Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Karl Henning]

I stopped at one drink last night;  I knew the evening would not be improved by even a second drink 

[Madiel]

I know; I didn't!

Then I simply don't understand why you chose to chime in in the first place. We were discussing gerrymandering. You started talking about the UK. You're now telling me that you agree that reducing the number of constituencies in the UK is not gerrymandering, having originally said that it was all about advantaging the ruling party.

It feels as if you decided that "general electoral complaints" was a sufficient basis for comparison.

Anyway I'm going to bed.

[amw]

I absolutely understand why voters in certain regions are unhappy. What baffles me is that their chosen saviour of the workers is a billionaire with a reputation for not paying for work.

As I've said before, it's the henhouse expressing its dissatisfaction with roosters by voting for a fox. Bernie Sanders made sense as an outlet for that dissatisfaction. Trump does not.

To be fair it wasn't the "workers" who voted for him—Clinton won among voters making less than $50k a year, whereas Trump won those making more than $50k. He was elected by the foxes. (see also http://www.vox.com/2016/9/19/12933072/far-right-white-riot-trump-brexit which more or less backs up your argument with numbers and science, lol)

All I can say is that it's going to be a long four years; a lot of people are going to suffer, and quite a few will die, but hopefully we'll keep fighting in whatever ways we can, as we always have. By "we"—women, people of colour, immigrants, LGBT people, the disabled, the non-Christian, the poor, etc. All of us have survived a combined few thousand years of oppression and violence. I guess the important thing is just to have solidarity with each other and lift each other up as much as possible. (With a particular thought at the moment for those of us who are survivors of sexual violence, faced with the election of a US President who is almost certainly guilty of the rape of a child and the sexual assault and harassment of numerous other women.)

[Karl Henning]

Ohio was expected to lean to El Tupé, but the result was a rout.  North Carolina going for El Tupé so strong, is a bit rough.  Florida was going to be close, but Pennsylvania was a real flip.  (Per a tweet earlier, "Polling as we know it is dead.")  All that basically gave it away, so that even the slender margins in Michigan and New Hampshire would not affect the outcome.

[Karl Henning]

With the GOP in control of both the Executive and Legislative branches, I wonder how soon they'll start dismantling Obamacare.  Goodness knows, there is no check, now, which would compel them to actually come up with a viable alternative.

[Karl Henning]

Did Johnson/Weld torpedo Clinton in PA, MI & NH?  Those collective 40 electoral votes would have mattered, might have made The Difference.

[Gurn Blanston]

With the GOP in control of both the Executive and Legislative branches, I wonder how soon they'll start dismantling Obamacare.  Goodness knows, there is no check, now, which would compel them to actually come up with a viable alternative.

There will be no alternative. You can forget that. If you recall, the R's thought our health care system, was the best in the world already. They will be clambering over each other to be the first to sponsor a bill which will leave people who can't afford health care to rot on the sidewalks.

[ahinton]

Then I simply don't understand why you chose to chime in in the first place. We were discussing gerrymandering. You started talking about the UK. You're now telling me that you agree that reducing the number of constituencies in the UK is not gerrymandering, having originally said that it was all about advantaging the ruling party.

I made no statement one way or the other as to whether amending electoral consituency boundaries in UK constitutes gerrymandering, since I did not use that term; what I did state was that it cannot be done other than by the government of the day and that, when it is so done, it represents a cynical self-interested ploy in the hope that said government achieves electoral advantage for itself thereby. For the avoidance of doubt, I am neither claiming nor denying that such action represents gerrymandering.

It feels as if you decided that "general electoral complaints" was a sufficient basis for comparison.

I'm not sure in this context what might or might not fall within the remit of "general electoral complaints", since merely stating a view as I have done on such boundary changes and the intentions and motivations behind their implementation is not necessarily synonymous with issuing such a complaint; were I to believe that it did so, it would be up to me to write to my MP with a request that such a complaint be looked into responded to in due course but, for the record, I have not done this and, frankly, see no obvious reason to do so in the area where I am located (and, again for the record, my MP is a member of the government rather than of an opposition party).

Again, to be clear, such boundary changes do not necessarily involve amending the number of constituencies; indeed, it usually doesn't. That fact does not, however, affect the cynical self-interest of the government of the day in proposing and effeting such changes.

[ahinton]

There will be no alternative. You can forget that. If you recall, the R's thought our health care system, was the best in the world already. They will be clambering over each other to be the first to sponsor a bill which will leave people who can't afford health care to rot on the sidewalks.

At their own expense, of course!...

[Spineur]

Did Johnson/Weld torpedo Clinton in PA, MI & NH?  Those collective 40 electoral votes would have mattered, might have made The Difference.

This was a very tight race and the outcome could have been different

[Monsieur Croche]

https://media.giphy.com/media/CfoiRXkfHSEEg/giphy-downsized-large.gif

[drogulus]

     The election results look like a backlash against the liberal elites and Barack Obama, and I'd argue the Repub leadership that has sacrificed the economic welfare of it own constituents. The earth that was scorched to fight the Kenyan Socialist was poorer, rural and small town heartland America.

     Trump supporters have taken the gamble of electing a renegade liberal elitist. I see the sense in this. What do NeverTrump Repub elites offer you? They are the near enemy, Hillary is the far enemy. Trump is what you have, and not only does he satisfy the desire to get back at the whole system that's rigged against you, there's a chance that he might do something to help.

[(poco) Sforzando]

There will be no alternative. You can forget that. If you recall, the R's thought our health care system, was the best in the world already. They will be clambering over each other to be the first to sponsor a bill which will leave people who can't afford health care to rot on the sidewalks.

Equally bad, they will be itching at the bit to "overhaul" or "dismantle" Medicare and Social Security, leaving millions of the elderly at their mercy all in service of a "balanced budget" or "curbs on runaway spending." What fun!

[Parsifal]

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

Brexit
Trump

next on the list

Quebec secession.

[ahinton]

Brexit
Trump

next on the list

Quebec secession.

Possibly, but they' been near there so many times I doubt tha anything would shift them. Anyway, isn't the reason why Trump barracked (sorry!) about getting the Mexicans to pay to build a wall between their country and US that someone had had a quiet word in his ear to let him know that doing so betgween US and Canada would be much more expensive, much longer and require building of two separate sites? I suppose Trump would find it far cheaper merely to annexe Canada, although perhaps building the Bering Bridge might strike him as the more attractive proposition.

[Mister Sharpe]

Am very, very depressed right now and feeling successive waves of revulsion at my "fellow Americans." This wasn't just a vote against "Hellery" as my neighbor calls her; it was anti-African-American, anti-Hispanic, anti-female.  In sum, anti-.  And the odd part of it is, those groups did not show-up at the polls as hoped for.  They don't feel they belong.

[arpeggio]

I am a reformed dittohead.  I am an old Christian Goldwater conservative. I am sixty-nine years old.  Prior to my fiftieth birthday I voted for a Democrat only two or three times.  In my fifties I discovered problems with a significant part of the tenants of the conservative movement.  (Do not ask me what they are.  Anyone with a lick of common sense can figure it out for themselves.  I will give you one hint.  If Goldwater was alive today he could not win the Republican primary for the senate in Arizona.)  If five years ago someone came up to me and told me I would become an agnostic socialist I would have wacked him over the head with a baseball bat.  If I live another ten years I will probably die a Marxist atheist.  If any conservative starts trying to convince me that I am in league with the devil it might take only five years. 

From 2001 thru 2007 the Republican party controlled the house, the senate and the presidency.  During that time our country suffered the worst attack against it since Pearl Harbor, we had a surplus and ended up with one of the worse deficits in our countries history, we became involved with two unwinnable wars which had killed over 5,000 Americans and wounded over 50,000 more and we had a financial crises that almost destroyed our economy.

Now these same geniuses are in charge again and the current ones may be worst. 

I have given up on the common sense of the American People.

[amw]

And the odd part of it is, those groups did not show-up at the polls as hoped for.  They don't feel they belong.

In 2013 the Supreme Court gutted pretty significant portions of the Voting Rights Act. Almost immediately, Republican controlled state legislators closed hundreds of polling places, enacted stricter voter ID laws, reduced early voting times and places, and purged electoral rolls (some of these changes were later deemed illegal, but the states more or less ignored these rulings as much as possible). These changes mostly targeted (with "surgical precision" as one NC judge put it) black, Latino and other minority dominated areas. The result: mile-long lines in these areas, voters turned away for not having proper ID (even in states where voter ID laws were formally struck down), last-minute court battles to restore purged voters who may or may not have ever learned they were allowed to vote once more, etc. Plus obviously people staying away from the polls because of fear of intimidation by Trump supporters, even if reports of that intimidation were quite sporadic in reality. (https://projects.propublica.org/electionland/national/what-we-dont-know-the-full-effects-of-voter-suppression/)

Obviously there was always going to be an enthusiasm gap, but the reduced turnout was no accident (that could have been remedied had it been a less unpopular candidate or whatever). It was an intentional barrier.

Clinton did carry women overall, but I'm not sure why so many white women voted for Trump. I guess white irredentism is gender-neutral. 

[drogulus]

     

Now these same geniuses are in charge again and the current ones may be worst. 

I have given up on the common sense of the American People.

     Are they in charge? It could turn out that way. I'm not ready to say it will be that way. Today neither party is conventionally conservative and it's likely that the Dems will reject business as usual defensive liberalism for something with more appeal in the burnt over districts of the Rust Belt. It's time for Dems to have their own crisis. The path for Warren is now open.

[James]

What "big disaster" has he inherited?

"The country" is in a mess. Wake up Aussie!