Election
 

I'm feeling a really bad mixture of stress right now. Aside from the fact that I'm reading a sad book, my sister's tracking the votes and stressing out about the whole thing next to me X'D, and I'm affected, obviously.

I'm in New York, so most people want Hillary to win, and some want Trump to win for the future of the Republican party. So far, yeah, Trump's won lots of votes and has been pulling further and further ahead :/

Haah, yeah, I get it. I'm not eligible to vote though, and I don't follow the news too well.
Hillary's caught up by a lot now.

This election has got me really worried. Only because of the threat of the stock market crashing and losing our 401k.

I guessed months ago that no matter what happened, trump would win the election, no matter what the talking heads on tv said.

And, it seems, I was right.

He pushes the right buttons to get the angry poor people vote...even if he isn't going to actually do anything to help them.

Well, sure. I hope so, too. But... there ya go.

I just wanted you guys to know that in Nevada one of the third party options is "None of these candidates" and it is currently polling at 2.4%

LOL that's so funny x'D. It's kind of sad, I guess, but also really funny. Imagine if all states had that, I wonder how many people would put that as their vote x'D

Don't panic about the stock market. This is, ultimately, a blip -- the stock market doesn't reflect the truth about the economy, but rather it reflects the confidence of investors in the economy. Right now, the close race is making investors uncertain, so they're withdrawing their money and moving it to more predictable places. Once the election results are stabilized, the stock market will bounce back as investors reassure themselves that the world isn't ending.

I agree with Coda :)

During an election is an excellent time to buy index funds to sell again later. :P

I am curious...at the moment, from what I see, though Trump is in the lead, neither have enough electoral votes.

Trump won.

I admit, I have no control over my state. It has and continues to vote 120-180 degrees against my interests. So...I just voted to try to decrease the single-party system here.

*Looks at news
Huh...the Bush family rejected both candidates. I can say I wish more folk followed their example.

Scott Adams also said that Trump would win (Dilbert comics)

My husband stayed up until 2 in the morning because he couldn't sleep until he knew the results. He also drank a few glasses of wine to help him relax.

I never really liked Trump even before he ran for president because of the way he cheated on his wives and traded them in for newer, younger models.

He's also a pervert and a lecher. I said to my husband, If I had a daughter, I would not trust her to be in the same room as him.

I think what we're really looking at here is a large group of people getting tired of the namecalling that has been so prevalent and going for the guy who didn't let it stop him. People dissatisfied with the state of the world, desperate for change at any cost, and damn the consequences.

They voted for the candidate that said he was going to do something, instead of the one that was saying everything was fine.

We knew it was going to be picking the lesser of two evils from the moment the candidates were announced. It was a question about which evils could be tolerated and which evils were intolerable, and the country was pretty evenly split on that, but in the end, the scales tipped towards tolerating a guy that acts like a college jock over tolerating a woman that insults people that disagree with her.

Social Media has been on fire today. Yes, Trump won, but I also agree on keeping quiet and seeing just what he will do.

On the plus side, Florida passed legalizing medical marijuana and rejected power companies getting more money out of solar power users. :)

Several states passed their marijuana referenda, actually! That's good news; the stupid war on drugs is hurting more than it helps over something that really isn't as bad as the stuff that's already legal.

Indeed! I think I read only one marijuana vote failed yesterday.

Also good about the solar. Solar is expensive enough to install already. It's not going to derive any ROI if the usage cost goes up. And if it's not economically feasible to install solar in the long term, alternative energy is going to suffer.

Naturally, the ballot did not phrase it the way I phrased it. It said something like, "guarantee the rights of customers to install solar panels..." and made no mention at all of what the actual purpose of it was.

It got 50% of the vote. Luckily, amendments require 60%.

Well, naturally. That's what research is for, and why anti-intellectualism pisses me off so much.

What's anti-intellectualism?

It's the trend in politics to demonize educated positions. "It's bad because the intellectuals say it's good."

Basically pretending like scientific studies are, in fact, just political opinion pieces.

Ohh, so that's why the ballot phrased it the way it did. I was reading over the thread and getting really confused at the end ^^;;

Google said something about mistrusting "intellectuals," but I didn't really get what that meant.

To the people who themselves are anti-intellectualist (though most don't actually call themselves that) their position is based on a fear that scientists and drug companies and politicians are trying to manipulate the public by using their position as "smart" people to claim authority and get their way. To them, their existing beliefs are "common sense" or "faith" and they don't like being made to feel stupid.

At the most extreme end of this viewpoint you get the Flat Earth Society. Less extreme (and therefore more sympathetic) includes several kinds of alternative medicine.

I have been in utter despair for the past thirty hours or so. Had a nasty fight with my father today about it, and almost got hauled off to the ER last night for the panic attack I was having. I just feel absolutely broken inside now. The only thing I can even think of to compare it to is if I had been old enough on 9/11 to understand the context of what had happened. It just feels like the world is ending. I've been trying so hard to distract myself, but I just can't help checking forums or newsfeeds and getting a new hit of doom to bring me down.

Not handling this well, and it hasn't even really begun yet.

Well, let that last bit be a comfort to you: It HASN'T begun yet.

And in all probability, it WON'T.

What's flying around is doom-and-gloom from people who are afraid. They're not being rational. They're hyping up their fears regardless of how much truth there is to those fears.

But in reality, the president isn't all that powerful of an office. Trump can't actually DO any of the horrible things people are attributing to him. And furthermore, Trump may be a demagogue that panders to a party associated with anti-intellectualism, but he -- and more importantly, his PARTY -- isn't stupid. He lost the popular vote. His position is PRECARIOUS. He, and the rest of the Republican party, can't afford to be radical. If they want to hold their position, then they have to take a stance of unity and compromise.

If they screw this up, then the next House election is in two years, and hundreds of representatives will get ousted. The House will turn so blue that NOTHING Republican will pass for the rest of the term.



I AM old enough to have lived through 9/11. I was 19. Bush Jr. had not only the presidency (which was JUST LIKE THIS ONE, except it was Florida instead of Pennsylvania that tipped the scales) but also a heavily Republican congress, AND a nation that was willing to do anything for safety and revenge. He could have pushed ANYTHING through.

And yet...

We're still here today, 15 years later. The world didn't end. Horrific discriminatory laws didn't get passed. The country didn't fall apart. Basically NONE of the doom-and-gloom prophecies of the fall of 2000 or of September 2001 came true.

I fully expect history to repeat itself. Things won't get as bad as everyone fears -- in no small part BECAUSE the people who are afraid are going to fight against everything that would go wrong. So that's what you do: You keep your finger on the things that frighten you, and when that pulse beats, you push back.

And everything will be fine.

That is literally the only sane, reasonable, believable response I've heard so far, Coda. I have been just desperate for someone to tell me it's going to be okay, and everyone's been on the doom train wherever I go. So, thank you. That helps put it in perspective. I really needed to hear that.

I'm honored to help. :)

America is a strong country! The government is made up of more than just one man and we have a series of checks and balances. I promise that we will get through it even if everything feels terrible now. You have the ability to vote on your representatives and on certain amendments directly, and all the working parts of the judiciary, legislative, and executive branches work both together and in some ways to keep each other in check. The president is simply the head of the branch in charge of executing what has been decided and although he has the power to propose some things and reject others, he is by no mean an omnipotent dictator, for that is not how we have chosen to set up our government.

It will be okay, I promise :)

There are already thousands of jobs gone. From KMart and Macy's closing. I heard someone say on Facebook, "This didn't happen when Obama was in presidency." Well, Obama is still president until the inauguration this month. So that comment is certainly invalid.
I'm not happy with the results but It's only four years, amirite?

Those jobs had nothing to do with Obama OR Trump. Shopping malls and department stores are dying out because they're financially unstable -- the business model is unsustainable in today's world, where the recession brought an end to shopping as a recreational activity and where the Internet provides a cheaper way for businesses to sell their products to a broader audience than trying to keep large expensive buildings lit, air-conditioned, stocked, and staffed that can only sell to local people.

Not here we don't! Here, the Governor was willing to strip counties of their rights over the bathroom thing.

Weren't shopping malls a business in the first place, but more a communal space indoors, that when brought and failed/bought in America turned into a business?