llap Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 I saw it here. I agree it's poorly done - but that is almost a part of what makes it an interesting commentary on the country I just don't know what to make of the Alt-Right - racist, homophobic and sexist are easy cliches, though young, urban and right wing rather than old, rural and right wing seems a pretty good signifier of the group and what distinguishes it from other segments of American conservatism. It's an artificial, false "demographic", Chinahand. The results clearly show around half the population voted for him. You can't call half the population "right-wing" just because they voted for Donald Trump, not when he clearly isn't right-wing. The whole left-wing and right-wing dynamic is a false one, pushed by the media and political class. It's an example of dialectic hegelianism: the elite establish themselves as the "centre" and marginalise everyone else by dividing them (artificially) according to two opposite wings (left/right), where in reality those opposite wings are based on trivial differences, albeit dramatised by the political class, while in real terms most of the people put into left or right category agree on the fundamental issues. If ever the majority of the two sides realise they're only one majority being played against each other, there would be revolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 Blimey somebody has read a book in his absence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarne Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 On the plus side, I wouldn't want to poke Trump with a stick if I was a foreign country - he's unpredictable and presumably based on his rhetoric volatile, meaning we could see countries keeping their head down and not poking the bear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llap Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 On the plus side, I wouldn't want to poke Trump with a stick if I was a foreign country - he's unpredictable and presumably based on his rhetoric volatile, meaning we could see countries keeping their head down and not poking the bear That's been a consistent, deliberate foreign policy of the United States since at least the 1950s. I mean, the Pentagon and the President acting in unison to create an image of ambiguity, of possibly being off their trolleys, to be perceived as unpredictable. It seems to work in scaring the hell out of everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 12, 2016 Author Share Posted November 12, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manxman1980 Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Let's not forget that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. It is the way in with the Electoral College system works which has handed Trump this win. This is not democracy. This is a poor system that has allowed the majority candidate to lose. This is not the first time it has happened. The Electoral College system has now returned denied the popular vote in 7% of the US elections. This is not a victory for the people. It is a failure of the system to represent the people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quilp Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 What a load of tosh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 12, 2016 Author Share Posted November 12, 2016 Great way to engage in debate there Quilp. The electoral college system seems increasingly unable to match democratic aspirations. The votes of millions of Americans in majority republican or democrat states are effectively disenfranchised while millions of dollars are pumped into the few swing states where a few changed votes have a hugely disproportional affect on the electoral college. States' rights and all that, but when some one looses by over 1/2 a million votes but still gains a large majority in the electoral college it isn't tosh to raise concerns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llap Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Great way to engage in debate there Quilp. The electoral college system seems increasingly unable to match democratic aspirations. The votes of millions of Americans in majority republican or democrat states are effectively disenfranchised while millions of dollars are pumped into the few swing states where a few changed votes have a hugely disproportional affect on the electoral college. States' rights and all that, but when some one looses by over 1/2 a million votes but still gains a large majority in the electoral college it isn't tosh to raise concerns. It clearly is a load of tosh when it's been a regular occurrence for over two centuries --- sometimes helping Republicans, sometimes helping Democrats --- and only now, because someone you don't like has been duly elected, do you suddenly raise it as a big issue. We now have a crybaby generation who spit their dummies out of the pram whenever things don't go their way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 12, 2016 Author Share Posted November 12, 2016 Regular occurrence! Erm ... No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llap Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Erm, yes. The electoral college vote and the popular vote has never been the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 We now have a crybaby generation who spit their dummies out of the pram whenever things don't go their way. This is exactly what those who claim to be disenfranchised by modern liberal economics, globalisation, gentrification, immigration etc are doing. It would be much more constructive if they starting making their own opportunities instead of whining that life was better in the 1950s, the crybabies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 12, 2016 Author Share Posted November 12, 2016 Erm, yes. The electoral college vote and the popular vote has never been the same. Oh dear ... how to miss the point. There is no issue if the electoral college and the popular vote are different if they both point to the same outcome: the person with the largest vote in either system becoming president. This has been the result in every election but 5 since the founding of the US in 1776. Something that doesn't happen 91% of the time isn't a regular occurrence and you are deliberately avoiding the issue if you claim it is. The fact this has happened twice in the last 5 elections (16 years) is noteworthy. Democracy does need to maintain a connection between the popular vote and the resulting government - Trump will lack legitimacy because of this - especially if he pushes a radical agenda far from the status quo. His mandate via the electoral college will become increasingly irrelevant compared to the popular will which was against his programme. People demonstrate, not electoral college delegates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Ilap the electoral college vote won't neccesarily ever match the popular vote. That normally doesn't matter, because usually the popular vote and the electrol college favour the same person. But if the person who comes second in the popular vote is picked as President by the electoral it is a problem because the people's choice wasn't elected. This has happened for the fifth time in history, but more worryingly this is the second time this century. Each time it has been a Republican that has benefitted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llap Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Ilap the electoral college vote won't neccesarily ever match the popular vote. That normally doesn't matter, because usually the popular vote and the electrol college favour the same person. But if the person who comes second in the popular vote is picked as President by the electoral it is a problem because the people's choice wasn't elected. This has happened for the fifth time in history, but more worryingly this is the second time this century. Each time it has been a Republican that has benefitted. Declan, if you factor in all the rampant voter fraud by the Democratic Party, it goes way beyond a mere half million votes (which is itself really not a lot --- we're talking less than 1% of the vote), Trump definitely did win the popular vote. Even if you don't factor it in, you should definitely factor in the 3% (4.5 million) of the popular vote won by Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and add it to a popular mandate for a conservative, libertarian non-Clinton agenda. P.S. If Trump had won the popular vote, and Hillary had won the electoral vote, would the usual anti-Trump suspects on here be moaning about it? I'm skeptical. I bet they'd be on here defending it. If Hillary Clinton had won the vote, but Trump got a majority of the popular vote, I wouldn't be on here attacking it. It is what it is. It's been that way for over two centuries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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