The Never-President Trump

[SHRIMPER 328]

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

24 minutes ago, SHRIMPER said:

 

She was magnificent. Barr looked more like John Goodman in a sad movie than Barrhaha

[SHRIMPER 328]

That guy really belong in the sewer. Nephew sent me This from the states. We have been discussing this scenrio for some time.

https://apple.news/ATtgHQXkETm-HZojJ4d_q7A

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,181]

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288818160389558273

There's a surprise

Looks like it isn't going to go away, then

[Jools 584]

 

Looking forward to the Trumpski/Biden debates 🙃😃

[Jools 584]

Brutal

🤪  😀

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Jools

[A Load of Squit 5,134]

I wonder if Jools family have to keep reminding him that David Bowie isn't in his flat.
😀

 

[TheGunnShow 5,932]

Trump is a symptom, but not the disease - and we have a similar problem in the UK. Namely a gamed, outdated, antiquated electoral model that needs radical reform. We had the referendum on AV voting, but the problem with it was it went nowhere near far enough.

I've maintained for a very long time that we need to go full Swiss. Not just proportional representation, but also the ability for the populace to gather to strike down new legislation and propose new legislation with public initiatives. The downside is that reform is slower, but it makes politicians actually work together as they realise they're under greater scrutiny.

Both the US and UK have gamed first-past-the-post models where you vote against what you don't want rather than what you would like.

[Surfer 1,547]

The reason the President is off the deep end (again) with his open contempt for his role in American democracy - i.e it's not up to him when an election gets called , despite what his sycophants Attorney General Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeii have hinted - is the GDP numbers just came out. And it's the WORST decline ever recorded, including the Great Depression.

Maintaining the health of the economy has been stated by Republicans as a higher priority than focusing on resolving Covid 19. Of course Republicans just this week proposing to cut emergency payments to furloughed workers from $600 to $200 a week at the same time as increasing the allowable tax deduction for business meals and entertainment from 50% to 100% isn't helping their PR either. And it’ll probably crash the economy further.

But apparently "socialist" countries can both suppress CoronaVirus, hold elections, send kids to school and reopen their economies... but don't tell anyone, Americans might vote for that if they understood it. 

This reality is hitting home now where it counts - look at the map behind trump, where he declares that the virus is "defeated" in most of the country except for "a few hotspots" in the South and West 🙂 Well those few hotspots are where the State Government is in Republican hands and they didn't or haven't enforced masks and allowed bars to stay open. It's these States he also needs to win to stay in power. What about California I hear Jools saying - OK fair question. Fact is the areas with the worst transmission rates right now are those under the control of Republican local government - the ones refusing to enforce the wear a mask mandate and resisting the closing of bars etc .... this party apparently has a death wish - unfortunately it includes all us not just their political future. So stop any elections eh? 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Surfer

[A Load of Squit 5,134]

4 minutes ago, Surfer said:

The reason the President is off the deep end (again) with his open contempt for his role in American democracy - i.e it's not up to him when an election gets called - is the GDP numbers just came out. And it's the WORST numbers since the Great Depression.

And maintaining the health of the economy being given by Republicans as the reason the US can't focus on resolving Covid 19.

But apparently "socialist" countries can do that .... shush don't tell anyone, Americans might vote for that if they understood it. 

Someone explain to Jools why this is 'brutal' and his was comical.

 

[Surfer 1,547]

36 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Both the US and UK have gamed first-past-the-post models where you vote against what you don't want rather than what you would like.

Oh it's much worse than that in the US. See we let the State governments set the boundaries for the Congressional Districts every 10 years. Which means a party in power, can draw the lines to advantage their own party's candidates. So not only a first past the post system but also one where you run a computer program to see how you can move votes around so a 48 - 52 vote split across a State might result in a 70 - 30 seat result in State and Congressional representation. 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Surfer

[Surfer 1,547]

Just in - being VERY cynical saying that this news still will not break though RWNJ consciousness because he's a black man, but Herman Caine, former GOP Presidential candidate and Trump supporter has died - of Covid, diagnosed two weeks after attending the Tulsa rally ... not wearing a mask, not social distancing....  a candidate for the Darwin Award, but nonetheless R.I.P Mr. Caine.  

[TheGunnShow 5,932]

1 hour ago, Surfer said:

Oh it's much worse than that in the US. See we let the State governments set the boundaries for the Congressional Districts every 10 years. Which means a party in power, can draw the lines to advantage their own party's candidates. So not only a first past the post system but also one where you run a computer program to see how you can move votes around so a 48 - 52 vote split across a State might result in a 70 - 30 seat result in State and Congressional representation. 

Sounds like an end-game of a gamed first-past-the-post model to me.
 

 

[Rock The Boat 1,326]

5 hours ago, SHRIMPER said:

That guy really belong in the sewer. Nephew sent me This from the states. We have been discussing this scenrio for some time.

https://apple.news/ATtgHQXkETm-HZojJ4d_q7A

Funnily enough, I too think Trump will quit before November citing the reasons in the  article, ie his job is done and he'll hand over to a younger candidate (which he will want to handpick).

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

5 hours ago, Jools said:

 

Looking forward to the Trumpski/Biden debates 🙃😃

You really don't know what day day it is do you.

Slagging off Biden means nothing to us. 

Anything has to be better than Trump. Just like every voter decided about your Avatar.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Even Ted Cruz thinks Trump is out of order talking of delaying the election.

But he probably say he mentioned to a journalist as a joke.

Or maybe he doesn't want the US public to discuss the shrinking US economy. Minus 33% is a little off from his production that the second quarter would stabilise and go through the roof third quarter.

The economy was all he could pin his hopes on.

Don will be gone.

[Bill 1,788]

6 hours ago, Jools said:

Looking forward to the Trumpski/Biden debates 🙃😃

Just as you were looking forward to those concerts, you claimed to have attended around 67/68, I suppose ?

Which would make you around Trumps age

do you have the same haircut, or orange face perhaps ?

 

 

 

or were those claims just more of your lies ?

[Surfer 1,547]

He's running scared - which he should be - especially as more stories like this come out. Jared is the US Dominic Cummings - nobody elected him, and yet everything is delegated to him by the "boss" - despite his incompetence. . 

" Over and over again, tidbits keep coming out about how Trump's entire team just did not give a ....about people in blue states dying " 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

Edited July 30, 2020 by Surfer

[Bill 1,788]

It is all to similar yo what we have in the UK. A hopeless incompetent, elected because over the years he has become an accomplished and convincing liar

Where Trump spends his time playing golf, our buffoon seems to spend his time 'playing away'.

In February when this crisis was becoming a major threat our gutbucket decided to take 12 days off, also missing the 5 vital COBRA meetings, and when he did finally get his fat **** into gear chose to bluster his way through a photo op where he bragged about shaking hands with those infected with the virus.

And folk wonder why the UK and US have seen such high numbers of deaths.

[Rock The Boat 1,326]

21 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

Trump is a symptom, but not the disease - and we have a similar problem in the UK. Namely a gamed, outdated, antiquated electoral model that needs radical reform. We had the referendum on AV voting, but the problem with it was it went nowhere near far enough.

I've maintained for a very long time that we need to go full Swiss. Not just proportional representation, but also the ability for the populace to gather to strike down new legislation and propose new legislation with public initiatives. The downside is that reform is slower, but it makes politicians actually work together as they realise they're under greater scrutiny.

Both the US and UK have gamed first-past-the-post models where you vote against what you don't want rather than what you would like.

I disagree with what you say about going to a PR voting system as it hands more power to the politicians and weakens the power of the electorate, but I totally agree with your statement about allowing the electorate to have more power in the decision making of legislation. I'm not too sure what the nature of intervention should be as it opens up a whole range of questions that need to be debated but the objective should be more participatory democracy of the electorate. I would like to see an extension of the MP recall system to make MPs more accountable to the local electorate. Current arrangements don't go far enough. 

[TheGunnShow 5,932]

6 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

I disagree with what you say about going to a PR voting system as it hands more power to the politicians and weakens the power of the electorate, but I totally agree with your statement about allowing the electorate to have more power in the decision making of legislation. I'm not too sure what the nature of intervention should be as it opens up a whole range of questions that need to be debated but the objective should be more participatory democracy of the electorate. I would like to see an extension of the MP recall system to make MPs more accountable to the local electorate. Current arrangements don't go far enough. 

Could you explain that re. PR handing more power to the politicians and weakening the power of the electorate? FPTP pretty much results in a system where you have two monolithic parties and a lot of voting against what you really hate as opposed to having what you want (then chuck gerrymandering into the mixer and you make things even more polarised). If PR weakens the electorate in some way, I really would have to question how it does so to a greater extent than the model we have now simply as the potential for numbers of votes to be not remotely proportional to the number of seats gained is quite great. Worse still is the spoiler effect of third parties vis-a-vis the major party that's ideologically closer to them.

A couple of aspects about the Swiss model that I particularly like are as follows:

1. Public initiatives. We had a very attenuated form of this implemented by the coalition government. In Switzerland, if 100,000 signatures are collected within 18 months a referendum is called on the matter in question (IIRC the infamous minaret ban came around this way).
2. If a law enters the statute books, and 50,000 signatures are collected within 100 days of it becoming law, it goes back to referendum. The advantage of this is that politicians find it embarrassing if law is essentially revoked by the people, so they work harder with other politicians across the spectrum (at least in theory) and essentially do a better job of taking varying perspectives into account. Not to mention this is a way for the populace to hold their political elites to account if laws are made which are, to put it mildly, considered a bit shaky.

[Rock The Boat 1,326]

14 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Could you explain that re. PR handing more power to the politicians and weakening the power of the electorate? FPTP pretty much results in a system where you have two monolithic parties and a lot of voting against what you really hate as opposed to having what you want (then chuck gerrymandering into the mixer and you make things even more polarised). If PR weakens the electorate in some way, I really would have to question how it does so to a greater extent than the model we have now simply as the potential for numbers of votes to be not remotely proportional to the number of seats gained is quite great. Worse still is the spoiler effect of third parties vis-a-vis the major party that's ideologically closer to them.

A couple of aspects about the Swiss model that I particularly like are as follows:

1. Public initiatives. We had a very attenuated form of this implemented by the coalition government. In Switzerland, if 100,000 signatures are collected within 18 months a referendum is called on the matter in question (IIRC the infamous minaret ban came around this way).
2. If a law enters the statute books, and 50,000 signatures are collected within 100 days of it becoming law, it goes back to referendum. The advantage of this is that politicians find it embarrassing if law is essentially revoked by the people, so they work harder with other politicians across the spectrum (at least in theory) and essentially do a better job of taking varying perspectives into account. Not to mention this is a way for the populace to hold their political elites to account if laws are made which are, to put it mildly, considered a bit shaky.

Thanks for explaining the Swiss model in more detail. There are some interesting features there that we certainly should be looking at and current levels of technology makes more participation possible, so we really ought to be exploring some of these. 

My objections to PR are because it allows politicians to ignore what they have written in their manifestos. They stand and campaign on a manifesto agenda and then, under PR, undergo a period of horse-trading to become part of a coalition which entails dropping their manifesto promises. 

The result is voters do not get what they voted for and manifestos become meaningless. 

We had a very good example of this during the 2010 coalition government when the LibDems stood on a main pledge to stop university fees. They traded this promise away in order to become part of the government and basically nullified all the LibDem votes. 

So the power of politicians increased at the expense of the voter 

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,181]

32 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

Thanks for explaining the Swiss model in more detail. There are some interesting features there that we certainly should be looking at and current levels of technology makes more participation possible, so we really ought to be exploring some of these. 

My objections to PR are because it allows politicians to ignore what they have written in their manifestos. They stand and campaign on a manifesto agenda and then, under PR, undergo a period of horse-trading to become part of a coalition which entails dropping their manifesto promises. 

The result is voters do not get what they voted for and manifestos become meaningless. 

We had a very good example of this during the 2010 coalition government when the LibDems stood on a main pledge to stop university fees. They traded this promise away in order to become part of the government and basically nullified all the LibDem votes. 

So the power of politicians increased at the expense of the voter 

Parties don't keep their manifesto promises under FPTP either. The conservatives still haven't achieved the reduced immigration figures they promised 

 

 

[TheGunnShow 5,932]

45 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

Thanks for explaining the Swiss model in more detail. There are some interesting features there that we certainly should be looking at and current levels of technology makes more participation possible, so we really ought to be exploring some of these. 

My objections to PR are because it allows politicians to ignore what they have written in their manifestos. They stand and campaign on a manifesto agenda and then, under PR, undergo a period of horse-trading to become part of a coalition which entails dropping their manifesto promises. 

The result is voters do not get what they voted for and manifestos become meaningless. 

We had a very good example of this during the 2010 coalition government when the LibDems stood on a main pledge to stop university fees. They traded this promise away in order to become part of the government and basically nullified all the LibDem votes. 

So the power of politicians increased at the expense of the voter 

That happened under FPTP though. The UK electoral model for our general elections, and therefore the coalition government you refer to, is all elected on our antiquated first-past-the-post system.

The European elections are all done via PR, as they use the d'Hondt method. Our electoral model has always been first-past-the-post. That's precisely why you get such irregularities as UKIP having more than twice the votes than the SNP in 2015, but only got 1 seat instead of 56. Or indeed Labour getting four times the seats of the LibDems in 2010, but only had around 20% more votes.

[A Load of Squit 5,134]

15 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Parties don't keep their manifesto promises under FPTP either. The conservatives still haven't achieved the reduced immigration figures they promised 

 

 

They've been misleading the voters with that one since 2004, that would be quite a few manifestos, the gullible fools keep falling for it.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

PR means people get to power who aren't elected.

Farage never managed to win an individual election but became an MEP because of PR and his party appointing him to the osition.

FPTP isn't the best but when has disenfranchising people ever been a concern to the victor.

[Surfer 1,547]

I concur that PR intros "slates" of candidates which may not be ideal. But at least for Parliamentary elections, you could apply the concept of transferable votes. This is where voters in a constituency have the option on their ballot paper to identify a preference for candidates by ranking one, two or all of the candidates. When the polls close the votes are counted and if no candidate has more than 50%, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated and their votes are relocate based on the expressed preferences to the other candidates. Repeat the process until one candidate has achieved more than 50%.

Given computer scanning of votes its trivial to crush the numbers to see who wins under such a scheme, and yes there is still a paper trail to do manual recounts. Of course you'd need to educate the voters but that is not a unique problem with the scheme. 

[The Raptor 1,199]

18 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Funnily enough, I too think Trump will quit before November citing the reasons in the  article, ie his job is done and he'll hand over to a younger candidate (which he will want to handpick)

Like his son or son in law? Surely no.one would be dumb enough to fall for that...

[Surfer 1,547]

On 30/07/2020 at 07:37, Surfer said:

Oh it's much worse than that in the US. See we let the State governments set the boundaries for the Congressional Districts every 10 years. Which means a party in power, can draw the lines to advantage their own party's candidates. So not only a first past the post system but also one where you run a computer program to see how you can move votes around so a 48 - 52 vote split across a State might result in a 70 - 30 seat result in State and Congressional representation. 

And one other thing. In the UK we call an election, and once the results are in the government changes hands. In fact the national government at least is suspended during the campaign too, and a new one is seated very quickly after the election. Not in the US.

Here we have an election on the first Tuesday in November - every two years except for the presidential election which is every four. The national and state governments in power before the election stay in power during the election. And they also stay in power AFTER the election, typically until the 3rd week of January, which means a government or president losing their election has at least 60 days to mess up the agenda of the incoming government or president. The transfer of power system relies on "honour" not to do that, but guess what is in short supply right now.... 😞 

 

[Creative Midfielder 1,985]

49 minutes ago, Surfer said:

And one other thing. In the UK we call an election, and once the results are in the government changes hands. In fact the national government at least is suspended during the campaign too, and a new one is seated very quickly after the election. Not in the US.

Here we have an election on the first Tuesday in November - every two years except for the presidential election which is every four. The national and state governments in power before the election stay in power during the election. And they also stay in power AFTER the election, typically until the 3rd week of January, which means a government or president losing their election has at least 60 days to mess up the agenda of the incoming government or president. The transfer of power system relies on "honour" not to do that, but guess what is in short supply right now.... 😞 

 

Yes, I've no idea what the origins of that are but it has always seemed an extremely strange way to carry on to me.

I know some might think that in the UK we change governments with almost unseemly haste after an election. But although I've said many times on here how useless I think our electoral and parliamentary system is, nevertheless that is one thing I think we have got right - as soon as an election result is confirmed it should be out with the old and in with the new, can see no justification for anything else.