The General US Politics Thread

Mr. Rodgers, please come back, we desprately need you.

And permenately turning all White House Tvs to Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood sounds like a fantastic idea.

edited 4th Jun '17 9:22:33 PM by megaeliz

So THAT'S why Twitch was streaming the Mister Rogers marathon this past month!

I would recommend you read "Shattered". It does not paint a good picture of Hillary despite the fact that it came from two Hillary fans.

All those external factors mattered but it could have been overcome by good campaign strategy. But it seems her own hubris, a bad campaign manager and out of touch attitude brought her into a position where the external factors proved decisive.

And when Kerry lost, we got another term of Bush.

When Hillary lost, we got Trump. That is a hundred times worse.

There's a reason why Hillary's approval numbers are actually worse than Trump's atm. People pinned their hopes on her and she let them down. There's a lot of anger now.

No. Fuck that. They let HER down. She did her part. Maybe not as well some would hope, but it's not her fault that a good chunk of this country are pretty much racist morons.

Racist morons, lazy morons, anti-establishment hipster morons, sexist morons, gullible conspiracy swilling morons...

And maybe a good chunk of them have the chance for redemption.

Just be patient man, I know that things like this can be upsetting, but you shouldn't be that harsh.

edited 5th Jun '17 12:27:14 AM by Luigisan98

Redemption is not a common thing though. Most of the time, awful people never stop being awful and die unredeemed.

"Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all. It is not for everyone."

It's a dark irony that the UK is the one country which is now suffering the most under more ore less spontaneous terror attacks (while France gets the most organized attacks). Because do you know who didn't take Refugees during the crisis? The UK. They have only let refugees in they have screened beforehand, most of them through their own system.

I can't help that everytime I hear "soso could have beaten Trump" I also hear "a white male would have beaten Trump" which might be true, but is nothing to be proud of. At all.

edited 5th Jun '17 12:40:52 AM by Swanpride

What if I told you that you don't get to dictate who people endangered by GOP policymakers should trust? What if I told you that no amount of wishful thinking can rewrite reality?

NVM

edited 5th Jun '17 12:51:46 AM by M84

I did not said that as wishful thinking. I said it because of the instances where it happened and I'm certain as well that some supporters of the GOP can be redeemed if the hearts is open enough.

Hillary lost because she had been smeared by the right wing media machine for decades. You know the saying "no smoke without fire"? It is a fallacy, but it pretty accurately describes how people think. So by making up bullshit for decades in a row, a lot of voters were just convinced there had to be something there. She got nominated because the people doing the nominating mostly knew her personally and thus knew there was not. Which is an impressive display of principles, but not so much of strategic thinking.

edited 5th Jun '17 12:58:42 AM by Izeinsummer

x10: Actually, this article covers several of those points you mention.

Specifically Hillary states that it wasn't that she refused to believe polls saying she was losing, but that the polls were wrong (saying she was winning) until right before the end, when it was practically too late to do anything about it. (Several other articles I've read have noted, and I believe it's been mentioned right in this forum thread, that this is because a lot of Trump supporters, for fairly good reason, kept their support a secret, telling pollsters they were undecided, and thus the truth didn't come out until in polls right before the fact, or in the actual voting booths.)

Hillary also mentions that what she didn't take seriously (and she takes the blame for this) was WikiLeaks and the e-mails—she says she thought it was all rather silly, that anyone looking at the e-mails in question would see they were "boring, inconsequential, and innocuous" so she didn't think they'd have an effect. But they did, and she was wrong about that.

And the article also makes a point of saying that while those interviewed for Shattered said they were quoted correctly in the book, it also skews things to make it look like the staffers hated working for her and weren't united in helping get her elected, and it notes that the problems with competing voices, Hillary not listening, bad messaging and wrong resource allocation, and the overall faulty ground game were not unique problems to her campaign. Plus, Hillary specifically mentions not blaming or hating her campaign manager or anyone in the campaign, saying they all did the best job they could for her. And the anecdotes she quotes also make it clear that no, there isn't just "a lot of anger" toward her—plenty of supporters, while upset and devastated, still support her and don't blame her at all.

It's a really good read and puts a lot of things in perspective I think. It also happens to make me admire Hillary more than ever.

edited 5th Jun '17 3:08:41 AM by Ingonyama

Thing is the first thing Hillary did when she came out of the woods was too acknowledge that there are some things she could have done differently during her campaign. She then continued that Comey saying the investigation was open again was the difference between her winning and loosing - which it was, there is no doubt about it that this was, in the end, the deciding factor. It wasn't the only one by a long shot, but one has to be naïve to not think that this wasn't what persuaded a lot of people to not vote or vote for e third party. Thing is the media keeps latching on her pointing out something we all know to be true and then complaining that she doesn't accept her responsibility, even though she clearly did. I simply don't see why there is this demand from her to play the repented sinner role the media apparently has chosen for her. Nor do I think she should.

In the aftermath of the Paris Agreement Trump's approval ratings have reached 38.9%, just 0.1% away from the all-time low.

How the hell does he still have an approval rating that high? I don't get it.

Partisanship? I think that's the only reason why, that and his base who are like "Well, the economy hasn't crashed and he hasn't went to war yet!"

Because a nonzero amount of people (not Americans, people) are ruled entirely by their vindictive lizard brain and the Creature From the Brown Lagoon is nothing if not a cipher for the stupider members of society.

And also because well-to-do middle and upper middle class Americans are going to be fine up until and after he opens up the Trump Camps.

edited 5th Jun '17 4:52:14 AM by math792d

Something interesting from "News and Guts" a news page I follow on Facebook and whose main site is owned by Dan Rather.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=252261005178875&id=199870617084581

In response to this article

https://www.apnews.com/079e907d81d14e7ca56eb5279f285f71/AP-FACT-CHECK:-Attack-draws-visceral-Trump-tweets,-not-facts

AP FACT CHECK: Attack draws visceral Trump tweets, not facts

edited 5th Jun '17 6:54:15 AM by sgamer82

Its the news equivalent of the nice granny who always tries to be helpful and never say a mean word suddenly going "Oh fuck a goat, Donald."

What makes Trump's continued push for his Muslim ban even more dumb is that his original ban would have expired already, and the second one will be done in a month and a half. He's had ample time to "figure out just what the hell is going on over there" so by his own logic they shouldn't be necessary anymore.

It was never about keeping America safe anyway. If it was, Saudi Arabia would've been on the list.

In this case, it's entirely about "winning" against the courts. Trump's worldview seems to revolve around separating people into winners and losers.

Because a lot of people approve of what he's doing.

Or they're not informed to what's going on. Not everyone watches the news. A lot of people just absorb opinions from their cliques. But this isn't really a Republican thing either. This is just how the American people operate. You'll find a lot of ignoramuses on the Democrat side too that can't talk about the issues at all.

Consequences of a consumersist and sensationalist society.

So Puerto Rico is holding a referendum next Sunday