The reason no-one believed Trump would win was that we were all suckered into believing that no-one would be dumb enough to vote for the asshole.

On one hand, we were right. In any sane election, Trump would have lost because he got TWO MILLION less votes.

On the other hand, we underestimated the stupidity of half the US electorate.

The dumbest people voted for the dumbest, most crooked candidate and he is now merrily fucking over the very same people who voted for him, while they lie back screaming "yeah, fuck me harder.... I can take it! more!!"

Sorry USA, but if you don't get your shit together, we'll just have to wait for your inevitable economic collapse, because there's no way you can maintain your position if this is the calibre of leader you intend to elect in future.

You know what's really good for stopping tyrannical governments? Free and open elections.

How about instead of perpetuating this fantasy where a bunch of guys with AR-15s are gonna take on a government with fucking PREDATOR DRONES, you try and fix your insanely broken electoral system?

Start with repealing Citizens United, then you can move on to fixing gerrymandering, dismantling the electoral college and finally, find a way to get rid of the lobbyist block.

Do all that, and you won't need to overthrow your government. Not that you could anyway.

Hillary won popular vote by 2.2% .

Trump won Electoral College Victory by 24% victory over Hillary.

And you thing Hillary should have won POTUS.
Hillary has a better chance of going to jail than the White House. Both slim to none.

Electoral college is ALL that matters in the election.
Sorry that you side just can't comes to terms with reality. Maybe try some therapy.
Tripling the deficit... To what?
The rest of your text is just gibberish, pure garbage.. Of course he will benefit He is a tax payer.

Trump is doing a great job as POTUS.

That means he LOST the election by a landslide, but won the electoral college by a landslide.
It's really wishful thinking to believe he could do it again...even against Hillary. At this point, most of those independents and many republicans have voter's remorse.
Only one person agrees with your assessment of his performance, him.

Tripling the deficit in his first year with one law designed to benefit his own family at the expense of the indigent is not what anyone needs....anyone who's American. Only our enemies could see that as good....so you must not be an American.

306 VS 232 Electoral college votes . Land slide.
Keep crying for another 7 years.

Trump is doing a great job.
He is exactly what you need as POTUS.

Bob's pretty much right, by the only numbers that matter (electoral votes). Is that a stupid system, that both sides should be clamoring to resign to the scrap heap? Yes. But they aren't, in spite of the D's getting screwed by it twice in very recent memory, and even the R "beneficiaries" have had to try to deal with some uncomfortable infighting and internal strife as a result (cue world's tiniest violin).

I don't think Trump is some sort of super genius and that he "played the game under the existing rules" better than Hillary or anything. He won by a technicality, just as you say -- but the mere fact that anyone can actually win by such a technicality ought to be an unbearable affront to our very conceptions of Democracy and Government. Instead, entirely too many of us seemed too complacent and apathetic to give a fuck, moments later. I really wish I could muster some surprise at this point.

I don't agree with Bob's other assertion that Trump stands a great chance of beating anyone that gets the D nod in 2020. On the other hand, 2016 proved the old adage about what happens when we assume.

I do completely concur with (both of) you that President Oprah isn't the answer.

Popular vote does not mean jack.. keep dreaming

Hillary was to win by a land slide but just the opposite happened

306 VS 232 Electoral college votes . Land slide.

He didn't "beat the heck out of her", he lost the popular vote. The majority of voters voted for Clinton. Those votes were stolen by the worthless Electoral College and an immature, pedophile-enabling, chronic liar was put in a position of power.

The first thing that needs to happen to restore America to sanity is flushing the Electoral College. It's a useless relic, and serves zero purpose in modern times.

The electoral college is part of the problem certainly, but even that could be done better. Even the way Maine and Nebraska do it would be a vast improvement.

I don't believe it's "rigged", it's just a bad voting system, and it suffers from all the problems with FPP voting systems in addition to its unique crapulence.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/The-Problems-with-First-Past-the-Post-Voting-Explained

I agree, Time has been clear that it's about amount of impact, not who made the biggest positive impact.

I could certainly be wrong, it happened that one time before, but I think you underestimate how disillusioned Americans are with both parties and how ready we are to abandon them both. I really hope I'm not wrong about that.

Remember, Sanders was holding his own in funding without any corporate donors....astonishingly. No other candidate has had that kind of finance reform credentials that I recall, certainly not recently, and imo, that's step one for any reforms there.

I don't know what you mean if you're talking about the electoral college. I agree, it's outdated and it's time to toss or rewrite it, but I don't think it's so rigged that he couldn't win.

Say what you want about Trump, and fuck knows I despise the illiterate, racist, sexist, homophobic, moron... but he totally deserved person of the year. The exact same way Hitler did.

And there's no way in hell Sanders would win as an independent, at least, not until you fix your thoroughly broken electoral system.

I think you are missing the historical context that he came to power in. Yes Trump is a compulsive liar. Feeds on Narrow minded slogans he took from the cold war.

The American electoral system is corrupt as hell, The Democratic primary was rigged. And they are doubling down on rigging it for 2020, and pushing out progressive thinkers internally. Half the states have been gerrymandered in the South for Senate and House races.
People don't seem to realize in the US that most corrupt Illegal practices like bribery, money laundering corporate money to and from candidates, are considered an illegitimate election in third world countries by vote monitors even. The US internally legalized their corruption. Basically bribery is legal.

According to america's electoral college it's citizens are going to get what the people in power say will make the most profit.

https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/keep-it-simple-and-take-credit/

"Implementing these kinds of policies are also no road to electoral success. Peoples’ lives are hard enough without tax credits and savings accounts and eligibility forms and government phone calls that determine whether one’s household income puts one in the bracket for this or that plan or benefit or subsidy and on and on. No voter is thanking anyone who puts them on this road, even if there’s a small pot of money at the end of it.

And forget the annoyance—the amount of immense mental energy and social capital required to keep track of, comprehend the eligibility requirements of, and then successfully apply for these benefits is a de facto regressive tax on people whose lives are too materially difficult to deal with arcane bureaucratic bullshit. That is, those people that need the help the most.

So what to do? No more savings accounts, no more cleverly hidden help that people won’t even notice, no more tax-preferenced, means-tested, government-monitored, website-reliant, bronze/gold/platinum-benefits-so-long-as-you-apply-during-open-enrollment. Just give people the stuff they need.

This shouldn’t even be a liberal-socialist divide, although it seems to have become one in recent years. When society decided citizens should be able to read, we didn’t provide tax credits for books, we created public libraries. When we decided peoples’ houses shouldn’t burn down, we didn’t provide savings accounts for private fire insurance, we hired firefighters and built fire stations. If the broad left takes power again, enough with too-clever-by-half social engineering. Help people and take credit."

As Lambert Strether of Corrente says: universal, concrete, material benefits.