♪♫ The world turned upside down. Finally, it's US election week.
November 6, 2016 10:15 AM Subscribe

574 days since Hillary declared she would run, and 2 days left for the frontrunner and all of us till election day. While the world watches e.g. [Guardian] [RTE] [Denmark] [Russia] [Sweden (lonely)] and [France], analyses, reacts, or organizes election parties [Australia] [New Zealand], the polls bounce around but generally favor Hillary, the UK bookies, other odds and an increasingly angry Nate also still favor Hillary, and Politico only sees three narrow paths to victory for Donald. Meanwhile, the Democrats get the vote out, it's not been the best of years for Trump's New Jersey chum (also November 10th 2015), there are fears of an election "cyber attack", political phrases are becoming fatigued, celebrity social media remains divided, Mr Kaine duets with Mr Bongiovi, and Hillary and Donald (in Reno) near the end.

Instant reaction or conversation? For a more immediate and unarchived media, chat may be better. If the web interface isn't working for you, frimble has instructions for connecting with Adium, Monal, and Apple Messages. A longer list of Jabber-compatible clients is here. Alternately...

Take it to MetaTalk
* SEZ WHO? Election Prediction 2016
* Watcha doin election night? (Besides MetaFilter!)
* Get Yer Voting Stories Here!
* Mefite Election Volunteering
* Can we stop attacking left-of-Clinton/anti-establishment folks on here?

There are worries of election day intimidation or violence. Early voting has produced long waiting lines and times in states such as North Carolina (and again), Virginia and Arizona (and the bizarro excuse). The number of polling stations has also been reduced in some states since 2013. Meanwhile, the courts remain involved in numerous election cases, such as (again) Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio (update) and Pennsylvania.

Other Resources
* Ballotpedia has a mass of election resources.
* Plan your election day; again from Ballotpedia, state-by-state poll opening and closing times.
* How to vote in every state by NoxAeternum.
* More voter information by lampshade.
* The Election thread reference may explain some of the terminology used within the comments here.
* For extra free coverage, note the New York Times paywall is down Monday to Wednesday this week.

There's also a MeFites United calling team - details from kristi. In addition, even at this late stage, campaign staff are still needed.

MetaFilter nostalgia from February 2011: Should Trump Run?. Elsewhere, there's all the posts tagged Election2016, and not long left to plan any election night party.

Post title from Hamilton, suggested by blessedlyndie.

posted by Wordshore (2611 comments total) 123 users marked this as a favorite

this nightmare can't end soon enough.
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 10:18 AM on November 6, 2016 [67 favorites]

My money is on Evan from Utah.

Darkhorses rule!
posted by sammyo at 10:18 AM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm trying to find out where voter intimidation is most likely to occur in New Hampshire. I'd be grateful for any pointers.
posted by Coventry at 10:18 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

As we get closer and closer to voting day, election threads come quicker and quicker. Zeno's Election Coverage.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:20 AM on November 6, 2016 [49 favorites]

(Breaks half-empty bottle of Thunderbird found in the backyard against monitor to christen thread)
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:20 AM on November 6, 2016 [51 favorites]

574 days since Hillary declared she would run

Not to mention 151 election threads.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 10:20 AM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

Only a few more sleeps until Tangerine Nightmare faces a bigly defeat of his own making. gg team khaleesi.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 10:20 AM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

I keep expecting the next election post musical title to be, "Welcome all my friends to the show that never ends..."
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:22 AM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

Is anyone else having trouble accessing Hillary's online call tool, or just me/my introverted social anxiety manifesting itself via the internet?
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 10:22 AM on November 6, 2016

Tom Servo says how I feel about this election.
posted by SansPoint at 10:23 AM on November 6, 2016 [55 favorites]

I alternate between feeling like I need to read every single word about the election and feeling like if I read one more word about the election I'll spontaneously combust and fall over dead. These threads are a good compromise because all the news is pre-filtered through you lovely people who are doing the work of the righteous on the behalf of the rest of us, and I appreciate it more than words can say.
posted by skycrashesdown at 10:23 AM on November 6, 2016 [161 favorites]

What is the over-under on pace of comments in this thread? 100 an hour will result in over 4k comments.

There is quite likely to be a need for a second thread for election results.

Scary to see how much Metafilter has been ElectionFilter this last year. It will be good to have it all over soon. You know assuming that Clinton wins otherwise I assume we will be doing RebellionFilter
posted by vuron at 10:24 AM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

vuron or Moving to CanadaFilter
posted by SansPoint at 10:24 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nobody Who Followed This Election Can Say It Hasn't Been a Show. Are we not entertained?
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hey, I'm glad there's a new one of these. I need some reassurance. What happens if the Republicans straight up just refuse to accept the election results? What happens then? Does Obama have enough loyalty from the military to avoid some sort of coup?

I'm not frightened of Clinton losing. I think that's probably going to be fine. I'm frightened of what comes after.
posted by Caduceus at 10:27 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

1457 days until election day!

(In 2020.)
posted by Jahaza at 10:27 AM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

There is quite likely to be a need for a second thread for election results.

I think that's a given. My question is, are we going to have just one thread on Tuesday, or are we going to need one for the morning and one for the evening (and then another for the afterparty?? the ride never ends)?
posted by J.K. Seazer at 10:27 AM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

As we get closer and closer to voting day, election threads come quicker and quicker. Zeno's Election Coverage.

I'm working on the next one (mostly done, and the title was chosen three years ago), which will be the election day FPP. When it goes live on tuesday is up to the mods, but probably not early as it's going to be a loooong day (and night). Might be kinda good - and also for mod zen - if this new post doesn't burn out with several thousand comments well before then; see links to chat, MetaTalk options.

(Thanks to mods for chats and also to ChurchHatesTucker for co-ordination and handing the "baton of election posting" back and forth recently)
posted by Wordshore at 10:28 AM on November 6, 2016 [33 favorites]

GOP judges lift court order prohibiting Trump campaign from intimidating voters. Making America great again, one court decision at a time.
posted by homunculus at 10:30 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thanks to those of you who mentioned BLM yard signs in the last thread. I've been looking for something to counter the awful "Blue Lives Matter" flag flying across the street. Amongst the reasons I put up a Love Trumps Hate sign is that I want my immigrant neighbors to know that I'm delighted they are here. I also want to show my black neighbors that I know that their lives matter. Thanks for helping me fight a little bit of the hate.
posted by mcduff at 10:30 AM on November 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

I have had nightmares every single night since the RNC first convened earlier this year. It would be swell if those nightmares didn't become a reality this week
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:34 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

351-186, with one unfaithful elector in WA.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:34 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

F*CKSGIVING // GLOBAL MOVEMENT AMERICAN ELECTION'16
posted by chavenet at 10:34 AM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I honest to god cannot understand how it even can be this close and yet here we are. I'm a Sanders fan too but I still can't understand this.
posted by gt2 at 10:35 AM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

I figured out the best way to relieve some election stress and anxiety. As I know that a good many are experiencing the same I thought I would share. Here are the step by step instructions.

Have a dog.
Dog escapes out the door past a Dad and takes off towards the creek and the fields.
Dog has a history of running far and killing chickens.
There is a house, alebit several kms down the road that now has chickens outside all day.
Dog has run several kms for 12hrs at a time before.
No one tells you dog is out. You sit drinking coffee, reading Metafilter and trying not to stress about an election.
You go downstairs to get something eat.
A Mom says all casual 'oh dog got out.'
You get a shot of adrenline, run upstairs, throw on a t-shirt, pants and shoes, race downstairs, grab dog treats and run outside.
A Dad is there puttering in the shed.
' Where is dog?'
'Oh I don't know she was down there a while a go.'
Get mad at Dad.
Hurry down to the creek and call dog.
Finally see dog on other side of the creek next to the 500 acre corn field. See dog ignore you and trot down the side of corn, in the direction of the road which would eventually lead to chickens.
Decide that getting to road and crossing the creek there to head down side of corn towards dog is best course of action.
Wade through really long grass and burdock.
Curse at all the burdock sticky things that are wadding up all over your pants.
Get to road, cross bridge to other side of the creek and walk down side of corn.
Ponder life for a while.
Look at shoes and see mud on them.
Curse yourself for not putting on old shoes.
See dog!
Dog looks and thinks no way and trots into corn.
Follow dog
Think ‘gosh I haven't gone in corn like this since I was a kid. It’s kinda neat and omg it’s taller then me!! Hee hee...oh wait dog. Focus on dog’
Dog decides that corn is the wrong direction, turns and heads back to creek.
Follow.
Dog now in creek looking at you.
Hold out dog treat.
Watch dog slowly come to you and reluctantly take treat.
Grab dog collar.
Dog will be stubborn and doesn't move.
Start dragging dog.
Realize that dragging dog by the collar through creeks and heavy brush is difficult. Curse yourself for not bringing a leash.
Think 'hey I can use my shirt and loop it through the collar'
Think 'no bra on..hmm'
Think 'hey I'm in the country who the fuck cares'.
Have a not so bad, shirtless walk, with your dog, on a unseasonably warm and sunny fall day.
Realize that letting it all hang out feels pretty awesome. Walk tall and proud.
Walk around the side of the house, pulling your dog with your shirt, covering your boobs with your hands because you know a Dad might be there.
Have him see you and stare in shock, "What? Why have you no shirt on!!!!"

The END

stress all gone for now

Hope these instructions will help others.
posted by Jalliah at 10:36 AM on November 6, 2016 [402 favorites]

Part of me almost wants to collect all of the 2016 election threads and print them out. Anyone have an idea of how many words have been written in these threads? Or what percentage of words written on the blue in the last year have been election related?

I maybe might have contacts in the printing industry that can make this happen (for like, 2 copies bound). I'll ask, it'd be a cool coffee table book.
posted by neonrev at 10:38 AM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Kill me.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:39 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

There's a unique feeling of helpless anxiety that comes with being Canadian during all this. I really can't comprehend the minds of some of the people I know who are being all smug about it.

I'm rooting for you, anyway, America. You got this. I don't think things are nearly as close as they appear. This election has brough all kinds of ugliness out into the open, and on Tuesday you're going to KILL IT WITH FIRE.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:40 AM on November 6, 2016 [40 favorites]

I just want it over.
Fuck this country and its political system. Gah.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:41 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was walking home last night with my music on shuffle and it occurred to me about all the songs Trump played behind him at rallies that the artists asked him to stop using. Then a song came on that would suit him perfectly.
posted by jonmc at 10:42 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

I maybe might have contacts in the printing industry that can make this happen (for like, 2 copies bound). I'll ask, it'd be a cool coffee table book.

In the sense of, book that could function as a coffee table.
posted by saturday_morning at 10:42 AM on November 6, 2016 [61 favorites]

Oh god my friends are promoting a "Millennials need to vote for Hillary so they aren't blamed for Trump" video on Facebook and it's so full of Bernie back-patting I can't stop my eyes rolling.

And I can't say anything about it 'cause I might hurt some "undecided" person's feelings. Argh.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:43 AM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

My panic levels have been steadily increasing over the last ten days or so, and now I've officially hit the point of "utterly terrified to the point that I can barely think about anything else."

Maybe it's for the best that I'll be spending roughly 12 hours per day at work on Monday and Tuesday, and I have a job that doesn't allow me to focus on much anything else. (Fortunately I don't have to be at work until around 11 am, so I have time to go vote Tuesday morning.) I'm hoping and praying to the god that I don't believe in that by the time I get out from work around 11 pm ET on Tuesday night things will already be wrapping up. That's probably a long shot though. I fear I'll be getting very little sleep Tuesday night.

I also had a sudden omg what if I'm not actually registered to vote (even though I've voted in multiple elections over the last several years from my current address) moment. For anyone in Massachusetts, you can check your voter registration status here, which also gives your polling place and a sample ballot.

Anyway, yes, I'm still registered to vote, and it did warm my heart that aside from the presidential election, the rest of the officials up for election in my district are all Democrats running unopposed.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:44 AM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

If millenials need to backpat in order for them to help save us from ourselves then fine. We can always go back to rolling our eyes at them after our future is saved from dystopia.
posted by vuron at 10:46 AM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

scaryblackdeath: A vote for a dumb reason still counts!
posted by JDHarper at 10:46 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

How this campaign will be remembered
posted by flabdablet at 10:47 AM on November 6, 2016 [38 favorites]

Part of me almost wants to collect all of the 2016 election threads and print them out. Anyone have an idea of how many words have been written in these threads?

This was calculated on October 14th (three-and-a-half weeks, or about twelve threads) ago) and it was a bit daunting even then.

By comparison, Infinite Jest is about 543,000 words long, and The Lord of the Rings about 481,000.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:49 AM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump Cold Open - SNL. "With 72 hours remaining until Election Day, Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon) and Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) appear on Erin Burnett (Cecily Strong) OutFront."
posted by homunculus at 10:49 AM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

This campaign will be remembered for the candidate of a major party getting up on stage and reading a concise summation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a campaign speech.
posted by Talez at 10:49 AM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Yeah I am pretty much certain of a Clinton win and moderately confident about the Senate and I will definitely take a Xanax Tuesday.

Needless to say worker productivity is going to suck next week.

Election threads and Civ6 will hopefully get me through.
posted by vuron at 10:50 AM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

No offense to all of you good people, but I hope this is the last thread we have to come together like this, and that everything goes relatively smoothly, with nothing that would warrant an election overtime thread on Wednesday.

And if the worst should come to pass, I leave you all of my hollandaise sauce and guacamole, because I will be promptly dropping off the grid and going into hiding. Eat it quickly, it doesn't keep.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:51 AM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

Someone in the last thread noted that Nov 8 is to be National Pantsuit Day!

Wear your Pantsuit on Tuesday!
posted by cashman at 10:51 AM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

It's also frustrating as fuck 'cause I'm so, so sick of hearing Baby Boomers and Gen Xers (my own generation) talk shit about Millennials. If Millennials don't vote for Hillary, yes it's on them for not being able to choose the single obviously good selection from amid a field of trash, but there's at least as much blame to be shouldered by previous generations who have let 24+ years of sexist, alarmist bullshit against Clinton slide for so long.

Because as usual, every complaint against Millennials is a reason older generations should maybe step the fuck back and take a long hard look at their own bullshit.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:51 AM on November 6, 2016 [115 favorites]

haha those unrealistic dreamers

I mean I see what you're getting at but TRUMP. He's really bad.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:51 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
– Charles Bukowski
posted by robbyrobs at 10:55 AM on November 6, 2016 [98 favorites]

scaryblackdeath Part of me suspects that because the only Presidents that Millennials remember are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, they're not used to having to compromise on a Presidential candidate. W's legacy is, at least from my vantage point, a huge failure, while Obama looks to be my generation's JFK without the unfortunate final chapter. If you've never had to vote for a compromise candidate, then it's going to be really hard to pinch your nose and do it.

I was a Dean supporter in 2004, my first Presidential Election, and beyond bummed when he dropped out. But, I pinched my nose and voted for Kerry. And he lost. In 2008, I gave serious thought to voting McCain if Hillary was the nominee (because of the Iraq war), until McCain signed on Sarah Palin. Fortunately, Obama was the nominee. I voted for Bernie in the primaries, but I'm voting Clinton on Tuesday, and doing it happily. She's walked back her support of the Iraq was, for one. Yeah, it's a compromise, but THAT'S HOW POLITICS WORKS.
posted by SansPoint at 10:56 AM on November 6, 2016 [48 favorites]

haha yeah those silly millenials who gathered by the thousands for progressive ideals and refused to settle for third way New Democrat neoliberalism and brought about the most progressive major party platform in the history of the republic.

haha those unrealistic dreamers

I'm just frustrated that so few of my cohort are now inspired to go out there and finish the fight and elect someone who can actually do something about implementing it! And going out there and voting and encouraging their friends to vote so we can push the down ticket races, too.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:56 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

How this campaign will be remembered

I read a hundred and fifty threads, nine million words, spent untold hours on these threads and somehow I missed the MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL?
posted by saturday_morning at 10:56 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hillary campaigner flipping a skateboard in a pantsuit and heels.
posted by octothorpe at 10:57 AM on November 6, 2016 [93 favorites]

Charles Bukowski

I feel like he may have been paraphrasing an earlier thing
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:58 AM on November 6, 2016 [37 favorites]

In its continuing series of articles aimed at depressing Bostonians who live in a blue bubble, the Boston Globe today introduces us to Beckley, WV, where people talk of moving out of the country if Clinton wins (to "an island that ain’t got nothing but monkeys on it") predict Clinton will get us into a war ("I'm not trying to be a male chauvinist but who can they intimidate the most - male or female?") and where people are not quite sure a rumor about the government buying 30,000 guillotines to dispatch "Christians and people who believe in the Second Amendment" is false.
posted by adamg at 10:59 AM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

*Hillary will win.
*Obvious anagram Reince Priebus says the Republican party (official) will accept the outcome (even if Cheeto Benito doesn't)
*I will be wearing a pantsuit while voting on Tuesday.
*Mexicans and other Latinxs, African Americans, and other non whites will save this country from its white angry fragile men
*And on Tuesday night, there will be tacos for everyone!
posted by Sophie1 at 11:00 AM on November 6, 2016 [33 favorites]

Trump speech writer's pants literally catch on fire while writing Trump speech. [REAL, only in 2016 . . . ]
posted by flug at 11:00 AM on November 6, 2016 [55 favorites]

Ooh Sophie1 thank you so much for the idea. It's going to be Taco Tuesday for dinner in the saturday_morning household.
posted by saturday_morning at 11:01 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

This is the ULTIMATE TACO TUESDAY!
posted by Sophie1 at 11:04 AM on November 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

I found out this morning that my mom voted for Trump. I thought maybe, just maybe, she was one of the conservative women secretly voting Hillary, but no. It just makes me so sad.
posted by phunniemee at 11:05 AM on November 6, 2016 [40 favorites]

I'm just frustrated that so few of my cohort are now inspired to go out there and finish the fight and elect someone who can actually do something about implementing it! And going out there and voting and encouraging their friends to vote so we can push the down ticket races, too.

Whereas I'm so enthused by seeing so many of my friends volunteer and get more involved in local politics after Bernie energized them after the normal DNC ignored them for years. One of my BernieOrBust friends worked to get the first Somali-American legislator elected in the US. She's now voting for Clinton and still holding her feet to the fire for the post-election.
Maybe if all you see around you are apolitical people who don't care, that means your friends and co-workers are bad, not young people in general. Cause I'm still stunned by what my cohort is up to.
posted by neonrev at 11:07 AM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

Obvious anagram Reince Priebus

Runic bee spire?
Beer urine pics?
Incubi pee errs?
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:07 AM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

My oldest and best friend voted McNuggets. I found that out at lunch yesterday.
posted by Oyéah at 11:08 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Him?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:08 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

People, please don't start in with "it's the millennials" vs whatever. Come on.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:09 AM on November 6, 2016 [62 favorites]

So sorry phunniemee - many of us have a trumpy family member. Hugs.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:09 AM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

Evan McMillen is really the only choice if one's a Conservative.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 11:10 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

There is also Evan McMullin.
posted by Oyéah at 11:11 AM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

My oldest and best friend voted McNuggets.

Is he doing well enough now to get on the lunch menu?
posted by phunniemee at 11:11 AM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

> There is also Evan McMullin.

McDonald's now serves breakfast all day.
posted by guiseroom at 11:12 AM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

Cause I'm still stunned by what my cohort is up to.

I was considering pointing out that for me "so few" could well actually mean "not every one"
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:13 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

There is also Evan McMullin.

Potato, putato.
posted by orange ball at 11:13 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

From the NYT piece on Trump's last stand

At times, however, that is hard to detect. Over a cheeseburger, fried calamari and an “Ivanka Salad” at the Trump Grill in the basement of Trump Tower last week, several aides flipped open a laptop and loaded the popular website 270towin.com, which allows users to create their own winning electoral maps.

For 10 minutes, they clicked through the country, putting Democratic-leaning states won by Mr. Obama four years ago, like New Mexico and Colorado, into Mr. Trump’s column.

I'm literally qualified to be a Trump campaign aide. Maybe overqualified.
posted by dis_integration at 11:15 AM on November 6, 2016 [54 favorites]

the Boston Globe today introduces us to Beckley, WV

Of course they do. Did they stop at the "journalist supplies" aisle at the local WalMart?

I hope someone does a final count of these pieces, but I also hope that the Globe takes stock of its own segregated city and at nearby places like Medford where the local cops yuk-yuk-yuk about locking up Hillary.
posted by holgate at 11:17 AM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Jallia's story is like the longest, weirdest, awesomest variant of the Freeshow joke that I have ever heard.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:17 AM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Johnny Isakson, David Perdue reject long-term Supreme Court stonewall

The two Georgia R senators say they'll consider Clinton nominees. There's also this:

"For his part, Isakson said that if Clinton wins the presidency, he expects the Senate will confirm Garland before January. Many Republicans fear that Clinton would nominate a more liberal justice, swinging the ideological balance of the court even further to the left."
posted by chris24 at 11:21 AM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

>Charles Bukowski

>>I feel like he may have been paraphrasing an earlier thing

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be orange?"

...is pretty much how I feel about it.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:23 AM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

My panic levels have been steadily increasing over the last ten days or so, and now I've officially hit the point of "utterly terrified

(not a trump supporter) But could I just say that if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic, there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check. It's the thing that annoys me about "democracy solves.. " no no no, Separation of Powers is what differentiates the USA system from many others. Trump could nominate 2-3 justices in his career but there you go, a good case for having one part of government that can hang on for a lifetime.

Trump would have the best State Dinners since Camelot, and cause some real issues but it's not the end. Not pushing the red button, not pulling his TrumpTruck up to Fort Knox. It'd be wacky but ok.
posted by sammyo at 11:24 AM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump lacks even the style to make it up to the level of "rough beast."
posted by Archelaus at 11:24 AM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Thanks to those of you who mentioned BLM yard signs in the last thread. I've been looking for something to counter the awful "Blue Lives Matter" flag flying across the street

An entreprenurial vexillologist should create a "black-white-brown" tricolor flag.
posted by rhizome at 11:27 AM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check

The President is still the executive, and can cause enormous harm by sowing organizational disorder. If orders hadn't come down from the Whitehouse in 2001 that no one wants to hear about Islamic Terrorism, it's quite likely that 9/11 wouldn't have happened, for instance. Same thing for the housing bubble and the Iraq war, which are still harming America today..
posted by Coventry at 11:27 AM on November 6, 2016 [46 favorites]

If Trump wins he'll get the Carter treatment for sure.
posted by rhizome at 11:28 AM on November 6, 2016

sammyo, I think you aren't necessarily recognizing the extent to which a President Trump (shudder) could embolden others in a way that would make this country incredibly unlivable for many people of color, not to mention the millions of people he pledges to throw out of the country at gunpoint.

I don't want to debate "nuclear war or merely bad stuff" because that's pointless, but it does cut to people's safety and security in a very real way, and you only have to look at the damage he's already done as merely a candidate to see that.
posted by zachlipton at 11:28 AM on November 6, 2016 [57 favorites]

I found out this morning that my mom voted for Trump.

Mine's donation to Trump showed up on the SEC's site recently. I just gave an offset to the ActBlue fund that's set up for the Senate candidates right on the edge.
posted by Candleman at 11:28 AM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

But could I just say that if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic, there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check.

I think you're vastly underestimating the power of the Presidency and the moral bankruptcy of the congress. Trump will not be checked and balanced if he's rubber stamping the Ryan agenda, and if he wins that means the Senate will likely stay in GOP hands. As for the courts, they can issue all the judgments they want against him. He won't listen. The rule of law only extends as far as we permit it to. Trump has no respect for the rule of law and won't let silly things like "you don't have the legal authority" stop him.
posted by dis_integration at 11:28 AM on November 6, 2016 [76 favorites]

But could I just say that if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic
I tend to agree with you, but that's very, very cold comfort to the millions of people who would have their lives destroyed by things he'd do in conjunction with a Republican congress. People who would be deported, and/or lose their healthcare, and/or face even more restrictions on their ability to get an abortion, and/or lose their job when the economy crashes. Let alone the rise in discrimination and violence that such a victory would embolden.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 11:29 AM on November 6, 2016 [58 favorites]

sammyo there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check.

Not when their party controls all three branches of government. And Trump will nominate at least TWO Supreme Court justices in his term, leaving Trumpism in control of the Judicial Branch for decades to come.

And, no Trump won't have the best State Dinners since Kennedy. He doesn't drink, and he takes his steak well done.
posted by SansPoint at 11:30 AM on November 6, 2016 [46 favorites]

he takes his steak well done
My god. And here I though I could no longer be shocked by this monster.
posted by Ragged Richard at 11:31 AM on November 6, 2016 [124 favorites]

Obama looks to be my generation's JFK without the unfortunate final chapter.

TURN AROUND THREE TIMES AND SPIT.
posted by BrashTech at 11:31 AM on November 6, 2016 [83 favorites]

But could I just say that if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic, there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check.

I have to disagree. It's not what he could do (which would be considerable), it's the things a Trump presidency would ratify by implication. This place being what it is, there's no need for me to list them.

It would be a catastrophe.
posted by Mooski at 11:31 AM on November 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

It's utterly surreal that one of the presidential candidates has had his Twitter privileges revoked, like a sullen teenager, because he can't be trusted not to say something outrageous.

How the very hell would such a man cope with the presidency? How is he polling even in double digits?

I know, I know. You should see the shitstorm over here over Brexit. It's every bit as cray-cray. We've had Brexiters asking the army to take over, because a military coup d'etat is more democratic than having judges correctly interpret the law.

Come on, NASA. Get that warp drive working. I need off this planet.
posted by Devonian at 11:32 AM on November 6, 2016 [55 favorites]

Wait what well done steak?

Goddamn there really is no end to the depravity
posted by vuron at 11:33 AM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yestetday, my friend Vera and I had decided to put our mail in ballots in the collection box by Seattle Community College and then get breakfast. Only she slept in and then had to go to work.

So, she swung by after 3 and we went.to her place to pick up.her pallet. Which was what.her phone heard instead of ballot. And she got such a cherry parking spot, we decided to walk down to Broadway. In the rain. And me in a hoodie.

Well, we got to Broadway, dropped off our ballots and.then went to the Deluxe for breakfast at 6.

And then went to my hovel and dried our coats over an.open oven and hung out. And, to my delight and hers, Vera finally got watch a bit of Vera before Ubering home.

I fell asleep with the BBC overnight with butterflies in my stomach, woke up with.same and will rinse and repeat until at least Wednesday.
posted by y2karl at 11:33 AM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check.

Until there aren't. The Trump campaign has already violated all kinds of norms and even if he loses there's no guarantee that he'll suffer as a result, or that by ignoring established precedents he emboldens others to do the same.
posted by holgate at 11:34 AM on November 6, 2016 [31 favorites]

They certainly kept Obama in check, except for drone warfare. Donald is the dream auto pilot president for institutionalized bigotry, racism, sexism, class warfare, and caste.
posted by Oyéah at 11:39 AM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Are we going to use this thread or a new one for covering the white nationalist siege America will be under as soon as Trump loses
posted by beerperson at 11:40 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

If I see one more liberal handwring essay about the noble fucking morons of Bumblefuck County and why they believe literally the stupidest and most easily debunked bullshit rumors but that's honorable because they are old and white and had every god damn privilege handed to them during the post-War boom economy so they had no choice but to screw everyone that came after them and now they feel left out of the national conversation because we don't arrest gay people for sodomy any more and theres all these brown people around now that get to vote and have jobs too and that's an affront to God I guess because every one of them is a terrorist looking to crash a plane into the Cracker Barrel off Route 9 I may well fucking ignite.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:40 AM on November 6, 2016 [333 favorites]

This 60 second GOTV ad just went on the air in AZ, CO, FL, IA, MI, NC, NH, NV, OH, PA & WI through Election Day.

BTW, for anyone on Twitter, I compiled an election list from some of my favorite sources. It's not exhaustive but a way to get a quick pulse.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:41 AM on November 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

> Trump speech writer's pants literally catch on fire while writing Trump speech. [REAL, only in 2016 . . . ]

That's not Trump's speechwriter, that's Steve Bannon, the neo-nazi in charge of the Trump campaign (as well as Breitbart and the rumored-to-be-pending extremist cable TV news channel).
posted by ardgedee at 11:41 AM on November 6, 2016

Isakson and Purdue must be looking at the blue wave heading down the Piedmont region and also looking at Atlanta's demographics and going ohh shit. There are likely others that are seeing the cold hard truth of electoral extinction and going maybe Garland isn't so bad.
posted by vuron at 11:42 AM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

those silly millenials who... refused to settle... and brought about the most progressive major party platform in the history of the republic... haha those unrealistic dreamers

Historically, platforms mean almost nothing in relation to what actually happens after an election. So let's see what actually happens when the sausage gets made.

Things could get (remain?) pretty feisty in the Democratic party in the years to come if the Clinton administration doesn't veer left, hard and often.
posted by rokusan at 11:43 AM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks to those of you who mentioned BLM yard signs in the last thread. I've been looking for something to counter the awful "Blue Lives Matter" flag flying across the street

Currently, there's a faculty art show at the local university. One display is a coloring book titled "All Lives Matter." And cover is white with black line art, as are the interior pages. The box of crayons provided with it is one of the Crayola "multi cultural" boxes, which would normally have a good selection of various different flesh tones, but is, instead, filled with nothing but pure white crayons. It's a nice, slow-burn piece.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:44 AM on November 6, 2016 [184 favorites]

They certainly kept Obama in check, except for drone warfare.

Killing brown people overseas without any American casualties at all, while spending billions on very expensive weapons to do so, is a position that all status quo politicians, even Republicans, have no problem getting behind, so this is a bit of an easy sell.
posted by rokusan at 11:45 AM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Thorzdad *slow clap*
posted by SansPoint at 11:45 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Anyone have an idea of how many words have been written in these threads?

I ran the script just now, and it came out to 9,509,783 words, or about 38,000 pages. That's not totally precise, for a number of reasons. It's missing words that were posted since I downloaded the new FPPs about a half hour ago. I also didn't want to re-download all the FPPs that I used from the last calculation, so my local cache may be missing words from FPPs that were active during that time (except I did re-download the thread where I made that comment). Finally, there are a handful of FPPs that are tagged "election2016" that really don't count as "election threads" per se (especially before 2016), but they're pretty small, so they probably don't affect the count too much.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:47 AM on November 6, 2016 [26 favorites]

Be like Joe Biden. Make a plan to vote. (yt)
posted by ltl at 11:48 AM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Things could get (remain?) pretty feisty in the Democratic party in the years to come if the Clinton administration doesn't veer left, hard and often.

Unfortunately, they'll end up veering straight into that stone wall called the House of Representatives. So, realistically, a Clinton administration, even with a Democratic Senate, isn't going to be able to accomplish dick if it requires House input.

On the other hand, leaders the House has already pledged to draw-up articles of impeachment, which are going to tie-up the Senate for awhile.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:49 AM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

For me, I believe that this election season - no small thanks to Bernie et al, also BLM, also feminists, also immigrants activists and many others - people have articulated a shared vision of a better future. We come from a lot of different places politically, but I think there's a compromise vision out there now - sure, it's no anarchist utopia, and maybe if we achieved a sort of moderate social democracy then we'd all have to fight amongst ourselves to figure out the next step, but I feel a much clearer sense of direction now.

The other thing is - even in a really progressive society, most people aren't going to want to be heavily politically engaged. If we go from a situation where, like, 1% of your friends care to a situation where 5% of your friends care, that's huge. You don't need every single person to be active, just a meaningful increase. I believe we've got this.

In fact, I think that unless Trump pulls it off and can institute massive voter disenfranchisement, impoverishment and repression, those Republicans had better fucking watch out in the future.
posted by Frowner at 11:50 AM on November 6, 2016 [57 favorites]

Can't you filibuster articles of impeachment.
posted by ctmf at 11:52 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's why she's likely to be in for a lot of friction from both sides, Thorzdad, making 2020 a pretty strange-looking reelection battle already.

But I guess we can discuss that in one of the next 1,200 post/pre/election threads.

[Insert calliope music here]
posted by rokusan at 11:53 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can't you filibuster articles of impeachment.

If you can filibuster, you can vote to aquit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:53 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

>> Trump speech writer's pants literally catch on fire while writing Trump speech. [REAL, only in 2016 . . . ]

> That's not Trump's speechwriter, that's Steve Bannon, the neo-nazi in charge of the Trump campaign (as well as Breitbart and the rumored-to-be-pending extremist cable TV news channel).

Oh, I know that very well. But among the other things he is, Bannon is also one of Trump's speech writers now. The primary one lately, by all indications (ie, content of said speeches).

So it's really quite fitting that his pants just spontaneously caught on fire in the middle of writing his usual pile of lies.

I mean really, just how often does that happen IRL? No one would dare put such a thing in fiction--it's literally unbelievable . . .
posted by flug at 11:54 AM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Can't you filibuster articles of impeachment.

And tie up the Senate even longer?
posted by fifthrider at 11:54 AM on November 6, 2016

That Drunk History episode with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alia Shawkat and Aubrey Plaza should really, really have been scheduled for election night, or at least election eve.
posted by rokusan at 11:55 AM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

"Like a Norman Rockwell painting full of assholes, the Main Street of Dickhead Falls has seen better days" [fake]
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

My favorite thing about the "millennials vs" stuff is that previous incarnation was "boomers vs", so it's pretty obvious it's just Gen X getting pissy and throwing shade for getting dragged to and fro in the big waves. As an Xer myself, I won't say I support this, mostly just 'cause I want to maintain plausible deniability.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Articles of impeachment are drawn up and voted on by the House of Representatives, which does not have a filibuster. An impeachment is similar to an indictment in that it is a formalized accusation.

The job of the Senate is to conduct a trial for a President already impeached.

So, no, no filibuster.
posted by absalom at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

You don't need to filibuster articles of impeachment. The filibuster is a Senate thing and for impeachment to get through the Senate, it needs a 2/3 majority vote so there's no need for a filibuster to prevent a president from being removed from office.
posted by jclarkin at 11:57 AM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

For those upthread expressing worry about the millennial vote: What the Electoral College Would Look Like if Only Millennials Voted.

Attention, Boomers: collect your own, please.

(And maybe also give a millennial a ride to the polls with that car you could actually afford because you did not come of age during the world's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, hmm?)
posted by BlueJae at 11:57 AM on November 6, 2016 [64 favorites]

@hannahbfine
"The first president I got to vote for was black like me. And now I get to vote for a lady. It's just amazing." -Dominique
#OHVotesEarly [pic of Dominque at her polling place]

I love the sweatshirt she's wearing.
posted by chris24 at 11:57 AM on November 6, 2016 [37 favorites]

Any eyerolling I do at Millenials is based in the deep cynicism of Generation X.

But honestly I really like the idea of the new Hillary coalition taking charge. Millenials, Women, PoC, LGBTQ individuals, etc all working together and charting a course towards a better more inclusive future sounds fun.

Yeah dystopias make for good stories but I am ready for my Star Trek future now.
posted by vuron at 11:58 AM on November 6, 2016 [54 favorites]

Yeah, I'm a little confused at all the hand-wringing about millennials, when we are less likely to support Trump than any other age group.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:58 AM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Days Before The Election, Sunday Shows Turn Almost Exclusively To White Guests
posted by zombieflanders at 11:59 AM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

but I feel a much clearer sense of direction now.

Yeah I'm comparing this to 15 years ago when the left felt real scattered and disheartened and now there's a much stronger leftist bent among the under 35s and you can say things like income inequality in TV and everything.

Granted I still plan on hording Xanax for Tuesday but still
posted by The Whelk at 11:59 AM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

Does anyone recall, from previous, recent presidential elections, roughly when enough votes are in and counted to make a definitive call (i.e., 270 electoral votes)?
posted by datawrangler at 11:59 AM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Right, but I meant more in a "refuse to even do it" sense. It's the senate's job to confirm appointments, too, but...
posted by ctmf at 12:02 PM on November 6, 2016

Has this been linked before? I don't care.

Campaigner Dianara Vazquez demonstrates how Hillary rolls with a kickflip in high heels.
posted by bluecore at 12:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

Nothing focuses otherwise apathetic voters like the prospect of Trumpocalyse. You've got a mobilized population now.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Datawrangler: It really depends. I'm expecting this one to be relatively quick, because winning Florida effectively clinches it for Clinton, and they're on the east coast. (Later time zone, so earlier poll closing.) But then again, Florida took a while sixteen years ago.
posted by fifthrider at 12:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Early voting is strong in Los Angeles today, the last day it's allowed. My wife and I live a block from our polling place, but we figured we'd drive to the nearest early voting site anyway. Welp, the line was five hundred at least and grew by twelve as we were stopped at the light. So it's bright and early Tuesday morning for me (she's mailing hers in).
posted by infinitewindow at 12:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

One deleted - no really, please cool it with the "what about millennials" vs. "boomers" vs. whatever thing.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

1457 days until election day!

There you go, forgetting the midterms again.

Come on, can we at least get through Liz Warren taking down Curt Schilling before we start in with the President again.
posted by davros42 at 12:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

Does anyone recall, from previous, recent presidential elections, roughly when enough votes are in and counted to make a definitive call

For Obama's last two wins, it was the second California polls closed.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:05 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

1457 days until election day!

I hate you.
posted by dersins at 12:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

For Obama's last two wins, it was the second California polls closed.

Which is 8pm local time, 11pm EST.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:08 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Our mayoral election here in NYC is a year from tomorrow. We don't get a break.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Does anyone recall, from previous, recent presidential elections, roughly when enough votes are in and counted to make a definitive call (i.e., 270 electoral votes)?

Copied from a 3rd party:

Clinton wins comfortably: Two swing states – Florida and Virginia – close polls at 7 pm EST. If the early returns from Florida are positive enough for Clinton, the election could be over in practical terms by 7:30, because if Clinton wins Florida, she wins the race.

Clinton wins a closer race: If results from Florida (7 pm), Ohio (7:30 pm), and North Carolina (7:30 pm) are too close to call, Clinton will come close to victory with 8 pm poll closings in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Hampshire, all of which she is likely to win. Victories in Colorado and Wisconsin, which close their polls at 9 pm, would seal Clinton’s victory, even if the big prizes (NC, FL, OH) were yet to be called.

Clinton wins a squeaker: If Trump seems to be winning in North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio, while pulling out a surprise win in New Hampshire, the race could come down to a pair of 10 pm poll closings – Iowa and Nevada. Winning one
posted by shothotbot at 12:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [32 favorites]

could I just say that if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic, there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check.

I'm curious which forces you're thinking of, because as I do a high level overview in my head, I have little confidence in their ability to keep a president unfettered by any internal loyalty to institutions in check:

* The courts? I don't even think one needs to make an argument about whether he'd respect any court review of that authority, it's obvious how unlikely that is. One wonders if he'd even bother to say something pithy like: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" And it's worth remembering Trump would also be appointing a supreme court justice or two or three.

* Impeachment: Would Republican officeholders in a position to make that happen do such a thing? I'm not sure, but based on their recent behavior, it's reasonable to expect many if not most of them have no particular principles that would prevent them from sacrificing most norms, institutions, and possibly the entire American experiment itself if it would help them lower taxes, serve mammon, and increase strong-father authoritarianism.

* Internal rebellion from the federal apparatus? Possible, maybe. There's probably operators here trained in the art of bureaucratic infighting. On the other hand, Trump can make personnel decisions pretty much at will, here. I'm also going to point out that specifically Trump would be in command of the federal law enforcement, intelligence, and the military. Speaking of that strong-father high-discipline dominate-through-aggressive-behavior philosophy I invoked earlier... how resistant to that do you think these organizations are? I have no doubt that among the personnel serving in those capacities there are some who would be. Maybe even many. Trump and his sub-commandants could fire every last one of them.

* Public opinion? The fifth estate? We've already seen exactly how much regard he has for these things, and the terrifying limits of how much can be done here to make a decisive plurality aware of his complete unsuitability have been revealed. And, similarly, we've seen exactly what the press can and will make of any opposition, like Clinton. If Trump can be elected this month, why would he not be re-elected in four years, assuming elections were still fair? Why would we assume elections in a country run by Donald Trump backed by the Republican party would be fair?

For that matter, why would we assume he would respect either the results (since he's on record with having a problem with that) or the two-term limit? Who is going to remove him once he's had time to shape the US Federal Government in an image that would support him, as he already has with the Republican party?
posted by wildblueyonder at 12:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

I'm expecting this one to be relatively quick, because winning Florida effectively clinches it for Clinton, and they're on the east coast.

Buzzfeed and a few others are not going with the traditional AP call or the practice of pretending that California won't go blue until the polls close at 8pm local, 11pm EST. I'm not massively pleased about that, because people will still be voting out west and I don't want voters in places like Arizona (on PST) to feel that the election's already decided while the polls are open, because there are downballot races to decide.

(That said, the Buzzfeed partnership with Decision Desk HQ -- rooted in a hyperconservative blog community, but straight-shooting and broadly respected for how it obtains its local results -- is very 2016.)
posted by holgate at 12:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Thanks for the info on the "when" of a 270+. That being said, this election has done nothing good for digestion, let alone blood pressure. I'm as concerned about the day after as I am the day of.
posted by datawrangler at 12:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic, there are massive legal, social and cultural forces that keep American Presidents in check.

If Trump wins, it's pretty-much a given that the R's keep the Senate, too. Short of a Supreme Court that suddenly grows a backbone, there's scant little in-place that could keep TrumpCo from pretty-much dismantling everything the right has been wanting to dismantle over the past thirty-plus years.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Prepping the secret GOP weapon.
posted by clavdivs at 12:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

That being said, this election has done nothing good for digestion, let alone blood pressure.

Heh. My tolerance for cabernet sauvignon has roughly doubled since Super Tuesday, which is both disturbing and expensive.
posted by Mooski at 12:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

FBI Dir just informed us "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Sec Clinton" (cite)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [50 favorites]

Does anyone recall, from previous, recent presidential elections, roughly when enough votes are in and counted to make a definitive call (i.e., 270 electoral votes)?

Obama '08 was called shortly after 9pm. When Indiana went blue, the table was set.
posted by cmfletcher at 12:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

FBI Dir just informed us "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Sec Clinton"

Thanks for fucking nothing, Comey.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [92 favorites]

Look at all these brown faces eager to vote for Trump in Florida today!
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I hope Comey is happy he decided to destroy his career for Jason Chaffetz and to knock a couple points of Clintons victory margin. Maybe he thinks it was still worth it if he swings the Senate.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

roomthreeseventeen Now will people please shut the fuck up about the motherfucking emails for fuck's sake?

Of course they won't...
posted by SansPoint at 12:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Thanks for fucking nothing, Comey.

hey rats aren't nothing
posted by dersins at 12:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

Shorter Comey: Never mind.
posted by madamjujujive at 12:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

What do people think about Slate's VoteCastr thing?
posted by longdaysjourney at 12:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wow, these threads are such a mess. Anyway, re-posting:

Field reports coming in. We know the dem side is out doing final canvas rounds on foot to specify Hillary voters, and this list will be the final Monday/Tuesday all-hands turnout list. For example, I spent a few hours in a NoVA neighborhood, and had been one of 150 people in the area just that day, and that was just part of a separate union effort. We were working off an already-narrowed list and it's late in the game; mostly we didn't talk to people but we left notes on doors with election day poll hours and "vote no on issue 1" (the Right to Work amendment). As we were leaving we saw a van full of Hillary campaign people show up to the same neighborhood to work their own lists.

But on the R side? Based on recent reports from folks I know, who are deployed in Florida, Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, we're only seeing Trump folks doing visibility things, holding signs on bridges and street corners. We went under a freeway overpass that had a big Trump sign and a jumping and waving family, including kids. Anything on a bridge is almost certainly unsanctioned (authorities don't like it). I'm wondering if all of this "visibility work" in swing states is actually just Trump supporters who've been given no direction and are just burning energy wholesale.

We weren't waving signs, but I know the neighbors saw us walking the neighborhood, and would have seen others like us and maybe checked out what notes we left or chatted to their neighbor about "there were some people here," so canvassing has its own aspect of visibility.

The ground game seems to be going uncontested.

But there's still the final sprint through apathy and voter suppression obstacles.
posted by zennie at 12:30 PM on November 6, 2016 [34 favorites]

Tampa, FL (omg that LINE)

Seeing this line of folks from back home brought genuine tears to my eyes.
posted by dis_integration at 12:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Utterly chilling perspective on what a Trump presidency could bring, by a former Marine Corps officer: America is more fragile than you think.
posted by Sublimity at 12:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [28 favorites]

Granted I still plan on hording Xanax for Tuesday but still

I have two semi-serious quandaries for election day:

(1) After voting, walk over to the pub owned by a local Democratic official and candidate (Loughran's, owned by Mr. Loughran), or drive for Mexican?
(2) Benzos, beer, or a pitcher of some healthful cocktail? This one sucks because it's really truly either-or.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:33 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

WaPo: FBI Director Comey says agency won’t recommend charges over Clinton email
posted by xyzzy at 12:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Since this is the last FPP, I'm going out and say that I've been calling Pence "Racist Bannon" (because, also, Samantha Bee, I think) and only very recently I noticed there was an actual racist called Bannon on the staff.

I'm really not sure if a scripted version of this shitshow could have been written this obvious. Either that, or the writers on this planetary simulation we're all in got lazy this year.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

TURN AROUND THREE TIMES AND SPIT.
posted by BrashTech at 11:31 AM on November 6 [16 favorites +] [!]

If this Presidential race gets any closer I'm going to turn around three times and shit.
posted by Kibbutz at 12:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

FBI: Review of new emails doesn't change its conclusions on Clinton

Fuck yeah! But fuck Comey for blowing up the election for nothing.
posted by chris24 at 12:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

You guys I got added to Pantsuit Nation today and I'm so happy I could burst.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [35 favorites]

I'm wondering if all of this "visibility work" in swing states is actually just Trump supporters who've been given no direction and are just burning energy wholesale.

I mean, with an analytics team that apparently relies heavily on 270toWin.com, it wouldn't exactly shock me if his field team is sufficiently incompetent that they focus on visibility over actually G-ing OTV.
posted by dersins at 12:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

One of the New Yorker's cartoonists decided to get away from election stress by judging a corgi competition in Tennessee.
posted by suelac at 12:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [28 favorites]

burdock sticky things

Not to add insult to injury, but, um...

Burs. They're called burs. They are 'docked' in burdock. That's why it's called that.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Are we going to use this thread or a new one for covering the white nationalist siege America will be under as soon as Trump loses

Or if he wins, as per the post Brexit surge in hate speech and crimes. I'm from the UK and used to live in the US, and seeing the divisions and surges in populist anti-immigration rhetoric in both this year has been pretty upsetting.

I'm still feeling pretty good about the very likely Clinton win, and even starting to have a glimmer of hope that Brexit Britain might even be OK somewhere down the line, but man, the damage done by both the Leave and Trump campaigns is just horrifying. People's trust in governments and the political process is just shattered, at a time when more than ever we need governments and countries working together on globe-spanning problems that will take an enormous amount of political will to solve.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

FBI: Review of new emails doesn't change its conclusions on Clinton

Man, fuck a big bag of CNN. How about "FBI: Oops, Our Bad" or maybe even "Clinton Cleared"?

Liberal media my ass.
posted by Mooski at 12:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [71 favorites]

Id wear a white pantsuit in solidarity but that would just be a suit and everyone would think I was Tony Manero and I don't think the republic would survive all the resultant simultaneous ovulations.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:40 PM on November 6, 2016 [18 favorites]

Just came in from GOTV canvassing in Virginia, talked to a lot of enthusiastic folks. And now I'm about to paint my nails a nice bright blue!
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

I wonder which take Trump will go with in today's rallies. Will it be angry fulminating against Comey, or some sort of weirdly slick insinuation that the "Trumplandia" portion of the FBI will still somehow indict Clinton (despite the fact that indictment is not their job).
posted by zombieflanders at 12:47 PM on November 6, 2016

Personally I'm hoping we get Riled Up About the New York Times Trump.
posted by palomar at 12:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

“They have great money because they have oil. They have much oil,”

“Any place where they have oil, I would knock the hell out of ‘em, and I would put boots on the ground in those areas; I would take the oil.”

“And in order to do that, you would have to put boots. I would knock the hell out of ‘em, but I’d put a ring around it, and I’d take the oil for our country. I’d just take the oil.”

Donald Trump sharing his subtle foreign policy insights and explaining how he would totally not start a war. (real)
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [43 favorites]

@BenjySarlin: "Guys! I spent all week checking those emails and it's nothing, what did I miss while I was gone?"
posted by zombieflanders at 12:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pantsuit Nation is saving the last shreds of my sanity. So many stories. I am more inspired than I have been in years.
posted by custardfairy at 12:53 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

Yes. She is probably going to get us more involved, militarily, in more places. That's pretty much a given.

And as with so much about this election: yes, that sucks, but it's still better than the alternative, and it's not even close.

So, two steps forward, one step back rather than thirty steps back.
posted by rokusan at 12:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Based on Tim Kaine's Replacements fandom, it's not unreasonable to think that at some point as Vice President he'll try to get us involved with My War .
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Liz Warren taking down Curt Schilling

I've been watching a replay of college football over lunch and now I have this vision of Liz Warren making a full speed beautiful form tackle to Schilling's midsection like Jabrill Peppers on a Maryland QB

Also, this may already have been linked but national treasure Charlie Pierce with this beautiful takedown of Schilling:

If the rotator cuff were in the brain, this man would tear it.

posted by Existential Dread at 12:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

A couple thoughts on the Comey/FBI thing. One, it's made me realize, oh yeah, the FBI are basically just more powerful cops! Which seems obvious in retrospect, but the sort of cultural vibe around them feels pretty different... Personally, I blame The X-Files. So, yeah, the Pro-Trump faction of the FBI is just like the federal version of those cops wearing Trump hats while in uniform.

Second, coming out with this now smacks of Comey trying to cover his ass in the other direction. "See, I cleared you before the election! I'm not a Republican hack at all. Please don't fire me." Which is heartening because it suggests his read of the tea leaves is that Clinton is going to win, aka his ploy failed.

I still hope he gets fired though.
posted by overglow at 12:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

Amiable sports goofball and staunch anti-Trump writer Drew Magary has a new piece, Donald Trump Is Going To Get His Ass Kicked on Tuesday:

I tweeted about this yesterday, but I’m gonna put the take here because maybe you’re already freaking out about Tuesday and starting to drink heavily. Here’s the deal: Donald Trump is going to get his ass kicked. Anyone who says otherwise is either a) afraid of jinxing it and/or making Hillary Clinton voters complacent (understandable); b) afraid of being wrong (Nate Silver); c) supporting Trump; or d) interested in making this a “horse race” for the sake of maintaining public interest (most of the television media, along with grotesque shitbags like Mark Halperin).

But this isn’t close, and never was. The evidence right there in front of you, if you care to notice. Donald Trump has never led in an aggregate of polls for any significant stretch of time. He hasn’t personally raised any money for his campaign in over a month. He lost all three debates. He’s made virtually no effort to get his voters to the polls, instead relying on a Republican party that is being badly outspent and reduced to waging repugnant (and likely illegal) voter-suppression efforts that—despite being successful in some small areas—will ultimately turn legions more voters against them.

posted by palindromic at 12:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [51 favorites]

mefi needs an [n eyerolls +] button to go with the favorites.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

With Chris Christie's political career in flames it looks like he will have to return to his day job piloting Buy N Large's Axiom starliner through outer space.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 1:00 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Second, coming out with this now smacks of Comey trying to cover his ass in the other direction.

Nah, his wording was (in my opinion) intentionally ambiguous - "We haven't changed our conclusions" allows an ignorant person reading the headline to assume that nothing's changed, and that the emails are as much an issue as ever.

It was a nasty bit of work, and I hope his PR folks are proud of themselves.
posted by Mooski at 1:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [39 favorites]

could I just say that if Mr Trump is elected it's not the end of the republic

Maybe not but (as many people above have rightly said) he could do a vast amount of damage, not only to the US but to the world at large.

I'm a Brit and your comment reminded me of a conversation I had with a London taxi driver just after the Brexit vote. We quickly established that he'd voted "Leave", so I explained all the reasons why I'd voted "Remain". He didn't have much of an answer for any of them, but simply replied, "Ah, I think we'll survive". Well, yeah, I think we'll survive, mate - in the sense that there'll still be something called Britain left over when Brexit's fully in force - but isn't that setting your bar for success a little low?

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik summed up the importance of denying Trump the White House rather well in a BBC radio talk this week. "Imperfect, flawed, unjust and inequitable as America has been, the basic rules of liberal democracy have applied," he said of the post-WW2 period. "Governments change peacefully at the will of the people, opponents are not imprisoned, the free press continues mostly unobstructed and dissent, though persecuted at moments, is allowed its voice. Donald Trump has made it plain that he believes in none of these principles, and will end as many of them as he can."
posted by Paul Slade at 1:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [53 favorites]

Senior Cardgage: How dare you insult the pilot of the Axiom by comparing him to Chris Christie? Captain McCrea was a good man.
posted by SansPoint at 1:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Actually overglow, all this election interference nonsense with the FBI has me thinking that how the X-Files portrayed the FBI-- as an agency broken into multiple factions, each with their own agenda, some unduly influenced by shadowy powerbrokers, warring with one another over what truths or lies to disclose or not disclose to the public-- may have been startlingly accurate.
posted by BlueJae at 1:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [41 favorites]

Now that Comey has gone on the record, we just have to hear from the continuity wing of the NYC FBI office and their official spokesman Rudy Giuliani.
posted by holgate at 1:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Liz Warren taking down Curt Schilling...

Is he even going to last until Election Day?

He's such an empty ~~suit~~ pair of mustard-stained sweat pants.
posted by rokusan at 1:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I gotta wonder how much of the relentless raking of Hillary over the coals is just pure misogyny, subtlety in a way, like if it was a man he'd be given the benefit of the doubt.

You can see that in Obama vs Trump. If Obama exhibited any one of Trumps behaviors it would have been over before it started. He had to perfect.
posted by angrybear at 1:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

I do hope HRC and POTUS can work "they want him to have the nuclear codes, but they took away his Twitter?" into their speeches.
posted by holgate at 1:08 PM on November 6, 2016 [61 favorites]

Separation of Powers is what differentiates the USA system from many others.

The separation of powers is not some unbreakable law of physics or something; it only works as long as all three branches of power implicitly accept the legitimacy of the concept of separation of powers in the first place. A Trump presidency would mean having one branch that explicitly would not accept it, a second branch controlled by the party that has already proven itself too cowardly/craven/weak to stand up to Trump when he's merely a candidate, and a third branch that's essentially a wild card at this point.

To believe that the separation of powers would keep the worst excesses of a Trump presidency in check necessarily requires believing that the GOP is an entirely different party than the one it has repeatedly shown itself to be.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 1:08 PM on November 6, 2016 [62 favorites]

I feel like any combination of the words "Hillary," "FBI," and "emails" in the news isn't great, even if it is good news...
posted by guiseroom at 1:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

FBI are basically just more powerful cops! Which seems obvious in retrospect, but the sort of cultural vibe around them feels pretty different.

The FBI has a long history, going back to Hoover, of carefully cultivating its public image by shaping the way they're portrayed in movies and on TV.
posted by Coventry at 1:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

I've had to take a break from all things election because otherwise I would lose my mind. I wish I had benzos! I voted early, and on Tuesday itself I'm going to be waiting for my cat to be out of her dental appointment (cats need to be anesthetized for dental cleanings) so I'll have other things to keep myself from fretting TOO much.

And I'm a member of Pantsuit Nation now! #MillionPantsuitMarch

I want to say how impressed I am with Hillary Clinton's campaign. This ground game of hers, the GOTV push - it's a model of how a campaign should be run. She's doing a great job, not just for herself, but for all the downticket races. To me it augurs well about how she will be as President.

And speaking of downticket races - I was talking to a friend of mine, one of the last hippie/punk types still able to live in San Francisco. We agreed how important it is to pay attention to the downticket races, and both of us said that we even looked at School Board candidates despite us only having feline children. After all, this unsexy, unglamorous, but necessary stuff is how Presidents and Senators get started. As was noted in the other thread, President is a capstone, not a starting point. I'm going to be looking for opportunities to get involved with my local Democratic and progressive caucuses/parties after the dust settles. I think it's a huge mistake for us progressives, Democrats, lefties, what have you, to be fired up about the Presidency but apathetic when it comes to off-year races or who is going to be in the State Assembly. I want to see the current progressive energy keep going!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [64 favorites]

Folks, there is a limit to how far the scope of this thread can creep, and getting into military actions large and small over the past five years seems like it's going to get unwieldy *really* quickly.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 1:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ah, fair enough, BlueJae, but it's not like they actually have broodingly handsome, Romantic loners who are bravely fighting to discover forbidden truths that most people--oh fuck, that must be how some of these Trumpsters see themselves! OMG
posted by overglow at 1:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Obvious anagram Reince Priebus

Beers epic ruin?
Curb eerie nips?
Pubic sneer ire?
Scribe pee ruin?
Brie cure penis?
Brie incurs pee?
Crib seep urine?
Bi cruiser peen?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

I gotta wonder how much of the relentless raking of Hillary over the coals is just pure misogyny, subtlety in a way, like if it was a man he'd be given the benefit of the doubt.
I'm sorry, but if it's taken you to this point to start wondering this, you might want to broaden your horizons a bit. This has been part of the conversation for months in many, many places.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 1:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

I gotta wonder how much of the relentless raking of Hillary over the coals is just pure misogyny,

Oh, just the last 25 or so years of it, is all.

subtlety in a way,

It has in no way been even remotely subtle.

like if it was a man he'd be given the benefit of the doubt.

I mean, uh, yeah?
posted by dersins at 1:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [50 favorites]

This is where the anti-Clinton folks have made a fatal error. If she ever does do anything criminal, no one will believe it's nothing short of misogynists just being hateful.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 1:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

I gotta wonder how much of the relentless raking of Hillary over the coals is just pure misogyny, subtlety in a way, like if it was a man he'd be given the benefit of the doubt.

Why Hillary Clinton Is Like—and Unlike—Jackie Robinson

Almost 70 years later Hillary Clinton is seeking to break another glass ceiling as she attempts to become the first woman president of the United States. Like Robinson she has been the object of unusually harsh treatment of a kind that no male presidential candidate has ever endured. She has been ridiculed and verbally assaulted by Donald Trump in ways unprecedented in public life. He has attacked her for her facial expressions and claimed that she has no stamina and is physically frail. In his bullying manner, he has said on national television that she has “tremendous hate in her heart,” that “she is a nasty woman,” is “constantly playing the woman card,” and “doesn’t have a presidential look.” He has blamed her for her husband’s infidelities. He has called her a criminal who should be in prison. He has even insinuated that his followers who are gun activists might want to shoot her if she appoints Supreme Court justices they feel don’t share their vision of the Second Amendment. In the face of all this, Clinton has remained poised, professional, and controlled.

posted by kirkaracha at 1:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

I spent entirely too much time today making this interpretation of how I expect to be feeling on November 9th
posted by mrjohnmuller at 1:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

"Fuck You James Comey" by Jonathan Mann
posted by SansPoint at 1:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Hey, who needs some more blind rage in their lives? Of course you do. Go ahead, check out the latest ludicrous hit piece [NYT OP-ED] by, who else, Maureen frickin' Dowd. Yes, that's her actual middle name. Free false-equivalency sprinkles.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 1:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

*nurses beverage, waits for the new thread smell to dissipate*

2.5 hours before Comey's barely-an-announcement that he f'd up again, Al Franken says the Senate Judiciary Committee will be speaking with Comey

"We will have hearings. I'm sure that FBI Director Comey will be before us," Franken said. "I think he should be able to answer questions about this, and he should be able to control the FBI."
posted by petebest at 1:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [51 favorites]

Obama Mocks Trump For Getting His Twitter Confiscated
posted by zombieflanders at 1:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [109 favorites]

today introduces us to Beckley, WV, where people talk of moving out of the country if Clinton wins (to "an island that ain’t got nothing but monkeys on it")

/Jed Leland "I guess you'll move to an island and lord it over the monkeys."

(I've been to Beckley and surrounding areas: it's a beautiful place, but holy god is there nothing there.)
posted by octobersurprise at 1:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hillary Clinton wins Nickelodeon’s Kids Pick The President poll:

Despite the fact that her opponent actually looks and acts like a cartoon character, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has won Nickelodeon’s Kids Pick The President mock election. According to Entertainment Weekly, 905,928 kids cast their ballot in the online poll, with 53 percent going to Clinton, 31 percent going to Donald Trump, and 11 percent going to Gary Johnson—possibly because kids were under the impression that “Johnson” is the last name of SpongeBob’s pet snail.

posted by palindromic at 1:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

NBC's Pete Williams reports something about the FBI review not in Comey's letter: Nearly all documents were duplicates or personal
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

I'll be thrilled if Comey looses his position over this. I'll also hoping the email scandal shuts down the FBI's bitching about encryption.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Obama Mocks Trump For Getting His Twitter Confiscated yt

holgate, collect your prize.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Thank you for this thread, Wordshore, so often those of us who work Sundays are left re-loading 2 or 3 day old election threads!

I voted by mail here in Washington, proudly for Hilary and a bunch of awesome down-ticket candidates. Felt great. I dropped the ballot off along with a number of ballots from my clients.
posted by kittensofthenight at 1:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Georgia senators break with party, say they'll consider Clinton's supreme court picks

The comments from U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, who is up for re-election on Tuesday, and U.S. Senator David Perdue came after Republican Senators John McCain and Ted Cruz suggested they might block any of Clinton's potential nominees.

"You don't shirk your responsibility when you're an elected official. You sanctify your responsibility, and that's what I'll do. I'll consider who she nominates at the time she does and make a decision that's right for the people of Georgia," Isakson told the Atlanta newspaper.

A spokeswoman for Perdue, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the AJC: "He wants to ensure we have a Supreme Court justice who will uphold the Constitution, and he will examine each nominee independently based on their merits."

Georgia shatters early voting record

Secretary of State Brian Kemp said the total will continue to climb through the end of Friday, when early and advance voting ended. Georgia’s previous record was 2,129,316.

Fulton County leads the state in ballots cast, with 233,571. That is 65,115 more than DeKalb, coming in second at 168,456. Gwinnett is third, with 144,679, followed by Cobb’s 138,737 and Forsyth’s 65,157.

“What’s telling is that, in terms of early voters, Fulton and DeKalb are far ahead of their early voting numbers from the last election,” said Emory professor of political science Alan Abramowitz. “If early voting is an indicator of actual turnout, it could mean we’ll see a high turnout from Georgia’s two most heavily Democratic counties.
posted by Jalliah at 1:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [59 favorites]

Josh Marshall: This Never Should Have Happened:

It is certainly welcome news for the Clinton campaign that James Comey has now stated publicly that nothing in Huma Abedin's emails has changed the FBI's and his original judgment from July. This is not an interim report; it's final. The Clinton campaign will undoubtedly use it for everything it's worth in the remaining 48 hours-plus before voting ends Tuesday night. But while welcome, this new development doesn't remotely undo the original error or its consequences.

posted by palindromic at 1:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [30 favorites]

So in light of the the latest FBI news, are the people that changed their votes allowed to change them back?
posted by drezdn at 1:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Mexican peso just soared after the FBI cleared Clinton
posted by Jalliah at 1:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [41 favorites]

OMG OMG OMG she's campaigning with JR Smith. He's at the Lebron rally and onstage with his daughter. This feels like a dream. I'm cackling.
posted by acidic at 1:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hillary live with Lebron right now in Cleveland.
posted by cashman at 1:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

hoping the email scandal shuts down the FBI's bitching about encryption.

Forget it. No one with significant state power is ever going to want ubiquitous universally unbreakable encryption.
posted by Coventry at 1:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

James Comey, Hillary Clinton, and the Email Investigation: A Guide for the Perplexed doesn't really let Comey off the hook, but does elaborate some of the pressures/reasons why he might have been behaving the way he did.
posted by wildblueyonder at 1:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

So in light of the the latest FBI news, are the people that changed their votes allowed to change them back?

I'm going to be hopeful and say that the only people who changed their votes changed them from Trump to super-Trump.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:39 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

@AdamSerwer:

The FBI, in the final days of an election, violated guidelines and took unprecedented actions to cast suspicion on one of the candidates. That is a massive scandal, it is a serious threat to the democratic process, and people should be held accountable for it. And because Comey and the FBI leakers may have prevented Democrats from taking the Senate, there may never be a serious accounting. Again, there's a scandal here. The scandal is that partisan elements of the FBI tried to tilt an election toward an authoritarian candidate. That is more than just outrageous. It is a massive abuse of power. [I]f no one at the FBI is held accountable for this attempt to manipulate an election for partisan purposes, it will happen again. And again.

posted by zombieflanders at 1:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [87 favorites]

"4,000 people are waiting in line to vote in Cincinnati right now. This is how long the line is." --@Saahil_Desai

The tweet shows a map of the 0.6 mile line.
posted by zachlipton at 1:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [48 favorites]

Glad to hear Hillary's voice sounding better as well. I remember how bad President Obama's voice got towards the end of the 2008 campaign.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah great, we get to talk about emails for the ENTIRE last 10 days of the campaign rather than just 8 out of the last 10 days. Super.
posted by Justinian at 1:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Rumors are that Trump is desperately searching for a blue turtle shell to use.
posted by drezdn at 1:45 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

Josh Marshall is kinda wrong there, palindromic.

The FBI was always our political police : Hoover had them "solve" crimes that basically solve themselves, just to pump up their numbers. Now they train terrorists so that they can catch terrorists. The FBI refused to work on hard crimes, like drugs or guns, hence the creation of ATF and DEA. Instead, they relentlessly pursue American dissidents who spend their lives trying to make the country better, including MLK.

Is it strange the FBI would stick its nose into the election? Not at all. I'd wager FBI agents gave information to Obama's opponents during both hs elections too. And probably most previous presidential election. The right answer is to shut down the FBI. Zero chance congress with take that route, but that's the right answer.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:45 PM on November 6, 2016 [39 favorites]

Georgia senators break with party, say they'll consider Clinton's supreme court picks

Georgia shatters early voting record

Peach State is going Blue, if you're placing bets, put some money down for that!
posted by sallybrown at 1:46 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

Glad to hear Hillary's voice sounding better as well. I remember how bad President Obama's voice got towards the end of the 2008 campaign.

I always think of his grandmother, who raised him, dying hours before he won.

I wish Clinton's mother had lived to see this. Knowing a little about her though, I'm certain she knew it would happen.
posted by sallybrown at 1:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [26 favorites]

Watching Hillary's Ohio rally now.

I've noticed that in speeches, they're rarely mentioning her opponent's name. They refer to her as "her opponent" or "my opponent."

It's such a small thing, but to take away his name is to take away his power. It's doubly effective for someone who is gauche enough to put his name on everything he touches. I won't say his name again.
posted by mochapickle at 1:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [73 favorites]

"4,000 people are waiting in line to vote in Cincinnati right now. This is how long the line is."

Picture and video.
posted by cashman at 1:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

I was at work all day. The Trump campaign really took away his twitter access?
posted by yhbc at 1:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I won't say his name again.

That is an absolutely fantastic idea.
posted by Mooski at 1:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [33 favorites]

Peach State is going Blue, if you're placing bets, put some money down for that!

I still wouldn't bet on that. Georgia is 30% black and only 8% latino. If the white vote there is in line with other southern states, those populations would have to turn out at like 80 or 90% for Clinton to take the state.
posted by dis_integration at 1:52 PM on November 6, 2016

It's such a small thing, but to take away his name is to take away his power. It's doubly effective for someone who is so gauche to put his name on everything he touches. I won't say his name again

There's an apropos scene from the West Wing episode In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, but I can't find a clip. Not saying your opponent's name is a thing.
posted by hoyland at 1:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

[I]f no one at the FBI is held accountable for this attempt to manipulate an election for partisan purposes, it will happen again. And again.

Assuming it has not happened already, again and again. 2016 isn't the year of new inventions in dirty politics and bigotry. It's the year all the pretense was dropped.
posted by ctmf at 1:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [76 favorites]

"2016 isn't the year of new inventions in dirty politics and bigotry. It's the year all the pretense was dropped." this is X1000!
posted by Oyéah at 1:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

This flew under the radar - Comey named a new Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Criminal Division for the NY Field Office
posted by sallybrown at 1:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [40 favorites]

I was at work all day. The Trump campaign really took away his twitter access?

That's the claim from a report in the Sunday NYT (search this thread for "last stand").
posted by dis_integration at 1:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sounds like the FBI purge has begun!
posted by Justinian at 1:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Drudge is so confused (as usual)
CONFUSED COMEY CLEARS HER AGAIN!
TRUMP: 'SHE'S PROTECTED BY RIGGED SYSTEM'
POLL: THISCLOSE
TRUMP MARATHON SUNDAY
CLINTON WARNS 'FAKE' WIKIS COMING
via Drudgereport.com
posted by robbyrobs at 1:59 PM on November 6, 2016

I still wouldn't bet on that. Georgia is 30% black and only 8% latino. If the white vote there is in line with other southern states, those populations would have to turn out at like 80 or 90% for Clinton to take the state.

Current polls have him up 4. Please don't stereotype us or assume you understand who we are, and ignore how hard we're working to change things. Tim Kaine has been here once. Donald Trump has been here dozens of times. And he's only up by 4. Imagine if Hillary and Bill had come, if the President and First Lady had come. Imagine if you had come and helped us get out the vote. Don't dismiss us. Join us.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [123 favorites]

Lebron and Hillary.
posted by cashman at 2:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Is there any way to send pizza or other goodies to people waiting in line to vote from another state?
posted by chimpsonfilm at 2:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Peach State is going Blue, if you're placing bets, put some money down for that!

I still wouldn't bet on that. Georgia is 30% black and only 8% latino. If the white vote there is in line with other southern states, those populations would have to turn out at like 80 or 90% for Clinton to take the state.

Early voting in GA this year was 500K more than in 2008. Over half of voters were women, and the Latinx vote increased by something like 145%. There is something happening in GA to get the GA Senators running scared like that so soon before Election Day.
posted by sallybrown at 2:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [58 favorites]

I'm starting to wonder if this is going to end with Bob Newhart in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, saying "Honey, wake up!"
posted by Lyme Drop at 2:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

Don't forget Georgia has Atlanta. That makes a huge difference- Obama won NC in 2008 based on his overperformance in a couple large urban centers.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

> They're called burs. They are 'docked' in burdock. That's why it's called that.

Actually, no. OED: dock "The common name of various species of the genus Rumex (family Polygonaceæ), coarse weedy herbs with thickened rootstock, sheathing stipules, and panicled racemes of inconspicuous greenish flowers. Without qualifying word usually the common dock (R. obtusifolius), well known as the popular antidote for nettle-stings." (It's an Old English word of unknown etymology beyond Germanic.)

> Go ahead, check out the latest ludicrous hit piece [NYT OP-ED] by, who else, Maureen frickin' Dowd.

Friends don't let friends read Maureen Dowd. Put the magazine down now.
posted by languagehat at 2:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [46 favorites]

I saw my first in-the-urban-neighborhood-where-I-live Trump/Pence bumper sticker yesterday.

It was on a giant fucking pickup truck parked on and blocking the entire sidewalk. Consequently, my immigrant mother had to walk out into heavy, opposite direction traffic while pushing a stroller with her visibly non white grandson.

Everything was fine, we got through it, and cars slowed down when they saw what was going on, but what a perfect fucking metaphor.

OK we really need to get a message through to the Writers. Between this and the [real] Trump-speechwriter-pants-on-fire thing, the metaphors are getting unbearably hackish.

At this point I'm expecting multiple Trump surrogates to be literally struck down by lightning on live TV.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:05 PM on November 6, 2016 [33 favorites]

This flew under the radar - Comey named a new Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Criminal Division for the NY Field Office

In case anyone else was as confused by that statement as I was before clicking through: He has named, not he was named.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Early voting in GA this year was 500K more than in 2008. Over half of voters were women, and the Latinx vote increased by something like 145%. There is something happening in GA to get the GA Senators running scared like that so soon before Election Day.

Yes I don't know much at all about Georgia but when I saw those two headlines it twigged to exactly that, 'something is happening'. I know enough that GOP senators in Georgia going against the party line like this is interesting to say the least.
posted by Jalliah at 2:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

It's such a small thing, but to take away his name is to take away his power. It's doubly effective for someone who is gauche enough to put his name on everything he touches. I won't say his name again.

I really do enjoy Cher's use of the toilet emoji for this same purpose.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

This flew under the radar - Comey named a new Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Criminal Division for the NY Field Office

Rudy Giuliani.
posted by Artw at 2:07 PM on November 6, 2016

Did Maureen Dowd ever consider that, to the extent Clinton may seem "paranoid," it's precisely because of hacks like Maureen Dowd criticizing her for the act of breathing?
posted by zachlipton at 2:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [50 favorites]

I still have agita over Tuesday. Not because I think Trump will win -- I have Hillary with 330+ -- but because so much hinges on the Senate coming out well, Evan Bayh is a hamster, and it's still too close to call.

And because there are no pure red or blue states. We're all purp!e. We all have friends and family and cow orkers whose political opinions Are Wrong and we will have to continue our existences with and around them. We will be a nation of screaming, of anger, of occasional violence and it really shouldn't be that way. But it will.

But I must thank Orange Julius Caesar for one service rendered. Many of us knew all along that a good-sized chunk of America were racist, sexist, reactionary, easily duped, furious at the wrong people and, in a word, deplorable -- but it took this electoral clusterfuck for many others to truly believe it. Like an enema, this campaign has flushed many unpleasantries into the light of day, and that awareness is valuable.

Hoping I'll get a chance to crank Bastards of Young up loud late Tuesday night.
posted by delfin at 2:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

Don't forget Georgia has Atlanta. That makes a huge difference- Obama won NC in 2008 based on his overperformance in a couple large urban centers.

I'd expect a pretty high Trump vote in the metro Atlanta sprawl counties, though
posted by thelonius at 2:10 PM on November 6, 2016

The HillaryforPA Twitter account is giving me life right now. So much great media there. Hillary's campaign has a twitter account for each state (links here). The PA account retweeted this tweet, and that figurine! I need that figurine.
posted by cashman at 2:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Bruce Springsteen to join Hilz in Philly tomorrow

Woohoooooo! Now I really don't feel bad about not waiting for some friends and getting to the event early...
posted by kalimac at 2:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

So we won't know the impact of Comey's letter until the vote is counted. It's too late for the polls to pick it up. So Tuesday will be even more suspenseful. Yay?
posted by Justinian at 2:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had Georgia as red in my map and I so, so, so want to be wrong.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Current polls have him up 4. Please don't stereotype us or assume you understand who we are, and ignore how hard we're working to change things. Tim Kaine has been here once. Donald Trump has been here dozens of times. And he's only up by 4. Imagine if Hillary and Bill had come, if the President and First Lady had come. Imagine if you had come and helped us get out the vote. Don't dismiss us. Join us.

And by the same token don't think you haven't done your part even if you lose. Trump had to defend Georgia. The Trump campaign basically has two people on its A-list; Trump and Pence. And there's a clear difference in star power between the two. Meanwhile the Clinton campaign has two Clintons, two Obamas, Kaine, and Sanders on its A-list. Campaigns can raise more money but can never raise more time. Every time you've brought Trump down to Georgia to answer what you were doing you've meant that he's spent less time somewhere he needs to flip to win (like Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada, or Wisconsin).
posted by Francis at 2:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [118 favorites]

(Remember that the one we lost was because people were able to believe that a veteran who lost three limbs to a grenade hated the troops.)

Oh, I remember. Here's some context for folks who don't:

Democrats are reminding voters and donors of a controversial ad aired by Chambliss in the heated final weeks of the 2002 campaign that shows pictures of Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a triple-amputee from wounds suffered during his service in Vietnam, just after shots of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

The ad — which has a voice-over warning that, "As Americans face terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads saying he has the courage to lead," then lists votes where the Democrat opposed President Bush before concluding that "the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading" — helped propel Chambliss to an unexpected victory.

Vile stuff. Between that and the Wellstone-Coleman race, 2002 was rough.
posted by galaxy rise at 2:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

Basically in the time since the first Comey letter, Clinton's lead went from 6% to 3%, and her net favorability went from -7 to -14. So definitely a hit. But there's been much discussion this cycle that the big swings in polling are more due to enthusiasm of supporters and willingness/excitement to be polled than true back and forth indecision on who they like. So hopefully the damage wasn't that bad and this late redemption will drive enthusiasm back up.
posted by chris24 at 2:15 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Trump campaign basically has two people on its A-list; Trump and Pence.

With A-lists like these, who needs a shitlist.
posted by Behemoth at 2:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [39 favorites]

I thinking we're past the point where further polls are going to tell us anything - we'll learn from the election itself.
posted by Artw at 2:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

How do I get added to Pantsuit Nation?
posted by HotToddy at 2:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

From today's pool report from those following President Obama (via twitter):

After his speech, President Obama spent a moment with J.J. Holmes, a 12-year-old-boy with a severe case of cerebral palsy who had been pushed out of a Trump rally Saturday in Tampa, Fla. A White House photographer snapped photographs of Mr. Obama shaking hands with J.J. and standing behind the boy's electric wheelchair.

J.J. had gone to the Saturday rally to protest Donald J. Trump's mocking of those with disabilities, he said. J.J.'s mother, Alison Holmes, brought her son, who speaks only through a computer vocalization device.

"The crowd starting chanting 'U-S-A' and pushing his wheelchair," Ms. Holmes said.

As Ms. Holmes spoke, J.J. said through his vocalization device, "I hate Donald Trump. I hate Donald Trump."

Ms. Holmes looked down at her son with what seemed a mixture of pride and concern.

"We were put out by security," she said. "Mr. Trump kept saying, 'Get them out.'"

This kid is 12 and he's about 1000x braver than I ever could be. I linked this in the last election post, but here's another young guy standing up for those who are differently abled - in this Clinton ad called "Samy," a young boy with arthrogryposis, the same condition as the NYT report Trump mocked, talks about Trump.
posted by sallybrown at 2:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [122 favorites]

I just got put on antibiotics because of a mystery spreading rash on my leg (because of course) and I just realized it means I really shouldn't drink on Tuesday night. Fuck. FUCK.

This whole thing better be sown up by 9pm or my exponentially rising stress levels will cause me to spontaneously combust.
posted by lydhre at 2:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Damon Young at VSB: So Basically FBI Director James Comey Just Trolled The Entire Country? (Fuck This Election, Man):

I’m trying (and failing) to think of a good and succinct analogy for what the FBI has done this month. Which is, of course, announce two weeks before the election that they were reopening their investigation into a non-issue (Clinton’s emails — a clear and blatant political McGuffin). Which, of course, could potentially have a significant effect on the election. And then, two days before the election, make another announcement basically saying “Eh, nevermind. We good.”

Ultimately, it was the equivalent of your landlord calling you hysterically at 3am to say “Remember that gas leak I told you not to worry about?” And then you jump out of bed frantic, worried your house is going to explode. And then he sends another text 17 minutes later saying “Yeah…still don’t worry about it. Everything is cool.” And now, since you’re up, you decide to check apartment listings on Zillow and Craigslist anyway. Because while your place is safe, your landlord probably isn’t going to want to rent to you anymore after you shank him.

posted by palindromic at 2:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [39 favorites]

I love MSNBC's weekend coverage because typically their weekends are just rerun type stuff and crime shows. But with the election, all these infomercially commercials are still popping up during coverage that is now live.

So it's like "Next up, we'll cover the FBI findings and look into whether the Russians are trying to plot to influence our elections and plunge the world into global chaos, right after this message from BootyMax™!"
posted by cashman at 2:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Trump campaign basically has two people on its A-list
I recall Trump stating in a stump speech some time ago that there were hundreds (or possibly he said one hundred) Generals and Admirals that were in agreement with him on what the USA needed to do militarily (whatever that means) But anyway WHERE ARE these generals and admirals?? Why are they not standing on the stage with Trump???
posted by robbyrobs at 2:21 PM on November 6, 2016

we'll learn from the election itself

Yeah, I fear that too.
posted by Namlit at 2:22 PM on November 6, 2016

I'm not anticipating a Clinton win in GA because Comey's BS pretty much fucked that scenario up.

However there is a lot of really positive signs concerning GA. A reverse of the great northern migration is well under way in the African-American community and like a lot of other big southern cities (Houston, Dallas, Miami) Atlanta is becoming more and more liberal in orientation. Atlanta is so large and it's center of mass in Georgia should not be understated. You also have some other liberal areas such as Athens. Yes there are some really racist parts of Georgia but unlike some of Georgia's neighbors the massive impact of Atlanta is quite likely to shift the electoral politics sooner rather than later.

South Carolina is going to look pretty lonely before too long.
posted by vuron at 2:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

But anyway WHERE ARE these generals and admirals?? Why are they not standing on the stage with Trump???
A ticket from Moscow is expensive, dude.
posted by Namlit at 2:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [44 favorites]

Also I never really watch TV but have been the last few weeks to keep up on things and apparently Frank Cross has re-lost the Christmas spirit and is producing Trump campaign ads now.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

HotToddy: If you know anyone on Facebook who is a member, they can add you. If you don't, there are MeFites who will if you PM them. Palomar says she will add people who PM her; I will also add anyone who wants to be in Pantsuit Nation - PM me.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 2:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Obvious anagram Reince Priebus

Runic bee spire?
Beer urine pics?
Incubi pee errs?

Pubic rerinse, obviously.
posted by jonp72 at 2:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [24 favorites]

I'm apparently farther behind than I thought and posted in the old thread. Reposting:

So today is apparently the day I ran out of fucks. I woke up, got online, and started fighting anyone being anti-Hillary. I just have run out of give-a-shit and am sick of listening to this bull. My longest exchange has been with someone spreading the "pizza is code for child sex orgies" crap. Umm, I think I've won that encounter, but if anyone sees any sane takes on that, could you pass it this way?

(I searched my own email archive for "pizza" and posted incriminating statements like talk about a place that has pizza and "more than just pizza." Obviously, I was talking about a secret brothel, amirite?)
posted by threeturtles at 2:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm not counting anyone out, just offering a viewpoint. (And one based from living in Atlanta for 5 years and watching MARTA expansion efforts fail year after year while they pony up big dollars to move the baseball stadium closer to the white folks.)

Lots of good news since then: MARTA was expanded into Clayton Co last year. There is a referendum on the ballot Tuesday in Atlanta to raise the MARTA sales tax for more expansion, most likely including light rail to Emory and on the Beltline. And the TSPLOST in Gwinnett on Tuesday will fund GCT more than ever before and is widely seen as a bellweather for MARTA expansion in Gwinnett. (The Cobb Crackers stadium is still a total fucking disaster, but one that will hopefully have Cobb begging for their own MARTA expansion soon when they realize that they do not have enough roads for all the people coming to baseball games.)
posted by hydropsyche at 2:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Threeturtles: it's probably because they *do* use (cheese) pizza to mean child porn.
posted by Yowser at 2:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I believe that Hillary will win and easily. Here are my key reasons:

1- High Hispanic turnout vs. difficulting polling and screening for likely Hispanic voters. I estimate this gives Hillary an extra 2-3% nationally.
2- Trump has no ground game. In 2012 the Obama's better ground game over Romney gave him a 2-3% gain.
3- Hillary has a 3-5% lead in the polls while at this time Obama's lead over Romney was only .7%.

So her actual lead is going to be 10-12%. If everyone votes like they should.
posted by humanfont at 2:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

This is Just to Say:

I have completed my review
of the emails
that were on
the laptop

and which
you were probably
hoping
would win you the election

Forgive me
they were duplicates
so benign
and so boring
posted by Dr. Zira at 2:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [226 favorites]

I just got put on antibiotics because of a mystery spreading rash on my leg (because of course) and I just realized it means I really shouldn't drink on Tuesday night.

I'm not drinking right now (and I know several mefites made it through the debates cold sober).

You've got this.
posted by mochapickle at 2:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

The FBI was always our political police : Hoover had them "solve" crimes that basically solve themselves, just to pump up their numbers. Now they train terrorists so that they can catch terrorists. The FBI refused to work on hard crimes, like drugs or guns, hence the creation of ATF and DEA. Instead, they relentlessly pursue American dissidents who spend their lives trying to make the country better, including MLK.

I highly recommend The Newburgh Sting to anyone interested in watching the FBI literally train "terrorists" just to catch them. The agency is a joke, manufacturing many of the "crimes" it purports to solve.
posted by enn at 2:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

So her actual lead is going to be 10-12%. If everyone votes like they should.

If Clinton wins by 10+% I will eat two bugs.
posted by Justinian at 2:30 PM on November 6, 2016 [45 favorites]

Patton Oswald's excellent description of how Donnie's brain work in regards to how fragile his feelings are. (video should start at 8:45)
posted by numaner at 2:30 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

jonp72: Pubic rerinse, obviously.

Lather thoroughly. Reince and repeat.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

So her actual lead is going to be 10-12%. If everyone votes like they should.

I'm on that same page. Didn't Sam Wang say Dems needed something like 7-9% at the top of the ticket to see retaking the House as a real possibility?
posted by sallybrown at 2:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

So, a million years ago a terrible thing happened to me and with the help of some psychiatric professionals and MST3k (Joel only back then!), I got through it. Recently, someone showed me that the Pluto TV app for the Playstation has an MST3k channel. Which I've been using to get through Tuesday. They are currently playing this episode: MST3K turned a terrible alien movie into a Donald Trump warning in 1991.

The Vox article totally oversells that aspect of it. But sometimes the comforts of youth are all we have left.
posted by crush-onastick at 2:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Hillary Surrogate List
Hillary Clinton
Bill Clinton
Chelsea Clinton
Barack Obama
Michelle Obama
Tim Kaine
Diamond Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Liz Warner
Queen Bey
King James
Lin Manuel Miranda
Like a zillion Actors/Comedians/Musicians/etc

Trump Surrogate List
Donald Trump
Mike Pence
Melania Trump
Ivanka Trump
The Patrick Bateman Brothers
Scott Baio
Most of the MSM

I don't know seems pretty even to me guys.
posted by vuron at 2:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

vuron Don't forget Rudy Giuliani on the Trump Column.

And believe me, I'd LOVE to forget Giuliani.
posted by SansPoint at 2:33 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

This flew under the radar - Comey named a new Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Criminal Division for the NY Field Office

Rudy Giuliani.

I actually fell for this for a second. Needs a [fake] tag!
posted by just_ducky at 2:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's a picture of J.J. and his family getting kicked out of the Trump rally.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

I highly recommend The Newburgh Sting to anyone interested in watching the FBI literally train "terrorists" just to catch them.

Also, Enemies for the full, sordid history of the bureau. Though I have to admit, Hoover's life was glorious in a mostly horrifying way. Seems like he was almost always the smartest guy in the room.
posted by Coventry at 2:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

we even looked at School Board candidates despite us only having feline children

If you don't have kids, it's still incredibly important to vote for school board candidates. These are the people determining what gets taught to the next generation, what gets taught to the people who will be in power when you are a senior citizen. These are the people who decide if future generations learn about science and climate change, or are given abstinence-only sex education, or how things like civil rights history is presented.

Please, please take a moment to learn about the school board candidates in your area, even if you don't have kids and never intend to have them. You're helping to determine what my kids are taught, and I'd rather have that determined by rational, reasonable people. You're determining the future electorate.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [97 favorites]

J.J. had gone to the Saturday rally to protest Donald J. Trump's mocking of those with disabilities, he said. J.J.'s mother, Alison Holmes, brought her son, who speaks only through a computer vocalization device.

"The crowd starting chanting 'U-S-A' and pushing his wheelchair," Ms. Holmes said.

As Ms. Holmes spoke, J.J. said through his vocalization device, "I hate Donald Trump. I hate Donald Trump."

@steveschale: Yesterday, this young man was kicked out of a Trump rally. As he was leaving, people kicked at his wheelchair. Today, he met his President.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [47 favorites]

Hillary Surrogate List
Liz Warner

And her brothers, Yakko and Wakko.
posted by davros42 at 2:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

Threeturtles: it's probably because they *do* use (cheese) pizza to mean child porn.

Cite? Because the only two articles I could find on the topic said it was totally made up by alt-righters a few days ago.
posted by threeturtles at 2:37 PM on November 6, 2016

Like a zillion Actors/Comedians/Musicians/etc

Sheila Kelly posted a picture on Pantsuit Nation of her and her hubs (Richard Schiff from The West Wing) out canvassing with folks, and standing right in the middle was JAN FROM THE OFFICE and I laughed for about 10 minutes. I know she's a very cool real person (Melora Hardin) and not *actually* Jan, but...just imagining Jan's reaction to this election had me laughing so hard.
posted by sallybrown at 2:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Shortest Comey: JKLOL
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

New Donald Trump ad appeals to NFL fans who favor keeping Redskins name [real]

“Yeah, you thought you were safe,” the ad begins, “sitting in your recliner in your man cave, cold beer and a bowl of chips. Ha, you thought you’d escaped politics by focusing on football. Wrong. Hillary Clinton wants to mess up your football, too. Hillary wants to change the name of the Redskins.” The ad, released by Rebuilding America Now, concludes, “Hillary’s priorities are not your priorities.”

Trump’s final ad passes off footage of migrants in Hungary as scene from U.S.

Near the start of the new ad, as the candidate complains of “massive illegal immigration,” thousands of people are shown walking along a highway. That video, however, was not shot along the southern border of the U.S. — where Trump has promised to build a great wall — but in Hungary, at the height of the migrant crisis last year, as Syrian refugees, desperate for safe passage to Germany, marched out of Budapest.

The video was shot by Nabih Bulos, a foreign correspondent working for the New York Times last year. He confirmed to The Intercept that that the footage was not licensed from him, and he would not have approved its use if asked. “When this footage was taken, thousands of refugees were on an odyssey through the Balkan corridor and Europe to escape the cataclysm ripping their country apart,” he wrote. “As a son of two Palestinian refugees who benefited from Jordan’s largesse, a naturalized American welcomed to the country even after 9/11, as well as a working conflict journalist, the last thing I would want this footage to be used for is to embody Trump’s xenophobic, repugnant message.”

posted by zachlipton at 2:39 PM on November 6, 2016 [47 favorites]

I did forget Gingrich and Guiliani and Chris Christie. Their value as surrogates has been less than impressive.
posted by vuron at 2:39 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

threeturtles It's listed on Urban Dictionary going back to 2010.
posted by SansPoint at 2:39 PM on November 6, 2016

They are currently playing this episode: MST3K turned a terrible alien movie into a Donald Trump warning in 1991.

My friends are thoroughly sick of hearing me say "Trumpy, you can do magic! That's called 'evil,' kid" (and have been for several months now).
posted by octobersurprise at 2:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Also last night I dreamt I was one of Madam President Hillary's 4 chosen personal assistants and it was AWESOME. It was four young women supporting her and getting settled in to the White House.

Then later I dreamt about the death of a kitten. I think this reflects my state of mind at the moment.
posted by threeturtles at 2:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Contrast Trump's abuse of a disabled boy with Ryan's story about Hillary.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Here's a picture of J.J. and his family getting kicked out of the Trump rally.

I just...I have a cousin with CP. I'm used to the ignorance at this point, but folks with CP are SO underestimated and misunderstood - my cousin is a talented stocktrader and a beautiful writer, a really brilliant guy. And Trump would look at him and just see a nothing, a blank space and not a person, not someone he could converse with or go toe to toe with in a discussion. And it's not just Trump; so many people act this way. I am so proud of JJ!!! He may not look like it but he is more than a match for Trump and in terms of courage and fortitude he could take any of those deplorable people.
posted by sallybrown at 2:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [74 favorites]

Worth a read Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy

But most observers are missing the point. Russia is helping Trump’s campaign, yes, but it is not doing so solely or even necessarily with the goal of placing him in the Oval Office. Rather, these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy. Unfortunately, that effort is going very well indeed.

Russia’s desire to sow distrust in the American system of government is not new. It’s a goal Moscow has pursued since the beginning of the Cold War. Its strategy is not new, either. Soviet-era “active measures” called for using the “force of politics” rather than the “politics of force” to erode American democracy from within. What is new is the methods Russia uses to achieve these objectives.

We have been tracking Russian online information operations since 2014, when our interest was piqued by strange activity we observed studying online dimensions of jihadism and the Syrian civil war. When experts published content criticizing the Russian-supported Bashar al Assad regime, organized hordes of trolls would appear to attack the authors on Twitter and Facebook. Examining the troll social networks revealed dozens of accounts presenting themselves as attractive young women eager to talk politics with Americans, including some working in the national security sector. These “honeypot” social media accounts were linked to other accounts used by the Syrian Electronic Army hacker operation. All three elements were working together: the trolls to sow doubt, the honeypots to win trust, and the hackers (we believe) to exploit clicks on dubious links sent out by the first two.

The Syrian network did not stand alone. Beyond it lurked closely interconnected networks tied to Syria’s allies, Iran and Russia. Many of these networks were aimed at U.S. political dissenters and domestic extremist movements, including militia groups, white nationalists, and anarchists.

Today, that network is still hard at work, running at peak capacity to destroy Americans’ confidence in their system of government. We’ve monitored more than 7,000 social media accounts over the last 30 months and at times engaged directly with them. Trump isn’t the end of Russia’s social media and hacking campaign against America, but merely the beginning. Here is what we’ve learned.

posted by zachlipton at 2:46 PM on November 6, 2016 [36 favorites]

I figured out the best way to relieve some election stress and anxiety. As I know that a good many are experiencing the same I thought I would share. Here are the step by step instructions.

Have a dog.....
Have a not so bad, shirtless walk, with your dog, on a unseasonably warm and sunny fall day.
Realize that letting it all hang out feels pretty awesome. Walk tall and proud.

Alternatively, have cats. Never leave the couch. Ride out the election while wearing no pants.

Yes, much better.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [38 favorites]

New Donald Trump ad appeals to NFL fans who favor keeping Redskins name [real]

“Yeah, you thought you were safe,” the ad begins, “sitting in your recliner in your man cave, cold beer and a bowl of chips. Ha, you thought you’d escaped politics by focusing on football. Wrong. Hillary Clinton wants to mess up your football, too. Hillary wants to change the name of the Redskins.” The ad, released by Rebuilding America Now, concludes, “Hillary’s priorities are not your priorities.”

I am finally 100% certain I'm on some kind of massive Candid Camera show and this whole thing is just a prank on me. Come on, guys.
posted by sallybrown at 2:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [39 favorites]

Oh yes who you elect on the local school board is very important!
I own four restaurants: Why would I want taxes to increase?
My wife, Amanda, and I don’t have kids. Why should I care about Manatee County schools?
The origin of my interest goes back to the year I participated in Leadership Manatee. One day spent in schools, learning about their $690 million budget, the number of employees and the miles their buses travel, and I realized: I do have a stake in the game.
I have 323 employees, many of whom have kids in the district. I pay a lot of money in property taxes. I should care about the upcoming sales tax referendum.
posted by robbyrobs at 2:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

So the grocery store carries this line of fresh-ish brownies in over the top combos. Today they had one with brownies layered with caramel, almonds, and coconut macaroons.

What will you be stress eating for the next two days?
posted by zrail at 2:49 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

Ughhhhhh at that Redskins advert.
Here's the thing honkeys: we gotta be better. There needs to be social pressure coming from us if things are going to change. We cant just expect the marginalized to do all the heavy lifting for what should be their own base level equality.
This means we have to vocally shut down racism when we see it. We have to vocally shut down sexism when we see it. We have to vocally shut down xenophobia when we see it. Homophobia, transphobia, etc. The reason this is our responsibility is that some of us (whistles innocently) benefit from some pretty rigged societal settings and part of that privilege needs to be using the responsibility we're granted when being taken more seriously than most to move the conversation to higher ground. It's happened before and needs to happen more.
In conclusion, with great honkeyness comes great honkeysponsibility. So let's use our privilege for Good and when possible for Awesome.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [37 favorites]

So what if a friend noticed another friend freaking out about the election, and gave that friend some Xanax? What should the second friend know about taking it? Asking for a friend.
posted by medusa at 2:53 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

T-shirt at Cincinnati Trump rally: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required."
posted by bluecore at 2:53 PM on November 6, 2016

And now, the answer to a question that apparently no one in the U.S. much cares about -- today, how stands the newspaper and periodical endorsement race? Or more accurately, the newspaper and periodical endorsement brutal savage beatdown as the obviously better candidate grinds her opponent into paste.

When last we looked at numbers yesterday, they stood with Clinton at 447, "not endorsing anyone" at 75, "anybody-but-Donald-Trump" at 21, Donald Trump at 13, Gary Johnson at 6, and Evan McMullin at 1.

All endorsements since that time have come from small-distribution publications; the only major paper to make an announcement has been California's Orange County Register (circulation 270,000), which opted to go with "no endorsement".

At any rate, Clinton easily blew past 450, adding 19 more publications to her tally for a total of 466 endorsements. As per usual, she is not only comfortably in the lead, but comfortably increased her lead by gaining more than all other comers.

"No endorsement", still distantly behind her, is now at 84, adding 9 to its total -- including the only major paper in this batch, as previously mentioned.

But! As the final days of the campaign wind down, Trump has added 11 small papers to his total, nearly doubling his number to 24 and bringing him into a dismally pathetic third place! Yes, in a shocking twist, he has climbed to 5% of Clinton's total. And now only 4% of his own endorsements come from the official organ of the KKK.

Now standing just behind Donald Trump, we have his rival in the neck-and-neck race for third, "anybody-but-Donald-Trump". "Anybody-but-Donald-Trump" added only one publication this time around, bringing them to 22. Step up your game, "anybody-but-Donald-Trump"!

And, in another shocking twist, Gary Johnson, who had not received a single endorsement since September, adds 3 papers to his total, increasing his numbers by half again to a total of 9! Are we seeing Johnsonmentum? Well, probably not, since his increase was about 1/6 that of Clinton's and about 1/4 that of Trump's. But just as with Trump, when you're this tiny, any increase looks big.

Evan McMullin still stands at 1 endorsement, and there is also one endorsement for "anybody-but-Hillary-Clinton", and 1 split endorsement from West Virginia's Charleston Gazette-Mail, which apparently is not looking to win any awards for courageous stands. They split their endorsement in 2012, too.

Will there be more endorsements on Monday? On TUESDAY? Who knows! But to sum up the situation at the moment:

Clinton: 466 (76.6%)
No endorsement: 84 (13.8%)
Donald Trump: 24 (4%)
Not Donald Trump: 22 (3.6%)
Gary Johnson: 9 (1.5%)
Evan McMullin: 1 (0.2%)
Not Hillary Clinton: 1 (0.2%)
Split Endorsement: 1 (0.2%)

From your mouths to the voters' ears, newspaper and periodical editorial boards. From your mouths to the voters' ears.
posted by kyrademon at 2:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [34 favorites]

Don't take xanax with alcohol is the biggest one. Also don't make it a habit 'cause that shit is addictive as hell.
posted by Justinian at 2:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Your friend will fall asleep
posted by Yowser at 2:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Clinton wins by 10+% I will eat two bugs.

538: 1 in 20 [real]
posted by one_bean at 2:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I will eat two bugs and be glad of it!
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

General Flynn smells a rat:

IMPOSSIBLE:
There R 691,200 seconds in 8 days. DIR Comey has thoroughly reviewed 650,000 emails in 8 days? An email / second? IMPOSSIBLE RT

posted by carsondial at 2:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

We're talking about popular vote, yes?
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

And Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, obv.
posted by LionIndex at 3:00 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

There R 691,200 seconds in 8 days. DIR Comey has thoroughly reviewed 650,000 emails in 8 days? An email / second? IMPOSSIBLE RT

The good news is we have an ever-growing group of people who don't appear to have any problem with putting on their "I'M A FUCKING MORON" badges in public.

They actually appear to be proud of them.
posted by Mooski at 3:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [47 favorites]

I'm in a REALLY LONG LINE to see Hillary speak. I feel like I'm at the airport.
posted by pxe2000 at 3:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

What will you be stress eating for the next two days?

Whenever I experience a desire to eat unnecessarily, I will think of the NYT mocking Trump for eyeing pork breakfast sausages while "trying to convey restraint" to a journalist. Hopefully that will be enough to crush the desire.
posted by Coventry at 3:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

IMPOSSIBLE:
There R 691,200 seconds in 8 days. DIR Comey has thoroughly reviewed 650,000 emails in 8 days? An email / second? IMPOSSIBLE RT

Dear General Flynn:

Computers exist. Go fuck yourself.

Sincerely,

xyzzy
posted by xyzzy at 3:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [63 favorites]

Trump Says Minnesota Has “Suffered Enough” For Taking In Somali Refugees
posted by zombieflanders at 3:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

10% of the popular vote of course, she could certainly win by 10% of the EV. And like I said last thread, like some crickets or somethin'. Yucky spiders or caterpillars or roaches need not apply.
posted by Justinian at 3:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm in a REALLY LONG LINE to see Hillary speak. I feel like I'm at the airport.

The security should also feel similar, but you leave your shoes on and the screeners' badges say "Secret Service" instead of "Transportation Security Administration."
posted by palindromic at 3:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

catching up:

2016 isn't the year of new inventions in dirty politics and bigotry. It's the year all the pretense was dropped.
Now if we can only get the "Liberal Press" to notice.

Friends don't let friends read ~~Maureen Dowd~~The New York Times. They abandoned their credibility a dozen years ago with the Iraq War. And they've historically been Friends of Trump as much as Murdoch's Post.

I'm starting to wonder if this is going to end with Bob Newhart in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, saying "Honey, wake up!"
The first Newhart show, the one with Pleshette, was set in Chicago, home of the Cubs. I think we've awakened.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Clinton wins by 10+% I will eat two bugs.

Dude, don't do that. Ten percent sounds about right to me in that it's the bare minimum I can imagine from the country. I'm optimistic enough to think even 12-15% is possible, given how terrified-into-action everyone seems to be.

In other words, with this opponent, how can she not?
posted by rokusan at 3:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's quite disturbing that a GENERAL has no conception of parallelizing a task across multiple workers. Does he fight his battles himself??
posted by Coventry at 3:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [52 favorites]

What will you be stress eating for the next two days?

fentanyl lollies tbh
posted by poffin boffin at 3:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [24 favorites]

Trenchant political cartoon courtesy of John Cole at Balloon Juice
posted by palindromic at 3:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hey, let's leave bugs out of it! They don't like Trump either. They want to celebrate his loss too.
posted by bluecore at 3:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

Justinian, Tuesday night, late.
posted by valkane at 3:12 PM on November 6, 2016

Predictions thread is over here
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's quite disturbing that a GENERAL has no conception of parallelizing a task across multiple workers. Does he fight his battles himself??

Well and also most of this is done by computer (it's called e-discovery and law firms do it constantly, with far more electronic documents than what were on that laptop, there are tons of software packages out there for doing just exactly this).
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [30 favorites]

favorite Hillary email cartoon:
posted by robbyrobs at 3:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's quite disturbing that a GENERAL has no conception of parallelizing a task across multiple workers. Does he fight his battles himself??

That, and the 650K figure was all the emails on the computer (including Weiner's). Part of the delay was creating a program to separate out Huma's from Anthony's. That apparently left 60K. Even the technology-backwards federal government has the kind of doc review programs that can sort out duplicates within that batch, and they apparently also had a program that could sort out the emails that were duplicates from the already-reviewed email from the server, so that probably left not many at all. My best doc review day was 7K documents, but I'm very slow (although I had a lot of junk email in that batch). I'm not surprised they're done with the review.
posted by sallybrown at 3:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

soren_lorenson: Sure, but the assumption in his calculation that the emails would have to be examined in series is a more basic and surprising error.
posted by Coventry at 3:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Trump campaign basically has two people on its A-list

Add another spot to that list because Trump is holding a rally in Michigan with Ted Nugent! I anticipate Nugent will intro 'Cat Scratch Fever' with a super classy line about pussy-grabbing.
posted by palindromic at 3:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Colorado Independent: Homestretch: The fight to raise Colorado’s minimum wage

Whether Amendment 70 passes or fails, the work is just beginning for Colorado labor unions and low-wage worker advocates. Most CFFW members acknowledge that $12 per hour is not in fact a living wage for workers with families in some parts of Colorado. Most estimates put a living wage for a single parent of two children in Denver at around $30 per hour. But advocates also believe that the current $8.31 per hour is inexcusable, and any more than $12 is not politically viable.

There’s a sense of immediacy among CFFW members. One hears the term “right now” a lot. They would rather take a safe bet than a real gamble when so many people’s livelihoods hang in the balance.

“Do we go with something that we know is going to be tough but that we know we can win on, or do we go with 15, which the Denver area might be ready for but the state isn’t, and we lose?” SEIU’s Jacob asked.

He works with low-wage union members every day and he believes he’s doing right by them. “‘12 by 2020’ will impact half a million people in Colorado,” Jacob said. “Don’t tell those people this isn’t going to help them. It is.”

posted by audi alteram partem at 3:19 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

The security should also feel similar, but you leave your shoes on and the screeners' badges say "Secret Service" instead of "Transportation Security Administration."

I hate to break it to you, but the TSA has been helping out at political rallies.
posted by zachlipton at 3:19 PM on November 6, 2016

Um

[Ted] Nugent says to bear arms means "I have a couple on me right now and they're loaded." He adds "the Secret Service are good friends of mine"

(twitter)
posted by sallybrown at 3:20 PM on November 6, 2016

Apparently it's too much to ask for the media to stop with the entire "Whoa, this race is too close to call!" meme. Screw you guys. It was never close, and all you're doing is selling newspapers. Nate Silver can go shit in a hat.
posted by Sphinx at 3:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

No matter what happens on Tuesday, we have to share a country with people who would kick a little boy's wheelchair. I just… am disappointed.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [88 favorites]

It's quite disturbing that a GENERAL has no conception of parallelizing a task across multiple workers. Does he fight his battles himself??

Yep, and Donald trump is going to personally negotiate all our trade deals too.
posted by Slothrup at 3:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

At this point I'm expecting multiple Trump surrogates to be literally struck down by lightning on live TV.

Ooh! What channel?

And will Kid Rock be at the MI gig too? What about Meat Loaf?
posted by petebest at 3:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I can't believe it's only a day away.
posted by valkane at 3:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

I anticipate Nugent will intro 'Cat Scratch Fever' with a super classy line about pussy-grabbing.

I saw Henry Rollins do a spoken word show last night here in Toronto. He was referencing early stadium rock experiences, and mentioned going to a Ted Nugent show in the late 70s. When there were a couple of groans and hisses from the audience he was like "No, no - in my defence...this was BEFORE he was talking between songs."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [36 favorites]

I can't believe it's only a day away.

You know what this is going to be before you even click
posted by sallybrown at 3:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Nate Silver can go shit in a hat.

It seems fairly transparent that Nate Silver is leaning less Hillary-y than everyone else just so that, in the unlikely event of a Trump win, he gets to say "I'm the only one who got it right!" despite not actually leaning Trumpy.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

>Trump is holding a rally in Michigan with Ted Nugent!

Maybe they'll pack the stage with draft dodgers clucking about how smart they were for doing so.
posted by Catblack at 3:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

According to polling site 538, Trump has only a 24 percent chance of winning Michigan’s 16 electoral votes, making the addition of Michigan-native Nugent an interesting and risky choice due to Nugent’s unpredictability.

According to RightWingWatch, Nugent has a history of misogyny and antisemitism which could make his comments dangerous for a campaign that is already having problems with women and Jewish voters.

Hmm. Let's just run this through the ol' Trump's Razor here an*BEEP*

Yep, checks out.
posted by petebest at 3:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I can't believe it's only a day away.

I've got some sad news for you...
posted by Sys Rq at 3:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

You know what this is going to be before you even click

But I didn't! I thought it was going to be this!
posted by Justinian at 3:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

Incidentally, in the NH Hassan/Ayotte Senator race, Silver has Ayotte (the Republican) at +2.
posted by Coventry at 3:29 PM on November 6, 2016

Election Day is Tuesday. Tomorrow Is Monday.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 3:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hillary just added a big open air rally a block from my workplace tomorrow during my lunch hour...except I took the entire day off so I could canvas *sad trombone* (I realize that what I will be doing is far more important, but it's kind of like rain on my wedding day and a free ride when I've already paid.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [28 favorites]

Or are you guys posting from the future?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 3:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump thinks he is Jean Valjean but he's actually Monsieur Thernardier.
posted by Justinian at 3:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

Nate Silver was vastly more fun when he was trying to predict things that really didn't matter. Like baseball.

While you're shitting in that hat, try to stay the fuck out of politics. Apparently, it's a bit too big for you.
posted by Sphinx at 3:33 PM on November 6, 2016

South Carolina is going to look pretty lonely before too long.

Even SC is changing, though in different ways: Nikki Haley is going to be in the picture for 2020, as a biz-friendly Republican governor who beat the good ol' boy network to win the office, and who got the dixieflag taken down from outside the statehouse. Her term ends in January 2019, and by then she'll know whether she has a chance in a GOP primary.
posted by holgate at 3:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

It's all going to come down to ground game advantage + undercounted Latinx / women / POC now.

If none of those move the needle bigly, Clinton wins the popular vote by 3-ish percentage points and gets a narrow but clear EV victory. The upside based on those x-factors is all to her, I think.
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

But it's one more non-Election Day until Election Day. One more whole entire day where we don't know who won. Then Election Day, where we find out.
posted by sallybrown at 3:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sam Wang says

State Margin Power
NH Ayotte +0.5% 100.0

Hassan donation page
posted by petebest at 3:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Nikki Haley is going to be in the picture for 2020, as a biz-friendly Republican governor who beat the good ol' boy network to win the office, and who got the dixieflag taken down from outside the statehouse. Her term ends in January 2019, and by then she'll know whether she has a chance in a GOP primary.

She should never have endorsed Trump. Never ever. She could have made some real moves in 2020 with no Trump goo on her record.
posted by sallybrown at 3:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Oh my god. It's Sunday night. Tomorrow is Monday. Monday is a day, then, it's Tuesday. There is one day between now and election day. Get a grip you bean plating friends of mine, before you start counting hours and telling me that depending on which continent I'm posting from
posted by valkane at 3:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

Silver is an aggregator of all the polls that underestimated Trump in the primaries and added deplorables to their 'likely voters' groups. The motivation of latinx and other minorities to become first time voters, and shy Hillary voters (ESPECIALLY women with husbands who'd beat them for not voting Trump) is going to pretty well ensure that even the best aggregator (which 538 is NOT) is going to give Dangerous Donnie more than the voters will. Of course, that will help him to justify the "Fixed Election" claim, which will make the aftermath worse...
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

with no Trump goo on her record. By 2018 Trump will be in full 'I never ran for President' mode so she'll be fine.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

My soundtrack for the next 56 hours is just this song on repeat:
You work in the system
You see possibilities and your glistening eyes show the hell you're gonna give 'em
When they back off the mic for once and give it to a woman.
posted by ApathyGirl at 3:40 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

it's made me realize, oh yeah, the FBI are basically just more powerful cops! Which seems obvious in retrospect, but the sort of cultural vibe around them feels pretty different.

Interestingly I heard an ex-FBI agent recently talk about the very different cultures in the FBI depending on department. Apparently the criminal profiling, serial killer hunting Behavioral Analysis Unit is more liberal oriented than the counter-terrorism, drug law enforcement, surveillance etc parts of the agency. Which only makes sense, really. But it made me feel very slightly better about the FBI knowing that at least attitudes aren't monolithic.
posted by threeturtles at 3:40 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Just had my very favorite phone call so far. Reached a woman who is the staging manager for her city's GOTV efforts. They've been doing so well that the Dems sent leaders from her city to a tougher city. I could tell we both wanted to keep talking, but we also both have so much work to do. So we thanked each other profusely and then went back to our respective tasks.

I'm not crying. You're crying.
posted by bilabial at 3:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [80 favorites]

Guys guys guys this popped up in the prior thread:

THEY'VE ADDED TEXAS TO THE STATES TAB ON THE PHONE BANKING PAGE!

All this time I've been thinking "I wish I could call Texas." I was so excited when they added Florida.

AND NOW THEY'VE ADDED TEXAS!

Dialing ...
posted by kristi at 4:17 PM on November 6 [13 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Strap your Wendy Davis sneakers on...your hands...or something and get to dialing!
posted by sallybrown at 3:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [65 favorites]

BURNS: Take a knee, boys. Tomorrow is the biggest day of your lives: the Shelbyville game. So lights out at 7:30, and abstain from coffee, tea, and cola drinks. Make no mistake, they pack a wallop.

STRAWBERRY: Sure do, skip!

posted by petebest at 3:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm thinking this is a sign of momentum. I've been feeling it.

(So did Romney last election, I know, I know.)
posted by sallybrown at 3:42 PM on November 6, 2016

And get rid of those sideburns!
posted by entropicamericana at 3:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Weather for the DC area on Tuesday is clear with a high of 67 degrees.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:45 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

They've also added Kentucky. Turn that bluegrass Blue!
posted by sallybrown at 3:45 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Just had to turn the TV off because of a campaign ad I didn't want my children to see because it's way too PG-13. This fucking campaign.

I mean I guess in 1964 I also would have turned off Daisy, but in my lifetime it's been more like the 1984 bear in the woods ...
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:46 PM on November 6, 2016

Went to an arts festival today and spent some time looking for a mug for my husband. Found one I liked that also looked similar to some other stoneware I've seen in the past at another nearby arts festival that has gotten kind of unwieldy as it's grown. I asked the artist had he shown there in the past, and he said he used to go, but "Now it's too chaotic. Too many people with you know, sagging pants, too many pitbulls." I was half-way into a sentence when that caught up with me. "Yeah, that festival has become a little HEY WAIT. That's a racist thing you just said!" Turned on my heel. He hollered out to my retreating back,"I could be describing anybody of any color!" Riiiight. I just hate that "Hey, this lady is white. I bet she agrees with my racist-ass comments" thing that happens. Usually I roll eyes and move on. Today, y'all, I said something. I called him out explicitly. And I owe it to Metafilter, I owe it to Hillary Clinton. I'm excited! Let's get on with this thing!
posted by thebrokedown at 3:49 PM on November 6, 2016 [105 favorites]

NEW HAMPSHIRE I AM IN YOU
posted by pxe2000 at 3:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yeah, I know this isn't the prediction thread, but let's keep it interesting with bug eating bets
posted by middleclasstool at 3:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

THEY'VE ADDED TEXAS TO THE STATES TAB ON THE PHONE BANKING PAGE!

Of course, early voting ended Friday and election day is going to be a complete disaster, as far as I can tell. I waited an hour and a half to vote in the primary in a very rich, very white neighborhood. I shudder to think what the typical polling place will be like Tuesday, let alone one in a neighborhood with lots of people of color.
posted by hoyland at 3:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I love this Obama so much.

Obama Mocks Trump For Getting His Twitter Confiscated By Campaign

Because you just know, that Trump is going to find out, unless they're shielding him from media and he's going to want to tweet rant SO SO BAD.

And these thoughts make me happy.

According to the Times report, members of Trump's press team finally "wrested away" the Republican candidate's access to Twitter, which previously served as an unfiltered channel for Trump to express his often colorful opinions.

"Apparently his campaign has taken away his Twitter," a bemused Obama told the crowd at a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Kissimmee, Florida.

"In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his self-control they said we are just going to take away your Twitter. Now, if somebody can't handle a Twitter account, they can't handle the nuclear codes," Obama said. "If somebody starts tweeting at three in the morning because SNL made fun of you, then you can't handle the nuclear codes."
posted by Jalliah at 3:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [66 favorites]

Early voting kills Trump in NV
posted by jeffburdges at 3:53 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

My husband is on the phone with his sister in WA. She can't vote because she's not a US citizen, but she's married to one, so...

Me [shouting across the room]: Has [SIL's husband's name] voted yet?

Her [via Mr. Conspiracy]: Yes.

Me: AND?

Her [via Mr. Conspiracy]: Clinton. But doesn't agree with...

Me: GOOD ENOUGH!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:53 PM on November 6, 2016 [61 favorites]

OK, I know you all can help with this one: I'm looking for poll numbers on my local downballot races, specifically state house district 15, with Ane Romero (D) vs. Sarah Maestas Barnes (R), incumbent. I have tried googling, but no luck. Any suggestions?
posted by annsunny at 3:54 PM on November 6, 2016

@JohnJHarwood
Stevie Wonder on why Trump shouldn't be president: "if you had emergency, had to go to hospital, you wouldn’t want me driving, right?”
posted by chris24 at 3:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [78 favorites]

I was looking for videos referencing "36 Hours" but all YouTube has is short travel vids of "36 Hours in..." various places, made by the travel section of the New Yecch Times. I guess those idiots are incapable of spending two full nights outside the shadow of Trump Tower. Oh, and two war movies with "36 Hours" in the title. Because Real Patriots know that Real Battles don't take any longer. Yuk.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:56 PM on November 6, 2016

Prolly already been posted, but I got this in the mail yesterday. New York mag cover.
posted by valkane at 3:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Toronto Star recommends Five Wines to Get You Through U.S. Election Night
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Election Day is Tuesday. Tomorrow Is Monday.

So two more days volunteering.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Stevie Wonder on why Trump shouldn't be president: "if you had emergency, had to go to hospital, you wouldn’t want me driving, right?”

Hard to tell from the tweet if this is [real] or [fake], but if so...bravo...but I would have preferred "I think I've mentioned before that I'm very superstitious. And you know what? The writing's on the wall."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

He hollered out to my retreating back,"I could be describing anybody of any color!"

So I always wonder about people who do this: do they honestly think that by saying that they're doing anything but confirming they're racist? I mean, if they weren't actually racist, and just didn't like dogs or something, then they probably wouldn't think to say that.

Or are they more lying to themselves about being racist?
posted by ghost phoneme at 3:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh! and my least favorite volunteering moment. Was out canvassing yesterday in a suburban apartment complex. One of the residents (a Hillary supporter, he said) told us that soliciting is not allowed on the property. We apologized, said we hadn't seen a sign (true) and kept knocking on our doors. Two buildings over we were approached by an employee of the complex who said "You guys cannot be out here doing this" and then told us we had to leave. We didn't argue with her, because even though canvassing is a public service, we weren't out there to be right or start fights. We certainly didn't want anyone to be more annoyed at us than folks often are about door knocking.

So, we left and it was a bummer. We got to 21 doors and talked to 5-10 enthusiastic people and one woman who apologized but said she'd be voting for Trump, before being asked to leave. The campaign folks marked the rest of the houses Inaccessible, so the complex won't get canvassed again. Which sucks.
posted by bilabial at 4:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Or are they more lying to themselves about being racist?

You know that feeling when you think you've told a funny joke but you've actually just shit yourself in public? And you try to convince everybody it was just part of the joke? No?
posted by Mooski at 4:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

I always thought that the obvious anagram for Reince Priebus was Prince Erebus, Erebus being the Greek god of chaos. Then I Googled.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:05 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Nate: Don't fail trying to shape the narrative, be the narrative. Narrate. It's in the word. I can hear dad yelling behind me. Narrate, fucking Narrate.
posted by Sphinx at 4:07 PM on November 6, 2016

Jalliah: "I love this Obama so much.

Obama Mocks Trump For Getting His Twitter Confiscated By Campaign"

Your link is borked Jalliah
posted by Mitheral at 4:07 PM on November 6, 2016

Hard to tell from the tweet if this is [real] or [fake]

I'm assuming a CNBC/NYT reporter and Republican primary debate moderator isn't making up joke Stevie tweets. But 2016, so...
posted by chris24 at 4:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, look who worked in the US illegally. Melania.

Melania Trump was paid for 10 modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago provided to The Associated Press.

So why is this only getting reported on now?
posted by WordCannon at 4:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

the answer to a question that apparently no one in the U.S. much cares about -- today, how stands the newspaper and periodical endorsement race?

Just to push back on this narrative: my grandfather was a businessman. He's voting (one of the few times in a long time) for Clinton. I am certain that, while he may have made a decision to vote for her on his own, his newspaper's decision to endorse her helped reenforce his choice.

And I bet that is happening around the country.

Not often. But the fact that a bunch of magazines and newspapers are endorsing a candidate from a party they usually don't support (or that they're endorsing someone, period) is touching, somehow. It's a bunch of people trying to leverage what little power they have, and I hope they're able to reach people that a normal partisan campaign couldn't.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:09 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Tom Tomorrow:

"rope/tree/journalist" predates Trump. He didn't invent GOP ugliness, he just took it to extremes
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:10 PM on November 6, 2016

Just quoting here:
This is Just to Say:

I have completed my review
of the emails
that were on
the laptop

and which
you were probably
hoping
would win you the election

Forgive me
they were duplicates
so benign
and so boring

Which brings me here to say: dear mefites, these emails have been lying on our collective counter for many months. Can we still stomach them? Answer obvsl.: time to throw them out.
posted by Namlit at 4:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

It got reported on before, WordCannon, to the point where Melania's lack of recent Twitter activity means that her most recent tweets are mostly about her denial from the last round. But last time, there wasn't precise documentation of her doing it, so the story didn't really stick.
posted by Sequence at 4:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

WordCannon: "Well, look who worked in the US illegally. Melania.

[...]

So why is this only getting reported on now?"

It's been reported on for a couple months. Melania is one of the "good" (IE: White from Europe) and attractive immigrants so the GOP doesn't care.
posted by Mitheral at 4:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

So in addition to the election day stress, I have been spending the past week on a hunt for a new roommate whilst simultaneously trying to figure out plans for family Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I've had it. Can someone just sort of take my life over for the next 24 hours to give me a break?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm in.
posted by guiseroom at 4:15 PM on November 6, 2016

In terms of election food coping I've gone oriental. And I say that because I've had udon, ramen,american chinese, kimchi fried rice, and Thai yellow curry in the last weekish. I'm trying out some korean stir fried sardines sometime this week as well, and am cooking with Asian sweet potato for the first time.

It is keeping me sane and a yummy distraction. I highly recommend.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I will be so glad not to see political ads all over my TV. Here in Illinois, there's one conservative PAC, Liberty Principles, which is spending gobs of money on ads for Republicans in the Illinois legislature. (Our wonderful *cough* governor is a major donor to this PAC) The latest campaign features a woman talking about being a single mom and how she's voting for the Republican challenger in the election. It's the exact same ad featuring the exact same woman running for several candidates - the only difference is the candidate's name. Since several of these candidates are in the Chicago area, some of the TV stations will run the ads for those candidates all in a row.
posted by SisterHavana at 4:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

LA Times final projection puts Clinton on 352 seats - 20 more than Obama 2012 ...its polls had been better for Trump (twitter, Faisal Islam, political editor Sky News)
posted by Devonian at 4:19 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

I wonder if anyone will be confused about how many people they can vote for?
posted by Mitheral at 4:20 PM on November 6, 2016

Well some of the money that would have gone to Trump and the RNC gets spent down ballot. Good for the Republicans I guess. But, wow, what competence to use the same actor in ads for different candidates in the same media market.
posted by R343L at 4:20 PM on November 6, 2016

it's probably because they *do* use (cheese) pizza to mean child porn.

Cite? Because the only two articles I could find on the topic said it was totally made up by alt-righters a few days ago.

Jokes about cheese pizza and vans (child porn and FBI) have been around on 4chan since, um, time immemorial, and probably predate 4chan. These "code word readers" came out of /pol/, so presumably that's just part of the cultural memory. A lot of the other stuff are probably more recent creative interpretations though.
posted by The arrows are too fast at 4:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump campaign fires back at ADL over ad criticized for anti-Semitic tones
As pictures of prominent Jews appear on screen, candidate slams Washington power and 'special interests'

posted by Joe in Australia at 4:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Bi cruiser peen?

Or as I like to call it, college
posted by en forme de poire at 4:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

The Toronto Star recommends Five Wines to Get You Through U.S. Election Night

Yeah gonna need more than five thanks.
posted by schoolgirl report at 4:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

Pant-suited drag queen Hillarys in the Castro.
posted by robbyrobs at 4:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

bluecore: T-shirt at Cincinnati Trump rally: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required."

Correction: this was Minnesota. Just as disturbing.
posted by bluecore at 4:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

I really want to call Texas and Utah but I feel so rude calling at supper time on a Sunday night :-/
posted by sallybrown at 4:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nice that the LA Times forecast has Trump underperforming Romney, which is only to be expected.
posted by morspin at 4:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

LA Times final projection puts Clinton on 352 seats - 20 more than Obama 2012 ...its polls had been better for Trump (twitter, Faisal Islam, political editor Sky News)

How many total seats does the US Parliament have again?
posted by lefty lucky cat at 4:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

Obama Mocks Trump For Getting His Twitter Confiscated By Campaign"

Your link is borked Jalliah

Oops sorry. Here it is.
posted by Jalliah at 4:27 PM on November 6, 2016

Whoa, is cheese pizza ruined now?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

The campaign management have finally discovered that the only way to make Trump appealing to anyone beyond his base is to ensure the public sees and hears him as little as possible.

In other words, the Harper Strategy. The large communal joy of ejecting our invisible Prime Minister in favour of Trudeau is something I hope happens next week in the States rather than having to go through a term or two of Trump. Rejecting now if preferable than ejecting later.
posted by juiceCake at 4:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

How many total seats does the US Parliament have again?

We can always dream. Presidential democracies are shite.
posted by dis_integration at 4:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't think we can let things be ruined just because channers try to ruin them. We'll soon have nothing good left.
posted by Sequence at 4:30 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Greg Nog, you are correct, she's not running, and I shouldn't have called her out, thanks for the reminder. I don't have a problem with someone working around the current labyrinthine immigration laws. It's the hypocrisy of the media coverage that galls me, but I should keep focused on the big orange sharknado, not the people caught up in his wake.
posted by WordCannon at 4:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Heh. "Did I say something wrong?" Cory Lewandowski appears to have blocked Katy Tur on Twitter.

The clips I've seen of anchors talking to Trump surrogates & spokesholes has included a thinner and thinner veil on contempt and mockery from the anchors lately, too.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:33 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

Whoa, is cheese pizza ruined now?

Wait until you hear the bad news about pepe-roni
posted by phooky at 4:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [18 favorites]

T-shirt at Cincinnati Trump rally: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required."

Those squares passed up a perfect opportunity!

ROPE&
TREE&
...
posted by rhizome at 4:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

@electionsmith
Black turnout is sky-rocking in Florida, w "Souls to Polls" still to be counted. 564k blacks have voted EIP. In '12, total 539k voted EIP
posted by chris24 at 4:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Whoa, is cheese pizza ruined now?

No, I can't even think of a way it can be. Usually, enjoyment of a work is "ruined" when it is found out that the creator is terrible or whatever leads you to not want to support them. In this case, cheese pizza really doesn't support /pol/, although it may sustain some of them. But so does water or tendies. (Hopefully that didn't ruin water for you.)
posted by The arrows are too fast at 4:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Republicans are in a pickle if they want to keep escalating the nation-trolling. It's gonna be hard to top Trump.

Oh wait...

VOTE NUGENT 2020
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sing or Swim: Nugent vs Kanye in 2020 could be interesting. (And really, could Kanye fuck things up worse than Trump would?)
posted by SansPoint at 4:40 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I, Prince Erebus, sorry.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:40 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hooray, miratime's "I voted" stickers arrived in the mail! Thanks again for the offer.

also this is my first presidential election not living in at least a semi swing state. it feels weird not being bombarded with ads all the damn time
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 4:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Doesn't the Electoral College have anything to sit on while they vote?
posted by Devonian at 4:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Doesn't the Electoral College have anything to sit on while they vote?
Yes they do! Put your rump on Trump!
posted by robbyrobs at 4:46 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I never thought I would pray for it to be a Wednesday, but a lot of things have happened this election that I never thought would happen.
posted by freakazoid at 4:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hey, so I've lurked for years, learned a million things here, finally coughed up my five bucks as a small response to the Great Staffing Crisis, and have since posted, like, two utterly forgettable comments, so apologies in advance if I'm being presumptuous here, but anyway:

I just told my wife about Pantsuit Nation and she really wants in, but no one's invited her yet! (She has a Facebook account; I currently don't.) Any way one of you fine folks on the other side of the velvet rope could help her out?

Anyway, regardless, let me join the chorus of thanks for your thoughtful insights and comments helping me maintain some semblance of sanity in this anxiety typhoon.
posted by obliviax at 4:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [73 favorites]

Finally got my CA ballot in the mail (replacing the first one which never arrived) and will be taking it to the post office tomorrow. Election night I have tickets for Hedwig that begins right when the polls close. I might not even know the results until the show ends (or we will and it'll be the most pumped up staging of Hedwig ever. I can't imagine the cast/audience having many Trump supporters in its midst). After all this reading/watching/breathing/panicking over the past couple (?!) years, it'll be weird not seeing the call as it happens. Probably safer for my mental health to distract myself anyway though.
posted by downtohisturtles at 4:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

@electionsmith
Black turnout is sky-rocking in Florida, w "Souls to Polls" still to be counted. 564k blacks have voted EIP. In '12, total 539k voted EIP

Maybe this will finally change the narrative that is out there that Black turnout is down all over place.
Maybe it was a few days ago? And this idea got stuck? Yet I keep reading about it being up from people reporting direct numbers.
posted by Jalliah at 4:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Apparently it's too much to ask for the media to stop with the entire "Whoa, this race is too close to call!" meme.

It's really revolting, considering how many people seem to have developed actual trauma over it. Just look around here. People genuinely made themselves ill over it.

It's never been a remotely close race. But truth doesn't sell ads or get page views or donations or fire up the volunteer labor or get buy-in the way consensual mass terror does.

Hope is great, but fear works.
posted by rokusan at 4:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

nyt: "Inside Donald Trump's Last Stand: an Anxious Nominee Seeks Assurance."

As he stood next to the breakfast buffet at his golf club in Doral, Fla., eyeing a tray of pork sausages, he sought to convey restraint when approached by a reporter for The New York Times.

“I’m on message,” Mr. Trump asserted, with effort. “I’m not playing around. In fact, I’m a little nervous standing here talking to you even for just a minute.”

I still can't get over that his campaign's message about Trump being on message is literally Trump saying "I'm on message."
posted by AndrewInDC at 4:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [59 favorites]

Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) writes a bit more eloquently about Nevada for Politico than on his blog:

How the Harry Reid Machine May Have Killed Trump’s Chances

The line Friday evening stretched outside Cardenas Market in Las Vegas, teeming with Hispanic voters eager to cast ballots.

Many had to wait for hours on the last day of a fortnight of early voting in Nevada, plied by food and exhortations from activists who didn’t have to do much. Election officials had to keep the polling place open an extra three hours to accommodate the line, which was described thusly on Twitter by Yvanna Cancela, the political director for the majority Hispanic Culinary union:

“Looks like Trump got his wall after all. A wall of beautiful voters.”

By the time Donald Trump’s chief Nevada poll watcher arrived at the supermarket to complain about the late voting, apparently clued in by the massive amount of social media traffic about the historic, organic turnout, it was too late. Just under 2,000 voters had cast ballots at the market, adding to a record Democratic firewall (73,000 ballot lead in early voting) in the Las Vegas area and putting a fitting final nail in Trump’s Nevada coffin.

The next day, Trump arrived in Reno looking like a dead man walking, railing at the scene in Vegas the night before and blaming “crazy, broken Harry Reid and his corrupt political machine.” Trump’s key ally in Nevada, state Republican Chairman Michael McDonald, preceded Trump on the Reno stage and yelled about allowing “a certain group” to vote until the late hours.

They raged, raged against the dying of their chances. Yet about one thing Trump was right: Harry Reid built this.

posted by chris24 at 4:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [70 favorites]

What will you be stress eating for the next two days?

I'll probably chomp right through my bite guard (worn at night). I'll soak it in Chambord first.
posted by datawrangler at 4:49 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Harry Reid was one of the last of the old school machine guys. We'll miss you, Harry.
posted by Justinian at 4:49 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Today's phonebanking report:

I called Texas, Utah, and Arizona today. Utah was FANTASTIC - got some great, great people, maybe the most most enthusiastic Hillary supporters I've spoken with this year, including a 19-year-old who was stoked to learn she could phonebank from home, a guy involved with a Somali community who thanked me for calling as soon as I said I was calling for Hillary (before I even got to my questions!), and an older guy who described himself as part of the working poor who had had the foresight to check on his registration earlier this year, found he'd been taken off the rolls, got his registration reinstated, and was pleased to tell me that he'd already mailed in his ballot.

It sure looks and sounds to me like the campaign is going all-out up until the very last minute, so if you'd like to jump in, go for it! You haven't missed your chance!

And now that they've added some additional states to the list, there's a whole bunch of new people for you to call!

Sorry for all the exclamation marks ... it's just all so EXCITING!
posted by kristi at 4:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [66 favorites]

What will you be stress eating for the next two days?

*polishes off a box of Wheat Chex*

Whaddya got?
posted by SansPoint at 4:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

obliviax: check your memail.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

“I think my pant leg is on fire,” he said after noticing the acrid smell.

Ok, Jon Spencer's "Pant Leg" is going on the Election 2016 playlist.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

As the aides agonized over which words to feed into the teleprompter, they become so engrossed that a hot light set up next to the machine caused Mr. Bannon’s Kuhl hiking pants to begin smoldering.

“I think my pant leg is on fire,” he said after noticing the acrid smell.

Such is the fate of liar liars.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [18 favorites]

My motto for the next 48 hours:

Ativan
And
Carry On
posted by humanfont at 4:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

Please, please take a moment to learn about the school board candidates in your area, even if you don't have kids and never intend to have them.

True that. I had a school board member on my ballot this year. There has been zero media coverage of this race. One candidate is a retired principal turned insurance agent. Older African-American guy, Ed. D., taught some grad-school education classes. His social-media presence, and his campaign, are basically nonexistent.

The other is a middle-aged white guy. He's a police officer who supervises the school resource officers in the district. He seems to have a little campaign money--at least enough to buy yard signs. He's active on social media, where he mostly talks about LEO stuff and charity work.

I don't think either of these people are monsters--they both seem to be interested in public service, and I know they both want to make the district better. But, like, educator with decades of experience versus police officer who wants to deepen the connections between law enforcement and the district? I know which one I'd rather have making decisions on my behalf.
posted by box at 4:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Early voting question:

When I see these early voting reports, the numbers honestly don't feel that impressive to me. Not in the scope of how many people vote in total for a given state. Does anyone have a resource (or want to explain here) on how these early votes that show an edge in the thousands has such an impact when a state's electorate is in the millions? I keep feeling like these early voting tallies are at the sort of numbers that could get completely washed out on election day.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:58 PM on November 6, 2016

* Public opinion? The fifth estate?

* Non neo-confederate scessionists. The Vermont secessionists have no intention of ever taking up arms against the Republic. But if Trump wins, the damage to the Republic would be so severe that here in New England I think we will need to take our cues from when the Romans abandoned Britain, leaving the Welsh to fend for themselves. The weirdos in Vermont have been thinking along those lines for some time.

LLoegres Newyth does have a nice ring to it..
posted by ocschwar at 5:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Often the early voting numbers are given for counties rather than states, focusing on the counties that have large minority populations.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

What will I be stress eating for the next 2 days?

I will be gnawing on the bones of those who would try to stop us. With a nice chianti.
posted by Sophie1 at 5:05 PM on November 6, 2016 [28 favorites]

When I see these early voting reports, the numbers honestly don't feel that impressive to me. Not in the scope of how many people vote in total for a given state. Does anyone have a resource (or want to explain here) on how these early votes that show an edge in the thousands has such an impact when a state's electorate is in the millions? I keep feeling like these early voting tallies are at the sort of numbers that could get completely washed out on election day.

We don't know what's going to happen on election day, but we do know that early voting represents a huge number of voters. Keep in mind that the reports you often see are about the number of people who voted in one county on one day. The big picture gives much bigger numbers: as of Thursday night, 43% of registered voters in the Florida Keys already voted. In 2012, 70% of Nevada votes were cast early. It adds up.
posted by zachlipton at 5:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Does anyone have a resource (or want to explain here) on how these early votes that show an edge in the thousands has such an impact when a state's electorate is in the millions?

A lot is based on historic trends, although various things can in/deflate those. You're right that it's not over until it's over, but things can auger a certain direction.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can only speak for my state, Georgia. Here, early and absentee voting normally accounts for about half of the total ballots cast.

The assumption backing much of the discussion about early voting data is that early voters are roughly representative of the general electorate in terms of party affiliation and demographics.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 5:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Stress eating began with Chinese food (well, Chinese-American fusion, let's be honest). As no food is allowed at the rally tomorrow night I'll...be inhaling a Clif bar before they let me in? Wednesday I shall feast on tears and nachos.

Also, I finally put on my big girls' (well, nonbinaryish) pantsuit and joined the phonebank team! I made 5 calls, one of whom was to a woman with a very nice voice who wasn't a Hillary supporter. I've taken a short break until the panick-y feeling recedes (I hate hate hate making phone calls, and it's late enough that I'm only calling the West Coast), but kristi's convinced me to try for another five.

Also I panic-donated some money, but maybe this will be better in the long run :)
posted by kalimac at 5:08 PM on November 6, 2016 [18 favorites]

On top of that, small numbers matter a lot more than it might appear. Sure, there are millions of votes, but Obama won Florida in 2012 by a touch over 74,000 votes (and Bush lost Florida in 2000 by, let's not go there...). An extra 20,000 "unlikely voters" showing up in early voting, people who wouldn't have been represented in the polls, is huge.
posted by zachlipton at 5:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

What would be in a Right Wing Tears cocktail? That is what I will be having.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

My anxiety level soars with each comment stating who is going to win. Talk about tempting the wrath from high atop the thing!
posted by kitten magic at 5:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

When I see these early voting reports, the numbers honestly don't feel that impressive to me. Not in the scope of how many people vote in total for a given state. Does anyone have a resource (or want to explain here) on how these early votes that show an edge in the thousands has such an impact when a state's electorate is in the millions? I keep feeling like these early voting tallies are at the sort of numbers that could get completely washed out on election day.

My earlier post about FL early voting said that "564k blacks have voted EIP. In '12, total 539k voted EIP." So even before today's black vote is added, it's over what 2012 was which shows that a lot of early worries about black voters not turning out for Clinton was mistaken. And traditionally today, the last Sunday, Souls to the Polls day, is the biggest day so it'll get even better.

As far as what that matters in the overall state election, FL will probably have 8.5 million total votes. So if black EIP voting ends up 600,000 (and hopefully higher), that's 7% of the electorate. Just the uptick in black EIP voting will likely be close to 1% which might be enough to win FL in a close election.
posted by chris24 at 5:15 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

I got such an ANGRY Trump voter in Utah and 2 Jill Stein voters!

But then I got an older man ("great, an older man in Utah, this will go well") and he was so excited. And he said "You tell everyone, Hillary's winning Utah! I promise you!"

One good call can wipe out all the bad.
posted by sallybrown at 5:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [86 favorites]

Right Wing Tears cocktail?

Imperial gin, fresh muddled cranberries stolen from native Americans, sour mix (cuz sour), garnish with anything you can buy with a EBT card.
posted by vrakatar at 5:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

My anxiety level soars with each comment stating who is going to win.

I get it, and I feel it, though probably to a lesser extent than you do.

No matter what happens Tuesday, the people you're reading and smiling with and worrying with right now will still be here, and there will still be a fight.

The only thing to be decided at this point is what kind of fight, and how long it will be. We'll still be here.
posted by Mooski at 5:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Great staff work: an H made out of beer kegs at a Tim Kaine event.
posted by zachlipton at 5:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

If we were to list our country's greatest shame in some order, say slavery at the top...

1. Slavery
2. Lynchings
3. Native American property theft, abuse and slaughter
4. Poverty
5. Vietnam (and other slaughters abroad)
6. McCarthy
7. Nixon
8. Donald Trump
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:19 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've been considering election night fare.

Bitter Tears? White whine, angustura bitters, Southern Discomfort
Blue cheese
Blue natchos
Blue Cheer (probably not, it's been trippy enough)
Red, red whine
Nuts (the signature snack of 2016)
And a Trump Steak, which would make the morning after particularly satisfying.
posted by Devonian at 5:19 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

What would be in a Right Wing Tears cocktail? That is what I will be having.

Scalia's Tears, perhaps?

That seems pretty house-specific, though, so maybe Ruth Bader Gin n' Juice?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

uraniumwilly I'd swap Nixon and Trump. Nixon at least gave us Medicare and the EPA.
posted by SansPoint at 5:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

My earlier post about FL early voting said that "564k blacks have voted EIP. In '12, total 539k voted EIP." So even before today's black vote is added, it's over what 2012 was which shows that a lot of early worries about black voters not turning out for Clinton was mistaken. And traditionally today, the last Sunday, Souls to the Polls day, is the biggest day so it'll get even better.

chris24: do you have a source for these numbers besides a tweet? I'd like to share the story with some panicking friends of mine who I couldn't convince last night that the jig was up because Trump had lost NV (but what about Florida they said, the turnout is down!!!!).
posted by dis_integration at 5:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Voted today in LA. 5 hours 28 minutes from getting in line to turning in my ballot. There has to be a way to make this easier.
posted by rednikki at 5:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [62 favorites]

I would reverse Nixon and Trump too. Nixon had political and government experience, could speak in coherent sentences, and had actual policy ideas. Donald Trump was the host of the Celebrity Apprentice, and was involved in many notable bankruptcies.
posted by sallybrown at 5:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

Trump campaign fires back at ADL over ad criticized for anti-Semitic tones

@andybachman: Donald Trump campaigned with anti-Semite Ted Nugent today. Here is a FB post from Ted about guns and Jews who want sane gun laws.

And yet, on tonight of all nights, the Republican Jewish Coalition dropped all pretenses and officially endorsed Trump. We need to remember this when groups like the RJC claim to speak for us. They know the historical parallels of the words and actions of Trump himself, to say nothing of his campaign, his surrogates, and his supporters. To Jewish Americans such as myself, the code words of that ad and his speeches come across loud and clear, and for a powerful Jewish political organization to not just refuse to condemn it but actually rally behind it should be considered unacceptable.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [73 favorites]

Remember Pence? Mike Pence Dodges Question About Donald Trump Accepting Defeat
posted by robbyrobs at 5:22 PM on November 6, 2016

I'd swap Nixon and Trump. Nixon at least gave us Medicare and the EPA.

Close call, but yes. Agreed.

1. Slavery
2. Lynchings
3. Native American property theft, abuse and slaughter
4. Poverty
5. Vietnam (and other slaughters abroad)
6. McCarthy
7. Donald Trump
8. Nixon
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:23 PM on November 6, 2016

rednikki: Voted today in LA. 5 hours 28 minutes from getting in line to turning in my ballot.

Louisiana or Los Angeles?
posted by bluecore at 5:23 PM on November 6, 2016

do you have a source for these numbers besides a tweet?

I don't but the tweet is from Dr. Daniel Smith, a political science professor and Florida politics expert who is one of the goto Twitter people for Florida along with Steve Schale. You can check his bio at electionsmith.com. I don't think he's making stuff up. I mean Nate Cohn at NYT, Joy Reid, Greg Sargent at WaPo have been retweeting him.
posted by chris24 at 5:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Voted today in LA. 5 hours 28 minutes from getting in line to turning in my ballot. There has to be a way to make this easier.

There is. Took me fifteen minutes, including the time to and from my car. Lobby your state people for more time/place/polls options.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

So the debacle of a game ended and I'm watching 60 minutes. I'm glad my great aunt is dead, because she'd die watching this garbage. Frank fucking Luntz? What fucking planet are you on where he might approach something like a trustworthy source. This is such low hanging fruit, that I'm unable to frame a response. Fuck you 60 Minutes. You used to be good.
posted by Sphinx at 5:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

There has to be a way to make this easier.

There is, in LA! Permanent vote-by-mail, or vote on election day when regular polling places are open.
posted by acidic at 5:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

You know, I often find myself wondering what Bartcop would have to say about this election. It would have been entertaining, I'm sure.
posted by TedW at 5:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

zombieflanders- There will always be people (in this case, Jews), who will ignore the rising fascism and believe that they are special.

There will always be people who rang the bells of alarm and fought for justice. I know the names of the warriors.

The names of those blinded by self-interest will be forgotten.
posted by Sophie1 at 5:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Where is the best place to get early results? I know the MSM embargoes information until polls close.
posted by Marky at 5:29 PM on November 6, 2016

There has to be a way to make this easier.

So many ways. Mail in ballots. More polling locations. Weekend polling. If you are in California, the legislature should be listening. In Louisiana, you've got some work to do -- get Ds in the legislature! -- to get their attention.
posted by bearwife at 5:30 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yep, you can do permanent vote-by-mail in California. I don't because I kind of like the ritual of voting on election day. This is helped by the fact that the lines don't tend to be very long. And also because I can celebrity watch while standing in line.
posted by Justinian at 5:30 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

What would be in an Right Wing Tears cocktail? That is what I will be having.

Malort

"Tastes like sad conservative." This checks out.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Voted today in LA. 5 hours 28 minutes from getting in line to turning in my ballot. There has to be a way to make this easier.

It's waaaay different in lots of places - Canada, the UK, etc. It doesn't have to be this way for the U.S. As this guy says...

This is what makes GOTV so hard. The idea that this might not be a half an hour out of your day after work or on your lunch hour, but standing in line for a full work day. It is de facto disenfranchisement. A country that spends around $600 billion on defence can surely set up a few more polling stations, right?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [49 favorites]

Where is the best place to get early results? I know the MSM embargoes information until polls close.

Buzzfeed won't embargo, FWIW.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:31 PM on November 6, 2016

At the rate membership is growing tonight (hundreds of new members every minute! I'm refreshing the page and it's fantastic!) PN will hit 1.5million in a couple of hours, tops.

Holy. Shit.
posted by lydhre at 5:33 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Not to fully derail, but I don't think Trump has done anything yet more shameful to our history than secret bombings of Cambodia, atrocities to support a "madman" persona, the war on drugs, or sabotaging peace talks to get elected. Yet, anyway.
posted by Bookhouse at 5:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

I got such an ANGRY Trump voter

Do they come in any other variety?

I did get a Republican canvassing yesterday (I was actually there to talk to her two teenaged daughters) and she smiled and shook her head and said she's not voting for either of them. I was like, I'll take it lol
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

The idea that this might not be a half an hour out of your day after work or on your lunch hour, but standing in line for a full work day. It is de facto disenfranchisement.

We have Saturday voting here (Australia) and it's also compulsory. There are still plenty of people who have to work on weekends of course, I've voted on my way home from work, or voted early, but we seem to have plenty of polling places and I've never heard of people waiting that long. My previous polling place got very full because it was near to the shops and at the top of the hill - while on the map there was another close to me in reality it was like walking up and down the stairs in a 10 storey building.
posted by kitten magic at 5:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

On black turnout - looks to be up in FL, GA and LA, but significantly down in NC, if these numbers are right.
Looks like that voter suppression effort worked.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 5:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okay, enough atrocity-ranking, it can't go anywhere from here but into the derail zone!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [57 favorites]

176 Shocking Things Donald Trump Has Done This Election
posted by robbyrobs at 5:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

@Olivianuzzi
Kellyanne Conway, being pulled over:

Ma'am, you were going 90
I wasn't going anywhere
What
I'm not in a car
What
This is a hammock
posted by chris24 at 5:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [70 favorites]

I'm thinking of crafting a command line that compares two mbox files using formail and simhash or something (to show how easy it is) but not sure what I'd be accomplishing or who my audience would be.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Voted today in LA. 5 hours 28 minutes from getting in line to turning in my ballot. There has to be a way to make this easier.

Holy heck. I've never waited more than ten or fifteen minutes in thirty-five years of voting. That's insane.
posted by octothorpe at 5:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

I usually wait about 3 minutes to vote, and almost always end up seeing Al Sharpton, who I think lives next door. I have mad respect for people who wait in line to vote. We need to fix it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

So, for some purely anecdotal info from my family in Georgia:

Neither of my conservative white suburban typical red-stater parents voted for Trump. My mom opted to abstain from making a top-of-the-ticket decision, and my dad actually flipped in favor of Hillary.

These are people who have voted GOP in every election for decades!

I'm not sure it means much, but (besides being a huge relief to me that my parents didn't opt for an orange apocalypse) maybe it's indicative of something.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 5:45 PM on November 6, 2016 [48 favorites]

I can't imagine the media embargoes will be too extensive, everyone is going to want to get those sweet eyeballs.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 5:46 PM on November 6, 2016

Putin, Assange, and Comey are doing Donald Trump’s work for him

The anti-Clinton insurgency at the FBI, explained
posted by homunculus at 5:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

[Okay, enough atrocity-ranking, it can't go anywhere from here but into the derail zone!]

Trump
The Mods

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

WHEW

I just made 20 calls in AZ for Hillary (MF team, of course). Mostly no-answers, several wrong numbers. The only dude who picked up already voted for Hillary, and as much as I would like to take credit retroactively, I don't think that would be fair to him.

The tool is so easy to use! Has anyone looked into whether Trump even has a call tool, let alone a usable one?
posted by a fiendish thingy at 5:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

Primary voting this year was the only time that voting has taken more than 10 minutes start to finish for me. The level of disenfranchisement that election officials are willing to engage at across the nation is insane.

We have so many issues with our voting system that are relics of a bygone age (like weekday voting) or the result of shenanigans designed to disenfranchise voters.

You'd think that Republicans would realize that trying to reduce the electorate is a dumb strategy long term. Caucasian voters simply aren't going to continue to be the largest voting block forever and trying to forestall that reality is a herculean task especially when the other solution is to just stop being dickbags to most Americans.
posted by vuron at 5:49 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

8. Donald Trump

If we're talking Donald Trump the human being ( yes, I know, that aside ), I would personally put him much lower. If we're talking the environmental conditions and attitudes that gave rise to Donald Trump's candidacy and apparent level of support - then much higher.

He's vile, but he's a symptom, and the disease will take much longer to cure than even the next two or three election seasons.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 5:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Atrocity ranking? What about prohibition!
posted by vrakatar at 5:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Well, LA has very few early voting places (other than the last 2 weekends, it has a single early voting place in Norwalk for the entire city, and on the last 2 weekends they open like 4 more --- for millions of people). So unless you can't make it on election day due to work or something, early voting will probably take much longer than election day voting.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:52 PM on November 6, 2016

a fiendish thingy: Has anyone looked into whether Trump even has a call tool, let alone a usable one?

I'll take "call tools" for 500, Alex.

Who's Corey Lewandowski?

Hah! I kill me.

Seriously, though, awesome that you got on the horn.

Now for an actual moment of levity...I'm not a pro sports guy, but I gotta say...Chris Rock throws some serious shade:

Hillary and Lebron. They'll beat trump but I don't think they can beat the Raptors .
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Khizr Khan is introducing James Taylor (who will then introduce Hillary Clinton) at her rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. He just said: "Well thankfully Mr. Trump, this isn’t your America. And on Tuesday, we’re going to prove that America belongs to all of us."
posted by sallybrown at 5:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [45 favorites]

Here in Pittsburgh I've never waited more than 10 minutes. My neighborhood, which isn't particularly large or populous, has two voting stations, right down the block from one another (the elementary school and the fire station).

When we lived in rural Maryland, though, it was another story. We were there for the 2004 election (ugh) and the line to vote was down the hallway and out the front door of the school and it definitely took closer to an hour.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

In my province employers are required by law to allow employees four consecutive hours off while the polls are open. Last year, our polls closed at 8pm and I normally worked til 4:30, so I was allowed to leave a half hour early to vote.
posted by peppermind at 5:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

> You'd think that Republicans would realize that trying to reduce the electorate is a dumb strategy long term.

I've wondered about this too — but after all, it's hardly the only thing in their agenda that betrays a serious weakness in long-term planning. Not thinking past the next election is practically a hallmark of their party at this point.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 5:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

For those LA County or other California voters who feel weird about permanent vote by mail because you want to be sure it gets counted or you just don't trust it'll get there in time or whatever: you can always return your ballot in person before election day. In LA, you return it to any of these locations, where there'll likely be less of a line than the overburdened early vote locations. You can also return it to a polling place on election day, so you can get some of that sweet sweet voting on the day feeling without spending time in the voting booth.

Also, for the record, for LA County, you can check on the status of your vote by mail ballot here.

Seriously fellow Angelenos: sign up for permanent vote by mail. This way you won't have to worry about an election day crapshoot of "oh no, suddenly I have to be out of town/my kids are sick/stuck at the office," and you have multiple options to get that ballot back where it needs to go. They will also count your ballot if it's postmarked by election day and gets to the Registrar within three days.
posted by yasaman at 5:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

8. Donald Trump. If we're talking the environmental conditions and attitudes that gave rise to Donald Trump's candidacy and apparent level of support - then much higher. He's vile, but he's a symptom, and the disease will take much longer to cure than even the next two or three election seasons.

That's an important point but it remains to be seen what develops in terms of the political dialog and whether or not he will be rejected or made as fodder for a movement going forward.
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:58 PM on November 6, 2016

[...] on tonight of all nights, the Republican Jewish Coalition dropped all pretenses and officially endorsed Trump.

<facepalm>

Guys, in just a couple of days the election will be over. If Clinton wins, as is extremely likely, the fact you held out would have made you seem more credible. If Trump wins, nobody would know or care whether you had endorsed him - heck, you're drawing attention to the fact that you waited this long, and it might be held against you. So why do it, why now, why look stupid as well as immoral?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [36 favorites]

I skipped to the end of this thread for an end-of-weekend GOTV update from deep red Pennsylvania.

Overall, a reassuring experience. We knocked on about 120 doors and got barked at by ~500 dogs. List was registered Democrats who were inconsistent voters. Most people weren't home. We saw a total of five Clinton signs, and probably 50 Trump signs. Most of the people we reached were enthusiastic, despite their lack of yard signs (quote: 'I would crawl to the polls if I had to') and happy to see us. A few people told us to go away.

Most memorable moments:
-The 18 year old who asked us to keep our voices down as we talked. Then his dad came over and told us, 'we're not voting for her here. she belongs in jail.' I hope that kid is ok.
-The 80+ year old matriarch who started dancing when we said why we were there, prayed for us, and was getting her whole large family to the polls.
-The woman who told us that the person who we were looking for had gotten evicted 'because that's the type of person who votes for Hillary.'

It was also interesting speaking to my moderate Republican relatives, who hosted us. We didn't pry, but for the most part, they seem to be either voting for Hillary or not voting. But they are PISSED that the Republican party didn't provide a candidate that they can support.
posted by oryelle at 5:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [80 favorites]

Anybody else here in CA really excited that they get to vote for POT & PORN in an honest to god election? With real ballots and everything? POT & PORN 2016.

(Ok, actually I think propositions are absurd. But still.. POT & PORN).
posted by Justinian at 5:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Tommy Craggs: This Election Was About the Issues

The issues. These are conjuring words, deployed to summon an air of adult purpose. In public discourse they tend to be pronounced with an unctuous reverence, in the same way you might say “the children” or “the national debt” or “the Yankees.” Do not be taken in. This election was about the issues. I don’t mean the phony ones that get bruited by the likes of Paul Volcker and Peter Peterson, both of whom could recently be found mewling in the pages of the New York Times about the deficit, a matter so fake and remote from the actual life of the country that the Times might as well have inveighed against chemtrails or published a dispatch from Glocca Morra. I’m talking about issues that involve the fundamental arrangements of American life, issues of race and class and gender and sexual violence. These are the things we’ve argued about in the past year and change, sometimes coarsely, sometimes tediously, but very often illuminatingly. This has been, by all but the most fatuous measures, an issue-rich campaign
...
For Serious People, the manner in which the issues are raised is as important as the issues themselves. Abstractions are preferable, which is why “abortion” is an admissible issue but “grab them by the pussy”—a vivid manifestation of the misogyny that runs beneath the surface of the abortion debate—is part of some queasy-making burlesque.

posted by acidic at 6:00 PM on November 6, 2016 [63 favorites]

Watching Hillary in New Hampshire. She's smiling and at ease.

I can't wait for her to be president.
posted by mochapickle at 6:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

When she wins I want the Khans on a postage stamp.

Have to have been dead for three years to even be considered. So let's be careful what we wish for...
posted by davros42 at 6:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

John Cole: Voter Suppression Will And Must Ultimately Fail:

Yes, “moderate” Republican John Kasich (who I still think would have really made this election hell had he won the nomination) may shave off a couple thousand votes with this blatant voter suppression. But in the long run, it will fail.

A lot of this line is from the Ohio “Souls to Polls,” and while the Republican party’s institutional memory is about 6 hours and only if that’s convenient for them, black churches have a long, long memory. In every line, there are younger voters mixed in with grandparents and great-grandparents who were around before the VRA’s and CRA’s of the sixties. Every congregation is filled with people who were beaten, had dogs sicced on them, shot with firehoses, intimidated, and so forth, and that institutional memory is alive and well. They remember Jim Crow, they remember poll taxes, and this is just one more insult and one more assault on the dignity of the African American community, and they will note it.

And they will remember.

posted by palindromic at 6:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [41 favorites]

The new election model posted on Slate is very, very cool. (Despite all the clickbaity headlines, Slate also does good work sometimes!) It's a Bayesian model, so instead of taking an average of polls and doing some kind of "trend line adjustment" a la Nate Silver, it assumes there is a true voter intent that moves in a random walk, and tries to estimate the parameters of this random walk -- potentially a much more powerful technique. It's open source (unlike 538 or any of the other major prediction sites), and it's written in the Stan programming language, which was developed by Andrew Gelman (who moonlights for Slate -- I don't think this is a coincidence). Awesome stuff if you're a data nerd.
posted by miyabo at 6:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Have to have been dead for three years to even be considered. So let's be careful what we wish for...

Perhaps Humayun Khan.
posted by mochapickle at 6:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [40 favorites]

These alt-right guys tossing around terms like "cuck" and "cheese pizza" are, uh, saying a lot more about themselves than about their ostensible targets.

Your kink is not our kink, guys! Please stop making things weird and uncomfortable by assuming we're in there with you.
posted by jackbishop at 6:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [29 favorites]

Does Christie still have to keep getting Trump's McDonalds order if Hillary wins?
posted by drezdn at 6:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's open source (unlike 538 or any of the other major prediction sites)

Aren't the PEC and HuffPo models open-source? I thought 538 was actually in the minority that weren't open.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mark Halperin, "journalist," everybody: It's the oldest story in presidential politics: girl gets FBI director; girl loses FBI director; girl gets FBI director back. (twitter)

Not 1/100 of the "journalist" that Tommy Craggs up there is and Halperin the hack would probably turn his nose up at Craggs.
posted by sallybrown at 6:08 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

OK, I'll settle for a very highbrow reality show where Khizr Khan teaches new immigrants about the constitution.

Also people who were born here.
posted by mochapickle at 6:08 PM on November 6, 2016 [35 favorites]

but after all, it's hardly the only thing in their agenda that betrays a serious weakness in long-term planning.

Seriously, that whole Citizens United thing. Allowing unlimited money to flood campaigns. That was supposed to give them an advantage. Instead it gave them unlimited candidates scrambling to fellate sugar daddies. So now they're broke and the Democrats are pulling in the cash.
posted by teirnon at 6:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

Not thinking past the next election is practically a hallmark of their party at this point.

I think it's more basic than that. Parasitically sucking every last bit of value out without regard to the future is a hallmark of their ideology.
posted by ctmf at 6:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I didn't know this. David Wildstein testified in the Bridgegate trial that Bill Stepien, now Trump's national field director, knew about the plan for the lane closings and the cover story.
posted by zachlipton at 6:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Voting On Tuesday - How Is This Still A Thing? from John Oliver.
posted by Marky at 6:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Onion: Trump Makes Last Minute Push to Appeal to Whites
posted by palindromic at 6:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I find someone via Twitter to add me to Pantsuit Natiin (which I only found out about this weekend) and come to find I already have 64 friends in the group?!? All dead to me now, lol.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:17 PM on November 6, 2016 [35 favorites]

Voted early today in MN, (CAVEAT) one of the bluest neighborhoods in the bluest county in one of the bluest states under a blue, blue electric blue November sky. We waited in line for a few hours on a beautiful sunny afternoon. It was happy and cheerful, and the volunteers said they've easily surpassed last year's early voting numbers and they were so glad everyone was there. When we were done it was time for democracy cocktails, during which I refreshed this thread and read more early voting stories. At the very same time I got a message from John texting for HRC asking me if I needed help finding my polling place. I replied with a pic of my "I Voted" sticker and thanked him for doing what he was doing. He sent me a smiley face back. Three cheers to everyone on the ground!

And three cheers to you all for being a vortex of sanity in a sea of WTF. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

New Donald Trump ad appeals to NFL fans who favor keeping Redskins name

Racists gotta racist.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

(I'm still looking for someone to add me to Pantsuit Nation. I hit up a mefi within the last hour but um I'm impatient. If someone wants to reach out on fb and touch me, that would be great. Same info as in mefi profile.)
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:19 PM on November 6, 2016

The Onion: Trump Makes Last Minute Push to Appeal to Whites

So has The Onion officially given up on satire now?
posted by Zalzidrax at 6:19 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

I find someone via Twitter to add me to Pantsuit Natiin (which I only found out about this weekend) and come to find I already have 64 friends in the group?!? All dead to me now, lol.

A friend randomly added me to PN today without me asking and I found out my wife is a member.
posted by chris24 at 6:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [88 favorites]

FYI, we just had a 5.3 earthquake near Cushing, Oklahoma (9:45 pm). That is the new normal here, and my daughter and her boyfriend were startled enough to come into the living room and mention it.
I wonder what the provisions are for "acts of God" during an election?
posted by TrishaU at 6:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Atrocity rankings are leaving out Japanese-American internment, theft of property from Mexicans, everything Mark Millar has ever written for Marvel comics, and oh my god this is a terrible detail.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

In case anyone wants to download the Sara Bareilles/Leslie Odom Jr. song about Obama, it is free for the rest of the month here. (Along with the other two songs, but they are about Paul Ryan and Reince Preibus, so, ehhh.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 6:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

So why do it, why now, why look stupid as well as immoral?

Well, if the story is ever told in the aftermath, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't a large Kushner donation to the group to make it so. The whole Kushner family are big donors to Jewish causes and I can see the latest round of anti-semitic postings to be the impetus for them to step up and and show solidarity with Jared. AFAICT, the entire Jewish Republican argument for Trump literally boils down to "He personally can't be anti-semitic because Ivanka and Jared." This is just doubling down on that.
posted by Mchelly at 6:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Fracks of God?
posted by Yowser at 6:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

The Onion: Trump Makes Last Minute Push to Appeal to Whites

This is where [real] and [fake] tags fail.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

FYI, we just had a 5.3 earthquake near Cushing, Oklahoma (9:45 pm). That is the new normal here, and my daughter and her boyfriend were startled enough to come into the living room and mention it.
I wonder what the provisions are for "acts of God" during an election?

God has a lot less to do with it than fracking does. Another reason to vote.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

I just opened a call with, "Hi Maggie [my name]...this is [PERSON WHO I AM CALLING]" - then started laughing my ass off. Fortunately, the caller was understanding.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

Fluffy, Check your FB PM
posted by thebrokedown at 6:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Just got back from a day of GOTV for Hillary in a town in PA. Working class neighborhood, mixed between blacks and whites - many of the few houses were quite run down.

It was overall a good experience, wonderful talking with voters who were excited to vote for Hillary and hearing their stories. A few notable observations:

* Our list was to target homes with registered democrats. The people who came out to say they weren't voting for Hillary were all white. I knew the conversation wasn't going to go well when a white guy came to the door dressed in full camo-print lounge wear.

* One old white man on a bike riding (very slowly) past me saw my sign and told me to go to hell. I smiled and wished him well.

* Another young white man told me to get out of the neighborhood with the signs, but I told him he was my brother regardless of what happened on Tuesday and asked if I could give him a hug. He laughed and said no and drove off, but I saw him soften a bit.

* While a number of people we visited took signs, there were a significant amount who said they wanted to keep it on the downlow and didn't want to display a sign because ::gesture towards neighbor's house with trump sign:: they were afraid that their neighbors would harass them or hurt them. This was probably the most depressing part of the canvassing, but also made me refocus on what we're working against.

Overall, like in 2012 when the races were tightening it felt really good to just drop the nonstop election news and despair and get out and do something about the situation. There are two days left for folks to join, and they need people like you to help. Tuesday is the most crucial as that's going to check on the voters to make sure they've actually voted. There are scripts and material, so you don't have to do anything on the fly, and you're working with lists of likely Hillary voters, so it's not like cold-calling anyone. Really encourage anyone in this thread who is glued to the news cycle and terrified of Trump presidency to contact your local field office and volunteer to take a shift.

It's really amazing how much better my mood is after doing a day of this, especially when you see how the field offices are well organized and consist of diverse groups of people sharing the same goal.
posted by Karaage at 6:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [63 favorites]

People up in New Hampshire will know better than me if this will help solidify NH, but former senator Gordon Humphrey endorsed Clinton this afternoon.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton picked up the vote of one of New Hampshire’s more outspoken arch-conservatives on Sunday.

Former New Hampshire US senator Gordon Humphrey said he would vote for Clinton largely because of his feelings about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“On Tuesday, millions of lifelong Republicans will vote against Donald Trump. I’m one of them,” Humphrey said in a Clinton campaign video released Sunday afternoon. “For the sake of our families’ safety, let’s stand together against Donald Trump by voting for Hillary Clinton. It’s the responsible thing to do.”

posted by chris24 at 6:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

Yeah you folks involved in the ground game, hit it hard, hit it like a SWAT team, I live in a blue state and I'll vote but you folk deserve the medals. Precinct by precinct, ward by ward, hurry up hurry up vote for Skeffington!
posted by vrakatar at 6:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Unfortunately, they'll end up veering straight into that stone wall called the House of Representatives.

You know what you do with a stone wall? You either climb over it, go under it, or get out your pickaxes. I know we will have a hard time in '18 but I am fired up and I'm going to do what I can to change this crappy situation in our government. We may not get through that wall with one blow but we can keep chipping at it.
posted by emjaybee at 6:39 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Always sounded like something you do after you ate too many Votes. Or like, were bitten by a feral creature and had some kind of parasite called "Vote" in the local language, so you had to go to the hospital to Get It Out..

Anyhow. Cynical part of me sees Trump as entirely reasonable representative of your country. Hopeful part of me prays that Cynical part of me is wrong, for once in his goddamn life.
posted by some loser at 6:39 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

uhhh

Ted Nugent on stage at Trump rally grabbed his crotch and yelled “I got your blue state right here. [Black and blue.]”

--@American_Bridge

There's video in the link.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to rant about how it's wrong for Clinton to campaign with celebrities and attack Beyoncé and Jay Z.
posted by zachlipton at 6:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Kick his ass Hillary!

KICK. HIS. ASS.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [45 favorites]

Malcolm Gladwell is going to be on CBC's The National tonight (or was if you're in Newfoundland), talking about the election. In a brief radio news preview, no surprise if you listened to his revisionist history podcast -- the main strike against Hillary is that she's a woman. He also said Trump's likely to end up in jail within a year, which fits in with everything else that he's said about other people these past 15 months -- that they're actually about himself. And if not in jail, he's going to spend a lot of time huddled with his lawyers.
posted by morspin at 6:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah you folks involved in the ground game, hit it hard, hit it like a SWAT team, I live in a blue state and I'll vote but you folk deserve the medals.

Earn your medal! Join our call team, or volunteer at a local one near you. We're calling Texas and Kentucky now!
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Regarding 538 model, Nate has provided a seemingly pretty fair evaluative framework for it.

@NateSilver538
Loosely speaking:
538 more right if HRC gets gets <=285 EV or >=375 EV
Others more right if she gets 300 EV to 350
in-between areas sort of a tie

@NateSilver538
One reason model evaluation is tricky: 538 gives Trump the best chance of winning, period, but also Clinton the best chance of winning AZ.
posted by chris24 at 6:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

And if not in jail, he's going to spend a lot of time huddled with his lawyers.
Will he neglect to pay them afterwards?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

uhhh
Ted Nugent on stage at Trump rally grabbed his crotch and yelled “I got your blue state right here. [Black and blue.]”
--@American_Bridge

There's video in the link.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to rant about how it's wrong for Clinton to campaign with celebrities and attack Beyoncé and Jay Z.

This really shouldn't make me laugh but talk about absolute stupidity and utterly, utterly tone deaf.
It's beyond me to even be outraged. I just laughed.
posted by Jalliah at 6:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

And a followup to my previous post, could whoever's maintaining the playlist add this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doM5UosdtaM
posted by morspin at 6:49 PM on November 6, 2016

Will he neglect to pay them afterwards?
Don't be silly, Trump only intentionally fails to pay vulnerable people most unlikely to have the resources or knowledge to get their money back.
posted by Karaage at 6:49 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

So Kitteh and I are actually going to be in Savannah, GA for election night, and she is all in for staying in and keeping her head down, whereas I am kind of looking for a "yes, I got shot but it only grazed my shoulder" kind of thing. Any bar recommendations?
posted by Shepherd at 6:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

> Will he neglect to pay them afterwards?

Depends, will they take a check from a non-profit?
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

I voted. Straight democrats. If we ever have another major party that's interested in governing, I'd be willing to listen to their ideas and consider voting for them. If we ever fix our voting system, I'd even consider minor party candidates.

Of the many WTFs in this election, my personal WTF is this: what the hell is wrong with the Christians in this country? My heritage is white, rural, conservative Christians who were giving up their livelihoods to oppose slavery in the 1680s, a hundred years before there was an America to have a civil war in. There is nothing in the modern "religious right" that I remotely recognize as Christian.

The church that I grew up with considered the separation of church and state to be a core part of their belief system. Not because of the danger of religious beliefs affecting the state, but rather the reverse -- because of the danger that political concerns would corrupt the church. Now witness modern America, where the religious right worships the Republican party and hurries to follow the almost comically evil men that the party raises up.

I'm a long way from the kid who grew up going to church every Sunday, but this still makes me both deeply sad and deeply angry.
posted by madmethods at 6:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [139 favorites]

How many people of voting age actually listen to Ted Nugent? How many listen to Beyonce? Because this goes beyond the Millennial thing. Nugent is nearly 70 years old. I've seen people regurgitating the "Clinton's supporters like music that's trash" stuff, but this is getting beyond even dog-whistle territory into delusional no-that's-just-a-regular-whistle territory. The bands that predate this general shift are getting downright elderly. This is no longer something you can pass of as being something about "urban culture" or "kids these days" with even the thinnest veil of credibility.
posted by Sequence at 6:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

This is pretty sweet (via Lawyers Guns and Money):

Right-to-work lobby freaking out that Clinton court appointees will make right-to-work laws unconstitutional.

I'll believe it when I see it, but it's a nice thing to ponder.
posted by emjaybee at 6:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [46 favorites]

Right-to-work lobby freaking out that Clinton court appointees will make right-to-work laws unconstitutional.

That would be sweet.
posted by drezdn at 6:53 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Well, Clinton brings out celebrities, Trump brings out has-beens. I see the difference.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

So why is [Melania's visa violation] only getting reported on now?

The campaign was saving the best for last.
posted by Coventry at 6:54 PM on November 6, 2016

emjaybee: ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease
posted by SansPoint at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2016

Missouri’s race for governor this year is among the most watched in the country, drawing massive money and rapt attention from national business and labor interests.
The reason for the attention isn’t a mystery: If Republican nominee Eric Greitens is elected on Nov. 8, Missouri will almost certainly, almost immediately become America’s 27th “right-to-work” state. If he isn’t, it probably won’t.
posted by robbyrobs at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

There's a bunch of anti-union laws that don't make sense, especially in light of Citizens United. Like Act 10 in Wisconsin, a union for public workers can only negotiate salary. Negotiating is straight up speech, under the first amendment, how can the government limit it here. *steps off soapbox*
posted by drezdn at 6:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [14 favorites]

There is a big part of me that would like to make Opposite Day legislation names unconstitutional, like "right to work" or "Patriot" act, although I realize that that itself would be unconstitutional. But I'm SO SICK of things being called their opposite.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [51 favorites]

More on Florida - from the Miami Herald:

Through Saturday, 565,000 Hispanics had completed early in-person voting in Florida, a 100 percent increase over 2012, according to an analysis by Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who tracks voting data. Including absentee ballots, 911,000 Hispanics have voted — more than a third of whom did not vote in 2012.

Steve Schale then explains on Twitter: And well over 50% of all FL Hispanic early voters have either no voting history, or just 1 of last 3 elex. Among NPA, it's 2/3rds.

This Washington Post article has some of the info we're seeing on Twitter for those who prefer articles:

The Hispanic share of overall early voters is sharply higher this year, reaching about 15 percent from about 10 percent at this stage four years ago, according to an analysis by University of Florida political scientist Daniel A. Smith. Another examination of the numbers, by Democratic strategist Steve Schale, found that more than half of the Hispanics who have voted so far have either never voted before or voted only once previously.

And THIS know-how and care for details is exactly what I love so much about Hillary and her people, also from the Post:

Lorella Praeli, the Clinton campaign’s director of Hispanic outreach, said the campaign sought to recruit ambassadors inside communities — the owner of the local bodega or Spanish grocery and the matriarchs and abuelas who might have an affinity for electing the first female president.

“We look forward to welcoming some of the most influential Latinas in the country as we build our path to la victoria para Hillary,” read one advertisement. “Latinos will shape the future of our país.”

When Praeli produced the ad, she said some asked why they would publish something in the informal Spanglish.

“This is a part of our culture,” Praeli said. “It shows that we understand how families speak with one another.”

One of the most persuasive strategies for Clinton allies has been to send undocumented workers to knock on the doors of potential Hispanic voters to explain the stakes of the election.

On Friday, Maria Bilbao and her son, Tomas Kennedy, jumped into their old Mercedes with broken air conditioning to explain what a Trump presidency might mean for their family. She was one of the five undocumented Marias canvassing around Little Havana.

“To be honest, I’m not voting,” said one woman, Maria Figueroa, 56, upon opening her door to see Bilbao and Kennedy. “They are both liars.”

Kennedy explained that he agreed the candidates were not the best, but one candidate was better than the other.

“This is my mother, and she is undocumented,” Kennedy told her. Their family moved from Argentina in 2001, when its economy was collapsing. They were told the wait list to move legally lasted 17 years. Kennedy received a reprieve through the Obama administration’s decision to shield from deportation many people who came to the country as young children. His mother is still at risk.

“If Trump is elected, we don’t know what he will do,” Kennedy continued. “He’s going to pull our family apart.”

“He is crazy,” Bilbao added, circling one finger around her ear.

Figueroa finally agreed she would vote. She wrote down the address for her polling place

In 2012, Obama won Florida by 74,309 votes.

I hope to god that Clinton will remember what this community did for her and the rest of us, especially those undocumented workers knocking on doors.
posted by sallybrown at 6:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [132 favorites]

@Acosta 9m9 minutes ago Moon, PA
One of Trump's warm up speakers in PA was just going off on Springstein. Now the audio techs are playing "Glory Days" and crowd is booing.

I believe that's an act of treason, at least in New Jersey.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [29 favorites]

RobotVoodooPower It's also a nice little protest on the part of the audio techs.
posted by SansPoint at 7:00 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

I am now officially ready to stop listening to this person

This person may have been a bit sarcastic.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:00 PM on November 6, 2016

The National (the CBC news show, not the band) is streaming here and should also have tonight's show available shortly. It may or may not be geoblocked: let us know.

(They're running the live show again now.)

BTW, can a Canuck get an invite to pantsuit nation? Just to take a look and offer best wishes?
posted by maudlin at 7:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

26 hours until election day, I think I have run out of sarcastic.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

This person may have been a bit sarcastic.

I don't think so -- if you read his comments he's committed to the bit. Eichenwald has been a little nutty lately.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have 100,000 emails downloaded from the clooouuuud on my laptop. They take up 50 gigs tops.
posted by Yowser at 7:04 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

There is a big part of me that would like to make Opposite Day legislation names unconstitutional, like "right to work" or "Patriot" act, although I realize that that itself would be unconstitutional. But I'm SO SICK of things being called their opposite.

"Scully, marry me"
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's also a nice little protest on the part of the audio techs.

I can only hope the choice of "Glory Days" was intentional.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

I am now officially ready to stop listening to this person

Yeah, Eichenwald is sort of a crank who oversells some of his stories and spends way too much time arguing with random people on Twitter (and I just decided to spend my time adding to the chorus of "you're wrong" voices just because), but he seems to have good government sources on national security stuff and occasionally produces good stories out of that. He also got the documents published on Trump's corporate involvement in Cuba.

Of course, now he's claiming that Mark Cuban was at least one of his sources for "that many emails can't fit on a laptop," so ugh. Eichenwald is momentarily useful to me, but I will be glad when I can stop paying attention to him after the election.

This process has given me a vague sense as to why sort of a "big name" investigative reporter is still working at Newsweek.
posted by zachlipton at 7:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

BTW, can a Canuck get an invite to pantsuit nation?

Well, trousersuit nation anyway.
posted by bonehead at 7:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

BTW, can a Canuck get an invite to pantsuit nation? Just to take a look and offer best wishes?

Check your memail
posted by Jalliah at 7:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Eichenwald claims he knows the specs of the computer in question which makes me think he's looking at the RAM number.
posted by acidic at 7:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Dang it, Jalliah : )

I'll be happy to add people to PN, just MeMail me.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

My ex got a great spot in the crowd for the Hillary/Mr Khan/James Taylor event in NH. He sent me tons of great pictures during the event. I think he was trying to rub it in...

I donated to Hassan yesterday. Here's hoping she manages a last-second win!
posted by TwoStride at 7:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Holly Bailey ‏@hollybdc 22s22 seconds ago
Two hours late and crowd is getting cranky to see Trump. Booing the dj for playing Alan Parsons Project on repeat
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Holy crap, that was fast. I'm in PN and it's HYOOGE.
posted by maudlin at 7:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

When I asked for drink suggestions to cope on election night my friend said "bottom shelf liquor by the fifth" and that's probably the most thematically appropriate but I ended up deciding on frozen margaritas
posted by Gymnopedist at 7:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Booing the dj for playing Alan Parsons Project on repeat

heh! What happened to Tiny Dancer?

Guys...are we ever going to hear Donald tell The Snake again?
posted by sallybrown at 7:19 PM on November 6, 2016

It's quite disturbing that a GENERAL has no conception of parallelizing a task across multiple workers. Does he fight his battles himself??

No, what is most disturbing is that this idiot general was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and he has no concept of using software for sifting through intelligence information. This wasn't some distant past. He left office just two years ago.

(Twice appointed by Obama. What is it with Democrats always appointing Republicans to defense and police positions?)
posted by JackFlash at 7:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

I finally watched the pinned "story of this campaign" video pinned to the top of Hillary's Twitter account. It didn't strike me when I was voting, but it really hit home as I was watching her just how big of a deal it was.

Got really dusty in here, is all I'm saying.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:22 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yowser: "I have 100,000 emails downloaded from the clooouuuud on my laptop. They take up 50 gigs tops."

I just checked. My main personal gmail account has 49,500 email taking up 2.5GB. Extrapolate it up and 650K mails would fit on a mid size SD card.
posted by Mitheral at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2016

Dick Durban AND Tom Vilsack showed up at the field office I was canvassing from today!! THATS RIGHT THE CORN MAN HIMSELF, JEALOUS MUCH
posted by theodolite at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

I don't but the tweet is from Dr. Daniel Smith, a political science professor and Florida politics expert who is one of the goto Twitter people for Florida along with Steve Schale. You can check his bio at electionsmith.com. I don't think he's making stuff up.

I know Dan; we run in the same state-politics circles. A wise person would take Dan's statements about this as gospel.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Story of Her. I'm crying, but happy tears.
posted by smangosbubbles at 7:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

Josh Marshall Is Trump an Anti-Semite?

But it doesn't really matter. As a Jew and an American and a human, I don't really care terribly what Trump thinks of Jews. It isn't really relevant to my life or my family's welfare or my country. The fact that he's running a campaign that is propagating and mobilizing anti-Semitism, running blatantly anti-Semitic political ads in the hottest, final days of a national election is hugely important on all three of those fronts. The same applies to how he has mobilized and partly normalized anti-Semites, propagated their ideas, made them more defining in one of the country's two political parties. And to be clear, this applies just as much to his racism and denigration of Latinos, blacks, Muslims and various other groups. I'm just focusing in this post on this one breed of Trump propagated hate.

So is Trump himself an anti-Semite? I have no idea. It doesn't matter. He's running an anti-Semitic campaign. That's all that matters.

I largely agree, and the Jerusalem Post had a related article back in September that's worth reading as well. Trump himself, based on his public statements, seems to periodically express some philosemetic beliefs that are based on stereotypes. Those are largely the same stereotypes that the people he pals around with, and his worst supporters, turn into hate. I don't know whether he knows or cares; it's not about what he believes deep down, but what he and the people who represent him do.
posted by zachlipton at 7:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

It occurs to me that I have been watching scenes from Dr. Strangelove over and over again for comfort.

I also learned today that I suck really bad at phone banking. I just couldn't keep it up for very long. We were calling probably-Hillary voters in Ohio and they all sounded so tired of this. The office was so full of people that they had a hard time figuring out where to put everyone, though, so at least that's encouraging. Sorry Hillary. I should have done better. I did make a contribution so I hope that helps make up for my lack of fortitude. And at least now I know I'll need a couple of beers first if I ever do that again. Props to the phone bankers. That's real, tough work (at least for someone as socially anxious as me).
posted by treepour at 7:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

You guys forgot to take into account that fully half of these emails are of Anthony's Weiner and image files are much larger than text emails.
posted by Justinian at 7:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [26 favorites]

In fairness, there's reason to believe Anthony Weiner's emails may contain some large attachments.

*takes shower*
posted by zachlipton at 7:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

Two hours late and crowd is getting cranky to see Trump. Booing the dj for playing Alan Parsons Project
Is there a stream of this? I'd love to watch Donnie gasp for air a bit.
posted by vrakatar at 7:28 PM on November 6, 2016

Jill Colvin ‏@colvinj 52s52 seconds ago
Trump, predicting victory on Tuesday, says “it will be called Brexit plus, plus, plus.”
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:28 PM on November 6, 2016

chris24: do you have a source for these numbers besides a tweet?

dis_integration, Clinton just retweeted this from another person who confirms the same numbers.

@AdamSmith_usa
Hillary passed Obama in total black voters who participated in Early Voting in Florida.
2012: 539,000
2016: 564,000 (not counting today)
posted by chris24 at 7:28 PM on November 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

Is it too late to ask for an invite to Pantsnation? Pretty please with a zipper in front?
posted by ramix at 7:30 PM on November 6, 2016

Thank you for that Khizr Khan quote, sallybrown. I live across the street from a polling station, in a neighborhood with a sizable Muslim population and have just decided to make a sign out of it.

Anyways the irony of the email search is that discovery and litigation technology is exactly Khizr Khan's professional specialty!

It ain't Bannon's pants-on-fire but still...
posted by mahorn at 7:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm overloaded and freaked out. At this point, I'm deleting ten emails every few hours begging me to donate money to the Clinton campaign or to my Senate candidate's campaign because I donated as much money as I could afford once Clinton was the nominee. I don't answer my phone because it's all robocalls. And my husband is now at the stage where he can't even watch TV because he's afraid he'll see stuff about the election.
posted by Peach at 7:33 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Yeah I'm so grateful for those people who stand in long lines to vote. Even in Texas, which is hardly a bastion of voter access, I've never waited longer than maybe 20 minutes (and that's both urban and rural locations.) The longest line I ever stood in was an off-off-year election when the anti-gay marriage amendment for the state was on the ballot. Because it was a local-only election they combined many polling places together and then there was a long line. So I stood in line with a bunch of elderly church-goers so that they could vote to ban gay marriage and I could vote against the ban.

That's actually one reason I've always voted on election day, because the lines are usually shorter than early voting. But 2010 I was unable to walk and missed my first election since I was 18. And this year I wanted to make SURE I got to vote so I went mid-week to vote early and there was only one other person there. I missed seeing my local poll workers, though. I got to know some of the local democratic volunteers when I was a county delegate for Obama.
posted by threeturtles at 7:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Pennsylvania doesn't have early voting. I'll be there the moment the polls open, or before, and in my neighborhood there's gonna be such a line.
posted by Peach at 7:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Peach, I'm starting to think election burnout is part of the Republican plan for 2018.
posted by mollweide at 7:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

Ha, in response to General Flynn's and Bernie Kerik's idiotic tweets about not being able to go through that many emails in 8 days, this happened:

@jeffjarvis
Hey @Snowden, for context, how long would it take the NSA to dedupe 650k emails?

@Snowden
@jeffjarvis Drop non-responsive To:/CC:/BCC:, hash both sets, then subtract those that match. Old laptops could do it in minutes-to-hours.
posted by chris24 at 7:39 PM on November 6, 2016 [56 favorites]

Yeah, Eichenwald is sort of a crank who oversells some of his stories and spends way too much time arguing with random people on Twitter (and I just decided to spend my time adding to the chorus of "you're wrong" voices just because), but he seems to have good government sources on national security stuff and occasionally produces good stories out of that. He also got the documents published on Trump's corporate involvement in Cuba.

My first encounter with Eichenwald was during the first round of DNC hacking stuff. I think he was one of the guys who jumped on the "Russia did it" theory really early on. Which, you know, is not and unreasonable theory, and there are credible reasons to think that the hackers were indeed from Russia if not necessarily working for the Kremlin.

But, on everything else since then? Crank is about right. Not full-on InfoWars, but he does seem a bit too credulous.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:42 PM on November 6, 2016

I'm sure most (all?) people commenting have or will vote or do their best. I encourage you if you're on the fence to do so. I am so sad that I won't be able to vote in this election*, but I WILL be crying when we (dear-god-I-hope) elect the first female president.

But wow this election has burned me. I've had friends made statements that made my jaw drop. People that I couldn't even believe felt that way. Young people. People I've known for a decade. Excusing things that Trump said. One of them just got married and I felt so bad for his new wife. Does he really think so little of women that he can excuse such horrible language and actions?

And then there's people who call themselves Ivanka voters? I don't understand. She's not running for anything? Is it just because she dresses nice? Sigh.

I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat because it just feels like anything could happen during this election. Like there's no rules. I'm terrified he will not concede and it will be drawn out for days.

And for a bit of humor, I'm not saying Trump can't read. I'm just saying people have said Trump Can't Read.

*Chronic illness has prevented me from having the time for updating my licence to my new state and I have lived here too long for an absentee in my old state. I hope to vote again in the next election. We also live in Utah... so...I'm outnumbered.
posted by Crystalinne at 7:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm planning to go to the rally tomorrow that soren_lorensen mentioned. It'll be outdoors on a college campus -- I'm guessing that it could draw as many as 5,000 to 10,000 people.

I'll have to duck out of a conference being held a block away to do it -- how far ahead of time should i leave the meeting to go to the rally (doors open 9 AM, event is at noon), if my goal is just to attend but not to try to be near the front? I was thinking maybe an hour ahead? How fast does security at these events go?
posted by janewman at 7:44 PM on November 6, 2016

Ivanka voters

I haven't encountered this term until right now and I already hate it so much
posted by theodolite at 7:46 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

I am 100% in favor of disconnecting for the sake of your mental health if you need to. It's only 48 hours. Seriously: just flag the Hillary emails as spam. Don't watch TV tomorrow night. Go to a movie or rent something from iTunes. (I was going to recommend Netflix, but do they have election ads?) Maybe play a board game. At this point, there is literally nothing to be gained by obsessively worrying about the election. As long as you have either voted or made a specific plan to vote on Tuesday, I think you should feel free to tune out until approximately 9PM Eastern on Tuesday night.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am 100% in favor of disconnecting for the sake of your mental health if you need to.

I was just looking into signing up for SlingTV so I could watch CNN all day tomorrow and tuesday and then switch over to Fox after Clinton wins to see the meltdown. YMMV.

All I know is, I've got a project I'm supposed to have ready to demo for one of our clients this week and I have no idea why anyone thinks anything is getting done until Wednesday.
posted by dis_integration at 7:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had an amazing time this past weekend renting a mountain lodge in central VA with some friends, doing a brewery and winery tour, and just having a fantastic time. We talked about the election of course, but it was nice to spend time mostly away from constant news updates. On the way back, we all stopped at a Cracker Barrel because it seemed like a good way to clear up hangovers. We were waiting for our party to be called, and a man loudly said the following,

"trump is a millionaire, so you know he doesn't have an ulterior motive to being president. These people [heavy emphasis on that] don't understand what is to be American, like when I was running around the countryside barefoot in the 70s, jumping fences."

So there you go, he's voting trump so that he can be a teenager again.
posted by codacorolla at 7:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

I keep feeling like these early voting tallies are at the sort of numbers that could get completely washed out on election day.

Just to close the loop on this question, we have some new data:

Put Dade in another perspective. Early vote is over 750k, or almost within 100k total votes of the entire 2012 Dade turnout

--@steveschale

That's Miami-Dade county. Either nobody shows up to vote on election day or turnout is going to be massive, but it just goes to show how many people vote early.
posted by zachlipton at 7:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

Ivanka Voter sounds like a cool thing millennials do like Slow Food and Witch House
posted by theodolite at 7:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump Says Minnesota Has “Suffered Enough” For Taking In Somali Refugees

At the same time Cheeto Mussolini was in my beautiful state vilifying the people who were on either side of me in line to vote, they were helping translate, handing out bottles of water, making sure every grandparent had a chair to sit on, and laughing while we took turns shading the sun from each others eyes. I cannot fathom the amount of insanity and fear required to view this beautiful afternoon as anything other than democracy at its finest. Fuck that bleached tangerine shit-gibbon and everything he stands for.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 7:55 PM on November 6, 2016 [93 favorites]

Seriously: just flag the Hillary emails as spam.

After I donated to Hilary, I got (after the receipt and whatnot) one follow up email. I clicked the unsubscribe link and haven't heard a peep since. Turns out that, unlike every organization I've exchanged money with since using a credit card online was still risqué, they've been the only people to respect my opt out.

That's a minor thing, but it's some kind of integrity.
posted by stet at 7:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [30 favorites]

a cool thing millennials do like Slow Food

Huh, well that started in '86 and is majority 40+ but sure. Happy to have Milennials.
posted by Miko at 7:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh my glob, guys. My non-political wife just added me to PN. I've ranted about politics to her for more than two decades now, and she's been tolerant but not particularly interested. This is the first time she's ever followed an election closely. I mentioned PN to her tonight and she's like, "I've been a member for over a week" and sent me an invite. Now, she would have never voted Republican in any event, but the fact that's she's involved to the extent that she is makes me very hopeful.
posted by mollweide at 7:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [29 favorites]

^ Yup. That Buzzfeed link is what I read (or tried to get through) with my jaw on the floor.
posted by Crystalinne at 7:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

1988 is calling on line 7.
posted by vrakatar at 8:02 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can someone help me understand why Florida is considered likely to go red/Republican/Trump?

If I'm not mistaken, Florida went blue in 2008 and 2012, so I'm not quite understanding why people (pundits, polls) would think it would go red this year.

Is it strictly polling results, or something else too?
posted by kristi at 8:03 PM on November 6, 2016

If it's not too late, I'd also be interested in joining PN. My FB name is on my profile, as gender.
posted by duende at 8:04 PM on November 6, 2016

Can somebody invite me to Pantsuit Nation?
posted by Andrhia at 8:04 PM on November 6, 2016

Haw PN stopped being remotely gender sorted?
posted by phearlez at 8:05 PM on November 6, 2016

Is it strictly polling results, or something else too?

It was very close in 2012 (under 1% IIRC) and there's a ton of low-education white dudes there.
posted by Justinian at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2016

I don't think it's considered likely to go Trump. More like - Trump needs to win Florida to win, pretty much, so people have been looking at from the perspective of "is it possible for Trump to win Florida" and before early voting started the answer was "yeah, it could happen." Now it's looking more and more like "nope!"
posted by sallybrown at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Can someone help me understand why Florida is considered likely to go red/Republican/Trump?

I think only Nate Silver has it squarely in the Likely Trump column. but if you look at RCP's polls: you can see that it's a close race according to the polls. Really we have no idea who is going to win it.
posted by dis_integration at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I too would love a Pantsuit Nation invite, although I'm a little nervous to find out how many of my friends are cooler than I am. I didn't tell any of them about Metafilter so I guess we're even.
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Haw PN stopped being remotely gender sorted?

I don't think it ever was. My only criterion for inviting is "not likely to troll this group."
posted by Miko at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Anyone who wants an invite pm me.

And yes there is all genders on it.
posted by Jalliah at 8:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Can someone help me understand why Florida is considered likely to go red/Republican/Trump?

It's not. If you look at the NYT election page that shows all the various forecasts, aggregators and averages (about halfway down the page), 6 have it leaning D, 2 have it as a tossup, 538 has it barely R.
posted by chris24 at 8:07 PM on November 6, 2016

Haw PN stopped being remotely gender sorted?

Everyone is welcome as long as they follow the rules. It began as almost all women because the point was to wear a pantsuit on Election Day. But there are plenty of bad hombres in there.
posted by sallybrown at 8:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

PN went from 1 million to 1.5 million members just today.
posted by Miko at 8:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

The horrible Trump candidacy is having one good result. The mere possibility of him getting elected is so nightmarish that it is bringing out thousands and thousands of first-time voters who never before thought it was worthwhile voting. When they feel their power by electing Hillary (spin three times, spit), they will vote again and again and again. Long live the new USA!
posted by mono blanco at 8:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

Slate: This Election Was About the Issues: "Not the familiar stuff of Washington gridlock, but the most important issues of our time: misogyny, racism, and xenophobia."

The issues. These are conjuring words, deployed to summon an air of adult purpose. In public discourse they tend to be pronounced with an unctuous reverence, in the same way you might say “the children” or “the national debt” or “the Yankees.” Do not be taken in. This election was about the issues. I don’t mean the phony ones that get bruited by the likes of Paul Volcker and Peter Peterson, both of whom could recently be found mewling in the pages of the New York Times about the deficit, a matter so fake and remote from the actual life of the country that the Times might as well have inveighed against chemtrails or published a dispatch from Glocca Morra. I’m talking about issues that involve the fundamental arrangements of American life, issues of race and class and gender and sexual violence. These are the things we’ve argued about in the past year and change, sometimes coarsely, sometimes tediously, but very often illuminatingly. This has been, by all but the most fatuous measures, an issue-rich campaign.

Pick any matter of consequence, and chances are it was aired at length during the presidential campaign. (Well, almost any. Climate change got stiffed after the primaries.) Just a month ago, we had the vice presidential candidates debate urban policing, stop-and-frisk, and the concept of implicit racial bias, though perhaps debate is too strong a word. In truth it wasn’t so much a debate as it was one guy acknowledging the existence of implicit bias and the other guy looking around the room for a hole to dive into. “But, senator, please,” Mike Pence said to his Democratic counterpart, Tim Kaine, “enough of this seeking every opportunity to demean law enforcement broadly by making the accusation of implicit bias every time tragedy occurs.” Pence’s answer might’ve been the thinnest possible slice of the very whitest bread, but it occasioned a conversation over the following days about submerged and structural biases and how they shape inequality.
...
The one favor Trump did us was to be monstrous about the things in America that matter the most, to force a confrontation with all the stuff our politics typically is at pains to suppress. This campaign was about power, and it was about impunity. It was about “Grab them by the pussy,” and it was about the sentence Donald Trump spoke just before that, the issue at the heart of the election: “You can do anything.”

I agree. Much as I've beat the "I wish we could talk about the issues" drum on occasion, what could be more fundamental than the issue of the basic human rights and dignity of the majority of the population? And we actually talked about systemic racism in a Presidential campaign. Who cares about whether they could sit on Meet the Press and talk about marginal tax rates when this stuff is on the table?

It's been a long, long slog, made especially painful by the fact that an incredibly large percentage of the electorate is fine saying "none of that stuff matters." It certainly would be less painful for everyone, the targets of Trump and his supporters' hate most among us, if we just spent the whole election talking about how many aircraft carriers we should have and what we think about the estate tax. I certainly wish we spent this election talking about ways to move forward with things like child care and college affordability instead of trying to keep us from sliding back 60+ years. But no issue is more important than our ability to share a country without hating each other, that's been the issue that has been front and center this entire campaign, and it very much is "a real issue."
posted by zachlipton at 8:14 PM on November 6, 2016 [57 favorites]

Guys, if you were working for Trump's campaign and trying to find a good metaphor for the uncertainty of waiting for the vote to come in...how do you think you would express that? Do you think this would work?

Still, the Trump campaign is hoping that come Election Day, the profile of the voters who turn up at the polls will be more favorable to their candidate, enough to tilt this pivotal state into the Trump column. "It will be close," Parscale said. But even he can’t know for sure. “It’s like predicting your wife’s mood. You have no idea what you’re going to get until you get home.”

Bloomberg Politics
posted by sallybrown at 8:15 PM on November 6, 2016 [74 favorites]

And then there's people who call themselves Ivanka voters?

I think it's kind of a thing like Pence voters, who claim it's all about the Supreme Court and Trump will be impeached anyway, except without the rationalization.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:16 PM on November 6, 2016

"Covering Trump was a massive challenge. Recovering from him may be all but impossible for the political press." Jay Rosen's analysis of the rejection of "The Reality Based Community" in the years since the term was coined and how today's press fails to cope with that.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:16 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

If anyone still needs a PN invite, feel free to MeMail me with your Facebook id.
posted by peacheater at 8:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I messaged the people who wanted to be added to PN. Message me back (it's in your "not friends" inbox), and I'll add you!
posted by zug at 8:19 PM on November 6, 2016

“It’s like predicting your wife’s mood.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

Every time I think they've gone low...they go lower.
posted by Miko at 8:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [51 favorites]

I find someone via Twitter to add me to Pantsuit Natiin (which I only found out about this weekend) and come to find I already have 64 friends in the group?!?

Mrs. Wallflower was already a member and didn't invite me. I…I feel so…<sob>
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Jason Stanley: Beyond Lying

Trump is, as Frankfurt asserts, certainly openly insensitive to reality. But he is not carelessly insensitive. To lump Trump’s rhetoric into a category that includes advertising is strange. It is prima facie bizarre to be satisfied with a description of the rhetoric of a dictator like Idi Amin’s as “insensitive to truth and falsity.” Why have we been satisfied with such descriptions of Trump? Perhaps our media, as well as our academic class, assumes that we are healthy liberal democracy, and not susceptible to authoritarian rhetoric. We now know this assumption is false.

Denouncing Trump as a liar, or describing him as merely entertaining, misses the point of authoritarian propaganda altogether. Authoritarian propagandists are attempting to convey power by defining reality. The reality they offer is very simple. It is offered with the goal of switching voters’ value systems to the authoritarian value system of the leader.

posted by theodolite at 8:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [31 favorites]

Thanks everyone for adding me to get me into PN. I got in. (I have been accepting the friend requests...because it would appear only 6 of my current friends are in the group and I live in effing Indiana so my feed up to this point has been either politically quiet OR Trumpy.)
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 8:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

People who mailed me check your messages.
posted by Jalliah at 8:22 PM on November 6, 2016

But even he can’t know for sure. “It’s like predicting your wife’s mood. You have no idea what you’re going to get until you get home.”

How's that female outreach going for you, guys?
posted by Talez at 8:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [37 favorites]

I can also add folks to PN if there are still people who want in.
posted by Superplin at 8:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome
Gonna be AWKWARD when President Trump takes the new minimill capacity in the southern USA and moves it back to the old blast furnaces in PA
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:26 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

PN invite please. FB info in my profile.
posted by emelenjr at 8:28 PM on November 6, 2016

How's that female outreach going for you, guys?

It's kind of confusing. It's like you call these women to try and talk to them about Trump, and they're like, PMSing or something. Must be those hormones. [fake]
posted by sallybrown at 8:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Thanks, Sphinx. Nate Silver just shat in my hat.

THAT WAS A NEW HAT, NATE!
posted by nfalkner at 8:36 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Admittedly had a few beers tonight, and have been reading PN all evening, so my emotional filters are pretty open...but I get a little welled up when I look at Hillary media - the mixed-race, blended, inclusive families on PN; the elders, the disabled, the excluded, the immigrants, the new citizens; THIS is the America I believe in and always have. It is really a beautiful, varied, storied, vibrant America that is hopeful and hardworking, loving and optimistic, unafraid even though times are very tough. If I were judging which candidate to support based only on their supporting communities, I would look to HIllary's supporters and see the nation I want to belong to - one where every kind of person can belong, and we work through our differences with references to high ideals and convictions about human rights. When it comes right down to it, it's that simple.
posted by Miko at 8:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [80 favorites]

Also, what do Donald Trump and Ted Nugent have in common?

Both are old white guys that grab genitals.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:37 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Yep, no idea how Trump happened to the GOP.

@GarrettHaake:
"Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are certifiable traitors to our country," says @RickSantorum, ratcheting it up a bit.
posted by chris24 at 8:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

For those wanting to get onto PN, you might just try dropping a hint on your feed. It's likely you already know someone who is a member (six degrees and whatnot) and will hook you up.
posted by Preserver at 8:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Can someone help me understand why Florida is considered likely to go red/Republican/Trump?

There's a lot of retired, middle and upper class, white people there that are pretty solidly for Trump. There's a substantial Cuban-American population there that tend to skew Republican, especially with anything related to normalizing relations with Cuba (which Obama has done and Clinton will presumably continue).

Bush sort of won there in 2000 and decisively won there in 2004.

It's genuinely hard to guess how things will go this year.
posted by Candleman at 8:42 PM on November 6, 2016

True, and for those of you in it, consider posting a notice that if anyone's heard of it and wants in, they can PM you. I did and 2 new people popped up who I'd never have assumed would be with her.
posted by Miko at 8:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Miko: If I were judging which candidate to support based only on their supporting communities, I would look to HIllary's supporters and see the nation I want to belong to - one where every kind of person can belong, and we work through our differences with references to high ideals and convictions about human rights. When it comes right down to it, it's that simple.

Exactly. This is how I felt watching the DNC this summer, too. It showed the country I want to be a part of, not the dystopian nightmare Trump, Giuliani, &al. had ranted about in Cleveland. I want a president with a vision I can and want to hold onto. Only one candidate has that.
posted by Superplin at 8:43 PM on November 6, 2016 [19 favorites]

@Bencjacobs:
Trump: We are going to deliver justice the way it used to be in this county

So lynchings are making a comeback?
posted by chris24 at 8:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Another thing that bothers me about Trump: delusions that the President can control things the President can't control. For instance, most of the justice system. By design.
posted by Miko at 8:47 PM on November 6, 2016 [18 favorites]

yay
posted by Justinian at 8:50 PM on November 6, 2016

Jenifer (blackish) Lewis has one thing to say to you.
posted by NorthernLite at 8:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Going out canvassing today I was buddied up with a woman randomly and while we were in the field, upon leaving one doorstep where no one appeared to be home, a car pulled up next to us in the street and the guy driving rolled down the passenger window and started shouting stuff at us past his passenger's face about how Hillary was going to go to jail (and they identified themselves as the occupants of the house we'd just left, apparently coming home at the same time we were leaving.)

When my canvas buddy started to respond the guy yelled "I am TALKING to this MAN!" and carried on for a bit more until he mercifully seemed to grasp that I wasn't going to agree with him (Like, obviously? If I'm out canvassing for her, and have a big blue Hillary sticker on my vest?) The woman in the passenger seat looked chagrined, and hopefully is the reason their house was on our list.
posted by XMLicious at 8:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

Trump: We are going to deliver justice the way it used to be in this county

By choosing not to vote for a moron, and then watching him leave the stage and go away after his concession speech?
posted by sallybrown at 8:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Business Insider wins best description for the day:

As he has crisscrossed the country in a frantic last-minute push to turn out the vote in key battleground states, Trump has also boasted that he does not need star power to draw individuals to his rallies.

“There’s no guitar, there are no pianos,” he said at the Michigan rally on Sunday, moments after Nugent left the stage with his guitar.

posted by zachlipton at 8:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [105 favorites]

1.6 mil, last 100K in the last 2 hours.

I'm fighting with my inner Girl Scout leader instinct on Pantsuit Nation. A lot of people are starting to say " now that we're huge and the media are talking about us, are we still SAFE?" There's this concern about what a Facebook "secret group" means, and a lot of people have shared stuff about things like abortions, sexual assaults, family details, secrets from husbands/employers, etc. It does worry me that people have invested in the idea of a FB "secret group" to the extent that they think no one can ever see or reveal these stories. Of course only invitees can see the group, but once you've got 1.6 million invitees, you've kind of lost control of where your content can be seen. I tried a little bit to say "Secret in FB terms means only a couple small things" but the zeitgeist is way against that idea. It bothers me that people expect a level of privacy for these disclosures that can't be assured, but at the same time, this is happening, and no amount of cautioning is really going to have the power to roll it back at this point. Just hoping nobody comes home, or to work, to face bad consequences for what they've said in what seems to them a safe space.
posted by Miko at 8:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [32 favorites]

Well, there is something wrong with justice in this country, because Donald Trump has never been sent to jail for his 40+ years of fraud. But going backwards ain't going to fix it.

And it's just extra interesting that the loudest Trumpists are always shouting about Hillary going to jail because maybe (in true Trump's Mirror fashion), they subconsciously know the only way their guy is staying out of jail is by giving himself a blanket President Pardon.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

chris24: ""Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are certifiable traitors to our country," says @RickSantorum, ratcheting it up a bit."

I wonder who certifies traitors. Does UL have a lab for that or is it someone else?
posted by Mitheral at 8:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [40 favorites]

PN went from 1 million to 1.5 million members just today.

I'm finally feeling secure, and this is why. People are happy about being With Her. Look at Trump's final ad, the one with the antisemitic dogwhistles. Everybody looks miserable - I counted four smiles in the entire video, including the crowd scenes, and three of those (weirdly) were on Clinton. Contrast it with this recent (latest?) one from Democrats. Everybody is happy!

Trump is saying "you're weak, you're miserable, you're oppressed, I am the strong man who can save you". Clinton is saying "we have reasons to hope." He's pushing Trumpism, right down to the not-so-veiled fascist salute at the end. Clinton's talking about everybody, not just herself, and about the values we share. She literally put out an ad talking about the importance of love and kindness! I know there are many people who are angry or frightened or hateful and who want a strongman to rescue them or build a wall to keep them safe. But there are many more people who want an end to hatred, an end to oppression, an end to injustice; and she is giving them a choice.

Guys, I am happy and confident that she will romp it in.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

@Taniel:
On Florida early voting: "911,000 Hispanics have voted—more than a third of whom did not vote in 2012"
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article112958953.html

"Through Saturday, 565,000 Hispanics had completed early in-person voting in Florida, a 100 percent increase over 2012, according to an analysis by Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who tracks voting data.

Including absentee ballots, 911,000 Hispanics have voted — more than a third of whom did not vote in 2012. “We’re witnessing explosive early voting turnout of Hispanics — both those newly registered to vote as well as those who sat on the sidelines in 2012,” Smith said."
posted by chris24 at 9:01 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

It just still astounds me that this election really and truly boils down to a choice between love and hate. It's not hyperbole. It's just that bad.
posted by Jalliah at 9:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [76 favorites]

A couple of my friends have just started discussing calling in sick with Pantsuit Nation Flu on Tuesday and Wednesday.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 9:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Once again, even Joe fucking 'grab my musket if Clinton wins' Walsh:

@WalshFreedom:
For 9 days, over 20 million people early voted thinking the FBI had something big on Hillary.

I'm a Trump guy, but, man, that's not right.
posted by chris24 at 9:10 PM on November 6, 2016 [42 favorites]

As a Floridian, I will be furious with anyone who re-elects Rubio
posted by R.F.Simpson at 9:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm fairly certain that the Facebook Board of Directors will meet first thing Monday Morning (if they haven't already interrupted their weekends to meet earlier) with the main agenda being "How can we monetize the Pantsuit Nation?" BTW, even though he has sold most of his original investment in Facebook, Peter Thiel is still on their Board of Directors. Yeah, it might not be as secure as you'd want, but if FB screws this up, it'll be the biggest PR disaster of 2016. If I had Facebook stock (which I, personally, NEVER would), I'd sell.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I can't canvass in my wheelchair so as my small part, I remind my co-workers and shoppers at the food co-op to vote and have helped a lot of them to find an early voting location. I was happy to have convinced one friend who wasn't going to vote at all to vote, but haven't changed anyone's mind about who they're going to vote for. Or so I thought.

There is a young man in his 20s who told me right after Hillary got the nomination that he was going to vote for Jill Stein. I asked him why not Hillary and he repeated a bunch of the usual half truths and outright smears. I couldn't engage in a debate with him while I was working so I made it a point to tell him one real fact about Hillary's record every few days when I ran into him. (Thanks MeFites for keeping me stocked up with facts!) So this went on for weeks until he sheepishly came up to me last Friday and told he had voted early and he had voted for Hillary. I asked what had changed his mind and he said that he did some research on the facts I had told him and found out the Hillary has a much better record than he had been led to believe by his BOB buddies. He was a little embarrassed that he had followed his friends' lead but he said he'd actually have been more embarrassed if he voted for Stein.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [147 favorites]

coarse weedy herbs
with thickened rootstock,
sheathing stipules, and
panicled racemes of
inconspicuous greenish flowers.

Burdock is the king monster of weeds with a gnarly thick taproot that can drill two feet plus down in hard clay. Around here you need a pick to get those things out -- there's no pulling them out. They are tenacious to a titanium T.
posted by y2karl at 9:15 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

One thing that worries me - I'm pretty sure Hispanic voters in Florida are going to vote against Trump but also for Rubio, because we contain multitudes, and that people are going to be angry at them for not voting all Dem, all the way, instead of just "fuck Trump."

I won't. I completely understand why someone wouldn't vote for Murphy. That failure - of not putting up a candidate who could defeat a weakened Rubio - is on us.
posted by sallybrown at 9:15 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

John Oliver's final description for "Election 2016" is: "Of course Election Day is November 8th-the last possible date the election could fall on. This must be the universe punishing us for all the masturbating we've done, and it was a lot 2016."

"Hillary Clinton is truly the Hillary Clinton of rappers."

"As for Donald Trump, the human equivalent of a clear plastic bag filled with cheeseburgers and confederate flag belt buckles, he spent the week making a visible effort to restrain himself."

"This nightmare of a campaign will be over, which is good because this election hasn't so much appealed to our better angels as it has groped our better angels, mocked their weight, and called them sixes at best. We are at a point where this man has a genuine shot at the Presidencey despite having blown up a political party, undermined confidence in our electoral system, declared open season on journalists, and unleashed a river of racism and misogonany, also--I feel like we've lost sight of this--he has really stupid hair. It's important to remember that. It is frankly hard to believe that there was a time when people thought a Trump candidacy would be funny, but there was such a time, because as you may remember, three years ago, I guest hosted the Daily Show, and well, there is something you should see: [Clip of a news report about Trump considering running, followed by Oliver saying 'Do it. Do it. Look at me. Do it. I will personally write you a campaign check now, on behalf of this country, which does not want you to be President but which badly wants you to run.] Now, now, in my defense, I have no defense for that and was hoping to think up before finishing this sentence which, oh shit, it's over.

But look. I want to believe that America will reject Donald Trump, that our innate sense of decency will kick him like some kind of moral autopilot, but I have been spectacularly wrong before, because as you might remember, eight years ago, I was working as a correspondent for the Daily Show, and well, there's something you should see: [clip of Jon Stewart and Oliver discussing how the Cubs will never ever win the World Series]. I'm an idiot, but that clearly shows no outcome is certain. So if you're thinking you don't have to show up to vote on Tuesday because there is no way the impossible could happen, take it from someone who has learned from painful experience, you are wrong about that."

The main story is on multilevel marketing companies and should be on YouTube tomorrow.
posted by zachlipton at 9:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [44 favorites]

I'm fairly certain that the Facebook Board of Directors will meet first thing Monday Morning (if they haven't already interrupted their weekends to meet earlier) with the main agenda being "How can we monetize the Pantsuit Nation?"

I don't think Board of Directors work the way you think they work.
posted by Candleman at 9:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Reductress offers a list of 100 Acts of Self-Care That Still Won’t Be Enough to Get You Through the Election.

Several are worth trying, at least. Why, I've done at least half a dozen today, myself! Not specifying which.
posted by Superplin at 9:23 PM on November 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

(Rhetorical overkill, I plead guilty)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:24 PM on November 6, 2016

Re vote splitting in Florida. Well, that's their choice. But Rubio endorsed Trump (and I believe said he voted for him). He's said as bad things as Trump in the primary. So I hope he goes down.
posted by R343L at 9:24 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

"I can't canvass in my wheelchair so as my small part, I remind my co-workers and shoppers at the food co-op to vote and have helped a lot of them to find an early voting location."

I did the NextGen Climate text canvass someone mentioned in the last (?) thread online tonight (while modding!) and it was literally the easiest "canvass" I've ever done. I texted 300 people in less than an hour with their voting location for Tuesday. I only fielded probably a dozen responses (50% opt-outs, 50% people saying "thanks!" or "I moved!") which I duly entered. You can only do it from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. so you're not texting people in the middle of the night, but it was really easy. I like door-to-door canvassing, but I HATE phone banking, so it was nice to text-canvass a swing state from the comfort of my couch. You use their interface on the web, not your own phone or phone #, so don't worry about that!

They're going all day Monday, and Tuesday until the polls close! Millennials in swing states are the target.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:25 PM on November 6, 2016 [37 favorites]

I can't canvass in my wheelchair

I think it's actually quite feasible to canvass in a wheelchair: Just go to a busy street corner and start talking to people. I've done heaps of that (but not in a wheelchair.)

The one drawback is that you're not contributing to the incredible database the DNC is constructing, and you're not talking to people targeted by that database. But your contact rate is at least an order of magnitude higher, which more than makes up for it.
posted by Coventry at 9:31 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

It just still astounds me that this election really and truly boils down to a choice between love and hate. It's not hyperbole. It's just that bad.

Fear and hope are the two emotions used in advertising. Same difference.
posted by wilful at 9:38 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

The one drawback is that you're not contributing to the incredible database the DNC is constructing, and you're not talking to people targeted by that database. But your contact rate is at least an order of magnitude higher, which more than makes up for it.

No, the one drawback is that, without targeting, you've got a strong chance of G-ing OT wrong V.

This is not really what the campaign wants you to do. They've invested millions in targeting for a reason.
posted by dersins at 9:41 PM on November 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

Here's Khizr Khan speaking about a 10 year old boy who watched his DNC speech after being bullied. (twitter)

I wish he would run for office.
posted by sallybrown at 9:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [34 favorites]

Hey, I'm a member of PN, too! Hit me up, my baybeeezzz!!!!
posted by blessedlyndie at 9:47 PM on November 6, 2016

...without targeting, you've got a strong chance of G-ing OT wrong V.

If you pick the right neighborhood (which is usually one many people would generally say is the wrong neighborhood) you're fine in that regard.
posted by Coventry at 9:47 PM on November 6, 2016

Here's Khizr Khan speaking about a 10 year old boy who watched his DNC speech after being bullied.

If I ever see Khizr or Ghazala Khan in person I will break down into a wreck of tears. I have so much admiration for them.
posted by airish at 9:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [34 favorites]

...without targeting, you've got a strong chance of G-ing OT wrong V.

I'm doing my thing in a hippyesh food co-op in the bluest part of town so I'm not worried I'll run into any Trumpists. I know almost everyone I see is a lefty of some kind and I want to encourage them to help turn Texas blue.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Also, people shouldn't worry so much about what the campaign wants them to do. That kind of attitude is a big factor in the path which led us to this Hobson's choice of an election.
posted by Coventry at 9:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Have the Russians nuked Twitter again?
posted by hangashore at 9:56 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I can't get onto Twitter, either. Apparently the Russians really don't want me to see that Khizr Khan bit.

Can't say I blame them. That man is incredibly compelling.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:57 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

chris24: ""Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are certifiable traitors to our country," says @RickSantorum, ratcheting it up a bit."

I will never stop being ashamed that is was originally my district who first sent Santorum to Congress (replacing a genuinely decent man, Doug Walgren).

Anyway, Pittsburgh updates:

* My wife went out canvassing today. One "I'm not voting for either." Otherwise, 1/3 "Yep, can't wait to get out there!", 1/3 "Yeah, I should probably do that, where is the polling place again?" and 1/3 really had no clue, but they were receptive and agreed to get out and vote. Also one guy who had fallen for the "text this number to vote for Hillary" scam, so glad we saved that one.

* We got a door hanger from the "Faith & Freedom Coallition" and a GOTV call from Mike Huckabee. Guys...I'm not sure the right's targeting is everything it could be.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

downforeveryoneorjustme.com says yes, Twitter's down for them, too.
posted by CommonSense at 9:59 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Coventry: "Also, people shouldn't worry so much about what the campaign wants them to do. That kind of attitude is a big factor in the path which led us to this Hobson's choice of an election."

First, pedantry: A Hobson's choice is one where the options are take this or take nothing. It doesn't mean "lesser of two evils." I get that you are rhetorically saying that Clinton is the only even halfway decent choice, but you *can* still vote Trump, this isn't a Soviet election situation of only one candidate on the ballot.

Second: Actually, lots of us think Hillary is great. I am genuinely excited to vote for her.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [28 favorites]

yeah, Twitter is down for me too. Time for bed.
posted by suelac at 10:03 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mayor Betsy Hodges of Minneapolis responds on Facebook to Trump's vile ranting at his MN rally:

Minnesota has problems, that's for sure. All states do. There is poverty, and violence, and despair, and those have consequences - in every group, in every community, including the people you addressed today. But we aren't like you, Donald. In Minnesota we respond to those challenges with kindness, not hate; by pulling together more rather than less; by appreciating one another more rather than less; and by working harder, not by giving up on one another. Everything you've done in your life - from your business practices to your sexual assaults to your Islamophobia to your constant blaming of others for the problems you've created yourself - betrays your ignorance of those values. But they are Minnesota values and we will vote them on Tuesday.

(I am a Betsy fangirl, I must say.)
posted by frumiousb at 10:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [70 favorites]

I'm pretty sure Hispanic voters in Florida are going to vote against Trump but also for Rubio, because we contain multitudes, and that people are going to be angry at them for not voting all Dem, all the way, instead of just "fuck Trump."

Not that I'd underestimate the ability of clueless anglos to be clueless, but I would think that any halfway-observant person would hardly be surprised to see a bunch of Cubans vote for the Cuban dude they'd voted for six years before. I do wonder how split the vote in the puertorriqueno influx will be. I honestly don't know how appealing a lily-white Cuban guy would be, all else equal, to Puerto Ricans, which is sort of the flipside of y'all containing multitudes.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:11 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Actually, lots of us think Hillary is great. I am genuinely excited to vote for her.

Yeah, thanks for saying that. I get tired of the rhetoric that assumes everyone just hates both choices and is holding their nose. It doesn't really help. Maybe you, the speaker, hate both choices and are holding your nose, but I'm pretty glad I have someone to vote for that I really do believe in, and believe is a really good choice, not because she's "lesser" but because she's so much better.
posted by Miko at 10:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [76 favorites]

zachlipton: "John Oliver's final description for "Election 2016" is: "Of course Election Day is November 8th-the last possible date the election could fall on. This must be the universe punishing us for all the masturbating we've done, and it was a lot 2016.""

It's amazing how far Trump and us have come; remember when he was basically the joke candidate talking about his penis at a presidential debate? No one at the time would have called that as being a high point in this campaign.
posted by Mitheral at 10:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have supported/voted for Hillary Clinton every single time I've been given the chance to do so. I've done it enthusiastically. I don't regret Barack Obama winning the nom in 2008--not for a minute--but I've always been genuinely behind Hillary Clinton.

Yes, I have disagreements with her. I have disagreements with pretty much every politician I've ever looked at for very long at all. That's how it works. Humans have differences. If you agree 100% with everything on a given politician's platform and history, you're probably not looking hard enough or thinking hard enough about your own leanings.

But on the balance? Fuck yes I have wanted Hillary Clinton every time and I dearly hope she wins this. For all our sakes.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:20 PM on November 6, 2016 [55 favorites]

I wish he would run for office.

As with Michelle Obama, I'm in the camp of "I wish him to do whatever he chooses and I'll support him for choosing to do that."

Anyway, I had a conversation tonight that (forgive circumlocution upon circumlocution) gave a lot of weight to the idea that many two-adult households with Trump signs planted on the lawn will deliver a net zero votes for Trump. This reinforces why I'm not a fan of Oregon-style universal vote-by-mail. There are going to be thousands upon thousands of Hillary voters who depended upon the privacy of the polling booth.
posted by holgate at 10:21 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

People have heard of the faithless elector in WA refusing to vote for Hillary but there's also been some talk of electors refusing to vote for Trump, which would mean several of his scant few paths to victory still wouldn't be enough. There was one in GA who ended up resigning over all the pressure & there's one in TX who still might. It's not going to happen, Hillary will easily blow past 300 on her way to the White House. But it's still funny to think about.
posted by scalefree at 10:34 PM on November 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't see how vote by mail loses that vote while a secret box to fill out a form doesn't.

To be frank, you're implying a sexist / abusive dynamic where a woman doesn't have the security or agency at home to vote how she pleases, but somehow can pull the lever in private. In an Oregon situation you can still go to the ballot office, request a new ballot, fill it out there and vote, if for example your spouse made you fill out the form with them and forced you to vote against your wishes. It's not one envelope per household. And because voting is over the course of weeks and the majority of the population IS able to safely vote by mail, someone needing to do this can do so with little suspicion - they aren't disappearing for three hours on November 8th to wait in line - they are able to pop in and handle it in a few minutes last Wednesday. The Oregon system still has physical locations that can be optimized to handle the exceptions.

Nothing stops someone from saying they are going to take time and vote while at work or mail in their ballot separately, etc. if a woman is in such an unsafe situation she cannot take that level of action, how would she be able to go to the polls and vote? And in that extreme case, would that as a society still enable more people to vote if vote by mail was the standard? For every one woman who wasn't able to vote differently from their spouse, how many more would be able to vote because now they can vote easily between their full time job and expectations of managing the household? I get tired of the concern trolling implying vote by mail is more vulnerable to manipulation than one day only in person voting - look at all the headlines about long voting lines and people spending hours in line to vote, and states closing polling locations and tell me honestly that Oregons system is somehow more prone to disenfranchisement.

Due to the legal organization of this country, I don't think I'd ever see a unified national voting process, but at a minimum I'd love to see Oregons and Washingtons vote by mail as the minimum requirements: you have to enable voting at atleast this level of access and process to receive some federal funds, anything greater - same day in person voting booth process whatever - is up to the states to add.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [23 favorites]

remember when he was basically the joke candidate

he's STILL the joke candidate, but instead of being the dumb hatey joke that a first grader raised by bigots would make, he's the kind of sick cruel practical joke that is usually the opening scene of teen slasher horror movie
posted by poffin boffin at 10:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [16 favorites]

For the poll aggregate obsessives, the 538 trendline adjustment in favor of Trump appears to be slowing down. Expect NC and FL to flip to blue by end of Monday and Clinton's win probability to jump back up. Just in time.
posted by one_bean at 10:51 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

as a side night, being six hours ahead of the the east coast right now means when I wake up at 5am wednesday morning, the polls still wont have closed, and west coast wont be called until 9am. Right as the keynote for this conference I am attending is starting.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:06 PM on November 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

consider posting a notice that if anyone's heard of it and wants in, they can PM you.

Or don't. A friend did this today and the first comment was a Bernie Bro accusing women of sexism because they have secret groups. I responded that this is why we have the first rule of Secret Hillary Club.
posted by threeturtles at 11:07 PM on November 6, 2016 [41 favorites]

Or you can meticulously hide everyone with likely gross politics and post something subtle- 5 people messaged me in the last hour and all are just ready for a little uplift out of our red state swamp. I'm glad I made the offer and it felt good to make someone's day better.
posted by charmedimsure at 11:12 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

To be frank, you're implying a sexist / abusive dynamic where a woman doesn't have the security or agency at home to vote how she pleases, but somehow can pull the lever in private.

To be frank, yes I am. We're not in Portland any more, Toto.

look at all the headlines about long voting lines and people spending hours in line to vote, and states closing polling locations and tell me honestly that Oregons system is somehow more prone to disenfranchisement.

Well, that's a set of profoundly awful but structurally rectifiable choices. Saying "well, if you're voting under duress, you can invalidate a ballot and then drive somewhere and get a new one" is nice but meaningless to working mothers in suburbs. A ballot that's inherently not guaranteed secrecy is not structurally rectifiable. (I'm not comfortable with party affiliation as a public record either.)

I'm just a bit weary of that certain PacNW smugness about a voting process that only exists as it does today in those states because they were historically lily-white and never needed to think about certain kinds of disenfranchisement. The civic culture in the PNW is great, but the inherently-secret ballot is also great.
posted by holgate at 11:13 PM on November 6, 2016 [43 favorites]

Surely the proper cocktail to drink if Trump implodes is a White Russian?
posted by benzenedream at 11:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

An unreliable source, but good news if it's true: EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Gov. Pardons 60,000 Felons, Enough To Swing Election.
posted by Coventry at 11:18 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Lefties concern-trolling about vote-by-mail sounds an awful lot like conservatives concern-trolling about "voter fraud."
posted by dersins at 11:27 PM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

And to add:

I get tired of the concern trolling implying vote by mail is more vulnerable to manipulation than one day only in person voting

The UK has never had a one-day-in-person-only voting problem in recent history (nor does it have a problem with queues) but it has had problems with postal vote fraud -- often, it's head-of-household stuff or even landlords voting on behalf of their renters. I'll grant that dedicated vote-by-mail states in the US will have more fastidious checks against that kind of manipulation.

Partners can cohabit nonabusively and still find that a presidential election like this creates external pressure that is best served by secrecy in the polling booth. If you can't sympathise with that, I'm not sure that you're paying the right amount of attention.
posted by holgate at 11:29 PM on November 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Lefties concern-trolling about vote-by-mail sounds an awful lot like conservatives concern-trolling about "voter fraud."

Again: PNWers are the beneficiaries of an admirable civic culture but mistakenly believe that the machinery of that civic culture can be exported to places where no such civic culture exists. I invite you to live for a while in a state where older government buildings have twice as many bathrooms as you'd normally expect.
posted by holgate at 11:32 PM on November 6, 2016 [29 favorites]

I'll grant that dedicated vote-by-mail states in the US will have more fastidious checks against that kind of manipulation.

Yes. They do. Full stop. Oregon for example has a fabulous, efficient, safe, secure system with a squeaky clean track record down to the level of each county.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 11:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

> Well, that's a set of profoundly awful but structurally rectifiable choices. Saying "well, if you're voting under duress, you can invalidate a ballot and then drive somewhere and get a new one" is nice but meaningless to working mothers in suburbs. A ballot that's inherently not guaranteed secrecy is not structurally rectifiable. (I'm not comfortable with party affiliation as a public record either.)

Wait, so it is too much to require someone who needs the extra privacy of their ballot to go to a voting location to vote... so instead everyone needs to go to a voting location to vote on a certain day and time?

I literally don't understand your point now.

As a whole, Oregon and Washington have shown they have enabled significantly more citizens to vote, and more citizens are voting as a result. There are ways it can be improved (we are trying to make all the ballot envelopes prepaid for example, so folks don't need stamps), but we *don't* have the problems of other states where voter disenfranchisement is happening.

I also don't understand the argument somehow voting in a location one chooses is somehow less private / secret than going to a public voting location. You don't know what criteria is for someone to deem as private or secret. The highschool gymnasium may be private enough for you, but is also a target for voter intimidation. Unfortunately Oregon doesn't mail me a little privacy booth for me to fill out the paperwork.

This doesn't fix all disenfranchisement possibilities, but it does remove the largest and most common vehicles of voter intimidation: physical presence and access to polling locations. It is moving the problems from the community social sphere (klansmen in hoods standing outside of the polls) to the private household ones.

You seem to be obsessed with the 'pureness of secrecy' for a ballot. Which like the pureness of security for any environment, while hypothetically achievable, results in a system that is almost always harder to use.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:35 PM on November 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Do I HAVE to repeat my story of witnessing the Republicans do Absentee Ballot Voter Fraud in 1972 again?

My mother was a longtime "Republican Women's" volunteer and she pushed 17-year-old me (too young to legally vote) to 'get involved with the system', so I put in a few hours at a GOP phone bank reading a 'Re-Elect The President' script and told not to mention my age (or the fact that The President was named Nixon, honest!) One Team Leader took a liking to me and asked me if I'd like to work on their 'Senior Outreach' program, which consisted of going to Retirement and Nursing Homes to 'help' the residents fill out Absentee Ballots. It was pretty clear I would've been filling in the ballots for those incapable of doing so, and if they were unable to elucidate their preferences, well, they're all registered Republicans there, right? (I didn't know who registered them as Republicans or when...) That whole thing smelled so bad to me, I just sheepishly backed away. I didn't report it to anybody for fear of implicating my 'innocent Republican' mother. But it did explain to me why the GOP has gotten the majority of Absentee Ballots in liberal California for over 50 years...

posted by oneswellfoop at 11:44 PM on November 6, 2016 [46 favorites]

Wait, so it is too much to require someone who needs the extra privacy of their ballot to go to a voting location to vote... so instead everyone needs to go to a voting location to vote on a certain day and time?

No, I'm saying that the standard Oregonian "oh, everyone should just vote by mail by default" (as repeatedly proposed by Ron Wyden) is blinkered and dumb, puts the cart before the horse, and is handwavy about the idea that voter intimidation is as likely to happen in one's home as at a public polling place. Making something the default makes it more obvious and more difficult to deviate from the default, as Facebook's privacy settings have taught us.

You seem to be obsessed with the 'pureness of secrecy' for a ballot. Which like the pureness of security for any environment, while hypothetically achievable, results in a system that is almost always harder to use.

Yeah, I am. The secret ballot is a pretty fucking big deal. And I very much suspect that a quick perusal of the stories being told in the PN group might help you grasp that.
posted by holgate at 11:48 PM on November 6, 2016 [38 favorites]

> Again: PNWers are the beneficiaries of an admirable civic culture but mistakenly believe that the machinery of that civic culture can be exported to places where no such civic culture exists. I invite you to live for a while in a state where older government buildings have twice as many bathrooms as you'd normally expect.

As someone who grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts, voted first in person in Pennsylvania, then Washington and now Oregon, you seem to be the smug one who is making assumptions about my life experience, my experience with voting, civic culture, and political practices and cultural practices in general.

> Partners can cohabit nonabusively and still find that a presidential election like this creates external pressure that is best served by secrecy in the polling booth. If you can't sympathise with that, I'm not sure that you're paying the right amount of attention.

What is your evidence that there is emotional stress as a result of people voting by mail at home that is somehow relieved voting in a secret polling booth? Like one spouse is going to say "honey, lets fill out our ballots together?" and one who knows they aren't going to vote the way their spouse does is going to say "well, I'd rather not, or I've already voted, and it's a secret" is somehow going to be less stressful than "honey, how did you vote?" "well, I already voted, it's a secret."

You are literally making up situations solely out of the ideological purity that I guess no one should have access to their ballots ahead of time.

I had something like 18 different initiatives, positions, propositions I had the option to vote for along side with the Presidential candidates. You want to talk about civic participation and enabling changes in those places with "older government buildings" then making it so people can have a more informed decision in the their local level of governance is more likely to make an improvement than any presidential vote. How many people when they show up in the secret ballot box world of yours just vote for the incumbents who "weren't terrible, but they don't know the other guy"? How likely is it for someone to walk in with their list of how they are going to vote on every issue ahead of time and be able to follow through on that. And how likely is THAT VERY FUCKING LIST someone would have to carry with them in as a reminder on what to vote on all those measures and propositions not in someway be as similar a compromise of the secrecy of their ballot than if they just filled out their ballot at home and posted it?
posted by mrzarquon at 11:50 PM on November 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

To be frank, you're implying a sexist / abusive dynamic where a woman doesn't have the security or agency at home to vote how she pleases, but somehow can pull the lever in private.

My husband and I are cancelling each other out on Tuesday. We are very open about this. We've been doing this for 36 years now, so we have our system down.
Currently we've gone from (pre-, during and post-) presidential debate reviews (already decided, not changing each other's minds) to whether teachers need a pay raise, farmers need "guaranteed rights," reviewing methods of execution, making drug possession a misdemeanor, prohibiting the use of public property or funds for religious purposes, and allowing grocery stores to sell wine and beer.
Yes, it's the 1950s in Oklahoma.
And then there are the children, who have their own political views and are not afraid to voice them. We have two strong young women, so I just sit back and smile. And gloat, I admit it.

But that's us. Other women I've known are just as happy to keep their opinions to themselves and make their own choices at the ballot box. Not in a fearful way, but just to keep the peace during many, many news reports over the next four years.
This is about picking your battles. And for some women, re-litigating their vote after every national headline is too frustrating to consider.
posted by TrishaU at 11:52 PM on November 6, 2016 [25 favorites]

> Yeah, I am. The secret ballot is a pretty fucking big deal. And I very much suspect that a quick perusal of the stories being told in the PN group might help you grasp that.

So is your evidence legions of women in Oregon and Washington griping that they cannot vote their heart and have to vote Trump out of fear of emotional reprisal or issues with their spouse? Or are their statements ones being glad for the secrecy of the ballot booth in their region for them to vote? Because the latter in no way implies for the former.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:54 PM on November 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

farmers need "guaranteed rights"

I was not aware this was a thing. That looks like a crazypants initiative designed to (retroactively) make it incredibly difficult to regulate the agriculture industry in any way by applying the same standard we use for, say, restricting the free exercise of religion to any law regulating farming in Oaklahoma. Wow.
posted by zachlipton at 11:58 PM on November 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Regarding Miami-Dade county and Florida in general, don't worry too much. Rubio might squeak by, but there's no way in hell Trump is winning here. There are too many normally reliable Republican voters have been nearly screaming any time someone has wondered aloud if they will be voting for Trump.

A couple of days ago I was in a train car where one dude was walking up and down trying to sell socks(?) and loudly proclaiming "Vote for Trump!" Most everyone was either saying "seriously, dude?" or literally rolling their eyes at him. That is the widespread sentiment here.

Also, Trump's constant crowing about his support in Little Haiti is complete bullshit. I live very close to there and have heard zero people talking positively about him. A lot of my Uber drivers are people from LH and they often spontaneously talk about what a complete nutjob he is and how they can't understand why anyone would vote for them. Maybe the one guy who gave me a Jesus pamphlet will be voting for him, but there doesn't seem to be a bunch of support for him.

For my part, Georgia and I are going to walk a couple of blocks over to the polling place come Tuesday morning and enthusiastically vote for HRC and Patrick Murphy. I'm going to have to vote a provisional ballot since I lost my driver's license a bit ago and just noticed my passport is expired, but it'll count anyway. Florida has a voter ID law, but if the signature on the provisional ballot matches your registration, they count it with no further action required by the voter. We were both part of that last minute 30,000 registrations, by the way.

I hope Trump goes and crawls in a hole Tuesday night and never comes out from sheer embarassment. His supporters, on the other hand, I genuinely give best wishes. We have to live with these people and I can't help but believe that a strong repudiation of Trumpism will cause most of them to reconsider their attitude. The Trump campaign has been feeding them lies about where their problems are coming from and I'm hopeful that once the furor dies down and HRC and her Democratic Senate can push through some positive change people will get clued in. A third electoral drubbing might even get the Republicans in a mood to shut up their racist elements, which would help enormously by no longer normalizing such hateful actions and speech.

While I'm not certain about the outcome, I'm feeling pretty good. I think that there will be much more crossover votes for Hillary from Republicans than the polls are letting on, especially from women. I wouldn't bet on it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her beat the polls by 2-4% in most states. I do expect to be very disappointed by Arkansas continuing to shift rightward, though. When I was a kid growing up there it was a fairly reliable Democratic stronghold. Clinton-style center-left politics were seen as common sense by most. Despite the massive economic growth in the 90s, they seem to have largely left that behind and adopted the typical modern Republican hate and xenophobia. Maybe that's due to the influx of right-wingers (and not a few Mexicans, Marshellese, etc inflaming the white people who now regularly whip themselves into panics about immigrants bringing disease(!)) into Wal-Mart-land, but whatever the cause, it still makes me deeply sad. I wouldnt mind going back, but the politics was starting to put me at risk for a stroke. It's God's country, but it feels like Satan's people now.
posted by wierdo at 12:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

As someone who grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts, voted first in person in Pennsylvania, then Washington and now Oregon, you seem to be the smug one who is making assumptions about my life experience, my experience with voting, civic culture, and political practices and cultural practices in general.

I will simply note in passing that none of those states have ever been subject to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

What is your evidence that there is emotional stress as a result of people voting by mail at home that is somehow relieved voting in a secret polling booth?

I can't dig up the precise link, but corb has backed me up on this in a past election thread and very precisely described "let's all fill out our ballots together at the kitchen table" scenarios among her female Republican friends. A "let's drive to the polling place and vote in separate little booths" scenario is somewhat different.

You are literally making up situations solely out of the ideological purity that I guess no one should have access to their ballots ahead of time.

You are literally changing the subject in ridiculous ways. Sample ballots are readily available. Being able to complete one's own ballot in secrecy is an entirely separate issue.
posted by holgate at 12:01 AM on November 7, 2016 [28 favorites]

> No, I'm saying that the standard Oregonian "oh, everyone should just vote by mail by default" (as repeatedly proposed by Ron Wyden) is blinkered and dumb, puts the cart before the horse, and is handwavy about the idea that voter intimidation is as likely to happen in one's home as at a public polling place.

Also the problem with this line of thinking - "voter intimidation happens at home just as likely as at the polls" - is one of scale. You are describing a 1-1 or 1-3, maybe 1-6 type scenario, where one person can influence the ability of only a small number of peoples votes because the intimidation has to happen within the household for it to be effective and not be found. So while the rate of occurrence may be the same, the impact is significantly mitigated. So instead of one asshole standing at a polling place contesting the validity of everyones right to vote and therefore possibly causes a hundred people to have to miss the opportunity to vote, that asshole can only influence the votes of four people.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:02 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ok but what about purported research such as this:

"Project Vote published their findings in an article titled "Vote-by-Mail Doesn't Deliver" by Michael Slater and Teresa James. The article's conclusion states,

Thanks largely to Oregon's experience, many reform-minded advocates and policymakers have become persuaded that vote-by-mail stimulates increased voter turnout with few drawbacks. We think the facts don't support their arguments. VBM reinforces the stratification of the electorate; it's more amenable to both fraud and manipulation than voting at polling places; and it depends too much on the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service.[19]"

I don't know who this Project Vote group is to evaluate the validity of their work, but according to Wikipedia they've argued that mail ballots hurt low income and minority voters. So maybe there are some subtle issues involved.
posted by polymodus at 12:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

And that bit about minority voters rings a bell because I'm remembering other major journalistic articles detailing how a city like Seattle still has segregation in modern form, with white people being the privileged group, etc. But again I wouldn't know the full issues around this, I don't live there.
posted by polymodus at 12:07 AM on November 7, 2016

Also the problem with this line of thinking - "voter intimidation happens at home just as likely as at the polls" - is one of scale.

Hm. There are a lot of asshole men voting for Trump. To repeat myself, the problem of polling place intimidation is like that of insufficient polling places -- it is despicable, but correctable if the political will is there. There is no institutional oversight of "let's fill out our ballots together at the kitchen table."
posted by holgate at 12:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

farmers need "guaranteed rights"
I was not aware this was a thing.

Nah, what gets me is how the "making drug possession a misdemeanor" question is linked with raising the dollar amount threshold from $500 to $1,000 for classifying property crimes (theft, larceny, fraud, embezzlement, etc.) as a misdemeanor. That's a big change, and maybe a deal-breaker.
posted by TrishaU at 12:12 AM on November 7, 2016

There is no institutional oversight of "let's fill out our ballots together at the kitchen table."

That's an important point from a leftist perspective, because it highlights the absurdity of having to do public labor (collective action) in private space. You could view it as a lack of appropriate public spaces, and what's needed is funding to organize those--which starts by citizens demanding that, having that awareness, etc. Privatization, individualization, responsibilization, are a stop-gap strategy, even if something like mail ballots is shown to be effective in voter turnout, etc.
posted by polymodus at 12:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

Folks, it's fine to discuss vote by mail versus going to the polls, but let's try to a) keep things relatively civil rather than amping up the sarcasm and accusations, and b) drop the personal stuff. (Also, not sure what people are seriously arguing. Is this about "all voting should be only by mail" vs "all voting should be only by in-person at the polls?" Because if not, maybe it's okay to say both have benefits or drawbacks and we don't need it to be a fight to the death about which is best?
posted by taz (staff) at 12:13 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.

I posted my story to Pantsuit Nation. (Dwayne the transguy).

I'm going to wake up to 578935710579021 comments tomorrow, aren't I? Now eating ice cream to calm nerves on the SCARY thing I just did!
posted by spinifex23 at 12:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [70 favorites]

It's also illegal to take ballot selfies in some states, and the ACLU has challenged on 1st Amendment grounds. Hopefully that's a bit more clear cut since the person taking the selfie has already made it to a voting booth.
posted by fragmede at 12:22 AM on November 7, 2016

Also, my Tuesday Night Stress Food is chocolate and caramel. Perfect fuel for dancing in the streets, and/or fomenting revolution.

(I don't see Trump conceding Tuesday night, even when he loses soundly.)
posted by spinifex23 at 12:23 AM on November 7, 2016

Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff):

How can a COMPUTER review 650,000 EMAILS in 8 DAYS?
How can a TOASTER make my BREAD warm?
How can a CAR go faster than a TEAM OF OXEN
posted by salix at 12:27 AM on November 7, 2016 [105 favorites]

Thanks, taz, very much noted.

There is so much to admire about the civic culture in the PNW and places like Vermont and Minnesota, especially the encouragement to participate in government, not simply choose it, and the historic reasons for it being so are ultimately moot compared to the ugly anti-democratic mess of the South. But: I think this year there are going to be so many women in households in culturally conservative states casting votes that, per TriciaU, they ought not have to litigate openly. That they ought to be able to lie about. And most of them will be able to lie about those votes, because they'll have gone to a polling place, pulled the curtain around them, and made their choice.

The long lines in southern states (and even in Los Angeles) for early voting and which will happen on Tuesday are an affront to democracy and caused deliberately, and they horrify me. They're fixable. Not easily fixable but fundamentally fixable. And it grates when universal vote-by-mail is proffered as a solution to those lines -- Ron Wyden did it again this week -- when the problems with universal vote-by-mail are not fundamentally fixable.
posted by holgate at 12:30 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

There is a reason (actually many, but all related) we moved from having votes be public record to a secret ballot. Intimidation of voters was then a thing. i dont think it is realistic to expect the victims of such "kitchen table" intimidation to later go and change their vote. People all too often normalize that sort of abuse and resign themselves to its consequences. Is there any reason to expect it to be different when it is over a ballot rather than the laundry or something else (or nothing in particular at all)?

I think that, on balance, easy no-questions absentee voting along with extensive (including weekends!) early voting solves most of the issues solved by universal vote-by-mail without the possible downsides. absentee abuse is much less likely since it isn't automatic. It isn't the "normal" way to most families, so it doesn't just come up and so isn't as obvious a vector for intimidation.
posted by wierdo at 12:36 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

Wyden promotes voting by mail since most Oregonians are really enthusiastic about voting by mail. It's one of those quirks we like to share with other states, like bottle deposits and decent beer.

I'm not sure it's a panacea for people who are voting under stressful situations in their own households, but domestic violence or the threat of same is problem that voting cannot solve by its own, either.

Maybe voting by mail isn't the ultimate solution, but local control of the mechanisms of voting sure as fuck isn't getting the job done now. A line 4000 folks long? That's voter suppression, pure and simple.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

Maybe voting by mail isn't the ultimate solution, but local control of the mechanisms of voting sure as fuck isn't getting the job done now. A line 4000 folks long? That's voter suppression, pure and simple.

One of the ugly quirks in NC is that county boards of elections grant a statutory majority to the governor's party, which, if McCrory is sent packing, will be reversed for the next four-year cycle. But that's not enough. Partisanship needs to be taken out of the process. If (big if) the #NeverTrump contingent win the battle for control of the GOP, then I think there's a window to do that broadly.

I can cope with the flaws of broad early voting windows -- even terrible ex-GOP rep. Joe Walsh admitted that having Hillary under an FBI cloud for the past nine days wasn't fair to her -- because the campaign is long enough already and that stuff evens itself out. I'm okay with "habitual absentee" rules where if you request mail-in ballots over a couple of cycles the state simply sends a postal ballot until you opt out. I would like universal registration and frankly fewer things to vote for on the ballot, but small steps.
posted by holgate at 12:55 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

You can vote early in person here in SF! But you have to go to City Hall between 8 and 5, I think - not super useful if you can't get off work early.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:30 AM on November 7, 2016

> Maybe voting by mail isn't the ultimate solution, but local control of the mechanisms of voting sure as fuck isn't getting the job done now. A line 4000 folks long? That's voter suppression, pure and simple.

Exactly.

One thing to clarify is to me is the benefit and value of Vote by Mail thing isn't "I don't have to leave my house to vote" which is nice, but really it means my voting process now has these following features:

- Online checking of voting status and eligibility that is accurate
- Confirmation your ballot has been received
- Confirmation your ballot will be counted (a coworkers signature didn't match on file, was notified to fill out an updated signature card, and was then ballot was marked as will be counted)
- Early voting by default (2-3 weeks for everyone)
- No questions asked absentee ballot (I travel frequently for business, in fact I am writing this from Berlin. I found out about this this trip for Berlin on Oct 19th when I was traveling in San Diego, I didn't even have to worry if I was going to be able to request an absentee ballot in time, it was in fact waiting for me when I got home on the 21st)
- Easy access voting locations (You can always vote in Oregon in the county election office, in a private ballot booth, anytime during that voting period, and they are open a minimum of 8 hours a day, up until 8pm on Tuesday night - in the above scenario if my ballot wasn't going to arrive before leaving for this trip - because Oregon tells you when they will mail you your ballot - I could have swung by the election office and voted on my way to work during the 10 days I was home)

This may be why the confusion for those outside of Oregon/Washington in why we are so strongly passionate about our voting system - the 15000 foot view of it looks pretty weird, but in practice it has provided a simplification of how voting is done, and specifically removes a LOT of the local variables when it comes to voting - which is really where the most significant forms of voter disenfranchisement come from. VBM is not a panacea, but it encapsulates a lot of the benefits that everyone agrees are good for voter rights and provides a benchmark against which other states voting practices could be measured - which is really the only way at a federal level to fix a lot of the voting access issues. Providing a minimum standard and somehow tie funding or some other political capital to to following that standard.

I don't know of anyone wanting to give up Oregon's voting process once they've experienced it. Kind of like I don't know many people who've lived in countries with comprehensive public healthcare ever go "You know what? I want to go back to having to decide between paying rent or seeing a doctor." Or the ones who do tend to be already of the privileged tier where that isn't actually a reality for them.
posted by mrzarquon at 1:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

A Brief Message to Donald J. Trump
posted by valetta at 1:56 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

And then there is the other obvious thing we could be doing, which is making the second Tuesday of November a national holiday.
posted by mrzarquon at 2:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [25 favorites]

Pedantry: the first Tuesday after the first Monday. But yes. We could be doing that.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 2:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

One of the reasons why I am glad that HRC will be our Madame President is that the problem of homegrown militias has to be engraved on her soul, given OKC happened while she was in the White House. In addition to her other qualities, I'm going to be glad for that.
posted by angrycat at 2:20 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

Only "get" so far from the latest batch of DNC leaked emails is them feeding questions to Wolf Blitzer for his Trump interview, same cloth as the whole Brazile situation I suppose.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 2:21 AM on November 7, 2016

Unfortunately, they'll end up veering straight into that stone wall called the House of Representatives.

Yeah, if there's one thing I hope the different groups that have come together, whether secretly or openly in such large numbers, consider is sending a message to the House, the Senate and any potential future candidates that obstruction is not welcome, that racism and sexism in campaigns is not welcome, and that everyone deserves an equal chance to get their voice heard or all of the people who've come together for this election will stay together to defeat any attempt to subvert government by and for the people of the United States.

I'd love to see it made clear that this isn't a one off, bad candidate issue, but a bedrock principle that we expect to be supported by all that run for any office from this time forward. People can disagree on specific policies, but no longer hold the rest of the nation hostage to petulance and hate under the guise of winning being the only thing that matters.

Seeing Hillary Rodham Clinton become the first woman president will be great, but without these basic values being drilled into the core of every party and individual vying for office, her election may come to be only a brief symbolic victory rather than a real opportunity for change and to improve this country.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

i do know one thing - if we voted by carrier pigeon, half the republicans in some areas would be on their roofs with rifles
posted by pyramid termite at 2:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [42 favorites]

One thing that worries me - I'm pretty sure Hispanic voters in Florida are going to vote against Trump but also for Rubio, because we contain multitudes, and that people are going to be angry at them for not voting all Dem, all the way, instead of just "fuck Trump."
I won't. I completely understand why someone wouldn't vote for Murphy. That failure - of not putting up a candidate who could defeat a weakened Rubio - is on us.
_{- sallybrown}

kind of weird to come at it from an angle of, "he failed because he wasn't Republican enough".
posted by indubitable at 2:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

And then there is the other obvious thing we could be doing, which is making the second Tuesday of November a national holiday.

The people who most need it to be a holiday, though, are also most likely to be working in stores and restaurants and other places that would be open holiday or not. So that wouldn't help as much as you might think, barring some kind of national one-day pseudo-Sabbath law forbidding work of any kind.
posted by No-sword at 2:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [28 favorites]

When this is all over (it'll never be over, really), folks will need to take a hard look at what sites like 538 have actually added to the conversation. Silver's analysis missed Trump altogether, his big marquee percentage doesn't actually mean anything for 99/100 of his largely innumerate readers, and his vaunted model has swung from 'Clinton is a slight favourite' to 'Clinton will DEFINITELY WIN unless a meteor hits' and back -- and he says it should be more, not less, responsive to late stimuli. It's not clear to me that his readers have been more informed than the average.

Can someone point me to a unique/original conclusion that Silver and his merry band drew during this election cycle? Or to a piece of smart incisive counterintuitive analysis from them, which illuminated any of this election's many dark corners in a new way?

I'd genuinely love to know what I'm missing. I've read a couple of good articles at the site in the past, but Election 2016 has me filing Silver with Charles Pierce -- a formerly useful corrective, now fallen into mannerism. (This is all separate from whether Silver can write, by the way. No points for guessing where I stand on that issue.)
posted by waxbanks at 3:18 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

SEPTA strike resolved! So we'll have service Tuesday.
posted by angrycat at 3:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [67 favorites]

Brad Delong on 'The Excellences of Nate Silver'

Read the comments for once.
posted by waxbanks at 3:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hi from Australia. We're counting on you. Don't fuck it up.
posted by panaceanot at 3:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [32 favorites]

Requiescat in pace, Janet Reno.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 3:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

Please help me escape my flesh prison and return to the void.
posted by Monkeymoo at 3:41 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

UK checking in.

No pressure, America.
posted by Devonian at 3:41 AM on November 7, 2016 [23 favorites]

Hi, it's the Netherlands here.

About that no pressure thing? Well, actually...
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [44 favorites]

It bothers me that people expect a level of privacy for these disclosures that can't be assured, but at the same time, this is happening, and no amount of cautioning is really going to have the power to roll it back at this point. Just hoping nobody comes home, or to work, to face bad consequences for what they've said in what seems to them a safe space.

May I suggest you write up instructions for people on how to find their most personal posts in PN (via their activity feed) to remove them.
posted by tilde at 3:48 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

And then there is the other obvious thing we could be doing, which is making the second Tuesday of November a national holiday.

Do you get all national holidays off? I don't and I don't think that most people do either. I usually only remember that it's president's day when I get home and find no mail.
posted by octothorpe at 3:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

Campaigner Dianara Vazquez demonstrates how Hillary rolls with a kickflip in high heels.

Did someone turn up the thermostat?
posted by iffthen at 3:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

can someone explain to me why Hillary didn't run her entire campaign against the Republican party and their obstructionist anti constitutional ways? It's not like she going to get ANYTHING passed if they maintain just a one chamber minority in the house.
posted by any major dude at 3:56 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

a cool thing millennials do like Slow Food

Huh, well that started in '86 and is majority 40+ but sure. Happy to have Milennials.
posted by Miko at 7:58 PM on November 6 [3 favorites +] [!]

Slow Food Youth!
posted by eustatic at 3:56 AM on November 7, 2016

So I had dinner with some usually talkative mostly republicans last night. "Old friends, moved to the [florida county] together, their fathers moved here 80 years ago and put [town] on the map when Dixie highway was the only pavement for miles" kinda folk.

One went into an Obamacare rant (justified, the user support for small businesses was bad and the insurance company they were dealing with should be shot out of a cannon).

Everyone else didn't really talk politics at all. One person shared a "funny meme" of Hillary being assaulted by her opponent ("Hillary" was wearing a green slinky dress) and left the table to share with others who might actually find it funny. And everyone started muttering that meme sharer probably voted for Trump (I don't have the exact quotes but the impression I got was that all of the remaining W/McCain/Romney voters have already voted and NOT R at the top of the ticket this year.)

I don't have an invite to Pantsuit Nation, and I don't want one. I'll find myself disappointed in the friends I won't find there. I'll stick with having found a couple #magas here and there to avoid.
posted by tilde at 4:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

bluecore: Campaigner Dianara Vazquez demonstrates how Hillary rolls with a kickflip in high heels.

Which is great, although for the symbolism to be perfect it would be backwards and in high heels.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 4:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

Tilde, I think you should reconsider that. It is immensely refreshing to hear SO MANY positive voices--1.6 million members and still climbing! Friends you don't m find there may not be savvy enough, or may just not have gotten added (it's add, not invite based). But I bet that you will find at least one person who happily surprises you with their presence. If you change your mind, MeMail me.
posted by thebrokedown at 4:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

So, Sam Wang has an interesting post up -- Is 99% a reasonable probability? Among other things, he takes a look at what his model would be saying if he made different assumptions about the possibility of polling error. The short (and simplified) version is:

+/- 0.8% = 99% Clinton victory
+/- 1.5% = 91% Clinton victory
+/- 5.0% = 68% Clinton victory

Although he is not changing his model at this point, he acknowledges that +/- 1.1% may have been a more reasonable uncertainty for him to use, which would currently be showing a 95% Clinton win probability. He also mentions that the 5% error necessary for the 538 model seems unprecedented in modern polling data.

This is a gratifying piece of confirmation bias for me, personally, since it confirms my gut instinct that Wang is using an error margin that is too tight, and 538 is using one that is too loose. Other aggregators like Daily Kos, NYT Upshot, and Pierre-Antoine Kremp are all getting Clinton win percentages in the mid to high 80's right now, which sounds like an error margin of a little less than +/- 2%, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I still have no idea where HuffPost Pollster is getting its numbers from, since their difference seems to be a matter of how they calculate the popular vote as well as their error margins.

I will say, though, that although I am personally doubtful of 538's error margins, they have explained their reasons for them and they do not seem ridiculous -- there is indeed a much higher percentage of undecided voters in the polls, even now, than there were 4 years ago or 8 years ago. And I think some people don't quite get that their model is not showing Clinton further behind than the others; in fact, its chance of a massive Clinton win is actually *much higher* than the chance in the other models. It's just that a chance of a Clinton loss is much higher in their model, too.

I will freely admit that the higher chance they give of a Clinton loss makes me feel personally, physically ill -- actual nausea -- because of the stakes in this election, but I don't blame Nate Silver for that.
posted by kyrademon at 4:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

i do know one thing - if we voted by carrier pigeon, half the republicans in some areas would be on their roofs with rifles

hahah. They'd be wasting their vote! That shotgun would blow their pigeon to smithereeens before it left the barrel! Better to just let the pigeon do the work.
posted by ian1977 at 4:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

While doing outreach to my R friends I came up with a thought experiment. I had been hectoring them with the question "just how bad does your nominee have to be before you'd consider country over party?" when in the interest of intellectual honesty I turned the question around on myself:

Posit Trump vs. any other Republican nominee. Who would you pull the lever for?

As I contemplated actually voting for Reagan, I wondered if this is how the Rs are feeling right now.
posted by whuppy at 4:31 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

Oh wow. Series 3 of Amazon's Alpha House sounds fucking amazing:

Gingrich, Giuliani, Priebus Eyed for Top Jobs in Trump White House: Sources

Donald Trump's cabinet-in-waiting is taking shape in the final days of the race, as aides eye a number of Trump loyalists for major posts should he win on Tuesday.

Among the names being considered, according to conversations with three campaign advisers who requested anonymity to speak freely: Rudy Giuliani for attorney general, Newt Gingrich for secretary of state, retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn for defense secretary or national security adviser, Trump finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary, and Republican National Committee finance chair Lew Eisenberg for commerce secretary.

posted by garius at 4:32 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

DAMN it garius. You had me excited for a second.
posted by thebrokedown at 4:36 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Donald Trump's cabinet-in-waiting is taking shape in the final days of the race

Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Inferior.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:41 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

As a whole, Oregon and Washington have shown they have enabled significantly more citizens to vote

Empirically, vote by mail has no consistent effect of increasing turnout. The best study of vbm, in my opinion, is Kousser and Mullins. They used a matching algorithm to compare California precincts that were entirely vote by mail to similar precincts that were in-person, to get as close as possible to the unattainable ideal of a controlled random experiment.

They found that vbm actually *reduces* turnout. Their study isn't organized around finding why that would be, but counterintuitive non-effects or perverse effects are pretty common in the electoral-schemes world.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:42 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

@ZekeJMiller:
Clinton camp offl: This weekend alone, Clinton volunteers in battleground states made nearly 14.5 million voter-to-voter contacts

@evale72:
So roughly they did in one weekend what rnc says they did in entire campaign
posted by chris24 at 4:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [43 favorites]

Posit Trump vs. any other Republican nominee. Who would you pull the lever for?

Bush I and II, yes.
Reagan, yes.
Dole, yes.
McCain, yes.
Romney, yes.
posted by Talez at 4:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [35 favorites]

The Senate race here between Bayh and Young is now a dead heat, with Young making big gains against Bayh in the past couple of weeks, thanks largely to his PAC supporters hitting us with a withering flood of ads while Bayh seems to have all but disappeared from the tube. Unless he's bought every available ad spot tonight, I think Bayh is going to turn what was thought to have been a fairly sure victory into a crushing defeat. Fuck!

Our Governor race is deadlocked, too.

Rain is forecast tomorrow here. That doesn't traditionally bode well for Democrats here.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:45 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

And then there is the other obvious thing we could be doing, which is making the second Tuesday of November a national holiday.

Holidays are fun but election day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday, not the second Tuesday.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:45 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

@MarcACaputo:
1 Sunday of in-person early voting in FL helps Ds widen lead by 52k, now lead Rs by 87k in total early/absentee vote http://politi.co/2eeZgXU
posted by chris24 at 4:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

SEPTA strike resolved! So we'll have service Tuesday.

Awesome! I'm glad to hear the unnecessary election-day scabbing schemes people cooked up won't get the chance to go into action, but I'm even more glad to hear that the workers won.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:48 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

I am in the middle of a huge IT migration at work which has been keeping me awake the parts of the night where I'm not worried about the election. Tomorrow is not only election day, it is our project go live and I need to be in the office at 7:30 to watch them flip the switch.

Today I ran to Zara and bought myself a pantsuit, which I plan to wear to the go-live with my Black Lives Matter tee shirt. (I work for a company where they'll look at the suit more oddly than the tee shirt. I love my corporate job.)

I'm trying not to be nervous about either the go live or the election, but failing miserably at this ambition. Thanks to these election threads for keeping me reading, relatively sane, and thinking. Metafilter and Pantsuit Nation have literally saved me in these last weeks. Sigh.
posted by frumiousb at 4:50 AM on November 7, 2016 [40 favorites]

They found that vbm actually *reduces* turnout. Their study isn't organized around finding why that would be, but counterintuitive non-effects or perverse effects are pretty common in the electoral-schemes world.

The obvious supposition would be that it's easier to organize people to do something that deviates from their routine on a specific day when everyone else is doing it. Texas has about two weeks of early voting and at multiple locations, not just a single county office, and on weekends. I stood in a stupidly long line to vote in the primary because I didn't actually get myself to the polls in those two weeks, despite intending to. I would bet you that my brother who lives in Seattle hasn't turned in his ballot--it might be filled it, but it won't have been dropped off (guess I should call him).

IIRC, the thing that states with very high turnout rates have in common is same-day registration.
posted by hoyland at 4:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

Y'all are my pantsuit nation. Thank you.
posted by Golem XIV at 4:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

@mattmfm:
Final national polls:
NBC/SM: Clinton +6
Ipsos: Clinton +4
NBC/WSJ: Clinton +4
ABC/WaPo: Clinton +4
Herald: Clinton +4
Bloomberg: Clinton +3
posted by chris24 at 4:52 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

LA Times Tracker: Trump +5

If I have to know that bullshit so do you.
posted by Justinian at 4:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [25 favorites]

Not even the LA Times believes that poll.
posted by kyrademon at 4:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

As a follow up to my earlier comment. The 45 million means Clinton volunteers contacted 1/3 of the total expected U.S. electorate. (And an even higher percentage of the swing state electorate.)

@ABCPolitics:
NEW: Clinton camp says it made 14.5m voter contacts in swing states this weekend, for a total of 45m since start of early voting. -@ABCLiz
posted by chris24 at 4:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

kind of weird to come at it from an angle of, "he failed because he wasn't Republican enough".

That's not what I said, at all. It's not that he's not Republican enough - he's a poor choice in general. He lied about his resume and his record - and his resume and record are paper-thin to begin with. I've met him in person and he totally lacks the seriousness and maturity I want to see in a Senator. He's a rich kid who went into politics because his dad was able to pay for him to do that, and he found a good House seat to run for. Now he's elevated to running for Senate because Grayson was a total wacko and ??? (I still can't get over the idea that there was no one else better for this race - there has to have been.) There is no particular cause, interest, or passion that appears to be driving him other than "I wanna be a Senator."

None of this is reason to vote for Rubio over him. But I can see exactly why someone would go "Well Rubio totally sucks, but he's done X Y Z for my state/community during his time, so I'll keep the sucky politician I know rather than going with this probably also-sucky new guy." Or even "It's important to me to have Latino/Hispanic representation in the Congress, and if they both suck, I'm going to go with the guy whose background is like mine."
posted by sallybrown at 4:59 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

If give the choice between Nixon and Trump, I would have a hard time. Nixon was an insane rattlesnake. But I would even vote for Bush II over Trump. Never thought I'd say that.

Thank heavens the SEPTA strike is over. I was ready to get the Honda out and drive people, and I don't drive much.
posted by Peach at 5:01 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

If Priebus leaves the RNC, two close Trump allies could be considered to take his position. Trump's team is talking about former campaign manager and current CNN contributor Corey Lewandowski or current deputy campaign manager David Bossie as possible options.

So if he wins, Trump is not only planning on staffing his administration with incompetent apparatchiks, he'd wholly remake the party as the Party of Trump and subrogate the "establishment" wing entirely.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:02 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Silver's analysis missed Trump altogether, his big marquee percentage doesn't actually mean anything for 99/100 of his largely innumerate readers, and his vaunted model has swung from 'Clinton is a slight favourite' to 'Clinton will DEFINITELY WIN unless a meteor hits' and back

The highest the polls-plus number ever got was 85.3%.
posted by dfan at 5:02 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

On Tuesday, @IlhanMN (Ilhan Omar) is set to become first Somali-American to ever be elected to state legislature in our country. And she's a Minnesotan.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [81 favorites]

She will be 100% on Wednesday so that's something.
posted by ian1977 at 5:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

Clinton to win that is.
posted by ian1977 at 5:04 AM on November 7, 2016

Good luck, USA. Do your best then have a refreshing beverage (or three).
posted by harriet vane at 5:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Gingrich, Giuliani, Priebus Eyed for Top Jobs in Trump White House: Sources

My favorite part, emphasis mine: Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a loyal supporter, has taken a major role managing the transition effort, especially as the official transition chief, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, has drifted from the campaign. It's not clear Christie is being considered for a significant role in a potential administration either.

I wish I could speak eloquently on this, but all that's coming out is HAHAHAHHAhahahahah AHAHAHAHahahahh HAHAHAHAhahahahah
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:08 AM on November 7, 2016 [68 favorites]

He lied about his resume and his record - and his resume and record are paper-thin to begin with. I've met him in person and he totally lacks the seriousness and maturity I want to see in a Senator. He's a rich kid who went into politics because his dad was able to pay for him to do that, and he found a good House seat to run for. Now he's elevated to running for Senate because Grayson was a total wacko and ??? (I still can't get over the idea that there was no one else better for this race - there has to have been.) There is no particular cause, interest, or passion that appears to be driving him other than "I wanna be a Senator."

Just to follow up on my own comment. Do you know how old Murphy is? He is 33. Is he some kind of child prodigy or someone who got drafted to run because of some amazing community project he led in his young life? NO. He is 33 years old and got slotted to run against Rubio in a swing state, with nothing of note on his record. That was a dumb as hell decision. I'm really mad about it, because I think Rubio is a big NOTHING as well and the way he endorsed Trump disgusted me and I wanted to see him put out of a job. But there's no way to slice this that looks good on us as Dems.
posted by sallybrown at 5:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [35 favorites]

Gingrich, Giuliani, Priebus Eyed for Top Jobs in Trump White House: Sources

This reads best when you read it as fanfic, which it is...because it's never going to happen.
posted by sallybrown at 5:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

What is a "mazel tov cocktail?"
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [26 favorites]

He lied about his resume and his record - and his resume and record are paper-thin to begin with. I've met him in person and he totally lacks the seriousness and maturity I want to see in a Senator. He's a rich kid who went into politics because his dad was able to pay for him to do that, and he found a good House seat to run for. Now he's elevated to running for Senate because Grayson was a total wacko and ??? (I still can't get over the idea that there was no one else better for this race - there has to have been.) There is no particular cause, interest, or passion that appears to be driving him other than "I wanna be a Senator."

Chuck Schumer hates Alan Grayson, and never met a Wall Street "democrat" that he didn't love, therefore, Murphy. Yes, there surely was someone else in Florida, but Schumer didn't care to recruit anyone else once the word came down from the big money to endorse Daddy's boy Murphy.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:13 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

Meh, Trump surprised everyone and is throwing everything off, so Silver missing that isn't a big thing.

The real issue is why did everyone miss the part of the population that Trump is appealing to?

This is common knowledge that isn't actually true. trump performed more or less exactly at his polling throughout the primaries. Nate edged his primary model against that and was blindsided, which probably accounts for over correcting in the opposite direction with his current model. In this case, however, there is actually under-reporting of POC likely voters, I think.

Also, much as we'd all like to, I don't think anyone is missing anything that the deplorables are doing as they kick and scream their way into irrelevance. Go to Salon.com or something for the latest dewy eyed thinkpiece about how it's actually the left's fault for not catering more-so to white middle America.
posted by codacorolla at 5:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't know of anyone wanting to give up Oregon's voting process once they've experienced it

I hate WA's vote by mail system with the passion of a thousand burning suns, and it's very similar. Mostly because of what holgate was talking about - voter intimidation at home. I promise you it is 100% real. These guys know the exact day ballots arrive and schedule ballot-filling together. It discourages women from voting the way that they would want to in elections like these.
posted by corb at 5:24 AM on November 7, 2016 [79 favorites]

The real issue is why did everyone miss the part of the population that Trump is appealing to?

One of the things that struck me the most when i was out canvassing yesterday was the people in those communities were being legitimately neglected and left behind. I don't know what black and white relations were like in that neighborhood because at least judging from the houses they appeared to be in similar economic conditions - but the divide in party lines by (generally) race was clear.

Even meeting the angry whites that were turning away from Hillary in the places I canvassed, all I could think about was "you know what, if I was in a similar economic situation here I'd be angry as fuck too. If things haven't improved over the past decade for a member of this community, I'd also be angry as fuck."

When Hillary wins, its incredibly important to me that they took a hard look at the communities like in PA that's been fucked and puts in real efforts to bring change to those communities, regardless of race and regardless of whether they bought into the Trump appeal to racism.
posted by Karaage at 5:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

voter intimidation at home. I promise you it is 100% real. These guys know the exact day ballots arrive and schedule ballot-filling together. It discourages women from voting the way that they would want to in elections like these.

Strongly seconded.
posted by tilde at 5:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

What is a "mazel tov cocktail?"

$20 SAIT
posted by Reverend John at 5:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [25 favorites]

As for making Tuesday a national holiday .... Voting should be a multi day event, Friday through Tuesday.

Since we can't just snap our fingers, start with pushing Federal money to states who expand voting days to pay for it all - space, hardware, training, etc. also national service recognition for working the polls (not sure what. Right now if I want to be a poll worker I have to be able to take time off of work for training and to do it... assuming I'm working). Maybe cover polling place working like leave for the military and FMLA - pay gapping and guaranteed holding of your job while you are in service.
posted by tilde at 5:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

Also, much as we'd all like to, I don't think anyone is missing anything that the deplorables are doing as they kick and scream their way into irrelevance.

This is a dangerous point of view to take on a group of people that we're worried might represent a large enough number to elect a president.

Go to Salon.com or something for the latest dewy eyed thinkpiece about how it's actually the left's fault for not catering more-so to white middle America.

The left didn't build the mill these people are grist for, but it's on us if we don't do what we can to disassemble it. We don't have to cater to their hate and their sense of entitlement to make things better for everybody.
posted by Mooski at 5:38 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

Surely the proper cocktail to drink if Trump implodes is a White Russian?

And add that to the list of Things Trump Ruined? Stay out of Lebowski, Trump.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is from yesterday, but bears repeating: 144 years ago today Susan B. Anthony tried to vote for the first time. And was fined $100.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:45 AM on November 7, 2016 [31 favorites]

I'm with folks on the "538 Is Not As Insightful As It Think It Is" mainly because they seem to do a whole lot of hedging. If I wanted no clear insight, then I'd turn on cable news.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

What is a "mazel tov cocktail?"

Replace the gin with Manischewitz.
posted by dannyboybell at 5:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

NC #earlyvote change from same day 2012:
Dem -30,561 (-2.3%)
Rep +104,889 (+11.9%)
Unaffiliated +226,517 (+38.9%)

Republican vote suppression has been really effecitve in NC, and the final RCP polling average has shifted to Trump +1.7, although some of that is due to late polls from Republican firms showing Trump +5 and +2, and the questionable surveymonkey poll at +7. Regardless, it's not great for Clinton or the Senate.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Vote-by-mail without an in-person option is unacceptable because of the possibility of coercion, but as long as the mailed-in ballots can be replaced with a subsequent ballot AND there are days (plural) where people can show up in person to change any vote that was coerced, I think the positive gains that come from vote-by-mail outweigh the combined possibility of (a) coercion at home for vote-by-mail and (b) an inability to use one of these other mechanisms to change the coerced vote. We can't just look at the drawbacks of vote-by-mail without noting that there are advantages, and ways to mitigate the downside. As long as in-person voting continues to exist, there's no good reason vote-by-mail can't be added to increase participation.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'm ridiculously relieved to hear about the SEPTA strike. I was really worried about that.

GOTV update number one: I'm losing my voice. I work from 8-5 today, which involves a lot of talking, and then I'm scheduled to go to the staging location and make confirmation calls for tomorrow. Please send voice-holding-up vibes my way.

GOTV update number two: locally, the unsung heroes of this election have been members of the Sudanese community, who have worked incredibly hard to help other Sudanese-Americans here vote. This is something they've done pretty much entirely by their own initiative, and I don't think the official Clinton operation is set up very well to help their efforts. I understand that they're probably too small a community to register with the national party, but they're highly motivated and pretty invested in this election, and I really wish we had better ways to support local efforts that don't entirely jibe with our larger strategy. We keep giving them walk packets that are based on address, rather than language or culture, and a lot of our best door-knockers aren't entirely comfortable with English. They've also had much better luck working their networks than going door-to-door. I really wish we could hire a bilingual, bicultural young person from the community to coordinate with the campaign and then give our Sudanese volunteers the resources they need to design and implement their own strategy, because I think they have a better sense of what works than the national headquarters does.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [29 favorites]

Grayson beat his wife for two decades and was also complete monster during the divorce. When questioned he shoved a reporter. That's why he lost the primary to Murphy.
posted by humanfont at 5:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

No one is defending Grayson, the question is why was baby-Republican Murphy the only other option.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Surely the proper cocktail to drink if Trump implodes is a White Russian?

An Orange Fizz, Shirley!
posted by jferg at 5:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Stay out of Lebowski, Trump.

Would you say Donnie's out of his element?
posted by J.K. Seazer at 5:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

Posit Trump vs. any other Republican nominee. Who would you pull the lever for?

Trump v. Nixon? Nixon. He at least knew something about government work and could keep a civil tongue in his head in public.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm a straight white cis guy. I was a Republican for 20 years. I grew up in South Dakota and then lived in Texas for 15 years. I know a lot of rural, blue collar whites. I know a lot of Republicans. And when I read these Slate pitches about how we need to work with and sympathize with the deplorables, even I go wtf. Because I've spent a lot of time debating and arguing with these people and honestly, if a Republican has embraced Trump they pretty much are deplorable and it's honestly hard for me to see a way to reach them. The racism, sexism, resistance to facts and information is so engrained that it's hard to even communicate with them. They literally have created their own reality and won't - can't - believe the sky is blue if a Democrat says so.

Obviously I changed sides, so it's not impossible, but that was during the period of 2004-8. If a Republican stayed through the increasing insanity, partisanship, know-nothingness of the Obama years, and then went Trump... Good luck.
posted by chris24 at 5:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [60 favorites]

So, the house I drive by many times a week that, without fail on an every three months basis has a "free kittens" sign out, that I yell FIX YOUR FUCKING CATS at every time I see it, sprouted Trump signs this weekend. Truly this nation's best and brightest.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [39 favorites]

Could Trump or Clinton face impeachment as president?

This Election Has Disgraced the Entire Profession of Journalism
posted by robbyrobs at 5:56 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

Gingrich, Giuliani, Priebus Eyed for Top Jobs in Trump White House: Sources

My one criticism of Obama in 2008 was that he picked Biden for VP. It just felt like he said "Oh, shit, I need a VP. Who do I know?" and stuck his head out of his office in the Senate and there was Joe Biden hanging out in the hall, and hey presto, there's the Vice President. (Okay, it's worked out all right and it's been fun having Diamond Joe around, but let's face it, there were always better people to take the big chair if something happened, and that should be the first criterion by a long shot.)

This is that in spades. There's not a single person in that list who isn't personally known to Trump. He has no ability to pick a person based on anything but "Oh, shit, I need an entire Cabinet. Who do I know?" and sticking his head out of his office.
posted by Etrigan at 5:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

One of the things that struck me the most when i was out canvassing yesterday was the people in those communities were being legitimately neglected and left behind.

The thing is, the notion that this kind of community represents the bulk of Trump supporters has been repeatedly debunked. Trump's supporters tend to have higher household incomes than the median (it varies by state, but this ranges from slightly-above-median to well-above-median). They're also largely not working in fields that are being impacted by trade policy, immigration, etc, and are not disproportionately impacted by unemployment.

This is not to discount the fact that there are communities that are not being served by our government policies, nor is it to say there's nobody at all who is in a tough spot is supporting Trump because they think he's going to save them. However, the sad reality is that Trump's support is primarily coming from people who are doing fine financially, but are desperate to cling to the white (and mostly male) privilege they see eroding year by year.
posted by tocts at 5:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

TD Strange: the question in NC how all those unaffiliated voters will break. They trend younger, which is good, but not a slam dunk. All we can do with NC is wait. It'll be close.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

"But if a dog whistle is so low that white people dont even know they're hearing it, is it still a dog whistle?"

Joe Scarborough is aggressively stupid.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

Posit the rich asshole vs. any other Republican nominee. Who would you pull the lever for?

There's an argument to be made that Cruz could have been even worse.
Ben Carson is just as crazy as Butternut, but might go Carson because he seems like he might be slightly less rage-filled.
All of the rest of them are probably preferable to the Julius Gone Bad, but goddamn this is a horrible game.
posted by mcstayinskool at 6:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Joe Scarborough is aggressively stupid.

Seriously, it's like he goes out of his way to be stupider than he has to be.
posted by dis_integration at 6:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think the positive gains that come from vote-by-mail

What gains are you thinking of? Vote by mail doesn't increase turnout. You can think of reasons why it might, but empirically the best evidence is that, if anything, it reduces turnout.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

Yeah, my first impulse on reading Craggs' piece was to run the URL through search, and I was bummed it was already posted. It's worth reading.

(It's also worth noting that, for all its faults, Gawker shepherded the most ridiculous agglomeration of talent into the public eye since Spy.)
posted by thecaddy at 6:02 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

538* puts odds of Democrats taking Senate now under 50%.

Goddamnit Evan Bayh.

*I know, I know
posted by leotrotsky at 6:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

I also spent this morning fighting myself on the subway not to start preaching that everyone should vote and tell people the numbers to call if they are impeded. It wound up being an oddly empty train, but I did head into work an hour earlier than usual today.
posted by thecaddy at 6:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

> Joe Scarborough is aggressively stupid.
> Seriously, it's like he goes out of his way to be stupider than he has to be.

"He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it."
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 6:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

The poor object to being governed badly; the rich to being governed at all
G.K. Chesterton
posted by robbyrobs at 6:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

We still don’t know the outcome of the 2016 election, in which our “democratic process” has produced two candidates widely despised by the American people, but we do know the race’s biggest loser: reporters and the profession of journalism ...We have two unbelievably shitty candidates, neither of whom is fit to lead the country.

So wait, you're criticizing the profession of journalism, and then immediately going with a 'both sides are the same' narrative?

Is this a bit? Are you doing a bit?
posted by leotrotsky at 6:08 AM on November 7, 2016 [50 favorites]

you people who keep obsessively refreshing 538 are only encouraging him
posted by entropicamericana at 6:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

Steve Inskeep on NPR's Morning Edition, just now: "Just to drop a little reporting in here..."

WHY START NOW, STEVE?
posted by entropicamericana at 6:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [61 favorites]

EVAN BAYH YOU TOTAL DICKHOLE. Srsly, Indiana, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

So wait, you're criticizing the profession of journalism, and then immediately going with a 'both sides are the same' narrative?

It's worse than that, he then goes into paragraphs and paragraphs pulling Clinton apart and then puts in a few "Don't get me wrong, Trump is awful too but..." and then more Clinton bashing.

Maybe it's some sort of meta-performance art?
posted by like_neon at 6:13 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

One of the questions people should be looking into regarding polls after the election is how many voters weren't considered "likely" enough to be counted and what that says about the polls. If, for example, there does turn out to be an "unexpectedly" high turn out for hispanic and latinx voters, one might question the racial attitudes taken by the polls and those who rely on them given how scant the history is with some voters and how race plays into that history.

If Silver's method is relying on "undecided" voters for his excessively broad range of possibilities, and it turns out that it was uncounted voters that make the swing, then, even if his projection is closer on the high side, his base assumptions could still be quite off. So too I have to wonder about the idea of looking at undecideds in this election and speculating they could go either way, leading to that could be close with Trump maybe even winning, but could be a blow out for Clinton. Both possibilities can't be true simultaneously, just pointing to the undecided voters and throwing up ones hands has some meaning and isn't just a neutral statement or effect on its own even if there is math behind it. His headlines emphasized the possible closeness of the race, not the possible blow out, that too can have an effect on the election. I'm not keen on 538 and the other aggregators using the election as a math experiment while broadcasting their results in general, especially when there are some questionable assumptions about agency and history involved.

It may of course be that Silver or one of the other poll aggregators is right on the money with their projections, I'll still question the value of the exercise given how much emphasis people put on them. It reminds me in some sense of the continued growth of advanced statistical analysis in sports, the drive to make sports more predictable where predictable sports would be the death of the very thing they are seeking to measure.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:14 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am absolutely livid over the FBI/Comey thing. Can I at least hope he'll lose his job or something over this? I understand he didn't really do anything illegal - but there must be some restitution.

At the very least he just made a giant mockery of the FBI.
posted by INFJ at 6:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Dude is writing an op-ed for the paper run by Trump's son-in-law. Of course he's going to go all-in with the Clinton-bashing and "both sides" narrative.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

—and I personally find it troubling that she put classified information on a private server that was almost certainly obtained by foreign intelligence services —

Didn't we just go through an FBI investigation that determined - twice - that this was not true?
posted by Flashman at 6:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [29 favorites]

No one is defending Grayson, the question is why was baby-Republican Murphy the only other option.

Pam Keith didn't get a lot of airtime, money, or votes.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/senate/fl/florida_senate_democratic_primary-5378.html

This race (Keith) was the reason I stayed a registered Dem through this election (originally switched from NPA to vote in the Dem primary (Clinton Vs Obama many moons ago)).
posted by tilde at 6:17 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I sort of wonder how much people know that the government classifies a mountain of trivial crap every day - are they under the impression that the plans to our secret robot-dogs-who-shoot-bees-from-their-mouth were being emailed around?
posted by thelonius at 6:18 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

TPM: Reid: Comey’s All Clear On Clinton Emails Proof He Should Have Kept Quiet:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Sunday that FBI Director James Comey’s letter announcing that nothing was found in emails tied to Hillary Clinton’s private email server was proof that he should never have raised the issue to Congress in the first place.

“Director Comey created a political firestorm eleven days before a presidential election merely to confirm what we already knew: that Secretary Clinton’s email practices were legal,” Reid wrote in a statement obtained by NBC.

posted by palindromic at 6:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

Not that we don't all already know it, but if you need something to convince friends:

WIRED: Yes, Donald Trump, the FBI Can Vet 650,000 Emails in Eight Days

"One former FBI forensics expert even tells WIRED he’s personally assessed far larger collections of data, far faster. “You can triage a dataset like this in a much shorter amount of time,” says the former agent, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid any political backlash. “We’d routinely collect terabytes of data in a search. I’d know what was important before I left the guy’s house.”
...

"The real question, wrote cybersecurity consultant Rob Graham in his blog, isn’t how the FBI managed to conclude its investigation in eight days. It’s how it managed to take so long. “Computer geeks have tools that make searching the emails extremely easy,” wrote Graham. “Given those emails, and a list of known email accounts from Hillary and associates, and a list of other search terms, it would take me only a few hours to reduce the workload from 650,000 emails to only a couple hundred, which a single person can read in less than a day."
posted by chris24 at 6:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

Whether or not the D's win or lose the Senate by a few votes, is it possible that a few Rs will decide to caucus with the D's once in a while?
posted by Room 641-A at 6:21 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Left Wing's Trump
He’s an obnoxious millionaire New Yorker, a populist with a sketchy business, and party leaders hate him. Also: Alan Grayson is a Democrat.
posted by robbyrobs at 6:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Whether or not the D's win or lose the Senate by a few votes, is it possible that a few Rs will decide to caucus with the D's once in a while?

Under a Democratic President? Not likely. There will be the occasional quiet vote that benefits a particular GOP Senator's particular state, but that'll be about it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Whether or not the D's win or lose the Senate by a few votes, is it possible that a few Rs will decide to caucus with the D's once in a while?

Whatever their other failings, the GOP seems to have a tighter grip on its people in terms of staying in lockstep. It's not impossible, but I do think it's unlikely.
posted by Mooski at 6:23 AM on November 7, 2016

Puzzled Brit here: watching a live feed of CNN (via YT)... it's been broadcasting a Trump clip with him saying "it's impossible to check 650,000 emails in eight days". The two show hosts do not challenge this. Trump gets a pass. Why?
posted by Mister Bijou at 6:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Whether or not the D's win or lose the Senate by a few votes, is it possible that a few Rs will decide to caucus with the D's once in a while?

If they know what's good for the country and the choose to act on what is good for the country...then perhaps.
posted by tilde at 6:23 AM on November 7, 2016

I am absolutely livid over the FBI/Comey thing. Can I at least hope he'll lose his job or something over this?

James Fallows posted a short piece this morning arguing that neither Clinton nor Obama should fire him in order to keep the norm in place that the FBI director serves out the appointed term (Bill Clinton firing William Sessions for ethics violations in the 90s notwithstanding) but that he should resign after the election. I'm sensitive to the norm argument since this election has been characterized by all sorts of dangerous norm-breaking, but I guess I'm willing to be more aggressive than that because I'd be happy if Obama called him in and fired him on November 9th for such a flagrant overstep. The Republicans would crow about it loudly, but at this point I don't see how it would create a materially different situation from the one we already have with Jason Chaffetz promising years more of baseless re-investigations of the same old shit.

is it possible that a few Rs will decide to caucus with the D's once in a while?

That seems extremely unlikely in the current political climate. Even the ones who have been in the Senate for a generation--and were thus exposed to the earlier norms--seem to be completely lost to the madness of the times.
posted by Kosh at 6:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

and then choose to act on what is good for the country.

So that's a no then.
posted by chris24 at 6:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Could Trump or Clinton face impeachment as president?

Given that a handful of Republicans have already come out publicly that they intend to impeach Clinton asap, then, yes, at least one of the candidates just might.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Posit Trump vs. any other Republican nominee. Who would you pull the lever for?

Yzma. Which lever is it again?
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

Whether or not the D's win or lose the Senate by a few votes, is it possible that a few Rs will decide to caucus with the D's once in a while?

Sure, maybe on the NDAA and minor bills like renaming shit after Reagan or something. But the last 8 years has shown that they live for obstruction. Anything less than 50 and I'll be surprised if we get back to 9 SCOTUS judges in the next 4 years, if ever (I don't trust Isaakson as far as I can throw him). And that doesn't even begin to cover stuff like a new VRA, reauthorizing VAWA and similar bills, or really anything that remotely looks even center-of-left.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:27 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

In the "who would you vote for?" game, try this alternate reality scenario.

Wikileaks breaks very early, front-loaded with all the worst stuff, plus Comey and a few others weaken Clinton before primary season, opening the doors to wider candidates. There's Sanders, there's Warren, there's O'Malley, a few others... and Trump as a Democrat. The "true left" never takes him seriously and continues fighting among themselves, with each of the left candidates polling in the teens to 20s, leaving his deplorable center-right coalition and its 31% alone until it's too late and he takes the nomination.

On the other side, the Republicans have a quick contest that sees "fresh blood" Rubio fall to the old guard with the solid campaign team, Vice President Dick Cheney.

So it's Trump (D) vs. Cheney (R). Who do you choose?

Do you pick the deplorable outsider who took over your party, or the reviled opponent you've hated for decades? Remember, the Supreme Court is also at stake, with a Democratic Trump saying he'll let the party pick his nominees while Cheney's lined up some young hard right justices. Some part of me thinks this is how a few GOP voters feel about their choices. Do you pick party, principles, or country?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 6:27 AM on November 7, 2016 [28 favorites]

Dude, fire the guy! Comey either made an incredibly bad judgment call under pressure from people around him, in which case he's not a good fit, or he was actively partisan for really, really dumbshit reasons that transparently have nothing to do with the good of the nation. Either way, fire a person like that when you have the chance. Democrats never hit back, and they should start.
posted by Frowner at 6:28 AM on November 7, 2016 [30 favorites]

The first point of Josh Marshall's Election Observation Potpourri #4 provides a solid rejoinder to the lamentations that black voter turnout is lower this year than in 2012:

We've seen a lot of discussion of lower African-American turnout this year compared to 2012. There's been speculation that that is tied to Barack Obama not being on the ballot. But now that early voting is coming to an end we can see that's not the real story. In most cases, African-American turnout in the early vote is actually up - except in the places where state legislatures took the most aggressively steps to limit African-American voting. Most specifically in North Carolina. This is where a federal judge said that the state had specifically designed its new voting laws to limit African-American voting. These are neo-Jim Crow laws. And it's had an effect.

Michael McDonald is one the top academic political scientists working in the field of election data.

[Embedded tweet from McDonald with a chart of change in early voting among black voters between 2016 and 2012 in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina. North Carolina alone of these four states showed a decline in black voter early voting.]

It is important to note that people who were early voters can become election day voters and vice versa. So it's certainly possible that the picture could look significantly different when all the votes are counted. It's also true that these numbers have gone up in percentage terms over the course of the voting. They could go up more. Still, there's an obvious difference between these states. And the most obvious explanation is the bundle of voting restrictions and purges in North Carolina.

posted by palindromic at 6:32 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

Puzzled Brit here: watching a live feed of CNN (via YT), it's been broadcasting a Trump clip with him saying "it's impossible to check 650,000 emails in eight days". The two show hosts do not challenge this. Trump gets a pass. Why?

Because horserace. And IOKIYAR. And our corporate media is generally terrible to begin with, and only extremely rarely challenges any blatantly false premise offered by a politician. That's a tiny oversight given what else they've failed to challenge from Trump over the past two years.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:33 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

The real issue is why did everyone miss the part of the population that Trump is appealing to?

I think it is it appears. They're bigoted as fuck, poorly informed, poorly organized, and what they really seem to want is foolish stuff no one else wants. They don't trust politics. To get their vote, run a strong white man and play up his outsider status. Obviously Hillary was never going to be that candidate, and the Republicans haven't been able to cough up someone like that since maybe if you squint at W in the right light.

I've heard these are basically the Perot voters resurfacing. Perot sounds nice right about now.
posted by fleacircus at 6:34 AM on November 7, 2016

it was a while back but ...voter intimidation happens at home just as likely as at the polls...

I was grew up in the 80's in Memphis, Tennessee, in a reliably Republican family. The polling place was in a school on the same block as our house, and I remember going in to vote with my mother every two years. Tennessee had the big electromechanical punchcard machines, then, and she'd flip all the levers and let me push the big green VOTE button. KA-CHUNK KA-CHUNK KA-CHUNK BANG and done. It was so much fun.

In the late 80's my dad went wingnut, and the family went along with him. Then he died (these two developments were unrelated). I became politically aware in the 90's (I think it was the Wall falling that made me start paying attention), and around about Bill Clinton's first election I noticed that what my mom (and increasingly I) believed was closer to the Democratic party platform than the Republican one. She voted and I celebrated for WJC first victory over GHWB, and I was old enough to vote for WJC against Dole.

I started thinking about this in college -- how did my Mom stomach voting for Republicans even though Reagan stood for a whole bunch of stuff she hated? So I asked her.

"Oh, I never voted for Reagan."

"But I was there in the voting booth with you. I saw you pull the lever."

"Did you?" she winked.
posted by Vetinari at 6:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [91 favorites]

Welp. GhostintheMachine, ya got me there. I'd pick Nixon twice, Ford, Reagan twice, Pappy twice, Dole, Dubya once mmmaybe twice, McCain and Romney, but *that* might just be a bridge too far.

And yeah, this game sucks.
posted by whuppy at 6:35 AM on November 7, 2016

Since alterna-Trump is promising party judges, is he also then avoiding all that racial and sexist rhetoric or going all out like in our universe? If the former, there is no way most Dems don't support him, the latter? I'm on team President McMullin.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:36 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Just to follow up on my own comment. Do you know how old Murphy is? He is 33. Is he some kind of child prodigy or someone who got drafted to run because of some amazing community project he led in his young life? NO. He is 33 years old and got slotted to run against Rubio in a swing state, with nothing of note on his record. That was a dumb as hell decision. I'm really mad about it, because I think Rubio is a big NOTHING as well and the way he endorsed Trump disgusted me and I wanted to see him put out of a job. But there's no way to slice this that looks good on us as Dems.

As someone who lives in Florida, I really want to know who the rising stars of Florida Democratic Politics are so that I can start supporting them now. Because I get the argument that Murphy isn't the right candidate -- but who the hell that was actually in the field is/was? Who are the people we need to be looking at to run for governor in two years? I mean this sincerely -- I want to help support those folks now so that we aren't in this position again as these big races come up.

Oddly enough, my Mom -- reluctant Hillary supporter who is this close from being a Bernie-or-Buster -- said that she'd be willing to phone bank for Murphy if she could do that directly. She's a big environmentalist in his district and loves him for the work he's put into advocating for the environment. I get the young and non-serious arguments, but it's really hard for me to square MetaFilter's opinion of Murphy with my parents' opinion of Murphy. I get it after someone posted that CBS report, but again... there's some cognitive dissonance there.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:36 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

On a lighter note... I keep on thinking I should invite my Dad to Pantsuit Nation. It seems like every day I get a call from Mom saying that she just doesn't understand how he can be so enthusiastic for Clinton.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

NC #earlyvote change from same day 2012:
Dem -30,561 (-2.3%)
Rep +104,889 (+11.9%)
Unaffiliated +226,517 (+38.9%)

This is bad - black early voting is down 65k thanks to voter suppression (when black voting is up in most other states). But the other party of the change is voter registration changes in North Carolina meaning that historic Reagan Democrats in large numbers finally corrected their registration to Republican; there was a 100k swing that way in North Carolina mostly from voters who haven't voted Republican in years.
posted by Francis at 6:38 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

An editorial in the Reno Gazette-Journal from Phil Satre, a former business partner of Trump's - One View: To my fellow Nevadans — we should reject Trump:

I got to know Donald Trump reasonably well in the 1980s — and I will not be voting for him.

34 years ago I was a senior vice president for Harrah’s and was given the responsibility to be Harrah’s representative in a joint venture that created the Harrah’s at Trump Plaza hotel-casino property in Atlantic City. It was a major project at the time, one of the largest ever undertaken by either of our organizations. We had equal ownership, with Trump as the land developer and Harrah’s as the operator. So, over a period of four years I met with Donald frequently, often multiple times a month. It was not a happy marriage, and it ended badly. Before the divorce, I had ample opportunity to form an opinion of him — an opinion that leaves me appalled by the very thought he could become our president. Knowing that how Nevadans vote could determine the outcome in this critical election, I have chosen to relate my experiences and views of Donald Trump.

Harrah’s at Trump Plaza opened in 1984, and within a year we were in litigation with Trump. In 1985 I filed an affidavit with the court over Trump’s claims of mismanagement: Referring to Trump I said, “His written response to my letter of May 10 is characteristic of the bluster, threats, intemperance and unsupported and unsupportable falsehoods that have permeated the correspondence we have received from him and his key management employees almost since the beginning of our partnership.” My opinion of Donald Trump from the 1980s has not changed. The negative publicity about Donald Trump during this campaign — his conduct toward women, his business failures and his explosive temperament — matches my dealings with him.

posted by palindromic at 6:38 AM on November 7, 2016 [33 favorites]

Most people today don’t get their news by going to the home page of CNN or the New York Times. They open a social media app — most often Facebook — and read news stories that pop up in their news feed.
The result has been a disaster for the public’s understanding of current affairs. Reporters have come under increasing pressure to write “clickbait” articles that pander to readers’ worst impulses. Too-good-to-check stories gain more traction online than stories that are balanced and thoroughly reported. That has worsened the nation’s political polarization and lowered the quality of democratic discourse.
posted by robbyrobs at 6:39 AM on November 7, 2016 [23 favorites]

Tweetstorm from CEO of polling company TargetSmart that sheds some light on how electorate composition assumptions affect polling.

1) Okay, mini tweetstorm explaining why I see Trump's 3% lead in our latest Ohio tracker poll (http://bit.ly/2fwcYla ) as tenuous

2) Our poll sample included people who have already voted (EV) and a regular poll sample of people who are yet to vote

3) Of the EV, 57% are women, giving HRC a +23% margin. She's -14% w/ EV men... a 37% swing. So, women voters in Ohio are sort of a big deal.

4) That 57% share of the EV is higher than any other battleground state. So there is clearly high intensity there.

5) So, it's reasonable to assume that women will comprise a larger share of the electorate than normal. But we took a conservative approach

6) and weighted our non-EV sample so that the overall poll sample comes out to 52% women, which certainly benefits Trump in the poll

7) My take is that women could comprise as much as 55% of the final total vote in OH, thereby handing Clinton a win. /tweetstorm
posted by chris24 at 6:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

I made it out of the New Hampshire rally alive. A few thoughts:

- I almost didn't go because I've had ongoing anxiety issues. (I'm sure some of it is related to the election, but I also just started a new job and I feel like I'm in over my head.) I had a minor anxiety attack on Saturday and was worried about attending a huge event where I would be out late. Gentleman Caller, who is supporting Jill Stein despite my best efforts, told me that I needed to go to this. So I did.

- I went up with two women I've volunteered with at Somerville for Hillary. The group has grown huge (there were over 100 canvassers on Saturday!), and at first I thought I didn't know anyone in the car full of Nasty Women. SURPRISE, the girl who coordinated the ride was a fellow knitter with whom I bonded over yarn at a previous canvassing event. Behold, the power of knitting.

- We arrived at the Radisson two hours before the event, and a HUGE line was dominating the lobby of the hotel. With all the police barricades, it felt more like an airline checkpoint than a political rally. Looking around the lobby, I was inspired by the diversity and the general positive energy among Hillary's supporters. (The positive tone Hillary and her staff have taken in the campaign has been refreshing and is one of the things that made me decide to stand #WithHer.)

- The speakers were inspiring. I'm embarrassed to say that I thought of New Hampshire as a hillbilly podunk state, but learning about the political scene up there, finding out that most of the senators and reps up for election are female, and learning about how they're dealing with some of the biggest issues in the state helped me reconsider my previous misconceptions about the Granite State.

- If you're from New England, James Taylor can make you bawl like a tired baby.

- Hillary was a galvanizing speaker who not only has vision, but also has policy plans. (She also has great comic timing, in addition to gravitas.) Listening to her talk about her background and her work with some of her opponents made me proud to vote with her, but I also want to get a beer with her. (Well, a microbrewed root beer, anyway.)

- I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what Khizr Khan and his wife have experienced. I'm so glad he's out there speaking truth to power, and I'm with him no matter how he decides to be an activist.

- The big crowd, lack of movement, and heat in the hall set off my anxiety a few times. My cohort and the people around me checked in with me, and I was moved by the empathy of Hillary's people.

I feel less anxious about what happens tomorrow. I'm stuck between pushing through my anxiety and volunteering (which is what Hillary would want me to do) and backing off a bit for my own well-being. Either way, I'm proud of Hillary, and I'm looking forward to what happens next.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [65 favorites]

In re what if we had to pick between (D) Trump and (R) Beelzebub: back in August there was a brief discussion over who the "Democratic version" of Trump would be, and this was the best response IMO:

Left-wing Trump would pander to my WOC anger with aggressive, overheated rhetoric against white people and straight cis men. Saying that all cops are racist pigs and murderers, talking about how white imperialism fucks over the world (kinda "white imperialists founded ISIS!"), blaming alienated white dude culture for mass shootings, etc. He'd propose an unconstitutional gun ban forbidding white men to own weapons and double down on it. Not sure what the equivalent of the border wall would be, but maybe massive large scale reparations? "The reparations just got $10 billion bigger!" Whenever I think about Opposite Trump's talking points, I begin to understand a little of the (disgusting) visceral appeal of an asshole who's our asshole. "Sure, maybe a president shouldn't talk like that...but he's saying what needs to be said!"

And yeah, I think Kanye "George Bush doesn't care about black people" West could be it. He's an unstable narcissist who'd run as a vanity project instead of being bound to any particular ideology. Trump pisses off right wingers (and everyone) by insulting veterans; Kanye would piss off the social justice left wing by calling women bitches. Trump's campaign inner circle is his children; Kanye's would be the Kardashian-Jenner clan. And most importantly, imagine the Kanye campaign tweetstorms! He'd never have to spend a cent on advertising EVER.

posted by J.K. Seazer at 6:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

Gingrich, Giuliani, Priebus Eyed for Top Jobs in Trump White House: Sources

I took note of this: Sources say Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, might also decline an administration job after a grueling general election

At first I was surprised that she would not jump at the chance to be Press Secretary or Communications Director but then I put myself in her shoes. She's only been Campaign Manager/Spokesperson for what? 3 months or so? I'm sure she is exhausted. Imagine having to spend four years of "explaining" President Trump's 3 A.M. tweets.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:41 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I may have missed this if it was discussed in one of the 150-some-odd previous threads, so my apologies if so, but: I'm feeling a little disappointed in our adoption of Egg McMuffin as the official MetaFilter Electoral Mascot. Not because of anything I have against Egg, but because I feel like we missed a real opportunity to make him into Evan Macguffin, the interchangeable plot device of this week's episode of 2016: The Series. Will he win Utah's 6 vital electoral votes?! Tune in next week, when we will all have forgotten the answer and his his name until it pops up at Trivia Night next summer.
posted by Mayor West at 6:41 AM on November 7, 2016 [25 favorites]

Even meeting the angry whites that were turning away from Hillary in the places I canvassed, all I could think about was "you know what, if I was in a similar economic situation here I'd be angry as fuck too. If things haven't improved over the past decade for a member of this community, I'd also be angry as fuck."

I am sure your experience is not uncommon, but I can also tell you that my drive to my wife's parents house takes me through areas that are very economically well-off but also have Trump signs on at least one out of every four homes. We know yard signs underestimate actual support, but the fact is a lot of Trump's support isn't coming from the economically disadvantaged. A lot of these people haven't been left behind -- they're simply so worried that they won't be in the driver's seat that they're willing to risk the well-being of all the other passengers to preserve their position.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [23 favorites]

BREAKING ON CNN: DRACO MALFOY ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

Mister Bijou: "Puzzled Brit here: watching a live feed of CNN (via YT)... it's been broadcasting a Trump clip with him saying "it's impossible to check 650,000 emails in eight days". The two show hosts do not challenge this. Trump gets a pass. Why?"

Journalists don't see it as their job to point out what the objective truth is. They just repeat what each side says and then say, "well it looks like we have a disagreement here."
posted by octothorpe at 6:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

Sidenote: when do the young talking heads sleep? Is it ever? I'm not sure it's ever. I had MSNBC on last night as I was trying to meet a deadline, and I have it again on this morning as I take another whack at that gd deadline, and I swear the people I saw on at like 10pm were up and in front of a camera by 9am.

Sider side note: I think I have a bit of a crush on Katy Tur, and I know this bc I was disappointed she was not one of the talking heads.

I gotta cancel cable.

On Wednesday.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump closes out campaign with inspiring, poignant message of hate for Jews

Like Sinatra used to say, "always end with a classic or a cover."

Trump in this case opting to do both.
posted by garius at 6:45 AM on November 7, 2016 [26 favorites]

On a lighter note, my quest to #BuskWithTimKaine has gone global thanks to the good folks at Radio TSF.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:45 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

I'm trying to find a context in which that makes sense.

I'm starting to think there is no context in which this will make sense to you, or me. At some point it is a question of character, right? Like I don't think there's an equivalent choice -- to support Trump, he just can't bother you that much. You have to be ok, to some extent, with all the things he's said and done.

So I cling to ignorance when I think about 40% of the country being deplorable -- maybe they really just haven't seen stuff? The videos? The reporting? Maybe they just don't know.

But for the rest...I think "deplorable" was a pretty good word choice.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:48 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

So I cling to ignorance when I think about 40% of the country being deplorable -- maybe they really just haven't seen stuff? The videos? The reporting? Maybe they just don't know.

I remind myself there's an entire country of people who have been convinced (or at the very least will not publicly disagree) that this man is a god.

Ignorance and insular culture are not only dangerous, they're handy tools for true deplorables.
posted by Mooski at 6:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

this, from a friend of mine, I think sums up the election and the electorate perfectly:

This morning, in the car, dropping my kids off at school we are talking
N - "It's the 7th? That means in 2 more mornings we will know who the new President is."
Me - "Yep. Hey! Let's do it right now, let's all go around and say who will win. N, who is gonna win?"
N - "Hillary."
Z - "Shrug." (classic Z)
J - "TRUUUMMMPPPP!!!!"
starts laughing maniacally
Me - "N, why do you think Hillary?"
N - "Hillary is the best! I want her to win because she is gonna get rid of guns."
Me - "Wow. ok, that is fair and interesting. J, why do you think..."
i dont finish
J - "TRRUUUMMPPPPP!!!!!!"
Me, laughing, "Ok, big guy. Why do you want Trump?"
J - "I don't know! TRUUUMMMPPP!!!!!"
N - "J, if you dont have a reason, you sound like a crazy person!"
J - "DONNNAAAALLLDDDD TRRRRUUMMMPPP!!!"

posted by Old Kentucky Shark at 6:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [68 favorites]

So if the Senate winds up essentially split, does anyone foresee a R flipping to D? Collins maybe?
posted by waitingtoderail at 6:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Khizr Khan on CNN right now is on-message and pivoting like a pro, tapdancing around the stupid questions like the Savion Glover of talking head shows. How did they find such a perfect surrogate? In another country, in a different future, he'd be a better VP candidate than Kaine.
posted by dis_integration at 6:51 AM on November 7 [2 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

I would love to have him in Congress. It seems selfish to hope for that, considering what he and his family have already done, but we need people like him.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

A couple comments deleted. Sorry, but some amount of thought experiments or hypotheticals are going to happen when discussing different scenarios, and this isn't a safe space for not ever hearing anything along the lines of "what if you had to pick between two terrible choices" (ie Trump and Cheney). There's nothing at all to indicate people mentioning that here don't care about people with real life pain.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

What I'm baffled by is the few people I know who aren't voting, not out of any moral conviction but just because they don't care. I had a friend say to me "Sorry, I'm not into politics," as if it was a tv show she didn't watch.

I've found that there is just a generalized group of people that don't think politics has anything to do with their daily lives. It's something that happens somewhere else. There's no connection.
posted by Jalliah at 6:55 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

The latest from Dick Cavett:

"Still keen to hear from a Falwell type evangelical why gospel folk want the Oval Office occupied by a sexual predator.

"Isn't there something, somewhere, about delivering us from evil?"
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:56 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

I would love to have him in Congress. It seems selfish to hope for that, considering what he and his family have already done, but we need people like him.

I'd love to see Ghazala Khan in Congress too.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

What I'm baffled by is the few people I know who aren't voting, not out of any moral conviction but just because they don't care. I had a friend say to me "Sorry, I'm not into politics," as if it was a tv show she didn't watch.

Oh, I totally get that. Disgust at the spectacle, annoyance at the demands of people you don't know well to do something, belief your vote doesn't really matter that much and so on. I've been there myself before. For me it was the angered purposeful apathy at the time, but for a lot it's more a leave me alone with this stuff lighter version. I won't defend it, because one's own decision not to participate isn't something that should be encouraged in others no matter how much you believe it, but, yeah, there were more involved justifications too.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would love to have [Khan] in Congress. It seems selfish to hope for that, considering what he and his family have already done, but we need people like him.

I would move back to VA-5 in a heartbeat if it meant I got to vote for him in 2018.
posted by thecaddy at 6:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

WaPo: ‘Low information voters’ are a crucial part of Trump’s support

Many commentators have noted what Thomas Edsall has called the “great democratic inversion,” where voters have become more polarized by education — with less-educated voters gravitating to Trump. But focusing only on education obscures another key factor: whether voters have lower levels of knowledge about politics and less interest in using ideas to understand politics. These attributes do not simply reflect voters’ level of formal education.

Our research finds that Trump has attracted a disproportionate (and unprecedented) number of “low-information voters” to his campaign. Furthermore, these voters are more likely to respond to emotional appeals — whether about the economy, immigration, Muslims, racial relations, sexism, and even hostility to the first African American U.S. president, Barack Obama. They are the ideal constituency for a candidate like Trump.

We define low-information voters as those who do not know certain basic facts about government and lack what psychologists call a “need for cognition.” Those with a high need for cognition have a positive attitude toward tasks that require reasoning and effortful thinking and are, therefore, more likely to invest the time and resources to do so when evaluating complex issues. Those with a low need for cognition, on the other hand, find little reward in the collection and evaluation of new information when it comes to problem solving and the consideration of competing issue positions. They are more likely to rely on cognitive shortcuts, such as “experts” or other opinion leaders, for cues.

posted by chris24 at 7:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [32 favorites]

One of the most influential GOP members of the House says Trump's rallies are very diverse because there are people wearing camo
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

BREAKING ON CNN: DRACO MALFOY ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP

Donald probably offered him a new quidditch stick.
posted by drezdn at 7:01 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry to say that in recent days my own neighborhood is sporting the highest density of Trump signs that I've seen in the city limits. (Still not that many, but enough that it's noticeable.)

So, let me elucidate the demographics here because I think it is representative if a pretty big slice of Trump support. My neighborhood is known as the home of a lot of blue collar city employees as well ad first responders. Water and sewer authority workers, sanitation workers, cops, firefighters, etc... They are not unemployed nor are they poorly paid (they will certainly all get far far better retirements than I will). The houses here are 50s vintage 2-3 bedroom with nice yards and a suburban feel. The neighborhood is unusually racially integrated for Pittsburgh, but there is a split between the mostly black and the mostly white sides of the main road. There are plenty of black folks on the mostly white side and vice versa, and more and more mixing is going on. Many of these Trump supporters have black neighbors, but they are middle class blacks and probably described by the Trumpists as "the good kind." Anyway, no one would describe this neighborhood as poor or downtrodden, nor is it wealthy and suburban. The vast majority of houses are owner-occupied, purchased for 5 figures. It is a really sort of untouched relic of cul de sacs and manicured little lawns with 2.5 kids and I think some of the white people who live here are afraid of losing that to either "those people" who live in the bordering poor black community to the south or to tech hipster gentrifiers from the Brooklyn wannabe neighborhood to the north.

They really have nothing to worry about though. Pittsburgh's prosperity relies on higher education, medicine and technology. The more diverse, educated population we can bring in from all around the world, the better off we will all be.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:03 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

voter intimidation at home. I promise you it is 100% real. These guys know the exact day ballots arrive and schedule ballot-filling together. It discourages women from voting the way that they would want to in elections like these.

Thirded.

Do you want women in patriarchal communities voting their will and not their husbands's?

Then get them out of the house to vote.
posted by ocschwar at 7:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

They Always Wanted Trump

Inside Team Clinton’s year-long struggle to find a strategy against the opponent they were most eager to face.
...
Mook took [Trump] so seriously that his team’s internal, if informal, guidance was to hold fire on Trump during the primary and resist the urge to distribute any of the opposition research the Democrats were scrambling to amass against him. That hoarding plan remained in place deep into 2016 as some senior aides stayed convinced that a race against Trump would be a dream for Clinton, but as others kept insisting on tweaking the long-term plans against Rubio and Cruz—convinced the GOP would ultimately coalesce around the Floridian.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Miami-Dade and Broward County break early voting records on Sunday. (Miami Herald)

Also, they have a video of Rubio early voting on Halloween. Now, I'm not only annoyed that I didn't early vote in costume on Halloween, I'm annoyed that I didn't early vote in costume at a place where I could annoy Rubio in front of cameras.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 7:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

Victory Fund 2016 General Election Endorsed Candidates (130 LGBT candidates running for office)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:06 AM on November 7, 2016

Concerns over a Trump presidency are set to dominate the early days of global climate talks in Morocco.

Some 20,000 participants are meeting in Marrakech for two weeks, starting on Monday, to agree new rules to limit warming on the planet.

These plans were boosted when the Paris Climate Agreement came into force last week.

However Mr Trump, who calls climate change a "hoax", has vowed to cancel the deal if elected.

Signed by 193 countries in the French capital last December, the Paris Agreement is now international law, having been ratified by at least 55 countries representing over 55% of global emissions.

bbc
posted by Mister Bijou at 7:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hillary Clinton’s legacy on STEM is why anyone still uncertain should give her their vote:

Hillary Clinton’s educational reforms were year-round. From seventh through 12th grade, I was able to attend multi-week, residential summer learning programs at small universities across Arkansas that offered middle- and high-schoolers immersive camps in fields like mathematics, theater, geology and more. Charismatic professors taught all of the programs. Most importantly for my family, they were provided by the state of Arkansas at no cost to students. The programs, known as “Academic Enrichment for the Gifted in the Summer” (AEGIS) started in 1984, a year after Hillary Clinton assumed the chair position of the Standards Committee. By the 1990s, AEGIS had ballooned to more than 25 programs serving thousands of students every summer. The program would not have existed without Hillary Clinton’s leadership.

Mathematics and sciences (or what we call “STEM” today) were of particular importance to Clinton. In a 1983 interview with the Associated Press, she remarked, while suggesting that Arkansas had overemphasized athletics, “I think it’s time for getting a little fanatic about math and sciences.” STEM is the foundation of today’s technology industry, and only a handful of pioneers in the public education space had the foresight to appreciate its value for future members of the workforce. By far the most significant impact Hillary Clinton’s educational reforms had in my life was through her work to create a free public boarding school for math and science nerds like me: The Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences (ASMS).

posted by palindromic at 7:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [61 favorites]

After this election, I would really like to see the dnc up their game in states like Texas. The demographics are changing here, and on my ballot, there were vast swaths of races where the republican was running unopposed, or against a lunatic fringe opponent.

We could have taken some judges and some other important administrative elections, if we had just had a D on the damn ballot.

I have joked before about running for office, but the machine in this area is blue dog, incredibly insular and resistant to lefties who want to suggest progressive platforms and candidates. (I could not run for office. There's video of me naked at rainbow family, juggling fire, and that's probably among the tamer videos of my well spent youth. Also, divorced, agnostic, fat,middle-aged and prone to outbursts where Fuck is used like linguistic seasoning.)
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:08 AM on November 7, 2016 [32 favorites]

In case anyone is interested in how long it takes to read the first 827 comments in a fresh election thread, it's just shy of the time it takes to fly from New Orleans to Chicago.

*hits reload for last leg of today's flight*
posted by mostly vowels at 7:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [43 favorites]

I'm sorry to say that in recent days my own neighborhood is sporting the highest density of Trump signs that I've seen in the city limits. (Still not that many, but enough that it's noticeable.)

Interesting. I've seen exactly one Trump sign inside Pittsburgh, in Polish Hill, and tons of Hillary signs. I've actually seen more Jill Stein signs, two, then I have Trump signs.
posted by octothorpe at 7:10 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

One Word – Jewish (getting some heavy play in Florida, apparently.)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

Do you want women in patriarchal communities voting their will and not their husbands's?

Then get them out of the house to vote.

What if they're single, or in a same-sex relationship, or just have trust in their husbands? How about women get to choose how they want to vote? In-person, mail, early, day-of, whatever. Don't tell them to "get out of the house," they may--shocker!--want to vote from there.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:13 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

They Always Wanted Trump

Interesting. It's a continuance of Obama's best trick, that of making the most indefensible person in the conservative movement the spokesperson for the movement.

Unfortunately, I feel like the long-term results, which probably should have been predictable, is that it has made the most indefensible people the spokespeople for conservativism. Hey, undisguised, violent racism, misogyny, antisemitism, know-nothingism, etc. You weren't missed, and it's not great to have you back!

I mean, I can't believe I am pining for the days of the party of the plutocracy, but they wanted me poor, not dead.
posted by maxsparber at 7:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

Interesting. I've seen exactly one Trump sign inside Pittsburgh, in Polish Hill, and tons of Hillary signs. I've actually seen more Jill Stein signs, two, then I have Trump signs.

It's recent, like the last few days, but I passed four houses with signs this morning, and more bumper stickers too.

I did see two Johnson signs in Lawrenceville yesterday. Never change, tech bros.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

The takeaway from the New York Times' latest profile on the Trump campaign already linked above is: The campaign management have finally discovered that the only way to make Trump appealing to anyone beyond his base is to ensure the public sees and hears him as little as possible.

The irony being the Clinton campaign had figured that out a long time ago. The Clinton negative ads that Trump whined about during the debate often consisted simply of footage of Trump himself speaking.
posted by Gelatin at 7:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

Interesting. It's a continuance of Obama's best trick, that of making the most indefensible person in the conservative movement the spokesperson for the movement.

Pretty sure they did it to themselves.
posted by Artw at 7:17 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

There's video of me naked at rainbow family, juggling fire, and that's probably among the tamer videos of my well spent youth. Also, divorced, agnostic, fat,middle-aged and prone to outbursts where Fuck is used like linguistic seasoning.

You've got my vote.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 7:17 AM on November 7, 2016 [45 favorites]

The takeaway from the New York Times' latest profile on the Trump campaign already linked above is: The campaign management have finally discovered that the only way to make Trump appealing to anyone beyond his base is to ensure the public sees and hears him as little as possible.

The irony being the Clinton campaign had figured that out a long time ago. The Clinton negative ads that Trump whined about during the debate often consisted simply of footage of Trump himself speaking.

Add to that the extent to which the Trump campaign relies on people projecting themselves on Trump and it's like the whole argument for silent protagonists in video games.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Clinton's election night playlist.
posted by dis_integration at 7:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

OK, so I have a two hour delay with my testing for work and decided to spend my free time making some phone calls for Hillary. How do i join the Mefites United Team??
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 7:20 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

We should be giving all voters more choices on how to vote. We should be making voting as simple as it can be, period. There should be automatic registration updates granted as soon as you change your residency or marital status or gender identification any other legal modification. There shouldn't be disenfranchisement based on past crimes or the inability to make ends meet or any of the other blatantly bigoted methods conservatives stand behind today.

Anybody who wants to limit the methods to register and vote, or make it more difficult, especially based on gender or race or any other quality, they're the problem. They're the ones who think that basic, universal rights need to be earned instead of granted.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:20 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

It's not getting much play, but Trump cancelled a campaign appearance in Wisconsin yesterday. Maybe our days as a swing state are finally over!
posted by drezdn at 7:21 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Add to that the extent to which the Trump campaign relies on people projecting themselves on Trump and it's like the whole argument for silent protagonists in video games.

Oh god, don't add Gordon Freeman to the list of things ruined by this stupid election.

Wait, he's already covered under "any and all videogames culture". phew.
posted by Artw at 7:21 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Interesting. It's a continuance of Obama's best trick, that of making the most indefensible person in the conservative movement the spokesperson for the movement.

We really, really can't blame the liberals here. Clinton didn't trick them into nominating Trump, the Republicans did that on their own, and it's the culmination of a long term, at least 8 year trend. Sarah Palin over-shadowed McCain in 2008, she was the face of that election, not him. And Romney won only because the deplorables could not settle on a standard bearer. Santorum/Gingrich/Bachmann led Romney for months. Republicans didn't suddenly go nuts this year, Clinton didn't make them pick Trump, Obama didn't make them more racist. This is who they've been the entire time.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:21 AM on November 7, 2016 [69 favorites]

Main thing Obama did to conservatives was be black, successful and popular. That this forced them into an 8 year long campaign of stripping down to their racist core is more their flaw than his.
posted by Artw at 7:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [90 favorites]

the GOP seems to have a tighter grip on its people in terms of staying in lockstep.

"Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line."
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

Clinton didn't trick them into nominating Trump, the Republicans did that on their own, and it's the culmination of a long term, at least 8 year trend.

More like 48 years. This moment was inevitable from the second Nixon decided to make Southern Whites alienated by the Civil Rights Act a crucial part of the GOP.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:24 AM on November 7, 2016 [43 favorites]

but Trump cancelled a campaign appearance in Wisconsin yesterday. Maybe our days as a swing state are finally over!

Yeah, but in which direction? It could mean he has Wisconsin sewn-up.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:24 AM on November 7, 2016

but as long as the mailed-in ballots can be replaced with a subsequent ballot AND there are days (plural) where people can show up in person to change any vote that was coerced,

Sometimes I really feel like people are not aware of what life looks like for a SAHM in a relatively traditional-gender-roles relationship, even before you get into adding Extra Patriarchal flavors.

It's not like you generally have all day every day to yourself to just do what you want. You have to account for your time, and a two hour ballot changing block is not going to be easy in the same way "Welp, time to do my civic duty now" time blocks are.

People act like getting polling booths is somehow restricting voting, but ignore the fact that vote-by-mail states are mostly /all/ Vote By Mail, and don't offer other options. This isn't a hypothetical, btw - I know actual women here in WA who have voted for Trump even though they hate him because of marital pressure.
posted by corb at 7:24 AM on November 7, 2016 [60 favorites]

Yeah, but in which direction? It could mean he has Wisconsin sewn-up.

The only way Wisconsin is sewn up for Trump is if there has been a consistent ~6-10% polling error in Trump's favor in every public poll for the past year. I can imagine that it might be closer than the polls report because of polling errors, but not enough to make it a clear win for Trump. Maybe he skipped out on Wisconsin because fuck Paul Ryan?
posted by dis_integration at 7:28 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

Given that Paul Ryan announced he was going to be on-stage with Trump about 30 minutes before the Trump campaign cancelled, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility!
posted by carsondial at 7:31 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

d'oh, ignore me. If i RTF (Post) there is a metatalk about how to join the team. I am in and making calls to Ohio!
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 7:31 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

palindromic: Hillary Clinton wins Nickelodeon’s Kids Pick The President poll

More from the mouth of babes: last night I was taking about voting on Tuesday with my 5 year old son, and he said "I'd vote for the nicer person, I don't care if they're a man or a woman." We haven't talked about the election much, but we have said that Donald is the worst sort of bully.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:33 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

but Trump cancelled a campaign appearance in Wisconsin yesterday. Maybe our days as a swing state are finally over!

Yeah, but in which direction? It could mean he has Wisconsin sewn-up.

If Trump was strategically planning his campaign stops, why the hell was he in Minnesota? Nobody thinks that's going for Trump. It seems more likely that someone got confused, or that the Minnesota stop was some really passive aggressive swipe at Paul Ryan.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Boston-area churches holding election prayer vigils tonight and tomorrow (scroll down a page or two for the list).
posted by adamg at 7:36 AM on November 7, 2016

Paul Ryan is the luckiest man in the world.
posted by Yowser at 7:36 AM on November 7, 2016

More Dick Cavett:

"So this must be the day that he will, as he has over and over promised, release his tax returns before the election? How do you finesse that one these days, sweet Kellyanne?"
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:38 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

mrzarquon: "And then there is the other obvious thing we could be doing, which is making the second Tuesday of November a national holiday."

I don't see that being the pancena people think. For the people most impacted by having to work on election day all it does is trade a variable number of hours of lost wages for eight guaranteed hours of lost wages.
posted by Mitheral at 7:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

My municipality went to online voting in our last election. Pass codes were mailed to each voter and you could just log on and vote. My wife and I both got pass codes but she wasn't planning on voting (at first...she eventually did). I realized that I could have *easily* voted twice (I wouldn't have, though) and wondered how many people actually did. One council race was decided by five votes.
In-person, behind a booth, paper ballot voting is the best way to have a fair election.
posted by rocket88 at 7:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Tierney Sneed: Dems Ask SCOTUS To Re-Instate Voter Intimidation Order Against Trump Camp:

Democrats made a last-ditch appeal late Sunday to the Supreme Court to re-instate a restraining order against the Donald Trump campaign to prevent voter intimidation tactics, an order that was issued by a federal judge in Ohio on Friday but then halted by an appeals court Sunday.

The Democrats, in their emergency application to the Supreme Court, pointed to procedural issues with the appeals court action. Namely, the panel of 6th Circuit judges blocked the restraining order from being implemented without giving the Democrats a chance to argue directly to the appeals court panel, via briefs or a hearing, in favor of keeping the restraining order in place.

The Democrats' filing also argued in favor of a restraining order on the case's merits.

posted by palindromic at 7:42 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

Yeah, but in which direction? It could mean he has Wisconsin sewn-up.

His campaign no longer has internal polling of any kind, and we know from that article yesterday that his advisers were literally dicking around on 270towin and imagining New Mexico - one of the few states that would still be blue if only men voted - as a flippable state. They do not have any secret info about Wisconsin being winnable, and every single public poll says it is utterly out of his reach.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:42 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

Final snapshot: Democrats slight favorites to win the Senate

As the final, frantic hours of the campaign for control of Congress come to a close, Democrats look like slightly-better-than-even favorites to reclaim the Senate, while Republicans appear certain to hold the House after a Donald Trump-induced October scare.

If Democrats manage to flip the Senate, senior party aides and strategists involved in battleground races said they’re looking at a majority of 52 seats, best case. That would be a letdown from their earlier hopes of a 54- or 55-seat advantage and put Republicans in the pole position to win back the chamber in 2018.

Huffington Post's model gives Democrats a 67% chance to take the Senate.

The New York Times' Upshot says 56%.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

@lukeoneil47: These subject lines from Trump emails sound like an absolutely fire Dashboard Confessional tracklist

Feat. "Crooked", "Last Chance", "No More Months Left", "Your Name on My Wall", and of course "Memo from Kellyanne"
posted by saturday_morning at 7:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [23 favorites]

Automatic registration and at least a week of open voting would solve 90% of the problems with voting.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

Automatic registration and at least a week of open voting would solve 90% of the problems with voting.

I'm also in favor of adopting Australia's compulsory voting laws. The fine is minimal (something like $20AU) but its mere existence has to have a big effect on driving turnout which is like 90-95% Down Under.
posted by dis_integration at 7:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [27 favorites]

Found out today that I'm going to be on travel tomorrow during the polls. Thankfully I'm on the permanent vote-by-mail list and was just planning to drop off my ballot at a polling place tomorrow morning. Stick a stamp on 'er, sign 'er, drop 'er in the postbox! Now I just get to hope that we're not in the dark timeline.

I'm going to be in a cheap hotel deep in a rural area of a red state tomorrow night. I suspect I'm locking myself in my room and celebrating (hopefully) or weeping very, very softly.
posted by Alterscape at 7:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Does anybody know why electoral-vote.com shows NV as barely-Trump even after all the early-voting news?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:48 AM on November 7, 2016

jeffburdges: Early voting kills Trump in NV

I repeat: Trump is dead here, barring a miracle or anomalies invisible not just to me, or many other experts. (I surveyed 14 smart insiders this weekend. All 14 said Trump loses the state.)

[REAL, but MISLEADING]

For clarity, he's only figuratively dead in Nevada, in terms of his chance to get those 6 electoral votes.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:48 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'm also in favor of adopting Australia's compulsory voting laws. The fine is minimal (something like $20AU) but its mere existence has to have a big effect on driving turnout which is like 90-95% Down Under.

I remember reading that it was a festive scene with free sausages or such. Also, aren't ballots usually limited to one race or referendum in most of the world?
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:50 AM on November 7, 2016

Does anybody know why electoral-vote.com shows NV as barely-Trump even after all the early-voting news?

Several reasons:

-Nevada has historically been difficult to poll for a couple of reasons: a high number of Hispanics who are difficult to poll in English, a relatively transient population, and a large number of Dems who work odd hours (Vegas baby).
-There are fewer public polls, and by worse polling outfits, this close to the election, because many of the best pollsters are conducting private polling for campaigns. PPP has talked about this on their Twitter.
-Poll aggregators do not take EV turnout into account.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

and put Republicans in the pole position to win back the chamber in 2018.

I love Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I even have two tees; You Can't Handle the Ruth and the Notorious RGB. And in a sane world I'd love for her to be able to stay as long as she'd like. But Republicans don't live in a sane world and if we take back the Senate, I really hope she, and probably Breyer too, steps down before the 2018 election to allow Clinton to nominate their successors. Because we know the Senate won't confirm anyone post-2018 if Rs regain control, which is almost a certainty. And winning 4 presidential elections in a row is very iffy. Liberal control of the court for the next 30 years is just too important.
posted by chris24 at 7:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

It's not like you generally have all day every day to yourself to just do what you want. You have to account for your time, and a two hour ballot changing block is not going to be easy in the same way "Welp, time to do my civic duty now" time blocks are.

People act like getting polling booths is somehow restricting voting, but ignore the fact that vote-by-mail states are mostly /all/ Vote By Mail, and don't offer other options.

I don't know why you're responding as if I didn't explicitly say that I only support vote-by-mail if it includes a traditional voting in a booth option. Also, your "fact" is not a fact -- only three states have all-mail elections -- the rest either allow it in addition to in-person, or allow all-mail elections only in very limited circumstances, e.g. candidates running unopposed, special elections, etc. I would prefer an in-person option for all races, but it's completely inaccurate to say that most states that have adopted vote-by-mail have abandoned in person voting.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:52 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

I was raised by a narcissist who shows a lot of the same behaviors as Trump. Not the conservative, racist politics but the bullying, gas lighting, self-centered, authoritarian abusive behavior and language. I was surrounded by people who thought she was amazing or, at the worst, a mother who must clearly love me because that's what mothers do. I grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me that I couldn't see the good in her. I felt alone and crazy.

I've been having nightmares* for the past few months which has sucked. But! But! It has been so redemptive to see the number of people who have called out Trump's bullshit, who have joined with me in seeing the monster.

Each and every one of you who has volunteered, donated, spoken up and voted is travelling back through time to stand with me as a child, telling me that I'm not crazy and that I'm not alone.

I know this election has far greater stakes than a traumatized child from 35 years ago, but I want to make sure you know that your actions have ripples that extend farther than you can image. Thank you.

*In one, I was dating (ugh!) Trump and standing outside of his office planning how to break up with him in the way that would be least likely to cause him to lash out and hurt me.
posted by mcduff at 7:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [95 favorites]

Johnny Wallflower: "Does anybody know why electoral-vote.com shows NV as barely-Trump even after all the early-voting news?"

Early voting is just not part of Tanenbaum's model. From his FAQ:

What algorithm formula) is used to compute the map?
In 2004, we ran three different algorithms. The main page just used the most recent poll. The second algorithm averaged three days' worth of polls using only the nonpartisan pollsters. The third one included a mathematical formula for predicting how undecided voters would break based on historical data. The second one was most stable and gave the best final result, so this time a slight variation of it is used: The most recent poll is always used, and, if any other polls were taken within a week of it, they are all averaged together. This method tends to give a more stable result, so the colors don't jump all over the place due to one unusual poll.

posted by octothorpe at 7:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

In-person, behind a booth, paper ballot voting is the best way to have a fair election.

A fair election for those with the time and motivation to vote in person, yes. Our low participation rates suggest that this is not that many people.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

If Democrats manage to flip the Senate, senior party aides and strategists involved in battleground races said they’re looking at a majority of 52 seats, best case. That would be a letdown from their earlier hopes of a 54- or 55-seat advantage and put Republicans in the pole position to win back the chamber in 2018.

All we need is 50+VP. Then let's seat 3 USSC Justices before 2018 flips the Senate back and that's the ballgame.

Seriously. Get back the majority on the Supreme Court, and the Republican Party as it currently exists is dead. Down goes Citizens United. Back comes the Voting Rights Act. Down goes the voter suppression. When the tidal wave of disenfranchisement comes to an end, they'll need to win on the merits.

That means they lose.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:55 AM on November 7, 2016 [83 favorites]

lets seat 3 USSC Justices before 2018 flips the Senate back and that's the ballgame.

+1 Would fave again.
posted by chris24 at 7:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

The tl;dr for the Senate:

After Kirk's utter cratering in Illinois (yay) there are currently eight Senate seats which look at all competitive. The Dems need four of those eight to hit 50 seats:

Wisconsin
Pennsylvania
Nevada
Indiana
New Hampshire
Missouri
North Carolina
Florida

Of these, all but Nevada are currently held by Republicans, meaning three of them need to flip.

Polling-wise, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania look pretty good - not sure things, but pretty damn good. Maybe 75% chance if you look at the average across all the aggregators. And Jon Ralson is incredibly bullish on Nevada at this point and seems to really know his shit.

So that leaves us needing to win one of:

Indiana
New Hampshire
Missouri
North Carolina
Florida

Polling in all of these races is neck-and-neck, with slight D advantages in IN and NH, slight R advantages in MO and NC, and a strong R advantage in FL. (However, in the case of FL, the unprecedented Hispanic turnout may mean that this polling is off, much like Nevada. It's harder to call though because FL's early voting system is brand new, so we don't have the same type of historical data to compare it to.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

In place of a concession speech Donald Trump is going to ball his fist and shout: K-H-A-N!
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [23 favorites]

Charles Pierce: What to Expect in the Next 48 Hours:

VALLEY FORGE, PENNSYLVANIA—Early Sunday evening, as I was driving back from Harrisburg, Democracy left a voicemail on my cellphone. (I do not talk while I'm driving because I am a good little do-bee.) This was Democracy's message:

"Jesus H. Christ on a junket to the Northern Marianas, tell James Comey to stop trying to do me any favors."

On Sunday night, Comey, who at this point is wandering around the 2016 election like that guy in The Stand who drives into Vegas atop the nuclear missile, announced publicly that the FBI's inquiry into the new trove of e-mails has produced pretty much the same sizzling nothingburger that we've all been fed since the Illegal Private Server first hit the news.

posted by palindromic at 7:59 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

...then after we kill the unfair funding advantage, we can start turning our focus to the state legislatures. The 2020 census is a big deal. 2018 will give the RNC another Pyrrhic victory, but 2020 will bury them, assuming Hillary doesn't screw up the administration with stupid Clintonian scandals (fingers crossed).
posted by leotrotsky at 7:59 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I see the concerns with controlling spouses and all-mail voting, but I think such a controlling spouse would also limit their partner's ability to get to polling places as well.

Washington does offer in-person polling booths during the entire mail-voting period as well!

Can I vote in-person?
Each county opens a voting center prior to each primary, special election, and general election. Each voting center is open during business hours during the voting period, which begins eighteen days before, and ends at 8:00 p.m. on the day of, the primary, special election, or general election.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 7:59 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

assuming Hillary doesn't screw up the administration with stupid Clintonian scandals (fingers crossed).

You mean, assuming the Rpeublicans don't continue to throw everything at the wall praying something will eventually stick?
posted by C'est la D.C. at 8:01 AM on November 7, 2016 [42 favorites]

So that leaves us needing to win one of:
Indiana
New Hampshire
Missouri
North Carolina
Florida

I think you can kiss Indiana goodbye. Bayh has simply dropped off the map in the past two weeks. His ads were being swamped by pro-Young ads, and Bayh's ads had no comeback for them. None. His PAC support seems to have vanished, too. I think Indiana is a lost cause to go D.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:02 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Then lets seat 3 USSC Justices before 2018 flips the Senate back and that's the ballgame.

Ah, so people DO want the Justices to engage in politics.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

with slight D advantages in IN and NH

Trust me, Bayh is toast; if he's *really* lucky our likely new governor Gregg will drag Bayh's lazy ass over the line. Hassan is leading, but also trending down, unfortunately. It's down to the wire.

The crazy high turnout is such a wild card it's hard to tell.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:05 AM on November 7, 2016

In place of a concession speech Donald Trump is going to ball his fist and shout: K-H-A-N!

...and then pull more flags out of his nose.
posted by flabdablet at 8:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

Ah, so people DO want the Justices to engage in politics.

Nah, just engage with reality.

That reality has a liberal bias is not something to apologize for.
posted by Mooski at 8:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [27 favorites]

Brandon Blatcher: “Ah, so people DO want the Justices to engage in politics.”

Obviously not; "engaging in politics" just means "doing stuff we don't want them to do." As long as it's stuff our side supports, it's not politics – that's called "upholding the Constitution."
posted by koeselitz at 8:06 AM on November 7, 2016

The crazy high turnout is such a wild card it's hard to tell.

That's the thing. FL seems like a lost cause based on polling but could totally change based on the very weird turnout patterns; NC might be more possible than it looks based on coattails as well. But there's no way to know. It really is incredibly close.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

What I'm baffled by is the few people I know who aren't voting, not out of any moral conviction but just because they don't care. I had a friend say to me "Sorry, I'm not into politics," as if it was a tv show she didn't watch.

Not sure if that's more or less enraging to me than the people who have adopted a position of superiority to elections because they see right through the whole con game.
posted by thelonius at 8:08 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

If the fate of the Senate didn't depend on him winning, due in no small part to horrible recruiting by Schumer and DSCC in Florida and Ohio, which each should've been more competitive, I'd be cheering the well-deserved loss of Evan Bayh.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Then lets seat 3 USSC Justices before 2018 flips the Senate back and that's the ballgame.

Ah, so people DO want the Justices to engage in politics.

Nobody, not even the most blinkered of Con Law professors, believes that 'balls and strikes' bullshit. It's a political court, and always has been, even if the political divisions are not always clearly left/right. See Scalia on flag burning, DNA searches, and video game censorship, for example.

That said, I don't need Goodwin Liu; I'd take a full court of Merrick Garlands any day of the week.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:10 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

I just came across this and apologies if it's been in these threads before.
Has Donald Trump ever used a computer?
posted by numaner at 8:10 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

One Day More! - Les Misérables - 10th Anniversary Concert
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

All we need is 50+VP.

A question I've had recently: in that scenario, it's usually assumed that the VP will represent the president in casting the tie-breaking vote, but what kind of control does the president have over the VP in the event that they disagree? It seems like in a presidency with an exact 50-50 party split, the vice presidency might end up being a bit more powerful than usual.
posted by enn at 8:13 AM on November 7, 2016

From my friend who had the issue about duplicate ballots in Florida: "I just spoke to a volunteer with the Florida Democratic Party regarding the situation with the ballots that I wrote about yesterday. They said they have a list with over 10,000 names on it - Republicans, NPAs, Democrats - and they are trying to call every one of them."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:14 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

You have to be able to read to use a computer, and people are saying that Donald Trump can't read.
posted by rikschell at 8:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

They Always Wanted Trump

Interesting. It's a continuance of Obama's best trick, that of making the most indefensible person in the conservative movement the spokesperson for the movement.

Unfortunately, I feel like the long-term results, which probably should have been predictable, is that it has made the most indefensible people the spokespeople for conservativism. Hey, undisguised, violent racism, misogyny, antisemitism, know-nothingism, etc. You weren't missed, and it's not great to have you back!

Blaming Obama for Nativism, racism and "traditional family values" misogyny in the GOP is bizarre.

A lot of people (including myself) thought that Rubio would end up being the nominee. Considering how important the Latino vote has been for Democrats that could have made a difference in both turn out and votes. My Chicano father has somehow moved from the Peace & Freedom Party of his youth to the Republican Party in his dotage (I can't explain it at all.) He subscribes to the National Review and wrote them a letter in protest when they endorsed Ted Cruz in March and he hated Trump. We never talked about Rubio specifically, but I could have seen my father supporting him. I can think of a bunch of people in my family who would have supported a Latino candidate.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

The VP can break ties however s/he wants to. But I'd imagine there'd be some big blowback if s/he voted against what the President wanted. (Imagine if we still let the #2 finisher be VP, though.)
posted by gracenote at 8:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jenifer Lewis has a VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE for everyone in these streets [Facebook]
posted by koeselitz at 8:17 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

Or. And I know it's hard to have hope. But here's my hope, rather than cynicism. Maybe Bernie's further-left ideology and Trump's insanity is able to fuel GOTV drives in 2018 that manage to turn Congress bright blue color, regardless of now the next couple days go.
posted by fragmede at 8:18 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

(And - I was beaten to the punch by NorthernLite, but I guess it bears repeating...)
posted by koeselitz at 8:18 AM on November 7, 2016

Guys, I never once cut class even in my MBA (which is 50% cutting class if you do it right), but today I ducked out of work to attend Hillary rally in Pittsburgh. Worth it.
posted by Alison at 8:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

If we're talking PNW voting reforms, worth mentioning Oregon's new motor voter law, which automatically registers eligible voters when they interact with the DMV. Turnout is on track to match 2012 levels, which would be a big sign of the policy's success given the 250k new voters added to the rolls.
posted by kelseyq at 8:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

Apologies if this has been posted already, but this is a great read. She was born the day women got the vote. And then a century passed. . .
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

If Clinton wins and gets a Democratic Senate, I think RGB and Breyer have something of a moral obligation to retire ASAP. The consequences for the nation if they hang on until, say, 2019 and then die leaving a Republican Senate to block any and all Clinton appointments (as they've pledged to do) are dire.

RGB especially is an amazing Justice and her absence will be sorely felt whether she retires or dies in office. But as has been said before, she's irreplaceable, not immortal.
posted by sotonohito at 8:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

You mean, assuming the Rpeublicans don't continue to throw everything at the wall praying something will eventually stick?

Yeah, no shit. The Republicans investigated the Clintons' CHRISTMAS CARDS. Ten days. 140 hours of testimony. ON CHRISTMAS CARDS. Clinton is only as scandalous as the Republicans want to make her. And I truly mean that.
posted by xyzzy at 8:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [85 favorites]

A question I've had recently: in that scenario, it's usually assumed that the VP will represent the president in casting the tie-breaking vote, but what kind of control does the president have over the VP in the event that they disagree?

None whatsoever, save "I'm not going to put you on the ticket in 2020."
posted by Etrigan at 8:26 AM on November 7, 2016

I'm also in favor of adopting Australia's compulsory voting laws. The fine is minimal (something like $20AU) but its mere existence has to have a big effect on driving turnout which is like 90-95% Down Under.

This I'm not so sure about. There was that article above somewhere that pointed out many of Trump's supporters are low information voters. Now I believe everyone who wants to vote should be able to in the most convenient way possible for them, so for those with difficulty at polling booths, the handicapped or those who otherwise have a hard time getting to the designated locations, mail in is better, for others, polling stations, but for those who choose not to involve themselves or inform themselves with the relevant information and prefer not to vote, they should not be penalized for that, not only as their personal choice, but because their votes can penalize the rest of us.

In a binary system, there's no good reason to suspect any group of uninformed voters will improve the chances of a beneficial outcome, however you might personally evaluate that. One would assume, at best, they would simply roughly match the polling numbers on candidates already at hand and just up the count, but in cases where one candidate is more famous, those low info voters could swing an election based on nothing but name familiarity, which we might see based on this election as not being all that great an outcome.

There are perfectly good reasons for people to choose not to vote, faith in their better informed neighbors and trust in the system not fucking things up too badly so after the election they will continue on as before. Now, an informed voter will rightly question that, as they should by being informed, and that is exactly what the uninformed voter relies on.

Now should they do that? No, ideally all voters should be completely informed on all issues and cast votes that match their values and beliefs in who should run the country or local municipality, but that is never going to happen. Apathy, in those cases, isn't the worst outcome, it shows faith in the process even if the process also bugs them for being annoying in whatever way. It's exactly that kind of faith that can help prevent elections from becoming civil wars when a voter, for whatever reason, isn't informed enough or interested enough in participating themselves. I don't advise or advocate for ignorance of any sort, but recognizing it exists and allowing people to opt out of decision making processes they don't feel comfortable in joining is not a bad thing.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:27 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh joy, I just got a Pat Toomey robocall warning me about handing Hillary Clinton a 'blank check'. There was no 'if she wins' caveat, it was being said as a foregone conclusion.
posted by splen at 8:30 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh joy, I just got a Pat Toomey robocall warning me about handing Hillary Clinton a 'blank check'. There was no 'if she wins' caveat, it was being said as a foregone conclusion.

Yeah, my local Rep (suburban Detroit, gerrymandered all to fuck to keep the R in there) has been campaigning with "Keep me in office to stop the Clinton-Obama-Pelosi agenda!" pretty much all along. I think he was doing it before the convention.
posted by Etrigan at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Steve Inskeep on NPR's Morning Edition, just now: "Just to drop a little reporting in here..."

WHY START NOW, STEVE?

LOL, you beat me to it. I literally did a double-take in the shower when I heard that.
posted by Preserver at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm...I'm...ok with handing Hillary a blank check for a couple of years.

"Here, here take my card. America's had it rough for a while, take it out for a new wardrobe, some rims, that fancy place Italian place on 56th. Seriously, show it a good time, 'cause it needs it. "
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [26 favorites]

"Uh... meanwhile in Sarasota... this just happened"

[Warning: Includes photo of Trump holding up a rubber trump mask which cannot be unseen]
posted by garius at 8:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

I registered to receive Trump's emails for lulz and they have been spamming the crap out of me (in Virginia) in the last few days, looks like Trump is really hoping for VA and NC?
posted by Tarumba at 8:36 AM on November 7, 2016

I think the big advantage of a compulsory vote system (which has a snowflake's chance in hell of ever getting up in the US) is that it shifts institutional outlooks: it gives the electoral commission an affirmative responsibility to go out and get people registered and voting, and gives a stronger case for those who are disenfranchised - because government is legally requiring them to do something (and threatening a fine if they don't) but then preventing them from doing it.
Compulsory voting also pushes major parties towards the centre and away from the base/fringe as they chase the median voter - whether that's a feature or a bug depends on your political views.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 8:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

In other NPR hate today, they had Cokie Roberts and Tucker fuckin Carlson on to discuss the latest Comey letter. Apparently on the West Coast they had enough time to edit out Cokie's comment about birth control controlling the Latino vote, but she's getting some ugly heat on Twitter. I don't know why I even listen anymore.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think the biggest advantage of a compulsory vote system in the US is that it would actually discourage the "I never do what the man wants me to do" crowd from voting. The "keep your government hands off my Medicare" people would be proudly burning their fine letters in protest instead of voting.
posted by zachlipton at 8:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

Compulsory voting would also make it essential that employers facilitate voting either through an election holiday or with mandated allowable voting time (something similar to jury duty).
posted by Tarumba at 8:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

Y'all, Pantsuit Nation is so fun! I keep seeing that various friends have liked or commented on posts there, and it makes me feel all excited and glowy inside.
posted by aka burlap at 8:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

"I registered to receive Trump's emails for lulz and they have been spamming the crap out of me"

That reminded me - on Twitter this morning I scrolled past a sponsored ad for Trump. Leaving aside the question of what algorithm told them that I might possibly be the target market ... the ad was all like, "DONATE NOW!" and I thought, "Now?"

So I looked closely and the tweet was originally sent out on October 12th, and apparently they just paid to have it show up again today. I mean I get it, maybe it's because I'm in Louisiana that it showed up for me, but c'mon. That's what you're doing? Asking people to donate on the day before the election? The funds might not even reach your account before you find out you're never ever ever going to be the president.

I mean I'm sure there are a dozen reasons that this ad might have shown up. I sometimes see some local business's Fourth of July Sale ad run on the local television channel late at night on the 6th, you know what I'm saying? But the idea that his campaign isn't any better organized than Mid-South RV Superstores of Louisiana and Mississippi is ... well, you know what it is. We've all been watching it for months.

I guess it was just nice to have a reminder on the penultimate day that yeah, this really is the level of quality that his campaign could put together.
posted by komara at 8:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

In other NPR hate today, they had Cokie Roberts and Tucker fuckin Carlson on to discuss the latest Comey letter. Apparently on the West Coast they had enough time to edit out Cokie's comment about birth control controlling the Latino vote, but she's getting some ugly heat on Twitter. I don't know why I even listen anymore.

I noticed that their segment did not play at its usual (horrendous way to start Monday morning) time this morning. I wonder if that was due to editing out Cokie's racism.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:46 AM on November 7, 2016

I've really been enjoying PN. I'm going to need to turn down the firehose after Weds, but for today and tomorrow it's really nice to think that these are the people I'm in a democracy with. These are my people.
posted by Dashy at 8:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

RGB especially is an amazing Justice and her absence will be sorely felt whether she retires or dies in office. But as has been said before, she's irreplaceable, not immortal.

Ruth Gader Binsburg? Or are you advocating replacing RGB with CMYK?

#jokesareallIgot
posted by papercake at 8:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [34 favorites]

I'm in an actually secret seekrit Hillary FB group only for women which had about 1000 people when I joined and is now up to just under 8000. It's heavily moderated (mefi style) and is very lovely. I've been invited to PN a couple of times but it seems to unwieldy. I'm a MeFite all the way down.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

Apologies if this has been posted already

Y'all know you can paste a URL into the Search box to see if it's been posted before, right?

The More You Know 💫
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

Includes photo of Trump holding up a rubber trump mask

*Gasp* Old Man Jenkins!
posted by octobersurprise at 8:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [58 favorites]

Sophie1, now we're all going to want in on the REALLY SECRET Hillary Support Group.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 8:50 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

Drove past my nearby polling place here in NOVA and saw this sign and had to take a picture. I said holy cow, McMuffin! I need to take a picture. My wife said "who?" And I said exactly!

Also great- this median is across from a McDonalds.
posted by phearlez at 8:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

West Coast they had enough time to edit out Cokie's comment about birth control controlling the Latino vote,

This West Coast listener wasn't listening closely, but I heard it. It struck me as a statement of demographic inevitability. As I said, I wasn't listening closely, but Carlson said something about only eliminating immigration could keep Texas red or something like that, and Cokie said he thing, which I took to mean "even that won't work because the Latino population will still increase." Maybe I give Cokie too much credit.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I sorta want to go over and try to get a shot with the arches on the background but that seems a little aggressively stupid.
posted by phearlez at 8:55 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

‏@NoahGarfinkel 38m38 minutes ago
The whole "You can't review 650,000 emails in 8 days" thing will become the foundation for Hanukkah II.

There was only enough email for 1 day, but the emails lasted for 8 days!!! Nes gadol haya po. (a great miracle happened here.)
posted by Sophie1 at 8:55 AM on November 7, 2016 [30 favorites]

“I’m on message,” Mr. Trump asserted, with effort. “I’m not playing around. In fact, I’m a little nervous standing here talking to you even for just a minute.”

I still can't get over that his campaign's message about Trump being on message is literally Trump saying "I'm on message."

And in the very same breath, worrying that any minute now, continuing to talk will result in him going off message.
posted by Gelatin at 8:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

McSeeeney's: In Case I, Nate Silver, Die, Follow These Steps to Update the FiveThirtyEight Elections Forecast Model [fake]
posted by zachlipton at 8:57 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

A good friend of mine who was a big Bernie supporter and a Bernie or Buster Stein voter for a long time just posted this on Facebook. I know Clinton's consolidated a lot of D support, but hopefully more late conversions like this are happening and will help ensure a Clinton win and D Senate.

I'M VOTING FOR HILLARY CLINTON TOMORROW

The reasons I am such an avid Bernie Sanders supporter are his integrity and judgment. In his 30 years in political office, he has always had the people's best interests at heart. He didn't need polls to tell him what the right thing to was. He didn't care if it would make him popular. He spoke his mind and fought the good fight. I suspect many Bernie fans support him for the same reason. So here at the 11th hour...why would so many of Bernie's supporters suddenly disregard his record of prescient judgment and integrity, the same reasons they touted for supporting him in the first place and not heed his advice?

Bernie has literally been the sole conscience our country in the Congress for decades. And suddenly, many of his supporters are turning on him and accusing him of selling out? Isn't one of the reason he had our support in the 1st place is he that he isn't a party shill and put the people's needs first?

I know many are angry, but the fight for what's right wasn't going to be won solely by electing Bernie into office and it isn't lost because he didn't earn the nomination. Believe me when I say, Bernie won. WE won. The dialogue has shifted. 45% of primary Democratic voters voted for Bernie despite the concerted efforts of the DNC, Democratic leadership and the media to thwart him. We're on the right path. The fight will continue if WE continue to fight.

I get the anger and frustration at the disintegration of our democracy. I get the need to get to 5% of votes for Independents. I get the tiresome boogie man rhetoric that each side trots out every election cycle to scare their bases into voting the party line is infuriating. I get that Hillary Clinton isn't our candidate and embodies the very establishment politics of which we have grown tired.

I. Get. It.

And no one gets it better than Bernie.

There are 30 years of videos of Bernie trying to stop us from making stupid mistakes. You can now add to that list videos of Bernie saying now is NOT the time for a protest vote and now is NOT the time to vote 3rd party. He's proven to be right for 30 years. He views the Trump threat as too real as its not really about Trump himself. It's about his supporters. I think Bernie is right again. He's always been.

I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton tomorrow as will Bernie. Let's hold Hillary's feet to the fire starting on November 9th to ensure we will be stronger together in creating a future we can believe in.

Come Unity. Please vote. Peace.

posted by chris24 at 8:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [61 favorites]

I joined PN when it was still under 20,000 (like last week?) and it definitely seemed more wieldy then but I still like it. I'm glad the group has grown and I don't think it changed the character of the group too much.

I'd rather celebrate the success of PN than make little jokes about SEEKRIT GROUPS and now PN isn't exclusive enough, etc. The dominant narrative is still that everyone hates Hillary Clinton, yet a group got to over a million members in just over a week.
posted by zutalors! at 8:59 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

Where Are the Candidates Today?

HRC and her people are in:
Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, Virginia, Colorado

DJT and his people are in:
Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, Minnesota
posted by palindromic at 8:59 AM on November 7, 2016

There was only enough email for 1 day, but the emails lasted for 8 days!!! Nes gadol haya po. (a great miracle happened here.)

And that is why every year we drink Mazel tov cocktails.

And, of course, koshercocktail.com already has a recipe for Mazel Tov Cocktail: An Apertif for the End of the World.
posted by zachlipton at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

That reminded me - on Twitter this morning I scrolled past a sponsored ad for Trump. Leaving aside the question of what algorithm told them that I might possibly be the target market ... the ad was all like, "DONATE NOW!" and I thought, "Now?"

You assume they care about the election outcome. Grifters gonna grift. That campaign contribution will go towards another portrait of him hanging in a golf course named after him.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

"I'm Hillary Clinton, and, one last time, I approve this message"

Turns out HLC has a final message for the American people, airing tonight.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [78 favorites]

You can look at Hillary Clinton and think she's got a good head on her shoulders, but when I look at Donald Trump all I can think is "what the fuck is that on his shoulders!?"
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:01 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

Fox’s Andrew Napolitano: It’s time to gut the FBI and Comey’s resignation is ‘the most important’:

“The FBI has to stay out of politics,” Napolitano said on Fox Business News. “Eight months ago, James Comey had the best reputation for integrity amongst major law enforcement leaders in the United States of America. Today, he’s being mocked as J. Edgar Comey, to connote his most infamous predecessor, precisely because he has allowed the FBI to enter itself into a political race.”

Napolitano pointed out that Rudy Giuliani had admitted that FBI agents leaked to him.

“The FBI shouldn’t be leaking, they shouldn’t be taking sides,” he argued. “They should be the pristine neutral law enforcement entity of high fidelity to the Constitution that we all grew up thinking they were.”

posted by palindromic at 9:01 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

Stations & Platforms Video Streaming Election Day Coverage (Spreadsheet)
posted by gwint at 9:03 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

I live in North Carolina and have religiously voted Democratic in every election my whole life. My husband re-registered as a Republican last year "to be hilarious" and so he could vote in the Republican primary. I don't know whether it's because he didn't vote in 2012 or because of the switch in party affiliation, but for weeks the Clinton campaign and North Carolina Democratic Party have been bombarding him multiple times a day via text and phone, piles and piles of mail, and at least three in person visits to our house in the past week. It's kind of hilarious how concerned they are about him, even despite him reassuring them many times he's voting for Hillary. They have not paid any attention to me whatsoever.

I've also just realized, though, that the Trump campaign and Republican Party haven't contacted him once. Nada. A brand-new Republican voter, in maybe the swingiest of swing states, and they've not reached out at all. Trump's ground game really is utter garbage.
posted by something something at 9:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [80 favorites]

The EV suppression in North Carolina is gutwrenching, but the saving grace there is that the campaign knows it better than anyone, down to the individual level, thanks to the public nature of early voting data, and all of its resources are going to be directed towards the voters who were dissuaded or gave up ahead of Tuesday, as well as those who wait till the day itself.
posted by holgate at 9:04 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I LOVE this final ad. It is authentic HRC all the way. I am very happy with her appeal to our best instincts, not our worst. It reminds me of the truly wonderful spirit of the DNC this year.
posted by bearwife at 9:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

Philadelphia transit strike reportedly over (NPR). Thank God.
posted by rikschell at 9:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

“The FBI shouldn’t be leaking, they shouldn’t be taking sides,” he argued. “They should be the pristine neutral law enforcement entity of high fidelity to the Constitution that we all grew up thinking they were.”

no wait... people actually thought that?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

And the final ad has a bona fide Hamilton reference!
posted by Nekosoft at 9:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

“The FBI shouldn’t be leaking, they shouldn’t be taking sides,” he argued. “They should be the pristine neutral law enforcement entity of high fidelity to the Constitution that we all grew up thinking they were.”

Did these people not watch The X-Files?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

This is the first election without the full Voting Rights Act — and it's already a disaster
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [25 favorites]

Fox’s Andrew Napolitano: It’s time to gut the FBI and Comey’s resignation is ‘the most important’:

I would like to think Napolitano is just seeing the light, but now it just feels like a trap whenever people on the right agree with the left.
posted by drezdn at 9:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

In Case I, Nate Silver, Die, Follow These Steps to Update the FiveThirtyEight Elections Forecast Model

That tunnel is like 15.5 miles long, Nate Silver must be really damn healthy if he walks/run that after updating 538 every day. Unless he always bring a scooter down there and really should add that to his instructions. WTF Nate.
posted by numaner at 9:07 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Does someone have a link to the final ad? I swear I did a search.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:08 AM on November 7, 2016

That tunnel is like 15.5 miles long, Nate Silver must be really damn healthy if he walks/run that after updating 538 every day. Unless he always bring a scooter down there and really should add that to his instructions. WTF Nate.

I was just happy that the entrance is near public transportation. Makes it easier to get there in time.
posted by thecaddy at 9:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, that location is a really specific place. I wonder if anything's hidden there?
posted by thecaddy at 9:10 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

xkcd is with her.
posted by jedicus at 9:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [76 favorites]

Folks Glenn Beck thinks Trump is unhinged (first link is to tweet where I saw it, second the article linked in it.)
posted by R343L at 9:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

no wait... people actually thought that?

To be fair, many of them are too young to remember Hoover.
posted by flabdablet at 9:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Supposedly, upon signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lyndon Johnson said "(the Democrats) have lost the South for a generation". Looks like enough time has passed. [And here's a link I enjoyed to President Obama's remarks at the 50th anniversary commemoration.]

If Clinton wins, I suspect that the typical election-year celebration of throwing my neighbors under the bus for the sake of inter-regional spite will likely last about 48 hours. If Clinton loses, we can expect that to last a few months, at least.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:12 AM on November 7, 2016

What is a "mazel tov cocktail?"

I went ahead and invented one. Drink it election night!
posted by maxsparber at 9:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

odds are moving on 538. florida is back blue.
posted by andrewcooke at 9:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

I am befuddled by all the media commentators who insist that the FBI has not traditionally been involved in politics. But, then, they are young people, many of them, who do not remember J. Edgar Hoover trying to get Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide and the FBI shooting Black Panthers in cold blood in the 60's.
posted by kozad at 9:15 AM on November 7, 2016 [24 favorites]

Clinton's election night playlist.

Seriously, is there some "official" control over what music gets played at the campaign events? When I heard Bell Biv DeVoe's "Poison" being played at last week's Phoenix (Tempe/ASU) event it kind of took me aback. I guess no one listened to the lyrics? It's the kind of song I would've expected to be played at a Trump event.

Given the stunning and seemingly unexpected influence of early voting in this election, what are the odds the GOP-controlled legislatures will in the near future start trying to dial that back? They might decide that reducing the number of polling places and early voting days--in addition to the more blatantly racist stuff they've done--maybe hasn't been enough of a deterrent.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Q: What is the sound of a mazel tov cocktail exploding?
A: VERKLEMPT!
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [28 favorites]

The transit strike is over. They're ramping service back up and should be at full capacity by morning.

There's also a giant rally down at Independence Hall tonight at 7pm. Hillary and the Obamas with John Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen performing. Chris Christie will be sitting on the Camden side of the river weeping into a bag of leftover halloween candy.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

@AnthonyMKreis: Nothing to see here, right? Just the NCGOP openly celebrating voter suppression.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:17 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

But, then, they are young people, many of them, who do not remember J. Edgar Hoover trying to get Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide and the FBI shooting Black Panthers in cold blood in the 60's.

It happened before they got their iPhones and saggy pants, so it's not "relevant"
posted by thelonius at 9:19 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Non-Jews trying to speak Yiddish makes me cringe (although I will say, Rachel Maddow does a decent job - she loves the word 'mishegas') - kvetch is a total tell. ScottieNell Hughes should definitely not try to speak Yiddish (or use words she doesn't know - i.e., Molotov).
posted by Sophie1 at 9:21 AM on November 7, 2016

Live stream of the Hillary rally on the University of Pittsburgh campus. (Hide the chat stream for sanity.)

(I'd be at or around the rally right now if I hadn't planned wall-to-wall work meetings today.)
posted by tonycpsu at 9:22 AM on November 7, 2016

Meanwhile, this happened... raise your glass!
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm 30. It never occurred to me to not trust the FBI until this election. The only other context in which I've seen much about them is murder investigations, and perhaps the first season of the X-Files, of which I really only remember Mulder & Scully being pretty good people.

Color me naive, I guess.
posted by samthemander at 9:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

It happened before they got their iPhones and saggy pants, so it's not "relevant"

Ahhh, millennial bashing! When was the last time we saw that in an election thread? I remember it like it was only yesterday.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 9:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [19 favorites]

If Clinton wins, I suspect that the typical election-year celebration of throwing my neighbors under the bus for the sake of inter-regional spite will likely last about 48 hours.

I can be as petty and vindictive as the next person, but I really hope we can all consider Lincoln's words from his Second Inaugural Address:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds...which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:23 AM on November 7, 2016 [21 favorites]

Pantsuit Nation is so fascinating. Because what I see inside there is women talking about the fact that they have kept their mouths shut because they rely on the kindness of family and friends, can’t afford to alienate business clients, and they say over and over again that they’re afraid of the aggressive bullying they’ve gotten on FB when they’ve dared to express their support for her, and are breathing a sigh of relief to have a safe space in which to voice their opinions. And I notice that when I’m reading all the positive, happy PN posts, it has a very persuasive effect on me, an already pretty enthusiastic Hillary supporter. I feel like, yeah, I’m part of something cool. I’m excited and proud.

Then I go back to reading the rest of my normal FB feed. Virtually all of my FB friends are women and by far the vast majority have scrupulously avoided making any partisan political posts at all. I have too. Most of the posts I can remember seeing about Hillary are of the “two equally lousy choices this year” ilk. And when I’m in that normal FB environment, I still have all my same opinions of Hillary, but I feel definitely NOT encouraged to voice my opinion, and do not feel like I’m part of something exciting. There must be many, many people who are on the fence about Hillary who would be tipped toward her if they were exposed to an environment like PN. I’m not sure what the answer is to bringing that feeling out in public because the magic there is that you can say you’re excited to vote for Hill and not immediately be verbally assaulted in the comments. What’s going on inside PN is the best possible advertising for Hillary, but it would be quickly undone by, I guess, a kind of observer effect, or worse, if you bring in the people that you’d most like to see it.
posted by HotToddy at 9:24 AM on November 7, 2016 [50 favorites]

I'm 30. It never occurred to me to not trust the FBI until this election.

I am a cynic, but it never occurred to me that the IRS would have more integrity than the FBI does. It's pretty shameful.
posted by suelac at 9:24 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think such a controlling spouse would also limit their partner's ability to get to polling places as well.

They might not stop them from voting if its important enough to their patrirarchical/matriarchal personal (internal or external) to allow it.

Alone in a voting booth is an oppty to be oneself. Sometimes you just need a moment to oneself to break free.
posted by tilde at 9:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

BBC radio saying that HRC's ground game is probably going to swing it for her, despite Comey's 'lost week' for he Democrats. This after a fairly solid few weeks of 'oooh scary Trump might do it' reporting, heavy on interviewing Trump supporters and light on polls.
posted by Devonian at 9:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ahhh, millennial bashing! When was the last time we saw that in an election thread? I remember it like it was only yesterday.

I think (hope?) the bit about "saggy pants" was thelonius parodying millennial-bashing.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

It happened before they got their iPhones and saggy pants, so it's not "relevant"

c- effort; i would have gone with the "skinny jeans" troll
posted by entropicamericana at 9:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

It never occurred to me to not trust the FBI until this election. The only other context in which I've seen much about them is murder investigations ...

Speaking of murder investigations, you can check out the murder of Fred Hampton to see why some of us don't think so highly of the FBI.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:27 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm 30. It never occurred to me to not trust the FBI until this election. The only other context in which I've seen much about them is murder investigations, and perhaps the first season of the X-Files, of which I really only remember Mulder & Scully being pretty good people.

The FBI have spent decades doing nasty shit and using Hollywood to promote a completely counterfactual image. This series goes into it a bit.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:27 AM on November 7, 2016 [21 favorites]

it was an attempt at making fun of myself a bit, sorry. "Relevant" really does if drive me crazy if you want to put a snake-person-bashing jacket on me, though
posted by thelonius at 9:28 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am a cynic, but it never occurred to me that the IRS would have more integrity than the FBI does. It's pretty shameful.

99.5% of what people hate the IRS for is just the IRS doing what Congress tells them. Mad about taxes and tax collection? Yell at your Senator and Representatives.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:28 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

R343L Folks Glenn Beck thinks Trump is unhinged

That article is emphtaically not to be missed.

Some highlights (all real):
-[Beck] heralded [Michelle] Obama’s remarks as “the most effective political speech I have heard since Ronald Reagan.”
-“Obama made me a better man.”
-He regrets calling the President a racist and counts himself a Black Lives Matter supporter.
"So much of what I used to believe was either always a sham or has been made into a sham."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:29 AM on November 7, 2016 [64 favorites]

>I'm 30. It never occurred to me to not trust the FBI until this election.

Not to derail, but you should know about the FBI's policy of not recording interviews.
posted by Catblack at 9:29 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

NC is blue again too. I feel like Nate is just fucking with us and I don't want to give him page views no more. Where can I go to supplement my talkingpointsmemo now?
posted by rikschell at 9:30 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

With Trump's twitter taken away, I really want someone to do examples of what Trump would post if his main social media platform was Tumblr, Pinterest, etc.
posted by drezdn at 9:31 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

"It happened before they got their iPhones and saggy pants, so it's not "relevant""

I really hope this is satire, otherwise I don't know what you're trying to accomplish.

BTW I have an android.
posted by Tarumba at 9:31 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm sorry I sniped at you, thelonius.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 9:32 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh my god, imagining Trump on tumblr is such a mindfuck that I don't even know where to start.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:32 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

R343L Folks Glenn Beck thinks Trump is unhinged

That article is emphtaically not to be missed.

glenn beck is an irredeemable pigfucker, i don't care a whit about his recent epiphany.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:33 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

With Trump's twitter taken away, I really want someone to do examples of what Trump would post if his main social media platform was Tumblr, Pinterest, etc.

I was tempted to produce examples of Trump communicating solely through PornHub comments, but was unwilling to research said comments enough to parody the style.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:33 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

There is no joke I could come up with about Cokie's comment that didn't come off as equally racist, so I'll just say; the day we have free birth control for all in this country should be a happy one and not spoiled by "we got this thanks to racists!" so please shut up Cokie.
posted by emjaybee at 9:33 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

Our home has been approached repeatedly by Democratic canvassers of late. yesterday, Comrade Doll told them, "I am so glad you are doing what you're doing, but you've got us. We're 100% on board. Get out of here and go spend time on someone who's on the fence. HURRY!"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [16 favorites]

If Trump loses and gives a speech, what's the over/under on his speech just naming who has let him down.
posted by drezdn at 9:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

Oh my god, imagining Trump on tumblr is such a mindfuck that I don't even know where to start.

Oh wait, yes I do, the image of Trump being constantly dragged by sixteen year-old girls.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

If Trump loses and gives a speech, what's the over/under on his speech just naming who has let him down.
I am sure someone will let us know via the "Hitler Gets Angry" series
posted by robbyrobs at 9:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

He'll also get in at least four hotel plugs.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

If Trump loses and gives a speech, what's the over/under on his speech just naming who has let him down.

"And to all my many volunteers, I just want to say - you tried, right? It just wasn't hard enough. Not big league. Sad!"
posted by murphy slaw at 9:39 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

"Now that I am done with this election, I will relax at the new Trump hotel in Washington D.C., making a list of all the ways I'll get my revenge on Paul Ryan."
posted by drezdn at 9:39 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Maybe I'll call Hannity."
posted by drezdn at 9:39 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sorry my sense of humor isn't working today, Thelonius.

I am in bed with a cold, without a chance for distraction.
posted by Tarumba at 9:41 AM on November 7, 2016

"I told you they'd never figure it out, Hillary."

That's the sort of nastiness I'd expect, anyways.
posted by Mooski at 9:41 AM on November 7, 2016

As trained by Roy Cohn, Trump has always declared victory after his various losses in court and business. So I'm trying to imagine what that will look like this time around.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:41 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

I don't know I'm kind of gunning for his heart popping like a cherry tomato
posted by The Whelk at 9:42 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

In other NPR hate today, they had Cokie Roberts and Tucker fuckin Carlson on to discuss the latest Comey letter. Apparently on the West Coast they had enough time to edit out Cokie's comment about birth control controlling the Latino vote, but she's getting some ugly heat on Twitter. I don't know why I even listen anymore.

What was actually most bizarre about that was how reasonable Carlson came across. I stopped listening to Cokie Roberts' actual words decades ago, I have to admit.
posted by aught at 9:43 AM on November 7, 2016

He could just say that he raised alot of important issues to the public, but that seems to even-keel for Trump.
posted by drezdn at 9:43 AM on November 7, 2016

As trained by Roy Cohn, Trump has always declared victory after his various losses in court and business. So I'm trying to imagine what that will look like this time around.

"We started a conversation, and we made sure that the Washington elites know that we're out here, and we're going to keep them accountable."
posted by Etrigan at 9:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

She's here! She is resplendent in a red suit and standing just 100 feet from me. I'm standing next to a woman who will be driving her 99 year old neighbor to the polls tomorrow. The biggest cheer so far is for equal pay and "deal me in" and affordable college.
posted by Alison at 9:43 AM on November 7, 2016 [77 favorites]

The Romney campaign didn't even prepare a concession speech. iirc. I can't imagine Trump formally preparing one, either. But he has to have been daydreaming about it for a long time. Hell, it's probably going to be more fun for him than winning. Wild accusations, threats of lawsuits, self-pitying rants - what's not to love?
posted by thelonius at 9:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

(Except with more weird gestures, and a few Trump Hotel plugs.)
posted by Etrigan at 9:44 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Did I win the ~~debates~~ election, or what?!!"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:44 AM on November 7, 2016

Glenn Beck has become a real boy?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 9:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

If Trump loses and gives a speech, what's the over/under on his speech just naming who has let him down.

I want to shout out to the good folks of Indiana, thank you for your votes. Best people there.
Mike Pence, what a loser.
He let me down.
Chris Christie let me down.
That broad who talks for me, Kellymelly or whatever her name is, she let me down but let me tell you about her [microphone goes inaudible for a few moments as sounds of struggle on the mixing board are heard] in the penthouse of Trump Tower.
That Bannon fellow, he let me down.
Everyone, from each and every volunteer all the way up to, but certainly not including my family, except Tiffany, let me down.
But I'll tell you who won't let you down.
The good people at the Mar-A-Lago.
I will get in a lot of trouble talking about it up here...
(Boos from the crowd)
Yes, yes, I know, my manager down there will have my head. But if you need to get away for a few days, I now heard they have a 'Trump Special' deal where if you stay for 4 nights AND purchase $1,200 or MORE in Mar-A-Lago cash to be used at the property except where null and void, you'll get a free continental breakfast Wednesday mornings. Now, I know that's going to be the headline tomorrow but the lamestream media won't be reporting on that, now will they.
Also, Paul Ryan let me down. Bigly.
posted by splen at 9:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [28 favorites]

How soon after the polls close d'yall think Donald gets his Android back?
posted by Devonian at 9:47 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Ana Navarro: I'm voting for Hillary Clinton -- and against Donald Trump [CNN; warning: autoplay video]
posted by melissasaurus at 9:48 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

It is not outside of the realm of possibility that upon losing, Trump casually makes another set of thinly veiled assassination/coup provocations and learns very quickly the difference where the Secret Service is concerned between threatening a nominee and threatening the president-elect.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [37 favorites]

How soon after the polls close d'yall think Donald gets his Android back?

No one will be left to give it to him after about 10 EST.
posted by Etrigan at 9:50 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

How soon after the polls close d'yall think Donald gets his Android back?

Which one? Eric or Junior?
posted by Sys Rq at 9:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [51 favorites]

... do not remember J. Edgar Hoover trying to get Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide and the FBI shooting Black Panthers in cold blood in the 60's.

There are different kinds of playing politics. One might argue that the FBI was reflecting the political will of their masters, which -- at least to some extent -- is their job. Interfering in who gets to be master is a very different kind of politics.
posted by Bovine Love at 9:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

“Computer geeks have tools that make searching the emails extremely easy,” wrote Graham. “Given those emails, and a list of known email accounts from Hillary and associates, and a list of other search terms, it would take me only a few hours to reduce the workload from 650,000 emails to only a couple hundred, which a single person can read in less than a day."

I can do that in the Outlook search bar in less than a minute.
posted by JackFlash at 9:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

How many days after the election until Trump's next 3 am tweet?
posted by drezdn at 9:51 AM on November 7, 2016

R343L Folks Glenn Beck thinks Trump is unhinged

That article is emphtaically not to be missed.

quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon: glenn beck is an irredeemable pigfucker, i don't care a whit about his recent epiphany.

A solid point. The interesting thing about Beck is he just praised Obama.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/glenn-beck-obama-made-me-better-man

And major conservative blogs like Red State fall over themselves in worship of Beck, all the while preoccupied with pointed hate toward Obama. Now, what more grandiose compliment can Beck make of Obama than this? Hee hee.
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

R343L Folks Glenn Beck thinks Trump is unhinged

There is a beautiful train-wreck of an interview on a recent On The Media, where Bob Garfield repeatedly calls Beck on his bullshit and Beck gets defensive, then sulky, then runs away like a baby. [real]
posted by aught at 9:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [21 favorites]

glenn beck is an irredeemable pigfucker, i don't care a whit about his recent epiphany.

100% agree. It's still noteworthy he's even trying to go down this road, though.

It's like The Flash is real, Flashpoint happened, and we've suddenly got the Glenn Beck from Earth-19.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

In Sarasota, Trump went on a weird rant about firefighters being shot as they try to put out fires (oh, now he cares about firefighters, but not fire marshals?) Someone on Twitter pointed out that the only case of a firefighter being shot in the area involved one who was shot by the police during an armed standoff.
posted by zachlipton at 9:53 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

If Trump loses and gives a speech, what's the over/under on his speech just naming who has let him down.

I'm hoping he channels Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink:

"You didn't let me down. We don't live or die by your votes. You let my campaign staff down. They liked you, trusted you ... and that's why they're gone. They're fired. They had hearts as big as the all outdoors and you fucked them."

posted by octobersurprise at 9:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

This video of the Clintons surviving 30 years of Republican congressional hearings is amazing. (went for the funny juxtiposition, stayed for the absolutely bonkers nature clip)
posted by gwint at 9:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [38 favorites]

Constance Wu: Get Down with the Downballot

Following the AAPI for Hillary Facebook page has been delightful mainly because nobody cares about AAPI issues enough to hatefollow it so there are only nice comments, but getting stuff like this is a close second.
posted by sunset in snow country at 9:58 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

Sorry for posting all the way down here because I haven't read any of this thread (I'm still slogging through the last one!) but I just wanted to say that as an American overseas this has been a difficult time because I've had to not only explain how the Electoral College works (or at least attempt to do so), answer for the crazy percentage of my co-citizens that support Trump, and stay up super late to watch the debates, but I've also had my lefty bona fides questioned by UK friends who think that Hillary is terrible -- that tsunami of negative Hillary coverage has been carried by the jet-stream to these shores.

Anyway I had joined the MF call team a few days ago but only ever got voicemails. Tonight in this dark-at-4:30-pm gloom I decided to do something to change my mood and I fired up the call tool, and chose Wisconsin woman-to-woman calls. Surprisingly the first three people I called picked up, and although the calls were brief it was fantastic to click that "Strong HRC" button three times, as well as hear the dulcet tones of Midwestern American English once again. It warmed this Michigander's heart. I never would have thought to volunteer except for reading about it on these election threads. Yay for Skype, yay for cheeseheads, and yay for HRC! #Imwithher
posted by tractorfeed at 9:59 AM on November 7, 2016 [66 favorites]

On empathy for the opposition, understanding how they think and feel, and what informs that, can be useful in figuring out good strategies for getting in their heads and getting them to behave in ways that help you out.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:00 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

If they keep Trump from Twitter any longer, he'll start posting to Ello! Or Google Plus!
posted by drezdn at 10:02 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

glenn beck is an irredeemable pigfucker, i don't care a whit about his recent epiphany.

No doubt, but Robert Byrd went from Grand Wizard of the KKK to being eulogized by the NAACP. Sure, it took 40 years, but we can always hold out hope. And thus, we too can dream of a day that Beck will be used by idiot conservatives and social media neo-Nazis as an example of how liberals are the real bigots during President Laverne Cox's re-election campaign.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:03 AM on November 7, 2016 [56 favorites]

Trump Makes Play For ‘Amazing’ Latino Community On Election Eve
Noticing a “Blacks for Trump” sign in the crowd, Trump said “One of the things they are seeing in a couple of these states like Florida, African-Americans are not turning out and when they do, a lot of them are voting for Trump. This is very disturbing to the other side.”

That's one interpretation. There are alternate theories.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:05 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

This, by the way, is what happens when you gut the Voting Rights Act and intentionally seek to depress turnout: the NC GOP puts out a celebratory press release about fewer black people voting.
posted by zachlipton at 10:06 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

If they keep Trump from Twitter any longer, he'll start posting to Ello! Or Google Plus!

I would enjoy the notion of Trump displaying a honey-badger-like inventiveness in trying to get on social media while his staff plays whack-a-mole with his accounts and devices until he is finally posting on Friendster and Classmates.com from a public library terminal.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:08 AM on November 7, 2016 [40 favorites]

Trump Promised to Fund His Own Campaign. Now He's Asking for Pizza Money.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump has been posting to Google Plus for a year now. Nobody's noticed. [fake, probably, but quantum theory says that an unobserved system has not collapsed to a definite state]
posted by Devonian at 10:09 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

I'm pretty much assuming that Trump believes that he will still get to rule the states that he has won, and that that will be the gist of his post-election speech. He will just move forward, angrily refusing to acknowledge that for president, it's winner take all.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:10 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is lovely and is the type of thing I need to read to keep myself calm today: An ode to Hillary Clinton’s laugh

posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:10 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

> "As trained by Roy Cohn, Trump has always declared victory after his various losses in court and business. So I'm trying to imagine what that will look like this time around."

I suspect this is the reason that campaign insiders are saying he desperately wants to beat Romney's EV count. So that even if he loses he can spin it into "I was still winninger than any other previous or possible Republican candidate!"
posted by kyrademon at 10:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

He will just move forward, angrily refusing to acknowledge that for president, it's winner take all.

Surely in this circumstance it's more appropriate to say 'loser take none.'
posted by Ragged Richard at 10:11 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump Campaign Manager Says Running for President Is His Charitable Donation:

Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was asked in an interview on CNBC Monday morning to defend the Republican nominee's lack of a paper trail for his claims of charitable donations. As documented in extensive reporting by the Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, there is scant evidence that Trump has given any significant amount of his own money to charity.

Conway started her response by saying she had personally observed Trump signing checks. Then she switched to a novel defense of Trump's generosity: His presidential campaign qualifies as a charitable contribution to the country.

posted by palindromic at 10:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [31 favorites]

Kitty Stardust: "Glenn Beck has become a real boy?"

Glenn Beck was originally a morning zoo-style shock jock who got a sorta-political show on the Clear Channel family of stations decades ago. I actually listened to him back then - he came off as not being a terribly deep thinker or well informed but seemed to understand that about himself. He was conservative leaning but often willing to have his mind changed about things. His primary focus was always on putting on a show, though, even if this bits were based on poor understanding or shallow knowledge. In short, he wasn't anything special, but she wasn't batshit, either.

I think what happened was that he spent so much time in Conservative Media Land due to his proximity to Rush and other right-wing radio talk-show hosts that he got swallowed up by that world. His listeners wanted the right-wing stuff, his broadcasters probably wanted the right wing stuff, and he didn't have to listen to anyone to give him opposing opinions anymore.

One of Beck's prominent aspects early on was that he was a recovering addict. I wonder if he somehow became addicted to right-wing politics because he now sounds more like his old "clean and sober" self.
posted by charred husk at 10:12 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

jedicus: "xkcd is with her."

I want that on a poster.
posted by octothorpe at 10:14 AM on November 7, 2016 [18 favorites]

Then she switched to a novel defense of Trump's generosity: His presidential campaign qualifies as a charitable contribution to the country.

That's right up there with him making sacrifices by hiring people and building things.
posted by nubs at 10:14 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

Voted today in LA. 5 hours 28 minutes from getting in line to turning in my ballot. There has to be a way to make this easier.

I am simultaneously humbled by the dedication, and angered that this happens.

I live in Toronto, which is the 4 largest city in North America. Not including travel, it has never taken me more than 5 minutes to vote in a federal election. I can't remember ever actually standing in a real line--worst case there was the person currently in the booth, and then me.

The last two federal elections I walked from my home to the polling station, voted, and walked back in less than 15min. And this was what should have been peak time, right after I got off home from work.
posted by HighLife at 10:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

Sunset in snow country: Thank you for posting the Constance Wu link! I tweeted it and shared it to my FB feed! I sit here, typing away from the indigo-blue SF Bay Area, and, being husband-free and family-free, I don't have anyone pressuring or threatening me away from Hillary and the Dems. Being a white professional, I'm not a target of voter repression. So, in a way, my vote isn't really that important (because Bay Area!).

But, these days, I'm really on fire with DOWN WITH THE DOWN BALLOT! Voting for President is glamorous and sexy and empowering. But we need to get in a Congress that will work with HRC instead of against her, who won't throw toddler tantrums, who will know that their job is governing and not obstructing government. We need governors and state legislatures that will work to improve the lives of their residents, not Sam Brownbacks who will despoil their states and leave ruins behind them.

The California Democrats sent me an election guide, and so did the California Teacher's Union. My mom was a teacher and proud union member, so I use the union endorsements as a partial guide. I think there are similar guides in most states or you can google [Your State] Democratic Voter's Guide. School boards and State Assemblies are how senators and Presidents put their feet on the political ladder! I voted for a school board member who worked as a community organizer, which is how Barack Obama got started!

School boards count. Transit boards count. State assemblies count. Remember the down ballot, people! Put on your pantsuit and go!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [21 favorites]

I've been watching this election from overseas, in a Francophone country without particularly close political or cultural ties to the US. Still, people are watching. Today a colleague told me, only somewhat jokingly, that his countrymen need to pray that Hillary wins.

Its a really different experience. For one thing, is is completely uncontroversial that Trump is racist. No one tries to explain how he's not really racist because X. There is no "false balance" on this issue. It is surprisingly refreshing, even though I wish I was in the US and could do more (like phonebanking or canvassing).

Also, MeFi is one of the few places where I can read people talking about the election without having to throw things, so, uh, thanks guys.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:16 AM on November 7, 2016 [20 favorites]

I'm thinking his "I lost" speech (because I don't think he'll officially concede) will be a Festivus airing of grievances. Or basically like the rest of his campaign; ranting at perceived slights, gross unfairness, and mortal enemies, both friend and foe.
posted by chris24 at 10:21 AM on November 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

You can listen to 21-y.o. Hillary's commencement speech (via Brainpickings).
"Fear is always with is, we just dont have time for it."
Listening, I somehow feel both an older woman's fondness for youhful enthusiasm, and younger again myself.
And I can hardly wait to celebrate her victory with halal tacos and mazel tov cocktails!
posted by NorthernLite at 10:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't know I'm kind of gunning for his heart popping like a cherry tomato.

I'm kind of expecting him to tear off his flesh suit to reveal his final Boss Form.

No wait, I'm still thinking of Ted Cruz. Never mind.
posted by happyroach at 10:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

Trump is all "I win; you lost it for me"
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:22 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

> I'm kind of expecting him to tear off his flesh suit to reveal his final Boss Form.

No wait, I'm still thinking of Ted Cruz. Never mind.

Those things might not be mutually exclusive!
posted by Tevin at 10:24 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ryan’s reservoir of respect runs dry

He’s about the only person capable of serving as speaker, so for the good of the country we hope the Freedom Caucus doesn’t toss him overboard. Beyond that, however, the GOP will need to look for moral leadership and future presidential prospects elsewhere. Ryan has lost his exalted place in the conservative pantheon. Sadly, he did it for nothing.

That's from "Right Turn," the Post's conservative blog. If (TTTCS) Trump loses, Ryan is going to be the primary person he blames, and the flames are going to be huge.

Ryan had darn scary policy, but he threw away every shred of respect he had and got absolutely nothing in return.
posted by zachlipton at 10:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

A friend tells me he is having an election party, complete with a pinata that looks startlingly similar to Hillary's opponent.

I'm imagining that whatever speech Hillary's opponent makes, they're gonna take it out on the pinata.

"It was rigged!" WHOMP
"I'm going to take this to the supreme court!" WHOMP
"My hotels are tremendous!" WHOMP
posted by mochapickle at 10:25 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

If Trump doesn't win, is Reince out at the RNC?
posted by drezdn at 10:26 AM on November 7, 2016

The best part of Trump's run might be the ruination of Ryan.
posted by chris24 at 10:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [36 favorites]

I wrote this for my Facebook (thus why it reads more like a blog post), but I thought I'd share it here too, because I've been thinking about it a lot.

"I’ve seen a lot of people asking why Hillary Clinton’s suits are referred to as ‘pantsuits’ all the time. Like, why not just ‘suits’? The answer is more infuriating than you may realize.

Until very very recently – more recently than most people my age can probably believe (it was a shock to me) – ‘a women’s suit’ meant a suit jacket and a skirt, full stop. As in, guess when female Senators were last required - REQUIRED - to wear skirts on the Senate floor?

Fucking 1993.

NINETEEN NINETY-THREE. I was six years old and female Senators were still required to wear skirts! And it only stopped when two female Senators showed up in pants to protest it.

1993. Women wearing suits with pants was still controversial 23 years ago. And Hillary Clinton has been a woman in public life for almost 40 years.

And she was a woman who wore pants, who at first didn't wear makeup and didn't change her last name, and kept her career after her husband entered politics, and got involved in politics herself, and had strong opinions which she freely expressed.

This made her fucking Satan as far as conservatives were concerned, and she's been Satan to them ever since.

The use of the word ‘pantsuit’ to refer to Clinton’s suits, which she began wearing long before it was broadly socially acceptable, is a leftover dogwhistle from a less tolerant time. The very phrase 'pantsuit' basically means, a suit worn by an uppity woman. A suit worn by the type of woman who doesn't care that skirts are PROPER professional garments for ladies. A suit for goddamn rabble-rousing hippie bitches.

Can't wait to see what color pantsuit HRC wears when she's the goddamn president."
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:26 AM on November 7, 2016 [235 favorites]

Ah. I forgot about Beck's frat boy past. I just remember him crying on TV about FEMA death camps.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 10:28 AM on November 7, 2016

Noticing a “Blacks for Trump” sign in the crowd, Trump said “One of the things they are seeing in a couple of these states like Florida, African-Americans are not turning out and when they do, a lot of them are voting for Trump. This is very disturbing to the other side.”

That's one interpretation. There are alternate theories.

They played that clip on MSNBC this mroning and the reporter in the field said something like, "For the record, at this current Trump rally of around 5,000 people, there are maybe 5 or 10 African Americans in attendance."
posted by zakur at 10:29 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

I live in Toronto, which is the 4 largest city in North America. Not including travel, it has never taken me more than 5 minutes to vote in a federal election. I can't remember ever actually standing in a real line--worst case there was the person currently in the booth, and then me.

While I agree that how voting is handled in the States could be improved, I do think this is something we as Canadians should resist comparing. When we vote, our ballots are no where near as lengthy or as complex to fill out. In a federal or provincial election, this is our sample ballot. Compare that with the ballot for Maryland in the 2012 election.

Voters in the US need more time in the booth than Canadians do because of this; it isn't a straight comparison.
posted by nubs at 10:29 AM on November 7, 2016 [12 favorites]

Politico has a really great oral history of Obama's 2008 victory, 'Oh Man, I Guess We’ve Won This Thing’

Tommy Vietor: A colleague made the funniest joke I heard that day: “Looking at exit polls is like hooking up with your ex-girlfriend. You know before you do it that you shouldn’t. You do it anyway because you can’t resist. In the short term, you’re gratified, and then it quickly wears off, and you’re ashamed of yourself for the rest of the day.”

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:31 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Wow. According to Bradd Jaffy, this ad is running in heavy rotation in South Florida today.

One Word - Jewish
posted by chris24 at 10:34 AM on November 7, 2016 [13 favorites]

So, we've sifted the percentage chances various predictors have given to a Clinton win, but what are they actually claiming as their most likely or median EV count? Some give high uncertainty to these numbers (like 538), some give very low uncertainty (like PEC), but here's what they've got as the middle right now, the day before the election ...

Poll aggregators that offer an EV prediction --
Daily Kos: Clinton 323 EVs
PEC: Clinton 313 EVs
538: Clinton 296.9 EVs

Poll aggregators that offer a percent win chance, but not an EV prediction (estimated from their state-by-state data) --
HuffPost Pollster: Clinton 323 EVs
Pierre-Antoine Kremp: Clinton 323 EVs
NYT Upshot: Clinton 322 EVs

Poll aggregators that do not predict either EV or win chance (taken from recent polling with no modeling) --
Electoral-Vote.com: Clinton 317 EVs
RealClearPolitics: Clinton 301 EVs

Expert opinions --
Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball: Clinton 322 EVs
The Cook Political Report: Clinton 301 EVs (estimated from their prediction of 278 solidly Clinton, plus half of their 46 "tossups")

Betting markets (estimated) --
PredictWise: Clinton 322 EVs
posted by kyrademon at 10:34 AM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

"I’ve seen a lot of people asking why Hillary Clinton’s suits are referred to as ‘pantsuits’ all the time. Like, why not just ‘suits’? The answer is more infuriating than you may realize.

This is great. I've been smiling at this Pantsuit Nation post since yesterday, where a woman describes her trans daughter rooting through her old "boy clothes" in the basement to put together a fitting outfit, plus a pearl necklace.
posted by zachlipton at 10:35 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

Wow. According to Bradd Jaffy, this ad is running in heavy rotation in South Florida today.

One Word - Jewish yt

There's a Mormon one running in Utah
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:37 AM on November 7, 2016 [9 favorites]

Voters in the US need more time in the booth than Canadians do because of this; it isn't a straight comparison.

The problem isn't time in the voting booth, it's that bigots deliberately removed places to vote, made it harder to register to vote, tried to (and often succeeded in) removing the ability to vote early, purged voters off rolls for minor discrepancies, made insane and discriminatory requirements for voter ID; and just generally brought voting back to the days of Jim Crow, if not before the 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments altogether.

"Having a complicated ballot" is like reason #2,342 on the list of problems with voting in the US.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:39 AM on November 7, 2016 [20 favorites]

One Word - Jewish

It's an astonishingly bold 15 seconds of advertising. I only hope and fear that people don't take the wrong message from it.
posted by zachlipton at 10:40 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

As a Floridian, I will be furious with anyone who re-elects Rubio

Marco has his supporters, though they don't have the best prediction track record around.
posted by Wordshore at 10:41 AM on November 7, 2016

He will just move forward, angrily refusing to acknowledge that for president, it's winner take all.

"Isn't it crazy that the guy who comes in second gets to be Vice President?"
posted by Hlewagast at 10:42 AM on November 7, 2016 [17 favorites]

Damn, for a minute there I thought Pantsuit Nation was [fake], but a friend just added me.

So awesome. So moving. Reminds me that despite fragile males constantly complaining about the world going to shit because they view any gain by women and PoC as some huge loss for them, and despite a host of very large and very pressing problems that women and minorities continue to face, for those of us who have been othered for centuries -- if not millennia -- this is a very exciting and inspiring time in American history.
posted by lord_wolf at 10:42 AM on November 7, 2016 [14 favorites]

Ugh— someone I know and love posted the new alt-right meme about how Huma Abedin is a secret Muslim operative!!! And Hillary has twelve seizures a day!!! But they prop her up when the seizures miraculously end before she gives speeches!!!

I posted the Snopes link pointing out that this meme claims to be info from Wikileaks, yet the text appears in none of the wikileaks documents. She responded that SOROS OWNS SNOPES DUH. So, in the course of a very short time, she outed herself as an Islamophobe and an antisemite.

Can we schedule a mass deprogramming for 40% of the country? Please?
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [11 favorites]

Nothing but this election could compel me to stuff myself into the only pantsuit I have on election day.

It's way too small so all I can promise is to do my best.
posted by Tarumba at 10:46 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'll be wearing a sweatpant suit.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [10 favorites]

My favorite yard sign, spotted on two neighbor's houses this week.
posted by PearlRose at 10:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [61 favorites]

I can't shake the haunted feeling that a Hillary presidency without a dem senate will be 4 messy years, and far worse than Obama's, especially given a newly refreshed left platform and expectations.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:49 AM on November 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Nothing but this election could compel me to stuff myself into the only pantsuit I have on election day.

I don't have a pantsuit, but I intend to spend tomorrow fully decked out in red white and blue and metallic gold sneakers. Gonna paint little Hillary logos on my nails tonight. I am going to be insufferable.
posted by phunniemee at 10:50 AM on November 7, 2016 [22 favorites]

it isn't a straight comparison.

Fair enough, the ballots aren't apples-to-apples. But it's also not apples-to-'59 Studebaker which is what the wait times seem like.
posted by HighLife at 10:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Lots of people saying "wear white!" dude I have one white top and it's one of those peasanty summer things, I can't wear that in November, even in Texas.

I do have a pantsuit but only wear it when making a presentation or otherwise compelled to.

Now, if I had a Space Grandma type of pantsuit like Hilary, I might wear that every day.
posted by emjaybee at 10:51 AM on November 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

Leave it to Pantsuit Nation to finally make me wish I'd kept FaceBook. Ah, well. Keen radiations on you all.
posted by Mooski at 10:52 AM on November 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ha, I actually just got back from shopping, where I was hoping to find some kind of patriotic top to wear with my pantsuit tomorrow, but no dice. I'm definitely painting the fingernails red white & blue, though.
posted by something something at 10:52 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hey treepour,

"I also learned today that I suck really bad at phone banking. I just couldn't keep it up for very long. ... Sorry Hillary. I should have done better."

YOU DID GREAT. There are lots of people who haven't made a single call. There are lots of people who won't even manage to vote.

You overcame a huge hurdle and got yourself involved. Now you know that you can do it - and you ALSO know that maybe some other tasks would be a better fit for you, so if there's any political stuff going on next year, or for sure in 2018, you'll be able to contact your local party early, if you want, and tell them you'd like to get involved but phone banking isn't really your thing - could you do data entry or hang door hangers or something?

I SO appreciate you getting involved - and I hope you'll hang on to the feelings of camaraderie and community and contribution, and let them draw you in to staying involved in the years to come.

Thank you for being a part of this!
posted by kristi at 10:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [73 favorites]

I can't shake the haunted feeling that a Hillary presidency without a dem senate will be 4 messy years, and far worse than Obama's, especially given a newly refreshed left platform and expectations.

Bill Clinton was able to get some things done, even after the 1994 Republican landslide. Even just replacing Scalia would make a huge difference right now.
posted by drezdn at 10:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

I can't shake the haunted feeling that a Hillary presidency without a dem senate will be 4 messy years, and far worse than Obama's, especially given a newly refreshed left platform and expectations.

I'm going to hold that pessimistic thought for now. But this is why down-ballot is important, and midterms are important. I hope some of the newly energized left can keep the momentum going, so that we get House and Senate candidates who we don't have to hold our noses to vote for, and put potential future candidates in the pipeline. And, of course, crossing my fingers - that voter suppression can be ended via the Supreme Court, so that people can vote in the first place.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:54 AM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Having a complicated ballot" is like reason #2,342 on the list of problems with voting in the US.

I'm not saying there isn't a host of other problems and voting suppression efforts that are impacting the voting in the US; I'm just a little wary of us Canadians making a straight up comparison between our two systems when there is

♪♫ The world turned upside down. Finally, it's US election week. November 6, 2016 10:15 AM Subscribe

♪♫ The world turned upside down. Finally, it's US election week.
November 6, 2016 10:15 AM Subscribe