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GOP wins control of US Senate and other 2014 election stufff

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trollcatman
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09 Dec 2014, 2:13 am

Dox47 wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
I merely wanted to know what is the way out of this?



Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, is a good start. Under an IRV system, you don't just vote for a particular candidate, but rank them in order of preference, and as your top pick is eliminated, your vote transfers to the next one, until a winner is chosen. To use the 2000 elections as an example, someone wishing to vote for Nader but afraid to deny Gore their vote could have picked Nader 1 Gore 2, and after Nader was mathematically eliminated, their vote would have gone to Gore, thus allowing them to vote their conscience without fear of enabling the "greater evil". It's simple and effective, and it terrifies the major parties.


I still prefer proportional representation, because with instant runoff voting Nader would have been eliminated. With PR the parties that did not win could still have influence (and represent their voters) by forming a coalition with the winner. As it is now the Green Party has no people in congress as far as I know.



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09 Dec 2014, 2:18 am

trollcatman wrote:
I still prefer proportional representation, because with instant runoff voting Nader would have been eliminated. With PR the parties that did not win could still have influence (and represent their voters) by forming a coalition with the winner. As it is now the Green Party has no people in congress as far as I know.

in a proper nation, IMHO, the greens would be the party the democrats ought to be, and the present democrats would be the conservative party.



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09 Dec 2014, 2:19 am

Dox47 wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
But voting for third parties is not really effective because of the weird voting system.


Only so long as people are manipulated by the lesser evil rhetoric, the GOP started out as a third party, after all.


And since 1853 all presidents were from the two main parties, and other third parties have pretty much been irrelevant. With the current system third parties can't really get momentum.



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09 Dec 2014, 2:31 am

auntblabby wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
I still prefer proportional representation, because with instant runoff voting Nader would have been eliminated. With PR the parties that did not win could still have influence (and represent their voters) by forming a coalition with the winner. As it is now the Green Party has no people in congress as far as I know.

in a proper nation, IMHO, the greens would be the party the democrats ought to be, and the present democrats would be the conservative party.


You should ask for political asylum in Germany or Belgium 8)



auntblabby
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09 Dec 2014, 2:37 am

trollcatman wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
I still prefer proportional representation, because with instant runoff voting Nader would have been eliminated. With PR the parties that did not win could still have influence (and represent their voters) by forming a coalition with the winner. As it is now the Green Party has no people in congress as far as I know.

in a proper nation, IMHO, the greens would be the party the democrats ought to be, and the present democrats would be the conservative party.


You should ask for political asylum in Germany or Belgium 8)

if only I had some renumerative talents I'd be gone in a heartbeat.



trollcatman
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09 Dec 2014, 3:10 am

auntblabby wrote:
in a proper nation, IMHO, the greens would be the party the democrats ought to be, and the present democrats would be the conservative party.

trollcatman wrote:
You should ask for political asylum in Germany or Belgium 8)

if only I had some renumerative talents I'd be gone in a heartbeat.


Yes, it's probably quite hard to get into Europe to live or work, unless you are sponsored by a company you work for or that wants to hire you. Immigration has been a hot issue here (as it is almost everywhere).
Anyway, Belgium isn't perfect either. A lot of the time they don't even have a government because it is impossible to form a coalition.



auntblabby
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09 Dec 2014, 3:13 am

trollcatman wrote:
Yes, it's probably quite hard to get into Europe to live or work, unless you are sponsored by a company you work for or that wants to hire you. Immigration has been a hot issue here (as it is almost everywhere). Anyway, Belgium isn't perfect either. A lot of the time they don't even have a government because it is impossible to form a coalition.

in Belgium is there the same scapegoating of the working/lower class [among conservative political elements] that there is here in America?



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09 Dec 2014, 3:25 am

auntblabby wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
Yes, it's probably quite hard to get into Europe to live or work, unless you are sponsored by a company you work for or that wants to hire you. Immigration has been a hot issue here (as it is almost everywhere). Anyway, Belgium isn't perfect either. A lot of the time they don't even have a government because it is impossible to form a coalition.

in Belgium is there the same scapegoating of the working/lower class [among conservative political elements] that there is here in America?


I'm not from Belgium myself, I'm Dutch. When Belgium is in the news here it is often about the difficult political situation because of the bilingual political system. They have one of the youngest prime ministers, Charles Michel, who is only 38. It was in the news here because they managed form a coalition this october.
I don't think there is much bigotry against poor people from politicians, it's mostly aimed at immigrants and muslims. And of course the European Union, there is a lot of resistance to that too.



auntblabby
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09 Dec 2014, 3:27 am

trollcatman wrote:
I don't think there is much bigotry against poor people from politicians, it's mostly aimed at immigrants and muslims. And of course the European Union, there is a lot of resistance to that too.

still IMHO an improvement over present-day America, as we seem to hate both the poor as well as [non-high-IQ] immigrants in general.



Dox47
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09 Dec 2014, 9:21 pm

auntblabby wrote:
how do we get there? how do we make this happen? how do we make all the political parties agree to this?


Refusing to vote for them when they don't earn your vote would be a good start, as would citizen's initiatives in states where they're allowed. Really though, breaking out of the two party paradigm is the most necessary step, you can't really claim to be for progress while simultaneously prolonging the current system.


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auntblabby
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09 Dec 2014, 9:23 pm

it does utterly no good if I'm the only one.



Dox47
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10 Dec 2014, 1:53 am

auntblabby wrote:
it does utterly no good if I'm the only one.


Everything has to start with one person, and in this case, you'd hardly be alone in forsaking the traditional party structure, more and more Americans do it every year, and the more who do so, the faster the system can be reformed. It does require letting go of the fear, it's swinging for the fence versus taking the safe base hit, but if you're as committed to political change in this country as you claim to be, it's a necessary step.


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17 Dec 2014, 2:12 pm

Republicans won the AZ 2nd district seat after a recount.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12 ... latestnews
Her win margin widened from 161 votes to 167 votes.



Last edited by AntDog on 17 Dec 2014, 2:34 pm, edited 4 times in total.

auntblabby
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17 Dec 2014, 2:14 pm

Image
I'm scared. Image



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17 Dec 2014, 2:47 pm

The Republicans have achieved their largest majority in the House since 1928.
Combined with the Republican gains made in 2010, the total number of Democratic-held House seats lost under Barack Obama's presidency rose to 76 with these elections. Thus, this marked the highest number of House seats lost under a two-term president of the same party in American history (surpassing the 74 seats lost under Harry S. Truman).



auntblabby
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17 Dec 2014, 2:49 pm

things are gonna get MUCH tougher for anybody worth less than 7 figures.