I’m confident of that too. But it’s no comfort to me because I found the idea of Paul Ryan getting so much of what he wants to be pretty scary.
The “others” are going to be the people who got us into the Iraq disaster, caused the recession, and want to sell off the social safety net at fire sale prices.
These are great times for America, and the world. The markets had a strong day too. Things will get much much better, thankfully.
I just heard a statistic that throws most of the narratives about this election result (the idea of it being a swarm of new blue collar white voters, or Obama voting converts, swarming to the polls) out the window. The only one it preserves is the one about Hillary’s weaknesses.
Trump got over a million fewer votes than Romney did, even though the voting age population has grown in the past four years.
Think about that for a second. Mull it over. What we saw here was not any kind of surge for Trump. It was a bunch of Democrats sitting on their hands, while Republicans did what they do every election including off-year elections: go out and dutifully vote for their party’s candidates. With 20-20 hindsight, I can see that this connects directly with something I complained about months ago, which was that I hardly ever saw anyone wearing a Hillary button or displaying a Hillary bumper sticker or yard sign. She just wasn’t cool, there were many Democrats who never really warmed to her, and they didn’t go to Trump but just stayed home.
So that sucks, but it’s actually not as bad a sign for the future as if there had been millions of defectors to the other side. But it does add an extra condition to the oft-cited idea that Republicans vote every time, and Democrats only vote in presidential years: it’s “presidential years in which there is a really inspiring candidate at the top of the ticket”.
Well, ok. Much easier said than done, but it looks like that had better be what Democrats focus on in future primary races. Maybe it is time to give the left wing of the party a turn. If that turns off too many moderates, then back to the drawing board to find the next Obama who can thread the needle.
The voters did get this badly wrong, but the US survived Warren G. Harding, and it survived Herbert Hoover. It will survive Donald J. Trump. But it is a step backward, and it will be an interesting four years. He’s already getting karmic payback, in the form of spreading protests, for haranguing Obama all these years about those bullshit birther claims. He’ll be facing these until the last day of his presidency, and I say good. Fuck Trump.
The voters got this very correctly, and set America on the path to corrections and great improvements.
You are right about what has caused gridlock to now, but its been Dem vs Repub gridlock. It’s all Repub now. I don’t think R’s in Congress are going to gridlock Trump. They may tone down any totally crazy ideas, but they aren’t going to gridlock him.
But what you have there is a combination of (a)voters who feel that the solution to gridlock to have the other side roll over and let the extreme people have their way and (b) voters who feel, gridlock means “governing the least” and that’s desirable.
You know there is no God, right?
What are you talking about? Millions of people’s lives were ruined and they sied before things got better. How is this any kind of solace?
They aren’t going to gridlock him, but McConnell has already come out and said “no” to his most extreme proposals. It’s going to be a fight for a lot of crazy stuff to get passed and the Democrats have the numbers to block the totally crazy stuff McConnell wants to do.
All the Democrats need to do is prevent total collapse of the system for two years and the midterm elections will bring about more meaningful change.
Especially straight, white, males. Especially if they are young and/or poor. The liberal agenda has been systematically disenfranchising straight white males for decades, in order to atone for the sins of the past. The problem is: if you were born 25 years ago you didn’t get any of that “white male privilege” you hear so much about. It’s just a history lesson, and a thing of the past. You just see these people who want to scrub you from the face of the Earth, and Hillary represented that agenda. Some of them could at least identify with Bernie (or Biden, if he had ran), since he is, you know, a white guy.
But to someone who is in that position, the PC machine is a threat. It constantly talks about “promoting diversity”, and the subtext to that is, “we need to get rid of you”. Of course they’re going to fight against that, even if at heart they’re not actually racist or sexist at all. But they are feeling attacked and disenfranchised nonetheless. This is a delicate issue that hasn’t been talked about much but needs to be addressed empathetically, and in a way that isn’t indoctrinating young white men that they need to be ashamed of how they were born, and spend their lives stepping aside for everyone who isn’t them.
I claim bragging rights for successfully predicting this election months ago:
And sure enough, Didn’t_Bother won in another landslide. Here are the final totals:
44.4% Didn’t bother to vote (includes ~1% thwarted by GOP suppression)
26.5% Hillary
26.4% Trump
01.8% Johnson
00.5% Stein
00.2% McMullin
00.1% Castle
00.1% Other
Found out yesterday that 3 of my good friends were Trump supporters. Two are college educated women who work in High Tech here in Silicon Valley, and the other is guy-- Mexican-American lawyer.
Go figure.
At my workplace on election day there was a lot of hooting and hollering for Trump: by Cuban-American women.
Thank you for this Slacker.
I had this impression, a very false one, that this was a big turnout election. But this was actually more like Brexit - not in that polls missed Brexit, cause they had not - but that Brexit happened because way too many of those who are most negatively impacted and horrified by the result of it sat on their collective ass or threw away their vote.
Total turnout 2.7% off.
GOP off about 1.7%; Democratic off about 9.6%. Third party increased severalfold.
10% of Millennials who bothered to vote voted third party, more than twice the national average.
I suspect that some who are out protesting today also did not vote or voted third party.
Yeah septimus youse right. “Did not vote” increased their win by several percent and Trump as President is what resulted as their default choice.
Wang called the stability of the polling just right and the uncertainty was as I had expected in which “likely” and marginal voters would vote. My WAG, absent data, had been that GOTV machine would deliver. Trump did not motivate any more turnout - either direction - but the usual GOP voters voted for him holding their noses in many cases. Those Democratic voters who disapproved of Clinton less strongly though just assumed others voting would be enough and did not bother or threw it away … and are now upset.
Too effin late now you twits.
The cause for optimism is that the shitstorm that will now be may result in some realization that they cannot sit on their asses and have to be involved, have to sometimes work for the good, or at least to prevent the evil, even if it is not their ideal. IF so then 2018 and 2020 can be wave elections and the damage of the next two years can somewhat contained. IF “did not vote” gets a less overwhelming win from here things may change.
No it’s not. They just haven’t figured out where to hit him where it will hurt the most.
#BoycottTrumpBrand. Take away his fortune by totally avoiding anything he has his name on. He’ll leave the Oval officer faster than a rat abandoning a sinking ship.
Short version. The movement to boycott anything Trump and the stores that sell the Trump brands.
I’m trying to picture President Trump giving the State of the Union Address, without using the phrase “it’s going to be tremendous, believe me…”. Or deliver a eulogy at a state funeral. Or consoling the nation after a national disaster.
Nope. Can’t see it.
I can’t even picture him welcoming the Cubs to the White House without embarrassing himself. He’d turn it into an occasion to denounce his enemies…like the Al Smith Dinner.
Yup. That’ll prevent or undo the Supreme Court appointments and the ripping up of climate accords and the international instability that are now to happen.
And like those Democrats who stayed home were patronizing his brands before anyway.
Seriously I do not give a flying fuck about hurting Trump. And no he won’t resign in face of a boycott. Being an ex president is is worth enough to his brand long term that he’d stick it out even if his businesses takes a major short term hit. Even he has enough brain cells who talk to each other to understand that. There is damage that is now basically given. Containing it as quickly as possible and getting into a position to begin the process of reversing it is the desperate need.
Anyone know where to find a state-by-state vote tally for the obscure candidates like McMullin?
Scroll right in the table for McMullin.