Trump

[Elle]

Donald Trump has grabbed America by the pussy!!! And he's a star so we let him!!!

[Stan]

With all the focus on electoral votes last night, I didn't notice that Clinton is likely to win the popular vote. The electoral college has been very kind to Republicans.

[Elle]

Yep, my older daughter is outraged by this because it's something they have been studying in social studies lately too. I have had my first difficult moment in the aftermath. Otherwise I feel one should cheerfully move forward to Victory with simply a greater degree of patience. But it was very very hard when my middle daughter at breakfast-time said to me, how could people vote for him when he calls women pigs and things that we are just people he can grab for fun? These are not things I have discussed with my daughter by the way; they are things she has heard outside of our house. I had to explain to her that while the world was in fact containing some sexist people and other people who don't care about it, not everyone is like that truly, especially her own Dad and Grandad. And then I told her that I had changed my mind about something at work. And for her sake now I'm going to go for a position that I had decided I didn't really have time for. And that I expected her to be a leader and to be strong and move forward without caring what other people say. That was a hard one. For the emotions.

[Tahlvin]

I read an interesting article the other day about why the founding fathers used the electoral college rather than popular vote to elect president. The idea was the same reason there were two chambers of Congress, and the Senate gave equal representation to each state regardless of population: they didn't want the will of less populous states being completely overridden by the will of more populous states. At the time, slavery was a factor, and the southern slave states didn't want to give too much power to the more-populous northern states.

You could argue it is an antiquated system that should be got rid of. I personally think it's not too bad of an idea. And it always reminds me how stupid it is when a politician says, "I have a mandate from the people!" No, you won slightly more than 50% of the popular vote in just the right states to cobble together an electoral college victory. And I kinda like when you have a president that won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. It's a good reminder, if the president-elect is smart enough to think about it, that there's a good half of the country, at least, that are watching him (or her, someday) closely.

[Ronster]

[akiva]

[Stan]

I think regionalism was also a bigger issue early on. What if nearly every state voted mostly for their own guy and no one had >20% of the popular vote. There would have to be a mechanism for resolution and a runoff would be hard with super slow communication.

Well, I don't see the electoral college going away any time soon as it would require an amendment. Even if it got past the senate and house, 38 state would have to approve - more than 12 states would lose advantage with a direct vote.

Plus, there is no drive for it from either party, even if it stung the Dems twice recently. They're both comfortable with its familiarity and how it affects campaigning.

[akiva]

[Tahlvin]

There are some states that do something along those lines already, where they reward their electoral votes based on who wins different districts, so Trump won some electoral votes and Clinton won others from the same state.

[akiva]

[Tahlvin]

[Elle]

Clinton almost won NE2, but in the end it was Trump, who also flipped the congressional seat to R.

[Cazmonster]

Loose in the white house, Melania drops all pretense in her hunger for tender baby flesh.

[Elle]

Things observed while driving around Friday: standard pickup truck fitted with the white version of three guys who look like the usual truck of three drywallers, roofers, driveway repair, movers, etc. Following them down one of the major streets in town, where panhandlers occasionally hold up a sign. "You're FIRED!" they screamed at each one, waving gleeful middle fingers out of the window. Yeah, that's kind of the point. Who knew so many people found The Apprentice so fucking inspiring as a life philosophy?

Note: I doubt these are the same guys who chant "build that wall" at local sports games against kids from a certain part of town. Not the right age group to be sitting in those stands for their own kids. Further humor: the fastest growing high school, in terms of #s and improving test scores and more kids going to college, is the one in that same certain part of town. Even further humor: who plays soccer better? Yeah, the kids from that same part of town, who often have no specialized training and assistance like the others.

[Elle]

In case anyone thought I was wrong or exaggerating about Trump's core white nationalist support, the Bannon appointment settles that. The man in charge of strategy in your White House is one! I can't wait to see what my local Nazis are inspired to do next. I cannot even convey to you how happy this has made them. My Trump voting relatives have zero problems with any of this. The ADL finally woke up and said something; AIPAC silent. Good luck to all!

[Reika]

[Stan]

Another surprising development is that Glenn Beck is almost the voice of reason. He called the alt-right terrifying and is concerned about the Bannon appointment.

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

Mike this is a response to the podcast, and I know we've been over this before (so I'm posting it here), but I have a serious question about this. Is your reason for pressing the point that most people who voted for Trump are not racist, sexist, or homophobic, the general desire to get us past the deep division that this election has revealed? I sympathize with your point that we need to stop hating on each other and blaming each other, when the public is so divided. But I don't hate people just for being racist or sexist or I would be hating a heck of a lot of people all the time. Most of the Trump supporters I know really are racists, or they're totally comfortable supporting a racist. They aren't friends with non-white people, they wouldn't want their kids dating a non-white person, they think people of different racial groups have certain characteristics that make them more prone to negative qualities or behaviors, and frankly they fear non-white people and their growing numbers as a threat to white people. This is what the alt-right is all about. The sexism is a little more complicated - they may dislike things we heard about Trump's behaviors, and they oppose some forms of sexism, but they don't see any of that as disqualifying. Trump himself has been quite vocally supportive of gay people - he put openly gay supporters onstage at the RNC and has made several comments supportive of gay rights and same-sex marriage - so I assume the homophobia part of the issue comes from Pence.

Racism has become such a dirty word, such a loaded charge, that calling something racist is now a form of "demonizing" people (to borrow a word you used). If you're a racist, so this line of thinking goes, you're automatically a bad (deplorable? irredeemable?) person, so nowadays the person pointing out racism is likely going to be called "racist" for pointing it out! In short, for many white people it seems worse and more insulting to point out racism than for people to actually be racist! We need to roll this back and reconsider.

But let me make the case for an opposing view to the one you defended in the podcast:
If you vote for a man who has been as openly and pointedly racist as Trump has been, there is a good prima facie reason to assume you are comfortable with racism, if not racist yourself. The burden of proof, as it were, is on you to explain to others why we shouldn't think you accept Trump's racism, just as the burden would be on you to explain that you do NOT support some of Trump's policies even though you voted for him. "I like Trump's comments about taxes and the economy, but I don't trust him on abortion." "I wanted him to appoint a pro-life USSC justice, but I reject all the racism of his campaign." That isn't too much to ask of people. If you can't disavow your guy's racism, then why shouldn't we think you are racist?

Racism was not a side-note in this campaign, but a core feature of it. Trump built his political name on birtherism about Obama and the centerpiece of his whole campaign from day 1 was the expulsion of non-white immigrants and refusal to admit Muslims! He couldn't disavow the KKK or the alt-right or any of his other nazi-type supporters, and it's because he is okay with them! His last campaign ad was pure anti-Semitism. His sons are both closely associated with alt-right groups; they retweet racist and anti-semitic memes and authors. He has appointed an open racist who runs a racist media side to be his main advisor and strategist. If you're a voter who's FOR this guy, you can't expect people to assume that you were only in it because you wanna bring down the system or because you're worried about jobs. It would be like a Hillary voter expecting people to assume that he rejects early childhood education and nutrition programs, and getting offended when they take him to support such things!

I know this is a big deal not only because having a successful civic union depends on people being able to support democracy together despite their differences. On a personal level, divided families are coming up on the holidays and it's a real problem for a lot of people. Can they expose their kids to the older relatives' open racism yet again, given the gravity of what just happened? I keep my mouth shut about these issues around my inlaws, but I don't think I'll be able to do that if it comes up at a holiday event. I really do find it necessary to ask them about racism and sexism. I have cousins married to Black and Mexican spouses, who have biracial children, and I honestly think it would be immoral to expose them to relatives who want to chortle about Trump's wall and deportation plans when we're trying to have a loving family gathering. That's someone's parents or friends you're gleeful about getting rid of, right? There is no free pass on that, no getting past it for the sake of bullshit healing or whatever. And if any of them can demonstrate they don't invest in companies that employ illegal labor, maybe I'd be willing to take this stuff more seriously, but of course, they cannot.

[Ronster]

Welcome to our planet, visitor from another star system. Mike is awesome. What planet do you live on?