Trump General Discusion II

[Headache in a Suitcase]

No hero worship here, guys. Move along

 

[DaveC]

Hillary Clinton is a woman of no accomplishments

let's see your list of accomplishments that includes something better than secretary of state or US senator on it, since neither of those count, apparently.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I'm so progressive, guys. Check out my posts in the racism thread to show just how much more progressive I am than all of you, guys.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

let's see your list of accomplishments that includes something better than secretary of state or US senator on it, since neither of those count, apparently.

Cool. So President Trump is a man of even greater accomplishments than Hillary Clinton since title means everything.

And maybe I could have been a Senator or Secretary of State if my spouse were a former President thus allowing the sheeple in the party to act like I'm some sort of God?

Because if that last name didn't say Clinton it sure as hell wouldn't have got anywhere.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Cool. So President Trump is a man of even greater accomplishments than Hillary Clinton since title means everything.

And maybe I could have been a Senator or Secretary of State if my spouse were a former President thus allowing the sheeple in the party to act like I'm some sort of God?

Because if that last name didn't say Clinton it sure as hell wouldn't have got anywhere.

Ahhh and there it is. She's only successful because of her husband.

I've got racism and misogyny on my BMP Bingo card. I've almost got a victory!

 

[BigMacPhisto]

No hero worship here, guys. Move along

Left turns out to support someone like Kuchinich or Sanders and they get called unreasonable children by the establishment or crazy cultists for their guy even though they're heavily supportive because these politicians are supporting what their base has believed in their entire political lives.

But propping up some boring establishment candidate with a lot of baggage like Clinton is called the "reasonable" route despite all evidence to the contrary.

Yeah, there's no hero worship within the party. Pfft. And you wonder why you lose elections. Democrats literally live in their little bubble with no connection to the rest of the country and think pointing out that the opposition "says mean things" is enough to win all the while being woefully ignorant as to how the working class is confused by the mixture of their pro-worker stances and massive corporate contributions.

The Nation pegged all of this back in 2013, so the writing was indeed on the wall.

https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-its-not-her-turn/

I mean, fuck, we're on the same page here. Just let us have a say for once especially since we're the actual future of the party. You've lost us three elections this century by choosing a big party name. It's time the far left had their say, win or lose. Millions like me will gladly hop on board for once.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

It's not time for far anything. Right or left.

 

[BVS]

Disagree entirely. Just learn how to use them responsibly. Plenty were accurate between the primaries and the election.

To suggest "current polls" are any different than older polls is wrong. The polls made this a possibility. The way they were perceived and reported... that's where people were wrong.

There's no way you can tell me polling has stayed the same. You're trying to tell me that polling in the days of landlines and pre caller id is the same as today? There are entire demographics now that are likely not to even take a poll. Pollsters don't even have access to me.

Where was the accurate polling in these swing states? And why weren't you predicting a Trump win if they were accurate?


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[BigMacPhisto]

Ahhh and there it is. She's only successful because of her husband.

Yeah because the fact that she's a Clinton and former first lady had nothing to do with her Senate primary (and general) victory and her ascendancy within the party. Seriously, use your critical thinking skills and quit trying to just declare people as racists and sexists because it makes you feel good. That's how you lost the election.

What political track record did she have aside from being the First Lady before she ran for the Senate? Virtually none. She'd be an unknown and have had absolutely no prayer of winning a Senate primary. Meanwhile, the fact that she was previously a First Lady was exactly why Obama gave her the Secretary position because she had a ton of experience meeting foreign leaders. Otherwise, she's just some one term Senator without any major accomplishments, be they stances or legislation. And one who had just used absolutely disgusting tactics such as race-baiting photographs, trying to use the vote totals from disqualified state primaries and even making a veiled reference to calling for Obama's assassination by comparing him to Kennedy in 1968.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

There's no way you can tell me polling has stayed the same. You're trying to tell me that polling in the days of landlines and pre caller id is the same as today? There are entire demographics now that are likely not to even take a poll. Pollsters don't even have access to me.

Where was the accurate polling in these swing states? And why weren't you predicting a Trump win if they were accurate?

Well, polling did show a close race in Michigan, for example, although like Wisconsin it was hardly polled because it was considered a Clinton slam dunk. Then there were plenty of Pennsylvania polls showing a close race that were dismissed as outliers.

But there still was no reason for anybody to predict a Trump victory. A 1-in-3 chance is still pretty good for him and way better than recent Republican nominees, but the mountain of evidence was in her favor. But people putting their hands over their ears and ignoring Trump having a 30% chance on FiveThirtyEight was rather comical. He honestly didn't need much work nationally to make states like Michigan fall into his corner. The path was there and blatantly obvious by the end of this...the second the Michigan results came in at first on CNN, I knew it was over and went for a walk to clear my head.

Again, hubris on the Clinton campaign to not even open offices in Wisconsin, etc.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Yeah because the fact that she's a Clinton and former first lady had nothing to do with her Senate primary (and general) victory and her ascendancy within the party. Seriously, use your critical thinking skills and quit trying to just declare people as racists and sexists because it makes you feel good. That's how you lost the election.

What political track record did she have aside from being the First Lady before she ran for the Senate? Virtually none. She'd be an unknown and have had absolutely no prayer of winning a Senate primary.

Nothing about this makes me feel good. Your posts speak for themselves.

You've stated that blacks are more likely to commit crime because they are black. Your words, not mine.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Blacks in America are more likely to commit crimes. Yes. And your point is?

Again, twisting actual facts said by anyone to try and make them sound racist or sexist or whatever else. Why not just have an actual discussion without resorting to name calling such as referring to Bernie as "a cunt" and the like?

You chose a terrible candidate and propped her up like she was a great one. You own this loss. It's on you. Stay home next time in the primaries or finally get with the left. I know that tax increase will hurt your checkbook, but hey, it probably won't happen anyway thanks to Republican obstructionism.

 

[Irvine511]

No hero worship here, guys. Move along

It also amazes me that someone can spend a year trashing a candidate, present her in the worst possible light, attempt to delegitimize the primaries, and the turn around, not even vote for her, and then say that the problem is that she's unlikeable (gee, wonder why?) and then blame her supporters -- with particular vitriol for black Americans, when his own demographic (the"youngs") failed to show up as they ALWAYS do whenever BHO isn't on the ticket -- for losing an election that she actually won by a significant margin in the popular vote and crying "now I have to live under Trump, thanks to you."

 

[BigMacPhisto]

A better candidate would have won and the establishment and the party faithful that voted for her by an overwhelming margin in the primaries are to blame for this loss. How hard is that to understand?

My problem with black America is that they merely wanted an extension of the Obama Presidency. They saw Clinton as his third term and we all know he wanted her to be the nominee, so that's the result we end up with. I'm really not bitter about it, just demonstrating that it really wasn't about the issues for that group just as I suspect they will slide over to Cory Booker's column immediately when the next election rolls around (just as many of you will because the establishment tells you too). It's called identity politics and those of us on the far left are having a frank discussion about it at the moment.

 

[BEAL]

The youngs dropped off in 2012 for BHO because you know he didn't like close Gitmo on day one, and you know like didn't not like stand up to Wall Street.

The real world sucks for youngsters. Once they get out of their college bubble they realize it's not black and white anymore. Sometimes you have to compromise and hold your nose as you do something you don't want to do.

Or you don't turn out because like your integrity is more important than millions of lives


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[Headache in a Suitcase]

My problem with black America is that they merely wanted an extension of the Obama Presidency. They saw Clinton as his third term and we all know he wanted her to be the nominee, so that's the result we end up with. I'm really not bitter about it, just demonstrating that it really wasn't about the issues for that group just as I suspect they will slide over to Cory Booker's column immediately when the next election rolls around (just as many of you will because the establishment tells you too). It's called identity politics and those of us on the far left are having a frank discussion about it at the moment.

So fucking progressive. You're so progressive your progressivism is progressive.

When does the Far Left book club meet? I'd like to attend.

 

[Irvine511]

And the more I read, the more I become convinced that the difference came down to GOP success in suppressing the black vote.

It's never just one thing. But that seems to be a huge difference between 2012 and 2016 in key states.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

And the more I read, the more I become convinced that the difference came down to GOP success in suppressing the black vote.

It's never just one thing. But that seems to be a huge difference between 2012 and 2016 in key states.

Well it's what they've been working on for the past 8 years, and they worked it to perfection.

But remember... it's "identity politics," not racism. The progressives are talking, ya know.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

The youngs dropped off in 2012 for BHO because you know he didn't like close Gitmo on day one, and you know like didn't not like stand up to Wall Street.

The real world sucks for youngsters. Once they get out of their college bubble they realize it's not black and white anymore. Sometimes you have to compromise and hold your nose as you do something you don't want to do.

Or you don't turn out because like your integrity is more important than millions of lives


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It's cool. They're talking. They'll figure all this shit out by 2020.

 

[Irvine511]

It's cool. They're talking. They'll figure all this shit out by 2020.

I look forward to more sobbing tantrums by wealthy, white "youngs" from the Bay Area at the 2020 convention should anyone less than the corpse of Fidel Castro not be nominated.

 

[gump]

Disagree entirely. Just learn how to use them responsibly. Plenty were accurate between the primaries and the election.

To suggest "current polls" are any different than older polls is wrong. The polls made this a possibility. The way they were perceived and reported... that's where people were wrong.

Yeah, I'm with you on this. Polls were not too far off the national vote, the problem was in the state polling, which is harder (and less frequent).

What this election cycle showed is that people still generally have trouble grasping the concept of probabilities (and probability distributions, more specifically). Trump winning wasn't a huge polling miss, it was distinctly in the realm of possibilities (it was somewhat improbable, but absolutely possible). For a variety of reasons, peolple just chose to interpret the polling/modelling as "Hillary is sure to win".

 

[BVS]

It's called identity politics and those of us on the far left are having a frank discussion about it at the moment.

Does this frank discussion include talking about how they can't think for themselves, how they're loud, and how they're more prone to being criminals? And does Bannon come to these meetings?



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[BigMacPhisto]

No. More about how the Democratic establishment pays lip service to these groups and calls everyone racists thinking it's a winning strategy. Yet Trump did far better with blacks and latinos than Romney despite him allegedly being the second coming of Hitler.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

And the more I read, the more I become convinced that the difference came down to GOP success in suppressing the black vote.

It's never just one thing. But that seems to be a huge difference between 2012 and 2016 in key states.

It's wrong and it has an effect, but would not have made a difference in the Electoral College. Black turnout was like 12% this time and they make up 13% of the population but probably 12% or less of registered voters, anyway. Plus, as I mentioned, Trump managed to even do better with them than Romney with them despite everything, so extra black turnout doesn't mean they would have had all of those votes in the Clinton column since he got like 9% of the black vote or whatever.

She dropped below Obama's vote totals in those key states by hundreds of thousands of people, many of them white and rural voters that have seen the worst economic rebound, if any, since the recession of any group out there. Plenty of Obama voters that switched sides and Trump even narrowly won cross party voting.

If only the Democrats could have nominated someone that could speak to the working class instead of a woman worth nearly $100 million that barely bothered to visit Wisconsin and Michigan, if at all, after the primaries. Hmm. You don't think Mrs. Free Trade might have made for an odd juxtaposition against Mr. "Nafta and Mexico and China are stealing our jobs"?

Perhaps Democrats could have held on to these jobs and voters better had they not simply ignored unions back in the 1990s. Pray tell, who was President then?

Chickens coming home to roost again. Her Iraq War vote was shameful and cost her in 2008 while her husband lying to the American people about a friggin' blowjob for his own political gain (while doing nothing for the left and working class) gave us Bush in 2000. All they have done is vacuum up the soul of the party and cost it dearly in elections. Lest we forget the DNC paying her campaign debt in 2008 when she ran it into bankruptcy on a useless ego trip into the spring and early summer.

You win one lucky election in 1992 and they act like you're gods among men. Hero worship at its finest/worst.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Oh and as far as appointees go, dare we point out that Clinton had unpopular Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco tapped to lead HUD? Because if you want someone for housing, you go with the guy who has overseen the highest rent increases and disparity in the country and done almost nothing about it.

Again, believing that being involved with something means you're good at it (such as Clinton's environmental "win" as Secretary) and identity politics all at once. Her administration would have been just as much a laughingstock for the left as this guy's. With, again, similar Wall Street appointees (if not moreso since she was the one with most of their campaign money).

But hey, the slate is clean and we can start over. Just say no to corporatism from here on out and the public will no longer be confused with what we stand for...it's not hard to do. Stop giving passes to the people that accept the money from the natural gas industry, big banks, etc.

 

[Irvine511]

what we know is that Trump was winning no matter what D was running, due to voter suppression and the Brexit-effect, and the lack of the most charismatic politician of his generation on the ticket.

its erroneous to claim that the "white working class in the Rust Belt" was going to be receptive to the European Socialism-lite offered by Sanders -- to believe this is to ignore the nativism in the Trump campaign that a lot of these people found compelling, and would have drowned out the fire and vitriol spewed by a nativist, racist campaign. the "white working class" shouldn't be unduly valorized -- or prized above, say, the black working class or the Latino working class -- and we can't assume that Sanders (a DC veteran of, what, 30-some-odd-years) was going to be the agent of change these people seemed to want, and his inability to appeal to minorities would have cost even more (maybe even VA) as HRC, who had a much stronger pull with minorities, didn't do as well as Obama (and was never going to).

i don't have time to write much more, but i'll just cut and paste some articles from mainstream, credible sources on a couple of these subjects:

The enraged focus on Clinton ignores the broader historical forces at work. This was clearly a change election, a wave that was bound to dispel pretty much any Democratic candidate in its path. For the first time in decades, stalwart Democratic states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania went to the Republicans. It is all the more remarkable given that, unlike the last change election in 2008, we live in a time of relative peace and prosperity. The inequalities embedded in our economic system are undeniable. The U.S. continues to have a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and has abetted wars in Yemen and elsewhere. But in the past eight years under President Barack Obama, the U.S. has made steady progress toward full employment and has vastly reduced its military commitments abroad, which in the Bush era resulted in thousands of American deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and untold psychological damage to military veterans. In the simplest sense, one candidate in 2016 promised to uphold that progress; the victor promised to reverse it.

This election was about a much greater phenomenon than Hillary Clinton. We know this is true because a nearly identical political undertow has gripped other Western democracies. In Britain, a nativist campaign preying on the fears of immigration and economic dislocation resulted in the Brexit, throwing the country into total chaos. In France, the right-wing National Front is the preeminent political force in the country, after spending decades on the fringes. Britain’s Nigel Farage and France’s Marine Le Pen and America’s Trump have all succeeded by sowing fear and hatred of the other. They lead movements that, at their core, are propelled by white revanchism, a raging against an increasingly globalized world that has threatened white power and diluted white identity.

But it is also becoming clear that the racist face of the resurgent right wing is, in important respects, superficial. To be clear, I find it almost impossible to forgive any person who voted for a blatant racist and misogynist like Trump. I agree with Slate’s Jamelle Bouie that, in attempting to sympathize with the plight of the downtrodden white who voted for Trump, we are in danger of perpetuating a false narrative of white innocence. And I think his election will set back racial progress by decades. However, the rise of the new right also has its roots in the financial crisis, a political earthquake whose deep, radiating repercussions didn’t quite register until Trump’s election. This is a response to what is seen as a corrupt order, one that perpetuates the power of a global elite at the expense of common people. It encompasses Republicans and Democrats, New Labourites and Tories, a Socialist like Francois Hollande and a conservative like Nicolas Sarkozy. It is a protest against liberal democracy as we know it, and it is no surprise that these grievances have found outlet in vulgar authoritarians whose core supporters want to blow up the system.

https://newrepublic.com/article/138635/dont-blame-hillary-clinton

we don't know if Sanders would have won. unlike you, i would have gladly voted for Sanders (even though my vote in DC counts for even less than one in CA) and i would not have spent a summer sobbing and screaming and demonizing him -- i knew what we were up against, i dreaded the time we're in now, and i know that the Democratic candidate, whoever that is, was all that was standing between us and this end-of-the-end-of-history abyss we're now tumbling down.

certainly, people disliked HRC. it also occurs to me that misogyny is even more ingrained than racism, that men have great difficulty seeing women in power (remember when Mrs G heard that she was "a bitch" and wanted to sincerely discuss that, as if it were somehow not misogynist? that encapsulated pretty much everything).

but Sanders would have had unique weaknesses as a candidate, and many point to the current leader of the Labour Party in the UK (Jeremy Corbyn) as an example of what a Sanders candidacy would have been about. and the Burning Man, "I want free college!" aspect of the Sanders crowd would have been a major turn off to exactly these Rust Belt voters.

It is impossible to say what would have happened under a fictional scenario, but Sanders supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach.

When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn’t mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don’t attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.Could Sanders still have won? Well, Trump won, so anything is possible. But Sanders supporters puffing up their chests as they arrogantly declare Trump would have definitely lost against their candidate deserve to be ignored.

Which leads back to the main point: Awash in false conspiracy theories and petulant immaturity, liberals put Trump in the White House. Trump won slightly fewer votes than Romney did in 2012—60.5 million compared with 60.9 million. On the other hand, almost 5 million Obama voters either stayed home or cast their votes for someone else. More than twice as many millennials—a group heavily invested in the “Sanders was cheated out of the nomination” fantasy—voted third-party. The laughably unqualified Jill Stein of the Green Party got 1.3 million votes; those voters almost certainly opposed Trump; if just the Stein voters in Michigan had cast their ballot for Clinton, she probably would have won the state. And there is no telling how many disaffected Sanders voters cast their ballot for Trump.

The Myths Democrats Swallowed That Cost Them the Presidential Election

i'm not going to revisit this topic any further. obviously, no one knows, and now, it's not helpful beyond any lessons to be learned for 2018 and 2020.

my hope for Sanders is that he uses his apparent powers to get people to actually vote in the midterm elections. "the young" aren't so good at that.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

There was a poll funded by Alan Grayson before the election that showed Sanders would have won in a landslide...so it's clear there's a lot of voters at least would have been willing to vote for him and not for Clinton. I think those general election polls from around the time of the primary where actually pretty damn predictive in hindsight and 538 even had an argument for them, historically, in an article this year. Obviously, Sanders never faced the ensuing backlash that he would have as the nominee, and surely would have made things closer, but a hell of a lot of people were going to consider him before he would have faced that inevitable GOP opposition over the closing months. Plus, those Sanders rallies would have been massive once the general public started paying attention to the guy as the election neared. 100,000-plus would have been normal.

The way I see it, practically every Democrat that voted for Hillary Clinton said they would have been willing to vote for Sanders, so he literally would have got all their votes, plus the millions of liberals like me who either didn't vote or cast a vote for Stein. So that's a big improvement over her end results. Sanders would obviously shed the anti-Trump right-wingers that Hillary received, but that's a laughably small share of the vote as evidenced by her massive failures in key rural and suburban counties in Pennsylvania and the like.

The minority argument just doesn't really make any sense because those black voters that supported Hillary weren't suddenly going to jump to Trump because Sanders was the nominee - a champion of civil rights and the working poor and someone with an even much higher favorability rating within the party. They'd still support him and he'd have had the backing of Michelle and the like, etc. But Sanders had plenty of independent, particularly rural voters supporting him (such as in the Michigan primary where he won thanks to so many non-Democrats turning out) that it proves that there were plenty of non-Democrats willing to support him. Exactly the voters outside the party bubble that Hillary needed to succeed.

We'll never know and it does not matter one iota. In 2020, if we can agree to have an actual liberal nominee, then we won't need to have these arguments or talk about could-have-beens. Warren, Gabbard, Ellison, whomever. I'm down. Are you?

 

[BigMacPhisto]

The truth and a viable strategy from Sanders supporters. Ellison needs to be chair.

Sanders Supporters Withhold DNC Donations Unless Ellison Is Elected | Observer

 

[BoMac]

My own view on the First Amendment is that freedom of speech means you are free to say whatever you want without fear of being prosecuted or incarcerated by the government, which is sadly what happens in many countries around the world.

The First Amendment, however, does not protect you from getting fired for saying offensive, bigoted, or racist things. There still are consequences to your actions.

Alas, it seems that the First Amendment doesn't really mean much to the Trumpsters, and that's scary.

Lewandowski: Times editor Dean Baquet 'should be in jail' for publishing Trump tax docs - POLITICO

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

Just a little humor for your friday:


"See You Tomorrow"



One sunny day in late January of 2017, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench.

He spoke to the Marine standing guard. "I would like to go in and meet with President Hillary Clinton."

"Sir, Mrs. Clinton is not President and doesn't reside here." The old man sighed and walked away.



The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Hillary Clinton".

"Sir, as I said yesterday, Mrs. Clinton is not President and doesn't reside here." The man thanked him and again walked away.



The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same Marine. "I would like to go in and meet with President Hillary Clinton."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man. "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mrs. Clinton. I've told you already several times that Mrs. Clinton is not the President and doesn't reside here. Don't you understand?"



"Oh, I understand you fine. I just love hearing your answer!" The Marine snapped to attention and saluted. "Sir, see you tomorrow."