mtutiger

I'd argue that a national popular vote would do a lot more to get parties to campaign in front of people they don't normally cater to given that about 90% of the states are flat out ignored during the general election campaign under this current system

If you are a Democrat living in Overland Park, Kansas, you know. If you are a Republican living in Bakersfield you know. Since you brought up Texas, prior to this past election, I knew ahead of time my vote didn't matter. Its a stupid system for electing Presidents that, in itself, has done a lot of damage and has divided the populace as red states and blue states. If one were starting this experiment from scratch, they'd never consider utilizing it.

Except that isn't what we have... rather, we have a system where your vote only matters in 6-8 states and is irrelevant in the rest.

This seems a little too on the nose...

Rules for thee, not for me... Texas edition

Maybe I'm blind, but for the most part, I don't see the hatred in day to day life. And I work with and interact with people who don't think like me quite a bit. But the internet and social media amplifies a lot of differences. I wish we could go back to simpler times when that wasn't the case.

This seems like a buried lede to me. Unless I'm missing something

To be fair, everyone is in a bubble to varying extents. I tend to think a lot of the focus and discussion on bubbles tends to be pointed at the left, of course (recall the Peggy Noonan excerpt shared a few weeks ago) but there absolutely are right-wing bubbles as well.... Either way, I get that the general lean of the board is what it is and that it's not the most diverse set of opinions out there, especially since November 2016. And yeah, we all need to do a little more to be civil in discussion (something I have really tried working on, especially in this new iteration of the board). I guess my question is, when someone comes onto this board and constantly just talks about how dumb everyone else is and how they don't like America and how they are willing to "sacrifice their country" all because they simply hold a different perspective, should it be that big of a surprise that they don't exactly win back a lot of respect in the process? As I keep saying, it's a two-way street... I'll talk with anyone, but after about the 80th time of being told how terrible and dumb you are and how you hate America because of your views, it starts seeming pretty pointless to engage.

I don't think he's a troll either. My main issue is that you really don't get much of a response when you try to engage in good faith there. Points just get ignored and instead you get a bunch of "Old Man Bad" (see what I did there?) and "Democrats Bad" and "people on the board hate America" and stuff like that. It's a shame really.... you can want to engage in good faith with people of opposing views, but that's a two way street.... and it never really seems constructive with some folks.

fwiw, Rosenthal and Passan did report that they are talking today.

The ECA is pretty clear, and SCOTUS would have enforced it IMO. In terms of the hypothetical above, I'm a lot less clear on what would happen.

I can't really disagree with you on any of this. I just don't think it's a reason to not reform the ECA.

He would have been in violation of the ECA, it would have been litigated, the Supreme Court would have stepped in and the votes would have ultimately counted. My understanding is that the ECA reform is looking to remove any sort of ambiguity on the question in the hopes of preventing a repeat of this from happening again. But I'll admit that I haven't read enough about the reform negotiations beyond that to know completely about the details.

Is it really clear there was anything that could be done on January 6th, 2020 anyway?

I would just add that, in regard to Trump's reasoning on the travel ban and the "it's not against all Muslims, just those countries", I thought one of the most telling lines during his Presidency was the "shithole countries" remark. Not just because he referred to Haiti and African nations as "shithole countries", which is obviously terrible, but it was telling for the more forgotten part of that diatribe, where he lamented that "we should have more people from Norway". It's telling in that the large majority of immigration in the United States has generally happened because those immigrating are trying to escape something.... again, all of my ancestors (who immigrated during various centurites) were trying to escape economic hardship or war. People in Norway? They aren't immigrating because, you know, why the hell would you leave Norway? At best, it's just a fundamental misreading of the history of immigration in the United States... but I don't give Trump the benefit of the doubt on that.

Talk about a false choice... it's not even clear to me that the travel ban stopped any terror attacks from happening. Either way, what I don't get is that, at least in my experience, people who come here don't like their governments and like ours and our way of life better. For some reason, a lot people have trouble separating feelings about the governments of a place like Iran, Libya, etc with people who may want to come here from there. It's punitive against people who may want to come here for the same reason that my ancestors came here for. It's kinda sad and bigoted

The couple of people that I've met who came here from those countries, like most immigrants, appreciate America more than actual Americans do. And they came here because of the opportunity we provide. Maybe, just maybe, don't paint with a broad brush. Just because Trump singled out a country doesn't mean everyone from that country hates us.

Have you ever met anyone from any of those countries?

I do think people overestimate how many people listen to Podcasts.... like most things, the conversation seems to be dominated by white collar types who have the time or inclination to listen to Podcasts.. Overall, terrestrial radio is still a much bigger player in this space.

The Muslim ban didn't make me feel any safer. What it did do was produce a chill upon those looking to immigrate and come through legal means to this country to study or to work. I would know having been in contact with and befriending those who came here to do just that... they felt that it was punitive, and given Trump's past history of comments about Muslims, hard to disagree with them. I'd just add that in terms of threats, the threat of domestic terror, particularly from right wing groups, seems higher right now.

Shouldn't surprise anyone that, sure enough, Roody and the gang wasn't just freelancing this stuff...

This seems like a wild framing given that almost half of the sample either hasn't heard of or has no opinion on Joe Rogan.

As expected