[UnderTheSun]

Electoral College

"Here's a map of arbitrary geographical divisions as you can see Trump won the ones with on average less people."

I don't see your point. Large tracts of land don't have political interests that need consideration. idk why but Americans seem to have this fixation of seeing these things very black and white (or blue and red). Like I'm sure many of those counties were within a few percentage points of being coloured differently. And with a directly elected president the conservative votes in the more urban states for Trump actually would have mattered, likewise for the slightly-less-conservative votes for Hillary in the red rectangles.

Doesn’t “Large tracts of land don’t have political interests that need consideration” contradict “A popularly elected president would have to appeal to vast swathes of the electorate,” though?

So what exactly is the purpose of the electoral college?

Is it part of an ancient prophecy to ensure the God Emperor's ascension?

I don't get it.

To be fair, based on how bizarre 2016 was, that almost sounds sane.

It was originally intended to stop candidates that are "unqualified, but with a talent for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" from attaining presidency. Basically, exactly to stop Trump.

Trump didn’t really have it that easy. Hillary pretty much had the mainstream media in a handbasket, allowing the public to see Trump’s sins shown for the world to see on a daily basis, denying him “talent for low intrigue.” not to mention she had all the celebrity support (who’s more recognizable, a businessman or a movie star?) for the “little arts of popularity”. Logically, she would have won; heck, she took the popular vote by storm.

Except as I said, every district has representatives. Rural districts far outnumber urban districts. Representatives can be spoken to directly by the people in their district, and their jobs are to voice their districts concerns and do everything you seem to think the president is meant to do. They are the ones that represent the will of the people. You can also call your senator to voice the same concerns, as your senator represents the state and is obliged to listen to all the state's residents as well as all the states representatives. Collectively, they all carry the same concerns to direct the president in the right direction. Everyone gets heard, when the system works as it should. Putting so much focus on the executive branch and glossing over the legislative branch breaks the system and turns it into a system where you sit there and defend the electoral college because you're so worried the minority won't get a voice and totally ignore the fact our system already allows for a voice.

What you said is very reasonable. However, don’t forget that the President and Congress often end up bitterly opposed to one another (which is what our founding fathers wanted, a quarreling federal government that doesn’t get too much done in too little time); there’s a reason “lame ducks” are a thing. The President and Congress are much more unified when they’re part of the same political party (something our founding fathers didn’t consider, and what George Washington warned against in his parting speech), which leads into what you said next:

Also, with the electoral college abolished, it would open a lot more avenues for elected leaders. Third party candidates would actually stand a chance, and there's less chance for the mass corruption an essentially two-party system creates. I don't think there's anyone here who, in the last several election cycles, looked at the main two candidates presented and said "you know what? this candidate is totally in line with all of my beliefs and there is no contest because I don't have to play the lesser of the two evils game this election". I can also guarantee if they had looked at the third party runners during each election cycle they would have found someone who resonates with them almost to a t. With the electoral college, even if the candidate SOMEHOW got the popular vote, they would have still lost because they'd walk out with maybe 20 electoral votes if they were lucky thanks to how the electoral system works and the bias of the Democratic and Republican parties.

With the electoral college abolished, we might be able to prevent more elections from being so Red and Blue, and actually allow a chance for real anti establishment candidates and people who are genuinely interested in helping this country as a whole, rather than just thinking about it as a game or trying to use it as a means to squeeze more money out of us, to get into office

If you ask me, a popular vote system just neuters third parties and indie candidates even more. Look at Evan McMullin – he won a substantial chunk of Utah’s voters, at 21%. This might sound insignificant, but “a fifth of Utah” is a lot more galvanizing than “less than one percent of the total US population.” Once the day arrives when a third party/independent candidate seizes the electoral votes of even a single state, that will rock America’s political world more than any percentage could.
Aside from that, could you elaborate how abolishing the Electoral College would loosen the two-party system? Yes, our two main political parties do have electors of their own in every state, but I don’t think they really need the Electorate to survive. They would need their hold over Congressional elections loosened as well, somehow.

Trump and his Policies

And as far as I remember they only had two dogs when they entered the states and their mom took advantage of how fast they bred to make some quick money off people in the neighborhood that totally ignored the 4-dogs-per-household law and had a thing for tiny dogs you could carry in your pocket. It was... surreal.

I’m guessing the neighborhood was filled with loud yapping around the clock.

And yeah, they're satisfactory to me personally because they're no longer causing any negative impact that I can see. I can't speak for SoCal, but I know for a fact that Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the other states that get the highest influx of undocumented Mexican immigrants, are not hindered or hurt from having large latino populations. In most of these cases, they assimilated into American culture just fine, and are functioning members of society. Believe it or not, even undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Go figure.

It's not that large latino populations are the issue (heck, it was Florida’s large population of Cubans, who often lean conservative, that allowed the state to go red). There's this general concern that people who live here contrary to the law (not saying latinos; Trump got heckled by an illegal Brit one time) will also live contrary to the law.

Yeah you totally missed the point of what I was trying to say.

You asked why the same undocumented immigrant could get away with illegally crossing the border time and time again, and used it as an example of our border being too weak and there still being a problem with illegal immigration from Mexico. In response, I told you essentially, that no matter how strong our border is, if that same person who keeps getting detained and deported really really wants to get back across the border, they will find a way. They would be an outlier, and are likely just as much of a problem to Mexico as they are to the US. Most people who get caught once don't try to make the effort to do it again unless their situation in Mexico is that dire.

Alright, truly dangerous illegals are often the same ones that take the effort to cross the border multiple times (and, likely, will continue to do so, and probably succeed). All the other illegals likely apply to neither, and are therefore not much to worry about. I can see that.
However, saying that this renders any strengthening of border defense futile is very much like saying that there’s no hope in having some technicians fix a broken computer, since banging on it to make it go faster didn’t work already – the “banging” being self-defeating catch-and-release tactics (which Trump ended through an executive order). Maybe taking them in for a more in-depth background check will be more effective? We’ll have to see.

Ego does not belong in government, nor any kind of leadership role.

Self-esteem is a valuable trait for leaders to have. It gives them the confidence that they are fit to rule, and that their decisions are what’s best for their people. There’s also the fact that leaders are the voice of their people. What is better: a leader willing to accept any deal, or a leader too proud to let their country’s interests go unheard?

“I am going to criticize this system, until it benefits me and then I will change my mind” is pretty basic hypocrisy. You’ve written a lot of words to try and handwave that.

It’s not that the Electoral College benefitted him, it’s that it bowed to the will of their states despite his fears that they were a political oligarchy, and the “rigged system’s” last line of defense. If some random third-party candidate won, and the Electoral College went with them, Trump wouldn’t continue his anti-electorate rhetoric, since it clearly wouldn’t be part of the rigged system there, either.
Basically, he changed his tune because he was proven wrong, and he happily admitted it.

Looking forward to it.

In the case that you’re wrong, and Trump turns out to be pretty good/not nearly as bad as people thought, would you be disappointed, or pleasantly surprised?

So, to be clear: the proposed tariff will increase the cost on imports from Mexico, thereby meaning that Americans in practice will be paying for the wall.

Because the tariffs will make Mexican imports more expensive, American buyers will buy less, meaning less money will be made from the tariff.

So not only are Americans paying the cost of the wall and not Mexico, but they would be buying fewer imports, thus reducing the amount the tariff earns at all.

That is completely illogical. You cannot expect to earn income on a tariff by actively sabotaging the trade relationship with the country you expect to tariff; and ultimately it is less likely that US buyers would invest in local goods to replace their 3rd largest import supplier, and far more likely that they would simply move to import from other cheap markets that are still more cost-effective than local investment. That’s just how business works.

Ehhh, kind of? The tariff was going to be implemented anyway, since protectionism (which revolves around sabotaging trade relationships) was always one of Trump’s biggest platforms. Any money the United Sates loses out on trade would, hypothetically, be made up for by the return of industry.

Yes it does:

Again, that doesn’t prove that he’s against the tariff. I’ll concede that it doesn’t really prove he’s for it, either. All it proves is that he knows it’s going to have “a huge impact” of some kind, good or bad.

This is a completely ridiculous assertion, and the very article you linked as evidence makes this clear. The article clearly states that the supposed ‘safe zones’ are not included in his executive order, don’t appear in the original statements from the White House or the Saudi Arabian King’s office about the call where they were supposedly mentioned, and also here he is again decreeing that other countries are going to pay for his ideas. The ‘only problem’ that you have identified is the biggest possible problem Trump could have – how does he expect that to ever work?

Well, first of all, we need to beat ISIS. That’s another campaign promise of his, so it could go hand-in-hand with ending the refugee crisis. I do know that Trump trusts the judgement of his Secretary of Defense, General Mattis (for example, Trump used to be pro-torture, since ISIS does it, too; however, Mattis convinced him that torture doesn’t work).

If you’re going to disagree with my sources, then I’ll happily dispute yours – the Gatestone Institute is a notably conservative, right-wing think-tank that often take an anti-Islamic stance on issues. You misrepresent the articles I cited: one states that the result of Sweden’s higher than average rape statistics is because Swedish people are much more likely to report sexual assault and sexual assault reports are calculated in an unusual manner, and explains that the more likely reason for the slightly above-average crime rate is because of economic factors – immigrants tend to be poorer, and poorer populations tend to commit more crime. The other article points out that hasty assumptions in identifying and reporting on perpetrators has created a distorted and inaccurate view of the crime statistics. So the causes appear to be: economic disparity resulting in higher crime rates, higher than average rates of reporting sexual violence, and distorted media reporting on crime. But accepting that would mean that people would have to confront the issue of poverty, rather than the convenient immigrant boogeyman.

You say that I fall back on the “convenient immigrant boogeyman,” yet amidst your defense of your sources, your only rebuttal to mine is that it’s right-wing and anti-Islam. Would I be correct to dismiss your sources just because I don’t agree with them?

This does not get around the facts that Trump is a hypocrite on this issue and that he has yet to take more action than empty rhetoric. Call me when his businesses stop outsourcing and he actually implements policies.

We’ll see.

If you back a hateful, xenophobic, egotistical fascist-enabler, I imagine having to defend that viewpoint must get pretty tiring. I will try to contain my sympathy.

That implies that only a like-minded crowd of xenophobes would be comfortable siding with Trump. What about the ex-Democrat liberals who refused to toe the party line? The disgruntled libertarians who’ve had enough of identity politics being the number one issue? The vengeful Bernie fans who found out what happened to his campaign through WikiLeaks? The apolitical netizens who are in it purely for the memes? It’s a big, varied crowd that’s fun to hang out with. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Likewise, you have my sympathies. Having your visions of international cooperation shattered by Brexit, dreams of a female POTUS canned by Trump’s victory, and witnessing multiculturalism become increasingly rejected by the West (with a rebirth of conservatism leading the charge) must be a nightmare. If it’s any consolation, remember that the political pendulum will eventually swing back to the left.
(Also… Trump’s only a fascist-enabler in the sense that his victory in the election has sparked violent protests run by people unwilling to see the status quo die, who see fit to physically lash out against their detractors, rather than let them be heard.)

I want to conceive your child.

Nep? Is that you?