6 ms·

> Sadly, this has never > happened, anywhere, ever. Didn't this literally just happen? If Biden hadn't suffered in the polls after the nature of his debat

by avar 2y ago

> Sadly, this has never > happened, anywhere, ever. Didn't this literally just happen? If Biden hadn't suffered in the polls after the nature of his debate performance, I don't see how we'd be here today. However indirect the mechanism by which he was ousted, it ultimately comes down to an assessment of what candidate voters would have been willing to back.

shiroiushi 2y ago
>Didn't this literally just happen? >If Biden hadn't suffered in the polls after the nature of his debate performance, I don't see how we'd be here today. No, this didn't happen at all. There has been no election yet, and polls are not elections, they're just random-ish samplings. The polls showed voters weren't very enthusiastic about Biden, but back in 2015, the polls showed that Trump was absolutely certain to lose in a landslide to Hillary, and that didn't happen. I do agree with the poll results this time around, but that's just my opinion and not at all backed up by an actual election, which we now won't have (since the election will have a different candidate). We'll see how well the new candidate fares. >However indirect the mechanism by which he was ousted This "mechanism" was not part of the government at all, and not really part of "democracy". It was just a bunch of opinion polls organized by mostly the press, and they influenced Biden to stop his campaign, but again this is not some central feature of democratic systems at all. The only way of truly assessing what candidate voters choose is to have an election. Everything else is just guesswork.
- carso 2y ago
  And I wouldn't be sure the polls were the key factor - big donors calling the shots by withholding funds may have been the deciding factor.
- Shoop 2y ago
  Didn’t 538 give Trump an ~1-in-3 chance of winning?
- GolDDranks 2y ago
  From an outsider perspective, the US bipartisan system seems to be a big problem. There are almost no meaningful choices. Moving to transferable vote would perhaps improve things? But I doubt that would happen anytime soon, because the current system is a live-lock of two wrangling powers that don't want more competition.
  - kagakuninja 2y ago
    First we have to git rid of our ludicrous electoral college system. This requires a constitutional amendment, which must first be approved by 2/3 of both houses of congress, then ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Since that is the only thing that has enabled Republicans to barely win presidential elections since 2000, we will not get anywhere close to passing such legislation, let alone get it approved by 3/4 of the state legislatures. As a side note, the last attempted constitutional amendment was the Equal Right Amendment, giving equal rights to women. It was proposed in 1972, and is maybe close to finally being approved. https://www.equalrightsamendment.org https://www.equalrightsamendment.org
    - vkou 2y ago
      > This requires a constitutional amendment, which must first be approved by 2/3 of both houses of congress, then ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Actually all it requires is the state legislatures of enough states to hit 270 EC votes to pass the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta.... It's at 209/270 at the moment. The electoral college is an utterly idiotic system, but can be broken from within.
      - kcplate 2y ago
        The NPVIC is a fucking awful solution that would backfire on the idiots supporting it eventually. Talk about vote disenfranchisement on a massive scale—it could literally invalidate entire states worth of votes just because California, Texas, Florida, and New York decided to vote the same way. Which means that candidates would ignore literally every state except the 4-5 with the largest population because they are the only ones that would matter.
- tempestn 2y ago
  Polls can not and did not promise absolute certainty.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y ago
  > back in 2015, the polls showed that Trump was absolutely certain to lose in a landslide to Hillary The polls had Trump winning in 3/10 simulations, which is far from absolutely certain: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
inopinatus 2y ago
Polls are not an election, indirectly or otherwise. The people who care most about polls are a) pollsters, and b) hacks writing tedious process stories. My point includes the suggestion that there is never a "best"; the optimal outcome is to elect the least worst candidate. ALI: I shall stay here and learn politics. LAWRENCE: That's a very low occupation. ALI: I had no thought of it when I met you. The paradox of government is that the people most qualified to hold office - almost any office - are deterred from it by the sheer awfulness of the jobs. Someone deselecting themselves is in the general category of the dissuaded, even if they've done it before. c.f. also Adams on presidential elections, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2416 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2416
- hunter-gatherer 2y ago
  I've recently wondered what a sortitionist democracy would look like, something were the legislative and executive branches are randomly selected throughout the popukation much like a jurry to serve for a few years. I'm not aware of any places in history that had something like that. I've actually had a few runins in my past with some US senators where I got to actually sit and listen and converse about some problems. I was always unimpressed with the caliber of the man, to be honest, in terms of both their emotional and cognitive prowess. Having random people vote on the issues probably wouldn't yield worse results. Something I've come to believe is that US democracy doesn't naturally select for anyone based on leadership skills, credentials, or any virtue that is needed in such a role. It seems to select for people who can get votes, which can mean a lot of things. I think that is a key issue.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    A very important point in politics that doesn't often get discussed is that simply holding a legal office doesn't give you any actual powers. The most likely result of a sortitionist system would be that the bureaucracy controls the state, and that the officially appointed leaders are strictly figureheads. Despite what the law says, people in the administration don't actually have to follow the orders of their appointed superior. If they feel that the senator/congressman/president/etc can be fooled, or simply that enough of their colleagues are on their side, they can just ignore even direct orders. What's the senator going to do? Call the police because their subordinates are ignoring them? So one of the most necessary qualities in an official is being able to control the levers of power - through connections, charisma, physical power in ages past, money - whatever it is, you need your subordinates to actually do what you tell them. Government isn't a boardgames where people follow the law just because those are the rules of the game.

by avar 2y ago

shiroiushi 2y ago

>Didn't this literally just happen? >If Biden hadn't suffered in the polls after the nature of his debate performance, I don't see how we'd be here today. No, this didn't happen at all. There has been no election yet, and polls are not elections, they're just random-ish samplings. The polls showed voters weren't very enthusiastic about Biden, but back in 2015, the polls showed that Trump was absolutely certain to lose in a landslide to Hillary, and that didn't happen. I do agree with the poll results this time around, but that's just my opinion and not at all backed up by an actual election, which we now won't have (since the election will have a different candidate). We'll see how well the new candidate fares. >However indirect the mechanism by which he was ousted This "mechanism" was not part of the government at all, and not really part of "democracy". It was just a bunch of opinion polls organized by mostly the press, and they influenced Biden to stop his campaign, but again this is not some central feature of democratic systems at all. The only way of truly assessing what candidate voters choose is to have an election. Everything else is just guesswork.

carso 2y ago
And I wouldn't be sure the polls were the key factor - big donors calling the shots by withholding funds may have been the deciding factor.
Shoop 2y ago
Didn’t 538 give Trump an ~1-in-3 chance of winning?
GolDDranks 2y ago
From an outsider perspective, the US bipartisan system seems to be a big problem. There are almost no meaningful choices. Moving to transferable vote would perhaps improve things? But I doubt that would happen anytime soon, because the current system is a live-lock of two wrangling powers that don't want more competition.
- kagakuninja 2y ago
  First we have to git rid of our ludicrous electoral college system. This requires a constitutional amendment, which must first be approved by 2/3 of both houses of congress, then ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Since that is the only thing that has enabled Republicans to barely win presidential elections since 2000, we will not get anywhere close to passing such legislation, let alone get it approved by 3/4 of the state legislatures. As a side note, the last attempted constitutional amendment was the Equal Right Amendment, giving equal rights to women. It was proposed in 1972, and is maybe close to finally being approved. https://www.equalrightsamendment.org https://www.equalrightsamendment.org
  - vkou 2y ago
    > This requires a constitutional amendment, which must first be approved by 2/3 of both houses of congress, then ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Actually all it requires is the state legislatures of enough states to hit 270 EC votes to pass the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta.... It's at 209/270 at the moment. The electoral college is an utterly idiotic system, but can be broken from within.
    - kcplate 2y ago
      The NPVIC is a fucking awful solution that would backfire on the idiots supporting it eventually. Talk about vote disenfranchisement on a massive scale—it could literally invalidate entire states worth of votes just because California, Texas, Florida, and New York decided to vote the same way. Which means that candidates would ignore literally every state except the 4-5 with the largest population because they are the only ones that would matter.
tempestn 2y ago
Polls can not and did not promise absolute certainty.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y ago
> back in 2015, the polls showed that Trump was absolutely certain to lose in a landslide to Hillary The polls had Trump winning in 3/10 simulations, which is far from absolutely certain: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

inopinatus 2y ago

Polls are not an election, indirectly or otherwise. The people who care most about polls are a) pollsters, and b) hacks writing tedious process stories. My point includes the suggestion that there is never a "best"; the optimal outcome is to elect the least worst candidate. ALI: I shall stay here and learn politics. LAWRENCE: That's a very low occupation. ALI: I had no thought of it when I met you. The paradox of government is that the people most qualified to hold office - almost any office - are deterred from it by the sheer awfulness of the jobs. Someone deselecting themselves is in the general category of the dissuaded, even if they've done it before. c.f. also Adams on presidential elections, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2416 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2416

hunter-gatherer 2y ago
I've recently wondered what a sortitionist democracy would look like, something were the legislative and executive branches are randomly selected throughout the popukation much like a jurry to serve for a few years. I'm not aware of any places in history that had something like that. I've actually had a few runins in my past with some US senators where I got to actually sit and listen and converse about some problems. I was always unimpressed with the caliber of the man, to be honest, in terms of both their emotional and cognitive prowess. Having random people vote on the issues probably wouldn't yield worse results. Something I've come to believe is that US democracy doesn't naturally select for anyone based on leadership skills, credentials, or any virtue that is needed in such a role. It seems to select for people who can get votes, which can mean a lot of things. I think that is a key issue.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  A very important point in politics that doesn't often get discussed is that simply holding a legal office doesn't give you any actual powers. The most likely result of a sortitionist system would be that the bureaucracy controls the state, and that the officially appointed leaders are strictly figureheads. Despite what the law says, people in the administration don't actually have to follow the orders of their appointed superior. If they feel that the senator/congressman/president/etc can be fooled, or simply that enough of their colleagues are on their side, they can just ignore even direct orders. What's the senator going to do? Call the police because their subordinates are ignoring them? So one of the most necessary qualities in an official is being able to control the levers of power - through connections, charisma, physical power in ages past, money - whatever it is, you need your subordinates to actually do what you tell them. Government isn't a boardgames where people follow the law just because those are the rules of the game.