Flashback: George W. Bush planned to fight if he won popular vote but lost Electoral College

So what if Gore wins such crucial battleground states as Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania and thus captures the magic 270 electoral votes while Bush wins the overall nationwide popular vote? "The one thing we don't do is roll over," says a Bush aide. "We fight."

How? The core of the emerging Bush strategy assumes a popular uprising, stoked by the Bushies themselves, of course. In league with the campaign - which is preparing talking points about the Electoral College's essential unfairness - a massive talk-radio operation would be encouraged. "We'd have ads, too," says a Bush aide, "and I think you can count on the media to fuel the thing big-time. Even papers that supported Gore might turn against him because the will of the people will have been thwarted.

" Local business leaders will be urged to lobby their customers, the clergy will be asked to speak up for the popular will and Team Bush will enlist as many Democrats as possible to scream as loud as they can. "You think 'Democrats for Democracy' would be a catchy term for them?" asks a Bush adviser.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/politics/trump-gay-marriage-abortion-supreme-court/

Why is there not a bigger push-back against Trump ascending to the presidency while losing by 2.2 million votes?

cause it is not the first time and won’t be the last..
 
I disagree with it even being an issue, this is literally the rules as they are written in effect.
this is 'representative democracy'. we do not have 'direct democracy' or 'live democracy' where each vote is counted individually.
 
We could, now days it would not be that hard as most of the logistical issues of direct democracy that became apparent when democracies grew bigger than a single settlement have been solved with technology.
But Direct Democracy has its own set of issues regarding demographics and concentrations of voters

the thing is I cant see either side saying it is a problem IF it were to cause them to win

it is the rule and this time it came down on the RW side, but there is not reason it could not happen for the LW too (current demographics make it unlikely)

True, the majority of the country is Democratic. However, I don't think abolishing the EC means mob rule or direct democracy, because every state still has its congressional representatives, and the Congress collectively is more powerful than the president.

And to his credit, after the election Trump was asked about the EC and he says he still doesn't like it.

Alexander Hamilton is also said to have expressed regret that the EC wasn't working at all as he had imagined it would. No need to hang onto something that isn't working.

I think we are pretty much at the point where If people where to push for it we could enable a far more direct democracy.

Personally I think the representatiives part that has failed as the system has become too good at weeding out REAL representatives of the people. leaving only corrupted corporate actors availble.

veya_victaous wrote:I think we are pretty much at the point where If people where to push for it we could enable a far more direct democracy.

Personally I think the representatiives part that has failed as the system has become too good at weeding out REAL representatives of the people. leaving only corrupted corporate actors availble.

There is a real problem with our representatives being made up only of the rich, and it reaches down all the way to the local level. I've never seen a city counselor who wasn't a local business owner. That's how they get started, and then they just rise up through the ranks if they can avoid pushing their stomach into an enemy to knock him over, which was an actual story I had to cover at one point.

It kind of points toward that "only landowners should get to vote" story I posted earlier -- we still have this mentality that worthiness presents itself through financial success. I want fucking poets and sculptors as our leaders.

We'll still not understand what they're going on about, but at least it would be thought-provoking

Let's face it...the US is simply not a democracy.

Agree Quill
it is a Corpocracy Masquerading as Democracy

@Ben
That is one of the cultural differences between our nations, it probably comes back to the convict past. Those people would never win a popular vote. We refer to it as 'tall poppy syndrome' the tendency to cut down those the get too tall combined with being a very anti-authoritarian nation. But we simply have career politicians instead that are probably less self serving but equally as useless. Join the student unions and campus politics, become a junior staffer for one of the parties and work your way up the ranks no different than any other office job 

One of the hopes for Turnbull, that hasn't come through, is that not being that may have made him different but he is much of a muchness, a lot better than Abbott that has recently been trying to gain support to challenge for party leadership but has been publicly smacked down by the business council

Bae the Cray wrote:

So what if Gore wins such crucial battleground states as Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania and thus captures the magic 270 electoral votes while Bush wins the overall nationwide popular vote? "The one thing we don't do is roll over," says a Bush aide. "We fight."

How? The core of the emerging Bush strategy assumes a popular uprising, stoked by the Bushies themselves, of course. In league with the campaign - which is preparing talking points about the Electoral College's essential unfairness - a massive talk-radio operation would be encouraged. "We'd have ads, too," says a Bush aide, "and I think you can count on the media to fuel the thing big-time. Even papers that supported Gore might turn against him because the will of the people will have been thwarted.

" Local business leaders will be urged to lobby their customers, the clergy will be asked to speak up for the popular will and Team Bush will enlist as many Democrats as possible to scream as loud as they can. "You think 'Democrats for Democracy' would be a catchy term for them?" asks a Bush adviser.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/politics/trump-gay-marriage-abortion-supreme-court/

Why is there not a bigger push-back against Trump ascending to the presidency while losing by 2.2 million votes?

Because democrats don't give a stuff?

After the Al Gore mess, Obama should have made efforts to change it. Of course Bush would have fought, that's what Republicans do, they fight and play up and get what they want. Democrats just roll over and play nice.

Some of you on here should run for President, you appear to be more intelligent, by your comments, than any other President in history !

.
        OF COURSE the USA isn't a genuine "democracy"...

It is an oligarchy, set up by various separatist, isolationist, reformist, capitalist and individualist factions, originally aiming for an imperfect representational democratic system that still protected it's states' 'rights' through both the Senate and hopefully it's "electoral colleges"...

And then allowed that dream to be corrupted by corporate interests in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, resulting in the undemocratic and misbegotten "corpocracy" that we see today.
Much the same as can also be seen in modern-day Japan and Germany, to some extent..


IF WE truly wanted a genuine "democracy" in any and all of our countries --  including Australia and Britain, as well --  we would need a more proportional system of representation.      
Rather than the current "two party" style of governance, along with its associated confrontational/adversarial styles of government/opposition, and all-too-often a "winner takes all" attitude..


THE AMERICAN education system also has its role to play;  and it keeps on programming it's citizens with their outright lies,  viz :

America is the greatest democracy on the planet.
America "won" World War Two.
The USA fought the Vietnam War single-handely.
Ronald Reagan defeated Soviet communism.
Capitalism good --  "socialism" bad.

Surely a more honest and open education system would help ?
Rather than a system inclined towards pushing corporate and political agendas..      

nicko wrote:Some of you on here should run for President, you appear to be more intelligent, by your comments, than any other President in history !

not quite
it doesn't matter how smart you are
the system will force you to conform to it's will
the lobbyists and interest groups have too much power
loopholes in the laws are bought and sold.

there is no doubt Turnbull our current PM is a very Smart man
and did seem to try and be different but has been
beaten into shape by vested interests to fit the mould