I’m Glad That’s Over With!

I wrote the following post on Facebook yesterday morning:

Time to vote for Brain Cancer vs. Colon Cancer. I can vote for Ice Cream, but that’s just a protest vote, because we’re getting cancer either way.

Some of you may think that Colon Cancer is the lesser of two cancers. I can respect that choice. Because Brain Cancer really sucks.

But if you think either of these is actually going to be good, you’re smoking crack. I truly don’t get the cheer leaders, who are like Yay Colon Cancer! Colon Cancer is going to be AWESOME!

In the primary we could have voted for Ham Sandwich or Tolerable Rash even, but oh no, we said we wanted Cancer like the other guys. Sure, the tumor kept proclaiming it was actually All You Can Eat Shrimp, but it was pretty obviously a tumor on a colon.

In the unlikely event Colon Cancer wins (Colon Cancer isn’t polling well in most swing states) then I will cross my fingers and hope that it turns out to be a mild case of Colon Cancer.

 

##

 

And then after voting, I played videogames and didn’t look at election returns until around midnight.

Best moment of the night, my wife was lying in bed next to me, also reading her phone, and says “Hillary came in third in Utah.” And then we both started giggling for like three minutes straight.

As somebody who didn’t really have a horse in this race, who had to come to terms with not getting what I wanted months ago, I’ve got some comments for the rest of you. (for the record my primary vote was for Ham Sandwich, only All-You-Can-Eat-Shrimp/Colon Cancer supporters declared that was actually Canadian Bacon because they didn’t understand how the Naturalization Acts work, and his dad killed JFK)

I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m ecstatic that Hillary lost.

From what I heard this morning (haven’t looked to confirm yet, and woke up late) Trump got fewer votes than Romney, but Hillary got WAY less votes than Obama. So people decided they wanted colon cancer instead of brain cancer, but I don’t think very many of us were super enthusiastic about either. They just wanted the other crappy one to lose.

This election turned into “My authoritarian New Yorker is better than yours!” And shockingly enough, a authoritarian New Yorker won. Yay! Go cancer!
I did not see a Trump victory coming (apparently, neither did any of the professional pollsters). It is a testament to the sheer, banal, corrupt, unlikable nature of Hillary that she couldn’t beat the guy they picked as the most beatable. Maybe the painfully biased media has finally worn out its welcome, and people distrust their narratives too much for them to carry the day. You can only call cry wolf so many times before the villagers quit listening. I mean, come on, they portrayed mushy squishy Romney as the second coming of Satan-Hitler. When everybody who disagrees with liberals is a racist hatemonger of evil, people start to tune them out. So when somebody actually says something outlandish, and it gets reported, everybody is tuning them out or assuming it is nothing blown out of proportion, like usual.

Way to go media. You’re bigger losers than Hillary.

So we get Trump… Now I can only hope that I’m completely wrong about Trump’s character, and that he won’t govern like a thin skinned authoritarian. That would be nice, but I won’t hold my breath.

In fact, I would love to be wrong. I pray to be wrong.

I would like to get a good replacement for Scalia and repeal Obamacare (I’m sure everybody seeing their super jacked up health insurance bills at the end of the year didn’t help Hillary much either). But again, I’m not getting my hopes up. How those two things shake out should tell us a lot about how the next few years are going to go.

The president can’t know everything. Trump will either surround himself with good professionals who know their shit and he’ll listen, or he’ll appoint sycophants and yes men.

Either way, I don’t know how it’s going to go, so I’m going to keep stockpiling canned food and ammunition. Not panicking, mind you, that’s just what I’d be doing anyway.

I’m also seeing a lot of liberals this morning talking about how now is the time for reconciliation and “reaching across the aisle”. Ha! Remember when Obama got in, and “Elections have consequences”, and he had a “mandate” and you shoved Obamacare down America’s throats even though a lot of us didn’t want it? Yeah… It is probably going to be like that.

(and we were right. Obamacare sucks. It mathematically sucks. You idiots set Trump up to look like a rock star right out the gate, because simply getting rid of that thing will cause an economic boom)

All that stuff I’ve heard over the last few years about the OBSRUCTIONIST republicans blocking your sainted president from doing what he wanted? No shit. That’s how our government works. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and there is a president who wants to do stuff you don’t like, you’re going to expect the people you voted for to try and stop him. And then Trump will probably still cram through some Executive Orders you don’t like. Yep. We know exactly how that feels.

On that note, this is why if the idea of an executive power in the hands of That Other Asshole terrifies you, maybe then the executive shouldn’t have that power at all. Because eventually The Other Asshole Team is going to win, and do to you, what you did to them.

So liberals, remember laughing off and excusing things like Fast & Furious or the IRS targeting political opponents? Oh, silly republicans, the president has a phone and a pen and shut up! Uh huh… That kind of behavior seems terrifying now that somebody like Trump has it, doesn’t it?

Serves you right.

For the liberals flipping out this morning about getting loaded into cattle cars, chill out. There are plenty of legit reasons to dislike and distrust Trump without getting hysterical over memes and conspiracy theories. Yeah, he’ll probably suck and do things you hate. Welcome to what the other half of America has gone through for the last eight years. We lived. So will you. Probably.

On that note, if any of you hysterical melting down types actually believe Trump is Literally Hitler who is going to gas all the Gay Mexican Muslims in concentration camps, your local gun store is thataway. The nice men behind the counter will be happy to teach you about basic gun safety, how self-defense laws work, and then sell you one of those evil black rifles you’re so scared of. And then in the unlikely but catastrophic event the government did ever turn tyrannical and genocidal, you’d be in a position to do something other than cry about it on Facebook… But  I see a mass liberal run on guns to be about as likely as Trump turning out to be Reagan II, but hell, I’ve been wrong a lot this year!

 

 

Authors should never respond to Amazon reviews, but when we do it is hilarious
Interview with author Mike Kupari

317 thoughts on “I’m Glad That’s Over With!”

  1. They don’t understand the concept of the shoe being on the other foot because they can never imagine themselves not being in power. As far as their power fantasies go, they will rule forever and ever, amen. Anything else is an aberration to these people, so they never consider the idea that their policies and precedents could come back to bite them in the ass.

      1. They were warned, over and over that the goose and gander would one day switch places, but they were so certain the US had become a one-party state they didn’t care. I have no sympathy for them. None.

        1. These are people for whom the word “precedent” itself has no meaning.

          “Trump’s locker-room talk about women is Shocking! Horrifying! Crosses a line! Is beyond the pale!” comes out of the mouths of the very same people who have spent the last twenty years shrilly defending Bill Clinton, a man accused of rape by fourteen different women during his term in office–this over and above his romps with teenage interns, or all the time spent in the company of a truly repugnant character named Jeffrey Epstein, about whom any description would sound libelous, except that he’s already been tried and convicted.

          These people have no sense of history, no credibility, and no standing to beg for mercy or call for quarter.

    1. It seems like they honestly thought that their plans were perfect and that eventually everyone would love their horrible ideas. If nothing else trump made people that annoy, severely, me unhappy.

    2. Part of the problem is that we’ve had Obama for 8 years. College liberals have been “Right” for the entire time they’ve payed attention to politics. They hardly remember a time when Obama wasn’t in power. Modern communications accelerate that feeling; I’m starting to think that president might should go down to a 1 term limit job, instead of 2.

      1. The leftists are already talking about running Michelle Obama for 2020. So BHO would be back in residence @ 1600 PA Ave NW as First Dude. That’s one workaround for the term limits installed after the bad Roosevelt died in harness… And I don’t think there’s any legal way to prevent that eventuality. Better hope that Trump has a *really* successful 1st term…

      2. I don’t know that it would matter. They’re always horrified at the power of the presidency when a Republican (for given values of…) holds it, but they instantly forget it whenever a Democrat gets in.

        Every. Damn. Time.

        I tell you what, goldfish have better memory retention and concept association.

  2. I’m a little more salubrious about Trump than you, Larry, but I have the advantage of being a Canadian. It’s easier for me. 🙂

    I think this election, more than anything in recent memory, had demonstrated the folly of Big Government. If your house payment and kid’s education depend on who wins an election, that’s not a good life to have.

    1. Yeah. After 8 years of Hope and Change, GOP decided that political cults of personality that promise the moon were a good thing.

      1. True, but I more meant the expansion of executive and administrative power. I see a certain amount of hero worship as a natural part of elections. I’m going to wait and see if the “if you’re not 100% with Trump, you’re the devil” thing continues.

        1. That’s what worries me. I don’t trust Trump, but the fringe of his supporters scares me as much as Hillary did–and her campaign manager practically declared me an Enemy of the Revolution!

          I hope that fringe is just a fringe, and doesn’t wind up steering the ship.

          But I continue to cite Psalm 146:3. “Put not your trust in princes.”

          I feel sorry for A Song of Ice and Fire fans though. If 2004 is any guide, George R.R. Martin (no relation 🙂 ) will NEVER finish.

          1. 1. Martin dies before completing the books.
            2. Fans buy IP.
            3. Fans hire someone competent to redeem the story.

          2. More likely someone will eventually novelize the last few seasons the TV show, perhaps making a few changes to align it with the book verse rather than the show verse, and call that the end of the series.

          3. Yeah, if Bush winning made George take a year off, what is this going to do to his productivity?

            Hell, they should just hire me to ghost write the damn thing. I’d get that friggin’ thing out the door. 😀

          4. As a fan of martins i have a nagging suspicion this would change the tone of the story rather severly.

          5. Re: Honor Harrington, ONE recap book isn’t enough to make me give up. Weber has earned enough credit with me that I’m willing to buy his next one. (I buy the monthly bundles on a routine basis, so I’d get it anyway). If he writes too MANY recap books, then he might lose me, but he hasn’t lost me quite yet.

          6. I’m just darn glad it the kindle version was at a reasonable price (though higher than I usually will pay). If I’d paid full hard-cover price (and I’ve done that for his books) I’d be royally pissed.

            Usually a new Honor book means going to work on 2 hours sleep the next day. Took me a week to read that one.

          7. Yeah, i think anyone who wanted a hero has long since deserted that series.
            But God…..now that i think about the possibility i actually REALLY want to read your version of this.

          8. Pretty sure Sanderson already said he wouldn’t finish GoT even if asked, as it’s not his kind of thing (essentially). Still, it would be funny if it became a trend with him.

          9. Wait, he seriously took a year off because of that? Ya see this is why I never went near game of thrones. His age added to his frequent hiatuses and the reason for them discourage me.

    2. Boromir eventually realized his mistake, even at the last moment.

      These progressives will keep believing no matter what.

      1. Maybe not all of them. Some of them eventually hear the screams and repent of their folly. But some on the right call such people “neocons,” and there are a number of very obvious reasons this isn’t helpful.

  3. South Park defined this election as a giant douche vs. a turd sandwich. And they were right. The thing is, a turd sandwich is going to make you very sick, if not kill you outright. And when you’re faced with a repulsive, disgusting twat, a douche starts looking pretty useful.

    Sometimes there are no good guys to win, and you just have to settle for the bad guys losing. The bad guys lost, so I’m happy. For now.

    1. Absolutely true. Sometimes there are no good guys, or even if there are, they may have to do some bad things to stop even worse things from happening. That’s how I felt with this election; I’d do a bad thing (vote for him) to stop a worse thing from happening (her.) I’d love to live in a world where there was always a good option to pick, but in my time I’ve seen too often it’s just a choice between bad and worse, and deciding not to choose is still choosing. I learned my lesson about third-party protest candidates in 1992 when I helped elect the Horn Dog-in-Chief by voting for Perot. I wasn’t about to make that mistake again.

      That said, I can understand exactly why some could not stomach voting for either him or her; I guess my tolerance for nausea is higher than theirs. I do think coming up with moral justifications for any position in this unenviable situations is a little self-righteous. I did what I felt I had to do, and I accept that others did what they felt they had to do. So be it.

  4. The vulgar psychotic pig thoroughly defeated the corrupt warmongering hyena. So… yay us…

    I also voted 3rd party (though probably not the same one you did), and I think Trump will be a really bad President. But I have to admit that some less-than-morally-pure corner of my brain is just loving the leftists’ wailing and gnashing of teeth right now. ????

    1. I work with people who are pretty liberal… (I am one of three non-progressives/democrats) I am not gonna lie there seems to be a correlation with a coworkers currently level of unhappiness and how much they annoy me. This pleases me, somewhat.

      1. I also work in a pretty liberal environment. When I came into work yesterday, I greeted a guy who’s usually super-cheerful. He was noticeably less so that day.

        1. Know what the worst part is? The people that sincerely, believe he is Hitler 2.0. They truly believe that the muslims, jews, gays, women (that makes no sense), ect. will be sent to concentration camps. I mean if only there was a law that allowed people to use some device that can propel a piece of metal through a would be government agent trying to oppress citizens. Like a gun….. o wait.

          1. You should’ve seen the way some of my coworkers react when they have the “let’s remind everyone that open carry is legal” rally about a block away from our building. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating.

          2. Know what is sadder? One person I work with voted for Hillary. He owns 4 guns, registered Republican. Well, he claims those things anyway. He says it was because “Trump was just that bad”, but…. well…. He is the type of person that sucks up to superiors and caves to peer pressure. I guess I could just say he is spineless.

      2. I work in a decidedly conservative field (oil/gas), liberals are near non-existent. One of my co-workers left a voice mail for me to cheer me up since Brain-Cancer lost. I darn near feel out of my chair laughing. Oh the sweet sweet tears of prog anguish.

  5. As a liberal-lite, I really, really, really hope this is it for Clinton. She couldn’t beat Obama in 2008. She couldn’t beat Trump in 2016. Heck, I’m not even sure she could beat Bernie without the DNC pulling strings.

    As for Trump, I’m in total agreement with Larry. Maybe he won’t suck. Maybe the country will function better if it’s run like a business, with a cabinet made up of CEOs. But some CEOs end up divorced from the day-to-day reality of running a business, and when we consider Trump’s relationship with reality . . . hoooo boy . . . Rod Serling on LSD on the set of Willy Wonka would have a better grip on what’s happening.

    But maybe I’m wrong and Trump won’t govern like a thin-skinned nitwit.

    We’ll just have to see.

    1. Here’s hoping her next professional challenge will be outrunning the powerful hind legs of Death itself. Love to see how the “experts” will predict that race.

    2. “and when we consider Trump’s relationship with reality . . . hoooo boy . . . Rod Serling on LSD on the set of Willy Wonka would have a better grip on what’s happening.”

      He seems to have had a better grip on what’s been happening than the establishments of either party, not to mention the press, pundits, and pollsters.

      “But maybe I’m wrong and Trump won’t govern like a thin-skinned nitwit.”

      Well, we’ve already had almost 8 years of being governed by a thin-skinned nitwit, so at least we’ll be used to it.

    3. Trump is detail-oriented and a perfectionist, which I saw in the “Mighty Planes” episode “Trump 757”. I don’t think he’ll slough off his responsibilities, and I don’t think he’ll keep people who do a poor job.

  6. This “I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m ecstatic that Hillary lost.”

    This sums up my feeling exactly. Not my first, third or even fifth choice. Personally I wanted the Apple Pecan Chicken Salad. Yeah, it probably would cause indigestion, but it is different.

  7. It’s funny how a reciprocal response fills people with trepidation when the shoe has switched feet. I look forward to the looks of fear on their pasty little faces.
    And even better, the anticipation of judgment that show, as they await their just deserts. And keep waiting. And waiting.
    Hey, it’s not that I’m to good to enact revenge; it’s just so much more enjoyable watching them watch me.
    Will I snap? Will I strike back? When will I act?
    Bwahahaha!

    1. Um… what are you going to do, blow up a civic arts center or something ?

      True, Republicans just gained a huge amount of political power, but that doesn’t make you personally any more powerful than you were before. Nor me, obviously.

      1. You don’t understand, man! He’s a Republican and probably a white male who uses masculine pronouns!

        Obviously he’s nefariously waiting for the right moment to nefariously oppress all the women and gays and blacks and non-conforming categories of oppressed people even more obviously and nefariously than he already does by being cis-het-white- male .

        1. I dunno, apparently our ability to point and laugh at the unrestricted displays of abject narcisstic stupidity showed by the losing side is UNFORGIVABLE RACISM AND KILLING PEOPLE WITH WORDS and WHY WE NEEDS REVOLUTIONS NAO.

          Because patriarchy power or something. =3

          The only things I could kill with words are the characters I create in my books and so far I haven’t had a single character death… oh wait, no at least one. So … my poison pen is MAKING SO MUCH TRUMP RELATED EVUL.

          (By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, there’s some serious unhinged being displayed. Examples documented and mocked here.

          1. Sadly you are right. I came home tonight and signed online and one of the first things I saw was a very intelligent person whose opinion I normally respect linking approvingly to a tumblr blog listing “hate crimes perpetrated in the name of Trump.” The very first hate crime? People killing themselves because Trump got elected. Forgetting whether these things actually happened or not, for the sake of argument assuming they did (I have not had time to check, but I don’t think much of this site’s credibility off the bat) THESE ARE NOT HATE CRIMES. These are people who are depressed or already overwhelmed by events and this bit of unhappiness was the final straw. (my SO now tells me this story appears to have been made up).

            Shortly after was an obviously made-up story about some dude who was going to shave his head because he was now afraid to have long hair. Who referred to himself as “an uneducated white guy” under the headline “uneducated white guys now attacking even other uneducated white guys” Ummmm, no, sorry do not believe. And find the headline offensive. (speaking of offensive, trigger warnings! Below the articles the trigger warnings are for! what is the point of having a note at the end of an article telling people they might be upset by the article?) I quit reading the tumblr at that point.

            Didn’t click on your link but last night my wife showed me some of those vids of crazy people calling for an ambulance because of their horror at the election, and told me stories of colleges giving people special safe rooms with crayons and play-dough and crying time.

            A huge chunk of my fellow lefties appear to be suffering from some sort of mass pyschosis. Even before this election, I had followed a couple of conservatives on twitter simply because I liked their youtube vids pointing out the stupid of this sort of thing. Fortunately, there finally appears to be pushback (from their side, not yours; they either won’t notice your mocking them or will view at as validation of their rightness and your wrongness)

          2. Mojave, it’s not really mass psychosis, I don’t think. Instead, it appears to be a form of voluntary mass infantilization. These people are refusing to act like mature adults, instead acting like spoiled children and throwing temper tantrums when things don’t go their way. From our point of view, the “safe spaces,” academic speech codes, and politically-correct attempts at shaming anyone who doesn’t parrot the leftist cant are just confirmation that these people aren’t functioning adults, and are possibly even mentally disturbed. The worst part is that they haven’t all done this to themselves, but have had their psyches warped over the years by older warped people in academia (in many ways this is similar to the concept of “chickenhawks” in the homosexual community).

          3. I’m going to break this into two comments. I swear the part where I really disagree (which is only a tiny part of what you said) (the other part is interesting) is going to be polite despite my having to begin it with a scream. Apologies and mea culpas in advance if I misinterpreted you (this being when I took you to mean that older people preying on younger people was a gay thing, which concept is what I’m about to take issue with). I mean that really sincerely. And apologies for starting with the scream:

            AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            Again, apologies, had to get that out of my system. I was all thinking about the rest of your comment and then I got to the closing parenthetical. I have debated removing the scream but hope you will take it in good humor. I swear to you, as someone with many gay (using word to include lesbian and whatever other groups you might include in this) friends, and as someone who spent a fair amount of my late night social life in the early 90’s at clubs where half or more of the people were gay or bi (people into reading supernatural fiction really might enjoy going to a Gothic Club just for fun, btw–back then it was mostly into the vampire thing, I gather both before and after the goth scene was different, but it was hella fun, just to name one type of such club), and whose best friend in law school was a lesbian (and actually president of the LGBTQ whatever initials were in vogue way back then student group) I promise from firsthand knowledge that gay people as a whole are not running around making special efforts to warp impressionable youngsters. I’m sure there are cases where people go out with people younger/older than them, but that happens in the hetero world as well. I was dating a 23 year old when I was 17 and that was entirely hetero and I was the one who asked her out so I’m really not into lumping slight age differences involving older teens or people in college dating people out of college with scumbuckets who pray on children. And yes, some of those are gay, but some are hetero too.

            I grew up in an extremely right wing Christian area and was one myself, and I remember some of the things that used to be said about “the gay agenda” and pedophiles and stuff, and if that’s what you were getting at, this is just not true. I totally see how if this is what you hear from people who seem honest (and some or MOST of them probably ARE honest and just repeating what they heard elsewhere), and you don’t actually know any/many gay people it can be easy to believe it, but it’s just not true. I swear. And if that’s not what you were talking about I jumped to a conclusion, I really mean the apology.

          4. Okay, now for the rest of what you said, which is all really interesting: I actually agree with you about the temper tantrums and acting like spoiled children. And even voluntary mass infatilization. Especially in the form of abandoning critical thinking for knee jerk reaction on the part of people who actually can be quite good at critical thinking when they want to.

            I’m still thinking on the not functioning adults and mentally disturbed parts. I’ll go with yes and no both, depending on the person? And I do think the current way of dealing with issues like “no platforming” and the mass attacks on people who break from the party line and the stuff you mentioned all do have a highly negative influence (I would even go with warping except I’m still cringing over the way that last part sounded, and I really don’t mean to be a jerk–you guys have been totally cool since I’ve been here–but growing up I saw phrases like that commonly used to imply that gay people were running around seducing unwary teens to convert them or something so they’d have more gay people to have sex with as part of some deliberate strategy; you have no way of knowing this so if that’s not the way you meant it I do indeed sincerely apologize, and if you do honestly believe that, just please take my word for it, and I’ll stake whatever credibility I have established in my three days here on this, it isn’t so–“the homosexual community” includes a lot of past and present friends of mine) Where I’m less sure of the general idea is whether it was originally rooted in academia–it certainly took root there, but I think I noticed it coming from blogs and the academic fringes when I first noticed it. i was initially thought it a disturbing trend that would go away, now it has taken over everywhere and spilled offline into the real world, and yeah, the determination to impose thoughts on others or shun them thing is really not helpful. And that places like colleges which were supposed to be about challenging how you think and introducing you to new ideas are now morphing into almost brainwashing type institutions are not good.

            To bring it back to the presidential election: Liberty University, not someplace I would ever recommend, invited Bernie Sanders to discuss his ideas, and were polite and respectful to him. More liberal, “free-thinking” colleges have turned “no-platforming” into an art. I dislike it when your side is better at what my side prides itself on being, and a big chunk of supposedly the most open and accepting part of my side becomes a variant on what it accuses your side of being. Gah.

          5. Mojave, the term “chickenhawk” didn’t come from the right, it came from the homosexual community itself. And dwelling on whether such behavior exists, doesn’t exist at all, or to what extent it does, is really beside the point I was making.

            As for how the current vicious suppression of free speech in academia came about, it’s pretty much a natural progression of the progressive “long march through the institutions.” This actually started with the original Progressives, in the early years of the 20th century; John Dewey, Charles Eliot, Abraham Flexner, Stanwood Cobb. Then using the principles of Antonio Gramsci, an attempt at cultural hegemony was made. This has continued to today, as is very evident by the conditions on pretty much every college campus.

            Here is the definition of “cultural hegemony” from Wikipedia (a source which we often find quite biased, but in this case since they’re talking about a Marxist concept I suspect they’re probably pretty accurate):

            “In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the domination of a culturally diverse society, by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that their imposed, ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm; the universally valid dominant ideology, which justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.”

            This is the primary reason most non-leftists view most current academic institutions as little more than Stalinist training camps. Diversity of opinion and freedom of expression are anathema there. The only place such things occur are at conservative institutions. I’m afraid your side has lost all credibility when it comes to intellectual inquiry and rational discussion. We just don’t see any of that from you at all.

          6. Should I take your opening comments as meaning I misunderstood your initial frame of reference, and you were not implying what I thought I you were implying? In which case, yay! & I will apologize for misunderstanding (though surely you can see how easy it would be to take it that way?).

            While I usually associate the term “chickenhawk” with leaders who operate on the “Forward! he cried from the rear/and the front rank died” principle, and more particularly people who broke their necks avoiding combat and then rush to send others, I did google “chickenhawk” and to my surprise you are partially correct about the origins of the term (tho the whole “warping” thing apparently was not part of it, just older people who were attracted to younger people, which is … not uncommon in any community; not sure how that turned into warping anyone’s psyches)

            For better or worse, never read Marx except brief excerpts long ago, and most of the analysis of Marxism I read was also long ago, so I can’t really comment intelligently on Marxist philosophy itself, but I would say that “the domination of a culturally diverse society, by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that their imposed, ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm; the universally valid dominant ideology, which justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class” describes the behavior of most ruling classes in most places nowadays, and very much includes everything from the vast majority of business cultures to what has become of modern “journalism” on both the left and right (but hey, I grant you, when I think of how our modern news outlets have become primarily propaganda mouthpieces for one interest or another, and I include conservative media very much in this, I will grant you my immediate frame of reference is to the Soviet Pravda, so the Stalinists did set the modern standard for this sort of thing, and I share your sorrow that our current outlets are striving to reach the same heights, and sadly are arguably somewhat better at it) to the leadership of both parties now and most churches historically, and, well, that’s just the way a lot of people tend to default to. There have been exceptions, and I happen to like and prefer the exceptions, but exceptions they are. Academia, historically, has been the place to challenge that sort of thinking, and certainly still was even when I was in school, and I very definitely would not say the most conservative place I went to was the most free-thinking, so I’m not buying that this is some kind of inherently lefty problem, or that until VERY recent times it was a primarily lefty problem.

            On our current campuses, ummmm, I am very much the wrong person to defend them. I see the same you tube videos you do, and I can’t argue with the vicious suppression of free speech bit.

            ” Diversity of opinion and freedom of expression are anathema there. ” Yes, that seems to be the case in most places. It is sad what has happened. I again question whether conservative institutions have been better than the rest in even the very recent past (remembering the very recent past, let me express my strong disagreement with this statement, acknowledge that you disagree with my disagreement, and let it rest; there might be some way to have a meaningful argument about this but I don’t have that much free time), but right now … eh.

            “I’m afraid your side has lost all credibility when it comes to intellectual inquiry and rational discussion. We just don’t see any of that from you at all.”

            Okay, really. You see no one on the left ever exhibiting intellectual inquiry or rational discussion? I would never say that about the right. This is one of those things where you take some people in a group behaving badly and extrapolate to everyone. Where do we even go from there? I point to a place, you say “that’s not what I meant” or “I don’t think they are having rational discussion” and I say “yes they are”? Should I say, “No, your side is always irrational!” and point to the people who think the continued existence of winter snow is evidence against global warming?

          7. So far I can think of TWO leftists whom I know online who engage in good intellectual inquiry and rational discussion. You, and Bugmaster.

            I can also think of a few who have appeared rational at first, but who eventually proved to not be arguing in good faith, such as the guy who goes by (let me see if I can get his name spelled right) Camestros Felapton. Mike Glyer (who runs the File 770 site) is also infamous around here for his complete dishonesty, as he’s been known to deliberately twist quotations until they mean the opposite of what the original author intended them to mean. If you have lots of time on your hands, you can trawl through the archives of the madgeniusclub.com blog and find posts where one or both of them have commented (especially on the Sad Puppy threads). I don’t really recommend it unless you have lots of time and LIKE seeing dishonesty, though.

            And then there are the people I’ve seen online who just make NO pretense of rationality, such as William Schmalfeldt. (If you’re not familiar with him, you do NOT want to Google his name. Just… TRUST me on this one.) I’ve seen too many of those. Not all of them left-leaning, either: most of the truly devoted Trump supporters who showed up in Instapundit’s comment section were… not using rational debating techniques. It’s certainly not a problem exclusive to the left.

            Also, most of the left-leaning people I know in person are members of my extended family. And all of them are pretty rational (a couple of them suffer from a tendency to believe questionable sources too readily, but they’re quite intelligent people if only they would question the motives of the people who are lying to them). So my in-person count of rational leftists is pretty close to 100%. I disagree with them on many counts (usually with one of their premises, like the idea that the United States still has lots of racism), and in some cases they’ve committed a few fallacies in arguing. But they’re all intelligent, rational people.

            Online, though? Out of the dozens and dozens of leftists I’ve encountered online, I can count TWO that I would honor with the label “rational and intellictually honest”. You, and Bugmaster. That’s, what, about 8-10% or so? I don’t know the exact denominator of that fraction, so I can’t be more precise than that, but it’s less than the number of rational conservatives I’ve interacted with online. (THAT number I would place in the 30-40% range, so it’s far from 100% as well).

          8. Eh, I was getting a little testy up and over-literal in my interpretation up there anyway. Want to get to the gun thread (loved the post, already emailed it to a friend I think will like it) and just stopped by this thread to apologize if I was getting a little too animated and not giving enough benefit of the doubt when interpreting stuff. Blogs like this are sort of a community, and I don’t want to mess it up for people (this is y’all’s place; I share your frustration with certain parts of the left but otherwise we are mostly–not entirely, but mostly–pretty far apart, which is fine coz different types of people make life more interesting).

            Re: rational thought: Me recommending you guys check out Naked Capitalism may be like y’all recommending I check out Breitbart but I think you’ll agree they are not a bunch of knee-jerk name callers; if so inclined can try here:
            http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/three-myths-about-clintons-defeat-in-election-2016-debunked.html
            and/or
            http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/links-111316.html
            (they have great links and water cooler pages)

          9. You’re not the only one on your side shaking their heads.
            https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/videos/1044777035645189/

            He’s right mad at his side, unhappy about the Trump win, and acknowledging that it was the Left’s fault.

            He’s British, but is consistent on his irritation, at least when it comes to the reasons why Trump and Brexit happened – and he sounds pretty torqued off at the Remainers still screaming to stay part of the EU. “Brexit means Brexit. Why? Because Democracy means Democracy.”

            It’s worth watching his two videos. I’ll link the other one after this.

          10. I am not somewhere I can play videos right now but I promise by Monday I will look at these. Re: Brexit–ita that it and Trump support are both a massive “F– U!” to the ruling class–I heard most Trump supporters don’t actually like him or think he’ll do a good job but just want to sweep out the people who’ve been running things? I’ve read a lot of interesting discussion on Brexit, mostly at Naked Capitalism. I still don’t know whether it was the right decision or not. Putting it all down to xenophobia is just wrong, though.

  8. Adequate summation, Larry. Stolen with linkback. I wanted a Ham Sandwich too. But I guess some people don’t like ham with mustard.

  9. Wish I could be happier about the defeat of the Clintons, but right now I feel a bit like the people of Tokyo after Godzilla has defeated Ghidora. The monster’s gone, but the city is still a wreck.

    1. Could be. This was last last night, based on a report that was posted at who knows when, so I have no idea. It still made me giggle. 🙂

      1. I saw the “McMullin 2nd, Hillary 3rd in Utah” counts at fivethirtyeight.com last night, but the final votes I’m seeing have Hillary beating McMullin in vote counts. I guess McMullin got broader support in earlier-reporting districts.

  10. Serious question though. Trump won. Polls not only said said he wouldn’t, but unanimously said he wouldn’t and by a decent margin. Similar scenario with Brexit. So, how valid are polls right now? I do have a more specific question, should we question the approval rating of a certain current president?

    1. One of the things to take home from this election is that all polls were rigged, out the wazoo. Barry’s approval rating is clearly nonsense, if it is over 40%, given yesterday’s outcome.

      Wikileaks helpfully provided PROOF of the rigging, and discussions of how they do it.

      Basically, if it is in a newspaper or on TV, its a lie.

      1. Issue is that it seems internal polls were also wrong. This event is probably strong evidence of something further wrong with the standard models than just ‘media lies’.

        1. Telephone surveys, basically. Caller ID = a self-selected group answers the calls. All others skip it. Therefore the poll is biased.

          That’s an -honest- poll. Media polls are -deliberately- biased, as well as accidentally.

          1. I listen to Brietbart news on my way home in the morning. Every day for the last moth Pat Caddell, Jimmy Carters chief pollster, has been on lambasting the polls. He spends most of his time going through the fine print of what where the questions who was asked and where it was listed how the questions were asked. Lets just leave it at, he was not impressed by there method.

      2. I think the biggest problem the pollsters had was determining likely voters. We had dedicated voters sitting this one out and others voting who hadn’t voted in years. I realist anecdotes aren’t data but I personally know both types.

        1. It was my understanding that when Jesse Ventura was running for Governor, the polls were massively wrong about him, too. This was largely because, as a celebrity, he was attracting people that normally didn’t vote, so the usual tricks used to filter out unlikely voters from regular voters backfired in the polls.

          (These tricks are necessary because if you ask a random person “Are you likely to vote?” the answer is the socially acceptable “Of course I am! What kind of cretin do you take me to be?” but voters are more likely to answer questions like “Did you vote in the last election?” honestly for some reason…which is a somewhat reliable predictor for whether or not they’ll vote…)

      3. Taking a poll that accurately predicts an election is incredibly difficult to do right. I see no reason to call anyone liars because they didn’t manage to do it.

      4. If you ever have to explain American news to a foreigner, just tell them “If you see it on TV, it was made to entertain or to spread propaganda, or both. It has no bearing on the reality of life and politics in the US.”

    2. I suspect that Trump supporters were a lot less likely to talk to the media than Clinton supporters. Republicans in general and Trump supporters especially are sick of the biased media’s bullshit, and are tired of being ridiculed. Similar to the “I lost all my guns in a tragic canoe accident” response, I think the right stopped responding to polls.

      1. How many of you who still have a land line phone and get calls from people “taking a brief survey” actually answer their questions? I hang up on them. I don’t have time for that shit. I have both a business and a household to run.

        And online polls? Those are voluntary and must be either stumbled upon or sought out by the respondents. They only show the intentions/opinions of people who are willing to put forth the effort to take part.

        1. Good Lord, I live in PA and we were averaging about 1-2 surveys a night!

          Ring – pick up phone – “Hello?” – “This is a brief surv…” “*BLEEP* of and take me off your list!!” SLAM

      2. I can see that. I always decline when anyone from a media agency wants to ask me questions. Combination of I don’t trust them and I have better things to do.

    3. Some indirect answers to your questions:

      The liberal left absolutely adores the tactic of shaming those who disagree with them. If you are not with them, you are agai—Satan. You are Satan. As such, there are a lot of people out there who resent how things are going, disagree with it, but don’t voice their concerns because they dislike being referred to as Satan.

      Oppose/dislike our current president? Racist Satan!

      Given the innate dislike most folks have to be referred to as Satan (or some variation thereof), I’m not overly surprised some voters did not fully express their opinions.

      1. It’s not shaming, it’s demonizing. And yes, that is exactly their tactic. They’re as unreasonable as muslims are when discussing their mysogynistic pederast of a prophet. It’s what makes them so infuriating.

    4. Fake armies and dummy formations are a classical way of deceiving one’s enemies.
      BUT- one must not then count these as an honest part of one’s forces.
      The media has used the polls for years to create a bandwagon effect, or to just discourage opponents from voting. This year, it seems they actually believed their own propaganda.

  11. It’s possible to live with a colostomy bag. You can even have some fun with it. Brain cancer just makes you crazy and, if you live, takes away your mind.

  12. I wanted both of those cancers to lose, and one of them did lose, so… yey ?

    One good thing that might come out of this election is — hopefully — a renewed push for the abolition of the Electoral College, in favor of direct elections. The dissolution of the two-party system would be even better, but there’s no amount of hope that could make that come true…

      1. I live in England, and the Conservative Party here makes your Conservatives look like Barry Goldwater. Their official name is the Conservative and Unionist Party, and I wish they would drop the “Conservative” part and just call themselves the Unionist Party. At least they really are unionists, and the name change would probably actually help them in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

        1. Jic, you poor bastard. I hear there might be some nice jobs in the states, once we get the regulatory state’s boot off our neck. Just a thought…

          Though I thoroughly understand if you’ve got to fight the battles in front of you. Good luck. Brexit was a start. Don’t let it be an ending, too.

        2. In response to someone asking for a confirm about the existence of the Sex Party in Australia, I looked. I also discovered the existence of an Antipaedophile party and “Love Australia or Leave” party.

          http://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/party_registration/Registered_parties/index.htm

          Apparently the bullet train is getting built and the test lines will be between Brisbane and Sydney and Perth and Darwin. (Supposedly.)

          I’m rather impressed with the Perth to Darwin one, if true. Thats gonna be a looooooong rail.

          1. If any country could use a quick means of transport between populated across wide swath’s of barren hellscape, seems like Australia’s it. (No offense to Australians. I’m a pale Celtic redhead. Living in a place with that much sun and a hole in the ozone layer would probably kill me, if the terrifying animals didn’t do it first.)

          2. I get heatstroke when the weather goes up to 30 degrees centigrade here. My problem is the dry heat coupled with a cool breeze: I soak up the heat, and the breeze keeps me from sweating. Have to be careful since I’m used to humid hot places.

          3. “I get heatstroke when the weather goes up to 30 degrees centigrade here.”

            Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t like too much cold either, but when it gets too hot, I’ve been known to literally pass out. I probably would have gotten a serious head injury in one such instance if my brother hadn’t caught me. That was in California. My body simply was not designed for a lot of sun/heat.

          4. My god, I’ve flown that route in a C-130 and it seemed interminable. I mean, yeah, C-130, but still, it was a straight shot. The view of that landscape from a train won’t be much better.

          5. When I asked about the bullet train to a friend who is a bit more aware of it, he said that the line between Perth and Darwin was one of the ‘tests.’ I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be a test of anything.

            I know there are freight train lines that cut through the outback, and I have to wonder about the bullet train idea – I hear of trains getting derailed if they hit large animals (which, considering the red kangaroos, the wombats and the wild camels, cows, horses, etc is a valid concern) – so I wonder how they’ll handle that issue.

          6. Install cow-catchers on the fronts of the train.

            Yes, they look better on steam engines than on diesels, but better to have an… unstylish… train….

            …Imma stop there ^_^

          7. It’s Australia. If it’s gonna be there, expect something somewhat over the top.

            At least, that’s what I’d expect. (“Hold my beer, watch this” folks !)

          8. Could put a shield car or three far ahead of the main train. A form of ablative armoring. As the shield cars hit things, they absorb the impact by crushing and falling off to the side of the track.

          9. While looking through the giant list of candidates for president on my ballot, I noticed a “Nutrition Party” in the US.

    1. Everytime I think about this being a good idea I just look at Europe and go ohh yeah well…guess that didn’t work either.

      1. There is no perfect solution and people who tell you otherwise are either morons or trying to sell something, possibly both. And i for one prefere a system where a smaller but sizeable subset can make use their voices to create an independant bargainig Chip they can use to influence Politics.
        It makes the threshold for any party to have an influence on the political process just this much smaller, for better or worse.

        But then, in full disclosure, greetings from germany 😉

          1. We are way way more statist than you are and this would be reflected in any system that atleast somewhat reflects the will of the people. That does not make the system as a way to organise a democracy bad per se.

      2. Yeah, I’m not saying it’d be all buttercups and rainbows, just marginally better than what we’ve got now…

        1. The nice thing about the world as it is, is that if you don’t like the political system of the country you’re in, you can move to one that suits you better.

          Especially if you have money and a useful skill.

    2. I’m okay with the EC as a balance between popular vote and the risk that less populous regions would get completely overwhelmed. If we ran the country entirely from LA and NYC, all of Utah would be hosed.

      1. That was something that actually made our heads shake while hubby and I were watching the polls being counted. Hillary got 200+ just from getting the entirety of the West Coast blue and some spots blue elsewhere. To win, Trump had to get the majority of the rest of the United States. Kinda scary to watch.

        Then we watched Trump surge ahead and breathed a sigh of relief, because no Hillary.

      2. I read a good analogy to the EC just today. The popular vote would be as if the World Series were to be won by the team that scored the most runs. So if the AL team won the first game 10 to 1 and the NL team won the next four games 1 to 0, the the AL team would have won because they had 10 runs and the NL only had 5. So with the electoral college as it is now, winning the populous states is a big advantage but not enough in itself; you also have to win enough states total to get over the 270 mark. That keeps small states (and rural ones) from being overwhelmed by a few large coastal ones (because that’s pretty much the current reality.) And that due to the two votes every state gets as representative of the senate. Pure democracy (i.e. the popular vote) is simply mob rule and our government was set up to avoid that. If electoral college votes were awarded by which candidate won each congressional district and the two at large votes to who took the popular vote in the state then Romney would have won in 2012. I’ve lived in California and left because I was and had been completely disenfranchised for years. Not only was my voice not heard, my issues and concerns were treated with contempt and disdain. That’s what mob rule does. That’s exactly why this country is a republic not a democracy, and why it was supposed to be a confederation of equally sovereign states with the federal government in place to take care of larger national concerns (defense) and to adjudicate disputes between these sovereign states. Our founders did not trust the passions of the mob not to do crazy things.

    3. Nice try. All votes in one pot means decision is by heavily corrupt heavily populated areas. Segmentation preserves the influence of areas whose population dislikes corruption enough to keep their politics cleaner.

      As for the other, see Denbeste’s essay on party systems as signal processing, and the apparent compatibility issues between multiparty and freedom of speech. Replace the GOP with something that will oppose Democrats, sure.

      1. Correction: This assumes that elections are still handled at local levels. At local levels, direct election would shift the contest into who can manufacture the most votes. At votes cast several times the population, the election will fail to persuade. To mitigate that, there needs to be some mechanism to pick and choose which votes to throw out, to keep the totals low enough to be plausible. If direct, this would have to be centralized to prevent cheating. In which case, the central election committee would be who you pay to win.

        Segmentation means that at worst you have a bunch of smaller entities to buy with money and favors. Which is less autocratic than one set of Praetorians.

    4. http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep/math-against-tyranny — it’s an old article (originally published in 1996), but I drag it out every time someone wants to get rid of the Electoral College. The Math shows that having districted elections like the electoral college provides actually increases the power of the individual vote. States like California notwithstanding. Amending the EC the way Maine has would be okay with me, but I don’t want to see the institution dissolved.

      1. It will never happen for the simple reason that if you took the 2012 election and allocated electoral votes based on district, then gave 2 for each state won and the final electoral vote being D.C….Romney would have beaten Obama. I say that as someone who very much like’s the EC and is ecstatic that Trump won

    5. The EC is basically impossible to get rid of. It would require a supermajority in congress, and then the states would have to ratify it. And they won’t, because many (most?) states benefit from it. Flyover states with 3 EC votes can actually do something with those 3 votes; a purely popular vote would make them completely irrelevant. Which means no one campaigns there, and no one makes campaign promises to draw them in; they’ll campaign solely for the benefit of Commifornia and NYC.

        1. Which proves that there is no idea so terrible that you can’t get a large number of fools to back it. Their site talks about how the candidates spend most of their campaign time focusing on just the battleground states, as if they think that would change if they passed their idiocy. No, it would just get worse, as candidates would just campaign in the biggest cities and completely ignore most of the country.

          1. There’s a video from Purdue University that explains how even the idea of which States are “Swing States” changes from election to election.

            Every election, there’s always a State or two that was a swing state last time, but no longer is, and one or two that used to be solid, but are now waffling.

        2. NPV is facially unconstitutional. Article I, Section 10, Clause 3:

          “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

          If Congress hasn’t affirmatively consented, NPV is forbidden.

    6. No, no, no. If you look at the map of red vs blue counties you will see that it isn’t red states vs blue states, but the countryside vs cities. The electoral college gives weight to geography. The last thing I want is to be ruled by the insular inhabitants of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, etc. Or as I see it, the castles of a degenerate nobility lording over the serfs. The original states felt the same way about NY and PA, which is why we have the Electoral College.

      1. I had a thought today. What if the electoral college was determined by county? Like, give each county one point, and the party with the most points within a state gets all that state’s electoral vote. This would heighten the power of votes in less populated areas, thus incentivising people moving out of the big cities and spreading around the country a little, thus helping to alleviate some of that strain that low-income people in big cities keep complaining about (e.g. cost of housing, crime).

        Of course, this would never happen because then Republicans would win every election forever, but I still think it’d be a good idea.

        1. Actually, how electors are selected is entirely up to the individual states. You could lobby your state legislature to try this if you like. Myself, I’d like to see the elections be solely for uncommitted electors, with the presidential candidates not even listed. Pick the electors who best represent your views and trust them to vote for the best presidential choice (who wouldn’t even have to be a declared candidate).

          1. But Doug, that would require people to actually research and think about who to vote for rather than relying on blind, ignorant party loyalty. It’d never work.

            I actually saw someone online suggest that this could be fixed by all states deciding to give their electoral votes to the candidate who won the most popular votes nationwide. And I thought, yeah… why would any red or swing state do that? It would be as good as throwing away any right to representation they have.

          2. To boot, that would be unconstitutional unless Congress agreed to it:

            Article I, Section 10, Clause 3:

            “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

        2. I have no way to get a valid set of numbers for a county-by-county EC distribution, but let’s play with some scenarios anyway.

          Each state gets electors based on the number of congress seats (house + senate). The way Maine breaks out their electors is that the house seat part of the elector count is divvied up based on the percentages of votes for each candidates, with the extra 2 for the senate seats given to the one who carries the state. For a State like Maine with 4 electoral votes it usually means 3 goes to one candidate, 1 going to another.

          Doing some slow math (using the current vote counts on cbsnews.com), if every state did it like Maine, Trump would still have won, but the electoral votes would be 276 for Trump, 258 for Clinton, 3 for Johnson (2 from Cali, 1 from TX) and 1 for McMullin (UT) instead of 305 for Trump and 233 for Clinton if the last few states are declared as their current tallies stand. Probably a bit more representative of how close this election actually was. And Clinton would only get 35 of the 55 electoral votes in California, making it less of a Democrat powerhouse.

          I don’t have easy access to numbers by House districts, but I’ve heard it proposed before to amend the EC to have each House district count separately for their elector and the 2 senate count ones go to the candidate that wins the most House districts in the state. A rough estimate, based on the available numbers for the house, combine with the way the states played out puts Trump at about probably 290-310 electoral votes if that were the scenario, due to the way so many of the House districts are gerrymandered, so pretty close to how the count actually fell out this time.

          I expect that the Democrats have the best chance for Presidential wins with the EC the way it is currently (Or to abolish it entirely, which I will always fight against). I find it interesting that most of the time I heard someone propose an amending of the EC to one of these other methods that it’s usually someone on the left who suggests it thinking they’ll do better in the elections. Guess they need some remedial math classes.

          1. My thinking is, almost everyone considers some national change in how electors are selected. The Constitution leaves that entirely up to the states. Any state could change the way they select electors, anytime they like. It doesn’t have to be the same everywhere.

          2. And it isn’t the same everywhere right now, just almost everywhere. Maine and Nebraska distribute their electors. They’re just such small states that the distribution is only a blip. The big states would make more of a difference, but I can’t see California ever passing a law that would enfranchise the Republicans in their state in that way. California alone carries 10% of the electoral vote in the country (Texas, the next biggest electoral state, has 7%), and I don’t see the Democrats there wanting to dilute that powerhouse of a voting bloc by distributing the EC votes in any fashion.

            Mostly I posted the above as an exercise the maths involved. It’s interesting to see that Trump still wins in any of the scenarios.

        3. From what I’ve seen, this method of allocating votes leads to some truly topologically creative gerrymandering. I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea; at least, not by itself.

          1. Well, I think as part of it there’d have to be either a moratorium on fiddling any more with county lines, or just saying that it’s always based on the way counties were arranged 50 years ago (50 years before whatever election is happening at that time).

      2. I understand your desire to maintain some degree of independence from the much more populous cities. Personally, I am not convinced that abolishing the Electoral College would likewise abolish this independence — you’d still retain your 2 Senators and a population-proportional number of Representatives (note that, under the EC system, the number of your electoral votes still depends in part on the population of your state). Furthermore, states have a lot of local autonomy in the US, regardless of who the President is. We could discuss this in more detail if you wish, but first let me respond to a different issue.

        When you call me personally a member of the “degenerate nobility lording over the serfs” just because I happen to live in a city, I can take it in stride; all it does is make me value your arguments a little less. However, from a moral standpoint, if it’s not ok for Hillary to call regular people “deplorables”, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing that, either. From a strategic standpoint, alienating large (and relatively politically powerful) groups of people is how Hillary lost the election. Morality aside, following her example may be unwise.

    7. I disagree. Not being a big city libtard, I gratified that they congregate in a few states. The Hildebeast won huge in LA, NY, Boston, Philly, DC and Chicago. Narrow wins in flyover country Trumped them.

    8. Yes the EC was created to deal with communications realities of the time.

      But part of the EC is to protect the minority from a tyrany of the majority, preventing the big states from running roughshod over the small states.

      That is still important.

      IMHO, the big problem with the EC currently is that 48 states have a ‘winner-take-all’ approach to allocating the votes. Two states gave EC votes to both Trump and Clinton yesterday, if this happened in all states, things would be very different.

      However, I don’t expect Democrats to go along with this as currently the urban centers get to override the will of the rest of the state in many states.

      California would still send most of it’s votes to the Democrats, but it would no longer be a monolithic block that the Democrats could always count on, but a large series of smaller contests where they would actually have to think about what the people in each area want/need.

      1. Actually, the EC was created because the framers weren’t at all fans of direct democracy. States weren’t even required to hold popular votes for electors; state legislatures can choose electors in any way they see fit, including by direct appointment. It wasn’t until 1868 that all states held presidential elections. And in fact, candidates didn’t actually campaign for the presidency till about 1840. Before that it was considered gauche to do so.

      2. The main thing (originally) protecting the small states from over-centralization of power, other than the Constitution itself, was states’ appointment of Senators. Repeal of the 17th Amendment would do wonders to bring back federalism.

    9. Absolutely not. The Electoral College is saving grace for this country. If we had popular presidential elections, we’d be ruled by the coasts. No thanks.

    10. Right now, I think the second fastest way to ensure the dissolution of the United States and/or a second Civil War would be to get rid of the EC (the first fastest way would be banning/actively confiscating guns). “Flyover” states already feel disenfranchised; if you take away the franchise they have left and leave them to be dominated by the coastal urban conclaves, you can damn near guarantee they’re going to start looking for the exit.

      1. What about having more or all states assign votes Proportionally to the percentage of votes (rounded up for the victor obviously). That would take the focus off off swingstates and provide an incentive to vote and participate for everyone.
        I might be an outsider but a system in which moving to california as a conservative or to Texas as a liberal from a swingstate suddenly means your opinion of who should be president effectivly stops to matter seems……questionable to me
        .

        1. The issue there is that it just shifts it from urban states vs rural states to urban areas versus rural areas. This would have the same issues for rural areas that the popular vote would have, however, given how Trump won the EC he might have won anyways with this method.

    11. Just so you know, I downvoted your comment not because I think you’re being unreasonable, but simply because I disagree (STRONGLY) with you. Unlike many liberals who come to this site just to throw mud at the “evil” conservatives who disagree with them, you have always behaved with respect and good will. Thank you. Please don’t take the massive downvoting of this comment as a “go away”, but rather as an indication that the vast majority of commenters here disagree with you on this point. Abolishing the EC would be a mistake of EPIC proportions. Others have explained why, so I won’t go into detail. I’m posting this mostly to say “Thank you for being here; it’s nice to have someone who disagrees with me yet doesn’t insult me, and whom I can have a reasonable discussion with.”

      1. Thanks for the compliment; actually, I usually don’t even look at the downvotes. I figure that our host will ban me if/when he finds it appropriate, but until then, I’ll just express myself the best way I can. That said, I personally have a policy to only downvote those comments that are downright abusive; I think there’s value in reasoned discussion, even if (or, possibly, especially if) when you vehemently disagree with the other side. That’s just my own personal policy though, I’m not saying that you’re an evil monster for not following it 🙂

    12. Back in 1787, the Constitutional Convention nearly broke up over the issue of equal representation of states versus equal representation of population. There was a very real fear that the interests of the smaller states would be overwhelmed by the big states and their big cities. The compromise was to do things one way in one House of Congress, and the other in the other. The electoral college is biased towards the smaller states with a similar effect.

      It would take a Constitutional Amendment (with a 3/4 majority of states) to abolish the Electoral college. Even now, getting that last quarter of smallest states to agree that the residents of the big cities are going give proper respect to the interests of people out in flyover country sounds like an exercise in futility.

      Hillary, and the Democratic establishment, and the media showed too much disdain too often and too long for people outside their focused target audiences, and eventually it came back around.

    13. Direct elections? Clinton won the popular vote. You want that?

      Make the Electoral College vote proportional in all states, but don’t blow it up. If you do that, we lose even the semblance of a Republic we have.

      1. I think it would be rather short-sided to base our political system on which candidate I personally want to win. In our current case, I wanted them both to lose, so it wouldn’t even help.

        That said, even if the EC was still abolished tomorrow, you’d still have state’s rights, 2 Senators per state regardless of population, and lots of limitations on the President’s power. You might argue that abolishing the EC will set us on the path toward turning the President into a God-Emperor, but that’s different from saying that EC is the one singular thing that stands between us and tyranny.

        1. … you’d still have state’s rights …

          I’d argue that we effectively don’t have them now. How many times has the Tenth Amendment been successfully cited in overturning a federal law that trampled on states’ rights to pass their own laws? Not often.

        2. The limitations on the President’s power are checked by the Supreme Court. Considering who appoints Supreme Court justices, you could see how eliminating the EC and essentially allowing the most densely populated areas of the country to determine the President would lead to major abuses of power over time.

          If you elimate the EC, you have to restrict voting to land owners and/or tax payers.

    14. If you really want to get rid of the two party system, consider changing us to a parliamentary system. This also avoids gridlock, and (if I may use Canada as an example) seems to make it somewhat more likely that if we have to have a big welfare state, its supporters will at least be able to raise taxes enough to actually pay for it without deficit spending — a problem our system seems incapable of solving as it is.

      Of course that is not the only answer, and I don’t think it’s the best. But it’s one that has at least been tried, and from some points of view works.

    15. You had better thank whatever deity you favor for the electoral college. It is the only thing that keeps the ACELA corridor, Chicago, and California from running the country into the ground. See New York State, where NYC makes the laws and everyone outside is screwed.

    16. I fail to see how abolishing the Electoral College would have prevented a catastrophe from winning. It would have merely caused the candidates to change how they would have campaigned….and we’d be faced with arguments over what would amount to a statistical tie (which is what the popular vote turned out to be!).

      It should also be observed that Hillary didn’t win a simple majority: she won the plurality, and then, only just barely. *And* it should be noted that different States count (or don’t count) provisional ballots in different ways — usually, they are only counted when it’s clear that they can affect the outcome of an election. Thus, we’ll never really know who won the popular vote!

      I, for one, really like the Electoral College. It discourages politicians from focusing their efforts on the most populous places.

  13. Trump won. Whatever your complaints about the man might be, he isn’t going to actively try to screw you over. Things might even get better for you.

      1. My greatest hope is his big ego. He really wants to go down in history as a great president. He may be smart/sly enough to reduce the federal red tape that is strangling America.

        Will you take his ambition and ego as reasonable speculation?

        1. Ambition and ego are good things if properly focused. George Washington was known to have both, but he also had a keen sense of history, which is why he refused the prospect of kingship b/c his ego would not allow him to take an action that could potentially have him viewed negatively by posterity.

    1. And a magic unicorn might fly down a rainbow and fart free healthcare for everyone.

      That’s a lot of mights and maybes in there. Like I said, I’d love for you to be right about Trump, but I ain’t holding my breath.

      1. What I *wanted* ain’t gonna happen (I wanted a ham sandwich, too). Perhaps the most likely outcome is massive gridlock. Remember back when we just wanted Congress to just go into 4 years of gov’t shutdown?

        The left will still fight him, possibly joined by ‘Pubs who don’t like him any more than I do… As long as that keeps the whacko tendencies chained down, we might be okay…

        But wait, didn’t we just have *eight damned years* of phone & pen, “I won (so I get to play by my rules now),” Executive orders for when Congress fails to act, and so on?

        Yup, we’re still screwed. Maybe not as badly. Possibly. Still going to prepare for the worst likely case, though.

        1. “possibly joined by ‘Pubs who don’t like him any more than I do…”

          See, I hope with all my heart that they do exactly that. Because they will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had the tools to block Obama and the Democrats’ lousy proposals, but were too spineless and corrupt and too much in agreement with them to do so.

      2. Well, he just became the first President to endorse concealed-carry reciprocity, so he’s off to a good start.

  14. To be honest I would have much preferred Hilary over Trump; preferred a weaselly little professional politician over an oaffish buffoon. To borrow a phrase, “Yes, Hilary’s bad, but at least she’s bad within normal parameters.”

    Hopefully, Trump won’t be as bad as his detractors make out (not difficult) but so far – to me anyway- he’s come across as a man who says whatever will play well with the gallery at any given moment, with no real ideals beyond his own ego. 🙁

    And he’s going to be the leader of the free world.

    Good luck and God bless us all.

    1. I think a lot of people are thinking of it the opposite way. There’s the saying “better the devil you know” but there’s also a saying about “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Clinton would be 4 more years of Obama, but worse. People are sick of Obama, and the establishment in general. We don’t know what to expect from Trump, but a chance at something better than what we have now is better than no change at all.

      1. In my opinion Hillary would have marked the definitive end of the republic. Not because of what she would do but because what she had done. She got caught red handed, numerous times, violating federal laws, abusing her authority and rigging a primary and we aren’t even get into the conspiracy theory zone. It was beyond that pale, and frankly it would have even made the gilded age political bosses blush.

        Her winning would have been a big signal to the monied elite that they didn’t even have to pretend to follow the rules anymore so long as they win. It’s one of the reasons the Roman Republic died, and it would have been a mortal blow to an already ailing American Republic. As it stands there isn’t a guarantee that our republic will survive the coming decades but the election of Trump at least signifies that there is a possibility of a chance.

    2. Hillary wore Mao suits. That sends a fairly strong signal of her intentions. If somebody wandered around their professional life in sheets, or Hugo Boss outfits, I hope they would qualify as bad outside of normal parameters.

    3. Oafish Buffoon who has yet-to-be-verified policy positions; or corrupt, spiteful, lawless, crony nepotist who’s accomplished nothing of value during a lifetime of public service.

      I didn’t vote for the guy, but at least there’s a chance he might do something beneficial.

      1. There’s always a chance.

        Mind you at one point I found myself muttering about who would be a better choice than Trump? And the answer came back, anyone who isn’t a character named Platt in a David Drake novel.

        It cropped up on another thread, and since GRRM has been mentioned, that Cersei Lannister might have been a better choice than Hilary. Hmmm . . . believes in close family bonds and, unlike some politicians, always pays her debts; she could well have done better than Hilary.

        And a very random thought, Trump and Putin meet in the Oval Office. (Actually when I first had this random thought it was Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister of Great Britain, but I figure most people on the western side of the pond haven’t heard of him. And God willing you won’t.) But anyway, they meet up, they dismiss their aides, they check there’s no one hiding, they use hand held scanners to check for bugs, and then when they are sure they are truly alone: “Hail Hydra!”

  15. On that note, if any of you hysterical melting down types actually believe Trump is Literally Hitler who is going to gas all the Gay Mexican Muslims in concentration camps, your local gun store is thataway.

    One of my early concerns about Trump is that his xenophilia makes it unlikely that he will support handling illegals appropriately, as Romulus handled Remus.

    It is possible that he superficially dislikes Mexicans, but his business practices are straight out of the Mexican playbook.

  16. Larry, I’m going to borrow your metaphors for an extended response.

    The problem with that lovely Ham Sandwich is that it’s deviled ham. And all of us who happened to like deviled ham will, like Peter Burke, never convince Caffrey and Mozzie and Jones to like deviled ham. It’s just not going to happen. Appearance and likability matter. That’s why Ham Sandwich isn’t a viable national candidate.

    As for Ice Cream… well, just like the confection, the candidate is all sugar and fluff with no substance. Same for Egg McMuffin. We simply need better alternative food items on the menu if we want to convince people to choose them.

    And while I’m very much in the same boat as you regarding NY Authoritarian C or D… well, NYA-D actually has some good policy papers. Some REALLY good policy papers. And if we don’t stop it NOW, this country just keeps moving further left and further authoritarian as its flooded with “voters” who shouldn’t be.

    And the final issue is that this is a group meal. There are a lot of people involved in choosing that meal who put up with menu items they really didn’t like for a long time. So when our fellow choosers reach a consensus on a menu item that we don’t like that much, we may simply have to hold our noses and accept this go-around.

    And I know, you’re looking at the menu item they chose, and it looks like it might an improperly-prepared McDonald’s hamburger that’s going to give you a stomach bug you’ve never even heard of. And maybe it is. But maybe… maybe it’s actually Red Robin.

  17. I’ve been what the libs call a “Trumptard” since the beginning (Trumptarded like a fox!). I’m livin’ large today. Gamergate, Hugo’s getting exposed, Brexit, and now Trump. Truth, baby.

  18. You’re never going to get me to believe that Hillary losing is a bad thing. Part of that is because traveling along different branches of the time-space continuum is not currently possible, of course.

    I voted for Trump. Not because I believed in him to fix our country. I voted for him because I was disgusted with how he was treated by the press who took every chance they came across to vilify him and cover up every weakness of Hillary. I also have been disgusted by the establishment in DC for a long time giving us lip service then landing in that cesspool and doing nothing of what they promised. I also voted for him because he makes heads explode which belong to people who truly believe they have a right to control not just what I say, but also what I think. So yes, I’m afraid that my vote for Trump was based on the fact that, at least to a point, he is weaponized dissatisfaction.

    You want to lie to me because you think you know what’s best for me, lie to me just to get/solidify your own power, or figuratively spit on me because I have the audacity to disagree with you? Fine. That’s your right, God bless America. But for the next four years I want those listed above to think about that while they deal with this asshole.

    1. I was unable to vote for Trump (I voted for Egg McMuffin) but this is a major reason I was deeply pleased by the election results, despite not being able to endorse the winner.

      The loser *really* deserved to lose, good and hard!

    1. 2. Trump’s powers of persuasion are better than I have ever seen from a living human. That made it likely that the election would be close.

      I think Adams is seriously overselling Trump’s power of persuasion. If you look at the vote totals, he got less votes than Mitt fucking Romney, and voter turnout overall was pretty low for this election. That’s not the record of a persuasive man.

      What saved him wasn’t his persuasion, it was that Hillary was in a race to see who could be the worst possible presidential candidate and won.

      1. Mitt Romney wasn’t running against both the Republican and Democrat parties, along with the entire media, though. Trump winning at all and not being third in Utah himself is in fact an astonishing feat.

        1. If he was “the most persuasive man alive”, he wouldn’t have been running against both parties; he’d have persuaded at least one of him to support him whole-heartedly. And his election totals would look more like Ronald Reagan’s.

          1. No, a plain dumb thing to say is that a man who lost the popular vote and eeked out an electoral college win is the “most persuasive man alive”. If you go by results, which in the end are the only things that matter, Obama is more persuasive than Trump. He at least won both his elections with a majority.

          2. Indeed. Judging by the behavior of Trump and his most fervent supporters, his “persuasion” looks a lot like bullying and groupthink.

          3. He failed to persuade me he was a Republican. The most persuasive man in the world might be able to convince me that Himmler, running as an anti-Nazi candidate, had a conversion experience which changed his heart and made him sincerely opposed to the Nazi party, and all Nazi ideals, policies, and methods.

            Trump’s messaging strategy may have been ‘nominally Republican Democrat’.

  19. By the time the Primary got to Georgia it was all over so my vote didn’t matter. I still voted and it wasn’t for the Donald. I like the cancer metaphor. It’s much better than mine; a choice between a turd sandwich and glass of warm pee. I can’t tell you how much I want to vote for a candidate instead of against one. Where have all the good people gone? Maybe we need the Space Cowboy Libertarian Candidate to step up.

  20. Get out of my head! Seriously, you have said pretty much everything I have been saying to other people today. This was such a bittersweet outcome if I can even be that generous.

    I am so very glad to have recently found the Monster Hunter series and a author that actually shares my opinions on seemingly everything.

        1. I’d say we didn’t nuke the Japanese hard enough, except I’m not sure Americans aren’t responsible. I don’t know my rockets, but I think those might be ICBMs being launched, and that’s a bit too far for the Japanese.

  21. Trump by himself might not overcome his own history, but there is always the Grace of God, which should never be ignored.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see what that idiot Scalzi thought about the election results. I’ll be taking a bucket along to catch the tears of rage that will be dripping off of him.

    (Yah, I know it’s hypocritical to speak of the Grace of God in one sentence, and in the following sentence to talk of gloating over an enemy’s discomfiture. Mea Culpa.)

  22. Does all this talk of butt cancer relate to the prez. elect’s earlier comments that he was “not a politician”? I think it does. He may not have been one before, but he is now… a polyptician.

  23. If Trump turns out to be Reagan 2 he’s going to have a lot to answer for. That’s the difference here. Americans will at least ATTEMPT to hold Trump accountable. Libtards never admit their masters ever do anything wrong or evil.

  24. OK, that’s over. Now it’s time to work on getting an Article V convention going, and limiting the power of the feral government to affect us. Rather than voting for the lesser evil, let’s try to cut all evil down to stomping size!

    1. I’d rather spend fifty years or so taking back the education establishment to teach real civics to the voters first. As it is, if we had an Article V convention right now, I’m afraid we’d come out of it with “constitutional rights” to healthcare, a basic income, etc. The dangers outweigh the benefits, IMHO.

      1. You do realize that anything that comes out of such a convention would have to be ratified by 38 states to go into effect, right? The dangers are entirely overblown.

    1. Agreed! I’m also taking guilty pleasure giggling at all the hand wringing and head-exploding coming from the left and the media the past two days.

      Delicious.

      1. I seem to remember something him getting attacked at a rally, and just before his Secrete Service guys took the attacker down and got Trump out of the way, it appeared that he was reaching for something on his hip.

        1. See, I’d always wondered what it would be like if there was a US President who was also armed.

          If ANY of the flaming idiots calling for his assassination actually try, imagine the Prez-elect killing his would-be assassin.

          (Not quite as cool as beating him nearly to death with a walking stick, but…)

          1. I’ve shot with presidential detail Secret Service agents. Trust me. Those guys can friggin’ shoot. The president won’t have a chance to start his draw stroke before the incident is over. 🙂

          2. I seem to recall Andrew Jackson as President shooting someone who shot him; he survived (and I think he even finished his speech being given at the time), but his would-be assassin died.

            I may disagree with some of Jackson’s policies, but there’s certainly things about him that make him an interesting character…

        2. I remember that too. I never saw video of that incident, but I do remember the “he looked like he was reaching for something on his hip” thing being reported in comments somewhere, probably here.

          My guess is that the Secret Service agents assigned to him will ask him to kindly refrain from pulling a weapon if another such incident occurs, because they’re going to have people grappling with any attacker and they’d rather not get accidentally shot by the guy they’re protecting. (Playing D&D has taught me that if you fire into a grapple situation, 1) you’re more likely to hit your friend rather than the enemy, and 2) the GM and the other players will hate you for making them look up yet ANOTHER one of the obscure grappling rules). But I’ve never had to plan out a scenario like that one, so maybe some of my assumptions are off-base.

        3. If, and that’s an if, Trump was reaching for a pistol, I would expect it to be a gold-plated Deagle. In .50AE.

      1. Well, he’s also been all over the map in his political history and is notorious as a “deal-maker” who hasn’t always been a model of integrity, so I and others aren’t certain which statements are sincere and which were pandering to his base. The fact that he had no record to run on meant we had minimal evidence to work with.

        I don’t trust him, but I’ll give him a chance. But the burden of proof is on him.

        1. Yeah, I kinda feel the same way. He said a lot of things, but how many did he mean? How many will he actually do? Time will tell, I guess.

    1. Trumps son is a gun nut. I’m of the opinion that we can look forward to the restoration of many gun right, and maybe even some new protections. For instance, the hearing protection act is likely going to be passing. Silencers for everybody!

      1. This is one thing I have never understood about US gun laws. I live in a country with “draconian” gun laws according to our host, and yet there is absolutely zero restrictions on silencers. How can making less noise possibly be a bad thing?

        1. I think its b/c of TV and movie influence where silencers/suppressors barely make any noise at all, so its thought by many that a proliferation of silencers will lead to loads of people secretly getting murdered in alleys everywhere. At least, thats my take on it.

          Also, the gov’t currently makes $200 each time you want one, so they’re not inclined to cut off a flow of income they can find a way to waste.

  25. This is what I wrote to a disraught relative today, which seemed to be rather similar to what you’re saying:

    “This, too, shall pass.

    You can say that to everyone today. Ease their grief, or temper their joy.

    And if they can’t or won’t believe that, then remind them that the prices for AR-15s and ammo is not spiking today, so they can stock up for the civil war they expect to arrive presently. Don’t expect the military or cops to do the fighting for them, because the troops are 93% on the ‘Anyone But Hillary’ side (according to a Military Times poll). There’s no outsourcing the civil war.

    Also, there isn’t going to be a civil war.”

  26. Trump we can survive. And what the hell, if he keeps his campaign pledges, he’ll win by a landslide in 2020.

    Hillary might have blundered us into WWIII. I live too close to Warren AFB to risk that.

  27. I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m ecstatic that Hillary lost.

    Myself, i’m ecstastic that Trump won because it means Hillary lost.

    Do I wish there was a better alternative to Trump? Yeah. But Trump winning over Hillary winning? Prefer Trump.

    So we get Trump… Now I can only hope that I’m completely wrong about Trump’s character, and that he won’t govern like a thin skinned authoritarian. That would be nice, but I won’t hold my breath.

    In fact, I would love to be wrong. I pray to be wrong.

    This summarizes my POV re: Trump. If he does surround himself with competents who have America’s interests in mind and listens to them, then he actually becomes instantly 120% better than Obama.

    So, fingers crossed. Like I said over at Sarah’s – I’m happy to be wrong about the vote rigging (I expected it to be so rigged that it didn’t matter if you voted for Trump, the result would be Hillary) and I’ll be happy if I’m wrong about Trump being just a lesser evil.

  28. Larry, I’m thinking it would be good to write up a gun buying guide for the hysterical down types.
    In some ways, it would be right & fitting if the person who was all for gun control before Nov. 9 to wind up with a poorly slapped together AR-15 in 8.1234mm Unobtainium for the reasonable price of $3500. However, we want these people honestly invested in shooting properly.

  29. I forgot I may owe some people here an apology for being rude in my incorrect insistence that Trump would not win. I’m sorry.

  30. Hey Larry. First time commentor from the left side of the spectrum, who shares your “I’m glad it’s over”. Last night I even said something on my favorite political site very similar to the beginning of your post, “I don’t want him to win but I do want her to lose.” I didn’t vote for either–despite not being entirely in sync with the Green Party, I planned to vote for Jill Stein as the one candidate I could stand, then pivoted at the last minute when Bernie/Tulsi qualified as an official write-in in Cali.

    I work with a lot of people from all across the political spectrum in real life and get along with most of them, at least in small doses, but online I’ve noticed a tendency on both sides to demonize the other side as something they are not (or, rather, assume the worst members of each side are the dominant faction). I hang out on the left side of the internet spectrum (which kinda makes sense–you would mostly not like my politics) while avoiding the right, but since I keep telling people on my side they are being unfair to rightwingers, I thought I would both try interacting at a rightwing place and at least hopefully demonstrate that us lefties are not all hypocrites who kneejerk buy the latest narrative.

    You get to be the lucky (deeply unlucky?) one because I remember you from the puppy arguments (I followed a link to your site, and whilst we disagree on many things, I thought you wrote well and seemed like probably a decent person. I even came back here to read a few times to check out your take on one thing or another and I really enjoyed your post on guns for home defense. (you seemed like you would be a good source for info on this sort of thing, and actually changed my mind on any future gun purchase, though the discussion pushed me toward a Mossberg 500 rather than your preferred rifle, as opposed to my previous 9mm preference)

    Okay, all that said, I’m feeling guardedly more optimistic now than before last night. Before the election, I wrote to a friend:
    “No, I’m resigned. No matter who wins, we the people have already lost (I’m including actual enthusiastic supporters of both in this). And I’m pretty sure my idea of the more dangerous evil is going to win, but I won’t be particularly happy if it goes the other way either. (though I will experience an enormous burst of schadenfreude)”
    After, I wrote a much longer version of the following (this comment already long, so trying to pare it down):
    “I realize most of my f-list is probably feeling shell-shocked and sucker-punched right now, so I’m coming out of LJ-hibernation to offer a few reasons why you might, instead, feel guardedly optimistic that this was for both the short and long term good:

    (1) For all everyone worried about Trump being dangerous and unstable, Hillary was the one backed by the architects of the Iraq war. She was backed by Kissinger, who was responsible for Pinochet and massive horror in Cambodia. She was the primary party responsible for the Libyan invasion, and was for a right wing coup against a democratically elected government in Honduras. Combine all this with a seemingly fervent desire to either play chicken with or actually start a shooting war with Russia (backed, again, by all the architects of the Iraq war and most members of the Obama administration), she was the real threat for WWIII, and best case scenario she would’ve restarted a smoking hot version of the cold war. I didn’t miss the cold war and am unhappy our MIC brought it back. (I wrote in Bernie, but if forced to choose between the two major party candidates, I would have voted for Trump in great part because of this single issue)

    (2) For a long time, the Dem establishment has been pretending to want different things from the Republican establishment, and visa versa, yet they mostly do the same thing. This SHOULD alert both establishments that this is no longer the case, and force them to start giving us real choices.

    (3) Both the Dem and Republican establishments clearly hate the working class, and care about nothing but further enriching a bunch of already rich sociopaths. This election will, hopefully, clear out the dead wood and give us a chance to get good people running the party, who will get us back to our new deal roots, as opposed to a bunch of scumbuckets. Also, “the working class is stupid and bigoted but you can prove you are one of the less stupid and bigoted ones by voting how we tell you!” will probably NEVER be a winning electoral strategy. It is, itself, a deeply bigoted and wrongheaded narrative exemplifying a bigoted and wrongheaded worldview. This gives the dems a chance to develop a more accurate, less asinine, possibly winning one for the future.

    (4) Yes, you can pick out a cajillion stupid things Trump has said. It’s also obvious he doesn’t mean half of them. (I am NOT excusing him for saying them, or trying to argue that he is a nice person, or that in a normal version of reality I would be pointing to him as a lesser evil choice for president). For every stupid thing Trump has said that indicates a potential to harm, Hillary has been involved in policy which has actually caused harm. There’s no question about meaning there.

    (5) Trump might REALLY oppose or void the TTP, TTiP, TISA etc. This is a good thing he has said. These are awful giveaways of national sovereignty to multinational corporations whose passage, barring immediate voiding, would basically destroy any hope for the future of the biosphere, and for the lives of the working class. I strongly dislike Trump for being a global warming denier, but Hillary/Obama were enacting the policies that locked the world into a death spiral. Maybe Trump will do better. (this was the second of my 3 main reasons for preferring this outcome)

    (6) The Democratic primary this year involved the most blatant cheating I have ever seen. Hillary winning would have assured the Dems kept putting up their corporate conservadems and cheating to make sure they won. Hopefully this will stop that. (or, as I said elsewhere last night, “Schadenfreude for the win!”)(this was my 3rd reason for preferring him)

    (7) While I don’t think Trump actually wanted or expected to win, I think he will actually try to do a good job, and he’s not an idiot or incompetent (I think he just proved that with his series of wins). Given that he has taken different sides on practically every issue, who knows what he actually thinks, or will do, but there is at least a possibility he will actually do a good job. Maybe he will be more concerned with a legacy of accomplishment than making sure he has good seats at cocktail parties after he’s out of office. We can hope.”

    So, yeah, there are a lot of people on the left who were “OMG what will the Trump people do after Hillary wins it will be awful” who are now acting out themselves after he won. But they are not all of us. And yeah, I think they’re wrong too, blocking traffic to protest his presidency before he’s even had a chance to do anything that you don’t like, but misguided wrong, not evil wrong.

    Apologies for writing such a long comment as non-regular. I am now thinking it was pointless and I should delete it, but too much time spent for that. And yeah, I know we’re gonna disagree on a lot. Feel free to attack the parts you don’t like.

    1. Welcome.

      I think you’ll find that the people who congregate here like to argue, but as long as you’re not a douchebag about it, everyone is pretty cool.

      1. Thanks! I’m not even here to argue–I figure I’m kind of like an uninvited guest or self-invited emissary or whatever so it’s up to me to avoid fights or leave if I can’t avoid them.

        I’m actually sympathetic to your views on a few things, and for the rest of it, eh, again, I get that people are going to disagree about stuff. And that myself and the other people here have an extremely different frame of reference for the world at large. But I know I’m very glad I have a lot friends/kinda neighbors (I live in the middle of the desert, so my idea of neighbor may not be most other people’s idea of neighbors) and people I work with from all sorts of backgrounds–my closest coworker is a Southern Baptist who voted for Cruz in the primary, as much as that horrifies me, and I know she’s a very nice person. That real world grounding is useful (she’s a non-white immigrant woman, and is a conservative who voted first for Cruz, then for Trump, so clearly, good lesson in not-overgeneralizing) and it’s at least been interesting reading the comments here.

        Glad the comment came out of moderation before the weekend–I’m about to get really busy, so if I don’t answer something for a while, it’s not because I’m off sulking.

    2. Well, while we (most of us, at least) probably disagree with you on most issues, I think you’ll find that pretty much everyone agrees that the establishment of the Uniparty, both its Republican and Democratic branches, is uninterested in hearing from and taking advice from the people. How dare those peons deign to speak to the aristos!

      I’m working (slowly) on a document laying out the basic principles that form the basis of my and (I hope) others’ beliefs. When it’s ready I’ll see if I can make it available and we can see just what we can all agree on and what bits are problematic for you.

      1. Sure! And thanks! I’m actually really happy to find agreement about the Uniparty, part, at least. I was hoping to find agreement there, but expecting diatribes on “no they are clearly different because of …” And yes, they differ in some ways for real, and in other ways because it’s useful for keeping their respecting bases at each other’s throats while they keep raking in the bucks, and their are individual outliers but I think their overall economic agenda (which is what most of them primarily care about) is pretty similar. Look forward to reading what you lay out. And I’m gone for a bit now!

        1. I’ve got a first draft of the document I mentioned completed. I hesitate to post it here as it’s a bit long for a post, but if you’ll provide a way to get it to you I’d be happy to let you see it. Alternatively, if Larry wants to see it I’ll be happy to send it along and let him post it (just an offer, not a plea 🙂 ).

    3. First of all, thank you for a very well-thought-out and reasonable post. Judging from this, you’re going to be like Bugmaster — someone whom we can disagree with, but have reasonable discussion.

      I don’t have time to write a long post, so I’ll just mention one thing where I disagree with you, which is on global warming. I agree that: 1) the global average temperature was warming during pretty much all of the 20th century, 2) some part of this is due to CO2’s “greenhouse effect”, and 3) human activity has contributed to an increase in CO2. Where I disagree is on one simple point: the global-warming activist position says “There is a tipping point, and we are fast approaching it. Past a certain point, we won’t be able to reverse the effects.” (Your use of the phrase “locked the world into a death spiral” suggests that you believe we may have already reached that point). I maintain, however, that there is no evidence that such a tipping point exists. Let me explain. No, there is too much — let me sum up.

      To sum up, then: all of the predictions of future disaster are based on computer-modeled simulations of climate, run out twenty, fifty, or a hundred years into the future. There’s nothing wrong with computer models per se — after all, short of having a working time machine, that’s what we have to do. But you do have to have a good model, one that actually does a decent job of modeling the Earth’s climate. For example, if you built a model that simply assumed that the Earth’s average temperature would increase by 0.02°C per year, that model would be wrong. Earth’s climate fluctuates. While it was on average increasing during the 20th century, there were years when it did not increase and, in fact, went down by a small amount. The Earth’s climate is not monotonically increasing, so that overly-simplistic model would be wrong and could not predict the future accurately. You’d need a FAR more complex model to have a decent chance of predicting future climate with any accuracy.

      Now, the actual computer models that have been built to predict the climate’s behavior are far more complex than that ridiculously-simplistic one I posited, of course. But they have one thing in common with it: to know if your computer model is good, you MUST test it against known data. Take your model, feed it (for example) the known climate records up to 1980, and see if its prediction for 1981-2000 matches what we know actually happened. Or feed it records up to 2000, and see if its prediction for 2001-2015 matches what we know actually happened. And so on. In other words, you follow the scientific method! A computer model is a hypothesis (or rather, a bunch of hypotheses bundled together): when you build the model, you hypothesize that this is how the ocean captures and releases heat, this is how cloud formation affects the amount of solar energy that reaches the atmosphere, this is how the 11-year cycle in solar output plays into the model, and so on and so forth. And what do you always have to do with a hypothesis? Test it! If you test at against reality and its predictions hold up, your hypothesis is a useful one — though it may not be completely confirmed yet, because you don’t know if there are other tests that might disprove it (maybe you got the cloud-formation part of the model right, but not the solar-output part). But if it’s failing to predict reality, then you should reject the hypothesis. It’s broken; throw it away. And DON’T try to use it to predict the future; that would be like trying to find North with a compass that you KNOW is broken — you’ll just get even MORE lost that way.

      And to the best of my knowledge, when you take the computer models that are being used to make predictions about the future (including the predictions of a tipping point) and compare them to the actual climate of the past decade or two, the models are increasingly off. For example, here’s a chart showing the predictions made by 90 different computer models (they’re not identified on the chart, so I don’t know which ones they are), as compared to two observations of the actual temperature, one measured by surface weather stations (the green dots) and the other measured in the upper atmosphere by weather balloons and/or satellites (the blue dots). The black-square line is not identified in this graph, but I believe it’s a simple average of the 90 models for the sake of putting a data point on the graph that’s easier to read than the cluster of 90 lines. Also note that the graph was produced in 2013, so that’s why it only contains data going back to 2012. There may be later graphs with data up to 2014 or 2015, but this is the best I could find in the short time I had available for my search:

      http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-90-models-global-Tsfc-vs-obs.jpg

      On the basis of that graph, I would reject over 90% of those models as just plain wrong. The model identified by a dashed yellow line near the bottom of the graph has tracked the satellite temperatures pretty well, so that one seems to be a reasonable predictor of the future. And if the surface temperature data is good data*, then the dashed purple line seems to have tracked it pretty well so far, and there’s also a solid light-grey line that I THINK has tracked the surface temperature pretty well, but I lose it in the mess of lines on the left so I’m not sure. But 90% of those models should be rejected, and any predictions that those models make about the future should not be believed, because they have been proven to be incapable of predicting the present.

      Now, this graph doesn’t actually say anything about a tipping point. That argument has more to do with the various climate feedback loops, and whether the positive-feedback loops have a larger overall effect than the negative-feedback loops. I wrote this comment in some haste, and it’s not the best arguing I’ve ever done: I stated one thesis, then I presented evidence for a different thesis. I need to wrap this up and post it, though, so I’ll just say something brief about the tipping-point argument, without posting links to the supporting evidence. (Sorry about that, but I really am running out of time here). Briefly, then: pretty much ALL the computer models that predict dire consequences of global warming have, as one of their basic assumptions, the axiom that the positive-feedback loops are stronger than the negative-feedback loops. (If the negative-feedback loops are stronger, then there’s no possible “tipping point”; you can only get so much temperature increase before the negative-feedback loops pull it back down to “average”, for some definition of average). But I remember seeing evidence — I think it was a presentation by a guy with a Ph.D. in climate studies, but I can’t remember his name — showing that in fact, the negative-feedback loops were stronger than the positive-feedback loops, and that that was why most of the models were failing to reflect reality. (I did try to search for that presentation — I didn’t completely screw up how I was presenting the evidence in this comment — but not remembering the name of the presenter, I failed to find it, and found the “the models are failing to predict reality” graph instead. And by that point, I’d started to forget what my original thesis was). So rather than the reason why the climate models are failing to reflect reality (because they’re wrong about the tipping point), I found the evidence that they are (with a few rare exceptions) failing to reflect reality.

      I’ll just say one other thing before signing off. I’m sure you’ve read plenty of reporting about global warming, and how the various computer models predict disaster at some point in the future. But I have a question. How many of those news articles have gone into any detail about the computer models these predictions are based on, and whether those models have been tested against reality? I’m sure you’ve noticed, as I have, that most journalists** care less about reporting the truth than they do about reporting a narrative. They’ll often cherry-pick their facts, omitting the ones that are inconvenient to them. (How many times did Fox News cover Trump’s more… distasteful… comments? How many times did MSNBC cover Clinton’s blatant lack of concern for the security of classified information?) So in all the articles that you’ve read about global warming, have you found any journalists who actually cared enough about the truth that they mentioned the need to check climate models against reality? If you have, please let me know — I’m always grateful to find a journalist whom I can trust to report the truth even when it’s inconvenient to their favorite political positions. I find d*mn few of those, these days… 🙁

      * There are some climate stations known to produce less-than-perfect data these days, such as ones that were in the middle of nature when they were first built, but are now close to an urban area with asphalt parking lots, whose black surface tends to trap heat during the day and radiate it during the night. Those stations will tend to overestimate the actual atmospheric temperature because they are near local “hot spots”. What I don’t know is whether the data source identified as “HadCRUT4 Surface” on that graph has thrown out the data from those no-longer-reliable surface stations, or whether it has included them. If it’s the latter, then the variation between the growth rate of the surface and atmospheric temperature measurements (which approaches 0.1°C by the end of that graph!) may be explainable in large part by the inclusion of those no-longer-reliable stations, and the surface temperature data is probably not that good — in which case the satellite data is a more accurate reflection of reality. But if it’s the former (that is, the data from those no-longer-reliable surface stations has been thrown out), then the surface temperature data is good.

      ** I can, thankfully, think of a few rare exceptions like Michael Totten.

      1. By the way, speaking of the 11-year cycle in solar output — that’s one thing that I’ve found really fascinating to learn about. Stephanie Osborn, a retired rocket scientist, has posted a series of articles on Sarah Hoyt’s blog going into LOTS of detail about how the Sun works, what causes sunspots and solar flares (as best we know), and so on. I was surprised how fascinating it was; it helps that while she goes into plenty of detail, she keeps it accessible to the scientific layman. First part of the series is here:

        https://accordingtohoyt.com/2016/08/18/solar-space-and-geomagnetic-weather-part-i-an-introduction-by-stephanie-osborn/

        When you get to the bottom of that post, look at the “Related” section just above the comments. There will be three links to articles that WordPress thinks are related, based on similarity of titles. Since she titled ALL the articles in that series “Solar, Space, and Geomagnetic Weather Part (something)”, you should see a link to Part II right there. If you don’t see a link to part II, but there’s a link to parts III or IV, click on those and their “related” section should have a link to part II. If you have any interest in science, those articles are REALLY fun reads. I recommend them highly.

        1. There was something recently too about a fear of a mini-ice age coming because there’s been a noted lack of sunspot activity. I wish I could say when I read that but my days blur one into another most of the time. Recently – so within this year. I might have spotted it in one of the comments from the articles you mentioned about Solar, Space and Geomagnetic Weather.

      2. Hi Robin. Again, thanks for the kind words. I’ve had MUCH more hostile greetings over singular areas of difference at places where we are mostly in sync. Which is whole ‘nother analysis. This response will, alas, be waaaay briefer than yours, and I apologize.

        someone whom we can disagree with, but have reasonable discussion. I hope so! I hope to be reasonable even when I’m in a heated disagreement, but also I don’t get people who show up at places just to be jerks to people. No worries–I may or may not be mentally disturbed but if I am, it’s not in that way.

        climate change: I almost didn’t respond, partly because I REALLY didn’t come here to argue, and mostly because I’m uncertain either of us will ever change the other’s mind, but since I do think the survival of all I love is at stake, I figure I probably should make an effort!

        I don’t have time to write a long post

        Heh, sometimes I write longer stuff when I’m in a hurry. Like now.

        I nonetheless feel the need to apologize for my too-brief response, at least with regard to substance. At no time in the immediate future am I going to have time to give this the sort of detailed coverage I’d like. At the moment, I’m too lazy/pressed for time to look up sources, so what you do get is going to be off the top of my head (at least mostly; probably entirely). (have small biz, work 60+ hrs a week, then spend 20+ playing fantasy sports in an effort to retire and not have to work, & wife/dogs my other remaining moments! In reverse order, those are my main priorities, and too much of my “other” time this week already spent!)

        Re: tipping points about global warming– I have found the arguments in favor of a tipping point very convincing (my initial impressions were mostly formed by reading books, not journal articles or journalism–two different things!, tho I will get to those in a bit); but my “death spiral” comment was meant more about where we are headed on our current course of action (at least in my head, it also wasn’t limited to just climate change, or even just environmental catastrophe; even if the biosphere doesn’t die, I don’t want to live in an overcrowded nightmare police state where most of the wildlife is dead and most of the humans are either like Winston Smith or the good people in Soylent Green) . Admittedly, “locked into” may have sounded a bit fatalistic, but that was more in reference to both current policies and our likelihood of breaking out of them before the world was already a hellscape if we passed things like the TPP and TTiP. If we don’t change, yeah, I think we’re doomed, but we can change.

        And even if all the models showed we WERE past a tipping point (lots of disagreement and uncertainty there) already, I would still say we have to try and do something. I mean, if you’re trapped in a room with no weapon and three crazy cannibals are coming down the hall with a chainsaw, and all three are bigger, faster and stronger than you and very proficient in the art of chainsaw fighting, and all available models showed a less than one in ten million chance of survival, what do you? (or, heck, let’s say they are superhuman cannibals with no known weaknesses, and all models, show a zero % chance of survival) I don’t want to get eaten, so I fight. If you try, something good might happen. If you don’t, you get to be cannibal fodder. Same with global warming. I don’t want everything I love about this world to die, so even if we get past whatever I think the tipping point is, that doesn’t really change how I approach it. (for examples of when this approach actually worked, see the limping Kurt Schilling hit a homer for the Dodgers against the A’s back in–80-something; two out, two strikes, 9th inning, could barely walk, fouled the ball off again and again and finally knocked it out of the park; the 2004 miracle comeback for the Red Sox, that was two outs, two strikes, down 3-0 in the series and we all know how that went; greatest game I’ve ever seen–it looked like there was no point in trying because not only did they appear beaten, but even if they pulled off this game they had to win 3 more in a row and no one had ever done it, and most recently, google “phil healy michelle flynn depths of hell”. It was an Irish women’s 4×400 race, and healy wasn’t even in the picture at the final handoff, I think over 100 meterss behind w/400 to go; she still wasn’t even in the picture as the top four runners entered the final turn w/200 to go, and one of those top 4 was Flynn, who had already qualified for the Irish Olympic team. Since I’m writing about this, you can probably guess how it ends up; “from the depths of hell” was how the announcer described Healy’s first appearance as possibly in striking distance of the top 4). So yeah, we’re in a death spiral at the moment, but what the heck. Let’s get out of it.

        Computer models: Here, we sort of agree, in that most of them have been off. But not in the way I think you were suggesting. IIRC, So far all or nearly all of them have UNDERpredicted the rate at which x rise will have y effect, and also the rate of rising. Scientific consensus, especially in the current world, generally tends to err on the side of caution, and so far they have been over-erring in their over-caution. Some of these effects are a mixture of things, like the dying (or in some cases, already dead) coral reefs–it’s increasing levels of CO2 and temperature both. (which is why I was relatively late to the climate change bandwagon–I didn’t dismiss it, but thought we were killing the world just fine through more immediate measures and wanted to focus on them; then I started reading Hansen and Lovelock and McKibben and some others, and, it’s sort of like the difference between wanting to avoid a conventional war that will kill most of us and a nuclear war that will kill all of us and everything else forever) What is particularly scary is that there are a number of additional factors that SHOULD be pushing us into a prolonged cooling cycle right now.

        Positive/negative feedback: Yeah, these can get complicated, but I haven’t seen anything suggesting the cooling feedback will ever mitigate the warming with what is going on now. I actually try to ignore this whole area because of some work I read about what global warming would do with regards to release of methane in the atmosphere. The initial work was done by some Russian scientists in Alaska before the US kicked them out because we didn’t like what they were saying, but I think there has been more done since. I try very hard not to think about this. File it under “I hope this never happens”.

        TV & newspaper journalists–I pay attention to TV news only to get an idea of what is being fed to people and what the general consensus is; I don’t consider any of them on any channel to be independently reliable sources of information. Heck, I’ll be happy to take suggestions if you recommend anyone. Newspapers and magazines can still be better, but I take all of those with a grain of salt as well. As far as someone who’s posted a lot of articles on the subject recently who I tend to think is reliable and doesn’t fudge stuff, the writer using the name Gaius Publius is who I’d point to off the top of my head (he publishes at numerous places; I would STRONGLY recommend you search for him at Naked Capitalism; it’s left but you will find a lot to agree with, I think; the other places he shows up at will probably be kinda offputting). For books, if you only read one, I’d point to McKibben’s Eaarth. (not a mispelling). I’ve probably left out someone important, in fact I’m sure of it, but it’s a good start.

        I will also check out your sources, including the ones from the comment below.

  31. I’m not gonna type a whole lot, but I think you’re still off base on Trump. I was skeptical but I’ve become convinced. Four things off the top of my head:

    First–He did the near impossible pulling this off. Yeah, Klintons unpopular, but he had little to no support from any quarter. Media, Rs, everybody was ragging him out

    Second- He’s already contacted Netanyahu and strengthened our relationship with Israel… on his first day as president elect

    Third–watch his acceptance speech. It started with about 2 minutes of Trump giving basic policy outlines, then 15 minutes of him thanking everyone involved, including the secret service. Not something the egomaniacal villain hes portrayed as would do.

    Fourth, and best, his son is a yuuge second amendment guy, and is being put in charge of an advisory panel on gun rights to Trump. ANY OF THE GUN LAWS/EOs COULD BE ON THE BLOCK, BABY! Hearing protection act is bound to pass, cheap imported Russian ammo and cheap saigas coming in, they might even be able to open the MG registry… and maybe Hughes and NFA can get repealed or seriously neutered. This could well be the best time to be a gun owner since the 60s–or even better, since I love my optics and gadgets.

    So, I’d advise rolling with the new awesome possibilities, things could be getting pretty cool in gun nut land soon.

    And I ended up typing more than I meant to. Oh well.

    1. And, oddly, this doesnt show my breaks till you hit “read more”. So you should probably hit that, if you want to read it.

    2. Hey, like I said, I’d love to be wrong. I’m waiting for some actual actions, rather than just words though. I’d love to be impressed.

      1. If Trump gets the price of ammo back where it was before Obama jacked it up, that would be all the gun action I need. Moynihan’s idea of jacking ammo prices wasn’t as bad for the Republic as Moynihan and Ralph Nader breaking Detroit’s Big Three, but it’s still bad.

        1. There’s no reason that we cant be better off than that. Most of the restrictions on cheap Russain/China ammo and guns are b/c of EOs and ATF rulings, both of which can be easily overridden. Getting rid of that ruling on AP not getting imported b/c of those stupid 7.62/5.45 “pistols” would flood the market with russian calibers.

          Imagine a pro-2a head of the ATF, That would be cool.

          1. I don’t remember who said it first, but:

            “Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should be the name of a convenience store, not a government regulatory agency.”

    3. “15 minutes of him thanking everyone involved, including the secret service.”

      In my mind, thanking the people responsible for keeping you alive is less, “Showing exceptional courtesy” than it is “demonstrating the bare minimum understanding of other people for survival.” Yeah, I know its a bar that Hillary fails to clear, but that’s not much of a compliment.

  32. A Ham Sandwich who couldn’t win would have just ended in Brain Cancer.

    This is what all of the anti-Trump conservatives just can’t get: everyone they’ve put up lately lost. It doesn’t matter how “principled” you think they are if they can’t actually get into the White House.

    And then, after years of putting up losers, they sneered and jeered at Trump because they were *certain* that he wouldn’t win, and they were just as wrong about that.

    Their track record on identifying the candidates who can actually get into a position to do something is pretty terrible. Maybe we should stop listening to them.

    Now, I share a healthy amount of skepticism towards Trump, but I will delight to watch the violently #NeverTrumpers hem and haw and refuse to admit how spectacularly wrong they were if Trump ends up repealing Obamacare and appointing good SCOTUS picks and paring back corruption and so on.

    1. Seems like the Democratic campaign was all about anger and fear. Many of the Republican candidates tried to combat that with reason and sense. The reason Trump was ultimately the only one to match Hillary is that he fought anger and fear with anger and fear. That’s why this election was so depressing and unsatisfying to those of us who wanted reason and sense.

      1. This is a typical anti-Trump analysis which is why it fails to correctly identify the problem.

        No, the reason that Trump won wasn’t because he fought with “anger and fear”, it’s because he touched on certain issues that conservatives have turned a blind eye to for years, such as never-ending foreign wars, immigration that is displacing the native population, and free trade (or managed trade) deals that are raping our manufacturing base.

        Look at the key states that flipped from blue to red: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Those states haven’t gone red since the freaking 80’s. And what do they all have in common? Blue collar workers. And who turned out in droves for Trump? Blue collar workers.

        http://www.onenewsnow.com/politics-govt/2016/11/10/ignored-by-gop-blue-collar-voters-lined-up-for-trump

        No “Constitutional” conservative would have pulled those states. They would have had the same useless message as the losing candidates that came before them: Let’s fight more wars in the middle east. Let’s welcome more people here to take our jobs. Let’s make more economic deals with nations where we get the short end of the stick.

        1. “Let’s fight more wars in the middle east”

          You do know that Trump has promised to destroy ISIS, right? And you know where ISIS is based, right?

          1. Yes, one of the reasons for my healthy skepticism of Trump. But he has openly stated his dislike for our never-ending conflicts in the middle east. Hopefully his goals for dealing with ISIS (assuming it’s even necessary) don’t involve more of the same.

          2. On the plus side, we may be able to work with Russia on destroying ISIS, rather than getting in their way….

    2. Point of order.

      Trump got fewer votes than Romney or McCain. He didn’t win because he was so much more amazing that the prior picks. He won because Hillary was just that shitty. Hillary got WAY less votes than Obama. Don’t go dislocating your shoulder patting yourself on the back there.

      I never called myself NeverTrump, mostly because I’ve always said that I respect and understand voting for the lesser of two evils. I just wasn’t going to do it myself. I didn’t vote for Trump, and I don’t trust him, but I’d love to have him actually turn out decent. Why? BECAUSE I LIVE HERE

      1. Yup. As the saying went, President Trump would be like playing russian roulette with a .38 special revolver; President Clinton would be like playing russian roulette with a 9mm semi-auto pistol.

        1. I disagree. Trump is like playing RR w/ a revolver, sure: Hitlery would have been like playing RR with a double barrel shotgun with 00 Buck in one barrel and a light field load in the other…

          Larry put it right when he wrote “I’m not happy Trump won, I’m ecstatic Hillary lost.” That’s what I’ve been telling everyone since hearing the news, and kept hammering on leading up to the election.

      2. It should be noted that Romney beat Trump in deep blue states. As of the latest count Romney beat Trump by 1.8M votes in California, 455k in Washington, and roughly 100k each in MD and MA. Trump had about a 500k advantage in NY, other blue states were close.

        That means Trump beat Romney by over 1M votes in red states and swing states, which is significant.

        1. Like I told the other guy, that was also before 4 years of the middle class in those rust belt states getting their ever increasing Obamacare bills, while running against a far more charismatic democrat.

          My point stands. Hillary lost because Hillary sucks, not because Trump is that awesome.

      3. In the choice between @sshat & proven evil, @sshat has to win. Luckily, there were enough people who understood that reality that they didn’t go wasting their vote on ganja4every1, no matter how appealing it may have appeared to enter a protest vote. I truly wish the Libertarian party would grow up & realize they have to win a bunch of *meaningful* offices at state level before their presidential bid can be taken seriously.

      4. It’s true, I would’ve voted for Hillary if she weren’t such a turd sandwich (though I still would not have voted for Trump). Of course, I live in a blue state, so my vote still would’ve been completely irrelevant…

      5. [Trump got fewer votes than Romney or McCain. ]

        This misses the point again. The total votes don’t matter (as we know from the fact that Hillary lost despite getting more votes). WHERE the votes happened is what matters.

        Someone did a write up and found that Trump would have fared better in the electoral college against Obama in 2012 than Romney did (303-235 instead of 332-206). He wouldn’t have won, but he still would have outdone the “safe” choice of Romney. Now, this is just using the straight numbers and assuming Trump wouldn’t have done anything differently during a campaign against Obama or that voters wouldn’t have felt any differently about that comparison.

        Romney and McCain got more in the states that wouldn’t have made a difference (with the bulk of Romney’s better results coming in CA), but Trump did better than Romney in OH, PA, WI, MI and the like. It’s the places where conservatives have turned a blind eye that Trump did better, which speaks to my earlier post.

        And I’ll let you pat me on the back. You can sign one of your books while you’re at it. :o)

        1. Ha! I do like the bit where you put in “assuming Trump wouldn’t have done anything differently during a campaign against Obama or that voters wouldn’t have felt any differently about that comparison.” like that’s no big deal. That’s the whole deal. Obama was way more charismatic, popular, and able to get out the vote than Hillary. Big time.

          Okay, Trump did better in the rust belt. Yep. Also, four years ago the working class hadn’t gotten their pockets picked for four years of increasing Obamacare costs yet. None of this stuff happens in a vacuum.

          My point remains. Hillary lost because she was just that awful.

          1. [Ha! I do like the bit where you put in “assuming Trump wouldn’t have done anything differently during a campaign against Obama or that voters wouldn’t have felt any differently about that comparison.” like that’s no big deal.]

            I’m not saying it’s no big deal. That’s why I included it in my comments. There are myriad factors to take into account, and we have to take all of these evaluations with a certain amount of skepticism, but the data simply doesn’t support your claim that Hillary lost only because Hillary is awful and Trump just got lucky.

            Trump appealed to people in the states where it mattered most. His campaign worked. He did not win only because Hillary was so terrible. The data simply doesn’t support that.

            If you need further proof of this, look at a hypothetical matchup between 2016 Hillary and 2012 Romney. Guess who wins?

            Hint: It’s not the “safe” conservative choice.

            (Clinton squeaks out a 273-265 win)

            And no, “Obamacare” isn’t what tore apart the rust best. Seriously? Obamacare? Don’t get me wrong. It’s awful and all. But blaming the situation in the rust belt on “Obamacare” is like blaming a terminal cancer patient’s death on bed sores. What tore apart the rust belt was the globalist trade position (adopted by most conservatives, btw) which shipped millions of our manufacturing jobs to third-world nations. Trump struck that nerve, over and over, and it worked.

            Trump won because his America-first message resonated and he knew where to focus his efforts. He picked up states that haven’t gone blue since the 80’s. If he had taken the same approach as Romney and McCain, he would have lost. And if someone like Romney had gone up against Clinton, it’s entirely possible (if not probable) that he would have lost. This is what the data shows.

          2. I see your abstract talk of “globalism” and raise you an additional $300-$700 out of their pockets every month for insurance that isn’t as good. Stuff like globalism plays well at rallies, but money talks and bullshit walks.

            Exit polls didn’t give a crap about globalism. The biggest single issue (something like 85%) for Trump voters was that he wouldn’t be “business as usual”. They voted for change. Whether “globalism” was what drove that, or the fact they’re broke and pissed, neither of us know for certain. But we do know Hillary was way less popular than Obama.

            And I didn’t like Romney and campaigned against him in the primary (actual phrase I used for him was Electable in Massachusetts) Other than that we’re both arguing unknowables. 2012 isn’t 2016. Situation was different. You can’t assume Romney wouldn’t have gotten more purple state votes than he did in 2012 this time around, running against a far less popular candidate. I’m pretty sure anybody could have beaten Hillary this time, because she was shit. Maybe I’m wrong and they would have lost, or maybe I’m right and they would’ve beaten her far harder than Trump did.

          3. “Abstract” talk of globalism?

            5+ million manufacturing jobs lost since 2000 isn’t “abstract”. Yes, Obamacare is bad. Losing your job (and any prospect of getting a similar job) is worse. The fact that conservatives keep brushing past this issue as if it’s no big deal is one reason why their usual candidates can get anything done in these swing states.

            [Exit polls didn’t give a crap about globalism.]

            No, they gave a lot of craps about the economy, though, which global trade observably played a large part of.

            I’m not saying we know what would have happened. I’m simply saying that we have no *reason* to believe that Trump only won because Hillary was awful or that any of the standard stuffed-shirt candidates that the Republicans usually put up would have beat her. Yes, any hypothetical outcome is uncertain. But if we’re going to draw a conclusion one way or another, in needs to be in the direction of the available evidence, not against it.

          4. I hate to break it to you, but it is abstract. Globalism is a nice nebulous buzzword. And Trump is a populist. Populists love buzzwords you can get angry at. Of course it pisses people off to be broke and out of work, but it’s complicated. Anytime you can take a super complicated system and blame everything on one simple answer then it is probably bullshit.

            A lot of manufacturing jobs went overseas, but a lot were lost to automation. Those ain’t ever coming back. A lot of jobs didn’t go overseas because of “globalism” but because of government regulation made it unprofitable to stay (and that is an expert that I am an expert on, being the dude who had to crunch those numbers at various companies).

            So I’ll take a specific bill with specific causes, cost, and effect, over a giant all encompassing buzz word. Because I hate to break it to you, but Trump ain’t going to fix “Globalism”. He might do some specific things, but all of this stuff has a cause and an effect. If he wants to have a war on Globalism it will probably end up like the left’s war on Climate Change, i.e. an a free for all term for whatever you want it to be.

          5. I’ve only skimmed these comments, but FWIW:

            When I read “Globalism”, I interpret it to mean, broadly speaking, “transferring more political power to international corporations and away from elected politicians”. More specifically, it could mean things like TPP (which Trump is opposed to, AFAIK); tax loopholes for corporations whose main business is in the US but who are officially based overseas; favorable trade deals with countries who are either renowned for their human rights violations or are our political enemies outright; and, of course, jobs moving overseas due to outsourcing.

            I agree with you that this last point can be chalked as the free market at work, but I still think there’s some balance to be had, which means extra-corporate regulation. Otherwise, American factories will become sweatshops, just like factories in some third-world countries (not to mention, China). You might argue that, in the absence of government regulation, workers would be free to go somewhere else with better conditions… But the whole point of globalism is that there’s nowhere to else to go, since the same cartel of organizations controls all the jobs.

    3. The early numbers suggest that Trump actually didn’t do much better (if at all) than Romney or McCain–it’s rather that Hillary did so much worse than Obama.

    4. You offer a perfect example of a Trumpian narrative, and thus a complete disconnect from reality.
      “We” didn’t “put up” McCain or Romney. The primaries are not controlled by conservatives. McCain and Romney were nominated by the entirety of the Republican primary voters… including many of the same people who nominated Trump this time around. Conservatives were unhappy with both of those candidates, but voted for them anyway because the alternative (Obama) was clearly much worse.
      Nobody “sneered and jeered” at Trump. And it was entirely reasonable to believe he would lose, given the data available.
      I would suggest you get out of the Trumpian narrative circle-jerk and rejoin the real world.

  33. Glad it’s over, and I’m really, really glad it isn’t going to drag out like 2000. And my attitude is generally like Larry’s (just to pat him on the back some more)…I’m not delighted with Trump, but I’m really glad Hillary lost.

    Just to toss my two pennies in, my impression of our President-Elect is that he has the capacity to be a great President…and the capacity to be a good President…and the capacity to be a sort of mediocre President…and the capacity to be a pretty bad President…and the capacity to be all of those things in the space of a single afternoon.

    Seatbelts, everyone! Please keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times!

  34. I agree in principle — but at least Trump says he will nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court.

    And I’ve looked over his tax proposals in detail, and they do look quite a bit like Reagan’s 1986 tax bill. So in that sense maybe he is Reagan after all.

    1. Trump says

      That’s the problem right there. Trump’s whole schtick is lying to “sell the fantasy” and get what he wants. You simply cannot rely on what he says as a guide to anything.

  35. “On that note, this is why if the idea of an executive power in the hands of That Other Asshole terrifies you, maybe then the executive shouldn’t have that power at all. Because eventually The Other Asshole Team is going to win, and do to you, what you did to them.”

    I started to write that if the left learned nothing else but THAT it would have all been worth it, but then I remembered that if these people were capable of forethought, and learning from their mistakes they would not be progressives.

  36. So, I’ll be honest. I usually think you’re kind of an asshole, Mr. Correia, even if there is probably a lot of things we agree about. Mostly because I’m basically one of those evil leftists on a lot of issues (though, much more in the vein of FDR and Democratic populists of the 20s than the insane hysteria we’re seeing all over the country at the moment). I absolutely hate how the sci-fi/fantasy scene has gotten so partisan and stupid, and I think the way you handled the Puppy protests contributed to that (along with all the nonsense that happened on the other side of that issue–I’m not just blaming you).

    However, I really, really appreciated this piece, and I agree with you on most of it. I’m pulling for Trump to be a great president, even if I didn’t vote for him. I hope more people who tend towards my side of the aisle will, too. I hope we can find some consensus on some of the issues plaguing our country, and I’m right there with you in praying for it. I agree that most of this hysteria is misplaced, and that people need to realize we elected a president, not a dictator.

    So, thanks for writing this. God bless you and your family. I haven’t had a chance to read any of your work yet, but I look forward to doing so.

    1. Thanks.

      On the Sad Puppies, if I could go back in time knowing what I know now I would have done many things differently, but trust me, you saw how it blew up. That kind of backlash doesn’t just materialize out of thin air. It was partisan and stupid long before I showed up. I was just the unlucky bastard dumb enough to make a big deal out of it in public. 😀

      1. The whole thing is just sad. Especially considering speculative fiction’s rich history of (real) diversity of opinion. There really ought to be enough room for dissension and discussion without labeling the other side as evil. Thanks for replying!

        1. There’s plenty of room for dissension and discussion. Just not in the realm of those SJWs who insist on groupthink before even allowing you to speak. We here (I’m sure I speak for everyone who posts here and in similar fora) have nothing at all against those who disagree with us, even vehemently, so long as they’re civil about it and tough enough to take as good as they give. But those who try to bully everyone into agreeing with and lauding them or being silent will always receive our scorn.

    2. FWIW, my political opinions are almost the exact opposite as those of Larry Correia’s; and, to be honest, so is my taste in fiction (although hopefully we both liked Son of the Black Sword, since I’d love to read the sequel, heh). That said, I think he handled the Sad Puppies thing fairly well. He exposed the Hugo Awards as the one-sided political sham that they are. This destroyed a lot of my illusions about the field of speculative fiction, but I have always preferred truth to illusion, even if it’s painful…

  37. I just wanted to say, I’m really happy reading the comments here. It’s been good – and the best part is the actual discussion going on.

    So I hope I’m not out of line or too presumptuous in saying ‘thanks for restoring a bit of actual talking’ to everyone here, and that it’s been a genuine pleasure.

  38. Trump doesn’t really work as cancer though as he doesn’t have any significant long term assets in the govt. game. His Foundation is already under audit, so trying to pivot it into a Clinton style cash and influence machine would be monumentally stupid. Which is why I compared him to a case of Necrotizing Faciitis. Generally disfiguring and with a 40% death rate. Unfortunately Clinton is Stage C Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, which while not significantly disfiguring, has a 100% death rate.

  39. I’d venture to say that if the government started rounding up people to ” gas all the Gay Mexican Muslims in concentration camps” , 2nd amendment freedom loving people like Larry and others will be on the front lines with their own evil black rifles to help protect the innocent “Gay Mexican Muslims” and any others from concentration camps. All bets are off if your a wanted violent criminal, regardless of your sexual/ethnic/religious background, A freedom loving type will show the cops the way to your front door.

  40. Sigh.

    You’re sort of like an anti-vaxxer, Larry. “Ha-HA! Muh gunz aren’t gonna be confiscatered tomorrah and I didn’t even have to get out of bed! Because Trump isn’t religious-wacko enough for me!” Well, fine, Daddy will let you keep your guns, and maybe nuke those icky executive orders preventing foreign ammunition and gun imports. And you can keep crapping on him because he’s a decent guy who isn’t going to sic the IRS on you for being a jerk. You could say “thank you” when he does it, but I don’t expect you to be that considerate.

    Yeah, “Cat Fancy” sounds good compared to “and then I was given the power to rewind time for a few hours so that everyone would be resurrected and I could try not to (mess) up again, because that always happens when my writer plots himself into a corner.”

    1. That was so fucking incoherent that I have absolutely no idea what your point is.

      On that last paragraph I think you’re talking about the missing minutes scene from MHI, and if you think I just pulled time travel with repercussions out of my ass on accident because I wrote myself into a corner, you don’t know much about how plotting works. 😀

    2. So, you haven’t actually read any of the criticisms about Trump by folk like Larry? Or perhaps, having read failed to comprehend?

      Although on reflection, I think the Billy Madison “At no point…” bit might apply here.

    3. In fact:
      Mr. Shrdlu, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

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