The US Presidential Election 2016

[Jubal]

Fair enough!

[Glaurung]

Here are some interesting, if probably rather depressing, thoughts on the election and the US political process generally. They're from the blog of Nick Bryant, a senior BBC correspondent in the US.

- Does America need to change how it elects its presidents?
- American exceptionalism in a time of American malaise
- The crisis of US governability

[Jubal]

Nevada done for the Dems, a Clinton win though only by about 4% - and Sanders won among Hispanics which was unexpected and stands him in good stead for future races.
Clinton +19
Sanders +15

And with about 35% of the vote versus a split opposition, Trump won South Carolina which is winner takes all.
Trump +44

[comrade_general]

At least Sanders had the gall to call out Obama as crap, being a Dem and all. Trump or Sanders. No Clinton. But in any case...

[Jubal]

Sanders is only a Dem as of like five months ago, of course - he caucused with them in the Senate on procedure, but stood as an independent and had complete freedom to vote as he liked on policy issues.

I'm genuinely not sure which of the GOP front trio I'm most scared about now. Cruz is to my view the most distasteful but also least electable, Rubio also seems pretty awful and might be electable which is probably scarier, and I'm not sure Trump knows either how sane or how electable he's going to be from day to day. Kasich I could put up with as president more than the others, but that's not saying much, and I suspect he's not going to last too much longer.

[comrade_general]

It's too bad people don't have sense to see how good Rand would have been since he did the same with the Repub party.

[Clockwork]

This is a little bit of a tangent but eh. I was reading an article written by (I think) an american with the intention of informing europeans why Trump is as successful as he is. It was saying he's getting a lot of support from blue collar workers who think hispanics are taking their jobs, okay, no surprise there but also middle class workers who like Trump's economic plan because I gather he's lowering tax. Given that this is me saying this: surely there's a line where 'good economics' (I don't actually know if his economic plan is good or not, only what the article made it out to be) is surpassed by not being a dick?

[Jubal]

Yes, but that line will be different for everyone. What is very worth noting is that Trump more or less never scores above the mid thirties percent support, and the statistical/polling evidence suggests that his absolute cap in the primaries is south of forty. So Trump's appeal is very limited in some ways, but it's a very solid voting block, very loyal, and in a split field it's enough to keep winning primaries (and the GOP system rewards low-scorers who can still carry states, by having some winner takes all primaries like South Carolina). If he was in a two person race for the nomination the evidence suggests he would probably have lost to any other single candidate in the field.

Also, I think Trump being a dick seems to help his brand - middle class workers who are impressed by Trump probably think that his forcefulness/bullishness is what is needed to get better trade deals etc, given that the GOP have very heavily criticised Obama's very intellectual, soft-spoken approach on international affairs. It's the "we want the biggest dick available and we want him on our side to be a dick on our behalf to everyone who isn't us" mentality. It hasn't hit home to these voters at least that Trump would alienate a great many of America's current allies.

[Clockwork]

I heard he scored like 45% in Idaho, where the voters included a lot of Hispanic? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm literally regurgitating what I heard from a known BSer (but a good mate) and have nothing else to go on.


Fair point on his brand though, yeah he's been lauded for calling out other republicans on being...bad republicans? Or something. (also allegedly, I'm not following this except for posts here but was told a load of things by the aforementioned friend yesterday.)


Also, I advocated being human instead of being a cold hearted bastard, maybe one day I'll develop real feelings? I feel like this should be noticed

[Jubal]

Idaho hasn't voted yet - polls for any state that's not in the next few weeks are pretty unreliable, and any polls before the February will usually just go on who people have heard of most. Also I didn't think Idaho was that Hispanic, it's north of the usual belt of highly Hispanic states, though I may be wrong. Also Hispanics skew Democrat - even in more Hispanic states, the GOP primary voters will be on average whiter than the state as a whole by some margin. This is why the GOP love Marco Rubio - if they don't start appealing to Hispanic voters more they'll basically end up screwed by demographics as the  of white voters falls, so having high profile Hispanic candidates is vital to them.

Trump has broken certain taboos in the GOP which I think some of the base likes. So he's attacked George W Bush over Iraq, for example, which the Republicans just never do generally. He's also taken some GOP ideas on things like immigration to their logical conclusions, which then exposes how much of what the establishment candidates shout is just rhetoric - when confronted by the obvious policy implications of what they say ("let's just build a wall and make Mexico pay") they suddenly backtrack and it turns out the rhetoric is empty. Whether that makes them bad Republicans, or more sane than they look, or both, I leave up to your judgement and that of the GOP's voter base!

And yes, I'm proud of you

EDIT: apparently Idaho is only 11% Hispanic - the only highly hispanic states are New Mex, Texas, Arizona, Cali, and to a lesser extent Colorado, Nevada, and Florida.

[Clockwork]

Idaho hasn't voted yet - polls for any state that's not in the next few weeks are pretty unreliable, and any polls before the February will usually just go on who people have heard of most.

Welp, not entirely unexpected.

Trump has broken certain taboos in the GOP which I think some of the base likes. So he's attacked George W Bush over Iraq, for example, which the Republicans just never do generally. He's also taken some GOP ideas on things like immigration to their logical conclusions, which then exposes how much of what the establishment candidates shout is just rhetoric - when confronted by the obvious policy implications of what they say ("let's just build a wall and make Mexico pay") they suddenly backtrack and it turns out the rhetoric is empty. Whether that makes them bad Republicans, or more sane than they look, or both, I leave up to your judgement and that of the GOP's voter base!

To me that's strange that hispanics skew democrat, I thought most of them (generalising horribly here) were catholic and conservative (family values and such rather than Conservative) which seems to me like perfect republican voters...So long as they're not planning on building a giant wall.

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And yes, I'm proud of you

Ty <3


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EDIT: apparently Idaho is only 11% Hispanic - the only highly hispanic states are New Mex, Texas, Arizona, Cali, and to a lesser extent Colorado, Nevada, and Florida.

Good to know, though that seems like quite a lot though tbh if that's the voters rather than the total number including work visa guys that I assume can't vote.

[Jubal]

Yes - Hispanics are quite socially conservative as a voting bloc. But they're also generally more left wing, quite working class, and very in favour of easier migration rules, and that trumps their social conservatism. To take a UK analogy, if you polled traditional Labour supporters in the north on social issues you might find they were a long way more consefvative than thwir party, but it's their economic perception of the parties that wins out. Particularly the migration issue has really derailed the GOP's ability to appeal to them, and I think a lot of Hispanic voters perhaps haven't got the same fear of Big Government(TM) that drives a lot of traditional US conservative and libertarian thinking (or did; that tide may be turning looking at how badly Rand did and how well Trump is doing).

IIRC 1 in 9 American voters is Hispanic, which would make Idaho about average. In New Mexico it's like 40% by contrast.

[Clockwork]

Ok that makes sense.

[comrade_general]

Yeah I guess Kasich would be fine.

[Jubal]

Yeah, so I didn't keep up with the tables of standings.

Anyhow - Clinton probably has a lock on the Dem race with huge victories in the south, a 300 delegate lead and still leading in most of the remaining big states in polls. Sanders still soldiering on, and just won Alaska and Washington by big margins, so he may stay in until Cali.

GOP side, Kasich doesn't look like making headway, the GOP elite are falling in behind Cruz though Trump now has a big delegate lead... brokered convention still quite possible, if anyone gets a majority of delegates it's got to be Trump at this stage.