I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
I If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
Yes, but you are not electing people to represent the states, as you are in the senate. The president represents the whole country and should be elected directly with a direct mandate based on OPOV.
The main argument people put forward against OPOV is that you could have a situation where at every election the biggest 10 states vote one way and the other 40 the other way and the 10 biggest always get their way. I don't have a problem with that but a lot of Americans apparently do because the individual states are such an important aspect of the nation for them.
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
Is it though...Eastern Europe, is still very popular e.g. Poland re-elected one. Australia voted for a very right wing government. Macron is very unpopular on France, with Le Pen waiting in the wings.
Macron will still be re elected in the run off, Morrison was actually the more moderate candidate to succeed Turnbull over Dutton, closer to Boris than Trump, Italy is probably the only western nation left which might swing to rightwing populism with Salvini but that is touch and go, it is feasible Germany could even see a Green chancellor next year backed by the SPD and Linke as Merkel is not contesting the 2021 elections and the CDU will not touch the AFD.
In the developing world Brazil has Bolosonaro and India still has Modi and of course Russia still has Putin, China has Xi who is not really populist though authoritarian, Netanyahu hands over to Gantz as Israeli PM next year
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
I believe Trump was calling for the scrapping of the electoral college before the 2012 election when there was a chance Obama would win the EC while narrowly losing the popular vote.
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
Is it though...Eastern Europe, is still very popular e.g. Poland re-elected one. Australia voted for a very right wing government. Macron is very unpopular on France, with Le Pen waiting in the wings.
Right wing populism is still very much there because a large part of the population feels as though it has been sh*t upon from a large height. Anyone who thinks it is going away is very much mistaken.
It isn't just right wing popularism either. Look at Corbyn, attracting a different demographic, but with similar grievences that the system doesn't work for them and proposing simplistic unrealistic answers....robots are coming, ban driverless trains...
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
Is it though...Eastern Europe, is still very popular e.g. Poland re-elected one. Australia voted for a very right wing government. Macron is very unpopular on France, with Le Pen waiting in the wings.
Right wing populism is still very much there because a large part of the population feels as though it has been sh*t upon from a large height. Anyone who thinks it is going away is very much mistaken.
Might shift to left wing Populism though. Its one hell of a recession coming.
Reminder: The EMA is an Exponential Moving Average of all polls where the latest poll comes in with a 10% weight and the previous running average has a 90% weight.
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
Is it though...Eastern Europe, is still very popular e.g. Poland re-elected one. Australia voted for a very right wing government. Macron is very unpopular on France, with Le Pen waiting in the wings.
Right wing populism is still very much there because a large part of the population feels as though it has been sh*t upon from a large height. Anyone who thinks it is going away is very much mistaken.
Might shift to left wing Populism though. Its one hell of a recession coming.
Mostly, Biden, Arden etc it is a shift to social democracy not socialism
And Boris described Trump very poorly in the past, compared to when he PM. Biden won't likely speak about world leaders so blithely when he is once again in office. Though as US president he can get away with it more than most.
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
I If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
Yes, but you are not electing people to represent the states, as you are in the senate. The president represents the whole country and should be elected directly with a direct mandate based on OPOV.
The main argument people put forward against OPOV is that you could have a situation where at every election the biggest 10 states vote one way and the other 40 the other way and the 10 biggest always get their way. I don't have a problem with that but a lot of Americans apparently do because the individual states are such an important aspect of the nation for them.
You can actually win the EC with just the 11 biggest states.
Trump's biggest mistake this election was to shit on VBM. Suppressed his own senior vote I reckon
Could be that he thought he would lose by more (EC wise it may not end up close, but several key states ended up pretty tight) and so prioritised building his narrative for defending his loss than winning? DOesn't really square with his energetic campaigning, but it is odd.
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
Yes, but you are not electing people to represent the states, as you are in the senate. The president represents the whole country and should be elected directly with a direct mandate based on OPOV.
But the strength of your argument is essentially starting from the premise that the USA is a unitary country, whereas in principle it's (as you are well aware) federal. The federal machinery, including the presidency and all its powers, is precisely the bits the States have chosen to delegate up to it. As the centuries have ground on, the USA has ended up much closer to the unitary model than its founders might have anticipated (or maybe desired - but they're dead now, so not convinced their opinion should count for all that much) and there is clearly a case that the El Presidente should represent, in a more direct way, the people of the United States as a single demos. Yet such a conception of America is not the not the only one, certainly not the historical one, and neither obviously nor overwhelmingly the "correct" one. It would involve a fundamental shift in what the very words "United States" are taken to mean.
So I find "people vote for the President, so he/she represents them, and the electoral majority should decide" argument is rather too superficial in this context. You'd also need something to replace the Electoral College in the event of no candidate receiving a majority - to be fair, the EC is something that's not historically done a great job whenever it's been called upon, and this would actually be, in terms of stability, something of an advantage of system change - so we could have endless fun on PB debating whether they should switch to AV or use a run-off system. (In my opinion run-offs are the "more American" solution, whereas AV might be more "efficient"...)
Fox News were saying hrs ago all the claims of fraud so far have no actual evidence base and this needs to be produced quick if it is to remain plausible
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
When has the margin ever been anything like 4000?
Even in 1960, the closest ever election by popular vote margin %, the difference was over 100000. The closest since then, in 2000, Gore got over half a million more votes.
There will be no special relationship between the US and UK. It's dubious whether it has existed since Reagan and Thatcher but it's certainly gone cold now. Joe Biden is Irish (his words) and passionately believes in the EU and the Northern Irish peace process.
You say barely, but the statements from Macron and Trudeau, to name but two, were no different. This 'has he congratulated quick enough? Oh he has, well it is not strong enough' is just plain silly. Most of us are happy enough that Biden's win is confirmed without reallllllly stretching things.
There will be no special relationship between the US and UK. It's dubious whether it has existed since Reagan and Thatcher but it's certainly gone cold now. Joe Biden is Irish (his words) and passionately believes in the EU and the Northern Irish peace process.
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
And you’ve been posting here for several years, Charles...
There will be no special relationship between the US and UK. It's dubious whether it has existed since Reagan and Thatcher but it's certainly gone cold now. Joe Biden is Irish (his words) and passionately believes in the EU and the Northern Irish peace process.
Democratic Presidents normally prefer Paris or Berlin to London anyway, Obama for instance was closer to Merkel than Brown or Cameron and Biden will be the same.
The 'special relationship' tends to really only mean something under Republican Presidents eg Reagan and Thatcher or Bush and Blair or Boris and Trump excluding the exceptional case of FDR and Churchill in WW2
There will be no special relationship between the US and UK. It's dubious whether it has existed since Reagan and Thatcher but it's certainly gone cold now. Joe Biden is Irish (his words) and passionately believes in the EU and the Northern Irish peace process.
You say barely, but the statements from Macron and Trudeau, to name but two, were no different. This 'has he congratulated quick enough? Oh he has, well it is not strong enough' is just plain silly. Most of us are happy enough that Biden's win is confirmed without reallllllly stretching things.
If you think BoZo is happy about Biden's win, I have a bridge for sale...
I'll give him this at least - other people have been acting pretty silly about the total number of votes, never mind population increases, so him focusing on the raw number is one of his lesser idiocies.
I'll give him this at least - other people have been acting pretty silly about the total number of votes, never mind population increases, so him focusing on the raw number is one of his lesser idiocies.
TBF its his most accurate tweet for weeks
If only he had used this line rather than the fraud bollocks since Tuesday
You say barely, but the statements from Macron and Trudeau, to name but two, were no different. This 'has he congratulated quick enough? Oh he has, well it is not strong enough' is just plain silly. Most of us are happy enough that Biden's win is confirmed without reallllllly stretching things.
If you think BoZo is happy about Biden's win, I have a bridge for sale...
What does his being happy about it have to do with whether he had congratulated Biden, and not barely, but in the exact same standard diplomatic way of other leaders? He did, so it is just plain false to imply his congratulations were bare or lacking. If you think it insincere or that he has trouble on his hands as a result of the outcome, policy wise, that's a completely different thing. As ever, we should criticise Boris for things he says or does, he provides plenty of opportunity without criticising him for things he did not do, like not be quick or effusive enough in his congratulations.
In some ways that 71m votes meme, beloved of HYUFD, is a godsend. It gives Trump's miniscule brain something to latch onto whilst he is carted away from the White House. And over the years ahead until his dying breath it will be how he manages to deal with his hubris: 'I won more votes than any sitting President.'
If he's still around for 20 years that's likely to be surpassed because the population of the US is growing. But to be honest, if it means a peaceful transition let's grant the odious fool the meme that gets him through the next 74 days.
CNN talking about a generalised amnesty for everyone working in Trump's administration.
I expect even if we don't see that we really will see something that takes the piss.
I believe (from memory and this may be incorrect) there is some legal doubt about the legal effectiveness of a president pardoning himself. Now in practice, not all of Trump's legal problems are going to come from federal authorities so perhaps the pardon isn't so important anyway. But just to be on the safe side, is it possible we'll see President Pence have a few days at the helm to sign as much as possible to keep the lawyers happy? Not sure whether this has figured into discussion of possible Trump resignation before handover.
The article was posted here a week ago but this bit stood out:
In January, after Wuhan was stricken, quite a few countries responded to China’s appeal for help by sending face masks and other supplies. Beijing asked them not to publicize their donations so that it would not lose face.
But not much later, the virus spread beyond China’s borders and countries that had sent aid to China themselves faced critical shortages. Beijing then relished the role of benefactor, sending — in many cases selling — needed supplies, some of which were defective.
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
I find the implication of many thoughts like this that we are too weak to act on our own until the americans have led the way in sweeping out such populism to be rather depressing and infantilising. I know that's not the intention, it's that we are/will be part of a general global trend, but with it being seen as such a watershed moment of inevitability it feels like unintentional admission that we were powerless until they acted first, and that elections in other places where populists were defeated or never even had a look in should feel upset they were not heralded as the dawn of a new age.
Did he lose at golf today too or did he beat some LOSER
Like Biden has
He never loses at golf.
"I love golf and he has set the game back 30 years. Just when it was becoming cool with Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler we get this fat bozo cheating his ass off.”
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
No UK politician since 1979 has had any intention of tackling the issue of the wealth gap getting larger apart from the LOSER in 2017 & 2019.
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
When has the margin ever been anything like 4000?
Even in 1960, the closest ever election by popular vote margin %, the difference was over 100000. The closest since then, in 2000, Gore got over half a million more votes.
Bush v Gore Florida was settled by 537 which pro-rata'd across the country would be far, far closer than 100k.
When two parties are both seeking to get 50%+1 then getting closer can be natural.
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
Yes, but you are not electing people to represent the states, as you are in the senate. The president represents the whole country and should be elected directly with a direct mandate based on OPOV.
The US is a Federal Republic - it was a very deliberate decision not to have a direct election for President. It would only serve to make the Presidency more powerful to do so, and arguably it's already too powerful.
They might be better to make it a bit less powerful. I was wondering about a rotating Presidency among the Governors of the States, six months at a time, perhaps...
» show previous quotes I am perfectly happy for Birmingham to be independent if it so wishes , my only beef is the English parliament preventing Scotland having democracy. I have nothing against any English person other than if they are preventing Scotland having democracy.
Last say the Westminster parliament on the matter was to authorise the Scottish referendum... That is utter bollox , a majority Scottish wish for a referendum has been denied 3 x by English government. No democracy in the UK , banana republic run by crooks.
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If Democrat candidates for President were winning through the electoral college, but narrowly losing the national popular vote at the same time, we'd hear far less of this argument.
Nonsense. The Republicans are already complaining even though they lost both the popular vote and the EC. Think what would happen if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the EC?!
For those people advocating electing a POTUS by popular vote, that would be fine if the margin was always 4 or 5 million votes. If the margin was 4000, you have a big problem. And it is a feature/bug of FPTP 2-party systems that sooner rather than later you will get a close result.
Yes, but you are not electing people to represent the states, as you are in the senate. The president represents the whole country and should be elected directly with a direct mandate based on OPOV.
The US is a Federal Republic - it was a very deliberate decision not to have a direct election for President. It would only serve to make the Presidency more powerful to do so, and arguably it's already too powerful.
They might be better to make it a bit less powerful. I was wondering about a rotating Presidency among the Governors of the States, six months at a time, perhaps...
CNN talking about a generalised amnesty for everyone working in Trump's administration.
I expect even if we don't see that we really will see something that takes the piss.
But the pardoning if Nixon was a mistake of gigantic proportion.
It set the precedent that if you were in power you could do any crime you wanted and not get prosecuted.
If the Rule of Law is to mean anything then the people at the top must have it applied to them as well.
Yes, I agree completely. I'd never seen the wording of the pardon of Nixon until someone posted it the other day, and the justification contained within it was absolutely pathetic, as much as stating since the person was no longer president, actual punishment was unnecessary, would be degrading and was divisive. Though I believe that one talked about his relinquising of the office, which clearly doesn't apply here!
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
No UK politician since 1979 has had any intention of tackling the issue of the wealth gap getting larger apart from the LOSER in 2017 & 2019.
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
Is it though...Eastern Europe, is still very popular e.g. Poland re-elected one. Australia voted for a very right wing government. Macron is very unpopular on France, with Le Pen waiting in the wings.
Le Pen could only win against a Left opponent in the second round and there is no sign of the Left in France getting their act together,
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
No UK politician since 1979 has had any intention of tackling the issue of the wealth gap getting larger apart from the LOSER in 2017 & 2019.
The British electorate dont see it as a priority
The UK Gini coefficient came down by four points in the last twelve years all by itself.
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
No UK politician since 1979 has had any intention of tackling the issue of the wealth gap getting larger apart from the LOSER in 2017 & 2019.
The British electorate dont see it as a priority
As I've said before, we won't win by fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10%.
Did he lose at golf today too or did he beat some LOSER
Like Biden has
Doesn't he always play with people who deliberately lose to him?
Sounds credible. He seems the sort to really enjoy petty power moves, like telling bad jokes deliberately to people who have to pretend they are funny (though in fairness he is capable of being pretty funny), indulge in the trappings of authority more than actually exercising it, etc.
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
No UK politician since 1979 has had any intention of tackling the issue of the wealth gap getting larger apart from the LOSER in 2017 & 2019.
The British electorate dont see it as a priority
The UK Gini coefficient came down by four points in the last twelve years all by itself.
It is remarkable what an achievement that is yet the left don't seem happy. Funny that.
Did he lose at golf today too or did he beat some LOSER
Like Biden has
Doesn't he always play with people who deliberately lose to him?
Sounds credible. He seems the sort to really enjoy petty power moves, like telling bad jokes deliberately to people who have to pretend they are funny (though in fairness he is capable of being pretty funny), indulge in the trappings of authority more than actually exercising it, etc.
And in other news Labour +4 (42 vs 38) in tonight's Opinium
The end of right wing populism is sweeping the globe. I expect Brexit to be cancelled before the end of the year,.
Is it though...Eastern Europe, is still very popular e.g. Poland re-elected one. Australia voted for a very right wing government. Macron is very unpopular on France, with Le Pen waiting in the wings.
Right wing populism is still very much there because a large part of the population feels as though it has been sh*t upon from a large height. Anyone who thinks it is going away is very much mistaken.
Might shift to left wing Populism though. Its one hell of a recession coming.
Very much so although a left wing populist would need to reflect on that many people are essentially losing because their jobs have been shifted abroad due to free trade.
CNN talking about a generalised amnesty for everyone working in Trump's administration.
I expect even if we don't see that we really will see something that takes the piss.
Only agree to it if they sign the paperwork for the 25th Amendment.
CNN were suggesting that Barr was working on it for Trump to sign.
Even Biden might prefer to sweep this under the rug for the sake of the reputation of the White House and America generally, rather than have Putin and Xi point to the vice of democracy.
If only I'd done the double with Boris to retire early next year!
Separately I don’t think you can just state the EC is “unfair” because it overweighted small states.
It is absolutely fair to states because it treats them all equally. You just think that another metric is more appropriate
If you want to understand why the United States is different, a good starting point is to ponder upon the meaning "United States" - what do those two words mean individually, and what do they mean juxtaposed? Each State getting a say in the electoral process makes sense from this perspective.
Someone in the last thread was decrying the Senate's composition, two from each State, as unfair. Fair or not, it reflects the entire purpose of the Senate! If it were to be more proportionate, you might as well just scrap it and have a unicameral system. A knock-on effect of either abandoning the Senate or reforming so its makeup almost always shadows the House of Representatives, is that change would come much easier. Generally this favours progressives over conservatives, of course, but wouldn't be costless for someone who generally dislikes conservatism, since it means progressive actions can be more easily overturned later, and you might not like the changes a more conservative administration would be empowered to pursue.
The number of mandates per constituency is determined every eight years by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, using a formula established in the Constitution (Article 57), which gives weight both to the population and to the geographic size of each county. The factor of county geographic size in mandate allocation is a historical consideration intended to balance the perceived uneven distribution of power between rural and urban citizens in national politics. The result is that the country’s rural constituencies, which are significantly larger in geographic size than the urban constituencies, are allocated a greater number of seats than would be the case if based strictly on population.
The discrepancy is particularly notable in Finnmark County where there are 7,409 registered voters per mandate, while in Vestfold, there are 18,464 per mandate. The Finnmark quotient is a 50 per cent deviation from the average quotient in the country (14,954 votes per mandate). Four other counties have a deviation of approximately 20 per cent, and a total of seven counties deviate from the norm by more than 15 percent.
While some OSCE/ODIHR EAM interlocutors accepted this structural inequality of the vote based on a constitutional formula, others advocated for a stricter or strict equality of the vote noting that the historical rationale is no longer relevant and that the deviation is an infringement of the right to equal suffrage. The Council of Europe’s Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) recommends for equal suffrage that “the permissible departure from the norm should not be more than 10 per cent, and should certainly not exceed 15 per cent except in special circumstances (protection of a concentrated minority, sparsely populated administrative entity).”
There is some difference between an extreme of a 2x unequal proportionality and 10x. And even the comparatively low rate in Norway appears to be controversial.
I make that fifteen vice-Presidents from Truman, of which six became President, giving Harris a naive probability of 2/5 to subsequently become President herself.
That’s before factoring in that she’s a useless politician
Not so useless that she cannot beat Republicans.
Do I detect a sore loser?
No, you detect someone who has had Harris as a Senator for several years and is massively unimpressed. She’s wooden and uninspiring.
Also - traditionally - the job of the Presidential candidate is to win the White House while the VP candidate is focused on supporting senatorial and house candidates. How did she do on that measure?
Edit: FWIW this is the perfect outcome in my view. Trump is gone, and the manner of his going will condemn him to irrelevance. The Republicans have done well enough in the house and senate to rein in the worst excesses of the nuttier democrats
Precisely so.
No, Trump was a symptom, not a cause. The cause has not been addressed, namely a growing proportion of the population is sinking further and further into the mire while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
And this will only get worse. When you have the CEO of a firm like Lyft, 30-s something (I think), living on the West Coast and a multi-billionaire, talking about how the CV pandemic is a great long-term opportunity for the firm because it means that rising unemployment will mean that more people will want to become Lyft drivers which enables Lyft to pay them less, don't expect America to get happier any time soon.
The con is that neither Trump nor the Republicans were ever going to do anything more than protect those already wealthy.
Same as every UK politician since at least 1979 arguably much longer.
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Brown increased the top tax rate to 50% and it is still higher now than under Blair
No UK politician since 1979 has had any intention of tackling the issue of the wealth gap getting larger apart from the LOSER in 2017 & 2019.
The British electorate dont see it as a priority
The UK Gini coefficient came down by four points in the last twelve years all by itself.
Fantastic I will ask if my local foodbank wants to organize a Gini is coming down party.
St Marcus of Manchester is wasting is time clearly
Boris Johnson will be gone by this time next year, I think.
I may be proven wrong, but I really don't see this. I think rumours about dramatic internal divides always get play in the media, but look how long it took and how hard it was to remove sitting PMs before. May survived a VoNC despite a torrid leadership and only left after the election and several more months of Brexit tensions. Brown made it to an election, Blair served years longer than many expected, Major made it to an election; Thatcher was hated by lots of her cabinet for years before they moved on her.
Comments
In the developing world Brazil has Bolosonaro and India still has Modi and of course Russia still has Putin, China has Xi who is not really populist though authoritarian, Netanyahu hands over to Gantz as Israeli PM next year
https://twitter.com/DailyMirror/status/1325191043449380864?s=20
TBH now Jezza has gone the leaders of all the main political parties are teammates
Reminder: The EMA is an Exponential Moving Average of all polls where the latest poll comes in with a 10% weight and the previous running average has a 90% weight.
Con 39.5%
Lab 39.6%
Con 24 short of a majority
On the other hand the sheer joy and jubilation and relief on the streets of the USA is a beautiful sight after such a difficult year.
And not a militarised police officer in sight.
I expect even if we don't see that we really will see something that takes the piss.
Those who encouraged their people to travel to other countries to spend money reached an even higher level of imbecility.
Registration is allowed on the day and therefore was false I think its in here along with lots more debunking
https://twitter.com/Ike_Saul/status/1324435797374808066
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1325195426488848384
So I find "people vote for the President, so he/she represents them, and the electoral majority should decide" argument is rather too superficial in this context. You'd also need something to replace the Electoral College in the event of no candidate receiving a majority - to be fair, the EC is something that's not historically done a great job whenever it's been called upon, and this would actually be, in terms of stability, something of an advantage of system change - so we could have endless fun on PB debating whether they should switch to AV or use a run-off system. (In my opinion run-offs are the "more American" solution, whereas AV might be more "efficient"...)
Admissions 1.10
Ventilators 1.21
Deaths 1.29
R coming down in all three categories.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325194709443080192
Even in 1960, the closest ever election by popular vote margin %, the difference was over 100000.
The closest since then, in 2000, Gore got over half a million more votes.
Johnson is frozen out.
https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-victory-spells-trouble-uk-us-relations-boris-johnson-2020-11?r=US&IR=T
It's being so cheerful wot keeps me going.
The 'special relationship' tends to really only mean something under Republican Presidents eg Reagan and Thatcher or Bush and Blair or Boris and Trump excluding the exceptional case of FDR and Churchill in WW2
Like Biden has
So, since Bush / Blair
It might take him a while though:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325194709443080192?s=20
Nige not too happy either
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1325196993476571138?s=20
If only he had used this line rather than the fraud bollocks since Tuesday
If he's still around for 20 years that's likely to be surpassed because the population of the US is growing. But to be honest, if it means a peaceful transition let's grant the odious fool the meme that gets him through the next 74 days.
In January, after Wuhan was stricken, quite a few countries responded to China’s appeal for help by sending face masks and other supplies. Beijing asked them not to publicize their donations so that it would not lose face.
But not much later, the virus spread beyond China’s borders and countries that had sent aid to China themselves faced critical shortages. Beijing then relished the role of benefactor, sending — in many cases selling — needed supplies, some of which were defective.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/10/27/commentary/world-commentary/china-developed-world-negative-sentiment/
I wonder which countries donated PPE to China ?
If they had shortages a few weeks later it might be a bit embarrassing.
https://twitter.com/twitonatrain/status/1325188766185631745
As I have said Biden is probably enough of an absolute idiot to pardon Trump. But the pardoning if Nixon was a mistake of gigantic proportion.
It set the precedent that if you were in power you could do any crime you wanted and not get prosecuted.
If the Rule of Law is to mean anything then the people at the top must have it applied to them as well.
"I love golf and he has set the game back 30 years. Just when it was becoming cool with Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler we get this fat bozo cheating his ass off.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/dec/10/rick-reilly-donald-trump-golf-commander-in-cheat-book-interview
Joe Biden has a long memory for things. For example, he will never forgive Johnson for the half Kenyan comment about Obama.
The British electorate dont see it as a priority
When two parties are both seeking to get 50%+1 then getting closer can be natural.
They might be better to make it a bit less powerful. I was wondering about a rotating Presidency among the Governors of the States, six months at a time, perhaps...
malcolmg said:
» show previous quotes
I am perfectly happy for Birmingham to be independent if it so wishes , my only beef is the English parliament preventing Scotland having democracy. I have nothing against any English person other than if they are preventing Scotland having democracy.
Last say the Westminster parliament on the matter was to authorise the Scottish referendum...
That is utter bollox , a majority Scottish wish for a referendum has been denied 3 x by English government. No democracy in the UK , banana republic run by crooks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40644850
If only I'd done the double with Boris to retire early next year!
And even the comparatively low rate in Norway appears to be controversial.
St Marcus of Manchester is wasting is time clearly
Let them drink Gini