As a Canadian, I think “Americans are crazy” followed by “Americans are crazy”.

I tried to keep the example simple since this is ELI5. If you take the number of electors a state has a divide it by the states population, you’ll get its electors per capita.

28 electors for 19 million people equals 1.47 electors per million people for New York.

30 electors for 22 million people equals 1.36 electors per million people for Florida

Idaho gets 4 electors for 2 million people equals 2 electors per million.

Since it’s the number of electors sent to Washington that decide who gets to be president, sending more electors per capita means a state has more influence on the outcome.

50% of Americans live in just 9 states. The other 50% live in the remaining 41 states. If the 9 states all voted one way, and the 41 other states voted the other, the popular vote would be 50/50, but the electoral college results would be a landslide victory for whoever won in 41 states.

The main reason someone becomes president while losing the popular vote is because they won the electors from a bunch of the smaller states. Smaller states are less populated and more rural. Rural people tend to vote conservative since they benefit less from progressive policies and prefer tradition. Conservatives therefore have an edge due to the electoral college. There were 4 presidents that won without the popular vote. All of them were Republican. Given there have only been 59 elections in American history, that’s a 6.8% chance the loser of the popular vote wins.

BEGONE THOT

No way!

In America, the people don’t elect the president. The states send electors to Washington and all the electors form the “electoral college”. It is this electoral college that elects the president. To make it a bit democratic, each state holds a vote to see who the residents of the state want as president. The electors that state sends to Washington will be told who they should elect based on who the residents of the state voted for.

A simple example. Imagine the US only has two states: New York and Florida.

New York has 19 million residents and gets to send 28 electors to the electoral college. Florida has 22 million residents gets to send 30 electors to the electoral college.

All 19 million residents of New York vote for Kang. New York sends 28 electors and tell them they should elect Kang. In Florida, the vote is split. 12 million vote for Kodos and 10 million vote for Kang. Since more people voted for Kodos, Florida sends 30 electors and tells them to elect Kodos.

The popular vote is 29 million votes for Kang and 12 million votes for Kodos. The electoral college votes are 30 votes for Kodos and 28 votes for Kang. Kodos wins even though 70% of Americans voted for Kang.

But it’s too late. I’ve already seen everything.

You want me to find illegally trafficked wildlife? What do I look like? A giant rat??

The existence of “echo chambers” is debated by scientists. It really doesn’t matter who you hang around with, you’re going to disagree with people.

The echo chamber is overstated: the moderating effect of political interest and diverse media.

Tweeting from left to right: Is online political communication more than an echo chamber?

Echo chamber? What echo chamber? Reviewing the evidence

If only we conducted polls to guage public support of political parties. Alas, we can only count flags and bumper stickers.

Yes, except bail bonds don’t exist, bail bondsmen don’t exist, and there isn’t a bail bond system.

In Canada, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms says anyone accused of a crime is innocent until found guilty and therefore cannot be held in custody unless the state can convince the court that releasing them would be a danger to the public.

Which sounds great, but bail is often denied because courts are easily convinced someone is a danger to the public. There is also a surety system but that’s to ensure someone follows bail conditions. If the court agrees to grant a conditional bail, the accused needs someone to act as their surety. If the accused breaks conditions, and the surety doesn’t immediately report it, the surety will be required to pay the court a very large fine. Not being able to find a surety is a common reason for bail being denied.

The action would have been done as vice-president, not president. Vice-presidents are held accountable. This is why Trump got in trouble for defamation of E. Jean Carroll.

He defamed her as president and called it an official act. The case was put on indefinite hold. Then he said the same things while he wasn’t president. A new case was brought against him and he was found liable. Then, Carroll’s lawyer asked the original case to be resumed arguing that Trump’s statements couldn’t be an official act of the president since he performed the same action while he wasn’t president. The courts agreed and resumed the case and he was found liable again.

I summon Pot of Greed which allows me to draw 3 additional candies!

The coke

The qualities that make one a good worker do not make for a good CEO. A good worker thinks the best way to make money is to produce better quality product or produce it more efficiently.

A good CEO thinks the best way to make money is to lay off quality control and use their salaries to buy up company stock to increase the stock price for shareholders knowing the increase is instantaneous while the problems caused by not having quality control anymore won’t be realized for months if not years. Even better if they can force employees who didn’t do quality control to now be responsible for it, on top of their regular duties, while receiving no additional pay.

Her name is Light? Like the guy from Death Note?

What up my yingga? (I’m reclaiming the word)

Our profession

Gonna stop you right there Jeff. You’re not a journalist.

The requirement for a steady paycheque is what keeps everyone working in terrible conditions. I’m lucky enough that I’ve always had a lot in savings and it has come in handy a few times. Twice I’ve walked off a job and never went back after failing to negotiate proper working conditions with the boss. Both times I burned through about $10,000 in savings while searching for a new job. Almost nobody has that much saved up. If they did, terrible bosses would lose employees on the regular.