The Unofficial Election 2016 Results Thread PLEASE

I think the biggest problem is that the left decided that they could ignore a huge swath of people simply because their concerns weren't valid.

That sounds silly and facetious but that's how politics works. It doesn't matter on the scale we're talking whether the concerns of the rural farm belt / rust belts were valid or not. We could (and should) have a social discussion about whether or not the concerns are valid but for the purpose of the election it was a non-issue.

If you are seeking high office addressing concerns is not the same thing as agreeing with them and the Hillary campaign sorely misunderstood that.

A few token speeches and photo ops that at the end of the day were essentially meaningless might have been all it would have took.

Non-city felt like it was ignored and without agency and that manifested as both fear and hatred. So what if they weren't true? When we're talking perception it doesn't matter if it valid.

Since I feel there is no serious social political discussion that can't be made better by addressing it in pop culture memes, I'll use Batman.

In the film the Dark Knight there is the following exchange occurs:

Bruce Wayne: Targeting me won't get their money back. I knew the mob wouldn't go down without a fight, but this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth: You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand.

Replace Bruce Wayne with Hillary Clinton, the Mob with rural America, and the Joker with Donald Trump and you have an almost perfect description of this election.

Does that mean the Joker is the good guy and Batman is the villain of the story? No. It doesn't not. Does it make the Mob's concerns valid or good? No. But the point is still valid.
 
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Seeing as how scores of tens of millions of eligible American's don't vote it seems rather petty to focus of a few thousand who voted "wrong."

I don't get why, as annoying as they might be, the Johnson-ites and the Bernie-bros get more hate and blame for "ruining" the election than they people who did literally nothing.
 
Non-city felt like it was ignored and without agency and that manifested as both fear and hatred.

But how do you address that? If their concerns aren't based on reality, how the hell do you honestly go about "solving" that problem? The only way I see is through decades of better education and information to dispel their misguided concerns.
 
But how do you address that? If their concerns aren't based on reality, how the hell do you honestly go about "solving" that problem? The only way I see is through decades of better education and information to dispel their misguided concerns.

It's politics. Lie to them. Tell them you care even if you don't.

Again the problem was that they were ignored, treated as if they didn't exist and didn't matter.
 
I think the biggest problem is that the left decided that they could ignore a huge swath of people simply because their concerns weren't valid.

That sounds silly and facetious but that's how politics works. It doesn't matter on the scale we're talking whether the concerns of the rural farm belt / rust belts were valid or not. We could (and should) have a social discussion about whether or not the concerns are valid but for the purpose of the election it was a non-issue.

If you are seeking high office addressing concerns is not the same thing as agreeing with them and the Hillary campaign sorely misunderstood that.

A few token speeches and photo ops that at the end of the day were essentially meaningless might have been all it would have took.

Non-city felt like it was ignored and without agency and that manifested as both fear and hatred. So what if they weren't true? When we're talking perception it doesn't matter if it valid.

Since I feel there is no serious social political discussion that can't be made better by addressing it in pop culture memes, I'll use Batman.

In the film the Dark Knight there is the following exchange occurs:

Bruce Wayne: Targeting me won't get their money back. I knew the mob wouldn't go down without a fight, but this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth: You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand.

Replace Bruce Wayne with Hillary Clinton, the Mob with rural America, and the Joker with Donald Trump and you have an almost perfect description of this election.

Does that mean the Joker is the good guy and Batman is the villain of the story? No. It doesn't not. Does it make the Mob's concerns valid or good? No. But the point is still valid.

I think this is true.

I think the social left tried to go too far too fast. On the economic front, the people from small towns really feel like no one cares for them.

I doubt that Trump cares any more than Clinton would have, but he seemed different. When people vote for "change", they don't really know what kind of change they want.
 
But how do you address that? If their concerns aren't based on reality, how the hell do you honestly go about "solving" that problem? The only way I see is through decades of better education and information to dispel their misguided concerns.

Which it itself apparently an example of elitist thinking :rolleyes: - trying to "fix" their "stupidity" as opposed to ....... well I don't really know what

In any case, it may not work - we humans seem to find it too easy to find "Other" to hate.

If the Democratic Party (unlike the GOP) is unhappy pandering to racists, jew-haters, misogynists, Christian fundamentalists, white-supremacists and so on (and they should be unhappy) then maybe they need to pick a candidate with so much charisma that at least some people are so dazzled that they briefly forget their own prejudices. Bill Clinton and Obama managed. Gore, Kerry and Hillary did not.

The same is true in the UK also. A "Rock Star" like Blair got elected but his rather drab successors did not. Maybe the Democratic Party did not need a candidate who apparently roundly beat their opponent in debates with facts and reason but instead someone who could humiliate their opponent with snappy comebacks.

It's not the sort of politics I would endorse :(
 
I think this is true.

I think the social left tried to go too far too fast. On the economic front, the people from small towns really feel like no one cares for them.

What did they want ?

It's not like these "rugged individualists" aren't already getting more than their fair share of government spending.

It reminds me of people back in my home town in the North East of England complaining about the lack of local opportunity. They weren't willing to travel 15 miles to the next biggish town to get a job. Apparently I had it easy because by then I'd moved to Bristol :rolleyes:
 
The same is true in the UK also. A "Rock Star" like Blair got elected but his rather drab successors did not. Maybe the Democratic Party did not need a candidate who apparently roundly beat their opponent in debates with facts and reason but instead someone who could humiliate their opponent with snappy comebacks.

Which is why I'm going to ask Robert Downey Jr to run in 2020.
 
I think the biggest problem is that the left decided that they could ignore a huge swath of people simply because their concerns weren't valid.

That sounds silly and facetious but that's how politics works. It doesn't matter on the scale we're talking whether the concerns of the rural farm belt / rust belts were valid or not. We could (and should) have a social discussion about whether or not the concerns are valid but for the purpose of the election it was a non-issue.

If you are seeking high office addressing concerns is not the same thing as agreeing with them and the Hillary campaign sorely misunderstood that.

A few token speeches and photo ops that at the end of the day were essentially meaningless might have been all it would have took.

Non-city felt like it was ignored and without agency and that manifested as both fear and hatred. So what if they weren't true? When we're talking perception it doesn't matter if it valid.

Since I feel there is no serious social political discussion that can't be made better by addressing it in pop culture memes, I'll use Batman.

In the film the Dark Knight there is the following exchange occurs:

Bruce Wayne: Targeting me won't get their money back. I knew the mob wouldn't go down without a fight, but this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth: You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand.

Replace Bruce Wayne with Hillary Clinton, the Mob with rural America, and the Joker with Donald Trump and you have an almost perfect description of this election.

Does that mean the Joker is the good guy and Batman is the villain of the story? No. It doesn't not. Does it make the Mob's concerns valid or good? No. But the point is still valid.

Do you honestly believe that rural America would have voted for any Democrat? Not today's Democrats, and not today's FOX News watching/AM talk radio listening rural America.
 
What part of the political machine is he, exactly? Party elite? Washington insider? SuperPAC money man? Revolving-door lobbyist? MIC contractor? Nepotic office-holder? Media shill?

No, no, of course not. All those people work for the Trumps of the world (even if normally much wealthier). The machine you refer to has an owner.
 
Do you honestly believe that rural America would have voted for any Democrat? Not today's Democrats, and not today's FOX News watching/AM talk radio listening rural America.

In huge massive landslide numbers? No.

In enough numbers to tip an election? Absolutely.

I mean it's not like the demographic makeup of this country has radically changed since Obama took office. He was black and he got enough of the, (apparently nothing but racists backwoods rednecks making meth and sleeping with their sisters that anyone who lives more then walking distance from a Starbucks is) demographic to vote for him.
 
If you have all the Johnson votes convert to their second choice, Clinton would need the following percents

Wisconsin 62%
Missouri 55%
Pennsylvania 73%
Florida 80%

That simply wouldn't break that way.
That looks about right. Depending on what sort of candidate Johnson is, only Missouri and possibly Wisconsin have any realistic prospect of a different result.

It lessens somewhat the impact of The Great Zaganza's post about vote leakage but doesn't change the fact that preferences can make the difference in an election.
 
In huge massive landslide numbers? No.

In enough numbers to tip an election? Absolutely.

I mean it's not like the demographic makeup of this country has radically changed since Obama took office. He was black and he got enough of the, (apparently nothing but racists backwoods rednecks making meth and sleeping with their sisters that anyone who lives more then walking distance from a Starbucks is) demographic to vote for him.

I live in a rural area. On my ballot, the only option to vote Dem was for President and State Senator. We actually had 3 Libertarians on the ballot at various locations, too. But every single other position (can't remember exactly how many, but around 20) was a Republican running unopposed. Republicans have a stranglehold on the hearts and minds of rural voters, and Obama didn't win many of them, either.
 
Yes, Clinton could have won if people hadn't chosen to abstain or vote 3rd party:

Number of more votes for Trump in:

Wisconsin: 27,000 (Johnson 108,000)

Missouri 17,000 (Johnson 173,000)

Pennsylvania 68,000 (Johnson 145,000)

Florida 120,000 (Johnson 205,000)

Where are you getting your Missouri numbers? We're a very red state and she lost by over half a million votes here (Hillary: 1,054,889 Trump: 1,585,753).

ETA: I suspect you meant Michigan.
 
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I live in a rural area. On my ballot, the only option to vote Dem was for President and State Senator. We actually had 3 Libertarians on the ballot at various locations, too. But every single other position (can't remember exactly how many, but around 20) was a Republican running unopposed. Republicans have a stranglehold on the hearts and minds of rural voters, and Obama didn't win many of them, either.

There's some areas that are so Red or Blue she didn't have a chance but that doesn't address the overall question.

Like I said the demographics haven't changed that much. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were able to get enough of the rural white vote to win. George H.W. Bush was able to get enough of the urban vote to win.

"The country just has too many racists rednecks bigots for her to win" doesn't hold water. You're not going to tell me Hillary Clinton had a stronger uphill battle with this demographic then Barack Obama.

Yes this point the two major political parties have their bases so far ingrained that 35-45% of the votes are locked in the second they make their nominations. For all practical purposes 90% of American who do vote might as well just go ahead and fill out their 2020 ballots with "Party nominee to be decided later" and mail them in now for all the difference it's going to make who their party decides to nominate. That's how it works. Most people are so ideologically engrained that they already know who they are going to vote for before they know who the person is going to be.

Major American elections are going to be battles of the margins for the foreseeable future. But the fact that we're still swinging back and for the between the two still says the margins matter.
 
"The country just has too many racists rednecks bigots for her to win" doesn't hold water. You're not going to tell me Hillary Clinton had a stronger uphill battle with this demographic then Barack Obama.

We may be speaking past each other here. I'm not claiming anything like this. I'm claiming that Rural America is not going to vote Democrat. Clinton lost this election because fewer Democrats voted this time compared to Obama. Romney got more votes last election than Trump got this election, too.

Democrats attempting to appeal to rural America is a good idea in principle, but in practice, can you show me any rural areas that have voted Dem in, say, the last 30 years? 40?
 
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