Idiocracy

[bustaheims]

Wow. Talk about your false equivalencies. Wynne is nowhere near as problematic is Trump appears that he's going to be, nor does the premier of Ontario or the Province of Ontario have anywhere near the power and influence as the President of the United States, or the U.S. itself.

What happens in Ontario doesn't have much impact outside of Canada. What happens in the U.S. has implications around the world.

 

[Bates]

So Rob Ford doesn't count either as he isn't as important.  OK gotcha no dumb elections in Canada count. 

Wow. Talk about your false equivalencies. Wynne is nowhere near as problematic is Trump appears that he's going to be, nor does the premier of Ontario or the Province of Ontario have anywhere near the power and influence as the President of the United States, or the U.S. itself.

What happens in Ontario doesn't have much impact outside of Canada. What happens in the U.S. has implications around the world.

 

[bustaheims]

So Rob Ford doesn't count either as he isn't as important.  OK gotcha no dumb elections in Canada count.

Anyone else smell burning straw man?

 

[Bender]

So Rob Ford doesn't count either as he isn't as important.  OK gotcha no dumb elections in Canada count. 

Wow. Talk about your false equivalencies. Wynne is nowhere near as problematic is Trump appears that he's going to be, nor does the premier of Ontario or the Province of Ontario have anywhere near the power and influence as the President of the United States, or the U.S. itself.

What happens in Ontario doesn't have much impact outside of Canada. What happens in the U.S. has implications around the world.

Rob Ford was not CINC of the world's most powerful army. I think the points made by many here aren't that hard to grasp. If Rob Ford were elected as the Prime Minister I wouldn't at all mind people from other countries criticizing a poor decision.

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Kin]

I know people hate semantic points but at this point we might just as well rewrite the definition of "Irony" to be:

Irony
(noun)whatever the hell people who don't understand what irony actually is want it to mean in a particular sentence while trying to sound clever.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Like rain on your wedding day...[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

[Highlander]

Thomas Jefferson once said that America will need a revolution every 15 to 30 years. Perhaps the Civil War can be counted as a revolution of sorts, but that ended 150 years ago. Trump is obviously not a politician, does and says a lot of crass things, but he is the elected official and will surround himself with top advisers in all fields.  He said before he was elected that he would bring in Carl Icahn which he has done in a matter of sorts. Mr. Icahn is perhaps the most brilliant business mind in the world.  We have to remember that America wanted change and they would have voted for Topo Gigo if he was running. 
Obviously there is a zillion things to fix in the U.S. and perhaps some of these things will get fixed.  Even if he just drains the swamp somewhat that will be a huge improvement.
Just saying America wanted change and now they have it.

 

[Kin]

  We have to remember that America wanted change and they would have voted for Topo Gigo if he was running.

If Trump represented "change" and Clinton the status quo then millions more Americans wanted the status quo than  this poorly defined change.

"America" didn't want any singular thing and I feel pretty confident saying that if the direct manifestation of the status quo could have run, he'd have won a pretty comfortable 3rd term.

 

[Kin]

Another fundamental problem with the idea that Americans wanted "change" to any meaningful degree is that of the 434 Congressional seats, a whopping 1.38% of them shifted to the other party.

Congress, with an approval rating in the low double digits, all effectively kept their jobs. The Democrats, supposedly representing the status quo, made gains in both the House and Senate.

There wasn't some massive popular support for Trump. He got about as many votes as Romney. And there's really no evidence that people, by and large, were unhappy with their representatives in Washington.

Clinton ran a mess of a campaign, was sabotaged in unprecedented ways by the FBI and a foreign government and, yes, people didn't like her much. Despite that, millions more voted for her than Trump and he won because of the peculiarities of the Electoral College.

To present that as some sort of significant mandate from the people is nonsense.

 

[Bender]

Thomas Jefferson once said that America will need a revolution every 15 to 30 years. Perhaps the Civil War can be counted as a revolution of sorts, but that ended 150 years ago. Trump is obviously not a politician, does and says a lot of crass things, but he is the elected official and will surround himself with top advisers in all fields.  He said before he was elected that he would bring in Carl Icahn which he has done in a matter of sorts. Mr. Icahn is perhaps the most brilliant business mind in the world.  We have to remember that America wanted change and they would have voted for Topo Gigo if he was running. 
Obviously there is a zillion things to fix in the U.S. and perhaps some of these things will get fixed.  Even if he just drains the swamp somewhat that will be a huge improvement.
Just saying America wanted change and now they have it.

You know, I could say that I'm the biggest man in the world and made out of gold, but it wouldn't be objectively true no matter how many people I brainwashed into thinking that. I find it amusing people believe this man basically because he says things with conviction and repeats them.

Actually... I'm the biggest man in the world and made out of gold!

 

[princedpw]

Another fundamental problem with the idea that Americans wanted "change" to any meaningful degree is that of the 434 Congressional seats, a whopping 1.38% of them shifted to the other party.

Congress, with an approval rating in the low double digits, all effectively kept their jobs. The Democrats, supposedly representing the status quo, made gains in both the House and Senate.

There wasn't some massive popular support for Trump. He got about as many votes as Romney. And there's really no evidence that people, by and large, were unhappy with their representatives in Washington.

Clinton ran a mess of a campaign, was sabotaged in unprecedented ways by the FBI and a foreign government and, yes, people didn't like her much. Despite that, millions more voted for her than Trump and he won because of the peculiarities of the Electoral College.

To present that as some sort of significant mandate from the people is nonsense.

I agree, except I don't actually think Clinton ran a mess of a campaign.  She was extremely unpopular and had baggage she couldn't distance herself from but the overall organization and logistics of her campaign seemed as strong as anyone.  Apparently, she outperformed the economic models (despite her inherent negatives).

Her loss in the electoral college was so unbelievably narrow -- a few 10s of thousands in a couple of key places -- that any bit of luck (or a minor logistical change in voting availability) would have tilted the balance. 

When Obama says "I could have beaten trump" all he is saying was that he could have done infinitesimally better than Clinton, which seems obvious given their popularity differential.

 

[Kin]

I agree, except I don't actually think Clinton ran a mess of a campaign.  She was extremely unpopular and had baggage she couldn't distance herself from but the overall organization and logistics of her campaign seemed as strong as anyone.  Apparently, she outperformed the economic models (despite her inherent negatives).

I've heard some things from actual people on the ground that say differently. People who wanted to knock on doors or make phone calls but who were essentially turned away by the Clinton campaign whose data said that their counties/districts were effectively safe.

Likewise, it's hard to ignore the fact that she spent almost no time on the ground in some of those states she lost by narrow margins(Wisconsin and Michigan especially) whereas she made it out to states like Arizona and Georgia that were pipe dreams at worst, unnecessary at best.

Finally, it's really tough for me to look at some things that should have been small/pointless but still strike me as really bad decisions. I get that Abedin has been her #1 aide for a bunch of years but, man, did we really need any scenario where Anthony Weiner's name could come up in the last week of the campaign?

 

[Bender]

Thomas Jefferson once said that America will need a revolution every 15 to 30 years. Perhaps the Civil War can be counted as a revolution of sorts, but that ended 150 years ago. Trump is obviously not a politician, does and says a lot of crass things, but he is the elected official and will surround himself with top advisers in all fields.  He said before he was elected that he would bring in Carl Icahn which he has done in a matter of sorts. Mr. Icahn is perhaps the most brilliant business mind in the world.  We have to remember that America wanted change and they would have voted for Topo Gigo if he was running. 
Obviously there is a zillion things to fix in the U.S. and perhaps some of these things will get fixed.  Even if he just drains the swamp somewhat that will be a huge improvement.
Just saying America wanted change and now they have it.

This reminds me of the bit from George Carlin where he said politicians are there to give you the illusion of freedom of choice and instead big business interests run the show. It's completely hysterical to think that the very people who've been eroding the middle class of America for decades are suddenly going to improve the conditions of those who voted them (unless they're part of the economic elite). Change for change's sake is often one of the worst reasons for change.

And as an aside I'm sure you mean draining the swamp by, you know, denying Russian involvement in the election, tapping well known crackpots such as Ben Carson as one of his "top advisers" and forming the most plutocratic cabinet in history. Drain the swamp... I think the Dems should have their own slogan: Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

[princedpw]

Thomas Jefferson once said that America will need a revolution every 15 to 30 years. Perhaps the Civil War can be counted as a revolution of sorts, but that ended 150 years ago. Trump is obviously not a politician, does and says a lot of crass things, but he is the elected official and will surround himself with top advisers in all fields.

First, Trump is a politician. He just ran the most surprising political campaign in modern history.  Second, when people use the term "politician" in a derogatory fashion, they point to *exactly* the kind of behavior trump is displaying: say one thing to get elected and then do another.

Third, Trump is surrounding himself with the least qualified cabinet and advisors in modern history.  The best capsul description of the change from Obama is that the department of energy is going from being run by a Nobel-prize winning physicist to a guy who couldn't remember the name of the department.  That's kind of a funny joke, and actually not all that fair because Perry does have some governmental experience at least -- he is legitimately a better choice than half of his other appointees. His other advisers (especially Michael Flynn) are incompetent, uneducated, and/or white supremacists.  I mean Ben Carson publically said that he was not qualified to run a government agency, but trump picked him anyway.

 

[Bender]

I agree, except I don't actually think Clinton ran a mess of a campaign.  She was extremely unpopular and had baggage she couldn't distance herself from but the overall organization and logistics of her campaign seemed as strong as anyone.  Apparently, she outperformed the economic models (despite her inherent negatives).

I've heard some things from actual people on the ground that say differently. People who wanted to knock on doors or make phone calls but who were essentially turned away by the Clinton campaign whose data said that their counties/districts were effectively safe.

Likewise, it's hard to ignore the fact that she spent almost no time on the ground in some of those states she lost by narrow margins(Wisconsin and Michigan especially) whereas she made it out to states like Arizona and Georgia that were pipe dreams at worst, unnecessary at best.

Finally, it's really tough for me to look at some things that should have been small/pointless but still strike me as really bad decisions. I get that Abedin has been her #1 aide for a bunch of years but, man, did we really need any scenario where Anthony Weiner's name could come up in the last week of the campaign?

Van Jones has said basically the same thing as your first and second points.

 

[princedpw]

Thomas Jefferson once said that America will need a revolution every 15 to 30 years. Perhaps the Civil War can be counted as a revolution of sorts, but that ended 150 years ago. Trump is obviously not a politician, does and says a lot of crass things, but he is the elected official and will surround himself with top advisers in all fields.  He said before he was elected that he would bring in Carl Icahn which he has done in a matter of sorts. Mr. Icahn is perhaps the most brilliant business mind in the world.  We have to remember that America wanted change and they would have voted for Topo Gigo if he was running. 
Obviously there is a zillion things to fix in the U.S. and perhaps some of these things will get fixed.  Even if he just drains the swamp somewhat that will be a huge improvement.
Just saying America wanted change and now they have it.

This reminds me of the bit from George Carlin where he said politicians are there to give you the illusion of freedom of choice and instead big business interests run the show. It's completely hysterical to think that the very people who've been eroding the middle class of America for decades are suddenly going to improve the conditions of those who voted them (unless they're part of the economic elite). Change for change's sake is often one of the worst reasons for change.

And as an aside I'm sure you mean draining the swamp by, you know, denying Russian involvement in the election, tapping well known crackpots such as Ben Carson as a "top adviser" and forming the most plutocratic cabinet in history. Drain the swamp... I think the Dems should have their own slogan: Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

+1

I've been trying to avoid political news since the US election (I live in the states).  It is too depressing to think that so many people in the US are either uninformed, bad at thinking, or just plain mean.  This thread on tmlfans is not helping ...

 

[princedpw]

I agree, except I don't actually think Clinton ran a mess of a campaign.  She was extremely unpopular and had baggage she couldn't distance herself from but the overall organization and logistics of her campaign seemed as strong as anyone.  Apparently, she outperformed the economic models (despite her inherent negatives).

I've heard some things from actual people on the ground that say differently. People who wanted to knock on doors or make phone calls but who were essentially turned away by the Clinton campaign whose data said that their counties/districts were effectively safe.

Likewise, it's hard to ignore the fact that she spent almost no time on the ground in some of those states she lost by narrow margins(Wisconsin and Michigan especially) whereas she made it out to states like Arizona and Georgia that were pipe dreams at worst, unnecessary at best.

Finally, it's really tough for me to look at some things that should have been small/pointless but still strike me as really bad decisions. I get that Abedin has been her #1 aide for a bunch of years but, man, did we really need any scenario where Anthony Weiner's name could come up in the last week of the campaign?

I was on the ground, knocking on doors in Pennsylvania. 

I do imagine there were some mistakes made, but I will bet this is true of any campaign.  In terms of ground game, fundraising, responses, etc, it seemed to be Well organized relative to many campaigns.

All available data suggested Michigan, for instance, was hers with high probability and losing PA (where she spent tons of time) makes it irrelevant anyway.  I don't think you can blame her for not being omniscient.

Obviously, because in hindsight we know she lost, any other strategy would have been worth a shot.  But at the time the campaign was going on, it didn't strike people  as particularly disorganized (unlike, say trump's).  Basically, it looked like she was winning the entire time and hence it made sense to keep doing what she was doing.

The stupid Comey letter. That's out of her control. It was one of the things that went trump's way and seems to have easily made that 10k difference in votes.

 

[princedpw]

Anyway, I really really should avoid politics in this forum ... way too depressing. This the "just for fun" category ...

 

[Kin]

I was on the ground, knocking on doors in Pennsylvania. 

I do imagine there were some mistakes made, but I will bet this is true of any campaign.  In terms of ground game, fundraising, responses, etc, it seemed to be Well organized relative to many campaigns.

All available data suggested Michigan, for instance, was hers with high probability and losing PA (where she spent tons of time) makes it irrelevant anyway.  I don't think you can blame her for not being omniscient.

Obviously, because in hindsight we know she lost, any other strategy would have been worth a shot.  But at the time the campaign was going on, it didn't strike people  as particularly disorganized (unlike, say trump's).  Basically, it looked like she was winning the entire time and hence it made sense to keep doing what she was doing.

The stupid Comey letter. That's out of her control. It was one of the things that went trump's way and seems to have easily made that 10k difference in votes.

To one extent or another those are all fair points, especially that we're going to look harsher at the mistakes of a loss than those in a victory. I think though that one of the bigger problems I've heard people talk about was an over reliance on what the data was saying about what was or wasn't safe whereas a lot of the Obama guys were saying "Regardless of how good it looks, go out and work for it".

But, like I said, it's a good case you make.

 

[hockeyfan1]

The stupid Comey letter. That's out of her control. It was one of the things that went trump's way and seems to have easily made that 10k difference in votes.

Agree 100%.  But, let's not forget, there is one person to blame for Hillary's loss -- Hillary Clinton herself. 

She failed to galvanize the Democratic party, as has been mentioned, particularly in key states, and also, as one anonymous Democrat pointed out frustratingly, is that if she had never requested the private email server, none of the fiasco that ensued, culminating with the Comey investigation, would have happened.