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I've been continuing to update the Donald Trump page of the Second Renaissance to describe (based on historical examples and my best guesses) what I think we can expect from his administration. Some of you might have noticed I haven't mentioned much in regards to the "Russian Hacking" scandal. This is mainly because I don't think its got as much teeth to it as the public (and indeed Congress) would like to believe. I believe it will cast a peristant shadow over his presidency, and only strengthen the claims against his legitimacy... the thing is, barring incapacitation or a miracle from the electoral college, Donald Trump is the legitimate 45th President of the United States. And that's the true horror. The recall in Michigan and Wisconsin have only revealed that while he won the states narrowly (by less than a percent and never actually won a majority) under the law he did indeed win them. The electoral system is the law of the land, and whatever political machinations the Russians may have tried to engineer, it is unlikely that the revelations of the DNC hacks even came close to doing the same amount of damage that the Comey letter did with regard to shifting undecided voters away from Clinton.
Donald Trump is going to be our President, and while he does not have a mandate (which is why so many Republicans are making friends with Democrats to investigate him or block his cabinet appointees), he is legitimately the winner of the 2016 Elections. I repeat this because that fact is what should be the horrifying takeaway. He didn't cheat (as far as we can tell), he didn't buy the election (he spent around $40-50 million less than Clinton), 54% of the country voted for someone else, and in the three states that decided the election (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) more than half of those voters voted for someone else. And yet he gets to be the 45th President. No laws were broken, that's the true horror staring us in the face: Our election system doesn't work. It's not broken, corrupt, or hijacked. It never worked in the first place. The founders fucked up.
No matter what you do for the next 4 years, improving our election system must be top priority. We can't just get rid of the electoral college, because that would hand the election to the House of Representatives, but none of the proposed half measures would do any good either. Gerrymandering has made national version of the Nebraska System a guaranteed bust, and I'm not wild about the President becoming akin to a Prime Minister and Proportional systems would over-represent third parties. The solution is twofold: Abolish the Electoral College and Institute Ranked Choice Voting so the winner will always be someone a majority of the country is comfortable with. The President is an expression of the national will, and they should at the very least be reflective of that.
Donald Trump is going to be our President, and while he does not have a mandate (which is why so many Republicans are making friends with Democrats to investigate him or block his cabinet appointees), he is legitimately the winner of the 2016 Elections. I repeat this because that fact is what should be the horrifying takeaway. He didn't cheat (as far as we can tell), he didn't buy the election (he spent around $40-50 million less than Clinton), 54% of the country voted for someone else, and in the three states that decided the election (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) more than half of those voters voted for someone else. And yet he gets to be the 45th President. No laws were broken, that's the true horror staring us in the face: Our election system doesn't work. It's not broken, corrupt, or hijacked. It never worked in the first place. The founders fucked up.
No matter what you do for the next 4 years, improving our election system must be top priority. We can't just get rid of the electoral college, because that would hand the election to the House of Representatives, but none of the proposed half measures would do any good either. Gerrymandering has made national version of the Nebraska System a guaranteed bust, and I'm not wild about the President becoming akin to a Prime Minister and Proportional systems would over-represent third parties. The solution is twofold: Abolish the Electoral College and Institute Ranked Choice Voting so the winner will always be someone a majority of the country is comfortable with. The President is an expression of the national will, and they should at the very least be reflective of that.
Election Update
Joe Liberman is dead, and his co-founder at No Labels has announced that they will not field a candidate, and that he personally will be voting for Joe Biden. Robert Kennedy Jr. remains on the ballot in all of 3 states (Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Utah) and has only made an effort to gain ballot access in six more states. Cornell West's campaign is essentially dead, with him appearing on the ballot in only three states (South Carolina, Oregon, and Alaska) and having made hardly any effort to expand his own ballot access. Jill Stein is attempting another run for the Green Party nomination, but her only activity has almost completely dried up much like West's. Trump has secured his party's nomination with barely a fight from Haley or DeSantis, despite the Press all but inventing their viability as candidates. And Joe Biden's strongest source of opposition is from a tiny minority of anti-war democrats voting "None of the Above" in the primary, usually with public statements that they have
An Update on Election 2024
A lot of the unknowns around the 2024 Presidential Election are starting to solidify. The Republican Primary is already down to just two candidates, former President Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Biden is functionally running unopposed with crystal lady Marianne Williamson and Delusional Nobody Congressman Dean Phillips in the race with him. Beyond the primaries, the two independents of any note (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West) are struggling to raise money, maintain online support with the Russian bot networks going down, or get on the ballot in more than three states. In fact West and Kennedy have only managed to push through the paperwork for filing in all of a dozen states. The long touted biggest threat to the Biden Camp, the Republican financed, aging gomer led No Labels can't find a nominee, has failed to raise even a third of their targeted war chest, and is facing lawsuits from their biggest donors. I don't want to count my chickens before they
Forecast 2024
2024 will be a year of people's nerves being constantly frayed by the US Presidential Election and ever growing global instability. The Economy Most economists have signaled that 2023 is closing out with an economic "soft landing," avoiding a recession in favor of slow, but stable growth. As I've said before: traditional economic rules no longer apply, so while 2023 avoided an actual recession, 2024 will see the gap between reported economic data and people's lived experiences grow further apart. The Labor Shortage and Interest Rates The Labor Shortage will only get worse this year. Despite the end of the lockdowns and the normalization of COVID-19, 2023 saw 2.4 million excess retirees, nearly identical to the numbers in 2021. This has translated to a shortage of 3.5 million workers. Labor Force Participation has fallen to around 62.8%, which would have been an all time low if not for the lockdown. In fact this is a 3 year high for labor force participation. Rather than repeat
2023 Forecast Scorecard
Check out my original 2023 forecast here. Now let's begin: The Economy By all accounts 2023 has ended without a recession and an apparent "soft landing" if you judge economic health by unemployment and GDP growth. BUT, as I said before, the traditional economic rules no longer apply. The Labor Shortage is here, and what we're seeing is just the beginnings of employers competing for increasingly scarce labor. This has in turn led to a Big Capital Crunch as national banks raise interest rates, because that's all they know how to do. The only bit of good news is that the increase in wages has largely ended the NPL crisis, at least in the advanced industrialized world where mortgage delinquency rates are at historic lows. However, the Big Capital Crunch has exposed some weaknesses in a tech sector that since the Dot Com Crash has relied on extremely low interest rates to fuel a lot of "Free-to-Uses" business models, and server-heavy digital services. In English this means that a lot of
© 2016 - 2024 YNot1989
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So funny story, Canada is actually considering changing our own election system, which is at present a system known as "First Past the Post", which I thought was working fairly well until I found out that the Liberal party, headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, won a majority government with only 39% of the popular vote. I voted Liberal, and I think the system is royally screwed up when this happens.
And I could be wrong, but I think the main reason we're talking about this is because of the results of the American election, which, to say the least, were and are rather alarming.
So besides the present system mentioned above, we're considering Proportional Representation and Alternative Voting, and I'm afraid I personally am not well-informed enough to explain the differences between the three systems. I plan to change that in the next few days.
So basically, best of luck with changing your election system, everybody south of the border. You're not the only ones who've got some work to do on that score.
And I could be wrong, but I think the main reason we're talking about this is because of the results of the American election, which, to say the least, were and are rather alarming.
So besides the present system mentioned above, we're considering Proportional Representation and Alternative Voting, and I'm afraid I personally am not well-informed enough to explain the differences between the three systems. I plan to change that in the next few days.
So basically, best of luck with changing your election system, everybody south of the border. You're not the only ones who've got some work to do on that score.