This is how it should be, you have problem, you go to your representative, they sort it out for you. You then vote for them because you know they will sort shit out for you and help you out, not just give you a nice speech.
@@cookednick He's being too kind if anything. I like Jon, but he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about here. The electoral college was in no way designed to balance out the rest of the country vs cities, nor has it ever actually done so. It's not even a debate. Sorry in advance for the wall of text, but: For one thing, there barely were cities in 18th century America. The population of the whole country was ~4M in 1790. The population of NYC, the largest city, was just 33K or 0.825% - by the time you reach city #3 you're at only 18K (Boston). In 2020 the population of NYC is 8.8M out of 331.5M which is 2.65%, a more than 3-fold increase. There were serious discussions about capping the number of people per House rep at a max of just 50,000 (they were starting with 1 per 30K). Today there is 1 per 700K, and their original scheme would call for at least 6,620 House reps. The industrial revolution wasn't really in full swing yet - people like Jefferson thought we'd always be largely agrarian (and that this was preferable). It simply wasn't at the top of their mind - the compromise was about big vs small states, not urban vs rural exactly. And it is possible to have a giant state with no cities, or a small state that's dominated by one big city, though it's probably unlikely. But presumably if cities would dominate the country they'd also tend to dominate the states where they reside, since those lines weren't drawn with that in mind. Yet a state dominated by 1 or more large cities (e.g. NY) would never be affected by this EC policy. But even for big vs small states, the number of electors is apportioned pretty closely to the state population. It's the number of House reps plus the number of senators. Small states are advantaged a bit because each state is guaranteed at least 1 House seat (though this only helps Wyoming currently) and because the "senator electors" boost their standing a little bit. So Wyoming is 0.18% of the country and gets 3 EC votes which is 0.56% of the total - that's a pretty extreme case, though - Montana is boosted from 0.33% to the same 0.56%. But even this advantage would erode if the House had continued expanding as it had prior to ~1928 (Republicans stopped reapportionment to prevent further dilution of the power of rural voters). The only reason the EC currently advantages the more rural GOP is through luck and the winner-take-all system, though (which is totally optional, not written into the Constitution, and not operative at the time it was ratified). It would be easy to imagine Dems in slightly bigger cities having a lock on, say, FL, while running at much bigger deficits in safe states, such that they lose the popular vote and still win on the strength of cities. Or for a 3rd/4th parties to run (as frequently happened in the past) siphoning votes away from Republicans and handing it to Dems as the largest united party. But don't take my word for it; just look at the EC operating in practice. The EC winner has always agreed with the popular vote winner, with 1 exception prior to Bush/Trump (Hayes also didn't win the popular vote, but he struck a deal with Congress in return for ending Reconstruction). So if it was the intention, they failed at it *really* badly. The real purpose of the EC was, for one, to defy the will of the people if necessary, which might include faithless electors *not* voting for someone unfit like William Jennings Bryan, even if he was a rural favorite and most popular nationally. The people and their passions were not to be trusted with electing a POTUS directly - instead they would elect the people (state legislators) who would then decide how to pick the people who would do the choosing, with the people always being at least 1 step removed. The other thing the EC was supposed to prevent any kind of entrenched scheming/co-option, whether by foreign governments or partisan operators, owing to its transient nature. Electors are chosen all across the nation in their respective states, and then they get together and pick a POTUS before disbanding. It was a thoroughly elitist institution, establishment vs commoners. It just never worked the way it was supposed to for a few reasons.
The Electoral College is in place to prevent us from becoming the United States of New York and California. The states are each supposed to have a certain level of independence, and the culture, values, and economy are different from state to state. If we just had a national popular vote, then people in California could bully people in say, Georgia because of larger numbers, despite the fact that people in Georgia live under vastly different conditions. This is why we are a republic rather than a straight up democracy. Because without those constraints, democracy is just the right of the 51% to enslave the 49%.
But wouldn't going with the popular vote make the most amount of people happy? It might neglect the farmers, but the alternative is making more people sad than happy with the results.
That argument really makes no sense. All you're doing is replacing rule by the majority with rule by the minority... which is significantly worse, hence the problem with the EC. Now instead of large states getting their way, we have small states getting their way. Unfortunately, small states getting their way leads to a shit ton of problems for the country and the world as a byproduct.
A lie. The electoral college is in place because the founders did not trust the people to choose the chief executive. That was its purpose, to prevent the electorate, believed to be uneducated and fickle, from falling prety to a demagogue. The election of Trump isn't a "feature" of the electoral college, it is exactly what it was designed to prevent. Blow's smug stupidity on this topic is extraordinary.
@@Lestibournes Direct democracy would be referenda for every issue. The Electoral College isn't based on "certain types of population"... It's based on arbitrary state boundaries. Much of NY, Illinois, Texas, and California are just as rural as Wyoming, however those rural voters count less. Explain again why...
@@stumbling the problem is that the number of reps in the House hasn’t changed since 1929, and the gap between the most populous and least populous states has grown dramatically. Even if a few reps get shuffled around, the 435 rep cap doesn’t give the most populous states nearly there ‘fair share’ of representation. Add to that the Senate and Electoral College and you’re giving a heavier bias to less-populous states as the more-populous states continue to grow at a faster rate.
I personally dislike stuff like electoral college because it's winner takes all instead of this person got 40% of the votes here so they get 40% of the thing for this place, etc.
Nobody designed the Electoral College as it exists today. It's a historic accident. The original plan was for each district to individually elect an elector, like their House representative. State legislatures quickly realized that sending a block of pledged electors would improve their partisan candidate's chances. All states eventually did that.
The US has some major problems with how they elect their president, the electoral collage might not be that bad, but FPTP and how some states don't split their electoral votes based on what people voted just causes a two-party system with a big political divide
That's because the US is (supposed to be) a federation of sovereign states, so the state get the representation and decide individually how to apportion it.
Hey, thank you for the edit. I wonder if you would mind if I translate some of the videos in your channel and post them on a Chinese website (RU-vid is unavailable in China) ?
You've probably moved on with your life since you made this comment, but I'd like to point out that what you described is generally permissible without needing to ask for permission, and especially permissible when the content in question is already adapted from someone else (in this case Jonathan Blow made the original stream and Blow Fan just edited it together).
@@dingolover6969 Thanks for clarifying. I usually leave a message in case somebody has a problem with it. I haven't been able to post this video on the Chinese website because anything vaguely "political" is censored haha
I don't mind the electoral college. But to say only Trump offered a response to economic problems right after discussing Bernie? That's a dumb comment right there. Bernie was arguing for capitalism with a safety net. The reason he lost (besides the DNC's rigging) is that he made the mistake of calling that socialism. But he would've done a better job fixing the US than anyone since FDR.
It could be argued that Denmark is much closer to Bernie's idea of socialism than to US-style capitalism: extensive healthcare, heavily progressive taxation, extensive welfare, strong state and so on. Also, Denmark's current government seems to lean to the right, so it would interest them to push away the socialist label.
That's true, but only because he's using the word to describe something that is not socialist at all. Socialism is a system in which the means of production are distributed, so that capital cannot be privately horded, traded, and rented, ie privately owned. If the economy is driven by private property and enterprise, it's by definition not socialist in the way socialism is usually understood.
@@AN4RCHID When you say "he's using the word" I understand you mean Sanders? I agree, but one could argue that "distribution of the means of production" can have a bunch of different meanings as well. For example, that could simply mean that the state owns everything, like in the late USSR and North Korea. Or you could have it half-ways, like contemporary China. Or maybe you could introduce a whole new idea of public distribution, bringing democratic processes to previously privately-conducted business (such as Richard Wolf's idea that every worker in every company should be able to vote for the company's decisions, distributing the responsabilities and financial returns equally among them). I'm not defending those ideas, mind you, I'm simply saying that the word "socialism" is not as clear-cut as Jon seems to argue. therefore, one could mean a bunch of different things when saying that "Denmark is (a little) socialist".
US's problems all come form socialist aspect of the government. Like Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare forcing healthcare system costs for users through the roof. This is not capitalism.
This has already been said many times but blow isn't really that in tune with the reality of politics, he kinda just shoots shit and thinks what he says is unjustifiably the truth.
Blow could not possibly be more wrong about how the electoral college was constructed. The current state of the electoral college barely resembles how it functioned when created. He learned that in grade school. He forgot it completely, then called others stupid for not "knowing" something that is widly incorrect.
I was willing to believe you but you didn't even make your own point, just criticized john for not understanding that it is "obviously" something different yet you didn't explain it yourself. Just makes you look mad because muh "not my tribe".
The US should replace its first-past-the-post electoral model with the preferential model used in the australian lower house. It forces candidates to govern from the centre, rather than for the base. Arrogant Australian members are regularly defeated by plucky independents. Preferences destroys the "sure, throw your vote away!" dynamic.
@@nolram that how it still ends up being in practice in all large countries. One party on each side earns most votes pretty much every single time because they dont want the other side to win, even if you have to vote for a party that you ideally wouldn't vote for.
@@stumbling You'll lose freedom of travel, a ton of customer protection laws, basic human rights enforcement and uncountable ammount of opportunities EU provides to everyone. In exchange you don't get to pay taxes to EU and be proud nationalists. I guess it's a win win these days.
@@Nors2Ka The EU doesn't provide shit. We've been paying in billions and getting out millions with a shiny EU placard. The whole thing is a scam. We have our own consumer protection laws and worker's rights that predate EU legislation. Human Rights are another scam (totally misleading title as half of the so-called rights are actually obligations) that prevented us from deporting rapists if they claimed they would be persecuted in their native country. Travel is a non-issue, we manage to travel outside the EU all the time, plus we were never in Shengen.
@@stumbling Well, good for you then, I guess. Except, that was never the argumentation of original referendum. The popular opinion at the time was a nationalistic one: get rid of the immigrants that take only the benefits with no effort. Even the politicians pushing for Brexit didn't mention any of the things you just did, in fact I don't remember them giving any concrete reason whatsoever. Also, as good as it could be, you are also not representing much of UK.
@@Nors2Ka smh Everyone who voted leave is racist. There you go. That's what you want to hear. You couldn't possibly be listening to the wrong people. I know I was, I voted remain!
There's one argument Jonathan blow doesn't mention: saying the result of the votes is not popular is false : people know what system they're voting in, and vote according to that... if the system had been different, I think Trump would still have won in a way that worked for that other system!
The original design had to do with balancing the power of landowners, which were the only ones allowed to vote and accounted for less than 10% of the population. Why outdated voting systems keep carrying on everywhere in the world despite obvious problems is beyond me.
It's easy for topics to go "off topics" when streaming for long times, when you sometime have to have a mini break from your workflow. Plenty of people talk about politics in context where it is not appropriate. Not saying he should talk more about politics, just stating that if he does, it's a very excusable "blunder".
Right off the bat, Bernie calls himself a Democratic Socialist (ala countries like Denmark) and he draws the distinction between his policy positions and the positions a straight-ahead Socialist would hold. And "Almost 50%! That's not a minority..." SMH. I wonder why RU-vid is pushing this video? Dude is entitled to speak and everything, but he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. Is he mostly a video game guy or something? EDIT: Having looked at some of his game design stuff, this is a fascinating dude. hearing him spout off half-cocked about what very clearly is not his area of expertise was an unfortunate intro to him.
And the idea that there's a greater diversity of thought in rural populations and that's one of the reasons for the electoral college is something he just pulled out of his ass, for what's its worth....
@@jellyfin449 Fearing that without electoral college a minority of the population would be underrepresented. Meanwhile said minority is the most adamant about erasing the voices of smaller minorities.
I mean to be fair to him, he did clarify seconds later that it is not a “small minority”, but yeah while he’s more informed than most, this is clearly not his area of expertise.
He's articulating what are basically the historical motivations behind the electoral college, ideas that most people today aren't properly exposed to. Just because you don't agree with the argument doesn't mean it's uninformed. Honestly that's a pretty shallow criticism. And to be honest, I actually find the "electoral college bad because democracy" argument far more uninformed, because it's typically made from a *lack* of knowledge about civics, a very surface-level criticism that people are voting and therefore the bigger number should win without an understanding of the checks and balances needed to maintain a healthy republic.
> Bernie calls himself a Democratic Socialist (ala countries like Denmark) It's probably more correct to call it social democracy than democratic socialism. But hey, people use definitions slightly differently and thats ok because human language isn't that precise. I do however agree that Berine isn't campaigning on any kind of platform for socialism, thats probably just FUD spread by his political opponents (democrats and republicans). It seems very easy to scare Americans by using any terms with the word 'social' in them regardless of what it actually means.
3:18 This is an insane person talking. When the constitution was created, the rural population way outnumbered city populations. Wtf is he talking about. Don't get your history from someone who makes a rewind game you liked wherein you rewind and revise history.
Wrong. 1787 was well into the industrial age. Anyway, your point is redundant as the principal works both ways; if the rural areas dominated then urban areas would be compensated in the electoral college. Of course this doesn't confer directly to cities but for most states one or two cities comprise the majority of the state population.
the thing that people always seem to miss for some reason is that instead of cities walking all over rural areas with a greater representation, we just have rural areas walking all over cities with lesser representation
@@Godunman, nobody misses that. Everyone knows it's the starting point to the whole discussion. What people like you always seem to miss is that cities are by nature a more artificial environment because of economics of scale. So if what works in cities was applied everywhere, nobody would (could afford to) live outside big cities and the whole system would collapse. What you're saying is a good way to rule numbers. Not people or anything in the real world.
@@seriouscat2231 the vast majority of Americans live in large metropolitan areas, that is exactly the real world! the people that live outside that *are* the exception
@@Godunman, the number of people does not make it real. What is real is not the result of a vote or the sum of opinions. The whole point of cities is to shelter and isolate those masses from nature, so they can focus on all kinds of socially created worlds.
4:00 - Problem is these days people in cities watch many different videos from all around the world, and now people in cities don't all have a group think mentality, there is hundreds of channels with different ideas, and so people in cities don't just listen to the ideas of people close to them in the cities. So what we really need is multiple representatives in one city as in small groups running a city, rather then a single Mayor or MP, we need to try aim to get the majority of people represented, and so if over 30% of people vote for someone they should get a representative, and we also want with local representatives for them to be doing things for the people that they represent, so we can't just have Proportional Representation as then it will end up not being personalised representation, it will just become like statistical analysis, and detached from people and just trying to represent what people want over actually talking to people and trying to work out what is best for those they represent. So what we need is simply in large cities for there to be more then one representative that works with the people that voted for them in large amounts. Especially when 30% vote for someone, then 31% vote for someone, and then 35% vote for someone else, that is 61% of people not really being represented by the 33% candidate, and so we can't have that. As it's not fair, we have to have anyone that gets over 30% of the vote working together and coming to agreements. So the mass majorities feel represented.
@Seth Jones And Ben Carson is a brain surgeon, and he believes that the pyramids were used to store grain. The fact that a person excels in one area requiring a specific type of intelligence does not grant them an automatic pass as an authority on all topics.
