From the Economist: Lexington - Trumping the law AKA - "Know thine enemy ..." Excerpt: All of which will legally set-back American law (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) in conservative mold. (Or "mould" if one likes.) There is only one contravening force, and it seems to be awakening. It the Dem left-of-center philosophy. With an accent more on "philosophy" than "left". Which is goodness. Howzzat. The political philosophies in America is not as hardened into party-camps as is the case in Europe. Americans are known to traverse the political divide when voting (from Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left.) Which is what happened in the illegitimate last PotUS election. Despite the upsurge of the far-Right in support of our illicit president, the Hillary managed to win the popular-vote. Which was taken away from her by the hideously non-democratic Electoral College ...
It's possible Trump might have won the popular vote if he had been focusing on that; instead he was putting more focus on key states so he could be able to actually win the race. Because of the way districting works, trying to win over supporters in the more populous states would have been futile, since the majorities in those states are solidly Blue and he would not have been able to win over any electors (winner take all in each state). The flipside of this is that Trump got a lot less financial donations than usual from wealthy donors in Blue states who normally give to the Republican candidate running for President. (The Trump campaign spent $398 million total compared to the previous Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney's campaign, which spent a little over $1 billion) That's because politics in the U.S. operates as a two party system, which in turn stems from the winner-take-all system, since only a single representative can be elected from each voting district. Oh, do you suppose it's different on the other side? To claim conservative judges are the ones striving for conquest is a clear case of PROJECTION. (projection is a term in psychology which means you're blaming the other side for faults which are far worse in your side, to thereby deflect your own inadequacies away from yourself, instead projecting them onto someone else, as a defense mechanism) Good luck with that. Maybe you'll be able to push a Bernie the next election cycle. That is, if a Hillary-like candidate doesn't cheat him out of the race.
Only in America is this possible. The US is the ONLY DEVELOPED NATION on earth that has an Electoral College deciding the outcome of its political National Executive. Why are we NOT asking the question, "Whyzzat"? Given the aberration it has caused TWICE - both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the majority but lost in the Electoral College. The answer should be obvious ... the popular-vote is the only means in a real-democracy to elect political representatives of all constituencies, both state and national. It must be unaffected by either voting aberrations of the Electoral College or state-level gerrymandering ...
There are good reasons for that system. You shouldn't mess with things that could end up having unintended repercussions you didn't anticipate. The question is, is there some way to modify that system to allow a multi-party system while still retaining the underlying concept of it. I mean, keep the winner-take-all system in each state, but make it not function as a winner-take-all system overall. Sorry, it's very late and I'm not able to explain myself the most clearly. Anyway, we're not going to turn this into a debate over the electoral college here.
Why not? You are pleading to maintain a system that is anti-democratic. The very concept of "democracy" is based upon a solid-foundation of the popular-vote. It's taken a long time to come, after 2000 years of monarchies and emperors. And there is a damn fine reason: Because under previous Sovereign Heads of Government, families decided the destiny of nations. Which is EXACTLY where we are today in the US - because we allow a rat-pack of very, very rich people influence our vote in an election. And when it comes to the presidency, the Electoral College misappropriates the vote undemocratically. It's their fault because they CAN MANIPULATE elections, and our fault for allowing them to do so by "selling candidates" as if they were a detergent that "washed whiter than white". (We actually believe the bullshat!) For your edification (from the NYT here): Time to End the Electoral College - excerpt: You think you live in a democracy. But you don't vote in one ...
