Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Push Back Election

Elites across America are lining up to get their exit visas. At least, that was what they were promising. Perhaps they never imagined that they would need to make good on their promises, but surely the chance of having them all debark for Canada must have pushed a few votes into Trump’s column.

Before the elites leave they want to know what happened. How could the most qualified candidate in American history lose to an orange-haired buffoon? Amazingly, just about everyone got it wrong. Just about everyone misread the mood of the country. And that includes Nate Silver.

Apparently, more than a few everyday Americans were fed up with political correctness. They were tired of being trashed as deplorable. They had had enough of the contempt of the elites—whether the media elites, the political elites, the financial elites and the behavioral economists.

They had had enough of people who trash-talked the country, beginning with a president who had led the way. They were tired of being told that they had never built anything, had never succeeded in anything, had never won anything. They were tired of being told what to think and of being condemned for having opinions that deviated from the dogmas of the Church of the Liberal Pieties.

The American people rose up to repudiate the guilt trip that the elites had been laying on them for yo these many years. They decided that the ballot box was not the place to atone for America’s sins. They refused to accept the notion that America’s success and its greatness were merely a product of oppression—of the oppression of blacks, women, Muslims, gays and the transgendered.

Four years ago and eight years ago they had voted for a candidate in order to atone for the sin of racism. They had been duped into thinking that a candidate without experience, a candidate who was woefully unprepared for the office, should be elected merely because of his race. They were dismayed to see him run around the world apologizing for America. They were aghast as he surrendered American pride and prestige to the leaders of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.They were appalled to see his IRS persecute his political opponents... with impunity. And they were horrified to see him demonize the opposition and fair to strike any deals with it.

This year the elites crowned a candidate who was similarly unqualified… except that she had held some lofty titles. They went looking for Hillary’s accomplishments and came up empty. And yet, the elites told them that, at least, she was a woman and that she would heal America’s history of misogyny.

But, apparently, the majority of the people rejected the idea that American success and American greatness had been built on a foundation of misogyny. They rejected the guilt and voted for the man with the orange hair. If Hillary Clinton was the “lean in” candidate, Donald Trump’s win was “push back.” Undoubtedly, Sheryl Sandberg, a major Hillary supporter, is in shock. A majority of Americans, not so much.

True enough, Trump was barely qualified for the office of the presidency. And yet, the elites had already declared that merit no longer mattered. What mattered was diversity. Hoist on their own petard, I would say.

With the Trump victory the Age of Obama is over. The election repudiated a president who happily shut down major American industries, destroying the livelihood of many citizens, because of his belief in global warming. The people rejected the open borders policy that was being imposed by executive fiat. And they were fed up with university administrators who trash talked America and who shut down free speech because they found it offensive. They were seriously torqued to hear that their successes were merely a result of white privilege.

It was not so much that Trump ran a campaign that seemed to glorify white men. More importantly, Hillary Clinton ran against white men.

The election was not about politics. It was about culture. You might think that it was about a dying American culture, but certainly it was about a culture that did not want to be transformed by a flood of immigrants. One does not know how many Americans are aware of what is happening in Germany-- which is being run by Hillary’s role model, Angela Merkel-- but they did not want America to go the way of guilt-ridden Germany.

Groupthink among American elites is all the rage. Differences of opinion do not exist. As I once pointed out, New York is a city of free thinkers, all of whom think exactly the same thing. So, the elites missed it. They missed it completely. Or better, by nominating the supremely unqualified and unaccomplished Hillary Clinton they overplayed their hand. They thought that XX chromosomes would suffice.

Examine some of the better commentary this morning. Gerald Seib writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The deplorables rose up and shook the world.

“Deplorables” was, of course, the disparaging term Hillary Clinton at one point applied to some supporters of Donald Trump. Many of his loyal followers proudly embraced the insult and used it as a motivating tool.

Wearing such establishment disdain as a badge of honor, the Trump army cut a deep swath through the American electoral system Tuesday, propelling the Republican nominee to the most stunning victory in modern American history.

In winning, Mr. Trump didn’t merely vanquish Mrs. Clinton. He instantly remade the Republican party in his own image. He rewrote some of the GOP’s most dearly held policy and philosophical positions. He shredded the conventional wisdom in both parties, which held that there simply weren’t enough of the white, working-class voters who flocked to his side to win a national election. Whole sets of comfortable assumptions in both political parties now will be swept aside.

Also writing in the Journal, pollsters Dan McGinn and Peter Hart offer this assessment:

On Tuesday they didn’t vote for Donald Trump so much as they voted against every institution that has turned its back on working people. Political analysts thought this race was about insults, sexual harassment, non-disclosure of tax returns, and boorish behavior. Many were sure this would translate into an easy win for Mrs. Clinton. They listened to the wrong voices–from the beginning. This election was about a large segment of the electorate wanting a way to demonstrate deep frustration with the country’s direction. They did this in the primaries by voting for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump–the protest candidates. The message was about the hollowing out of middle America. The more that Mr. Trump was insulting and politically incorrect, the more his backers supported him.

Over at the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg, who famously declared that Trump was such an abomination that the Times would not need to be journalistically objective, remarked humbly and sagely this morning that he and his colleagues had missed one of the biggest story of our times. And you were wondering why the news business is failing:

All the dazzling technology, the big data and the sophisticated modeling that American newsrooms bring to the fundamentally human endeavor of presidential politics could not save American journalism from yet again being behind the story, behind the rest of the country.

The news media by and large missed what was happening all around it, and it was the story of a lifetime. The numbers weren’t just a poor guide for election night — they were an off-ramp away from what was actually happening.

No one predicted a night like this — that Donald J. Trump would pull off a stunning upset over Hillary Clinton and win the presidency.

The misfire on Tuesday night was about a lot more than a failure in polling. It was a failure to capture the boiling anger of a large portion of the American electorate that feels left behind by a selective recovery, betrayed by trade deals that they see as threats to their jobs and disrespected by establishment Washington, Wall Street and the mainstream media.

Again, it was about disrespect and contempt. And it was about the anger one feels when one is disrespected, anger that is so strong that one feels first that one needs to push back against all of those who have been talking down to you. Not just talking down. After all, Hillary was the queen of macho posturing. Read the Times story of her intervention in Libya. She was the apotheosis of leaning in. 

The Times deserves some credit for reporting on Hillary in Libya. It was one of the most damning profiles published during the election. It was not about offensive and vulgar behavior, but about conducting foreign policy.

Be clear about it. By electing Donald Trump the nation was taking a gamble. It was gambling that business success could trump inexperience with governance. It was voting to undo the nightmare of bureaucratic regulation and the legislative overreach the Obama administration had visited on the nation.

Speaking for the mainstream media, Rutenberg manifested humility. Enjoy it while it lasts:

John King of CNN proclaimed to his huge election night audience that during the previous couple of weeks, “We were not having a reality-based conversation” given the map he had before him, showing Mr. Trump with a clear opportunity to reach the White House.

That was an extraordinary admission; if the news media failed to present a reality-based political scenario, then it failed in performing its most fundamental function.

And also:

And that’s why the problem that surfaced on Tuesday night was much bigger than polling. It was clear that something was fundamentally broken in journalism, which has been unable to keep up with the anti-establishment mood that is turning the world upside down.

Politics is not just about numbers; data can’t always capture the human condition that is the blood of American politics. And it is not the sole function of political reporting to tell you who will win or who will lose. But that question — the horse race — has too often shadowed everything else, and inevitably colors other reporting, too.

Finally:

Flyover country isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind — it’s in parts of Long Island and Queens, much of Staten Island, certain neighborhoods of Miami or even Chicago. And, yes, it largely — but hardly exclusively — pertains to working-class white people.

They think something is so wrong that all the fact-checking of Mr. Trump this year, the countless reports of his lies — which he uttered more than Mrs. Clinton did — and the vigorous investigation of his business and personal transgressions, bothered them far less than the perceived national ills Mr. Trump was pointing to and promising to fix.

In their view the government was broken, the economic system was broken, and, we heard so often, the news media was broken, too. Well, something surely is broken. It can be fixed, but let’s get to it once and for all.

Good for Rutenberg. Time will tell whether the Times and the rest of the mainstream media take their medicine.

On a somewhat discordant note, the Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning that the government Barack Obama will leave to his successor is in anything but good condition. The new president will feel what Hercules felt when he was tasked with cleaning out the Augean stables.

Eight years of Obama have not only diminished America in the world, they have left the national balance sheet in very poor condition.

I have discussed this before, but the Journal says it well:

Congratulations to the President-elect, whoever you are, because you’re going to need it. Our deadline arrived Tuesday before we knew the election outcome, but not before we can say with confidence that President Obama is leaving his successor a large and growing federal budget problem.

That’s the message in the Congressional Budget Office’s summary, released Monday, of the fiscal year that closed in September. Though the subject barely came up in the campaign—little policy substance did—the federal fisc is once again heading for trouble. There are some lessons in this for the next President, who will quickly realize that Mr. Obama’s fiscal luck has finally run out—on his successor’s watch.

As Mme de Pompadour used to say and as I have long since proposed as the motto for the Obama adminnistration: Après nous le déluge:

The tragedy is that Mr. Obama spent his political capital not on growing the economy but on growing entitlements and raising costs for business via regulation. The next President needs to make faster economic growth the policy default, or every other political priority will be hard or impossible to meet. The deficit burden will get worse faster.

The final major lesson is that the next President can’t count on the continuation of low interest rates. The Federal Reserve has been Mr. Obama’s best friend not named Chief Justice John Roberts as its monetary policies have helped finance a record debt blowout at lower cost. Mr. Obama issued more Treasurys than any President in history, and the Fed bought $1.7 trillion worth from 2009-2014. That helped guarantee there wouldn’t be a shortage of demand.

Or, as the old saying goes, follow the money. It’s far more useful than following the grand historical drama being played out by oversized personae.

My own predictions and prophecies about this election have been as wrong as everyone else’s. This will not stop me from offering up a new prediction: Whatever you expect from President Trump… it will not be what you get.

God save America!

22 comments:

  1. The British sometimes have a better feel for America than most of its elites. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3919816/KATIE-HOPKINS-right-Trump-s-triumph-crushed-lefty-luvvies-useless-pollsters-multicultural-mafia-gender-Nazis-refuse-listen-regular-people-Brexiteer-thank-America.html

    The best electoral map I have seen is the one by counties in this country. It is a sea of red with a few blue spots. It defines who the American people are if anyone in government cared to pay the least amount of attention. It is about time that these blue areas stop trying to control everybodies' life. Sadly, when one is so busy listening to the sound of their own voice they have no time for the voices around them who are equally as valuable.
    The establishment, including almost everyone who was a NeverTrumper, forgot to pay attention to the people who live, work, play, go to church, et al in this country. They forgot the wisdom of "Be magnanimous in victory and graceful in defeat.
    The GOP now controls both the executive and legislative branches and have NO excuse for not acting in the best interest of the country's citizens. If they need to change the rules where only 51 percent is needed then do so. Harry Reid suffered no qualms
    in doing so Real leadership sometimes requires being steadfast and none too king to those who would destroy you. Tough love is an important concept..

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  2. Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
    The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
    And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
    But there is no joy in [Chappaqua] - mighty [Clinton] has struck out.
    --- [with apologies to] E. Thayer

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  3. I will note that although mainstream media didn't call a "Trump win" - Scott Adams cartoonist of Dilbert did - for months. Which speaks volumes of the pundits who work for mainstream media.

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  4. Stuart: But, apparently, the majority of the people rejected the idea that American success and American greatness had been built on a foundation of misogyny.

    I'll note that a majority of Americans didn't support Trump, not even a plurality for either candidate with a net negative approval rating.
    http://www.cnn.com/election/results
    Trump: 59,211,893 (47.5%) 309? EC
    Clinton: 59,384,720 (47.7%) 228? EC

    And they're still counting, so its possibly Hillary's leader might be even larger than Gore's 500k vote lead over Bush, although the electoral college was much closer then.

    So Hillary will be the fourth candidate for president who won the most votes, but lost the presidency by the Electoral college.

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  5. Stuart,

    You keep asserting Trump has no experience in "governance". What are your earmarks for such experience?

    I've been involved politics at all levels my entire career and I found Trump's development experience far more relevant to governance than anything an inexperienced two term Rep, one term Sen. like Jack Kennedy, ever had!

    "Governance", at all levels, consists of gathering information and making policy decisions based upon that information. That's it! That's truly all it is.

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  6. You were wrong over and over again about this election, Stuart, why should we believe anything you tell us w/ regards to what President Trump will or won't do for our country?

    I was right every step of this election, and I say President Trump will keep his promises and will go down as one of our best Presidents.

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  7. And the conservative intellectuals, refusing to let go, stood brooding and brooding, how could it be so?

    Trump came without paying homage. He came without sophisticated chops. He did it without our recommended swing-state campaign stops!

    And these conservative intellectuals brooded and brooded, ‘till their brooders were sore. Then the conservative intellectuals thought of something they hadn’t before.

    What if, they thought, electioneering isn’t about rehashing heady dogmas like a boor?

    What if winning an election, perhaps, takes a little bit more?

    --- [with apologies to] Dr. Seuss

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  8. "How could the most qualified candidate in American history lose to an orange-haired buffoon?"

    Qualified in sucking up to corrupt power. Hillary learned to play the game by sticking close to husband and then spending time as senator sucking to big money. That is her experience. As Sec of State, she did a terrible job.

    Trump has no experience in government, but he has been managing people and negotiating all his life. He knows politics, esp as he spent a lot of time with such people.

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  9. That was great, Ignatius!

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  10. Trigger Warning said...

    Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
    The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
    And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
    But there is no joy in [Chappaqua] - mighty [Clinton] has struck out.
    --- [with apologies to] E. Thayer
    November 9, 2016 at 7:34 AM

    Home run.

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  11. http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/11/the-world-as-we-knew-it-is-coming-to-an-end-thoughts-on-mr-trumps-new-dawn.html

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  12. Anonymous Anonymous at 8:14 PM...http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk

    So that's Peter Hitchens, younger, brother of deceased Christopher Hitchens.
    ---
    ...Sick as I am of this behaviour, it has not sent me over the edge of rage and into unreason. I refused to be beguiled into supporting Donald Trump, a yahoo and braggart whose views possibly coincide with mine on two or three things. It seemed absurd to be expected to support Mr Trump because I also did not support Hillary Clinton, a woman lost in a sea of money and liberal delusions, who has somehow persuaded herself that war is good.
    ...
    Voting is not a duty in such circumstances. If only people had the sense to see it an act accordingly, not voting is a much higher duty. If neither of these terrible candidates had achieved more than 15% of the vote, how could they claim any serious mandate for the things they want to do. Yet, without resistance, the two halves of America agreed on one thing, That it was better to vote for disaster than not to vote at all.
    ...
    There is little we can now do to change this fate. It would be like paddling with your hands to fight the force of the Gulf Stream. Maybe Mr Trump will turn out to have been kidding us. Maybe he will surround himself with advisers of brilliance and subtlety, who will prove to have mastered the problems of reintroducing protection in a world governed by open borders and increasingly dominated by China. Maybe all that stuff about jailing his opponent was just talk. Maybe, despite all those years of, er, locker-room behaviour Mr Trump will turn out after all to be a Christian gentleman in office upholding the ancient virtues.

    I do hope so. But forgive me if I decline to be optimistic.
    ---

    So Hitchens thinks we should have all refused to vote, or voted third party, but by the 15% ideal, not voting doesn't count, since that reduced the numerator and the denominator.

    And while voting third party would have helped, actually it wouldn't have, because at best we'd have no candidate with a majority in the Electoral college, and then it would be up to the Republicans in congress to pick a winner among the top-three candidates in the electoral college (not in the popular vote).

    And we can pretend Independent McMullin would be the sensible pick if he could have reached third, and to be fair, he got 20% of the vote in little Utah, and could have been top-3 in the EC with one state win, and a close electoral college, but alas, it wasn't enough.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Utah,_2016

    Yet unknown McMullin was an even bigger wildcard than third party Johnson or Stein. So this just won't do.

    No, the only legitimate way we could have stopped the election is if we had a "None of the Above" vote, and if NOTA got the plurality, it would eliminate ALL the candidates and start a new election process, say a 3 month election cycle.

    Sure, it would give Obama a few extra months in office, but it would also have allowed a more interesting election most likely between Ted Cruz (Stuart's darling) and Bernie Sanders (mine), as runners up in the major parties.

    Surely with a 60% mutual disapproval, NOTA might have won in a landslide this year. But instead 95% of people who carried their duty to vote between Hell-A or Hell-B, and now we have to live in Hell and hope we can keep Trump happy with some flashy things and baubles for 4 more years.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll-popularity-record-low-us-presidential-election-2016-a7390346.html
    ---
    60 per cent of likely voters view Ms Clinton negatively, according to the survey by ABC News and the Washington Post. Meanwhile Mr Trump is disliked by 58 per cent of the electorate.

    The negativity runs deep: 49 per cent of respondents said they see Ms Clinton "strongly" unfavourably, and 48 per cent said the same about Mr Trump.
    ---

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  13. IAC and TW,

    If you remember I commented on the fact that the election was only the beginning of the contentiousness we were going to have to deal with in this country. Do you not find it interesting that the Soros paid BLM were no where to be seen before the election? Since Obama and the democrat party fully expected for Clinton to win there was no need to remind people of the actions of BLM and their actions to undermine the legal system in this country.
    Do you not find it interesting that the most dogmatic democrats like Pelosi, Shummer, Reid, Clinton et al are all saying we must respect the democratic process and ensure that there is a peaceful transition? When have they ever respected the democratic process and the rule of law? Does plausible deniability in the actions of BLM type groups seem to be in play here? When the current democrats start all saying the same thing one has to realize the game is afoot to fool the uninformed.
    Is there anything that would make you think that Obama would allow his legacy to be forever altered by the election of Trump? Obama is one of the most ideological driven residents of the WH we have ever had in office. He is not about to allow the will of the American people, through the electoral process, to deter the drive to transform this country!
    Again, I said this election was only the beginning of the fight we have on our hands to maintain the ideals that we hold dear as exemplified in the Constitution. Enter in the MOB???
    NOTE: Isn't it interesting the undemocratic party's approach to winning in the electoral college only to loss to it. Now we are going to be subjected to the relentless drive to overturn the results of the election. As I have stated in the past I don't like to play politics, but that does not mean I don't know how and am not a student of all the machinations of those who seek power and control over others through political means.
    Ares,
    Nice try with trying to use the popular vote as some kind of mandate. I would suggest you know exactly why the Founders created the Electoral College. To keep a candidate like Clinton from using the large states, at the expense the rest of the country, population size to control the country. The Founders, in their wisdom, understood that in order to maintain a free country they were going to have to place barriers in the way such as the House and the Senate make up, weakened by the 17th amendment,and the Electoral College to keep from mob rule driven by a minority of the country's electorate.
    The Civil War I have commented on may not be a shooting war, thank GOD though I would not put it pass the more radical elements, but it is none the less as important to recognize that the left and Obama are not going to accept anything that does not aid in their revolution to control this country and its people.
    It is not over just because we held an election.

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    1. Dennis - It is most certainly not over, as witnessed in the coastal streets. The Soros-funded Permanently Puerile are in full Checkout Lane Tantrum mode. Some reports say a few people were shot in Seattle. Perhaps it was a case of of mistaken identity, the victims being misidentified as shop owners or persons with jobs.

      The good part is that the flammable giant papier-mâché (lit., "chewed paper") puppets are back in vogue. Haven't seen those since the Boosh-Hitler regime. Glad to know they're back to chewing paper in Federally-funded Safe Spaces. Gives them something to do that doesn't involve the risks associated with blunt scissors.

      But citizens should brace themselves, I think, for a press exposed as feckless toadies to once again feel a re-energized, Adderal-induced Spirit of Righteous and Relentless Reporting. Look for headlines like "Trump Reportedly Hocks Loogie Into Priceless Oval Office Cesar Chavez Memorial Wastebasket", and endless interviews with a botoxed Nancy Pelosi wearing her signature "Wilma Flintstone" artisanal beads.

      The really interesting part will be to hear the Republicans, who now govern the nation from majority-held state legislatures, governorships, Congressional districts, and Senatorial aeries explain to the folks from Alkali Bloom WY and Rustbucket MI why nothing can be done.

      By the way, it is no accident that Adderal is the drug of choice among the Elite and oxycodone is the drug of choice for the Irredeemable Bitter Clingers. The former have a Global Salvation Mission to fulfill, and the latter are the drained, post-foreclosure husks of former middle-class taxpayers.

      Back to the point... WaPo headline, 11/9:

      "Trump victory reverses U.S. energy and environmental priorities"

      Coal stocks soared on Wednesday, and the 8-year slumber of Burke's Fourth Estate is over.

      Delete
  14. Thinking of the Founders I have a question. Do you think we have a representative government in this country? By representative I am thinking of whether the representative actually represents the desires, wishes, et al of the community they are supposed to serve? If yes, do you think NYC represents the people of the rest of New York? Or does Chicago represents the rest of the state of Illinois? Or have the people outside these metropolitan areas become just cash cows and pawns with little power?
    I am beginning to wonder if there are large segments of this country that have large cities in their state that actually have someone who represents their interest vice that of a large metropolitan area where the votes to win exist? I admit I do not know the solution. Also, I admit that I have strange thoughts every so often about whether people are actually being represented.

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  15. TW,

    There is something rather appealing about not seeing Nancy Pelosi in the US House of Representatives notwithstanding that the democrat party would take a large loss of electoral votes. I suspect that there are large parts of California who would love to secede from California and this would give them the perfect opportunity to escape the grasp of the left. Fremont anyone.
    No federal money for grandiose dreams and a large portion of people who are now on welfare who would now expect the great nation of Californistan to support them sans the parts that would secede from Californistan.
    You know this is quite enjoyable watching the left make fools of themselves and demonstrate who are the real hypocrites.
    But, alas people like Pelosi are not going to cede power, position and money.
    Secession is for loser as Glenn Reynolds has amply written about. A well just another reason to move your tech oriented business to Texas.

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  16. Dennis @November 10, 2016 at 2:52 AM:

    The Electoral College is wise and brilliant, for the reasons you mention. Yet we never hear what an ingenious prophylactic it is in protecting our republic. It protects other states from the gross meddling and distortions that another state might do. Let's say, like Washington, D.C., which voted Hillary over Trump 93% to 4%. That's insane. Look at Virginia, where the Clintonista Governor Terry McAuliffe allowed 60,000 felons to vote. At least they're limited to 13 electoral votes. Furthermore, it contains the impact of ballot box stuffing and other state mischief. What if a state like Maryland engaged in massive ballot box stuffing? It would greatly impact the popular vote at the national level, but thankfully that's not what counts. Maryland only gets 10 electoral votes. Problem solved, or at least contained. So enough of that and Ares' populist democracy notions. The United States is not a democracy. We are a constitutionally-limited federal republic.

    As for the mob, Obama could step up to the microphone and end all this madness tonight. Yet he doesn't. One does not have to wonder why not. Democrats don't want to play by the rules. They want the rules changed so they can feel better about the outcome. They are a purely emotive party that changes the rules in the middle of the game to suit their interests, yet expect everyone else to follow the rules. It's nuts. If Obama does not get the Soros minions under control -- as he is effectively the only one who can -- this could turn into a shooting war. If riots expand off the boulevards and city centers into neighborhoods, and you will have blood in the streets. People are not going to put up with it around their homes and families. The biggest problem about these Lefty revolutionaries is (a) they have no idea what they are revolting about, and (b) they have no practical ends or goals to pursue. They just emote, revolt, loot and repeat.

    Always remember how the Left works: BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. They posit "non-negotiable" demands. No justice, no peace. It's purely about the threat of violence or physical occupation. A sit-in is not peaceful demonstration. It's about domination. It's about controlling ground... someone else's. These people are entering and occupying someone else's space. That is a form of violence, because in order to correct the situation, they must be removed. If they do not go willingly (they almost never do) and resist, they are engaging in violence. Yet reflect this to them, and you get this puzzled thousand yard stare. It does not compute. So it's not about some high-minded idea like "justice." Or worse, "fairness," which is completely subjective. First, you have to have some kind of understanding of what justice is beyond what you FEEL about something. Justice requires you to put yourself in another's shoes. They don't do that. They want, they want, they want. Someone has to be an adult.

    I love how people like Hillary Clinton want to "bring people together," or suggest we are "stronger together." Together doing what? The contentiousness around politics is all about ideology and vision. When the ideologies and visions are so different, it's like a war. The Left is always "fighting." They never stop. You cannot be reasonable with them. Why? Because it's not a rational conversation. They are entitled. They are victims. They are constantly aggrieved on so many levels. If one person faces injustice, we're told we must destroy the system to remedy it. Such thinking is effectively carte blanche to carry on the struggle forever. They are angry, petulant children. They do not think, they emote. They find everything about life unfair. They are negative people. They have to destroy something you have because it is important to you, and they have nothing that is important to them, save being perpetually pissed off.

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  17. Dennis @November 10, 2016 at 5:46 AM:

    Yes, I think we do have representative government in our country. We get the government we deserve. When politicians head off to bring home the bacon, and we come to like bacon, we get bloated and fat. We're not "eating" nutritiously. We're addicted to bacon, and we have no idea where it comes from. It comes from taxes, fiat money and deficit spending. There's no free lunch. Our representatives have learned that it is advantageous to tell people this is not so. That is why the truth will set you free.

    As for the Fourth Estate, it is a complete and utter disgrace. A rotting corpse. I wish I could say this was a change. What has changed is that the media uses polling as a way to suppress conservative votes. It's a tool. It shapes the news, it does not reflect public opinion. They know what public opinion is, and they have to stop it. Big media is the communications arm of the Democrat Party, pure and simple.

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  18. For those who want to believe that Hillary received the popular vote. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/11/hillary_wins_the_popular_vote__not_.html
    Even Al Gore did not receive the totality of the popular vote for the reasons stated.

    IAC,

    I am continually amazed at how prescient and intelligent the Founding Fathers were. No wonder the Marquis de Lafayette had so much respect for them. Their understanding of the failings of human beings, even their own, puts to shame modern day psychologists, et al. I am also truly amazed at the people who are the beneficiaries of their understanding of the world have forgotten their own human failings. As I have commented before, people have NOT changed. The only thing that has changed is the technology they can utilize to kill each other.
    Does anyone not believe that the utopians on the left would not kill others if they thought they could get away with it. NOTE: Utopian dreams are a fools desire. One only needs to look at the comments from those who suffer TDS. The current undemocratic party is in essences a death cult which is demonstrated by the desire to dehumanize anyone who might disagree with them. Is that not what we do when we fight wars? Dehumanize the other side.
    One of the reasons I ignore Ares is that he suffers this malady instantly ascribing nefarious motives to others.
    I will believe in the perfectibility of man when I become perfect and that is never going to happen because I am human.

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  19. IAC/TW,

    I have continually wondered why the people who say they are intelligent, tolerant, non-violent, et al are NOT and the people that they say are unintelligent, violent, intolerant are NOT? Most of us who comment on here are, in many cases, more educated, more tolerant of other's views, and far less prone to think violence is the answer. It must be a form of transference of one's own failings onto others.
    Growing up with Bill Buckley's "Firing Line" I am saddened by the fact that the left has degraded itself to the point that they are incapable of a well reasoned argumentation for their position. I used to love the interplay of ideas between Buckley and his opposite. No fear of ideas and the recognition that we have much to learn from each other for none of us have all the answers. One wonders if the leaning on invective, pejorative and name calling is a way to coverup the recognition of a lack of ability to intelligently state one's ideas? A recipe for disaster.

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