The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-infrastructure-plan-leaves-us-behind-enriches-wall-street-2016-12-10

Trump's infrastructure plan has huge holes on analysis. The emphasis on private investment, while possibly more efficient, will result in only profitable projects being completed. This means the most needed projects are likely to be neglected, as well as those in small cities and rural areas (there's irony here, given those were areas heavily for Trump).

His proposal also gives enormous policymaking power to private entities, such as being able to increase tolls and charges for power supply and sewage.

We didn't learn from Enron or our friends in Britain, clearly. Privatized infrastructure is the surest way to Hell.

[Patticus]

I just came to a realization: If the cabinet appointments being made now only last the average amount of time people last in their respective posts, what manner of replacement hellspawn are we awaiting in 2-3 years' time?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

That, and how long will it take for Trump supporters to fully realize they played themselves even more?

I know a number of them are having regrets, but something tells me they'll carry their pride to the grave on this rather than admit they were wrong even if it damages the country.

[8ther]

I'm new to politics, so sorry if these are dumb questions.

What are the Hamilton Electors and why are people taking about them now regarding the russian hacks?

 

Also, what is "Audit the vote"?

[Tani Coyote]

Fantastic news. CNN has updated the 2016 exit polls with percentages and absolute numbers. If we compare to 2012 we get interesting results. You can get a rough idea of the size of the electorate who made each decision by multiplying the percent who voted for that option, and then multiplying it by their candidate choice.

In 2012, 10% of voters chose their candidate based on disliking opponents... this year, it was 25%. Likewise, reservations about one's choice jumped from 23% to 32%.

If you break it down by candidate. In 2012, 4% of voters went for Obama on the basis of disliking Romney, while 5% went for Romney on the basis of disliking Obama. This year, 12.5% went for Trump on the basis of disliking Clinton, while only 9.8% went for Clinton on the basis of disliking Trump. The enthusiasm gap grew from 1% to 3%. 

As for reservations. 10% of voters had reservations with Obama and backed him, while 13% had reservations with Romney yet backed him. This year there was nearly equal amounts of reservations for both voters, indicating a reluctance for Clinton.

Now, let's talk about the desire to see change. The gut reaction is to see this as naturally leaning towards the opposition, but let's consider...

15.6% of 2012 voters saw a vision of the future as the key quality, and voted Romney. By contrast, almost 32% of 2016 voters believed in bringing needed change as the most important quality, voting for Trump on this basis.

There's no doubt Trump brought a lot of people out of the woodwork, but it's looking like his "drain the swamp" mantra was simply massive in his success. Between this and the enthusiasm gap, Trump's odds of re-election are looking shaky provided the Democrats field a good opponent and he doesn't have a national crisis (God forbid) or strong economic performance to bolster his numbers. His mandate is brittle, and his choice of weak cronies for much of his administration likely isn't going to do him any favors.

Despite how much he liked to critique Mexico, I get the feeling we're going to get a taste of Mexican government these next 4 years.

[Patticus]

8 hours ago, Aoi said:

It's all about American history. The electoral college is an invention for the elite and politically powerful to ultimately keep the decision within the inner circle of Washington. Originally, voters were only white, men, and land owners, but the elites creating all the laws wanted our electoral system to be as stupid-and-populist-proof as possible. So states were allotted electoral votes based on the number of their representatives, population, etc. The numbers are skewed so many states are not overlooked. Presidential candidates would ignore New Hampshire and Vermont, and just be in California all the time otherwise.

The problem remains the same with electors, you just have a slightly different set of states dominating proceedings. Instead of candidates running for President of New York, Texas, California, Florida, and maybe Illinois and Pennsylvania too, you have candidates running for President of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa and North Carolina. Same shit, different states. In fact, it is to the GOP's benefit that the status quo remain the status quo, because under the current system, many of these so-called "swing states lie in conservative territory, while a popular-vote based system would place all the power with blue, or purple states whose demographic trends are also heading toward blue.

Of course, due to how it'd influence the campaigns of candidates (Populism forever, pragmatism never!), I would like the Electoral College to remain in place - with laws dictating how electors vote abolished, and contingencies set up for huge popular vote-Electoral points discrepancies like we have now, of course.

38 minutes ago, Noelgilvie said:

There's no doubt Trump brought a lot of people out of the woodwork, but it's looking like his "drain the swamp" mantra was simply massive in his success. Between this and the enthusiasm gap, Trump's odds of re-election are looking shaky provided the Democrats field a good opponent and he doesn't have a national crisis or strong economic performance to bolster his numbers.

The Democrats need to hire some competent propagandists who can make the public see that not only was the swamp not drained, it was actually expanded, deepened and somehow made even more putrid. The Trump Hotel atop Bullshit Mountain is certainly doing well for itself these days - it has great views of the Mountains of Misbelief, the monochrome-yet-rose-tinted Valleys of Yesteryear, Broke Promise Mountain, and the verdant, blossoming Hypocrisy Hills.

[Tani Coyote]

22 minutes ago, Patticus said:

The Democrats need to hire some competent propagandists who can make the public see that not only was the swamp not drained, it was actually expanded, deepened and somehow made even more putrid. The Trump Hotel atop Bullshit Mountain is certainly doing well for itself these days - it has great views of the Mountains of Misbelief, the monochrome-yet-rose-tinted Valleys of Yesteryear, Broke Promise Mountain, and the verdant, blossoming Hypocrisy Hills.

Oh, no doubt. I was discussing Trump's backpedaling, cronyism, etc. with my father earlier. Naturally, he is hilariously in denial.

He defended unqualified picks on the basis they could hire qualified people to work under them (I think it's a bad idea for the people who work directly beneath the guy who doesn't know what the Hell he is doing to also not know what the Hell they are doing). He defended the boatload of rich executives joining the Cabinet as freeing the system from corruption due to their status as outsiders.

I'm just "LMFAO" on the matter. I can't even come up with words. An acronym is necessary to express my sentiments.

Fortunately, the existence of things like Trumpgrets indicates a lot of Trump voters are not denialist and are seeing he won't live up to his promises. Whether they were moderates who longed to see his vision of a rejuvenated America come to life or people who just wanted to tear Obama's legacy apart, they're all slowly being disappointed.

[KHCast]

I'm curious if those trump regret voters would change their vote if given the chance. Like if they could redo the election day

[8ther]

I asked this in a status update but never gotten an answer, so i'll ask it here..

What good will the investigation do in regards to the Russia's hacks and involvement with the election?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, CD Sanic said:

I asked this in a status update but never gotten an answer, so i'll ask it here..

What good will the investigation do in regards to the Russia's hacks and involvement with the election?

Beyond increasing cyber-security even more than ever, I doubt it'll do very much in the US at best as what's done has already been done.

At worst, it'll cause a lot of hysteria and outside the US it might lead to an escalating cyberwar, but that's if we want to be extreme. (although I wouldn't doubt there's already a cyberwar going on between the two)

[KHCast]

A bit off topic, but can someone explain how the confederate flag not actually being the one popularized and used today, excuses the Virginia war flag now used and defended from being called racist and still hateful, especially given the people that tend to sport it? Cause I'm having a discussion and they seem to latch on it not being the actual confederate symbol at the time and argue that it has different meaning and purpose than what it's assumed to be.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

22 minutes ago, KHCast said:

A bit off topic, but can someone explain how the confederate flag not actually being the one popularized and used today, excuses the Virginia war flag now used and defended from being called racist and still hateful, especially given the people that tend to sport it? Cause I'm having a discussion and they seem to latch on it not being the actual confederate symbol at the time and argue that it has different meaning and purpose than what it's assumed to be.

States Rights apparently. Maybe the First Amendment as well.

[Tani Coyote]

10 hours ago, KHCast said:

I'm curious if those trump regret voters would change their vote if given the chance. Like if they could redo the election day

Most likely. Maybe not for Clinton, but they might have opted to stay home or vote third party.

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

A bit off topic, but can someone explain how the confederate flag not actually being the one popularized and used today, excuses the Virginia war flag now used and defended from being called racist and still hateful, especially given the people that tend to sport it? Cause I'm having a discussion and they seem to latch on it not being the actual confederate symbol at the time and argue that it has different meaning and purpose than what it's assumed to be.

Presumably, the idea is that the actual Confederate flag represents the slavery-glorifying government, while the battle flag (which is now known as the Confederate flag) represents what the common man was fighting for.

Most Southerners weren't slave owners. They were duped into supporting the Confederacy on the idea that it would somehow benefit them against federal tyranny. They saw themselves as the reincarnation of the Continental Army: the rural masses fighting against decadent urban tyranny, blissfully ignoring the fact their leaders were all rich men.

Let's not pretend the Union forces were paragons of racial progressivism. Most Union soldiers believed the rhetoric about restoring the Union, and didn't care about slavery. Many Northerners, civilian and soldier, were irritated by the Emancipation Proclamation. Northerners tended to not like slavery, but they were still all too fond of white supremacy.

As for the people who fly it: it is natural that a racist would fly the flag, given what the Confederacy fought to uphold. At the same time, though, a person who isn't racist could find meaning in the flag, since most Southerners believed the concept of states' rights and were fighting for this idea, whether or not it enabled slavery be damned. This sounds odd, until one realizes the same treatment is given to the American flag; a lot of people venerate it as a symbol of liberty and all that good stuff, while there is a vocal minority who have a different view of it. Let's be real: the only reason the Confederate flag gets slammed more than the Union flag is because the Confederacy had a brief history that precluded it being recognized as anything more than "the nation that fought to protect slavery." Given the sheer amount of slavery protection provisions in the United States' founding document, this is a double standard caused by historical convenience.

Overall though, it comes down to the same question we ask of people who fought for the Axis in World War II. Are they able to still be respected for their service? Though they were enabling people like Hitler, many of them did not actually like him. Let's not forget the time the German Army tried to overthrow Hitler. We can find parallels with modern voters who back people like Trump; they may not have bigoted views themselves, but they will enable someone like him if they feel it will bring a net gain for the country.

This is coalition politics at work, I suppose. The very nature of loyalty to one's community entails tolerating less desirable leaders thereof, because going against them runs the risk of empowering outsiders. Reality isn't black and white. Racists, non-racists, and racial minorities inevitably find some sort of strange balance between themselves in a society, because the alternative is widespread conflict.

[MightyRay]

Well, this could be a real kick in the teeth for overseas countires dealing with US Mulitnationals that won't pay their taxes... http://www.msn.com/en-au/money/company-news/get-stuffed-trumps-likely-message-to-australia-taxing-us-multinationals/ar-AAlqZXq?li=AAgfYrC&ocid=mailsignout

I'd imagine this new tax bill will probably get through congress once Trump is in?

[Mad Convoy]

19 hours ago, Noelgilvie said:

Let's not pretend the Union forces were paragons of racial progressivism. Most Union soldiers believed the rhetoric about restoring the Union, and didn't care about slavery. Many Northerners, civilian and soldier, were irritated by the Emancipation Proclamation. Northerners tended to not like slavery, but they were still all too fond of white supremacy.

If I'm to expand on this, those that were pro-abolition weren't always pro-black. Indeed, anti-black racism was strong in the middle states because it was perceived that slavery was taking jobs from Good Hardworking White Boys™. The reasoning for that was that since businesses didn't have to pay slaves for their work, the slaves were more desirable than salaried workers for greedy businessmen and thus would be hired more. The sheer volume of human rights violations, loss of identity, and suffering that slavery in the US entailed was either denied or didn't even cross their minds when arguing for abolitionism-- they only cared about white men getting jobs.

Though as you mentioned, slavery, while a key part of the Southern economy, wasn't even as widespread as they perceived it to be-- certainly not widespread enough to be the only factor in economic decline of small towns. Nonetheless, people believed it. And the rare pro-abolition pro-black activist put up with it, because ultimately, those people were right about how we needed to abolish slavery, even if it was for all the wrong reasons and unrealistic expectations. But now we see the same kind of reasoning applied today, with people blaming the exploitation of illegal immigrants for the lack of jobs in once-prosperous areas and wanting that to end not because of the human rights issues inherent to purposefully underpaying and overworking illegal immigrants but because of the economic impact. And quite frankly, unlike the last time around, their solution of just deporting the non-whites doesn't benefit minorities in any conceivable way. In other words, they're wrong for the wrong reasons. Which is why I think that while its important to understand the historical precedent behind racism in modern USA, we also need to remember that the racism today manifests differently from how racism used to manifest. Hence, its imperative to forge a new game plan in dealing with racism today instead of just mindlessly repeating what worked in the past. I think that this new plan is going to involve the internet at some point if it hasn't already, but I am eager to see what other creative solutions people come up with.

[Remy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-picks-exxonmobil-ceo-rex-tillerson-for-secretary-of-state/2016/12/12/23ce9c80-c0e3-11e6-897f-918837dae0ae_story.html?utm_term=.d130e6b01ce1

Quote

President-elect Donald Trump has picked as his secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, according to a senior official on the transition team.

Tillerson has worked extensively around the globe and built relationships with such leaders as Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

Tillerson’s nomination could face intense scrutiny in the Senate, considering his years of work in Russia and the Middle East on behalf of the multinational petroleum company. GOP advisers have warned that a growing number of Republican senators may be unwilling to vote to confirm Tillerson because of his ties to Russia.

What kind of deranged world do we live in where picking the head of a massive multinational oil company as Secretary of State isn't completely insane

[Patticus]

In a very few short months, the caliber and dignity of the Obama administration is going to be starkly apparent to all. Even now, Obama's polling is soaring, indicating that such a realization has been dawning on the American people for some time already. Either Trump is going to renege on enough of his promises, and handle the ones he keeps so cack-handedly, that he'll make all would-be outsider candidates un-electable for a generation, or he's going to do everything wrong and yet still be venerated as a Reagan-esque American hero.

The honeymoon needs to end rapidly, but with the Democrats about to be made leaderless, with the DNC leadership election not happening until March, and with no clear strategy in place to unite the party in opposition from day one (despite the valiant efforts of lone warriors like Warren and Sanders), the honeymoon is going to be at least a regular-sized one.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

39 minutes ago, Patticus said:

In a very few short months, the caliber and dignity of the Obama administration is going to be starkly apparent to all. Even now, Obama's polling is soaring, indicating that such a realization has been dawning on the American people for some time already.

Oh, now they're realizing it? For all the problems Obama's administration has had and caused, they're realizing that it wasn't as jacked up as the opposition tried to exaggerate it out to be?

Ha, that's a laugh. It's too fucking late for that at the moment, but bravo for coming to terms with it at the last. fucking. SECOND!

It's even more pathetic that the DNC is barely even trying to pick itself up after being defeated instead of trying to find a way to unite for this common threat. Doesn't matter who they want to blame for their loss, they need deal with it and move the fuck on to focus on trying to make a comeback if they want to mitigate the worst the Trump administration could cause. 

[KHCast]

2 hours ago, Remy said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-picks-exxonmobil-ceo-rex-tillerson-for-secretary-of-state/2016/12/12/23ce9c80-c0e3-11e6-897f-918837dae0ae_story.html?utm_term=.d130e6b01ce1

What kind of deranged world do we live in where picking the head of a massive multinational oil company as Secretary of State isn't completely insane

After the whole "Russia interfered with the election" shit, was it really a smart idea to hire a guy that's worked and made relations with Putin? Especially since Trump himself and his connections to Russia are already concerning?

On December 11, 2016 at 7:38 PM, Noelgilvie said:

Most likely. Maybe not for Clinton, but they might have opted to stay home or vote third party.

Presumably, the idea is that the actual Confederate flag represents the slavery-glorifying government, while the battle flag (which is now known as the Confederate flag) represents what the common man was fighting for.

Most Southerners weren't slave owners. They were duped into supporting the Confederacy on the idea that it would somehow benefit them against federal tyranny. They saw themselves as the reincarnation of the Continental Army: the rural masses fighting against decadent urban tyranny, blissfully ignoring the fact their leaders were all rich men.

Let's not pretend the Union forces were paragons of racial progressivism. Most Union soldiers believed the rhetoric about restoring the Union, and didn't care about slavery. Many Northerners, civilian and soldier, were irritated by the Emancipation Proclamation. Northerners tended to not like slavery, but they were still all too fond of white supremacy.

As for the people who fly it: it is natural that a racist would fly the flag, given what the Confederacy fought to uphold. At the same time, though, a person who isn't racist could find meaning in the flag, since most Southerners believed the concept of states' rights and were fighting for this idea, whether or not it enabled slavery be damned. This sounds odd, until one realizes the same treatment is given to the American flag; a lot of people venerate it as a symbol of liberty and all that good stuff, while there is a vocal minority who have a different view of it. Let's be real: the only reason the Confederate flag gets slammed more than the Union flag is because the Confederacy had a brief history that precluded it being recognized as anything more than "the nation that fought to protect slavery." Given the sheer amount of slavery protection provisions in the United States' founding document, this is a double standard caused by historical convenience.

Overall though, it comes down to the same question we ask of people who fought for the Axis in World War II. Are they able to still be respected for their service? Though they were enabling people like Hitler, many of them did not actually like him. Let's not forget the time the German Army tried to overthrow Hitler. We can find parallels with modern voters who back people like Trump; they may not have bigoted views themselves, but they will enable someone like him if they feel it will bring a net gain for the country.

This is coalition politics at work, I suppose. The very nature of loyalty to one's community entails tolerating less desirable leaders thereof, because going against them runs the risk of empowering outsiders. Reality isn't black and white. Racists, non-racists, and racial minorities inevitably find some sort of strange balance between themselves in a society, because the alternative is widespread conflict.

Oh yeah, I'm not trying to say the north wasn't racist, white superiority has never exactly ever been erased in any generation, and even in instances where "blacks rights mattered" there was always some concern more with how it benefited the white man.

Im just saying personally a flag more often than not /meant/ to represent a time where white supremacy was blatant and seen as the good thing being used still by people tends to have few actual legit reasons that weigh more than its actual purpose to justify why keeping it up loud and proud without offending people makes sense. That's where I see the difference compared to the American flag, which at its core wasn't exactly created with specific racial intentions. I rarely see fair reasons why someone has it up. Especially when blacks like me are around and questioning its presence. To me, it representing a time where your political ideal country was placed, doesn't outweigh the racism its heavily associated with and its foundations it was created under. People can have it up, sure that's their right, I'm not demanding it being illegal to raise, but I will question its purpose for being up if I see a friend proudly having it up ignoring or not caring enough to consider a large part of its history

[Tani Coyote]

4 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

It's even more pathetic that the DNC is barely even trying to pick itself up after being defeated instead of trying to find a way to unite for this common threat. Doesn't matter who they want to blame for their loss, they need deal with it and move the fuck on to focus on trying to make a comeback if they want to mitigate the worst the Trump administration could cause. 

At the end of the day, they're all capitalist sock puppets.

They don't care what happens to the common man, since most of them have the financial stability to weather whatever the Trump storm brings. They're in no rush to fix things.

The same way rich gays, blacks, etc. are able to proudly stand behind the GOP as a result of their wealth mitigating the negative effects the policies would have on them, Democratic politicians are able to take their sweet time opposing the GOP. They're not the ones who will be hurt by Trump policies.

Democrats are allies of convenience in the cause for long-term socioeconomic justice. Once the GOP's unsavory elements are defeated, the Democrats will take their place. At the end of the day, the Republican and Democratic leadership are both wealthy men in suits arguing about what the correct amount of property for the poorest segments of society to have is. They are not discussing whether or not the system itself should be changed.

[Patticus]

Newsweek has put out an article suggesting that Trump has already been compromised by a foreign government - and it isn't even Russia.

Quote

“Now Newsweek reports that Turkey has figured out how to turn that to their advantage and how to put the president of the United States over a barrel in the process,” Maddow explained.  “On December 1st, the top representative of the Doğan company, in Turkey’s capital city, got arrested by the Turkish police. Again, Trump as president-elect had taken an official call from the Turkish president and used that occasion to tell the Turkish president how much this one particular company meant to him, going so far as to name specific executives.”

According to Maddow, President Erdoğan had the founder of the Doğan Holding, as well as an executive arrested on “threadbare” charges that  both were involved in an attempted military coup that happened in turkey this past summer.

“Turkey desperately wants the U.S. government to extradite an imam [Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen],” Maddow explained. “They [the U.S.] have said that they are not extraditing him. But if that’s what you wanted, what if you could squeeze the personal financial interests of the American president as a way to get what you want from the American government?”

“I mean, the Trump family and the president-elect themselves, they stand to make millions of dollars from their relationship with the Doğan group in Turkey. That will stop if they get locked up,” she continued. “So they started locking them up. Nice leverage, right? it would be one thing if it was business leverage — but it’s leverage against all of us as Americans.”

Source.

Similarly to how corporations with US interests will now be able to obtain tax cuts and other benefits by falsely threatening to ship jobs overseas (or grossly exaggerating the numbers), foreign nations will now be able to threaten officials and operations from various companies Trump has close associations with, to get whatever they want from him. Russia is probably going to do this to keep the US from intervening in its next military adventure.
 

Meanwhile, Trump's popular vote loss has climbed to nearly 3 million.

Quote

The Republican is currently trailing Democrat rival Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million votes as the last remaining postal ballots are counted – despite him winning the November 8 election because of the Electoral College system.

That deficit is more than five times bigger than the 544,000 by which George W. Bush lost to Al Gore in 2000 - the second biggest popular vote deficit in history for a candidate who has still gone on to become President. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-lost-popular-vote-hillary-clinton-us-election-president-history-a7470116.html

[SenEDDtor Missile]

6 minutes ago, Patticus said:

Newsweek has put out an article suggesting that Trump has already been compromised by a foreign government - and it isn't even Russia.

Source.

Similarly to how corporations with US interests will now be able to obtain tax cuts and other benefits by falsely threatening to ship jobs overseas (or grossly exaggerating the numbers), foreign nations will now be able to threaten officials and operations from various companies Trump has close associations with, to get whatever they want from him. Russia is probably going to do this to keep the US from intervening in its next military adventure.

America's basically going to be everyone's b***h once Trump gets in power, isn't it?

[Patticus]

4 minutes ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

America's basically going to be everyone's b***h once Trump gets in power, isn't it?

Unless Trump decides he can afford to lose x, y or z interests, then yeah, for some countries it is.

[Tani Coyote]

From a few weeks back but I felt like sharing.

Careful there, Donald. You're starting to sound like a certain nominee who was far, far too overconfident in her victory.

Yes, you will have the incumbency advantage in 2020. On the other hand, your strong economic promises will be held against you, and your outsider status will no longer be a winning card. If your performance isn't spectacular, a Democrat who is popular and not saddled with baggage will give you a run for your money, especially if they aggressively campaign in the swing states that narrowly flipped to you.

[Nepenthe]

We're the same country that voted for the Bush administration twice. I have absolutely no confidence that people won't be like, "Yeah, coal jobs didn't come back, my insurance premiums are still going up, and there's been no meaningful reunification of the country, but those fucking Dems keep calling out white supremacy so I'll just vote against them again," and put Trump back in power again.