GBS

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Sooooo, did the independents "cost" Hillary the presidency? I mean, I'm happy they got votes, but in the de facto two party system that the US has, independents can really make or break the race for the republican and democratic candidates. I bet Jill Stein would donate all of her kidney to transfer her votes to Hillary right now, knowing what Trump will mean for the environment...
 
It's really interesting comparing the 2008 and 2016 exit polls. Basically, the racists voted against Obama as much as they voted for Trump. I think Trump might have had a little more draw because he gave confidence to prejudice. Really, across the board the polls look very similar between the two elections.

I think the DNC lost Hilary the election, honestly. Gave the people just what they didn't end up wanting, the establisment, corrupt, playing the same system as the rest of the politicians. America was/is sick of politics as they are. Trump played that angle perfectly.

There still are a lot of racist people tho. I think that's why the pre-election polls didn't line up well. People don't want to openly admit they are voting for a dark reason, for a dark and bad man, so they lie. That's a theory anyway.
 
There still are a lot of racist people tho. I think that's why the pre-election polls didn't line up well. People don't want to openly admit they are voting for a dark reason, for a dark and bad man, so they lie. That's a theory anyway.


I agree, that most people who voted for Trump kept their mouths shut, but I think that comments like this one had a lot to do with it. The media absolutely vilified anyone who supported Trump, slapping tags like 'racist' onto them, and opened them up to a lot of abuse if they spoke out. Trump supporters have been beaten, etc. for expressing their beliefs. So, they kept quiet.

Labeling anyone who supported Trump as an automatic racist/xenophobe/etc. played a large part in the media misrepresentation of the election and I think harmed Hillary's campaign overall. It didn't help that the media was so blatantly bought out, that I'm fairly sure a lot of people voted against her in a knee-jerk 'don't tell me what to think!' sort of way.
 

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Independents don't cost votes in that sense. The same argument was made against Nader in 2000 but it was wrong then too: the number of Nader voters in Florida was considerably outweighed by the number of registered Democrats who voted for Bush or didn't vote at all, the number of voters in strongly Democratic areas who were removed from the electoral roll, and many other groups. Polling of Nader voters showed that most weren't inclined to support Gore in a heads-up race, and it's silly to assume that Gore was owed those votes to begin with.

In this case, most of the Johnson support (and there were many more of them than Stein stans) came from GOP voters who didn't want to vote for Trump (but who certainly wouldn't vote for Clinton), protest voters, or regular Libertarians. AFAIK, there's no realistic breakdown of third-party support that has it hurting Clinton in aggregate and there are some states that flip to Trump if you give him his share of the Johnson supporters.

If you told Jill Stein 'you have to push a button to give the presidency to either Clinton/Trump', she would hold her nose and vote for Clinton. That doesn't mean it was a strategic or ethical mistake for her to run or for people to vote for her.

Consider that this is only brought up in elections which are close, suggesting that there was room to win over voters, and when people are trying to make excuses for a poor candidate; the parallels between 2000 and 2016 are pretty striking, actually. Nobody complains about Ross Perot because he mostly took votes from Bush/Dole and those races were blowouts for Bill Clinton, even though Perot got much larger vote shares overall.
 
If it really was comments like that that lost Hillary the election, it only proves that he and his cohort do know something is wrong. If the candidate was at least in the realm of decent, why would they be ashamed? Basically, one would have to either be vile, or be ignoring it in Trump. Certainly couldn't have helped the Clinton campaign in planning their strategy, I'll definitely agree there.

Anyway, turns out that I'm not far wrong in thinking that establishment versus new blood lost Hilary the election.
2016-11-10 19.21.59.jpg
 
I agree, that most people who voted for Trump kept their mouths shut, but I think that comments like this one had a lot to do with it. The media absolutely vilified anyone who supported Trump, slapping tags like 'racist' onto them, and opened them up to a lot of abuse if they spoke out. Trump supporters have been beaten, etc. for expressing their beliefs. So, they kept quiet.

Labeling anyone who supported Trump as an automatic racist/xenophobe/etc. played a large part in the media misrepresentation of the election and I think harmed Hillary's campaign overall. It didn't help that the media was so blatantly bought out, that I'm fairly sure a lot of people voted against her in a knee-jerk 'don't tell me what to think!' sort of way.

Trump supporters keeping quiet could also explain why Hillary looked so strong leading into election day. The stigma against Trump supporters undoubtedly created a polling bias. Given how close some states ended up, its not unreasonable to assume that faulty polling data caused the Clinton campaign to allocate their resources in a way that left them just short of a majority across the board...


Politics is a dangerous topic


If there's any community that I trust to remain civil, constructive and respectful in the face of vehement disagreement, its this one.
 
If there's any community that I trust to remain civil, constructive and respectful in the face of vehement disagreement, its this one.

Even the shitposters in this community are pure class.

If it really was comments like that that lost Hillary the election, it only proves that he and his cohort do know something is wrong. If the candidate was at least in the realm of decent, why would they be ashamed?

When you hear someone talking on the TV and Radio constantly about how shit you are and how shit your beliefs are, you keep your mouth shut- even if you do believe that you're just. You can feel the bitter, vicious sentiment in the air. Especially when things like this happen:

A Trump voter being beaten.

Students being attacked...

You can't attribute their silence to acknowledgement of guilt. It wasn't about being ashamed, it was about being shamed. Big, big difference.
 
Independents did not give Trump the presidency, voter apathy and misplaced fuck establishment votes had a much greater impact in my opinion. How do you put that much trust into a billionaire who lives in a literal gold penthouse up in New York? He lives in a completely different world and didn't give two shits about you or your situation until it benefited his agenda. It's just insane.

I don't have to be all that scared living out here in California (though as a Muslim, I've got to be just a bit more careful), but I'm fucking terrified for anyone living in these rural southern communities that isn't white. It's open season for close-minded people everywhere.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, I put cost between quotation marks for a reason. I know I would have voted for Jill Stein if I had been an American citizen (provided another environment would still have led to the same "me" I am today of course), simply because her party's agenda aligns better with my worldview than the democrats' agenda. Also, Hillary has some serious weak spots / flaws that she mostly tried to gloss over in the campaign, instead choosing to focus on the (from the democrats point of view) bigger flaws of Trump. The problem is Trump's voters don't care as much about his flaws, they care about the flaws of the current political establishment, and Trump isn't part of that establishment. I think that's been his biggest draw honestly.
 
How do you put that much trust into a billionaire who lives in a literal gold penthouse up in New York? He lives in a completely different world and didn't give two shits about you or your situation until it benefited his agenda. It's just insane.

I mean, hold on. Let's be real here for a second. That describes most of the candidates for presidency. Obama for example, was a Senator and went to Columbia U, to say nothing of Romney, Bush, Clinton etc.

If you're not into voting for someone of the upper crust, then aside from Bernie you're going to have a bad time. "Not giving two shits till it benefits his/her agenda" is almost literally every politician ever. Sad, but true. There are real reasons to not vote for Trump, but 'he's rich' is a shallow one.
 
I mean, hold on. Let's be real here for a second. That describes most of the candidates for presidency. Obama for example, was a Senator and went to Columbia U, to say nothing of Romney, Bush, Clinton etc.

If you're not into voting for someone of the upper crust, then aside from Bernie you're going to have a bad time. "Not giving two shits till it benefits his/her agenda" is almost literally every politician ever. Sad, but true. There are real reasons to not vote for Trump, but 'he's rich' is a shallow one.

Not disagreeing with you, but being rich isn't my problem with him. I vote based on who aligns the most with my views with a proven track record. Bernie would have been my perfect candidate, a fucking godsend, but once the DNC shat on him Hillary was the next closest to my views that had a legit shot at winning. I don't agree with a lot of what she's done, but I know based off her track record that she is a capable politician. She's put in the years in the political domain. I'm not surprised that she's got dirt on her, that just comes with the territory when you're in politics that long unless you're a saint.

No one should EVER trust candidates without clearly researching them on various issues and contemplating their choice from all angles. I just don't think that's true of much of Trump's voter base to be frank. The few interactions I've had with supporters on social media through mutual friends has not painted a good picture, not one bit.

My problem is that his supporters might have been too gullible and didn't think of the big picture. Lulling yourself into a sense of security because he is not currently part of the establishment is very naive. Did they not pay attention to the people with which he aligned himself during his run? Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and Newt Gingrich are among the slimiest the GOP establishment has to offer. Signs point to them all end up being members of his cabinet; the same people that fucked working class people many times before in their respective states. These are the people that Trump will likely turn to for advice and counsel due to a complete lack of political experience. He has never, not a day in his life, prior to the campaign worked towards bettering the situation of the working class. That should have set off some red flags, but he kept saying what they wanted to hear (bringing back jobs, restoring local economies, etc.) and they bought it. I can't blame them for wanting to better a crappy situation in their daily lives, but I can't understand why they would believe that HE would be the one capable of doing so.
 
Not disagreeing with you, but being rich isn't my problem with him. I vote based on who aligns the most with my views with a proven track record. Bernie would have been my perfect candidate, a fucking godsend, but once the DNC shat on him Hillary was the next closest to my views that had a legit shot at winning. I don't agree with a lot of what she's done, but I know based off her track record that she is a capable politician. She's put in the years in the political domain. I'm not surprised that she's got dirt on her, that just comes with the territory when you're in politics that long unless you're a saint.

No one should EVER trust candidates without clearly researching them on various issues and contemplating their choice from all angles. I just don't think that's true of much of Trump's voter base to be frank. The few interactions I've had with supporters on social media through mutual friends has not painted a good picture, not one bit.

My problem is that his supporters might have been too gullible and didn't think of the big picture. Lulling yourself into a sense of security because he is not currently part of the establishment is very naive. Did they not pay attention to the people with which he aligned himself during his run? Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and Newt Gingrich are among the slimiest the GOP establishment has to offer. Signs point to them all end up being members of his cabinet; the same people that fucked working class people many times before in their respective states. These are the people that Trump will likely turn to for advice and counsel due to a complete lack of political experience. He has never, not a day in his life, prior to the campaign worked towards bettering the situation of the working class. That should have set off some red flags, but he kept saying what they wanted to hear (bringing back jobs, restoring local economies, etc.) and they bought it. I can't blame them for wanting to better a crappy situation in their daily lives, but I can't understand why they would believe that HE would be the one capable of doing so.

I agree completely with the sentiment that those voting for Trump may be disappointed when he finally takes the Presidency... His first steps as an outsider will likely to be attempts to make himself an insider. The only consolation in that fact is that his attempts to do so may well necessitate a reduction in his insane attitudes.

Bernie has not impressed me. A lot of people talk about him like he's the second coming, but for various reasons both personal and political, he doesn't really do much for me. That being said, this really was the DNC's election to lose. The Dems who supported Hillary may have begrudgingly supported Bernie if she had forcefully backed him, but the people who supported Bernie likely would not and did not support Hillary.

I can't blame them for wanting to better a crappy situation in their daily lives, but I can't understand why they would believe that HE would be the one capable of doing so.


I think this is a real case of the Devil you know vs. the Devil you don't. People got so fed up with the Devil, that they were willing to take a chance. Remember, we've had 3 terms of Presidents whose primary platform was Change (Bush, Obama, Obama) and who brought little to none of that. I think people wanted to just take a chance.

Not saying that it was the remotely intelligent decision to make, mind you.
 
Yes, I agree.

I don't think he will be able to institute anything truly crazy (like the Muslim database or his stupid wall), but I 100% believe he will fall in line with the GOP and basically become a puppet president. He has many character flaws with narcissism being chief amongst them so I totally expect the GOP to butter him up and use him to pass all sorts of legislation. Their base platforms will 100% take effect, maybe they'll throw him a bone or two, and the only hope is that there's only so much they can do in two years and that people wake the fuck up for the 2018 midterm elections. I wouldn't be that worried about a Trump presidency if Dems had managed to check him via House and Senate representation (like how Repubs cockblocked Obama through much of his term), but they shit the bed.

The people who will truly be hurt will be those in a lower income bracket relying upon any "social welfare nets" because those will absolutely be cut. But fuck me, as long as we get another $200 back on taxes, right?
 
Well...at least I can enjoy the fact that my state legalized marijuana for recreational use.

Also, Maine voted to use instant-runoff voting in future elections.

Small victories!
 

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Need some people to test something quickly for my research (won't take long) as well as basic graphic design advice. Any takers?
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Need some people to test something quickly for my research (won't take long) as well as basic graphic design advice. Any takers?

Sure, I'll test something for you if I can. No real experience in graphic design, are you looking for advice on the front end or the technical side of things? Might be able to help with the former, no clue about the latter :)
 
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