I appreciate this, Timex. Thanks.
I agree that America is its people, but that makes in worse. Over 50% of American people CHOOSE Trump. What does that say about America?
Yeah…go team.
I guess I’m just like everyone else in that I really didn’t think it would happen. My wife is feeling sad and bewildered and we’re both kind of like “What does this mean?” I guess I underestimated the undercurrent of anger in the country, the need to flip it upside down.
But I refuse to despair. He’s not my guy but he is now my president, so we just suck it up and move forward. We’ll get through this - we survived W and if you’re of a more conservative mindset we got through Obsma too. I don’t have a lot of faith in Trump but I do believe in the country and its people. And I hope to hell they’ve made the right choice.
Yeah. Just create a mental supercut of the greatest hits from Trump’s rallies. That’s ‘the people of America.’
I mean, that’s what has me depressed - the people.
Careful, though – I bet Tom’s coming with a math lesson :-)
I wonder now if Trump even ever mentions that this election was supposed to have been “rigged” against him. Obviously it was not. So does that line of attack get dropped, or is it revived again in 4 years?
I know he said he would only question the results if he didn’t win, but clearly the rigging didn’t happen.
And what do the Trump supporter sites (eg Breitbart) have to say about his victory? I’m not brave enough to venture there to find out. Could anyone do me the favour of summarizing?
Well, at least Hillary won the popular vote. But now that President Trump is coming (or strokes out or whatever and leaves us with a President Pence), Contract ON America 2: Electric Boogaloo is also coming. Obamacare–gone (which means the health insurance death spiral will follow soon after, and only the largest companies will self-insure, and everybody else will be boned unless they’re super poor, in the military, or on Medicare). The Republicans get to cut taxes on their rich friends even more, so income/wealth inequality will grow greater. Any moves toward ameliorating climate change–gone. Supreme Court–probably hosed for another generation. Expect another Roe v Wade test case as soon as they can get Scalia II in there. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s not gonna last 4 more years, most likely.
Let’s hope at least that the press stays watchful and grows a fucking spine, because white nationalists (let’s call them neo-Nazis/KKK types, which is what they are) are now emboldened, and the DoJ under Trump won’t want to alienate his base. Otherwise, expect the camps to be set up soon as political opponents get scapegoated for Trump’s magic wand not working to fix everything and bring back all the decently-paying jobs in the next couple of years. Seriously, the Constitution will be in jeopardy. We’re fucking hosed.
Oh, I forgot to mention: if the “audit the Fed” and “eliminate the deficit NAO” types even get close to getting their way, the economy is going into the shitter in very short order. YAY!
Wrote up a blog post, trying to look on the bright side, which is slim pickings. But it does help to put down words, at least for me.
Used to think that was what the US was when I was a kid, then I grew up.
Scott Alexander said on Monday that Tuesday shouldn’t change the narrative. That is, whether 1% more or fewer vote for Trump shouldn’t change you deep view of the state of the country.
[quote]But with a race this close, any deciding factor is going to be about as random as a rainstorm over Philadelphia. Maybe the pollsters made some kind of big mistake and missed shy Trump voters, and the vote goes Trump 47% Hillary 45% instead of the predicted Hillary 47% Trump 45%. So what? The difference between a proof of nationalism’s vigor versus proof its impotence is which candidate gets 47% vs. 45%? Really?
If a Trump victory tomorrow would convince you that X is true, I suggest that you believe X is true regardless of whether or not Trump wins, because Trump’s victory almost certainly will depend more on noise than on X. If a Hillary victory tomorrow would convince you that Y is true, I suggest that you believe Y is true regardless of whether or not Hillary wins, for the same reason. If there’s some Z that you will believe only if Trump wins but not if Hillary wins, then I suggest you seriously reconsider what thought process has led you to decide that you will flip your views on politics and society depending on whether or not there’s a rainstorm or a 2% polling error or whatever.[/quote]
With this useful addendum:
I don’t want to get into the math of it all, but the percent of people who voted for Trump changes how ones views America. Speaking as a foreigner that is, and one who has always viewed the USA as if not in the right, with the right intentions.
I understand there’s economic reasons, yadda, yadda, there’s always economic reasons…
I think it is very VERY important to note.
Clinton won the popular vote. More people wanted her president than Trump.
Is it? Because is doesn’t change anything. Trump is going to be POTUS. He gets to appoint the next Justice, and likely one or more after that. He’ll have the House and Senate behind him because God knows those bootlickers don’t seem to be able to stand up to him.
Plus, let’s not overstate things. She won the popular vote by a slim margin. It’s not like she blew it out and was a victim of EC shenanigans. She lost when she was projected to easily win.
We blew it.
I think it is. When you think “America is Dead” it is important to note, that a majority, however slim, didn’t want this to happen. So, while we are all commiserating on a Clinton loss, we are in the majority, and a lot of America isn’t ready to put up with Trump’s shit. The election is lost, but the population isn’t.
Here’s what you do.
You draw a bell curve.
Label it “Intelligence” at the top.
Now draw a line straight down the mean from top to bottom.
Shade the area to the left of the mean. Label that “Trump supporters”.
Now tell them “Half the population is below average intelligence”
Well, a plurality anyway. Unfortunately enough people in the key states followed the Pied Piper’s music down to our collective doom.
Kellyanne Conway was on NBC this morning and directly addressed that. She very deftly explained that when Trump was saying the election was “rigged” he wasn’t talking about the vote itself, or cheating of any kind. She claimed he was talking about the media coverage. That he would have these rallies with tens of thousands of people and they’d barely get any coverage, that the media kept treating his campaign like it was a joke, or doomed, or a failure, when Heartland America was treating it very seriously and coming out in force to hear what he was saying and show their support.
It was really kind of scary and yet beautiful at the same time. She pretty much used the media’s contrition from last night and this morning against them to effectively kill one of their biggest talking points. The media has been falling all over themselves this morning to say “maybe we underestimated Donald Trump and maybe we treated him too lightly”. We all know that’s not really what Trump meant when he was saying “it’s rigged folks”, and yet the definition she gave this morning seems perfectly plausible now that we all know those people at his rallies DID show up in force at the polls and pretty much won him the election.