election analysis 2016

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http://www.theonion.com/liveblog/onions-special-coverage-election-day-2016-54612/entry/61


Our Polling Model Shows Why You Shouldn’t Give A Fuck About Montana

Using a linear regression model that augmented the available data from both national polls and state-level surveys, the Ballot Measure electoral model clearly shows that Montana isn’t worth jack shit in this election and that you shouldn’t give the slightest fuck about it one way or the other. Statistical trends over the past four elections already suggested that this worthless expanse was about as fucking meaningless as a state could get, but with incoming exit polls and early voting data, it’s now obvious that MT can go suck a fat one, because its three paltry electoral votes sure as shit don’t matter one way or the other.

My election analysis is:

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuc...

Sorry, we're probably not supposed to discuss it.

When I woke up this morning I got a surprisingly great sense of relief that at least one of them lost. Too bad they all couldn't have.

The only positive note here this morning is that Arkansas finally passed the medical marijuana bill......I think we're going to be needing that  

@duane h.

I resent the fact that, in the photo provided within the OP, something as beautiful and evolved as a swordfish or marlin could be debased through comparison to the remaining candidates.....

My favorite responses and commentaries so far:

From our mates in Austrailia, the fabulous Charlie Mgee and the Formidable Vegetable Sound System:





From xkcd.com:





And Jack Spirko's October podcast Episode 1885 - Join the Quiet Insurrection:

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.

Some are unable to do that; the sick, the disabled, the very young, the very old, the vulnerable.  

Tyler Ludens wrote:
Some are unable to do that; the sick, the disabled, the very young, the very old, the vulnerable.  

True. Though I think that quiet insurrection image and quote might sound a bit like it's implying an all or nothing approach. I didn't mean to imply that, and if you look at Jack's show notes, he's not implying an all or nothing concept either.

We are all somewhere along that wheaton eco scale or a spectrum, in addition to being on a spectrum of abilities. Which is to say that I think even (some) disadvantaged folks can do some trading outside the system, for example, which is one aspect of this "quiet insurrection" idea.

I just heard that California wants to succeed from the union...   maybe Canada will just adopt  Montana...  we can hope.

A friend was expressing his angst on social media by considering headlong flight, and in doing so he shared his good fortune in having "two passports".  To which I responded "I have a shovel; it will have to do."  Which was my way of saying very nicely "how nice for you; the rest of us have no choice but to dig in."  He came back with "Digging a bunker?" which I thought a bit flip, but at least he understood part of my point.  But a shovel, you know, it's a very versatile tool.  My answer:

Bunker, garden, swale, food forest, refugee housing, escape tunnel, barricade, root cellar, fortification, hard to say in advance. It all falls under the heading of "dig in and hold on" I guess.

There's more bravado in that than I like to admit; without a fit young body to drive the shovel, it's no miracle tool.  But I think it's got to be my personal symbol for what's next.  "There are two kinds of people in this world..."  



I guess -- and this is a somewhat startling new perspective for me -- I'd rather be numbered among the ones who dig.

I got an email from R today.   She wants to put something in the dailyish to encourage people to listen to my political podcast:

https://permies.com/t/21260/Paul-Political-Podcast

This is the one I have set to $25 with the intent of:  if people are gonna hate me, I wanna at least get paid first.  

This is from a few years ago:



Seems to be a bit truer today than back then.  

As a friend once said:

I never vote - it just encourages them to run again.

Ron Helwig wrote:When I woke up this morning I got a surprisingly great sense of relief that at least one of them lost. Too bad they all couldn't have.

My feelings in a nutshell, thanks for putting it so clearly.
I'm going to quote you, except to the ones who actually thought the other one was a viable option.
I put off voting til the very last minute, well, turned in my ballot the Monday.  Colorado mails us our ballots and we can vote early, very convenient.  Lots of places to turn in your ballot.  

I just dreaded it so, couldn't vote for either of them.   finally wrote someone in, someone from Vermont.

I used to vote for Ralph Nader too.

I like this:

https://www.good.is/articles/safety-pin-america-trump-brexit

It's like taking the "be nice" part of permies.com out and about to help others in meat space.

(Pic is from a twitter post in the article.)

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:I like this:

https://www.good.is/articles/safety-pin-america-trump-brexit

It's like taking the "be nice" part of permies.com out and about to help others in meat space.

(Pic is from a twitter post in the article.)

I love this idea and without knowing about it I've worn a brass safety pin as a closure on my traveling pouch for the last month.....so much more positive than the black arm band I've been considering  

I started the thread because of the "Montana" theme of the Onion article
finding amusement with those who live there

much of the angst and protest is staged
don't get caught up in this bs
accept the election results as adults

so much for "being nice" (or adult)
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-anti-trump-rioters-brawl/




edit to correct typo

I just found the link to this article elsewhere.

I think it is a good constructive analysis and commentary.  I highly recommend it.  I think his philosophies about social conditions are as Permaculture is to big ag and the mainstream the rest of Permaculture stands in contrast to.

http://charleseisenstein.net/hategriefandanewstory/

Some may already be familiar with him:  Charles Eisenstein.

The book of his I read was "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible".

duane hennon wrote:
I started the thread because of the "Montana" theme of the Onion article
finding amusement with those who live there

much of the angst and protest is staged
don't get caught up in this bs
except the election results as adults

so much for "being nice" (or adult)
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-anti-trump-rioters-brawl/

I loved that humor about Montana! Thank you for that! Paul and I have been referring to that a bit around here and having some good chuckles over it.

I like the idea of being adult, too, and not getting caught up in the crazy.

I took my PDC in 2005.  At some point during the PDC I made a joke about the then president bush.  I can't even remember what the joke was, but this group of 25 people seriously impressed me with their universal reaction of apathy about bush.  Skeeter said something like "I think he needs a hug."  

These people were living their womderful lives well beyond the reach of politics.   So who was president didn't really matter.  These people were all focused on gardening, natural building, food preservation, alternative energy, what to do with poop and pee ....    

So, on the one hand, you had a the obvious and rational choice:  a capable politician that would navigate the very complex political waters.  And on the other hand you have an unpredictable, oddly orange wild card who appears to be a remarkably horrible person in every way.  In other words, another politician.

It sounds like a lot of jocelyn's friends are in some serious sadness about the outcome.  Jocelyn has been talking about it all a lot the last few days.  

I told jocelyn she should make a list for her friends ... kinda like what she forced her daughter to do when she was a kid.   Make a list of 100 good things about this election and/or the new president elect.

I will start:

1.  Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.  About two months into the new presidency, I suspect that our nation will be strongly united.

2.  Comedians will have a lot more raw material to work with.

3.  I think it would be funny to see a survey of why people voted for trump.   I wonder what percentage voted for him because that would be the most ridiculous outcome.

4.  I think terrorism might go entirely away because the guy we have in charge is crazier than your guy-in-charge.  And he has nuclear weapons.

5.  People that build the wall are all named "wally"

6.   The new presidential limo is funny looking:



7.  I do think that the people that passionately felt that trump was the best candidate do have several really good reasons.   One of them is that the way things are set up right now are yucky.  Clinton might improve these problems by 10% using patience, logic, reason and playing the political game.   Trump might cause 40% improvement, along with 50% damage.  And then the next president will keep that 40% improvement, fix nearly all of the damage, and add 20% more improvement because there are fewer roadblocks.  So when people are so shocked that a rational person would actually use their vote for trump, I offer you one tidbit of allowing to continue to think that they are rational.


Anybody care to add to this list?

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37936369

The election of Trump as the 45th US president has led many fans of The Simpsons to recall an old episode which apparently predicted it.

Bart To The Future, first broadcast in 2000, showed how the lives of the main characters might turn out.

A grown-up Lisa Simpson was seen as the White House incumbent, explaining to her staff she has "inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump".

She then asks her secretary of state, childhood friend Milhouse Van Houten, how bad the country's finances are as a result of Trump's time in office. He replies: "We're broke."

...

"That just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was consistent with the vision of America going insane," he told The Hollywood Reporter.

"What we needed was for Lisa to have problems beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that's why we had Trump be president before her."

when comparing 2016 voters to 2012 (Obama/Romney) voters
Trump won because of
Blacks   +8
Latinos   +8
Asians    +11
the young +5
the poor    +16
lower class +6

his portion of the evil white vote was only 1% more than Romney



so much for "social justice" crying about the white patriarchy

If you're thinking about picking up a shovel, more power to ya, and here's a list of stuff to do before January.

- Read on security culture, opsec (also), threat modeling, best practices and frequent problems.
- Get trained on tools of civil disobedience and street protests. From lockboxes to riot shield formations.
- Refamiliarize yourself with some basic activist skills
- Learn, adopt and spread crypto tools like Signal, Torbrowser, GPG, and full-disk-encryption. Everyone can use Signal and Tor. GPG and full-disk-encryption will help you the most in the face of raids, although GPG has a steep learning curve and disk encryption can require a reinstall of your operating system. Read up on the limits and optimal ways to use Signal and Tor. Check out the EFF’s excellent guides for the basics. Read this list of other tools for a wider array of options, although beware that anything not in the EFF’s guide is problematic. Download a copy of the Tails operating system and put it on a spare USB.
- Get a gun before dissidents and leftists with arrest records cease passing background checks. Learn about firearms if you’re ignorant. Go to the range and practice. Work out and enroll in self-defense classes focused on surviving attacks from reactionary thugs in the streets.
- Familiarize yourself with how to use cryptocurrencies. Buy some prepaid phones with cash (don’t activate them or keep them on near your house, don’t give your actual info or call/logon using your actual devices when activating them). Buy cash cards.
- Buy and stockpile long-lasting emergency contraceptives and hormones that will likely be constrained. If you are trans get a letter from your physician that you’re undergoing transition, and a court order/decree with proof of your name change, as these are likely to become requisite in some areas and also highly curtailed.
- Get together with your closest friends and build affinity groups and networks of people capable of providing underground support.
- Possibly start purging your social media, electronic devices and the like. Find other ways to communicate serious issues and organize.
- Go to churches that do support work for undocumented people or provide sanctuary and start building personal ties.
- Set up text trees or use apps like Cell 411 and Buoy to help establish communications networks to deal with raids and checkpoints, to mobilize responses to attacks and pogroms.
- Get wifi routers, water, medical supplies, a month’s supply of dry food, and a go bag. Set up small geocaches (buried resources/tools in waterproof containers you can reach if on the run).
- Train anyone and everyone you can in the above skills. Get at least a dozen of your friends to use Signal. Give a training in something else to larger numbers of people at least twice before the inauguration.

Link to article with original list (warning: contains dire predictions

If you're serious about being an ally, consider reaching out to people especially threatened by the impending regime and offering real support, (sharing critical skills and tools, and even up to and including helping people hide or escape, and helping them to physically resist attacks.)

evan, thanks for the long list of things like learning to use microcurrencies, and other things I don't know much about, but might need to soon.

Even while we are preparing to survive, I want to post again, the link I posted above.  It provides a possible perspective to hold in mind while we are busy getting through the times of difficulty we are preparing for.  It is great to survive, but I think it is also crucial to hold in our hearts a vision of where we might be heading, a destination which  makes the dark period a tunnel to pass through rather than simply darkness for the foreseeable future.

It does not deny the difficulties that appear immanent, just offers a constructive perspective for the future that could follow.  

http://charleseisenstein.net/hategriefandanewstory/

Interesting evan , that is pretty much the same list that the "patriots" put out when Obama was elected. Just saying...they (politicians) are all the same folks.

I am finding the reaction to trumps election really interesting. ( I did not vote for him and am not standing up for him by the way)

From my perspective the" right" was in a panic when Pres Obama took office. Gun sales went through the roof and folks were ready to start shooting. Now a far right pres is elected and the folks on the left are ready to start shooting.

I think that our country is as divided as it was just before the American civil war !( which ended very badly for our constitution IMO) I have lost lifelong friends over these stupid politicians.

I am a libertarian, I am 58 years old, I have been waiting for the world to end ever since we were doing our duck and cover drills in the 6o's.  I believe that there are evil people in this world who would love nothing more than seeing the USA implode into a civil war because of the idiots that "run the country".

I am begging everyone to use permaculture 101 and spend some time observing , they are all corrupt, they are all power hungry, they all do the bidding of very evil, very powerful people.

The only way to rise above this is to band together, as they will do everything in their power to tear us apart.

My thought is that something bad is coming and the politicians did not want to take the blame for it. So they ran an outsider, and let him win, ( yes the electoral collage system is rigged by political insiders) so that when he ruins the country , they can come to the rescue.
I think all of us dummies will let them rescue us by taking away more of our freedoms.

Be very careful what you ask them for! They might just give it to you.

a look at the bigger picture