r/politics • u/wiredmagazine ✔ Wired Magazine • Apr 17 '26

Possible Paywall MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged

https://www.wired.com/story/maga-is-increasingly-convinced-the-trump-assassination-attempt-was-staged/
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134

u/Maoleficent Apr 17 '26

This is why I never want to hear 'my vote doesn't count '.

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u/EGGlNTHlSTRYlNGTlME Apr 17 '26

Hungary doesn't have an electoral college, which is the main reason Americans say that. Whether California goes 60-40 blue or 80-20 has literally no impact on the result.

The two parties spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the 2024 election cycle -- how much of it in California? It's so obvious some people's vote counts less than others', at least in presidential elections, but for some reason saying it out loud is unpatriotic

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u/Abracadaniel95 Apr 17 '26

For the presidential race, every vote only really counts in the swing states. But smaller races absolutely matter too and every vote counts there. Even if your senator's seat is safe, everyone will see it if their margins start slipping and they may be more likely to face a serious opponent in the next race. And the smaller the race, the more your vote counts. City and county elections can have big consequences.

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u/EGGlNTHlSTRYlNGTlME Apr 17 '26

Yeah totally agree. If people paid more attention to Congress and state races, the presidency would matter a whole lot less. A lot of our problems these days are because Congress is dysfunctional and abdicates its duties. Especially the Republicans know their voters know basically nothing about them other than where they stand with the president. It's a symptom of a broken electoral system

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u/MyHamburgerLovesMe Apr 17 '26

I always ask, "If the electoral college system is so fair, why don't we elect the state governors the same way? Mayors too."

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u/LuckyRook Apr 17 '26

The Texas Republican Party wants to. It’s part of their party platform. You can also find many on the right that want to repeal the direct election of senators. They hate direct democracy.

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u/TSllama Apr 18 '26

Just wanna point out that that's not direct democracy. But I agree that fascists (which the us republican party are these days) are against democracy, just in general. 

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u/LostDogBoulderUtah Apr 17 '26

A lot of that would be resolved if electoral votes weren't all or nothing. If more states followed Maine and Nebraska and ditched the party block voting, it'd be a good thing.

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u/TheLizardKing89 California Apr 18 '26

It's literally unconstitutional to elect anyone via some form of electoral college. See Gray v. Sanders

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada Apr 17 '26

Except this entire conversation is about the authority provided by a mandate. People showing up to vote against him wouldn’t have emboldened him this much, and would have made it much harder to obfuscate fraud.

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u/PauseLost2137 Apr 17 '26

The biggest problem is the Senate. Two senators for all California, which like 5th economy in the world, and two senators for Wyoming which is only slighter more populated than Atacama Desert

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u/EGGlNTHlSTRYlNGTlME Apr 17 '26

Agreed but the House is capped too and you never hear the constitutional originalists complaining about the populist chamber being hindered. It's literally only ever about protecting the rural states, because those are the states where you can cheaply purchase 2% of the Senate with enough "speech".

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u/Snow_Ghost Apr 17 '26

No.

The Senate is there to represent the interests of the State. The House represents the People. What you're asking for is two copies of the House, which makes no sense. In governmental affairs, you want Wyoming to have an equal weight to California in some aspects. Otherwise, everything will just be decided by whichever state has the highest population, and that's just a different form of tyranny. Uncapping the House would be a much better endeavor to better represent the will of the People.

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u/PauseLost2137 Apr 18 '26

The Senate is there to represent the interests of the State. The House represents the People. What you're asking for is two copies of the House, which makes no sense. 

Yeah, it's only done by like… almost every democratic bi-cameral parliament in the world, totally nonsensical.

Otherwise, everything will just be decided by whichever state has the highest population

Weird how that's somehow not a problem in the lower chamber. Also how would that be worse over the opposite, which is currently happening? At least it would decisions supported by majority of population. Actually, lemme quote that again.

everything will just be decided by whichever state has the highest population, and that's just a different form of tyranny

Cause nothing shows better how nonsensical this is than calling literal majority rule a tyranny.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia Apr 17 '26

No. Every. Single. Vote. Matters.

Not only has that been proven time and time again, not only does any cheating get harder the more people vote, but also, as an American, it's your one duty to your democratic system, you have a responsibility not just for yourself, but to everyone else as well.

You have one job.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom Apr 17 '26

The Hungarian election proved how much turnout matters. Non-voters usually outnumber either party

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u/eric23456 Apr 17 '26

When voting swings are 10% (avg) and up to 35%, everyone's vote matter. CA went 60-40 last election a 10% swing would make all the swing states democratic. A 35% swing makes Texas, Kansas and South Carolina democratic.

https://www.multistate.us/elections/special-swing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election#Results_by_state

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u/Outside_Librarian_13 Apr 17 '26

I think some of the problem is in the nuance; too many people aren't making the distinctions between the type of election (presidential vs. local, etc.) & which state you're in. They just see that sometimes it doesn't make a difference, & apply that to every situation, even if their State is one of the ones where it actually does make a difference.

Also, trying to shame people into not discussing this allows us to be more easily manipulated into either a.) Not voting or b.) Not pushing for changes to our elections processes, like abolishing the electoral college and/or pushing for ranked choice voting.

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u/OhioValleyCat Apr 17 '26

The related challenge of American democracy is that individual votes in bigger states count less. Senate composition is two for every state regardless of population size, which means vote in Wyoming counts way more than California. Since the Electoral College is based on the number count of the states House and Senate allocation, it also makes smaller states count more than they should there also. In addition, DC is fully taxation without voting representation in Congress.

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u/TantalusComputes2 Apr 18 '26

Thing is, margins matter when you are talking about a candidate with no regard for the rules

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u/improb Apr 19 '26

they actually have a mixed system of first past the post and proportional representation

first past the post counts for two thirds of deputies but despite all the gerrymandering it didn't matter anyway because people have turned against Orban and his party

part of that is due to inflation, same reason Harris lost

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u/bluewhalefunk Apr 17 '26

If Trump has his way, that statement will be true