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UN revises Gaza death toll, almost 50% less women and children killed than previously reported https://www.foxnews.com/world/un-revises-gaza-death-toll-50-less-women-children-killed-previously-reported Before anyone jumps in to say that this can't be trusted because it's Fox News, I did confirm thi...

This discussion is degrading into “the candidate and policies I don’t like are an evil autocrat”. Not a very useful discussion. I think it is quite useful to take a current major area of policy and ask: "What is the institutionalist approach to this issue? and what is the autocratic approach t...

Last I checked, Trump hasn’t been in power for 4 years and isn’t in charge of much of anything, other than some golf courses. The institutions to control immigration have existed for a while. The point is, those institutions have been basically disabled, because an authoritarian approach has appear...

I disagree. A big part of Trump's appeal to his base is his autocratic tendences. That he will round up millions of immigrants and detain/deport them. That he will crack down on protests on college campuses and crime in the cities. And that he will advantage evangelical Christians and business cons...

By the way, I'm pretty sure the Autocrat/Institutionalist dichotomy is not playing a major role in the selection process of the electorate. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but it seems like the motivation for the average voter is more short-term in nature. More often than not people are voting for t...

In 2020 the 5 closest states were Georgia Arizona Wisconsin Pennsylvania North Carolina None of those are particularly small or rural states. What the electoral college gives us is a system in which the voters in 5 swing states determine the election. And in 2020 those 5 states represented 14% of t...

John Jacob Astor IV was Episcopal to the extent that he was religious at all. The Astors were an absurdly rich Episcopal family from New York. His great grandfather also named John Jacob Astor made his fortune in the fur trade. He immigrated from Germany and was of the Reformed Church. But the Astor...

Ken, I’m speaking of the present, not 200 years ago. Democrats frequently talk about how terrible the electoral college. America wouldn’t exist without the electoral college because smaller states (most of which weren’t slave states) wouldn’t have joined the Union. They wanted representation instea...

Claiming the electoral college is “undemocratic” is obviously partisan. That’s why I say it’s actually a Democratic position. Again, your historical knowledge is lacking. The electoral college was implemented in part to prop up slavery which is the least democratic institution every invented. The w...

We can have democratic institutions (universal suffrage, direct election of Senators, term limits on the presidency, etc.) And we can have undemocratic institutions (electoral college, 3/5ths compromise, filibuster rules, etc.) This looks suspiciously like Democratic institutions, not democratic in...