The White House may not be the only institution in Washington that Democrats lost on Tuesday despite getting more votes than Republicans.
It turns out that Democrats also got more votes for the U.S. Senate than Republicans, and yet Republicans maintained their majority on Capitol Hill.
In results that are still preliminary, 45.2 million Americans cast a vote for a Democratic Senate candidate, while 39.3 million Americans voted for a Republican. (In the White House race, as of Thursday afternoon, Clinton had 60.1 million votes and Trump had 59.8 million.)
The problem for Democrats is that, much like the Electoral College, the number of votes matters less than where those votes are cast.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/10/democrats-won-popular-vote-senate-too/93598998/
Congrats to them.
I also heard that the Jags had more total yards than the Lions on Sunday...
Great analogy. You really captured the spirit of the argument.
I don't believe that analogy is very relevant to the argument because the argument isn't that Trump didn't win the contest. Technically he did. The argument is whether or not it should be a popular vote. I believe it should be a popular vote even after listening to much of the rational. Good arguments to be made for both it seems. In the end no argument I have heard seems to offer a quantitative ratio of how skewed the vote is intended to reasonable be. Obviously if we have decided not to equally represent each person we should have a rational for doing so (lots of those floating around) and a rational for what level of skewing should be invoked (this I can't find).
Quote from: stephendare on November 22, 2016, 02:34:21 PM
Quote from: Adam White on November 22, 2016, 02:12:54 PM
Great analogy. You really captured the spirit of the argument.
Not really, Representative Government isnt a metric. Its a government.
Neither the yards ran nor the field itself requires anything of the people running across them. You are talking about a game meant to measure the players, not a body of people choosing who to do the job of administering a country. The metaphor not only falls flat, it just doesn't apply.
Elections are supposed to be metrics, and it decides which party has been charged with running the government, but it doesn't change the underlying reality, and that is the people being governed.
If our metric no longer really represents those people when gauged, then its time to take a look at how we are measuring that metric.
But it doesn't confer upon the government itself (regardless of which faction is in the driving seat during a two year period) the autocratic option to pretend that only the narrow interests of a minority of voters are important.
I was being sarcastic.
It is disingenuous to compare total Senate votes nationwide to the individual races. The fact is that we have two Senators per state, and those states have vastly differing populations, and vote totals will follow thus. To aggregate them and make a conclusion for the nation as a whole would be akin to bringing together sales totals from convenience store brands both small and large, and then making a conclusion from the total, whilst forgetting that each entity is independent and distinct.
Quote from: Radio Man on November 22, 2016, 05:22:48 PM
It is disingenuous to compare total Senate votes nationwide to the individual races. The fact is that we have two Senators per state, and those states have vastly differing populations, and vote totals will follow thus. To aggregate them and make a conclusion for the nation as a whole would be akin to bringing together sales totals from convenience store brands both small and large, and then making a conclusion from the total, whilst forgetting that each entity is independent and distinct.
The problem for Democrats is that, much like the Electoral College, the
number of votes matters less than
where those votes are cast. However, with so many Monday-morning quarterbacks saying the Democrats need to change their message, target different voters, and the like, it's useful to remember that more people are buying what the D's are selling compared to what the R's are offering. In a society that calls itself a democracy, that matters.
But the united States is a Republic, not a democracy. Never has been a democracy.
None of this matters; the Senate is designed to represent the states, so obviously the state elections are all that matter. It's a separate point from the electoral college which is only tied to state elections more or less by default.
Quote from: Tacachale on November 22, 2016, 11:26:35 PM
None of this matters; the Senate is designed to represent the states, so obviously the state elections are all that matter. It's a separate point from the electoral college which is only tied to state elections more or less by default.
It matters if you're a Democrat who is being told you need to modify your positions in order to get more votes. If more people are voting Democratic than are voting Republican,
ipso facto, their positions are more in tune to what the people want than the GOP. The fact that the system is set up so that the majority doesn't always win shouldn't obscure this point.
Quote from: coredumped on November 22, 2016, 11:03:45 PM
But the united States is a Republic, not a democracy. Never has been a democracy.
This is simply not true at all - it's a myth that is perpetuated by civics teachers.
The USA is a representative democracy, which is a type of democracy. The terms "democracy" and "republic" are not mutually-exclusive. Whilst it's true that the USA is not a direct democracy, it's worth noting that direct democracy is regularly practised in the USA - the recent FL amendment votes are examples of that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/?utm_term=.1b53280f9f19
QuoteThe United States is not a direct democracy, in the sense of a country in which laws (and other government decisions) are made predominantly by majority vote. Some lawmaking is done this way, on the state and local levels, but it's only a tiny fraction of all lawmaking. But we are a representative democracy, which is a form of democracy.
And indeed the American form of government has been called a "democracy" by leading American statesmen and legal commentators from the Framing on. It's true that some Framing-era commentators made arguments that distinguished "democracy" and "republic"; see, for instance, The Federalist (No. 10), though even that first draws the distinction between "pure democracy" and a "republic," only later just saying "democracy." But even in that era, "representative democracy" was understood as a form of democracy, alongside "pure democracy": John Adams used the term "representative democracy" in 1794; so did Noah Webster in 1785; so did St. George Tucker in his 1803 edition of Blackstone; so did Thomas Jefferson in 1815. Tucker's Blackstone likewise uses "democracy" to describe a representative democracy, even when the qualifier "representative" is omitted.
Quote from: finehoe on November 22, 2016, 11:49:58 PM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 22, 2016, 11:26:35 PM
None of this matters; the Senate is designed to represent the states, so obviously the state elections are all that matter. It's a separate point from the electoral college which is only tied to state elections more or less by default.
It matters if you're a Democrat who is being told you need to modify your positions in order to get more votes. If more people are voting Democratic than are voting Republican, ipso facto, their positions are more in tune to what the people want than the GOP. The fact that the system is set up so that the majority doesn't always win shouldn't obscure this point.
"We lost, but it doesn't matter" should be the Democrats' official motto. I think it already is in Florida.
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 08:43:11 AM
"We lost, but it doesn't matter" should be the Democrats' official motto. I think it already is in Florida.
But if you get more votes than the other guy and still lose, how do you fix it?
Quote from: finehoe on November 23, 2016, 11:55:01 AM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 08:43:11 AM
"We lost, but it doesn't matter" should be the Democrats' official motto. I think it already is in Florida.
But if you get more votes than the other guy and still lose, how do you fix it?
With the electoral college, the solution could be replacing it with actual voting. With the Senate, there's nothing to fix, it's working as it should.
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 12:50:14 PM
Quote from: finehoe on November 23, 2016, 11:55:01 AM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 08:43:11 AM
"We lost, but it doesn't matter" should be the Democrats' official motto. I think it already is in Florida.
But if you get more votes than the other guy and still lose, how do you fix it?
With the electoral college, the solution could be replacing it with actual voting. With the Senate, there's nothing to fix, it's working as it should.
Yes. The only issue I could see is if there was excessive gerrymandering. But that's a different issue from what it appears the article is about. In fact, I don't quite get the point of the article.
Quote from: stephendare on November 23, 2016, 01:21:56 PM
Quote from: Adam White on November 23, 2016, 01:17:58 PM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 12:50:14 PM
Quote from: finehoe on November 23, 2016, 11:55:01 AM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 08:43:11 AM
"We lost, but it doesn't matter" should be the Democrats' official motto. I think it already is in Florida.
But if you get more votes than the other guy and still lose, how do you fix it?
With the electoral college, the solution could be replacing it with actual voting. With the Senate, there's nothing to fix, it's working as it should.
Yes. The only issue I could see is if there was excessive gerrymandering. But that's a different issue from what it appears the article is about. In fact, I don't quite get the point of the article.
There is excessive gerrymandering. It goes back to computer aided voting models in the late 1990s and led Karl Rove to boast about permanent majorities for the republicans (despite the popular votes).
The point of the article, obviously is to contextualize the temper of the public and to examine whether any mandate at all exists for the current (shifting) agenda of the Republican Party.
Is there a mandate?
The popular votes in all three elected parts of our government says no.
There is no gerrymandering in the Senate, as there are no districts. All votes are statewide.
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 01:28:05 PM
Quote from: stephendare on November 23, 2016, 01:21:56 PM
Quote from: Adam White on November 23, 2016, 01:17:58 PM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 12:50:14 PM
Quote from: finehoe on November 23, 2016, 11:55:01 AM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 08:43:11 AM
"We lost, but it doesn't matter" should be the Democrats' official motto. I think it already is in Florida.
But if you get more votes than the other guy and still lose, how do you fix it?
With the electoral college, the solution could be replacing it with actual voting. With the Senate, there's nothing to fix, it's working as it should.
Yes. The only issue I could see is if there was excessive gerrymandering. But that's a different issue from what it appears the article is about. In fact, I don't quite get the point of the article.
There is excessive gerrymandering. It goes back to computer aided voting models in the late 1990s and led Karl Rove to boast about permanent majorities for the republicans (despite the popular votes).
The point of the article, obviously is to contextualize the temper of the public and to examine whether any mandate at all exists for the current (shifting) agenda of the Republican Party.
Is there a mandate?
The popular votes in all three elected parts of our government says no.
There is no gerrymandering in the Senate, as there are no districts. All votes are statewide.
Oh yeah, that's right! Totally forgot that.
[/quote]
Quote from: Adam White on November 23, 2016, 05:00:29 AM
Quote from: coredumped on November 22, 2016, 11:03:45 PM
But the united States is a Republic, not a democracy. Never has been a democracy.
This is simply not true at all - it's a myth that is perpetuated by civics teachers.
Well you better get started correcting ALL of wikipedia! We are indeed a republic. If we were a true democracy we would have a "mob rule" type of government. We, thankfully, don't have that.
Quote from: coredumped on November 23, 2016, 01:55:57 PM
Quote from: Adam White on November 23, 2016, 05:00:29 AM
Quote from: coredumped on November 22, 2016, 11:03:45 PM
But the united States is a Republic, not a democracy. Never has been a democracy.
This is simply not true at all - it's a myth that is perpetuated by civics teachers.
Well you better get started correcting ALL of wikipedia! We are indeed a republic. If we were a true democracy we would have a "mob rule" type of government. We, thankfully, don't have that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/?utm_term=.315dc871c7ea
https://www.reference.com/government-politics/type-government-america-9a48e0411ab8f62e
[/quote]
Quote from: Snufflee on November 23, 2016, 02:02:00 PM
Quote from: coredumped on November 23, 2016, 01:55:57 PM
Quote from: Adam White on November 23, 2016, 05:00:29 AM
Quote from: coredumped on November 22, 2016, 11:03:45 PM
But the united States is a Republic, not a democracy. Never has been a democracy.
This is simply not true at all - it's a myth that is perpetuated by civics teachers.
Well you better get started correcting ALL of wikipedia! We are indeed a republic. If we were a true democracy we would have a "mob rule" type of government. We, thankfully, don't have that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/?utm_term=.315dc871c7ea
https://www.reference.com/government-politics/type-government-america-9a48e0411ab8f62e
SMH.
Anyway, from your own link:
Q: What type of government does America have?
A: QUICK ANSWER
The type of government that commands the United States of America is a
democratic republic. The governing structure is federal, with a central national government and individual state governments.
Also, you'll find that Wikipedia agrees with what I posted and linked to:
The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation.
It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".[270] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document.[271] For 2014, the U.S. ranked 19th on the Democracy Index[272] and 17th on the Corruption Perceptions Index.[273]
Again - the words republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive. And your whole "mob rule" argument stems from artificially limiting the definition of democracy.
Quote from: coredumped on November 23, 2016, 01:55:57 PM
Well you better get started correcting ALL of wikipedia! We are indeed a republic. If we were a true democracy we would have a "mob rule" type of government. We, thankfully, don't have that.
See my response to Snufflee. I didn't realise it was your comment I was actually responding to. Wikipedia agrees with me - well, with everyone who knows what he's talking about.
Unless you're advocating abolishing the Senate in favor of some other system that doesn't represent the states, it's pointless to talk about the national popular vote when discussing the Senate.
Quote from: stephendare on November 23, 2016, 05:01:19 PM
Quote from: Tacachale on November 23, 2016, 04:44:11 PM
Unless you're advocating abolishing the Senate in favor of some other system that doesn't represent the states, it's pointless to talk about the national popular vote when discussing the Senate.
And yet so many bright people have been doing so for more than a hundred years. If only you had been there to tell them. ;)
Who has been talking about abolishing the senate?