61 thoughts on “ELECTION DAY 2016

  1. Wolf Böhrendt

    Seriously, how can a sane person vote for Trump?

    Here in Europe only some extreme right wingers (you might well call those xenophobic, homophobic, antisemitic misogynic lunatics Neo-Nazis or fascists …) Putin and Turkish president Erdogan are for Trump.

    Everybody I know (and there are many Germans etc who emigrated to the USA among them) is keeping their fingers crossed.

    PS:

    Calling someone “Hitlary” is rather gross – here it would probably be defined as “hate speech” …

    Reply
    1. Wolf Böhrendt

      Forgot this:
      The election still has me in a state of high anxiety. I am not sleeping well, and I think I check 538 about three dozen times a day, hoping for some good news. Tuesday cannot come fast enough for me. I think I speak for a lot of Americans when I say that I desperately want this thing to be over. It has been SO ugly. Come Tuesday night, I will either be relieved or suicidal. I think I speak for a lot of Americans about that as well.
      Can you imagine who wrote this?

      http://grrm.livejournal.com/
      And Harry Belafonte also spoke up – very moving!
      Can’t find the link though …

      Reply
  2. Jeff Meyerson

    Wolf, you are on target. That is exactly who is behind Trump here, along with the foolish, the easily led, and people who believe the demonizing of the Clintons that has gone on for 25 years. Four years ago, when she was Secretary of State, she was highly regarded by a sizable majority (not Cap’n Bob, of course). But once the Breitbart/alt-right anti-Semites got hold of the Trump campaign, it was off to the races.

    Personally, I believe anyone who says they are voting for Trump, for whatever reason, has proven he or she is not competent to vote. He knows nothing, he doesn’t care about anyone but himself (even his family is at a much, much lower level), he will do or say literally anything (as this campaign has proven repeatedly) that pops into his little head. He is a dangerous megalomaniac who can’t be trusted with a subway pass, let alone nuclear codes.

    He lies, and lies some more, and when the most blatant lies are called he either lies again and denies he said what he said in the first place, or doubles down and repeats the original lie and escalates it. He won’t release his tax returns, and not because he is being audited (if he even is). If he is, why not release last year’s return, or any random year? He lies about his “charitable” giving, lies about his wealth, lies about his foundation, lies about all the women who have accused him of groping them (a guy who would know said the real number would be “hundreds”), but why go on. He is causing sleepless nights and high blood pressure.

    Enough. Had Comey not gone in the tank for the Republicans we were on the way to a smashing victory across the board. I’m confident (though I wouldn’t bet money on it, given what stupid sh!t some people are willing to believe – a former neighbor insisted that Hillary has stage 4 something or other and just wants to win before she dies) but she will have a hell of a mess to clean up when (as John Oliver so rightly calls it) Sh!tstorm 2016 is over.

    We’ll be in Vegas, starting tomorrow.

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    1. maggie mason

      Perfectly stated I wish they would have made more of an issue of trump using Chinese steel (over US steel companies) His mocking of a disabled person and treatment of a goldstar family and disdain for vets who were pows or have ptsd should tell everyone what type of person he really is.

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  3. Jeff Meyerson

    David Brooks, in today’s NY Times, wrote:

    But this year Donald Trump has decimated the codes of basic decency without paying a price. With his constant, flagrant and unapologetic lying, he has shredded the standards of intellectual virtue — the normal respect for facts and truth that makes conversation possible. With his penchant for cruelty, bigotry, narcissism, selfishness and even his primitive primate dominance displays, he has shredded the accepted understandings of personal morality that prevent the strong from preying on the weak.

    Most disturbing, all of this has been greeted with moral numbness. The truest thing Trump said all year is that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes. We learned this year that millions of Americans are incapable of being morally offended, or of putting virtue above partisanship.

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    1. Deb

      Oh they can be offended alright, Jeff–by careless use of an email server! On the rare occasions that I engage with a Trump supporter and they start talking about the emails, I ask, “Have you ever opened your work email from home? Have you ever opened your work email through your cell phone?” When the answer is (inevitably as it must be in our hi-tech world) yes, I then ask if they think they need to be in prison for that “crime”. (Yes, I know there are degrees of malfeasance, but come on! If anyone should be held accountable in this whole email mess it’s the people who run our government’s porous and crappily-secured IT.)

      Reply
      1. george Post author

        Deb, I never believed this Election was going to be decided on Hillary’s emails. Deeper issues will determine the winner.

  4. Jeff Meyerson

    As far as the use of hot-button names go, the Trump campaign’s techniques, whether is be the stirring up of fear and hate in the people who feel their country is getting away from them, the demonizing of the “other” (Mexicans, Muslims, etc.), the demonizing and attempted intimidation of the press, and yes, the more and more blatant anti-Semitism (yeah, those International Jewish Bankers are behind everything), is the one right out of the Hitler playbook.

    Anyone who saw the guy proudly shouting, “Jew-S-A, Jew-S-A” at a rally who wasn’t chilled is either part of the problem or just not paying attention. Calling out Katy Tur by name at rallies, bringing up Jewish reporters on CNN to Jake Tapper (a Jew), you name it. This is an ugly, ugly campaign by a sad, sick little boy who is more than willing to bring the whole country down if he can’t get his way. Turning things over the Bannon was the clearest sign.

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  5. Wolf Böhrendt

    George, thank you! And your wife too of course!

    And thanks also to all the others for their clear words!

    I just decided not to stay up tonight – it will be past 3am European time before results are in probably. But I’ll get up early …

    I probably already told the story of me and my first wife on our first US holiday in Florida in 1988 – going to a sports bar on election night to watch people’s reaction and seeing that nobody but us looked at the one screen where election results were shown …

    Everybody else was much more interested in the different sports shown on the other 20 tv-sets in the bar.

    Then it was an easy win for Bush – even before closing time in the West the results were obvious.

    My prediction is 300 (at least) for Hillary !

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  6. Beth Fedyn

    I voted 10 days ago.

    Trump scares me to death. His way leads to Nazism.

    I just saw a Graham Norton episode with Daniel Radcliffe promoting his new movie Imperium, in which he plays a guy who infiltrated a skinhead Nazi group. He comments that, when the movie was being made, overt racism didn’t exist – as it now does. Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick were also guests and their demeanor when the discussion turned to Trump said it all.

    Please, dear God, let Hilary win. Sorry, Bob, but I don’t want to move to Costa Rica or Canada.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Beth, my Canadian friends get annoyed when Americans say they’re going to move to Canada if Hillary wins or Trump wins. They don’t like the idea of being a “second choice” country.

      Reply
  7. R. Robinson

    There was an article in this morning’s newspaper about Washington State Electors who have decided to vote how they think best regardless and in spite of the mandate of votes. One was quoted as saying “I know I’m supposed to vote how they say, but I won’t vote for Hillery, no matter what.” So if the members of the Electoral College can just take the vote into their own hands, what’s the point of all the rest of us voting? I thought there was a legal mandate for the electors to vote as directed by the voting public. Apparently not.

    Like Wolf, I’ll not watch. I’ve got high blood pressure enough already, am upset enough, even angry enough, without that stress. I’ve already yelled at the computer (which didn’t bother to reply) this morning, using language which would have caused my mother to blanch.

    I wrote and deleted more than a half dozen replies to Bob’s comment, all of them inflammatory. The hell with it. The hell with it all.

    Reply
    1. maggie mason

      I wondered about the Wa Elector myself. Rick, don’t get upset, go to a movie (comedy, maybe) have a good meal, take a nap stay calm and hope for the best.

      Krispy Kreme is giving away a free donut today I plan to get mine soon

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    2. Jeff Meyerson

      There is a legal mandate, but since it is only a $1,000 fine I guess he’d rather make some idiotic point than follow the law. HE was a Bernie supporter, who claims Hillary didn’t care about his -Indian – issues.

      So why did you become a pledged elector? I am out of patience with people like this.

      Reply
  8. Cap'n Bob

    I’ve hated the Clintons for decades, and I pity those who are blind to their criminal ways! They are horrible people! I’m not a fan of Trump, and if you were paying attention you’d know I was a Sanders delegate!

    And I’m not going anywhere!

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    1. maggie mason

      sorry, I seem to remember you were not going to live in the US with Hillary as president, and mentioned Costa Rica.

      Reply
    2. Richard R.

      You’re entitled to your opinion and your vote, I just hope it wasn’t for Trump because of your dislike for Clinton. Sanders isn’t an option here, it’s one or the other or your vote won’t much matter. A vote for Independent, Green, Progressive is still a defacto vote for Trump.

      Reply
  9. Cap'n Bob

    No, Maggie, I never said I would go to Costa Rica if Hitlery won. I was thinking of it as a possible retirement home in 2010, but there were too many factors against it.

    Reply
  10. Dan

    Actually George, I have a bet IF you’re Man Enough to take it……

    IF Trump loses……

    And IF he admits it…..

    He will blame the media…..

    (That’s not the bet; here comes the bet…..)

    Within the 1st 3 minutes.

    Any takers?

    Reply
    1. Deb

      Media

      New York Times and Washington Post

      Journalists by (((name)))

      Mexicans

      Voter fraud

      Illegals

      Uppity women

      “The Blacks”

      The list goes on…

      Reply
  11. Jeff Meyerson

    That “crooked” judge in Nevada who dismissed his case

    Anthony Weiner

    Besides, I didn’t lose. It was stolen from me.

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  12. Richard R.

    Bobby Rigged, a tennis player. Joke.

    It’s 5:00pm, Barbara is turning on the TV. She’s setting up for PBS and MSNBC so she can jump between. She’s wearing the headphones, I’ll look in later, maybe. Meanwhile I’m reading. Our “election party” food is tamales, tacos, refried beans, in support of Latino voters and really, because it. What are you eating while you watch the returns?

    Reply
  13. Wolf Böhrendt

    May you live in interesting times!

    Still I have a certain trust in people – not only the US …

    And it will work out somehow – we Europeans should remember that until the middle of the 20th Century we had at least one big war every generation, now we’ve lived in relative peace and prosperity like the USA fo more than 70 years.

    And even the former “Communist ” countries have made some progress – though not enough in the eyes of many.

    Reply
  14. Roy Hovey

    Still up here, out west, at 12:30 am, 3:30 Eastern Time. The results are in, and yes, we’ve cut off our nose, to spite our face, in the good ol’ USA. Somebody hand me a strong drink, then find me a lonely bridge….

    Reply
  15. Deb

    How did the polls get it so wrong?

    My sister’s take (through sobs): “We made the mistake of thinking ‘the South’ was a geographical location not a mindset.”

    Elizabeth Warren 2020 begins today!

    Reply
  16. Jerry House

    Not what I had expected.

    Not what I had hoped for.

    The “Bully Pulpit” will now be occupied by a bully. **sigh**

    Somehow we will muddle through. And, we’ll be able to spend the next four years saying, “I told you so!”

    Reply
  17. Wolf Böhrendt

    A friend just sent me these numbers – are they real and final?

    US citizens over 18; turnout in millions; in %

    2008: 225.5; 131.3; 58.2%
    2012: 235.2; 129.1; 54.9%
    2016: > 245; 125.1; < 51.1%

    This means that the turnout % was the 5th lowest in American history (data go back to 1828)

    1924: 48.9%; Coolidge
    1996: 49.0%; Clinton’s 2nd term
    1920: 49.2%; Harding
    1988: 50.1%; Bush Sr
    2016: <51.1%; Trump
    2000: 51.2%; Bush Jr 1st term

    4 million less people voting than 4 years ago – I can't believe that? What did these people think when they stayed at home?

    Reply

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