You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[A Black Falcon]

The Trump Administration's move to kill the ban on health plans raising prices or denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions is one of the more directly evil things this administration has done, I think. It's something which has no benefit for anyone except for Trump's deluded, I-must-destroy-all-Obama-accomplishments racist brain, and will kill people if enacted. Truly despicable.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well of course it was carefully designed. We're talking about mathematical theory here, it always ALWAYS is. That's precisely the point. That said, you're right, ranked choice voting (whatever variation is used) beats winner take all by a large margin.

I don't think cardinal voting would confuse people that much. It's basically how Olympic judges score people, and if explained in those terms I think it would work.

[A Black Falcon]

I kind of wonder, how do the Trump people keep coming up with these new, even more hatefully cruel ideas? Now they are seriously taking two year old children away from their parents and locking them up in private prisons? Really? In 2018 America? What have we come to...

[Dark Jaguar]

It's what they have been threatening to do for over a year, they just finally did it.

"The Democrats made this law!" Then why hasn't anyone enforced it until now? Show me the law. Show me this magic law you claim exists.

"The Bible says laws must be obeyed." Ok, first of all our laws aren't based on the bible except perhaps in the form of some inspiration, so who cares what it says? If we go off the Bible, god picks our monarch, and we obey. I don't understand how someone can reconcile democracy with theocracy. It's either one or the other. Decide.

Second of all, and more fundamentally, that's not a justification for your order to exist in the first place. Saying "the law must be obeyed" says nothing about WHICH laws should exist. If the law is monstrous, change the law.

"They're here illegally and- " I'm going to cut you off right there. There is literally no argument for this. If your position is "separate children from parents that have done no harm to them", you're wrong. Full stop. No argument can justify it. If you think it can, then let me ask you this. If you followed a series of rational arguments that concluded irrefutably that the only rational course of action, right now, this very second, is to gouge your mother's eyes out, would you? Well unless you're a psychopath, I'm guessing no, because at root level, we are not creatures of pure logic. If logic demanded such a thing, we would all gladly throw out logic in favor of empathy. Well, I don't believe for a moment logic "demands" we separate children from their parents, but even if it did I would STILL say that it's wrong, that logic itself is wrong.

[Dark Jaguar]

[Dark Jaguar]

This is who we are.

[A Black Falcon]

So Trump signed an executive order ending this practice, crisis over!

... Except that it doesn't free any of the imprisoned children, much less reunite them with their parents... not that they kept track of which children arrived with which children anyway (there was a very disturbing article making this point), so how would they even do that?

... Or that it's being paired with a lawsuit to end the current 20 day limit on holding children, so the administration can hold immigrant children and families indefinitely in private prisons?

And surely more?

I really hope that the press doesn't act like he did something good here.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's officially an internment camp. Let's just hope Trump doesn't eventually try to figure out some "final solution". His would be so much worse, like shipping them all to a deserted island to starve to death.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, as far as Nazi analogues go we're somewhere around 1933, probably. Trump better be stopped before he starts the serious, North Korea-style dissident roundups that he so obviously wishes he could do...

He probably WILL be stopped before that point -- things are still looking fairly good for a Democratic win in November, for starters -- but he'd better be stopped. Because his racism runs very deep.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh, in other news, it took a week (which is too long) but late last Tuesday night they finally managed to finish the ranked-choice vote count for the Democratic candidate for governor here in Maine. The person who had been in the lead after the first round (which had its results announced on election day)Janet Mills, won overall, though it wasn't a foregone conclusion; it took all the way until all other candidates had been eliminated to get a final result, and it was about 54-46 so it was competitive.

More here: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/06/21/h...-outcomes/ In the article several candidates say that one result was a much less combative campaign than there would have been with a regular vote, which makes sense; anger another candidate's supporters and they might rank you below some of the other candidates as their secondary choices, after all, so people were nicer than they otherwise would have been. That's another good outcome of ranked choice voting, I think.

[A Black Falcon]

So Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell's pretty-much-stolen Supreme Court seat has given them results again, most notably support for Trump's horrible Muslim ban. Elections have consequences, as is always said...

It's also a reminder, thanks to that, even if the Dems win back the House and Senate either this year or soon, there is likely to be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for quite some time to come. Pleasant. Still, winning back the House is incredibly important, and the Dems can do it and should, if gerrymandering doesn't stop them. We'll see later this year...

[Dark Jaguar]

Ugh that supreme court thing. I think I've said this before but if the law specificallly required the legislature to consider ALL presidential nominees in the order they are submitted, regardless of whether the president is still in office, then this would not be an issue. I had thought of a bunch of exceptions like "death" and such, but frankly that just makes the consideration process much quicker, so nah, no need for such things.

[A Black Falcon]

... and then Justice Kennedy retired and the court situation got a whole lot worse. There have been rumors of Kennedy retiring for at least a year now, and while he didn't do it last year he did this year. A lot of people are really upset about this, because this means the court is probably lost to the left for decades, and that is probably true. Court decisions will probably be a major drag against needed change for a long time.

However, that already was true! Kennedy usually votes with the right, after all. Swing justice Anthony Kennedy is rarely a swing justice, as was seen in this term, where he decided with the conservatives on pretty much every issue, making for a horrendous term filled with really bad decisions. I have always thought that the "swing justice Kennedy" thing was overhyped, as outside of gay rights he's not much of a swing justice, he's pretty much just a conservative. Now, gay rights is a very important issue and it could be at threat here, as could abortion to name the other most important issue Kennedy voted for but a replacement will probably want to ban, but most of the time? Kennedy voted the same way that any replacement of Trump's will.

So yeah, it's really bad, but it has been for a while. Looking back, the key moments for getting us this right-wing court were the retirement that brought Clarence Thomas to the court in 1991, when longtime left-wing justice Thurgood Marshall retired during the Bush I administration, flipping the court, and the retirement that solidified the conservative majority by making not-very-swingey Kennedy the centermost justice of the majority in 2004, when Sandra Day O'Connor, who by the way is still alive and was the most moderate of the conservatives by a good margin, retired and was replaced with the very-far-right Justice Alito. This retirement may end up being more consequential than the O'Connor retirement, or it may not, but I definitely don't think it will match the impact of Marshall being replaced by Thomas... Kennedy was too far right on most issues for him being replaced by someone even farther right to have that kind of impact.

That said, I am not downplaying how bad this is for a few issues, most notably abortion. It's really bad for that. But outside of social issues this will just continue on the trend we saw with the court this year, probably.

[Dark Jaguar]

The problem with the democratic party is they get way too complacent and play things far too "safe" even when they have literally everything. The first two years of Obama's presidency he should have leaned in HARD. I'm sick of lukewarm democratic candidates, and so is everyone else if the recent elections are to be believed. Run all the way, or not at all.

[A Black Falcon]

What, actually try to get liberal policies enacted? But that might alienate the Republicans, we can't do that!


On the Supreme Court note, I'm seeing two trains of thought about Anthony Kennedy -- something along the lines of what I said above, that he never really was moderate and apart from a few issues this probably will not change much about the Supreme Court's rulings, or emphasis on how important the few issues he did rule with the liberals are.

Daily Kos, in this article, listed some reasons on that latter point, why missing Kennedy will be awful: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/...-democracy They have five issues of note, beyond the obvious ones of abortion and perhaps also gay rights: voting rights, two points on gerrymandering, ballot initiatives, and campaign finance. And there are some good points in the article; Kennedy was very bad on all five of these issues, but a Trump appointee is likely to be even more radical on all of them and that could be very bad. The potential for overturning Roe v. Wade is also a major issue.

However, while those things matter a lot, for the most part Kennedy was very conservative. Apart from social issues he was no moderate, and that someone as far right as he is is the "moderate" on this court shows just how extreme this court is. And on that point, see this article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018...l_dt_tw_ru This short article considers why Kennedy went right this term and decided to gift Trump with his court seat. The question of why someone who claimed to care about civility in politics would decide to support Trump is a good one, but he has. Some of the reason is surely that Trump is a Republican and Kennedy is over 80 years old now and wanted to retire and be replaced with another conservative.

But is that it? And on THAT note... well, for a year now there have been stories about Trump's efforts to befriend Kennedy and convince him to retire. Now, though, that story is a lot worse, as it came out that Kennedy's son Justin is a banker with Deutsche Bank who helped Trump get a billion dollars in loans when he was nearly bankrupt, saving his business: https://www.salon.com/2018/06/29/did-ant...1-billion/ It sounds like Justin Kennedy was far from the only one at Deutsche Bank involved in the loan, but still, Trump mentioning it is open and clear corruption I think.

[Weltall]

I wish I could be optimistic about the Democrats' chances this fall, but I really do think people on the left are overestimating how much electoral value they will get out of not being Donald Trump's party, and even if they aren't, it's still the same old party run by the same old habitual losers.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm already hearing rumblings of democratic house members in red states "pushed" to vote for trump's candidate so they don't lose. Which, of course, will make them lose because they are betraying their base to cater to a group that hates them.

[A Black Falcon]

I wish I could be optimistic about the Democrats' chances this fall, but I really do think people on the left are overestimating how much electoral value they will get out of not being Donald Trump's party,

I think that the Democrats will definitely get a lot more votes for both House and Senate than the Republicans. They will also definitely gain seats in the House, and probably will gain a lot of seats. Meanwhile, because of the incredibly bad map, Democrats will probably end up down a seat or two in the Senate, and that's if things go well. It'd be incredible if we end up at 49 or even 50 seats, and I very much hope it happens, but that will be pretty unlikely.

For the House particularly, the hard question is if all of the momentum and energy will be enough to overcome the Republicans' gerrymandered and built-in advantages, and that's a question nobody will know until after the election. There's a good chance the Dems take the House though and that would be fantastic. All it takes is people actually going out there and voting, and so far people have been doing that...

and even if they aren't, it's still the same old party run by the same old habitual losers.

I can't deny this though, yeah. The Democrats are very good at giving in and not really trying to win, that's for sure... it gives Republicans some big advantages. It is a solvable problem, but not easily -- after all, part of the issue is that Dems actually still believe in government, so doing Republican-style actions to blow up the system for purely partisan gain are much harder to get people to do...

I'm already hearing rumblings of democratic house members in red states "pushed" to vote for trump's candidate so they don't lose. Which, of course, will make them lose because they are betraying their base to cater to a group that hates them.

I don't think so, in states like West Virginia the only way to win is to get a LOT of Trump voters to vote for the Democratic Senate candidate. They will definitely have a hard choice to make or Kavanaugh; on the one hand he's horrible on a lot of fronts, including presidential power (when the President is a Republican anyway), voting rights, abortion, etc, etc, but on the other hand he isn't a Trump-style crazy, he's a traditional conservative judge. Also some of the red-state Democrats voted for Trump's last nominee, so this one will probably get some votes also.

Anyway, the only case where it actually matters how they vote is one where two Republicans are going to vote with the Democrats to defeat Kavanaugh. If the Dems thing they've somehow actually flipped two Republicans, absolutely, push all the red-state Dems as hard as possible to vote against him! But with the way the Republicans are talking that sounds unlikely, so pressing red state Democrats to make a tough vote that won't actually stop the nomination probably doesn't make sense. When you know how the vote is going to go votes are sometimes about strategy, not only what people think on the issues...

[Weltall]

I don't think so, in states like West Virginia the only way to win is to get a LOT of Trump voters to vote for the Democratic Senate candidate.

I feel like Democrats are doomed to the margins in red states as long as they believe that a failure rate >0% makes a strategy acceptable. There is such extreme reluctance to even try anything different that it makes the party seem to find failure acceptable and that they are content with their second-place status. If you're going to lose an election anyway, at least take the opportunity to display some principles and help normalize left-wing policies by giving them a visible platform especially on economic issues. It won't work right away, but there's no other way to ever effect real change, and the current strategy of being Republican-lite is objectively futile.

Conservative Democratic candidates in red states should only be allowed to run when their overall chance of winning is strong. Keeping a seat out of Republican hands is the only purpose they serve anyone, so they should be sent packing if they do not pose a legitimate threat to do so.

[Dark Jaguar]

If a democrat has to vote republican to stay in office, they are no better than republicans, strategy be damned.

[A Black Falcon]

Fortunately, even the most conservative Democrats in the Senate vote with the Dems a whole lot more than any potential Republican who would replace them would. And that's what people do wrong when they focus too much on the votes Manchin and such take against the Dems -- most of the time he votes with his party, and any Republican in that seat would have a VERY different voting record.

I feel like Democrats are doomed to the margins in red states as long as they believe that a failure rate >0% makes a strategy acceptable. There is such extreme reluctance to even try anything different that it makes the party seem to find failure acceptable and that they are content with their second-place status. If you're going to lose an election anyway, at least take the opportunity to display some principles and help normalize left-wing policies by giving them a visible platform especially on economic issues. It won't work right away, but there's no other way to ever effect real change, and the current strategy of being Republican-lite is objectively futile.

Conservative Democratic candidates in red states should only be allowed to run when their overall chance of winning is strong. Keeping a seat out of Republican hands is the only purpose they serve anyone, so they should be sent packing if they do not pose a legitimate threat to do so.

On the Senate side, there are ten Democrats in the Senate running for re-election in states Trump won. These people are already Senators, so I don't think it would make any sense at all to primary them and throw away any incumbent advantage they have in favor of a "purer" candidate who would be much less likely to win. Now, how likely are they to win? Polling is sparse, but in what polling there is, most are currently favored. Going by the polls I've seen so far, we could well go 7-3 in those ten races, or better if we're lucky. The most endangered Democrats are the ones in Indiana, North Dakota, and Florida, it seems, followed by Missouri.

As for offense, there are only four target states, and one, Texas, is an extremely unlikely edge case. The real targets are Arizona and Nevada, with Tennesee as a "we hope that maybe it could actually go well" race and Texas as, well, a very unlikely one worth the try anyway because beating Ted Cruz would be fantastic. Texas is the only one of these races I'd say we are "probably going to lose anyway". There are going to be a lot more races like that at the US House and state levels, though, of course, lots of races in very red districts often against incumbents, and I'm sure some here and there have farther-left candidates... not that many are likely to win, but we can hope!

But anyway, candidates are chosen by primaries, so if the people of those states wanted far-left candidates they'd win... but they don't, most of the time, except for in more liberal districts like the one in New York recently. Candidates aren't "allowed" to win anymore, like they were back when candidates were chosen in back rooms it's up to the voters.

I agree that there are plenty of more liberal issues that need to get more normalized in this country though, and doing so is hard, yes. It needs to happen, and some of the liberal movement we're seeing now, with voter enthusiasm way up on the left and lots of people running for races in an off year, is quite promising. But right now, facing the deficit we are, we need to win first, and attack other liberals less... the left is very good at infighting, unfortunately...

[Dark Jaguar]

Do you honestly believe that wooing diehard republicans is the way to get anything done? It's a fundamental betrayal to vote to allow that judge, full stop. Do you really believe that when voting time comes, the dems they still depend on are just going to forget and roll over?

Moral conviction means taking a risky road sometimes. Screw doing the wrong thing for strategy, that is THE problem with the democratic party, and if you don't see that this is a small example of the larger problem you yourself admitted they have, I don't know what to say except that this is why independents aren't passionate about the democratic party. They don't stick to their guns like the republicans do.

[Dark Jaguar]

Do you honestly believe that wooing diehard republicans is the way to get anything done? It's a fundamental betrayal to vote to allow that judge, full stop. Do you really believe that when voting time comes, the dems they still depend on are just going to forget and roll over?

Moral conviction means taking a risky road sometimes. Screw doing the wrong thing for strategy, that is THE problem with the democratic party, and if you don't see that this is a small example of the larger problem you yourself admitted they have, I don't know what to say except that this is why independents aren't passionate about the democratic party. They don't stick to their guns like the republicans do. If they make this vote, they don't deserve to stay in power. Full stop. That's it.

[A Black Falcon]

No, most diehard Republicans are, sadly, probably beyond hope at the moment. But do the Dems have an actual chance of stopping this nomination? If we could we probably should, but there's no way to do that without getting not only all the Dems onboard, but at least two Republicans. And I don't see Susan Collins actually standing up for anything enough to vote against this guy, sadly, though it'd be awesome if it happens.

They don't stick to their guns like the republicans do. If they make this vote, they don't deserve to stay in power. Full stop. That's it.

If something is going to happen anyway, releasing your members to vote the way that is most politically expedient for them is a common tactic on both sides and it makes sense.

[Dark Jaguar]

I've been hearing rumblings of dissatisfied republicans at higher levels wanting to leave the party. More importantly, don't give up the fight before it's even started. That is THE critical problem with the democratic party. Dare, DARE!

[A Black Falcon]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/39702...court-vote

Kavanaugh is probably, sadly, getting through, though this has always been the case. We shouldn't give up on stopping him -- the guy is a hyper-partisan hack who was involved as a lawyer on many of the major political legal cases of the last 20 years, including the Starr report, Bush v. Gore, Elian Gonzales, and more -- but... without the filibuster anymore or a Senate majority, what's the path to stopping this? Getting Republicans to vote against a Republican who isn't really a diehard Trump person, but instead a committed Republican party member? We should try, but how likely is that to succeed...

I've been hearing rumblings of dissatisfied republicans at higher levels wanting to leave the party.

I'd sure hope at least SOME of them would have misgivings about supporting America's enemies, but it seems like a select few these days...

[A Black Falcon]

I have to wonder, who are these people pretending to be surprised at the way Trump decided to go all-in on backing Vladimir Putin over the US government? Because literally every single thing Trump has said in the last few years about Putin, Russia, the US intelligence services, and such all lead to one conclusion, that this kind of embrace of Russia is Trump's actual opinion, and he was sure to act exactly like he did here.

I mean, yes, seeing an American "President" lovingly heap praise on a murdering dictator who wants bad things to happen to America is horrible, and the wave of condemnation from both parties is great to see, particularly from Republicans, but come on. We all knew how this would go. Trump is either an active traitor or an unwitting (because he's too dumb to realize what he is doing) but willing supporter of our nation's opponents and hater of its friends, and he's the President. :/

[Dark Jaguar]

We SHOULD be shocked, its an extremely treasonous thing Trump just did, but well, you're absolutely right. This is par for the course for Trump, and entirely predictable. My outrage is also entirely predictable. As I've said before, this will be the first presidency that ages the entire nation by 20 years rather than the president themselves.

In any case, you're missing one key thing. That democractic "concession" to secure that victory in those red states? It's not going to work. At all. They'll lose their reelection bid, and this stunt is just going to be a stain on the rest of their lives.

[A Black Falcon]

We SHOULD be shocked, its an extremely treasonous thing Trump just did, but well, you're absolutely right. This is par for the course for Trump, and entirely predictable. My outrage is also entirely predictable. As I've said before, this will be the first presidency that ages the entire nation by 20 years rather than the president themselves.

It's predictable, but that outrage is still important! We can't let him get away with this just because it's predictable...

In any case, you're missing one key thing. That democractic "concession" to secure that victory in those red states? It's not going to work. At all. They'll lose their reelection bid, and this stunt is just going to be a stain on the rest of their lives.

No, most of them are going to win. Of the Senate races this year, Dems have to win with Democratic incumbents in 10 states Trump won, and are trying some offense in four states held by Republican Senators, three of which are states Trump won and one Hillary won. That last one is Nevada, the Dems' best pickup opportunity. Things are also looking pretty good for a pickup in Arizona. Then Tennesee and, if things go crazy well (this is very unlikely and I do not think it will happen), Texas are at least vaguely competitive. Of those ten states Dems are defending, from what little polling there is so far, maybe seven or so currently are states where the Democratic incumbent is ahead. The three most in danger of flipping are North Dakota, Indiana, and Florida, with Missouri also close. Those Dems are definitely not all going to lose, and most are going to win. If things go really well we could even gain in the Senate, though I do think that's unlikely; it'd be a pretty good day if we only lose one overall...

With a Hillary Presidency we probably WOULD be looking at a lot of losses in this Senate group, because conservatives would be energized to stop her, but thanks to how badly the Trump presidency is going in a lot of ways the national mood should help us hold on to a lot more of them than otherwise would have happened.

[Dark Jaguar]

If you're sure they'll win, then they definitely should challenge Trump's nominee! Why even be in office if you're not going to do the right thing, even when it gets hard?

Anyway, Trump says he misspoke, even though his "correction" is a double negative (which he seemed to catch halfway through covering it up, then asked the reporters to polish up his own words for him). Well, except now his whole "speech" makes no sense, since the preceeding sentance was praising Putin and saying how trustworthy he is, IN ANSWER to a reporter's question on whether he trusts Putin more than the FBI.

[Dark Jaguar]

Case. In. Point.



Listen to that, the republicans have all decided that going against Trump is "political suicide", and so they're going along with the dictator because "what good does it do if we're voted out ?". I am sick of that attitude. That single philosophy, that singular notion of "playing it safe" while evil runs amock, THAT is the greatest threat to democracy right now. I cannot abide it, I WILL not abide it, and you're wrong if you support it ABF. There can be no compromise on what's right. Those dems will either do the right thing, or they won't. Ultimately, that's all that matters.

Because, I should remind you:



We have a fascist for president. Giving him anything is giving a fascist something.

[A Black Falcon]

Of course the Republican Party and its elected officials should stand up to Trump; he's a fascist trying to boost America's enemies, after all. But a good 30-plus percent of Americans still support him, and each new outrage only peels a few off of his support numbers. Anyone who opposes him in that party loses their next primary to a pro-Trump opponent. So, Republican elected officials help Trump destroy America and its standing in the world not because they actually support everything he says, but because they're too scared of their base to do otherwise. And they are right that they would lose -- most vocal Trump opponents in the Republican Party who didn't resign or decide to not run for re-election have lost.

I understand why you hate this, it's a really toxic attitude which is damaging the nation, but what is the alternative? Republican officials growing a spine would be an amazing thing, but seriously, what do you do when such a huge number of people are supporting someone so horrible? It's an incredibly bad situation. Get Republican officials to oppose Trump, then he probably still stays in power and those people lose. Have them continue to pretend to support him, and he stays in power of course. Unless the Republican voting base actually turns on Trump, neither them saying something or not doing so really ends up in the outcome we need. Now, by not speaking up Republican elected officials do probably make things even worse, but just by looking at what's happened to every Trump critic in that party shows why most of the rest aren't saying anything. Maybe if, somehow, like, the whole Congress turned against Trump it would matter. Maybe you could reach a tipping point there that would actually affect poll numbers. But would it do that, or would it just rededicate Trump's huge and horrendous base to turn out the Washington incumbents in favor of a whole new wave of Trumpist candidates?

Seriously, it really seems like their party is just too compromised to be salvageable. Really, when such a huge percentage of the American people are supporting Trump, ultimately the blame lies with them, Trump's supporters. I do not understand the appeal of that lying traitor, but a LOT of people now are devoted to him and it is wrecking America.

Really the only solution I can see is for Democrats to win big in elections, but that requires actual elections that are not rigged and for enough Democratic voters to actually show up to win, so.. we'll see if that happens. I am hopeful but it could go either way.


As for the Senate confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh, though, I am strongly opposed to him, but again, unless you can flip some Republicans, it doesn't matter what the centrist Democrats do in the final vote. I'd say try to get them to hold off on their votes until we know how all the Republicans are voting...

[Dark Jaguar]

More and more, I'm starting to think EVERY office should be for one term, period. What I expect them to do is the right thing. No one ever said the right thing came with no cost. So what if they don't get reelected? That's not a high cost to pay for doing the right thing.

[A Black Falcon]

The two term limit for Presidents has for the most part been a good idea, but for Congress I am opposed. Maine has term limits right now, two terms for Governor and four terms for the House and Senate in the Legislature. The legislative term limits have been, in my opinion, a failure. It leads to constant turnover, as more experienced lawmakers are forced to retire and new people who don't really know what they are doing yet come in in larger numbers than you would otherwise see. I understand why people pushed for term limits, but I think that they have done more harm to our state government than they have good.

[A Black Falcon]

... Seriously, why are 30-something of Americans still so enamored with this traitorous idiot that they obey his every command, ignore every fact, and even seemingly throw away their belief in America just because he says so? And for THIS person? How did this happen...

The latest is that Michael Cohen will testify that Trump knew about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians about Hillary info before it happened. Somehow, though, even with ironclad proof of collusion, if it is found as does seem very plausible, most of Trump's followers probably will not waver in their support for him. And with that, we return to the first paragraph of this post...


Now, I do understand some of the reasons why Russia is now popular on the right. As opposed to the atheist, left-wing dictatorship of the Soviets, now Russia is ruled by a religious, right-wing dictatorship. Russia stands as the one hope for traditional values in the West, in the eyes of the right -- it is one of the few major nations still extremely anti-gay, and this counts for a lot. Somehow the old Catholic/Protestant-Orthodox split matters less now than that they are again Christian and oppose homosexuality, trans rights, and all of those important things. This isn't Soviet Russia anymore, it's now on the other side of the spectrum. In a lot of ways this means very little changed, but to American conservatives I'm sure the religious change means a lot.

And on top of that, Russia is supporting right-wing nationalist groups across the US and Europe. They are doing this because undermining NATO and the Western democracies gives Russia more power and influence in the world and not because of any genuine agreement with those people, but people like Trump, Brexit supporters in the UK, and more all don't seem to care about that so long as they keep getting help from the Russians. Undermine the whole world order, just to give Putin more power and wreck stuff? Sure, sounds good to me, they seem to be saying! We hate international organizations, they take power away from us, and we don't care about any of the consequences. (On that note, apparently the UK has already seen more economic damage done because of Brexit than they spend per year on EU dues and payments, and this will only get worse as the process continues. But as we also see with Trump's tarriffs, wrecking your economy in the name of a bad idea seems to be a fine idea for these people...)

And that's not even getting in to how Russia likes to murder dissidents not only in Russia but also in other parts of Europe, support the most violent dictators in the world, etc. For some people it's disgusting that they would even consider taking support from the Syrian government's protector, to name one example, but I imagine a person like Trump is just jealous that he can't do that kind of thing... we are very lucky that most of our democracy is, so far, still intact.

[Dark Jaguar]

You're overthinking it. Trump supporters like Russia because they were told to. You don't understand. Loyalty and obedience are the HIGHEST of all virtues to a large number of Americans, that is, loyalty to the Sacred at least. Until you've lived it, truly believed it, you don't really get it.

[Dark Jaguar]

I think this video explains better than I could that problem with ranked choice voting, no matter the way the end result is tallied.

I should note that cardinal voting (score voting being my preferred version) not only doesn't seem to suffer from this problem, it's also far easier to tally up the results, in that you just add it all up, and thus far easier for the public to understand why the results are the way they are.

But, it does suffer from another problem, or benefit from a feature, depending on the way you look at it.



If a candidate is incredibly divisive, but another candidate is generally liked by the populace (just not the the first choice for many), that second candidate will win. Frankly, I consider that a bonus. Keep in mind that this situation only arises if a candidate is MASSIVELY divisive, to the point a minority is basically entirely disenfranchised if the majority wins. Getting massively divisive does not appear to be a good thing (see: this exact thread), so frankly, this seems like an ideal situation.

[A Black Falcon]

So in the ongoing Paul Manafort trial, Manafort sure looks very very guilty... he definitely should be convicted.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well yes, and other than that he's a greedy scumbag. Why would he spend so much on such pointlessly trivial things? He's shallow, that's the worst of it. He's as deep as surface tension. Why does he even bother getting up in the morning? What purpose does he have for his life, what makes it all worth it to him? Snakeskin jackets?

[A Black Falcon]

So I finally watched those two videos there on voting systems, and yes, every voting system has its flaws, I agree that that becomes clear once you start looking into them. But despite its drawbacks I still like ranked choice a lot more than first-past-the-post because of its advantages. It may have issues too, but it has more strengths. As for ranking everyone with numbers or stars, I just think it might be a bit complex to work in a full election... it'd make things more confusing for voters. Perhaps it's worth a try though, somewhere, to see how well it would work...

[Dark Jaguar]

Somehow I accidentally posted my reponse as an edit to your's in two different threads ABF. Sorry about that. Anyway:

Everyone already uses systems like that all the time. Movie reviews use 4 star ratings without the need to rank movies against each other on a line. I think you're underestimating the intelligence of people to say a number line they fill in one bubble for on each candidate would be confusing. Of course, having those tending the voting booth help people with it and explain any questions they have would help, and once people do it a few times, well, there you go.

In other news:

[A Black Falcon]

Somehow I accidentally posted my reponse as an edit to your's in two different threads ABF. Sorry about that. Anyway:

I think I did that once here too, so it's fine...

Everyone already uses systems like that all the time. Movie reviews use 4 star ratings without the need to rank movies against each other on a line. I think you're underestimating the intelligence of people to say a number line they fill in one bubble for on each candidate would be confusing. Of course, having those tending the voting booth help people with it and explain any questions they have would help, and once people do it a few times, well, there you go.

Maybe, and some are sure to complain regardless of what system that isn't our current one we use, so why not try one of the least flawed ones, sure... I wonder if it'd be any harder to get passed.

[Dark Jaguar]

I think I did that once here too, so it's fine...


Maybe, and some are sure to complain regardless of what system that isn't our current one we use, so why not try one of the least flawed ones, sure... I wonder if it'd be any harder to get passed.

The only issue is if there's a debate between two alternates. I figure if all the politicians get behind score voting, and that's the option everyone hears about, it shouldn't be any harder to pass than any OTHER major changes to our voting process would be. That said, yeah, we can't even seem to get started eliminating the electoral college, and at the most fundamental level that's the most obviously needed change right now. Personally I would like to see it and score voting done as a package deal, but frankly neither party seems all that interested in any change to the system at all, aside from a few token gestures about it.

I think it will take massive numbers in large protests with this very specific demand to make it happen.

[A Black Falcon]

Well, here in Maine ranked choice has already become quite politicized -- most Democrats support it, and most Republicans are opposed. It's not a great sign for the future of better voting systems, but their party in general is opposed to better voting systems because they are so good at exploiting this one for unfair advantages, so it shouldn't be a surprise...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, here in Maine ranked choice has already become quite politicized -- most Democrats support it, and most Republicans are opposed. It's not a great sign for the future of better voting systems, but their party in general is opposed to better voting systems because they are so good at exploiting this one for unfair advantages, so it shouldn't be a surprise...

I'm honestly surprised that ranked gained such traction considering scored has been around a while. I'm glad they're pushing for a change, but personally I would love to see the party push for the best of those options right from the start before ranked gets too much traction and pushes out scored from the idea space of the public consciousness.

[A Black Falcon]

Has scored been used in any actual elections in the US? Because ranked choice has, and not only here. But I'm in favor of improving our election system period, and ranked choice is a definite improvement over the standard system, so I'm fine with it for now...

[A Black Falcon]

I am sure we will eventually get the full story of all of the horrible things Brett Kavanaugh has said and done over the last thirty years. It'll come out eventually, despite Republican attempts to hide it.

Of course, this "eventually" will probably be long after he gets successfully confirmed to the Supreme Court on a nearly party-line basis, over every objection and against public opinion (which currently is very much against him getting confirmed as per recent polling), so that doesn't mean much, but it's something?

[A Black Falcon]

It's very satisfying to see Manifort convicted on many counts and not acquitted of any! It's too bad the jury couldn't convict on all counts, but eight of 18 is something, and it's a big win for Mueller. And Manifort's bigger trial, for other charges, is still upcoming, too. It's kind of amazing that the Michael Cohen plea happened in the same hour... or that Cohen seems to have totally flipped, at least publicly. I wonder why he's reversed himself so thoroughly, it's a little odd.

As for how much this will hurt Trump, though, I'm sure it will, as usual, shave off a fraction of a percent from his support. Blah... but if the Dems win in November, as things like this should help make more likely, the resulting investigations sure will hurt him!

[Dark Jaguar]

The DNC finally changed something major about how they run their party. It's a good start to getting rid of the backwards rot at the top that constantly violate their own principles in the name of winning over a part of the electorate they will never EVER win over.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, the DNC made two important changes.

First, superdelegates won't get a vote in the first round, only the second or beyond if nobody has a majority going into the convention. We'll see how this works, but I've never been opposed to the concept of superdelegates. Of course in the old days party leaders were the ONLY ones with a vote on who their party selected, which often lead to safer choices that the electorate may not be as excited about, but I don't think that getting rid of superdelegate votes will make anywhere near as much of a difference as Bernie fans seem to think; the superdelegates were not what decided 2016 for Hillary for example, that was decided by the primaries. And it leaves the party more vulnerable to something like Trump, someone who never would have been selected in the old party-leaders-choose-canddiates system. So yeah, I have mixed feelings here; democracy is a good thing and more democracy is usually good, but having some role for people more knowledgeable about the subject -- not ALL of the role, importantly, but some of the role -- historically has worked. The new system will probably work fine and not change things all that much. I'd rather have kept the superdelegates though.


The bigger deal, in my opinion, is the other change: the party is trying to discourage states from using caucuses, so there are new rules setting standards for caucuses that try to push states to use primaries instead. This is a great idea, because while caucuses have some benefits, they are a terrible way to select presidential candidates! Maine is a caucus state so I know caucuses, and as I know I've said before, for contested presidential races they are awful. First though I'll mention caucuses' advantages. The main one probably is that at a caucus you see other people in the party in your community, have a chance to hear from and talk to candidates or people speaking from them, sign candidate nominating petitions, collect paperwork and signs and stuff for candidates, and such. In non-presidential years, like 2018, it makes for a fun event and you get something out of it that you don't get from just voting in a primary. Going to the caucus also makes getting a slot for the state convention easy, which is nice.

However, the drawbacks are very significant. First, getting to a caucus can be challenging. Each town has only one caucus site, so a place like this with multiple polling places has to have everyone go to one place. When you have a contested race like the Hillary v. Bernie race of 2016, the result was a horrible massive line that took hours, literally, to get through. And worse there's no recourse to this, because you have to go to the caucus for your vote to count. If you can't make it, too bad, you can't vote. Caucuses here are always on a Sunday too, which can be good or bad depending; sure many people aren't working that day, but public transportation may be less available. So, while I first voted in a November election in 2000, I didn't participate in a caucus until 2010, because before that I could not get to the caucus sites on the days in question. I voted in many of the summer primary elections, but your presidential preference "vote" there means nothing, only your vote at that possibly hard-to-get-to caucus.

As a result of all this, caucuses are undemocratic, as they encourage only hardcore party loyalists or committed activists to show up and vote at all, so you will get a less representative vote than you would from a primary. They can be fun to be at in off year elections, but they are awful for contested primaries for access and line-length reasons. So yeah, I'm glad that the Dems are going to try to push more states to use primaries instead of caucuses, an I hope the move works.

And yes, I know that Hillary won most of the primaries, while Bernie won most of the caucuses, because of the aforementioned reasons mostly. I hope that I would be saying all of these same exact things if that was the other way around, because caucuses have always been bad, it's not a new issue.