English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:05

> Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. [...] Irritated by new terminology that is supposed to be more inclusive but feels as if it’s borrowing a page from “1984”? That’s doubleplusungood.

I won't quote the sentences preceding that one here. But you know where to find them.

alphabet

@tchrist An op-ed from Bret Stephens, not exactly something the Times endorses.

tchrist

I had come to expect to read something like that in the Washington Post. Bezos, and all.

I don't usually get bent out of shape from material in the Times. Today was different.

Cerberus

Sep 1 at 22:52, by Cerberus

> Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.

From the Atlantic.

Which, according to Rob's graph, is leftist.

tchrist

Somewhat.

You have to use the new language. It's not optional. You'll lose your job otherwise. Or worse. So it cannot all be coming from "a clear minority", can it?

alphabet

@Cerberus Depends on where you draw the line. 83% of Americans think it is "never" or "rarely" acceptable for a white person to use "the N word."

tchrist

00:11

And you can't say it's like 1984. Oh no. Even when it so often is.

Cerberus

@alphabet So?

Do you mean the word nigger?

I don't think that is what irks the 79% here.

tchrist

Weird that even the children dislike it. Usually it's the tottering and doddering who are stiffer about being forced to use new-finagled language "or else". The kids are so free making up new things I'm surprised they even notice another new thing. They haven't lived long enough to recognize new from old: everything is new.

alphabet

@Cerberus Seems like you're in the 30% who wouldn't answer "never," so in the US you'd be in the minority. Pretty much everyone accepts some level of language policing--if not against the right, then against the left.

But nearly everyone says they dislike "political correctness," since they just use it to mean "the kind of language policing I dislike."

Cerberus

@alphabet Yes, so what?

alphabet

Likewise, while 71% of Americans say political correctness has silenced important discussions, 79% think "hate speech" is morally unacceptable.

@Cerberus My point is: almost everyone draws a line somewhere and finds some sort of "hate speech" offensive. If you object to that on principle, you're in an extremely small minority. People just disagree--quite sharply, of course--on where that line is.

Cerberus

00:22

@alphabet The point is that language policing is an issue felt to be a problem by most people, and so it makes sense for this to be a factor in politics. And nowadays it is the far left who language-polices mainly.

So it helps the far right.

alphabet

@Cerberus Most people have a problem with "political correctness," by which they mean "the kind of language policing I dislike." So yes, people tend to dislike things that they dislike.

Cerberus

@alphabet I think the term "hate speech" is infelicitous, but I do not object on principle.

@alphabet But, if you ask those 79%, the large majority will name far-left policing, not far right.

alphabet

@Cerberus Probably, though it depends on the location. My issue is with people who claim to be "free speech absolutists" who think nobody should ever get offended with anything everyone says. That viewpoint, like the "woke" one those articles criticize, is also a small minority.

Cerberus

But why do you make that point?

Was anyone using an absolutist argument to support the position that P.C. may have caused people to vote right?

alphabet

@Cerberus My objection was to claims that "language policing" is seen as inherently oppressive or totalitarian, or to the claim that supporting it is somehow an extreme and uncommon viewpoint.

tchrist

00:39

Think of all the pardons that he'll be issuing for all his cronies who got charged and convicted, and often enough imprisoned, during the interregnum. Allen Weisselberg. Navarro. Giuliani. Bannon. Manafort. Anybody caught up in the Special Counsel and January 6th dragnet. Hundreds and hundreds more.

Cerberus

@alphabet All right. But now to the point I made, which is not that.

It is that language-policing may very well have made more people vote right, because it is super unpopular and because it is mainly the far left that is known for it.

@tchrist I wonder why nobody ever removed that authority from the president.

All the winner-take-all stuff seems so unstable and easy to abuse.

tchrist

Secretary Kennedy. Secretary Musk. Secretary Kilimnik.

Cerberus

Better stick your hand in the sand and think of other things.

tchrist

@Cerberus Because it's in the (genuflect) Constitution, so it is nearly impossible to alter let alone remove.

Cerberus

One would think a supermajority could be found for such a sensible change.

tchrist

00:43

Oh no. It takes 2/3 in both chambers plus 3/4 of all states' chambers.

I cannot imagine what issue could today ever be popular enough to meet those bars.

@Cerberus Because until now it has never been so abused en masse, and in fact, barely at all. Because we used to elect statesmen not conmen.

That said, some of them were pretty raunchy characters, especially a couple hundred years ago.

Cerberus

@tchrist It should be.

alphabet

@Cerberus I think, frankly, that Bret Stephens (and some other anti-Trump conservative commentators) are trying to deflect blame. They spent the past four years fighting on Trump's side in the culture war against "wokeness," and they'd rather blame "wokeness" itself rather than accept that they themselves played a crucial role in supporting him.

tchrist

@Cerberus No party in power will EVER remove their own power. So the Republicans would never allow it to be stripped now, for example.

Cerberus

@tchrist We also have one or two such issues. Such as that the councillors of the High Council are officially appointed by royal decree, which means by cabinet. In practice, the Minister of Justice always appoints someone from a list provided by the Council itself; but, constitutionally, this is a big weakness that needs to be fixed.

@alphabet OK, well, I don't know about him.

But look at me.

alphabet

Political correctness may have made people vote right. But the "anti-PC" people who opposed Trump managed, by relentlessly demonizing anyone left of center on cultural issues, to drive far more people into the Republican camp.

Cerberus

00:50

I am fairly leftist on most topics, certainly compared to American politicians. And yet the only good thing I can imagine coming from Trump is: less political correctness. It really is a big thing, it occupies people's minds.

tchrist

We also, apparently, need a change to the Constitution that strips this newfound invulnerability from illegality from the President, his permanent immunity. It's not like once he's untouchable only while in office but once he's done being Consul then he can be convicted. No, this is forever magical, just like Putin.

And that will never, ever, ever happen.

Cerberus

@tchrist Biden could have campaigned to remove it when he was in full power, for example.

alphabet

Nobody who spent the past four years raging about "woke PC culture" should be blaming that culture for Kamala's defeat. They should be blaming themselves for amplifying that outrage and giving endless ammunition to the conservative cause.

tchrist

If only.

Cerberus

@alphabet That is a different point, though.

alphabet

00:52

@Cerberus It explains my objection to the Bret Stephens column tchrist linked at the start of this conversation.

Cerberus

@tchrist Perhaps it will happen if Trump does something far more outrageous.

@alphabet OK I wasn't talking about him.

tchrist

@Cerberus He'd better hurry. Biden only has a couple more months to order Seal Team Six to take over Mar-a-Lago and leave none alive. Legally, that is. Which, unfortunately, it would be.

The flaw in all this.

Cerberus

I am repeating a point I made here earlier (and which many others also make).

@tchrist I truly wonder whether the Supreme Court wouldn't find some way to punish him for that.

If left alive.

alphabet

@Cerberus It also explains why I disagree with the idea that language policing itself was a major cause of Kamala's defeat. But the anger that conservatives stirred up about it definitely was.

tchrist

@Cerberus We've always said that, time after time after time after time after time. Nothing matters. Nothing changes. The useful idiot guarantees them complete freedom to use any power they please to do everything they've always dreamt of.

Cerberus

00:55

@alphabet OK but the anger on the right is exactly why language-policing is so poisonous: it gives the right ammunition.

tchrist

@Cerberus Biden? Probably. Trump? HAHAHA NEVER! The Roberts Court has dismantled more than we ever imagined.

Cerberus

I wonder about that.

If the Court allowed such an extreme crime, it would lose all legitimacy.

alphabet

@Cerberus Is it the language policing, or is it the people who created the outrage against it?

Cerberus

@alphabet There won't be so much outrage without the policing.

tchrist

It's hardly just that. It certainly is not just one thing. But I only posted the tiny bit here I could stomach and live with myself for spreading.

Cerberus

00:58

Of course it isn't the only thing.

But it is one factor, I think.

alphabet

Some of those centrist anti-Trump types will, of course, spend another four years attacking their own side for being too politically correct, and trying to demonize other anti-Trump people in the eyes of the public, not realizing that they are, for obvious reasons, destroying their own side and handing Trump a win.

tchrist

Never let a woman win, is another. Especially not a black woman, but really, no women allowed.

Stir people up about verminous immigrants. Never seen that before, have we now.

Cerberus

@alphabet Well, I haven't heard an argument yet why language policing doesn't fuel the right.

@tchrist Yeah immigrants are always a big factor.

tchrist

Not my argument, so you won't hear that from me.

People also didn't like having to swear DEI oaths of fealty. Or go to re-orientation seminars about it.

Cerberus

I know.

Yeah that is horrible.

It is so obvious: extreme points of view alienate moderates.

tchrist

01:03

I don't think you have to be in favor of autocracy to dislike those things.

Cerberus

At least on the left it does.

tchrist

But that was the only vote they had, and they took it.

Cerberus

@tchrist The large majority of even young Americans dislike that stuff.

alphabet

Kamala, to my knowledge, never said much of anything to support political correctness; indeed, she tried quite hard to run away from identity politics. What harmed her was the anti-PC side of the culture war--the side Bret Stephens was on.

Cerberus

She didn't.

alphabet

01:05

She didn't what?

tchrist

Food is very much more expensive. But not just food. Everything is, sometimes many times over. It's stunning. And nobody's pay went up commensurately. Nobody likes that, and while they don't know who's "robbing" them they still "know" they're getting robbed.

Cerberus

Because she realises how widely unpopular language policing is.

@alphabet Say things to support PC.

alphabet

@Cerberus Yes, as I stated, she didn't say things to support political correctness.

So the question is: if she didn't say anything in support of political correctness, why would that issue have harmed her candidacy?

Cerberus

@alphabet Because many on the farther left say those things, which are picked up by the right.

And they attach those things to the left in general.

alphabet

@Cerberus And why do those things get attached to the left in general? The answer, I'd say, is that the "anti-PC" crowd creates so much hostility to anyone left of center that even someone on the left who clearly disavows political correctness will get taken down through guilt by association.

Cerberus

01:14

@alphabet Yes. Perhaps the non-far left should always take a stance against P.C.

To break the conexion.

It is like Communism.

It isn't really an effective accusation against the regular left any more.

Because nobody believes the regular left wants Communism.

But people used to believe that it did.

Robusto

@tchrist Well, if they didn't like the Biden economy, they're gonna hate the Trump tariff solution to the economy. Also: pay the national debt with crypto! The biggest Ponzi scheme in history comes to your town.

tchrist

@Robusto He has no solutions. That's not how grifters work. They just say they do. It's all about separating the fool from his money.

Cerberus

Did Trump want to pay for the national debt using cryptocoins?

alphabet

@Cerberus I would say that the crusade against Communism did immense damage to the *non-*Communist left, who would get tarred by associations with Communism regardless of whether they disavowed it.

Robusto

@Cerberus He has floated that "idea" ...

tchrist

01:20

@Cerberus Neither "Socialism" nor "Communism" has any meaning in American discourse beyond some horrible evil thing that they don't know anything about but use to hurt people with.

All meaning has been drained from those terms, replaced by bile and spite and deliberate misunderstanding.

alphabet

Likewise for the crusade against political correctness and "wokeness." Meet the new McCarthyism, same as the old McCarthyism. Remember those Congressional hearings with college presidents?

Robusto

> Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.

tchrist

It's all just an empty pejorative to cast at any policy you don't like, any person whose policies you don't like.

alphabet

Now, Communism did have support on some parts of the left. As do the most extreme versions of political correctness today. But I think we can all agree that the fight against Communism didn't "help" the left by purifying it of unpopular elements; it harmed the non-Communist left immensely.

And the fight against "wokeness" likewise will not somehow come to the aid of the (center-)left by purging the unpopular elements of the latter. That just isn't how politics works.

Cerberus

@alphabet I would rather say Communism did damage to the regular left, and the more the regular left disavowed it, the less damage (even though you can't prevent it all, you should do what you can; besides, it takes tike for the disavowal to be accepted by the centre).

@Robusto But how would that work...

Robusto

01:28

@Cerberus It wouldn't. You didn't think that would make any sense, would you? But he'll put Elon Musk in charge of it, and then together they will loot the Treasury.

Laurel

@Cerberus Androgynous I would think is more of an observation and I don't think I've ever heard "neuter" to refer to a person

tchrist

All these words are used very loosely here, and for the most part, equivalently in the mobly minds of the majority. Communism, socialism, fascism, anarchism, authoritarianism, police state, complete lawlessness, tyranny, slavery. One is as good as the next. They mix right and left with abandon, making no distinction. They just know these are systems that bad people who want to change how they live will use against them. Somehow. Nebulously.

alphabet

@tchrist "Political correctness" could plausibly be added to that list, not that tchrist can see me.

tchrist

Oh did I say mobly? I must have meant wobbly. Yeah wobblies that's the ticket to fear.

@Laurel There was a medieval scholar, a young monk, who was castrated by the local lord after having an affair with his young daughter. After that the nobility insisted on using the Latin neuter forms when referring to him.

Laurel

@Cerberus In the case of my friend, I would describe it more as a divorce from manhood.

@alphabet The news always introduces a person with a super long NP

Robusto

01:36

So it turns out it was the Democrats' fault in this election. The turnout on that side was 12-14 millions less than it was in 2020. All because of Gaza? Because Harris wasn't left enough for them? I fucking despair.

tchrist

@Robusto Blame the victim.

Robusto

@tchrist No. I'm the fucking victim, and so are you. It's the Dems' fault for not fucking voting.

Laurel

@tchrist What people are doing to their bodies nowadays (if anything) is their business, and somewhat separate from gender identity

alphabet

@Cerberus I dunno, to me it seems like most of the damage to the left came from the people who claimed to be trying to root out Communism, and that, if fewer people were involved in trying to take down Communism, the left would have been in a much better place.

Cerberus

@Robusto Looting the treasury might be possible in theory...but people will only buy bonds if they trust the government enough.

@Laurel Well it's not really about the exact words but about what they mean.

Robusto

01:39

@Cerberus One thing you can trust is that Trump will loot anything that's not nailed down. And he'll have willing confederates to help him.

tchrist

@Robusto Anger is always more effective at getting out the vote, at least in the absence of leadership and maybe even then.

Cerberus

@Laurel Hmm, as in, not wanting to comply with expectations based on stereotypes of masculinity?

tchrist

> Dane County 2020: Biden 75.5% to Trump 22.9%.
Dane County 2024: Harris 74.9% to Trump 23.4%.

Cerberus

@tchrist In addition to war, peace, freedom, slavery, ignorance, and strength?

@Robusto That is a big difference. Do they know what caused them not to vote?

alphabet

@Robusto Is there reason to think that those are the reasons for the decline in turnout? It could be, of course, that various factors were decreasing turnout among people of both parties, but that the enthusiasm for Trump counteracted that among Republican voters.

tchrist

01:44

@Cerberus I see you've read 1984. Just wait till you meet Project 2025. :)

Robusto

@alphabet Trump got 2 million fewer votes this year than he did in 2020. How is that enthusiasm? Biden got 81 million in 2020, and Harris got 67 million this year. You do the math.

Cerberus

@alphabet Well, at any rate, if there were no Communists, the right couldn't make the centre afraid of them. Not having Communists would have helped there.

@tchrist I hope that won't happen in the worst way.

alphabet

@Robusto Read what I said: various factors decreased turnout among voters of both parties, but Trump had enough support among Republicans that he was able to overcome that disadvantage more than Biden was.

At least that's one possible reading of the election results.

Robusto

Well, none of it matters now. We may never have another election to fix anything anyway.

Laurel

@Cerberus I think part of it is they took to heart all of the negative things associated with masculinity (eg violence) and didn't want to be a part of it. (But they do have a list of good men to remind them that guys don't have to embody all those negative things.) They have extremely strong ideals, not just in matters of gender

Cerberus

01:49

Hmm extremely strong ideals.

tchrist

I don't know what happened there in Wisconsin's capital county. Slipping a percent to fall from a 52.6 point lead to merely a 51.5 point one could be anything at all. Maybe there will always be 1% who refuse to vote for someone who is not a man. Or who refuse to vote for someone who is not white. I do know that Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc) somehow managed to retain her seat against a much manlier Republican opponent, despite the environment. But she's white. And gay.

Robusto

@tchrist The whole "not a man" thing is probably a good part of it. Geezus Effing Keerist, Trump is no man either. Just being a rapist doesn't make you a man.

tchrist

@Robusto That's what I'm afraid of. That's what Obama was afraid of.

@Laurel I cannot imagine any such negativity, however great, that could make a person want never to be referred to as he any longer. It's like it's not even on the same axis of existence, completely askew, like separate cerebral hemispheres or something.

There is a conceptualization that eludes my grasp. Please don't try to explain it because I like you and don't want to make you waste your energy. I know I'm just too dumb to understand brains that work differently from how my own works in this categorization matter.

I've just come to accept that this is how the world is, and that I will never understand many, many things. That's ok.

3

Cerberus

And it is perfectly fine as long as nobody bothers me.

alphabet

@Laurel I really wanna know who was on the "good men" list.

tchrist

02:00

I'm saddened that I no longer believe it likely that I will live long enough to see America recover from the lasting harm done by Trump. It would take several generations for that to happen, if ever it does, which I truly doubt now.

Cerberus

I think it is impossible to predict.

alphabet

This chart makes me a bit more optimistic:

tchrist

I have a wild and wandering imagination. It is folly to confuse that with prediction, but sometimes I still do.

alphabet

But who knows, maybe they'll all become conservatives when they get older. That does seem to happen.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes.

Robusto

02:03

@alphabet Sadly, yes. And I don't understand it.

Cerberus

@alphabet With religiosity, ageing is one factor; but generations are also a big factor.

Robusto

I'm still the anti-fascist I was when I was 18. So many of my peers have changed, or given up.

Cerberus

So, as they age, the younger generations now will remain less religious than the older generations are now, even though they will be more religious than they are now.

tchrist

@Robusto I'm not sure mine have changed all that very much in this regard. Some are even more passionate than they were in college, but others are a little less active fighting the good fight. I think they're worn out.

Cerberus

@alphabet I wonder why those aged 70–79 are more leftist than the decade 60–69.

alphabet

02:06

@Robusto I think my political views have moved substantially leftward since then, probably from spending four years at an absurdly left-wing college, and from getting annoyed by Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza.

Cerberus

And from the Internet?

Robusto

@tchrist I'm damn tired of this shit, but I'm certainly not worn out. I will keep fighting the evil. It's all I know.

2

tchrist

Which reminds me, I still need to call the executive director of the local Democratic party tonight before it gets too late. Wanted to wait till there was some chance the person had had some sleep.

alphabet

True story: when my computer science prof taught us about the stable marriage problem, he made it about something other than marriages. He later explained that this is because the ordinary framing was "heteronormative." I have no clue who this was supposed to help, but OK.

@Cerberus Some have actually speculated that the decreasing influence of Christianity on the right made Trump more attractive. Certainly he doesn't try very hard to act like a devout Christian.

@Cerberus The margin of error there is +/- 10.2 percentage points; I'd trust the overall trend but wouldn't make too much of a discrepancy that small.

tchrist

Jan 12, 2013 at 5:38, by tchrist

> Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

Robusto

02:12

@tchrist Aye.

alphabet

@Robusto I do wonder what exactly happened to all those radicals from the '60s. Presumably most are in their 70s and 80s now. Did they all become Republicans? Or were there just not very many of them to begin with?

Cerberus

@alphabet That is interesting. Not what I meant, though.

tchrist

@Robusto I grew up in a social set where the goose-steppers from the other side were normally called pigs. Or worse.

Cerberus

@alphabet Oh, that is a lot.

tchrist

It was always freaks versus pigs. The pigs had the guns. Nothing changes.

Cerberus

02:16

@alphabet Probably mainly the latter.

Robusto

@alphabet My brother doesn't vote (he's two years younger than I am) and never has. His friends, many of them Vietnam vets, are almost all Trumpers. When I was young the vets I knew all hated the war and the people who supported it. I don't know what changes people's minds. I really don't.

Cerberus

And in some ways everyone after them is also radical compared to the '50s.

alphabet

That said, I am somewhat...pessimistic about the Democratic Party's current leadership. I'm not sure if the lizard people exist, but if they do, then the Democratic Party is definitely run by them.

> Railroads to emancipation
Cannot rest on Clay foundations,
And the tracks of "The Magician"
Are but railroads to perdition.

Cerberus

Bad party organisations are almost impossible to remove when you have only two parties and no other parties can ever get any representation.

tchrist

@Cerberus I wonder whether the 50s weren't something of an anomaly in how button-downed and bright-eyed they were, perhaps some post-war effect. The free-thinkers and indeed libertines of the 1890s and the 1920s were rather less uptight about sticking to the starched and orderly, and cartoonishly straitlaced, social norms and paths.

@Cerberus First you have to break the primary system. It's an uphill battle. Some progress has been made, but nothing half so much as we pray for and intend.

alphabet

02:26

@Robusto I have absolutely no evidence for this, but: I suspect that some people wish they were younger, end up envying those younger than themselves, and deal with this by adopting the view that they are morally superior to the younger generations, endorsing a sort of extreme hatred of anything "new" that those generations seem to have created for themselves.

Cerberus

@tchrist It is hard to say. For one thing, conservatism and progressivism tend to alternative in periods. For another, different strata of society may go through different developments simultaneously. Who, exactly, were progressive in the 1890s (the Victorian period?) and who, exactly, were conservative during the 1950s?

Robusto

@tchrist And yet the divergence of the '50s—the Beat Generation, the rise of folk music and the protest it entailed, Rock 'n' Roll, the discovery of Black music and mores—gave way to the expansion of the '60s.

tchrist

We lost our citizen-initiated ballot measure towards that end yesterday, but it had already been castrated and rendered almost useless by the Legislature, who intercepted it because they knew it would weaken their power. Fucking assholes.

Cerberus

@tchrist I would say the constitution would need to change, the winner-take-all system, especially that of the electoral college.

alphabet

@Cerberus Though the authors of that particular verse did end up victorious.

Cerberus

02:29

@alphabet JSBangs here in this room advocated for only those who owned land or a house to be able to vote, for they had the highest stake in ensuring that things went well in the country.

So older people may think like that a bit. They know better, because they have responsibilities.

alphabet

@Cerberus Incidentally, the US used to have exactly that system. It didn't work very well.

tchrist

@Cerberus Again, it can realistically never be changed because of the ⅔ + ⅔ + 50 * ¾ problem required to change the Holy U.S. Constitution (genuflects). But we have a hack, and we're getting closer.

Cerberus

@alphabet Verse?

tchrist

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome. Introduced in 2006, as of April 2024, it has been adopted by seventeen states and the District of Columbia. These jurisdictions have 209 electoral...

alphabet

10 mins ago, by alphabet

> Railroads to emancipation
Cannot rest on Clay foundations,
And the tracks of "The Magician"
Are but railroads to perdition.

Cerberus

02:31

@alphabet In what way did it not work well?

alphabet

@Cerberus It wasn't very popular, except as a way for rich people to screw over the very poor.

Robusto

@alphabet That's an easy view to take, but it's perhaps a bit too facile. I, for one, do not envy anyone growing up today. Theirs is going to be a hard life, harder than you or I know, though we may suspect. I fear for my children and their children, but I certainly don't feel morally superior to anybody (except those who elected Trump, perhaps). We all have our own lives to live. I'm happy to be closer to the end than the beginning.

Cerberus

@tchrist Ah, not bad.

Though it seems conservative states won't join?

alphabet

@Robusto Yeah, I was about 90% sure it was too facile on several counts.

tchrist

Colorado Proposition 131 would have required open primaries and ranked choice voting in general elections. It lost 45% to 55%. Very frustrating.

alphabet

02:34

Though perhaps unfortunate that you feel happy about being closer to death.

Cerberus

@alphabet Oh, I didn't quite get that.

@alphabet I think most countries had systems where only richer people could vote, here as well.

And you need to make a million sesterces a year in order to be admitted to the original senate.

alphabet

> Politicans gazed astounded, when at first our bell resounded!
The freight train's coming, tell these foxes, with our votes and ballot boxes!
Jump for your lives, politicians, from these dangerous false positions!

tchrist

@Cerberus It doesn't matter. That's the beauty. Once the signatories' collective electoral college votes total the magic 270 number, it no longer matters what the regressive slaveholder states want: 270 nullifies their votes completely, as they can never beat it.

Cerberus

And of course these sesterces originally weren't supposed to come from something as lower-class as trade; they must come from the land you owned.

Robusto

@alphabet Also, having children puts one strongly in touch with how dated one's conventions, fondnesses, even language have become. You get used to that. I don't have to like what they like, though I'm sometimes surprised how much of my culture they do appreciate.

Cerberus

02:37

@tchrist Is it only progressive states who would be interested in such measures?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yeah.

Because we're the ones who keep getting screwed.

Cerberus

@tchrist Ohh I get it now.

That would be quite useful.

Any chance it will grow over 50%?

But it would only work is some Republican states joined?

Which they won't, because they almost always lose the popular vote?

tchrist

@Cerberus It currently has 209 of 270 electoral votes it would need.

Cerberus

Regardless, the biggest problem with the electoral college is not that you can win while losing the popular vote.

No, it is that it makes it impossible for third parties to emerge.

The fact that the president is so powerful already makes that extremely hard.

So it is a combination of cogs in the whole electoral system that makes it a winner-take-all system, which in turn guarantees two parties and maximal polarisation.

tchrist

Its biggest problem I would say is that we do not live in a system where each person's vote counts equally.

You don't have to do winner takes all. That's "new". It's not in the Constitution so is easier to change.

Cerberus

02:41

In practice, the popular vote is only a few percentage point off from the electoral votes, isn't it?

tchrist

You simply give one electoral vote per district and be done.

@Cerberus Usually.

Cerberus

Yeah but the problem that it will still be one of two parties who takes all, to wit, the praesidency.

So winner take all.

So, yes, using the popular vote to elect the president would be an improvement, but I fear it will not change the fundamental problems in the system.

Robusto

@alphabet "Happy" is perhaps the wrong word. Maybe better to say I'm not afraid. Death is inevitable for everyone, and it can come at any time. I could outlive you, and by decades. Or I could die tonight. Tomorrow is promised to no one.

tchrist

Cerberus

What would change things is if they did the same system but for parliamentary elections.

Robusto

02:43

@tchrist That's what I was saying above.

tchrist

@Cerberus "Parliamentary elections" does not have any meaning that I understand if it means anything other than the election of the legislature.

Cerberus

@Robusto Be careful taking sharp curves at high speed on your bike.

@tchrist It means that.

alphabet

@Robusto Like Ed Markey!

tchrist

Each district elects its own representative.

Cerberus

Because proportional representation can only happen when in the end the power can be shared by more than two parties. In electing a single president, that can never happen. In electing representatives in a legislature, it could.

Robusto

02:46

@Cerberus Oh, no fear on that score. If there's one place I'm careful, it's on the bike. But just being careful doesn't mean you can't get wiped out by someone drunk or texting or dozing.

Cerberus

Good.

You did fall, didn't you, some time/years ago?

Robusto

I've fallen several times.

tchrist

Oh you mean to get rid of having a single executive. That cannot happen this side of a complete country-destroying revolution that creates a new order out of the ashes.

Cerberus

Well.

@tchrist Yes. But it could happen with parliament if they applied a plan to that like the one you linked to.

tchrist

The legislature is not really "first past the post" except insofar as each district can elect only one representative.

Robusto

02:48

Once slipping on sand at about 2 kph, once when some homeless person shoved a shopping cart out in front of me, once when my front tire lost air suddenly as I was turning. It's part of riding.

tchrist

It would be better if we had a couple thousand representatives, each of much smaller districts; there is no question of that.

Cerberus

@tchrist That is exactly it.

tchrist

You need to greatly reduce how many people each representative represents.

Cerberus

@tchrist That wouldn't help a huge deal? Much better would be proportional representation.

alphabet

@Cerberus I wouldn't put too much stock in popular vote counts. Currently a lot of Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states don't vote because they know their votes won't affect the outcome. Removing the Electoral College might actually leave Democrats worse off, on balance.

Cerberus

02:50

@Robusto Still a bit risky!

tchrist

@Cerberus That's just party lists. Gross.

Robusto

@alphabet Another thing I have in common with Ed Markey: We both have lived in Malden. I only lived there for a few months though, while moving my family to MA from the midwest.

tchrist

It would help a great deal, but I'm too demolished to dig up the references.

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, yeah. But I enjoy riding, and it's done me more good than harm.

Cerberus

@alphabet Right, it is a bad system but removing it wouldn't really solve the bigger problem.

tchrist

02:51

What would make me happiest is if there were no fucking political parties. Ever. Any.

Washington was right.

Cerberus

@tchrist Maybe gross but it would allow more than two parties to have more than 0 influence in politics.

tchrist

I don't want party lists. That's part of the problem.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, yes, and I encourage it.

Robusto

Thank you for your support.

tchrist

@Cerberus I don't think that's what it would need. I don't quite understand why you think it would be.

Cerberus

02:52

@tchrist Political parties cannot be avoided.

tchrist

If there were 2,500 voting districts, why in the world would you think that there would be only two possible parties ever elected amongst them?

alphabet

I'm not really sure the electoral system is the main problem; ultimately, a lot of e.g. Trump's positions are just genuinely popular among the general public.

Cerberus

@tchrist Now, half the votes in swing districts are thrown away. People know this. So they would never vote for any but the two biggest parties, otherwise they will be 100% sure that their vote will be thrown away. Proportional representation removes the entire problem of throwaway votes, and makes more than two parties viable.

tchrist

But now you can't vote for human beings.

People don't like that.

You just vote for meme-carriers on a stick.

It does no good to vote for a local representative who knows your interests and values if there no longer are humans to vote for.

This just makes the parties too strong.

You need to undo that.

In local politics, it is quite common for candidates to have no reported party.

Because it's local.

alphabet

The problem is that we coastal urbanites have not been very good at convincing the rest of the country to let us run everything. The electoral college just makes the issue more obvious.

tchrist

02:57

Who the person is, what they said, is much more important than which color of meme-pole they're waving.

alphabet

@tchrist Hahaha all the local elections this year were Democrats running unopposed. Why run as an independent when you can have the party machinery helping you?

tchrist

If we just get to vote for one of the seven Newtonian colors of the rainbow, there are no people left in the system, just powerful parties of seven different colors.

Who would ever want that?

alphabet

Isn't that how proportional representation works in some parts of Europe?

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