[Outcast_Searcher]

Luddites Unite! A modern day Amish movement without the baggage of Jesus Christ. That is what I could get behind.

First world problems. To me, it's very NICE to have CHOICES.

Or, there is room for something in between having all the latest tech (and the headaches) and living without modern conveniences like modern transport.

I don't have a smart phone. I don't worry about viruses, spam, etc. on my simple flip phone, and somehow I manage to survive without the internet when I'm out for several hours. Oh, and my total bill annually, including all taxes is $106 for the service. A good fifth of what people with "cheap" smart phone plans are paying for their service, from what I gather.

One of my best friends doesn't want a modern car with all the electronics and likely expensive issues. So he tends to drive a 20+ year old Toyota, and occasionally pay for a repair. I can respect that. I prefer modern safety technology. But at least he's not hitching up the horse to the buggy (I think they'd frown on horses in the trailer park), buying bails of hay, etc.

I live in the past re the computer games I play. I still play games from the 80's and 90's and early 00's using simulators, etc. as needed. No need for more money for modern games, or all the hassles with the spyware of Windows 10, for example. (In mid 2020 I guess I have to jump to Chrome or something for my internet access when Windows 7 is no longer supported, but that's the price for not putting up with Microsoft's nonsense, I guess). But it's FINE, since I can still play games offline on my XP and Windows 7 machines to my heart's content after that.

It always amazes me how with most people, instead of just using some common sense and thoughtfulness with various issues, one issue at a time, it's got to be pretty much all or nothing in the extreme with things.

...

OTOH, I really LIKE modern medical technology, even though I don't appreciate the hassle and expense that goes with the US system. With something as simple as dentistry, between the high tech toothpaste, floss, fillings, etc. now available, I have to presume my dental health is MUCH better than it would be without those things. Even if the bills are eye-popping compared to when I was a kid, or even a young man.

[KaiserJeep]

You don't know the half of it. Not long ago, I replaced my electric toothbrush. I own one of those because my Dentist believes they very much improve oral health. But my point is the old toothbrush just turned on and off. The new one has audible warnings when you apply excessive pressure, and prompts you to transition to each quadrant of the mouth after the proper time has elapsed.

I do not doubt, the way things are progressing, with the IOT (Internet Of Things) in a few years the next electric toothbrush will be networked, and prompt me (or nag me) about bicuspid plaque on tooth number whatever. Not to mention, the Dental Assistant will download the semi-annual summary and chide me about the number of times I skipped flossing or fell asleep on the couch without the nightly tooth ritual. Not looking forward to it, I hate chatty appliances and cars.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I do not doubt, the way things are progressing, with the IOT (Internet Of Things) in a few years the next electric toothbrush will be networked, and prompt me (or nag me) about bicuspid plaque on tooth number whatever. Not looking forward to it, I hate chatty appliances and cars.

For me, having lots of everyday things hooked up to the internet is where I draw the line (at least while I have the choice) -- at least until I'm convinced there are some VERY SERIOUS efforts at securing such devices from malware, etc. and serious legislation mandating such efforts, with standards, etc.

Thus far, overall, it's a total joke, leaving an environment I have NO desire to play in -- fancy beeping toothbrush or no. Oh, and I don't want to have to pay a $thousandish for my toothbrush, fight with software updates, pay a monthly subscription fee, etc. And then multiply that by scores or even hundreds of devices. But that's just me. I'm sure the under-30 crowd will love it and obey with alacrity (and of course, no questions asked).

[careinke]

Wow we have gone way off topic. Was waiting for all the Repugs to start rioting after their loss of the House. Maybe blocking freeways, attacking Dims in restaurants, shouting down opposition speakers...You know all that fun stuff!

What did I get? Crickets

Seems only Dims get traumatized over election loses.
.

[Cog]

Democrats are trying to flip the results in Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. Seems they have created found some uncounted votes they need to count. The Florida deal is being led by Broward County, who has past problems counting votes in a timely fashion.

[KaiserJeep]

[vtsnowedin]

Latest update has it looking like a 37 house seat loss for the Republicans which isn't bad compared to Obama's loss of 63 in 2010. Notice how the fake news people keep saying it is the worse loss sense Watergate. Sometimes they throw in the qualifier that they are talking only about GOP losses and skipping Obama's and Clinton's results but often they leave off that qualifier (in the interest of time no doubt).

[jedrider]

Latest update has it looking like a 37 house seat loss for the Republicans which isn't bad compared to Obama's loss of 63 in 2010. Notice how the fake news people keep saying it is the worse loss sense Watergate. Sometimes they throw in the qualifier that they are talking only about GOP losses and skipping Obama's and Clinton's results but often they leave off that qualifier (in the interest of time no doubt).

Well, it was a big lost to Republicans and 2010 was a big lost to Democrats, even though Obama was still able to win re-election. Democrats were finally mobilized. I have no illusions about Democrats, but they are certainly preferred to Republicans if you are a liberal, a conservationist, a realist (yes .

Anyway, the Democrats finally realized how to turn out their vote. The suburbs were pealed away from the Republicans. Leaves the U.S. with deep divisions that are not being healed with any common vision. Trump finally realized he needs to tone down his message as rural towns get burned down in California.

[KaiserJeep]

More in-depth analysis of the Congressional election results was performed by the pundits on PBS, and was broadcast in the weekly Shields-Brooks political summary on Friday.

All of the Democratic victories were Centrists, appealing to the traditional working class base. The Democrats that lost were all to the Left of Center. Unfortunately, the whole party is clearly moving Left over time. This does not bode well for the 2020 election, as the most likely Democrat to supplant Trump would be from the Center Right. There were no such candidates in 2016.

The political pendulum swings back and forth, and is clearly swinging right at the moment. Trump took advantage of this in 2016, and will probably do so again. But he smacks of excess Nationalism to me, and I don't care for that.

[Cog]

I'm trying to wrap my brain around what excess nationalism means and how it could be a bad thing. Perhaps you could expand on that KJ.

[Newfie]

I doubt anyone could Cog. It’s a lot like religion, you get it or you don’t. True believers defy explanation.

[vtsnowedin]

I would not place much faith in the PBS analysis or anything like it. Just as many Trump voters in 2016 were voting more against Hillary then for Trump or his policies many voters last week were just voting more against Trump and his performance then they were voting for the subtleties of the candidate on the ballot or his positions.
Thinking that the Democrats can calmly and deliberately choose a centrist ,competent, candidate to challenge whoever the GOP puts up in 2020 is optimistic beyond the probability.
Notice I do not assume the GOP will nominate Trump. I think that is much in doubt as it should be.

[Cog]

Trump just has to run. No one needs to nominate him. Of the 60 million people who voted for Trump, I'm going to guess about a third of them are hard core supporters. It could be more given that his rally attendance is still as huge as they was two years ago. If other Republicans get into a primary against him, they have to know that 20 million supporters won't vote for anyone else but him. That is a huge advantage in a primary. When I look at the Republican bench, I don't see any Republican taking him on with a legit chance of beating him. My expectation is that if Trump runs, he will run un-opposed. Or some semi-Rino like Kasich jumps in just for the publicity.

As far as the Dems go, all the excitement and passion is on the left wing part of the party. No centrist will ever survive their primary process. Look at James Webb in 2016. About as centrist and a moderate Democrat as you can find. He never had a chance. The future of the Democrat party is Democratic Socialism. Or the end of it depending on how the average American views them. Many in my party view them as communists.

[vtsnowedin]

Trump just has to run. No one needs to nominate him. Of the 60 million people who voted for Trump, I'm going to guess about a third of them are hard core supporters. It could be more given that his rally attendance is still as huge as they was two years ago. If other Republicans get into a primary against him, they have to know that 20 million supporters won't vote for anyone else but him. That is a huge advantage in a primary. When I look at the Republican bench, I don't see any Republican taking him on with a legit chance of beating him. My expectation is that if Trump runs, he will run un-opposed. Or some semi-Rino like Kasich jumps in just for the publicity.

As far as the Dems go, all the excitement and passion is on the left wing part of the party. No centrist will ever survive their primary process. Look at James Webb in 2016. About as centrist and a moderate Democrat as you can find. He never had a chance. The future of the Democrat party is Democratic Socialism. Or the end of it depending on how the average American views them. Many in my party view them as communists.

All true enough but Trump has to get past Iowa and New Hampshire with solid wins before he claims another victory lap. LBJ found that hard to do and withdrew shortly after. A lot can happen between now and the Iowa caucus.

[Cog]

If I were Trump I wouldn't run at all. He has nothing left to prove. Only 45 guys have ever been president of the USA. He is wealthy and still healthy. But history shows that people who get into political office rarely give it up voluntarily. Just look at the 70- 80 year olds in the Senate from both parties. I simply don't get the attraction of the job.

But Trump will most likely run and if the economy is still doing well by that time, he won't be beat. Why trade horses when your horse is winning?

Here is an example of a guy who won't be winning.

[Tanada]

All true enough but Trump has to get past Iowa and New Hampshire with solid wins before he claims another victory lap. LBJ found that hard to do and withdrew shortly after. A lot can happen between now and the Iowa caucus.

While that is true LBJ only got elected in 1964 because JFK was assassinated almost exactly one year earlier and he claimed the mantel to 'complete the good work' yadda yadda yada. He would never have won on his own initially and even worse LBJ spent his entire four years in office escalating the war in Nam repeatedly leading to a string of mass protests coupled with race riots in a half dozen major cities.

In contrast President Trump packs auditoriums with supporters and gives speeches that are so popular they get thousands of views on YouTube despite the fact that they tend to be the same speech given on a week to week basis just in different venues. President Trump is behaving in the mold of Bill Clinton, he never stopped campaigning so he is keeping his base energized and active.

If you look at the places where the D's turned over seats they are mostly in blue states, some lighter blue like Pennsylvania or northern Virginia but others like California where it is nearly a miracle any R's ever get elected. The real surprise to me was Iowa, it really makes me want to hear more about the two R's who got booted out.

[KaiserJeep]

Not to mention (and I said this before and I don't think anybody believed me) Trump could take the Democratic nomination if he wanted to. He was a registered - and fairly Liberal - Democrat his entire adult life in NYC. That his candidacy was Republican is merely because as a Populist he has to run against the party in power and promise change. Had a Republican been POTUS, he would have campaigned as a Democrat, and the Democrats would have hated him as much as the dozen or so Republican contenders he trounced in 2015-2016.

I know that in the memory of most of you, the Republicans have been Conservative and the Democrats have been Liberal. This started with JFK and will probably be dubbed the "Camelot Reforms" when the history of this period is written in another 40 years. Prior to that, the ideology of the two major parties was decided in the conventions, along with other party platform "planks".

Before JFK, the most ideological breadth was within the Democratic Party. That party included the extreme right wing of the American political spectrum, the anti-Civil-Rights so called "Dixiecrats". All the Republicans were at least Moderates and many were downright Liberal. For example Eisenhower was fairly Liberal in spite of his background as Supreme Allied Commander, he was pro-Civil-Rights and completed the desegregation of the military during his first term as POTUS.

These were more or less constants since the Reconstruction after the Civil War. Would you expect anything else, when the modern Democratic Party was founded by Andrew Jackson, a slave owner and the US Army General responsible for much of the forced relocation of Native Americans to reservations? (Look up the "Trail of Tears".)

The Republicans by contrast were founded by the "Great Emancipator", Abraham Lincoln.

It still boggles my mind how any minority could ever accept that the Democrats ever had any real interest in them, given the actual History. They never found a Republican when they looked under the robes of a KKK member, for example, not in the solid Democratic South. One of those KKK members was Senator Robert Byrd, who was both a KKK recruiter and organizer, and served as the Senate Majority leader and Minority Leader and Majority Whip and other positions in his long career, although he always (after JFK's reforms) would do all that he could do to deflect the KKK publicity.

[vtsnowedin]

Once the Dems take the house gavels in January they will have about 400 days to harass, investigate, and impeach Trump prior to the Iowa caucus. Even if he has survived that with the stone wall of the Senate he may well be sick of the whole thing by that time so a Calvin Coolidge type announcement ("I choose not to run) would not surprise me one bit.
Last week the GOP lost house seats in states that handed Trump his electoral college victory which should caution those that think he could easily win in 2020.

[Cog]

I have faith the Democrat party can find a candidate so abhorrent to the average voter that Trump will seem desirable by comparison. They did nominate Hillary Clinton after all.

Much of what you see with Trump is pure trolling. He knows his tweets inflame the left and he loves the reaction. His supporters are giving him high fives about his boldness. Do you think us Trump supporters are embarrassed by what he says? We have some good laughs about it and encourage him to stick it the left whenever he can. Kick Jim Acosta out of the press pool? Hell yeah, kick CNN out completely. Call another world leader a moron and a wimp. Yep, we are behind that 100% with more Hell yeahs!! See the reaction of a Trump supporter to what Trump does is not reflected by talking to a RINO or your average Democrat. We are very much enjoying the drama.

[Newfie]

Well yes, adolescent behaviors on both extremes.