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U.S. Election Day, 2016


Callie

U.S. Presidential Election, 2016  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. Did you vote in the 2016 United States presidential election?

    • Yes
      24
    • No (not an American citizen)
      9
    • No (citizen, but not eligible)
      2
    • No (abstained)
      4
    • No (other)
      3
  2. 2. Whom did you vote for, or would have voted for, in the 2016 United States presidential election?

    • Hillary Clinton (Democratic)
      23
    • Donald Trump (Republican)
      8
    • Gary Johnson (Libertarian)
      1
    • Jill Stein (Green)
      2
    • Other
      3
    • Nobody
      2
    • Don't know
      3
  3. 3. What is your political affiliation in the U.S., or what would be your affiliation?

    • Democratic Party
      13
    • Republican Party
      6
    • Independent / Nonpartisan / Unaffiliated
      13
    • Libertarian Party
      1
    • Green Party
      1
    • Other
      3
    • Don't know
      5
  4. 4. Which of the following most closely matches your opinion of the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton?

    • Very Positive
      2
    • Somewhat Positive
      7
    • Neutral
      7
    • Somewhat Negative
      11
    • Very Negative
      15
    • Don't know
      0
  5. 5. Which of the following most closely matches your opinion of the Republican candidate Donald Trump?

    • Very Positive
      2
    • Somewhat Positive
      2
    • Neutral
      1
    • Somewhat Negative
      7
    • Very Negative
      30
    • Don't know
      0


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I didn't do a large amount of research into how much I liked Hilary, so for the most part she's neutral to me, overall a bit meh. Trump, however, ugh. Ever time I listen to him open his mouth it is like I can feel whatever shreds of respect for humanity and my fellow countrymen slipping away. Under no circumstances will I ever want someone like him to lead my country, so the choice was an obvious one for me. Perhaps if Trump wasn't....Trump, then I would have actually looked into the third part candidates for the first time, but I do not hate Hilary and I'm not willing to take away votes from her, so ya. That's my vote. (Then again I doubt it is much of a surprise to see someone form California voting for the Democratic nominee....)

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ok story time.

 

so in like may, neb, iffy, and i moved to ohio, from colorado.

 

we all did the exact same paperwork to register in ohio. we all had the same paperwork, same colorado licenses, same everything.

 

they both got back the cards saying everything was fine.

 

i got back a letter basically saying i was voter id law'ed and would not be voting.

 

literally the only thing different about us was that they were both nonaffiliated, and i switched to dem last year to caucus, and hadn't changed it back.

 

i'm not saying it's kasich's doing, but *tinfoil hat sounds*

Edited by sylae
dat insane swing state advertising tho
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I'm apparently the only person so far with a strongly positive view of Clinton.

 

She's a damn good politician. She has a comprehensive agenda that has a lot that I like. (Her chances of making that agenda happen are nil, like all presidential platforms, but she's aiming for the right goals.) She's not perfect, but she's very good.

 

—Alorael, who finds Trump alarming in a way that few serious presidential candidates have been. But plenty of ink and keystrokes have been spilled over that already.

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The fact that she is a damn good politician is ones of the reasons people have a negative view of her. She can fit most negative stereotypes without straining imagination. Plus, since i started paying attention to politics she has to be the most unrelatable democrat candidate. To no fault of her own, simply democrats rely on the votes of minorities to tilt the turnout. But, the fact that she can't relate to the poor, to ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, etc... Not that she doesn't try, a good part of her campaign was visiting the homes of her voter base. But she was in this aspect; born into the wrong family. She is trying and i think the ammount of effort she put into maintaining this campaign in spite of everything its commendable And by the end she had some sort of edge. That alone speaks of leadership skills.

I myself can't strongly mind what she does there. But i hold a bitter grudge against her, over Libya i dislike interventionist policies anywhere. The never lead to any good and with all admiration i have for her, i can't forgive that one. I hope she doesn't make the same mistake again. I was very fond of Libya.

 

But true trump is not even comparable. At one point i thought he was trolling with the election thing or just making a huge publicity stunt. By the time we found out it was for real it was already too late! The disease had spread. There was no way to contain. Only to remedy. *Exit act*

 

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protip: invest in companies like bnsf, union pacific, norfolk southern

 

stock prices will shoot right up once they get the contracts to ship all the queers and brown people that'll be herded into boxcars

Edited by sylae
kansas is a nice, central place for a concentration camp, right? and if you escape, you're stuck in kansas
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Dear Privileged People

 

Politics divorced from materialism doesn't work.

Real privilege is material privilege. If you're rich, you're privileged. If you're poor, you're not privileged. All those other invisible supernatural privileges are just a plutocrat scam, an academic circle-jerk.

You self-styled progressives don't give a damn about the material living conditions of the working class.

Newsflash: The working class doesn't give a damn about your silly hipster fads.

The real commies at least had one good idea: Everyone had a right and duty to work. We have the right to freeze to death in the street while classist hipsters pass by.

 

Having won the propaganda war, the corporate oligarchs sponsor only two kinds of politicians:

1. Classists and imperialists with a thin coating of political correctness.

2. Classists and imperialists with a thin coating of populism.

 

Enjoy your Drumpf.

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@Alex

 

You might want to actually talk to some of the "self-styled progressives". And maybe pay attention to their living conditions. It's not just straight white people who can't make ends meet; and seriously, if you think that money is the only form of privilege and independent of anything else, you are either in some serious denial or have been living in a cave your entire life.

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Friendly mod warning to all of us here: this thread is in danger of being locked. Let's please hold it to a higher standard of civility than the election had. There is more than enough bitter self-righteousness to go around at the moment. We don't need it here. Also, the code of conduct still applies: be friendly, including when speaking about broad groups of people. It's possible to be critical without being a jerk, and there are some worthwhile topics being brought up, so I hope we can manage that. Thanks.

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She's a damn good politician. She has a comprehensive agenda that has a lot that I like. (Her chances of making that agenda happen are nil, like all presidential platforms, but she's aiming for the right goals.) She's not perfect, but she's very good.

 

The thing is, if she were a damm good politician she would have won the election. Secretary Clinton is simply not a good enough communicator to be a damm good politician. Try comparing her to FDR or Reagan. They were both damm good politicians. They had many of the same politician "virtues" that Secretary Clinton had, but they could communicate so much better than she can.

 

As I consider my opinion and read other opinions of how she lost the election that she should have won, more and more it comes down to communication and likability. You can even call it charisma if you like, but while she may have it to her closest friends, she does not have it on the national stage. She could (and often did) present better plans, more thought out policies and was closer to factual (despite a level of personal corruption that would get any non-political appointee fired or jail time) than her opponent, and arguably won the three debates, but she couldn't make enough people like her.

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Quick diversion, anyone know why the disappointed smiley seems like a smirk in this website?

 

That being said; would people choose a "likeable" business man over a neurosurgeon to perform brain surgery? Some aspects of your personality you can't help, but skill and experience can, and those really matter.

 

Also, here's a comprehensive list of real commies:

-Possibly Jesus Christ.

-yah, thats it.

 

It is a common misconception that communism may actually be implemented. Real communism would see no need for a government. The people on their own would work for the gopd of all, on their own volition and will, and do the best they can. A good ideal but how many are willing to do so? And i mean without any hope of religious salvation. Do your best for its own sake or the sake of those around you. Not many that i know off.

 

Now if you mean socialism. You had the duty, not right to work, you had the right to housing and were forbidden to beg, you had the duty to be educated, serve on the military, etc.. now the work you have isn't always the one you want. Specially without higher education. Your housing might be a one bedroom houselet, with outdoors bathroom, that you have to share with 3 other families. Universities were highly competitive. It would take many generations of people that are honestly exploited until you have a society where each family has their own housing, being able to do what you want and have access to university without competition. And by the 80s well, things were looking better, but here's how you're mistaken on previledge being only money. For a given job, say chemical engineer, you're paid say 1000 rubles a month in Moscow as well as in Novosibirsk, however, you get cheaper goods in moscow, better services, hospitals and schools are better suplied, imported goods are more common, friends in high places are more accessible, you both would have a 3 bedroom apartment but one in Moscow is obviously worth more. Finally, ask any Russian how they feel about Muscovites, i think "classist hipsters" wouldn't be uncommon to hear. Being one myself i can assure you of that.

There is a reason the communist party has never won since democracy was installed.

 

 

Not to say all was bad. But not all was good

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Unfortunately like ability has become a necessary skill for a politician, just like it is for a salesperson. There is certainly plenty of room to doubt President-Elect Trump's skills and abilities as a businessperson. There is no room to doubt his ability is a salesperson. President Obama's resumee was very thin on accomplishments when he was elected, but his skills and abilities as a salesperson/community organizer were very good and his likability was good. Obviously I would prefer someone with more skills and abilities in many areas than either our current president or our president-elect, but here we are.

 

My educational background is in engineering. Nobody cares if the engineer in the back cubicle is like able or not, there just care about their skills. On the other hand, if that engineer is going to deal with the customer/public in any way shape or form, they need to learn to at least fake like ability. Just like the highly skill neurosurgeon needs to be able to learn to simulate at least a little bed side manner even if they are never going to do anything but surgery.

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It's hard to not feel this very personally, as a poor trans woman and left activist. So, my comments will remain brief.

 

Suffice to say, likeability is a crucial feature for a good president, even beyond just public appeal. The president is also the face of US diplomacy, after all, and no one can say that that doesn't require skill. The president also is the face of their political party, which means that they are instrumental in maintaining party discipline. In both of these applications, I think Clinton would have been far more skilled than Trump.

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People have been far too focused on prejudicial comments during Trump's campaign without considering why people actually voted for him. A lot of his voters do think he's unqualified and of poor temperament. The US once had a robust manufacturing economy and has since transitioned to a service economy, but that transition has left millions of people behind. Trump won in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and probably Michigan. Trump won the election because people are angry that the decades have gone by without much improvement for a large fraction of the populace. Both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to this. Both (Bill) Clinton and Obama have contributed to this. So-called welfare reform did not alleviate poverty. Trade deals have mostly benefited the corporate world. The Affordable Care Act has raised premiums without providing the public with universal health coverage. If you dismiss people's concerns as nothing more than bigotry, then you are indirectly supporting the likes of Donald Trump. I hope that members of the Democratic party and the left in general will see how neoliberalism, or the Third Way, has failed.

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So they elected a president whose companies have bought substandard merchandise from China, doesn't pay small American businesses for work they have done, and said in the third debate we need more regulation to make people like him do the right things.

 

Republicans will have no one left to blame now that they control the Presidency and Congress just like under the last Bush and it drove the country into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Trump has a long history of hiring incompetents to run his businesses into bankruptcies. Plus they must have failed to overseen the work if 60 times he refused to pay for shoddy workmanship. He'll fit into Washington with cost overruns and fraud for government projects.

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People have been far too focused on prejudicial comments during Trump's campaign without considering why people actually voted for him. A lot of his voters do think he's unqualified and of poor temperament. The US once had a robust manufacturing economy and has since transitioned to a service economy, but that transition has left millions of people behind. Trump won in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and probably Michigan. Trump won the election because people are angry that the decades have gone by without much improvement for a large fraction of the populace.

 

This actually isn't really the case.

 

“A major study from Gallup’s Jonathan Rothwell confirmed this. Trump support was correlated with higher, not lower, income, both among the population as a whole and among white people. Trump supporters were less likely to be unemployed or to have dropped out of the labor force. Areas with more manufacturing, or higher exposure to imports from China, were less likely to think favorably of Trump.”

 

“Even in the general election, while support for Trump is correlated most strongly with party ID, the second biggest factor, per the analysis of Hamilton College political scientist Philip Klinkner, was racial resentment. Economic pessimism and income level were statistically insignificant.”

 

Trump didn't win because he appealed to the disaffected poor- Clinton actually won more votes than Trump among the poor. He won because he appealed to the racial fears of the white majority that fears losing its majority.

 

If you dismiss people's concerns as nothing more than bigotry, then you are indirectly supporting the likes of Donald Trump.

 

There are real economic concerns. And Clinton wasn't tremendously better on them than Trump. They just aren't what decided this election. The problem, I think, is that it's very easy to use economic problems in combination with, or as a smokescreen for racial fears and insecurities: "the Mexicans are taking our jobs!" "China is taking all our manufacturing!" "Welfare queens!"

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Trump had a roughly average Republican turnout. Clinton received many fewer votes than Obama. You can dice the numbers a lot of ways, but it's reasonable to see this election as one where the parties appealed to the same people they always appeal to, but the Democrats didn't get their base to actually go out and vote.

 

—Alorael, who finds himself disheartened that more eligibile voters didn't vote at all than chose either candidate.

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I read a quote from someone on Facebook, I forget who, about voting: "Voting is a chess move, not a valentine." It doesn't matter if you don't like either candidate. You flipping vote or you shaft your fellow Americans out of pure petty sore-loserness. I adore Bernie Sanders and voted for him in the primary, but I voted for Clinton anyway in the general election.

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Forbes' take on the income correlation was that Clinton did better with both the rich and poor than Trump winning the middle class voters. It appears that Trump may have been the first Republican since Goldwater to loose the affluent vote. The concerns that Callie mentioned are not those of the poor, but those of the middle class.

 

As to the race piece, Trump surprised me by doing better among Hispanic voters then Romney did. At least according to Pew's numbers, the margin of whites voting for Trump was almost identical as those who voted for Romney. Clinton was unable to keep Obama's high margin for the democrats among hispanic and african-american voters.

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I read a quote from someone on Facebook, I forget who, about voting: "Voting is a chess move, not a valentine." It doesn't matter if you don't like either candidate. You flipping vote or you shaft your fellow Americans out of pure petty sore-loserness. I adore Bernie Sanders and voted for him in the primary, but I voted for Clinton anyway in the general election.

 

there are reasons for political abstention beyond childish character flaws

 

that you universally assign those you disagree with childish character flaws indicates a childish character flaw on your part

 

as usual, blaming third parties or insufficiently supportive party members or those not willing to play along with the ideal power schemes of organizations they don't agree with is an excuse for establishmentarians to avoid self-reflection and real revision of their strategies, power structures, and viewpoints.

 

citizens are not obligated to support their rulers. would-be rulers are obligated to entice citizens to support them. if they fail to do so, it is they who have failed, not those they failed to convince.

 

if you keep voting for a party that doesn't adequately represent you, get used to not being adequately represented, cuz they have no reason to change anything.

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there are reasons for political abstention beyond childish character flaws

 

that you universally assign those you disagree with childish character flaws indicates a childish character flaw on your part

 

The Amish generally don't vote because, since the President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, they feel it would contradict their pacifism and conscientious objection, and make them complicit in war.

 

I don't necessarily agree with their choice but I can see and respect the logic behind it.

 

I think it's disappointing that Obama proved to be an outlier in terms of voter turnout rather than the sign of a trend towards greater, broader participation.

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Political abstention isn't childish. It is a form of protest all should have the right to choose the person they want to lead them. In case that person isn't there of course you vote for no one rather than settling for less. I think this time would be the exception. Not because i don't believe in the right to self determination simply because one of the candidates is a possible severe threat to human rights, specially since he has legislative, executive and judicial powers with him. Not really a matter of being childish or not, but for once those elections shouldn't have been about choosing what is best, but at all costs avoiding the worse. So, while shaming people over that is pointless and unhelpful. Those votes would have made a difference.

 

 

On manufacturing x service economy. A service economy has need of qualified workers. So it is true the shift affected the poor. Specially since higher education is outrageously expensive over there. However to think trump might change it is myopic. American legal labour is too expensive. Much easier to move the manufacturing to India and China or the likes, minimum wage is lower, law enforcement on worker rights is less vigilant and crippling. Etc... And while services are generally required to be of quality; goods have less strict vigilance. So, if that is the main reason people voted for him, they have been very misguided. Specially as he himself is a business man and better than most understands that American labour is expensive.

 

Also idk why the middle class voted for trump. An average middle class person can't afford dialysis. But free healthcare would sort that out. Much better than health insurance which will try it's best not to pay(which also, btw, isn't free). An average middle class person has the need to educate their kids/themselves. Which well, at least to me, is unaffordable over there. So huge loans, long savings or painful payments are the only way to ensure that. While i doubt you'd get free education; government subsidised education would significantly help. I expect 50% would help out most the population. Paying taxes may feel painful, may be complicated, but it completely baffles me how people take it as just lost money.

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This is the second time the electoral college gave the presidency to the candidate that got fewer popular votes in my lifetime. The first was back in 2000 when they gave it George W Bush. We really need to make it so the person that gets the most votes becomes president. Yet I can't help but wonder, If Bernie Sanders had won the primary, could he have beaten trump?

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Yet I can't help but wonder, If Bernie Sanders had won the primary, could he have beaten trump?

 

back in the primary, if you look at the "[sanders|clinton] v. trump" polling, bernie was destroying trump, and hillary was losing or barely ahead (edit: source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/29/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-he-polls-better-against-donald/ not as bad for h-dawg but still a pretty big difference)

 

but what do i know, i'm just a salty sanders supporter yelling "i told you so" while the world around me goes to hell. today, for instance, one of my coworkers was verbally attacked by a guest today because of her skin color. but hey, by the time HRT makes it so i can't pass as not-trans, trump will be inaugurated, so that'll be fun.

Edited by sylae
new plan: hide at home until 2020.
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Yeezzy for president 2020!

 

Ok, but in all seriousness, if not done already try to legally change your name asap before the handover goes in effect. If possible move out of your hometown to somewhere where no one knows you're trans. There is no tattoo on anyone's head saying "im trans" no one can just guess. Keep safe folks.

Also; very important, get a passport and get information on visa deals USA has with other countries. Just in case worst comes to worst.

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I didn't say it was childish. Most of the American children I know wish they had been allowed to vote against Trump.

 

I'd rather say it's cowardice. Not abstention, but abdication, a desertion of one's fellow citizens due to being too afraid of accepting for themselves (it's a secret ballot) that they made a tough choice that might possibly have a negative impact, and it doesn't matter if the world is worse for their cowardice, as long as they can pretend they weren't part of the democracy they live in.

 

Abdication is never about "protesting" because a protest has to be visible to others to have any impact, and when you vote, as far as anyone knows (and you can lie about this or refuse to discuss it) you only voted to give the pigs some leg room in their cages on the ballot questions.

 

Some countries make voting mandatory like jury duty, escapable only by being incapable of doing it with a doctor's note. I think America needs to go this route.

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Not smart. if enough people don't vote there has to be a re run with different candidates. I think most countries need at least a 30% voter turnout. And that enforces democracy.

 

 

Good point, but as an alternative to needing 71% of the population to stay home, include, for each race (President, Senator, School Council, etc.), a checkbox. You are required to vote for every race and question, but you are also allowed to select the "I object to all candidates" box, to show that while you made a decision about which candidate is best, you still don't even want them. Should the box be checked enough times, then the election is conducted again, but you are still required to make a decision in case the threshold is not crossed.

 

The mandated vote will be enforced with a scanner machine. You scan your ballot, and it spits it back out if you did not complete it. To protect the institution of the secret ballot, this is not recorded and your name is not associated with the results of the machine, and the ballots are still counted by hand. Nobody knows how you voted but they do know whether you have actually voted.

 

EDIT: Or perhaps the scans are recorded anonymously and shuffled to prevent associating the vote with the voter, in order to verify that the machines are working and have not been tampered with.

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"everyone that doesn't do what i have decided is best for them to do is a coward and they must be forced to do what i want them to, because it's better."

 

using force to compel people to political action is: bad.

 

refusing to participate in a system that quite deliberately has no place for you is a real and valuable position.

 

refusing to legitimize the functions of a state that has no interest in your priorities is a real and valuable position.

 

refusing to throw in with groups that want you as a manipulable, unquestioning source of power and nothing else is a real and valuable position.

 

refusing to engage with a political system that is bent in every way towards continued domination by the venal and power-hungry is a real and valuable position.

 

there will always be something dreadfully important at stake in some election or other. there will never be a safe time to break ranks. cowardice is clinging to those you know are wrong because you're too afraid of going without and facing the consequences. too afraid to accept systemic failure as a compulsion towards systemic improvement.

 

fear of the opposition, fear of the future, fear of what you'd do without them, and fear of your own weakness are known tools of both ruling parties. to succumb to them is cowardice. if all a candidate ever needs to be is marginally better than someone they are only too happy you help you villianize, then that's all they'll ever be and those are the only leaders you'll ever have. but no, keep feeding the lesser evil. wouldn't you rather be sacrificed to thor than to ba'al ammon?

 

voting is visible. it is undeniably visible: it determines who wins an election. those who need voters -notice- when people don't vote for them, a lot more than they care to notice demonstrations. demonstrations don't cost them power like voting costs them power.

 

starve power at the root.

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There's already been one mod post in this thread reminding people to stay friendly, and it doesn't seem to have worked very well. I really, really don't want to have to lock this thread, but that's the direction it's going in if people can't dial it back and stop implicitly calling each other cowards for disagreeing with each other.

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to be clear: i wasn't trying to suggest that voting for anything less than my personal ideal is cowardice, i was saying that for me to do what ADoS suggested would be cowardice on my part. vote with your conscience. there is space between good enough and ideal. but that space is an individual determination. whether or not to vote is as much an individual determination as who to vote for, and neither should be compelled.

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I didn't vote for Donald or Mrs. Clinton. I voted for a third-party candidate because I thought both Donald and Mrs. Clinton were horribly unqualified. What disappoints me in this thread is the uncharitable-ness and lack of empathy shown toward people who did vote for Donald.

 

How many Donald voters do you know personally? I know a lot. They are people I went to school with years ago. They are people I've gone to church with. They are good friends and people I respect. Let me emphasize something: I think they were wrong to vote for Donald! (I was one of those conservative "#NeverTrumpers" that Breitbart and Fox and Han Seannity spent so much time reviling for supposedly handing the election to Mrs. Clinton. Look how that turned out.) I spent many, many hours over this past year trying to talk various friends and acquaintances out of voting for Donald. I also spent that time listening to them and their reasons for voting for Donald. And I'd like to think I know these people well enough to say that NONE of them voted for Donald because they are misogynists, or white supremacists, or any other kind of bigot. Many of them are actually some of the kindest people you'll ever meet. They weren't using coded language and dog whistles to disguise their virulent hatred of women or non-whites or whoever. I think they were mistaken to vote for Donald and I tried my best to convince them not to do so.

 

Some of the people who voted for Donald are legitimately awful people. But a great many of them aren't. They made a bad choice (voting for Donald) because of any of number of different reasons, none of which involved hate. Please don't everyone who voted for him into the "alt-right" fringe. Don't legitimize a fringe minority by assuming Donald voters are all white supremacists (or any kind of bigot). I understand that it's hard, when you are hurting or scared, to stop and say "Oh, I need to be empathetic to people who voted for Trump." But please try. Get to know them, develop relationships with them, and come to understand them better. You'll find they are not your enemies! Don't think of these people as your enemies unnecessarily. The truth is that a lot of people who voted for Donald were as terrified of Mrs. Clinton as you are terrified of Donald. And not because of racism, but because they were convinced she was going to take away all guns, or close down churches, or mishandle foreign policy so badly the country would get destroyed by foreign enemies, or...or... Are those fears entirely reasonable? NO! But if you lump all Donald's voters into that big ol' "basket of deplorables," you're setting yourself think a lot more people are your enemy than is really case.

 

There's a maxim about not attributing something to malice when stupidity will do. That kind of applies here, although I think it was more stupiditiy + fear / anger / etc.

 

I don't want this to come across merely as a rebuke. I hope this can be encouraging. I can't tell you to feel better Donald because he truly is an arrogant, greedy, corrupt liar. I'm sad that he's been exalted to the highest office in the land. But a lot of his voters aren't nearly so bad as you might think based just on the fact that they voted for him. Try not to delegitimize that their feelings and concerns as a simple matter of racist white folks.

 

Thanks for listening.

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On the haters' side triumph, that mistake whatever reason it had to be. May cost a lot of people a lot. Not to be dramatic but people actually killed themselves rather than to face the very unsure future ahead of them, millions will lose rights and services, in consequence some might lose their lives. Not only that but the social effect of having trump as president is actually alt right people feeling more comfortable with their views(i've seen it happen, e.g. russia was walking slowly toward acceptance of the lgbt community, but when the bill was passed, there was a spike in hate crimes against all minorities, and its still going on to now, the more it lasts the more people accept it as status quo and discrimination becomes normalised), so in a way the agressive hate might help surpress that. I might empathise with someone that made a mistake but i am entitled to hate if that mistake costs me a leg. Of course i'll hate you more if you did it on purpose. But your not doing it on purpose wont get me my leg back

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You are "entitled to hate" if someone's actions hurt you? No. No one ever is entitled to hate others. Hatred of those who hurt you will only move them to fear you, and so the downward spiral will continue. Forgiveness is the answer. Forgiving is HARD. I know from experience. But justifying hatred, clinging to hate, is even worse, in the long run. It hurts you, keeps you from healing inside. Please don't give in to hate.

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I don't give in to hate, luckily i almost always have a choice. And i never said hatred is the best option, life is complicated enough without it. i said they are entitled/justified in the hatred. Which they are. And i really hope you get to understand that. In any case, by now its too soon maybe to ask people to forgive. No shade but i doubt not alt right trump supporters regret their actions yet. Same as if you make a mistake in real life, first you gotta know you did it, then you must at least feel bad for it, then ask for forgiveness, then never do it again/begin reparations, the last parts are in no particular order. And even then it is justifiable not to forgive. Besides its not like humans are known for their huge control over their feelings. Even if as you said they hurt them. Might as well tell a depressed person to snap out of ut. Sometimes even when you try even if you want. You can't.

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if we're making voting mandatory, we might as well go all the way and "simplify" the ballot for citizens by providing them with a single party to vote for

 

if you want to get people to vote, maybe fix the underlying system's problems (why are we using the electoral college and fptp) instead of forcing people to participate in the theater when they'd rather not

 

also are you really calling people who said "hey, i'd like a third choice rather than choosing between a hugely corrupt turd in existence and this sentient demon-possessed cheeto" cowards or is that just people who didn't (or couldn't?) vote

Edited by sylae
oh hey there's a page two where everything i was trying to say has been said, better than i have said it, this is awkward
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This election is the third in four for the Democrats. Three of their last four candidates lost a very, very close election. In each case, the candidate was a "safe" choice: an extreme moderate, well-connected in Washington, the preferred choice of the party elite. And in each case (slightly less so in 2004) the candidate was criticized by some (not all) as being boring, hard to relate to, or "robotic."

 

What happened to Hillary should not have been such a big surprise. Yes, the polling was off; but even before the Republicans had settled on a nominee, a majority of Democrats were utterly convinced that Hillary was the most electable choice.

 

And maybe she was: Bernie and the other candidates are not without their weak points. We'll never know what would have happened with a different candidate. What we do know is that the party -- a majority of primary voters, and an even stronger majority of the party elite -- were hugely overconfident in what they could accomplish by cleaving to the conservative, unexciting New Democrat path. Thanks, Obama -- you were so good at giving speeches, and so new to the world of politics, you made it same like anyone could succeed with that ideology.

 

All of this is just to say: when you pick a candidate like that, and you fail to adjust your campaign significantly to account for the huge chunk of the primary electorate that didn't support your candidate in the first place -- it really shouldn't be a surprise that you fail to excite your base, and fail to turn them out to vote. I find it ridiculous to then turn around and criticize the voters whose best interests the party is going out of their way not to serve, for not voting or for going third party. You want their votes? Give them something to vote for.

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