DOOM, or The Official 2016 US Election Thread

[sadmanbarty]

States that passed voting restrictions saw decreased turnout, flipped to Trump

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/states-new-voting-restrictions-flip-trump-article-1.2866395

 

[IdleRich]

Got a question about the way the electoral collage works. In both the UK and the US there is a perennial problem in that the candidate that wins the popular vote may not necessarily win the election. In both cases this arises because of the way that the country is split into compartments and each compartment is won by the person who gets the most votes in that region - the problem is that this takes no account of how well the candidate wins the compartment and so, if they win fewer compartments they will lose, even if they got all the votes in the ones they won and forty-nine percent of the ones they lost. In the UK it's hard to see how this could be improved except by totally changing the system because each area only contains one seat, however, in the US there are many votes in the electoral college for each state so a slight tweak making the number of votes you got from a given state the same proportion of the total as the proportion of votes you won in the state would be possible. In other words, if the state had ten seats and a candidate won sixty per cent of the vote then they should get six votes in the EC rather than all the votes as is the case at present I understand. Why don't they do it like that? That seems the intuitive and fairer way to do it and it would make it more likely that the winner of the popular vote won the whole thing.

 

[firefinga]

You'll see a ratrace very quickly among the ."moderate" republicans to get behind the Trumpians. A sick spectacle

Breathtaking...it didn't even take 24 hrs... GOP breakaway cancelled, GOP now a proto-fascist party.

 

[Corpsey]

i hope it works out but suspect there will be millions of disillusioned trump voters in a few years when few of his grandiose promises come to fruition. many voters were conned into thinking trump will return high-paying factory jobs to the rust belt, end opiate addiction, protect us from terrorism, etc., but none of that is realistically possible. THEN what do they do?

 

[Corpsey]

Something truly uncanny about this photo. These orange rubbery men. Icke might have been right. Those are human suits.

 

[firefinga]

Something truly uncanny about this photo. These orange rubbery men. Icke might have been right. Those are human suits.

Spooky coincidence, I ran a google image search yesterday for exact those fotos due to the (structural) connections of Brexit and Trumpageddon.

And another, deeply saddening aspect of this fiasco lies in the symbolics - that there are people out there, apparently a majority, who puts hope in those people. I mean, just look at them for crying out loud.

 

[droid]

Donald Trump is a fascist. We shouldn’t be afraid of the word: it’s simple and accurate, and his fascism is hardly unique; it’s just a suppurating outgrowth of the fascism that was already there. Still, this time it’s different. The fascisms of Europe in the 1920s and 30s, or east Asia in the 50s and 60s, or Latin America in the 70s and 80s were all the response of a capitalist order to the terrifying potency of an organised working class. Fascism is what capitalism does when it’s under threat, something always latent but extending in claws when it’s time to fight; it imitates mass movements while never really having the support of the masses. (In Germany, for instance, support for the Nazis was highest among the industrial haute bourgeoisie, and declined through every social stratum; look at Trump’s share of the voter per income band and see the same pattern. The workers didn’t vote for Trump, they just didn’t vote for Clinton either.) But today the organised working class is nowhere to be found. There’s no coherent left-wing movement actively endangering capitalism; the crisis facing the liberal-capitalist order is entirely internal. It’s grinding against its own contradictions, circling the globe to turn back against itself, smashing through its biological and ecological limits and finding nothing on the other side. This is the death spasm, a truly nihilist fascism, the fascism of a global system prickling for enemies to destroy but charging only against itself. There’s no silence in the final and total victory, just an endless war with only one side. It’s not entirely the case, as the slogan puts it, that the only thing capable of defeating the radical right is a radical left. The radical right will defeat itself, sooner or later, even if it’s at the cost of a few tens of millions of lives. We need a radical left so there can be any kind of fight at all.

There's some wisdom here. https://samkriss.com/2016/11/09/how-you-lost-the-world/

 

[droid]

Amazing predictions from this guy

Instinctively, Hillary Clinton has long seemed by far the more electable of the two Democratic candidates. She is, after all, an experienced, pragmatic moderate, whereas Sanders is a raving, arm-flapping elderly Jewish socialist from Vermont. Clinton is simply closer to the American mainstream, thus she is more attractive to a broader swath of voters. Sanders campaigners have grown used to hearing the heavy-hearted lament “I like Bernie, I just don’t think he can win.” And in typical previous American elections, this would be perfectly accurate.

But this is far from a typical previous American election. And recently, everything about the electability calculus has changed, due to one simple fact: Donald Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee for President. Given this reality, every Democratic strategic question must operate not on the basis of abstract electability against a hypothetical candidate, but specific electability against the actual Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

Here, a Clinton match-up is highly likely to be an unmitigated electoral disaster, whereas a Sanders candidacy stands a far better chance. Every one of Clinton’s (considerable) weaknesses plays to every one of Trump’s strengths, whereas every one of Trump’s (few) weaknesses plays to every one of Sanders’s strengths. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, running Clinton against Trump is a disastrous, suicidal proposition.

 

[firefinga]

Sadly too, Hillary's concession speech made it even clearer that she was indeed the wrong candidate. One statement embodies the Democrats misunderstanding of the situation: "give Trump a chance" - yeah fucking right. As if the Republicans ever gave a Democrat President a chance. All they ever did since the 1990s was total blockade.

 

[droid]

Fucking hell, this is an infuriating read.

One’s support for Sanders should increase in direct proportion to one’s fear of Trump. And if Trump is the nominee, Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race and throw her every ounce of energy into supporting Sanders. If this does not occur, the resulting consequences for Muslims and Mexican immigrants of a Trump presidency will be fully the responsibility of Clinton and the Democratic Party. To run a candidate who can’t win, or who is a very high-risk proposition, is to recklessly play with the lives of millions of people. So much depends on stopping Trump; a principled defeat will mean nothing to the deported, or to those being roughed up by Trump’s goon squads or executed with pigs’ blood-dipped bullets.

Donald Trump is one of the most formidable opponents in the history of American politics. He is sharp, shameless, and likable. If he is going to be the nominee, Democrats need to think very seriously about how to defeat him. If they don’t, he will be the President of the United States, which will have disastrous repercussions for religious and racial minorities and likely for everyone else, too. Democrats should consider carefully how a Trump/Clinton matchup would develop, and how a Trump/Sanders matchup would. For their sake, hopefully they will realize that the only way to prevent a Trump presidency is the nomination of Bernie Sanders.

I was dead wrong about the election (and most other things) but right about Sanders.

 

[sadmanbarty]

Though there are some comparisons to be made between Trump and Brexit, people shouldn't get too carried away with it.

Brexit was by and large only an economic and geopolicitcal mistake. The domestic politics behind it, in terms of restoring democracy and sovereignty, were actually motivated by very honourable ideals. Of course there were nasty elements behind Brexit (increase in hate crimes, 'breaking point', lying, media partisanship, etc.) but there are legitimate arguments to be made for leaving the EU, even if I think it's a huge mistake.

On the other hand, not only is trump's election an economic mistake, but his seeming disregard for democratic norms and ideals throughout the campaign, let alone his racism, undermine american democracy, even if that's not reflective of his presidency.

Brexit might have shown that people are gullible, but Trump shows a very worrying authoritarian streak in the electorate.

 

[droid]

We could have beaten Trump AND had a properly progressive candidate who might do some good.

 

[droid]

Good news for Craner:

 

[firefinga]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...ry-clinton-1992-2016-campaign-election-213774

well...

 

[firefinga]

but Trump shows a very worrying authoritarian streak in the electorate.

And taking the presidency of one of the oldest democracies in the world is the grand slam of the right wing populist (I am not calling Trump a fascist - yet - but for sure some of his supporters and definitely some of his campaing staff) template who is on the rise almost anywhere in the western world.

 

[Mr. Tea]

There's some wisdom here. https://samkriss.com/2016/11/09/how-you-lost-the-world/

The fascisms of Europe in the 1920s and 30s... were all the response of a capitalist order to the terrifying potency of an organised working class. Fascism is what capitalism does when it’s under threat...

But that's bollocks, though. The early National Socialist movement, at any rate, was avowedly anti-capitalist. It later moved economically to the right because wars are very expensive and the best way to fund them was to co-opt the capitalist class, who handily enough were mostly sympathetic to the Nazis' social policies (the ones that weren't Jewish, anyway). And even during the war, the corporatist economic model employed by both Germany and Italy was substantially different from that of any modern country you'd call 'capitalist' in the usual sense, meaning free-market/neoliberal.

 

[firefinga]

But that's bollocks, though. The early National Socialist movement, at any rate, was avowedly anti-capitalist. It later moved economically to the right because wars are very expensive and the best way to fund them was to co-opt the capitalist class, who handily enough were mostly sympathetic to the Nazis' social policies (the ones that weren't Jewish, anyway). And even during the war, the corporatist economic model employed by both Germany and Italy was substantially different from that of any modern country you'd call 'capitalist' in the usual sense, meaning free-market/neoliberal.

There are of course libraries on the roots of Facism and the fear of "The Revolution" played a roll in any of serious explanations and it always depends on what emphasis you'd like to stress. The italian fascists for instance were largely motivated by a feeling of "betrayal" due to the fact they didn't get enough out of the Paris peace treaties.

 

[droid]

He's using capitalist in the wider and more fundamental sense I think. Fascist corporatism, the perfect unity of the public and private spheres was/is perhaps the most ideal form of capitalism. Free-market/neoliberalism was seen (rightfully so) as a dangerous and extreme mutation, and is, as you know a much more recent development.

Also, Nazi propoganda was anti-capitalist, the Nazis most definitely were not:

PS: I know you hate Sam kriss, but that doesnt mean that everything he says is wrong.

 

[firefinga]

Also, Nazi propoganda was anti-capitalist, the Nazis most definitely were not:

Nazi propaganda wasn't even THAT - it was very selective, bc if anything, Nazis were propaganda geniuses. They'd change tune regarding to whom they were talking too. In fact, the only anti-capitalist group with some weight was the faction around Otto Strasser which was sidelined very quickly.

 

[Mr. Tea]

PS: I know you hate Sam kriss, but that doesnt mean that everything he says is wrong.

Yeah it's fine, I've read a couple of his things that have made me warm to him (a bit), and the rest of what you quoted sounds reasonable. I'm just highly averse to the notion, which is very prevalent among leftists, that Nazism/Fascism (which are by no means even the same thing as each other) are just an extension or logical conclusion of capitalism.

And sure, of course there wasn't much about National "Socialism" that was socialistic in any meaningful sense, certainly after ca. 1934, anyway.