06.26.2016 08:47 AM

There’s a name for people who complain after votes

Losers. 


26 Comments

  1. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    Let’s transpose the idea of a referendum on a new electoral system. None of the proposed options even comes near 50% support. So, if the Trudeau government goes that route, the proposed option is almost guaranteed to fail. The FPP vote will come out solidly — supporters of the government’s choice, not so much.
    .
    Brexit is, unfortunately, a world-wide game changer. Right now, it’s propelling Trump toward the presidency. If he doesn’t make a titanic gaffe, God help the United States.

    • bluegreenblogger says:

      ROFL, propelling Trump, I like that. problem is, the World beyond the border barely exists for a majority of Americans. Brexit is a British breakfast cereal as far as most Americans are concerned, and will propel no-one anywhere south of the border.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        bgb,

        You don’t find very similar elements in both narratives? They can be picked up by viewers in a single newscast or news break.

  2. BillBC says:

    ” propelling Trump toward the presidency.” how?

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Bill,

      No vote is more committed than the Trump vote. That is the reality — not the poll numbers.

      • The Doctor says:

        We’ll see about that on election day. Right now he’s got a shitty, underfunded organization compared to Clinton, and lots of GOP people who don’t like him, never mind Democrats and independents.

      • bluegreenblogger says:

        Where did you pluck that ‘fact’ from? There is absolutely ZERO GOTV data on the Trump campaign in public view. You can have an opinion, but that does not make it true. I suspect that Trump will drive up turnout, by virtue of committed supporters, but I don’t have any hard data. I certainly would not be willing to say that I KNOW the truth, and stoopid polls are nothing but data.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          bgb,

          The polls aren’t stupid. They simply aren’t indicative this far out from the election.

          Remember how committed Harper and Ford supporters were? Same here with Trump.

  3. BillBC says:

    “Support for Trump plunges, Clinton in double-digit lead, new poll indicates”

    http://goo.gl/PwYpHR

  4. Peter says:

    “But…but…but they voted on EMOTION! They didn’t understand what they were doing the way we did. They were racist. They were old. They didn’t have as many degrees as we clever types. They were afraid. They were nostalgic for the past. They were angry. Surely we shouldn’t be bound by such dysfunctional passions. We need a vote based on hard-nosed, evidence-based, expert-backed rational thinking about our self-interest. This is no time to let emotions rule us. Otherwise we will be deprived of our dream of marching arm-in-arm as one with our fellow Europeans as together we build a new, united, peaceful, tolerant, just and prosperous world for our children!!”

    I’ve read quite a few opinion pieces on the vote since Friday and I can’t count the number that try to delegitimize the outcome, which actually is an EU tradition when they lose popular votes. If the people get it wrong, we’ll just have to keep asking until they get it right.

    The pundit who really understood the underlying problem was the one who noted that if the EU put together a soccer team of its best players, it would easily be the best team in the world, but nobody would root for it.

    • BillBC says:

      Peter…every so often I read something with which I agree 100%, and this is one of those times. You are bang on. Run for public office and I’ll vote for you… 🙂

    • The Doctor says:

      Peter, I would have voted to remain, but I agree that’s a great post you made. I’m so sick and tired of progs and lefties who try to de-legitimize the result every time a democratic election or referendum doesn’t turn out the way they like (cf. Harper’s “fake majority” vs. Justin’s un-fake one with the same percentage of the popular vote). I didn’t like the result either, but that’s democracy — you’re pretty much guaranteed to not get the result you want about 50 percent of the time. Deal with it.

      My facebook feed is full of posts from liberal bien pensant friends of mine who are the sorest losers I’ve seen in some time. Basically if you voted to leave, you’re a stupid, fear-filled, retrograde racist. I have 5 friends over there who told me they voted Leave, and that certainly does not describe them. They are extremely intelligent, well-educated members of the business elite.

      • Peter says:

        If Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath today, prevailing progressive opinion would dismiss the Joads as stupid, racist fundies.

        • The Doctor says:

          I saw a good meme today: “I believe in democracy. . . Until I don’t get my own way. Then I have tantrums all over facebook.”

          And how about this headline on the BBC website today: “Young Leave voters suffer online abuse.”

  5. Joe says:

    Many years ago I received a lesson in civics. I was on the executive of a social club that was debating whether to add an expansion to its hall or tear down and rebuild the hall to make it bigger. The president was the leading proponent of the tear down and rebuild idea and during the debate handed me the gavel so he could expound on his position without abusing his power. The vote was held and the expand side one. Immediately the president began planning the expansion. Someone asked him why he was so willing to unreservedly change sides and he simply explained, “the people have voted”. The hall expansion was completed a year later.

  6. MonteCristo says:

    The silent 28% are about to discover just how much that vote was worth to them

    “The final result was 17,410,742 votes for Leave (51.9 per cent) compared to 16,141,241 for Remain (48.1 per cent), on a turnout of 72 per cent.”

  7. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    Somebody up there doesn’t like Hillary Rodham Clinton. Brexit reinforces the legitimacy of the Trump narrative for the angry, uneasy and undecided. That’s the net positive for Trump — the harsh and painful end result with the UK going into recession comes long after the American election in November.

  8. Brammer says:

    Quote of the day:

    “The last time young people were this shafted by old people in Britain, we got punk music. So maybe something good will come of it.”

    h/t Elizabeth Renzettit

  9. Brammer says:

    ….Renzetti

  10. Mom says:

    I was having a discussion about the whole Brexit/Trump thing yesterday and he suggest that I finally read the book he gave me for Christmas entitled Preference Falsification by Timur Kuran. Haven’t started to read it yet, but it would seem that the theory is out there. As they say the only poll that really counts is the one on election day!

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3984500-brexit-case-study-preference-falsification

  11. Montréalaise says:

    All these morning-after regrets make me wonder what would have happened if the YES side had won the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence. I remember there were a lot of people who planned to vote for sovereignty without really understanding the implications – polls showed that a significant portion of them thought that an independent Quebec would still send MPs to the House of Commons.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Montréalaise,

      An equally confusing spectacle was row upon row of Quebec flags on houses in Quebec City and on my street, in the wake of the failure of Meech.

      That had me worried for a while — wondered why they did that when the Parti QuĂ©bĂ©cois actually opposed Meech Lake.

  12. Kelly says:

    Elections don’t need to be blunt instruments and they aren’t when you have PR, which required coalition building and compromise. FPTP and referendums are blunt instruments. They produce blackberry and white outcomes in a dusky grey world. Referendums are the tools of phony democracies. They are designed to end debate and concentrate power. That’s why Hitler liked them.

    • The Doctor says:

      Yes, that’s what I think every time I visit Switzerland, what with all of their referenda and plebiscites and all — “this place is an undemocratic, Nazi dystopia.”

      Oh wait, actually that’s not my reaction. Seems like a fairly civilized, democratic place.

  13. Kelly says:

    *black and white…

    Sheesh I hate smartphones

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