2016 U.S. Presidential Race Megathread Mark 2.

CMOTDibbler

alastair wrote: »

Comey could have handled things better for sure, but I doubt that it really influenced the final vote that much.

I posted the average poll graph for Florida on another thread. Here it is again:



You can see exactly the effect of Comey's intervention. She never fully recovered from it. In fact, when he came out and said there was nothing in it, it actually damaged her poll figures again.

Mr.Micro

Mr.Micro wrote: »

If Clinton had won it would be no better.

*What my cat's name would be if John Wilkes Booth had missed his target*

GO!

RobertKK

B0jangles wrote: »

I knew it, for all your "both candidates are bad but here's the latest thing wikileaks has said about Clinton..." -posturing, it was all about the Supreme Court and overturning Roe vs. Wade for you, wasn't it?

Trump was still not my first choice, and I live in a free society where people can be conservative, liberal or anything in between.

I did think a Clinton victory wouldn't be so bad as she would have really destroyed the Democrats, but then maybe I am more in tune with US voters, as they destroyed the Democrats anyway by giving Republicans virtually full control.

It was not all about Roe V Wade, but I am not a person who thinks destroying life is a right, whether unborn or in her neocon war mongering which has killed so many people. But Clinton supporters seem to not care about her love of regime change and all the death she has caused.
I could not support someone who feels so free to use military power, which only destroys societies.
A woman who signed off on an arms deal to be used against Yemen, and nothing about the Saudis starving the people of Yemen - which she helped assist.
I just think Hillary Clinton is a far bigger disgrace than Trump.
Weapons she signed off being used in Yemen by the Saudis to bomb hospitals, prisons, residential areas, yet the same hypocrites go on about Aleppo which is another disaster when they are silent on the disaster in Yemen.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/oct/06/we-saw-how-yemen-children-slowly-starving-to-death-krishnan-guru-murthy

The Clintons accept money from Saudi Arabia, Hillary signed off on a $29.6 billion arms deal - the bitch has contributed to this:
Those who are malnourished are set to be, by far, the biggest casualties of Yemen’s war. More than 6,000 people have been killed in the bombing and fighting as a Saudi-led coalition tries to defeat the Houthi rebels and supporters of the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who took over much of the country last year and drove out the new president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Yemen, like Atan, are suffering from severe malnutrition, and possibly millions are in the early stages. Statistics in countries like this are unreliable, but the doctors say there is a procession of children coming through the emergency unit every day.
Patients with other conditions are made worse by malnutrition. As we stand looking at Atan, another family rushes into the ward carrying a child of around six. Within seconds doctors are doing chest compressions and blowing oxygen into his mouth but it is clearly too late. Within seconds the cries of the child’s mother fill the emergency ward. The boy had malaria but the doctor says he was so severely malnourished that he had no strength to fight the fever. About 40% of the cases coming in, he says, are made much worse by malnutrition.

The Saudis who Hillary helped militarily are also targeting the farmland in Yemen to destroy their food.
It just makes me angry and Hillary has her fingerprints on this, I would not accept a cent from this evil regime, let alone sign off on an arms deal. The US are complicit to these crimes, and the irony of being friendly towards a country that is implicated in the biggest terrorist attack in history against the US and the world, and implicated in the funding of ISIS.
Why would I support the candidate the Saudis wanted elected?
This is far bigger than abortion or the supreme court. I don't trust her and her judgement has been so bad for such a long time...like the email that showed her campaign helped promote Trump, Cruz and Carson in the primaries, again look how that turned out.

Her main trait has been bad judgement.

alastair

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I posted the average poll graph for Florida on another thread. Here it is again:



You can see exactly the effect of Comey's intervention. She never fully recovered from it. In fact, when he came out and said there was nothing in it, it actually damaged her poll figures again.

Three points worth making.
1. You assume that the Comey announcement is the cause of the dip, but it may not have been.
2. She does recover from the dip. It takes a week.
3. The polls didn't prove to be that accurate in measuring actual voter intent.

RobertKK

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

All that expense and it doesn't actually work.

The border is somewhere around 1,650 miles long, 653 miles has a fence but only half of it has been put into be pedestrian proof, the other bit to stop vehicles.
It is no wonder it doesn't work.

CMOTDibbler

alastair wrote: »

Three points worth making.
1. You assume that the Comey announcement is the cause of the dip, but it may not have been.
2. She does recover from the dip. It takes a week.
3. The polls didn't prove to be that accurate in measuring actual voter intent.

1. There were two Comey announcements. One about the investigation and the second with the 'nothing to see here' announcement. Both coincided with a dip in her polling figures. The first because of the obvious damage it did to her and the second because it brought the whole thing back into the media again on the eve of the election.
2. And that recovery was reversed as I said above.
3. The poll above gave Trump a 0.2 percent lead on the eve of the election. Pretty much what he got on the day. How is that not a measure of voter intention?

Jawgap

RobertKK wrote: »

The border is somewhere around 1,650 miles long, 653 miles has a fence but only half of it has been put into be pedestrian proof, the other bit to stop vehicles.
It is no wonder it doesn't work.

No, it doesn't work because people can go over, under and around it - and as one borderguard said recently "If you you build a 10m high wall, they'll just come along with 12m ladders."

CMOTDibbler

RobertKK wrote: »

The border is somewhere around 1,650 miles long, 653 miles has a fence but only half of it has been put into be pedestrian proof, the other bit to stop vehicles.
It is no wonder it doesn't work.

I've seen interviews with people who live alongside it. They think it's pretty useless and purely to make people feel 'protected'.

But it really doesn't work because it's not actually delaing with the actual problem of people outstaying visas that they entered legitimately on. Many of those coming across the border are seasonal workers who cross back again when their work is finished.

The actual way to deal with illegal immigrants working in the US, is to hit the employers who are employing them.

aloyisious

RobertKK wrote: »

The border is somewhere around 1,650 miles long, 653 miles has a fence but only half of it has been put into be pedestrian proof, the other bit to stop vehicles.
It is no wonder it doesn't work.

Realistically no border fence ever could. RTE had a short clip of the border being walked with a US Border Agent showing the repaired cement base below the fence where a tunnel had been made through it, probably from the Mexican side (the camera was on the US side) the fence above ground intact. The weakness is identified as both ends of the border end at the open sea. However Don probably knows that from hotel boss meetings about staffing problems.

130Kph

According to www.vox.com/policy.... enough energised, activist (republican) voters seem to

• prefer a demagogue to be their leader
• have started to hate their own parties & party officials in a schizophrenic manner
• devour partisan media that (for the profit motive reason) lies relentlessly about the opposing party

E Klein, vox wrote:

Voters’ dislike of their own party has broken the primary process, but fear of the opposition has guaranteed unified party support to the nominee.

Social media is now the main way these activists bypass the party’s gatekeepers who traditionally prevented demagogues or nutcases from getting on the ticket.
Also the internet plays a large role in the absurd & unnecessary polarization that goes on now in political discourse in the states.

And polarization begets polarization. The angrier and more fearful partisans are, the more of a market there is for media that makes them yet angrier and yet more fearful.

What this article doesn’t address is why so many grass roots republican activists in the US desire to have a president who is an authoritarian fascist?

Could it be that internet magazines like Breitbart and all the others both feed the polarisation, paranoia & nastiness of political discourse …as well as being the root cause of it

i.e. could it be that many activists want to be led by a fascist now for no actual substantial reason - it’s just an indirect, unplanned by-product of the profit motive of certain investors & new communication technology?

Or could it be some other reason?

alastair

RobertKK wrote: »

Trump was still not my first choice, and I live in a free society where people can be conservative, liberal or anything in between.

I did think a Clinton victory wouldn't be so bad as she would have really destroyed the Democrats, but then maybe I am more in tune with US voters, as they destroyed the Democrats anyway by giving Republicans virtually full control.

It was not all about Roe V Wade, but I am not a person who thinks destroying life is a right, whether unborn or in her neocon war mongering which has killed so many people. But Clinton supporters seem to not care about her love of regime change and all the death she has caused.
I could not support someone who feels so free to use military power, which only destroys societies.
A woman who signed off on an arms deal to be used against Yemen, and nothing about the Saudis starving the people of Yemen - which she helped assist.
I just think Hillary Clinton is a far bigger disgrace than Trump.
Weapons she signed off being used in Yemen by the Saudis to bomb hospitals, prisons, residential areas, yet the same hypocrites go on about Aleppo which is another disaster when they are silent on the disaster in Yemen.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/oct/06/we-saw-how-yemen-children-slowly-starving-to-death-krishnan-guru-murthy

The Clintons accept money from Saudi Arabia, Hillary signed off on a $29.6 billion arms deal - the bitch has contributed to this:
Those who are malnourished are set to be, by far, the biggest casualties of Yemen’s war. More than 6,000 people have been killed in the bombing and fighting as a Saudi-led coalition tries to defeat the Houthi rebels and supporters of the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who took over much of the country last year and drove out the new president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Yemen, like Atan, are suffering from severe malnutrition, and possibly millions are in the early stages. Statistics in countries like this are unreliable, but the doctors say there is a procession of children coming through the emergency unit every day.
Patients with other conditions are made worse by malnutrition. As we stand looking at Atan, another family rushes into the ward carrying a child of around six. Within seconds doctors are doing chest compressions and blowing oxygen into his mouth but it is clearly too late. Within seconds the cries of the child’s mother fill the emergency ward. The boy had malaria but the doctor says he was so severely malnourished that he had no strength to fight the fever. About 40% of the cases coming in, he says, are made much worse by malnutrition.

The Saudis who Hillary helped militarily are also targeting the farmland in Yemen to destroy their food.
It just makes me angry and Hillary has her fingerprints on this, I would not accept a cent from this evil regime, let alone sign off on an arms deal. The US are complicit to these crimes, and the irony of being friendly towards a country that is implicated in the biggest terrorist attack in history against the US and the world, and implicated in the funding of ISIS.
Why would I support the candidate the Saudis wanted elected?
This is far bigger than abortion or the supreme court. I don't trust her and her judgement has been so bad for such a long time...like the email that showed her campaign helped promote Trump, Cruz and Carson in the primaries, again look how that turned out.

Her main trait has been bad judgement.

Where to begin? 'Neo-con war mongering' is, by definition, a conservative endeavour - as the 'con' bit implies. She certainly voted for the GoP initiated invasion of Iraq, but her opponent also supported that invasion at the time. She supported the Afghanistan war, but then very few did not. She supported the anti-Ghadaffi side in Libya, but that really didn't have anything to do with any 'neo-con' agenda, and, frankly, it still doesn't seem like the wrong call. The Libyan transitional government had the support of the UN, and the subsequent post-election chaos wasn't anything to do with the U.S., or NATO. She's undoubtedly hawkish, but even Bernie supported Afghanistan, Kosovo, and the Israeli Gaza campaign. Trump's suggested policy of killing families, torturing people, "bombing the **** out of them", and "taking their oil" sounds far more inflammatory than anything you might ascribe to Hillary.

Hillary didn't get to sign off on any Saudi military deal, as that's not the call that any SoS gets to make. Not her job.

The Saudi's contributed to the Clinton Foundation. They also contributed to the Bush library. Trump was also bailed out of one of his many business failures by Saudi money. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. There's no evidence that the Saudis wanted Hillary elected, and as you say, it's US policy with regard to Yemen that's the issue - not Hillary policy.

alastair

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

1. There were two Comey announcements. One about the investigation and the second with the 'nothing to see here' announcement. Both coincided with a dip in her polling figures. The first because of the obvious damage it did to her and the second because it brought the whole thing back into the media again on the eve of the election.
2. And that recovery was reversed as I said above.
3. The poll above gave Trump a 0.2 percent lead on the eve of the election. Pretty much what he got on the day. How is that not a measure of voter intention?

I'm well aware of Comey's two announcements. I have my doubts that a confirmation that Hillary was still not engaged in any criminal act was the cause of any dip.

Trump beat Hillary in the Florida vote (which this poll proports to illustrate) by more than 2% (not 0.2%) - so it's a poor reflection of voter intention, on the day, in that regard.

HensVassal

Jawgap wrote: »

I think as a governor she brings executive experience and yes, if you had to pick one post in the cabinet for her, Interior would be a good fit given the amount of federal land in Alaska.

Do I think she'd make a good Secretary of the Interior? No, I think she'd unwind a lot of the protections in place on federal land and in the national parks and ANWR would be in serious trouble!

She was the mayor of a one-horse town called Wasilla before running for VP. Then she was governor of Alaska. A job in which she did fuck all and just quit one day. Your average boy with a paper round or teenage girl with a babysitting rota has more management skill, planning experience and dedication to duty than Palin.

CMOTDibbler

alastair wrote: »

I'm well aware of Comey's two announcements. I have my doubts that a confirmation that Hillary was still not engaged in any criminal act was the cause of any dip.

Trump beat Hillary in the Florida vote (which this poll proports to illustrate) by more than 2% (not 0.2%) - so it's a poor reflection of voter intention, on the day, in that regard.

It was slightly over 1% of voter turnout in Florida. 1.1% to be exact.

The 0.2% is an average of polls. Some were closer than others. Polls have a built in margin for error. Usually that's around 3%. On no level can you say that the polls in the case of Florida were not a reflection.

RobertKK

alastair wrote: »

Where to begin? 'Neo-con war mongering' is, by definition, a conservative endeavour - as the 'con' bit implies. She certainly voted for the GoP initiated invasion of Iraq, but her opponent also supported that invasion at the time. She supported the Afghanistan war, but then very few did not. She supported the anti-Ghadaffi side in Libya, but that really didn't have anything to do with any 'neo-con' agenda, and, frankly, it still doesn't seem like the wrong call. The Libyan transitional government had the support of the UN, and the subsequent post-election chaos wasn't anything to do with the U.S., or NATO. She's undoubtedly hawkish, but even Bernie supported Afghanistan, Kosovo, and the Israeli Gaza campaign. Trump's suggested policy of killing families, torturing people, "bombing the **** out of them", and "taking their oil" sounds far more inflammatory than anything you might ascribe to Hillary.

Hillary didn't get to sign off on any Saudi military deal, as that's not the call that any SoS gets to make. Not her job.

The Saudi's contributed to the Clinton Foundation. They also contributed to the Bush library. Trump was also bailed out of one of his many business failures by Saudi money. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. There's no evidence that the Saudis wanted Hillary elected, and as you say, it's US policy with regard to Yemen that's the issue - not Hillary policy.

New York Times 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan’s careful centrism and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in The New Republic this year that “it is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya.”
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler; wholeheartedly backs Israel; and stresses the importance of promoting democracy.
It’s easy to imagine Mrs. Clinton’s making room for the neocons in her administration. No one could charge her with being weak on national security with the likes of Robert Kagan on board.

Fast forward to 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/hillary-clinton-necono-republican-endorsements-donald-trump-policy-issues

Longtime Republican foreign policy stalwart and Iraq warmonger Robert Kagan became the latest neoconservative to endorse Clinton for president last week. He has even offered to host a fundraiser on her behalf....
Several neoconservatives have spent years gushing about Clinton’s penchant for supporting basically every foreign war or military escalation in the last decade, including Kagan, who said in 2014: “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy ... If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue, it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

The Secretary of State is the person who signs off on arms deals to other countries.

Amerika

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I've never understood this sometimes near slavish devotion to the constitution and the founding fathers. The founding fathers are often mentioned as if they're the definitive authority in all matters akin to a Catholic mentioning the pope's opinion on something.

Been absent... trying now to catch up.

Do we not look with reverence at the works of Aristotle, of Plato, of Descartes, and of Benny Hill? The works of the Founding Father’s did more than any before them as they provided the world's first formal blueprint for a modern democracy, and of which served as the basis for all future democracies. No small feat for the time, wouldn't you agree.

HensVassal

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

That has nothing to do with Hillary's no-fly zone though.

There already is a de-facto demarcation of operations.
For example: RuAF planes never or very rarely go further east of the Euphrates. There only ISIS east of that river and Russia doesn't care about ISIS

However that is not what Hillary was taking about.
She was taking about a no-fly zone over rebel territories primarily in Idlib or Aleppo provinces.
or to put it another way, a no-fly zone 5-10 mins away from Latakia.
Essentially grounding the SyAF & RuAF.
This necessitates patrol aircraft to be very very close to Russia's air defence assets.

No one.... no one believes that Pres Hillary (post reset button humiliation) can ground the SyAF & RuAF & deactivate its AD assets based on "negotiation".

No, just like the Kosovan, Libyan & Iraqi no-fly zone's weren't done by asking nicely or negotiations.

Why would any American vote for this.
An absolutely moronic intention backed with nothing but bluster.

What???

Amerika

Brian? wrote: »

It's a quasi religious cult. Even down to fact that it's never written as founding fathers but capitalised as "Founding Fathers ". Implying divinity.

Funny you should use the words "slavish devotion" as well. This group of men who are imbued with such all seeing wisdom were almost all slave owners. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal...", not the ones we own and keep as property though!

This nonsense again? How disingenuous it is to judge a select group from hundreds of years ago through the prism of modern morality. A little bit of history for you… For centuries slavery had been a growing part of the world-wide economy, not just in the 13 Colonies here. The fact that some of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery at all was an incredibly radical idea for their time. What was the thinking on the subject of slavery of your ruling class forefathers from that time? Also, take some time and look up the Founding Fathers and the ‘Gradual Act for the Abolition of Slavery.’ Who else from this time attempted to accomplish anything similar?

Amerika

26000 Elephants wrote: »

Wow. Sounds like Sharia law would be just up your street. How would you look with a beard?

Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

RobertKK

Jawgap wrote: »

No, it doesn't work because people can go over, under and around it - and as one borderguard said recently "If you you build a 10m high wall, they'll just come along with 12m ladders."

Technology constantly improves which constantly helps to improve security.

One can see the security wall between Israel and the Palestinians had an enormous effect on the number of suicide bombers entering Israel.

I think the US who are very security conscious, will consider every option including a wall, and from that a decision will be made.

CMOTDibbler

RobertKK wrote: »

New York Times 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

Fast forward to 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/hillary-clinton-necono-republican-endorsements-donald-trump-policy-issues

The Secretary of State is the person who signs off on arms deals to other countries.

I find a lot of this labelling to be over-simplistic. It's like we're not comfortable unless we can put people in a box and tick another box so we'll always know where they are.

What happens when they do something 'outside the box'. Do we re-label them or persist with the stereotype and ignore the outliers?

Trump has said a lot of things that very clearly box him up. I'm waiting to see what he actually does when he's in office.

Amerika

aloyisious wrote: »

Don't the various amendments mean the constitution is a living constitution, something not written in stone?

I'm looking at Article Three of the constitution which sets out what the SC can make judgements on and it seems to have the power, under it, to make determinations when it comes to actual cases and differences between different parties when it comes to citizens rights under the constitution. I'm no constitutional lawyer so will rely on wiser minds about it.

Lol at your admiration of the elderly governors......

No it's not. The Founding Fathers knew the US Constitution wasn’t a perfect document. So in order to meet the changing needs of a nation that would profoundly become different from the eighteenth-century world in which its creators lived, were smart enough to allow for amendments to the US Constitution. And that it was something that would need the approval of the majority of representative of the people to accomplish, not just a handful of political appointed judges sitting on the high court making decision based on how they feel rather than interpreting the law before them.

RobertKK

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I find a lot of this labelling to be over-simplistic. It's like we're not comfortable unless we can put people in a box and tick another box so we'll always know where they are.

What happens when they do something 'outside the box'. Do we re-label them or persist with the stereotype and ignore the outliers?

Trump has said a lot of things that very clearly box him up. I'm waiting to see what he actually does when he's in office.

If I was an American, my views on some issues would be classed as conservative, my foreign policy views would be classed as being liberal.
Hillary Clinton is a staunch conservative on foreign policy.

Mr.Micro

RobertKK wrote: »

Technology constantly improves which constantly helps to improve security.

One can see the security wall between Israel and the Palestinians had an enormous effect on the number of suicide bombers entering Israel.

I think the US who are very security conscious, will consider every option including a wall, and from that a decision will be made.

No doubt the US will still feel the need to interfere in other countries affairs, wall or no wall. So long as we are OK all other initiatives are on the table. Only now there are other players such as the Chinese and a more aggressive Russia.

Brian?

Amerika wrote: »

This nonsense again? How disingenuous it is to judge a select group from hundreds of years ago through the prism of modern morality. A little bit of history for you… For centuries slavery had been a growing part of the world-wide economy, not just in the 13 Colonies here. The fact that some of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery at all was an incredibly radical idea for their time. What was the thinking on the subject of slavery of your ruling class forefathers from that time? Also, take some time and look up the Founding Fathers and the ‘Gradual Act for the Abolition of Slavery.’ Who else from this time attempted to accomplish anything similar?

I don't think disingenuous is the correct word. But let's work this through.

In 1776 slavery was illegal in Britain and Ireland. But not British colonies. So the "ruling class of my forefathers", whoever they were, did not own slaves.

As early as 1588, slavery was outlawed in Lithuania. Japan in 1590. Russia in 1720. You get the idea. Opposition to slavery was in no way a radical idea.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal......" . Buts it ok to own some of them??

Some of the founding fathers opposed slavery. Some did not. My point is that insisting on the all knowing wisdom of a group of 18th century men is a poor way to maintain a constitution.

Answer me this: Why the capitalisation of founding fathers?

Jawgap

RobertKK wrote: »

Technology constantly improves which constantly helps to improve security.

One can see the security wall between Israel and the Palestinians had an enormous effect on the number of suicide bombers entering Israel.

I think the US who are very security conscious, will consider every option including a wall, and from that a decision will be made.

The funny thing is if you read the recent article in the Irish Times, the people who live, work and police that area don't think it'll work.

And yes, I'm sure the contractors are itching to make the wall, the supporting infrastructure etc as high tech as possible

And finally, do you think that any wall the US might build would be policed even as remotely intensively as the Israelis police their wall(s)? Could they afford to sustain that level of supervision/policing?

RobertKK

Mr.Micro wrote: »

No doubt the US will still feel the need to interfere in other countries affairs, wall or no wall. So long as we are OK all other initiatives are on the table. Only now there are other players such as the Chinese and a more aggressive Russia.

North Korea could be a huge issue as well.

The US will have to intervene, but they need to be far more intelligent than getting involved in places Iraq, Libya, backing God knows who in Syria, arming the Saudis..
Trump inherits a mess.

alastair

RobertKK wrote: »

New York Times 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0



Fast forward to 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/hillary-clinton-necono-republican-endorsements-donald-trump-policy-issues



The Secretary of State is the person who signs off on arms deals to other countries.

No doubt the actual neocons supported Hillary over Trump, but that doesn't make Hillary a neocon. The neocons are a Republicans too, do you contend that makes Hillary a Republican?

The Saudi arms deal was drafted between the Dept of State and the Dept of Defence, and approved by Congress. It involved Obama travelling twice to Saudi to lobby - Hillary was only a small cog in the sales process.

Amerika

How the nation voted…



Seems like a mandate to me.

Trump may very well become the best and most effective US president we have seen in a generation. Republicans will be happy and angry over his agenda. Democrats will be happy and angry over his agenda. The people that voted for him understand he has more in common with Democrats than Republicans on a number of issues. Heck, he was a lifelong Democrat until just a few years ago. He personally knows Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shummer, and has contributed to them. He knows most of the powerful politicians personally. And he is not afraid to go up against Republicans as well as Democrats. He is beholding to no one except the American people. He won because he promised to do what is best for the average American. He knows how to negotiate and isn’t afraid of a fight. GW Bush and Obama didn’t know how to get things accomplished by reaching across party lines. Trump does and will fight to do what he was elected to do. And he won’t be afraid to take his case to the people to get them to force their representatives to work for what is best for the country, rather than party. Trump is what this country needs today. I will not be happy with some of what he will try and accomplish, but I realize we need to move beyond the division and polarization that now cripples Washington. I guess I will just need to be happy with his SCOTUS picks and bite my tongue on much of the other stuff at times. And in a few years I predict all the Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome types of today will be looking rather silly.

Brian?

Brian? wrote: »

Answer me this: Why the capitalisation of founding fathers?

The same reason we usually capitalise 'presidents' in The Presidents of the United States. 'Presidents' is a specific noun. It relates to specific presidents, not presidents generally.

Founding is not the present verb participle, the whole term 'Founding Fathers' is a plural noun as well as being a specific noun.

Convention suggests it should be capitalised.

For the same reason, the word People is capitalised in the Irish constitution, because it refers to a specific, sovereign, self-contained people; it is a specific noun and not a general noun.

Amerika

Brian? wrote: »

Answer me this: Why the capitalisation of founding fathers?

Sorry, don't get your drift.

alastair

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

It was slightly over 1% of voter turnout in Florida. 1.1% to be exact.

The 0.2% is an average of polls. Some were closer than others. Polls have a built in margin for error. Usually that's around 3%. On no level can you say that the polls in the case of Florida were not a reflection.

It was actually 1.3% - 49.1% vs 47.8%. My maths let me down.
A lead of 0.2% for Trump isn't an accurate reflection of the outcome. The margin of error is wide sure, but if you want to take that line, you could equally make the claim that the polls accurately reflected the national electoral college win for Hillary, since she's only 2% away from that.

alastair

Amerika wrote: »

How the nation voted…



Seems like a mandate to me.

If fields voted. Meanwhile more actual voters supported the losing candidate. The mandate is generally measured by popular support, not land mass.

RobertKK

alastair wrote: »

No doubt the actual neocons supported Hillary over Trump, but that doesn't make Hillary a neocon. The neocons are a Republicans too, do you contend that makes Hillary a Republican?

The Saudi arms deal was drafted between the Dept of State and the Dept of Defence, and approved by Congress. It involved Obama travelling twice to Saudi to lobby - Hillary was only a small cog in the sales process.

She is neoconservative on foreign policy. That is all the neocons care about.

The State department could have objected.

TheOven

alastair wrote: »

If fields voted. Meanwhile more actual voters supported the losing candidate. The mandate is generally measured by popular support, not land mass.

Lets not muddy this with liberal bias such as population density.

alastair

RobertKK wrote: »

She is neoconservative on foreign policy. That is all the neocons care about.

The State department could have objected.

She isn't a neocon, so she can't be 'neoconservative' on any issue. She can certainly align with them on certain issues, but that's an issue of coincidence, not ideology.

RobertKK

RobertKK wrote: »

She is neoconservative on foreign policy. That is all the neocons care about.

The State department could have objected.

She's not a neoconservative that's utterly ridiculous.

You could say she's a Hamiltonian in the sense that she favours intervention over splendid isolation (that must make Trump a Jeffersonian? Maybe according to himself), but neocon is so wide of the mark it's just daft.

I think Hamiltonians have been described as paleoconservatives, which is a nice word.

RobertKK

People can stay in denial that her foreign policy has been consistent neocon in nature, to the point she got the backing of the most high profile neocons around.
It does not mean she is not liberal in other areas.

daithi7

alastair wrote: »

If fields voted. Meanwhile more actual voters supported the losing candidate. The mandate is generally measured by popular support, not land mass.

Yes, that's undoubtedly true, but to be fair to the Trumpites, he won the election fair and square, by the rules of the contest.

Also as a side point, whilst Hillary may have marginally won the overall popular vote, this however does not reflect the federal nature of the USA. Also, Republicans in particular, would say that land mass and land owners, should carry a higher weighting vote per person. (i.e. more electoral votes per person in less populous states)
Now you can say that is daft in one way, but it tallies with their beliefs and it is a very valid argument IMHO.
(& I am certainly not a republican)

alastair

daithi7 wrote: »

Yes, that's undoubtedly true, but to be fair to the Trumpites, he won the election fair and square, by the rules of the contest.

Also as a side point, whilst Hillary may have marginally won the overall popular vote, this however does not reflect the federal nature of the USA. Also, Republicans in particular, would say that land mass and land owners, should carry a higher weighting vote per person. (i.e. more electoral votes per person in less populous states)
Now you can say that is daft in one way, but it tallies with their beliefs and it is a very valid argument IMHO.
(& I am certainly not a republican)

No problem with the reality of the electoral college system, and of checks and balances on the state's, but the claim was made that the map represented a mandate from the nation. It doesn't, since the nation is the sum of the citizens, not the electoral districts, and they (or at least the voting electorate) actually mandated the losing candidate. The electoral system mandated Trump, but the nation didn't.

PopePalpatine

alastair wrote: »

It was actually 1.3% - 49.1% vs 47.8%. My maths let me down.
A lead of 0.2% for Trump isn't an accurate reflection of the outcome. The margin of error is wide sure, but if you want to take that line, you could equally make the claim that the polls accurately reflected the national electoral college win for Hillary, since she's only 2% away from that.

The thing is, the polls were mostly wrong across the country by that same margin of error. The models failed to account for the drop of 6 million voters from Obama in 2012 to Clinton two days ago.

26000 Elephants

Amerika wrote: »

Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

:cool: Looking to 200 year old legal texts to guide your way through the modern world is nonsense.

To conflate this with the timeless ideas of the great philosophers is absurd.

alastair

RobertKK wrote: »

People can stay in denial that her foreign policy has been consistent neocon in nature, to the point she got the backing of the most high profile neocons around.
It does not mean she is not liberal in other areas.

Once again, she's not a neocon, so she can't hold any neocon positions. She can share some positions with them, but that doesn't make her a neocon. Whether she's conservative, centrist, leftist, or liberal, on any given issue doesn't change that reality.

johnp001

RobertKK wrote: »

People can stay in denial that her foreign policy has been consistent neocon in nature, to the point she got the backing of the most high profile neocons around.
It does not mean she is not liberal in other areas.

Regarding the backing of high profile neocons...

Neil Clark wrote:

The 2016 US Presidential election has seen a coming together of hard-core Bush-era neocons and the anti-Bush liberal-left in support of the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The unofficial coalition, which looks likely to help propel the Democratic nominee to the White House (if the polls are to believed), will have surprised many, but it’s not the first time self-identified progressives have - wittingly or unwittingly - aided the cause of the most reactionary people in western politics.

The neocons: a group of ultra-hawkish hard-right imperialists, who are quite happy for the US to illegally invade other sovereign states and drop bombs all over the world. The liberal-left: who profess their support for human rights, internationalism and progressive causes.

At first sight, these two groups don’t appear to have much in common. But the truth is the liberal-left have for a long time been the accomplices of the endless war lobby.

Think back to 1999 and the US-led bombing of Yugoslavia. Never mind that the Balkan state was a multi-party democracy that operated an economy with very high levels of public/social ownership: the liberal-left cheered as bombs rained down on Belgrade, Nis and Kragujevac . Many ‘progressives’ swallowed hook, line and sinker the lurid claims of a ‘genocide’ being committed in the province of Kosovo, which were later dismissed by a UN court.

Although it was promoted as a ‘humanitarian’ venture, the bombing of Yugoslavia was in fact a hard-right project pushed by fiercely anti-socialist/anti-communist Cold War warriors.
More...

daithi7

alastair wrote: »

No problem with the reality of the electoral college system, and of checks and balances on the state's, but the claim was made that the map represented a mandate from the nation. It doesn't, since the nation is the sum of the citizens, not the electoral districts, and they (or at least the voting electorate) actually mandated the losing candidate. The electoral system mandated Trump, but the nation didn't.

With all due respect that's a real splitting hairs attitude to the outcome of this election. The election was won fair and square by the laws of the land.

p.s. as an aside, other presidents have also won the election before while not getting the majority of the overall popular vote (e.g. Bush v Gore, Kennedy v Nixon) . So this anomaly of the US electoral college system is well known and has precedent.

oscarBravo

daithi7 wrote: »

The election was won fair and square by the laws of the land.

True. It's a pity that the Voting Rights Act was no longer one of those laws. It's tragic to see a country that holds itself up as a beacon of democracy work so very hard to prevent so very many of its citizens from voting.

Overheal

RobertKK wrote: »

North Korea could be a huge issue as well.

The US will have to intervene, but they need to be far more intelligent than getting involved in places Iraq, Libya, backing God knows who in Syria, arming the Saudis..
Trump inherits a mess.

Election season: "Trump is a noninterventionist! No more wars!"

Trump wins: "We HAVE to invade Korea!"

God listen to yourselves. Dissonant foolishness.

BoJack Horseman

Neither can quite understand how it got to this.

BoJack Horseman

Overheal wrote: »

Trump wins: "We HAVE to invade Korea!

That's news!

Tell us more.

I thought the Donald was open to talks with NK?

RobertKK

They seemed to get on well.
It was suppose to be a meeting for 10-15 minutes, went on for near 90 minutes.
Trump called Obama a "very good man".

Both had been insulting eachother, and now they are getting on better than expected, Obama called the meeting 'excellent', and Trump said he had 'great respect' for Obama.
Looks like a lot of wounds were worked on as they shook hands.