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2016 US Presidential Elections Thread [Trump Wins]

Shamol

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
185
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    • One good thing about Trump is how beautifully him and his campaign have exposed problems with the media as well as the general political discourse. It can supply our day to day news, but when it comes to big and complex issues- the six-second sound bite system can only manage so much. To a significant extent this has, and will continue to, contribute to the growth of alternative, internet-based media from both sides of the political spectrum.
     
    Ivysaur

    Ivysaur

    Grass dinosaur extraordinaire
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    • This Convention is a shambles. It's glorious. Ted Cruz being given a prime time slot to diss Trump and ask people not to vote for him. His smile while the pro-Trump delegates booed him. This is amazing. This convention does not disappoint. Also I'm expecting his official campaign slogan to be "Trump-Pence: Lock Her Up!" at this rate.
     
    Esper

    Esper

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    • Stephen Colbert was right when he said that all the Republicans were passionate about one candidate: Hillary Clinton. They hate her more than they love Trump or loved any of their other former candidates. It doesn't matter how terrible Trump is, how much of a disaster their convention is, as long as the Republicans invoke Hillary that will fire up the base enough to go out and vote. I fear that the only salvation is if the same thing happens on the other side and everyone who doesn't like Trump votes to stop him regardless of how they feel about Clinton.
     

    Shamol

    Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
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    • So uh yeah our favorite media critic is back.



    "I see you. And I see your bulls***."

    Enjoy fellas.
     
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    Entermaid

    Entermaid

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    • I am surprised no one has posted about the new evidence in the alleged collusion between the DNC and the Clinton Camp via 20k leaked emails by top DNC officials. Not sure when people are going to wake up, but it may be too late once we are locked in with Clinton v Trump after the Clinton nomination if made official at the Convention. We may see a third party succeed; hopefully even better than Ross Perot did oddly during a Clinton Election year.

    Screw the GOP and DNC, we need a libertarian and socialist two-party system. I'm sick of this garbage both parties spew without any source understanding of political theory such as negative and positive rights. It's an identity politics free for all, free from reasonability or the goal of reaching mutual recognition of suppressed voices of oppressed people. We are captured voters with not voice or autonomy of self. Institutions need to stop reproducing sexism, racism, and religious zealousness and allow us to be free thinking individuals with equal opportunity.


    https://www.rt.com/usa/352752-dnc-leaks-clinton-collusion/
     

    Kanzler

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    • Entermaid said:
    I am surprised no one has posted about the new evidence in the alleged collusion between the DNC and the Clinton Camp via 20k leaked emails by top DNC officials. Not sure when people are going to wake up, but it may be too late once we are locked in with Clinton v Trump after the Clinton nomination if made official at the Convention. We may see a third party succeed; hopefully even better than Ross Perot did oddly during a Clinton Election year.

    Screw the GOP and DNC, we need a libertarian and socialist two-party system. I'm sick of this garbage both parties spew without any source understanding of political theory such as negative and positive rights. It's an identity politics free for all, free from reasonability or the goal of reaching mutual recognition of suppressed voices of oppressed people. We are captured voters with not voice or autonomy of self. Institutions need to stop reproducing sexism, racism, and religious zealousness and allow us to be free thinking individuals with equal opportunity.


    https://www.rt.com/usa/352752-dnc-leaks-clinton-collusion/
    Click to expand...

    all i have to say is ;;

    I don't think people care enough. A lot of people just won't put any consideration towards those emails. It might have meant something had these shown up earlier in the primary, but now that the primaries are over Clinton's electoral victory is a fait accompli and there'd be so much inertia to even think of revising that.
     
    Ivysaur

    Ivysaur

    Grass dinosaur extraordinaire
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    • Entermaid said:
    I am surprised no one has posted about the new evidence in the alleged collusion between the DNC and the Clinton Camp via 20k leaked emails by top DNC officials. Not sure when people are going to wake up, but it may be too late once we are locked in with Clinton v Trump after the Clinton nomination if made official at the Convention. We may see a third party succeed; hopefully even better than Ross Perot did oddly during a Clinton Election year.

    Screw the GOP and DNC, we need a libertarian and socialist two-party system. I'm sick of this garbage both parties spew without any source understanding of political theory such as negative and positive rights. It's an identity politics free for all, free from reasonability or the goal of reaching mutual recognition of suppressed voices of oppressed people. We are captured voters with not voice or autonomy of self. Institutions need to stop reproducing sexism, racism, and religious zealousness and allow us to be free thinking individuals with equal opportunity.
    Click to expand...

    Sorry to say, but at this point, it's over. The only two options are Trump or Clinton, and either you vote for one, or you are allowing the other to win. I'm pretty sure all the people who voted Nader in Florida 2000 really wanted Bush as president.

    And I fail to see how a libertarian-socialist two-party-system makes any sense. If the Libertarians win, they get rid of Social Security, remove all regulations in most sectors and take on the gold standard. Then the socialists win and they set Social Security back, plus a single-payer health care system, plus a ton of regulations and... do you realise how utterly insane all the swings would be? How much wasted time and money would be just doing that? In an economic sense, the less relevant Libertarians are, the better for all. Unless you are a billionaire who wants to see taxes gone, of course.
     
    Entermaid

    Entermaid

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    • Ivysaur said:
    And I fail to see how a libertarian-socialist two-party-system makes any sense. If the Libertarians win, they get rid of Social Security, remove all regulations in most sectors and take on the gold standard. Then the socialists win and they set Social Security back, plus a single-payer health care system, plus a ton of regulations and... do you realise how utterly insane all the swings would be? How much wasted time and money would be just doing that? In an economic sense, the less relevant Libertarians are, the better for all. Unless you are a billionaire who wants to see taxes gone, of course.
    Click to expand...

    No. Sorry, but I find this post extremely devoid of critical thinking in providing a strawman analysis of libertarianism, along with an annoyingly patronizing tone with the line of questions which insinuate that I am a simpleton when I am a social science researcher.

    You misunderstanding of the tensions built within two party systems (it is not completely overhaul). Do you think republicans and democrats unearth all policy the other has laid in place? No. Why are you making the libertarian socialist two party system to be a complete overhaul with each change in majority-minority? Please do not refute arguments with such inane claims without any justification; it's clear you dismissed the idea without any actual consideration provided how our current two-party system works. Why would it be fundamentally worse? Reasons? Any reasons? Or are you just going to claim that it would be radically different?

    The two belief systems are not always in complete opposition, and it would not be politically expedient for a candidate to be far left or right on that continuum. One values negative rights, the other values positive rights, both forms of rights are commensurable and could balance each other through compromise. I think you fail to understand libertarianism which is the ability to exercise one's own value judgement without State coercion -- negative liberties. Such negative rights do not always come into conflict with socialist perspectives, and thus leaves room for consensus on certain issues -- i.e. LGBT rights and separation of church and state. It is a negative right to have church and state separate for instance; that does not necessarily impact positive rights concerned with socialism. In addition, within each camp, there would be disagreements as to how positive and negative rights are being represented in policy. As it currently stands, the two party's tend to have relativistic platforms that are not internally consistent. With few disagreements internally, as a result of group-thinking, we forgo arduous debate and critical thinking within parties.
     
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    Ivysaur

    Ivysaur

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    • Entermaid said:
    No. Sorry, but I find this post extremely devoid of critical thinking in providing a strawman analysis of libertarianism, along with an annoying patronizing tone with the line of questions which insinuate that I am a simpleton when I am a social science researcher.

    In addition to you misunderstanding of the tensions built within two party systems (it is not completely overhaul). Do you think republicans and democrats unearth all policy the other has laid in place? No. Why are you making the libertarian socialist two party system to be a complete overhaul with each change in majority-minority? Please do not refute arguments with such inane claims without any justification; it's clear you dismissed the idea without any actual consideration provided how our current two-party system works. Why would it be fundamentally worse? Reasons? Any reasons? Or are you just going to claim that it would be?

    The two belief systems are not always in complete opposition, and it would not be politically expedient for a candidate to be far left or right on that continuum. One values negative rights, the other values positive rights, both forms of rights are commensurable and could balance each other through compromise. I think you fail to understand libertarianism which is the ability to exercise one's own value judgement without State coercion -- negative liberties. Such negative rights do not always come into conflict with socialist perspectives, and thus leaves room for consensus on certain issues -- i.e. LGBT rights and separation of church and state. It is a negative right to have church and state separate for instance; that does not necessarily impact positive rights concerned with socialism. In addition, within each camp, there would be disagreements as to how positive and negative rights are being represented in policy. As it currently stands, the two party's tend to have relativistic platforms that are not internally consistent. With few disagreements internally, as a result of group-thinking, we forgo arduous debate and critical thinking within parties.
    Click to expand...

    The problem is that, while socially they may agree in several positions (which is fine), they both disagree in a fundamental basis for any country: the rationale behind the economic system and the function of the State. Socialists believe in a controlled capitalism where the State offers a welfare net including a basic income -or some sort of guarantee that everybody's most basic needs will be fulfilled-, a single-payer state-run healthcare system, a state-regulated pension scheme (SS) and a supervision on all sectors, setting rules and even taking stakes in strategic companies. All of that funded by proggressive taxes raised on the rich as a way to redistribute income and reduce inequality.

    Meanwhile, the Liberarians advocate for the literal exact opposite: a reduction of the state to its minimum size possible. In their ideal world, the Government would limit itself to running a police, an army and a judicial system. In their platform, they support the end of all business regulation of any kind, a permanently balanced budget, a reduction of spending and taxes (including the repeal of the Income Tax, the single most proggressive tax existent), an end to Social Security, opening the country to free international trade with no restrictions, the end of "wage controls" (aka minimum wage), a "free market " health care system and end of support to the financial system (so if your bank fails, you lost all your money, end of).

    As you can see, it's not that they disagree in some aspects, or in how high taxes should be, or anything. They fundamentally disagree on every single aspect, each one supporting the exact opposite solution for each problem. It's not that one side wants a marginal rate of 50% and the other wants 30%. One of the sides wants 50% and the other... wants to repeal the tax entirely. This brings a problem: either each party starts remaking the country in their image, swinging wildly from an extreme to the other every few years, or they end up looking for some fudge in the middle where both give up on some of their ideals in order to make a system that can be twitched leftwards or rightwards without leaving some agreed boundaries... essentially becoming Republicans and Democrats all over again.

    Free abortion? Equal rights? Sure! But what ultimately matters to every person is eating three times per day, and that's where both sides disagree so radically that creating a system in which you have to choose between black and white every few years would be the political equivalent to schizophrenia. They are not two different visions inside the boundaries of the same mutually agreed system- they are oposing, competing systems in which the losing side cannot operate. How can a socialist party run in a country where taxes have been abolished, government reduced to its tiniest size and all welfare systems terminated, other than to end that system and remake it from scratch? How can a libertarian party exist in a system where the state runs 50% of the economy and everybody gets a basic income every month, other than to destroy it completely?

    The Socialism Vs Libertarianism is a good debate for a society to have once in a generation- or in a century, more likely. Not one to have every four years.
     
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    Mewtwolover

    Mewtwolover

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    • Biogoji said:
    https://observer.com/2016/06/careful-what-you-wish-for-hillarys-allies-rigged-the-primaries/

    https://thefreethoughtproject.com/e...ging-dnc-primaries-derail-clinton-nomination/

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony...ession-can-stop-bernie-sanders_b_9780128.html
    Click to expand...
    Florida 2000 comes immediately to mind when I read those, these might be pretty dirty elections.

    Jiggling Jigglypuff said:
    my parents said to us that this Presidential Election has been a complete circus
    Click to expand...
    They hit the nail, the US Presidental election is just a big show, it doesn't matter who you vote, it's still ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) for the president.
     
    Esper

    Esper

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    • Debbie Wasserman Schultz has stepped down as DNC chair in the wake of the wikileaks emails that (in my view) show the DNC colluded with the media to make Sanders look bad and Clinton look good.

    And the other day the DNC locked out a bunch of Sanders' delegates from the rules committee. The committee then voted not to change the power that superdelegates have in the nominating process. Wooo! Democracy! Way to show a unified party!
     
    Entermaid

    Entermaid

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    • Ivysaur said:
    The problem is that, while socially they may agree in several positions (which is fine), they both disagree in a fundamental basis for any country: the rationale behind the economic system and the function of the State. Socialists believe in a controlled capitalism where the State offers a welfare net including a basic income -or some sort of guarantee that everybody's most basic needs will be fulfilled-, a single-payer state-run healthcare system, a state-regulated pension scheme (SS) and a supervision on all sectors, setting rules and even taking stakes in strategic companies. All of that funded by proggressive taxes raised on the rich as a way to redistribute income and reduce inequality.

    Meanwhile, the Libertarians advocate for the literal exact opposite: a reduction of the state to its minimum size possible. In their ideal world, the Government would limit itself to running a police, an army and a judicial system. In their platform, they support the end of all business regulation of any kind, a permanently balanced budget, a reduction of spending and taxes (including the repeal of the Income Tax, the single most proggressive tax existent), an end to Social Security, opening the country to free international trade with no restrictions, the end of "wage controls" (aka minimum wage), a "free market " health care system and end of support to the financial system (so if your bank fails, you lost all your money, end of).

    As you can see, it's not that they disagree in some aspects, or in how high taxes should be, or anything. They fundamentally disagree on every single aspect, each one supporting the exact opposite solution for each problem. It's not that one side wants a marginal rate of 50% and the other wants 30%. One of the sides wants 50% and the other... wants to repeal the tax entirely. This brings a problem: either each party starts remaking the country in their image, swinging wildly from an extreme to the other every few years, or they end up looking for some fudge in the middle where both give up on some of their ideals in order to make a system that can be twitched leftwards or rightwards without leaving some agreed boundaries... essentially becoming Republicans and Democrats all over again.

    Free abortion? Equal rights? Sure! But what ultimately matters to every person is eating three times per day, and that's where both sides disagree so radically that creating a system in which you have to choose between black and white every few years would be the political equivalent to schizophrenia. They are not two different visions inside the boundaries of the same mutually agreed system- they are oposing, competing systems in which the losing side cannot operate. How can a socialist party run in a country where taxes have been abolished, government reduced to its tiniest size and all welfare systems terminated, other than to end that system and remake it from scratch? How can a libertarian party exist in a system where the state runs 50% of the economy and everybody gets a basic income every month, other than to destroy it completely?

    The Socialism Vs Libertarianism is a good debate for a society to have once in a generation- or in a century, more likely. Not one to have every four years.
    Click to expand...

    It's like you are describing the current system as ultra conservative vs an ultra liberal governance -- that is not how two-party systems work. Moderates usually win general elections, and purple states. In the case of libertarian and socialism, all individuals and states are purple in that all individuals values negative and positive rights. The form of libertarianism you are describing is not the form that would exist in a two-party system since other competitors who are moderates would defeat either extreme socialist or libertarians. You still keep avoiding the question as to how the current two-party ideologies are not complete overhauls, but rather just spouting off nonsense about complete ideological overhauls as if you completely dismiss the median voter theorem of two party systems. Will you at least address that rather than spouting non-sense that is not informed by any political science and theory literature? You keep going into a particularistic analysis based on this assumption, but NEVER ACTUALLY ADDRESS THE ASSUMPTION. So, it's becoming a tiring discussion.

    Currently, ideological platforms are unclear and thus voting habits rely upon identity politics -- not reason. Whereas, clear ideological commitments in a two party system would encourage two parties to capture the other party's votes, and provide reasons as to why it furthers a better balance between positive and negative rights. According to Duverger's law and the median voter theorem, parties tend to drift toward the center to capture more voters. However, his theory degrades in our current system as party polarization has ensued after the inclusion of women and non-whites in the political arena.

    The two ideologies are not incommensurable. AS I stated twice, negative and positive rights are not necessarily in opposition, and often synergize with the other. For instance, progressive tax for a single payer system allows for cheaper healthcare costs, which in turn can facilitate greater negative rights freedoms.

    The brand of libertarianism you seem to be describing is not consistent with political theory, and rather is a right-wing brand that is not consistent with furthering negative liberties. Have you read John Stuart Mill? He is a moral libertarian and a economic socialist. Those values need to be interrogated in the public eye. He would be considered a leaning Libertarian.

    If you are going to continue to respond dismissively, please address this assumption of complete overhaul and AGAIN explain why the current system is superior or not to the one I propose based on political theory. Essentially, I argue that all people values positive and negative rights, and if a candidate is too extreme on either front and infringes upon one of them voters will not elect or reelect that politician. This system would keep policymakers more accountable since voters would have more choice and understand those choice rationally rather than from baseless ideological camps of neoconservatism and neopaternalist liberalism.
     
    Esper

    Esper

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    • I can't believe this has happened, but Wasserman Schultz was brought into the Clinton campaign as a co-chair. What the hell is Clinton thinking? Is she out of touch with reality or something? Or does she just not care at all for what the progressives in the party wants? I thought they wanted to unify the party? At the very least she could have waited until after the convention.

    And Trump is leading in the polls.
     
    Ewery1

    Ewery1

    Local Red Panda
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    • Esper said:
    I can't believe this has happened, but Wasserman Schultz was brought into the Clinton campaign as a co-chair. What the hell is Clinton thinking? Is she out of touch with reality or something? Or does she just not care at all for what the progressives in the party wants? I thought they wanted to unify the party? At the very least she could have waited until after the convention.

    And Drumpf is leading in the polls.
    Click to expand...

    Ugh I want so badly for Hillary to win because Trump would be terrible, but I'm starting to realize how more and more likely a Trump presidency is...
     
    0

    0

    Happy and at peace. :)
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    • colours said:
    Hi! So I've been thinking really hard about something in particular. One important key aspect of America's economy that's been just about missing all this time...sure, it's important to debate gun control, the economy, income inequality, foreign policy, education and the likes...but I feel that most politicans are either turning a blind eye towards are are just generally unaware of the biggest thing that has an effect on our economy:

    Technology.

    Let's face it: technological progression is the biggiest thing right now and I'm kinda surprised that it hasn't come up yet. In an age where have...well, smart-everything (phones, TVs, watches, etc), there's a lot to be said about how the next President will continue that progress. The Obama administration admittedly is the first administration to actually give a damn (to my knowledge) about technology; they're on pretty friendly terms with Silicon Valley so it's no wonder the administration is taking technology as serious as it is, and that honestly needs to continue lest another Apple vs FBI incident breaks out and the government would have zero idea how to approach the privacy issue which is, quite frankly speaking, a Very Big Deal among a lot of Americans.

    How will the new Presidential administration handle the issue of encryption? Would they even understand how it works? For as socially-savvy as the federal government is these days what with us (more or less) making progress in a lot of social issues (we have a long way to go; women are still paid significantly less than men in programming fields among other areas, so that needs to be looked into), they seem to be really out of touch as far as technological progression is concerned and that is fairly worrying in this day and age where technology is developing so rapidly that it seems that legislation is struggling to really catch up to it.

    I won't be massively disappointed if it isn't brought up, because there's a lot of other issues that are at the forefront of American's minds right about now (obvious example being terrorism, focus on the middle class, etc), but we shouldn't really forget the core of what connects each and every single one of us to each other, and the federal government's approach and understanding of it.
    Click to expand...
    Let me put it like this. I don't think the government really ever will understand technology, nor should they even be involved it. It's not really a function of government to handle this, and any approach, besides giving money to new tech startup, would stifle it.


    It's just not a function of government, I believe, to handle this kind of thing, because its something they can never understand.


    I think the best role of government is to stay out. I know there are many countries, who, for instance, block the internet for "safety", stop encryption because it could be "dangerous" and such.


    There are many fields in technology, so you'll have to be more specific by what you mean. Are you saying technology protocols, like encryption, or are you saying businesses alone?


    One more point is technology isn't really a type of business that can flourish with the help of government. Most really successful ones were ones where a small amount of founders made something that would change the entire world, like Google Facebook, Microsoft. They had no help from the government, and I can't see how it could have played a role in creation of these companies in the first place. The founders had a drive, and put themselves on the line to make the companies grow.


    Why are they successful? Because they were fluid. The government just really can't help with the I think.


    Please tell me your ideas for the role the government would play.
     

    Kanzler

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    • What benefit does DWS bring onto Clinton's side? If it's better to make friends than to make enemies, then I think it would have made more sense to entice (or at least not alienate) the millions of votes of the progressive wing and independent voters that are on the precipice of still voting this election. Is she good at raising money? Is she able to whip and influence other Democratic surrogates? Is she that good at running a campaign? What damage could she do if she wasn't explicitly working for Clinton? It's not like she could go to Trump or Sanders. DWS has certainly already demonstrated herself to be a Clinton ally (as shown by the recent e-mail leak, but even before you could tell) so I'm not sure if alienating the progressive was the most effective move.

    RE: technology. It's neither a divisive nor sexy topic, so I don't think that Republicans nor Democrats will govern differently regarding that issue. It's also possible that the SC might have a greater role to play if new laws that give the government access to encrypted data threaten constitutional rights.
     

    Kanzler

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    • colours said:
    Who knows really? I don't know what's going in Clinton's mind, and no one else really can, but I'm not sure if it's exactly fair to immediately start criticizing her if we aren't sure of her motives for picking DWS are. Surely she must serve some purpose in the bigger picture or Clinton wouldn't have extended her hand at all.
    Click to expand...

    Well we don't have to be criticizing her, specifically, but I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a decision on the basis of certain articulated criteria - in this case that it seems counterproductive to her electoral success because it's alienating a rather large voting bloc that might stay home on election day. If DWS was brought on for electoral advantage, then she must have utility that can compensate for these very bad optics. If she wasn't, well, then it wasn't a rational decision and that's never good if your goal is to maximize electoral success.

    colours said:
    Plus, well, she already supposedly pissed off progressives by picking Tim Kaine as VP, but they'll get over it. I don't think it's a super huge deal because DWS isn't playing a big role (if any?) in the democratic leadership, so why are we concerned about it, again? It's Clinon's campaign, let her run it how she sees fit.
    Click to expand...

    From what I understand, that's not really how progressives see it. Progressives are in a position to leverage Clinton into power, and they think DWS is a big deal. None of what Clinton ultimately does is up to me or you or anyone else, but from a completely rational point of view where Clinton's goal is to maximize the number of votes she gets in November, keeping DWS in a position where this news would be publicized puts a lot of those already at-risk votes at further risk. Just because any one person cannot empathize with anothers' perspective does not make them any less valuable. At the end of the day, they either vote or don't come November 8 and their current support of Hillary Clinton (to the mere extent that exists) should be treated as highly tentative - you don't want to count your eggs before they hatch, and you don't want to treat them roughly, either.
     
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