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Old 11-13-2016, 08:02 AM   #42
chrisinhouston
Professor
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Houston TX
Posts: 1,857
This has been an interesting week indeed! My wife and I consider ourselves independents, we have always cast a mixed ballot based on research of candidates and their policies and backgrounds. This year we voted with absentee mail in ballots which was great; my wife is 65 and needs no other reason, I claimed disability. For the first time in our lives we just voted a straight D ticket. Never done that but just decided that even if Hillary did not win it would help down the ballot and for our area-Houston and Harris County, TX it did. Quite a few Republicans lost in the local elections.

But we live in an extremely conservative part of the city, probably 90% Republican and leaning towards the Tea Party types. It's been interesting to sit back and observe and listen to what my neighbors say. And I kind of had a feeling this would happen based on what I heard. The funny thing is all the people where I live were clamoring for a Washington outsider yet they hated Jimmy Carter as President and he was an outsider who tried to shake up Washington. Could be interesting.

Not sure how this will all turn out. It's very easy to shout from the sidelines during a campaign but once Trump is in the driver's seat it will be a whole different thing. And one side of me wonders if he can make it for 4 years. He will find out really fast that you can't fire folks you don't like except maybe members of your cabinet. And you can't declare bankruptcy when financial issues go south. I really wonder if he will make it or will he just resign when he gets tired of it or maybe be impeached over something. Hard to predict but he really only cares about himself so he is likely to self destruct. That would put Pence in the driver's seat and I'm not sure if I like him less than Trump!

My own family is kind of like the voters of this nation. I have 5 kids. The older 2 sons are both conservative. One is a born again hard core evangelical. He and his wife even stopped at the Creation Museum in Kentucky at the end of their honeymoon! Second son is a big fan of Breitbart news and all the right wing talking heads. My next 2 kids are my daughters who are both very liberal. And my youngest son is a Reagan Republican who always votes party line. So I guess it sort of mirrors the country right now, leaning right to hard right.

I figure that I have lived through 8 years of Nixon, then Reagan and even 8 years of GW Bush. I think this will be the worst but the nation is a big ship and it won't sink easily.
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