entire debate began, numerous options were presented by Democrats, and they settled on Obamacare. Nobody ever said it was going to be a done deal, everything was fixed.

Said Obama on 3/22/2010:
"This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system. But it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like. Now as momentous as this day is, it's not the end of this journey."

You're lying. Flat out lying. 100% Grade A BS just flies out of your mouth every time you attempt to discuss anything.

Dude, you're making assumptions I haven't gone through the process. You question OBJECTIVE FACTS! Nobody ever said that Obamacare would result in better outcomes for every single person out there. I'm not introducing what happened specifically to me good or bad, because that doesn't make neither of our cases. It's a systemic change, so it must be judged systemically. The question is did it help most people, not what happened in yours or my cases.

Of course, when you introduced your sister's case, it was so full of crap, you couldn't even make the story up right.

I'm not going to cream my pants when Hillary Clinton blows Trump out in the electoral college. I'm just going to remind you that people like you did this to the Republican Party. Just remember that. You had everything going for you circumstantially in this presidential election, and you caused the GOP to sit on its own balls, nominate Donald Trump, and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

You're gonna get spanked by the most unpopular major party nominee since it's been tracked other than the nominee the GOP itself chose. Well done!

Democrats don't back down?!

WTF have you been?! Are you kidding me?!

Obamacare was a moderate compromise from single payer or even government option. It's called a compromise, dude. You apparently don't know what it means. It means you don't get everything you wanted, nor none of what you wanted. They saw they couldn't pass single payer or government option, so they went with a centrist plan that could pass.

Your side lost their marbles and said Obamacare was a complete socialized gov't take over of health care out to kill grandma.

Here's the practical results of your side doing that - people like me went... "Hmm... there could be something better than Obamacare... GOP, what say you? Ohhhh, you're just gonna throw your own feces?! I guess we'll go with Obamacare."

The GOP was anything BUT caving in. Do you not remember the record setting number of filibusters caused by the GOP? That's caving in?! WTF?!

Trump is going to get destroyed in the electoral college. You're out of your damn mind if you think he's going to win, much less in a landslide. Clinton is on track for over 330 electoral votes. And she's closer to flipping Texas than Trump is to flipping Pennsylvania. Trump is going to get dunked on Vince Carter in the Olympics style by Clinton. He's down by almost double digits in the popular vote. It's more likely she gets over 400 electoral votes than him winning the election.

Trump in a landslide?!?!?! ROFLMFAO!

I don't sit on the fence. I just recognize like a sane adult that no political ideology has practical solutions that will fix every problem society faces. Not liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, capitalism, absolutely none of them. That should be obvious by now, but it's clear why you can't understand that considering overwhelming data for example that shows Clinton is going to destroy Trump.

I need to grow a pair? I already have a pair. Unlike you, I formulate my political beliefs with my brain instead of my balls.

No mention of Jill Stein?

I'm not undecided, but if we had something like ranked-choice voting I'd go:
1 Stein
2 Johnson
3 Clinton
4 Trump

To all the people that think that 3rd party votes are counter productive, you can take solace in knowing that I'm registered in a state that is pretty close to a lock (for Trump), so because of the electoral college my vote doesn't really count. But I'd be voting the same way even if I was in a swing state. 'Cuz fuck both parties. Right in the ear.

for what seems like the millionth time, the problem is not your candidates (even though they suck).

The problem is your antiquated and frankly, broken electoral process.

Get rid of utter nonsense like the electoral college, throw out FPP, and you might stand a small chance of reclaiming your democracy.

First up, bring back the old quoting system!

"I'm of the opinion that both Hillary and Trump would make bad presidents."

Agreed.

"That being said, I don't really believe the narrative that Trump would be the worse of the two; the "apocalyptic" one to elect. Trump is incompetent and chaotic. Hillary is greasy and corrupt."

Which one has campaigned for a law that flagrantly violates the first amendment? Which one has called an entire demographic of US citizens rapists and murderers?

" I think the system (which is actually pretty well designed at its core..."

The American political system is a complete clusterfuck. You have a two party monopoly, the electoral college is a disaster and then there's Citizens United.

"The DNC had a chance to put in another option that would have easily had as much support from core Democrats as Hillary, but also would have energized younger voters AND been a very attractive option for Republicans who don't buy in to Trump (of which there are many). But instead, they left their fingers on the scales and tipped things in favor of Hillary."

Completely agree. Instead of the excitement of a Bernie running, you have the "ugh, Hillary, I guess" attitude.

"So, I'll vote for one of the 3rd party candidates (I like Stein's stance on Snowden, so probably her) or write in the option that crooked DNC and Hillary denied us. Either of those actions is de-facto more likely to result in President Trump, and I acknowledge that. But like I said, I'm OK with that -- I honestly believe Hillary would be worse, and the main thing is that me and other people like me have to send a message to both parties that they need to present us with more reasonable candidates if they expect us to have any degree of the "party loyalty" that both sides expected / enjoyed in the past. This election cycle shows that they are taking that for granted -- so screw 'em."

And here we have the major issue. I have NO IDEA how people think electing Trump will somehow bring down the system. "Screw 'em"?? As in the dems and the gop? It won't bother them in the slightest.

But it will bother Mexicans, Muslims, LGBT people and em.... damnit, there was another demographic that the Republicans want to fuck over.... oh yeah... women.

Forget Trump. As much of an unconscionable arsehole as he is, look at the GOP platform for 2016:
- tax cuts for the rich
- repeal environmental protections
- an anti-abortion amendment
- oppose stem cell research
- prop up the electoral college
- ignore climate change agreements
- repeal obamacare
- abolish net neutrality
- oppose same-sex marriage
- abstinence-based sex education
- increase military spending
- the ridiculous and wasteful border wall

and finally, appoint a new Supreme Court Judge to push all this through. And THAT is the real reason Trump can't be allowed to be President. Say what you want about Hillary, but at least she won't choose a complete loon for the supreme court. Trump might pick David Duke, for all we know.

Actually, I've ignored the superdelegates in my math because I've basically assumed that they will go with whoever has the popular vote at the convention, but since you brought them up....

There's one scenario no-one has considered yet; probably because it's extremely unlikely, but just for fun, let's say Bernie continues as projected and arrives at the convention trailing Hillary by about 200 delegates. Meanwhile, Trump has been attacking the ever-loving hell out of Hillary and her poll numbers in the general election are starting to look REALLY bad, as in Trump might/could/probably will/almost certainly will win.

So far, this is all pretty much what's going to happen.

But in this strange alternate dimension, the DNC pulls its head out of its collective arse and realises "holy shit, we could lose the white house! Hang on, Bernie polls much better against Trump!". Unable to convince Hillary to drop out, the superdelegates swing en masse to Bernie handing him the nomination AGAINST the popular vote.

How do you feel about this? On one hand, yay, #FeelTheBern, #FuckYouTrump and on to the white house and potentially the most significant change in US politics in decades (or not, who knows how much one president can actually do).

On the other hand.... there's no way around the fact that the DNC will have subverted the will of the people. If the situation was reversed, and the superdelegates gave the nomination to Hillary where Bernie (hypothetically) had more pledged delegates, well, there would be riots.

Interested to hear your thoughts on this scenario (unlikely as it is).

BTW, the fact that your vote is essentially meaningless (luckily for you, it happens to be meaningless in your favour) in your state is yet another symptom of just how very fucked the electoral college is.