Election 2016

angelfromanotherpin · Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:41 pm

Samantha Bee did a segment with some unlikely Trump supporters. Most notably, they emphasize the temporary nature of Trump's discriminatory policies.

Of course, most of Hitler's civil liberty abridgements were also supposedly temporary.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:53 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Samantha Bee did a segment with some unlikely Trump supporters. Most notably, they emphasize the temporary nature of Trump's discriminatory policies.

Of course, most of Hitler's civil liberty abridgements were also supposedly temporary.

That segment was hilarious, because she would say something, and literally every single one of them would respond with the exact same thing at the same time, because apparently they got dem talking points down pat.

I was kind of hoping several of them would say something overtly racist to the one black guy.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 1:50 am

Wow. Things continue to heat up.

President Obama has proposed a Supreme Court Justice nominee and I think that is going to be overshadowed tomorrow because the Drumpf is now suggesting there will be riots if he doesn't win the nomination in a brokered convention.

If Drumpf wasn't such a dick, I'd imagine it would be easy for him to buy off one of the clown car suspenders for their delegates, but it looks like he's aiming to go for a strong arm instead.

I wonder what my wife's family will be like when I head back to Missourah next time. They're mostly conservative Republican catholics. I know from some facebook feeds that some support Drumpf but dunno how far into the crazy well they've dipped.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 3:24 am

Anecdotally, many non-Americans I've talked to are Trump fans for some reason (like, maybe 5 people, mostly Chinese and African). It took until about the 3rd person for me to realize they weren't just taking the piss out of me, but that they really do think he's a good choice.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:27 am

Maybe he feels familiar to them?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:31 am

Anonymous have now officially declared war on Trump. Given they've had moderate successes before against various things, this should at least be a problem for him. And obviously, any problem could be used by some part of the establishment as grounds to disqualify him and choose someone else. They're going to be fucking with his online presence (which, if selected as nominee, will hurt the actual election campaign), and they're going to dig for anything more embarrassing than what is already on the public record. Although it'd have to be pretty bad to reach that point.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:41 am

I don't see them trying to fuck with his campaign as a big problem at this point in his run. Annoying maybe but not a real problem.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:47 am

Honestly, being targeting by anonymous - a vigilante hacker group that is presumed to skew liberal or leftist - could actually benefit Trump. It gives him something that his base is already predisposed to hate to rail against and feeds the persecution complex of Trump and his supporters.

It's different if they manage to successfully disrupt his online presence with consistency or force him to spend millions on cybersecurity of course, but it's hard to say that is actually likely to occur.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 1:55 pm

That's especially true if they attack his supporters in anyway. Anonymous seems fond of doxing, and while I think Trump's supporters are idiots, that alone doesn't justify doxing them.

On the other hand, if they reveal the names of confirmed white supremacists that support him and are actively campaigning for him, that could hurt him.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Mar 17, 2016 4:28 pm

Would it? Most of the Trump supporters I have met are aware of the white supremacists voting for Trump and are OK with that on the grounds that many of them believe there's currently a race war (and that BLM is a secret plot by Obama to seize control of the country after he leaves office).

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:02 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Would it? Most of the Trump supporters I have met are aware of the white supremacists voting for Trump and are OK with that on the grounds that many of them believe there's currently a race war (and that BLM is a secret plot by Obama to seize control of the country after he leaves office).

You know what? I actually hope that's true. I hope Obama and Black Lives Matter stage a coup along with the Elders of Zion and the Bilderberger Group.

On Inauguration Day, Obama just shoots the president elect in the face and pulls on his Cobra Commander hood. FEMA storms everyones' homes, confiscates their guns, bibles and Christmas, and then carts them off to Planned Parenthood death camps for mandatory abortions and gay training.

I fucking hope wacko conservatives get exactly what they fear/secretly want.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:05 pm

I volunteer to help with the gay training.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:59 pm

Prak wrote:I volunteer to help with the gay training.

More power bottom to you.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 7:03 pm

Maybe CAH can supply the lube.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:34 am

If this election is fun and appalling in equal measure, it's because of how creative and twisted its forcing people to get, and this months before the convention.

Republicans have already largely given up on beating Trump fair, and are looking to rewrite the convention rules in the hope of a brokered convention getting someone electable - even out of the pool of those who have thrown in the towel.

But my favorite fantasy is the one where the Republican establishment runs a purple third-party candidate so that neither Clinton or Trump get enough electoral votes, and the presidential election is decided by the Republican-controlled Congress. Which is pure fantasy on any number of levels, but it gives fun fantasy mashups to imagine if there's any pair that could plausibly pull enough voters from Red and Blue together to cost enough electoral votes to act as a spoiler - and neither Frank or I could think of anybody that would quite fit the bill. Bloomberg/Kasich? Sanders/Kasich? Captain America/Iron Man?

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:50 am

Really they should run multiple 3rd party candidates. Come at Drumpf from the Right and the farther Right. Maybe run David Duke with someone from the Bundy clan?

The trick is finding someone willing to come at Hillary and take her votes too. You have to find a big name with a huge ego and equally huge delusion that Republicans and Democrats are the same. I was worried Bloomberg would be it, but he turned out to have more sense than that. Is Nader available?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:07 am

The rules for a congressional tiebreaker are a complete clusterfuck and I have no fucking idea if going to a tiebreaker actually means the Republicans get to pick the candidate thanks to controlling both houses of Congress. Each state has one vote, but this is in some way more complicated than having each state's representatives do FPTP voting among themselves to allocate it, I forget exactly how it works.

Also, looking at the 12 Amendment, there is even more hilarious bullshit potentially available: the House picks from among the three people with the most electoral votes for President if there's a tie for President, and if there's a tie for Vice President the Senate picks from the top two.

Why did anyone ever think that was a good idea?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:25 am

name here wrote:Why did anyone ever think that was a good idea?

I'm pretty sure our government is actually a highly sophisticated drinking/betting game that we just don't get to see the rules for.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:43 am

erik wrote:Really they should run multiple 3rd party candidates. Come at Drumpf from the Right and the farther Right. Maybe run David Duke with someone from the Bundy clan?

The trick is finding someone willing to come at Hillary and take her votes too. You have to find a big name with a huge ego and equally huge delusion that Republicans and Democrats are the same. I was worried Bloomberg would be it, but he turned out to have more sense than that. Is Nader available?

The problem is they need to win states to get a tiebreaker, not votes. So Kaisch can maybe get you Ohio, but David Duke isn't going to win any states over Trump or Clinton, just allow Clinton to win states over Trump.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:51 am

Ancient History wrote:Which is pure fantasy on any number of levels, but it gives fun fantasy mashups to imagine if there's any pair that could plausibly pull enough voters from Red and Blue together to cost enough electoral votes to act as a spoiler - and neither Frank or I could think of anybody that would quite fit the bill. Bloomberg/Kasich? Sanders/Kasich? Captain America/Iron Man?

John Cena/Kanye West

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:06 am

Kanye would never settle for veep. If nothing else, there's the Rock Rule.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 6:33 am

Kaelik wrote:
erik wrote:Really they should run multiple 3rd party candidates. Come at Drumpf from the Right and the farther Right. Maybe run David Duke with someone from the Bundy clan?

The trick is finding someone willing to come at Hillary and take her votes too. You have to find a big name with a huge ego and equally huge delusion that Republicans and Democrats are the same. I was worried Bloomberg would be it, but he turned out to have more sense than that. Is Nader available?
The problem is they need to win states to get a tiebreaker, not votes. So Kaisch can maybe get you Ohio, but David Duke isn't going to win any states over Trump or Clinton, just allow Clinton to win states over Trump.

Yeah, that's why the house tiebreaker strategy is implausible in addition to being insane. You'd need to come first in a bunch of states - enough to keep either main candidate from getting a majority. If you just split Trump's vote, Clinton wins Louisiana and Texas. If you just split Clinton's vote, Trump wins Illinoise and Maryland. If you just come third everywhere like Perot, the map is unchanged. To make this work you'd need to take votes from Clinton and take votes from Trump and win at least 63 electoral votes worth of states.

Basically you'd need to convince Sanders to go for a third party run and run Paul Ryan third party at the same time. And when Sanders wins more states than Ryan it still won't have worked.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:59 am

name_here wrote:The rules for a congressional tiebreaker are a complete clusterfuck and I have no fucking idea if going to a tiebreaker actually means the Republicans get to pick the candidate thanks to controlling both houses of Congress. Each state has one vote, but this is in some way more complicated than having each state's representatives do FPTP voting among themselves to allocate it, I forget exactly how it works.

Also, looking at the 12 Amendment, there is even more hilarious bullshit potentially available: the House picks from among the three people with the most electoral votes for President if there's a tie for President, and if there's a tie for Vice President the Senate picks from the top two.

Why did anyone ever think that was a good idea?

They had literally just got done with unfucking themselves out of a deadlock election in 1800 where everyone voted straight-ticket and forgot that someone needed to refrain from casting a vote for the designated VP of the pair.

The 12th does everything it can to refute the possibility of presidential election deadlock without making the process completely undemocratic. It limits number of candidates so that there isn't too complicated of a pool to vote on and breaks the ticket in half so that there are two different pools of voters. The population-based house of reps gets to vote on the president, but they do so by a weird protocol that pays respect to state parity. The most obvious reason why two parties might both fail to secure an absolute majority is that a third party manages to pull non-negligable votes; due to this, the house needs to make room for at least that many candidates in their election. In the event that the House can't even exert the competence to find a coalition majority, though, the nation can't be left leaderless, so somebody needs to find a vice president to handle shit in the meantime. That duty goes to the Senate (of whom the Vice President is actually a minor member), and they get a different number of candidates than the House to minimize the potential of getting bogged down by the same math.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:32 pm

Ancient History wrote: - and neither Frank or I could think of anybody that would quite fit the bill. Bloomberg/Kasich? Sanders/Kasich? Captain America/Iron Man?

What the fuck would a Sanders/Kasich ticket even look like?

"We need to provide free college, and we're going to pay for it by breaking up the big banks and defunding Planned Parenthood!"

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:14 pm

I know I've said this more than once, but even though it's patently obvious that conservative economic policy is disastrous - in Louisiana, in Kansas, in Wisconsin - it's still the fundamental of Republican economic policy in both Congress and the presidential primaries.

I don't get it.