In the U.S. and U.K., the lower house of the legislature is decided by a first-past-the-post system in roughly equally populated congressional districts decided on election days every few years. As a result, many people don’t like the representatives they’re represented by, the legislature tends towards a two-party system, and incumbents sit around for far too long. I’ve long thought of a superior voting system. To become a representative, a certain number of signatures would have to be collected by a candidate, say, .5% of the population. Each voter among the general public would have the right to vote for any representative in the country. There would be no districts. Each representative’s power in the legislature would be equal to the number of votes he or she receives. Votes may be switched by the voter at any time. This, I think, would be a much superior system to the present one, and would more authentically show the desires of the voters. No longer would gerrymandering be a problem, or people be unsatisfied with whom they are represented by. Maybe some U.S. state might adopt this proposal in the distant future, if the public is made aware of it.
Month: July 2016
Saturday Assorted Links
1. American arms depot captured by Syrian Army in Aleppo
2. Unlawful gun ownership common among criminals
6. Younger Whites more hostile to political correctness than older Whites
7. Obama very self-centered, possibly as much as Trump
8. Ann Coulter gets it right. BTW, as you know, Citizens United was about Hillary Clinton despising Hillary: the Movie. No wonder she wants to repeal it.
Good News
#ThingsRomneyNeverDid
100 Days before the election, too!
Donald Trump Will Get 51.1% of the Two-Party Vote in New Hampshire in November
Excel file here.
The estimated vote share for this year was made by solving a system of linear equations for the 2000 and 2008 elections.
Saturday Assorted Links
1. Clinton’s YUGE problem with progressive YOOTS
2. No wonder most Americans think the Afghan War was a mistake -but tell it to them in 2001, and they’d have called you a traitor! Note, I do not think that the Afghan War itself was a mistake, but its handling sure was.
4. The female Republican Against Trump is a Chamber of Commerce gal
6. DON’T VOTE FOR GARY JOHNSON! If I were left with a choice of Pence, Kaine, or Weld to pick as President, Pence would be my first choice. Kaine, however, has the lowest quality deviation from the Presidential candidate that he was picked by. Weld is much worse than Johnson, Pence is quite a bit worse than Trump, and Kaine is, if anything, better than Her.
7. Neither VA nor IN overpays government employees
8. Frum tries his hand at imitating a typical Trump supporter. Good job, but only half (or three-quarters) complete.
The Clash of Tendencies
Two tendencies in the Democratic Party:
*The movement of the rich and well-educated (capital: Fairfax County, Virginia) towards the Democratic Party and the poor and poorly-educated (capital: West Virginia) towards the Republican Party.
*Growing radical income egalitarianism, especially among overwhelmingly Democratic Brahmins (capital: Vermont)
In short, the Clinton (closest GOP analogue: Kasich) v. Sanders (closest GOP analogue: Trump) tendencies.
One is not compatible with the other.
This is the fundamental tension of the Democratic Party. It has existed ever since FDR invited both Blacks and Jews into the Party, and was only exacerbated when Brahmins and the rich were brought into it during the early 1990s by Clinton.
In short, who’s going to rule the future Democratic Party: rich Manhattanites (as they usually did, except during the Fourth Party System) or Whites desiring cutting the heads off Wall Street executives (as they did in the age of Bryan)?
And with whom do the academics side?
The financial industry has shifted its donations AWAY from the Democratic Party over the past decade. And yet, the rich still move to the Democratic Party.
Back in 1896, things were simple: if you were poor, a Townie, a racist, or a farmer -that is, a populist- you voted for Bryan.
If you were rich, a Brahmin, a cuck, or an urbanite -that is, an elitist- you voted for McKinley.
Now, it’s not so simple. There are two populist parties. There are two elitist parties. Bush was Bryan, but with tax cuts for the rich, in place of Bryanite tax increases. The candidate that won the most primary votes in the counties in Georgia and New York State with the highest median household income (Forsyth County, a tony suburb of Atlanta, and Puntam County in upstate New York) was Donald Trump (note: the candidate they really seemed to hate in Forsyth county was Ben Carson).
Who do poor Whites side with? Sanders, as in Vermont? Or Trump, as in Mississippi?
Is the future of the Democratic Party to become the party of tax cuts for rich elitists? Or is it to become the Maoist party with no appeal to the rich?
Could Sanders, who won the West Virginia primary, have actually won in West Virginia in the general election?
Is it even advisable for there to be a party composed solely of elites or anti-elitists?
And is the next Bryan going to emerge out of the Democratic Party or the Republican? If William Jennings Bryan was re-incarnated a year ago and decided to run for President, in which party would he run in? My suspicions lean to the Republican.
Thus, the correlation between Trump/Clinton support in the general election (as opposed to the primary) and income today is nonexistent, at least among Whites. Forsyth and Puntam counties are going to vote solidly Trump, and Whites in Philadelphia, Manhattan, Marin County, and San Francisco are going to vote solidly for Clinton. In all prior elections, there was a correlation between higher income and support for the Republican Party.
This post was inspired by the Lion of the Blogosphere pointing out that Clinton’s tax plan was still more economically populist than the Trump tax plan.
Now, for the Democratic Convention: Fourth Night
Protests continued. Boos and chants were heard from Berniebros, but they were countered with Hillbot chants, specially printed out in advance. A lot of pro-illegal and pro-Black stuff was heard. Her mentioned she’ll fight “institutional racism in the criminal justice system” (as though there is any to speak of).
Overall, in terms of sheer discord, Her convention had far stricter management of speakers , but, simply put, it was impossible not to understand that, in the case of the Democratic convention, a substantial number of delegates hated Clinton (thanks, Wikileaks!). No such substantial number of delegates hated Trump. Hundreds of delegates did not simply walk out in the Republican convention. They did in the Democratic. Protests at the Republican convention were small and peaceful. This was far less the case at the Democratic convention, where pro-Bernie protests were substantial, with the Democrats having to erect a wall to keep out protestors.
NYT home pages:
If the actual content of Her speech is largely ignored on today’s home page, that’s because there was almost none to go with. There’s not even a “Checking the Facts” option, as there was for Trump’s speech. It was mostly boring as heck. This video:
is almost a pitch-perfect match for how Hillary actually talks.
How was Her speech? Meh. C+ to a B-. I have to say it was worse than Trump’s, and carried less substance. The speech was filled with platitudes. Trump’s speech was Trumpism essentialized-little more, and little less. The merciless criticisms of Trump in Her speech were its best part, and they were in the middle. Not even the cheering of the bought and paid-for audience could hide how platitudinous much of the speech was. The best line was comparing Her plans to lighten student debt with his bankruptcies and not talking at all about student debt refinancing.
The Democrats had way better celebrities. Celebrity endorsements may or may not be huge among the stupid. The Democratic convention was glitzier, but, if I had to give a grade, I’d give an A- to a B+ to the Republican convention (Cruz speech, Melania plagiarism) and a B+ maximum and B- minimum to the Democratic. The Austen Goolsbee videos and songs were horrible for the Dems, as were the showings of the Trump statements.
All in all, the convention was too Black, pro-abortionist, pro-illegal immigrant, and implicitly anti-White and explicitly anti-male to persuade any undecided voters, especially White male ones. There was a good game of Trump bashing, though I don’t think as devastating for him as “Lock Her Up” is for Her.
BTW, Tammy Baldwin is not from Missouri, no matter what the convention screen said. She’s from Wisconsin.
Thursday Assorted Links
1. Ethnicity remains one of Afghanistan’s greatest faultlines
2. Greenwald on modern Russophobia and McCarthyism
3. General roundup of cuckservatives
4. Hillary’s campaign censors the press. This is the Establishment.
6. Clinton lies about being the only candidate attacked by Wall Street
7. The strange decline of the Ron Paul movement after his retirement
8. DON’T VOTE FOR GARY JOHNSON! Candidate of the Bushes! A credit to the establishment!
Her is Getting a Convention Bump
So far, it’s been two points; Trump’s bump was five.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/189299/presidential-election-2016-key-indicators.aspx
Trump’s down one point among Republicans; Her is up two points among Dems.
All in all, after the conventions, things will be back to status quo ante -Trump losing in the polls by fewer than four points.
The Democratic Convention, Night 3
The shitshow got worse, as signs of disunion reappeared in the shouts of the delegates (“No More War!” to Panetta) and protestors broke through the high metal fence around the arena.
In no particular degree of order, topics covered included guns (but not crime), security (but not the administration’s accomplishments in the places today so dangerous), “diversity”, genital-voting, a dark, baseless, and ominous video about climate change, rich Jews’ support for Clinton while claiming the party to still be one of the working class, “Asian-Americans” fighting against the now long-gone once bipartisan Chinese Exclusion Act and supporting “Access to translated and absentee ballots as critical”, Trump’s bad words, “It’s healing time. It’s hope time. It’s Hillary time.” (God, does Jesse Jackson sound like a prick), college for all v. Trump U, and cheers for a woman’s abortion. Every group was mentioned as a natural Democratic constituency except Whites and men. Some Jews and Black spoke and using fear was condemned, despite frequent practicing of its politics in the arena.
Bloomberg the Jew talked about Hillary being a friend of stability (though he didn’t, to my recollection, mention the Middle East), and lowered my view of Her further. If she’s a friend of such cronies, think what Trump can do to such scum!
Mike Pence was periodically condemned for his deviations from New York Values (not in those words), cutting preschool funding (though I doubt this allegation is true, though if it’s true, it’s awesome), and denying evolution.
There was also a nutty tribute to Harry Reid, praised by Bernie Sanders and the Bidens. For what kind of a man Reid is, just watch this:
Biden condemned Trump for being an exploitative huckster without real ties to the common man. He is that, of course, but he’s not an elitist, which is why I’m voting for him.
After that stupid song, I could no longer stomach watching, so I got almost all my news of Kaine’s and Obama’s speeches secondhand. Too bad.
Against Jebel al-Lawz 