On the election and stuff

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:35 pm

So I know it's sort of bad to care, but what do you think is gonna happen? Not that it matters, but it's still fun to get caught up in it, as long as you realize it's mostly meaningless.

So my speculation is that Trump is going to be the nominee, even though the GOP is going to try its hardest to prevent it. If he goes up against Clinton, he will probably win, as her disapproval ratings are almost as high as his and, unlike Trump, she doesn't have a very passionate fanbase. Her support is very shallow, and she's the embodiment of the establishment in a time when people are supposedly very anti-establishment. So if it's Trump vs Clinton, it will probably be Trump, if there isn't some serious election fraud.

If it's Trump vs Sanders, there's no question. Sanders would crush him, as he would all the other Republican candidates. Problem is that Sanders is almost certainly not going to be the nominee, no matter how many primaries he wins. Maybe if the Democrats realize he's the better candidate, they'll let him, but a center-right neoliberal party is probably not going to want a self-described "socialist" as its figurehead. I don't know.

Boomer · Post by **Boomer** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 8:26 pm

Probably not gonna vote, tbh.

Maybe if Hell froze over and Rand Paul got the nomination I'd change my mind, maybe.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 9:21 pm

I'm likely going to end up voting third party, but haven't yet heard anything about what third party candidates there are.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 9:45 pm

I think you are overestimating Bernie a bit. Most polls show him having similar numbers to Clinton when compared to GOP candidate (i.e. - mostly neck-in-neck).

I think what's likely is that Trump will eventually implode. I wouldn't be surprised if he under performed in either/both Iowa and NH, and gradually or quickly his support will fade. After that, I think Rubio and Cruz will be at each other for most of the rest primary. My gut says Rubio would win, as he's the more electable candidate (which is shocking, given how terrible he is) but Cruz has the much better ground game that's being compared to Obama's amazing 2008 primary strategy.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 10:04 pm

The polls I've seen all have him beating Trump by about ten or fifteen points. They've shown his chances to be significantly better than Clinton's. I haven't seen him against other GOP candidates, but I would think it would be even better, a reversal of Clinton vs Trump - an establishment lackey vs an anti-establishment populist. He would easily beat them all. Sanders is also, I think, more popular with independents and Republicans than Clinton is.

I'm wary of claims that Trump will implode, because people have been saying that ever since he started running for president, and he's only gotten stronger.

Post by **aels** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:02 pm

http://www.theonion.com/article/will-be ... nerv-52002

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:08 pm

exactly

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 12:16 am

When Trump announced he was running I took him about as serious as I did Kanye when he said he was gonna run in 2020. When he started his campaign by pissing off all the Mexican-American population by being a collosal asswipe, I thought, "well that didn't last long, the fuckazoid is done." Wrong.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 12:36 pm

I'm tempted to vote for Trump.

He seems to be the candidate America deserves, not the one it needs.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 6:45 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:The polls I've seen all have him beating Trump by about ten or fifteen points. They've shown his chances to be significantly better than Clinton's. I haven't seen him against other GOP candidates, but I would think it would be even better, a reversal of Clinton vs Trump - an establishment lackey vs an anti-establishment populist. He would easily beat them all. Sanders is also, I think, more popular with independents and Republicans than Clinton is.

I'm wary of claims that Trump will implode, because people have been saying that ever since he started running for president, and he's only gotten stronger.

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pol ... vs-clinton
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pol ... vs-sanders

So he is performing slightly better right now compared to Clinton.

And true, Trump has been strong, but mostly with fickle and low-turnout voters. While Trump is a bit of an anomaly, voters tend to become more pragmatic once the actually voting occurs. I don't think he can sustain it.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 9:03 pm

The voters are turning from fickle and low-turnout to passionate and involved because of Trump. They're not going to turn more pragmatic. They're going to vote Trump or not at all. Disgust with the establishment is partly the reason they turned to Trump in the first place.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 10:14 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:The voters are turning from fickle and low-turnout to passionate and involved because of Trump. They're not going to turn more pragmatic. They're going to vote Trump or not at all. Disgust with the establishment is partly the reason they turned to Trump in the first place.

We won't know how involved they actually are untill the primaries and caucuses occur. Maybe they will show up to vote, but I'm a bit skeptical. I don't think Trump will be able to win the nomination. Eventually, voters will rally behind an established candidate, given that the likely voters are also the type of people to vote for the establishment

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10732496/do ... mp-implode

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Tue Feb 02, 2016 10:05 pm

So he lost Iowa despite a fairly strong lead in the polls going into it. It looks like most late-deciders voted for Cruz/Rubio. Still a long way to go, but Trump's campaign is starting to flail, I think.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Tue Feb 02, 2016 10:54 pm

I haven't been paying much attention but losing Iowa is the first convincing sign that Trump might actually be stumped. Unfortunately it seems he's losing to someone significantly worse than him in almost every single way.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 4:18 pm

I think Rubio is eventually going to take it, and he has the best chance overall of winning the general election.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 8:19 pm

Monk wrote:I think Rubio is eventually going to take it, and he has the best chance overall of winning the general election.

I still don't know why we go through this 'first in the nation' bullsh!t with Iowa & New Hampshire. By the time the primaries get to some states it doesn't even matter anymore. The candidates will have enough delegates to make them the nominee.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:45 pm

My guess is that originally, the intent was so that the candidate could campaign in each state and voters could get to know him (and now her). To some degree, it still makes some sense, as a strong "ground game" is often credited for propping up a candidate's success (e.g. Obama in 2008 Iowa Caucus and Cruz for this year). But I think, at this point, it makes more sense to do it all or mostly at once. US election campaigns are frustratingly long.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:05 pm

So now I'm even more convinced that Trump is going to be the nominee and that if he goes up against Clinton he will probably win the presidency.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 6:40 pm

How awesome would it be if Trump gets elected, and in his victory speech, he simply says "wow, what the hell is wrong with you people? I did everything I could to make myself an obviously terrible choice for president, and you actually voted for me? Seriously? Yeah, you people are screwed. Good bye"; and then he's just never heard from again.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:01 pm

If he doesn't say it, we can still be pretty confident he'll be thinking it.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:05 pm

As awful as he clearly is, I don't think he would be a significantly worse choice than Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz. They're not any less racist, fascist, narcissistic, and sociopathic than he is; he's just more overt.

Post by **Gendo** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 2:17 am

Apparently Trump bought JebBush.com and made it redirect to his own site.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 1:28 pm

Gendo wrote:Apparently Trump bought JebBush.com and made it redirect to his own site.

http://tedcruzforamerica.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... -com-goes/

CashRules · Post by **CashRules** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 1:32 pm

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:01 pm

I'm not convinced he'd beat Hillary, assuming she even gets nominated at this point.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 9:09 pm

If he wins the nomination he's going to immediately pivot to the center left. He's going to drop his nationalist fascist talk and try to ape Bernie Sanders. Single-payer universal healthcare, heavily taxing the super-rich, ending the drug war, ending foreign intervention, ending trade deals which directly threaten American workers, opposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare, supporting affirmative action, supporting eminent domain, opposing the current neoliberal hegemony, etc. These are all things he supports or supported in the recent past, and most of them are to the left of Hillary Clinton, and some are to the left of Bernie Sanders. He's already moving there, as in the last debate he argued that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that 9/11 happened under Bush's watch. He seemed pretty passionate about it too.

I think if he ever went up against Hillary and started arguing for center-left positions, he'd look pretty good. Better than her. Also many Sanders supporters would choose to back him over her. I think he would have a good chance of winning. Maybe not so much if he went up against Sanders, as Sanders would have all of his good qualities and almost none of the bad ones.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 9:49 pm

What, exactly, are you basing this all on?

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 10:17 pm

I'm basing it on his record and the fact that he doesn't seem to be an idiot, and that if he gets the nomination he'll presumably try to win.

Cassius Clay · Post by **Cassius Clay** » Wed Feb 17, 2016 10:20 pm

It would be pretty hilarious if that happened.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 5:19 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:I'm basing it on his record and the fact that he doesn't seem to be an idiot, and that if he gets the nomination he'll presumably try to win.

Really, you're just guessing. I could simply counter-argue that if he did a bait and switch like that, the Republican party would be in an uproar and very few would bother voting for him. And former Bernie supporters would be unlikely to vote for him since there would be little reason to trust he'd actually do what he says. While he'll likely pull more to the center, as nearly all candidates do during general elections from primaries, he's not going to suddenly espouse liberal ideology.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 6:23 pm

In the South Carolina Republican debate just a week or so ago, he ranted about how Bush lied about WMDs and about how he was responsible for 9/11, which is something you don't really do in South Carolina where Bush still has high poll numbers, and yet that didn't hurt his polling numbers among Republicans at all. He's already done a pretty major bait-and-switch. He was supportive of Democrats and was mostly liberal until 2011. I think that suggests most of his supporters don't really care about his actual positions very much, or not as much as they care about his image and his anti-establishment persona.

Bernie supporters don't trust Hillary to actually do what she says, either. It'll be a choice between two terrible candidates, but I think they'll choose Trump over her if he drops his nationalist stuff. They seem to care more about being anti-establishment than being a Democrat.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 7:00 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:In the South Carolina Republican debate just a week or so ago, he ranted about how Bush lied about WMDs and about how he was responsible for 9/11, which is something you don't really do in South Carolina where Bush still has high poll numbers, and yet that didn't hurt his polling numbers among Republicans at all. He's already done a pretty major bait-and-switch. He was supportive of Democrats and was mostly liberal until 2011. I think that suggests most of his supporters don't really care about his actual positions very much, or not as much as they care about his image and his anti-establishment persona.

He's been criticizing the Iraq war for months now. It got more noticed this time because during the debate the audience was packed with establishment friendly people, and he was booed.

Bernie supporters don't trust Hillary to actually do what she says, either. It'll be a choice between two terrible candidates, but I think they'll choose Trump over her if he drops his nationalist stuff. They seem to care more about being anti-establishment than being a Democrat.

Doubtful. If they don't vote for Hillary, they probably aren't going to vote at all. A very similar thing happened in 2008 - many, many of Hillary's supporters said they wouldn't vote for Obama. Then they did when they saw the alternative. They certainly aren't going to go from supporting a super liberal person to supporting someone who wants to deport all Muslims and build a wall along the Mexican border.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 7:21 pm

That's why I said he's going to switch to the center or center-left. Visit the Sanders subreddit and you'll find quite a lot of them saying they'll go for Trump over Hillary, because he's somehow not part of the "establishment". And he hasn't even gone to the center yet.

And if they do decide to not vote at all, well, that'll still hurt Clinton and therefore help Trump.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:08 pm

I think it's more likely that, if he does shift, it'll be center-right compared to his weird far-right beliefs. Despite those reddit posters who will go Trump, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume they're not a good representative of Bernie supporters overall. They're not going to go to someone with polar opposite beliefs in large numbers.

And if they do decide to not vote at all, well, that'll still hurt Clinton and therefore help Trump.

Maybe, but so many on the right hate Trump that he'd have a very low GOP turnout.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Tue Feb 23, 2016 4:26 am

Maybe. There's some evidence that many of the Sanders supporters on reddit used to be Ron Paul supporters when he was running, meaning that many of them might just be primarily attracted to "anti-establishment" candidates, no matter who they are. They might not be representative. I sure hope not, because they suck.

Nate Silver said something about how if it'll be Clinton vs. Trump, that'll break some kind of record for the highest unfavorability ratings two presidential candidates have ever had. I guess I can't really predict how it'll turn out if that happens. My gut says Trump but I don't know.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:59 pm

I voted for Trump in the primary today. Why?

To quote Alfred, "Some people just want to watch the world burn".

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:01 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:Maybe. There's some evidence that many of the Sanders supporters on reddit used to be Ron Paul supporters when he was running, meaning that many of them might just be primarily attracted to "anti-establishment" candidates, no matter who they are. They might not be representative. I sure hope not, because they suck.

Nate Silver said something about how if it'll be Clinton vs. Trump, that'll break some kind of record for the highest unfavorability ratings two presidential candidates have ever had. I guess I can't really predict how it'll turn out if that happens. My gut says Trump but I don't know.

I honestly don't know what the fuck is going on at this point. Conventional wisdom has not be predictive at all during the primary, and I'm not sure it'll help for the general either.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:42 pm

Idk. My mind keeps changing. I don't think Trump is likely to win against Clinton anymore. But I don't even know.

I sort of want Trump to win, just because I want to see him get assassinated.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:07 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:Idk. My mind keeps changing. I don't think Trump is likely to win against Clinton anymore. But I don't even know.

I sort of want Trump to win, just because I want to see him get assassinated.

It's hard to know. Part of me thinks Trump will fracture the Republican party. He's appealing to people that both the Dems nor the Republicans have ignored, but mostly Republicans. The other part of me thinks that they'll eventually rally behind Trump, because the GOP really doesn't want Hillary. And I do worry about independents and Hillary's. I think most Dems, including young ones, will come out and vote for her, but less so with those not part of either party.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/don ... ind-trump/

Major partisan realignments do happen in America — on average about once every 40 years. The last one, which involved the unwinding of the New Deal coalition between Northern and Southern Democrats, is variously dated as having occurred in 1968, 1972 and 1980. There are also a lot of false alarms, elections described as realignments that turn out not to be. This time, we really might be in the midst of one. It's almost impossible to reconcile this year's Republican nomination contest with anyone's notion of “politics as usual."

If a realignment is underway, then it poses a big empirical challenge. Presidential elections already suffer from the problem of small sample sizes — one reason a lot of people, certainly including us, shouldn't have been so dismissive of Trump's chances early on. Elections held in the midst of political realignments are even rarer, however. The rules of the old regime — the American political party system circa 1980 through 2012 — might not apply in the new one. And yet, it's those elections that inform both the conventional wisdom and statistical models of American political behavior.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:52 pm

Monk wrote:
Derived Absurdity wrote:Idk. My mind keeps changing. I don't think Trump is likely to win against Clinton anymore. But I don't even know.

I sort of want Trump to win, just because I want to see him get assassinated.
It's hard to know. Part of me thinks Trump will fracture the Republican party. He's appealing to people that both the Dems nor the Republicans have ignored, but mostly Republicans. The other part of me thinks that they'll eventually rally behind Trump, because the GOP really doesn't want Hillary. And I do worry about independents and Hillary's. I think most Dems, including young ones, will come out and vote for her, but less so with those not part of either party.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/don ... ind-trump/

Major partisan realignments do happen in America — on average about once every 40 years. The last one, which involved the unwinding of the New Deal coalition between Northern and Southern Democrats, is variously dated as having occurred in 1968, 1972 and 1980. There are also a lot of false alarms, elections described as realignments that turn out not to be. This time, we really might be in the midst of one. It's almost impossible to reconcile this year's Republican nomination contest with anyone's notion of “politics as usual."

If a realignment is underway, then it poses a big empirical challenge. Presidential elections already suffer from the problem of small sample sizes — one reason a lot of people, certainly including us, shouldn't have been so dismissive of Trump's chances early on. Elections held in the midst of political realignments are even rarer, however. The rules of the old regime — the American political party system circa 1980 through 2012 — might not apply in the new one. And yet, it's those elections that inform both the conventional wisdom and statistical models of American political behavior.

I'n already preparing for the doomsday I will be contributing to and ushering in by voting Trump.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sat Jun 18, 2016 7:42 pm

So in this thread I said Trump would pivot to the center left if he gets the nomination.

Lol. Yeah... good times.

No one should listen to anything I say ever again.

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:45 am

I don't get it. Is that sarcasm, or were you really wrong?

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Jun 19, 2016 5:38 am

I was wrong. He got the nom and this week he upped the racist crazy to eleven. He's even worse than he usually is. His numbers are dropping like a rock.

Post by **thesalmonofdoubt** » Sun Jun 19, 2016 11:05 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:I was wrong. He got the nom and this week he upped the racist crazy to eleven. He's even worse than he usually is. His numbers are dropping like a rock.

The only thing I wouldn't have predicted about this entire Trump nonsense is that this would cause his numbers to drop .. I mean, he built a platform of reasonably robust support touting the cray cray .. I kinda figured Americans had just given him free range to say whatever the fuck he wants now

Cassius Clay · Post by **Cassius Clay** » Sun Jun 19, 2016 11:31 pm

It prolly has a little something to do with his claim that he supports the LGBTQ community. It makes him seem less "principled".

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Jun 19, 2016 11:34 pm

Seems like it's only the small group of racist nutcases who voted him into the spotlight in the first place who have been responding positively to his crap. Now that he's got the nom and most people in the country are actually paying attention to him, they're rejecting his crazy racist asshattery.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Mon Jun 20, 2016 3:38 pm

Cassius Clay wrote:It prolly has a little something to do with his claim that he supports the LGBTQ community. It makes him seem less "principled".

Trump has taken this to the extreme. I believe this is exactly why the Republicans keep getting in trouble in the presidential general election. They have to push for who is the most conservative is that when they try to bounce back to the center it makes them look as you say unprincipled.