This might be harder than I thought...

So, I was watching cable news, and what do you know, they are trying to talk about how to appeal to Millennials who are not on board with Hillary. Gee, this looks promising...except they showed how much they just don't get it. They really don't.

Anyway, they asked questions like this: "do you think Sanders being in the race too long is why Sanders supporters won't get on board with Clinton"? Um...what? WHAT?! NO. If anything, your constant yammering about how he needed to drop out of the race for the good of the party is the problem. It really seems clear that these guys don't have any clue about how to cater to intelligent millennials. They think the problem is that a superior candidate was in the race and this ruined it for Clinton who is vastly inferior and who people just don't like. As if the presence of a superior candidate ruined her chances and that if he wasn't in the race and dropped out like a good boy people would still like Clinton. No. No. NO!

This mindset IS THE PROBLEM. You don't understand, WE DONT LIKE CLINTON. WE LIKE SANDERS BECAUSE HE WAS MORE HONEST AND SPOKE TO ISSUES WE CARE ABOUT THAT CLINTON DOES NOT. Seriously, trying to limit our choices, force us to vote for inferior candidates and settle for less IS YOUR PROBLEM. The problem is that the establishment is still insistent we fall in line with its agenda. It treats us like children or mindless slaves who don't have our own opinions. It wants to force us to conform with its agenda, and is pissed someone got in the way to give us a better option. Screw better options, right? We millennials should just do what we're told. That seems to be the message I get from questions like this.

As long as people continue to think in this way, with this "conventional knowledge" that involves treating people like sheep and telling us to fall in line behind candidates we don't like and don't want, then they will never get us. The problem with Clinton is completely self inflicted by her and her campaign and the establishment. They don't care what we think. They just want us to shut up and conform and vote for who they tell us to vote for. And they actively sabotage any choice we actually LIKE. Maybe that's why we're not going for Clinton, hmm? Clueless, clueless, clueless.

They also talked about how millennials are mostly working poor and how they're economically distressed and how Clinton needs to appeal to that. Um...yeah, we are, and once again, Clinton is clueless in fixing the problem. We need real, serious reform of the capitalist system if we are going to fix the economy for millennials. I discussed my solutions here in depth. Clinton might have some of them, and has them in watered down form, but she just doesn't do enough. It's one of the reasons we don't like her. She's not gonna bring us change. Shes going to largely continue the status quo and make some very mild changes here and there. She's not gonna actually fix the system. And once again, the democrats have been shooting down and sabotaging people who actually want to like Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.

I mean, it's great that people are asking questions of how to appeal to us, but it's just...baffling and disheartening to see people THIS OUT OF TOUCH that they legitimately can't seem to wrap their minds around how to appeal to people properly. They really don't get it. They are literally so out of touch even their questions to learn are poorly framed and shows that their real goal is just to try to find ways to sell the same old crap we don't want to us when we want a new direction. They're not interested in fixing our problems. They're interested in finding ways to make us complacent and consent to their rule. That's pretty much the entire problem in a nutshell. It's right in front of their face and they just don't see it. Maybe they don't want to see it, because it might force them to confront some uncomfortable truths about how they themselves are the problem. So they go, "am I out of touch? no, it's the children who are wrong." That actually explains the condescension and derision on their part too whenever we try to explain the problems to them.

Dear dems, you're doing it wrong, stahp!

*Sigh*, this election is such a freaking joke. Clinton is literally in danger of losing this election to a belligerent oompa loompa and the dems STILL don't get it. Looking at my news feeds, I see an increasingly shrill and desperate attempt by these guys to win back voters....by doubling down on the same tactics that are pissing people off and that I've discussed on here at length. Now Obama is pushing the whole "a vote for anyone but Hillary is a vote for Trump" (which follows shortly after saying he would be "personally insulted" if black people don't vote for her. Elsewhere, others are pointing out that anyone who disagrees with them and their brand of liberalism is sexist. We all don't like Hillary because we're sexist, the narrative goes, and if she were male we would vote for her. Yeah, shame the voters, why don't you? Don't try to appeal to them, talk down to them and try to shame them for not liking the crap you served up.

Heck, that's the problem this whole election. I was on board with the democrats going into this election cycle. I wanted them to succeed, I wanted them to beat the republicans and replace them as the dominant party with a left wing platform that replaces the dominant Reagan overtones of the past 30 years. But the democrats didn't do that. They shoved Clinton down our throats, rigged the system against a far superior candidate, and do nothing but insult and condescend those who don't fall in line. And in the face of losing it all, they double down on these tactics.

Obama, you can be insulted all you want, but *I* feel pretty freaking insulted this election. This whole election is an affront to my intellect and my values. The fact that the democrats think it can leverage people into voting for them through browbeating, subversive tactics, and fear, vs. the good old way of actually APPEALING to your voters, is insulting. *I* am insulted. A voter. Someone who can theoretically tip the scales in your favor seeing how I live in a swing state. And what do you do? You double down on what is pissing off and alienating people like me to begin with. You treat us like your personal pawns and get pissy when we don't obey your orders. Well, we're not your pawns. You are supposed to be running for OUR good, not to boost up YOUR stupid little legacies. You guys are in it for the power and the fame and the money, not for the good of the people.

I'm not looking forward to a Trump presidency, I don't want a Trump presidency, and trust me, I hate the republican party as it exists. It is so contrary to my values in almost every way. But if you think that I'm going to play your sick little game, democrats, you got another thing coming. We deserve better than BOTH of these jokes of candidates.

You're on the verge of losing. Learn the error of your ways, or lose with dignity. I don't want to hear a darned word if you guys lose this that this was somehow our fault. If you blame us, it shows us you learned nothing and are just that out of touch. We're not your pawns. And we're not gonna vote for you just because you're a less bad option. You need to actually appeal to people. And I admit, at this point in this election cycle, you may be beyond help. You made so many bad decisions in the past 2 years even a month of being good wouldn't convince us and it would feel insincere. Still, at the very least, you can learn how to better appeal to people in future election cycles. Anyway, point is, if you lose, you have no one to blame but yourselves.You alienated people, and all of these bad decisions you made that alienated people are yours and yours alone. It is up to you to learn from them and do a better job next time.

The Blue Wall Erodes: Election Update 9/27/16

I was surprised to look at the polls today and notice that oh crap, Clinton is really getting destroyed now. It looked like she was rebounding a few days after my last update, but then I saw that 538 was giving Trump a 55% chance of winning or something crazy so I decided to look at the polls again. Wow, that "blue wall" I discussed last time is eroding where many of those states are just simple swing states, and other states are joining them. It looks like this election is anyone's game now.

Aggregate polling - 2.4% Clinton (up from from 0.9%)

Well it looks like she's rebounding in terms of the aggregates at least...

Aggregate polling with third party candidates - 1.6% Clinton (up from 0.7%)

Same here.

Electoral College

Changes: Missouri looks like it's off the table now and in solid Trump territory. Maine itself is now in play, as is Minnesota, which is very disturbing for Clinton because I consider that a solid blue state.

Arizona - 1.6% Trump

Colorado - 0.2% Trump

Florida - 0.6% Clinton

Georgia - 4.5% Trump

Iowa - 4.8% Trump

Maine - 5.0% Clinton

Maine CD2 - 5.4% Trump

Michigan - 4.7% Clinton

Minnesota - 4.0% Clinton

Nevada - 2.0% Trump

New Hampshire - 5.0% Clinton

North Carolina - 0.3% Trump

Ohio - 1.8% Trump

Pennsylvania - 2.4% Clinton

Virginia - 6.9% Clinton

Wisconsin - 4.7% Clinton

All in all it looks like Clinton took some damage. Let's see how this pans out with the electoral college.

Election Scenarios

Most likely scenario with no swing states <=6% lead) - 200-164 (no winner)

Most likely scenario with no swing states (<=3% lead) - 243-187 (no winner)

Most likely scenario with no swing states (<=1% lead) - 263-222 (no winner)

Most likely scenario (best guess) - 292-246 Clinton

Clinton + 1 - 316-222 Clinton

Clinton + 2 -  351-187 Clinton

Clinton + 3 - 351-187 Clinton

Clinton + 4 - 351-187 Clinton

Clinton + 5 - 373-165 Clinton

Clinton + 6 - 374-164 Clinton

Trump + 1 - 263-275 Trump

Trump + 2 - 263-275 Trump

Trump + 3 - 243-295 Trump

Trump + 4 - 233-305 Trump

Trump + 5 - 200-338 Trump

Trump + 6 - 200-338 Trump

Discussion

So it looks like Clinton is still winning in the most likely projection. Still, she is dangerously close to losing, so dangerously close that the slightest mishap will cost her the election. So close that a "spoiler effect" might actually have an impact here, not that that should persuade anyone who doesn't like either candidate to support the lesser evil. If Clinton loses Florida like Gore did in 2000, that changes the entire election. The odds are literally like 51-49% in Clinton's favor or something crazy like that. It's that close right now. These last few months, Clinton has been so far ahead all she needed to do was defend her territory, and Trump needs to make serious gains to win. We are now at that point where Clinton is losing a lot of territory to Trump, a lot of states have leads narrowing where they are anyone's game. Statistically, the slightest error between the polls and the results can decide the election at this point. I expect this to change in the aftermath of the first debate considering most people seem to be saying Clinton won and Trump made quite a few gaffes that will likely alienate some voters in my opinion, but still, if things don't shift, this election day will be a nail biter.

A brief perspective of the first debate

I don't really have much to say here. It was pretty standard establishment bs. The questions were framed in ways to support establishment politics, with little to no emphasis on the kinds of left wing politics I support and discuss on here. The answers were standard and what you would expect from the candidates. Trump had little of value to say, and Clinton basically bored me. The only thing I had to say good about Clinton is I saw some of bernie's ideas in there like a jobs program, a higher minimum wage, etc. Still i dont feel Clinton is really a progressive here. She lacks conviction. She needs to be pressured to do these things and question how she will act in office.

There was no clear winner. If I had to choose I would pick Clinton since her politics are more closer to my own and she's a more substantive candidate, but honestly, no matter who wins, America is the loser here. It seems people who like trump say trump won and those who like Clinton say Clinton won. That indicates to me that the outcome is subjective.

More on Soltysik

So, I researched Mimi Soltysik further and have more things to add to my analysis.

1) The guy is from Reading, PA. As you guys know, I'm also from southeastern PA and it looks like we have a common background in terms of shared experiences that may have ultimately had a massive impact on our views. If you want to see the problems with capitalism, look no further than Reading. The place has like a 40% poverty rate, and actually surpassed the likes of Detroit during the recession in terms of poverty, being the poorest city in the US in 2011 and it was still second as recently as 2013. As of last year it was 7th. Here's a recent article I've read explaining just how poor this city is. It's a mess, and no amount of mainstream politics is going to fix it. Soltysik called it "a city devastated by neoliberalism." That's not far off the mark. Good to have a candidate who is likely influenced by similar forces as I have been, and who sees the world in a similar way, if not in actual solutions, in seeing the problem. This is a problem I have with Clinton. She's like an aristocrat. She seems to want the presidency for her own gain, wanting the legacy of being the first woman president, and performing all kinds of machiavellian actions to knock out the competition. I want a sincere candidate with a serious desire for social change, not an aristocrat who is out of touch, paying lip service, and is in it for their own gain. This is what I get from Clinton. Mimi Soltysik seems far more sincere.

2) Despite common ground in the development of our views and environmental facts on it, we ultimately do have different solutions. This guy is a socialist, first and foremost. A full fledged democratic socialist. Not a social democrat using the same name like Bernie was, or someone with my mixed economy ideology. He is definitely to the left of me, and wants more radical change than I want. I really just want a more extreme form of welfare capitalism, and am open to democratic socialism as a possible solution. It's just not my primary goal. As I've stated before, I'd rather focus on an anti work left wing ideology that seeks to reduce forced labor and giving people the power to say no. Meanwhile, Soltysik and the socialists push for full employment, which I see as impractical and undesirable. He rejects all forms of welfare capitalism it seems, which is a good way to summarize my views. Socialists think worker exploitation and lack of freedom ends when everyone has a job, and everyone has a democratic stake in said job. Meanwhile, I think we're better if we're free to reject employment from the get go. The difference can best be summed up by Karl Widerquist's "Big Casino" essay, in which he criticizes both capitalist and socialist economies as not really giving people the freedom to live their life as they want, and believes the best way is to give everyone the ability and freedom to say no (for reference, Widerquist wrote a whole book about this and it's made a huge impact on my views).

This is not to say that socialism as Soltysik wants it is bad. As I said, it's comparable to the socialism the green party recently adopted. I think Soltysik has a lot of good ideas to bring to the debate, and believe socialists have made many positive contributions in the past to economic policy in the US by forcing presidents like FDR to the left (one of my favorite presidents if you recall). And the idea of economic democracy is a good one in theory. I like the idea of socialism. The real question has to do with implementation. Can it work? I believe capitalism and the profit motive, despite their flaws, still do a lot of good. I reject both wholesale pro capitalistic ideologies, and ideologies that seek to eliminate the very concept of it. I think the truth is somewhere in between.

As such, I'm skeptical of a lot of Soltysik's ideas and believe he is more extreme than I am. However, I admittedly think the same about Stein all things considered. I really would like to see a third party take the middle ground between the democrats and full on socialism, trying to bring together the best ideas of both capitalist and socialist movements. I believe Bernie Sanders was pretty close to that ideal. I'm maybe a tad to the left or right of him depending on how you classify basic income as a policy.

The real question now is Soltysik or Stein? Stein is maybe slightly to the right of soltysik, but both have some pretty awful policies and ideas at times. They both try to promise these radical things that are impractical and possibly damaging. While Stein is more pro basic income and perhaps a little more pro capitalist in some ways, she also has some awful ideas on GMOs and the like, whereas Soltysik seems to potentially be far more well informed and articulate. Stein comes off kind of scatter brained sometimes to be honest. I only support her for lack of a better option and my refusal to support the democrats this election. Soltysik seems a bit more on point, but is even more radical than Stein in some ways, and this isn't something I really support.

As I said, I see the world in a problem definition way similarly to socialists, but my solutions are a bit different. I'm open to some socialism but don't see it as an end all, and also have some reservations about it too. So honestly, it's really a question of who is a better candidate, and this requires a lot more thought from me.

Mimi Soltysik: Like Jill Stein, without the woo woo

So, I've been hearing more about the socialist candidate for president Mimi Soltysik, and I like a lot of what I hear. It's weird how someone who is technically pro capitalist is looking into socialist options for president, but until we get a middle ground between the democrats and the socialists, that's what we gotta do.

Anyway, this guy, he seems pretty good. The socialist party platform that he represents is available on his website, and the socialist elements seem comparable to what the greens propose. Essentially, they want decentralized, democratic socialism too. I don't agree with every element of the platform, but once again, it seems comparable to Jill Stein's and the greens on a lot of the big issues, and if I'm voting for her, I might as well consider Soltysik too. He even copies some of Stein's flaws like promising so much he can't possibly deliver, and pushing for unrealistic proposals like cutting the military in half.

In terms of basic income (since I can't help but bring it up), the platform says: "We support the provision of a livable guaranteed annual income.", although it seems to possibly be linked to employment, which is a no no to me (keep in mind I'm an anti work leftie and this is a big way in which I disagree with many socialists). Still he also pushes for much greater income equality and shorter work weeks. I also see nothing about student debt in there, which is a stark change from Stein to the negative. Not that Stein's plan was realistic anyway.

Beyond that, Soltysik also lacks a lot of Stein's more cringeworthy policies, like her opposition to GMOs and pandering to people who think wifi hurts kids. So the people who think she is anti science have a reason to rejoice here.

At this point, I may consider voting for him as a write in. I would need to research him further, but I like a lot of what I see. He doesn't seem perfect, but no one is. I like some of what Stein is for, but she's just a poor representative of that ideology I support because there is no better option. If Soltysik can demonstrate he can further ideas I like better than Stein, I may write him in.

My opinion on the electoral shifts: let them sweat

So if you read my last article, you'll know Hillary is starting to be in a very uncomfortable position. She was so far ahead it seemed Trump couldn't catch her three weeks ago, but now it looks like they're almost in a dead heat, with Trump only having a slight advantage in that respect.

And of course, the mainstream media and the democratic party campaign are already trying to find their scapegoat, that being millennials. It appears that the millennial vote Obama relied on to win isn't being transferred to Hillary so easily, and they're already trying to blame us for Hillary floundering in the polls and losing.

And, if you've read my views on this before, you'll know this is garbage. The fact is, we never wanted Hillary to begin with. We wanted Bernie. The democratic establishment suppressed Bernie in every way they could. They used the media to push their propaganda and manufacture consent, and seemed to work actively against the Bernie campaign, partnered with that media, to rig the system against him at every turn. At the convention, the DNC quietly silenced the Bernie supporters to give the masses the illusion of unity, and the online discourse followed as CTR and other superpacs began flooding sites like Reddit.

And then they wonder why we won't fall in line. Even worse, they think that doubling down on the same old fear tactics like telling millennials that "a vote for a third party is a vote for Trump" is going to convince us to fall in line. As if, oh, we only heard this 1000 times, maybe the 1001st time will somehow make us see the light. No, no, no.

Millennials don't even like Trump. We just don't like Clinton either. And we don't need to be lectured and condescended to all the time to get on board with you, trying to force us to get on board is the problem. You see, the democratic party, representing the democrats of a generation ago, might be able to talk down us young whippersnappers, but in reality it's that arrogant condescension that's pissing us off. The fact that the democrats think they can bully and talk down to us and force us to support a candidate we don't even like is what's pissing us off.

The democrats put a lot of investment in this strategy. It's as if Clinton's entire tactic was to alienate young voters then try to gaslight us and crap into supporting her. Like the entire election was predicated on a gamble that they could somehow win over the same demographics they just shut down.

I say call them on it. Let them sweat, and if we get Trump, we get Trump. And it's not our fault if we do. It's theirs. We never wanted Hillary. We made that clear from the beginning. But the establishment thought they could force her on us and that we would have the memory of a goldfish in doing so. If we give in, this tactic works. So instead, call them on it. Vote your conscience. If you legitimately want Hillary, vote for her. But if you want Stein, or Johnson, or even Trump, vote for them. You are not obligated to vote for a party that itself feels no obligation to cater to your interests and has made this point perfectly clear all year.

Let them sweat. Let them realize what a horrible mistake they've made. They deserve it. I'm in no way endorsing a Trump presidency here, but I just don't feel obligated to "stop" one by voting for a candidate who made it clear they don't give a crap about us to begin with and insist on using these orwellian bullying tactics to win us over. And I WON'T vote for a candidate that doesn't give a crap about me out of fear that another worse one will be elected if I don't. The democrats have to change to meet millennial needs and expectations. They need to realign themselves to our interests, we don't have to submit to them. Crap will never change unless we call them on their bluff and remain firm with them.

Election update 9/18/16

Okay, so I was on vacation for three weeks, hence the relative lack of content, but now I'm back. I'm hearing a lot about how Hillary is supposedly floundering in the polls now so let's take a look at the damage.

Aggregate polling - 0.9% Clinton (down from 3.9%)

Ouch. It's almost dead even now. Clinton is less than a point ahead.

Aggregate polling with third party candidates - 0.7% Clinton (down from 3.2%)


No real statistically significant change from the two way match ups. Also ouch though.

Electoral College

Arizona - 1.6% Trump (down from 2.5%)

Florida - 1.0% Trump (flipped from Clinton)

Georgia - 4.2% Trump (up from 1.6%)

Iowa - 4.3% Trump (up from 0.8%)

Missouri - 7.7% Trump (up from 3.0%)

Nevada - 0.8% Clinton (down from 2.3%)

North Carolina - 0.6% Clinton (up from 0.5%)

Ohio - 1.2% Trump (flipped from Clinton)

Maine CD2 - 5.4% Trump (up from 1%)

Ouch, owie, ouch, Clinton is losing the close states like crazy. Maybe this is a regression from her post convention bump, or calling Trump supporters deplorables, or getting pneumonia, but Clinton seems to be in trouble all of the sudden. Still, even if Clinton lost these states, she could still win the electoral college since she's so far ahead, so let's look at her more solid "blue wall" of support.

Clinton's "blue wall"

Colorado - 3.7% Clinton

Michigan - 5.2% Clinton

New Hampshire - 5.0% Clinton

Pennsylvania - 6.6% Clinton

Virginia - 3.5% Clinton

Wisconsin - 5.3% Clinton

Yikes. If she drops much more in the polls, she's going to have an experience not much different than Trump was in not too long ago. Any other update I'd just consider Virginia and Colorado swing states because of those margins, but because I didn't even include them in my last several updates because Clinton was like +9 in those states, it's worth noting here. It should be mentioned that if Trump wins first batch of states above, he only needs one of these states to win the election. Yikes. Let's look at how this turns out for the electoral college.

Election Scenarios

Most likely scenario with no swing states (<=3% lead) - 272-187 Clinton

Most likely scenario with toss ups (<=1% lead) - 272-216 Clinton

Most likely scenario (best guess) - 293-245 Clinton

All toss ups Clinton (Clinton + 1) - 322-216 Clinton

Clinton + 2 -  351-187 Clinton

Clinton + 3 - 351-187 Clinton

Clinton + 4 - 351-187 Clinton

Clinton + 5 - 373-165 Clinton

Clinton + 6 - 374-164 Clinton

All toss ups Trump (Trump + 1) - 272-266 Clinton

Trump + 2 - 272-266 Clinton

Trump + 3 - 272-266 Clinton

Trump + 4 - 250-288 Trump

Trump + 5 - 246-292 Trump

Trump + 6 - 220-318 Trump

Discussion

Ouch. The most likely scenario now is similar to what the Trump +3 scenario was last update. Good thing for Clinton that she has that blue wall of states or she would be in real trouble. Although even that is showing signs of cracking (Virginia, Colorado,etc.). Clinton had a lot she could afford to lose, and she's lost it dearly. She went from having a comfortable lead to bringing it down to the wire. While she still has a lot going for her like the structural leanings of the electoral college favoring the democrats, she cannot afford to lose more than she is. If Trump wins all of the close races, it will only take one state to win the entire election. When it's possible a tiny 4 electoral vote state like New Hampshire could decide the election, you know you're in for a nail biter. I still think the odds are good that Clinton will still win, although the margins by which seem to be declining at an alarming rate. Still, to answer the question I asked in my first ever election update, Trump may not be so screwed after all. He actually has a fighting chance of winning now.

On 9/11

So, I've seen a lot of mixed views on 9/11 these days. Some people do the whole American civil religion "expect the flag" stuff, showing blind support of patriotism and nationalism, while others discuss the longer term impacts. I'll be doing the latter here.

The event itself was horrifying. I wasn't aware of it until school got out like 6 hours after the fact (teachers didn't tell us) and it was shocking. Everyone was panicked, and then we wanted revenge.

We invaded countries. We created a surveillance state. We gave away our rights and civil liberties to make us safer. We got thousands of our own soldiers killed, and killed tens of thousands of civilians in the process. Terrorism still exists, and new terrorists replaced the old. Bin Laden is dead, but now we got ISIS and the cycle continues.

It seems to me that the "terrorists" won. I'm not talking about al Qaeda here. We kicked their butts bad and left Bin Laden at the bottom of an ocean. I'm talking about Bush's straw man of them. The terrorists that hate our freedom and want to tyranize us. We did it to ourselves. 9/11 changed us, and not for the better. And our legacy of dealing with the event is way worse than the event itself. Terrorism, the act of inflicting terror into people and causing them to change their behavior, has been extremely effective.

I'm not saying this to bash America. But as they say in 12 step programs, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting there is one. We did not handle 9/11 well. We have left a suspension of rights, liberties, and see destruction in its wake. We got our revenge, but it's kind of like the revenge you see an action movie hero get after a multi million dollar car chase through a busy city. Yes, you killed the bad guy, but at what cost? The war on terror has been a huge pyrrhic victory. We "won", but we lost in other ways by doing so.

If I had to address the people on 9/12 15 years ago, I'd tell them they are justified in being angry, but to be careful what they do with it. Don't just do things without thinking them through first. Don't really behind the flag and give up your civil liberties in the name of security and invade countries without proper evidence and planning to do so to get revenge. Cool heads really do prevail over passion in the heat of the moment.

I do believe we can be safe while having civil liberties. And I do think we can get revenge for attacks against us without destabilizing continents.

Clinton, health, and pneumonia

Yesterday, during a 9/11 event, Clinton apparently had to leave and looked like she was on the verge of collapse when she did. This reignited some concerns over her health which has been a recurring issue in this campaign.

It turned out she was suffering from pneumonia. This is an infraction in the lungs and responds well to treatment. There are some concerns in Clinton's case due to her age, but as someone who had it when I was like 5 or 6, let me just say I'm surprised she can function at all. I was out of school for 2 weeks when I had it and in the early stages was extremely sick and couldn't function at all.

All in all, this should not impact Clinton's ability to act as a commander in chief, so legitimate health concerns that are demonstrable and provable still have not been presented. Again, you can get rid of this in a few weeks. Clinton is older and it hits older people harder, but Clinton is extremely active and should be able to throw it off in my unprofessional opinion.

Trump supporters are deplorable? Ha, that's rich

First of all, I'm going to say I'm no trump fan. And a lot of trump supporters are of morally questionable character, but I think Clinton needs to look in the mirror here. After dealing with rabid Clinton supporters for almost 2 years now, I can confirm they're just as rabid and nor ally questionable as trump ones. I'm not talking about your typical Clinton supporter here, including most of my friends either. I'm talking about the real die hard Clinton people. These guys are shady as heck. They've been manipulating the discourse for 2 years now. They are the ones that keep telling us there's so much at stake and what about the supreme court, and how we better support Hillary or else. Hillary can come off as morally superior in some ways on stage sure. But behind her campaign is a lot of people doing dirty work. Correct the record, for example. The people who silenced the Bernie supporters at the democratic convention through various Orwellian tactics. The media in general. These people are trying to subtlely influence our perspectives in ways that most of us aren't aware of, and try to make Clinton look stronger and better than she is. Yes, the racists and crap on the trump side are deplorable, but the party insiders, the donors, the real people pushing Hillary from behind the scenes are just as bad if not worse. At least with trump you know what you get. With Clinton, you get someone who says one thing and does another.

Election Update 9/3/16

Ok, I'm going to be brief, again, vacation and all, but I figured an election update is something that is relatively easy to do. I've been hearing lately about how suddenly Clinton is doomed and Trump is coming up and can win and blah blah blah, but in all honestly, from what I can tell, he's really only come up by a little bit where the election wouldn't be a total blow out. Keep in mind just how badly Trump has been doing as I've covered here. How even my Trump +3 models show Clinton still winning by a hefty margin. Trump hasn't come up by 3 points, but by 1-2, so really, not a whole lot has changed. Trump is screwed and he will continue to be screwed for some time until he makes more serious improvements. This could be the beginning of a trend but i doubt it will amount to much.

Aggregate polling - 3.9% Clinton (down from 5.4%)

So this monumental shift we've been hearing about for Trump is about 1.5%, whoopie. Not a big deal.

Aggregate polling with third party candidates - 3.2% Clinton (down from 4.0%)

So we see a "spoiler effect" of less than a point. Not a huge deal.

Electoral College
The biggest change is that Missouri is now enough of a swing state that I feel like it's justified in including it in my analysis.

Arizona - 2.5% Trump (up from 1.5%)

Florida - 2.7% Clinton (down from 3.6%)

Georgia - 1.6% Trump (flipped from Clinton)

Iowa - 0.8% Trump (flipped from Clinton)

Missouri - 3.0% Trump (no change)

Nevada - 2.3% Clinton (no change)

North Carolina - 0.5% Clinton (down from 1.7%)

Ohio - 3.8% Clinton (down from 4.8%)

Maine CD2 - 1% Trump (no change)

Realclearpolitics seems to be adding Pennsylvania and Virginia back to the list of swing states since Clinton's lead shrank back to 5-6 points, but I'm still not going to include them here because they're not relevant to my projections unless I wanna bring back projections that actually take into account those shifts. Honestly, I'm more interested in states with less than 3-4 points though because I rarely see aggregates being wrong outside of like a point or two, at least not in 2008 or 2012. Anyway, time to look at the scenarios.

Election Scenarios

Most likely scenario with no swing states (<=3% lead) - 290-154 Clinton

Most likely scenario with toss ups (<=1% lead) - 325-191 Clinton

Most likely scenario (best guess) - 340-198 Clinton

All toss ups Clinton (Clinton + 1) - 347-191 Clinton

Clinton + 2 -  363-175 Clinton

Clinton + 3 - 384-154 Clinton

All toss ups Trump (Trump + 1) - 325-213 Clinton

Trump + 2 - 325-213 Clinton

Trump + 3 - 290-248 Clinton

Trump + 4 - 272-266 Clinton

Trump + 5 - 272-266 Clinton

Trump + 6 - 229-309 Trump

Conclusion 

All in all, we saw a mild shift since my last update. A 1.5-2 point shift in many battleground states has cost Clinton like 20-40 electoral votes, but considering how far ahead she is, this doesn't matter that much. As we can see, Clinton still firmly controls the electoral college even if she loses most the closer battleground states. It would really take the +6 scenario where she loses Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to win. Trump still faces an uphill battle, and while he has made significant gains, all scenarios of him winning are still very hypothetical at this point. The most realistic scenarios very heavily favor Clinton.

PS. I apologize but in making this, I accidentally messed up my 8/24 update. I tend to copy and paste old updates and change the info to make new ones, and in doing so I accidentally edited the old one with new info, essentially messing up the entry. Anyway, you got a new update, so you don't need it anyway =P.

So why is labor day a holiday again?

So, sorry for lack of content, I'm kind of on vacation and will be for some time to come. Anyway, labor day as a holiday is a great idea. We should respect the labor movement and the advancements to society it has brought. I mean, if not for the labor movement, we would arguably still be in the gilded age. Push back by workers against oppressive conditions by employers has done a lot to shape our fairer protections that we have today.

However, since when has our country respected the labor movement recently? It's been under attack since the 1970s and the old left barely exists any more. We're starting to see some revival with the Sanders movement, but as we know that's getting some serious pushback from the establishment, and mainstream politics has little to offer the labor movement. We have a right wing party that is completely and utterly hostile toward them, and a "left" wing party (if you can even call it that, I think the democrats are centrists) that has long thrown them under the bus and only pays lip service to them at best while pursuing donations from the elite class. No one has a serious interest in really making things better for the lower class in general. As I've said before, our two party system is like having a seriously ill person with two doctors, the one who wants to tell you to walk it off and stop being such a baby, and the other one that wants to "manage" your disease with bandaids and pain killers rather than fixing it.

So why celebrate it outside of having a long weekend at the end of the summer after which pools close in some northern states, and which marks some arbitrary fashion thing in which it's no longer acceptable to wear white? I mean, really, the concept has no meaning. It's kind of how Christians perceive the whole war on Christmas thing. You have this supposed religious holiday totally hijacked by secular culture and made into this huge capitalistic consumption festival. And I guess there's a place for that, secular Christmas is fun, and so are three day weekends and all that go along with labor day (what better way to respect workers than to give most of them a day off?). But just like Christians will go on about a war on Christmas by secular forces, the labor movement has had a systemic war on it enacted by the right and enabled by the faux left, aka, centrist democrats for 40 years. No one actually celebrates it based on what it actually stands for, and it's frustrating.