Re: Decision 2016
 

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
 

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

Re: Decision 2016
 

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.

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
 

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).


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
 

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
 

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.

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:

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
 

...?

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:

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
 

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
 

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?

Re: Decision 2016
 

Perhaps the media "ignored" that story because it happens all the time?

http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls...ps-voted-2012/

Democrats voted for Romney at a 7 percent rate, Republicans voted for Obama at a 6 percent rate according to the stats there. As always, error margins of a few percentage points.

This years results look pretty much identical. It's just not a story when 90+% of a party votes for that party's nominee.

For awhile it looked like Republican's would not vote at those rates for Trump. Some polls suggested it. Clearly that did not happen, although nobody really thought it would towards the end, as during the course of the campaign Republican's came to fall in line with Trump.

Dok's posts lay out many reasons for what it could have been, and points out that the most proximate would have been the last cycle of news. It certainly would seem to be a part of how Trump managed to pick up most of those undecided voters.

So I don't see what narrative is being forced here then.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I guess I just think that the campaign, the way the DNC ran things as a whole were the major reasons for this loss. Clinton received far fewer votes than Obama did in both of his runs (59 million to 65 and 69 million), against a historically bad candidate. This was not a battle of swaying undecided voters. The democrats failed to create a campaign that energized their base.

Re: Decision 2016
 

There's no way to know what exactly led Trump to beat Hillary. In the conversations that I've had with Trump supporters, they seem to comprise 2 groups:

• High income people looking for a lower personal tax rate.
• Blue collar workers who are hoping for a return to the "better days" of 20 to 30 years ago.

A couple asked if a woman should be president. One person brought up whether Hillary was "crooked". Still, these seemed like after thoughts. Mostly, it came down to how each candidate would impact them financially. Now, I don't see Trump as the savior of the working class, but he sold this position well. Obviously, this isn't a scientific study with a thousand people, but its what I saw.

It will be interesting to see how history interprets this election.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I apologize but that sounds very naive. Words and thus the press have considerable power. Do not underestimate the press, propaganda, and the impact on politics. Trumps existence s a reality star in a celebrity culture was a huge boon. Just implicating that Hillary was sick or may go to jail is immensely powerful.

There is more truth in 1984 than you would want to think.

Re: Decision 2016
 

It seems like you're repeatedly missing my point. All of these things can be simultaneously true. Yes, if Hillary was a better-liked candidate, or if she ran a better campaign in some way, then she probably wins. It can nevertheless be true that, even given these deficiencies, she probably wins if not for a late break of undecideds to Trump that provided those 1% margins in PA/MI/WI. And based on the polling we have, those undecideds were influenced by the late news cycle.

That's a fair assessment of many Trump supporters. There's also the social conservatives who were primarily motivated by the supreme court, but those are probably less common where you live.

However, most people you (and I) describe are not the ones that were holding out late in the campaign.

Re: Decision 2016
 

Okay. That's fair to say. I guess I am speaking about this election from a sense of how it could have gone differently, and you're saying why it went the way it did. It should not have been close enough to come down to undecided voters. There are lots of things to reflect on

Re: Decision 2016
 

Okay, at this point it is clear who is creating the narrative and just saying what they want while ignoring or manipulating the evidence to suit their needs.

As I have already shown, Democrats voted for their candidate at rates over 90+%.

If Clinton had done better among the independents and undecideds, she would easily be the president now. So I do not see how you can claim this wasn't a battle of undecided voters.

Late ballots still have to be counted, as well as get total voting numbers. We have no clue how turnout was for certain yet, and so quoting absolute vote numbers means quite little. Not to mention Obama won independents and undecideds by handy margins. If Clinton had also done so, she would have similar total vote numbers and a victory.

Therefore, it seems clear you are simply making up the story you want regardless of what evidence there is otherwise. If you continue to be like that, and facts do not mean anything, I shall just drop this and let you think what you will.


EDIT: Alright I see your latest post now--indeed you could be correct. If Democrats had managed to get an even better turnout, they could have managed better. If Hillary had been able to be better liked, she would probably have fared better. There are many things that could have happened. But the undecided voters breaking late for Trump is certainly one of the many things that did not go the Democrat's way this election.

Re: Decision 2016
 

There are already two states -- Maine and Nebraska -- that have proportional allotment of their electors; a candidate wins 52% of the vote, they get 52% of the electors (within the margin of rounding errors). However, the likelihood that any other state will do this unless all states do it at once is miniscule. The reason for this is that it would instantly get your state ignored by the candidates. Why? Either there is a big enough majority one way or the other that campaigning there won't affect the vote, or the vote is going to be so close that the best they could hope to do is shift the balance by two votes. Winning all of New York's 29 electors is going to be a lot more important than shifting, say, Michigan from 8-8 to 10-6.

If you divide up the electors so that the winner in each Congressional district gets an elector, with the overall winner getting the remaining two, that just does the same thing -- in 1992, there were 102 districts where the opposition party had a real chance; by 2012, the number was down to 35. Candidates aren't going to bother campaigning in a state where their best outcome is shifting electoral totals by two or three.

There were a number of states where the margin by which Hillary lost was less than the vote total for the third-party candidates. It remains to be seen whether the Democrats and Republicans take notice of what this means. Consider that, early last century, the Socialist Party was starting to make inroads on the Democrat vote totals. They never won a significant election, but as a result of their pull on Democratic voters, the Democratic Party, and later the Republican Party, eventually adopted every major plank in the 1916 Socialist Party platform. The number of voters registered for one of the major parties who voted for the other party's candidate has remained essentially the same back through Obama's first candidacy; the Democrats are going to have to look at the people who refused to vote for either of the major candidates and decide what aspects of their platform they will need to change in order to make those voters willing to support them -- and the Republicans will need to do the same if they don't want to let the Democrats steal a march on them.

Re: Decision 2016
 

That caught my eye so I went and looked up the 1916 Socialist party platform. While a number of things (sufferage, minimum wage, child labor laws, etc.) were eventually adopted elsewhere (assuming they had not already been adopted), several (collective ownership, elimination of increases in military spending, abolition of the senate, etc.) were not.

~Aldin, curious cat

Re: Decision 2016
 

[URL="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-protest-trump-20161109-story.html[/URL]

Because the left is so well behaved themselves....<sarcasm>

Can we not just agree that there are people who are total jack wagons on both sides, people who do not respect other's property, personal well being, or even their feelings.

The vast MAJORITY of Americans are not like these people, do not like these people, and hate when they pull stuff like this so lets just condemn their bad behavior without assigning some sort of left/right/center label ok?

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

This is true, but the atmosphere has changed. At the school where my wife works, there were three separate incidents today where minority students were harassed ("go back where you came from" and the like).

Kids will be kids, and this isn't the same level as swastikas, but we shouldn't discount the reality here. Trump's election has validated a certain flavor of nativism that makes this sort of behavior a lot closer to the mainstream than it was before.

Re: Decision 2016
 

That's incorrect. Both states reward 2 EVs to the overall winner of the state, and then 1 EV to the winner of each congressional district.

The national popular vote project has an interesting end around on this issue - it is trying to get states to pass laws to cast their EVs for the national popular vote winner, but the legislation only becomes binding once 270 EVs worth of states have signed on. So far it's passed in 165 EVs worth of states - all deep blue. My suspicion is that it's not going to get much farther until a Republican loses the election while winning the popular vote (which, honestly, is about as likely as what happened this time).

I don't think it means much beyond that this was a close election and both candidates were unpopular, to be honest.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I know the vast majority of Americans are not like these people. I also believe that people like this will not have a place in a Trump administration, but they had a place in his campaign. I have never seen that before and I pray never to see it again.

Don't tell me it was like other campaigns that way, and don't tell yourself that either, please. Please, please, *please* just acknowledge that his relationship with white supremacist groups was a real thing, and that you pray - as I do - that they have no influence over his administration. They liked him; he won; they feel empowered. Let that be the end of it, though heaven knows that is scary enough.

Re: Decision 2016
 

It has changed? At what point would you assign that change as beginning? Would it be when cops started getting ambushed and killed after black lives matter protests resounded with chants of "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em up"?

http://www.americanthinker.com/artic...a_blanket.html

My point is for every tit you can find someone else can find a corresponding tat. It's not new and it certainly didn't start with Trump. I utterly hate it and those who choose to express themselves in that manner.

Apologies for any misspelled words or if the link doesn't work. Typing on an iPhone kind of sucks.


- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

Then you must have missed the Democrat campaign hiring people to cause unrest, destruction, and assaults during Trumps campaign stop in Chicago. Or maybe read through the article I linked in my prior post, which goes into some detail about the Democrats relationships with BLM, Al Sharpton(certainly no friend to Jews), and others.

I pray that white supremacists have NO influence on anyone, that their ignorant beliefs will shrivel and die along with their hatred.

But as I said to Dok, for every tit one side brings up there is a corresponding tat. And it all should stop.

Apologies for not relinking the article trying to type on an iPhone and it's awful.

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

I'm not disputing that there are people who say hateful things on both sides. The difference is that these hateful elements on the right have been encouraged by Trump's election. There is no analog to that in the election of any major figure on the left.

Re: Decision 2016
 

By that reasoning then he, or rather his election, is also responsible for the vandalism, destruction,and hatred last night in Oakland...

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

Well this is the direct result of your agriculture policy since long ago (few farmers with lots of acres for each). How can you expect a family who have to travel at least 10 miles to see anothers humans and inhabitants from megalopolis to have the same culture?

In France there is more farmers and they have less acres each (even if we are definitely going more and more towards the american way). And even if there is definitely cultural differences I don't htink the gap is as wide as in America.

Culture is not about what your parents or grandparents are it's about what you are, where you live and grow. An afro-american and a skinhead living in the same neighbourhood for years will have more in common (in a cultural way) with each other than with some guy from the countryside, even if they claim not to and hate each other.

Re: Decision 2016
 

Raider30, white supremacist groups were celebrating Trump's candidacy and have now been celebrating his election. I do not think you can find anything comparable on the left.

Yes, there are bad people everywhere. But only one candidate, in my lifetime, from either party has ever been the standardbearer for some of them.

edit: Raider, look again at my post. I never said he was responsible for any of them. But there is a connection to him, at least from the perspective of the vandals, and that makes it unique, and especially unsettling.

Re: Decision 2016
 

You stated that "his relationship with white supremacist groups was a real thing" and that they "had a place in his campaign." Am I really reading too much into your statements when they certainly appear to link him to them in a more direct, and thus responsible manner?

I guess I'm curious to know, from your point of view, especially given the nature of your job, at what point does someone become responsible for the actions of other people?

I'm probably being slightly overly defensive about all this because frankly it just seems like there's a lot of piling on right now, not just here but everywhere. But these forums are, to borrow some lingo from the kids, a 'safe space' and so I'm indulging myself with a little Q and A with you.

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

A word can come in all shapes and sizes, and have varying degrees of meaning. Just because the word can be used to describe the actions of people on both the left and right does not mean the two are equally guilty. (Neo-Nazism is the big bold one, in case that's not obvious.) That sort of false equivalency is a big part of what happened last night.

Re: Decision 2016
 

And what level exactly would you assign to some of the stuff that has come out of BLM?

Please understand I am in now way condoning the behavior, much less the thoughts these idiots have. I have a hard time blaming one person for another's actions while it seems others get a pass based on left, right , or center.

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

When did you see a hate crime from BLM invoking the name of a President or the President Elect?

Regardless, I don't concede that BLM is a hate group. But that's a different discussion for a different time. It is not crazy talk (or hate talk) to try to implement their goals. You may not like their goals and I may not like them (all) either, and I get that police are needlessly villified, but it's a long jump from their stated goals to swastika-painting neo-Nazi.

Re: Decision 2016
 

No. Trump has not encouraged those people or championed the causes those people care about, and those people don't feel empowered by his election.

Re: Decision 2016
 

The argument you are making is that things done in the name of Trump are in some way his fault. Clearly that line of thinking can easily be applied to the out of control protesters associated with BLM. Good for the goose is good for the gander and all that...

Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

If by "stuff" you mean some members of BLM referring to police who shoot innocent citizens as "pigs," I don't assign that to be any level of "bad." BLM criticizing cops (who chose their profession) for failing to live up to the admittedly tough standards of their job is not at all analogous to skinheads and neo-Nazis hating blacks, Jews, LGBT, etc... (who do not choose to be born to their respective groups) If you're not equating the two I apologize for misunderstanding you, but if you are I have no idea how you square that in your mind.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I think you are misunderstanding the point. Stating a fact and assigning blame are different things. It is evidenced that Trump's candidacy and election are an inspiration to right-wing fringe groups which might stir them to action or violence. Is this Trump's personal fault? That's debatable, but it also doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that active, emboldened neo-nazis place certain groups within this country in actual danger. If that can't be acknowledged, I have to wonder why.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I didn't say it's his fault. My only point, which is one I hope you and I can agree on, is that the neo-Nazis and other white supremacists who have vocally supported him, and who have been represented in his campaign materials and on his campaign staff, will have no place in his administration.

I wasn't saying anything other than what I said. I think you've already agreed with the above, so there is really no need for us to argue about this point.

Re: Decision 2016
 

"Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em up" - Pigs(cops) in a blanket(body bag), fry 'em up(put them there).

Your overly general characterization of people shot by police as "innocent citizens" indicates to me that this is sensitive subject with you and perhaps you and I should simply agree to disagree, or if you want you can PM me.

Either way it was not my intent to push your buttons or otherwise cause you to be upset. If that was the case then I am sorry.

The context of mentioning BLM was in response to the notion that some people are responsible for others actions. Not to form an equivalency between their ideas and those of a neo-nazi, however, the thought occurs to me that there are similarities in the way both groups wrongly label entire categories of people.

Regards,

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

Heh, quite the contrary, they CLEARLY felt empowered by his election to go out and commit the crimes they did.

- Raider30

Re: Decision 2016
 

This is a whole other conversation, but I think there is lots of room for common ground between BLM and law enforcement. For instance, I know some police on the street who want body cameras, and I suspect BLM would like that change, too.

I am on the side of defending police far, far more often than I am on the side of defending BLM, but I don't see them as (always) opposed. It's a tricky conversation, but it's possible.

Re: Decision 2016
 

Yes, I don't run across too many social conservatives in NY. lol I thought that this was interesting.
https://gma.yahoo.com/5-missteps-may...opstories.html#

Another article on the same topic:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politi...cid=spartandhp

Michael Moore's explanation for the Trump victory.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news...cid=spartandhp
"Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club, and stood there in front of the Ford Motor executives, and said, 'If you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put a 35 percent tariff on those cars when you send them back, and nobody is going to buy them.' It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives. And it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Brexit states. ... Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he's saying the things to people who are hurting. And it's why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff, who used to be part of what was called the middle class, loves Trump. He is the human Molotov cocktail that they've been waiting for. The human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them. And on Nov. 8, Election Day, although they've lost their jobs, although they've been foreclosed on by the bank, next came the divorce and now the wife and kids are gone, the car's been repo'd, they haven't had a real vacation in years, they're stuck with the sh--ty Obamacare bronze plan, where you can't even get a f---ing Percocet. They've essentially lost everything they had, except one thing. The one thing that doesn't cost them a cent and is guaranteed to them by the American Constitution: the right to vote. They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be f---ed over and f---ed up, it doesn't matter. Because it's equalized on that day: a millionaire has the same number of votes as the person without a job, one. "

Re: Decision 2016
 

Moore's most impressive feat was essentially calling the final electoral map... in July.
OK, he got Florida wrong, but that's still pretty close.

But anyway, I basically agree with the points you're making but I'm unsure if you're making them as a counterpoint to what I've said or as an additional explanation. As I said to vegie, all of these things can be simultaneously true. Trump appealed to a certain slice of the electorate in a unique way, and that was critical to his victory. But this does not change the fact that his critical wins in WI/MI/PA were very close, and the decisions of late breaking undecideds was critical in all three. And it seems fairly clear that those late undecideds were influenced by the news cycle of the last two weeks of the campaign, which was unambiguously anti-Clinton.

If the news cycle of the last 10 days is more about Trump, or just neutral, then the break of undecideds is less extreme, and that probably makes the ~1% difference that swings all three of those states.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I mean, I still believe low Clinton turnout is the most important factor. Just based on the reaction in the country, I think more people would have wanted Clinton, if you polled every single person. But Trump energized his smaller base, and Clinton took hers for granted. Clinton drastically underperformed in total votes relative to Obama, and Trump did about the same relative to McCain and Romney. While the other factors of late undecideds swinging Trump certainly gave Trump the win, the biggest takeaway should be that the Democratic strategy did not work. They didn't have a message, they didn't have an inspiring candidate (even though she could have been the first female president, which is a pretty inspiring thing!), and they were too confident that the other side would self-destruct. It never should have come down to undecideds, and it never should have come down to the final news cycle. They made safe choices (like, as you mentioned, Kaine) because they thought they could. Even if you want to argue that Clinton could have won this election with the strategy she took, she wouldn't have won it decisively. Personally, I'm going to look at the actual outcome, to see that my personal feelings of disconnect with the Democratic party are shared by many others. I really hope that they learn from this, and have honest primaries and an honest message in the future.

This election had a pair of pretty bad defeats for the concept of families controlling the presidency. A Bush and Clinton ran with unprecedented infrastructure and support from their establishment, and lost to Donald Trump. People clearly do not want their leaders chosen based on their family name.

Re: Decision 2016
 

To my knowledge, every case we've heard of or seen in the past few years which started the BLM movement has involved an innocent citizen or a crime that was a non-capital offense. There'd be no nationwide movement if we just had a few instances of cops shooting murder suspects.

No worries, I wasn't upset. I'm just glad you weren't making an equivalency between the two. However, I disagree that there's necessarily anything wrong with labeling groups of people, if membership in those groups was chosen consciously and voluntarily. I don't feel in the wrong calling all Klansmen "bigots," or calling racist and corrupt cops "pigs," because I am labeling them based on their stated ideas, whereas I would feel in the wrong calling a gay person a "f****t" for (hopefully) obvious reasons.

Sorry for the slight derail, everyone.

Re: Decision 2016
 

While this may yet turn out to be true, you simply do not yet have the evidence for this. Votes are still being turned in, and many provisional ballots and last minute mailed in ballots will be counted in the coming days and weeks. Already Trump and Clinton are both nearing 60 million votes, and more will come in. You really can't know what the turnout was yet until more data comes in. In 2012 this also happened--Obama gained about 4 million total votes off of what was first reported on the Wednesday morning after the election. Every cycle this happens. You just can't look at the numbers today and state with any certainty yet that the Democratic turnout wasn't as high as 2012 and 2008. (It likely was, as Obama certainly seemed to energize voters more, but we don't have the data to back up this yet).

Implying that somehow the democrats rigged the primaries and campaigned with a dishonest message?