Efforts to blame Hillary's loss on a centuries-old institution and/or "outside influence" are just scapegoating for the real issue, which is that Democrats nominated a terrible and widely disliked candidate, and hoped that she would be perceived as "less terrible" enough than the Republican candidate to squeak out a win. On top of that, she ran a lazy campaign that took a number of states for granted, and paid a corresponding price for that hubris.
If Democrats want to blame someone/thing for the loss, they should look to themselves - then use this as an opportunity to correct their mistakes and come back stronger in 4 years (or even 2, during the mid-term elections). Instead, they want to find scapegoats so that they can circumvent any kind of self-reflection and continue with the same actions (and potential mistakes) that led them to defeat in the first place.
This is why Trump won.
The left seriously underestimated this election. Even in this very thread are comments along the lines of, "There is no way our county would elect this clown, hurray for the first woman president!" And I agree! The guy is a total clown, an imbecile, a fool, an incompetent jerk! On a side note, I look forward to the day when we finally have a woman president.
This victory surprised the left so much that it's almost unbearable. "How is this possible? It must be Russians...or the antiquity of the electoral college...how did this happen!?"
This has nothing to do with the Russians. This has nothing to do with the electoral college. This doesn't even have anything to do with Trump.
This is all about the left throwing in with Hillary.
She lost to Trump! Trump!! How could anyone possibly lose to a guy that brags about sexual exploits and rape?? He wants to build a wall around Mexico for crying out loud, what a total moron! How is this even possible??
It is because the opposing person was Hillary Clinton. That is the only reason. This election it is beyond clear that our election system chose, as our President-Elect, "President Not Hillary Clinton." Anyone but Hillary Clinton! Just give me anyone! That rich corporate freak with the orange hair, he'll do, just anyone but Hillary Clinton!
Of course the Electoral system had something to do with it. It's very hard to claim there was a massive movement in the electorate of "anyone but Hillary" when she has, up to this point, gotten 2.8 million more votes. FAR more people had no problem pulling the level for her. If you want to argue there was a massive movement away from her in rural America, I concede. And since their votes matter more, and taken in the context of how our system works, you are correct.
And the victory didn't really "surprise" me. I watched us re-elect Bush in '04 (ironically, by roughly the same vote margin as Hillary leads over Trump).
Efforts to blame Hillary's loss on a centuries-old institution and/or "outside influence" are just scapegoating for the real issue, which is that Democrats nominated a terrible and widely disliked candidate, and hoped that she would be perceived as "less terrible" enough than the Republican candidate to squeak out a win. On top of that, she ran a lazy campaign that took a number of states for granted, and paid a corresponding price for that hubris.
If Democrats want to blame someone/thing for the loss, they should look to themselves - then use this as an opportunity to correct their mistakes and come back stronger in 4 years (or even 2, during the mid-term elections). Instead, they want to find scapegoats so that they can circumvent any kind of self-reflection and continue with the same actions (and potential mistakes) that led them to defeat in the first place.
This is why Trump won.
The left seriously underestimated this election. Even in this very thread are comments along the lines of, "There is no way our county would elect this clown, hurray for the first woman president!" And I agree! The guy is a total clown, an imbecile, a fool, an incompetent jerk! On a side note, I look forward to the day when we finally have a woman president.
This victory surprised the left so much that it's almost unbearable. "How is this possible? It must be Russians...or the antiquity of the electoral college...how did this happen!?"
This has nothing to do with the Russians. This has nothing to do with the electoral college. This doesn't even have anything to do with Trump.
This is all about the left throwing in with Hillary.
She lost to Trump! Trump!! How could anyone possibly lose to a guy that brags about sexual exploits and rape?? He wants to build a wall around Mexico for crying out loud, what a total moron! How is this even possible??
It is because the opposing person was Hillary Clinton. That is the only reason. This election it is beyond clear that our election system chose, as our President-Elect, "President Not Hillary Clinton." Anyone but Hillary Clinton! Just give me anyone! That rich corporate freak with the orange hair, he'll do, just anyone but Hillary Clinton!
Of course the Electoral system had something to do with it. It's very hard to claim there was a massive movement in the electorate of "anyone but Hillary" when she has, up to this point, gotten 2.8 million more votes. FAR more people had no problem pulling the level for her. If you want to argue there was a massive movement away from her in rural America, I concede. And since their votes matter more, and taken in the context of how our system works, you are correct.
And the victory didn't really "surprise" me. I watched us re-elect Bush in '04 (ironically, by roughly the same vote margin as Hillary leads over Trump).
The campaigning would have been done the same in the cities instead of the swing states. This point is moot.
The campaigning would have been done the same in the cities instead of the swing states. This point is moot.
Considering how much the cities rejected Trump, I think that the point is not moot. It's unmoot. Cities hated trump. Flyover country loved Trump because he promised them all kinds of stuff that he has no intention of keeping.
He could have promised the cities the same false promises but his social policy is totally incompatible with city life.
Efforts to blame Hillary's loss on a centuries-old institution and/or "outside influence" are just scapegoating for the real issue, which is that Democrats nominated a terrible and widely disliked candidate, and hoped that she would be perceived as "less terrible" enough than the Republican candidate to squeak out a win. On top of that, she ran a lazy campaign that took a number of states for granted, and paid a corresponding price for that hubris.
If Democrats want to blame someone/thing for the loss, they should look to themselves - then use this as an opportunity to correct their mistakes and come back stronger in 4 years (or even 2, during the mid-term elections). Instead, they want to find scapegoats so that they can circumvent any kind of self-reflection and continue with the same actions (and potential mistakes) that led them to defeat in the first place.
This is why Trump won.
The left seriously underestimated this election. Even in this very thread are comments along the lines of, "There is no way our county would elect this clown, hurray for the first woman president!" And I agree! The guy is a total clown, an imbecile, a fool, an incompetent jerk! On a side note, I look forward to the day when we finally have a woman president.
This victory surprised the left so much that it's almost unbearable. "How is this possible? It must be Russians...or the antiquity of the electoral college...how did this happen!?"
This has nothing to do with the Russians. This has nothing to do with the electoral college. This doesn't even have anything to do with Trump.
This is all about the left throwing in with Hillary.
She lost to Trump! Trump!! How could anyone possibly lose to a guy that brags about sexual exploits and rape?? He wants to build a wall around Mexico for crying out loud, what a total moron! How is this even possible??
It is because the opposing person was Hillary Clinton. That is the only reason. This election it is beyond clear that our election system chose, as our President-Elect, "President Not Hillary Clinton." Anyone but Hillary Clinton! Just give me anyone! That rich corporate freak with the orange hair, he'll do, just anyone but Hillary Clinton!
Of course the Electoral system had something to do with it. It's very hard to claim there was a massive movement in the electorate of "anyone but Hillary" when she has, up to this point, gotten 2.8 million more votes. FAR more people had no problem pulling the level for her. If you want to argue there was a massive movement away from her in rural America, I concede. And since their votes matter more, and taken in the context of how our system works, you are correct.
And the victory didn't really "surprise" me. I watched us re-elect Bush in '04 (ironically, by roughly the same vote margin as Hillary leads over Trump).
The campaigning would have been done the same in the cities instead of the swing states. This point is moot.
Since the entire campaign basically takes place in the media in one form or another anyway (I don't believe rallies mean anything in this day and age) I completely disagree with this take. And I don't believe Trump could have gotten a single extra vote in Seattle or San Francisco if he had campaigned there, nor would Hillary have managed to a get large contingency of farmers in Iowa of voting for her. It's a total Urban/Rural divide, and our system, as it is constructed, lends JUST enough extra weight to these places (or more accurately, under-weights States like California and New York) for Trump to scratch our an Electoral victory despite getting crushed in the popular vote. And again, that's the way it is. Nothing can be done about what happened, and it sure as hell isn't going to change with a majority of the States being in the hands of Republican governors. It's beyond clear that Democrats, having lost in this system despite getting more votes TWICE in 5 elections are going to have to find a way to work this chessboard, because the chances of it changing now that Republicans know for certain it is their only path to victory in Presidential Elections is less than zero.
Clinton's unlikability is not the only reason. It's also completely fair to blame the electoral college for the outcome.
Clinton won the popular vote; Trump won the electoral vote. If popular votes decide, Clinton wins. If electoral votes decide, Trump wins.
That's not an interpretation; that's what actually happened.
The electoral college is definitely one of the reasons for the results. It might not be the most important, but it's one of them.
I'll grant that the Democrats could have run a more likable candidate--Hillary has never been known for her charisma, unlike her husband--but it's not fair to say the Democratic party made the wrong call by choosing her.
She did what she was supposed to do. She won the most votes.
Unfortunately for her, those votes weren't in the right places.
Clinton's unlikability is not the only reason. It's also completely fair to blame the electoral college for the outcome.
Clinton won the popular vote; Trump won the electoral vote. If popular votes decide, Clinton wins. If electoral votes decide, Trump wins.
That's not an interpretation; that's what actually happened.
The electoral college is definitely one of the reasons for the results. It might not be the most important, but it's one of them.
I'll grant that the Democrats could have run a more likable candidate--Hillary has never been known for her charisma, unlike her husband--but it's not fair to say the Democratic party made the wrong call by choosing her.
She did what she was supposed to do. She won the most votes.
Unfortunately for her, those votes weren't in the right places.
Her campaign manager, Robbie Mook, was a complete incompetent. And that is, of course, certainly partially on her for putting him in charge. She was clearly told that Wisconsin and Michigan were in the bag. There were reports after the election that Bill (who is much better at this) in the waning weeks was warning against this exact scenario, advising a major push in the Rust Belt. Instead Mook had her in Arizona making a ridiculous effort to run up the score in a state she was never going to win, no matter what the state polls there said.
Averting this disaster in these 3 states may not have happened anyway, but a good place to start would have been at least 3 trips each to Madison (to run up the vote in the overwhelmingly liberal part of the state) and 3 trips to Flint to address the water crisis created by a criminally negligent Republican governor. Given the tiny margin of victory in each state, who knows?? Then that leaves Pennsylvania, and I'm not sure what could have been done there. Again, the rural areas of this country came out in droves for Trump, and because of how Electoral votes are distributed, it allowed him the crawl-space to inch in and pull an inside straight.
Her campaign manager, Robbie Mook, was a complete incompetent. And that is, of course, certainly partially on her for putting him in charge. She was clearly told that Wisconsin and Michigan were in the bag. There were reports after the election that Bill (who is much better at this) in the waning weeks was warning against this exact scenario, advising a major push in the Rust Belt. Instead Mook had her in Arizona making a ridiculous effort to run up the score in a state she was never going to win, no matter what the state polls there said.
Agreed here. Arizona, I've lived there, is so red its ridiculous and not in small part to the GOP controlled government disenfranchising latino voters. Hillary could appeal to latino voters there but good old Sheriff Joe (thank god he was voted out) would ensure they couldn't vote. And voter laws designed to disenfranchise along with limited voting stations opened for fewer hours in areas with a lot of latinos and minorities. That is all a real thing there. As former governor Jan Brewer said something to the effect of "Hillary can campaign in Arizona until she's blue in the face, it won't matter because latinos don't vote" (implied that "we won't let them"). The omnipresence of retirees who watch Fox News all day with it's 24/7 email and bengazhi coverage isn't a winning combination either.
Averting this disaster in these 3 states may not have happened anyway, but a good place to start would have been at least 3 trips each to Madison (to run up the vote in the overwhelmingly liberal part of the state) and 3 trips to Flint to address the water crisis created by a criminally negligent Republican governor.
As noted in the post above from Jill Stein's website, I'm concerned with "faulty"? equipment in Michigan in predominantly black areas of michigan. I think the Republican Governor was unconcerned about working voting equipment in these areas. At best he probably thought that if the machines failed to count votes in these areas "oh well". At worst, he probably intentionally didn't fix the equipment.
Clinton's unlikability is not the only reason. It's also completely fair to blame the electoral college for the outcome.
She did what she was supposed to do. She won the most votes.
Unfortunately for her, those votes weren't in the right places.
Apologies for diving in an out of this discussion -- I work on deadlines and not a fixed schedule. Sometimes I have all the time in the world and sometimes I wish Mystra would grant me another hour in the day. There have been 318 posts since my last log in -- if you want me to address a particular point you made previously, I will be happy to do so.
*achem*
"The Democrats" didn't just choose an unlikable candidate, the DNC did.
I think Trump got those voters to the polls and the people who pulled the lever for Clinton would have voted for any other Democrat. Trump inspired new voters to register and he inspired legions to vote against him.
I agree with @jjstraka34 , these results weren't surprising. To be completely arrogant, I've called all the elections correctly since 1996. If I can't support a candidate -- that is to say if people like me who self identify as activists -- can't vote for the candidate the candidate loses. For years the "people who know how the system works" (tm) have been telling people like me that the activists don't matter and that we need candidates who can appeal to Reagan Democrats, swing state voters and soccer moms. And that advice has been taken as holy scripture despite its repeated failure. This is strike three for the right wing Democrats -- Gore, Kerry, Clinton. At a time when the working class of the country is coming to grips with with the fact that that its fortunes have been falling under both right wing Democrats and Republicans the DNC offered a status quo candidate. It wasn't just Clinton's personality -- it was her policies. She had nothing to offer the rust belt. Given a choice between a huckster who promised to bring back the factory jobs and someone whose name was synonymous with "free" trade, they went for the huckster.
The irony of all this is that the third way Democrats came to power on the backs of the Electoral College -- for years they told us that elections were about swing states and swing voters. "Shut up lefties -- votes in California and New York don't matter, only purple states matter" And that wisdom has proven to be as valuable as a degree from Trump University. Clinton lost. She got creamed by some who spent less money than she did, someone who had his own party *and* fox news working against him.
Clinton Democrats *must* stop telling themselves she really won. She was routed. I mean how the )*%*! do you lose Wisconsin?
And, sorry to say it, as flawed a system as it is I'm glad we have some way of representing the interests of the rust belt. I don't think the advocates of the popular vote are considering the unintended consequences of changing the system -- if states with large populations dominate the political scene we will have separatist movements. See Scottland, Catalonia . . .
Her campaign manager, Robbie Mook, was a complete incompetent
It was her policies. Full stop. I've lived in both MI and WI and Clinton economics has devastated those states. They are no longer catching the dogs in Detroit. Think about that a moment.
"Free" trade = unemployment. Clinton = "free" trade.
Clinton is the Democratic equivalent of Bob Dole, the candidate who had everything he needed to secure the nomination and nothing he needed to win in the general.
Well obviously Trump would have lost the election if the electoral college was abolished the night before the election.
The cities hate Trump and republicans in general because democrats have invested in the cities and republicans haven't.
It is pointless to speculate what would have happened if the electoral college hadn't existed all along...but if it hadn't existed, I believe it is safe to assume that republicans wouldn't focus their campaign efforts only on "grasslands," as they have always done.
They would have been campaigning in the cities all along for years...which means that the presidential election would have always been decided by the cities...which means that the ground work that republicans have done in the swing states for Trump would have been laid in the cities instead...which means that the cities would be the new voting battlegrounds, not the swing states...which means that we will never know who would have won the popular vote if the college didn't exist. But it is 100% safe to say that the democrats wouldn't be the only dogs in town like they are now. They have no competition in the cities now. They otherwise would have that competition.
As it stands now, Trump has won because he has done campaigning as it has always been done...by focusing on the swing states. The cities would be the new swing states if the college didn't exist. So Trump would have focused his campaign on them, just like every republican candidate before him would have.
We have no idea if the cities would have hated Trump in such a scenario because he probably would have had a different strategy that would have appealed to them, just like every republican before him would have. Our election process would be entirely different.
Hence the point that the electoral college is not responsible for Trump's victory. The point that the electoral college has anything to do with his victory is moot...BUT the electoral college has everything to do with campaign strategy.
Trump actually spent plenty of time campaigning in no-hoper states like New York (which he also said he was going to win, and likely believed it). He did actually raise the Republican vote in several blue states that didn't seem to have a realistic shot of turning red (like Maine), just like Hillary raised the Democratic vote in a lot of red states (notably including Texas).
Just because the Democrats ran a fairly bad campaign doesn't mean Trump ran a good one. Both he and his staff thought he was going to lose.
Though, really, Clinton would have almost certainly won handily if the last-minute Comey surprise hadn't halved her lead over Trump, and then nobody would be talking now about her problems, or Democratic problems, or caring about the midwest even though those states would still have all the danger signs that hindsight has made so apparent.
Clinton's unlikability is not the only reason. It's also completely fair to blame the electoral college for the outcome.
She did what she was supposed to do. She won the most votes.
Unfortunately for her, those votes weren't in the right places.
Apologies for diving in an out of this discussion -- I work on deadlines and not a fixed schedule. Sometimes I have all the time in the world and sometimes I wish Mystra would grant me another hour in the day. There have been 318 posts since my last log in -- if you want me to address a particular point you made previously, I will be happy to do so.
*achem*
"The Democrats" didn't just choose an unlikable candidate, the DNC did.
I think Trump got those voters to the polls and the people who pulled the lever for Clinton would have voted for any other Democrat. Trump inspired new voters to register and he inspired legions to vote against him.
I agree with @jjstraka34 , these results weren't surprising. To be completely arrogant, I've called all the elections correctly since 1996. If I can't support a candidate -- that is to say if people like me who self identify as activists -- can't vote for the candidate the candidate loses. For years the "people who know how the system works" (tm) have been telling people like me that the activists don't matter and that we need candidates who can appeal to Reagan Democrats, swing state voters and soccer moms. And that advice has been taken as holy scripture despite its repeated failure. This is strike three for the right wing Democrats -- Gore, Kerry, Clinton. At a time when the working class of the country is coming to grips with with the fact that that its fortunes have been falling under both right wing Democrats and Republicans the DNC offered a status quo candidate. It wasn't just Clinton's personality -- it was her policies. She had nothing to offer the rust belt. Given a choice between a huckster who promised to bring back the factory jobs and someone whose name was synonymous with "free" trade, they went for the huckster.
The irony of all this is that the third way Democrats came to power on the backs of the Electoral College -- for years they told us that elections were about swing states and swing voters. "Shut up lefties -- votes in California and New York don't matter, only purple states matter" And that wisdom has proven to be as valuable as a degree from Trump University. Clinton lost. She got creamed by some who spent less money than she did, someone who had his own party *and* fox news working against him.
Clinton Democrats *must* stop telling themselves she really won. She was routed. I mean how the )*%*! do you lose Wisconsin?
And, sorry to say it, as flawed a system as it is I'm glad we have some way of representing the interests of the rust belt. I don't think the advocates of the popular vote are considering the unintended consequences of changing the system -- if states with large populations dominate the political scene we will have separatist movements. See Scottland, Catalonia . . .
She didn't get routed, either Electorally or by hard votes. She lost handily electorally but to call it a route is simply not the case. This was nowhere near either of Obama's electoral totals, and even those weren't routes. Reagan in '84 and Johnson in '64 were routes. Aside from that, she got 3 MILLION more votes. Not where it mattered in our system, but to say the "American People" rejected her because of how the weight of our votes is counted simply doesn't hold water. For one thing, there is no "American people", there are essentially now two separate sets of citizens who want nearly nothing to do with one another, and it's divided along urban/rural lines more than ever.
I continually will not understand this notion that rural states and the Rust Belt essentially need to be awarded Electoral power "on a curve" because the poor, white-working class will get ignored if we don't. Talk about entitlement. How is it that people who live in the major metro areas of this country aren't being punished by having the value of their vote diminished?? You can make the same argument either way, but one system is completely contrived and rigged, and the other is just a simple basic principle of 1 person/1 vote. You can't say that large populations shouldn't dominate the political landscape while at the same time arguing for an artificial value being given to states with lower rural populations. In doing so, you alienate and punish people who live in urban centers in the EXACT same way you are talking about. Except by advocating a popular vote, I'm simply arguing for a system that every other country in the world uses and is as basic and old as the idea of democracy itself. People live where they live, and once again, I'll state that we are awarding electoral significance to grassland and cows, and the only reason it remains this way is because everyone who lives there is white and more likely to vote Republican than anyone living in the actual population centers of this country.
As for trade, it's an easy straw man, and it's certainly had an effect on jobs in the Rust Belt, but not nearly as much as the fact that time has moved on and it's not 1955 anymore. Technology now does the job that workers did 25 or 50 years ago. If you want to blame something, the #1 culprit is the lack of training provided to these workers for getting into another profession when it was clear things were going in another direction, and the lack of an interest of these workers to do so, thinking they would stay on the same assembly line until they retired. Trump isn't bringing these jobs back, NO ONE is bringing these jobs back, because these jobs don't exist anymore. People who think they are might as well wish for a unicorn to show up on their doorstep in the morning.
And last (because this is getting too long), again, people are giving the DNC far, far too much credit and acting like they are actually competent enough to rig a primary for someone. They were absolutely in the bag for Clinton. It also had no effect on the end result. I supported Bernie Sanders. But Bernie Sanders needed to be in that race AT LEAST 9 months earlier, and the fact that he wasn't is all the proof you need that even he didn't think he had a chance until it was way too late to do anything to actually secure the nomination. The Democratic primary was over in mid-March when she creamed him in Ohio, far before the incidents described in the emails ever even took place. Certain left-leaning online news sources (TYT in particular) kept pushing the meme that he had a chance, when mathematically he would have had to gather 60-70% of the remaining votes in certain States to even catch up, much less pass Clinton.
"The Democrats" didn't just choose an unlikable candidate, the DNC did.
"The Democrats" also did. By a wide margin, they voted for Clinton over Bernie Sanders. The actual members of the Democratic party lifted her to a resounding victory over him, where she won in number of votes, number of states, number of delegates.
I think Trump got those voters to the polls and the people who pulled the lever for Clinton would have voted for any other Democrat. Trump inspired new voters to register and he inspired legions to vote against him.
Like so many people talking about this election, I think you're trying to make a narrative out of a small shift. The votes didn't even increase percentage-wise between 2012 (54.9%) and 2016 (54.6%), only as absolute numbers. If Trump got new voters to turn out, he caused just as many to tune out.
I agree with @jjstraka34 , these results weren't surprising. To be completely arrogant, I've called all the elections correctly since 1996. If I can't support a candidate -- that is to say if people like me who self identify as activists -- can't vote for the candidate the candidate loses. For years the "people who know how the system works" (tm) have been telling people like me that the activists don't matter and that we need candidates who can appeal to Reagan Democrats, swing state voters and soccer moms. And that advice has been taken as holy scripture despite its repeated failure. This is strike three for the right wing Democrats -- Gore, Kerry, Clinton. At a time when the working class of the country is coming to grips with with the fact that that its fortunes have been falling under both right wing Democrats and Republicans the DNC offered a status quo candidate. It wasn't just Clinton's personality -- it was her policies. She had nothing to offer the rust belt. Given a choice between a huckster who promised to bring back the factory jobs and someone whose name was synonymous with "free" trade, they went for the huckster.
I notice you're leaving one Democratic candidate out: Bill Clinton. Who, of course, won two terms handily after more left-wing Democrats had failed repeatedly for decades to achieve success in the US.
And Obama only ran as a left-wing Democrat, he governed as a Clintonite centrist (indeed, he governed to the right of Bush on a few things). Yet he still won handily in 2012.
If you want to make a pattern out of this, it is that electoral success comes primarily to the most charismatic candidates. Which is depressing, but not really startling.
Really, it's bewildering how many left-wingers now sound exactly like embittered right-wingers did after Mitt Romney was nominated and then lost, beating out favourites of the populist right to get there. They were wrong. You're wrong. What wins elections is appealing to the electorate, not to the dedicated base. That doesn't mean centrism is always a good way to go, because the electorate is sometimes in a mood for people with radical ideas. But it certainly doesn't mean centrism always loses.
More to the point, you're basically advocating splitting the Democratic party (or perhaps just exodusing to the Greens). Nothing wrong with that if the long-term goal seems worth it, of course, but I wouldn't bet on short-term electoral success.
The irony of all this is that the third way Democrats came to power on the backs of the Electoral College -- for years they told us that elections were about swing states and swing voters. "Shut up lefties -- votes in California and New York don't matter, only purple states matter" And that wisdom has proven to be as valuable as a degree from Trump University. Clinton lost. She got creamed by some who spent less money than she did, someone who had his own party *and* fox news working against him.
Clinton Democrats *must* stop telling themselves she really won. She was routed. I mean how the )*%*! do you lose Wisconsin?
By getting less votes there than Trump did.
People should stop telling themselves that Clinton did not lose a close election due to a relatively small amount of voters in key states, while winning the popular vote by a historically significant percentage. Because that is the objective statistical truth, and in figuring out "what went wrong" and "where to go from here" they will be on sturdier ground when they start with the truth.
George McGovern was routed. Walter Mondale was routed. Michael Dukakis was routed. Hillary Clinton lost a very close election. They are not really comparable.
It was her policies. Full stop. I've lived in both MI and WI and Clinton economics has devastated those states. They are no longer catching the dogs in Detroit. Think about that a moment.
I think you're exaggerating.
First, blaming any Clinton for Detroit is like blaming Reagan for Mount Saint Helens. No president could have stopped what was happening there. And "they're no longer catching the dogs" is almost a hilarious footnote to the devastation of the area.
Second, it has been 16 years since a Clinton was in office - if those states are still devastated after eight years of Bush and eight of Obama, it suggests that maybe "Clinton economics" isn't the primary culprit.
(I could add: Third, blaming or praising any elected politician for the economic situation when they're in office is all but pointless, since they had functionally nothing to do with it, but that's no fun.)
"Free" trade = unemployment. Clinton = "free" trade.
Putting aside that every significant candidate is pro-free-trade, including Trump (he just wants a "better deal" and to cheat to the US's benefit more than the US already does), what is your preferred alternative? Can you point to any real-world examples of it and its effects? Serious question, I'm not trying to rag on you here. But the days of heavy protectionism and tariffs aren't coming back to a service-based economy, and I'm not sure what paradigm shift you're aiming for.
Clinton is the Democratic equivalent of Bob Dole, the candidate who had everything he needed to secure the nomination and nothing he needed to win in the general.
She came awfully close to winning then, and led in the polls for the entire election. Decidedly unlike Bob Dole, in both respects.
Besides, the primary requirement every Republican needed to win the election in 1996 was "Not having Bill Clinton as the president".
I find it odd that many of the same people decrying "fake news" as being a main cause of the election result are uncritically taking a story from anonymous leaks to the Washington Post about the CIA and Russia. Not just that the Russian government wanted Trump to win (indisputable that they would want the candidate who DIDN'T want to shoot down their planes over Syria), not just that they wanted to swing the election in his favor (quite possible) but that Trump was somehow involved (laughable). People need to take a deep breath. I know losing an election is no fun, but let's try to react like adults when we hear these sort of stories in the news.
I think we're all pretty close here after 93 pages of this thread we're all pretty much saying - well if not the same thing - we're all speaking about a lot of the same points.
I'll say the same thing to Bernie Sanders supporters who thought Bernie Sanders would have outperformed Clinton that I said to my Ted Cruz supporting friend who thought Ted Cruz would have significantly outperformed Romney: you need to come to terms that your views vary significantly from the median voter, and that matters. I recognize that my collection of positions on issues are not mainstream. Politics is about dealing with the reality you have, not what you wish it would be.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
(I could add: Third, blaming or praising any elected politician for the economic situation when they're in office is all but pointless, since they had functionally nothing to do with it, but that's no fun.)
I agree its no fun, but it is wise. No matter what, either candidate would have disappointed on the economy in their first few years following the Federal Reserve raising interest rates for first time in nine years this past January. This is why it might be a crazy midterm election.
I find it odd that many of the same people decrying "fake news" as being a main cause of the election result are uncritically taking a story from anonymous leaks to the Washington Post about the CIA and Russia. Not just that the Russian government wanted Trump to win (indisputable that they would want the candidate who DIDN'T want to shoot down their planes over Syria), not just that they wanted to swing the election in his favor (quite possible) but that Trump was somehow involved (laughable). People need to take a deep breath. I know losing an election is no fun, but let's try to react like adults when we hear these sort of stories in the news.
The BBC have been talking about Russian interference since August. They are far from anonymous, and not prone to using unverified sources.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Basically all Sanders had to do was not be Hillary. Lol.
I find it odd that many of the same people decrying "fake news" as being a main cause of the election result are uncritically taking a story from anonymous leaks to the Washington Post about the CIA and Russia. Not just that the Russian government wanted Trump to win (indisputable that they would want the candidate who DIDN'T want to shoot down their planes over Syria), not just that they wanted to swing the election in his favor (quite possible) but that Trump was somehow involved (laughable). People need to take a deep breath. I know losing an election is no fun, but let's try to react like adults when we hear these sort of stories in the news.
The Washington Post is a far cry from what Betty down the street is posting in her Facebook feed every morning. Aside from everything else that point to elements of his campaign being directly in contact with the Russians (namely Roger Stone and Paul Manafort), all signs are pointing to him nominating for Secretary of State the CEO of Exxon, who was awarded the Order of Friendship in 2013 by Putin himself. But, all in all, don't take my word for it. Like everything else, everything liberals are saying about Trump right now will come to pass, and then some. In spades.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Christian Conservatives voted for Trump because the Christ they claim to worship is simply a nice front for their never-ending crusade to have control over the sex lives of every woman in America and to obliterate all (and then roll back even further) any hard-fought rights the gay community has won over the years. The VP is a virulent anti-gay crusader who cut funding in his state for AIDS prevention to fund "conversation therapy", which is simply a euphemism for "electrocuting the gay out people".
Voting for a candidate does not mean one agrees with all of their positions, much less the positions of their running mate.
The last thing we need to do is divide people up into "good" and "bad" camps. Most of my family are Christian conservatives--evangelicals, in fact, and missionaries--and I have yet to hear them express any distaste for gays or for women's rights. They're some of the sweetest people I know, and having known them for all my life, I know that that isn't just a mask. Their religion is indeed based on love, not hate.
We cannot generalize evangelicals as anti-gay or anti-woman any more than we can generalize Muslims as anti-American. Hateful people are the most vocal members of these groups, but not the most numerous.
I went to the trouble of looking through the source, and this is a wildly inaccurate summary. The source goes out of its way to list arguments in favor of a tolerant approach. In fact, most of the sentiments are NOT anti-gay:
"It must be emphasized that, according to the New Testament, we are no longer under the harsh Old Testament Law (John 1:16-17, Romans 8:1-3, 1 Corinthians 9:20-21). The concern with punishment is now secondary to Jesus' message of repentance and redemption...
In the Old Testament, homosexual activity was strongly associated with the idolatrous practices of the pagan nations surrounding Israel... many Bible scholars believe the condemnations in Leviticus are more a condemnation of the idolatry than of the homosexual acts themselves3,4."
"As with many Bible topics, there are uncertainties and different opinions about how the Biblical evidence should be interpreted. The challenge of accurate interpretation is to determine what message was originally intended, how it was understood by people of that time, and how the lesson should be applied in our own time. That involves a lot of specialized knowledge of the original Biblical languages as well as the culture and issues of those times. The Bible often speaks of sexual matters in euphemistic and vague terms, and there is a lack of understanding of how Biblical-era people used and understood those terms.
Prejudices, fears and misconceptions about homosexuality are deeply rooted in our culture. The subject evokes strong emotions which may hinder understanding it from a Biblical perspective. Many common beliefs and attitudes about homosexuality actually have their origins in our cultural traditions rather than in the Bible. The Bible prohibits homosexual intercourse but does not treat it as one of the major sins. There are only 7 Bible passages on this topic, and it is not one of the major sins mentioned in the Ten Commandments or by Jesus. (In comparison, the sin of hatred is mentioned 21 times, lying and false testimony 30, greed, avarice and covetousness 40, theft 42, adultery 52, murder 57, self-righteousness 79, and idolatry 169 times.) When read in context, a majority of the Bible passages refer to specific homosexual practices which violate other important Bible prohibitions such as idolatry, rape, prostitution or pederasty."
"The Bible says nothing specifically about the homosexual condition (despite the rather misleading RSV translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9), but its condemnations of homosexual conduct are explicit. The scope of these strictures must, however, be carefully determined. Too often they have been used as tools of a homophobic polemic which has claimed too much.
The exegesis of the Sodom and Gibeah stories (Genesis19, Judges 19) is a good case in point. ... On both occasions the sin condemned was attempted homosexual rape, not a caring homosexual relationship between consenting partners."
"They have absolutely no ability to wish or pray or choose their way out of their same-sex attraction, yet God condemns them unless they can change it.
... That was a distressing picture to contemplate, but fortunately I realized it was a picture that stood in utter contradiction to the portrait of God painted by Scripture... And there was absolutely nothing in Jesus’ life or ministry that even remotely resembled the kind of gratuitous cruelty that would bring someone into existence only for the purpose of breaking or condemning them. To the contrary: Jesus’ love and compassion broke through all the traditional barriers of his age, reaching out to embrace even his own enemies (Luke 23:34)... None of this fit with the picture of a God who would cruelly leave no path to grace for people like Kristi."
"Going back and reading about that history, one discovers that the pro-slavery churches were defending their positions by appeal to the Bible! Isolated fragments, pulled out and interpreted apart from the overall witness of the Scripture, led those devout southern Presbyterians to conclude that their pro-slavery cause was blessed by God. Another such episode, which extends into more recent times, saw well-intentioned Christians appealing to isolated scriptural fragments as they argued to keep women in subordinate roles within both church and society. The fragment method clearly has a long and sad history of providing “biblical” justification for teachings that we can recognize in hindsight as contrary to the will of God. "
"Same-sex intercourse is forbidden in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Are these teachings important spiritual principles for all times? Or are they, like the Bible teachings on slavery and subjugation of women, remnants of Biblical-era culture that we must now reject as incompatible with the more important Bible teachings about God's love and mercy for all people?
These and other questions have been discussed in recent times. Answers tend to be strongly influenced by one's personal feelings about homosexuality. But, if we are sincere about using the Bible for guidance, we must not assume that the Bible passages on homosexuality support our own conservative or liberal viewpoints. Instead, we must put aside our own ideas, feelings and fears and prayerfully seek the truth."
"Other Christians view equal civil rights for gays and lesbians to marry as a requirement of Bible teachings that we must act with kindness and respect for all people and avoid judging the moral choices others make (Matthew 22:37-40, Matthew 7:1-5, Romans 14:10-14, James 4:11-12)."
"We often assume that the attitudes we grew up with or heard from other Christians represent Biblical values. However, the negative attitudes that many people hold toward homosexuals originate primarily from deeply rooted cultural prejudices, fears and misconceptions rather than from the Bible or Christian teaching. If we think we are better or more holy than those we consider to be "sinners," then we ourselves are guilty of the sin of self-righteousness (Luke 18:9-14)."
"James makes it clear that we must treat others with mercy, not with judgment (criticism or condemnation) or partiality (prejudice or discrimination)"
"As Christians, we must remember that we are all sinners in our own ways (Romans 3:21-24, 5:12, 1 John 1:8). Despite that, God loves all His children (Genesis 1:31, Psalms 145:9, Matthew 5:43-45, John 3:16, Romans 5:8). We cannot let our feelings or fears about homosexuality blind us to Jesus' commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:36-39)."
"There is nothing in the Bible saying to shun or avoid business dealings with a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person. Neither is there anything advocating or authorizing violence, hatred, job discrimination, legal discrimination or taunting. Neither is there any Biblical justification for shunning, disowning or evicting lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender family members (1 Timothy 5:8, Colossians 3:21)."
This is exactly what I'm talking about. We can't just listen to one group of people and assume others think like they do, just because they have the same name, whether that name is Christians or conservatives or liberals or Muslims.
And even if it was fair to use a single source to stereotype a vast population, we should at least make sure the source says what we assume it does.
Like most Biblical references, the first page is full of links that both support and refute your claim. I will note that Jesus never said women must submit to man. Other men said that.
@semiticgod The part you're quoting is the interpretation of the writer of that post, not any passage from the bible. Obviously practitioners can have wildly differing views, but what the bible says is among other things
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination."
As the very first bible quote on the page. Next we have
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them."
The next quote does not actually mention homosexuality
"What comes out of you is what defiles you. For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile you."
Then we have "homosexual offender"s
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
And finally "shameful lust" and "perversion"
"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
This is what the bible says.
@mf2112 Can you post some bible passages that empower women and gays, then?
There's a difference between saying "Homosexuality is a sin" and "Let's use the coercive power of the State to enforce our religion on other people." When Kim Davis was doing the latter, there were a lot of evangelical pastors repudiating her for it.
Comments
And the victory didn't really "surprise" me. I watched us re-elect Bush in '04 (ironically, by roughly the same vote margin as Hillary leads over Trump).
He could have promised the cities the same false promises but his social policy is totally incompatible with city life.
Clinton won the popular vote; Trump won the electoral vote. If popular votes decide, Clinton wins. If electoral votes decide, Trump wins.
That's not an interpretation; that's what actually happened.
The electoral college is definitely one of the reasons for the results. It might not be the most important, but it's one of them.
I'll grant that the Democrats could have run a more likable candidate--Hillary has never been known for her charisma, unlike her husband--but it's not fair to say the Democratic party made the wrong call by choosing her.
She did what she was supposed to do. She won the most votes.
Unfortunately for her, those votes weren't in the right places.
Averting this disaster in these 3 states may not have happened anyway, but a good place to start would have been at least 3 trips each to Madison (to run up the vote in the overwhelmingly liberal part of the state) and 3 trips to Flint to address the water crisis created by a criminally negligent Republican governor. Given the tiny margin of victory in each state, who knows?? Then that leaves Pennsylvania, and I'm not sure what could have been done there. Again, the rural areas of this country came out in droves for Trump, and because of how Electoral votes are distributed, it allowed him the crawl-space to inch in and pull an inside straight.
Agreed here. Arizona, I've lived there, is so red its ridiculous and not in small part to the GOP controlled government disenfranchising latino voters. Hillary could appeal to latino voters there but good old Sheriff Joe (thank god he was voted out) would ensure they couldn't vote. And voter laws designed to disenfranchise along with limited voting stations opened for fewer hours in areas with a lot of latinos and minorities. That is all a real thing there. As former governor Jan Brewer said something to the effect of "Hillary can campaign in Arizona until she's blue in the face, it won't matter because latinos don't vote" (implied that "we won't let them"). The omnipresence of retirees who watch Fox News all day with it's 24/7 email and bengazhi coverage isn't a winning combination either. As noted in the post above from Jill Stein's website, I'm concerned with "faulty"? equipment in Michigan in predominantly black areas of michigan. I think the Republican Governor was unconcerned about working voting equipment in these areas. At best he probably thought that if the machines failed to count votes in these areas "oh well". At worst, he probably intentionally didn't fix the equipment.
*achem*
"The Democrats" didn't just choose an unlikable candidate, the DNC did.
http://usuncut.com/politics/dnc-leaks-9-emails/ And again, this wasn't just casting shade it was spreading hit pieces and pitching stories.
I think Trump got those voters to the polls and the people who pulled the lever for Clinton would have voted for any other Democrat. Trump inspired new voters to register and he inspired legions to vote against him.
I agree with @jjstraka34 , these results weren't surprising. To be completely arrogant, I've called all the elections correctly since 1996. If I can't support a candidate -- that is to say if people like me who self identify as activists -- can't vote for the candidate the candidate loses. For years the "people who know how the system works" (tm) have been telling people like me that the activists don't matter and that we need candidates who can appeal to Reagan Democrats, swing state voters and soccer moms. And that advice has been taken as holy scripture despite its repeated failure. This is strike three for the right wing Democrats -- Gore, Kerry, Clinton. At a time when the working class of the country is coming to grips with with the fact that that its fortunes have been falling under both right wing Democrats and Republicans the DNC offered a status quo candidate. It wasn't just Clinton's personality -- it was her policies. She had nothing to offer the rust belt. Given a choice between a huckster who promised to bring back the factory jobs and someone whose name was synonymous with "free" trade, they went for the huckster.
The irony of all this is that the third way Democrats came to power on the backs of the Electoral College -- for years they told us that elections were about swing states and swing voters. "Shut up lefties -- votes in California and New York don't matter, only purple states matter" And that wisdom has proven to be as valuable as a degree from Trump University. Clinton lost. She got creamed by some who spent less money than she did, someone who had his own party *and* fox news working against him.
Clinton Democrats *must* stop telling themselves she really won. She was routed. I mean how the )*%*! do you lose Wisconsin?
And, sorry to say it, as flawed a system as it is I'm glad we have some way of representing the interests of the rust belt. I don't think the advocates of the popular vote are considering the unintended consequences of changing the system -- if states with large populations dominate the political scene we will have separatist movements. See Scottland, Catalonia . . .
"Free" trade = unemployment. Clinton = "free" trade.
Clinton is the Democratic equivalent of Bob Dole, the candidate who had everything he needed to secure the nomination and nothing he needed to win in the general.
Well obviously Trump would have lost the election if the electoral college was abolished the night before the election.
The cities hate Trump and republicans in general because democrats have invested in the cities and republicans haven't.
It is pointless to speculate what would have happened if the electoral college hadn't existed all along...but if it hadn't existed, I believe it is safe to assume that republicans wouldn't focus their campaign efforts only on "grasslands," as they have always done.
They would have been campaigning in the cities all along for years...which means that the presidential election would have always been decided by the cities...which means that the ground work that republicans have done in the swing states for Trump would have been laid in the cities instead...which means that the cities would be the new voting battlegrounds, not the swing states...which means that we will never know who would have won the popular vote if the college didn't exist. But it is 100% safe to say that the democrats wouldn't be the only dogs in town like they are now. They have no competition in the cities now. They otherwise would have that competition.
As it stands now, Trump has won because he has done campaigning as it has always been done...by focusing on the swing states. The cities would be the new swing states if the college didn't exist. So Trump would have focused his campaign on them, just like every republican candidate before him would have.
We have no idea if the cities would have hated Trump in such a scenario because he probably would have had a different strategy that would have appealed to them, just like every republican before him would have. Our election process would be entirely different.
Hence the point that the electoral college is not responsible for Trump's victory. The point that the electoral college has anything to do with his victory is moot...BUT the electoral college has everything to do with campaign strategy.
Just because the Democrats ran a fairly bad campaign doesn't mean Trump ran a good one. Both he and his staff thought he was going to lose.
Also, it very well might not have mattered if Clinton campaigned in the midwest anyway, because the vote there tracks well with what happened to Obama's approval ratings in the last four years.
Though, really, Clinton would have almost certainly won handily if the last-minute Comey surprise hadn't halved her lead over Trump, and then nobody would be talking now about her problems, or Democratic problems, or caring about the midwest even though those states would still have all the danger signs that hindsight has made so apparent.
I continually will not understand this notion that rural states and the Rust Belt essentially need to be awarded Electoral power "on a curve" because the poor, white-working class will get ignored if we don't. Talk about entitlement. How is it that people who live in the major metro areas of this country aren't being punished by having the value of their vote diminished?? You can make the same argument either way, but one system is completely contrived and rigged, and the other is just a simple basic principle of 1 person/1 vote. You can't say that large populations shouldn't dominate the political landscape while at the same time arguing for an artificial value being given to states with lower rural populations. In doing so, you alienate and punish people who live in urban centers in the EXACT same way you are talking about. Except by advocating a popular vote, I'm simply arguing for a system that every other country in the world uses and is as basic and old as the idea of democracy itself. People live where they live, and once again, I'll state that we are awarding electoral significance to grassland and cows, and the only reason it remains this way is because everyone who lives there is white and more likely to vote Republican than anyone living in the actual population centers of this country.
As for trade, it's an easy straw man, and it's certainly had an effect on jobs in the Rust Belt, but not nearly as much as the fact that time has moved on and it's not 1955 anymore. Technology now does the job that workers did 25 or 50 years ago. If you want to blame something, the #1 culprit is the lack of training provided to these workers for getting into another profession when it was clear things were going in another direction, and the lack of an interest of these workers to do so, thinking they would stay on the same assembly line until they retired. Trump isn't bringing these jobs back, NO ONE is bringing these jobs back, because these jobs don't exist anymore. People who think they are might as well wish for a unicorn to show up on their doorstep in the morning.
And last (because this is getting too long), again, people are giving the DNC far, far too much credit and acting like they are actually competent enough to rig a primary for someone. They were absolutely in the bag for Clinton. It also had no effect on the end result. I supported Bernie Sanders. But Bernie Sanders needed to be in that race AT LEAST 9 months earlier, and the fact that he wasn't is all the proof you need that even he didn't think he had a chance until it was way too late to do anything to actually secure the nomination. The Democratic primary was over in mid-March when she creamed him in Ohio, far before the incidents described in the emails ever even took place. Certain left-leaning online news sources (TYT in particular) kept pushing the meme that he had a chance, when mathematically he would have had to gather 60-70% of the remaining votes in certain States to even catch up, much less pass Clinton.
And Obama only ran as a left-wing Democrat, he governed as a Clintonite centrist (indeed, he governed to the right of Bush on a few things). Yet he still won handily in 2012.
If you want to make a pattern out of this, it is that electoral success comes primarily to the most charismatic candidates. Which is depressing, but not really startling.
Really, it's bewildering how many left-wingers now sound exactly like embittered right-wingers did after Mitt Romney was nominated and then lost, beating out favourites of the populist right to get there. They were wrong. You're wrong. What wins elections is appealing to the electorate, not to the dedicated base. That doesn't mean centrism is always a good way to go, because the electorate is sometimes in a mood for people with radical ideas. But it certainly doesn't mean centrism always loses.
More to the point, you're basically advocating splitting the Democratic party (or perhaps just exodusing to the Greens). Nothing wrong with that if the long-term goal seems worth it, of course, but I wouldn't bet on short-term electoral success. By getting less votes there than Trump did.
People should stop telling themselves that Clinton did not lose a close election due to a relatively small amount of voters in key states, while winning the popular vote by a historically significant percentage. Because that is the objective statistical truth, and in figuring out "what went wrong" and "where to go from here" they will be on sturdier ground when they start with the truth.
George McGovern was routed. Walter Mondale was routed. Michael Dukakis was routed. Hillary Clinton lost a very close election. They are not really comparable.
First, blaming any Clinton for Detroit is like blaming Reagan for Mount Saint Helens. No president could have stopped what was happening there. And "they're no longer catching the dogs" is almost a hilarious footnote to the devastation of the area.
Second, it has been 16 years since a Clinton was in office - if those states are still devastated after eight years of Bush and eight of Obama, it suggests that maybe "Clinton economics" isn't the primary culprit.
(I could add: Third, blaming or praising any elected politician for the economic situation when they're in office is all but pointless, since they had functionally nothing to do with it, but that's no fun.) Putting aside that every significant candidate is pro-free-trade, including Trump (he just wants a "better deal" and to cheat to the US's benefit more than the US already does), what is your preferred alternative? Can you point to any real-world examples of it and its effects? Serious question, I'm not trying to rag on you here. But the days of heavy protectionism and tariffs aren't coming back to a service-based economy, and I'm not sure what paradigm shift you're aiming for. She came awfully close to winning then, and led in the polls for the entire election. Decidedly unlike Bob Dole, in both respects.
Besides, the primary requirement every Republican needed to win the election in 1996 was "Not having Bill Clinton as the president".
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37117414
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38273933
The last thing we need to do is divide people up into "good" and "bad" camps. Most of my family are Christian conservatives--evangelicals, in fact, and missionaries--and I have yet to hear them express any distaste for gays or for women's rights. They're some of the sweetest people I know, and having known them for all my life, I know that that isn't just a mask. Their religion is indeed based on love, not hate.
We cannot generalize evangelicals as anti-gay or anti-woman any more than we can generalize Muslims as anti-American. Hateful people are the most vocal members of these groups, but not the most numerous.
https://www.openbible.info/topics/women
TL;DR Woman must submit to man
http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_homosexuality.htm
TL;DR Homosexuality is sin
"It must be emphasized that, according to the New Testament, we are no longer under the harsh Old Testament Law (John 1:16-17, Romans 8:1-3, 1 Corinthians 9:20-21). The concern with punishment is now secondary to Jesus' message of repentance and redemption...
In the Old Testament, homosexual activity was strongly associated with the idolatrous practices of the pagan nations surrounding Israel... many Bible scholars believe the condemnations in Leviticus are more a condemnation of the idolatry than of the homosexual acts themselves3,4."
"As with many Bible topics, there are uncertainties and different opinions about how the Biblical evidence should be interpreted. The challenge of accurate interpretation is to determine what message was originally intended, how it was understood by people of that time, and how the lesson should be applied in our own time. That involves a lot of specialized knowledge of the original Biblical languages as well as the culture and issues of those times. The Bible often speaks of sexual matters in euphemistic and vague terms, and there is a lack of understanding of how Biblical-era people used and understood those terms.
Prejudices, fears and misconceptions about homosexuality are deeply rooted in our culture. The subject evokes strong emotions which may hinder understanding it from a Biblical perspective. Many common beliefs and attitudes about homosexuality actually have their origins in our cultural traditions rather than in the Bible. The Bible prohibits homosexual intercourse but does not treat it as one of the major sins. There are only 7 Bible passages on this topic, and it is not one of the major sins mentioned in the Ten Commandments or by Jesus. (In comparison, the sin of hatred is mentioned 21 times, lying and false testimony 30, greed, avarice and covetousness 40, theft 42, adultery 52, murder 57, self-righteousness 79, and idolatry 169 times.) When read in context, a majority of the Bible passages refer to specific homosexual practices which violate other important Bible prohibitions such as idolatry, rape, prostitution or pederasty."
"The Bible says nothing specifically about the homosexual condition (despite the rather misleading RSV translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9), but its condemnations of homosexual conduct are explicit. The scope of these strictures must, however, be carefully determined. Too often they have been used as tools of a homophobic polemic which has claimed too much.
The exegesis of the Sodom and Gibeah stories (Genesis19, Judges 19) is a good case in point. ... On both occasions the sin condemned was attempted homosexual rape, not a caring homosexual relationship between consenting partners."
"They have absolutely no ability to wish or pray or choose their way out of their same-sex attraction, yet God condemns them unless they can change it.
... That was a distressing picture to contemplate, but fortunately I realized it was a picture that stood in utter contradiction to the portrait of God painted by Scripture... And there was absolutely nothing in Jesus’ life or ministry that even remotely resembled the kind of gratuitous cruelty that would bring someone into existence only for the purpose of breaking or condemning them. To the contrary: Jesus’ love and compassion broke through all the traditional barriers of his age, reaching out to embrace even his own enemies (Luke 23:34)... None of this fit with the picture of a God who would cruelly leave no path to grace for people like Kristi."
"Going back and reading about that history, one discovers that the pro-slavery churches were defending their positions by appeal to the Bible! Isolated fragments, pulled out and interpreted apart from the overall witness of the Scripture, led those devout southern Presbyterians to conclude that their pro-slavery cause was blessed by God. Another such episode, which extends into more recent times, saw well-intentioned Christians appealing to isolated scriptural fragments as they argued to keep women in subordinate roles within both church and society. The fragment method clearly has a long and sad history of providing “biblical” justification for teachings that we can recognize in hindsight as contrary to the will of God. "
"Same-sex intercourse is forbidden in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Are these teachings important spiritual principles for all times? Or are they, like the Bible teachings on slavery and subjugation of women, remnants of Biblical-era culture that we must now reject as incompatible with the more important Bible teachings about God's love and mercy for all people?
These and other questions have been discussed in recent times. Answers tend to be strongly influenced by one's personal feelings about homosexuality. But, if we are sincere about using the Bible for guidance, we must not assume that the Bible passages on homosexuality support our own conservative or liberal viewpoints. Instead, we must put aside our own ideas, feelings and fears and prayerfully seek the truth."
"Other Christians view equal civil rights for gays and lesbians to marry as a requirement of Bible teachings that we must act with kindness and respect for all people and avoid judging the moral choices others make (Matthew 22:37-40, Matthew 7:1-5, Romans 14:10-14, James 4:11-12)."
"We often assume that the attitudes we grew up with or heard from other Christians represent Biblical values. However, the negative attitudes that many people hold toward homosexuals originate primarily from deeply rooted cultural prejudices, fears and misconceptions rather than from the Bible or Christian teaching. If we think we are better or more holy than those we consider to be "sinners," then we ourselves are guilty of the sin of self-righteousness (Luke 18:9-14)."
"James makes it clear that we must treat others with mercy, not with judgment (criticism or condemnation) or partiality (prejudice or discrimination)"
"As Christians, we must remember that we are all sinners in our own ways (Romans 3:21-24, 5:12, 1 John 1:8). Despite that, God loves all His children (Genesis 1:31, Psalms 145:9, Matthew 5:43-45, John 3:16, Romans 5:8). We cannot let our feelings or fears about homosexuality blind us to Jesus' commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:36-39)."
"There is nothing in the Bible saying to shun or avoid business dealings with a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person. Neither is there anything advocating or authorizing violence, hatred, job discrimination, legal discrimination or taunting. Neither is there any Biblical justification for shunning, disowning or evicting lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender family members (1 Timothy 5:8, Colossians 3:21)."
This is exactly what I'm talking about. We can't just listen to one group of people and assume others think like they do, just because they have the same name, whether that name is Christians or conservatives or liberals or Muslims.
And even if it was fair to use a single source to stereotype a vast population, we should at least make sure the source says what we assume it does.
Same with the second page. In fact there is a discussion within the page that points out that Jesus never specifically condemns homosexuality and that it was actually other people saying that.
http://wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/gay_couple.html
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination."
As the very first bible quote on the page. Next we have
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them."
The next quote does not actually mention homosexuality
"What comes out of you is what defiles you. For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile you."
Then we have "homosexual offender"s
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
And finally "shameful lust" and "perversion"
"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
This is what the bible says.
@mf2112 Can you post some bible passages that empower women and gays, then?