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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
36 states with a Senate race this year. In 24 of them, the GOP Senate candidates received more total votes than Donald Trump did.
@Marq: The official vote of the Electoral College does not happen until next month. The popular vote just determines which way the states lean, and electors are heavily pressured to vote in line with their state's results.
edited 9th Nov '16 11:46:50 AM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)@Tropes Forever: And that's what I was getting at. This is pretty much exactly the situation the Electoral College was created to prevent. One has to hope, even as we acknowledge it as a faint hope, that that doesn't turn out to have been a horrible mistake on the founding fathers' part.
edited 9th Nov '16 11:48:18 AM by Gilphon
Okay, the baseless doom-saying and demonizing of American citizens in this thread needs to stop. We're at nearly 50 pages of almost constant defeatist posts and attempts to justify the results of this election as being the actions of an "evil" entity and complete ignorance of the myriad of reasons why Americans voted as they did.
I'm being constantly reminded by posts in this thread of the same people from the other side of the political spectrum who were making claims in 2008 that Barrack "Anti-Christ" Obama was going to end the world. That didn't happen in either term of his presidency, and it isn't going to happen with Donald "Literally Hitler" Trump as president either. If the best thing you can contribute to this (or for that matter, ANY) political discussion is doom-saying or demonizing the opposition and their supporters, you may as well not post at all, It contributes nothing of value.
There are many topics that this thread could be discussing that have a factual or realistic basis to build on; drug Policy in the individual states and how it relates to Federal policy going forward, discussing the political shift in the blue-belt and the rational reasons why that might have happened, international trade deals and the world economy as a result of Trump's economic plan. These are all relevant topics that might merit real open minded discussion here.
I know some people here have factually sound concerns regarding government policy in the next four years, and I encourage you to post and discuss these things as long as you keep the facts and reality of the situation in mind when doing so. And remember, if/when the government tries to do something you don't like, you have a constitutional responsibility to speak with your local representatives and make your voice heard. Engage in peaceful protest if you feel that it is necessary to have your opinion known. It's much more useful to do this than to post a dead-end comment here saying that everything you know and love is dead.
Once again people, this is not the end of the free world. That didn't happen during the cold war, it didn't happen on 9/11, it didn't happen when Obama was elected, and it won't happen now. Just go outside and face the day, live your life and things will turn out just fine.
One more thing I do need to mention here. I've noticed a few posts in this thread talking about how white racists are the reason why Trump got into power. I'll gently remind you, it's one thing to talk about how white people in a state voted Republican, it's another thing entirely to talk about how it was white "racists" who voted Republican. Attaching a label like that to an entire race is every bit as racist as the people you think you are talking about. It was not acceptable to claim that the Black Power movement was the only reason why Barrack Obama was elected last election, and it's not acceptable to claim that White Supremacists are the only reason why Trump won this one. Racism against ANY race has never and will never be permitted on this forum.
/rant
I've noticed at the time of posting this that the conversation is swinging towards talking about vote counts. Let's try to keep that up and not derail the thread with yet another post comparing Trump to a video game villain.
Mudkip's final evolution is in fact NOT Mudkipperino.... So there's a non-zero chance that some of the electors of Republican-leaning states may break with convention and exercise their technically legal freedom to vote for the Democratic candidate?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Has there ever been a faithless elector
revolt so powerful it changed the "official" electoral result of the campaign?
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Which would, rightfully, make a whole lot of people angry about ignoring the will of the people. We might not like the EC, but we're currently having to deal with it as part of our process. And, disturbingly, the only faithless electors any of us heard of this year were going to vote against Clinton out of fucking spite in heavily Democratic states.
edited 9th Nov '16 11:52:31 AM by AceofSpades
@marq: Well... entirely legal isn't quite accurate. Voting against the state's popular vote is illegal in some states- though not all of them. But even in the ones where it is illegal, we're talking 'pay a $1000 dollar fine and your vote still counts' illegal.
This would, of course, cause a massive and some respects justified backlash against that particular aspect of the system, making it significantly less likely ever happen again.
@blkwhtrbbt: No. The entire state of Virginia turned faithless once and made a difference, but it was against the VP pick. And that's the biggest impact they've ever had.
edited 9th Nov '16 11:56:42 AM by Gilphon
Yeah it was just a lark. I don't actually expect Chelsea to seriously run or anything, but relying on elderly statesmen isn't going to help the Democratic Party in the long run. We need to look at fresh blood.
@ randomdude4
Totally feel the same way. Like, I've always prided myself on being what I consider an independent who votes on the issues rather than the party, and applies a skeptical eye to any and all candidates no matter their affiliation. it just so happened that every one of the politicians I preferred came from the Democrats. But given the direction the world's going, where political rhetoric is going, the Overton Window's massive rightward shift, all of it, I can't just sit back and call myself a "moderate" anymore without feeling like I'm sacrificing my principles to force myself into an artificial state of centrism. If that makes me too extreme to part of the population then so be it. I'm still not ready to call myself liberal with an indefinite article in front of it, but I am definitely willing to describe myself as being liberal now. Independent in principle, damn dirty liberal in practice.
"Attaching a label like that to an entire race is every bit as racist as the people you think you are talking about. It was not acceptable to claim that the Black Power movement was the only reason why Barrack Obama was elected last election".
So yeah, I don't think the Black Power movement had anything to do with Obama being elected. Hell I don't even think there really is such a movement to speak of in the United States anymore.
Going to severely side eye any person who makes a claim like that and claims to be speaking from a moderate position.
Of course the Black Power Movement wasn't the reason why Obama got into power, and Obama isn't the Anit-Christ. Statements like that are racist and bullshit. That's the exact point I was trying to make, and I am telling you people that trying to post similar things now is every bit as unacceptable.
edited 9th Nov '16 12:02:20 PM by CassiusBenard
Mudkip's final evolution is in fact NOT Mudkipperino.Also, it is not a discriminatory claim to say that a lot of white people in the country are racist. I know a lot of great white people, and many of the posters in this thread are white, are for racial equality and voted against Trump. Racism is not necessarily something unique to them, np, but you have to be quite blind in order to not have seen the resentment and white nationalism that was blowing on the sails of the Trump campaign.
I understand trying to get people to not panic, find common ground and understanding that Trump's victory was not entirely due to racism. But to ignore that aspect is intellectually dishonest.
edited 9th Nov '16 12:03:19 PM by Draghinazzo
Mods, feel free to thump me if this is an unacceptable personal attack.
So to state what seems to me to be the obvious, but it's striking to me that everyone who goes in this thread telling the liberal posters here not to attack Trump voters for being racist seems to be pretty obviously racist themselves or at best indifferent to the rights of non-white people.
I might also add that he has the backing of actual white supremacist movements. Normally that wouldn't necessarily be damning in and of itself but they've specifically said that they feel Trump is "softening" people to their ideology and making it more publicly acceptable.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
We are never going to ameliorate racism by pretending it isn't there.

I don't think either of the Clinton daughters are involved in politics currently, so looking to them right now is uh... kind of ignoring their disinterest?