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  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited June 2020
    ..
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like France is going to do a maximal stress test on viral outdoors transmission too : https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1267916344487317504

    That would be the same France where Marine Le Pen is polling 45% ahead of the 2022 presidential election?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_French_presidential_election
    Yay, Le Pen ramping.

    Huzzah.


    Tell us again how many departments she won. I love the classics.
    No ramping about it, just the latest Ifop poll results
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909

    Pulpstar said:
    People have realised that there are bigger risks to their way of life.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QDKLglEP5Y
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    It should also be pointed out every elected Republican President until Trump has won over 50% of the popular vote at least once
    Have you ruled out Trump getting 50% this year?
    Only two elected Presidents since 1950 have failed to get 50% of the popular vote at least once, JFK and Bill Clinton (though Kennedy would almost certainly have got over 50% in 1964 v Goldwater and Clinton had Perot splitting the vote).

    I would not be surprised if Trump is re elected that he joins that club
    Who do you think will win?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like France is going to do a maximal stress test on viral outdoors transmission too : https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1267916344487317504

    That would be the same France where Marine Le Pen is polling 45% ahead of the 2022 presidential election?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_French_presidential_election
    Yay, Le Pen ramping.

    Huzzah.

    Tell us again how many departments she won. I love the classics.
    Based on incontrovertible trends for 2002 and 2017 between le Pen and non Le pen candidates I'd say it will be neck and neck in the 2032 election for the next generation of le Pen. If they dont get it then the trend shows a commanding victory in 2047 for le Pen mark 4.

    Fact.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Charles said:

    FPT

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1267870995014209536

    The first tweet back says he was a "career criminal".

    Incredible.

    Norman Stanley Fletcher would have been sat on while he died of lack of air under that view of the world.

    Thing is, they are going to throw the book at this guy, rightly, for what he has done.

    Due process will take its course and he will be severely punished, as he should be.

    And if there hadn't been someone filming the whole thing he would have gotten away with it.
    Indeed just like with Ahmaud Arbery too recently.
    There was an interview today with some silly teenagers organising the U.K. protests about Floyd.

    But the stat that jumped out to me was that in the UK 936 BAME individuals have died in police custody/following police contact (eg shooting) since 1990.

    That’s like 30 a year. I had absolutely no idea it was this high
    That does sound high but the description also sounds very vague to leave it as open ended as possible. So I wonder what it includes.

    Does it include suicides?
    Does it include drug overdoses?

    Not all of that by any means would be due to brutality. If a child molester for instance is arrested and kills themselves are they included in the statistics?
    The answers are yes, yes and yes.

    Edit: if I’m reading the report right I think eight people died in 18/19 during restraint. Four were white, two black and two “mixed heritage” is I think the term they used.
    Two to four a year is very different to thirty a year.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    edited June 2020

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Charles said:

    FPT

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1267870995014209536

    The first tweet back says he was a "career criminal".

    Incredible.

    Norman Stanley Fletcher would have been sat on while he died of lack of air under that view of the world.

    Thing is, they are going to throw the book at this guy, rightly, for what he has done.

    Due process will take its course and he will be severely punished, as he should be.

    And if there hadn't been someone filming the whole thing he would have gotten away with it.
    Indeed just like with Ahmaud Arbery too recently.
    There was an interview today with some silly teenagers organising the U.K. protests about Floyd.

    But the stat that jumped out to me was that in the UK 936 BAME individuals have died in police custody/following police contact (eg shooting) since 1990.

    That’s like 30 a year. I had absolutely no idea it was this high
    That's an appalling number.
    That number looks like a *massive* exaggeration.

    https://www.inquest.org.uk/bame-deaths-in-police-custody

    Where is it from?

    eg
    https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1267952878678945792
    Not exaggerated, but the largest category by some distance is following contact rather than actually in custody.

    For deaths actually in custody in 18/19, 15 out of the 16 were white and one was black.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    It should also be pointed out every elected Republican President until Trump has won over 50% of the popular vote at least once
    Have you ruled out Trump getting 50% this year?
    Only two elected Presidents since 1950 have failed to get 50% of the popular vote at least once, JFK and Bill Clinton (though Kennedy would almost certainly have got over 50% in 1964 v Goldwater and Clinton had Perot splitting the vote).

    I would not be surprised if Trump is re elected that he joins that club
    Who do you think will win?
    Still too close to call in my view, Trump would have beaten Sanders or Warren but Biden v Trump could go either way
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,838
    The electoral colleage advantage for the GOP is pretty much entirely down to the internal vote split on the west coast being so heavily Democrat lopsided with nowhere near enough counterbalancing states for the GOP.
    The argument that somehow it's down to Wyoming/Montana being overrepresented is bunkum.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited June 2020

    Charles said:

    FPT

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1267870995014209536

    The first tweet back says he was a "career criminal".

    Incredible.

    Norman Stanley Fletcher would have been sat on while he died of lack of air under that view of the world.

    Thing is, they are going to throw the book at this guy, rightly, for what he has done.

    Due process will take its course and he will be severely punished, as he should be.

    And if there hadn't been someone filming the whole thing he would have gotten away with it.
    Indeed just like with Ahmaud Arbery too recently.
    There was an interview today with some silly teenagers organising the U.K. protests about Floyd.

    But the stat that jumped out to me was that in the UK 936 BAME individuals have died in police custody/following police contact (eg shooting) since 1990.

    That’s like 30 a year. I had absolutely no idea it was this high
    Here is the report on the 2018/19 figures: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/statistics/deaths_during_following_police_contact_201819.pdf
    That looks like an exaggerated claim, not supported by the linked report.

    https://www.inquest.org.uk/bame-deaths-in-police-custody

    Who made the claim and where? With this particular statistic one of the things done is to quote a 30 year average whilst forgetting to mention that it has halved or more.

    eg
    https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1267952878678945792
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited June 2020
    deleted as not much added and it's late
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    It should also be pointed out every elected Republican President until Trump has won over 50% of the popular vote at least once
    Have you ruled out Trump getting 50% this year?
    Only two elected Presidents since 1950 have failed to get 50% of the popular vote at least once, JFK and Bill Clinton (though Kennedy would almost certainly have got over 50% in 1964 v Goldwater and Clinton had Perot splitting the vote).

    I would not be surprised if Trump is re elected that he joins that club
    Who do you think will win?
    Still too close to call in my view, Trump would have beaten Sanders or Warren but Biden v Trump could go either way
    If you were pushed to a call?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    More Americans voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016.
    More Americans voted for Gore than for Bush in 2000.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    valleyboy said:

    Justin124 on previous thread re Preseli Pembs. Genuine question why is it pretty certain Wales will lose seats in boundary changes?
    Dynamics of 2019? Like everywhere else Brexit and Corbyn.
    Crabbe not popular but this is a Tory marginal. Labour could do with a bit of Cardigan!

    Wales is overrepresented at Westminster in terms of its population. Formerly this was also true of Scotland, but post- Devolution the number of seats there has been reduced from over 70 to 59. Wales currently has 40 seats , but should only have 32 in a House of Commons of 650. Had the plan - now abandoned - to reduce numbers to 600 gone ahead, seats in Wales would have fallen to 30.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Yep. Fair comment. My point was more that the Republicans are making next to zero effort to appeal to the urban, affluent, irreligious, or at least agnostic, highly educated. Given that the majority of the Midwest States, and other swing States (Nevada, N Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Coloado), contain at least one or more sizable urban centre then...
    At least the Democrats seem to understand that they need these places to turn out.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    It should also be pointed out every elected Republican President until Trump has won over 50% of the popular vote at least once
    Have you ruled out Trump getting 50% this year?
    Only two elected Presidents since 1950 have failed to get 50% of the popular vote at least once, JFK and Bill Clinton (though Kennedy would almost certainly have got over 50% in 1964 v Goldwater and Clinton had Perot splitting the vote).

    I would not be surprised if Trump is re elected that he joins that club
    Who do you think will win?
    Still too close to call in my view, Trump would have beaten Sanders or Warren but Biden v Trump could go either way
    If you were pushed to a call?
    I genuinely don't know, I think it will be the closest election since 2000 is all I will say
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    Trudeau of course lost the popular vote last year but was re elected nonetheless, clearly in Canada FPTP benefits liberals not conservatives
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 595

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The Electoral College is effectively Parliament before the Great Reform Act with the prairie states as the GOP's own rotten boroughs.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    More Americans voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016.
    More Americans voted for Gore than for Bush in 2000.
    The President is not the President of Americans.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060

    Charles said:

    FPT

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1267870995014209536

    The first tweet back says he was a "career criminal".

    Incredible.

    Norman Stanley Fletcher would have been sat on while he died of lack of air under that view of the world.

    Thing is, they are going to throw the book at this guy, rightly, for what he has done.

    Due process will take its course and he will be severely punished, as he should be.

    And if there hadn't been someone filming the whole thing he would have gotten away with it.
    Indeed just like with Ahmaud Arbery too recently.
    There was an interview today with some silly teenagers organising the U.K. protests about Floyd.

    But the stat that jumped out to me was that in the UK 936 BAME individuals have died in police custody/following police contact (eg shooting) since 1990.

    That’s like 30 a year. I had absolutely no idea it was this high
    That does sound high but the description also sounds very vague to leave it as open ended as possible. So I wonder what it includes.

    Does it include suicides?
    Does it include drug overdoses?

    Not all of that by any means would be due to brutality. If a child molester for instance is arrested and kills themselves are they included in the statistics?
    The answers are yes, yes and yes.

    Edit: if I’m reading the report right I think eight people died in 18/19 during restraint. Four were white, two black and two “mixed heritage” is I think the term they used.
    Two to four a year is very different to thirty a year.
    Looking at the report I quoted above you can get to about thirty by including:
    People killed in car crashes involving the police ( quite a high number)
    Suicides following custody (though most of those were white)
    People who died after the police were called by someone concerned for their safety.
    Three people were shot, one of whom was black.

    If I’m adding it up right 33 BAME people died out of 273 in total.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Pulpstar said:

    The electoral colleage advantage for the GOP is pretty much entirely down to the internal vote split on the west coast being so heavily Democrat lopsided with nowhere near enough counterbalancing states for the GOP.
    The argument that somehow it's down to Wyoming/Montana being overrepresented is bunkum.

    If Texas flips though then it could be a whole different ballgame.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    HYUFD said:



    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like France is going to do a maximal stress test on viral outdoors transmission too : https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1267916344487317504

    That would be the same France where Marine Le Pen is polling 45% ahead of the 2022 presidential election?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_French_presidential_election
    Yay, Le Pen ramping.

    Huzzah.


    Tell us again how many departments she won. I love the classics.
    No ramping about it, just the latest Ifop poll results
    How latest are they, by the way?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Charles said:

    FPT

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1267870995014209536

    The first tweet back says he was a "career criminal".

    Incredible.

    Norman Stanley Fletcher would have been sat on while he died of lack of air under that view of the world.

    Thing is, they are going to throw the book at this guy, rightly, for what he has done.

    Due process will take its course and he will be severely punished, as he should be.

    And if there hadn't been someone filming the whole thing he would have gotten away with it.
    Indeed just like with Ahmaud Arbery too recently.
    There was an interview today with some silly teenagers organising the U.K. protests about Floyd.

    But the stat that jumped out to me was that in the UK 936 BAME individuals have died in police custody/following police contact (eg shooting) since 1990.

    That’s like 30 a year. I had absolutely no idea it was this high
    That does sound high but the description also sounds very vague to leave it as open ended as possible. So I wonder what it includes.

    Does it include suicides?
    Does it include drug overdoses?

    Not all of that by any means would be due to brutality. If a child molester for instance is arrested and kills themselves are they included in the statistics?
    The answers are yes, yes and yes.

    Edit: if I’m reading the report right I think eight people died in 18/19 during restraint. Four were white, two black and two “mixed heritage” is I think the term they used.
    Two to four a year is very different to thirty a year.
    Looking at the report I quoted above you can get to about thirty by including:
    People killed in car crashes involving the police ( quite a high number)
    Suicides following custody (though most of those were white)
    People who died after the police were called by someone concerned for their safety.
    Three people were shot, one of whom was black.

    If I’m adding it up right 33 BAME people died out of 273 in total.
    Well those are very dodgy statistics then.

    Glad I got suspicious. Once someone phrases something so vaguely it sets alarm bells ringing.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    Trudeau of course lost the popular vote last year but was re elected nonetheless, clearly in Canada FPTP benefits liberals not conservatives
    The problem for the Canadian Conservatives is that they pile up the most enormous majorities in Alberta, with close to 90% of the vote in some constituencies. But those votes don't win them any extra seats.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    Pulpstar said:

    The electoral colleage advantage for the GOP is pretty much entirely down to the internal vote split on the west coast being so heavily Democrat lopsided with nowhere near enough counterbalancing states for the GOP.
    The argument that somehow it's down to Wyoming/Montana being overrepresented is bunkum.

    If Texas flips though then it could be a whole different ballgame.
    Georgia isn't off the radar either. Trump hit pretty much every target last time. Helped, as you say by Hilary's pisspoor campaign. He needs to do so again.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
    It’s not a state election.

    Why should Ohioans’ votes count when Californians’ don’t? You are not electing a senate of state leaders, but a president for all the states.

    All votes should count equally.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:



    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like France is going to do a maximal stress test on viral outdoors transmission too : https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1267916344487317504

    That would be the same France where Marine Le Pen is polling 45% ahead of the 2022 presidential election?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_French_presidential_election
    Yay, Le Pen ramping.

    Huzzah.


    Tell us again how many departments she won. I love the classics.
    No ramping about it, just the latest Ifop poll results
    How latest are they, by the way?
    October from what I can see.

    They show Macron winning the run off by 10pts.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    Trudeau of course lost the popular vote last year but was re elected nonetheless, clearly in Canada FPTP benefits liberals not conservatives
    The problem for the Canadian Conservatives is that they pile up the most enormous majorities in Alberta, with close to 90% of the vote in some constituencies. But those votes don't win them any extra seats.
    The other problem is, of course, their lack of allies. Under pure PR they could win the popular vote and be nowhere near able to form a government.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    dixiedean said:

    Pulpstar said:

    The electoral colleage advantage for the GOP is pretty much entirely down to the internal vote split on the west coast being so heavily Democrat lopsided with nowhere near enough counterbalancing states for the GOP.
    The argument that somehow it's down to Wyoming/Montana being overrepresented is bunkum.

    If Texas flips though then it could be a whole different ballgame.
    Georgia isn't off the radar either. Trump hit pretty much every target last time. Helped, as you say by Hilary's pisspoor campaign. He needs to do so again.
    He need to not do so again ...
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    HYUFD said:
    That’s not a plan to reopen pubs. That’s a plan to reopen Wetherspoons pubs.

    It’s death to all other pubs. The cost of even a small screen is ca. £600. How many drinks do you have to sell even to make that money back? If the 2-metre rule is enforced, small places like my daughter’s - and plenty of others in the area - would have about 10 people in there - instead of the normal 40 restaurant covers and drinkers - and would be totally unviable.

    Virtually every pub, cafe and restaurant for miles around would close. Every public place in which people meet in this area would close. That’s the end of a great deal of the area’s social life. Add in the closure of all other entertainment: cinemas, the comedy club with its bar, theatres, beer festivals and live music.

    This is not life.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
    It’s not a state election.

    Why should Ohioans’ votes count when Californians’ don’t? You are not electing a senate of state leaders, but a president for all the states.

    All votes should count equally.
    Why should Californians concerns matter when Ohioans (is that the right word) concerns don't?

    You are not electing a President for the most Americans. You are electing a President for all the States of America, so the States matter.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited June 2020

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
    It’s not a state election.

    Why should Ohioans’ votes count when Californians’ don’t? You are not electing a senate of state leaders, but a president for all the states.

    All votes should count equally.
    Why should Californians concerns matter when Ohioans (is that the right word) concerns don't?

    You are not electing a President for the most Americans. You are electing a President for all the States of America, so the States matter.
    Californian votes do matter, since they determine the status of the state as a safe one for the Democrats. It's not written in stone that it isn't a swing state. In 1988 it was 51/48 to Bush.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060

    Charles said:

    FPT

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1267870995014209536

    The first tweet back says he was a "career criminal".

    Incredible.

    Norman Stanley Fletcher would have been sat on while he died of lack of air under that view of the world.

    Thing is, they are going to throw the book at this guy, rightly, for what he has done.

    Due process will take its course and he will be severely punished, as he should be.

    And if there hadn't been someone filming the whole thing he would have gotten away with it.
    Indeed just like with Ahmaud Arbery too recently.
    There was an interview today with some silly teenagers organising the U.K. protests about Floyd.

    But the stat that jumped out to me was that in the UK 936 BAME individuals have died in police custody/following police contact (eg shooting) since 1990.

    That’s like 30 a year. I had absolutely no idea it was this high
    That does sound high but the description also sounds very vague to leave it as open ended as possible. So I wonder what it includes.

    Does it include suicides?
    Does it include drug overdoses?

    Not all of that by any means would be due to brutality. If a child molester for instance is arrested and kills themselves are they included in the statistics?
    The answers are yes, yes and yes.

    Edit: if I’m reading the report right I think eight people died in 18/19 during restraint. Four were white, two black and two “mixed heritage” is I think the term they used.
    Two to four a year is very different to thirty a year.
    Looking at the report I quoted above you can get to about thirty by including:
    People killed in car crashes involving the police ( quite a high number)
    Suicides following custody (though most of those were white)
    People who died after the police were called by someone concerned for their safety.
    Three people were shot, one of whom was black.

    If I’m adding it up right 33 BAME people died out of 273 in total.
    Well those are very dodgy statistics then.

    Glad I got suspicious. Once someone phrases something so vaguely it sets alarm bells ringing.
    If you have the time, look at the report I linked to. There are some worrying things in there, but nowhere near the sort of thing we hear about in the States.
    My problem with any deaths in custody is probably down to Claude Rains line in Casablanca where he can’t decide what cause of death to put down: suicide or died trying to escape...
  • Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?
    2. How on earth, out of 340 million people, did the USA get a choice between Hillary and Donald last time and then have to make a choice between Joe and Donald this time.
    3. There have been many comments on PB about the absolutely dismal communications from the government. Can you imagine the likes of Alistair Campbell allowing the media to dictate the narrative of the day. Who on earth is running the media brief? Every Cabinet Minister or adviser (yes Mr Cummings, I'm looking at you) should be running their messages and activities past a media savvy advisor who should have the power of veto. (No Mr Cummings, I know it's your wife's birthday but do not visit Specsavers)
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    edited June 2020
    On the electoral college, I think the "protects neglected states" types of argument are obviously garbage but there's a pragmatic argument: The election is *managed* at the state level, so if you did some really grand vote-rigging in a single large state or a few medium-sized ones, you could steal a popular-vote election that you should have lost conclusively.

    With the electoral college you can steal an election just in a few states if it's already very close, but these states are by definition *swing* states, so they tend to have either split legislatures/governorships/supreme courts or at least a healthy opposition, rather than being one-party monoliths that can easily agree on how to rig and disfranchize. It's very hard to steal an election that you should have lost by a big margin.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
    It’s not a state election.

    Why should Ohioans’ votes count when Californians’ don’t? You are not electing a senate of state leaders, but a president for all the states.

    All votes should count equally.
    Why should Californians concerns matter when Ohioans (is that the right word) concerns don't?

    You are not electing a President for the most Americans. You are electing a President for all the States of America, so the States matter.
    But it's the people who vote.
  • SurreySurrey Posts: 190
    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900
    edited June 2020
    Trump down 10 vs Biden in latest Ipsos. His h2h seems to be converging on his long-term net approval.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909

    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    More Americans voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016.
    More Americans voted for Gore than for Bush in 2000.
    The President is not the President of Americans.
    Well he/she should be.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
    It’s not a state election.

    Why should Ohioans’ votes count when Californians’ don’t? You are not electing a senate of state leaders, but a president for all the states.

    All votes should count equally.
    Why should Californians concerns matter when Ohioans (is that the right word) concerns don't?

    You are not electing a President for the most Americans. You are electing a President for all the States of America, so the States matter.
    But it's the people who vote.
    Yes the people of the States of America.

    Not the people of America.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    On the electoral college, I think the "protects neglected states" types of argument are obviously garbage but there's a pragmatic argument: The election is *managed* at the state level, so if you did some really grand vote-rigging in a single large state or a few medium-sized ones, you could steal a popular-vote election that you should have lost conclusively.

    With the electoral college you can steal an election just in a few states if it's already very close, but these states are by definition *swing* states, so they tend to have either split legislatures/governorships/supreme courts or at least a healthy opposition, rather than being one-party monoliths that can easily agree on how to rig and disfranchize. It's very hard to steal an election that you should have lost by a big margin.

    I don't see why the neglected States argument is obviously garbage when it's the reason Hilary lost. If Hillary had bothered to campaign in a small handful of neglected States she would be President today.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    kle4 said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    You really find out who the posturing reform supporters are after theyve won under the existing systems. All too easy for them to 'discover' it's hard and drop it, a la Trudeau. And of course the converts to PR we often see here. Fair play to the consistent backers.
    More Americans voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016.
    More Americans voted for Gore than for Bush in 2000.
    The President is not the President of Americans.
    Well he/she should be.
    Sure if you dissolve the United States of America and form a unified State of America.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited June 2020

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?
    2. How on earth, out of 340 million people, did the USA get a choice between Hillary and Donald last time and then have to make a choice between Joe and Donald this time.
    3. There have been many comments on PB about the absolutely dismal communications from the government. Can you imagine the likes of Alistair Campbell allowing the media to dictate the narrative of the day. Who on earth is running the media brief? Every Cabinet Minister or adviser (yes Mr Cummings, I'm looking at you) should be running their messages and activities past a media savvy advisor who should have the power of veto. (No Mr Cummings, I know it's your wife's birthday but do not visit Specsavers)

    Coronavirus is old news now.

    To be fair we've had Teresa & Corbyn and Boris & Corbyn so we probably shouldn't throw stones.

    The media will do what the media wants to do.
  • SurreySurrey Posts: 190

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    Having an elected executive president is stupid enough, but electing him by electoral college in the epoch of universal suffrage is ludicrous. Let Congress elect and replace the president or else if there must be an executive president not chosen by the legislature then use proper OPOV. But the present system will continue, and common sense will gain little traction, because of tradition enshrined in higher law, aka the constitution.

  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    On the electoral college, I think the "protects neglected states" types of argument are obviously garbage but there's a pragmatic argument: The election is *managed* at the state level, so if you did some really grand vote-rigging in a single large state or a few medium-sized ones, you could steal a popular-vote election that you should have lost conclusively.

    With the electoral college you can steal an election just in a few states if it's already very close, but these states are by definition *swing* states, so they tend to have either split legislatures/governorships/supreme courts or at least a healthy opposition, rather than being one-party monoliths that can easily agree on how to rig and disfranchize. It's very hard to steal an election that you should have lost by a big margin.

    I don't see why the neglected States argument is obviously garbage when it's the reason Hilary lost. If Hillary had bothered to campaign in a small handful of neglected States she would be President today.
    What's neglected about Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan? They're no more neglected than anywhere else. They're important, medium-sized states. And these states are actually *underweighted* by the electoral college. The overweighted states are places like Wyoming and Alaska, that are completely ignored anyhow.

    The argument works for the Senate because that actually up-weights *small* states, and the up-weighting makes them more important. But the which states get to matter in the electoral college is basically completely random. And the list includes Virginia, much or which is basically suburban DC, where all the key national decision-makers live.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited June 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
    Probably, the GOP establishment will want Trump-Pence to take the hit if they are going to lose so the Bushes and Romneys can wipe the slate clean and retake the party afresh for 2024
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,952
    Long intros - Papa was a Rolling Stone - The Temptations
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Andy_JS said:

    valleyboy said:

    Justin124 on previous thread re Preseli Pembs. Genuine question why is it pretty certain Wales will lose seats in boundary changes?
    Dynamics of 2019? Like everywhere else Brexit and Corbyn.
    Crabbe not popular but this is a Tory marginal. Labour could do with a bit of Cardigan!

    Wales has 40 seats but is only entitled to about 31 based on its proportion of the UK population. (I know constituencies are based on electorate not population but it won't make any difference in this case. The only time there is a difference is when you compare big cities to elsewhere because they have a higher population of non-registered people).

    Wales population: 3.2 million
    UK population: 67.0 million

    Welsh percentage: 4.8%
    4.8% of 650 seats = 31.2 seats
    In the past a degree of overrepresentation has been accepted to help stop Wales (and Scotland) being drowned out by England. When power was devolved to Scotland, the number of Scottish seats at Westminster was reduced. If I were in charge of Plaid Cymru, I'd use this to call for Scottish levels of devolution, and paint the Conservatives as anti-Welsh.
    The absurd overrepresentation of the Highlands and Islands should be ended in the next redistribution. It was a sop to the Lib Dems who are now completely irrelevant.
  • SurreySurrey Posts: 190
    Andy_JS said:

    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
    No, not almost certainly. The big divide in the set of possibilities is between Trump withdrawing from the presidency at the same time as withdrawing from the race or staying in office but saying he won't seek re-election. President Pence seeking re-election would be more likely than the veep to a failed president seeking and getting the nomination. The party leadership might in other circumstances feel there was a strong case for choosing an uncharismatic silver-haired figure for continuity and experience reasons but I dont think so in the present climate. But I'm well green on Pence, just even more green on the alternatives.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too.

    How did he know he was going to win? It took the perfect bad timing of the Comey letter to flip it for him, and although he took a lot of states, if it had gone 1% the other way he'd have lost them.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
    Probably, the GOP establishment will want Trump-Pence to take the hit if they are going to lose so the Bushes and Romneys can wipe the slate clean and retake the party afresh for 2024
    If the goal is to give up and pin it on Trump-Pence, wouldn't they rather have Trump's chosen successor? So if Trump stands down and recommends William Barr, they'd go with William Barr, no?

    In any case Trump has the delegates, so depending on the timing his recommendation might matter a lot more than the "establishment", whatever that is.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited June 2020

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
    Probably, the GOP establishment will want Trump-Pence to take the hit if they are going to lose so the Bushes and Romneys can wipe the slate clean and retake the party afresh for 2024
    If the goal is to give up and pin it on Trump-Pence, wouldn't they rather have Trump's chosen successor? So if Trump stands down and recommends William Barr, they'd go with William Barr, no?

    In any case Trump has the delegates, so depending on the timing his recommendation might matter a lot more than the "establishment", whatever that is.
    The GOP establishment ie the Bushes, Romney, Kasich, McConnell, Schwarzenegger etc all hate Trump, so if Trump is going to lose either himself or a hand picked acolyte they will let that happen and reclaim the party for themselves after the defeat
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
    Probably, the GOP establishment will want Trump-Pence to take the hit if they are going to lose so the Bushes and Romneys can wipe the slate clean and retake the party afresh for 2024
    If the goal is to give up and pin it on Trump-Pence, wouldn't they rather have Trump's chosen successor? So if Trump stands down and recommends William Barr, they'd go with William Barr, no?

    In any case Trump has the delegates, so depending on the timing his recommendation might matter a lot more than the "establishment", whatever that is.
    The GOP establishment ie the Bushes, Romney, Kasich, McConnell, Schwarzenegger etc all hate Trump, so if Trump is going to lose either himself or a hand picked acolyte they will let that happen and reclaim the party for themselves after the defeat
    I don't see any way back for the Bushes, Romneys, etc.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited June 2020
    Johnson is right on this IMO, although in practice there would have to be an agreement with other countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA, and possibly other European countries, to help with taking in such a large number of people.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8382097/Boris-Johnson-willingly-offer-THREE-MILLION-people-Hong-Kong-refuge-UK.html
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited June 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Surrey said:

    Trump won't lose the election. He will either win or not run. I said this about 2016 and say it about 2020 too. The one thing he fears most of all, other than women ganging up on him (see how he ran away speechless from the rose garden), is being a "loser", a person who everyone can see has tried hard and lost. As far as I know, even in his wrestling show persona that foreran his current excruciatingly embarrassing act in the White House he was never one of them. In real life he went bankrupt multiple times, but he's not in real life any more - he's a cartoon. He hasn't been in real life for years. If he pulls out between nomination and election it's the RNC that will choose a replacement. (At least so says the Washington Post). The shorter Biden's odds, the more likely a Trump withdrawal becomes.

    @rcs100 - Re. what you wrote in the other thread about Trump's egregious mendacity, have you looked at his friendship with Norman Vincent "positive thinking" Peale? Trump has practically become Peale's book, which could have been entitled "How to Motivate Yourself if You Feel You're Inferior, Even at the Cost of Inducing Life-long Mental Illness in Yourself". Nemesis awaits. Another pal of Peale was Richard Nixon.

    If Trump withdraws, do you think Pence would almost certainly be the GOP candidate?
    Probably, the GOP establishment will want Trump-Pence to take the hit if they are going to lose so the Bushes and Romneys can wipe the slate clean and retake the party afresh for 2024
    If the goal is to give up and pin it on Trump-Pence, wouldn't they rather have Trump's chosen successor? So if Trump stands down and recommends William Barr, they'd go with William Barr, no?

    In any case Trump has the delegates, so depending on the timing his recommendation might matter a lot more than the "establishment", whatever that is.
    The GOP establishment ie the Bushes, Romney, Kasich, McConnell, Schwarzenegger etc all hate Trump, so if Trump is going to lose either himself or a hand picked acolyte they will let that happen and reclaim the party for themselves after the defeat
    I don't see any way back for the Bushes, Romneys, etc.
    They will be back, the long-term future of the GOP looks a lot more like the half Hispanic Texas Land Commissioner George P Bush, Jeb's son than it does Trump.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    On topic.

    I don't know who will win the 2020 US Presidential election.

    President Trump is a great campaigner and he likes nothing more than stumping from arena to arena and giving long self aggrandising speeches. The recent riots in the US play into his hands, and probably help get his core vote out.

    Against that, I think CV-19 pain in the US is likely to worsen. In Arizona, Saturday and Sunday were the worst two days for new cases. In Georgia, the new case count continues to climb. North Carolina is also seeing CV-19 cases running at all time highs.

    Almost a third of the world's CV-19 cases are now in the US.

    We could well see another New York situation somewhere else in America between now and polling day.

    Rioting in cities - and bear in mind that 99.9% of Americans will see nothing more than is on Fox or CNN - actually affects very few people. Granny dying of CV-19 while you mother-in-law is hospitalised could affect 100x as many people.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    On the electoral college, I think the "protects neglected states" types of argument are obviously garbage but there's a pragmatic argument: The election is *managed* at the state level, so if you did some really grand vote-rigging in a single large state or a few medium-sized ones, you could steal a popular-vote election that you should have lost conclusively.

    With the electoral college you can steal an election just in a few states if it's already very close, but these states are by definition *swing* states, so they tend to have either split legislatures/governorships/supreme courts or at least a healthy opposition, rather than being one-party monoliths that can easily agree on how to rig and disfranchize. It's very hard to steal an election that you should have lost by a big margin.

    I don't see why the neglected States argument is obviously garbage when it's the reason Hilary lost. If Hillary had bothered to campaign in a small handful of neglected States she would be President today.
    What's neglected about Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan? They're no more neglected than anywhere else. They're important, medium-sized states. And these states are actually *underweighted* by the electoral college. The overweighted states are places like Wyoming and Alaska, that are completely ignored anyhow.

    The argument works for the Senate because that actually up-weights *small* states, and the up-weighting makes them more important. But the which states get to matter in the electoral college is basically completely random. And the list includes Virginia, much or which is basically suburban DC, where all the key national decision-makers live.
    I'm not counting Florida it's a large coastal state not a small to medium flyover one.

    The Electoral College is Senate plus House representation. Ie House plus 2 per State meaning it does deliberately upweight the small states. That's not Florida but it is eg Wisconsin which Hillary ignored and lost last time.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    On the electoral college, I think the "protects neglected states" types of argument are obviously garbage but there's a pragmatic argument: The election is *managed* at the state level, so if you did some really grand vote-rigging in a single large state or a few medium-sized ones, you could steal a popular-vote election that you should have lost conclusively.

    With the electoral college you can steal an election just in a few states if it's already very close, but these states are by definition *swing* states, so they tend to have either split legislatures/governorships/supreme courts or at least a healthy opposition, rather than being one-party monoliths that can easily agree on how to rig and disfranchize. It's very hard to steal an election that you should have lost by a big margin.

    I don't see why the neglected States argument is obviously garbage when it's the reason Hilary lost. If Hillary had bothered to campaign in a small handful of neglected States she would be President today.
    What's neglected about Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan? They're no more neglected than anywhere else. They're important, medium-sized states. And these states are actually *underweighted* by the electoral college. The overweighted states are places like Wyoming and Alaska, that are completely ignored anyhow.

    The argument works for the Senate because that actually up-weights *small* states, and the up-weighting makes them more important. But the which states get to matter in the electoral college is basically completely random. And the list includes Virginia, much or which is basically suburban DC, where all the key national decision-makers live.
    I'm not counting Florida it's a large coastal state not a small to medium flyover one.

    The Electoral College is Senate plus House representation. Ie House plus 2 per State meaning it does deliberately upweight the small states. That's not Florida but it is eg Wisconsin which Hillary ignored and lost last time.
    Wisconsin is the *only* state that fits the story you're trying to tell. All the others are bigger and well-represented in the media. Why do you need to make Ohio more important than Montana? Why upweight Florida at the expense of West Virginia? Why do you need Virginia to matter while you ignore Oklahoma?

    It doesn't work. There is no correlation between swing-state and "otherwise ignored".
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    On the electoral college, I think the "protects neglected states" types of argument are obviously garbage but there's a pragmatic argument: The election is *managed* at the state level, so if you did some really grand vote-rigging in a single large state or a few medium-sized ones, you could steal a popular-vote election that you should have lost conclusively.

    With the electoral college you can steal an election just in a few states if it's already very close, but these states are by definition *swing* states, so they tend to have either split legislatures/governorships/supreme courts or at least a healthy opposition, rather than being one-party monoliths that can easily agree on how to rig and disfranchize. It's very hard to steal an election that you should have lost by a big margin.

    I don't see why the neglected States argument is obviously garbage when it's the reason Hilary lost. If Hillary had bothered to campaign in a small handful of neglected States she would be President today.
    What's neglected about Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan? They're no more neglected than anywhere else. They're important, medium-sized states. And these states are actually *underweighted* by the electoral college. The overweighted states are places like Wyoming and Alaska, that are completely ignored anyhow.

    The argument works for the Senate because that actually up-weights *small* states, and the up-weighting makes them more important. But the which states get to matter in the electoral college is basically completely random. And the list includes Virginia, much or which is basically suburban DC, where all the key national decision-makers live.
    I'm not counting Florida it's a large coastal state not a small to medium flyover one.

    The Electoral College is Senate plus House representation. Ie House plus 2 per State meaning it does deliberately upweight the small states. That's not Florida but it is eg Wisconsin which Hillary ignored and lost last time.
    Wisconsin is the *only* state that fits the story you're trying to tell. All the others are bigger and well-represented in the media. Why do you need to make Ohio more important than Montana? Why upweight Florida at the expense of West Virginia? Why do you need Virginia to matter while you ignore Oklahoma?

    It doesn't work. There is no correlation between swing-state and "otherwise ignored".
    I never said swing state is correlated to otherwise ignored.

    I said the electoral college amplified small states because of the consistent plus 2 due to the Senate counting. That was a deliberate historical boost to small states.

    Just like in the UK with swing seats, the swing states can vary and are not fixed. That is a different matter to my point.

    Florida isn't upweighted more than West Virginia it's the other way around. West Virginia's electoral college votes are relatively higher than their share of population than compared to Florida's.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Specifically based on OPOV Florida would have roughly 12.5x the number of voters than West Virginia has.

    The House element of the Electoral College vote is 3 for West Virginia to 27 for Florida. But both States get the same fixed 2 for the Senate. That extra 2 boosts Florida from 27 to 29, but boosts West Virginia from 3 to 5. Pretty significant for them!

    As a result via the Electoral College Florida outweighs West Virginia by 5.8 to 1 instead of 12.5 to 1.

    Small states like West Virginia definitely gain from the system.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    Specifically based on OPOV Florida would have roughly 12.5x the number of voters than West Virginia has.

    The House element of the Electoral College vote is 3 for West Virginia to 27 for Florida. But both States get the same fixed 2 for the Senate. That extra 2 boosts Florida from 27 to 29, but boosts West Virginia from 3 to 5. Pretty significant for them!

    As a result via the Electoral College Florida outweighs West Virginia by 5.8 to 1 instead of 12.5 to 1.

    Small states like West Virginia definitely gain from the system.

    Up-thread you were making an argument about *neglected* states. Now you're making an argument about *small* states, which although technically true on paper doesn't fit the earlier argument about Hillary and neglected states at all, because hardly any of the states that the electoral college is currently privileging in practice (ie swing states) are small.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    I did say neglected and I also used the words flyover and Midwest so not sure how you got Florida from that. I never said swing states you brought them into it.

    Florida is not a neglected State and that is due both to its large size and swing state status.

    However smaller states like Wisconsin can be and have been neglected. Hillary literally neglected Wisconsin last time and it cost her by doing so. It also demonstrates the futility of talking about swing states as if they are fixed, they're not. Wisconsin was one of ELEVEN States that Bill Clinton won twice but Hillary lost.

    Swing states change. Small or big does not really. The Electoral College amplifies the voice of the small states. Currently that assists the GOP as they clean up with the small states but that's not always been the case and may not always be the case in the future.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    I do worry that the electoral college and the Senate overrepresent failed states. It's like having an educational system that concentrates everything on the kids who aren't too bright. They're lavished with attention and Federal money, while the successful states - you know, with the growing populations and healthy economies are punished by getting an ever smaller share of votes.

    Imagine if you had kids and your form of feedback was to say "hey kids, the worse you do at school, and if you are a total fuck-up at work, well, we'll subsidise you all the more." This seems like the worst kind of feedback loop - you want to encourage states to improve, not to reward failure.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited June 2020
    I'm not sure it's fair or reasonable to call smaller states failures.

    It seems to me to be quite comparable to how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had disproportionately more MPs per population than England prior to asymmetric devolution being introduced making Westminster double up as England's Parliament too.

    The Senate is a very extreme version of it though.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Now we know coronavirus is not a random killer, this one-size-fits-all lockdown must come to an end, writes Professor Karol Sikora"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8381847/Now-know-coronavirus-not-random-killer-one-size-fits-lockdown-come-end.html
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    Andy_JS said:

    "Now we know coronavirus is not a random killer, this one-size-fits-all lockdown must come to an end, writes Professor Karol Sikora"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8381847/Now-know-coronavirus-not-random-killer-one-size-fits-lockdown-come-end.html

    Protecting vulnerable people is a sensible-sounding idea but is there any location anywhere that has managed to pull it off while letting the virus spread? If you have no practical plan to do it, letting the virus spread among younger people just leads you into another lockdown.

    We know how to do suppression while keeping economies running, I don't understand why all these people in western countries that have already half-destroyed their economies by letting the contagion grow then going to the opposite extreme and shutting everything down seem to want to repeat the whole process again.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Of course a crap system is going to reflect some kind of reality, you're not saying anything anybody doesn't already know. So why say it? It comes across as another attempt by you to defend the indefensible.

    "oh yes we have a system that gives greater power to conservative voters. But all the less conservative party needs to do is abandon the policies the majority want and adopt the policies the conservative minority wants, to appeal to those voters. Then they can win and everything is fine."

    No the system is idiotic and undemocratic. Apologies if you weren't trying to defend an idiotic system.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    HYUFD said:
    Surely the best pubs are those with no mobile phone signal?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely the best pubs are those with no mobile phone signal?
    What's the system for people who don't have smartphones?
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely the best pubs are those with no mobile phone signal?
    What's the system for people who don't have smartphones?
    Give them a tablet to order with on the wifi, shorely?

    Inevitably if you're trying to reopen while still containing the virus there are going to be some edge cases where sadly the place can't get the ventilation done or can't organize the ordering system or whatever, but that's better than the various alternatives of "keep everywhere closed" or "open everywhere up, wait until the virus gets out of control, then close them all down again".
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Any stattos out their please. I saw a hand of poler last night where abplayer had two aces in her hand. What are the odds of the next two cards on the flop being aces svp
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,550
    edited June 2020

    Andy_JS said:

    "Now we know coronavirus is not a random killer, this one-size-fits-all lockdown must come to an end, writes Professor Karol Sikora"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8381847/Now-know-coronavirus-not-random-killer-one-size-fits-lockdown-come-end.html

    Protecting vulnerable people is a sensible-sounding idea but is there any location anywhere that has managed to pull it off while letting the virus spread? If you have no practical plan to do it, letting the virus spread among younger people just leads you into another lockdown.

    We know how to do suppression while keeping economies running, I don't understand why all these people in western countries that have already half-destroyed their economies by letting the contagion grow then going to the opposite extreme and shutting everything down seem to want to repeat the whole process again.
    No, there isn’t.
    The care homes things is an illustration of that. There was a lot of talk about ‘cocooning’ and it never happened.

    We can’t even seem to arrange for people to wear masks. The idea that we can reorder society as Sikorsky suggests seems pure fantasy.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,550
    SARS-CoV-2 strategically mimics proteolytic activation of human ENaC
    https://elifesciences.org/articles/58603
    Molecular mimicry is an evolutionary strategy adopted by viruses to exploit the host cellular machinery. We report that SARS-CoV-2 has evolved a unique S1/S2 cleavage site, absent in any previous coronavirus sequenced, resulting in striking mimicry of an identical FURIN-cleavable peptide on the human epithelial sodium channel α-subunit (ENaC-α). Genetic alteration of ENaC-α causes aldosterone dysregulation in patients, highlighting that the FURIN site is critical for activation of ENaC. Single cell RNA-seq from 65 studies shows significant overlap between expression of ENaC-α and the viral receptor ACE2 in cell types linked to the cardiovascular-renal-pulmonary pathophysiology of COVID-19. Triangulating this cellular characterization with cleavage signatures of 178 proteases highlights proteolytic degeneracy wired into the SARS-CoV-2 lifecycle. Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 into a global pandemic may be driven in part by its targeted mimicry of ENaC-α, a protein critical for the homeostasis of airway surface liquid, whose misregulation is associated with respiratory conditions.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,838

    Specifically based on OPOV Florida would have roughly 12.5x the number of voters than West Virginia has.

    The House element of the Electoral College vote is 3 for West Virginia to 27 for Florida. But both States get the same fixed 2 for the Senate. That extra 2 boosts Florida from 27 to 29, but boosts West Virginia from 3 to 5. Pretty significant for them!

    As a result via the Electoral College Florida outweighs West Virginia by 5.8 to 1 instead of 12.5 to 1.

    Small states like West Virginia definitely gain from the system.

    The gain by smaller states has pretty much zero bias towards either side.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,550

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely the best pubs are those with no mobile phone signal?
    What's the system for people who don't have smartphones?
    Give them a tablet to order with on the wifi, shorely?

    Inevitably if you're trying to reopen while still containing the virus there are going to be some edge cases where sadly the place can't get the ventilation done or can't organize the ordering system or whatever, but that's better than the various alternatives of "keep everywhere closed" or "open everywhere up, wait until the virus gets out of control, then close them all down again".
    Perhaps true, but as Cyclefree points out, those are not edge cases, but a very large proportion of venues,
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,550
    In the US, the institutions who employ violent police officers are frequently completely insulated from legal liability for their actions:
    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/monell-supreme-court-qualified-immunity.html
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,838

    I did say neglected and I also used the words flyover and Midwest so not sure how you got Florida from that. I never said swing states you brought them into it.

    Florida is not a neglected State and that is due both to its large size and swing state status.

    However smaller states like Wisconsin can be and have been neglected. Hillary literally neglected Wisconsin last time and it cost her by doing so. It also demonstrates the futility of talking about swing states as if they are fixed, they're not. Wisconsin was one of ELEVEN States that Bill Clinton won twice but Hillary lost.

    Swing states change. Small or big does not really. The Electoral College amplifies the voice of the small states. Currently that assists the GOP as they clean up with the small states but that's not always been the case and may not always be the case in the future.

    THE GOP DOES NOT CLEAN UP WITH SMALL STATES.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    rcs1000 said:



    Imagine if you had kids and your form of feedback was to say "hey kids, the worse you do at school, and if you are a total fuck-up at work, well, we'll subsidise you all the more." This seems like the worst kind of feedback loop - you want to encourage states to improve, not to reward failure.

    You've just described the welfare state, haven't you?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,550
    edited June 2020
    As seems to have been the case across the US last night, in the absence of aggressive policing, protests don’t seem to turn violent.

    https://twitter.com/abdallah_fayyad/status/1268031286607777793
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,439
    Nigelb said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely the best pubs are those with no mobile phone signal?
    What's the system for people who don't have smartphones?
    Give them a tablet to order with on the wifi, shorely?

    Inevitably if you're trying to reopen while still containing the virus there are going to be some edge cases where sadly the place can't get the ventilation done or can't organize the ordering system or whatever, but that's better than the various alternatives of "keep everywhere closed" or "open everywhere up, wait until the virus gets out of control, then close them all down again".
    Perhaps true, but as Cyclefree points out, those are not edge cases, but a very large proportion of venues,
    If we can get most venues open by Aug 1, surely that is not a reason to not get some venues open asap?
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited June 2020
    HYUFD said:
    I bought a takeout coffee at Pret a Manger yesterday. I went up to the counter and the barista served from behind a perspex screen, passing me the coffee through an aperture.

    Why is that feasible for coffee yet impossible for a pint?!
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Any stattos out their please. I saw a hand of poler last night where abplayer had two aces in her hand. What are the odds of the next two cards on the flop being aces svp

    You don’t provide all the information so I will make some assumptions and leave you to adjust if I am wrong, and actually do the sum you want.

    There are 52 cards total. I am assuming that your “next two cards on the flop” implies there are three already on the table. I also assume you were playing and hence were looking at your two cards, with your reference to “a player” (assuming a typo) meaning the cards were held by another player. This leaves 45 unidentified cards, and two unidentified aces.

    The odds of the next card being an ace are 2 / 45 and the card thereafter 1 / 44 and hence your chance is 2 / 45 x 1 / 44.

    Of course in the game the other player cannot see your cards, therefore from her perspective the odds are 2 / 47 x 1 / 46
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    That Arnie spot wastes not a word. Brilliant. He can only try, but trying to civilise Trump must be like pleading with a wall.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Pulpstar said:

    Specifically based on OPOV Florida would have roughly 12.5x the number of voters than West Virginia has.

    The House element of the Electoral College vote is 3 for West Virginia to 27 for Florida. But both States get the same fixed 2 for the Senate. That extra 2 boosts Florida from 27 to 29, but boosts West Virginia from 3 to 5. Pretty significant for them!

    As a result via the Electoral College Florida outweighs West Virginia by 5.8 to 1 instead of 12.5 to 1.

    Small states like West Virginia definitely gain from the system.

    The gain by smaller states has pretty much zero bias towards either side.
    Good morning g everybody.
    Wasn't a bias towards smaller states the Founding Fathers aim; to prevent a couple of big states overwhelming several smaller ones.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited June 2020

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?
    2. How on earth, out of 340 million people, did the USA get a choice between Hillary and Donald last time and then have to make a choice between Joe and Donald this time.
    3. There have been many comments on PB about the absolutely dismal communications from the government. Can you imagine the likes of Alistair Campbell allowing the media to dictate the narrative of the day. Who on earth is running the media brief? Every Cabinet Minister or adviser (yes Mr Cummings, I'm looking at you) should be running their messages and activities past a media savvy advisor who should have the power of veto. (No Mr Cummings, I know it's your wife's birthday but do not visit Specsavers)

    Insofar as your middle one is a serious question rather than a pointed comment, the answer has a lot to do with the political process generally being better at screening for negative characteristics than selecting for positive ones. For example when you look at the Dem primaries, a wide range of relatively talented candidates were rejected one by one for their perceived negatives until Biden as the least common denominator was left standing.

    Interestingly Trump himself is the exception to this, as he had a shedload of negatives but arguably was selected initially for his electorally positive attribute of being able to tap into the contemporary discontent of his target voters. And having lots of money, of course.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited June 2020
    IanB2 said:

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?
    2. How on earth, out of 340 million people, did the USA get a choice between Hillary and Donald last time and then have to make a choice between Joe and Donald this time.
    3. There have been many comments on PB about the absolutely dismal communications from the government. Can you imagine the likes of Alistair Campbell allowing the media to dictate the narrative of the day. Who on earth is running the media brief? Every Cabinet Minister or adviser (yes Mr Cummings, I'm looking at you) should be running their messages and activities past a media savvy advisor who should have the power of veto. (No Mr Cummings, I know it's your wife's birthday but do not visit Specsavers)

    Insofar as your middle one is a serious question rather than a pointed comment,
    I think it's a question many serious political analysts frequently ask themselves. How does a nation that is apparently so successful continually offer up complete schmucks as candidates?

    In my lifetime there have been two good Presidents: Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. And probably one who was passable: George Bush Snr. And that's it.

    Reagan was the surprise because in many ways a fifth-rate actor should have been a deadbeat. He turned out to be pretty darned good.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,050
    Nigelb said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Now we know coronavirus is not a random killer, this one-size-fits-all lockdown must come to an end, writes Professor Karol Sikora"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8381847/Now-know-coronavirus-not-random-killer-one-size-fits-lockdown-come-end.html

    Protecting vulnerable people is a sensible-sounding idea but is there any location anywhere that has managed to pull it off while letting the virus spread? If you have no practical plan to do it, letting the virus spread among younger people just leads you into another lockdown.

    We know how to do suppression while keeping economies running, I don't understand why all these people in western countries that have already half-destroyed their economies by letting the contagion grow then going to the opposite extreme and shutting everything down seem to want to repeat the whole process again.
    No, there isn’t.
    The care homes things is an illustration of that. There was a lot of talk about ‘cocooning’ and it never happened.

    We can’t even seem to arrange for people to wear masks. The idea that we can reorder society as Sikorsky suggests seems pure fantasy.
    When we try to do so, we wind up with stories like @Stocky in the previous thread.

    The vulnerable are not aliens, they are our friends, neighbours and family. With this we are really all in it together.

    I am sympathetic to @Cyclefree 's daughters plight, and enjoy pubs, restaurants, theatre, cinema, football crowds, political meetings, scientific conferences and music festivals*. I cannot see them returning to normal this year. Apart from anything else, the customers won't come in numbers big enough to be viable, whatever the rules are.

    * I was supposed to be seeing Iron Maiden at Download this weekend. Nice weather for it.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,439

    HYUFD said:
    I bought a takeout coffee at Pret a Manger yesterday. I went up to the counter and the barista served from behind a perspex screen, passing me the coffee through an aperture.

    Why is that feasible for coffee yet impossible for a pint?!
    It is obviously not impossible but traditonally people queue differently (and closer together) for a pint. Changing that culture is harder when people have been drinking.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Fishing said:

    I wonder if the Americans will finally change the idiotic Electoral College if he wins it again but loses the popular vote decisively. Three times in six elections is more than just odd happenstance.

    It would need a Democrat win first. It would be 3 out 6 all in one direction.
    Incidentally the Dems have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7.
    They aren't the out of touch ones as sometimes wrongly portrayed.
    The Dems are out of touch with middle America. They're incredibly popular with the coastal states.

    The popular vote and electoral college reflects that reality. They need to appeal more in the Midwest.
    Which is a fair point. However it could also be said the Republicans are out of touch with coastal America. They need to appeal more to cities, the Pacific, and the Northeast.
    No sign that they are even trying.
    They're winning at the moment so don't have as much need to try. But Trump won precisely because he did target blue states in the Midwest etc and Hillary neglected them.

    If the Democrats get their shit together and start taking the Midwest back on narrow margins . . . And if the Democrats manage to flip Texas . . . Then the Electoral could play massively in the Democrats favour. In that scenario it's entirely possible the Democrats could lose the popular vote and win the Presidency at which point expect the GOP to want to abolish the Electoral College and the Democrats to just as suddenly want to keep it.
    Even if that were to happen, I’d still oppose it. Idiotic system.

    The Electoral College might make sense of you were electing 538 regional space captains to sit on a star council, but you are electing one person to rule the entire territory.

    Ergo, all votes should be equal.
    The American ECV system is designed to stop candidates doing what Hillary Clinton did last time, which is to ignore the flyover states. Hillary easily won the popular vote and would be president today if anyone on her staff knew anything at all about the American political system. She might have been President back in 2008 when she made precisely the same mistake in her primary campaign against Barack Obama.
    Agreed. I support the Electoral College as it is despite it working against my preferred candidates. In the UK I'd definitely vote Tory but in the USA the Democrats definitely. Reagan historically would have had my support but he's long before my time and the modern GOP is nothing like him.

    Hillary knew the USA uses the Electoral College system and still she chose deliberately not to campaign in previously blue states she lost. Trump did not deserve to win but she deserved to lose.

    If the Electoral College was abolished why would the flyover states matter anymore? That's not healthy.
    Of the top 20 American cities by population the majority will not see a campaign stop bar closed door fund raisers.

    The EC means no campaigning in Memphis or Indianapolis but 5 million rallies in Miami and Jacksonville.

    Nothing for Fort Worth or Pheonix but a million visits to Charlotte.

    Abolishing the EC would see more visits and attention to the flyover states not less.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited June 2020
    IanB2 said:

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?
    2. How on earth, out of 340 million people, did the USA get a choice between Hillary and Donald last time and then have to make a choice between Joe and Donald this time.
    3. There have been many comments on PB about the absolutely dismal communications from the government. Can you imagine the likes of Alistair Campbell allowing the media to dictate the narrative of the day. Who on earth is running the media brief? Every Cabinet Minister or adviser (yes Mr Cummings, I'm looking at you) should be running their messages and activities past a media savvy advisor who should have the power of veto. (No Mr Cummings, I know it's your wife's birthday but do not visit Specsavers)

    Insofar as your middle one is a serious question rather than a pointed comment, the answer has a lot to do with the political process generally being better at screening for negative characteristics than selecting for positive ones. For example when you look at the Dem primaries, a wide range of relatively talented candidates were rejected one by one for their perceived negatives until Biden as the least common denominator was left standing.

    Interestingly Trump himself is the exception to this, as he had a shedload of negatives but arguably was selected initially for his electorally positive attribute of being able to tap into the contemporary discontent of his target voters. And having lots of money, of course.
    He tapped in so well he got less votes than out of touch plutocrat Romney did in Wisconsin.

    2016 was about Hilary being phenomenally unpopular AND an appalling campaigner.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited June 2020

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?

    It will be because of this country's brazen disregard for wearing face masks and total disregard for hand sanitizers.

    Go anywhere else in the first world and both are widely used.

    The British are blighted by a fatal combination of piss-poor leadership, ignorance and arrogance.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    Andy_JS said:

    "Now we know coronavirus is not a random killer, this one-size-fits-all lockdown must come to an end, writes Professor Karol Sikora"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8381847/Now-know-coronavirus-not-random-killer-one-size-fits-lockdown-come-end.html

    There ought to be an academic convention that people's titles should be modified where appropriate to "Prof (FADS)" and so on, for "From A Different Specialism". In some cases the letters LTL could be added after the name as an additional note of caution, for "Loving The Limelight".
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,838

    IanB2 said:

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?
    2. How on earth, out of 340 million people, did the USA get a choice between Hillary and Donald last time and then have to make a choice between Joe and Donald this time.
    3. There have been many comments on PB about the absolutely dismal communications from the government. Can you imagine the likes of Alistair Campbell allowing the media to dictate the narrative of the day. Who on earth is running the media brief? Every Cabinet Minister or adviser (yes Mr Cummings, I'm looking at you) should be running their messages and activities past a media savvy advisor who should have the power of veto. (No Mr Cummings, I know it's your wife's birthday but do not visit Specsavers)

    Insofar as your middle one is a serious question rather than a pointed comment,
    I think it's a question many serious political analysts frequently ask themselves. How does a nation that is apparently so successful continually offer up complete schmucks as candidates?

    In my lifetime there have been two good Presidents: Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. And probably one who was passable: George Bush Snr. And that's it.

    Reagan was the surprise because in many ways a fifth-rate actor should have been a deadbeat. He turned out to be pretty darned good.
    Sorry for your passing in 2008
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,439

    Questions for tonight:
    1. In a week or two's Time, when the number of CV19 positive tests in London increase, will it be because of the Lockdown easing or because many, many people stood n the middle of London shouting for all they could about the injustice of George Floyd's death?

    It will be because of this country's brazen disregard for wearing face masks and total disregard for hand sanitizers.

    Go anywhere else in the first world and both are widely used.

    The British are blighted by a fatal combination of piss-poor leadership, ignorance and arrogance.
    Scandinavia has the lowest mask usage. (Then the UK).
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited June 2020

    Pulpstar said:

    Specifically based on OPOV Florida would have roughly 12.5x the number of voters than West Virginia has.

    The House element of the Electoral College vote is 3 for West Virginia to 27 for Florida. But both States get the same fixed 2 for the Senate. That extra 2 boosts Florida from 27 to 29, but boosts West Virginia from 3 to 5. Pretty significant for them!

    As a result via the Electoral College Florida outweighs West Virginia by 5.8 to 1 instead of 12.5 to 1.

    Small states like West Virginia definitely gain from the system.

    The gain by smaller states has pretty much zero bias towards either side.
    Good morning g everybody.
    Wasn't a bias towards smaller states the Founding Fathers aim; to prevent a couple of big states overwhelming several smaller ones.
    The Senate provides the equal representation for small states. Every state getting two Senators.

    The electoral college was the mechanism they came up with to deal with slavery/slave states (by counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person when apportioning EC votes by state.

    No slavery, no electoral college.
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