US Politics XIV: Vote for Pedro

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Lol this shit is hilarious

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I wonder how many 60 year olds in Kentucky realize that the women's soccer player talking about being a warrior for her country in her USA jersey in thr first commercial after Tucker went to break is married to Sue Bird.

This puts a smile on my face.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

You've got a stronger stomach than I do, watching Tucker Carlson. I heard that story a while back about those comments he'd made some years ago in which he defended Warren Jeffs. That alone is enough to make me wish he could be dropkicked into a volcano.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.

Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs -- the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation.

Happy days are here again! The pool boy stories are true!

 

[anitram]

Couldn't have happened to a worse fella.

 

[DaveC]

jerry falwell dick pics and robert kraft handy vids both exist in this world.

we are truly in the darkest timeline.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

jerry falwell dick pics and robert kraft handy vids both exist in this world.

we are truly in the darkest timeline.

You're missing one

 

[Irvine511]

There are as you said many different components of the Democratic base. College educated women, usually highly concentrated in the suburbs. African American voters, Latino voters, younger voters, LGBT, and for much of the party's history - Union members, which skew into that white working class area. But who are the most reliable?

The most reliable? African American voters over 40 (especially women). Right now, Biden is leading in that category by almost FIFTY points. College educated women are the next most reliable. Hillary did not do that well with them. But there was about an 8% shift to the Dems from 2016 to 2018 midterms.
Union/"working class" white vote has slumped in the last decade. Biden has a solid base of support there, so may gain back a healthy percentage.
The youth vote is a joke. Fools gold now and will always be.

oh, look. actual facts.

i literally have almost no feelings about Biden. but the above is very real, at least in this present moment.

successful Democratic candidates aren't driven by the base, they are driven by the creation of successful coalitions between different groups. that's who makes up the party -- it's not nearly as monolithic as the almost now exclusively white GOP which actually does win elections by motivating it's base. it's base is much bigger and much more single issue (abortion, guns). the Democrats do not have this. the parties are different. we aren't just one more clarifying critique of "capitalism" away from turning out legions of non-voters who, up until said upcoming critique, have refused to vote because they are disgusted by the system. these voters do not exist in any meaningful numbers.

2018 was a smashing success because the Democrats won with moderates. it really doesn't matter what i, Acela-corridor liberal, want. what matters is what will simultaneously drive up african-american votes in the cities and not alienate the white guy making $120k in the suburbs who has two kids he needs to put through college. because that's who votes.

i will literally vote for any Democrat nominated, and i probably lean Warren at the moment for a variety of reasons, and i'm waiting to commit until the debates begin and i see how people perform. but we also have to understand reality as it is and not as we wish it to be. using shame and sanctimony to draw lines in the sand doesn't make you good or moral. it just makes you insufferable.

 

[Irvine511]

i don't buy this "compromise and small steps over a long period are the only possible way" notion. that attitude would have meant LGBTQ+ people would almost certainly only have the option of "civil union" today. we didn't accept a half-ass compromise then in the face of "it's too much too fast to ask for full marriage equality right now," and look where we are today.

equal marriage rights started with the AIDS crisis and was kickstarted in Hawaii in 1993. there were many compromises and small steps along the way, from Massachusetts in 2003 onward.

it seems fast, but only in retrospect. it took decades of gay people not demanding, but *explaining* their lives to people, creating points of connection and empathy. that took real, sustained work over a long period of time, and numerous political compromises. so much work was done to gradually lay the framework for the overturn of DOMA that this statement ignores.

 

[DaveC]

equal marriage rights started with the AIDS crisis and was kickstarted in Hawaii in 1993. there were many compromises and small steps along the way, from Massachusetts in 2003 onward.

it seems fast, but only in retrospect. it took decades of gay people not demanding, but *explaining* their lives to people, creating points of connection and empathy. that took real, sustained work over a long period of time, and numerous political compromises. so much work was done to gradually lay the framework for the overturn of DOMA that this statement ignores.

yea you're definitely right. i would never intend to demean or ignore the long history behind the fight for equality. i just wanted to make the point that we can't compromise into a situation that's "acceptable" to the GOP for the sake of getting *something* passed, because they'll never relinquish another inch beyond that point.

 

[Irvine511]

yea you're definitely right. i would never intend to demean or ignore the long history behind the fight for equality. i just wanted to make the point that we can't compromise into a situation that's "acceptable" to the GOP for the sake of getting *something* passed, because they'll never relinquish another inch beyond that point.

believe me, i agree that the GOP, as a party, is a corrupt, criminal enterprise that must be stopped.

but i've been spending a lot of time of late in red states, and i promise you, their voters are not the inhuman monsters they are made out to be in here (as i've done in the past as well ... and as the trolls in here act). i meet absolutely lovely people who watch Fox News. there has to be a way to connect, and i believe that's what successful Democrats do.

the GOP will only win an election if their base turns out. the Democrats win when they pull the center to their side. it's just how it is.

 

[DaveC]

GOP voters definitely aren't all monsters, but the people they vote for sure are.

 

[Danny Boy]

So apparently Trump doesn't want his tax returns released because his companies lost a billion dollars over the past decade, not because they show him to be a criminal.

I mean he still may be a criminal, but honestly the former is probably more of a negative with his base than the latter.

 

[DaveC]

over a billion dollars from 1985-1994. adjust that for inflation and it's almost double that in 2019 dollars.

at that rate he probably had 50 bucks in his checking account when he ran for president.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

jerry falwell dick pics and robert kraft handy vids both exist in this world.

we are truly in the darkest timeline.

Between this and the stuff we've learned about Trump's sex life the last couple years, I'm going to need, like, fifty industrial-sized cans of brain bleach.

 

[BEAL]

So apparently Trump doesn't want his tax returns released because his companies lost a billion dollars over the past decade, not because they show him to be a criminal.

I mean he still may be a criminal, but honestly the former is probably more of a negative with his base than the latter.

It’s more who the heck would loan this guy money at all with how bad he is with it

Oh

It’s all in rubles.

 

[DaveC]

It’s more who the heck would loan this guy money at all with how bad he is with it

were you alive in the mid-2000s?

 

[Vlad n U 2]

It’s more who the heck would loan this guy money at all with how bad he is with it

Oh

It’s all in rubles.

I would be impressed if you could make a post about Trump without a reference to something Russian.

 

[BEAL]

Why? He’s clearly owned by them.

I’ll drop the Russian asset angle once he says something semi negative about Putin

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

The Democrats are really really bad at this.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Trump had claimed executive privilege over documents that were already given to the special counsel, which is outrageous and clearly not a thing.

The Democrats responded by making elephant nosies while spinning around, and finally, by taking a shit on the floor.

 

[anitram]

This is like a first year law school exam gone wrong.

 

[Jerry Dunk]

It is really difficult to square the circle with how seriously the Dems took the Mueller investigation with their total disinterest in actually taking action. But I do think it goes to the theory that many of them hate the idea of actually wielding power against anyone in their social stratosphere. So, the idea of actually wielding power in any meaningful way.

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, if nothing else, this has finally made me understand why the Democrats as a party are so loathed by parts of the left.

 

[Jerry Dunk]

Yeah, if nothing else, this has finally made me understand why the Democrats as a party are so loathed by parts of the left.

The best summary of why the left can't stand the Dems is Obama's first two years in office. He had as strong a mandate as any Democrat will ever have again, and did so little with it.

How do you need beef up voting rights and attack gerrymandering? How do you avoid implementing even the most basic pro-union policies (even something as simple as card check)? How do you kneecap your own healthcare bill so drastically? How do you immediately acquiesce to the military industrial complex after winning on a wave of anti-war sentiment? Why were no orchestrators of the Iraq War investigated/charged for their war crimes? Why no investigation/charges on the architects of the financial collapse? How is your only response to the financial crisis to bail out the banks? Why were statehood for DC and Puerto Rico not even considered?

There were certain things out of their control; the racist backlash to Obama's election was inevitable, and while predictable to an extent, the GOP embracing and financing something like the Tea Party crushed the momentum in the 2010 midterms. And McConnell's now standard-bearing obstructionism was somewhat new at the time. But actually accomplishing something in those two years would have helped some of those elections at the very least. Those two years being the peak of Democratic power in my lifetime, and that's all they can get done? That's why so many have no time or patience for the Dems.

 

[dazzledbylight]

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., to answer questions about the younger Trump's contacts with Russia, two congressional sources said on Wednesday.

The panel is seeking to question Trump Jr. about his previous congressional testimony, the sources said. The Axios web site said he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 that he was only "peripherally aware" of proposed plans for a Trump Tower project in Moscow. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by David Alexander and Chris Reese)



??? ???

 

[Jerry Dunk]

Wild how they waited until after the GOP realized they can just ignore subpoenas with impunity.

 

[dazzledbylight]

Yeah, if nothing else, this has finally made me understand why the Democrats as a party are so loathed by parts of the left.

The best summary of why the left can't stand the Dems is Obama's first two years in office. He had as strong a mandate as any Democrat will ever have again, and did so little with it.

How do you need beef up voting rights and attack gerrymandering? How do you avoid implementing even the most basic pro-union policies (even something as simple as card check)? How do you kneecap your own healthcare bill so drastically? How do you immediately acquiesce to the military industrial complex after winning on a wave of anti-war sentiment? Why were no orchestrators of the Iraq War investigated/charged for their war crimes? Why no investigation/charges on the architects of the financial collapse? How is your only response to the financial crisis to bail out the banks? Why were statehood for DC and Puerto Rico not even considered?

There were certain things out of their control; the racist backlash to Obama's election was inevitable, and while predictable to an extent, the GOP embracing and financing something like the Tea Party crushed the momentum in the 2010 midterms. And McConnell's now standard-bearing obstructionism was somewhat new at the time. But actually accomplishing something in those two years would have helped some of those elections at the very least. Those two years being the peak of Democratic power in my lifetime, and that's all they can get done? That's why so many have no time or patience for the Dems.

half an

Maybe because i wss cogent enough during the mid-late 60's onward, and in nyc where there was(/is) a panoply of activism to see that The Democrats (many) were doing good things; that I won't abandon them, and on local, and sometimes state level they do as well all along.

As far as President Obama remember (i thintk) Republicans were going to oppose everything Obama planned to do. I always thought he was sometimes too centerist for me.

Also while his public face was rather usually mild mannered, couldn't appear too forceful or the "angry black man" trope would be activated.

 

[BEAL]

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1126242114839379968?s=21

What a joke this guy (Trump) has made of the office and this country

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I have no idea who wrote this but it rang so incredibly true about how I feel about the current situation that our shit hole country finds itself in that I thought I'd steal it

From the moment I saw Donald Trump announce that he was running for President, I thought it was hilarious. Growing up in NYC, I was well aware of his lack of business acumen. Everyone here is. He's a punchline, at best. He's a failed businessman who hung on just long enough to parlay his name recognition into a career in the lowest form of celebrity- Reality TV.

America is a land inhabited by people obsessed with celebrity. We all think we're going to be rich one day. We all think we're going to be famous one day. And the depths to which we'll stoop to achieve that knows no limit. As Ricky Gervais said, "People would rather be famous for being shit than not be famous at all." That is who we are. And that is who we elected. So that is who we deserve.