What Should Both Parties Have Learned in 2016?

And, without Texas and Tennessee, he loses the other 47 states, as well.

 

I survived Bush, I'll survive 4 years of Trump.

And, no, what I said isn't in any way dumb, as if you were the purveyor of such titles, although I'm glad, I guess, you would be so kind as to deign me as not dumb. I think, in my two cent opinion, that your year and a half long love affair with Twitter Don has loosened yourself from reality in a few respects. Namely, you keep up this idea that "the People", as you often refer, have spoken and the great masses desire all that Trump offers. In reality, no two candidates were more widely disliked in modern political history and "the People" voted in lesser numbers for Trump than his shit show election compatriot Hillary, though he was saved by the geographic locations of his voters. Good for him, even so. He won according to the rules, so I can't complain. My getting elections wrong isn't something that happens very often, so enjoy your crowing about that the same way I get to rub it into the face of my Gator co-worker until next September.

However, just to point out a couple other particulars in regards to your post:

1- Trump beat out a very large field, yes, but this idea of "best GOP field in a lifetime" is something that is more along the lines a Trump biographer would say, not something that reflects, again, reality. Who was great? The Bush who paled in comparison with his brother, a not well regarded president in his own right? Chris Christie? Marco Rubio? A bunch of outsiders with no political experience like Fiorina, Carson? Ted Cruz? A bunch of state governors? That's this amazing field? There was no one ever remotely qualified or experienced in the way Dole or Bush the Daddy was. It was just a lot of people. And, yes, Romney, or any of those guys beats Clinton in a general election (And 2004 John Kerry beats Trump, too). Which brings us to...

2- Hillary sucked, too. I mean, in one paragraph you crack on Dole for not being able to beat Bill Clinton, then beating a Clinton suddenly becomes monumental when your boy does it. Not to mention you rip Romney for not being able to defeat a candidate in Obama who woud thrash Trump were he able to run for a third term. But, yes, Hillary sucked, too. She's been the anointed one for about two decades now and Democrats have been looking for someone else each time, including, quite possibly, this time when the higher ups felt the need to manipulate the primary in order for her not to lose to an avowed socialist who often resembled someone's crazy old uncle.

So, no, sorry, I'm not saying anything dumb. You many have called the election over my predictions (Although, had it been a two weeks earlier, she wins), but you have extrapolated too much from this victory. I mean, name one candidate who was as widely disliked as the winner of this one?

Name. One. Just one should suffice to strengthen your point that I'm making a dumb point and it is foolish to discount this race and Trump's win. Just one presidential candidate that is disliked by over 50% of Americans the same way that both of these candidates were.

The theme of this race was "I Hate Both of Them", hence, the lesson is, don't select such a shitty candidate. 2016 may have had the most awful collection of presidential hopefuls in American history. The fact that someone had to win doesn't change the fact that most people hated every moment of it.

 

I wouldn't bet on 2004 Kerry beating anyone. Tough baggage and stiff demeanor.

 

No baggage like the emails, though, and, despite having the personality of a paper cup, was not widely disliked as was Hillary. She came within a few thousand votes of winning that I think he would have little trouble getting.

 

My wife voted for Johnson, and she is most certainly a woman.

 

The Democrats should have learned that an overwhelming majority of the country does not want to be a far left, globalist, European styled socialist state.

The Republicans should have learned that failing to represent their constituency will result in their party being usurped.

Neither will, though.

 

It's not what the parties should have learned, as they'll learn nothing, and not change, and will continue as they always have, and always will. It's what the people should have learned.

What the people have learned, unfortunately, is nothing. But we'll see how they feel in four years, when their version of "Obama is gonna pay my mortgage," (read: Trump's campaigning he has either walked back completely, or is walking back) turns out to be more self-invented crap, and they realize that they have neither usurped, nor altered much, as so many of those red states vote in a blue congress, thinking that, too, is change.

But at least a Republican will sit on the bench, so, status quo achieved.

 

Wish I could get my wife to vote for Johnson more often.

 

Hopefully we'll learn the president is more the wizard behind the curtains than the all powerful fixer of our problems

 

You know what I'm talking about, right? Obviously I don't believe that at all

 

This can't be an act, at this late hour. You're either completely delusional or just not very bright.

"Best GOP field in a lifetime" doesn't "fit reality"?
Trump easily beat FOURTEEN other GOP candidates, which I believe is a modern day record for sheer numbers - but let's take a look at the "unrealistic" depth and quality of that field:

He beat NINE (9) Governors
FOUR (4) CURRENT: Kasich (OH), Christie (NJ), Jindal (LA), and Walker (WI)
FIVE (5) FORMER: JEB!(FL), Gilmore (VA), Huckabee (AR), Pataki (NY), and Perry (TX)

He beat FIVE (5) US Senators
FOUR (4) CURRENT: Cruz (TX), Rubio (FL), Paul (KY), and Graham (SC)
ONE (1) FORMER: Santorum (PA)

Name a larger, better qualified or geographically diverse group of candidates than that, in any Presidential election, for any Party.

Just name the year, the Party & the better qualified candidates than the GOP in 2016. Someday, perhaps you'll realize that merely disliking reality is no actual refutation of it (yes, even despite however strongly you wish it so).

Follow up question: of the FOURTEEN (14) candidates listed here, which are LESS qualified than President Obama, when he first ran in 2008. Name them.

2. President Obama would have beaten Trump? You kidding, Clark?

Let's look at that piece of silliness, by examjng juat how strongly President Obama has been, thus far:

Oh, they would have turned out for President Obama, huh? How about this:

Didn't Hillary run her campaign ENTIRELY on a continuance of President Obama's policies?
How'd that pan out?

Or, best of all, recall these comments - when he put both his personhood and presidential legacy on the line:

I'll ask the simple question, again: How did that turn out?

Still can't get it? Let me quote from your sacred text of Politico:

(Emphasis mine)

Or this:

(Emphasis Mine)

What's that? The black vote would have surely saved him?

Turns out, no, it wouldn't.

Oh, but he's so popular right now, maybe that does the trick:

Where'd you see that silver bullet again, Un? True to the liberal archetype, you're making the same mistake over and over and over - by assuming that nothing has changed since President Obama was last elected in 2012. You were wrong about that throughout the primaries, you continued to be wrong throughout the general election, and your error continues - and seems to have only intensified - today.

The law forbidding a third term did President Obama a tremendous favor in disallowing him to run against Trump, because he would have gotten smoked, too.

Link: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/no-obama-probably-wouldnt-have-beaten-trump-214557
Link: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/12/trump_would_have_beaten_delusional_obama.html

In answering your question about who is the most hated President-elect of all time?

Try this: Abraham Lincoln. Heard of that guy?

His opponents tried to usurp the Electoral College, too, arguing that he had failed to gain a majority of the popular vote (stop me if you've heard this one before), and then tried to convince Congress from ratifying the vote, and when that failed, an entire region of the United States soon became entangled in an armed rebellion against the United States, and which was pushed to the breaking point in Lincoln's election.

You can learn. You just refuse to, ostensibly, because you find the truth to be so disagreeable with how you envision the world, and reality itself. I hope that you, and millions of others who share your beliefs, can stand like unchanging bulwarks in that error, at least for the next 8-40 years.

 

Oh, how do I begin to note the falsities and unmitigated nonsense propagated by this gibberish here? Let's go for the direct and succinct route of the most noteworthy pieces of tomfoolery listed in this diatribe.

1. Having a bunch of GOP contenders doesn't make this a great field. You must have been the type in high school thinking that screwing 14 hags is better than laying the head cheerleader. Where is the quality in that group? "JEB!"? The Bush child that has been sold as the next in line of the Bush "dynasty" for decades, yet can never seem to unscrew his head from his ass and mount any sort of challenge, ever? That one? Rick Perry? The guy whose most notable contribution to the campaign is forgetting one of the departments he would eliminate? Ted Cruz? Marco Rubio? Seriously? What have these guys done that compares with a George H.W. Bush, John McCain, Bob Dole, etc., etc, etc...? None of them have ever been remotely close to getting the nomination or anywhere near the level of support prior to 2016 for any kind of presidential run. None, nada.

Your "murderer's row" of GOP candidates was really just a collection of filler candidates, hopeful to sneak into the nomination in such a pitiful year of potentials. You want a better year than this group of yahoos? EVERY ****ING YEAR in recent memory, except, perhaps, 2012, another so-so group.

Repeat after me, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity.......

2. Politico is my sacred text? When did this ever happen? You know how I know you're just making shit up? When you make up mythical statements I hold, like this, to attempt to support a clearly asinine point. Which leads to the biggest whopper.....

3. Thinking Trump would beat Obama is the pinnacle of stupidity in a post lacquered with such unmitigated dumbassery. You have hereby lost any right, however wrongly assumed, to say that anyone else is stupid, idiotic, a dullard or whatever choice phrase you have deem proper in any sort of unqualified sense of mental superiority through the blatantly foolish and utterly wrong statement that Trump would defeat Obama. Obama beats Trump decisively and thoroughly in an election, period, point blank.

I can't even begin to expound upon the utter stupidity of those article comments without turning this into a longer essay examining an idea so wrong it isn't deserving of such lengthy attention. However, just to give this the short shrift it deserves, a few basic points . One, Hillary running as Obama's third term, as if the two were interchangeable, is nonsense. She ran as the not-Trump and was at her highest when propped up by the Obamas, such as at the convention, yet still recieved nearly 3 million votes than did Trump while being decidedly unliked in comparison with the sitting president. Two, Obama's support is much deeper and fervent than either Clinton's or Trump's and that's today, not four or eight years ago. Three, off-year elections (2010 and 2014) are an idiotic way to gauge the general election and 2016 was a gauge of Clinton, as she, notably, was on the ballot. Four, the polls that were accurate, the popular vote polls, which universally and correctly, had Clinton ahead by about 2-3 points, also had Obama over Trump by 12 points. Twelve. (BTW, they also had Romney over Clinton decisively, too, furthering my original point). https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-07/obama-would-thump-trump-romney-would-conquer-clinton

You want another Politico article, though? OK, here you go http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/gallup-poll-most-admired-man-woman-obama-clinton-trump-232999

So, just as Clinton would have wiped the floor with Bush in 2000, Obama would have decimated Trump in 2016. You're a fool if you believe otherwise or think I'm basing this upon 2012, which wouldn't be the first time your conservative mentality had led you astray, but it is correctable. I will try and forget such a preposterous idea you have tried to float here, but, know this, if anything else. Obama would absolutely, positively, 100% (For which I was never, ever 100% about Hillary) defeat Twitter Don were he to run again.

You try so hard to discount my point because if your infatuation with the human wretch that is Trump, but your protestations that my political bent has so affected my judgment has made you forget my essential point is quite bi-partisan and has been clearly expressed on a number of occasions prior to Election Day. And that point is, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were the two worst presidential candidates in modern political history (Arguably ever, but certainly since the beginning of the 20th century) and either would have lost to the other parties' nominees from any year. That's reality backed up by general sentiment throughout the year to any sentient being paying even scant attention to the election, polls, public commentary, whatever you choose to accept as evidence.

 

As an addition, you are incorrect about Lincoln having a higher disapproval level. Certainly, the hatred of Lincoln was intense in the South, quite obviously. However, in terms of sheer numbers, the South had a third of the people in the North and his approval levels would have no doubt been above 50%. So, no, Trump doesn't have him beat.

Do you have any other possibilities for more hated nominee, possibly an example from within the last century even?

 

The establishment are still in leadership positions in Congress. Pelosi, Schumer, Ryan, and McConnell. They all supported open borders and rubber stamping Obamas deficits though continuing resolutions. Their main concern is staying in power and they accomplished that.TERM.LIMITS

 

Obama's deficits. Wow.

 

Neither side seems to care about the deficits, but Obama did use a lot of creative accounting and making sure to push back most of his spending till he is out of office.

 

I don't believe that this warrants a response.

I've made my point. You've made yours. The casual reader can decide for themselves.

 

I'm not sure anyone else is going to bother reading our War and Peace entries.

 

When and where does book club meet?

 

I agree with all of this, and wholeheartedly, save the term limits part. Sadly, I must echo and agree with McConnell's comments on this matter, that we already have term limits - they're called elections. Any movement to mandate term limits is fraught with its own perils, and many of which may be even more dangerous and unforeseen than what we now suffer with, in absence of any specific legal requirement.

I genuinely, instinctively and sincerely distrust and dislike McConnell, Ryan and Graham just as much as I do Pelosi or Schumer. In fact, I see them as being utterly indistinguishable from one another. They have different letters beside their names (D & R), but they are all and each "WE's" - Washington Elites - above all else, save some minor variations in the window-dressing of their political posturing.