I Thought... (Election topic)

@wynnduffy: Suicide pact. They're all dead.

Folks are going to be in a shock when the next recession hits. I am an independent and wouldnt have voted for either(even if I did my state was hilary in the first hour lmao) but man i didnt think the majority was this crazy. Trump gonna need more than a tax loophole to prevent bankrupting the country. Also the country is gonna be more devided than its been since the civil war.

On a lighter note i wonder if trump gonna ever try to come to chicago again, lol.

Well...I guess that is better than reading the YouTube comments that have started appearing on that video!

@shindig: were gonna need it

Since I'm little more than a shitposting Australian, I'm just going to throw my give my last 2 cents on the outcome of the American election, and it actually has little to do with the election. Please bear with my writing.

A lot of people are citing a pushback of middle and low class as one of the key factors in determining Trump's success. I think that this extends to a lot of other issues prevalent in the world today. Homeopathy being a thing and anti-immunization movements are just two off the top of my head. The people that follow these practices are very used at this point to be called idiots, morons, or just being constantly mocked. In fact, it gets to a certain point that these enhance the fervour with which these groups abide by their practices and actions.

I am not saying to give these people a platform that makes them seem like they have authority on the subject. I am trying to say that thumbing your nose up at them accomplishes very little, and just straight up ignoring them or disregarding their opinions and/or feelings on a matter just because you perceive them to be ignorant is possibly the most dangerous thing you can do. Knowing how people should think is one thing, accepting and understanding how people do actually think is another thing entirely.

This just goes to show the media isn't the be all end all fortune teller of politics. Everyone underestimated Trump till he just became the president elect. I couldn't stand the thought of Hillary as president, but it's hard to imagine any better with Trump. I'm very conflicted right now.

Edit: I will say that all the apocalyptic sentiments I see among the democratic community tonight reminds me of the reaction republicans had to obama being elected (and then reelected) in 2008 and 2012. Although, I cautiously put this out here (please don't crucify me) maybe we need to calm down a little. I mean the guy isn't even in the office yet. I may think his social beliefs are backwards, but I still want to see things unfold before I get scared of a trump america.

Edit 2: Okay... this is just me trying to have an outlet after the last few days. I am actually proud of the community here for being able to keep a topic like this up for so long without being locked. And also in part of any mods who've helped facilitate discussion here on the forums.

I just want to remind people that we're all different, and come from various walks of life. I very much sympathize with the people that are scared right now and feel ostracized by the country, but don't fall into despair. Always continue on and never falter. I encourage anyone to be empathetic as well to people who differ in opinion to you. Not the people who are consumed by vitriol and hate. (And I'm talking about voters, not candidates right now) We never need to get to a point where we hate other people because of their political opinions, because in the end we are all americans, and no president sitting in the oval office will change that. As I said before, I know people are emotionally charged right now, but I have seen some incredibly disappointing behaviour from both people who feel justified in being hateful because either (their candidate lost - their candidate won)

Sigh, I'm really trying to be careful what I say here, but straight up, I've seen some gross and hypocritical stuff the last few days. (Not on this site) but on twitter, forums, newsfeeds, etc. I have seen a growing swath of people that feel justified in racist, sexist and all around gross behaviour toward others. I have also seen disappointing behaviour from the kinds of people I thought were above it. As I said before I sympathize with those feeling emotionally charged right now. I just want to encourage everyone to not generalize a whole group of people based on a vote they cast. Everyone cast their vote based on a wide array of elements pulled from their life experience and beliefs. I know it's hard to understand why someone might support someone in spite of problems they have with character, behaviour or unsavory backgrounds (and I mean both candidates, not just the obvious one), but to chastise and blanketly dismiss millions (And let's take that in for a second. Millions of people. That's a big number of people with their own beliefs, backgrounds and motivations) is unfair to our fellow person, unfair to our political system and unfair to yourself. Be mad if you feel mad. Be happy if feel happy. Do get active in your community and voice your political beliefs to make a change you believe in. Do protest if you feel it necessary (It's a sacred right to be able to do so and that shouldn't be easily lost on anyone) Don't cause physical or emotional destruction in your community or to your fellow person. Don't be violent. Don't riot. Don't be racist, sexist, etc. Don't feel justified in hating others based on a vote they made in an election. And above all else, Don't lose hope. :)

Well, my heart sank tonight. I already had little faith in people, but had hoped there was still enough goodness and reason out there that someone like Trump wouldn't get elected... but now that's all been shattered.

I just shuddered when I realized that all those Trump surrogates who we've seen on CNN like the "Says Who?" Lawyer guy, Katrina Pierson, Corey Lewendowski and Jeffery Lord are going to have jobs running the USA..

Bernie was up on Trump before the nominations, and he's still up 10+% in favorability ratings against Trump. The DNC colluded to shoot themselves in the foot because they chose their candidate far in advance. Enthusiasm wins elections, not reluctant acceptance of an unpopular candidate.

That, and not campaigning in the rust belt with the assumption that they would just go Democrat, like the have the last 28 years. Blue collar workers got ignored, and they decided to throw a wrench in the spanner instead of being ignored. The rust belt was supposed to be a fire wall. Arrogance cost them those states.

Edit - Phone spelling & lack of sleep.

Honestly how much can change with out convoluted grid locked political system. Even people in his own party don't like him. I hated Hillary and trump so don't try to shove me to the left or right. I have no registered party because I despise political parties to a T.

I truly believe if Bernie was on the ticket he would have won an ewuivalatent of 70-30. But fuck the electoral college and how the county/districts are distributed.

Yes. Both of the candidates are human pieces of shit for more than 3 reasons apiece. But how many standard politicians are stand up people? It's like when you see a star athlete do something stupid, majority of people on this planet are not good people. Call me a pessimist I guess

So game of the year is coming up huh?

This one's for all you wrestlemaniacs out there:

@rxryan: I meant that uneducated whites seem to primarily vote republican, not that educated people don't. I know plenty of educated people out here in eastern PA who lean republican and are all-in on Trump.

I also know a few people who are all-in on Trump and there is almost certaintly a racist component to it.

@rxryan: But Trump is the epitome of all that. God knows none of the Republican candidates this election were great options, but why choose the candidate that blatantly represents so many of the worst stereotypes of the Republican party if you're sick of being labled that way? I don't believe all Republican's are racists or bigots, but Trump seemed to do everything in his power to prove those stereotypes true.

I will probably never vote republican myself, but almost any other republican in the history of America would have been a more palatable option than Trump. I may not agree with the average Republican's values, but I can at least respect most of them as human beings. Trump gave us no reason to respect him even a little.

I was never a trump supporter, but I'm going to keep posting this throughout this thread whenever anyone suggests "trump won because racism"

I think trump won because of a lot of reasons, and people calling trump supporters racists is definitely one of them. I think the best hope anyone can have right now is that Trump genuinely feels that improving the economy is required for his legacy as a president. At least he seems to be surrounding himself with people who know what they're doing. That's a good thing, right?

I feel like I'm going to be paralyzed by my own government. I haven't felt like this since GW Bush won reelection and that it's going to be worse than that may just be too much to take.

@mirado: Haha, good use of that gif.

Not mentioned is how far wrong the polls were. The NYT's had Clinton with an 80% chance to win the election and within 4 hours of election results that had completely swapped over to Trump, telling us that many many people did not want their votes broadcast ahead of time. The entrenched institutions that cover elections were caught by surprise and proved worthless to provide an insight into the American voter psyche. Right now I'm listening to the politicals on MSNBC having a meltdown trying to process this. As stated in posts above mine and better written as well, don't assume you know the people and don't call them uneducated. I suppose if you want to prevent these types from effecting the results then you will have to institute some sort of minimum education status and you know what? Even if you did I doubt the results would have been different.

I found some interesting exit poll results, yes Trump lost to Clinton among minorities but he actually did better than Romeny did 4 years ago so in fact Trump gained ground in an area that really seemed to be a very negative area for Republicans. Also white voters with a college degree voted for him 10 percentage points higher than expected based on previous polls so somehow he appealed to these people.

@spaceinsomniac: A silver lining is not impossible. Unlikely, perhaps; Trump will have to demonstrate his willingness to heed the advice of others, something that seemed to be an infrequent occurrence during this election cycle, but what one puts forward to get elected isn't necessarily what one accomplishes (or even tries to accomplish) after being elected.

Perhaps he's really a 17D Hot Potato master, saying what he needed to get elected, only to soften once elected. I think that's plausible in some areas and unlikely in others. He's probably going through with that wall thing, after all.

How easy is it to build a bomb shelter? Have to get ready for the Russian invasion now that NATO will fall apart.

If Brexit and now this as proven anything to me, its that polls don't know crap all about what's going to happen. They've been wrong time and time again recently. Don't listen to those polls folk.

@otterchaos: Good point on polling; I feel like Twitter likes and retweets were more accurate indicators of public support than traditional media polls.

Interestingly it was the LA Times again who came out with a recent poll in stark opposition of the others, and they were right.

@spaceinsomniac: who exactly is Trump surrounding himself with that knows what they're doing? The only two names going around right now are Newt Gingrich for Secretary of State and Rudy Guiliani for District Attorney. In fact, the people that Trump plans to surround himself with are probably scarier than Trump himself.

Also, you're dismissal of the racism and nationalism aspects of this election are naive at best and delusional at worst. Yes, Hillary lost some ground to miniority voters. It's pretty easy to figure out why when you look at the track records of Obama and Hillary and the motivation to vote for someone is always gonna be stronger than the motivation to vote against someone, which is what so much of the Clinton campaign was based on that. All that being said, none of that is why Hillary lost. She lost because Trump won overwhelmingly with both white men and women. These are the only two racial and gender demographics that he won. What does that tell you?

I hope we really can get rid of obamacare. It costs me roughly 8000$ per year, and I never wanted it. Other than that, there were 2 poor options this cycle, and one of them won, there was a 100% probability of it. I also don't understand all the doom and gloom, obama cost me money but other than that he didn't do much of anything to affect me and I remember SO many people complaining that another 4 years was going to ruin america. Guess what, it didn't, that's not how america works. Checks and balances are real things we have. The president can't stop you from being gay, black, racist, making up your own term for how you feel about your sexuality. If we had a racism problem in this country we wouldn't have had a black president 2 terms, probably not even 1.

Anyway, stop worrying, the president PROBABLY won't declare war on you. As far as I know both candidates were anti-war. They were both more likely to spit on a veteran than give them an honest handshake.

All I'm gonna say is that I really hope Trump will be a good president. Because right now, he has the potential to fuck up not just the US but the rest of the world. For everyone's sake, please, at least be a decent human being, Trump.

Living in the post-fact haze of Brexit Britain the past few months looking from the outside-in this result is horrifying but also not really that surprising or unexpected. I feel like I've already gone through the shock and denial phases of this current trend of anti-intellectualism and discontent and onto acceptance. Though there's no saying right now what the magnitude of this thing will be. Except that it will almost certainly trump Brexit I feel.

Pun intended.

Also I feel like the Brexit parallels are impossible to ignore now.

@rxryan: @artisanbreads: It's especially ironic that the very same intelligentsia that so often praises the government as a tool for the average Joes to take a stand against the elites are now blaming the uneducated masses for having different values and priorities than them.

And instead of reexamining whether they put too much trust in the People, whether their idea of how society should be is suboptimal, or whether they failed at making the case for the society that they believe in, they denounce the People as prejudiced cretins.

Britain "Man, brexit was such a mistake, it's like the stupidest thing we could do as a nation"

America: "oh yeah? watch this!"

You people voted a man that can't even sell a stunner. I hope you are all real proud.

Jesus I forgot how bloody awful Trump was in the WWE... that man is now President of the United States. At least Stone Cold can say he stunned the president.

Martin Shkreli is playing Once Upon a Time in Shaolin right now, on Periscope, to celebrate Trump's victory. Not making this up.

Hey, I supported Rand Paul, Rubio, Fiorina, and even Cruz before they lost out. I didn't even vote because I don't like Trump. I am just saying Trump is a thing because people don't want to be labeled something so awful that they clearly are not. Do we hold all Muslims accountable for jihadi terrorists? Should we hold all men accountable for Bill Clinton's sex offenses? Are all women the same as Lorena Bobbitt? No, no, and no.

Maybe this is harder to grasp for those that haven't experienced it. I myself have been labeled a bigot simply because I am not a democrat. Lol. Like hol-e-shit. Is this for real?! Years of this culminated into tonight's debacle. And don't kid yourself, everyone is complicit in this debacle whether you're pro-Trump or dislike the guy.

I am just hopeful for a giant reset now where people take this opportunity to come together, quit alleging awful things about one another based strictly off of demographics/affiliations, and realize everyone has to do better and that doesn't just mean these "backward ass racist bigots from the middle." /rant

@machofantastico: Not only that, he's a WWE Hall of Famer!

Well this planet is fucked now, climate change will destroy us. Can I book that ticket on the Andromeda Initiative?

I'm gonna get my popcorn ready for the next four years cause watching the world burn is somehow quite interesting.

@giantstalker said:

Not gonna lie, if Trump as president gets us some Wu-Tang, he's automatically better than, say Warren G. Harding. Maybe James Buchanan, too.

Kids are told from a young age to not be a bully, to do your homework, and to always be respectful to others. To work hard and preserve even in the face of obstacles. America just handed the keys to a person who has done *none* of those things. What kind of precedent does this set for our children?

I weep.

Every single POC, LGBT, and young, aspiring children out there.....I weep for our future.

I'm so glad I don't watch wrestling anymore.

I feel physically unwell. This isn't just about America. For some places like sweden where I am at, it got a whole lot more unstable.

You elected a climate change denier. You elected someone who's going to go all-out on oil. And yes, he's got nukes... You elected a vice-president who'd rather cut down on HIV medicine and give the money to "gay conversion therapy". - You screwed up. You screwed up badly. You owe the world an apology.

@rxryan said:

That's just a small taste of what it's like to be on the receiving end of racism and sexism. Like, say, if somebody called Mexican immigrants rapists and then people wanted that guy to be their president.

Yeah ok, so everyone grew up to be good, law abiding people before Trump right?

Come on.

Hey, I totally get that. At the same time, you'd think the party that supposedly fights against that stuff would avoid participating in it as well. If they had, and if they didn't treat opposition as sub-humans, this election would've been drastically different. Trump wouldn't have even sniffed the GOP nomination. And we'd ALL be better off now with no Clinton or Trump.

@rxryan: We also didn't just vote a Jihadi Muslim as president of the United States. The argument that Trump is a thing because they don't want to be labled as a bigot or a sexist while he goes around spouting bigoted and sexist things is illogical. If the Republican party, and nation as a whole, flatly rejected Trump and the things he said and did and instead voted in a candidate that rejected such talk and tried to change the image of the republican party your argument would make sense. Hell, even I might support them. But that didn't happen. They openly accepted and rewarded all the awful things he said and now he's probably President. How can I conclude anything else besides the people who just voted for him are a-okay with what he has said and done?

I hold no inherent animosity toward the republican party, and certainly not republican's like you, but I do have serious issues with the vast majority of what Trump has said and done and those who voted for him are complicit in that.

@rxryan: That is not the reason Trump won. Those flyover states were projected to go to any Republican running.

The main reason Trump managed to pull this off was because he promised factory jobs to working class whites in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That's it. Yes, a lot of racists support him, but not all of his supporters are racists. Trump himself is a racist, but it seems people are perfectly fine ignoring all his faults that would disqualify any other candidate as long as he brings back jobs. Dog whistling that the election is rigged may have driven his supporters out to the polls in those states as well.

Protest voting for third party candidates also played into it like when Gore lost. Those three states plus Minnesota would have won it for Clinton. She lost Wisconsin by 26,297 votes (Stein had 30,889). She lost Pennsylvania by 67,902 votes (Stein had 48,990, while other third party candidates, excluding Johnson, had 20,884). She's losing Michigan by 46,907 votes (Stein had 50,336). She's winning in Minnesota by 28,273 votes (Stein has 35,658, while non-Johnson candidates have 74,069). That's excluding Johnson's even larger numbers.

The darkness has won. I thought for one brief shining moment there was a hope. On a personal level, I've made great strides. I've lost like 60 pounds over the course of six months and got on antidepressants. Not perfect, I need to be more social and I kind of abandoned a lot of my career goals. This just makes me want to shove food and booze into my face until I know no longer recognize reality. Who wants to be a more complete human being in this kind of world?

As somebody from the UK I don't really know much about this matter because I pay little attention to it, but to me this seems exactly like the Brexit vote in that people are unhappy and this is their way of showing it, rightly or wrongly.

Good luck America. 4 years fly by fast, and then you will have a better candidate to vote for. On either side.

It's certainly interesting to witness how a populist will act when he's in power. In my country, the populist immediately pissed off his voters by dropping one of his key issues. It's easier to say what's wrong with systems than to make them better.

BTW, can we do happy fun things in 2017? I could use that. ??