DrDarkStryfe

@chrissedoff: The percentage of eligible voters in the 18-29 year old range that voted, the "youth vote", has dropped since 2008's election. 51% in 2008, to 38% in 2012. 2016 is looking to be closer to 2012 than 2008. If you look at Michigan, the youth turnout is roughly what it was in the Primary, and it still went Democrat. The problem is that Independent voters overwhelmingly chose Trump in that state; enough to tip the scales barely in his favor. This is reason number one with a bullet why Democrats need to have more semi-open primaries during the nomination process; they need to have a finger on the pulse of the non-committed.

As for the base? More blacks, Latinos, and women voted for Trump than Romney. That was enough to probably sway Florida and North Carolina.

The Sanders question is just a long chain of "what-ifs" that will never have a real answer and just clouds the problems with the Democrats as a whole. You say "what if he energizes the independents" and I can easily come back with "what if he does not energize the minority base of the party, which is obvious he did not from the debates." It is just like the Popular Vote argument, a back and forth that gets the conversation nowhere.

Sanders ran as bad a primary campaign as Clinton did a general one. He didn't win the nomination by any metric possible.

Obama's approval rating is looking to be more about him being a charismatic figure more than economic policy. His popularity rating was still in the high 50's during exit polling, but the economy and change in Washington still ended up being the two biggest issues for voters this election. Ironically enough, Trump pretty much ran on the Obama platform and won because of it.

The Electoral College is in the Constitution. The only was it can be touched is the House and Senate vote on it, and two thirds of the states approve the changes. That isn't happening the foreseeable future.

So get involved with politics, get educated, educate others, and vote.

@bojackhorseman: Reality and the perception of reality are two different things. In the end, the perception of the reality is what led to those voters in the Rust Belt to vote for Trump.

@canadianmath: And? Is it fair for a candidate to lose because one of them can run up a two million vote lead in California? The Electoral College, as flawed to high hell it is, is a better way to select a President in our current political system then a Popular Vote.

The entire middle of the US can straight up be ignored if the vote is based on who gets the most. Campaigns would never leave the state in the top ten of population.

Until "first to the post" is banned, until "Vote for Party" levers in voting booths are banned, and until significant campaign finance reform is enacted, the Electoral College is the best we have got.

The question whether Clinton's campaign failed or not can be summed up in this one picture that shows the results of the last three elections.

The amount of people that voted Republican in the last three Presidential elections has remained fairly even.

The amount of people that has voted Democrat has fallen over the last three elections.

So, yes, the Clinton, and by extension the Democratic Party, campaign failed.

This has been the story since 2008. The Democratic Party has lost voters. Because of that, they have lost governorship in 12 states, over 900 seats in state legislature (which most State houses in the nation are Republican led), and the disastrous 2012 midterm elections that saw huge leads in the House and Senate for the GOP that will last past this election cycle.

This cycle has shows that the normal Democratic strategy of leaning into their base - cities/suburbs and minority vote - is no longer enough. The rural vote came out in force and tipped the scales in three states in the Rust Belt that have been Democrat strongholds for decades - Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Would Sanders have made a difference? Probably not. The groups he inspired were some of the lowest voting demographics in this election, and he did not make any significant headway to touch base with the traditional Democrat base. It is also important to understand that in this country Socialism = Communism for Baby Boomers and older, and more people over 40 voted than people under 40. Five straight months of being called a Communist would have had a major effect.

This is also the first Presidential election that has happened since the Voters Rights Act has been gutted. There is anecdotal number crunching out that that Wisconsin had 150,000 voters that were registered, but did not have proper identification to vote if they wanted to. North Carolina, another state with strict voting ID laws, also saw a drop in early voting, especially from minorities. These are ramifications of allowing state and local governments getting away with something, even if the Federal level says its fine. This is proof positive that is it incredibly important to get involved in politics all of the time. And not just every two, four, or six years.

Lastly, yes, sexism and racism played a hell of a part in this election. That is a certainty. Anger did as well. If you live in a city or suburb that is usually Blue, pull up the county by county results in your state, and take a drive out to the closest county that went Red this election. Looks at what economy there is, look at what the roads and houses look like, see what kind of places there are for people to gather. Don't fall into a trap where one is going to equate every single Trump vote is a vote from a racist/sexist monster.

@chrissedoff: That is why I specifically said GOP. Yes, Trump's ground game was non-existent, but the GOP was still out there in force to save as many Senate and House seats as possible, and anyone they got to the polls was going to vote for Trump, as exit polling has confirmed. There was no great party schism that everyone was hoping for; Republicans voted Republicans, and there are more registered Republicans than Democrats/

Look at the final numbers. Trump is barely, if at all, going to pass Romney in total votes. The Right leaning demographics showed up, the Left's did not, and depending on the growing Middle is not a recipe for success for the Democratic Party.

Trump did better with blacks, Latinos, and women than Romney did.

Not only that, CNN's exit polling only has a 17% sample from rural voters, the segment that won this election and was massively underrepresented in polling the entire cycle.

Racism/sexism obviously had an effect on the race. No one is going to argue that. But if one side is going to keep putting a significant segment of the population into a basket of "deplorables" without putting in the leg work to understand why there is an eight year drop in Democratic Party candidates in government, from the local on up, then nothing will change.

There are a lot of angry white folks out there because they live in a town that the local economy is nothing but a Wal Mart. They live in houses that are falling apart, and on roads that have not been fixed in a decade. Are they part of a privileged race? Of course. But they are also disenfranchised to high hell; just like minorities and queer folk and immigrants. Trump promised them the world while Clinton promised them more of the same.

I wrote the below on October 2nd on a different message board in response to a Washington Post article about Trump voters in SW PA...

Western PA is an interesting region, especially when you follow the Monongahela River south.

Brownsville is one of a couple dozen towns that sit along the Monongahela River that has yet to see any real recovery from the collapse of the steel industry back in the late 70's/early 80's. The ones that are closer to Pittsburgh, towns like Clairton, Homestead, and Braddock, have a larger portion of black people that moved in after the collapse since housing was cheap and they are in close proximity of Pittsburgh and its rather decent public transit system.

When you get further south, and out of Allegheny County, you run into places like Charleroi, Brownsville , and Mon City. These towns are old and white and it is not out of place to have an entire extended family living on the same street. These towns are the extreme eastern end of the Rust Belt. The city of Pittsburgh and most of its surrounding communities might have found a new identity that is not based around steel and manufacturing, these river towns are some of the poorest in the state with no relief in sight.

There is a lot of anger in those parts. They are from the generation that was raised on "pulling up you bootstraps" and can only react to how things are in this one way.

Trump energized his base, and the GOP ground game, which has been better than the Dem's for decades now, did its job, while Hillary's campaign was going out trying to court Jeb fucking Bush voters and thinking Arizona and North Carolina was more important that Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

So where do those that are upset at the results go from here?

We fight.

Stop being keyboard warriors, stop throwing "-ists" around at anyone we do not agree with, be a shield for those that will get targeted in the coming years, get involved at the local level of elections, and start taking this country back from the bottom up.

Not every four years. Not during mid terms. But every single year.

It's alright to be mad, it's alright to be sad, but it also has to be a wake up call.

There was always a tenuous relationship between the publishers and the press. Bethesda were just the first to publicly figure out that they do not need the press, and the press is scrambling because it is still a model that is mostly based around "getting the coverage out first."

So because of yesterday's results, it looks like Ryan Hart qualifies out of the Europe region. MisterCrimson, who was in with EU points, now qualifies from the Global Leaderboard, making room for Hart.

https://abload.de/img/yano4prn2.gif

Yano is the gift that keeps on giving.