US Elections: FBI. F-B-I... (Comey turns the ID the right way up) FBI.

[Kalbear]

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What's with the all-caps? We are discussing hypothetical scenarios. My point was that Trump is clearly overstating his ability to get things done and even if he was elected, he would need to make substantial modifications to his positions even with a Republican Congress (in fact, he has already made significant modifications to his immigration policy). Of course, we're not likely to ever find out what he would really do -- there is currently no method of measurement which has him winning.

Trump really isn't overstating his ability to get things done, especially if he controls the House and possibly the Senate. As to the 'no method of measurement which has him winning' - this is entirely bullshit. 538 has him with a one in 3 chance. Other systems have him with a 1 in 6. Those are better odds than the Cubs had winning the world series when they were down 3-1 in games. Don't mistake having a good chance of losing being the same thing as losing. 

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Yea, I mean it could happen.  It baffles me that its this close, especially if you think about it group by group - Trump is not going to win the vote for latino, black, women, LGBT, young people, college educated whites, urban dwellers, etc.  Like.. how is this even close?  He's got old farts, the rural vote, and uneducated whites in his corner.  Not a negligible demographic to be sure, but I feel like if people just get off their ass and turn out to vote there isn't much of a path for Trump no matter what the polls are saying.   I was encouraged that at my polling place in TX the line was out the door for early voting, and I'm no mind reader as to how the people in my area are going to vote, but East Austin isn't Trump country.  We'll see, but I would try to avoid getting too worked up about it.  

He's got white people in his corner, which are still a majority of voters. And that's all it takes. As it turns out, if people get off their ass to vote he would not win, but it'd be really close. And it also depends a lot on the voters - if non-college educate white people turn out to vote - and they are traditionally the ones least likely to vote - Trump wins, and easily. 

Add to that the stories we're hearing of voter suppression tactics and it's not hard to see how he wins. 

Even worse, it's not that hard to envision a massive turnout in places like California meaning Clinton overwhelmingly gets the popular vote, and loses the electoral vote. 

[mormont]

If you're counting on the Republican party establishment to act as a brake on President Trump, it's worth remembering that throughout both the primary and the election he's continually picked fights with those guys and they've largely backed him anyway, or run away and hid. He does not give a hoot what they want: they don't have any leverage on him because their voters prefer him to them, and both he and they know it. That will go double if he actually wins this.

[OldGimletEye]

Well, I certainly wouldn't count on the Republican Party or the Republican Party establishment to do anything remotely sensible.

[Fez]

19 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

The fact that he could and every day since last Friday seems to be getting closer, sometimes by inches, sometimes by feet, is enough to put me in a freefall spiral of anxiety.

I want this to be over so bad.

He hasn't really gotten any closer since last Friday. I think he got a little closer from two weekends ago until last Friday or so, but there hasn't really been any movement since then; even with the Comey news.

Its just there's been a TON of partisan polls put out by GOP firms, and many fewer unbiased ones. Also the media is playing up the horserace as much as they possibly can. The fact that Trump is in Wisconsin and Michigan isn't because they're particularly close, its because it is literally impossible for him to win without at least one blue state and Pennsylvania looks to be out of reach (and New Hampshire isn't enough if he loses Nevada).

Meanwhile, turnout is looking good in most places; nearly every state has broken or is on pace to break their early voting records (Iowa was the lone exception last I saw). And while some of that is just more and more people choosing the convenience of early voting, a lot of them are also new voters. I saw an estimate, I think it was of Florida but it might've been North Carolina, that 26% of the Hispanic early voters had never voted before. None of those voters would've passed any likely voter screen. And Democrats win high turnout elections.

Its possible of course that all the signs are wrong and Trump will win, but right now everything looks like Clinton is well on her way to a popular vote win somewhere between Obama's 2008 and 2012 wins and an electoral vote win roughly on par with 2012 (a little smaller though unless she finds another state beyond North Carolina to flip).

Meanwhile, Monday night, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, President Obama, and Michelle Obama are all going to be at the same rally in Philly. That is not the sign of a campaign that feels the race is so close they need to have everyone in different places trying to boost turnout one last night before the election. Not really empirical data, but sometimes the little things count too.

[James Arryn]

Okay, we all (well almost all) seem to agree that this just sucks, win or lose. Something approaching half the country is at least open to the idea of putting an overt bigot in charge. What I'm asking now is this: what lessons are we going to learn from this? What paths to getting better are viable after this? What course...aside from older people dying off and Latinos increasing in power share...exists that will lessen the power of the bigot block, or reduce their bigotry?

 

[OldGimletEye]

13 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Okay, we all (well almost all) seem to agree that this just sucks, win or lose. Something approaching half the country is at least open to the idea of putting an overt bigot in charge. What I'm asking now is this: what lessons are we going to learn from this? What paths to getting better are viable after this? What course...aside from older people dying off and Latinos increasing in power share...exists that will lessen the power of the bigot block, or reduce their bigotry?

 

Long term things maybe bright. Short term, I think, things maybe bleak indeed. If Trump loses this election, I'm quite certain the Republican Party will double down on the white resentment thing. They are after all too dumb to fail.

The only way things will change is when the Republican Party loses election after election, forcing it to change. But, it will probably have to learn that lesson numerous times. I do not think the Republican Party will change on its own. It will have to be forced to do so.

I guess the only thing that can be done is for people, from the center right to the left,  to continually hound the Republican Party until it changes. And certainly get rid of this narrative that both sides are "equally bad". Will this happen in the near future? I hope so, but I doubt it.

Long term demographics for the Republican Party don't look good, but my opinion is so low of that party, I don't see it making changes anytime soon.

[Kalbear]

36 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Okay, we all (well almost all) seem to agree that this just sucks, win or lose. Something approaching half the country is at least open to the idea of putting an overt bigot in charge. What I'm asking now is this: what lessons are we going to learn from this? What paths to getting better are viable after this? What course...aside from older people dying off and Latinos increasing in power share...exists that will lessen the power of the bigot block, or reduce their bigotry?

The answer is that this isn't the wakeup call. This is the beginning. In a lot of ways Trump winning now might be better for the longer term issues of this country, in that Trump is selfish and greedy but is not advocating for race wars and death to all minorities, and while I think he's racist and terribly vile I don't think he's on a level like Hitler, for instance. So a Trump presidency would be horrible - he would cause a massive drain in US resources, a global recession, a major shrinking of US hegemony around the world, tons of human rights destructions all over the place and massive removal of entitlements - but it would likely not last forever and might allow for a turnaround of sorts. 

But the problem is that this has shown to the entire political world that violation of US political norms are now totally fine. All sorts of norms  were completely obliterated in this campaign, and it simply did not matter in the least as far as voting or even really changing the needle at all. Everyone - and I really do mean that - doubled down on partisanship to the exclusion of basically every other thing. And this isn't to say Clinton is just as bad - simply that in a 'normal' election, Clinton having an open FBI investigation would be pretty alarming as a candidate, as would some of the stuff around the DNC. 

So for both parties I think that you're going to see a lot of gentleman's agreements being blown up. We're already seeing that with the 'no new SC Justices for 4 years' thing. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Now that the parties understand that it doesn't matter if they back Trump, it doesn't matter if they commit to not voting in Garland, it doesn't matter if they don't release taxes, it doesn't matter if they are accused of rape or sexual assault, and yes, it doesn't matter if the FBI has multiple investigations on you - heck, it doesn't matter if a foreign government steals your email! - then what does matter? There's a good argument that there is literally no line that is too far to cross at this point. 

[Boris the Blade]

21 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Okay, we all (well almost all) seem to agree that this just sucks, win or lose. Something approaching half the country is at least open to the idea of putting an overt bigot in charge. What I'm asking now is this: what lessons are we going to learn from this? What paths to getting better are viable after this? What course...aside from older people dying off and Latinos increasing in power share...exists that will lessen the power of the bigot block, or reduce their bigotry?

 

Shame them, make them feel unsafe, make them feel like the scum they are. Not have rational debates with them since there is no being rational with these people. Not allowing them to have any sort of national platform and tear it the fuck down. This civility bullshit with them does not work. That's just my take.

 

23 minutes ago, Fez said:

He hasn't really gotten any closer since last Friday. I think he got a little closer from two weekends ago until last Friday or so, but there hasn't really been any movement since then; even with the Comey news.

Its just there's been a TON of partisan polls put out by GOP firms, and many fewer unbiased ones. Also the media is playing up the horserace as much as they possibly can. The fact that Trump is in Wisconsin and Michigan isn't because they're particularly close, its because it is literally impossible for him to win without at least one blue state and Pennsylvania looks to be out of reach (and New Hampshire isn't enough if he loses Nevada).

Meanwhile, turnout is looking good in most places; nearly every state has broken or is on pace to break their early voting records (Iowa was the lone exception last I saw). And while some of that is just more and more people choosing the convenience of early voting, a lot of them are also new voters. I saw an estimate, I think it was of Florida but it might've been North Carolina, that 26% of the Hispanic early voters had never voted before. None of those voters would've passed any likely voter screen. And Democrats win high turnout elections.

Its possible of course that all the signs are wrong and Trump will win, but right now everything looks like Clinton is well on her way to a popular vote win somewhere between Obama's 2008 and 2012 wins and an electoral vote win roughly on par with 2012 (a little smaller though unless she finds another state beyond North Carolina to flip).

Meanwhile, Monday night, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, President Obama, and Michelle Obama are all going to be at the same rally in Philly. That is not the sign of a campaign that feels the race is so close they need to have everyone in different places trying to boost turnout one last night before the election. Not really empirical data, but sometimes the little things count too.

Pretty much all of this.

[Fragile Bird]

What I don't understand is why, in such a really wild election atmosphere, no one has hacked the GOP. Surely there must be groups trying to do so?

I discussed this with a friend at lunch and we wondered if Russian hackers had created awesome firewalls to defend the Trump and GOP sites to prevent the kind of leaks they've made of Clinton and Democrat emails.

And then there's the idea suggested by someone on Facebook, that the Russians thoroughly hacked Trump and the GOP and are holding blackmail material....

 

[DunderMifflin]

My guess would be that the RNC isn't as cozy with Trump as Hillary is with DNC.

It seems the plan to get Hillary in office goes back a long time where Trump is relevatively new on the scene in terms of a serious candidate.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Nasty Fragile Bird said:

What I don't understand is why, in such a really wild election atmosphere, no one has hacked the GOP. Surely there must be groups trying to do so?

I discussed this with a friend at lunch and we wondered if Russian hackers had created awesome firewalls to defend the Trump and GOP sites to prevent the kind of leaks they've made of Clinton and Democrat emails.

And then there's the idea suggested by someone on Facebook, that the Russians thoroughly hacked Trump and the GOP and are holding blackmail material....

 

One thing is that Trump famously doesn't do email much at all. His companies do, but he doesn't communicate that way whatsoever. it's all face to face with him.

[Boris the Blade]

Obama went off on Trump. 

 

[Fragile Bird]

@Kalbear

Oh I realize that, but surely his campaign team, including his three managers, must use e-mail?

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Nasty Fragile Bird said:

@Kalbear

Oh I realize that, but surely his campaign team, including his three managers, must use e-mail?

Sure, it's possible, but they might be a whole lot more savvy than Podesta. Podesta got hit with a fairly simple phishing hack based on social engineering. Might be that the others have tried and failed. Or they're using something more secure. Or no one's hacked them, because only the Russians have really cared so far.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Obama started with what was arguably the largest economic disaster in this country since the Great Depression. And was left to pick up a situation in the Middle East that he had nothing to do with. What the fuck are you even talking about?

Think more globally. Yes, the Great Recession was bad -- but it has nothing on the disaster Putin inherited and even in the midst of this recession, the US was the wealthiest and most powerful country by a substantial margin.

53 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Trump really isn't overstating his ability to get things done, especially if he controls the House and possibly the Senate. As to the 'no method of measurement which has him winning' - this is entirely bullshit. 538 has him with a one in 3 chance. Other systems have him with a 1 in 6. Those are better odds than the Cubs had winning the world series when they were down 3-1 in games. Don't mistake having a good chance of losing being the same thing as losing.

Obviously, there is always some probability of any semi-plausible future event happening. What I meant was that there is no measurement where the event is more likely than not (i.e. where the probability is more than 50%). Trump is nowhere close to that. In the absolute best case aggregator for him (at FiveThirtyEight), Clinton still has more than a 65% chance of winning. At worst for Trump, Clinton's probability of winning is either 97% of 99% depending on the method. The prediction markets are somewhere in between and have Clinton at 83% or so. Yes, there's a small chance that Trump will win -- but would you bet money on it at even odds?

[Mudguard]

8 minutes ago, Nasty Fragile Bird said:

What I don't understand is why, in such a really wild election atmosphere, no one has hacked the GOP. Surely there must be groups trying to do so?

I discussed this with a friend at lunch and we wondered if Russian hackers had created awesome firewalls to defend the Trump and GOP sites to prevent the kind of leaks they've made of Clinton and Democrat emails.

And then there's the idea suggested by someone on Facebook, that the Russians thoroughly hacked Trump and the GOP and are holding blackmail material....

 

You can just as easily suggest that Clinton's private email server was hacked by the Russians and that they are holding blackmail material over Clinton.  Or that both parties have been hacked by the Russians and that they have blackmail material on both.  Both candidates have a ton of baggage, so I think it's possible.  

I'm still assuming that Clinton is going to win this, so it will be interesting to see how Clinton responds to Russian aggression.  She's been very anti-Russia during this election, so if she maintains that attitude during her presidency, I'd be inclined to believe that her server was never hacked.  If she pursues another Russian reset, fails to respond to Russia and lets the US and rest of the world get bullied around, or suddenly strikes a conciliatory stance with Russia, then maybe the Russian's really did hack her server.

[Squab]

If only Chris Stevens had donated to the Clinton Foundation, everyone could have avoided all this mess with the emails.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Think more globally. Yes, the Great Recession was bad -- but it has nothing on the disaster Putin inherited and even in the midst of this recession, the US was the wealthiest and most powerful country by a substantial margin.

#1 the Great Recession was global, #2 that's not anywhere near what you said. It may have still been among the wealthiest and most powerful countries at the time, but he took office in the midst of the largest economic crisis this country has faced since the 20's. And you are ignoring your Middle East crack.

[all swedes are racist]

That because he made the initial, apple/coconut comparison of Putins Economy vs Obamas Middle East. 

[Mexal]

This story is nuts.

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“This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.

“Your Prayers Have Been Answered,” declared the headline.

For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.

Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small Macedonian town, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.

Over the past year, the central Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US.

The young Macedonians who run these sites don’t care about Donald Trump.