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I mean... He did lose the popular vote. So 'most' people didn't have an influence on the election. Or at least, the plurality of people.

by hillz 10y ago

ProAm 10y ago
Popular vote has never meant anything in America in all it's existence. But the point is a person with zero political experience, completely outside the political echo chamber/insiders club just won the most powerful office on earth. Whether you are for him or against him I believe it does show that people can absolutely start a change.
- thesimpsons1022 10y ago
  nothing changed. instead of a racist white old billionaire buying a candidate, they just decided to run themselves.
  - ProAm 10y ago
    Im not making this a political argument, just stating the fact that people absolutely had a hand in this election.
    - thesimpsons1022 10y ago
      is that really true? this election more than ever most voters believed they had to choose the lesser of two evils and didn't like their choices. both candidates had record disapproval ratings. i understand trump isn't a typical politician but it didn't quite seem like people got what they want... more that they voted against hillary and for a republican supreme court.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      Just because you're surprised, doesn't mean it was "the people". You can't have an Electoral College system in which shuffling Toledo across state lines changes the electoral outcome and credit the people for political outcomes.
      - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
        Are Michiganders still angry about that?
        eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        Not that I know of, but the point is that our system ought to be robust against historical and statistical flukes. If you're going to decide elections via first-past-the-post at all, you should at least make the election pass a 95% likelihood hypothesis test for difference-of-means or something.
        wcarron 10y ago
        I''m of the same sentiment, but I feel that even more rigor and a smaller p value should be demanded from our election methods. 99% seems like a nice number.
- serge2k 10y ago
  He's a billionaire and a TV star. Are you a billionaire and a TV star? No? Then you are not comparable to Trump. He's not an outsider. He's absolutely a member of the elite.
  - ProAm 10y ago
    He's not a politician. The last one not a politician was Dwight Eisenhower, and the list is real sparse before him. [1] But I never said I was compared to Trump, I was stating that common people absolutely made a significant impact to this election against the wishes of the incumbents [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_previous_experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_Unit...
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Yes, people can...in the aggregate. But aggregating people takes a lot of work. So unless you devote yourself to the task of saving social security (by mobilizing lots of people to fight with you) then you're not going to have much influence. The ~50 million Trump voters, how much influence do they have with him right now? fuck all. I don't mean that as a comment on him, just pointing out the huge asymmetrical power differentials. Voting does make a tiny difference, but that's like saying you can steer a boat by getting the passengers to rush to one side of the deck or the other. It's technically true but nobody actually steers a boat that way.
adventured 10y ago
Trump easily won the popular vote for the 48 states that aren't California and New York. Popular vote indeed. There's a very good reason the electoral college exists.
- kevinh 10y ago
  And if you take out a couple states, Clinton won the electoral college. What's your point? That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you? Ahh, yeah. That's the point. So America isn't CaliforNewYork. The electoral college isn't a scam, it exists to bring balance, so your hipster javascript developer gets the same weight as a coal miner in rural Ohio.
    - kevinh 10y ago
      The design of the electoral college was not to prevent influence by larger states. That's the function of the Senate. The electoral college exists in part to enable the 3/5ths compromise and in part to allow the vote of the people to be changed by someone who is theoretically more sophisticated.
    - Frondo 10y ago
      Why should the coal miner get more of a voice than the guy who lives in a city? They're both citizens, right? They both get to vote on their state, city, and county stuff. Why should the guy who lives in the middle of nowhere get to say "my vote's worth 50x what yours is, sucker!!"?
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

I mean... He did lose the popular vote. So 'most' people didn't have an influence on the election. Or at least, the plurality of people.

by hillz 10y ago

I mean... He did lose the popular vote. So 'most' people didn't have an influence on the election. Or at least, the plurality of people.

ProAm 10y ago

Popular vote has never meant anything in America in all it's existence. But the point is a person with zero political experience, completely outside the political echo chamber/insiders club just won the most powerful office on earth. Whether you are for him or against him I believe it does show that people can absolutely start a change.

thesimpsons1022 10y ago
nothing changed. instead of a racist white old billionaire buying a candidate, they just decided to run themselves.
- ProAm 10y ago
  Im not making this a political argument, just stating the fact that people absolutely had a hand in this election.
  - thesimpsons1022 10y ago
    is that really true? this election more than ever most voters believed they had to choose the lesser of two evils and didn't like their choices. both candidates had record disapproval ratings. i understand trump isn't a typical politician but it didn't quite seem like people got what they want... more that they voted against hillary and for a republican supreme court.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Just because you're surprised, doesn't mean it was "the people". You can't have an Electoral College system in which shuffling Toledo across state lines changes the electoral outcome and credit the people for political outcomes.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Are Michiganders still angry about that?
      - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        Not that I know of, but the point is that our system ought to be robust against historical and statistical flukes. If you're going to decide elections via first-past-the-post at all, you should at least make the election pass a 95% likelihood hypothesis test for difference-of-means or something.
        wcarron 10y ago
        I''m of the same sentiment, but I feel that even more rigor and a smaller p value should be demanded from our election methods. 99% seems like a nice number.
serge2k 10y ago
He's a billionaire and a TV star. Are you a billionaire and a TV star? No? Then you are not comparable to Trump. He's not an outsider. He's absolutely a member of the elite.
- ProAm 10y ago
  He's not a politician. The last one not a politician was Dwight Eisenhower, and the list is real sparse before him. [1] But I never said I was compared to Trump, I was stating that common people absolutely made a significant impact to this election against the wishes of the incumbents [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_previous_experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_Unit...
anigbrowl 10y ago
Yes, people can...in the aggregate. But aggregating people takes a lot of work. So unless you devote yourself to the task of saving social security (by mobilizing lots of people to fight with you) then you're not going to have much influence. The ~50 million Trump voters, how much influence do they have with him right now? fuck all. I don't mean that as a comment on him, just pointing out the huge asymmetrical power differentials. Voting does make a tiny difference, but that's like saying you can steer a boat by getting the passengers to rush to one side of the deck or the other. It's technically true but nobody actually steers a boat that way.

adventured 10y ago

Trump easily won the popular vote for the 48 states that aren't California and New York. Popular vote indeed. There's a very good reason the electoral college exists.

kevinh 10y ago
And if you take out a couple states, Clinton won the electoral college. What's your point? That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you? Ahh, yeah. That's the point. So America isn't CaliforNewYork. The electoral college isn't a scam, it exists to bring balance, so your hipster javascript developer gets the same weight as a coal miner in rural Ohio.
  - kevinh 10y ago
    The design of the electoral college was not to prevent influence by larger states. That's the function of the Senate. The electoral college exists in part to enable the 3/5ths compromise and in part to allow the vote of the people to be changed by someone who is theoretically more sophisticated.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    Why should the coal miner get more of a voice than the guy who lives in a city? They're both citizens, right? They both get to vote on their state, city, and county stuff. Why should the guy who lives in the middle of nowhere get to say "my vote's worth 50x what yours is, sucker!!"?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority