What does the election mean for us

Alice22 said...
Keith,

Ok, I should have said that among the people who voted, Trump got the majority of votes. I am also from New York - raised on Long Island and most of my family worked in the city. Trump can be a crude, rude, insulting and self centered guy, agreed. But despite his bad qualities I believe he loves our country and wants to do good things - help our veterans, improve healthcare, improve the economy, etc. I didn't hear anything from the other side but more of the same which was not very inspiring. As obnoxious as Trump can be there are many people who know him personally and say he's a different person in private. The truth is we all are a mixed bag of good and bad qualities. I have UC too and I am not worried that his presidency will negatively affect my healthcare and pray that I am not wrong, for my sake and everyone else’s. Don’t forget that Trump was a Democrat until four years ago – I don’t know if that is any consolation but it would at least seem to suggest that he is not strictly aligned to one ideology. If Trump is an awful president I will vote for someone else in four years. He was not my first choice but I thought he’d be better than Clinton. Can you try to have a “wait and see” attitude and give him a chance?

Alice

He did not get the Majority of the Vote, he actually lost the overall Popular Vote by about 300,000 votes. He did win the electoral college. I would say that there was a effective effort to disenfranchise minority voters by lowering the number of polling places in Republican governed swing states and passing voter ID laws.

Even if Trump was on the democratic ticket I would not have voted for him, out of the principal that he is a bigoted xenophobe narcissist among many other things . I actually vote most of the time Republican for my State elections.

He doesn't do what he says. He promised a donation to veterans and didn't give it until 4 months later after he was shamed into giving it. /www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/24/four-months-later-donald-trump-says-he-gave-1-million-to-veterans-group/

I believe Trump is incapable of loving the country, because he is a narcissist the only thing he loves is himself. Here is a great article about Trumps' narcissistic tendencies and how bad they could end up being when things start to go wrong.
/www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/22/is-donald-trump-a-textbook-narcissist/

He is really incapable of sincerely apologizing for anything, SNL spoofs it as Applegizing because Trump can't really even say the word. The only time he apologizing was for the Access Hollywood tape where he bragged about committing sexual assault which would be a crime if reported.

I think I have every right to be terrified of what is going to happen to health care/insurance in this country.

CCinPA said...

ks, it's long been a dream of Paul Ryan to privatize both Social Security and Medicare.

That would probably mean vouchers and HMOs if they did privatized Medicare.

ks1905 said...
I would say that there was a effective effort to disenfranchise minority voters by lowering the number of polling places in Republican governed swing states and passing voter ID laws.

I saw one candidate as a potential demagogue, the other as a congenital liar who believes that rules and laws don't apply to her. I refused to vote for either one of them.

But I think that this idea of voter ID laws to suppress voters is a myth. Nobody complains when the Obama Administration now requires just about everybody to get their social security checks, not by check but by automatic deposit into a bank account. Well it is impossible to open a bank account without a photo ID. People don't complain of “entitlement suppression” when forced to have a photo ID, but somehow asking for that same ID for voting is called “voter suppression”.

Before Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently retired he was considered one of the most LIBERAL members of the Court. In 2008 she wrote “Flagrant examples of such fraud . . . have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.”

This was when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's photo-ID law in a 6-3 decision. Justice Stevens should know since he practiced law in Chicago where the dead come to life on each election day.

CCinPA said...


It will run out of money even sooner if less is put into it. There is a simple fix to both SS & Medicare but the republicans will never do it. All they need to do is raise the contributions by a very small amount and raise the limit of wages affected.

For some reason people have forgotten why any of these programs were started in the first place. It's not like someone just wanted to give money to old people. There was a very pressing and urgent need. That need is still there and will be manifestly ugly when those programs are slashed.

Anyone who puts part of their withholdings into a private account would collect less from in SS retirement benefits, so it would also lower the programs long term liabilities.

The reason there's a cap on wages subject to SS withholding is because the way the benefits are calculated the more you pay in, the more you collect when you retire. That's been a fundamental principle of the program since it's inception. That's why you get an annual estimate of your retirement benefits from the SSA. If we eliminate the wage cap the liabilities will also go up. So this would only help if we abandon that principle and just make it another income transfer program.

There are lots of proposals for reforming social security and none of them are painless. I also don't see Democrats pushing for any of them.

www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-05-2012/future-of-social-security-proposals.html

I just read that he changed his mind and wants to continue Obamacare. At least he wants to help those with pre-existing conditions and have children insured under their parents. I feel a little better now.

I remember when 401k's were first started. They were supposed to be a way to allow workers to supplement their company pensions. Now very few people work somewhere where there is a company pension plan (except teachers & government workers). They say they only want to privatize a portion of SS now to allow people to supplement their guaranteed retirement income. Isn't that what the 401k is for? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Time will tell what will happen to health care in this country. One thing I think we can all agree on is that something needs to be done because it's a huge mess!

I'm backing out of this thread now ... got a bit side tracked and I am pretty sick of politics at the moment.

beatUC ... I agree ;)

I gave up on the idea of SS a long time ago, long before Obama, Trump and Hillary. By the time I retire, it won't be there. It's been broke for almost 20 years, and the government just kicks the can down the road with IOUs. Glad the Boomers are getting it, but I'll be surprised as hell if GenX sees a penny.

messing with medicare which works well, is the quickest way out of office.

Everyone since last year has been questioning how or why Donald Trump was doing so well as the Repub candidate. The answer might be that the other Republican candidates were worse. Trump was the only one who promised to leave social security and Medicare intact without changes.

But I just could never figure out why the Dems were so insistent on making Hillary Clinton their candidate. Now I think a lot of Dems are wondering the same thing.

This liberal leftist from England seems to be pissed at our election

https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/?pnref=story

"Give him time to see what he'll do." Byebye UC and others: are you kidding? Just look at the mediocrities (and worse) he put on his transition team and who he is proposing for the Cabinet. Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior? People who vote Republican don't seem to understand that fascism is still an evil idea-- because all they care about is materialism and the fetus; everything else can go hang. We've seen this over and over for the last 40 years! I'm not saying that Democrats have all the answers all the time, but at least they do try to incorporate serious research into their policy proposals and promote well-being of other sectors of our population besides white businessmen. / Old Hat (36 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)

FYI, Keith et al.-- MoveOn.org has started a petition drive to abolish the Electoral College system in favor of a popular vote count in Presidential elections. So far they have 435,000+ signatures. / Old Hat (36 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)

Old Hat: "he put on his transition team and who he is proposing for the Cabinet. Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior?"

Do you believe Victoria 'F the EU' Nuland and the coterie of warmongering neocons under Clinton would have been any better? The way I see it, it is one establishment replacing another. Two equally bad neoliberal, right-wing choices. The only difference: one spoke more politely.