151–160 of 192 posts
You have to admire May for being stubborn. I'd have thrown up my hands and said 'OK, you figure it out then. Have fun!'
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Trump's approval rating is really not doing OK. It's mediocre. Not Nixon or GWB-at-the-end-of-his-term bad, but an unbiased observer would not call being down 12 points "OK". https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
Yes, but I think it's perfectly normal given how politics works now. Everything is becoming more polarised.
Yes, Trump's approval rating is dead average for President’s taking office after the end of Obama’s second term at the same point in their term of office.
But unless you reduce the domain so much that you compare Trump only to himself, it's not perfectly normal.
I've said this before so I'll ask this again- I'm an American and I'm entirely ignorant on UK politics. I've followed the headlines and I am still confused why Brexit is happening. It seems no one wants Brexit as it has been suggested by the political leadership of UK, and the majority want to avoid no deal at all. I do not understand why not call the entire Brexit thing off; why is that political suicide?
> It seems no one wants Brexit as it has been suggested by the political leadership of UK, and the majority want to avoid no deal at all. There's basically two big stumbling blocks: The first is that there has to be a customs check between either: (1) The EU/Republic of Ireland , (2) ROI and Northern Ireland, or (3) Northern Ireland and Britain (the island). (1) is unacceptable to the EU. (2) breaks the Good Friday a…
i.e. each party says "you do it, I won't", and it ends up that no one did?
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> and it's especially good for republican voters. This is true, but maybe not for the reasons you think. The number of people who self-identify as "Republican" has shrunk considerably over the past few years. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/14/trump-owns-...
Republican Party ID is up (at the expense of independents; Democratic ID is the same) from when Trump was elected. https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
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Republican Party ID is up (at the expense of independents; Democratic ID is the same) from when Trump was elected. https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Huh! The Brooking's story actually cites this Gallup data. But it's a little out of date. Looks like Republican ID has sprung back up in the last ~6 months. Touché!
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There’s a widely-held belief that simply calling the whole thing off— or holding a second referendum— would cause outrage and undermine public faith in British democracy (by ‘ignoring the will of the people’, i.e., the referendum result).
As an American I've been confused by this argument against a second referendum. It has for a long time seemed like the best option. If people still want Brexit, they'd vote for it (note that a second vote would only strengthen confidence that Brexit is really what people want). If not, then the will of the people has changed. It seems like a second referendum would optimally be framed differently than the first, but…
Or let's say that I'm President. You are the challenger in the election. If I win, I go on being President. But you win, and I and my friends at powerful agencies and media outlets all agree that, since we are entitled to rule, the election is not valid and has to be overturned by some means. But I'm willing to compromise. Surely even you could have no complaint about just repeating the election. Either that, or we just void the election entirely, which would probably be best for all, I'm sure you'd agree.
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As an American I've been confused by this argument against a second referendum. It has for a long time seemed like the best option. If people still want Brexit, they'd vote for it (note that a second vote would only strengthen confidence that Brexit is really what people want). If not, then the will of the people has changed. It seems like a second referendum would optimally be framed differently than the first, but…
Well, fellow American, how about this, then: You're in prison, want to get out, and are granted an appeal. If you lose the appeal, that's the end. You stay in prison. But you win the appeal. Not guilty. But instead of allowing you to leave, the prosecutors demand you be tried again. After all, if you really are not guilty, what possible objection could you have to another trial? Or let's say that I'm President. You a…
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It occurs to me that this is exactly the question that should be offered. And people should be able to express ranked preferences with the winner needing to get over 50% to avoid the issue around vote splitting.
I assume you mean something like IRV (single winner STV) with a winning threshold over 50%, not over 50% on first place preference.
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Well, people vote for something and you ignore their democratic vote. Pretty bad.
Democracy is a process not a single vote. People voted based on russian-funded lies funnelled through corrupt millionaires like Arron Banks, illegally funded and illegally targetting voters with murky data from the likes of cambridge analytica, using extensive and highly targetted ad campaigns on FB (still going on btw - over £500k spent this week). Among other lies politicians told them that we'd stay in the custons…
Well I voted Leave because this is likely to be the last chance for the UK to get out of ever-tighter European political integration. About which we were never consulted before engaging.
In the 1980s I backpacked around Europe and met many wonderful people. But not once did I think that "what we need is an additional layer of federal government to bind us all into one destiny". They were countries of Europe, but beyond trade every country got on with its own affairs. And things seemed to be OK.
The Common Market was a good idea, but things took a more sinister turn in 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty. Who was driving that? Not the common people of Europe as far as I could tell.
To me, Brexit was an opportunity for asking myself: why does the EU exist, why did it supercede the EEC and what is the end-goal? I didn't like any of the answers.
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> It seems no one wants Brexit as it has been suggested by the political leadership of UK, and the majority want to avoid no deal at all. There's basically two big stumbling blocks: The first is that there has to be a customs check between either: (1) The EU/Republic of Ireland , (2) ROI and Northern Ireland, or (3) Northern Ireland and Britain (the island). (1) is unacceptable to the EU. (2) breaks the Good Friday a…
What happens if there is no customs check at any of those locations? i.e. each party says "you do it, I won't", and it ends up that no one did?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yv24cM2os
If you are unaware of the issues with ROI and NI, I'll say that a bit of education is really needed. The history there is very complicated and can't really be boiled down here on HN.
That said, the threat of renewed violence on Ireland is absolutely real and very possible. During The Troubles (lasting ~35 years) there were ~50k casualties in total. The peace is fragile and renewed violence could very possibly result in much higher casualty numbers.
Lives are quite literally on the line.
EDIT: Sometimes pictures are better than words. We can talk about 50k casualties, but seeing some of them is a lot more 'real', at least to me. If you have the inclination, this image gallery does an alright job showing the long and very bloody history of ROI-UK relations during The Troubles: https://allthatsinteresting.com/the-troubles#31