President Trump

[Planigale]

True, but I think for a really small value of partially.

The much bigger problem is the 2 party system that is foisted upon the electorate by the FPTP voting system.

That is what is causing voter apathy and disenfranchisement.

Change to a multiparty system, use preferential voting and give the people voting a real choice that reflects their views and not a binary choice that means the majority of the people are unhappy whoever wins an election.

How would the election look if there were 2 candidates from each main party and a Green and a Liberal and nobodies vote was wasted?

The same **** happens here in the UK. The most recent General Election here was the least representative result in history. The conservatives got 37% of the actual votes, and 100% of the power. (and by a quirk of how our system works, and a small referendum that made a couple of headlines here and there, now the PM here is someone that none of the electorate voted for)

In the US election Trump got ~49% of the votes and wields 100% of the power.

On both sides of the pond there are candidates in safe seats where if you disagree with the party that always wins, your vote might as well not exist.

The US EC means that votes in some states carry more weight than votes in other states, which does skew things partially, but the bigger problem is that we only get to choose from 2 main parties, and that's a consequence of FPTP.

Not true her constituency voted her in as an MP. This arguably is as much as any PM, since the PM is chosen by the largest party (in whatever way that party decides) from the current MPs. We do not elect a prime minister, but individual MPs.

 

[Alphaba]

"Trump arriving in Washington yesterday" (short video on Twitter): https://twitter.com/kidd_kong78/status/797018261481259008

 

[Andy_Ross]

It seems like hypocritical slut shaming.

I mean aren't we supposed to be in favor of a woman having the power to have nudes of herself or not? Of having agency to show off her body or not?

Hypocritical on which side though?

People were offended by Michelle Obama's bare-armed dresses. Now, it's Melanie in the nude, not a murmer.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Hypocritical on which side though?

People were offended by Michelle Obama's bare-armed dresses. Now, it's Melanie in the nude, not a murmer.

Because we're all in our bunks.

 

[Belz...]

Hypocritical on which side though?

People were offended by Michelle Obama's bare-armed dresses. Now, it's Melanie in the nude, not a murmer.

Things sure have changed. Not too long ago, no presidential candidate with a wife who had done anything of the sort could ever hope to be elected.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Recall all the crazy scare-stories that were said in 2008 about what would happen if Obama was elected (he'd take all the guns away, make everyone Muslim-Gay-Communists or whatever). Naturally it didn't happen and from that I hope that much of the more extreme things people fear will come with Trump will not happen either.

<snip>

I think you are glossing over one not insignificant difference.

Obama never stated as part of his platform and a key component of his speeches that any of those were things he wanted to do.

And the people who supported him didn't do so in the fervent hopes that he would.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Nigel Farage praises Trump and calls President Obama a 'loathsome individual'

He described the result as "Brexit times two", adding of his own role in events: "I'm the catalyst for the downfall of the Blairites, the Clintonites, the Bushites and all these dreadful people who, working hand-in-glove with Goldman Sachs and everybody else, have made themselves rich and ruined our countries."

He claimed Mr Trump, "hates the EU even more than I do" and predicted an improvement in US-UK relations, saying: "That Obama creature, loathsome individual, couldn't stand our country. He said we'd be at the back of the queue [for trade deals], didn't he?

"What was interesting was that Trump said we'd be at the front of the queue."

UKIP MEP William Dartmouth called Mr Farage the "best choice" for the next UK ambassador to Washington.

He said: "On Brexit, the special relationship will be even more important. Nigel Farage already has good ties and a relationship with the US President-elect, Donald Trump - much better than anyone else in British public life.

"His appointment would materially assist the UK in getting a UK-USA trade agreement for the first time. We in the UK would then be 'at the front of the queue'."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37934790

 

[Emily's Cat]

I find it strange. I've spent most of my life in marketing and sales. I've always known that you could take feces.(sorry, the mods will allow this word but not the common word) put it in a bun and give it a pretty description and some people would buy it. I just never knew you could brazenly and openly sell **** sandwiches and people would eat it.

I get that people didn't like Hillary but in God's name how can anyone like a a lying cheating turd like Trump? I'm flabbergasted. This guy is clearly and OBVIOUSLY a scumbag. Virtually NO REDEEMING QUALITIES. So tell me world. WTF, WHY?

This is why:

They voted for him over the gal who didn't understand their concern and didn't even try to convince them that she would do a better job of addressing it.

Maybe they voted for him not because they thought he'd actually fix it, but because they were convinced she would only make it worse. This is probably only a little bit about Trump's actual platform, and a lot about flipping a giant middle finger at Hillary the Progressive Statesman.

I can't imagine a clearer message of Do Not Want than to choose Trump instead of whatever you imagine people should want. Has it not occurred to you that this strategy of telling people that they should shut up, sit down, and let the elites do all their deciding for them, is not such a great strategy?

Has it ever occurred to you that showing sincere empathy for the people you're supposedly trying to help might build more trust with them than constant vilification and disdain?

"But Trump doesn't have a sincere bone in his body!" you say. "Trump is utterly incapable of empathy!" you say. And sure. You're right, of course. But what you comically, willfully, tragically, pathetically fail to understand is that the people who voted for Trump think you're no different from him. You've worked very hard to alienate half the country. Don't act so surprised that half the country treats you like an alien invasion.

theprestige said it far better than I could.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I've always had the impression that Hillary was more dishonest than most. Her lack of charisma probably gave me that impression; that and her long political carreer. However, when I saw the actual numbers, I changed my mind. Most people, when they see that the numbers disagree with their theory, just decide that the numbers are wrong, for some reason (usually because the numbers are rigged).

Trump's numbers, however, are baffling. Who the hell lies 71% of the time?

Where is the 71% coming from? Not arguing - just asking for a cite.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You do understand how the government was set up, don't you? The President represents the whole country. You have Congressmen/women who represent your local interests and Senators who represent your state's interests. They make up the Legislative branch. The President, Vice-President and their cabinet are to represent ALL of the people and areas.

With a system based on the popular vote the ten thousand voters in Boise would be just as important to a liberal politician as the ten thousand anywhere else. More so than at present. Right now, the liberals (boo! evil libruls!) freely demonize and don't give a rat's ass about the voters in Cheyenne or Boise or Provo. Even if they get an extra 100,000 in each state, they still get zero tally in the final vote.

No they wouldn't. Politicians would only focus on major metropolitan areas - where the population density is highest. It's the biggest bang for their campaign buck. A purely popular vote for the president essentially means that LA and NYC determine how the country is led, with maybe a small bit of input from Chicago, Dallas, DC, and Philadelphia. Unless the entire rest of the US collaboratively fall son the other side, that's where the decision would get made. That might be nice for the democrats though - high density areas tend to be more liberal. Not sure that would be much mollification to Nebraska, Alaska, and the Dakotas though. Nothing like making absolutely certain that their voices don't matter, I guess...

 

[Belz...]

Where is the 71% coming from? Not arguing - just asking for a cite.

Politifact.

http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Where is the 71% coming from? Not arguing - just asking for a cite.

Perhaps his number seems low because he only counts complete sentences uttered by Trump, and not trump's gibbering waffle salad of incomplete phrases, internal contradictions, weasel words and blather.

 

[Emily's Cat]

But, that's not true. I'm a liberal and I care very much about the people in small towns like Cheyenne.

I'll give you an example of something I don't like though. I live in the Seattle area. King County. The most populous county by far in the State of Washington. Overall, only about 40 percent of our tax revenue is used for services in this county. Whereas we have rural counties in the State where three times as much money than tax revenue is spent on services there. Yet inevitably it's people from these rural counties are constantly complaining about the Socialist liberals in Seattle. Never mind that they have been suckling on our tit forever.

Sure, but we (in the Puget Sound Area) eat all of their food and depend on their products to live our happy lives, wherein we repeatedly ignore the issues that those areas face. Yakima is nothing at all like Seattle. The weather, the worries, the issues, all of it is different than anything Seattle deals with. You complain that only 40% of the tax revenue is spent in King? King is only 30% of the population of the state, and it represents only 3% of the mileage of the state.

People in Iowa, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi etc.the reddest states by far get more revenues than New York, California, Washington the blue states. I don't even mind that. But I've had it with the damn tail wagging the dog. Enough is enough.

I suggest you remove the portions of revenue that are paid out as military benefits, VA benefits, social security entitlements, and the funds distributed to military bases... then re-do that calculation. There are more military installations and more retirees in those "red" states than in the blue.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No, it is revenue vs expenses. Compared to the revenue they generate they eat up a lot more money than they contribute to state or federal coffers.

That's a really excellent argument for cutting even more support for the poor They don't contribute as much, they just eat up all of *our* revenue

 

[Emily's Cat]

acbytesla..... acbytesla.... ac by tesla.... AC by Tesla...

****! I just got it.

Thank you for the translation - I've been trying to figure that out for a while now!

 

[Emily's Cat]

It may be insulting but it's true. Change is a constant in the cities. You're inevitably living around different cultures and massive change. It's adapt or die. I'm originally from a small town in Iowa and they are stuck in their ways.

The people in my hometown would give you the shirt off their backs if you if you needed it. But they would be apoplectic if you told them you didn't believe in Jesus or you were gay. I know the big cities and the small towns. I have strong connections to both. They need each other even if they don't want to admit it. But as a big city dweller, I'm sick to death of the hicks from the sticks wielding as much power as they do.

You're sick to death of those with less income, less access to education, and less access to good jobs needing a larger portion of the revenues so they don't die of starvation?

Just sayin, this is a whole, whole, scary-whole lot like the libertarian arguments against any sort of welfare. The only difference here is that you seem to want to allow welfare, as long as it gets used in nice, densely populated inner cities and doesn't get used on those dirt poor rural dwellers.

 

[Minoosh]

I know one guy who would be complaining. Imagine if Trump had lost the election, but won the popular vote. He'd go thermonuclear.

This has helped me cope with a result I wasn't happy about. That scenario would be scarier to me.

 

[Minoosh]

You're sick to death of those with less income, less access to education, and less access to good jobs needing a larger portion of the revenues so they don't die of starvation?

This may have been touched on in another thread, so I hope I'm not being repetitive or off-topic. My question is this: Pollsters regularly find numerous Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim, or who believe in many examples of biblical literalism or suspicion of science and experts. Because of this I never discounted the possibility of a Trump win. But I don't know why the political polls didn't find these people. Target white low-frequency voters and see if they're going to turn up at the polls. Maybe some pollster did do this, but the idea of "lost tribes" of angry white people was often met with disbelief or ridicule. It turns out that yes, there were quite a few such voters and I'm not sure it should have come as such a surprise.

The variable of the unexpected strength of Trump voters was more than matched by Democrats' inability to get out the votes that elected Obama in 2008. Yet they were the party that supposedly had a ground game.

 

[acbytesla]

Sure, but we (in the Puget Sound Area) eat all of their food and depend on their products to live our happy lives, wherein we repeatedly ignore the issues that those areas face. Yakima is nothing at all like Seattle. The weather, the worries, the issues, all of it is different than anything Seattle deals with. You complain that only 40% of the tax revenue is spent in King? King is only 30% of the population of the state, and it represents only 3% of the mileage of the state.

I agree. But that has never been my point. I SAID, I don't mind that we subsidize those less populous counties, in fact WE NEED TO. What I mind is the outsized power that they wield relative to their population and their financial contributions. I mind that the hicks from the sticks insist that creationism be taught in schools. I mind that they teach bigotry, sexism and ignorance. I BELIEVE we are all in this together. That we help each other. That the rugged individualism that many of them believe has led to their own personal prosperity is a farce. That if GOVERNMENT hadn't built those roads or connected those rural areas to electrical plants and water sources, they likely wouldn't be living there at all. Yakima, Richland, Pasco, Moses Lake, Kennewick would either NOT be there if not for the GOVERNMENT. Hell, 90 percent of Eastern Washington State would be desert wasteland as opposed to the World's wheat, potato and apple suppliers.

Inevitably, it is the solid red Eastern Washington always whining about the government and opposing desperately needed infrastructure in heavily populated Western Washington. Every day in the local Seattle papers, the comment section are filled with Eastern and rural Washington residents railing against the new Lake Washington floating bridge or the SR99 viaduct replacement project. There is a desperate need for a new I-5 bridge spanning the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington and it is consistently opposed by people in Eastern Washington.

I suggest you remove the portions of revenue that are paid out as military benefits, VA benefits, social security entitlements, and the funds distributed to military bases... then re-do that calculation. There are more military installations and more retirees in those "red" states than in the blue.

Really? My state Washington has 10 times the amount of military infrastructure that Nebraska South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Missouri, Idaho, combined. The biggest bases by far are in Virginia, California, Texas, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, New York, Georgia. One solid red state Texas and 3 solid blue states and the rest swing states.

 

[acbytesla]

This is why:
theprestige said it far better than I could

Originally Posted by theprestige View Post
They voted for him over the gal who didn't understand their concern and didn't even try to convince them that she would do a better job of addressing it.

Maybe they voted for him not because they thought he'd actually fix it, but because they were convinced she would only make it worse. This is probably only a little bit about Trump's actual platform, and a lot about flipping a giant middle finger at Hillary the Progressive Statesman.

I can't imagine a clearer message of Do Not Want than to choose Trump instead of whatever you imagine people should want. Has it not occurred to you that this strategy of telling people that they should shut up, sit down, and let the elites do all their deciding for them, is not such a great strategy?

Has it ever occurred to you that showing sincere empathy for the people you're supposedly trying to help might build more trust with them than constant vilification and disdain?

"But Trump doesn't have a sincere bone in his body!" you say. "Trump is utterly incapable of empathy!" you say. And sure. You're right, of course. But what you comically, willfully, tragically, pathetically fail to understand is that the people who voted for Trump think you're no different from him. You've worked very hard to alienate half the country. Don't act so surprised that half the country treats you like an alien invasion.

.

I never thought she did that. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.