Heroscapers - Decision 2016

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Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by dok (Post 2120432)

Should these things really sting, though?

I'd consider myself an ally for LGBT and minority groups. I marched in the Pride Parade, donated blood for Pulse victims,and educated family and friends on why things like gay marriage and immigration aren't the end of the world. SO yes, it stings when people who donate so many resources and so much time are told that they still aren't allowed to be there or to associate with these people.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by The_X_Marker (Post 2120441)

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Originally Posted by dok (Post 2120432)

Should these things really sting, though?

You said "speak for". I am on board with the idea that excluding people from gatherings is usually a bad thing.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 (Post 2120439)

Sanders definitely would have succeeded in PA, WI, and MI. This article sums up my feelings on this issue, albeit a little dramatically.

This line of thinking is driving me nuts today. We just saw how during this entire year from the primaries to Brexit to this election how difficult forecasting and prognosticating is. To act like one would know what would happen in a hypothetical match up....well there shouldn't be that much certainty in your statement or the supporters of Bernie Sanders. We have no clue if Sanders would have been able to actually win the national election, nor what states.

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With the second president this century winning the election without winning popular vote, I think we definitely need some sort of electoral reform. I actually like the principle of an electoral college over the popular vote, at least the idea of having votes from particular areas weighted to their population. But using states as the particular areas creates variance likes this, which is unnecessary. I think switching to weighted electoral votes by county would be an easy fix to still make sure everyone's voice is equally heard, but getting rid of the variance of getting all of the electoral votes of a state at once. Alternatively and probably more simply is to just split electoral votes likes the democratic primaries do. I don't think a pure switch to popular vote would be good though.

I will admit sometimes I do not understand you.

You start by admitting that having two elections in five cycles have a disconnect between the winner and the candidate that got the most total votes, and then go on to say a bunch of stuff that would continue to perpetrate that problem.

Either the solution is to go with who gets the most total votes, or else you are okay with sometimes having a person elected who gets less total votes, but gets more of the "important" votes.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by dok (Post 2120374)

What happened here is that there were a unusually large number of undecideds even in the late polling. This is why fivethirtyeight gave Trump a 30% chance despite a fairly healthy lead. Those undecideds broke for Trump... big league.

I honestly think that Trump won because the news cycle of the last 10 days was dominated by Hillary stories. If it had been, say, another Trump tape (or just no big news) instead, I think Hillary wins. So, you know, Comey and wikileaks and that stuff.

Trump won because of the blue collar vote. His promise to "Make America Great Again" resonated with many who's economic prospects have plateaued or worse over the past few decades. While I don't agree that his Mexican wall or renegotiated trade deals will bring meaningful jobs to the US, he sold it as a "silver bullet" that people bought into. While I'm sure that "Comey and wikileaks and that stuff" didn't help Hillary, Comey did come out and say that there was nothing new a couple of days before the election. Clinton's promise of 4 more years of Obama style policies just didn't energize blue collar voters (even if they were a better choice).

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Originally Posted by wriggz (Post 2120382)

In the clarity of morning it might not be so bad.

1. Gun control will remain unchanged and there are only a few shootings a year.
2. The finical sector has a vested interest in keeping things running smooth, so it might be okay. (Housing bubble not withstanding)
3. The Rich will get richer but they are already super rich so it might not be as noticeable.
4. The market will still likely favor Alternative energy as it is becoming cheaper, but the move from Oil will be slower.
5. There will be no wall - mark my words.
6. I don't think LGTBQ rights will be repealed. They may stagnate but unlikely to be repealed.
7. The Economy and Employment numbers will hopefully stay the course?
8. It will become harder to get an abortion, but not impossible.
9. Freedom of Religion will protect American Islamist from the Government.
10. The EPA will loose funding but will likely still do their job.
11. The DoE may change but it is unlikely to effect student results.
12. Trump has nuclear launch codes, but no one will let him use them. Right? RIGHT?
13. Trade will continue regardless and loop holes will be found for business's to keep doing business the same way.
14. NASA will loose funding for earth science but will still push to Mars.

A couple things that will likely be worse (but not by much)
15. I don't think they can entirely repeal health care act, but maybe.
16. The US's terrorist enemies have a new rallying cry.
17. Freedom of Religion will not protect American Islamist from the emboldened extremists.
18. Travel outside of the US will become more of a pain.
19. Immigration will take a hit but they aren't Americans anyway.
20. There will be no national investigation into Police brutality
21. The Poor will likely get poorer.
22. The rest of the world has lost respect for one of the Greatest countries on earth.

So, where does this leave us? Trump really hasn't had too much in the way of concrete plans so its anyone's guess.

Trump has promised to repeal and replace ACA, but I don't think he has a plan to replace it with. I don't know what happens here.
My guess is that a Mexican wall will go up. Amnesty for illegal aliens is dead, but I don't expect "immigration squads".
Don't expect the US to take in refugees.
I worry about ending trade deals. What do they get replaced with? If we institute tariffs, does this just hurt people as they buy more expensive products.
We will have more conservative judges in the Supreme Court. This impacts a number of areas.
I'm not sure what will happen on taxes as his tax "plan" doesn't work fiscally. Per Trump's tax plan, I hope that corporate taxes are lowered (to prevent US companies from leaving), but don't you need to offset this with higher personal tax rates?
On foreign policy, I can only hope that Trump is surrounded by responsible knowledgeable people who can prevent him from doing something stupid. This scares me the most.

To summarize, Trump has no history and his plans have been so "off the cuff", that I'm not sure what to expect.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by Ranior (Post 2120443)

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 (Post 2120439)

Sanders definitely would have succeeded in PA, WI, and MI. This article sums up my feelings on this issue, albeit a little dramatically.

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Maybe you can see this as a referendum on the failure of prognostication. I personally don't completely see it that way. I think Sanders would have better fit the will of more Democrats today. I don't think we will see a candidate like Clinton from the Democrats in 2020.

The reason for the electoral college is to reflect the will of an area even if that area has lower turnout than expected. Switching to electoral college by county or splitting electoral votes continues that practice. It will greatly decrease the emphasis on getting the last 1% of the vote that swings elections now.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by Rich10 (Post 2120444)

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Originally Posted by dok (Post 2120374)

When an election is this close, there's lots of things that you can point to and say "that was the cause", and you're going to be right most of the time, because close elections hinge on a lot of things.

Did Trump win because of the Electoral College? Because Hillary is a fairly weak campaigner? Because Hillary has been the target of, essentially, a 25 year long campaign of negativity that has made her (fairly or unfairly) widely perceived as corrupt and untrustworthy? Because a huge number of people feel alienated by the political system and the direction of the country? Because Hillary picked a vice presidential candidate that did not help her prospects in any meaningful way? I'd argue yes to all of those, and I think the consensus opinion agrees with me, except perhaps about last one.

But the proximate cause, the nearest and most easily reversed, was the late news cycle. There were a very large number of undecideds, and they broke for Trump. Those people heard lots about the e-mail stories in the last week and a half, and very little about the many many many negative Trump stories out there.

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Originally Posted by Rich10 (Post 2120444)

While I'm sure that "Comey and wikileaks and that stuff" didn't help Hillary, Comey did come out and say that there was nothing new a couple of days before the election.

Yes, and if that had happened a week earlier I suspect Hillary would have won. But most of the negative impact to Hillary's numbers in the polls from that news cycle was still present on election day.

The story basically moved the numbers by about 3% in Trump's favor. After Comey said "my bad, actually nothing there", 1% of those 3% dropped back, but it was still a 2% swing from the story by election day. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by about 1% each. Give her those states (and ME-2, which was similarly close) and she wins 279-269. An electoral college squeaker, to be sure, but we're having a very different conversation today.

FWIW, I think this was the first "October surprise" that actually had an impact in my lifetime... maybe ever?

Re: Decision 2016

I strongly disagree that undecideds swung the election. This article has a lot of good stats in it. One that particularly stuck out to me:

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There were stories before the election of Republicans planning to vote for Mrs Clinton because they did not like their own candidate, but the exit poll actually suggested that 7% of people who identified themselves as Republicans had voted for Mrs Clinton, while 9% of those who identified as Democrats had voted for Mr Trump.

More Democrats voted for Trump than Republicans voted for Hillary. The "divided Republican base" narrative was completely off; the Democrats were more divided.

Re: Decision 2016

Aaaand, we're off.

We're entering some dark days. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this type of thing is as bad as it gets.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 (Post 2120451)

I strongly disagree that undecideds swung the election. This article has a lot of good stats in it. One that particularly stuck out to me:

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More Democrats voted for Trump than Republicans voted for Hillary. The "divided Republican base" narrative was completely off; the Democrats were more divided.

...?

Your conclusions seem off here.

First off, you cite an exit poll that has an error range of at least 3 percentage points. You really have no clue here if those numbers are accurate enough to help explain how Trump made up about 3 percentage points. Next, you aren't actually told what the stated percentage of Republicans or Democrats is, therefore you can't make the conclusion that more Democrats voted Trump than Republicans voted Clinton. It likely is true, as typically numbers are pretty close for those who identify as Democrats or Republicans, but that data isn't available to you here.

Either way, the very article you quoted has this to say:

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It is very difficult to get a genuinely representative sample of how more than 120 million people have voted. It is a big survey - of almost 25,000 voters - and they are the best figures available, but they should be used with caution.

Next, the polls leading up to this had the race as about 47 Clinton to 44 Trump with the rest of the percentage as either other or undecided. It seems clear that those undecided voters broke heavily for Trump. You also can't be sure that those self reported Democrats who did vote Trump aren't those very undecided voters Dok and others are saying decided the election.

Overall, I think it's clear that undecided broke for Trump and swung the election. Thus far there isn't good evidence to suggest otherwise.

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 (Post 2120451)

I strongly disagree that undecideds swung the election. This article has a lot of good stats in it. One that particularly stuck out to me:

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More Democrats voted for Trump than Republicans voted for Hillary. The "divided Republican base" narrative was completely off; the Democrats were more divided.

How does any of this data dispute what I said? Yeah, the parties fell in line in fairly comparable rates. This was true, and known, well in advance of the final weeks. What does that even have to do with my contention that Trump won the late breakers (which is also something that you can see with exit polling)?

Again, as I said to Rich, there's plenty of correct narratives for things that caused Trump to win, because he won a very narrow victory and changing any of a number of conditions would change that. My point is just that the last one of those things to fall into place, the most proximate to the election, was the late news cycle and the impact it had on undecideds.

Re: Decision 2016

This is the problem when you force a narrative too much. Of course there is the possibility the exit poll was off slightly, but it could be off in either direction. The point is that there was not a substantial Republican revolt against Trump, and the Democrats had a similarly sized one against Clinton that the media basically ignored. I don't think in a year or even in a week we will be talking about the news cycle swing against Clinton being the reason she lost. Undecided voters broke for Trump, but the news cycle swing wasn't why

Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by The_X_Marker (Post 2120441)

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Originally Posted by dok (Post 2120432)

Should these things really sting, though?

If you were told that and made to feel like an excluded ally, I'm sorry. On the other hand, why do we do the right thing? For approval? A pat on the back? Do we help people because they will be appropriately grateful, or because they need the help?