6 ms·

>Couldn't one argue 9/11 was the 'start' of the 21st century? There was one major US political event in the 21st Century before 9/11 and arguably even lead to

>Couldn't one argue 9/11 was the 'start' of the 21st century? There was one major US political event in the 21st Century before 9/11 and arguably even lead to 9/11. People tend to forget the 2000 Presidential Election between Gore/Bush. It seems common place for a candidate to lose the popular vote but win the Election, which was the case between Gore/Bush, but we hadn't seen that prior to Gore/Bush since 1888. Not to mention the shenanigans (electronic votes in swing states like FL going to the opposite candidate, entire truck loads of missing ballots)...it ended in a lawsuit and the SCOTUS deciding the election. Politics/news coverage was set down a path of partisanship we have never recovered from and has only gotten worse. But to your point there is a chance 9/11 is stopped or never happens under Gore, and if 9/11 happened anyway, the response for sure would have been different and Iraq/Afghanistan wars likely never happen (perhaps an entire generation doesn't go off to the longest war in American history).

MuffinFlavored 6y ago
> It seems common place for a candidate to lose the popular vote but win the Election, which was the case between Gore/Bush I know the education of the average HNer is a bit higher than the average person off of the street. How is the electoral college perceived here? I've heard a great argument from a conservative friend: it prevents densely populated cities like LA + NY for speaking on the needs/wants of the entire country.
- Juliate 6y ago
  On the other hand, it effectively makes the voices of each and every citizen of the USA not equals among themselves.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    That's the point. Otherwise highly populous states would steamroll smaller states, causing tremendous political tension and long-term could trigger a war.
    - dundarious 6y ago
      The President can do far more than veto Goliath from steamrolling David. Flipping an unfair power balance, is still an unfair power balance.
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        When considering political systems, fairness doesn't matter if it causes an unstable system. Think of it kind of like an organism. Only those that can survive can evolve and pass on their genes. That isn't to say that fairness is a bad goal, because it's a good goal. But the system needs to remain stable.
        dundarious 6y ago
        Replace “fair” with whatever word you would use to describe your steamrolling example, then.
  - linkdd 6y ago
    It is a different kind of equality.
  - rglullis 6y ago
    The voices of the citizens are represented by Congress and Senate.
    - Juliate 6y ago
      Which means that some representatives, elected by fewer people, hold as much power (1 voice) as others (elected by more people). Which means their own voices are effectively not equals. If you're fine with it, fine for you.
      - rglullis 6y ago
        Yes, not only I am fine with it, I am trying really hard to find a place where the amount of votes linearly translates to the amount of power a representative has. Every parliamentary system with barrier clauses are out. Every district-based election is out, etc, etc. Swiss' cantons, maybe?
        Juliate 6y ago
        It may also translate into: representatives grouping into parties. Which parties get the more votes globally, get to have proportionally as many seats, which they distribute to the elected members of the group.
        rglullis 6y ago
        I am failing to understand the point you are trying to make. You just described most parliamentary systems. There is still one PM that concentrates the executive power. Also, most parliamentary elections (that I know of) have some form of barrier clause. This is explicitly done to avoid pulverization of power. In Germany, your vote needs to be along with a minimum of 5% of the population to actually count. There is no "one vote, one share of power" as well. So what gives? You asked me if I was "fine with it". I am saying that I am fine with it because I don't know of any alternative that has implemented anything better. If you know of any place with a functional government, as big as the USA and with a "one vote, one share of power", by all means do share.
- dundarious 6y ago
  What’s the implied harm in that, though? Given it violates the principle of “one person, one vote”, it needs justification beyond gesturing towards the idea of “it prevents bigger regions from bullying smaller ones”. Maybe there is a dark history that has been avoided by the EC, but it seems incomplete to just just allude to it with a vague David and Goliath analogy.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    The federal government is set up to allow minority positions to roadblock majority positions unless you have an overwhelming majority (look at basically every big social issue of the past century and you will see this is how it has played out). The purpose of this is to prevent people from moving fast and breaking things at the federal level. This is all fine so long as states have decent autonomy. CA can have all the weed and abortions they want and KY can have all the guns and christian values they want and neither has to bother the other. Unfortunately we've put of a hell of a lot of authority at the federal level over the last 120yr or so and as a result government's ability to do things is handicapped because more of the doing things necessarily has to happen at a level where the system was designed to only allow things to be done when practically nobody could disagree with them.
    - dundarious 6y ago
      I agree there can exist a tyranny of the slight majority. But we’re talking about the EC, which is used to choose the President. Given the enormous power of the executive branch (relative to most parliamentary democracies, for example), this actually causes a minority to gain positive power over the majority. Positive power here meaning power to direct action through executive orders and (most importantly) military action, not merely to veto law. But the executive also enjoys some veto power! The EC and 2 senators per state system that the US uses seems to lead to a tyranny of the minority, especially if you consider that senate “rules” regarding filibustering, simple, absolute majorities are almost all conventions rather than laws or immutable procedures. However, I do agree with your line of argument as it relates to constitutional amendments. Edit: I said the executive could create law, when I meant to say they can direct action.
- rglullis 6y ago
  Densely populated states, but that is exactly the main point for keeping it. To compare with the EU, imagine if elections for the EU parliament were proportional to the populations of the member countries and how much that would favor the larger ones
  - Juliate 6y ago
    Imagine if shareholders power in decisions were proportional to the amount of shares/stake they have in ownership of the company?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_European_Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_European_Parl... > The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the principle of degressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each country is taken into account, smaller states elect more MEPs than is proportional to their populations. Anyway, it's not a direct comparison; MEP elections correspond to the House of Representatives, and there's no figure with the same centrality as the US President. Most importantly, parties in the EU are primarily local and campaign on a local basis. There are trans-party coalitions like the EPP, but identification with them is weak. Whereas you can sample random Americans from across the country and find they identify as (and even are publicly registered as??) Democrat and Republican, and with a strong consistency across the country as to what those stand for.
- atomicnumber3 6y ago
  The flip side, though, is that it allows a few people in MO to tell large swathes of people on the coasts what to do. Personally, I wish we could do two things: 1. Remove electoral college. 1 vote = 1 say no matter where you live. The fact the the senate is 2-per-state already gives plenty of weight to lower-pop states. 2. De-emphasize the role of the president. In particular, curtail the power of executive orders and the unfettered ability to use the military. It's 2020, the age of kings is over, and we don't need anyone trying to act like one. I think this would not have, for instance, curtailed a lot of the positive things Obama had done, but would have definitely stopped Trump from doing a lot of the bad stuff. Incidentally, I think over the next 50 years we're going to see the huge cities spread out a bit. Cities will still be where most people live, but I think we'll see more mid-sized cities (more places in the 250k-500k-ish pop range) having attractive employment options and good amenities.
  - rglullis 6y ago
    You do realize that (1) and (2) are at odds, right? Yes, the increase reliance on federal government and increasing grab of power from any president is a problem. But if you remove the EC you'll get the bigger states pushing for their interests and use the federal government even more as a proxy, consequently giving even more power and responsibilities to it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > prevents densely populated cities like LA + NY for speaking on the needs/wants of the entire country. I hadn't head that one, but it makes some sense; analogous to the house/senate difference.
- throwaway_USD 6y ago
  >How is the electoral college perceived here? I don't know about perception, but in practice the electoral college has decided 2 elections in the past 20 years in favor of the Republican candidate when the Democratic candidate won the popular vote. I think generally people want to do away with it (my guess is the would be reflected slightly higher in HN than the general population).
- sebwi 6y ago
  From an outside perspective, 'degressive proportionality' seems to be the term to think about more thoroughly [1]. It's valid that you neither want a minority dictating the terms for the majority nor a majority dominating a minority to such a degree that leaves the minority's voices unheard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degressive_proportionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degressive_proportionality
- devonkim 6y ago
  With current districting and gerrymandering frameworks a minority of rural voters have many, many times the electoral weight of someone in a metropolitan area so I have trouble coming up with something that is fair without overweighting one group over another. I see the problem with giving small parts of the country a monopoly practically, but when I see far more in common among constituents between Eastern WA and upstate NY than I see between Seattle and NYC I can’t help but feel that rural areas are far more united than cities are.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >but when I see far more in common among constituents between Eastern WA and upstate NY than I see between Seattle and NYC I can’t help but feel that rural areas are far more united than cities are. Do they actually have that much in common or is it out-group homogeneity?[1]. They would probably say all city dwellers are the same but obviously people from NYC don't have that much in common with people from SF beside some lifestyle commonality. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
    - devonkim 6y ago
      I’ve lived in various states all around the US and traveled for work often and honestly when I’m in most cities now I can’t tell them apart too terribly much besides native accents, weather, architecture, and some landmarks - the chain and corporate restaurants homogenized each place so much it’s a blur of random logos for myself. I can say the same for various rural areas I’ve visited though in a different way except there’s different chains (Dollar General being the one common logo) and naming conventions for run down local places that seem like Madlibs.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  > I've heard a great argument from a conservative friend: it prevents densely populated cities like LA + NY for speaking on the needs/wants of the entire country. It actually does the opposite. If you split up California into a bunch of smaller states, then some of those would vote one way, and others would vote the other way meaning they would effectively be cancelling each other out. This would weaken its power.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  That's actually accurate but that means your vote in illinois counts about 3x to 9x as much as a vote in california.
- gilbetron 6y ago
  It makes land more important than people, which shows the heritage of power in landowners. I personally think that is a bad thing now - landowners get enough power from the value of their land. However, landowners, ie the ones with the power advantage, see differently. Funny how that works.
- godtoldmetodoit 6y ago
  I see the need for systems like the electoral college, but I think it needs some tweaks. Between both the Senate and the Presidency tilting quite hard towards rural state concerns, it seems unbalanced to me. I am not pro abolishment of the EC, I think the system has some merit but that we could tweak it in any number of ways to let urban states have a bit more say. I'm a bit sick of feeling unheard by politicians 30 odd years into my life.
- jack_h 6y ago
  Like with anything on HN the EC is has its detractors and promoters. The US has changed a lot since its inception and has structurally changed in profound ways. The 12th and 17th amendments, the civil war, and the rise of federal power. I think it's important to contextualize what the electoral college originally was versus what it current is. I think it's also very important to note that no method of self-government can accommodate every citizens's preferences in unison. So whether it's direct democracy or not some portion of the US voters will 'lose'. Personally I think we're running head long into the consequences of a very strong federal government where the people desire a say in which (singular) person gets to 'run' the country. When a single person represents 50% (+/- a few % depending on EC or popular vote) of a nation of over 300 million I think we have deep systemic issues that neither the electoral college can stem nor can the popular vote fix.
  - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
    > When a single person represents 50% (+/- a few % depending on EC or popular vote) of a nation of over 300 million I think we have deep systemic issues that neither the electoral college can stem nor can the popular vote fix. Are you trying to say you wish you saw less political division in America (left vs right)?
    - jack_h 6y ago
      I think political division is a symptom. With power concentrated in such a small portion of the population (one person) you end up with two coalitions who vie for power behind the person because no smaller group can affect change at that level.
est31 6y ago
Gore would have also chartered a different course for the US environment wise, which will be a major effect felt in the future. So it will likely influence their thinking of the past.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

MuffinFlavored 6y ago

> It seems common place for a candidate to lose the popular vote but win the Election, which was the case between Gore/Bush I know the education of the average HNer is a bit higher than the average person off of the street. How is the electoral college perceived here? I've heard a great argument from a conservative friend: it prevents densely populated cities like LA + NY for speaking on the needs/wants of the entire country.

Juliate 6y ago
On the other hand, it effectively makes the voices of each and every citizen of the USA not equals among themselves.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  That's the point. Otherwise highly populous states would steamroll smaller states, causing tremendous political tension and long-term could trigger a war.
  - dundarious 6y ago
    The President can do far more than veto Goliath from steamrolling David. Flipping an unfair power balance, is still an unfair power balance.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      When considering political systems, fairness doesn't matter if it causes an unstable system. Think of it kind of like an organism. Only those that can survive can evolve and pass on their genes. That isn't to say that fairness is a bad goal, because it's a good goal. But the system needs to remain stable.
      - dundarious 6y ago
        Replace “fair” with whatever word you would use to describe your steamrolling example, then.
- linkdd 6y ago
  It is a different kind of equality.
- rglullis 6y ago
  The voices of the citizens are represented by Congress and Senate.
  - Juliate 6y ago
    Which means that some representatives, elected by fewer people, hold as much power (1 voice) as others (elected by more people). Which means their own voices are effectively not equals. If you're fine with it, fine for you.
    - rglullis 6y ago
      Yes, not only I am fine with it, I am trying really hard to find a place where the amount of votes linearly translates to the amount of power a representative has. Every parliamentary system with barrier clauses are out. Every district-based election is out, etc, etc. Swiss' cantons, maybe?
      - Juliate 6y ago
        It may also translate into: representatives grouping into parties. Which parties get the more votes globally, get to have proportionally as many seats, which they distribute to the elected members of the group.
        rglullis 6y ago
        I am failing to understand the point you are trying to make. You just described most parliamentary systems. There is still one PM that concentrates the executive power. Also, most parliamentary elections (that I know of) have some form of barrier clause. This is explicitly done to avoid pulverization of power. In Germany, your vote needs to be along with a minimum of 5% of the population to actually count. There is no "one vote, one share of power" as well. So what gives? You asked me if I was "fine with it". I am saying that I am fine with it because I don't know of any alternative that has implemented anything better. If you know of any place with a functional government, as big as the USA and with a "one vote, one share of power", by all means do share.
dundarious 6y ago
What’s the implied harm in that, though? Given it violates the principle of “one person, one vote”, it needs justification beyond gesturing towards the idea of “it prevents bigger regions from bullying smaller ones”. Maybe there is a dark history that has been avoided by the EC, but it seems incomplete to just just allude to it with a vague David and Goliath analogy.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The federal government is set up to allow minority positions to roadblock majority positions unless you have an overwhelming majority (look at basically every big social issue of the past century and you will see this is how it has played out). The purpose of this is to prevent people from moving fast and breaking things at the federal level. This is all fine so long as states have decent autonomy. CA can have all the weed and abortions they want and KY can have all the guns and christian values they want and neither has to bother the other. Unfortunately we've put of a hell of a lot of authority at the federal level over the last 120yr or so and as a result government's ability to do things is handicapped because more of the doing things necessarily has to happen at a level where the system was designed to only allow things to be done when practically nobody could disagree with them.
  - dundarious 6y ago
    I agree there can exist a tyranny of the slight majority. But we’re talking about the EC, which is used to choose the President. Given the enormous power of the executive branch (relative to most parliamentary democracies, for example), this actually causes a minority to gain positive power over the majority. Positive power here meaning power to direct action through executive orders and (most importantly) military action, not merely to veto law. But the executive also enjoys some veto power! The EC and 2 senators per state system that the US uses seems to lead to a tyranny of the minority, especially if you consider that senate “rules” regarding filibustering, simple, absolute majorities are almost all conventions rather than laws or immutable procedures. However, I do agree with your line of argument as it relates to constitutional amendments. Edit: I said the executive could create law, when I meant to say they can direct action.
rglullis 6y ago
Densely populated states, but that is exactly the main point for keeping it. To compare with the EU, imagine if elections for the EU parliament were proportional to the populations of the member countries and how much that would favor the larger ones
- Juliate 6y ago
  Imagine if shareholders power in decisions were proportional to the amount of shares/stake they have in ownership of the company?
- pjc50 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_European_Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_European_Parl... > The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the principle of degressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each country is taken into account, smaller states elect more MEPs than is proportional to their populations. Anyway, it's not a direct comparison; MEP elections correspond to the House of Representatives, and there's no figure with the same centrality as the US President. Most importantly, parties in the EU are primarily local and campaign on a local basis. There are trans-party coalitions like the EPP, but identification with them is weak. Whereas you can sample random Americans from across the country and find they identify as (and even are publicly registered as??) Democrat and Republican, and with a strong consistency across the country as to what those stand for.
atomicnumber3 6y ago
The flip side, though, is that it allows a few people in MO to tell large swathes of people on the coasts what to do. Personally, I wish we could do two things: 1. Remove electoral college. 1 vote = 1 say no matter where you live. The fact the the senate is 2-per-state already gives plenty of weight to lower-pop states. 2. De-emphasize the role of the president. In particular, curtail the power of executive orders and the unfettered ability to use the military. It's 2020, the age of kings is over, and we don't need anyone trying to act like one. I think this would not have, for instance, curtailed a lot of the positive things Obama had done, but would have definitely stopped Trump from doing a lot of the bad stuff. Incidentally, I think over the next 50 years we're going to see the huge cities spread out a bit. Cities will still be where most people live, but I think we'll see more mid-sized cities (more places in the 250k-500k-ish pop range) having attractive employment options and good amenities.
- rglullis 6y ago
  You do realize that (1) and (2) are at odds, right? Yes, the increase reliance on federal government and increasing grab of power from any president is a problem. But if you remove the EC you'll get the bigger states pushing for their interests and use the federal government even more as a proxy, consequently giving even more power and responsibilities to it.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> prevents densely populated cities like LA + NY for speaking on the needs/wants of the entire country. I hadn't head that one, but it makes some sense; analogous to the house/senate difference.
throwaway_USD 6y ago
>How is the electoral college perceived here? I don't know about perception, but in practice the electoral college has decided 2 elections in the past 20 years in favor of the Republican candidate when the Democratic candidate won the popular vote. I think generally people want to do away with it (my guess is the would be reflected slightly higher in HN than the general population).
sebwi 6y ago
From an outside perspective, 'degressive proportionality' seems to be the term to think about more thoroughly [1]. It's valid that you neither want a minority dictating the terms for the majority nor a majority dominating a minority to such a degree that leaves the minority's voices unheard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degressive_proportionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degressive_proportionality
devonkim 6y ago
With current districting and gerrymandering frameworks a minority of rural voters have many, many times the electoral weight of someone in a metropolitan area so I have trouble coming up with something that is fair without overweighting one group over another. I see the problem with giving small parts of the country a monopoly practically, but when I see far more in common among constituents between Eastern WA and upstate NY than I see between Seattle and NYC I can’t help but feel that rural areas are far more united than cities are.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >but when I see far more in common among constituents between Eastern WA and upstate NY than I see between Seattle and NYC I can’t help but feel that rural areas are far more united than cities are. Do they actually have that much in common or is it out-group homogeneity?[1]. They would probably say all city dwellers are the same but obviously people from NYC don't have that much in common with people from SF beside some lifestyle commonality. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
  - devonkim 6y ago
    I’ve lived in various states all around the US and traveled for work often and honestly when I’m in most cities now I can’t tell them apart too terribly much besides native accents, weather, architecture, and some landmarks - the chain and corporate restaurants homogenized each place so much it’s a blur of random logos for myself. I can say the same for various rural areas I’ve visited though in a different way except there’s different chains (Dollar General being the one common logo) and naming conventions for run down local places that seem like Madlibs.
im3w1l 6y ago
> I've heard a great argument from a conservative friend: it prevents densely populated cities like LA + NY for speaking on the needs/wants of the entire country. It actually does the opposite. If you split up California into a bunch of smaller states, then some of those would vote one way, and others would vote the other way meaning they would effectively be cancelling each other out. This would weaken its power.
WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
That's actually accurate but that means your vote in illinois counts about 3x to 9x as much as a vote in california.
gilbetron 6y ago
It makes land more important than people, which shows the heritage of power in landowners. I personally think that is a bad thing now - landowners get enough power from the value of their land. However, landowners, ie the ones with the power advantage, see differently. Funny how that works.
godtoldmetodoit 6y ago
I see the need for systems like the electoral college, but I think it needs some tweaks. Between both the Senate and the Presidency tilting quite hard towards rural state concerns, it seems unbalanced to me. I am not pro abolishment of the EC, I think the system has some merit but that we could tweak it in any number of ways to let urban states have a bit more say. I'm a bit sick of feeling unheard by politicians 30 odd years into my life.
jack_h 6y ago
Like with anything on HN the EC is has its detractors and promoters. The US has changed a lot since its inception and has structurally changed in profound ways. The 12th and 17th amendments, the civil war, and the rise of federal power. I think it's important to contextualize what the electoral college originally was versus what it current is. I think it's also very important to note that no method of self-government can accommodate every citizens's preferences in unison. So whether it's direct democracy or not some portion of the US voters will 'lose'. Personally I think we're running head long into the consequences of a very strong federal government where the people desire a say in which (singular) person gets to 'run' the country. When a single person represents 50% (+/- a few % depending on EC or popular vote) of a nation of over 300 million I think we have deep systemic issues that neither the electoral college can stem nor can the popular vote fix.
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  > When a single person represents 50% (+/- a few % depending on EC or popular vote) of a nation of over 300 million I think we have deep systemic issues that neither the electoral college can stem nor can the popular vote fix. Are you trying to say you wish you saw less political division in America (left vs right)?
  - jack_h 6y ago
    I think political division is a symptom. With power concentrated in such a small portion of the population (one person) you end up with two coalitions who vie for power behind the person because no smaller group can affect change at that level.

est31 6y ago

Gore would have also chartered a different course for the US environment wise, which will be a major effect felt in the future. So it will likely influence their thinking of the past.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]