US Elections: If you experience a painful election...

[Larry of the Lawn]

..or one lasting more than three hours, please contact your medical provider

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

LtI,

Good title.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

LtI,

Good title.

I stole it from something the Red Crustacean suggested awhile ago

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

David Selig,

11 minutes ago, David Selig said:

The problem is that the Democrats and the pro-Democrat media have called anyone who is against them racist and sexist over the most innocent things for so long that most non-Democrats don't seem to care much anymore when a genuine bigot appears because they have grown tired of all the over the top stuff like Romney being crucified for the "binders full of women" and how anyone who dares to suggest that maybe having a voter ID requirement for the elections is supposedly a blatant racist who wants to disenfranchise minorities. etc. Or how when Trump is rude to Hillary in the same way he was rude to all his male opponents that was terribly sexist of him (he is a sexist bigot, but this wasn't an example of this). Just my 2 cents as an outside observer.

 

I agree with this as well.  When everything is an attack the genuine problems get lost in the shuffle.  I think Trump is a genuine mysoginist.  But so many have been called that the cry is being lost among the others with the people who need to hear it.

[Pro Augustis]

Last night seems to have shown that many of the things journalists thought crucial to a campaign don't actually matter: truth, ground game, endorsements, the conventions of American politics, and perhaps above all money. Clinton outspent Trump to a stunning degree in states like North Carolina, all to no evident effect. As a proper liberal I feel like I should be glad about that last one, except that if I absolutely must pick a puppet master I would far prefer a corporate overlord to an evangelical one or one made of all the racism and sexism of redneck America. Alas.

[SerPaladin]

Also, based on what happened, I think Clinton would've easily beaten Cruz and probably most of the other Republicans not named Kasich. Trump really did have a special appeal to a lot of working class voters.

Maybe Cruz, probably Christie and Ryan and Fiorina. She would have lost to many of the Republicans in the primary, and Paul Ryan would have absolutely crushed her if he hadn't been drafted to be speaker and lost all his shine.

Biden would have mopped the floor with Trump, and I think even Elizabeth Warren would have won. And Bernie.

For the most part, these two were competing against the one national level politician that they could conceivably beat.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Any thoughts on whether or not Comey's last minute email mumblings played a role in the election results?

[Rhom]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

David Selig,

 

I agree with this as well.  When everything is an attack the genuine problems get lost in the shuffle.  I think Trump is a genuine mysoginist.  But so many have been called that the cry is being lost among the others with the people who need to hear it.

Agreed.  Once you start to demonize a decent human being like Romney, you lose your ability to draw a true contrast with a Trump.

I also cringed every time a media personality referenced "uneducated white male" voters.  If you want to talk labels... that's a pretty damning one.  They are going to need a new category to lump these voters in, because if there's one thing people hate is being told by their "betters" how they should think.  I think there was a big backlash from people pushing back against the tide of celebrities and media types telling them what they should think and do.

[Fez]

6 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

Obamacare is dead on January 21st. 

 

 

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how you define Obamacare. The exchanges, subsidies, and individual mandate are all dead (though maybe not as quickly as January 21). The Medicaid expansion its hard to say, but I could see it staying. And the initiatives to expand preventative care and move away from fee-for-service reimbursements are probably not going anywhere. 

Provisions like let children stay on their parents' plans until age 26 are probably also not getting repealed.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

 

 

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how you define Obamacare. The exchanges, subsidies, and individual mandate are all dead (though maybe not as quickly as January 21). The Medicaid expansion its hard to say, but I could see it staying. And the initiatives to expand preventative care and move away from fee-for-service reimbursements are probably not going anywhere. 

Provisions like let children stay on their parents' plans until age 26 are probably also not getting repealed.

What about denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions?

[Rhom]

Going back to the way the media stuck with the misogyny labels and such, I just can't get past Hillary's prophetic statement right after the deplorable comment:

Quote

"But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

That's what she said immediately after the deplorable comment, and that's where EVERYONE misjudged the election. We all focused on the negative and the nasty with the "deplorables" but in the meantime there were all these "people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down."

The evidence was always there, we just chose to ignore it.

[James Arryn]

I'm seriously depressed.

And it's deep; every way I think about it goes darker and longer-lasting. Gun control, the Supreme Court, gay marriage, Muslims, lists, immigration...I've often kinda envied people who lived in pivotal times, how exciting it must have seemed; but there's no Spanish Civil War now where the sides are clearly drawn, there's just this creep of revisionist nativism/reactionism and the pablum-fed reality tv spawned unthinking collective that passively disagrees with it. I'm about to go full Hunter S. Thompson/Lester Bangs and address my issues with my suddenly homophobic mother and always secretly conservative-as-a-controlling-agent father, oh, and it stoned me like Jelly Roll...but I'll stop short and fully address the implicit irony in a romantic historian confronting that ancient Chinese curse: May You Live In Interesting Times.

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Going back to the way the media stuck with the misogyny labels and such, I just can't get past Hillary's prophetic statement right after the deplorable comment:

That's what she said immediately after the deplorable comment, and that's where EVERYONE misjudged the election. We all focused on the negative and the nasty with the "deplorables" but in the meantime there were all these "people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down."

The evidence was always there, we just chose to ignore it.

As damaging in it's way, as branding supporters of Brexit "Little Englanders".

[Free Northman Reborn]

What's up with so few California voters (8 million), influencing so many electoral votes? That's less than voted in Texas, despite Texas having a smaller population.

 

[Fez]

2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

What about denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions?

Its hard to say. Financially, you can't keep it long-term without an individual mandate; but its popular and the mandate is not. It all depends on how closely Republicans look at the bill and decide what to keep and what to toss; and how to replace what parts they removed that are necessary to keep the parts they want.

Its theoretically possible that Republicans could just pass a one-sentence bill to repeal the entire bill, but I don't think they'd do that now that they have the power to (rather than just to make political statements). There's too much support among their own voters for some of the various provisions that people don't usually associate with Obamacare (like the age 26 thing).

It also depends on what Trump actually wants here. He's made some vague statements (surprise!) that basically amount to wanting a single payer system using Medicare; but if he actually went for that I don't know what Congress does. He has enormous sway over Congressional Republicans right now, but I don't know if its enough for something like that.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

What's up with so few California voters (8 million), influencing so many electoral votes? That's less than voted in Texas, despite Texas having a smaller population.

 

California wasn't really in play so people felt safe to stay home.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

What's up with so few California voters (8 million), influencing so many electoral votes? That's less than voted in Texas, despite Texas having a smaller population.

 

Have you ever been there?  It's an easy place to be complacent.  Beautiful country, once you're out of the city.  And even urban sprawl has palm trees.

[TheKitttenGuard]

8 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Well the way they see it, their voice isn't being heard. Its dangerous to dismiss that.

That is there perspective while the reality is different.

It is also one that will need to be examined and addressed since they are actually the majority.

I may have some understanding but not going to ignore the actual reality involved as well.  Stating otherwise will me being PC about it.

[Castel]

8 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

That is there perspective while the reality is different.

 

The reality is, between gerrymandering and so on, the GOP and their supposed voiceless base has had an arguably disproportionately loud voice.

I wonder if this is Democrats and their focus on presidential elections at play again. These guys hold two branches of Congress and the majority of state houses and we're having discussions about how "their voices are not being heard" cause they don't have the Presidency? What? 

What more do they need? To be invited into your house, have a nice dinner and then fuck your wife over the table? Will their voices be heard then? I mean, steak alone is soooo disenfranchising...

[The Fallen]

We have begun our descent.

Hillary couldn't overcome 30 years worth of character assassination by the Republicans. When Trump supporters believe Hillary to be a compulsive liar you know it's hopeless.

I still pin the most blame for a Trump presidency on the false equivalency from the media and the DNC being in the bag for Hillary. 

Don't get it twisted, Hillary was definitely better for the country. But not the right person at this time, it seems. 

I find it funny that, economically, the Democratic-leaning states subsidize the all-take and no-give Republican leaning states yet the Republicans want all of the country to be like Mississippi, Alabama, etc ... What a disaster.