POTUS Election thread

[Beskar]

Personally, I think it is a sign of a greater political movement occurring in multiple countries. So it is more a "sign of the times" rather than some completely out of the blue occurrence. The far-right have been gaining momentum across the world, and it appeals to the same common base as it did back in the 1930s-40s after the Great Depression. These are people affected the worse, and look towards a strongman/desperate solution to the problems, the one who promises them the world, at the expense of the world. It led to the growth of UKIP, National Front, Party for Freedom, Golden Dawn, etc. It led to Brexit, and now the US election. There is a serious possibility that the National Front in power within France is next.

[Montmorency]

if these people vote for Trump for no other reason than feeling short-changed and wanting to kick the "elite" in the nuts, I would put that down under stupidity.

Who else would they vote for? Clinton's entire campaign studiously ignored those whom Trump spoke to as political actors, perhaps thinking they just wouldn't count for much. This is a fundamental political mistake that should haunt her base, even those who would go so far as to want to extirpate all non-Democrats from the country.

[edyzmedieval]

Listening to your voters, making sure you hear their pleas and their grievances and acting on their disappointment and resentment should always be the way forward. No exception. Listen to your voters, listen to their problems and subsequently act on it if you get elected into office.

But not done in this way. Not with this election circus. Not with all of the horrific statements said on TV.

Not like this.

[Pannonian]

Personally, I think it is a sign of a greater political movement occurring in multiple countries. So it is more a "sign of the times" rather than some completely out of the blue occurrence. The far-right have been gaining momentum across the world, and it appeals to the same common base as it did back in the 1930s-40s after the Great Depression. These are people affected the worse, and look towards a strongman/desperate solution to the problems, the one who promises them the world, at the expense of the world. It led to the growth of UKIP, National Front, Party for Freedom, Golden Dawn, etc. It led to Brexit, and now the US election. There is a serious possibility that the National Front in power within France is next.

In the UK the movement has led to greater influence both for the far right, in UKIP, and the far left, in Corbyn. Some people even manage to combine the two.

[Beskar]

In the UK the movement has led to greater influence both for the far right, in UKIP, and the far left, in Corbyn. Some people even manage to combine the two.

I think you are hinting at the SNP there. Almost included them in the list I gave, but it would muddy my point a little too much. Socialists also increased in popularity too post Great Depression.

[Montmorency]

A bad list, but at least it's an easy reference checklist (the 100-day plan).

I'll pick just one item to snark on:

Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are
over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want
to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

Any red tape effect is largely a product of lack of funding and personnel. Assign the FDA more funding and personnel to speed the process. As it is, the FDA does the bare minimum it is legally required to as it lacks time and resources.

[Hooahguy]

Expanding the FDA would be a good idea if Trump also didnt propose a hiring freeze for all federal employees so yeah. But I suppose he wouldnt have much of an issue with pushing through drugs that arent fully tested.

[Xiahou]

I've been reading/listening to a good bit of discussion about this election and one thing that jumped out at me was the case the Obama completely gutted the Democratic party.

He was a personally likable/popular president that kept shoving unpopular policies. He didn't feel much pain from it due to his personal popularity, but his party suffered significant damage. I forget the exact numbers, but over 1000 local, state and federal Democrat office-holders have lost their seats since Obama came into office. He had a majority in both houses of Congress and lost both. The majority of state legislatures and overwhelming majority of state governors are GOP controlled. It was an interesting angle I hadn't really thought much about.

The tragedy for Republicans was that the worst candidate won. The tragedy for Democrats was that they had no one better to run.

[Montmorency]

He was a personally likable/popular president that kept shoving unpopular policies. He didn't feel much pain from it due to his personal popularity, but his party suffered significant damage.

Of course, the Party itself had a large role to play in many of these policies. Despite gaining the POTUS office, he never did have much clout within his own political organization.

[Hooahguy]

I've been reading/listening to a good bit of discussion about this election and one thing that jumped out at me was the case the Obama completely gutted the Democratic party.

He was a personally likable/popular president that kept shoving unpopular policies. He didn't feel much pain from it due to his personal popularity, but his party suffered significant damage. I forget the exact numbers, but over 1000 local, state and federal Democrat office-holders have lost their seats since Obama came into office. He had a majority in both houses of Congress and lost both. The majority of state legislatures and overwhelming majority of state governors are GOP controlled. It was an interesting angle I hadn't really thought much about.

The tragedy for Republicans was that the worst candidate won. The tragedy for Democrats was that they had no one better to run.

Yes, I remember reading that the party basically purged the Blue Dog Democrats from the party, largely under the leadership of DWS. Maybe if they rethink that they could make headway in places like Nebraska or whatever, since you arent going to get a moderate Dem to win in those states. The whole party has to be rethought, last night was a rude awakening. Everyone thought, including me, that the GOP was in deep trouble. We were so wrong.

[Montmorency]

the GOP was in deep trouble

Oh, they are. But navel-gazing and manifest destiny are not a party platform, so it shouldn't have been comfort in the first place.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I've been reading/listening to a good bit of discussion about this election and one thing that jumped out at me was the case the Obama completely gutted the Democratic party.

He was a personally likable/popular president that kept shoving unpopular policies. He didn't feel much pain from it due to his personal popularity, but his party suffered significant damage. I forget the exact numbers, but over 1000 local, state and federal Democrat office-holders have lost their seats since Obama came into office. He had a majority in both houses of Congress and lost both. The majority of state legislatures and overwhelming majority of state governors are GOP controlled. It was an interesting angle I hadn't really thought much about.

The tragedy for Republicans was that the worst candidate won. The tragedy for Democrats was that they had no one better to run.

My main thoughts on this election (on a subject no one has mentioned here) are incoming, but I will reply to this first. The GOP have been very successful at separating the national candidates from the SCOTUS candidates from the state/local candidates in the eyes of their constituents. Although both parties have been shifting state politics towards the polarizing state of the Federal government, the Democrats seem to demand a much more uniform message across the board, perhaps as over compensating for their big tent demographics. I have seen the GOP be much more flexible on this manner. Obama had a clear mandate and he failed to deliver a product that the working class liked, but that in no way means House or Senate or State Democrats had to go burning down with him. Bob Dole didn't bring down the GOP majority in Congress in 1996.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I deliberately held off on posting here, not just because my soul sucking job demands all my time for crappy pay but because I am not strong enough to think beyond the talking points until they stop filling the room.
With a day to think about the demographics of Trump's win and the obliviousness of multiple groups to his rise, I think that there is another angle at play here that needs to be discussed. We can blame the Dems and the Republicans and the media all for failing to see the dire state that the white working class of the rust belt is in and how they are going to respond in the booth. But I think that we all know that Donald made good politics by telling them he will bring their jobs back, but he is making (if he follows through) terrible economic and geopolitical decisions.

Our situation reminds me of Ecclesiastes 9:12 (I am trying my best to read the Bible and see what others see in it). In the past twenty years we have found ourselves caught in a net of globalization and more importantly, automation. These rapid changes in technology are simply too overwhelming for our institutions to fully mitigate the negative effects. Any talk by the Dems or GOP on re-training coal miners or assembly line workers into the next generation of green technology technicians is a joke. These people have no viable path to the same standard of living that their demographic had in the past (and neither do the well educated either). The answer is not to cater to them, since their struggle breeds the kind of sentiment that promotes the kind of unstable, possibly xenophobic strongman leadership that was just elected. in my opinion, the political elites need better structures for deciding viable candidates that are able to both listen to the needs of the public without being wholly subservient to them and that starts with reforming the primary systems that the parties use.

What the replacement is, I do not know. Back room deals of the 1800s clearly proved unable to meet the basic demands of the public who grew more progressive for every gilded age candidate that attempted to stomp on labor. But the primary system clearly failed not just in one way but two. The GOP structured their system with too much freedom and power for the public in the hopes of setting up a snowball effect for their establishment candidate and preventing drawn out fights (ex. Romney v Santorum). This allowed a populist movement to capitalize on the state of fragmented establishment candidates. Trump was winning entire states delegates that voted 60% or more against him! On the other hand, the Dems showed just how terrible it is when you limit the voice of the constituents too much. Hillary was never what the people wanted, but it was what the elites had agreed to in their internal power struggles. They stacked the deck in her favor and as the hacked emails show, they actively rigged the system to suppress the candidate who was speaking to the people's demands. The DNC might as well have said forget the primaries, we will just let you know when to vote for her.

There is something wrong with the political calculus our politician's make when making choices and I do not think it is because of anything inherently wrong with them as individuals or groups. The current decision making structures seem to promote oddly constructed moves that ultimately leaves an angrier and more polarized society. This in my opinion is a much bigger threat than Hillary simply writing off white working class voters. What we saw was an across the board failure among all establishments left and right to break this type of thinking, which was the only way that an individual like Trump could ever be granted the keys to the oval office.

EDIT: Fuck, I am a terrible writer. Why do I repeat the same adjectives a million times.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I've been reading/listening to a good bit of discussion about this election and one thing that jumped out at me was the case the Obama completely gutted the Democratic party.

He was a personally likable/popular president that kept shoving unpopular policies. He didn't feel much pain from it due to his personal popularity, but his party suffered significant damage. I forget the exact numbers, but over 1000 local, state and federal Democrat office-holders have lost their seats since Obama came into office. He had a majority in both houses of Congress and lost both. The majority of state legislatures and overwhelming majority of state governors are GOP controlled. It was an interesting angle I hadn't really thought much about.

The tragedy for Republicans was that the worst candidate won. The tragedy for Democrats was that they had no one better to run.

I have heard folks comment that the Dems have no "bench" to go to with Clinton and Obama functionally at the end of their office-holding careers. No "rising stars" who are of an age and pedigree to take a shot at national office (at least not yet)

So we have a GOP with a split personality and the duty to govern and a Dem party with a power vacuum. Oddly enough, that's an exact recipe for a powerful presidency. I hope he uses the opportunity well.

[Gilrandir]

So we have a GOP with a split personality and the duty to govern and a Dem party with a power vacuum. Oddly enough, that's an exact recipe for a powerful presidency. I hope he uses the opportunity well.

There are only two things I like about Trump:
1. His first lady.
2. His hairdo.
Still can't figure out which I like more.

[Pannonian]

I think you are hinting at the SNP there. Almost included them in the list I gave, but it would muddy my point a little too much. Socialists also increased in popularity too post Great Depression.

I was thinking of those strange people who support Corbyn whilst spouting UKIP arguments, and are ardent supporters of both Corbyn (far left) and Trump (far right).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I was thinking of those strange people who support Corbyn whilst spouting UKIP arguments, and are ardent supporters of both Corbyn (far left) and Trump (far right).

While Trump will prove himself to be far less "hard right" than his campaign rhetoric might indicate (it helped him close that deal Wednesday morning, so now it is on to the next), I should note that the USA had a notable slice of the electorate whose first and second preferences were Trump or Sanders -- anybody but the "in crowd" in other words.

[Pannonian]

While Trump will prove himself to be far less "hard right" than his campaign rhetoric might indicate (it helped him close that deal Wednesday morning, so now it is on to the next), I should note that the USA had a notable slice of the electorate whose first and second preferences were Trump or Sanders -- anybody but the "in crowd" in other words.

Aye, but is Sanders a bona fides hate everything to do with Anglo-America Communist though? I'm thinking of people who support both "Deport the foreigners" UKIP and "Remove all immigration restrictions" Corbyn, with Trump of the former material.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Aye, but is Sanders a bona fides hate everything to do with Anglo-America Communist though? I'm thinking of people who support both "Deport the foreigners" UKIP and "Remove all immigration restrictions" Corbyn, with Trump of the former material.

Sanders was amnesty and reduce immigration restrictions...and then pay for their college.