I have three questions for all the non-racist Trump supporters on here.
1) Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States?
2) Do you believe Barack Obama is a Christian?
3) Do you believe it is acceptable that Donald Trump has asserted on numerous occasions that Obama was not born in this country and has suggested repeatedly that he is actually a Muslim?
As someone who generally votes GOP and did not vote for HRC:
1) I know for a fact BO was born in the United States, this isn't a matter of faith. No serious individual on the right was bringing this up, liberal media highlighted crackpots over and over to discredit serious people on the right, and ultimately elected one of those crackpots president, and even now as evidenced by your question do not take responsibility for this unbelievably divisive form of journalism. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
2) Do you believe Barack Obama is a Christian? For someone outside the faith looking in, I think he probably looks like he is. As a christian, I'd love to have a conversation with him, because I worry that he has been led astray by a particularly pervasive ideology within christianity that is not very helpful. It's like being a B- Christian when I think if I had a couple of hours I could get him up to A+ territory. You can PM me if you are genuinely curious about it, but it's alot less interesting than you probably think.
3) I don't believe it is acceptable that DT has asserted on numerous occasions that Obama was not born in this country and has suggested repeatedly that he is actually a Muslim. But I also believe trollish behavior of any sort is unacceptable, and the only way to deal with it is to ignore it. I sincerely wish these aspects of Trump had been ignored. Ya'all got trolled hard, and you could not stop feeding that troll.
I have some questions for you, I will limit them to three.
A) Do you believe Democratic Voters who voted for BO but did not show up for HRC are racist?
B) Do you acknowledge now that given the known baggage of an HRC nomination she was probably not the best choice?
C) Are you at all concerned that neither party seems to care what the other party thinks of their nominee, and have seemingly decided that moderates/independents/undecideds are not worth pursuing? That HRC was probably the single most hated registered democrat by the GOP voter is perversely seen as an asset and not a liability? And likewise, that Democrats were incensed by the very idea of Trump was seen as a good thing by most in the GOP? I gather, from reading editorials of the day, that there was a grudging respect for the candidate on the other side, by even the most stringent partisan, in the before times.
"They're both decent human beings but I like mine better?" Is nowhere on the horizon. There's barely twelve politicians in all of Congress/Executive branch I don't actively dislike.
Trump is an absolute train wreck of a president. Just as he was as a candidate. Everyone has considered what happens when an immovable object encounters an unstoppable object. Well this presidency is what happens when two unelectable people run for office - chaos and horribleness.
I can't tell you how relieved I was when the democrats nominated BO instead of HRC. Whichever democrat ran after Bush2 was going to win, and HRC would be terrible as president, absolutely break the government. I knew nothing about BO (because I'm racist obviously, not because I'm not from Chicago and he hadn't done much), but by default he was a better choice than HRC. That breaking happened anyway, and racism probably played more into it than either side is willing to admit (racist democrats only voting because he was black, giving the democrats a false sense that the whole country really wanted the ACA, and racist republicans putting up with some bullshit from their own party just because he was black). Voted for McCain in the 2000 primary by the way because war hero, and I still wonder how much better off we'd all be if it had been McCain vs Gore in 2000, Gore getting his ass handed to him legit and not starting the Democrats down a very dark path in order to win what they increasingly seemed to think was a rigged game.
The ACA didn't need to happen and it is a massive unfunded entitlement program that can be opposed without being a heartless racist asshole. But from 2008 to 2016 if you opposed anything the Democrats did you were a heartless racist asshole, so no, in the original version of that story, the boy who cried wolf got eaten by the wolf. The Democrats who cried racist got eaten by a racist. You see where we are now? THAT's a racist opposition. See the difference? Now apologize because you all look like assholes. No? So much for revising opinions based on new information...
2004: 62 million votes for GB2, 59 million votes for Kdog (we'll use this as the baseline, because at this point nobody liked Bush but Kerry was, *shakes head* such a bad option, 2 rich old white men that believe in tax and spend though so no obvious racist reason to prefer either)
2008: 69.5 million votes for BO, 59 million for McC (here we see the ten million racist democrats show up to vote)
2012: 65.9 million votes for BO, 60 million for MtR (five million democrats became racist the other way, no other reason is possible to not vote for BO)
2016: 65.8 million votes for HRC, 62 million votes for McDbag (nother hundred thousand democrats went the racist route, two million racists decided to join the GoP, I put it closer to twelve million, because most of the GOP I know stayed the fuck home #notmycandidate)
To keep the GOP base motivated, a candidate has to speak to the religious right, the nationalistic right, the small government right, and the uber wealthy right. To keep the Democratic base interested, the candidate must BE BLACK. Stop calling everyone else racist and claiming some moral high ground. Start caring about winning and pick candidates we don't think are scum. If both sides keep picking garbage candidates we're going to have random outcomes and that is what's going to bring down the empire.
This post has all been rhetorical and I believe none of it, but this article at Vox pretty much sums up why nobody to the right of the far left can get into their echo chamber, or is really interested in trying:
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism"It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason." - from the article linked above.
Anyone who can engage a smug liberal and walk away seemingly unfazed can win an election now, that's how intolerable that style is. As it happens, yes, the Trump voter will forgive anything if their candidate can make you go apoplectic.
As for regretting my vote - as someone's signature notes, I voted 3rd party, which is what you all should have done. Say what you want about where we'd be, at least we'd be high.
The tax plan has been interesting to see it develop. I haven't checked yet to see where it landed but aside from the massively irresponsible deficit spending it was headed in a direction that makes sense to me.
I'm seemingly in favor of a constitutional amendment prohibiting POTUS from using Twitter though. For real we should get on that.