Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Ken B]

The Canadian system works fairly well because there aren't just 2 parties hammering at each other.

Not remotely. There are 4 parties, a few years ago there were 5, and of those 3 are national and have been for over 50 years. That's not counting the Greens who don't have party status in parliament.
Fptp forces parties to internally craft positions of broad and wide support.

[Brian]

Ken should like this: Trump apparently told a Detroit crowd that Michigan is run entirely by Democrats?!
https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/status/762692977621921793

[drogulus]

Fptp forces parties to internally craft positions of broad and wide support.

     That's probably true, but wide support would move the Repubs to the center and Dems away from it. Most Dems either want a liberal party or would at least accept it. Wide support from the left to the center is the basis of their national advantage. The Repubs can't get loose of the death grip of Trump and Cruz. How do they appeal to the middle with either of these?

     Of course, I could be wrong.

     

[Ken B]

Ken should like this: Trump apparently told a Detroit crowd that Michigan is run entirely by Democrats?!
https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/status/762692977621921793

Apparently? I'm a stickler me, I like to see real quotes.

If he said it he's quite wrong. Detroit most certainly is, and Wayne county nearly is. Ann Arbor is.  The state in toto most certainly is not, and away from the sinkhole that is Detroit most parts lean republican, so local and county governments most certainly are not. Plus the governor as others have noted. It's a blue tinged purple state presidentially and for the US congress.

The state government is GOP at the moment I think.senate and (maybe) house, after the 2014 election.

[Madiel]

Fptp forces parties to internally craft positions of broad and wide support.

This is still rubbish. Fptp enables parties to win a majority in a legislature with far fewer votes than either a preferential or a proportional representation system.

You may be under the mistaken impression that Canadians elected Trudeau as Prime Minister. It's okay, many Canadians are probably under the same mistaken impression. It's one of the great misfortunes in recent decades that politicians in Westminster systems like Canada, Australia and the UK have learned so much from America that everyone behaves as if we have a Presidential system.

But we don't. A majority government in a Westminster system does not require a majority vote, and especially not a fptp Westminster system. Trudeau's party won well over half the seats with 39.47% of the vote.

[Jo498]

Maybe I am naive, but I think to strive for broad and wide support is the wrong goal. Parties should not compromise before the election but afterwards. They should present different, including partisan, viewpoints and policy suggestions and afterwards compromise in parliament.
Even with 4-6 parties, each party will offer clusters of positions that force voters to vote for package deals.
But if all parties have to try to be popular for everybody to have any chance because of systems that have winner takes all, first past the post etc., one will get ever more diverse position within the parties and voters will become frustrated because they have to vote against some of their strongly hold positions.

[Brian]

Sometimes jokes can get a little out of hand:

""Hillary wants to abolish. . . the Second Amendment," Trump said in Wilmington, N.C., before speaking about filling an empty seat on the Supreme Court. "By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.""

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/08/09/trump-implies-second-amendment-people-could-something-about-clinton/GCOhuvpq4VNyR0VI34uZON/story.html?event=event25

[(poco) Sforzando]

On my way home today: followed a van with oversized tires and raised suspension, filthy unpressed American flag flying from its rear end, large FUCK GUN CONTROL sticker where the F and K were graphics of guns, and a sticker saying DAN BILZERIAN FOR PRES 2016. And you guys thought there was so much support for Donald Trump.

[Pat B]

But they can be more so or less so, and have more or less say in picking more or less intransigent candidates who are committed more or less truculently to their positions. If we are talking about the ability and willingness to compromise, then why isn't that the relevant factor, rather than opinion in Belgium?

I never said anything about Belgium. I was thinking more about American history. Ds have moved left on social issues (e.g. gay rights), but not so much economically -- compare Obamacare to various different health care proposals from both parties from the '70s through the '90s.

Intransigence is a Tea Party specialty. I never heard "willing to compromise" used as an attack until Ted Cruz ran for office.

[Karl Henning]

Sometimes jokes can get a little out of hand:

""Hillary wants to abolish. . . the Second Amendment," Trump said in Wilmington, N.C.

And the "joke" starts out with a blatant falsehood.  Of course, he routinely gets a complete pass on his numbing stream of lies.

[Rinaldo]

And the "joke" starts out with a blatant falsehood.  Of course, he routinely gets a complete pass on his numbing stream of lies.

The Secret Service is not amused, though.

[drogulus]

     It's come to the point that the only thing left to Trump is to be genuinely dangerous.

     There are people who not at all panicked by violent protests, terrorism, anything familiar. They are scared, and at first I thought when I heard it it was like "if he wins I'm moving to Canada". It isn't that, it's something I've heard about but never witnessed, fear that extreme politics will turn into something beyond that because no one is in control, including the man at the center who inspires it.

[Turner]

content already mentioned earlier ...

[Herman]

Apart from the irresponsible call to arms this, like the Benghazi nonsense, is about making sure that Hillary if and when elected will be regarded by a significant and (online) vocal part of the population as an illegitimate president.

The GOP used the same strategy with Obama, who was denied  ("You Lie!" during the State of the Nation) and rejected from day one, after which even the somewhat more thoughtful media have grown into the habit of  describing Obama as aloof and missing the cooperative gene Bill Clinton supposedly had.

From Obama's day one, too, the Secret Service had to work twice as hard because of the unprecedented threat level, with a black man in the White House. I expect Hillary will be literally covered with SService agents now, because it's pretty clear the thought of her in the WH is unbearable to many gun toting folks. And these are egged on by Trump, who went all the way with the Birther thing, too, for years.

[drogulus]

     

     The Polls Aren't Skewed: Trump Really Is Losing Badly

[Karl Henning]

     

     The Polls Aren’t Skewed: Trump Really Is Losing Badly

Just the natural result of El Tupé being himself, by crackey!

[Gurn Blanston]

Apart from the irresponsible call to arms this, like the Benghazi nonsense, is about making sure that Hillary if and when elected will be regarded by a significant and (online) vocal part of the population as an illegitimate president.

The GOP used the same strategy with Obama, who was denied  ("You Lie!" during the State of the Nation) and rejected from day one, after which even the somewhat more thoughtful media have grown into the habit of  describing Obama as aloof and missing the cooperative gene Bill Clinton supposedly had.

From Obama's day one, too, the Secret Service had to work twice as hard because of the unprecedented threat level, with a black man in the White House. I expect Hillary will be literally covered with SService agents now, because it's pretty clear the thought of her in the WH is unbearable to many gun toting folks. And these are egged on by Trump, who went all the way with the Birther thing, too, for years.

Excellent post, and right on the mark. I view the entire strategy of the last 2 years as a campaign to delegitimize Hillary in the event that she did get elected. The only way to refute this strategy is to take away control of Congress. Even as a minority the Republicans have found ways to be totally obstructionist, but maybe if they get in a superior position again, the Dems will have found a way to avoid repeating their futility from Obama's first term.

[Karl Henning]

They have not had a talent for anything, apart from thickheaded obstruction.

[drogulus]

    'A bloody line has been crossed': Joe Scarborough says GOP 'must dump' Donald Trump from ticket

     I think what finally got Joe's attention was who will rid me of this troublesome Hildebeast?

     So Trump tweets "Nobody is watching @Morning_Joe anymore. Gone off the deep end - bad ratings. You won't believe what I am watching now!"

     You won't believe what I'm watching now!

     This is not a joke any more, not even for me.

     

     

[Karl Henning]

Bernie Sanders buys a $575,000 vacation home and the Internet cries hypocrisy