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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Something I find fascinating here is how some hardcore Sanders' supporters simultaneously reject the charge that they are, as a group, going to vote for Trump or stay home if they don't get Sanders as the Democratic candidate...and then insist that without Sanders as the candidate Trump is going to win.
Make up your minds. Either you'll rally around Clinton to oppose Trump or you will get mad and throw the election. You aren't going to do both, because you genuinely can't do both.
edited 31st May '16 8:24:19 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
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Based on 538's analysis of the situation
, as things stand, Sanders can withhold a huge portion of his supporters, much more than Clinton could; they dislike Clinton far more than Clinton's base dislikes them.
edited 31st May '16 8:27:05 PM by CaptainCapsase
You saw a similar pattern in '08 before Clinton dropped out and started campaigning for Obama. The point is, Sanders does have significant leverage against the DNC; he could win without Clinton, but Clinton can't win without him.* In contrast, in '08, neither of the candidates could unify the party without the others' support based on how each base perceived the other candidate.
* Based on the respective opinions of their bases of the other candidate, which would and hopefully will change with time.
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If you aren't in a swing state in the US, there's honestly no reason to cast a meaningful vote for President, and in many cases, congressional elections are predetermined as well.
edited 31st May '16 8:30:44 PM by CaptainCapsase
"If you aren't in a swing state in the US, there's honestly no reason to cast a meaningful vote for President, and in many cases, congressional elections are predetermined as well."
It's this kind of daft thinking on the part of the electorate that gave Nixon and Reagan 49-state wins. You can't maintain strongholds if you tell the base to vote for some podunk third party.
As for Sanders' most vocal supporters being white males — that's going to be a given. They have the luxury of being politically myopic. It's not like Trump wants to deport them. So they have the ability to scream about Clinton's "corruption" while not sparing a single thought to the damage Trump would cause.
edited 31st May '16 8:35:51 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"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."A "no-confidence" vote is worse than useless. All you do is take yourself out of consideration when the politicians look at what demographics they want to appeal to in the future; correspondingly, you make it easier for them to pander to that subset of voters who can be persuaded by pet issues.
edited 31st May '16 8:47:22 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, a no-confidence vote that gets you Trump, have fun with that.
If Sanders supporters are willing to let that happen, then I sincerely hope that the worst effects of a Trump administration land on them. They won't, but I'll hope for it anyway.
Oh, and as for Clinton not being able to win without Sanders...yeah, I somehow doubt that. As November creeps closer, we can count on Trump to deliver everyone outside the young, white male demographic to Clinton. And since Democrats never win the young white male demographic anyway, that's not exactly worrying.
You do realize that young white men in the context of America lean democrat right, by virtue of the young part being an overwhelming predictor of alignment with the democratic party in the current climate. It's one of the smallest margins out of the youth vote of course, but it's still there.
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Quite the opposite actually; a large number of third party votes in an election has historically been an extremely strong predictor of a major change in a party's platform, because it represents a potentially untapped voting bloc.
edited 31st May '16 8:55:46 PM by CaptainCapsase
Yeah, like the one that got us Donald Trump. No thanks.
You say that, when all indications are its the same Republican base as ever, despite Trump's claims about having gotten new people involved in politics. They're not untapped, to the contrary, they're already tapped to the maximum more or less, hence why the GOP is reliant on demoralizing the democratic base in order to win elections on the national level.
Now, back to discussions about hypothetical scandals: I think I actually have a fairly good idea of what's going to come out of the GOP scandal machine this fall for Clinton; copies of her wall street transcript conveniently leaked. Probably falsified unless there actually was something truly damning in them, but perfect for demoralizing Sanders' voting base and getting them to stay home out of despair, and probably enough of a basis to start an actual corruption investigation.
edited 31st May '16 8:58:27 PM by CaptainCapsase
As if we didn't know this, there is no "Ferguson effect."
Will cross-post to the law enforcement thread too.
That fact is interesting on its face, but it’s particularly noteworthy considering the number of sources who claim a “war on cops” is being waged that imperils the lives and safety of officers around the country. This manufactured battle is supposedly linked with the “Ferguson effect,” the theory—popular in conservative circles and other places where white people thrive on having their racist fears stoked—that Black Lives Matter and other anti-police-brutality protesters have created a “surge in lawlessness” through “intense agitation against American police departments.” The narrative has been publicized and popularized widely enough that a 2015 Rasmussen poll found that 58 percent of Americans believe the police currently face higher levels of danger than they have in the past. It’s also given rise to the Blue Lives Matter movement and a Louisiana bill of the same name, the first law in the country to make attacking a police officer a hate crime.
In other words, this has all the markings of a classic social panic, including the lack of actual data or factual truth to back it up.
“Any felonious death of a police officer is a tragedy, but the data show that the police officers’ job is not becoming more deadly,” David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh School of Law professor who studies law enforcement, told Huffington Post writer Matt Ferner. “The FBI statistics on police officer felonious deaths show that belief that the job is growing more dangerous, because of protests against police or because of the demand for reform to police practices, is simply wrong. Belief to the contrary may be sincere, but it has no basis in fact.”
Despite the fact that statistics from his own agency effectively dispel the myth of the war on cops, FBI head James Comey has been a consistent proponent of the idea, emphasizing “viral videos” as a demotivating factor for cops to engage in police work. In a speech he made last year, Comey said that “in today’s You Tube world” cops feel “under siege” and suggested they’re “answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns.” Earlier this month, the FBI head reiterated this idea, chalking up a recent rise in crime rates in 40 cities to cops shying away from doing their jobs lest they end up on camera.
“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime,” Comey stated, according to the New York Times, “the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’”
That idea was met with resistance by James O. Pasco Jr., the executive director of National Fraternal Order of Police. Speaking with the Times, the organization head seemed less than happy with Comey’s insinuation that police around the country are simply standing by as crime happens.
“He ought to stick to what he knows,” Pasco told the Times. “He’s basically saying that police officers are afraid to do their jobs with absolutely no proof.”
There are plenty of other obvious problems with Comey’s repeated assertions. Essentially, he’s suggesting that BLM and movements against police abuse are bigger problems than police violence; pushing the notion that activists deserve scorn for filming and calling out police misconduct when they see it; and none too subtly implying that demanding accountability for police violence somehow merits a response that jeopardizes public safety (while also peddling the opinion that without extreme policing, some communities just naturally tend toward violence). Maybe the most outlandish idea lurking between the lines of Comey’s talking points is that policing without brutality is an impossibility; that police officers simply cannot do their jobs—which are difficult and challenging on the best of days—without crossing the line into abuse.
“Police now for the first time are having to consider the consequences of being brutal, being unethical, and doing things that for the longest time they could do and not be accountable for,” Jacob Crawford, founder of We Copwatch, told the Intercept. “But that doesn’t make crime happen.”
It also seems worthwhile to point out that it’s hard to affirmatively pinpoint a connection between de-escalations in policing and changes in crime rates. In New York City, more than a year after police significantly lowered the number of stop-and-frisks and engaged in a virtual work stoppage, overall crime rates remain low. While other large cities—Las Vegas, Chicago and Los Angeles—have seen crime rise under similar conditions, experts note that a number of variables, instead of a singular issue, tend to contribute to climbs or drops in crime rates.
“Every city is going to be unique,” Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project told Think Progress. “There are certain trends that can affect crime rates nationally, but we do know that crime is very much subject to local circumstances. It can be demographics, the proportion of young men in a given population, the size and the kind of policing that goes on, the employment rates, types of drug abuse. All those factors can vary quite substantially.”
“The cities with more crime in the last years are cities that are already facing severe challenges,” Ames Grawert, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice told the Intercept. “If we’re going to talk about causes of crime we should be talking about that.”
We should probably also be talking about how putting out the demonstrably false idea of a war on police isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous. We know where unchecked moral panics lead—the evidence is all around us, in overly punitive drug laws, filled-to-capacity prisons and a real war on the poor masquerading as welfare reform. The consequences of irresponsible scaremongering can be enormous. What’s more, the outlets and talking heads who continue to push the baseless and provocative narrative that police are under widescale attack cannot pretend to be surprised at the resulting negative climate.
“If you tell cops over and over that they’re in a war, they’re under siege, they’re under attack, and that citizens are the enemy—instead of the people they’re supposed to protect—you’re going to create an atmosphere of fear, tension, and hostility that can only end badly, as it has for so many people,” Daniel Bier writes at Newsweek. “As I wrote in the Freeman last year, ‘Disproportionate fears about officer safety are leading inexorably to the disproportionate use of force’—as well as leading many people (especially those who have never witnessed police misconduct) to excuse obvious brutality in the name of officer safety.' Meanwhile, those who see such behavior every day will have their trust in law enforcement steadily eroded.’”
It’s far easier to gin up fears about Black Lives Matter than it is to address longstanding tensions between the cops and poor communities of color. It plays with a certain audience, both for votes and ratings. What it doesn’t do is genuinely address any of the real issues at the heart of the current debate around policing. But it’s a conversation that has to happen, and it’s long overdue.
The youth vote itself is overwhelmingly minor compared to the votes of every other demographic that I'm again not exactly quaking in my boots. For all that some of them like to complain about the broken system and how much it screws them, damn few do anything about it. Decisions are made, as the cliche goes, by those who show up. Or as my grandfather would put it, "if you don't vote, you can't bitch."
The idea on the student hard left that elections can't be won without them just reek of entitlement to me. "We're special, you have to listen to us, you'll lose without us", etc, etc. It's not true, it's never been true, and wanting it to be true does not make it so.
I'll always remember the first year politics course I had to sit through, filled with people who were contributing nothing, yet complaining about the system. Kids who'd never voted, who in fact refused to vote (because "that supports the system, man") or wouldn't vote for anyone outside of whatever candidate they first fell in love with, yet somehow magically wanted the political system to come to them and cater to them. That's who I think of, in a large part, when I look at some of the more radical Sanders supporters.
I am NDP. I love my party. I have always supported them at the federal level. Yet in every provincial election, I have ended up throwing my support to the Liberals, because John Tory and especially Tim Hudak (who was basically Ted Cruz if he hadn't left Canada) were simply too dangerous to be allowed near power. I'm not sorry about it either. The province I live in is a better place because a majority of Ontario progressives made that same decision. If Sanders supporters can't make those sorts of basic calculations, then they are ultimately supporting the likes of Trump. As somebody who has to make those calculations every time I vote, I have no respect for them.
You know, every time you post something like this, you just ratchet down any sympathy I have for the poor, maligned Sanders supporter. Your descriptions of them are making them out to be exactly who those of us supporting Clinton feared they were.
As for an actual corruption investigation...BS. Giving a speech is not corrupt. In point of fact standing up in front of them and saying "I love you guys, keep screwing the poor" would not be evidence of corruption (just of being a terrible person).
edited 31st May '16 9:02:05 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Did you happen to read that 538 article I posted? It explains the issue here; the blue wall falls apart if any one of the democrats' mainstay demographics is severely demoralized, or if several of them are down compared to '08-'12. So yes, youth and Hispanics, and blacks are all important in this election.
edited 31st May '16 9:03:54 PM by CaptainCapsase
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And if "our guy didn't get the nomination" qualifies as "severely demoralized" than that is pathetic. I'm not sure what you want here. Do you want me to sympathize with these people? I've never once had the guy I wanted become Prime Minister. Yet somehow, life goes on, and I'm glad the guy in office is a progressive, even if he's not the one I wanted.
edited 31st May '16 9:03:39 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
That was based on polling back in Febuary; though it was national so I don't see why it would've changed that much.
Very interesting that an article from mid January has polling from February. Also, an eternity ago in this primary. As in, it dates from before votes even started to be cast, complete with the changing of opinions that came over time.
I'd say something more recent would be nice.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Also, regarding Trump and demographics, votes, and the Electoral College
At the top of the list is demographics. Trump is deeply unpopular with black and Latino voters, as well as with women and young people. But Clinton is also unpopular, albeit by a smaller magnitude. Given two unpopular candidates, it’s possible that “popularity” just won’t matter as much, that voters will take both candidates’ worst qualities as a given and move on. In which case, both Clinton and Trump become generic nominees. And what are the prospects this year for a generic Republican nominee? Of five separate econometric models of the election, four predict a Republican win ranging from 50.9 percent of the vote to 55 percent of the two-party vote. The economy is middling, President Obama well-liked but not hugely popular, and Clinton would be a third term for Democrats. Given two generic candidates under those criteria, the presidency would go to the Republican. Say hello to President Trump.
Let’s say you don’t trust the models (they couldn’t predict Trump, after all). Then what? How would Trump win, assuming key parts of the electorate are aligned against him? The answer is easy: He wins and turns out white voters in historic numbers. Assume higher nonwhite support for the Democrat—let’s say a three-point bump among blacks and a seven-point bump among Hispanics, giving Clinton 97 percent and 80 percent support, respectively—and Trump needs 66 percent of whites to win both the popular and electoral-college vote, if turnout doesn’t change. (You can play with the numbers over at Real Clear Politics.)
It’s an extraordinary reach: an increase of nearly six points over the white share in 2012, matching Ronald Reagan’s performance in 1984. It would mean Trump persuaded millions of Democrats to switch teams, despite their wide approval for President Obama.
In other words, it’s not happening. Partisanship has a tight hold on American voting behavior, and it’s hard to imagine how Trump could break it, barring a national catastrophe. Easier to imagine is higher white turnout. If Trump could reverse the yearslong decline and bring white turnout back to its 2008 levels—74 percent—then he could win with another couple percentage points among whites, even with the high black and Latino turnout of 2008. This would give him teetering Democratic states such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as the three largest swing states: Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. It’s a heavy lift, especially for a candidate who says he will eschew data-gathering and other quantitative methods for finding and mobilizing supporters. But it’s possible.
Trump is actually splitting the white vote more than in past years
Now, according to the latest Post-ABC poll released last week: Donald Trump received 65 percent support among white registered voters without a four-year college degree, compared with 46 percent among white college graduates, a 19-point gap. If the margin holds, it would easily be the largest education gap among whites in presidential elections since 1980.
The gender split is similarly historic, with Trump’s support 22 points higher among white male registered voters than white female registered voters (69 vs. 47 percent), double the largest gap between these groups in previous presidential elections (11 points in 2000).
The shift is most striking when you combine education and gender. Trump leads Clinton 76 to 14 among white men without college degrees, while Clinton leads 57 to 34 among white college-graduate women.
Trump can get all massive numbers in the ill-educated white men demographic that he wants, he's not getting the percentages that he needs to pull of a victory. Especially since, contrary to his claims, he's not pulling in new voters to the Republican party
, he's just getting the ones who were sitting out the primary and voting in the general to vote in the primary.
But a Politico analysis of the early 2016 voting data show that, so far, it’s just not true.
While Trump’s insurgent candidacy has spurred record-setting Republican primary turnout in state after state, the early statistics show that the vast majority of those voters aren’t actually new to voting or to the Republican Party, but rather they are reliable past voters in general elections. They are only casting ballots in a Republican primary for the first time. It is a distinction with profound consequences for the fall campaign.
If Trump isn’t bringing the promised wave of new voters into the GOP, it’s far less likely the Manhattan businessman can transform a 2016 Electoral College map that begins tilted against the Republican Party. And whether Trump’s voters are truly new is a question of urgent interest both to GOP operatives and Hillary Clinton and her allies, who have dispatched their top analytics experts to find the answer.
“All he seems to have done is bring new people into the primary process, not bring new people into the general-election process … It’s exciting that these new people that are engaged in the primary but those people are people that are already going to vote Republican in the [fall],” said Alex Lundry, who served as director of data science for Mitt Romney in 2012, when presented Politico’s findings. “It confirms what my suspicion has been all along.”
FiveThirtyEight walks us through some factors for a running mate pick
. Makes it interesting to see where the candidates will go from here.
I have to go to bed, but a final word on electability; from the very beginning experts wnd pundits alike were almost unanimously dismissing Trump's campaign. Not without good reason, but lo and behold, the unthinkable happened, and the polls were absolutely right.
I'm obviously hoping that doesn't hold true in the general election, but I feel there is significant cause to be worried; this is not an ordinary election cycle.
Trump faced like three different establishment candidates, though. A perfect real life example of Divided We Fall.
"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."

Well put
Oh really when?