Congratulations, Stupid.

[OP ED]

We shouldn't completely ignore, in the scramble for common ground, that a significant number of the Trumpets are, in fact, quite openly racist. The most vocal in their support, from my experiences in Michigan, were also most vocal about the real reason they dislike Barack. Hint: it isn't policy related.

[JackRiddler]

.

Thanks for the report, OPED. You know, here in the Communist Metropolis of New York, it's not like I ever know white people who hate the black man in office just because he's black and supposedly favoring black people, and actually say this all the time. It's not like I know people who make fun of country hicks and yet voted for Trump out of racist conviction. No, no.

It's not like Donald Trump was the lead exponent of claiming the black man is in reality a foreigner. Or that he grew up with a KKK father and inherited the wealth of a business that refused housing to blacks -- and now accomplishes the same by the more neutral method of developing condos for the 0.5% at best, while allowing black people and everyone else full access to the slot machines. African Americans, Trump loves them! It's not like he took out a full-page NYT ad calling for the execution of five black teenagers who turned out to be innocent of the charges against them (after another 15 years). It's not like, after banning Muslims and deporting Mexicans and building a wall had taken him as far as they were going to take him, he so-cleverly switched in the general to the Nixon '68 Redux of talking about burning "inner cities" and controlling "urban youth" and fear of crime and the need to unleash the police and fuck with protesters (without the actual burning inner cities or high crime rates and a lot fewer protesters). No, no. The "Trump vote" was a protest of 50,000 Michigan and Pennsylvania workers dispossessed by NAFTA and angry that unspecified people in the big cities (take your pick, all rich liberals enjoying their subway rides) were ignoring economic inequality and making fun of them. Because the man to change that is the billionaire, and don't call these (largely-fictional) characters stupid for thinking so! And really every single person who voted for Clinton, no matter for what reason they thought (like the weird one that otherwise they might get Trump), hate the dispossed white people of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Besides the latter, no one, no one else voted for Trump that we should notice. It's elitism to discern racism, misogyny, or homophobia (brought in by Pence, but who is he anyway, it's not like it's important) as motivating factors among any of the good people of America who might have voted for Trump. It's elitism surely to notice that personal pussy-grabbing aside, Trump's business model as a media star is driven by misogyny. Come on, people, let's show some emotional intelligence and empathy for the white consumer here! And granted, the Electoral College system made a difference. But that's just a randomizing factor, it's not like it was among the institutions designed by a set of slaveholders and bondholders in 1787 to prevent democratic rule, to weaken the influence of population centers and city voters (where rabble and abolitionists might reside), and to make sure head taxes were collected so that war bonds could be paid off. Okay, maybe this is a bit of a #bananarepublic, but it's no #cottonrepublic! No, no, no.

.

[JackRiddler]

.

“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” @realDonaldTrump, 6 November 2012

"We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!"
@realDonaldTrump, 7 November 2012

CBS News: "In several tweets he later deleted, Trump wondered how Obama won even though Republican nominee Mitt Romney had more votes (though in the end, Obama won the popular vote as well)." Note: Not "in the end" - was clearly ahead the whole time.

“He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election,” Trump tweeted. “We should have a revolution in this country!”

Story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trum ... weetstorm/

Screen shot including deleted messages on Twitter from 2012:
http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intel ... 0.h473.jpg

First Twitter message above:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 6504494082

.

[OP ED]

In the sense of being fair I should point out that the other half of them were mostly either literally terrified of an HRC initiated hotwar with the Ruskies or just seriously fucking tired of voting in the same people again and again. Some of these people actually do reflect the fox news narratives. I know at least two people that won our state for Bernie and then won it for Trump.

[JackRiddler]

In the sense of being fair I should point out that the other half of them were mostly either literally terrified of an HRC initiated hotwar with the Ruskies or just seriously fucking tired of voting in the same people again and again. Some of these people actually do reflect the fox news narratives. I know at least two people that won our state for Bernie and then won it for Trump.

No doubt this was a factor - "Trump is a Russian agent, Wikileaks is Russia" is the most epically self-destructive election strategy of all time. All they had to do was leave it alone and keep quiet about the Syria plans.

.

[OP ED]

Indeed. One the two I mentioned above is one of my only real friends from work. He's second generation TexMex, his parents migrating here to build cars fifty years ago. But not all of his extended family currently residing in Texas are here legally. In his mind he was weighing the possibility of their deportation against the possibility of their deaths in a nuclear conflagration.

[slomo]

In the sense of being fair I should point out that the other half of them were mostly either literally terrified of an HRC initiated hotwar with the Ruskies or just seriously fucking tired of voting in the same people again and again. Some of these people actually do reflect the fox news narratives. I know at least two people that won our state for Bernie and then won it for Trump.

This is a theme I've seen on various sites. Whether it is true or not (i.e. whether HRC really represented the greater risk for WW3) it does support the assertion that many people who voted for Trump were doing so for reasons other than racism or the other isms.

[JackRiddler]

In the sense of being fair I should point out that the other half of them were mostly either literally terrified of an HRC initiated hotwar with the Ruskies or just seriously fucking tired of voting in the same people again and again. Some of these people actually do reflect the fox news narratives. I know at least two people that won our state for Bernie and then won it for Trump.

This is a theme I've seen on various sites. Whether it is true or not (i.e. whether HRC really represented the greater risk for WW3) it does support the assertion that many people who voted for Trump were doing so for reasons other than racism or the other isms.

Of course. People generally have all sorts of reasons for whatever they do, few of them rational or even salient. Just as it is undeniable that an essential core did vote out of racist motivation, starting already in the primaries when it was unvarnished. And we should be able to say that without apologies to their presumed sensibilities, and without insulting the good hardworking white people of Michigan or West Virginia who may or may not have voted for Trump in larger numbers than they did for Romney and who may or may not have done so out of racial resentment or legitimate (and misled) economic motives.

Greater risk for WW3? Who can say? She represented a more stable plan for escalation of the mass murder (one doomed to its own form of system failure, of course, but one that may have possibly held the fort for a while) than what is surely coming as Trump meets with the warlords to boost at least the budget for mayhem to new levels. Domestically things may explode, and that tends indirectly (or directly) to find outlets in foreign adventure. I think the most important signal he sends, in opposition to the Clintonite imperialist geostrategy with "vision," is that anything goes. Unshackle the corporations, unleash the coppers, let the NSA go after an enlarged enemies list. Cos, you know, they were chained! Those people were just letting the bad guys win. Now, "Take their oil." The big brain central thinkers at Pentagon and CIA (yes, irony) dislike the present outcome, but shall be quick to "move on" to the new realities. We'll see about their prospective uprising against Yoo-ism and resumed (approval of) torture. I'm sure a good image can be fashioned out of whatever policy modifications are announced.

The many parapolitical tentacles of the deep state (each with its own nervous system) have surely realized that opportunities open up when open gangsters take charge and initiate a free-for-all. Anything not nailed down is fair game, so saith the men at the "top" (which is more pustule than command center). We'll see if Trump gets off the tweeter long enough to recall his own promises about a sit-down with Putin to settle Syria, or (more likely) just lets things drift back and forth as the plans of various operators get all tangled up, and as one damn thing happens after the next.

And as I keep saying, something's coming out of the woods sooner or later, has been coming for a while, and it's not a bear or a bull but a dragon. Quite possibly a Chinese one, and I ain't talking about their aircraft carriers but their financial markets. But the spark to this fire can come from any direction.

.

[Laodicean]

[JackRiddler]

(Electoral College thing.)

Basically zero chance, but there is this brewing (below), with calls for states worth another 106 electoral votes to pass this legislation, in which case it is activated and a legalist path opens up. Under these laws (in 10 states), it's an agreement among them, does not require federal law or an Amendment. Now there is no chance of this, given control of states. Passage of NPVIC in California, say, and introduction of bills in Republican states (which would be shot down) would have the effect of initiating a movement to actually end or circumvent the EC. Eventually. And we could hope it turns into a more general democracy movement to go after all of the money influence, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. The fantasy scenario would be on the level of something like the release of video showing Trump literally murdering someone, or the equivalent, but even that would just mean Pence is president ahead of (presumably some Republicans') schedule. (Then again, maybe there's a Pence tape too!)

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their respective electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who wins the most popular votes is elected president, and it will come into effect only when it will guarantee that outcome.[2][3]

As of 2016, it has been adopted by ten states and the District of Columbia, whose 165 combined electoral votes represent 30.7% of the total Electoral College vote, and 61.1% of the 270 votes needed for it to have legal force. All of them have been Democratic states, although the Compact passed in 2016 in Republican-controlled chambers in Arizona and New York. Swing states have shown less willingness to join the Compact, although it has passed chambers in states such as Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico.

[brekin]

Thanks stillrobertpaulson. This to me is the take away:

Trump's margins in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were 11,837 and 27,357, and 68,236, respectively. If Clinton had gotten 107,430 more votes in these three states in the right proportion, she would have won the election. In other words, a change of less than 0.1% of the vote, properly placed, would have flipped the presidency. A Trump surprise it was, but a landslide it was not.

107,430 votes. It is just simple math. 107,430 dems/progressives/independents in key battleground states handed the country to Trump because they still pined for Bernie, couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton, couldn't see the difference between Trump and Clinton, etc. Really no one to blame but these people. Not the DNC. Not the Media. Not the FBI. Not Putin.

I imagine many of these people subscribe to the new math. That its not who you vote for, but what you believe in, that counts in the end.

[JackRiddler]

Thanks stillrobertpaulson. This to me is the take away:

Trump's margins in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were 11,837 and 27,357, and 68,236, respectively. If Clinton had gotten 107,430 more votes in these three states in the right proportion, she would have won the election. In other words, a change of less than 0.1% of the vote, properly placed, would have flipped the presidency. A Trump surprise it was, but a landslide it was not.

107,430 votes. It is just simple math. 107,430 dems/progressives/independents in key battleground states handed the country to Trump because they still pined for Bernie, couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton, couldn't see the difference between Trump and Clinton, etc. Really no one to blame but these people. Not the DNC. Not the Media. Not the FBI. Not Putin.

I imagine many of these people subscribe to the new math. That its not who you vote for, but what you believe in, that counts in the end.

This is pathetic. It's arbitrary and cherrypicked and distracts from the story: an epic failure by the neoliberal Democrats to pick up the easiest landslide in history, because they couldn't address economics or the country's problems, and rigged the primary phase to produce a pre-annointed nominee who was easily the most disliked and incompetent as a campaigner in history. (Which has nothing to do with her sex! Imagine Warren, she wouldn't have pursued the ludicrous "foreign agent" neo/bizarro-McCarthy angle, she'd have smashed Trump in his billionaire face.)

I'm sure you can find three close states where Johnson voters "handed it" to Clinton, preventing an even bigger Trump landslide. A proto-fascism is taking over the state, and this is a flawed method in search of a manageable scapegoat that is very, very, very small and not responsible for the binary set-up of the system or the outcome. Look into your own fears, Democrats, deal with the shadow inside. I understand how fearful the election outcome is, and how deep the role of the DNC in it was, so one would rather pretend that really it was Jill's fault. Little Jill, over there, she did it. The rest I need not worry about. I'll just stick to that story.

As one of her voters, that's a hell of a compliment, because it comes with the presumption that we were the only ones with agency, with intelligence, with a choice. Everyone else (in the unspoken assumptions of this approach) is just an automaton or a barbarian who could not have done anything other than they did. Only the Jill voters had a choice! The millions who stayed home, or those who went for Obama but voted Trump, the actual borderline Trump voters themselves who chose this insanity (rather than fleeing to the lesser insanity in reasonable fear), all this does not figure: Blame Jill!

Aren't you tired of this bullshit after 15 years of establishment Dem nonsense blaming Nader and thus distracting from an electoral coup d'etat by a CIA-originated faction, which led to the criminal regime of Bush and new aggressive wars? Nader-blaming is a crime against historical understanding, seriously. (Let's find some communist to blame for Hitler; except that would have about 1,000 times the credibility.)

The only rational response to this placement of "fault" on Jill is obvious, by the way: Work to end the electoral college, democratize the political system, and above all: find more representative and proportional ways. At best what you say is an argument for ranked-choice voting. Then this "lesser evil" vs. "principles" distraction that eats so much energy pointlessly can be put to rest. Ugh. Stop whining about Greens and fight your enemy, already.

Ranked-choice passed in Maine! 1 down, 49 to go. (I hope the democratization process can get more momentum than pot, or this is going to take another 40 years and thus be rendered irrelevant by the rise of totalitarianism or the destruction of civilization and its ecology.)

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[Luther Blissett]

As the nation urbanizes, the mission to abolish the rural-favoring electoral college becomes ever-more urgent.



(Of course the above map is incorrect, because of the below map. This represents communities affected by sea level rise by 2100, but of course it's not like we're going to flip a switch in 2099. We already have sunny-day tidal flooding in some of these communities:)

[Agent Orange Cooper]

Oh, how I long for the day when the whole nation is a sea of concrete! Cast out the rural heretics! We must all assimilate, post-haste!

[seemslikeadream]

https://twitter.com/jamietworkowski/sta ... wsrc%5Etfw




And two of the writers for the new Rogue One: A Star Wars Story film have added the safety pin to the film's logo, citing the comparison between the supremacist Empire and the Rebel Alliance: