US Elections 2020

[Jalpha]

This one.

I'm not paying a huge amount of attention but this broadcaster has seemed a bit biased toward Biden, hence me asking. I read a couple of paragraphs and it was all like "Florida could change everything" whatever that means.

[AntiBlitz]

the electoral college system is fine, and working as intended.

this entire thread is cancer, I wouldnt bother reading the past 4 pages, full of misinformation, and general euro crying.

[mvgulik]

"Florida could change everything" whatever that means.

Wow, you don't know.

In a nutshell.
Per state the voter result become electoral points (winner takes all principle). And Florida has the most electoral points of all (+swing states) states.

[MagicManICT]

full of misinformation,

What, exactly, is misinformation that hasn't been called out as bullshit? If you got a correction for something, let's hear it.

the electoral college system is fine, and working as intended.

Maybe? There was a lot of writing about what it should and shouldn't do, but very little of that made it into the US Constitution.


@jalpha: I've been following the US ABC news feed myself. Different broadcasters and experts might call some states earlier than others. Florida might tighten up after mail-in and absentee ballots are counted and after close precincts get reported. As of the moment I'm posting this, Trump leads it. The most populated areas are always the last to report, though, and tend to be strongly Dem.

In a nutshell.
Per state the voter result become electoral points (winner takes all principle). And Florida has the most electoral points of all states.

California has the most (50+) electoral votes, followed by Texas and New York (around 32 each), with Florida and Pennsylvania at 4th and 5th with around 25 each (I'd have to check the current map). Florida is very split with very strong red areas and very strong blue areas. The 2000 election was decided by around 537 in Florida, which got bounced around the courts so much, it was worse than watching a tennis match while sitting on the net. Just as an FYI, Cal has been blue since Clinton, maybe slightly before that, NY has been blue since.... FDR, before? Texas has been red since Nixon. Florida has been one of the battleground states for many election cycles now, and the one with the most electoral votes. It's watched because of the recent and distant history in the state and elections (Jim Crow laws, elections being too close to call multiple times, etc.)

edit: went and looked up current electoral map, Florida and New York are 29, Penn is 20, California is 55, Texas is 38.

[mvgulik]

And Florida has the most electoral points of all states.

California has the most (50+) electoral votes

Oops. Think that probably should have been "... of all swing states".

[dafels]

I think the only solution for America is the dissolution of the country into smaller countries. The big monolith country is too divided and unstable. Every state has their own unique problems and a state should not be overpowered by some other state on the other side of the country, dissolution would give more power to the local government and less vulnerable to the corporations being entangled with the local policies. Having only 1 president doesn't make sense for all 50 states. Ofcourse, the status quo would do everything to not lose this massive power because they are power greedy fucks. Any American cheering for their government or being a fanboy for politicians is a clown.

[MagicManICT]

I think the only solution for America is the dissolution of the country into smaller countries.

Even if it was good for the people, it'd take less than a century before we had the kinds of wars--military, trade, or otherwise--you see going on in the rest of the world over natural resources.

Having only 1 president doesn't make sense for all 50 states.

Thank god that doesn't actually exist. Every state has their own government system that can be almost as autonomous from the US as they want. (Look at California.) The office of president has only so much power. The real power in the US is congress, but they can't act autonomously. They have to work together with the president to get things done. Also, it's only when congress fails to act that the president can grab power for the office. The courts can't do anything if nobody makes a legal challenge. They don't have that kind of authority or power. It's a screwball system, but somehow it has risen to world dominance... probably because no one person can break it--it takes a committee of fools to do so.

What, exactly are the powers of the president?
1) Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces... yet he can't commit troops anywhere for more than a given period of time without congressional approval (or failure of congress to act to stop him... or congress is stupid enough to give the president an open ended resolution for the use of military power).
2) Veto legislation passed by congress... yet congress can overrule the president and force it into law if they have enough votes.
3) Nominate, not appoint, judges. They have to be approved by the Senate (congress).
4) Negotiate treaties as head of state... yet all treaties must be approved... by congress.
There's a few other powers and privileges assigned to the president, some important, some more or less inconsequential, some a little of both (like the power of a pardon... sometimes is a person wrongly convicted of a crime, other times it's simple clemency, yet others it could be used to pardon co-conspirators, former boss, or even a traitor to the state.)

So yeah... thank God we don't have a single president to rule over the United States.

[MagicManICT]

Sorry for the double post, but wanted to share an interesting opinion piece from The Guardian. It's titled "OK, America, so what the hell happens now?" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... appens-now

[mvgulik]

Separation of power is the part that protects democracies from becoming a dictatorship, longer than all other systems without it. (Which is more or less the main reason why most socialism and communism systems failed. ie: Power being hijacked, from the start, by a single person or group, and nothing else. (ever seen a dictatorial country calling itself a dictatorship! I haven't!))

But democracies, although better protected against this power grabbing, is not immune to it. As can be seen around the world (including the USA of course).

Separation of power is something that requires vigilance to spot, and to deal with, new unbalancing power levels. As power has a general intrinsic feature of always trying to grow more powerful. The other feature is of course that power has a high tendency to corrupt.

... "The people get the government they deserve" ...
(Not that the most power is still inside governments now a days (dictatorships excluded of course). It has outgrown them thanks to the evangelism of capitalism, helped by global commerce)

[Potjeh]

Separation of power doesn't do anything if same donors buy all the branches.