The End Of A Republican Party

[Eric the Green]

Trickle-down vs. "tax and spend." Reaganoids take note!

[Eric the Green]

If the electoral college vote was distributed fairly, you'd never see another Republican in The White House.

[Eric the Green]

True, but in urban America you have smart Democrats, while in rural America you have dumb Republicans. The city people who run the show may live in urban America, but they don't have to votes to carry urban districts.

I don't necessarily oppose the current system. We could vote by congressional district, but in that case the federal government would need to certify that independent, non-partisan commissions have drawn districts in each state that are not gerrymandered, but represent a continuous district (just as is done in CA). Otherwise the presidency would be gerrymandered.

A straight-ahead popular vote is another alternative. It would mean that a candidate can't engineer an election by winning a few swing states, in which a relatively small number of swing voters in those states decide the election. On the other hand, voters might feel even more that their vote is just one in a million and makes little difference.

[Marypoza]

(07-21-2016, 11:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Could it be that Americans are so fed up with this system during a 4T that they will do what needs to be done, and become parliamentarians? With the other reforms along with it?

Enact a parliamentary system
Introduce proportional representation of parties in congress
Establish ranked-choice voting so your second choice counts
End gerrymandering
Take money out of politics

--good luck with that Eric

[Marypoza]

(08-08-2016, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: If the electoral college vote was distributed fairly, you'd never see another Republican in The White House.

-- oh wow. Hamilton Co is included in that ( that's where I live)

[Marypoza]

(07-23-2016, 09:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-23-2016, 03:46 PM)Anthony Wrote: Supply-side, trickle-down economics - like slamming on the door on immigration to create labor shortages that will send low-end wages into the ionosphere - then the semi-skilled demand a raise to maintain a differential, and after they get it, the highly skilled do the same - banning the outsourcing of jobs, and slapping tariffs on foreign-made goods?

Trump is a complete demand-sider - and an ardent advocate of trickle-up economics.

No, trickle-down economics is giving breaks to the rich in the hope benefits will trickle down. That's Trump's policy.

There is no immigration today, so only deportation will work for the Malthusian strategy. Even so, population increase has always been a pro-growth strategy that works. Trump opposes minimum wage hikes, just like Reagan/Bush-- which is why the benefits of supply-side tax and regulation policy didn't create a trickle-down effect.

To be a true demand-sider, Trump would have to be a Democrat, and oppose all those giveaways and tax relief to the rich. That's the essential ingredient. Trade and immigration policy don't make up for it.

Quote:--- but the Donald was a Dem..... until Bill convinced him to run as a repug

[The Wonkette]

(08-30-2016, 07:42 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(08-08-2016, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: If the electoral college vote was distributed fairly, you'd never see another Republican in The White House.

I'm surprised that Phoenix, AZ and Tuscon, AZ are not in there.  Ditto Vegas.

[Eric the Green]

(08-30-2016, 07:39 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(07-21-2016, 11:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Could it be that Americans are so fed up with this system during a 4T that they will do what needs to be done, and become parliamentarians? With the other reforms along with it?

Enact a parliamentary system
Introduce proportional representation of parties in congress
Establish ranked-choice voting so your second choice counts
End gerrymandering
Take money out of politics

--good luck with that Eric

Good luck to us all. It depends on how far we have the courage to go in a 4T!

[Eric the Green]

It could be that the map is a bit outdated, since those counties in NV and AZ have grown so fast in recent years.

In our current system, those who are active and concerned get flooded with emails and mails asking us for money to send to the campaigns in swing states (or even asking us to make remote calls) in order to convince a few swing voters in a few swing states to vote our way. We all participate, in that way; but it's a strange system. Which are the actual swing states somewhat fluctuates over time, but nowadays even that fluctuation has slowed down.

I guess, if you want to help decide the election with your vote, and you are honestly a swing voter, you could move to Ohio or Florida and your vote would count more there, and you'd be flooded with calls and people knocking on your door asking you to vote for somebody. What a life! The rub though, is that most swing voters are less interested in the election until the end anyway, so they might not feel it's all that important to move to Ohio to decide elections!

So what we have is a presidential election system in which the whole country is pulling at the collars of a few reluctant voters in a few states, and whoever pulls the hardest on these voters decides who is president!

[pbrower2a]

(08-08-2016, 04:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: True, but in urban America you have smart Democrats, while in rural America you have dumb Republicans. The city people who run the show may live in urban America, but they don't have to votes to carry urban districts.

I don't necessarily oppose the current system. We could vote by congressional district, but in that case the federal government would need to certify that independent, non-partisan commissions have drawn districts in each state that are not gerrymandered, but represent a continuous district (just as is done in CA). Otherwise the presidency would be gerrymandered.

A straight-ahead popular vote is another alternative. It would mean that a candidate can't engineer an election by winning a few swing states, in which a relatively small number of swing voters in those states decide the election. On the other hand, voters might feel even more that their vote is just one in a million and makes little difference.

Paradoxically, rural America outside of the Mountain and Deep South isn't that dumb. Rural areas can get good K-12 education fairly cheaply because of low costs of construction and low pay to teachers (urban schools have a difficult time keeping good teachers because teachers have a desirable skill set for much of private industry. Rural teachers have few viable options. What? Be a cashier in a box store or be a waiter?)

Rural areas of course have a brain-drain after K-12 education, probably due to the paucity of desirable job opportunities. Who wants to return to some rural area to milk cows, work in a store or a roadside motel, or work in some sweat shop food processor after getting a college degree? The cities and the suburbs have the desirable opportunities.

Voting by Congressional district? The Reactionary Party has pushed that in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia with districts so  gerrymandered that Republicans would get an advantage even if the states got Democratic majorities in the raw vote, even as much as 58-42, Republicans could get the majority of electoral votes. Congressional districts are artificial constructions, and voting for the President along such lines would be readily seen as capricious and arbitrary. Congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska make some sense for reasons other than division of power. The Reactionary Party of course would insist upon keeping winner-take-all in states that it expects to win.

I have my own idea for dividing the electoral votes, but it would be based heavily upon proportions. The idea is to make sure that minority interests get attention in Presidential politics, whether rural interests in Michigan or Wisconsin or blacks in the South. It's too complicated to offer here. In essence, whoever gets the plurality of votes gets the two electoral votes associated with the number of Senate seats and the other electoral votes are split in discrete numbers. Someone in a third-Party or independent campaign gets a vote share only if such is enough to get at least a fraction large enough to earn a full electoral vote. Otherwise such votes are ignored in the calculation. Fractional amounts go to the winner of the plurality. Thus in Massachusetts (12 electoral votes) if none of the  third-party or independent nominees get 10% of the vote and the Democrat and the Republican nominee splits the rest of the vote 62.4 - 37.6, then the Republican  gets three electoral votes for winning 30% but less than 40% of the relevant vote. The Democrat gets

2 electoral votes for winning the plurality of the vote
6 electoral votes for winning 60% but less than 70% of the popular vote relevant to the election, and the otherwise undistributed
1 electoral vote.

That is a 9-3 split, and Republicans could consider themselves lucky to get that many electoral votes in Massachusetts.

DC? It would be pure proportional voting.

States with fewer than six electoral votes could vote based upon districts; it is hard to gerrymander four or fewer Congressional districts. "Stuff the sack" gerrymandering as in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia should not decide the election; it is in effect as if the State legislatures decide how the states vote, which is a perversion of what could have ever been intended.

[Anthony '58]

But how did Republicans get control of these state legislatures in order to do all this gerrymandering?

It has largely happened as the result of a "hardhat" backlash against left-liberal idiocy; e.g., Democrats stonewalling death penalty and "three strikes" laws, and Jessica's Law, etc.; and, in California, indexing the grand theft/petty theft boundary to the Consumer Price Index.

[playwrite]

(09-01-2016, 09:35 AM)Anthony Wrote: But how did Republicans get control of these state legislatures in order to do all this gerrymandering?

It has largely happened as the result of a "hardhat" backlash against left-liberal idiocy; e.g., Democrats stonewalling death penalty and "three strikes" laws, and Jessica's Law, etc.; and, in California, indexing the grand theft/petty theft boundary to the Consumer Price Index.

"Get control" is where you're not getting it.

Unless you believe the GOP has the same type of people running it as it was in Lincoln's time.

Give it some thought; it's really not that complicated.

[David Horn]

(08-30-2016, 11:12 AM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 07:42 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(08-08-2016, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: If the electoral college vote was distributed fairly, you'd never see another Republican in The White House.

I'm surprised that Phoenix, AZ and Tuscon, AZ are not in there.  Ditto Vegas.

Just guessing, but population density is probably the key.  All those cities sit in very large counties, yet two smaller cities in Virginia, Lynchburg and Roanoke, make the list because Virginia has independent cites separate from counties.

[pbrower2a]

(09-01-2016, 03:49 PM)Public services, including law enforcement and K-12 education, do not come cheaply. David Horn Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 11:12 AM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 07:42 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(08-08-2016, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: If the electoral college vote was distributed fairly, you'd never see another Republican in The White House.

-

I'm surprised that Phoenix, AZ and Tuscon, AZ are not in there.  Ditto Vegas.

Just guessing, but population density is probably the key.  All those cities sit in very large counties, yet two smaller cities in Virginia, Lynchburg and Roanoke, make the list because Virginia has independent cites separate from counties.

Population density, most likely. Also missing are Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, which include some of the very urban parts of Greater Los Angeles, but also huge tracts of thinly-populated desert, very Democratic-voting counties. I can't assume that the huge tracts of deserts of those counties are very Democratic in their voting. Clark County in Nevada (Greater Las Vegas) is much the same, and I would not guess how places in Clark County with more rattlesnakes than people vote. As a general rule, the denser the population is, the more that people must put up with large, intrusive, costly government. With few obvious exceptions (Allen County, Indiana; suburbs surrounding Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta; the two metro areas of Oklahoma) these are rather liberal-voting areas for their regions. Even Salt Lake City is very liberal by Utah standards. Question: why are Oklahoma City and Tulsa so Republican-voting?

Public services which might be fairly inexpensive in rural areas, including law enforcement and K-12 education, do not come cheaply in urban areas. Teachers have plenty of lucrative alternatives in urban areas (like sales, for which teachers have practically an ideal skill set), and if the community underpays the cops it will surely experience massive corruption in the police force because organized crime can easily supplement the meager income of a city cop. Transportation is more expensive; a four-lane freeway might be far more than is necessary for local needs anywhere on Interstate 90 west of Madison, Wisconsin except for Greater Seattle, but it would be fully inadequate as a main route in any giant city. Widening any road is relatively cheap in rural areas because abutting property to be condemned is relatively cheap, but it is not so cheap to expand an eight-lane expressway in northeastern New Jersey from wight lanes to ten (one in each direction) as it is to build a four-lane freeway in a rural area in which a two-lane blacktop is adequate. Even in personal matters, you can reasonably trust that one can walk one's dog around corn fields without using a pooper-scooper. Do not try that in a city. Urban government is costlier and more intrusive, but cities have the opportunities that rural areas don't. Who wants to return to a rural area with a college degree to be a farm laborer or to be a checker-cashier should such be all that is available?

The New York Times had an interactive device (the Election Tool) connecting demographics to the Obama victory in 2008. Sixty-three political entities alone determined that Barack Obama would win the election, and the rest of America went for John McCain. To be sure, Barack Obama was a horrible candidate for winning rural America, picking up rural communities only if they had large proportions of minority voters (this held as true in Alabama as in Minnesota). Those 63 communities were the most densely-populated counties, cities not within counties, and the District of Columbia. Population density overpowered income and even ethnicity. (Education? Barack Obama did better the higher the level of education was, inverting the usual common wisdom about the connection between education and political conservatism).

But only 63 communities? Those were the most densely-populated such polities in America, and they included the obvious. Counties included the famous independent cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Arlington, Alexandria, St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco; the boroughs of New York City (except Richmond, which barely went for McCain) and most surrounding counties in the Tri-State; the giant metropolises of the West Coast, Greater Boston, the densely-populated metropolises of Florida; the densely-populated cities on I-75 from Louisville to Cleveland and the burgeoning cities of North Carolina; the Flint-Detroit-Toledo triangle; Indianapolis; Chicagoland; Milwaukee; the Twin Cities; Atlanta; Dallas; Houston... this also included such comparatively small entities as Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, and Fredericksburg in Virginia that do not pass my spell-check* that went Democratic. But this is where the people live, the part of America that does not qualify as the "Real America" of Sarah Palin. Americans are where the very artificial concrete and asphalt are, and not where the grain fields, cattle pastures, and tracts of lumber are. A few of those counties did go Republican (Orange County in California, Tarrant County in Texas, DeKalb County in Georgia, and the oddity of Colonial Heights, Virginia, which appears as an 'independent city'). Those 63 polities were enough to give Barack Obama the election. If Hillary Clinton should win, then it will be because she won much the same communities by similar or even larger margins. I see no indication that she is doing any better in Rural America than Barack Obama.

Some of the poorest counties in America went heavily Republican -- if they were predominantly white, as in parts of Kentucky that look like Third-World locations. But such famously rich communities as Loudoun County in Virginia, Westchester County in New York, Stamford County in Connecticut, and Marin and Santa Clara Counties in California went to Obama. The only really-rural state that went to Obama was Vermont.

*Spell-check simply fails to recognize towns too small to get recognition on their own unless they share their name with another significant community (as in Cleveland, Texas; California, Pennsylvania; or Warsaw, Indiana), the name of someone famous, including saints (Webster, New York; Churchill, Manitoba; San Pedro, California; Clinton, Oklahoma); or words that would pass spell check automatically (Poplar Bluff, Missouri; Cripple Creek, Colorado), or just simply common given names or surnames (Douglas, Arizona; Frederick, Maryland) . As an example, Paragould, Arkansas has a population of nearly 20,000 people, but it does not spell check unless you wish to add it to the list of correct spellings.

[pbrower2a]

(08-08-2016, 11:54 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trickle-down vs. "tax and spend." Reaganoids take note!

Scott Walker was not going to win in November. He would have been hit hard on economic performance of his state, a state that he has tried to convert into a veritable colony for the Koch syndicate that he has so well served.

[Eric the Green]

Maricopa County (Phoenix) is a large county with lots of wilderness areas like Tonto, and the Barry Goldwater gunnery range (how charming).

http://maps.mcassessor.maricopa.gov/

[Eric the Green]

[Eric the Green]

(09-02-2016, 11:59 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Maricopa County (Phoenix) is a large county with lots of wilderness areas like Tonto, and the Barry Goldwater gunnery range (how charming).

http://maps.mcassessor.maricopa.gov/

Hey, two places for the Lone Ranger! Maricopa County! Spend your summer days in the blistering heat of campaign rhetoric and immigrant bashing! And lots of guns available! Put on your mask and go for it! Like a phoenix rising from the ashes!

[Anthony '58]

Reforming the Electoral College to award electoral votes by congressional district would work only if every state did this concomitantly; otherwise, Republicans would game the system by pushing for doing this is blue states but not in red states.

To be settled at a constitutional convention?

[Odin]

(09-02-2016, 11:59 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Maricopa County (Phoenix) is a large county with lots of wilderness areas like Tonto, and the Barry Goldwater gunnery range (how charming).

http://maps.mcassessor.maricopa.gov/

It also has a lot of old, bigoted retired white people who are terrified of "The Mexicans".