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Trump is the first real American president

Trump is the first real American president.

He represents real Americans more than any other president in modern times than anyone before.

He is bigoted, ignorant, boorish, sexist and greedy. He is what most real American are. They are not smooth multiracial people like Obama or overpriviledged white preppies like George W.

America has great PR from Hollywood, Americans are the heroes in almost everything that comes out of the dream factory. People in other countries look up to America as a source of prestige, western values and money. But Trump has shown what Americans are really like and they are not John Wayne.

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Reply 1
I like John Wayne's movies, especially The Quiet Man and Rio Bravo.
Original post by Maker
Trump is the first real American president.

He represents real Americans more than any other president in modern times than anyone before.

He is bigoted, ignorant, boorish, sexist and greedy. He is what most real American are. They are not smooth multiracial people like Obama or overpriviledged white preppies like George W.

America has great PR from Hollywood, Americans are the heroes in almost everything that comes out of the dream factory. People in other countries look up to America as a source of prestige, western values and money. But Trump has shown what Americans are really like and they are not John Wayne.


Lol, he's certainly captured the zeitgeist. Although let's not forget that he didn't actually win a majority of the popular vote by several million, so his victory is at least partly a consequence of a rigged electoral system.

One of the really amusing things is that he is in fact a massive conman who is in no way personally representative of most of the things he pretended to be angry about - he certainly isn't angry with bankers or the elites (the bankers populate his new government and the elites, well, he's one of them), he is one of the ghastly Metropolitans that backwoods types in the US profess to hate and he is a major dweller of the swamp he is going to empty, being a media figure, a large inheritor-come-dodgy businessman and a regular on the New York Democrat political funding circuits.

The only thing he wasn't was a Beltway Baby, but that seems a small point in Trumpological Studies. :teehee:
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Fullofsurprises
he didn't actually win a majority of the popular vote by several million, so his victory is at least partly a consequence of a rigged electoral system.


That is a specious argument, quite ridiculous. The popular vote is completely irrelevant as even the least knowledgeable student of the US constitution would tell you. To say the system is rigged is to say the whole constitution is rigged.

The system is designed so that the states elect the president, not the people, and the states receive votes in accordance with their size. Each state is, in effect, holing a ballot to determine how to cast its vote, with the size of that vote determined by its population size.

This question of the states' rights is very important to the US constitution. The country is called the United States of America for a very good reason.

In any event, the result, under a different system, would most likely not resemble what happened under the prevailing system in any way. The candidates would have campaigned in a different way, spending money in different states to capture individual votes across the board rather than concentrating on individual votes in swing states and largely ignoring the safe states. Who knows how that might have turned out?
Original post by Good bloke
That is a specious argument, quite ridiculous. The popular vote is completely irrelevant as even the least knowledgeable student of the US constitution would tell you. To say the system is rigged is to say the whole constitution is rigged.

The system is designed so that the states elect the president, not the people, and the states receive votes in accordance with their size. Each state is, in effect, holing a ballot to determine how to cast its vote, with the size of that vote determined by its population size.

This question of the states' rights is very important to the US constitution. The country is called the United States of America for a very good reason.

In any event, the result, under a different system, would most likely not resemble what happened under the prevailing system in any way. The candidates would have campaigned in a different way, spending money in different states to capture individual votes across the board rather than concentrating on individual votes in swing states and largely ignoring the safe states. Who knows how that might have turned out?


I know, I know, it's all about the States and their God-given right to impose redneck Republicanism on the nation and the world. :lol:

The thing is, even if it's all fine, could they at least stop posing as a democracy? Jeb Bartlett had it right - "the US is not a Democracy, it's a Republic." Why pretend?
Reply 5
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Lol, he's certainly captured the zeitgeist. Although let's not forget that he didn't actually win a majority of the popular vote by several million, so his victory is at least partly a consequence of a rigged electoral system.

One of the really amusing things is that he is in fact a massive conman who is in no way personally representative of most of the things he pretended to be angry about - he certainly isn't angry with bankers or the elites (the bankers populate his new government and the elites, well, he's one of them), he is one of the ghastly Metropolitans that backwoods types in the US profess to hate and he is a major dweller of the swamp he is going to empty, being a media figure, a large inheritor-come-dodgy businessman and a regular on the New York Democrat political funding circuits.

The only thing he wasn't was a Beltway Baby, but that seems a small point in Trumpological Studies. :teehee:


Original post by Good bloke
That is a specious argument, quite ridiculous. The popular vote is completely irrelevant as even the least knowledgeable student of the US constitution would tell you. To say the system is rigged is to say the whole constitution is rigged.

The system is designed so that the states elect the president, not the people, and the states receive votes in accordance with their size. Each state is, in effect, holing a ballot to determine how to cast its vote, with the size of that vote determined by its population size.

This question of the states' rights is very important to the US constitution. The country is called the United States of America for a very good reason.

In any event, the result, under a different system, would most likely not resemble what happened under the prevailing system in any way. The candidates would have campaigned in a different way, spending money in different states to capture individual votes across the board rather than concentrating on individual votes in swing states and largely ignoring the safe states. Who knows how that might have turned out?


The marginal difference in popular vote in California was greater than the total marginal difference in the popular vote, the electoral college aims to stop big states like California having too much influence to preserve the representation of smaller states
I think Teddy Roosevelt would contest that title. He was an actual cowboy and also resigned from government to fight in the Spanish-American War.
Americans want a leader to speak in simple soundbites, rub their belly and tell them how amazing they are. That's what they got.
Reply 8
Original post by Maker
He is what most real American are. They are not overpriviledged white preppies like George W.


A man who's a billionaire owing to money that was leant to him by a vastly wealthy father is not overpriviledged? ...

Conversely, you're saying most Americans are billionaires...?
Original post by Fullofsurprises

The thing is, even if it's all fine, could they at least stop posing as a democracy?


The US is a democracy. There are literally dozens of systems that could be used to express that democracy, none of them perfect, all with different ways of solving perceived problems, and all (well, most) aiming to represent the people reasonably fairly. There will always be anomalies if a system uses any mechanism other than a plebiscite for every decision (and that would stifle progress anyway).

My favourite, and certainly the most amusing, is the Yes Prime Minster! one in Hacker's Reform Bill in which every 200 electors choose a representative from among themselves, who sits on an enlarged local council. Committee's are then chosen from among that group, and so on up the tree. No representative can be imported from elsewhere, at any level.

Voting is , if I remember correctly, compulsory at each level, doing away with the problem of representatives representing only a small number of active constituents.
Original post by Maker
Trump is the first real American president.

He represents real Americans more than any other president in modern times than anyone before.

He is bigoted, ignorant, boorish, sexist and greedy. He is what most real American are. They are not smooth multiracial people like Obama or overpriviledged white preppies like George W.

America has great PR from Hollywood, Americans are the heroes in almost everything that comes out of the dream factory. People in other countries look up to America as a source of prestige, western values and money. But Trump has shown what Americans are really like and they are not John Wayne.


He isnt president though. Hes president elect.
Original post by Good bloke
The US is a democracy. There are literally dozens of systems that could be used to express that democracy, none of them perfect, all with different ways of solving perceived problems, and all (well, most) aiming to represent the people reasonably fairly. There will always be anomalies if a system uses any mechanism other than a plebiscite for every decision (and that would stifle progress anyway).

My favourite, and certainly the most amusing, is the Yes Prime Minster! one in Hacker's Reform Bill in which every 200 electors choose a representative from among themselves, who sits on an enlarged local council. Committee's are then chosen from among that group, and so on up the tree. No representative can be imported from elsewhere, at any level.

Voting is , if I remember correctly, compulsory at each level, doing away with the problem of representatives representing only a small number of active constituents.


You'll recall from that episode that it was defined as 'brave' and the PM hastened to dump it.

I don't disagree that the US has democratic elements, but the electoral college isn't one of the most compelling - it's analogue, the UK constituency MP, is about the same on the demo-credible scale. It's hard to see our parliament as representative, even if that would have meant 75 or 100 UKIP members this time, I would rather that than the current system.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Although let's not forget that he didn't actually win a majority of the popular vote


Neither did Clinton, or anyone else. Had it been a popular contest, there would have been a run-off.

Original post by Good bloke
Each state is, in effect, holing a ballot to determine how to cast its vote, with the size of that vote determined by its population size.


That's not quite true. Each state gets as many electoral votes as it does representatives in Congress. As each state is entitled to two senators regardless of population, states with smaller populations have a slight advantage. It's theoretically possible to win the presidency with only 22 percent of the popular vote if you win just the right states.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
You'll recall from that episode that it was defined as 'brave' and the PM hastened to dump it.

I don't disagree that the US has democratic elements, but the electoral college isn't one of the most compelling - it's analogue, the UK constituency MP, is about the same on the demo-credible scale. It's hard to see our parliament as representative, even if that would have meant 75 or 100 UKIP members this time, I would rather that than the current system.


Oh yes! I didn't advocate that system; I just find it amusing.

The British system is one of consituency MPs who don't just act as lobby fodder. They also represent their constituents in a very real and personal way, which is why I favour our status quo for the House of Commons.

I think I'd favour a system in which a House of Lords (with reviewing powers only) was populated by a mixture of 50% PR-voted politicians and 50% subject specialists (but I have no idea how they would be selected). There would be no political appointment to it though, no reward for superannuated politicians and no religious representation.
Original post by Good bloke
The US is a democracy. There are literally dozens of systems that could be used to express that democracy, none of them perfect, all with different ways of solving perceived problems, and all (well, most) aiming to represent the people reasonably fairly. There will always be anomalies if a system uses any mechanism other than a plebiscite for every decision (and that would stifle progress anyway).

My favourite, and certainly the most amusing, is the Yes Prime Minster! one in Hacker's Reform Bill in which every 200 electors choose a representative from among themselves, who sits on an enlarged local council. Committee's are then chosen from among that group, and so on up the tree. No representative can be imported from elsewhere, at any level.

Voting is , if I remember correctly, compulsory at each level, doing away with the problem of representatives representing only a small number of active constituents.


That "yes minister" democracy arrangement, is in fact one of the original forms of democracy in Athens, if I remember correctly.

Todays world wouldnt allow for that. too many interests from too many rich people.
Original post by Hydeman

That's not quite true.


OK. But the principle is right. If it were purely population it might changed at every election, and they cannot sensibly give California 66 times more votes than Wyoming.
Original post by SonoLuma

Todays world wouldnt allow for that. too many interests from too many rich people.


And too many people for it to be practical and timely. Athens only had about 30,000 electors.
Original post by Good bloke
And too many people for it to be practical and timely. Athens only had about 30,000 electors.


Yeah, that too. Im sure the globalisation and internet age has also reduced the will of the people to effectively govern as well.
I hope he is a successful president, and puts Britain at the front of the queue for new trade deals.
Original post by Good bloke
And too many people for it to be practical and timely. Athens only had about 30,000 electors.


Not to mention that women and slaves had the status of vegetables and were not allowed to speak in public, let alone vote.

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