US PolitiX -Angry Left Wing Mob Edition

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It shouldn’t be not allowable for old people to run, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that someone who is too old is less likely to be in touch with the future, or other criticisms associated with age.
as a 65'er I think it really depends a person individually.
Are they in very good health, intelligent, empathetic, compassionate, keep up/know in general about current events and culture, etc.

by "echo-chamber territory" i meant FYM itself - aside from the occasional drive-by "fuck the lazy poors and the evil socialists who want to help them" ranting-at-strawmen from the usual suspect, this place has really become the same half-dozen or so of us lefties chatting about current events and agreeing with each other for the most part.

i mean, i like chatting with you guys about this stuff and having a place to safely blow off steam about dipshit donnie's latest antics but it's not like we still have anything resembling the debates and discussions that we used to have here.

Maybe try something new to discuss?
I def need this place to vent, sometimes I hear something I haven't yet heard about, etc. :)

I do have a question for ya.
Steve Harper was a Conservative PM for you guys? Right before Truedu?

What constitutes a Canadian Conservative?
Is it like sliding a range of policies rightward on a left - right continium? More complex? Etc.
 
What constitutes a Canadian Conservative?
Is it like sliding a range of policies rightward on a left - right continium? More complex? Etc.

it's not that much different than the states. canadian society is more left-wing in general than the US (though not as much as we used to be), so our federal Conservative party has been a bit more centrist than the GOP. i would say that traditionally, Liberal governments have been the norm in canada at least since world war two - the Liberal parties generally being centre-left. so mostly when Conservatives win here, it seems to be as a reaction to longstanding Liberal governments that people eventually get sick of. a lot of people are worried about our own trumpy new premier in ontario, thinking that it's a sign of a cultural shift to the right, but that's really not true - the Liberals had been in power for something like 16 years in this province and suffered from a number of corruption and spending scandals over the years and went into the election with an unpopular leader, essentially knowing that they were almost certain to lose. it was more a matter of who was going to replace them, the Conservatives (known as PCs in ontario) or the NDP (a left-wing progressive party (in theory, but that's another story)).

the PC leader got #metoo'd about two months before the election and doug ford, former drug dealer and enabler of his brother (international laughingstock rob ford) and mother's addictions to alcohol and crack cocaine and former do-nothing toronto city councillor when rob was mayor, ran for the leadership, won strictly on name recognition, and became premier despite running an atrocious campaign in the general election that was basically his to lose - he almost blew a double-digit lead in like a month and was only really saved by the fact that the campaign wasn't longer. so no, the people that think that we voted "for doug ford" and that this is a sign of things to come are flat out wrong - he's a shady opportunist who got lucky, but now we're stuck with him. i suspect though that he's not going to last the full four years, as he has a tendency to say and do really dumb things and i bet he's going to cause some sort of minor scandal that will give the party an excuse to turf him at the earliest opportunity.

anyways right now there is a lot of infighting in the federal parties that aren't the Liberals. in general canadian (small-c) conservatives in the past used to be all about fiscal responsibility, and generally maintaining the status quo socially. this was the kind of prime minister stephen harper was. but in the last 3 or 4 years there has been a growing tea-party style faction in the conservative party that has been trying to yank the party hard to the right, especially since trudeau's election. they basically hate the guy who was elected party leader, andrew scheer (he's about as interesting as a soggy piece of white bread and it seems his motto in life is "never ever ever make anyone upset" which obviously doesn't sit well with neofascists and christian taliban). it seems like they may finally have had enough with trying that tactic though as one of the most high-profile Conservatives has recently left the party and announced that he is starting his own right-wing party. it sort of remains to be seen whether it's going to be a far-right kind of social conservative whackadoodle party or if they're actually going to be focused on old-school style fiscal conservatism like the guy who founded it is claiming it will be.

the NDP is also having similar issues, with a moronic leader who was elected because he's young and trudeau-ish (but also a POC, major bonus for the identity politics party) that nobody really likes anymore and who keeps making dumb mistakes. they've basically mired themselves so far into identity politics that they don't really have much to say anymore about the economy or other more pragmatic issues. there is a large highly progressive faction pulling one way, a smaller democratic-socialist sort of faction pulling one way, an environmentalist faction going one direction, and finally another more liberal faction pulling the other direction (with lots of overlap between these groups) and no real leadership to make any decisions which way to take the party. so they just seem to be flapping in the wind and probably won't make any gains until they find a stronger leader.

so by this time next year when the still very popular trudeau government is up for re-election, this new right-wing party is up and running and splitting votes off from the main Conservative party, and the NDP likely will still be mired in infighting, so barring something game-changing or catastrophic i can't see any outcome to the 2019 election other than another Liberal majority with four more years of trudeau, and probably an even stronger one than they have now.

tl;dr - dave had 4 shots of espresso this morning
 
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I think there was some discussion about 2020 candidates at the end of the last thread, and I wanted to chime in...

Warren is perhaps my first choice. She knows how to get a crowd excited - in that regard she's perhaps better than any female politician I've seen and also better than a lot of male ones too. I have two concerns though:

1. We have two-year election cycles now, and I don't know if I can stomach two years of Drumpf calling her Pocahontas every day for two years. It's nauseating to think about. I hate the misogyny that permeates his base.

2. The governor of Massachusetts is a Republican. If we don't take back the Senate in the midterms, we'll have another chance in 2020, and if Warren were to run and win, the Republican governor would fill her seat with a Republican. Something to think about. In contrast Harris and Booker are both from states with Democratic governors(I'm assuming Gavin Newsom will win his governor's race in California in November). Speaking of which...

Harris & Booker are both similar in that they are young, African-American, relatively new to the Senate, and both are excellent politicians who can get a crowd going wild(Booker blew the roof off the place at the 2016 Democratic convention). They are both eminently likable I'd be able to support either wholeheartedly. Though it should be mentioned that the far-left Bernie types are going to tear Booker apart for his connections to Wall Street.

Gillibrand doesn't interest me much. Too much like Hillary. I had no problem voting for Hillary, but I don't love her, and I feel like Gillibrand would present some of the same problems as a candidate - too reserved, too buttoned up, unable to really light a fire under the base. Then again, she's the one I know least about here, so maybe I'll change my mind.

Biden. There isn't a bigger fan of Biden than me. I love the man. Back in 2008, after Obama locked up the nomination and the media was speculating about who he would pick to be his VP, the whole time I was saying Biden, it's gotta be Biden, he's clearly the best candidate, the best person, the most qualified, etc. I think he was a great VP. I love him. But I'm weary of him running. Because he's 80. Because I fear that while he'll appeal to people in Ohio/Pennsylvania/Michigan/etc who may have voted for Drumpf, I feel that the increasingly liberal base may seem him as too centrist. That said, I could get on board, if he were to, say, commit to serving one-term only, and select a younger home-run VP candidate to basically have the nomination served up on a platter in 2024, i.e. Booker or Harris maybe.

Sanders. I'm sorry, but I've decided that I don't want him to run. He's just too divisive. I started as a Bernie supporter in 2016. I voted for him in the Ohio primary. But I became increasingly uncomfortable with him and his supporters as time wore on. With him, because he talked about one thing only and appeared to have no mental agility - nothing to say about anything else, especially foreign policy, he was one-note - he was too lax about gun-control, and he didn't appeal enough to minority voters who are vital to getting Democrats elected. With his supporters, because to them Bernie was the only honest progressive. Even now, they call Warren, Harris, and Booker faux-gressives. Because Warren didn't support Bernie in 2016. Because Harris didn't bring charges against Steve Mnuchin's company when she was the AG of California. Because of Booker's aforementioned ties to Wall Street. For them, Bernie is the only one. That's not support of a candidate, it's worship, similar to how Drumpf's supporters worship him, and it's not a healthy relationship to have with a politician. There's no perfect progressive, we can't let 'good' be the enemy of perfect, and I don't want to have to have that argument for the next two years.

Wow, we have very similar feelings on all this. Especially the Bernie part. I started out supporting him and couldn't take it anymore as it went on. At this point I kind of think the shine is off Warren, and she can be too divisive as well. And not really the most charismatic. She becomes one note as well.

I think that a winning ticket could be Biden/Booker or Biden/Harris.

You pair an extremely liked, experienced candidate with a more energetic, younger candidate that can communicate effectively. You get the rust belt states back with Biden, and still draw in a higher African American vote, possibly higher female and AA vote.
 
If I could choose today, I’d go Biden/Harris. She strikes me as the future of the party.

But I have no actual idea. What needs to happen is someone to draw a sharp contrast with Trump and offer an actual vision of the future. That’s what Obama did better than anyone — vague as it was. Tell a better story. That’s who wins.
 
It's telling how awful a time we're currently in that this kinda gets a shrug... but

The President praised a congressman body slamming a reporter in the middle of a controversy over a reporter being kidnapped and dismembered.
I don't know that it's getting a shrug. It's blowing up my feed today.
 
While wearing denim. With a moose
And flannel, too? :D
It's telling how awful a time we're currently in that this kinda gets a shrug... but

The President praised a congressman body slamming a reporter in the middle of a controversy over a reporter being kidnapped and dismembered.
I don't know that it's getting a shrug. It's blowing up my feed today.

I remember the original incident. :|
Public Radio has been on it all day. :up:
 
tl;dr - dave had 4 shots of espresso this morning
:lol: indeed!

Thanks! I will have to re-read this as I just got into the site and this thread; my library (free-wifi) is about to close. Got parts but not all of it in such a quick run through!

In the meantime how was Canada more Left like in the past?
I mean, like, I don't recall people getting all up in arms over the decades about "Our Terrible Socialist Neighbor to The North" , so to speak. And I live in NYC- relatively not that far away. Visited Montreal and Toronto (family trips) back in the mid-late 60's.

Oh, man I remember Rob Ford!

OK found our free street Wi-Fi station. So I reread a bit more. Doug Ford is now Ontario's premier. That's what his official title is?
Ha, lucky opportunist?! I wonder who that reminds me of. :whistle:

Later. :wave:
 
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canada has long been fairly progressive, especially relative to our neighbour to the south. from the various socialist parties that cropped up in the prairies and gave us a strong welfare state and universal health care in the 30s to our long-standing policy of multiculturalism beginning in the 70s. we've had an openly social-democratic party in mainstream politics (federal and provincial) since the 70s and they've been elected to govern in most provinces at least once, and been the official opposition party in the federal parliament. canada's military after world war 2 (until 9/11) was focused on (and very successful at) peacekeeping missions around the world rather than training to fight major wars. we were the first non-european country to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide in 2005 and we were the first G7 country to legalize cannabis nationwide just this past wednesday.

i could probably come up with some more examples but that's just off the top of my head.
 
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:wave::wave:

Nice to see you namkcur and womanfish drop in. :)

I know a lot of poly pundits (in their 30's on up) are saying Biden's too old. But I like him.I
I like Cori, Harris, and Gillibran. Gillibran can get fired up. I likevWarren, too. You think she's too one note? Consumer Protection, economics?
I do like the idea of Biden with a younger VP.

I still like Bernie, but I hear all the he "buts" you mentioned. You got a point.
Oh, and tax-free do NOT let the "good become the enemy of the he 'perfect' "!
 
Thanks, Dave. :up:

And like I said no one here went bonkers about Canada being I guess a 'pink' country.

As in 'red diaper baby', 'pinkos' terms often slung widely about down here 50's - 80's? You rarely hear those terms today, but there are ready replacements.

Time to get on home. :wave:
 
What the actual fuck is up with Georgia. It’s just so blatant.

Cue The random “what election” comment...

Oh and Dems have to win the house at very least to see what’s on his tax returns.

May not change anything but i always feel awareness will equal change
 
What the actual fuck is up with Georgia. It’s just so blatant.

Cue The random “what election” comment...

Oh and Dems have to win the house at very least to see what’s on his tax returns.

May not change anything but i always feel awareness will equal change



Did you see his commercial where he is in a big pickup truck and says “good thing I have a big truck so I can round up all the criminal illegals and deport them myself”???

It’s one part disgusting and one part hilarious. Hilarious in that he literally makes a mockery of himself and his electorate by pandering to their truck fetish.
 
You laugh but that is the consequence of “they bring drugs, they’re rapists, they’re murderers...”

The floodwaters of hatred are only just seeping in right now...
 
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