I'd hope so. Hell, Siri from Apple or Watson from IBM would sound more human than Domo Origato Marco Rubioto these days....
So the people voting for their choice is wrong? You think the party should be able to say, "Sorry we know you voted Trump as your Republican representative to run for President but we think Rubio is a better choice. Vote better next time." I don't get to vote in primaries but if i did vote for someone and they won but had the party pulled the rug out from under them, i would not be happy. The fact it had been in place for 30 or so years and that some look upon it as a very good thing is funny to me. Why not forego voting and just have the party officials choose for you?
Well, tell me again why places like New Hampshire and Iowa should have such a ridiculous influence over who can be President?
You ain't got the faintest clue about what is necessary for the democracy to run. I did not say this - so don't put this in my mouth.
Because I don't mention the multitude of problems with the entire election cycle I somehow now endorse it? Is that the implication here? Yes, I think primaries should be held all in one day, each party can do different days if they like but within a week of each other. But what does that have to do with what I posted.
It seemed to me that what you were saying was that if the Republicans had Super Delegates, those Super Delegates would just back another candidate so that Trump would not be the Republican representative for President. It would completely go counter to the choice the voters are expressing right now. In effect the Party officials telling the voters they were wrong. Why don't you explain to me what you were saying because I don't see what other conclusion I could have come to based upon what you wrote. As far as me not knowing"what is necessary for the democracy to run". A democracy by definition is a government in which the people, meaning all people, have the power to select their leaders. How does doing away with Super Delegates infringe upon that? The way I look at it Super Delegates infringe upon the rights of the people by taking away the power of their vote. I think if Super Delegates was an important part of Democracy it would have been the system in place before 1984. Please explain to me how this Democracy ran for 200 plus years before Super Delegates.
No, my point is that there are layers of unrepresentative, non-democratic procedures in place in our electoral politics. The fact that two tiny, overwhelmingly white rural states have such an outsized say in who gets to run for president is just an example. The electoral college is another. Super delegates are one more.
I would also add that the way delegates are apportioned based on vote percentages is also problematic to the concept of pure democracy. This means in some states that you get no delegates if the vote total you got was less than 20%, while just getting above 20% means you get delegates. It is also interesting that while the Donald has not gotten a majority of the votes, he is getting a disproportionately higher total of delegates. We do not have a pure democracy.
Good. Democracy is a rule by the people - you got that one right. Do you know what your prerequisite is? I am more than certain that you still ain't got a clue. ==================================================================== All right. I will stop pulling your chain. There is a reason philosophers of the past were very skeptical about the prospect of democracy. Hell - our own FOUNDING FATHERS were skeptical at the prospect of it. 'Nuff said, eh? The prerequisite for democracy is [well-educated electorates.] This implies the presence of general electorates that can think on their own critically and make informed decisions. The difficulty with democracy is with this; how do we nurture this well-informed and educated electorates? Because, without it, the self-proclaimed [democracy] runs the risk of degenerating into [mob rule.] Does the mass always want the right thing? No. And it is exceedingly difficult to make a society made of such constituents. Prior to the modern times, can you think of just when this democracy worked? You will have to go all the way back to the ANCIENT GREECE. Even then, the democracy they had was composed of [electorate males.] No females, no servants, just males. Why so? Because it cost a lot of money to educate and train the [citizens], so they had to have that kind of economic support structure to make it happen. After the ancient Greek times, democracy never materialized until today. [Today - as in, it gets a bit shady but let's just say, around the late 18th century or so.] And what you see now from the Republican fiasco is the clear example of why time-honored doubt and skepticism toward democracy was a valid criticism. Don't just take my words for it. Study Trump plans yourself; economic, immigration, diplomatic, you name it. Let me just focus on the [economic] side, as it relates to our everyday lives. Not just Trump, but any Republican cranks of late. They all universally chirp about tax cuts, like a singing canary in a cage. Do you HONESTLY think any Republican-supporting tea party member thought about the consequences and repercussions of such measures? [If they EVER did, they couldn't possibly support the candidates that will do a lot more harm than good. To give you a really brief rundown, at the cost of being overly simplistic, they want to cut the tax so you can have more money - all sounds good. Now - government needs that money to do various things, like Planned Parenthood, or support programs like food stamp. If the tax levied decreases, the government will have to shut down these non-essential missions first. For whose gain? Maybe you are getting back some chump change, but did you ever bother to think about how much these rich people would be getting back? It's not even funny. To give you a concrete number from Trump plan, the bottom 10% are getting less than 2% back from their tax. Top 10%? More than 20%. Top 1% is getting eye-whopping 27%. In other words, every cry for tax cut is equivalent to "We want to steal your money for the rich people."] Finally, but not in the least, check the average educational background for Trump supporters these days. I am more than inclined to say that, superdelegates are far more better educated than these [average] Trump supporters will ever be. In short - if Republicans had a well-educated electorates that could make informed decisions, the need for superdelegates wouldn't have materialized to begin with. ==================================================================== So what does that mean for Bernie Sanders? I hold Bernie in the same regard as Donald Trump when it comes to his policy promises and economic visions. We all hate the Wall Street whitecollar fuckheads, but they are NOT the root of all problems. [Well - large portion of it, maybe.] His economic vision [of 5+% economic growth annually for the next DECADE? Holy fuck.] is based on faulty assumption [that government cash injection will induce PERMANENT economic change. Chalk that up as the crankery of today.] and then some. While I agee with a lot of his points and agendas, I just can't justify voting for this kind of lunacy in the right mindset.
I condensed the entire second part of your post into what I read it as. The problem with that thinking is who decides what is smart enough to vote, do they keep on increasing the Super Delegate count because Bernie got too many votes from the uneducated masses. The party decides they don't want any close calls in the future so they raise the Super Delegates to 40% from the current 20%. The party knows what is best for us. While Jefferson may have said, "A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate", literacy tests as prerequisite to vote just happen to be against the law so tell me again how I don't have a clue. When Jefferson said that he was pushing to have public schools established set not education levels to determine who could vote.
Again, I did NOT say this. Don't put this in my mouth. Your condensation sucks. So does your reading comprehension. It is not about how "smart" one is. If you thought that was the case, you are hopelessly clueless. If democracy was run by genetic lottery like the subjective measure of [smartness] then it would have failed even before it had a chance to hatch. No. That's NOT the prerequisite. Well educated, informed electorate does not have to be smart to begin with. It just means they need to be educated - well beyond the point of [Make America great again!] To be educated, one has to have the will to learn, provided he has the resources to learn from. That's all it takes. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with how smart one is. ============================================= Of course, the assumption here is that, if the general public is well educated, they probably won't vote for a candidate that would do harmful things to them, regardless of what their ballyhoo claims. I cannot say this holds true in America today, where the college graduation ratio falls under 40%. [It is 34%, and it includes jokes like University of Phoenix, or the likes of the dreaded TRUMP UNIVERSITY, or any other 2 year institutions that basically teach vocational shit they call "education."] And now I am supposed to think this general public can think for themselves? [In your putrid condensation, you basically omitted every reason why the Republican-supporting people cannot be trusted with their so-called "reason." Good job right there. You just don't understand how poorly educated they are in general, do you?]
Lately the people winning in Iowa and New Hampshire have often been out of the race after Super Tuesday, especially on the GOP side. I don't think it's an advantage to win in those places any more because the candidates have to spend so much effort in places that ultimately do not amount to many delegates. Not that I'd ever run for office but if I was a GOP candidate I would be focusing heavily on South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and giving Iowa and New Hampshire the amount of campaigning that they deserve based on their actual weight at the convention. I'd give a speech or two in Des Moines and Manchester and I'd allocate some resources to setting up town halls in both places and I'd be done with it. South Carolina I'd be going door to door shaking hands and getting to know people. Politics is retail everywhere but at least the markets are larger outside Iowa and NH. If I was a Democrat running for office I'd put the amount of time into Iowa and NH that I needed to depending on how I thought the next raft of states was likely to go. If I didn't have a lot of strength in the Super Tuesday states I'd prioritize the two front contests so I could stay in the race until the bigger states started voting. If a GOP candidate can't project a decent outcome on Super Tuesday they have no reason being in the race in the first place. For the Dems it is a bit more complicated than that, given that Texas is not currently winnable in the national election and no other Super Tuesday state has a large number of electoral votes. Maybe I'd prioritize Minnesota and Wisconsin alongside Iowa and New Hampshire.
You continue to claim that you are not looking to have the party decide for those who are not smart yet you continue to harp on about the uneducated. I mean how many times can you mention "well educated", "educate", "educational" in one post yet not be talking about smarts. I will also key on, "In short - if Republicans had a well-educated electorates that could make informed decisions, the need for superdelegates wouldn't have materialized to begin with." Being smart and being informed as to the issues and educating yourself on the candidates may not always be the same thing but when you continually allude to the uneducated and who they are voting for it is quite clear your meaning otherwise you wouldn't mention the average educational background for Trump supporters. Also the word is condescension not condensation, unless you are trying to say I suck at turning gas into liquid. So next time when you are being condescending you might want to be more informed as to the spelling of words.
I will reply the appropriate part later, but for now, let me just say I knew you sucked at reading comprehension.
It's not condescension. It's how any educated feels when talking to the uneducated not willing to listen. [LOL] And right - does nothing to change the rest. You just gave yourself as the prime example of the uneducated public, unwilling to listen or think. You still haven't given any real thought on the key question here; are the mass always right? do they always want the right thing? Because - that's at the core of this problem. If anyone with power must be kept in check, that should apply to the mass as well; especially if that mass happens to be very ill-educated as it is with today's American public leaning right. Hell - THEIR votes will affect MY life. So I even showed how the republican policies make absolutely no sense [but you somehow skipped all that]. Of course, economic policy is but one tip of an iceberg of this con job. There are another facets of jokes like global warming denial, and don't even get me started on international politics. Trump will be an epic disaster. YET - the Republican supporting mass is giving him a runaway lead. Now, I am supposed to believe they are reasonable in that support? How? And you need to tell me why this Trump denunciation from the Republican party must stop; that's the candidate the mass want after all. [And of course, you haven't done that either. At least do your homework if you want to participate in the argument. All right?]