A Political Thread

[Groundhog]

Feel so little sypathy for democrats after they refused to feel the bern. Imagine Michael D. Higgins meeting Bernie Sanders. They'd be like a couple of little old house elves.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Stephan A Smith going ham on Kaep.

[video]https://youtu.be/RiArDHmlQKc[/video]

 

[saulan]

@ncurd I think this article might interest you based on your echo chamber comments.
https://medium.com/@SeanBlanda/the-other-side-is-not-dumb-2670c1294063#.bgq2em5o5

 

[ncurd]

It's an intresting topic my group of friends and community range from right of center to the left with heavy weighting towards the left. However there is usually healthy discourse on things we disagree with problem is we all agree on Trump.

I think the left and it's dismissive of the right has gotten more toxic in recent years but my perspective the right has always been very disparaging of the left. The view expressed in this exchange from The West Wing pretty much describes how I saw it at the turn of the Mellenium.

"The West Wing: Gone Quiet (#3.7)" (2001)
Bruno Gianelli: These are direct mail leaflets. "Bartlet: Hopelessly Liberal." "Bartlet: Super-Liberal." "Bartlet: Liberal, Liberal, Liberal."
Sam Seaborn: These aren't coming from our side, right?

Sam Seaborn: Why are you so bent on countering these idiot leaflets?
Bruno Gianelli: Because I'm tired of working for candidates who make me think that I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam! I'm tired of getting them elected! We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said, "'Liberal' means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we're gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn't have to go to work if they don't want to!" And instead of saying, "Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties...!", we cowered in the corner, and said, "Please. Don't. Hurt. Me." No more. I really don't care who's right, who's wrong. We're both right. We're both wrong. Let's have two parties, huh? What do you say?

I'm not entirely sure when it turned but probably post 9/11 when the focus of the foreign population of western countries in media increased radically. The left has seen this language pervaing part of the natural discourse and gotten very very angry about it.

But it's right it's not as simple as that and unless your willing to read and listening to intelligent dissenting opinions, sadly there are the racists and others and they are being insanely vocal it makes it too easy to say "this is the side you are on, how can you be on theres?" when you have someone like Trump actually encouraing those views it becomes increasingly difficult to understand why people would vote for him and its very easy to say they believe in the same thing as they've actually supportted him.

The biggest problem with the devil advocate view is a) Understanding the problem well enough, b) finding somewhere where it isn't too toxic to argue.

 

[The Jones Boy]

It was a protest vote against the status quo dynasties of Clinton and Bush.
The regular 'Joe's' want to be heard, they are the forgotten people of America who no longer have a voice and they chose the unlikely maverick because they are sick of the same old same old.
Obama promised change and did an about face and went back to the same old advisers and nothing good happened for the poor and breadline working families except maybe Obama care and that may not last long now.
Hilary Clinton played silly buggers with Bernie Sanders in the democratic primary and that nonsense went down like a lead balloon with the young voters who were willing to vote for Bernie but not Hilary.
The democrats shot themselves in the foot and now they are in the weakest position they have been in since 1928 with the Republicans holding the cards for ... everything.

Trump is laughing all the way to the white house.
The media trashed him, the pollsters trashed him and he carried on in the face of overwhelming bad press in the media and smashed Hilary out of the ballpark. We may never see her again.
Good riddance to both old dynasties.

As for Trump, who knows what we will get but I doubt he's all that different from the rest of the political hacks, now that he has let the hyperbole and sensationalist headline twaddle fall by the wayside at his victory speech.
If he does set about rebuilding the American infrastructure there should be lots of employment... for cheap foreign labour.

 

[ncurd]

and smashed Hilary out of the ballpark.

Sorry what? Yeah the electoral college is surprsingly decisive but.

He got 47.5% of the vote
She got 238,000 more votes than he did.

This isn't a thumping victory at all......Christ it's bad enough people saying Brexit was a decisive victory or the Tory's won by miles at last year General election.

It simply isn't true.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Sorry what? Yeah the electoral college is surprsingly decisive but.

He got 47.5% of the vote
She got 238,000 more votes than he did.

This isn't a thumping victory at all......Christ it's bad enough people saying Brexit was a decisive victory or the Tory's won by miles at last year General election.

It simply isn't true.

TBF it was a huge victory whilst close in terms of numbers not many if any would have called a trump win before hand.

Even you where saying it wouldn't be close and Clinton would win before hand.

The fact Trump won the electoral votes winning all the major swing states was huge.

 

[ncurd]

TBF it was a huge victory whilst close in terms of numbers not many if any would have called a trump win before hand.

Even you where saying it wouldn't be close and Clinton would win before hand.

The fact Trump won the electoral votes winning all the major swing states was huge.

|Massively shocking, huge upset is better language to use....."smashing out the ballpark" is language used when the margin of victory is large.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Think it's mental that people think Trump is a champion for the blue collar working man.
Came from money, handed everything on a silver plate, "small loan of a million dollars", he's literally part of the 1% that so many rant on about.
Not saying Hillary is, or anything, but it's amazing how he's managed to convince people he's an average joe.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I don't think he's convinced people he's a champion for their social class, as such, but for their social ideals...

http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/09/trump-won-because-leftist-political-corr

It's not the only reason, but I happen to think it's one of the most significant reasons.

 

[ncurd]

Also he didn't take 'every' swing state
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map.html

Nevada, New Hampshire (not yet called) and Maine stuck where they were.

Florida was very much in the balance was every so slightly Trump before the end.

The real shock was carrying all of Wisconsin, Michigan (not yet called) and Pennsylvania. Which were considered safe Pennsylvannia being the only one truly considered swing.

When you look at the final maps it's not that shocking in terms of all head had to do was take PA and Florida (49 electoral votes) but it was just considered too hard to get both as PA was supposed to be in Clinton's pocket. Until the very end most had Florida as blue (hell 1:30 in the morning they were still sure with 15% of the vote counted it would go Clinton's way).

 

[Which Tyler]

I don't think Trump convinced anyone of anything much, he got fewer votes than the last couple of GOP candidates after all, it's more that Hilary didn't get enough people to vote for her.
Voter turnout was awful, and it seems to be the smallest percentage of the population voted for the winner since before women were allowed the vote.

This year around 19% (25.5% of those eligible) of the US population voted for Trump. 1920 is the last time the proportion was below 20% (or, indeed, 25%)

- - - Updated - - -

 

[ratsapprentice]

I don't think Trump convinced anyone of anything much, he got fewer votes than the last couple of GOP candidates after all, it's more that Hilary didn't get enough people to vote for her.

Not sure about that... that's based on the assumption that most of the voters were going to vote for whichever Republican candidate, regardless...
I don't think that's necessarily the case.

 

[ncurd]

I don't think he's convinced people he's a champion for their social class, as such, but for their social ideals...

http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/09/trump-won-because-leftist-political-corr

It's not the only reason, but I happen to think it's one of the most significant reasons.

I was going to write a different post on this but changed it half way through. Can I just say he's the kind of smug right-wing who's laughing now person I want to punch.

I hate 'political correctness' as a term it's become a catch all for "why can't I say intollerant" things.

Then I cam accross his example on trans issues and was constructing my arguement and realised I was essentiall making his point for him.
In broadest of gender conversations most people would say gender is binary and I've got no problem with that viewpoint and stating unless you believe in gender defined roles. And no true liberal I belive would disagree, however if you started hurling abuse at at a transgendered indivdual I would be pretty appalled.
The question is at what point is saying "you can't say that it might hurt thier special snowflake feelings" and moves onto "no what you are saying is destructive and is hate speech" which I think most would agree with is wrong. Heard a good debate about this the other day and the answer not simple and there is ton of grey.

Don't get me wrong a strong part of me thing transexualism is the new homosexual in terms of conversation, something which staunch conservative's consider unnatural and immoral whilst liberal's go well it doesn't hurt me let them live their lives.


However Trump did use hate speech so it really angers me when people dismiss it as "oh he's just not politically correct", the article is entirely right that couldn't be said of Romney and McCain.

- - - Updated - - -

Not sure about that... that's based on the assumption that most of the voters were going to vote for whichever Republican candidate, regardless...
I don't think that's necessarily the case.

I think there's an interesting question here how many people who voted Trump would of voted for Sanders?

Lets take out that the vast majority of democractic Obama supporters decided to stay at home or vote fore a third party candidate. How big is the Republican core vote (the die hards)? Its likely under 25.5% of eligible voters, in 2008 Obama had a thumping victory in the popular vote so we can probably take an assumption McCain only really got the GOP diehards to vote for him. Still McCain got 26.6 of eligible voters, Romney got 25.9%, Bush won but got 24.52 & 28.75. Dole's an interesting one as a lot of Republican voted Reform he got 19.94% of the eligible population and Bush senior got 20.64% when he lost to Clinton. Still Trump's 25.5% looks bad and not massively above Republican core support since 3rd parties were in the running.

I think he convinced some people but I think this is just another stat that show independents (the actual swing voters) either stayed at home or didn't vote for either candidate.

 

[McTallshort]

Also he didn't take 'every' swing state
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map.html

Nevada, New Hampshire (not yet called) and Maine stuck where they were.

Florida was very much in the balance was every so slightly Trump before the end.

The real shock was carrying all of Wisconsin, Michigan (not yet called) and Pennsylvania. Which were considered safe Pennsylvannia being the only one truly considered swing.

When you look at the final maps it's not that shocking in terms of all head had to do was take PA and Florida (49 electoral votes) but it was just considered too hard to get both as PA was supposed to be in Clinton's pocket. Until the very end most had Florida as blue (hell 1:30 in the morning they were still sure with 15% of the vote counted it would go Clinton's way).

No he didnt but he still won.

Results in kid gotta move on

 

[ncurd]

No he didnt but he still won.

Results in kid gotta move on

Yes and the protesting at the result is a complete waste of time.....however understanding the result and narrative of what the result says are important factors into.

a) Making sure congress and Trump understand they won by the slimmest of margins in reality they shouldn't with impunity enact hardline legisation.

b) Why Clinton lost and how A. N. Other can work out how to beat him next time.

 

[McTallshort]

+

Yes and the protesting at the result is a complete waste of time.....however understanding the result and narrative of what the result says are important factors into.

a) Making sure congress and Trump understand they won by the slimmest of margins in reality they shouldn't with impunity enact hardline legisation.

b) Why Clinton lost and how A. N. Other can work out how to beat him next time.

Clinton lost because she was the wrong person. It takes a special kind of **** wit to lose to Donald Trump and even if she had won she would have just been the lesser evil not the better candidate. Plus she was a committed globalist which doesn't sit well with people in former industrial areas who have seen all their jobs go to the back-end of China. Not to mention the fortune she amassed on the back of her and her husband's political clout. They are like the Blair's only less popular. Yes Trump amassed a fortune but he's a business man and that's what business men do. You have to try and think like an American from the rust belt or the southern states, Clinton is deeply despised in such places (remember the top gear special?) Why the democrats thought such people would change their minds come an election is puzzling or they just thought such people didn't matter. Either way they dropped the mother of all ********.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

EU really starting to push for a European army.

Not my cup of tea TBH.

 

[McTallshort]

EU really starting to push for a European army.

Not my cup of tea TBH.

Should be left to NATO

 

[ncurd]

Trump thinks America should pull out of NATO