Trump

[RN7]

I think the shock has sunk in by now.

So has anybody got anything good, bad or indifferent to say about the fact that Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States of America

This is I think the most significant event in recent history since the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago. I'd love to hear what people think about all of this in a civil manner, particularly our many American friends.

[kato13]

Even with the crowd here being well above average in terms of civility compared to the rest of the internet, I cannot imagine this staying civil. tempers and the instinct to gloat seem just too high.

I will give it a shot but be warned I WILL drop temp bans for first offenses on name calling or insults. Rae feel free to shut things down anytime even before it starts if you think I am off base on allowing it.

If the thread sees the light of next week I will be amazed, but 2016 has been a year of surprises so who knows.

[kato13]

I do have to say I give Kudos to the New York Times for calling things accurately (once the votes were coming in). They called Florida literally the same minute my analysis solidified.

And their prediction webpage

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/forecast/president

was both accurate and informative all election night.

[RN7]

I do have to say I give Kudos to the New York Times for calling things accurately (once the votes were coming in). They called Florida literally the same minute my analysis solidified.

And their prediction webpage

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/forecast/president

was both accurate and informative all election night.

I followed the results of the election on BBC internet service as I was outside of the US. The way the results changed during the evening was shocking. The vote for Trump just grew and overtook Clinton in all of the swing states at an alarming rate. Virginia I think was the only swing state in which Clinton retook the lead.

I have to say the performance and accuracy of the mainstream media and pollsters in all of this was very poor. I know many people chose not to vote or voted for an independent candidate, but how did they miss all of the support building for Trump. I'm not going to discuss the allegations made about Trump in the lead up to all of this, but no matter what was said and no matter how many turned their backs on him he defeated 16 other Republican candidates and all of his rallies were constantly sold out. Why did the media not bother to look at this

[ArmySGT.]

but no matter what was said and no matter how many turned their backs on him he defeated 16 other Republican candidates and all of his rallies were constantly sold out. Why did the media not bother to look at this

The Media is overwhelmingly in the Democratic camp. To do or say something that goes against the Party line would likely cause someone to lose their job.
Second, social capital in the form of expressing loudly to all your friends and colleagues of the same political bent makes them all feel good about one another.
Third, the extreme disconnect between white male / female people in Trades or Service sector jobs (Middle class 60K jobs) from those Professional job holders.
Fourth, middle class whites are really damned tired of being told their racists and sexists at every turn. Demonize someone enough and their likely to begin to resent it.
Fifth, job creation has been largely in urban projects or kept to the coasts with poor or no effect or effort felt in rural or small communities.... no one like paying their taxes and seeing nothing for it.
Sixth, job creation efforts have gone to big political contributors again and again on large wasted projects like ethanol or solar panel plants..... Voters resent the Trillions spent be Congress on their buddies in the "Stimulus package"...... Which amounted to $300,000 per taxpayer. Most would agree if you just gave everyone $300,000 dollars the stimulus would have cared for itself.
Seventh, white middle class America lost their homes, savings, and hope with the Great Recession......... and despite the stock market and everyone else the recovery has not happened for them.

[kato13]

Yeah the NYT was way off before the votes were counted, but as a data obsessed person AND a web designer that tool was awesome and accurate.

As to how the pollsters and media missed the final result so badly I am a firm believer in the SHY/OBSTINATE Trump voter and the concept of self reinforcement to support your own views.

First off, in some circles, if you even show an inkling of support of Trump you will be personally attacked. Heck even the Democratic candidate did it (half of you belong in basket of deplorable). Some supporters will NEVER admit to pollsters where there vote is going. That is why Trump did better in Rasmussen (done by computer rather than humans), and the LA Times poll which followed the same voters for 6 months.

The second effect was an echo chamber in the media. The facts they found seemed to reinforce their conclusions and led to people finding more facts to support what in many cases what they wanted to be true.

Nate Silver is a pretty strong liberal, and he is great with numbers. He was attacked for suggesting that Trump might have a 30% chance to win. The Huffington Post (who had Trumps chances at 2%) said he was being dishonest with the people following him, that he was "putting his thumb on the scale for Trump" and also accused Silver of "punditry" in this election cycle. Silver not unsurprisingly went ballistic.

So you have a man who I am sure did not want Trump to win, but he was being honest and was attacked (and not seriously defended by the media as far as I saw) for stating his analysis. Silver was the media's golden boy when he accurately predicted 99 out of 100 states during Obama's two elections, but turn against the prevailing wisdom and find yourself left out in the cold.

[kato13]

Fifth, job creation has been largely in urban projects or kept to the coasts with poor or no effect or effort felt in rural or small communities.... no one like paying their taxes and seeing nothing for it.

For the last year I have spent about 10 hours a week following politics and I honestly never considered that factor. Chalk me up as another uninformed urbanite.

[.45cultist]

Voter turn out was amazing. I waited 2 hours in line to vote. As for T2k later timelines, Perhaps strengthening strained relations with allies leads to later pulling the U.S. into war. More weapons and other preps available for CONUS campaigns. It seems to have rocked the international world like the recent Brexit vote. Warmer Russian/U.S. relations and fractured EU leads a misguided future Russian leadership to war

[dragoon500ly]

I was blown away by the sheer number of new voters. I've always voted early (no lines), but this time, voting three weeks early, and having to wait over an hour!!! Not only the usual crowd of old folks, but a shocking number of 18-19 year olds, college students, and a large number of blue collar workers, lots of people showing their IDs and registering as voters for the first time.

It has certainly been a most...interesting election.

[Cdnwolf]

Thank god I am a Snow Mexican. Time to build our Northern Wall.

[rcaf_777]

Thank god I am a Snow Mexican. Time to build our Northern Wall.

Who's going pay for it

[RN7]

The Media is overwhelmingly in the Democratic camp. To do or say something that goes against the Party line would likely cause someone to lose their job.

To me the media was very biased against Trump from the outset. I think there was little of no positivity towards Trump or anything he said throughout his campaign. Like the Democratic Party they were also complacent and dismissive about his support.

[RN7]

Second, social capital in the form of expressing loudly to all your friends and colleagues of the same political bent makes them all feel good about one another.

This mindset seems to have taken hold.

Third, the extreme disconnect between white male / female people in Trades or Service sector jobs (Middle class 60K jobs) from those Professional job holders.
Fourth, middle class whites are really damned tired of being told their racists and sexists at every turn. Demonize someone enough and their likely to begin to resent it.
Fifth, job creation has been largely in urban projects or kept to the coasts with poor or no effect or effort felt in rural or small communities.... no one like paying their taxes and seeing nothing for it.
Sixth, job creation efforts have gone to big political contributors again and again on large wasted projects like ethanol or solar panel plants..... Voters resent the Trillions spent be Congress on their buddies in the "Stimulus package"...... Which amounted to $300,000 per taxpayer. Most would agree if you just gave everyone $300,000 dollars the stimulus would have cared for itself.
Seventh, white middle class America lost their homes, savings, and hope with the Great Recession......... and despite the stock market and everyone else the recovery has not happened for them.

Its quite clear that the Democratic Party completely underestimated the groundswell of discontent against them. Clinton ran a very complacent and lazy campaign as she knew she had the media, corporate backers and the celebrities in her pocket.

From what I can see Clinton got the black vote, but not as many blacks turned out to vote as she is not black like Obama. She also got the Latin/Mexican vote in some states but it wasn't not big enough to carry her. But she did not get the rest of the Hispanic vote (Cubans in Florida), and some evidence to think that many middle class Hispanics and Asians now think like their white counterparts. Clinton failed abysmally with white voters excluding liberals. The loss of the white working class and much of the white middle class lost her the election.

ArmySGT's reasons are very valid. How can you expect to win an election if you ignore the largest demographic group and dominant cultural and wealth generating and tax paying bloc in your electorate.

[RN7]

As to how the pollsters and media missed the final result so badly I am a firm believer in the SHY/OBSTINATE Trump voter and the concept of self reinforcement to support your own views.

I think there was plenty of evidence to suggest that the SHY/OBSTINATE Trump voter was out there all along. The media just didn't bother going out to many of the suburbs, small towns and rural communities were its existed quite overtly.

First off, in some circles, if you even show an inkling of support of Trump you will be personally attacked. Heck even the Democratic candidate did it (half of you belong in basket of deplorable). Some supporters will NEVER admit to pollsters where there vote is going. That is why Trump did better in Rasmussen (done by computer rather than humans), and the LA Times poll which followed the same voters for 6 months.

Yes there was some bullying going on. In areas which voted overwhelmingly for Clinton you could be called at worst a bigot for supporting Trump, or at least be considered ill informed.

The second effect was an echo chamber in the media. The facts they found seemed to reinforce their conclusions and led to people finding more facts to support what in many cases what they wanted to be true.

Nate Silver is a pretty strong liberal, and he is great with numbers. He was attacked for suggesting that Trump might have a 30% chance to win. The Huffington Post (who had Trumps chances at 2%) said he was being dishonest with the people following him, that he was "putting his thumb on the scale for Trump" and also accused Silver of "punditry" in this election cycle. Silver not unsurprisingly went ballistic.

So you have a man who I am sure did not want Trump to win, but he was being honest and was attacked (and not seriously defended by the media as far as I saw) for stating his analysis. Silver was the media's golden boy when he accurately predicted 99 out of 100 states during Obama's two elections, but turn against the prevailing wisdom and find yourself left out in the cold.

It was all a bit biased and blinkered I think. The mainstream media was very pro-Clinton and did not want to hear any view but there own during all of this. Their behaviour was as poor as their standard of reporting. They claim to be a free media but their coverage of the election showed them to be anything but.

[swaghauler]

I cannot speak for the rest of the Union, but in PA, it was very clear what was going to happen. For the first time that I can remember, Rural PA turned out to vote in numbers equal to or greater than Urban PA (Pittsburgh and Philly). While the vast majority of PA is Democratic-leaning pro-union voters, a few of things happened that caused a "quantum shift" in PA politics. The blame lays SQUARELY at the feet of President Obama and Secretary Clinton.

The First Issue was President Obama's "War on Coal." Most of rural PA's jobs involve farming, logging, coal mining and drilling/fracking. Many communities (especially in the Wilds) began to suffer as the various industries who were affected by President Obama's sanctions (to reduce emissions) began to shut down. This didn't take just the best jobs in the region, it took ALL the jobs in the region. It's hard to run a grocery store or other "service related" industry when NO ONE has any money to buy your product. To add "insult to injury," many of the workers were denied Federal funding for job retraining. The feds ACTUALLY HAD THE NERVE TO SAY "you should have seen this coming and planned for it." Hillary vowed to continue with the "War on Coal." While I do believe in Global Warming, it's pretty hard to tell entire communities "You must starve for the good of the planet..." especially when China and India are NOT doing their part. In fact, my absence from the forum lately is due to the oilfield companies abandoning the Allegheny National Forest in force. They are moving out huge amounts of equipment due to the costs of extraction now.

The Second Issue was the debacle that is Obamacare. The Democrats INCORRECTLY assumed that most if not all businesses would simply pay for health care. NOTHING could be further from the truth in PA. The vast majority of affected businesses in my region just dropped ALL of their full-time employees to part-time rather than pay for healthcare. They also tried to "punish" workers for voting Democrat by requiring those workers to work FIVE hours a day for FIVE DAYS PER WEEK. This made it difficult to go get a second job to make up the lost income. To add "insult to injury," several of these workers made too much money to qualify for Medicaid but just enough money to have to pay the FINE FOR NOT HAVING INSURANCE. So not only did Rural PA residents LOSE THEIR FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT, BUT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FINED THEM FOR BEING TOO POOR TO BUY INSURANCE ON OUR "SO CALLED" HEALTHCARE EXCHANGE! Hillary vowed to continue with this program as well.

The last major Issue that really had rural PA residents "up in arms" was, in fact, ARMS. PA has an absolutely HUGE number of gun owners. It has been stated that there are more hunters in the woods of PA on the opening day of Buck Season than there are Law Enforcement Officer on duty in the ENTIRE US. HALF of all rural PA residents are Veterans. The 1994 Assault Weapons Bill was very poorly received in PA. Hillary wanted a reinstatement of "reasonable gun control measures." Most rural PA residents DID NOT SEE a new Assault Weapon's Bill as "reasonable."

Most PA residents DID NOT VOTE FOR Trump. They VOTED AGAINST Hillary. In fact, if you talk to most PA residents, they will tell you that they want a Convention Of States to make what they see as "much-needed changes" to the Constitution.