Summations Only

We'd been talking NAFTA, which is more than two decades old, so I was thinking generally. As I've said repeatedly, 2016 was a special year, the wrong year to cast a protest vote. Same answer. In general, sure. In 2016, no. You say even if Trump starts a nuclear war? You are seriously nuts. Putting a madman's finger on the nuclear button is precisely why 2016 was the wrong year to cast a protest vote.--Percy

I think you need to go back on your meds.--Percy

Of course it's not easy to gauge "the risk of Trump starting a nuclear war". He's a madman. How does one predict the actions of a madman? You seem to think the inability to quantify the probability of Trump starting a nuclear war means that casting a protest vote contributing to his election is justified. You are seriously nuts.News about the US *does* make it up into Canada, doesn't it? You are aware of Trump's speech to the United Nations and of his Twitter-war with the leader of North Korea and their nuclear threats, aren't you? And you are aware of all his other immature, unstable, chaotic behavior exhibited on a daily, nearly hourly, basis, right? Then how can you say this? You repeat this nonsense again? You're crazy. For this sort of thing one should deal in probabilities. Playing Russian Roulette and surviving does not in hindsight make it a good idea. I've never called a 3rd party vote invalid. I've described it as voting against one's own best interests. Obviously. A great many people voted for Trump, not realizing that they, too, were voting against their own best interests. Trump lies. For instance, he lied about healthcare during the election, and he's lying about healthcare now. What he wants to do will hurt many of the people who voted for him. The sad part is that many of these Trump voters didn't understand that then, and the sadder part is that significant numbers still don't understand it now. It seems that many will only grasp the magnitude of the malevolence being directed at them only after the fact, after their health insurance is gone. And, given their obvious deficiencies in seeing where their own best interests lie, will they even understand that Trump did it, or will they kneejerkedly blame the Democrats?I don't know if this has made it up to Canada or not, but the Alexander/Murray proposal would continue the funding necessary to make healthcare insurance available to the poor. First Trump endorsed it, then he was against it, then he got into a feud with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell over it, then he patched it up, and that's just as of this morning. Who knows what will happen next.There is no way to justify casting a vote for Trump because he is contrary to almost everyone's best interests on issues great and small. Trump is in the best interests of almost no one. The Republican 1%-ers are winners under a Trump presidency, but few others. It is obvious that putting crazy people in charge of things does not make things better. Again, I did not call it invalid. You seem to have trouble accurately paraphrasing what people say. Really? You've gone through a risk analysis on the possibilities of what a madman will do? What are the details of that analysis, pray tell? The field of psychology not to mention law enforcement would be fascinated with this breakthrough in predicting human behavior. No one was arguing against this possibility. Hurricanes just ripped through Texas and Puerto Rico causing "massive, personal loss." But Democrats causing "massive, personal loss"? The best you've been able to come up with is NAFTA, passed in bipartisan fashion a quarter century ago. The only "massive, personal loss" on the horizon is the loss of affordable healthcare by millions of Americans, and that's a Republican thing, both now and during the election. There are people eating dirt because of the Democrats? Where, pray tell? Yes, we know you do not agree, but you have not stated any rational, consistent arguments supporting your position. Well, I guess if you're going to say it yet again then I'll rebut it yet again. I have never called a 3rd party vote invalid. My position is that Trump was the last choice of those who wanted Sanders or Stein or Johnson, and that casting a protest vote (or no vote as a way of protest) in the 2016 election was in effect voting against their own best interests. All your attempts to recast my position into your own words have been met with failure.And you're calling the opinion that Trump is worse than Clinton subjective? Are you living in a cave? Were you lying before when you claimed to understand just how bad Trump is? Are you a closet Trump supporter just playing with us? While failing to support your opinion in any way. See above about you living in a cave and so forth.--Percy

1400 posts is nothing. We're only nine months in to the Trump presidency. Assuming he doesn't get impeached or removed or resign, by the end of his presidency we should be up to 7500 posts. And if he's reelected, make it 15000. No, this isn't true. I don't know how much US news makes it over to the UK, but Trump is unable to get anything through the legislature and so is ruling by executive order. So far the damage is all him, no one else.For example, he removed restrictions on the coal industry regarding mountain top removal and the taking care of slag pools - type "West Virginia" into Google Maps, put it in Satellite mode, and see how easy it is to pick out examples of both from 40,000 feet. Once you've removed a mountain top, there's no putting it back. Once a slag pool has leaked into the ground water, there's no putting it back.For another example, he is trying to free up preserved regions for economic exploitation. Once a forest is removed it takes a very long time to put it back. Once an invaluable archaeological site has been bulldozed or flooded, there's no putting it back. I understand that your timescale is 50-100 years, and my examples are consistent with it, but I don't understand why your timescale is so long. 10-20 years is a generation at the upper end. Something with an impact that lasts a generation is catastrophic. Europe recovered from WWII in less than a generation. I think the basis of your perspective on this is way off. Then I was right, you're not treating the threat that is Trump seriously enough. He is not merely someone who is more right than Clinton. He's a madman. This is a purist position, and like most purist positions it breaks down in the real world. The 2016 election was just such a situation. To the extent that your not voting Clinton or at all led to the election of Trump, you caused a result contrary to your own best interests. There's that "sending a message" thing again. That's an interesting opinion. The view of many here is that Clinton continued the leftward movement of the Democratic party, even after including her aggressive policy stances on defense. Actually the growing consensus here is that Clinton somehow lost too many Obama voters to Trump. Well then you should be a political prognosticator on TV (er, I mean the telly), because the polls and the consensus of nearly all the prognosticators was that Clinton would win easily. Almost everyone saw potential Trump paths to sufficient electoral college votes as extremely unlikely. Saying that only those who voted for Trump are responsible is way over-simplistic, and using your vote to send a message to the Democrats to pick candidates more to your preference resulted in an outcome opposite to your best interests. Your arguments that Trump's ill effects won't be that bad are belied by the facts, even just nine months in. Trump is a madman. This is not in doubt. I agree that Republican voters are "the most blameworthy," but they are also inexplicably vulnerable to Trump's snake-oil appeals. Trump puts on a great show on the election trail, he's a populist, and his combative deny-everything accuse-everyone style has served him well, but that he is unfit for the office of the President isn't something that people of intelligence and a modicum of objectivity would ever question. The number of formerly respectable people willing to serve in his administration is a great disappointment. Acting on your principles is not something that should be difficult for people of principle, which I at one time thought many of these people were. It's a travesty and a mockery of integrity and honesty the way people like Kelly and Tillerson and on a daily basis Sanders (Sarah Huckabee, not Bernie) defend and attempt to explain Trump's behavior. I think that in 2020 the Democrats will nominate the winner of the primaries, just like they did in 2016. Of what good is your message? Politics is very polarized in the US right now, and if Trump remains President for his full 4-year term then it is a very safe bet that politics will be even more polarized in 2020. Wasn't able to track it down. Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist. That's how he would have run in the election. It would have been a killer. And not living here in the US you might not realize that that even had he changed nomenclature that the distinction between "social democrat" and "democratic socialist" is not one that Americans have any idea of or could have been educated about. If Sanders had been the Democratic candidate then even greater numbers of Democrats and those leaning Democratic would have cast protest votes or not voted. Sanders was governor in the next state over from mine. It's not like my knowledge of how he is perceived were just formed last year when he emerged on the national stage. Well, maybe not to the guy from the UK or Sanders supporters, but otherwise, that's about the only people it's not obvious to. Here's a headline from the Washington Post from a couple days ago about a debate about tax cuts between Sanders and former Republican candidate for President Ted Cruz: Cruz totally outclassed Sanders in last night’s debate. If Ted Cruz can beat Sanders in a debate, Trump would have crushed him. Yeah, you do that, UK-guy. Well, it's not surprising that Sanders would be preferred by Europeans, but you're supposed to be pretending you're a US citizen voting in a US election. To do that you're going to have to either leave your European proclivities behind or be clear that you're pretending to be an American of very, very liberal politics (as measured on the American scale from liberal to conservative). You actually seem to know something about American politics, so why would you say this? Goldwater got slaughtered by Johnson in 1964, yet the Republicans took the White House four years later. Humphrey got slaughtered by Nixon in 1972 (despite 3rd party candidate George Wallace siphoning votes away from Nixon), yet the Democrats took the White House four years later. George H. W. Bush slaughtered Michael Dukakis in 1988, yet the Democrats took the White House four years later. Clinton slaughtered Dole in 1996, yet the Republicans took the White House four years later. Obama slaughtered Romney in 2012, yet the Republicans took the White House four years later.So given this history, how does it make any sense to argue that "the Democratic party is in really big trouble"? Add to this history the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by a substantial margin and only lost the electoral college because of the way a mere 70,000 popular votes were cast, a mere 0.05% of the total popular vote?By the way, you are right that "the Democratic party is in really big trouble," but for different reasons. They control no branch of the federal government, and they have distinct minority of state governorships, and a distinct minority of state legislatures. They're by a significant margin in multiple categories the minority party in the US. Say what? Where is this negativity about Clinton coming from? She's a politician much similar in character to many other politicians. Trump's in his own category of evil as a politician (malicious, malevolent, vicious, vengeful, unfeeling, cruel), he demonstrates it daily and even almost hourly, and it is mere spouting of nonsense to suggest that Clinton fits anywhere near the same category. Yeah, good questions, and without answers you have nothing supporting your absurd position that there were better candidates out there than Clinton. Your excuse: Is just more nonsense. Politicians have their moment that they can take advantage of to achieve high office, plus the passage of four years adds experience and an opportunity to develop a following, increase influence, and refine one's positions. You're just pretending that the reality of the way politics works doesn't exist. No, I'm pretty sure you need specifics. Otherwise you're just arguing hypothetically. You're fighting the last war again. 2020 is very unlikely to play out the same way as 2016. For one thing, Trump will have had more time to consume his young (i.e., destroyed by his penchant for often being his own worst enemy). Where are you getting this nonsense about the Decmocrats being the party that chooses their system? Both parties use very similar procedures for choosing their nominees, and neither party makes any dramatic changes in their primary process from one Presidential election year to the next. I directed you to the United States presidential primary webpage in my previous message. Did you visit that webpage and find something there that led you to believe what you just said? Wherever your idea came from, it is sorely mistaken. Yet more nonsense. Where are you getting this stuff? How could their information be restricted because of the "selection method," which except in the caucus states is open to participation by every registered voter. The candidates go to the states with upcoming primaries and actively campaign. How can the information possibly be restricted? Okay. Don't engage the point if you don't want to. Pardon my skepticism, but you know this how? It isn't clear what groups you're referring to, and of what do I seem certain? The only thing I've expressed with certainty is that those who opposed Trump but cast protest votes against Clinton contributed to an outcome they never in any way desired. I think you have to make up your mind whether you're contributing to this thread from a US or European perspective. I understand that from a European perspective both the Republican and Democratic parties are more to the right than many European political parties, but most of what you've written here has been from the point of view of a US citizen voting in the 2016 Presidential election. But it's only going to lead to confusion if sometimes you write as if you were a US citizen, and other times you write as a European criticizing the American political system and its political parties. Or if you could at least make it more clear when you're writing from which perspective, that would be helpful. Yeah, okay, now I can see that you've changed perspectives and are criticizing the American political system. That's fine with me, criticize it all you like, I just ask you try to make it clear when you're doing that.My response to this is that from a US perspective this is incredibly naive. Changes like what you want are not going to happen. Suggesting such things is as dumb as me arguing with you about how you should change your parliamentary system, and by the way, about that monarchy... That's fine that you're dissatisfied with it. Strange that a guy from the UK cares so much, but fine. Great, thank you for your opinion. Will you be returning to the realm of the possible any time soon? Again, thank you for your opinion. Not going to happen. Moving on. I think it's a safe bet that political parties in the US also analyze election results. Then your understanding is wrong, because I'm not a "big proponent of engaging in tactical voting." My position is that 2016 was special, that it was not the year to be registering a protest vote. Sure, attributing Clinton's loss to vagaries of the electoral college is fine, using the definition of "attribute" that means "regarded as resulting from". "Blame" implies that the electoral college is in some way being held at fault, and that's not the case. We consider the electoral college one of the realities of the Presidential election process, not an object of blame. I didn't know you were talking about hypotheticals. I thought you were suggesting realistic changes. I'm not really interested in the hypotheticals. They're not going to happen. Quite wrong that we can expect the same things will keep happening. Whatever happens in 2020, a repeat of 2016 is unlikely in the extreme. I wouldn't agree that there's no point talking about it, I just didn't even realize that's what you were talking about. This is a thread about the Trump presidency, and while we've occasionally drifted off the main topic, I think a pretty good proportion of the discussion has been on-topic. I don't think it would be a problem if there were a diversion in this topic to talk about how to change the way the US elects presidents. I don't know if I would participate. It doesn't interest me at the moment, but maybe I'd become interested. I think RAZD is one of the participants in this thread who would agree with you. Don't worry, it is. Not that you don't have a point, but I just can't generate any enthusiasm for discussing possibilities that just are not in the cards. Well, sometimes there's a correlation, sometimes not. Just look at 2016, where Trump won 46.1% of the popular vote but 57% of the electoral college. Look at 1980, where Reagan won 50.7% of popular vote but 91% of the electoral college. True. Not sure what this means, unless it's a comment about election participation rates. This appears to have the attributes of being well written and well stated, but honestly I have no idea what it means. I know I keep saying this, but the system of choosing the parties' nominees isn't going to change. There are maybe 10 caucus states (a caucus is a meeting of party activists where candidates are chosen), but in the rest of the states it's just a popular vote. These are fine suggestions. The parties both already do the first one all the time. About more personal level campaigning, that's primary dependent. In some weeks there's only one state holding a primary, and in other weeks there's a whole fleet of states holding primaries. Campaigning doesn't get more personal than in my state. We're the first state to have a primary, we're small, and there are no other states having a primary at the same time. If you want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with a future president of the United States you won't have any trouble doing it. But for other states, like those that are part of a Super Tuesday (Tuesday is voting day here in the US), there are many states holding primaries at the same time, and candidates cannot be everywhere at once.About focusing more on the working class , I think that might more be European designation than American. It's not that we don't understand the term, but the vast majority of the people in the US would answer the question, "What economic class are you in?" by responding "middle class" or "lower middle class" or "upper middle class." I expect few would answer "working class." Maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe that's specific to my area of the country, we'll see if anyone has any comment. Yeah, that was the point of the snake oil analogy. Yeah, one of Clinton's negatives. She was seen as a continuation of Obama but without the lofty rhetoric or the sense of empathy and compassion. No, no, of course not the Sanders supporters. The Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio supporters, and the nine other Republican candidates. Very true. Unfortunately it is only in retrospect that Republican voters are realizing that they should have been sending a different message. I don't know if US presidential poll numbers get mentioned in the UK, but he's set a record for continuous low poll numbers by a new president. His base is standing by him, though. Oh, no, it's very much to the point. You can't forget that Clinton won the popular vote by a substantial margin while trying to understand why she lost. You're going to have to point me to where I said that. So now you're arguing in your hypothetical role as an American citizen? If so, and if you mean the changes you mentioned in your previous message, then good luck, Sisyphus. So talk about them for the longer term if that's what you want to talk about. My focus in this thread is on the next four years (hopefully not more than that), and your topic doesn't really interest me, but maybe somebody here is interested. Very true. They needed emancipation before they could get the vote, and then there were Jim Crow laws in the south that prevented their voting for a long time, but I get your point. To achieve a goal, no matter how distant, you have to at least start working on it.But how our political parties should choose their candidates isn't the topic of this thread (which is fine, diversions from the main topic are fine), and you say you're taking the long term view, rather than something that could be achieved by 2020, so this just doesn't interest me. The same lightbulb recently went on in this country, though Trump is working against it now. Sorry, not much about UK politics makes the news here except Brexit. I'm not familiar with most of that paragraph. What I was saying wasn't a proposal for implementing anything. It was a description of how some people were voting against their own best interests. Well, I'm not missing the sarcasm, but not exactly. I hope both parties do the best job possible of selecting candidates in 2020 so that the best meaningful options are available to me. I'm a financial conservative and a social liberal, and until the last decade or so that made for some difficult voting decisions. But the Republican focus on financial deregulation (the stuff that contributed to the 2008 financial collapse, and their continuing push at further deregulation, including some Trump executive orders this year) has changed the equation, making it much easier to vote for Democratic presidential candidates recently. Okay. And you're talking again as a hypothetical American citizen again, right? What I wrote was intended as gentle indications that your proposals were outlandish. You've since explained that you were talking on a timescale of 50-100 years, but when I reacted to those proposals you hadn't yet revealed that information. When you throw outlandish ideas out at people and demand they treat them reasonably it makes them feel like you're questioning their intelligence, as if you were thinking, "I wonder just how stupid this person is?"Escalate away if that's your desire, but you seem interested in serious discussion, so I don't see why you'd do that. I can pretty much guarantee I'll continue to react with sarcastic skepticism when presented with outlandish ideas. Oh, you're definitely better informed about our political system than almost all people here, including Trump, yet speaking as you are from a distance there is just so much you're missing. Plus this might explain some of the things you said, perhaps being opinions from Americans in your family rather than hard information.--Percy

No, seriously, go back on your meds. What you're doing isn't normal behavior.--Percy

Please don't encourage the troll.--Percy

Well, don't go too far. Some of my best friends voted for Trump. I don't think they're very informed politically, but who I like and enjoy doesn't seem to have much to do with politics. Yes, I know. Since I didn't claim it a first time, how could I claim it again?Look, for whatever reason you're having a hard time understanding that I'm not trying to make any specific claims. To me much of what you say is nonsense, and when I try to make clear to you why it seems like nonsense to me, you answer as if I'd asserted something that I never had. I don't know how to fix you. No, I never agreed with you. What I've said is that as long as you continue to speak nonsense that I will never agree with you. What I've said is that no policy helps everyone and hurts no one. These aren't examples, they're very general situations. For example, about military decisions, the Viet Nam war was fought under both Republican and Democratic administrations. So was the Iraq war.But there's no connection between your hypothetical scenarios and the simple message I've been repeating: 2016 was the wrong election for Democrats or Democrat leaning people or even 3rd-partiers to be voting for anyone but Clinton, because it could only make things worse for you by making the election of Trump possible. If you're a starving family of Democrats, Trump will make things worse for you. If you're a poor family that needs help affording health insurance, Trump will make things worse for you. If you're the grieving wife of a dead soldier, Trump will make things worse for you. And of course, Trump will also be making things worse for those who voted for him. Yes, I know, Robert Reich says lots of things. And the Wikipedia quote I provided you contradicted him. Now what? By "current Democratic party" you mean the one that controls neither the legislative nor the executive branch of government?Or by "current Democratic party" do you mean the Obama administration, under whom unemployment fell year after year once we started recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, which by the way had nothing to do with NAFTA? You mean when it comes to access to healthcare and jobs and food and a clean environment and things like that? Don't we all assume these things are in everyone's best interests? Boy, the confusion with you just never ends, does it. Who said anything about putting constraints on people's right to cast their vote as they see fit?Some poor person in the midwest who can only afford health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act has the perfect right to vote for Trump, which would be against their own best interests because Trump is trying to take that health insurance away from them.I think you may be confusing my declaration that some people cast votes that were contrary to their best interests with telling people how they must vote. I'm doing the former, not the latter. Oh, thank God, I'll never be lonely.--Percy

If you’d like to engage in constructive discussion of the topic then please proceed, otherwise get off the thread. I’m sure I’ve said many things about Trump that you disagree with, but this is not the way to register your disagreement. We do it through discussion here. You know that.Percy

Sorry, I phrased that in an ambiguous way. I was referring only to Trump initiatives, like healthcare and tax cuts. He hasn't been able to get a single one of his initiatives through Congress yet. His only successful initiatives have been executive orders.But that is very bad list of legislative actions, and of course some of them did make the news. The removal of protections from pollution from coal mining waste was, I thought, an executive order, but I guess it's just legislation Trump signed. It must have been just the mountain top removal issue that was an executive order. It has its non-rhetorical aspects. School segregation in Boston was addressed by court order from judge Garrity to bus students so as to balance school populations racially from 1974 to 1988, 14 years. This caused white flight in the form of leaving the city altogether and using private or parochial schools, plus there was considerable pushback from the city and the school districts that continually thwarted Garrity's orders. The eventual result was public school districts with dominantly non-white populations.It's the same in the south. Eliminating Jim Crow laws and the Voting Rights act of 1965 did not eliminate efforts to keep blacks from voting - these efforts continue today with things like voter ID laws. You can't legislate racism away.I agree with you in principle, and the change in sentiment about LGBT issues and drug laws here in the US was a surprising development over the past few years. But some things are part of human nature, and you can apply whatever timeframes you like, you're not going to change that. I'm sorry to hear that (though I didn't understand the part about "I do get the UK references..."). This is probably too personal, but why breasts and women's clothes with a beard? Is this a subclass of LGBT where you're attracted to men who are attracted to men who have some of the characteristics of women'? Or you're attracted to women who are attracted to men who have some of the characteristics of women? Or it's just for yourself?But your concerns about entering the US at this time don't change my mind about how seriously you take the threat.
You would never vote for Clinton because she's too far right even though had she been elected these concerns you have about even entering the US would evaporate. You seem like a perfect example of voting against your own best interests. Get what? Clinton is already on your side. And you'll do it from the UK, rather than from the US where you would be now and closer to your family had Clinton been elected. Not sure why you're saying slaughters may not be surmountable. The whole list was of slaughters being followed by victory four years later. Dole was the Republican willing to run in an election where it appeared to most that it didn't matter who the Republicans ran, they were going to lose. Pat Buchanan? That joke? No, he would not have done as well as Dole. He was slaughtered 3-1 by Dole in the primaries. Don't be silly. It's a continuum that didn't just begin in 2016 of increasing experience, contacts, refinement of positions, alliances, successes, unpredictable events, luck, etc. There was no such person on the radar. I agree that there currently seems a dearth of qualified Democratic candidates in 2020, but why do you care? The Democratic party is not going to move what you consider far enough to the left by 2020. Don't forget what country this is, and the Democrats have a base they have to be true to. You're not going to vote Democratic in 2020 no matter who they run, which won't be someone as left as Sanders.Since you're thinking 50-100 years out, why do you care about 2020 anyway? This statement is belied by the list of slaughters followed by victory that I listed above. Not that the Democrats don't have deep problems, but their margin of popular vote victory is not one of them. If the presidential election were today then Trump would lose big time. He's got a few years to put his house in order and show that he can be a decent chief executive, but he's given no evidence that that is within his ability. Of course people have different opinions about Clinton, but don't forget that Clinton wasn't my first choice, either. But evil? That's ludicrous. It demonstrates no judgment and reveals a lack of discrimination. It's an assault on the English language. If Clinton is evil then what word do you use for someone who is truly evil, like Trump? More nonsense, for the same reasons I just gave. The qualification that you should be talking about is to be a "better candidate" than Clinton, but you seem to be talking about someone who would be a potentially better president. You *do* need someone who has a prayer of getting elected, someone with a demonstrated ability to build constituencies, navigate the complex presidential election minefield, build alliances, project the right public image, communicate the right message, etc. But now you're talking about Clinton and 2016, not your 50-100 year timeframe. Nothing you're saying was remotely possible in 2016. You're living in fantasyland. I didn't see any nuance. What I saw was what you actually wrote: What you're calling "nuance" is unsupported speculation. No, I'm pretty sure you need specifics if you want a prayer of building a convincing argument. Anyone can pose a hypothetical. The context is 2020, but you're describing your "50-100 years out" ideas. The Democratic "selection process" is not going to change in any significant way by 2020. You're again in fantasyland. Reread what you wrote again: This is obviously saying that of the two parties, the Republican party and the Democratic party, that "the Democratic party is the one that actually chooses the system it's going to use to pick the nominee," leaving the Republicans as the party that does not do this. Which is absurd.Or were you maybe just trying to be cute, stating the incredibly obvious in lengthy fashion that it is the Democrats that define their primary system?You went on to say: The Democrats and Republicans use pretty much the same system - the differences are too minor to be worth exploring, even the issue of superdelegates. If the Democratic system of selecting candidates is inferior, then the Republican system is also inferior. It's a level playing field. Plus, to say it once again, none of this is going to change by 2020. If you want to talk about significant change then you're going to have to return to talking in the context of your 50-100 year timeframe. That you ended up arguing incredibly obvious truisms should have told you that you missed a turn somewhere. You should probably be more clear when you're talking about 2016 and 2020 versus 50-100 years out, and not be so cute in your expression. And...we're back into the 50-100 year timeframe, not that there was any hint that you were changing timeframes again. Anyway, good luck with all that. I'm just worried about getting through the next four years. But they obviously didn't say anything about assuming Clinton's election was assured. Again, absolutely nothing about believing Clinton's election was assured. The phone booth comment was in a reply to Stile who was contriving wacky scenarios. I don't think you can apply anything I said to Stile as fitting into this conversation. See Message 1370 for the phone booth comment. I was saying that the number of Democrats who thought Sanders, Stein and Trump all preferable to Clinton must be a very small group.I think there must be a great deal of overlap between the two groups you described who withheld their vote from Clinton, one who felt Clinton's election assured, the other with political reasoning. Why the former group wasn't using political reasoning you don't say, and this seems a nonsensical set of groupings. You've changed back and forth between the 2016/2020 timeframe and the 50-100 year timeframe innumerable times. As I've said, your changes are hard to follow, sometimes clear from context, oftentimes not. Once again you're completely unclear about when you're talking about. Is this about 2020 or 50-100 years from now? If you're talking about 2020 then of course I'm interested in discussing it. If you're talking about 50-100 years down the road then I've carefully and politely explained that discussing change that far out doesn't grab my interest and isn't the topic of this thread, though I have no problems with thread diversions. Sorry, that's the reality. Yeah, I know, you're not okay with Clinton, even though she would have probably given you 95% of what you want. You're a purist.You know, politics never remains static. If you're still alive in your 50-100 year timeframe and the US finally hits that political sweet spot that you seek, it won't stay there for long. Things will change. And who wants to come to the US but remains in the UK while arguing against the candidate who would have allowed him to fell comfortable coming to the US. He said in all modesty. And I'm sure everyone acceded to the brilliance with which you accurately interpreted foreign law with all its history and context. I think you're confusing your admirable ability to formulate arguments supporting any position with being right. I think much of the world pays the most attention to the largest and most influential countries, but following the news and Googling things isn't the same as living there. Much of their thinking about foreign places will be shaped in ways of which they're not even aware by where they live. Nope, and I still don't get it. You "voted" against your own best interests and by result (possibly - no way to know for sure) are still stuck in the UK. You know, you're not going to live forever. At some point, and I suggest sooner rather than later, you might want to jump down off that 50-100 year horse of principle you're mounted on and go off and do what you want to do. And...we're back to the 50-100 year timeframe. You know, it's okay when people are interested in different things. I'm interested in 2018 and 2020. You're interested in 50-100 years from now. There's nothing wrong with that. And...we're back to 2020. Yes, I already mentioned Maine and Nebraska quite a while ago in a reply to RAZD in Message 1354, and somewhere else I described the possibility of another state or two making that change, so I don't think it's absurd at all. What I think is absurd is when you take something I say about 2016-2020 and interpret it in a 50-100 year context, or vice versa. And...we're back to the 50-100 year timeframe. I think it's great that there are people working toward the eventual goal of IRV at a national level. No objections and nothing I ever argued against. You didn't make clear that you were talking about a 50-100 year timeframe until much, much later. What you actually said back in Message 1391 and that I was replying to was this: You implied a correlation between the popular vote and electoral vote, not the winning. The "pushback" was about what you said, not what you thought you said. Yes, obviously, as history tells us, about the correlation with winning, usually the winner gets the most popular votes, and sometimes not. But I've never objected to learning lessons from 2016. I just don't think that one of the lessons was that Clinton was the wrong candidate. Wow, you went back five days of posts for that one. That quote was from my Message 1359, and I was responding to where you said in Message 1357: Anyway, I didn't call it "the problem". I said that you've identified the wrong problem. I suppose I could have been more clear, but it would have involved a lot more words, but here's the more clear version. I wasn't saying that you've identified the wrong problem but that I've identified the right one. I was trying to say that you've gone seeking a problem and think you've found one, but all we really have is an explanation for why Clinton lost, which is the way the popular vote mapped onto the electoral college. I also said a lot more in that paragraph in Message 1359, only part of which you quoted. Here's the full paragraph: I didn't find the profane screed against Clinton informative or amusing. After living here a while you'd find the reality on the ground changing your current thinking quite a bit. It was never my interest or argument "to eradicate the existence of protest voting in the next few years," and I thought I just said that in my last post, or at least the one previous to that. All I've done is note that protest votes can produce a result contrary to your own best interests. So to reiterate, enjoy the UK. And...we're back to sending messages again. And...we're back to the 50-100 year timeframe. Obviously the way to avoid Trump in 2016 was to vote for Clinton. And...we're back to 2016. And...we're back to the 50-100 year timeframe. Who said anything about "changing the people"? That preposterous insertion into the discussion is yours alone. Florida, Texas and Louisiana all voted Trump, you say your family members are right leaning, so they likely voted Trump if they voted at all. If you actually moved over here and lived in a red state do you really think you'd stay on the left any more than the rest of your family did? Well, actually you're LGBT status means you'd stay on the left, but I'm just remaking the point that living here is lot different than looking in from across the ocean. Glad you enjoy New Orleans.--Percy

That last change in Clinton's LGBT position was a small last step of an evolving process in a consistent direction that had begun over a decade before. She has the position you want, she arrived at that position consistently without any zig-zagging or equivocating. You don't get any more than that on most issues from most politicians. Oh, come on, get real, the US is just fine for you right now and on into the future. I'm sure the UK feeling about LGBT issues is no more uniform across the country than is the US. If you want to settle in New Orleans you'll be fine.
Same for New York, LA, San Francisco, etc.Plus it does make a big difference whether Clinton or Trump won. The equation changes enormously had Clinton been elected. Trump will have a very long term effect. He's already put one conservative judge on the Supreme Court, and he's likely to add one to two more during his current administration. Supreme Court justices serve for life. Thomas has been on the court for over a quarter century. Well, as I thought I said, Dole was the Republican willing to run in an election that Republicans in general didn't think could be won. There wasn't a lot of enthusiasm among Republicans for running that year. I forget who else was around at the time, but no doubt there were Republicans who could have done better than Dole, though they still would have lost, and Buchanan wasn't one of them. No, they're not all jokes. There are many politicians of great honesty and integrity and who possess empathy and compassion. That doesn't come close to describing Pat Buchanan and I have no idea why you bring him up. He was Nixon on steroids. He was William F. Buckley without the intellect. He was Trump before Trump turned uncaringness and insensitivity into an art form. This is still silly and addresses none of the reasons I gave for why it's silly. A politician gradually earns greater attention and respect and power over time, plus there are unpredictable factors. History clearly shows that in every election year viable candidates emerge who were not on the radar four years before. Thinking that they would have been equally reasonable candidates four years before with four years less growth and experience is silly. Kennedy wouldn't have been a viable candidate in 1956. Carter would not have been a viable candidate in 1972. Michael Dukakis would not have been a viable candidate in 1984. Bill Clinton would not have been a viable candidate in 1988. Obama would not have been a viable candidate in 2004. It looks to me more like wishful thinking for viable candidates closer to your views. You're fooling yourself that these viable candidates are out there somewhere, that we're just using the wrong tools to find them. Politicians closer to your views exist, but not with a chance at the presidency. Well, yes, of course it's perception. The idiots who think Clinton evil are no more going to be convinced otherwise than those who, even after this 9-month circus, think Trump good and competent. I can't believe you keep raising this point. Clinton won more votes than Trump. She got the 2nd most vote total in US history. Your conclusion: non-optimal candidate. If I were a Democratic candidate I would put you in one of the tiny categories of voter who is nearly impossible to satisfy. But I don't think protest votes are a problem. How many times now have I called 2016 a special situation because of the possibility of Trump's election, with people like you casting votes (or no vote) counter to their own best interests? Well, sure, but it still leaves me wondering why you keep shifting to the 50-100 year timeframe when I've repeatedly expressed a lack of interest in looking out that far. Maybe someone else here is interested (I think I've said that before). Yes, protest votes exist. They've always existed. They're only getting mentioned now (at least by me) because of the irony of registering a protest vote that contributes to an outcome that is the epitome of many things the protest vote was supposed to be a protest against. I think you mean that Party B will want to move to the left, as the diagram indicates. You can think of it that way, but I think of it as voting against your own best interests. Another way of looking at it is a correlation with wealth. The wealthier a country, the more it can afford the policies of the left. The world may no longer be growing wealthier. What you see as a long term trend toward the left may actually just be a side effect of an increasing wealth trend, and if that trend stops then so does the trend toward the left. And when you talk about the long term I explain how the effects of a Trump presidency could be very long term. I didn't say that. To me you're an idealist with fantasies about a future that can't be imagined. You pulled out a quote from my Message 1359 on October 16th, which is now seven days ago. There's nothing wrong with going back to old posts, but when you don't say where a quote is coming from it does make the conversation hard to follow. Consistent? No, of course not. Sometimes you're discussing how to fix things by 2018-2020, sometimes you're discussing how to fix things 50-100 years out, and sometimes you're talking about sending messages. Which is fine, but you tend to shift contexts without indication. Uh, how is that rebuttal or even rational? Either vote for Clinton or the only other viable choice will win, Trump. And not voting for Clinton was contrary to the best interests of those who wanted to vote Democratic but found they couldn't, because whatever negatives they associated with Clinton, Trump's negatives far outweighed them. It was arguably the large number of Democrats or Democratic leaning voters who just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton who caused the election of Trump. Uh, no. You achieve changing their vote by convincing them that Trump had a real chance of getting elected. Your long-term thinking makes sense to you because it's yours, but most people, even many now who voted for Trump, see what a poor choice that was (please excuse the extreme understatement) and that allowing Trump to get elected was a far greater insult to their political feelings than voting for Clinton.--Percy

I think you're still forgetting to take your meds.--Percy

I don't think you and Rrhain need to argue over nomenclature. You both know the difference between the popular vote and the electoral college. Rrhain's actual point is the same one I have made to you, that putting all your interpretational emphasis on an electoral college result that would have been opposite with just a 0.05% change in where popular votes were cast is strongly misplaced. Again, you're arguing terminology when meaning is clear. You're calling it "too many" as if that tells us something meaningful about Clinton's quality as a candidate. The problem is made clear by your example: How would anyone know how big the problem is if "too many" could be 1 too many apples or a thousand too many. As it turns out it's just one apple and the problem is non-existent, since the delivery guy just sticks one apple in his pocket. In similar fashion, a change in the way 0.05% of the popular vote was cast is miniscule. There were also a large number of people vocal for Clinton. The majority, as it turns out. If pigs could fly... It wasn't that Clinton was disliked by too many. Trump was also disliked by many, and that the electoral college votes fell his way does not send a message to the Republicans that their selection process is just fine. Why would you think a loss sends the opposite message to the Democrats, who have a process nearly identical to the Republicans?The difference was a mere 0.05% of the popular vote in exactly the right places. Again, your conclusion that the proper message for the Democrats to take from the election was that Clinton was an inadequate candidate and that they need to change their system for selecting candidates is not supported by a single thing you've said. And you haven't said anything about far more meaningful factors, such as Comey reopening the email investigation (for no good reason, it turns out) in the days just before the election. Determinedly repeating this fallacy doesn't make it any less false. Rrhain and I probably part ways at this point (about how fairly Clinton was perceived by the electorate and treated by the mainstream news media), but she *was* the candidate targeted by the Russians (look up the guy who shot up the pizza parlor for an example of fake news about Clinton that was apparently believed by many more people than anyone could ever have believed were that stupid). She *was* the candidate who had an incredibly big deal made about a security mistake regarding an email server that apparently resulted in no security breaches. She *was* the candidate blitzed by Comey just before the election.So it's really hard, especially given the dearth of evidence you offer, to give any credence to your premise that there were better candidates than Clinton to be had out there had the Democrats had a better selection process.--Percy

Hi DroneStar,I don't really know you, and I don't recall ever having a discussion with you, and I don't recall ever interacting with you in an administrative capacity, so I took a look at some of your discussion in other threads. You seem like a reasonable guy. If you'd like to engage in constructive discussion of the topic of this thread (The Trump Presidency) then I think that'd be great, but if you continue to spam the thread in the way that you have then I will follow the normal administrative procedures for such situations.You seem very interested in Clinton as a war criminal, so the best way to pursue discussing it would be to open a new thread. Anyone can open a thread in the Coffee House forum. You don't have to propose it first. But let me add that spamming a thread, even your own thread, with the kinds of photos you've been posting thus far for the reasons you have will bring administrative action. I want EvC Forum to remain a decent place. Use your words. I'll be downsizing the photos from your posts in this thread soon.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix last sentence.

The views we're talking about are yours, namely that Clinton's loss indicates the Democrats have a flawed selection process ("Yes, it's the radar I am criticising!"), pretty much the same process as the Republicans, who won. Have these alternative selection procedures you keep talking about demonstrated any superiority in selecting a candidate for the main election. I mean, is there evidence from countries that have implemented such procedures.Also, you keep talking about Clinton as if she were the only one with negatives. Sanders had negatives, too. Say the Democrats used a procedure that resulted in the nomination of Sanders. Sanders would have lost in the electoral college bigger than Clinton, and he would not have won a majority of the popular vote. That isn't a big endorsement for your "alternative procedure" that you so obviously hope would have made Sanders the Democratic nominee.Oh, but wait, let's not forget all those hypothetical candidates your selection procedures would have identified who would have led the Democrats to victory. Well, if hypotheticals with no supporting evidence were worth a darn you'd be doing swimmingly, but they're not. This is just more supposin'. No comment. You've lost the plot. You were repeating your point about the Democrats needing to find "candidates more optimally". I expect you'll keep ignoring that Clinton only lost the electoral college because of where 0.05% of the popular vote was cast, and that you'll keep arguing that the electoral college result that was determined by such a minuscule difference means Clinton wasn't the best candidate and that the Democrats need better selection procedures, but you haven't been able to argue your position in a way that makes sense to anyone. But the number of people who vote does not go up all the time. More people voted in 2008 than voted in 2012 and 2016. Sure, the long term trend is increasing votes cast due to increasing population, but the population isn't increasing all that fast, certainly not enough to diminish the significance of Clinton's vote total. That Clinton received the 2nd most vote total in US history is not a fact that can simply be discarded because it's inconvenient to your thesis. You shouldn't keep offering arguments that have been shown fatally flawed. You only believe "the method of selection is non-optimal" in ways that meaningfully affect elections because Clinton lost based upon flawed reasoning. Well, the DNC is already better at this than you. This supposed candidate of whom you speak couldn't possibly be a Democrat, reinforcing what I said that from the point of the view of the Democrats you fit into one of the tiny categories of voter who is nearly impossible to satisfy. That doesn't mean nobody could satisfy you, that's not what I mean. But it does mean that any candidate satisfactory to you has no chance of winning in the general election, unless you're talking 50-100 years out again, which I hope you're not. You said that before? Sorry, must have missed it. I can't stop saying what is true, and it makes no sense to shift the focus to your 50-100 year timeframe just because it's pointed out that your hypothetical protest vote in 2016 was contrary to your own best interests. You didn't explain anything. All you did was make the nonsensical comment that telling you your hypothetical 2016 vote was contrary to your own best interests would cause you to start talking yet again about 50-100 years out. You *do* have interests today, one of them is wanting to come to the US, which a Clinton win would have allowed, not that you didn't come up with yet more spurious objections that Clinton isn't a pure enough LGBT supporter for you. Now I know you say you put more emphasis on your long term interests than on your short term interests, but you personally have almost no long term interests in the 50-100 year timeframe, because during most of that timeframe you'll be dead. I have more to say about this later. Maybe more serious consideration of this possibility is warranted. It wasn't something I forgot. I was trying to track back why you were reintroducing it into the conversation. Most people view a timeframe of 50-100 years out not as one where their own best interests lie, but those of their progeny. And I can tell you from experience, what progeny regard as their own best interests could bear very little resemblance to your own. c) is dumb. Remember all the science predictions of the 1950's of rocket cars and personal flying packs? Well, looking 50-100 years out politically has just as much accuracy. No, that wouldn't be an accurate way of describing persuasion through the introduction of factual information. More accurately, the idea is to persuade people of the risks inherent in a protest vote in the 2016 election. I'm against the use of scare tactics, but anyway, describing how Trump had a legitimate chance of election is not a scare tactic. I think "scare tactics" is the wrong term. I'm against them, but I think all the Democrats were doing was accurately characterizing Trump. That's not a scare tactic, that's just the truth. And looking back on what the Democrats said about Trump during the election anyone can see that it was the truth. In fact, if anything it considerably understated the truth. But anyway, I don't know why you're singling out the Democrats. The Republicans used the same strategy. And that's pretty much the tack taken by the five currently living former presidents, including the Republicans, when they gathered recently in support of hurricane victims. I don't think it was that people weren't convinced Trump would make a bad president. They just didn't take his chances seriously enough.--Percy

Let me explain again. Fixating on just the electoral college results while refusing to consider what happened to cause those results ignores important causative factors. It's like focusing on just the gun that caused the murder and ignoring what caused the gun to be aimed and fired. I think you must mean this and will defend this in a very particular way. I think you mean the national popular vote total isn't what maps onto the electoral college. That mapping happens state by state. But this point you're making?
Everyone already knows this and no one is arguing it. It's just something you've said several times now when you need a response that has the appearance of being on point but actually isn't. No, that's not what I'm saying, though it's pretty close. The part that is different is that I'm not expressing some wish that more people felt more positive about Clinton as a candidate. I'm pointing out the irony of registering a protest vote that contributed to a result opposite to what they expected or wanted. They wanted a Democrat or at least someone in that general region of the political spectrum, but they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton, so they voted in such a way (or didn't vote) so as to register their dissatisfaction with the Democratic candidate. Obviously they didn't want Trump but believed (reinforced by the polls) that Clinton was going to win anyway, so they felt safe in registering a protest vote and got Trump. Oh, the irony! You're repeating your position while ignoring the argument for why it's wrong. Basically your rebuttal is "too many is too many", which is exactly what you said before, not to mention tautological and wrong. Too many apples in the form of thousands of apples sends a strong message that the packaging strategy (or something) must be changed. But too many apples in the form of one apple is just "whoops" and no message at all.Or here's another analogy. There are two many packages to fit in the back of the UPS truck (UPS is a package delivery service). If there are many too many packages to fit on this truck and many of the trucks then this sends a message to UPS to buy more trucks and hire more drivers, and possibly even redesign and replace their trucks. But if there's just a couple too many packages then the driver just puts them up in the passenger compartment with him, and there's no real problem.Like the analogies of the one apple and of a couple packages, you're blowing a very, very minor issue regarding the distribution of votes up into a big deal where there's some clear message about changing candidate selection procedures for the Democratic party. And it feels very much like you're expending all this energy trying to support an incredibly poor argument because you believe Sanders was a better candidate than Clinton and you want procedures in place that would have made that outcome more likely. So you cast a (hypothetical) write-in vote for Sanders to send this message to the Democratic party.But of course that isn't the message that was received, because such things are normal occurrences in every election. That we had this discrepancy between the popular vote and the electoral college made 2016 out of the ordinary, but it doesn't say the Democrat's primary process is flawed. Just as Trump's win doesn't say the Republican primary process is fine. Which is necessary logically, since they're the same process.Now I know your argument is that better processes exist, but you've presented no evidence that is so, just made claims that processes exist that could tell us such things as whether protest votes are likely to be registered, as if the closeness and bitterness of primary battles didn't already give us plenty of that kind of information. In the bottom 15 of all elections? That's simply not possible because of the small number of votes cast in the many elections of the 1800s. The total votes cast in a presidential election probably didn't even reach Clinton's margin of popular vote victory until around the mid-1800's.But I get your point and it's a poor one. There's nothing unusual about a small margin of victory. What's unusual is when the popular vote and the electoral college run in opposite directions, in 2016 by the largest margin in history by far. It's time to finally put this ridiculous argument about too many people actively disliking Clinton to bed. In every election millions of people actively dislike candidates. There can't be anything particularly unique about the number of people actively disliking Clinton because she received a very substantial number of votes, as many as Obama in the previous election. Gee, what a difficult question. Let me reread what you quoted from me again: "Determinedly repeating this fallacy doesn't make it any less false." Nope, I don't seem to be suggesting that at all.What I was actually suggesting was that repeating the argument that Clinton "did not resonate with enough people" or that she "anti-resonated with too many people" does not overcome how many times this has been shown false.
It also speaks poorly of your position that you feel forced to make claims of fine distinction that saying "she did not resonate with 'people'" communicates significantly different information than saying "she did not resonate with *enough* people".It isn't that we don't understand what you're saying and that you just need to use more and more careful language in order to finally get your message across. It's that we disagree with your message, think it's wrong, and believe we have shown that it's wrong. Gee, you mean like Sanders? How can you keep suggesting this while having no counter to the factually obvious, that Sanders would have garnered even less votes than Clinton? We get it - you like Sanders. Doesn't mean he doesn't have his own negatives. After all, more people voted against Sanders in the Democratic primaries than voted against Clinton. The split was 60/40 in favor of Clinton. What you just said is not a rephrasing of what I quoted and called a fallacy. What you said in Message 1416 that I called a fallacy was this: This argument was already destroyed with my list of lost elections followed by victory four years later.--Percy