6 ms·

Did you miss the part where the election was partially a referendum on globalism?

jrs235 10y ago
25% does not make a mandate. Edit: Only ~50% of eligible voters voted. Half of those voted for the winner. That's only 25% that actively voted in support of the winner.
- YuriNiyazov 10y ago
  The 25% is a consequence of the Electoral College system. And before someone says "well, we should just go by popular vote" - if the election was determined by popular vote, the campaigns would have completely different strategies, with different participation and outcomes.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Given that the vote was basically 50-50, and that most of the votes are cast outside the swing states that got the attention, then no, the 'mandate' result would not have been different from 25%. Different tactics wouldn't shift that general number much.
  - jrs235 10y ago
    The 25% is not a consequence of the Electoral College system. The 25% is a consequence of only 50% of eligible voters voting, half of which voted for the winner.
    - lambertsimnel 10y ago
      True, but the electoral college contributes to the problem. In winner-takes-all states that are heavily for one party or the other, there is not much incentive to vote. Turnout would almost certainly be higher under a national popular vote.
  - woliveirajr 10y ago
    Then people could complain or discuss about voluntary versus obligatory voting, then about having just two real candidates versus more (powerful) parties, then about limited vs unlimited funding, then private vs company vs public funding, then about quotas for any category you name, then ... There are so many combinations and possibilities that it's hard to say which one is the best. And all them can be gamed.
    - eru 10y ago
      > [...] then about having just two real candidates versus more (powerful) parties [...] You can have more than two candidates without more powerful parties. Proportional representation leads to parties, something like range voting can keep the primacy of candidates, but lets us escape from the two party system. http://rangevoting.org/ http://rangevoting.org/
      - lambertsimnel 10y ago
        Proportional representation in the electoral college is equivalent to a national popular vote, and is no more or less conducive to party power than the status quo. Proportional representation in the House of Representatives is possible without increasing party power (or even without parties at all) by using Single Transferable Vote. Instant Runoff Voting (the single-winner variant of Single Transferable Vote) for presidential (and gubernatorial) elections would help to protect against excessive party power by allowing third party and non-party candidates a fair chance.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        eru 10y ago
        Instant Runoff Voting (and the Single Transferable Vote) wouldn't really help: Australia has those, and if anything, there electoral system is even worse than Britain and the US---eg they don't have a single non-white MP.
- melling 10y ago
  No, but losing the Rust Belt cost the Democrats the election. The loss of manufacturing cost a lot of jobs in that region.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Jobs that are never coming back. Renewables and natural gas will decimate coal in the coming years. And low end product manufacturing won't be able to compete with the cheaper labour and supply chain superiority of other countries. US manufacturing if it survives at all will be high end, highly skilled work. And the US is woeful when it comes to investing in technical training.
    - melling 10y ago
      Why are you telling me this? I was explaining why Clinton lost the election. Someone needs to solve the Rust Belt problem. I have no idea if Trump has a plan but he did not ignore the people in those states so they voted for him. You don't win votes by telling people their jobs aren't coming back.
      - enraged_camel 10y ago
        >>You don't win votes by telling people their jobs aren't coming back. I think you can, if you present them with alternatives that make sense. Coming up with such alternatives requires a lot of planning and creative thinking through, which Hillary thought not worth it because polls showed her ahead in those states...
      - threeseed 10y ago
        Because I would argue Hillary didn't lose the rust belt. Trump won it. By lying to those people that he will bring their jobs back.
        chillacy 10y ago
        I think with enough regulation, he can bring their jobs back. It just comes at the cost of productivity, which means we end up paying extra for it. Consider the Obama tire tariffs. Tire manufacturing is up in the US, we created some jobs, but overall we all collectively pay way more in tires.
- skylan_q 10y ago
  It sure does. We're all going to have to live it. It doesn't get more mandate-y than that.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  In that case, virtually no elected official in the US has ever had a mandate, and our government should therefore do nothing. Yes, lots of potential voters don't vote. They made that choice. It's not a new choice. This election is not much different from any other. We'd surely argue that Obama or Reagan had mandates, but they also didn't clear 50% of eligible voters. Indeed, even in Reagan's "landslide" 1980 election, he won only 50.7% of the popular vote, and only 52.6% of voters turned out - numbers not radically different from this time around - 47.2% of the popular vote where 56.9% of voters turned out.
threeseed 10y ago
Yes. Everyone did. Because globalism is not going anywhere. Trump can't isolate the US without dramatic, negative consequences. Trade war with the China ? Economists predict a worldwide recession. Tariffs on Mexico to pay for the wall ? Good luck to US agriculture.
hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
You mean the same election where the majority of people voted for the pro-globalism candidate?
- YuriNiyazov 10y ago
  Like I said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 the popular vote is irrelevant.
  - hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
    I'm not saying Donald Trump shouldn't be president as he clearly won the game. What I'm saying is that you can't claim the election was a "referendum" on anything because more people voted against him than for him.
redditmigrant 10y ago
If you are assuming Clinton and Trump are proxies for and against globalization respectively, more people (aka popular vote) actually voted for continuing globalization.
- YuriNiyazov 10y ago
  Like I said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 the popular vote is irrelevant.
  - paublyrne 10y ago
    If you're saying it was a referendum then surely the popular vote does matter.
    - oh_sigh 10y ago
      Trump beat HRC by +12 points in EV votes. If that were popular votes, one would probably consider it a referendum
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  Interesting that people keep rolling out this tired meme when she only won by, what, 200k votes? Your argument isn't very powerful when the margins are so tiny; you're arguing for a technicality.
- krisdol 10y ago
  Clinton also stood against TPP.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    She was against it, after she was for it. No one believed her, especially since Terry McAuliffe let the cat out of the bag. [EDIT:] I'm surprised the DNC downvoted this, since McAuliffe is yet another plausible person to blame while diverting attention from their terrible and misguided primary-fixing.

25% does not make a mandate. Edit: Only ~50% of eligible voters voted. Half of those voted for the winner. That's only 25% that actively voted in support of the winner.

YuriNiyazov 10y ago
The 25% is a consequence of the Electoral College system. And before someone says "well, we should just go by popular vote" - if the election was determined by popular vote, the campaigns would have completely different strategies, with different participation and outcomes.
- vacri 10y ago
  Given that the vote was basically 50-50, and that most of the votes are cast outside the swing states that got the attention, then no, the 'mandate' result would not have been different from 25%. Different tactics wouldn't shift that general number much.
- jrs235 10y ago
  The 25% is not a consequence of the Electoral College system. The 25% is a consequence of only 50% of eligible voters voting, half of which voted for the winner.
  - lambertsimnel 10y ago
    True, but the electoral college contributes to the problem. In winner-takes-all states that are heavily for one party or the other, there is not much incentive to vote. Turnout would almost certainly be higher under a national popular vote.
- woliveirajr 10y ago
  Then people could complain or discuss about voluntary versus obligatory voting, then about having just two real candidates versus more (powerful) parties, then about limited vs unlimited funding, then private vs company vs public funding, then about quotas for any category you name, then ... There are so many combinations and possibilities that it's hard to say which one is the best. And all them can be gamed.
  - eru 10y ago
    > [...] then about having just two real candidates versus more (powerful) parties [...] You can have more than two candidates without more powerful parties. Proportional representation leads to parties, something like range voting can keep the primacy of candidates, but lets us escape from the two party system. http://rangevoting.org/ http://rangevoting.org/
    - lambertsimnel 10y ago
      Proportional representation in the electoral college is equivalent to a national popular vote, and is no more or less conducive to party power than the status quo. Proportional representation in the House of Representatives is possible without increasing party power (or even without parties at all) by using Single Transferable Vote. Instant Runoff Voting (the single-winner variant of Single Transferable Vote) for presidential (and gubernatorial) elections would help to protect against excessive party power by allowing third party and non-party candidates a fair chance.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - eru 10y ago
        Instant Runoff Voting (and the Single Transferable Vote) wouldn't really help: Australia has those, and if anything, there electoral system is even worse than Britain and the US---eg they don't have a single non-white MP.
melling 10y ago
No, but losing the Rust Belt cost the Democrats the election. The loss of manufacturing cost a lot of jobs in that region.
- threeseed 10y ago
  Jobs that are never coming back. Renewables and natural gas will decimate coal in the coming years. And low end product manufacturing won't be able to compete with the cheaper labour and supply chain superiority of other countries. US manufacturing if it survives at all will be high end, highly skilled work. And the US is woeful when it comes to investing in technical training.
  - melling 10y ago
    Why are you telling me this? I was explaining why Clinton lost the election. Someone needs to solve the Rust Belt problem. I have no idea if Trump has a plan but he did not ignore the people in those states so they voted for him. You don't win votes by telling people their jobs aren't coming back.
    - enraged_camel 10y ago
      >>You don't win votes by telling people their jobs aren't coming back. I think you can, if you present them with alternatives that make sense. Coming up with such alternatives requires a lot of planning and creative thinking through, which Hillary thought not worth it because polls showed her ahead in those states...
    - threeseed 10y ago
      Because I would argue Hillary didn't lose the rust belt. Trump won it. By lying to those people that he will bring their jobs back.
      - chillacy 10y ago
        I think with enough regulation, he can bring their jobs back. It just comes at the cost of productivity, which means we end up paying extra for it. Consider the Obama tire tariffs. Tire manufacturing is up in the US, we created some jobs, but overall we all collectively pay way more in tires.
skylan_q 10y ago
It sure does. We're all going to have to live it. It doesn't get more mandate-y than that.
Amezarak 10y ago
In that case, virtually no elected official in the US has ever had a mandate, and our government should therefore do nothing. Yes, lots of potential voters don't vote. They made that choice. It's not a new choice. This election is not much different from any other. We'd surely argue that Obama or Reagan had mandates, but they also didn't clear 50% of eligible voters. Indeed, even in Reagan's "landslide" 1980 election, he won only 50.7% of the popular vote, and only 52.6% of voters turned out - numbers not radically different from this time around - 47.2% of the popular vote where 56.9% of voters turned out.

threeseed 10y ago

Yes. Everyone did. Because globalism is not going anywhere. Trump can't isolate the US without dramatic, negative consequences. Trade war with the China ? Economists predict a worldwide recession. Tariffs on Mexico to pay for the wall ? Good luck to US agriculture.

hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago

You mean the same election where the majority of people voted for the pro-globalism candidate?

YuriNiyazov 10y ago
Like I said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 the popular vote is irrelevant.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
  I'm not saying Donald Trump shouldn't be president as he clearly won the game. What I'm saying is that you can't claim the election was a "referendum" on anything because more people voted against him than for him.

redditmigrant 10y ago

If you are assuming Clinton and Trump are proxies for and against globalization respectively, more people (aka popular vote) actually voted for continuing globalization.

YuriNiyazov 10y ago
Like I said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934475 the popular vote is irrelevant.
- paublyrne 10y ago
  If you're saying it was a referendum then surely the popular vote does matter.
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    Trump beat HRC by +12 points in EV votes. If that were popular votes, one would probably consider it a referendum
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cloakandswagger 10y ago
Interesting that people keep rolling out this tired meme when she only won by, what, 200k votes? Your argument isn't very powerful when the margins are so tiny; you're arguing for a technicality.
krisdol 10y ago
Clinton also stood against TPP.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  She was against it, after she was for it. No one believed her, especially since Terry McAuliffe let the cat out of the bag. [EDIT:] I'm surprised the DNC downvoted this, since McAuliffe is yet another plausible person to blame while diverting attention from their terrible and misguided primary-fixing.