Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I think this lays a bit in a chicken-egg issue.
Most of Sanders' economic goals could be shot for if you could wrestle Congress away from financial diehard Republicans and financially conservative Democrats. Which requires the issue of getting the voters to the polls. Because reminder, Sanders, if he gets to the General, isn't planning to fire up just the current Democratic voter base, he plans to wrestle back the working/middle class back away from the Republican party.
Unfortunately, a lot of wonks have decided to circle their wagon train around Hillary and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. And right now, the DNC is probably the biggest, nastiest blotch in the Democratic party, especially when they've allowed the Democratic party's legislative and state party wings to atrophy in the name of making sure the Democrats are a bunch of Center Rightists willing to cut deals with Hard Right Wings, who only turn left on social issues.
But most of the fact this growth is a bit unrealistic has quite a bit to do with Congressional impasse and the fact the Democrats are always defending from the right, balled up as the Republicans kick and scream.
Though if Trump's any proof, Partial Left-Wing Economics is viable and loved by the public.
I'm not sure Left Wing voters rallying around Sanders are Know Nothings, so much as FUCKING SICK TO DEATH with "muh hand of da free market" that Neo Conservatism and Neo Liberalism has brought the country, and with it the 2008 banking crisis. So burning down the DNC has the unfortunate side effect of "Eat the wonks" that are wagon training around the DNC.
Sanders is not 'radical,' nor his proposals "pie in the sky." He's a moderate New Dealer compared to the current Democratic Party, which is more in line with the '80s Republicans.
The Clintons have bragged about turning the Democratic Party into Republicans, and asserted that there "are no Democrats."
Well, Sanders is a true Democrat. Nothing radical about falling back on proven party principles.
Well, watching the whole thing with Sanders having had his campaign out in the states since November makes me hope this teaches the Dems a thing about having ground game in the states. Lack of it is how they lost in the mid term election.
Somehow I kind of doubt it, but it's a major weakness they have and they need to improve on that. Such tactics might actually make some of Sanders' further out there propositions possible. I'm not really understanding how they don't realize the need for it.
Edit: So glad it looks like Cliven Bundy is finally getting the law book thrown at him.
edited 18th Feb '16 2:50:04 PM by AceofSpades
![]()
"Bunk numbers"?
Sanders is the only candidate with so much expectation to release policy details for their platforms. Clinton doesn't even have a plan for expanding healthcare coverage, nor the numbers to back up her assertions for reducing climate change, etc.
That 5.3% growth figure was provided by someone publicly voting for Clinton.
Meet the Man Who Says Bernie Sanders Can Deliver 5.3% Economic Growth
edited 18th Feb '16 3:08:01 PM by SolipsistOwl
The weakness is a feature, not a bug.
edited 18th Feb '16 3:05:39 PM by PotatoesRock
The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House, by Bob Woodward
https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/700375346005340160
edited 18th Feb '16 3:38:57 PM by SolipsistOwl
Party lines have shifted so much in the 50 years since that era though it is true, pretty much every aspect of both parties have flipped back and fourth 50 times since the beginning.
Especially recently, with tea party shit the Republicans are one step to the left of Nazis at this point.
edited 18th Feb '16 3:48:08 PM by Memers
I was exaggerating there but still there are a huge amount of scary parallels of prewar Nazi party and current republican shit that's going on. Especially the racist hysteria that most of them are trying to induce.
That's beside the point though, 1950s republicans are today's democrats on a lot of issues.
edited 18th Feb '16 4:09:28 PM by Memers
They're not all that secret. It's known that Bush got a memo that bin Laden was up to something, and brushed it aside. And there are declassified documents that demonstrate that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had no hard evidence showing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (but that they did have a reasonable assumption that Iraq possibly could have had the potential ability to produce some weapons of mass destruction, at some point, somewhere, maybe).
He's essentially a private citizen at the moment right now, so if he's got access to something it's probably through illegal means. Not that I actually believe he's got access to jack shit, because again, private citizen. He's not yet any kind of government official or any kind of reputable reporter. Or reputable on anything regarding 9/11, as given his whole birther stance I don't have much faith he's got a well informed, even handed view on that tragedy.
So basically I think he's full of bullshit.
He wants to humiliate and decapitate the current Republican establishment. Trump and Sanders aren't exact 1:1, but they're doing similar things. By attacking 9/11, Trump is trying to erase and destroy Dubya's reputation among Republicans, and thus gut and destroy Jeb Bush. And present the Republicans with the fact they need a real leader, not some spineless brother of a failed former leader.
Not really, but Trump is psychologically incapable of not lashing out at anyone who dares talk about him badly.

Funny tho, didn't Sanders say he would ask Krugman as a financial advisor
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes