I voted for Hillary with a heavy heart. But the ALTERNATIVE REALITY of donjohntrump was unthinkable. Whom would YOU rather have voted for?

I was toying with voting for the Green Party candidate but then I thought that would be like not voting at all or wasting my vote Walt. So I voted for the person I thought would do the least harm and by default do the most good. SIGH. It didn't matter. The fix was in from the get-go. I think your logic is faultless. Seriously I do. But as you can see a do-nothing scairdy cat impotent sycophantic toady spineless congress is worthless. I know they're Republican but even so and partisan political party notwithstanding our gubment is SUPPOSED TO WORK BECAUSE OF THE CHECK-AND-BALANCE system and when any leg isn't doing its job  it gets very wobbly.  SIGH. Thank you for your reply and Happy Thursday! :)

If more people refused to buy into the "a vote for a 3rd Party is a wasted vote" brainwashing (by the Big Two and the media) ... maybe those who don't see a point of voting would vote ... and 3rd Party candidates would win more seats/offices.

Here's the problem with that. We had more than one '3rd party" from which to choose. Libertarian, Green, Peace & Freedom. Democratic, Republican and several others whose names I forget.  Each vote for one of them reduces the size of the pool that can vote for someone who can win. I ALWAYS vote no matter what. The most joyful votes were for Obama both times. I loved voting for JFK. Truman I was too young to vote for but I would have been honored to vote for him. I  think he was a straightshooter from stem to stern. With Russia in play today 24/7 as well as the dirty tricks political thugs of all stripes no one's vote is sacrosanct any more. No one's. Even so I shall still vote every general election and vote in every primary and I do my due diligence and research the folks of whom I know nothing to find out what kind of track record they have. It takes a lot of time to do that. But I have the internet so I do it in the comfort of my own home at any hour of any day I wish. I will not shirk my duty to vote. How much it matters in the long run to the endgame I don't know and frankly I don't care. I do it for me and for the country that used to be. For old times' sake. For auld lang syne m'dear. Thank you for your reply Walt. How many "other parties" were on your general election ballot? This post was edited by RosieG at August 16, 2018 8:13 AM MDT

We had over 12 candidates for a Senate seat ... and the top 2 go on to the primary.
Most of the candidates were Republican or Democrat ... but there was 1 Libertarian, 2 Independent, 1 Stand Up America (anti-Trump party), 1 FDFR party, and some other I can't remember the name of.

I couldn't find such a thing as the FDFR Party.
But from the candidate's statement and website, I gather it stands for: "F__k Democrats and F__k Republicans".  LOL
If he would have stood for something other than ranting against the 2 Party System, I might have voted for him.

If the 1/3 of eligible voters who don't vote would vote ... even for 3rd Party candidates that didn't win ... the "tidal pressure" would be felt by the candidate that DID win.

Even without that ... if the major 2 Party candidates start losing "their people" to 3rd Parties, they will be forced to alter their actions.

In the California primary we had June 5 there were 32 candidates for Senator I believe and 26 for another slot. It was an incredibly hilarious coming together of whatevers! I mean seriously never in my life did I have to go through and research so many people. I think it was Jill Stein whom I contemplated voting for and I think it was the Green Party. I belong to the Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy so I'm interested in those things. Maybe one day I"ll go that route. I wasn't drawn to Bernie. Too strident.  I would vote for Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris.  Kamala was Attorney General in California before she became a US Senator from California. She is ONE SMART COOKIE. I like Elizabeth Warren's passion for the little guy. Fighting to get a Consumer Protection Agency when no one else seemed to give a rat's a** about us.She is very articulate but then wasn't she a college professor? I like/love/adore INTELLIGENCE when it is used on behalf of we the people and not for some greedy peevish self-serving aggrandizement. But I digress. Mid-terms will be "interesting" to say the least. Thank you for your reply Walt.  We have some nifty conversations for which I think you! :) This post was edited by RosieG at August 16, 2018 9:04 AM MDT

More than half of the country didn't vote at all, that was the problem.

:):):)

I got no problem with people who don't care enough about the election not voting. If someone does not educate themselves about the issues.....I do not want them to vote.

You educated yourself on the issues and still voted for Trump?

Yep....he is still the best candidate for the job and my economy is proof. Cannot argue with the numbers.

That's your opinion and not an incontrovertible fact.

Even tom jackson , five comments down , said over half the country voted for trump.

So he's wrong too. Apathy and a system gerrymandered up the wazoo saw His Royal Orangeness elected.

Wrong. Congressional districts are gerrymandered, which means district boundaries change. By definition, the Electoral College is not, because state boundaries don't change.

And in any case, what's the point of whining about it two years after the fact? Especially for someone like you, who didn't vote and thus did nothing to prevent the outcome?

Lets use Florisa in 2000 as an example.
Bush won by 200 votes (supposedly), a fraction of one per cent. A sane system would have sent 15 GOP electors and 14 Dem electors to the college - it was as close as you can get to a dead heat, he won by a bee's genitalia.
The Republicans got ALL 29 ELECTORS.

Yes he did, but the same would have been true had Gore been declared the winner. And that was 18 years ago and even less worth whining about than this one. Also, the 2016 results weren't that close in any of the 51 state and DC races.

And once again, you didn't vote and thus did nothing to affect the outcome, so you have no basis for complaint. This post was edited by Stu Spelling Bee at August 17, 2018 7:34 PM MDT

I COULDN'T vote, Australians aren't eligible - but when a demented megalomaniac has his tiny orange claws on the launch codes, it makes everybody a little nervous. The POTUS styles himself "leader of the free world", so when the US hits its thumb with a hammer, everybody screams in pain.
The opinion polls had HRC on a hiding to nothing, unbackable - so more than a few voters had an attack of complacency. They didn't show up. Trump got his votes out.

Obviously you couldn't vote, but that fact doesn't alter the reality that nobody who didn't participate in a particular election has any basis for complaint about its outcome. The same principle would apply to me and any election held in Australia. This post was edited by Stu Spelling Bee at August 17, 2018 7:57 PM MDT

The actions of our Prime Minister don't have a large fraction of the global impact that the actions of the POTUS do. Trump scares me, he's erratic, unstable and narcissistic. He could decide that this isn't as much fun as he thought it would be and go out with a bang - literally.

With all due respect, nothing that happens in Australia has much of a global impact. No wonder that you seemingly have nothing better to do than obsess about the US.

I don't know how it is in Australia, but the US is a free country where we have the right to vote or not vote as we choose. And how can you know that a larger turnout would have yielded a different outcome?