Faute de Mieux

 

"Polls have opened across the east coast of the United States as millions of Americans go to the polls to choose between Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or a third party outsider. 

As voting began in the early hours of Tuesday morning in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton's lead in the polls solidified, with the RCP poll average showing the Democrat nominee up three points.

The village of Dixville Notch, which has just eight voters, became the first in the nation to declare. Shortly after midnight local time, Mrs Clinton won the village with four votes. Donald Trump received two votes, with another going to Gary Johnson, the Libertarian. One voter chose to forgo the candidates on offer and cast a vote for Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP candidate. 

The final, frenzied hours of campaigning on Monday saw stars galore and mad dashes to key swing states - including, notably, Michigan, which Democrats have conceded they might lose.

"Hopefully it's relatively calm. Hopefully it doesn't blow up. But this hasn't been a regular election year," said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's Law School."  The Telegraph

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It looks to me that Hillary Clinton will be president, faute de mieux.

This presidency will be marked by a continuation and intensification of an aggressive US foreign policy driven by neocon and Zionist interests and the apparently genetic impulse of the US Navy to dominate the Pacific Ocean area.  This means that the US is likely to re-engage massively in the Middle East to resolve the wars in Syria and Iraq to Clinton's taste.  This re-engagement will lead to the re-introduction of conventional US ground forces to the region if Clinton experiences frustration of her expectation of the hegemony of her instrument for discipline of the world.  That instrument is, of course, the US and its armed forces.  The advisers, trainers, pilots, logistics people presently committed to the anti-IS and anti-Syrian government fights are obviously insufficient to bring the results that she wants.  She will not accept failure of her dreams  for a new kind of world community.  All of that means that US soldiers will start bleeding again in large numbers.

Domestically she will attempt to drive the country to the left in its social mores while simultaneously feeding the beast on Wall Street.  People in the rentier/investor class like me will make money.

Control of the Senate of the United States will be crucial and momentous in the Clinton II years.  If she has it, she will sculpt a  federal judiciary that will enforce her will.  If she does not have control of the senate, she faces the prospect of impeachment and conviction by a Republican controlled House of Representatives and Senate.  They will want her blood and she would be lucky in that circumstance to reach the end of her term.

pl 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/08/us-election-2016-america-starts-to-vote-in-most-divisive-electio/

Comments

[Hood Canal Gardner]

PL Is it really that bad?

[turcopolier]

HCG

Worse. pl

[BillWade]

The 3 early voting New Hampshire towns picked Trump at 32 to 25. Dixville Notch did go to Clinton. I'll be voting in an hour or so, supposed to be a light crowd as 6 million Floridians voted early.

[T G Holland]

It seems to me that the importance of Vietnam is that it was the Army's second beachhead on the Asian mainland. Yes, the Navy held Hawaii but the Army owned the theater.

[bks]

We made it through eight years of W. Can't be worse than that.

[Paul Escobar]

To all,

Little quibble with the article.
New Hampshire midnight voting (Dixville Notch, Harts, Millsfield)

2016
Trump 32
Clinton 25

2012
Obama 28
Romney 14

Hope he wins,
Paul

[ked]

Hilliary is rational and smart.
She will not excercise warfare as the main FP & Nat Sec policy tool, but will focus on diplomacy, especially face-to-face negotiations (her actual strength). This is because warfare has proven inadequate for achieving success, wastes a great deal of precious treasury (better spent on domestic initiatives), and diplomacy is a field where she's least stymied by Congressional gridlock.
"Leftist social mores" is a construct that is practically meaningless in terms of specific policymaking. Centrist presidents just don't lead the value system any longer (if they ever did). In any case, the GOP Congress will freeze legislation (of any sort) because they find hate for her to be their only unifying theme and means to manipulate the base of the party. State level initiatives will reveal our polity's social mores, not DC (should make states rights enthusiasts happy, but they are rarely happy). Congress will be so dysfunctional (even by current standards) that it will become completely irrelevant. The public will support her need to employ emergency powers over a budget crisis to keep the gov whole, & the House may impeach, but it will fail in the Senate and no one will care. It will be a period later known as "the Shame of the Congress". She cannot sculpt the judiciary, the turnover is too slow and if it's self-centered borg behavior you like as a template, it is as strong in the judicial hive as the intel or anywhere else. {btw, people like you, Wall St & me always make $... while prez's come & go... little changes on that score, except scale & style.}
Her real challenge will be to turn to long-term domestic conditions crying for attention, that in doing so would do great service for the working class ... industrial policy (including technology & health) and infrastructure maintenance and modernization programs. In doing so, she will be hammered for using executive power - a self-fulfilling prophecy that GOP strategists will think so clever. Now, I'm off to cast my pointless ballot in my one-party state, out of habit if nothing else. When do the bars open?

[Lemur]

I wonder if old socialists like George Bernard Shaw could envisage a left wing oligarchy?

[turcopolier]

TG Holland

CINCPAC is always an admiral. During the VN War, USMACV was a subordinate unified command under CINCPAC. pl

[rjj]

how did those NH communities vote in the primaries? anybody remember?

booths are full here at 9AM.

[turcopolier]

ked

IMO you are mistaken about all of that especially the smart and rational part. I was always the smartest kid in the class and I recognize the limitations of such a qualification especially when people are intent on kissing your butt. Rational? "Ah, but I can summon spirits from the vasty deep." pl

[Hood Canal Gardner]

This bad:

Building/maintaining a fence around a rotting house/unpruned orchard says something about the owners. As for national health security (read pandemic) it is far too central to national defense to be left to the vagaries of domestic and international employer bookkeeping.

[mistah charley, ph.d.]

Col. Lang - a terminology question - you write "aggressive US foreign policy driven by neocon and Zionist interests". At his Vineyard, "The Saker" uses the word "AngloZionists":

http://thesaker.is/why-i-use-the-term-anglozionist-and-why-its-important/

I would be interested in your thoughts on this.

[rjj]

"Ah, but I can summon spirits from the vasty deep."

GODDAMN! I got labeled with that a few days ago. In my case you clearly do not appreciate that there is method in't. The universe is mysterious. Moms can sometimes modify an undesirable outcome by actively anticipating the worst (worry juju) Tried to explain to a pilot with a reason fetish how passengers gripping the armrests in an airplane help keep a gazillion pounds of metal alloy airborne. It was futile.

[kooshy]

So far, our country's experience of her and her advisors is contrary to what you say (hope). But IMO the worst with them is, that they are in their element with the corruption.

[kooshy]

If I were Trump i would check everyone of those mail in voters.

[ked]

Well, I admit I'm a relativist and kinda hopeful that reason and intelligence is good and might even prevail. But ya got me on the point that rationalism and smarts does not assure anything - except occasionally a worthy competition of ideas and actions. I can make the counter-argument too, that she will quickly tire of the power that turns out empty once she has reached the apex. That would be sad, maybe even dangerous, yet lead to an implosion of the Dem party as we are witnessing in the GOP... So there's always that to hope for.
I look forward to your post mortem on the GOP, & whatever nativism, right wing extremism will be branding itself as going fwd.

[Tyler]

Sir,

I think you will be surprised.

[Swampy]

The Local polling place (neighborhood H.S) was barren this morning, which is a surprise because last election it was packed at 8:00 a.m. However, the spot by my work has what looks to be a 2 hour wait.

Lots of Women sporting the Hillary "Hospital" shirt, though with plenty of talk about how anxious they've been. Overheard everything from Lack of sleep, Tums abuse and excessive baking and cooking.

[rjj]

forgot to quote: previous post refers to "Ah, but I can summon spirits from the vasty deep." pl

come to think of it, by way of Owain Glyndŵr - HRC has two welsh grandparents which may go a long way to explain her approach to IT and security.

[Eliot]

"Hilliary is rational and smart."

Intelligence is not wisdom.

The group think in Washington can also be quite pernicious, leading otherwise sensible people to believe some very strange things.

- Eliot

[Joe100]

Ked -

I have been dealing with the D "deep state" in my work back through the Clinton administrations. Given that I have seen very little rational thinking in this crowd over that period, I can't imagine where then rational ideas would come from (certainly not from CAP in my work area). My colleagues have been working with one of her key policy advisors to develop recommendations for her transition team and it appears that more "kool aid" thinking will prevail if HRC is elected.

[Phodges]

Who do think he worked for?

[Babak Makkinejad]

..."but will focus on diplomacy, especially face-to-face negotiations (her actual strength). "

That is a joke, right?

You are being ironic?

[Sam Peralta]

"Hilliary is rational and smart." And a leopard can change its spots.

"She will not excercise warfare as the main FP & Nat Sec policy tool, but will focus on diplomacy..". Tell that to the people of Libya and Syria and Ukraine. And Gaddafi who was brutally raped and killed while she cackled about it. And the people of Iraq and the Balkans. Is there a war or military intervention she has opposed since she got to DC?