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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The silly thing is the EC don't quite protect the small states either. Most swing states are big and, because of the winner take al system, they are the ones who decide elections.
And, anyway, again, that is why local representation exist. If the worry is about one group holding more power than another in the presential election, why only divide by rural vs urban (or small state vs big state)? These are not the only groups that divide the country. It is kinda arbitrary to decide rural votes must have more representation but not, say green party voters, native Americans or 5th generation immigrants. Why do the rural, and only the rural have the priority?
PS:The distinction between small states vs big state is even sillier than the rural vs urban as it is almost literally just a matter of imaginary lines. Why isn't Texas 4 smaller states instead of a big one? Despite the answer being mostly "because", if Texas was 4 states it would drastically change the political situation.
edited 11th Feb '17 7:46:00 AM by Heatth
I think it's worth remembering that Republicans are NOT implementing proportional allocation of electoral votes, they're implementing (or trying to implement) district based allocation of electoral votes. That's an entirely different thing and can still easily result in one side winning all but one electoral vote with less than half the cast votes being for them.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran@Tactical and Elle: Parliamentary systems are by no means perfect, but they have a built in resolution method for executive-legislative deadlocks, namely the fact that the head of the executive branch can be voted out of power by the legislature. The lack of such a mechanism can completely paralyze a presidential system, as has been the case for the past 6 years or so, and historically speaking, Presidential systems have been more prone to constitutional crises than comparable parliamentary systems.
In exchange for those drawbacks, there's a lack of any readily apparent advantages to a presidential system over a parliamentary one, which is what my point was. It's obviously quite unlikely to ever be implemented in the United States unless there's a complete breakdown of constitutional democracy and we're forced to rewrite the constitution from scratch, but an ideal political system would be parliamentary and proportionately allocate votes; Germany's system being a good example of the kind of system I'm talking about.
@Angelus: Several of those insults are used by people irrespective of political leaning due to a sort of reverse Pop Culture Osmosis, most notably BTFO, triggered, and occasionally cuck.
edited 11th Feb '17 8:27:00 AM by CaptainCapsase
Well, the US system makes sense in context if you realize the Continental Congress was revolting against Parliament. They fully intended for a weak legislature and their closest model for an independent Presidency was the theoretical reserve powers of the king.
No one really thought it through, despite what elementary school teaches...
edited 11th Feb '17 8:32:08 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
It makes sense from a historical perspective why the American system is the way it is, but that doesn't mean it's well designed; it was a necessary compromise to implement the electoral college to get the southern states on board. By 18th century standards the American system was in some regards revolutionary, but in the modern day it's archaic and backwards. Trump would never have gotten into power if the American political system worked like that of Germany.
edited 11th Feb '17 8:34:53 AM by CaptainCapsase
@Native Jovian: Which is why it will never happen, since it'll require the agreement of the party who would gain advantage from the gerrymandered version.
Pointing out that if we had the parliamentary system it would have enabled an increasingly regressive right to vote out a Democratic president that was fighting to bring us healthcare and supportive of important moves in regards to LGBT rights does not exactly fill me with confidence in the concept of the parliamentary system. I mean, if you're arguing we should have a parliamentary, you just literally pointed out how that could go very wrong in that a party that doesn't like the president could literally vote out the guy we like or just vote in someone who will rubber stamp their agenda without input from the public. There's not really any advantage I see here that makes it demonstrably better than a presidential system.
It might be more the benefit of avoiding frequent and potentially fatal constitutional crises, while carrying the risk that the one effective branch of government temporarily falls to regressives...
Actually in a parliamentary system, Mc Connell or Ryan would be the PM...(How does one add "nightmare fuel" to a sentence?)
edited 11th Feb '17 8:55:26 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesedited 11th Feb '17 8:54:05 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Honestly, given what's happening in Britain right now, where a gibbering moron is PM, perhaps we can acknowledge that parliamentarian government has its weaknesses? For it to work in the US, you would probably need proportional representation, or you'd get a government even worse than the one we have now.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."As far as democracy goes, I'm not so sure that presidential vs parliamentary systems are a useful way of determining whether or not a country is suitably democratic in this modern era. They work differently and are subject to different pressures and failings, but I'm not really convinced either way has a substantive advantage over the other.
@Tobias: Without the electoral college, FPTP voting and heavily gerrymandered districts, that wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem. A parlimentary system with these things would be the worst of both worlds, but I'm already talking something that could only happen if we were forced to completely rewrite the constitution.
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Modern day Germany is more what I'm thinking of in terms of what a better political system for America would look like. France also has a hybrid of a presidential and parliamentary system, and while they may very well be about to elect a far right demagogue, the system functioned well enough for decades.
@Zephyr: Given what's happening in the United States right now, I'm not sure what your point is; parliamentary systems are of course prone to most of the same failures as presidential systems, but there are a few extremely problematic scenarios (executive-legislative deadlock being the biggest one) that are more or less precluded in such a system, and not any real areas where parlimentary system are more prone to breakdown than presidential systems, and as I said, this is something that would only be feasible if we suffered a total breakdown of constitutional democracy and had to put the system back together from scratch.
edited 11th Feb '17 9:28:22 AM by CaptainCapsase
Well, a parliamentary government usually involves parliament dancing after the executive's whistle a lot of time. Unless it's Japan or somesuch where a lot of political divides are drawn intraparty.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
It does, but the need to form coalitions in systems with proportional voting means that there are still significant checks on the PM's power except in a situation where one party achieves a super-majority coming from other parties within the majority coalition, and the compromises necessary for parties to agree to form a coalition.
edited 11th Feb '17 9:27:39 AM by CaptainCapsase
Going from the current "winner of popular state vote takes state's entire electoral college vote" system to a "state's entire electoral college vote goes to winner of national popular vote" isn't something that any given state legislature is likely to do, but it could definitely be done via ballot initiative or the like.
edited 11th Feb '17 9:41:58 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

edit: I should note that I'd also care more about the complaint that rural areas wouldn't be listened to if they didn't constantly vote against their interests. In my opinion not listening to them would probably be beneficial in the long run.
edited 11th Feb '17 7:34:53 AM by Kostya