Kellyanne Conway - 'Go buy Ivanka's stuff'

[zinfamous]

Yes they are responsible for their part in this because they should have seen this coming,

It started back when the Democrats decided to give up on the worker class (who they call deplorables today) so they can eat at the corporate pig trough like the republicans, wine and dine with their favorite 1% celebrities, wall street bankers, etc. while pretending to care for the little people every 2 or 4 years for their votes unlike in the past where it was genuine care 365 days of the year.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ing-class-voters-democrats-donald-trump#img-1
I am a Democrat in rural, red-state America. My party abandoned us

aside for your misunderstanding who the actual "deplorables" are (hint: legit white supremacist, tattoo-wielding nazis that somehow consider themselves American patriots and fucking LOVE Trump), I tend to sympathize with this complaint.

The Democrats abandoned their actual base long ago, and it was never more apparent than in this recent election. Again, though: not the actual deplorables, whom are legitimately awful people of the most heinous and fascistic understanding of the term--every single one of them republican by habit, and not one of them "rust belt democrats."

 

[Vic]

I never said both sides are the same because things are never the same. There will be differences. The issue is that people believe this system we have in place. They believe in Democrats and Republicans. They believe in liberals and conservatives.

Many of you supposedly smart people pick on religious people for "believing" yet you also do the same when it comes to your own little issues as well. You keep on believing when the results say otherwise. This country and the world is in the state it is in because of ALL the political parities. Yeah, right now the Republicans have the power and thus are causing more harm than the Democrats - at least from what we can see. Trump is bringing us hatred and anger like never seen before (recently). But I don't have faith in the Democrats to fix this either. People say that one should pick "lesser of the two evils" but you are still picking evil. I don't want that.

Maybe in the next selection (I mean election) cycle, your favorite Democrat puppet can be put in place. Who cares.The show/scam goes on.

It's all a giant lie. A scam to get the masses to participate in.

What would the scam be like if the masses didn't participate in it? And are all these clowns and puppets the same? Or doesn't it matter what they're saying and doing?

 

[Bitek]

I don't know what is a better way. The way we are doing it now will lead to more candidates like billionaire Trump, billionaire Rex Tillerson, elite bankers like Mnuchin, etc.

A real, ordinary person will never, ever become close to becoming President of US. It is that way for a reason.

Nowadays, one needs raise hundreds of millions of dollars to market himself in front of the masses. And in order to raise that much money, you need to shill yourself out. You need to pander to groups. You need to host those fake dinners. There is no honesty or decency there. (Just one example of the corrupt system).

Your corporations and banks basically run the show. Everything else is secondary.

So again, the better way would be where everything is real. Where one doesn't need money to tell everyone how good of a person he is. Where ads on TV don't play constantly to get your vote.

These elections are like reality TV shows. Just as superficial and lacking anything that resembles "truthfulness." I don't want to participate in that system.

This is your political system now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NsrwH9I9vE

So your cynicism and nihilism are useless then?
Voting for third parties in national elections doesn't effect anything.

It's better than not voting, but the system is designed for two parties. There are no run offs, the house then decides between the top finishers for president.

Where you are wrong is that people have a voice and a vote and they are powerful of wielded with care.

Parties are shaped by the values of their members. Members who actually participate, push the culture and the leaders. This is how parties can evolve from Jim Crow to Barack Obama, and Abe Lincoln to Trump.

So if people actually care how their country is run, then it's their duty to be educated, involved, particularly at the local level. So much more that effects your daily life is decided there.

Plus, the president can only stand on the base that is built for him. The office needs support from Congress, States and localities to implement anything.

 

[MixMasterTang]

US Grant and WG Harding are high-fiv-ering each other right now, lighting up big cigars and toasting bourbon snifters--not entirely unlike those 1978 old-ass Miami Dolphins jagoffs every football season.

I think you mean the 1972 dolphins

 

[zinfamous]

I think you mean the 1972 dolphins

whatever. same assholes.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

So again, explain your better way.

An anonymized voting system, where anyone who wishes to be president submits their qualifications (who are vetted by a third party, independently, also anonymously) and a xxx number of questions answered as issues for the US. Some would be bog standard questions regarding economy, foreign relations, etc.. some would be hot button ones, based on current events such as how to handle the current immigration situation, etc. Perhaps introduce a 'vote on new questions' thing or something for the masses to get them involved.

When voters go to the booths, they select *their* answers for the questions, instead of the candidate. The candidate who gets selected is the one who's policies most align with what voters also want.

There's a *lot* of fuzzy stuff in there that would have to be sussed out, but that would get rid of the superstars, the party system, and most complaints about lack of choice all in one swoop.

 

[fskimospy]

An anonymized voting system, where anyone who wishes to be president submits their qualifications (who are vetted by a third party, independently, also anonymously) and a xxx number of questions answered as issues for the US. Some would be bog standard questions regarding economy, foreign relations, etc.. some would be hot button ones, based on current events such as how to handle the current immigration situation, etc. Perhaps introduce a 'vote on new questions' thing or something for the masses to get them involved.

When voters go to the booths, they select *their* answers for the questions, instead of the candidate. The candidate who gets selected is the one who's policies most align with what voters also want.

There's a *lot* of fuzzy stuff in there that would have to be sussed out, but that would get rid of the superstars, the party system, and most complaints about lack of choice all in one swoop.

I would think if anything our current president would show why this is a really bad idea. Even if Donald Trump agreed with me on every issue I would never want him in the White House as he's pretty obviously mentally ill.

That aside you would have to let the candidates know the questions in advance so that they could make informed opinions on them and at that point it would just be a polling/opinion modeling exercise to figure out the optimal answers regardless of what your actual positions were.

I know you said your outline was fuzzy, but those two things I mentioned seem like insurmountable obstacles.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I would think if anything our current president would show why this is a really bad idea. Even if Donald Trump agreed with me on every issue I would never want him in the White House as he's pretty obviously mentally ill.

That aside you would have to let the candidates know the questions in advance so that they could make informed opinions on them and at that point it would just be a polling/opinion modeling exercise to figure out the optimal answers regardless of what your actual positions were.

I know you said your outline was fuzzy, but those two things I mentioned seem like insurmountable obstacles.

You could include some 'sanity check' questions to get an overall mental/moral(ish) compass for the candidate, like 'how do you feel about the sitting president' or 'do you think things were better, overall, 100 years ago' for the first part... I'm sure a psychologist could come up with better ones.

I actually think the candidates *should not* be given an opportunity to 'study up' on the issues. The issues should be ones that a given candidate already has knowledge of, if they intend to be president (no stupid issues like 'how much money should xyz thing get next year'). They should have an idea in their head of what they would like to do about the situation with Syrian immigrants, not find the polls on what people want then go after that pick. This would probably require careful choices when it came to the questions, of course.

 

[fskimospy]

You could include some 'sanity check' questions to get an overall mental/moral(ish) compass for the candidate, like 'how do you feel about the sitting president' or 'do you think things were better, overall, 100 years ago' for the first part... I'm sure a psychologist could come up with better ones.

I sincerely doubt you're going to be able to come up with a set of questions that would be able to successfully weed out people like Trump. Regardless, what if they are sane but just a moron? Sarah Palin doesn't seem to be crazy but I sure as shit wouldn't want her to be the president.

I actually think the candidates *should not* be given an opportunity to 'study up' on the issues. The issues should be ones that a given candidate already has knowledge of, if they intend to be president (no stupid issues like 'how much money should xyz thing get next year'). They should have an idea in their head of what they would like to do about the situation with Syrian immigrants, not find the polls on what people want then go after that pick. This would probably require careful choices when it came to the questions, of course.

But a president will always be confronted with things they don't know about and their ability to come up with good answers for things they aren't familiar with is a super important part of the job. This isn't a history test, after all. The idea that they would have to study up and then answer random questions about current events and civics seems like an absurd way to elect a president. All that aside, if the questions are easy enough that anyone competent running for the presidency would know them and be able to answer intelligently then they are susceptible to exactly the sort of gaming that I mentioned earlier.

The more I think about it the more problematic this becomes. In order to use this as a voting method you would also have to basically make the answers multiple choice. (you aren't going to have people grade 120 million essay questions) There's no way you could come up with enough choices to capture the range of nuance and political thought that would be required unless you had like 30 options for each question. Overall this seems like a bad idea.

The answer to our problems is not in purposefully keeping information from the voters. If you want candidates that align more closely with voter preferences then something like instant runoff voting would be best.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I sincerely doubt you're going to be able to come up with a set of questions that would be able to successfully weed out people like Trump. Regardless, what if they are sane but just a moron? Sarah Palin doesn't seem to be crazy but I sure as shit wouldn't want her to be the president.



But a president will always be confronted with things they don't know about and their ability to come up with good answers for things they aren't familiar with is a super important part of the job. This isn't a history test, after all. The idea that they would have to study up and then answer random questions about current events and civics seems like an absurd way to elect a president. All that aside, if the questions are easy enough that anyone competent running for the presidency would know them and be able to answer intelligently then they are susceptible to exactly the sort of gaming that I mentioned earlier.

The more I think about it the more problematic this becomes. In order to use this as a voting method you would also have to basically make the answers multiple choice. (you aren't going to have people grade 120 million essay questions) There's no way you could come up with enough choices to capture the range of nuance and political thought that would be required unless you had like 30 options for each question. Overall this seems like a bad idea.

The answer to our problems is not in purposefully keeping information from the voters. If you want candidates that align more closely with voter preferences then something like instant runoff voting would be best.

Instant runoff, as in, present the candidates and immediately vote for them? That caters even further to the showboaters instead of anything resembling intelligence.

Yeah, it would be multiple choice, and the questions would have to be generalized (not stupid-specific) in order to facilitate this method. The idea is to get a *bearing* of the candidate instead of what their specific plans are. The 'plans' of a candidate from the campaign trail is garbage anyhow, since they'll promise the moon to get elected. Maybe there could be a little box at the end where a candidate can provide (in under 100 words) some new hotness they'd like to do, to personalize it in a way.

The idea would be to weed out people like Palin because you don't like her policies. If her policies aligned with yours, she would in fact be the best candidate for you.

 

[fskimospy]

Instant runoff, as in, present the candidates and immediately vote for them? That caters even further to the showboaters instead of anything resembling intelligence.

No, that's not what instant runoff is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Instead of voting only for a single candidate, in IRV, voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice. If a candidate secures more than half of these votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate in last place is eliminated and removed from consideration. The top remaining choices on all the ballots are then counted again. This process repeats until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters. When the field is reduced to two, it has become an "instant runoff" that allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head.

Doesn't that sound better?

Yeah, it would be multiple choice, and the questions would have to be generalized (not stupid-specific) in order to facilitate this method. The idea is to get a *bearing* of the candidate instead of what their specific plans are. The 'plans' of a candidate from the campaign trail is garbage anyhow, since they'll promise the moon to get elected. Maybe there could be a little box at the end where a candidate can provide (in under 100 words) some new hotness they'd like to do, to personalize it in a way.

The idea would be to weed out people like Palin because you don't like her policies. If her policies aligned with yours, she would in fact be the best candidate for you.

The idea that presidents don't follow through on their campaign promises is a common myth. Those plans are definitely not garbage, they are important information.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/

Political scientists have been studying the question of campaign promises for almost 50 years, and the results are remarkably consistent. Most of the literature suggests that presidents make at least a “good faith” effort to keep an average of about two-thirds of their campaign promises; the exact numbers differ from study to study, depending on how the authors define what counts as a campaign promise and what it means to keep it.

Regardless, if they are just general questions to get a bearing on someone that makes it super easy to game them which again comes back to one of my original promises. You would just poll test your answers and build a model that would tell you what answers were most likely to make you president and then select those, regardless of your actual policy positions. If you're adding on a statement at the end then you're going to allow candidates to easily identify themselves, which thwarts your original purpose.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

No, that's not what instant runoff is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting



Doesn't that sound better?



The idea that presidents don't follow through on their campaign promises is a common myth. Those plans are definitely not garbage, they are important information.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/



Regardless, if they are just general questions to get a bearing on someone that makes it super easy to game them which again comes back to one of my original promises. You would just poll test your answers and build a model that would tell you what answers were most likely to make you president and then select those, regardless of your actual policy positions. If you're adding on a statement at the end then you're going to allow candidates to easily identify themselves, which thwarts your original purpose.

Ah okay, I've heard instant runoff referred to with other names (secondary voting, dual-vote, stuff like that). Yeah I'd like that too, it's still limiting though (based on candidates presented).

I guess what I was getting at was that the candidates wouldn't know the questions going in, so that polls couldn't be created to determine the answers. I guess a candidate could just answer based on what the current overarching attitude for <insert topic> was, which would indeed defeat the purpose of it. If they went wildly off the rails from that though, it would probably be obvious it was gamed.

This is all just musings from someone who wishes there was a better way, so I'm sure there's plenty of fallacies.

I understand the 'good faith' approach to accepting actions per their promises, but there is a *lot* of wiggle room in what was promised vs what was delivered. I'd be curious on the specificity of the results of those promises on what was kept (build a wall on the US taxpayer's dime vs build a wall and mexico pays for it). That was the 'promise the moon' part I meant. I don't care if the incoming pres is going to 'make america great' if that means grinding our allies into the dirt.