What is this election missing? Empathy for Trump voters. - WaPo

Please empathize with these people.They are SOOO misunderstood. 

https://twitter.com/PAYOLETTER/status/797106526104285184

If it wasn't true before,the Republican party is now indisputably a radical right wing insurgency. Does that make Trump supporters 'radical'? Probably not,but they proudly support this coup against the Constitution.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Voting Republican = "radicalization" now?

"Stephen cut ties with his family, abandoned his Catholic upbringing, and secretly flew to Pakistan to join forces with ISIL and retake a neighbouring village.  He's been radicalized.

Mary voted for the Republican instead of voting for Clinton as expected.  She has also been radicalized".

Not every radicalized person on the Muslim side goes off to fight jihad, either. And only some Trump supporters beat people, paint swastikas on things or threaten women and minorities. But many have now embraced a radical political position.

http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2016/11/14/racist-post-about-michelle-o...

Clay County Development Corp. director Pamela Ramsey Taylor made the post following Donald Trump's election as president, saying: "It will be refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape in heels."

Clay Mayor Beverly Whaling responded: "Just made my day Pam."

...

Last week in Kentucky, Republican Dan Johnson defeated incumbent Democrat Linda Belcher in Bullitt County despite a series of Facebook posts that depicted Barack Obama and his wife as monkeys. Republican officials, including likely new House Speaker Jeff Hoover, had called on Johnson to drop out of the race. But Hoover declared last week that Johnson would be "welcome in our caucus."

 

All the best places to live in the world are part of "Western civilization," with very few exceptions (most notably Japan, which explicitly modeled its development in the 20th century on Britain, Germany and the United States). Of course Western civilization is "better" than others. If that makes me a supremacist...guilty as charged I guess. 

Disagree? Convince me otherwise, or else you implicitly concede that I am right.

PZ Myers is pretty much the embodiment of "political correctness: the problem." Half of the voters are assholes! Think your concerns are more important than mine? You're an asshole! Think your values are better than mine? You're an asshole! And if you come to my blog - hosted, with absolutely no sense of irony, on "freethoughtblogs" - and disagree, I'll ban you for it, because anyone who disgrees with me is an asshole, and assholes can't possibly be worth listening to!

Boze wrote:

All the best places to live in the world are part of "Western civilization," with very few exceptions (most notably Japan, which explicitly modeled its development in the 20th century on Britain, Germany and the United States). Of course Western civilization is "better" than others. If that makes me a supremacist...guilty as charged I guess. 

Disagree? Convince me otherwise, or else you implicitly concede that I am right.

Have you lived in other places? Your claim seems unsupported by evidence. 

Or is your argument that it's better to live in a wealthy country? 

PS yes, I know, should not let myself be trolled by people who do not agree with rabble's fuonding principles, but I'd say the majority of babblers no longer agree with those principles. 

Boze wrote:

All the best places to live in the world are part of "Western civilization"

Better for whom?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ohio-police-idUSKBN1370F3

 

swallow wrote:

Boze wrote:

All the best places to live in the world are part of "Western civilization," with very few exceptions (most notably Japan, which explicitly modeled its development in the 20th century on Britain, Germany and the United States). Of course Western civilization is "better" than others. If that makes me a supremacist...guilty as charged I guess. 

Disagree? Convince me otherwise, or else you implicitly concede that I am right.

Have you lived in other places? Your claim seems unsupported by evidence. 

Or is your argument that it's better to live in a wealthy country? 

PS yes, I know, should not let myself be trolled by people who do not agree with rabble's fuonding principles, but I'd say the majority of babblers no longer agree with those principles. 

On any meaningful index of quality of life, like, say, the UN human development index, what non-western country other than Japan ever outperforms western countries? Serious question. By all means, educate me, but I think the evidence backs me up, in terms of health outcomes, freedom of the press, gender equality, etc. Could we do better? Of course we should. But you can't have an idea of "good" or "better" without a preference for some things over other things. If you can never say that some countries are better than others, then you can't have a concept of what it would mean for a country to improve. This is pretty basic logic, IMO. But, by all means, appeal to "rabble's founding principles" (which I broadly support) if you can't actually rebut what I'm saying with logic. That will just mark you for all to see as anti-intellectual, authoritarian, and another example of "political correctness: the problem." I'm not trolling. I'm throwing down the fucking gauntlet.

On the HDI, Singapore and Hong Kong outrank the UK. South Korea outranks Japan, Belgium, and France. Taiwan outranks Spain and Italy. The HDI is a decent indicator in that it looks at overall wealth, health, and education.  

If all wealth is in the West and eastern Asia, is that because those countries are "superior" or because their are factors in the global trade system that favoured this? Note: colonialism happened. 

Other indicators question whether wealth is the best way to measure positives, and note that it omits ecological footprint (if you pollute other countries, no drop to your HDI). 

The Happy Planet Index, which aims to measure these other sort of items, lists Costa Rica first, Vietnam second, and Colombia third. Is Latin America the "West" more or less than Canada? Why or why not? 

The Satisfaction with Life Index, which tries to measure happiness, ranks Jamaica first, Switzerland second. Famously happy Bhutan outranks Canada by two spots. 

On the OECD quality of health care meaasures, South Korea and Israel often outrank the US and other Western countries. 

If you believe things like climate change are issues, and that being the biggest economy (USA, followed by China) or top greenhouse gas emitter (China, followed by USA) is not a sign of being superior, you can consider things like the Environmental Performance Index. It gives top spots, perhaps unsurprisingly, to Finland, Iceland, and Sweden, last spot to Afghanistan. 

These are all crude measures. The sum to me makes it look like the "best" countries to live in are Scandinavian, with the US and Canada tending to trail behind. On several measures, eastern Asian countries rank in and amongst the European and North American countries. 

The assumption that the highest rankings on HDI and so on are signs of "superiority" may be worth questioning. 

On GINI co-efficient, Boze, are you sure you are reading correctly? OECD comparisons ranks Canada as more unequal than most European countries. The CIA ranks more tahn 30 countries as more equal than Canada on its own GINI scale, and have Canada tied with Bangladesh. 

As you've mentioned raacial inequality, there's an interesting compilation of statistics that shows First Nations in Canada as being more marginalized than African Americans. Just out in Maclean's. Is this something to be proud of? Is it a sign of "superior" civilization? 

 

it wasn't democracy happening down there paladin. i'm sure you over-looked this reality. unintentionally though

On the contrary.

Listen in particular to the tail end of the second part of this interview. The worst case scenario.

[youtube]vf_XrfpdOsM[/youtube]

[youtube]hyTwoBIo8kQ[/youtube]

Paladin1 wrote:

It wasn't?

People voted for who they wanted to be elected. How is that not democracy?  Are you saying if Clinton would have won then it wouldn't have been democracy either?

Clinton was really pissed off when Hamas got voted in during Palestinian elections.  Clinton commented that the US should have rigged the election. Ironic eh? That's the tricky thing about democratic elections.

Democratic is quite the loose word. Then there is a question of quality. Like when the loser is the one with the most votes. And that is just the start of it.

So of course you can label the US as a democracy but is their system a functional good quality democracy? Perhaps not.

 

Boze - I am not endorsing the Happy Planet Index. I merely provided some stats, as you asked. As with HDI, there are some serious methodology issues with the HPI. No index is perfect, but the indices (you brought up the HDI; there's also a gender-adjusted HDI) seem to show a mix of countries near the top. (Some people in eastern Asia will argue that Confucian cultures are "superior" based on this sort of thing; obviously I reject that notion as I reject the notion that the "West" is somehow "superior.") 

Canada can certainly be compared to other countries. On some measures, we come off well. On others, such as colonial attitudes towards Indigenous people, we come off poorly (thread on the Maclean's survey in anti-racism forum). Obviously I much prefer living in Canada to living in Congo or Cameroon. On the other hand, I preferred living in Southeast Asia to living in the USA. 

None of this indicates that the "West" (however defined - again, why would you say Canada is "Western" and Brazil not?) is in any way "superior." And of course we need to look at things like colonialism history and climate change to understand why some countries are wealthier than others, and why Europe and North America and parts of eastern Asia are currently (and perhaps temporarily) on top. 

I asked you a few questions above. If you want to continue this line of discussion, please do go ahead and let me know your answers. 

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

It wasn't?

People voted for who they wanted to be elected. How is that not democracy?  Are you saying if Clinton would have won then it wouldn't have been democracy either?

Clinton was really pissed off when Hamas got voted in during Palestinian elections.  Clinton commented that the US should have rigged the election. Ironic eh? That's the tricky thing about democratic elections.

Democratic is quite the loose word. Then there is a question of quality. Like when the loser is the one with the most votes. And that is just the start of it.

So of course you can label the US as a democracy but is their system a functional good quality democracy? Perhaps not.

 

We both (all) know that if Clinton would have won the electoral college but Trump won the "most votes" the left would have said too fucking bad that's how the system is set up and the system works so deal with it.

I admit I don't understand the electoral voting system. It seems weird that some votes count for more than others but I guess there's more to it than that?  Maybe this will be the driving factor for the US to reform their electoral college process?

Right now the only danger to public safety is the protestors.   I've noticed theres some serious slut-shamming (if I'm using the term correctly) targeted towards the soon to be first lady too (who's also an immigrant, but shes a white immigrant so it doesn't matter). I guess it's an accepted practice if it's for a good reason? Or attacking women and POCs if they voted for the wrong person?  There's a lot of hypocrisy going on.

There is a difference between FPTP as a model for choosing a legislature and in a single race like a presidential election.

In the latter, it actually does make more sense than the electoral college. As a system for choosing a legislature in a multi-party system, it is not the best model.

 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

Right now the only danger to public safety is the protestors. 

Really? Protesting is dangerous? And it is the only danger to public safety?

http://time.com/4569129/racist-anti-semitic-incidents-donald-trump/

 

Good point Smith.  I meant that Trump hasn't started WW3, rounded up people and put them into death camps  or grew horns and wings as prophesized on him winning the election.  

I'm very skepticle about anything I read in the news but lets say that article is 100% accurate for arguments sake.  Had Clinton won would those same people have kept to themselves or would they be protesting and doing the same exact shit they're doing now? I think had Clinton won we've be int he very same place with regards to racially motivated crimes and attacks. The election was a national-level facebook thread gone to shit.

I think the US has a society and respect for others problem. Trump needs to step up and deal with the racist attacks like a leader should.

Cody -- the comparison to Canada is extremely poor. We have over three hundred ridings. Thay have 50 States and 8 times the population or so.

The delegate count is not the issue as the delegates are not elected individually -- entire states move together. This would be like Canada having only 20 ridings at FPTP instead of 350.

To say the distortion is even worse at the extreme ends indicates you do not understand your own comparison very well. The larger the unit of FPTP the more the distortion. We have it at the riding level and they have it at the State level. In Canada we have three territories and a province that are very tiny. A majority of these would not have any significant balance of power between large provinces. In the US small underpopulated States that have a simlar demographic (mostly white, older and Conservative) can dominate larger population states and there are a lot more than three.

You talk about winning states by large majorities and that distorion but you forget how this is compounded by the other point of the relative weight of those states. You say it is rare for the plurality to be offset but in fact in close elections in the US it is actually likely as we have seen recently.

I cannot figure out the point you are trying to make here but your analysis is very deeply flawed. The issue is greater than you suggest, the Canadian example not at all comparable when you consider the scale of this and the racial impact of this you gloss over (the over-represented states being much more white than the under-represented ones).

And you do not get into the organized and deliberate vote suppression of a scale we have never seen here but acting with these other factors is massive.

You seem to have a partial understanding of swing states but not a full indication that the election is largely irrelevant in most of the United States. In Canada that is much, much, much less the case. The majority of Canada is significant in an election and capable of moving. In the US that is a minority.

Cody87 wrote:

josh wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

It wasn't?

People voted for who they wanted to be elected. How is that not democracy?  Are you saying if Clinton would have won then it wouldn't have been democracy either?

 

It was democracy and Clinton got the most votes.  But the system was rigged against her.

She lost according to the pre-established rules of the election. Now complaining about the rules of the system is meaningless because the entire campaign, and even the primaries, would have been run differently under a different system. People who two weeks ago boasted about a "blue wall" and now decry the electoral college are hypocrites who want to change the rules because they don't like the outcome, not because of a principled opposition to the system.

I don't like FPTP and I don't like the electoral college, but the election was fought with all parties understanding exactly the rules of engagement. Post hoc complaints that the system is flawed ring hollow.

Not a single Clinton supporter currently complaining about the electoral college would be protesting if she won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. Of course if roles were reversed Trump's supporters would be protesting and their protests would be equally opportunistic.

False equivilency. Imagine two kids: you give one 3/4 of a candy bar and the other one 1/4. The kid with 1/4 whines. So you say well if I gave the kid that got the 3/4 just half he would whine so it is all equal and fair.

The issue is not that the Clinton side lost -- it is that they did not lose in an unbiased and fair context.

You can say she was not good enough to not only win a fair election but to win one biased against her -- but that is not the half of it. The system was rigged such that only someone like her could be a candidate for her party. The kind of money and privilege to get that far rigged the field such that the population had to choose between two rich and unsavoury people. It was rigged again such that the most unsavoury won in the end even though he got fewer votes.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Cody87 wrote:

josh wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

It wasn't?

People voted for who they wanted to be elected. How is that not democracy?  Are you saying if Clinton would have won then it wouldn't have been democracy either?

 

It was democracy and Clinton got the most votes.  But the system was rigged against her.

She lost according to the pre-established rules of the election. Now complaining about the rules of the system is meaningless because the entire campaign, and even the primaries, would have been run differently under a different system. People who two weeks ago boasted about a "blue wall" and now decry the electoral college are hypocrites who want to change the rules because they don't like the outcome, not because of a principled opposition to the system.

I don't like FPTP and I don't like the electoral college, but the election was fought with all parties understanding exactly the rules of engagement. Post hoc complaints that the system is flawed ring hollow.

Not a single Clinton supporter currently complaining about the electoral college would be protesting if she won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. Of course if roles were reversed Trump's supporters would be protesting and their protests would be equally opportunistic.

False equivilency. Imagine two kids: you give one 3/4 of a candy bar and the other one 1/4. The kid with 1/4 whines. So you say well if I gave the kid that got the 3/4 just half he would whine so it is all equal and fair.

The issue is not that the Clinton side lost -- it is that they did not lose in an unbiased and fair context.

You can say she was not good enough to not only win a fair election but to win one biased against her -- but that is not the half of it. The system was rigged such that only someone like her could be a candidate for her party. The kind of money and privilege to get that far rigged the field such that the population had to choose between two rich and unsavoury people. It was rigged again such that the most unsavoury won in the end even though he got fewer votes.

Bernie probably would have won vs. Trump. And based on leaked emails the DNC was fine with trying to sabotage both Bernie and the more moderate Republicans. It is really hard to not say anything inflammatory about that.

josh wrote:

...If Trump had lost the electoral college but won the popular vote, there would have been an uprising. Led by Trump himself, tweeting non-stop. Electoral college members would probably be receiving death threats...

It's difficult to know for sure what the reaction would have been, but given Trump supporters were already threatening violence if they felt the election had been rigged (i.e., a close result), I don't think it's going to far to say they would be going postal over a popular vote win but a electoral college loss.

swallow wrote:

Joe Clark lost the popular vote in 1979 but still became PM in a minority government. I think the NDP got power in BC once despite losing the popular vote too (Glen Clark?) Neither system is perfect. The electoral college does seem to be outdated, though - no need for a college to check the overly-democratic urges of the masses and over-rule their votes any more, is there? 

Maryland has apparently voted to give its electoral college votes in future to the winner of the popular vote - but only if all the other 49 states do the same. That would be one way to change things without constitutional amendments and so forth. 

Good point -- one reason why it happened was the west. The Liberals had over 20% of the vote in the 4 western provinces but managed less than 5% of the seats -- 3. They did about the same in the East as the PCs with over a third fewer seats. They had 5% fewer votes in Ontario but barely over half the seats. Seriously bad luck in vote efficiency.