The Washington Post article I posted earlier today gave a very compelling portrait of Trump’s supporters. They want the “good old days” to come back. They want an America that is dominated by white men. They are angry about the influx of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. They don’t like the Black Lives Matter movement. They reject multiculturalism. They are angry because of the loss of manufacturing jobs to automation and outsourcing. They feel cheated. They miss the world of “Father Knows Best.” Their grievances are real, and Trump has fed their sense of grievance with his keen understanding of how to play to the audience. As he often says, “I am your voice.” His empathy with white working-class men is remarkable considering his own privileged origins.
Now he says, to roaring crowds, “It’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system.” He hasn’t lost yet, and may even win, but he wants his rabid followers to believe that our democracy is hopelessly broken, controlled by unknown corrupt figures.
Voting rules and election monitoring are controlled by local and state officials. Most states have Republican governors and legislatures. Surely they are not rigging the system to favor Hillary. Trump’s claim is nonsensical, and its only purpose is to protect his giant ego in case he loses.
Trump is acting like a big baby, who tears up the game board and throws the pieces in the air if he doesn’t win the game. In his mind, he must win or the game is rigged. It is frightening to realize that 40%
He has an authoritarian disposition and no respect for democracy.
The Republican Party faces a huge challenge in rebuilding after Trump, who leaves a legacy of white nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny.
It’s frightening to realize that a very large proportion of the voting public shares Trump’s worldview.

Diane I really don’t get you, you know both sides are bad – you think Hillary is going to do anything for education, she will make what we have now worse for teachers and for students. FYI Americans are mad, as they should be – only problem is that for the last 30 years the education system has be designed to create people who are unable to think critically – thus we get this anger that is mad at something it can’t understand and as ignorant people do they point their anger at the wrong thing (immigrants etc.). Anger should be focused at the fact that OUR GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY CORPORATIONS AND BANKS – our government no longer serves the people and it allows these corporations not to only prey on the blacks (as it always has done), but on lower and middle class whites. Only problem is that when you have an economy that is based on consumerism and you have impoverished everyone – no one can buy your stuff and that is where we are at. Brace yourself because we have another big economic crash coming our way.
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19battlehill,
I don’t think both sides are bad. I think Trump is unqualified and unfit for the presidency.
I admire Hillary and hope to have the chance to bring her up to speed on education issues. No president has been perfect, from my point of view. She won’t be either. But I think she is by far the better candidate of the two.
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OBAMA had A year and a half of nothing, http://prorev.com/connex.htm you admire HRC ? READ this for starters
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I must be a knuckedragger, believing the popular viote should win all. It was disappointing to see Bernie win primaries and get a scant number of electoral votes whilst Hillary, the loser, got more. The odds were certainly stacked against Bernie.
Time to eliminate the electoral college.
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YES…I’ve been saying that for 20 years.
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In the primaries, there were NO electoral votes. Bernie lost fair and square.
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Yes, it is rigged. Paul Krugman outlines it well in today’s NYT. And on the opposite page, the editorial explains how future constitutional issues will be rigged.
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Link?
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Krugman: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-election.html?_r=0
Editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/a-coup-against-the-supreme-court.html?src=me
And from a real American hero (one of the most over-used words in the English language): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/campaign-stops/harry-belafonte-what-do-we-have-to-lose-everything.html?src=me
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Thanks!!
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Thank you for posting the Belafonte essay. I had missed it and it was incredible.
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Here’s the crux of Krugman’s argument:
“Mrs. Clinton has actually run a remarkable campaign, demonstrating her tenacity in the face of unfair treatment and remaining cool under pressure that would have broken most of us. Second, and much more important, if she wins it will be thanks to Americans who stood up for our nation’s principles — who waited for hours on voting lines contrived to discourage them, who paid attention to the true stakes in this election rather than letting themselves be distracted by fake scandals and media noise.”
Yep.
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John Stewart calls a man/baby…seems to say it all.
Ryan Collay Director Education by Design Former SMILE director OSU
>
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Yes, it is rigged. Wiki leak has exposed the level of election rigging that orchestrated by the Democrats and the liberal media. It is simply disgusting.
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Right. The Dems and “liberal media” are rigging it for Hillary. And yet the majority of the voters think Hillary is a big fat liar and Trump isn’t. I guess you’re happy that the Dems are the most inept “riggers” of elections ever.
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Scott
Read what Wiki has to say about Trump and the RNC
Here it is
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Joel, that sure looks like information obtained from RNC emails by Russian hackers.
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Scott,
You’re out to lunch.
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Great post, Diane.
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Is he talking about Citizens United? Why is it rigged, because he got outspent? A little poetic justice there.
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I would suggest readers spend some time with the site BlackBoxVoting.org and understand what rigging really means. Understand fractional vote counting and understand what rigging means. Understand Interstate Cross-check [Greg Palast] and understanding what rigging really means.
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I heard part of a Trump speech today. He said that the jobs of his supporters have been stolen. He was making it out like there was a big conspiracy taking advantage of these people. It reminded me of the Nazi myth about how the Jews and others had stabbed the (real) Germans in the back at the end of WWI. He has become a total demagogue.
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I can barely stand to watch him or listen to him rant.
“It’s a rigged election, folks.” Is that a conscious effort to suppress his own vote?
Why vote if it is rigged?
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I can’t stand to watch either of the duopoly’s candidates!
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http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/22/flashback-obama-believed-in-rigged-elections-in-2008-video/
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Call it what you will. We were told we had to trade with WORLD?
Only a few things we do not have, titanium and tungsten carbide.
We export SOY BEANS.
It would be cruel but what would they give us for food if We HELD OUT FOR HIGHER PRICES like OPEC.?
So we had our job stolen because we were told these lies
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Dave, you sound remarkably like a Russian troll.
I see that other guy who got caught out with his lie isn’t posting anymore, so I guess you are his new incarnation
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Ignore Dave. He is a passing tourist.
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Its rigged alright by a dangerous media that is trying to keep a horse race going for the purpose of advertising revenue. Endangering Democracy in that pursuit.
He has certainly been the benefactor of far more air time than he deserved. That’s rigged
Rigged by a media that has taken false equivalence to a knew height.
He is turning the crowds on the media and they still cover him , That’s rigged.
I listen to 30 minutes of non stop slander, out of his vulgar mouth. Then I hear .
Oh he is much improved really on script . That’s rigged.
I have the same criticisms that other lefties on this blog have of Obama and Clinton .
But I listen to both of them ,whether I believe the rhetoric or not . At least they don’t make you ashamed to be an American.
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Well put, Joel.
I watched Obama speak in New Hampshire and he was eloquent.
Trump said that night that Comey’s decision not to prosecute Hillary for her “crimes” has made the US “the laughing stock of the world.” Sadly, I think Trump has made the US a laughing stock. He makes me ashamed to be an American.
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Agree…Obama sounded like the Obama of 2004 at the convention. He was terrific today. Eloquent and full of charm and humor.
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Rigged implies dishonesty. Election officials from both parties seem to be abundantly cautious and dedicated to preserving the integrity of the election process. Maybe a better term is “flawed”.
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Hmm, How can a system have integrity if it is flawed?
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All systems are flawed. But that doesn’t mean they are rigged. Integrity means people believe the election officials are acting in the best interests of the election process, flaws and all. Trump acts solely for Trump.
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No doubt about your last sentence, VM!!
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While I agree that because a system is flawed it may not necessarily be rigged, I don’t see how a belief in the integrity of a system that is flawed makes it any more honorable, especially when the flaws are known. “Oh well, that’s just how it is!” makes a flawed system okay? I don’t think so!
And believing in the integrity of a flawed system is what allows monstrosities of practice, in education malpractices such as the grading, sorting and separating, and ranking of students, i.e., standards and standardized testing to be okay. I just can’t buy that argument.
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The election most certainly is rigged. Citizens United is just the icing on the cake. No matter who gets the “win”, teachers and all workers will continue to face lower standards of living, privatization of public education, at-will employment, cuts or no healthcare/cuts or no pensions and MORE WARS. Clinton/Obama has done more to open up education to corporate predators than any other administration, just as Obama has been the first president to spend his entire two terms at war.
Are many workers who have seen their living standards fall, many catastrophically so, since the 2008 recession so disgusted with the corporate/corrupt/financial elite personified by Clinton that they are voting for Trump, a fascistic candidate? Certainly. But the attempt by Democrats to demonize so-called “white” voters is as bad as anti-immigrant or any other form of racism.
American “democracy” has been reduced to these two deplorable representatives of the moneyed elite. It follows from years of the Democrats and Republicans working together to suppress the strikes and struggles (think Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit teachers) while restricting ballot access to the point that we get a “choice” between two candidates who employ war, cuts to education and social programs and no hope of a better future.
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nancy: why no mention of George W. Bush’s two disastrous terms that got us into 2 wars and 2 occupations of countries while at the same time he lowered taxes on the rich, ballooned the national debt and the deficits, tried to privatize Social Security, partly privatized Medicare and the great recession was on his watch? Sorry, I am not buying this myth that there is an equivalency between Trump and Clinton. Clinton is far superior to Trump by light years.
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While all you say is true of Bush, Clinton gave him authorization in 2002. Not only has Clinton been an advocate of 15 years of wars, she played a leading role in the 2001 US-NATO attack on Libya and has repeatedly demanded a no-fly zone in Syria. According to Wikileaks revelations, she said: “To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk—you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
testified that such policy would be a lead-in to war with Russia, a nuclear power. Clinton’s attacks on Trump over his attitude toward Putin place her to his right on the threat of war. The Russia-baiting is intended to stampede and disorient public opinion, which is broadly anti-war, and enable an incoming Clinton administration to claim a mandate for military escalation.
As for Social Security, transcripts released by WikiLeaks of Clinton speeches to Wall Street bankers, for which she received six-figure paychecks, show her praising the recommendations of the 2010 Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction commission, which called for sweeping cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; the elimination of 200,000 federal jobs; a tax on employees’ health benefits; and huge cuts in income taxes for the wealthy and corporate taxes.
Both Trump and Clinton answer to the same elite paymasters who have nothing in common with the vast bulk of the American people.
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Nancy,
Too late for Trump trolling.
I wouldn’t have that hate-mongering, womanizing, racist buffoon anywhere near the White House.
I am voting for Hillary.
Take your complaints elsewhere.
Donald Trump wants to turn federal funding into vouchers and charters, thus destroying public education.
He is a charlatan and a fraud.
Love trumps hate.
#ImWithHer
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Thank you Diane for your reply. But no “Trump trolling” here. He most certainly would destroy public education. But neither is there any “love” emanating from Clinton for the American people, at least not those who don’t pay to play. She has bragged about “30 years” of supporting charters. Husband Bill set up the federal funding mechanism, Charter Schools Program, that has spent $3 billion on them so far. No wonder NEA delegates booed her.
There is no choice between these two. The problem with the pragmatic “lesser evil” argument is that it leads to results that are worse than what those who voted one way or the other were hoping to prevent. Neither candidate is addressing the issues that concern us.
The “terrible Trump” theory of American politics explains nothing. He is the product of a corporate-dominated political culture, which, for at least the last 40 years, has promoted social backwardness and reaction. However, the popular response to his demagogic slogans reflects genuine social distress. Many workers who are planning on voting for him today previously backed the Democratic Party campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. One of the main consequences of Sanders’ efforts to channel his “political revolution” behind Clinton was to guarantee that social anger and hostility to the status quo would be identified with the political right.
In the final analysis, Trump’s rise is a product of the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party as well as the Republican. Two parties of the rich.
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yes, it is frightening…….let’s move forward not backward, but do let us fix healthcare!
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I agree, we should have had Medicare for all 50 years ago. It’s long overdue. It’s a scandal that we still do not have universal health care. ALL, ALL the wealthy democracies have some form or version of universal health care except the USA.
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YES!!!!
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Well, here we are finally on the eve of the most (fill in with your favorite adjective) presidential campaign in (fill in your own time frame). Maybe my land line phone will finally stop constantly ringing. But then again I might get lonely-hardly!!
I hope all vote for the candidates of their conscience and choice tomorrow if you haven’t already voted. Let the votes be flipped as they may!! Ooops I meant let the votes be honestly counted as cast. Have fun one and all tomorrow. Dog’s barking got go let him in.
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HE HAS NEVER SAID THAT
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/04/uk-imam-non-muslims-are-never-innocent-they-are-guilty-of-denying-allah-and-his-prophet
ISIS thinks this way. WHO IS A member of ISIS? you tell me.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160811103520/http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/31489457/10-sex-offenders-among-illegal-immigrants-arrested-this-month-by-border-patrol This was wiped from the internet but true.
chaldeans are for Trump, I know many and some Muslims all fine people
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This look like a bot generated post.
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I did not realize until Lawrence O’Donnell said tonight that Chuck Shumer would be the first Jewish American to lead either the House or the Senate. He made the point that we have come a long way in America since the 1960s when Trump’s father stood with the KKK and did not rent to minorities of color or Jews.
He also praised Brooklyn as the greatest melting pot area and a true cross section of American diversity. Raised my spirits no end.
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Ellen,
Lawrence O’Donnell is my favorite TV show. He said early on that Trump was a complete con man and fraud, and he would cover him as such. And he has.
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Also I live in Brooklyn, so loved his closing.
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He is my fave also, Daine..never miss him. And along with the tree growing in Brooklyn was my cousin and his wife who were both pediatricians, as is their daughter, and their grand daughter. Brooklyn has wonderful people.
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Yeah, the election is “rigged.” Sigh.
“Trump alleged to a crowd: ‘folks, it’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system’…The Republican nominee was apparently referring to a Las Vegas supermarket where voters, most of whom were Hispanic, stood in line for hours to vote on Friday night. The length of lines meant that the early voting site did not finally close until 10pm and turnout on Friday set records…57,000 people in Clark County, home to Las Vegas and a majority of Nevada’s population, voted. In total, over 770,000 votes have already been cast in the swing state, making up two-thirds of the estimated turnout, and Democrats are widely favored to win the state, unless there is record Republican turnout on Tuesday…The Republican nominee has warned ‘there is large-scale voter fraud in the United States’.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/06/donald-trump-accuses-democrats-of-voter-in-nevada
Meanwhile,e there was this:
“Terri Lynn Rote, a 55-year-old Des Moines resident, was booked Thursday on a first-degree charge of election misconduct, according to Polk County Jail records. The charge is considered a Class D felony under Iowa state law…Rote said she has been a supporter of Donald Trump since early in his campaign…Rote told Iowa Public Radio that she cast her first ballot for Trump but feared it would be changed to a vote for Hillary Clinton…’The polls are rigged,’ Rote told the radio station.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/29/trump-supporter-charged-with-voting-twice-in-iowa/
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And there was this:
“Three employees of Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm owned by conservative operative Nathan Sproul, pleaded guilty in Florida four years ago to felony charges related to altering and destroying scores of voter registration forms…Sproul is now back on the RNC’s payroll, this time with a firm named Lincoln Strategy Group, a renamed version of his former firm Sproul & Associates, an Arizona-based firm that was investigated for alleged voter registration misconduct in Nevada and Oregon…RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Walters declined to provide specific details about Sproul’s current work for the party. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/06/trump-campaign-and-republicans-paid-18m-to-companies-mired-in-voter-claims
And this:
“An election judge from southern Illinois was charged with voter fraud for allegedly sending in an absentee ballot in her late husband’s name. Audrey Cook told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that she filled out the ballot for her husband after he died in September because she knew he would want Donald Trump to be president…’I was just so distraught when this came and I just voted because I knew he wanted to live so badly to see Trump straighten out this stinking mess,’ she said tearfully…Cook is charged with two felony election-fraud counts.”
http://www.statesman.com/news/illinois-election-judge-allegedly-sent-dead-husband-ballot/KH6ekvRC8EjG2nJ85lshHL/
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You nailed it. I can’t believe the appalling amount of prejudice that exists in this country. I guess this is what many Germans thought when Hitler came to power. People want to blame someone because economic advancement is coming slowly. What they do not realize is that George Bush left Obama with a huge mess. The economy is finally turning around and would have turned around even faster with a jobs program and a higher minimum wage. Tax breaks for the wealthy(trickle down economics) ,the Republican standby,does not work. The divide between rich and poor will widen under President Trump. I think this will cause riots and civil unrest. I really hope I am wrong. I am very fearful that this narcissistic, man-child opened a wound in American society that may never heal.
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