The 2016 United States Presidential Election

She is not alone. The alt-reich echo machine has been working overtime for over 8 years to build a base of deluded people completely out of touch with reality -- Trump just swept them up the way any shyster con artist knows to do: play to their false beliefs.

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Shocking New Poll Shows That A Vast Majority Of Trump Voters Live In Another Reality

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We've reached a dangerous point in our politics where people are divided not just by different political ideologies, but also by their belief in reality.

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A new PPP poll unveiled on MSNBC’s ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ Thursday showed just how out of touch Donald Trump’s supporters are with the real world.

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On a slew of questions about simple facts, a large chunk — and, in some cases, strong majorities — of Trump supporters are simply living in a different reality.

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Nearly 40 percent of the president-elect’s supporters believe the stock market has gone down under President Obama, despite the fact that it’s nearly doubled during Obama’s tenure.

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Trump supporters are also living in an alternate reality with respect to the unemployment rate. Even though the jobless number has gone from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to 4.6 percent last month, a whopping 67 percent of Trump voters think it’s actually increased.

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Forty percent of Trump fans also believe that Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote, despite her margin over Trump exceeding 2.7 million votes. An even greater percentage — 60 percent — think millions of people illegally cast their ballots for the former Secretary of State.

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When asked by PPP whether Trump protesters are being paid by George Soros, 73 percent of the incoming president’s supporters said yes. Fifty-three percent think that votes in the state of California should not be included in the popular vote tally.

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The full PPP poll will be released on Friday, but these results show what Donald Trump’s conspiracy-driven campaign has done to our politics and how he has convinced his supporters that the world as it is doesn’t really exist.

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Americans are no longer just divided by political ideology, but also by their belief in reality.

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The sad thing is that these are issues where the facts can be easily checked. They don't because they don't want to.Standard cognitive dissonance avoidance behavior.Enjoy

Participants were massively warned. I don't feel like doing the work to do the suspensions, but if any such thing appears after this message without being justifiably tied to the 2016 election, I am going to drop the hammer (it may take some time because my internet access might be limited).ADMINNEMOOSEUS

no pointEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But you never needed to be corrected. All you ever had to do was to research into the matter, which you did not do.All you ever had to do was to read the Constitution of the United States of America itself(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)! Were you ever barred from doing that? Did anybody ever try to hide the Constitution of the United States of America itself from you?Faith, have you ever served? I have. For 35 years. I've lost track of the count, but about seven times I did solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Every single military veteran has sworn that very same oath. Why would anybody swear such an oath without every knowing what the Constitution of the United States of America actually is and actually says? Well, I have read it. In fact, at my last enlistment ceremony, NAVRESFORCOM personally did personally present me with a copy of the Constitution of the United States of America, which over a decade later I still keep and treasure. It is still sitting before me at this very moment. Your religious peccadilli (though nowhere near as slight as the definition implies) lead you to hate the Constitution of the United States of America. My duty is to preserve it!Article Two, Section One:

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No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

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So what's a "natural born Citizen"? That has so far never been decided in the courts. But there is still a lot of legal precedence and legal argument, most of which I have already tried to explain to you. It would be supremely self-edifying for you personally to follow this Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clauseThe details can vary from country to country. Basically, the question of how one derives one's citizen is by two means (FOLLOW THE LINKS!!!!):

1. Jus Soli -- your right to claim citizenship by having been born there.
2. Jus sanguinis -- your right to claim citizenship from the citizenship of your parents.

Again, Faith, your ability to know these things was very freely available to you. Your own personal ignorance is nothing but a condemnation of you. And of the disinformation sources that you depend upon.Recently on Netflix, I watched a French movie based on an American socialite and amateur singer, one Florence Foster Jenkins, upon whom there is an English-language version starring Meryl Streep. That movie is Marguerite. At the end of that movie, Marguerite is exposed to a recording of her own voice. Her subsequent catastrophic reaction to reality is exactly what your own reaction to the truth will be.Edited by dwise1, : cleaned up minor "jiggly bit"

I think we've certainly explored why racists, xenophobes and wingnuts voted for Trump, but I'm more interested in why other folks voted for Trump. Why would independents who generally don't constitute many of the wingnuts vote for the person we all saw lose the debates. Maybe some of the reasons might look as follows:1. Trump is not Hillary. This explanation might be based on every bad or perceived wrong thing about Hillary from the email server, to the party treatment of Sanders, to not wanting a female president. In case the latter seems crazy I would point out that women were granted the vote in this country 55 years after Africans were granted citizenship and the right to vote.2. Trump is not establishment. In some ways, Trump is Obama in 2008. But Trump is not just new. Much of the current establishment refused to endorse him, and were willing to distance themselves from him if that worked for them politically.3. Perception that the path liberals set, rightly or wrongly, does not represent their issues. It may well be that burning coal is a ridiculous dead end because of competition and environmental concerns, that aspiring to be upper middle with a high school education is no longer feasible, and that you might be better off living in the city than in some small town as far as opportunity is concerned. But folks who fit in that left out category are not going to just concede that and give in.4. Obamacare is extremely unpopular among a large segment of the population, and voting for Trump is the only possible avenue for getting rid of the ACA. It actually turns out that the folks wanting to get rid of Obamacare poll as a minority of folks, but that share is largest among Republicans.5. Guns, Abortions, and Gays and the Supreme Court. If you disagree with Liberals on any two of gun control, reproductive rights, and LGBTQ rights, I don't see how you could consider a vote for Hillary. With Scalia dead, and two more justices already over 80 years old with two more being just short of 80, a vote for Hillary would be a concession that liberals are right about just about everything.6. Israel and Iran. Other foreign policy mess. Reasonable people can simply disagree over what it the right path to take about these issues, and Trump and Hillary seem to represent at least different posturing about what our role ought to be.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump held a press conference to announce that Obama was indeed born in the United States. Period. We were told that the whole birther thing was actually a service Trump performed for the country, and that Hillary was really at fault for starting the sorry mess.How does this admission fit in with the idea that Trump is the anti-PC candidate who always speaks his mind?

So Trump has decided that not only is he going to break a promise that his supporters REALLY wanted (special prosecutor vs Hilary) but he has declared that Bill and Hilary are 'good people'.The electoral college hasn't even voted yet and he's breaking promises.Pat Caddell: 'Not Sure It's a Good Idea' to Give Hillary Clinton a Pass on EmailsAt least he's pissing off China. That's going to end well, right?

Probably depends upon how much pressure Trump's fellow business men and women (not that he'd listen to the latter) can bring to bear if China tells its oligarchs to invest elsewhere.The Wall St Journal reported on 12 April that Chinese firms were expected to invest $20-30 billion in the US in 2016 - which is not an enormous percentage of the economy, but important to a number of very influential business people.And yes, the trade deficit means that it's important for China to keep selling stuff to the US (those free burger toys won't be quite as free if the US has to start manufacturing them) - but the influential business people don't want that boat rocked too much - they won't be able to afford quite so many racehorses/jets/yachts and won't be able to keep up with the Abramovic's - and they just couldn't beaaaaaar that ;-)I'm not convinced yet that big money can stop the idiot actually kicking off a war - but I suspect they're one of our best hopes of reining him in.Edited by vimesey, : Autocorrect typo

Yes Trump could still turn a lot of us who voted for him against him. I’m not so much concerned that he won’t appoint a prosecutor for Hillary since I know there are reasons why it might be best not to; but calling the Clintons good people ranks up there for me with Bush’s Islam is a religion of peace — especially after what Trump said about Bill’s mistreatment of women and Hillary’s attacks on them. I’ll give Trump a pass on declaring Obama an American although I strongly disagree. (I'm moving this discussion over to the thread Percy designated)Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Adminnemooseus's Message 737 in full: Discussion about Obama's place of birth could transition over to The Brand New Birther Thread. It's not "brand new" anymore, but at least it's on-topic.--Percy

Reading this reminds me a lot of some American socialist friends 8 years ago; who were incredibly excited about Obama; and then by 2010 were complaining about being betrayed. But of course they hadn't been. Obama turned out to be the President that should have been expected if they'd paid attention. Instead, they'd imagined him as the instantiation of what they wished a presidential candidate would be.I suspect similar disappointments may now be due for the right.

You could unfortunately be right, we've been waiting to see.

Obama tackles dozens of cases questioning his eligibility and he defends them all successfully. Because his lawyers do the work (where they needed to even do any), he just signs off on the bills and the strategy. This is evidence under the no smoke without fire theory.Trump settles a fraud case for $25,000,000 - an order of magnitude more wealth than Obama even *had* when he ran initially. But this is....fine. Not suspicious. Even though he promised to fight it, he's a busy man.B Clinton has an extra-marital affair and lied about it? Impeach him.Trump confesses to sexual assault: it's just locker room talk. For a thirteen year old.H Clinton uses her own email server for government business. Crooked.Trump takes the person managing his businesses 'blind' to a meeting with a foreign power, and that trustee, who is his daughter, then goes and has a business meeting with a company significantly owned by that same foreign power...that's just erm...sweet? Erm, business as usual? Erm...erm...erm....Clinton gets paid to do talks to wall street: selling out the American people."Gold-man Sachs! Gold-man Sachs!" - Ted Cruz has conflicts of interests because of his wife's connection! Oh wait, Stephen Mnuchin, Stephen Bannon, Gary Cohn.

As someone who is hoping to see socialist reforms, I didn't have high hopes for Obama in that regard. However, I was hoping for Obama to fight for the public option for Obamacare, but he folded on that one. Otherwise, Obama was exactly what he said he was, just a little left of center and looking for incremental change.

It wasn't really his decision though, was it? Without being unethical or criminal he couldn't really force Lieberman to change his mind, and whether to press ahead or not was ultimately the legislature's decision. Individual States could still have a public option. Some States are even considering it.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.