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If you ask me, a popular vote system just neuters third parties and indie candidates even more.
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Aside from that, could you elaborate how abolishing the Electoral College would loosen the two-party system
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I don’t see how you can believe one point but not the other, it makes no sense…. Of course third-parties would have a higher chance of winning the presidency if we didn’t have an electoral college. The electoral college is filled primarily with Republicans and Democrats. Remove that, and you remove party biasm, which removes part of the competition between the two parties and ergo it would negate the “two-party system” we’ve semi-legitimately had for like 200 years. If we leaned more towards being a true Democracy over a Republic in this odd hybrid system we have, it would be more fair because you would honestly be elected directly as a result of how the American people as a whole feel about you as an individual candidate at that time. Each third-party vote would equate to like 10x as much as it would otherwise. You should see those videos that guy posted a few posts ago, it was really in-depth and interesting.
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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.
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Illegal immigration is a legitimate issue just like it is for literally every country that has ever defined its borders. There is no questioning that we should always have a border patrol and we should always take measures to deal with people who are here illegally – they live with no paper trail or a falsified one, drive in our streets with no insurance, and our tax payer’s money supports them wrongfully should they get on some kind of welfare.
But the thing is, this is exactly what makes them an easy scape goat. A good political scape goat rises from a legitimate issue, with actual merit to it, encouraging the support of people who have a problem with the issue while exaggerating its actual effects on a national scale. I believe that is how Trump rose to power – aside from being a Republican and besides the Electoral College. Just like how Hillary jumped on whatever liberal attitudes were popular in this generation, Trump jumped on what was a popular scape goat for people who take the example of non-Americans using American services to help themselves – the same people who preach about how socialized anything makes us into a “hand-out country” and all that. Trump kept talking about how he’d get rid of Obamacare, but now he’s back and forth with that because I honestly don’t think he knows what kind of system could replace it. Once again, people inherently find it easier to resent foreigners. Even legal ones.
While I believe we could use some better border control, the wall does not seem like a very effective idea. Like you said, better background checks sound like a better direction. And as Nate said earlier, about 40% of illegals come into the country via plane. Build a wall, and you’d see those same people try to move in that direction. But again… Maybe our problem would actually be lessened if we STREAMLINED the immigration process and made it easier for people to come here legally, and start legitimate, honest lives that could produce something helpful to the nation like any other American employee.
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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.
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Self Esteem = “Confidence in one’s own worth or abilities”, Ego = “A person’s sense of self-esteem OR self-importance”. The two are very similar, but can mean different things. He was not saying self-esteem is a bad thing, that’s retarded. He was saying an inflated EGO, as in, a shallow, arrogant sense of self-worth makes for a very bad leader. Trump is confident. But he’s also AMAZINGLY arrogant. He thinks he’s the greatest person who ever fucking lived…. Just look at the way he’s talked against his opponents before, or about his own campaign or his upbringing. He was so proud of himself for “inventing his slogan once at a golf game”, when in reality, the whole “Make America Great Again” was actually thought of first by the REAGAN campaign. Trump is far from humble. Arrogance can cloud judgement. Clouded judgement is bad for a leader. A leader should never EVER make decisions based on the will of their ego.
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There’s also the fact that leaders are the voice of their people.
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All of those protests outside suggest otherwise. Of course not everyone in the country at any given time feels the same, but this time it looks like there’s more actual Americans who disagree with his voice vs the people whose votes counted more than other human beings. Hence, the Electoral College.
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What is better: a leader willing to accept any deal, or a leader too proud to let their country’s interests go unheard.
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Uhhh, NEITHER!! What the fuck??? No leader should accept any kind of deal... They need to be reasonable enough to think it through. And that’s exactly what Trump didn’t do when it came to the negotiations with Mexico. He promised us that they’d reimburse us later because that’s what was “agreed on” allegedly, but there is absolutely no legal binding anywhere stating that they are supposed to. Either Trump lied to us in that comment, or he’s enough of an idiot to take someone’s word for it – which might I add is something a business man if anything should be cautious of. Mexico’s giving us the middle finger now. The wall is getting built, and WE’RE paying for it – not Mexico. Their president literally said they left because Trump “could not be negotiated with”. And all that talk about the Tariffs still don’t seem very reassuring. Meanwhile, Trump is too proud to accept that his idea may not be the best for our interests.
Before you’ve defended Trump by saying some of his actions may be because he made the promises and he’s just coming through with what he said for consistency. Well to that, I object – if he didn’t really think those promises were very smart after thinking it through he should be honest enough to prepare a speech trying to convince the people he made this promise to why said idea may need revision. That would be an act of letting his pride down.
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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.
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I don’t think he would have to be totally honest. And more on that, I haven’t actually heard him talking about how he was proven wrong – which would be much more respectable. From the quotes I’ve heard, he seems to just be brushing what he’s said in the past under the rug embarrassingly. I haven’t seen a speech where he talks in-depth about WHY the electoral college is a good thing after all and WHY the American people should have more faith in it.
He won because of the electoral college, meanwhile it feels as if like 80% of the actual people living in the country are furious because of that. I’d love to see what would have happened if in 2016 we elected our candidates in a completely straight forward manner. Everyone seems to be ignoring Phylum’s sources, so I’m just gonna repost them here. Their content sounds like a better argument as to why the Electoral College is bad, meanwhile I have yet to hear a really great convincing argument as to why we still need it.
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Re Electoral College:
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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.
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Are you talking about those people running away from ISIS and other groups down in the middle east? The people who would be slaughtered if more countries turned them down? The only way to end that crisis would be to either turn them all down for the betterment of ourselves and accept the death of the only reasonable people from those countries, or get better at dealing with the constant bullshit they have there. Which is easier said than done. Plus, you can’t fight an ideology – ISIS is a terrorist organization, and they recruit extremists in other countries by convincing them that they have to do god’s work. I’m not knowledgeful enough to know how to combat ISIS better than we are, but Trump’s reaction to that seems to be to discriminate against Muslims and people of Iranian blood or other nationalities.
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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?
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The places you linked from are known extremist’s sites and there is no defending that. I don’t even follow media much and even I can tell that. I remember them now that I’ve seen them again. I’ve seen people like The Amazing Atheist call them out on their bullshit before, they actually falsify data sometimes from what I remember. Especially the last one.