U.S. Politics: 2016 Election Goes To Overtime

[LongRider]

8 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

 

 

 

Well, the raises are faster than average inflation. And at least in Washington state, it's required to rise with cost-of-living adjustments every year. (It's raising to 11$ on Jan 1, 2017, 11.50 in 2018, 12 in 2019, and 13.50 in 2020.)

But yeah, the other states should do yearly cost-of-living adjustments like Washington, if they don't already do that. Ours had the cost-of-living adjustments made yearly even before this latest raise passed.

I don't know about the cost of living adjustments, which would be a humane idea to put into practice. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Aren't you conservatives big on presidents appointing politically independent judges? Well, there you go.

I know that I am.  I also think Judicial appointees (whoever appoints them) should refuse to answer any questions that even come close to sounding like inquries into how they would decide a case.  The first few would be voted down but after that what is the Senate going to do just have no Federal Judiciary?

[TrackerNeil]

29 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I know that I am.  I also think Judicial appointees (whoever appoints them) should refuse to answer any questions that even come close to sounding like inquries into how they would decide a case.  The first few would be voted down but after that what is the Senate going to do just have no Federal Judiciary?

Yes, yes...we've gone back and forth on this, and it comes down to me thinking that it's okay to ask nominees some questions about judicial philosophy and you thinking that a review of the resume is the limit. A field that has already been plowed.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

Chomsky also objected to philosopher Slavoj Zizek's post-election argument that Trump's victory would "shake up" status quo. "Terrible point," Chomsky said of Zizek's take. "It was the same point that people like him said about Hitler in the early 30s."

"He'll 'shake up the system' in bad ways," Chomsky said of the president-elect. "What it means is now the left—if Clinton had won, she had some progressive programs. The left could have been organized, to keeping her feet to the fire. What it will be doing now is trying to protect rights...gains that have been achieved, from being destroyed. That's completely regressive."

 

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/25/those-who-failed-recognize-trump-greater-evil-made-bad-mistake-chomsky

Those Who Failed to Recognize Trump as 'Greater Evil' Made a 'Bad Mistake': Chomsky
"I didn't like Clinton at all, but her positions are much better than Trump's on every issue I can think of"
byDeirdre Fulton, staff writer
 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 hours ago, Weeping Sore said:

I know, it's been hard moving through the stages of grief and learning to love the Trumpocalypse. But I'm going back to denial till the recounts prove me wrong.

I think this qualifies as "bargaining". I'm not going back to denial, but I haven't arrived at acceptance either. 

[Zorral]

The only person who was able to knock the orange off the top of the front page and in the opening sentence of every talk / news blather, which has been the case for over a year now,  has been Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz.

He did more to take down the old Soviet empire than Reagan ever did -- while the new so-called USian president is allying himself as fast as he can with the dictator of the new Soviet empire --  -- and Cuban - Russian relations are warming again, after the long freeze of the last 20 + years.

Ironies abound, which no one would have appreciated more than Jesuit-trained Fidel.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

5 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I think this qualifies as "bargaining". I'm not going back to denial, but I haven't arrived at acceptance either. 

I hope we never arrive at acceptance! I'm staying at anger.

The day we accept his policies is the day America is truly lost

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

25 minutes ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

I hope we never arrive at acceptance! I'm staying at anger.

The day we accept his policies is the day America is truly lost

Yeah, I don't mean accepting his policies so much as accepting the fact that he won and is going to be President for the next 4 years. That's what grief management is all about. Handling the inevitable or the immutable.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I don't mean accepting his policies so much as accepting the fact that he won and is going to be President for the next 4 years.

Yeah, I know, I'm just in a mood tonight. (I used the stages of grief in an example just the other day, guess I'm not the only one whose thoughts were a bit morbid about it)

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

14 minutes ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

Yeah, I know, I'm just in a mood tonight. (I used the stages of grief in an example just the other day, guess I'm not the only one whose thoughts were a bit morbid about it)

Oh yeah, the first week was brutal. This whole thing has been pretty shocking.

[Kalbear]

On 11/25/2016 at 6:11 PM, The Great Unwashed said:

While it's true that not all Trump voters were poor, it is also true that Trump did much better than Republicans normally do among voters making less than $30,000.

Except that article points out specifically that the major reason wasn't poverty, it was education level. 

[karaddin]

When people are busy blaming identity politics for this election result, and particular when they make some crack about gender pronouns, what I hear is "because you complained about Republicans trying to ban you from public toilets, it's your fault we lost. Sorry, but your rights just don't matter here, under the bus with you". You're saying that a whole generation of minorities should just take it for the team and give up fighting for fundamental rights, in the case of Trans people that we should just go kill ourselves because our very existence is too antagonistic to be compatible with white working class "economic concerns". Fuck that.

The democrats should always have been catering to the economic concerns of the working class, but "white" doesn't enter into it. Because they're not marginalised because they're white, they're marginalised because the industry their region relied on for prosperity has collapsed etc. And that should absolutely be a core focus. But when you're proposing real measures that will help a little, while the other side are spinning magical bullshit that's impossible, you're kinda boned when people choose the lie they want over the honest reality. I think it was part of Carter v Reagan and it was here again.

In the last thread when people were falling over themselves to dismiss the possibility that sexism played a role in the election, I'm astounded at how narrow focused it always is. Negatives for Clinton isn't the only way it manifested, the entirety of Trumps "appeal" was sexism. It was central to the primary campaign, which was waged on the assumption that the winner would be facing a woman. Look at all the shit that went on there - all of a sudden cuck is a go to insult for the undesirable candidate from a bunch of conservatives online, Trump dismissing questioning from Kelly because she must be on her period, Trump bragging about his supposedly big dick (and on the flip side the crap about his hand size). The Republicans nominated the avatar of white male privilege, and Trump is privileged in every sense of the word - even those that normally object to it can't claim the fucker with a gold elevator isn't privileged - and angry white men overwhelmingly voted for him.

So fuck off with blaming Trans people for this because we want to exist. Fuck off with blaming Black people for this because they don't want to get shot by police. None of our issues are remotely opposed to measures that would help the working class, and in a lot of cases we would benefit because minorities frequently have lower income. You can say the way that is communicated needs to be improved without suggesting we just get thrown under the bus.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

The Republicans nominated the avatar of white male privilege, and Trump is privileged in every sense of the word - even those that normally object to it can't claim the fucker with a gold elevator isn't privileged - and angry white men overwhelmingly voted for him.

Yes, indeed he was and yes, indeed they did. Do you understand why he openly embraced this status and why it helped him?

Construction of new concepts often leads to further such construction. A little over a year ago, "microaggression", "[identity] privilege" and the like led to the idea of a "victimhood culture". You can read two articles with different points of view on it at The Atlantic and at Reason, both of which link to the academic article which first used that word for it. Of course, the vast majority of Trump's supporters did not read the academic article or any of the derived ones and they probably did not even know the term (which, yes, I know, is problematic)... but they understood what was happening, even if they were not able to clearly articulate it.

In most respects, Trump was a huge gamble. His promises ranged from the implausible to the absurd and he routinely changed his position on various issues (sometimes multiple times in a single conversation). It is still impossible to determine how he intends to create jobs and whether he is mostly concerned with enriching his family and friends. However, a vote for Trump had at least one very definite quality: it was an utter repudiation of "victimhood culture" in one of the few ways that were still socially acceptable.

To be clear, the vast majority of people who voted for Trump do not want anyone to get shot or cease existing or anything of the sort, but they have no respect for the recent increase in public complaints and shaming and they want it to stop.

[karaddin]

Yes I know all that, what you are overlooking is the bullshit way it gets framed. Republicans introduce "bathroom bills" across the country, which are dismissed as being superficial by people who don't give a fuck and are really about denying trans people access to public life. Trans activists fight these measures. Disinterested third parties get sick of hearing about it, and blame the trans activists for making a fuss instead of blaming the Republicans that attempt to strip rights -- that is the bullshit part of the whole thing.  This isn't even an attempt to garner new rights, the bathroom bills are a fresh attempt at stripping away rights and any blow back should be on the bigots enacting this, but that's not how it works. So yes, I call bullshit on the mindset, and I call bullshit on choosing Trump in response.

I can understand it and still reject it.

I just saw this linked on Facebook however and I think it does get at another element of the problem with "economic concerns of white working class". It's hard to genuinely advocate policies that will help people when they themselves rejected it due to a refusal to see themselves as poor. The linkage of wealth and being "moral" and intelligent are also elements that I think are unique to American culture that is missed by any analysis that takes a more global view, and I think does explain a lot of the perceptions around Trump that make zero sense to me.

I also read this yesterday on the philosophical underpinnings of the neo-reactionaries and the alt-right - The Darkness before the Right - that I found quite "interesting" if I manage to divorce my interest from events actually taking place. And by philosophy I mean actual, driven by an academic and unknown by the majority of the shitstains in the movement, but highly influential on their mode of thought all the same. I do not intend this to link to any of the prior stuff relating to racism and sexism from the white working class, just putting it in this post. While I do have issues with "alt-right" sounding too harmless, there are very real differences between them and neo-Nazis that I think are ignored by trying to call them the same thing, and you need to understand the difference to do anything about them. There are neo-Nazis emboldened and jumping into the limelight, and the alt-right has very much jumped into bed with them and shares fucking heinous views. Its one big awful mess.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Yes, indeed he was and yes, indeed they did. Do you understand why he openly embraced this status and why it helped him?

Because US society is still deeply sexist and masculine-coded traits such as Trump displays are for male voters in particular inextricably linked with the idea of power.

[Mudguard]

For more recount stupidity, let's look at the recount process in Pennsylvania, where Trump won by 70,000 votes, which is by more than 1 percent of all votes cast in Pennsylvania.

First, Pennsylvania is one of the few states that uses direct recording electronic voting systems which do not leave a paper trail.  47 of 67 counties use exclusively DRE voting systems. In these counties, there are no paper ballots that you can recount.  The only thing you can do is examine the voting machines.  

Quote

Voting System Used: 

Mixed paper ballot and DREs without VVPAT

Direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems without voter verified paper trails are used in 47 counties. The remaining 20 counties use optical scanners tabulators with paper ballots or some combination of DREs with optical scan tabulators.  

Stein is pursuing a voter-initiated recount in Pennsylvania.

Quote

We cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting. We can only pledge we will demand recounts in WI and MI and support the voter-initiated effort in PA.

To achieve a statewide recount in PA, Stein needs to file a petition in each of over 9000 election districts in PA, and each petition must be brought by at least 3 voters from that district, along with an affidavit and $50 filing fee (which accounts for the $500,000 estimate for filing fees in PA).  Putting together 9000+ petitions means finding over 27,000 voters willing to sign the petition and an affidavit stating that an error has been committed.  The attorney fees for preparing 9000 petitions could easily be in the millions or tens of millions, unless a large number of the attorneys are doing it pro bono.  And these 9000+ petitions must all be filed by this coming Monday.

Quote

Voter-Initiated Options: 

Pennsylvania uses the terms “election district” to identify a district, division or precinct,  within which all qualified electors vote at one polling place.  As of June 2015, there were 9,175 election districts in Pennsylvania. Note the references below to petitions required for each election district.

Voters may initiate recounts with the county boards with a “petition of three voters of any district, verified by affidavit, that an error, although not apparent on the face of the returns, has been committed….” The county board shall then “conduct a recount or recanvass of all ballots cast.”  See 25 P.S. 3154(e).

This process seems like it has essentially a zero percent chance at overturning the results, and Clinton needs Pennsylvania along with Michigan and Wisconsin in order to beat Trump.  With very little to audit and recount in PA due to the DRE voting system, the PA recount seems like a massive waste of time and money.  Stein and Clinton are claiming that they are also going to have representatives and observers monitoring the process.  In PA, you would need at least one representative at each of the 9000+ districts.  If these observers are paid, that could add millions to the cost.  Well, hopefully they are hiring locally and this could help the PA economy a bit.  That's about the only good thing I can see coming from this.

[The Fallen]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Yes, indeed he was and yes, indeed they did. Do you understand why he openly embraced this status and why it helped him?

Construction of new concepts often leads to further such construction. A little over a year ago, "microaggression", "[identity] privilege" and the like led to the idea of a "victimhood culture". You can read two articles with different points of view on it at The Atlantic and at Reason, both of which link to the academic article which first used that word for it. Of course, the vast majority of Trump's supporters did not read the academic article or any of the derived ones and they probably did not even know the term (which, yes, I know, is problematic)... but they understood what was happening, even if they were not able to clearly articulate it.

In most respects, Trump was a huge gamble. His promises ranged from the implausible to the absurd and he routinely changed his position on various issues (sometimes multiple times in a single conversation). It is still impossible to determine how he intends to create jobs and whether he is mostly concerned with enriching his family and friends. However, a vote for Trump had at least one very definite quality: it was an utter repudiation of "victimhood culture" in one of the few ways that were still socially acceptable.

To be clear, the vast majority of people who voted for Trump do not want anyone to get shot or cease existing or anything of the sort, but they have no respect for the recent increase in public complaints and shaming and they want it to stop.

How is it a repudiation of "victimhood culture" when the majority of Americans disagree with Trump/Republican positions on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion, immigration legislation, etc ... And on top of that Hillary has received way more votes overall than Donald Trump.

What happened this election was basically a sizable number of white people, from all demographics, saying "fuck y'all" to everyone else. As a minority, this is nothing new, but for white kids raised to embrace diversity, and who grew up with minority or gay friends, this was a slap in the face. They had no idea that this existed in these here United States.

Anyways, they say that all politics are identity politics. So why shouldn't Democrats reach out to minorities, the gay and trans community and affirm that they believe in equal rights and justice for everyone? They should also reach out to blue collar workers. Maybe a new wave of Democrats will stop pandering so much to Wall Street and big corporations and reach out to the workers that used to vote for Democrats.

[Inigima]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

For more recount stupidity, let's look at the recount process in Pennsylvania, where Trump won by 70,000 votes, which is by more than 1 percent of all votes cast in Pennsylvania.

First, Pennsylvania is one of the few states that uses direct recording electronic voting systems which do not leave a paper trail.  47 of 67 counties use exclusively DRE voting systems. In these counties, there are no paper ballots that you can recount.  The only thing you can do is examine the voting machines.

I don't disagree, but I and others have been advocating against machines like this for exactly that reason. I would prefer as low-tech a voting method as we can manage precisely because I have never trusted the security of these things. Again, no disagreement, just using this to point out that this is a real problem.

[TrackerNeil]

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

Yes I know all that, what you are overlooking is the bullshit way it gets framed. Republicans introduce "bathroom bills" across the country, which are dismissed as being superficial by people who don't give a fuck and are really about denying trans people access to public life. Trans activists fight these measures. Disinterested third parties get sick of hearing about it, and blame the trans activists for making a fuss instead of blaming the Republicans that attempt to strip rights -- that is the bullshit part of the whole thing.  This isn't even an attempt to garner new rights, the bathroom bills are a fresh attempt at stripping away rights and any blow back should be on the bigots enacting this, but that's not how it works. So yes, I call bullshit on the mindset, and I call bullshit on choosing Trump in response.

Agreed. Twelve years ago gay folks were in the same position of having to point out that anti-gay policies were not a "distraction" to the national conversation, but an integral part of that conversation. So it's the same why are you forcing me to do this rationale that's greeted every civil rights movement since there were rights for which to advocate.

[Dr. Pepper]

Has anyone seen the Trump-esque Twitter tirade Jill Stein has unleashed about Hillary not demanding a recount?  I feel like she's worked to make the Green Party even more irrelevant than it already was.  

ETA: Included random link of twitter tirade because couldn't link all the tweets.