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If you're looking to get things done, though, I encourage you to consider that democratic politics is fundamentally about compromise, and acknowledging that it's okay to not be happy with every outcome associated with the politicians that you support, but to still support them anyway because they remain the most practical path to accomplishing what you want accomplished.
Well said, Scott.
Personally, I'm going to miss Obama.
Yeah, nobody thought Trump could win the primary, and laughed at the very idea...
...now you all seem to laugh at the idea of him winning the general, and think it's going to be historic landslide?
You seriously underestimate how utterly horrible the average American is. He's run on a platform of hatred, bigotry, xenophobia, and insult after insult after insult...and his fans don't just like him, they absolutely love him.
Yeah, no doubt we'll all look back on this election with 20/20 hindsight and say "How could it have been any other way?" But I'm not at all confident that Hillary is the one with the election already in the bag, as half the country seems to think. We are after all talking about a con man brazen enough to blame his tax audits on religious persecution -- yes, of him, as a "strong Christian" -- and a whole lot of marks who want so desperately to believe they're being persecuted just like their savior that they eat it up and ask for more. Trump is a genius at telling people exactly what they want to hear in order to get whatever he wants.
Anyhow, I'm writing Bernie a letter to thank him for running and for endorsing Hillary. There may have been a time when I too would have wanted him to go down in a brilliant explosion of liberal glory, but now I think that playing the hand he was dealt is the best way to fight the good fight.
...
But that's not the general election electorate. Now we can look at general election polling and we can see the same kind of data that predicted (or at least hinted at) a Trump primary win clearly shows him well behind in general.Depends where you look:
"The broad discontent is reflected in the head-to-head contest, which has Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton tied at 40 percent. Mr. Trump’s standing has held steady for weeks at around 40 percentage points, while Mrs. Clinton has polled in the mid-40s in most public surveys."
Poll Finds Voters in Both Parties Unhappy With Their Candidates
Anyone who thinks that the Presidential election is sewn up for the Democrats, is severely out of touch with reality.
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One note: Yes, Hillary has more delegates and such, enough to vote to get her way... but, clearly, a very sizable part of her political party has other ideas. You don't bring a party together by running roughshod over people just because you can, and she'd probably do well to address the concerns of Sanders' supporters on at least some issues. If you can't find a good balance between the people who currently agree with you and the people who don't, you're probably not fit to be President in the first place.And you don't bring people together by ignoring the results of the actual primary runs upon a whim. Clinton won the states she won, and she played by the rules to do so. And she won more of the Party vote than Sanders did.
You don't change the rules of the game simply because you're not happy with the result.
One of the strangest moments in this primary cycle was watching the internal narrative of the Sanders grassroots movement flip on its head. Early on in the season it was thought that Sanders stood a chance of winning a pledged delegate and popular vote plurality, but ultimately losing based on superdelegate voting. The narrative was that superdelegates were undemocratic, and their will should be ignored in favor of the winner of the pledged delegate count. As it became clear that Sanders would never overcome his pledged delegate deficit, the narrative did a rapid about-face. Suddenly superdelegates were being encouraged to ignore the results of the pledged delegate total, ostensibly because Sanders was polling better against Trump in head-to-head matchups, and because Clinton was going to be indicted "any day now."
...
Trump: "He always says what's on his mind! He tells it like it is! ..."
...
I cringe whenever I see that.
Because in a campaign season containing the likes of Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz, Trump still manages to be the most dishonest candidate in the running.
Though I'm more inclined to think that it's less deliberate lies and more that he just spouts off what he thinks his supporters want to hear (with the horrible ramifications of that) without any regard to reality.
Although I recognize that he says many falsehoods, I've never called Trump a liar. As Harry Frankfurt observed long ago, a liar has to know the truth and think that the truth is important. I think that Trump is often not sufficiently qualified to be a liar.
Trump's trade is in BS.
My boss and I were just lamenting this the other day (no, we don't work in politics, but we both have in the past). A lot of people look at the donations politicians receive and think, "Just look at all those favors they have to repay!" That's nonsense. No one in politics actually thinks that way. Is it possible that some corporations make smoke-filled backroom deals with some politicians, trading favors for PAC support? Yes, it is. But the vast majority of political donations take place simply because the people donating really want that person to become President (or a Senator, or a Representative, or whatever).
But what about those who contribute equally to both? Which seems to be almost all the top two dozen largest publicly traded corporations? How do you explain that?
Also, I don't really care what Hillary, or most politicians have to say, because they have not proven themselves trustworthy. I care what they do when in MATTERS. Anyone can say nice things, or take a stand when it doesn't matter, but when it counts, what do they do? Hillary (and Obama) talk a strong leftist game, but they play their hand for the interests of the rich.
EDIT:
That's all well and good, but the it OVERWHELMINGLY likely that either she or Trump will be the next president. The practical reality is you can cast a potentially meaningful vote for the lesser of two evils, you can cast a meaningless protest vote, or you can abstain altogether.
The last two increase the chance that the greater of two evils wins.
As I have mentioned before, I live in New York, which is about as much of a democratic safe state as you can get. If NY is even close, the republican has won by a landslide. My vote for Hillary or Trump is absolutely meaningless. I don't think anyone who is aware of the electoral college could disagree. I could vote for a third party candidate, but that is problematic, as has been previously discussed.
EDIT2: Just want to say that while we disagree Scott, and others in this thread, I enjoy reading everyone's opinions, and find them very insightful and thought provoking.
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But what about those who contribute equally to both? Which seems to be almost all the top two dozen largest publicly traded corporations? How do you explain that?
What do you mean how do I explain that? Those company totals are based largely on contributions by individual employees. Of course any sufficiently large company is going to have some employees who donate to one party and some who donate to the other.
Also, I don't really care what Hillary, or most politicians have to say, because they have not proven themselves trustworthy. I care what they do when in MATTERS. Anyone can say nice things, or take a stand when it doesn't matter, but when it counts, what do they do? Hillary (and Obama) talk a strong leftist game, but they play their hand for the interests of the rich.
Then you should be looking at their records. I suggest taking a serious look at OnTheIssues' page on Clinton. I expect it will not line up nicely with your preconceived notions about who she is as a politician.
EDIT:As I have mentioned before, I live in New York, which is about as much of a democratic safe state as you can get. If NY is even close, the republican has won by a landslide. As I have mentioned before, I live in New York, which is about as much of a democratic safe state as you can get. If NY is even close, the republican has won by a landslide. My vote for Hillary or Trump is absolutely meaningless. I don't think anyone who is aware of the electoral college could disagree. I could vote for a third party candidate, but that is problematic, as has been previously discussed.That's all well and good, but the it OVERWHELMINGLY likely that either she or Trump will be the next president. The practical reality is you can cast a potentially meaningful vote for the lesser of two evils, you can cast a meaningless protest vote, or you can abstain altogether.
The last two increase the chance that the greater of two evils wins.
Hence my use of the word potentially.
What, if I may ask, would you do if you lived elsewhere?
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Hillary (and Obama) talk a strong leftist game, but they play their hand for the interests of the rich.
You know what goes hand-in-hand with being 100% ideologically pure? Being 100% ineffective.
One of the strangest moments in this primary cycle was watching the internal narrative of the Sanders grassroots movement flip on its head. Early on in the season it was thought that Sanders stood a chance of winning a pledged delegate and popular vote plurality, but ultimately losing based on superdelegate voting. The narrative was that superdelegates were undemocratic, and their will should be ignored in favor of the winner of the pledged delegate count. As it became clear that Sanders would never overcome his pledged delegate deficit, the narrative did a rapid about-face. Suddenly superdelegates were being encouraged to ignore the results of the pledged delegate total, ostensibly because Sanders was polling better against Trump in head-to-head matchups, and because Clinton was going to be indicted "any day now."One note: Yes, Hillary has more delegates and such, enough to vote to get her way... but, clearly, a very sizable part of her political party has other ideas. You don't bring a party together by running roughshod over people just because you can, and she'd probably do well to address the concerns of Sanders' supporters on at least some issues. If you can't find a good balance between the people who currently agree with you and the people who don't, you're probably not fit to be President in the first place.And you don't bring people together by ignoring the results of the actual primary runs upon a whim. Clinton won the states she won, and she played by the rules to do so. And she won more of the Party vote than Sanders did.
You don't change the rules of the game simply because you're not happy with the result.
It's fascinating to watch the Sanders crowd transmutate into the Fox News crowd.
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People tend to use the logic that gives them the answer that they want.
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It's fascinating to watch the Sanders crowd transmutate into the Fox News crowd.
I think it's probably the case that a lot of that "transmuting" is actually the emergence of the alt-right from the woodwork to fill the noise vacuum created by the collapse of the Sanders movement.
An interesting thesis and discussion of how we got here:
The Atlantic - How American Politics Went Insane by Jonathan Rauch.
Having worked in local politics I could certainly see some of what Mr Rauch is talking about. How about you Scott?
I'll have to take some time to read through it after I finish running my Kingmaker game tonight.
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Hillary (and Obama) talk a strong leftist game, but they play their hand for the interests of the rich.You know what goes hand-in-hand with being 100% ideologically pure? Being 100% ineffective.
Oh please! No thinking person, anywhere, ever asked for ideologically purity. It is a preposterous strawman, that distracts from completely legit criticism. There is a world of difference between compromise, and throwing the majority of the population under the bus for the interests of the .01%. Hillary is one of the most pro-free trade/globalization, pro-Wall Street/Banks, politicians in modern times. She is also one of the most hawkish politicians in the mainstream.
NO ONE is asking for purity, we just want someone who didn't go to Trumps third wedding, because he gave her money, so she owed him.
What, if I may ask, would you do if you lived elsewhere?
I would vote for someone who represented my interests, not the .01%. I should point out that in many other democracies around the world, this would not be unreasonable, or even out of the mainstream.
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The candidates are totally different. Ones a billionaire that bribes politicians to enact policy for billionaires and the other is a politician that's bribed by billionaires to enact policy for billionaires. The choice couldn't be clearer!
The candidates are totally different. Ones a billionaire that bribes politicians to enact policy for billionaires and the other is a politician that's bribed by billionaires to enact policy for billionaires. The choice couldn't be clearer!
The actual billionaire part is questionable.
His net worth is considerably inflated because he values his name at around 7 billion or so.
Fighting a winter war with Russia is always bad unless you have zombies or Kaiju.I don't think it's inherently undoable, it's that Napoleon and Hitler both started out with some rather foolish assumptions as to how such a campaign would go. Furthermore, Hitler didn't deal with the British first (not that he could have, because an invasion of the Isles was logistically impossible for the German military to pull off), which required a large force and a lot of resources to be used against the Tommys (not to mention having to bail out the Italians), nor did Hitler properly exploit the massive anti-Stalin sentiment in Eastern Europe.
Still. I'd rather take my chances in a winter war with those two things.
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NO ONE is asking for purity, we just want someone who didn't go to Trumps third wedding, because he gave her money, so she owed him.
Even if you take Trump at his word (which, I mean, come on) what he actually said was that she attended his wedding because he donated to the Clinton Foundation. There is nothing improper about being happy to attend the wedding of someone who donates to your non-profit.
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It's fascinating to watch the Sanders crowd transmutate into the Fox News crowd.I think it's probably the case that a lot of that "transmuting" is actually the emergence of the alt-right from the woodwork to fill the noise vacuum created by the collapse of the Sanders movement.
I'd add to that that I think that a lot of the media noise about Sanders was orchestrated by the various right-wing groups that were looking to continue to sling mud at Clinton. With the collapse of Sanders as a stalking horse, they've needed to go elsewhere.
I've actually been trying to stay away from political debates here on the forums but I'll toss my two cents in:
From what i read, the Founding Fathers actually despised democracies, seeing them being worse and sometimes even worse than a monarchy. Pretty much the Founding Fathers wanted to create a republic not a democracy. To them democracies devolve into mob rule, while monarchies devolve into tyrannies and dictatorships. To them a republic is the middle ground between the two. In fact, the founding fathers wanted the executive branch (aka the president) to be the weakest branch of our government. The judicial branch was supposed to be the most powerful along with the legislative branch.
Yeah I was actually surprised by these facts myself.
And I'll be honest: I think Hillary would have the experience to run the country and deal with our domestic and international issues but at the same time I don't think she's honest and she'll also have to rein in Bill at times.
Trump would most certainly be able to get our economy back on track but at the same time he would most likely get us in a war with every country in the world by simply shooting off his mouth!
And thus I said my two cents. I'm out!
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I've actually been trying to stay away from political debates here on the forums but I'll toss my two cents in:
From what i read, the Founding Fathers actually despised democracies, seeing them being worse and sometimes even worse than a monarchy. Pretty much the Founding Fathers wanted to create a republic not a democracy. To them democracies devolve into mob rule, while monarchies devolve into tyrannies and dictatorships. To them a republic is the middle ground between the two. In fact, the founding fathers wanted the executive branch (aka the president) to be the weakest branch of our government. The judicial branch was supposed to be the most powerful along with the legislative branch.
That's an oversimplification and wrong in a few respects, but you're definitely right that the founders went out of their way to limit the effects of popular votes in an effort to prevent mob rule.
* Federal judges had lifetime tenure, and were appointed by the rest of the federal government; the actual merchant-on-the-street had no direct influence on who was going to be appointed as a judge, and no way to remove or even discipline him.
* The president was elected, not by popular vote, but by electors who were supposed to do appropriate horse-trading until they could come to a decision. Even these electors were appointed by "the state" (in practice, often the state legislature) and not directly elected, so the hot-headed mob didn't get a chance to select hot-headed electors.
* The Senate was elected, not by popular vote, but by selection by the appropriate state governments.
* The House was elected directly, but also strongly limited in terms of time (every representative re-stands every two years) so if the mob does manage to get a demagogue elected, he won't have much of an opportunity to do damage. The House was also much larger, again limiting the power of any single representative.
* The qualifications for voting themselves were left in the hands of the states and usually highly restrictive, in the manner jokingly suggested by some elsewhere on this boards, designed to keep votes out of the hands of people who are not likely to use them in a sensible and prudent manner -- you know, by voting the wrong way on an issue. Typically only about 10-15 percent of the population could vote,
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However, when the national debt is getting to a worrying % of GDP -- which it is here in the U.S. -- balancing the budget needs to be on the table. What I'm saying is neither major party has any credibility on that front.
Actually, you have that exactly wrong. The centrist, and in fact, the bipartisan, position is that balancing the budget doesn't need to be on the table.
The actual sensible position as espoused by economists who don't wear tinfoil hats is that balancing the budget, or even attempting to balance the budget, would be actively harmful.
Claiming that supporting a balanced budget is a "centrist" position is about as counterfactual as claiming that Helsinki is an equatorial paradise.
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The way I see it, the House isn't going Blue...I was under the impression that was a real possibility?
The Senate, possibility. The House of Representatives will almost certainly stay under Republican control, partly due to district gerrymandering over the past decade.
The 2020 election will be critical to the Democrats long-term success (and by extension, to the Republicans). In general, Democrats are favored in Presidential election years, which brings out a larger electorate that tends to be bluer. It's also a census year, which will require new voting districts to be drawn. If the Democrats can get better balanced districts, even if they can simply get "fairer" districts, for example, via nonpartisan redistricting (see California for a model), then they will be in a much better position to win Congressional seats for the next decade, including the 2030 elections, which will in turn reduce Republican ability to re-gerrymander after that.
Given the long-term demographic trends that are very bad for the Republicans, the 2020 elections could end up putting the final nail in the coffin of the modern (Goldwater-Reagan) Republicans.
This is just such a strange thing to watch from a non-US perspective.
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I bet it is, Icy, I bet it is. It's a pretty fricken strange thing to watch from the perspective of a US citizen, too.
Some of you haven't seen Maryland districts.
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Some of you haven't seen Maryland districts.
Marilyn Districts, the porn star? I think I saw her in a movie with Anne Arundel.
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Hmm, so this thread became an addition to Comrades thread. Not unexpected knowing this forum.
Oh, please. I've only skimmed through the eighty or so posts since I went to work yesterday, but I haven't seen anyone [vomit] yet.
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I've actually been trying to stay away from political debates here on the forums but I'll toss my two cents in:
From what i read, the Founding Fathers actually despised democracies, seeing them being worse and sometimes even worse than a monarchy. Pretty much the Founding Fathers wanted to create a republic not a democracy. To them democracies devolve into mob rule, while monarchies devolve into tyrannies and dictatorships. To them a republic is the middle ground between the two. In fact, the founding fathers wanted the executive branch (aka the president) to be the weakest branch of our government. The judicial branch was supposed to be the most powerful along with the legislative branch.
Yeah I was actually surprised by these facts myself.
That statement is too blanket and simplistic. The Founding Fathers were a diverse, often bickering group of people who were among the best educated folks of their day, but held a wide degree of opinions, sometimes even bickering (or dueling!) about them. Meetings of the Continental Congress could be counted upon to get rowdy, noisy, and occasionally, somewhat violent.
You might be thinking of James Madison who argued that the elites (The folks who by their status actually knew what they were doing) needed more protection from the mob rule of a democracy. Then you had the ongoing fights between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians, a fight which would ultimately lead to a Civil War.
I don't think the judicial branch was supposed to be nearly as powerful as it is: the original constitution didn't grant the feds the power to override the states on anything really (So new york could stifle free speach but the federal government could not) , and the supreme court pretty much gave itself the power to declare things unconstitutional.
Washington only veto'd things he thought were unconstitutional.
Most of the power was supposed to be (and still is) with the legislature, which was divided up into state governments and the state's people.
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It's fascinating to watch the Sanders crowd transmutate into the Fox News crowd.I think it's probably the case that a lot of that "transmuting" is actually the emergence of the alt-right from the woodwork to fill the noise vacuum created by the collapse of the Sanders movement.I'd add to that that I think that a lot of the media noise about Sanders was orchestrated by the various right-wing groups that were looking to continue to sling mud at Clinton. With the collapse of Sanders as a stalking horse, they've needed to go elsewhere.
Citizen Moonrunner and I have had this discussion in my Revolutionary Socialism thread.
I don't pretend to omniscience, but I was, I imagine, more in touch with the Bernie supporters than most in this thread, and I haven't seen it. The Bernie or Busters that I've interacted with are members of: Vets for Peace, Movement of Rank-and-File Educators caucus of the United Federation of Teachers, Boston Homeless Solidarity Committee; they are union activists, immigrant-rights activists, #BlackLivesMatters supporters, environmentalists, socialists. The only people that I've met that could be crypto-rightists are some of the "Money Out of Politics" people who tend to be 50/50 social democrats/libertarians and I'm not sure the 50% libertarians were ever Bernie supporters. Most of the Bernie followers that I've met who feel Bernie has "betrayed" them are switching to Jill Stein.
They want something more from the Democratic Party than neoliberal austerity, police brutality, systemic racism, foreign "regime change," food stamp-slashing, deportations, union-busting, education "reform" and environmental despoilation and they fear they're going to get more of the same from a Clinton presidency.
I think I've met one, at most, two Bernie supporters that reverted to right-wing cretinism after they realized Bernie was going to rally behind Hillary. Ymmv.
I already posted the Empire Files bit on Hillary by former RT-turned Telesur presenter/Party of Socialism and Liberation supporter, Abby Martin and issued a challenge to find one talking point that originated with Fox News. There weren't any takers.
As for the media noise, I think rallies of thousands, tens of thousands, and at least one of a hundred thousand is a more credible hypothesis than maneuvers orchestrated by rightists.
I can't say with 100% certainty that there weren't far rightist pulling strings from afar, but this strikes me as the Hillaryite version of the right-wing conspiracy theory that the Soros Foundation orchestrated Occupy Wall Street! or #BlackLivesMatter or that Trump was a Clintonite catspaw to wreck the GOP.
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It became explicit when someone first walked into a courtroom claiming a law conflicted with the constitution. Once that happens, the court has to decide whether it's true and what to do in that case.
If there's anything you can learn about the law from gaming it's that the intent and what people do with combinations of the things you've written sometimes get out of line...
I would vote for someone who represented my interests, not the .01%. I should point out that in many other democracies around the world, this would not be unreasonable, or even out of the mainstream.
Nice dodge, but you didn't answer: Whom, specifically, would you vote for if you lived in a swing state?
I think I've met one, at most, two Bernie supporters that reverted to right-wing cretinism after they realized Bernie was going to rally behind Hillary. Ymmv.
I don't know that anyone was saying that Sanders supporters themselves were unmasking themselves as alt-right Trump supporters. Rather, the collapse of the Sanders movement has created an opportunity for the messaging of the alt-right movement to be better heard, and they've taken advantage of it. Places like reddit that were formerly infamous for non-stop obnoxious Sanders cheerleading are now a stomping ground for vocal Trump supporters. (Outside of /r/The_Donald, which was always full of vocal Trump supporters.) It's easy to mistake the two groups (Sanders supporters and Trump supporters) as having a lot of membership crossover, but I really don't think that's the case (I certainly hope it isn't). Rather, there just happens to be a lot of uncoordinated cooperation between the two groups to spread stories damaging to the Clinton campaign.
Nice dodge, but you didn't answer: Whom, specifically, would you vote for if you lived in a swing state?
Cuthulu: still the lesser evil.
As for the media noise, I think rallies of thousands, tens of thousands, and at least one of a hundred thousand is a more credible hypothesis than maneuvers orchestrated by rightists.
Goodness, no. "Rallies" don't write op-ed pieces or even letters to the editor. Their heads don't talk on TV, and they rarely even give interviews.
I'm not saying that the rallies didn't happen. But someone well-connected with the media had to translate the rallies energy and speeches into something that the media could actually turn around and print, or televise. And I've seen nothing to suggest either that the bulk of the supporters at the rallies were Bernie or Bust supporters, or that the few B/B supporters weren't wildly overrepresented in the media specifically to increase the controversy....
Wow, dial back the sarcasm, and turn up the citations?Actually, you have that exactly wrong. The centrist, and in fact, the bipartisan, position is that balancing the budget doesn't need to be on the table.
The actual sensible position as espoused by economists who don't wear tinfoil hats is that balancing the budget, or even attempting to balance the budget, would be actively harmful.
Claiming that supporting a balanced budget is a "centrist" position is about as counterfactual as claiming that Helsinki is an equatorial paradise.
Start with anything written by a saltwater economist over the past twenty years. The New York Times has a lovely collection of Krugman columns that you can use to start.
Because I minored in econ in college, and wasn't even wearing a tinfoil hat at the time.
I have to ask, then.... when did you start?
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Wow. Did the Trump/Pence campaign staff design their new logo in WordArt or MS Paint? All it's missing is a cameo by a Mike Judge character.
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I don't really want to know what is leaving red streaks on the TP.
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If he's seriously doubled down with Pence, I can't vote for that kind of draconian social policy.
Johnson it is.