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-   -   2016 US Presidential Elections Thread [Trump Wins] (https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=362353)

Ivysaur May 4th, 2016 2:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esper (Post 9227059)
I'll agree that Bernie has only the slimmest of slim chances, but there are plenty of officials, especially those in blue and purple states states that Bernie won, who will have to be careful because they'll be up for election this cycle or the next and this primary has been a big turn-off for a lot of people because of all the irregularities and shady stuff with voter registration and general dislike for the status quo.

Superdelegates only exist to ensure the winning candidate gets enough votes to go over the top. With a purely proportional system to approportion delegates by primary results, you could end up with, say, the equivalent of Trump being permanently locked out of a majority of delegates at this point even though he has clearly won. The republicans get around this by making a "winner-takes-most" system in which the delegates are skewed in favour of whoever wins more states. The Democrats get over this by offering the great and the good from the party all over a free trip to the convention to cast the final vote.

But if Clinton wins more delegates, more votes and more states -including the top 10 that look more like the overall electorate of the party-, then Sanders has basically 0% legitimacy to claim they should override the will of the voters and give him the nomination anyway.

Like... I donated money to Sanders. I would vote for him if I lived there. But you need to know when you have to fold, you know? I know it sucks, but... she's not winning by 0.1% or exclusively because she won a landslide in Mississippi.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kanzler (Post 9227065)
I think that might be too much of a generalization. The Republican party is just a wealthier, whiter, party.

Well, I was using the words of... Romney’s deputy campaign manager.

Quote:

“If we nominate Trump, [the party] is lost beyond this cycle. I think we lose women for a generation, in big numbers,” said Katie Packer, who served as Romney’s deputy campaign manager and now leads Our Principles super PAC, which spent $10 million in an effort to stop Trump.

“There’s a feeling among Republican women that I talk to that the people who would nominate this guy don’t have any real respect for us as women — especially professional women. They would rather see us in a “Mad Men” era, where women knew their place and catered to their husband, cooked dinner and met their sexual obligations and didn’t have any other role in society. And there are other people who are supporting him because the guy’s a blatant racist and they identify with that.

“So there’s a sense that, if this is who my party is, I don’t really identify with it anymore.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/republicans-clinton-trump-indiana-222778#ixzz47j9k2Ijh
Also, the Republican party is no longer "a whiter, richer party". It has legitimately become a radical party unwilling to compromise and whose only motto is "my way or the highway", with no desire to govern in any meaningful way, and which out-primaries any candidate trying to negotiate anything at all with the opposition. Just look at the SC blockade, or the utterly useless Congress which can't save Puerto Rico from collapse because they are too busy voting to repeal Obamacare for the 68th time. Please do read the book "It's even worse than it looks", it explains it terrifingly accurately.

Esper May 4th, 2016 2:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ivysaur (Post 9227070)
Like... I donated money to Sanders. I would vote for him if I lived there. But you need to know when you have to fold, you know? I know it sucks, but... she's not winning by 0.1% or exclusively because she won a landslide in Mississippi.

If I'm being perfectly honest, I feel like this primary has been a sham. It's no secret that the DNC has been behind Clinton from the beginning. There have been all manner of voter suppression and irregularities and most of the people in government, politics, and media that we should be able to rely on to stop it or fix it or call people out on it have been complicit or turned a blind eye. The fact that Sanders can still technically win within the rules makes me feel like his continuing is the least that can be done regardless of how small his chances are. While he does it he is a voice for a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise have their views heard and his presence is a reminder that a lot of people still support him and the views he stands for. And, practically if he drops out the media will just sweep him under the rug like they've been trying to do since the beginning.

Kanzler May 4th, 2016 3:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ivysaur (Post 9227070)
Also, the Republican party is no longer "a whiter, richer party". It has legitimately become a radical party unwilling to compromise and whose only motto is "my way or the highway", with no desire to govern in any meaningful way, and which out-primaries any candidate trying to negotiate anything at all with the opposition. Just look at the SC blockade, or the utterly useless Congress which can't save Puerto Rico from collapse because they are too busy voting to repeal Obamacare for the 68th time. Please do read the book "It's even worse than it looks", it explains it terrifingly accurately.

But enough of the population is willing to vote for them. They continue to reflect the interests of many Americans who don't agree with the ways of the Democratic party. Obstructionism isn't extremism. The SC bathroom bill isn't something that's supported by most Republicans, heck, the Republican governor came out against it. I'm not too familiar with what's going on with Puerto Rico, but its debt situation has a history which is probably more complicated than "Republicans". A lot of Americans just don't want change but want lower taxes. It looks like there's so much division, but the two main parties are a lot closer than they would be if they were in other countries.

Kanzler May 4th, 2016 9:17 PM

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2016-03-28/muslims4.png

https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/03/28/divide-muslim-neighborhood-patrols/

OH MY GOD ITS HAPPENING

gimmepie May 4th, 2016 9:53 PM

That is just painful to look at, but it speaks greatly to the power of fear mongering as a political tool. I doubt that such a law would ever actually go through though since it directly violates the US constitution.

Nah May 5th, 2016 4:12 AM

yo that's kinda fucked up

Ivysaur May 5th, 2016 4:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kanzler (Post 9227117)
But enough of the population is willing to vote for them. They continue to reflect the interests of many Americans who don't agree with the ways of the Democratic party. Obstructionism isn't extremism. The SC bathroom bill isn't something that's supported by most Republicans, heck, the Republican governor came out against it. I'm not too familiar with what's going on with Puerto Rico, but its debt situation has a history which is probably more complicated than "Republicans". A lot of Americans just don't want change but want lower taxes. It looks like there's so much division, but the two main parties are a lot closer than they would be if they were in other countries.

You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. It's obstructionism if you can't pass any law unless you control the House, the Senate (with a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority) and the presidency because the Republicans will just vote no to anything endorsed by Obama, even if it's something they were for before he endorsed it, and when anybody willing to compromise with any Democrat to get anything passed it's declared a RINO and primaried out. And it's not a case of "both sides!!!1!!11!": the Republicans are now twice as right-wing as the Democrats are left wing. One of the sides is getting absurdly more radical than the other.

And you are mixing up what I said. The "bathroom ban" has actually been signed into law in North Carolina, which is unbelievable, and similar laws have easily passed through several other state legislatures- that one Governor vetoed it doesn't deny the fact that tens of R representatives and senators voted it up to his desk first.

The SC blockade doesn't mean "South Carolina" but "Supreme Court", in which the Republicans are, for the first time in history, refusing to hold a confirmation vote for a candidate they have nothing against other than "we hope to win the presidency and nominate someone who is as staunchly right-wing as Scalia". In doing so, they'll keep the SC essentially unable to function for an entire year, which sounds like your textbook definition of "reasonable government".

Finally, Puerto Rico has a long story of issues (starting with a racist SC ruling that decided that hispanics were mentally inferior to anglo-saxons and didn't deserve full constitutional protections nor statehood), but the truth is: the (half) state is about to collapse because of several legislative quirks that are banning them from being able to renegotiate their debt like any other bankrup state/city/corporation/whatever other entity not called "Puerto Rico", and instead of passing some sort of emergency stopgap measure to avoid the absolute collapse of the territory's administration (including schools, hospitals and police), they are just fighting and letting the bill draft die in some desk- and the deadline was on May 2nd. They had months to do something about it- but they were too busy not doing anything. That IS their fault.

Kanzler May 5th, 2016 8:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ivysaur (Post 9227833)
You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. It's obstructionism if you can't pass any law unless you control the House, the Senate (with a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority) and the presidency because the Republicans will just vote no to anything endorsed by Obama, even if it's something they were for before he endorsed it, and when anybody willing to compromise with any Democrat to get anything passed it's declared a RINO and primaried out. And it's not a case of "both sides!!!1!!11!": the Republicans are now twice as right-wing as the Democrats are left wing. One of the sides is getting absurdly more radical than the other.

They might be radical in procedure, but I don't think they're ideologically extreme. How else do they have majorities in Congress if they're a radical party? How can we say that 40%+ or so of American voters vote for a radical party?

My understanding of the NOMINATE statistics system that they used to construct this:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Multimedia/Interactives/2013/stats_images/housenew.png

focuses on the similarity or the dissimilarity of voting records. So Republicans have a high "conservative score", because they vote alike, and they vote alike more often than Democrats do in the opposite direction. But that's not to say that the right and the left in Congress are very distant ideologically from one another - all that data shows is that the two parties tend to gravitate around the poles (Republicans more so) regardless of any information about how ideologically distant the poles are.

I acknowledge that there's a high degree of polarization in Congress and the voting patterns of Republicans are responsible for that, but I hesitate to call the Republicans radical or extreme if the distance between the right pole and the left pole isn't extreme to begin with.

Netto Azure May 6th, 2016 4:42 PM

It depends, I think it is more accurate to say that Congress has become more parliamentary in that the parties whip members into party line votes. There is also the 2010 redistricting that further entrenched incumbents into districts that result in a 90%+ re-election rate. Further pressures from a more ideologically purist primary system where the electoral turnout is in the midling 20% encourages a more ideologically pure vote.

Anyway it seems an intra-party civil war has broken out again for the GOP 3 days after Trump's call for unity.

Esper May 7th, 2016 9:47 AM

So Trump says he's okay with having the US go bankrupt so that he could "get a better deal" after. Like, I dunno what to say about that. Who would ever trust the US dollar after that? Who'd do business with the US?

Netto Azure May 7th, 2016 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esper (Post 9230692)
So Trump says he's okay with having the US go bankrupt so that he could "get a better deal" after. Like, I dunno what to say about that. Who would ever trust the US dollar after that? Who'd do business with the US?

Remember that Ted Cruz literally tried to do this with our federal debt. Got a credit downgrade afterwards.

Nah May 20th, 2016 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colours (Post 9250420)
dying @ trump's speech at the NRA convention holy crap

What'd he say now? I cba to look for it I'm a lazy shit

Esper May 20th, 2016 6:02 PM

So I went to a Bernie Sanders rally on Wednesday. It was mostly the same speech he gives at each rally. I've seen a few recordings of them. But I suppose if you're not like me and don't follow that sort of thing it could be pretty new sounding. The crowd certainly was all enthused by it. The crowd was large. I don't know if how many, but it was easily 5000 from where I was standing, and might be more. Quite a diverse crowd, too. One of the candidates for California's Senate seat was there, Steve Stokes, who described himself as a Berniecrat. I do wish him well and I'll be voting for him. Even if Bernie doesn't win the nomination I can still hope that others will win seats in the House and Senate.

Netto Azure May 20th, 2016 9:30 PM

I used to live right around that area too o-o

OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire May 24th, 2016 6:01 PM

Trump's catched up to Hillary since wrapping up the nomination. I wonder if Clinton wrapping her nomination up will see her get a bounce back.
Democrats are starting to split while my party comes together around Trump.

Kanzler May 24th, 2016 6:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire (Post 9256094)
Trump's catched up to Hillary since wrapping up the nomination. I wonder if Clinton wrapping her nomination up will see her get a bounce back.
Democrats are starting to split while my party comes together around Trump.

She'll definitely see a bump. There's always a section of whichever party that will rally around the flag no matter what.

Esper May 25th, 2016 9:08 PM

Possible Sanders and Trump debate for charity?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tells-kimmel-hed-be-willing-to-debate-sanders-for-charity/

I would watch the heck out of that. So many people have said they're so similar that I'd enjoy seeing it just to have their differences put out there for everyone to see for themselves.

Klippy May 26th, 2016 2:53 AM

It's definitely gonna happen - at least both parties have agreed. I wager Trump will get it on a major network if he wants it on a major network. Also willing to bet many people will tune in for similar reasons. But it'll probably be much friendlier than most picture. If it's a charity-goal, both candidates will probably be on best behavior (you'd think!).

But all this does is make Hillary look WEAK. She was too afraid to debate Bernie, but Bernie's not afraid to debate Trump and Trump isn't afraid to go toe-to-toe with him. This also presents a very strong message FOR each candidate's voting pool. Anti-Clinton voters will see Trump is actually an option depending on the message he presents (or less of one), while independents and otherwise can see both candidates and their views.

Bonus points that it'll be for charity. I think that will make the entire event less about knocking the other candidate out and more about policies and the issues. Trump and Sanders can certainly find common ground on some topics and the more they both bring up Hillary's absolute mess of a candidacy and her Wall Street money, the better they'll both come out. Bernie could secure states; Trump could secure the presidency.

Easily the strangest event yet in, this, the strangest election yet.

Ivysaur May 26th, 2016 6:56 AM

Honestly, I'd be pretty worried if a person can go from supporting the most left-wing candidate in the race to the most right-wing just because they think the middle ground is "too weak". Like yeah, if I can't have Sanders, I guess I'd rather have the NRA-endorsed guy with white supremacists in his delegate lists who wants to pack up the Supreme Court with hyper-conservative justices, says minimum wages are a "matter of the States" so won't do a thing about them and promises to "unsign " all of Obama's Executive Orders "within the first hour in office". Yup, that sounds like the closest thing to sanders you can find. ¿¿¿???

I hope he goes for the kill and shows Trump for the apolitical buffoon he is.

____________________________________________________

The whole Democratic race has shown a curious problem: Democrats love Clinton massively and are providing her with enough votes to lead the Democratic nomination easily. Left-leaning independents, on the other hand, would rather have the Democratic party elect Sanders, whom they love by far. If the US political system wasn't a winner-takes-all system, we'd probably have ended up with a Cruz - Trump - Clinton - Sanders matchup, each one with the support of a different group in the ideological scale. The dysfunction is starting to show pretty heavily, I believe.

Esper May 26th, 2016 8:50 AM

Clinton thinks she has it in the bag (which she probably does) so all she has to do for the next month or so is... nothing. The idea, I believe, is that if she does nothing she doesn't risk making any mistakes or getting into a spat with someone or coming out with a terrible soundbite. (Anyone remember 47%?) It's a calculated tactic, one which I don't think will go unnoticed, not the least because if she doesn't make a last minute appearance she's going to be on the receiving end of a lot of jabs from Trump, maybe some from Sanders. The only question is whether some attacks in absentia will be worse than her making some gaff in person. I don't think her making any public appearances will win her any new votes. I imagine that there aren't very many people out there who will, between now and November, decide that they actually do prefer Clinton to someone else. They might vote for her anyway, like most Sanders supporters, but not because they suddenly saw something in her that they really liked.

Esper May 27th, 2016 9:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colours (Post 9258314)
~*~

She's between a rock and a hard place. Establishment isn't a popular thing right now, but it's the core of her support. If she wants to reach out to non-establishment she risks alienating her base of support. In another election it wouldn't have mattered so much. After all, Obama wasn't any less of an establishment candidate, just a bit younger than average. Had he not been around then and was only now showing up on the national stage I think he'd be in a similar spot to Clinton.

But you're right in that she picks her words carefully and wouldn't likely get caught in a terrible gaff, but coming off as too polished isn't going to do well with people who aren't already supporting her (her "authenticity gap"). So in that sense it makes sense not to show up for her.

£ May 27th, 2016 3:01 PM

This debate ain't happening:

"- MAY 27, 2016 -

​DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON DEBATING BERNIE SANDERS

Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher. Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be."



Probably a smart move on Trump's part to not actually debate Sanders directly- if he can even get a small portion of the people that would have voted for Sanders to be president, it could be yet another small step towards the presidency we thought of as being impossible. It's still Clinton's election to lose rather than Trump's to win tho. She'll probably get away with a pretty passive approach despite Trump's jabs.

Desert Stream~ May 29th, 2016 3:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by £ (Post 9259866)
This debate ain't happening:

"- MAY 27, 2016 -

​DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON DEBATING BERNIE SANDERS

Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher. Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be."



Probably a smart move on Trump's part to not actually debate Sanders directly- if he can even get a small portion of the people that would have voted for Sanders to be president, it could be yet another small step towards the presidency we thought of as being impossible. It's still Clinton's election to lose rather than Trump's to win tho. She'll probably get away with a pretty passive approach despite Trump's jabs.

I hate how he keeps calling Hillary crooked. I imagine even the republicans must be tired of that.
I could see him not debating go either way as well.

Kanzler May 29th, 2016 5:27 PM

Doesn't that make Sanders look stronger? Neither of the people still in the race want to debate him. Trump is a "pussy".

Somewhere_ May 29th, 2016 6:18 PM

Gary Johnson won the nomination for the Libertarian Party, and he polls fairly well against Trump and Clinton, so I am confident he can get 5%, especially because there may be a lot of disenfranchised voters looking for a 3rd party.

However, that fluke at the convention might cost them this.

About Sanders, I was actually pretty excited to watch that debate, and I think it would have helped Sanders.


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