Final Thoughts Before the 2016 U.S. Election

[Big Bear]

I meant to start this thread very early on Tuesday morning, just after Halloween was over.  It's almost two days late.  Sorry!  :/

This is where you folks can put your final thoughts on the election, your hopes, your dreams, your fears, whatever.  Open to all ages, Americans or not, of course.  I made this an Off Topic thread so we can voice our opinions and still behave like human beings.  I've come to like and enjoy you bunch of online oddballs.  So, being the only normal one here (  ), I'll start.

I'll admit it, I'm a hopeless romantic and a dreamer.  I always have been and likely always will be, though maybe age is at least making me a tad sharper than I once was.  This world is too harsh and cruel for the likes of me.  It takes my type's youthful idealism and quickly hardens it into bleak, hopeless cynicism.  Then we either disappear in the shadows or find a new cause closer in spirit to our now-militant determinism.  Far left, far right, it really doesn't matter, so long as the promise of power and purpose can blindly lure us, like the Siren's call, ever closer to personal and societal disaster.

But life can give a person another chance and I've had more than a few over the years.  I'm hoping that, come Tuesday, November the 8th, fortune smiles upon me and so many others, both here and around the world.  Only time will tell.

[Anonymouse]

We are super boned. Like super boned. This will not end well whichever way it goes and I'm honestly terrified. Sorry to doom and gloom all over your positivity, but I feel like our nation is in its death throes.

[murphy dee]

Politics as we know it is over.  It's changed forever and I fear there's no going back.  We've crossed a line we can't return from.

[March Hare]

Vote for Hillary Clinton. 

[venuskiddo]

I'm terrified of the outcome of the election. I would rather not choose ANY of the candidates with the exception of Jill Stein, but we all know she has no chance. I'm voting for Hillary but it really makes me quite sad. I am absolutely horrified that Trump could become our next president. I am so stressed out due to the election oh my goddddd.

[SneezyHolmes]

May god have mercy on us all..

Edited November 3, 2016 by SneezyHolmes
typo

[LeapYearKisses]

...Please vote for Hillary.  If Trump wins we're going to be so very, very fucked.  I'm scared.

[Rook]

HELP JUST HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymouse]

28 minutes ago, LeapYearKisses said:

...Please vote for Hillary.  If Trump wins we're going to be so very, very fucked.  I'm scared.

Hate to say it, but we're probably fucked with Hillary too. Just in a different way. It's like choosing how you'd like to be killed. I don't want either of them on my conscience but I don't not want to vote.

Ugh why couldn't it have been Bernie?

[LeapYearKisses]

1 minute ago, AnonyMummy said:

Hate to say it, but we're probably fucked with Hillary too. Just in a different way. It's like choosing how you'd like to be killed. I don't want either of them on my conscience but I don't not want to vote.

Ugh why couldn't it have been Bernie?

To each their own.  I like Hillary.  I felt like Bernie promised things he couldn't deliver and that would never have won over middle America.  But really, it doesn't matter now.  I would rather we elect Hillary than a man who disgusts me every time he opens his mouth, and who will make America look even shittier to foreign countries than we already do.  But really, I'm so tired of the election that I don't want to debate.  I just never want to see him in office, and there's only one way to keep him out now.

[Blah!?]

Let this be the last political post I ever make. Possibly also the first but I'm not going to go back and check.

All I'll say is I don't think this country is so feeble as to be destroyed by anything either of these people will do. I don't think either of them will even try to do half of the stuff they've "promised," and they'll only succeed at less than half of what they do attempt. Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about a Trump victory legitimizing the alt-right and stuff like that, but I don't think the world is coming to an end. A lot of people will be upset for a few months no matter who wins, but then the world will continue to spin on.

I regret typing this already, but whatever.

[Anonymouse]

4 minutes ago, Blah!? said:

Let this be the last political post I ever make. Possibly also the first but I'm not going to go back and check.

All I'll say is I don't think this country is so feeble as to be destroyed by anything either of these people will do. I don't think either of them will even try to do half of the stuff they've "promised," and they'll only succeed at less than half of what they do attempt. Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about a Trump victory legitimizing the alt-right and stuff like that, but I don't think the world is coming to an end. A lot of people will be upset for a few months no matter who wins, but then the world will continue to spin on.

I regret typing this already, but whatever.

I'm more concerned about one of them starting a war - Trump through pure stupidity/lack of verbal filter and Hillary possibly deliberately for her own gains. But I hope you're right.

[count tiszula]

I've never really liked democracy except for that essential general election, but even that is now being subverted.

 

Vox populi, vox Dei, I suppose, but I wonder why God seems currently to me punishing us with all these perverse elections; Brexit, the Colombian referendum, and now this election..

h  

[skater]

9 hours ago, Marsh Snare said:

Vote for Hillary Clinton. 

 

[Melody]

I suggest and dearly hope that if Donald Trump wins, Canada will open it's gates and y'all can come pouring in.

[gingerdean]

I'll keep this short and sweet...I honestly feel that there is one, and only one good thing to come out of this f-ing train wreck of an election, and I posted it below. (I'm not even kidding, either. This is it.)

 

 

Anyway, all joking aside, I actually started to write a pretty well-thought out response to this thread, but then I deleted it, because like Blah, I have a strict personal policy to never talk politics on the forum (if for no other reason, for the sake of my own sanity). So I guess I'd better not start now. I'll just say that my thoughts pretty much mirror most of what Anony already said, and my final thought on the matter is: "Oh shit. We sure as hell fucked up with these two."

Hopefully this message is non-snake pit approved

[Siegward]

Trying to offer something that hasn't really been brought up yet, at least on here.

 I think anyone who feels like they're being asked to pick their poison in the upcoming election, well you are, but you don't have to. If you don't like Clinton or Trump, you don't have to vote for either of them. I'm not going to suggest which 3rd party candidate I would pick, but you do have the option not to pick between these two.

Now before anyone attacks me saying how voting 3rd party is wasting a vote, consider this. I know the candidate I vote for is not going to win the election, in fact they don't even stand a chance (this is mostly due to the fact that the Presidential election is determined by the electoral college and not total votes), but if you're tired of trying to pick the lesser of two evils, you have to stop for voting for them. The newest generation of voters are more connected than ever before via social media and this puts us in the unique situation where we can actually TALK about a considering a third party candidate. I feel this is what past generations lacked and also the reason why Bernie Sanders had so much steam in the pre-election. If Bernie Sanders was on the ballot, the democratic vote would have been so split that Trump would have walked away with the election, but he surely would have competed. He would not have come that far without the online presence of his supporters.

Basically what I'm saying is start voting for who you want to and try and convince others to do the same, even if it is a main stream candidate and it will eventually start a pattern. Don't pick one just because they're your best shot. Now I'm anticipating someone is going to criticize me saying that a vote for 3rd party is a vote for Trump. It's not, and you shouldn't feel personally responsible for your broken election system. Say Trump does win the election (which doesn't seem likely at this point) and it's a disaster, it will at least provoke to begin to question whether our political system works or not.

Vote for who you want 2016.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Siegward

[murphy dee]

20 minutes ago, Siegward said:

Now before anyone attacks me saying how voting 3rd party is wasting a vote, consider this.

No.

20 minutes ago, Siegward said:

Now I'm anticipating someone is going to criticize me saying that a vote for 3rd party is a vote for Trump. It's not,

It is.

The time to have the discussion about a serious 3rd party candidate is November 9th.  Not right now when things are so dire.

[Big Bear]

1 hour ago, Siegward said:

Vote for who you want 2016.

Sorry but no.  Anyone my age who was a Ralph Nader supporter in 2000 and refused to vote for Al Gore, like myself, will never forgive themselves.  Like it or not, the two parties have it locked up and it's been that way since around the American Civil War.  Third parties are spoilers, nothing more, nothing less.  You can dislike Hillary Clinton and I'm not one of her or her husband's biggest fans but if you want to defeat Donald Trump, thank your lucky stars that Bernie Sanders lost the primary and avoid any and all third parties.  The young, idealistic me supported and voted for Nader.  The older, worn down, cynical me supported and almost voted for Trump.  Believe it or not, I think the first me was the worse one.  Age had tempered and humbled me enough that I could listen to reason this time and avoid a disastrous decision.  But I knew everything the first time and essentially voted for George W Bush by voting for Ralph Nader.  Sorry but that's the truth.  A third party vote is a vote for Donald Trump.  Please, don't repeat my mistakes.

[Enkidom]

18 hours ago, AnonyMummy said:

Hate to say it, but we're probably fucked with Hillary too. Just in a different way. It's like choosing how you'd like to be killed. I don't want either of them on my conscience but I don't not want to vote.

Ugh why couldn't it have been Bernie?

Just out of interest, I am wondering, rather than Bernie Sanders, why liberal democrats didn't push for Elizabeth Warren (other than the obvious fact that Wall Street would probably have a fit, but given the recent banking crises, and the effects of light touch regulation on corporate governance, giving Wall Street a fit probably would be no bad thing), she's a very strong speaker, is a credible woman candidate who doesn't have the "Clinton baggage", and knows how to secure bipartisan support where required (reintroduction of Glass-Steagall working with John McCain and Angus King as an example). An American friend I spoke to said that there was the perception that she was a bit of a "one-trick-pony", but realistically if that is the case she certainly appears to be very good at that trick.

[bloom]

Elizabeth Warren was very firm that she wasn't interested in the presidency. (And that's a shame in my opinion, but I sure as hell don't blame her, either.)

Anyway, despite everything, I'm cautiously optimistic. I think the fact that we got to this point at all is pretty dire and sad, but I'm hopeful that the majority is going to do the right thing on Election Day. The sad fact is that the people and movement who got us to this point are still going to be there after that; Donald Trump is a symptom of the problem, not the root cause, and that's going to have to be addressed somehow.

Murphy is right that the time to talk about third party candidates is after this election; there is far too much at stake right now to be throwing away your vote that way. And if third parties want to be taken seriously, they need to start grassroots instead of making an immediate bid for the presidency, because that will literally never work, no matter how well-connected they are in social media. AND they need to start putting forth some candidates who aren't batshit insane the way Jill "Oh Noes, Wi-Fi Might Give Children Cancer" Stein is. 

[March Hare]

At least Hillary Clinton is going to do her best to try and not get the entire nation fucked sideways. Because that's what she seems to want to do. 

Edited November 4, 2016 by Marsh Snare
Erik was completely right

[Big Bear]

Everyone can be very open about their personal feelings but let's try not to cuss at and command anyone to do things here.  Rather, let's try reasoned arguments.

I just can't stand the confrontational feeling of the Trump thread over there anymore, especially with the election so near, which is why I started this thread as a hopefully healthier alternative.  Thank you!

Edited November 4, 2016 by Erik
Thank you, Maru! ;)

[count tiszula]

Could someone just remind me of how  many of your boys  Mrs Clinton murdered in Benghazi?  75000?  250?  150??  And how many of them were children?  Any British citizens[ afterallwe;re not citizenswe'resubjectslook in your  passport]

[Anonymouse]

15 minutes ago, count gracula said:

Could someone just remind me of how  many of your boys  Mrs Clinton murdered in Benghazi?  75000?  250?  150??  And how many of them were children?  Any British citizens[ afterallwe;re not citizenswe'resubjectslook in your  passport]

Pretty sure Erik politely asked people to take it to the Snake Pit if they're going to be inflammatory. As far as I know Clinton didn't "murder" anyone.