Election 2016 (Page 56)

Wow.  Just wow. 

All I can hope for is The Donald sticks to his vision around fixing Washington, rather than some of the B.S. (like The Wall) that got him elected.

We watched the NBC News feed the whole night on this.  Obviously a liberal slant (though Holt is a registered R), but as the night progressed you could just see them go from excitement (as in, people will need to keep watching because Hillary didn't win in a landslide by 9:30 PM) to jaw-dropping (when it became clear that FL was going to Trump and NC looked like it as well), to WTF when I turned it off around 11 last night.

One thing Chuck Todd said last night was that the polls obviously discounted the turnout in the rural states and that The Forgotten voter won the day, and that they're going to change things even if they have to "roll a hand grenade across the country" to do it.

Or maybe it was just angry old white guys. 

He needs to continue the narrative of his speech last night, and ignore the small, albeit loud portion of his base that voted for him solely on his racist rhetoric.

I'm going to give the guy a chance to live up to the office.

Yeah, ya gotta say arse.  LB has the "fool the censors" dictionary.

I said during the primaries that the mood I was seeing constantly was that people were tired of all the protesting, being called racists, being told that the demographics had changes and they had no say anymore, etc. etc.  Yesterday was a push back.....and if you didn't know that was coming in some form or another then you just haven't been paying attention.  Admittedly, I was not as confident as Tony has consistently been about a Trump victory......but this doesn't surprise me in the least.  I'd say the Clinton supporters are damn lucky it wasn't a lot worse.

What a crazy night.  OK, now I can give my breakdown.

From the moment Trump announced I knew that he was different and I knew that he was what America needed.  The amount of support and polling he was receiving confirmed that his phenomenon was beyond my local state.
He was laughed at, mocked, and ridiculed all the way through the primaries but methodically picked off seasoned politician after politician.
After winning the nomination he continued to be mocked and ridiculed and built up a sizable momentum and it was looking like a clear blowout.
Then there was the Access Hollywood tape which would be a death blow to any politician in the history of the US.  However, I believe Trump was way ahead at that point so the loss in vote he received put him only slightly behind.
He continued to Trend up for the next month and Hillary continued to be dogged by the exposure of their internal emails and the FBI investigation/no investigation.

The combination allowed him to get back into a competitive position towards the end of the race with a peak at just the right time.

Polls:
I have been burnt by polls in both 2008 and 2012 and they ended up being fairly close in both of those races.  I vowed to myself after 2012 to never agin get sucked into "the polls are wrong" because they're "always right".  Yet, as I watched rally after rally with tens of thousands of people and the crazy amount of online support they just didn't make sense to me.  There was no real world confirmation of the polls.  In 2008 and 2012 Obama was leading in the polls and he was a rock star at his rally's.  I kept trying to convince myself that high enthusiasm doesn't equal higher votes but I was wrong.
So this time around I took what I learned in 2008 and 2012 and applied it to Trump.  I started to add in my own "skew factor" to the polls of about 5% from the average and treating the race that way.  I've also talked endlessly about how the turnout this year was not going to be like it was in 2012 and that's what most of the pollsters were using.  I was right, they were wrong.

Now before I get too far out there, I will say that I was both right but I was also wrong.  The polls were off, but they weren't off as much as I thought they were.  They were skewed about 2% nationally which is inside the margin of error.  They did have some big time fails in the rust belt states because predicted close races in Ohio as an example ended up being total blow outs by Trump.

Last night was a fun night, but it was also a stressful night.  For the few hours when Florida and North Carolina kept flopping back and forth to the lead my gut was churning like crazy.  However, when NC and FL started going solid Trump lead and the Virginia lead held out until almost the very end I knew it was changing.  When OH, PA, WI, MN, MI all came in near even at the start I started to feel like it was happening but stayed cautiously optimistic.

It wasn't until Wisconsin was called red that I truly realized we won.  I was running around the living room screaming like a little girl.  Coolest feeling ever.

I have obviously been one of the main cheerleader for Trump here on BT, but I've also spent many hours a day on forums all over the internet doing my part to change opinions.  I wish you guys could see the community that formed on Reddit for Trump.  I was one of the old timers there.  It was over 250k "Centepedes" that were taking their own time to change this race through memes, social media, crowd sourcing every aspect of research that was required.  We spent likely millions of collective hours reading through wiki emails and getting the information out there for all to see.
Yes, Trump was the leader but there was a legion of the most diverse group of young men and women I've ever seen put together working in the background.  What surprised me the most was the size of the college and gay community the twas represented on Reddit.  Trump is truly the most outwardly accepting Republican towards the gay community and it couldn't have been more apparent on reddit.

Anyway, I'm just rambling a little bit right now but I'm really excited about our future.  It's been hard at times because a guy can only be called a racist bigot so many times on FB and even here before it starts to effect you.  However, I want to encourage every one of you to keep up the fight and work hard for what you are passionate about and you can make a difference.

#MAGA 

Oh, and on Nate Silver (or is it bronze now)

I mentioned it the other day.  He was beholden to the polls that were out there so I knew if the polls were off he would be off.

He did provide some great information the other day about what the race would look like if the polls ended up being closer to an even race or even a Clinton +1 or +2.  He said it would likely favor Trump in the electoral college.  He was spot on.

So as much as I like picking on him he was right in his analysis and was just unfortunate in that his models relied on the polls that were off just a bit. 

In an attempt to talk many of my friends off the ledge, I posted this on my FB page this morning.  Eerily similar to what I posted 4 years ago to help talk my right leaning friends off the ledge when Obama won.

Trump won.

The world will not end.

It is not the end of America. I hope and pray that we may now start to come together as Americans. Put away the squabbles and truly work together to improve this nation as we move forward in one of the greatest experiments on earth.

To quote Churchill "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." The process worked. It is not pretty but it worked.

Finally, I am not a terribly religious person. Spiritual maybe but not religious. This morning on my way to work I recalled a passage that means much to my Lambda Chi brothers and I think couldn't be more appropriate than right now. Probably one of my favorite bible verses 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 (http://www.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/13) and summarized so eloquently by the Beatles. "All we need is love."

And the Dow is up 100 points - also unpredicted. 

Wow. I gotta hand it to you guys - you were right. I'm shocked. Then again, Colorado went Clinton, so I feel like I was at least right about that

I was off on the popular vote, but was pretty close on the electoral.  It's not completely final but it looks like I was off on CO and WI on my prediction map and correct with the rest. 

Hey Brit........it's throwback Wednesday!!  This look familiar?  I'm not seeing this usual smugness from the left this morning. LOL

I'm going to be gracious after this post.....I just want you to get ready for the idea that NOTHING you thought is about to happen. 

I'm not real pleased about a Trump presidency, but I'm very happy about Clinton losing.

Come on CD, dmiller, britabroad, and ejshowers. I know you guys are lurking.

I promise, we'll all be nice.

Well, for me......I promise to be nice tomorrow.....this is just way too funny to give up on today..

I have about 20 FB exchanges that I desperately want to go back on and gloat.  It's taking all I have to resist, but I am.   

I'm not gloating.....if you remember, I said that I would pull the covers over my head, and stay in bed laughing all day if Trump won.  I wasn't able to stay in bed......but I doubt I've laughed as hard as I have today in a while.

I'm just keeping my promise.

Not so much.....the vote was vastly along party lines.  Independents sealed it.

Here you go, bro.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html