A brief (mostly) apolitical interlude before civilization shifts. Maybe 90% of this posting is about what should be our core focus. Moving forward as a joyously confident scientific civilization.
But first: Where do the candidates stand on science? Science News meticulously compares the science-related statements of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
But first: Where do the candidates stand on science? Science News meticulously compares the science-related statements of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Scientific American analyzes the answers given by Clinton,
Trump, Johnson and Stein to twenty questions pertaining to science and science
public policy. Very enlightening... and worrisome.
These attitudes are reflected in The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, by Tom M. Nichols, professor at the Naval War College. Nichols delves into the prevalent cult of anti-expertise sentiment that pervades the media -- against journalists, teachers, politicians and scientists.
A related matter. We all know that humans go into denial and reject evidence, when it conflicts with cherished beliefs. (I am amazed that humans managed to create a scientific, sober civilization even once, across 6000 years.) But studies show this bias against factual refutation can happen from simple repetition of a falsehood, alone.
Mind you, some parts of the War on Science are waged by some dark-insipid corners of the far left --
-- though nothing like the all-out war on all science and all other knowledge professions by all corners of the entire U.S. right.
No one is more terrified of the possible return of a Republican Administration than our senior military officer corps, who can see that American Conservatism has become utterly addicted to delusion. The US Navy, in particular, has to adapt to a real world that is factually changing as the "Five hottest years on record have occurred since 2011." They have no truck with the delusional cult that American conservatism has become.
Oh, but one thing should make us humble, in denouncing our hallucinating neighbors: another fundamental of human nature. Isn't it always your adversaries who are the deluded, fact-resistant ones? Sure, in my case, that's true! But I'm contrarian. I don't believe anyone is ever more than 70% right. Not even my heroes, or my political "side." Not even that smug-pompous fellow I see in the mirror.
I have no idea whether that attitude makes me 'wise.' What I do know is that it makes me consistent with my core belief -- expressed in The Transparent Society -- that we only thrive by living amid ornery, reciprocal accountability. That criticism is the only known antidote to error (CITOKATE.)
Ours is the only civilization ever built on that principle. I'm loyal to it.
These attitudes are reflected in The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, by Tom M. Nichols, professor at the Naval War College. Nichols delves into the prevalent cult of anti-expertise sentiment that pervades the media -- against journalists, teachers, politicians and scientists.
A related matter. We all know that humans go into denial and reject evidence, when it conflicts with cherished beliefs. (I am amazed that humans managed to create a scientific, sober civilization even once, across 6000 years.) But studies show this bias against factual refutation can happen from simple repetition of a falsehood, alone.
Mind you, some parts of the War on Science are waged by some dark-insipid corners of the far left --
-- though nothing like the all-out war on all science and all other knowledge professions by all corners of the entire U.S. right.
No one is more terrified of the possible return of a Republican Administration than our senior military officer corps, who can see that American Conservatism has become utterly addicted to delusion. The US Navy, in particular, has to adapt to a real world that is factually changing as the "Five hottest years on record have occurred since 2011." They have no truck with the delusional cult that American conservatism has become.
Oh, but one thing should make us humble, in denouncing our hallucinating neighbors: another fundamental of human nature. Isn't it always your adversaries who are the deluded, fact-resistant ones? Sure, in my case, that's true! But I'm contrarian. I don't believe anyone is ever more than 70% right. Not even my heroes, or my political "side." Not even that smug-pompous fellow I see in the mirror.
I have no idea whether that attitude makes me 'wise.' What I do know is that it makes me consistent with my core belief -- expressed in The Transparent Society -- that we only thrive by living amid ornery, reciprocal accountability. That criticism is the only known antidote to error (CITOKATE.)
Ours is the only civilization ever built on that principle. I'm loyal to it.
== Powering the Future ==
Another
potential game changer!
Electricity-Generating Windows Could Turn Skyscrapers into Solar Farms.
Showing what can be done… in the era since Ronald Reagan
threw away Jimmy Carter’s cells from the White House roof and zeroed our
sustainables R&D budget… Costa Rica has managed to run for two months relying solely on various sources of renewable energy. “Of course, the country’s relatively
small size helped, with the seasonal heavy rainfalls. But so did the four
hydroelectric power facilities, which accounted for 80.27 % of the country’s
total electricity last August. Geothermal plants that contributed roughly 12.62
%. Plus the wind turbines, with 7.1 %. Not to mention good ol’ sunshine
lending a hand with 0.01 %.”
Is HP about to take 3D printing to a whole new level? To several new levels? This is one of dozens of looming technologies that could be civilization game changers…
… like Elon’s endeavor to combine roofing with solar and make a unified – more efficient way to cover our buildings.
Have the Chinese been filling their oil reserves enough to tilt markets? It appears so. A satellite-imaging firm ca says Chinese inventories in May stood at 600 million barrels, substantially more than commonly thought and nearly as much as the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If so, what looked like oil demand over the past couple of years was not a result of higher consumption but of strategic planning. If China has just been bargain hunting, it could cut imports and help keep prices low. It could also mean that recent OPEC agreements to cut output won’t be very effective.
Let’s just hope the Chinese aren’t stockpiling because they know a scary reason to do so in the short term. Just sayin.
August 2016 sets record as hottest month so far. NASA's records show that the past 10 months have been a series of record-breaking temperatures. And Arctic sea ice keeps shrinking. How many times must
this happen, before the cultists back off and let us use science to save this
planet? Look at the chart below. LOOK at it! Show it to your crazy,
Fox-watching uncle. This is not about "left" or "right". It
is about sanity.
Oh but it should not have taken this. All it should have
taken is two words. Ocean Acidification. Which any of you could measure for
yourselves and can only have resulted from humanity pouring carbon into
the atmosphere. Say that too, to your uncle.
Ocean Acidification. Ocean Acidification. Ocean
Acidification. Ocean Acidification. Ocean Acidification. Ocean Acidification.
Ocean Acidification. Ocean Acidification.
But the XKCD comic - A Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature - says the situation better than I do.
Chandran Nair looks at tropical cities like
Jakarta, Manila or Mumbai where the "heat-island effect" of cities,
congested and growing through migration, combines with climate change to make
life even more stifling and miserable for the poor.
== Finally ==
Yes I know you've already voted... Except for lazy-ass cynics who snarl "they're all the same!" As an excuse to sit on their butts and feel superior while others go out and save the world.
You know that I am a pragmatic moderate, who believes passionately in the militantly moderate, practical, incrementally progressive civilization that has been very very very good to most of us, uplifting 3/4 of the world's children out of poverty, discovering (if not always implementing) tools to save our planet and our future.
I've pounded so many points, this campaign. But none is more important than this. Donald Trump is not a fluke. He is a symptom of a recurring (confederate) fever that surges once per generation. It manifests in outright war against every profession dealing in facts and knowledge and the future. The confederate hatred of science, especially, means that they are at war also against your children and your future.
Take them down, all the way down to local offices. If this fever is burned out - cauterized - then our conservative neighbors may take a hint. Perhaps they will tune out Fox and radio shockers and rediscover the arts of negotiation. (And yes! Negotiation for business! We need a sane conservatism!)
They might even restock their offerings and send us adults - (yes, adult conservatives) - in 2018.
But that Phoenix will only rise from ashes.
If Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ike and -- yes -- Ronald Reagan were here today, they would be urging you to burn it to the ground, so that a sane Grand Old Party might return.
247 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 247 of 247Paul,
My original thought was Post Trumpatic Stress Disorder, but that name is a) already a common acronym for something else and b) sadly misleading, as there's nothing "post" about this stress.
Fun fact: 24 hours without sleep has the same effect on the human body as a 0.08 blood alcohol content, the legal limit in most states. I've been awake for 37. Eventually something will have to give, but until then the Trumpotic Breakdown continues.
I too have been dealing with some extraordinary anger. I keep seeing people at work that I know are Trumpers and I want to punch them in their faces, or at least go off on some profanity-laden tirades about how they've ruined my country. The other thing I've started noticing is how little most people are actually talking about the election. Groups of Trumpers will get together and discuss things, but whenever I bump into someone that I haven't seen yet it's like there's a complicated social dance going on: "Is this person a Trumper? Does he think I'm a Trumper? Does he suspect me? Is he safe to open up to?" Navigating this environment is exhausting.
Mad Librarian,
I decided to do a mass de-lurk on a couple of the sites I've been following and figured I'd start with two of my favorite SF authors. I'm looking forward to being a part of both communities.
@MC Tacitus is the (ex) medic, but I'd say pure stress.
I suggest your first priority is sleep.
For what it's worth, my technique is to just listen to my breathing. I'm imagining your anger comes in waves. Ride them like a surfer. Keep at it.
None of the radio shows I heard today (I spent a couple of hours driving in addition to the normal hour or two in the morning of NPR or Democracy Now) and almost nothing here mentioned abortion and the Supreme Court. From what little leaked through to me, the West Coast Liberal, most of my evangelical family voted for Trump mostly because of his promise to pack the court with anti choice justices. Some of them are college educated.
I just Googled the ratio and something like 40% of the country is anti choice, not all enough so to vote for Trump, but plenty to make up the margin he got.
I think there must have been plenty of sermons about how serious the consequences of the wrong justice could be, possibly without actually compromising tax exempt status.
Dr. Brin: I'm exaggerating the 'new beach front property' - that's more Lex Luthor than scientific. I'm not exaggerating investment priorities: Louisiana's industrial corridor proves how drastically infrastructure investment priorities can shift away from a major city. Republicans outside that lovely town can gleefully cheer how they 'drained the swamp.'
Miami will be a similar tale.
LarryHart: "Interesting theory, but do you think Donald Trump really wants Manhattan to be inundated?"
He'll laugh as the insurance companies and creditors eat the losses. Indeed, if he positions the trades correctly (as he claims to have done with the 2008 financial crisis), he can profit immensely.
Millenium Crow
Welcome. It looks as if the opportunities for "interesting" discussions on Contrary Brin will continue for the foreseeable future. I suggest - regards keeping one's wits - that whenever possible keep the political discussions in the political threads. David is good enough to put up science and scifi posts regularly.
The current election is the strangest one I have experienced and my political awareness goes back to 72 and probably has a few wisps of 68 in the background. More on this of course but I do have to say that my admission six months ago that I had no idea what was going to happen is looking like Punditry of the Highest Order.
It is not exactly Third Party but for those who are interested I, a Conservative by inclination, could not vote for Trump. Or Clinton. I figurd WI was going blue anyway, because every source of info (Except it must be said, Mrs. Tacitus) said it was so.
I don't regret my write in vote for McCain/Lieberman.
Tacitus
Jonathan: I would vote for Trump over Hillary. Trump may be a science denier and an a-hole. Hillary stated that taking out one of the few remaining Russian allies would be a top priority. That trumps everything.
Radioactive fallout gives me a terrible skin rash.
Duncan Cairncross:
the idiots who voted for Nader and let Bush in are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths
They share that responsibility with the ones that stayed home and the ones that voted GOP - but they do own part of that responsibility
Those that permitted the Donald to become POTUS may end up with a similar responsibility on their souls
While I get the analogy, I'm not sure it holds in this case. Nader voters were almost certainly to the left of Gore--they repudiated Gore for being too conservative--but would have been much happier with the outcome had their votes gone to Gore. I'm not convinced that Johnson voters would have gone for Hillary had Johnson not been in the race. The Chicago Tribune endorsed Johnson as a way of avoiding Trump, but historically, they endorse a Republican (except for exactly one Democrat--Chicago's own Barack Obama). In a two-candidate race, they probably would have "held their nose" and endorsed Trump, just as everyone from Ted Cruz to Chris Christie ended up doing.
Not to go too far off on a tangent--I don't think you can reasonably assume that the Johnson votes were peeled off from Hillary. A good percentage of them would have come from Trump's constituency.
Robert:
You do not get to blame Libertarians and Greens for not voting for your candidate.
Do you honestly want to know why Clinton lost?
Because William Weld backed out and insisted that Libertarians should vote Clinton. This, along with the FBI pulling that bullshit with the e-mails? Caused a bunch of people from the Republican Party and some from the Libertarian who were GOING to vote Johnson to flee back to the Republicans and Trump.
Robert, I don't want to sound sarcastic here--I really don't understand your assertion. Can you please provide more detail to someone who doesn't follow Libertarian politics so closely?
Are you saying that the fact that a Libertarian defended Clinton as getting a raw deal and noted that Trump was singularly unqualified caused Libertarians to vote for Trump? How so?
Wow, this post has passed 200 comments and moved onto a page 2. That hasn't happened for awhile.
The newspapers are loaded with editorials about how the Republicans had better govern well because they'll get the blame for any failings that happen now--that if they really screw up, the voters will backlash at the ballot box. Checks and balances. Pendulums. Etc.
To a certain extent, that's true, but I offer a few items that I think they're missing.
If you believe the campaign rhetoric, Republicans want to take my health insurance away (my pre-existing conditions would make me ineligible for private insurance under the old regime, even though I've been continuously insured through school and work since college age). They also want to sink the Iran nuclear deal, allowing Iran to begin building nukes right now instead of the 15 years they claim the current deal allows. Neither of these things will be easily reversed by a Democratic majority in 2018 or 2020.
The editorials seem to think that Republican majorities will seriously reduce the deficit. I believe just the opposite will be the case--that the fact that the president and congress are Republicans means that once again, FOX News will stop harping on the evils of deficit spending. It just won't be an issue any more, until the next time Democrats hold power.
And the elephant in the room is the Supreme Court. Even if none of the ancient liberals die in four years (quite unlikely) Republicans will already be able to reinstate their majority (unless President Obama does something really audacious, like making a recess appointment on Christmas Day). More likely they'll also replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer with 30-year-old Scalia clones, and then no matter what the American people elect Democrats to accomplish in 2020 or beyond, they'll be stymied at every turn by those so-called "constitutionalist" justices.
Some of the results of this election are irreversible, or at least not reversible in our lifetimes. And being able to say "I told you so" when Republican voters see what they have wrought is small comfort. Not that it will stop me or anything.
Where should we start?
First? Trump is suggesting eliminating two regulations for every new regulation put in place. This reduces the level of intrusiveness of the government, and less government is a big thing for libertarians.
Second? Trump isn't against the 2nd Amendment. Clinton has stated her desire for gun control legislation. Libertarians cling to their freedoms and their guns. Bibles need not apply except on a per-personal-belief basis.
Third? Sadly, a lot of Libertarians are white men and they are less likely to vote a woman into power than a white man. Now, I might be painting my fellow Libertarians with a broad brush here and I know at least one vibrant and active young female Libertarian (who, while advocating for Johnson, was hoping Hillary would get in because she's also pro-women's rights and reproductive freedoms). But a lot of what I've seen on FB discussions and my own arguments with the Randians suggests they might not vote for Trump, but they hate Hillary.
You eliminate their choice? You force them to do Him or Her? They would vote for Trump because they believe they will suffer less under Trump.
The Libertarian voters MIGHT split down the middle with half going for Trump and half going for Hillary... but IF that happened? Hillary STILL LOSES.
Do you comprehend that? You do NOT get to just say "well if that 3.9% of Libertarian voters had JUST not been allowed a third-party candidate they'd have voted for Hillary because reasons!" when you are operating over deficient information. Hillary lost because she was Hillary. Because she was arrogant, made dumbass mistakes leading up to her nomination, and failed to embrace groups she honestly should have (like the Native Americans who are going to end up all in jail under President Trump - if they are lucky).
Democrats made their bed. Now we all get to sleep in the mess that Republicans are going to make of it.
Rob H.
MillenniumCrow:
Fun fact: 24 hours without sleep has the same effect on the human body as a 0.08 blood alcohol content, the legal limit in most states. I've been awake for 37. Eventually something will have to give, but until then the Trumpotic Breakdown continues.
I was in a similar situation yesterday. Went to bed on election night at about 1:30am and could not fall asleep. Maybe slept 2 hours. Wednesday, I had to meet with a career counselor and then attend a recruiting interview, neither of which could be easily cancelled or put off, but I was in that sort of half-asleep state all day.
I too have been dealing with some extraordinary anger. I keep seeing people at work that I know are Trumpers and I want to punch them in their faces, or at least go off on some profanity-laden tirades about how they've ruined my country. The other thing I've started noticing is how little most people are actually talking about the election. Groups of Trumpers will get together and discuss things, but whenever I bump into someone that I haven't seen yet it's like there's a complicated social dance going on: "Is this person a Trumper? Does he think I'm a Trumper? Does he suspect me? Is he safe to open up to?" Navigating this environment is exhausting.
I would normally not bring up politics at a recruiting session, but I had a legitimate work-related concern to bring up--how hiring might be immediately affected by the financial uncertainty the election has brought on. So yeah, as I tried to tacitly bring up the issue, I had to wonder about what not to say to the counselor. Fortunately, here in the Chicago area, the likelihood was that she was a Hillary supporter (the fact that she was a "she" helped too).
Two regrets I have about process. Had Trump won the popular vote and Clinton won the Electoral vote, there would be a big popular movement to eliminate the Electoral College as "unfair" going forward. Since it happened in the opposite direction, there will not be such a movement. That sort of thing gets changed when Republicans are inconvenienced, but not when Democrats are.
Very similarly, had Democrats won the presidency and a bare majority in the Senate and thought to abolish the filibuster, they probably would have been shamed out of it by accusations of power-grabbing and lectures on checks and balances. Since it happened the other way around, I expect the filibuster to be abolished as the first order of Senate business. Again, rules only change when the change is immediately beneficial to Republicans.
Tacitus2 seems to think differently about the filibuster. Well, no point speculating as we'll know the answer one way or another in two months. OTOH, there is one reason I can think of why the Republican Senate might actually keep the filibuster in place. It's the only way they'll be able to blame Democratic obstructionism for their failures at the next election time.
MillenniumCrow,
I very rarely comment but have been a regular reader here since the Bush Jr. years. I very gladly welcome you here. Please stay as long as you like and speak your mind whenever you like.
Robert,
It sucks that things are the way they are, but no matter your passion you are responsible for the consequences of your vote. As we all are. Sure, everyone has the right to vote for whoever they like. That sure as hell doesn't mean you don't bear responsibility for who ends up winning. Your right to vote your conscience comes at a cost, as it does for everyone. In this case part of that cost for anyone who didn't vote for HC is that they contributed directly to Donald Trump becoming president elect. That's just the way it is. At the time they voted they knew what the stakes were, how the system works and what the current state of the politics was. If they now lament the fact that Trump has been elected, well, sounds like they should have voted for HC. If they don't lament the fact, then it sounds like they got what they wanted, at least in part. Either way, they bear responsibility.
Addressing the last article,
It appears that I was wrong in my assessment of where non-major party votes came from in WI. It was fairly uniform over the counties, certainly more than I'd expected.
My conjecture was easy to verify/reject once all the votes were in, counted, and published.
But it's still 5 times what it was in the previous several elections. I haven't bothered to look at those by county.
Kal Kallevig:
None of the radio shows I heard today (I spent a couple of hours driving in addition to the normal hour or two in the morning of NPR or Democracy Now) and almost nothing here mentioned abortion and the Supreme Court.
To the extent that the Supreme Court was talked about as an election issue, it was always about abortion and gun rights.
I find it much more concerning that the Supreme Court will make permanent the move toward voter suppression and gerrymandering (allowing Republicans to hold onto power as their constituency ages and dies off) and corporate privilege (the reason for the exercise in the first place). I'm not sure that the disaffected rust-belt working class knew they were voting for corporate supremacy, but that's what they did, and that's what they got.
donzelion:
"Interesting theory, but do you think Donald Trump really wants Manhattan to be inundated?"
He'll laugh as the insurance companies and creditors eat the losses. Indeed, if he positions the trades correctly (as he claims to have done with the 2008 financial crisis), he can profit immensely.
Well, given that the insurance companies and creditors probably voted Republican, I'll be laughing too. Sardonic and bitter laughter, true, but as the Phil Hartman lawyer character on The Simpsons almost said, "Those are kinds of laughter, your honor."
Carl M:
I would vote for Trump over Hillary. Trump may be a science denier and an a-hole. Hillary stated that taking out one of the few remaining Russian allies would be a top priority. That trumps everything.
Radioactive fallout gives me a terrible skin rash.
Republicans want to scuttle the Iran deal, which means instead of "two months after the 15 years", Iran may start building nukes again right now. I gather the remedy for this is to go to war with Iran. That doesn't trigger your rash?
Darrell E:
Your right to vote your conscience comes at a cost, as it does for everyone. In this case part of that cost for anyone who didn't vote for HC is that they contributed directly to Donald Trump becoming president elect. That's just the way it is.
I agree with your sentiment, but would qualify with "in certain states." Johnson voters in Illinois or California (for instance) didn't affect the electoral outcome. Nor in Texas and Alabama, for that matter. Only in states where the difference between Clinton and Trump was close enough for the other-party voters to have made a difference. Admittedly, there were several of those states, but still only a small subset of the country.
I bear responsibility for how I voted?
No. I do not.
I live in a state that went for Hillary Clinton.
There was no reason for me to vote for her.
Now, if I was in a swing state? I would have swallowed my distaste for the candidate and voted Hillary. I even urged third-party voters in swing states to do this, to only vote for a third-party candidate if they were in s safely Red or safely Blue state.
So you do not get to say I bear responsibility for Trump being elected because I didn't vote Hillary. I didn't vote Trump and thus I do not have that responsibility.
Get off your goddamn high horse and stop blaming Third-Party voters for the mess Hillary and the Democratic Party got you into. Because we will not accept your blame. We will not back down. And if you want to make us your enemy? We will become your enemy.
Rob H.
Small note. We all have responsibility for how we vote.
But I do not bear responsibility for the election of Donald Trump.
That was the point I am trying to state. And trying to lay the blame on Libertarians for not voting Hillary is being a damn asshole who refuses to accept responsibility for the real reason Democrats lost.
And why is that?
You bought into the lie that Sanders couldn't win. That Hillary was the superior candidate and that hatred of Hillary wouldn't draw out the Republicans in droves to vote against her.
I told you. A lot of Sanders supporters told you. And you bought the lie. You said "Hillary can win, Sanders cannot. We're going for the safe candidate" and the end result is a huge number of Republicans coming out to vote and keep Republicans in power.
Do not blame Libertarians and Greens for YOUR mistake in electing Hillary as the primary candidate for the Democrats. You did this.
Rob H.
@Robert,
Well, I voted for Sanders, so I didn't actually "do this" either. I did believe that Hillary was the better general election candidate, but that was something that comforted me when she became the nominee, not something that caused me to work against Bernie.
I'm not sure I buy "Sanders would have done better", as he had yet to be subjected to the full Breitbart campaign treatment, but at this point, he couldn't have had a worse outcome (than "losing"), and we'll never really get to run the experiment. Same with Joe Biden, who I think would have done better than either of the more "celebrity" Democrats.
In any case, your prognostication was certainly correct. I was amazed that you were right about Hillary-hate, but you were.
Well, who knows. Maybe in 2020 Biden will be in good health still and can run against Trump. I'm hoping it's still Trump at that point as Pence is far more dangerous.
That said, I suspect we need a young Democrat to run. Preferably Hispanic. Someone to motivate the younger voters and get them enthused once more.
Rob H.
@Robert
Maybe Elizabeth Warren? She's the only one left who I can think of with the kind of "rock star" status a candidate seems to need these days. I'd prefer we didn't elect rock stars myself, but I seem to be in the minority on that one.
What happens now to Trump TV?
Which side is FOX on, especially Megan Kelly.
And how boring will Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity become with no Democrats to bloviate against?
@Tony: I won’t respond with the same level of vigor as Robert, but I am in general agreement with him. Don’t blame the third parties for offering a more attractive candidate when the other two are flawed. Reasonable people can argue for a preferential system, but in the US I’m highly skeptical it will ever fly. I voted for Johnson and would have preferred Clinton over Trump. None of them earned a majority, so my second vote would have been added to hers in such a system, right? So what? In that system you’d get to find out which way the Libertarians lean, but my experience says they lean Republican in most places. Democrat converts (like me) are rare. If my gut feeling is right, we’d still have Trump as President-elect, but we’d also have a lot of Americans feeling that Libertarians got to vote twice. I know that isn’t technically true in a preferential system, but that would be the complaint from many who are single party loyalists. That’s why it won’t fly here.
I can get away with a Libertarian vote in California because the Democrats don’t need my vote to govern here or choose the electors. I still agree with them on many things, but I’m more interested in the Libertarian project as an opposition group. (It’s hard to call them a party on some days because they can be quite a rabble.) If I lived in a red state, I’d probably do as David suggests and join the GOP in order to moderate it. I wouldn’t care to use a preferential system, though. I don’t mind offering my vote to someone who won’t win. Winning isn’t the point of voting. Choosing is.
Robert,
I didn't elect HC to be the Democratic candidate, but if I had how would my responsibility for that vote be any different than your's or anyone else's for any of their votes? You feel that because in your voting district HC won that after the fact you can proudly relinquish responsibility for your vote? Because polls showed HC would surely win in your area?
Given the demonstrable lack of accuracy of nearly all of the forcasters, professional and otherwise, that isn't a very solid position. Many people made the same decision you made, or perhaps to just stay home, based on the belief that their vote wouldn't count because they were convinced of who was sure to win in their district / state, and then turned out to be wrong. They rolled the dice on what seemed a sure bet and lost, you rolled the dice on what seemed a sure bet and won. Congratulations. You're still responsible for your vote. Like everyone else.
Also, HC winning the Democratic candidacy has nothing to do with a voter's responsibility for their vote for president in the general election. The primary is in the past. Conditions as they are in the now, during voting for the general election, are what is relevant. Being pissed off that HC won the primary is not a valid excuse for not voting for her in the general election. Unless, of course, the voter was for Trump over HC or merely indifferent between the two. In which case, fine. That is their prerogative. But being pissed off that HC won the primary, not voting for her in the general and then complaining that Trump won and blaming the Democratic party because they didn't provide a candidate that could win by a big enough margin against Trump to afford everyone who doesn't like HC, but doesn't want a Trump presidency either, the pleasure of not voting for her, is not holding the high ground.
@MilleniumCrow: The other thing I've started noticing is how little most people are actually talking about the election.
Don’t be too paranoid about this. Get some sleep and you might notice that what is happening is a long standing American tradition that can be paraphrased thusly. “Politics is NOT a blood sport.” 8)
We will manage to survive this. We might even prosper from it in unexpected ways. We lost our Prop 8 (same-sex marriage) battle in California in 2008, but the after-effects were powerfully different from what proponents intended. Roll up your sleeves, become politically active, and we might turn this lemon into lemonade.
That one political ally of Russia gasses their people if they aren't loyal.
The nukes won't fly over Syria. That danger is reserved for Ukraine and just about anywhere in the Caucasus range.
@LarryHart: Maybe Elizabeth Warren?
Y'all can do that if you want, but it would be doubling down on the progressive stance for Democrats. We already know much of the country votes red, so I'm not sure that would be a winning choice.
On another note... is everyone ready for a 51st star on the US flag? DC voted to petition to become the state of New Columbia and turn the federal reserve area into something a bit like the Vatican.
We could probably make something politically interesting out of this and suggest we adopt Puerto Rico as #52.
LarryHart: re the "Manhattan inundation -> Trump profit" theory -
I'll share in bitter laughter, but it's far more bitter. Yes, the insurance companies and creditors probably voted Republican, but they have many ways to make other people pay for any losses they encounter.
That is the part that makes me cry: folks who get screwed have no remedy - a lawyer usually cannot take these claims very far even when they're meritorious because they pay off thousands (sometimes) but cost tens of thousands to litigate. The insurance companies will choose whose claims they will actually handle (and they'll chose people who will ultimately make them more money) - but piercing past that is exceptionally difficult.
Robert: re protest votes
The electoral college makes it possible for many people to stay home or vote for someone who will not win but who makes them feel better because - "why should I vote? the other side's gonna win anyway..." or "X is gonna win my state, so I can do anything, or nothing, however I like" - or "it makes no difference anyway"
It is time to abolish the electoral college: the most egregious manifestation of gerrymandering ever conceived, a relic intended to stop a civil war that failed utterly - a tool that empowers landowners in Wyoming against working classes throughout the country.
"So you do not get to say I bear responsibility for Trump being elected"
The electoral college absolves you from responsibility. But you're still an American, and we have duties that go higher than that. It needs to die so that our duties are borne honorably on our shoulders and we are all required to bite the bullet and do our best with some difficult options (and do better to get better options).
Yes, we are in an electoral college system.
Even so, if we did not have an electoral college, Hillary would have won the popular vote without me.
So you do not get to claim my voting for anyone who isn't Hillary or Trump is wasting my vote or caused Hillary the election. Because in both cases that is not true - both with the electoral vote and with the popular one.
Further, Libertarians tend far more to be conservative. So if anything you should want MORE people to vote Libertarian because if they had? If that 1% of Republicans had gone Libertarian and given us the 5% we need for federal funding of elections? Clinton would have won in all likelihood.
So you should be advocating for Libertarians. We're very likely what will be taking the place of Republicans after Trump is done smashing the party apart - and he will. He isn't going to forget the multitude of Republicans who gave lackluster or no support at all and he is going to in two years lead the charge to "get rid of those bums" and try to rile up his base to do so.
Rob H.
Alfred: Russia is an exhausted power. Even with an aircraft carrier, they're not the threat they were 24 years ago.
China is. In the last months, they have breached a 100+ year relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines, and now have a president in their strongest rival who threatened to extort S. Korea and Japan.
And Taiwan looks with terror at the thought of a U.S. president making a deal with China: "OK, we'll sit back and do nothing on Taiwan in exchange for a trillion dollars of debt. Deal?"
Of course, that will never happen. Just as Americans will never elect an utterly unqualified president whose most important political contribution was demanding the sitting president's birth certificate.
Robert: "Even so, if we did not have an electoral college, Hillary would have won the popular vote without me."
I will never claim that voting your conscience is a waste of a vote.
Rather, I will claim that if you felt that your decision mattered, you would choose based on the best of the available options, and recognize a need to work harder to ensure that the 'best available' options are better than what is before us.
Hillary won the primaries largely based on a view that "Now it's her turn" from insiders who've put their lives into trying to do what was best for (a) themselves and their careers, and (b) the country as a whole. Game of Thrones put it brilliantly (re Stannis): "the personality of a lobster." Yep, I could do no more than begrudgingly support her - but I can wholeheartedly endorse what she claimed to stand for - her platform was responsible, respectable, and reflected the work of decades of hopes by people who are trying to make this country better (which is why Bernie could also jump on board, and it's failure is a serious blow).
Some folks think all the 'insiders' are the enemy: that's a foolish indulgence (and most of the 'insiders' are living on a fraction of what they'd have earned elsewhere).
In 2016, with an electoral college in place, your conscience may be clear. But without that electoral college to absolve our duties, we have to take this democracy more seriously. It is ridiculous that the party that won 4 out of 5 of the last elections in the popular vote lost 3 out of 5 of those elections. It is WRONG. And must be changed.
As for the Libertarians: I have no problem with them, unlike some on my side, so long as they advocate honestly held beliefs. My fury is directed at Christians right now: a group that found Clinton's adultery to be a problem, but embraces a serial adulterer. Their hypocrisy offends me most because I see the danger it raises: when a person embraces an excess of cognitive dissonance, they can do anything and ignore everyone telling them what they're doing is wrong. Down that path the dark side lurks.
(And as an aside, anyone notice that 5 out of 6 times that a Star Wars movie was released, the Republicans won the next election? I think that should be added as 'evidence that this series is bad.')
LarryHart: "What happens now to Trump TV?"
He already has Breitbart. The Trump family will continue the buyout and expand that.
"Which side is FOX on, especially Megan Kelly."
They will turn back to defending Christmas, to defending white police officers improperly accused, to defending against 'scientific imperialism' - but their most important target is Social Security.
They cannot directly attack it: they need to focus on "saving it" with tactics intended to destroy it. They've proven the power of the 'fact-adverse' Americans - folks who disbelieve everything that isn't fed to them by an 'authorized channel': so they know that it will be quite possible to pull this off. And honestly, they're less interested in 'destroying Social Security' than raiding the piggy bank and putting that money into their pockets.
Hannity, Limbaugh & Friends will all want their piece of other people's money.
Millennium Crow you are most welcome here. We have several serving officers and noncoms. Indeed, I know many from my speaking tours (in the last year I’ve twice spoken for certain intelligence agencies, a pentagon office and the White House.) I think you’d be surprised by how much your worries are shared, the higher up in ranks you go. Flag officers have become quite fretful over what was becoming of the Republican Party, even before Trump. See how I discuss the differences in military doctrine between Democrats and Republicans:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-democrats-and-republicans-wage-war.html
Most Americans aren’t aware how deeply we depend on the quasi-religious devotion of the officer corps to civilian authority. One of mny deepest fears is that DT might force the OC to choose between his role as CinC and… us.
Thanks for reinforcing my belief (shared by too few!) that our officer corps is one of our national treasures. Be careful my friend. That goes almost without saying. Eyes open.
------
Tony F: I smell a rat in the popular vote. In Alabama etc, the audit-free voting machines can deliver any result the factotums want. And since the election results there are boringly pre-evident, no one will look closely if the republican vote MARGINS are pumped up, contributing to a much closer national result. Just being paranoid, of course. But sometimes paranoia…
Jeff B… ending gerrymandering in CA, WA, OR etc did NOT have the expected effect of shaving off DP reps in those states. It strengthened the DP in those states! It is time for the dems to declare this a crime BY republicans against the people.
Jonathan cut CarlM some slack. He said he lives in a non battleground state. (CarlM make things clear.) And giving the LP greater cred is another path (if unlikely)
I think I've figured out which episode of the Twilight Zone we're in now.
Season 3, Episode 8: "It's a Good Life."
And guess who's playing the Billy Mumy character. :(
I sent a donation to the ACLU today. Time to up support for those we are going to need helping us later. I urge all of you to do the same. The ACLU home page has a picture of Trump and "We'll See You in Court" as the headline.
Libertarians? I have a huge problem with their ideology - their economics are utter bullshit handwaving. But, as David says, they make (mostly) honorable opponents. They will be tested most severely in the near future though - Trump will force many Libertarians to choose between social freedoms and economic ones. We shall see how many Republican-leaning Libertarians truly believe in liberty soon enough. My guess is 'not many' but I am pessimistic right now.
Voting suppression may have played a role in Wisconsin -- margin was <30K yet 300K voters lacked voter ID:
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/
I said previously:
Two regrets I have about process. Had Trump won the popular vote and Clinton won the Electoral vote, there would be a big popular movement to eliminate the Electoral College as "unfair" going forward. Since it happened in the opposite direction, there will not be such a movement. That sort of thing gets changed when Republicans are inconvenienced, but not when Democrats are.
Very similarly, had Democrats won the presidency and a bare majority in the Senate and thought to abolish the filibuster, they probably would have been shamed out of it by accusations of power-grabbing and lectures on checks and balances. Since it happened the other way around, I expect the filibuster to be abolished as the first order of Senate business. Again, rules only change when the change is immediately beneficial to Republicans.
One more such issue is the Supreme Court. Had Hillary been on the verge of nominating three justices and "changing the court for a generataion", there would be a political movement to get rid of the lifetime terms and impose some sort of non-political term limits on how long one gets to serve. Since it's a Republican who is about to impose his will on the makeup of the court, no such movement will emerge.
In all such cases, it seems that reforms to seemingly-disfunctional rules of government only happen when the rules are inconveniencing Republicans. I'm not saying only Republicans benefit long term, or that any of the reforms I suggest here aren't good ideas no matter who is in charge at the moment. I'm also not saying that I wish Hillary had unfettered power so that she could run roughshod over everyone else. I'm saying I wish Hillary had unfettered power so that that power would very quickly be removed from the office. That won't happen when it's a Republican with unfettered power.
Alfred Differ:
@LarryHart: Maybe Elizabeth Warren?
Y'all can do that if you want, but it would be doubling down on the progressive stance for Democrats. We already know much of the country votes red, so I'm not sure that would be a winning choice.
You sound like Bill Clinton in the 1990s, thinking he had to be a "kinder gentler" Republican to get elected as a Democrat. It might have been true then, but I don't think so now.
The disaffected Bernie voters who stayed home or voted third party would have loved Warren. The voters who don't mind a woman president as long as it wasn't that woman would vote for Warren, or at least not vote against her. People who voted for Trump because (inexplicably) they were poking at Wall St would have loved Warren. She really does fight for the issues that concern the "common man" of the rust belt in a way that Trump only pretends to.
That said, I'm not sure that a rock-star celebrity is the best way to go, and Warren is probably the closest thing the Dems still have to that role. But I don't think she's do as badly as Hillary did in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, or Florida.
donzelion:
It is time to abolish the electoral college: the most egregious manifestation of gerrymandering ever conceived, a relic intended to stop a civil war that failed utterly - a tool that empowers landowners in Wyoming against working classes throughout the country.
The problem is insidious, because the mechanics of abolishing a part of the constitution itself would require 3/4 of the states to sign off on the change, and many of those required states directly benefit from the existing system. If it's going to happen at all, it will be in the angry aftermath the next time a Republican candidate wins the popular vote but loses the electoral vote. I ranted about that very thing a few items upward.
Okay. It's not my political reaction piece. But it is a new posting.
onward
onward
Naum:
Voting suppression may have played a role in Wisconsin -- margin was <30K yet 300K voters lacked voter ID
Sounding like a broken record, but only when Democratic-controlled states find a good way to suppress Republican votes will the issue be taken seriously enough to reform.
Today I was interviewed on NPR's "Here and Now" show on how technology and being on-camera all the time is affecting American politics. The actual audio is better than the short transcription .
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/11/10/reality-tv-presidency
onward
onward
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