I'd blame the democrats alone (the party, leadership, delegates, superdelegates and a section of voters + ~~liar~~ media) for giving away the presidency to Trump. For free, literally.
How is Peter Thiel or anyone else (Trump's supporters) responsible for what comes out of the man's mouth when at the same time the other party is clearly doing what's downright corruption/stifling a democratic nomination?
ICYMI, Peter Thiel did mention that he'd have preferred a race between Sanders and Trump instead (watch his interview to the press club) -- where he quotes: "because they get it" -- and that Trump gets the big things right even though his behavior isn't acceptable.
I don't see any reason for YC or any other organization to follow through with your advice. It is also mind numbing that a portion of democrats who made a joke of Trump when he said "he will accept the results only if he wins" are unable to accept the result of the election themselves.
Move on folks, open your ears and do your job.
On downvotes: I'm pretty sure downvoting over here is symptomatic behavior of a community that doesn't like to listen. Thank you for proving the point. I am happy that Trump is leading us and he is the elected premier for this country despite his weaknesses.
Each of us are responsible for their own vote. Nobody made you vote for Trump. I blame the people who voted for Trump for making him President. After all, we are all adults here, and although Trump never accepts any responsibility for his actions I think that the Trump supporters accept that they voted for him.
So yeah, blaming the Democrats for the Trump presidency is an oxymoron.
Clinton and her machine threw the only candidate who could beat Trump under the bus. She deserves her loss, and should apologize to the American people for prioritizing her selfish ambition over the good of the country.
Hopefully the Democrats learn about running someone electable before 2018. I have already prepared my donation fund for Bernie Sanders' or Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 presidential race (and I'll not vote again in 4 years if the Dems run yet another establishment candidate, learn your lesson already).
Your chance for your opinion to matter was when the primaries took place. Don't save your outrage for after it doesn't go the way you wanted.
More Democrats voted and caucused for her than for Bernie. I don't know where the notion that his nomination was stolen comes from other than maybe Trump himself.
Independents, needed to win the general, were not permitted to participate in several major Democratic primaries. Those Independents did not go for Clinton (clearly). Nor did Millennials, who also sat out for Clinton.
If you need people outside your party to vote for you, you don't restrict caucusing to just your party. Otherwise, you get the proverbial brick in the face. Must be a terrible legacy to lose to the person that makes up Trump in front of the entire world, that people said to themselves "Yes, he's a bigot, a xenophobe, a sexist; but he's not Clinton" as they voted.
@fatbird: I'm unsure why we're still arguing about this. Clinton lost because she did not have enough support, period.
Primary rules aren't decided on a case-by-case, election by election basis, and they're not a strategic tool for positioning oneself for the general campaign. They're an internal process that is supposed to be consistent and knowable beforehand--and the reason Obama was able to upset Hillary in 2008 was because his campaign bothered to learn the rules for all 50 primaries/caucuses, while hers didn't.
Of course they were: Bernie wasn't a Democrat until he ran for the nomination, why would they want to help an outsider become head of the party (aka the nominee?)
And it's not like we don't have an example of a candidate that rode popular outrage to a comfortable nomination victory with the entire weight of the party elites trying to sink him. It's clearly not that hard if you find the right message and the time is right.
But then nobody hacked the RNC's emails. Who knows what's in those.
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it but I disagree. Put Hillary in a balance with Trump and by far she is the better candidate. When people are willing to believe in the Father of Lies, even after you show them recorded evidence, they are a lost cause. It is really hard to cure willful ignorance. Hillary has also lied, I admit it, but it is not even on the same league of Trump.
The Democrats' fault (and mine too) was in believing that people of the United States were better than this.
Up to this point I used to honestly believe that justice always prevailed, some how. That the morality of the people of the United States was strong. Stupid, idealistic, naive me. I really hurts my heart but at least my eyes have been opened. You can do almost anything you want, lie with impunity, grab woman by the pus*y, assault them, defraud people, etc. etc. and as long as you have money and good connections it is very likely you will get away with it.
It is a hard pill to swallow, but at least I've learned my lesson and will live accordingly.
And of course, if the republicans again destroy the economy like Bush did in 2008 everybody will comeback crying to the Democrats to fix it and then blame them for everything once things are going OK again.
> Put Hillary in a balance with Trump and by far she is the better candidate
Then why am I dealing with "President-elect" Donald Trump?
> The Democrats' fault (and mine too) was in believing that people of the United States were better than this.
Nooooooo, your fault was not understanding what millions of Americans are going through that would force them to vote for the opponent. The blame lies solely with that mindset.
You expected people to put social issues ahead of their anxiety over economic survival. How ignorant is that idea? If you do not reflect, if you do not get comfortable with the idea of compromise and understanding those who did not vote the way you wanted, you will be doomed to fail.
> Then why am I dealing with "President-elect" Donald Trump?
Because the candidate who LOST the popular vote won the electoral college, so his fewer votes were better allocated, as it turned out. He won fair and square, but it's beyond idiotic to pretend that nominating Hillary was somehow a gift of the presidency to Trump. According to insiders, even Trump thought he was losing going into election night.
>>Then why am I dealing with "President-elect" Donald Trump?
Because half the people of the United States are hypocrites with no strong moral compass. It is not politically correct to say it but it is true. I didn't think so before this but I know so now.
>>Nooooooo, your fault was not understanding what millions of Americans are going through that would force them to vote for the opponent. The blame lies solely with that mindset.
That is a lie. A good chunk of the trump supporters are actually well off. [1]
> Because half the people of the United States are hypocrites with no strong moral compass. It is not politically correct to say it but it is true. I didn't think so before this but I know so now.
Prepare to lose a lot of battles in your life with this mindset.
EDIT (because HN throttling and I can't reply):
Don't waste the opportunity to grow as a person from this if it so strongly effects you. You don't say "fuck half of America, I'm right and they're wrong." You say, "Half of America voted for this person, this person who I strongly disagree with. Why? What motivated this? What can we do in the future to work together to ensure a better outcome?"
You ask questions. You collaborate. You compromise. In that order.
One of the reasons Trump won is that a lot of people in this country feel like they're being smugly dismissed every time they open their mouths. That the "elites" have no interest in getting to know them, understanding their problems, or building a society that is inclusive of them. They're used to being lectured by people who don't even know them, who think their entire community is insignificant and irrelevant and backwards and stupid. They're used to being called "white trash" and worse, just for existing.
I'm #NeverTrump. He's a horrible human being. I wish he had never sniffed the presidency. I fear for the safety of my transgender friends. But Trump won't be stopped if we lie to ourselves about why people support him, if we tell comforting but false stories about how everyone who supports him is just stupid, racist, sexist, or self-hating. The only way to stop him is to understand why we weren't able to stop him this time, which means understanding what the people who voted for him want that the "establishment" is failing to take seriously.
So, just to be clear, I agree with you completely, one hundred percent. But in the last couple of days, reflecting on the phenomenon you're observing, and trying to figure out why I become so frustrated, I've realized you could flip that around completely, with very negligible edits:
"... a lot of people in this country feel like they're being smugly dismissed every time they open their mouths. That the 'white trash' have no interest in getting to know them, understanding their problems, or building a society that is inclusive of them. They're used to being lectured by people who don't even know them, who think their entire community is insignificant and irrelevant and backwards and stupid. They're used to being called 'elites' and worse, just for existing."
The smugness of the liberal establishment bothers me, and is one reason I didn't vote for Clinton. But I find myself a recipient on the opposite end of that bigotry line all the time also. Not sure what to do with that observation, but it's very salient to me. Explaining it doesn't make it ok, I suppose, or something along those lines.
A partial answer comes from something I've sometimes heard said about racism (which I don't fully agree with, but I recognize as having some value): that when those with less power disdain those with more power, it's not as bad as when those with more power disdain those with less power.
Concretely: Tuesday is the first time in a long time that many "elites" have had their lives affected by "white trash". But "white trash" pretty much constantly live with the results of tax, trade, and health care policies enacted by "elites". IMO "and they don't like you very much either" hurts more in the second case -- it almost always hurts more for those on the losing end of the power dynamic.
I do not understand your logic. Why? The more you know the better. And this is something that I did not know before. As I already mentioned before, I was stupid and idealistic. This experience has made me a lot more cynical.
It has probably made me a bit worse of a person, unfortunately.
Trump has proven that you can say anything and as long as you have power or you tell people what they want to hear it does not matter so what are you talking about?
Here's an olive branch, it's a linear combination. Look at the numbers, yes a large portion supported Trump out of desperation, but Clinton got 6M votes less than Obama. That says it all, people couldn't be motivated to vote.
Please, for our sake that we can rebuild in 2020 from what little we have left of our country, do look around and realize that the DNC had alot to do with why Trump won.
I prefer to believe that half of the people of the United States want to come together to build a better nation.
Edit: Hello downvoters. At almost the very top of his speech Trump specifically said he was reaching out to people who didn't support him, for guidance and help in unifying and improving the country.
Trump's prepared to work with you on unity, are you prepared to work with him? For better or worse dismissing him will not get your views heard, neither will calling him and his supporters names.
Sanders issued a statement saying “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
Obama and Hillary said, let's give him a chance and wait and see.
That does not seem unreasonable.
I'm sure there are at least a handful of Trump policies that you can support and agree with (see for example his ethics in government reform policy).
I know it's pedantic, but barely half the eligible electorate bothered to vote. And half of them elected Trump. We have no idea what the other half were doing or thinking, and can only guess they did not feel compelled to participate.
> Have you not been putting attention? He lies, lies, and lies to cover the lies and people do not care.
People don't care because they expect politicians to lie. Hillary had her fair share of lies also. So we need a different yardstick to judge candidates beyond he/she lies.
With regards to paying attention, I have been paying attention to this entire campaign and while paying attention I noticed that the version of Trump I saw in that speech was very different from the version of Trump that was portrayed in the media during the entire election campaign - from words to demeanor to tone.
It wasn't just a small difference either, it was a stark difference. This means one of two things:
1) After winning a mandate (presidency, house, senate) that validated his entire campaign message, he decided to switch tactics and tone and give up bigotry and hatred in favour of unity.
Or
2) The way he was portrayed by the media during the campaign was inaccurate, and his message has been one of unity and nation building all along.
There is significant amount of evidence to show the latter, but either choice bodes well for the future.
I'd put it at about 75% (1) (and we'll see how long that switch lasts; I really hope he manages to keep it up, although experience makes it difficult to be too optimistic) and 25% (2). The media really wanted stories about what a horrific boor Trump was. I expect they were good for clicks, and also I'm sure the vast majority of the college educated, urban members of the media honestly believed, as I do, that Trump wasn't fit for the Presidency, and wanted to convey that to others. A lot of the time he obliged; sometimes he didn't, and so they stretched to make it fit. ("Kicking out" the mother and baby from the speech was one of the most egregious examples.) Ultimately they did their own cause a disservice, as many people wrote off all Trump reporting as biased, and he ended up getting away with a great deal that he shouldn't have.
I watched his acceptance speech live and was mildly encouraged. I still have grave doubts, but since there's no going back, all we can do now is make the best of it.
> "Kicking out" the mother and baby from the speech was one of the most egregious examples.
That was one example of stretching things to make them fit, others included:
* Trump wants to build a database of Muslims (if you look at the transcripts it was actually the reporters suggesting this, not Trump, Trump moved on to talking about something else (the wall) and the reporter kept asking questions and took his replies as if he was talking about the database).
* Trump mocked a disabled reporter (the reporter's disability was completely different from the impersonation Trump did but coincidentally a freeze frame from the video had a pose similar to a picture of the reporter. So either he knew of the reporter's disability but was doing a completely different impersonation, or he didn't know of reporter's disability and was doing a completely different impersonation - either way he wasn't mocking the reporter's disability).
* Trump called for the assassination of Hillary Clinton and Supreme Court justices (transcripts clearly show the context was talking about exercising voting rights).
The list goes on, and on, and the more you look in to it, the more you see example after example where the media took something Trump said or did and applied a narrative to it that matched a narrative various email leaks have shown was the strategy to defeat Trump.
And now half the U.S. is scared because it seems one of the Clinton campaign's main strategies was to make people scared of a president Trump.
The strategy worked well in that many people now seem to be afraid of what's to come, but acceptance-speech Trump did not come off as scary. I think it's worth giving him a chance.
I don't disagree with you, and I especially agree that it's worth giving him a chance. That said, there are examples where what he said was just as bad as it sounds:
* Calling for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
* "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
* I actually disagree with you on this one. Here's the quote: "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know." When I heard the audio of that, it sounded very much like he was talking about people taking matters into their own hands. It came across as a joke, but one in very poor taste. Still, I suppose it's conceivable that he's talking about something else, so give that one a pass.
* Then of course, "And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." Sure, that's not a public statement, nor a statement of policy. It's also not something I can imagine myself or one of my friends saying though. It speaks to his character.
That's just a few. He's not as bad as the media or (obviously) the Clinton camp portrayed. But he still seems plenty bad. That said, maybe he can still govern effectively, and maybe some of the change he brings about will be positive. I hope so.
For nation building, his campaign slogan from day one: Make America Great Again.
For inaccurate portrayals in the media, Wikileaks/Guccifer leaks from the DNC pointing out deliberate strategy to brand Trump as a rascist, sexist, xenophobic, fascist bigot, along with evidence showing strong media collusion to do that, and then going to the source of his most controversial statements and finding out that many were taken out of context to push those exact themes.
But I guess the biggest is simply what I mentioned above. Throughout the campaign Trump has been painted as a bully, as hateful, as a bigot as someone who does things his way and doesn't listen to others. This is also someone with a highly inflated opinion of himself, who paints his name in giant gold letters on his planes and buildings.
He and his platform had just won 'bigly' - the presidency, the senate, the house. If anything the win would embolden someone with with the above characteristics and this speech was the culmination of his entire campaign and what he stood for.
And yet none of those things came through in his speech - no message of hate or divisiveness, no bullying, no messages of vindication or retribution, instead it was the opposite. Reaching out to people who opposed him, offering to work together regardless of race and religion and political affiliation, everyone coming together to build a better America.
That language and tone doesn't square with a narcissistic, bigoted, bully who says what he wants and takes what he pleases.
It just doesn't.
And when I'm confronted with a situation where reality conflicts with my perception of reality, the choice is either to update my perception to match the reality I'm seeing and hearing, or to further twist reality to match that already inaccurate perception.
In any event, Trump made it clear in that speech he wanted to work on unity and building the nation.
Is that something you can support?
If yes, I suspect you are likely to find common ground with many of his supporters. If no, that is on you more than on Trump.
I'll happily admit I was impressed with his conduct with Obama this morning, and the victory speech Tues/Wed. However, you cannot deny that it stands in contrast to the Trump of the campaign trail. It stands in contract to the Trump of later the same day:
> Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair! [1]
Let's not pretend his the victim of a vast media conspiracy to smear him. He has done patently divisive things: Promulgating birtherism, attacking Judge Curiel, attacking Megyn Kelly, the Muslim ban, the mexican-immigrants-are-rapists comment, the calls for mass deportation,...
The only prospect that gives me hope is a temperate, center-right Trump administration emerging from the miasma of this campaign, and working towards unity with his party, the democrats, and the country. I want that, I believe you want that, and I hope most of his supporters want that. For that to happen though, Trump has to be the one to work toward unity, to reach out to the groups he has inarguably alienated.
I saw that tweet, but also saw that many of the protests are being organized by the George Soros backed, MoveOn.org.
That's George Soros the billionaire backer of Hillary Clinton and also someone in opposition to Trump's anti-globalist agenda.
I have no doubt many of the protestors are genuinely protesting against what they believe Trump will mean for the nation. However I do also question the motives of people stirring that up, especially when protests become violent and cause damage to people and property.
> Trump has to be the one to work toward unity, to reach out to the groups he has inarguably alienated.
I agree and I think he made overtures to this in his acceptance speech. He does need people to meet him at the discussion table though, and violent protests, and burning effigies of Trump don't help achieve that aim.
Wait, aren't these the ones dems derided as uneducated non-college degreed voters? So, now that the election is over, we call them middle class? It's little wonder they felt disenfranchised and ridiculed and voted for the victor, including a number of democrats [1]
About 100,000 votes in the right states could have changed the entire outcome, right? But that doesn't really mean just 100,000 people who didn't vote for Hillary determined that Trump would win.
We vote for who we want, if we choose to vote at all. The next 4 years will be determined by a lot more than just this one vote. Political activism is a constant finger on the scales.
Okay, let's stipulate that anyone with an opinion that differs from yours has no moral compass. What next? Do we disenfranchise them? Kill them? Sterilize them and their children and wait it out?
Your attitude is disgusting on a number of levels, but my favorite one is how it leads to nothing useful at all.
Are you trying to equate my distaste for your reasoning with sexual assault? This makes me assume that you're trolling, but I can't imagine to what end.
Looks like you are good man with strong ideals. As they say Sxxx happens and one should be able to deal with it. You should be proud that majority voted for Clinton(25.6%) than Trump(25.5%). Sad part is, almost 46.9% of eligible voters didn't even vote. What Trump said cant be trivialized and you are quite aware that even republicans hated what Trump said. But at the same time, one should recognize that democracy works only when everyone participates. A few swing state voters don't represent all of USA. You can rest assured that this nation has enough good folks and strong institutions that wont let anyone including Presidents go against the constitution.
"Hillary has also lied, I admit it, but it is not even on the same league of Trump."
Come on, even as a liberal - when DWS resigned from the DNC for ethics violations related to the primaries, it was what ... thirty six hours before the Hillary Campaign announced that she was working on the campaign.
That was a "fuck you, we're corrupt and you can't do anything about it".
And in case there remained any doubt, we saw the same thing repeated with Donna Brazile. Fed debate questions to Hillary beforehand, left DNC ... to work for Hillary.
She won the popular vote, and lost the decisive states (MI, PA, WI) by 12, 68, and 27 thousand votes respectively. She did not beat Trump, but she could have, had anything gone even slightly differently.
>>blaming the Democrats for the Trump presidency is an oxymoron.
Not really. The dems sabotaged their only electable candidate. I'm not upset about the Trump presidency only because I had come to terms with it as soon as I realised Hillary was going to screw over Bernie and basically guarantee a Trump presidency. Never before has an 'I told so' felt so unsatisfactory. Besides I'm not even sure a Hillary presidency would have been more palatable given her track record.
So people from Brigade[1] say that among the electorate which used their app, 95% of Republicans pledged to vote Republican, among the Democrats only 55% pledged to vote for Hillary. So... who was it again who helped Trump win?
I'd blame the democrats alone (the party, leadership, delegates, superdelegates and a section of voters + ~~liar~~ media) for giving away the presidency to Trump. For free, literally.
How is Peter Thiel or anyone else (Trump's supporters) responsible for what comes out of the man's mouth when at the same time the other party is clearly doing what's downright corruption/stifling a democratic nomination?
ICYMI, Peter Thiel did mention that he'd have preferred a race between Sanders and Trump instead (watch his interview to the press club) -- where he quotes: "because they get it" -- and that Trump gets the big things right even though his behavior isn't acceptable.
I don't see any reason for YC or any other organization to follow through with your advice. It is also mind numbing that a portion of democrats who made a joke of Trump when he said "he will accept the results only if he wins" are unable to accept the result of the election themselves.
Move on folks, open your ears and do your job.
On downvotes: I'm pretty sure downvoting over here is symptomatic behavior of a community that doesn't like to listen. Thank you for proving the point. I am happy that Trump is leading us and he is the elected premier for this country despite his weaknesses.