Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S. • Hacker News Board

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#391

Post by ummonk » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:02 PM UTC

justinzollars wrote: post #286

Biden will be the First Democrat since Grover Cleveland to take office without a Democratic Senate. The House majority is smaller. So his mandate is effectively toast. Another interesting historical fact. America has never elected 4 consecutive 2 term presidents. If Trump would have been elected it would have been the first time in US history that this has happened. This election wasn't a blue wave by any means, Trum…

"America has never elected 4 consecutive 2 term presidents."

This seems like one of those facts that is so arbitrary as to be basically statistical noise. How many times have we had three consecutive 2 term presidents anyway (i.e. an opportunity for the 4th president to be a consecutive 2 term president)?

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#392

Post by GordonS » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #138

What is really keeping me up at night is the existential problem the US faces for the next 50 years: the ever increasingly large divide that is the polarizing of the electorate. We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us.

I think the events of the past week have really highlighted the divide, or rather the gaping chasm. And it's a gulf that seeks almost impossible to bridge, any time soon at least - it encompasses race, education, financial status, social class, even history.

Trump's actions this week have been utterly shameful. He and his cronies have lied and lied in an organised effort to sow discontent among the huge segment of republicans that appear to believe their every word (regardless of how baseless or ridiculous they may be).

It seems like such a blatant attempt to subvert democracy - the kind of thing we'd expect in a tinpot dictatorship, not the "land of the free". This is not only shameful, but downright dangerous, especially with the level of gun ownership in the US.

As a European, it seemed utterly incomprehensible how he has been able to get away with his actions, inactions and lies over the past few years - and I have not the words to describe how incomprehensible it is that many of his supporters are behind the past week's events.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#393

Post by ceilingcorner » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

gbil wrote: post #332

I'd like to open a slightly different topic here which stems though from the elections of the past 20 years. Wouldn't be a big take away now the reform of the Elector College and the shift to a direct vote from the people ? As a nonUS citizen from a country in which the head of state is being elected directly from the people, I find it very unsettling that there have been cases in which the president in US elections…

The US is not and was never supposed to be a popular vote democracy. The founding fathers recognized the dangers of populism and subsequently made sure that the government is a republic.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#394

Post by clairity » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #179

I've always felt that the Trump presidency served as an effective form of "Chaos Engineering". Regardless of your views of Trump's politics, his administration and method of leadership has exposed a lot of flaws in how our government has been designed and engineered. The postmortem of the last 4 years should be analyzed deeply in order to identify the weak points in the infrastructure of our government in order to ma…

what's more interesting in the discussion is how much attention trump is still getting, rather than the winner, biden. we're more relieved by trump leaving than biden entering. trump being such a poor leader still overshadows how mediocre biden is.

it's still uncertain what biden will be doing, other than occupying the white house, of any substance for the next 4 years. he talks a lot about unity, but isn't reputed to be a unifying force, so that seems an unlikely pillar of his presidency. he recites a litany of standard democratic policy positions, but without any real conviction (even "bidencare" is clichéd already).

does he do anything to moderate political and economic consolidations that have been so detrimental to prosperity and unity over (at least) the last 40 years? doubtful, unfortunately.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#395

Post by jl6 » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

louwrentius wrote: post #218

gigatexal wrote: post #138

What is really keeping me up at night is the existential problem the US faces for the next 50 years: the ever increasingly large divide that is the polarizing of the electorate. We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us.

The past four years and this election has exposed some deep problems within American Society. If about 47% of your country was happy to kill democracy and reward immoral behaviour just to retain power, often justified by religious beliefs... And Trump is not gone yet... Who knows what the Republicans will do with the stacked Supreme Court...

IMHO if you ask Americans bluntly if they’d be willing to end democracy so that their candidate remains in power, you’d get only a small percentage agreeing.

What actually happened was that large numbers of voters are stuck in a filter bubble and their only news sources were telling them the election was being stolen. So by supporting Trump they probably thought they were defending democracy.

Of course, those particular news stories were pure lies. But we should focus on the peddlers of lies more than those who were duped by them.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#396

Post by lap43 » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #179

I've always felt that the Trump presidency served as an effective form of "Chaos Engineering". Regardless of your views of Trump's politics, his administration and method of leadership has exposed a lot of flaws in how our government has been designed and engineered. The postmortem of the last 4 years should be analyzed deeply in order to identify the weak points in the infrastructure of our government in order to ma…

It seems you're the actual monkey.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#397

Post by tiziniano » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

Doesn't the actual election happen later? If I recall in 2000, they had some trouble until December with Al Gore.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#398

Post by seppin » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #179

I've always felt that the Trump presidency served as an effective form of "Chaos Engineering". Regardless of your views of Trump's politics, his administration and method of leadership has exposed a lot of flaws in how our government has been designed and engineered. The postmortem of the last 4 years should be analyzed deeply in order to identify the weak points in the infrastructure of our government in order to ma…

Except for the things he broke that cannot be repaired. The people dead from COVID. The children separated from their parents.

What a cold and callus interpretation of a man that did real damage to thousands of people.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#399

Post by mamon » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

My condolences to all the Americans for voting Biden into the president's office. Please enjoy the remains your economic prosperity and peace while they last.

Also: sign up your children for Chinese lessons, they'll need it.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#400

Post by tinus_hn » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

I wonder what Biden is going to do about the coronavirus. Trumps denials don’t work but the things people expect Biden to do (mask mandates etc.) aren’t a magical solution either.