Re: I'm hoping...
 

someone who has heard of her is an educated voter. they aren't voting on impulse.

4 years prior that 40000 margin was Obama voters.

I would really like to see the question asked though. Less asked me about what happened in Michigan and I told him my theory. He said Johnson voters might break even for Trump. I can't see that, but in Michigan the Stein voters would have been enough. They wouldn't be "breaking even."

Instead of going out to the farm land and asking Trump voters why, ask Stein/Johnson voters whether they regret their votes and which actual candidate would have gotten them.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

you have an absolute right to vote however you want. On the other hand, the fact that Ty and I agreed, and agreed strongly, might give one pause. I almost vomited voting for Hil, but I have not ever been so confident of a vote in my life.

That something was so clear to the rest of us, and yet not to you, isn't something you can realistically expect us to ignore, can you?

You have a right to not listen to rock with horns in it. We have the right to say "you must be fucking nuts." Same thing here.


Except of course the horns thing means you miss out on a few good songs. The Johnson vote means you have a unhinged, uncontrollable lunatic having the nuclear codes. But on a logic level the two criticisms are not really different. See?

Re: I'm hoping...
 

To rephrase it, science doesn't care wbat you beleve.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

As Popehat says, Your feelings are not the law.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

And I have the right to tell you it's illogical to criticize me for a protest vote where my intent was to protest unacceptable choices.

My aim was to say, "Fuck it. Nope. Not playing this game anymore." It's true I didn't think he'd win. And if I thought he'd win, I'd have agonized over that vote more than I did.

But as much as I respect you and Ty, I was never going to take your opinions over those of thousands of analysts who called the race a month before it was done. Not even the Comey thing made me think he had a chance.

You and Ty and Michael Moore saw the Blue Wall crumbling. That's impressive. But it's also a huge black swan. I love Taleb, but he'd be the first to tell you, it's almost impossible to call those things in advance.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

If I wish to not participate in and perhaps even discredit the two party system, of what value is it to offer me the criticism: "You've ruined it for the rest of us who favor the two party system!"

Of course I have.

I didn't know Trump would win. But a protest vote is a protest vote.

And look what we're talking about? Third party voters. By voting as I did, small gesture it was, I've helped to inject volatility into the two party system. If you desire to change a system that is adverse to change, don't you have to start by destabilizing it?

Trump is a lesson in what happens when a stagnant system persists for too long. That a clown like him could hack the two party system demonstrates there's a serious fucking problem with it. My guess:

It doesn't deliver for enough of its constituents anymore. And it probably can't, due to economic forces beyond its control. So instead, it lies and promises what it can't provide to keep itself and its donor classes in power. But those economic forces keep tripping it up, and the lies keep compounding, and no one believes anything it says anymore. It becomes so weak a strip mall PT Barnum and a pie-in-the-sky Socialist can hijack an election.

Look, I get the need to avoid volatility in actual state affairs. Trump is creating volatility there, and that is a problem. But I have no problem creating volatility in the two party system. That's a necessary and good thing. We just need to get better quality of insurgents than Trump and the too unrealistic Sanders.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

I mentioned Ty, not because he predicted the closeness, that was me. i mention Ty because we had been at extremes of the spectrum since W's years, we never agreed, yet in 2016, we did.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

Throwing you in with Ty is a compliment to both you and him. You guys disagree a lot, but in terms of both rigor and open-mindedness, I can't think of two opinions I more respect on the board.

And still, I thought you were batshit crazy in warnings about a Trump win.

She had a rotten day, so she hopes the DJ’s gonna play her favorite song.
 

I insisted on teaching my child to speak only in Esperanto because I believe that English and Spanish (there’s a large population of Cubans in Podunkville, oddly enough) are unacceptable choices.

She also only knows the metric system. And the music of Triumph, because I believe that Rush and Loverboy are unacceptable choices for 1980s Canadian rock.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

If you act to cause your preferred outcome (or the one that's less bad), then you don't have to worry about your assumptions turning out to be wrong.

Re: I'm hoping...
 

Yeah, it felt close to me but I thought HRC would win.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Not sure how to go about abolishing and reconstituting ICE, but it's something the next Democratic President should do.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I think Customs & Border Protection is different from ICE, but yes. And I don't think it's that hard to do. Just get rid of it (because Customs and Border Protection will still exist).

Re: She had a rotten day, so she hopes the DJ’s gonna play her favorite song.
 

There’s an Option C on every test.

If there weren’t, I’d have never gotten acceptable SAT scores.

“If you don’t know, go with Option C. If you’ve too many Cs in a row, throw in a D.” She was a good tutor. Taught me the essential life lesson: It’s all about studying for the test (and getting the credential that signals competence).

Re: I'm hoping...
 

Apply this where you’ve no preferred outcome among those offered.