comment: >
  
  Your comment is unintelligible. I’m Democrat and someone who grew up and lived much of my adult life in rural America. People in rural America are grappling with economic decline, diminishing opportunity, and substance abuse. Democrats offer no solutions for these folks. Neither do Republicans, but since rural America, and the Republican Party, are largely white, country folk naturally see their interests aligned with Republicans. Democrats need to find ways to reach these people with help for their problems, not change the rules of the game so that they can continue to ignore them without negative consequences.
context: Meanwhile Republican states are changing rules to be more like the electoral college, requiring a majority of counties or districts to pass ballot measures instead of a majority of people. >
  
  It's been a danger since 1824 when John Quincy Adams beat Andrew Jackson despite losing the popular vote.
  And especially recently. A republican president hasn't won the popular vote since 2004. >
  
  And Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, he won in 2004 because of the “rally round the flag effect” of 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghan wars. >
  
  They’ve won it once (2004) since 1988. That’s 7 losses in 8 elections. Yet a Republican has still managed to hold the Oval Office for 12 of those 32 years. >
  
  We don’t elect presidents by popular vote. The sooner democrats stop beating that dead horse and broaden their appeal back to the working class all over the country the better off we will all be. They’d rather play silly diversity games while packing their donors pockets and openly mocking everyone who lives in an area with less than 50,000 people. >
  
  The point of this post is that it's a shame we don't elect by popular vote. 
  And wow, silly diversity games. They get elected by a variety of people, how is that bad? >
  
  They pin their hopes on certain groups to guarantee a win, while ignoring or throwing others under the bus.
  The middle class white worker was the base of the Dem party not that long ago.  Dems stopped campaigning and even blame them for every problem, and are shocked they vote for the other side. >
  
  The Democrats have decreased their focus on the white middle class and have largely diversified. I don't see what's wrong with that. They're not blaming the white middle class for anything. >
  
  It's always been a danger to democracy.
  It was invented to disenfranchise the people.
  So rich assholes have all the power.  Just like all other times in history.  You're either connected or you are fucked. >
  
  Making sure the president has both sufficient popular support to govern and that his popular support is sufficiently distributed throughout the country to enable him to govern effectively: is fascism conceived by the framers of the constitution to fix the problems of other election methods. But actually was meant to disenfranchise modern day democrats. Big. Brain. Moves. >
  
  
  is fascism conceived by the framers of the constitution to fix the problems of other election methods.
  
  Not sure if you meant that as a question, or a statement.
  Either way, good catch. I agree the founders absolutely were fascists.
  I hadn't thought that way before due to the American "education" I received.
  Jews and Blacks suffered at the hands of Nazis and the founding fathers, respectively.  I guess if the Nazis had won WWII after using Jews as slave labor before liquidating them they'd probably see Germany as justified or at least seeing it as a different time, just like we see U.S. history nowadays.  Germany even based their eugenics on pre-existing American programs.
  Then there's the American genocides of indigenous people.  Yup, America is pretty damn fascist. >
  
  I wouldn’t go so far as to say all the founding fathers were fascists, but never forget that the Nazi party learned many of their propaganda tricks from the US, and just tweaked them a bit >
  
  Do away electoral college. Complete shutdown election holiday. Mandatory vote under penalty of law. National election, national popular results. >
  
  Mandatory voting is 100% a violation of freedom of speech >
  
  What if they had a no vote option they could declare in place of a vote to satisfy the mandate.
  You already are not a legal citizen if you do not register your birth, or rather have it done for you or if imitating, you are an illegal alien until you get through the process to become a legal citizen.
  I don't agree with a mandate by law to vote, but I am just saying as a law, an option to file an op out or submit a blank ballot would be necessary and I don't know if that would be enough. >
  
  The electoral college has always been a danger to the people. It wasn't set up for the people. It was set up for the plutocrats. 
  America is a plutocracy and it's weird people are just now looking into that. >
  
  Simple solution (no amendment, majority votes in the house and senate only) is to simply expand the size of the House of Representatives by ~150 to 250 seats.  The math works.  The logic works.  Has the benefit of being the right thing to do. >
  
  The house, which is supposed to represent the populace, has been frozen in size for about a century (Since 1929 to be exact). If we went by the metric the founding fathers intended it would be in the ten thousands.
  Changing that alone would resolve a lot of electoral college nonsense as the college would be around 12,000 votes instead of 500. >
  
  By that logic the Senate has also "become a danger."
  Edit: (/s) because we all know that it is a danger as it is completely undemocratic.
  Makes a complete mockery of one person one vote. >
  
  The Senate was populated by appointment until the early 1900s, and it puts small population states way ahead in the constituent power ratio. The Senate is anti-democratic by design. >
  
  I was just reading that western Massachusetts voters did not want to ratify the US Constitution because the senate was viewed as an anti-democratic institution, so this excellent point was at issue long ago. >
  
  Is "skewer" is the new "slam"? I'm ready for a change. >
  
  The only reason the electoral college 'is a danger' is because congressional ethics, which were never strong to begin with, are now completely indistinguishable from corporate ethics (which are, themselves, nonexistent).
  The answer is not to take away the traceability from the people, through the vote, into the houses of governance. 
  The answer is to close and make punitive any action that seeks to leverage or manipulate an intended body of governance to anything other than those ends defined as being under rightful purview as defined by law. 
  But yeah, sure, keep mudding the water until the only way to clear it is to literally sieve the entire system. 
  Because that's just so effective throughout all human history. 
  ​
  (carefully wipes the excess sarcasm from her fingertips) >
  
  Absolutely! >
  
  There's not much of a point of Democrats criticizing the electoral college.  Even if it were objectively a bad way to do the presidential election, the power of the Republican party is dependent on its continued existence.  So any criticism just looks like a "power grab."  
  The only way to get rid of it is through an amendment to the Constitution and that's just not going to happen.  Alternatively, they can sneakily get rid of the advantage the Electoral College has by admitting DC and Puerto Rico as states and increasing the amount of Representatives, thus diluting its advantage. >
  
  
  Even if it were objectively a bad way to do the presidential election
  
  narrator: which it is.
  
  the power of the Republican party is dependent on its continued existence
  
  No, that’s very much the Senate.
  The electoral college only impacts the presidential election, which is useful but not the way Republicans have leveraged their disproportionate power (e.g. Supreme Court appointments).
  
  The only way to get rid of it is through an amendment to the Constitution and that’s just not going to happen.
  
  Nah, there are other ways like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Congress could pass a law around faithless electors, etc.
  We could also grow the size of the House. 435 is a stupidly small number given our population growth over the last century. The UK has 650 members in their lower house. That would dilute but not actually solve the EC.
  
  Alternatively, they can sneakily get rid of the advantage the Electoral College has by admitting DC and Puerto Rico as states and increasing the amount of Representatives, thus diluting its advantage.
  
  First, that would add a total of 6 electors (2 senators and minimum 1 representative). That’s a 1% increase in the electoral college. It doesn’t address the issue at all. Adding states would dilute Republican power… in the senate. Not the electoral college.
  Second, the current non-voting house rep from PR is a pro-trump Republican. They would be decidedly purple at best on the national level.
  Republicans will never let DC get statehood voluntarily (although retrocession with Maryland would still be a net-win for Democrats nationally), so you either need to get rid of the senate filibuster or get a senate supermajority while also holding the trifecta in the House and Presidency to push it through. If you can do that, sure, all bets are off. >
  
  Jamie Raskin is a blight on our party. Deeply corrupted and constantly fails at even mild attempts at cprruptiom like getting family members appointed to positions that they aren't  qualified for. And holy hell the amount of lies he has spewed the last few years. One of the reasons that I am so sad to see Pelosi retire is that our next wave of influential house Democrats are genuinely awful. Pelosi had her issues, but she carried herself with a lot more grace than what we'll be left with. >
  
  Jamie Raskin’s hair situation is truly tragic. >
  
  Served us pretty okay for 240 years.  Don’t nominate turds like Hillary Clinton and stop banking on lazy young people to vote. >
  
  If the 2022 Election Were a Presidential Election, Democrats Would Have Won the Electoral College 280-258, but Lost the Popular Vote by 2.8 percentage points, 3 million votes.
  Policies important to the citizens of 38+ non-battleground states have not been as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
  Because of statewide winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution  . . . 
  2 recent presidents entered office without winning the most national popular votes. 
  A Democrat has won the national popular vote in 7 out of the last 8 elections. 5 of the last 6.
  We've spent 12 of the last 21 years with a Republican in office.
  5 of our 46 Presidents have come into office without having won the most popular votes nationwide.  
  Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight  calculated in early September 2020 that for Joe Biden to have just a 50-50 chance of becoming President, he needed to win the national popular vote by at least 3% (over 3 million votes).
  A 1% lead in the national popular vote would have given Biden only a 6% chance of becoming President. A 2% lead would have given him only a 22% chance.
  Another study showed, in general, there was a 45% chance that a close presidential election could end with the winner of less popular votes becoming President.
  Another study warned that 1 out of every 3 presidential elections where the popular vote margin is within 3% will feature a mismatch between the popular vote and the electoral college.
  There were several scenarios in which a candidate could have won the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. It would have reduced turnout more, if more voters realized their votes do not matter.
  Before anti-democracy Republicans, states began enacting voter suppression and election subversion laws, the system with 2020 election laws “The [state-by-state winner-take-all method of the] electoral college leaves [the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate] very little margin for error. The split between the popular vote and Electoral College may very well expand further in 2024, meaning [the Democrat] may need a national popular vote win of 5 percentage points or more in order to squeak out an Electoral College victory. Only once has the margin of popular vote victory been that large since Bill Clinton's re-election,” Jacob Long, 3/7/21
  If the 2022 Election Were a Presidential Election, Democrats Would Have Won the Electoral College 280-258, but Lost the Popular Vote by about 3 million votes (2.8 percentage points).
  In so many Republican states the majority over the Democrat was huge (and they would not have been competitive presidential campaign battleground states); whereas in the Democratic states, the margins were relatively small (and would have been battleground states), except notably California.
  Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in each state) and (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states),a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.  It has occurred in 5 of the nation's 60 (8%) presidential elections.  
  The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a difference of a few thousand voters in one, two, or three states would have elected the second-place candidate in 5 of the 17 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 9 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections since 1988.  
  537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
  A difference of 59,393 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. 
  In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.
  In 2016, Trump became President even though Clinton won the national popular vote by 2,868,686 votes. 
  Trump won the Presidency because he won Michigan by 11,000 votes, Wisconsin by 23,000 votes, and Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes. 
  Each of these 78,000 votes was 36 times more important than Clinton's nationwide lead of 2,868,686 votes.
  A different choice by 5,229 voters in Arizona (11 electors), 5,890 in Georgia (16), and 10,342 in Wisconsin (10) would have defeated Biden -- despite Biden's nationwide lead of more than 7 million. The Electoral College would have tied 269-269. Congress would have decided the election, regardless of the popular vote in any state or throughout the country.
  Each of these 21,461 voters was 329 times more important than the more than 7 million.
  The national popular vote winner also would have been defeated by a shift of 9,246 votes in 1976; 53,034 in 1968; 9,216 in 1960; 12,487 in 1948; 1,711 votes in 1916, 524 in 1884, 25,069 in 1860, 17,640 in 1856, 6,773 in 1848, 2,554 in 1844, 14,124 in 1836. 
  After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."
  According to Tony Fabrizio, pollster for the Trump campaign, Trump’s narrow victory in 2016 was due to 5 counties in 2 states (not CA or NY). >
  
  It’s the Democratic Party’s abandonment of rural  America that has caused them to lose Presidential elections with majorities of the popular vote. The Electoral College is functioning as intended. Fuck the Coastal Elite.