You assume that the originalists on the court care what the framers of the amendment thought, when it goes against the decision they want to render.

And yet, somehow this article does nothing to dispel my opinion that a lot of people like Trump because he says the fascist part out loud.

Or we can just implement a wealth tax like any reasonable nation.

Yeah, the problem here is the implementation: you and I and most people here would benefit a little from a higher tax on billionaires, enough to motivate us to send a letter to our Congressional representatives and send a few bucks to whichever campaigning politicians promise to do it.

Billionaires, in the meantime, stand to lose millions, or even tens of millions of dollars. Enough that it makes sense for them to start PACs, schmooze, and even bribe the Congressional representatives who’d be in charge of raising taxes. So even though there are hundreds of them and millions of us, they have greater means and motivation.

I believe that’s the tl;dr summary of the article in the OP.

From the article, I get the impression that the number in the headline is a severe undercount, because a lot of people in charge of running anti-domestic-terrorism programs in the military don’t see the value in them, so they either don’t see the problem in their ranks, or turn a blind eye to it.

“When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.”

No. Donald Trump told us he was a brilliant deal-maker, a stable genius, and a gifted billionaire.

A better idea is to do as Maya Angelou said: when somebody shows you what they are, over and over, believe them.

The nafety for safety.

That’s what Republicans do. The platform is what they run on. And the Republican platform is “whatever Lord Trump wants.”

I’m pretty sure I saw that headline, with X = Obama or Elizabeth Warren or someone. Then it got shot down because… Idunno, they probably would have blown it all on rent and food and car repairs instead of Job Creation.

We’re not the kind of authoritarian follower that propaganda machines like Fox work best with. We have our flaws; just not that particular one.

This.

McCarthy did the right thing for once, and came up with a solution to the looming shutdown that managed to pass by getting both Republican and Democratic votes. And he got shitcanned for it.

The message here is that as far as MAGA Republicans are concerned, bipartisanship is a firing offense.

Remember that when push came to shove, Democrats kicked Al Franken out of the Senate, while Republicans doubled down in their support for Roy Moore.

Of course, the press never asks any of this.

The horse race reporters might not, but pollsters do. They worry about this sort of thing a lot, and try to correct for it, when possible.

Uh-huh-huh! Thank you, thank you very much.

Oh, wait. You’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.

That’s not even it. At the time the Constitution was adopted, there were states like Virginia that had a lot of people, but rather few voters. They were afraid that they wouldn’t have a real say in who the president was. The Electoral College was a way to inflate slave states’ power, and entice them to join the Union.

Reminds me of the Blackadder episode where Baldrick won by 16,000 votes, even though there was only one voter:

H: One voter, 16,472 votes — a slight anomaly…?

E: Not really, Mr. Hanna. You see, Baldrick may look like a monkey who’s been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brillant politician. The number of votes I cast is simply a reflection of how firmly I believe in his policies.

Part of that is due to the feeling that one’s vote doesn’t matter. IMO having the president be elected by popular vote would bring a lot more people to the polls.

Mostly. Yes, RCV tends to elect compromise candidates, ones who may not be anyone’s first choice, but that most people can live with. I think Joe Biden is a good example of this. Everyone was rah-rah for some else during the primaries: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee… but Joe Biden has broad tepid appeal.

How do you do that without violating the First Amendment right to freedom of association?