Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[(poco) Sforzando]

New York Times gives Trump a greater than 95% chance of winning presidency, with over 300 electoral votes.

While Hillary wins the popular vote, for all that matters. I hope those of you who wanted this outcome will be happy. Now your guy actually has to govern and deliver on all his big promises. Good luck with that.

[Mirror Image]

While Hillary wins the popular vote, for all that matters. I hope those of you who wanted this outcome will be happy. Now your guy actually has to govern and deliver on all his big promises. Good luck with that.

Yep, get your popcorn ready. It's going to be a wild ride. Remember all of the Republicans that were against Trump? Let's see if they're still against him once he slithers his way into the White House.

[Spineur]

Who will be the winners ? Vladimir Putin.
Who will be the loosers ? Everyone else as far as I can tell.

[mc ukrneal]

Possible next reality show stop - President Elect Trump on the witness stand for Trump University.

[(poco) Sforzando]

If the projections are accurate and Trump does amass over 300 electoral votes, despite the strong head winds he faced, he will become president with a decent mandate to govern.

It's one thing to have a mandate. It's another to get the job done. Write back in a year when the wall hasn't been finished and Mexico isn't paying for it.

[Mirror Image]

I can't help but wonder if the outcome would have been different had Bernie Sanders been the one running against Trump.

I doubt it.

[mc ukrneal]

I can't help but wonder if the outcome would have been different had Bernie Sanders been the one running against Trump.

Seems unlikely to me that Sanders could have carved out a niche in the center. Surely, he had better character. So who knows...

[Mirror Image]

I don't think Trump will deliver on any of his promises and we'll have more illegals in this country than we've ever had before. The flood gates will be fully open and operational under a Trump presidency.

[mc ukrneal]

I saw some interesting graphics about the polling data vs actuals. It seems the polls were about right for Clinton in the ones I saw, but that the turnout for Trump was a notch higher than expected. So that would appear to be the main difference.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Krugman:

"We still don't know who will win the electoral college, although as I write this it looks — incredibly, horribly — as if the odds now favor Donald J. Trump. What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn't understand the country we live in. We thought that our fellow citizens would not, in the end, vote for a candidate so manifestly unqualified for high office, so temperamentally unsound, so scary yet ludicrous.

"We thought that the nation, while far from having transcended racial prejudice and misogyny, had become vastly more open and tolerant over time.

"We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and the rule of law.

"It turns out that we were wrong. There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don't share at all our idea of what America is about. For them, it is about blood and soil, about traditional patriarchy and racial hierarchy. And there were many other people who might not share those anti-democratic values, but who nonetheless were willing to vote for anyone bearing the Republican label.

"I don't know how we go forward from here. Is America a failed state and society? It looks truly possible. I guess we have to pick ourselves up and try to find a way forward, but this has been a night of terrible revelations, and I don't think it's self-indulgent to feel quite a lot of despair."

Every major power in history has eventually collapsed - the Roman Empire, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, the British Empire. Don't think it can't happen here. 

[Pat B]

It's one thing to have a mandate. It's another to get the job done. Write back in a year when the wall hasn't been finished and Mexico isn't paying for it.

I'm not sure that stuff really matters. Ultimately, the steel workers want the factory to re-open and the coal miners want the coal mine to re-open. That is what he has to accomplish.

[Pat B]

New York Times gives Trump a greater than 95% chance of winning presidency, with over 300 electoral votes.

Congratulations. I hope you were right for all our sake.

EDIT: I do not hope he is right about Trump winning. I hope he is right about Trump being the better choice in this election.

[Mirror Image]

We're royally f*****!!! Arm the troops, get the military tanks ready, we're going to war. It's over, folks.

[Madiel]

Everyone keeps talking about the 'implosion' of the Republican Party and they will surely have some interesting problems now that it looks like Trump will win. But I hadn't read one article about the same for Democrats, which made no sense to me. They lost the House. They lost the Senate (is anyone projecting them to win at this point?). They lost the bulk of the Governorships and State Houses some time ago. And now they have likely lost the Presidency. Their 'resurgence' was directly tied to the surge of Obama in 2008. I wonder what they will do to re-orient themselves (if anything). The one positive they have going for them in the coming years is a likely support from minorities, which will only grow over time.

If they win the popular vote, it seems unlikely that will be a trigger for soul searching.

When it comes to Congress, there isn't enough talk about the insane gerrymanders (which both sides engage in, but I think it's more common in Republican controlled states). Letting the politicians in power decide electoral boundaries is a thoroughly corrupt practice.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'm not sure that stuff really matters. Ultimately, the steel workers want the factory to re-open and the coal miners want the coal mine to re-open. That is what he has to accomplish.

A distinction without a difference. It's all been big talk so far, and now he has to make good. The wall is just one example out of many. And we can't pretend that something like coal necessarily has a future. Industries die as more efficient industries take their place. What was one of the biggest American industries in the mid-19th century? Whaling.

[Pat B]

I can't help but wonder if the outcome would have been different had Bernie Sanders been the one running against Trump.

Maybe. I personally like him far more than Clinton. But even if he could overcome the S-word, I'm not sure that "let's be more like Denmark" would really play well in the general.

[Pat B]

A distinction without a difference. It's all been big talk so far, and now he has to make good. The wall is just one example out of many. And we can't pretend that something like coal necessarily has a future. Industries die as more efficient industries take their place. What was one of the biggest American industries in the mid-19th century? Whaling.

Implicit in my comment was that re-opening the steel factories and coal mines is more difficult than building a wall. I will not be shocked if he accomplishes the wall, but even if he does I do not think it will create very much happiness.

[Parsifal]

It's one thing to have a mandate. It's another to get the job done. Write back in a year when the wall hasn't been finished and Mexico isn't paying for it.

Net immigration from Mexico is negative, more people immigrating from the U.S. to Mexico than vice versa. These days immigration to the U.S. is mostly from places like Costa Rica and Guatemala . Maybe Mexico will build a wall to keep Americans out if Trump is the disaster some people expect him to be.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Implicit in my comment was that re-opening the steel factories and coal mines is more difficult than building a wall. I will not be shocked if he accomplishes the wall, but even if he does I do not think it will create very much happiness.

You're just making my point. From day one he has promised that everything will be easy for him to accomplish - whether it's defeating ISIS, creating jobs, replacing Obamacare, deporting illegals, closing the borders, you name it. We'll just strike a few deals and get the best people on it, then it's just a matter of weeks if not days. Those who've supported him, purely on the basis of the snake oil he's been selling them, are likely to find he's unable to deliver with anywhere near the alacrity and success he's promised. But those on your side got what you wanted, and I sure hope he does better than I fear he will.

[Spineur]

The biggest google search: moving to Canada.  This looks awfully like the brexit affair.
Will Donald Trump vanish in thin air like Nigel Farage ?