Voting in US - What's the point?

[Vizardlorde]

Get a beach house/old relative in florida and register to vote absentee and your vote will count because Florida is a kingmaker with 29 EV.

[bladeXcrasher]

You are right, I remember when in school we would stand up every morning and pledge allegiance to the flag, for the democracy.... oh wait, we called it a republic every god damn day.

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Maybe Iowa should pull itself up by its bootstraps then and stop taking my money. If they want to be economically successful, they should do it by modeling themselves on successful states, not mooching off them.

Wait, I thought that the Democrats embraced social programs and helping those less fortunate? You sound like a privileged brat instead, which is ironic as it is the ctrl left that screams about privilege in their echo chamber.

[Spectral]

I posted the stats above: the EC is not popular and as far as I can trace back polls, never has been. "Nobody cares" is a load of shit, the problem is that it requires a change to the electoral system on a federal level and we all know how bitter that fight would be. Easily done my fucking ass.

Popularity isn't a measure of intensity of feeling. There are very few people that care deeply about this. Sure, if you ask people (who mostly have no idea why the EC exists or even how it works, so who cares what they think?) they'll mostly say that they don't like it, but the nearly complete lack of effort to change it shows how much people actually care about this.

By the way, a federal change isn't needed. Getting more states on board with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would handle this.

Of course, Democrat enthusiasm for bothering with that more or less stopped when political hacks realized that the EC would likely favor them in the short run. They turned out to be wrong, but they couldn't know that in 2008 or 2009 when they had the sway and mandate to move the needle on these sorts of things.

[NineSpine]

Wait, I thought that the Democrats embraced social programs and helping those less fortunate? You sound like a privileged brat instead, which is ironic as it is the ctrl left that screams about privilege in their echo chamber.

I do embrace helping those less fortunate, and the less fortunate in this case are the poor Iowans being scammed by their moocher, failure of a government that needs to steal from me to prop up their failed policies.

[Hisholyness]

Isn't that what I said?

If its never happened and never mattered, than why is this election different? Why bring it up then?

Are we agreeing with each other or disagreeing with each other?

[Palizangetsu]

Maybe Iowa should pull itself up by its bootstraps then and stop taking my money. If they want to be economically successful, they should do it by modeling themselves on successful states, not mooching off them.

Except Iowa doesn't have the land, population, types of jobs, or tourism to mimic said successful states.

[Holofernes]

The us vote system works the way it works because negros got the right to vote, and they live mainly in towns. And they wanted the former slaves to have their votes count less than the white (mainly rural) peoples vote.

In a truly democratic system, a vote is a vote and every single vote has the same impact.

In the us, a vote counts more if u are living outside of dense population centres,aka are not a black township guy.

Several presidents of the US were voted against the majority of votes (Bush jr for example), and i think its a kind of hidden apartheid politics system in work to keep the white rural minorities that mostly are on the republic party overly represented.

[NineSpine]

Except Iowa doesn't have the land, population, types of jobs, or tourism to mimic said successful states.

They absolutely have the capacity to do so, but their government is too busy figuring how to move the social needle back to 1953 and mooch more from the federal government. If Ohio can do it, they can do it. They are situated right next to two non-moocher states.

[bladeXcrasher]

I do embrace helping those less fortunate, and the less fortunate in this case are the poor Iowans being scammed by their moocher, failure of a government that needs to steal from me to prop up their failed policies.

Really, because that isn't what you said. You said they should stop stealing your money, opps!

Here's a fitting song for you

https://youtu.be/ONy3DTOjHrg
@NineSpine

[Palizangetsu]

Good point, I remember all the local governments that forced us into Vietnam and killed tens of thousands of Americans.

I am glad you do since the Senate voted 88-2 and the House voted 416-0 to go to war in Vietnam.

[NineSpine]

The us vote system works the way it works because negros got the right to vote, and they live mainly in towns. And they wanted the former slaves to have their votes count less than the white (mainly rural) peoples vote.

In a truly democratic system, a vote is a vote and every single vote has the same impact.

In the us, a vote counts more if u are living outside of dense population centres,aka are not a black township guy.

You aren't totally wrong, but most black people don't live in cities.

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I am glad you do since the Senate voted 88-2 and the House voted 416-0 to go to war in Vietnam.

Do you know who gets to decide whether we go to war, regardless of how they vote? The President. The congress can't force the President to prosecute a war.

[Spectral]

I do embrace helping those less fortunate, and the less fortunate in this case are the poor Iowans being scammed by their moocher, failure of a government that needs to steal from me to prop up their failed policies.

What's with railing on Iowa in this thread? Iowa's a relatively low dependency state. The big welfare recipient states are mostly the impoverished Southern states.

[NineSpine]

For one, perhaps you should state the entire line. "And to the Republic for which it stands", which is immediately followed by "One nation, Under God" which has also taken flak recently seeing as we have many different religious groups and are not entirely "Under God". But you are right, forgive me for taking you literally when you said "In Jr. High history class" and not "At the start of every day in a pledge nobody cares to repeat because it was forced upon us and basically meaningless," because we never said the pledge in history class EVER to my recollection.

For two, my point stands. Even through the entirety of High School history class, it was not called a Republic, it was continuously called a Democracy. (Depending on your teacher, he/she may have offhandedly mentioned Republic once or twice. But if you were quizzed or tested, "Democracy" was the right answer.)

Oh, so you said it every single day, but you don't recall it coming up in one particular class, so obviously it was never instilled. Makes total sense.

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What's with railing on Iowa in this thread? Iowa's a relatively low dependency state. The big welfare recipient states are mostly the impoverished Southern states.

Iowa isn't the problem by comparison, but someone else brought up Iowa.

[Deleted]

Did people cry this much about the system when obama won?

[Stormdash]

Did people cry this much about the system when obama won?

Ha. Hell, you don't need to go back as far as October to find talking heads discussing how the electoral college was Trump-proofing the election because of that old "Blue Wall".

[NineSpine]

Did people cry this much about the system when obama won?

Yeah, they also made up elaborate conspiracy theories about how Obama was a secret Kenyan Muslim who wasn't really a citizen and therefore couldn't be President. These conspiracy theories were pushed very much out in the open, including on Fox News, and even by this guy named Donald J. Trump (who also lost his shit in 2012 when he mistakenly believed Romney won the popular vote, and called for a revolution).

[Low Hanging Fruit]

One thing I have always noticed about the system is that its good when the person they want wins. Bad when the person they want to win doesn't. Right now Republicans will refuse to even look at the system for example. But if they lose the next election with the majority of the popular vote but lose the college they will be up in arms to change it. Just as democrats are now. This is pretty much the balance that will always keep it the same. Unless of course a 3rd party ends up winning. Then for once it would be likely it would change because the D's and the R's would get together to shit on the new guy.

[NineSpine]

Yes, every day at 7:45 AM, half asleep and barely paying attention, alongside several other statements that I don't believe, only because I was forced to repeat it ad nauseum.

Perhaps you don't understand context, but I'd like to believe most others do.

"I was forced to repeat it daily, but it was never really taught to us."

[Palizangetsu]

Do you know who gets to decide whether we go to war, regardless of how they vote? The President. The congress can't force the President to prosecute a war.

A president can also be impeached for going to war without the approval of Congress.

[NineSpine]

A president can also be impeached for going to war without the approval of Congress.

Yeah I remember when that was true. Wait do you actually believe that's still true?