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The Dems won a clear majority of votes for the Presidency and enough votes to take the House as well. The GOP holds both because of unrepresentative electoral s

by alexqgb 10y ago

The Dems won a clear majority of votes for the Presidency and enough votes to take the House as well. The GOP holds both because of unrepresentative electoral systems (the electoral college and gerrymandering) rendered a decisive number of votes irrelevant. The left is the majority. It lost because it didn't play as dirty as the right.

TheGirondin 10y ago
2016 elections: Republican 63,153,387 Democratic 61,776,218 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Represe...
- dmix 10y ago
  Congress and Senate combined has far more power than executive as well. In fact the executive branch has grown significantly in power largely because of the ever growing pageantry of the elections. Everyone puts responsibility for all economic and social issues on the president. This eventually becomes a self fulfilling reality as we saw with Obama who signed more executive orders than anyone. The pressure is significant. When in practice the executive branch is in fact quite limited outside of offering an ideological leadership and his cabinet/court picks. I hope this is the ultimate result of the Trump Presidency. That executive power is further reduced rather than emboldened. This is how the founding fathers envisioned the political system. They didn't want an unlimited amount of power left to the whims of one man. But it seems everyone continually sees the problem as merely the wrong person rather than improving the system itself. The never ending belief that it will be better next time! Either way I've learned to be less pessimistic - despite the mounting hysteria these days - largely because the system still somewhat reflects it's intention. As we saw when the only really bad policy (Muslim ban) was shut down from within party ranks by a Republican in the judicial branch.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
The existence of the electoral college does not actually represent dirty play by the right...

by alexqgb 10y ago

TheGirondin 10y ago

2016 elections: Republican 63,153,387 Democratic 61,776,218 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Represe...

dmix 10y ago
Congress and Senate combined has far more power than executive as well. In fact the executive branch has grown significantly in power largely because of the ever growing pageantry of the elections. Everyone puts responsibility for all economic and social issues on the president. This eventually becomes a self fulfilling reality as we saw with Obama who signed more executive orders than anyone. The pressure is significant. When in practice the executive branch is in fact quite limited outside of offering an ideological leadership and his cabinet/court picks. I hope this is the ultimate result of the Trump Presidency. That executive power is further reduced rather than emboldened. This is how the founding fathers envisioned the political system. They didn't want an unlimited amount of power left to the whims of one man. But it seems everyone continually sees the problem as merely the wrong person rather than improving the system itself. The never ending belief that it will be better next time! Either way I've learned to be less pessimistic - despite the mounting hysteria these days - largely because the system still somewhat reflects it's intention. As we saw when the only really bad policy (Muslim ban) was shut down from within party ranks by a Republican in the judicial branch.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

The existence of the electoral college does not actually represent dirty play by the right...