Serious US Election Thread (read post #2014)

[ARandomNoob]

Oh, yes, rallying people. Sometimes people overexaggerate to create excitement. Does not mean he's actually going to do it. If he does, well fuck me I got fooled.

I don't know, I work in trades. A construction worker if you will. I call my apprentices all kinds of homophobic, racist, sexist and horrific slurs whenever they fuck up. But in our field, it's just banter. I call my muslim co-workers for ali baba and muhmmad, my bisexual coworker for "homsefaen" (gay fuck), my black co-worker for (BAN ME PLEASE). And in return they all call me for fuckface. It's our culture, and we want to keep it that way no matter how painful it is.

I'm not going to gamble on someone overexaggerating rather than being serious, and even if he is, that's equally awful.

See, you can banter that way all you want, its your freedom of speech, and so long as your coworkers are alright with it there's nothing wrong with it. When I start having problems is when those phobias/isms/whatever else are put into laws that actually affect people's lives in a very negative way. For example, Pence, as governor, made it a felony (a FELONY) for a same-sex couple to so much as apply for a marriage license. Sure, anyone facilitating such a thing was to be charged with a crime as well, but only the couple was hit with a felony, the other people only got hit with much smaller misdemeanors. It's stuff like that I'm concerned about, especially with Trump looking to have the chance to pack the SCOTUS.

 

[religiousjedi]

Any Republican preaching unity can take a time machine and say that to me in 2008 and 2012. But since you can't, go fuck yourselves.

 

[Ohmachi]

I'm glad Trump won. Precisely because of how terrible he will be as POTUS. The DNC were unwilling to change their corrupt ways, and the elite elsewhere did not listen to the masses. Well this is what you get. The trend across the world is the ruling classes and corporations who have gotten used to less and less accountability, but that will change. Trump will worsen income inequality, destroying the well-being of millions of Americans - while cutting taxes to the rich. He's also going to let Russia wreak havoc in Europe. If this continues something will give.

I'm shocked that millions of people did not learn from history and voted a fascist populist - we've failed as a society to have let this happen. Every person we insulted for voting Trump/Brexit, rather than engaging with them, has failed society, every bit as much as those who voted for it. You can get on your high horse all you want for being anti-Trump but we live in a society, it's our job as a whole to make sure this shit doesn't happen.

This is our punishment for letting history repeat itself, though it will only be punishment if we continue to let it.

Cookie is right. We did not do enough to stop him. We let this happen, we will have to live with it until 2018.

 

[hyw]

Right, because we'd have seized the means of production by the time half of his term's been carried out.

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

[

Let's see:

"We have to take out their families" is a famous one.

"[Waterboarding] I like it a lot" - you know, torture!

But as if that wasn't enough: "I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding"

Of course, this is illegal and war crimes. But there is a simple solution, according to our friend Donald: Make it legal!

But... won't the soldiers of the US military have objections against violating the Geneva convention? You know, at Nüremberg it was established that "just following orders" won't help a soldier in a court of law. "If I say do it, they're going to do it", Trump says. Coercing soldiers to commit war crimes is a war crime in itself.

And now this guy is getting the nuclear launch codes. Good thing he has woved to be cautious and careful with thos-

...just kidding, nukes are no big deal and the US should totally drop a few.

Fair. As I said earlier, Trump has many flaws, I guess I can add this to it.. well, when he actually does it, anyway.

I'm not going to gamble on someone overexaggerating rather than being serious, and even if he is, that's equally awful.

See, you can banter that way all you want, its your freedom of speech, and so long as your coworkers are alright with it there's nothing wrong with it. When I start having problems is when those phobias/isms/whatever else are put into laws that actually affect people's lives in a very negative way. For example, Pence, as governor, made it a felony (a FELONY) for a same-sex couple to so much as apply for a marriage license. Sure, anyone facilitating such a thing was to be charged with a crime as well, but only the couple was hit with a felony, the other people only got hit with much smaller misdemeanors. It's stuff like that I'm concerned about, especially with Trump looking to have the chance to pack the SCOTUS.

Not really. He's doing a smart move for his campaign, since there's a fuckton of people worried about ISIS and he's appealing to those emotions. It works. Yet, I'll concede that point.

People have shown that once they get their foot in, they'll push their agendas hard. I'm referring to the SJW movement going on. That does in fact affect my or an other's ability to banter. And quite honestly, I'm not sure if they are comfortable with it or not.

Again, I have no idea what Pence thinks or does, so that is pretty irrelevant for me. Trump did explicitly say in one of his rallies he was going to protect LGBTQ rights (followed by "keeping hostile ideas and religions to the campaign out", ie Muslims)

 

[ARandomNoob]

[

Fair. As I said earlier, Trump has many flaws, I guess I can add this to it.. well, when he actually does it, anyway.


Not really. He's doing a smart move for his campaign, since there's a fuckton of people worried about ISIS and he's appealing to those emotions. It works. Yet, I'll concede that point.

People have shown that once they get their foot in, they'll push their agendas hard. I'm referring to the SJW movement going on. That does in fact affect my or an other's ability to banter. And quite honestly, I'm not sure if they are comfortable with it or not.

Again, I have no idea what Pence thinks or does, so that is pretty irrelevant for me. Trump did explicitly say in one of his rallies he was going to protect LGBTQ rights (followed by "keeping hostile ideas and religions to the campaign out", ie Muslims)

On that last point, he hasn't exactly followed through. See: That part where he went to an anti-LGBT gathering in Orlando shortly after the shooting. Also, his selection of Pence as his VP is practically antithetical to such a claim, as has been established.

 

[Achelexus]

The Democratic Party Establishment Is Finished - The Slate

 

[Imanalt]

Because a lot of the people who voted for him did it for economic reasons among others. Times are tougher than ever for a lot of people. You can see this in the rust belt where he won states that nobody expected, because a lot of rust belt jobs are going overseas and he's promised to bring them back.

the two categories of people he won were both categories that end up being primarily racially driven, and he lost on people who thought the economy was the biggest issue, can we get rid of the "it was all economic" bullshit? Most people voted trump for some combination of three reasons: 1) because of a constant character assassination of Hillary through the media, making them feel he was more qualified (which has roots in sexism but isnt exclusively sexist), 2) because they were scared of muslims providing a large threat to the US in the form of terrorism, and 3) because they felt disempowered, which has a lot of causes, both economic and racial, but almost all of what he said basically fit into blaming uneducated white people's disempowerment on the educated "elite" and uneducated people of other races who have some perceived advantages over whites.

so no, its not all racism and sexism, but they played a very large part in Trump getting elected.

 

[destinyunknown]

With all due respect, fuck this. This delusion that all opinions are equal and we shouldn't complain because "that's how democracy works" is the reason we're in this mess in the first place. No one is saying that we aren't all human, or that people don't have the right to vote however they please. And the only ones who do say that, literal, real-life Nazis, voted for Trump, surprise surprise. If you voted for Trump on how good you think his policy is, you are, at best, kidding yourself, and at worst, you are tacitly supporting every other bit nausea-inducing garbage that's spilled forth from Cheeto Jesus's face. It's for this reason that a vote for Trump, regardless of motivation, is an affront to the human decency that has allowed our society to even come this far to begin with. We can't just throw up our hands and say "You're entitled to your opinion," because guess what? That opinion falls perfectly in line with every white supremacist group in the country. If anything, Trump was the only smart one here, because he took advantage of a vast, untapped market of literal, real-life Nazis, amongst many other flavors of scum that the establishment wasn't willing to blow the dogwhistle hard enough to impress. If you knew me, you'd know that I am extremely cautious about whipping out Nazi comparisons, because if they're abused the way they do commonly are, you're failing to do justice to one of the biggest atrocities in human history. But I don't even have to make comparisons here. Literal, real-life Nazis openly stood with this guy. Where most people saw the final shreds of human decency in the far right, Trump saw an opportunity. What a great businessman, am I right?

And have you stopped to think for a moment that back in the day, the Nazi vote was understandable? There were legit reasons why almost an entire country felt like their only option was to vote for the Nazi party, and you can't just brush it off as ''people are stupid''. They were not, and studying history has showed us why the German population felt so desperate. Fighting for your own interests is not stupid. And fighting for your ideals isn't either, but you have to understand that different people have different ideas.

As for 'deserving to vote'. You are the first person that says that other people don't have the right to post. Not explicitly, but implicitly: 'an affront against human decency', so according to your own words, you are literal, real-life Nazi.

The one that isn't doing justice to the Nazi comparison is you. You're making the same mistake, a total lack of acceptance for other people's opinions and feelings. As Yeti explained well in her post a few pages ago.

You get the SJW droves on tumblr who rant about straight white men existing and then wonder why those men vote Republican instead of the Democrat the tumblrinas herald from. For all of their "you can't choose X" crap they sure act like someone who was born heterosexual (since you can't choose that, right?), white (due to centuries of their ancestors being white, also something they definitely chose) and male (dad's load had a strong Y swimmer when mommy was fertile) deserves to be berated for it. SHOCK when these men who get told they're doing something wrong for being literally how they were born don't vote with the SJWs and SHOCK when it turns out there are way more straight white men in this country than minorities and SJWs. Not saying they voted right, just the antagonism against them (and how many sad Democrats are ranting that WHITE MEN DID THIS and just cannot stop forcing a dichotomy) probably wasn't helping them vote not-Trump.

Anyway hope these next four years don't go too poorly for us.

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

On that last point, he hasn't exactly followed through. See: That part where he went to an anti-LGBT gathering in Orlando shortly after the shooting. Also, his selection of Pence as his VP is practically antithetical to such a claim, as has been established.

Fair enough. So, you expect him to rip up the same-sex marriage law which was passed? But again, I've never claimed he was perfect.

To be honest, the LGBTQ movement doesn't really bother me too much anymore. Then again, I live in Scandinavia.

 

[Shaka Brah]

Dow Jones Surpasses Record High in First Day of Post-Election Trading - NBC News

The Democratic Party Establishment Is Finished - The Slate

If the Dems are going to learn anything after this election it's that they need to focus on finding and pushing out personalities with voter pull instead of nominating the last of the old Dems again. This entire campaign strategy was them not taking their opposition seriously at all, the supporters covering up their ears and going lalalalalalala, we're going to win, yeah, trump is a joke, nobody's gonna vote for him! Dems have a history of writing off candidates who shouldn't be written off. The campaign was a disgrace. Hillary's rallies pretty much predicted the lack of turnout that she got at the election, not to mention that she didn't focus on rallies in key states like WI and PA while Trump was tearing it up in them precious days before the election.

Hillary even alienated potential voters by calling them "Deplorables". To attack a large group of people by calling them deplorable/irredeemable and alienating a large majority of the white vote she basically got a lot of people who'd been undecided up until that point to mark themselves as the deplorables ironically and go full on the Trump train - ergo Trump didn't have to spend any campaign time whatsoever rallying his biggest voter base and could focus on other demographics, since Hillary pretty much gave them away. Everyone involved in the planning of the campaign shouldn't work in this field again.

 

[flargananddingle]

It's very disconcerting that the very people who voted for Trump aren't proud that their choice won, but are shocked instead.

It's almost like a lot of them thought they were just 'stickin' it to the man', and that their votes wouldn't matter.

And very, very few people have any idea of any kind of policy as far as trump/republicans go. Literally half of the people I talked to today voted for Trump...that's a grand total of 8 people. Of those, only 4 had heard of Mike Pence prior to the campaign. None knew that one of Republicans top priorities (after the ACA) is overturning the decision on gay marriage. None of them had read the republican platform, and in fact 3 of them didn't even know it's an actual document...they just thought it was a 'philosophical thing'.

 

[Achelexus]

If the Dems are going to learn anything after this election it's that they need to focus on finding and pushing out personalities with voter pull instead of nominating the last of the old Dems again. This entire campaign strategy was them not taking their opposition seriously at all, the supporters covering up their ears and going lalalalalalala, we're going to win, yeah, trump is a joke, nobody's gonna vote for him! Dems have a history of writing off candidates who shouldn't be written off. The campaign was a disgrace. Hillary's rallies pretty much predicted the lack of turnout that she got at the election, not to mention that she didn't focus on rallies in key states like WI and PA while Trump was tearing it up in them precious days before the election.

Hillary even alienated potential voters by calling them "Deplorables". To attack a large group of people by calling them deplorable/irredeemable and alienating a large majority of the white vote she basically got a lot of people who'd been undecided up until that point to mark themselves as the deplorables ironically and go full on the Trump train - ergo Trump didn't have to spend any campaign time whatsoever rallying his biggest voter base and could focus on other demographics, since Hillary pretty much gave them away. Everyone involved in the planning of the campaign shouldn't work in this field again.

My only response to all of this.

 

[Shaka Brah]

the two categories of people he won were both categories that end up being primarily racially driven, and he lost on people who thought the economy was the biggest issue, can we get rid of the "it was all economic" bullshit? Most people voted trump for some combination of three reasons: 1) because of a constant character assassination of Hillary through the media, making them feel he was more qualified (which has roots in sexism but isnt exclusively sexist), 2) because they were scared of muslims providing a large threat to the US in the form of terrorism, and 3) because they felt disempowered, which has a lot of causes, both economic and racial, but almost all of what he said basically fit into blaming uneducated white people's disempowerment on the educated "elite" and uneducated people of other races who have some perceived advantages over whites.

so no, its not all racism and sexism, but they played a very large part in Trump getting elected.

The decline of the white voter: How the electorate has changed in 2016 - CNN News

With the sheer power and relevancy of the white vote shrinking every four years, it's time for the left to stop writing off results as senseless mass racism or racism-fueled (which I'd argue they weren't; job growth is very slow, premiums are at an all time high, and we're at a time of international crisis in which we can't afford to have borders as flimsy as cardboard and to tick off Russia and have yet another confrontation to take care of. This is just raw data and circumstance. These are major issues that made a lot of lefties, bern supporters, and independents go to the Trump side - you can read about it online) and take a look at their own image in the mirror. Make no mistake. If the relevancy of the white vote is declining, what are the other voters who can't be written off as white racists be voting for?

E: Immigration is also inextricably tied to foreign policy in a lot of ways, so if this was a four-point choose-one poll it wasn't structured very well

 

[ARandomNoob]

Fair enough. So, you expect him to rip up the same-sex marriage law which was passed? But again, I've never claimed he was perfect.

To be honest, the LGBTQ movement doesn't really bother me too much anymore. Then again, I live in Scandinavia.

Said law was struck down with the 2015 SCOUTS decision but the party in power is also the one looking to overturn said decision.

Okay, fine, you can be apathetic I guess, but as someone in the LGBT community you might understand why I'm not exactly hopeful for the coming years.

 

[Imanalt]

The decline of the white voter: How the electorate has changed in 2016 - CNN News

With the sheer power and relevancy of the white vote shrinking every four years, it's time for the left to stop writing off results as senseless mass racism or racism-fueled (which I'd argue they weren't; job growth is very slow, premiums are at an all time high, and we're at a time of international crisis in which we can't afford to have borders as flimsy as cardboard and to tick off Russia and have yet another confrontation to take care of. This is just raw data and circumstance. These are major issues that made a lot of lefties, bern supporters, and independents go to the Trump side - you can read about it online) and take a look at their own image in the mirror. Make no mistake. If the relevancy of the white vote is declining, what are the other voters who can't be written off as white racists be voting for?

E: Immigration is also inextricably tied to foreign policy in a lot of ways, so if this was a four-point choose-one poll it wasn't structured very well

 

[ARandomNoob]

It's pretty well established that Trump struggled with racial minorities while doing spectacularly with white people and there's a reason for it

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

Said law was struck down with the 2015 SCOUTS decision but the party in power is also the one looking to overturn said decision.

Okay, fine, you can be apathetic I guess, but as someone in the LGBT community you might understand why I'm not exactly hopeful for the coming years.

If anything, that's something I can easiler accept. Republicans hasn't been to keen on it.

I feel I should mention I'm bisexual, and mostly have had male lovers. I'm still apathetic to it.

 

[JES]

It doesn't feel like forewarning when after every election since I can remember (the 2000 election comes to mind) it's always been the world is going to end, this that and the other thing will be terrible. Then in like a year everything stops and its election season

That is only assuming that policies that are opposed by certain people don't come to pass, or that the results aren't disastrous.

[

Fair. As I said earlier, Trump has many flaws, I guess I can add this to it.. well, when he actually does it, anyway.

When he actually does it, that's it for me. I will want him out of office, especially if he launches nukes, and risks WW-III.

 

[Soul Fly]

Holy Shit this electoral college thing will spiral down to a Twitter civil war.

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

.

When? You sem sure he'll drop nukes just like that?

 

[JES]

When? You sem sure he'll drop nukes just like that?

That's the problem: I have no fucking idea!

Yeah, be unpredictable with weapons of mass destruction! What could possibly go wrong?!!

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

That's the problem: I have no fucking idea!

Yeah, be unpredictable with weapons of mass destruction! What could possibly go wrong?!!

Beats advocating for tensions between Russia and the US even more, which is a surefire road to devastating wars. I've been terrified of the whole prospect of a US/NATO-Russia war led by Hillary, so I guess you cn be fraid of that too.

 

[JES]

Beats advocating for tensions between Russia and the US even more, which is a surefire road to devastating wars. I've been terrified of the whole prospect of a US/NATO-Russia war led by Hillary, so I guess you cn be fraid of that too.

But do you think Russia would decide to retaliate with nukes for a no fly zone over a country they are quite frankly causing more harm than good to (at least for the civilians)?

So you're saying that with Trump in charge, there is no need to worry?

 

[JALMONT]

1) because of a constant character assassination of Hillary through the media, making them feel he was more qualified (which has roots in sexism but isnt exclusively sexist).

Character assassination by the media? What papers have you been reading / TV have you been watching? I have seen very little character assassination of Clinton. Instead, I have seen probably the exact opposite - praise of Clinton that isn't warranted, insistence that she flawless, and a flat dismissal of anyone who dared question her as the Democrat choice for president. The article I posted itt a little earlier gives some good examples.

For a more concrete example, the Guardian has non-stop posted articles about how great Clinton, and this is not just at the expense of Trump either. This also happened at the expense of Sanders too. The crowning of Clinton as the Dem candidate took place in the papers all throughout the primaries.

How could the media outlets and the polls get the result so wrong if it was Clinton's character that was being assassinated?