From Damon Linker:
There's a small, irresponsible part of me that would like to see Trump win.
From Richard Brookhiser:
I assume the Bismarck reference is to a remark attributed to him: that "God looks after fools, drunks, and the United States of America."
One has been in public service for 30 years, worked as a Senator, and as Secretary of State.
The other is basically a failed businessman who is wealthy due to his father and being able to work the system.
Only the latter is not fit to be president.
That phrase “public service ” cracks me up, especially when applied to people like the Clintons.
“Only the latter is not fit to be president.”
HRC is fit only if experience is your sole standard of fitness. In every other regard she’s a disaster, and in several ways far worse that DT. That’s why I plan to vote for neither.
“Fit” and “qualified” are different things. If you were looking for someone to manage your financial affairs and you had a choice between Bernie Madoff and a guy who mows lawns for a living, Madoff would certainly be the more qualified.
Democracy is a losing proposition. Especially this one. I’m ready to move to Australia and give up my two guns that don’t work. Then I wouldn’t have to hear about college football any more either. I wonder if I can bring in my dog?
I’m pretty sure you can take your dog to Australia, Stu. 🙂
Just think — in addition to Hillary, we’ll get Bill Clinton back in the White House. Talk about distressing.
Trump, of course, is distressing on a whole different level. But I’d much rather have Melania as First Lady than Bill as, what, First Gentleman?
Hooray! He kind of looks like a dingo already. 🙂
I remember writing in an early Sunday Night Journal, which probably means 2004-2005, not all that long after they were in the White House, that I wished the Clintons would Just Go Away.
I was about to say “Gentleman??!!” but then I remembered that strip clubs often call themselves “gentlemen’s clubs” nowadays.
Bill Clinton is certainly a gentleman compared to Donald Trump!
I very much doubt it.
Well, because he is a Southerner, he talks nicer–like Frank Underwood, but that’s about it.
AMDG
Boy, you all are tough on the poor Clintons. I like Bill Clinton a lot. Hillary does not have that same charm, that’s for sure, but she certainly seems like a competent person and I don’t mind Bill being first dude. The years he was in the White House seem idyllic compared to these days.
I get the impression you’ve either not heard or haven’t believed a lot of what’s been reported on pretty good authority about them. Everybody agrees that Bill can be charming, but… Not being a Flannery O’Connor fan, you may not know her story “Good Country People”. Bill is a lot like Manley Pointer from that story.
Well, here goes nothing.
AMDG
If I could get some data from Art I may change my opinion.
“Hooray! He kind of looks like a dingo already.”
He’ll fit right in. Probably. I’ve never seen a dingo IRL.
Well, I’m going to bed with a Trump win appearing likely but definitely not yet certain. If he actually wins Janet should get some kind of prize, since she’s been saying for months that he would. I thought it was absolutely impossible.
Heh.
The polling industry is being replaced by you. I saw it on Facebook. 😆
Surprised this morning, but not terribly. Brexit was the first inkling, but what really made me wonder was my trip across the midwest to Notre Dame last month. The Trump signs in the hinterlands outnumbered the HRC ones by thirty or forty to one, and I started to think that maybe a strong rural turnout for Trump might be the signal of something bigger.
On a 1 to 10 scale of being surprised, I guess I’m at about 5. A year ago it would have been 10. I haven’t seen many yard signs at all, for either candidate, but there are almost as many Hillary as Trump ones. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, since this is a heavily Republican area. Maybe people were reluctant to reveal their preference. Which is maybe part of the problem with the polls, too.
Joe Scarbrough (sp?) thinks that there were a very large amount of Trump supporters who did not want to advertise that they were. Having never put any political sign in my yard ever, I can understand that.
I’m surprisingly not really upset this morning, for whatever reason. I would have been very unhappy had Obama lost either time. I guess I was not emotionally attached to HRC (hard to imagine how anyone could be).
My only area of concern this morning is people who are friends on Facebook who REALLY feel like their lives are going to be negatively affected and are in anguish. Hopefully all will be okay.
In the city neighborhoods, signs were mostly pro-HRC, as one would expect, but in no great volume. In the suburbs, it seemed to be roughly 50/50, but again, with not a great volume overall. In the country there were signs everywhere, with Trump’s far outnumbering Clinton’s.
We did not pay any attention to what was going on until about 9PM. When I was on my way to bed at that time, Bill was watching CBS News (I had no idea we could do that.) and I was amazed to see that in state after state they were virtually tied. Even at that point, of course, he was winning.
AMDG
I get a daily newsletter, the Morning Jolt, from Jim Geraghty of National Review. He’s an entertaining and sharp observer, and has been strongly anti-Trump. He’s one of those election-watching wonks and typically I skip about a third of his columns, sometimes the whole thing, where he goes into boring details about polls etc. Here’s part of what he said today:
“Everything I wrote yesterday about the polls generally being right most of the time is now inoperative. Pollsters have had off years before, but there has never been a colossal ten-car pile-up like this in the polling industry. The entire industry needs to scrap everything they know about the electorate and start over. One of the giant questions they must address is whether we now live in an atmosphere of such far-reaching and stifling social disapproval of politically incorrect positions that a significant portion of respondents no longer feel comfortable expressing their actual beliefs to a pollster.
There really was a silent majority.”
I have some friends who are reacting that way, too, Stu. I feel for them–the ones who seem to really believe that their welfare, even their physical safety, is in immediate danger, the women saying things like “So men are free to assault us whenever they want.”
The ones who would be gloating if Hillary had won, not so much.
It stands to reason that many of the kind of people who supported Trump wouldn’t give the pollsters the time of day. It’s stuff like polls that they are fed up with.
AMDG
Maybe the cell phone and caller id thing, too? My cell phone number is our old house number, and I get one or two calls every day from unrecognized numbers, and I never answer them. Not sure what direction that might skew things in (if it does).
Geraghty’s point about people concealing their real intentions from pollsters sounds plausible to me. I wonder if there is any evidence to back it up (apart from polls not predicting real outcomes). I believe something similar happened with the Proposition 8 vote in California, or perhaps it was a different but similar initiative. I myself might take a certain pleasure in reserving politically incorrect voting for the privacy of the voting booth.
Major media here in Canada seems to be stupified this morning.
Well, they better watch out, Craig, lots of people say they moving up. Of course, when they look at the requirements for emigrating to Canada, they may be surprised how hard that is.
Time headline: Hillary Clinton Collides Again with Highest Glass Ceiling Maybe this is why she lost. These people have no sense of reality. They live in a little world of their own imagination. There are probably a few people who wouldn’t vote for a woman, but it’s a very few.
AMDG
For the past half hour, I have been watching on and off the website where HRC was supposed to give her concession speech half an hour ago. It’s kind of interesting. A lot of folk running around trying to get something or other done.
http://time.com/4564143/hillary-clinton-concession-speech/
AMDG
Re: emigrating to Canada. Apparently Canada’s Department of Immigration website crashed last night due to load. Pretty funny.
Rob G I thought of you last night – telling us about the Trump/Pence signs all the way across Ohio.
So, Kaine comes out and almost immediately starts talking about how HRC worked so hard but unfortunately she’s in a country that makes it impossible for a woman to be elected–maybe impossible wasn’t the word, but maybe. Anyway, then the live feed disappeared.
Apparently, this is going to be the party line.
AMDG
Yes, Grumpy, that was when I started to think that maybe this thing would end up much closer than predicted.
It’s funny, but around that same time I was reading an English book from the 50’s called Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay. That sentence kept rattling around in my head over the past month.
I’m not convinced that isn’t some of it, the woman thing, but for a true test of that the female candidate would need way less baggage than HRC brings to the party!
I think a less sullied candidate would have beaten either of them. As it was we had two with a lot of personal negatives, and I think the biggest factor in Trump’s win is that he is definitely not part of the political establishment at all.
The issues can’t be that important because he never really addressed any with serious solutions.
It is definitely true–well, ok, maybe not definitely, but I think it’s true–that a better Democratic candidate would have beaten Trump, and a better Republican beaten Hillary by an even wider margin.
“These people have no sense of reality. They live in a little world of their own imagination. There are probably a few people who wouldn’t vote for a woman, but it’s a very few.”
Yes, and I fear this is only driving them farther into their bubble. They seem utterly incapable of believing that opposition to Obama could be based on something other than racism, or opposition to Hillary based on something other than misogyny. So now they believe that 50 or 60 million Americans are eaten up with both.
The fact that Ben Carson and Sarah Palin were so wildly popular among just the people who are most accused of racism/sexism doesn’t seem to register on them at all.
It’s true that Trump didn’t address “the issues” in very specific ways. But he successfully addressed the huge issue of half the country feeling like the people currently in charge despise them.
Or, if you prefer, successfully exploited the issue.
For every goofy conservative who “voted against” HRC because she is a woman, there was a goofy liberal who voted for her for that same reason. Remember how many on the right were prepared to support Sarah Palin?
I would even venture to say that there were more on the left who voted for HRC because she’s a woman than on the right who voted against her for that reason.
Stu, Do you actually know anybody that wouldn’t vote for a woman?
AMDG
Oddly enough, my mother is very anti women in politics.
“These people have no sense of reality. They live in a little world of their own imagination.”
Yes. And they have not learned their lesson.
Let them suffer.
I’m so glad the evil witch was defeated. I will go back to being miserable about politics and the state of the world tomorrow.
I’m glad she was defeated, but I won’t say “let them suffer,” even though some of them make me really want to. (Just read a thoroughly nasty piece by Garrison Keillor, for instance.) For one thing, just as the Trump supporters I know are very decent people unfairly maligned, so are most of the liberals who are now coming unglued. I’m thinking in particular of a few I know personally who are completely devastated. Their feeling that the fascists are coming for them is irrational, but it’s real to them. I just wish they would/could snap out of it.
That’s funny about your mother, Stu.
I read a little while ago that something like 55% of white women voted for Trump, and yet the Democrats talk of “women” as a class being Hillary supporters. An old falsehood.
Re that feeling that “the fascists are coming for them” this comment on a post over at Althouse made a very good point:
I couldn’t understand why my Facebook feed seemed hysterical. People talking about being terrified, worrying about hiding people if their demographic is suddenly rounded up, starting civil wars, the number of rapes going up, gay people losing their legal marriages, etc.
What in the world…
Then I saw a clip of some television news. How shameful! They were scaring the hell out of people. If television “news” is how many people find out about things, I can see why they’re scared. The people at television media outlets need to think about what their hyperbole for ratings is doing to their viewers.
I very rarely see tv news so I don’t know about that, but certainly the online media are doing that in a big way.
One of my sweet nieces posted a map of the US based on the way “the future voted.” It showed how 18-25 year olds voted and was almost completely blue. I had to laugh. She has no clue that she may change the way she looks at things in 20 years or so. I’m sure I would have voted for HRC when I was 18-22 or so.
I’m hoping I would never have voted for Trump.
AMDG
Im glad Mrs Clinton lost! I was so sure she would win and I couldnt face four years of her schreeching.
That voice really gets me.
I’m not happy that Trump will be President, but I am unreservedly glad that HRC did not win.
AMDG
I had been trying to maintain some pretense of something close to neutrality and was a little surprised at how relieved I felt when it began to look like Trump would win.
I had the same thought about that map, Janet.
I have to say that all day I have been feeling rather relieved. I couldn’t vote for him,but I really hoped he would beat her. If only he could have done it without winning. 😉
AMDG
I think it’s justice for the really committed ones to suffer, so I’m glad of it. But I don’t wish them any actual harm. Their suffering is mostly in their own minds.
These are people who would gladly harm me and mine, if they felt it was “right.” (And they do). I don’t believe in being “nice” to them at all.
I do have some sympathy with those, who, like most of us, liked neither candidate, but simply felt Trump was worse. My close family member who was quite shocked by the outcome, got plenty of sympathy and gentle encouragement from me, and by the end of the day, he could laugh at some of the goings on (eg. the celebrities threatening to leave the US).
I was surprised Trump won. I did think there would be a lot of support for him, or at least a Brexit style rising against HRC, but I was truly expecting tricks, and Big Lies and Big Money to win the election for Hillary, who was clearly the establishment favourite.
So, a pleasant surprise for me.
I notice that we are in a red area, but Houston proper (Harris country) went blue.
“These are people who would gladly harm me and mine, if they felt it was “right.” (And they do). I don’t believe in being “nice” to them at all.”
If you’re talking about, say, Clinton herself and other hard-nosed political operatives who want to impose dictatorial liberalism on everybody else, yeah. But that’s not the sort of person I mean. I’m thinking of a couple of people I know who are about as kind and generous as they come. They most certainly would never knowingly harm you. They’re under the sway of some very mistaken ideas, but in this situation their pain is not the pain of “I’m not going to get to impose my will on these yahoos” but “People I love are in danger.” There’s no malice in it at all, quite the opposite in fact. I feel very sorry for them.
“I’m not happy that Trump will be President, but I am unreservedly glad that HRC did not win.”
My thoughts exactly.
I wonder if she was really their favorite, in the sense that they really thought she was the best person to be president, or if they just owed her.
AMDG
Norma is another one, Mac. I’m pretty sure that Norma would not vote for a female candidate. So they are out there in very small numbers.
Ha. I can just imagine Norma’s commentary.
Hillary was the favorite in the sense that the Democratic establishment had decided she was going to be the nominee. Whether they really thought she was the best person or it was some sort of tribal or faction thing I don’t know. It’s really striking that both parties chose their worst candidates. Biden could probably have beaten Trump. Rubio could probably have beaten Hillary worse than Trump did.
Further to the idea, raised above, that polls might have been wrong because people were reluctant to tell pollsters the truth. Here’s an interesting article, written before the election: Are Polls Underestimating Trump’s True Support?
Here’s another interesting read about how bias and bad judgment can influence poll projections, even when people tell pollsters the truth.
Well, I guess nobody ever talk to me about how violent Trump supporters are again.
AMDG
Do you mean you’re telling them not to, or predicting that they won’t? Or maybe both? You’re referring to the riots I guess? But that’s not violence. It only looks that way from your position of white privilege.
Very interesting stuff, Craig, especially the same-poll-different-results experiment.
Oh dear. I told Bill the same thing.
AMDG
I just read that Trump has removed the words “pro-life” from his website. This is internet stuff, but they do have a link back to his own page for whatever its worth.
Stu, that’s now been shown to be another Internet rumor — nothing has been scrubbed from the website:
A quick perusal of the Policies section of http://www.donaldjtrump.com on 10 November confirmed that there is no mention of the words “pro-life” or “abortion” there (though we did find a few news articles affirming Donald Trump’s pro-life stance elsewhere on the web site).
What became clear upon examining archived versions of Trump’s policy pages via the Wayback Machine, however, is that there never were any mentions of “pro-life” or “abortion” in that section, as Steel Magnificat [the blog that first posted the story] admitted in a retraction posted later the same day
Thanks for the info, Marianne. That does seem more likely than any removal.
Yeah, I saw that and thought it made no sense. What would be the point or removing it? It’s not like it would be legally binding or anything.
Maclin: “If you’re talking about, say, Clinton herself and other hard-nosed political operatives who want to impose dictatorial liberalism on everybody else, yeah. But that’s not the sort of person I mean. I’m thinking of a couple of people I know who are about as kind and generous as they come. They most certainly would never knowingly harm you.”
I don’t think they would physically harm me, but I have no trouble believing that at least some of them would happily see my children taken from me under certain circumstances, or for my husband to lose his job because of failing to uphold their weirdo ideas. I doubt very much that any of them would help a Catholic hang on to his or her marriage, if s/he was abandoned. So, altogether they are not the kind of people I would wish to live near. What I’m saying probably only makes sense to people who have been very badly let down and even persecuted in some sense for our beliefs. This has happened to me. I don’t easily trust such people any more.
This is an interesting piece about why predictions on the election were so off
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442218/one-week-later-why-i-got-2016-wrong
I remember when Rob G told us that he saw Trump signs all the way across Ohio on his trip to the Mid-West, I felt so sorry for those poor farmers who were backing a hopeless cause! I read a few nights ago that Ohio is a bell weather state. I didn’t know that – I think I read it about the Primaries, but I didn’t know it about the general
Yes, that is an interesting piece, though I got kind of bogged down in his Data.
The odd thing about the Trump signs in Ohio for me is that I live in definitely Trump territory and didn’t see anything at all like that. Fewer signs than usual overall. So I was thinking there was little enthusiasm for either candidate, and naturally though fallaciously extended that to the whole country.
Back in late 2015 or so I had a blog post complaining that Pope Francis had attacked Trump and was probably thereby helping to insure a Hillary victory (not that I wanted Trump). Might have been the other way around, though I guess not all that many people were aware of what Francis said.
Louise, I hear you, I just don’t think the liberals I know personally are of that ilk. However, they do support a movement that goes in that direction. And that’s the kind of tragedy that happens in war: one ends up regarding everyone on the other side as an enemy–because objectively they are.
The thing that struck me as odd about the signs in W. Pa. and Ohio was that they were very light on the ground in the suburbs (for both candidates), but the Trump signs grew far more numerous as you moved out into the hinterlands. I had never recalled seeing that before — usually it’s the opposite, at least in this general area.
Here is a story in the NYT about the ‘Rust Belt’ river town where my parish church is located. I live across the Ohio from here and up away from the river in a more middle class suburban area, about a 15 minute drive.
Being the NYT the story is slanted slightly left, but is generally accurate. Lots of towns similar to this one seem to have voted the same way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/pennslyvannia-town-vote-trump.html
Rob, You commented on another post this morning and I was going to say something about it and now it’s been knocked off the sidebar and I can’t find it. Will you remind me where it is?
AMDG
must’ve been the one on 52 Movies
Not the last one. 😉 What was the name of the show?
AMDG
Show Me A Hero
Light On Dark Water 
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