I'm feeling less positive

[Ronster]

I was pleased with the outcome, but restrained. I am hopeful that there is a framework still intact to rightly govern a nation.

I felt, as many of you now do, when President Obama was elected that it was the end of the world for the US, but over time I came to realize that even in 8 years it would not be possible to alter the course of the American narrative in a way that would be so destructive that it could not be changed or repaired some day.

8 years ago I felt the same way you do now. EXACTLY the same.

Tomorrow the sun will rise and we will all continue trying to be good people to all the people we work with and to our families.

I and my co-worker were worrying about the elections outcome when he stated 'Let's just make our plans to do the best we can no matter the election outcome. We need to be able to find something good in the outcome even if it is only that we voted." and this is how I am handling things today.

You guys are awesome people and though we disagree about many things, you have my deep respect. You have had an impact on me in a very real and large way. I hope I have not offended you or brought you down.

[Mike]

Armchair analysis: Trump won, because there is a large contingent of lower-class voters out there who feel increasingly disenfranchised. They feel as if the system works against them. They feel as if their voices are not being heard. And they see Donald Trump as the only person who seems to be hearing them and speaking directly to them. Donald Trump makes them feel validated.

And they have a point. The massive and growing wealth gap in this country (by far the largest of any "first-world" nation) indicates that the system does indeed work to the advantage of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The fact that they were grossly underpolled repeatedly in most of the nation throughout the entire election cycle indicates that their voices aren't being heard at the same level as others. You and I can look at the big picture and decide that Trump can't really deliver on most of the things he's promised, and that his few solid plans can't possibly produce the expected results, but that's irrelevant. They believe that he can do this for them. And we were wrong about Clinton and wrong about this election, so what do we know?

The country is hugely divided to the point that roughly half of Americans on both sides of the aisle literally report being "afraid" of the policies of the other side. So partisan politics is also a big contributing factor to these election results. It's why we saw so many Republican leaders reject Donald Trump during this campaign and then later go back to embracing him... because partisanship is THAT important. Sure, Clinton won the popular vote, but only just. Literally, the popular vote was (last I looked) separated by only a couple hundred thousand votes. It was close enough that the percentages were 48% to 48%. That is how divided we are.

If you want to look to why Clinton is down from Obama over various demographics, I think the simplest answer is that Barack Obama is one of the most charismatic people to ever hold the office of president, while Hilary Clinton is severely lacking in the charisma department. Have you seen her try to land a joke? It's sad. She simply does not have the charm of her husband or Obama or even G.W. Bush. I think Clinton is probably one of the most qualified and competent people to ever apply for this job, but job skills are not a major consideration in this competition. And even if you think he's a clown, there's no denying that Trump has charisma.

And I don't think sexism was the biggest factor in all of this... I think that was the unheard voices of the disaffected... but sexism was a significant piece of the puzzle. Clinton won among women. Trump won among men.

All the other stuff people bring up--the speaking fees, the TPP, the emails, the Clinton Foundation, etc--I think those are post-hoc justifications for actions people were already going to take anyway. If people were really primarily looking at things like that and thinking logically about the situation, Trump has similar and far worse baggage that is being overlooked or excused by the 50% of the country that are putting him in office. Clinton has been investigated repeatedly for the last 25 years, and the worst she has been found guilty of is carelessness. Trump has been charged with similar and worse and has typically resolved them with payoffs. Evidence indicates almost certain illegality in the functioning of Trump University and the Trump Foundation. He IS the elite who was born rich and has benefited his whole life from exactly the supposedly unfair system that many of his voters are so upset about. So it's not about any of those things with Clinton. People are angry about those and use them as talking points, but both sides find a way to excuse the failings of their own candidate while vilifying the opposition for theirs. None of that mattered.

Honestly, for me, this election was about anger at establishment and partisanship. And don't get me wrong, I understand the anger at the establishment. I wanted Bernie for the same reasons. I'm not trying to demonize Republican voters here. We are a divided nation, and if we can't figure out how to get over this, I see it getting worse before it gets better. We're divided 50/50 between left and right, when really the conflict should be between the majority of this nation who are getting screwed over by an unfair system to benefit the 20% at the top who hold all the real political power.

[Elle]

Thanks for saying so, Ronster, I appreciate it and you're probably the one Trump supporter I feel best about. It's easier for me to impute positive motives to you simply because I don't know you the way I know my brother in law, whose reasons I know to be poor, so I prefer to believe that your reasons are noble and I can see why some people don't support Hillary. That mitigates a bit for me. Cold consolation: Sanders woulda won.

[akiva]

[Elle]

Could be. I guess it would have been different because he may have appealed to some of the same disaffected voters that Trump did, but then he would have lost other voters that Clinton gained. Damn it I will have my consolation either way though.

[akiva]

This supports something I've thought the whole time: that Trump's claim that he's an outsider and would fight against the insiders is bullshit--Trump's top candidate for a Treasury Secretary job is the chair of Goldman-Sachs, and thus the epitome of a Wall Street insider.

He's also considering such "outsides" as Gingrich, Giuliani, and Corker for cabinet posts.

[Stan]

[Mrs.Darcs]

Ron, I love and respect you as a person. However, please don't say you know exactly how anyone feels. That's impossible to know, it just is. I'm not trying to negate how bad you felt, just saying that each person experiences the world differently.

[Elle]

Just put on my mascara so I can go kick the ass of the world at work again today, and then she came on to give her speech. The black tears are just rolling down my face and I don't even like her that much. It's for my children and my parents.

[Mrs.Darcs]

I broke out the waterproof today (and as I have to keep my shit together today, so I haven't listened to the speeches)

[akiva]

On the way to school, my son asked my wife if the Hispanic kids in his class would have to leave

[Kyle]

[Stan]

Kyle, I largely agree, but there could be serious impacts.

I think Pence will look for a chance to end same sex marriage rights.
Large sections of the gop are anti-science. They might severely cut research funds, which would impact my job - I'm near the top of the ladder so I'm not likely to go but I'd have to be more careful with layoffs on the horizon and my real income would shrink.
Trump's inexperience could result in a stupid war.

[Kyle]

I'll admit- the thought of Trump having to deal with an international crisis scares me. But I'm beginning to think that he's going to be this generation's Reagan. He'll surround himself with people who will do his job for him and he'll make sure he gets plenty of photo ops.

But I agree that those could be problems, but they're "George W" problems, not end of the world problems.

[Mike]

I think he will mostly be a normal Republican president, however my serious concern is two-fold:

We have, as a nation, allowed more and more power to be vested in the office of the President of the United States over the course of decades. The POTUS can send our troops to "war" without action from Congress. He can order assassination by unarmed drone strike on foreign soil. He can accomplish many things by executive order or by administrative laws issued by executive departments. The first and surest check on overuse or abuse of these powers is Congress, but since that is completely in Republican hands, and we saw that the majority of Republican leaders were cowed into supporting him even when they obviously had to swallow a lot of bile to do it, I am not convinced of their will to put checks on their own POTUS if he should choose to do something that is over the line.

The second part of this is that Trump has shown that quite often his reckless behaviors are prompted by him responding to people he feels have disrespected him. In the past, he has done everything in his power to try to silence and/or punish people he feels have disrespected him. Well, now the resources available to him to silence and/or punish people is vastly expanded. Granted, I think even a more conservative Supreme Court will eventually strike down most things that would curtail our rights, but that is a slow process, and in the meantime, if he sets his mind to it... how far can he push things to get his way before checks and balances from a conservative Congress and conservative Court finally step in to try to limit him?

This is worst case scenario stuff, but not anything outside the realm of plausibility.

[Zen]

I thoroughly expect this to be the most corrupt administration in the history of the US. If anyone believes that Trump will not be trying to line his own pockets while in office, they are kidding themselves. We can look forward to four years of graft with an occasional extremely stupid gaff that will make the US look extremely stupid on the world stage. Kind of like the Grant administration combined with George W. Bush.

[Elle]

[Elle]

Gradeschoolers my sister in law teaches, crying and inconsolable today because they expect to be either deported or left behind when parents taken away.

[Mrs.Darcs]

Stan, I'm pretty low on the totem pole, and I'm very worried about losing our funding (NIH grant) and thus my job.

[Mike]

Well, I made the mistake of reading his 100 day plan. Fortunately, much of that is completely impossible or seriously unlikely, even with a Republican Congress at his back. But there are many things in there that are going to cause a lot of pain. Cutting income taxes by a third while also cutting the corporate tax rate by 60%? I see this as extremely Reaganesque: we'll be borrowing our way to prosperity and leaving the deficit/debt question to the next administration.