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> There is a lot of denial about this interference happening out there I would argue there’s a lot of creative interpretation of how much “interference” actual

by xienze 4y ago

> There is a lot of denial about this interference happening out there I would argue there’s a lot of creative interpretation of how much “interference” actually happens. Democrats are pretty much starting from the position that, due to demographics, the only way Republicans can gain the upper hand in national elections (or particular state/local elections) is through trickery and the assistance of foreign government meddling. Hence why before and after every election we’re warned repeatedly about foreign interference in our elections. And you would be lying if you said that if the expected red wave materializes that there won’t be large amounts of ink spilled over how Russia pulled it off yet again. Yet if Democrats were to unexpectedly come out on top in a few days, do you think the same people going on about foreign interference would insist that we have to see what role it played in helping certain Democrats win their respective races? Somehow I doubt it. Which is why I think “interference” is a very useful political tool. It’s vague in nature, if we’re being honest it’s impossible to measure its impact, and it serves a very useful purpose — to cast doubt on the victories of political opponents.

mywittyname 4y ago
> Democrats are pretty much starting from the position that, due to demographics, the only way Republicans can gain the upper hand in national elections (or particular state/local elections) is through trickery and the assistance of foreign government meddling. WTF. Our voting system is so fundamentally broken and all any party needs to do to get a government majority without a popular majority is to push on the cracks. No foreign interference necessary, though, it helps. The USA is so heavily gerrymandered that the vast majority of congressional races don't even need to hold actual elections, the outcome is 99% certain. There are 10 seats in the up-coming midterms which could be considered competitive out of 435. [0] For the presidential election, the electoral college makes it possible for a candidate to win the presidency with a mere 23% of the popular vote. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/gop-house-2022/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/gop-house-2022/
- parineum 4y ago
  > For the presidential election, the electoral college makes it possible for a candidate to win the presidency with a mere 23% of the popular vote. _Possible_ does a lot of work for you here. You have to assume all the losing states vote at 0% toward the winning party and all winning states vote at 50%+1 for that to happen. Something that is absurdly unrealistic given that California only voted 65% Biden and 35% Trump in the last election. The EC doesn't favor one party over the other except for the fact that Democrats refuse to move their national politics to the center to win the EC and use words like "populist" to describe the candidates that do. Realistically, the popular vote "problem" you bring up isn't the issue with the EC. The issue is that it allows candidates to ignore the vast majority of the country, causing all candidates to cater to the same minority of the population. There's nothing wrong with the EC except that the states are mostly "winner-take-all", essentially gerrymandering the presidential elections. There are a lot of things I'd like to see done to increase the veracity of our elections (ranked choice voting, open primaries, etc.) but, I think, if we could solve or make progress in the reduction of gerrymandering it would make a sizeable difference in the quality of politics in the country. And, notably, gerrymandering is very much a "both sides" issue, ask Californian politicians if they would favor splitting California EC votes proportionally by vote. That would make California more represented in Presidential elections and would also force candidates to try and win votes in California, moderating national politics. The only downside would be to the Democratic party itself.
  - kristjansson 4y ago
    Politicians in Texas and Florida are just as unlikely as California to unilaterally switch proportionally allocating electors, and for the same reasons. A more representative national politics requires coordinated, national reform. However, the first-past-the-post issues you're talking about have very little to do with gerrymandering? EC / Senate politics are unrepresentative of population-majority preferences due to where people have decided to put themselves; House politics are unrepresentative due to how the districts for each seat are drawn. Gerrymandering is the political manipulation of the latter.
    - parineum 4y ago
acdha 4y ago
> Democrats are pretty much starting from the position that, due to demographics, the only way Republicans can gain the upper hand in national elections (or particular state/local elections) is through trickery and the assistance of foreign government meddling. I’m trying to be generous in my interpretation here but are you using “trickery” to include the gerrymandering and voting restrictions Democrats spend most of their time on? In particular, I’d like some citations about who is saying specifically what about “interference”.

by xienze 4y ago

mywittyname 4y ago

> Democrats are pretty much starting from the position that, due to demographics, the only way Republicans can gain the upper hand in national elections (or particular state/local elections) is through trickery and the assistance of foreign government meddling. WTF. Our voting system is so fundamentally broken and all any party needs to do to get a government majority without a popular majority is to push on the cracks. No foreign interference necessary, though, it helps. The USA is so heavily gerrymandered that the vast majority of congressional races don't even need to hold actual elections, the outcome is 99% certain. There are 10 seats in the up-coming midterms which could be considered competitive out of 435. [0] For the presidential election, the electoral college makes it possible for a candidate to win the presidency with a mere 23% of the popular vote. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/gop-house-2022/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/gop-house-2022/

parineum 4y ago
> For the presidential election, the electoral college makes it possible for a candidate to win the presidency with a mere 23% of the popular vote. _Possible_ does a lot of work for you here. You have to assume all the losing states vote at 0% toward the winning party and all winning states vote at 50%+1 for that to happen. Something that is absurdly unrealistic given that California only voted 65% Biden and 35% Trump in the last election. The EC doesn't favor one party over the other except for the fact that Democrats refuse to move their national politics to the center to win the EC and use words like "populist" to describe the candidates that do. Realistically, the popular vote "problem" you bring up isn't the issue with the EC. The issue is that it allows candidates to ignore the vast majority of the country, causing all candidates to cater to the same minority of the population. There's nothing wrong with the EC except that the states are mostly "winner-take-all", essentially gerrymandering the presidential elections. There are a lot of things I'd like to see done to increase the veracity of our elections (ranked choice voting, open primaries, etc.) but, I think, if we could solve or make progress in the reduction of gerrymandering it would make a sizeable difference in the quality of politics in the country. And, notably, gerrymandering is very much a "both sides" issue, ask Californian politicians if they would favor splitting California EC votes proportionally by vote. That would make California more represented in Presidential elections and would also force candidates to try and win votes in California, moderating national politics. The only downside would be to the Democratic party itself.
- kristjansson 4y ago
  Politicians in Texas and Florida are just as unlikely as California to unilaterally switch proportionally allocating electors, and for the same reasons. A more representative national politics requires coordinated, national reform. However, the first-past-the-post issues you're talking about have very little to do with gerrymandering? EC / Senate politics are unrepresentative of population-majority preferences due to where people have decided to put themselves; House politics are unrepresentative due to how the districts for each seat are drawn. Gerrymandering is the political manipulation of the latter.
  - parineum 4y ago

acdha 4y ago