non-US folks add our human rights point to their crisis

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Why are we foreigners in the US's close allies concerned with its present crisis? It's always moral to be concerned about every country, as in supporting All Out's LGBT human rights alerts which can be in any country. There is always the self-interest that a fairer world is a safer world, and throughout the West we have a mutual interest in keeping all its countries stably on the human rights course, to keep that bloc existing stably and be a region at peace. The US's choices knock on to life for the rest of us. Now, our outside public scrutiny of the course of human rights in the US makes a difference helping all the folks there who have human rights worries for the future. Who want us to be interested. So yes it is any of our business, our solidarity matters to American campaigns trying to keep things decent there. That means it matters to them to return the solidarity by letting us make those campaigns fix injustices in how the US treats us.

So, for example, when this call arises for the electoral college to follow the popular vote and not put Trump in at all.Electoral College Make Hillary Clinton President Yes we know the arguments against it being likely to happen, because only in 1836 did the electoral college actually change the President, but there is nothing to lose by backing the campaign to them. But if we are foreigners backing this campaign, showing a bit of world public feeling, e.g. I'm in Britain, then we should attach to our signatures a comment linking it to a human rights breach in how the US treats foreigners in its border control. Thus:

" This has happened to your system twice in 16 years. The mismatch with the popular vote is an eighteenth century standard and not a modern world standard of the people choosing their government. That modern standard is in the human rights charters. You have a global responsibility not to be seen to break those. So will Hillary herself have, and human rights charters also include "innocent until proved guilty", a standard which both these candidates themselves needed in the recent election. If Hillary gets office this way, by following the human rights charters against an older rulebook that breaches them, she stands cited as obliged to follow them in abolishing the border control system that judges foreign visitors on arrest histories even when they are innocent and not convicted. As a human rights violation whose impropriety sits alongside the electoral college's, Congress won't be entitled to block its abolition at this moment. Her legitimacy in office will depend on all foreigners who have backed this campaign getting holidays in the US without getting asked anything about arrest histories. Pass this on. "

Think of if a large number of names from outside the US could post that comment as they put their names to that campaign. It would push the border issue into civil rights politics there, whatever the electoral college issue's outcome.

What crisis?

Democracy happened. It's working as intended.

1. Perception of crisis by minorities especially racial and LGBT, and vulnerable groups, over whether human rights will be sevure. To be seen whether this fear is justified, but meanwhile actual crisis in increase of social hate incidents.
2. Crisis of democratic legitimacy by the popular vote not determining the winner. This now happening regularly, under eighteenth century rules long predating the idea, let alone the global standard, of people's sovereignty expressed in vote numbers.

Our elections are not determined by the popular vote, if our founders wanted it that way then they would wrote that into the constitution. The Electoral College ensures that a candidate has broad geographic among the states, the rest of the country does not want to be dictated by the whims of California who essentially allows illegal immigrants to vote and have many sanctuary cities. If you remove the fraudulent voters then Trump very likely won the popular vote as well not that it matters. Hillary did not win a majority of the popular vote, a slight plurality means nothing.

Not all us foreigners want Hillary Clinton. Some of us prefer to avoid World War III.

And, as for Donald Trump's support for LGBTQ rights, personally I think it's a welcome change in the the Republican Party's position, and a bit overdue. Still, better late than never.

Trump is more pro-gay rights than Obama was in 2008

try that on for size :-p

That's in invalid report on the situation. Your assessment would be proper if red states were 100% red and blue states the same. They aren't. Democrats and Republicans and everything in between are dispersed in every state of the US. My blue vote this year meant nothing in Iowa just as a red vote in Minnesota also meant nothing. It's really a trade off of a few swing states mattering vs the votes of all citizens mattering. Does that not sound fair and just to you? I'm not saying that Trump should have the presidency taken away from him this cycle since it's already over, but do you not agree this should be a future issue that the electoral college should be dismantled. The electoral college basically subverts the peoples choice in favor of state rights. It's a sham really going back to the issue of slavery....but lets not get into a history debate. Claiming that illegal immigrants can vote in California is also misinformation, likely that you got from Breitbart or some other politically motivated new source. Illegal immigrants in California can only apply for a special kind of drivers license called an AB-60, which according to Californian's DMV website has several restrictions:

This is a special driver's license that:
May NOT be used for identification purposes.
MAY be used to drive anywhere throughout the state of California.
Has a distinguishing feature and notice on the front of the license indicating that it is for driving purposes only, per the AB-60 law (i.e. “DP" instead of “DL").
Cannot be used against the license holder to determine their immigration status or citizenship, or detain them in any way for reasons other than valid traffic violations.
Here is the link to their website as well as another offical document outlining it's uses and restrictions:
http://www.dmv.org/ca-california/ab-60-drivers-license.php
On this one read the second clause about "How can I use an AB 60 license?" which details that these licenses cannot be used for voting.
https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/resources/ab_60_4_27_15.pdf

The bill that Governor Jerry Brown signed into law back in 2015 that allows people with licenses to automatically be registered to vote is only effective for true licenses and not for AB-60 license's. There was no widespread fraudulent voting. Clinton did win more votes than Trump. Neither won a majority so claiming that Clinton couldn't win because she didn't get a "majority" is also removing Trumps validation since he also had even less and not a "majority". So really there's no point to be made on this issue of majorities.

it seemed like Democratic operatives disagreed with your assessment

The electoral college is essentially unchangeable, you would need a new constitution to change it. It ensures broad geographic support which is necessary for the continued existence of this country because otherwise there is no reason for large parts of this country to not just secede immediately as they would be forever dictated to by elitists on the coasts, states rights and federalism are very important and without there is no America. Our country is not run by mob rule, Donald Trump is the rightful president as decided by the political system crafted by our founders.

for now, we're saved from the hillary/kerry(etc) wars they're trying very hard to bring to the world,

also localising production is very good for the world,

Minorities? The vast majority of people complaining and protesting appear to be white people. I'm of the opinion that borrowing another person's skin in order to justify your selfish outrage is somewhat immoral.



As I said, that's working as intended. They're not going to alter the constitution to appease Clinton supporters. If any system needs a revision, it's ours.

The plurality/majority argument shows that you need preferential and oroportional voting. Every country does, and gets into a mess witnout them.

Well, I'm a big fan of preferential voting (or instant run-off as the American call it) and proportional representation.

But I'm also a big fan of not telling other people how to run their affairs. I wouldn't like it if Americans were telling Australians how to change our electoral system and would prefer it if they just butt out. I figure Americans would appreciate the same courtesy in return.

If Americans want to change their electoral system and are looking for information on how something like preferential voting works — both in theory and in practice, since Australia has been using it since 1918 and so we have almost a century's worth of data on how it works — I'd be more than happy to share what I know. But that's as far as I would be willing to go.

Yep, I feel the same way.

I'm kind of concerned that it looks like news sources from other Western countries are as biased as those in the United States. It's difficult to find non-globalist, anti-Trump points of view, or any sense of what the common people think. At least from what I am able to access, it looks like everything is just the media telling people what to think, not reporting on things that are going on.

Is this really the way it is, or am I not looking at the right things? I was thinking maybe the problem is that I'm looking at mostly English translations. I can only understand German enough to read it, and then not so well.

Most of the media on this planet is owned by a select few, they spread their filth worldwide.

Then you never sign human rights petitions for minorities in other countries, such as against anti-gay laws in Uganda and Morocco? You think in the apartheid era the black South Africans were wrong to welcome solidarity and sanctions from abroad?

Because you are on the status quo's side. While, in any country, the folks who are not on the status quo's side don't welcome earlier generations telling them how to run their affairs, by leaving them with anachronistic systems that are institutionally bedded in against getting changed. There are plenty of folks in the US making themselves known who are not on the present system's side. Agreeing with, and giving solidarity to, the view they have already expressed, is hardly telling them how to run their affairs.

In our voting system change referendum in 2011, I was a big fan of an Australian telling us "I can't believe you still don't have preferential voting, good luck". We didn't get good luck. The Australian was right, our nervously conservative voters listening to the manipulative tabloid papers' appeals to patriotism were wrong.