What Have You Jackasses Done...

[Jurgis]

You know - for this to be the case you have to believe at least on of the following:

 

(1) He actually didn't mean most of the things he said

(2) He has an actual realistic plan and policies that make sense

(3) He will appoint advisers that are competent and let them get on with things without interfering

(4) Institutions are strong enough in the US to withstand populism and to rein in any ill-conceived policies

 

... It is on the last point that I'm particularly worried, having seen how populism and corruption ultimately eat away at the foundation of a society and eventually kill democracy. So I really hope that won't be the case here. Sadly, if you look across the world, precedent is against it and even though the US is built on the idea of exceptionalism, I am worried.

 

Great post. +1.

[Jurgis]

From Nate Silver:

We expect that Trump will eventually finish with about 47 percent of the popular vote which, if he wins the Electoral College, would be the lowest vote share for a president-elect since Bill Clinton in 1992 (43 percent).

Are the electoral votes binding?

 

That is actually a fascinating question.  In this United States' history there have been, I believe 157, so-called "Faithless Electors" - meaning Electors who vote for a candidate in the Electoral College that won their state.  Of those Faithless Electors more than half have been due to the death of the POTUS/VPOTUS candidate that won their state prior to the date of the Electoral College vote - so there have actually been about 70 "True Faithless Electors."  The Faithless Electors have never impacted who was elected but in 1836, 23 True Faithless Electors from Virginia refused to vote for Richard Mentor Johnson, the presumed VP elect, so the United States Senate eventually had to elect Johnson VP itself.  In response to the Faithless Elector phenomenon, approx. 30 states have based so-called Binding Laws - which hold that an elector must vote for the winners of the state (or congressional district in the case of Nebraska or Maine) which they represent.  Some have claimed that Binding Laws are unconstitutional and electors can "vote their conscious."  BUT a 1952 SCOTUS case called Ray v. Blair upheld that Constitutional validity of Binding Laws.  With that said, can you guess how many Faithless Electors have been charged with a crime under Binding Laws?  Go ahead and guess...

 

The gap is too wide I think (though final results not there yet?) for faithless electors to have impact.

 

And if they did, Trump and right would revolt like heck. For future of democracy in US, unfortunately it's probably better that electors did not bolt.

[Jurgis]

I have a question for anyone here.  We have a president Trump in power come January. 

 

The party banner he ran under was as a Republican but, they didn't do a good job supporting him. 

 

He is the president now, but he is sort of, maybe, also a republican.  We have two chambers of the house that are Republican controlled at the moment.  I am not seeing an easy pass for The house or the senate with a President Trump.  If anything, I see the opposite unfolding. 

 

Thoughts.

 

Edit: Now I know what I am getting at.  The US just elected an independent, not a republican.

 

Yes, maybe, who knows. We don't really know what Trump will try to do. In some cases he might have Rep support, in others no.

[hyten1]

its not my quote, i read it, its from peter theil i think

 

"fyi, i thought this observation was salient:

 

the media takes trump literally but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously but not literally"

 

+1 Hyten1

 

By the way, Nelson Peltz mentioned that exact same quote at lunch time on CNBC... Any connection?

 

Cardboard

[randomep]

It's never a good idea to underestimate the USA.

 

Most comments here either confirm or cause me to disgree. But this comment is a real eye-opener.

[rb]

It's never a good idea to underestimate the USA.

 

Most comments here either confirm or cause me to disgree. But this comment is a real eye-opener.

I don't even know what that means. The reason the whole world is in shock today is because they're not underestimating the USA.

[randomep]

i think we should stop calling names ... even though donald does it.

 

instead, think of why someone would vote for donald, its not simply because they are stupid/racist/sexist, i am sure some of them are stupid/racist/sexist just like i am sure some hillary voters are stupid/racist/sexist.

 

 

 

...down there. 

 

Really!  You're taking this all the way?!  Wake up stupid...wake up! 

 

Finally America has become one big reality show!  Even PT Barnum as President would make some sense!

 

Cheers!

 

I will offer one explanation I think is a big reason, it is name calling it isn't even an insult.

 

A lot of white people see a black man run the country for 8 years, and now, an unpopular woman?  These people want to take their country back.

 

It isn't really what I think is racisim, it is just looking after their own.  All races look after their own.

[NBL0303]

From Nate Silver:

We expect that Trump will eventually finish with about 47 percent of the popular vote which, if he wins the Electoral College, would be the lowest vote share for a president-elect since Bill Clinton in 1992 (43 percent).

Are the electoral votes binding?

 

That is actually a fascinating question.  In this United States' history there have been, I believe 157, so-called "Faithless Electors" - meaning Electors who vote for a candidate in the Electoral College that won their state.  Of those Faithless Electors more than half have been due to the death of the POTUS/VPOTUS candidate that won their state prior to the date of the Electoral College vote - so there have actually been about 70 "True Faithless Electors."  The Faithless Electors have never impacted who was elected but in 1836, 23 True Faithless Electors from Virginia refused to vote for Richard Mentor Johnson, the presumed VP elect, so the United States Senate eventually had to elect Johnson VP itself.  In response to the Faithless Elector phenomenon, approx. 30 states have based so-called Binding Laws - which hold that an elector must vote for the winners of the state (or congressional district in the case of Nebraska or Maine) which they represent.  Some have claimed that Binding Laws are unconstitutional and electors can "vote their conscious."  BUT a 1952 SCOTUS case called Ray v. Blair upheld that Constitutional validity of Binding Laws.  With that said, can you guess how many Faithless Electors have been charged with a crime under Binding Laws?  Go ahead and guess...

 

The gap is too wide I think (though final results not there yet?) for faithless electors to have impact.

 

And if they did, Trump and right would revolt like heck. For future of democracy in US, unfortunately it's probably better that electors did not bolt.

 

I agree completely, sorry I should have said that is not going to happen in this case.  I was just answering that question because it is an interesting topic and sort of piece of political trivia but you are completely right - it is approaching it is such a near-zero chance in this case you can safely say faithless electors will not impact who our POTUS/VPOTUS will be on Jan 21 2017.

[SharperDingaan]

Couple of thoughts here ..

 

There a millions of people in the US, and the UK (Brexit), who are not seeing the benefits of globalization and trade. They see the 1% taking all the benefit, their own economic lives getting worse, and those of their children becoming even worse than their own (ie: precarious work). The current 'system' isn't serving them, they are a material portion of the population, and they feel they have nothing to lose by going with the wrecking ball. Good on them - for having the courage to back their conviction.

 

We have repeated examples of elites in the US and the UK, clearly out of touch with the populations that tolerate them; and media unable to pick up on major change. A few hard swings of the wrecking ball through these elites, would very likely do the collective health of all of us - a great deal of good. 

 

We are entering a period of rapid change; where today's elites can only lose, and the impoverished can only win. The days of C-Suite staff making well over 25x that of the minimum wage janitor, and societal bailouts (ie: banking) of the elites, are rapidly coming to an end.

 

SD

 

 

   

     

[Jurgis]

There a millions of people in the US, and the UK (Brexit), who are not seeing the benefits of globalization and trade.

 

They think they are not seeing the benefits. Wait until the products they buy rise in price 2x because of trade war with China.

 

The days of C-Suite staff making well over 25x that of the minimum wage janitor, and societal bailouts (ie: banking) of the elites, are rapidly coming to an end.   

 

If only this was true. The likely outcome of Trump presidency is actually more income inequality and benefits to 1%. For poor people to think that Trump is their guy and what just happened is "revolution" (like some commentators said) is likely total delusion.

[Ballinvarosig Investors]

[rkbabang]

Just think.  In four years Hillary will run against Trump again and we can have a repeat of this whole election season!  What fun.

 

[wachtwoord]

Just think.  In four years Hillary will run against Trump again and we can have a repeat of this whole election season!  What fun.

 

She cant run with a criminal record can she?

[rb]

Just think.  In four years Hillary will run against Trump again and we can have a repeat of this whole election season!  What fun.

No way, after this you have the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Democratic Party. You're not gonna get a center candidate.

[randomep]

It's never a good idea to underestimate the USA.

 

Most comments here either confirm or cause me to disgree. But this comment is a real eye-opener.

I don't even know what that means. The reason the whole world is in shock today is because they're not underestimating the USA.

 

I don't understand what you don't understand. The OP was thinking of something and I am probably thinking of something similar.  You don't know what we are thinking.

 

Just read post #79 and see if the statement makes sense.

 

[rkbabang]

Just think.  In four years Hillary will run against Trump again and we can have a repeat of this whole election season!  What fun.

No way, after this you have the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Democratic Party. You're not gonna get a center candidate.

 

I was kidding obviously, just her age will probably stop her (if her health problems and/or being in jail don't).  But unless Trump does something horrible, the Democrats moving even further left is going to guarantee him another term.  The Democrats need to find someone centrist on taxes & guns, who at least talks about peace the way Obama did in 2008, and of course doesn't have the Clinton baggage.  Then they will have a chance of unseating him.

 

[rb]

Maybe. But DT not doing something stupid is a big IF. Also someone posted turnout numbers. Turnout down a lot for Dems and lots of really close races. If u get higher turnout could have easily tipped the other way. Anyway, let's not start talking about 2020 yet. I think everyone deserves a break.

[LongHaul]

Troubling news, for sure.

 

The most powerful man in the world is someone of low character and integrity, an anti-vaxxer, global warming denier, science illiterate, conspiracy theorist who said he'd attack the first amendment, global trade, and suggested banning people based on their religion and deporting millions of others. He's been caught on tape bragging about sexual assault and at least a dozen women confirmed it. He's so thinned skinned that he gets in multi-year feuds with people about the most meaningless things. He's completely entangled in conflicts of interests and doesn't apparently even know what a blind trust is, and his finances are still entirely opaque. He's been caught lying on camera countless times and then many times saying that he never said the things he said. His total lack of shame and ability to say basically anything and seem to mean it make me suspect sociopathy. The people from his party who were of any moral character and integrity didn't support him, so you know he's not going to forget that; meaning that he'll surround himself with those who lacked the backbone to stand up to him. We now have a salesman in chief who's obvious hunger for power and fame certainly won't get better; you don't treat narcissism by being elected to the oval office.

 

I sure hope he proves me wrong and governs well, but even if he does, he's still not someone I'd want to run my kid's school or be my wife's boss, so how can he be a good pick to run the executive branch of the most powerful country in the world?

 

2016 is such a surreal year.

 

 

+1 Great post liberty.   

[rkbabang]

let's not start talking about 2020 yet. I think everyone deserves a break.

 

I agree there.

 

[whiterose]

I agree completely, sorry I should have said that is not going to happen in this case.  I was just answering that question because it is an interesting topic and sort of piece of political trivia but you are completely right - it is approaching it is such a near-zero chance in this case you can safely say faithless electors will not impact who our POTUS/VPOTUS will be on Jan 21 2017.

 

@NBL0303: thanks for the insight.

[augustabound]

If only this was true. The likely outcome of Trump presidency is actually more income inequality and benefits to 1%. For poor people to think that Trump is their guy and what just happened is "revolution" (like some commentators said) is likely total delusion.

Exactly my thoughts. This whole notion of middle class America being better off under Trump is laughable.

 

This is a guy who's lived a lavish lifestyle boasting about his wealth. He couldn't care less about the other 99%.

It all comes down to who he is surrounded by and how much or little influence they have over him.

[Kapitalust]

I thought this article provided very good insight on the election: Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit

 

Some quotes I found interesting:

 

Far more significant is what this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated: someone who — when she wasn’t dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants who gave million-dollar checks — spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic Party as corrupt, status-quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed industries.

 

It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate. But, just as Obama did so powerfully in 2008, he could credibly run as an enemy of the D.C. and Wall Street system that has steamrolled over so many people, while Hillary Clinton is its loyal guardian, its consummate beneficiary.

 

Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate (for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to more efficiently manage it. That, as Matt Stoller’s indispensable article in the Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically proficient, mildly benevolent managers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted.

 

People often talk about “racism/sexism/xenophobia” v. “economic suffering” as if they are totally distinct dichotomies. Of course there are substantial elements of both in Trump’s voting base, but the two categories are inextricably linked: the more economic suffering people endure, the angrier and more bitter they get, the easier it is to direct their anger to scapegoats. Economic suffering often fuels ugly bigotry. It is true that many Trump voters are relatively well-off and that many of the nation’s poorest voted for Clinton, but, as Michael Moore quite presciently warned, those portions of the country that have been most ravaged by free trade orgies and globalism — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa — were filled with rage and “see [Trump] as a chance to be the human Molotov cocktail that they’d like to throw into the system to blow it up.” Those are the places that were decisive in Trump’s victory.

[RichardGibbons]

We are entering a period of rapid change; where today's elites can only lose, and the impoverished can only win. The days of C-Suite staff making well over 25x that of the minimum wage janitor, and societal bailouts (ie: banking) of the elites, are rapidly coming to an end.

 

I'm curious about what you mean by this.  Like, are you suggesting that Trump and the Republican Congress and Senate will reverse this inequality?  Or that they'll mess up so badly that a Bernie Sanders socialist type will be elected (making the pendulum swing way too far to the left)?  Or do you mean it in more of a hand-wavy way, like "This election shows the people are furious, and something going to change.  I'm not sure how it will happen, but it will."  Just curious what was in your head as you were writing this.

 

(I think I mostly agree, but I'm in the hand-wavy camp.  I don't see an easy path from where we are now to what you suggest, and that worries me greatly.)

[Liberty]

If only this was true. The likely outcome of Trump presidency is actually more income inequality and benefits to 1%. For poor people to think that Trump is their guy and what just happened is "revolution" (like some commentators said) is likely total delusion.

Exactly my thoughts. This whole notion of middle class America being better off under Trump is laughable.

 

This is a guy who's lived a lavish lifestyle boasting about his wealth. He couldn't care less about the other 99%.

It all comes down to who he is surrounded by and how much or little influence they have over him.

 

He's a salesman. He knows how to persuade people, and he's been building a recognizable brand for "success" all his life. He figured out what to say to sell his brand to a large block of voters, and he couldn't have done it before the electronic communication era because of his mastery of both the most powerful mediums (television and the internet). Now let's see what he'll actually do with power, because it's not entirely clear what he actually wants to do when he's not in sales pitch mode (not like he spent the last 6 decades of his life hanging out with coal miners and empathizing with blue collar workers.. from a golden throne in his private plane).

 

One thing that certain people seem to be confused about: Being elected doesn't erase the things he's said and done or make him a better person.

 

And failing to predict this election doesn't mean that you are wrong about his character (I was never really in the prediction game, I just talked about what I found alarming about him, and one of the things that scared me was that I did think he had a chance--otherwise it wouldn't have mattered).

 

The people who seem to think that being elected is a full vindication of Trump and everything he stands for certainly didn't seem to believe that winning an election meant that when people they didn't like were elected in the past (Obama, Bush, Bill Clinton, Reagan, Carter, freaking Hoover, whatever)...

[Jurgis]

@post_election_articles: A lot of the articles that people post and like are just post-factum rationalizations of what happened. It's the same as the rationalizations of why Obama won and Reps lost in 2008/2012: they have some kernels of truth, but huge dose of fitting verbiage into what happened. There's gonna be more of this in coming days and weeks. But like announcements that "Republican party is dead" in 2008 were a bunch of rationalizing crap, announcements that "Democratic party is disconnected from voters, elitist, etc. whatever, dead" is also a bunch of rationalizing crap. Just as a reminder Clinton (probably) got victory in popular vote (and even if she did not, she came close) and Dems still have close to 50% of Congress and Senate. And Reps in Congress/Senate are mostly party-line. This is not a revolution. This is not death of Democratic party, etc.

 

Trump also won while running pretty much against all Rep post-mortem analysis from 2008/2012. I'm not saying that post-mortem of Dem loss is worthless, but it might not be worth as much as people presume.