US Elections: Day dawns on Trump.

[Mudguard]

7 minutes ago, Shryke said:

No? I mean, I know you want to think that but that's because you see everything as fitting into the narrative you've already decided on. "The sun rose today, changing the night sky from dark to light, so obviously people wanted to break with the establishment!"

What it actually suggests is that without Obama at the top of the ticket, those demographics don't turn out as hard for the Democratic party. That the extent of the percentages Obama was pulling were based on the man himself and that absent his presence at the top, the Democrats can't count on those groups turning out to that degree.

If this was really about this silly narrative you are pushing, then why did those people turn out for Obama and not Clinton when both have very similar policies, Clinton was endorsed and campaigned for by Obama and Clinton positioned herself as a continuation of Obama? Clinton literally said "I'm more Obama!". Why does this group that voted for Obama suddenly not want to vote for the person Obama himself is saying is more Obama? Your argument is incoherent dude.

And you are completely discounting reasons provided to you that are being advanced by actual Trump supporters because they don't fit your narrative.  I know people who voted Trump that say these exact things.  It's not unreasonable to think that this was one of the reasons that contributed to Clinton's loss.

Clinton isn't Obama, no matter how much she wanted to be.  Clinton carried whole truck loads of baggage that Obama didn't.  She also lacked his charisma and his level of trustworthiness.  

[mormont]

15 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

And what does that tell us?

That the people want the Democratic Party to CHANGE, steer away from corporate shills and foreign interventionists like Hillary. When the party had a candidate that the people perceived as authentic and aligned with their wishes, they chose Obama. I'll again remind that the same is true of Bernie who led Trump by double digits in the polls.

So there's a suggestion that African-Americans and Hispanics didn't come out in large enough numbers for Clinton and you see this as evidence that Sanders would have done better? Have you forgotten that a big reason Sanders lost the primary was that these same voters preferred Clinton over Sanders? How is he supposed to have done better than Clinton with voting groups that he lost to her in the primary?

[DunderMifflin]

If you are upset that queen hillary didn't save the world, look on the bright side.

The Daily Show might get popular again.

Rush Limbaugh might dissappear like he did during Bush's terms.

It's not all bad.

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

So there's a suggestion that African-Americans and Hispanics didn't come out in large enough numbers for Clinton and you see this as evidence that Sanders would have done better? Have you forgotten that a big reason Sanders lost the primary was that these same voters preferred Clinton over Sanders? How is he supposed to have done better than Clinton with voting groups that he lost to her in the primary?

He did better with whites, with young people, and he lacked her negatives.  He had a message that was generating enthusiasm and was drawing big crowds, much like Trump was doing and people here were completely ignoring.  He wouldn't have to deal with a recurring FBI investigation and email controversy.  There are many reasons to believe that Sander's would have been able to beat Trump.  

[Shryke]

8 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

If you don't think that Democrats lost because people were disillusioned with their policies, I'm really sorry man. I don't live in US, I have no right to tell you what to think, but your opinion seems awfully misguided.

I don't think it because you have yet to demonstrate that it is so. Or, honestly, to make any argument for that case beyond just asserting it to be true.

 

5 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

Because politics are also about appearances. People voted for Obama because they thought he'd bring real change. The guy fooled even the Nobel Comittee, we can forgive the general public. C'mon, whatever you think of Obama's and Clinton's policies, he's at least an authentic guy as opposed to a flip-flop talking point machine that is Hillary. People recognized that and voted accordingly. Democrats like to think they're smarter than Republicans. It may even be true. But if these guys pride themselves on their progressiveness and intelligence, well, be sure to next time nominate a person who actually shares those values, or at least APPEARS to share them (cue Obama).

They came out for him in 2012 too though, long after any claim that he had fooled them should have come off.

If you are claiming they liked Obama the man over Clinton, that's my whole point. That the Obama coalition and the numbers it generated were built on a specific candidate and not a platform. The entire Clinton campaign, the entire Democratic party campaign this cycle, was built around taking this new coalition Obama had crafted and turning it out again by having the same policies and alot of the same faces telling people to vote. That they didn't come out to the same degree suggests that the coalition, to the degree it came out for Obama anyway, is not gonna come out for just for the policies.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

As someone who has experienced Brexit I can sympathise with the Yanks. I've spent a lot of time these last few months trying to understand exactly what is happening because peoples opinions seems so utterly out of my reality.

Can anyone here who voted for Trump please explain to me exactly what it was you were voting for? I mean in so much as what you want him to do, rather than just attacking Obama or Hilary.

[Dr. Pepper]

7 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

i think what i'm asking is whether the inevitable disaster that is the Trump presidency, with its fevered demagoguery, reliance on absolutely salacious and untrue media outlets, and worsened material outcomes for all but the highest tier of income will wake people the fuck up.   

i mean, people really voted against their own self interests.  It's rather astonishing.   It seems like they seriously don't understand what they're signing away by voting for Trump.

I'm pretty sure they are ignorant about it.  Just look at where they get their news.  Most Trump voters I know literally think that he's going to make america great again for reasons.  They'll have jobs and all the good health insurance and college and no illegal aliens, queers or abortions.  

[DMC]

So...has anyone mentioned it looks like Hillary could win the popular vote?  If so, another gut punch to Democrats.

[The Wolves]

3 minutes ago, Altherion said:

 

That would be exceedingly stupid and I very much doubt that he will do it. The Democrats are obviously going to try obstructing the Republicans, but there's no need to be a sore loser and no need for discourtesy.

How is that being a sore loser? 

Obama shouldn't have to be nice to this nasty piece of crap, nobody should. 

Obama should just wish America luck and get the hell out of dodge just like the rest of the Democrats should. 

[DunderMifflin]

Obama is in pretty good shape actually.

$$$$ time for him if he wants it. He deserves it.He was a good President imo. I wish him a nice low stress life of giving speeches and getting paaaaaid. Climate change will be his big issue I'm thinking.

 

[Shryke]

10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

It's not a strategy "specifically tailored" by the GOP.  Obstruction has been the strategy of the minority party since polarization began to reach its current heights - namely the beginning of the Clinton administration.  Obama got through a stimulus package and the ACA, and that was with a supermajority in the Senate before Scott Brown.  That's it.  You are portraying unified government as if it is a blank check for the majority party when in reality a member of Congress' sole concern is reelection.  And reelection in a polarized electorate wherein the president's party almost invariably (other than 1998 and 2002) loses seats during midterms.  And, in this case, reelection when the leader of the party has historically high unfavorables, and that's what we're starting at.  The institutional and contextual factors are overwhelmingly against any type of drastic substantive change even before one considers Trump's ability to navigate the legislative arena and successfully administer policy among the bureaucracy.

You are right about federal judges though - Reid fucked the Dems on that one.  OTOH, Obama padded the lead in the appellate and district courts pretty well because of it.

If their sole concern is reelection, then you are gonna have to explain how passing a GOP legislative agenda is gonna impact that for GOP congresspeople elected by GOP voters.

They were already show-repealing the ACA on a fucking weekly basis to bump up their reelection credentials. Now there's nothing to stop that kind of shit from not being a show vote.

And let's face it, the challenge most of them are worried about is the primary challenge from the right.

The problem with your whole argument here is you haven't explained why the GOP would be worried about electoral consequences for enacting their agenda. They were elected to push that agenda in the first place. At best you are gonna get squabbles over where the titanium tax doesn't go too far enough between members of the GOP. But they agree on more then enough shit to get some work done.

[mormont]

2 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

He did better with whites, with young people, and he lacked her negatives.

None of which are relevant to the discussion, which was about how low AA and minority turnout hurt Clinton and the idea that somehow this means Sanders would have done better.

If the suggestion is that Sanders would have done so well among whites and young voters (who I understand mostly backed Clinton anyway) that it would have compensated for lower minority turnout, that remains to be seen but I find it unlikely.

 

[Mr Fixit]

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

So there's a suggestion that African-Americans and Hispanics didn't come out in large enough numbers for Clinton and you see this as evidence that Sanders would have done better? Have you forgotten that a big reason Sanders lost the primary was that these same voters preferred Clinton over Sanders? How is he supposed to have done better than Clinton with voting groups that he lost to her in the primary?

Because party memebers isn't the same thing as general voting public? There's a huge untapped potential among independents and unaffiliated voters. I don't have to tell you that, right? Bernie (and probably Obama) figured out a way to get those voters. Hillary didn't. Democratic establishment might try to learn from this and steer the party away from Wall Street shills and corporate lobbyists. Of course, since the money is there, don't count on it. In fact, I fully expect a similar experience in 2020 and the Dem brass still being as clueless as they are today. because money is always more important than their constituency. 

[The Wolves]

1 minute ago, DunderMifflin said:

Obama is in pretty good shape actually.

$$$$ time for him if he wants it. He deserves it.He was a good President imo. I wish him a nice low stress life of giving speeches and getting paaaaaid. Climate change will be his big issue I'm thinking.

 

He was a great President IMO and I will miss him so so so much. 

Im glad that he and his family is leaving the White House scandal free and he will be free from the burden of the presidency and without all the blame. 

 

[Shryke]

15 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

And you are completely discounting reasons provided to you that are being advanced by actual Trump supporters because they don't fit your narrative.  I know people who voted Trump that say these exact things.  It's not unreasonable to think that this was one of the reasons that contributed to Clinton's loss.

Clinton isn't Obama, no matter how much she wanted to be.  Clinton carried whole truck loads of baggage that Obama didn't.  She also lacked his charisma and his level of trustworthiness.  

But these people didn't turn out for Trump either. That's the whole point. So, like, what are you even on about?

Like, it's pretty nonsensical to make the original claim from this argument that Clinton lost voters who voted for Obama by positioning herself as being Obama 2.0. It's clearly not the fact that she's not a change from Obama that's the problem here cause those people liked Obama and voted for him so they should like that she and he are both explicitly calling her Obama again.

But it appears like they didn't come out for her. Which suggests it's more to do with her not being him then her being just more of the same. They liked more of the same in 2012 and approval ratings suggest they like it now.

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, Liffguard said:

Imagine you're on a night out with Britain and the USA, and you've all had a few too many. UK is that guy who's watched too many jackass reruns and decides to do the most stupid thing he can think of to get his drunken friends to laugh. USA is the guy who then says, "that's nothing, hold my beer and watch this."

I was in London for Brexit. Since then I've had this unceasing dread that it would be repeated in the U.S., because the kind of thinking behind voting Leave is something America does much, much better than the rest of the developed world. At times Trump seemed so over the top it was a relief, but then...I mean, this is the country that RE-elected Dubya after pretty much all he's despised for now was already known to be true.

I am very depressed, and very angry. I'm angry at America for being much more what outsiders think it is than what Americans think it is. I'm angry at bigots of all kinds. I'm angry at Clinton and Clinton supporters who, all along I felt, acted in a dangerous manner that would resound with the already on board but backfire with the undecided.

I supported Clinton over Sanders because I thought she was safer, but I said back then that if there's anything at all to this whole e-mail thing, and she's lying about it, she's putting personal ambition ahead of UN-Trumppocalypse and I'll hate her for it.

Turns out it was something in the middle, ie there was 'something' there, but it was more of a ~ fuck-up than a huge deal, so I'm half-way between hating her and wishing she'd just been honest about it all along, giving it less of a 'gotcha!' feel when she finally had to admit she'd screwed up. Basically, I think she really helped the other side make a mountain out of a molehill by not being honest about it from the get-go, and that's down to her 'trust no one/hide everything' nature, or maybe she was taking a page from Bill's book but didn't have his charisma to pull it off. Either way it played perfectly into the preconception Trump/the GOP built up about her as an untrustworthy career politician who only cares about winning. 

I'm depressed about how Trump will handle the next mass-shooting, about how he'll respond to the next terrorist or 'terrorist' attack. I'm frightened about how he plans to revive the Cold War foreign policy mindset. I'm depressed beyond words about how Muslims will be treated now that their discrimination by religion has been openly approved and sanctioned by popular vote, and I'm depressed at all the extremists that will naturally breed, and the circle keeps on turning.

I'm pissed at people who are willing to accept open bigotry as long as it is accompanied by their agenda. History has a really clear picture for how that turns out. I'm angry at the conservatives who saw Trump for what he is, were horrified, but backed him anyway because 'politics'. I'm angry at all the times Dem supporters got smug and did little pre-victory dances. I'm angry at the 'break everything' types who, again, were therefore condoning blatant bigotry as long as they got to see 'the status quo' burn, not caring about the minorities who will be doing most of the actual burning. 

I'm at the next 4+ years. I'm depressed about the consequences of this that will reach out much further. I'm afraid for the world, as I don't know what the floor on this is; Trump with both houses under control. If I was religious, I'd say 'God help us.' Because the historical models are not at all encouraging, and this will almost certainly get a lot worse before it gets better, assuming it does.

There were a great many incidents of racist attacks/harasdment in the days immediately following Brexit, as the bigots felt affirmed, and I'm not sure how much news I'll be watching in the next few weeks. The only glimmer of optimism I can see coming out of all this is that it might bring Jon Stewart back out of retirement.

[Mr Fixit]

8 minutes ago, Shryke said:

I don't think it because you have yet to demonstrate that it is so. Or, honestly, to make any argument for that case beyond just asserting it to be true.

Okay, man. Dem establishment IS NOT responsible for their loss. They lost because American people want a racist bigot as President. You like that answer better? No need to find fault in one's own strategy when it's always better to blame others.

[Mudguard]

9 minutes ago, Shryke said:

It's not really obvious at all. I mean, it's obvious PEC was wrong about the shape of the election, but that does not entail it's obvious 538 was either.

Like, to illustrate I could have said after the primaries "Who the fuck knows who will win?" and created an election forecast model that was literally just 50/50 Trump/Clinton. By your measure I would have been more correct even then Silver and had the better model. But obviously that's not so because my model here is literally nothing. It's just assigning arbitrary percentages to each end case and calling it a day.

Deciding based on who had a higher percentage for a Trump win fundamentally mistakes how these models work or what they mean. Fundamentally if I said there was a 10% chance Trump would win based on my assumptions, how do we know this isn't just the 10% case. You can roll snake-eyes sometimes, it happens. And we've only got 1 trial to go with here, so it's actually incredibly difficult to judge the accuracy of any model based on just that.

What you would need to do is look at the inner workings of the model, the assumptions being made, and try and figure out if they were right or not and why or why not.

The only thing obvious here is that most of these models or the polling they were based on were wrong about this election and how the voter turnout would look. It's not yet obvious if 538's assumptions were any more correct then anyone else's though.

And it's clear you have no idea why 538 added in the increased uncertainty.  He did so, as his blog explains, in part because of the large numbers of voters who were claiming that they were independent/undecided as compared to previous elections.  He didn't just randomly do it as in your absurd example.  

I know people who registered as Democrats for the primary to vote Sanders, but registered as independents for the general to vote Trump because of disgust at Clinton.  Sanders won a very large percentage of the primary votes, especially among whites.  If even a small percentage switched their votes to Trump, that could have been the difference in some of these states, which were decided on very small margins.

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Obama is in pretty good shape actually.

$$$$ time for him if he wants it. He deserves it.He was a good President imo.

Seeing as he's between George W. Bush and Donald Trump, he's going to look absolutely stellar in hindsight (the only real analogy is Lincoln having James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson as bookends).

Of course, he's now going to have to watch the achievements he spent so much energy on torn down by morons.

[Gorn]

6 minutes ago, mormont said:

None of which are relevant to the discussion, which was about how low AA and minority turnout hurt Clinton and the idea that somehow this means Sanders would have done better.

If the suggestion is that Sanders would have done so well among whites and young voters (who I understand mostly backed Clinton anyway) that it would have compensated for lower minority turnout, that remains to be seen but I find it unlikely.

 

Turnout depends on people being excited about "their" candidate. Very few Democrats were actually excited about Clinton, which led to lower turnout - not just among minorities but among Democrats and left-leaning independents in general.