What the Hell Happened?

[Fast Walker 52]

Last edited Sun Nov 20, 2016, 09:47 PM - Edit history (2)

The moment Trump said John McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump said we should ban all Muslims from entering the US, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump said he wanted to deport up to 11 million people from the US, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump retweeted an anti-Hillary meme from an anti-Semitic site, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump tweeted that global warming/climate change was a Chinese hoax, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment went on the conspiracy idiot Alex Jones show during the campaign and praised his work, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump refused to back down from his claim that thousands of Muslims were cheering in New Jersey on 9/11, and said the news media was hiding the story he saw on this, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump mocked a disabled person during his campaign rally, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump mocked Hillary for being sick, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump hinted that 2nd amendment people could stop Hillary, and talked about her Secret Service protection being taken away to see what happened, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment that Trump said if he was elected that Hillary would be put in jail, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment that Trump said the election was rigged and would only honor the results of the election if he won, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump went on a diatribe about a Miss Universe pageant being overweight, the day after his first presidential debate, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump was heard on tape bragging about sexual assault, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump said that all the women who accused him of sexual assault were lying, and it was conspiracy by the Clinton campaign, and said one of his accusers was not attractive enough for him to go after her, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment we knew Trump had had sexual assault charges filed against him, and that his ex-wife had accused him of rape, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump refused to release his income taxes despite having global business dealings, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump asked Russian hackers to hack into State department emails, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump said US intelligence agencies were lying about Russian hacking, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump blatantly lied over and over on almost every topic, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump hired alt-right propagandist Steve Bannon to run his campaign, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump showed he had no consistent or coherent policy ideas, didn't know the constitution, wanted to use nuclear weapons, wanted to have more countries have nuclear weapons, wanted to weaken NATO, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

When Trump spend years pursuing the idea that Obama was not a US citizen, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump showed he had no idea how a blind trust would work for his businesses, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The fact that Trump repeatedly insulted women's looks and generally acted as a bully, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The multiple shady connections of the Trump campaign to the Russian government and Trump repeated praising of Putin, should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

Trump's apparent bribery of FL Attorney General Pam Bondi, should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

Trump's transparently bogus Trump University, should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

Trump's vulgar demagoguery and multiple serious news sites saying he was a threat to democracy, should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

A long list of Republican national security experts, and nuclear weapons commanders saying Trump could not be trusted, should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

Trump's petty, shameless, narcissistic personality should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

Trump's history of housing discrimination should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The Never Trump movement within conservatism and the GOP should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump’s ghostwriter for his “Art of the Deal” book, Tony Schwartz confirmed how terrible Trump’s personality and basic knowledge was, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump proposed waterboarding and worse to terror suspects, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump said we should kill the families of terrorists, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment Trump said Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama founded ISIS and refused to retract it, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

The moment we found out that Trump lost almost $1 billion in one year, in the casino business, and then used that to not pay taxes for years, it should have ended his run as a presidential candidate.

So what the hell happened???

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Emails. And Benghazi.

And the existence of black people, immigrants, Muslims and uppity women.

[TrishaJ]

16. And CNN and MSNBC and FOX

"news." Their pseudo-journalism STINKS.

[duffyduff]

2. Nope. It was Jeff Zucker and CNN who are to blame.

Donald Trump's non-serious candidacy would have ended by the Iowa caucuses had it not been for Zucker and CNN's nonstop fawning coverage of this dipshit.

He was literally created by the media.

[Fast Walker 52]

11. the media was a HUGE part of it, if not completely their fault

[duffyduff]

42. Oh yes, they were. Zucker literally CREATED Donald Trump the candidate. n/t

[kairos12]

58. Agreed. They became addicted to the add revenues.

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. Corporate mefia.

[Retrograde]

10. Plus a gazillion

it was ratings all the way - all that free publicity for Trump, almost no one to call him out on his lies and exaggerations - not to mention his questionable past

If the GOP had run Kasich and Clinton lost, I would have been disappointed but resigned and willing to accept the vote. Now an archaic quirk of the Constitution is giving us the worst, the most unqualified, and possibly the meanest person to ever potentially sit in the white house

[Denis 11]

4. Super-delegates chose poorly?

[MFM008]

6. No guarantee of a win either

Not when the fix is in.

[Denis 11]

23. True

[Peigan68]

31. Don't start. She won the primary, she gets most of the Superdelegates. End of story.

[Denis 11]

36. The super-delegate system is supposed to help find the best candidate.

However we lost to their worst candidate, the beating would have been worse if they ran a more serious man for president.

[R B Garr]

53. No. Common knowledge is that you don't let a losing

candidate use the Democratic party to attack it's nominee long after his path to victory is eliminated. He should have been put on a bus and sent home after he was no longer viable. Donald even thanked Bernie for all the ammo he handed over to attack Clinton. Has Bernie even bothered to attack Trump yet about being a true 1%er billionaire?

And no way a socialist gets elected. We can put that fantasy away now.

[Denis 11]

54. He energized a lot of voters

Yet wasn't offered VP.
Bernie campaigned in support of Hillary after the convention.
There just was to many people sour about the Clintons.
Life is often unfair.

[R B Garr]

55. He alienated voters from the Democratic party with unrealistic promises and

just plain grandstanding. Now he's willing to work with the GOP for $10/hr minimum wage after he excoriated and lied about Hillary's $12/hr plan.

[Denis 11]

57. Should we give up on minimum wage raise then.

Who in our party could of beaten Trump
I recognise you're a real Hillary partisan, l wish she would of won. Given where we are, what could have been done to change the outcome.

[R B Garr]

61. You don't have to be a Hillary partisan to recognize when someone is trying to

bamboozle you, and Bernie's grandstanding and false promises were so over the top that it was just irresponsible, tiresome, and ultimately damaging.

The obvious way to change the outcome is to not vote third party and split votes. The GOP knows not to do that. They obviously know that continuity of power is how you achieve lasting results.

Another way to change outcomes is to be more proactive with voters in states affected by voter suppression laws. Any states with laws trying to make it harder to vote should have more boots on the ground. Maybe a 50-state strategy like Deans tailored to circumstances, issues, etc.

Another way -- although this goes back to not voting third party and splitting votes -- is not to throw perfectly good Democrats away like Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. Both won the popular vote, so they are obviously viable. They may not be perfect, but they would provide stability while other Dems come up in the ranks. Look at the GOP retreads now -- Bush Jr. recycled his Dad's A-team* folks and now Trump is recycling the absolute dregs of the GOP -- Ghouliani, Sessions, GAG, just truly disgusting people. *by A-team, I mean people like Cheney who were more masterful/stealth at their game; whereas, Trump's team are outright clowns.

Another way is to insist that opponents be held accountable for all the smears used while trying to shape their message. Neither Sanders nor Trump were ever held accountable for any of their attacks (except for Bernie -- he was asked to name one Wall Street exec he would prosecute and one policy Hillary enacted to favor Wall Street and he couldn't do it).

[uponit7771]

49. Or someone "skipped" the southern states and openly claimed such twice?

[ancianita]

5. We got caught up. The Republican win was in the numbers it took to win electors. That's my takeaway.

See my 'lightbulb' post in the topic thread.

We have to get ourselves together here. Not emote so much. Watch the mechanisms of the voter controls at state levels.

[Fast Walker 52]

13. Really? To my my eye, when someone with so many freaking red flags is elected

something else is going on. IMO.

[ancianita]

18. Yes. What you say is true, too. Read my earlier post to get how the evidence supports all the red

flags. While I read hundreds of threads have competing reasons why we lost, the main evidence of how they won has been knowable and fightable. A few key pieces of information showed that. That's why I say "We just got caught up" in what I call culture wars, believing that we could reason a way toward a voter turnout and a win. It didn't happen the way most threads here interpreted it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512617434

[Fast Walker 52]

25. oh, I see -- thanks

I just hope we aren't totally screwed and that it's not too late.

But still, it's just amazing how the GOP can so many people to vote for this guy. That requires serious media control.

[JTFrog]

7. Media. Bernie. Comey. Gerrymandering. Vote hacking. nt

[lonestarnot]

8. Russians.

[Fast Walker 52]

14. I'm not saying Russians had nothing to do with it, but how did Russian get Americans

to overlook so many red flags?

IMHO, the fix was in with the media.

If we don't fix the media, we will never win.

[lonestarnot]

32. Complacent, apathetic, and no money allocation for new paper ballots for uniform voting across this

nation. Easy as pie. Russians.

[Auggie]

9. ALL OF THE ABOVE

It's a perfect storm ... actually beginning 36 years ago when Ronald Reagan said big government is bad.

[flamingdem]

12. I remember the day Reagan won

and the doom I felt then was similar, but less, than what I feel now

[Auggie]

17. I was 24 on inauguration day 1981 and mostly out of it ...

but the big government quote resonated as troublesome, especially after he pledged trillions to rebuild the military.

Then came "voodoo" economics, union busting and education cuts; the rise of hedge funds, special interests, the 1% and their lobbying; media consolidation; hate radio; district gerrymandering; faux news and the internet; disaster capitalism and public systems privatization; voter suppression; the Tea Party and obstructionist politics; and the ultimate fuck you to democracy -- Citizen's United.

Slow build-up to a perfect shit storm. And what irony! It worked so well that not even its originators, enablers and supporters could contain it.

We've got a lot to undo.

[LongTomH]

20. Agreed, all the above and more!

I really wasn't actively involved in politics at the time of Ronnie Reagan's coronation. I think it's the after-effects of his time in office that convinced me I had to get active.

[andym]

15. Comey's last minute interference tipped the election

End of story. People respect the FBI, and the power of the innuendo of a candidate being under FBI investigation can not be underestimated. I know of Democrats who left the top of the ballot blank. Still the polls were already tightening before Comey (as Access Hollywood wore off), and that the election was not a double digit win for Clinton is disturbing. But her ~35% trust rating, about the same as Trump's made her potentially vulnerable, and then Comey did her in.

[AgadorSparticus]

19. This!! I sit and think of this exact sentiment every time I see his face or everytime I hear in the

About the transition team. WTH happened???!?!?! And then my mind quickly races through the msm, Comey, Russian hacks, benzhazi, emails, nothing burger....

What have we become? How did we get here?

[gulliver]

21. We overplayed the Trump card.

Once you have about ten reasons why the guy was unfit for office, that's enough. We won the fitness for office category.

Hillary kept beating that dead horse. It was one of her big mistakes. It kept her from rallying our troops against Trump's troops instead of Trump the lightning rod. It actually backfired. A lot of Trump's people wanted to throw a huge wrench into government (because they are naïve and angry). Hillary kept telling them Trump was exactly the huge wrench they were looking for.

[LuckyLib]

34. This is on target. She kept beating that dead horse.

I was waiting for her to speak to folks who felt government had let them down and point squarely at the Repugs in Congress and what it might take to deal with our changing world.
That, of course and the stupid in this country. Add in the media and other factors and there it was.

[BootinUp]

59. I feel like she needed to go more positive the last couple weeks. Tough to do with Comey's

interference though.

[Martin Eden]

22. "So what the hell happened???"

Double standard on steroids.

The media portrayed the use of a private email server as a bigger scandal than everything listed in the OP.

The answer to your question lies in WHY the media behaved as it did.

[Vinca]

24. Ratings and advertising dollars. Money matters more than truth, country or anything else.

[Martin Eden]

29. Bingo

TV news rooms changed from being bastions of Fourth Estate journalism to profit centers.

[Fast Walker 52]

33. but did they ignore all these things, or just made people not care?

[Martin Eden]

37. They didn't ignore those things; they normalized those things

... normal for Trump, anyway.

Now take any one of those things, and switch roles. If Hillary Clinton had done half or any one of them, would it had been so easily shrugged off?

[Fast Walker 52]

39. hard to imagine Hillary getting away with that shit, considering how her one comment on

"deplorables" raised such a huge stupid fuss.

[Martin Eden]

41. Shortly afterwards Hillary said shouldn't have said it. On the other hand ...

... how many people and groups did Trump insult?

By far the worst double standard I've ever seen.

OneStrongBlackMan said something to the effect that:
In America now it is worse to call a person a racist than to be a racist.

[Fast Walker 52]

43. definitely... some sort of strange insanity hit us during the election

[uponit7771]

50. 1, and continue to normalize them

[liberal N proud]

26. The media followed the shiny object, then woke up scratching their heads (some did anyway)

[Skittles]

27. stupid Americans have turned the presidency into a reality TV show

fuck them

[JI7]

28. media made it acceptable. contrast with emails which they kept pushing

And reported in a way which made it seem like some huge scandal.

[budkin]

30. EMAILS

Emails.

[Fast Walker 52]

35. but it was the media that drove that story, right?

why did they do that?

[JI7]

45. to be fair and balanced. if trump does something negative they have to balance it out

by reporting on something negative about clinton. since there wasn nothing they kept going back to emails.

as i said in another thread it's like if someone gets drunk and drives and kills someone and they act like it's equally as bad as someone who got a ticket for parking violation.

[Fast Walker 52]

38. Holy crap-- check out the "Look who's back" movie on Netflix

this movie is very interesting but very creepy... guess what he (the Hitler character) says? "I just want to make Germany great again". This was made in 2015.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4176826/?ref_=nv_sr_1

[Hugin]

40. Bookmarking. n/t

[Locut0s]

44. America is a fucking hell of a lot more right wing is what happened sadly...

Yes I know the majority voted for Clinton, but the fact that even the popular vote is only within a percentage point or two with a complete fascist lunatic campaign like Trumps just goes to show how DEEPLY far right so much of the country is. I think even with Bush liberals in America had the luxury of lying to themselves that many of these voters were simply right wing on some issues, or voted against their interests because of one or two key issues. But this election really shows that for a LARGE portion of the population they are willing to give their leader a pass even if he's an outspoken misogynistic, racist, boorish, crude, borderline criminal person. They might still claim to not be those things themselves, but they voted for someone who is and are willing to give them a pass. Even when it came to Bush I am willing to give a lot of people the benefit of the doubt and say, ok I understand you voted out of fear and a belief that said candidate really isn't "THAT" bad. Not with Trump, with Trump we really see a lot of people's true colours. And maybe that's the one small silver lining in all of this, we get to see just how deeply fucking divided and truly fucking messed up the US is.

[Fast Walker 52]

48. yeah... the right is showing their true ugly colors, and they don't even care

No shame

[treestar]

46. Because the electoral college enough right racists were located in the right states.

[Mc Mike]

47. Hacked election results. Great list of disqualifiers, Fast. rec, nt.

[-Steph-]

51. Purging voter lists, Russia, and CNN happened.

[KatyBR]

52. U.S. Intelligence officials said Russia targetted state and local election systems

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/07/russia-s-senior-most-officials-ordered-dnc-hack.html

“The intelligence community has high confidence in its attribution into the intrusions in the [Democratic National Committee] and the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] based on forensic evidence cited by a private cyber firm and the intelligence community’s own review and understanding of the cyber activities by the Russian government,” a second U.S. official told The Daily Beast.....

Officials also said they had detected Russian attempts to target state and local-level elections systems.

“We also worked as quickly as possible to release as much information as possible in order to provide state and local officials sufficient time to fortify their infrastructure,” the official said. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have put state elections officials on notice that hackers have been trying to access voter registration files and could cause havoc on Election Day. So far, 25 states have asked the department to help scan their computer networks for security weaknesses.

Notably, the statement didn’t blame the Russian government for targeting state elections systems, but it did say the activity had been traced to servers owned by a “Russian company.”

<comment: makes you wonder what those three 'voter suppression' efforts were that Trump was talking about right before the election. News commentators have repeated that the election was determined by low DEM voter turnout. Local election systems are where those totals start.>

[Stainless]

56. Exactly!

EOM

[workinclasszero]

60. CNNMSNBCFox...etc

Got big ratings = $$$ from orange hitler so fuck democracy, fuck decency, fuck right and wrong.

[R B Garr]

62. I've read this a couple times now. So true!