Maybe, but going against Isreal has been political suicide up until now. The more protests, the easier it makes deviating from unconditional support, which again, has been unbroken US policy since the beginning of Isreal.
Add to that how important our foothold in Isreal is to the US both militarily and economically (in the form of ensuring the safety of shipping down the seas), it’s a huge deal to go against Isreal.
So yeah, protests help give an excuse. It doesn’t mean it’s changed anyone’s minds on the morality of it all, but that it frees them to actually act on something previously untouchable.
Israel’s popularity has been dropping like a hot rock since the age of social media. But this was even worse. 50% of Americans think Israel has gone too far and another 35% think it’s okay but they shouldn’t keep going. Israel really screwed up.
I don’t have much knowledge here, but my impression is that the US helps protect shipping lanes in the Mediterranean, particularly when there’s trouble. And Isreal being a close ally gives them access to their naval port, and just a friendly place to stage from.
We have a ton of bases in the region. Basically every internationally aligned oil producer lets us dock there. We have specific bases in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Djibouti. On the North side we have NATO bases.
And, in a roundabout way, you can thank the Electoral College. Because if the popular vote was all that counted, he might decide that the 100k votes in Michigan were worth staying uncommitted so he could pick up the pro-Israel lobby elsewhere, like on Long Island and in NYC. But Biden is all but guaranteed to win NY, while Michigan is a toss-up.
Florida also has a sizable Jewish population, but the former swing state has turned red from an influx of retirees over the past several election cycles.
A mass migration of Northeasterners and Midwesterners into Florida, many of them conservatives leaving Democratic states, has led to the state’s politics turning sharply to the right, experts say.
“The notion of the ‘Big Sort’ … is really proving itself,” said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst. “That’s the idea that people move based on the politics. … For a lot of retirees, places like Florida are appealing, especially if they’re already conservative.”
Many of those new residents may have been attracted to Florida because they see it as a right-leaning state, said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, especially amid Gov. Ron DeSantis’ opposition to almost all COVID-19 restrictions.
But it also goes the other way … “If you’re a liberal retiree up in the Northeast, if you’re Jewish retiree in New York City right now, you see this stuff out of Florida, the Nazis and stuff, do you really think you’re going to come down here?” Isbell said.
What that article fails to mention is that the number of people kept from voting under one pretense or the other completely dwarfs the number of people moving to Florida from other states.
For example, a few years ago, the people of Florida voted to restore voting rights to convicted felons wo had served their time and thus paid their debt to society. The GOP reacted by imposing likely unconstitutional financial conditions, effectively re-disenfeanchising almost 775k of them for being too poor to pay for their own incarceration and enslavement.
That’s more than two and a half times as many as the total population increase of Florida last year,including births, adults moving to the state who are NOT GOP voters etc.
Then you add the fact that traditionally democratic big cities have too few polling places by design and more people who can’t take the several hours it takes to stand in line to vote in a red state city without losing their income, incurring childcare costs they can’t afford or both.
Then you have all the people who were struck from voter rolls, more than 3 times as many as the total population increase, a probable majority of which were likely Dem voters struck without a valid reason.
All in all, elderly Republicans moving to Florida is a bucket of water compared to the ocean that is Republican voter suppression.
“The notion of the ‘Big Sort’ … is really proving itself,” said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst.
(bold added for emphasis)
Maybe he’s in on the joke (?)
Edit #1:
I was being sarcastic, and thought the context was obvious.
Edit #2:
effectively re-disenfeanchising almost 775k of them for being too poor to pay for their own incarceration and enslavement.
That’s more than two and a half times as many as the total population increase of Florida last year
Yes, last year. But the article cites a multi-year trend:
Since April 2020, nearly 819,000 people have moved to Florida from within the U.S.
The reasons for Florida’s Democratic-to-Republican swing don’t necessarily have to be either one or the other; they can be both, which in this case they are.
The idea of the Electoral College makes more sense when you consider it to be the weighted average of 50 elections. It keeps elections confined to a state-by-state event. Imagine the shit show if we had a full popular vote, and a candidate won by 5 votes, so the entire country got recounted?
But having the Electoral College be actual people is silly. And it’s weighted all wrong, because the House hasn’t expanded in 100+ years. Maybe if the House were twice it’s size, things might be more representative.
There is an actual algorithm to determine House apportionment based on the population in the 50 states. One of these days, I want to take the time to figure out if Trump would still have won if the House were twice the size in 2016, or whether that would have skewed the weightings just enough for Clinton to have won.
Your statement about recounts makes no sense. We can still hold elections on a state by state basis, and determine the winner via popular vote. That would not require a full 50 state recount. It would require individual recounts in states where the votes were within the recount margin. This is precisely what the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact is attempting to do right now, and what should have been done long ago.
I believe that if we had a full-on popular vote for President, and each state’s margin was outside their recount threshold, but the total popular vote was extremely close, the losing side would petition to have all 50 states recounted. Some states would oblige, under the notion that the total popular vote is what counts, and that is within their threshold, while others won’t, because they will use the text of the recount law as written. it will all be inconsistent, and up to the opinions of dozens of judges. Imagine the chaos of 2000 in Florida, times 51.
If the NPV compact goes forward, then I think it is more likely that recounts would be triggered everywhere if the popular vote is close enough, because it specifically allocates electors based on that. And if recounts are going on in any one state by the Safe Harbor deadline, there will be a push to certify both slates of electors in every NPV state.
NPV is a good idea, but is a ticking time bomb. If we decide we want to have the Presidency decided via popular vote, we are better off ripping up the entire EC and starting over from scratch. The NPV compact should be seen a just the first step toward that.
In Federalist 68, Hamilton gave some reasoning as to why the Electoral College exists. Now, I think the Federalist papers should be treated with some care. They’re often post-facto attempts at justifying committee decisions when that committee had been sitting in meetings all day and just signed off on something. That’s very likely what happened with the Electoral College.
That said, the explicit reasoning in Fed68 was to stop someone like Trump:
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,‘’ yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
Additionally, it’s also justifying decisions in light of pro-royalist critics (both foreign and domestic) who said democracy was a trap and the rabble can’t be trusted to decide on their leaders. As a result, the Constitution doesn’t go all in on democracy, and you have this stuff above about one of these not-quite-democratic mechanisms are meant to prevent a populist dullard from gaining the office.
Those royalist critics are all but extinct now, but we’re stuck with some of the things designed to counter their objections.
Since then, the US has put in several measures undoing some of the not-quite-democratic stuff. For example, universal suffrage, President and Vice President elected as a pair, senators elected by the popular vote of their state, and the parties having primaries instead of appointing candidates. It’s been an improvement for the common people at every step of the way. Fledgling democracies looking for how to structure their government have largely not chosen to repeat the mistakes of the US; not even one’s the US itself helped setup, like Germany, Japan, and Iraq. They’ve preferred European-style parliamentary systems.
So we’ve got this Electoral College thing that, at best, is there to counter arguments nobody makes any more, and at worst, was rubber stamped by a committee that wanted to go home for the day. It’s shit, and it needs to go.
I assume that threat is on the table at this point. If we blow our whole wad at once, we won’t be able to ratchet up the pressure each time we need to. Between letting Netanyahu’s political rivals meet with the US government and the VP speaking up now, too. The pattern of incremental pressure is pretty apparent. We don’t want to end up in a situation where we have no leverage left and the war continues.
Meanwhile, Trump is saying Israel should “finish the job” in Gaza.
I understand that it’s a really hard situation to navigate through. It’s not easy to just unilaterally go against a long term ally overnight. It’s a horrible situation that I’d hate to be in charge of.
Overdue.
Overdue, but still welcome. I’m gonna assume/pretend it was the less than stellar showing in Michigan that finally got to him.
Maybe, but going against Isreal has been political suicide up until now. The more protests, the easier it makes deviating from unconditional support, which again, has been unbroken US policy since the beginning of Isreal.
Add to that how important our foothold in Isreal is to the US both militarily and economically (in the form of ensuring the safety of shipping down the seas), it’s a huge deal to go against Isreal.
So yeah, protests help give an excuse. It doesn’t mean it’s changed anyone’s minds on the morality of it all, but that it frees them to actually act on something previously untouchable.
Israel’s popularity has been dropping like a hot rock since the age of social media. But this was even worse. 50% of Americans think Israel has gone too far and another 35% think it’s okay but they shouldn’t keep going. Israel really screwed up.
Can you explain how Israel would help in ensuring the safety of shipping? I’d think their location doesn’t really make them much of an influence
I don’t have much knowledge here, but my impression is that the US helps protect shipping lanes in the Mediterranean, particularly when there’s trouble. And Isreal being a close ally gives them access to their naval port, and just a friendly place to stage from.
We have a ton of bases in the region. Basically every internationally aligned oil producer lets us dock there. We have specific bases in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Djibouti. On the North side we have NATO bases.
Israel is absolutely not required.
And, in a roundabout way, you can thank the Electoral College. Because if the popular vote was all that counted, he might decide that the 100k votes in Michigan were worth staying uncommitted so he could pick up the pro-Israel lobby elsewhere, like on Long Island and in NYC. But Biden is all but guaranteed to win NY, while Michigan is a toss-up.
Florida also has a sizable Jewish population, but the former swing state has turned red from an influx of retirees over the past several election cycles.
If by “influx of retirees” you mean “even worse systemic election tampering than there already was”, then yes.
The majority of the people in Florida aren’t Republicans. Only the majority of the people the Republicans allow to vote.
source: Orlando Sentinel, via Internet Archive
What that article fails to mention is that the number of people kept from voting under one pretense or the other completely dwarfs the number of people moving to Florida from other states.
For example, a few years ago, the people of Florida voted to restore voting rights to convicted felons wo had served their time and thus paid their debt to society. The GOP reacted by imposing likely unconstitutional financial conditions, effectively re-disenfeanchising almost 775k of them for being too poor to pay for their own incarceration and enslavement.
That’s more than two and a half times as many as the total population increase of Florida last year,including births, adults moving to the state who are NOT GOP voters etc.
Then you add the fact that traditionally democratic big cities have too few polling places by design and more people who can’t take the several hours it takes to stand in line to vote in a red state city without losing their income, incurring childcare costs they can’t afford or both.
Then you have all the people who were struck from voter rolls, more than 3 times as many as the total population increase, a probable majority of which were likely Dem voters struck without a valid reason.
All in all, elderly Republicans moving to Florida is a bucket of water compared to the ocean that is Republican voter suppression.
(bold added for emphasis)
Maybe he’s in on the joke (?)
Edit #1:
I was being sarcastic, and thought the context was obvious.
Edit #2:
Yes, last year. But the article cites a multi-year trend:
The reasons for Florida’s Democratic-to-Republican swing don’t necessarily have to be either one or the other; they can be both, which in this case they are.
As if liberal “analysts” aren’t frequently jokes themselves 🙄
No he’s just getting interviewed for the article. He’s right about the big sort.
And Latin-American conservative immigrants
Damn that electoral college. Doing something good every so often.
After giving us W and Trump, it’s got a lot of making up to do.
The idea of the Electoral College makes more sense when you consider it to be the weighted average of 50 elections. It keeps elections confined to a state-by-state event. Imagine the shit show if we had a full popular vote, and a candidate won by 5 votes, so the entire country got recounted?
But having the Electoral College be actual people is silly. And it’s weighted all wrong, because the House hasn’t expanded in 100+ years. Maybe if the House were twice it’s size, things might be more representative.
There is an actual algorithm to determine House apportionment based on the population in the 50 states. One of these days, I want to take the time to figure out if Trump would still have won if the House were twice the size in 2016, or whether that would have skewed the weightings just enough for Clinton to have won.
Your statement about recounts makes no sense. We can still hold elections on a state by state basis, and determine the winner via popular vote. That would not require a full 50 state recount. It would require individual recounts in states where the votes were within the recount margin. This is precisely what the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact is attempting to do right now, and what should have been done long ago.
I believe that if we had a full-on popular vote for President, and each state’s margin was outside their recount threshold, but the total popular vote was extremely close, the losing side would petition to have all 50 states recounted. Some states would oblige, under the notion that the total popular vote is what counts, and that is within their threshold, while others won’t, because they will use the text of the recount law as written. it will all be inconsistent, and up to the opinions of dozens of judges. Imagine the chaos of 2000 in Florida, times 51.
If the NPV compact goes forward, then I think it is more likely that recounts would be triggered everywhere if the popular vote is close enough, because it specifically allocates electors based on that. And if recounts are going on in any one state by the Safe Harbor deadline, there will be a push to certify both slates of electors in every NPV state.
NPV is a good idea, but is a ticking time bomb. If we decide we want to have the Presidency decided via popular vote, we are better off ripping up the entire EC and starting over from scratch. The NPV compact should be seen a just the first step toward that.
I was curious, Someone did it. (Close) https://qz.com/865380/to-fix-the-electoral-college-increase-the-size-of-the-house-of-representatives
Doesn’t move the needle enough in their estimate.
In Federalist 68, Hamilton gave some reasoning as to why the Electoral College exists. Now, I think the Federalist papers should be treated with some care. They’re often post-facto attempts at justifying committee decisions when that committee had been sitting in meetings all day and just signed off on something. That’s very likely what happened with the Electoral College.
That said, the explicit reasoning in Fed68 was to stop someone like Trump:
Additionally, it’s also justifying decisions in light of pro-royalist critics (both foreign and domestic) who said democracy was a trap and the rabble can’t be trusted to decide on their leaders. As a result, the Constitution doesn’t go all in on democracy, and you have this stuff above about one of these not-quite-democratic mechanisms are meant to prevent a populist dullard from gaining the office.
Those royalist critics are all but extinct now, but we’re stuck with some of the things designed to counter their objections.
Since then, the US has put in several measures undoing some of the not-quite-democratic stuff. For example, universal suffrage, President and Vice President elected as a pair, senators elected by the popular vote of their state, and the parties having primaries instead of appointing candidates. It’s been an improvement for the common people at every step of the way. Fledgling democracies looking for how to structure their government have largely not chosen to repeat the mistakes of the US; not even one’s the US itself helped setup, like Germany, Japan, and Iraq. They’ve preferred European-style parliamentary systems.
So we’ve got this Electoral College thing that, at best, is there to counter arguments nobody makes any more, and at worst, was rubber stamped by a committee that wanted to go home for the day. It’s shit, and it needs to go.
Only problem is that it does 99 bad things for every good thing
Still is overdue.
We blocked yet another thing in the UN from criticizing Israel.
I assume that threat is on the table at this point. If we blow our whole wad at once, we won’t be able to ratchet up the pressure each time we need to. Between letting Netanyahu’s political rivals meet with the US government and the VP speaking up now, too. The pattern of incremental pressure is pretty apparent. We don’t want to end up in a situation where we have no leverage left and the war continues.
Meanwhile, Trump is saying Israel should “finish the job” in Gaza.
Yeah… that’s a cop out.
Israel and everyone else sees the blocking as tacit support. We could at least abstain. You know. Keep our mouths shut.
I understand that it’s a really hard situation to navigate through. It’s not easy to just unilaterally go against a long term ally overnight. It’s a horrible situation that I’d hate to be in charge of.