Trump protestors

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

There is a possibility that Hilary is racist. She is also white, also from mid America, also has called blacks predators. There is, I think, a tendency for some to give away their own racism by considering themselves the land owner and the blacks their wards. Just workers, subject to the blessings or punishments the slave driver might dish out.

 

I am not trying to be blind to the plight of the black man, I am trying to accelerate the rise from historical slavehood by saying to them, in my eyes you were never a slave. Never were you my ward. Never since your birth, were you a slave that needed my blessing or my help. Always were you an equal human being, living in a free America, able to work where you wanted, go to school where you wanted, live were you wanted...as long as you played by the rules and earned what you gained. Equal citizen in my eyes.

 

If you think that blacks are not capable of taking care of themselves, then you are fostering the racism and relegating blacks to being kept personages in government housing.

 

Regards, TAR

[Delta1212]

The largest problem is not whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are or are not themselves racists. The trouble is whether they, as candidates, promote racism and enable racists.

 

Between the two, there is a markedly different tone that each of the two took, and their relative support among racists groups was also very different, keeping in mind that saying "Most racists supported Donald Trump" is not the same thing as saying "Most people who supported Donald Trump did so because of racism."

 

Minority groups are afraid of how the policy changes of a Trump administration will affect them, and also the fact that there are numerous racist groups and individuals who have been emboldened by his victory, which is liable to have a tangible affect on the lives of many of the people who are currently upset about the result regardless of what Trump himself does or says from this poin forward.

 

It's not a game of "Who's a racist." It's a question of how the lives of minorities in the United States are going to change as a result of this election.

 

And there are quite a lot of them who are very afraid that it is not going to be for the better.

 

That is something that you (and I, frankly) are privileged not to have to directly worry about as it pertains to our own selves.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Delta1212

[tar]

SwansonT,

 

Being on the coast does matter. You get more interaction with the rest of the world. There is a large Japanese contingent on the West Coast for instance. I never though sought to discount the California vote. I again was using it to show a difference between the thinking on the coast and the thinking in the interior, and to show the thinking in the interior needs voice as badly as the thinking on the coast. And that minus the thinking on the coast, the thinking was that Trump would be better than Hilary.

 

Regards, TAR

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

+1 on #177.

 

That is what the protests in the streets are about.

 

Regards, TAR

[Phi for All]

In effect, while I do not think that you are in any way evil, I do think that you are much more comfortable being a good man who does nothing than confronting the idea that evil is being done within our own borders to our own citizens frequently by otherwise normal people.

 

This is the way I think about tar as well. Blinders in place to preserve hope. Good intentions in a pocket somewhere. Kind but distracted as he heads off the pier.

 

And ultimately a turkey feeding us waffles while he gobbles on about how Pilgrims are Americans too, and how nice Thanksgiving will be this year.

[swansont]

Delta1212,

 

There is a possibility that Hilary is racist. She is also white, also from mid America, also has called blacks predators.

Citation needed (I hope it's obvious which point)

 

If you think that blacks are not capable of taking care of themselves, then you are fostering the racism and relegating blacks to being kept personages in government housing.

Surely you see, however, that the converse is not true: that offering government housing (or subsidies, etc. in whatever form) does not mean one thinks that people can't take care of themselves and is not racist.

[waitforufo]

I'm just curious about the goals of the protests and protesters. Is it simply a catharsis? Do they think it will change the outcome of the election? Do they think there is some path at the end of which Hillary Clinton or Tim Kaine would accept to serve as America's 45th president? Do they think the American people would accept such a constitutional crisis? Do they think it will impact the way Donald Trump will serve as president?

 

Hillary Clinton has already conceded defeat both to Donald Trump personally and live on TV to the entire world. Do the protesters think she will take it back?

 

Seems to simply be a catharsis to me. A rather childish one at that.

Edited November 14, 2016 by waitforufo

[swansont]

SwansonT,

 

Being on the coast does matter. You get more interaction with the rest of the world. There is a large Japanese contingent on the West Coast for instance. I never though sought to discount the California vote. I again was using it to show a difference between the thinking on the coast and the thinking in the interior, and to show the thinking in the interior needs voice as badly as the thinking on the coast. And that minus the thinking on the coast, the thinking was that Trump would be better than Hilary.

 

Regards, TAR

You aren't explaining yourself very clearly, and not justifying why this isn't an incredibly stupid argument. Basically it's "if we exclude some of Hillary's supporters, she has less support". Well, yes, I accept that as a basic implication of math. But there is nothing of any political significance there and somehow I doubt your point was a lesson in grade-school math.

 

Why does interaction with other people matter in terms of your argument? Why does one's line of thinking matter, in terms of your argument? By excluding any group you are, de facto, saying that they matter less than the groups you are not excluding. Regarding the popular voice, the people on the coast have just as much voice as anyone else — one vote per person. Exactly the same amount. The people in the middle of the country have more voice than the people on the coast in terms of representation.

[Carrock]

I've been reading (or at least skimming) this thread and there's almost no mention of a former official republican in a supposedly neutral position who breached protocols and perhaps the law in a carefully timed way to cause Clinton maximum damage.

 

FBI Director James Comey originally, after very public investigation(1) decided that (in his prejudicial opinion) the Justice Department would not prosecute Clinton over email security.

He did not say she was innocent and without the case being referred to them the Justice Department could not say whether or not Comey was right.

 

The, ten days before the election (2) he announces that he is reopening the investigation although no new evidence against Clinton has been found.

 

This time the justice department gets involved, presumably to demonstrate that evidence not known to exist indeed does not exist.

To some people this is serious as the justice department is involved, not just Comey whose only proper task is to gather evidence and make private recommendations.

 

Two days before the election it's announced that no new evidence against Clinton has been found.

 

Perhaps he'll have better luck later....

 

It's possible to claim of course that Comey thought protocols didn't apply to him and that he didn't think announcing a new meritless investigation eleven days before an election would have any effect on the result.

 

 

(1) a breach of protocol.

(2) an even worse breach of protocol

 

From http://www.npr.org/2016/11/14/502018139/trump-advisors-mulling-whether-to-keep-fbi-director-james-comey?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

 

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are considering whether to retain FBI Director James Comey after the agency became an issue in one of the most divisive campaigns in modern history, three sources told NPR.

 

Comey has nearly seven years left to serve in his 10-year term. The FBI director's position extends beyond the term of any single president to help insulate the bureau from political forces as it pursues sensitive criminal and national security investigations.

[waitforufo]

You aren't explaining yourself very clearly, and not justifying why this isn't an incredibly stupid argument. Basically it's "if we exclude some of Hillary's supporters, she has less support". Well, yes, I accept that as a basic implication of math. But there is nothing of any political significance there and somehow I doubt your point was a lesson in grade-school math.

 

Why does interaction with other people matter in terms of your argument? Why does one's line of thinking matter, in terms of your argument? By excluding any group you are, de facto, saying that they matter less than the groups you are not excluding. Regarding the popular voice, the people on the coast have just as much voice as anyone else — one vote per person. Exactly the same amount. The people in the middle of the country have more voice than the people on the coast in terms of representation.

Perhaps Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States has political significance here.

 

http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/page/article-ii-section-1

 

I think it does because the popular vote is meaningless to the outcome of presidential elections.

[Delta1212]

The fact that something is law is not really relevant to the discussion of whether or not it is a good thing that it is law.

 

I think everyone knows that the popular vote is meaningless to the outcome of a Presiential election, because we're that not the case, there wouldn't be a discussion about whether or not it should be relevant.

[tar]

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hilary+calls+blacks+predators&view=detail&mid=E497E5EE81AE5E5C1D7FE497E5EE81AE5E5C1D7F&FORM=VIRE

 

SwansonT,

 

My cutting out California was in the context of the protestor cry "not my president" and the discussion that we should, rather than have an electoral college situation, go by the popular vote. That this would better describe the situation as to who the country wanted as president. My taking the popular vote, before California is counted, and showing that Trump was ahead at this point shows anybody looking, that the country, other than California, voted, not counting electoral college, just plain popular vote, including New Jersey and New York and other NE blue states, for Trump. So yes, I get it, that the country voted more for Hilary to the tune of 800 votes, but the differential is completely accounted for in the more than 1,000,000 plurality she got in California, which means, if you are interested in the looking at the popular vote to decide on who is whose president, you could say that the rest of the country voted for Trump and California voted for Hilary. Or you could say that only states that voted blue are allowed to say "not my president", that is if they want to forget we go by the electoral college system.

 

Regards, TAR

[waitforufo]

The fact that something is law is not really relevant to the discussion of whether or not it is a good thing that it is law.

 

I think everyone knows that the popular vote is meaningless to the outcome of a Presiential election, because we're that not the case, there wouldn't be a discussion about whether or not it should be relevant.

Fine, but the topic of this forum is "Trump Protesters". The electoral college system has existed since the founding of our country. It survived Bush/Gore. It will survive Trump/Clinton. Crying in one's beer over it is childish. If it's part of some kind of grieving catharsis I guess it has some point, but in the end the participants will just feel silly. What will they have accomplished?

 

So again, what are the goals of the Trump protesters? Are they stated anywhere? I'd love to read them. If all they have is "not my president", well sorry, but yes Trump will very soon be.

Presidents that did not win the popular vote.

 

1824: John Quincy Adams

1876: Rutherford B. Hayes

1888: Benjamin Harrison

2000: George W. Bush

2016: Donald J. Trump

11% of the time is not that uncommon.

[Delta1212]

 

Fine, but the topic of this forum is "Trump Protesters". The electoral college system has existed since the founding of our country. It survived Bush/Gore. It will survive Trump/Clinton. Crying in one's beer over it is childish. If it's part of some kind of grieving catharsis I guess it has some point, but in the end the participants will just feel silly. What will they have accomplished?

 

So again, what are the goals of the Trump protesters? Are they stated anywhere? I'd love to read them. If all they have is "not my president", well sorry, but yes Trump will very soon be.

 

Presidents that did not win the popular vote.

 

1824: John Quincy Adams

1876: Rutherford B. Hayes

1888: Benjamin Harrison

2000: George W. Bush

2016: Donald J. Trump

 

11% of the time is not that uncommon.

You're using the wrong denominator. It's 5/56 elections, not 5/45 Presidents. That's just shy of 9%.

 

It was also just shy of 6% of the time prior to 2000.

 

And, obviously, it's been 40% of the time since 2000.

[waitforufo]

You're using the wrong denominator. It's 5/56 elections, not 5/45 Presidents. That's just shy of 9%.

 

It was also just shy of 6% of the time prior to 2000.

 

And, obviously, it's been 40% of the time since 2000.

Goals of the Trump protesters please? Anyone?

[tar]

delta1212,

 

So it perhaps does show that the electoral college favors the ​​red, and this might be because it was constructed to favor the land owner and slave master...but it also serves to give power to the little states which is important from a state's rights perspective. I am not sure it would be fair to the rural population, to hand over the control of the country to the blue cities.

 

Regards TAR

[Delta1212]

delta1212,

 

So it perhaps does show that the electoral college favors the ​​red, and this might be because it was constructed to favor the land owner and slave master...but it also serves to give power to the little states which is important from a state's rights perspective. I am not sure it would be fair to the rural population, to hand over the control of the country to the blue cities.

 

Regards TAR

Is it, on the other hand, fair to the blue cities to hand over control to the rural population?

[tar]

election countwise I think red won 30 states to blue's 20 or something close to that

 

of course the 20 include real high population states so they won the popular vote and should always determine the president if the electoral college was dropped

Is it, on the other hand, fair to the blue cities to hand over control to the rural population?

 

only when 270 is reached which is really difficult for the repubs normally blue states need to go red, which means, like in this case, the blue cities need to underperform

although, all that is not important now, now we have to worry about Bannon

[Delta1212]

election countwise I think red won 30 states to blue's 20 or something close to that

 

of course the 20 include real high population states so they won the popular vote and should always determine the president if the electoral college was dropped

But it's not just high population blue vs low population red.

 

Here's going back to that map of 2012 I trotted out earlier but this time shading each county a hue between red and blue to represent the percentage of the vote that went to each side with more red being more Republican and more blue being more Democratic:

 

 

And again, proportionate to relative population size:

 

 

As you can see, much of the map is less split between red and blue and is mostly intensely purple with a blue bias is major population centers and a deep red fringe on the outskirts of those centers.

 

The individual states don't vote one way or the other as a unified population. They don't even vote that way on the county level. That means that a fair bit of the popular vote that pushes the Democrats over the edge comes from rural areas where they get a sizable minority of the vote rather than an easy black and white (or red and blue) picture where all of the rural counties are entirely Republican and all of the cities are entirely Democratic and the Democrats win the popular vote because the cities hold more people.

[tar]

I just heard Bannon promotes conspiracy theories like that Newtown Sandy Hook was a hoax and 9/11 was an inside job...so the protestors might be right to protest.

[Delta1212]

I just heard Bannon promotes conspiracy theories like that Newtown Sandy Hook was a hoax and 9/11 was an inside job...so the protestors might be right to protest.

Yeah. The appointments so far are not filling me with confidence. I'm also kind of thinking that someone who not only thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the EU but has in the past advocated for landowners to take steps to intentionally render their property uninhabitable to endangered species so that there won't be anything left alive for the government to step in and try to protect with environmental regulations is perhaps less than an inspiring choice for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

[Phi for All]

Goals of the Trump protesters please? Anyone?

 

Perhaps to help focus some resources on discovering if our president-elect is working with Russia illegally. Perhaps they're still trying to require his tax returns be made available, so Putin's influence on our elections can be determined. Perhaps they're wanting to see what will happen if Trump faces charges over his failed university. Shall I go on? You act as if Donald Trump is an average Republican, and it looks pretty funny on you.

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

So let us talk about the red fringe around the blue population centers. Is that not the suburbs, the bedroom communities the people that work in the city and live in the surrounding areas, the subdivisions in northern Atlanta and the New Jersey towns outside of Newark and Paterson and NYC? Likely some members of the 10 percent of bosses and teachers and business owners. By this, I would say that it is these people that ultimately decide elections. They are the leaders and influence other people's votes. I am wondering if it is to some degree OK to let people that own things and run things have some voice. As in it is OK to gerrymander so these people have a house rep.

 

Regards, TAR

so at this point the only hopes are for faithless electors in December, or impeachment procedures?

[Delta1212]

If they already influence other people's votes and decide elections, why do they also need their own votes to count extra?

 

The people who own and run things already do have a voice. The same voice as everyone else. In fact, they already have a considerable advantage in that they tend to have much larger platforms for making their voices heard.

 

Making their voice legally worth more than someone else's seems like it is pushing a further concentration of power, which runs counter to the check that democracy is supposed to provide on the accumulation of power in hands that do not need to concern themselves with the well-being of the powerless.

 

Faithless electors aren't going to happen, and there is no way a Republican House and Senate is impeaching a Republican president. And I'm also thinking the outcomes to either of those events wouldn't be all that pleasant.

 

The protests taking place now would likely be mild compared to what you'd see in the event of the EC giving the presidency to Hillary Clinton, and an impeachment would leave you with Mike Pence as President, who is the head of the transition team who is responsible for organizing a lot of these appointments in the first place.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Delta1212

[Phi for All]

I am wondering if it is to some degree OK to let people that own things and run things have some voice. As in it is OK to gerrymander so these people have a house rep.

 

Why do you think they don't, and why do you think they need more? Especially when you aren't holding them to any standards you and I have to adhere to (like paying taxes, being fair, and working to help your country)?