They forgot who decides elections

[otto105]

I remember, right after Trump won, a reporter on CNN or MSNBC (I don't remember which) made this big deal about how they were going to travel to the Midwest to get to "understand" the Trump voter.

What? You're a reporter and you don't understand half the story? You see the same things on the MAGA networks, of course, where it's clear they don't understand the Left in the least, so they just make it up.

A big part of the fucking mess we're in is that "news" is now a la carte. Choose the style you want, and don't worry about what they're not telling you.

Racism is hard to understand.

 

[frigidweirdo]

I watched 2 hours of both FOX News and CNN last week. Both sides felt very comfortable with their right-wing and left-wing soundbites and slogans. They both unfailingly interviewed only people who shared their respective views and told their hosts what they wanted to hear. I'm sorry to say this is not the best strategy. Both sides have forgotten just who decides elections in America, and it has nothing to do with redistricting, voter fraud, fake electors, Chinese airplanes dropping rice paper ballots or any other nonsense we've been hearing about. American elections are decided by independent and swing voters who make up over 30% of the American voter population. Suggestion for both sides of the political media: Stop preaching only to your own choir, get out of your comfort zones and start reaching out to those in the middle of the political spectrum. They might not always tell you what you want to hear, but without these folks on your side, you're lost!

Nonsense.
It's not voter fraud that decides elections
It's not fake electors that decides elections
It's THE SYSTEM that decides elections.
We know this because the US uses FPTP and we know that Germany uses Proportional Representation AND FPTP at the same time.

In 2017 the CDU/CSU gained 37.27% of the votes using FPTP.

They gained 231 seats from FPTP.
There were 299 FPTP seats up for grabs. 231 is 77.5% of the seats.
So, 37.27% of the votes gained then 77.5% of the seats.
Was this because of voter fraud? Nope. Was this because of "fake electors"? Nope.

It was because the system said so. Not the people. The system.

Now, luckily for the Germans Proportional Representation supersedes FPTP. So the CDU/CSU ended up with 246 seats from 709 seats available. 34.6% of the seats. Less than the percentage they got with FPTP.

Why? Well, because only 32.93% of voters decided to vote CDU/CSU with Proportional Representation.
You see, FPTP leads to NEGATIVE VOTING. When people see a close race between two parties, they'll vote AGAINST a party they don't like, rather than FOR a party they do like. So the CDU/CSU gained more votes because people will vote for the main two parties (the problem the US has).

Also, you see the FDP, they gained 7% of the vote with FPTP and they got ZERO SEATS. The CSU (Bavarian part of the CDU) gained 7.02% of the votes and took 46 seats.
However with PR they gained 10.75% of the votes, that's 3.75% of people who wanted to vote for them, but felt they couldn't because of negative voting.

They gained 80 (EIGHTY) seats with PR, and zero with FPTP. Because... well... because the system said so.

Not the people. The people got to vote on the same day, at the same time, and the SYSTEM made loads of people (more than 7% of the country) change their votes, because they felt they could vote smaller parties with PR and not with FPTP.

So, the US with TWO political parties using FPTP which is notorious for benefiting larger parties sees 98.4% of people voting for two parties. With Proportional Representation the two main parties would be lucky to get 66% of the vote combined.
And you're talking about "voter fraud" and "fake electors".
I mean, seriously, you're wasting your time, it's not the issue. The issue is THE SYSTEM.

 

[Blues Man]

That depends on who I vote for, doesn't it?

Not really.

Your vote doesn't really matter.

Politicians do not care what you think all they care about is serving their masters and that ain't you.

 

[Stryker___777]

I watched 2 hours of both FOX News and CNN last week.

Why waste 2 hours? These entities don't exist to me anymore.