Author Topic: Trump is now president  (Read 46336 times)

Offline Pugnate

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Trump is now president
« on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 02:13:35 AM »
Words I never though I'd type.

Offline MysterD

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Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #2 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 08:09:12 AM »


This is just as much about keeping Hilary out of power as it is about the rejection of politics as usual.  It is very similar to Brexit.  The other huge sore spot is Obamacare, the evil abortion of what should have been the birth of a European-style (and Canadian-style) single-payer healthcare system.

I've been saying for months, to family and friends, that there was no way to know what the results of yesterday would be, until yesterday had passed.  Polls mean nothing when non-confrontational people--including the so-called silent majority--are afraid to admit they're voting for Trump.  The division got that ugly, the fear of retribution that overpowering.  That fear does not carry into the anonymous voting booth.

We'll see what happens from here.  The first thing to do, I think, is to forget campaign rhetoric.  We should know by now how little that reflects on what happens afterward.  (Remember "yes, we can"?)  This is not the end of anyone's world, not anyone who isn't an outlaw anyway.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #3 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 09:32:40 AM »
Was absolutely not a fan of either major candidate, but this is the worst possible outcome. A lunatic at the helm and total Republican control of the House, Senate, and Supreme Court. I'm horrified and disgusted.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #4 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 09:56:40 AM »
Anyone waking up feeling depressed?

Offline K-man

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #5 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 10:31:18 AM »
A little depressed, a bit worried about the what-ifs, but also somewhat more emboldened to be the change I want to see in the world.  I can't modify the outcome of the election, but I can work harder to positively impact my community.  And that might inspire others to do the same.

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #6 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 10:40:21 AM »
This sounds silly, but I honestly have fought back tears a few times today.  I understand the sentiment of the distrust in the political system, I was there once* myself.  I understand (to some degree) the plight of small town America; I lived in Ohio, where DHL single-handedly decimated the town of Wilmington.  But to elect this guy?  This guy?!  It's an unmitigated disaster for everyone.

What does small town and rural America really expect Donald Trump - a New York billionaire who already has his own products manufactured overseas - or the Republican party in general to do for them?  What good is a huge tax cut (which far and away helps the wealthy more than anyone else) to someone who has no income?  How is it going to help our debt and budget deficit?  And that's to say nothing about the actual man that's going to be sitting in that office: a sensitive, racist bigot; a demagogue.

I echo what Que said: it's the worst possible outcome.  It's bad enough that we have Trump the person sitting in the office, but now we've given complete control of the government over to the Republicans at virtually every level.  You might as well kiss goodbye many consumer and progress-friendly regulations like 'Net neutrality.  Say hello to even more rampant domestic surveillance and endless pursuit of security (not that the Dems have been much better in this regard, to be honest).  It also gives future hopefuls a new roadmap to election: be bold, abandon tact, hurl insults and frankly flat-out lies about your opponents or the incumbents, and be willing to burn it all down.  Think this election was bad?  Just wait for the next one or the one after that.

The other huge sore spot is Obamacare, the evil abortion of what should have been the birth of a European-style (and Canadian-style) single-payer healthcare system.

As far as Obamacare, I don't really see why it is such an abomination.  It is, at the very least, an improvement over what came before it.  It's really just a federal version of the system put in place in Massachusetts under Mitt Romney's leadership.  I agree that it doesn't go anywhere close to correcting what is wrong with health care in the Unites States, but it's all the Republicans would let Obama get away with.  In it's current form, it's just an an attempt to force more people - especially healthy people - to carry health insurance in order to bring overall premiums down, plus some additional and necessary restrictions like preventing most uses of the pre-existing condition issue.  To my knowledge, it was in fact cheaper than purchasing a health care plan on your own prior to the ACA's passage because more people were in the system.  Ever done COBRA prior to the ACA after getting laid off?

I just think repealing the ACA is counter-productive.  It benefits no one.  I'd like to see us move to more socialized healthcare and find a way to bring costs way down and coverage way up, but that's definitely not happening for the next four years at the very least.  I just know that the current system blows, whether you are using an ACA plan or not.  Most employer-supported plans are really just subsidies for unhealthy, diseased, or severely injured people.  Your deductible is so high you never reach it and are paying out of pocket for everything in addition to paying the premium, but you can't just not have the insurance because the insurance company negotiates the prices of services down and you pay extremely high prices without it.

But yes, overall I absolutely agree that a single-payer system like Canada and Europe would be very desirable.

I've been saying for months, to family and friends, that there was no way to know what the results of yesterday would be, until yesterday had passed.  Polls mean nothing when non-confrontational people--including the so-called silent majority--are afraid to admit they're voting for Trump.  The division got that ugly, the fear of retribution that overpowering.  That fear does not carry into the anonymous voting booth.

I know it's anecdotal, but that really surprises me.  I live in Coral Springs, Florida, in Broward County.  It's a middle to upper-middle-class neighborhood.  I saw gaggles of people waving Trump signs on University Blvd. & Sample Blvd. every weekend.  There were at least five houses in my neighborhood sporting Trump signs.  I never once saw anyone show any sort of outward support for Clinton.  But Broward County went blue.  Where were these communities where Trump supporters were afraid to speak up?

I'm not saying you are wrong, but it just surprises me.  The turnout also surprises me.  I was worried about a lowered turnout for liberal voters, as that's always their achilles heal, but I never expected the huge turnout in the red counties.  There is a lot of pent-up rage out there, apparently, and these people think Donald Trump is their champion for some reason I'm not sure I will ever understand.

* ...until I learned that some of the political backroom dealing, pork barrel politics, and difficulty pushing through extreme changes is actually necessary to prevent mob rule leading towards outright anarchy. Read this article in The Atlantic for an extremely enlightening take on how political parties, Congress, and the American political and electoral system has changed over time, opening the door for the dangerous populism we are witnessing today.
« Last Edit: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 11:19:16 AM by scottws »

Offline Pugnate

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This
« Reply #7 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 01:10:36 PM »
Morning After To-Do List:
1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.
2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn't let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must "heal the divide" and "come together." They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.
3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin.
4. Everyone must stop saying they are "stunned" and "shocked". What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all "You're fired!" Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.
5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: "HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!" The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there's climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don't want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).

Offline Pugnate

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Offline scottws

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Re: This
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 02:37:10 PM »
3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin.

I disagree with this.  The GOP under Obama was simply a party of obstruction.  They had no policy other than "Whatever Obama says, we're against it."  They had a historically low approval rating because of this.

No one wants that.  We want the government to govern.  We want it to get things done (hopefully at least some of the things we like and hopefully not most of the things we don't).

Besides, the Republicans had a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives for most of Obama's eight years.  The Democrats do not hold a majority in either part of Congress.  While (I think) it is possible they can take over the Senate during the next midterm election, they likely won't have the possibility of a majority in the House of Representatives until after the next census and subsequent redrawing of congressional districts.  Maybe not even then if Republicans still control most of the state's governments at that time.

Basically, it will be extremely difficult for them to obstruct anything the Republicans want to do.  Well, I suppose they could use filibuster in the Senate.

It'd be nice if the government worked towards unifying the population, not continuing to divide it.  That said, I think part of this is propaganda.  Mainly from Fox News and Breitbart, but MSNBC is guilty as well.  I hate when conservatives complain about "mainstream media" and act like Fox News isn't part of that.  Fox News is the worst offender!

We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).

Leadership is a problem yes.  Voter apathy and lethargy among the liberal populace doesn't help, but I suppose you could say that at least party ties back to leadership.

As a liberal, I was extremely disappointed by the choices this year.  Jill Stein of the Green party is a complete loon, so forget her.  The Democratic candidates were all sub-par.  The one I liked most was Bernie Sanders, but can you imagine how soundly he would have been defeated vs. Clinton?  Wow.  I just couldn't believe how the Republicans had so many candidates they had two different sets of primary debates for awhile, while the Dems had like three people.
« Last Edit: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 03:04:47 PM by scottws »

Offline K-man

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Re: This
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 03:22:11 PM »
  Wow.  I just couldn't believe how the Republicans had so many candidates they had two different sets of primary debates for awhile, while the Dems had like three people.

There's no one on the bench for the Dems.  Someone is going to have to step up, otherwise this fiesta is going to last for 8 years.

Although with the way this has all gone down I am not sure I am qualified to make any predictions as to what the Democrats need.  Past precedent suddenly means way less than it used to.


Offline gpw11

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Re: This
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 04:52:35 PM »
There's no one on the bench for the Dems.  Someone is going to have to step up, otherwise this fiesta is going to last for 8 years.


I think the fact that there is no one on the bench for the democrats isn't really an accident. I mean, I don't know anything more than any of you but I have a feeling there are potential candidates there that haven't been given a chance.


Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #12 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 04:56:51 PM »
It's not silly. I was near tears too. A lot of people were. It's just the idea that this bigot known for sexual harassment and God knows what else is in charge of the most powerful country in the world.

New statistics are out and it isn't the poorer masses who voted for him. In fact, they voted for Hillary. The educated working classes voted for Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/globalisation-dead-white-supremacy-trump-neoliberal?CMP=fb_gu

Offline gpw11

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #13 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 05:03:41 PM »
Honestly I think Trump is the least of your worries.  The republican party now has all of congress and (presumably) the supreme court on lock down.  As much of a complete dumbass Trump is, he's a bit of a wild card - there are far more terrifying Republican politicians out there.


Fuck, I'd take Trump before Cruz or Carson any day.


 

Offline ren

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 05:23:41 PM »
This is not the end of anyone's world, not anyone who isn't an outlaw anyway.

I disagree. Trump is a climate change denier and the US is the world's biggest emitter. Considering we're already over 400 parts per million and at best in damage control, this puts a huge question mark on the future. The US can  choose to screw up its economy and lower the quality of life of it's people all it wants but we only have one planet and the whole world took a big step backwards in preserving it yesterday.

Offline K-man

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Re: This
« Reply #15 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 05:25:27 PM »
I think the fact that there is no one on the bench for the democrats isn't really an accident. I mean, I don't know anything more than any of you but I have a feeling there are potential candidates there that haven't been given a chance.

To have any real chance someone will have to step up and be an all star in around 2 years time.

Offline ren

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #16 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 05:27:15 PM »
Outside of the environmental factor, I'm not as worried about Trump and the Republicans as I thought I would be. They're like dogs chasing cars. They complain about everything and spew hyperbole about how it would be so much better if they were in charge. Obama was the devil and everything he did was awful. Well they're off the sidelines now and I would be surprised if they're able to put their money where their mouth is.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #17 on: Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 10:01:37 PM »
tart=68&end=140

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #18 on: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 10:55:51 AM »
Video is private. :(

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #19 on: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 01:47:55 PM »
I saw it earlier.  It was a clip from Stephen Colbert's The Late Show where he responds to the (then surprise) news that it was looking more and more like Donald Trump was going to win the election.  He kind of appears shocked for a little bit but then transitions to a segment where he says that we need to unify as a country and lists of a bunch of funny things that everyone has in common.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #20 on: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 02:09:26 PM »
Oh yeah I saw that.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #21 on: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 08:58:02 PM »
This sums up a lot of Trump supporters I've seen online today.


Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #22 on: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 10:46:00 PM »
Quote from: Stephen Colbert
By every metric, we are more divided than ever as a nation.... More than four in 10 voters say the other party's policies are so misguided they pose a threat to the nation, but you know what? Everybody feels that way. And not only that, more than half of Democrats say the Republican party makes them afraid, while 49 percent of Republicans say the same about the Democratic party. So both sides are terrified of the other side, and I think that's why the voting booth has a curtain so you have some place to hide after the election is over.

How did our politics get so poisonous? I think it’s because we overdosed, especially this year. We drank too much of the poison. You take a little bit of it so you can hate the other side, and it tastes kinda good. And you like how it feels. And there’s a gentle high to the condemnation, right? And [faces the camera] you know you’re right, right? You know you’re right.
https://www.bustle.com/articles/194212-this-transcript-of-stephen-colberts-election-night-speech-urges-americans-to-laugh-in-the-face-of

Offline ren

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #23 on: Friday, November 11, 2016, 08:31:57 AM »
If this was in response to my post all I'll say is that it's incredibly unfortunate that science is politicized in America to such an extreme. Social issues, gun rights, jobs policy and the like are all very cultural and subjective and that's fine but scientific consensus should not be something that falls to partisanship.

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #24 on: Friday, November 11, 2016, 08:50:33 AM »
If this was in response to my post all I'll say is that it's incredibly unfortunate that science is politicized in America to such an extreme. Social issues, gun rights, jobs policy and the like are all very cultural and subjective and that's fine but scientific consensus should not be something that falls to partisanship.

I agree 100%.  One of the most terrifying things about the rise of the "alt-right" (e.g. Ted Cruz) is an anti-science agenda.  They've been trying to do things such as trying to pass laws that force schools to deemphasize evolution and teach it alongside things like intelligent design, at least on a local or state level.  Or corrupting the meaning of the word "theory" in a scientific context: "Oh, that's just a theory."  The word theory in science is akin to fact.

The entire success of the human race and the Western world in specific is based partly on luck but mostly on scientific advancement.  Teaching an entire generation of kids to distrust science threatens to send us into another set of dark ages.  And I don't just mean from an enlightenment perspective, but from a public health perspective.

I told my fiancée this morning that we need to form a new country.  The divide in ideology between factions here is becoming so vast on a fundamental level as to nearly be irreconcilable.  Maybe we should allow people that want to reject science and put people into office that will enact policies and laws that are flatly against their own best interest to ruin themselves without taking everyone else down with them.

Of course, this isn't very realistic and I'm only half serious.  Besides, the divide isn't exactly regional.  It's cities vs. the rest, so it isn't remotely practical.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #25 on: Friday, November 11, 2016, 11:33:15 AM »
I once wrote a fair portion of a novel where the cities were the remaining bastions of reason and had shut themselves in and become self-sufficient governmental states, and everything else outside them was a nightmarish wasteland of roving gangs and insane religious zealots. I have thought back to it occasionally with complicated feelings.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #26 on: Monday, November 14, 2016, 10:12:28 AM »


MY TURN


You may think it ironic that I chose that particular allusion to lead off some counterpoint.  I think it's spot-on.  What was a progressive anti-establishment movement for tolerance and inclusion has become the intolerant elite establishment.  I have witnessed that personally over the past 45 years.  It is now impossible to advocate the needs and wants of middle America without being insulted, ostracised as a bigot, fired, or otherwise socially destroyed.  As a result, no one dares do it in the public eye.  Well, almost no one.

I mentioned earlier that Obamacare is an evil abortion instead of what should have been the birth of a proper single-payer healthcare system.  This hope is one of the two reasons I voted for Obama in 2008, the other being the hope of a tighter leash on corporations, and the return of jobs to America, particularly where I make my home.  Both hopes were dashed.  Instead of taking care of normal working people who can't afford insurance, the new law now coerces them into spending money they don't have.  The typical scenario is poor, but not destitute people who were formerly uninsured, and now pay several hundred dollars a month on a plan with deductibles in the thousands.  So in the end, they are thousands of dollars poorer per year, with absolutely no benefit, because they'll never satisfy that deductible.  Hell, they'd still have to stay away from expensive healthcare, just as before, because they can't afford to bleed out the deductible.  Obamacare may work for people who have nothing at all.  And people affluent or lucky enough to have other insurance don't need it.  Everyone else is in the hole because of it.  I myself am in a quandary over this.

We have an insidious mortal enemy, and we know who he is, even if the current administration likes to pretend we do not.  I said before, I think in one of my fits of rage on a nearby thread, that I would vote for whoever promised to go after him.  Only one candidate, going all the way back to the start of the presidential race, made it a clear point to not only acknowledge the foreign threat, but promise to go after him.  We need to have a secure country before we can debate whether it's on the right path or not.  The devil must be paid his due.

Social agendas pale in comparison to the pain suffered by so many across this great country.  They have taken center stage for far too long, and it's time to switch the focus to what affects the many, not the few.  The few have gained extensive ground in their fights, and I am glad for them.  I hope they at least acknowledge, if reluctantly, that they are not the only squeaky wheel anymore.

Illegal immigration has been an ongoing issue for what seems like forever.  No one has been able to deal with it.  See my first paragraph.  If Mexicans looked like rednecks instead, the problem would be a lot less difficult, wouldn't it?  Just because they're ethnically different doesn't mean they can do no wrong.  They know they're Mexicans.  They know it's illegal to cross the border and stay here indefinitely.  They do it anyway.  No one effectively stops them.  I'll remind you that I am latino myself.  So are a great number of Floridians.  Florida went red this year.  Why?  Because the latino community in Florida are mostly citizens of this country, many of them my compatriots.  They do belong here.  Why would they want competition for jobs and other resources from unimpeded foreigners?

Climate change may be very real.  The fight centers on whether humanity is responsible for it, and whether there is anything they have the power to change even if they are responsible.  Nature spews 95% of the contaminants in the atmosphere itself (volcanic eruptions--which render moot decades of pollution data--and forest fires, which can happen even without humanity, and would burn on for longer without humanity to fight them).  And there are significant swings in average temperatures through the ages.  We can't suspend using gas and oil.  Our entire existence depends on it.  And we can't afford to have the costs of energy suddenly multiplied, or see our means of transportation and heating rendered obsolete and unusable.  Clinton attacked coal-producing states directly, and made enemies of nearly all of them.  Much of the sea of red in the middle of the country probably has much to do with that.

What happens from here, we'll see.  I have no illusions of Trump being any kind of lone savior.  My hope is that he does the same thing any other successful businessman does--delegate authority to highly qualified team players, who can further his vision competently.  Regardless, the country as a whole better acknowledge and accept that it's a new day.  Let's see how much tolerance and understanding is forthcoming when the shoe is on the other foot.

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #27 on: Monday, November 14, 2016, 11:58:53 AM »
This is going to be long, but I want to start out by saying that 1) I acknowledge and respect your perspective, opinion, and choice 2) I only really disagree with two of your points.

My own concerns that drive my own political agenda are mostly about Wall Street, corporate capture of government, executive compensation and wealth inequality, privacy/liberty, religion at the expense of science, health care, the future of the Earth, and education.  No one party satifies me in all of these regards, but the Democrats come closest.  I'm worried that with Republicans having nearly unrestricted power in the federal government that every last one of these things will just continue to get worse.

I have two main concerns with Donald Trump.  The first is just his complete lack of class.  He isn't remotely Presidential.  Less so than even George W. Bush.  Frankly, as an American, I find it embarassing.

My far bigger concern with Donald Trump's election is the fact that it has given the Republicans total control of the federal government and that alone will have effects far beyond the 4 - 8 years that President-elect Trump will serve.  Consider that not only will he choose the potential appointee for the current vacant seat on the Supreme Court, but Justice Ginsberg is 83 years old and Justice Breyer is 78.  There is a not-insignificant chance that he might have the opportunity to choose three Supreme Court justices.  That's just the way it goes, I know, but this could turn out to be a catastrophe for a long time to come.  Do we really need more decisions like Citizens United v FEC?

Regarding global warming, of course you are right about there being natural factors and natural climate cycles and there is little to nothing that can be done about those things.  But the fight about whether or not it can be attributed to humans?  That fight is over.  Have you actually read up on the science on this topic?  You mentioned volcanoes.  In 2007, global volcanic CO2 output was estimated to be about 200,000,000 tonnes, while global fossil fuel CO2 output was estimated to be about 26,800,000,000 tonnes.  In other words, volanic CO2 output is estimated to be less than 1% that of human output (or at least it was back in 2007).

It has the potential for massive impact.  It's just that the climate cycles are long; therefore, it would be generations before the changes are tangible and, yes, it may result in major industrial shifts that can affect communities.  But even the Department of Defense considers global warming to be a national security threat.  We can't do nothing because of a bunch of coal miners.  We are talking about the human race, nay, all plantetary life as we know it.  I mean, it's inconvenient and it sucks for those people and their families, but it's hardly the only time whole industries have experienced job loss.  Last I checked, typing pools aren't a thing any more either if you need an example.  Frankly, I think these people and everyone else would be better served by national infrastructure improvement projects or something akin to that (think FDR's New Deal).

Regarding ISIS and other Islamic fundamentalists, I do agree that they are a threat, but I don't agree with your statement about security.  Perfect security is impossible.  So I have to ask: what is your vision for security?  At what point would you say that we are secure?  How much liberty are you willing to sacrifice in order to gain this security?

Me?  I think we've already given up too much.  In order to gain tiny incremental improvements in security, we are going to have to give up massively more and more liberty each time.  At what point do you stop?  When you have the Thought Police or the Pre-Cogs and are not only tried and convicted before you've even done anything, but have every essence of your thoughts already known to the authorities?

I'll remind you that I am latino myself.  So are a great number of Floridians.  Florida went red this year.  Why?  Because the latino community in Florida are mostly citizens of this country, many of them my compatriots.  They do belong here.  Why would they want competition for jobs and other resources from unimpeded foreigners?

The story in Florida is very complex.  The county with the highest percentage of Hispanics is Miami-Dade (65% of the population there is Hispanic), and it voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton (63.7%).  Next you have Hendry County (49.2% Hispanic population) and it voted Donald Trump by a wide margin (55.8%).  Then again, Miami-Dade's total population in 2013 was over 1.6 million and Hendry was under 20 thousand.  In general, the counties with the largest populations voted Hillary while the less populous counties voted Trump, regardless of percentage Hispanic population.  I don't think that's a surprise to anyone at this point, considering that's the story across most of the U.S. and that seems to be due to the general feelings that you relayed above due to the issues you've raised as well as others.

I acknowledge that small town and rural America has really suffered the last couple of decades.  Technological advancement leading to more and more automation as well as high labor rates relative to many other countries have decimated those that work or used to work in the manufacturing sector.  The service and information jobs that exist in cities generally don't in the small towns and rural areas because it just doesn't make economic sense for companies.  I just don't know what can be done about it.  I mean sure, there can be things like tax policies that encourage companies to do domestic manufacturing, but how do you ensure that the manufacturing will be done with humans instead of robots?  If you create an environment where U.S. companies can't compete with foreign ones, they will close and that doesn't benefit the cities or the less populated areas.  I'm not saying there isn't a solution or that a different set of policies can strike a better balance.  I'm just saying that I don't have a clue what might not only be feasible but, more critically, actually work.  Perhaps Donald Trump and his team will have ideas that are both of these things.  Personally, I think it's more likely that they will result in something far worse.

Again, Cobra, I absolutely respect your opinion and do personally enjoy engaging with people that have a different perspective.  I think it's through such dialogue that we can move forward together.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #28 on: Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 06:58:08 AM »
On the volcano output, I'm shockingly wrong.  My figure was 200 gigatons, while yours was megatons.  That's a factor of 1000, which obviously changes everything.  According to this article, it's a lot higher than your figure, and the author thinks there is more silent  outgassing to be found worldwide, but that would still leave me off by a huge factor.

I can't argue with the math, provided it sticks.  My gauntlet of challenges is this:

(1) Is climate change real, or political?
(2) If it's real, are we responsible?
(3) If we're responsible, can we fix it?
(4) if we can fix it, what is the cost?

Assuming I'm past 2 now, let's move on to 3.  Obviously, the US acting unilaterally can't fix this.  I suspect that China alone emits more pollution than we do, and there are many more serious polluters.  Then there is deforestation in places like the Amazon--multiple global factors.  We've been on the path to clean up our act since the 70s, while the emerging nations have been ignoring pollution and green awareness in general as we did in the 60s.  Since we can't fix it alone, and the world doesn't play nice with us, doing something radical that would hurt us deeply in the short run makes no sense.

When I ask the cost, I don't simply mean economically.  What I said before still stands: we absolutely depend on burning stuff to survive.  Without it, we can't move, we can't have electricity, we can't move or purify water, and we can't produce food in the required quantities to feed all of us.  Some of this can be changed fairly quickly with nuclear power (which itself brings great dangers), and perhaps creative uses of natural power like wind in some places.  The entire infrastructure of individuals cannot.

At times, being a democracy is a huge disadvantage.  When Clinton said “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”, she basically shot herself in the head.  She didn't know it then, but she did.  That goof alone may have made all the difference.  Most of us vote out of self-interest, as regular people, not as scientists or altruists.  The last thing in middle America's mind is climate change.  That is the truth.

Regardless of this global issue, too much was wrong with our government for the normal, average citizenry to overlook.  I think Trump got in more as a slap in the face against Washington insiders than as a Republican nominee.

You mentioned giving up too much for increments in security.  This is a big part of what has me extremely unhappy with how we're dealing with the enemy.  It's a reactive policy, not proactive.  We need to be hunting him, not cowering at home.  I'm not going to get deep into this now.  I already have before, and I regretted it.

However you want to analyze the Florida vote, I don't think it's possible that state would have gone red if the latino community had risen en masse to oppose it.  Knowing myself, knowing my family, I have little doubt that there was as much division in that community as there is among the rest of us.  My sister works for the school system in Iowa, as a translator and unofficially general helper to the illegal immigrants there.  She's fed up with how she and her husband have to work their asses off, while these people are given everything for free, most recently including iPhones.

Anyway, it will be an interesting time next year.  I am extremely sorry I voted for Obama in '08.  Perhaps I'll come to feel the same way about my vote this year.  But I doubt it.

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #29 on: Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 07:30:27 AM »
I'm glad you took another look at the climate data and were able to update and correct the information you had.  I see what you are saying regarding how to handle global warming.  The question definitely is, now that we know what we know, where do we go from here?  There's certainly a balance to be struck.  But we already know (or at least have very good reason to believe) that doing nothing will be catastrophic.

You're right about the fact that acting in isolation could put us at a competitive disadvantage globally and won't have the needed impact on the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere.  But we can't simply fail to act at all just because we think others might not.  We're the worlds #2 emitter of CO2 and #8 per capita.  It's not like we are #100.  If we take action, it can have a significant impact.

I always use an infosec example here because I think it's easier to get across.  Given any IT environment, there are going to literally be thousands of security holes.  As an infosec professional, you do what you can to address the ones that are the highest risk and also the ones that are quick and easy.  But you will never get them all as new ones appear all the time and, for some of them, you just have to accept the risk.  You'll frequently encounter resistance along the way from people in the form of "Why bother doing x when y exists?"  As an example: "Why bother blocking USB drives when I can just email information to an external account?"  The point I'm trying to make doesn't have anything to do with the actual answer to that question.  The point is if I and other infosec and IT professionals had such an attitude, nothing would ever get done and the organizations we work for would be exposed to significantly more risk.  We can't eliminate the risk entirely, but we can certainly reduce it.  Shouldn't we at least try?  In fact, aren't we obligated to try given the alternative?

Regarding global competitive disadvantage by "going green" if no one else does, I don't think that's a given.  In fact, it has the potential to actually improve the domestic economy as we would have a good chance of being the global headquarters for green technology in that scenario.  I think that's actually playing out to a certain degree with things like wind turbine and solar cell manufacturing.

It could go either way.  I just know that I'm personally willing to hurt coal miners today if it means that we won't turn the planet into a desert in 100 or 200 years.  Then again, I'm not a coal miner so that's easy for me to say.  You said it yourself: people tend to vote out of their own self-interest.

Regardless of this global issue, too much was wrong with our government for the normal, average citizenry to overlook.  I think Trump got in more as a slap in the face against Washington insiders than as a Republican nominee.

I absolutely understand the concept of a protest vote and I would agree that's what happened in this election.  Similarly, a desire for change in the way the federal government was conducting business was one of the primary reasons I voted for Obama in 2008 (2012 was a different story, but that's a discussion for another time).  I'm sure that you remember that his overriding message during his 2008 campaign was for "change" and "hope".

What I don't understand, personally, is Donald Trump being that protest vote.  To me, it's not much different than a bunch of people filing a protest vote and electing a dog simply because the dog isn't a politician or part of the establishment.  Sure, it sends a message.  Sure, it blows things up.  But is that really a good thing?  Really?

John Oliver described it as electing an Internet troll as President.  I'm inclined to agree.  I think you'd have to admit that he does sure share a lot of things in common.

Anyway, it will be an interesting time next year.  I am extremely sorry I voted for Obama in '08.  Perhaps I'll come to feel the same way about my vote this year.  But I doubt it.

I have to be honest.  I would be surprised if you don't regret it in the future.  Let's put aside Trump's behavior during his campaign for a second.  Have you seen who he chose as his chief strategist?  The guy that runs Breitbart, the preeminent alt-right/Tea Party/extreme right wing propaganda machine/troll factory?  Are you okay with that?  If so, the divide between us is a lot larger than I thought it was.

Oh, and there is a good chance he will get to choose four Supreme Court justices, not the three I mentioned.  I'd overlooked one of them who was previously appointed because he was appointed by a Republican president.

Given your position on single-payer health insurance, I find your support of Trump to be interesting.  He is actively against that very thing.  Obama was for it, but just couldn't get it done given the Congressional makeup and climate at the time.  Propaganda spewed by Fox News at the time didn't help at all.  What resulted was the Affordable Care Act, admittedly a pretty shitty compromise.

Trump wants to repeal the ACA, which basically means that health care goes back to what it was before.  Forgetting a single-payer system for awhile, whether the repeal of the ACA is a good thing or not depends on who you are.  If you are a healthy person that simply can't afford the insurance and everything works out so that you don't get significantly injured or ill or contract a disease while you have no insurance, I suppose it's better.  But if you are someone that's been diagnosed with a chronic disease and insurance companies don't want to cover you or want you to pay a premium that is well out of your financial reach, it's far worse.

You and I agree.  A single-payer system would be ideal, but the Republicans (and Donald Trump) aren't going to allow that to happen.  Personally, I think our pre-ACA system is the worst possible system.  I'd even prefer a private system where employers aren't part of the picture at all over what we have today or pre-ACA.

The high deductible thing isn't a feature or even necessarily a side-effect of the ACA.  That was already starting before Obama was elected.  I remember when, while working for a small business in Cincinnati in 2007, the health insurance coverage offered by my employer changed to a high-deductible plan at the same time that the cost per paycheck increased.

I suppose time will tell if Trump will be a better President than Obama.  I don't see how it's possible as I personally think Obama did a pretty decent job overall, especially with a flatly obstructionist Congress.  But we will indeed see.  As an American, I hope that he does succeed in helping America overall because, to a certain degree, his success is my success too.

However you want to analyze the Florida vote, I don't think it's possible that state would have gone red if the latino community had risen en masse to oppose it.  Knowing myself, knowing my family, I have little doubt that there was as much division in that community as there is among the rest of us.  My sister works for the school system in Iowa, as a translator and unofficially general helper to the illegal immigrants there.  She's fed up with how she and her husband have to work their asses off, while these people are given everything for free, most recently including iPhones.

That's what I was trying to say.  At least for Hispanics, it seems that geography (proximity to cities) had more influence on which way the vote went rather than ethnicity or race.

I think you've got a real good head on your shoulders and sound arguments.  Your logic led you to vote for Donald Trump (or at least that's what it sounds like).  I don't agree with it at all, but I can't tell you how you should feel.  In any case I'm glad you voted regardless, even if it contributed to an outcome that I don't like one bit.

Edit: Lots of content addition and modified summary.
« Last Edit: Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 11:00:50 AM by scottws »

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #30 on: Wednesday, November 16, 2016, 04:10:21 PM »
Like I said in the other thread, I totally understand why people voted for Trump, and I absolutely don't think even 20% of those people were hardcore racists, bigots, or anything else. They were just folks fed up with the status quo, and many of them had more or less valid reasoning in casting their vote as they did. I didn't even 100% disagree with Trump's messaging, as at least some of the time he was clearly trying to address real problems. I just didn't see much value in his proposed solutions, and believed even less that these were issues he truly cared about. Given what he's been saying and doing before even being officially appointed, my opinion has not changed.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #31 on: Saturday, November 19, 2016, 08:35:28 AM »
I don't think a lot of these adjustments for carbon emissions are that expensive in the long run. In fact, profits have gone up.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2015/04/16/lower-carbon-higher-profit/#4499f159772d

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #32 on: Saturday, November 19, 2016, 08:36:21 AM »
I can't believe an American president-elect tweeted this:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/799974635274194947

Extraordinary.

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #33 on: Saturday, November 19, 2016, 12:05:03 PM »
Have to give him that he has a great talent for lying and distracting people from everything that actually matters. I think he's more of a politician than we gave him credit for.

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Offline Pugnate

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #34 on: Friday, November 25, 2016, 02:35:18 PM »
I have a friend who is a mother of 2 and has stage 4 breast cancer. She says the only way she's managed to hang on so far is because of support from Obamacare.

Here is a hilarious video from Oliver:


Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #35 on: Thursday, December 08, 2016, 11:51:04 AM »
Someone linked me to an and article on The Daily Dot.  It's sort of like that article from Cracked in that it is from the perspective of someone from small town/rural America and why they voted for Donald Trump.  I think it echos a lot of what Cobra already told us here.  Basically, economic recovery and growth only occurred in the cities and people viewed Hillary as just continuing more of the same.

Again, I acknowledge the frustration.  To be honest, I was even aware of the decline in small town and rural America but I was sort of resigned to the idea that it is just inevitable.  In any case, I am glad to read such well thought out pieces that provide some additional perspective.  But what I don't understand is getting behind Donald Trump as that specific agent of change.  The man is clearly not a leader that is going to unite America and drive it towards some sort of utopian 1950's combined with 2016 future.  He, his policies, and the policies of his advisors and appointees are just going to further prop up large business and the wealthy.  The damage his policies are going to do to the protection of consumers and citizens will be astounding.

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #36 on: Thursday, December 08, 2016, 12:25:28 PM »
This piece on Politico is far more interesting.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #37 on: Saturday, December 10, 2016, 06:12:00 AM »
This piece on Politico is far more interesting.

On that, I agree wholeheartedly.  The Daily Dot piece was little more than "no, duh!" but this one gets to the heart of the matter much more clearly and incisively than I've been able to grasp myself.  And I have been trying.

Quote
the post-1989 order rooted in “globalization” and “identity politics,” which seems to be unraveling before our eyes.

. . .

. . . (1) borders matter; (2) immigration policy matters; (3) national interests, not so-called universal interests, matter; (4) entrepreneurship matters; (5) decentralization matters; (6) PC speech—without which identity politics is inconceivable—must be repudiated.

These six ideas together point to an end to the unstable experiment with supra- and sub-national sovereignty that many of our elites have guided us toward, siren-like, since 1989.

. . .

. . . “Globalization” and “identity politics” are a remarkable configuration of ideas, which have sustained America, and much of the rest of the world, since 1989.  . . . [This configuration] presumes that sovereignty rests not with the state, but with supra-national organizations—NAFTA, WTO, the U.N., the EU, the IMF, etc.—and with subnational sovereign sites that we name with the term “identity.” So inscribed in our post-1989 vernacular is the idea of “identity” that we can scarcely imagine ourselves without reference to our racial, gender, ethnic, national, religious and/or tribal “identity.” Once, we aspired to be citizens who abided by the rule of law prescribed within a territory; now we have sovereign “identities,” and wander aimlessly in a world without borders, with our gadgets in hand to distract us, and our polemics in mind to repudiate the disbelievers.

What, exactly, is the flaw with this remarkable post-1989 configuration of ideas? When you start thinking in terms of management by global elites at the trans-state level and homeless selves at the substate level that seek, but never really find, comfort in their “identities,” the consequences are significant: Slow growth rates (propped up by debt-financing) and isolated citizens who lose interest in building a world together. Then of course, there’s the rampant crony-capitalism that arises when, in the name of eliminating “global risk” and providing various forms of “security,” the collusion between ever-growing state bureaucracies and behemoth global corporations creates a permanent class of winners and losers. Hence, the huge disparities of wealth we see in the world today.

The post-1989 order of things fails to recognize that the state matters, and engaged citizens matter. The state is the largest possible unit of organization that allows for the political liberty and economic improvement of its citizens, in the long term. This arrangement entails competition, risk, success and failure. But it does lead to growth, citizen-involvement, and if not a full measure of happiness, then at least the satisfactions that competence and merit matter.

. . .

. . . What is going on is that “globalization-and-identity-politics-speak” is being boldly challenged. Inside the Beltway, along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, there is scarcely any evidence of this challenge. There are people in those places who will vote for Trump, but they dare not say it, for fear of ostracism. They think that identity politics has gone too far, or that if it hasn’t yet gone too far, there is no principled place where it must stop. They believe that the state can’t be our only large-scale political unit, but they see that on the post-1989 model, there will, finally, be no place for the state. Out beyond this hermetically sealed bicoastal consensus, there are Trump placards everywhere, not because citizens are racists or homophobes or some other vermin that needs to be eradicated, but because there is little evidence in their own lives that this vast post-1989 experiment with “globalization” and identity politics has done them much good.

The opposition to the post-1989 order is not just happening here in America; it is happening nearly everywhere. The Brexit vote stunned only those who believe in their bones that the very arc of history ends with “globalization” and identity politics.

There is a lot more exposition to be digested there, but this, I think, is the motive force.  He's to be forgiven for thinking Trump killed the Republican party.  He wrote this before the election.  If anything, Trump has unified and strengthened the party.  They all know they need to huddle around him.

Thanks for that, Scott.

Offline scottws

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #38 on: Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 07:59:44 AM »
Check out the "discourse" in the comments in this article on The Hill.  Absolutely unbelievable.  There is a left leaning idiot in there hurling insults, but the majority of the idiocy is clearly on the part of Trump supporters.

I fear we are heading for another set of Dark Ages. An age where science, truth, exceptionalism, and education is looked down on, suppressed, and hidden. And for what? What do these people think they have to gain, exactly? What do they even want? Have they actually spent any amount of time thinking about it? I do not know. It sure doesn't seem like it.

They just spit venom at the other side, mostly failing to make any sort of point. And when their chosen leaders' policies continue to fail them, they'll just continue to say stuff like "liberalism is a disease" and complain about "libtards" and "pussies" and tell people to "go cry to [their] mommies". I guess so long as they get to lie down in bed at night, sleep tight, and think they "won", that's all that really matters.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Trump is now president
« Reply #39 on: Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 03:31:01 PM »
At this point, the commentary is no better than what we get on youtube videos.  The rampant ignorance and stupidity make the whole thing little more than random noise.  I have completely shut out the rabble, and all "news" about the rabble.  The election is over.  It's over!  I wish everybody out there would get a fucking grip.  They should count the days to 2020.  It would calm their nerves and occupy their puny minds.