Voting

From what I understand, as a doctor, Jill recommends you get your kids shots, and I don't think she ever said that they cause autism, however she did express some suspicion about vaccines, mostly because she's suspicious of Big Pharma, and the FDA being in their pocket. Part of the problem, if you could call it a problem, with the Green Party platform is that they allow all their members to vote on the platform. And since the party is so small, some of the kookier beliefs of some of the members shine through more clearly. The anti-vax stuff is one of those beliefs. Personally, I never really cared about that stuff, because I figure I'll never agree 100% with a party or a politician, and I agreed with the Green Party on the most important things to me. I can see how it could turn off potential voters, though.

I think if Johnson at least had been in the debates, he might have gotten to that 5% I was hoping for. The major parties do a good job keeping the focus away from anyone who could possibly usurp their spots on top, that's for sure. I hadn't heard that about Johnson (doing better than previous Libertarian tickets), but I hope it's true. And I agree, the best thing for the third parties to do is just keep trying, and also focus on down ballots. Winning local seats will help build awareness of the parties among the masses.

 

So, Jill Stein is raising money for recounts of WI, MI, and PA. She's currently got $2.25 million of the $2.5 million she's requested, so it looks like she'll have the funding to push for this.

I don't think the results are at all likely to change, but if all three swung to Hillary after all, she'd have the electoral votes to win, which would honestly be a hilarious way to troll Trump and his supporters. However, I would like to see the recounts go forward, because I'm curious if they would uncover any evidence of election fraud, which I feel runs rampant within both major parties.

 

Hell, I don't know about that. But I kind of figure questioning a safety of wi-fi is a little saner than wanting to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Jill was never my first choice, and if the Dems had been running someone who wasn't a criminal, I wouldn't have wanted to vote for her, for other reasons than just this, but in this election, with the shitty choices we were offered, her positions on the issues aligned closest to mine, so she got my vote.

I haven't been paying too much attention to her antics lately, besides some news I had seen about her raising money for recounts. But she doesn't seem to have a problem causing scenes and speaking her mind.

I feel like they'll have some opportunities coming up, especially if the GOP doesn't deliver on their promises to their base, notably fixing the job market/economy. If people get angry enough, and start looking for other options, third parties might start gaining a foothold. We'll see.

And that would be okay, too. My thought is, if the election is legitimate and no one is screwing around with the ballots or machines, the parties/govt. should be just fine with recounts, because they'll just be proving that people can have faith in our elections. Random recounts should probably be done anyhow, to keep people honest. Personally, I think both parties are screwing around and don't want honest elections, but I doubt the recounts will prove it.

 

American citizens are not well educated on how their government works. Sometimes, when I'm feeling paranoid, I think this is by design.

I think our electoral system could use some updating, but I'm not sure abolishing the electoral college is part of the answer. The Hillary supporters whining about the popular vote, the ones harassing electors, and rioting in the street make me want to punch them. Quit crying and actually do something useful. Maybe if these same supporters hadn't been calling people racists and sexists for not immediately getting behind their horrible candidate, they might have converted some people to their side and wouldn't be in this situation.

 

^ Ha ha, I love it. Hillary supporters are hypocritical as hell after the General.Their tears bring me joy.

The majority of people in more states voted for Trump. So in a way, I kind of feel like he did win the popular vote (despite being around 2 million short of Hillary's national total- although, apparently he said the other day that he only lost the national popular vote because millions of illegals voted, lol). Voting is flawed, don't get me wrong, but abolishing the electoral college would just mean that instead of pandering to Ohio and Florida and the rest of the swing states, and having those citizens decide the election, the people in California, New York, Florida, and Texas would decide for us. What we really need is to get rid of our first-past-the-post system of voting and use ranked voting or another alternative that allows people to vote for who they want instead of feeling the intense pressure to pick the lesser of two evils. If I had a dime for the number of times I read or heard "A vote for Jill is a vote for Trump!" or some variation, I'd be loaded. With ranked voting, I think we'd be looking at a third party president-elect right now. And the world would be a better place (probably).

 

I'm so fucking tired of hearing about Russia. There's no evidence that Russia had anything to do with either hacking the Dems or interfering with the election. And even if they did, while I don't condone foreign governments doing that sort of thing (even though the US interferes with other countries all the time), who cares who did it? If the Dems weren't being shady as fuck, the emails wouldn't have been there to leak. And there is no denying that these are legitimate emails. The people had a right to see them and weigh them in their decision on election day, no matter if it were Russians or a disgruntled DNC worker (more likely, IMO) who leaked them. And all this red-baiting is going to end up getting the US in trouble. Apparently someone wants the return of the Cold War, or worse, although hell if I know why.

Tch. I saw some crybaby article about Hillary blaming Comey for her losing the election because he brought those new emails up the week before, even though they ended up not changing his position on indictment. Hmm, maybe if she hadn't tried to skirt FOIA requests in the first place, she wouldn't have ever been in such a position. God, I wish she would just disappear already.

Did it? I haven't been keeping up too well, but I thought the recounts had all been canceled because she lacked standing to call for one (with such a low percentage of the vote).

Also, Trump is a fucking idiot. For all his talk about "draining the swamp" in Washington, his cabinet picks are horrendous. Can't wait to see how this administration goes.

 

^ LOL. One thing I have enjoyed this year is the proof that the Dems are as scummy as the GOP, and things like this prove it. I'll have to look up the story and read more on it.

 

Yeah, I'm not buying it. Pretty sure the people most interested in rigging an American election are Americans. Like how the Dems rigged their own primary, a fact which they keep conveniently forgetting.

Mitch McConnell needs to just retire, or die, already. We had a chance to get rid of him a few years back and he narrowly won reelection, so now we're stuck with him until 2020, I think.

I don't really know much about the current state of Russian affairs, but I know it's idiotic to try to start a war for no reason. There must be money in it for someone.

RE: Hillary being more qualified, while she's had a lot of time in politics, she's spent that time failing at it. Her stint as Secretary of State was pretty awful, even ignoring the private server. Pretty much everything Bill put her in charge of when he was president (like health care reform), she also sucked at and got nothing done. I saw a meme at one point during the election that summed it up pretty nicely- basically, you're a patient needing open heart surgery. Hillary is a surgeon, but all of her patients die, and Trump is not a doctor, but he's watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy. Which do you choose?

As far as Hillary's policies, her website listed a lot of them, which was basically a watered-down version of Bernie's platform, but mostly her campaign relied on identity politics (she's a woman, the Dem party loves minorities and illegals (I think at least half of the speakers at the Democratic Convention were "undocumented", it was ridiculous)) and the fact that she wasn't Trump. Which was just what her campaign wanted- there are leaked emails showing that they were pushing Trump forward because they thought he'd be easy to beat. LOL.

I think the recount was funded by some of Hillary's deep pocket supporters who were hoping for good news for their candidate. I don't see any other way for her to get the money so quickly. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out in their favor.

Eh, maybe there's an odd one out that's half way decent, but for the most part, they're all just corrupt 1%ers as bad, if not worse, than the politicians we've got now that Trump was firing his supporters up against. Last I heard, he was leaning towards an Exxon exec for Secretary of State. I mean, I know the US is into starting wars for oil, but at least right now we pretend like that's not what we're all about.

 

Maybe someday.

I doubt Americans could put down their smart phones long enough to start a civil war. Between China and Russia, right now I see problems with Russia as more likely, because it seems like no one has a problem with publicly blaming Russia for shit like hacking with pretty much no proof (Hillary's trending on Facebook right now for blaming Putin for hacking the Dems over a "personal beef against [her]"), and I think there's only so much of that a leader can take without some retaliation. I don't feel like relations with China are quite that bad, for all that Trump runs his mouth some, but what do I know.

It should have been all about the economy. Trump did a good job of convincing people he would protect jobs and help people get a better standard of living. Hillary kept just trying to tell people that everything's fine now.

And I agree that the election was most likely not rigged in Trump's favor. If people want to blame someone, blame the Dems' strategy and the media's collusion for constantly keeping him in the spotlight. If the media had just ignored him, he'd have faded away a long time ago.

RE: Jill, if true, it seems like too little, too late, unless I suppose she's planning on running again for the third time for president. I'd like to believe that she really did think she'd find election fraud and was being altruistic but I suppose that's unlikely.

True. I don't know what the hell Romney was thinking, if he was really going after the position. He campaigned during the primaries for anyone but Trump, and then wants a position in his administration? I didn't have much respect for Romney anyway, really, but I lose a lot of respect for people who go back on their words like that. If he actually did want the position. Never know what to believe.

I don't think being rich is necessarily a bad thing, although I admit that I don't have a ton of respect for people who don't work for their money. I do think government should be representative of the people, and since by definition these million/billionaires are 1 percent of the population, they should be closer to 1% of the makeup of our government. And I don't like all of the money in politics in general. We can't have nice things in this country (like single payer health care) because too many rich assholes stand to make a buck by not having it.

I agree that it is interesting the way Trump picks people who don't even think their departments should exist. His education cabinet pick is the same way.

His supporters still have faith in him. It'll be interesting when they all finally realize that he doesn't give a shit about them.

 

Bumping the thread in light of Alabama proving tonight that the state isn't a total disaster by electing the Senate candidate who isn't a child molester. I have to say, I am a little shocked. I thought for sure the (R) after Moore's name would matter more than him trolling malls for dates. I can't wait to see how Trump tweets his way out of his support this time.

Also, this serves as a reminder to get off your asses and register to vote if you haven't already done so. 2018 is coming up soon. Many states have shitty rules which mean you have to register months ahead of the next primary or general election. So do it!

 

Obligatory get off your ass and vote post.

Do it.