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Donald Trump Is Elected President

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Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#431

Terrifying, but the dems kind of brought it on themselves. A nominee who was actually likeable probably would've wiped the floor with Trump.

Again, Republicans did this. Don't blame this on Hillary (hint: she won the popular vote). Don't blame this on Democrats. Accept responsibility. As for likable, Hillary has been the most admired woman in America, 14 years straight. Trump ran the most negative fact free campaign ever to overcome her likability.

Why are you assuming I'm a Republican? I'm not registered with any party, and I voted for Hillary. But in the primary, I voted for (and donated to) Bernie. Sad that he lost.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll play: 6 is a given, 3 is on the table but wouldn't be easy. The rest range from unlikely to impossible.

3 is on the table but wouldn't be easy It would seem with a republican congress that it would be easy. Why do you think otherwise?

The rest of the republic party is going to be less eager to burn everything to the ground. There's a chance that they'll choose to just ignore obamacare as there's not much to be gained by attempting to repeal it.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#433
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hillary focused her entire campaign on why people should stop Trump, at the expense of talking about why she should be president. I couldn't disagree more. This campaign was all about emotion, not rationality. Apparently facts don't matter and that's very hard to deal with.

Contrast her making her candidacy a Feminist (and by absurd extrapolation LGBTQ and diversity) issue with Obama's campaign. Yes, everybody felt good about having elected a black president when it was over but he didn't offer "black cards" for download on his website and show grandiose self-promoting videos about the Black Man's Struggle. A large part of Hillary's campaign (both officially and via her supporters on so…

> Trump's accusations of Clinton being "a liar" and "a criminal" (IOW a typical career politician) were pretty harmless compared to the hyperbole (deserved or not) hauled at him

I'm sorry but that makes no sense to me. Now maybe it's my liberal tendencies talking but the things that have come out of his mouth are flat out dangerous for a person who has that much power (now). Not much of it was hyperbole because it didn't have to be. He was already after foreigners, women, "the washington elite", the internet etc. before any of the media got involved. He was addicted to the cycle coverage but he still said all of those things and you can't wish that away.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#434

Now that the voices of the disenfranchised blue collar workers have been heard, what actually can be done to help them? I'm less worried about the accusations of racism, etc. because it appears to me a majority are voting because their livelihoods have been lost and, despite economics saying globalization will bring new jobs, they aren't showing up in the critical areas where they are needed. So, what policies can be…

If central banks of the western world had run countercyclical monetary policy meaning higher than average inflation when unemployment was high, these people would have had almost uninterrupted jobs and careers, not just people in educated urban centers.

I know people don't grasp this because it is all very mathematical but hawkish monetary policy was a massive factor in this.

This graph summarizes the situation:

https://twitter.com/kocherlakota009/status/79619007692137676...

Here is my attempt at an explanation:

https://medium.com/@b.essiambre/the-world-deserves-a-pay-rai...

But also taking a more sociological perspective, if you haven't seen it, this Cracked analysis is worth a read:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...

As well as this older Scott Alexander post:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#435

Now that the voices of the disenfranchised blue collar workers have been heard, what actually can be done to help them? I'm less worried about the accusations of racism, etc. because it appears to me a majority are voting because their livelihoods have been lost and, despite economics saying globalization will bring new jobs, they aren't showing up in the critical areas where they are needed. So, what policies can be…

I am an engineer, not an economist or policy wonk, but I feel like I got a lot of insight on issues like this (and a lot of other modern, political/economic issues) from reading "Connectivity" by Parag Khanna

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, Republicans did this. Don't blame this on Hillary (hint: she won the popular vote). Don't blame this on Democrats. Accept responsibility. As for likable, Hillary has been the most admired woman in America, 14 years straight. Trump ran the most negative fact free campaign ever to overcome her likability.

This is just not true. Both Trump and Clinton had some of the most unfavorable ratings of a presidential candidate for a major party in recent history.

Exactly, they're both unlikeable, and if either party had nominated someone who was likeable, they probably would've crushed, rather than the dead heat we got in the popular vote.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#437

He got elected on all these promises. 1- Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it 2- Deportation Force on day one 3- Repeal obamacare 4- Renegotiate NAFTA 5- Bring back coal 6- Reduce taxes for the rich 7- Ban muslims 8- Prosecuting Hillary Clinton 9- Bring back American companies to the USA 10- Etc. The Senate and the House are Republicans and the Supreme court will lean republican after his appointment. What do yo…

Mexico pay for the wall - yes, this is now a sure thing. A number of prominent Mexican politicians badly insulted Trump early in his campaign and are now in a very awkward position. My guess is that they have undermined their position at the bargaining table with this and are likely to end up 'paying' for the wall in some way, shape or form. We've never had a president as adamant as dealing with the immigration issue as Trump. Even Bush/McCain wanted some partial amnesty programs. Remember that we already have a partial wall with Mexico. Completing that wall and increasing border security is now likely a done deal.

Deportation on day one - this will never happen. There is a large complex body of laws dealing with immigration that will not be superseded by some desire to deport people without a hearing.

Repeal Obamacare - yes this will happen is some part. We already have the news stories of the massive increase in premiums coming and that combined with a stacked, house, senate, judiciary and executive branch makes it look very very likely that the worst parts of obamacare are going to go. It's not clear wether or not some of the more popular reforms (pre-existing conditions, kids under 26) will stay as part of some other reform bill.

Renegotiate NAFTA - yes. A president that has the cost of everything on his mind combined with the lack of decorum from the Mexican government might very well trigger this. This is especially true if the Mexican government continues to behave badly towards the new government.

Bring back coal - I have news for you - coal never left. West Virginia elected a Democrat for governor but was one of the first states to elect Trump last night. Coal has never forgotten Al Gore/Bill Clinton. Last night they made the point again. I think more seriously subsidies for green energy might decrease (with the exception of ethanol with is all produced in red states).

Reduce taxes for the rich - personal income tax no, corporate taxes yes. Corporate taxes in the US are the highest in the world and Trump will work to fix that to allow companies to come back to US soil to operate.

Ban muslims - no. Trump wanted to slow or stop immigration from Syria in particular until the people are better vetted for links to terrorism. This has been simplified to 'ban muslims'. Muslim immigration will not be prevented but it might be slowed to allow for better vetting.

Prosecute Hillary Clinton - yes. Trump will appoint a justice apartment head and a FBI director that is likely to reopen the case into the emails. It's not clear what the outcome of this might be. Ultimately the truth will prevail here.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#438

So, I voted for DJT (I like calling him that, for some reason). I didn't vote for him because I agreed with any of his policies (as best I can tell he never actually presented any during the course of his campaign) or because I thought he was the best representative for the people of this country. I did so for a couple of reasons: 1. I like a good underdog story. The people that support him, for a multitude of reason…

> winning that would bring about the biggest amount of disruption and change

This is an interesting point. I've toyed with the notion lately that maybe the American political system is "antifragile"[0]. It's plausible, at least, to me that the system as a whole is stronger when it receives major shocks that disrupt the ossified structure in there. If you have the same politicians with the same policies as normal, then you get ties between the government and industry, and handouts and a ruling elite, etc. Now I don't think Trump is all that much of an outsider or has that much chance of disruption here (I voted Johnson, partly in this hope), but it's interesting to me you raise it as a reason.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#439
I'm curious as to how instrumental automation and illegitimate poll voting have been in producing this result. I'm talking about things like pro-Trump Twitter bots[1], 4chan's /pol/ board mass-voting Trump in online polls, and automated thread voting to keep /r/The_Donald at the top of the trending subreddit list on Reddit. Does anyone have an idea?

1. A third of pro-Trump Twitter activity turned out to be automated. See: http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/18/technology/twitter-bots-dona...

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#440
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reddit user TPKM's comment on the sanders-would-have-won-thread: "Support for Trump, much like Brexit, was based upon an extremely widespread feeling that average people are not getting their fair share of the benefits of globalisation. This is neither a specifically Democrat or Republican problem, and people have been saying it one way or another for years. It was also the foundation of Sanders' campaign. The differ…

> curbing immigration is an actual solution to the problem. Curbing immigration won't be a solution to the problem; it's just a highly visible one. Each immigrant that is looking for a job in the US is taking one away from the supply for an American. That is how the Trumpistas see things. Economically, sure, that's true. The immigrants take jobs from the labor supply. What people don't see is that aside from ones on…

And I suspect that for skilled visa programs, labour demand is actually somewhat elastic, so that one additional skilled worker creates some fraction of a new job. The supply of jobs isn't fixed.

Consider a company like Google, who doesn't hire on quotas, but just grabs all the talented engineers they can. In what sense is a visa worker taking a job away from an American, when Google will gladly hire both?

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