2016 US Election


Off-Topic Discussions

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"Trump has shown us that you don’t need a billion dollars or more to run for President"

...
Really? REALLY? The guy who's a rich business man? The one who's entire identity revolves around making money and mastering the "art of the deal"? The guy who sticks his name on skyscrapers, steaks, vodka, etc. and whatever else he can (attempt) to make a profit off of? The one who owns his own private jets?

The guy who has used his own private real estate and transportation the entire campaign and paid for it using donation money so that it all gets funneled back into his company?

Wow. Just, wow.


Spastic Puma wrote:

"Trump has shown us that you don’t need a billion dollars or more to run for President"

...
Really? REALLY? The guy who's a rich business man? The one who's entire identity revolves around making money and mastering the "art of the deal"? The guy who sticks his name on skyscrapers, steaks, vodka, etc. and whatever else he can (attempt) to make a profit off of? The one who owns his own private jets?

The guy who has used his own private real estate and transportation the entire campaign and paid for it using donation money so that it all gets funneled back into his company?

Wow. Just, wow.

The one who "self-financed" his entire primary campaign?

Also, the one who's losing big time and is far behind in the money race. Who knows he's losing and isn't bothering to put more of his own money into the game.


Huh. While I wasn't looking the New Hampshire Green Party went and changed tomorrow's protest outside the Dem's Clinton/Kennedy dinner (changed earlier this autumn from the "Jefferson/Jackson dinner") from a Jill Stein demo into a Solidarity with Standing Rock demo.


Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Huh. While I wasn't looking the New Hampshire Green Party went and changed tomorrow's protest outside the Dem's Clinton/Kennedy dinner (changed earlier this autumn from the "Jefferson/Jackson dinner") from a Jill Stein demo into a Solidarity with Standing Rock demo.

Got to go with what is more important.


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Vidmaster7 wrote:

I have a question for you guys. Do you feel because of the strong polarization of the american election process it is literally impossible to find a candidate that would not be smeared to look like Satan himself. Seems to me that between one side or the other any potential candidate is going to be dissected and found some way to seem as bad as possible. I'm fairly certain if Jesus Christ or Buddha (which by the way there is a rather entertaining anime starring those two.) where running for office the opposing side would find someway to make them out to be the devil himself.

This is less election related but still int he ball park. I wonder how hard it would be to change the system to a direct democracy. I would say something like. A voting app on phones and pc's in library's and at home with complex pin numbers to say have a few laws voted on like once a day. There is flaws of course it means slow response times to matters that need to be reacted on quickly.

In the words of Samir from Office Space, "Yes, it is horrible, this idea". As a software dev, I would have a panic attack (not that I don't already) at nearly every stage of producing an application for such a purpose. The shitstorm that you'd get as a dev when something inevitably broke, was broken into, or when votes didn't go the way that a bunch of people wanted ("Your app is clearly rigged to favor the other guy rabble rabble rabble!") would be an absolute nightmare.


Vidmaster7 wrote:


This is less election related but still int he ball park. I wonder how hard it would be to change the system to a direct democracy.

Direct democracy... the system that made California pretty much ungovernaable.


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NPC Dave wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Donald Trump wrote:


I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
This is what he thinks he can get away with because he's a star.

Correction: He said the women let him get away with it because he’s a star.

Knight who says Meh wrote:


And you want to make him President...

Yes I do, although I am not voting for him because he said that, or proud to vote for him because he said that. I am proud to vote for him because of his stand on the issues which are at stake in this election. And there are far more important things at stake in this election than how easy it is for a billionaire to get laid.

I get it. It isn’t fair that most women would rather have sex with a billionaire or a quarterback than us Ordinary Joe Schmoes. I agree but life isn’t fair. As men, we can still build our bodies and minds to be successful and attractive and attract a woman who admires us. That was always good enough for me.

Yeah, I don't think I even need to respond. That pretty much speaks for itself.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:


This is less election related but still int he ball park. I wonder how hard it would be to change the system to a direct democracy.

Direct democracy... the system that made California pretty much ungovernaable.

As Churchill allegedly said, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."


Caineach wrote:
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Huh. While I wasn't looking the New Hampshire Green Party went and changed tomorrow's protest outside the Dem's Clinton/Kennedy dinner (changed earlier this autumn from the "Jefferson/Jackson dinner") from a Jill Stein demo into a Solidarity with Standing Rock demo.
Got to go with what is more important.

For sure. I was just surprised, because there wasn't any notification or nothing. Logged on to Facebook, went over to events to re-check the time of the event and discovered it had been changed.

Although, to be honest, it will probably still be a Stein rally.


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NPC Dave wrote:
Another thing I appreciate about Trump is how hard he is making Hillary work to earn the presidency. If she wins, at least he made her work for it.

Hahahahhahahaahhahahahhahahaa

JEB would have beaten her. Romney would have beaten her. Kasich would have crushed her. Hell, if he'd been the GOP candidate, Bernie probably could have beaten her. Hillary is not a popular candidate, she had a rough primary, and the GOP has been running propaganda and smear campaigns against her since she refused to bake cookies as First Lady. Add in sexism and the emails/Clinton Foundation baggage and the GOP came into this election with every advantage.

The GOP and media are making her work. But it takes a special sort of incompetent to squander all that effort and lose this badly anyways.

"I admire Donald's generosity. Just last week, he handed me this election."


Yeah, if the Podesta leaks are to be believed, she worked a lot harder to defeat Sanders and was hoping that Trump (or Cruz or Carson) would be her opponent because it would be (and has been) a cakewalk.


Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Yeah, if the Podesta leaks are to be believed, she worked a lot harder to defeat Sanders and was hoping that Trump (or Cruz or Carson) would be her opponent because it would be (and has been) a cakewalk.

That wasn't exactly a big secret. Back in that day, EVERYONE was making the wrong projections about Trump.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
NPC Dave wrote:
Another thing I appreciate about Trump is how hard he is making Hillary work to earn the presidency. If she wins, at least he made her work for it.

Hahahahhahahaahhahahahhahahaa

JEB would have beaten her. Romney would have beaten her. Kasich would have crushed her. Hell, if he'd been the GOP candidate, Bernie probably could have beaten her. Hillary is not a popular candidate, she had a rough primary, and the GOP has been running propaganda and smear campaigns against her since she refused to bake cookies as First Lady. Add in sexism and the emails/Clinton Foundation baggage and the GOP came into this election with every advantage.

The GOP and media are making her work. But it takes a special sort of incompetent to squander all that effort and lose this badly anyways.

"I admire Donald's generosity. Just last week, he handed me this election."

I'm far from certain of that. Democrats have structural advantages and she's run a really good campaign. Those other jokers couldn't even beat Trump. Couldn't even hurt him. They'd have had the opposite problem to Trump. The establishment would be fine with them, but the base wouldn't have trusted them - except for Cruz and no one likes Cruz.

She's smart enough to run a different campaign against a different opponent, so it's not easy to see how the race would have played out.

Like I've said before, she loses to generic Republican, but that's because generic Republican has no scandals or gaffes and everyone gets to imagine their ideal version.


thejeff wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
NPC Dave wrote:
Another thing I appreciate about Trump is how hard he is making Hillary work to earn the presidency. If she wins, at least he made her work for it.

Hahahahhahahaahhahahahhahahaa

JEB would have beaten her. Romney would have beaten her. Kasich would have crushed her. Hell, if he'd been the GOP candidate, Bernie probably could have beaten her. Hillary is not a popular candidate, she had a rough primary, and the GOP has been running propaganda and smear campaigns against her since she refused to bake cookies as First Lady. Add in sexism and the emails/Clinton Foundation baggage and the GOP came into this election with every advantage.

The GOP and media are making her work. But it takes a special sort of incompetent to squander all that effort and lose this badly anyways.

"I admire Donald's generosity. Just last week, he handed me this election."

I'm far from certain of that.

Remember, that WAS a Saturday Night Live satire quote. And you should be. as should Clinton herself, but I believe she is.


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Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Remember, that WAS a Saturday Night Live satire quote.

I preferred "Who do you trust to be the president, the Republican, or Donald Trump?"


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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Remember, that WAS a Saturday Night Live satire quote. And you should be. as should Clinton herself, but I believe she is.
I preferred "Who do you trust to be the president, the Republican, or Donald Trump?"

I've gotten the feeling that the entire run of "30 Rock" was Alec Baldwin's training for Saturday Night Live.

"I'm alternate universe you, just back from a state dinner with President Palin."


Alec Baldwin has been on SNL numerous times over the years.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Remember, that WAS a Saturday Night Live satire quote. And you should be. as should Clinton herself, but I believe she is.
I preferred "Who do you trust to be the president, the Republican, or Donald Trump?"
I've gotten the feeling that the entire run of "30 Rock" was Alec Baldwin's training for Saturday Night Live.

I had the same feeling.


wasn't 30 rock a lightly filed off serial numbers "the making of saterday night live" ?


Yes.

Also, a propos of nothing, La Principessa's Single Mother Comrade from the Bronx, who is on her way to Standing Rock, who sometimes seems to know everyone ("I've known Rosario Dawson since she was ye high," "Larry Fishburne used to stop by the bar where I worked," "My father introduced me to King Sunny Ade when I was a little girl," etc., etc.) says she used to date Alec Baldwin in the early eighties but dumped him because he was "too square."


captain yesterday wrote:
Alec Baldwin has been on SNL numerous times over the years.

That was his alternate universe double. :)


thejeff wrote:
I'm far from certain of that. Democrats have structural advantages and she's run a really good campaign. Those other jokers couldn't even beat Trump. Couldn't even hurt him. They'd have had the opposite problem to Trump. The establishment would be fine with them, but the base wouldn't have trusted them - except for Cruz and no one likes Cruz.

They lost because the GOP turned against them, but the country didn't—the GOP is a minority party with some vocal pluralities. And the GOP would've fallen in line to defeat Hillary. They hate her even more than Democrats hate Trump.

Democrats would have been the ones with low turnout rates with someone like Kasich as the opposition.


thejeff wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
NPC Dave wrote:
Another thing I appreciate about Trump is how hard he is making Hillary work to earn the presidency. If she wins, at least he made her work for it.

Hahahahhahahaahhahahahhahahaa

JEB would have beaten her. Romney would have beaten her. Kasich would have crushed her. Hell, if he'd been the GOP candidate, Bernie probably could have beaten her. Hillary is not a popular candidate, she had a rough primary, and the GOP has been running propaganda and smear campaigns against her since she refused to bake cookies as First Lady. Add in sexism and the emails/Clinton Foundation baggage and the GOP came into this election with every advantage.

The GOP and media are making her work. But it takes a special sort of incompetent to squander all that effort and lose this badly anyways.

"I admire Donald's generosity. Just last week, he handed me this election."

I'm far from certain of that. Democrats have structural advantages and she's run a really good campaign. Those other jokers couldn't even beat Trump. Couldn't even hurt him. They'd have had the opposite problem to Trump. The establishment would be fine with them, but the base wouldn't have trusted them - except for Cruz and no one likes Cruz.

She's smart enough to run a different campaign against a different opponent, so it's not easy to see how the race would have played out.

Like I've said before, she loses to generic Republican, but that's because generic Republican has no scandals or gaffes and everyone gets to imagine their ideal version.

The Democrats Achilles Heel has always been much lower voter participation within their base compared to that of the Republicans. That's part of the current Trump strategy... make the Democratic base so disgusted with the process that they won't come out. That and of course outright voter intimidation and suppression... tried, and trusty tools that have worked in the past and WILL have an impact on this election... the only question is how much.


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In other election news, "your parents came from Thailand."

Keep up the good work, republicans.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
JEB would have beaten her. Romney would have beaten her. Kasich would have crushed her. Hell, if he'd been the GOP candidate, Bernie probably could have beaten her. Hillary is not a popular candidate, she had a rough primary, and the GOP has been running propaganda and smear campaigns against her since she refused to bake cookies as First Lady. Add in sexism and the emails/Clinton Foundation baggage and the GOP came into this election with every advantage.

The "Clinton would lose handily to anyone but Trump" meme is a weird one. Like, we saw what 2012 did to Romney, no Republican can get through the primaries without talking crazy--a phenomenon evidenced this time around by primary-voting Republicans choosing Trump, He Who Says The Most Outlandish Nonsense. Romney tried to tack back to center and was 1) called out for it by everyone not on the far right, and b) castigated by the far right for not being a "true conservative". Any hypothetical Republican would have run smack into the exact same dynamic.

I find the idea that KASICH would be trouncing her to be especially hilarious. KASICH, the guy who had way fewer delegates than Rubio...two months after Rubio suspended his campaign. The GOP has primed their voters to buy into a lot of nonsense, and now they're reaping the whirlwind. I'll buy "closer race" arguments but "easily beating" Clinton is silliness.

As an aside, the primary also wasn't that bad for Clinton. She won pretty handily, coasted across the finish line with the bulk of her war chest ready to roll, and is now polling somewhere between 88-92% party support, which certainly doesn't suggest that she was especially damaged by the primary. Anyone remember the PUMAs in '08?


Exactly. I'd say against most of the other possibilities, we wouldn't be looking so likely to flip the Senate, but she'd still be up.


Although, I think Citizen Cleaver's main point is correct: Trump hasn't made her work very hard.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Oh yeah, I don't think that's at all controversial. Trump has made winning the Presidency a near-certainty for Dems, flipping the Senate a very likely outcome, and flipping the House an outside shot. Unlikely that [insert your preferred Republican] would have given us all of that.

EDIT: I a word

Dark Archive

CrusaderWolf wrote:
I find the idea that KASICH would be trouncing her to be especially hilarious.

Yeah, even if I don't agree with 100% of his views, Kasich seemed reasonable to me. And I suspect he'd be about as appealing to the fired-up Republican base as spoiled milk.

Those who are excited by the prospect of a Trump presidency, or where supporters of Cruz (who, IMO, is consistently worse) would consider Kasich to be Republican-in-name-only.

It takes stronger tea than 'reasonable' to get noticed in that crowd.

It's funny to me that Democrats will only elect the most moderate centrist 'safe' candidate (aka, the least liberal or progressive) they can find, while the Republican base goes for the most extreme and dramatic 'severely conservative' rightest-of-right-wingers.

It's a bizarre double standard. Romney gets criticized for being an emotionless robot (instead of a fire-breather / rabble-rouser / carnival barker like so many others in his field). Howard Dean gets criticized for having a feeling, once. Too loud! Most unseemly! Use your indoor voice! You'll scare the children!


Basically, in an election decided by 4% of the population democrats can loose an entire point by not running a white male and STILL win in a national election.

Silver Crusade

Set wrote:
It takes stronger tea than 'reasonable' to get noticed in that crowd.

... I see what you did there.


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Rednal wrote:

@Comrade: I don't know as much about this as I probably should, but on general principles, ignoring claims of treaty rights and intentionally building directly on a group's sacred gravesites and using armed forces to attack them and push them off is...

Uh, more historical than I'd like. o wo; Also wrong. I think I'm with the protesters on this one, especially because of that treaty claim. That needs to get resolved, and I hope all of them will be okay.

As others have quipped before, a great many of the U.S.'s problems seem to be the curse from having built the country upon hundreds of thousands of Native American graves.


Set wrote:
CrusaderWolf wrote:
I find the idea that KASICH would be trouncing her to be especially hilarious.

Yeah, even if I don't agree with 100% of his views, Kasich seemed reasonable to me. And I suspect he'd be about as appealing to the fired-up Republican base as spoiled milk.

Those who are excited by the prospect of a Trump presidency, or where supporters of Cruz (who, IMO, is consistently worse) would consider Kasich to be Republican-in-name-only.

It takes stronger tea than 'reasonable' to get noticed in that crowd.

It's funny to me that Democrats will only elect the most moderate centrist 'safe' candidate (aka, the least liberal or progressive) they can find, while the Republican base goes for the most extreme and dramatic 'severely conservative' rightest-of-right-wingers.

It's a bizarre double standard. Romney gets criticized for being an emotionless robot (instead of a fire-breather / rabble-rouser / carnival barker like so many others in his field). Howard Dean gets criticized for having a feeling, once. Too loud! Most unseemly! Use your indoor voice! You'll scare the children!

someone I love, who was a big Dean supporter back in the day, is still mad about that.


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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Yes.

Also, a propos of nothing, La Principessa's Single Mother Comrade from the Bronx, who is on her way to Standing Rock, who sometimes seems to know everyone ("I've known Rosario Dawson since she was ye high," "Larry Fishburne used to stop by the bar where I worked," "My father introduced me to King Sunny Ade when I was a little girl," etc., etc.) says she used to date Alec Baldwin in the early eighties but dumped him because he was "too square."

please give both my best. I did not see La principessa at the convention this year and I was a bit worried.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

4%? In a presidential? Assuming 200 million registered voters (a benchmark I believe we just reached a week ago) that would be a mere 8 million votes cast. 2012 saw almost 127 million votes cast for President.

I assume you mistyped, but I'm not sure what you meant to say.

EDIT: Unless you meant that 4% of voters are swing votes, in which case my bad for misunderstanding.


From the Trump Gets the Skynet Vote Dept:

The AI System MogIA which takes in 20 million data points from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube posits Trump as the winner of the Presidential election, and more popular than Barrack Obama was in 2008.


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CrusaderWolf wrote:

4%? In a presidential? Assuming 200 million registered voters (a benchmark I believe we just reached a week ago) that would be a mere 8 million votes cast. 2012 saw almost 127 million votes cast for President.

I assume you mistyped, but I'm not sure what you meant to say.

EDIT: Unless you meant that 4% of voters are swing votes, in which case my bad for misunderstanding.

I think he was referring to people in swing states, but he wasn't particularly clear


Set wrote:
CrusaderWolf wrote:
I find the idea that KASICH would be trouncing her to be especially hilarious.

Yeah, even if I don't agree with 100% of his views, Kasich seemed reasonable to me. And I suspect he'd be about as appealing to the fired-up Republican base as spoiled milk.

Those who are excited by the prospect of a Trump presidency, or where supporters of Cruz (who, IMO, is consistently worse) would consider Kasich to be Republican-in-name-only.

It takes stronger tea than 'reasonable' to get noticed in that crowd.

It's funny to me that Democrats will only elect the most moderate centrist 'safe' candidate (aka, the least liberal or progressive) they can find, while the Republican base goes for the most extreme and dramatic 'severely conservative' rightest-of-right-wingers.

It's a bizarre double standard. Romney gets criticized for being an emotionless robot (instead of a fire-breather / rabble-rouser / carnival barker like so many others in his field). Howard Dean gets criticized for having a feeling, once. Too loud! Most unseemly! Use your indoor voice! You'll scare the children!

It's not really that strange. The Democrat has to please a very varied big tent of cultures that really don't get along with each other. So the Democrat has to walk a tight line to balance them all.

The Republican base however is still built on a white-male monoculture even if it does have token influence from others. Going extremist is an advantage.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

From the Trump Gets the Skynet Vote Dept:

The AI System MogIA which takes in 20 million data points from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube posits Trump as the winner of the Presidential election, and more popular than Barrack Obama was in 2008.

I think a lot of people retweating Trump's insanity is throwing off their algorithm.


Caineach wrote:
CrusaderWolf wrote:

4%? In a presidential? Assuming 200 million registered voters (a benchmark I believe we just reached a week ago) that would be a mere 8 million votes cast. 2012 saw almost 127 million votes cast for President.

I assume you mistyped, but I'm not sure what you meant to say.

EDIT: Unless you meant that 4% of voters are swing votes, in which case my bad for misunderstanding.

I think he was referring to people in swing states, but he wasn't particularly clear

swing voters in swing states. The only thing that matters.


Clinton responds to DAPL protest

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

That's like arguing that a spark plug is the only thing that matters for a car. I mean, sure, if everything else is there, but that spark plug won't do jack if you're missing the engine block. To put it another way, Ohio and Florida matter because California and Texas are locked up.

Liberty's Edge

CrusaderWolf wrote:
To put it another way, Ohio and Florida matter because California and Texas are locked up.

Though... there is an outside chance of Texas going for Clinton.

Probably won't happen, but the Texas GOP is freaking out that it is even in the realm of remote possibility.


CrusaderWolf wrote:
That's like arguing that a spark plug is the only thing that matters for a car. I mean, sure, if everything else is there, but that spark plug won't do jack if you're missing the engine block. To put it another way, Ohio and Florida matter because California and Texas are locked up.

Texas is locked up you say?


Set wrote:


It's funny to me that Democrats will only elect the most moderate centrist 'safe' candidate (aka, the least liberal or progressive) they can find, while the Republican base goes for the most extreme and dramatic 'severely conservative' rightest-of-right-wingers.

It's not really "funny"; it's a winning strategy for the Democrats, hammered out only after decades of losing.

If you want to see "funny," look at the performance of any Democratic presidential candidate between 1968 and 1988. The United States has been a center-right country for a long time.

The recent Republican lunacy is much more modern and hasn't really brought them much electoral success at the presidential level, has it? Remember that W was elected as a centrist and only squeaked out a narrow victory; 2004 was run as a war-time election (which traditionally favors both conservative candidates and incumbents).

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

*sigh* Aggregate polling still has Trump at +3 in Texas, and the state is a traditional conservative stronghold, decade-old talk about rising Hispanic population notwithstanding. Come on, guys, work with me here.

Silver Crusade

Almost anybody, excepting Trump, would have beaten Hillary. I can't believe given a halfway reasonable alternative candidate, the voting American public would vote for a candidate while she is being investigated by the FBI.


Would have? I'm pulling for my Lady, but it's not like it's safe to speak in the past tense yet! ;)

Silver Crusade

Hitdice wrote:
Would have? I'm pulling for my Lady, but it's not like it's safe to speak in the past tense yet! ;)

Even given today's October surprise that based on new eviidence the FBI has reopened its criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton, I think she is going to win.


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Ajaxis wrote:
Almost anybody, excepting Trump, would have beaten Hillary. I can't believe given a halfway reasonable alternative candidate, the voting American public would vote for a candidate while she is being investigated by the FBI.

Halfway reasonable alternatives don't win Republican primaries.

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