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PoliGAF 2016 |OT15| Orange is the New Black

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D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
balladofwindfishes said:
She's... going to win the popular vote by almost exactly what polls said she would.

That's cruel irony. They were right. Just... not in the ways that we wanted.
Click to expand...

She's projected to win by about 1.2% at the moment, so they were a little off - about 2.3% off. That's a pretty normal error margin.
 
S

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
whyamihere said:
Is it hyperbolic to worry if we're going to have elections in 4 years
Click to expand...

Worry now? A bit hyperbolic
Consider the possibility as it's no longer nil, No.

Still very unlikely, and you don't worry if you will get in a car accident everyday.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
These last few years have really shown just how dated and stretched thin the Consitution is.

This is the second time in less than 20 years the popular vote didn't match the electoral vote. One party was able to completely shut down all governing for 6 years. That party was able to not appoint a Supreme Court justice for almost an entire year. One party was able to control a disproportional amount of the House compared to the their vote share due to gerrymandering.

These are major flaws in our democracy. These will need to be addressed at some point, because more and more flaws and loopholes are going to be found every year by the increasing desperate party of the past clinging to life via loop holes and stretching the Constitution thin.

Crab said:
She's projected to win by about 1.2% at the moment, so they were a little off - about 2.3% off. That's a pretty normal error margin.
Click to expand...

I was counting the margin of error.
 
J

Joe

Member
Serious question: do you think we are in the beginning stages of a far-right white nationalist government? I'm a reasonable person and I try to talk myself out of such a possibility but as more transition team info leaks the more seriously I take it.
 
B

Biggest-Geek-Ever

Member
hipsterpants said:
I think nothing enrages me more post-election than the "we need to come together under trump" or "we need to respect trump supporters' votes and not attack them" or whatever the fuck. I wonder what these worthless enables would say if confronted by one of the numerous people that has been abused by an enabled Trump supporter or some poor child that is now terrified for his or her well-being because that man is elected into power. Fuck me it makes me so angry, almost angrier than the actual reports of abuse I see on Twitter. These people are literally worthless.
Click to expand...
I don't think we need to necessarily "respect" Trump voters viewpoints, but we have to be willing to understand those that voted for him and try to reach out to them, IMO. And I'm not talking about those truly racist, bigoted, emboldened people that are already throwing out insults and worse, physically attacking minorities. Those are the ones we stand up to. For the others, if we aren't willing to try to talk civilly those that voted because he's anti-establishment and because he promises to bring back job to middle America, we're going to be screaming into the echo chamber for another 4 years.
 
H

HTupolev

Member
damisa said:
Former mayor Bloomberg has a blind trust set up for his business while mayor of New York. No one cared about it. They won't care about Trump's either.
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That's not the issue. The blind trust system is a normal way to circumvent conflict of interest; the problem here is that it would be basically impossible for it to work if his kids are running the businesses. Trump's proposed blind trust system is silly nonsense.
 
N

noshten

Member
hipsterpants said:
I think nothing enrages me more post-election than the "we need to come together under trump" or "we need to respect trump supporters' votes and not attack them" or whatever the fuck. I wonder what these worthless enables would say if confronted by one of the numerous people that has been abused by an enabled Trump supporter or some poor child that is now terrified for his or her well-being because that man is elected into power. Fuck me it makes me so angry, almost angrier than the actual reports of abuse I see on Twitter. These people are literally worthless.
Click to expand...

I don't see it as coming together or not being pissed off, I just think it's more productive to look at everything in a different light and try not to spiral into depression following the election and the result we have been left with.

I don't think Trump should be attacked by (Ds) because he is such a baby. In a few months he might get pissed off at the Republicans for not doing what he wants and be ready to make deals just to get his ratings high. I honestly think he is such a vain individual he is going to care more about how he is perceived as president than any sort of platform or policy. He is to me actually preferalable than the large majority of elected Republicans in senate or house. Unless you really want me to start worrying about Trump having the finger on the button constantly I need to be able to hope he would still be better than Bush until proven otherwise. Bush has literally the blood of millions on his hands yet people want me to really think Trump is worse before he achives something similar? Do I really care about what he said, do I really care about his "policies", I already knew what you are going to get if anyone from the GOP side won the election. Do people honestly think Cruz is a preferable alternative as president, or Carson, or Cain, or Palin.... really? They are all from the same cloth and regardless which one wins at least with Trump - I still don't know where he stands and how much of what he has said and done is just to win and how much is actual things he believes in.. I'm not even sure he believes anything

His supporters are the same people who voted for Bush twice, Palin, they even swallowed Romney who I think they hated more than Dems hated Hillary this election. Yep those voters I don't care about they will vote Republican nomatter what. You can literally stick a convicted killer as a Republican candidate and if he somehow wins the primary they would all vote for him.
What I cared this election was the young ones, or ones that tend to vote 3rd party or those who switched alligences after Bush. I think Dems lost them and if they contiuie to spiral deeper into blame game when the blame is so very obvious and the solution is also so very obvious, they will end up on such a losing streak that they would push through cloning just to try and syntehtize Clonebama.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
balladofwindfishes said:
These last few years have really shown just how dated and stretched thin the Consitution is.

This is the second time in less than 20 years the popular vote didn't match the electoral vote. One party was able to completely shut down all governing for 6 years. That party was able to not appoint a Supreme Court justice for almost an entire year. One party was able to control a disproportional amount of the House compared to the their vote share due to gerrymandering.

These are major flaws in our democracy. These will need to be addressed at some point, because more and more flaws and loopholes are going to be found every year by the increasing desperate party of the past clinging to life via loop holes and stretching the Constitution thin.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that! You'd need to win three quarters of the states to change anything!

Do y'all see now why I think the US has an exceptionally poor constitution?
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Officerrob said:
Seriously?
Click to expand...

Yes. I am entirely in favour of purity tests like "is not a racist".

Purity tests are only ridiculous when it's not your purity. When it is its a clear moral line instead. Dismissing things as purity tests is silly. If you don't want people making unfavorable moral judgements of politicians you need to explain why it's not a moral line or why the politician doesn't violate instead of dismissing it as a purity test.
 
H

hipsterpants

Member
So the GOP finally got back the power they wanted, but in basically the worst way possible. How fitting.

whyamihere said:
Is it hyperbolic to worry if we're going to have elections in 4 years
Click to expand...

I'd say yes. But I also have more faith in the U.S. system than a lot of people probably do (thanks dad). Earlier today we were talking about Trump looking he realized that he's made a huge mistake and that he may not even want to run again in 2020.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
Crab said:
Good luck with that! You'd need to win three quarters of the states to change anything!

Do y'all see now why I think the US has an exceptionally poor constitution?
Click to expand...

Yes, I know. Changing it is futile. But it's reaching its limits. The discrepancy between the massive urban populations and the tiny rural communities is going to push the Constitution to the limit.

It was never designed for a single block in a city to have almost the same population as an entire state. My vote for Chuck Schumer is near worthless compared to someone from North Dakota and their Senators. They have multiple times more weight in government than I do. And that's incredibly unfair.
 
U

UraMallas

Member
Crab said:
Given you haven't made any suggestions yet, my conclusion seems to be your plan actually was to just leave them to die? It's little wonder we lost if that genuinely was our attitude.

I think the actual answer is pretty complicated. It's weirdly a problem that's easier in the long-run than the short-run - no matter what kind of palliatives we put in, it will probably always be better to move to the cities than stay put. The more accessible you make the education process, the faster that happens - so free student tuition is a place to start.

The short run? You have to bring the jobs back. Instead of putting money towards benefits, put money towards subsidizing industry, at least in the short-run. That way they still get state handouts, it just comes through the intervening medium of something that gives them a little dignity. What's the difference between paying them $15 an hour to do nothing vs. paying them $15 an hour to build a car? At least in the second one you have a car at the end of it. A massive drive into rural infrastructure - particularly public transport. Try and capture some of these areas as satellites, so that businesses can spread from the cities to these outlying areas. An hour's travel compared to three hour's travel is a big difference in viability. Be immensely careful with free trade - sometimes cheaper consumer goods aren't worth livelihoods. Cheaper necessities are probably fine to come from abroad, but any free trade that outsources luxury good production means that you bankrupt rural America to provide wealthy America cheaper goods.

These are just part of something, but I think they're, at least, starting points.
Click to expand...

Great post. I would also test the water on high speed train infrastructure. Make these states in the middle no longer 'fly over'. Building that out across America would be a massive undertaking and I have no idea if it is feasible but it's a better idea than a fucking wall. It also speaks to your idea about giving handouts through government work. It creates jobs across the US, it makes places like St Louis, Minneapolis, Detroit and Cleveland places that you don't just fly over but cross through and patronage. It brings jobs to the Midwest and it brings people and new companies to the Midwest. It also might help with the idea that people are still people out here. Being from IA, I get one aspect of this pretty well. I'm not thought of because I'm not seen. If you get cheap train rides through (and not over) my state and the ones around me, I think a psychological barrier might also come down. It's known Vikings, Cubs, Cards and Cavs fans exist because they're seen on TV but you've never seen them in their natural habitat, maybe.

This might be pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I think it's a nice thought. Campaigning on bringing jobs back to the Midwest via a large infrastructure project like high-speed rail that shows a willingness to reach out to these 'flyover' states in an unprecedented way shows a sharp contrast to a divisive wall mega project. Think of the optics of building out rail and truly uniting versus building up a wall and literally dividing. The optics of killing a term like 'flyover states' because you don't fly over them anymore is also a win, imo. At least to me and the people I know and love.

Yeah, yeah. I know, I know...

6Ect28S.jpg
Click to expand...

But, I can say that with all of the talk of these dilapidated dying towns through the Rust Belt and Midwest if you started bringing one of these motherfuckers through Des Moines (it's a great city, too! Everybody come visit!) you'll get people out here feeling a lot better about the idea that we, too, are in the now and not being left behind, even if our fashion will always be 10 years behind.
 
G

Goodstyle

Member
Officerrob said:
Trump leads Michigan by less than 12k votes. Almost 88k Michigan voters who voted, chose to not vote for president...
Click to expand...

Gotta wonder how many of them were for Harambe. Gotta wonder how many were for Bernie, presumably by Bernie fans who pretended to care about the economy and the regulating wall street.
 
G

Gruco

Banned
Crab said:
Good luck with that! You'd need to win three quarters of the states to change anything!

Do y'all see now why I think the US has an exceptionally poor constitution?
Click to expand...

TBH it's kind of surprising people ever argued against this.

The "why cant the US have nice things" crowd I think often doesn't appreciate the institutional limits.
 
I

ItWasMeantToBe19

Banned
After his defense of "America isn't that racist!" Chris Cillizza seems about ready to explain why the tens of millions of Americans that supported Japanese internment were not racist.

Then he'll be prepared to argue why internment camps for Muslims are not racist.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Suikoguy said:
Guilt is a powerful motivator.

Fuck, Religion was built on it.
Click to expand...

Sure is, but it doesn't necessarily change behavior just public presentation (see also church child abuse scandals and family values politicians who get caught having affairs and/or homosexual relationships).
 
T

thehypocrite

Member
UraMallas said:
Great post. I would also test the water on high speed train infrastructure. Make these states in the middle no longer 'fly over'. Building that out across America would be a massive undertaking and I have no idea if it is feasible but it's a better idea than a fucking wall. It also speaks to your idea about giving handouts through government work. It creates jobs across the US, it makes places like St Louis, Minneapolis, Detroit and Cleveland places that you don't just fly over but cross through and patronage. It brings jobs to the Midwest and it brings people and new companies to the Midwest. It also might help with the idea that people are still people out here. Being from IA, I get one aspect of this pretty well. I'm not thought of because I'm not seen. If you get cheap train rides through (and not over) my state and the ones around me, I think a psychological barrier might also come down. It's known Vikings, Cubs, Cards and Cavs fans exist because they're seen on TV but you've never seen them in their natural habitat, maybe.

This might be pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I think it's a nice thought. Campaigning on bringing jobs back to the Midwest via a large infrastructure project like high-speed rail that shows a willingness to reach out to these 'flyover' states in an unprecedented way shows a sharp contracts to a divisive wall mega project. Think of the optics of building out rail and truly uniting against building up a wall and literally dividing. The optics of killing a term like 'flyover states' is also a win, imo. At least to me and the people I know and love.

Yeah, yeah. I know, I know...



But, I can say that with all of the talk of these dilapidated dying towns through the Rust Belt and Midwest if you started bringing one of these motherfuckers through Des Moines (it's a great city, too! Everybody come visit!) you'll get people out here feeling a lot better about the idea that we, too, are in the now and not being left behind, even if our fashion will always be 10 years behind.
Click to expand...
I agree, legalize and tax weed to pay for it.
 
D

Diablos

Member
whyamihere said:
She's gonna gain another million and a half votes.

Jesus christ.
Click to expand...
It's at times like this that I wish we would have thrown out the electoral college. It's obsolete and an arbitrary roadblock that utterly neglects the will of the people. Twice in 16 years it has fucked this democracy royally. And the I believe the only time before 2000 and 2016 was in the 1800's or something. Now it's happening much more frequently. It has GOT to go.

I argued before the election that switching to a national vote system is dumb because you should still be able to get enough votes within the states and situations like 2000 are so rare that it's not worth getting frustrated over. Now I see that we are moving towards a reality that the electoral college was not designed for.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
If it's any consolation, and it probably isn't much, but: firstly, I still think the UK fucked up more. Trump is for four years, Brexit is forever. So you're probably not the 2016 titleholders for biggest fuckup. Secondly, everyone else in the Western world is going through pretty similar troubles right now. The death of industrialization is driving the working classes towards authoritarianism everywhere. So there's people all over this world looking for a solution; the struggle isn't alone.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
We don't necessarily need to get rid of the EC, that's too difficult

Making every state proportional would have the exact same effect without needing an amendment.

Except no red state is ever going to do that, and it would require every state to pass their own laws since the founders didn't trust the federal government to run federal elections because that makes sense apparently, so they didn't give them any powers to regulate elections.

Crab said:
If it's any consolation, and it probably isn't much, but: firstly, I still think the UK fucked up more. Trump is for four years, Brexit is forever. So you're probably not the 2016 titleholders for biggest fuckup. Secondly, everyone else in the Western world is going through pretty similar troubles right now. The death of industrialization is driving the working classes towards authoritarianism everywhere. So there's people all over this world looking for a solution; the struggle isn't alone.
Click to expand...

I actually blame terrorism. This is fear manifesting itself after decades of successful terror attacks in key population centers. It's pretty clear terrorists have won, seeing the way the world is right now.
 
S

sphagnum

Banned
Joe said:
Serious question: do you think we are in the beginning stages of a far-right white nationalist government? I'm a reasonable person and I try to talk myself out of such a possibility but as more transition team info leaks the more seriously I take it.
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Joe said:
Serious question: do you think we are in the beginning stages of a far-right white nationalist government? I'm a reasonable person and I try to talk myself out of such a possibility but as more transition team info leaks the more seriously I take it.
Click to expand...
Oh we absolutely are. We're going to do our best to kneecap it, but a lot of people are going to get fucking hurt
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
balladofwindfishes said:
We don't necessarily need to get rid of the EC, that's too difficult

Making every state proportional would have the exact same effect without needing an amendment.
Click to expand...

That's not actually true because electoral college votes aren't allocated proportionately, so even if you split them proportionately after that the problem remains. From some quick working out, Trump still wins if electoral college votes are split evenly because e.g. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes which is 1 per 195,000 people; but California has 55 electoral college votes which is 1 per 705,000.
 
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