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Trump is president; Who is to blame?
RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 5:27 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: Because your actions matter.

Apart from you dragging yet another thread into bickering shit, how does another member's intent of putting someone on ignore effect your humble self or even the one being on ignore?
[Image: Bumper+Sticker+-+Asheville+-+Praise+Dog3.JPG]
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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 9:49 am)Whateverist Wrote: I liked this bit in the NY times:  

Ben Wallace\s piece in the NY Times titled "Who Believed in Trump, and Who is to Blame? Wrote:This does not seem to be only a political event. Trump never should have gotten close. That so many Americans who are struggling with money picked Trump must mean that our version of capitalism could use some further adjustments. That so many Americans in places where the economy is on the rise also chose Trump raises the possibility that our leaders promise too much, that we expect that more is possible than really is. That such a proudly amoral and publicly hateful man could become the choice of large majorities of observant Christians suggests some weakness in our religious life and our expressions of morality. That he did not lose more support after his racism and misogyny became well-known suggests how commonplace these resentments must be, between husbands and wives and between neighbors. There was not enough individual decency to make plain Trump’s indecency. We are not so good a people as we thought.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-w...s-to-blame

So who do you blame?  The DNC?  Hillary?

My first inclination is to blame the education system.  How could people not see the false promise of a strong man saying "only I can do it, trust me and don't worry about the details?"  Even more than that, there are a lot of people not doing well economically and rolling the dice on change probably beats betting on slow, incremental improvement to them.  

Or maybe human nature is simply tragic?  Why do we look for a savior anyway?  The trouble with looking for someone better than yourself to rescue you is it still depends on you to recognize the right one.

This image, popular in Germany in the 30s, sums up the failings of people in one sense: we tend to look for "saviors" wherever we can find them -- knights to go out and fight the battles we can't stomach. And politicians know this. Politicians know that admitting to be human, in our system as well as others, is often the kiss of death.

[Image: hitlerknight.jpg]

What happened last night was about fear -- fear of the unknown, fear of the outsider, fear of tomorrow, and wanting someone who promises, however vague or vapid those promises might be, to save us from these fears. ("Us" being in the general sense, of course.)

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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 10:13 am)Jesster Wrote: I don't see the point in playing the blame game at this point. The more important question to me is "what now?"

Respectfully disagree. At this point, I think a post-mortem is vital for our country.

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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 5:08 pm)Crossless1 Wrote: It occurs to me that Republican nominees seem to have hit on a sure-fire way to avoid assassination attempts. H.W. Bush had Quayle. W. had Cheney. McCain had Palin. And now Trump has given us a certified Jesus freak who has no problem enacting discriminatory policies.

It's genius.

What that reads as, at least partially, is an approval of political assassinations if they happen to suit your goals.
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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 10:16 am)abaris Wrote:
(November 9, 2016 at 10:13 am)Jesster Wrote: The more important question to me is "what now?"

Short of an impeachment, you have to sit it out. And even that, given that Pence would take the Donald's place doesn't seem all that thrilling. The whole world has to sit it out. Duck and Cover everyone, I would say.

Or as we used to say in the Air Force -- BOHICA -- upon changes of command.

Bend over, here it comes again.

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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 5:21 pm)Rhythm Wrote:
(November 9, 2016 at 4:44 pm)Crossless1 Wrote: That's true, but alpha male also has a point. There are a lot of people in consistently red or blue states who feel there is no reason to bother voting since their vote won't overcome historically wide margins that favor the party they oppose. Whether you are a conservative in Massachusetts or a liberal in Wyoming, the electoral college as we currently practice it is a strong disincentive to participate.
Not saying that it isn't...but there would be an even stringer disincentive for reds, particularly, if we made elections a matter of who could win the big cities.  Blues have been doing that...even in red states.  

Quote:Even if it was the end of retail politics and townhall meetings/debates, we could count on the media covering the major candidates and disseminating their talking points even if they never ventured out of the largest metropolitan areas.
If you thought you could count on that you must be thinking the way Hillary thought about it...and we see that it cost her the election, but only because of the electoral college as it currently applies...where trump only needed to tilt a few votes in town and crush, predictably, outside city limits.

Quote:And of course, if they restricted their active campaigning to those population centers, they would expose themselves to backlash from voters in the so-called fly-over areas who felt dismissed and ignored. One way or another, candidates are going to have to figure out ways to reach voters in every area and from all walks of life if the current EC system was eliminated or reformed.
But why would you need the smaller percentage of voters loosely spread out over a larger area if you could win it in the cities alone?

All good points. That's why I favor reforming the EC rather than going with a straight popular vote election. I'd rather see the contests in each state become more significant and worth fighting for than have a situation in which each candidate trained all of their fire on a relative handful of cities.
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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 5:38 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote:
(November 9, 2016 at 5:08 pm)Crossless1 Wrote: It occurs to me that Republican nominees seem to have hit on a sure-fire way to avoid assassination attempts. H.W. Bush had Quayle. W. had Cheney. McCain had Palin. And now Trump has given us a certified Jesus freak who has no problem enacting discriminatory policies.

It's genius.

What that reads as, at least partially, is an approval of political assassinations if they happen to suit your goals.

That's not my intent and, for the record, I think assassinating people is a bad thing. But I'm well aware that you have trouble identifying tongue-in-cheek posts when you encounter them.

For fuck's sake, it's not like I encouraged people to abort Trump (for those not in the know, an obscure reference to a thread in "Announcements").
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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 2:24 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: You leveled an attack at someone for expressing their opinions.

You did exactly that yourself yesterday. Are you really this thoughtless? Color me skeptical, but it seems to me that you're a bit of a hypocrite.

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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 5:57 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:
(November 9, 2016 at 2:24 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: You leveled an attack at someone for expressing their opinions.

You did exactly that yourself yesterday. Are you really this thoughtless? Color me skeptical, but it seems to me that you're a bit of a hypocrite.

*sigh*

Do I really have to post more Carlin bits?
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RE: Trump is president; Who is to blame?
(November 9, 2016 at 5:27 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: What does your treating him as you do accomplish ? 

What would a more positive attitude bring to the table?

Why don't you try and find out ?

I, and many others, have tried treating him decently upon our first encounters, only to get a kick in the face.

Now, I don't know about you, but I reject "turn the other cheek" as a modus operandi. When someone takes a smack at me, I swing back, as you yourself have learnt.

This is just you sticking up for your own poison by proxy, and I ain't buying it. If someone doesn't like someone else and wishes to ignore that other, the first is not practicing censorship on the forum; they are practicing the common sense of ignoring someone who radiates more heat than light.

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