181–190 of 222 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a funny joke, but empirically not true as of this last election. Hillary massively out spent Trump.
Only in official spending. Third parties aren't counted so it's a mostly meaningless measure. All it means is Hillary was worse at hiding the contributions to her campaign.
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> "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" strawman. Some other theories about why black turnout was low this election: Voter suppression: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppressio... Russian-funded fake social media activism specifically targeted at black people: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives…
What effect do you think Russian propaganda and voter suppression had on the black turnout for HRC? And what effect did simply not fielding a historical black candidate have on the enthusiasm to vote among the black population? Also, how does black targeted propaganda and state-wide "voter suppression" laws explain that HRC lost big on the black vote relative to 2012, but Republicans came out equal or perhaps even be…
This stuff is really, really not conducive to good discussion.
> Also, how does black targeted propaganda and state-wide "voter suppression" laws explain that HRC lost big on the black vote relative to 2012, but Republicans came out equal or perhaps even better in the black vote
A few things here:
* Can you cite a source that says Republicans did better in the black vote relative to 2012?
* Since the starting proportions were so skewed, you would expect lower black turnout to disproportionately impact Democrats (due to simple compositional effects).
* The propaganda was specifically anti-Hillary (not anti-voting), so you would expect it to disproportionately impact Democrats.
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No flame war here, but as someone who has friends and family in Appalachia and middle America who voted for Trump, I tire of the "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" narrative. I dislike it because if Hillary had won, nobody would be looking into this at all. They would simply accept that in a free republic, policing what people hear is…
As someone who also has friends and family in middle America I honestly believe that the best way to ensure that Trump gets re-elected again in 2020 is maintaining the "only redneck bigots voted for Trump" argument. Roughly half of Americans voted for Trump, to insinuate that they are all bigots is to insult half of the country. Obviously most of the bigots voted for Trump, but they are still a very small minority. T…
There was approximately 61.4% adult voter turnout. Not only that, trump LOST the popular vote with only 46.1% of the ballots.
What this comes out to is that roughly 30% of eligible voting adults supported Trump. This is _nowhere near_ "roughly half of Americans".
(I'd add the additional factor that only ~130[EDIT: 250] million of the ~323 million US population is even eligible to vote. I don't mean this in terms of "Oh secretly all infants liked Hillary" but that it seems disingenuous to portray the numbers as an overwhelming popular mandate in the way you're suggesting. The data is simply not that comprehensive.)
EDIT: As newlyretired correctly pointed out I conflated the total eligible # (250m) with total voted # (130m) That being said, I still stand by the crux of my post.
Am I the only one who DID forsee Donald Trump becoming president? He is the most accurate reflection of what America has become.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only in official spending. Third parties aren't counted so it's a mostly meaningless measure. All it means is Hillary was worse at hiding the contributions to her campaign.
Or that she legitimately spent way more money and it was spent poorly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No flame war here, but as someone who has friends and family in Appalachia and middle America who voted for Trump, I tire of the "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" narrative. I dislike it because if Hillary had won, nobody would be looking into this at all. They would simply accept that in a free republic, policing what people hear is…
> "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" strawman. Some other theories about why black turnout was low this election: Voter suppression: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppressio... Russian-funded fake social media activism specifically targeted at black people: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/559113232/russian-operatives…
Both narratives are virtually impossible to prove or disprove, which makes them perfect fodder for the wishful thinking of the liberal think tanks.
I find them to be highly insulting to the working class whites and blacks that they pertain to.
It is the height of condescension when comparatively wealthy people ascribe a high level of gullibility to people groups who they likely don't associate with. It's patronizing and dehumanizing, and honestly, smug.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No flame war here, but as someone who has friends and family in Appalachia and middle America who voted for Trump, I tire of the "Trump won, and we didn't foresee it, so it must have been Russia tricking stupid, dumb rednecks into voting for him" narrative. I dislike it because if Hillary had won, nobody would be looking into this at all. They would simply accept that in a free republic, policing what people hear is…
As someone who also has friends and family in middle America I honestly believe that the best way to ensure that Trump gets re-elected again in 2020 is maintaining the "only redneck bigots voted for Trump" argument. Roughly half of Americans voted for Trump, to insinuate that they are all bigots is to insult half of the country. Obviously most of the bigots voted for Trump, but they are still a very small minority. T…
That all depends on how the Mueller investigation will end. Chances are Trump will not be able to get on a ballot by then.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most money offered gets to be president. But even that doesn't work. In 2016 for the US presidency, Hillary Clinton's campaign had $790M USD versus Donald Trump's $408M USD. She had double the money 'to buy the presidency' and she still lost. https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16
It worked for Scott Walker in the Wisconsin recall. He outspent his opponent 10:1 to win only by a couple points.
To go beyond that you'd have to go back to Johnson vs Goldwater, which was before I was even born.
I feel like things like this are a fundamental social problem. How can this be prevented?
Pass a Constitutional amendment that states that corporations are not people. Then start passing laws that restrict the free speech of corporations and then pass more laws stating that money is speech. Then there can be fine tuned laws stating the max that a person can give to a candidate and start forcing all organizations that have anything to do with politics to register and state who is giving them money. Elimina…
No one claims they're people. The law lets them stand in as people so society can function. The whole "corporations aren't people" meme is myopically fixated on campaign finance, ignoring the much larger issues around this legal doctrine.
Can a corporation own property?
Can it own patents? Copyrights? Trademarks?
Can it be sued in court?
Can it file lawsuits itself?
Can it make contracts?
I don't think any of us would like the result of answering "no" to all those questions, yet those are the questions that the legal fiction of corporate personhood was invented to answer.
Should corporations have the same free speech rights as people? I can see an argument for answering that "no", as rich corporations may speak disproportionately powerfully. I can also see an argument for answering it "yes", in the sense that corporations are just people acting together, and collective speech should be just as protected as individual speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
Remember that whatever constraints you put on EvilCorp's speech are going to apply just as well to the Sierra Club, a labor union, or the NAACP. I honestly don't know if that's a tradeoff work making. Maybe it is.
I agree with your point about transparency.