Mike Evans sat during the national anthem to protest the election

c'mon Mike

When has anyone won the popular vote by nearly 600k (and likely at least 1.5 million once Cali, NY, and Wash are counted) but lost the election b/c of an antiquated electoral college that should have been done away with once we went to direct elections for the Senate in the early 1900s? The closest we've had was Gore in 2000 (something like 500k+ more in popular vote) but the entire Florida recount debacle took center stage in that case.

Hell, Trump himself said it in 2012 when he thought Romney would have the popular vote but lose the electoral college.




Even if you go by the whole "it gives the voters from the smaller states an equal say" it's still seriously out of wack. For example, each electoral vote in Wyoming represents roughly 143,000 people while states like Cali, Florida, and NY it's roughly 500,000+ people per electoral vote. So basically if you live in Wyoming your vote is worth nearly 4 votes from those three states. It's not just the large states that get screwed either. Louisiana gets 1 electoral vote per 426k people. Texas is 1 per 480k, Virginia is 470k, Georgia is 470k.... LINK

It's a terrible and antiquated system that was designed by the gilded elite land owners of the establishment class who didn't want to lose power to people in the more urban environments.

For all the love people throw the founding fathers everyone seems to forget (or just never learned b/c of rah rah USA propaganda in lower education that ignores the unseemly side of our history) that many of the FFs straight hated "the unwashed masses" and absolutely did not want to cede any power to them. shite, they didn't even want people to be able to vote if they did not own land. They did not want direct elections, they did not want Joe the Plumber's vote to count equal to theirs, and they did not want a system they could not completely control. It was NEVER about protecting the minority voters and ALWAYS about them being able to keep the power they had wrested from England.

So now over 240 years later we are left with a system that has caused two of our last three Presidents to be delegitimized in their first term in the eyes of millions b/c the majority of the country did not vote for them.

And think about this, let's say the shoe was on the other foot. Let's say Trump wins the popular vote by 600k-1.5 million but loses the electoral college. Do you really think he would have had the dignity and grace to concede like Hillary (and every other rational politician) did? I sure don't. He was already prepping to start a constitutional crisis with all that rigged crap he was vomiting out when he thought he was going to lose.

Next time we might not be so lucky to have a politician who is willing to bow out due to their respect for the system.

So rural votes should proportionally count for more so they don't feel like the urban areas of the country are calling all the shots? Seems like total bullshite to me.

I mean, I don't really have time to lay out the fundamentals of the united states constitution for you. But the idea is that our elected leaders represent the broadest spectrum of "the people" as possible. Having the 10 most populated cities in America elect the president is unhealthy for democracy and would create unrest among our entire country. That is a core competency of a republican form of government, and something our founders believed was critical to our survival. You could even break it down by gender or race votes, and there is potential for inequality in the voting public.

So you are willing to suppress and silence the vote of rural states like the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Vermont, Delaware, New Hampshire, etc.?

The Framers knew the danger of highly populated areas dominating politics and wisely came up with the EC. Saying it is antiquated shows your ignorance.

People forget that we live in Republic, not a democracy.

And I also believe that we need to go back to the state legislatures appointing Senators. This would properly restore power back to the states.

Trump won straight up fair and square. If you really want something to be mad about be mad at your fellow democrats. All they had to do was show up and Hilary Clintons the president. People way smarter than you and me knew what they were doing when they created the electoral vote.

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It's a terrible and antiquated system that was designed by the gilded elite land owners of the establishment class who didn't want to lose power to people in the more urban environments.

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No, it's a system that recognizes states to be discrete political entities rather than local administrative outposts of the national government.

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So now over 240 years later we are left with a system that has caused two of our last three Presidents to be delegitimized in their first term in the eyes of millions b/c the majority of the country did not vote for them.

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Before the 2000 election was conducted, conventional wisdom held that Bush would win the popular vote, but Gore would win the electoral college vote. At that time you didn't hear any liberals railing against the "antiquated, illegitimate" system put in place by the landed gentry.

The problem is not how we choose our national government. The problem is that the national government is so important. Third parties are not magic bullets, especially not in a pluralistic society. Yes, their voices are heard, but are then simply drowned by the majority. Californians, on the whole, don't want to live like Texans. Texans, on the whole, don't want to live like Californians. Concentrating the locus of political decision-making in Washington D.C. only ensures that the people of NEITHER state are satisfied. Even if they're temporarily satisfied, they can never feel safe. They can never be sure the OTHER side won't rise to power and institute wholesale policy changes (see the current election).

The only answer to healing the divisions in our society is to recognize and accept divisions in our polity. The only answer is increased federalism, and the electoral college is consonant with that ultimate state.

Look, I don't like Trump any more than you. I didn't win or lose on the 8th when he won the presidency, I lost months ago when he won the nomination. But this is the system we had in place. This was the set of rules by which the election was held. Who's to say whether the final vote tallies would be the same had the election been purely a popular poll?

Yes, Trump likely would have screamed "Rigged!" had he lost the electoral college vote, and yes, he himself has denigrated the system that eventually landed him in the White House. But while Trump is our president, he is not our standard. Had he lost and whined, he would rightly have been condemned. By liberals hypocritically denouncing the electoral college now, but also by conservatives who recognize that the rules of the game are the rules of the game.

So I refuse to legitimize the self-serving squeals of the de-legitimizers.

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This can also be blamed on the Democratic Party because she didn't really "beat" Bernie.

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Yes. She did.

I don't know why people can't accept that she beat Bernie straight up.

She did not win b/c of super delegates. That is flat out not true. She had over 3 million more votes and won 34 contests to his 23.

Again, once he was destroyed in the South he had no real chance to catch her.

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W/the electoral college there is ZERO chance a 3rd party ever makes any headway in the race for President. Period.

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This part I agree with. Everything else, not so much. Big cities have typically gone heavily for liberal candidates, and with a purely popular vote that would be enough to win. Personally I don't want you city slickers running things.