What... I... uh... duhh ffffwwwfff. *drools*

[Cyborg Girl]

I should be trying to avoid the news, but my mom mentioned this and I just had to look. I think it cost me some neurons.

Donald Trump invites the Russian government to hack into some more US email servers

Just how... damn.... stupid. Argh. Bloody idiot. How?!

You know that saying about laughing so you don't cry?

I think I need to start crying. Because otherwise, I'll break into manic, unhinged laughter. And probably never stop.

[geonuc]

I should be trying to avoid the news, but my mom mentioned this and I just had to look. I think it cost me some neurons.

Donald Trump invites the Russian government to hack into some more US email servers

Just how... damn.... stupid. Argh. Bloody idiot. How?!

You know that saying about laughing so you don't cry?

I think I need to start crying. Because otherwise, I'll break into manic, unhinged laughter. And probably never stop.

Don't worry about it! He can't win.

Can he?

[Swift]

Don't worry about it! He can't win.

Can he?

Actually, I think he can.

I suspect that this latest stupidity won't even hurt his polling. He is the Teflon (TM) candidate.

[squ1d]

At every stage thus far, experts have said Trump "can't win" and at every stage he has proved them wrong.

I really hope that people actually engage in democracy there. If everybody votes, I don't think it is possible for him to win. They will not though, and therefore it is.

Years ago I remember a discussion on here about Australia's mandatory voting laws. One of the reasons they exist is so that a minority of zealots can't take over the country

[Cyborg Girl]

Over here, Republicans have engaged in active efforts to prevent voter turnout, in particular for demographics that tend not to vote Republican. They've been actively damaging the democratic process to keep themselves in power, and doing so for some time. See North Carolina for a recent and egregious example of this. (So egregious that a court found it not just discriminatory, but intentionally so, against very specific minority groups.)

(BTW, Elizabeth Warren is IIRC pushing for voting days to be mandatory holidays. Between solid Republican opposition and Democrats waffling as much as they can, I bet this won't get anywhere. US politics is sclerotic enough, IMO, that very few politicians stand to benefit from letting voters actually speak their minds.)

Oh, also gerrymandering. Can't forget that; it's why they've controlled the House since forever.

But, yes. Zealots. They certainly are. And hypocrites too, which I suppose goes with the territory. If it had been Clinton asking the Russians to hack Trump's email accounts, we'd probably be having a civil war right now.

[geonuc]

Over here, Republicans have engaged in active efforts to prevent voter turnout, in particular for demographics that tend not to vote Republican. They've been actively damaging the democratic process to keep themselves in power, and doing so for some time. See North Carolina for a recent and egregious example of this. (So egregious that a court found it not just discriminatory, but intentionally so, against very specific minority groups.)

(BTW, Elizabeth Warren is IIRC pushing for voting days to be mandatory holidays. Between solid Republican opposition and Democrats waffling as much as they can, I bet this won't get anywhere. US politics is sclerotic enough, IMO, that very few politicians stand to benefit from letting voters actually speak their minds.)

Oh, also gerrymandering. Can't forget that; it's why they've controlled the House since forever.

But, yes. Zealots. They certainly are. And hypocrites too, which I suppose goes with the territory. If it had been Clinton asking the Russians to hack Trump's email accounts, we'd probably be having a civil war right now.

Agree with everything, except the 'controlled the House since forever' part. Wasn't that long ago that the Speaker of the House was Nancy Pelosi.

I support mandatory voting.

[SciFi Chick]

Years ago I remember a discussion on here about Australia's mandatory voting laws. One of the reasons they exist is so that a minority of zealots can't take over the country

Yup. We were living in Australia when that discussion happened. Recently, I mentioned to my husband that I still disagreed with him and I like the mandatory voting laws in Australia. He responded that the U.S. would really benefit from mandatory voting laws. Funny how living in a different country opens the mind.

[Cyborg Girl]

Me too! Though right now, I think it's more important to make it possible for working class people to vote. At the least, there should be mandatory (paid) off hours for voting.

(Also... federal laws against hate speech on radio/television, and on Internet media if at all possible. Yes, I know hate speech laws are guaranteed to be imperfect. But considering the history of racism in this country, and how everything has exploded this election cycle, I think it would be utterly insane to let the free speech vs. bigotry issue slide again. It shouldn't just be distasteful for a person to seek office on an openly racist platform, it should be literally criminal. And yeah, I will be writing to the MA senators about that.)

[Swift]

It shouldn't just be distasteful for a person to seek office on an openly racist platform, it should be literally criminal.

I think that is a very slippery, dangerous slope.

I don't find it all that disturbing that there are candidates running on racist platforms, even major party candidates. Heck, the Republicans backed the "birthers" for years - does anyone think that was not thinly masked racism against the uppity nigger POTUS. Actually, if parties or candidates think such things, I'd rather know about it.

What I find disturbing is that 40% of the American public (according to polls), is willing to at least ignore, if not outright support, the open racism of a candidate like Donald Trump.

And making what he says illegal would not change that.

[SciFi Chick]

It shouldn't just be distasteful for a person to seek office on an openly racist platform, it should be literally criminal.

I think that is a very slippery, dangerous slope.

I don't find it all that disturbing that there are candidates running on racist platforms, even major party candidates. Heck, the Republicans backed the "birthers" for years - does anyone think that was not thinly masked racism against the uppity nigger POTUS. Actually, if parties or candidates think such things, I'd rather know about it.

What I find disturbing is that 40% of the American public (according to polls), is willing to at least ignore, if not outright support, the open racism of a candidate like Donald Trump.

And making what he says illegal would not change that.

This right here is why I'm not buying into all the positivity of a woman getting nominated to a major party, and I won't think the world has irreversibly changed if she gets elected. I had so much hope and joy when Obama was elected, but it seems that's only brought out the hidden racism that was bubbling beneath the surface. I shudder to think what's going to happen to women if she gets elected. Not that we have any choice at this point.

[Swift]

It shouldn't just be distasteful for a person to seek office on an openly racist platform, it should be literally criminal.

I think that is a very slippery, dangerous slope.

I don't find it all that disturbing that there are candidates running on racist platforms, even major party candidates. Heck, the Republicans backed the "birthers" for years - does anyone think that was not thinly masked racism against the uppity nigger POTUS. Actually, if parties or candidates think such things, I'd rather know about it.

What I find disturbing is that 40% of the American public (according to polls), is willing to at least ignore, if not outright support, the open racism of a candidate like Donald Trump.

And making what he says illegal would not change that.

This right here is why I'm not buying into all the positivity of a woman getting nominated to a major party, and I won't think the world has irreversibly changed if she gets elected. I had so much hope and joy when Obama was elected, but it seems that's only brought out the hidden racism that was bubbling beneath the surface. I shudder to think what's going to happen to women if she gets elected. Not that we have any choice at this point.

I understand completely what you say.

But until you admit you have a problem, you can't even start to fix it. Unless we as a nation recognize these problems, we can't deal with them.

[geonuc]

Electing a black man - even a half black man - was huge, a game changer. As a bonus, we got someone whom I consider to be one of the greatest leaders of all time.

Hillary Clinton may not be Barack Obama and her presidency may not live up to the standards he set, but electing a well-qualified woman as president will be even more of a game changer than Obama's election. Women make up over half this country. Think about that - they are a majority! And yet not one woman in the White House in an era where the rest of the civilized world thinks nothing of electing women to lead their country.