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International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

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331–340 of 402 posts

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#331
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a fair statement given the oddities of the electoral college. I know a lot of people in big coastal cities (New York, Boston, LA, San Fransisco, Seattle) who don't vote but are very anti-Trump. They know it doesn't matter because their states were always going to go strongly for the Democrats.

I'm not from the U.S., so my knowledge here is a bit sketchy, but wasn't one of the problems Clinton had exactly that some states which always voted for the Democrats fell to the Republicans this time?

The difference is that the Democratic party "rebased" itself. They've basically removed blue collar white people as a constituency that they focus on.

This created a problem, as the get out the vote efforts from groups like unions and others were tepid as a result, and the GOP isn't stupid and courted these voters pretty heavily. The other thing is that the Democrats over-relied on minority voters as a key base, which didn't work out for a variety of reasons.

I think strategically they missed the fact the ethnic voting requires an ethnic candidate. They also missed that certain key platform positions alienate ethnic factions of their voting base. In the old days, the Irish-Catholic political machines didn't run aging teetotaler baptists as candidates for a good reason!

Basically, Mrs. Clinton ran a campaign that was divided, disorganized and poorly administered, which crippled her ability to make appropriate decisions. Trump's opportunism, marketing savvy, and tight team made his campaign agile and tightly focused on the objective. When the campaign had internal divisions, he purged the dissenters and moved on.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#332
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trump. Just thought I'd point out that most people DO NOT want this president.

Around half did want him? That's a significant of people to me, no matter if they have the majority or not.

Yeah, but look at the alternative. There was no winning in that election :(

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of influence on voters is OK in your books? Political rallies where you lie about what you'll do and about your opponents? Discussions with friends? TV ads?

What does any of that have to do with citizens of Nation A refusing to trade with companies in Nation B because some of the citizens of Nation B elected a leader whom the citizens of Nation A don't like? That is the kind of attitude that drives people apart, creates hostility, and eventually leads to war. In what world is that a good idea? Can you imagine Americans refusing to buy BMWs because they don't like Angela…

Barely, because for the most part USA citizens are politically inert and/or incompetent and they wouldn't care, but in theory it would be perfectly normal. Some people feel guilty for wearing (or even owning) furs, supporting an "evil" country or an "evil" corp is clearly a worse conduct.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#334
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I let you support your vocal 'false' with data. As for Canadians in Trump era: 'Refusals of Canadians at American land crossings dropped 8.5 per cent between October and the end of February compared with the same five-month period a year earlier, according to U.S. government statistics. The total number of Canadian travellers denied entry also dropped: 6,875 out of 12,991,027 were refused entry, a refusal rate of 0.0…

Trump didn't become president until January 20th. That time period is still primarily the Obama era. It will be more relevant to see the numbers from February - June.

Most recent stats are for February and from the link CAN -> US travels are up 7.2% compared with February 2016 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170420/dq170420b-en... June stats will be released 18-Aug

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#335
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current US border control security climate dates since the Obama Administration. That is demonstrably and absolutely false.

I let you support your vocal 'false' with data. As for Canadians in Trump era: 'Refusals of Canadians at American land crossings dropped 8.5 per cent between October and the end of February compared with the same five-month period a year earlier, according to U.S. government statistics. The total number of Canadian travellers denied entry also dropped: 6,875 out of 12,991,027 were refused entry, a refusal rate of 0.0…

And how much of that is because brown/muslim canadians, the ones most likely to be refused, just arent risking the trip? All sorts of groups are saying it is too dangerous (schools, boy/girl scouts etc).

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#336
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current US border control security climate dates since the Obama Administration. That is demonstrably and absolutely false.

Yeah, travel to and inside the US really started to suck during the first term of the GWB administration.

I was on a student visa during GWB. It was bad. All my mail from home arrived opened and resealed with DHS-labeled tape. Boarder crossings were interesting, but nowhere near those when i lived in the middle east. My favorite thing was being seated beside someone who was clearly an air marshal.... armed but asleep on the aisle seat of my row.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say the majority went up to 55%... We'd still need a lot more than that to change the electoral college. And honestly, having big states control who becomes president just because of their population, given how independent states should function, is a cornerstone of the electoral college.

A presidential candidate can win the election with only 21.91% of the popular vote. Something closer to that might be enough. However, I don't think that the electoral college could be changed because the parties responsible for changing it would be decreasing their electorates influence in the government which might be unpopular with said electorate.

> A presidential candidate can win the election with only 21.91% of the popular vote.

That's great and might seem scary to some, but nothing close to that has ever happened.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#338
post #10

I live in Europe. From my perspective going to US looks like going to some kind totalitarian country. First I have to got visa which is not automatically approved because I'm Polish not British. Then I have to go trough a lot of, mostly pointless, security checks, checking social accounts, interrogations, scans and manual personal revisions. On any stage of that I can be handcuffed and sent back to Europe for almost…

That's almost every developed country for an Indian passport.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money is still going to an american company.

Well, sure but it's also going to the Europeans that work in that factory, and to the local community through taxation. It probably benefits the local community just as much, if not more, than it would benefit Ford.

Not to mention, the government backed pension/retirement funds of many European nations are at least partially invested in global securities indexes and more conservative US corporate bonds. Which means many countries technically own chunks of Ford.

Also, surprise! European nations often sell their municipal bonds (to fund local projects) to American companies. Using Ford specifically as an example, I know someone who works for a local municipality in Finland and travels to Detroit every so often to sell their muni bonds to the US auto companies.

TL;DR the global flow of capital is absurdly interconnected. Trying to "hurt" a nation by not buying their goods can just as easily hurt your own country.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#340
post #83
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Recent (this administration) policies allow for demanding passwords etc. at the border. There was an incident where a NASA engineer lost control of sensitive data as a result https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nas... It's not paranoia. Welcome to 2017. Edit: It's not like they're scanning every cell phone that enters the country... but they reserve the right to.

Please stop spreading lies. This happened long before this administration. E.g. articles from 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-custom... https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-bord...

So it's even worse, because excessive border checks are an established trend rather than a new measure from the rather voluble Trump administration: returning USA airport to civilization is going to be a long and difficult process.
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