644
Tim Walz says he and Harris were too ‘safe’ during 2024 presidential campaign
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
644 points (97.6% liked)
politics
21142 readers
4122 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They’re both problems.
No they’re not. Abolishing the Electoral college removes yet another barrier to populism and it could have unintended far reaching consequences down the line. I know MAGA is already a populist movement, but it can be so much worse. Just because the popular vote will get you what you want now doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt you in the future. Much like we’ve seen the damage that the reckless expansion of presidential power has done. The founding fathers created a good system and bipartisan politics have corrupted it, it’s restoration should be top priority.
The system works if used as intended. Winner takes all is not using it as intended, just like electors voting in the same way as the voters mindlessly is not using it as intended. Yes it’s elitist. Current state of affairs prove that the founding fathers were correct in their beliefs.
The founding fathers created a good system and bipartisan politics have corrupted itOnly when compared to monarchy, or the Soviet Union.
It was always going to be corrupted, and if you think the electoral college will ever prevent a demogoge from taking power, I have a bridge to sell you on Pluto.
The system your beloved founders created wasn't just "the person with the most votes gets the whole state" because there were no votes for president at all! It was entirely up to the political elites in each state to decide who to support between two nominees who were also not voted on because primaries were not a thing and were again picked by party elites in smoke-filled rooms based on corrupt deals with no democratic input. And even in the cases where people could vote, women and slaves were of course excluded from the process entirely.
Unless you're either a billionaire or a high-ranking member of a major political party, your beliefs are directly opposed to your own interests. "Populism" guess what, you are part of that population, your voice and your interests are the ones being suppressed when "populism" is suppressed. You're shooting yourself in the foot.
But really it just seems like "populism" is just a meme in your head. If you want proportional representation instead of winner-takes-all, you're supporting "populism." The alternative to "populism" is the suppression of democracy by a political elite. The "winner-takes-all" system is already considerably more "populist" and democratic than what the founders set up.
By the way, the "bipartisan politics" that "corrupted" the "good system" emerged immediately, before the ink was even dry on the constitution. It was an inevitable result of the system that the founders created and they didn't understand that because they had nonsense ideas that politics could be "nonpartisan," a process of people randomly coming up with different ideas through reason as opposed to competing socioeconomic groups asserting their material interests. But immediately one party emerged representing the southern slaveowners and another representing the northern capitalists, because that's how politics works. You can even see this in the constitution itself, things like the Three-fifths Compromise which was blatantly a political compromise and not reflective of some transcendent truth.
Even if you were to argue that some of the founders had good ideas, it's absolute nonsense to suggest that they all did, especially, you know, the ones who supported slavery as a precondition of signing off on the project and insisted on provisions to grant slavers more power and to bar congress from making any laws about it for a specified period and wanted to suppress "populism" out of fear that it could lead to the slaves being freed. Your reverence for them is both completely irrational and against your own interests.
I defend them because for all their moral failings they did design a system that is more resilient than any other to autocracy. We could have extended participation to all without destroying that system, and Trump would have never happened. Or if he had he would not have had the power to do the things he’s doing now. But every president takes a little bit more, and you don’t say anything if they belong to your party but cry bloody murder when the other one does it. And then when you’re back in power do you ask your lawmakers to stop the power grab? No, why would you, you like what’s being done. And that’s how we get here.
But I digress, you wrote all of that and never refuted the fact that the electoral college does in fact work. Land might not vote but states need equal say regardless of the population they have. If New York and California decide all elections, how soon until the other states start to secede because their votes count for nothing?
States have strong individual cultural and administrative identities and unless you erase that, there’s no way you can abolish the electoral college without also destroying such a thing as the United Staes of America.
Just do the following mental excercise: Texas and Florida are the two fastest growing states at the moment. Let’s say they remain red and manage to get a bigger population than all the blue cities combined (because of all the space they have) and now because of them every election a Republican president wins. Would you be ok with that? If not then you have to be in favor of the electoral college.
So you disagree with the idea of "one person, one vote," then? Absolutely ridiculous. People living in densely populated areas have just as much ability to think and arrive at a diversity of opinion as rural people do, if anything, moreso because they're more likely to encounter a range of views. This also doesn't account for minority enclaves, the various Chinatowns and similar, that can exist in cities, or the more diverse populations in general. The electoral college disproportionately favors white people.
That's a terrible argument. If that happened, perhaps I would be in favor of the electoral college for purely pragmatic reasons, very reluctantly. If I'm operating on ruthless, unprincipled pragmatism (the only reason I would ever, even hypothetically, consider supporting the electoral college), then obviously, in the present situation where the electoral college is disadvantageous to me, then I should oppose it.
During the Civil War, Lincoln temporarily suspended certain civil liberties due to the existential threat the south posed - and it was probably necessary and the right call. But just because I might support suspending certain liberties in extreme situations, facing a true, existential threat, it doesn't mean I "have to" be in favor of suspending them on some kind of principle.
Obviously, all else being equal, it's better for everyone to get an equal say. You can conjure up a situation with a horrible population and a benevolent monarch keeping them in line and argue that in that hypothetical monarchy is superior to democracy, but that in no way proves it in the general case or as a principle. In the same way, when you conjure up a situation where the electoral college is keeping an evil population in line, that in no way proves that the electoral college is better than democracy.