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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Agreed.
Edit: Going back a bit...
edited 20th Apr '16 6:54:40 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Regarding that comment earlier about a hypothetical revolution in the US being just as likely to be a right wing revolution as left wing, I can't say I agree; the millenial generation is far to the left of the current United States government, so a violent revolution that took place in the next 40 years or so would almost certainly be leftist, unless we're talking about a military coup. Not to say that it'd be a good thing; a left wing authoritarian regime isn't a much better place to live than a right wing authoritarian regime.
Because push come to shove the vast majority of people are smart enough to realise that Clinton getting more votes and more pledged delegates means her victory is in no way a failure of democracy. Only an idiot is going to be able to play the "Clinton didn't win fair and square" line when she's faced an opponent the entire time and still come out on top, especially when Bernie endorses her after this is all over. Now you may have a lot of idiots your your Facebook feed, but that's not representative of the Democratic base as a whole.
Edit: As for Biden, couldn't he take over a DNC chair? That might restore some faith in the DNC.
X3 The left might have more to gain but they're also less willing to resort to violence, being listened to more over time rather then less and less able to carry out violence. In the end there's a reason nobody is Seriosuly worrying about an armed riot at the Democratic convention.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:01:34 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Nobody is worried about a riot at the DNC because there's not going to be any real catalyst for one. In a hypothetical scenario where Sanders won the majority of pledged delegates but was override by superdelegates, I wouldn't be more surprised if there weren't riots and/or massive and brutally (by American standards) suppressed protests; that's essentially what happened in the 60s when the party bosses overrode the popular primary voting.
Note that I'm talking about the long term here; there's no real chance of any sort of violent revolution in the US happening in the next twenty or so years, by which time the base of popular support for right wing militias will be virtually nonexistent.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:07:34 AM by CaptainCapsase
Any rioting would be most likely to come from minorities who are subject to disenfranchisement, economic privation, and police brutality in ways that middle-class white youths can never appreciate or fully understand. I can bear the angst of people who have the leisure to post angry Facebook rants with great equanimity. I'm quite a bit more concerned with people for whom systemic inequality literally means the difference between life and death.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:14:32 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"On the contrary, as their overall base continues to erode those that remain will likely become even more reactionary and prone to violence with time. A clash between these violent reactionary elements is not only pretty likely, but we've already seen it with the recent Bundy family shenanigans, even if the incidents ultimately did not turn too violent.
That may be the case, but there's realistically no way these kinds of people are seizing power; at worst there'd be a brief clash with the national guard ending with the militia wiped out to a man with maybe one or two guard casualties. Violent uprisings are only ever successful when (at a minimum) a plurality of a nation's armed forces align themselves with the rebels, and that's only going to happen in a scenario where there's broad public sympathy for their cause.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:20:56 AM by CaptainCapsase
What's more likely is an ongoing, low-key insurgency by RWMFs against minorities, immigrants, and government institutions.
If the best those nutballs could do is occupy an empty building in a national park for a few weeks, they are not an existential threat to our nation.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:24:10 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@Fighteer: It's worth noting that Sanders isn't the one saying he won't support Clinton if she wins.
I think at this point, he's going the distance as a matter of honor, while angling for the outside bet where he wins the majority of pledged delegates and then tries to start a riot at the DNC. If Clinton wins on superdelegates, then Clinton wins on superdelegates, but she's also potentially set loose a major call for reform in the Democratic Party - and, I hope, a primary challenge after her first term.
(The fact that I'm calling for cleaning the Democrats' house should show just how little I fear a Republican Presidency right now. Trump or Cruz, they're gonna lose.)
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You do realize that both the DNC and the RNC are going to adjust the rules for the primaries to make it significantly harder for outsider candidates to run for the next cycle? Especially the RNC, but I doubt the DNC is happy about Sanders getting more than 5% of the vote.
Not in the present, but in the present time, there's really no risk of a significant uprising; I'm talking about 20, 50, perhaps even 100 years down the line; especially if climate change becomes severe enough for massive famines in the first world.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:32:08 AM by CaptainCapsase
As for the DNC, it's hard to see how it could get any more favorable to insiders than the current superdelegate system.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:34:08 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
Trump getting steamrolled would be a good justification for adding a superdelegate system, in the same way the disastrous defeat of McGovern prompted the DNC to create a means of overriding the popular vote if need be.
The superdelegates are a bit too overt, and very well could spark a riot if they were used to shut down an outsider campaign with vastly more support than the establishment candidate. (ie McGovern) A more subtle way would be to have a system solely consisting of closed primaries which require registration many months in advance; I'd say that's probably why Sanders did so abysmally in New York. Excessive voter ID laws in states with low minority populations would be another way to push down on the scale, since young voters are another group that tends to be suppressed by such measures.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:45:08 AM by CaptainCapsase
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I personally helped elect the ADC members for my voting district - all are on Team Bernie. I predict that the DNC is going to have a lot of Bernie blood coming in and joining the national party apparat after this convention - there's been a lot of rioting at the state parties over just that.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:36:13 AM by Ramidel
I'll take a citation on it being a significant chunk, it's certainly a vocal chunk, but a significant one, that's something I'd be interested to see some numbers on.
edited 20th Apr '16 7:41:21 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran@Fighteer: Just to set the record straight, I'd love to be proven wrong, not only about Clinton but about the course of the United States in general, but I really don't see the United States deviating from the current trajectory towards a guided democratic oligarchy under Clinton, nor do I see it halting, chiefly because I believe she wouldn't even try to stop it.
And how will the RNC and DNC do that without also looking like they were being undemocratic? After all, the RNC changed their own rules for this election to prevent a Ron Paul-style insurgency and it led to Donald Trump being the only one with a chance to win the Republican nomination without a brokered convention. Over on the DNC side, the system worked. Sanders has not achieved the delegates needed to win, even though he at least still has a chance to win the Democratic nomination without the help of the superdelegates. In addition, Sanders had vastly more support from Millennials than Clinton has. The United States is moving leftward and doing it hard and fast. I expect the next Democratic candidate for President to be expounding views similar to Sanders since the Millennials will be eight years older by then.
Wizard Needs Food Badly![]()
Well, a "guided democratic oligarchy" isn't necessarily the worst thing that could happen to us. It's not even in the top ten. If it works...
edited 20th Apr '16 8:05:05 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I mean, if you're an (straw) Objectivist it would sound pretty alright. Provided you're in power. Otherwise you and the rest of the general population is a commodity to be exploited to the point of collapse, with no prospect of social mobility without the patronization of a member of the economic elite.
edited 20th Apr '16 8:16:49 AM by CaptainCapsase
Are you suggesting that the form of government we were discussing axiomatically lends it self to being run by monopolistic business interests? That doesn't follow. At least, if you're going to accuse Clinton of subscribing to some sort of Objectivist-capitalist ideology, you'd do well to present some proof that is not hearsay and conjecture.
It is not clear to me that pure democracy is capable of generating any better governance without supervision; Quality by Popular Vote tends to have horrible results. I wouldn't trust most people I know to have a say in macroeconomic policy, for example.
edited 20th Apr '16 8:18:28 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't doubt Biden's effectiveness as a potential President, I doubt his effectiveness as a primary candidate in this sort of political environment.
I don't see him appealing significantly more to Sander's crowd as Hillary does, so in all likelihood it would make a contested Democratic convention more likely then not.
What I'm saying is if you wanted a smoother primary process, getting "Uncle Joe" to run was not going to get it for you.
edited 20th Apr '16 6:47:43 AM by Mio