The Trump Presidency

[gillianren]

Oh, yeah.  I know a couple of people who aren't hard-core who are still convinced that it's all a sham and that he's never done anything wrong.

[LionKing]

Surely there is a million person at least who don't support him..they should express it to exert pressue

[grmcdorman]

There is a large number of people who do not support him, yes.

Thing is, he didn't get a majority of the vote. While the US is somewhat more skewed than most due to gerrymandering and the Electoral College system, any first past the post system suffers from a similar defect. This happened here in Ontario, Canada in the last provincial election: the party that won got only 40% of the vote. However, every other party got less than that.

The US also has the problem that the party lines have become so entrenched that there's almost no switching; Trump still enjoys a significant percentage of support in Republican voters, and has absolutely dismal support in Democrat Party voters. It's also got to the point that people loyal to one party automatically discount anything said or supported by the other party (although I hope the Democrat voters aren't quite as bad there).

[gillianren]

Most of the Democratic voters I know would love a reasonable second party to exist, if they're not people who want to end the two-party system.  (In which case they'd love for several reasonable parties to exist!)  Obviously, I disagree with the basic ideals of the Republican party--that's why I'm not a Republican.  But I'd like to live in a world where a Republican might suggest something that wouldn't make me cringe automatically.

[jfb]

Electoral College isn't going away without a Constitutional amendment, meaning the Electoral College isn't going away. 

However, states can decide how to apportion electoral votes.  We can lobby our various state legislatures to award electoral votes proportionally instead of winner-take-all.  We can jigger the election process to use ranked-choice or some other method.  There's lots of things we can do to make the situation suck a lot less.  We just have to, you know, do it (become more active at the local and state level, participate in the process more, run for office instead of just voting, etc.). 

Presidential candidates can also be smarter about how they campaign in hostile territory.  Putting aside the misogyny (which was real) and Russian shenanigans, Clinton was a shit candidate with a shit campaign staff who had no idea (or desire) how to reach voters outside of big cities.  Would she have won without Russian interference?  Maybe.  Probably.  But it would have been closer than it should have, and it would have been her fault.  She populated her campaign with grifters, hangers-on, and Anthony Weiner.  She alienated whole swaths of Obama voters.  Even though she was right with the "deplorables" comment, all that did was turn off people. 

It's like Al Gore's loss to GWB.  You're coming off the longest postwar expansion, you're following an extremely popular President, it shouldn't have even been close.  People like to blame Nader, but it shouldn't have been close enough for Nader to make a difference.  Gore was a shit candidate.  He was awful on the campaign trail.  And, yes, while what you do in office is what really matters, ya gotta get there first. 

[gillianren]

I still don't understand how people blame the DNC for the quality of candidates.  They can only support the people who run, after all--and Trump is definitely proof that it's possible to overrule the wishes of the party officials, who definitely would've preferred a more biddable candidate.

[jfb]

I still don't understand how people blame the DNC for the quality of candidates.  They can only support the people who run, after all--and Trump is definitely proof that it's possible to overrule the wishes of the party officials, who definitely would've preferred a more biddable candidate.

It's not so much that the DNC was responsible for Clinton being a bad candidate, but that they executed a number of public face-plants that gave ammunition to Clinton's main detractors (apart from the hacked emails).  I mean, yes, they obviously preferred Clinton to Sanders (who wasn't even a Democrat before 2015), and in a normal year that wouldn't be newsworthy, but they helped fuel the "it's all riiiiiigged" caterwauling by the Berners, which weighed on the campaign. 

[gillianren]

Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

[LunarOrbit]

Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

And his supporters wonder why the Democratic party hasn't been supportive of his campaign. Why would they be if he's only a Democrat when he wants to run for President?

[jfb]

Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

And his supporters wonder why the Democratic party hasn't been supportive of his campaign. Why would they be if he's only a Democrat when he wants to run for President?

Berners by and large are ... not bright.  Frankly, many of the ones I ran into at the county and state conventions in 2016 were cut from the same cloth as HBs like cambo.  Ignorant and entitled.  Also apparently incapable of simple arithmetic.  Sanders actually won the primary in Travis County something like 51% to 49%, but the representation at the county convention was roughly 60% Clinton supporters, 40% Sanders supporters. 

Now, the one core truth about politics is that you win by showing up.  Even though Sanders had won the primary (barely), Sanders supporters simply did not show up to the county convention, and by a significant margin.  Apparently, in Berner-world, you win simply by being more annoying passionate and committed to your candidate. 

It turned out that everyone who showed up at the county convention was eligible to be a delegate at the state level¹.  Towards the end of the day there was a resolution to forego precinct-level caucusing and automatically make everyone who showed up delegates for the state convention, which passed handily.  The Sanders contingent pitched a blue-lipped fit, arguing that it wasn't faaaaaiiiir that they wouldn't get equal (or greater) representation based on who actually showed up.  And they pointed out that of course fewer Sanders supporters showed up to the county convention because it was scheduled during SXSW, and everyone knew that young people overwhelmingly supported Sanders, so the whole process was disenfranchising and inherently biased against Bernie.

The dipshittery didn't end there, either.  Shenanigans at the state convention had me wanting to hit people with a tire iron.  I suddenly understood all the Truman-era Democrats at the 1968 convention in Chicago, wondering just what the hell was going on. 

And when Bernie wasn't the nominee, they voted for Trump.  Because. 

^{1. Texas (or at least the Democratic Party in Texas) changed the rules in 2016.  Prior to that year, we held both primaries (to select candidates) and caucuses (to select delegates to the county and state conventions).  We did away with the caucus in 2016, so anyone who voted in the primary was eligible to go to the county convention. There were enough slots available at the state convention that everyone who showed up to the county convention was eligible to serve as a delegate to the state convention.}

[VQ]

Berners by and large are ... not bright.
....
And when Bernie wasn't the nominee, they voted for Trump.  Because. 

Sheesh, that's a lot of hostility towards the ~43% of Democrats that voted for Sanders in the primaries. I can't help but feel that your feelings are more developed by exposure to a vocal minority.

12% of Bernie-primary voters voted for Trump in the general election, vs 8% for registered Democrats overall. That probably is a statistically significant difference, but it certainly isn't a majority.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

And his supporters wonder why the Democratic party hasn't been supportive of his campaign. Why would they be if he's only a Democrat when he wants to run for President?

If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.

[LunarOrbit]

If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.

As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.

[VQ]

As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.

Our presidents keep winning without the plurality of the vote now, so I would say we are used to it. My impression is that multi-party coalition governments drive at least a modicum of different viewpoints talking to each other; would you say that is not really the case? Would a ranked choice voting system make the multiple party system work more smoothly?

[ApolloEnthusiast]

If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.

As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.

That's a good thing.  With multiple competing parties, assuming one party doesn't simply sweep all of the different elected positions, the fact that leaders don't have a strong majority support requires more cooperation and compromise to maintain their power.  They are more inclined to give up some concessions in order to be in the driver's seat and try to get the things that mean most to them. 

With two parties, if one is in control, especially when the individuals are aware that they effectively can't be voted out, there is no incentive to compromise at all.  They can completely ignore the people who don't vote for them and serve exclusively the constituency who keeps them in power.  If you're in a multiparty system with less than a majority of the vote, you can't afford to abjectly ignore anyone, because you may need them sooner than you think.

Washington and Adams expressly warned against a two party system, and Hamilton and Madison both wrote extensively about the problems inherent in partisan politics.  Unfortunately, we are watching their centuries old prognostications play out in real time, with the potential consequence being the breakdown of the Republic.  One doesn't need to look any further than the current Senate to see party over country as a dominant theme.  A government that prioritizes internal partisan politics over the country itself is a dangerously unstable institution.