That looks like an advantage, given the track record for Al Gore and Walter Mondale. ETA: Ah geez, how did I forget Kamala Harris?

He lost Tennessee, his home state, though.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris. Gavin Newsom has never been VP with a President who’s not running again.

I mean, given his competition, it still blew my mind that the election was close enough to be stolen. That cycle was key to the development of my Theory of Widespread Stupidity.

Oh god, I love that series of hearings. My favorite is when Bob Denver showed up, told Al Gore he was full of shit to his face, then bounced because he had a meeting with NASA

I’ve concluded it’s because I don’t have popular opinions. Honestly it makes me feel like voting won’t ever elect someone who actually represents me.

And I shouldn’t run for office because I won’t represent the constituents.

Government sucks and I hate it.

What do you gain by being divisive?

Omfg this ride really never ends does it 🫠

Wish you were right but if the Democratic party wants him to be their leader nothing you or I can do about it.

Good for them for figuring out how to gain the system. Eventually they have to pay those loans

I car significantly more about my friends than about strangers on the other side of the planet

I personally voted in the 2024 presidential election in Alaska And ranked 4 presidents for the instant runnoff election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Alaska

Ahh yes, a third party with absolutely no support in the house. They’d get so much done, even in the 5% chance they actually get elected because the system is rigged for two parties.

Don’t get me wrong. Would love a mamdani or even El sayed (sorry if it’s misspelled, going off of memory) to be placed all over every part of our government. More AOC’s and Sanders’. But we need to make the best short term option, not just help guarantee the win of the fascists by withholding votes or put them on a third party with no chance of winning. We’re not ending this shit hole situation in a single election, so better to make progressive change than let the atrocities continue with full support from the entire government.

This is exactly why US democracy is a lie. If you get a “choice” between evil and hellish, you don’t really have a choice.

Bud, it isn’t an assumption when the action is both reliant on liberal beliefs, and the individuals openly express liberal values.

Also, you don’t get to pick that moral value for other people. As much as I believe we are obligated to exercise whatever power we are afforded, which includes a vote, I could never in good conscience tell someone they’re a problem for refusing to participate in a system that has committed genocide against their people. Colonizers don’t just colonize by explicitly and intentionally dominating other groups, they often do so by asserting that their “moral” philosophy is in everyone’s best interest, even if that means the “unfortunate” reality that necessitates them deciding for others.

The narrative you just created requires us to forget that vulnerable people have revolted against the US state for centuries. You’re saying that their resistance only counts as something to put faith in when the privileged white people join in, and conveniently, that means we should just do what the privileged white people wany out of practicality. This is not the mindset of a reasonable, empathetic person, it is of someone whose politics are oriented around their own comfort; many of us do not enjoy that privilege.

If the sole survivor of a Palestinian family does not want to vote, who the fuck are you or I to tell them they’re immoral if they don’t want to help their family’s murderers do anything for some fake “greater good.” For fuck’s sake, you’d refuse them even that? Why should you have any right to tell a closeted trans person who’s skirting through genocide that they aren’t allowed to maintain some feeling of power or self-authorship by refusing this system their participation? What, them giving away their less than one percent of the vote gonna make all the privileged people listen to trans people for the first time fucking ever?

These are people who have lost and given more than what we could ask of anyone simply by being victimized by this system, and they do not represent dominant voting trends even in the minority groups they represent. You want them to vote for your benefit, don’t act like it is anything else. This discourse didn’t become prominent in liberal discourses until they wanted to blame victims for not supporting the “good guys,” and it’s disgusting. If you’re going to act like this is from whatever, socialist and/or anarchist voters, I’d love to see either stats that proves some sleeping giant lives among us, or an argument that targets them specifically without presuming to speak on the moral purity of victims.

Fuck off with this fake shit.

The UK constitution is written…

Eh… yes and no. But we’ll get to that.

To answer your question, there’s a principle in legal philosophy called the rule of recognition, which, basically, describes how a court determines what the law is.

The US constitution is considered the highest law of the land, and describes the process by which legislation has to be passed (usually by simple majority vote) by Congress and the Senate and assented to by the President before it becomes statutory law. It also describes the process by which the constitution itself can be amended, which is a much more stringent process. Basically, an amendment must be proposed and than accepted by either a national convention (which has never even been tried) or by being passed by a 2/3 majority vote in both the Congress and the Senate. It then has to be ratified by at least 3/4 of the states. Further, it also contains some amendments that limit what statutory law can do.

So the rule of recognition in the US is, basically, is the law constitutional? Which is to say, is the legislation enacted according to the rules in the constitution, and not invalidated by any of limits set out in the constitution? And if the answer to that question is “no” then the court will disapply that law. If legislation was passed saying slavery is legal again then, in theory at least, the court would say “no, there is a constitutional amendment that says slavery can’t be legal, this is not good law”. The only way to override that would be to pass a new amendment to remove that amendment. And unless the new amendment is passed according to the rules laid out, the courts would not recognise it. So in this way, the US legislature has very much been bound.

The fundamental principle of UK’s constitution, on the other hand, is that the King-in-Parliament has absolute sovereignty. Now, while this is certainly acknowledged in legislation and lots of court decisions, it isn’t written down in the sense that there is a clear definition of what that means.

The rule of recognition is generally taken to be that an Act passed by Parliament and given royal assent is the law, no matter what it says, and is the highest form of law in the land. To see an example of how seriously that is taken, see the mess that is the Human Rights Act 1998 and its “declaration of incompatibility” apparatus, which exists because courts cannot disapply an Act of Parliament. (To be clear I’m in favour of the European Convention/Court of Human Rights, I just think the HRA is massive bodge (precisely because our constitution is the way it is).) To see an example of how flexible it can be when it comes to interpreting Acts of Parliament, see the Metric Martyrs case decision.

It is an open questions as to what extent, if any, Parliament can bind itself because it’s unclear what a court would do if an Act of Parliament was given royal assent despite the fact a previous Act of Parliament technically says it shouldn’t have done. And to avoid a constitutional crisis, Parliament, by convention, doesn’t try.