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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Swartz wrote: |
| It's how the authoritarian mindset of the Levant who perhaps takes his Plato a bit too seriously works. |
Haha, I was just re-reading a bit of Plato a night or two ago actually. Gorgias, in honor of your accusations against my rhetorical style.
Thanks for the conversation. I'll think it over. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with Swartz about the insanity of the idea that the GOP could use the convention to take away the nomination from Trump if he is clearly ahead in the primaries, which it seems very likely he will be. If they give it to someone like Kaisch, than it will show how worthless the whole process is. Cruz, not as much, but Trump doesn't seem like the type of guy to go off into the night quietly. To have the US going on and on about democracy, but than complain that sometimes it produces bitter fruit and try to refuse to eat it seems equally as ugly a prospect as a Trump nomination.
BTW, pure curiosity, Swartz et. al. what is your take on Cruz (divorced from the fact that he is challenging Donald)? He also seems to dislike immigrants. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| [T]he insanity of the idea that the GOP could use the convention to take away the nomination from Trump if he is clearly ahead in the primaries, which it seems very likely he will be. If they give it to someone like Kaisch, than it will show how worthless the whole process is. Cruz, not as much, but Trump doesn't seem like the type of guy to go off into the night quietly. To have the US going on and on about democracy |
There seems to be a huge misunderstanding here. The Republican Party is not the US, party conventions are not democratic, and the party decides. Am I arguing in favor of the system? Certainly not. Nonetheless, if Trump fails to obtain a majority of delegates on the first ballot, most of those delegates become free to decide on another candidate within the rules adopted at the Convention. This last part is important: almost nowhere were the delegates assigned in direct proportion to how the votes were cast.
BTW, the US going on and on about democracy is a little like Burger King pitching how healthy its foods are.
"Hey, we have a Constitution dating from the Enlightenment, revised when we ended chattel slavery (revisions only implemented another 100 years after that), listen to us about how great democracy is!" |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Plain Meaning wrote: |
There seems to be a huge misunderstanding here. The Republican Party is not the US, party conventions are not democratic, and the party decides. |
Exactly correct. Indeed, if the primaries actually were and were intended to be purely democratic mechanisms, there would not be a delegate system in place, and certainly would not be anything like unbound delegates, "super delegates," or so forth. The process takes into account the opinions of the populace, but it is not truly democratic, and that is by design, just as the undemocratic character of the American government itself is by design. A lot of this comes back, again, to just how little the average American understands their own political system; frustrations frequently arise from misguided expectations. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Plain Meaning wrote: |
There seems to be a huge misunderstanding here. The Republican Party is not the US, party conventions are not democratic, and the party decides. |
Exactly correct. Indeed, if the primaries actually were and were intended to be purely democratic mechanisms, there would not be a delegate system in place, and certainly would not be anything like unbound delegates, "super delegates," or so forth. The process takes into account the opinions of the populace, but it is not truly democratic, and that is by design, just as the undemocratic character of the American government itself is by design. A lot of this comes back, again, to just how little the average American understands their own political system; frustrations frequently arise from misguided expectations. |
I agree, but would say that in normal times the party does not actively try to disabuse the people from their misguided expectations, because it is not in their interest to be forthright about the undemocratic nature of the primaries.
Also, when realistically there are only two parties, by the time you get to vote in the general, most of the important choices were already made. It's funny, one criticism of Iran's democracy is that the ayatollahs pick who can run or not, but in the us we have primaries that are designed to provide a similar function, albeit for two competing sides. It is a very constrained political system, which isn't ispo facto bad, except that the people have been willfully mislead about this fact. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
I agree, but would say that in normal times the party does not actively try to disabuse the people from their misguided expectations, because it is not in their interest to be forthright about the undemocratic nature of the primaries. |
That's right, the point is to build consensus and unity, reconciling the electorate with the opinion of party leaders. An excessively obviously rejection of electorate opinion could result in a lost election, it's true. On the other hand, the Republican Party embracing Mr. Trump could also have long-term consequences for the party, and the American public's political memory is very short, so it's not inconceivable that the party could see it as the lesser of two evils, depending on how they actually feel about the candidate in question. Proclamations that the Republican party is "doomed" if it rejects Mr. Trump are probably gross over-statements, assuming they're more careful in the future about managing the process, but there would certainly be some short-term fallout. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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GOP Primary Votes so far:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016
Trump: 8.26m, 755 delegates
Cruz: 6.32m, 521 d
Rubio: 3.48m, 177 d
Kasich: 2.98m, 141 d
The following two statements are true regarding votes:
Cruz's + another's > Trump's
Rubio's + Kasich's > Cruz's
The foregoing is untrue regarding delegates.
Trump can still capture a majority of the delegates with only a plurality of the votes. |
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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
I agree with Swartz about the insanity of the idea that the GOP could use the convention to take away the nomination from Trump if he is clearly ahead in the primaries, which it seems very likely he will be. If they give it to someone like Kaisch, than it will show how worthless the whole process is. Cruz, not as much, but Trump doesn't seem like the type of guy to go off into the night quietly. To have the US going on and on about democracy, but than complain that sometimes it produces bitter fruit and try to refuse to eat it seems equally as ugly a prospect as a Trump nomination.
BTW, pure curiosity, Swartz et. al. what is your take on Cruz (divorced from the fact that he is challenging Donald)? He also seems to dislike immigrants. |
....yes it would.
ILLEGAL immigrants. |
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