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**Spinner**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
sebster wrote:
One interesting thing about this campaign is how money didn't seem to matter that much. Clinton had a bigger warchest, and she also spent it better. Being better organised from the get go she bought TV ads in large packages well ahead of time, which is much cheaper, and on top of that Trump had to accept the standard hefty cut that the Republican machine takes from political advertising. All that added up to Clinton having a lot more TV presence. And on top of that Clinton had a much bigger ground game, which is supposed to give its advantage in swing states specifically. That last bit really didn't happen.

Maybe one lesson to take from might be that money isn't the factor in politics that it was. There's maybe a point of saturation, where once you've put out $100 million in TV ads, another $100 million isn't actually going to reach any more voters.

It would be interesting to see how it actually breaks down.... but I literally cannot recall a single positive message TV spot from the Clinton campaign, it was all "look at this bad stuff, and he wants to do worse." Whereas the Trump ads that were run around here were a decent mix of pro-trump positive messages (we've got work to do, make america great again), and "emails, Evil woman!!" type ones.

There were a couple positive ones on Hulu, if that counts, talking about her education plans, experience, and drawing in her endorsement from Bernie.

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
Or maybe lots of people were saying that very thing. But oh look, you're back to liberal hive mind stuff again. Don't ever change.

Democrats were in favor of Obama's executive power expansions. He never got hit for them. Pointing to a few lone voices in the wilderness and saying, "See? Not all of us 'progressives' are like that!" might soothe the ego but doesn't reflect the reality of the majority thought.

Meanwhile, you changed the subject, to pretend there's no problem. Your party put up Trump, and now he's won an election based on a campaign of vague promises that pretty much amount to gibberish. This is a problem, both for the next four years, and for what the Republican party will stand for 4 years from now.

You can pretend this isn't a problem, but that probably won't help.

I don't care that it's a problem. I got what I wanted out of this election, which was the Supreme Court. Trump seems like a horrible human being who will probably govern horribly.

Incidentally, I admire the boldness of people who fell for "hope and change" talking derogatorily about vague promises.

**sebster**

Manchu wrote:
I don't think you really understand what you are talking about in this case..

That is not a constructive response, in fact it is not really a response at all. I mean, I make a post agreeing with you that there is much to what happened than racial resentment, and then comment on the last part of your post that one part of your response is racial resentment, and you respond with that non-answer. Bit of a shame.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
It would be interesting to see how it actually breaks down.... but I literally cannot recall a single positive message TV spot from the Clinton campaign, it was all "look at this bad stuff, and he wants to do worse." Whereas the Trump ads that were run around here were a decent mix of pro-trump positive messages (we've got work to do, make america great again), and "emails, Evil woman!!" type ones.

Interesting counterpoint - maybe it was despite Clinton having more money and using it more efficiently (to have a greater quantity of ads), it didn't matter because the ads were poorly directed. That's a fair point, though as you mention we'd have to see if your experience of the ads matched up with how money was actually spent (and it's likely sooner or later we'll see figures on sooner or later as Democrats begin their campaign autopsy).

**Kilkrazy**

sebster wrote:
Seaward wrote:
Isn't it sad that that's still better than not even caring enough to lie to them? Democrats chose not to even bother with lies this time around, because those people matter so little to them that they thought they could get away with it.

No, instead Democrats tried to give them policies that would help them. What Trump had was someone to blame for their problems (China, illegal immigrants), and a big promise (that he would return the jobs by having America make things again).

It turns out a clear statement, even if it is a pretty obvious lie, will draw more support than a series of individual policies with no specific vision. For all the talk about how different this election was, in this one case perhaps this is the oldest lesson of all.

Clinton needed a positive slogan that would fit on a T shirt.

**H.B.M.C.**

Manchu wrote:
The justification is exactly as you have written it out above: whites cannot be threatened because Donald Trump is in charge and Congress is behind him. First, please understand that this type of argument is actually big part of why Trump was elected. Second, Trump does not have Congress behind him - the "Republican" label doesn't mean much (on either part, increasingly) and, even if they were united, this country is not actually the failed state that alarmists have been portraying it as (on both sides) throughout the election.

It goes deeper than that.

We've seen a number of people in this thread (Kan, Kill Krazy) say that despite most of Trump's supporters not being bigots, many of them were. The problem with a statement like this is that it attempts to demonise his victory ("He only won because Trumpers are Nazis!") whilst at the same time absolving the other side of any possible similar behaviour. I mean, are we to believe that no one voting for Hillary can be considered a bigot? That's absurd, and we can see that with the "Die whites die" stuff that appeared in those photos you posted and all the crap that's filling up my Facebook page (mostly posts from angry SJW's on twitter, but I digress).

And we see the justification for this sort of thing all the time:

1. The bigots on Hillary's side aren't really bigots, because, in the eyes of so many on that side, you cannot be bigoted towards whites/males/straight people.
2. To be white/male/straight is to naturally be a bigot. It is a default state. An unavoidable genetic truth.
3. Non-whites*/non-straights/women, by comparison, cannot be bigoted, therefore we go back to point one, and in and endless loop/echo chamber.

This is why the concepts of "white privilege" or "male privilege" feel so outmoded (and that's before we even get to 'affirmative action'). The idea that some uneducated white guy in bum-feth Idaho is somehow more privileged than the black kid who got a scholarship to Yale is mind-boggling.

*I refuse to use the blatantly racist term 'Person of Colour' (except in instances where I am specifically referring to the term, obviously).

**Manchu**

sebster wrote:
That is not a constructive response, in fact it is not really a response at all.

Fair enough - I'll expand on the thought: Your posts ITT indicate to me that you are too comfortable with the notion of logging into this website to "explain things" rather than to discuss. I think you would be better served in this thread by asking questions rather than delivering analysis. Your response to my post seemed like an entirely superficial re-packing of what I had just taken the time to unpack. By your own standard, this was not a constrcutive response.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
The problem with a statement like this is that it attempts to demonise his victory

So the "Day 2" rhetoric I have heard from friends and acquaintances on the left has been shifting in tone away from mourning (their expression) to anger, particularly along the lines of the "with us or against us" dichotomy. Friends and acquaintances on the right are getting defensive about this. The key question seems to be, was there any morally legitimate reason to have voted for Trump? One of my closest friends ask me on the phone in the wee hours why I thought people might be lying about voting for Johnson or even Clinton and then actually voting for Trump (he believes this is what happened in many cases, not sure on what evidence). I answered, because in many social situations it is nit acceptable to admit voting for Trump for any reason. He disagreed: his explanation was that voting for Trump violated their own consciences - i.e., they knew they were doing something morally repugnant and did it anyway - and they had to hide it from others out of shame. His explanation was shocking to me; I mean, the moral righteousness it takes to presume that people who voted differently from you in an election were willfully participating in evil ... it's just a very disproportionate argument in my view. But I think it arises out of the need to explain Trump's shocking victory in terms that justify those of us who were so confident that it was morally impossible.

**Peregrine**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
And we see the justification for this sort of thing all the time:

Or, the actual justification: the people posting "die whites die" are random tumblr bloggers with single-digit readers, while the people saying awful stuff in Trump's campaign include Trump himself. Is there some tumblr echo chamber garbage on the left? Of course. But nobody pays any attention to it unless they're trying to draw a false equivalence between the bigotry of the right and the mainstream left.

This is why the concepts of "white privilege" or "male privilege" feel so outmoded (and that's before we even get to 'affirmative action'). The idea that some uneducated white guy in bum-feth Idaho is somehow more privileged than the black kid who got a scholarship to Yale is mind-boggling.

White privilege/male privilege/etc apply as an average. All else being equal a white person will tend to have more advantages than a black person, and that's really not something you can deny. Obviously other things like wealth, disabilities, etc, matter (and the left will eagerly tell you about this fact), but an uneducated black guy in bum-feth Idaho is going to be even worse-off than the white guy.

**Manchu**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Clinton needed a positive slogan that would fit on a T shirt.

#ImWithHer

This slogan was intended to mean something along the lines of "I am with the forces of goodness and progress and inclusivity and generally the right side of history" where all of those things were supposedly embodied/personified by Hillary Clinton. (Arrow pointing forward = cross in the H.)

**Peregrine**

Manchu wrote:
I mean, the moral righteousness it takes to presume that people who voted differently from you in an election were willfully participating in evil ... it's just a very disproortionate argument in my view.

It is evil. Aside from all their other problems Trump and Pence ran on a campaign of hatred: against "Mexicans", against Muslims, against LGBT people, against veterans, really, against anyone Trump saw as a good target at the moment. Those are evil beliefs, ones we should not accept as morally decent people. By voting for Trump, even for reasons like the economy or the supreme court, you're endorsing that hatred. One person's vote might be a relatively small evil, in comparison to the horrifying evils humanity has managed to create, but it is still evil.

**H.B.M.C.**

Just FYI, I'm not cutting up your quotes Manchu to nitpick specific points, more just for the sake of brevity and to not create massive quoted text-walls.

Manchu wrote:
He disagreed: his explanation was that voting for Trump violated their own consciences - i.e., they knew they were doing something morally repugnant and did it anyway - and they had to hide it from others out of shame.

I had even considered that point of view, and it's a very interesting one to put forward. It's utterly ridiculous, of course, but it sheds some interesting light when you thik that people would even consider that a valid reason.

Related to that, a phrase I've seen a few time in this thread:

"Shy" Trump voters.

It worries me greatly that America (and politics in general, and the noxious poison that is identity politics*) that there would be people who feel they have to hide who they vote for due to fear or retribution/ridicule. I doubt there were many shy Hillary voters.

*Mr. Clinton once called identity politics poison. I wonder how his wife feels about that?

**Manchu**

I understand the structure of the argument - supporting Trump is racist, racism is evil, therefore supporting Trump is evil - but I don't find the first premise convincing in the abstract and I think it is ridiculous to assert that premise, which can only be meaningful in the abstract, necessarily has anything to do with why people cast a vote for Trump. Because at that point you are just begging the question. I fully admit that I, too, believed that Trump winning was a moral impossibility. But I was wrong. I think those who insist this is a matter of 49% of voters actively cooperating with evil are having trouble admitting they were also wrong.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just FYI, I'm not cutting up your quotes Manchu to nitpick specific points, more just for the sake of brevity and to not create massive quoted text-walls.

No worries, I do the same for the same reason, it doesn't bother me.

**Seaward**

Peregrine wrote:
It is evil. Aside from all their other problems Trump and Pence ran on a campaign of hatred: against "Mexicans", against Muslims, against LGBT people, against veterans, really, against anyone Trump saw as a good target at the moment. Those are evil beliefs, ones we should not accept as morally decent people. By voting for Trump, even for reasons like the economy or the supreme court, you're endorsing that hatred. One person's vote might be a relatively small evil, in comparison to the horrifying evils humanity has managed to create, but it is still evil.

You know, the left has been trying to position itself as the new moral authority for a while now, but I think anybody who hasn't bought into it by now is just kind of bored. It's a little like racism, in that you guys have just called wolf too many times for everybody not to be desensitized to it at this point. Voting against gun control after Newtown is evil, mocking those Berkeley protesters is evil, not supporting BLM is evil, nominating so many white people at the Oscars is evil, and on and on and on. It's outrage fatigue.

**KommissarKiln**

Manchu wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Clinton needed a positive slogan that would fit on a T shirt.
#ImWithHer

This slogan was intended to mean something along the lines of "I am with the forces of goodness and progress and inclusivity and generally the right side of history" where all of those things were supposedly embodied/personified by Hillary Clinton. (Arrow pointing forward = cross in the H.)

You mean the left side of history?

Back on topic, I feel like the type of stuff we saw in the campaigning will be way dialed down or even reversed during his presidency. Given the speech where he at least claimed to be ready to defend the LGBT community, I think he has the right idea of trying to cool those tempers he flared up across the country. I really want him to perform his job well, seeing as I live here and will be affected by whatever happens. Maybe he should just stick to economic policy if it's too late for him to try to save face on social issues.

I digress; my biggest concern at this point is his stance on environmental policy. I was really hoping that we'd get a further push in the direction of renewable energy sources, but it looks like we'll be doubling down on fossil fuels. With the rate at which we will be depleting fossil fuels, and the rate at which, for example, solar panels will be made more efficient for cheaper, I'm hoping it'll economical to switch over at a large scale relatively soon-- 10 to 20 years? But with this "not believing in climate change nonsense," I feel this could be stalled for some time longer.

**Manchu**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
I doubt there were many shy Hillary voters.

Not in my bubble (to evoke another buzzword) - but then again would I know? I wondered for months and months where are the Trump supporters? "Out in the boonies," seemed to be the answer: i.e., they are rednecks. And indeed the few people I knew who openly supported Trump mostly spoke with undisguised twangy Virginian accents. Might there have been a few shy Hillary voters in their midst? I suspected this might be the case before I saw the election results, purely on the assumption that some otherwise Republican women, uninspired or even revolted by Trump, might vote for HRC not just as the lesser of two evils but also as the firstnwoman president ... I don't know if this actually happened. The election results make it seem dubious.

**Peregrine**

Manchu wrote:
I think it is ridiculous to assert that premise, which can only be meaningful in the abstract, necessarily has anything to do with why people cast a vote for Trump.

It doesn't matter what their reasons for voting for Trump were. Even if you voted for Trump because you thought his economic plan was better (lol) your vote was still a statement that it's ok to accept racism if that's the price you have to pay to get what you want. Or it's ok that the vice president thinks that abusing gay people until they pretend to be straight (or commit suicide trying) as long as Clinton's email server is properly punished. You don't get to pick out some of Trump's policies and discard the stuff you don't like, if you vote for Trump you're voting for his racism along with everything else.

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
Democrats were in favor of Obama's executive power expansions. He never got hit for them. Pointing to a few lone voices in the wilderness and saying, "See? Not all of us 'progressives' are like that!" might soothe the ego but doesn't reflect the reality of the majority thought.

You are almost touching on a good point, that supporters of the party in power suddenly go silent when it's their own party pushing the limits of executive power. But you done fethed it up by trying to make it about meanie Democrats. Shame, you were so close.

I don't care that it's a problem. I got what I wanted out of this election, which was the Supreme Court. Trump seems like a horrible human being who will probably govern horribly.

What an extraordinarily weird way to look at the running of your country.

I really do wonder if one of the issues with having pretty stable governance for such a long time means people have started taking that for granted. You don't notice stability.

**Peregrine**

KommissarKiln wrote:
I was really hoping that we'd get a further push in the direction of renewable energy sources, but it looks like we'll be doubling down on fossil fuels. With the rate at which we will be depleting fossil fuels, and the rate at which, for example, solar panels will be made more efficient for cheaper, I'm hoping it'll economical to switch over at a large scale relatively soon-- 10 to 20 years? But with this "not believing in climate change nonsense," I feel this could be stalled for some time longer.

An interesting thing I saw today on this: coal is dying. Maybe the republican party will take enough bribes from coal companies to hand out subsidies to keep the coal plants running a while longer, but cleaner energy is becoming a winning plan even from the point of view of a purely selfish energy company CEO.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

H.B.M.C. wrote:
It worries me greatly that America (and politics in general, and the noxious poison that is identity politics*) that there would be people who feel they have to hide who they vote for due to fear or retribution/ridicule.

Why is this so bad? Should we also consider it a terrible national shame that KKK members have to hide their membership and can't proudly march through the middle of town with adoring crowds to meet them?

**sebster**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Clinton needed a positive slogan that would fit on a T shirt.

Yeah, this is exactly the problem. Asking people to go to your website to find out what you're about is hopeless politics.

**Spinner**

Manchu wrote:
I understand the structure of the argument - supporting Trump is racist, racism is evil, therefore supporting Trump is evil - but I don't find the first premise convincing in the abstract and I think it is ridiculous to assert that premise, which can only be meaningful in the abstract, necessarily has anything to do with why people cast a vote for Trump. Because at that point you are just begging the question. I fully admit that I, too, believed that Trump winning was a moral impossibility. But I was wrong. I think those who insist this is a matter of 49% of voters actively cooperating with evil are having trouble admitting they were also wrong.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just FYI, I'm not cutting up your quotes Manchu to nitpick specific points, more just for the sake of brevity and to not create massive quoted text-walls.
No worries, I do the same for the same reason, it doesn't bother me.

I wouldn't say that supporting Trump is racist in and of itself, but it is unquestionable supporting a racist, with bigoted and troubling stated policies (banning Muslims, ordering soldiers to commit war crimes, so on and so forth), and a penchant for deliberately spreading misinformation or boosting conspiracy theories to support his beliefs. It's interesting that people are talking about how he didn't mean various things, or that it was just tough talk, or that he'll dial it down now; he isn't going to dial it down. There is no dialing it down. That's who he is, he's had 70 years to figure it out. This is who we've got. 'Calm' Trump is a product of someone getting him to focus on the teleprompter for five minutes. He's already insisting that the people protesting his election are being paid (I don't believe he's said who's paying them?). Let's leave the minimalizing and spin to Katrina Pierson and her co-workers and discuss the man honestly.

**Manchu**

Peregrine wrote:
if you vote for Trump you're voting for his racism along with everything else

This argument is the kind of thing people usually deploy before an election in order to persuade (or in this case more like bully) undecided voters to support your candidate. (And both sides used this same type of browbeating, like always.) What's so striking to me is, HRC supporters are doubling down on that campaign mindset as if they are still haranguing undecided voters. That kind of morally authoritarian argument (agree with me or be evil) gets a pass in the last precious moments of a hard campaign but it has, as Seaward noted above, been the drum folks on the left have been monotonously beating since before the primaries and are still beating now. And certainly now it must be clear that the opportunity to hit people over the heads with that tactic has come and gone; it was not a convincing argument. Well it is convincing to those who make it and now they sit in the ruins of the HRC campaign preaching it to one another.

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
You are almost touching on a good point, that supporters of the party in power suddenly go silent when it's their own party pushing the limits of executive power. But you done fethed it up by trying to make it about meanie Democrats. Shame, you were so close.

Probably because "meanie Democrats" have held the White House for eight years, and have been extremely horrible on the issue of expanding federal power vis-a-vis the security state, which is, you know, what I was talking about? And are now the ones freaking out about Trump taking the reins of said security state?

**AllSeeingSkink**

Manchu wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Clinton needed a positive slogan that would fit on a T shirt.
#ImWithHer

This slogan was intended to mean something along the lines of "I am with the forces of goodness and progress and inclusivity and generally the right side of history" where all of those things were supposedly embodied/personified by Hillary Clinton. (Arrow pointing forward = cross in the H.)

I thought that was a terrible slogan.

I think having a slogan that focuses on the candidate comes across as self centered. Surely a good slogan focuses on what the candidate is going to do for the people, not the other way around.

I don't know whether that's the one the campaign pushed the most or the one people picked up on though, I didn't hear a lot of her other slogans.

**Spinner**

Manchu wrote:
Peregrine wrote:
if you vote for Trump you're voting for his racism along with everything else
This argument is the kind of thing people usually deploy before an election in order to persuade (or in this case more like bully) undecided voters to support your candidate. (And both sides used this same type of browbeating, like always.) What's so striking to me is, HRC supporters are doubling down on that campaign mindset as if they are still haranguing undecided voters. That kind of morally authoritarian argument (agree with me or be evil) gets a pass in the last precious moments of a hard campaign but it has, as Seaward noted above, been the drum folks on the left have been monotonously beating since before the primaries and are still beating now. And certainly now it must be clear that the opportunity to hit people over the heads with that tactic has come and gone; it was not a convincing argument. Well it is convincing to those who make it and now they sit in the ruins of the HRC campaign preaching it to one another.

I don't see how it's a moralistic beatstick; it's true. The message has been sent that open racism is not considered a disqualification from the office of the President. Minorities hear it loud and clear; so do the KKK and neo-Nazis. It's a fact that has to be addressed along with everything else, and it wasn't like he was all that subtle about it. People who voted for him did so with the knowledge that he was a racist, presumably weighing it against his other traits and those of his opponent, and gave it however much emphasis they thought it deserved.

Apparently that was less than I would have thought.

**Peregrine**

Manchu wrote:
This argument is the kind of thing people usually deploy before an election in order to persuade (or in this case more like bully) undecided voters to support your candidate. (And both sides used this same type of browbeating, like always.) What's so striking to me is, HRC supporters are doubling down on that campaign mindset as if they are still haranguing undecided voters. That kind of morally authoritarian argument (agree with me or be evil) gets a pass in the last precious moments of a hard campaign but it has, as Seaward noted above, been the drum folks on the left have been monotonously beating since before the primaries and are still beating now. And certainly now it must be clear that the opportunity to hit people over the heads with that tactic has come and gone; it was not a convincing argument. Well it is convincing to those who make it and now they sit in the ruins of the HRC campaign preaching it to one another.

I don't see what your point here is. The election being over doesn't change the fact that voting for Trump was accepting his racism. And the fact that conservatives are tired of being called racists doesn't mean that they magically stop being racists.

**Seaward**

Peregrine wrote:
Why is this so bad? Should we also consider it a terrible national shame that KKK members have to hide their membership and can't proudly march through the middle of town with adoring crowds to meet them?

We're not overly fond of people dragging others out of cars and beating them on the street in broad daylight based on their race and their politics. Many would, indeed, say it's bad.

You know, for all the pearl-clutching about the post-election rise of "Trump's brownshirts," it sure does seem that it's the left's that's a hell of a lot more comfortable utilizing violence to purify the country.

**Peregrine**

Spinner wrote:
I don't see how it's a moralistic beatstick; it's true. The message has been sent that open racism is not considered a disqualification from the office of the President. Minorities hear it loud and clear; so do the KKK and neo-Nazis. It's a fact that has to be addressed along with everything else, and it wasn't like he was all that subtle about it. People who voted for him did so with the knowledge that he was a racist, presumably weighing it against his other traits and those of his opponent, and gave it however much emphasis they thought it deserved.

Apparently that was less than I would have thought.

Exactly. Saying this doesn't change the outcome of the election, but it sure does highlight a serious problem the US has.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

sebster wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Trump and Putin don't have to like each other, but a solid working relationship over things like fighting ISIL, would be good for both nations IMO.

If Putin wanted a solid working relatinship in fighting ISIS, he would have it. There isn't one, because Putin is much more interested in helping his mate Assad defeat the rebels in Syria.

There's this straight up fething crazy notion out there that the only reason relations with Russia have soured is because Obama and America decided to start being belligerent with Russia. The reason relations suffered is because Putin decided to annex the Crimea, then start dicking around in the rest of the Ukraine. And Putin then went on to attack rebel positions in Syria in direct contrast with the agreement made with America, and then acted to collapse the cease fire as soon as it was signed.

The idea that Trump, or any president, might restore that relationship by just ignoring acts of aggression is fething dangerous. You don't achieve world peace by pretending acts of aggression against sovereign countries aren't happening.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Always remember Fraz:

1. Right Wing Loonies = Representatives of the entire right side of politics.
2. Left Wing Loonies = Don't actually exist, and are just a boogeyman made up by the right... who are all Right Wing Loonies as established in point 1.

You've written this a couple of pages after trying to put blame on the whole of the left for the protests. Ridiculous.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Trump's victory has more to do with Hilary being a terrible candidate than with any favorable attribute that Trump might have. Hillary got about 60 million votes, that's about 10 million fewer votes than Obama got in 2008 and 7 million fewer votes than Obama got in 2012. Where did all those voters go and why didn't they vote for Hillary? Hillary lost states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin because of low turnout and that speaks volumes about the inability of Hillary to win over Obama voters and motivate Democrats. I don't see what Trump did that could explain the atrocious turnout for Hillary.

It isn't untrue, but you've missed at least 90% of the story there. For starters, comparing to 2008 Obama is disingenuous, because 2008 Obama had the benefit of coming off the back of the utterly disastrous Bush presidency. 2012 Obama cuoldn't match 2008 Obama, because he no longer had that, and so his vote total dropped 4.5 million votes (also included is Obama's big over-promises in 2008, the zeal of which had started to wear off). Comparing Clinton to 2012 Obama, we see another drop off in Democratic votes, as it turns out a candidate with little ability to inspire around a singular message, and with a lot of media noise about some scandals will cost another 5 million votes.

In contrast, Trump picked up almost the same number of votes as McCain and Romney. Put up a war hero with a long history of service in congress, get 60 million votes. Put up a successful businessman and highly regarded governor with a long record of personal giving, and get 60 million votes. Put up a guy who with a long business record of grafts and con jobs, who spent the campaign alternating between personal attacks, bigotry and showing total ignorance of government... and you get 60 million votes.

There's an old line in politics, Republicans fall in line, Democrats have to fall in love. It seems to have played out here, and was something a lot of people mentioned earlier in the campaign when polls were neck and neck.

End of the day, Democrats could have done more to beat Trump, that's not an unreasonable statement. But Republicans are the people who turned up and voted for him, like they have for any other Republican. That's the real story of this election. What you've posted is like placing all of the blame for Hitler on France. Sure, the French should have beaten Germany, but you can't ignore the role of the Germans in what happened.

And you don't get world peace by backing regime change in Libya, wanting more more American intervention in Syria, and pressing for a No-Fly zone which could have resulted in Russian jets being shot down!

The same people at the Pentagon/DoD that 'advised' GW Bush and then Obama, would have lined up behind Clinton, and we all know where that leads - more disasters on the scale of Iraq and Libya.

America is supposed to be at war with ISIL, and yet, the Clinton foundation took money from people with links to ISIL.

And people are questioning Trump's foreign policy?

When it comes to US foreign policy, Trump is the man with one eye in a world of blind men.

I can assure you that from day 1, Clinton would have been giving the green light to more drone strikes, and they've worked so well....

Trump might be a lot of things, but I'll take his foreign policy over a repeat of the last 15 years, which is what we would have got from Clinton.

**Mozzyfuzzy**

Again, because I asked it a few pages ago, and the specific example I used is being used as an argument about how Clintons policy in Syria is to be taken seriously, but we don't apply that same thing to "bomb the feth out of IS in syria and then take all of the Oil" because apparently setting up oil companies within a state supported by Russia and taking their resource is the preffered foreign policy and also going to help world peace.

Also the Saudi's throw a lot of money at every nation with the global power to say "please stop doing that Saudi Arabia", at least the money to the Clinton foundation probably went to an actual charitable cause rather than a fething portrait of Trump.

**Manchu**

Spinner wrote:
I don't see how it's a moralistic beatstick; it's true.

That's what everyone says about the beatstick they're wielding. But look I'm not going to engage in campaign trail arguments after the election is done. I have no interest in making a counterargument against why people should not vote for Trump. For one thing, if I wanted to do that I should have been in here from June through October. For another thing, I didn't vote for Trump. The only thing still relevant about the "voting for Trump is evil" arguments is that dejected HRC supporters are still making them, now to each other rather than to undecideds. I guess it's just early days. The next argument is simper, "Trump is evil." on a lighter note, I have already seen HRC supporter co-opting the upcoming Star Wars movie for this purpose. "I rebel."

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
Again, because I asked it a few pages ago, and the specific example I used is being used as an argument about how Clintons policy in Syria is to be taken seriously, but we don't apply that same thing to "bomb the feth out of IS in syria and then take all of the Oil" because apparently setting up oil companies within a state supported by Russia and taking their resource is the preffered foreign policy and also going to help world peace.

Working with Russia to crush ISIL is in both nations interest. The other bit should be ignored.

In all honesty, the damage was done years before Trump. America should help to crush ISIL, recognise the Assad regime, cut its losses, and get the hell out.

That's what I would do.