I think the map showing county-level results with sizes weighted for population is much more telling:
10 Likes
3 Likes
Well, you can certainly argue that importing all our food wouldn’t be environmentally responsible and so forth, but the idea that keeps being floated that cities are populated by elites that couldn’t survive without the honest work of Real Americans in the countryside just isn’t true anymore. And the whole “us vs them” dichotomy ignores the fact that a lot of urban dwellers weren’t born there – people are leaving the countryside to live in cities.
4 Likes
Yeah, but in the real world, you know, the one we actually live in, the Democrats are not Communists who want to destroy America, but the Trump regime is building a government that is white supremacist AT THE LEAST.
I can’t believe we are actually asked to go along with the delusions of these assholes, who voted with their eyes open, and to perpetuate their lies. The narrative of the “economically anxious” who need to be treated with the utmost respect while they trample on the rest of us is bullshit anyway, since the statistics showed that the average Trump voter was firmly middle class.
8 Likes
There was a very interesting analysis on one of the news channels last week to the effect that:
If the election was held only in those counties which are directly on the I-5 and I-95 corridors, Clinton gets ~65 percent of the vote.
If the election was held only in the whole of the USA in between those corridors, Trump gets ~63 percent of the vote.
This is why boingboing’s staff, being based on the coasts, occasionally suffers from Pauline Kael disease.
1 Like
-
The fears caused by Trumps words and the fears caused by political pundits against Obama are both real fears, even if they two of them have different levels of reality.
-
Are you saying that everyone who voted for Trump is wanting a more white supremacists government than what we already have?
-
No one is asking anyone to go along with delusions. My goal is to break out of political tribalism that is partly responsible for getting us here. This starts by viewing most Trump voters as flawed people who are letting their biases cloud their decisions. Complete condemnation will just make them pick up the “deplorables” banner and wave it.
You realize both the jackass and elephant mascots starts out as insults to the other party, don’t you?
- The middle class are probably the most “economically anxious” because they have the most to lose, and they are the ones most likely to be affected by economic down turns. The rich have safety nets, the poor are already poor and can’t see themselves going lower, but they want to move up. The middle class are often one small tragedy away from losing it all.
1 Like
The middle class are one small tragedy away from becoming lower middle class.
The poor are one small tragedy away from becoming dead.
13 Likes
I love this one. A happy, prancing blue creature being attacked by a mindless red strangler vine.
Nailed it.
5 Likes
The libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. I know some conservatives who voted for him, because they found Trump to be a non-starter.
4 Likes
Quite honestly, that makes more sense than the liberals I know who voted for him because Hillary wasn’t “left enough”. I wanted to yell my god have you looked at his platform?? In some ways he was more conservative than Trump. But… legal pot, man, legal pot.
10 Likes
Some people are one issue voters and pot is their one issue. Personally, I’m not on board with the libertarian policies of wanting government to be small enough to strangle in a bathtub. I think I find more agreement with them on social issues.
5 Likes
At the very least, they don’t care.
Same for the names of the Whigs and Tories
4 Likes
Weirdly, Australian political parties don’t tend to do nicknames, derogatory or otherwise. The Labor Party, The Liberal Party, The Greens, etc. No animal mascots, no cute names.
The closest that they get to it is with contractions; Libs vs Labs etc. Which probably contributed somewhat to The National Party’s (“the Nats”) decision to abandon their old title of The Country Party…
3 Likes
You guys normally spell that word labour, don’t you?
Not very liberal, are they?
3 Likes
OK - I shouldn’t have downplayed the poors’ fears. I grew up during the 80s recession and I know what government “cheese” tastes like. I also spent over a year unemployed and felt like I couldn’t go any lower. My point was that middle class fears are real and valid, but I should have made that with out minimizing others - pretty much everyone but the rich who plan well are in some fear. Though one small tragedy away from dead is a bit hyperbole.
As well as others who broke out of political tribalism and wouldn’t vote for Trump even if it meant a Democrat in the office, due to the fact that he was a horrible choice. He got 3.2% of the vote, which isn’t enough for Federal Funding.
We won’t ever see a viable 3rd party candidate, however, until we change the way we vote, as the current system guarantees that it settles out into two parties, though a new party may replace an existing one.
I too would like them to be more moderate on this issue. The problem is there probably is fat one could trim on the governement. My ex-wife works for the Dept of Labor for over a decade and there are people there who are very bad at their jobs, but it is near impossible to get rid of them - it took years to get rid of a bonafide sexual predator and he had a one year paid suspension. All departments also scramble to spend every last dime near the end of the fiscal year, lest their funding be less next years. IMHO they should reward departments who operate under budget.
But at the same time I acknowledge we NEED these programs. Her department sorts out both companies not following the rules from ignorance, and those committing out right fraud, either raiding retirement funds, or not paying into their health and benefits like they are supposed to.
But just like I really highly doubt Sanders could have gotten a lot of his social programs funded, I don’t think Johnson could get a lot of the other departments defunded. I mean, he is the Governor of New Mexico, and they still have a state government.
That and their hate and bias for Democrats make them blind to their candidates flaws and they would vote fo anyone with a pulse.
1 Like
Hasn’t been since 2003.
Yeah, I think that’s what I meant. Trump and his surrogates’ white supremacy wasn’t an issue they cared enough about to affect their vote.
1 Like
Yup.
The ALP deliberately uses the “Labor” spelling as a mark of solidarity with the international workers’ movement.
They’re nowhere near it now, but they did begin as an explicitly socialist organisation.
4 Likes
Sure. I want value for my tax dollar, too. I’ll happily pay more tax for better infrastructure, better, more equitable schools, a single payer system, and a nation-wide public transit system. I am not a fan of taxes generally going for either waste within these bureaucracies or going to private corporations, which are just as bureaucratic and inefficient as the public sector. [quote=“Mister44, post:177, topic:89796”]
I don’t think Johnson could get a lot of the other departments defunded. I mean, he is the Governor of New Mexico, and they still have a state government.
[/quote]
I suspect he ran as a libertarian because he thought he could get some traction, not because he buys into their entire platform. Many republicans over recent years have been proclaiming themselves libertarians, and taking on whatever aspect of that party that actually suits them (focusing on the economic “freedom” aspect and ignoring the social, etc).
5 Likes
Liberal in the 19th century deregulated capitalism sense of the word. It began in the mid-20th C as an anti-socialist party aimed at the middle classes and above.
Oz political history would be fairly weird to a US point of view. The major political division was originally between convict-descended Irish Catholic workers (ALP) and settler-descended English Protestant landowners (the Libs and their predecessor parties). There was a lot of sectarian prejudice involved.
6 Likes
Gladstonian Liberals?
2 Likes
