I'm kinda late to the party, but I'll vent my two cents anyway, as I'm growing increasingly tilted with the post-election media narrative.
First, the outrage of "fake news" is especially infuriating. NBC doctored George Zimmerman's 911 call. "Hands up don't shoot" never even happened. Brian Williams imagined a story just to make himself look badass. Susan Rice went on television five different times to blame the tragedy in Libya on a YouTube video. And just recently, the Washington Post is claiming that the CIA has identified the perpetrators of hacking, and their motives. Yet, the CIA previously said the exact opposite to Congress, and has not updated their briefing since.
And these same media and political elites are now telling us citizens to watch out for "Fake News". Get the fuck out of town!
Speaking of hacking, as I said, the CIA is not corroborating what the Washington Post is publishing based on one anonymous source. Maybe the Russians did it. So what if they did? The US has meddled in more than a few foreign elections over the years. It really shouldn't be shocking to learn that an unfriendly nation is interested in diminishing US power. World power is a zero sum game. If Russia wants more, then the US must have less. It's our job to defend ourselves.
By all accounts we were able to keep the interlopers out of the voting machines and rendered them unable to influence vote counts or any other aspects of the mechanics of our election. By all accounts, the only affect the hackers had, was to influence public opinion with the contents of the emails.
But the Russians.....or whoever.....are not responsible for the content of the emails.
The DNC really did conspire to side-line Bernie. Clinton really did engage in 'pay-to-play' and 'quid pro quo' corruptions while at the State Department. Hillary staffers really did have unethical relationships with Journalists. All that stuff really happened.
For months before the election, we were bombarded with stories of Trumps sexual indiscretions. Every pass he ever made, every inappropriate comment he ever uttered, every romantic encounter that was intended to be kept private was aired in prime time. And now those same media outlets are pouting about how Hillary would have won if only her offenses were kept secret
So if the public voted with the benefit of more, accurate, information, that's a good thing. I certainly don't support any kind of hacking, or any foreign effort to influence our political system. But I'm also not against people having more information.
Finally, I would like to encourage everyone here to help make America great Again by doing the following:
Any time you encounter someone who suggests that Hillary winning the popular vote matters, I want you to sit them down and force that person to eat a pine cone as punishment for uttering idiotic and naive garbage.
If our two party system were satisfying to even a majority of voters, there would be absolutely no reason for campaigns or elections. Every body would just register as one party or the other, and the Census Bureau can just keep score. Easy game. In reality, there are populations at each pole of the political spectrum, but the vast majority of people are in the middle. And politicians have a year and a half to try and pull as many middle-folk onto their side as possible.
At the beginning of that process, the contenders dusted off the Constitution and brushed up on the "rules". They say electoral votes matter, popular votes don't. Not gonna debate if that's the right system or not (it is). That's just the way things are, and have been for a long time. Everybody knew the rules going in. Win the Electoral College, you get to be president. Fin.
So the candidates had months and months to strategize and campaign in a way that best allowed them to win the contest, with the rules as they are written. Trump saw vulnerability in Wisconsin. He put together an effort at the end of the campaign with Walker, and Ryan, and he pulled out a win. Trump won the state, but actually lost in Milwaukee. Hillary won that precinct, but by a margin that was 27,000 votes less than Obama won it in 2012. Overall, Hillary lost the state of Wisconsin by 27,000 votes. She actually never went to Wisconsin during the campaign. Turnout suffered, and she lost the state by a thin margin. The Russian's didn't do that. It was political malpractice!!!
By having a better strategy in Wisconsin, Trump turned the state, and others, and won the electoral college. That was the goal.
Now pay attention, cause this is where the "popular vote" fallacy comes apart....
If the Constitution were crafted differently, and the terms of winning were different, then wouldn't you assume that both candidates would approach the campaign with a different strategy? In other words, if the Constitution simply called for the winner of the popular vote to be President, then don't you think that Trump would have spent a little more time in New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston?
The point here is, that if the criteria for winning were different, then obviously the months-long campaign strategy of both candidates would have been drastically different as well. From there, its only logical to assume that the vote count would have also come out differently. It is absolutely preposterous to think that we would have the exact same popular vote results had the rules of the contest been different.
In order for the "Hillary won the popular vote" argument to hold water....you have to assume that every single person who voted had their mind made up 15 months ago. You also have to assume that everyone who didn't vote, also had their mind made up not to vote 15 months ago. In order to claim a "popular vote" victory for Hillary, you would have to assume that campaigning is worthless, and that the vote counts and turnout figures would be precisely the same if the campaign were conducted under a different set of rules. And that has got to be the most intellectually lazy premise ever invoked.
I am stunned at how many seemingly smart, educated people are claiming a 2.8 million vote margin of victory for Hillary.
Make them eat pine cones.
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Originally Posted by BananaStand
