The 2016 United States Presidential Election

Bill Maher happened to make a really interesting observation. This is perhaps the first race in the modern era where neither candidate felt the need to tout their religious beliefs and affiliations. No debate question has asked how their religious faith will influence how they govern. No one has made the claim that God told them to run for office. There has hardly been a peep about the religious beliefs of either candidate.Are we moving away from religiously driven politics? Are evangelical voters making up a smaller and smaller percentage of the populace? Will the influx of Hispanic Catholics change historic US culture that has been dominated by Protestantism?Ultimately, isn't it strange that we will have had a women (probably) and black president in the modern era before we have a president who is a self professed atheist (although it could be argued that many presidents were not really believers)?But in the end, the WASP party is really ticked off that they are quickly becoming the minority. This is why you see them trying to delegitimize elections, because they simply can't win majorities in national elections anymore. If their redistricting advantage ends with the new census, what will happen then?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

I am going to timidly say yes. There is simply no current political tradition of coalition building in US politics. I don't think people would react well to their party compromising on certain issues in order to form a coalition with another party. People are also not used to a party who rules by plurality instead of by majority.The real problem appears to be a lack of civility and tribalism. I may have shared this before, but I often go back to an early Tea Party rally (the forerunner of Trump rallies) where someone got up in front of the crowd and asked how many people earned less than 150k per year. A lot of people raised their hand. He then asked if people making less than 150k a year should get a tax break. A lot of them cheered. The man then said, "Well, Obama is going to give you a tax break." They booed. They booed when a Democratic president wanted to do the very thing they wanted. You can't get more dysfunctional than that.

Then why did those same people vote for a guy who sent jobs overseas? That's what many of us are shaking our heads at. Nativist inclinations exist in Europe just like they exist in the US. I think you are right.

Then why did they re-elect almost every incumbent Republican running for Congress? They even re-elected Blunt in Missouri whose kids are famous lobbyists, for crying out loud. He is as establishment as it gets. If there is a monster in the swamp, its Blunt.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

That's my conclusion as well. The most well established and most prominent Republican, Paul Ryan, was easily re-elected in Wisconsin, one of the states that supposedly "voted against the establishment". I call hooey on the claim it was an anti-establishment vote. It was a vote for a change in party, but not a vote for some existential change in politics as a whole. This makes much more sense given the history of parties having difficulty being elected into the White House after 2 terms in power.What I also think is happening is that they are using the "outsider" tag to mask something much darker. People didn't like Trump because he was an outsider. They liked him because of the dog whistles he was all too eager to blow. His rhetoric was xenophobic, nativist, and nationalist. That's what they liked. Even if we all know that a lot of it is just hyperbole that no one thinks he will follow through on, he still displays the same disdain that his voters have. If a rank-and-file Republican had used the same rhetoric he would have had the same success.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Pence is stridently Pro-Life. My hope is that the next 4 years will shut the door on Pro-Life rhetoric. We all know that voting to ban abortions is political suicide for the party as a whole. I highly, highly doubt that they will bring an abortion ban forth in the in next 4 years even though they have control of all 3 branches of government. If they fail to even try and ban abortions, we can all claim quite loudly that even if they claim they are Pro-Life, they really aren't. If elected, they will never put forth an abortion ban and we all know it.Quite frankly, I think Democrats should just get out of their way. Don't filibuster anything. Republicans have been talking big for a decade now about what they would do, a lot of which is little more than rhetoric. When they are actually in the position to vote for their own bullshit it will produce two options. One, they end up not voting for it, allowing us to move past their rhetoric and towards more sane legislation. Two, they do vote for it and Democrats run against them using their vote against them. We may have to put up with same crap legislation for a little while, but it might come out for the positive in the long term.For a little context, I consider all of this the bargaining stage in my movement through the 5 stages of grief.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Wanting to carpet bomb civilians and water board prisoners goes beyond "disagreeing with the left".

I would knock the hell out of ISIS [and] when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families, the Republican presidential candidate said on Fox & Friends.
ISIS: Donald Trump Says He'd 'Take Out' Terrorists' Families | TimeCarpet bombing or no, he still wants to take out civilians.We could also discuss his latest statement where he claimed that if someone burns the US flag that they should lose their citizenship. That isn't a disagreement with the left, that is a disagreement with the US Constitution. You can't take someone's citizenship away.

Where did Hillary ever threaten to take away citizenship? That's the part I was talking about. 1. You haven't shown that Trump cares about all Americans.2. You haven't shown that the "Left" is bent on destroying America.3. Liberals aren't communists. Those are two different things.All you are doing is repeating propaganda without understanding a single word you say. Just more unsupported rhetoric.

I am not British, but I do have a soft spot for British humor. I often judge people by their ability to either recognize or recite lines from the work of Monty Python. If you call a girl a watery tart, and she replies with something about giving you a sword, then you know she is a keeper.

I also judge people by their ability to recognize or recite lines from "Young Frankenstein" which was released in 1974 (same year I was released by my mother). I consider "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles" to be as representative of American humor as other more modern examples. Those movies still influence and inspire young American comedians.

What clues are those?

America has been accepting refugees for decades now, in case you missed it. I had a good friend in college who was a Bosnian refugee. The city where I live has thousands of African refugees:Boise, Idaho, A Global Home for RefugeesThey have only enriched our community. No one is being forced out of their homes. Sorry, but all you are expressing is xenophobia. In the US, we are all immigrants except for the indigenous people who we continue to give the short end of the stick. For 8 years we heard how Obama was going to take away our guns. Did it ever happen? At this point, these claims are nothing more than lies meant to scare people on the right.Also, I bet you are against the Black Lives Matter movement, even though it is a case of people fighting back against police action. Why is that? Is it just the wrong skin color?

Yes, you have. I never said anything about racism. You are projecting.You claimed that the "Leftist Police" were subjugating the American populace. I pointed to a movement that was fighting back against the misuse of power at the hands of police. Do you support it or not? Probably not, right?