US Politics: Lock Him Up!

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Reallocating the EVs of those four states by district would be spectacularly stupid, even for Trump.  He won 55 of their 59 EVs.  If you reallocate by district, he certainly (no almost about it) gets significantly less EVs than 55.  What Trump would want to do is reallocate EVs by district in states that Hillary won, or are safe Dem.

Trump won them, but there's no guarantee he'll win them again.  Sure, ideally Trump would want California and New York to be allocated by Congressional district, but there's no way in hell those states are going to do that.  But, if those four states were allocated by congressional district instead of winner take all, Trump would have still won the election, it would have just looked closer.  By my math assuming 2 EVs for the state winner, it would have gone 37 EVs to Trump and 22 to Clinton.  That would have made the election look closer, but actually be less close, because Trump is still comfortably past 270.  Now imagine if Trump had narrowly lost Florida and Michigan, instead of narrowly winning them.  With our current system, it's President Clinton 277 to 261.  But with these changes, it is President Trump 284, Clinton just 254.  What if Clinton picked up Wisconsin too?  Instead of Clinton 287, it's President Trump with 282. 

[aceluby]

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Trump won them, but there's no guarantee he'll win them again.  Sure, ideally Trump would want California and New York to be allocated by Congressional district, but there's no way in hell those states are going to do that.  But, if those four states were allocated by congressional district instead of winner take all, Trump would have still won the election, it would have just looked closer.  By my math assuming 2 EVs for the state winner, it would have gone 37 EVs to Trump and 22 to Clinton.  That would have made the election look closer, but actually be less close, because Trump is still comfortably past 270.  Now imagine if Trump had narrowly lost Florida and Michigan, instead of narrowly winning them.  With our current system, it's President Clinton 277 to 261.  But with these changes, it is President Trump 284, Clinton just 254.  What if Clinton picked up Wisconsin too?  Instead of Clinton 287, it's President Trump with 282. 

Yeah, it makes the road for any democrat MUCH more difficult and far narrower.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

And how would he do that under our federal system, pray tell?

 

17 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Does the federal government even have the authority to enact those kinds of laws?  i was under the impression it did not.

But i see your point.  Is there any data on the actual effect of those kinds of laws?  My impression has always been that the impact in terms of numbers of people affected is drastically overstated, but it is an admittedly an uninformed opinion on my part.

 

A Constitutional Amendment would do the trick, and I don't see why it couldn't be achieved through the legislative process. My understanding is the Constitution grants states the right to set their own election laws absent a federal law. Why couldn't a federal law just supersede state laws? 

And regardless, even if this could not be achieved at the federal level, Republicans control enough state governments that they could enact these types of laws for over half the country. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

Agree that it is borderline wishful thinking to believe that he won't serve out at least 4 years. So, I guess the best thing to do is for us to grab our e-tools and dig in, because a long barrage of utter nuttery cometh our way.

If had a planatir, I'd probably be like Pippin and would just have to look, and wouldn't be surprised if I saw the orange one sitting in office or his successor, and like Pippin, would be utterly terrified at what I saw and wished I hadn't looked.

I agree about the back and forth nature of American politics and I'm sure in 8 years people will be ready for a change. What I wonder though is whether Democratic Party will be able to take full advantage of the situation. Probably not, it's the Democratic Party we're talking about here. Besides that, I think it has some serious problems it needs to contend with, that I hope it fixes, but am a bit pessimistic it will.

Within my lifetime the party of insoluable internecine strife has switched a couple of times.   I have faith in the American public's need for a new flavor of the week, and the ability of entrenched power in Washington to lose the narrative.  Both parties are deeply flawed as institutions.  Right now the Republicans are riding high, and it is easy to see them as an unstoppable juggernaut, but I see instead a party that creaked its way to a Presidential finish and that is squandering its opportunity to make meaningful positive change with its legislative majorities.  I also know that about 85% of the "truths" as spoken by the cognoscenti punditry will be shown to be demonstrably wrong with 20 years hindsight.  So, you know, who the hell knows.  

There is a greater than 50% chance that some Trump scion* runs for office in the next 10 years.  My money is on Ivanka.  And she would be very effective and very terrifying.  Like Galadriel with the ring.  Just saying.

 

*Noun chosen on purpose

[Swordfish]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

A Constitutional Amendment would do the trick, and I don't see why it couldn't be achieved through the legislative process. My understanding is the Constitution grants states the right to set their own election laws absent a federal law. Why couldn't a federal law just supersede state laws? 

 

 

I don't know.

 

Quote

And regardless, even if this could not be achieved at the federal level, Republicans control enough state governments that they could enact these types of laws for over half the country. 

Sure.  But you can't pin that on Trump.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

A Constitutional Amendment would do the trick, and I don't see why it couldn't be achieved through the legislative process. My understanding is the Constitution grants states the right to set their own election laws absent a federal law. Why couldn't a federal law just supersede state laws? 

And regardless, even if this could not be achieved at the federal level, Republicans control enough state governments that they could enact these types of laws for over half the country. 

Think you would have to change Article II, Section 1 and the 10th Amendment.  I don't think that you'd get 3/4 of the states to approve the amendment.

[Fragile Bird]

More stories have popped up about Canadians, including people born in Canada, being refused entry into the US.

Any of you planning on coming to Canada better have contingency plans in case you are refused entry into the country. There's almost always some tit-for-tat when this stuff happens.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/montreal/canadian-denied-entry-us-immigrant-visa-1.4011202

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Think you would have to change Article II, Section 1 and the 10th Amendment.  I don't think that you'd get 3/4 of the states to approve the amendment.

I'm fairly confident I will never see a constitutional amendment in my lifetime.  The bar is too high, and anything that people think is worth doing is going to have a political group fighting against it. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I'm fairly confident I will never see a constitutional amendment in my lifetime.  The bar is too high, and anything that people think is worth doing is going to have a political group fighting against it. 

About as likely as DC and Puerto Rico achieving statehood...

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Trump won them, but there's no guarantee he'll win them again.  Sure, ideally Trump would want California and New York to be allocated by Congressional district, but there's no way in hell those states are going to do that.  But, if those four states were allocated by congressional district instead of winner take all, Trump would have still won the election, it would have just looked closer.  By my math assuming 2 EVs for the state winner, it would have gone 37 EVs to Trump and 22 to Clinton.

K, so by my count in terms of delegations (this was easier to look up on wikipedia) the GOP has a 31 to 18 seat advantage in Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  Let's leave out New Hampshire because it's only 2 measly districts anyway.  So, you're saying Trump would rather take the much more certain +13 advantage (which would be lowered to up to a +7 if he lost the at large EVs in all 3 states) than the potential - albeit much more uncertain - for a +55 advantage from those three states?  I don't think he would and, frankly, neither would I.  

Moreover, it would theoretically be ceding a tactical advantage to the Democrats because of the rural/urban polarization.  For districts with poachable PVIs, the Dems could spend less resources courting GOP-leaning rural districts whereas the GOP would have to spend much more in Dem-leaning urban districts.

36 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

It amazes me how this thread has all of a sudden woken up, and not a single post has been about the new immigration ban, other than mentioning it was signed.

That's because it was another defeat of Trump actually try to transfer his campaign agenda into governing.  His crazy tweets also serve to distract from this - and the GOP Congress' bungling of "repeal and replace" - but at the time as the circus continues the possibility to actually do anything effectual as president precipitously drops.

[denstorebog]

I honestly don't understand the people who are making predictions about Trump in 2020. You have no idea about who he's running against, what the zeitgeist is, what new scandals have been unearthed or how much people care.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

I honestly don't understand the people who are making predictions about Trump in 2020. You have no idea about who he's running against, what the zeitgeist is, what new scandals have been unearthed or how much people care.

I predict you're right.

[Fragile Bird]

Holy fuck.

There's a secret facebook page for male US Marines where they would post explicit photos of female Marines. Hundreds of Marines took part, and more photos were being solicited.

The page has now been taken down.

I wonder if 45 will dismiss this as more locker room behaviour.

CNN just reported this. Apparently another site directed at Marines called War Horse broke the story.

 

[Mexal]

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Holy fuck.

There's a secret facebook page for male US Marines where they would post explicit photos of female Marines. Hundreds of Marines took part, and more photos were being solicited.

The page has now been taken down.

I wonder if 45 will dismiss this as more locker room behaviour.

CNN just reported this. Apparently another site directed at Marines called War Horse broke the story.

 

Yea, I read this story over the weekend. It was on the Marine Times. Here is the link. Not good.

[Maithanet]

42 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

K, so by my count in terms of delegations (this was easier to look up on wikipedia) the GOP has a 31 to 18 seat advantage in Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  Let's leave out New Hampshire because it's only 2 measly districts anyway.  So, you're saying Trump would rather take the much more certain +13 advantage (which would be lowered to up to a +7 if he lost the at large EVs in all 3 states) than the potential - albeit much more uncertain - for a +55 advantage from those three states?  I don't think he would and, frankly, neither would I. 

If you can take swing states and turn them into a guaranteed win of 55-65% of the EVs, then you make your victory much more likely.  That is simple math.  If you can do that to all states (or all swing states for that matter), you can ensure that you will narrowly win the presidency forever.  If Republicans won the governorship of Pennsylvania and Virginia, they would have a trifecta there too.  Add those five states together and allocate by congressional district and suddenly the math looks like this:  Republicans hold 51 Congressional seats in those states.  Democrats hold 27. 

Clinton won the popular vote by 2% 48-46%, but lost the EC 306 to 232.  With this new system, Trump would have won the EC by a lesser margin, 290 to 248.  BUT, let's say Clinton won the popular vote by 3%, with that support coming from Trump voters across all states.  Well, in that scenario, Clinton now wins WI, MI, and PA, that's 278 EVs and the presidency.  With the new system, it's Trump 284 to 256. 

What if we got to Clinton +4?  Well, then she picks up Florida.  Previously she wins 307 to 231.  But now she still loses 282 to 258.  You know how many of the congressional races in those five states were Republican wins of 2 points or less that might flip?  According to Ballotopedia, none.  None of the 51 Congressional seats Republicans won in those states were within 5 points.  So we're still looking at President Trump with 282 EVs.

What if it goes to Clinton +5? Clinton picks up Nebraska's 2nd district, so we're at Trump 281, Clinton 257.

Only when Clinton gets to +6, winning 50% of the popular vote to Trumps 44% does she successfully flip Arizona and narrowly become president.  That is how powerful this redistricting can be. 

Quote

Moreover, it would theoretically be ceding a tactical advantage to the Democrats because of the rural/urban polarization.  For districts with poachable PVIs, the Dems could spend less resources courting GOP-leaning rural districts whereas the GOP would have to spend much more in Dem-leaning urban districts.

 

I don't think so.  By design, very few Congressional districts are competitive.

[Fragile Bird]

6 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea, I read this story over the weekend. It was on the Marine Times. Here is the link. Not good.

Wtf, that story is even more horrific than what CNN reported.

So much for the honor of the marines.

And people say women lie about the abuse they face in the workplace.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

11 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea, I read this story over the weekend. It was on the Marine Times. Here is the link. Not good.

Nope.  And the threats against the guy who broke the story (and his family, and the doxxing.....) NOT GOOD.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

Growing up in New York it sure wasn't, which was odd because my school was also a polling place. They had the station set out in a large room near one of the entrances and told us to stay away from it and not disturb anyone between classes.

Nope.  And still isn't.

 

[Relic]

33 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

I honestly don't understand the people who are making predictions about Trump in 2020. You have no idea about who he's running against, what the zeitgeist is, what new scandals have been unearthed or how much people care.

Part of the reason is because he already launched his reelection efforts,  a mere four weeks after taking office. 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Agreed - no impeachment.  Look, I'm fairly sure there some sort of fire behind all the Russia smoke.  However, I don't see how it ever comes to light. I think a stroke or a heart attack is much more likely.

Separately, I am assuming a massive civil service purge in the next 6-9 months to the extent possible under the CSRA.  

He will never leave voluntarily, whether term limits, impeachment, removal for health reasons, whatever.  He will never go -- and his people who stick at pretty much 46% will riot to keep him.