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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#273326: Mar 4th 2019 at 8:44:18 AM

it therefore requires getting the swing states to voluntarily give up their own power, which I don't see ever happening.

I can see it happening, but it's going to require sustained pressure from the population. 60% of Republicans oppose the Electoral College, so there's some serious weight behind the move - it's just that this hasn't translated into Republican politicians (who know damn well that it'd suck for them) accepting it.

Swing states in particular might throw in for the NPVIC if they get Democratic trifectas at any point.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#273327: Mar 4th 2019 at 8:51:39 AM

Or if Trump loses in 2020 despite getting a majority of the popular vote, but I don't think that outcome's so likely (it was a genuine possibility in 2012, by the way. The EC is not as pro-Republican as people like to claim).

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Friendperson Since: May, 2018
#273328: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:22:06 AM

Given the current population demographics of the states, do you feel that we need to modify the way we select our representation? Is a house where all states have equal representation still necessary for true democracy?

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#273329: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:23:27 AM

Would probably help to merge the ones with almost no population and similat population.

Wyoming is an electoral travesty.

Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#273330: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:28:50 AM

Did you guys hear that an Alabama newspaper called for the KKK to reform. How long until the Right Wing politicians ask for the same? Despite the "Alt-Right" label the Alt-Right and American Right Wing are virtually the same now. The right wing mostly approve of the "Alt-Right" talking points. Otherwise they would speak out against ICE's actions, police brutality, Nazi's marching through the streets, or care about the right wing-violence that happens constantly.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#273331: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:31:15 AM

I'm confused at the idea the KKK has gone anywhere.

It just broke up and fragmented because of David Duke's attempts to peddle a Lighter and Softer more mainstream racism.

Which, sadly, seems to have worked.

There's 100 KK Ks than 1 KKK and that's much worse.

(The main KKK also was bankrupted by lawsuits)

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 4th 2019 at 9:31:49 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#273332: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:33:51 AM

[up][up]I think the overwhelmingly negative reaction in the mainstream scotched any possibility of a KKK revival. The author and editor of the newspaper was also an eighty year old man who was already known locally as a racist.

It's something to keep an eye on, but not worth freaking out over.

[up][up][up][up]I think we need to expand the House, personally.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Mar 4th 2019 at 12:35:51 PM

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#273333: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:36:53 AM

Expanding the House doesn’t fix the Senate nuking everything, though.

Friendperson Since: May, 2018
#273334: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:37:18 AM

[up][up]Yeah, I wouldn't pay too much attention to the 80-year-old senile racist guys.

Edited by Friendperson on Mar 4th 2019 at 9:37:32 AM

Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#273335: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:40:36 AM

Eh I know one around 70 years old one we have to pay attention too. But besides that I'm thinking it is going to be a talking point with the alt,(mainstream) right.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#273336: Mar 4th 2019 at 9:43:40 AM

The KKK have been replaced with other racist groups unfortunately so calling for their reformation is a little pointless

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#273337: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:12:25 AM

Here's the issue: this is Trump's home turf. We've seen this before back in 2016, trying to engage him in a war of petty insults is a bad idea, because he tends to win those. See Rubio and Clinton. Challenging him on those terms in 2020 is not likely to fair any better, and making it the central theme of your campaign displays a lack of faith in the ability for your ideas to inspire hope or engage constituents.

So, unless I learn anything new about him he's getting sorted into the lower-middle section of my personal rankings.

I agree with him being in the lower-middle section of rankings.

But I do think that whoever our candidate is, they need to have a plan for Trump's Trump-isms. People like Trump more than they like facts. They like Trump more than they like policies. Or platforms. So you can have the most factual policies in your platform and it won't matter because people like Trump more.

They like him because he's a bully. Because he exudes power in his words and actions. He's bristling with unreasonable confidence, and that's attractive. He talks like he knows what he's talking about, and even though he's making up everything he's saying, that resonates with people.

If you don't have a plan to beat his fact-stomping platform-crushing ignorant pride charisma, people aren't going to listen to your really intelligent and well-developed platform because they'll be too busy laughing at it alnongside Trump.

Trump does not debate. Trump ridicules. Our 2020 candidate needs to have a plan for when Trump starts shouting over them and going, "WOW, that is SOME BULLSHIT this person is spouting. Does anyone care what this idiot thinks? I DIDN'T THINK SO!"

From the confines of his glass house, Trump throws stones with the best of them. And it's really hard to get your message across to the audience when all they see is you getting pelted with rocks.

So, yeah. It's important to have a real solid platform and plans in place. But in the 21st century, that can't be all you bring to the table. You have to make people interested in listening to you. Our candidate needs to be able to lead, which means holding people's attention and keeping audience engagement fixed on them, despite the dancing monkey at the other podium flinging his poo around the stage.

Democrats have a hard time competing with Republicans in sheer memetic entertainment value. Which means we have a hard time getting people to remember a single thing we said at the debate floor.

Basically, what I'm saying is that we need a candidate who can go viral the way Obama did in 2008 and Trump did in 2016.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 4th 2019 at 11:19:06 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Soban Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#273338: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:19:44 AM

Former Clinton Campaign Staffer Accuses Bernie Sanders of Failing to Mention Race, Gender in Speech That Explicitly Mentioned Race, Gender

>This incident highlights the disconnect between intersectionality in theory and intersectionality as practiced by the most hysterically identity-obsessed activists. If intersectionality merely means that progressives must consider how all sorts of injustices overlap, then Sanders is clearly an intersectional progressive. But if it requires its adherents to themselves be the victims of overlapping identity-based oppressions—to not just support the right causes but also possess a number of immutable characteristics—then a white male like Sanders will never be good enough.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#273339: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:24:16 AM

Maybe we can use a source other than Reason? I refuse to give that lolbertarian rag any clicks.

Edited by M84 on Mar 5th 2019 at 2:25:21 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Soban Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#273340: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:28:06 AM

I quoted the bit I would like to see discussed.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#273341: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:31:50 AM

We'd have to read the entire article to get the context. And that would require actually giving Reason more traffic, something I refuse to do.

Disgusted, but not surprised
AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#273342: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:32:05 AM

[up][up] Sure. Technically, at least, he could be considered one, if you squint at it just right. As in, he has mentioned those concepts before. He's just rather bad at it. Like, you can still recognize multiple types of injustice only to devalue or ignore it. And Sanders...definitely does that. Which is in itself a form of racism.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Mar 4th 2019 at 1:32:28 PM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#273343: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:32:50 AM

Today's bombshell expose:

The Making of the Fox News White House.

Not that this wasn't plainly obvious to anyone who was paying attention, but the massive level of influence is just gross.

Edited by speedyboris on Mar 4th 2019 at 12:36:26 PM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#273344: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:34:45 AM

We already have an example of what happens when media with a clear political bias have undue power and influence when it comes to a nation's politicians in the UK. It's...not great.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#273345: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:36:17 AM

[up][up][up][up] Don't know that site one way or the other, but not going to lie, it's kind of a garbage read. Seriously, it's "he did in fact say racism at the 6-minute mark and that totally wasn't in passing and was a substantive remark even though it wasn't, at all. And it only came that late because his best friends are black."

Also, I saw the speech. He did the thing where he said that Trump is the cause of racism, not the symptom.

One of the more straightforwardly dishonest aspects of the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries were certain Hillary Clinton supporters' efforts to portray rival Bernie Sanders as out-of-touch with black and female voters, even though his record on race and gender issues was at least as progressive as Clinton's.

Some Clinton partisans are still pushing this narrative. Enter Zerlina Maxwell, a former communications staffer for the 2016 Clinton campaign and current director of progressive programming at Sirius XM Radio. Maxwell, a black woman, appeared on MSNBC to react to Sanders' campaign kick-off speech at Brooklyn College on Saturday. She was not impressed.

"To be very serious about it, I clocked it," said Maxwell. "He did not mention race or gender until 23 minutes into the speech. And just for point of comparison, I looked at Elizabeth Warren's opening speech for example, she mentioned race and discrimination in the first paragraph. So that's a big difference and as somebody who is a black woman, knowing that black women are going to be a core constituency for any Democrat who hopes to win the nomination, I was looking to hear messaging specifically for my community, and I did not, at least until 23 minutes into the speech." Maxwell went on to accuse Sanders of failing the test of intersectionality.

But Sanders did not wait until minute 23 of his speech to address race and gender. He brought them up at the 5-minute mark: "The underlying principles of our government will not be greed, hatred, and lies. It will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious bigotry."

This was one of his very first substantive remarks: The only reason it did not occur sooner is because the crowd kept interrupting him with applause, and Sanders took several minutes to thank the various speakers who introduced him—three of whom were black. (One was the Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King.)

In case there were any confusion, Sanders also declared that his vision for the country was based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice. As The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald points out, "Sanders did not just mention race and gender once in his speech before the 23-minute mark Maxwell claimed, but did so repeatedly. It was not only the major theme of the speakers who introduced him but a primary theme of his own speech from the start."

Maxwell eventually conceded some ground, tweeting: "I've rewatched since yesterday and while I can acknowledge that I missed the passing line at 6 minutes I stand by my point since talking about criminal justice is not the same thing as talking about race and gender and if you don't get why Bernie won't win....again."

For the record, Sanders clearly talked about race and gender outside the context of criminal justice as well.

This incident highlights the disconnect between intersectionality in theory and intersectionality as practiced by the most hysterically identity-obsessed activists. If intersectionality merely means that progressives must consider how all sorts of injustices overlap, then Sanders is clearly an intersectional progressive. But if it requires its adherents to themselves be the victims of overlapping identity-based oppressions—to not just support the right causes but also possess a number of immutable characteristics—then a white male like Sanders will never be good enough.

[down] Sounds about right. Reason/rationalism has seemingly become a red flag buzzword these days.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 4th 2019 at 1:40:54 PM

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#273346: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:38:39 AM

[up]Reason is a lolbertarian rag that is bankrolled by the likes of the Koch Brothers.

Reason at one point called Dubya a socialist. That's pretty much all you need to know about it.

Disgusted, but not surprised
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#273347: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:41:27 AM

Look who finally got around to shifting blame:

Trump blames Cohen testimony in part for failed deal with North Korea – President says holding the hearing while he was overseas “may have contributed to the ‘walk.’ ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-blames-cohen-testimony-for-failed-deal-with-north-korea/2019/03/03/4d11c082-3e26-11e9-a44b-42f4df262a4c_story.html


Re: An alternate source for Sanders speech, there's a politico article about it. I haven't looked myself though since the title seemed clock baity, but since it may be relevant:

In Chicago, Sanders talks race – He looks back to his activist days as he vows to combat wealth gaps and other inequalities between white and black Americans

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/03/bernie-sanders-chicago-civil-rights-1200723

Edited by sgamer82 on Mar 4th 2019 at 11:43:38 AM

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#273348: Mar 4th 2019 at 10:46:21 AM

[up] Christ almighty, that's just... dumb. Like, seriously. Say that the Dems holding the hearings publicly weakened our bargaining position, thus making the Norks emboldened and asking too much, so you heroically walked away.

Don't go "I was hurt by the mean Dems words and left because I was impatient."

Like... it's astounding that he can't even do his lies well. I truly don't understand his cult when he can't even blame their mutual enemies right.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 4th 2019 at 1:53:57 PM

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#273349: Mar 4th 2019 at 11:07:25 AM

Wait, someone called W a socialist?

Ok, that’s easily one of the dumbest things I’ve heard.

Leviticus 19:34
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?

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