Disunion of the States: AmExit

[August1991]

On 10/22/2016 at 8:44 AM, cybercoma said:

That's absolutely wrong. Trump refused to say he would accept the results. Gore didn't reject the results ever. He accepted them when the legally mandated recount was put to a stay by Republican judges in Florida. If anyone in history had the right to reject an election, it was Gore.

This is what Trump said:
 

Quote

 

When asked if he would commit to accepting the result of the race, regardless of outcome, Trump responded, "I will look at it at the time."

"What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense," Trump said during the final debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

 

CNBC

Here's what Gore said:

 

Quote

 

''You mean to tell me, Mr. Vice President, you're retracting your concession?'' Mr. Bush asked, his tone incredulous, one aide said. The Texas governor had already begun preparing his victory remarks.

''You don't have to be snippy about it,'' Mr. Gore responded, according to several of those who heard Mr. Gore's side of the conversation.

Mr. Bush told Mr. Gore that his brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, had just assured him that Florida was his, Gore aides said.

''Let me explain something,'' Mr. Gore said. ''Your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on this.''

 

 

NYT

F*ck I hate this forum. This post looks terrible and it was a nightmare to do; I simply wanted to make some quotes.

Edited October 24, 2016 by August1991
Ugly

[August1991]

On 2016-10-22 at 1:15 PM, kimmy said:

....

Trump and his surrogates and his allies in the alt-right media have been at it for months, explicitly encouraging their voters to doubt and disregard the results of the vote.

....

I suspect that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win with about 49% of the popular vote. Donald Trump will get about 42% of the vote.

My OP refers to a huge problem that you so easily dismiss, Kimmy: what to do with this "alt-right media"?

[August1991]

On 2016-10-18 at 9:36 PM, kimmy said:

Oh yeah, but the deep south bible-thumpers have such a live-and-let-live outlook for people who don't share their views.

-k

I suspect that (North) American progressives/liberals/leftists truly believe that they are reforming the world.

In the future, according to you Kimmy, there will be no conservatives or Republicans or heck, bible-thumpers.

[kimmy]

2 hours ago, August1991 said:

I suspect that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win with about 49% of the popular vote. Donald Trump will get about 42% of the vote.

My OP refers to a huge problem that you so easily dismiss, Kimmy: what to do with this "alt-right media"?

I don't dismiss the problem, August. I don't know what can be done.

In the short-term, those who intend to engage in armed revolt after Trump loses may come to a tragic end. In the longer term, Breitbart and similar will just be back at it, as is their right. There are rumors that Mr Trump's family are considering considering entering the media fray as well. Look forward to Trump TV, an exciting new outlet for Obama conspiracy theories and Trump's factually inaccurate drivel.

 

2 hours ago, August1991 said:

I suspect that (North) American progressives/liberals/leftists truly believe that they are reforming the world.

In the future, according to you Kimmy, there will be no conservatives or Republicans or heck, bible-thumpers.

I claim no such thing, August. I was just laughing at your suggestion that Trump's supporters are "the Mark Twains of this world", when nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Clemons would be rolling with laughter in his grave. I think a much more apt comparison is Twain's contemporary, PT Barnum. Trump, like Mr Barnum, knows that "every crowd has a silver lining", and Mr Trump's crowds are YUUUUGE.

It seems that ignorance will always be with us... and people like Mr Bannon and Mr Trump will always be around to profit from their gullibility. As Mr Barnum said and Mr Trump knows, there's another one born every minute.

Conservatives aren't going anywhere either. Rest assured, however, that Mr Trump's "movement" has nothing to do with conservatism. There's nothing conservative about following a buffoon off a cliff. There's nothing conservative about a fiscal plan that can only work if the economy experiences astronomical growth. There's nothing conservative about placing your faith in an oft-bankrupted businessman to create this astronomical growth. He may have hung a few social-conservative trappings on his campaign to appease that segment of the supporters-- "no to gays! no to abortions! Yes to Jesus! Yes to America!"-- but that's just part of the con.

There are still intelligent conservatives. And they all have one thing in common: they wouldn't be caught dead on the Trump train.

There will still be Republicans in the future as well. What that actually means remains to be seen.  As John Kasich said, the party has to evolve or it will die. They can't survive if they continue to be the party that hates gay people and alienates non-white people. Their support will quite literally die off.  They may be popular with angry old white people, but that segment of the electorate is shrinking.  The party polls extremely poorly with younger voters, and with non-Christian voters, and with non-white voters, and those are all growing demographics. If the Republicans can't figure out how to communicate conservative ideas to those groups, how does the Republican party stay relevant? This will be the 3rd presidential election in a row they've lost, and if they don't change course, the future won't get any brighter for them.

After the 2012 election the RNC did a thorough post-mortem and produced a big report on all the things that cost them the election. And clearly they didn't even bother to read it, because for the 2016 election they doubled down on all the things that cost them in 2012.  And as long as the traditional conservatives have to share a "big tent" with the Tea Party yahoos, things aren't going to change. John Kasich said that if the party can't change, he won't be part of it any longer. If that's the case, it might be up to guys like him to create a new home for thinking conservatives and leave the Republican loony-bin to the inmates who are now running the asylum.

 -k

[bush_cheney2004]

1 hour ago, kimmy said:

 This will be the 3rd presidential election in a row they've lost, and if they don't change course, the future won't get any brighter for them.
 

 

There is more to U.S. politics than just the presidency.   Might want to take a peek at which party controls Congress, with the largest majority since 1931.

[cybercoma]

10 hours ago, August1991 said:

This is what Trump said:
 

CNBC

Here's what Gore said:

 

NYT

F*ck I hate this forum. This post looks terrible and it was a nightmare to do; I simply wanted to make some quotes.

Trump has had ample opportunity to bring up recounts. He hasn't. You're making assumptions about what he means, when everyone else is going by what he says.

[?Impact]

7 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

There is more to U.S. politics than just the presidency. 

 

Very true. The Presidency is already a done deal, the issue now will be voter turnout. If a large segment of Republicans decide to stay home out of disgust, that will make a big reflection in Congressional makeup.

[JamesHackerMP]

Agreed.  People look at the President and think that's all there is, or that he's the most powerful entity within the entire system.  That's false: the president is the most powerful individual within the American constitution but as an entity, the White House/Presidency has plenty of competition.

[bush_cheney2004]

Methinks that many Canadians believe that the U.S. president has as much unchecked power as a Canadian prime minister.  Just look at how easily one Canadian PM/party easily reverses legislation from the previous regime.    That's just not the case in the U.S.

The next POTUS won't even be sworn in until late January 2017.

[eyeball]

Methinks there are a lot more Americans who believe this.  Probably lots of Presidents who admire our PM's power too - sorta the way our PM's admire China's rulers.

[?Impact]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Methinks that many Canadians believe that the U.S. president has as much unchecked power as a Canadian prime minister. 

 

To be fair that is the image portrayed of the President, and probably an equal percentage of Americans believe the same thing. We continually are bombarded with "the most powerful man woman in the world" message both in fiction and in the main stream media. Certainly the President wields a lot of power, but yes the checks and balances of the system (mostly Congress and the Supreme Court) will keep her in line.

Edited October 25, 2016 by ?Impact

[Wilber]

Problem is, recently Congress has done more than keep them in line, it has effectively prevented almost anything from getting  done. Boehner couldn't even get enough votes to pass a budget limit the Republicans themselves proposed. Hopefully the Tea Party won't have that kind of power in the new Congress.

[bush_cheney2004]

15 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

To be fair that is the image portrayed of the President, and probably an equal percentage of Americans believe the same thing.

 

The image is of an executive branch with checks and balances, but for a much larger/powerful country.   Even a Canadian dictator couldn't do a whole lot internationally.

[?Impact]

21 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

The image is of an executive branch with checks and balances, but for a much larger/powerful country.   Even a Canadian dictator couldn't do a whole lot internationally.

We might be able to crush Wallonia. 

[August1991]

On 10/24/2016 at 2:59 AM, kimmy said:

I don't dismiss the problem, August. I don't know what can be done.

-- Blah, blah --

 -k

There you go again, kimmy. To use the words of another, "The Left doesn't want to win the debate; it wants to shut it down."

Or in KimmySpeak, "How can this be done?"

=====

I have seen this before elsewhere in other societies. People will comply and with their compliance, you will believe that you are changing people in the way you think they should change. 

[kimmy]

5 hours ago, August1991 said:

There you go again, kimmy. To use the words of another, "The Left doesn't want to win the debate; it wants to shut it down."

Or in KimmySpeak, "How can this be done?"

=====

I have seen this before elsewhere in other societies. People will comply and with their compliance, you will believe that you are changing people in the way you think they should change. 

I am not arguing to shut down anyone's right to free speech, August.

I simply point out that the large number of willfully ignorant people poses a great challenge to the notion of "an informed citizenry" that lies at the heart of all functional democracies.

You called these hapless rubes "the Mark Twains of this world", but nothing could be further from the truth. Mark Twain was famed for skepticism and cynicism. Your "Mark Twains" find anything equally credible. "Your polls say Hillary is winning, but Breitbart says Trump is winning and I believe them because everybody else is biased against our Donald!"  "Your science books say the earth is round and spinning, but I found this website that says the earth is flat and stationary, and I believe it because I don't feel the earth spinning at all."  "I read that If Hillary wins it's because George Soros owns the voting machines and black people vote 8 times each! It's rigged!"

I don't know what "debate" can be had with such people.

 -k

[bush_cheney2004]

18 minutes ago, kimmy said:

.I simply point out that the large number of willfully ignorant people poses a great challenge to the notion of "an informed citizenry" that lies at the heart of all functional democracies.

 

The challenge is for the self anointed "elites", not the citizenry.

[cybercoma]

It's less of a challenge for the "elites" because an ignorant and afraid populace is easily manipulated.

[August1991]

On 10/26/2016 at 4:59 AM, kimmy said:

I am not arguing to shut down anyone's right to free speech, August.

----

I don't know what "debate" can be had with such people.

 -k

WTF?

Maybe like dinosaurs, "such people" will disappear, go away, die, leave the gene pool, evolve into something else.

====

I fear that "progressive" people (circa 2015, such as you or our current PM) truly believe that anyone else is backward. I fear that you, kimmy (and Trudeau Jnr - can I say that?) truly, naively believe that you are working toward creating a better future, a better person, a better society. You and he  believe that eventually, the dinosaurs will die, go away. 

Trudeau Snr (can I say that?) only predicted that the future would be more rational.

Edited October 28, 2016 by August1991

[Argus]

10 hours ago, August1991 said:

I fear that "progressive" people (circa 2015, such as you or our current PM) truly believe that anyone else is backward.

What else to term people who fall for a line of bull and consistently vote for a party which does everything it can to harm them?

[August1991]

On 10/28/2016 at 0:59 PM, Argus said:

What else to term people who fall for a line of bull and consistently vote for a party which does everything it can to harm them?

What do you mean "harm" them?

These are living, breathing people. They are not pieces of clay to be moulded/formed by kimmy or Argus or anyone else, even someone named Trudeau.

=====

«Переделка жизни! Так могут рассуждать люди, хотя, может быть, и видавшие виды, но ни разу не узнавшие жизни, не почувствовавшие ее духа, души ее. Для них существование это комок грубого, не облагороженного их прикосновением материала, нуждающегося в их обработке. А материалом, веществом, жизнь никогда не бывает. Она сама, если хотите знать, непрерывно себя обновляющее, вечно себя перерабатывающее начало, она сама вечно себя переделывает и претворяет, она сама куда выше наших с вами тупоумных теорий.”»

Edited November 2, 2016 by August1991