If you want an example of how American politics have departed from traditional norms to introduce an element of Third World Strongman unreality into our discourse, look no further than what just happened to Medicaid.
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Step 1: Campaign on a promise not to cut Medicaid
Step 2: Cut almost a trillion dollars from Medicaid
Step 3: Insist that cutting almost a trillion dollars from Medicaid made it better (alternate excuse: they're not "cuts", they're ways to give states "more flexibility" – presumably the flexibility to kick a lot of people off Medicaid)
And of course it will work. Millions of die-hards, many of whom have no meaningful idea of what Medicaid is or how it works, will from this day forward insist to their last breath that not a penny was cut from it, or any cuts that might have happened made it way better.
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It gets sadder by the day that so many voters in this country could not figure out what the French were able to: that a choice between a bad candidate and a candidate who literally threatens the basic institutions of democracy to increase his or her odds of being able to establish authoritarian rule is an important choice and one worth making.
srsly? says:
was it not the choice between a candidate who said:
"I know and you know that your life sucks. You used to be able to drop out of school and be given a job that let you buy a house one one income. The reason is all those brown people–especially the biggity ones who do things like protest, talk in their language on the radio station that used to be The Falcon FM: Home of Classic Rock, and become president. I'm going to make your life better by removing them from the genepool."
and a candidate who said:
"Why don't you stupid hillbillies understand that your life is awesome, and won't it be more awesome when I nominate Lena Dunham as Secretary of Woke Baes? And ew, no, I won't go campaign in your trash state."
It's a shock–A SHOCK–that the voters whose votes count–misanthropic whites who choose to live in underpopulated states–voted for the one and not the other.
THREE [handclap emoji] MILLION [handclap emoji] MORE [handclap emoji] PEOPLE [handclap emoji] VOTED [handclap emoji] FOR [handclap emoji] HILARY [handclap emoji] CLINTON [handclap emoji] THAN [handclap emoji] VOTED [handclap emoji] FOR [handclap emoji] DONALD [handclap emoji] TRUMP [handclap emoji] BUT [handclap emoji] SHE [handclap emoji] STILL [handclap emoji] LOST [handclap emoji]
wetcasements says:
Self-interest. If GOP voters can't even do basic self-interest right, then we (speaking as a lifelong Dem) have lost them forever.
And sorry, but a whole lot of them are racist-ass hillbilly dumbfucks and no amount of "being nice" to them would ever make them vote D.
Our future is, contra the BernieBros, not to rally some imaginary White Working Class Wave (never gonna happen) but to rally the minority voters who, indeed, handed HRC a crushing three-million vote advantage.
And of course, the Electorial College needs to be abolished as the racist *cough* "agrarian state" institution it always has been.
As mentioned in a previous post, lots of white voters are driven by racial resentment and live in a fact-free bubble of their own making. Their own "Planet Fox," basically.
The answer is not for us to visit Planet Fox and play nice. We can only try again, harder.
srsly? says:
what if I told you that the two quotes above were not the only things to tell the american voter
srsly? says:
like, maybe campaigning in the garbage states AT ALL might have helped? maybe taking a bit of advice from an septegenarian socialist jew who built coalitions with conservative, gun-toting, rural whites could have helped.
idk, I'm not a smarmy public radio pundit. blaming jill steins vote count of a dozen idiot marin county anti-vax moms won't win shit in 2020, much less 2018.
Figuring out why a few thousand people in a three states didn't show up at the polls might get you President Baldwin, but it doesn't get you shit in the Capitol or the statehouses. Nor will walloping that berniebro strawman. Nor will wishing really hard that the Electoral College and 38 states of Republican gerrymandering will go away. Perhaps the Democratic Party could use its vast celebrity dinner party resources to do something about voter suppression? idk.
maybe the democrats should step out of their fact-free bubble and acknowledge that health insurance sucks, there aren't enough places to live anywhere where there are jobs, life in america sucks, and the future is pretty hopeless.
I'm not as smart as you, though. Can you tell me why we should expect the same old bullshit to win in 2018 and 2020 when it has been losing since 1994 with the exception of singular miracle candidate Obama?
wetcasements says:
"who built coalitions with conservative, gun-toting, rural whites could have helped"
Whites voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Not sure what you're getting at here.
And for every mythical WWC vote Bernie might have won, he would have lost two women or minorities due to his ass-backwards views on race and abortion.
"why a few thousand people in a three states didn't show up at the polls"
Nope. They pulled the lever for Trump. Voter turn-out could have been better for Dems, but it wasn't terrible by any means. (Cf. that three million popular vote victory you really seem to be angry about.)
But thanks for playing!
"Can you tell me why we should expect the same old bullshit to win in 2018 and 2020"
If white voters will continue to vote based on racial resentment rather than their basic economic self-interest, no, I can't.
The BernieBros think we can abandon issues like abortion and Black Lives Matter on the altar of Make Nice To White People Again.
I'm not interested in promoting that kind of effort or movement.
HoosierPoli says:
Srsly, let's not bring this place down to the level of a Reddit comment thread.
anotherbozo says:
Did I never notice that there's no facebook icon here to direct posts to my page? So I cut and pasted. Old farts are almost exclusively my "friends," go figure.
Mostly clutter from CNN tthis a.m. Flynn. Tax returns, for chrissake. The Great Theft is yesterday's news already. And after all, it's not final. The Senate has yet to act. (fog enters left, fills stage.)
geoff says:
Well, maybe the French are smarter than we are. I seem to recall that their Revolution was done RIGHT.
geoff says:
Also, "who are you gonna believe, me, or your dying children?" amirite??
democommie says:
My problem with people with Srsly and some others is that they think that their personal situation and their "views" are reality.
Reality is a fuck of a lot harder than that.
I know people who voted for Trumpligula–few of any of them will admit it. Many of them have children and grand-children who are, at the very least, going to feel the bite of the idiotic policies of the larcenous P-in-C*. I doubt that they've really thought about it yet. When it finally penetrates their thick skulls, they WILL blame dems/Obama/OTHER–anyone but themselves–for the outcome of their childish petualance and its disastrous results. Fuck'em. I feel for their kids but them? Fuck'em.
I have been listening to underinformed, deliberately ignorant and maliciously dishonest people who WANT to make sure that others can't HAVE what they do, 'cuz REASONS–for as long as I've been able to understand them. Sixty years+ of mouth-breathing, pissed-off, willingly conned rubes. Fuck'em.
I'm gonna die in the next whatever number of years having never been wealthy or even close to it–in the terms of people who count property and leisure activity as those things of great value–and yet I will have lived a far better, more secure and less precarious life, by far, than literally MILLIONS of people who haved worked just as hard.
Why might that be you? BECAUSE I'm white. Yes, there are other factors but BEING white is the single marker that separates me from approximately 30% of the people who live in this country. Being white gives me an automatic boost in the line. Being a male, another boost. Nominally Christian, now we're talkin'! I'm ahead of about 75-80% of USAians–at the start. Now, I'm old, slow, lazy, pissed-off (but relatively aware of all of those things) so the fact that people without all of my privilege and advantage stream past me should NOT be as surprise. For me, it is NOT a surprise but, obviously, for a lot of men–white, christian men–it IS. This situation is not the fault of the people who are darker, femaler, harder working, better educated, etc.,. It is a simple, fucking FACT.
It has become the ONLY strategy in GOP electioneering to OTHER everyone except the candidate of their party and that candidate's vocal, ardent, visible supporters. Vilification of the OTHER is cheaper, easier and, in terms of "winning", far more efrrective than any other strategy. That the loyal cadre are viewed by the party apparatchiks as simply useful idiots never seems to penetrate their unconciousness and diminish their reflexive, tribal loyalty.
The democratic party is viewed by many as having "sold out" to Wall Street and the other BIGS. That this view is often held by people who received educations; gummint sponsored/guaranteed loans for homes, educations and business start-ups/expansions; union representation and workplace protection; safe food, water and air–largely through the efforts of democratic legislators and despite the obstruction of republicans seems to never occur to them. Fuck'em.
They're stupid, exclusionary, racist, misogynistic tribal assholes. Fuck'em.
* Plundercrat-in-chief
April says:
Oh, DC, DC, DC [shaking head]…didn't you learn NOTHING from our men's rights movement guy? You poor males – have it so hard…however do you tolerate the strain?
(laughing, ducking and going to bed. I'm sure there'll be lots of yelling for me to read tomorrow morning. Night, all.)
c u n d gulag says:
America is a country full of remarkably stupid, ignorant, and bigoted people.
And we're lucky, geographically, in that we have Canada to the North, and Mexico to the South, and are sorrounded by oceans!
If we were located anywhere else in the globe, our neighboring goniff's, grifters, and strongmen/women, would love to come here to fleece our rubes, stooges, marks, dim/nit/half/fuck-wits out of every last penny!
As it is, we are left to fleece one another.
And the Republicans are great at misdirection.
Any problem is always due to some "other."
In "other" words:
"The fault lies in those 'other' stars, and not in ourselves!"
I'm afraid the "Hell-to-pay" moment is coming soon!
Safety Man! says:
@srsly?
Congrats, you've cracked the code. Hillary was a terrible candidate who ran a lackluster campaign. Please remember us when you're on your book tours and speaking circuits.
To everyone else, let's hope real hard that the gerrymandering gets fixed by the Supreme Court.
Safety Man! says:
@srsly
To be less smarmy, Not that I don't take your point. Hillary did go on TV last week to blame her loss on James Comey, and not her failure to set foot in the state of Wisconsin.
GunstarGreen says:
For as long as you continue to tell people that have scrabbled, and scraped, and dragged their asses out of the muck that they are "privileged" and thus should feel bad about anything good that they've managed to get for themselves and their families, you will lose the votes that matter insofar as winning elections in the United States of America is concerned. Telling someone living just one half-step up from the gutter that they should "check their privilege" is a very, very good way to get them pissed off at you and everything/everyone you stand for — and spoiler alert, they live and vote and represent majorities in areas who's EC votes matter just as much as yours, and eventually total up to more than yours.
Go ahead, campaign to tear down the EC. Concentrate power in a few tiny, hyper-dense areas at the expense of 99% of the rest of the country's land area, which represents roughly half of its population.
But you'd better pray to whatever deities you may or may not believe in that the sentiment in that tiny handful of places never, ever turns against you.
I mean, after all, California would never elect someone like Schwarzenegger or entertain the idea of something like Prop 8, now would it?
Katydid says:
@SafetyMan!: the problem is that Hillary Clinton did go talk to people. What she actually said (and it's on tape, so partisan idiots like Srsly look even stupider than they are) is that those coal jobs weren't coming back BUT there would be training available to help people transition into new jobs. How was that message taken? By a lot of screaming, hateful idjits insisting that their fifth-grade ejamakashun got them good-paying jobs in the mines, and dammit, they simply wouldn't accept anything less, especially from an uppity c**t who had the gall to be female in public. She did go talk to Wisconsin and those other states, and now they're butt-hurt that she didn't lick their boots hard enough? Puh-leeze! The Midwest Misogynists were never going to give her their vote no matter how much pandering she might do to their tender widdle fee-fees.
Katydid says:
So, last night's key story on 60 Minutes was a whole buncha ingnoramuses who voted for Trump because he was going to deport illegals, and they shocked, just STUNNED, that he deported one they knew. WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?!?!
ZOMG, you can't fix stupid.
MPAVictoria says:
"And for every mythical WWC vote Bernie might have won, he would have lost two women or minorities due to his ass-backwards views on race and abortion."
You know people on this website often make fun (Rightly!) of right wingers for believing propaganda and "fake news" but when people post such obviously fake bullshit as the line above it really damages our credibility. Bernie was/is obviously to the left of Hillary Clinton on Abortion AND Minorities Rights. What is more he as ALWAYS been to her left on these issues.
Katydid says:
@Victoria; Actually, St. Bernie has decades of experiences not supporting women or children. In fact, he himself was also a deadbeat dad. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has decades of experience–going back all the way to her days as a lawyer before she was even First Lady of Arkansas–of supporting women and children and in favor of letting women decide what medical care was right for them.
MPAVictoria says:
"Actually, St. Bernie has decades of experiences not supporting women or children. In fact, he himself was also a deadbeat dad. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has decades of experience–going back all the way to her days as a lawyer before she was even First Lady of Arkansas–of supporting women and children and in favor of letting women decide what medical care was right for them."
Ah yes, Hillary Clinton of the "Welfare Reform" and "Safe, Legal and Rare" Clinton's….
Katydid says:
MPA Victoria; surrrre, go ahead and continue to mischaracterize–are you Srsly's sockpuppet? Or just so dismally stupid you don't understand how politics work?
In the meantime, would you like to comment about Bernie Sanders refusing to support his own child, and his wife's embezzling money from the college she worked at, causing it to close? And Bernie's long-standing disinterest in anything pertaining to women? Nah, you sure don't because then you'd have to think about your illogical worship of St. Bernie.
Major Kong says:
We're still beating that Bernie vs Hillary dead horse?
I still think Bernie would have lost, just for different reasons. He might have lost bigger than Hillary did.
Seriously, you think a self-proclaimed socialist who visited the Soviet Union was going to do better in the Midwest and South?
I can just see the attack adds with Bernie's face morphing into Stalin, Mao and Castro.
Oh and he's Jewish? That's sure to bring Southern whites running to vote for him.
Jestbill says:
Well, yer all wrong.
Why do people vote against their self interest?
Antivaxxers!
If nobody around you has an illness, there's no reason (in your child mind) to vaccinate against it.
If you can convince yourself that you're doing OK, there's no reason to vote for change. Voting for Democrats is voting for change.
QED
Kovpakistan says:
Looking at some of the responses from Hillary die-hards here, I'm compelled to ask- exactly how many elections do you folks need to lose before you start to take responsibility for your constant failures? Please, put a number on it or give us a projection so we know how long total GOP dominance should last.
You love trading snarky jokes about those dumb Bible-thumping hillbillies, but it's hard not to notice that they've been kicking your university-educated asses all over the field when it comes to real political power. Maybe that's why women in Russia have free access to abortion and paid maternity leave and you've got jack shit.
Nah, it can't be your fault. You've got degrees. You've got the data and the models. It's gotta be all those racist hicks, including those who came out and voted for Obama twice.
Kovpakistan says:
And yeah, that electoral college does suck. That was really unfair how they just invented it in 2016 to keep Hillary from winning. She barely had time to learn how it works!
Katydid says:
@MajorKong; A Jew from New York city, no less. That will keep "Rill Murkkkuh, fuck yeah!" far, far away.
@Kovpakistan: not die-hards, just recognized the better of the two candidates. You know, the one the greater portion of the USA actually voted for DESPITE the email hacking and well-publicized lies and the 30 years of rightwing attacks.
democommie says:
@Kovpakistan:
I'm really pretty sure that I do NOT want to see Hilary run again. What I do want to see her do is help whoever does run by being a full-throated screamer on the campaign trail saying all of the things about Trumpligula that she was dying to say during the campaign. Why didn't she say those things? Ummm, 1991 or so through NOW–she says anything that isn't ladylike, stateswomanly or non-ballsy–she's immediately the LESBOBITCHFROMHELL. And that is NOT just from FuckTheNew'sCorpse and it's fellow slitherers.
I don't like Hilary. I haven't liked Hilary for quite some time. I don't see anyone that has a chance in hell of beating the GOP without becoming them.
As I said the other day on an earlier thread. Paint me a picture of what the political landscape will look like in less than a year when the mid-terms are in full bloom.
Gerald McGrew says:
One lesson the election re-taught me, and I hope to never forget…..
Never, never, EVER underestimate the sheer tribalism of conservatives.
I was sure the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape would push enough conservative Christians away from Trump to easily hand HRC the win. Obviously I was wrong; I massively underestimated just how tribal conservatives are. As someone else commented, when given a choice between their conservatism and their Christianity, conservative Christians will choose conservatism almost every time.
Psychological studies have been done that show how conservatives value loyalty over objectivity and accuracy. Never, ever, ever, EVER forget that. Almost everything they do makes sense if you understand just how tribal they are.
Leon says:
The "keep doing the same thing and keep losing elections" trope is a little disingenuous to me. Look at the past 50 years of presidential politics and you see a pretty clear pendulum, r to d to r, etc., with a blip in which Bush the elder held on to the presidency after Reagan. Then two years later, congress flips to be antagonistic of whomever is president. Dems haven't lost every election of the last so-and-so years. Nor have they won.
Bernie may or may not have won the general. I'm on the side that says a New York Jewish socialist wasn't the perfect foil to trump that the BernieBros think he was. But saying he would have won the general when he didn't even win the primaries is navel gazing at best. Direct your anger at trump and the assholes who just voted to deny healthcare to millions of people. Not the imperfect allies you have in the DNC.
Having said the above, flipping the house and/or senate in 18 is going to be more difficult than it should be due to gerrymandering in the house and which seats are available in the senate. But the pendulum is swinging hard against republicans, and that healthcare vote in the house just added some momentum to it.
I'm certainly not saying that the dems need to move more to the center, because they're precariously close to the right as it is. A truly progressive platform may provide a goose in enthusiasm. But sadly, I think the dems will do well in 18 regardless of their own actions since republicans are grinding away at a conservative agenda no matter who the piss off.
Jestbill says:
LOL!
Republicans have been against gays, abortion, civil rights laws, yeah all that stuff for years and years.
Republicans have been for war and regime change. Remember that it's always been the Republicans who get the military vote and the Democrats who are "weak on defense."
Now, all of a sudden it's the DEMOCRATS who are said to be pro-war and have lost support even though all the things they've been FOR have been gaining over all the things the Republicans are against.
Who is it decided there is a master Democrat in charge (MDIC) who picks out candidates? How is it that the party has moved to the right despite the best intentions of MDIC?
Could it be that the whole conversation is a Republican dis-information scam?
Katydid says:
@Gerald McGrew; the "Christian" right are hugggggge women-hatin' mofos. Bigly huge. Had Trump said "Grab 'em by the balls" (and done just that), *that* would have been beyond the pale. Trump has been just fine by them in part because he makes it very, very clear how he thinks women should be treated.
He's also a bully, and the Christofascists just LUV them somma that, too–it's exactly what Jebus said to do! The first example that jumps to mind is Trump objecting to one of his nephews speaking up about an unfair inheritance settlement–and showing it by taking away the nephew's health insurance. The nephew and his wife had just had a newborn with neurological problems. But Authoritarians love bullies.
Then there's the whole love of money thing (another topic the Jesus they worship was very clear about). The prosperity gospel claims if you're rich, why, you must be loved by God! Doesn't seem to matter if you're only rich because you inherited it (and lost most of it) from your ancestors, or that you cheated the people who work for you (see my last comment about bullies).
Katydid says:
Fox news is on the warpath today. I spent some time this afternoon in an orthopedic office, babysitting a parent waiting for their appointment. My parents are on Tricare (retired military) and also Medicare (not sure how that's even legal, but it is). Of course the tv was on and of course it was on Fox (non-) news, and the headliner was some rando sobbing on-camera "me an' mah hubband had EXCELLENT insurance from his job, but when he got sick, the nurse told him he would have been dead inside a day if he had OBUMMERCARE 'cuz it's BAD MEDICINE."
OMG, so many, many lies. I yelled BULLSHIT and made the people around me laugh.
Then they started in on Medicare, and how cutting funding for it was supposed to help by…something something mumble trail off triumphantly. I pointed out to my Trump-voting parent that Trump's trying to kill him off.
Bridgette says:
I wish all Democrats and progressives could agree, whether they prefer Clinton or Sanders, that the DNC is a mess and needs some serious fixing. They haven't just dropped the ball on the Presidency, they've been losing in the house, senate, statehouses, state governors.
Some of this is due to gerrymandering and voter suppression on the part of the opposition (which we should all be fighting tooth and nail). But many of the wounds are self-inflicted: lack of a strong 50 state strategy, inadequate support for down-level candidates, letting head of the DNC indulge in divisive language instead of trying to unify the party, thinking that fundraising and experience is a substitute for charisma (a mistake they make over and over, H. Clinton, Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale, it's really had to get someone elected when they aren't charismatic).
Yeah, Comey and Wikileaks were damaging, but letting a race against Donald fucking Trump get that close is shameful and everyone involved should question their competence.
Gerald McGrew says:
@Katy, I would buy the whole "they're women-hatin mofo's" thing if it weren't for one confounding factor…..an enormous number of evangelicals who voted for Trump WERE WOMEN.
Shoot, evangelical women in my own family brushed the grab 'em moment away as "locker room banter" and "that's just how guys talk".
Why? Tribalism. No matter who was on the ticket, they were going to vote for the one with the "R" after their name, full stop, end of story.
Brian M says:
"He's also a bully, and the Christofascists just LUV them somma that, too–it's exactly what Jebus said to do! "
Actually, the wandering apocalyptic Palestinian cult leader hippie was NOT the warm and fuzzy guy that liberals like to cherry pick their verses in favor of. He was more "give up your entire life and family and follow me or you will BURN for eternity."
Not a nice guy at all, if he really existed.
Gerald McGrew says:
@Bridgette, from what I've seen over my lifetime, the Democratic party has one glaring issue…..their "base" is a coalition of low-turnout populations. The data is unambiguous; young people, blacks, and Latinos simply do not show up and vote in the same proportions as whites.
The DNC saw the demographic trends showing the impending reduction in whites and increases in non-whites, and after the 2008 Obama election figured the future was theirs. Remember the gloating over the Republican's "autopsy report"? Remember all the rhetoric about "we may never see another Republican president"?
Well, it turns out all of that hinged on one crucial factor…..turnout. We know conservatives will show up and vote for Republicans out of sheer loyalty (and some authoritarianism). Democrats? They have to be inspired to show up. And as the comments in this thread show, the candidate has to check ALL the right boxes, otherwise they'll cast a "protest vote" or simply stay home.
So the DNC has to figure out how to get their base to show up at the polls more regularly, and they have to figure out how to appeal to more white voters.
Obama's historical significance and overall popularity masked a lot of these issues, and we're just now seeing the come to bear.
April says:
It's tribalism. It's racism. It's sexism. It's faux noise bubble propaganda. It's voter suppression and gerrymandering. It's the EC. It's "Bernie is a commie Jew". It's Hilz and her emails/unlikableness/failure to get her message across/not going to Wisconsin/ whatever. It's uneducated voters. It's snobbish coastal elites who flaunt their edumacation. It's mainstream news chasing ratings. It's that we're too far left. It's that we're tacking too far to the right. It's the Russians. It's lack of jobs. Hell, it's probably even partially the way my dog barks. (It's a really annoying high-pitched piercing yelp.)
Have I left anyone/thing out?
Jaysus krist people – enough!
Look, I'm all for dissection and figuring out what went wrong. I'm a freaking scientist after all, and that's mostly what we do. But at a certain point we have to stop arguing about what went wrong and start figuring out how to make it right.
The resistance is a great start. March, make phone calls, go to town halls, write letters. We also need to talk – as best as possible – to THOSE people. (And yes, we need to stop thinking of them as "those people".) We need to use every legal means possible to fight against unfair practices and we need to support those organizations that do that.
Our best feature – educated intellectual dissection – is also our worst feature. We need to stop with the circular firing squad already and move on.
Or else we'll keep on losing.
Brian M says:
In defense of srsly: the mainline Democratic Party has some serious blood on its hands.
americadurp is seriously fucked up, but a good read nonetheless. Imagine our host with no hope and a f%$@#ed up career (or lack thereof) and an even more vituperative eye:
https://muricaderp.wordpress.com/
Katydid says:
@Gerald McGrew; women can be misogynists, and they very much are in the fundagelical community, where the only real power they can grab is the power to make other women miserable.
@BrianM; yup, the Jebus of the Bible is often a jerk. He blighted a fig tree for *not bearing fruit out of season* (it was a tree, not a supernatural fruit vending machine). I could go on and on and on. But a lot of laudable saying are also attributed to him–"love each other and I have loved you" and "treat your neighbor as yourself" being two. He also is said to have told his followers to give their coat to those in need and "what you have done for the least of these, you have done in my name." Know what he said about homosexuality? Not a single thing. But the fundies will still carry on about it.
Katydid says:
@Gerald: "So the DNC has to figure out how to get their base to show up at the polls more regularly, and they have to figure out how to appeal to more white voters."
It'd be a great start if an unfortunate slice of the base didn't throw a pouty temper tantrum because their special candidate didn't win the nomination, and instead voted for the non-batshit, non-narcissistic, non-imbecile who was quite open about plundering the country to enrich his own coffers.
Katydid says:
:::Waves at April:::
Hi, April. I phone-banked. I canvassed. I volunteered my car to bring people to the polls. I voted. I marched afterward.
I also know quite a few people–including extended family–who are willfully stupid. There is no getting through to them. I had a heated conversation with my own parents–both the children of immigrants–who went off on an obscenity-laced rant against immigrants on New Year's Day (and no doubt since, but I wasn't a captive audience for that).
I refer back to that 60 Minutes episode on Sunday night, where proud Trump-voters claimed utter ignorance that he was going to deport immigrants and who were downright SHOCKED that someone they knew was deported.
other bill says:
You know what used to be great?
This blog's comment section.
Isaac says:
@Other bill… there's hardly any place nice any more on the internet.
Bridgette says:
@Gerald I agree that overall the Democrats have trouble with turnout but I'm very frustrated by the DNC leadership which doesn't seem to have internalized that message.
@April Yes, we should all continue to resist and persist, but we can't make things right without winning seats. Unfortunately, in the US it's practically impossible to get anyone into office without the support of one of the 2 major parties. So until the less batshit crazy party demonstrates that they have a shot at getting high turnout at the midterms with legions of amped volunteers pushing candidates for as many seats as possible all up and down the ticket, we won't be making much progress.
@Katydid referring to legitimate concerns over corruption and cronyism in the DNC as "pouty temper tantrum" isn't going to help unify the party.
democommie says:
@ Bridgette:
There are a lot durably pissed-off BernGarJil folks out there. I talk to some of them and get the uncomfortable feeling that they would rather lose an opportunity to make genuine change in favor of making "change" that they agree with.
They conveniently ignore Bernie's anti-woman, meh-BLM and batshit crazy promises about Wall Street and the Banks; Stein's anti-vax attitudes and her "Dining with the Tsar" moment with Putin and Johnson's not really wonderful record as NM's governor.
They seem intent on skipping the prelims (in the case of Stein) or glossing over obvious deficiencies in their candidates resumes. Start with library boards, health departments, dog officers, fence viewers, school boards and work your way up. It's how the other guys got there (of course there was that whole massive shift from D-bloc South to R-Bloc South ocassioned by the CRA of 1964) and it's pretty much the only way you can do it. Unless you can find all of the billionaires that are willing to spend millions (legally or not) to ensure that they'll get it back + the vig after the elections.
So, "pouty temper tantrum" is fairly accurate.
seniorscrub says:
@katydid yup, the Jebus of the Bible is often a jerk. He blighted a fig tree for *not bearing fruit out of season* (it was a tree, not a supernatural fruit vending machine). I could go on and on and on. But a lot of laudable saying are also attributed to him–"love each other and I have loved you" and "treat your neighbor as yourself" being two. He also is said to have told his followers to give their coat to those in need and "what you have done for the least of these, you have done in my name." Know what he said about homosexuality? Not a single thing. But the fundies will still carry on about it."
He also turned water into wine so…..there's that…..
Bridgette says:
@democommie I don't doubt that you talk to a number of irrational people, but if you paint the handful* of loony Sanders supporters with that broad brush, you give the impression that progressives (both DNC members and potential members) are not welcome in the party.
Are you implying that you'd rather see folks to the left of Clinton give up on the DNC and form their own party? Is that really preferable to making a sincere attempt at uniting the different factions? Would you rather lose an opportunity to win in favor of snarking at your fellow plebes and asserting dominance over a sinking ship?
I'm not trying to troll of stir up shit but I'm really worried that this divide will never be bridged. It's been on my mind for a while and it's gotten to the point where I don't feel like people can be trusted to have civil discussions about this in person. I don't know why I think online discussions would be any better :) Maybe I just remember this comment section as having been pretty good in the past (note: I've only just picked up read G&T again after over a year off, so I might have rose colored glasses. Hell, I'm probably dragging the discourse down myself)
*I'm assuming the majority of Sanders supporters aren't completely crazy, but this is just anecdotal evidence based on people I talked with at caucuses. No comment on Stein and Johnson :)
srsly? says:
Here's a hint: Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Suppressed 200,000 Votes in 2016 (Trump Won by 22,748).
https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/
———–
"My problem with people with Srsly and some others is that they think that their personal situation and their "views" are reality.
"Reality is a fuck of a lot harder than that."
I think my reality is a lot fucking harder than yours. Here, in my reality, Donald Trump is the president and the Republicans have dominated the Congress and state houses since 1994, with a two-year break in 2008 brought on by the total collapse of finance, an unpopular war, and a miracle candidate. My "view," and maybe it's just my "personal situation," is that the Democratic Party sucks at elections, and should probably do more to rectify that than blame the imaginary behavior of thousands and thousands of activists who spent a lot of time and money volunteering to campaign for a candidate in their primary.
————-
""who built coalitions with conservative, gun-toting, rural whites could have helped" — Whites voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Not sure what you're getting at here."
He has remained a Senator of a conservative state despite being a septuagenarian socialist Jew from New York City. Maybe the dipshits who run elections for the Democratic Party could learn something from him about how to win elections. "They voted for Trump." And yet, they vote for Sanders. That is the fucking point. CaN U rEaD!?
It's almost as though different people care about different things, and by building a platform that offers those people those different things, we can build a "coalition."
———
And for every mythical WWC vote Bernie might have won, he would have lost two women or minorities due to his ass-backwards views on race and abortion.
[citation needed]
———-
""why a few thousand people in a three states didn't show up at the polls"
"Nope. They pulled the lever for Trump. Voter turn-out could have been better for Dems, but it wasn't terrible by any means. (Cf. that three million popular vote victory you really seem to be angry about.)
"But thanks for playing!"
Wait. I thought Clinton lost because BERNIEBROS stayed home instead of voting for her. Which was it?
(I'm angry, yes. I have to live in the future imposed upon me by a disgusting minority of Americans. Apparently, you expect do die of old age before it gets too bad. I can't just give up, like you get to. Check your Baby Boomer privilege.)
———
The BernieBros think we can abandon issues like abortion and Black Lives Matter on the altar of Make Nice To White People Again.
[citation needed]
democommie says:
"I think my reality is a lot fucking harder than yours. Here, in my reality, Donald Trump is the president and the Republicans have dominated the Congress and state houses since 1994, with a two-year break in 2008 brought on by the total collapse of finance, an unpopular war, and a miracle candidate. My "view," and maybe it's just my "personal situation," is that the Democratic Party sucks at elections, and should probably do more to rectify that than blame the imaginary behavior of thousands and thousands of activists who spent a lot of time and money volunteering to campaign for a candidate in their primary."
Really, you think that's somehow DIFFERENT from what I live in. WTF did you do AFTER the primaries were over? Did you stop caring who won?
It sounds like you're really pissed that Hilz got the nod–I get that. I'm still REALLLLLLLY pissed that a lot of U.S. voters preferred the sweet, sweet lies of Nixon, Reagan, B41&B43 and Trumpligula. I remember hoping that the lies would be debunked by the media–before the elections–and that people would come to their fucking senses.I really liked George McGovern; I kinda liked John Anderson, knowing that he had no shot at winning; I despised Mondale and Humphrey; I wasn't fond of Carter, Kerry, Gore OR Barack Obama (who, despite being hobbled by a recalcitrant group of BlueDick dems and a totally obstructionist Congress STILL got some shit done); I liked Bill Clinton's intellect and could never understand why he didn't just keep his dick in his pants–it cost us all, a lot. In sum, I've NEVER voted for a democrat for president that I was on fire for. I've never felt that I really had a choice of "Good, better, best"–it was always, "Meh, WTF? Oh, hell, FUCKING NO!".
The reason that politics are so fucked up is that it takes a special person to be in politics–one who will subsume his principals and pander to his constituents. NOBODY gets elected to any office unless they do that. Now, in some areas–Metro NYC or the middle of Louisiibumfuck, pols, especially incumbents CAN pretty much ignore a fair number of their constituents (up to 49%) and STILL get elected/re-elected. That's simply not the case most places. My City Councilman (turncoat motherfucker), my county rep and my state and U.S. reps and senators ALL try to walk a tightrope and not say the WRONG thing to the WRONG group.
You sound like you want purity in politics–it does not exist.
So, since you are, obviously, a BernJillGarbro, gimme a solution that's workable.
"I'm angry, yes. I have to live in the future imposed upon me by a disgusting minority of Americans.
What did YOU do to prevent the outcome of last year's election being a plebiscite on racism and Hilzhate? What?
What are YOU doing, today, to change the political landscape. Not what are groups you hear about, read about, whatever, doing. What are YOU doing?
Bernie could have won?
WHOA, bro, I don't need a citation for that–there isn't one, btw–you need to figure out why people like me think that people like you are ungrateful for what the dems gave you and your parents since 1932. Don't bother thanking me, I don't need your approval.
BTW, did you talk everyone you know into going to the polls and voting for BernJillGar or was that somebody else's job?
When I was your age, clueless assholes who didn't know shit told me how I should think. I'm not clueless and I don't care how you think, but I can tell you that being resentful that your guy didn't get the nod–and thinking that you're going to change the political landscape of the U.S. from the top down–is navel gazing and counter-productive.
So,. after reading this, what's the opposite of 10KFireemojis?
Michael Kimmitt says:
FFS.
90%+ of the Tr45 voters were bog-standard Republican voters. The rest were mildly racist whites who were willing to give Obama a shot if he promised to even fucking try on the economy. Obama did not, they gave him two chances, that's it.
That's the story. It has nothing to do with purity fairies or whatever the hell Dems are blaming for their inability to combat voter caging and/or quit hiring Republicans for every god damned job.
democommie says:
" The rest were mildly racist whites who were willing to give Obama a shot if he promised to even fucking try on the economy. Obama did not, they gave him two chances, that's it."
Bullshit.
Another GarBernJilbro heard from.
Obama didn't try on the fucking economy. Define "try", moron.
If you think I'm being a prick, try looking in a mirror.