Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[AlabamAlum]

My son has told me for two months that Trump was going to win. When I would counter with "but the polling data..." he opined that many educated middle classers and above didn't want to admit that they'd vote for Trump when polled. There was a stigma in certain circles for admiting a Trump vote. "No one wants to be thought a racist or worse," he offered. I poo-pooed that. And now I owe him $100.

On to Trump and the gorilla in the room of Trade: I am not a 'no rules, 100% free trade guy'. You do not need to allow a foreign country to put a 30% tariff on our shipped goods and making them non-competitive to their citizens while we accept that country's goods with little or no tariffs or taxes. The big (but not lone) player in this is, of course, China which has traditionally had a hard protectionist lean when accepting U.S. goods.

Anyway. Roll Tide.


::::shrugs; wipes cheeto dust off belly; puts on clothes; goes and buys a McGriddle::::

[iam416]

Tough to say at this point if this was a rejection of Hillary specifically or any 'establishment Dem" would've been beaten just as badly.

IMO, it was as much a rejection of Obama as Hillary. In numbers it wasn't overwhelming, but in the practical result, it's monumental.

[edindetroit]

And I'm shocked right now..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That's how I felt when I heard it on the radio on my drive in to work.

[iam416]

On to Trump and the gorilla in the room of Trade: I am not a 'no rules, 100% free trade guy'. You do not need to allow a foreign country to put a 30% tariff on our shipped goods and making them non-competitive to their citizens while we accept that country's goods with little or no tariffs or taxes. The big (but not lone) player in this is, of course, China which has traditionally had a hard protectionist lean when accepting U.S. goods.

Co-signed.

I'm soon to be a man without any hope of finding a party. The traditional conservative Republican party is gone, for the time being. Ryan will hold no sway. The Ds are going to recalibrate and move way more progressive. And my hopes of a Center-Right or Center-Left party....or anything fucking close...will be dashed for a long time.

[Dr. Strangelove]

IMO, it was as much a rejection of Obama as Hillary. In numbers it wasn't overwhelming, but in the practical result, it's monumental.

So he's personally popular but his policies are wildly not? I just don't see how that works but polls bear that out

[iam416]

Yeah, maybe he does considerably better with GOTV and narrowly wins the B10 states.

[AlabamAlum]

Co-signed.

I'm soon to be a man without any hope of finding a party. The traditional conservative Republican party is gone, for the time being. Ryan will hold no sway. The Ds are going to recalibrate and move way more progressive. And my hopes of a Center-Right or Center-Left party....or anything fucking close...will be dashed for a long time.

Yeah. The current inexorable creep to the fringe. That said, it's cyclic. Chin up. We will return to a centrist predominance around 2032. Of course, I will be in my cryogenic pod by then.

[iam416]

Huzzah! After Trump's populist revolt, the fickle electorate will crave "experience" and political know-how in 2020 or 2024. Then I'll have my pick of two sides of the same coin again! But not before my personal armageddon election between Trump and Warren.

[hack]

Key questions, IMO:

1. Do the Ds take back the Senate in '18, so is it truly a two-year window for change?

2. Is Obamacare up first for repeal? How much time and energy does that take?

3. Obama is still president for the next 2.5 months. Government is funded for another month. What does he do with his time in office? Get a budget passed? End-aroudn the Senate by appointing Garland, and hoping that sticks?

[AlabamAlum]

1. 2018, imo, depends a lot on how Trump does this next year. He is the grand experiment and perceived floundering will trickle down (heh) and affect other races.

2. It will take years to uproot the ACA. But I think it's an agenda item. Simultaneously bolstering Medicaid and Medicare while shuttering the ACA would be the best approach in this course of action.

3. Lame ducks make muted quacks. I can't imagine BHO having much traction to get a sweeping change in anything over the next two months.

[iam416]

Hack:

1. The Rs only have 8 seats they need to defend in 2018. They're all in states Trump carried easily except for Nevada. Ds also think they can go after Arizona. Realistically, even with a huge wave, +2 is the best they can do. The Ds have to defend in Indiana, Montana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, and West Virginia. IMO, the Ds are more likely to win the House in 2018 than the Senate.

2. Yes. Lots. It has to be replaced. They just can't repeal it. I mean, they can, but that's not what they've campaigned on. I have no idea how they go about that, but it will require a lot of work and it'll have to get by a very close senate -- probably 51-49.

3. Not much. He's going to have to be on a stage with Trump. I can't imagine a more awful event for him.

[CGVT]

Nate Cohn from the NY times made an interesting point yesterday. Non-college educated whites voted like a minority group and are 40% of the electorate. I guess it is just the logical extension of identity politics.

Exactly. As I said last night, Trump got out the redneck vote.

[hack]

Thanks on #1. That makes sense. So it's easy to imagine this is a four-year horizon and not a two. That certainly gives more breathing space for whatever the agenda might be.

I don't know what Obama does with his last two months, but it depends on if the Ds perceive politics as having descended into the barriers-busting exercise some Rs do, and if Obama is ready for that. This is an environment where you try things to see if you can get away with them, and Mitch McConnell knows that. Obama is keenly sensitive to respecting the norms and interpretations that have long existed, so I don't know that he'd accelerate the race to the bottom. Then again he's taken advantage of the increase in executive powers, certainly. So who knows? Were I a political advisor and hoping to limit the potential damage from Trump I'd be looking to distract him from whatever his own agenda is, and trying to stick Garland on the court and forcing the new administration to deal with that is one way to go.

I also wonder about the budget. Say what you will about the GOP, but if you view DC as insiders and outsiders, there are going to be insiders in both parties that need to ram through one last year of patronage spending before who the fuck knows what happens.

[Cody_Russell]

[/b]

DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!!

lol I was watching too much NBC last night.

[AlabamAlum]

As an aside, I wonder how candidates of either stripe will act in future elections. Will brashness and braggadocio become de rigueur in coming years? Has President-Elect Camacho Trump dramatcally changed the paradigm? It's all quite interesting. I wonder what the alien observers from Alpha Centauri think?