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Only in America...

Interesting, from The Graun:

If you’ve been watching the US election unfold for days now – especially if you don’t live there – you may have thought on more than one occasion: “But why do they even have the Electoral College?”
The answer, as is often the case with the US constitution, is because of trying to strike a workable compromise between the northern states and the slave-holding southern states in the early days of the US.
If you want to read up on it, there’s a great essay from last year here by Assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School, Wilfred Codrington III called “The Electoral College’s racist origins”. He writes:

"The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president, one that could leverage the three-fifths compromise, the Faustian bargain they’d already made to determine how congressional seats would be apportioned."​
The ‘three-fifths compromise’ mentioned there was the 1787 decision that enslaved people would equal ‘three-fifths’ of a person for the purposes of counting the population of states and thus determining their level of representation in Congress.

As we wait some 200+ years later for count numbers to slowly update, I recommend it as a fascinating read in the meanwhile: The Atlantic – The Electoral College’s racist origins
 
Dumb as rocks.

Biden looking to win Georgia. Wow!

This isn't going to quite as close as it initially appeared, I think. He's won the popular vote easily and could win the electoral college reasonably comfortable, as well.
 
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Caught a few posts in this thread ref election & yes in an ideal world would have like a bit younger candidate than Joe, but to be honest I don’t think in my life I’ve met many nastier people than Trump so definitely in the anyone but Trump camp. I mean I would have been cheering for Reagan or George Dubya if that was the alternative. Let’s be honest no one likes a sore loser, might get a bit of credit if he bowed out gracefully but it ain’t going to happen
 
Interesting, from The Graun:

If you’ve been watching the US election unfold for days now – especially if you don’t live there – you may have thought on more than one occasion: “But why do they even have the Electoral College?”
The answer, as is often the case with the US constitution, is because of trying to strike a workable compromise between the northern states and the slave-holding southern states in the early days of the US.
If you want to read up on it, there’s a great essay from last year here by Assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School, Wilfred Codrington III called “The Electoral College’s racist origins”. He writes:

"The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president, one that could leverage the three-fifths compromise, the Faustian bargain they’d already made to determine how congressional seats would be apportioned."​
The ‘three-fifths compromise’ mentioned there was the 1787 decision that enslaved people would equal ‘three-fifths’ of a person for the purposes of counting the population of states and thus determining their level of representation in Congress.

As we wait some 200+ years later for count numbers to slowly update, I recommend it as a fascinating read in the meanwhile: The Atlantic – The Electoral College’s racist origins

Really interesting. I can recommend ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’ by James M McPherson if you haven’t read it already. A wonderful study of the civil war but also excellent background to the development of modern America.
 
Really interesting. I can recommend ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’ by James M McPherson if you haven’t read it already. A wonderful study of the civil war but also excellent background to the development of modern America.

Thanks, will look that up.

Hulloutpost's view that any history older than 5 years is irrelevant to political discourse is completely blown away by the role the American Civil War plays in American history right up to the current day.
 
The huge angry divide in the US appears to run between urban and rural America judging from the election results.

All of those republican senators and congressmen and women who have just got re-elected in increased numbers were voted in by exactly the same people who voted for Trump, it appears to me to be more likely some of those voters will turn on the GOP for not doing enough to save their man when they were "fraudulently" denied a 2nd term. It might not be Trump who runs with their support in 2024, but it almost certainly be someone very much like him, maybe even Jared...

Put it another way, Biden has just received more votes than almost any other president in US history thanks to the massive turnout compared to previous elections. The candidate with the 2nd most votes? Donald Trump...

Trump was clearly lining up his daughter.