Electoral College Elects Donald Trump As President (nbcnews.com) 1069
mi writes: The drama is over, Donald J. Trump passed the 270 electoral votes necessary to become President. A few electors dissented, resulting in their prompt dismissal and replacement per their state's laws. Ironically, more dissenters turned on Clinton than on Trump... The sky may not be falling yet, but the Earth is already in peril.
The drama is over, (Score:5, Insightful)
I fear the drama is just beginning.
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The only thing Trump supporters have won is to drag 2016 out to the foreseeable future. There will be no peace while that administration holds office.
Drilled in to your brain and eyeballs until you can't stand it.
2016 is the election year that will never end.
Re:The drama is over, (Score:5, Interesting)
Definitely, this. If he doesn't distance himself completely from his business interests or from Putin, he will find himself in a more impeachable position than any other president in history. But in his arrogance, he believes himself above such things, and is taking things in the opposite direction by only giving lip service to avoiding conflicts of interest, and by stacking his administration with a very pro-Russia cabinet while ignoring all of the intelligence pointing towards Russia's meddling in the election. The only question is whether the Democrats will have enough of a spine to actually bring impeachment charges, or if they will just give lots of angry speeches. Drama, at any rate.
The white supremacists are just a side show. I don't believe Trump himself is a racist in the same way that many of his supporters are. To him, everything is just business (which poses its own problems, see the conflict of interest issue above), and the white supremacists' support was convenient to that end. But if they continue to be a factor, that will provide plenty of drama of its own.
Re:The drama is over, (Score:5, Funny)
As a public service, I will link to every bit of evidence supporting the theory that Russia meddled in the election. Be warned, this list is as detailed as it is shocking.
I don't know how anyone can read all of that and not come to the conclusion that we must nuke Russia immediately..
One thing is for certain (Score:5, Funny)
There is no stopping him; Trump will soon be president. And I for one welcome our new orange overlord. I’d like to remind him that as a trusted slashdot personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in his underground cheeto dust cave hotels.
Re:One thing is for certain (Score:5, Insightful)
Full Employment Act for Comedians (Score:5, Interesting)
(Disclaimer: I didn't vote for the SOB.)
I note that in all the discussion of how Clinton won the popular vote, in CalExit America, she actually lost by about half a million votes. California's vote was that lopsided.
Trump is ... an embarrassment, at best, but the overheated histrionics of the Left wore very very thin a long time ago.
I've been saying for years: Never give powers to your very favorite president in history that you wouldn't want to see in the hands of the president who horrifies you the most. The current administration has spent 8 years weaponizing the Federal government to go after his opponents. For those who applauded that... we'll see how that works out for you in the next 4-8 years.
Maybe we'll get some actual consensus that federalism and limited powers are a good thing again. If so, a Trump presidency might be just the medicine we need, no matter how bad it tastes.
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One thing I can see happening is the Senate is going to give Tillerson a rough ride, and I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the cut. Trump may think Russia is America's new bestest friend, but it's pretty clear there's bipartisan sentiment in the Senate that the Kremlin is the same as it ever was.
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One thing I can see happening is the Senate is going to give Tillerson a rough ride, and I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the cut. Trump may think Russia is America's new bestest friend, but it's pretty clear there's bipartisan sentiment in the Senate that the Kremlin is the same as it ever was.
Trump is a dangerous imbecile and unfortunately large swaths of congress fall into the same category. I don't see the GOP opposing him too much, the popularity of Putin among GOP voters is soaring and most of the GOP's people in congress are far to busy cooking up ways to suck up to Trump. I don't really have problems with being tougher on China and easing tensions with Russia, but the way Trump is now behaving he will either (a) start a war in the Pacific by stepping over the line with China and drag the r
Re:Full Employment Act for Comedians (Score:4, Informative)
Trump is a dangerous imbecile
THAT thinking right there is the reason you lost the election. You thought he was a imbecile but he clearly isn't. He owns a very large business empire and had a successful tv series. These are are far from the acts of a 'imbecile." An now he will be the next president of the United States
Trump is many things but a imbecile he is not.
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Whatever Trump is, he managed to beat both the Republicans and the Democrats at their own game, mostly without using political tactics assumed necessary to win by nearly everyone, and with a mainstream media who were sympathetic to his opponent and often quite hostile to him.
Is he the luckiest imbecile on the planet, merely in the right place at the right time to take advantage of some moment in history that would/could have happened to anyone with roughly the same anti-establishment image?
Or is he possesse
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Is that full calexit or just the loony parts leaving and the rest leaving CA and staying in the US?
Um... they haven't really done any of that (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't need federalism. The federal gov't were the ones that put a stop to the farce that was "Separate but Equal". They broke up the Trusts. They enabled the Unions that created the middle class. They bring in real and effective disaster relief and keep our shipping ports open. The State governments have proven themselves powerless to stand against even the smallest tyrannies time and time again. Look at Flint, Mi's Water supply (that Gov Snyder is still fighter the cleanup of) and the complete breakdown in Democracy it represented.
What's the phrase about small gov'ts? Small enough to drown in a bathtub? That's your democracy. Small enough to drown in a bathtub...
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Are you a moron or something? Those political nonprofits were trying to register AS POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS. Maybe you don't understand this, but there is a distinct category of nonprofit status just for organizations like them. The lazy auditors figured it out because the applicants checked the "political" box on the form.
The problem is that all but one or two of the left wing applications sailed through without a hitch, and a whole bunch of right wing groups got stuck in the IRS tar baby. Yes, the lef
Re:Full Employment Act for Comedians (Score:4, Informative)
Mathematically, there is no perfectly fair election system [wikipedia.org]. They're all flawed, and in certain circumstances can yield a result which is contrary to a reasonable definition of "fair". You have to pick a system which you think will be least likely to have an unfair outcome, and you just live with it if you lose the roll of the dice and the unfair outcome happens.
An instant-runoff system [wikipedia.org] is generally regarded as fairer than a pluralty system, and is already used in many countries. In an instant run-off system, people vote a ranked preference for the candidates. Then you eliminate the lowest vote-getters until you're left with just two candidates. That way the winner has to get a majority.
If we'd used an instant run-off system, the Green party identifies as liberal, but the other three major third parties - Libertarian, Independent, and Constitution - all identify as conservative. If you add up the popular vote along those lines [wikipedia.org], then liberals (Democrat + Green) would've gotten 49.12% of the popular vote. Conservatives (Republican + Libertarian + Independent + Constitution) would've gotten 49.92% of the popular vote. 0.96% voted for other candidates, but I think it's safe to say conservatives probably could've gotten at least 0.09% of that, putting them over 50% of the votes cast this election.
Like it or not, Trump is probably the correct winner for this election - both in terms of Electoral College, and in terms of majority of popular votes.
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I've been saying for years: Never give powers to your very favorite president in history that you wouldn't want to see in the hands of the president who horrifies you the most.
The GOP has solved this. They took from Obama the power to pass budgets or appoint justices (particularly supreme count justices). I'm sure they'll promptly restore those powers for Trump.
Similarly the NC GOP has nerfed the governors office now that it is about to change hands, and legislated themselves control of the state election board in every election year.
How anyone could vote for one of those NC legislators is beyond me, no one who would vote for a bill that blatantly anti-Democratic belongs anywhere
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While you make a valid point about Federalism, your belief that "the current administration has spent 8 years weaponizing the Federal government to go after his opponents" is - to put it as nicely as possible - based on pure imagination.
Exaggeration. A bit. But this administration sicced the IRS onto a whole bunch of conservative organizations in the lead-up to the 2012 election. Plus a couple of token leftist organizations which were far enough left that they opposed Obama from the other side. If any so-called liberals objected, I never heard about it; they weren't objecting very much.
That's really something that should not be permitted, by either side. Ever.
Yellow Journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
This story was submitted by mi, who is pretty much a partisan hack. It's written with little substance and is very misleading about the faithless electors. Although a couple of Democratic electors attempted to switch their vote to Sanders, that's not the main reason for faithless electors from that party. And two faithless Republican electors from Texas cast a single vote each for Kasich and Ron Paul. One of the faithless Democratic electors cast a protest vote because of the North Dakota pipeline. The others were actually casting votes for Republican candidates other than Trump to try to entice Republican electors to join them and send the election to the House of Representatives. That's why three Democratic faithless electors cast votes for Colin Powell. The story is so misleading and lacks so much substance that it's an embarrassment, even for Slashdot.
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No that happened, it just happened in states where voting counter to the state's wishes is illegal. So those votes were not recorded, and some Electors might be spending some time in jail.
Hoping (Score:2)
But for the sake of our country and our planet i sure hope it's everyone who voted for him saying "see, i told you so!" in four years, instead of everyone who voted against him saying "see, i told you so!" in rather less than four years.
Incorrect re Earth already in Peril (Score:4, Interesting)
Fun Fact: The majority of emissions in the US come from states which literally are taking action, no matter what the feds say.
Fun Fact: US solar power (in annual output per device) literally doubled in the last three months.
Fun Fact: All - and I do mean all - fossil fuels are much more expensive than both solar and wind. Today. In the USA.
Fun Fact: plug in electric vehicles - which are mostly used in cities which have green energy, and are frequently charged by solar panels - literally doubled in the US during the last six months. There's a factory in Detroit that churns out 600 of them a day. Range 200 miles on a charge. Costs less than 30k.
It really doesn't matter what you do, we're changing the world already. And we will leave you in the dust with more efficient, CHEAPER, green energy and more efficient factories.
Capitalism doesn't care about your failed ideology or your political persuasions. It literally does. not. care.
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Fun fact: Earth is not in peril. Earth can continue to exist without humans.
30k is a hell of a lot of money to me (Score:3)
And your right about Capitalism. It doesn't give a rats ass. When food becomes scarce because of climate change that's just more profits for the folks who own the farms. Sure, 10% of the population will starve (that seems to be the # you can really take a dump on before you get problems) but hey, Capitalism doesn't care ab
History repeats itself (Score:2)
And a barbarian sat on the throne of Rome
ZOMG (Score:4, Insightful)
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Therefore we don't need to invest anything in heath care!
Great argument there buddy.
WaPo and mi (Score:2)
I was going to bitch about linking that fucking goddamned WaPo article complaining about all the darned country bumpkins who are too stupid to understand AGW, but then I saw that mi was writing. I wasn't sure mi was capable of sarcasm but stranger things have happened.
Trump is right. (Score:5, Funny)
I honestly believe that the incoming President Trump showed great insight when he said this:
https://twitter.com/realDonald... [twitter.com]
The Election and the Foundation Trilogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe we are transitioning from the era of the modern profession elite career politician (which I think may have started with Kennedy). And now it has ended with poor corrupt incompetent status quo leadership. Ending with presidents, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They were not bad presidents, they just were not very good at the job.
To the new era of Corporate Business Tycoons (no elite political background). But (I hope) strong leadership and competence. Maybe the next 50 years will be a succession of Business Tycoons from both political parties. And in 50+ years Business Tycoons will be the corrupt incompetent status quo. And something new will arise.
But that will be for future generations
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Fascism. The word you're looking for is fascism. If you think fascism ends well, you may want to take a look at Mussolini's Italy.
We elected corrupt fascism. That genie isn't going to be put back in the bottle.
Economy 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
We can not force the rest of the world to not emit CO2. The best way to stop them is to make renewable/less polluting power less expensive than coal. In California, we have drought - which is famous for lots of sun and few clouds. Think we can find a better use of land than growing almond trees?
Once we perfect solar, we can bankrupt Texas dirty manufacturing with power that literally falls on us for free from the sky. In the process, we are going to bring lots of jobs and revenue into the state and build up technology export industry for the rest of the world.
Wallowing in self pity over Trump is not solving any problems. Even with Hillary, we would have hard time convincing China, India and Russia to do much about greenhouse gases. Anyone who claims want to save the Earth needs to actually get their hands dirty.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
She did win the popular vote though.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
I think she lost 200 counties/precincts? that President Obama won twice in fly over country.
Maybe if she connected better with everyday middle class voters and those votes were spread out. She would be taking office Jan 20th.
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Er, that's a broken way of looking at it. If she ONLY got votes in three precinct in California, she wouldn't have won the popular vote. But in fact she got votes in every part of the country, which add up to a substantial (2.8 million) margin of popular vote victory.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
California!? What do they know? Oh yeah, how to build a economic powerhouse that respects cultural diversity.
Not exactly. The fact that several high value tech companies decided to locate somewhere over there has more to do with mundane things (like weather and geography) than any political factors. If New England was one state instead of several, you'd see basically the same landmass only with a bigger economy.
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If New England was one state instead of several, you'd see basically the same landmass only with a bigger economy.
Except California doesn't have snow to deal with. It's hard to be productive in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops during a blizzard.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
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The funny thing is that half my coworkers at the startup where I first worked in the Valley w
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
Even in cities with several ethnic groups the are all in clusters, like oil drops in water.
You mentioned Silicon Valley in the 1980's. That's not Silicon Valley today. I live in what used to be a predominately white apartment complex outside of downtown San Jose. Except for the folks in the leasing office, I'm the only white person in this complex. When I get on the bus, I'm usually the only white person on board and a half-dozen languages other than English is being spoken at any time. When I go to work in Palo Alto, I'm the only white person in the IT department.
California [...] the racial war zone it actually is.
As we say in California: "What are you smoking and where can I get some?"
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Your life is the reason why war is inevitable.
Because I accept other people as human beings? Grow up!
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
If you ride the bus, you probably don't make as much as those who drive their car to work, which means you live with the poorer demographic.
I pay $140 per month to ride the express bus to Palo Alto (one hour each way) to avoid taking the local buses (two hours each way) and driving on the freeway (20 minutes in the morning, 45 to 90 minutes in the evening). I'm sure my fellow passengers who work at Tesla, SAP, vmWare, Google, HP, Lockheed and Stanford will get a kick out of being considered a "poor demographic" in Silicon Valley.
How many people that live in actual houses there are non-white or non-asian?
One of the Indian engineers who worked at HP complained about owning a five-year-old condo with 20-foot-tall ceilings.
[...] and poor black people tend to like run-down apartments [...]
My 50-year-old apartment complex looked like 1960's housing project when I first moved in nearly 12 years ago. After four different corporate owners in recent years, these "luxury" apartments with new paint and appliances are going for the same monthly rate as a new luxury apartment complex down the street.
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When an area has gone from 100% white to having a very small population of white people, that's clearly also ethnic cleansing.
Not in Silicon Valley. Many white people bought their homes for $30K to $60K in the 1960's and 1970's when the south bay was a still a bedroom community to San Francisco. If they kept their houses until the today, they could sell their house for $1M+, move out of the area or the state to buy a cheaper, larger house elsewhere, and retire off the remaining proceeds. The people buying the houses are likely to be young professionals of a different ethnic background. That's not ethnic cleansing, it's economics.
It's interesting how leftists consider the displacement of native people in foreign nations to be ethic cleansing, but consider it progressive and wonderful when the same thing happens in the west.
I
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't believe I'm about to defend this ridiculous place...
BUT
I was born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley, and what you say doesn't even begin to resemble my experience. While it's certainly true that I've known a handful of racist white people, they've been an oddity in my life. As for segregated neighborhoods, I'm a white guy surrounded by Mexicans. I've also had Black neighbors in this same neighborhood, in years past, so I'm really not seeing where you're coming from, there. Furthermore, I've never seen anyone turned away from a bar, due to their race (granted, I don't spend a lot of time in bars).
As for the Bi-Lingual Education thing, that came about because Spanish-speaking students had a lower collective GPA than English-speaking students. The thought was that the students were failing because they couldn't understand the language in which the lessons were being taught. So, they teach the primary curriculum to them in Spanish, and then they're supposed to also teach them English as a Second Language. I went through the local public school system, and I haven't met any Mexicans who both grew up here and don't know English. Generally the Mexicans I know who don't speak English very well, are immigrants, and especially immigrants who came over here later in life. I've had friends whose elderly grandparents didn't learn English at all, but if you're 75 and immigrating just to be with your kids and grandkids, then I think that you can be forgiven for not learning the language, and I don't think I'd expect you to, let alone require it.
Don't get me wrong. We've got an abundance of hateful, intolerant people in this state, but they're usually not racists, unless they're racist toward white people, but even that isn't terribly common around here. There's a lot of man-haters, rich-people-haters and Trump-haters (can't swing a cat without hitting one), but people hating on Mexicans, Black people or Asians are strange and unusual. If you told me that this was the most hateful state in the union, I'm not sure that I could disagree so easily, but to describe California as racist just doesn't mix with what I see around me.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
But Trump's opponents appear to be almost entirely comprised of racists.
As they say on Avenue Q, everyone is a little bit racist. Denying the obvious doesn't help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM [youtube.com]
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The popular vote is trivia (Score:5, Insightful)
She did win the popular vote though.
The popular vote is trivia. Neither side was trying to win the popular vote. They spent their time and money to maximize the electoral. If the popular was the goal then they would have spent their time and money very different and we would have a very different popular vote as a result. Focusing on the popular vote is like focusing on the fact that the losing team in a football game moved the ball more yards. Interesting but neither team was trying for that.
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That is the point of a democracy... Good thing our government wasn't designed to be one of those. The electoral college was designed to prevent an overwhelming popular vote from a minority of states electing the president without getting input from the less populous states. Seems to be working...
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Pity she didn't win the election.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Informative)
No, you can't conclusively say that if it was by popular vote Clinton would have won. All you can say is that if you run an electoral race, Clinton had more popular votes. If you ran a popular race, the voting outcomes could be very different than they were. You can't change the rules of a game and assume the players would make the same moves... It's like saying that if the queen was the piece that determined victory in chess you would have won against that grand master who sacrificed his queen. Well not really, you just don't want to admit you lost...
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
Well thank 48 of the states, which adopted the idiotic winner take all formula, which pretty much completely undermined the original intent of the Electoral College. Walter Bagehot put it best:
Walter Bagehot - The English Constitution 2nd Edition - 1873
Re: America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:3, Insightful)
We had a guaranteed democrat win this time, then they gave us Clinton. I'm so embarrassed.
Anyone else and it would have been a different story. Idiots.
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We won, simply by the fact that both the Bush and the Clinton dynasties were shut down in this election cycle.
Trump is sort of the political equivalent of Drano. Nobody wants to drink it or get any of it on their skin, but there are times when pouring some Drano into a sink will fix problems.
I doubt if he'll get a second term. You don't need to use Drano that often.
Re: America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that Drano is often a bad choice to fix a blockage, as it can damage pipes and won't clear some kinds of debris. It's the proper tool for someone too lazy to use proper tools or too cheap to call a professional.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/garden/24fix.html as one example.
It's even "terrible for the environment." Hey, look at that, so is Trump.
Thanks for the oddly-appropriate metaphor.
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We won, simply by the fact that both the Bush and the Clinton dynasties were shut down in this election cycle.
Trump is sort of the political equivalent of Drano. Nobody wants to drink it or get any of it on their skin, but there are times when pouring some Drano into a sink will fix problems.
I doubt if he'll get a second term. You don't need to use Drano that often.
While not scientific, the friends and family that I argued with prior to the election I actually got to sit down with (yay holidays) recently. I always argued that Clinton would make a better president and a would represent the status-quo. I.e. keep us chugging along while we as a country found ourselves and found a candidate that we could mostly agree was okay together (one step at a time right?). Everyone I talked to hated Clinton, they _hated_ her but they also did not like Trump. They, took a deep breat
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
As a counterpoint, if you read the federalist papers (specifically those written by Alexander Hamilton), one of the many reasons given for the electoral college (vs just having the house of representatives pick the president), was to limit the problem of institutional corruption. Electors were to be chosen only for the task of electing a president and no other purpose and weren't allowed to be holding office in the House or Senate to minimize any institutional influence and corruption. Since electors were only chosen to pick the president (and vice president), you couldn't easily say trade a future vote on a specific policy for an electoral vote nor would it be too easy for a foreign power attempt to corrupt or install rogue electors all over the united states if they aren't a standing body. Also an electoral college style of vote side-steps the issue of stuffing the ballot box in one area of the country and allows for geographic diversity considerations to be "burned-into" the system.
But the Englishfolk are welcome to keep their current scheme which brought them Theresa May (who advocated for "remain" instead of "brexit" even though "brexit" seemed to be the majority sentiment). No system is "perfect", but no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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Its winner take all, not electoral college. (Score:5, Insightful)
She did win the popular vote though.
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
Somehow? There is no mystery. She was not trying for the popular vote, both Hillary and Trump were allocating time and money for the electoral vote. If the popular vote were the goal they both would have allocated time and money very differently and that popular vote would have been very different. The current popular vote is a side effect, trivia.
Also its not the electoral college that is the problem. The Electoral College only has a small effect itself, a small bump due to the two electors every state gets that correspond to their Senators, the remaining number of electors corresponding to their House representation which is proportional to population. The real huge bump is due to the states going winner take all. That is a state problem, not a federal problem. Some states do proportional rather than winner take all. Two states?
Re:Its winner take all, not electoral college. (Score:4, Insightful)
Also its not the electoral college that is the problem.
The problem is the fact that democrats lost every borderline state. Even if H lost by 3m votes, that's less than 1% of the population of the US. It's not like she won 90% of the popular vote here.
Democrats need to stop crying about the EC and figure out how to connect with those people. It's not going to change.
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IMHO, the solution for democrats is obvious: get rid of the superdelegates.
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She lost her own game. Similar to her trying to stack the deck with Superdelegates during the primary.
We had two very bad choices. Myself, I was tired of more of the Obama machine. I'm scared of what Trump may do but I believe the machine needs to be shaken up. Whenever I read that the "Democrats don't like a Trump appointee" (which is so far, every one), I rhetorically-think "well, that's good enough for me, they might be OK".
I am so sick and tired of politics as usual.
I see Trump as a form of social
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Yes, only in America
...and all the other countries where similar things can and do happen...
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
I think that's actually the Electoral College working as designed and intended.
Would it really be fair if the population of New York City alone got to boss around the 10 lowest population states? Without the Electoral College, would politicians even bother courting anyone except cities with Population Density Disorder?
I'm starting to become a believer in states' rights and a more limited federal government so that like minded people can live together and govern themselves, rather than urbanites getting to dictate how everyone should be forced to live.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It was to have a mechanism to block a bad popular candidate
An it worked perfectly. Hillary was a bad popular choice.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
Before the Republicans went absolutely insane, "Blue" states voted for Republican presidential candidates plenty of times.
The Republicans are the ones desperately trying to hang-on to power. They're the ones passing all those voter ID laws, which courts keep striking down. They're the former home of Jim Crow laws. They're the ones gerrymandering voting districts, which is the only reason the GOP is able to keep their House numbers up, even though the population is mostly Republican. It's a Republican governor and senate in North Carolina stripping the powers of the incoming Democratic governor. Lets be clear which party the facts show are desperately trying to corrupt the democratic process to hang on to power...
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
She did win the popular vote though.
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
As someone who voted for Clinton (not as a vote for her, but a vote against the Orangegutan), don't thank the EC. Thank the DNC for crowning a fucking crook, HRC. The DNC lived in a fucking bubble not grasping how much hate there is for HRC.
It doesn't fucking matter if the hate is deserved or not. That's reality, and a politician should have had a pulse on it. Instead HRC chose ambition over country and against all logic, she went for it. From the moment she was nominated by the DNC, I knew the gig was (almost) over. I knew it when I cast my vote for her. You had to be living in a fucking bubble to not see it.
So here we are, today. The Electoral College did its work. Don't blame it for the output. Blame the input provided by both major parties. Garbage in, garbage out.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
Dems lost because hillary sucks, period!
And because they were too arrogant to elect her instead of bernie who was overall ranking higher than her against trump.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
And because they were too arrogant to elect her instead of bernie who was overall ranking higher than her against trump.
^^^ This.
Electing the first woman became more important that our fucking economy and natural security. Now we have alt-rights advising our president, chairs of oil companies being appointed to office, collusion w/ Russia, and we are the laughing stock of the world. My fucking god they failed.
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The goal was ultimately to try to send the election to the House of Representatives.
Who would have looked at the available candidates (the top three who got electoral votes only) and made Trump President anyway.
This mostly wasn't about opposition to Clinton
So much as it was about clueless idiots who have no idea who the real world works.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
White males hate a powerful women.
You know what I hate? Collusion w/ Russia. Oil execs running our government. Invitations to hack our political system. Alt-right activists advising the president. Well tell me, was it worth it? Is all of that worth to run H and have her lose?
This isn't some college campus where we push the envelope of society and learn about ourselves in the process. This may mean our dads, sons, and brothers dying in conflicts over big business interest. This may mean a global conflict war. This means loss of our national healthcare. This means spiraling to our nation debt and setting the stage for a recession 4 years from now. This means loss of respect in the world stage.
There was more at stake here than getting a woman elected and our subconscious fear of a powerful woman.
Re:America hates Hillary Clinton (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, yes. The new liberal mantra: If you didn't vote for Hillary, you're racist, misogynist, sexist, xenophobic...
Trust me, it's not new.
1. Take control of the language.
2. Redefine what your opponent does using inapplicable-yet-nasty-sounding terms.
3. Dismiss anyone who disagrees with your redefinition as part of the problem.
4. Use "new" language to cast your opponents as Hitler reborn.
Only problem is it didn't work this time. Liberals went full-bore mental on Trump and, as a result, he looked mild by comparison. Liberals and their water carriers looked like complete fucking idiots as a result. Trump's election has as much to do with their frothing zealotry as anything he might've said or done as a candidate. His election was quite simply a repudiation of all this ridiculous PC, safe-space, diaper-pin-wearing, everything-offends-me culture.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember Herman Cain had some women makes some claims about him? Trump actually admitted to sexually assaulting women in a recording!
Remember Ron Paul had some shady racist letters in his past? Trump had to settle a lawsuit because of being racist
This list goes on...
Re: (Score:2)
And so it will be best to look at who is standing behind Trump. The United States has another dull-witted Republican in charge. So, as with GWB, look at the VP and senior members of the cabinets, with the additional fun that now Trump's kids, and by all accounts Ivanka and her husband in particular, will play significant roles in the administration.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, you can spend the next 8 years complaining about Trump and his supporters, or spend the next 4 years coming up with something positive for the Dems to be for (not identity politics, that's inherently negative). If all you've got by then is someone who's against Trump, it will be 2004 all over again. See you in 2020.
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Now we get to see just how powerless the President really is, or is not.
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Oh we are not fucked. The sun will still come up tomorrow, the sky isn't falling and Trump isn't going to destroy the planet. We are going to be just fine.
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... Trump isn't going to destroy the planet. We are going to be just fine.
On the other hand, "the planet" and "we" are not one in the same.
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As opposed the the dems selling out to Saudi Arabia and going to war with Russia ?
Viable Democrats kept out of primary ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are equally at fault. You should have elected literally any other candidate in the Democratic primary.
Somehow, viable Democrats (Bernie is really an Independent) seem to have stayed out of the primary this year. Its really strange, there was no Democratic incumbent running for re-election. There should have been a wide selection of viable candidates like in 2008, as happens all the time in non-incumbent years. But somehow, no big names but Hillary showed up. Yes there was the token opponent who mostly agreed with Hillary and said she would be a good President; and there was the Independent Bernie who re-registered to run as a Democrat. How was there not a contested field like in 2008?
Re: Viable Democrats kept out of primary ? (Score:4, Funny)
Because it was Her turn!
Interesting Joe Biden factoid (Score:4, Interesting)
Somehow, viable Democrats (Bernie is really an Independent) seem to have stayed out of the primary this year. Its really strange, there was no Democratic incumbent running for re-election. There should have been a wide selection of viable candidates like in 2008, as happens all the time in non-incumbent years. But somehow, no big names but Hillary showed up. Yes there was the token opponent who mostly agreed with Hillary and said she would be a good President; and there was the Independent Bernie who re-registered to run as a Democrat. How was there not a contested field like in 2008?
Interestingly, the Wikileaks dump had this snippet [dailycaller.com] about Joe Biden:
Ron Klain, a Democrat stalwart who served as chief of staff to Biden and Vice President Al Gore, sent an email to Podesta suggesting the Clinton campaign wasn’t sitting idly by while Biden was agonizing as to whether or not to stage a campaign for president, just months after the tragic death of his son Beau.
“It’s been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise – and I am definitely dead to them — but I’m glad to be on Team HRC, and glad that she had a great debate last night,” he wrote to Podesta and Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.
I make no judgement about this - it's how politics is done - but note that Joe Biden would probably have been a stronger opponent than HRC was.
Re: (Score:3)
94.5% of voters voted for one of the two worst major-party presidential candidates in history.
This country is getting what it deserves.
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I can only imagine the outcry, if HRC had won and the republicans were asking to ignore the votes of Americans, because they voted incorrectly. Seriously, the people who were honestly hoping that the electoral college voters would ignore the votes of the people of their states, and simply disenfranchise however many million voters it would take, just so they can get their way?
I personally think Trump will be a horrible, horrible president. I cannot imagine any good coming from his presidency. The world climate alone may never recover. My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done. Having said that, I still cannot understand the thought process behind attempting to tell 50% of the country, "your vote doesn't count, unless you vote the way you are supposed to". If that actually happened, the utter and complete demise of any semblance of democracy in the USA would have happened, and there would either be a) a revolt, or b) a new, non-democratic country.
Um, who do you think won the popular vote?
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, who do you think won the popular vote?
Nobody, because there is no "popular vote" for President of the US.
"Popular vote" is a fiction invented by those who are unhappy that their candidate lost the election, or by those who won and want to claim some "huge mandate from the public" to do something. The rest of us know what it takes to win.
It is ridiculous to assume that the "popular vote" would be the same were it the actual system in use to elect the President, and that's why it is ridiculous to assume it means anything when it is not. If the voters (and candidates) operated under a "popular vote" system, the results could be, and probably would be, very much different. There are too many instances of people who don't bother voting because they know their state will go to the "other person". For example, if you live in California why bother voting for a Republican president when you know that the Democrat is going to win anyway? Many of those non-votes would have voted had "popular vote" been the rule of the day, and it is unlikely that the California statewide vote total would have been as lopsided as it was. Or maybe it would be. That's the point -- you can't know until it happens, and it didn't happen.
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It's amazing that we live through this twice. Back in 2008, Obama beat Hillary by focusing on delegates when she just kind of assumed she was going to win. Same bad strategy there and assuming her team could just win everything for her. It's amazing she can manage to get the press to go along with the seeming inevitability of her win when she's lost so much.
Speaking of which, for anyone who didn't see the Newsweek special edition that got recalled, one of the articles about her is entitled "Queenmakers."
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done.
Trump has already put a fail-safe in place for that. Unless someone really wants to see Mike Pence as president, they would do their very best to make sure that doesn't happen.
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
I can only imagine the outcry, if HRC had won and the republicans were asking to ignore the votes of Americans, because they voted incorrectly. Seriously, the people who were honestly hoping that the electoral college voters would ignore the votes of the people of their states, and simply disenfranchise however many million voters it would take, just so they can get their way?
I personally think Trump will be a horrible, horrible president. I cannot imagine any good coming from his presidency. The world climate alone may never recover. My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done. Having said that, I still cannot understand the thought process behind attempting to tell 50% of the country, "your vote doesn't count, unless you vote the way you are supposed to". If that actually happened, the utter and complete demise of any semblance of democracy in the USA would have happened, and there would either be a) a revolt, or b) a new, non-democratic country.
Can you imagine the outcry if China had hacked the RNC and tipped the election so that HCR won? Do you really think that all we'd have at this point would be a bipartisan call by the handful of remaining still rational Rep. and Dem. senators for action, a call that will come to nothing, and a few media personalities expressing 'concern'? We'd have a full scale armed uprising on our hans complete with convoys of camo coloured pickup trucks full of tacticool 2nd amendment people carrying tricked out M4s and AK-47s cruising through the streets and sweeping house to house looking for 'librul China lovin traitors'.
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you imagine the outcry if China had hacked the RNC and tipped the election so that HCR won?
You mean after the sitting Republican president had already claimed there was no evidence of any such influence?
But yes, I can imagine the outcry. It would be a larger version of the rioting and looting and burnings and shootings every time the Daley machine rigged the elections in Chicago. Oh, wait, the Republicans didn't riot or loot when that happened ...
I think they call your "argument" projection. You know what you'd do, and you assume that others would do the same thing. Or you just want to insult others and spread fear.
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:5, Funny)
Democrats haven't been this mad since Republicans freed their slaves
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The electoral college were the agreed upon rules of the competition, before the competition started. If enough people dislike the system, it can be changed. However everyone who was running for president knew all the rules before the votes were cast. Asking to go back and change the rules based on the results is never a good idea.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Except that the whole point of the electoral college is that electors can block the winner if they don't like the result.
Or one could say the point of the electoral college is that sometimes the popular vote is a bad choice.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or one could say the point of the electoral college is that sometimes the popular vote is a bad choice.
No, the point of the electoral college is that the President is president of the united states and needs to have the interests of ALL the states in mind, not just the few most populous ones. "Bad choice" is highly subjective; the result of the election is a quantitative measure.
Re:Imagine the reverse (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, I shouldn't bother posting in political threads. The butt hurt is so strong, I only ever get modded down, despite not trying to troll, but simply not repeating the same line as everyone else. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'll bite, again.
The "whole point" of the electoral college is not to block a winner that the college doesn't like. The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers. It was clear, even at the start of the country, that more rural areas of the country, while being lower in population, need to have a way to have their voice heard, and their interests protected. The electoral college provides votes for states based on population, but gives a larger voice to the smaller population states. While it is true that states like Florida, California, and New York have very large populations and therefore more electoral votes, the voice of those states alone cannot dictate the course of the country.
But whatever... I'm sure I'm just an ignorant troll, so mod me down accordingly.
Re: (Score:3)
The "whole point" of the electoral college is not to block a winner that the college doesn't like.
True. That's a BS claim created out of a misreading of Federalist 68, promoted recently by people like Lawrence Lessig and the so-called "Hamilton Electors." I'm not going to bother rehashing all of this here, because I already explained Federalist 68 in detailed historical context in a post here [soylentnews.org].
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
Well, that's partially true. But if that were the main concern of the Founders, they could have just had Congress pick the President. Or they could have just assigned a set of weighted abstract "votes" to state
Re: (Score:3)
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
That's the Senate's job, not the Electoral College's job.
The size of each state's Electoral College delegation is primarily defined by the number of House seats. The founders intended there to be no more than 100,000 people per House district, but Connecticut's ratification of that amendment was literally lost in the mail. They did use that formula for number of House seats for roughly the first hundred years. Then the number of people per district started creeping up, mostly due to logistical issues. B
Re:The drama is over? (Score:4)
Actually its quite the opposite. Trump supporters have always taken him seriously and not literally. There's a reason he got tens of thousands of people to attend his rally's. But Democrats never listened to him, and never will, and only go by strictly what he says as gospel. So yeah, will be interesting to watch.