Trump is being urged by some advisers to formally address the nation and call for calm, while others have said he should condemn the rioting and looting more forcefully or risk losing middle-of-the-road voters in November, according to several sources familiar with the deliberations.
[...] During a staff call Friday, Trump's top domestic policy aide Brooke Rollins argued for a measured response to riots the night before, advice that was echoed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Several advisers feared, and hoped to avoid, another Charlottesville moment, when Trump was criticized after declaring in 2017 that "very fine people" were among the Nazi mobs that descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia.
[...] While aides like Kushner have pushed for a more restrained response, Trump is also hearing from several advisers who warned that by not condemning the protests after the death of Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man, that turned into rioting and looting, he is risking losing some demographics that will be key to his election victory in November, like suburban women voters.
As Protests and Violence Spill Over, Trump Shrinks Back
The president spent Sunday out of sight, berating opponents on Twitter, even as some of his campaign advisers were recommending that he deliver a televised address to an anxious nation.
how the George Floyd protests left Donald Trump exposed
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end.”
These were the words of Donald Trump, not in May 2020 but July 2016, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Cleveland.
[...] Not even Trump’s harshest critics can blame him for a virus believed to have come from a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, nor for an attendant economic collapse, nor for four centuries of slavery, segregation, police brutality and racial injustice.
But they can, and do, point to how he made a bad situation so much worse. The story of Trump’s presidency was arguably always leading to this moment, with its toxic mix of weak moral leadership, racial divisiveness, crass and vulgar rhetoric and an erosion of norms, institutions and trust in traditional information sources. Taken together, these ingredients created a tinderbox poised to explode when crises came.
Antifa: Trump says group will be designated 'terrorist organisation'
"It's ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don't lay the blame on others!" Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 05 2020, @02:47PM (3 children)
Instant Runoff Voting (or some other proportional/ranked choice voting reform)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 05 2020, @05:09PM
IRV is actually a pretty horrible voting system. Someone did a mathematical analysis of it a while back, comparing to other voting systems, and it comes up with some bizarre results in many scenarios. I'm all for switching to another voting system, but IRV would be the last of my picks there.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:11AM
IRV has the advantage that it's easier to explain, and it *is* better than the current system. My preference is Condorcet, but it's rather difficult to explain.
There is *NO* perfect voting system. Every single one will, under some circumstances, produce an undesirable result. But IRV is a lot better than plurality rules.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:11PM
As long as that means it's a vote for which candidate gets to instantly run off a cliff, I'm all for it.