Not a fan of the randomness.
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If you have an issue with both, that implies you would (a) want the current electoral college to be significantly larger, and (b) oppose random jury selection.
Is that your position?
And I suppose if I gave an example where, by random chance, Republicans got a majority, you would think that was a good thing?
Frankly, I donât care what party the president is, and neither should you. What matters is if they can be a force to unite the country, instead of the current one where they all just divide us against each other.
Iâve been very open from the beginning that I am opposed to parties having a heavy hand in selecting the president. I opened my proposal by saying (among other things): âThey [the electors] certainly were not supposed to enter their brief service pledged to a particular outcome, merely as vessels for partisan interests to leverage power.â
Of course Iâm going to give RKF as a contemporary example of the sort of candidates I think would (and should) do well compared to what the two corrupt party machines have to offer. I could also have said Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Joe Manchin, or any other person who isnât totally hated by most of the country. I donât care about party affiliation, so long as the person in question has broad appeal.
You, on the other hand, clearly have a partisan interest here:
You said earlier âUnder the system you propose, the idea of someone like Trump being elected President would be next to impossible.â
Correct. Trump would almost certainly lose under my system. As would Harris. Most major party nominees in the past several decades would fail. Thatâs kind of the point. The president should have no problem engaging in good faith with Congressmen, Governors, or even citizens of either party. His duty is to the whole country. Not a private club of self-interested activists and media personalities financed by people who could care less about the rest of the country.
The randomness is necessary to limit the influence of parties on the decision. They can exploit any system other than sortition, and we know by statistics that sortition is fair.
Why would you imply either of those things based on the position Iâve taken?
The party chosen randomly is irrelevant - the point remains that the president was chosen randomly.
Choosing the President by random chance will do nothing to unite the country. If anything, it will make things worse because the âlosingâ side wonât have âwe lost the argument this time, but if we do better next time maybe we can winâ; instead they will be left with ârandomness sided against us this time and we have no way of knowing if itâll side against us again next timeâ
The problem here is that you are looking at this from a perspective that there is some magical formula for easily uniting the country.
However, on the biggest issues we currently face, there is no uniting the country there is only beating the other side.
How do you unite two sides where side A believe that no one should own a gun and side B believes there should be no restrictions on gun ownership?
How do you unite two sides where side A believes that abortion is wrong and side B believes in abortion on demand?
How do you unite two sides where side A believes in DIE and side B is fed up with wokeness?
How do you unite two sides where side A believes that men and women are interchangeable and side B refuses to accept the idea that men can become women and vice versa?
How do you unites two sides when side A thinks that humans are killing the planet and we all need to sacrifice for the good of the planet and side B thinks the argument is bunk?
How do you unite the two sides when theyâre both expected to rely on random chance in hopes that the leader of their nation might - might - take the country in the direction they think is the right direction but with no real say in the matter?
Your proposal does nothing to change this problem.
None of the candidates you mention have the kind of âbroad appealâ you claim to be looking for.
You know why Trump is so successful as a politician? Because he actually has the âbroad appealâ youâre claiming he somehow lacks. Trump has actually broken the âheavy handâ you claim to be opposed to - if the old Republican leadership had a say in things, Trump never would have gotten where he is. Trump has been nominated to be the Republican Presidential Nominee three times in spite of the âheavy hand of the partiesâ, not because of it.
[quote=âTyler McGettigan, post:22, topic:4853, username:tylerammonâ]You said earlier âUnder the system you propose, the idea of someone like Trump being elected President would be next to impossible.â
Correct. Trump would almost certainly lose under my system. As would Harris. Most major party nominees in the past several decades would fail. Thatâs kind of the point. The president should have no problem engaging in good faith with Congressmen, Governors, or even citizens of either party. His duty is to the whole country. Not a private club of self-interested activists and media personalities financed by people who could care less about the rest of the country.[/quote]
You say this on a site that exists with the expectation that Trump will be elected President.
Trump would not be where he is if he didnât have the broad appeal you claim to be looking for.
Contrary to what youâre proposing, your random elector process would only make worse the problem youâre complaining about.
There is nothing âfairâ about a Republic having its leadership, its future, and its fate determined by random chance.
Again, what government in history has ever even proposed the concept of âour system of determining leadership should include random chance as a significant factorâ?
When has any form of Democracy or Republic ever seriously considered âwe need to inject randomness into our political decision and let fate decide who will lead usâ?
Because itâs logically consistent.
Only part of the process is random. For the most part the president is not being chosen randomly. You just dislike that a step in the process involves randomness. However, math and statistics validate my position that a random sample is representative, especially in this context.
The appearance of such a strong divide is mostly a consequence of only having two parties, and itâs really on congress to solve all the issues you mentioned. The president only gets a say on these things because congress has surrendered so much power to the executive branch. However, that would quickly remedy itself if congress was less trusting of executive power.
It does. Selecting electors at random prevents parties from getting a lock on the selection process. Secret ballots protects the electors from partisan retaliation. And the 5-day voting process is intentionally designed to castrate whatever partisan strategy remains after that.
âIsâ vs âoughtâ. I understand how the world is, and I accept that. I also have ideas to improve the world, and Iâm not interested in partisan attempts to monopolize power.
Trump is where he is because of aligning partisan interests, not because he has broad appeal. If he had broad appeal, Democrat voters would by and large not hate his guts.
How?
Explain for me how you take the arguments Iâve made and logically reach the conclusions you are claiming.
Any part of the process being random is too much.
You have already unwittingly demonstrated otherwise with your example with a majority Democrat Electoral college.
How is there an âappearanceâ of a divide in any of the examples I provided?
Your own example resulted in a randomly-selected Democrat majority electoral college choosing a Democrat, and you tried to argue âit wouldnât be so bad because it could result in a âmoderateâ Democratâ.
And in order for the argument to work, you had to propose an example where the electoral college is close rather than with one side having an overwhelming majority. Since the decision would be random, you have 0 control over what the ratio would be.
The Democrats hate the guts of anyone who isnât in lock-step with their agenda.
They even hated Mitt Romney - one of the candidates you claim would have âmass appealâ - when he was running against Obama. RFK Jr, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, and Joe Manchin have all been driven out of the Democrat Party. The Republicans hate the guts of Rand Paul.
By your own argument, none of the people you offered as a âsort of candidates I think would (and should) do well compared to what the two corrupt party machines have to offerâ would qualify as having the mass appeal you claim to be looking for.
By your own argument, there does not exist any theoretical candidate out there that has any ability to unite the country the way you claim to be looking for.
So based on your own words, your plan is doomed to failure.
Your plan is incapable of uniting the country. Your plan is incapable of finding a candidate that will actually fix the problems you claim to want to solve.
In contrast, Trump is actually uniting people.
The Democrats have built their entire political strategy around dividing the country.
There is a reason that the country is said to be in a âcold civil warâ right now that is on the verge of going hot.
Trump is the most unifying force the country has right now.
If your argument for this system is based on finding a president who can unite the country, then your argument is built on a foundation of sand.
Alright, if youâre pointing to the non advisory examples that have real power as the superior form of government, why stop at just the Electoral College?
Why not also use the random selection process for every level of government?
Would that not be in line with your claim that itâs the only system thatâs fair?
You are exhausting, and Iâm done talking with you. On some level it feels like you are refusing to think, and on another it feels like you are just here to antagonize. Iâve given sufficient answers thus far that any response I could give will just be a repeat and weâd continue in circles. Which is just unproductive.
Also, your insistence on putting a thumbsdown on responses you asked me to provide for is uncalled for, so I have returned the favor. But Iâll remove them if you do yours. I would encourage you, in your future interactions, not to treat people you are having a debate with this way.
You can choose not to respond to me if you want, but Iâm still going to continue to give counter-arguments all the same even if you donât feel like defending yourself anymore.
Frankly, I could say the same about you.
If anything, it would have been better if youâd just stopped replying to me instead of deciding it necessary to say youâre not going to reply to me.
I gave your responses thumbs down reactions because I thought your answers were bad.
So? You really think Iâm bothered by getting a thumbs down?
Fun Fact: Those ratings are locked in after a very short time. I couldnât remove or change them anymore even if I wanted to.
I will use the ratings as I see fit, thank you very much.