Serious US Election Thread (read post #2014)

[Cresselia~~]

It'll be difficult to woo white working class voters that Hillary lost with taboo words like "socialist" and "liberal" to say the least. As bughouse has said, America is still a pretty moderate to conservative leaning nation. I don't think going far left is the answer. The Democrats just need a strong candidate in 2020 no matter the policies, just as long as the person is likable and can drive up turnout, something that Hillary did not do. That's all, I don't think the Democrats need a huge shakeup in policies or anything and the current policies are fine, it's more of a "who is going to lead us" kind of thing that they have 4 years to figure out. I'm sure all will be fine. I think either party going far left or far right is scary as we've seen with Republicans, I think each side getting further from the middle could have negative consequences for the average voter actually.

I'd assume Michelle Obama to be a much better candidate than Hillary based on the way they speak and what they had gone through when they grew up.
And I'd assume Michelle Obama would make a good 2020 candidate.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ton-muslims-a7413341.html?cmpid=facebook-post
With Donald Trump already U-turning from so many of his promises, it seems to me that it is possible that he won't be reelected.

But it seems that she is not on the list of potential candidates for Lib Dem.

 

[TheValkyries]

Trend of U.S. Politics that is really really cool. Assigning people we like to the job regardless of qualification level or experience. Literally just popularity contest it. Make it a reality show like Survivor or lol The Apprentice.

In general I find that America hates any person with expertise regardless of the subject.

 

[Bass]

It'll be difficult to woo white working class voters that Hillary lost with taboo words like "socialist" and "liberal" to say the least. As bughouse has said, America is still a pretty moderate to conservative leaning nation. I don't think going far left is the answer. The Democrats just need a strong candidate in 2020 no matter the policies, just as long as the person is likable and can drive up turnout, something that Hillary did not do. That's all, I don't think the Democrats need a huge shakeup in policies or anything and the current policies are fine, it's more of a "who is going to lead us" kind of thing that they have 4 years to figure out. I'm sure all will be fine. I think either party going far left or far right is scary as we've seen with Republicans, I think each side getting further from the middle could have negative consequences for the average voter actually.

Please. Hillary lost those white working class voters because of her terrible record in regards to issues that mattered to them, in particular on free trade and the TPP. If your belief is true, then how did Sanders poll significantly better with this demographic in the primaries than her despite his "radical socialist" positions? It's called authenticity and populism. By your logic, Obama should have been handily defeated in 2008 and 2012 since he ran significantly further to the left of Hillary and was called a socialist by his opponents. Instead of telling us that the status quo was great, he championed progressive policies like universal healthcare (which ended up being a disappointment for many progressive voters). And by campaigning in this way, he got record turnouts. Considering this and his race, it's utterly laughable that people now are trying to pin Trump's victory on racism even though he won with less votes than Romney got. When you run as a fake conservative against an actual right wing candidate, you alienate the portion of your base that is further to the left. I know because I am one such person, and many people like me either don't vote or vote third party in most elections because the mainstream candidates don't have anything to offer. With Hillary association with the rich and powerful and Trump's association with bigotry, it should be no surprise that this election was an especially egregious case.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Trend of U.S. Politics that is really really cool. Assigning people we like to the job regardless of qualification level or experience. Literally just popularity contest it. Make it a reality show like Survivor or lol The Apprentice.

In general I find that America hates any person with expertise regardless of the subject.

It's not a US only thing.
Not trying to justify it, but just saying that it happens elsewhere too. (So that you don't have to think that USA is bad or something.)
I suppose it's because people know next to nothing of the areas of expertise.

 

[manodelrey]

So Trump is the projected winner of the popular vote apparently

Who wants to tell the Change.org people?

 

[Cresselia~~]

So Trump is the projected winner of the popular vote apparently

Who wants to tell the Change.org people?

wrong pic? Clinton has more votes in the pic.

 

[manodelrey]

wrong pic? Clinton has more votes in the pic.

you can look again. Only 92% reported and the projected winner is trump

 

[Codraroll]

So Trump is the projected winner of the popular vote apparently

Per the morning of November 10.

Here is one from two days later:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/2016-election-results/

Clinton: 60,839,922
Trump: 60,265,858

Full data seems to be missing for Washington (Where Clinton won 55-38) and Utah (Trump von 47-28). Washington has more than twice the population, though, so if votes from there follow the same ratios, Clinton still ends up with roughly 1 % more overall votes than Trump.

 

[Mazinger]

I appreciate the responses.

My parents lean conservative, so I'm going to tell you how they see the whole "stop calling people (read: Trump supporters) bigots thing."

Yes, sometimes people are bigoted. When people call BLM a terrorist organization, that's bigoted. When people refer to all Mexicans as rapists and criminals, that's bigoted. But the reality is that not every Trump supporter has white robes in their closet. More often than not, they're simply apathetic towards Trump's racism and sexism. They face different issues than you do. Call this perspective a privileged one, but everything seems so privileged these days that this critique hardly sticks.

This brings me to my main point: the left's (usual) gut reaction to anything said by the right is to call them one of the following:
a) Racist
b) Sexist
c) Privileged
d) Stupid

People have told my parents that they must be misogynist for not being pro-choice. No, my parents don't hate women. They have legitimate moral qualms about abortion - they think that personhood begins at the fetus, so it would be amoral to kill it. For them, the rights of a fetus outweighs those of a mother.

People have told my parents that they must be racist for being against affirmative action. No, they don't hate minorities (being minorities themselves). Some of their close friends were turned down for certain jobs, despite being fully qualified, simply because their ethnicity was 'overrepresented' in the company. They don't want to run into this in case they lose their job.

The point is this: your gut instinct shouldn't be to call other people bigots. Not every issue is cut and dry. Some people disagree with you, not because they're bigots, but because they have a different perspective. Listen first and ask yourself whether they have legitimate grievances or whether they truly harbour hate.

From the strategic point of view, I've always thought that insulting people is an easy way to shut down any conversation. Make bigots question their own views; show them evidence proving them wrong. Counter their experiences that led them to bigoted conclusions with your experiences that led you to be tolerant. If you can't change their minds with grace and politeness, talking down to them won't help either. It takes a lot for people to change their minds - don't get frustrated if they remain stubborn.

Lastly, I've seen many people call conservatives stupid. Maybe the biggest supporters of Trump were indeed uneducated white men. But tell them that they're stupid for long enough and they'll strike back and say "Oh, yeah, I'll show you how just how stupid I am." Who's the privileged one here? The educated liberals in their ivory tower punching downwards, or the uneducated conservatives?

I can mostly agree with this (safe for a few issues like apathy toward racism and sexism being even remotely acceptable and your affirmative action example). That said, I think we're not on the same page when it comes to how widespread bigotry actually is, since we both seem to think calling it out where applicable is the right thing to do. I also agree with criticzing actions instead of people, but from my experience it's close to impossible to point out that someone's actions are racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever without them feeling criticized as a person, so I'm not sure if that actually helps anything. This bring me to your last paragraph: Obviously calling people stupid is not productive, but it seems to me that trying to "educate" (going off of your labes for the groups) the less educated side is automatically percieved as an insult, and I have no idea where to go from there except to either give up or try harder. It's not like there's some secret code on not supporting hateful views that people refuse to share; people refuse to stop doing it.

Yo, I'm not from the US and have not been following its recent internal affairs too closely, so please take all of this with a grain of salt.

I believe a lot of the problems lie in perception vs. intent and a fucked up culture of debate in which people tend to assume the worst of 'the other side'.

When did you last hear a political opponent say something and immediately know what they really meant?

If you don't mean to be accusatory or insulting and are genuinely interested in an open discussion try your best to communicate this. You know what you meant to say (and what you didn't mean). They probably don't.


I'd personally consider bigot at least an insult. In common usage it seems to generally refer to people who not only hold prejudiced beliefs, but are entirely devoted to them, refuse any argument about them and are just generally close-minded.

That aside, I've certainly seen it used as/ like an insult.

Maybe try sticking with "this thing you did is bigoted" or "this belief you hold is bigoted" rather than "you are a bigot". Comes across less like a general judgement of character on more like actually addressing specific issues.

Then again I'll fully admit that this is mostly just tone policing, so eh. :\ You kinda did ask though.


Also now that I finally have an excuse to, here's a video I've been meaning to post:

Articulate guy explains loudly how this could possibly happen. Takes the same line as the Michael Moore one you've probably all seen already. 3:30 an onwards in particular is worth watching.

Same goes for this, really, just didn't want to lump the two posts together.

I think it boils down to this: Nobody likes being talked down to, but you can't point out that someone's views are fundamentally harmful without talking down to them.

 

[marilli]

Yeah u can. It's possible to point out how you think other people's views are bad / they don't know every side of the story without talking down to them. Just like how you can teach a grade schooler something that's "obvious" to you, without obnoxiously yelling at them for being a retard. I find it a pretty useful skill. If you can't then you probably being a bit of an argumentative edgelord from getting classically conditioned with fake internet points every time you are being edgy and talk down to people.

 

[Gammafire]

I would like to take everyone back to the early 20th century, where Europe was divided between the far-left and far-right. Do you know what happened because of this intense fear of the other ideology? War. Thousands of people died because of these radical ideas, which is why the world was so anti-fascism and anti-socialism for the latter half of the 20th century (except for the countries that were socialist, but you get the point).

This is why the Democratic party should be hesitant to embrace Bernie Sanders and his ideology. Fighting the radical right with radical left ideas is just going to make things worse. The world has shown that it functions under centrist governments the best, and all ignore this at their own peril. For all of those college students that are die-hard Sanders supporters: this isn't new. If you maybe learned from history, you would realize that people like Barry Goldwater and George McGovern have run before, and they were crushed. The way to beat Trump is by staying centrist and not trying to fight fire with fire.

So if you don't want America to end up like 1920s-1930s Europe, find common ground, stop complaining about the electoral college, or how you think all Trump supporters are racists, or how Clinton supporters should get a grip.

And if you like 3rd parties so much, you can either advocate for a ranked voting system to be adopted in all 50 states, or you can move to Maine.

 

[Soul Fly]

if you think sanders is radical left, you have another thing coming.

 

[Mazinger]

Yeah u can. It's possible to point out how you think other people's views are bad / they don't know every side of the story without talking down to them. Just like how you can teach a grade schooler something that's "obvious" to you, without obnoxiously yelling at them for being a retard. I find it a pretty useful skill. If you can't then you probably being a bit of an argumentative edgelord from getting classically conditioned with fake internet points every time you are being edgy and talk down to people.

You just compared the people you don't want to talk down to to grade schoolers. This is my problem; I'm not saying you should try to talk down to people, I'm saying the subject matter means it's simply part of the message regardless of how you convey it. You can't say "the way you look at society is dangerous" or anything with equivalent meaning and not be talking down. You can't say "the way you look at society is dangerous" or anything with equivalent meaning (which is the point that needs to be brought across) and not be talking down to someone.

Also note how you just talked down to me, which is fine because it was necessary to get your point across.

 

[marilli]

Just because I had the privilege of learning [insert subject] in college, while others have not, does not make them inferior human beings. I simply had more experience / time / opportunity. Just because a high schooler hasn't yet opened a book on [insert subject] does not imply they are less intelligent or lesser human being than I. In fact they might be far smarter than I will ever be, and is capable of deeper understanding of the subject but simply haven't got the chance.

Similarly, if you had the privilege of learning why [insert opinion] is dangerous to society, while others have not, does not make them inferior human beings.

If you truly believe that the other side is uninformed, have more information than them, you should provide those same information that you are basing your judgment on, and let them think for themselves. If you are incapable of doing that, and you haven't convinced anyone, you perhaps don't know more than them as you thought. Just because you believe have more information and more privilege than them does not mean you can talk down to people. After all, you might be wrong about it.

If you are genuinely interested in changing people's mind and letting them learn, and you believe you are right, you make discussion. If you want to feel better about yourself, you call other people names. I can sometimes be an argumentative edgelord or a condescending git, too. I'm only human, after all, and so are you. I'm simply curious how you can say you 'agree' with what kbomb said, but then say you are of vast moral and intellectual superior that you cannot help but being condescending. I just wanted to point out an inconsistency I noticed.

 

[Oddish is the best]

if you think sanders is radical left, you have another thing coming.

That's what the average american thinks of Socialism :P

 

[Cresselia~~]

I would like to take everyone back to the early 20th century, where Europe was divided between the far-left and far-right. Do you know what happened because of this intense fear of the other ideology? War. Thousands of people died because of these radical ideas, which is why the world was so anti-fascism and anti-socialism for the latter half of the 20th century (except for the countries that were socialist, but you get the point).

This is why the Democratic party should be hesitant to embrace Bernie Sanders and his ideology. Fighting the radical right with radical left ideas is just going to make things worse. The world has shown that it functions under centrist governments the best, and all ignore this at their own peril. For all of those college students that are die-hard Sanders supporters: this isn't new. If you maybe learned from history, you would realize that people like Barry Goldwater and George McGovern have run before, and they were crushed. The way to beat Trump is by staying centrist and not trying to fight fire with fire.

So if you don't want America to end up like 1920s-1930s Europe, find common ground, stop complaining about the electoral college, or how you think all Trump supporters are racists, or how Clinton supporters should get a grip.

And if you like 3rd parties so much, you can either advocate for a ranked voting system to be adopted in all 50 states, or you can move to Maine.

I think the world would have been much better if more people opt for staying in the middle, instead of going far left or far right.

But USA, along with most countries in the world, actually lack a strong 3rd party that could compare to the other 2.
It seems to me that even most European countries, despite their history, still do not have strong/ viable 3rd party options.

 

[Mazinger]

Just because I had the privilege of learning [insert subject] in college, while others have not, does not make them inferior human beings. I simply had more experience / time / opportunity. Just because a high schooler hasn't yet opened a book on [insert subject] does not imply they are less intelligent or lesser human being than I. In fact they might be far smarter than I will ever be, and is capable of deeper understanding of the subject but simply haven't got the chance.

Similarly, if you had the privilege of learning why [insert opinion] is dangerous to society, while others have not, does not make them inferior human beings.

If you truly believe that the other side is uninformed, have more information than them, you should provide those same information that you are basing your judgment on, and let them think for themselves. If you are incapable of doing that, and you haven't convinced anyone, you perhaps don't know more than them as you thought. Just because you believe have more information and more privilege than them does not mean you can talk down to people. After all, you might be wrong about it.

If you are genuinely interested in changing people's mind and letting them learn, and you believe you are right, you make discussion. If you want to feel better about yourself, you call other people names. I can sometimes be an argumentative edgelord or a condescending git, too. I'm only human, after all, and so are you. I'm simply curious how you can say you 'agree' with what kbomb said, but then say you are of vast moral and intellectual superior that you cannot help but being condescending. I just wanted to point out an inconsistency I noticed.

I've either not been making myself clear enough or you're not reading my posts closely enough. I never said that anyone is an inferior human being for holding any view or that you should intentionally talk down to people and I've never advocated name calling (I guess I kinda defend the "deplorable" comment but I see that as a judgment of actions moreso than name calling. If that's the only thing then I can agree that it's probably going a bit far, even if I agree with the message). I'm saying that regardless of tone or word choice, explaining to someone that you think their view of the world is fundamentally wrong, which is what you have to do when trying to change someone's political views on a more than superficial level, is and will be percieved as condescending. This is true regardless of who's right and has nothing to do with superiority. You wanted to point out that I'm wrong about talking down to people, but to do so you had to talk down to me, reagrdless of whether you called me an "edgelord" or "wrong in this specific instance", and it's the same whenever you're trying to convince someone that they're wrong. It comes with the territory. If you think "look, I know you're not as educated as me so I'll try to carefully walk you through these steps to understand" is somehow not condescending then idk what to tell you.

Also note that I haven't claimed anyone's political view is absolutely correct or false, I've simply been asking questions based on the assumption that bigotry is wrong, which nobody ever seems to challenge, probably for a good reason.

 

[Aladyyn]

I would like to take everyone back to the early 20th century, where Europe was divided between the far-left and far-right. Do you know what happened because of this intense fear of the other ideology? War. Thousands of people died because of these radical ideas, which is why the world was so anti-fascism and anti-socialism for the latter half of the 20th century (except for the countries that were socialist, but you get the point).

How exactly?

 

[Cresselia~~]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-stone/history-tells-us-what-will-brexit-trump_b_11179774.html
(Article updated 2 days ago)
Scaremongering, or really historical facts?

 

[vonFiedler]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-stone/history-tells-us-what-will-brexit-trump_b_11179774.html

Scaremongering has begun. (Article updated 2 days ago)

We've been saying that since he began running on a platform of scaremongering. What is the fucking point of knowing history at all if we do nothing to stop it from repeating?

 

[Cresselia~~]

We've been saying that since he began running on a platform of scaremongering. What is the fucking point of knowing history at all if we do nothing to stop it from repeating?

I'm sorry. I'm not a person who have studied world history at all, as it was not compulsory in my curriculum.
So maybe I am missing a lot, and not qualified to say anything.

But how do you know for sure that history is going to repeat itself? Every generation has very different environmental factors or other factors.
Why do you think it's going to be exactly the same, and yield the same outcome?

Also, Trump is already president, so how are you going to help change history?

 

[PDC]

it is easy to dismiss the saying of "history will repeat itself" as a platitude used to scare people, but the basic fundamental factors of human action always come out. just because something is not an exact repeat of what we've seen before does not mean the reasoning behind it is not very similar. actions are carried out for nearly the same reasons every single time.

trump employs a sense of extreme nationalism and preys on the excessive patriotism of the people in america. his slogan itself is "make america great again." he is relying on the public's feelings of disenfranchisement and the idea that their way of life is being threatened by minorities (of race, of sexuality, of religion) and using this to cultivate their anger into voters. using nationalism and feelings of anger and anti-establishment principles to gain power has been used many times throughout history. like i said, just because the climate is not exactly the same does not mean the end game is not.

the idea of creating an identity is always key with people like trump. you need a basis, something that draws a specific group of people together and against the outsiders. trump did this with white people believing they were under constant attack by the political correctness crowd, hitler did this with the jews and economic instability, ferdinand & isabella carved out a national identity by launching inquisitions and creating a state religion.

note - i don't think trump is hitler.

history does repeat itself. people will always try to gain power through these means, and if we are unable to identify them then we are helpless. there is a saying in literature that "there is only one story," and the same idea can be applied to situations like these. just because the words are different, doesn't mean the theme isn't the same.

 

[vonFiedler]

But how do you know for sure that history is going to repeat itself? Every generation has very different environmental factors or other factors.
Why do you think it's going to be exactly the same, and yield the same outcome?

When you see the same kind of person come to power using the same tactics and benefiting from the same base, it's not a consolation that he happens to run the most powerful country in the world. We shouldn't even have come close to electing a person like that, but everytime it was brought up it's "scaremongering this" "godwin's law that". Guess we shouldn't have wasted our time making a billion movies and books about the holocaust when jews who survived it compared Trump to Hitler and nobody listened.

Also, Trump is already president, so how are you going to help change history?

Well, there isn't an immediate transition from Hitler in power to mass death camps. But under Obama we could indefinitely imprison Arabs for no reason. Under Bush we had secret torture prisons. With control of the entire government Trump can enforce seemingly innocuous but increasingly oppressive laws over Arabs, Mexicans, and Blacks (stop and frisk will be a start). It would not take much for Trump to generate waves of race related hatred and riots. Then we start the mass deportations that too many voters already want. Only... maybe some people don't get back to their home countries. If you don't think that the mechanisms for all these things exist, then you've been blind to the evils of both parties for the last 24 years.

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. And all of those who voted Trump "not for race reasons", if you are at all not just being completely full of shit when you say that: grow the fuck up, forget about your god damned ego, and prove that you aren't racist by helping us when you see your president do this shit. If he does only good things, fantastic. If he does all the bad things he said he would do, hold him the fuck accountable.

 

[Bass]

That's what the average american thinks of Socialism :P

In spite of everything I have said (particularly the part about Sanders polling much better among the demographic that the democratic establishment has lost), why do you continue to make this claim so confidently? What is your evidence? Have you actually sat down with the people who were disgusted with this election that voted previously for Obama but didn't vote for Hillary? The progressive left is screaming right now, demanding the rest of their party to get their heads out of the sand and listen to them. THESE are the people who supported Obama in 2008 and gradually moved away from the party afterwards. Once again, I classify myself as being part of this group. You have nothing more than assumptions that are based on an ivory tower academic mindset, not based on actual conversations with people who didn't vote for her.

 

[gali]

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.