11 ms·

Well, sure. In theory, he could do anything by fiat within the bounds of established regulatory discretion. Of course, I wouldn't worry too much about all of th

by ci5er 10y ago

Well, sure. In theory, he could do anything by fiat within the bounds of established regulatory discretion. Of course, I wouldn't worry too much about all of the stuff that "Trump could do" until he gets around to doing it. He talks a lot. And, I suspect he won't have time to do all of the stuff that people worry about him potentially doing... As frustratingly slow as congressional action is -- it's more resistant to being hand-waved away. The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. I would prefer that the lesson were: "Gosh! The President has too much power!"

puranjay 10y ago
In the NYT interview, he pretty much went back on everything he said during the elections. Prosecute Hillary? "We have to move forward" Torture works? "Well, General Madd Dogg Mattis thinks its not very important" Climate change? "I have an open mind about it" I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but what Trump could do is pretty much up in the air at the moment
- sangnoir 10y ago
  Now more than anytime before, I believe the people who say Trump 'reads' a room and says what the audience expects. This should worry you if you look at the team he is building to surround him during his term.
dcposch 10y ago
> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too No. Everyone should have an equal say. That's what national popular vote ensures. Clinton got over 2m more votes than her opponent, but will not be President. That's not democracy. I completely agree with your point about limiting executive power.
- skirunman 10y ago
  Exactly, this is not "democracy". However, the USA is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. Electing the POTUS via a national popular vote would be rife with more problems than it solves. This article does a good job explaining this topic. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/the-electoral-college-enlightened-democracy http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/the-elector...
  - ajross 10y ago
    That's a Heritage piece (republican think tank, and not even one with a particular philosophical lean: Heritage is a straight ticket republican mouthpiece) written in the days before the 2004 election when it looked like Bush was going to lose the popular vote again like he did in 2000. That's, like, the precise opposite of a measured review of the subject. Seriously?
    - curt15 10y ago
      This comment simply attacks the source while doing nothing to actually refute its arguments.
      - ajross 10y ago
        First: Yes, it does. Because it was presented as an "explanation" for problems with popular vote, and it's literally the opposite: it's an advocacy piece, and readers need to know that before clicking on the link. Second: my response wasn't to Heritage, but to skirunman above, who didn't explain any of this stuff either. If you want to ding me for attacking the source, you need to cop to the fact that the whole subthread is an appeal to authority. And that authority is pretty suspect.
      - throwaway729 10y ago
        I don't tend to assume advertisements provide an unbiased review of a product. Also, I think pointing out submarine advertising tends to produce more informed consumers.
saboot 10y ago
I have talked directly to people in higher positions in telecom industries. They are expecting a reversal on net neutrality towards more "market-friendly" positions. Yes, this is a personal anecdote. No, I don't have a citation. Hope for the best, but expect and prepare for the worst.
- ci5er 10y ago
  The executive staff at telecoms I have talked to have mixed expectations. I don't know anyone at/with cable -- which I think this was aimed at in the first place. The reclassification of services necessary to make the ruling in the first place was (I believe) over-reach. But, people appear to like the outcome, so they don't quibble with the methods. I don't dislike that particular outcome, but worry about the executive branch unilaterally extending their own purview. That territorial expansion would allow for a lot of decisions that I might like a lot less. That probably just means that I worry too much about what will happen when a guy I don't like is in charge...
- tajen 10y ago
  I think at this point it is clear that it takes tremendous energy to have a very little say on topics like net neutrality, surveillance, and more. That's the case is most western countries: Our leaders have a great latitude, in parallel with their main program, to apply things which weren't discussed during the campaign.Until we find a better way, we'll have to accept that, yes, the president has legitimate power to do it.
yequalsx 10y ago
Congressional action can be slow but I think it's clear that Republicans are not going slow in this coming Congress. Your statement about the electoral college is uncalled for. Your comment would have been great without that sentence.
throwaway729 10y ago
> because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too I'm from the midwest and I still don't understand this sentiment. Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. It's not that people who don't live on the coasts shouldn't have a say. It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. We already have the senate. The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. And state governments. People who don't live on the coasts have an enormous amount of say without getting an extremely disproportionate voice in the presidential election.
- puranjay 10y ago
  I don't know why people harp on the 2 million popular votes thing. If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. But the goal was 270 electoral votes, so that's what the candidates campaigned for. This is like a losing soccer team saying that they won more free kicks, so they should get to win, not the team that scored more goals
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. And I think that would've been a good thing. Do you disagree?
    - puranjay 10y ago
      Sure, but the rules of the game were set before the candidates started playing. You can't lose and then retroactively change the rules to give yourself the victory. If the rules are bad, change them the next time around.
      - throwaway729 10y ago
        Which is exactly what's being proposed.
FilterSweep 10y ago
> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. The sarcasm in your post is, funnily enough, the opposite of the truth because they actually have MORE say than people living in coastal cities[0] Not only that, but as populations in major cities increase, and number of electoral votes stay the same, this effect increases [1] [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/presidential_election_a_map_showing_the_vote_power_of_all_50_states.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/17/the-electoral-college-badly-distorts-the-vote-and-its-going-to-get-worse/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/1... (Ed: fixed AMP link)
- ci5er 10y ago
  > The sarcasm in your post is, funnily enough, the opposite of the truth Isn't that one of the primary mechanisms of sarcasm?
  - FilterSweep 10y ago
    The "direction" Of the sarcasm is the gist of my reply. My perception was that the parent was mocking the coastal people for complaining that other citizens have a voice. I replied that ironically non-coastal state citizens have more of a voice than coastal people (Ed: grammar)
throwaway5752 10y ago
Why don't you take him at his word? It seems extremely unwise not to. Do you know who Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison are? edit: perhaps more constructively - if he were to be serious about dismantling Net Neutrality, what would he have done differently than exactly what he's doing now? Beyond his most insane proposals (Muslim registration and internment/concentration camps, building a physical 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border) he seems to be making all the necessary, concrete appointments necessary to put the necessary people in place to follow through on his campaign pledges.
- ci5er 10y ago
  > Do you know who Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison are? Uhhh. Yes. > if he were to be serious about dismantling Net Neutrality, what would he have done differently than exactly what he's doing now? Beyond his most insane proposals (Muslim registration and internment/concentration camps, building a physical 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border) he seems to be making all the necessary, concrete appointments necessary to put the necessary people in place to follow through on his campaign pledges. I have no idea. I see him walking back a lot of stuff, even before he's in office. I'm going to classify him as the used-car-salesman that says whatever he has to say to get a signature on the line below. I barely have enough energy to worry about all the things that do go wrong and have absolutely none left to spend on fantasies about more things that might go wrong. Getting old and tired, I guess...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - apatters 10y ago
    > I'm going to classify him as the used-car-salesman that says whatever he has to say to get a signature on the line below. Well, this is both his best and worst trait. It's infuriating when you're trying to work out what he'll really do, but if he uses it successfully to gain certain concessions from other nations, he could be the best negotiator America's had in a long time. Trump is a protectionist. Or is he? If China (or many other trade partners who exploit America's openness and don't reciprocate) genuinely believes he's going to impose tariffs on their imports unless they eliminate their barriers to US goods, what will they do? Who will blink first? If he doesn't chicken out we're about to watch the highest stakes poker game in modern history.
guelo 10y ago
You're saying we shouldn't worry about Trump doing exactly what he said he would do and the Republican congress wants to do. That's just stupid. We need to start mobilizing against this now. We need to make sure Trump and the Republicans pay for every one of their unpopular, anti-consumer policies. Also, I don't need any of your lessons.
chris11 10y ago
> And, I suspect he won't have time to do all of the stuff that people worry about him potentially doing... Trump doesn't have to do that much to dismantle net neutrality. All he has to do is sign bills put in front of him and appoint people to the FCC that are against the latter. He's not president yet, so he hasn't done the former, but he is in the process of the latter. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fcc-idUSKBN13H02B http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fcc-idUSKBN13H02...
TulliusCicero 10y ago
> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. Utter nonsense. Under a popular vote-based system, each person in a non-coastal state would have exactly as much say as each person in a coastal state. To the extent that coastal areas might have more sway as a whole because they have more people, isn't that the whole point of democracy? If we want to give people in less populous areas more power because they're a minority, why stop there? Why don't we give Asians and blacks more voting power than whites? Why not give Muslims and Jews more voting power than Christians? We could give more voting power to gays and lesbians than straight people! Why is rural area/state vs urban area/state the divide where we ought to privilege the minority? Why not some other dimension that historically has involved a lot more oppression? Wouldn't that make more sense?
- c0nfused 10y ago
  No, the point of the United States is to unite the states into a manageable single government. It is not to provide a direct action democracy to the people. We give states a base number of votes for being a state,2 , then add them based on population. This means that smaller states get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger states still matter more. This is not a bad thing. States provide the basic block upon which Government in the US rests. It is in our interests to provide states with more equal power at a national level than population would dictate. If you pass a constitutional amendment to adjust voting laws you can enable exactly whatever you like though, for any of your more hyperbolic suggestions you would need to override many of the existing protections as well but if you wanted to be an asshole along with the rest of america there is no reason we could not do so using our existing legal framework. The argument is not about rural versus urban but about the relative power of small versus large states. This isn't a historical issue but a simple legal one. States actually matter in the United States.
  - TulliusCicero 10y ago
    > No, the point of the United States is to unite the states into a manageable single government. It is not to provide a direct action democracy to the people. Right, obviously this was the point at the time of the Constitution's creation, and it made sense at that time because people thought of themselves more as citizens of their states than of their country. But that's no longer true, and hasn't been for a long time. > This means that smaller states get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger states still matter more. This is not a bad thing. Again, let me show you how absurd this is: "This means that religious minorities get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger religions still matter more. This is not a bad thing." "This means that racial minorities get a boos in power vis a vis white people but that white people still matter more. This is not a bad thing." Why is it a good thing for geographic minorities to get extra voting power, but not minorities for other dimensions? > States provide the basic block upon which Government in the US rests. It is in our interests to provide states with more equal power at a national level than population would dictate. 1. The Senate still does that anyway. 2. Why is that advantageous in this particular context? > If you pass a constitutional amendment to adjust voting laws you can enable exactly whatever you like though, for any of your more hyperbolic suggestions you would need to override many of the existing protections as well but if you wanted to be an asshole along with the rest of america there is no reason we could not do so using our existing legal framework. You don't even need a constitutional amendment actually, the interstate compact is sufficient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... Of course it's unlikely Republicans will back this since the current setup works to their advantage. > The argument is not about rural versus urban but about the relative power of small versus large states. Yes, but in practice states with larger populations tend to be more urbanized and states with small populations tend to be more rural.
jadell 10y ago
> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. I would prefer that the lesson were: "Gosh! The President has too much power! This is not a fair assessment. Plenty of people learned that lesson a long time ago, but always get laughed out of the room by the party in power. I remember in the aftermath of 9/11 when GWB made one of the largest executive power grabs in history, and the right-wing whole-heartedly supported him in the name of keeping us safe. A common refrain from my left-leaning friends explaining why this was a bad idea was "Imagine someone like Hillary Clinton with these powers." Of course, that was all hand-waved away until Obama took office, then suddenly "executive overreach" became such a hot topic. The only way to change the momentum of the executive gaining more power over more things is to convince both the in- and out-of-power parties that giving the President more authority is a bad thing. Good luck convincing the in-power party of that, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on.
- ci5er 10y ago
  > Good luck convincing the in-power party of that, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on. Yup. That's true of all "true" reform. Most of the campaign finance reform laws that end up passing could more accurately be called "the incumbent protection act".
mozumder 10y ago
> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. So, how about this - instead of weighing electoral college votes by location, we could weigh electoral college votes by education level. That way, people with higher education gets more of say than people with lower education. Pro-Trumpers need to explain why giving giving geographic weighting should be more valuable than giving educational weighting. There are a million factors that elections could be adjusted for.. why should we pick geography as a factor over anything else? Why should farmers be weighed more than University professors? Is there something more special about farmers than university professors? Which one is more important for a modern economy? How about this, we can weigh votes by race - black votes more than white votes. Isn't that just as valid as weighing farmer votes over urban votes?
- quantazelle 10y ago
  Because they provided food, historically.
seanwilson 10y ago
> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. I would prefer that the lesson were: "Gosh! The President has too much power!" Maybe I'm not understanding this fully but I don't follow the people saying that Clinton should have won because she got the most votes. If the rules said the winning party is the one with the most votes, the campaign strategies of each candidate would have been completely different. It sounds like moving the goal posts to me. It's like you agreed the team with the most goals is the winner beforehand but then after you lost you want to argue you should be the real winner because you had more possession of the ball.
tzs 10y ago
> Well, sure. In theory, he could do anything by fiat within the bounds of established regulatory discretion. Of course, I wouldn't worry too much about all of the stuff that "Trump could do" until he gets around to doing it. He talks a lot. And, I suspect he won't have time to do all of the stuff that people worry about him potentially doing... It won't take him any significant personal time to get rid of net neutrality. Under Trump the FCC commissioners will change from a 3 to 2 Democrat majority to a 3 to 2 Republican majority in 2017. Net neutrality passed at the FCC on a 3 to 2 straight party line vote. Republicans are massively, overwhelmingly against net neutrality and Republicans control both houses of Congress, so it is a pretty damn safe bet that the new Republican commissioner will be one who agrees with the overwhelming majority Republican opinion on this. Tom Wheeler, the FCC chairman, is a Democrat, but almost certainly will follow tradition and relinquish the chairmanship pretty much as soon as Trump takes office, and Trump will name one of the Republican commissioners as the new chairman. So, in 2017 we will have an FCC commission chaired by a Republican, with a 3 to 2 Republican majority. Reversing net neutrality will almost certainly be one of the first things on the agenda for the 3 to 2 Republican majority, Republican chaired FCC, especially considering that reversing net neutrality has been a priority for Republicans ever since Wheeler went with Title II reclassification. Wouldn't it be stupid for net neutrality advocates to wait until Trump actually does this to worry about it and start working to stop it? It's not like, say, building the wall and making Mexico pay for it, which has so many moving parts, cost, and problems to overcome that ignoring it until something concrete actually happens is fine--the wall plan is very likely to fall apart on its own long before it gets to that stage. Dismantling net neutrality will be close to trivial once Trump's appointments are on the commission. It would actually be more work on Trump's part to stop net neutrality from being dismantled, as he'd have to do some work to find a Republican commission nominee who is not against net neutrality and will pass Congressional confirmation.
RCortex 10y ago
The idea that the electoral college somehow protects smaller states is fallacious. If you take the six most populous states, you already have about 200 votes. Then you only need six more states from the next 18 most populous states. Bam, you have a majority by only winning 12 states, the other 38 states (and additional territories) have to put up and shut up. [1] This doesn't usually happen because CA/NY usually vote D, Texas usually votes R, Illinois has been voting D for a while now, and Florida/Pennsylvania are swing states; (Florida usually votes R) although, the usual suspects have passed voter suppression laws. This system doesn't protect smaller states by design, it is, as it always was, supposed to prevent the rule of mob and a demagogue from being elected. Unfortunately, due to an extremely misguided sense of party loyalty, here we are. At best it's an arbitrary ruling that can be exploited by someone who will lose the popular vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat...
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
GOP has both chambers, they are against net neutrality, Trump is against it, there is nothing to protect it at this point. NN won't last the first years of Trump's administration.
dandersh 10y ago
"The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too" The arrogance and entitlement of middle america is really getting to be too much. Now your votes should count more just "so you can have a say too". Maybe you shouldn't have abandoned unions, maybe you shouldn't have abandoned the left, maybe you shouldn't have expected the GOP to place your interests first. It's been almost 50 years since "The Silent Majority" and apparently nothing's changed. Maybe the problem isn't everyone else. Maybe the problem is you.
deelowe 10y ago
Exactly. Why don't we just all calm the hell down and wait until something actually happens before we start panicing. To be honest, I think the propaganda machine is just pissed that the establishment candidate lost and are doing their best to trach the public why this is bad.

by ci5er 10y ago

puranjay 10y ago

In the NYT interview, he pretty much went back on everything he said during the elections. Prosecute Hillary? "We have to move forward" Torture works? "Well, General Madd Dogg Mattis thinks its not very important" Climate change? "I have an open mind about it" I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but what Trump could do is pretty much up in the air at the moment

sangnoir 10y ago
Now more than anytime before, I believe the people who say Trump 'reads' a room and says what the audience expects. This should worry you if you look at the team he is building to surround him during his term.

dcposch 10y ago

> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too No. Everyone should have an equal say. That's what national popular vote ensures. Clinton got over 2m more votes than her opponent, but will not be President. That's not democracy. I completely agree with your point about limiting executive power.

skirunman 10y ago
Exactly, this is not "democracy". However, the USA is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. Electing the POTUS via a national popular vote would be rife with more problems than it solves. This article does a good job explaining this topic. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/the-electoral-college-enlightened-democracy http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/the-elector...
- ajross 10y ago
  That's a Heritage piece (republican think tank, and not even one with a particular philosophical lean: Heritage is a straight ticket republican mouthpiece) written in the days before the 2004 election when it looked like Bush was going to lose the popular vote again like he did in 2000. That's, like, the precise opposite of a measured review of the subject. Seriously?
  - curt15 10y ago
    This comment simply attacks the source while doing nothing to actually refute its arguments.
    - ajross 10y ago
      First: Yes, it does. Because it was presented as an "explanation" for problems with popular vote, and it's literally the opposite: it's an advocacy piece, and readers need to know that before clicking on the link. Second: my response wasn't to Heritage, but to skirunman above, who didn't explain any of this stuff either. If you want to ding me for attacking the source, you need to cop to the fact that the whole subthread is an appeal to authority. And that authority is pretty suspect.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      I don't tend to assume advertisements provide an unbiased review of a product. Also, I think pointing out submarine advertising tends to produce more informed consumers.

saboot 10y ago

I have talked directly to people in higher positions in telecom industries. They are expecting a reversal on net neutrality towards more "market-friendly" positions. Yes, this is a personal anecdote. No, I don't have a citation. Hope for the best, but expect and prepare for the worst.

ci5er 10y ago
The executive staff at telecoms I have talked to have mixed expectations. I don't know anyone at/with cable -- which I think this was aimed at in the first place. The reclassification of services necessary to make the ruling in the first place was (I believe) over-reach. But, people appear to like the outcome, so they don't quibble with the methods. I don't dislike that particular outcome, but worry about the executive branch unilaterally extending their own purview. That territorial expansion would allow for a lot of decisions that I might like a lot less. That probably just means that I worry too much about what will happen when a guy I don't like is in charge...
tajen 10y ago
I think at this point it is clear that it takes tremendous energy to have a very little say on topics like net neutrality, surveillance, and more. That's the case is most western countries: Our leaders have a great latitude, in parallel with their main program, to apply things which weren't discussed during the campaign.Until we find a better way, we'll have to accept that, yes, the president has legitimate power to do it.

yequalsx 10y ago

Congressional action can be slow but I think it's clear that Republicans are not going slow in this coming Congress. Your statement about the electoral college is uncalled for. Your comment would have been great without that sentence.

throwaway729 10y ago

> because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too I'm from the midwest and I still don't understand this sentiment. Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. It's not that people who don't live on the coasts shouldn't have a say. It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. We already have the senate. The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. And state governments. People who don't live on the coasts have an enormous amount of say without getting an extremely disproportionate voice in the presidential election.

puranjay 10y ago
I don't know why people harp on the 2 million popular votes thing. If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. But the goal was 270 electoral votes, so that's what the candidates campaigned for. This is like a losing soccer team saying that they won more free kicks, so they should get to win, not the team that scored more goals
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. And I think that would've been a good thing. Do you disagree?
  - puranjay 10y ago
    Sure, but the rules of the game were set before the candidates started playing. You can't lose and then retroactively change the rules to give yourself the victory. If the rules are bad, change them the next time around.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      Which is exactly what's being proposed.

FilterSweep 10y ago

> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. The sarcasm in your post is, funnily enough, the opposite of the truth because they actually have MORE say than people living in coastal cities[0] Not only that, but as populations in major cities increase, and number of electoral votes stay the same, this effect increases [1] [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/presidential_election_a_map_showing_the_vote_power_of_all_50_states.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/17/the-electoral-college-badly-distorts-the-vote-and-its-going-to-get-worse/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/1... (Ed: fixed AMP link)

ci5er 10y ago
> The sarcasm in your post is, funnily enough, the opposite of the truth Isn't that one of the primary mechanisms of sarcasm?
- FilterSweep 10y ago
  The "direction" Of the sarcasm is the gist of my reply. My perception was that the parent was mocking the coastal people for complaining that other citizens have a voice. I replied that ironically non-coastal state citizens have more of a voice than coastal people (Ed: grammar)

throwaway5752 10y ago

Why don't you take him at his word? It seems extremely unwise not to. Do you know who Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison are? edit: perhaps more constructively - if he were to be serious about dismantling Net Neutrality, what would he have done differently than exactly what he's doing now? Beyond his most insane proposals (Muslim registration and internment/concentration camps, building a physical 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border) he seems to be making all the necessary, concrete appointments necessary to put the necessary people in place to follow through on his campaign pledges.

ci5er 10y ago
> Do you know who Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison are? Uhhh. Yes. > if he were to be serious about dismantling Net Neutrality, what would he have done differently than exactly what he's doing now? Beyond his most insane proposals (Muslim registration and internment/concentration camps, building a physical 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border) he seems to be making all the necessary, concrete appointments necessary to put the necessary people in place to follow through on his campaign pledges. I have no idea. I see him walking back a lot of stuff, even before he's in office. I'm going to classify him as the used-car-salesman that says whatever he has to say to get a signature on the line below. I barely have enough energy to worry about all the things that do go wrong and have absolutely none left to spend on fantasies about more things that might go wrong. Getting old and tired, I guess...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- apatters 10y ago
  > I'm going to classify him as the used-car-salesman that says whatever he has to say to get a signature on the line below. Well, this is both his best and worst trait. It's infuriating when you're trying to work out what he'll really do, but if he uses it successfully to gain certain concessions from other nations, he could be the best negotiator America's had in a long time. Trump is a protectionist. Or is he? If China (or many other trade partners who exploit America's openness and don't reciprocate) genuinely believes he's going to impose tariffs on their imports unless they eliminate their barriers to US goods, what will they do? Who will blink first? If he doesn't chicken out we're about to watch the highest stakes poker game in modern history.

guelo 10y ago

You're saying we shouldn't worry about Trump doing exactly what he said he would do and the Republican congress wants to do. That's just stupid. We need to start mobilizing against this now. We need to make sure Trump and the Republicans pay for every one of their unpopular, anti-consumer policies. Also, I don't need any of your lessons.

chris11 10y ago

> And, I suspect he won't have time to do all of the stuff that people worry about him potentially doing... Trump doesn't have to do that much to dismantle net neutrality. All he has to do is sign bills put in front of him and appoint people to the FCC that are against the latter. He's not president yet, so he hasn't done the former, but he is in the process of the latter. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fcc-idUSKBN13H02B http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fcc-idUSKBN13H02...

TulliusCicero 10y ago

> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. Utter nonsense. Under a popular vote-based system, each person in a non-coastal state would have exactly as much say as each person in a coastal state. To the extent that coastal areas might have more sway as a whole because they have more people, isn't that the whole point of democracy? If we want to give people in less populous areas more power because they're a minority, why stop there? Why don't we give Asians and blacks more voting power than whites? Why not give Muslims and Jews more voting power than Christians? We could give more voting power to gays and lesbians than straight people! Why is rural area/state vs urban area/state the divide where we ought to privilege the minority? Why not some other dimension that historically has involved a lot more oppression? Wouldn't that make more sense?

c0nfused 10y ago
No, the point of the United States is to unite the states into a manageable single government. It is not to provide a direct action democracy to the people. We give states a base number of votes for being a state,2 , then add them based on population. This means that smaller states get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger states still matter more. This is not a bad thing. States provide the basic block upon which Government in the US rests. It is in our interests to provide states with more equal power at a national level than population would dictate. If you pass a constitutional amendment to adjust voting laws you can enable exactly whatever you like though, for any of your more hyperbolic suggestions you would need to override many of the existing protections as well but if you wanted to be an asshole along with the rest of america there is no reason we could not do so using our existing legal framework. The argument is not about rural versus urban but about the relative power of small versus large states. This isn't a historical issue but a simple legal one. States actually matter in the United States.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  > No, the point of the United States is to unite the states into a manageable single government. It is not to provide a direct action democracy to the people. Right, obviously this was the point at the time of the Constitution's creation, and it made sense at that time because people thought of themselves more as citizens of their states than of their country. But that's no longer true, and hasn't been for a long time. > This means that smaller states get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger states still matter more. This is not a bad thing. Again, let me show you how absurd this is: "This means that religious minorities get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger religions still matter more. This is not a bad thing." "This means that racial minorities get a boos in power vis a vis white people but that white people still matter more. This is not a bad thing." Why is it a good thing for geographic minorities to get extra voting power, but not minorities for other dimensions? > States provide the basic block upon which Government in the US rests. It is in our interests to provide states with more equal power at a national level than population would dictate. 1. The Senate still does that anyway. 2. Why is that advantageous in this particular context? > If you pass a constitutional amendment to adjust voting laws you can enable exactly whatever you like though, for any of your more hyperbolic suggestions you would need to override many of the existing protections as well but if you wanted to be an asshole along with the rest of america there is no reason we could not do so using our existing legal framework. You don't even need a constitutional amendment actually, the interstate compact is sufficient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... Of course it's unlikely Republicans will back this since the current setup works to their advantage. > The argument is not about rural versus urban but about the relative power of small versus large states. Yes, but in practice states with larger populations tend to be more urbanized and states with small populations tend to be more rural.

jadell 10y ago

> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. I would prefer that the lesson were: "Gosh! The President has too much power! This is not a fair assessment. Plenty of people learned that lesson a long time ago, but always get laughed out of the room by the party in power. I remember in the aftermath of 9/11 when GWB made one of the largest executive power grabs in history, and the right-wing whole-heartedly supported him in the name of keeping us safe. A common refrain from my left-leaning friends explaining why this was a bad idea was "Imagine someone like Hillary Clinton with these powers." Of course, that was all hand-waved away until Obama took office, then suddenly "executive overreach" became such a hot topic. The only way to change the momentum of the executive gaining more power over more things is to convince both the in- and out-of-power parties that giving the President more authority is a bad thing. Good luck convincing the in-power party of that, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on.

ci5er 10y ago
> Good luck convincing the in-power party of that, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on. Yup. That's true of all "true" reform. Most of the campaign finance reform laws that end up passing could more accurately be called "the incumbent protection act".

mozumder 10y ago

> The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. So, how about this - instead of weighing electoral college votes by location, we could weigh electoral college votes by education level. That way, people with higher education gets more of say than people with lower education. Pro-Trumpers need to explain why giving giving geographic weighting should be more valuable than giving educational weighting. There are a million factors that elections could be adjusted for.. why should we pick geography as a factor over anything else? Why should farmers be weighed more than University professors? Is there something more special about farmers than university professors? Which one is more important for a modern economy? How about this, we can weigh votes by race - black votes more than white votes. Isn't that just as valid as weighing farmer votes over urban votes?

quantazelle 10y ago
Because they provided food, historically.

seanwilson 10y ago

tzs 10y ago

> Well, sure. In theory, he could do anything by fiat within the bounds of established regulatory discretion. Of course, I wouldn't worry too much about all of the stuff that "Trump could do" until he gets around to doing it. He talks a lot. And, I suspect he won't have time to do all of the stuff that people worry about him potentially doing... It won't take him any significant personal time to get rid of net neutrality. Under Trump the FCC commissioners will change from a 3 to 2 Democrat majority to a 3 to 2 Republican majority in 2017. Net neutrality passed at the FCC on a 3 to 2 straight party line vote. Republicans are massively, overwhelmingly against net neutrality and Republicans control both houses of Congress, so it is a pretty damn safe bet that the new Republican commissioner will be one who agrees with the overwhelming majority Republican opinion on this. Tom Wheeler, the FCC chairman, is a Democrat, but almost certainly will follow tradition and relinquish the chairmanship pretty much as soon as Trump takes office, and Trump will name one of the Republican commissioners as the new chairman. So, in 2017 we will have an FCC commission chaired by a Republican, with a 3 to 2 Republican majority. Reversing net neutrality will almost certainly be one of the first things on the agenda for the 3 to 2 Republican majority, Republican chaired FCC, especially considering that reversing net neutrality has been a priority for Republicans ever since Wheeler went with Title II reclassification. Wouldn't it be stupid for net neutrality advocates to wait until Trump actually does this to worry about it and start working to stop it? It's not like, say, building the wall and making Mexico pay for it, which has so many moving parts, cost, and problems to overcome that ignoring it until something concrete actually happens is fine--the wall plan is very likely to fall apart on its own long before it gets to that stage. Dismantling net neutrality will be close to trivial once Trump's appointments are on the commission. It would actually be more work on Trump's part to stop net neutrality from being dismantled, as he'd have to do some work to find a Republican commission nominee who is not against net neutrality and will pass Congressional confirmation.

RCortex 10y ago

The idea that the electoral college somehow protects smaller states is fallacious. If you take the six most populous states, you already have about 200 votes. Then you only need six more states from the next 18 most populous states. Bam, you have a majority by only winning 12 states, the other 38 states (and additional territories) have to put up and shut up. [1] This doesn't usually happen because CA/NY usually vote D, Texas usually votes R, Illinois has been voting D for a while now, and Florida/Pennsylvania are swing states; (Florida usually votes R) although, the usual suspects have passed voter suppression laws. This system doesn't protect smaller states by design, it is, as it always was, supposed to prevent the rule of mob and a demagogue from being elected. Unfortunately, due to an extremely misguided sense of party loyalty, here we are. At best it's an arbitrary ruling that can be exploited by someone who will lose the popular vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat...

seanmcdirmid 10y ago

GOP has both chambers, they are against net neutrality, Trump is against it, there is nothing to protect it at this point. NN won't last the first years of Trump's administration.

dandersh 10y ago

"The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too" The arrogance and entitlement of middle america is really getting to be too much. Now your votes should count more just "so you can have a say too". Maybe you shouldn't have abandoned unions, maybe you shouldn't have abandoned the left, maybe you shouldn't have expected the GOP to place your interests first. It's been almost 50 years since "The Silent Majority" and apparently nothing's changed. Maybe the problem isn't everyone else. Maybe the problem is you.

deelowe 10y ago

Exactly. Why don't we just all calm the hell down and wait until something actually happens before we start panicing. To be honest, I think the propaganda machine is just pissed that the establishment candidate lost and are doing their best to trach the public why this is bad.