On the eve of the USA General Electtion

It seems timely to document the scrapheap fire that is the 2016 USA General Election -- and I say timely because 'early voting' began Monday in some US states, a reminder that the outcome is _not_ malleable all the way to the Tuesday, November 8th Election Day as often assumed. The die is already being cast. Electoral Collegeology I expect that in this mail I'll discuss the current situation and a bit about its historical context. I'll begin by citing a wager on which I staked US $10 on a mailing list, this past February 28th: Clinton 358 electors Trump 180 electors (I bet only that she'll _win_, I should stress.) My nervous friend Len (in Missouri, a traditionally Republican Party-leaning AKA 'red' state), feared a dramatic Trump victory and (unhappily) bet $10 that the Orange Menace would win. I'm in California, probably the deepest blue of all the blue (Democratic Party-leaning) states. This is very much a gentleman's wager; neither of us thinks the other a fool. I've already stated that if I win, especially as dramatically as I hope, I'll be so deliriously happy that Len can keep his $10. FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver's site, keeps analysing polling and other data, and publishes three metadata summary models, the 'poll-plus forecast', the 'polls-only forecast', and the 'now-cast'. The last of those is 'Who would win an election today', and predicts: Clinton 301 electors Trump 237 electors Each US state (plus District of Columbia, which is very like ACT) is allocated a number of 'electors', minimum three, and more if they have high population[1]. Per the US Constitution, each state is to pick electors pledged to opt for a specific slate of President & Vice-President. On a certain day late in December every four years, the states' electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their votes. (For example, California's 55 electors would meet in Sacramento, California.) There are 538 electors total, which is the origin of Nate Silver's Web site name. Collectively the electors are colloquially called the 'Electoral College', a misleading term in many ways. The purpose of a General Election is for the voters of the various states plus DC to select their electors. States are NOT required to choose their elector through popular vote of their citizens, and the Founding Fathers expected state legislatures to pick them. However, all states have picked electors by popular election for over 100 years since the American Civil War of the 1860s. 48 of the states (plus DC) award their electors on a winner-take-all basis. Two (Maine and Nebraska) award them on a proportional basis between candidate slates by popular vote margins within their various Congressional districts -- though in a normal year Nebraska would be deep red (Republican Party) and Maine would be deep blue (Democratic Party). Trump has been so poisonous that the electors for two of the most urbanised parts of Nebraska, those around the cities of Omaha and Lincoln, may end up being pledged to Secretary Clinton, while the other three will doubtless be pledged to Trump as per the usual GOP allegiance. Accordingly, the _usual_ game of predicting Electoral College tallies involves tallying up the electoral votes of the reliably blue states, tallying those of the reliably red states, and guessing on which side the ~10 'battleground' states would fall. Mr. Trump promised to make more states competitive for the Republicans. So far, it appears he _has_, but not entirely the way he intended. Solid-red states like Texas(!) with 38 electors, Arizona with 11 electors, and Mississippi(!) may now 'flip' to blue on Election Day, if the polls can be believed. The California Cautionary Tale California wasn't always deep blue, and often in the past had Republican Senators and (to our horror, in 1966) elected has-been, slightly dim Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan as Governor, which major seat he then parleyed into the US Presidency in the 1980s. What turned California deep blue was subsequent Republican Governor Pete Wilson and his Proposition 187 campaign in 1994. Wilson decided his electoral prospects would be improved by backing a state-wide voter proposition ('initiative statute') to deny state services to illegal immigrants and create a state-funded citizen 'screening' programme -- the point being to scare and suck-up to anglophone voters of European descent worried about the gradually increasing influence of immigrants from Latin America and East Asia. Proposition 187 passed by a slim margin (and then was found unconstitutional by the courts) -- but backfired: Latino voters in particular, and many other ethnic subgroups, were driven straight into the waiting arms of the Democratic Party, where they have remained, and voters generally, including Euro-descended Californians of all stripes, turned massively away from xenophobic and especially Hispanophobic politics. Today, the California Republican Party is outvoted by state Democrats by a 2:1 margin statewide, and even extremely conservative polities such as Orange County (south of Los Angeles) have been -- at an increasing rate -- putting Democrats in office. The national Republican Party took careful note of the California calamity, and in particular of the nationwide demographic threat to its continued influence. The USA is becoming more Hispanic, in particular. This includes an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants from Central and South America -- who cannot vote, but all of their children born here are citizens, and do vote. The Republicans (AKA 'GOP' = Grand Old Party) have a recurring nightmare of shutout nationwide. Unlike with the Westminster system, shutout is possible: If your party consistently gets 40% of the vote everywhere, you will have zero elected offices. The Autopsy Report In 2012, Barack Obama and VP Joseph Biden shellacked the GOP a second time, defeating Republican challengers Mitt Romney and (VP-hopeful) Paul Ryan decisively. The Republicans were, quite reasonably, introspective, and commissioned a remarkably clear-headed and intelligent study of what it needed to do in the future, to assure greater success. The group's 97-page report appeared in March 2013, and was termed the Growth & Opportunity Project ('GOP') Report -- but everyone else calls it the Autopsy Report. http://goproject.gop.com/ To sum up the Project's recommendations: o GOP risks permanently losing younger voters o It's becoming a dead-end party of angry white men o The way forward involves getting fully behind real, honest immigration reform o and backing corporate whistleblowers, and curbing corporate welfare o and put a screeching halt to all the anti-gay rhetoric o and stop the bizarre extremism on abortion and rape that is alienating women voters o and get behind campaign finance reform The GOP mandarins earnestly urged all Republican leaders to take the report seriously, and they started doing so. But then things blew up. Project REDMAP and Unintended Consequences While the Autopsy Report committee was working on making the GOP saner to help it survive the decade, a very different group was using tactical application of money to take a different approach. The Republican State Leadership Committee realised that the 2010 census opened a rare opportunity to tip the scales in the GOP's favour for at least a decade. The US Constitution requires a nationwide census at the turn of each decade. States with increased population receive an allocation of more members of the House of Representatives (and thus also electors for the Presidential contests); states with population declines lose a few.[2] (Tax revenues were also to be apportioned among the states according to census numbers.) Following each census, every state redraws all Congressional seats with fresh district boundaries. The Republican State Leadership Committee allocated $30M to influence state legislature contests in states with thin, vulnerable Democratic Party majorities -- the Redistricting Majority Project, AKA Project REDMAP. This tactic proved successful past their wildest dreams, and 'flipped' many legislatures Republican even though those states remained majority Democratic -- helped by low voter turnout in 2010 because it wasn't a Presidential election year. Once in power in state capitals, the local Republicans now used greatly improved computer modeling to 'gerrymander'[3] the new Congressional districts to an unprecedented degree. (Note that the US Senate, lacking districts able to be manipulated, cannot be gerrymandered.) http://www.salon.com/2016/06/13/this_is_how_the_gop_rigged_congress_the_secr... http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/gops-house-seats-are-safe-heres... The aim of the gerrymandered districts was always to make as many districts as possible 'safe' for GOP candidates by carving boundaries so that likely Democratic voters were a slim but decisive minority in as many as possible, and 'packing' Democratic voters into the small remainder of districts. Project REDMAP was too successful. The unintended consequence of 'safe' districts is that it encouraged GOP extremism. Gerrymandering meant that any lunatic able to win a local primary in such a district would automatically prevail in the contest against the badly handicapped Democratic opponent, and go to Washington. Many dozens of far-extremist Republican Congressmen took office in 2012 and 2014. These replaced the vanishing 'Tea Party' contingent who'd been briefly funded by the wealthy Koch Brothers but had their allowance cut off and been vanishing since the mid-2000s -- and greatly outdid them in truculence and determination to sabotage the Federal government and prevent it from working. The newcomers called themselves the Liberty Caucus, but everyone else calls them the Suicide Caucus. These are the Congress members who tried and failed to prevent President Obama from doing his job during his second (2012-2016) term. With their conviction that Washington is evil and must be defeated, the newcomers opposed not just Democrats but also their own party leadership. Speaker of the House John Boehner (Republican of Ohio) resigned not just from his leadership post but from all of politics in 2015 because the Suicide Caucus prevented him from doing his job and was out to defeat him. His reluctant successor, Paul Ryan, has had no better luck. The dominance of extremist lunatics also created another change in the GOP. At least since President Nixon (1968-72 and 1972-74), the GOP had been 'dogwhistling': Making coded, deniably worded appeals to the xenophobe, racist, bigoted portion of their constituency, especially racist Southerners. The avoidance of outright 'support us and we'll keep the blacks down' (etc.) appeals made the GOP passable among moderates, pro-business liberals, and aspiring young people, but still let them appeal to bigots and get their votes. But the antics of the Suicide Caucus normalised saying bluntly what the GOP had spent half a century taking great pains to only hint at and never say. The Overton Window of GOP rhetoric had been slammed right. Note: I am _not_ saying that the traditional GOP is/was an organisation of bigots and xenophobes. That is not the case. It merely warmly appreciates the votes of those who are. The traditional GOP tactic was to accept their support and money during the primary election season but then 'pivot' away from them during the general election and silently betray their interests once in office. This is what Richard Nixon, who was the greatest exponent of this tactic and called it his 'Southern Strategy', did. Takeover Part of the Suicide Caucus's problem is that they were so much of a clown-car collision that they had no hope of fielding a credible GOP Presidential candidate during the early 2016 primary elections -- and nothing like such a candidate emerged. Instead, there were 17 variously bizarre and weak primary candidates -- as opposed to two on the Democratic side (three if you count one Mr. O'Malley). The seventeen mutually destructed over a period of some months, the last one to rule himself out other than the Orange Menace being a universally despised hard-Right, ultra-religious social conservative from Texas named Ted Cruz, being perhaps the closest to a Suicide Caucus pick. Mr. Cruz at least gave lip service to many of the GOP national party's goals -- though he'd headed a disaterious 2013 effort to make the Federal government shut down in order to strip funding from President Obama's Affordable Care Act ('Obamacare') initiative. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-cruzs-plan-to-defund-obamacare-f... And what about the Autopsy Report's programme? Members of Congress who'd attempted to advance that sane and reasonable agenda, including Florida's Marco Rubio (one of the 17) found themselves under attack by Suicide Caucus types, and _reversed_ their progressive positions, most notably on immigration. Other politicians who stuck with the Autopsy Report themes found themselves marginalised (such as the national GOP's intended candidate, Jeb Bush of Florida). All of these contending influences left the GOP weak, divided, and riddled with crazy racist factions -- which became the core of Trump's electorate when he showed up and started marching at the head of their parade and dragging them in his direction. The GOP violently opposed the Trump takeover, until it became obvious on the eve of the Republican Convention that the damage they'd take from attempting to unseat him as their nominee would be too high. Since then, Republicans have taken a variety of strategies. Most try to distance themselves from Trump, few support him except very tepidly, and some try to square the circle by condemning particular things he _says_ but refusing to disavow him. The View from the Blue Seats As a Democratic Party member (best option I have, USA electoral mechanics having the emergent effects they do per Duverger's Law), all I want from Father Christmas is President Hillary Clinton and a Democratic Party majority in the Senate taking office in January. Gerrymandering will probably protect the GOP House majority through the rest of this decade at least, but the other is enough, because the _most_ important goal in the next few years is getting several Democratic-appointed Justices on the US Supreme Court (USSC). These must be appointed by the President and confirmed by a majority in the Senate. (The Vice-President is permitted to cast a vote in the Senate any time it has a tie vote.) That _is_ projected to happen. And the USSC is important for many reasons, including getting some of the money out of politics (reverse the Citizens United decision), ending rampant gerrymandering -- e.g., a Federal court recently ordering the undoing of North Carolina gerrymandering that was openly racist and turned the legislature and Congressional delegation heavily Republican despite the electorate being majority Democratic Party members, ending voter suppression tactics, and _perhaps_ even eventually fixing some of the breakage in the economic system. Eventually. It has been, however, a crazy election season, and my $10 isn't safe any more than Len's is. [1] To be tediously precise, each state gets electors equal to its total of the number of Senators (always two per state) plus the state's number of representative in the House of Representatives, the house where the number of seats is set by population established by the nationwide decennial census. DC originally had no electors. As DC ceased in the 20th Century just being a Federal government company town and its citizens resented being disenfranchised, the Twenty-Third Amendment in 1961 vouchsafed them as many electors as the least populous state, currently three. [2] As part of the shady 1789 compromise that kept the 13 former British colonies from splitting apart, the Constitution required the census to count free persons, 3/5 the number of all slaves, and excluding non-taxed (i.e., living outside USA jurisdiction) American Indians. This arrangement guaranteed the slave-holding southern states a power advantage in the House of Representatives and a tax-revenue bonus. This 'three-fifth compromise' was eradicated at the time of the Civil War. Northern political interests agreed to the compromise because they knew slavery was increasingly uncompetitive and would die out by itself if the Republic could be held together long enough for that to happen. [2] 'Gerrymander' is an expression from early USA politics. In the 1812 redrawing of state districts within Massachusetts, Governor Elbridge Gerry was mocked for having caused formation of new electoral districts with grotesquely misshapen boundaries. One political cartoonist drew a caricature of such a district in Essex County that was in the shape of a salamander, which was thereupon dubbed the 'gerrymander', and the name stuck.

On Wednesday, 7 September 2016 3:39:43 PM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
The Republicans (AKA 'GOP' = Grand Old Party) have a recurring nightmare of shutout nationwide. Unlike with the Westminster system, shutout is possible: If your party consistently gets 40% of the vote everywhere, you will have zero elected offices.
The Westminster system doesn't require the Australian Ballot or any other voting system. The UK has first past the post for parliament which drives voters to support 1 of 2 parties thus driving out small parties. This combined with voting for a single candidate in the electorate means that a party with 40% support everywhere will get no seats in parliament. The House of Lords in the UK is a horrible thing with life peers and church representatives. It would take some time to determine how many people need to vote for a party before they can't be shut out. But if the life peers and the Church of England disagree with a party then they would need much more than 50% of the votes to get any representation that matters. A party in the UK that consistently gets 40% of the votes and isn't right-wing is going to get nothing. I believe that there are some countries who's lower house has a system vaguely similar to the Australian senate (multiple candidates for a district and the outcome determined proportionally). To really avoid a party being locked out you need something like the Australian senate voting. Of course that means you get some numtpties like the "Motoring Enthusiasts Party" guy and it's easier for horrible people like Pauline Hanson (our Sarah Palin) to get in. Thanks for the long post. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Thu, September 8, 2016 4:33 pm, Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote:
On Wednesday, 7 September 2016 3:39:43 PM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
The Republicans (AKA 'GOP' = Grand Old Party) have a recurring nightmare of shutout nationwide. Unlike with the Westminster system, shutout is possible: If your party consistently gets 40% of the vote everywhere, you will have zero elected offices.
The Westminster system doesn't require the Australian Ballot or any other voting system. The UK has first past the post for parliament which drives voters to support 1 of 2 parties thus driving out small parties. This combined with voting for a single candidate in the electorate means that a party with 40% support everywhere will get no seats in parliament.
Quite correct; the difference between the "Washington" and "Westminster" systems is a distinction between the powers of the president/prime minister and the legislature. Voting methods can vary widely regardless of this distribution. What Rick is, of course, talking about is the potential of the GOP receiving a low (zero is extremely improbable) number of Electoral College votes, which determines the President. In nearly all cases the states have a "winner takes all" approach for the number of EC votes for each state. Here is the 2012 US Electoral College map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#/media/F... By population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#/media/F... And here is current expectations from five38 http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ Interestingly, Clinton might even win by a bigger margin than Obama. If the predictions are right and she loses Iowa but gains North Carolina, that's a net improvement. It might be that a very large number of Americans simply aren't fond of Trump. It is also interesting that the Libertarian candidate (and ex-GOP governor) is picking up notable, albeit single digit, support. -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

Quoting Lev Lafayette (lev@levlafayette.com):
Quite correct; the difference between the "Washington" and "Westminster" systems is a distinction between the powers of the president/prime minister and the legislature. Voting methods can vary widely regardless of this distribution.
With thanks and no objection, I'll also point out other differences such as the vote of confidence, which has no part in the Washington system other than the painful and difficult process of impeachment (accusation) and trial followed by removal from office. The Westminster model has always struck me as quite a bit more flexible. (Lately, I've been watching the Danish television series Borgen, about a fictional Danish prime minister, her government, and its politics. It's very good.)
Interestingly, Clinton might even win by a bigger margin than Obama. If the predictions are right and she loses Iowa but gains North Carolina, that's a net improvement.
It's been such an extremely unconventional, basically totally unprecedented campaign season that I am confident of very little any more, and just watch in fascination.
It might be that a very large number of Americans simply aren't fond of Trump.
Indeed, even more and broader swathes of the public dislike Trump than dislike Hillary Clinton.
It is also interesting that the Libertarian candidate (and ex-GOP governor) is picking up notable, albeit single digit, support.
This is likely to be their best showing ever -- but still resulting in exactly zero electoral votes.

Quoting russell@coker.com.au (russell@coker.com.au):
On Wednesday, 7 September 2016 3:39:43 PM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
The Republicans (AKA 'GOP' = Grand Old Party) have a recurring nightmare of shutout nationwide. Unlike with the Westminster system, shutout is possible: If your party consistently gets 40% of the vote everywhere, you will have zero elected offices.
The Westminster system doesn't require the Australian Ballot or any other voting system.
Indeed. (I used to live there, by the way.)
The UK has first past the post for parliament which drives voters to support 1 of 2 parties thus driving out small parties. This combined with voting for a single candidate in the electorate means that a party with 40% support everywhere will get no seats in parliament.
At least there's this much: I hear there's less gerrymandering with the notable exception of NI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#United_Kingdom
The House of Lords in the UK is a horrible thing with life peers and church representatives.
The House of Lords is the _least_ of their electoral problems, I would think: The particular implementation of voting there has lately given abysmal proportionality. CGP Grey has a good video detailing the distortions. By no means do all Westminster-derived Parliaments have that severe a problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I (FWIW, Grey lives in London, and is a dual-citizen of the Republic of Ireland and the USA.) The Lords is of course an anancronism, _but_ in the modern era has almost no power (and it's been clear for quite some time that if it significantly impeded the Commons, even that would be taken away). In any event, as it turns out, the UK is a pretty wretched example of the Westminster _system_. Ironic, eh?
I believe that there are some countries who's lower house has a system vaguely similar to the Australian senate (multiple candidates for a district and the outcome determined proportionally).
Interesting. The Israeli Knesset is a unicameral parliament in which all 120 seats are elected nationwide at-large (not by district). Thus, it is an extreme example of proportionality -- which comes with its own set of problems. E.g., if one of the major blocs is attempting to build a governing coalition and has reached, say, 59 or 60 votes, small 1-2 member parties suddenly are in a position to ask for disproportionate favours, as their allegiance can make or break a government.
Thanks for the long post.
Yr. very welcome, Russell. I hope it was enlightening.

On Thursday, 8 September 2016 12:07:56 AM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
In any event, as it turns out, the UK is a pretty wretched example of the Westminster _system_. Ironic, eh?
It's generally regarded that it's best to avoid version 1.0 and wait for a few bug fix releases if possible.
The Israeli Knesset is a unicameral parliament in which all 120 seats are elected nationwide at-large (not by district). Thus, it is an extreme example of proportionality -- which comes with its own set of problems. E.g., if one of the major blocs is attempting to build a governing coalition and has reached, say, 59 or 60 votes, small 1-2 member parties suddenly are in a position to ask for disproportionate favours, as their allegiance can make or break a government.
The problem here is not that a 1 member party can have the deciding vote (something that happens everywhere that has more than 2 parties). The problem is that this is combined with the fact that a party with 1 seat has about 1/120 of the votes wheras in countries like Australia getting 1 seat means having much more than 1/N of the votes where N is the number of seats. Some of the less intelligent and less honest political commentators complain about parties like the Greens getting a supposedly disproportionate say in government when they form a coalition. But the Greens get 1/45 the number of seats that the Liberal party gets while getting 1/4 of the votes! The Greens have a lot less than 1/4 the influence on Australian legislation than the Liberal party has so Greens voters aren't being served well by our current voting system. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

I wrote:
It seems timely to document the scrapheap fire that is the 2016 USA General Election....
Does the metaphor 'scrapheap fire' work? I was aiming for an Oz equivalent to the USA/Canadian slang expression 'dumpster fire', a very common pundit turn of phrase in relation to the Trump campaign. A dumpster, more properly a Dumpster, is a trademarked corporate term for a particular brand of skip, a large rubbish bin. On, wait, the term _is_ known in Oz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster I will admit frankly that the ongoing persistence and viability of the trump dumpster fire (campaign) is humbling, as it has driven home to me that the USA so quirky and multfaceted that even native citizens such as yr. humble servant can be frequently overwhelmed by sheer WTFery. Being a politics junkie, I sat through most of the first presidential of several scheduled televised debates between the competent candidate and Trump -- about an hour and a half of it. The difference was stark: Secretary Clinton absolutely walked all over the Orange Menace, and closed with about the most masterful sixty seconds of trolling I've ever seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG8y4eisOOw (I hope and expect you can view that.) But this clip has slightly better quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0T3c4jtn-w Transcript: Clinton: This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs. And one who has said pregnancy is a convenience to employers, who has said women do not deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men -- and one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them, and he called this woman 'Miss Piggy'. Then, he called her 'Miss Housekeeping, because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name: ... Trump [trying to interrupt]: Where did you find that? Where did you find that? Clinton: ...Her name is Alicia Machado. She has become a US citizen, and you can bet she's going to vote this November. [mic drop!] That was the closing moment of the entire debate, a masterful stroke of political rhetoric and guaranteed to push Trump's buttons. Notice that both of those have been excerpted out for the Spanish-language viewership -- no coincidence whatsoever. In addition to starkly putting Trump's profound misogyny on display, it also highlighted his ethnic anti-Hispanic bigotry. So, two separate -immense- segments of the electorate were attacked. Not to mention anyone who ever had weight-control problems. But wait: I anticipated that Trump wouldn't let that go, and he did not disappoint. He did what with any other candidate would be a truly remarkable, nay, inconceivable thing: He doubled down -- in a spectacular fashion that RE-offended those two groups of citizens, _and_ also dramatised Trump's erratic, impulsive, rage-driven nature. While caught digging a hole, and in the eyes of the world, he found a way to dig much deeper: http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-meaning-of-trumps-early-morni... Yesterday, quite a few days after the first debate, the storm of controversy raised _and_ the sudden rise to prominence of the eloquent Ms. Machado, campaigning for Clinton, having continued to reverberate, Mr. Trump decided to lash out yesterday... by personally slurring Ms. Machado in a series of several tweets between _3:20AM and 5:30AM_ local time. As John Cassidy of _The New Yorker_ points out, basically WTF? A man running for the highest office in the land is getting up in the middle of the night to rage-tweet and lash out personally at a former beauty-contest winner? ¡Senor Trump, que están locos! (Hey, I'm posting from California, where even we Scandinavians speak some Spanish.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/09/29/trumps-on-a-ro... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/1/1576512/-View-from-the-Left-She-dese... http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/caught-in-trump-s-cycle-of-rage-and-abus... As the last of these three links points out, Trump falls back on _exactly_ the logic of an abuser, right down to the literal, classic phrase 'She deserved it.' He engages in what author Marshall calls 'dominance politics', and it's appalling. I _hope_ that the women voters of the USA, in particular (not to mention Hispanics, people with weight-control struggles, and, well, everyone with higher cerebral functioning) is paying attention. But the thing about this very bizarre election cycle is, you have a difficult time knowing. All the old rules seem in doubt. Bonus link (of which the top two entries would probably be most of interest): http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/vote.html

On Saturday, 1 October 2016 5:41:29 PM AEDT Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Does the metaphor 'scrapheap fire' work? I was aiming for an Oz equivalent to the USA/Canadian slang expression 'dumpster fire', a very common pundit turn of phrase in relation to the Trump campaign.
A dumpster, more properly a Dumpster, is a trademarked corporate term for a particular brand of skip, a large rubbish bin. On, wait, the term _is_ known in Oz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster
Keep in mind that most people outside the US knows much more about US politics than most Americans know about any other country. US politics IS news for us, whatever happens in the US will affect us in significant ways. Our politics isn't really news for you because mostly it doesn't matter to you. Your politicians make the most stupid lies about Australia (and other countries) and hardly anyone notices or cares. Australian news routinely covers US issues. Then we have the issue of news via social media which is dominated by the US because they have a large English-speaking population that has good net access and social connections to Australia. Use the terms that are used in discussions in the US, they will probably be better known by Australians than anything you devise while trying to localise them. Also I think that the term "scrapheap" is more of a British thing, and it's entirely different to a dumpster (see "Scrapheap Challenge"). -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

Quoting russell@coker.com.au (russell@coker.com.au):
Also I think that the term "scrapheap" is more of a British thing, and it's entirely different to a dumpster (see "Scrapheap Challenge").
As I said, I was aiming for an Oz _equivalent_, an analogue. I believe my meaning should have been clear. For countries where the world 'dumpster' is unfamiliar, a fire in a scrapheap would convey about the same associational overtones as one in a dumpster. That aside, I'm extremely well aware of what 'scrapheap' means. After all, it's a term I grew up with. You perhaps are forgetting that I grew up in British Hong Kong and also am a former Londoner. In fact, in many cultural respects, I'm often more of a POM than I am a Yank. (Actually, I've had to purge any number of Britticisms from my stock of idioms. You should have seen the look of puzzlement the first few times I mentioned to Americans that my father flew out of the aerodrome in Kowloon.) Additionally, although I thank you for your invitation to festoon Americanisms into my postings, I would actually rather not, as I prefer _generally_ to angle towards a more international version of the mother tongue. But thank you kindly, all the same.

Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
(Actually, I've had to purge any number of Britticisms from my stock of idioms. You should have seen the look of puzzlement the first few times I mentioned to Americans that my father flew out of the aerodrome in Kowloon.)
Seeing as it's already open in front of me, I'm gonna nitpick: <b>Briticism</>, the name for an idiom used in Great Britain & not in America, is a <sc>Barbarism</>, & should be either <i>Britannicism</> or <i>Britishism</>, just as <i>Hibernicism</> or <i>Irishism</> will do, but not <i>Iricism</>. <i>Gallicism</> & <i>Scot(t)icism</> cannot be pleaded, since <i>Gaulish</> & <i>Scotch</> are in Latin <i>Gallicus</> & <i>Scot(t)icus</>, but <i>British</> is <i>Brittanicus</>. The verbal critic, who alone uses such words, should at least see to it they are above criticism. —Fowler 1e, p. 57 Anyone that enjoys a good linguistic snark should keep a copy of Fowler 1e handy. (Avoid later editions; fortunately 1e gets reprinted regularly.) PS: apologies for the shitty SGMLish markup.

Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
Seeing as it's already open in front of me, I'm gonna nitpick:
<b>Briticism</>, the name for an idiom used in Great Britain & not in America, is a <sc>Barbarism</>, & should be either <i>Britannicism</> or <i>Britishism</>, just as <i>Hibernicism</> or <i>Irishism</> will do, but not <i>Iricism</>. <i>Gallicism</> & <i>Scot(t)icism</> cannot be pleaded, since <i>Gaulish</> & <i>Scotch</> are in Latin <i>Gallicus</> & <i>Scot(t)icus</>, but <i>British</> is <i>Brittanicus</>. The verbal critic, who alone uses such words, should at least see to it they are above criticism.
—Fowler 1e, p. 57
It is indeed most certainly a barbarism (and I didn't even manage to type it correctly, at that). It just struck me as hilarious for some reason at that moment.
Anyone that enjoys a good linguistic snark should keep a copy of Fowler 1e handy. (Avoid later editions; fortunately 1e gets reprinted regularly.)
Yes, I heard that his successors stuffed it up. Pity, that. -- Cheers, "We reject: kings, presidents and voting. Rick Moen We believe in: rough consensus and running code." rick@linuxmafia.com -- Dave Clark, IETF (unofficial motto) McQ! (4x80)

Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
I wrote:
It seems timely to document the scrapheap fire that is the 2016 USA General Election....
Does the metaphor 'scrapheap fire' work? I was aiming for an Oz equivalent to the USA/Canadian slang expression 'dumpster fire', a very common pundit turn of phrase in relation to the Trump campaign.
Short version: Australian English has no direct analogue of the US/CA idiom "dumpster fire". We'd understand "train wreck", "clusterfuck", & "complete cock-up". Due to US TV, movies, &c, "trashcan" & "dumpster" are understood, but we'd be more likely to say "rubbish bin" & "skip". The only use of "scrapheap" I can think of is being the "consigned to the scrapheap of industry". Amusingly, the Fowler 1e definition of {\textsc Battered Ornaments} begins with "On this rubbish-heap [...]". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dumpster#Synonyms ==> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skip#English "Skip" is a "open-topped rubbish bin" (dumpster) in Australian English. The big ones are the size of the flatbed of a 4-wheel medium truck (lorry, not ute/pickup). They are used for special occasions, like construction sites. They look a bit like this, except painted brown and no lid or side doors: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10m3_rear_load_dumpster.jpg The small ones are the about the size of a truck's *cabin*. They are steel, typically painted blue or green, and have a black plastic (possibly steel on older units). They have steel hoops on each side; a truck with front forks hooks into them and flips the bin over the truck cabin and tips it into the the truck's onboard container. It's common to see 1 to 3 of them out the back of retail businesses. The look a bit like this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_dumpster.jpg I have *never* seen a fire in any of them. Setting fire to rubbish is probably illegal, at least in urban and suburban areas. It'd probably wreck the skip, too. (Possibly the waste is properly incinerated after collection & before landfill, but I wouldn't bet on it. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill#Restrictions) In rural areas, I've occasionally seen bonfires, but I dunno if those were to dispose of waste, or just because Fuck Yeah, Fire Is Cool! We also don't (AFAIK) have that thing where the homeless have a "trash can fire" for heat. Probably just because our winters are milder. About 0.5% of Australians are homeless.

On Monday, 3 October 2016 12:40:56 PM AEDT Trent W. Buck via luv-talk wrote:
Does the metaphor 'scrapheap fire' work? I was aiming for an Oz equivalent to the USA/Canadian slang expression 'dumpster fire', a very common pundit turn of phrase in relation to the Trump campaign.
Short version: Australian English has no direct analogue of the US/CA idiom "dumpster fire". We'd understand "train wreck", "clusterfuck", & "complete cock-up".
We also don't use the term "French fries" to refer to chips apart from in McDonalds. It's rather silly to try and invent new terms for American slang. We all see news about America, most of us see American news on occasion, and almost everyone sees Hollywood movies.
I have *never* seen a fire in any of them. Setting fire to rubbish is probably illegal, at least in urban and suburban areas. It'd probably wreck the skip, too.
I've seen puddles of plastic from people burning wheelie bins on a number of occasions. I've seen metal bin enclosures in the CBD showing signs of fire damage (replacing the plastic bin inside is much easier than replacing the paint that was burned off), and I once saw a wheelie bin on fire inside a metal enclosure in the CBD.
(Possibly the waste is properly incinerated after collection & before landfill, but I wouldn't bet on it. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill#Restrictions)
Incinerating waste safely is not easy. There needs to be some combination of extremely high temperatures and filtering to avoid carcinogenic smoke.
We also don't (AFAIK) have that thing where the homeless have a "trash can fire" for heat. Probably just because our winters are milder. About 0.5% of Australians are homeless.
With the increasing numbers of people sleeping on the streets of the CBD we will probably have trash can fires next winter. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

I used to live in Canberra, and do recall a pall of smoke over the airport once. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-28/fire-crews-work-to-extinguish-large-ru... so perhaps the American obsession with dumpster fires diffuses outwards from major USA embassies towards the nearest tip/scrapheap? :) then of course there's a Belconnen fire that I found in the same google search http://citynews.com.au/2015/another-belconnen-garbage-fire/ which for those of your that know about Belco will be unsurprising. Belco is (or perhaps was) such a dump/tip/skip/rubbish bin that it's proud of it, and even has quite good art on the subject https://artblart.com/tag/belcos-a-hole/ cheers, robin ps. go hillary. fuck trump.

Quoting Robin Humble (rjh+luv@cita.utoronto.ca):
I used to live in Canberra, and do recall a pall of smoke over the airport once.
Is that really living? ;-> (I ask out of real curiosity. Bespoke capitals have a reputation of being at best dull. See also: Brasilia.)
ps. go hillary. fuck trump.
Lenny Bruce would say unfuck him. "Fuck you." Never understood that insult, because fucking someone is actually really pleasant. If we're trying to be mean, we should say "unfuck you!" Disturbing pair of articles about the psychology of Trump and the origins of Hillary-hatred. Note the connecting tissue between them: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/caught-in-trump-s-cycle-of-rage-and-abus... http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-2016-60-minut... -- Cheers, A woman's place is in the House, Rick Moen the Senate, and the White House. rick@linuxmafia.com McQ! (4x80)

Hello Rick and others, On 10/4/16, Rick Moen via luv-talk <luv-talk@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Quoting Robin Humble (rjh+luv@cita.utoronto.ca):
I used to live in Canberra, and do recall a pall of smoke over the airport once.
Is that really living? ;->
(I ask out of real curiosity. Bespoke capitals have a reputation of being at best dull. See also: Brasilia.)
Apart from going in circles, and brass monkeys waiting for late spring before seeking out a welder, it is not that bad a city.
ps. go hillary. fuck trump.
Lenny Bruce would say unfuck him.
"Fuck you." Never understood that insult, because fucking someone is actually really pleasant. If we're trying to be mean, we should say "unfuck you!"
I would not refer to him as any part of anatomy, male, female or otherwise, they might be considered ugly, but they are useful. Trump is decidedly damaging, much like Pauline Hanson who peddles hatred.
Disturbing pair of articles about the psychology of Trump and the origins of Hillary-hatred. Note the connecting tissue between them: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/caught-in-trump-s-cycle-of-rage-and-abus... http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-2016-60-minut...
Regards, Mark Trickett

On Wednesday, 5 October 2016 10:32:10 AM AEDT Mark Trickett via luv-talk wrote:
I would not refer to him as any part of anatomy, male, female or otherwise, they might be considered ugly, but they are useful. Trump is decidedly damaging, much like Pauline Hanson who peddles hatred.
Those 2 should hook up. It could be his 4th marriage and her 3rd and they could campain for "traditional marriage" together. Pauline's habit of getting pregnant before getting engaged and Donald's habit of sleeping with wife N+1 while still married to wife N are conservative traditions. Pauline apparently run a successful fish and chip shop, which is 1 more business than Donald ever managed to run successfully. She could teach him how to run a company! Of course we could always hope that Pauline has enough decency to refuse to marry someone who rapes children, but hoping for decency in the case of Pauline might be unreasonable. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
Short version: Australian English has no direct analogue of the US/CA idiom "dumpster fire". We'd understand "train wreck", "clusterfuck", & "complete cock-up".
Due to US TV, movies, &c, "trashcan" & "dumpster" are understood, but we'd be more likely to say "rubbish bin" & "skip".
Something very odd: I've found that 'skip' (in that sense of the word) is entirely missing from American idiom (but again, something I grew up with in my active vocabulary, possibly on account of Oz influence in Hong Kong). I got quizzical looks when I tried to use it in conversation, in the USA. I've made some headway at getting more locals to use 'roundabout' instead of the lame expression 'traffic circle' that seems to have arisen in bureaucracy. There are many roundabouts in the San Francisco Bay Area (as many other places), even though you will encounter locals who'll swear up and down that they've never seen one and wouldn't be able to navigate it safely. It usually turns out that there's one they regularly deal with but have thought of it as just some nameless regular road feature, whereas a _roundabout_ must be some dangerous foreign invention they've thankfully never encountered and are desperately afraid of in absentia. Something like Trump and immigrants, mayhap. ;-> The work of getting to the bottom idiom differences continues. My wife Deirdre (Irish/Swedish-American) found my continual use of the word 'trousers' eccentric. She eventually explained that, to her, 'trousers' should properly refer only to the bottom half of a set of men's formal or semi-formal clothing. She said the normal-to-her idiom was 'pants'. I rejoined that, to me, 'pants' refers properly only to knickers. And of course, she replied that surely nobody says 'knickers' outside old Benny Hill skits. 'Pavement', 'sidewalk', and 'macadam' are also probable points of confusion. And I make a point of saying 'zebra crossing' (with a zed) rather than 'marked crosswalk', just to be perverse.

Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
Short version: Australian English has no direct analogue of the US/CA idiom "dumpster fire". We'd understand "train wreck", "clusterfuck", & "complete cock-up".
Due to US TV, movies, &c, "trashcan" & "dumpster" are understood, but we'd be more likely to say "rubbish bin" & "skip".
Something very odd: I've found that 'skip' (in that sense of the word) is entirely missing from American idiom (but again, something I grew up with in my active vocabulary, possibly on account of Oz influence in Hong Kong). I got quizzical looks when I tried to use it in conversation, in the USA.
I've made some headway at getting more locals to use 'roundabout' instead of the lame expression 'traffic circle' that seems to have arisen in bureaucracy.
One of my favourites is South African "robot".
participants (6)
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Lev Lafayette
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Mark Trickett
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Rick Moen
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Robin Humble
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Russell Coker
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Trent W. Buck