The General US Politics Thread

I think Bernie and his particularly rabid coalition of the left did are as much at fault as the right-wingers are. Their relentless smearing of Clinton's character and insistence on painting her as corrupt encouraged voter apathy and played right into Russia's hands.

"They're both the same," they said. "Vote for Stein," they said. Well, here we fucking are, guys. Thanks a lot.

A politician who actually bends to the will of the people is not a problem.

But it's harder to convince people of that with one of, if not the most hated politician in the country since before many of the posters here were even born. Even if the biggest reasons for it were bullshit.

Not to mention that Sanders didn't create this opposition toward Clinton out of thin air. It existed 8 years ago too, and I don't remember seeing a single regret about it. For a lot of people, seeing the Democrats then make an open step backward with their candidate did not compute.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:08:12 PM by Eschaton

@RBluefish
Are you really trying to tell us that people who didn't vote for Trump and are against everything he stands for are just as much to blame for his victory as his actual supporters?

Watch them run. They will tear each other down to pieces. Jesus Christ this will be fun. Said George.

Stop throwing blame at each other. Sanders challenged Hillary's coronation, then fell in line once she was nominated fair and square, despite petty attempts to cheat by her helpers. Trump won by a fluke, a technicality, and the help of the FBI and Russia. A fight between progressives and neoliberals helps no one now. We have a common cause. Let's focus on it.

Anyone who didn't vote for Hillary might as well have voted for Trump. Same result. That's just a fact.

I agree that unity among progressives is going to be crucial going forward, but that unity is going to be hard to achieve.

on further thought I see no sense in rehashing maybes and could have beens, we've exhausted that topic already. I'm just increasingly frustrated that everything is getting worse and there seems to be very little that can actually be done anymore.

The Democrats need to be prepared to rebuild institutions and regulatory policies wholesale after Trump. The instruments of government that both parties have thus far relied on won't be of much use once he's done.

I'm trying to convince myself that the GOP is setting itself up for an implosive loss, but Trump's cultish behavior makes me doubt it.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:14:53 PM by CrimsonZephyr

Good! They were shit! With some luck, or rather, lots of bad luck and then lots of good, you'll be able to write an entirely new Constitution. One that wipes the Slate of all the compromises that were made to protect slavery and plutocracy.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:17:02 PM by TheHandle

Honestly,seeing what's been happening for the last few days, there are only two ways I think this country can go do down. Either we devolve into an oppressive kleptocracy with only the barest illusions of true democracy, or we—

{We regret to inform you that due to the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement, the second half of this troper's post was removed from this thread. What we can tell you is that it concerned a word that started in 're' and ended in 'volt', but there is unfortunately nothing else to be said at this time. We thank you for your patience and understanding.}

edited 24th Jan '17 1:16:49 PM by kkhohoho

If you lapped up those right wing smears exactly like Trump's base did, you are functionally identical to them. Either the Sanders movement learns how to operate and maybe pay the sort of attention they did "the establishment" to their allies like Tulsi Gabbard, or they die cursed by the rest of the Democratic party.

Then why did you do just that? Desperate for attention?

edited 24th Jan '17 1:18:14 PM by Krieger22

@RBluefish
Well, the Republicans did say that a vote for a third-party candidate was a vote for Hillary...

I'm pretty sure Hillary's opposition to single-payer health care wasn't a "right-wing smear".

Or any of the other equally valid reasons to dislike her. It was a pique of frustration because apparently "Bernie Bros" is still an insult despite it having no basis in reality as far as I can see.

Hillary tried to create a Single-Payer Healtchare system when she was First Lady. It failed, and Republicans proposed an ACA-like Alternative that didn't pass until 2010.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:22:42 PM by DingoWalley1

Hillary opposed single-payer because she knew damn well it was a political impossibility, and she's practical: she doesn't believe in wasting political capital on things that cannot succeed. She advocated for a public option instead, with the government offering plans on the exchanges that would force insurers to compete on price and features.

If the public option ends up being attractive enough, it might evolve into single-payer by the simple fact of all other insurers being run out of the market. But we'll never know now (or at least not for four or more years). Thanks, #NeverHillary twats.

Agreed with : That's some prime willful ignorance going on there. So many on the left eagerly repeating the Breitbart smears, completely unconscious of the fact that Alex Jones and Steve Bannon were cackling into their cornflakes with each tweet and Facebook post. So many on the left gleefully passing around every Wikileaks report as proof of how "Shillary" didn't deserve their votes, completely unconscious of the fact that Vladimir Putin was cackling into his borscht with each tweet and post. How thoroughly the left got trolled this election...

And CNN just played right along. I bet there were some regrets in their upper management on Election Day. "Why didn't we cover actual issues more," they asked themselves. Fucking morons.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:32:07 PM by Fighteer

Make like your sig, hit the stims and read this. Are you so deep in denial that you are deliberately impeding your own reasoning faculties?

EDIT: Trump thinks environmentalism is out of control. But you see, he was running against a late stage capitalist anyway...

edited 24th Jan '17 1:28:46 PM by Krieger22

Not just Jones and Bannon - Putin and Dugin as well. I'm pretty sure that turning the far left against Hillary was another part of their plan.

Do you honestly believe that anyone on the left actually reads Breitbart?

Wait, was voting for hillary, and urging everyone I know to vote for her NOT the correct thing to do? I can still be critical of the woman, goddamn.

South Carolina state Representative Chris Corley has resigned rather than be expelled after he was arrested for beating his wife.

Doesn't matter if they don't read it themselves, they're using the exact same rhetoric.

@Henry: Probably, if only to know what the opposition thinks and is like. I don't have the patience for the misogyny spouted there, but someone does otherwise no one on the left would actually know what that site is about.

They don't have to. The media discovered tidbits that Breitbart seeded into the public consciousness through the "alt news" channels and jumped on them like a pack of jocks looking for reasons to beat up on the nerds.

Many of the key smears came from a book released by Infowars that was essentially a hit piece on Clinton. It was picked up by devotees of the alt-right inside the law enforcement community and inside Congress, prompting all the investigations. The media sniffed that out and ran with it, not even bothering to check the sources, and making it a case of perfectly executed propaganda. The right had plenty of practice: the same technique worked to sell the Iraq war, after all.

And yet your criticisms still read like a Breitbart playbook. Faux corruption. "Coronation". Putting down the "oh so noble" Bernie Sanders. Yes, the DNC didn't exactly cover itself with glory during the campaign, but I thought that we, as the educated voting left, were supposed to be smart enough to sort facts from the gossip, unlike the lemming-like right. Clearly that idea worked out. Half my Facebook feed during the election was people lamenting how awful Clinton was as a candidate and how they couldn't believe they were being forced to choose between her and Trump.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:39:38 PM by Fighteer

It depends. Do you want people on the left who are repeating something copied verbatim from Breitbart because confirmation bias precludes checking what they're sharing is from or whether it's true, or do you want people claiming to be "totes left" who sincerely read Breitbart because it somehow is the last safeguard for unrealistic breast behavior in video games?

''Women's March becomes largest protest in U.S. history''

I'm sure most of you guys have already read about this, but I think you still might find this article interesting.

@AceofSpades Well, obviously. What I meant was, no one on the left would consider it a trustworthy news source.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:38:25 PM by henry42

@Lance: It absolutely was, and you absolutely can. But unfortunately, not everybody did. There were all too many people who bought into the "Hillary's just as bad as Trump" BS and either didn't vote or went third-party.