I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

But the big question is, what will Attorney General Sessions do to make sure that State Department employees don't misuse their email?

make an example with a show trial of a prior criminal?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

But, I know, Hillary was a threat to your liberty. Liberty!

to be fair, she had it sewn up, and it would be hardly different than D, who will soon be my boss, once I'm confirmed!

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

But the big question is, what will Attorney General Sessions do to make sure that State Department employees don't misuse their email?

Dear Donald Trump:

Fuck you and all of your chicken-shit redneck head-up-their-ass trailer-scum Nazi-wannabe supporters. You guys want a civil war? Then let's do this.

http://pitchfork.com/news/69913-beas...rump-graffiti/

Sincerely,

Flower

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Dear Donald Trump:

Fuck you and all of your chicken-shit redneck head-up-their-ass trailer-scum Nazi-wannabe supporters. You guys want a civil war? Then let's do this.

http://pitchfork.com/news/69913-beas...rump-graffiti/

Sincerely,

Flower

Also, R.I.P. Sharon Jones. You may be gone but you're still here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALpGgWZbZYo

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

make an example with a show trial of a prior criminal?

Trump just settled fraud claims against him for $25 million, but it's good that we spent all that time discussing email servers.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Trump just settled fraud claims against him for $25 million, but it's good that we spent all that time discussing email servers.

You're smarter than this deflective sour grapes bullshit. Look, she lost because she had no message.

These flyover voters want jobs. And they don't want to be dictated to by people like us. Stop trying to understand it and look at this country as two nations. There are those positioned to survive in the modern economy, and those unable to do so. These groups also have divergent cultures. One outvoted the other this election.

We're moving into a period of what I'd call soft Balkanization. A hiccup in globalization. But it's just an ebb in a flow taking place over a glacial timeframe. The Trump voters had the bad fortune of being born at a time during which their skills were made obsolete. You and I have perhaps the bad fortune of living through a time in which they amassed voting power adequate to pull us backward with them.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You're smarter than this deflective sour grapes bullshit. Look, she lost because she had no message.

These flyover voters want jobs. And they don't want to be dictated to by people like us. Stop trying to understand it and look at this country as two nations. There are those positioned to survive in the modern economy, and those unable to do so. These groups also have divergent cultures. One outvoted the other this election.

We're moving into a period of what I'd call soft Balkanization. A hiccup in globalization. But it's just an ebb in a flow taking place over a glacial timeframe. The Trump voters had the bad fortune of being born at a time during which their skills were made obsolete. You and I have perhaps the bad fortune of living through a time in which they amassed voting power adequate to pull us backward with them.

Why Hillary lost is a whole different conversation, one we aren't having right now. And even if everything you say in your latter two paragraphs is true -- not what I was talking about, so whatever -- I still marvel at the complete failure on the part of the media and many voters -- not the Trump fans, they can share fake news about Benghazi and Vince Foster, they didn't need the email thing -- in the relentless, mindless focus on Hillary's email when there were so many other stories that deserved more attention. Like Trump's defrauding of Trump University students ("students"), from which you seem to have some need to deflect attention. The email story was almost totally bogus. It was poor judgment on Hillary's part and maybe political malpractice, but there was nothing illegal about it -- unlike the way that Trump ripped off ordinary people. As everyone on this board knows, you don't pay $25 million to make a case go away unless there's something to it. You and all of the other people who kept insisting that it signified something real have your own consciences to answer to, but it's easier to talking about "bad fortune" and Hillary's failings, isn't it?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why Hillary lost is a whole different conversation, one we aren't having right now. And even if everything you say in your latter two paragraphs is true -- not what I was talking about, so whatever -- I still marvel at the complete failure on the part of the media and many voters -- not the Trump fans, they can share fake news about Benghazi and Vince Foster, they didn't need the email thing -- in the relentless, mindless focus on Hillary's email when there were so many other stories that deserved more attention. Like Trump's defrauding of Trump University students ("students"), from which you seem to have some need to deflect attention. The email story was almost totally bogus. It was poor judgment on Hillary's part and maybe political malpractice, but there was nothing illegal about it -- unlike the way that Trump ripped off ordinary people. As everyone on this board knows, you don't pay $25 million to make a case go away unless there's something to it. You and all of the other people who kept insisting that it signified something real have your own consciences to answer to, but it's easier to talking about "bad fortune" and Hillary's failings, isn't it?

The media's fucked. Yes, they contributed to getting Trump elected in some regards. But they also kneecapped the shit out of him. WaPo, the Times, and CNN did more than adequate hit jobs on him to offset any generosity they showed him, and any hit jobs they did on Hillary.

But you keep missing the point. Trump didn't get elected because of emails alone. They were a very minor part of it. He was a protest candidate. His voters didn't give a fuck about anything but throwing a hand grenade into D.C. And the one they threw had the added bonus of promising them jobs. Comey was not as significant as you think. Trump was still going to edge her out. WI, MI, and PA didn't turn red over emails.

You're deflecting. The blame lies with all of us who've written off flyover land and thought they'd just fade away and disappear.

Trump's just a recognition of what we are -- a fractured nation of can make its and can'ts.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The media's fucked. Yes, they contributed to getting Trump elected in some regards. But they also kneecapped the shit out of him. WaPo, the Times, and CNN did more than adequate hit jobs on him to offset any generosity they showed him, and any hit jobs they did on Hillary.

But you keep missing the point. Trump didn't get elected because of emails alone. They were a very minor part of it. He was a protest candidate. His voters didn't give a fuck about anything but throwing a hand grenade into D.C. And the one they threw had the added bonus of promising them jobs. Comey was not as significant as you think. Trump was still going to edge her out. WI, MI, and PA didn't turn red over emails.

You're deflecting. The blame lies with all of us who've written off flyover land and thought they'd just fade away and disappear.

Trump's just a recognition of what we are -- a fractured nation of can make its and can'ts.

I'm done after this, but it had little to do with who voted for Trump, everything to do with who didn't vote for Hillary. 500% increase in 3rd party voters compared to 2012 in at least Pa and Mi. 40000 into more than 200,000. Disgruntled white people may have gotten Trump the nomination, but the election was on non voters and third party voters. That is math, arguing against math is like arguing against science, only worse.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The media's fucked. Yes, they contributed to getting Trump elected in some regards. But they also kneecapped the shit out of him. WaPo, the Times, and CNN did more than adequate hit jobs on him to offset any generosity they showed him, and any hit jobs they did on Hillary.

But you keep missing the point. Trump didn't get elected because of emails alone. They were a very minor part of it. He was a protest candidate. His voters didn't give a fuck about anything but throwing a hand grenade into D.C. And the one they threw had the added bonus of promising them jobs. Comey was not as significant as you think. Trump was still going to edge her out. WI, MI, and PA didn't turn red over emails.

You're deflecting. The blame lies with all of us who've written off flyover land and thought they'd just fade away and disappear.

Trump's just a recognition of what we are -- a fractured nation of can make its and can'ts.

Apparently the only conversation you can have is about who's to blame. My point: the whole f*cking email ruckus was an embarrassment to anyone who took it seriously, and as time goes by most of those will come to realize it. Even now it should be blindingly obvious that the question of which server the Secretary of State's email was on is pointless compared to the other consequences of the election. If you want to talk about something else, go nuts, but I note that you aren't disagreeing with me, just "deflecting" in your own way.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I'm done after this, but it had little to do with who voted for Trump, everything to do with who didn't vote for Hillary. 500% increase in 3rd party voters compared to 2012 in at least Pa and Mi. 40000 into more than 200,000. Disgruntled white people may have gotten Trump the nomination, but the election was on non voters and third party voters. That is math, arguing against math is like arguing against science, only worse.

Exactly.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I'm done after this, but it had little to do with who voted for Trump, everything to do with who didn't vote for Hillary. 500% increase in 3rd party voters compared to 2012 in at least Pa and Mi. 40000 into more than 200,000. Disgruntled white people may have gotten Trump the nomination, but the election was on non voters and third party voters. That is math, arguing against math is like arguing against science, only worse.

Yup.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I'm done after this, but it had little to do with who voted for Trump, everything to do with who didn't vote for Hillary. 500% increase in 3rd party voters compared to 2012 in at least Pa and Mi. 40000 into more than 200,000. Disgruntled white people may have gotten Trump the nomination, but the election was on non voters and third party voters. That is math, arguing against math is like arguing against science, only worse.

This is built on the assumption non-voters and third party voters were otherwise Hillary voters. On what is this assumption based? (FYI, empirically, juxtaposing 2012 Democratic turnout against 2016 does not make the case.)

Here's some different math. Trump should not have been able to get the amount of votes he did, at all, anywhere. A candidate like him in years past would have been bulldozed by someone with a machine like Clinton's. Looking at his numbers, it is inescapable that he somehow created a movement. Digging into the numbers, you see that movement was centered around an unusually high number of white lower to middle class voters. What caused them to so galvanize? Us. We ignored them. They exacted revenge.

Even with diminished turnout, Hillary should have beaten Trump. And your math only works if we buy into an assumption we can't prove. There is something worse than arguing with math. Selling assumptions as math. It's exactly that kind of thinking that led to the modeling that allowed Hillary to think she had it in the bag and didn't need to spend more time in WI, PA, or MI.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Exactly.

The margin was so close that Hillary could have won by either turning out a few more people who didn't vote, persuading a few people who voted for third-party candidates, or persuading a few people who voted for Trump. Or, I suppose, by limiting the civil rights of a few more Trump people to keep them from voting, but she's not a Republican.

Because it was so close, one can choose to look at almost any segment of the population. Because they are more authentically American than the rest of us, the media have chosen to focus on white working-class voters in the heartland, but as Hank points out, you could focus on Stein voters instead and get to the same place.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Here's some different math. Trump should not have been able to get the amount of votes he did, at all, anywhere. A candidate like him in years past would have been bulldozed by someone with a machine like Clinton's.

This can be said only if you don't know anything about polarization and can pretend that most Republicans are reasonable people who might not vote for an inexperienced, narcissistic, bigoted monster simply because he is the Republican nominee.

(eta: Incidentally, I've already said I was wrong in thinking that Trump would not be able to consolidate Republican support.)