The Bigly 2016 US Presidential Election Thread, Part XV

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gump said:
I honestly can't understand why this isn't a big story: A candidate who wants to deport all "illegal" migrants from the country is married to someone who was once an "illegal" migrant.

I actually think I understand it. Melania Trump is white. It was never about "illegal" migration. Just getting rid of people who don't look like him.

The fucking hypocrisy of these GOP people.

So let's talk about emails.
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I saw people on Twitter today arguing that "progressives" shouldn't make a thing out of this because... I don't really understand why. I suppose they thought it reduced the left to the level of its rivals.

But they missed the point you make so well, that it's not opposition to illegal immigrants that should make this a big story, it's the rank hypocrisy.

Without the wider context, I think many on the left would be cool with Melania doing this work, and that's my guess why it hasn't caught on. It just doesn't stimulate their instinctual forms of political anger.
 
Kiss Nevada goodbye Trumpets

Donald Trump will be in Reno on Saturday, but the Republicans almost certainly lost Nevada on Friday.

Trump's path was nearly impossible, as I have been telling you, before what happened in Clark County on Friday. But now he needs a Miracle in Vegas on Election Day -- and a Buffalo Bills Super Bowl championship is more likely -- to turn this around. The ripple effect down the ticket probably will cost the Republicans Harry Reid's Senate seat, two GOP House seats and control of the Legislature.

How devastating was it, epitomized by thousands of mostly Latino voters keeping Cardenas market open open in Vegas until 10 PM? This cataclysmic:

----The Democrats won Clark County by more than 11,000 votes Friday (final mail count not posted yet), a record margin on a record-setting turnout day of 57,000 voters. The Dems now have a firewall -- approaching 73,000 ballots -- greater than 2012 when Barack Obama won the state by nearly 7 points. The 71,000 of 2012 was slightly higher in percentage terms, but raw votes matter. The lead is 14 percentage points -- right at registration. You know what else matters? Registration advantages (142,000 in Clark). Reminder: When the Clark votes were counted from early/mail voting in 2012, Obama had a 69,000 vote lead in Clark County. Game over.

----The statewide lead (some rurals not posted) will be above 45,000 -- slightly under the 48,000 of 2012, but still robust. That's 6 percentage points, or right about at registration. The GOP turnout advantage was under a percent, worse than 2012 when it was 1.1 percent.

----The Dems eked out a 200-vote win in Washoe and lead there by 1,000 votes. It was even in 2012. The rural lead, before the stragglers come in, is 27,500. It probably will get above 28,000.

----Total turnout without those rurals: 768,000, or 52.5 percent. If overall turnout ends up being 80 percent, that means two thirds of the vote is in -- close to 2012. Republicans would have to not only win Election Day by close to double digits to turn around the lead Hillary Clinton almost surely has in early voting, but they would have to astronomically boost turnout. The goal for the Dems during early voting was to bank votes and to boost turnout as high as possible to minimize the number of votes left on Election Day to affect races. Folks, the Reid Machine went out with a bang.

As an exclamation point to a historic night in Nevada, in which Clinton essentially locked up the state and Hispanics, insulted all cycle by Trump, streamed into the market, here is what the final Cardenas numbers showed (tallied by an on-the-ground activist):

1,904 voted
1,258: Ds, 66%
165: Rs, 9%
481: NPs, 25%

So Cardenas was responsible for adding 1,000 to the Democratic lead.

Trump has almost no path to the presidency without Nevada. He can say whatever he wants in Reno on Saturday and boost rural turnout a lot, but he made his own bed when he announced his candidacy.

I'll dive deeper into the numbers later to show just how deep the wave could be Tuesday.
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http://www.ktnv.com/news/ralston/the-nevada-early-voting-blog
 
Obviously using early voting to predict final numbers is an inexact science.

But the only way Trump can win Nevada is if a) large numbers of registered Democrats voted for Trump, or b) he wins the in person Tuesday vote by a uuuuuge margin.

If past trends hold up, Clinton is going to take Nevada comfortably.

Apparently, and I mean who would have thunk, but it seems that insulting an entire demographic is a bad thing if you plan on winning national elections.
 
Axver said:
I saw people on Twitter today arguing that "progressives" shouldn't make a thing out of this because... I don't really understand why. I suppose they thought it reduced the left to the level of its rivals.

But they missed the point you make so well, that it's not opposition to illegal immigrants that should make this a big story, it's the rank hypocrisy.

Without the wider context, I think many on the left would be cool with Melania doing this work, and that's my guess why it hasn't caught on. It just doesn't stimulate their instinctual forms of political anger.
Click to expand...


Absolutely. I very deliberately used quotes around "illegal" because I hate the term and oppose the criminalization of immigration. But the story is the hypocrisy and populism around it, as well as the racial undertones.


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The full weight of a possible Trump presidency didn't really sink in for me until I saw his name on that ballot today. Wow.
 
The Latino vote is absolutely killing it this time around. I love it. Trump made his bed and now he's got to lie in it.
 
Other than Nevada, I'm not sure we have enough data to say so conclusively.


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gump said:
Other than Nevada, I'm not sure we have enough data to say so conclusively.


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Early voting in the Latino community is up over 300k in Florida. It's jumped from 9℅ of the early voting totals to 15%, which is, eh hem, uuuuuge in a state expected to be as close as Florida.
 
iron yuppie said:
Gary Johnson FTW!
(Kidding)
Click to expand...

I actually considered voting for him for a while (moons ago).

For the following reasons.

1. Even though I supported HRC over Obama in 2008 (saw her as more centrist), it's no great mystery why anyone would resist supporting her these days.

2. I live in a decidedly Red State. If HRC gets 35% here, I'd be surprised. So casting a vote elsewhere hardly hurts the anti-Trump cause. Besides this, I like the idea of sending a message to the GOP to get more back to its core libertarian values and further away from its authoritarianism and corporate/billionaire ownership.

3. I do have some libertarian leanings in the first place. Though it begs to be mentioned that Ron Paul's flavor of Right Wing libertarianism is hardly what I mean by that. Some call Lawrence Lessig a liberal libertarian and I liked him more than any candidate that ran for President (albeit briefly) this go-around.

4. I have been a 'third party' type since I was old enough to be engaged in politics. The two-party system has sold us out. I don't like either of them. So while there is no real equivalence in the modern state of things (clear the Dems are overall a better option than the more-atrocious GOP), I am always looking for a better option, at least in principle.

5. I've evolved over the years and by now I tend to consider myself essentially Center-Left. So I generally prefer the pragmatist Democrats. But the Leftist Green Party is hardly a good option to me. In other words...there are no better options. It's either HRC or Gary Johnson.

But here's why I could never, in good conscience, for vote for Gary Johnson.

1. HRC, beyond whatever else she is, is the only competent person on the ballot.

2. Even though my vote for her will not mean anything, it's still something a person with integrity has to live with. Voting for Gary Johnson just because HRC is an entitled part of a corrupted system is still voting for fucking Gary Johnson.

3-4. I might have some libertarian leanings and strongly desire a third party or Independent option, I strongly oppose some of the views this Libertarian Party stands for.

5. Aleppo (and other assorted items). Gary Johnson knows less than Donald Trump. And that is a scary thought. I don't care how much I desire a 'protest vote', I can't vote for that asshole.

My state doesn't allow write-in votes at all.

So since I can't write in "Jon Snow, the King in the North", I'll vote HRC.
 
There are parts of Johnson's platform that are highly attractive, for sure. Stop throwing people in jail for minor drug infractions, stop blowing resources on kicking law-abiding immigrants out of the country, etc. Then there's the other stuff, like basically no social services, no gun restrictions, that cut the other way. Libertarianism is strange that way.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
Early voting in the Latino community is up over 300k in Florida. It's jumped from 9℅ of the early voting totals to 15%, which is, eh hem, uuuuuge in a state expected to be as close as Florida.
Click to expand...

Let me rephrase my original point as I was unclear: I think we don't have enough data to know whether the increase in Latino turnout will be enough to make Hillary beat the current polls (other than in NV). As you pointed out, there is definitely evidence of increased Latino turnout in early voting, and there are indications that the Democrats are managing to get unlikely voters to actually vote. But I also feel there's a lot of noise in these last days before the election, and there we still don't know enough about how independents and undecideds vill vote.

But yeah, the indications are good.
 
iron yuppie said:
There are parts of Johnson's platform that are highly attractive, for sure. Stop throwing people in jail for minor drug infractions, stop blowing resources on kicking law-abiding immigrants out of the country, etc. Then there's the other stuff, like basically no social services, no gun restrictions, that cut the other way. Libertarianism is strange that way.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. It's like you could sit there and listen to that general platform and find yourself applauding loudly half the time and booing loudly the other half.

But even with the drug issue, and as someone that never really smoked MJ much even when I was younger (put me to sleep, alcohol was my thing), it's such a no-brainer to decriminalize MJ. And they want to do that...but also legalize all the rest of it, including meth and heroin. Have some sense, please.

Even so, if the Libertarian Party would get right on the social services, I could maybe swallow most the other stuff. The idea that the social services are unconstitutional, much less something that supposedly aren't working, or unneeded, is a total and absolute non-starter to me.

Still, I find myself yearning for something else. I think we need a competent Donald Trump. The votes are there, just need to get an acceptable enough candidate running for 2020. An Independent that isn't bought off by campaign funders (probably needs to be independently wealthy), that is reasonably centrist enough (Left or Right) just to help us get campaign finance reform if nothing else. Restore some fucking civility. Whether that's Bloomberg or Mark Cuban or whoever.

I liked Jon Huntsman in 2012. Yeah, he's a social conservative (religious man) and I'm not, but those battles are mostly won. Right now we need decency, integrity and not too-far-out ideas. Hell, we have that with Obama, IMO. But he's playing for one of the two teams. We need an Independent more than anything. Someone that the Dems or Reps in congress wouldn't mind allowing to have some 'victories'. Otherwise, nobody is going to work with the opposition. Nobody.
 
U2DMfan said:
But even with the drug issue, and as someone that never really smoked MJ much even when I was younger (put me to sleep, alcohol was my thing), it's such a no-brainer to decriminalize MJ. And they want to do that...but also legalize all the rest of it, including meth and heroin. Have some sense, please.
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The addictive drug issue is a tricky one, definitely, but I find myself thinking about legalization and regulation of something like heroin. For example in and around my hometown, there is a heroin epidemic. A little while ago, a batch came in that had been cut with something toxic, and it led to some severe health complications and even some deaths. With legality and regulation, that kind of thing doesn't happen. But you also risk normalizing it.
 
deep said:
"Never vote for any politician who got rich by being one". --- Harry S. Truman
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That would eliminate both of the major candidates this time around.

Of course Trump was born with a silver spoon, but let's not kid ourselves that he got even more bigly rich with his candidacy. i.e. Trump TV


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iron yuppie said:
The addictive drug issue is a tricky one, definitely, but I find myself thinking about legalization and regulation of something like heroin. For example in and around my hometown, there is a heroin epidemic. A little while ago, a batch came in that had been cut with something toxic, and it led to some severe health complications and even some deaths. With legality and regulation, that kind of thing doesn't happen. But you also risk normalizing it.
Click to expand...

I've had to take a long hard look at this myself, as my sister recently passed away, likely due to the same batch you're referring to.

I don't WANT people doing heroin. It took away a beautiful life in this world, and left a little boy without parents (his father is in prison for shoplifting to...likely have money to purchase more heroin), but I think to myself if she could've been saved by safer drugs, and I just don't know how to feel.
 
iron yuppie said:
That's awful, really sorry to hear that.
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Thanks, yeah. It's made a huge difference in my life. Before the whole "war on drugs" thing was something that happened, but I was removed from it. Now it's right in my face, and I really want to find a way to help/do something. Actually, I talked about this a little in Random when I was telling you all about meeting Common, come to think of it. I met Common on the flight home to her funeral. The two events, to me, weren't a coincidence, but, I'm a spiritual person and I believe in fate, so there you are.
 
bono_212 said:
I've had to take a long hard look at this myself, as my sister recently passed away, likely due to the same batch you're referring to.

I don't WANT people doing heroin. It took away a beautiful life in this world, and left a little boy without parents (his father is in prison for shoplifting to...likely have money to purchase more heroin), but I think to myself if she could've been saved by safer drugs, and I just don't know how to feel.
Click to expand...

So sorry to hear that.
I've lost a first cousin to drugs, can only imagine how much worse losing a sibling is.
 
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