2024 OT Election Day Thread: Donald Trump elected POTUS, GOP wins Senate and House of Representatives

Yeah it seems to me they gave the Russians all their basic demands before negotiations. The Russians can now focus on gaining as much extra as possible. But they can't really lose...

It's an unusual negotiation tactic...

You're confusing affirmative action with DEI.

@LJS9502_basic: Cool fact. He should have been deported at that “one time” then.

His citizenship should be removed and he should be deported now.

@mattbbpl said:

Oh, I didn't know about that one! The one I had in mind is, famously, Super Mario Bros. 2:

Ahh, and that is not the only trans woman in Mario. Vivian being another one :)

And on that note,

1. D&D2e (1989): One of the gods is genderfluid.
2. Wizardry 6 (1990): Implied Same Sex Marriage
3. Ultima 6 (1990): Same Sex Romance
4. Exile (1995): One of the NPCs is married to a member of the same sex.
5. Fallout 2 (1998): Same Sex Marriage.

Some companies do. Others are sticking with it or even doubling down.

Sigh...

DEI is meritocratic. Do you even know why DEI was implemented in the first place? It is there because of hiring discrimiation.

https://www.su.se/english/research/the-conversation-news/discrimination-swedish-study-shows-job-applicants-with-foreign-names-receive-far-fewer-responses-1.614878

https://www.nber.org/papers/w29053

Do you seriously think curring hiring practices are even remotely meritocratic? There is massive ammounts of nepotism, biases and so many other issues. Nintendo is a shining example of what happens when you let in new blood and give them a chance. They went from floundering with the Wii U. To the Switch, whose success should be self evident. And a lot of what revitalized the Switch was... the new ideas and perspectives coming from the new blood.

DEI, helped make the workplace more meritocratic. But there is a lot more work to be done.

Edit: And yes, Nintendo has a page on DEI and it is not just NOA either. NoJ has a very similar hiring practice too.

@Maroxad: Yeah, we're trading DEI for cronies and nepotism. It's like when the affirmative action backlash in the 90's led to the "meritotacracy" of the 00's. You know, Bush administration and financial crisis.

@LJS9502_basic: So you’re good with deporting illegal immigrants then? I disagree with that stance on Musk. If he were here illegally in the past but went through the proper channels and is now legal, he should stay. I feel the same way about anyone here illegally. I hope they make it easier for citizenship for the non violent offenders that are here illegally.

Kinda funny that it took trans athletes to get conservative folks to give a crap about women's sports. These are all the same people that, until about five years ago, used to constantly complain that the NBA forced ESPN to show WNBA games as part of their contract. And would whine that having to sit through so many WNBA ads was such a huge burden.

@Maroxad: I think businesses like to make money. Yeah there’s obviously favoritism that happens but that’s different than not hiring someone because of their race, gender, orientation etc. I read somewhere that there are more women ceos in the top 500 than men. I agree that having a diverse workplace is a good thing(different genders, ages, cultures etc), and any smart company would recognize that and hire with that in mind. I just don’t think it should be forced or as necessary as it’s being made out to be. There’s going to be jobs that are more suited for men and some more suited for women. As far as skin color or sexual orientation goes, I see no advantage one way or another with that.

You right wingers are always on about illegal immigrants. Just wanted to see if you were a hypocrite or not. I guess we have an answer.

@judaspete: I still don’t care much about women’s sports but that’s mostly because all I watch is hockey or football. As my daughter gets older, I will probably start caring more and as far as men playing any contact sport or competitive sport where they would certainly have an advantage, my stance will probably strengthen even more than it already does. I don’t see how any logical person can think it’s ok for a biological man to compete with biological women, especially in a contact sport like boxing. Isn’t the whole reason women have their own divisions or whatever you call it, because men generally have an obvious advantage over them? (Looking at sports like basketball, baseball, boxing, swimming, golf etc)

@LJS9502_basic: What’s the answer? That I believe someone that’s here illegally should be deported or go through the proper channels and become legal citizens? How is that a right wing thing? Seems like common sense to me. You’re saying that Musk was an illegal but is now legal, and you still want him deported. That makes no sense to me.

If you're firm on your stance then someone here illegally should not be allowed to become a legal citizen because they are currently breaking the law. How about we just give all the illegals citizenship then. Otherwise, you have a double standard.

There was and still is *systemic* discrimination in hiring practices... primarily caused by subconcious prejudices and biases. DEI helps alleviate that.

Yes companies want to make money. But here is the thing. They don't necessarily hire the best and most qualified person. There are a ton of systemic biases in place. And the fact that employers tend to hire people based on applicant names is a well documented phenomenon. Even favoring far less qualified people simply due to name alone.

Hell, look at the current administration and the complete chaos right now. This is what happens when nepotism rules.

For example of not hiring the best, Trump Administration is exhibit A. Totally unqualified individuals with major security issues are being confirmed.

The Trump Admin = Kakistocracy.

RFK Jr. is perhaps the biggest Nepo Baby in US Government history. Despite being very likely confirmed to lead the HHS, he knows less about biology than a high schooler. And only got into power because of his family name.

And dont get me started on DOGE, whose members seem to think. "I don't like X or Y" means it is corrupt or illegal.

@joshrmeyer: Americans not caring about character or 50yrs of racism, not paying workers, ripping people off etc, shows how many idiots there are in America.

And no, I read that 78 million voted for Trump, and with a population over 350 million, that doesn't mean over half of the country leans to the right, it means that over half the country didn't give a crap about either candidate and NEVER voted, use simple math mate, geez.

As for Musk, well Donny is so obsessed with getting rid of immigrants atm that he's forgotten one is ripping through all of the American peoples confidential files.

I'll ask again since you didn't respond to the question the first time, are you happy with Musk and his teenage interns owning all your personal information???

Please start your next response by answering that first, if you can that is.

@LJS9502_basic: I said that in my first comment. I hope all the non violent illegals here can get citizenship. I’d rather see that than them being deported.

What's your stance on Trump removing immigrants who are here legally but not yet citizens?

@Maroxad: That’s probably true to an extent. Every human has some bias. Maybe AI can do the hiring so there’s no bias lol. As far as names go, this country elected a president for two terms with the name Barack Obama who also happens to be black. And this was right after Osama Bin Laden was enemy number one here.(Osama Obama…) I’m sure what you’re saying is true to an extent. DEI isn’t really something I wanna keep discussing though because it’s not all that important to me one way or another. A better discussion with you would be health or more specifically the American diet. I really hope RFK cracks down on food dyes and additives that are illegal in almost any other country except the USA. Also doing something about obesity in kids, which would be mostly targeting sugar. This is why I don’t consider myself far right. Give me universal healthcare and let the government regulate the crap out of what food we eat. Make it easier to own a home. Give everyone a fair chance to attend college without having huge loans. Have programs that encourage a healthy lifestyle, like free gym memberships etc. Everything here seems like it’s all about the bottom dollar. I don’t like everything that this administration is doing but I do appreciate that they are doing something.

@LJS9502_basic: I agree with that to an extent. But at least they aren’t getting the job because they are a female and person of color (Kamala). Not saying she wasn’t qualified, but that the requirements set by Biden was having a female and not necessarily the best candidate. Trump has hired who he feels is best, whether female or male. And that’s his right. I’m not gonna question it.

That would make you a sheep then. Trump's candidates are not qualified for the jobs, they're being put there because they'll be loyal and not let the Constitution get in their way.

Well... the evidence for hiring discrimination is really strong but...

But sure, lets talk about health

RFK Jr.

• RFK Jr. has been caught putting some kind of dye. Likely Methylene Blue in his food. While methylene blue has some medical uses (methemoglobinemia). Unless you have this condition there are MULTIPLE risks to using it.
• RFK Jr looks to replace corn syrup with... cane sugar. Achieving nothing. Other than maybe tricking a few people into thinking junk food is healthier now (its not)

Kamala Harris was right.

Not only are they attempting to force them to concede defeat, they are trying to rape their resources, which is far greater than the actual aid given. Poor old Zelensky having to deal with a self-serving sociopath.

They also seem to have isolated and alienated all allies viewing them with hostility or something to be exploited.

This is also the allies fault for overreliance on America. They've allowed this cretin to do this through complacency.

Dark times.

Trump is literally firing all of the qualified, experienced people who know how to make your government functional. There's no assessment of who is qualified or how good they are at their jobs. He's just mass firing people - especially anyone who disagreed with him in the last 8 years.

He's replacing them not with the best people, not with people who have demonstrable experience or valid security checks, but with loyalists. That's how you get the worst people.

Also, let's not pretend that the "DEI hire" arguments are sweet and innocent. A few weeks ago Trump was blaming plane crashes on diversity hires (with no evidence to support it) and the general message was "if you saw a black pilot, you'd question whether they were qualified". It was blatant racism that was completely unhinged from reality.

So it looks like the future of Ukraine pretty much comes down to conversations between Putin and Trump alone? This is some brazen shit. I feel so bad for the Ukrainian people right now.

Friendly reminder, Putin is a mass murderer who invaded a sovereign land with the original intent to take the entire country.

Unspeakable acts have occurred.

At no point anywhere, has Trump ever said a negative thing about him. On the contrary he seems to admire him and be emulating him by coming up with excuses immediately in his Presidency to grab multiple lands.

By contrast Trump has repeatedly attacked Nato and Zelenskyy.

A recent poll has shown most people do not view America as an ally anymore.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/02/12/europeans-think-us-is-necessary-partner-not-ally-study-finds

I'm sorry but a lot of his hires seem like DEI hires and the opposite of meritocracy. Like Pete Heggseth lol. No shot even Trump thought that guy was qualified or "best".

What % of hires were unqualified DEI hires? I'm betting this was mostly a non issue that effected next to no one/nothing. Like trans sports stuff. Or e-mails with pronoun signatures...

The tariffs though, I think that will (and already might be) effect literally every American. And in a far greater fashion. Trumpflation.

@joshrmeyer: I agree most trans women have an advantage and shouldn't compete, but I don't think a blanket ban is the right answer either. If one meets a certain standard of criteria that puts them on even ground, then that should be allowed. I don't personally know what that criteria would be, but I think people who actually study this stuff should be the ones to set the guidelines, not politicians.

As to viewership, I find it interesting that women's sports has grown so quickly at the same time trans athletes became such a hot-button issue. Don't know if there's a connection or it's just coincidence, but the correlation is there.

USAID inspector fired after revealing nearly $500m in food aid was about to spoil amid Trump funding freeze

Once again, Trump punishes competence and rewards loyalty.

The logical conclusion of all of this is that MAGA will become the new DEI. If you see a MAGA supporter in a position of importance, you should always question whether they are good at their job, or whether they were just hired to fill a quota of loyalists.

Good fucking gods.

https://x.com/JayinKyiv/status/1889797014172709039

Trump implies that since Russia "fought for that land" in Ukraine "and lost alot of soldiers" doing it, that Russia should keep it.

@LJS9502_basic: If they’re here legally, then they shouldn’t be deported. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything that suggest Trump is removing immigrants that are here legally.

Problem is, it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater and addressing a problem vast in its encompassment without nuanced or effective solutions.

There's nothing wrong with DEI in principle....it's that in practice it's tended to leverage and promote racism as a solution whilst villainizing cis genderism, most notably, the straight white male. That's driving the opposition to it. I include myself in that opposition, but the degree that Trump is implementing policies to eradicate it is just as bad as the what it purports to condemn. However, if promoting DEI comes at the expense of making straight white males the enemy and making skin color the qualifying determinant of professional acumen, I'm not much going to lament the hammer currently being put to it, for in its current form it is causing more harm than helping.

Better to have no solution than a flawed one that is indirectly reinforcing what it's attempting to rectify.

When you've had seven bankruptcies, two which include running casinos into the ground, yes......yes it does.

Musk is a successful businessman I'll agree, but Trump is absolutely not. His past has been marked by far more failures than successes, and his entire image is a very shrewdly constructed façade sold by a professional conman. If you take some time to look into Trump's business past, it's rife with fraud, screwing people over, shady business dealings, banks writing off his debts, people and organizations continually bailing him out.....all after his father handed him hundreds of millions initially and an entire business to take over. The only thing Trump has been very successful at is selling his name as a success when it's been anything but to those gullible enough to buy it.....sold by the Apprentice.

The man ran two casinos into the ground. Casinos, ffs.....places that are tailor engineered from the ground up to legally screw people out of their money in every way possible. It takes a remarkable level of business incompetence to lose money on a system designed to scam people out of it.

@MirkoS77: You're wasting your breath with Josh.

He thinks he's not a right winger when he is the definition of one, anyone who defends Trump is one. But he'll deny it until he's red in the face.

As for Elon, he's done plenty of shady shit himself to become rich, that's also easy to look up. Him and Donald are both pathological liars only there to line their own pockets. I mean Musk rakes in 8 million a day from government contracts, no wonder he's trying to fire all the people and departments that are (were) looking into his business dealings. He's on an unregulated revenge tour.

@uninspiredcup: SNAFU

*edit* Actually, Mirko did a much better job of explaining it.

Still, just adding that Trump's executive order acknowledged the existence of a gender spectrum, and said it won't police gender identity. So it's not like diversity, or equality, or inclusion are going anywhere under Trump's watch - as much as he'll pretend to have triumphed over them.

Um dav aren't you a black man? do you know that under Trump YOU are considered as DEI?

I find it strange that people vote for a billionaire in the hope they can lower prices for everyday normal people, Trump would have a driver who fills up his cars, so he wouldn't even know how much fuel costs, and i'm sure he has a maid or servants who do the shopping for him, so again wouldn't know how much a loaf of bread costs, but again you think he's going to lower the prices of food.

@last_lap: You sound super bitter over other people’s success. And you saying Dav is DEI under Trump? No, Dav is an American like any other person legally here. Trump and his administration don’t categorize people by race or gender or anything else. It’s the left that wanna bring race into everything. Ever thought that maybe people, including minorities are tired of being categorized? But yes, under Biden, Dav would have been considered DEI. And I never said I wasn’t right wing. I said I lean more right than left and that I’m not far right. If you ever actually read some of my comments you’d know there are many things on the left I agree with, just not the far left which is what the Democratic Party has shifted to lately.

So in the name of more eddies these guys get to trash the US. like little kids in a baby pool thrashing about, 19 year Olds peeing in it virtually right in front of us. And then it bursts open allover everybody's jobs and livelihood. Chickens flutter from above dropping eggs to splatter on Don sans Putin, and the big E rockets to Mars and everybody dies from the flames and expellants.

The end.

@Planeforger: @last_lap: @MirkoS77: Just clearing things up, me being Black has nothing to do with it, DEI at the time wasn't a problem until it got way out of hand. For one thing, it shouldn't have reached our entertainment and by that, Hollywood adapted it and ran out of control on various movies and turned them into flops...including my love for Star Wars but that's beside the point here.

DEI was a joke, to begin with, that’s why businesses are dropping it. Who would’ve guessed hiring people based on anything other than merit would’ve been a good idea? Even Disney's CEO saw the problem with it as it's bad for business for example. DEI has been used in hiring at every level of positions, internal management positions, and external business contracting. All to meet targets and quotas based on racial, and or sexual orientation. Democrats had a massive swing in the 24 election against young White Men, who alone are not diverse, who are the main impacted negatively by DEI. There was a time when we would just hire the best person suited and qualified for a job position. Now it's a joke. The color of your skin, and your gender are not the issues. The issue is if you're not the best qualified for a position, you have no business being hired for it just to help out people's feelings. Business is real. Money is real and it's a company's job to do the best possible job for their shareholders.. but I guess people just forgot. I worked my ass to get where I'm at and I put my passion for my career I'm proud of. Again, being Black has nothing to do with it, I was the right person for the job. Nothing more/less.

Regarding President Trump himself. I know the guy has dirt on him. He ain't all that perfect, but the Election of 2024 was such a joke when Biden called it quits at the last minute and gave the runner-up to Kamala Harris which is when we saw the Democrats were going to lose. Even Bernie Sanders saw this downfall coming towards Kamala. I for one didn't like how Kamala was going against the Election. It's not like I like Donald Trump, but he was the right person for the job as President, definitely not Kamala Harris. It still amazes me the Dems didn't want anyone but Kamala to go at it.

@davillain: I'm sensing cognitive dissonance in what you're saying. DEI to maga and that includes Trump means anyone that is not a straight, white male. When the plane crash happened, with no information at all, he blamed DEI. One of his unqualified morons has even stated white men need to be in charge.

I'm not going to pretend that Trump likes his base at all, he doesn't. They are useful tools to him. But he has been a bigot since he popped out of his mother. People on the Apprentice said he used the N word FFS. He denigrates women all the time.

But fine, you're okay with his bigotry. He's unqualified for the job you handed him. He failed once already and he's worse now because he's going strictly for loyalists and not quality. He's allowing Musk to remove all the programs a successful country has to lift people out of poverty for their own gain. They want MORE tax cuts. So I suppose you and other magas are okay with hungry children? Sick grandma's that can't afford their medication? Disease being spread because the government is hiding the danger?

If you were an evangelical, I'd tell you to read brush up on the pestilence and then look at everything wrong when Trump is in charge. Covid's making a comeback. Coincidence? Measels are also have a renaissance. The climate is getting worse. Planes are falling out of the sky. Last time Trump damaged rail travel. Regulations keep us safe. The wealthy don't want them because then they have to spend money. No profit is every too much for them. Society is NOT created for only the robber barons.

We're losing standing on the world stage and will soon have ZERO allies left. USAID was soft power. Hey, people have already died from Trump's actions but that doesn't matter to you does it?

FYI, since Trump took office, inflation has increases, as has cost of goods. Good job MAGA!

It's a shame that we in Europe has put ourselves in the position to be at the mercy of the Americans. Obviously there are historical reasons for that having to do with WW2 and the cold war. But we need to take back control of our continent and slightly distance ourselves from US imo.

But I agree that it is really sad for the Ukrainians. They have suffered so much and it feels really unfair to them what is going on.

On the topic of Wrong Person for the Job,

RFK Jr just got confirmed. 🤦

@Maroxad: No one in this administration is qualified for their position. MAGA has destroyed the United States. I never thought I'd see that.

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

--Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

Washington warns the people that political factions may seek to obstruct the execution of the laws created by the government or to prevent the branches of government from exercising the powers provided to them by the constitution. Such factions may claim to be trying to answer popular demands or solve pressing problems, but their true intentions are to take the power from the people and place it in the hands of unjust men.

George Washington's Farewell Address

Looks like the Founders actually were on to something.

I would argue Doug Burgum was a good pick. The rest however?

Yikes.

I don't trust any of his picks because they are predicated on loyalty and loyalty to him. Not the country. Not the Constitution. Not the people.

@LJS9502_basic: Wrong man for the Job huh? Well, if the Dems had put any efforts into getting the right person to go up against Trump, I would have gladly look for an alterative. You think I had a choice? It was either Kamala or Donald.

Kamala is better than Trump. Did you not listen to her ideas for policy? She's not an adjudicated sex offender nor convicted of 34 felonies. Or are you against a woman president?

@LJS9502_basic: Come on, it's a fair argument. Kamala was thrust to the front of the ticket at the last minute and had to scramble a campaign together. And she made the same mistake as Hilary Clinton, with her main selling point being, "look at all these old Republicans that are going to vote for me". People were upset about the economy, and she didn't have a clear enough plan about what she would do to change it. Some of this was bad messaging, some of it was she just didn't have enough time.

Biden should not have run for a second term, and there should have been a primary.