Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Election Live Blog

I just cracked a beer and I'll be here all night.  So check in regularly.

5:59  The Farmer News Network has breaking news: We are projecting that Indiana, the Alabama of the Midwest, will award its electoral votes to Donald Trump.

6:35  Just finished some leftover wings, and now ready to get to work.  First off, I'll make a prediction for the results for my home county.  I think it will be 65% Trump, 31% Clinton, 4% other.  Check back about 9:30 for the actual totals.

6:41  I would expect that the Indiana Senate race won't be declared for a while, but the first results I saw had Todd Young's current lead being smaller than Trump's.  That can't be a good sign for him.

6:49  Honestly, I think several election cycles from now, whatever takes the place of the Republican Party will look back at 2016 and curse the fact that the GOP base selected the candidate who doubled down on favoring the dying demographics while attacking growing populations in the country.  Much of the age group that will most strongly support the GOP will be dead in 2028.

6:54  I'm not sure how farm state Congressmen will be able to go to their colleagues in the next 2 years leading up to the renewal of the Farm Bill, and make the case that despite the fact that farmers don't think anybody else deserves welfare, farmers deserve welfare. And, most likely, it will be at a time when farmers really need welfare.  We'll see what happens there, but I think farmers will be depending on the kindness of liberals.

6:56  Frank Luntz, father of labeling the estate tax the death tax, is calling the election for Hillary.


7:00 CNN joins the FNN in calling Indiana for Trump

7:02 Trump jumps out to an early 19-3 lead according to CNN.  Of course, the Browns often jump out to an early lead, too.

7:04 Bad news out of LA:




7:06 Hopefully this isn't a domestic terrorist attacking our election process.

7:08  I haven't seen anything about this shooting on CNN or Fox News, nor heard it on NPR.

7:26  Lots of interesting ballot issues voted on today.  I'm watching the death penalty referendum brought by Governor Pete Ricketts to overrule the legislature's ban on the death penalty.  The Ricketts family is a major reason I was rooting for the Cubs to lose the World Series.

7:29  If Clinton wins Florida, this race is over.

7:31  The FNN calls the congressional races for Jim Jordan and Warren Davidson in Western Ohio.  The do-nothing caucus secures 2 wins.

7:37  Trump needs Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa and someplace else.  He's probably going to do pretty good with the first four.  Apparently, though, Frank Luntz must have different information.

7:42  It's kind of hard to gauge anything about the races soon after the polls close.  The crazy conservative rural areas tend to turn in their results quicker, since it doesn't take long to count a dozen votes, skewing the early projections.

8:03  A growing rural-urban divide, combined with greater representation by do-nothing jackasses like Jim Jordan bodes very poorly for rural areas.  We are kind of baking in further decline and greater dysfunction like the current heroin epidemic.

8:06 It will depressing if Florida goes for Clinton but Ohio goes with the Donald.  Ohio, don't make Buckeyes look like jackasses.

8:10  Honestly, this election make Obama look so much better than a decent election would.

8:17  Thank God


8:22 Florida is ridiculously close. Trump has to win this to have any chance. Clinton is leading Ohio. Western Ohio results must not have been tallied yet.

8:27  We could use a marijuana referendum result to lighten things up a little.

8:33  Looks like Evan Bayh may blow the Indiana Senate race.  Governor may still be interesting.  It would have been more interesting if Pence was still in it to reap the whirlwind from "defending religious freedom" to hate gays.

8:39  Virginia is really showing the exploding rural-urban divide.  Not good for rural areas long-term.

8:48  Being out-of-touch with the rest of the country is not a good thing



8:51 Third time's the charm.

8:52 Fox News is cheerleading right now, really building up the rural landslide for Trump. I think the population centers will win out, but Fox will keep the rubes locked in.

9:04  Early on, Pete Ricketts is winning his campaign to bring back the death penalty, according to the Omaha World-Herald.  I sure hope that asshole loses.

9:12  My county went 68% Trump, 27% Clinton, 5% other.

9:18  If Trump holds leads from rural votes in Virginia and Ohio, but urban votes come in to top him, the Fox News viewership is going to lose its shit about voter fraud.

9:21  It may come down to Nevada.

9:23 If Trump wins, expect the market to to take a shit tomorrow.  And for weeks afterwards.

9:27  Virginia is the biggest surprise so far.

9:29  If you are actually reading this and want to add something, please comment.

9:36  Now Michigan and Wisconsin become interesting.  There may be a lot of people with hangovers tomorrow.

9:39  There is panic in the liberal Twitterati.  Bad news for Clinton, but maybe just a major scare for them.  Pretty early yet.

9:45  Oops, more votes still coming in in my county.  More going for Trump.

9:47  If Trump wins Virginia, this may be over.  Revenge of the rural voters.  W may be off the hook as the worst president of the century.

9:49  I'm into the can beer.  May as well start saving money.   My stock portfolio is going to get pretty ugly.  I doubt that this will inspire corporate America, either.f

9:54  Checking Fox News to see how giddy they are.

9:58 Wow, Fox just called Virginia for Clinton

10:03  Wow, Trump is winning 80% of the vote in Mercer County, OH, 79% in Auglaize and 78% in Shelby.  That is crazy, even for extremely racist areas.  This is heavy government farm payment country.

10:14  Trump vote totals in West Central Ohio are insane.

10:17  Brexit 2.0?  The whole lesson of 2016 may be that rural areas can fuck entire nations at will.

10:19  In other words, showing up matters, even if you are crazy.

10:23  Ohio is probably gone.  Clinton is done without Michigan and Wisconsin.  If she wins those, everything comes down to Nevada.

10:33  NPR is reporting that evangelicals are going 80% for Trump.  WTF?  Christianity is dead.

10:37  If you thought W was bad, you haven't seen nothing yet.  If you thought W was good, you were wrong, and now you are even more wrong.

10:41  

10:52 Holy shit. Ron Johnson won easily. The man is a bump on a log in the Senate and never should have gotten elected in the first place. I honestly think Clinton is done now. It looks like the Midwest is going to carry Trump to the Presidency. We are going to get punished for this stupidity.

10:59  It is over.  Trump wins.

11:02  Wow.

11:04  This is Brexit 2.0, and it will be a disaster.

11:10  Fox is talking about the ins versus the outs, and how people are voting for Trump because they don't like the establishment.  This is true.  The thing is, the outs are pissed off because the ins weren't sharing productivity gains.  And yet, Trump's tax plan is to reward the ins for stealing the productivity gains.  The outs are going to continue to be pissed off, and even worse, the Trump crew will slash the social programs that keep the real poor from getting completely pissed off about how badly they get fucked.  This is the worst possible outcome.

11:18  My prediction at this point is that Trump will win Wisconsin, Michigan and the presidency.  The stock market is going to crash tomorrow.

11:24  My point isn't that a Hillary Clinton victory would save America from disaster.  My point is that the economic and tax policies Hillary Clinton would support would be more likely to counter-balance the inequalities that are causing working-class people to be pissed off.  Cutting taxes and regulations will not improve the standing of the working-class.  These policies will only make their standing worse.  I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.

11:35  

11:48  The problem throughout the economic struggles, especially those felt in the manufacturing field, over the past 40 years has been that the U.S. had to deflate an economy that saw 5% of the population consuming 15 to 20% of the world's resources.  What we needed was a fairly equal sacrifice amongst the wealthy and the working class.  We didn't get anything like that.  Hell, we haven't even quit consuming that 15 to 20% of the world's resources.  We just quit sharing the gains from that economy.  This election will make that tension worse, even if the working class feels like it won.  That is what scares me.  Well, that and Donald Trump as President.

11:56  God, this just makes things worse for rural areas




12:18 Trump will win Pennsylvania and Michigan.

12:25 How in the fuck is this possible?


12:37 Fuck you, CA Technologies



12:49 This is going to be a mess.

12:52 It looks like sane people were incorrect. Donald Trump could just win with white marks, er, voters.

1:02 Fuck you, Pete Ricketts. You make the world a worse place.

1:14  Well, the sun will come up again in a few hours. I and financial markets will just have a hell of a hangover when it does.  Have a good day tomorrow.  Things are going to get interesting.

1:30  Fasten your seat belts.  Come January 20, the Republicans will control the House, the Senate and the White House.  And soon enough, the Supreme Court.  This will not work out well for average people.

6 comments:

  1. As of 10:15 NYT giving Trump 73% chance of winning. Talk about a shocking turn of events...

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  2. What is going to be shocking is the fallout.

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  3. What's surprising is that the pre-election polls have been directional but clearly not definitive. Still early so we shall see.

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  4. If Democrats aren't shitting their pants right now, they are on some seriously strong drugs.

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  5. A little early to call but it sure does appear to be trending as you predict. DOW down 700... Lesson here is that Democrats may have ignored or wrote off working class whites one election cycle too soon.

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  6. It is over. The lesson as I see it is that Democrats assumed the white working class wouldn't totally vote against their own interests. Trump economic policy will royally fuck the white working class. Pride is the greatest of the Cardinal sins.

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