Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democrat Jeff Horwitt, said Mr. Trump’s standing remained stable despite the political equivalent of getting repeatedly battered by Category 5 hurricanes. “Those are remarkable findings that speak to the power of our partisan silos,” Mr. McInturff said. Americans Are More Troubled by Police Actions in Killing of George Floyd Than by Violence at Protests, Poll Finds One man's Deep State is another man's Continuity of Government... or really, the same man depending on whether he's in power or out. I'm coming around to the realization that the most important thing this country can do is adopt true representational democracy. The entire concept of the electoral college, the whole purpose of the Senate is to entrench minority power.Since the midterm elections—a period that included the release of the Mueller report, an impeachment, a pandemic and civil-rights upheaval—Mr. Trump’s approval rating has never dipped below 43% and has never risen above 47%, according to 18 polls during that time.
Would love to hear the fleshed-out means to your ends here. Certainly it may function this way but I think it'd be silly to call it the purpose. On the topic of "true" representational democracy: we have the means to make this happen in a literal sense in a way that we didn't when our democracy was first established. But its consequences are pretty obvious, so I wonder again if you mean what you say literally.The entire concept of the electoral college, the whole purpose of the Senate is to entrench minority power.
The form of the Senate and EC were reached on separate compromises for separate reasons. The Senate being equal representative of states was demanded by a group of a couple small states who basically held the convention hostage. Interestingly, representation in the Senate is the only thing in the Constitution that isn't amendable except by consent of the state(s) who would be affected (so essentially not possible). The EC was a deal about slavery, full stop. They didn't envision a two party system at the time, instead probably a few candidates who would gather regional support. The EC could then function as a sort of parliamentary tool for choosing who could win, with horse trading and the like. It gave the southern states a hedge against all the northern states banding together with a single anti-slavery candidate, since its outsize voting power now gave it enough votes to block a candidate supported only by the north. They were both shitty deals, but it was the price of getting a deal done. Both are vestigial bodies that have no place in a modern world. The Senate, I'm afraid, we're stuck with. The EC could be made moot by the popular election pledge that many states are making into law. Basically the law says that the state will assign all its EC votes to the winner of the popular vote. If states with 269 EC votes adopt this law, the EC problem is solved without a constitutional amendment. Edit: I guess what I want to highlight is that there's an enduring myth that these institutions had some brilliant political theory behind them, that the Founding Fathers had genius and vision, and not that they were the result of shitty people acting like shit heads because they saw that they could get a better deal for themselves. Same as it ever was.
OK, I realize I misread kb's post on that one; the establishment of the Senate was quite literally, as you said, for the purpose of appeasing the smaller states (minority power). I had it in my head that he was arguing that the Senate was established to oppress minority states. Anyway thanks for the reminder that I need to brush up on my constitutional history. Well, maybe that's kind of what makes it brilliant. It wasn't a product of some monarch's self-proclaimed genius, or divine intervention, or academic experts who, given the time period, believed most ailments could be solved by slapping some cocaine on it. Instead, it was a series of power-brokering, leveraging for selfish ends, truly politics as we know it until a compromise was reached. I'd argue that's what makes it a reliable, integral document: its means and motives are no mystery at all, they're unabashedly human. e- then again this whole experiment was designed with great exclusivity by a very small group of people who absolutely loved themselves, so its a flimsy point to make on my part.Edit: I guess what I want to highlight is that there's an enduring myth that these institutions had some brilliant political theory behind them, that the Founding Fathers had genius and vision, and not that they were the result of shitty people acting like shit heads because they saw that they could get a better deal for themselves. Same as it ever was.
Trump didn't know what happened at pearl harbor, so my guess is he's not too up on Kent State, in which 4 people were killed and 50 years hence we still talk about it as being the nadir of the anti war years. I don't think this country has any tolerance for the military killing Americans. Hell, we killed Awlaki overseas and it ignited an uproar.