POTUS

[Carl]

I didn't say people who voted for Trump are any of those things. I do my best to avoid media, and I don't appreciate people taking my words out of context. As I said to Tora, the only reason I say the country is hate filled is because that's my experience, and not just with this one horrible election. I'm not even saying anything about either candidate's supporters, and I'm sure the rest of the world is hate filled too. So if you could just not act like I'm insulting or attacking you, that'd be great.

[Tora]

Wasn't trying to say you said anything about the supporters if it came out that way. I know you were talking about your experience. It's beyond here that I've been railed. I was about ready to smack my supervisor for suggesting that I'm anti-immigration and so on. Sorry if it seemed directed at you.

[Carl]

My last message wasn't aimed at you T-saur. I know you weren't coming after anyone here.

[Panda-chan]

I didn't say people who voted for Trump are any of those things. I do my best to avoid media, and I don't appreciate people taking my words out of context. As I said to Tora, the only reason I say the country is hate filled is because that's my experience, and not just with this one horrible election. I'm not even saying anything about either candidate's supporters, and I'm sure the rest of the world is hate filled too. So if you could just not act like I'm insulting or attacking you, that'd be great.

Even if your words were taken out of context, my point is the same. There is a very annoying and vocal branch of liberals that throw around the r-word whenever someone disagrees with them. It turns out that if you demonize the people you disagree with, paint them as racists and oppressors and tell them that any and all of their successes are a result of some unearned "privilege," they will protest-vote for a loose cannon like Donald Trump. I did not mean to attack you personally or shame you if that's how you took it; I just needed some examples of abusive rhetoric.

By the way, I do not know where you live if you really think the country is "hate filled". There is hatred, obviously, but it's definitely a [censored] minority of conservatives. Most people simply do not care about race, but that's just my experience.

[SlayerOfLight]

Seems like I am one of the few here who doesn't pretend it's the end of the world. Then again, us Dutch people have been forced to endure our A.hole prime minister and politicians that don't give a single damn about us at all for heaven knows how long, so we ourselves are already paying the horrible consequences for allowing those idiots to ruin our country. Now you Americans will be forced to deal with the consequences as well just like us because we were all too chicken to stand up against the corrupt elites.

As for my opinion about trump, I'm neutral and I don't wish to meddle into politics outside my own country. but that doesn't take away the fact that I am very curious to find out what it will be like for a country to be ran by a rightwing populist, because I have no quarrel with admitting that I myself am a rightwing populist as well.

Honestly, both the Democrat and Republican party have been corrupted to the core for years. American politics have been awful long before Trump, Trump's just the final result of the pathetic left-wing of the west and the awful, corrupted status quo that's been plaguing a lot of countries for aaages.

Quite frankly I do think this is probably a huge overreaction as well, but I really can't be sure because I have absolutely no idea what Trump's real stances are on anything. I don't know if he was just baiting the American alt right for votes and has different views of his own, if he actually means what he says, if he'll do any of what his campaign was about... No idea what to expect.

And that... Is exactly what I meant when I stated I was curious. I certainly find his election particulary interesting, because we don't know what to expect of him and wether or not he will really do things differently than anyone else. I don't think Hilary would bring any change at all or do interesting stuff so therefore even if some people here will hate me for it, I do indeed not deny that I am sort of glad that Trump won. And most important of all, perhaps it could be of any benefit to my country in one way or another.

[KopsTheTerminator]

Heh... no. Hillary wouldn't change anything, and it seems she did a pretty poor job at convincing the US otherwise. The fact that she was even allowed to run for presidency is atrocious in itself.

It's not that I don't share your curiosity either. It does make for an interesting turn of events.

[Carl]

I didn't say people who voted for Trump are any of those things. I do my best to avoid media, and I don't appreciate people taking my words out of context. As I said to Tora, the only reason I say the country is hate filled is because that's my experience, and not just with this one horrible election. I'm not even saying anything about either candidate's supporters, and I'm sure the rest of the world is hate filled too. So if you could just not act like I'm insulting or attacking you, that'd be great.

Even if your words were taken out of context, my point is the same. There is a very annoying and vocal branch of liberals that throw around the r-word whenever someone disagrees with them. It turns out that if you demonize the people you disagree with, paint them as racists and oppressors and tell them that any and all of their successes are a result of some unearned "privilege," they will protest-vote for a loose cannon like Donald Trump. I did not mean to attack you personally or shame you if that's how you took it; I just needed some examples of abusive rhetoric.

By the way, I do not know where you live if you really think the country is "hate filled". There is hatred, obviously, but it's definitely a [censored] minority of conservatives. Most people simply do not care about race, but that's just my experience.

I live in the south, and I'm not even talking about race or sex or sexuality. I didn't mention any of those things. I'm talking about hate in general, those types of hate are involved, sure, but that wasn't my point and the left is often just as hateful as the right. Politics makes people hate each other, and while everyone is shouting over all of this controversial crap, people who are fighting through hardship get life constantly made worse for them. Being constantly treated like crap by all politics and saying so doesn't make my rhetoric abusive, especially since it was an observation about life in general and not any specific group of people.

[Squeely]

I'm an American, and I, too, am curious to see what this wild card will bring. I didn't support him, but he's our reality now, and it'll be a heckuva lot more interesting than Clinton would have been, for better or for worse.

[Gemini]

Just caught up on these posts. Seeing many great points. Will edit this post and respond when I get home for sure.

EDIT: So first off, I just want to say to everyone: congrats on being civil in these posts. There have been a lot of feelings going around and it hasn't always been easy to keep a level head, but I appreciate the effort that all of you have taken. I've seen a lot of good posts especially from Alicia and TLP and Regs and Kops.

But anyway. Onto my post.

Overall I think this election was one where nobody really came out the winner and nobody really got what they wanted. For a lot of people - I'd even venture to say the vast majority of people - it was really a matter of picking the lesser of two evils. It's unfortunate, and I think that the current state of both parties has a lot to do with it. But I think that this election has been hugely polarizing and damaging in a lot of ways, even if people don't directly realize it.

I think what springs to mind to me as an example of this is when I saw my dad back in August. He knew that I had been a Bernie supporter and though he disagreed very strongly with me on that front, I was surprised to find that, despite how different we are politically, we actually felt very similarly in terms of the picks of the candidates. We both felt that the two worst candidates had made it to the general election and we had no problems with admitting this. Which led to the next question of - who do we vote for?

I remember my dad basically describing Trump as "completely unethical" and strongly opposing him. However, he also really hates the Clinton family for a variety of reasons, and has for years, so in the end - he said that he would vote Trump. Not because he wanted to or because he agreed with him or because he thought that he was a particularly good candidate, even, but because - for him - Trump was that lesser of two evils. And really, I think a LOT of people were stuck in the exact same situation. So at the end of the day - I can't really blame anyone for voting the way that they did. I don't think that 50% (or whatever number) of Americans are people who want to deport all immigrants and hate Mexicans and Muslims and etc. There are a vocal minority who are, unfortunately, but I think that a lot of voters (particularly those who live in very red areas where most people were also voting Trump) likely felt that that was the only way to have their voice heard and to keep Clinton out of office. And to be honest? I'm surprised it succeeded. Also a bit relieved. Hillary has done every single thing in the book to try to fix the election in her favor. From the shady donations, the covering up of her criminal investigations, the bribing of the media (CNN especially), and the sabotaging of Bernie's campaign - I was honestly expecting her to win. If it wasn't for the fact that Trump also is flip-floppy and unscrupulous and ultimately doesn't care about the electorate, I would probably consider this a shining example of the classic underdog story. And I guess it shows that the people's voice prevailed over corporate corruption. At least for now. It didn't work out ideally, but it worked out better than it could have.

And I think that people are very quick to forget that. People are very quick to label those who voted for the "other" candidate as the bad guy, but really they aren't the problem here. The problem lies within the broken parties that we have now. The DNC that heard the cries for change and the support for Sanders, but shoved Clinton on us anyway. The Republican Party that was so fragmented and confused that, with only the efforts of a vocal minority, Trump was able to arise out of a flurry of weak candidates and win the plurality of the vote because nobody was strong enough to oppose him. THOSE are the people at fault here. Not the people who voted for either Hillary or Trump because they felt that they had no other choice.

So... yeah. Am I disappointed in this election and these results? Absolutely. But - as I've reminded myself many times today - I would have also felt disappointed had Hillary won. Either result is a potential disaster for this country, but it's not the end of the world. All we can really do is hold on and brace ourselves for whatever impact this is going to have, which - at this point - is unclear. As Alicia pointed out, Trump was really the wild card candidate. Anything could happen, and I will be watching very eagerly at whatever goes down next.

So I hear Hillary actually has the popular vote but lost in the "electoral college".

Can an American explain to me what that means? What is it and why is it necessary?

Well, like any other place (including Britain, for example) a party or candidate can win the popular vote nationwide but if they don't do well in the individual districts then they won't get as many seats. Even if the Democrats won the popular vote by a huge margin in the Senate (just hypothetically as an example), it wouldn't do much if all those voters were concentrated in the same couple of states because you still have the rest of the country to worry about. It's why I've heard some people over there complain about some parties being over- or under-represented because it's the same thing at play. Unfortunately, not much can be done about that.

THIS BEING SAID. The electoral college is basically just a way of attributing electors (you can think of these people as "points") to each state. States with larger populations have more electors - they're worth more. All of them except for Nebraska and I think Maine (?) are awarded in a winner-takes-all manner.

Back in the olden days (we're talking like two-hundred-plus years ago) voting was heavily restricted. Like Alicia said, the ability to vote was NOT considered a right for the general population. It was the electors who did the voting. Technically an elector, termed a "faithless elector", could still exercise that power and vote for someone who didn't win in their state. However, it's basically unheard of. Doing so would be an extreme breach of convention and I really don't think anything like that has happened in a very very long time. From what I understand, electors now basically consider it a part of their job and duty to vote how their state did, so for all intents and purpose you can break it down thus:

Popular vote -> one party wins the state -> that party wins x number of electors -> whichever party gets a majority of electors (270+) wins the presidency

It's kind of weird and indirect but that's how it works, basically.

I don't even know what Hillary's vision was supposed to be.

Her vision was, "It's my turn now." But since that didn't sound very nice, her campaign tried experimenting with other things:

I'm with her
Stronger together
Love Trumps hate

And so on... there may be more, I think, but I can't recall another. But if you notice one thing, you'll see nothing about any policy substance. It's mostly just an attempt by Hillary's campaign to paint the scene as Hillary = Good; Trump = Bad. That kind of thing doesn't usually work.

I noticed this very early on as well. And I mean, don't get me wrong - Trump has said AWFUL things, and he really doesn't need the media's help to look like a clown a lot of the time. (I think his statement that McCain wasn't really a war hero because he "got caught" was a pretty early tip-off of just what type of person he is). BUT. All along I just got this niggling sense that, at every turn, everyone and their brother was trying to present Trump as The Worst Thing to Ever Exist Ever©. And again, that's not to say that I think he has the experience or demeanor or general capabilities of being a good president - but I think it glossed over the fact that a) Hillary has VERY real issues that can't just be waved away, and b) there are, therefore, reasons that people would want to vote for Trump aside from the fact that they are racist-sexist-homophobic-misogynist-stupid-ignorant-uneducated-etc. ad nausem-people who want to destroy all minorities. The way that they presented him wasn't always fair and as a result it gave a very myopic picture of what was actually at stake.

Because honestly. Anyone who thinks that Hillary was actually all that concerned for the rights of minorities (or really anyone who's not rich white people), in my opinion, didn't really take a good look at her. She was obviously just pandering to the vote and didn't care about the electorate. Who knows what she would have done in office - and honestly, I have no desire to enable someone with so much disregard for America and its laws and people with more power by electing them to the White House. That's just a recipe for more corruption and more of the problems that caused this whole goddamn thing to start in the first place.

EDIT: Also can people stop harrassing third party voters telling that their vote only went to Trump? It's really stupid considering both parties are awful, this whole "vote for the lesser evil" state of affairs really needs to stop.

Wanted to quote this one specifically and say thank you thank you thank you for saying this. Some of you may know already due to my posts elsewhere or in the Telegram chat, but - needless to say, I am extremely angry and disappointed at one of my roommates right now.

I made the choice to vote third party because I couldn't pick a lesser of two evils, really. I was in the awkward zone of being both #nevertrump and #hillaryforprison. So as you can imagine, I was in a rough time as it is. But I figured that if I have no real preference and think both would make awful presidents, then I may as well at least show my disapproval with the two of them, and with the system that got us here.

Because honestly. The parties might be corrupt, but they aren't dense. Estimates were saying that 10% of people were going to vote third-party, which is... well, huge. And honestly? I expect major changes in both parties going forward. They're not gonna want to lose any more votes in the future. So this was my way of hopefully encouraging that.

HOWEVER.

I've made the choice not to tell anyone IRL about how I voted. This is because most people here are very strong Hillary supporters. And honestly? I made the mistake of telling those I live with that I voted third party and you wouldn't believe all the **** I got for it immediately afterward. I didn't even say ANYTHING except that I voted Gary Johnson - didn't trash anyone for voting Hillary, didn't make any other comment. And oh my god... my one roommate (who's normally very rational, which is why this is all the more disappointing) basically threw a f***ing hissy fit at me for the rest of the night. Like the rest of the night she couldn't stop whining about how people voting third-party were making Trump win and being super passive-aggressive about it. When I tried to explain that Hillary has a TON of crap in her closet, so to speak, she basically completely shut me down, and basically said that I voted for Trump. She even made it personal by saying that that basically meant I was okay with my other roommate being deported since she's Hispanic and then proceeded to put words in my mouth. THEN acted like I was the bad guy out of the two of us and wouldn't talk to me.

Like honestly. She was just a complete ***** to me.

She literally wouldn't talk to me basically.

I haven't seen her today at all but I got texted by my other roommate this morning and it sounds like she's still pissy about it, so whatever. She can go throw a temper tantrum. I'm not apologizing, and she can talk to me again when she's capable of being a normal functioning person.

But yeah. I just find it ironic that everyone beforehand was saying "weh, don't vote third party! vote like a mature adult!"... and yet these are the same people who've been whining about OTHER PEOPLE'S voting choices. Way to be a mature adult.

Sorry. I just had to rant about that.

But yeah, tl;dr both parties suck, both candidates suck, it is what it is. Let's all move forward together, America.

[Panda-chan]

I've made the choice not to tell anyone IRL about how I voted. This is because most people here are very strong Hillary supporters. And honestly? I made the mistake of telling those I live with that I voted third party and you wouldn't believe all the **** I got for it immediately afterward. I didn't even say ANYTHING except that I voted Gary Johnson - didn't trash anyone for voting Hillary, didn't make any other comment. And oh my god... my one roommate (who's normally very rational, which is why this is all the more disappointing) basically threw a f***ing hissy fit at me for the rest of the night. Like the rest of the night she couldn't stop whining about how people voting third-party were making Trump win and being super passive-aggressive about it. When I tried to explain that Hillary has a TON of crap in her closet, so to speak, she basically completely shut me down, and basically said that I voted for Trump. She even made it personal by saying that that basically meant I was okay with my other roommate being deported since she's Hispanic and then proceeded to put words in my mouth. THEN acted like I was the bad guy out of the two of us and wouldn't talk to me.

Like honestly. She was just a complete ***** to me.

She literally wouldn't talk to me basically.

I haven't seen her today at all but I got texted by my other roommate this morning and it sounds like she's still pissy about it, so whatever. She can go throw a temper tantrum. I'm not apologizing, and she can talk to me again when she's capable of being a normal functioning person.

But yeah. I just find it ironic that everyone beforehand was saying "weh, don't vote third party! vote like a mature adult!"... and yet these are the same people who've been whining about OTHER PEOPLE'S voting choices. Way to be a mature adult.

Wow, really sorry about that. Emotions are running high here as well-- I posted a wall of text on my Facebook earlier basically summarizing everything you said. So far there are no comments but many of my liberal friends have privately messaged me that they lied earlier when they said they'd voted for Clinton and had actually voted for Stein, but were afraid to say it publicly. It's really a shame. I'm also getting crap for voting the way I did but I don't regret it.

On that note, pro-Trump people should be considerate enough to not rub his victory in everyone's face. It hurts to have a candidate you were confident would be the first female president lose so spectacularly.
So I understand where the disappointment and frustration comes from. Trump's victory feels hollow anyhow, knowing he only won because there is so much anger with the system right now. Bottom line is, people on all sides are unhappy with the results of the election, so lets be civil to each other and brace ourselves for a rocky four years