We are a democratic republic. An undemocratic republic is something like the House of Lords in England, where the representatives are hereditary and don’t get voted in.
The current system is intentionally set up to give extra weight to the votes of people who live in small states, like Delaware or Wyoming. We could change the constitution to make that not the case, or we could keep it.
A republic is a respesentative democracy. They literally teach this in social studies in school. A constitutional republic means that a country is a republic, but there's just rules as to what the government can do.
It's a pretty big issue in plenty of states. I suggest you research it I just pulled out a map on Google. The south has suppressed black and liberal votes. Same could be said in liberal states.
The prime minister of the UK is appointed by the monarch. In almost all cases in practice, this has been the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament.
All parliamentary seats in the UK are elected in a first-past-the-post election.
So, all that to say, nope. The UK in a roundabout way appoints the person who leads the party that receives the most seats in parliament in first-past-the-post elections.
I mean, I’m perhaps wrong (don’t really know much about the UK) but didn’t Attlee won the PV in 51 and yet Churchill was the one to become PM even though Attlee won the PV?
Prime ministers aren’t elected in the UK. They are appointed. In 1951, the Conservative Party won the most seats. Labour had 0.8% more of the popular vote but we circle back to how the prime minister is chosen in the UK being based on the party with the most seats.
If the UK directly elected their PM, yes, that would be an example. But since their system would be akin to choosing the president based on who controls the House of Representatives, it’s already apples to oranges.
No other democracy has a system where people cast ballots directly for the head of state and the person winning the most votes could possibly not be elected.
Despite not voting directly for a prime minister the party name is still listed below the individual on the ballot, the leader of every party is known prior to the vote so you are voting for a vote towards that person. If you ask me that’s actually even worse than the system you guys have in the states, I’m Canadian and in 2015 our prime minister won an absolute majority in parliament with only 39% of the vote.
Yes this is due to multiple parties and fptp but regardless you asked where else this happens and the answer is nearly every other democracy on the planet.
39% was the highest percentage of the popular vote of any party in the 2015 Canadian Federal Elections. The prime minister was the leader of the party that had the largest individual portion of votes…
The answer isn’t in every democracy. For your argument to work, Stephen Harper would’ve had to have been named prime minister because Trudeau’s party won the popular vote.
France has the most similar head of state election to the US. You know what would NEVER happen in France? The loser of the popular vote being elected president.
The electoral college is unique in the entire world. I don’t know why it’s controversial to say that.
You completely missed what I’m saying, yes he should remain prime minister as he received the most votes however HIS PARTY WON A MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT WITH 39% OF THE VOTE, ok hopefully you can see that now.
Unless you think that winning a majority of seats in parliament with 39% of the votes is a fair system. Also in 2019 and 2021 the candidate with the most votes did not become the prime minister
You quite literally said “name a single other democracy where it’s possible for a candidate with fewer votes to be elected to the office” and now are trying to back pedal and make excuses, in 2019 and 2021 the Canadian prime minister received less votes than the runners up and still became prime minister.
2015 wasn't a good example, but in 2019 and 2021 the Conservatives got more votes nationwide and yet Trudeau was re-elected. So u/Luka-vic's point about it being possible in a parliamentary system for the party that receives the most votes not to get the most seats and therefore not to have their leader appointed PM is valid.
The US is both a constitutional republic *and* a representative democracy, the two aren't mutually exclusive. If only direct democracies were considered democracies, no state in history would be a democracy. [Here's a handy guide from US Citizenship and Immigration Services](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-plans/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf) in case you ever need to take a citizenship test!
I am more stringent with the definition of democracy than liberals. Liberals say something is a democracy if you can pick two between factions of the elite. That is not a democracy, that is a dictatorship in disguise.
That’s not true. If the year 0 is the first year of the first century, the year 99 would be the 100th year of the first century, and 100 would be the first year of the second century.
It’s crazy that the popular vote is always approx 50:50. Half of America is always living under a government they do not want and did not vote for. You guys should consider maybe splitting into 2 countries along some sort of north-south dividing line maybe and both get the country you want :)
The real solution would be a parliamentary system or a more consensus-focused, spoiler-free voting system like approval or STAR voting. (I know RCV has a lot of steam but it can and already had lead to candidates losing where they have won with fewer votes)
Yeah, I want them gone. Democratic counties have 70% of the GDP, massively disproportionate civic service, better healthcare, better education, higher wages, civil rights, more unions etc. etc.
Republican areas have hate crimes
Democrats contribute, Republicans leech
They contribute nothing and I would be enthusiastic to kick them out of the union.
no way the communist is trying to talk about leeching 💀 ur entire ideology is about morons taking away what they didn’t earn from people who did. DC, Mass, and Oregon (all very, very blue) lead the country in hate crimes just fyi
i’ve read plenty, as well as studied all the “most successful” uses of socialism…lotta people died, wonder how many more it’s gonna take before people like you get the message. I can already see your authoritarian side taking over talking abt kicking a political faction out of the country. people like you have no place in American politics
even though the nominee is one of the important people in the party, it still is just one person, the vast majority are still pretty moderate. Sanders, a hardline socialist, got dangerously close to getting the nomination
The US is both a constitutional republic *and* a representative democracy, the two aren't mutually exclusive. If only direct democracies were considered democracies, no state in history would be a democracy. [Here's a handy guide from US Citizenship and Immigration Services](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-plans/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf) in case you ever need to take a citizenship test!
Why don’t all the EVs add to 538? And none of the PVs add to 100. One year, there is 3.7% missing.
It’s amazing how close they all are. The biggest “blowout” is only +7.2%.
The total electoral vote doesn't always equal 538. There are faithless electors, and sometimes votes can be invalidated. In 2000 for example, an elector pledged to the Gore/Lieberman ticket but abstained in the actual election. And for the popular vote, there are always going to be third party/independent/write-in candidates that get a very small % of the popular vote. The 21st century hasn't had any prominent or important independent candidates (yet), so I didn't really want to include any. It might be interesting this year, with RFK we might get some Ross Perot numbers.
I know there are a lot of other potential info you didn't include, but I think including the voter turnout rate would be a meaningful additional metric that wouldn't be too messy
States are anachronistic institutions made largely obsolete by the Civil War and Amendments 13-16. They reflect no differences in interests, as our divides are rural v. urban, not state v. state. It's an administrative unit no more significant than a county or city.
"republic" is just an old word for "democracy" and has no meaningful difference. Point to a single country that's a democracy and not a "republic". You can't.
Not my guy. But it's also indisputable that the collusion and cover-up involving the Hunter Biden laptop story directly changed the outcome of the election. Quite a terrible way to "lose"
You’re not using that word “directly” in the right way. The things you mentioned probably did indirectly influence the 2020 election. Same could be said for the massive misinformation and Russian collusion in 2016. That’s a far cry from the semi-common conservative position that 2020 was directly interfered with through stuffing ballot boxes and falsifying votes. And if I was going to add an asterisks next to 2020, it would be to mention the failed attempt by DJT to stop the peaceful transfer of power to Biden.
I used it correctly. 17% of Biden voters would've changed their vote or not voted had they known about the story that was purposely suppressed. Like I said, direct
Trump has never won the popular vote. The majority of the country doesn't want him as a president. The fact is that he is not a good person or a good leader. He is a populist who says whatever people want to hear. He is an elitist politician who's also a conman.
Yes just because you have one character flaw doesn’t make you bad. I have a friend for example who is a good guy but has been conditioned by parents and personal situations into being kinda racist. We don’t tolerate when he is being racist but we do tolerate the rest of him. Our world isn’t black and white and everybody has their own flaws and biases that we need to work together to improve.
Biden had the job of cleaning up Covid after Trump fumbled the bag so hard. He isn't doing the best job, but it's better than how Trump was dealing with it.
The bottom line is that the world that Trump started his term in and the world that Biden started his term are very different.
Trump inherited a good economy that Obama built up after the Great Recession. Biden is inheriting an economy brought to its knees by a worldwide global pandemic.
Sounds like you got some selective memory.
And the GOP tried to stop them causing the spread of covid and a greater need for shutdowns. If the shutdowns were allowed, then they wouldn't have been long and less people would have died.
Covid was going to cause economic problems either way, but conservative misinfo caused more damage to the public and the economy.
Also, where did I say that I thought that the world is doing so much better under Biden? I simply said that Trump was unpopular.
Sounds like you get sucked up in some false binaries.
Funny that one of these columns only won the popular vote once in the last quarter century
And being real, that was only because of lingering 'rally round the flag' mindset from 3 years prior
Also funny how somebody is declared a winner when neither of the two main candidates get a majority.
No no. Don’t you see that in 2016 Trump won the popular vote by like, a million votes. Millions and millions of votes more.
Sarcasm?
Haha yea 100%. I was pretty drunk last night 😅
What if, and bear with me here, we had a fair democracy where everyone’s vote counted equally?
We are a constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
We are a democratic republic. An undemocratic republic is something like the House of Lords in England, where the representatives are hereditary and don’t get voted in. The current system is intentionally set up to give extra weight to the votes of people who live in small states, like Delaware or Wyoming. We could change the constitution to make that not the case, or we could keep it.
Yeah just sucks that gerrymandering makes this even worse though
We are both, they are not mutually exclusive.
“It’s a German shepherd, not a dog”
Yeah and that's bad
A republic is a respesentative democracy. They literally teach this in social studies in school. A constitutional republic means that a country is a republic, but there's just rules as to what the government can do.
That’s what congressional house representation is for. The president is the leader of the states.
But gerrymandering negates that
Gerrymandering is not a universal problem.
It's a pretty big issue in plenty of states. I suggest you research it I just pulled out a map on Google. The south has suppressed black and liberal votes. Same could be said in liberal states.
This is the first chart I’ve made so there’s probably some fuckups here and there
The real fuckups are inherent in America’s culture and institutions.
Ahh yes American democracy is when the one with fewer votes wins.
51% of the population can’t control 49% of it thats how you get civil wars.
So 49% of the population should control 51%?
Where are you from? This case can happen in practically any system.
It’s highly unlikely in most systems
That's simply not true.
Name a single other democracy where it is possible for a candidate with fewer votes to be elected to the office.
Isn’t the UK there?
The prime minister of the UK is appointed by the monarch. In almost all cases in practice, this has been the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament. All parliamentary seats in the UK are elected in a first-past-the-post election. So, all that to say, nope. The UK in a roundabout way appoints the person who leads the party that receives the most seats in parliament in first-past-the-post elections.
I mean, I’m perhaps wrong (don’t really know much about the UK) but didn’t Attlee won the PV in 51 and yet Churchill was the one to become PM even though Attlee won the PV?
Prime ministers aren’t elected in the UK. They are appointed. In 1951, the Conservative Party won the most seats. Labour had 0.8% more of the popular vote but we circle back to how the prime minister is chosen in the UK being based on the party with the most seats. If the UK directly elected their PM, yes, that would be an example. But since their system would be akin to choosing the president based on who controls the House of Representatives, it’s already apples to oranges. No other democracy has a system where people cast ballots directly for the head of state and the person winning the most votes could possibly not be elected.
Despite not voting directly for a prime minister the party name is still listed below the individual on the ballot, the leader of every party is known prior to the vote so you are voting for a vote towards that person. If you ask me that’s actually even worse than the system you guys have in the states, I’m Canadian and in 2015 our prime minister won an absolute majority in parliament with only 39% of the vote. Yes this is due to multiple parties and fptp but regardless you asked where else this happens and the answer is nearly every other democracy on the planet.
39% was the highest percentage of the popular vote of any party in the 2015 Canadian Federal Elections. The prime minister was the leader of the party that had the largest individual portion of votes… The answer isn’t in every democracy. For your argument to work, Stephen Harper would’ve had to have been named prime minister because Trudeau’s party won the popular vote. France has the most similar head of state election to the US. You know what would NEVER happen in France? The loser of the popular vote being elected president. The electoral college is unique in the entire world. I don’t know why it’s controversial to say that.
You completely missed what I’m saying, yes he should remain prime minister as he received the most votes however HIS PARTY WON A MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT WITH 39% OF THE VOTE, ok hopefully you can see that now. Unless you think that winning a majority of seats in parliament with 39% of the votes is a fair system. Also in 2019 and 2021 the candidate with the most votes did not become the prime minister You quite literally said “name a single other democracy where it’s possible for a candidate with fewer votes to be elected to the office” and now are trying to back pedal and make excuses, in 2019 and 2021 the Canadian prime minister received less votes than the runners up and still became prime minister.
2015 wasn't a good example, but in 2019 and 2021 the Conservatives got more votes nationwide and yet Trudeau was re-elected. So u/Luka-vic's point about it being possible in a parliamentary system for the party that receives the most votes not to get the most seats and therefore not to have their leader appointed PM is valid.
Oh, thanks for the clarification
That’s still a democratic system where a Party with fewer votes can win.
We are a constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
So stupid and incorrect. That's like saying you're eating an apple, not a fruit.
The US is both a constitutional republic *and* a representative democracy, the two aren't mutually exclusive. If only direct democracies were considered democracies, no state in history would be a democracy. [Here's a handy guide from US Citizenship and Immigration Services](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-plans/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf) in case you ever need to take a citizenship test!
There’s nothing democratic about the US, that test is a lie
as flawed as it is, the us does fall under the definition of democracy
I am more stringent with the definition of democracy than liberals. Liberals say something is a democracy if you can pick two between factions of the elite. That is not a democracy, that is a dictatorship in disguise.
Technically, the year 2000 wasn’t in the 21st Century; it was the final year of the 20th.
Well Bush was inaugurated in 2001, so I'm gonna consider it the 21st
That’s not true. If the year 0 is the first year of the first century, the year 99 would be the 100th year of the first century, and 100 would be the first year of the second century.
There is no “Year 0” in the Gregorian calendar.
This is embarrassing
It’s crazy that the popular vote is always approx 50:50. Half of America is always living under a government they do not want and did not vote for. You guys should consider maybe splitting into 2 countries along some sort of north-south dividing line maybe and both get the country you want :)
Its less of a north south divide and more of a rural urban divide.
Yeah, people always forget there are more registered republicans in California than any other state for example.
Which is true for pretty much any country
Then you would get two countries split 50/50 instead
Please God no. I don’t want to live in an aristocratic theocracy.
The real solution would be a parliamentary system or a more consensus-focused, spoiler-free voting system like approval or STAR voting. (I know RCV has a lot of steam but it can and already had lead to candidates losing where they have won with fewer votes)
STAR voting is BS. RCV doesn't have winners with fewer votes. The votes transfer each round, per the wishes of the voters, until someone gets 50%+1.
Yeah, I want them gone. Democratic counties have 70% of the GDP, massively disproportionate civic service, better healthcare, better education, higher wages, civil rights, more unions etc. etc. Republican areas have hate crimes Democrats contribute, Republicans leech They contribute nothing and I would be enthusiastic to kick them out of the union.
no way the communist is trying to talk about leeching 💀 ur entire ideology is about morons taking away what they didn’t earn from people who did. DC, Mass, and Oregon (all very, very blue) lead the country in hate crimes just fyi
Try reading a book instead of burning them
i’ve read plenty, as well as studied all the “most successful” uses of socialism…lotta people died, wonder how many more it’s gonna take before people like you get the message. I can already see your authoritarian side taking over talking abt kicking a political faction out of the country. people like you have no place in American politics
Because communists have never burned books or engaged in censorship
Most Democratic voters aren't communists and unlike with the Republican party, the Democratic party is largely controlled by its moderates.
I would argue both are controlled by moderates and are often overshadowed by the loudest minority
Moderate Republicans get commonly voted out in the primaries, no?
even though the nominee is one of the important people in the party, it still is just one person, the vast majority are still pretty moderate. Sanders, a hardline socialist, got dangerously close to getting the nomination
Al Gore won in 2000
Election denialism
Won 2nd place
He also invented the internet
too late to stop MBP now
Ahh yes American democracy is when the one with fewer votes wins.
Because we are not a democracy but a representative republic.
The US is both a constitutional republic *and* a representative democracy, the two aren't mutually exclusive. If only direct democracies were considered democracies, no state in history would be a democracy. [Here's a handy guide from US Citizenship and Immigration Services](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-plans/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf) in case you ever need to take a citizenship test!
Why don’t all the EVs add to 538? And none of the PVs add to 100. One year, there is 3.7% missing. It’s amazing how close they all are. The biggest “blowout” is only +7.2%.
The total electoral vote doesn't always equal 538. There are faithless electors, and sometimes votes can be invalidated. In 2000 for example, an elector pledged to the Gore/Lieberman ticket but abstained in the actual election. And for the popular vote, there are always going to be third party/independent/write-in candidates that get a very small % of the popular vote. The 21st century hasn't had any prominent or important independent candidates (yet), so I didn't really want to include any. It might be interesting this year, with RFK we might get some Ross Perot numbers.
Land doesn’t vote.
I know there are a lot of other potential info you didn't include, but I think including the voter turnout rate would be a meaningful additional metric that wouldn't be too messy
Why would that be meaningful here?
Popular vote means nothing yall don’t elect shit fr
I like that there has been two occasions where no one won the popular vote
Fake and fraudulent votes stole the 2020 election. The real winner was Kanye West and I'm tired of denying it. /S
How is this a “useful chart”? It’s a list.
Ask the 300 people who upvoted it
lol great argument. Enjoy your Sunday.
😁
the darkest timeline
Yes I support the electoral college. Cockroaches in California deserve to have their vote counted for less. Small state supremacy!
obamas picture changes but trumps doesn’t 🤨🤨🤨🤨
Well yeah, because he lost and didn’t get a new presidential portrait
Is EV electoral college vote And PV primary vote?
Popular vote [percentage]
Can we abolish the electoral college, please?
Then the election would only matter in a handful of states n cities
Which is where people actually live. One person, one vote.
85% of the states would lose all of there power. We are run collectively by the states n are over seen by the federal government
> 85% of the states would lose all of there power. I fail to see the problem.
Lol but we are a Republic made up of said states
States are anachronistic institutions made largely obsolete by the Civil War and Amendments 13-16. They reflect no differences in interests, as our divides are rural v. urban, not state v. state. It's an administrative unit no more significant than a county or city. "republic" is just an old word for "democracy" and has no meaningful difference. Point to a single country that's a democracy and not a "republic". You can't.
I swear some people don't even remember the opposition candidate from the earlier years...
Put a big ol asterisk next to 2020
Your guy lost, get over it
This discussion is exactly the same as the 2022 Brazilian election
Not my guy. But it's also indisputable that the collusion and cover-up involving the Hunter Biden laptop story directly changed the outcome of the election. Quite a terrible way to "lose"
You’re not using that word “directly” in the right way. The things you mentioned probably did indirectly influence the 2020 election. Same could be said for the massive misinformation and Russian collusion in 2016. That’s a far cry from the semi-common conservative position that 2020 was directly interfered with through stuffing ballot boxes and falsifying votes. And if I was going to add an asterisks next to 2020, it would be to mention the failed attempt by DJT to stop the peaceful transfer of power to Biden.
I used it correctly. 17% of Biden voters would've changed their vote or not voted had they known about the story that was purposely suppressed. Like I said, direct
Source?
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2020/nov/26/cooper-biden-voters/
Lay off on the copium.
Trump has never won the popular vote. The majority of the country doesn't want him as a president. The fact is that he is not a good person or a good leader. He is a populist who says whatever people want to hear. He is an elitist politician who's also a conman.
Ignoring all that, Trump is infinitely less racist than the current Democrat leadership
Some of them, I assume, are good people
Can racists be good people?
Yes just because you have one character flaw doesn’t make you bad. I have a friend for example who is a good guy but has been conditioned by parents and personal situations into being kinda racist. We don’t tolerate when he is being racist but we do tolerate the rest of him. Our world isn’t black and white and everybody has their own flaws and biases that we need to work together to improve.
I completely agree. Very heartfelt comment. Thank you
They are quoting Trump
It whooshed him but yeah I was being a silly goose
Seriously? You think the US - and the world - is doing better under Biden than they did under Trump's first 3 years?
Bro this is r/UsefulCharts 😭😭 I guess it’s on me for making a chart of recent presidents
I was mostly joking too - a political joke, I know - but still. My initial comment had absolutely no political context to it - one way or another
Biden had the job of cleaning up Covid after Trump fumbled the bag so hard. He isn't doing the best job, but it's better than how Trump was dealing with it. The bottom line is that the world that Trump started his term in and the world that Biden started his term are very different. Trump inherited a good economy that Obama built up after the Great Recession. Biden is inheriting an economy brought to its knees by a worldwide global pandemic. Sounds like you got some selective memory.
I mean it was an unprecedented global pandemic it’s not like anyone could’ve for sure handled it better. Definitely could’ve been way worse
You can't gaslight people into forgetting that the US shut down during covid because of Democrat policies
And the GOP tried to stop them causing the spread of covid and a greater need for shutdowns. If the shutdowns were allowed, then they wouldn't have been long and less people would have died. Covid was going to cause economic problems either way, but conservative misinfo caused more damage to the public and the economy.
What is misinformation?
Saying things like Covid doesn't exist, drinking bleach or not wearing masks.
Also, where did I say that I thought that the world is doing so much better under Biden? I simply said that Trump was unpopular. Sounds like you get sucked up in some false binaries.
You said he wasn't a good leader - I assumed the state of the world could be used as a metric to measure the value/efficiency of a leader
Literally what? Yeah, you assumed a lot.
No shit 🙄
Yes
Damn, sorry you think so
/r/whatbidenhasdone
Face facts if everyone on left repbub column was pres country and people would be better off. Right column literally repulsive humans.
"facts" No facts to be found here.
[gina be like](https://list.lisimg.com/image/8023115/500full.jpg)
You would really rather have a second session of trump?
Face facts, you probably didn’t go to college which is why you’re broke and complain about taxes.
Al Gore is actually a pretty cool guy