Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands. - US Election Day 2016

(x-post with Matt DC)

No sleep here either. This is a horrible dream that I want to wake up from.

This morning, my wife (who hates Trump but follows him on FB) posted something on a post he made, something about how Hispanics like her would never let him be president, how the early voting numbers in Florida were pointing to what we all thought would happen all along - he would lose badly because he was way too insulting of minorities. The comment got fairly popular (500+ likes) and along with it came the Trump supporters, several of whom mentioned our son, referring to him as an "anchor baby" and asking how he is going to climb the wall next year. I told her not to worry because Trump was going to be defeated soundly. This is my son, by the way:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15027909_10157760338600525_3158679263228380583_n.jpg?oh=a8a84ea501008aa2aecf1a55c1fe9111&oe=589A0B93

She thought of those comments when it became apparent that Trump was actually going to win, and started bawling openly for nearly half an hour. THEY won. The people treating this election like a fucking game. The guy who got cut off by a black man, got out of his car, screamed "Trump!" over and over and then began openly calling the guy the N-word despite knowing he was on camera. Hillary Clinton, a positively brilliant and capable woman who had been preparing her whole life for this, got defeated by the man who was handed everything he ever wanted in life. The man who openly threatened our democracy with cries of a "rigged election" is going to lose the popular vote by over a million (as projections say) and still be handed the presidency. Decades of progress undone because people cared more about an improper email server than someone who has been a con man their entire life - not in the typical Washington sense of the word, but an open fraud, who lies about everything and gets away with it regardless. I have to work in an hour and I have no idea how I'm going to keep it together.

So, to my thinking Obama looks like an Eisenhower: a popular president with no local or congressional coattails and will remain a one-of-a-kind figure.

I mean this is so fucked up but I am genuinely relieved that my son has white skin. My daughter, who will be born in 4 months, may not be so lucky. My wife, who does not, has been getting teased about Trump and "the wall" at work for a year now.

It must be fair to say that the art of the Pollster isn't cutting it anymore, like even when hedge fund giants payed for their own private poll it was way out. Useful for harvesting clicks and generating "content", but they seem completely irrelevant and discredited after 3 massively embarrassing fails in a row now.

I really don't think we can compare the situation to rise of the right wing and fascism in the first half of the 20th century. What's different is that there really seems to exist such a paradoxical thing as "internationalist ultranationalism", with both the right-wing leaders and grass-root activists like neonazis genuinely supporting similar movements in other countries (as long they are European/white, of course), forming alliances with each other, and so on. Of course there are precedents to this too with the Hitler/Mussolini alliance etc, but this new thing seems more widespread and heartfelt, not just based on political expediency. Which would mean no wars between Western countries, but on the other hand this whole right-wing wave will probably be more resilient than the 20th century one.

(xxxpost)

This is what I keep thinking of:

John McGuirk
‏@john_mcguirk
Mitt Romney got 60.9 million votes and lost. Trump has 58.1million and is winning a landslide. Democrats stayed at home.

I'm not gonna blame the racists or the media who pumped up and normalized this dude for over a year now. I place the blame squarely on all the people who pumped this "lesser of two evils" narrative for months and stayed home (or voted 3rd party) without considering that EVEN IF you can't look past the bullshit of the so-called "Clinton scandals" and buy wholesale that she was up to something sneaky, there is STILL one candidate who is unambiguously worse in practically every conceivable way.

xp:

Well, then where does Trump stand in the conflict between Svoboda and Putin? Just because a internationalist nationalism exists doesn't mean that international conflict is ended.

surely someone will leak his tax results now, or at least one of the oppo dumps rick wilson was blathering about

just occurred to me that we got a 9/11

all of the various scandals that people believed/hoped would make him unelectable - sexual assault allegations, Trump foundation shadiness etc - will these continue to dog him, or does that fact that all this stuff was out there and he won the election anyway mean that it's effectively neutralised? Is there anything else that could hypothetically be revealed that would sink him? I guess I'm part of me is still clinging to the hope that he doesn't actually take office (or is forced to resign pretty much straight away), realise that this is probably wishful thinking though

the woman accusing him of raping her in her teens dropped her case last week iirc

I'm just sick of waking up with his horrified feeling of disgust and dread, three times in the last year now.

To which I would add the slow motion car crash that is the Labour Party, all of which has conspired to destroy my lifelong interest in politics. I feel like I've been tottering around the ring, punch drunk and befuddled, for a while now and this has just left me on the canvas, unresponsive and on the way to intensive care. From now on I'm only interested in sport and art, fuck the rest of it.

i hope mainstream media outlets take a long hard look in the mirror.

I'm too old to be an athlete so I'll be an aesthete instead.

& if Trump doesn't take office does that not mean that Pence does?
Quixotically hoping that the apparent results of this election might just be held totally invalid. But don't see that as likely.

Hoping this is a bad dream and I wake up later. But think I woke up at 6 am and checked result sto find out taht they were like totally wrong.

As politician, Pence is worse for America than Trump.

soref, he still has 75 pending lawsuits. The Trump U. racketeering trial will proceed.

Ultimately, though, the GOP won't impeach him until his popularity falls to the 20% range. I believe that will happen, he's demonstrably inept, the financial markets are terrified he might speak on renegotiating the national debt, there's going to be a oil supply crunch in 3 or so years. But he's going to set us back a decade on the SC and climate action in his brief term, and that's best case. The foundations of democracy are threatened with his authoritarian tendencies.

maybe Trump and Pence will both have heart attacks and die at some point between now and January 20th, I suppose that's our best bet now

I'm part of me is still clinging to the hope that he doesn't actually take office (or is forced to resign pretty much straight away), realise that this is probably wishful thinking though

The first presidential election I remember was the 1972 Nixon landslide. Didn't last long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqMhx6vh0VY

So I actually went to bed at 12:30. I slept two hours, then tossed and turned as my heart couldn't stop beating. I refused to check my phone or turn on the TV. I just learned the news half an hour ago.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 9, 2016 6:08 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I had a panic attack kinda thing at around 10:30 - 11pm EST last night when swing states were not looking so hot. Learning the results after waking up at 4am- somehow my cynicism softened what otherwise would be a huge blow. Now I've got the mindset to be numb to it all going forward and hope the country doesn't completely implode for any number of hypothetical events as a result.

After last night, how can you continue to think Trump is inept?

Xpost I'm hoping that Trump realises in the next two months what a job he's got coming up and decides that he wants an easy life instead.

I don't think I can ever comment on what is or is not likely about anything anymore. So, maybe that will happen. Who knows? Nobody. Ever.

Trump has already suggested Pence was going to run the day to day affairs of president xp

Trump promised a lot of things he can never hope to achieve, which honestly should turn him into a one-term president. But I have no idea what his followers want. There are of course NO manufacturing jobs coming to the midwest, no reversals of trade deals, a lot of them just lost their health care deals. But do they even care?

^^ Which isn't in the least reassuring tbh xp

Trump promised a lot of things he can never hope to achieve, which honestly should turn him into a one-term president. But I have no idea what his followers want. There are of course NO manufacturing jobs coming to the midwest, no reversals of trade deals, a lot of them just lost their health care deals. But do they even care?

― Frederik B, Wednesday, November 9, 2016 7:50 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

At this point it seems like even if no wall is there, Trump can say there is one and his followers will defend that claim to the death.

I don't think I can ever comment on what is or is not likely about anything anymore.

Well put. I get a lot out of the political threads here, but the one thing that has always bothered me are posts that are expressed with 100% certainty, along with the underlying implication that I understand this and you don't. Such posts often begin with an "Um" or some other similarly dismissive tic.

Sincerely disappointed and stunned by the results.

https://twitter.com/DaviSusan/status/796252205804351488

With 97% reporting, about 112 million Americans voted. Lowest turnout since 2000, when 107 mil voted. And 18 mil fewer votes cast than '12.

https://twitter.com/KSoltisAnderson/status/796319426190647296

For what it's worth, given the very low turnout it's not that there was a secret Trump vote so much as a phony mirage of a Clinton vote.

Trump has fewer votes than either McCain or Romney.

i woke up early with a booming headache and empty dread.

what's the exact lowdown on pence again

Former right-wing radio talker who did a few years in Congress and then was governor of Indiana. VERY regressive views on pretty much everything.

dems should have gone w Sanders, a candidate people actively wanted for vote for

124m votes in, including third-party candidates, so not far short of 2012.

Some exit polls misery:
White non-college graduate women voted Trump 64-32.
60% of people made up their mind how to vote before September, and that broke down 52-45 for Clinton. But the 40% who were undecided (40%!!) until two months ago heavily favoured Trump, including a 6% segment who went 50-38 for Trump "last week".

So Access Hollywood tape / Gold Star insult << pneumonia / deplorables / FBI emails. FFS.

Nobody wanted to vote for Trump, yet he won anyway. But yeah, they should have gone with the white man.

When Trump fails the people who voted for him, many of them will probably not blame him. They will blame the people they are blaming now. And, they may not even really care. This election was a way for them to express their hostility.

Where's Iago to gloat

I have never felt this much despair in my entire life. Not after the deaths of all of my grandparents. Not on 9/11. Not when I had to hold two of my cats as they were euthanized. Not when I found out there was no Santa. Never.

One of my earliest maternal ancestors that I know of fought to preserve the Union. My grandfather took bullets to defeat the Axis. My father gave 25 years of his life and took bullets, to serve a country that I naively believed and then fervently hoped would always at least pay lip service to if not honor certain values. For this.

Time for a new thread, or we gonna keep this one going?

Not yet. We're not even through the denial stage, really.

I've said for years that Clinton was going to win this year. When she won Iowa and the GOP shitfest rambled on, I was certain. This is the third of three shocks this fall.

First was how the media played the 'deplorable' comment, that proved that this would never be a referendum on racism and white supremacy, that shit would be swept under the carpet just as much as always. At that point the picture was also pretty clear that Trump would outperform Romney in the Midwest, though I never for a second thought it would be as bad as it was.

Second was Comey letter. That dysfunction had gotten so bad now the FBI would interfere in the election out of fear of the response from the extreme far right media. The horror that the media allowed the email scandal to be dominant towards the end, the collapse in the polls, the pretty obvious inference that the senate could well be lost, meaning Clinton wouldn't even get to nominate an sc judge.

And this third one is the worst one yet. Clinton won the vote. She got more votes than Trump. The majority of America wanted the woman and for the conman to go away. But it doesn't matter. It's so painfully apt that the conman crying the game was rigged, the populist claiming to be the voice of the people, would of course win through a rigged election method in spite of the will of the people. This is horrifying, and good for no one. The white working class is dead. It might not seem so like this, but they'll get NOTHING from Trump, except the good feeling that comes from watching other people hurting. They're still going to lose their electoral power soon, and when that happens, nobody will feel any sympathy from them. They've lost that right now, they've doubled down on idiocy, and nobody is going to save them from themselves. The left is dead. Trump didn't win more votes than Romney, the democratic coalition just didn't pull together. How the fuck was the GOP primary less harmful to Trump than the Dem primary was to Hilary? But there were bigger boos in Philadelphia than in Cleveland. Anyone think the dems will move in the direction of single-payer health-care, free college, less hawkish foreign policy? After they've been burned by Obamacare and Obama seeming weak in Syria? Nah.

Man, in eight years, perhaps Florida, Georgia, Arizona, at some point even Texas, will make up for this disaster. And the chickens will come home to roost. I don't believe for a second Trump got more Latinx votes than Romney, Latinx exit polls has been off this entire season. They just were in the wrong states, plus couldn't make up for the surge in the panhandle in Florida.

20% of people who don't think trump has the temperament to serve effectively as prez voted for him anyway, mb a strong nihilist demographic

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw0v-k1XgAAX95H.jpg:large

Nobody wanted to vote for Trump, yet he won anyway.

Strongly disagree with the first part of this

re: low turnout, was that true in battleground states or just overall?

x-post: It was a response to Adam saying that people only wanted to vote for Sanders.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Cuyahoga County, OH -3% in turnout from 2012 to yesterday (70.09% vs. 67.02%)

Here's 2016:

UNITED STATES PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT
          (VOTE FOR)  1
           Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine (DEM).  .   383,974   65.16
           Richard Duncan and Ricky Johnson.  .  .     1,810     .31
           Gary Johnson and William Weld.  .  .  .    12,526    2.13
           Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka (GRE)  .  .     5,026     .85
           Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pen (REP)  179,894   30.53
           WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,091    1.03
              Over Votes .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,603
             Under Votes .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,561

Here's 2012:

          UNITED STATES PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT
          Vote for not more than  1
              (WITH 1077 OF 1077 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
           Stewart Alexander/Alex Mendoza (SOC)  .       220     .03
           Richard Duncan/Ricky Johnson .  .  .  .       621     .10
           Virgil Goode/Jim Clymer (CON).  .  .  .       534     .08
           Gary Johnson/James P. Gray (LIB).  .  .     3,448     .53
           Barack Obama/Joe Biden (DEM) .  .  .  .   447,273   69.32
           Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan (REP)  .  .  .  .   190,660   29.55
           Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala (GRE)  .  .  .     1,564     .24
           WRITE IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       942     .15
              Over Votes .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,772
             Under Votes .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     3,403

Clinton/Kaine received nearly 67,000 fewer votes. Twice as many people either didn't know how to fill out the ballot or didn't GAF enough to vote for president.