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I had exactly the same experience. And I would have strongly preferred that he didn't win. No one was willing to look at the situation clearly. It's going to

I had exactly the same experience. And I would have strongly preferred that he didn't win. No one was willing to look at the situation clearly. It's going to take the left a long time to grapple with this. I look forward to moving past the shock and outrage.

lkrubner 10y ago
I look forward to moving past the shock, but never the outrage. I am pleased to think that the outrage is just getting started. What I mean by that is something like the feeling expressed by Jean Paul Sartre, in his novel Troubled Sleep, about World War II. In the novel, Germany invades France, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. The Germans destroy village after village, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. With superior tanks and airplanes, the Germans quickly defeat the French, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. The French are forced to surrender, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. The French soldiers are taken to a temporary prison camp, but they don't truly understand they are at war. A rumor spreads among them that Hitler has decided to send them home to their families. The soldiers are cheered. Some even praise Hitler for his graciousness in victory. They don't realize they are actually at war. At the end of the novel, the Germans order the French soldiers onto trains. The trains start moving. It is understood by the soldiers that if the trains go north, to Germany, then they are being sent to slave labor camps, but if the train turns south, then they are being sent home to their families. In the final scene, the train comes to a fork, where it must go north or south. The soldiers watch anxiously. And then train turns north, toward Germany. And then, finally, the French soldiers realize they are at war. I feel like this election was a bit like that, for many weak liberals who thought that it was okay to be "centrist." I feel like they are finally waking up to the fact that this is a war. This is the only upside that I find in this election.
- disposable099 10y ago
  That's really the problem. Republicans were trained over the years to pick someone "electable". They figured it would go better with the population, electoral votes. So in 2008, they went with McCain, a Republican who supported campaign finance reform. In 2012, they went with Romney, a Republican who was governor of Massachusetts, a traditionally moderate/liberal state, who implemented Romneycare. Both of them were normal, Romney made a faux-pas regarding the %47 line, but all in all he would have been an OK president, and kept the Republicans moderate. The media slaughtered him in the general election. Called Republicans racists (which I didn't notice him being), classists (umm, do you think Clinton would live in a project?), and he couldn't answer back. That's why in 2016, the base got fed up with having to hold their nose and vote a moderate, they decided that if they're losing anyways, they might as well pick someone "who says it the way it is". Now when the media says that he's a racit, they say "Oh, like they called Bush (who had an African American Secretary of State) racist? They just hate Republicans". Liberals cried wolf. They refused to have a conversation, and we ended up with Trump.
  - generic_user 10y ago
    The evolutionary process in the republican party has been going on since Ross Perot ran as an Independent candidate in 92 and split the republican vote and gave the election to Clinton. There has been a slowly growing populist faction on right that reject the Neo-con aggressive military policy. And has an America first trade policy that rejects NAFTA style free trade. That movement had been building and finally broke through with Ron Paul in 2008. The populist movement and Liberty movement after Ron Paul has grown exponentially. It was only a matter of time before the Washington wing was challenged by the populists for control of the party. That is what has allowed Trump to win the nomination. The populists in the party establishment supported Trump and the Washington wing was out numbered and had to concede and surrender. This is a process that has been in motion for over 20 years to bring the Republican party to the quite amazing transformation.
  - in_cahoots 10y ago
    That's one way to look at it. Another way (and I'm trying hard not to endorse one viewpoint or the other, I've heard both) is: Liberals are tired of the Clintons. They're tired of nominating people just left of center who fail to inspire them, while candidates who speak their mind and call for change (Bernie) are ignored by both the DNC and the mass media. They perceive, rightly or wrongly, that Republicans have been fighting a battle while Democrats make concessions to people who are unwilling to compromise. And now that the most outspoken, uncompromising candidate has won the election, they're being told to compromise again, to swallow their emotions and have a conversation with people who aren't interested in talking with them. The media told them this was Hillary's turn. They were told to vote against Trump, but nothing about what they were voting for. They were told that feelings don't matter and to vote for the greater good, even while candidates within the party and without inspired based on emotion. Is it any wonder that turnout was down?
    - AOsborn 10y ago
      As an outsider (New Zealand National), your opinion appears spot on from what I can tell from our media. A chart that sums up the election for me: http://imgur.com/TOGIbcP http://imgur.com/TOGIbcP Trump didn't win the election, dropping Democrat turnout lost it.
- liquidise 10y ago
  > for many weak liberals who thought that it was okay to be "centrist." I feel like they are finally waking up to the fact that this is a war. This kind of divisive and baseless finger-pointing at moderates is what is wrong with US politics. To see it on the liberal side is both ironic and painful. For years the gop ousted moderates in its ranks as RINO's (Republican In Name Only). This approach badly damaged the party: it left them with no standing among young voters, formerly moderate McCain went hard to the right for a presidential primary and never came back to center. Senator Olympia Snowe resigned and penned a famous open letter denouncing this very ostracizing of moderate republicans. It has taken nearly a decade for the republicans to present a candidate with social policies that are not entirely at odds with the under 30 demographic. Trump may be socially distasteful, but he is is not looking to repeal gay marriage and plans to keep pot a "states issue". Imagine hearing that from a GOP candidate 4 years ago. Now that the GOP has a winning candidate, your answer is to double-down, and call the moderates in your party "weak"? Listen, political stances are neither weak nor strong. They are opinions based in personal experience, individual ethics, and our respective priorities. There is no "right" answer here. There is no "war" being fought. This is how democracy works. The pendulum swings one way and then the other. Comparing the result of this election to french soldiers being sent to nazi camps is perhaps the single most absurd analogy i have seen since the primaries kicked off. And that is saying a great deal given the ridiculousness we have all suffered the past 18 months. Shameful.
  - generic_user 10y ago
    I agree that the Democratic party in the hands of the 'new' identity politics Left with Bernie Sanders style leaders is going to crash and burn much harder then the Republican Neo-cons were able to destroyed the Republicans. But really, what choice do the Democrats have but to go as far into the kaleidescope of identity as then can go? The DNC has been totally disgraced as a sham. Its a puppet establishment in the pocket of Wall street and the Corporate Globalists just as much as the Bush Neo-cons were. There is nothing left of the Democratic party for the working class. They threw the European Americas overboard as 'irredeemable deplorable'. And they think the melting pot and Integration are Racist oppressive ideas of the Patriarchy. The idea that America should have one national language is Racist. The idea that people need legal citizenship in order to vote and collect services is literally Hitler level oppression. How are you going to bring that back to a 'Center'? Is there even a center for the Democrats anymore that includes The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that was written by White Men who owned Slaves? As bad as the problems are for the Republicans there nothing compared with what is happening to the Democrats.
- badsock 10y ago
  I agree. There's a narrative at the moment that the left should have listened to the right more. That's the wrong lesson. The US GDP in real dollars is 2.3 times larger than it was in the mid-70s. In the same time period the median household income went up 1.12 times. Considering the size of the US GDP, that's a staggering amount of money that's just disappeared into the 1%'s bank accounts. It's a multi-trillion dollar heist. People are so loss-adverse that they've been fine with not getting paid literally twice as much, so long as someone told them they'd have less chance of losing their job if they went along with it. Regular Americans did their part - the economy grew, but they didn't benefit from it. The left should be making that crystal clear, that clarity should make people furious, and the left should ride a tide of justified anger to power. What the they shouldn't to is ponder whether the right is on to something and it really is the Mexicans that are to blame for their job insecurity, or that taxes and regulations maybe actually are the reason that the median American household doesn't have the 6-figure income that they would have had, had their wages been commiserate with America's success over the last 40 years. The left should act like the left, and address the economic problems of the poor and middle class people of America directly -attacking the deliberate fiscal and taxation policies that caused them. And if that doesn't focus group well, they should have some actual principles and do it anyway.
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    > that the left should have listened to the right more. That's the wrong lesson. Reminds me of the following: "listen to your users, but ignore what they say". Which is actually an entire chapter of Programming as if People Mattered, a great book.[1] So I don't think the left should have done what the right says, but it definitely should have listened more. Sort of like the whole seriously vs. literally thing with Trump.[2][3] [1] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tzEABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=listen+to+your+users+ignore+what+they+say&source=bl&ots=0T4wHhnhtL&sig=JzQSLISOoOMPlA-t_tMsoCjem5c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQxI70x6DQAhVS0mMKHeU5CcwQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=listen%20to%20your%20users%20ignore%20what%20they%20say&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tzEABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA107&lp... [2] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/peter-thiel-perfectly-summed-up-donald-trump-in-one-paragraph.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/peter-thiel-perfectly-summed-... [3] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-ma...
- thenomad 10y ago
  There have been enough calls for violence and incidents of violence in this US election cycle - and Brexit - recently. Please don't add to the former. This is not a war. It is a fundemental disagreement, but we are hopefully a long long way away from it being a war.
pyoung 10y ago
At least for me, it went something like this: 1. Trump says something really bad 2. Check a poll aggregator (538) 3. Breath sigh of relief For a good chunk of the election, Hillary had a really big lead in the polls. But after the Comey incident, things got tighter[1]. Nate Silver had some really good analysis on how tight the race was (a Trump win was within the polling error, and when state level polls are off, a lot of times they are all off in the same direction). But he was getting shouted down by the other aggregators. I was pretty on edge for this part of the race, but at the end, it looked like Hillary was picking up some momentum. I think part of it was the bubble effect, but I also think Democrats put too much faith in these forecasts. [1] At least on 538, a bunch of the other forecasters didn't budge. HuffingtonPost had a 98% chance of Hillary winning at the end. I really hope someone holds them accountable for that, as I wouldn't be surprised if such confident forecasts contributed to voter apathy.
- gabemart 10y ago
  > HuffingtonPost had a 98% chance of Hillary winning at the end. I really hope someone holds them accountable for that What's the evidence for them being wrong? To be clear, I'm not arguing that they were correct. But I see a trend of attacking any prediction (including those of 538) that rated a Trump victory at less than 50% likelihood as wrong, based on the evidence that he won. If I predict there's a less than 1% chance of you winning the lottery, you winning the lottery doesn't prove that I was wrong. I have no idea what the likelihood of a Trump victory was before the election. Maybe it was 1%, maybe it was 99%. But I think discussion of predictions shouldn't be results-orientated for single results.
  - NhanH 10y ago
    Personally I think 538's prediction was fine. In fact they explicitly called the situation where Trump would win despite the popular vote deficit. As for the rest of the forecaster that gave Clinton 99% to win, given a US presidential election, the priori of a candidate winning is 50% (historical data, roughly speaking). So you would need some quite extraordinary evidences to get the posterior to 90+% for a candidate. In this case, the evidences were mostly the polls. To have 99% prediction for a candidate based on a poll, the poll would need have at least 98% accuracy (assuming that when they're wrong, the probability of they being wrong in either directions is the same). Personally, I don't think the polls to be anywhere near that level of accuracy in general. Unfortunately I don't got any number of poll accuracy on hand - I'd love to see it if anyone have a citation. There are more factors that will affect an election, but with similar reasoning to above, to get a 98-99% prediction, those factors will have to be 90%+ reliable as well. That is some quite tall order. This is a case where the onus is on the forecaster to show that their number (98% for example) is sound, since they're the one making the extraordinary claim.
madaxe_again 10y ago
Likewise. Not a trump or a brexit fan, but I've been called an idiot who knows nothing about the world, as nobody but an idiot would believe either of those possible. After the event, same people tell me that I didn't actually see it coming, you just always assume the worst. No. I read history. It seemed obvious that trump would win from when he announced his candidacy - because he was dismissed out of hand. Same with brexit. It all boils down to people believing perfectly possible things to be impossible. Challenging that challenges their sense of self. Nobody likes Cassandra.

lkrubner 10y ago

I look forward to moving past the shock, but never the outrage. I am pleased to think that the outrage is just getting started. What I mean by that is something like the feeling expressed by Jean Paul Sartre, in his novel Troubled Sleep, about World War II. In the novel, Germany invades France, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. The Germans destroy village after village, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. With superior tanks and airplanes, the Germans quickly defeat the French, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. The French are forced to surrender, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war. The French soldiers are taken to a temporary prison camp, but they don't truly understand they are at war. A rumor spreads among them that Hitler has decided to send them home to their families. The soldiers are cheered. Some even praise Hitler for his graciousness in victory. They don't realize they are actually at war. At the end of the novel, the Germans order the French soldiers onto trains. The trains start moving. It is understood by the soldiers that if the trains go north, to Germany, then they are being sent to slave labor camps, but if the train turns south, then they are being sent home to their families. In the final scene, the train comes to a fork, where it must go north or south. The soldiers watch anxiously. And then train turns north, toward Germany. And then, finally, the French soldiers realize they are at war. I feel like this election was a bit like that, for many weak liberals who thought that it was okay to be "centrist." I feel like they are finally waking up to the fact that this is a war. This is the only upside that I find in this election.

disposable099 10y ago
That's really the problem. Republicans were trained over the years to pick someone "electable". They figured it would go better with the population, electoral votes. So in 2008, they went with McCain, a Republican who supported campaign finance reform. In 2012, they went with Romney, a Republican who was governor of Massachusetts, a traditionally moderate/liberal state, who implemented Romneycare. Both of them were normal, Romney made a faux-pas regarding the %47 line, but all in all he would have been an OK president, and kept the Republicans moderate. The media slaughtered him in the general election. Called Republicans racists (which I didn't notice him being), classists (umm, do you think Clinton would live in a project?), and he couldn't answer back. That's why in 2016, the base got fed up with having to hold their nose and vote a moderate, they decided that if they're losing anyways, they might as well pick someone "who says it the way it is". Now when the media says that he's a racit, they say "Oh, like they called Bush (who had an African American Secretary of State) racist? They just hate Republicans". Liberals cried wolf. They refused to have a conversation, and we ended up with Trump.
- generic_user 10y ago
  The evolutionary process in the republican party has been going on since Ross Perot ran as an Independent candidate in 92 and split the republican vote and gave the election to Clinton. There has been a slowly growing populist faction on right that reject the Neo-con aggressive military policy. And has an America first trade policy that rejects NAFTA style free trade. That movement had been building and finally broke through with Ron Paul in 2008. The populist movement and Liberty movement after Ron Paul has grown exponentially. It was only a matter of time before the Washington wing was challenged by the populists for control of the party. That is what has allowed Trump to win the nomination. The populists in the party establishment supported Trump and the Washington wing was out numbered and had to concede and surrender. This is a process that has been in motion for over 20 years to bring the Republican party to the quite amazing transformation.
- in_cahoots 10y ago
  That's one way to look at it. Another way (and I'm trying hard not to endorse one viewpoint or the other, I've heard both) is: Liberals are tired of the Clintons. They're tired of nominating people just left of center who fail to inspire them, while candidates who speak their mind and call for change (Bernie) are ignored by both the DNC and the mass media. They perceive, rightly or wrongly, that Republicans have been fighting a battle while Democrats make concessions to people who are unwilling to compromise. And now that the most outspoken, uncompromising candidate has won the election, they're being told to compromise again, to swallow their emotions and have a conversation with people who aren't interested in talking with them. The media told them this was Hillary's turn. They were told to vote against Trump, but nothing about what they were voting for. They were told that feelings don't matter and to vote for the greater good, even while candidates within the party and without inspired based on emotion. Is it any wonder that turnout was down?
  - AOsborn 10y ago
    As an outsider (New Zealand National), your opinion appears spot on from what I can tell from our media. A chart that sums up the election for me: http://imgur.com/TOGIbcP http://imgur.com/TOGIbcP Trump didn't win the election, dropping Democrat turnout lost it.
liquidise 10y ago
> for many weak liberals who thought that it was okay to be "centrist." I feel like they are finally waking up to the fact that this is a war. This kind of divisive and baseless finger-pointing at moderates is what is wrong with US politics. To see it on the liberal side is both ironic and painful. For years the gop ousted moderates in its ranks as RINO's (Republican In Name Only). This approach badly damaged the party: it left them with no standing among young voters, formerly moderate McCain went hard to the right for a presidential primary and never came back to center. Senator Olympia Snowe resigned and penned a famous open letter denouncing this very ostracizing of moderate republicans. It has taken nearly a decade for the republicans to present a candidate with social policies that are not entirely at odds with the under 30 demographic. Trump may be socially distasteful, but he is is not looking to repeal gay marriage and plans to keep pot a "states issue". Imagine hearing that from a GOP candidate 4 years ago. Now that the GOP has a winning candidate, your answer is to double-down, and call the moderates in your party "weak"? Listen, political stances are neither weak nor strong. They are opinions based in personal experience, individual ethics, and our respective priorities. There is no "right" answer here. There is no "war" being fought. This is how democracy works. The pendulum swings one way and then the other. Comparing the result of this election to french soldiers being sent to nazi camps is perhaps the single most absurd analogy i have seen since the primaries kicked off. And that is saying a great deal given the ridiculousness we have all suffered the past 18 months. Shameful.
- generic_user 10y ago
  I agree that the Democratic party in the hands of the 'new' identity politics Left with Bernie Sanders style leaders is going to crash and burn much harder then the Republican Neo-cons were able to destroyed the Republicans. But really, what choice do the Democrats have but to go as far into the kaleidescope of identity as then can go? The DNC has been totally disgraced as a sham. Its a puppet establishment in the pocket of Wall street and the Corporate Globalists just as much as the Bush Neo-cons were. There is nothing left of the Democratic party for the working class. They threw the European Americas overboard as 'irredeemable deplorable'. And they think the melting pot and Integration are Racist oppressive ideas of the Patriarchy. The idea that America should have one national language is Racist. The idea that people need legal citizenship in order to vote and collect services is literally Hitler level oppression. How are you going to bring that back to a 'Center'? Is there even a center for the Democrats anymore that includes The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that was written by White Men who owned Slaves? As bad as the problems are for the Republicans there nothing compared with what is happening to the Democrats.
badsock 10y ago
I agree. There's a narrative at the moment that the left should have listened to the right more. That's the wrong lesson. The US GDP in real dollars is 2.3 times larger than it was in the mid-70s. In the same time period the median household income went up 1.12 times. Considering the size of the US GDP, that's a staggering amount of money that's just disappeared into the 1%'s bank accounts. It's a multi-trillion dollar heist. People are so loss-adverse that they've been fine with not getting paid literally twice as much, so long as someone told them they'd have less chance of losing their job if they went along with it. Regular Americans did their part - the economy grew, but they didn't benefit from it. The left should be making that crystal clear, that clarity should make people furious, and the left should ride a tide of justified anger to power. What the they shouldn't to is ponder whether the right is on to something and it really is the Mexicans that are to blame for their job insecurity, or that taxes and regulations maybe actually are the reason that the median American household doesn't have the 6-figure income that they would have had, had their wages been commiserate with America's success over the last 40 years. The left should act like the left, and address the economic problems of the poor and middle class people of America directly -attacking the deliberate fiscal and taxation policies that caused them. And if that doesn't focus group well, they should have some actual principles and do it anyway.
- mpweiher 10y ago
  > that the left should have listened to the right more. That's the wrong lesson. Reminds me of the following: "listen to your users, but ignore what they say". Which is actually an entire chapter of Programming as if People Mattered, a great book.[1] So I don't think the left should have done what the right says, but it definitely should have listened more. Sort of like the whole seriously vs. literally thing with Trump.[2][3] [1] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tzEABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=listen+to+your+users+ignore+what+they+say&source=bl&ots=0T4wHhnhtL&sig=JzQSLISOoOMPlA-t_tMsoCjem5c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQxI70x6DQAhVS0mMKHeU5CcwQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=listen%20to%20your%20users%20ignore%20what%20they%20say&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tzEABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA107&lp... [2] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/peter-thiel-perfectly-summed-up-donald-trump-in-one-paragraph.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/peter-thiel-perfectly-summed-... [3] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-ma...
thenomad 10y ago
There have been enough calls for violence and incidents of violence in this US election cycle - and Brexit - recently. Please don't add to the former. This is not a war. It is a fundemental disagreement, but we are hopefully a long long way away from it being a war.

pyoung 10y ago

At least for me, it went something like this: 1. Trump says something really bad 2. Check a poll aggregator (538) 3. Breath sigh of relief For a good chunk of the election, Hillary had a really big lead in the polls. But after the Comey incident, things got tighter[1]. Nate Silver had some really good analysis on how tight the race was (a Trump win was within the polling error, and when state level polls are off, a lot of times they are all off in the same direction). But he was getting shouted down by the other aggregators. I was pretty on edge for this part of the race, but at the end, it looked like Hillary was picking up some momentum. I think part of it was the bubble effect, but I also think Democrats put too much faith in these forecasts. [1] At least on 538, a bunch of the other forecasters didn't budge. HuffingtonPost had a 98% chance of Hillary winning at the end. I really hope someone holds them accountable for that, as I wouldn't be surprised if such confident forecasts contributed to voter apathy.

gabemart 10y ago
> HuffingtonPost had a 98% chance of Hillary winning at the end. I really hope someone holds them accountable for that What's the evidence for them being wrong? To be clear, I'm not arguing that they were correct. But I see a trend of attacking any prediction (including those of 538) that rated a Trump victory at less than 50% likelihood as wrong, based on the evidence that he won. If I predict there's a less than 1% chance of you winning the lottery, you winning the lottery doesn't prove that I was wrong. I have no idea what the likelihood of a Trump victory was before the election. Maybe it was 1%, maybe it was 99%. But I think discussion of predictions shouldn't be results-orientated for single results.
- NhanH 10y ago
  Personally I think 538's prediction was fine. In fact they explicitly called the situation where Trump would win despite the popular vote deficit. As for the rest of the forecaster that gave Clinton 99% to win, given a US presidential election, the priori of a candidate winning is 50% (historical data, roughly speaking). So you would need some quite extraordinary evidences to get the posterior to 90+% for a candidate. In this case, the evidences were mostly the polls. To have 99% prediction for a candidate based on a poll, the poll would need have at least 98% accuracy (assuming that when they're wrong, the probability of they being wrong in either directions is the same). Personally, I don't think the polls to be anywhere near that level of accuracy in general. Unfortunately I don't got any number of poll accuracy on hand - I'd love to see it if anyone have a citation. There are more factors that will affect an election, but with similar reasoning to above, to get a 98-99% prediction, those factors will have to be 90%+ reliable as well. That is some quite tall order. This is a case where the onus is on the forecaster to show that their number (98% for example) is sound, since they're the one making the extraordinary claim.

madaxe_again 10y ago

Likewise. Not a trump or a brexit fan, but I've been called an idiot who knows nothing about the world, as nobody but an idiot would believe either of those possible. After the event, same people tell me that I didn't actually see it coming, you just always assume the worst. No. I read history. It seemed obvious that trump would win from when he announced his candidacy - because he was dismissed out of hand. Same with brexit. It all boils down to people believing perfectly possible things to be impossible. Challenging that challenges their sense of self. Nobody likes Cassandra.