Another OT…but it at least does touch on Democracy being exploited…this just gets sicker and sicker. As some have said up above, how Capitalism, Fascism, and wealth/money all converge at the top…Pots O’ Money are what the wealthy and Republicans are ALL ABOUT. Just ask Skeletor Rick Scott. They see or find pots of money, or cause them (through lobbying or legislation) to be created…then they loot and drain them. So much easier than scraping around and scheming and grifting off people the old-fashioned way by EARNING it, scamming different individuals and organizations in serial fashion. Find where it has all been funneled into a big pot and then the feeding frenzy is ON.
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Another threat to democracy. Holding the tacit assumption, particularly in the news media, that all ideas no matter whether they are reasonable or bonkers, empirically correct or unsubstantiated opinion are all equally valid all the time.
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¯_(ツ)_/¯
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That’s what they mean when they say “truth.”
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Thanks for this. How come TPM isn’t reporting on this?
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It’s not just that; it’s that much of what needs to be reformed simply cannot be done through an amendment; it’s either impossible in a practical sense, or impossible because the Constitution itself disallows it. One problem is the equal state representation in the Senate. It was never a great idea (and it is significant that both Franklin and Madison didn’t like it one bit), but in 1787, the “small states” not only managed to get that protection of their power written into the Constitution, they also somehow managed to get a clause inserted into Article 5 (which deals with the amendment process) “that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” (That was tacked onto the clause which forbade any restrictions on the international slave trade before 1808, which makes me suspicious that it was something that got thoroughly debated. Or that if anyone objected, that one of the small state representatives stood up and said, “See? See? They are going to start chopping away at our influence the minute this Constitution is ratified! We cannot trust them!”)
The Electoral College is not so baldly protected, but does anyone think that we could get 3/4 of the states to vote to ditch it and go with popular election of the president?
It will take a new constitutional convention to clean up the worst of the problems, and I have little faith that people who have the wisdom, the judgement, and the devotion to civic duty of Benjamin Franklin or James Madison or Alexander Hamilton are going to be the ones appointed to be in the room this time around.
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Autocracies probably evolved to protect the wealthy.
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and vs burning fossil fuels to make more electricity.
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Actually, no, the Electoral College has been a problem almost from the beginning. (And the only reason not from the very beginning, is that it was pretty much a given that Washington was going to be elected president unanimously, so there was nothing particularly contentious to cause problems.)
But the 1796 election gave us a president of one party and a vice-president of the opposite party. That wa distinctly uncomfortable. This introduced the practice of party tickets.
The election of 1800 resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr because the Democratic-Republican electors didn’t have the wit to ensure that Jefferson got at least one more vote than Burr, who was supposed to be running for Vice-President. This threw the election into the House of Representatives, where each state had one vote, the winning candidate needing a total of 9 of the 16 states to win. They voted 35 separate times, each time resulting each in 8 votes for Jefferson, 6 votes for Burr, with both the Maryland and Vermont delegations equally divided and unable to cast a vote for one or the other. Finally on the 36th ballot, lobbying by Alexander Hamilton, who hated both candidates, but feared Jefferson (with “wrong” principles) less than Burr (with no principles), the vote went 10-4 for Jefferson. This election resulted in the 12 Amendment to the Constitution.
The 1876 election was a mess thanks to competing slates from several Southern states, and no candidate having a clear majority in the EC. Finally, Southerners struck a backroom deal that they would throw their votes to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes (who had lost the popular vote to Samuel Tilden) if he would agree to withdraw Union troops from the Southern states still under their occupation and end Reconstruction.
Other elections won by the candidate who lost the popular vote:
1824 - Andrew Jackson lost to John Quincy Adams (I think that was another deal crafted in the House)
1888 - Grover Cleveland to Benjamin Harrison (Cleveland was the incumbant; he was elected to a second term by defeating Harrison in 1892)
2000 - Al Gore lost to George W. Bush
2016 - Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump
Five elections in total lost to the winner of the popular vote since the 12th Amendment “fixed” the Electoral College problem that resulted in two other very messy elections.
What else might you expect for an idea that came out of the Constitutional Convention’s Committee of Leftovers?
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There are huge remedies available short of amendment.
The Electoral vote problem can be mitigated by making it representative. More seats in the house. Add DC, as a state.
Then Legislation to outlaw gerrymandering.
Adding seat to SC To solve today’s fascist 5 problem.
That gets us 75% the way
Unfortunately this all requires the political will to do so on the part of the Democrats
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So, you agree that the Electoral College is legitimate, and that the winner of that vote has greater legitimacy than the winner of the popular vote?
In other words, your only real quarrel with our current set-up is that the winner of the popular vote isn’t given a really nice consolation prize?
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It should be easy-peasy! Thank god that the GQP is happy to help with the heavy lifting, and that the states they control will absolutely cede their legal rights to control elections if Joe Biden just asks nicely enough!
Do you work full-time as a political advisor, or is it a part-time gig?
Because there’s a lot going on in the world, and TPM isn’t the NYT? I don’t understand the number of people here who subscribe to a news organization they don’t actually like or respect.
Maybe people could have a whip 'round to fund the salaries of a few more reporters?
Great point!
New to my list is the reporting of so-and-so “doubling down” on some ludicrous point. We’re also subject to concerned reports of tripling and even quadrupling down.
That’s not just lazy reporting, it reflects a bias toward lunacy.
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Right.
I get pretty frustrated with folks who like to compare the enviro-footprint of green energy or EV cars, etc. when they overlook one of the most obvious issues…contained vs dispersed pollution/waste.
Being stuck with a pile of waste/end product isn’t ideal, but it is 1000 times better than turning it into some form of smoke or mixing it into soil/water and kissing it goodbye. Also, every kind of burning turns breathable air into a poison at huge rates. Not only do you now have burnt hydrocarbons in the air (and who knows what else), but you had to burn 1000 times more oxygen than fuel to achieve the goal. We are not in an open-ended system.
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No. Humanity is what it is, and other, arguably more democratic states have been happy to do the whole keep-political-forces-we-don’t-like-out-of-our-sphere-of-influence thing. Human beings are pretty awesome, but our darker nature is hard to control.
P.S. Define “democracy,” then explain why your definition is more correct than anyone else’s.
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Maybe people could have a whip 'round to fund the salaries of a few more reporters?
Didnt TPM just have a journalism fund drive a few months back? TPM is a boutique site with diverse, informed, and amusing members. It will never grow beyond that, never be Mother Jones. And without the laughs there’s nothing special about TPM.
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I’m supporting the service. I’ll listen to what the TPM folks have to say on this, thanx.
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Wow. Actually, TPM has been special for a long time. It’s changed a lot. Many of the folks who actually pay for the service don’t bother commenting in these forums…
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The Trump cult is a suicide pact . . . that may kill us all.
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