6 ms·

Why look to the future? The last election has been openly opposed by a large percentage of the population AND agencies of the public service. Not like the Oba

Why look to the future? The last election has been openly opposed by a large percentage of the population AND agencies of the public service. Not like the Obama terms where much different. Just a different group of people saying "My team didn't win so I'm going to have a tantrum". I predict the next election cycle will just be more of the same, no matter who wins.

scrollaway 6y ago
Would the election being contested by the losing candidate be more of the same to you? Because there's a massive difference between voters being upset their candidate lost, and the candidate not accepting the results. Especially if that candidate is the acting president and refuses to go through the peaceful transfer of power. And the fact it's even being discussed as a serious possibility that the current acting president would do that should raise so many alarm bells about how democratic the US really is ... it's not even funny.
- iso1631 6y ago
  > And the fact it's even being discussed as a serious possibility that the current acting president would do that should raise so many alarm bells about how democratic the US really is ... it's not even funny. That was discussed with the same seriousness by the other side with Obama stepping down. Complete load of tosh. If the electoral college fails to elect Trump as president when it meets at the end of the year, the secret service and/or army will remove Trump and Pence from the White House at noon on Jan 20th, revoking their security clearences. That will be done by force if necessary, and the winner of the EC will take the presidency. If the EC fails to meet before Jan 20th for whatever reason (including elections being unable to be held etc), Then at noon on Jan 20th both Trump and Pence are removed and (baring a change in the makeup of the House), Nancy Pelosi will be sworn in as President. The idea of a military coup in a country so enamoured by its constitution is fantastical.
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    Trump has refused to say that he would accept the results of the election, constantly saying he "will see". This is absolutely not something Obama has done and claiming the situations are similar is blind and absurd. Removing the president by force does not help the stated case by the way.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      It's not removing the president by force. If Trump fails to win the electoral college vote by 12:01p on Jan 20th, the president will be Biden or Pelosi. If Trump then refuses to leave the white house he'll be treated as an intruder and arrested and/or shot. He has no individual power, and no loyalty to him, the loyalty is to the office of president, which is currently occupied by Trump, but unless he is declared The peaceful transfer of power is about the operation of the government transferring - the head of the army, the secret service, the finance, etc. You might get civil unrest if some Trump supporters refuse to accept it, but unlike other countries where ballots are counted, the US does not elect a president by popular vote, instead a joint session of congress counts registered votes from 538 electors across the country. The sitting president isn't even the room. There is no question.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        In all your replies you are defending against a claim nobody is making. Nobody said the president will just remain a president if he just says so. What I originally said is that the fact this (the acting president refusing to go through peaceful transfer of power) is a serious discussion is symptomatic of a serious issue, and I maintain that, and nothing you said contradicts it. You then replied with a weird tangent about Obama.
      - baybal2 6y ago
        > He has no individual power, and no loyalty to him, the loyalty is to the office of president, which is currently occupied by Trump, but unless he is declared You should note, the man has shown many times to be able to gather a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people with a few tweets, and phone calls.
iso1631 6y ago
When you have a situation where the winning candidate has fewer votes than the other candidate, that clearly leads to some saying it wasn't a fair representation of the feeling of the country. I don't think many contested Bush in 2004, when he got a majority (not even just a plurarity) of votes. They might not have liked it, but it was a given. Clearly in 2000 there were complaints, Gore got more votes, on top of that was the whole hanging chad fiasco. In both 92 and 96, Clinton got the plurarity of votes, but didn't reach 50%. Most who voted, voted against him. Not as bad as not getting a majority of votes, but will lead to some resentment. Now on top of that there's the whole "Hacking" the election, which is far more woolly, and isn't just because of Russia and Cambridge Analytica, it's also about how informed a population is, the ease of getting onto the voting register, the ease of casting a vote, etc. Democracy is hard
- qpalz 6y ago
  All good points. I would add that democracy in the workplace, which affects most people's day to day lives far more than that of the government, has been decreasing for decades, with the decline of unions and skyrocketing of wealth inequality.
  - AxiomCloNe 6y ago
    agreed though I think the appearance of workplace democracy affecting day to day more than governmental democracy is only historically (rather than inherently) true of post-war america. that standard could radically shift in the future and I'd also say that it's government policy or stagnancy that enables the context in which workplace democracy has declined.

scrollaway 6y ago

Would the election being contested by the losing candidate be more of the same to you? Because there's a massive difference between voters being upset their candidate lost, and the candidate not accepting the results. Especially if that candidate is the acting president and refuses to go through the peaceful transfer of power. And the fact it's even being discussed as a serious possibility that the current acting president would do that should raise so many alarm bells about how democratic the US really is ... it's not even funny.

iso1631 6y ago
> And the fact it's even being discussed as a serious possibility that the current acting president would do that should raise so many alarm bells about how democratic the US really is ... it's not even funny. That was discussed with the same seriousness by the other side with Obama stepping down. Complete load of tosh. If the electoral college fails to elect Trump as president when it meets at the end of the year, the secret service and/or army will remove Trump and Pence from the White House at noon on Jan 20th, revoking their security clearences. That will be done by force if necessary, and the winner of the EC will take the presidency. If the EC fails to meet before Jan 20th for whatever reason (including elections being unable to be held etc), Then at noon on Jan 20th both Trump and Pence are removed and (baring a change in the makeup of the House), Nancy Pelosi will be sworn in as President. The idea of a military coup in a country so enamoured by its constitution is fantastical.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  Trump has refused to say that he would accept the results of the election, constantly saying he "will see". This is absolutely not something Obama has done and claiming the situations are similar is blind and absurd. Removing the president by force does not help the stated case by the way.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    It's not removing the president by force. If Trump fails to win the electoral college vote by 12:01p on Jan 20th, the president will be Biden or Pelosi. If Trump then refuses to leave the white house he'll be treated as an intruder and arrested and/or shot. He has no individual power, and no loyalty to him, the loyalty is to the office of president, which is currently occupied by Trump, but unless he is declared The peaceful transfer of power is about the operation of the government transferring - the head of the army, the secret service, the finance, etc. You might get civil unrest if some Trump supporters refuse to accept it, but unlike other countries where ballots are counted, the US does not elect a president by popular vote, instead a joint session of congress counts registered votes from 538 electors across the country. The sitting president isn't even the room. There is no question.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      In all your replies you are defending against a claim nobody is making. Nobody said the president will just remain a president if he just says so. What I originally said is that the fact this (the acting president refusing to go through peaceful transfer of power) is a serious discussion is symptomatic of a serious issue, and I maintain that, and nothing you said contradicts it. You then replied with a weird tangent about Obama.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      > He has no individual power, and no loyalty to him, the loyalty is to the office of president, which is currently occupied by Trump, but unless he is declared You should note, the man has shown many times to be able to gather a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people with a few tweets, and phone calls.

iso1631 6y ago

When you have a situation where the winning candidate has fewer votes than the other candidate, that clearly leads to some saying it wasn't a fair representation of the feeling of the country. I don't think many contested Bush in 2004, when he got a majority (not even just a plurarity) of votes. They might not have liked it, but it was a given. Clearly in 2000 there were complaints, Gore got more votes, on top of that was the whole hanging chad fiasco. In both 92 and 96, Clinton got the plurarity of votes, but didn't reach 50%. Most who voted, voted against him. Not as bad as not getting a majority of votes, but will lead to some resentment. Now on top of that there's the whole "Hacking" the election, which is far more woolly, and isn't just because of Russia and Cambridge Analytica, it's also about how informed a population is, the ease of getting onto the voting register, the ease of casting a vote, etc. Democracy is hard

qpalz 6y ago
All good points. I would add that democracy in the workplace, which affects most people's day to day lives far more than that of the government, has been decreasing for decades, with the decline of unions and skyrocketing of wealth inequality.
- AxiomCloNe 6y ago
  agreed though I think the appearance of workplace democracy affecting day to day more than governmental democracy is only historically (rather than inherently) true of post-war america. that standard could radically shift in the future and I'd also say that it's government policy or stagnancy that enables the context in which workplace democracy has declined.