Trump and Greenland

[brian ross]

Bogan, I do wish Trumpites would recognise that Trump didn't win the popular election in 2016. He won the Electoral College election. The US electoral system is a strange beast at the best of times and no more strange than when the Electoral College meets (or actually doesn't 'cause it doesn't actually exist).

[Bogan]

No stranger than in Australia where in one recent national election One Nation got (from memory) 12% of the national vote and got no seats in parliament, while the Greens got 8% and got (from memory) 4 seats.

[brian ross]

No stranger than in Australia where in one recent national election One Nation got (from memory) 12% of the national vote and got no seats in parliament, while the Greens got 8% and got (from memory) 4 seats.

The total number of votes is immaterial. Occasionally the Tories will win more more votes than the ALP but still fail to win government and vice-a-versa as well. What is required is that a party wins the majority of seats. It is called proportional representation and is the core of the Westminster system of Government. The PHONies couldn't organise a piss-up in the front bar of a pub whereas the Greens could.

In the US what matters in the Presidential election, despite them using a simplistic first-past-the-post voting system is not the total number of votes which a candidate receives but the total number of votes the Electoral College accords to a particular candidate. The Electoral College is a system where each state is accorded, according to the size of it's population a number of votes which when that state falls to a particular candidate is accorded to that candidate in the Electoral College. The Electoral College is undemocratic and unrepresentational. El Presidente' trump lost the popular election, scoring some 2 million votes less than his opposition. However he won in crucial states with the greatest number of College votes, thereby succeeding to win that election.

[Bogan]

Brian, 12% of the Australian electorate was effectively disenfranchised by both the Lib/Lab insiders colluding together to give "preferences" to each other. It was a nice bit of underhanded tactics and probably the first time in Australian history when the Libs and the Labs colluded with each other to squeeze out a rival party.

It was only because the US has a different type of voting system to Australia that the Republicans and Democrat insiders who hated Trump did not do exactly the same thing to stop Trump winning. People in a democracy expect that election outcomes will reflect majority voter intentions. If the Libs or the Labs win an election with 48% of the total national vote people will still accept it with a few grumbles. But when our system can be manipulated by insiders to disenfranchise a significant part of the population, and then give a very disproportionate amount of seats to another party with significantly less votes, then the disenfranchised start to wonder if they are living in a democracy at all.

No wonder the Libs and the Labs wanted to take the guns off the Bogans, Rednecks, and Deplorables.

Just how much voter intentions can get skewed in a democracy comes from the lesson of Chile. Chile was a very right wing country where the two right wing parties who collectively had almost two thirds of the vote squabbled so much with each other that much to everyone's surprise, a damned Communist named Allende actually won the election with 36% of the vote. Naturally, as a brainless Marxist he had the countries economy on it's knees in 12 months. Fortunately, Chile is not Venezuela and Chile had a General Pinochet to sort the commies out and his rule resulted in the "Chilean economic miracle." It is just too bad that Venezuela does not have a General Pinochet.

[Wally Raffles]

Brian, 12% of the Australian electorate was effectively disenfranchised by both the Lib/Lab insiders colluding together to give "preferences" to each other. It was a nice bit of underhanded tactics and probably the first time in Australian history when the Libs and the Labs colluded with each other to squeeze out a rival party.

Which election are you referring to Bogan?

[brian ross]

Brian, 12% of the Australian electorate was effectively disenfranchised by both the Lib/Lab insiders colluding together to give "preferences" to each other. It was a nice bit of underhanded tactics and probably the first time in Australian history when the Libs and the Labs colluded with each other to squeeze out a rival party.

They were not "disenfranchised". Their votes were counted. However they were insufficient to win any lower house seats. Simples really. However, you really do have problems with the most basic principles of democracy, don't you? Do you need them explained to you, again?

It was only because the US has a different type of voting system to Australia that the Republicans and Democrat insiders who hated Trump did not do exactly the same thing to stop Trump winning. People in a democracy expect that election outcomes will reflect majority voter intentions.

Only where there is not proportional representation. The US system has it - indirectly - through the Electoral College. Australia, the UK, virtually every democracy has it through proportional representation. We have had it for over 119 years. You'd think the PHONies would have caught up with it by now, now wouldn't you? Tsk, tsk.

[Bogan]

Brian Ross wrote

They were not "disenfranchised".

They were disenfranchised.

Brian Ross wrote.

Their votes were counted.

And their votes were negated through political insider trading, the result of preference deals between two supposedly opposing parties.

Brian Ross wrote.

However they were insufficient to win any lower house seats.

12% of the voters got no seats. 8% got 4 (or was it 6) seats? That looks like a gerrymander or a rotten borough to me. Both the libs and the labs created a lot of resentment among their former Lib/Lab voters for that dirty trick.

Brian Ross wrote

However, you really do have problems with the most basic principles of democracy, don't you? Do you need them explained to you, again?

I know what the basic principles of democracy mean. One man one vote. And majority wins. But when 12% get no representation, and 8% get 4 or 6 seats, then that is not democracy. That is gerrymander. It is as much a gerrymander as when Joh Bjelke Peterson bribed Vince Gair with an ambassadorship to Ireland to create a senate vacancy the Nats thought they could win. All perfectly legal, just completely reprehensible. Or Gough Whitlam's Labor Party being forced to fight three elections in three years, because the Libs had the numbers to force them to do it. All legal, just reprehensible. It must have been the first time in the history of parliaments when the leader of the Opposition called an election whenever he thought the polls were favourable.

Brian Ross wrote

Only where there is not proportional representation. The US system has it - indirectly - through the Electoral College. Australia, the UK, virtually every democracy has it through proportional representation. We have had it for over 119 years. You'd think the PHONies would have caught up with it by now, now wouldn't you? Tsk, tsk

The Libs and the Labs conspired together to use preferences to disenfranchise 12% the population, Brian. But you don't want to admit that it was reprehensible because you are a lefty and you hate One Nation. And despite your virtue signalling and moral posturing, that is all that mattered. Because for of all your moral grandstanding, for you, the ends justify the means.

[brian ross]

Brian Ross wrote

They were not "disenfranchised".

They were disenfranchised.

I think you need to look up "disenfranchised" in the Dictionary.

Brian Ross wrote.

Their votes were counted.

And their votes were negated through political insider trading, the result of preference deals between two supposedly opposing parties.

There votes were counted. QED. Have you ever worked on a polling booth as an AEC representative, Bogan? If you had, you would have seen the votes being counted, after the polling booth closes. Their votes were counted. QED.

Brian Ross wrote.

However they were insufficient to win any lower house seats.

12% of the voters got no seats. 8% got 4 (or was it 6) seats? That looks like a gerrymander or a rotten borough to me. Both the libs and the labs created a lot of resentment among their former Lib/Lab voters for that dirty trick.

What you believe is immaterial, Bogan.

Brian Ross wrote

However, you really do have problems with the most basic principles of democracy, don't you? Do you need them explained to you, again?

I know what the basic principles of democracy mean. One man one vote. And majority wins. But when 12% get no representation, and 8% get 4 or 6 seats, then that is not democracy. That is gerrymander. It is as much a gerrymander as when Joh Bjelke Peterson bribed Vince Gair with an ambassadorship to Ireland to create a senate vacancy the Nats thought they could win. All perfectly legal, just completely reprehensible. Or Gough Whitlam's Labor Party being forced to fight three elections in three years, because the Libs had the numbers to force them to do it. All legal, just reprehensible. It must have been the first time in the history of parliaments when the leader of the Opposition called an election whenever he thought the polls were favourable.

Brian Ross wrote

Only where there is not proportional representation. The US system has it - indirectly - through the Electoral College. Australia, the UK, virtually every democracy has it through proportional representation. We have had it for over 119 years. You'd think the PHONies would have caught up with it by now, now wouldn't you? Tsk, tsk

The Libs and the Labs conspired together to use preferences to disenfranchise 12% the population, Brian. But you don't want to admit that it was reprehensible because you are a lefty and you hate One Nation. And despite your virtue signalling and moral posturing, that is all that mattered. Because for of all your moral grandstanding, for you, the ends justify the means.

Run along, Bogan. You're wasting our time and torturing innocent electrons to do it...

[Bogan]

I don't need to run, Brian. I am your nemesis. I am awaiting your reply from my last post on the climate change topic. But I think you know you have been backed into a corner and you will steer clear of that topic.

The anti HIGW advocates are winning.

[brian ross]

I don't need to run, Brian. I am your nemesis. I am awaiting your reply from my last post on the climate change topic. But I think you know you have been backed into a corner and you will steer clear of that topic.

The anti HIGW advocates are winning.

Wrong thread, poor, poor, wee lad.