Get Ready Folks - It is all about 50%

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hello all. Remember some 18 months ago when we were whining about how the election talk was starting too early. Well good new / bad news, there are still about three fucking weeks until the election.

But that isn't important. What is important is hedging. You can't have an election without hedging. Right now, Clinton has the potential to have a HW Bush style sweeping of the Electoral College, may be even winning Texas (long shot yes, but a lot more feasible than since 1976)! Trump is on a path where less than 100 EV is actually possible.

But as we saw in 2009, having a supermajority in the Senate and the House and the White House doesn't mean you have a "mandate"! So even if Clinton sweeps the nation, it means nothing especially if she doesn't break the 50% barrier. Now I think she will, but you'll probably start hearing from right-winger blowhards on radio and television talking about a "mandate" and Clinton not receiving over half the vote. Be ready for hearing about hedging. It is about all the right-wing has left.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If the GOP goes full tilt obstructionist, it may well cause a lot of people to revolt and may make the 2018 off year elections more interesting. That will be interesting to watch. Will president Clinton throw down the gauntlet?

 

[Terrell]

Will the Democrats retake the Senate & will Chuck Schumer have the balls to use the nuclear option when the Republicans try and obstruct appointments.

 

[Elixir]

If the GOP goes full tilt obstructionist, it may well cause a lot of people to revolt and may make the 2018 off year elections more interesting. That will be interesting to watch. Will president Clinton throw down the gauntlet?

Just got a message from a guy I know because he's in my Company's business sector; he's a combat medic and tactical medicine trainer. Also a trumpsucker - spends so much time in hot zones (actually called me once from a bathroom in a bombed out building in Uganda where I could hear gunfire in the background) that his perspective is ... uh ... just a little bit warped IMHO. He's a brilliant medic - one of the best in fact. But totally under the spell. Seems to think that the Alt-Right Movement will do nothing but grow over the next 4 years, and as a result, this will be the LAST US presidential election (that's what he said). I told him I hope not, because I was looking forward to getting Hillary thrown out in 2020, but that it would take someone a hell of a lot better than Trump.
No reply, yet. But it sure makes me wonder what media are available to deployed spec-ops personnel.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I admit to some haziness on this stuff -- but, is the dreaded "nuclear option" not, in essence, the principle of majority rule?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Even if she gets 51% of the vote, she still won't have a mandate to govern. Given that 49% of the country voted against Trump and not for her, it means that she only really has the support of 2% of the country.

How can you say that someone with 2% support has a mandate? That's less support that Jill Stein has. Clearly, the country doesn't agree with her or her agenda and the only reasonable course of action is to have every legislator spend the next four years holding their breath until they turn blue.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I admit to some haziness on this stuff -- but, is the dreaded "nuclear option" not, in essence, the principle of majority rule?

Yeah. The Republican obstructionism right now requires super majority rule to do just about anything. I don't like the nuclear option as there should be a mechanism for the minority to assert power when deemed necessary. But as usual, the Republicans fuck everything up.

I think maybe modifying the filibuster rule to being progressive and requiring reasonable levels of support to continue running a filibuster.

 

[Elixir]

Even if she gets 51% of the vote, she still won't have a mandate to govern. Given that 49% of the country voted against Trump and not for her, it means that she only really has the support of 2% of the country.

How can you say that someone with 2% support has a mandate? That's less support that Jill Stein has. Clearly, the country doesn't agree with her or her agenda and the only reasonable course of action is to have every legislator spend the next four years holding their breath until they turn blue.

As long as they turn blue, she won't need no steenkin' mandate!

 

[Sarpedon]

If the GOP goes full tilt obstructionist, it may well cause a lot of people to revolt and may make the 2018 off year elections more interesting. That will be interesting to watch. Will president Clinton throw down the gauntlet?

"If?"

They have been going full tilt obstructionist. Why would they stop? What do they have to offer instead, compromise? With the woman they've spent the last 25 years slandering? Fat chance.

 

[SimpleDon]

If the GOP goes full tilt obstructionist, it may well cause a lot of people to revolt and may make the 2018 off year elections more interesting. That will be interesting to watch. Will president Clinton throw down the gauntlet?

"If?"

They have been going full tilt obstructionist. Why would they stop? What do they have to offer instead, compromise? With the woman they've spent the last 25 years slandering? Fat chance.

Conservatives achieve most of their agenda through obstruction.

It is just one of the reasons why we need to get back to ignoring them except to mock them. The same attitude that we now take toward libertarians. Conservatives deserve nothing more.