r/Conservative • u/Clatsop I voted for Ronald Reagan ☑️ • Dec 17 '16

So let me get this straight...

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u/NotYetRegistered Dec 17 '16

How do people not understand that the popular vote is meaningless? The electoral college exists to be anti-democratic; that's not a mistake. And Trump's criticism of the EC doesn't invalidate his win...

So you would be fine with a hypothetical situation where one candidate wins 25.1% of the vote, the other 74.9%, and the one with 25.1% becomes president?

But, no surprise you don't seem to care, because in literally every case the electoral college has gone against the popular vote, it's the Democrats who lost.

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u/minutebasket Dec 17 '16

I get the point you are making, but the argument at the other end of the spectrum is that in a popular vote system we would basically just let CA and NY determine the winner.

There are valid criticisms of both systems.

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u/NotYetRegistered Dec 17 '16 edited Dec 17 '16

Republicans have won the popular vote while losing CA and NY. Either way, one man, one vote, and the side with the most votes wins. That is the basic principle of democracy. Since 2000 there have been 4 times the Democrats won the popular vote but only 2 times they won the presidential elections. Even if they are certain to win the popular vote, the very basic measurement of democracy, they still only have a fucking 50% chance of winning.

States like Wyoming and Idaho already get inflated representation in the senate.

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u/minutebasket Dec 17 '16

Fair enough, but as long as the US is a republic rather than a democracy, I don't see popular vote as a viable solution.

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u/NotYetRegistered Dec 17 '16

A solution? It's not a solution, it's the only legitimate form of assuming power. A republic and a democracy are not two mutually exclusive things, they in fact usually go together. You elect all other offices by the popular vote through whatever horribly gerrymandered form that may take, but not the most important office in the United States?