Hacker News Reader

Comment by iso1631 | Hacker News Reader

This is exactly what the leadership wanted. And as they won the election. Not like in 2016 (where more people voted for the other guy but they won due to the difference in power of votes), or in 2020 (where they lost), they won a clear outright victory, it's exactly what the USA wanted.

View on HN

I'm not sure it's fair to characterize 49.8% of the vote as a "clear outright victory". Harris got 48.3%; that's a pretty close to even split. The majority of voters didn't vote for this.

The majority of voters who voted for president got the president they wanted. With a president comes admin of all these agencies. So yeah they voted for this.

> The majority of voters who voted for president got the president they wanted.

Again, no. 49.8% is not a majority. It is a plurality.

In theory the US has checks and balances. Ask 10 years ago if you could have a president selling national secrets via an api and you'd be laughed out of the room.

Carter had to sell his peanut farm. Trump makes billions each year.

It is nonsensical to consider popular vote numbers in an election not decided on the popular vote. How many Democrats stayed home in red states because they knew their vote wouldn't matter? And how many Republicans stayed home in blue states for the same reason? It's unknowable. I'm all for the presidency being decided by popular vote, but until it is there is no point using those statistically-flawed numbers in any debate.

> How many Democrats stayed home in red states because they knew their vote wouldn't matter? And how many Republicans stayed home in blue states for the same reason? It's unknowable.

Just to add on, not voting in decided states is appealing for the winning party as well as the losing party.

Personally, I think a nationwide popular vote would be a logistical disaster, especially in the modern era of alternative facts.

Is there a word for this behavior where a politician wins by the slimmest of margins in a first past the post election and then spins it as a mandate from The People instead of an incredibly tight split?

FPP voting

If you are talking about the billionaires and trillionaire who spent as much as they could to get this elected then you are correct it is what THEY wanted.

They got what they wanted by making half the country's idiots want it too

Only half? So you're saying half the country's idiots voted the other way?

That suggests more non-idiots voted Trump than Harris.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com