Donald Trump summed up

[Steve]

It's a bit long and I can't find the original (which is v unlikely to have been by Nate White) but it's still nail hit head as the last line 'If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.' shows

https://thesubtimes.com/2020/04/29/letter-how-our-english-relatives-see-todays-america/

[Grumpmeister]

He is also the president who even when the establishment was hell bent on making sure he wouldn't get elected managed to do so because he saw that there was a massive part of the american population that had been effectively marginalised by the Democrats (deplorables anyone?). One of the few people who recognised years in advance the dangers of offshoring so much of their manufacturing industry to China. A President who for once has managed to last almost a full term in office without starting a shooting war. A president who has been able to helm probably the largest economic recovery in recent years despite the Democrats proving they had lied to the electorate by going straight for a 4 year impeachment witch hunt based on a fake dossier apparently bought from Russian assets (something that gained far more credibility given the over the top measures that the Clinton team took to make sure that over 30k emails on her private server could not be accessed by the FBI, the same FBI that evidence now indicates was deliberately targeting him because he won the election). instead of working with Trump for the people as they had promised. He's also the president that has declared Antifa a terror group while there are Democrats and left wing celebrities who are still praising and protecting him, hell there are members of the Biden campaign who have donated money to an organisation that is paying for their bail. In case you don't believe me here is the news link from Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-biden-bail/biden-staff-donate-to-group-that-pays-bail-in-riot-torn-minneapolis-idUSKBN2360SZ

Is Trump a perfect president? No, not by a long shot. Am I blindly defending him? No, I'm well aware of Trump's flaws but he deserves more than a one sided hack job by someone with an ideological axe to grind.

Something for you to consider though, just how pissed off with the years of corruption and incompetence of the establishment were people to vote trump in, and how desperate are the Democrats now that they are trying to sue states to not only allow postal voting but to also remove the safety net of signature checking. This the kind of measure you expect to see in countries like Zimbabwe, not America.

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/10/democrats-sue-florida-over-vote-by-mail-verification-106031

[Steve]

You forget, the people didn't vote Trump in
 
His gerrymandered electoral college did

[Grumpmeister]

You forget, the people didn't vote Trump in
 
His gerrymandered electoral college did

Ah yes the electoral college, the mechanism created by the framers of the constitution to make sure that EVERY state would have a voice in the selection of a president instead of the process being dominated by the largest ones. 

[Steve]

You forget, the people didn't vote Trump in
 
His gerrymandered electoral college did

Ah yes the electoral college, the mechanism created by the framers of the constitution to make sure that EVERY state would have a voice in the selection of a president instead of the process being dominated by the largest ones.

But the intent was not that every hick state would have far more voting power per voter over the main states.  That electoral college is deeply undemocratic and it's getting worse
 
The point remains:  Trump lost the popular vote by a fair margin and he could lose it by a bigger margin this year and still get re-elected

[Grumpmeister]

Well you learn something new every day, I didn't realise that New York, California, Illinois, Maryland and Texas were hick states. Those 5 alone total 231 out of the 270 needed to win.

58   New York
55   California
44   Arizona, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee
40   Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin
38   Texas
36   Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah
32   Michigan
27   Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina
24   Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming
21   Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon
20   Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island
18   Ohio
16   Kentucky, Louisiana
15   Nebraska, New Mexico, West Virginia
15   North Carolina
14   New Jersey
13   Virginia
12   Washington

[Steve]

I didn't say that did I

Now explain why Wyoming (R) gets an electoral college vote for every 177k people and California (D) get one for every 670,000

Gerrymandering

[Grumpmeister]

Simple, 41 million people live in California while just over half a million live in Wyoming. If they use the popular vote system you are championing then like most of the rural states Wyoming would effectively have no voice. Using the electoral college based upon census results means that presidential candidates have to campaign in all states, with the popular vote they can simply concentrate on a handful of states and toss everyone else aside.

I also suspect that as a result of the riots happening and with the rise in working from home there will be an exodus from the metropolitan areas leading to a more even spread of the population across the country.

[Steve]

The reality is Wyoming etc get a disproportional impact and because they tend to be Republican it will stay that way

It's gerrymandering pure and simple and was like that when the Democrats benefited from it.  However right now Trump is the least vote supported President and he could be about to make that even more undemocratic.

And that's one reason you get riots

 

[Barman]

Sorry, this 'popular vote' thing is nonsense.... 

Everybody plays by the same rules.

The same rules that put Obama in power twice remember...? If t wasn't fair he should have changed it.

You can't go whinging about how unfair the rules are when the outcome is not to your liking.

And one more thing, the Americans spend insane amounts of cash on their elections every four years. Why would the Dems bother if the rules were so biased against them...?

[Grumpmeister]

The Dems are trying to change the rules to benefit them at the moment though, not with changing the electoral college to a popular vote but by forcing through the postal vote system in such a way that it can be easily rigged, purely I suspect because they know fine well they have pissed away the last 4 years. Pelosi is trying to bulldoze it into the next Coronavirus relief package while the Dems are also suing states in order to force it through without safeguards against misuse by sending ballots to voters on the inactive list and removing measures designed to make the system more secure such as signature checks. And while CNN, MSNBC et al keep proclaiming that there is no evidence of fraud in the system it doesn't take long searching on Google to find plenty of evidence of either fraud or a terrifying level of incompetence.

[Steve]

Sorry, this 'popular vote' thing is nonsense.... 

Everybody plays by the same rules.

The same rules that put Obama in power twice remember...? If t wasn't fair he should have changed it.

You can't go whinging about how unfair the rules are when the outcome is not to your liking.

And one more thing, the Americans spend insane amounts of cash on their elections every four years. Why would the Dems bother if the rules were so biased against them...?

Obama never had a majority on the Hill so could not change it

And why didn't he have a majority?  Because the same gerrymandering effect applies to the Senate and House except even worse.
 
Apparently some people think that republicans have some god given right to have more electoral impact per voter than those they see as communists (the democrats)   It's bizarre

[Steve]

The Dems are trying to change the rules to benefit them at the moment though, not with changing the electoral college to a popular vote but by forcing through the postal vote system in such a way that it can be easily rigged, purely I suspect because they know fine well they have pissed away the last 4 years. Pelosi is trying to bulldoze it into the next Coronavirus relief package while the Dems are also suing states in order to force it through without safeguards against misuse by sending ballots to voters on the inactive list and removing measures designed to make the system more secure such as signature checks. And while CNN, MSNBC et al keep proclaiming that there is no evidence of fraud in the system it doesn't take long searching on Google to find plenty of evidence of either fraud or a terrifying level of incompetence.

Well go on then where is this evidence of significant fraud through postal voting?
 
Now I am no fan of postal voting in normal times but the USA has a huge problem with the November election if the virus hasn't collapsed.  It also has a long term huge problem with voter disenfranchisement of the poorer electors with its operating hours and locations of voting stations - nothing like what we would consider as acceptable 

[Grumpmeister]

Ok, there have been over 1200 verified cases of mail in voter fraud over the years and that is WITH the safeguards in place that the Democrats are trying to remove.

White house document from the archives detailing cases of voter fraud by both parties:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf

Database of voter fraud by state:

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

[Steve]

Ok, there have been over 1200 verified cases of mail in voter fraud over the years and that is WITH the safeguards in place that the Democrats are trying to remove.

White house document from the archives detailing cases of voter fraud by both parties:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf

Database of voter fraud by state:

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

So going back to 1986 and something like 10 presidential + midterm elections involving over a billion votes cast you can only find 1285 fraudulent postal votes.  That's less than 0.0002%