Former Maine State Senate President Majority Leader Rick Bennett on the two party system

 OpenPrimaries is having a video chat with Rick Bennett on this topic:

“I’m running as an independent because Maine’s next chapter can’t be dictated by party bosses in Washington or by the special interests pouring dark money into our elections. Too many politicians today are more focused on partisan point-scoring than problem-solving. The system thrives on conflict, not resolution, and the issues that matter most – housing, our economy, our schools – get lost in the noise.”

I definitely agree with him as my posts on the duopoly and US politics bear out. It's nice to see someone admit that they cannot work within the duopoly system, especially if they were a part of it.

I may be comment adverse, but I have been known to sign petitions to get candidates and parties on the ballot that I do not support. Especially since that's about the only way to break the duopoly lock on the electoral process.

Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

OK, maybe you don't give an fcuk about Palestinians, but Israelis live high on the hog with universal health care, nice homes, education, and all sorts of other goodies paid for by the US tax payers.

You don't get the "socialism" and "welfare state", but you pay to support a nation that does not act in the US interest.

Remember the US Liberty.

You know that Russian Interference?

Actually, it's more like they blame Russians for interference even though the 2016 election was thrown by the Electoral College, which comes from the US CONSTITUTION! It's called distraction.

 The Israel lobby actually does what the Russians have been alleged to do. 

And I don't care how pro-Israel you happen to be: that money would be much better spent here.

As I said, I have no illusions about the reforms I wish the US would adopt

On the other hand, we can keep going with two parties which don't represent most people and are out of touch with the electorate.

Also, Italy uses first past the post (winner take all) instead of the ranked choice voting/instant run-off which is another reform I like. I am in favour of proportional representation and run off elections/ranked choice voting.

As the mans says: "democracy needs policies. And it needs effective policies."

Not the "partisan" bullshit that is going on the the US.

Ranked Choice Voting--Be careful what you wish for.

I have no illusions about Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Europe has had run off elections for a while now, which is a longer version of what is called ranked choice voting. The person with the most votes wins. It's pointless if you have a single party, or two undistinguishable parties. Some places in the US only have one candidate running. Case in point, I voted in an election in DC where my choices were the "Democrat", Marion Berry, or the Socialist Workers Party.

I voted Socialist Workers Party.

The point is that Marion Berry won, but I was able to vote against him. Likewise I have said that I would have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 if RCV had been in place. Sure, I would have voted (1) Jill Stein, (2) Gary Johnson, (3) write in for my dog, and (4) Hillary Clinton. Not sure how I would have done it in 2020, but Biden would NOT have gotten my vote even with RCV.

The point is that RCV makes it easier for alternative parties to get into the game, which is why people like me and other reformers are interested in it. The mass of people who DON'T vote because they feel that their votes don't count. Or that they are voting for parties which don't represent them. I shouldn't have to vote AGAINST a candidate, but FOR a candidate I believe represents me.

On the other hand, some seriously conservative candidates can still end up winning. I remember sitting in an Antwerp Coffee shop after the Vlaams Blok won the election! Emmanuel Macron topped the ballot in the first round of voting, and was elected President of France on 7 May 2017 with 66.1% of the vote in the second round, defeating Marine Le Pen making him the youngest president in the country's history.

For the Americans out there who don't know who Marine Le Pen is, She was involved with the Front National, a French, far right party (like really far right, a party like that would really push US politics to the right).  She is the youngest daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former leader of the Front National, and the aunt of former FN MP Marion Maréchal. Marine Le Pen joined the FN in 1986. The FN has changed its name and toned down a little, but most people on the left would go apeshit if a party like this had national prominence in the US.

FN and Vlaams Blok aren't neo: they ARE Nazi! Well, maybe they are the political descendants of the Nazis: Vlaams Nationaal Verbond and Action française

Get the point?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green ain't got nothing on these people, or might seem like what the FN has become. But having dealt with FN members when I was living in Belgium, the US would be in for some REAL fun if a party this far to the right joined the political fray. People would be nostalgic for Trump.

The point is that the latest incarnation of the FN was up against Emmanuel Macron. That's a bit like Bernie Sanders running against David Duke.

While it might result in a left wing candidate winning a seat: that isn't totally a possibility. I supported Lisa Savage's run in the Maine Senate election which was run under RCV. The upshot of that was Susan Collins was reelected. This was despite a lot of outstate support for her Democratic Opponent, Sara Gideon.

In other words, it may be helpful to conservative candidates. I mean Marine Le Pen and the Vlaams Blok do well with this type of election. Which is why I say be careful what you wish for, you might get it. 

AOC could lose a future election to someone so far to the right she would move to Cuba.

Impeachment...or REAL reconciliation?

Time magazine has published an article, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, as we wait for the beginning of yet another pointless impeachment. I am even more sure that the result will be yet another acquittal by the Senate 

One can get their own take depending on how you read the Time Magazine article, but the ultimate bottom line is that the US election process needs to be examined. I'm with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who believes that it would be much more constructive to look into changing the system. I differ with him in that the process should be an intensive look into system.

More Partisan BS

It has long been my position that the more productive course of action after the 2016 elections would have been election reform instead of blaming the Russians (and pretty much everything and everyone other than the Democratic Party).

The Democrats did protest the 2016 Election. Maybe not as violently as current events, but they still protested.

 https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/864522009048494080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Let's not forget that the Democrats have been doing everything in their power to harass Trump.

US elections are not free and fair and held on a secret ballot. The two parties have a lock on the process which needs to be broken.

The problem is that the Duopoly will lose its power if real election reforms are enacted. Toss in that there would be a shift in power from the wealthy to the people.

See also.

• Election Integrity Project: Why US elections are flawed.
• America's flawed democracy: the five key areas where it is failing
• Why American Elections are Flawed (and how to Fix them) 
  

Who was president on 4 January 2016?

Barack Obama if I remember correctly.

And the reason I'm asking this is because of this article from Salon which was published on that date. The right wing extremists we see in the US Capitol didn't happen over night. It was pretty much well under way long before 2016.

So, yet another thing we can't pin directly on Donald Trump.

And it's also not a phenomenon that is limited to just the United States. Cas Mudde has a really great opinion piece in the Guardian about all this:

How and why did we get here? First and foremost, through a long process of cowardice, failures, and shortsighted opportunism of the mainstream right. Already in 2012, in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, by a longtime prominent neo-Nazi, I wrote, “the extremist rhetoric that comes from so-called law-abiding patriots should be taken more seriously”. I advised Republican leaders to “be more careful in choosing their company and insinuations”. What happened, however, was the opposite: far-right ideas and people were mainstreamed rather than ostracized.

As in so many other things, Donald Trump has been a major catalyst of this process, but not its initiator. The radicalization of the US right wing predates Trump by decades. It even predates the Tea party, which mostly helped to bring the far right into the heart of the Republican party. Obviously, racism and racist dog-whistling have been key to the party since they launched their infamous Southern Strategy in the 1970s, which brought white Southerners to the Republican party, but this goes far beyond that. The radicalization is not just ideological, it is anti-systemic.

I'm not sure if I would say that Trump was a "major catalyst", but he has definitely played and been associated with this trend. I am also not sure that I would put the blame solely on the right, since no one has called out this movement with any real force on either side. It's too easy to finger point than to address this issue.

On the other hand, it is long past time to have done anything about this issue. But what needs to be done is some serious self-examination by all sides as to WHY the situation is what it is. There are some very real issues raised by all this, but it's easier to play games than to address the flaws in the system.

A major flaw is that US elections are indeed not very democratic from a two party system that shuts out other players, to gerrymandered districts, not directly electing the president, among a long list of problems screaming for reform. These problems are internal and not caused by foreign nationals.

The writing was on the wall long before Trump and may bring someone far worse than Trump unless the problems are addressed.

And the bad news is: You can't blame Donald Trump for what is wrong in the US anymore.

Of course, the people with Trump Derangement Syndrome probably will continue to do so long after he has passed from the scene.

Seriously, I wasn't sure which would be worse: Trump winning the same way he did in 2016 by taking the electoral college, but not the popular vote. Or Joe Biden winning and then having to deal with all his shit.

It looks like option two is the one on the cards. With an addition of Horrible Harris to make the package even more fun to swallow.

The real problem is that the "Democrats" spent the past four years blaming everything and everybody, but the people responsible for making Donald Trump president in the first place.

The "Democrats" themselves.

Toss in that the system is pretty much a mess to begin with.

I walked away in 2016 with the Demexit and will not go back, but the system has to catch up with those of us who know it is broken. The electoral system is in serious need of reform and trying to pass the blame on the other guy won't help the situation.

Vote Blue No Matter WTF?

Seriously? The Democrats haven't learned squat since 2016. That's due to the fact that they have been blaming everybody but themselves for that election. Toss in that they have been trying to distract people from their mistakes.

Except that is backfiring BIGTIME.

I wouldn't have known or cared about Hunter Biden if the Dumbocrats had that lie, but No they have to involve Donald Trump. The whole shebang looks like a Mexican finger pointing standoff of who is more corrupt in regard to Ukraine.

But we need to get a little history of the situation.

The US want to control Ukraine in order to establish US managed pipeline routes relating to the geopolitical competition over oil and natural gas. The US also wants to advance the US controlled NATO alliance to surround all of Russia's European borders. The Obama administration and the State Department (which Hillary Clinton had built up from 2009 to 2013) assisted in the undemocratic coup in Ukraine which was led by neo-Nazi white supremacists in 2014. This Nationalist group violently took over Ukraine. The Nationalists attempted to make it illegal in Ukraine to speak Russian, a minority who are still a major force in running the Ukraine government.

In Crimea, where the vast majority of residents are Russian, the Crimeans, fearing the Nationalist regime that had just taken over Kiev, quickly voted to rejoin Russia and by agreement with no military action at all, Crimea legally rejoined Russia. There was no supposed ‘invasion’ of Crimea. It did not happen.

Likewise, the people in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine were also concerned with the Nationalist ethnic cleansing. An election was held, but because a similar annexation of Donbas into Russia would spoil western plans to dominate pipeline routes and control Russia’s border, the fascist government in Kiev immediately moved with its military, to by force squash the vote and stop Donbas from leaving. This resulted in a 2014-2015 civil war in Donbas, in which Russia lent military support to Donbas (but no formal troops) and the US lent mirroring military support to Kiev.

Putin, if anything, is there preventing a possible genocide. Additionally, the Aid being given to the Ukrainian forces is questionable given that it could result in a genocide.

But TRUMP.

This is an excellent example of Trump Derangement Syndrome since very few people are discussing why we are giving aid which could result in a genocide in the first place.

Let's toss in that Hunter Biden's employment with Burisma was also being called into question under the Obama Administration. On the other hand, no one is questioning the propriety of his employment during these hearings.

The problem here is that both Biden and Trump are slimy. Biden has already said not to vote for him if you dislike fracking.

I'm not the only person to point out that Biden is the male version of Hillary Clinton.

The problem is that the Democratic Party's credibility will be shot from the failed attempt to impeach Trump. They can't pull of a repeat of what they did to Sanders in 2016 without totally alienating his supporters.

Maybe there will be a few who are total masochists or idiots, but one of my takeaways from 2016 was that my vote didn't count. The other was that the problems were internal which means the US needs election reform more than they need the circle jerks to remove Trump.

The bottom line is that all the problems which led to Trump's becoming president are still firmly in place. I see the Democrats ready to make the same errors because they are too arrogant to fix their problems.

No, you have to earn my vote, which is why I left the Democratic Party before the DNC in Philadelphia. Don't count on me voting Blue. Or Red.

I don't vote for evil: lesser or otherwise.

That's how we got into this mess in the first place.

This is worth watching for why impeachment will backfire and the Dems will lose if Sanders isn't their candidate:
https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-impeachment-misguided-move

• Some of this came from https://steemit.com/impeach/@ericbrooks/why-are-both-republicans-and-democrats-lying-about-russia
• To see many of these details in a 2015 report by internationally respected war correspondent John Pilger, search the word 'Ukraine' at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/27/why-the-rise-of-fascism-is-again-the-issue
• Robert Parry's 2015 report confirming the details showing that there was no 'invasion' of Crimea, go to: http://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/22/crimeans-keep-saying-no-to-ukraine
• CIA whistleblower Ray McGovern's report on the Ukraine crisis at: http://consortiumnews.com/2016/03/18/behind-the-crimearussia-reunion
•  Finally, to see a graph showing that almost all of the deaths of the civil war in Donbas occurred from 2014 to 2015, and that full war has not been active in the region for four years, go to: http://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-conflict-and-terrorism?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=UKR

What really bothers me about Russiagate and the Mueller report

The fact that Trump looked as if he didn't want to be President. That was a common theme from journalists and other outsiders who spent time with his campaign.

Toss in the wikileaked document from the Podesta e-mails where the Clinton campaign talks about a "Pied-Piper Candidate" and specifically mentions Donald Trump.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

I find it interesting that the predicted popular vote in this forecast by Nate Silver is fairly close to how the actual popular vote turned out. Sure, that's purely conjecture.

On the other hand, Clinton was so sure she would win the election that she didn't have a concession speech written!

We know that the Democratic primary process was rigged between Wikileaks and the Class Action lawsuit against the DNC. Hell, it's pretty much common knowledge that Clinton was supposed to have been the Democratic "nominee" since 2015 and that Sanders was an inconvenience to the process.

The problem is that you've got to wonder when a campaign is based upon "It's her turn" from a person with a serious sense of entitlement. Toss in that person is running a vanity campaign.

And the Candidate in question is one of the most unpopular candidates ever (see 2008 Michigan Primary results).

I mean who is the more likely candidate to try and rig the election:
1) the person who appears not to give a fuck?
or
2) The person who feels so entitled to the position that she shuts out any competition?

Of course Trump was exonerated he had no intent to win the election.

It's easy to divert attention away by screaming "the Russians meddled in the election".  On the other hand, it's a lot more questionable when the evidence points to someone thinking they can rig the election to win.

So, I think that's the real line of inquiry if people want to keep trying to figure out what went wrong: look at the person who had a desire and a motive to cheat.



See also:

• BuzzFeed’s Controversial Cohen Story Raises Question: Did Trump Want to Be President?
• The Dismissed DNC Fraud Lawsuit Explained
• Vote-Rigging Suit Against DNC Dropped, Mostly Because the DNC Can’t Rig Much of Anything
• Hillary Clinton says she didn't prepare concession speech because she was convinced she would win

THEY JUST WON'T SHUT UP!!!!

Some people need to get the concept of "rights" and "due process".

One of which is the concept of innocent until proven guilty, which some people are happy to go by when it's their candidate, but won't let go of when it's Donald Trump.

Don't get me wrong. I am no fan of Donald Trump.

I am also no fan of the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton wasn't popular and any rigging was to try and find someone more unpopular than she was.

The shit will really go down once people start reading the Wikileaked Democratic Party e-mails because the Russians ain't got nothing on the Democratic Party and the Media for pushing Donald Trump.

Which was a strategy that backfired spectacularly!

Not to mention that the Democrats looks set for a replay.

There is a big difference between this and Watergate. The Republicans were the ones responsible for Watergate. 2016 was a joint effort, which was probably more from the Democrats and Media.  But don't expect to get any mea culpas from the likes of Rachel Maddow John Oliver, et al. 

Naw, they are going to keep beating a dead horse and working to get Trump reelected.

Any luck, there will be a move for impeachment which will blow up in the Dems' faces.

At this point, I am getting even sicker of the Democratic Party than I was after the Philadelphia DNC for their failure to live up to their name.

Like it or not, the Mueller Report said there was no collusion. It's time to drop the matter and move on.

Or maybe the Republicans should start looking into the Democratic Party's shenanigans.

Maybe the Mueller report WASN'T a witch hunt: or be careful what you wish for!

While the Democratic Partisans are upset about obstruction and incorrectly accusing Trump of treason, they seem to be neglecting that one of the casualties of the Mueller Investigation is Gregory Craig, who was a former Clinton and Obama attorney. Craig was charged with violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

DoJ's focus on FARA came about as an off shoot of the Mueller investigation.

Paul Manafort was convicted under this act for his work done for Ukraine's former President. Craig and Manafort worked together to help the Ukrainians, but failed to bother to register under FARA. Their client was Viktor Pinchuk, a wealthy Ukrainian steel-pipe maker. The Clintons and Pinchuk are linked via the Clinton Foundation.

There have long been allegations about the Clinton Foundation being a way to launder funds, if not straight out buy favours from the Clintons. The FBI has been said to have investigated the foundation for alleged “pay-to-play” politics while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.

While the Mueller Investigation might not have been totally bipartisan, I can't help but wonder if it also investigated the Clintons and the Clinton foundation after hearing about the Craig indictment.

Wouldn't it be funny if the redactions about on going criminal investigations related to the Clintons and their campaign? That would really be egg on the face of the Democrats for fucking up the 2016 Election.

Anyway, the Dems should be careful what they wish for, they might get it.

And it might not turn out the way they want it!

See also:

• With Craig Indictment, Mueller Probe Sends Ripples Through the Swamp
• Gregory Craig, Ex-Obama Aide, Is Indicted on Charges of Lying to Justice Dept.
• Mueller's report looks bad for Obama
• Is the FBI’s latest probe of the Clinton Foundation a ‘witch hunt’ – or something more?
• Victor Pinchuk, the Clintons & Endless Connections
• Foundation Ties Bedevil Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign

Noam Chomsky on Russiagate

Russian interference was minimal if it even existed. No one is talking about Israel's interference in US elections.

"There's no interference in elections that begins to compare to campaign funding."

More election rigging

Now if you were an environmentalist group and going to endorse a candidate, which one of these would you choose?

The person with the 100% (or 92%): Bernie Sanders?

Or the person with the 82%: Hillary Clinton?

Bernie Sanders was the highest rated candidate on the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) scorecard and the Climate Hawks Vote PAC in 2016.

Clinton had the weakest environmental record of the Democratic candidates using the LCV's standard.

Yet, the LCV chose Clinton.

What the fuck?

LCV's Action Fund took an unprecedented step of endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after only one debate between the Democratic candidates and months before the first vote in the Democratic primaries was cast. That was a big mistake. It was far too early in this primary for the nation’s most powerful environmental political organization to make an endorsement.

Yet they did. And they chose a candidate who was poor by their own standards!
Clinton promoted the internationalization of fracking and oversaw the State Department’s initial support for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline during her tenure as Secretary of State. The one major climate accomplishment she touts, the Copenhagen Accord, is considered by climate activists to be a huge failure. Clinton is the only candidate with deep ties to the financiers and lobbyists of the fossil-fuel industry, on Wall Street and beyond.

Clinton supported the continued exploitation of our nation’s public carbon reserves, while Sanders had introduced legislation that would put an end to fossil-fuel leases on public lands. Sanders and Martin O’Malley actively supported the climate divestment movement, while Clinton ,  whose campaign and super PAC accept funding from fracking investors and fossil-fuel industry lobbyists did not taken a position.

This was Clinton's reaction when asked about her connection to the fossil fuel industry by a Greenpeace Volunteer.

Clinton never did the actions necessary to gain the support of the environmentalist movement (other than those establishment groups who are hopeful that change can come through the duopoly regime). On the other hand, climate change had short shrift if it received any attention at all during the campaign.

There are a lot of issues going on here from having a candidate chosen long before the primary process begins, failure to have a serious debate on the issue, and just plain off earning the vote.

The environment is just one of many issues where Clinton just wasn't trustworthy. And she didn't help the situation by antagonising environmental activists. She failed to give straight answers on the issue. I would toss in that she failed to address The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) issue in a meaningful manner.

But this is one of many issues where Clinton demonstrated she wasn't trustworthy.

I really have to question who rigged the election when a group such as LCV essentially declared that there’s no need for any further discussion of the environment or climate by the Democratic candidates before the primary process really began. And they decided that in favour of a candidate who was poor by their own standard.

See also:

• Why the League of Conservation Voters was wrong to endorse Hillary Clinton
• 'What a Crock': Clinton Breaks DAPL Silence With Statement That Says 'Literally Nothing'

It only gets worse from here

A little honest, self-examination would have been a lot more helpful than trying to blame all this on the Russians.

It will be even more amusing when the investigation gets investigated and shown to be a crock of shit.

Seriously people, it would have made a whole lot more sense to examine what REALLY happened than trying to blame the mess on the Russians.

Mud! Mud! Glorious Mud!

Here's the only collusion that was significant in 2016
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/1120/251

One of the pundits said that the Democrats see the Mueller Report as evidence of collusion and obstruction, while the Republicans see it as a vindication of the president.

And the Independent and Third Party voters?

We see it as neglecting the internal bullshit of the duopoly parties.

We have a document in Wilileaks, which has been confirmed as authentic showing that Clinton wanted a "Pied Piper" candidate to run against.

Trump received a significant amount of free media coverage, which wouldn't have been possible a while back. I remember in 1980 when the Ronald Reagan film "Bedtime for Bonzo" couldn't be shown on TV in the US because it would be free coverage. On the other hand, I've heard estimates of the free publicity received by Trump to be in the billions of dollars.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said that, “It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS.” 

Never mind that the same media shut out Bernie Sanders. Now, who was it who was trying to meddle in the election.

Of course the media are going to be pushing the Russian collusion thing since it distracts from the far more egregious acts that are happening in the US electoral process.

The Clinton campaign wasn't too bothered by foreign assistance, which turns out to be dodgy. The Steele Dossier is coming up for scrutiny since the release of the Mueller Report.  Ukrainians and Russians aren't the same nation (I should know), and there is evidence that the Ukrainians were assisting the Clinton Campaign.

It gets even more amusing since there are also allegations that the Russians tried to assist the Sanders campaign! That went well! I think there is far more evidence that the Democrats rigged the game against Sanders which makes that claim truly laughable.

Especially since it's been shown that Clinton was chosen to be the Democratic nominee in 2015: well before the voting started. Sanders was an inconvenience that showed the primary process for being the farce it is.

One of the reasons I voted for the Greens was that I saw both of the duopoly candidates as being slimey and neither party is willing to take responsibility. One major thing they could do to clear up this is to work on serious election reform.

My takeaway from these investigations is that the duopoly and the US mainstream media aren't going to address this issue in a meaningful way since doing so makes it clear that the hoodwinking of the American public has been going on openly for a long time.

"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."

Neuman was League of Women Voters President Nancy M. Neuman who said that in October of 1988, which demonstrates that this conspiracy has been ongoing for some time.

And it is internal to the duopoly parties.

But it's a heck of a lot easier to point to countries that use the Cyrillic Alphabet as being the perps since few people can understand what is really happening.

And it's happening at home.

The real takeaway from all this is that the US needs election reform badly.

Sources:

• Election 2016: Trump’s free media helped keep cost down, but fewer donors provided more of the cash
• Breakingviews: Trump's $4.6 billion in free media - CNBC.com
• Donald Trump May Hate The Media, But They Are Both Winners This Election Donald Trump 2016: Did We Create Trump?
• Mueller Report Likely to Renew Scrutiny of Steele Dossier
• Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire - POLITICO
• As Russia collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges
• League Refuses to "Help Perpetrate a Fraud"

More Electoral Colege, or ONCE AGAIN: No, the Green Party, or any other third party, did not cost Clinton the election

Another point the "Greens cost Clinton the election" crowd miss in their fixation with the three states Clinton thought were safe (Michigan, Pennsylvania,and Wisconsin) miss is that Clinton could also have won with just the votes from Florida and any one of the three "safe states".

The Florida scenario would also mean that she would have won with 21 States and the District of Columbia (see the atttached pic for how this all would have worked out).

If anything, the fact that the popular vote is meaningless is one of the more significant reasons for voting Green (toss in the Environment is far more my "single issue" if we are going there). 

While people may try to shame people who vote third party, the fact is that the popular vote is meaningless as long as the Electoral College is in effect.

Additionally, the Electoral College protecting the small states argument is also fallactious.

If anything, the 2000 and 2016 Elections have demonstrated that the Electoral College is another relic from the US Constitution that needs to be purged.

See Also

• Did Jill Stein voters deliver Donald Trump the presidency?
• No, Jill Stein Did Not Cost Hillary Clinton the White House
• Did third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson lose Clinton the election? 
• Jill Stein: Democratic Spoiler Or Scapegoat? | FiveThirtyEight
• The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President
• The Electoral College is Profoundly Undemocratic By Design 
• Trump owes his victory to America’s unique Electoral College system
• How the Electoral College Rigged the Election for Donald Trump
• The Electoral College effect — in 3 cool charts
• America's Unique and Controversial Electoral College  
• 9 Things You May Not Know About the Electoral College
• Hillary Clinton’s Popular-Vote Victory Is Unprecedented—and Still Growing
• Why Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones
• Hillary Clinton's Lead Is Greater Than Multiple Former Presidents'

No, the Green Party, or any other third party, did not cost Clinton the election

The Fact is Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 65,853,516 (48.5% votes) to Trump's 62,984,825 (46.4% votes), but lost in the electoral college by receiving 232 (43.1%) of the electoral votes to Trump's 306 (56.8%) votes.

But some people don't want to admit that the Electoral College is pretty much what put Trump in place. Probably because most people have no idea what the fuck the Electoral College does.

Quite simply it invalidates the popular vote.

Anyway, somebody was trying to tell me that Clinton would have won if Green voters in  Michigan and Pennsylvania had voted for her. That argument is obviously fallacious, but It’s easy to see why people point the finger at third-party votes. In Michigan, where the election was so close that the Associated Press still hadn’t called the result until some time after the election. Trump was ahead by about 12,000 votes at that time. That was significantly less than the 242,867 votes that went to third-party candidates in Michigan

On the other hand, Clinton would have still lost even if she had managed to win the popular vote in either Michigan or Pennsylvania.

That's because of how the Electoral College works. Clinton would have won 248 Electoral College votes if the 232 Votes had been supplemented only with Michigan's Electoral votes. She would have had 252 Electoral votes if she have won only Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes.  Even with winning Michigan's and Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, she would have fallen short of the 270 electoral College votes by 2 votes (268). Trump still wins in any of those three possible outcomes.

Clinton needed to win all three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, to get the 270 Electoral Votes needed to win.

There's a reason why the Interactive Electoral College map site is called https://www.270towin.com/. As they point out:

Since electoral votes are generally allocated on an "all or none" basis by state, the election of a U.S President is about winning the popular vote in enough states to achieve 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 that are available. Receiving the most votes nationwide is irrelevant, as we have seen in two of the most recent five presidential elections where the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner were different.

There are a lot of other problems with trying to blame the Third Parties for Clinton's loss (especially since Gary Johnson received a larger percentage of the vote than Jill Stein).

One of the major reasons I left the Democratic Party, and the duopoly, is that Election Reform is a really big issue in US politics. Only the Third parties were discussing this.

The 2016 Election also demonstrated that voting was pretty much meaningless. The primaries are a sham and rigged to eliminate candidates from running (cost). And the Presidential Election is really a sham with the Electoral College in Place.

The Electoral College is one of the glaring flaws in US politics, but people want to blame everything but the flawed system for the problems we see.


See Also

• Did Jill Stein voters deliver Donald Trump the presidency?
• No, Jill Stein Did Not Cost Hillary Clinton the White House
• Did third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson lose Clinton the election? 
• Jill Stein: Democratic Spoiler Or Scapegoat? | FiveThirtyEight
• The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President
• The Electoral College is Profoundly Undemocratic By Design 
• Trump owes his victory to America’s unique Electoral College system
• How the Electoral College Rigged the Election for Donald Trump
• The Electoral College effect — in 3 cool charts
• America's Unique and Controversial Electoral College  
• 9 Things You May Not Know About the Electoral College
• Hillary Clinton’s Popular-Vote Victory Is Unprecedented—and Still Growing
• Why Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones
• Hillary Clinton's Lead Is Greater Than Multiple Former Presidents'

Voting Green

Yes, I voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party in the 2016 election.

This is one of the many reasons I am skeptical about "Russian Influence". The other one was that Trump won in the Electoral College, not the popular vote. 

Of course, you won't hear from the likes of me in the Media. And I won't even let off supposedly unbiased sources like the Guardian or the BBC in this rant. Neither of these news sources has paid attention to the US third parties. This is sad since any truly unbiased new source should be interviewing people like me.

Instead, I see bullshit like this trying to point out how Green voters were duped. Toss in the attempt to make third party voters somehow responsible for the Electoral College fiasco.

Anyway, Jill Stein didn't need any social media help for her campaign. Most of the people who voted for her were so disenchanted by the two party system that we were ready to vote for the Greens, Libertarians, or Roque de la Fuentes. I've said it before, the only way I would have considered voting for Hillary Clinton would be if ranked choice voting existed. In that case, I would have cast my vote something like this:

Jill Stein
Gary Johnson or Roque de la Fuentes for Second or Third
A Write in for Bozo the Clown for fourth
And then I would have voted for Hillary Clinton.

So, the "Russian influence" horseshit tends to neglect that Hillary Clinton was one of the most unpopular candidates to ever run. But, never mind that the DNC and establishment democrats chose her over Bernie Sanders. There is another aspect to all of this which I have covered before and won't bother here about my disenchantment with the two party system.

So, any accusation of "Russian Influence" needs to examine how the two party system works since the bottom line of the whole argument seems to be that the Russians used it against itself.

So, any "Russian support" was pretty much negligible. I think Paul Jay of the Real News Network also does a great analysis of the Russian Influence issue.  As a lawyer, the standard for criminal convictions is "beyond a reasonable doubt" and no one has persuaded me beyond that that their assertion of "Russian Influence" outweighs any of the other issues (such as the Electoral College) for Trump being president.

Remember, persuasion require the person to be somewhat inclined to whatever you are trying to persuade them to do. I wouldn't have voted Green if the Dems had addressed: Climate change, election reform, and all the things Bernie was on record as being for. As Stein pointed out, You will love her if you liked Bernie.Toss in I am disgusted with the Democratic Party and its sham primary elections.

As for social media, pretty much everyone who supported the Green Party did so for the same reasons I did: disgust with the two party system (notice how the Media fail to talk about that Green talking point). The Green Party wasn't on the ballot in every state, which meant that a lot of people voting Green were doing so in the hope of gaining ballot access by getting 5% of the vote.

I'll toss in another reason I voted Green was that Hillary was supposed to win in a landslide, which she did if the popular vote actually mattered.

But the popular vote doesn't matter.

US elections are a sham.

And who better to make the baddie if the US wants to pretend it is the "Great Democracy" (or republic for that matter) than an actual "dictatorship".

In other words, distract the people as the world falls apart.

Sorry, I am one of the many people who isn't buying into the "Russian Influence" thing. And you can read all my posts to see why, but the bottom line is that nothing the Russians, or any other foreign power, have done tops the mess that is US politics.

See also:

• No, Jill Stein Did Not Cost Hillary Clinton the White House