What kind of party does this?

I absolutely believe that the election of the POTUS should be a direct national one.

 

But more than what you hope, you are implying that a 50 state election is illegitimate no?

 

Ahhh, that's the Pledge of Allegiance as past by the US Congress not a song...................just sayin

 

What does that have to do with our federal government being a federal republic and not a democracy. Can you point to me where either of our founding documents says anything about democracy?

Here is what the government says

"While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution not only provides the framework for how the federal and state governments are structured, but also places significant limits on their powers. “Federal” means that there is both a national government and governments of the 50 states. A “republic” is a form of government in which the people hold power, but elect representatives to exercise that power."
https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-government/

From Washington's first inaugural address

" and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

Guess what he had to say about the democracy model of government...................nothing. The founding fathers were quite pleased they had put down any thoughts about a democracy and instead established and guarantied to the states our republic, a federal one.

Let's check Washingtons Second Farewell Address

"Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."

Not a single utterance about "Democracy"

And what does the United States Senate Historical Office say about it?

"Washington’s principal concern was for the safety of the eight-year old Constitution. He believed that the stability of the Republic was threatened by the forces of geographical sectionalism, political factionalism, and interference by foreign powers in the nation’s domestic affairs"
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21/pdf/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21.pdf

Not our "Democracy" our REPUBLIC.

Why can't you just be proud of our republic which has survived all these centuries now and would not have lasted 50 years had it been founded as a democracy? What kind of party wants to change that?

 

Depends on the state election.

 

Because we are democracy.

 

I have no idea. Neither do you. It has never been investigated. We have millions who accept the millions of illegal votes and millions who do not. There is no accurate answer, only opinions.

 

We are doing everything we can stop that Democrat sponsored nightmare.

Only in your mind.

 

But it was Republicans took care of the cancers they were unable to deal with in their day, cancers like slavery.

 

Voter fraud has been investigated. Here's just one example:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/v...ed-in-2020-elections-warrant-shows/ar-AAWTc4E
I assume you have the ability to google for information like everyone else over the age of 8? Well...do it. It's amazing what you might find. Good luck.

 

No, it isn't. Why? Because, as Churchill stated, democracy is a terrible system, however, all the others are worse.

I mean, there is no viable alternative, noting that y'all get your way often enough, and the Senate is biased in favor of republicans,
your states are gerrymandered far worse than any blue state, so you really don't have much of a leg to stand on, on this point.

Just listen to the absurdity of your sentiment. If 81,000,000 people voted for Biden, those are whims, but if 74,000,000 voted for Trump, those are not?

When you lose, the winners desires are whims, but the losers desires are not?

That is an absurd premise, and so what you want to 'discuss' is an absurdity, which is WHY I don't want to discuss, other than to indicate why it is an absurd, nay utterly ridiculous premise.

I mean, if your ideas are not winning the hearts and minds of the larger electorate, then find some ideas that do win the ideas of the hearts and minds of the electorate.

That is the philosophy you cling to for business and the market, but not the arena of public policy?

In point of fact, Republicans do not make sense. They love competition when it comes to the marketplace of products and service, but they hate competition when it comes to public policy.

You don't see the inconsistency?

Our morals really are not that much different, but our values are somewhat different.

We care about the needs of the poor, Republicans don't.

we care about credit issuers committing usury. Republicans don't.

We care about women's privacy. Republicans don't.

We care about AGW, climate change, Republicans don't.

We care about workers who do not have a voice at the bargaining table, the solution of which is a union, and Repubs don't.

We do not care for tax breaks to the super rich who do not need it. Republicans do.

We care about infrastructure. Republicans only pay lip service to it.

We care about good government. To a republican, any government is bad.

Sure, we can debate those things, love to. But, it's democracy, and may the best policies win in the marketplace of ideas.

That's the whole point of democracy? Why? Because all the other systems are worse. Go ask Churchill.

The concept 'tyranny of the majority' is only made by those who hate democracy.

And who hates democracy?

The ones that consistently lose the majority vote.

It warranted discussion in the incipient states of our nation, long before parties, but, today? No, not particularly.

Why?

Because the 'mobs' for which Messrs Hamilton and Madison feared, the very few guys who feared everyone who were not like Madison and Hamilton, i.e, rich, white, men of property, those days are long gone. Today, it's all about diversity, that diversity which Madison and Hamilton would have called a 'faction', which is a euphemism for anyone who do not think, look, act, nor were as wealthy as, Madison and Hamilton. No, they do not explicitly say it, they call it 'factions', but what they are actually saying is there, it reeks in their words, they fear the greater population who are not like them. That is why they wanted 'electors'.

Madison wrote: " "liberty is to faction what air is to fire".

See? He's arguing AGAINST liberty. He does not want to empower 'the people', the founders only pay lip service to it in lofty writings such as the Declaration of Independence, but when the rubber hits the road, when it comes to policy, no, they needed 'electors', people like Hamilton and Madison to be electors, in order to protect, not the greater good as they would have you believe, but their good, their interests.

Their idea of a republic is one that excludes women, minorities, blacks, "lessers" etc. That idea cannot exist, today. Today, modernity in general, it is all about diversity. Diversity is the winning argument.

Why is diversity the winning argument?

Because we are diverse nation. We are no longer a nation of rich, white, men who lust for power to the exclusion of everyone else. That world is long gone, forever, get over it.

This idea we must cling to the words of those two, today, is a premise which is absurd.

We should do as all wise persons should do when it comes to ancient wisdom, cherry pick that which is still relevant, and exclude that which isn't and have the wisdom to know which is which.

 

I was going to start a thread on this, but since it adequately rebuts your position, I'll give you the full audience, noting that the text, in general, was intended for a broader right-of-center audience.
*****************************************************************************
Everything Trump Touches Dies; the sentiments of Rick Wilson
....and why it matters.

Who is Rick Wilson, and why would a staunch Republican whose former taskmasters were presidents I did not vote for, matter?
Well, he tells us this and his sentiments on Trump on the first couple pages of his book, noting that the point of this thread I'll explain after the quote:

My sentiments, exactly.

Precisement!

Yes, 'existential threat to the country'.

That is the gist of Rick Wilson's sentiment about Trump, one which many a moderate Republican (though a rare breed these days) and moderate to hard left Democrat/Liberal shares, noting that he and Steve Schmidt were the founders of the Lincoln Project, their collective political ad campaign talents of which would have been used for a Republican against a Democrat if y'all had nominated a Republican whom we even remotely could call a 'statesman'.

You see, whatever your Republican inspired complaints about democrats are, admitting that Democrats are not perfect, are not without their problems for which republicans (even Bill Maher and liberal/libertarians like myself) have a legitimate beef, but none of your concerns compare to the turdball dumpster fire of a president, the first president in history who is incapable of uttering a compound sentence, the first president who is literally, I mean literally, an existential threat to America, whose gargantuan clown escapades were made clear the moment he uttered, like a 14-year-old, his fascination with women's vulvas and how he would like to fondle them (which, for any other president prior, would have been the deal breaker for any party, but not this guy. Look at what happened to Gary Hart, God forbid, a woman who was not his wife sat on his lap, and his presidential bid was over, yet Trump has 25 women accusing him of sexual predation and Republicans don't care!)

Y'all complain about Hunter Biden, but how does that stack up to Trump's nepotism, and not just nepotism, but EPIC CORRUPTION on a scale hitherto unseen in history, such as Kushner getting a $500,000,000 bailout from QATAR, not to mention the $2,000,000,000 loan from The House Of Saud for what S.A. tells us is a dubious investment scheme, none of which he would have had a remote chance in hell of getting but for his close relationship to Trump? Same goes for Ivanka who got millions in Chinese trademarks and Mnuchin who got a $1 billion loan from S.A, but for his connection to Trump.

Not to mention this:

https://prospect.org/mapping-corruption-interactive

And this:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html

Frankly, whatever your complaints are about us, and I share some of them, too (such as your issues with T-Fems in women's sports, T-fems with penises using women's bathroom's, and I'll join y'all on government guaranteed jobs and other 'MMT economics' inspired schemes the hard left loves) they pale compared to the bona fide ga ga ****-for-brains national security threat super clown orange bomb you put in office, who was impeached twice, a first in history, whom y'all didn't have the spine to at least try him in the senate and rid this nation of a cancer when you had a chance, so, to be frank, I just --- I don't want to hear it.
Y'all love to harp on the dubious claim that dems 'hate Trump' as if we do it in a vacuum? Really? Are you that blind to the stinker you elected? You can't smell it? My gawd, how far down the evolutionary chain y'all have slipped in your election of Trump, and you don't even know what I'm talking about!

So, my point in this

Let's argue about let's argue about the differences in our respective philosophies, liberal versus conservative, that I can live with. But don't give me any crap about Hunter or Joe or dem transgressions, dems are model citizens when compared to Trump, which is to say, y'all don't have a leg to stand on, because if your argument is funny business in the WH, none of it compares to Trump which means the simple fact that you can't possibly care about funny business in the WH or 'dirty hands'.

 

No, the ONLY reason rebubs poo poo the popular vote is because they seldom win it.

Believe me when I tell you that if they had a choice to win it, they would love to win it.

Why? Because deep down inside they know it's not meaningless,

And Because democracy is an idea whose time has come, and there is no more powerful idea than an idea whose time has come.

why? Because we are a diverse nation, and democracy, as terrible as it is, is all we have.

 

LOL, and you think this is true by virtue of you saying so. Yeah it couldnt possibly be because it has nothing to do with the actual rules of how you win the game (sarcasm)

It is every bit as meaningless as polling 2 weeks prior to an election. People quote it all the time, but by virtue of the rules, nobody really cares, because the only thing that counts is ballots cast on election day.

 

America direct votes for mayors, local and regional office holders, governors, ballot initiatives, representatives, senators. Hundreds of elections, and there almost always a DIRECT election going on somewhere, in some state, about some thing.

Only once in every four years is there a non direct election, the one for the president, that's it.

Therefore:

America's core value is democracy. America is included in the list of 'western democracies' AKA 'liberal democracies of the west'.

The ONLY people saying it isn't are those who lose the popular vote.

ANd I don't give a hoot what republicans think or say about it, y'all are just going to have to deal with it.

By the way, Repubs used to value democracy, which is why they tried to spread it to other countries. But, along came Trump who loved dictatorships, so your alliances are now in question.

 

The Constitution has already dealt with it. The President and Vice President are not elected by a national popular vote. You're going to have to deal with it.

 

No, the video proves that my position is not an opinion, but based on fact, and facts having nothing to do with rights.

 

Well, nuance can be important, but only when it actually is important.

Let's take the word I used, 'nitpick'.

To nitpick is to make a distinction without much significance.

Look up 'pettifogging', as in pettifogging in a debate. A similar idea.

 

A distinction without much import to the point.

 

For a democracy to be called a democracy, it must have all of the following:

1. Freedom to form and join organisations.
2. Freedom of expression.
3. Right to vote.
4. Right to run for public office.
5. Right of political leaders to compete for support and votes.
6. Freedom of alternative sources of information
7. Free and fair elections.
8. Right to control government policy through votes and other expressions of preference.

By the above measures, America is listed in the list of 'liberal democracies of the west'.

Now, it's time for your to get over it.

 

"When Trump slithered down the golden escalator in his eponymous tower in
2015, I felt bile rising in my throat. This guy? This jackass? I was quite sure nothing
had changed about his blustering ego, fever-swamp birtherism, and con-artist modus
operandi. Given the ideological underpinnings of Trumpism—slurry of barely
coherent nationalism, third-world generalissimo swagger, and the worst economic
ideas of the 19th century—I recognized he was an existential risk to the country, win
or lose." ---Rick Wilson, ad campaign consultant for numerous Republican Presidents, from his book: Everything Trump Touches, Dies

We already lived through your nightmare, and the people spoke, and said 'enough' to the tune of 7 million votes.

 

Liberal Republicans, noting that, in a letter to the NYTimes, Lincoln wrote that if he could save the union without freeing the slaves, he would have done so.

...My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, --Lincoln, in his letter to Horace Greely, as published in the NYTimes, 1862

 

Yes, and he found that is was necessary to end slavery, and did. Democrats continued to fight against that for the next hundred years.

 

Trump was an Affirmative Action President, the EC is Affirmative Action for the smaller states

Trump got fewer votes in both 2016 and 2020, but was still hired in 2016 due to Affirmative Action

 

He was hired in 2016 because he won the election.