Election 2016

[Simple Torture]

I'm going to miss this man so much:

[Green Habit]

I'm going to miss this man so much:

Helen Lovejoy will be quite sad that he's still not in the race.

[Strat]

Bobby Jindal: Former Louisiana Governor Says President Obama 'Created' Donald Trump
In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Jindal wrote that after seven years of "no drama Obama," voters are looking "for a strong leader who speaks in short, declarative sentences.


Or america is just really fucking dumb and all it takes is a black man being in power to bring it out to extreme levels.

[LoathedVermin72]

Donald Trump is the natural result of a media that has gradually, consistently degraded political discourse through ridicule and snark. Politics have been reduced to a joke, so now the candidates are becoming jokes. It's not surprising, really. We did this to ourselves.

[Kaius]

Reap what you sow, etc.

[nyquillyn]

The news media has changed to match public consumption.

So yeah, what Kaius said.

[stip]

there does seem to be an increasing emphasis on fact checking, which is nice, albeit about 10-12 years later than was needed.

[BurtReynolds]

There is also the fact that "establishment" politicians are genuinely shitty people who have been destroying any semblance of democracy for years. It's just a shame that Trump was in the right place at the right time with the right ego, though I'm not sure anyone else could have pulled it off. It takes a sort of obliviousness.

[BurtReynolds]

I just hope kanye runs against him in four years, so we can finally stop pretending democracy works.

[verb_to_trust]

Kim K as the first lady is a far better representation of the populous than say...Barbara Bush.

[BurtReynolds]

Kim K as the first lady is a far better representation of the populous than say...Barbara Bush.

It's scary because it's true.

[Jorge]

I like Louis CK but that Trump e-mail was embarrassing.

[stip]

The great thing about this uprising against establishment politics (which is healthy even if Trump is an awful avatar representing a dark element in American life that has been allowed to fester for too long) is that it's going to be even more pronounced in 2020 (barring a fairly progressive and responsive Clinton administration, which would tamp down these elements on the left)

[nyquillyn]

Good night for Cruz. Although most analysts seem to be forgetting that all of these states are proportional.

[stip]

I continue to enjoy the electorates lack of interest in Marco Rubio and the idea that Ted Cruz will be the 'establishment' candidate

[The Argonaut]

I like Louis CK but that Trump e-mail was embarrassing.

Nah, I think it was perfectly reasonable and pretty spot-on.

[Simple Torture]

I like Louis CK but that Trump e-mail was embarrassing.

Nah, I think it was perfectly reasonable and pretty spot-on.

Besides the Hitler stuff, I totally get where he's coming from. The idea of "balance" he talks about surely comes from his growing up in Massachusetts; even though it's known as a liberal bastion, there's a hidden history of bipartisanship that people don't talk about: since the 1970s, 6 of the 9 people who have held the governorship have been Republican. So even though our congressional delegation is almost entirely blue, anyone who follows local politics understands the necessity of compromise, from things like education, to infrastructure, to budgets, and so on. In theory, Louie's ideal looks great: power oscillates between the two parties, but they're always compromising, so the party in power always gets a little bit more of what they want, but in order to get it through, they give the minority party a bit of what they want. But the art of the compromise just doesn't exist in the current obstructionist climate, at least in the way he imagines.

[stip]

The front page of the ny times is a wonderful case study in narrative bias. The headline reads Trump and Clinton win Louisiana, underneath is the smaller headline 'Cruz and Sanders take 2 states apiece.' The main article goes on to mention Clinton's resounding 70% win in LA. Sanders won Kansas by 68%, apparently just a regular old win.in fact, the second paragraph's analysis of sander's wins was that they don't matter, This was followed by 27 paragraphs on Cruz, trump and the republicans, followed by 5 paragraphs reinforcing how sanders wins don't mean anything

And while there was exrensive coverage of how these Cruz wins might create scenarios where trump could lose, there was nothing on, say, clinton's seeming inability to appeal to even democratic voters outside of southern states, many of which she has no shot of winning in the general election

[stip]

In fairness Clinton does walk away with more total delegates tonight

[The Argonaut]

It looks a lot better now:


Cruz Victories Buoy Anti-Trump Forces
Sanders Takes Two States From Clinton

By JONATHAN MARTIN 19 minutes ago

Ted Cruz beat Donald J. Trump in two states, cementing his status as Mr. Trump’s main rival. Bernie Sanders also won two states over Hillary Clinton, but her delegate lead grew.