[onoway]

Isn't it ironic that almost everyone including me thought that the Republican Party was a smoking pile of rubble after the idiocies of the past and this election and the games around threatening to shut down the government by refusing to approve funding etc., now it turns out the Democrats are the ones in total disarray and in need of resurrection. Who'd have thought. The only one who got it right was the guy whose record for predicting presidential wins continues unblemished.

An article which several people have sent to me recently shows a younger Trump saying that if he ever ran for office he'd run for the Republicans because they were so dumb he could lie to them and they'd still vote for him. He did and they did. Maybe he's smarter than I thought.

[helene_t]

 onoway, on 2016-November-10, 16:34, said:

An article which several people have sent to me recently shows a younger Trump saying that if he ever ran for office he'd run for the Republicans because they were so dumb he could lie to them and they'd still vote for him. He did and they did. Maybe he's smarter than I thought.

yeah that is a hoax. I get it in my newsfeed several times per day also. http://www.snopes.co...p-people-quote/

I don't understand why people post Trump hoaxes. One would think that he has said and done enough outrageous things and that hoaxes should not be necessary. Maybe they are made by Trump supporters who want to discredit the stream of genuine outrageous Trump quotes?

[cloa513]

 onoway, on 2016-November-10, 16:34, said:

Isn't it ironic that almost everyone including me thought that the Republican Party was a smoking pile of rubble after the idiocies of the past and this election and the games around threatening to shut down the government by refusing to approve funding etc., now it turns out the Democrats are the ones in total disarray and in need of resurrection. Who'd have thought. The only one who got it right was the guy whose record for predicting presidential wins continues unblemished.

An article which several people have sent to me recently shows a younger Trump saying that if he ever ran for office he'd run for the Republicans because they were so dumb he could lie to them and they'd still vote for him. He did and they did. Maybe he's smarter than I thought.

They are both in a mess. The Republicans rejected their own now winning candidate such Ryan Speaker of the House. I can expect some serious Trump payback to Republicans.

[cherdano]

 cherdano, on 2016-November-10, 08:38, said:

Just one more because this trope really annoys, as it is completely contrary to any facts.

Why do you think the stocks of Goldmann Sachs and similar companies jumped up after Trump got elected, contrary to the overall market? Because Republicans want to deregulate Wall Street (repeal Dodd Frank etc.) while Hillary had stricter regulations.

http://www.vox.com/p...cial-regulation

Trump Wants to Let Wall Street Scam Customers Again Because of Course He Does

Trump is planning to reverse the "fiduciary rule" that says that pension advisers have to give advice in the interest of the customer, instead of trying to get them to buy high fee investments where their bank gets a higher provision.

[rmnka447]

 helene_t, on 2016-November-10, 06:39, said:

A few random thoughts:

- The pollers didn't really get it wrong. As 538 notes, if you move 1% of the valid votes from Trump to Clinton (which is within the normal error margin of polls), Clinton would have won comfortably and the polls would have gotten all states bar NC right.
- The narrative that floods my facebook news feed is all kinds of generalizations of Americans, white Americans, old Americans, Working class Americans, American men. But within all these segments there is room for considerable disagreement. About half would vote for Trump and about half for Clinton, somewhat more in some segments than in others. Largely as expected. The differences between segments might in some ways be a bit bigger than usual. Anyway, a 1% deviation from the forecasts, while hugely significant in terms of political consequences, doesn't really justify a completely reversed narrative about the zeitgeist or of the mental health of Americans in general.
- For someone like me who never watches TV and very rarely clicks on a political video link on the internet, it feels incomprehensible that so many would consider Trump more trustworthy than Clinton. But maybe it is understandable considering that most voters will make there assessment largely based on TV. I have only seen Hillary a couple of times on video so it doesn't have that much influence on my opinion about her, but the little I have seen looks like fake smiles. The kind of facial expression that wouldn't pass a lie detector. If I place myself in the shoes of someone who suspects NYT of being about as biased as Fox News, and spends a lot more time watching politics on TV than reading about politics, then it is maybe not so surprising.

Lovely post, Helene_t.

Part of the distress and anxiety that some of the more progressive/liberal posters in this thread feel is due to the change that has occurred because Donald Trump won the election. People get disoriented by any big change that occurs in life. It just takes a while to adapt to the change and get back to a state of equilibrium. But it will come and the country will survive.

What has occurred reminds me very much of what happened back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter.

Carter had made some progress in forwarding the Middle East peace process ultimately resulting in the Israel-Egypt peace accords. But other than that the country was a mess. The economy was bad also suffering from something labeled stagflation. It was a cycle of a weak economy with recessions while inflation was very high. Additionally, the US and USSR (Russia) were in SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) talks that were not going well. President Carter was telling the country that we would probably have to accept a permanent Russian advantage in nuclear weapons. The Islamic revolution was underway in Iran. The US Embassy in Tehran has been stormed and 86 hostages taken. President Carter had made some radio talks about the malaise that people in the country felt.

Ronald Reagan was upbeat, but trailed Carter in the polls going into the weekend before the election. He had a couple good debates against Carter and had coined the phrase "misery index" to describe the economy. It was the sum of the inflation rate and unemployment rate and was about 17% (10% per year inflation and 7% unemployment). Reagan had asked the people to consider this question when deciding who to vote for, "Are you better of than you were 4 years ago?" The following Tuesday, to the shock of the Democrats, the nation handed Reagan a huge election victory.

But right after the election many of the same feeling, fears, and despondency were rampant among the Dems. Reagan will start a nuclear war, we'll lose all the progress we've made, he'll ruin the economy, etc. Their feelings were similar to the ones we see now. As for what happened, let's just say the fears were unfounded.

The similarity between the two elections lies in the bleek economic out look for most Americans. Real income for working class and middle class Americans is less than what it was 14 years ago. Jobs are being lost to overseas. Because of the healthcare law, jobs were being downgraded to part time work so that some employers can avoid the huge benefit cost increase. Work participation rate (those working or looking for work as a percentage of the total population [I think])is the lowest it's ever been. Add to that the gridlock in Washington because of extreme partisanship. It should be no surprise that people felt we couldn't continue this way.

So the choice came down to a non-politician who was seen as telling things as they are, but was a bit of loose cannon with some character flaws, or, a less than trustworthy politician who was trying to portray herself as both a change agent and a continuation of President Obama's policies. Add in the that the Democrats seemed preoccupied with things like climate change and similar issues, you could understand why so many working and middle class people felt overlooked, abandoned, and were angry. Well, after this election, the silent majority has certainly been heard. They decided that Trump was a risk worth taking.

To Donald Trump's credit, he recognized this dissatisfaction and anger, and ran a very populist campaign aimed at these people.

[Al_U_Card]

 rmnka447, on 2016-November-11, 00:21, said:

Lovely post, Helene_t.

Part of the distress and anxiety that some of the more progressive/liberal posters in this thread feel is due to the change that has occurred because Donald Trump won the election. People get disoriented by any big change that occurs in life. It just takes a while to adapt to the change and get back to a state of equilibrium. But it will come and the country will survive.

What has occurred reminds me very much of what happened back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter.

Carter had made some progress in forwarding the Middle East peace process ultimately resulting in the Israel-Egypt peace accords. But other than that the country was a mess. The economy was bad also suffering from something labeled stagflation. It was a cycle of a weak economy with recessions while inflation was very high. Additionally, the US and USSR (Russia) were in SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) talks that were not going well. President Carter was telling the country that we would probably have to accept a permanent Russian advantage in nuclear weapons. The Islamic revolution was underway in Iran. The US Embassy in Tehran has been stormed and 86 hostages taken. President Carter had made some radio talks about the malaise that people in the country felt.

Ronald Reagan was upbeat, but trailed Carter in the polls going into the weekend before the election. He had a couple good debates against Carter and had coined the phrase "misery index" to describe the economy. It was the sum of the inflation rate and unemployment rate and was about 17% (10% per year inflation and 7% unemployment). Reagan had asked the people to consider this question when deciding who to vote for, "Are you better of than you were 4 years ago?" The following Tuesday, to the shock of the Democrats, the nation handed Reagan a huge election victory.

But right after the election many of the same feeling, fears, and despondency were rampant among the Dems. Reagan will start a nuclear war, we'll lose all the progress we've made, he'll ruin the economy, etc. Their feelings were similar to the ones we see now. As for what happened, let's just say the fears were unfounded.

The similarity between the two elections lies in the bleek economic out look for most Americans. Real income for working class and middle class Americans is less than what it was 14 years ago. Jobs are being lost to overseas. Because of the healthcare law, jobs were being downgraded to part time work so that some employers can avoid the huge benefit cost increase. Work participation rate (those working or looking for work as a percentage of the total population [I think])is the lowest it's ever been. Add to that the gridlock in Washington because of extreme partisanship. It should be no surprise that people felt we couldn't continue this way.

So the choice came down to a non-politician who was seen as telling things as they are, but was a bit of loose cannon with some character flaws, or, a less than trustworthy politician who was trying to portray herself as both a change agent and a continuation of President Obama's policies. Add in the that the Democrats seemed preoccupied with things like climate change and similar issues, you could understand why so many working and middle class people felt overlooked, abandoned, and were angry. Well, after this election, the silent majority has certainly been heard. They decided that Trump was a risk worth taking.

To Donald Trump's credit, he recognized this dissatisfaction and anger, and ran a very populist campaign aimed at these people.

Well said and very appropriate. Despite the repetitive nature of the exercise and its painfully obvious lack of success, it is worth going over one more time.

Reality check:
How could I have been so arrogant?
How could I have been so sure?
How could I have been so wrong?

When our worldview shields us from reality, that same reality will rear up and slap us hard. More than an attempt to wake us up, it serves to show us how easy it is to believe in what makes us feel right. Noble causes lead to fervent zealots and that leads to crusades of conflict.
Recognizing that the consideration of opposing or unpopular views can only broaden our horizons is a start. Respecting the perspective of others helps us to better understand our own limitations. Only skepticism can save us from belief.
Reality reminds us of that repeatedly.
When what happens seems surreal, it is time to check our privilege and come to our senses.
Truth (like being right) is very subjective and it often subjects us to the acceptance of illusions that are needed to maintain that "truth".
Making use of the synthesis provided by others helps us to avoid the pitfalls of our own insular and isolating views, no matter how shared they may seem to be.
Every error is just an opportunity for improvement.

[billw55]

 onoway, on 2016-November-10, 16:34, said:

Isn't it ironic that almost everyone including me thought that the Republican Party was a smoking pile of rubble after the idiocies of the past and this election and the games around threatening to shut down the government by refusing to approve funding etc., now it turns out the Democrats are the ones in total disarray and in need of resurrection. Who'd have thought. The only one who got it right was the guy whose record for predicting presidential wins continues unblemished.

An article which several people have sent to me recently shows a younger Trump saying that if he ever ran for office he'd run for the Republicans because they were so dumb he could lie to them and they'd still vote for him. He did and they did. Maybe he's smarter than I thought.

Well, the dems did gain seats in both house and senate. Not enough to take majority, but a gain is a gain.

Also in the interest of fairness, I must note that here is another case of gullibility regarding political parables/hoaxes - stories that say what the recipient wants to hear. Kaitlyn is not alone, and this is not strictly a conservative trait.

[kenberg]

 rmnka447, on 2016-November-11, 00:21, said:

Lovely post, Helene_t.

But right after the election many of the same feeling, fears, and despondency were rampant among the Dems. Reagan will start a nuclear war, we'll lose all the progress we've made, he'll ruin the economy, etc. Their feelings were similar to the ones we see now. As for what happened, let's just say the fears were unfounded.

A little bit of yes, but also some no. My reaction to Reagan, whom I did not vote for, was different from my reaction to Trump, whom I did not vote for. I had arguments with some of my liberal, more liberal than I, friends about aspects of Reagan. Friends who, I swear, could not tell you the difference between a B-52 and an F-14 were suddenly experts on the imbecility of the Strategic Defense Initiative. It wasn't so much that I thought of myself as an advocate, rather I recognized that military development was going to lean heavily on advanced technology and I favored keeping up with this. Details had to be worked through by people more informed than I. Trump seems to me to be off the wall. Reagan had been a two term governor of California. He had, for example, made some changes in the system of the University of California. It was widely predicted that these changes would devastate the University and that Berkeley's leadership in, for example, mathematics would be destroyed. Well, it didn't happen. Trump's experience is in real estate and casinos. This is, as I understand it, a wild a and crazy business and he has been successful. But some of this success is that you try this and you try that and when a venture doesn't go well you get your own, and maybe more than your own, cash out and then file bankruptcy letting someone else get stuck with the failure. Whatever the merits are for this approach when getting rich in the casino industry, I don't see it as such great preparation for the presidency.

In short, Trump isn't Hitler, but also he isn't Reagan.

On a more positive note: Many articles and other presentations have been looking for how we might make this all work. I don't mean the sit down with Obama, that was theater and Obama looked like a rabbit discussing dinner plans with a wolf, but there has been talk of what can be done and what cannot. I favor this. That does not mean, not at all, that I am getting comfortable with the result. But discussing how to go forward is better than shutting down an Interstate as some did in my home state of Minnesota.

[y66]

+ a gazillion for the rabbit and the wolf observation. I have never seen Obama look or sound so rabbit like, for good reason. His house has just been blown away. Sorry for the mixed animal metaphor.

[hrothgar]

 kenberg, on 2016-November-11, 07:35, said:

Trump's experience is in real estate and casinos. This is, as I understand it, a wild a and crazy business and he has been successful.

Trump's success, such that it is, is in branding and self promotion.

He is no long actively involved in either real estate or casinos. (His long string of bankruptcies means that no one in the US is willing to extend him credit any more. As such, he can't secure the necessary financing to build or buy real estate). Where Trump makes his money is selling third parties the rights to license his name and a variety of short cons such as "Trump University".

Its unclear how much money he actually has, but even if he is at the middle to high end of his reported net worth, he has still failed to beat the market return on the money that he inherited.

Its worth noting that that Trump's financial disclosure forms earlier this year were reporting his revenue rather than his income.

Of course, all this could be cleared up relatively easily if he were actually willing to release his taxes for the past few years...

[PassedOut]

Considering the protests about the result of this election, it's interesting to recall Trump's comments after Obama's reelection: In 2012, Donald Trump suggested that the result was rigged. He warned of the same thing this week.

Quote

The night Mitt Romney lost, Donald Trump tweeted.

About 20 minutes after polls closed on the West Coast, television networks called the election for President Obama. Like Karl Rove, who'd just been told that Fox News had called Ohio against the Republican, Trump was incredulous. "He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election," he tweeted. "We should have a revolution in this country!"

Over the next half hour, he continued.

The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one! We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!

Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us. More votes equals a loss ... revolution! This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy! Our country is now in serious and unprecedented trouble ... like never before. The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.

The tweets about "revolution" were deleted that night. Most of the others, including the one about how "we can't let this happen," remain.

Trump's assertion that Obama had "lost the popular vote by a lot" was incorrect, though by 11 p.m., the votes had not all been counted yet. In the end, Obama won by about 5 million votes.

And here we are.

[y66]

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) published this open letter to President-Elect Trump yesterday. Let's hope he hears the message and make sure this message does not get lost in the flood of messages to come.

[olegru]

http://blogs.wsj.com...-trump-victory/

Quote

Dozens of students at Cornell University gathered on a major campus thoroughfare for a “cry-in” to mourn the results of the 2016 presidential election Wednesday, with school staff providing tissues and hot chocolate.

Quote

At Tufts University, arts and crafts were on offer. And the University of Kansas reminded students via social media of the therapy dogs available for comfort every other Wednesday.

Quote

There was a steady flow of students entering Ms. Boynton’s office Wednesday. They spent the day sprawled around the center, playing with Play-Doh and coloring in coloring books, as they sought comfort and distraction.

Quote

Alan Peel, an astronomy lecturer at the University of Maryland canceled a test

Quote

Morgan Polikoff, a professor at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, also canceled his Wednesday class. He told the 11 students in his Ph.D. statistics course on election night that they didn’t have to come if they didn’t want to

Sorry, I throw out pacifiers since my kids turn 3. But I still have couple of teddy bears to donate for heart-broken college students.

[Winstonm]

In an incredibly ironic twist, the election of Donald Trump means in essence that the Arab Spring came to America.

[y66]

 kenberg, on 2016-November-11, 07:35, said:

here has been talk of what can be done and what cannot. I favor this. That does not mean, not at all, that I am getting comfortable with the result. But discussing how to go forward is better than shutting down an Interstate as some did in my home state of Minnesota.

I appreciate the thoughtful comments of many WC posters who may not play bridge like Hamman but who, I think, totally get his thought process which starts with asking what the hell is going on which is an antidote to smugness and a good first step in forming a plan. Yammering is not thinking and spending precious energy engaging (?) with smug yammerers is not a winning strategy. kenberg observed near the beginning of this thread and in many other threads that taking white blue collar workers for granted is not a winning strategy either. For all of his faults, Trump understood this and he exploited this masterfully. Not suggesting Trump got this idea from kenberg or that they have anything else in common.

[Al_U_Card]

 y66, on 2016-November-11, 09:19, said:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) published this open letter to President-Elect Trump yesterday. Let's hope he hears the message and make sure this message does not get lost in the flood of messages to come.

Nice example of the problem with holding a smug, sanctimonious position like any type of elite....

removing the dross of both pages of that letter leaves the only relevant part:

"The campaign is over, and real responsibilities lie ahead. For all our sakes, I wish you well."

[Vampyr]

 y66, on 2016-November-11, 09:36, said:

I appreciate the thoughtful comments of many WC posters who may not play bridge like Hamman but who, I think, totally get his thought process which starts with asking what the hell is going on which is an antidote to smugness and a good first step in forming a plan. Yammering is not thinking and spending precious energy engaging (?) with smug yammerers is not a winning strategy. kenberg observed near the beginning of this thread and in many other threads that taking white blue collar workers for granted is not a winning strategy either. For all of his faults, Trump understood this and he exploited this masterfully. Not suggesting Trump got this idea from kenberg or that they have anything else in common.

Appealing to intelligent, well-educated people was easy and natural for Clinton. I think you want to win the minds of those people, and the hearts of many ot the others. Perhaps Clinton needed to employ some meaningless, feel-good rhetoric. But I think that this would have been hard for her, especially when it comes to sounding sincere.

[barmar]

 kenberg, on 2016-November-11, 07:35, said:

But discussing how to go forward is better than shutting down an Interstate as some did in my home state of Minnesota.

Or threatening to run to Canada.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2016-November-11, 09:36, said:

I appreciate the thoughtful comments of many WC posters who may not play bridge like Hamman but who, I think, totally get his thought process which starts with asking what the hell is going on which is an antidote to smugness and a good first step in forming a plan. Yammering is not thinking and spending precious energy engaging (?) with smug yammerers is not a winning strategy. kenberg observed near the beginning of this thread and in many other threads that taking white blue collar workers for granted is not a winning strategy either. For all of his faults, Trump understood this and he exploited this masterfully. Not suggesting Trump got this idea from kenberg or that they have anything else in common.

Donny, Vlad and I all planned this out over vodka.

I have been thinking a bit. The basket of deplorables was, in one sense, much ado about nothing. If someone wanted to insult me and the best s/he could do is to call me and my friends a basket of deplorables it would be pretty pathetic. The problem rather was that it was dismissive. "We don't care about you" is the message that, intended or not, came through.

Another thought, loosely connected. I see that Clinton got 88% of the Black vote, often referred to as "only" 88%. Somewhere I saw that she got 51% of the union vote. usually not referred to as "only" 51%. And probably that 51% could be usefully broken into parts. Teacher unions have, presumably entirely, college educated members. No doubt some machinists have been to college, but it is not a requirement. If we looked only at the union vote in professions that did not require college education, I can well imagine the percentage would be considerably less than 51%.

A thought experiment: imagine an African-American machinist. For whom does he vote? " I am black, so Hillary it is"? Or "I'm a machinist with a wife, kids and a mortgage, same as the white guy standing next to me, I am going for Trump, just as he is"? I don't know the answer, but 88%, while large, is not 100%. Maybe this guy is part of the 12%.

And just for amusement: I was parking to go into a store, the BBC portion of the morning NPR stuff was on, and they were interviewing a guy in western Pennsylvania about Trump stuff. I found it interesting so I stayed in the car to listen. At the end, the interviewer, a guy if I remember correctly, thanked him for his fascinating insights.
Now it has been a long time since I grew up in my working class neighborhood, but back in the 1940s-1950s no guy ever called another guy fascinating.. Another cultural clash!

[Winstonm]

Now that electoral data is showing up it is easy to see that Clinton lost because Democrats did not show up to vote.