Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Then I am dead, because I cannot survive that long without healthcare. And so are thousands of other Americans every year. If Democrats can't even fight for me or those Americans to just be able to LIVE by supporting an improvement like Medicare for All, how are they going to convince those people to fight for them? How can we trust them?

And how, pray tell, do we "fight for you"? We don't have a path to pass what you want.

[Machismo]

The longer this is going on, the more I believe that Trump will be serving his second term. The Demonrats and the MSM are desperate to get this over and done with.. but the corruption is being un-earthed, evidence is piling up. Pompeo's body language was not hard to read, he knows they have this in the bag.

Oh this will be a glorious end to a dismal year.

Get mad

(im ready for my monthly infraction, be gentle).

Great, let's see that evidence!!!

I'll assume any failure to do so will just be your admission of shilling for white supremacists like Trump.

[Breccia]

But that's not the way RCV works.

Damn I was thinking Borda Count.

[kaelleria]

But that's not the way RCV works. The candidate with the fewest rank 1 choices is eliminated before moving to the next iteration. Jorgensen would never win in that scenario, because she would never ever be highest percentage rank 1 vote. You literally could not eliminate Biden or Trump before eliminating Jorgensen.

RCV is hard for people to understand, so it will be hard to implement nationally.

I don't see any downsides to it, but I haven't done a ton of research on it.

[zealo]

If you think it's a "pipedream" then you have to accept that in America we also needlessly let 68,000 Americans die every year because they can't afford healthcare. Do you think that is acceptable to you? How many years and how many thousands of Americans dying because they're too poor do you think we should put up with until it is no longer considered a "pipedream"?

You're not going to get anything even resembling M4A without building sufficient support for it in congress first. No matter who the president is, congress still holds the purse strings.

It's just the political realities of the current situation that progressives have nowhere close to the amount of presence needed in the right places to make it happen.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Aka Democrats are useless.

So are leftists, and that's the problem. Both are engaging in aspirational politics instead of challenging the GOP media machine and cultural proclivities that have totally replaced policy for the right. Why don't we have an answer to, say, Sinclair Broadcasting?

[Flower Milk]

And how, pray tell, do we "fight for you"? We don't have a path to pass what you want.

At the very least the Democratic Party could support Medicare for All as part of their party platform so I and others at least know they WANT to fight for it when they get a path to pass it. They voted it down as party of the Democratic Party platform at the last Democratic convention even though a majority of Democratic voters support it.

[kaelleria]

So are leftists, and that's the problem. Both are engaging in aspirational politics instead of challenging the GOP media machine and cultural proclivities that have totally replaced policy for the right. Why don't we have an answer to, say, Sinclair Broadcasting?

I've been saying this since the election. Policies don't matter, messaging does.

[Katchii]

Yes.

Imagine you're a typical Democrat. Your choices would be Biden, Jorgensen, Trump.

Imagine you're a typical Republican. You leave your party because Trump is a giant fuckwad. Your choices would be Biden, Jorgensen, Trump.

Imagine you're a member of Trump's cult. Your choices would be Trump, Jogensen, Biden.

If there's a tie, Jorgensen wins. Not because of deserving anything (1% pop vote) but because the partisan divide between rational and irrational is so wide.

Now, could we ramp up to a better shot at this? Absolutely. Redo the problem with Biden, Sanders, Trump, Kasich, and Jorgensen. Much better situation.

With RCV if there was a tie, Jorgensen wouldn't win, because they had the least amount of votes. In RCV there has to be an actual majority for the candidate to win unlike now where it's a plurality.

Here's video on how RCV works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHRPMJmzBBw

[PhaelixWW]

it would be an improvment but it dosnt fix alot of the fundemental problems in the US system.

Sure, it would be but one step among many.

for a start you would need wider reforming just to have rank first actualy mean anything, under the electoral colledge system most states work on a winner takes all basis, thus ranking your preferances is meaningless when the most popular gets 100% of the states actual votes in the end.

also it still elves america with a retarded two party system, and a president that is grossly over powered compared to modern democracy's.

Again, that's not how RCV actually works. It allows for multiple parties to exist without the risk of one candidate playing spoiler to a somewhat similar candidate, even in a FPTP system. The only possibility for a spoiler would be in the Presidential race, due to the nature of the Electoral College.

Obviously, the hope would be that a) RCV would promote more honest third-party options for every race other than the Presidency, and b) the country continues trying to find a way to end the EC, probably through the NPVIC.

[Katchii]

I've been saying this since the election. Policies don't matter, messaging does.

You need both, though.

Can't do good messaging without having policies to do the messaging about.

[kaelleria]

You need both, though.

Can't do good messaging without having policies to do the messaging about.

I mean clearly you can. Trump just got 70m votes with no policies to speak of.

[Breccia]

With RCV if there was a tie

Yeah, yeah, I was thinking of something else.

There are flaws in every system, but our current one strongly encourages this level of partisanship. I think it's worth looking at other options.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/polit...use/index.html

White House political affairs director Brian Jack now has covid.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

At the very least the Democratic Party could support Medicare for All as party of their party platform so I and others at least know they WANT to fight for it when they get a path to pass it. They voted it down as party of the Democratic Party platform at the last Democratic convention even though a majority of Democratic voters support it.

Why? This is what I mean about aspirational politics. Who gives a shit what they support if it's impossible. Fuck party platforms. If you want M4A you need to create a situation where it's possible to pass M4A not scream at how terrible the DNC is from the outside. That was the opportunity this year, and both the left-center and the left utterly shit the bed.

- - - Updated - - -

I've been saying this since the election. Policies don't matter, messaging does.

Not just messaging, but saturation. We are winning the culture wars in a broad sense, but it's time to turn those wins into votes and longterm party gains. You only do that by pushing your win into the suburbs and rural areas too.

[Flower Milk]

I mean clearly you can. Trump just got 70m votes with no policies to speak of.

As much as people say this, he actually does. Republicans look at what their base wants, like crackdown on immigration, and then craft immigration policies to fuck over immigrants like upping ICE, and then they craft slogans like "Build the Wall" to go along with those policies. Ask yourself, how do you know that "Build the Wall" is racist? It is because of the racist policies and messaging behind it.

Democrats look at an activist created slogan like "Defund the Police" and ignore it and craft no messaging or narrative behind it, it is no surprise when Republicans then turn around and use it as an opening to attack them on since they're not even bothering to talk about it.

[Monster Hunter]

Sure, it would be but one step among many.



Again, that's not how RCV actually works. It allows for multiple parties to exist without the risk of one candidate playing spoiler to a somewhat similar candidate, even in a FPTP system. The only possibility for a spoiler would be in the Presidential race, due to the nature of the Electoral College.

Obviously, the hope would be that a) RCV would promote more honest third-party options for every race other than the Presidency, and b) the country continues trying to find a way to end the EC, probably through the NPVIC.

yes but the problem is you dont actualy vote for a presedential candidate, you vote for electoral representatives and the state awards all of them to the candidate with the most votes, so the method you use to vote dosn't actual matter who ever gets the most preferance still gets 100% of the vote from thats states electoral colledge, and its that principle that drives america into its current state of two parties, more nuanced voting wont change anything in a winner takes all system.

[PhaelixWW]

RCV is hard for people to understand, so it will be hard to implement nationally.

I don't see any downsides to it, but I haven't done a ton of research on it.

It's a little bit hard to understand the benefit of it, I guess (as evidenced by me asking if anyone can think of a downside), but it's not hard to understand how to actually vote in an RCV system.

As the ones who would have to be convinced would be state legislatures, I'm less concerned with whether or not the layperson understands the full logic, as long as they can accept the fact that it allows them more flexibility in their choice for whom they vote.

[Katchii]

I mean clearly you can. Trump just got 70m votes with no policies to speak of.

Terrifyingly enough, he did have policies though, they're just not really political ones. His cult did get behind him on his ideas and are following him as a result of things he's supported and said.

[Belize]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/polit...use/index.html

White House political affairs director Brian Jack now has covid.

Oh no!

Anyways