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Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#541

Post by pmoriarty »

jondubois wrote: post #527
pmoriarty wrote: post #160

It will be most interesting to see the fallout from this on the Republican side. Will there be consequences for all those high level Republicans who dared to publicly come out against Trump? Will they still be against Trump now that he's won, or will they start supporting him all of a sudden? I, for one, can't see any scenario where Trump is as mild and easy going once he has power than he's been when trying to get t…

I hope they get replaced. I think that's the whole point of Trump; to give politics a good flush.

If there's one thing you can rely on in politics it's that the replacements will usually be just as bad if not worse than those who they replaced.

As one editorial quipped, no matter what happens in this election, the Washington elite will remain the Washington elite.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#542

Post by grandalf »

Let's use this as an opportunity to hold president Trump accountable in a way that we've failed to do for the past few decades. This could lead to unprecedented checks and balances and unprecedented democratic participation leading to a resurgence in the rule of law.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#543

Post by necessity »

thewarrior wrote: post #44

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend. The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is…

This collectivist liberal fearmongering portraying others as the elites is pathetic. Time will tell, and meanwhile I'm laughing.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/23/uk-economic...

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#544

Post by jhasse »

Houshalter wrote: post #265

I hate democracy. Most voters aren't informed at all. Attractive candidates win 2.5 times more often than less attractive ones. Money and crappy 30 second ads apparently influence the outcome. First past the post voting means no one can even vote for what they really want to begin with. It wouldn't be so bad if the president didn't have enormous power. And they aren't supposed to. But it's been growing so much over t…

> Attractive candidates win 2.5 times more often than less attractive ones. Money and crappy 30 second ads apparently influence the outcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#545

Post by dglass »

nostrademons wrote: post #327
thewarrior wrote: post #44

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend. The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is…

Something I've been wondering about: We're seeing this pattern where the coasts of many countries are cosmopolitan and well-integrated into the world economy, but the interiors are very conservative and nationalistic. Scotland & London vs. Wales & the rest of Britain. The U.S. West Coast & Northeast vs. the Farm Belt, Rust Belt, and Mountain states. Croatia & Slovenia vs. the rest of Yugoslavia. The Baltic Republics…

You're misunderstanding the proposal about immigrants. The proposal is to send all immigrants that are here illegally back to where they came from.

Yes, I agree it would hurt the California economy if that happened. But are you saying that on your team of 10 people at Google, all of them were here illegally? I can't comprehend the fact that Google would hire immigrants without proper visas or background checks. If they're legal immigrants or they have the required visas, they would be just fine.

edit: the proposal is also just that...a proposal. It's not guaranteed this will happen.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#547

Post by WA »

nostromo wrote: post #51

Such a watershed moment. A few things strike me: * A Republican just won without being very religious and being wishy-washy on abortion. * The loser out-spent the winner by huge amounts. Does money really buy elections? Maybe, but not this one. * The rich abandoned Republicans, but many poor and working-class abandoned Democrats. [1] 1: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/e...

What makes me curious:

I always wondered if the president really has the power people perceive him to have, or if he's still influenced and bound by many people in the background.

One can observe this with Obama. He made promises (like closing Guantanamo etc.), which he ultimately couldn't force through. But why? Possibly, because he isn't nearly as free in his decision making.

Now, Trump claimed to do a lot of things and I'm wondering if he really can pull that off or if many of his extraordinary claims and goals won't be doable, because of other people with power.

This is what I don't like about modern politics: So many things are claimed to be done, but ultimately, it's all bullshit and you only know what you've voted for long after the election – which could be something entirely different than you'd voted for in the first place.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#548

Post by internaut »

thewarrior wrote: post #44

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend. The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is…

I called both Brexit and Trump but I can't quite agree with your synopsis. You might be surprised to hear that from a quasi-neoreactionary. I see migration and globalization as important elements of a more disturbing pattern not many people seem to have picked up on.

I don't know that Trump understands this himself, but Thiel sure does.

Having been a fan of Thiel's ideas for some time, I concocted a hypothesis called the 'Wolfian World' that gives a high level look at older currents moving in the world. It is here if anybody's interested in something different from chronocentric newspapers and talking heads with their short sight and overconfidence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#549

Post by mindcrime »

Threads here are all over the place, and I guess there's a lot that can be said in response to Trump's election. So I'll just chime in with this, which is a hasty, from-memory, partial rehash of something I posted on Facebook earlier.

If you have a problem with Trump being elected, or with our political system as it is in general, consider this old saw

"If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting."

Now, full disclosure, I'm a "third party" guy (Libertarian, specifically) anyway, so I am absolutely biased, no bones about it. But I believe that part of doing something besides "what we've always done" means starting to vote for 3rd party candidates. Screw Duverger's Law, forget "lesser of two evils" voting, and quit voting out of fear. I posit that people need to start voting for candidates they support instead of voting against candidates they are afraid of.

Along with that, of course, belong efforts to switch voting systems to approval voting, or Condorcet voting, etc., as well as efforts to eliminate restrictive ballot access laws, open up the debates, etc.

Basically, we have to break up this duopoly that has been in place for 100+ years, or nothing is really going to change. Of course my hope is that all this will lead to more Libertarians in office,but even if you don't support the Libertarian viewpoint, I hope most everybody can agree that the current system isn't working as it should.

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