Presidential Election 2016

[Tiller]

I would just like to ask everyone here to please please please do more than just comment on this forum for the elections in 2017 and 2018.

Tomorrow:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2905625 ... 394580199/

[grant1simons2]

Choir. Preached.

[David Greene]

Trump's New Deal for Black America
http://www.vladtv.com/article/221683/tr ... ck-america

That's fucking terrifying.

I've been thinking a lot about the infrastructure issue, which comes up in this link too. This whole week I've been trying to erase the pit in my stomach by trying to normalize what's happened, to tell myself, it'll be ok, our government systems will keep him in check.

I have moved on to acceptance.

This was not a normal election and this is not a normal result. Donald Trump wants to be an autocrat. Everything he has said indicates that. "Only I can fix it," after all.

Read this:

http://www2.nybooks.com/daily/s3/nov/10 ... vival.html

The signs are there. Looking back through history, autocrats are often described as stupid or incompetent when they take power. "They don't know how government works," people always say.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter because he *has no intention* of following political or social norms. He's not looking to use the existing wheels of power. He's looking to distort them into something else; something he can control. The political leaders and the military always think they can control an autocrat. And they can't. Not unless the autocrat meets resistance from the start.

Infrastructure is a carrot dangled to satisfy people. I have no doubt Trump fully intends to "rebuild cities" and do other infrastructury things. It will placate people. make them think he is "good" and doing normal things. But along with that will come the mass deportations, stop & frisk, further police militarization and, inevitably, war (to keep the economy going).

It is our job to resist. He's going to run some tests to see how much we'll tolerate. It'll start with undocumented immigrants. If we don't resist then he'll move on to Muslims. If that's ok, it'll be the "Black criminals" and on and on. White nationalism is on the rise. We must stop it.

I'll have more to say in infrastructure in the transportation forum but here are other things that alarm me about that article:

- School choice - Take education out of the hands of the public. What kinds of schools will qualify to receive funds? Who decides on the curriculum? He's already said Common Core is out.

- Safe communities - Stop & frisk, police militarization, profiling

- Equal justice - End sanctuary cities

- Tax reforms - A stimulus package meant to bribe people into accepting autocratic rule - jobs jobs jobs!!!

- Financial reforms - End welfare, split the Black community by giving money to some and not others

- Trade - Isolationism leading to weakened foreign policy, destabilize Europe

- Illegal immigration - The scapegoats. Divide the poor and marginalized against each other. The propaganda campaign will start here.

- Infrastructure - Again, a carrot, paid for by mortgaging our planet's future

- Protect Black churches - Another strategy to divide. Who gets protection and who doesn't? What's the cost?

- America first - Besides the historical overtones, disengage from the world, destabilizing it and leading to war. Major war.

This is a right-side-of-history moment. White nationalism must be stopped. We must organize a resistance.

We. Must. Do. It.

We.

All of us.

[Tiller]

I'm not sure what your position on guns was before, but it sounds like you're probably a bit more pro-gun than you used to be? I've had some sympathies towards antifa movements elsewhere, but I'm not sure whether they've helped or hurt the fight against the rise of extremism in contemporary Europe.

I know the skirmishes in the streets between Brown Shirts and Red Shirts in the ascendant Third Reich played very well into nazi propaganda (Horst-Wessel Lied) and helped justify political crackdowns, though perhaps earlier action would have made a difference. There's also the question of how inevitable events like these are, being decided mostly on the whims of forces far larger than ourselves. Maybe social media changes things (until it's restricted under the guise of fighting "hate speech" or combating some sort of enemy).



Some of you have probably seen this (since it's been seen 58 million times, reacted to 508k times, shared 1.16M times, and has 86k comments), but I find this video to be very elucidating, if emotional and charged: https://www.facebook.com/viralthread/vi ... 190359668/

[David Greene]

Jesus, I'm not talking about an armed insurrection! I'm not anti-gun, I am for well-regulated guns, as the Constitution says.

I stopped watching the video after about two minutes of Bernie wanking. It just isn't useful.

[Tiller]

The antifa isn't literal armed insurrection. It's closer to forming a militia to take mass action (normally the action itself in contemporary Europe is unarmed action, but the members have armaments at home if shit were to hit the fan). You also seem to be contradicting yourself, deviating between Trump being literal Hitler, and him apparently not being serious enough of a threat to at least be organized and armed? There is a continuum here.

And bernie is only mentioned a bit early on, so in being unable to watch more than 2 minutes you probably missed the point.

[amiller92]

He's built up a lot of clout at this point, and for the next 4 years will be focusing on rebuilding the democratic party, from the ground-up, because it is in ruins. I would take it he'll establish plenty of connections and relationships doing that. He'll also make the party more progressive in the process, which would help any future progressive runs (whoever the candidate).

He's never done it before and he is again not caucusing with the party, so I'm not sure why you think he will now.

In terms of winning the democratic nomination, keep in mind Bernie would have won the nomination if 5% of voters moved from supporting Hillary to supporting him (for a net change of 10%).

That's a huge swing.

[amiller92]

I kinda wonder if Bernie ran with the intention of bringing light to his issues and not actually winning, then accidentally struck a populist chord of people that weren't happy with Clinton, and had to pivot to running a real campaign.

I have zero doubt this was the case.

[amiller92]

- Equal justice - End sanctuary cities

I suspect this also means no affirmative action of any kind.

[nate]

i have a feeling Trump will be very adept at the kind of propositions that David has brought up here and on the Transportation forum.

It will require some real resolve on the part of our politicians to resist the temptation of federal money, and has the potential for real political consequences. In the hypothetical scenario where infrastructure cash is tied to ending of sanctuary city policies, not accepting the money will require standing up to the construction industry and unionized labor. The 2018 TV ads will write themselves: "Governor Dayton loves illegal immigrants so much he turned down construction jobs for REAL Minnesotans. Don't elect <insert DFL politician here> to succeed him>.

It will take a strong politician to take a stand up to this.

[David Greene]

- Equal justice - End sanctuary cities

I suspect this also means no affirmative action of any kind.

Yes, I fully expect that too. And a reversal on gay marriage.

[David Greene]

i have a feeling Trump will be very adept at the kind of propositions that David has brought up here and on the Transportation forum.

It will require some real resolve on the part of our politicians to resist the temptation of federal money, and has the potential for real political consequences. In the hypothetical scenario where infrastructure cash is tied to ending of sanctuary city policies, not accepting the money will require standing up to the construction industry and unionized labor. The 2018 TV ads will write themselves: "Governor Dayton loves illegal immigrants so much he turned down construction jobs for REAL Minnesotans. Don't elect <insert DFL politician here> to succeed him>.

It will take a strong politician to take a stand up to this.

That's exactly right. Leaders will need to know they have people behind them. The Republicans will absolutely try to fracture the Democratic coalition and they're set up with the perfect opportunity to do so.

[Anondson]

Memphis Democrat Harold Ford Jr. as Transportation Secretary?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-tr ... ump-231776

[David Greene]

Jill Stein is raising funds for a recount. Computer security experts are telling Clinton to request a recount in MI, WI and PA.

If we're concerned about hacking, we should also audit AZ and IL because their voter databases were scanned before the election.

[VAStationDude]

The call for an audit is based on Wisconsin counties with electronic voting shifting Republican from 2012 to 2016 while counties without electronic voting had results more similar to 2012. That's my understanding at least.

The problem is that shift is entirely consistent with Minnesota's results and everyone of our voters uses optical scan paper ballots. Milwaukee, close in Milwaukee suburbs and Dane County had results much like 2012 and used paper ballots. Most non urban counties use electronic voting and had a shift away from the Democratic candidate and, to a lesser degree, a shift toward the Republican. The same pattern holds true in Minnesota. The Democratic vote was strong in Hennepin, Ramsey, Washington, Dakota and Scott counties but weaker elsewhere. If rural Minnesota hadn't had the exact shift as seen in Wisconsin then there might be something to the concerns being raised.

Imo, the audit is loony conspiracy theory so it's no surprise Jill Stein is on board with it.

[amiller92]

Jill Stein is scamming donors into giving money to her campaign and party, and grabbing some free press. Donations don't seem to be segregated for recount efforts. Don't fall for it.

As for recount efforts, they aren't going to turn multiple states, and can you image the chaos if they did? Let it go.

[David Greene]

Looks like she is actually filing for recounts, so no scam that I can see.

Look, I don't expect the results to change but computer scientists in the know are officially stating concern and I think it's definitely worthwhile to at least make sure everything is on the up-and-up. If nothing else, vote counts in Michigan are definitely close enough to warrant a recount.

I saw a picture of a Wisconsin electronic voting machine receipt where the vote totals didn't add up correctly. Obviously some random picture could be entirely fake but we know that these machines can be hacked because researchers have shown us how. It only takes a few seconds.

Isn't it worthwhile to make sure to the best of our abilities that someone isn't tampering with our elections?

[amiller92]

If she doesn't spend 100% of the money raised on recount efforts, it's a scam. And she isn't going to. Not to mention the free media coverage.

And on balance, no, it's probably not better to create further mistrust in our elective system that will be used as evidence of the need for ever greater voter suppression.

There's literally no upside here. Most likely, they will look and find no significant issues and no one will be convinced. Next most likely, they will find strange things they can't explain (elections have always been messy - they involve millions of people), but not enough to do anything and more people will think it was rigged. Tiny sliver of a chance they'll be able to prove something that throws us into chaos.

There's a reason Hillary and the Dems aren't going this. There's nothing it it for them or us as a nation. But there's money and press for the Greens in it, so here we are.

[QuietBlue]

Not to mention how much time was spent ridiculing the idea of a rigged election and showing how hard it would be to actually do when it was the other side worrying about it before the election. But I guess it's different when you don't get the results you want. I didn't want them either, but I still think this is a terrible idea.

[mattaudio]

Someone has an anti third party agenda, and it's showing.