Our candidates have to be perfect without any flaw whatsoever.

[HughBeaumont]

Their candidates can be as corrupt, criminal or mentally checked out as possible and they'll get airports and schools named after them.

Our candidates have to possess an incredibly focused, maximum three-point message without any even slightly-obvious ambiguity . . . and still get criticized.

Their candidates speak in platitudes, logic fails, talking points and failed Dead Reagan snake oil and succeed.

Our candidates campaign on compassion for the workers, mothers, seniors and students and get insulted for either over-promising or trying to legislate egalitarianism.

Their candidates view screwing the aforementioned parties as an attribute . . . and so do their voters (even if they're IN said group).

Our candidates could campaign on giving every American working citizen $50,000 a year in guaranteed income, with a detailed and long term plan to pay for it. The Republican comes out with a Draconian rugged-individualist agenda and our average voter be like "Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh . . . can I think about this?"

I mean, am I WRONG about this? Because I don't think I am.

I'm extremely disappointed that this country said YES to this train-wreck, which everyone with a functioning pre-frontal cortex KNEW would turn out this way.

I'm extremely disappointed that, since 2010, America turned this henhouse over to the foxes.

When is America going to stop making dumb choices at the voting booth?

[GeorgeGist]

1. Dumbing Down America ...

began in earnest with Ronald Reagan Republicans.

[HughBeaumont]

4. Some of my classmates (1987) still consider Reagan our best president. And I'm not kidding.

One doesn't even have to dig deep to get that a great deal of America's underlying structural, economic and societal damage began in his era with his policies.

[unblock]

2. Look no further than our thoroughly corrupt media

Foxnews and hate radio have long been nothing more than propaganda outlets. But worse, their people and their lies make frequent appearances in the rest of the media.

The "better" media outlets decided long ago that it's "news" that they "have an obligation to cover" whenever a bunch of republicans spew some talking point, even if it's a long-debunked lie.

They had to cover allegations against hillary without *frequently* saying anything thing like:

- "wow, that's a lot of emails! She really worked her butt off as Secretary of State" or
- "we're talking about a maximum error rate of less than 0.05%, which is impressively good for any manual process" or
- "She used the same server setup the previous two republican Secretaries of State used and recommended" or
- "100,000 mild reprimands were handed out last year for minor mishandling if classified information. The government understands that a small amount of this is inevitable, especially when handling large volumes of information, and simply wants to pressure people to be careful" or
- "she's the must investigated person in history and she's never been charged with anything. She's come out clean every time. Her reputation for the highest integrity remains intact."

I know given a quarter century of smears that sounds biased in her favor, but really, that's fact, that's the way to report on republican lies and smears.

As long as the media rewards their lies with exposure and never punishes them for lying and fabricating and being unreliable sources, they'll keep doing it.

[HughBeaumont]

7. +100 - and here's proof.

Everything she said was negative. Everything he said was news . . . and ratings.

Anyone who thinks "the media leans left" . . . doesn't watch it.

[unblock]

12. indeed, just look at the summary chart:

issue coverage at least 2:1 in favor of trump issues over hillary issues
scandal coverage at least 2:1 in favor of hillary scandals over trump scandals.

shameful behavior by the media, heavily biased in favor of donnie.

it really burns my butt when people insist on blaming hillary. she was ahead virtually every day of the entire campaign in virtually every poll despite the media heavily promoting donnie and heavily pushing the ridiculous fake scandals against hillary.

[maxsolomon]

3. People hate know-it-alls who think they're better than them.

That's what the GOP has convinced White America to believe Liberals are.

Votes for Trump, for the GOP, are done to spite Liberals. Stigginit. Spite is when you are willing to hurt yourself to hurt another.

[HughBeaumont]

6. . . . and they voted for "KING Know-it-all".

"Only I can fix it".

The guy cannot stop talking about how smart he supposedly is when he's not busy congratulating himself.

Yet ANOTHER double-standard . . . We hate smart people who ARE smart but love Dunning-Krugertarians who ATTEST they are.

[maxsolomon]

14. More like King Bullshitter

and they knew it. They thought he was funny.

Resentment underlies most of the Trump vote - they resent city slickers, college kids, and uppity blacks telling them they're white privileged, men are harassing women with impunity, they're destroying the planet, they can't be responsible with military-grade firearms, they can't 4-wheel around national monuments, they have to pay their grazing fees, that owls are more important than their jerbs, etc.

[Laffy Kat]

5. Wish I could rec this more than once.

You were describing Obama. There are very few No Drama Obamas out there.

[HughBeaumont]

10. At least not any they didn't try to invent.

Yet ANOTHER double standard -

Criticizing real Republican drama gets you "whataboutism" and "SIDDOWN, SOSHULIST".

Inventing tempests in a teapot regarding Democrats gets that Democrat (and their voters) derided for days and weeks on end.

[Laffy Kat]

11. Yep. nt

[pandr32]

8. Unfortunately, true!

[jalan48]

9. The corporate and right wing media have allowed (made) this happen.

We need the Fairness Doctrine back.