US Elections 2016 Part II: The Debates & General Election

[monir]

Who get hurt more, Hilary or Trump, when they lose this election?

I personally think Trump has way more to lose. The dirt that has been uncovered thus far only scratches the surface of the shitpile-mountain Trump has accumulated in his lifetime. Perhaps, he will make a backroom deal (if he performs badly in the second debate) with crooked Hilary and throw this election.

See what I did there.... hehehehe

[Jaden]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit....html#comments

http://www.newsweek.com/epileptogenic-pepe-video-507417

I'm not surprised that Trump is a womanizer. Actually I think everyone should have realized that by the time he got married for the third time to a woman half his age, lol. People who would've changed their vote because of that already have, since Trump's been painted as a chauvinist by the media from the start of his campaign...it's a non-scandal.

And that second story...waah a Trump supporter sent me Pepe videos! I can't believe someone published this. I guess I just found another reason to hope for a Trump victory - humiliating the shit media.

[MCAL]

Originally Posted by Jaden

And that second story...waah a Trump supporter sent me Pepe videos! I can't believe someone published this. I guess I just found another reason to hope for a Trump victory - humiliating the shit media.

Did... Did you actually read the article? Or did you just read the link title and call it a day?

[frivolity]

The voice recording is probably the final nail in the coffin. I wonder if the GOP will finally bail on this.

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by frivolity

I've been looking at their source code for some time too to see whether they're using a special site (e.g: PlotLy, Highstock, etc) to make their charts, but all I can find is their JSON data. It seems like they might have actually written the javascript from scratch on their own.

I was curious so I took a look as well and you're right. I would've assumed if they weren't using any JavaScript libraries they were getting around it using c3 or d3 but it does seem like 538 uses custom javascript for their visualizations. Its only recently that I realized how impressive that is.

[sayde]

Originally Posted by frivolity

The voice recording is probably the final nail in the coffin. I wonder if the GOP will finally bail on this.

This feels as close to a real life version of Cam Brady in "The Campaign" as I think we're gonna get. lol

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by frivolity

The voice recording is probably the final nail in the coffin. I wonder if the GOP will finally bail on this.

When you have Paul Ryan who tells Trump to simply f*** off from the rally in Wisconsin, I think that should be clear enough of a message from the party itself.

I can't wait for Sunday when Hillary will use the shedload of juicy material Trump has been gifting to her since the first debate.

[Xellos-_^]

as bad as Trump is i find people who are willing t overlook all this and still vote for him to be worse.

[sasoras]

Hillary's wall street transcripts have been released.

Being called a bucket of losers is new to me, but nothing surprising how she thinks of bernie voters, although she did give my race a passing mark, compared to the others races.

So +/-

[Brother Coa]

"US accuses Russia of trying to interfere with 2016 election."

Washington (CNN)The Obama administration said Friday it was "confident" that Russia was behind recent hackings of emails about upcoming US elections in an attempt to interfere with the process.

The announcement marks the first time the US administration has officially accused Russia of hacking into US political systems. Earlier in the week, the two countries broke off formal talks about a ceasefire in Syria.

"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement.

"The recent disclosures of alleged hacked emails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts," the statement added. "These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow -- the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there."

Of course, when US is in crisis over something Russians are the default scapegoats for that

and the answer...

Russia, however, rejected the US accusations.
"This is some kind of nonsense again," said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, according to the state-run Interfax News Agency.

He added, "Putin's website is attacked daily by several tens of hackers. Many of the attacks are traced to US territory. However, we don't blame the White House or Langley each time this happens."

In the end I am sure that country that has superior technology will have no problem to protect it's most important systems from outside hacker attacks. I mean, how could they not been protected when they have the best and they pay for the best?

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by sasoras

Being called a bucket of losers is new to me, but nothing surprising how she thinks of bernie voters

That shit's proven fake. It came from a site called RealTrueNews.org, which is on the same level of credibility as Infowars and Ancient Aliens.

The real transcripts are largely boring policy and human story speeches, like everyone sane more or less expected. Actually, as I understand it, they end up painting a rather flattering picture of Clinton has being more progressive than she lets on.

[sasoras]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

That shit's proven fake. It came from a site called RealTrueNews.org, which is on the same level of credibility as Infowars and Ancient Aliens.

The real transcripts are largely boring policy and human story speeches, like everyone sane more or less expected. Actually, as I understand it, they end up painting a rather flattering picture of Clinton has being more progressive than she lets on.

Yea seems basement dweller is the only nickname I'll get, the wording won't paint her well, its all context, and the open border hemisphere thing after the Tpp controversy would not paint her progressive.But the Canadian thing sounds so different..

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by sasoras

Hillary's wall street transcripts have been released.

Being called a bucket of losers is new to me, but nothing surprising how she thinks of bernie voters, although she did give my race a passing mark, compared to the others races.

So +/-

Originally Posted by sasoras

Yea seems basement dweller is the only nickname I'll get, the wording won't paint her well, its all context. Since the audio release says contrary, and various other things.

If it's all context then you'd realize from the audio that Hillary is talking about how our generation of millennials got royally screwed by an economy which resulted in many individuals having to move back home because there were no jobs for us getting out of college. She's actually sympathizing with millennials and expressing understanding for why the idealism of someone like Sander's political revolution is appealing. She herself, however, prefers to make progress through realistic and incremental progress. This stuff she said here is not new, she explained as much time and time again during the primary.

Originally Posted by frivolity

I define winning the argument as being more coherent, while winning the debate refers to pulling in more votes.

To me, Pence won the argument because he made more sense on several issues. While his economic plan had a number of flaws, it was much more coherent than Kaine's, which left me completely puzzled most of the time.

Kaine won the debate because he got more attacks in, and while most of them were expertly dodged by Pence, they did the job of emphasising Trump's issues.

Seems to me like you consider it the reverse - that Kaine won the argument and Pence won the debate - that's fine.

I mean, I'm not sure how you can win an argument when all your arguments do not actually reflect the position of the candidate you're ticketing with and he dodges every attack by claiming factually true things Trump has said were not said over and over again during the entire debate. I admire his acting abilities to do that for 90 minutes. He had the demeanor (If that even means anything), but on substance it was a wash. I think John Lovett had a great quote on twitter about this. Tim Kaine is running for the 2016 election, Mike Pence is running for the 2020.

Originally Posted by frivolity

I disagree with your assessment about Trump being worse than Hillary, though I do not consider it unreasonable or irrational for people to see otherwise. At the very least, I don't consider those on the other side to be deluded or self-entitled like Irenicus does. In my view, there is no objective and unequivocal measure for who is worse, so I am not going to attempt to force my view on others who disagree.

Ben Shapiro sets out the range of viewpoints that explain why conservatives are split on Donald Trump, which I have a feeling you'll agree with him on some aspeccts about for once.

To summarise, his argument is that there are three groups of conservatives in this election:

1. The Just-Say-Yes Trump Voters: Hillary is worse than Trump; an unknown entity is better than one who is known to be bad; Trump's victory doesn't endanger conservatism or the GOP.
2. The Just-Say-No Hillary Voters: Trump is worse than Hillary; Hillary will be a one-term president; Hillary winning will allow a strong conservative rebound in 2020.
3. The Third Way: Hillary is worse than Trump; Trump winning will damage conservatism in the long run; reject the idea of voting for the lesser evil when both evils simply do not meet the quality threshold.

The conservative papers that support Hillary are in the second category. I'm not an American citizen, but my view was originally aligned with the first one. I'm currently finding more and more appeal with the third.

Again, I appreciate the discussion on substantive issues instead of simply exchanging ad hominem attacks.

You seem like an intelligent individual, so it's no surprise to me that Irenicus claimed you are being intellectually dishonest as opposed to someone who is outright stupid. I get the sense that you're purposely exaggerating your own outrage over some of these things. Furthermore, with scandal after scandal, including the latest shocker, we see just how unfit Trump is to lead this country and you sit here claiming that Trump is somehow not worse for our country and Democracy as a whole. I'm sure you'd love to spin this into a conservative vs democratic lens of this election, but I think it's clear that all the reasonable conservative lawmakers at this point want to completely bail on this election as far as the Presidency goes and your typical Republican voter should too.

Ben Shapiro's article explains why a conservative would bother voting for Trump over Hillary. If you so irrationally believe that Hillary Clinton is the devil, then it makes sense to go with choice 3. A lot of the Paul Ryan/Jeb Bush/Marco Rubio type conservative bigwigs already know that Trump winning forever changes the Republican brand. It goes back to what I said about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Like I said before, to me this really comes down to the Supreme court. A good many more informed conservatives are concerned about Hillary getting multiple appointments to the court and hope that electing Trump will get them the Heritage foundation approved judges. Meanwhile they hope that Trump won't destroy the country in 4-8 years (We most certainly will have our reputation worldwide damaged). I can somewhat understand this viewpoint (Well aside from their warped right wing views, but strategy wise it makes sense).

To me the most logical strategic decision here is choice number 2 if you believe in true conservative values and if you put aside the supreme court.

[sasoras]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

If it's all context then you'd realize from the audio that Hillary is talking about how our generation of millennials got royally screwed by an economy which resulted in many individuals having to move back home because there were no jobs for us getting out of college. She's actually sympathizing with millennials and expressing understanding for why the idealism of someone like Sander's political revolution is appealing. She herself, however, prefers to make progress through realistic and incremental progress. This stuff she said here is not new, she explained as much time and time again during the primary.

That's your interpretation which is fine, I just don't after that chuckle, terminology, and the laughter of the audience. Generally that audio would only affect the fence sitters. Those who made up their minds will not likely be moved.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I mean, I'm not sure how you can win an argument when all your arguments do not actually reflect the position of the candidate you're ticketing with and he dodges every attack by claiming factually true things Trump has said were not said over and over again during the entire debate. I admire his acting abilities to do that for 90 minutes. He had the demeanor (If that even means anything), but on substance it was a wash. I think John Lovett had a great quote on twitter about this. Tim Kaine is running for the 2016 election, Mike Pence is running for the 2020.

That's why I consider Pence to have lost the debate - it's easy nowadays to fact-check what Trump and Pence said in the past, so my assessment is that Pence didn't do as much to gain votes as Kaine did from his repeated attacks on Trump.

In terms of winning the argument, I consider Pence to have won it because he made a more coherent economic argument (not that it was perfect or even good), while the arguments on social policy were mostly a draw. When Kaine spoke on economic policy, I was repeatedly shaking my head and some of the policies drew a couple of "WTF??" murmurs from the economists in my office.

You seem like an intelligent individual, so it's no surprise to me that Irenicus claimed you are being intellectually dishonest as opposed to someone who is outright stupid. I get the sense that you're purposely exaggerating your own outrage over some of these things. Furthermore, with scandal after scandal, including the latest shocker, we see just how unfit Trump is to lead this country and you sit here claiming that Trump is somehow not worse for our country and Democracy as a whole. I'm sure you'd love to spin this into a conservative vs democratic lens of this election, but I think it's clear that all the reasonable conservative lawmakers at this point want to completely bail on this election as far as the Presidency goes and your typical Republican voter should too.

Not exactly. It would be far more accurate to say that I am a lot less outraged about Trump's statements than most of the people in this thread, such that the end result is that I am still equally outraged by both candidates, though that equal level of outrage is still a lot lower than that of most others.

The basis for my view is my own experience living in a country that was governed by one of the classic examples of a benevolent dictator: Lee Kuan Yew, who made a number of comments that rival Trump's in terms of racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, and elitism. For example, he had this to say about Islam:
I think we were progressing very nicely until the surge of Islam came, I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam.

As well as this bigoted quote that reflects his belief in eugenics:
If you don’t include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society…So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That’s a problem.

Nevertheless, no one can deny that he was the father of modern Singapore, and the people recognised that his policies served the country well, even those demographics who were subject to his unfair criticisms.

On that basis, Trump's comments don't irk me as much as they do for many others, because the question that I primarily focus on in terms of policy is less about, "Does it feel good?" and more of "Does it do good?" This is why I put Trump's and Hillary's comments on the same level - to me, policies matter much more than personal views.

This is not to say that Trumpence have good policies, but more that the Cline campaign's policies are highly illogical to me and simply don't make economic sense.

What I personally detest, however, is paying no heed to conflict of interest and acting in an ultra vires manner that disregards the rules. These, to me, are absolute no-nos. Any leader who considers himself/herself to be above the law is almost always going to be a far bigger threat to democracy than one who is merely an asshole.

This is why I consider that a Hillary presidency is potentially worse than a Trump presidency, though we can all agree that both would be terrible choices in most other elections.

Nevertheless, at this point, my position is that the bell has rung and the fat lady has sung. The latest scandal is likely to be the final one that finishes off the Trump campaign for good.

Ben Shapiro's article explains why a conservative would bother voting for Trump over Hillary. If you so irrationally believe that Hillary Clinton is the devil, then it makes sense to go with choice 3. A lot of the Paul Ryan/Jeb Bush/Marco Rubio type conservative bigwigs already know that Trump winning forever changes the Republican brand. It goes back to what I said about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Like I said before, to me this really comes down to the Supreme court. A good many more informed conservatives are concerned about Hillary getting multiple appointments to the court and hope that electing Trump will get them the Heritage foundation approved judges. Meanwhile they hope that Trump won't destroy the country in 4-8 years (We most certainly will have our reputation worldwide damaged). I can somewhat understand this viewpoint (Well aside from their warped right wing views, but strategy wise it makes sense).

To me the most logical strategic decision here is choice number 2 if you believe in true conservative values and if you put aside the supreme court.

Conservatives do not consider voting Trump over Hillary as cutting off your nose to spite your face, which seems to imply that the choice is being made to sacrifice the greater good in favour of personal gain. I would liken it to cutting off your nose to save your eyes, i.e: making a decision in which both choices have terrible outcomes and one is forced to make a choice that minimises the harm being done.

The Ryan and Rubio types, even Cruz, consider(ed) Trump to be the lesser of two evils in the short-term, but his presidency would damage the conservative movement, which conservatives by definition consider to be in the long-term interest of the country. The trade-off is thus not about furthering the party over the country, and is instead about the country either way - conservatives in this group view Trump as better for the country in the short-term and worse in the long-term.

On the topic of the supreme court, as I've mentioned before, the importance of the supreme court justices is one that still perplexes me till this day because Australian courts have a fairly strong culture of judicial restraint and adhering to judicial legalism over judicial activism. The choice of judges therefore carries much less fanfare here because we generally view our judges as being non-partisan.

[monir]

Originally Posted by sasoras

Generally that audio would only affect the fence sitters. Those who made up their minds will not likely be moved.

Agreed. People that have supported Trump till now will continue to support whether there is a tape shows he is a serial rapist like Bill Cosby or enjoys child porn like Jared the Subway sandwich guy. People literally care for a single thing to justify a vote for a person they will never, ever allow as a role model for their own children. It could be climate change, it could be political correctness, or abortion, or just plain hatred for the other guy or gal that will make a person to cast a vote for a candidate.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by monir

People literally care for a single thing to justify a vote for a person they will never, ever allow as a role model for their own children.

The tape will certainly put a lot of pressure on Republican candidates for the Senate and House since they will all be asked to respond. New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte already faced such a moment earlier in the week when asked if she thought Donald Trump was an appropriate role model for children:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/m-Y6NKxHd6Y

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Ayotte backtracked the next day in a prepared statement where she declared neither Trump nor Clinton is an appropriate role model for our youth. Last I heard she's still voting for him but not "endorsing" him, the sort of verbal gymnastics we've heard from other Republican Senate candidates like John McCain.

Already people like Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah are withdrawing their endorsements. Trump's character has made him quite unpopular among Mormons in a state which has voted Republican since the Ice Age.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by OH&S

This is as an aside but I can't help but be impressed with the way 538 visualizes their data and analysis. So easy to understand and very intriguing when reading into their methodologies.

Looks like an R package...maybe ggplot

[Xero8420]

In this point of time... I had to intervene this time.

Do not let that "human rights issue" scandal distract supporters, that 2005 tape was clearly used to play dirty on him. Yes, Trump is maybe a dirt-bag, but Clinton is a lot worse as she will certainly continue down the rotten legacy. Billions will die, civilization will cover with blood and humanity will be plagued by degeneracy should Clinton succeed, repeating the same mistakes dated back in the 90s.

So what if Trump is being a pig? That won't make Clinton look any better either. Yeah, big deal. So much of talking big about "human rights" for decades, have they lost their ways for so long as human obligations stopped being relevant to them anymore? How long are they continuing to ignore Solzhenitsyn's prophetic warning? How long are they going to keep up the farce?

[KiraYamatoFan]

I really wonder if I should laugh or cry at this load of rubbish.

As far as I am concerned, what comes close to degeneracy was when that Texan cretin entered the White House in 2001 and stayed there until 2008.

How long are they continuing to ignore Solzhenitsyn's prophetic warning?

It should apply more to the fools who rule in the Kremlin with zero accountability towards the population.