"I will keep you in suspense" - US Elections 2016: the Final Thread

begin writing your parody Trump concession speeches.... now

the aristocrats!

I'm not sure I could top the alternate Trump response in that Sopan Deb tweet.

(For context: https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/789174109745721344 )

Are we sure this is the final one? We've been getting like 5,000 posts a week or so and there are still 2.5 weeks left.

Since when has it been necessary in any democracy to "understand and engage" with people who lose three elections in a row? That's just illustrating what Ta-nehisi and others have already said repeatedly - that all white grievance in the US is automatically treated as valid and important. We don't need to go out there and discover what makes these people tick. They live in dying communities, they don't want to change and they are terrified of black and brown people. They don't want any help. They hate us. The end.

― El Tomboto, Thursday, October 20, 2016 3:05 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

noticed this in the previous thread and wanted to note otfm

is Andrew Sullivan alive? Someone check on him.

ya xp was gonna say there are almost three weeks left!!! no way is this the last

we've been averaging a thread a month

I wonder if there's a disarmingly cheeky response - on a par with #MuslimsReportStuff - to the strains of thought like "now we need to empathize with and assuage the asspain of the poor poor Trumpanoids."

Particularly the utterly indefensible "it's your duty to make racists see the light" view DJP posted about. Ugh.

I am not a clever enough bunny but perhaps the intertube hivemind will come through.

"but I do want to learn more about problems faced by rural/red state citizens and what we can do to help them and keep our country from falling apart."

don't blue states subsidize red states with tax dollars? that's helping them a lot. understanding them is another thing altogether.

I'm in the middle of reading Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild, which offers a more in-depth approach to a similar topic. I was going to wait to start engaging ilx with this topic until after the election had settled down (and I had finished the book), but I do want to learn more about problems faced by rural/red state citizens and what we can do to help them and keep our country from falling apart.

How is the Hochschild book? I listened to a podcast interview with her. She's obviously smart, and I respect on a how she approaches that community as a practitioner, but (like the posts above) I'm skeptical of the project she implied in the interview, which is based around the aforementioned "understanding and engaging" as a political path forward. Embedded in this, I think, is a lot of assuming the "New Deal" coalition was "the norm" that we've tragically lost, all without taking into account that it was formed not by "cultural engagement" but by things like racist policies designed to get whites on board and powerful labor unions at the height of American industrialization.

xp from the other thread

“There have been irregularities in our elections, sometimes even fraud, but never to an extent that it affected the outcome,” said GOP Sen. John McCain, who is up for reelection in Arizona,

lol wtf John who ya foolin

if this thread is locked and another one started i don't know if i'll recognise it

also, good luck usa

maybe this was in the last thread, but: arpaio down 15 points in latest poll

a lot of assuming the "New Deal" coalition was "the norm" that we've tragically lost

New Deal was opposed tooth and nail by a very vocal and powerful minority that basically viewed FDR as a traitor

but yeah there is no mythical past (or any society, really) that didn't have a vocal disgruntled minority

good. Fuck that guy. don't think this can be asserated strenuously enough

Re arpaio

It's somewhat a pity, because they've been tricked and cheated by the GOP, who never ever cared for them. And yeah, the Democrats are the party that tries to help people with government, but what to do with people who vote against help, then shout out that nobody helps them? Obama tried to help, the Supreme Court decided that was up to the states, the red states refused to allow government to help their citizens, and the citizens clapped their hands, then shouted at Obama for not helping them...

To simplify, a lot of democracy is a fight for ressources, and if each of the two parties represented half of the people, and roughly alternated terms in government, then people would receive the same amount of help. But many GOP voters stopped voting for help to themselves, but instead started voting for hurting others, ensuring that women couldn't have abortions, LBGT people couldn't marry, trans persons couldn't piss where they want too, etc. If half the people vote to help themself, and the other half vote to hurt the first half, then the first half might not get everything they want. But the second half gets nothing. And they've gotten nothing, and they're mad as hell, but what's the solution, other than them beginning to vote for their own interests? And no, their jobs hasn't been taken by immigrants or NAFTA, and voting for the guy with the trillion dollar tax cut to the richest isn't helping themself.

Jeb Lund wrote a good thing:

The right wing came up with a pretty sweet gig in the 1960s when it lamented the lack of a conservative media to cosset ideas vulnerable to the scientific method and recorded events. In the short term, making things up takes no time at all; refuting fabrications takes orders of magnitude more. Ginning up bullshit tailors the discourse while forcing opponents to spend so much time trying to prove a negative that their own message gets lost in the outrage that, say, ACORN is running a white-slavery ring.

[...]

Already, Republican voters are being told that any Trump/Pence loss will constitute proof of a rigged election, and while Trump's refusal to pledge to honor the election results scandalizes political analysts as immediately disqualifying, their outrage misses the point. Donald Trump's rejection of essentially the entire of American history is disgusting, but talk show panelists don't have to live in that hell; they just cash checks for reporting on what the screams sound like.

We are a few weeks away from watching the Republican Party find itself immured behind a wall and haunted by phantasms of its own making, anxiety and despair only increasing as real, lived experience grows more terrifyingly distant from what it thought was true. This is a world that cannot be bargained with, because you cannot build a bridge between this one and the imaginary. You cannot compromise with an epistemology that rejects your existence.

Have we shared the important "Stakes is High" essay on here, re: that torched NCGOP office?

How is the Hochschild book? I listened to a podcast interview with her. She's obviously smart, and I respect on a how she approaches that community as a practitioner, but (like the posts above) I'm skeptical of the project she implied in the interview, which is based around the aforementioned "understanding and engaging" as a political path forward. Embedded in this, I think, is a lot of assuming the "New Deal" coalition was "the norm" that we've tragically lost, all without taking into account that it was formed not by "cultural engagement" but by things like racist policies designed to get whites on board and powerful labor unions at the height of American industrialization.

xp from the other thread

― intheblanks, Thursday, October 20, 2016 3:30 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like the book, but I haven't gotten to any specific point or project yet. I'm reading it kinda slowly, only about a quarter of the way in.

having a bit of a hard time reconciling the pro-big tent, pro-moderate political strategies advocated by many of the hillary supporters on this board, particularly during primary season, with the more or less purist position taken over the last several posts in the previous thread. i mean i get why posting just about anything vaguely woke in that way is therapeutic given the current climate and probably even safe given the probable outcome of the (presidential) election -- and i know deep down most of us on this board agree, and wish it could be this way -- but it obviously kind of conveniently ignores basic civics and how government actually works and whom it answers to. hillary, for example, would probably strongly disagree

a lot of assuming the "New Deal" coalition was "the norm" that we've tragically lost

New Deal was opposed tooth and nail by a very vocal and powerful minority that basically viewed FDR as a traitor

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 20, 2016 12:33 PM (fifty-seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, otm, not disputing that, i'm talking about the broadly defined mid-century dem coalition that combined the entire south, urban blue collar workers, african-americans, and the pro-labor intellectual class, all under the umbrella of one party.

Sabato's latest is fun

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/with-19-days-to-go-clintons-lead-is-bigger-than-ever/

I like the book, but I haven't gotten to any specific point or project yet. I'm reading it kinda slowly, only about a quarter of the way in.

no idea if there's a "project" in the book, what I described definitely felt like what she was getting at in the interview.

What do you mean, k3evin k?

i'm referring to the talk about how red-state voters don't need to be understood or accommodated

For the GOP the myth of the Restoration subsumes everything else. Candidates, policy positions – they're expendable if they feed the engine for a turning back to a Golden Age of America when the Constitution boasted only ten amendments. It's nihilism that once had élan when the Buckleys and NRO were in charge; now the ugliness is exposed.

yeah there was that sheen of gentility (which came in both northern and southern varieties)

Yeah, but how does that relate to the primaries, kev? I get the sense you might be referring to something I wrote, but I have no idea what your point is. I don't see the link. Bernie Sanders kept talking about a popular revolution and representing the 99%, while Hillary Clinton spoke to getting enough support to get shit through congress. I can't see why my new point doesn't match my old point, if it's me you're referring to?

well the 99% includes a lot of racists/xenophobes/nihilists who don't consider themselves part of the 99%, for one thing

having a bit of a hard time reconciling the pro-big tent, pro-moderate political strategies advocated by many of the hillary supporters on this board, particularly during primary season, with the more or less purist position taken over the last several posts in the previous thread. i mean i get why posting just about anything vaguely woke in that way is therapeutic given the current climate and probably even safe given the probable outcome of the (presidential) election -- and i know deep down most of us on this board agree, and wish it could be this way -- but it obviously kind of conveniently ignores basic civics and how government actually works and whom it answers to. hillary, for example, would probably strongly disagree

As an African-American, I strenuously object to and reject the idea that racial harmony can only be possible if I apologize for existing.

i'm not referring to you in particular, fred, nor am i necessarily rehashing a pro-bernie argument. i'm just pointing out what i saw as a contradiction. republicans, moderates, etc are going to have to be accommodated to get anything done in this congress -- this has been one of hillary's selling points, for better or worse! i just found the near-universal praise for a piece (which i didn't read btw lol i have an exam tomorrow) that from what i gathered put forth the argument that their concerns could be ignored pretty humorous. morally, sure, they should be ignored. on twitter and on ilx they don't have to be validated. but in real life, unfortunately they matter

xp dan i think if anyone has paid attention to my posts in the politics threads over the past 7 or 8 years -- and if you haven't i don't blame you -- they would know i'm not a big-tenter, lol

Hillary has said that half of Trumps supporters were deplorables whom we shouldn't listen to. So she probably would agree with us. I don't think the smart way of governing would be to kowtow to the Trumpkins, rather a combination of trying to appeal to moderate republicans (or rather, create some...) and executive orders. And turn the Supreme Court to the left for a generation. What else is there to do...

I didn't particularly like the piece, btw, so that part of your argument I understand :)

There is a difference between "how does someone we elect into office find common ground with people who disagree with her and want to see her fail" and "how do we assuage the concerns and fears of an electorate who supported a literal white supremacist". It is not contradictory to want/hope for a President who is good at working with people politically opposed to him/her in order to get things done while not wanting anything personally to do with the electorate that put the intransigent people there in the first place.

not sure it's necessarily a contradiction - you can want to coalition with moderate republicans while writing off extremists as too radical to participate in civil society

DJP said it before I could. Elected officials and constituencies are different things.

xposts k3vin the article (which is pretty short btw) is a little more nuanced than that.

...But I know a shit-ton of people down South and in the Midwest, working- and middle-class whites, most of whom never went to college, some not even graduating from high school, who think Donald Trump is a fucking hateful fraud, a showboating pissant, and a giant talking turd. When you try to "figure out" what drives Trump supporters and think that those of us who say, "Yeah, fuck them" are smug coast-clinging liberals, you are insulting the fuck out of the millions of people in Trump country who grew up in similar circumstances and decided that being racist, sexist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, and conspiracy-theory-loving jerk is wrong and work to make their area of the United States a little more tolerant and progressive.

i guess people might be otm'ing if various reasons, but for me, the takeaway is fuck trying to "understand" the clear white nationalist racist misogynist homophobes that make up a big chunk of the trump coalition. there's nothing to understand there. but that doesn't equal ignoring red-state voters in general. there are plenty of conservatives who fit into the description in the quote above. i know many of them. i grew up in the middle of nowhere, missouri, and i know plenty of terrible fucking racists, and i also know plenty of people who are disgusted by everything trump represents. we should try to understand and accommodate the latter group, sure. but it's a complete waste of time trying to "understand" a gung-ho trump supporter. so fuck them.

also i am not a big clinton supporter and i don't advocate for the big-tent triangulation with "moderates" strategy

DJP said it before I could. Elected officials and constituencies are different things.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 20, 2016 4:09 PM (three minutes ago)

eh, not when the elected officials more or less govern based on right wing Facebook memes their constituents share, but ok

there's not going to be any triangulation anyway - we've already seen how McConnell acts as Minority Leader. And Ryan is going to be taking fire from the Freedom Caucus from day one, you're never getting anything out of him.

not when the elected officials more or less govern based on right wing Facebook memes their constituents share, but ok

it varies from district to district and rep to rep (or senator to senator). some are smarter and more maneuverable than others.

I mean on the one hand there's Inhofe, who is an out and out moron that probably accurately reflects his base. and on the other hand there's someone like Lindsey Graham, who at least gives the appearance of being rational.

Is that how it works:

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/789196393202278400

Meanwhile, honestly for all the heavy breathing I see Trump's idiocies the last two days re conceding as just forced hoohah, and so, it seems, does his base as such:

https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/789177665274023936

BTW this is fun

https://t.co/6TOEaxybOW

Just browsing the_donald for schadenfreude guffaws and their top posts currently include such gems as "No evidence, or proof Russia hacked USA! Just another Hillary Lie!" - what do you think is the craziest thing Trump could say and still have them parroting it? Or have we reached the point where there is no answer to that?

"Hillary has a penis"

"Actual blood relative of Bills"

"There are secret electronic pulses built into the electronic voting booths so that when you vote for me, you get an electric shock until you relent and vote Hillary"

"dogs can't look up"

Princeton at 99% HRC which seems about right at this point, can we all tune out now

god, that was classic

https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/status/795797474564771840

if this happened in 2012 it would be one of two or three events from the campaign that everyone remembered. instead, it barely rates a blip.

also, every time we wonder what trump will do, he does the worst possible thing, so i'm going to bet he either

He tells all of America "You're Fired!"

Where did Oklahoma go?

those two things might not be opposed. the idea that whoever comes out of the GOP primary process will :automatically: get > 40% of the electorate means that another, more practiced demagogue could easily end up in this position in 2020, 2024...

i worry about that too, which is why i'm hoping the demographic trends will continue to diminish the chances that a white nationalist demagogue can take the Presidency.

how have we not figured out what we're going to call Bill Clinton yet

First Lech

This question from almost a year ago is still unanswered on the eve of the election. How far we've come.

Has Trump mentioned how he plans on doing any of the things he's proposed? I mean, I know that there's something really wrong that we need to figure out, and I know that things are going to be terrific and that some people are losers and there will be a wall with a door in it, but has he actually put forth any kind of actionable platform? At all? I suspect that I know the answer to that question but the answer terrifies me in light of his level of support so I need to ask the question anyway.

― Meat Sheet (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 20 January 2016 14:27 (nine months ago) Permalink

Ever since Jan. 1993, Bill's formally been called Mr. President. Seems like that won't quite work any more on a political level. In purely pragmatic terms, it isn't like he'd be mistaken for Madam President or anything.

Mr. Pre-President

i know this is probably just my own weird hang-up, but i've always taken faint exception to people who continued to be referred to by a position they no longer hold. "mr. senator"/"mme. secretary"/"mr. president"/etc. these aren't hereditary positions. they aren't academic or professional credentials. they're just jobs that you have, and then you don't have.

First Guy

or rather, i don't take exception to the PEOPLE but to the PRACTICE of continuing to refer to them with the title of a position they once held.

feel like we should be able to call him big mouth billy bass to his dumb face

in other news, alex jones (and his rhetorical style) makes a lot more sense when you realize he's like a snake-charming, holy-rolling, speaking-in-tongues evangelist preacher w/o the christianity:

https://twitter.com/immolations/status/794740487613726720

the sun, the best newspaper in the world, reports

“I’ve already told my husband that if I’m so fortunate enough to be president and he will be the first gentleman, I expect him to go to work to make sure we get those jobs growing and incomes rising,” she said at a campaign event.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2132414/bill-hillary-clinton-us-election-2016-name/

the alex jones package also includes the christianity. the pentecostal comparison is pretty apt though. he would have fit right in my church

I'm watching in suspense as Dixville Notch, NH counts all the ballots in town (8)

https://pkremp.github.io/pr_decisive_vote.html

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwtuHkEXcAAIikI.jpg

new hampshire's gotta be higher than 1 in 1 million

4 for Hillary, 2 for Trump, 1 for Johnson, 1 write-in for Romney

i forgot to say this earlier because i was at work and only glancing at this thread surreptitiously but fuck glenn beck

he has some nerve evolving after whipping up so much confusion and paranoia throughout the country. no mercy for him

aw redemption is groovy treesh cmon

4 for Hillary, 2 for Trump, 1 for Johnson, 1 write-in for Romney

that result makes me yearn so badly for Trump to get his twitter account back

"Dixville Notch" is a fitting description of what we've been following for over a year now

Fuck.......here we go

i just unfollowed rick wilson and all political reporters except costa. felt good.

That dummy (and Liz Mair) are *still* playing up some sort of mysterious and always just out of reach oppo dump. The comments on their twitter feeds have been funny.

hung out with a group of 30's-ish progressive seeming ppl here in denver today, mixed races, all male. the tally: 3 'not going to vote' (sample quote: 'i don't like feeling like i have to make a bad choice based on fear'), 1 'probably going to vote hillary', 1 'already voted, wrote in bernie'

tell your friend that not voting is making a bad choice based on fear

Swing state or safe state?

not denver kentucky

xp my friend is perfectly capable of forming his own thoughts and conclusions afaict

i know this is probably just my own weird hang-up, but i've always taken faint exception to people who continued to be referred to by a position they no longer hold. "mr. senator"/"mme. secretary"/"mr. president"/etc

Or, you know, since President or Senator or Secretary are already titles, forget the fucking Mr and Mme stuff.

http://imgur.com/UdXa6e8

volunteered tonight at the local campaign hq to do data-entry. Place was jumpin'.

dammit. Here: http://i.imgur.com/UdXa6e8.jpg

he has some nerve evolving after whipping up so much confusion and paranoia throughout the country. no mercy for him

― Treeship, Tuesday, November 8, 2016 5:14 AM (two hours ago)

i have as much contempt for glenn beck as any sane person but, like...ppl can change for the better, and if they can't, then we're all in a lot of trouble

right i'm wondering if

a) the fact that an undisciplined, overtly hateful authoritarian nut job can get > 40% of the vote means that a more disciplined, smoother-edged authoritarian could win?

Only if they are already coast-to-coast famous and not a politician.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p480x480/14980774_10154715945968588_6410478961559691573_n.jpg?oh=e250f8b488c62a32611fe667559ef728&oe=589081B5

Yeah, that's exactly who you think it is in the red coat.

On which note I'm already curious about what the various media positions will be on the fame and newsworthiness of Donald Trump post-failed election. He won't have a show, he won't be running for president - if he holds a press conference a week later, who will turn up and who will go "we don't have to do this any more"?

I guess that xpost answers my question!

glenn beck isn't "changing" he's a media personality testing new winds ffs.

he has some nerve evolving after whipping up so much confusion and paranoia throughout the country. no mercy for him

― Treeship

10/10 best samwise gamgee impression

voted, took about 25 minutes. longer than i expected at 6:15am, but invariably the line for my sub-district was far and away the longest

didn't get a sticker

Yeah they usually have cookies at mine too. Got nothing lol

Trump will change that!

are we gonna have an election day thread?

May I suggest: "I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win"

Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands. - US Election Day 2016