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U.S. Election: It's Gonna Be a Huge Thread, It's Gonna Be the Best Thread!


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10 hours ago, Maester Drew said:

Choosing the lesser of two evils, is still choosing evil though.

Accepting for the sake of argument that Clinton is, to you at least, an 'evil', you're doing exactly what I warned of in the post you quote: focusing so much on 'evil' that you forget the importance of 'lesser'.

I mean, I don't know what age you are or what your life experiences have been, and I'm not doing down the importance of doing the right thing. But in my experience, life very often comes down to picking the lesser of two evils: situations where there is no one 'right' thing to do, but only the task of picking which bad option will do the least damage.

And politics is an arena where that's more than usually true, because, as Obama pointed out the other day, politics is all about compromise, even when you're right. You rarely get to vote for a candidate you can endorse completely. You never get to vote for one who will deliver everything you want. There are simply too many other people in the world who are too different from you for that ever to be an option.

So, yeah, in life you often have to choose evil, or something you consider to be that. In this case, you have to decide: is it worse to vote for a candidate you dislike, or to use your vote on a write-in that might - with respect - mean something to you, but won't in any other sense mean anything?

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8 hours ago, Maester Drew said:

*snort* Back in 2004, Hillary defined marriage as between one man and one woman. She later expressed her support for marriage equality... in 2013. That ain't "long before it was popular" :P

I said this a while back, but there aren't enough registered Hispanic voters to truly make Texas a swing state. Furthermore, remember all that broo ha ha back in 2012 about voter ID laws? Texas was one of the states to impose such laws which really affected minority communities including Hispanics.

Now, I ain't saying my state will never become purple or even blue once more, all I'm saying is that it won't be this election. If Texas was to become a swing state, I'd say it'll be 2020 or 2024 when we start seeing that happen. :)

 

Addendum: For more info on the possibility of Texas becoming blue;

I'd still argue against those articles based on Trump being the Republican nominee. The Observer article, for example, points out that Latinos in Texas are more likely to be Republican, and less likely to vote than Latinos in other states. And while I think that Rubio, Cruz, Kasich or Bush would all have carried Texas without any trouble, I don't think Trump will be able to count on Latino Texan's disaffection or conservatism because his candidacy is directly threatening their lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. 

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On 5/8/2016 at 1:13 AM, ThinkerX said:

Given the recent FBI announcement, I see this as becoming ever more plausible. So...

1 - Democratic Convention crowns Clinton.

2 - A month later, the FBI announces an indictment of Clinton, lays out fairly serious charges.

Does Clinton stay in race despite being seriously tainted?  If she drops out, does the DNC select Sanders - or some nobody in a backroom deal?

If Clinton remains in race after indictment, does this increase Trumps odds of defeating her?

And, should Clinton become POTUS despite indictment, then would subsequent investigation be sufficient grounds for impeachment? 

People have a cognitive bias where they overestimate large probabilities, while underestimating small ones.

http://journal.sjdm.org/9729b/jdm9729b.html

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6 hours ago, James Arryn said:

I mean, I suppose you could stay in before if you never told anyone that you were unnatural.

It's not a total black mark against Clinton, but it's pretty clearly the kind of classic compromise a politician makes with something that's not a priority but still on the agenda. And like most classic political compromises, it ends up making no one happy. Homosexual soldiers are told they must hide like they are somehow wrong for being gay, homophobes have their stance that homosexuality is shameful confirmed, but they're stuck with them and now they have to wonder which secretgayz are amongst them, and the brass are handed a ticking bomb.

I'd call it a push at best. He could have done more if it had been important, or he at least could have found a compromise that didn't affirm the idea that it's something best reserved for dark closets, but at least he did something, and more would have probably expended a lot of political currency.

This seems to show a big misunderstanding of the situation in the military before "don't ask, don't tell" to me. It is NOT true that one could just "stay in if you never told anyone you were unnatural" before. One was always at risk of having someone ELSE tell, of having one's superior officer ASK on the smallest of suspicions, and then being in the Catch 22 of either having to lie or truthfully saying you were GLBT, either of which was a reason for being discharged from the service if it could be proved.

"Don't ask don't tell" was far from ideal. But if it "made no one happy", it certainly made GLBT people in the military less unhappy than they were before it existed. And it actually made being homosexuality LESS "shameful" in the military than it had been before. Certainly heterosexists worrying about "secret gays" didn't start with "Don't ask, don't tell."

And just what would your "compromise that didn't affirm the idea it's best reserved for dark closets" have looked like? And 2hat's your evidence that any such compromise would actually have been accepted by Congress at the time?

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21 hours ago, Triskan said:

Was John Anderson considered to have any sort of chance of winning the Presidency in 1980?

I think that this anti-Trump group, should it coalesce, would be doing so with no illusions about winning in 2016.  It would be to in part undermine Trump and stay pure and in part to start building on something for 2020. 

ETA: Trump keeps saying things like what he said about debt yesterday and it's got the potential to drive the suits into Hillary's camp just by default. Unreal

Should we just create a rule only allowing people to run for office if they have a "chance" then allow the D's and R's to define that "chance"?

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I'd call it a push at best. He could have done more if it had been important, or he at least could have found a compromise that didn't affirm the idea that it's something best reserved for dark closets, but at least he did something, and more would have probably expended a lot of political currency.

The history behind DADT indicates otherwise. Clinton could have done nothing more at the time, and (similar to Obamacare) there was not a lot of political desire out there to do otherwise. 17000 people were expelled from the military since 1980 for being gay; this was an improvement. This gives a good indication about what the desire of Clinton was at the time along with what roadblocks he had.

Obama in the commencement speech said it recently too - that democracy at its core is knowing that you're 100% right about something and still having to compromise

Mostly, though, the idea that Hillary Clinton hasn't been a LGBT ally because she wasn't rah rah about gay marriage is just such huge bullshit. I'm sure she could have done more - everyone could - but she's done an actual lot, and done so in places where you wouldn't expect it (like as SecState, which doesn't typically address LGBT rights much less change them). 

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16 hours ago, Maester Drew said:

Choosing the lesser of two evils, is still choosing evil though.

That's me. :) I'm a Texan, born n' raised. My state is safely Republican, so no matter how I vote in November, Texas will go to the Republican candidate. Besides, this will be my first time voting in a Presidential Election, and I want it to mean something, that's why I'll be writing in Bernie's name six months from now.

You know what would mean something?  Texas going purple.  And the more people who write in Sanders, the less likely that would happen.

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46 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Should we just create a rule only allowing people to run for office if they have a "chance" then allow the D's and R's to define that "chance"?

You have that rule already, Scot. It's called first past the post voting.

 

@Bloodrider/Drew: BR's comment is what I was getting at. Texas might not go for the Dems just yet, but it might turn into a battleground, putting the Republicans further on the defensive. Voting for Sanders accomplishes nothing but cementing the status quo.

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2 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

You have that rule already, Scot. It's called first past the post voting.

 

@Bloodrider/Drew: BR's comment is what I was getting at. Texas might not go for the Dems just yet, but it might turn into a battleground, putting the Republicans further on the defensive. Voting for Sanders accomplishes nothing but cementing the status quo.

Wouldn't it be massively ironic if Texas in Aggregate got more progressive votes, but still went for Trump?

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23 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

 

^Ignore, I can't seem to get rid of it.

I am having issues quoting directly, so this will have to do for now :)

 

@mormont

Quote

Accepting for the sake of argument that Clinton is, to you at least, an 'evil', you're doing exactly what I warned of in the post you quote: focusing so much on 'evil' that you forget the importance of 'lesser'.

Yeah, I seemed to have skipped that part, sorry about that :blush:

Quote

I mean, I don't know what age you are or what your life experiences have been, and I'm not doing down the importance of doing the right thing. But in my experience, life very often comes down to picking the lesser of two evils: situations where there is no one 'right' thing to do, but only the task of picking which bad option will do the least damage.

And politics is an arena where that's more than usually true, because, as Obama pointed out the other day, politics is all about compromise, even when you're right. You rarely get to vote for a candidate you can endorse completely. You never get to vote for one who will deliver everything you want. There are simply too many other people in the world who are too different from you for that ever to be an option.

So, yeah, in life you often have to choose evil, or something you consider to be that. In this case, you have to decide: is it worse to vote for a candidate you dislike, or to use your vote on a write-in that might - with respect - mean something to you, but won't in any other sense mean anything?

And I get what your saying. During the last election I had a friend tell me she was going to vote for Romney because he was the lesser of two evils. But the thing I take issue with "choosing the lesser of two evils" is how it implies a dichotomy. It's an either/or in which "Oh, you hate Trump, you have to vote for Hillary" and vice versa. And hardly anyone bothers adding, "...or you can vote for neither." Honestly, it's so black and white, and it really surprises me how some of you see it as such. I mean, aren't we all ASOIAF fans? That series completely does away with the "black and white" and is chock full of grays. 

The thing is, no US Election is an either/or scenario. There are other candidates from the Green and Libertarian parties that I could cast my vote for, and I could even write in a candidate's name.

 

Mormont, you wondered about my life experience, well I am a 21 year old Mexican-American. This will be my first time voting in a Presidential Election. So I have thought long and hard on who I'll vote for in November. And I've made my choice, I ain't voting for Trump or Hillary. I am resolute in casting my vote for Bernie Sanders. :D

@theguyfromtheVale

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I'd still argue against those articles based on Trump being the Republican nominee. The Observer article, for example, points out that Latinos in Texas are more likely to be Republican, and less likely to vote than Latinos in other states. And while I think that Rubio, Cruz, Kasich or Bush would all have carried Texas without any trouble, I don't think Trump will be able to count on Latino Texan's disaffection or conservatism because his candidacy is directly threatening their lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. 

Your right, not many Latinos are fond of Trump and if a large percentage do vote for him it'll be a huge surprise. But, and this is a big but, Hispanics (and for that matter, other minorities) do not make up a majority of registered voters, not by a long shot. The majority of my state's registered voters are white and conservative. And yeah, a lot of them ain't happy Cruz lost, and they certainly don't like Trump all that much, but... they really don't like Hillary.

So, like Mormont pointed out about "the lesser of two evils," Texas Republicans will side with the "lesser" Trump.

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The thing is, no US Election is an either/or scenario. There are other candidates from the Green and Libertarian parties that I could cast my vote for, and I could even write in a candidate's name.

You can do all sorts of things. Equating this to doing something because it's really meaningful, however...that's sort of the rub, isn't it? It might mean a lot to you to vote for Bernie Sanders, who isn't running in the general. Will it mean a lot to the result of the election? Will it change anything? 

Here's the thing about third parties in the US: they are virtually never successful without two major parts, a deep party across multiple states that works together to coordinate multiple levels of party members getting voting on, and at least one major spokesperson for the party with a lot of actual money. Perot was the last independent that could be considered even remotely successful, and his Reform party (of which Trump was a member, heh) basically dissolved as soon as Perot's involvement dissolved. The reason the latter is so important speaks to the silliness of our electoral system, which is that we don't vote just for parties - we vote for people. You need a strong candidate to go in the presidential. If you don't, you don't stand a chance. 

Now something that hasn't really been tried in a while but would be great is to have a coalition of people who are strong local and state candidates who are running together, but aren't trying to run on the presidential ticket. Having them coordinate resources and money and message and social media and commercial time - that'd be awesome. But none of that is aided by voting for someone who isn't running. Your writing in Bernie Sanders is as meaningful and progressive as you writing in Mickey Mouse.

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I'm not from the US, so I don't know how that process works, but couldn't Latinos still register to vote between now and November? It would seem silly to me if the couldn't. And I can certainly see a considerable number of people who would usually not care about politics but feel so threatened by Trump that they'd register to vote against him. That has been my point the entire time: That Trump changes those underlying dynamics in a way the other Republicans probably wouldn't (at least, not to that extent and not necessarily in that direction).

On a related note, here's a primer on why voting third party in the USA is useless at best and harmful to your cause at worst.

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I'm not from the US, so I don't know how that process works, but couldn't Latinos still register to vote between now and November? It would seem silly to me if the couldn't. And I can certainly see a considerable number of people who would usually not care about politics but feel so threatened by Trump that they'd register to vote against him.

And this is exactly what's happened. The Latino population is registering in huge droves this year, precisely to oppose Trump. Whether it'll matter at the actual presidential election is not precisely clear, but what it'll likely do is make sure that a lot of non-presidential elections are a lot closer or bigger for Democrats.

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@Kalbear

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Will it mean a lot to the result of the election? Will it change anything? 

I may be a crazy Texan, but I ain't crazy enough to think my vote matters or that it'll affect the election. ;) I support Bernie because I believe in his message. So when it comes to 8 November 2016, I'll be voting for my conscience, for the one person I think will do the most good for this country... in other words, voting for my very own Tyrion, lol.

 

@theguyfromtheVale

Quote


I'm not from the US, so I don't know how that process works, but couldn't Latinos still register to vote between now and November? It would seem silly to me if the couldn't. And I can certainly see a considerable number of people who would usually not care about politics but feel so threatened by Trump that they'd register to vote against him. That has been my point the entire time: That Trump changes those underlying dynamics in a way the other Republicans probably wouldn't (at least, not to that extent and not necessarily in that direction).

Trump definitely changes the dynamics of this election. I mean, I remember reading an article back in March, in which a survey was conducted in Utah to ask the state's residents who'd they vote for in various match-ups that included Hillary, Bernie, Trump, and Cruz. If Cruz was the nominee, he'd beat Bernie and Hillary hands down. But if it was Trump, surprisingly Hillary and Bernie actually beat him! :blink: I mean, this is a state that usually gives the largest margin of victory to the Republican candidate (and the last time it went to the Democrats was in LBJ's landslide victory in 1964).

Found the article!

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Hey kid, don't let anyone ever tell you that your clean conscience is less important than considering millions of others who would suffer from the mindless and bigoted cock waving that faces the nation.

You do you, and if you really want to vote for your own Tyrion, just write in Tyrion Lannister. No one will care.

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Regarding Texas:

in 2012, there were 9,955,224 hispanics in the state, of those, 4,867,000 were citizens of voting age.

Of those, 2,652,000 were registered to vote and 1,890,000 cast a vote in the 2012 election (8,643,000 votes cast by the total population of texas in 2012)

In the four years since the hispanic population has grown from 20.9% of Texas to 22.4% of texas so use that ratio to expand all the other brackets.

So a generic republican could expect more than 2,000,000 hispanic votes to be cast in 2012.

In Texas in 2012, the percent of registered voters that voted was 80%, the percent of hispanic registered voters that voted was 71%, the percent of non-hispanic registered voters that voted was 83%.

Absent everything else, if Donald Trump causes currently registered Hispanic voters to vote at the rates of non hispanic registered voters that is an additional 311,160 hispanic votes cast. 

The deficit between Romney and Obama was 1,200,000 votes in Texas in 2012. so the above would reduce that deficit to 900,000

As listed above, there are 2,200,000 unregistered eligible hispanic voters in texas. Can Donald Trump cause 900,000 of them to register? that's less than 50% and seems achievable.
 

But there is also population growth to consider. There are more hispanics in Texas than in 2012, how many of those will register to vote and vote against trump?

Is Donald Trump uniquely odious to Texas Latinos who normally vote Republican? Would he cause them to not vote or to vote against Trump? This could further reduce the deficit.

The numbers are definitely against swinging texas, but it is absolutely within the realm of possibility with a decent registration effort a decent Get-Out-the-Vote effort and the likely backlash amongst Republican Latino voters against Trump.

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It would be the funniest thing in the world if Texas almost went to Clinton, if only because I could honestly look at @Mandy and tell her that her vote actually would have mattered. 

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10 hours ago, Maester Drew said:

@mormont

But the thing I take issue with "choosing the lesser of two evils" is how it implies a dichotomy.

Of course, the fact is that the Presidential race is a dichotomy. There are going to be two candidates. It pretty much follows.

I referred in a previous thread to the actual election as being in effect a runoff, with the primaries being the first round. I still think that's true, and the best way to think of it. You supported your first choice candidate in the primary, and with the greatest of respect to Pony Queen Jace and others, I can see no reason why that shouldn't allow you or any other supporter a completely clear conscience to vote for whichever candidate you prefer from the two on offer in the actual election. You already said who you wanted as a first pick. You don't need to say it again. That's not the question any more: the question is, which would you prefer from the final two?

If the answer to that is genuinely 'I couldn't live with the thought of either of them', that's fair, and it's your right to write-in a candidate. But be realistic about it. The effect of write-in votes for Sanders is going to be immeasurably less than the effect of his primary run. The truth is, nobody really cares about write-in votes, except the people casting them.

10 hours ago, Maester Drew said:

It's an either/or in which "Oh, you hate Trump, you have to vote for Hillary" and vice versa. And hardly anyone bothers adding, "...or you can vote for neither." Honestly, it's so black and white, and it really surprises me how some of you see it as such. I mean, aren't we all ASOIAF fans? That series completely does away with the "black and white" and is chock full of grays. 

It seems to me the 'black and white' view here is yours: compromise is wrong, I'm voting for Sanders come what may. And that makes sense, because Sanders is not Tyrion, not by any measure: he's not a morally grey kind of guy. He's Ned Stark, maybe. Tyrion, meanwhile, would see choosing the lesser of two evils as just the way life is, most of the time. He's the character that would be rolling his eyes at the idea of a write-in.

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8 hours ago, Triskan said:

Did you take my post as suggesting such a thing?

The point of my question was that I wondered if the Anderson campaign was genuinely aimed at trying to win it all because I wondered about a comparison to this maybe-or-maybe-materialize anti-Trump candidate this time who I think would be running without any aspirations of winning.

My point is that if we limit the ballot to those with a "chance" and allow the two major parties to define that "chance" you have just taken the informal duopoply and formalized it.

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