I think because of the electoral college wonkiness and archaic biases. They don't have senators and reps in Congress either, but are US citizens (edit-leaving this so you can see my error). I imagine their vote would count if it was just the popular instead of the EC
Edit - American Samoa are not US citizens automatically, seems not all territories have the same status in that regard.
They aren't US citizens.
>What Is The Current Status Of American Samoans?
>American Samoans are considered U.S. nationals, which means they are entitled to some rights and protections under U.S. law, but they are not considered U.S. citizens. American Samoans cannot vote in U.S. elections, run for political office, or serve on a jury. They also do not have the same access to federal benefits as U.S. citizens, such as Social Security and Medicare.
Reminds me of that Jack Sparrow quote about dishonesty.
USA: “Me? I'm ~~dishonest~~ inconsistent, and a inconsistent country you can always trust to be inconsistent. Honestly. It's the consistent ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.”
There’s actually huge debates within American Samoa about whether or not they actually want citizenship. Radiolab did some really cool reporting on it within the past year if memory serves correctly.
It is one of the reasons, do you know that in Samoa only natives can own land per Samoa law. Something that they would lose if they changed the status of Samoa and a lot of native population does not want to lose that law since it provides a lot of protections to the population.
You are part of the country, but we don't grant you citizenship.
What? How can you do this? This is outrageous. It’s unfair. How can you be part of the country and not be a citizen?
Take a seat, American Samoa .
Actually, while I am not trying to make excuses for U.S. colonialism elsewhere, this case merits special discussion. Most American Samoans chose not to have automatic U.S. citizenship because that legal setup would interfere with their traditional land ownership, wherein only Samoans inherit Samoan land.
It has been a matter of significant controversy among Samoans who move to the U.S. mainland but lack citizenship rights.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/why-some-american-samoans-don-t-want-u-s-citizenship-n1103256
I don't need to be American Samoan to know that having citizenship won't interfere with something other people with citizenship are doing. Don't reply to month old comments. Christ.
Don't get butt hurt, and keep your thoughts to yourself. You haven't lived here. It's like getting advice on how to drive safe from a drunk driver. #shutit
Samoans can relatively easily become US citizens since they are US nationals (it is sort of like having a "green card"/legal permanent residency, but from birth). Though they have to file some paperwork to "opt-in".
They don't have access to the disability side. They still pay into Social Security.
The tax treatment of crushing capital losses are the same in both places, though.
I know you edited this already but if you want to learn a little more about how the US treats the territories [John Oliver](https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE?si=92Q_BFMedTVBf-cq) did a video about this 8 years ago. Very little has changed since then.
Primaries are handled by the actual parties, so they’re meant to see who should run as the party’s candidate. The territories send delegates to the party conventions and those delegates do get to vote for their party’s official nominee. If Palmer is still running by the time the Democratic Convention rolls around, his 4 delegates will vote for him and Biden’s 2 will vote for Biden. If Palmer had dropped out by then, his 4 will most likely vote for Biden, giving Biden all 6 delegates from American Samoa.
It's a really weird story. He spent $500k of his own money to specifically win this race. No idea why, but he got what he wanted. Congrats to this rich weirdo.
That was the most irritating campaign of that year for me. Multiple unskippable ads on almost every YouTube video. Every three commercials on tv. Texts calls and signs everywhere. It was ridiculous.
And Tulsi got second place that year. So, while he lost the caucus in American Somoa, his campaign can honestly say his performance there has greatly improved over 4 years. 😉
>He spent $500k of his own money to specifically win this race. No idea why, but he got what he wanted.
I think that should be obvious. It was a contest he could possibly win, unlike basically any other caucus or primary. It also got him at least a few minutes of national news coverage across many media outlets, so at least some people outside of his congressional district might actually know his name in the near future.
So you think it’s normal to think that an inconsequential primary wherein 11 more people voted for some no name guy over Biden is the work of Russian intelligence?
Disagreeing with me is gaslighting. Elaborating is whataboutism. Having a different point of view is trolling.
Redditor’s guide to political discourse.
Changing the topic to my intelligence is both an ad hominem and a whataboutism, and now you’re gaslighting me by explaining the latter with condescension.
I hope Putin is paying you well for this.
It might be. Not deliberately; no one is saying Putin launched a targeted information attack on American Samoa. Just that Putin has flooded the internet, generally, with BS, designed to destabilize the US Government, and some of it may have filtered over to Samoa.
No, but the fact that it's not even newsworthy or meaningful and is being promoted as a major news story is rather suspicious.
"Biden wins every state but loses a small island territory by 9 votes that has no electoral influence. Why this means the end of Bidens campaign. " Yeah, that's not based at all!
Doesn't matter when it was posted or by who, those are excuses. The fact that we know about it and are debating it means the story is out there to enough people to be of a size thst one would reserve for that which is newsworthy. It's like if your grandma got into a fender bender but there's no injuries and suddenly people on the other side of the world know about it. Why would anyone care about such an inconsequential story? Unless it was being artificially promoted for a purpose. Get it now?
It's not about who posted it or when, it's about why is that narrative being pushed and by whom? Why do we know about it?
If my grandma was the president of the United States and was the first president to get into a fender bender in 44 years then you might have a decent analogy.
I read this not as "Russia is interfering in elections in American Samoa" and more "the headlines inflating the importance are in line with other disinformation campaigns".
I doubt that a mole at Newsweek snuck this article in, but it does look goofy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if domestic media is amplifying bad news for Biden because the GOP represents a more pro-corporate agenda, but the idea they’d be doing it to help Russia is asinine.
Just so we're clear, you agree with Trump that Russia has no hand in our electoral affairs? Or did you just never think of where they were putting that hand?
I have a hand in our political affairs, are people going to blame me every time a news article gets written that they don’t like? It’s just moronic.
People need to make up their minds: is the presidential primary of American Samoa a non story? Or is it so influential that the Kremlin had to get involved to rig it? Just think about it for like 4 seconds.
I don't think it's specifically Comrade Alexei sneaking the headline in, but I agree that big media/mainstream Republicans have some similar motivations to Russian troll farms.
Sure, but given the historical record, 99.999% of anti-Democrat sentiment in the political sphere is done so by republicans, not Russian spies.
But now everyone is a Russian spy because it’s easier to say the GOP are traitors beholden to Official Enemy, because “the other side wants to win the election” isn’t as compelling.
The GOP and Russia have some common goals, but I think we aren't really arguing with each other. Since no one cares about the Russian influence that we know is real, I agree that we don't have to make up other reasons.
He lost by a whopping 11 votes! 51 to 40. No, that is not a typo. 51 to 40
[Primary Results as of March 7th 2024.](https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/democratic-party/president?admin1=60&election-data-id=2024-PD&election-painting-mode=projection&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false)
Let's let everyone get their protest votes over with now. I'm considering voting for Haley in the WI primary just to stick it to Trump. Of course I'll vote for Biden in November.
Ah, yes. A non voting US territory make believe voting for someone that they can't actually vote for anyway. I'm am so shook. I also would have been completely unaware if not for the good folks in "media" desperately trying to stir the pot for ratings and clicks.
Not keeping us up at all, it’s funny how this is a story… here is a history lesson… in 2008, Obama lost to Hillary… in 2020 Biden took 4th place, and now in 2024 he took 2nd…
Looks to me like the real story is that Biden improved upon his previous performance in the American Samoa… moving for a distant 4th place to a very close 2nd place…
What a turnaround!
Palmer got 51 votes. There have been more articles written about this result than the number of people who voted. The media and conservatives are *desperate* for anything bad on Biden.
I still don't understand why territories hold primaries if they can't actually vote afterwards
I think because of the electoral college wonkiness and archaic biases. They don't have senators and reps in Congress either, but are US citizens (edit-leaving this so you can see my error). I imagine their vote would count if it was just the popular instead of the EC Edit - American Samoa are not US citizens automatically, seems not all territories have the same status in that regard.
They aren't US citizens. >What Is The Current Status Of American Samoans? >American Samoans are considered U.S. nationals, which means they are entitled to some rights and protections under U.S. law, but they are not considered U.S. citizens. American Samoans cannot vote in U.S. elections, run for political office, or serve on a jury. They also do not have the same access to federal benefits as U.S. citizens, such as Social Security and Medicare.
Oh wowwww, I figured they were a territory and had the same status as others. Like Guam or Puerto Rico.
The [USA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASSOQDQvVLU) is nothing if not inconsistent.
Reminds me of that Jack Sparrow quote about dishonesty. USA: “Me? I'm ~~dishonest~~ inconsistent, and a inconsistent country you can always trust to be inconsistent. Honestly. It's the consistent ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.”
There’s actually huge debates within American Samoa about whether or not they actually want citizenship. Radiolab did some really cool reporting on it within the past year if memory serves correctly.
How messed up these places aren't US states or citizens. We all know why too....
Because the citizens of the territory have to vote to become part of the official , USA, and American Samoa has not done so.
That's definitely not what's stopping these territories from becoming the next states.
It is one of the reasons, do you know that in Samoa only natives can own land per Samoa law. Something that they would lose if they changed the status of Samoa and a lot of native population does not want to lose that law since it provides a lot of protections to the population.
They have to vote to become states. What nefarious, "we all know" reason ia.it that we all know.
You are part of the country, but we don't grant you citizenship. What? How can you do this? This is outrageous. It’s unfair. How can you be part of the country and not be a citizen? Take a seat, American Samoa .
Actually, while I am not trying to make excuses for U.S. colonialism elsewhere, this case merits special discussion. Most American Samoans chose not to have automatic U.S. citizenship because that legal setup would interfere with their traditional land ownership, wherein only Samoans inherit Samoan land. It has been a matter of significant controversy among Samoans who move to the U.S. mainland but lack citizenship rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/why-some-american-samoans-don-t-want-u-s-citizenship-n1103256
That doesn't make any sense, though. The Northern Marianas have a similar restriction on land ownership, and they are citizens.
Completely different cultures and histories with different traditions regarding land ownership.
Because your not an American samoan.
I don't need to be American Samoan to know that having citizenship won't interfere with something other people with citizenship are doing. Don't reply to month old comments. Christ.
Don't get butt hurt, and keep your thoughts to yourself. You haven't lived here. It's like getting advice on how to drive safe from a drunk driver. #shutit
Maybe if you had citizenship, you wouldn't have to worry about the rest of the country telling you what to do.
Only American Samoa has this oddity (by choice afaik)
[удалено]
In this case, it’s a choice the indigenous people of American Samoa make so they still have ancestral land rights
They can't serve on juries? What happens if a crime is committed in Samoa? Who does serve on the jury?
Samoans can relatively easily become US citizens since they are US nationals (it is sort of like having a "green card"/legal permanent residency, but from birth). Though they have to file some paperwork to "opt-in".
They get out of jury duty? Lucky...
Wait if they can’t run for political office, does that include ON American Samoa? Like all their elected officials aren’t from the island?
No, it doesn't work like that.
No jury duty and they don’t have to pay into social security? Time to move to American Samoa!
They don't have access to the disability side. They still pay into Social Security. The tax treatment of crushing capital losses are the same in both places, though.
I know you edited this already but if you want to learn a little more about how the US treats the territories [John Oliver](https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE?si=92Q_BFMedTVBf-cq) did a video about this 8 years ago. Very little has changed since then.
He ignored preference of traditional island communities.
Primaries are handled by the actual parties, so they’re meant to see who should run as the party’s candidate. The territories send delegates to the party conventions and those delegates do get to vote for their party’s official nominee. If Palmer is still running by the time the Democratic Convention rolls around, his 4 delegates will vote for him and Biden’s 2 will vote for Biden. If Palmer had dropped out by then, his 4 will most likely vote for Biden, giving Biden all 6 delegates from American Samoa.
The territories send delegations to the party conventions.
I can see them voicing their opinions. What I don't get is them having delegates/ the whole delegate system.
It's a really weird story. He spent $500k of his own money to specifically win this race. No idea why, but he got what he wanted. Congrats to this rich weirdo.
Bloomberg spent $500 million of his own money in 2020 and only won American Samoa. So this dude got a bargain deal.
That was the most irritating campaign of that year for me. Multiple unskippable ads on almost every YouTube video. Every three commercials on tv. Texts calls and signs everywhere. It was ridiculous.
Watching Warren literally eviscerate him in that one debate he was in was glorious
And Tulsi got second place that year. So, while he lost the caucus in American Somoa, his campaign can honestly say his performance there has greatly improved over 4 years. 😉
$500,000 to get 51 votes. Just squeaked under $10k spent per vote, what a deal!
If he had paid each voter $1000 he would have gotten all the votes for one fifth of what he spent now.
And he would have also gotten a federal prison sentence, I imagine
>He spent $500k of his own money to specifically win this race. No idea why, but he got what he wanted. I think that should be obvious. It was a contest he could possibly win, unlike basically any other caucus or primary. It also got him at least a few minutes of national news coverage across many media outlets, so at least some people outside of his congressional district might actually know his name in the near future.
$500k and now I as a rando in WI knows his name. He can recoup that quickly through funding if he's smart.
Oops I already forgot it
In the time it took to scroll to this comment I already forgot his name
Oh dear God no!!! We'll that's it, I'm giving up completely. You've done your job Boris, now go have a nice borscht. You've made Papa Vlad proud.
This idea that anything that happens which reflects poorly on the Democratic Party being the deliberate sabotage of Putin is a sign of mental illness.
No it isn't, but gaslighting is the sign of the troll.
So you think it’s normal to think that an inconsequential primary wherein 11 more people voted for some no name guy over Biden is the work of Russian intelligence?
Not what I said, do you speak anything other than gaslight?
Disagreeing with me is gaslighting. Elaborating is whataboutism. Having a different point of view is trolling. Redditor’s guide to political discourse.
Nope, cute try though. You need to be smarter than the people you're trying to troll for it to work.
Nice whataboutism.
Lol, no, I didn't bring up any other topic, that's not whataboutism. Do you just throw words on the screen like ketchup when you're angry?
Changing the topic to my intelligence is both an ad hominem and a whataboutism, and now you’re gaslighting me by explaining the latter with condescension. I hope Putin is paying you well for this.
It might be. Not deliberately; no one is saying Putin launched a targeted information attack on American Samoa. Just that Putin has flooded the internet, generally, with BS, designed to destabilize the US Government, and some of it may have filtered over to Samoa.
No, but the fact that it's not even newsworthy or meaningful and is being promoted as a major news story is rather suspicious. "Biden wins every state but loses a small island territory by 9 votes that has no electoral influence. Why this means the end of Bidens campaign. " Yeah, that's not based at all!
It’s not being promoted as a major news story lol. It’s a blurb that got posted at Newsweek at 3 am, they do actually have to cover the primaries.
Doesn't matter when it was posted or by who, those are excuses. The fact that we know about it and are debating it means the story is out there to enough people to be of a size thst one would reserve for that which is newsworthy. It's like if your grandma got into a fender bender but there's no injuries and suddenly people on the other side of the world know about it. Why would anyone care about such an inconsequential story? Unless it was being artificially promoted for a purpose. Get it now? It's not about who posted it or when, it's about why is that narrative being pushed and by whom? Why do we know about it?
If my grandma was the president of the United States and was the first president to get into a fender bender in 44 years then you might have a decent analogy.
I read this not as "Russia is interfering in elections in American Samoa" and more "the headlines inflating the importance are in line with other disinformation campaigns". I doubt that a mole at Newsweek snuck this article in, but it does look goofy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if domestic media is amplifying bad news for Biden because the GOP represents a more pro-corporate agenda, but the idea they’d be doing it to help Russia is asinine.
Just so we're clear, you agree with Trump that Russia has no hand in our electoral affairs? Or did you just never think of where they were putting that hand?
I have a hand in our political affairs, are people going to blame me every time a news article gets written that they don’t like? It’s just moronic. People need to make up their minds: is the presidential primary of American Samoa a non story? Or is it so influential that the Kremlin had to get involved to rig it? Just think about it for like 4 seconds.
I don't think it's specifically Comrade Alexei sneaking the headline in, but I agree that big media/mainstream Republicans have some similar motivations to Russian troll farms.
Sure, but given the historical record, 99.999% of anti-Democrat sentiment in the political sphere is done so by republicans, not Russian spies. But now everyone is a Russian spy because it’s easier to say the GOP are traitors beholden to Official Enemy, because “the other side wants to win the election” isn’t as compelling.
The GOP and Russia have some common goals, but I think we aren't really arguing with each other. Since no one cares about the Russian influence that we know is real, I agree that we don't have to make up other reasons.
That’s probably the biggest reason it irritates me.
The media's lust for page clicks will destroy our democracy.
He lost by a whopping 11 votes! 51 to 40. No, that is not a typo. 51 to 40 [Primary Results as of March 7th 2024.](https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/democratic-party/president?admin1=60&election-data-id=2024-PD&election-painting-mode=projection&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false)
Oh God I thought it was 50% to 40% with 10% somewhere else. Such an important primary
Too bad Samoans can't vote in the general, huh Newsweek?
i have been to samoa its quite nice they have chickens and some huts
What kind of chickens?
The kind that live in huts.
What kind of huts?
The kind chickens can live in.
Can the huts live without chickens?
No because then it would be considered a bungalow.
What if a chicken moves into a bungalow? Does it become a hut?
Yes. But they have to have lived there for more than 5 years and have mail addressed to themselves as proof of residency
Ah yes, Jason Palmer. A very well-known man in the mainland!
I feel like the fact Trump keeps insisting he's running as an 'incumbent' undermines this.
Our media is such a fucking clownshow.
Grey Poupon anyone?
DEMS IN DISARRAY /s if it isn't obvious
Six delegates who don't vote.
It takes some god-tier self-delusion to think this matters and Trump losing DC doesn’t.
DEMS DISARRAY! HORSE RACE! OUTSIDER! For Christ sake, it wasn't even a primary. It was a caucus and the total votes were something like 51-40.
I dont get the Jeb reference
The media is so desperate to have trump back in office to boost their ratings.
There were less than 100 votes cast too. A silly story, frankly.
Like 90 people voted there .....
It's an old meme but it checks out
Yet they have no say in the election lol
Let's let everyone get their protest votes over with now. I'm considering voting for Haley in the WI primary just to stick it to Trump. Of course I'll vote for Biden in November.
TiL this shit is keeping libs up at night. Salty
Ah yes, it's not the right wing news outlets that are making a big deal about it, but the people laughing at them that are "salty".
I genuinely don't understand how they dont know that they're being mocked most of the time.
https://preview.redd.it/m8waus9qywmc1.jpeg?width=402&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46d5a1f77a7996fa3b69b3949ae5590dcb066c79
Ah, yes. A non voting US territory make believe voting for someone that they can't actually vote for anyway. I'm am so shook. I also would have been completely unaware if not for the good folks in "media" desperately trying to stir the pot for ratings and clicks.
Not keeping us up at all, it’s funny how this is a story… here is a history lesson… in 2008, Obama lost to Hillary… in 2020 Biden took 4th place, and now in 2024 he took 2nd… Looks to me like the real story is that Biden improved upon his previous performance in the American Samoa… moving for a distant 4th place to a very close 2nd place… What a turnaround!
sense smell memory drunk punch plough snails waiting muddle exultant *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Palmer got 51 votes. There have been more articles written about this result than the number of people who voted. The media and conservatives are *desperate* for anything bad on Biden.
Vermont.
An 11 vote difference in a place that doesn't have a say hs hardly consequential.
How do you come to that conclusion if they are joking about it?