Trump wins Iowa - is anyone surprised?

[pmv]

Not sure why there isn't a thread already

Trump wins big in Iowa as Republican contest kicks off 2024 presidential race

Former president a step closer to Joe Biden rematch, as Ron DeSantis edges out Nikki Haley for distant second place finish

www.theguardian.com

As an aside, I don't get the way this is reported (including on the radio this morning) as if it's an actual Presidential election, rather than just one party picking its candidate. That Trump is going to be the Republican candidate has seemed very likely for a long time, but that's an entirely different question to who is going to become President.

DeSantis's moans about the media 'calling the election early' seems similarly silly. It's just an internal vote in the Republican Party, no? Surely the media can say whatever it likes about that?

 

[fskimospy]

My favorite part is that people who constantly whine about election integrity recorded their votes by dropping them in a paper bag.

 

[igor_kavinski]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/yes-trump-can-win-2024-election-here-are-four-reasons-why-2023-12-12/

Maybe amend the constitution to have the Vice President from the opposition party, to keep a well known rabid President from doing anything too stupid?

 

[Greenman]

Or maybe just accept that whoever gets the most electoral votes gets to be president and select his or her VP.

 

[mikeymikec]

My favorite part is that people who constantly whine about election integrity recorded their votes by dropping them in a paper bag.

In the UK, the Conservative party complained that 'alternative vote' was a bad thing yet uses it for their internal elections.

 

[fskimospy]

Or maybe just accept that whoever gets the most electoral votes gets to be president and select his or her VP.

Better to just eliminate the electoral college entirely because it’s an obviously dumb idea.

 

[MrSquished]

So trump got 50% and DeSantis got 21%, Vivek even got like 7% - DeSantis is just as evil as Trump, just without any personality, Vivek is just also a piece of total shit. 75%+ of the GQP voted for utterly evil human beings for their next nominee. Folks, these people are not coming back to decency and humanity. Haley is a bit more sane than those two for sure, but her presidency wouldn't be too much better, the evil base runs the show and she will have to cater to them - federal abortion ban, caters to civil war slavery deniers, raising the retirement age, continuing trickle down economics and making the country worse for anyone but the rich, etc....

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/yes-trump-can-win-2024-election-here-are-four-reasons-why-2023-12-12/

Maybe amend the constitution to have the Vice President from the opposition party, to keep a well known rabid President from doing anything too stupid?

I've thought for years that all presidents should have a VP from a different party. That'd be rad.

 

[Greenman]

Better to just eliminate the electoral college entirely because it’s an obviously dumb idea.

It's fundamental to the republic. Why would any states give up their say in the presidential elections?

 

[MrSquished]

of course Elon got it all wrong

 

[MrSquished]

It's fundamental to the republic. Why would any states give up their say in presidential elections?

It was based off of appeasing slave owning states, the EC's roots are pure evil.

But of course you've been told this and of course you are good with it, because you are part of Team Cancer and it benefits Team Cancer.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It's fundamental to the republic. Why would any states give up their say in the presidential elections?

The president serves the people, not the state. The president should be decided by the people, not the state.

 

[Greenman]

The president serves the people, not the state. The president should be decided by the people, not the state.

Not the way the system was designed, and not the way it operates. You want to change it because you're often unhappy with the results and want to be sure those stupid red states don't get a say in the elections. The people don't elect the president, the states do.

 

[Zorba]

It's fundamental to the republic. Why would any states give up their say in the presidential elections?

Because it would give the vast majority of states more power than they currently have. If party politics has nothing to do with it, the EC would've been shit canned long ago.

You know what else is fundamental to the Republic? Expanding the house with population, which hasn't happened in over 100 years.

 

[MrSquished]

Not the way the system was designed, and not the way it operates. You want to change it because you're often unhappy with the results and want to be sure those stupid red states don't get a say in the elections. The people don't elect the president, the states do.

We know you enjoy living in a world created when only property owning white men could vote, women had zero rights and blacks were still slaves and everything was built to maintain that status quo and make it really really really hard to change, so there is plenty of work to be done still. Of course it all makes sense to you and you will hold onto that confederate heritage as much as you can in your gated community of willful ignorance. The fact is the EC was created to appease slave-owning states, and you are fine with keeping it because it benefits team shitty people, and you are shitty.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Or maybe just accept that whoever gets the most POPULAR votes gets to be president and select his or her VP.

FTFY!

 

[pmv]

I've thought for years that all presidents should have a VP from a different party. That'd be rad.

Wasn't that roughly how it originally worked? That the VP would be the one who came second in the Presidential election? Though they also thought there wouldn't be any political parties, so seems as if they didn't really understand anything very much.

 

[pmv]

It's fundamental to the republic. Why would any states give up their say in the presidential elections?

Why is it "fundamental"? It's a choice, and clearly a very poor one.

 

[fskimospy]

It's fundamental to the republic. Why would any states give up their say in the presidential elections?

It’s not fundamental to the republic in any way, shape, or form. There was a time when people thought of themselves as citizens of a state more than citizens of the US but that time is long, long gone.

The presidency should be awarded by the vote of a majority of the office’s constituents, just like every single other elected office in the US.

You just like it because it helps Republicans win elections they would otherwise lose. You can’t make any case for it on the merits.

 

[pmv]

Not the way the system was designed, and not the way it operates. You want to change it because you're often unhappy with the results and want to be sure those stupid red states don't get a say in the elections. The people don't elect the president, the states do.

Yes, the system was designed to maintain a class and race based oligarchy. They just wanted to get rid of the constraints imposed by the monarch at the very top, while maintaining the power of the landed gentry. And to avoid having to pay their bills (while being free to hoover up all the loot).

Hence all the snowflake whinging about an entirely imaginary 'tyranny'. The US was founded on snowflake claims to victimhood by the privileged, and it's continued that way ever since.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Not the way the system was designed, and not the way it operates. You want to change it because you're often unhappy with the results and want to be sure those stupid red states don't get a say in the elections. The people don't elect the president, the states do.

Really, so you belive Texas, Florida, the big red states would have no say in the election? You do realize that the only thing the electoral collage does is allows the minority to rule. That's it.. does nothing else. Why should the minority rule when it goes against the majority?

 

[fskimospy]

Why is it "fundamental"? It's a choice, and clearly a very poor one.

What I would love is for someone, anyone, to make a case for electing the president this way on the merits. I’ve seen people try but every time they do all that ends up happening is they expose how little they have thought about it and how they are engaging in motivated reasoning.

Usually the argument is that without it small states would have no say in the election. This ignores the fact of course that they have no say now. The only states that have a say are a random collection of states that are close to 50/50 while the vast majority of the country is ignored. It’s a self evidently stupid idea.

 

[Thump553]

My favorite part is that people who constantly whine about election integrity recorded their votes by dropping them in a paper bag.

Not only that, but the votes aren't secret and if you vote wrong you will be browbeat by your fellow party comrades to vote correctly on the next ballot.

The caucus system is designed to maintain party control by the faithful minority of active party members. It is an abomination.

 

[UNCjigga]

Vivek placed about where I’d expect for the darkest-skinned Republican candidate.

The inevitability of Trump to emerge victorious as the shit-stained standard bearer of a dying party left nothing to surprise. This was engineered from the outset by the various donors and RNC bosses pulling the strings. Even the other candidates themselves are aware to some extent that they exist as mere window dressing to demonstrate some semblance of a democratic primary process.

The party is Trump. Trump is the party. There are no Nikki Haley or Chris Christie voters left amongst the core of ideologically warped MAGA Republicans. Why would they choose sycophants like DeSantis or Rama-something when they can choose the real thing? The fearless leader who shaped the party in His image?

Hopefully this will wake people up to the fact that Trump will be on the ballot against Biden come November 5, and he is just as likely to win as he was in 2016, if not more so. Too many people keep falling for wishful thinking that the Justice Department and courts will keep him out—the same system with Trump’s very own engineered SCOTUS as its ultimate arbiter. Or else they expect a more powerful candidate—from either side of the ideological spectrum—to appear out of ether and sweep Trump or Biden out of the way. Not going to happen.

 

[JD50]

Not the way the system was designed, and not the way it operates. You want to change it because you're often unhappy with the results and want to be sure those stupid red states don't get a say in the elections. The people don't elect the president, the states do.

People in those red states would get just as much of a say in the election as every other person in this country. One person one vote, why does that upset you? There's millions of Republicans in blue states who don't get a say in the election and haven't in decades, their votes essentially go in the trash.