Saturday, December 10, 2016

So Much for Democracy



We now know that Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by well more than 2.5-million ballots. Perhaps as many ballots again were not counted due to Republican efforts to disqualify eligible voters. - Strike One.

We now know that investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency determined that Russia meddled in the election by leaking Democratic emails to Assange's WikiLeaks that then spread the damaging material into the election campaigns. - Strike Two.

Then there was the FBI director's curious announcement, less than two weeks before voting day, of yet another criminal investigation into Clinton's emails. Just a few days before the vote the director, Comey, cleared Mrs. Clinton only the damage was done. - Strike Three.

Now it's suggested that the FBI knew about Russia's skulduggery, knew that the Russians also had Republican emails that they were withholding, but said nothing. Outgoing senate minority leader Harry Reid argues that Comey was every bit as bent as J. Edgar Hoover. - Strike Four???

Meanwhile Trump hasn't even waited for his inauguration to tell the Gullibillies who were stupid enough to vote for him that all those election promises that got them so hot and bothered - well that was just malarkey to suck them in. That swamp? It stays, in fact it's going to be worse than ever. "Lock her up" Hillary? Hey, he was only screwin' with ya. - Strike Five.

Then there's the unhinged, unwashed horde who did support Trump while deep in an alternate reality.


Over the course of the campaign we found there was a cult like aspect to Trump's support, where any idea he put forth a substantial share of his supporters would go along with. We see that trend continuing post election. 60% of Trump voters think that Hillary Clinton received millions of illegal votes to only 18% who disagree with that concept and 22% who aren't sure either way.

A couple other findings related to the vote in this year's election:

-40% of Trump voters insist that he won the national popular vote to only 49% who grant that Clinton won it and 11% who aren't sure.

-Only 53% of Trump voters think that California's votes should be allowed to count in the national popular vote. 29% don't think they should be allowed to count, and another 18% are unsure.

There's been a lot of attention to the way fake news has spread and been believed especially by Trump supporters and that's borne out in our polling:

-73% of Trump voters think that George Soros is paying protesters against Trump to only 6% who think that's not true, and 21% who aren't sure one way or the other. (I personally had to explain to my Grandmother that this wasn't true a few weeks ag0 after someone sent her an e-mail about it.)

-14% of Trump supporters [and Trump's pick for national security advisor] think Hillary Clinton is connected to a child sex ring run out of a Washington DC pizzeria. Another 32% aren't sure one way or another, much as the North Carolinian who went to Washington to check it out last weekend said was the case for him. Only 54% of Trump voters expressly say they don't think #Pizzagate is real.

There's also been a lot of discussion recently about how we might be in a post-fact world and we see some evidence of that coming through in our polling:

-67% of Trump voters say that unemployment increased during the Obama administration, to only 20% who say it decreased.

-Only 41% of Trump voters say that the stock market went up during the Obama administration. 39% say it went down, and another 19% say they're not sure.


The research plainly shows that a good many Trump supporters were mentally fogged in. They are Gullibillies in the most pejorative sense of the term. Utterly misled, incapable of properly exercising their democratic franchise. - Strike Six.

This, then, is beyond argument the least legitimate government in American history and in the postwar western world. The whole thing is a sham built on layer upon layer of deceit and contrivance by Trump, his backers, a foreign power, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.






23 comments:

Northern PoV said...

"We now know that investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency determined that Russia meddled in the election by leaking Democratic emails to Assange's WikiLeaks that then spread the damaging material into the election campaigns. - Strike Two."

this is the new left wing version of McCarthyism

Not a single shred of public evidence against Putin (I dare you to point to one bit!)

all innuendo - the fact that you Mound are parroting it shows just how effective it is. War is Peace!

Anonymous said...

Hillary lost to the Orange Buffoon because she sucked and her campaign sucked.

If Canada was a Republic with a president we would have something similar to the electoral college. To ensure the president represented the whole country.

Hillary won the safe Blue state of California and all their electoral votes. That she won by 4.2 million votes doesn't entitle her to any other state votes. It's a meaningless statistic.

Democratic Party insiders (led by super-corporate-lobbyist John Podesta) have no one to blame but themselves for mangling the election campaign. They turned a cakewalk into the mother of all muck-ups.

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

Dana said...

Is there any point any more, Mound. I'm not at all sure there is.

This is what a paradigm shift looks like.

There was never any guarantee that a paradigm shift would result in anything comfortable.

And it sure isn't going to be. For any one other than the extremely wealthy it's going to be varying degrees of hell.

John B. said...

On strike Five:



“Lock her up!"

“No, it’s okay. Forget it. That plays great before the election. Now, we don’t care, right?”

Well if you don't care, then I guess we don't care, right boss? Just who do the chanting halfwits in this audience think was being played?

I'll agree with Trump on this one:

"... there has never been so many lies, so much deception, there has never been anything like it ..."

Candidates win or lose elections one electoral segment at a time.

The Mound of Sound said...

@ NPoV, do you know what evidence there is? I'd be surprised if you did. All I have to go on is the apparent investigation by the CIA on one hand versus your take from what you've read on the other.

Ben Burd said...

So we know all this but what is going to get done? Remove trump, impeach Trump and we get what, and who is going to lead the charge - GOP (image of me rolling on the floor in giggles)

The whole places is fucked time for another beer and watch the shitshow - it can only get worse.

the salamander said...

.. I made comment the other day - to Politics & Discontent - that the era of 'political parties' in North America is well past its 'best before' date.. Watching the USA field an election from its two party system was a joke. It was either 'its my turn' Hillary or the fraud from New York Donald.. Meanwhile that same USA thinks it can and should set policy or war or pollution for the rest of the world.. aside from its pet pals, in Arabia, Israel & Britain. Australia etc..

Its a recipe of mutating toxic soup with side orders of brain melting koolaid. Its Lord of the Flies meets Bill & Ted's Toxic Picnic. Where was Hunter S Thompson when we needed him to blow Fox News, Trump inc, the glop og the GOP and the partisano pimps & fixers of the Dem Party? When I think of Stephen Harper - Ray Novak et al sucking hind teat to the GOP to learn their 'tactics' for controlling election vote suppression, vote moving, gerrymandering & invasion of our judicial system.. I want to barf then slip out the back door into the woods..

We are arguing over political animals & losers & liars .. we are becoming lost children around the fire arguing about 'the beast' of Lord of the Flies.. who is not just among us.. he is us.. Maybe not you or me Mound.. but that's the clusterf_ck of arms sales, fracking, tailings ponds, fake news, captured governments, fascism.. and hysteria.. No wonder Putin sees us all as gullible rubes, fat, spoiled, senseless.. and figures he can slap us silly & we'll deny its happeneing.. Just imagine how the Chinese see us.. ! Ripe for the picking.. & we are volunteers, not victims

Owen Gray said...

Democracy will only work if citizens aren't fools, Mound. Obviously, they are.

Anonymous said...

Ah, root causes...
The very reason for emergence of Drumpf (hate him or love him) was
an illusion of democracy fronted by Hillary and financed by banksters.
Want to restore democracy? Get rid of mafia ruling Washington since demise of JFK first, before tackling Drumpf.
Inconvenient truth, eh?
A..non

Northern PoV said...

The CIA says....
there are WMD in Iraq ... it must be so!

Danneau said...

Not a very hopeful read (are there any that don't come out of the sparkle pony factory?) sent along by my sister-in-law:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/#.WDjYw5lolE8.facebook

It reminded me of a breakfast in Virgil, Ontario, twenty-odd years ago where my stepson and I spent almost the whole of our time in the restaurant rolling our eyeballs as two dozen people spent the better part of two hours essentially gossiping about family stuff, church doings and fruit prices. It struck me at the time, and I confirmed with said stepson that the conversation seemed unremittingly focused inward and pretty much refused to acknowledge that there was anything else going on in the world. These are mostly really lovely people, but people whose perspective seems severely limited by a culture of navel gazing. I would have said circled wagons, but that parallel would imply the recognition of something outside the circle. It doesn't give a lot of encouragement for the engagement in steering the ship of society in a more constructive direction.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said … "If Canada was a Republic with a president we would have something similar to the electoral college." Really? Based upon what evidence? The Electoral College is unique to US.

Northern PoV, I see you're enjoying your special blend of orange Koolaid this morning.

The Mound of Sound said...

Ben, at this point I think there's not much anyone or any other state can do other than remain vigilant, braced and prepared to act on short notice. Trump has his cabinet picked including at least two generals, one of them sane; three former top execs of Goldman Sachs; a couple of billionaires; the CEO of America's biggest oil company; and a climate change denier to head the EPA. It's not clear as of yet if any of them is a child molester but that seems to be the only category not obviously filled so far.

Toby said...

I agree with Northern PoV's opening post. This isn't the first place I've come across this question about CIA integrity. I have on my desk a copy of Veil, the Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 by Bob Woodward. This Putin allegation wouldn't be the first time a rep from the CIA has lied or failed to correct a commonly believed false tale. The CIA says what it wants people to hear; truth takes a back seat.

My impression is that America's powerful establishment is having a public snit and encouraging the CIA to fuel the fire.

Anonymous said...

Interesting.very interesting!

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/facebook-suppresses-truth/

TB

The Mound of Sound said...

Sal, you may be right about the political party structure. Trudeau was a master of the expanding middle. If the NDP grew in popularity, he took more of the centre-left. If the PCs grew, he forced them out further to the right.

Whereas it used to be the centrists pushing, the last couple of decades have seen the right wing pulling the Democrats out into their turf. Harper, likewise, pulled the Liberals and NDP well to the right. Today's Liberals have little use for liberalism and have turned Conservative Lite. The NDP, despite the Leap Manifesto, still stand as Latter Day Liberals.

As for the States I recall David Gergen, in explaining why he broke off his life long ties to the Republicans, said that he came to realize that neither of the presidents he served, Nixon and Reagan, would stand a chance of winning the GOP nomination by the Bush/Cheney era. The Republican Party, Gergen concluded, had moved to the radical right. The Democrats dutifully followed in the GOP's footsteps.

But here's the thing. We quickly forget the past. We just as quickly come to normalize the present. Those traits blind us pretty effectively to where we came from, how much we have truly changed or been changed. It's a dynamic sometimes called "landscape amnesia" or "creeping normalcy." Change is effected so gradually, incrementally, that the public rarely catches on to what is shifting under their feet. Harper was a classic incrementalist.

The Mound of Sound said...

A..non - an interesting prescription. Now, how do you make that happen?

The Mound of Sound said...

Danneau, I know well of what you speak. I come from a very large extended family on my mother's side, farm people. With some exceptions they were not outward-looking people. These were people who chose a political party, usually based on parental preference, and tended to stick with it - just because. To them, government was very much one dimensional, something they would prefer to have as little to do with as possible. Yet they always voted, always.

The Mound of Sound said...

Dana, it'll be interesting to see how this presidential campaign impacts the 2020 race. Trump did set a few precedents.

Northern PoV said...

Thank you Toby

I ain't sayin' they didnt mess w the US election.

I just like to see proof - not a Wash. Post drive-by.

But heck let's hear from Glenn Greenwald:
"People who wanted evidence about WMDs were pro-Saddam or Saddam apologists. People who want evidence now are pro-Putin or Kremlin apologists"

Anonymous said...

Northern POV - The CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate the weapons of mass destruction and he found Iraq did not get yellowcake uranium. The CIA also felt Ahmad Chalabi was a fraud and not Saddam's bomb maker. It was Tony Blair who told the Bush II administration that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, not the CIA. Cheney and Rove then created their own virtual reality for their own means.
So Trump lied again. You took it hook, line and sinker.
How does it feel to be a gullibilly?

mr perfect

Lulymay said...

Anon @ 10:07 am

And add to your comment,that when Joe Wilson wrote an OpEd in the newspaper denying there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the Bush/Cheney leadership chose to "out" Joe Wilson's wife, who was an CIA agent and ruined her career as well as probably put some of her 'contacts' lives in danger. Some of our neighbours are such fine folks.

Anonymous said...

Shit's happening.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-china-taiwan-one-china-policy-trade-nuclear-north-korea-a7468671.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-wto-schedule-argentina-spain-brexit-latest-a7468766.html

As the year ends I think we can say that it's never going to be the same again; all bets are off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ

TB