Yes I realise he didn't win the popular vote but what is your point?

That because the President is chosen not directly by the voters then arguably it's not really "how your country voted".

No, the voters did choose the president, but they did so via the electoral college rather than the popular vote. Different methods, both choose the president.

We're getting into semantics about direct vs indirect. Via the electoral college means that if you're in the minority, your vote turns into a vote for the opposite of what you want.

I realise no system is perfect but would you still say voters chose the President in a (hypothetical) even more heavily weighted system where the elected president lost the popular vote by 10percent? How about 20?

Trump has decided to retain a personal guard of private security personnel who do not report to the Secret Service, which I'm sure is totally normal and an arrangement that has never had bad outcomes anywhere else ever

http://prospect.org/article/trump%E2...nd-legal-swamp

No, it doesn't mean that at all. The link you provided proves that.

I think that neither you nor the people crying over Trump's win fail to understand how the electoral college works. The popular vote does not count in the electoral college system.

Fuck the popular vote, jesus I'm sick of hearing about it. Clinton and her team knew the rules at the start of the game and they lost. The end. Clinton fans just can't seem to grasp that TRUMP RAN A BETTER CAMPAIGN.

He campaigned hard in the states whose electoral votes would have the most impact. He didn't waste time and money sucking up to California liberals who would never vote for him anyway.

It's like hearing a losing team complain that they should have won because they scored more tries and that's a better indicator than the score of which team was the best . Fuck off.

In practice it does mean that as the majority takes all of a state's electoral votes.

I totally get that the popular vote is just an aggregate of all votes from all states. That there isn't a national election for President as such, rather there's separate state elections.

I'm saying that the popular vote is more representative of how the country voted rather than how they voted via the electoral college.

True. If Clinton won these same people would be saying the opposite. Merica.

yes, just like an electorate in new zealand
It's not though. It's representative of how Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Houston voted.

Edit - which is of course exactly why the Electoral College system was put in place. There's no way the southern states were going to sign on to be part of this fancy new "United States of America" bullshit if every election depended on the popular vote; the big cities of the day were all in the north.

#18thCenturyProblems

The EC was great "back in the day". The smaller states loved it because they got more power (per capita, I guess you'd call it), and it meant that the southern areas got just as much say into issues relevant to them (see: slaves) as the more populated north. It was also a little harder to reliably tally nationwide votes in the millions, than it is today.

Sure, it promotes sectionalism rather than populism, but that's the rules of the game and everyone knows it going in.

It's not going to change when those with the power to change it are benefiting from the way it is now.

Except, of course, the 60 odd electorates don't then decide the Prime Minister/ruling party.

If there's any time for a change of the status quo, I think it's when you've got two million more supporters on your side.

There's definitely some international cohesion going on. The Women's March drew millions of people worldwide. I didn't know it was happening until it happened, I'm not sure what other people knew leading up to it. Obviously a lot of motivated people were tuned in.

The 20 or so card carrying lesbians marching down Adelaide's main street were directly responsible for making me 10 minutes late to the gym.....very uncool ladies!

They don't do nothing either.

While it's not nothing, the popular approach has to be weighed up against the needs of the few. If it's turned into a purely populist approach, then whatever the liberal east/west coasters want would be the way, regardless of what the rest of the country wants. It naturally gravitates towards the urban centers.

It'd be like Auckland dictating the political stance for the rest of the country, purely based on population.

Nope, because a change to the status quo requires an amendment to the US Constitution, which requires the approval of a three-quarters majority of the states. The same situation exists: the southern, central, and rural states are never going to approve something that gives more power to the northern, coastal, and urbanised states.

Doesn't matter how many people are in favour of it.

The shift doesn't have to be so dramatic. Even some limits on gerrymandering might ease some of the frustration.

Doesn't the structure of the senate and the congressional districts ensure that rural and smaller states get decent political representation?

http://time.com/4354908/richard-dawk...toral-college/

Who knows how much truth there is to this, given that it's a post-truth society. It does sound plausible though. Anyway, if it is true, then maybe the best thing about the Trump presidency will have been that it was always going to be short because of Trump's inability to understand what he was doing. By contrast, Hillary would have certainly been in there for 4 years, possibly 8 if re-elected. If Trump isn't competent to navigate these legal waters, perhaps he won't even last the first year. One can hope.

http://secondnexus.com/politics-and-...3c354c456e1db2

Of course, the down side of that would be... Pence.

Overnight US climate scientists were banned from publishing any results, including “news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds and social media content”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ag-order-trump

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_..._epa_to_public

In general I think this will become a win for the environment. Banning something usually has the opposite effect that one was going for.

same goes for Department of Agriculture. Also told to stfu

Well, we don't really have any high horse to stand on in this regard. Our government is in the habit of gagging organisations dependant on public funding who might speak up in contrast to government narrative.

Finally a leader with nothing to lose. Hilarity ensues.

Not my president, I don't give a fuuuuuck.

Lets look at that list of countries.

Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

From an anti-Muslim PoV - No UAE? No Pakistan? No Indonesia? There's 176 million Muslims in India.. Forget about those?

From a national security perspective.. No Afghanistan? No Saudi?

Trump seems to base policy on whatever the last thing told to him was. If the last person who spoke to him didn't mention Afghanistan or Sudan, Trump doesn't know they exist.

That's one way of interpreting the news. Here's a scarier one: the office of the President just informed the State Dept's entire administrative team that they had resigned.

I really wish I could disagree with your interpretation, but I'd hope that even Trumps band of idiots would be smarter than that.

Reuters reports the story slightly differently.

Several senior State Department officials leave posts: officials

I don't understand why he's all upset about the popular vote - he won, didn't he? Why should it matter? What about the small size of the inauguration crowd? Why does that matter? He won! Why can't he just let unimportant things go?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trans...ry?id=45047602

Because he's a an egotistical man-child with serious mental issues who needs to be adored and admired, and he's not getting that.

Oh I agree.

I just wonder how many people (apart from himself) think the popular vote result is important? How many Americans give a toss? There must be much more important issues he could focus on, surely.

Problem with the media is that once a persona of a person is portrayed and the general public attach that persona to them, the media will forever deliver that persona because that's what the public want and expect and agree with and you won't see anything else.

::facepalm::

What, you think otherwise?

Since when for example would Bush be in the news for something other than looking and acting like a clueless monkey?

It wasn't until he was out that that any interviews with him appearing slightly normal were broadcast.

Okay, because I'm feeling like a cunt today I'll give you the "notes at the end of an essay" summary.

1. Starts with a monolithic conception of media.
2. Extends this to a monolithic conception of the audience AND grants them no agency. The 1940's called and want their "hypodermic needle / magic bullet" concept of media effects back.
3. Presumes that ALL audience interpret a text the same way (Stuart Hall would roll in his grave).
4. Contends that media are not dynamic and don't change positions (hint, try to not make wild claims like "forever" - they're impossible to defend.)
5. Contends that all media only produce "what the audience want" which clashes with your earlier claim that media frame an individual and the audience accept that. This is literally circular logic.
5a. Doesn't account for the role of economics and how different economic structures of outlets will produce different types of texts.

I'm not even going to go near your claims about Bush.

Oh man, Professor Nerdlinger has strapped on his bow tie!