United States election discussion

[Korihor]

Was there an election? Who won?

Yes. Corsair won

Corsair for president 2020!

Important safety tip: Do not elect Corsair to positions of presidential power. He is likely to divert most of the incoming tax revenue into attempting to build the actual Death Star. NASA might appreciate him but he has very little interest in making friends with politicians.

I'm failing to understand what the concern is.

[Lithium Sunset]

Corsair for president 2020!

Important safety tip: Do not elect Corsair to positions of presidential power. He is likely to divert most of the incoming tax revenue into attempting to build the actual Death Star. NASA might appreciate him but he has very little interest in making friends with politicians.

I'm failing to understand what the concern is.

Oh my gosh haha Hilarious! I was laughing so loudly my cat got concerned.

Can we use the Death Star on politicians?

[Corsair]

[Oh my gosh haha Hilarious! I was laughing so loudly my cat got concerned.

Can we use the Death Star on politicians?

It's far more likely that my bishop will use the phrase, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

[glass shelf]

After reciting to myself: "We didn't elect a dictator, just a president" for most of the day yesterday, I'm feeling much more chill than yesterday.

I'm not as worried about a Trump presidency as I am about the fact that 2/3 of the people in my state voted for him. That does not forebode well for future local and state politics. I really hoped we'd be having a return to sense a little bit after the (non-NOM word) that Pence put us through, but apparently, my fellow citizens want more of the same. Sigh.

My fervent hope is that President Elect Trump is smart enough to surround himself with people who know what they're doing so he can take credit for their successes and that the checks and balances of our government keep up on a reasonable path.

[HighMaintenance]

I have to laugh at the irony of people losing their minds when Michelle Obama wore a sleeveless dress, yet now are talking about how classy Mrs. Trump is. Even with the nekkid pictures circulating. I'm like WTF?

[glass shelf]

I have to laugh at the irony of people losing their minds when Michelle Obama wore a sleeveless dress, yet now are talking about how classy Mrs. Trump is. Even with the nekkid pictures circulating. I'm like WTF?

Well, um, you see, um, well, um...

Nothing. I got nothing. I still can't process the events that led to right-wing evangelicals openly embracing the Trumps. I've tried, but the disjoint is too severe.

[2bizE]

A few thoughts.
I really enjoyed watching the various news stations. CNN and MSNBC were favorites. When they talked, they used words like we and us referring to them and the news station as democrats. As Trump showed signs of possibly winning key States their facial expressions and demeanor changed. They were nearly speechless.
The people rioting and protesting seemed childish. He's not my president some chanted. In society, you can't always have it your way. Many were millennials. Maybe they've only known Obama and Harry potter, so they have no experience losing their leader. Get over it and move on.
I bet Mitt Romney feels like an a$$.
Clinton didn't even address her people after conceding. I don't think they had prepared a speech for her losing. Had to get it ready for the next day.
Few predicted this to happen. Rock Waterman called it.
I didn't think Trrump had a chance. I don't know how happy I am, but I'm happy to see many spoiled brat millennials with egg on their face. They need some life lessons like this.

[LSOF]

When will old people quit whining about their children? Honestly, it makes you look more infantile than you accuse us of being.

[moksha]

Trump did not appeal to Utah Mormons in the most effective way. He could have reminded his Utah audience that it was an armed incursion from Mexico which illegally crossed the border and hunted down righteous fugitive Moroni. Those so-called Mexicans sought to persecute Moroni on "trumped up" charges and a Giant Wall could have saved him.

[Korihor]

A TBM shared this on fbook.

I don't have words.

https://imgur.com/a/wMoNi

[Corsair]

A TBM shared this on fbook.

I don't have words.

https://imgur.com/a/wMoNi

I certainly have a couple of words. This is not a picture of Trump and Pence praying together. It's a random shot of them looking down at the same time. Honestly, the United States may have just elected its first agnostic atheist or at least apathetic atheist into the Oval Office. Trump's Christian supporters might have rejected Romney 4 years ago over religious issues but they were not going to let that stand in their way this time. Trump's religion may be negligible, but this mindset and policies overlap with supporters enough for them to have voted for him.

Second, the last time I saw that particular picture of Jesus, it was on a satirical set of images of the scale and grandeur of the universe but ending with the incredibly Lilliputian commandment, "Don't Masturbate". I may retain some semblance of Christianity through my faith reevaluation, but that image is burdened with too much humor and satire to lead me to acknowledge Jesus as The Christ.

[LSOF]

Honestly, the United States may have just elected its first agnostic atheist or at least apathetic atheist into the Oval Office.

What an atheist to have elected then. A particularly repellent atheist.

[Korihor]

Feel free to unleash all manner of evil speaking of a conservative apostate on me.

I didn't vote for Trump, I went with my conscious as best I could and voted Johnson. I knew Trump or Clinton would win, and if those were my only two choices, I go for Trump. Now, I know how controversial he is. But I'm glad he's in there mixing up the pot. Of course mistakes will be made and people will be affected. There is no justification for it other than that is what happens. If Clinton won, the same would be true.

My belief is at least this will cause some changes in government. It won't be business as usual. If Trump screws up terribly, the Left will elect a bunch of democrats to the House in 2 years. If Trump doesn't screw up, they still will elect a bunch of democrats to the House.

I feel like this is political war. War sucks and has casualties, but it is the final straw to bring about change. I for one am glad to see change, whatever it might be to finally cause people to watch CNN and/or FOXNews instead of Dancing with Stars. Or read a newspaper instead of Fbook. And I'm not blaming Obama. Obama was just the last guy in a long list leading up to this political war.

I'm ready to accept whatever disruptions come over the next few years as long as it makes things better in 10 years. I fear that with Clinton, nothing would have stirred up enough to change things.

Feel free to inform me why my thought process is incorrect.

[LSOF]

I reiterate what I said before:

Undirected rebellion is very bad, because if you succeed in "breaking the system", you have no idea what to replace it with. There will always be selfish and malicious people who do know what they want to replace it with, and the new system, being constructed by the selfish or the malicious, will invariably harm others, particularly the most vulnerable. It is for this reason that I hold a very low opinion of those who elected Trump for the sake of "breaking the system".

If you don't care much about the lives of the vulnerable, particularly Muslims, Hispanics, African-Americans, and LGBT persons, and only want to "shake things up", then I suppose that it appears sensible to you to elect the human Scrooge McDuck (whose entire basis for claiming non-establishment status is that he has no political experience whatsoever) and suffer him to appoint to positions of power a lot of established political figures who both share the anti-human ideology he has expended every effort to promulgate and are competent enough to implement it.

Edited for less awkward wording. It's still something of a run-on sentence, however.

[2bizE]

What kind of scandals do you predict from Trump in the Whitehouse?

I think he will have a harder time keeping his pecker in his pants than Bill Clinton. He always seems to surround himself with beautiful women.
Maybe he will get caught using government satellites to help identify the best locations to build new hotels, like in Cuba. Maybe he will fully normalize relations with Cuba and then build a bunch of hotels there.

[LSOF]

He will no doubt continue his pattern of seizing women by their secrets without waiting. I suspect that he'll devote most of his time looking after his businesses, and delegate most of the work inherent in the presidency to "most powerful VP ever" and notorious homophobe Mike Pence. He will probably increase the use of torture "even if it doesn't work" (making him more brutish and barbaric than the Inquisitors) and suffer millions of Hispanic immigrants to be deported.

[moksha]

A Davis County relative of mine, whom I won't identify for fear of backlash, was blindsided by those she considered good friends and colleagues in her Mormon ward, or congregation, berating her 12-year-old daughter because the family had a Hillary Clinton sign in the yard.

The harangue came during a car pool, in front of the child's friends, chiding her for her parents being evil Democrats.

The tongue-lashing has strained the relationship between their daughter and the innocent preteen whose parents had the audacity to support Clinton. The two girls had been best friends.

The anti-Clinton parents — the wife is the women's Relief Society president in the ward — later told the 12-year-old's mother they no longer would attend the Sunday school class taught by her husband.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/4583495-155/ ... ome?page=1

This is what happens when we swallow our own Kool-Aid.

[moksha]

Trump touched a part of people's brains that usually only narcotics and religion can affect. Trump was going to be the savior from this imagined liberal hellscape and he was going to make everything so wonderful and nice by getting rid of those immigrants and returning control to benevolent business leaders so that everyone in America would be abundantly prosperous and wealthy. Instead, we received a devious and incompetent narcissist.

Score one for you Kremlin!

[Mad Jax]

Trump touched a part of people's brains that usually only narcotics and religion can affect. Trump was going to be the savior from this imagined liberal hellscape and he was going to make everything so wonderful and nice by getting rid of those immigrants and returning control to benevolent business leaders so that everyone in America would be abundantly prosperous and wealthy. Instead, we received a devious and incompetent narcissist.

Score one for you Kremlin!

I don't think people bought into the false promises that much. People wanted someone who would keep immigration controlled and Trump at least paid lip service to staying clear of Syria. Wasn't all too hopeful of either of those myself but I understand why those two issues were important and why Trump appeared the better candidate.

I absolutely will not attack or paint people who disagree with me using cheap and inflammatory labels, it's low effort thinking at best and a sign of ignorant self righteousness at worst. Attack the candidate and the false promises all day long but leave assumptions about others at the door, I say. BTW I don't think you're guilty of that moshka, I'm just saying it as a general rule about politics.

But it goes double for this election as far as I go. Somebody choosing to take a bite from the other end of the s**t sandwich that was the 2016 election than you do seems reasonable to me, no matter which end one finds themselves on. Taking up for either Clinton or Trump... no thanks. There are others far more worthy for me to have their back.

All that said, I voted in a way that wouldn't even have been counted. I wrote in Jesse Ventura in September. Which won't even be tallied because ballots don't work that way.

[Mad Jax]

A TBM shared this on fbook.

I don't have words.

https://imgur.com/a/wMoNi

Honestly, the United States may have just elected its first agnostic atheist or at least apathetic atheist into the Oval Office.

Was Taft the first to use the Oval Office? I think so, which adds to the veracity of what you say. Personally I think Trump is an atheist as much as you seem to; I can't prove it, but thinking it doesn't cost anything. So I believe you are right.

I think Adams was an atheist as well, although he used the same kind of "god language" that Jefferson did from time to time. He might have been a deist. But I don't think any other president was a true atheist or anti-theist.

I honestly think Reagan was a deist as well. In my experience he gets lumped in with the Christian right a lot, but Carter had more in common with evangelicals than Reagan did and I'm pretty sure Clinton made a bigger show if his religiosity than Reagan ever did. All of this is pretty speculative and based on circumstantial evidence. I'm just cracker barrel talking, if you folks can dig it.