this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
586 points (98.2% liked)

politics

19120 readers
2656 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

“Harris’ popularity is astounding and could very well beat out Biden’s support in 2020… Now, to the polls. Both candidates are NECK AND NECK it’s gonna be a DEAD HEAT until November Trump could very possibly WIN OVER ALL THE SWING STATES.”

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's unfortunately not really a contradiction though, given the electoral college


I think Harris will obliterate Trump in the popular, but that's sadly not what matters.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

If The Superbowl had a roughly 1/5 chance of the winner being declared the loser because of a technicality, we would burn this shit to the ground. Yet, here we are with roughly 1/5 of all presidential elections being overturned by the EC.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Right. But I think it's a mischaracterization to represent the EC as a "technicality," as it's very central to the way voting in the USA works. Don't get me wrong, I think it's stupid and should be abolished, but it's very much ingrained in the voting system.

I think I'd counter your example


keeping the sports theme


by saying it's like the World Series: it doesn't matter if there are three absolute blowouts, all the matters is who wins four games. So you could easily win the World Series, but have fewer total runs across seven games (game = EC votes, runs = popular).

(Again, I think the EC should absolutely be abolished.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tournament brackets don't actually decide the most capable team, with NFL the teams that make it to the Superbowl being largely based on chance. A lot of the language around strategy is just being overly verbose about the literal mechanics of the game. Coaches mostly just try to keep their team "playing the game" (literally and figuratively) to give them the best chances of making it.

It's basically a big lottery machine powered by athletes, funded by ultra-rich team owners, and decided through arbitrary rules and procedures, and everyone wants to know who the winner will be because it's entertaining to watch.

But nobody burns anything to the ground, we just accept the rules, even though they aren't really fair.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Didn't know any of that. Thanks. I don't watch sportsball. I wonder if Baseball or Hockey would work better as a metaphor.

load more comments (3 replies)