THE 2016 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

I think we need to accept that Trump is winning the presidency. And the only thing I keep telling myself is that yes this will be embarrassing, scary & cause me to have disdain for whomever casts a vote for this guy but our checks & balances have to provide some layer of safety to prevent him from running amok.

undo wrote:But what do you do when (stop me if I'm just repeating a fake narrative here) legitimate criticisms only seem to strengthen the resolve of all his supporters? Maybe those people are a lost cause but you know what I mean?

I'm convinced this is a product of short attention spans and low-information voting. People are already talking about Trump softening the edges now that he has a commanding lead because his entire strategy is based on the notion that no one could possibly remember anything he said two months ago (something which has proven to be startlingly true in recent presidential politics). The only way to fight Trump is to hammer home his shortcomings every single day for the next eight months until people actually remember.

Ҩ wrote:Right wing nut jobs getting creative on Microsoft Paint and comparing Obama to a fictional Batman character is wildly different than pointing out the real historical similarities between Trump and other real authoritarian xenophobes. I'm not saying that the similarities are overwhelming but they are worth nothing. He did willingly re-tweet a fucking Mussolini quote last week. I don't remember ever reading "WHY SO SERIOUS?!" Obama tweets in '08.

Agreed. Hitler was a literal thug before politics but he became what he became because no one called him on it. It might seem like hyperbole but we have to call this shit out for what it is, what it can become.

Ҩ wrote:
I'm beyond pissed off tonight. This is just a travesty. Another brilliant move on Trump's part to turn his victory speech into a calm, business-like press conference. By the way, he said this for the first time tonight (I think) and we are going to be hearing it all the way until November and whether or not this statement resonates with voting bases is going to determine the general election. Re: Clinton bitching about income inequality during tonight's speech. Trump is going to continually point out that she has been in various positions of political power for the past two or three decades and hasn't been able to affect the desired change, so why should we trust her now?

That's pretty damning actually.

It's not. If Obama was running for a third term, what does he say? Hell, let's ask Sanders the same question. Fact is politics is a fight, and this sorta shallow line will work on the internet and strengthen the resolve of weirdos like the Trump voter Chrono quoted, but it's not really gonna resonate.

Ҩ wrote:
Even if Trump loses in the general election to HRC that is going to continue to be a problem in the future. The only way that the Democratic Party is going to affect change is if they make a much needed shift to the Left. That isn't going to happen, of course. So even if we don't get Trump in 2016 we will end up with some other disaster candidate in the near future.

Dems, including Clinton, are already shifting left. We can prefer they move faster but we also need to get things done.

Ҩ wrote:
It's all just so fucking disgusting. I think the blame falls on the Democratic Party.

Sounds like something a liberal would say.

You guys are forgetting how important the hispanic vote is and exactly how much Trump has alienated it. The map skews blue these days and the hispanics will be motivated to come out, and a lot of the GOP won't be. Let's not underestimate Trump, sure, but he's not invincible.

jasperness wrote:The only way to fight Trump is to hammer home his shortcomings every single day for the next eight months until people actually remember.

All this seems to accomplish is getting people who like him/are on the fence about him to say "Look how much liberals are out to get him! That's how you know he's doing something right!"

Or at least this is the sentiment on the Internet, maybe it's just a pose and nothing at this point is real or least nothing that matters.

undo wrote:

jasperness wrote:The only way to fight Trump is to hammer home his shortcomings every single day for the next eight months until people actually remember.

All this seems to accomplish is getting people who like him/are on the fence about him to say "Look how much liberals are out to get him! That's how you know he's doing something right!"

Or at least this is the sentiment on the Internet, maybe it's just a pose and nothing at this point is real or least nothing that matters.

Trump does the worst of all GOP candidates among late-deciding voters (people that pick their vote in the final days before an election). Very few people "are on the fence about him". People that already support him online will say "that's how you know he's doing something right!" because they're trolling.

The goal needs to be to convince some of the HUGE NUMBER of Americans who never/rarely vote to go out and vote against Trump.

He also does poorly with voters who are worried about whether or not the nominee shares similar values to themselves... That's a really important point because that means that Trump is not only winning these primaries but he is doing it even while people disavow the crazy shit that he says. I realize in a general election that is going to change but I don't know if it will be drastic enough. A lot of people are so impressed by his bravado and his 'straight talking, get er done' attitude that even when he says things they find morally reprehensible they still vote for him because he is a good leader. That is what makes it so hard for the other candidates to put a chink in his armor and its the main reason why he is so good at deflecting all of the attack ads.

I'm gonna be a politician guys no joke.
State Dept and/or government smart guy for the next 10+, then run train on these shit heads

Ҩ wrote:He did willingly re-tweet a fucking Mussolini quote last week.

I do think the vast majority of his platform is entertainment, so I take all his insanity with a grain of salt.
That said, the similarities in rhetoric DO exist. And if some of his scarier comments are a reflection of the policy he'd try to push while in office? Well fuck me right in the face, we shoulda seen it coming. This guy is garbage. As a person I am not a HRC fan either, but come the fuck on America. Grow the fuck up and maybe don't elect a schizophrenic fascist in 2016.

I reject that entirely. I should reiterate, I really don't have a problem with HRC as a person. She seems disingenuous at times but a lot of 'career politicians' who are trying to rally a large voter base will come off that way. She does seem to care deeply about improving the lives of average Americans. BernieBros wants to scoff at the in roads that she and her husband have made in the African-American community because of the Crime Bill. They should be scoffing at it but they are going about it the wrong way. They are conflating two very different things. Clinton's ability to speak passionately for the desires and hopes of marginalized communities is undeniable and she should keep doing it. If 90% of black woman think that Hillary can do a better job representing their interests and desires than Bernie they should vote for her.

All that being said, there is a difference between what someone says and what someone does, obviously. And there is an even bigger difference between what someone intends to do and what is actually capable of being done given the constraints of their own party platform! HRC seems like a dedicated civil servant to me and she is certainly a competent leader. But I just disagree with her (and the majority of the Democratic Party's) vision of how this country should be managed and governed.

This is what pisses me off so much about the electability conversation that everyone keeps having. I mean sure, given the current political climate and if we are to just passively accept our broken political infrastructure that mostly works to maintain the status quo and is only ever capable of incremental change then, yeah, Bernie and anyone who shares his ideology isn't very electable. But politics isn't just the stupid horse race that our incompetent media keeps presenting it as. Leftists need to start having serious conversations about these kinds of things instead of kowtowing so quickly to 'electable' Democrats who might share a lot of their values. It is insane to me that we have allowed this country to drift this far to the right while we celebrate something like the Affordable Care Act. It's the 21st century, everyone on the Left should only accept voting for candidates who are going to institute universalized health care. Period.

Honestly, I'm just really grateful to Sanders for a lot of things that he has done in his campaign. The single most important thing is that he has not embraced the cult of personality. For example, when he is asked in town hall meetings about his involvement with the civil rights movement he basically shrugs it off as "yeah, it seemed like the right and just thing to do, so I fucking did it." I mean, if he was more vocal about the fact that as a twenty year old he chained himself to a black woman and was arrested fighting to end racial segregation in the Chicago housing market then a lot more black voters would probably be voting for him. It would be the smart, strategic thing to do for this election.

Instead he continually looks to the future. He has continually highlighted the importance of his election being a grass roots, democratic effort. That's so important and he is really doing an awesome thing. Bernie isn't going to win but through his unselfishness he is opening the door for future generations of politicians to walk through. Hopefully he will be remembered and celebrated for this in the future.

The other thing that I would say is that there is a tendency to think that any white, privileged person is incapable of speaking about what is best for marginalized communities of color. That has its limitations though and I think it does a huge disservice to us politically. Think about this, if Saul Alinsky was writing today there would be like 1,000 stupid internet articles about how he is a whitesplainer.....

Ned, I would vote for you. Good luck!

Ҩ wrote:He did willingly re-tweet a fucking Mussolini quote last week.

Ned Braden wrote:Grow the fuck up and maybe don't elect a schizophrenic fascist in 2016.

jasperness wrote:
It's pure fascism.

I really hope Hilary times her, "people scoffed at my colleague, the honourable Mr. Sanders for gravitating to "socialist" policies, but this man is the definition of a "FASCIST." Do we really want to support fascism in the so called land of the free??" debate comment well.

Hillary is moving towards the Left right now. In the General Election she will start making concessions towards the center to make herself appear 'electable' and as the first woman President she will adopt neo-conservative foreign policy while being pretty open to socially progressive talking points without ever fully supporting them. We will all be thoroughly disappointed after a few years when we forget that Trump being the Head of Hate was a possibility and start seeing things for what they are.

Ned Braden wrote:

Ҩ wrote:He did willingly re-tweet a fucking Mussolini quote last week.

I do think the vast majority of his platform is entertainment, so I take all his insanity with a grain of salt.

My theory is that when he started he kind of thought "Okay, this will be fun. I'll make a splash, and the party will yell at me and I'll drop out, then I can spend the next 4 years telling everyone how I could have beaten Hillary, etc." But then he got up there and realized he was so much better at it than all the other guys, so how hard could it be to actually be president? So why not just keep going?

I don't think he's going to win, but I would kind of like to see what it would be like.

Scalia's absence was really felt today, and that's a good thing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2016/03/in_oral_arguments_for_the_texas_abortion_case_the_three_female_justices.single.html

I say let the GOP stall the process as long as they please.

Duff... wrote:

Ҩ wrote:Right wing nut jobs getting creative on Microsoft Paint and comparing Obama to a fictional Batman character is wildly different than pointing out the real historical similarities between Trump and other real authoritarian xenophobes. I'm not saying that the similarities are overwhelming but they are worth nothing. He did willingly re-tweet a fucking Mussolini quote last week. I don't remember ever reading "WHY SO SERIOUS?!" Obama tweets in '08.

Agreed. Hitler was a literal thug before politics but he became what he became because no one called him on it. It might seem like hyperbole but we have to call this shit out for what it is, what it can become.

https://twitter.com/jonostrower/status/705171149022433280/photo/1
This illustrates your point nicely.

I don't think most people realize that it took Hitler around 10 years to become relevant in German politics after he started to try. Dude was on the slow burn path.

This is a very interesting and comprehensive read, despite the sensational title: http://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Hitler-Search-Origins-updated/dp/0306823187/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457039991&sr=8-1&keywords=explaining+hitler. Rather than providing new information, the book synthesizes the most popular and researched theories on Hitler's mental state, motivations, and goals. It's a good historiography of Hitler Studies.

Of particular interest here, perhaps, is the stuff about Hitler in the 20s. The Munich Post stuff is particularly interesting. That paper was exceptionally tough in their takedowns of Nazi politicians and Hitler's thuggish tactics. What happened to them? Hitler rose to power, raided their offices, shot up some of the editors, and shut the damn thing down.

Hot takes the morning after a debate that lowered discourse in this country even more: Should penis size be a qualification for the Presidency?

Ned Braden wrote:I'm gonna be a politician guys no joke.
State Dept and/or government smart guy for the next 10+, then run train on these shit heads

i was looking up yesterday how to serve on the local school council for the elementary school my eventual kids will attend. gotta start somewhere. unless i can get on one of the 2 community advisor positions i need to wait til i have a child there, so maybe 8-9 years. that's probably too far down the line to get started, so i'm researching what else i could get involved in locally in the meantime.

Shit's just pro wrestling at this point. In the absence of a charismatic babyface, fans gonna root for the heel.

With Obama as the incumbent these idiots might want to avoid associating dick size with strong leadership.

Seriously though, this shit has gotten so crazy. After last night I'm 100% confident that Hillary is going to lock this shit down. If I am wrong then I'm moving to Quebec. I would consider rescinding my citizenship to be honest. Fuck this country.

It's going to be ok just calm down and try to enjoy watching the Republican Party implode.

jasperness wrote:Isn't this phenomenal?

This worries me because this is the exact narrative that I think could actually get Trump elected — that he can be fairly compared to Reagan. I'm not a fan of Reagan but he was a serious politician with executive experience who hired real advisers, had some clearly defined goals, and was largely held responsible for the things he said and was expected to be relatively consistent in his beliefs and statements (at least by politician standards).

I'm sure the person who made this thought it was a sick burn, but to liken Trump to Reagan in any way is doing Trump a huge service. That's just about the best kind of aid and comfort I can imagine for Trump supporters.

I actually think this is a pro-Trump piece. It's a little hard to tell because it isn't very good, but I think around point 5 we're supposed to start getting excited.

You are right otherwise, and I think the most important thing the two share is their ability and willingness to give americans permission to be unapologetically terrible.

Oh god rereading that I think you're right. It's done in such a weirdly reflexive way that I think the base-signaling language went right past me. It's like presenting all of Reagan's negatives as positives to cast this candidacy in a positive light. Trump really is the end times.