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2016 Election Tag

For most people, both Donald Trump's campaign and success came out of nowhere. But not for Anne Sorock of The Frontier Lab. Anne started writing for Legal Insurrection in April 2012 and was a regular contributor for many years. Over time Anne focused more and more of her time at The Frontier Lab, and now writes for us only sporadically. We have featured Anne's research at The Frontier Lab many times. Anne uses the Deep Values methodology she learned while interacting with the Food & Brand Lab at Cornell University while getting her MBA. Deep values research seeks to understand not just what consumers like or want, but what deeply held values lead to such decisions.

This is a tough time to be a progressive. There is a widespread mental breakdown in nests of radicalism, like Ithaca. I take no pleasure in that. Seriously. Come on you guys, seriously, no joy whatsoever. I'm not like John Ekdahl. https://twitter.com/JohnEkdahl/status/796860473945812997

Donald Trump's win for the presidency has caused more than 100,000 people to sign up for Obamacare. Republicans have stated they want to appeal the law if they win the White House. It is the largest number of enrollees since the open enrollment started on November 1:
The new enrollment figure, released by HHS this afternoon, represents the number of people who submitted an application and chose a health insurance plan on the exchanges.

President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama met at the White House for around 90 minutes to discuss transition of power. Trump called Obama a very good man and hopes to work with him in the future, while Obama called the meeting excellent:
Obama said the two men talked about foreign policy and domestic policy and said he was encouraged by Trump's interest in working together during the transition. "As I said last night, my No. 1 priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful," Obama said.

BuzzFeed has obtained a list of potential cabinet picks for President-elect Donald Trump's administration. Sources told the publication no one has finalized the list and it may change. But the list contains names of people who became loud vocal supporters of Trump, including Mayor Rudy Guiliani and former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

While my friends across the nation are celebrating conservative and Republican domination and all the free market, fiscal goodness that it brings, my home state took a slightly different path. As I predicted, retiring U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer is being replaced by Kamala Harris, one of the state Attorney Generals who planned to use RICO statutes to pursue firms that were "climate change deniers". I anticipate she will make Boxer look like a sane and reasonable politician in retrospect.

Election Day and the day after were mostly travel days for me, so I was not in Ithaca when news broke that Donald Trump was elected President of these United States of America. What is living in Ithaca like? Here's how I described the directions to my house just after Obama was elected in 2008:
To live in Ithaca is to live in a city alive with anti-Bush, anti-war protest.  I often joke that the directions to my house in Ithaca  read as follows:  Take a right at the fifth Obama sign, a left at the third "Impeach Bush" placard, bear right at the "Support Our Troops, End the War" poster, and we are the house just after the "There's a Village in Texas Missing its Idiot" banner.
I was in Ithaca in 2008 when Obama defeated John McCain. Cornell students ran through the Collegetown section next to campus shouting, dancing and setting off fireworks. Although it's been a while, I don't recall anyone expressing concern about the emotional well-being of McCain supporters. Ditto 2012, when Obama beat Romney.

The comment by Joy Behar that one party hasn't controlled the presidency, House and Senate since G.W. Bush is wrong -- for two years under Obama Democrats controlled all three, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate until Scott Brown's election in January 2011. It was everything I had hoped for.

We all know how devastating the loss of the presidency is to Democrats, particularly when combined with Republicans holding the Senate and House. But, it was equally bad, if not worse, for Democrats at the state level. In the past 8 years Republicans have made devastating gains at the state level, taking over numerous state houses and other statewide offices, and state legislatures. It's been the equivalent of washing the sand out from under the Democratic political house, depriving Democrats of a training ground in which to grow future leadership. It not only impacts a myriad of social and economic policies, but also various states-rights issues and redistricting. This election cycle continued the trend. The Hill reports, GOP makes big gains at the state level:

The 2016 elections season has finally ended, which means speeches galore today. I planned on making them Quick Takes, but the ones from Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama surprised me with their class and humanity I feel they deserve more attention. Hillary showed a human side that didn't make much of an appearance on the trail. She congratulated Trump, told her supporters that they "owe him an open mind and a chance to lead."

When Donald Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, we asked our fabulous bloggers to contribute their thoughts. It remains one of my all time favorite Legal Insurrection posts. Now that Trump is the president elect, have we changed our minds? Have our opinions evolved? Are we joyous, aggrieved? I guess you'll have to read on to find out...

William A. Jacobson

There are so many thoughts about how we got here. The disconnect between the political class, centered around a small number of big cities, and the rest of the country was enormous. That was compounded by evidence that the media was collusive with the Democrats, laid out in the Wikileaks releases. Hillary's email and server scandal ate away at her like rust.