Presidential Election 2016

[RailBaronYarr]

I suppose my real point of posting that tweet above, though, is that it’s an awfully strange move to make so quickly, especially if you’re running as a man of the people that’s going to make struggling people’s lives easier. Whether it's smart policy or not is another issue.

All technocratic issues aside, this was entirely predictable. Literally every high-profile move or cabinet appointment he (and the now-GOP-controlled Congress) has made or announced fit this description.

[xandrex]

^Too true.

[VAStationDude]

Ridership on Washington Metro Rail for the inauguration was significantly lower than today's ridership prior to the Women's March on Washington and much lower than Obama's 2009 inaugural. SAD!

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/m ... rch-233967

[cooperrez]

From Trump's executive order pertaining to immigration and sanctuary cities:

(c) Ensure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law;

What kind of funds would these be, that aren't mandated by law?

[nBode]

For that matter, what is "applicable Federal law"? Anyone know these laws?

[EOst]

From Trump's executive order pertaining to immigration and sanctuary cities:

(c) Ensure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law;

What kind of funds would these be, that aren't mandated by law?

I've heard police funding grants mentioned. Many federal grant programs are based on formulas set by Congress, so his authority to zero out funding to those areas is limited.

[Nick]

folks you're not gonna believe it but there are a bunch of Trump voters on SSC, which is absolutely worth checking every few days

[Silophant]

Oh, man, I had forgotten about that happy little corner of the internet.

[mattaudio]

I bet June voted for Trump...

[FISHMANPET]

Would a ban on Muslims be good or bad for Saudi Arabian developers?

[Didier]

If I recall Retired Banker was quite pious.

[bapster2006]

I am sure there are many people on here who voted for the current president. I went to an inauguration get together and the women outnumbered the men.

[grant1simons2]

Oh that changes everything. If women voted for him he must not be sexist. Hell some Muslims voted for him, he must not want to kick them out of the country anymore. I could keep going. It doesn't matter if people on here voted for him. There's isn't someone here saying things like this,

LOL, worthless liberal tripe. Half white guy is gone, now maybe we can worry about our country instead of butt hurt liberals.

We've endured a golfing, vacationing moron for 8 years. It's time for work. Nothing Trump could do would be worse. Our culture sucks, blacks are the new racists along with liberal whites. My kids play with all minorities and whites, but now they don't play with any black kids because they're out right exhibiting racism to my kids. It's ridiculous. Obama is the worst joke perpetrated ever. Anyone who thinks we're better off are delusional.

[seanrichardryan]

Welp, it's mostly Nasa, who we've suspected was a literal piece of shit for years. Glad he's got his feel good president now.

[Didier]

A few observations:

1. The further away we get from the election, the more clear it is that Hillary <i>lost</i> this election. Almost any other credible Democrat probably would have won, given Trump's likability numbers and the low turnout. I personally liked Hillary, but her failure hasn't been adequately acknowledge on the left, which is problematic.

2. Donald Trump's MO during this term is going to be giving token handouts to the "white working class" that distract his voters from what he's really doing. The people who like Trump see him saving one insignificant Carrier factory in Indiana and believe he's living up to his campaign promises. They're not paying attention to his conflict-of-interest-laden, billionaire cabinet nominations, or his deregulation of the financial industry, or his extreme tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. This is something Democrats are going to have to counter hard. They need to expose that Trump's policies aren't actually helping the working class, and that deals like the Carrier plant aren't actually reforms. I have total faith that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi can do this. But not really.

3. Posting screenshots of random people's tweets doesn't affect any change. That guy nobody's ever heard of did not annihilate Donald Trump's immigration plan.

[twincitizen]

100% agree with all 3 points. If all Democrats can come up with in 2020 is Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, we are so f***ed.

1. Yep. It's exceedingly clear that Hillary / her campaign lost this thing. I agree that literally any generic Democrat would have edged Trump. The 25-years of RW lies/slander against her were effective. Millions stayed home and thousands more that showed up left the Presidential vote blank on their ballots. I've come around to the view that Trump's Access Hollywood video actually hurt, rather than helped the Clinton campaign. As soon as that video came out, she stopped running for anything, only running against Trump's antics (which pretty clearly didn't faze his supporters). If instead she had campaigned against all the evil shit he would do as President, rather than the dumb things he said in the past, she'd probably have won.

Also [and this is a worthless point to make now, but whatever]... While it turned out that Clinton's team ran a bad campaign (e.g. losing WI/MI by not campaigning there, while simultaneously wasting resources in NC & AZ), another factor in Trump's narrow win was that Gary Johnson turned out to be an incompetent moron. If he had been the competent adult that people thought he was, and his support hadn't completely cratered by late summer, he might've taken just enough additional votes away from Trump for Clinton to narrowly hold WI/MI/PA.

2. People like Pelosi and Schumer shouldn't even be in Congress anymore, let alone in leadership positions. They need to get out of the way so younger Democrats can get move up the ranks, get national exposure, etc. These septuagenarians have been clogging up the pipelines for too long. It's bad enough that the Democratic bench is so thin throughout the country - these folks are not helping by robbing other Democrats of leadership opportunities.

3. I think we need to give it more time, but yeah it's unclear how the resistance (marches, Twitrage, etc.) is going to translate into anything productive. Whoever figures that one out deserves a Nobel Prize.

Last thought: how ironic is it that Hillary Clinton being Secretary of State directly led to her not being President? Had she instead stayed in the Senate (last elected 2006, would've been up for re-election in 2012), she would be President right now. Emails, Benghazi, etc. would not have talking points against her.

[xandrex]

1. Yep. It's exceedingly clear that Hillary / her campaign lost this thing. I agree that literally any generic Democrat would have edged Trump. The 25-years of RW lies/slander against her were effective. Millions stayed home and thousands more that showed up left the Presidential vote blank on their ballots. I've come around to the view that Trump's Access Hollywood video actually hurt, rather than helped the Clinton campaign. As soon as that video came out, she stopped running for anything, only running against Trump's antics (which pretty clearly didn't faze his supporters). If instead she had campaigned against all the evil shit he would do as President, rather than the dumb things he said in the past, she'd probably have won.

2. People like Pelosi and Schumer shouldn't even be in Congress anymore, let alone in leadership positions. They need to get out of the way so younger Democrats can get move up the ranks, get national exposure, etc. These septuagenarians have been clogging up the pipelines for too long. It's bad enough that the Democratic bench is so thin throughout the country - these folks are not helping by robbing other Democrats of leadership opportunities.

1. It’s certainly true that Clinton lost rather than Trump won. And it’s likely (though not guaranteed, as some #BernieOrBust types would have you believe) that Bernie would have won if he got the nomination. It’s probably true that in some ways, Access Hollywood hurt her by pivoting the campaign to an issue that his supporters clearly don’t care about. But we shouldn’t pretend that this campaign was ever about policy. Clinton gave plenty of policy-oriented speeches and had everything laid out on her website in excruciating detail. That didn’t matter. Trump knew he could be the ringleader in the media circus and turn this into a contest of personalities. Policy didn’t matter. Facts didn’t matter! The only way to cut through the noise and get heard was to play Trump’s game, and he plays it better than anybody else (and, of course, got pretty lucky with geography).

2. Dems would probably be smart to get someone from outside of Washington. Trump is now the ultimate insider, but he will continue to pretend that he is an outsider fighting the Washington elite. He could probably pretty easily run in 2020 by bashing, deflecting, and blaming any fallout in the next four years against any Beltway Democrat that throws him or herself into the ring. I think he’d have a harder time with someone who has an extensive business background or served elsewhere. I know he doesn’t have a ton of name ID, but I think Jason Kander, who ran for Senate in Missouri. He ran against incumbent Roy Blunt—who won his seat in 2010 by 14 points—and lost by under 3 percent. And he did that in a state that went for Trump by 19 points. He’s young, relatively good looking, served in the military (with a great campaign ad), and holds elected office in a red state. All good things. He might not be the right choice in 2020, but someone in his mold wouldn't be bad at all.

[FISHMANPET]

Monday morning quarterbacking is the best but the whole Hilary vs Bernie thing misses the fact that the field was cleared for Hilary. What about Biden, what about O'Malley, what about democratic governors or senators from the midwest we've never heard about. Hilary didn't win, and I think for better or worse it's not because more people wanted Trump, it's because people didn't want Hilary. I also don't think Bernie would have won. But someone a bit more centrist than Bernie, and way less of Hilary's baggage, well who knows.

[FranklinAveFixation]

https://antidotezine.com/2017/01/22/trump-knows-you/

[mplsjaromir]

Trump's Supreme Court pick started a club called 'Fascism Forever' at his elite all-boys prep school.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rever.html

I'm not surprised.