Trump

[Cazmonster]

[Elle]

I think what really did it was the pretense, like he is so shocked to find out that Trump is exactly who we all knew he was, yet Pence is also willing to smoothly tell direct 180 lies in his debate in order to carry the man's water. It's all just self advantage for Pence - how is that so different, morally? Trigger warnings needed: people who mask their inner churning vice with a placid veneer of benign kindness. How do we get those in this world?

[Zen]

Well, Pence is just as racist and sexist as Trump. He just presents himself better. And his record on LGBTQ+ issues, which are more important to me personally, is ABYSMAL. He signed a law establishing loopholes for businesses to deny services to gay and lesbian couples and before the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage, he had signed a law making it a felony for gay couples to even apply for a marriage licence. He is also against hate crime laws.

He has been consistently against Roe v. Wade, as was demonstrated in the debate. I don't think there is any doubt that him being a heartbeat away from the Presidency would be a bad thing for abortion rights. (I fall on my mother's position on abortion because she was there before Roe v. Wade and saw what it was like. She knew that women still tried to get them and that they were not safe. My mother was also almost allowed to die by a Catholic hospital when she was having a miscarriage in the early 1960s and they refused to terminate the pregnancy even after my father insisted that they save his wife's life over the baby, who wasn't viable outside the womb yet. That was the 2nd child she lost. The third time she got pregnant, her doctor started her on iron shots to deal with her chronic anemia and she went on a steady diet of liver and onions at least once a week during the pregnancy. She was never anemic again and my sister was born healthy, the second largest of the three babies, actually. I was the largest of the three, mostly because my mom had quit smoking by the time she had me. It is amazing we survived the mid-20th century as a species.)

His record on race is also fairly bad. He used racist anti-Arab rhetoric in his Congressional campaign in the early 1990's talking about America's dependence on foreign oil. This is long before 9/11, mind you. A man before his time. He claims to hold MLK Jr. as a personal hero, but Indiana is the only State in the nation where the polls for the Primaries were only open until 6:00 p.m. and there is no law requiring employers to allow workers time off to vote. I would be hard pressed to vote in that situation, unless I went on my way into work or took personal time. Most blue collar workers, who would not be voting for his party, wouldn't have the ability to do that. One of MKL Jr.'s biggest goals was equal voting rights. He was with President Johnson when the Voting Rights Act was signed into Law in 1965. Yet the state Pence is governor of makes it the hardest for the working class to get to the polls of any state om the nation...

(I actually missed the election in 1990 when we moved to Illinois because the polls here close at 7:00. In Michigan they close at 8:00 and I assumed that was when they closed here too. I went out to vote and they were already closed so I didn't get to vote in my first election in this state,)

So you are perfectly correct in feeling icky when Pence is smoothly lying about Trump!

[Elle]

I wonder what will happen to the Republican party after this. It seems easy to say things like, well, obviously you have to stop being so full of racist hatred and xenophobia. Yet maybe it was better when people like that just blended into one or both of the larger parties without having an actual movement of their own. There's a whole set of white nationalist issues for them to rally around now, and a large enough chunk of the country moved by those issues that they can actually form a viable political bloc. So is it better if the GOP lets them twist in the wind alone, or is it better if it somehow absorbs them by emphasizing certain issues like immigration and crime?

Some of the religious right is part of this nationalist group, but not as much as one might think, and they're also losing power as a voting bloc especially now that public opinion has swung so far around on gay marriage. I wonder what would happen if the religious right decided to move in a totally new direction to maintain relevance and have the best chance of promoting their essentials (pro-life, pro-religion in public life). If they really took "culture of life" seriously, they could try to make anti-poverty efforts and environmental and consumer protection efforts a major part of their agenda. Most religious right individuals I know are personally very concerned about these issues (the ones who aren't part of the "prosperity gospel" or think homeless people need lots of blame), and they could draw in votes and build some lasting bridges that way. One of the most effective anti-poverty efforts where I live is specifically Christian intervention in the community - if that particular group wanted to run candidates for office, were willing to reach out a little more on issues like the environment, and simply didn't talk about gay marriage, they could remain pro-life and pro-religion and still attract a lot of young voters.

In short, the religious right is associated with purely negative messages right now - it's all about who they want to restrict rather than who they want to help. What if it stopped being that, and started being about increasing the minimum wage and expanding Medicaid and strengthening families? What if you could vote for that values set without feeling like the main goal was tax cuts for the wealthy, a state policy of torture, and Pence-style felony charges for gay couples? The identity-politics and pro-choice left would be excluded from this, as would the Koch brothers and white supremacist branches of the right. That would be a powerful party to reckon with, and it has a kind of ideological coherence that our current two parties both lack.

[Bluedevyl]

Bar none, FiveThirthyEight is my favorite site for data-driven political analysis. They've had a couple interesting reads the past few days on this topic.

[Mike]

Yes and yes. I check fivethirtyeight daily for election updates, and I also listen to their What's the Point and Elections podcasts.

The other one I look at is Electoral-Vote.com. It's not as slick or involved as fivethirtyeight, but he's good at what he does and also has interesting articles and commentary. I like his Tipping Point chart.

[Elle]

Between Mike Pence's "I know I am telling a flat out lie at this moment despite pretending to be a totally moral Christian" face, and all the rest of it, I am feeling a bit exhausted by the election for real. One of the things that bothers me more than I expected is hearing a steady refrain of horror about how bad Trump's actions and words are, as if the world had never seen the like and nobody knows where this kind of guy pops out from or dwells. That's the worst. We live surrounded by these people, and the fact that most women are nodding along like, yep, is some indication. I tried to make a list of all the minor/lesser harassment offenses I have experienced or witnessed firsthand, beginning with touching, and specifically Trump style touching, and I just gave up in despair. That's how bad it is. Tell your kids. I think it's getting better but nobody should live like that. Most guys don't behave that way but I do think most of them internalize similar beliefs about women, and the still-large number who do act that way easily make up ground for the polite people.

[Eliahad]

[Mike]

Have you met you? There's no way you're part of the problem. You are a sincerely nice guy who strives always to do the right thing. If ever you accidentally said something that might be considered offensive, anyone who knows you even a little bit would know there was no harmful intent. Anyone ACTUALLY offended by something you have done has misunderstood or is overly sensitive or is just plain wrong.

[Elle]

[Cazmonster]

I have two success stories on the respect language front here at work.

There was a point years when my crew were referring to the guy taking work from the previous shift as "the bitch." I made it clear that I would not tolerate that use of language. My boss has taken up that torch on more than one occasion after I said it was inappropriate, which is fantastic.

The other was somebody referring to dominant game play as 'rape' as in one team was raping the other team at DOTA or League. He had about six months in on the job to my four years. I made it clear that rape has a very specific connotation and that it has no use here at work. He realized what he had done and apologized. I've never heard him speak that way again.

[Elle]

That's great you were able to make progress. I'm sure it has a ripple effect in life beyond one workplace, too.

I would like someone to explain to my spouse why his wife, like many women, feels personally bothered by the tenor of the presidential campaign this year and why ignoring the news won't magically erase the effects of having not ignored it previously. Hindsight is nice. We were just explaining to our kid that the cultural way of our people is to joke at least 50% of the time, often in deadpan, which makes it hard to detect. So I get that, but I'm serious about being weary of this campaign somewhere in the soul.

[Elle]

[Elle]

What worries me:
Decent humans everywhere freak out for three weeks over Trump's refusal to agree to accept election results.
Elections in states that calculate results electronically are hacked by same entity that is already hacking things to interfere. Our cybersecurity in e.g. county election office is zero. Maybe less.
HRC now has to concede quickly after steady drumbeat on this point starting today, so DJT wins.
Please tell me this can't happen. Go.

[poorpete]

I think the FBI will be especially aware of any threats. If there needs to be a cop and an agent at every polling place to assure safety of voters and of the process they will make it happen. Any massive fraud would require mass coordination, and therefore chatter, so I'd be optimistic they'd be sussing things out.

I think Hillary would look like a hypocrite if she doesn't concede, but she'll take that chance if the election is up-in-the-air. Now if there is a sign of irregularity or a close vote difference that she's losing, I expect the line will be "I will respect the final vote tallies after the recount/investigations have completed." Her emphasis of respecting reality will win the day over charges of hypocrisy.

Trump though, might put up a fuss even if there are no irregularities and he's mathematically eliminated. That's an issue. But, at that point the drumbeat will be in Trump's direction, as GOP leaders who prefer our democracy (and also mostly hate Trump) will side with "respect the decision." Trump will be a sore loser with no power, with very few allies who also have very little power.

[Mike]

[Elle]

OK, that's a little better.

[Mike]

Yeah, so far every Republican leader except Trump has publicly supported the "we will accept the will of the voters" line, including Trump's running mate, campaign manager, and daughter. If he loses the election, I believe his support from the party bigwigs completely disappears. Then he can go get an hour long show on Fox News and rabble rouse to his heart's content, causing even more damage.

[Bluedevyl]

[Mike]

Also, bear in mind that each state runs their own elections, and delegate a lot of that to local units. So the amount of corruption required for a mass fixing scheme would be YUGE.

At least one Republican governor so far has come forward to tell Trump unequivocally that as the person responsible for the voting process in his own state, he can assure the candidate that there is no chance that his results will be compromised (with the added overtone of being more than a little offended at the suggestion). That is a good thing.