Biden 'not confident' of peaceful transition if Trump loses
bbc.com
US President Joe Biden has said he is not confident there will be a peaceful transition of power if Donald Trump loses the presidential election in November.
"[Trump] means what he says, we don’t take him seriously. He means it, all this stuff about ‘if we lose it will be a bloodbath’.”
Mr Trump’s comment that it would “be a bloodbath for the country” if he loses the election, made as he was talking about the auto industry in March, triggered a wave of criticism.
The Trump campaign, however, said the comment was specifically about the auto industry and had been deliberately taken out of context. It sent a fundraising email which said Trump’s political opponents and others had been "viciously" misquoting him.
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I think Biden, being freed up and all, should spend some time fortifying the election results. I know the election is inherently flawed but there should be systems in place to stop another Jan 6th. Do some maintenance. Get commitments from the states themselves. Jus saying.
Ditch the electoral college, certify the election with a popular vote, adopt ranked choice.
But then the 1% would become the 10% and I'm sorry but that just won't do, it's a very nuanced system that boils down to Rich good Poor bad. /s
He can't just change the Constitution.
That's absolutely true. However with the SCOTUS rulings as of late regarding the Executive branch, it could be fun to try.
If we ever get a trifecta again we need to kill the filibuster and then pass a law to expand Congress so the EC is effectively locked to the national result. As a bonus it seriously hurts lobbyists and gives us better representation.
Roll back Citizens United while we're at it.
what happens when we lose the trifecta?
Historically we've never gone backwards in the number of representatives. It would be very hard for a party with a majority in The House of Representatives to make that case.
I think it would be a worthwhile exercise to draft up some amendments to fix the SCOTUS and lopsided representation problems.
It won't pass. 0% chance. But , it would serve as a blueprint of what could be if voters gave them a super majority. And a foundation for a time in the distant future if both parties could actually govern in good faith again.
And it would signal to voters that the Dems are looking to improve our government, not just cling to the status quo like many voters (here, at least) seem to think.
Ranked choice is just another way for people to game the system. I wish people understood this.
If we can only afford one candidate, they can afford 30. Ranked choice is like the very last possible thing that should be implemented in a supposed democracy. You don’t believe me, the Conservative party of Canada has ranked primaries. You have 4 crazy people and 1 moderate. Who gets more votes? The crazy people. You’re literally sealing your fate if you implement ranked voting in a mass-lobbying environment like the USA.
Nope, it works great here in Australia.
FPTP is the worst system, and couple that with a system like the electoral collage and you have a system designed to make as few voices heard as possible.
Is lobbying legal in Australia? Considering the sway the oil and gas lobby has in AU, i don’t know if your point stands. I just can’t see it helping a shitstorm like USA, when I can see it impacting Canada negatively
The goal posts, you move them sir.
That was always my point, idk what youre saying
That you're moving the goal posts?
That ranked choice voting should only be implemented when the electoral system isn’t a broken mess?
Your problem is not with Ranked Choice voting. Your issue is with the fact that you're jaded with the political system that you're in.
Lmfao okay, well jump from crazed whataboutism to just plain insults, but I’m not wrong in my interpretation. If Citizens United wasnt around, if SCOTUS was different, if so many other things. But implementing RC without them is a death sentence
You brought up whataboutism.
How is your jaded view an insult?
You have strong opinions about a country's politics that you don't live in.
If it wasn't a broken mess, why would anyone be wanting to change it?
How can people not see that given the current context, ranked choice pools only worsen the chances of progressives even being on the ticket.
Your doubts are your own. You haven't convinced anyone.
As if that was ever going to happen, everyone can wrap themselves in their solutions all they want. We’re long past fucked anyway
Vote for the candidate you want, and then put the moderate as your second choice, shuffle them all together and oh look the moderate got the nom, but has to campaign in such a way as to please the democratic plurality of a multi party system.
How many "crazy people" have been put forth as the Canadian Conservative Party candidate? As the general elections went in 2021, one of the most contentious in recent history, it looked like there was a plurality there. The outcome, and current scandals not withstanding within the Canadian governemnt, there aren't assassination attempts creating articles from reputable sources giving serious credence to civil war.
https://theconversation.com/one-inch-from-a-potential-civil-war-near-miss-in-trump-shooting-is-also-a-close-call-for-american-democracy-234628.
Seems like a two party system might create some tribalism there, let's look back at the Canadian Parliament, with a lot of different parties in the parliament compromising and doing politics. Looks like a lot of pluralism there.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes
Now let's take a look at what the US Congress has been up to recently
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes
Weird, outside of a universal vote to go on vacation, I don't really see a plurality there. Mostly along a two party line.
I wonder how we got there? I bet someone smarter than I has thought of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Oh they did.
Moving back to the threat of political violence, which is a much larger conversation than ranked choice voting. Could a two party system contribute to that? Could other countries with a binary politcal system face the same issues?
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/rising-tide-political-violence
Huh could the very nature of a two party system, encourage political tribalism and disincentivize political collobaration?
https://voices.uchicago.edu/dangerousthoughts/2016/05/14/political-tribalism-and-identity-politics/
https://www.power3point0.org/2019/01/15/conformation-bias-political-tribalism-as-a-driver-of-disinformation/
What does the future of the US want?
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/
Huh, thank goodness we don't have to deal with those pesky crazies in the Canadian Conservative Party ranked primaries.
I don’t see why you skip my entire point of it just increasing the number of shitty candidates. You say the “moderate” gets chosen, but what’s the mean when 4/5s of the pool is poison?
The fact you just straight to Trump-assassination whataboutism is fucked, and this whole mathematical law regarding duopoly again flies past my point. Providing more candidates that are shit only ratchets the equation towards shit. That’s not to say having more than two parties is bad… I’m saying the political foundation in America is so bad that implementing ranked choice before destroying the influence of capital only increases the chance of capital winning.
Do you know how Ranked Choice works? I explained it in a sentence. You keep agreeing with my points. The Moderate wins and has to take the 4/5ths into consideration. What you're describing with your pool of poison is a problem with the conservative party and not with ranked choice voting. You can happily look at the voting turn out in Australia, and Australian exit polls to directly refute your point of poison.
Whatboutism? You didn't even read my post. I'm saying that a First Past the Post voting leads to tribalism that can lead to political extremism and violence. Which is clearly illustrated in every research paper, article, and government report I shared with you.
You've responded with an opinion, and your opinion of one minor part of a much larger Canadian political system. Again.
More choice breeds better results for a larger portion of the population. The fact that our extremism here in America cannot even take serious root in Canada is a great point to the benefits of a pluralistic government. But sure. Whataboutism .Yeah.
It’s “whataboutism” because using a closed Republican-on-Republican violence is kind of ridiculous when you say my point about “poisoned pools” is only a problem within the Conservative party.
I’m saying ranked voting only helps when it’s backed by a legitimate and healthy political environment. One that America and Canada do not have. Man we’re just talking past eachother, cause some ignorant Aussie (you) thinks he understands American politics. Brother, I understand math, but these people can legally throw money at the literal Supreme Court and it’s completely legal. That’s not a healthy environment. Citizens United would mean every pool in the USA would be full of poison.
The Balkanization of the Republican Party is driven by political tribalism. I don't think you have a very strong grasp on political theory or how absolutely fucked we are down here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization
I'm not the person who said
That was @BigBoyBarry
Look at my comment history, I was born in America and have lived here all my life. I've voted in every primary I qualify to vote in and every presidential election since I turned 18.
You might want to read the usernames of the people you're replying to.
If your point now is that ranked choice voting would increase voting turnout, thus reducing the chance of Balkanization — I understand I guess. But RC isn’t going to fix the fact only 1 candidate is going to win, and doesn’t guarantee some better percentage breakdown in representation. Like you should maybe clarifying why the Republicans are balkanizing specifically, because even Musk would argue it’s a problem of Democrats. I just dont really understand what youre getting at
Um, where do you know in Western Politics that there's more than one winner in an election?
But the opposite if FPTP is using a representative set. Like if youre american you must see that “constantly pushing for centrism” only pushes you rightward when Republicans push so hard for their policies
That's the whole point of people wanting ranked choice, then they can make their voice heard by voting for more progressive candidates while not having to worry that they're voting for someone who can't win and are therefore technically supporting the party they don't want to win. The more votes third party candidates get, the more seriously they get taken even if they don't win. You can't do that with a two party system.
All the people who you're worried about voting for the "crazies" are already voting for the crazies, you're not going to get current moderates or progressives all of a sudden voting for the crazies because there are more options of crazy so I'm not sure what you're worried about.
Except even in progressive spaces you can easily flood the zone with trash and hand-wave it away on proportion. Y’all keep wishing for your demise, this is what the left does after all
Your initial misunderstanding is that you're only thinking within the acceptable terms. Two things I think you might want to consider.
First you've alluded to it multiple times which is the Overton Window. Which is shifting, but not only to the right in American politics. If you read the links I posted earlier, political violence in America is becoming more acceptable to the left as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
The other is that there is such a thing as manufactured consent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
You've also referenced that there's lobbying and wealthy interest that gain undue power in a political system through what amounts to corruption but is called lobbying and regulatory capture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
The best bet to defeat all of these. Believe it or not is ranked choice voting. Be prepared though, what follows is a special interest fire hose.
A primer on what it could start as in the US https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1214199019/ranked-choice-voting-explainer
How it can make lasting change https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/12/politics/ranked-choice-voting-ctzn/index.html
How it leads to more moderate candidates https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-08-02/ranked-choice-voting-can-result-in-more-moderate-candidates
And finally if you have the bandwidth for it a very wonky deep dive into plurality politics and their historical outcomes, and how the wealthy often fight them. https://brill.com/view/journals/copr/14/4/article-p416_416.xml
More moderate candidates in an a cesspool just gives you garbage. Lmfao “the left is pushing the overton window and wants violence” is some tripe. Trump was shot by a Republican. It sounds like youre a propagandized American that grew up in neoliberal hellscape. Why should anyone believe the rest. You’re not worth the price of the bytes on disk. “Manufacturing consent”, like Kamala, right? Like Bush, right? Man I don’t know what point you make, you just use buzzwords and say that proves a point. Wrap yourself in your fantastical solutions that will continue to lock yourself in the hellscape without actually solving anything. Whatever.
This relies on the States acting in the best interest of the country as a whole, which as we have seen, has not been the case for many southern states
Jan 6th only happened because Trump let it happen.
If Trump wins, Biden will transfer power. Of that, I have 100% confidence.
If Trump loses, he has no authority to command government personnel, so him riling up people to storm the capitol this time will almost certainly be met with resistance.
I'm actually much more confident that nothing as bad as J6 will happen again, at least not this election cycle. I do think he needs to spend some time putting safeguards into place to prevent the abuse of the clear weakspots in our election system, namely the certification process itself being flawed if controlled by partisan sycophants.
Not as long as there are red states. Ensuring electors may be a major fuck you to the whole process
I have faith that when the lawsuits come down hard on those guys, they'll drop their tough guy act and certify.
The supreme court is lined with heritage foundation lackies. The courts are beyond useless.
100% agreed.
Aside from Trump and his ilk getting his ilk installed as election workers who have vowed to disrupt the election any way they can, how exactly is it "inherently" flawed? Pretty sure this way of thinking is why these people feel emboldened to question the elections. There was no inherent flaw in 2020. And every single court ruled as such.
first past the post is kinda a shitty system, it results in a two party system, which isn't good. but to start fixing that you'd need to redo all of politics and that's never going to happen.
Sorry, I meant the mechanics of the election isn't inherently flawed (except in GA now where counties can just decide not to certify at will). I would agree that voting should be changed, nationwide, to ranked choice.
They may be talking about the fact that you can win the presidency with a minority of votes. They're right about that, but the actual vote counting is pretty secure, as the courts have decided.
Yeah, that makes sense. Would 100% agree then.
He's probably nervous regarding GOP fearmongering.
Any attempts by him to shore up security around the election will be labeled by Republicans as tampering and he probably doesn't want to be responsible for anything to come out of that especially if he's going into retirement after this term.
Obviously they're going to fearmonger regarding election results anyways despite being the ones who are more than likely going to attempt to alter the results but it'd still be adding fuel to the fire that he'll have to deal with. Don't really need to have the entire discussion on Republicans, their lack of logic and Democrats sometimes not quite being up to the task of dealing with the dumb fuckery put forth by them.
He'll have my utmost respect if he goes above and beyond to do this anyways though.