Not sure if you are old enough to remember that far leftist ideological organizations were often violent up until the last quarter of the 20th century.
This period of peacefulness is a recent phenomenon. One of the big pacifiers of democracy is that people accept the result because the majority voted for it. When you have a situation when 46% of the population is pushing an agenda that at least 48% of the population is strongly against. That group often starts to look for alternative ways to flex its majority power.
Especially when you realize that in large urban areas we are looking at 25% to 70% type splits in some cases.
>When you have a situation when 46% of the population is pushing an agenda that at least 48% of the population is strongly against. That group often starts to look for alternative ways to flex its majority power.
46% and 48% of voters, not of the population. Neither voting block are a majority of the population.
I would argue this particular part of our current political climate is largely pushed by a minority, and is as much about them believing their own propaganda as it is about the fact that they lost the election. Keep in mind there was quite a bit of violence coming from the left long before the election was over (attacking people at Trump rallies, fire bombing a GOP headquarters). They genuinely believe the sky is falling, so to speak. It's unfortunate, because it makes it difficult for the rest of us to have a discussion about where we've actually gone wrong.
There are 146.3 million registered voters though, which equated to about 45% of registered voters. The voter turnout was roughly 133 million, so she received about 49-59% of votes among those who bothered to show up. Trump received about 46-47% of votes, losing the popular vote by 3 million and winning electoral votes by about 80 thousand votes spread among several states. He ran on an extremely divisive and (perhaps racist) platform, so it's not hard to see why people are a bit frustrated.
The largest voting blocks that have low turnout would make that gap larger, not smaller. Also, in urban areas where most of these protests are happening the gaps were enormous.
In Washington, DC Donald Trump won 4% of the vote.
Is it not surprising those people feel a bit underrepresented right now and might turn to alternative means of flexing their massive majority in the areas they specifically live?
>The largest voting blocks that have low turnout would make that gap larger, not smaller. Also, in urban areas where most of these protests are happening the gaps were enormous.
There is no proof of that. "If this person who decided not to vote were a person who decided to vote then they would vote in a similar manner to the other people who decided to vote" is stupid reasoning because that person decided not to vote.
>In Washington, DC Donald Trump won 4% of the vote.
I am shocked, shocked! A city filled with people who's lives revolve around a big federal government voted for the most establishment candidate in history.
>their massive majority in the areas they specifically live
In D.C., Hillary got 282k votes. The population is 659k. That's not even half of the population. Cool it with the 'massive majority' crap.
The US operates on an election system reflecting the house and senate. This should be basic knowledge for most American citizens. Throwing fits because it didn't go your way is pretty childish since it's exactly how the electoral college works.
Im just helping one to understand why there are protests and unrest.
DC had a very small inaugural turnout and very large protest the day after. I was trying to give some perspective.
I believe it was about 90% in Chicago. San Fransisco was over 90%. New York City had a large margin. We are talking approximately 45 of the 50 largest cities in the country did not vote for Donald Trump.
I took high school civics. I know how the rules work. Im just telling you that civil unrest usually happens when people feel like the rules are unjust and they have little or no power to change it through the democratic process. So Im simply trying to shed some light on it to people who may not understand why people might feel that way.
And 'they' did not vote for Hillary either if your bar is the majority. The problem is that people think their view represents the majority of the country because they won the popular vote. Their view only represents the majority that voted.
Since this thread is going a bit off topic I figured I would share a link from your friendly neighbors to the north it relates to your two party system and is from a great canadian leader we had a long time ago, who brought us our version of obama care.. It's the story of mouseland.
What you are showing is a common tactic for a group that knows they are doing the wrong thing to validate themselves by claiming everyone is a bad guy. Or that the other side is worse etc etc.
You would seriously have to be blind to not realize the the current path of policies is simply incorrect policies that will lead to harm. For example instead of paying for a wall, Mexico will just pay for better ports as Donald Trump and the fools that voted for him seem to forget they have coastal shipping access to both Europe and Asia. Not to mention all of South and Central America.
That's the problem. Replacing social security with private retirement funds is a debate about which is better. With pluses and minuses on both sides. And guess what? The combination of 401k's IRAs and Social Security kind of does that. See how that works? Its actually saner than people want to believe. Same with things like how health care is run. Its not like we have some kind of socialist utopian system. Its a compromise. Or taxation with our 15% cap gains. Both sides have different opinions but both are at least based in some kind of functional reality where they might actually work. And the reality is that they are both a little bit right so in the end we typically wind up someone in the middle despite how it looks.
Stupid crap like building a wall is just plain incorrect policy. I mean if you even asked experts in border security, they would not suggest just building a giant wall. Its like what a 7 year old would suggest. What you would actually have is very similar to what we currently have. Its pretty easy to see a group of people running across the open desert and intercept them with the technology we currently have.
That is the big difference between what is happening now and what is typical in US politics.
This period of peacefulness is a recent phenomenon. One of the big pacifiers of democracy is that people accept the result because the majority voted for it. When you have a situation when 46% of the population is pushing an agenda that at least 48% of the population is strongly against. That group often starts to look for alternative ways to flex its majority power.
Especially when you realize that in large urban areas we are looking at 25% to 70% type splits in some cases.