2016 US Election: Day Zero

[Todd Howard]

@Buddha

Absolutely beastly post, and couldn't agree with you more.

Damn.

[Awson]

@Awson Upset =/= sick. End of the story, I think? It's not the end of the world and certainly not the end of the USA: as I have pointed out, path dependency, bureaucratic workloads and the US legal system will prevent him from doing anything major in his first time (something stupid like building a wall) and I seriously doubt he will get elected a second term.

And if he does, that's on the American people.

@Buddha

Sick is two notches above upset. And they're even more close if the user likes hyperbole.

Yeah, most people know he's very likely not going to blow up the world. People are afraid of all the things they know he can do (which is a lot). Especially with his party in the majority of congress. But I guess some people won't allow others to express concern before something terrible actually happens.

[Dion]

@Awson and again, it is very unlikely that he will do anything of the sorts, because like most politicians, he wants a second term. If you want to be fearful, be fearful of him gaining so much traction that they are going to give him a second term. Then I would be afraid.

But maybe you can be the first to explain to me precisely 'what he can do'? Will he start catapulting Mexicans back across the border?

[Awson]

I'm not going to go deep on the intricacies of being the American President.

I just wanted to tell you that you're an asshole for tearing into someone for feeling something completely reasonable.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's unreasonable.

[Vilageidiotx]

I fundamentally believe that "protest voting" is fucking moronic. Screwing over your entire country by voting for someone/something you know is goddamn terrible and an inferior choice just to stick your finger up at the establishment is stupid in the extreme. The catharsis gained by lashing out and expressing your dissatisfaction with the establishment with this sort of protest vote is vastly outweighed by the sheer damage that is usually caused by said vote. This is exactly what I am seeing in my own country, with Brexit.

Anyone who protest-voted in this way, who voted for Trump without believing his policies were best, has condemned themselves and their neighbours to four years of absolute travesty for the sake of essentially throwing a childish tantrum. The working class voting Trump just to assert that they are an important demographic, just to say "PAY ATTENTION TO ME LAH-DEE-DAH", is, again, just stupid, especially as they one of the demographics who have a high chance of suffering under his presidency. If you're dissatisfied with the Democrats, there are better ways to go about fixing what they're doing wrong than voting for someone you know is probably going to be worse.

So, the majority of Americans either: genuinely think Trump is a legitimate candidate and they like his policies; or they voted for him in protest, the flaws of which I have highlighted above. Neither of those is exactly endearing me to Trump voters, and, by extension, to the American populace who majority-voted him in.

@Halo

I don't think it was a protest vote in the sense you are thinking. I do not think that people voted in enough numbers to "stick it to the man" just for the sake of being spiteful. Like, I don't think the working class was throwing a tantrum. That's not the best way to view it and, if that becomes the narrative on the left, this is going to keep happening.

Cracked (of all fucking websites) did a good article about what was happening here.

The electoral map tells the tale. Her firewall cracked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. This fits neatly with a map of the manufacturing "rust belt"



This is a part of American that, for the most part, fell and fell very hard. In its prime Detroit was a model city. Now it's literally a burnt out husk we all pretty much make fun of. Flint's water is so fucking poisoned it's a goddamn emergency. St Louis was the tenth largest city in the entire fucking world in 1900, now it's a graveyard that's hemorrhaging people. The rural part of these states aren't great either. Hundreds of little farm towns have devolved into unemployment traps and meth dens, where people who can move to a city have packed up and left, leaving behind those who are more or less stuck. That's the American midwest, the part of the United States that gave the election to Trump. For most of them, most policy decisions are pretty much academic, things they can talk about but can't necessarily touch. They are interesting because they have a pretty even spread of conservatives and liberals, but also because that sort of thing isn't what moves them. It's doubtful they switched because of racism, because these areas went for Obama pretty hard. It can't be because they are too right wing, because Sanders did pretty well there too.

I think it goes like this: Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and miffed a lot of old union guys. Obama came in promising change and he swept those states because he was telling an anti-elite, anti-wealth story. Hillary Clinton comes up, a wall street corporatist selling the TPP, and talking about green jobs while brushing off concern about declining industries, and she faces off against Sanders who, though he is a Jewish Atheist Socialist, manages to do very well in these places because he had a message of holding the elites to task, opposing the TPP, and bringing jobs back. Sanders message doesn't carry enough of the country though, so Hillary becomes the nominee and takes her pitch against Trump, who though he's a questionable figure, he opposes TPP, he promises to stave off immigration, and he promises this will bring back jobs. Hillary does pretty much exactly what she expects to do everywhere else in the country, but the rust belt collapses for her and she loses.

That's it. They voted for the policies they think will directly affect their lives. I've seen culture wars narratives and racism narratives bandied about for explaining this election, but the map just doesn't spell that out for me. The map tells me that the midwest voted against globalism and wall street, not to be spiteful, but because they think it'll make a difference in their lives. I disagree, but I absolutely see where they are coming from, and I think the worst thing the left can do now is demonize them.

Have yet to see anyone actually look at his policies and point out errors.

@Buddha

Didn't I, like, literally poke at them a couple of days ago? I mean, I have seen people doing it. I've done it myself.

[Dinh AaronMk]

<Snipped quote by mdk>

I agree completely with this. Working class are still the most important voting block, and they let the world know last night. The states she lost were exactly the old industrial midwest, and really, they earned that loss by being so flippant about the problems there. Now I don't think Trump's plans will help at all, I think they'll hurt actually, and I'm a bit anxious about my own future, but I totally understand why the electorate chose a candidate who responded to their problems with a bizarre plan over a candidate who was condescending about the idea that they even had problems at all.

@Vilageidiotx

To add to this, my Hillary supporting friends on Facebook have totally miscalculated the existence of the working class poor, or the unemployed/under employed working class. So I don't think anyone in the Hillary camp knows what the fuck they were doing. Some of them are even trying to deny the working class was even a thing, and instead go on about bigoted, misogynistic, racist politics.

Like god damn, your horse didn't have a philosophical purpose beyond not being the other guy. At least Trump had "make America great again" and memes.

[Dion]

@Awson what is reasonable to one is irrational to another. I find it to be quite hysterical to suddenly consider emigrating simply because someone was elected president, which is a common joke/serious inquiry? into emigration I've been hearing.

I think it's more a matter of blindness than anything else. The signs have been there for a long time, before Trump even announced he was running for president. It's the old cliché of 'everyone was sheeples' but it's true. There's a lot of areas that had fallen on hard times and were susceptible to populism. Rather than help these areas, they were just more or less looked down on or ignored. The anti-Obama sentiment was already there when he was elected and was present throughout a long time of his presidency. Naturally, Trump shouted 'screw Obama' and those people would join him. Similarly, the areas that fell on hard time were largely ignored by many politicians and it was very easy to bring these people into the fold.

Trumps victory was entirely avoidable if some of these issues had been resolved, or if the context had changed. At least, I think so. We can't be sure, I think.

Putting supporters of Trump away as racists also isn't entirely something I would consider fair, since calling someone a racist is quite a serious allegation imho. Which is more or less what has happened in this thread and in the public outcry afterwards.

I understand being upset. I don't upset being hysterical.

[Dion]

@Vilageidiotx You did poke at the policies, but you just showed that some of them were misconstrued. Fair criticism, but nothing major that would show to me how Trump is going to fail as a politician/president. Nor proof of him being 'a racist, sexist, misogynistic piece of shit' or something similar, which is what some of the allegations even in this thread have been.

I mean, you agreed that some of them were somewhat reasonable, and that others were just political tactics to sway people to vote for him. I guess it worked, no?

[Dinh AaronMk]

<Snipped quote by Halo>

I don't think it was a protest vote in the sense you are thinking. I do not think that people voted in enough numbers to "stick it to the man" just for the sake of being spiteful. Like, I don't think the working class was throwing a tantrum. That's not the best way to view it and, if that becomes the narrative on the left, this is going to keep happening.

Cracked (of all fucking websites) did a good article about what was happening here.

The electoral map tells the tale. Her firewall cracked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. This fits neatly with a map of the manufacturing "rust belt"



This is a part of American that, for the most part, fell and fell very hard. In its prime Detroit was a model city. Now it's literally a burnt out husk we all pretty much make fun of. Flint's water is so fucking poisoned it's a goddamn emergency. St Louis was the tenth largest city in the entire fucking world in 1900, now it's a graveyard that's hemorrhaging people. The rural part of these states aren't great either. Hundreds of little farm towns have devolved into unemployment traps and meth dens, where people who can move to a city have packed up and left, leaving behind those who are more or less stuck. That's the American midwest, the part of the United States that gave the election to Trump. For most of them, most policy decisions are pretty much academic, things they can talk about but can't necessarily touch. They are interesting because they have a pretty even spread of conservatives and liberals, but also because that sort of thing isn't what moves them. It's doubtful they switched because of racism, because these areas went for Obama pretty hard. It can't be because they are too right wing, because Sanders did pretty well there too.

I think it goes like this: Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and miffed a lot of old union guys. Obama came in promising change and he swept those states because he was telling an anti-elite, anti-wealth story. Hillary Clinton comes up, a wall street corporatist selling the TPP, and talking about green jobs while brushing off concern about declining industries, and she faces off against Sanders who, though he is a Jewish Atheist Socialist, manages to do very well in these places because he had a message of holding the elites to task, opposing the TPP, and bringing jobs back. Sanders message doesn't carry enough of the country though, so Hillary becomes the nominee and takes her pitch against Trump, who though he's a questionable figure, he opposes TPP, he promises to stave off immigration, and he promises this will bring back jobs. Hillary does pretty much exactly what she expects to do everywhere else in the country, but the rust belt collapses for her and she loses.

That's it. They voted for the policies they think will directly affect their lives. I've seen culture wars narratives and racism narratives bandied about for explaining this election, but the map just doesn't spell that out for me. The map tells me that the midwest voted against globalism and wall street, not to be spiteful, but because they think it'll make a difference in their lives. I disagree, but I absolutely see where they are coming from, and I think the worst thing the left can do now is demonize them.

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

Didn't I, like, literally poke at them a couple of days ago? I mean, I have seen people doing it. I've done it myself.

@Vilageidiotx

I have to repasta this to Facebook, to get under the skin of the aforementioned Hillary people.

[Awson]

Man, we weren't even talking about emigration or prison. I've said my piece.

Misread. You didn't say that either.

[Vec]

I have one thing to add to this discussion

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

/sarcasm

[Halo]

- snip -

@Buddha

Okay, this is gonna be my last response to you, and I'm going to go through everything in excruciating detail because you clearly still either haven't read or haven't understood the majority of what I've said, whether because I am explaining it badly or whatever. If you still don't see my point after this, then I suppose we just don't see eye-to-eye, but I don't see how the view I am trying to communicate is in any way contentious.

You're wrong. Simply put, your opinion is stupid because it infers that people have a right to be 'sick' (what the fuck, who would actually be sick for this, lol) just because they dislike this man. That they have a right to be sick because he represents their country.

@Buddha

"To be sick to your stomach" is a common phrase, meaning "feeling very upset, worried, or angry." Quite obviously, actively throwing up would be somewhat excessive. But considering you think anybody being even upset about this apparently throws the entirety of democracy out the window, this is irrelevant anyway.

Do you know what that is called? Representative democracy. This is how it works. Trump now represents them, because people voted for him. The majority voted for him, in fact, and so he is now the president and therefore the representation of the American people. And yes I do find it entitled that you're asking for people to not say that it's hysterical to be upset about it, because this is the democratic process. You knew this before you voted, the whole process of voting showed a persons participation in the democratic process and I find it very very hard to believe that someone has a right to be sick (disappointed maybe, but should be accepting never the less) just because their preferred candidate didn't win. If it had been the other way around, Trump supporters would've been upset too. But being sick? That's fucking irrational.

@Buddha

I really don't understand your point here - you seem to be implying that it is anti-democratic to feel strongly against the result of any democratic vote. This is flat-out not the case. To accept that Trump received a higher numerical count of votes, as per the democratic voting system of the US, and that because of this Trump is the president of the US... to accept that absolutely does not mean that a person cannot also absolutely fucking hate him, his ideas, and the fact that this means Trump now represents said person.

I'll utilise a different example from my own country - Brexit. I voted to Remain in the EU during the referendum. The majority of voters did not, and voted to Leave. I accept that the verdict of the referendum was to leave the EU. And that fact makes me very angry and upset and disappointed in my fellow countrymen, and about the future and wellfare of my country. This is not anti-democratic of me. I accept the democratic process. I just intensely dislike the decision, and what it implies about me and my country.

My point originally was to say that people absolutely have a right to feel like this about Trump's presidency, too. I'm paraphrasing here, but earlier in the thread, someone said they felt sick that Donald Trump had won, as in, they were extremely upset by the election results. Another person, in response, said that they should calm down, that it wasn't the end of the world, and that Trump wasn't going to cause an apocalypse. This directly inspired my first post, and the opinion I am trying to convey: that it isn't right to dismiss someone who is sickened by this election result as just having succumbed to blind sensationalist hysteria about how Trump is going to destroy the world. That's shooting down a straw man; the real reason people are sickened by this result is because Trump is, provably, a vile human being (unless, of course, you disagree that racist comments, shady business practice, serial sexual abuse and confessing to watching underage girls undress, among other things, makes you pretty vile, which most people do not disagree with.) And people are deeply unnerved, uncomfortable, and disturbed in the extreme by having such a man be the leader of their country, and acting as their democratic representative. Again, this is not unreasonable or undemocratic, as outlined above, and I struggle to see how this is "entitled", either.

Put it this way, to make the point extremely blatant: if I resurrected Hitler, and he became the leader of your country, how would you feel? You'd dislike this fact intensely, correct? You'd have voted against him, but democracy means he won his seat. This does not mean you have to support Hitler, and that you cannot hate the fact that Hitler is now the leader of your country. This is not to compare Trump and Hitler in terms of policy or whatever, I just chose a figure from history I could be pretty sure you'd strongly dislike acting as your leader (put Stalin or Genghis Khan or Pol Pot, or Maggie Thatcher for the Scottish, or whatever equivalent you like in there, instead, it doesn't matter.)

I also get the idea that you really really dislike Trump much more than you dislike Clinton or any other random candidate, as you called him a large variety of words. The fact that you put his campaign away as a shitshow shows that much to me.

@Buddha

I do intensely dislike Trump. More than words can express, in fact. He disgusts me. But, then again, so does Clinton. Again, my point is not really related to this. The only reason it was Trump I focused on is because he's the candidate who won and, thus, is the one that people are having these conversations about.

And yes you are being fucking hysterical, because path dependency, legal obligations for Trump and limitations on his power are put in place especially in the United States of America where states have a large amount of autonomy in and of their own. You act as if he's about to declare the empire of Trumpia, where as he's not even in fucking office yet. There are so many policy-making obstacles to overcome for him that thinking anything other than 'it'll be okay' is stupid.

@Buddha

Right! Lovely, yes. See, this is why I'm rather sure you didn't actually read anything I said properly. My entire point is that:

People who feel sick (angry, upset, whatever) over the election result do not feel so because they think Trump is going to cause an apocalypse! It is not because they think things won't be okay, that WWIII is coming, that he is going to turn the US into the empire of Trumpia. My point, from the very beginning, has been to say that the contents of your above paragraph is just shooting a straw man.

My point is that people feel sick because Trump is a vile human being that they do not want as their representative. People feel ill that their society, their culture, is one that elected a sexist, racist, negative-but-accurate-adjective pig. The point of a democratic representative is to, well, represent you, and people feel horrified that the man who will be making decisions in their name is so awful. They know it isn't some apocalyptic event; that isn't why they hate this so much.

Again, imagine how you would feel should your fellow countrymen vote in Hitler (or Stalin or Pol Pot or whatever.) Imagine how you would feel when Hitler met with the leaders of other countries to represent you. It would feel pretty disgusting, wouldn't it? So, perhaps you can understand my point now. Sure, even if Hitler was voted in as your country's leader, there are limits in place so that he could not do horrible things - but that isn't the point. The point is, he's an awful vile person, and you do not want him representing you and your country.

I also think it is very ironic you say something about 'not declaring who you supported' but simultaneously assuming what I was trying to imply. I don't know who you supported, it obviously wasn't Trump, you're visibly upset with the outcome (and as you say, sick with it?) and I find that stupid because this is the outcome of a democratic process we all agreed upon.

I think nobody has a right to be sick. I think everyone has a right and obligation to suck it up and vote more wisely in the next election. But yes, Trump will represent them, and despite what you seem to believe, representative democracy ensured that as a majority wished for Trump to represent them. Therefore, mob law is rule. No need to be upset, only to accept what has happened and use it as a lesson in the future, no?

@Buddha

Sorry, but, again, I very much struggle to understand this view you have that people are not allowed to be upset over this without calling Trump's right to presidency into question. Just because you accept that he is now the president and that, whether you like it or not, he will be representing you, does not mean you have to like this fact in any way. You can actively despise this fact, actually, and are completely within your rights to. Yes, everyone is going to have to suck it up and deal with it, because you can't overthrow the majority vote. But how on earth does that mean you have to blithely accept it and shrug your shoulders? People have a right to hate what has happened, to be worried about it, to express that they still disagree with the majority. Indeed, I think it's an extremely positive thing for democracy for people to express when they are unhappy with their representatives. Your version of democracy seems to rely on people having no mind of their own as soon as the majority vote is in.

Furthermore your insinuation that the rest of the world now has to see Trump as the pinnacle of American society is laughable at best. Come on. Be more creative. I never saw Obama as the pinnacle of American society, so I will never see Trump as pinnacle of American society. Presidents are just people. If you think otherwise you're dehumanizing the most human process in the world, namely governance.

@Buddha

Well, unfortunately, that is sort of what the point of electing a representative is? Perhaps "pinnacle of society" was poor phrasing, but I can't help feeling you're being intentionally obtuse here. Obviously, the point of an elected representative is essentially "the views of this person are the views of our country." In other words, by electing Trump, America has declared that Trump is the person who is most representative of them and their society.

Representative. Not just a representative, as a person. His views and personality are now representative of the US' views and personality, so to speak, because the majority of Americans voted him in and thus declared that his thinking is in line with their own. If the majority of the people say "I agree with that guy", then of course the views of "that guy" are the primary way the rest of the world sees the society/people he is from. This is literally the point of an elected representative.

This was what I was getting at when I said he is now the "pinnacle of American society". Poor phrasing, but whatever, it's clarified now.

And, of course, I think it's quite reasonable for, say, a sexual abuse survivor to be sickened by the fact that Donald Trump, a self-confessed serial sexual abuser, to be their representative on the world stage, and the man the rest of the world sees as representative of the survivor's society and, actually, of the survivor themselves as an individual in that society.

And to be honest your last sentence is what bothers me most. It's not anybody's fault that Trump and Clinton were the only two choices other than that of the American people. If you want to be angry be angry at the American people as a collective for being such a shitty people that they allowed these people to get to to the top. It's not this 'vile mans' fault that they gave him the chance to become president. He simply took it.

You know that meme about 'how did we allow these 2 clowns to become candidates' said the country mourning the death of a gorilla 6 months after it's death? It's fucking true. The anger is misplaced if it is directed at Trump. Rather people should invest more time into knowing a candidate, but also in knowing the political process in the USA. It's fucking mind boggling that people still believe Clinton is the 'lesser evil' for example.

@Buddha

I can be angry at Trump for being a shitty human being, which I am. And I am pissed at the American populace for electing him, and for having their only viable candidates be two of the worst fucking candidates I've ever seen. The whole thing is a disgrace.

But again, if you'd actually read anything I've said, you'd realise none of that is at all relevant to my original point.... which was all to do with how people have a right to be sickened by Trump being their representative, and that dismissing those people as being hysterical apocalypse-callers is shooting down a straw man. Indeed, I actually very clearly stated this in my last post: "I'm less pissed off that Trump won, and more pissed off at those people who agree that Trump is abhorrent, and yet are also saying that anyone who is seriously, deeply concerned about that fact is "hysterical"."

With that, I'm done. If there's any confusion left, I rather give up on this discussion and will agree to disagree with you without any need for further discussion.

[Dion]

@Halo I think we both have better things to do. I did not read the initial exchange that related to someone feeling sick and being told to calm down. Your answer explained some things and I reacted too quickly, but I still disagree on some things.

I think that, even if your response is not that of hystericality, some of the responses I have seen (online primarily) are rather hysterical. I don't know if they are exaggerating their feelings due to being online, or if they are just jesting, or if they genuinely think Trump is going to line up Mexicans and execute them, but I feel like a lot of people are overestimating just what Trump can and can't do in 1 term. Which is next to nothing meaningful.

Another thing I have problems with is that you think that a representative represents people in their entirety rather than politically. I'm quite sure that the average Trump supporter does not feel represented if it were, say, in terms of sexual abuse (whether this happened or not doesn't really matter. I don't find this audio clip of him saying stuff about grabbing women to be too vulgar, and definitely not as bad as some other candidates have had flying around, but that doesn't matter) because they are not sexual abusers. Most likely.

They are merely political representatives. Him being chosen representative does not make every supporter a sexual abuser, racist or misogynist. And I am pretty sure that he does not proclaim to be a misogynist either, because being a woman-hater is a quick way to lose an election. So, in that regard, I do not find that to be the representative part. I find the representative part to be, say, his desire to tighten border control. And I can understand that sentiment among the Americans even if I find it to be a strange solution.

I find democracy a questionable concept on it's own to be honest so you are probably right in saying that my idea is not how most people want it to be. But, sadly, the concept of being angry/sad/upset after the fact does not appeal to me (which is the whole reason we're having this discussion) because it changes nothing for the next four year - which is why I said people should treat this as a lesson and vote more carefully.

And no, I don't think I'd feel too disgusted by Hitler meeting other people in my name. If he was a democratically elected official (in a country that has such a system) that'd just be the way it is. Maybe that's just me, being Dutch, but we are represented by some guy going to the most important meeting in the world hosted in the Hague, on his bloody bicycle. My perception of representation is probably very different from other people. It's just politics to me, he doesn't represent me personally, he represents my countries majority and even then, only their political wishes, not their personal thoughts. If I vote for Trump, I could still disagree with him on the basis that I don't think a wall should be built (for example) and for that reason I find the notion that, again, I see commonly on the internet, that his supporters are racist .. rather unfounded. Some have been racist but the same could be said about any other candidate.

Representation is nothing more than a political tool to ensure we don't have a full population in 1 room trying to get a word in. Nothing more, nothing less. Not to me anyway.

Hitler was voted in democratically before he democratically abolished the democratic system, by the way. Democracy is very funny like that. Of course, before he did any of the vile things he had done, he was a very charismatic and generally pretty popular dude. Some jews liked him too despite being used as a scapegoat. Most people only tend to get to the point where they deserve to be feared once they have received absolute confirmation that they will not and can not be replaced. Just some background to that particular point that I found interesting.

Either way, I thought you meant sick as in a much more exaggerated manner than you actually did. My bad. Thank you for discussing with me regardless. Seeing the other side is good, sometimes, even if I don't agree 100%.

[Halo]

@Vilageidiotx - that was extremely informative. Thank you.

I want to clarify that I don't think it's as simple as people consciously thinking "fuck you guys". The vote isn't out of spite, but it is very much about feeling under-represented and dissatisfied, for reasons you've outlined significantly better than I could. On a subconscious level, people were very much swayed by a desire to disrupt the status quo, regardless of whether the alternative is likely to be worse. People will, after being downtrodden enough, take a really slim hope of improvement with a high chance of things going worse, rather than stick with the guarantee of the same stagnant status quo.

Perhaps the reason I see it this way is because of the narratives in the UK right now - both Scottish independence and Brexit were, in my view, thoroughly driven by these feelings, as was the rise of fiercely right-wing parties throughout Europe in recent years. It's a desire for change, for a shift in the stagnancy of politics for people who feel consistently under-represented, like a rubber band that's been stretched for too long finally snapping in the opposite direction. The problem is just that, because the dissatisfaction and frustration is all dealt with under the surface, subconsciously, that the influence of the rubber band snapping is, too, somewhat subconscious. It sways people towards eccentric, "breath of fresh air" political figures like Trump, or like Nigel Farage in the UK - they become compelling simply because they're different, even if "different" doesn't mean "better." And that attracts votes, it sways opinion every so subtly, but those subtle changes in the way you perceive each word they say propagate through to huge swings in actual votes on the day.

This is what I am saying is "stupid" and like a tantrum. I was being harsh; I completely understand why people are dissatisfied and why they'd be willing to take a chance on anything that feels different from the same old bullshit, anything other than the same old two parties who don't care. It's just that voting for something different just because it's different, even out of desperation, is really, really, really dumb, precisely because "different" =/= "good".

I think this factor is what swayed people towards Trump. After all, between Trump and Hillary, neither is telling an anti-elite story; they're both equally deplorable to the working class. Trump promises to bring back jobs, but anyone who actually believes that he has any real such plans or that he cares about the working class falls into the category of "a fucking moron" as opposed to what I was calling "a protest voter." And Trump's as "wall street"/financial elite as Clinton.

So I think the narrative you outlined was correct - but what caused it to go that way was what I've outlined above. In the end, rational people from that area had little reason to truly believe either Clinton or Trump was going to do anything for them; the thing that made them lean towards Trump is just the fact that he was different, he was from outside the establishment, and people were attracted to that "breath of fresh air" as opposed to another stagnant, lifetime politician-type, even if the fresh air had as much an unmistakable tinge of filthy fuckin' lies as the stagnant pool swarming with flies.

[Vilageidiotx]

@Vilageidiotx Fair criticism, but nothing major that would show to me how Trump is going to fail as a politician/president.

@Buddha

For a lot of why people are so uncertain about Trump, you have to remember who exactly he has been to Americans until now. There are people comparing this to if Kanye West became president because, to us, it sort of looks like that type of thing.

You get this billionaire playboy who becomes famous in the seventies as a sort of walking rich-guy stereotype, like we needed him around as a metric to measure new-money in the same way you might imagine an attractive celebrity setting your idea of what a "10: is. That's the schtick he plays, and he plays it until he's more celebrity than businessman. It's not like if Warren Buffet, or even a Koch brother, ran for president, because those are traditional dignified rich guys. They make predictive statements on money markets. Trump lives in a golden penthouse and writes books about how rich he is. When I was little, that is who Trump was, the guy who shows up on morning talk shows just to sit there and, like, be rich.

Then he gets a reality show to milk off of this. The first season of the Apprentice is actually the only time I ever watched an entire season of a reality show beginning to end. It's like a carnival, he comes down an escalator and tells some yuppies to do something like sell lemonade in Manhattan, they act silly and backstabby about selling the fucking lemonade, and at the end he brow-beats them and fires one of them. Later he does the same schtick with third rate celebrities. I dunno, I didn't see that one, I just know it had Gary Busey in it, who for context is an actor who is famous for having got in a motorcycle accident that gave him serious brain damage.

That's about the time he tried to put his name on a bunch of random shit and it all failed. All the Trump Steak and Trump Water came from this time.

Then he sort of disappeared. I guess he got married, or maybe he was just so boring I didn't notice him? Until, shit, about 2010 he randomly hits the news in this big name-calling spat with Rosie O'Donnel. That was it. They just insulted each other back and forth for a month. It was dumb and we all watched it because watching celebrities be dumb is something we do.

Then when that dies down he grabs onto the Birther thing, and that's what I think is the birth of whatever he is doing now. He spearheaded the movement declaring Obama a secret Kenyan, then he ran in the primaries in 2012, failed, and we sorta thought that was that.

Everything that has went on since, whether it is his policies, or his weird debate performances, or his comments about women, have to be taken in the context of this being a guy who we all associated with yelling at Rosie O'Donnel on tabloid tv just five years ago.

To add to this, though I don't think this is as well known, there are only four prior presidents to have never held elected office: Zachary Taylor, a general and hero of the Mexican-American war, who was elected, promptly turned against the exact people who elected him, and died in office; Ulysses Grant, the general who more or less won the Civil War, and who's Presidency is considered one of the most corrupt in American history; Herbert Hoover, a business man who served as secretary of commerce, and who's presidency is basically defined by the beginning of the Great Depression and his failure to act; and finally Eisenhower, the commander of the allied forces in WW2, who's presidency was actually pretty good, and he's liked by both parties even today. Trump, by being a real estate mogul turned reality tv star, is safely the least qualified president in American history. Considering he makes his own party nervous (the elected parts at least), and the democrats are guaranteed to despise every breath he takes (albeit they don't have any ways to express now), he's got a helluva time ahead of him.

This is to say that he is an inexperienced president with unusually high unfavorability going into his presidency (both candidates were historically unfavorable) and a congress that isn't comfortable with him, and whom he himself has plenty of scores to settle among, and he has to do something to dispel the massive cloud of doubt hanging over his presidency in two years before congress can be turned blue. Because in 2018 we get to vote again, on some senators, and all of our congress.

So we could talk about the policies of course, but this is an uphill battle for him. It's going to be a very weird four years.

[Dion]

@Vilageidiotx Very interesting but I don't think that changes anything about his plans.

Now obviously I am not going to pretend that he wrote his own policies because he didn't, and they don't correspond with what he has said but the policies are decent with some minor things in them that you pointed out (for instance the vacuum created in government work if he does that plan thing.)

Now, I don't think he'll be a good president. Not for USA anyway. But I firmly believe that even a moron can sometimes say sensible things. So perhaps some good will come out of this (I doubt it but for me it's already a win because I won't have to sit in a trench around winter to fight Russians).

I like how he came to where he is. It shows that he isn't stupid and knows what he is doing. Regardless of how you look at it you have to agree that he is very good at playing the game and very good at seeing the buttons in front of them, and seeing when he should hit what button, and I can sorta admire that, even if it makes him just as bad as any other random candidate. I said it when he first ran for president and I looked into his books a bit - he's very smart, and I'm pretty sure he realizes he's not very talented in any other area other than 'how to make myself look important and earn money while doing it'.

[mdk]

I'm not responding to anybody in particular, but this certainly seems like it needs to be said.

This was a brutally negative campaign. That doesn't go away overnight. People who are upset have a right to be upset.

What I hope people realize is, everything we think we know about Donald is a product of campaigning, both the positive (he's gonna solve everything! Yay!) and the negative (He's literally hitler! Boo!). The feelings we all have right now are natural. It might be a mistake to think of those feelings as permanent or definitive -- this man has never once in his life held public office or undertaken public service of any kind.

There is literally no point in arguing over what this means. Nobody knows what this means. Trump voters bet on a flush draw (a risky hand, for non-poker-people) and the flop gave them two more cards. It's not over yet and the rest of the cards are invisible, so by all means, place your bets -- but we don't yet whether this gamble will pay off. It might. It might not. I sure hope it does.

Last thing, then I'll be done -- the whole world is on the same side here. It doesn't feel that way in November and I get it, this time it was even worse. We've had about 20 unbroken years of criminalized presidential politics (from Clinton the Rapist to Bush the War Criminal to Obama the Traitor to Clinton the Corrupt to Trump the Also Rapist). Does it feel like that's helping, to anybody? Or is that maybe contributing to the partisanship so strong that we could be stuck with Trump-Clinton in the first place? Maybe -- and this is easy to say from right of center, I know -- but maybe we should let the mean bad guy fire some people we didn't have the guts to fire, and then try to start from a better place in two years? Two years, by the way, not four -- don't forget to vote in your congressional primaries next year.

[Obscene Symphony]

Good fucking luck my friends.

[andromedene]

[aza]