Serious US Election Thread (read post #2014)

[Adamant Zoroark]

Honestly, I think that the working-class whites (especially in the rust belt) who liked Trump for his protectionist messages voted for him because they said what they wanted to hear - "We're bringing those jobs back." The sooner these people realize that those jobs aren't fucking coming back, the better. Just because rust belt voters don't want to hear this, it doesn't make it any less true. Free trade didn't kill those jobs; those jobs died because they weren't competitive, and protectionist policies aren't gonna suddenly make them competitive. We're just gonna keep getting more and more Donald Trumps until people start accepting this harsh reality.

Also, start teaching everyone about Smoot-Hawley. That might help kill protectionist demagogues like Trump.

 

[mew-2Chainz]

I think it's important to note that the amount of jobs brought to america for the uneducated population is much lower than for the college educated populace.

Bigotry and xenophobia still played a huge part too, but this is a fact that kind of slips through when discussing why Trump appealed to SO many poor whites.

 

[Every1XplodeNOW]

https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/797986079764840449

Basically, Trump didn't realize the scope of the President's duties.

Yeah, that's not shocking at all.

 

[mew-2Chainz]

You can tell just by Donald Trump's policies that he had an incredibly simplistic understanding of democracy. This is not suprising at all.

 

[Outlaw]

https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/797986079764840449
https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/797986079764840449
Basically, Trump didn't realize the scope of the President's duties.

Yeah, that's not shocking at all.

He got Manchurian Canidated.

 

[Soul Fly]

this is just depressing now.

 

[Deck Knight]

The election is over, Smogon leftists. You can give Godwin's Law a rest for like the next year or so.

Trump is a New York City celebrity icon. It is absolutely nuts to compare him or the movement that elected him to Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party, a group that politically aligns more with... George Soros and his puppet Hillary Clinton than it does with the Middle America that elected Trump. Trump personally barely qualifies as right wing, and the consensus I'm getting from the more left-wing skeptic channels I follow on Youtube is that Mike Pence functions in the same role as Joe Biden did and Tim Kaine would have: Impeachment / Assassination insurance.

Policy-wise he fits in the exact mold of the general American electorate, which is right of center. He is likely to keep his most important campaign promises as a matter of retaining influence and public trust. His keynote policies were appointing originalist judges (at least one to replace Scalia), enforcement of immigration laws (which are already fully funded and have been since the Bush Administration), and the renegotiation of trade deals (Canada and Mexico have already shown willingness to renegotiate NAFTA. Turns out countries respond well to requests that impact their relationship to the world's most stable and prosperous economy.)

Again, you can keep saying he got elected on racism and bigotry, and it's probably harmful to my own political preferences to intervene while you further destroy yourselves for being ridiculous caricatures, but by God, you can't be this brainwashed. You just can't be.

I mean, you can, and I'm going to enjoy watching the continuous character assassination stupidity that enabled the left to lose the House, Senate, and Presidency to freakin' Donald J. Trump, but really, get a grip.

 

[Divine Retribution]

You can tell just by Donald Trump's policies that he had an incredibly simplistic understanding of democracy. This is not suprising at all.

Yeah, and Hillary Clinton just loved democracy, didn't she?

Except when it was looking like Sanders might have actually stood a chance against her, then no, fuck democracy, I have a vagina.

 

[Soul Fly]

this is very, very interesting.

http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/

 

[Cresselia~~]

I don't think Trump is America's Hitler. He's a huge narcissist, and is just saying things that get people to cheer the loudest. Don't get me wrong, he's very dangerous and an awful person, but I doubt he's going to follow through on shit like the wall. He's already flip-flopped on just about every "policy" proposal of the campaign in about a week. I think that because people won't be constantly chanting his name for the next 4 years, he'll resign before he comes up for reelection. This whole campaign was just one big ego trip for him. Unfortunately, that might somehow make things even worse since it puts a theocratic zealot in the White House.

That said, I'm really worried that an actual American Hitler with more political savvy than Trump is going to come along in a few election cycles who poses a serious threat to American democracy and the well being of ethnic minorities/LGBT/Jews. Hopefully CNN has learned their lesson and won't sell out the country for advertising dollars again.

I too, suppose he's not quite Hitler yet, despite there are certain similarities.
When Hitler first started, people thought Hitler was a good guy, for bringing good policies such as animal rights.
But Trump basically acts as an obvious bad guy right from the start.

Deportation doesn't really do any physical harm, unlike genocide, and I think deportation is very different from genocide.
Plus he has already U-turned from at least 9 policies already, within 3 days.
I doubt he has the ability to actually deport many people back to Mexico or Muslim countries. He might be able to deport a few extreme cases, but it should be a small percentage.

But he could make it easier and easier for the next Republicans to become elected via electoral college, and more regardless to popular votes.
Or even change many people's minds by controlling the media when he has control.

Plus, if a great portion of leftists really leave USA for Canada instead of staying in and protest, they contribute into making it easier for the next Republican to become elected.

And now Trump and his people are already talking about silencing political opponents. But the only hope we have of changing history is that maybe he can't silence the tens of millions of Americans now against him, already mobilized (probably early). When we see those steps to holocaust happening, that is when we need to organize and protest.

So, leftists applying for immigration into Canada actually makes things worse, do you think?

 

[Isa]

When Hitler first started, people thought Hitler was a good guy, for bringing good policies such as animal rights.

say no more

 

[Cresselia~~]

say no more

I never said he was a good guy.
I said people THOUGHT he was a good guy.

(And why do I have to explain that?)

What I'm trying to say was, when campaigning, Hitler pretended to be a nice guy.
Which is different from Trump, who didn't even bother to act nice.

In other words, Hitler and Trump catered to quite different voters in their elections.
That's why I feel that Hitler was different from Trump.

 

[Mazinger]

hitler did not campaign on animal rights

 

[Cresselia~~]

hitler did not campaign on animal rights

Wrong.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Wrong.

It was part of his campaign, but it wasn't the driving force behind it. Hitler used Germany's wounded national pride (which was in part caused by Britain's gutting of its military capabilities after WWI) and a pool of existing anti-Semitism as a springboard to catapult himself into power.

Little bit scary when you think about it, but at the end of the day, Trump isn't anywhere near as smart at Hitler, to put it bluntly.

 

[Cresselia~~]

It was part of his campaign, but it wasn't the driving force behind it. Hitler used Germany's wounded national pride (which was in part caused by Britain's gutting of its military capabilities after WWI) and a pool of existing anti-Semetism as a springboard to catapult himself into power.

Little bit scary when you think about it, but at the end of the day, Trump isn't anywhere near as smart at Hitler, to put it bluntly.

Thank you.

 

[Sam]

Steve Bannon having a position in the white house absolutely terrifies me

 

[Cresselia~~]

I fired an employee this morning for not coming in to work Thurs/Friday because he "Wasn't feeling in the right state of mind to work due to being upset at the election result".

Am i a bad guy?

Is he diagnosed with any mood disorders?

If yes --> you are a bad guy.
If no --> you are not a bad guy.

 

[Nails]

I fired an employee this morning for not coming in to work Thurs/Friday because he "Wasn't feeling in the right state of mind to work due to being upset at the election result".

Am i a bad guy?

did he call in before his shift to let you know he wouldn't be working? if he did then yes you're a douchebag, if not then eh it depends on the job, still maybe but maybe not

 

[TheValkyries]

Guys we have to give Trump a chance! DK is right he's not Hitler! All he's done is hire a white nationalist who is excited to create a "state driven media" propaganda arm as chief strategist!

This is not normal.

 

[danilo]

Is he diagnosed with any mood disorders?

If yes --> you are a bad guy.
If no --> you are not a bad guy.

you don't come off as the most empathetic guy sometimes. i don't know what's up with that. maybe u dont interact with people from different backgrounds outside of smogon or if u care at al about them but this election has had a lot of terrible implications already for a whole bunch of minorities. it's been less than a week and trump's hateful rhetoric has spawned a whole bunch of terrible things within my own life and the lives of many i care about. a quick list

• someone shouted the n word at me today as i biked to get some food. a similar thing happened to some of my friends this past friday. we feel unsafe doing what we normally do on campus: biking around campus at night, going to the park in the day, playing music outside, etc, out of fear for harassment. i also live in an open carry gun state (ohio) and the police force in this state has a history of blowing the brains out of people who look like me.
• some trans people i know have gotten super harassed these past few days. one of them already had mental health issues and they really didn't need any more transphobia. they're on leave for the rest of the semester.
• a black person i know was accused of stealing wine from a store. the manager tackled him to the ground, called the police, and got him arrested. there's no video evidence thus far to support the accusation that this kid stole wine. the owner of the store has a history of racially profiling people, usually people of color, myself included. two of my friends went to help this kid as he was being tackled by this store manager. they were trying to get the manager off him. they were arrested when the police without being read their rights. the officers only asked for the side of the story of the manager.

just b/c this election wont affect u doesn't mean it won't/hasn't affected the lives of many around you. try to have some empathy. it's not a great time for a lot of people. i dont want to portray you as some callous dickhead. im just wondering why your posts tend to come off that way.

 

[JES]

Though I agree with the reasoning behind this as to how it made an environment where Trump, the underdog since the days he announced his intention to run, it's hard to know what to do going forward.

I've seen more calls to engage and discuss with the people around you on social media, but I'm skeptical of this because I think there's only so many fucks people can give.

I don't know of any correlation that has to do with attention span, but if people just debate and attempt to persuade people, it just gets annoying or even fruitless if the other person is tired of it, and quite frankly, there are a LOT of controversial-in-America (read: not stuff that many people, including me consider no-brainers) topics to consider when deciding on candidates (relations with differing, various countries, immigration, abortion, climate change, fundamentalism vs evolution, policies for equality, the legal process, taxes, economic policies, judicial system, education policies, important qualities for candidates, the values a government should hold, LGBT, and more.). Everything I've listed, I've met people with vastly differing opinions on both sides of the coin (even in just the liberal-leaning northeast), and then there's also the question of what degree should the government have a stake? There's simply too many things for people to go through and I expect there to be a lot of topics that are just not going to have productive discussions because some of it comes down to binary judgment calls, which lead to either i'm-right-you're-wrong-go-fuck-yourself or the rarer, more civil let's-agree-to-disagree.

In either case, it's hard for debate to really be useful when there's also the other things that desire people's attention, i.e. friends, family, frenemies, enemies, rivals, coworkers, classmates, transportation/commute, meetings, partying, pkmn, etc. After a long day that demands attention, I highly doubt one of the things everyone wants to do is expend energy to engage in discussion on political beliefs with other people and hope it's somewhat meaningful.

This. This so much!!! You want to make American Great Again? This is how you start. Take a little bit of time you'd normally spend watching TV, going to ball games, or yes, even playing video games, and find the time. I need to come back after I've caught up, and add my 2 cents.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Guys we have to give Trump a chance! DK is right he's not Hitler! All he's done is hire a white nationalist who is excited to create a "state driven media" propaganda arm as chief strategist!

This is not normal.

Like I said, when the white nationalist KKK Nazi NRA-funded death squads come for me because my skin is a few shades too dark and I didn't vote for Trump, you can say "I told you so".

In the meantime I'll try to be a little more objective. The situation may be bad but comparing it to Nazi Germany is flat out ridiculous. Prophecising about how horrible the next few years are going to be isn't going to help us, getting your ass in gear and helping us whip the DNC back into shape so maybe we can fix this in 2018 might.

 

[Gammafire]

How exactly?

Mussolini used the fear of communism and socialism to originally grow the fascist party in Italy. There were other factors, but fear of the far-left was the major one along with the economic crisis that followed World War I. Hitler also used this fear of communism to rise to power in Germany. And then when Hitler started to get aggressive, socialist and communist countries got scared (there was the Hitler-Stalin pact, but that was only one socialist country while other socialist countries still were scared).

And we all know how this ends up. Fear of the other ideology wasn't the only factor, but it was a major one.

If we look at today, we also have had an economic crisis (that luckily was not as bad), and we have socialist politicians offering the people relief from the crisis, and we have far-right politicians offering the people economic relief. This is why this election was so bad for me, because the radical defeated the centrist. I don't particularly fear Trump and I'm definitely not afraid of Sanders, but I am afraid of those that will come after them.

 

[Cresselia~~]

you don't come off as the most empathetic guy sometimes. i don't know what's up with that. maybe u dont interact with people from different backgrounds outside of smogon or if u care at al about them but this election has had a lot of terrible implications already for a whole bunch of minorities. it's been less than a week and trump's hateful rhetoric has spawned a whole bunch of terrible things within my own life and the lives of many i care about. a quick list

• someone shouted the n word at me today as i biked to get some food. a similar thing happened to some of my friends this past friday. we feel unsafe doing what we normally do on campus: biking around campus at night, going to the park in the day, playing music outside, etc, out of fear for harassment. i also live in an open carry gun state (ohio) and the police force in this state has a history of blowing the brains out of people who look like me.
• some trans people i know have gotten super harassed these past few days. one of them already had mental health issues and they really didn't need any more transphobia. they're on leave for the rest of the semester.
• a black person i know was accused of stealing wine from a store. the manager tackled him to the ground, called the police, and got him arrested. there's no video evidence thus far to support the accusation that this kid stole wine. the owner of the store has a history of racially profiling people, usually people of color, myself included. two of my friends went to help this kid as he was being tackled by this store manager. they were trying to get the manager off him. they were arrested when the police without being read their rights. the officers only asked for the side of the story of the manager.

just b/c this election wont affect u doesn't mean it won't/hasn't affected the lives of many around you. try to have some empathy. it's not a great time for a lot of people. i dont want to portray you as some callous dickhead. im just wondering why your post tend to come off that way.

If that guy was racially assaulted, he could have stated this instead of "election results make me sad", since receiving racial harassment is clearly more severe than election results.

That said, most people in the crying trend/ "I'm literally shaking" trend on facebook and Twitter are white.
And I don't understand why someone can be so upset and emotional about any politics, that cause actual crying.

Hong Kong (my country) is in a political mess, but I haven't seen any of my friends crying. They are angry, they are mad, but no one ever cried.

Maybe because I don't actually know any non-middle class/ upper class people in real life, so that I don't understand how it is to feel powerless.
And that academic acceleration during middle school has caused me to be really spoiled by teachers, as I was treated as somewhat similar to the baby of the family. (And probably, it was where my strong elitist views come from)

(Nowadays, I believe that academic acceleration is rather short sighted. There seems to be many basic things that I have missed, and it's starting to show up later in life.)