Oh also - there appear to be some flaws in the strategy of enacting social change through executive and judicial action. Namely - the successor can simply undo it via other executive actions and judicial appointments.
My personal takeaway:
I need to find a better source for news. I’m pretty much done with CNN–at least when it comes to political coverage. I know it’s partly my fault for getting sucked into the drama of it all, but even before the disastrous results on November 8 I was feeling disgusted with the way CNN would jump at any chance to hype up the horse race. I grew to despise the panels of surrogates defending and deflecting and spinning their twisted little dark hearts out. Trump thinks CNN was ‘very unfair’ to him, but I don’t think they were nearly tough enough on him. They gave him countless hours of free airtime, showing his entire speeches at various rallies. They helped legitimize him by hiring his puppets to help fill their airtime. God forbid Anderson Cooper or Erin Burnett or Blitzer or Lemon actually just present some factual reporting and keep following up on some of these stories instead of diving head first for any hint of a new scandal to feed to those godawful panels of theirs. No, it’s more fun (=gets higher ratings) to have Corey Lewandowski (an outspoken “Birther” that CNN put on its payroll while he was still getting paid by Trump) and a Clinton supporter shout at each other endlessly about Trump’s latest tweet-storm of offensiveness.
One good thing about this: I’ve been leaning toward dropping cable tv, to save some money, and cable news was one of the things that was keeping me from cutting the cord. Now may be the time.
Then explain to me the benefits of a Trump Presidency. I’ve yet to hear any reasoning from anyone that makes sense.
Not to pick on the poster above, but one of my major takeaways is Americans are suckers for a sympathetic narrative, even ones that are completely false and could easily be verified as such.
A greater proportion of “more-or-less well-off” people voted for Trump than Clinton.When you factor in cost-of-living differences between regions that slant one way or the other, the gap is even bigger. So please can we retire the canard that long-suffering economic victims put Trump in the WH?
His supporters aren’t mostly uneducated and rural, either.So there’s a good chance you will find one right in your backyard. Scary, I know.
It reaffirmed my belief that the internet is the worst thing ever.
- Twitter is a terrible place to get your news.
- There are a lot more racists in this country than I thought.
- I miss Opal.
I’ve decided that after January 20, 2017, I am going to have to stop watching the nightly news. Seeing his disgusting mug on TV every evening, listening to his bombast, and hearing the scandal of the day is not something I can bear to contemplate.
We are considering taking some extended vacations out of the country to get some relief from the bombardment that is coming.
Like Der Trihs, we are upset that all the good that has happened over the past 50 years will be attacked and much of it undone. I almost regret living to see this, and we will die before seeing it turned around once again.
Fuck this asshole and everything he stands for.
I’m anticipating an end to enforcement of anti-discrimination law in employment and housing. The black intelligentsia will have a much harder time getting good jobs and housing outside of extremely segregated neighborhoods.
Another impression that I’m getting it that the left and the moderates are crippling themselves with the insistence that “you can’t call them bigots!” Trump is surrounding himself with blatant racists, homophobes and so on, and his critics spend as much time shouting down anyone who points that out as they do complaining about Trump.
Everywhere I go I see people tying themselves into rhetorical knots trying to find a way to claim that guys like Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence and Steve Bannon aren’t bigots, because it’s just unthinkable to admit that Trump or anyone near him are bigots. When people argue that being a fan of the KKK doesn’t mean that you support racism (and yes I see people saying that) it makes them hard to take seriously.
Trump and his Congress want to repeal the New Deal and The Great Society along with Obamacare.
Point taken.
Everyone is a sore loser.
Everyone is a sore winner.
My take-away is that American Dopers are a bunch of arrogant, politically wilfully ignorant, whiny losers who only respect democracy when it goes their way.
What happened to the American way of taking stock and bouncing back?
In the past year there have been over 500 threads (the SDMB search limit) about Trump - that is, with ‘Trump’ in the title - and only 102 about Clinton, of which I started 10 and 4, respectively. Many, of course, mention both in the title. If you’d spent half the time you spent complaining about how horrible a person you consider Trump to be evangelising Clinton instead, maybe the election might have turned out differently.
As velocity said, groupthink wins.
No, you spent your time arrogantly and ignorantly sneering at Trump and those proles who dared to not vote Clinton, not caring as to why.
Case in point.
And now you’re all complaining about how awful a President Trump is going to be instead of working out why Clinton lost.
What happened to the American way of taking stock and bouncing back?
It’s dead. “We’re screwed and there’s nothing that can be done about it” doesn’t leave any room for “bouncing back”.
Also, people aren’t upset they lost an election. They are upset because they and everything they care about is in danger. Calling someone who is afraid of being forcibly dragged off to some Pence “cure gays by electroshock” camp a “whiny loser” is to put it mildly extremely unfair.
The chance of that happening is precisely zero. You do realise that that story is false, don’t you?
No mention of force or camps either.
And, of course, you prove my point; Democrats spent too much time attacking Trump and not enough time promoting Clinton.
My take-away:
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You can be super intelligent, well-credentialed, hard working, well-prepared, and sharp in every way. But if you have a vagina, none of that means anything. At least, not when you’re running from president.
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That the electoral college shouldn’t call any shots when the difference in popular vote counts is in the millions.
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People only care about how they will be affected by something. They don’t care about how it will affect other people.
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The Republicans can no longer make hay on morality and character issues. Even if Trump turns out to be the Best President Evah, they elected an asshole. We’re never going to forget that.
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Echo-chambering is out of control on both sides.
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Reaffirmed from prior observation: Not being able to look away from a trainwreck, news media unwittingly makes the public grow to *enjoy *the trainwreck.
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Reaffirmed from prior suspicion: The alleged “demogaphic advantage” of the Democrats or Liberals, is still vaporware. All the time “coming soon” but never here.
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Related to (3): Dominating the hip, with-it Diverse-American Creative Class is not that useful if they’re clustered around a handful of already-friendly major conurbations, becoming locally redundant majorities while the rest of the Congressional Districts and Electoral Votes are surrendered to those “left behind”.
And y’know what…
… Your posting history suggests to me that all that would be your takeaway anyway from almost any plausible election result in your lifetime.
Personally, I think the US is ready for a female President. Hillary Clinton had a LOT of political baggage and was not a very charismatic campaigner. POTUS electability-wise I think those two things were more important than what she was packing below the waist. Michael Dukakis, an earnest person with about the same level of charisma as Hillary Clinton was not all that electable either.
I don’t think Clinton being female - or Trump being male - was at all significant. Yes there are sexists on both sides. But each was the focus point of a particular movement and could have been anybody.
I thought the right-wingers were bad, but I’ve never seen a worse bunch of sore losers and crybabies in my life. I cringe when I hear the words “president-elect Trump” and I loath the idea of seeing his mug on TV for the next 4 years. But I have faith in the American system of government, and since he’s the one we elected… so be it. Let’s all put on our big-boy/gal pants and get on with our lives. There will be another election and we’ll be able to boot him the hell out if “we” want.