Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/28/trumps-campaign-forgot-to-bu.html
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Outstanding! Someone earns a cookie for doing a fantastic job.
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My god–the sheer nincompoopery this administration exhibits. No foresight, no cool super-villain competence, just fuck-all lurching from one thing to the next, relying on solely on its ability to pander to the worst instincts of its base. And goddammit if that hasn’t been proven to be a winning strategy to date.
They’re not playing 3d chess, they’re just shitting on the board and declaring victory.
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Unfortunately the site is so dry and bland, it’s hard to spend much time looking at it. They should have gone full Onion or Obvious Plant and made it feel like a happy political web site that gets unwitting Trump supporters to read section after section.
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Whatever those should link to, yeah borked.
You’re asking for the impossible there. You know that, right?
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While I do enjoy the short-sightedness of the most stable genius I’m sure at this point in the dgaf presidency he will just use a dot gov domain.
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It’s going to be really embarrassing if Biden loses to such an incompetent campaign.
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Embarassment was 2016. If Biden loses this one, a whole lot of people are going to stop looking to the two party system to solve any problems. I’m mostly there right now, even if I do vote Biden this time.
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The two party system is not the problem. They only work when both parties are playing by the same rules. The problem is right now the Democrats are playing by the established rules and norms of American Democracy and the Republicans are playing with Mussolini Starter kit rules or maybe the Party First, Country Second expansion pack. I can’t tell.
No system will work as long as the Republican party is willing to do anything to stay in power
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Now isn’t that a problem with the system of government, that a party can actually get away with that?
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Yes. Which is a good thing, I think, because it may be fixable.
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Indeed. Would probably require a new constitution, though.
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Indeed. Would probably require a new constitution, though.
I almost typed that same thing. Scary stuff, but might be needed.
Before that we could try expanding the supreme court and have the new seats be a rotating pool of federal judges, establish a national blue ribbon election and redistricting board, pass laws in all states to restrict electoral votes to match the popular vote.
Otherwise, we’ll have to ask the cockroaches and jellyfish what they think, since we’re apparently here to terraform the world for them.
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I think it illustrates that any system of government is only as good as those operating it. The Constitution and our laws in general, whatever their merits or flaws, aren’t self-executing instruments–they can only be expressed by human agency.
A lot of folks have pointed out for some time that the founding fathers did anticipate a venal, corrupt executive that would be willing to disregard the rule of law. But what they couldn’t account for is that the checks and balances built into the system would also be willing to stand by and let it occur.
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the root of the problem is the electoral college and the Senate. The way the system is set up a vote for in Idaho is way more valuable than one from California and NY.
It gives a party the ability to effectively implement minority rule by concentrating on a minority of people with a disproportionate amount of political power. The chart of red and blue states is exhibit 1 for this.
We effectively have minority rule now between the fact that the last 2 republican presidents have both lost the actual vote and the party is hell bent on implementing policies on things like gun control, policing, LGBT stuff that every credible poll says the majority of the country opposes.
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Holy cow! Biden pwned Trump! 
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An amendment would probably get us a lot of the way there.
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Term limits for members of Congress. Since terms in the House are 2 years and terms in the Senate are 6, maybe limit it to 12 years total (2 Senate terms, 6 House terms, or 3 House terms and 1 Senate term.) The maximum time someone can serve as President is just shy of 10 years (be the Vice President for a President who dies or resigns then finish out 2 years minus a day of that President’s term, then be elected for two 4 year terms of your own) so 12 years seems a reasonable amount of time to make your mark in Congress.
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Voting is for human beings only. [At some point in the future that amendment may need to be amended to reflect potential changes to the definition of “human being” – sufficiently advanced AI, cyborgs, androids, etc. but it’s good enough for now.] This with the next part would close the Citizens United loophole.
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[This would need some legalese to tighten up, but I think you get the drift.] You are allowed to donate money, goods, and services to a candidate only if you are a) closely related to them by birth, marriage, or adoption (a combination of no more than 3 hops, I’d say), b) you are eligible to vote for them, and/or c) you are doing this as court-ordered community service, a voluntary school activity, or something like a Boy Scout merit badge.
Neither the RNC nor DNC are related by birth, marriage, or adoption to a candidate. They are not eligible to vote for a candidate in an election. They are unlikely to be ordered by a court to do community service, to participate in school activities, and they’re not Boy Scouts.
What does that get us besides lots of money for people who have married into rich families?
What problem does this solve? Why not just say that only natural persons may donate goods, money, or services to political candidates and that Congress may by legislation set the maximum amount of any such donation that any individual natural person may make per election cycle, per other time period, or per candidate, or any combination thereof, as Congress may determine? (I am not actually convinced this is a great idea, but it seems like a simpler way of achieving your objective of closing the Citizens United loophole.)
This is certainly something Newt Gingrich would love–these very limits were, in fact, part of the Contract on America. Also seems like a good way to get lots more lobbyists and groups like ALEC that are happy to draft legislation with lots of traps for the unwary because the legislators don’t actually know how to do it.
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Wasn’t Dan Scavino, his former campaign manager and director of social media, supposed to be the “tech” guy for POTUS? Well done, Mr. Biden!
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