The Clinton vs. Trump Debates Talkback!


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Rednal wrote:
I know it's also possible with one parent. o wo/ It's just that I'm fairly sure McCain had two, so that's the regulations that applied in his case.

Actually, it's not yet clear that McCain was a "natural born citizen". There are no regulations that apply, only laws. There is no federal agency that can change that with a regulation.

This is getting into some serious orginalist legal territory, based on things passed by the first congress before all the states had ratified the constitution.


Thank god there will be more debates. This was utterly worthless.

Liberty's Edge

Orfamay Quest wrote:
Terquem wrote:
"run out of angry white men"?

Yeah. That's what the long-term demographics of the United States are looking like.

Trump's supporters are whiter than the general population, and the percentage of whites in the United States is decreasing. There's a pretty good chart (and article) here. As the article points out (originatlly from 538), "In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of all white voters and won election in a 44-state landslide. In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney carried 59 percent of all white voters yet lost decisively. What happened? African Americans, Latinos, Asians and other non-whites — all overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning groups — rose from 12 percent of voters in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012."

More recently, 538 wrote "By 2044, the U.S. will be a majority minority nation. By 2060, 29 percent of the country will be Latino."

Similarly, Trump's supporters are older than the median, which means that they'll be disappearing one funeral at a time much sooner than Clinton's. The Republican party is well aware of this, which is why they stressed a need for outreach in their 2012 post-mortem.... but it didn't happen. It will, however, need to happen if the Republicans are to remain a viable party.

Also a key component is the Anger. That is actually sustained by the economical crisis. It is only a matter of time before we get out of this one and a true recovery might indeed be just around the corner

In fact we might be the first generation that got out of a worldwide crisis without going through the worldwide military conflict phase first


The Raven Black wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Terquem wrote:
"run out of angry white men"?

Yeah. That's what the long-term demographics of the United States are looking like.

Trump's supporters are whiter than the general population, and the percentage of whites in the United States is decreasing. There's a pretty good chart (and article) here. As the article points out (originatlly from 538), "In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of all white voters and won election in a 44-state landslide. In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney carried 59 percent of all white voters yet lost decisively. What happened? African Americans, Latinos, Asians and other non-whites — all overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning groups — rose from 12 percent of voters in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012."

More recently, 538 wrote "By 2044, the U.S. will be a majority minority nation. By 2060, 29 percent of the country will be Latino."

Similarly, Trump's supporters are older than the median, which means that they'll be disappearing one funeral at a time much sooner than Clinton's. The Republican party is well aware of this, which is why they stressed a need for outreach in their 2012 post-mortem.... but it didn't happen. It will, however, need to happen if the Republicans are to remain a viable party.

Also a key component is the Anger. That is actually sustained by the economical crisis. It is only a matter of time before we get out of this one and a true recovery might indeed be just around the corner

In fact we might be the first generation that got out of a worldwide crisis without going through the worldwide military conflict phase first

The economic crisis helped, but the anger they're tapping into goes back a lot farther.

Beyond that, we're pretty much out of the "crisis". We're more likely to hit another downturn that to get back to the glory days. Some more improvement will certainly help, but demographic trends are really what's driving the drop in the influence of angry white men.
We're far better off economically than we were in 2008 or even 2012, but it's this year we got Trump. That doesn't suggest the anger is tied more to economic conditions than other factors.


California is only 40% non-Hispanic white and 37% Hispanic or Latino. Texas isn't far from flipping either, sitting around 45/37 respectively. If Texas goes the way of California, that's 1/3 of electoral votes needed to become president that will be heavily decided by Latino voters.


The Raven Black wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Terquem wrote:
"run out of angry white men"?

Yeah. That's what the long-term demographics of the United States are looking like.

Trump's supporters are whiter than the general population, and the percentage of whites in the United States is decreasing. There's a pretty good chart (and article) here. As the article points out (originatlly from 538), "In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of all white voters and won election in a 44-state landslide. In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney carried 59 percent of all white voters yet lost decisively. What happened? African Americans, Latinos, Asians and other non-whites — all overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning groups — rose from 12 percent of voters in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012."

More recently, 538 wrote "By 2044, the U.S. will be a majority minority nation. By 2060, 29 percent of the country will be Latino."

Similarly, Trump's supporters are older than the median, which means that they'll be disappearing one funeral at a time much sooner than Clinton's. The Republican party is well aware of this, which is why they stressed a need for outreach in their 2012 post-mortem.... but it didn't happen. It will, however, need to happen if the Republicans are to remain a viable party.

Also a key component is the Anger. That is actually sustained by the economical crisis.

I don't think that's as big a factor as you think. As thejeff said, it seems to go back farther, to the loss of white male privilege. "Time was" when you could -- if you were white, male, and had a high school education -- step into a factory and get a unionized job that paid enough to support a family. Those days are long gone.

.... but that had nothing to do with the economic crisis. Factory layoffs and closings started to spike in the 1970s and 1980s, first when Japan and Europe started building robot-assisted factories, and it was no longer cheaper to build in the US, and then, later, when Reagan started to destroy the labor movement, so workers could no longer negotiate for decent wages.

Bethlehem Steel is a good example. At one point, it was the seventh largest employer in the United States or something like that. But it stopped being profitable in 1982 and by 1995 had closed the last US plant.

This means that, if you're younger than 30, you don't remember when Bethlehem Steel made steel in the US. If you're younger than 45, you don't remember when Bethlehem Steel was actually hiring as opposed to laying off. And unless you're at least 55, you never worked in one of the factories that Trump promises to bring back.

This ties in nicely to the demographic narrative -- Trump supporters are older, and include a lot of the people who did work in the mill, in the factory, or on the line. Their children may remember Dad going to work and the stories he tells about what life was like. The grandchildren, not so much. It's hard(er) to get all worked up about the loss of something you never really had. The twenty-five year old voters were born in 1991 and, for the most part, never remember a time when Mom was supposed to stay home and keep house, or when you could get a good job right out of high school. And so they're not going to respond nearly as strongly to Trump's nostalgia.


Irontruth wrote:
California is only 40% non-Hispanic white and 37% Hispanic or Latino. Texas isn't far from flipping either, sitting around 45/37 respectively. If Texas goes the way of California, that's 1/3 of electoral votes needed to become president that will be heavily decided by Latino voters.

And, of course, Latino and non-Hispanic white aren't the only two choices. Asian and Black are two groups that are generally even more strongly Democratic than Latino, if I remember correctly.


Agreed, there are more ethnic groups, but both of those groups aren't growing fast enough to build a majority in a state (other than Hawaii).


Irontruth wrote:
Agreed, there are more ethnic groups, but both of those groups aren't growing fast enough to build a majority in a state (other than Hawaii).

They don't need to be growing fast enough to build a majority. They merely need to be growing faster than the white population, which I believe both are doing.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
Agreed, there are more ethnic groups, but both of those groups aren't growing fast enough to build a majority in a state (other than Hawaii).

They don't need to be growing fast enough to build a majority. They merely need to be growing faster than the white population, which I believe both are doing.

Asian's were such a threat that several Republican candidates (before Trump seized the nomination) specifically targeted Asian immigration as something to stop or minimize.

That indicates they feel something is happening with the Asian-Americans that they do not like.

(though, I don't know how fast the immigrants actually are coming to the US, they are still a VERY SMALL minority compared to others).


So... enough of a threat for the candidates to direct their party's anger towards, but not enough of a threat to be able to punish said candidates at the ballot box for doing it?

Yeah, that seems in line with their playbook to me...


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Of course the irony is, George W. Bush probably wouldn't have been elected president without so much support from the Latino community.

A lot changes in 12-16 years, I guess. :-)


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captain yesterday wrote:
Of course the irony is, George W. Bush probably wouldn't have been elected president without so much support from the Latino community.

<Shrug.> GWB had the advantage of securing the nomination very early on the strength of name recognition and a tremendous fund-raising advantage. I don't even remember offhand who any of the other candidates were. This let him pivot very early to the general election and establish himself as a moderate -- "compassionate conservatism" was the motto he used,

In other words, he didn't need to fight for the votes of the Republican base, and he was able to try to extend it to include constituencies like conservative Latinos.

So, yes, a lot has changed in 16 years. In particular, the Latino vote plus the white vote was barely enough to get Bush elected the first time. Now, the white vote is even weaker, which makes the Latino vote even more important....


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Orfamay Quest wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
Of course the irony is, George W. Bush probably wouldn't have been elected president without so much support from the Latino community.

<Shrug.> GWB had the advantage of securing the nomination very early on the strength of name recognition and a tremendous fund-raising advantage. I don't even remember offhand who any of the other candidates were. This let him pivot very early to the general election and establish himself as a moderate -- "compassionate conservatism" was the motto he used,

In other words, he didn't need to fight for the votes of the Republican base, and he was able to try to extend it to include constituencies like conservative Latinos.

So, yes, a lot has changed in 16 years. In particular, the Latino vote plus the white vote was barely enough to get Bush elected the first time. Now, the white vote is even weaker, which makes the Latino vote even more important....

We didn't have a Tea Party and the GOP base hadn't descended into full-on crazy.

A George Bush couldn't win the nomination today or he'd be so damaged and untrusted he couldn't make that pivot to win the general.

That's the whole problem the GOP is trapped in.


thejeff wrote:

]We didn't have a Tea Party and the GOP base hadn't descended into full-on crazy.

A George Bush couldn't win the nomination today or he'd be so damaged and untrusted he couldn't make that pivot to win the general.

Depends on who the George Bush is/was, I think.

Remember that in 2000, George Bush was the only Republican candidate whose name you would know offhand, and his father had the donor network firmly in the palm of his hand. He had more money by the time of the Iowa caucus than most candidates would achieve in the entire cycle, and everyone knew who he was. (And "Bush" wasn't among the top three most hated names in American politics yet.)

If anyone could get that kind of clear break over the field today, I suspect they'd have an easier time getting the nomination under the 2016 rules than the 2000 rules. Unfortunately, in 2016, the person with the name recognition edge was Trump, and everyone seemed to have their own private billionaire backing them. That, plus the largest field of candidates ever, were major factors in Trump's success.

If the billionaires can decide to get together in late 2019 and decide, collectively, who they're going to push (instead of each pushing their own horse), that will reduce the number of candidates and get a more coherent message going forward. That might give someone billionaire-friendly the chance to lock up the nomination before things get ugly, especially if the candidate himself has a lot of (positive) name recognition.


Irontruth wrote:
California is only 40% non-Hispanic white and 37% Hispanic or Latino. Texas isn't far from flipping either, sitting around 45/37 respectively. If Texas goes the way of California, that's 1/3 of electoral votes needed to become president that will be heavily decided by Latino voters.

I've seen polls for Texas where Clinton was in the margin of error of catching Trump. I still don't think Texas will go Blue this election, but it'll be a gamechanger if the Repubs can't take the state going Red for granted anymore, forcing them to actually have to $build$ a $ground$ $game$ in the state.

It's too bad no one could have foreseen the growing importance of women and minority voters...

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Instead they've chosen a strategy of voter suppression, including eliminating polling places & cutting early voting windows. I love a good righteous comeuppance.

Community & Digital Content Director

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Removed a post. Ethnic slurs aren't appropriate for use in this thread or paizo.com in general.


CrusaderWolf wrote:
Instead they've chosen a strategy of voter suppression, including eliminating polling places & cutting early voting windows. I love a good righteous comeuppance.

They will probably succeed in keeping Texas red (Texas house and senate / US house) for the next 15 years via voter suppression and (big one) gerrymandering after the 2020 census. But in any event (barring a radical move to the left by both parties which include Republicans welcoming immigrants/refugees as a needed part of our society) the state will flip blue due to the shear volume of blue voters that will overwhelm the Republican legislative stronghold. And after that the damn will be broken, just "normalizing" voter laws and representative districts will create a bullet-proof Democrat majority in the state house and senate and the US house delegation.

My personal guess is that Texas will flip blue on a popular vote level in 2020 when Cornyn comes up in the senate. It has the benefit of being a presidential election year, and offers the opportunity to get rid of a real scumbag. I don't think we will make it in time to oust Cruz and Abbott in 2018. Even after that though it will be 2032 before Texas Democrats will get the true benefit of districts drawn that truly represent the State.


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Chris Lambertz wrote:
Removed a post. Ethnic slurs aren't appropriate for use in this thread or paizo.com in general.

Or really just life overall.


David Duke, former KKK leader, qualifies for Louisiana debate


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David Duke debates before an empty auditorium.


Irontruth wrote:
California is only 40% non-Hispanic white and 37% Hispanic or Latino. Texas isn't far from flipping either, sitting around 45/37 respectively. If Texas goes the way of California, that's 1/3 of electoral votes needed to become president that will be heavily decided by Latino voters.

Try 1/10th.

Texas isn't anywhere close to a democracy.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

What are you trying to say KC?

If a surge of Latino voters manage to flip Texas, their votes combined with Latino votes in California are decisive for more than 90 electoral votes.


I'm saying that it doesn't matter how many votes you have if the votes never get counted. Texas is not democratically-run.

In other words, Texas has suppressed its voters more than perhaps any other state in the country. It would be purple already if not for its politicians' deliberate actions.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

Ahh. Well yes. The hypothetical presupposes a breakthrough via miracle or wish. Suppression is neither perfect nor permanent.


KingOfAnything wrote:
Ahh. Well yes. The hypothetical presupposes a breakthrough via miracle or wish. Suppression is neither perfect nor permanent.

It doesn't have to be either. It merely needs to be sufficent... and today.

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