2016 US Presidential Elections Thread [Trump Wins]

[Kanzler]

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]

Possible Sanders and Trump debate for charity?

https://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]

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]

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]

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]

~*~

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.

 

[£]

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~]

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]

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

 

[Somewhere_]

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.

 

[Esper]

Pretty disappointed it won't be happening. I was hoping all three would somehow end up in one debate.

Under normal circumstances yeah, but Sanders has already dug himself quite the hole, to be quite honest.

Really? I mean, he may have burned bridges with many in the Democratic Party, but among voters he's doing better and better. His polling is the best among any candidate. His message has always been that his getting the nomination is a long shot, but until the convention it is not settled so in order to keep the message he's got alive and not let it be swept under the rug by the media or diluted by a more centrist candidate like Clinton he's staying in the race.

 

[Esper]

snip

I would respectfully disagree. Long counter argument in the spoiler, but tl;dr Sanders is probably fairly safe for any possible re-elections in his home state so he doesn't need to kowtow to the DNC and doesn't need to censor himself.

Spoiler:

His talks lately have been less about his personal chances of getting the nomination and more about how corrupt the system is, though that point has always been part of his main message. He's not wrong about the damage that money does to the political system, I believe. (Though feel free to argue otherwise.) I don't think he personally feels wronged, but some of his supporters probably do. With the shenanigans with some of the elections in places I can understand. My own voter registration was sent to me as mail-only and as NPP I'll have to go in person to vote because NPP don't automatically get a mail vote for presidential candidate (since they're party-specific). I'm happy to go in person, but it was only recently that my county officially declared that they would except exchanges at polling places - before they were saying it would be a provisional ballot (and we know those aren't worth the paper they're printed on).

The "rigged" part of the system is not specifically only the way votes and such are counted, but partially the way that the media (which I'd cynically call an unofficial branch of government) has not been at all fair to Sanders and with misleading headlines and such that affects how low-information voters vote. Every element of the various party and non-party systems in place favor whoever the establishment wants as a candidate and make it hard for an outsider to have a chance.

Sanders has been pretty respectful of Clinton. If anything his supporters would have liked to see him be more direct with her. I mean, what has he said or done lately that seems like he's taken a "**** Clinton" attitude? The thing in Nevada? Where a Clinton supporter picked up a chair and the Sanders supporters had him hug it out after? The anger? They were railroaded and not listened to which went against the rules. That aside, I'll agree that he's trying to speak a lot and get his message out, but, like, this is a democracy, and as I said earlier he's not been given fair coverage in most media.

And, again, Clinton is not the nominee. She's only the likely nominee. After the convention we'll see what Sanders does, but like I said in my previous post, he wants to ensure his message gets attention and staying in the race is the best way to do that.

 

[Esper]

By talking about how corrupt the system is, he's also pretty much knocking down Clinton by proxy. Clinton is seen as "the establishment", "the status quo", "the system", etc. It really doesn't help when you're continuing to assault the establishment at this point when the "establishment candidate" has already basically won, because that doesn't really help the overall message any. "Political revolution" isn't the negative vitriol that's surrounding the Sanders campaign and its supporters, "Political revolution" starts by electing the officials that you truly believe would carry on Sanders' message into seats of Congress, and keeping those people in those seats. What Sanders is doing now isn't uniting the Democratic Party, he's kind of hurting it.

What's important to note about Sanders' speeches nowadays (feel free to correct me here, I haven't had a chance to look deeply into this but from what I hear) is that he isn't saying much against Trump, it's more about antagonizing the Democratic Party when it really needs to come together. At this point where party unity is just about essential and crucial to seize the White House, a move like that is going to cause further damage.

The Sanders rally I went to was mostly about all the things that he and other progressives want, i.e., single payer healthcare, and about all the problems in the world and country, i.e., climate change and racism. Some of it was specifically targeted at Trump (though I can't remember if he specifically name checked him - it was obvious either way) and not much about Clinton specifically. His gripes at the DNC are more about how they're not doing as much as they need to. Big difference to calling out Trump's active sexism and racism and xenophobia. One of the things he said was that (paraphrasing) "real change comes from the bottom up not the top down."

And what is the overall message exactly? To me, it's fighting for the things that will be best for the people. I believe that Sanders staying in the public eye is good for that and so do a lot of people. I do not see "negative vitriol" anywhere except from Trump and Trump-like people. Pointing out major flaws of the American government and democratic system is a good thing because without doing so we aren't ever going to fix them.

In what way? How would "being more direct" with Clinton help Sanders? I'm honestly curious about this.

Early on Sanders didn't want to call Clinton by name or say things like "Clinton took money from Wall Street" and whatever. He'll say things like (paraphrasing) "Will the American people trust a candidate that's taken money from Wall Street to regulate the millionaires? I don't think so." He wouldn't say "Clinton can't be trusted" or "Clinton has lied about her record" or whatever else some of us Bernie supporters would like to have said on the record.

As crappy as that was, even though most people felt wronged, it shouldn't have had to happen in the first place. Now most people are afraid that what happened in Nevada is going to happen again at the convention in Philadelphia, because (with all due respect), it doesn't take an expert political reporter to see that, yes, Clinton has basically won and Sanders has lost; it's virtually impossible at this point for Sanders to convince a massive portion of superdelegates to switch sides and he wants to be told he lost at the convention officially before he really makes another move.

As for what Sanders might do next? Who knows. I'm hoping he'll actually get to work on reuniting the party against Trump, but at the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if he set the party on fire and walked out right after the convention, which is the worst case (and quite possible) scenario.

Of course, what Rachel Maddow says here may actually be 100% true and everyone would just riot because it lets out anger, and everyone would hug it out afterwards. But what if it doesn't? It's a very real and very frightening possibility that can make a difference between a Clinton presidency and a Trump one.

You're right. It shouldn't have happened. The people running it should have followed the rules and they didn't. So, I mean, what are people supposed to do? Let them get away with it and say nothing? This is one of the issues about how unfair "the system" is when it comes to the media. If the media were being honest and fair they wouldn't immediately demonize the voters there and would talk about how the people running railroaded the voters.

 

[gimmepie]

Situations like this are exactly why the US electoral system seems really weird to an outsider like me. It essentially forces people on the same side to go to war for the Presidency. Here you vote for the party, not for the candidate and whoever is leading the party takes the spot of PM. There's been a lot of issues with our system sure, but I think a system in which Hillary or Sanders were heading a party and not fighting for themselves would have made things a lot less messy and would have made a Trump presidency extremely unlikely since few Republicans would give him control of the party.

 

[Ivysaur]

Situations like this are exactly why the US electoral system seems really weird to an outsider like me. It essentially forces people on the same side to go to war for the Presidency. Here you vote for the party, not for the candidate and whoever is leading the party takes the spot of PM. There's been a lot of issues with our system sure, but I think a system in which Hillary or Sanders were heading a party and not fighting for themselves would have made things a lot less messy and would have made a Trump presidency extremely unlikely since few Republicans would give him control of the party.

That is a topic for another day, but essentially that's the difference between Parliamentary systems and Presidential ones. The latter are all about giving power to a certain person, not to a party, which results in a) parties being just empty shells with the tag "liberal" and "conservative" in which anything goes as long as they respect the tags, and b) "lesser of the evils" voting in November since the way seats are given makes it impossible for any other party to win anything other than at a very local level. Sanders was originally a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, but had to run as a backseat Democrat for all his career because... there are only two labels you can wear in an election, you know?

Sadly, to change anything you'd need to remake the entire US system from the ground, which requires amending the Constitution, which is just not going to happen. So yeah.

In defence of the US systam, you get stability: 4-year terms with no snap elections ever and no motions of no-confidence or strange crap. On the down side, the system is so stable you cannot change anything in bulk, you can only move a tiny step a time, and most people feel disenfranchised because there are only two options to vote for (see: Badsheep being excited because the Libertarians might even take an utterly irrelevant 5% of the vote in a good year). You prevent political upheaval.... for the better and for the worse. And the "worse" is what Sanders is intent on showing with his campaign.

 

[Kanzler]

If you're fighting for whats best for the people, you wouldn't be hurting the party that's trying to strive for that same goal.

That sounds very authoritarian. I can't imagine anyone I know saying anything of that sort about the three main parties here (all of which arguably do more for the people than American parties), even the most socialist of the three. Intraparty conflict is normal. I don't get why party loyalty is so important.

 

[Esper]

snip

My answers to all your questions boil down to: Clinton is not necessarily going to be good for the country. She's hawkish and we don't need more war. She's not at all progressive on social issues (barring perhaps women's rights) except after the fact. So the benefit in not falling in line is to push for a progressive agenda for the country which will not find a leader in Clinton. It's to say that while Clinton is better than Trump she's terribly flawed and does not at all represent what progressives want or what will address the underlying troubles of the country. It's basically saying that "lesser of two evils" as a mindset is damaging and dangerous to the future of our country and needs to be changed. We're demanding better than "lesser of two evils".

 

[Esper]

Okay, so your solution to pushing for a progressive agenda is having a xenophobic misogynistic racist as a president instead of someone who's actually the closest thing to Sanders himself? Is that your real idea of being a progressive? I think that kind of logic is terribly flawed. If you want to push for a real progressive agenda, you'd pick the person that's closest to that agenda, not veer right of course and go way off kilter. I don't think that's how things work.

I think we've had this argument in this thread before so I won't rehash it.

Yes, American politics is very much a "lesser of evils" system sometimes, and it always has been. If you wish to be one of the few, few people who vote for the Libertarian Party in a meaningless effort to make a statement, so be it, but if I was a Sanders supporter, I'd be more than happy to see Clinton in the White House than any of her GOP opponents. Say what you will about Clinton herself, but it'd be a lot easier to actually push for a progressive/more liberal agenda with someone who at least most people know as remotely liberal.

The lesser-of-two-evils system can be changed if we move to publicly funded campaigns and take dark money and super-PACs out of the process. That would make it much easier for third party, non-party, or political minorities within parties to run and be successful. I don't think a progressive agenda can really happen with the system we have now so, no, I don't agree that it would be a lot easier with Clinton over Trump. Maybe a tiny bit easier because as a Democrat she would have to pay lip service at least, but that won't really get things anywhere.

 

[Ivysaur]

The lesser-of-two-evils system can be changed if we move to publicly funded campaigns and take dark money and super-PACs out of the process. That would make it much easier for third party, non-party, or political minorities within parties to run and be successful.

There is a problem, known as "first past the post", also known as "winner take all". In a system where any position is held by the candidate that obtained the most votes in a poll, while everybody else gets nothing, even if they lost by a single vote, there is no incentive or reason to have a third party. With two strong incumbents, launching a third party requires a lot of money and publicity you probably can't have without tons of money to run ads- so essentially, the only successful third-party candidates would be Trumps. And if you just set a spending limit, even coming from their own pockets, then people will continue to vote R/D everywhere because that's the way it's always been and they are the only ones on TV after all. Look at the UK, where their "third parties*" only add up to 10 seats in a 650-strong Parliament, because people just vote Conservative or Labour, despite having tight and low expense limits.

The problem is the electoral system. Unless you change it, you are going to have a two-party system eternally. Because if another conservative or left-wing party arises and becomes successful, everybody will leave the R/Ds and join them instead, because otherwise you are just splitting up the vote and handling a plurality win to "the other side". In the UK, everyone who used to vote Liberal now votes Labour, after the Liberals were overtaken by them in the 1920s. After all, it's the only way to stop a Conservative Government from happening!

*not counting the SNP, who are essentially the one-party-state owners of Scotland.

I don't think a progressive agenda can really happen with the system we have now so, no, I don't agree that it would be a lot easier with Clinton over Trump. Maybe a tiny bit easier because as a Democrat she would have to pay lip service at least, but that won't really get things anywhere.

I don't think you are looking at this the right way. Having Clinton will probably mean a couple of steps ahead and, at absolu-horri-catastrophically worst, a "lip service" standstill. Having Trump will probably mean two steps back before even starting, and at worst, infinite steps back. Imagine: President Trump nominates a 40-year-old Scalia to replace Scalia, as the republicans want. Then, say, Justice Ginsburg dies and he nominates another 40-year-old Scalia. And a heavy right-leaning SC decides to destroy unions (it's one of the pending cases on their desk), decide that people not elligible to vote don't count when approportioning representatives (favouring older and whiter states and taking a lot of EVs away from places with migrants like California or Florida; it's another case on their desk) or take on Roe vs Wade because hell why not, let us leave the matter to the states. All of that while wasting billions of money on the wall, starting political wars with all of their allies and reinvigorising the extreme nativist fringe. Suddenly, a progressive agenda is not just as hard to achieve as before, but actually much harder, because you first have to undo all the damage he's going to make.

 

[Esper]

Look, I'm going to vote for whoever ends up against Trump, but I'm not going to be silent about how I feel and overlook the problems. If Clinton is so weak that a few harsh words from Sanders and his supporters is enough to make her lose an election then she probably wouldn't have won in the first place had Sanders never entered the race. All she has to do is adopt a few progressive stances, admit that she isn't perfect and that *gasp* she has been mistaken in the past and gotten better and that would greatly close up the sincerity gap and endear her to a lot of Bernie supporters and clench the election for her.