5 ms·

You're right, but only because the E.C. gives disproportionate voting power to acreage. You can win the E.C. with only ~23% of the votes if you distribute them

You're right, but only because the E.C. gives disproportionate voting power to acreage. You can win the E.C. with only ~23% of the votes if you distribute them optimally.

landryraccoon 10y ago
That's evidence that Trump's strategy was correct. The right strategy is to maximize EC votes, not the popular vote. Clinton won the wrong game.
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  Exactly. He's said something to this effect as well - that he campaigned to win the EC, not the popular vote. If he had campaigned to win the popular vote he would have done so.
brightball 10y ago
Things like that get pretty important when it comes to national policy covering all that acreage. $15 minimum wage for example - sounds reasonable in high cost of living, densely populated areas. In rural areas it would be economically devastating. It's one of the biggest reasons why acreage needs to matter for the Presidency. City, County and State laws can handle everything for the densely populated areas just fine without imposing the desire for those policies on areas with entirely different economic conditions. One of the biggest dangers to the country is counting a high concentration of people in an area who have completely different life experiences and conditions, more than areas that are heavily spread out. Policy does not have equal effects in all places. It's not much different than saying if India became a US State for some reason that suddenly the 1.3 billion people there should be dictating policy that effected every other US state. It's also why federal policy for just about everything outside of common defense tends to be misguided.
- pklausler 10y ago
  I prefer democracy, myself.
  - brightball 10y ago
    As it turns out, you probably have Democracy in your city, county and state...unless you're electing representatives that will be making the decisions on your behalf for the next few years. Then you just have democratic voting for representatives...assuming those representatives are perfectly evenly distributed across the population.
    - vaishaksuresh 10y ago
      >As it turns out, you probably have Democracy in your city, county and state but just not in the Country? We should just be upfront about it then and stop calling the USA a democracy.
      - brightball 10y ago
        We never have. It's always been a Republic.
    - pklausler 10y ago
      > assuming those representatives are perfectly evenly distributed across the population. Which they are not; and because E.C. votes (at least in the 50 states) are allocated according to Congressional representation, the E.C. reflects the undemocratic nature of the Senate.
- vaishaksuresh 10y ago
  Your argument is fine and dandy until you realize that the same thing you set out to prevent now happens to majority. $15 is devastating in rural area so you don't implement it, now it is economically devastating in urban areas and affecting the majority. Which would you prefer? Democracy in most countries works this way. Majority of the people affecting the decisions, even if it hurts a minority. Democracy is not always getting what you want, it is sometimes not getting what you want because most of the people want something else.
  - pklausler 10y ago
    Let's not get hung up on the $15/hr rate issue; the larger assertion is that people concentrated in cities shouldn't have a say in the management of the land that's (mostly) upstream from them, and that's why a Wyoming voter should have 4x the voting power for President than a California voter. (WY: 585,000 pop., 3 EV; CA: 38.8M pop., 55 EV).
    - brightball 10y ago
      It seems like moving to Wyoming to have your vote count 4x as much would be powerful thing then. Then again, your priorities might change if you live in Wyoming.
    - vaishaksuresh 10y ago
      My point still stands. The Wyoming voter now has 4X more say in things that affect a vast majority of people In CA. States should govern things that affect the land management in this case and federal government should not deal with that.
  - brightball 10y ago
    I'd prefer policy that's desired and potentially harmful to be isolated, where it can fail in isolation or succeed there. That way other areas can observe and decide to either copy it if it works or avoid it if it's harmful. It's not devastating to the majority if it happens in one or two cities or counties because it's just affecting those cities and counties. If EVERY major city decided to implement it then it would actually be affecting the majority...but as a bonus since every major city would have chosen it they could also just as easily get rid of it if they found it wasn't working in their area. At the Federal level where it's blanket implemented across the board all the places that don't want it are essentially just screwed since they're too small to have a say in the matter.
elastic_church 10y ago
If the rules were different, the campaign would have been different.

You're right, but only because the E.C. gives disproportionate voting power to acreage. You can win the E.C. with only ~23% of the votes if you distribute them optimally.

landryraccoon 10y ago

That's evidence that Trump's strategy was correct. The right strategy is to maximize EC votes, not the popular vote. Clinton won the wrong game.

LyndsySimon 10y ago
Exactly. He's said something to this effect as well - that he campaigned to win the EC, not the popular vote. If he had campaigned to win the popular vote he would have done so.

brightball 10y ago

Things like that get pretty important when it comes to national policy covering all that acreage. $15 minimum wage for example - sounds reasonable in high cost of living, densely populated areas. In rural areas it would be economically devastating. It's one of the biggest reasons why acreage needs to matter for the Presidency. City, County and State laws can handle everything for the densely populated areas just fine without imposing the desire for those policies on areas with entirely different economic conditions. One of the biggest dangers to the country is counting a high concentration of people in an area who have completely different life experiences and conditions, more than areas that are heavily spread out. Policy does not have equal effects in all places. It's not much different than saying if India became a US State for some reason that suddenly the 1.3 billion people there should be dictating policy that effected every other US state. It's also why federal policy for just about everything outside of common defense tends to be misguided.

pklausler 10y ago
I prefer democracy, myself.
- brightball 10y ago
  As it turns out, you probably have Democracy in your city, county and state...unless you're electing representatives that will be making the decisions on your behalf for the next few years. Then you just have democratic voting for representatives...assuming those representatives are perfectly evenly distributed across the population.
  - vaishaksuresh 10y ago
    >As it turns out, you probably have Democracy in your city, county and state but just not in the Country? We should just be upfront about it then and stop calling the USA a democracy.
    - brightball 10y ago
      We never have. It's always been a Republic.
  - pklausler 10y ago
    > assuming those representatives are perfectly evenly distributed across the population. Which they are not; and because E.C. votes (at least in the 50 states) are allocated according to Congressional representation, the E.C. reflects the undemocratic nature of the Senate.
vaishaksuresh 10y ago
Your argument is fine and dandy until you realize that the same thing you set out to prevent now happens to majority. $15 is devastating in rural area so you don't implement it, now it is economically devastating in urban areas and affecting the majority. Which would you prefer? Democracy in most countries works this way. Majority of the people affecting the decisions, even if it hurts a minority. Democracy is not always getting what you want, it is sometimes not getting what you want because most of the people want something else.
- pklausler 10y ago
  Let's not get hung up on the $15/hr rate issue; the larger assertion is that people concentrated in cities shouldn't have a say in the management of the land that's (mostly) upstream from them, and that's why a Wyoming voter should have 4x the voting power for President than a California voter. (WY: 585,000 pop., 3 EV; CA: 38.8M pop., 55 EV).
  - brightball 10y ago
    It seems like moving to Wyoming to have your vote count 4x as much would be powerful thing then. Then again, your priorities might change if you live in Wyoming.
  - vaishaksuresh 10y ago
    My point still stands. The Wyoming voter now has 4X more say in things that affect a vast majority of people In CA. States should govern things that affect the land management in this case and federal government should not deal with that.
- brightball 10y ago
  I'd prefer policy that's desired and potentially harmful to be isolated, where it can fail in isolation or succeed there. That way other areas can observe and decide to either copy it if it works or avoid it if it's harmful. It's not devastating to the majority if it happens in one or two cities or counties because it's just affecting those cities and counties. If EVERY major city decided to implement it then it would actually be affecting the majority...but as a bonus since every major city would have chosen it they could also just as easily get rid of it if they found it wasn't working in their area. At the Federal level where it's blanket implemented across the board all the places that don't want it are essentially just screwed since they're too small to have a say in the matter.

elastic_church 10y ago

If the rules were different, the campaign would have been different.