"Fly-over states" like "Islam is religion of peace" is something I only see ascribed to people, never actually used. As to the 'Great Sort' it is a product of our changing economy. The innovation-based economy requires lots of really smart people living and working together. This can be done artificially. Stick a big enough university (or cluster of universities) anywhere and throw enough money and you'll get the required intelligence density for innovation. Bell Labs pulled it off last century. Or, you use cities. Which is what is happening. Hillary won a small minority of counties in this country, but those counties made up OVER TWO THIRDS of US GDP. Many of the best and brightest from red areas get pushed (minorities, women, LGBTQ, ect) out due to regressive social policies but most are pulled by jobs in the cities. Which are blue. I've mentioned before that since we bought our place in Nov 13, a Kansan, Georgian and four Alabamians have used my downstairs apartment (prior owner/builder was multigenerational Vietnamese family) to move out here. Five had bachelor's degrees, two post-grad. Ironically enough my buddy (and old roommate) without a degree makes more than anyone. He's a Scheduler on 8 figure shipbuilding contracts. And while he doesn't have his BS yet, he is constantly taking classes, moastly certifications but also some college here and there. All of us love where we are from, but we just can't live there. For all of us it is a mix of social and economic, but it doesn't mean we don't miss our homes or wish they were better.
Got a credible source for this bullshit? Because Clinton's lead has grown daily since the election. I's up to over 2% now and she's going to end up very close to as many votes as Obama got 4 years ago
True statement: Trump won and Hillary lost. False statement: The American people preferred Trump over Hillary. Insanely false statement: Trump won in an overwhelming landslide utterly repudiating Democrat policies.
It wasn't. It was put in to protect the interest of rural, southern, slave-holder states. Slavery was the basis for the debate
Well no, that's where you get into making a false claim by going beyond saying "Trump won" Hillary lost because of the votes cast in four states, any three of which she needed to win. THOSE voters wanted Trump. Barely. On that day. And even then it's more complex (go look at the totals for people who voted for some candidate other than a D or R in those states. massively higher in '16 than in '12). But the only logical rational way to state what the "US wanted" is the popular vote. Might? Seriously?? One does not make assertions of fact based on "might" and it is, frankly, flat out lunacy to suppose any such group would have voted with any sort of unanimity. You are capeable of much better arguments than this unless you've suffered some serious head trauma of which I'm unaware. The majority vote is an indication of the majority opinion. No one is arguing that is some shocking surprise that only the EV counts in terms of picking a winner, but who won is not the point of controversy here. The unreasonable part of this thread is the conservatives who persist in proving a point that is not at all at issue while ignoring completely the point that is.
right, and there's not even a few left leaning voters who skip out because they know full well which way their state will go. In your world every last Democrat votes and a lot of grumpy conservatives stay home and bitch.
well yes except Tuttle also argues they are essentially exclusively conservatives. Which is dumb on the face of it since we know that older voters skew right, and younger voters skew left - and we also know the older you get the more reliably you vote and the younger you are the more likely you are to flake out on the election
well yes and no. Liberals tend to gravitate to urban areas which leave the rural by default to conservative majorities. It's a me-first attitude which is understandable. People (Anc for example) have ask me why I don't get the fuck out of Mississippi (as many liberals have) and I have some personal and logistical reasons but laying those aside, were I single, had a good income and flexibility, the temptation to bail would be overwhelming and if I did, the west coast has obvious appeal. Because even when you have a situation like, say Charlotte or Nashville or Atlanta being pretty appealing, they are in states dominated by those backward-ass legislatures I'm running from. But if I did that, I abandon my less fortunate non-conservative peers to an even redder state. My opinion, if liberals want to be urban, be urban but do so in cities which can be expanded to flip states. Don't leave Ohio and go to NY or Chicago, go to Cincinnati and blow that bitch up. A big enough city can drive the votes of the whole state. And liberals who have the luxury of that kind of reverse migration should consider it. Yes, it will be a bitch to live with the bullshit until you lip it, but how badly do you want to save us from a repeat of this election?
which goes back to Comey. Nate Silver has spelled this out. Shift the election 1.2% to the left - the kind of swing that can easily happen in a day or two, and she picks up all four of FL, PA, MI, and WI - and the effect of Comey on late deciders was more than enough to move the meter that far, and the internal data of both parties and both campaigns agree. That one act alone almost certainly changed the outcome and it was the false cherry on top of the false narrative that the GOP had been building for a couple of years (itself build on the foundation of bullshit they laid down in the 90's)
I agree BUT, if you look closely, you'd find that just as many states have no effective voice now as would in a popvote election. For example - No one pays attention to Wyoming in a popular vote? Or Rhode Island? or Vermont? Or Oklahoma? No one pays attention to them now, because everyone knows where their EVs are going. In either arrangement, 10-15 states get attention and most of them overlap the ones that get attention now. But the impression they would be giving up a voice would be sufficient to forestall any such attempt.
Then by that standard, no one pays attention to CA now either. Methinks it's not as simple as you believe.
Clinton was also forced to use her powers on Bernie. She did some dirty deeds on him and it showed off the corruption in the party better than anything the republicans could do. I can understand why some thoughtful people could not bring themselves to vote for her. She really solidified the republican image of her as a shrewd manipulator of the political system. I personally thought she would keep us on a similar direction, and the problems we have would not get fixed, but the boat was still advancing and not going to sink. For many people that was not good enough after seeing the Bernie campaign. His ideas are not contingent on him so hopefully next election they will fall on someone else who is not running as dead meat vs the establishment megacandidate. I do not see Hillary's failure as one of ability or experience. She was just covered in too much shit. Yes, a lot of it was manufactured, but she did some underhanded things in fighting Bernie. Had she saved them for trump she might not have made the elections, but I think people would have appreciated it more.
He's reffering to the recount in Wisconsin where Trump actually did pick up more votes after that process was completed. It's pretty much been common knowledge http://www.latimes.com/nation/polit...onsin-recount-tally-1481584948-htmlstory.html
I agree that this all doubtless played a part, and that it wasn't Donald who won this election but Hillary (read: DNC) who lost it. Meaning that they failed to see who inhabits rustbucket states like that: furious people who used to have good jobs, people furious enough to be conned by Donald. He was smart enough to recognize rustbelt people's distress, whereas Hillary did her best to ignore it. The thing about Hillary, or rather Hill'n'Bill as a political team, is that they're proponents of the voracious, masterless capitalism that goes by the name of Globalization. (Of course it's dearer to the hearts of no-one but the Republicans, but let's not waste time on actual policies.) On the campaign trail, Hillary refused to even discuss the Glass-Steagall Act. Whereas Donald was all over the map making mendacious (and usually pretty vague) promises. So Hillary lost, voter suppression and Russian hackers notwithstanding.
I can't (and I know one or two of them). As usual in US politics (there being only two -- Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee -- parties), it was Either Hillary or Donald. Anyone who couldn't bring themselves to hold their nose and vote for Hillary richly deserves Donald. And he's shaping up to be a Humdinger.
Getting mad at the people who did not vote is stupid. They did not put Donald up there. The republican party did. They did not run a hated candidate against him. The democrats did that. They did not restrict it to two candidates. The media does that. Put the blame where it belongs. The republicans allowed trump to be their candidate, and the dems screwed over a popular and exciting candidate when it mattered, and the media made sure there was no alternative.
I know two ex-pat Americans who DID vote, but voted Green -- just as useless. OK, but let's include the people who hated Hillary and stayed home. They helped put Donald where he is. It's fine for Americans to blame everybody else (the Republicans, the Democrats, the media, etc.). But to blame everybody else without blushing, one has to do one's best oneself. Like most people, I figured Hillary was going to win anyway. Nevertheless -- if I'd been American -- I would have gone out and reluctantly voted for her, just in case. A purely strategic vote -- a wedge against the Donald Disaster. First question: Could Sanders have won the nomination if no superdelegates existed? Removing all the superdelegates, Sanders still had 359 delegates fewer than Hillary did. Can you explain to me, then, how Sanders got "screwed over"? Second question: If Sanders -- magically -- had become the Dem nominee, what would have happened? I think I can answer that. The Republicans and the corporate-run media (i.e. most of it) would have portrayed him as Pol Pot resurrected. He would have got creamed at the polls. My view at least. Third question: What would have happened with a President Sanders? Again (and we're talking about a miracle occurrence here) I think I can answer that. Seems to me that Bernie is a mediocre campaigner/communicator (so is Hillary). He owed whatever success he had to the same Energy that got Donald elected (or "elected"). There's an extremely slim chance that Sanders would have surrounded himself with charisma-geniuses who would have enabled him to seize that bully-pulpit the way poor old Obama should have. Then Sanders could have talked no-bullshit straight to the American people above the heads of the media and congress. Unlikely but possible. Probably, though, he'd have even less to show for his presidency than Obama has. Sanders would have been blocked at every turn, completely stonewalled by congress.
You can count them as doing nothing, but the people who put Donald and Hillary there are the democrat and republican parties. Without their efforts neither of them would have been in the running. That is where the problem lies. The two parties are massive money machines. We have to strip them of their money if we ever want a reasonable candidate. You are just getting distracted when you get angry at the people who literally did nothing. They did not vote for trump and provide impetus for his campaign. I agree that when you do nothing you are at the whim of those who do something, but you are not at fault for what happens, and you are going to get the effect anyway. By your logic we should blame Europe for trump because they could have helped influence the election and their economy and safety seems to be in peril because of trump. They may not be able to vote, but they could have helped more instead of doing nothing. Hillary and the dnc kept Bernie out of the news and when they did pay attention to him they ran hatchet jobs on him. There was mucking around in the primary elections. You had DWS working as the head of the dnc and clearly working with Clinton against Bernie. She resigned and was whisked away without any questions. They would have come out against him like that but Bernie would have stolen trumps anti establishment wind. He was already doing amazing things with little money. He would have excited his base like trump did. Trump was very correct when he said Hillary was low energy. No one was voting for her, they were voting in fear of the horrible alternative. Had Bernie been there he would have gotten out a huge black vote because he worked with BLM while Hillary was brushing them off. He had millennial excited to vote for him, but they were not for Hillary. He was a firebrand just like trump and he was presidential. Trump would have been left with the deplorable vote and lost.
Bernie had his weaknesses. He is not really a leader personality and his age would have been a problem. I think he would have gotten blocked in many ways, but I think him getting blocked as president would have woken up the millenials to the importance of their congressional voting. That is all conjecture at this point. Bernie would have used the bully pulpit, and probably got nothing done. However I think he would have started the ball rolling on a big change. Oh, and thanks for the meaty posting. Please do not take my disagreement for hostility.
It is not that I disagree with the way you portray the Repubs/Dems or the System in general. But you could have had Hillary instead of Donald. Not great, no. But not Donald. Just as you got Obama instead of Romney, Johnson instead of Goldwater. The Lesser of Two Evils isn't a great deal, but you're stuck with it. And anyone who didn't do everything in his/her power to prevent Donald becoming president must share responsibility and blame. Fair enough. But look at the results. Electoral shenanigans notwithstanding, a whole shitload of Americans actually went out and voted for Donald. I still find that hard to believe. But I think it's undeniable. If the Sanders bandwagon had really had that much momentum, nobody but NOBODY could have stopped it. Remember McGovern. He had the party bosses against him too. But he simply steamrollered them. (You don't think the DNC was much purer in those days, I hope.) Sanders didn't steamroller them, because he couldn't. Do you think Sanders could have got elected to the US senate from any other state than Vermont? I don't. Again, I don't fundamentaly disagree with you. But the reality is that Sanders was not on the ticket. Hillary was. And if anyone sulked at home on election day, they share the blame. I hope he would have. I think it's possible. But then I thought it was possible the night Obama won in 2008. He had everything going for him, huge gigawatts of political momentum. And then he pissed it all away. Even a cynic like me was disappointed.
I think we are almost on the same page. They will share the consequences of not voting against trump. I am still not sure he is even going to make one year as president. If the miniscule chance the electoral college doesn't knock him out I think he will violate the law and be impeached. I think it was a sneaky ploy that they put pense in as trumps running mate. He is unelectable, but if he is vp you can impeach trump and he takes the place. There is a big chunk of deplorables out there, but there is also a whole lot of stupid and vapid out there too. I think that with the republican bullshit machine running full blast on Hillary a lot of ignorant people went for trump because he was a shiny object. I think he could have gotten into a number of other states. If he had the volume of Hillary or trump in the media people would have gone to him. Instead the media marginalized him. The stupid pad somehow posted halfway through my response so I chopped it in half considering it would take me some time to respond and the edit might come after your response.
Yes, the software here can be a pain. There should be a time-limit on edits, for one thing. I post only on a computer. I don't even own a stupid-phone. Trump may be impeached, but do the Dems have the numbers to get him out of office? Also, the Repubs have cheapened the whole impeachment thing by using it against Bill Clinton. I think it's more likely that we'll all end up a pile of radioactive cinders than that Donald will get impeached. One can always hope, however. When it comes to exercising the office of the president, he doesn't know whether to scratch his spectacles or polish his ass.
MAD was in place because of the cold war when Russia and America were opposed. Trump is chummy with the Russians so who is he going to launch at?
Which is stupid. One of the reasons I've been comfortable voting 3rd party every Presidential Election is that the two states I've been registered in, Alabama and Washington, were never in doubt. I donated to both Obama and Hillary, and volunteered for Obama (as GOTV for down ballot races), so would have voted for both if it mattered. Which brings me to a pet theory I have. To be clear the evidence isn't out there yet to prove it, but it seems coherent. A big part of Obama's huge wave in '08 was young people voting in greater numbers and more Dem than in the past. '12 saw about the same breakdown R/D wise but fewer numbers. Hillary was even lower. A big problem with relying on young people is that by definition they don't have long political memories. In 2016 it had been 8 years since an R was president and 10 since the Rs had control. Your 18-30 year olds will have very little memory of that. Even your 30-35 year olds unless they were more tuned in to politics than the majority of their peers. An older person can tell a younger person how things were till they are blue in the face, but some things require first hand learning. All the Bernieites (who ignored their candidate) who argued till the end that Hillary was no better than Trump or even just sat out b/c they "weren't excited" about Hillary are about to get a learning. About to get a big learning.
First, MAD is very much still there if by MAD you mean massive overkill capacity sitting there waiting to be launched. (Mutually Assured Destruction ---- all still there.) I'm not saying that Trump will set out in a calculated manner to launch at anybody. His nominated secretary of defense (James "Mad Dog" Mattis) notwithstanding, it probably isn't that easy to let fly. Though I'm not reassured. It's not for nothing that Henry Kissinger was seriously worried in The Last Days of Evil Dick's presidency. The trouble with any weapon is that in the Fog of War, people don't really know what's going on. In fact, let's call it the Fog of Crisis, since you don't necessarily need a war for it to occur. All we need is a sufficiently grave crisis, and with Donald I think that's what we'll get. This is what frightened the bejeezuz out of JFK and Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis ---- not that A might deliberately throw all its armed might against B, but that somebody among the many thousands of personnel with their lower-level decision-makers might make The Mistake, or simply go round the bend. With nukes, all it takes is one tiny wrong move at the wrong moment and we're all toast. For example, consider this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov Imagine what it was like down there in that sub. It almost happened. If not for Archipov, we certainly wouldn't be alive to be sitting here so comfortably discussing it. All this to say that we don't actually need Donald to throw one of his temper tantrums because Kim Jong-un or whoever has stuck his tongue out at him. All we need is the Right (or Wrong) Set of Circs and not have anyone of JFK/Krushchev's stature around, but only Donald and his pathetic minions. When the going gets tough, Don&Co are who we're going to have looking out for us. God help us all.
Correct, they don't pay attention to California. Presidental candidates hold fundraisers in California, not listening tours or town halls. It and Washington are 'vacuum states' where pols only come to suck up money. In fact, they don't even waste money on 'their' campaigns in these states. The states parties fund them. It's part of their down ballot GOTV efforts. It's much easier to get someone excited enough to vote for Pres than Joe Schmo for State Leg. And once you get them to vote for Pres they are very likely to go ahead and vote Joe Schmo.
Not enough data yet. For one, I'd like to see this elections breakdown, rebaselined to 2020 numbers. Assuming no change in percentage of different demos who voted and the breakdown within demos, what does the election in 2020 look like. That will give us a good baseline to work with moving forward to 2020. Personally I feel 2016 was an aberration due to multiple factors and Dems shouldn't be too hasty to either significantly shift the platform (for example, stop caring about women, minorities and LGBTQ folks) or attempt some kind of massive Red State Project.
that is quite right, nor NY or TX Which is wrong. Switching to a popular vote would add into the process state that SHOULD be courted without costing hardly any states that are courted now. Arguably NH and Iowa lose out, and they get their ego stroked in the primaries anyway, but otherwise... These are the top 15 states which were described as swing states and revived the most campaign and polling attention in 2016 at one point or another: FL PA OH GA NC MI VA AZ WI MN CO IA NV NH ME This is the top 15 by population CA TX FL NY IL PA OH GA NC MI NJ VA WA AZ MA The top 8 swing states (ranked by population) make both lists. WI, MN, and CO are in the top 22. As noted, IA and NH already had outsized influence in the primaries. That means NV and ME take a hit, while CA, TX, NY, IL get deserved attention. of the states below Colorado at #22, 86% of them were slam dunks for one party or the other and received no attention under the current arrangement. There may be other issues with ditching the EC but that, IMO, ain't one of them.
oh I agree that all this "OMG Identity politics!!!" and "Dems don't understand country folk!" as so forth is so much over-reaction navel-gazing. I was speaking more of long range deck shuffling. Assuming for the sake of the premise that they "more urban generally equals more liberal" paradigm holds , there are state that the Democrats could add to their bank with the "great sort" if the sort into (or near) the right cities. In the same way that Chicago votes the whole state of IL, and Seattle votes WA and Portland votes OR, Indianapolis could vote all of IN if it were big enough, Cincinnati and Columbus combined with Cleveland could flip OH back, and so forth
