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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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I'm more speaking of the rejection of Clinton as a "shill for entrenched interests" or whatever, when (a) she's fought for women's, children's, and minority rights her entire career; (b) there are no viable alternatives who would do any better.
The idea that, because no candidate fits your particular requirements (even if such a person would be unelectable), the whole system is broken and needs to be torn down, is dangerously naive.
edited 7th Sep '16 1:37:28 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Sanders is a good enough fit and was entirely electable. It's just that the Democrats would rather lose with Hillary than win with him. So be it. This is their and Clinton's election to lose. If Trumps becomes Prez, and the world fucking collapses, it's on them.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.![]()
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Being the superior candidate, and in fact supporting social justice isn't at all incompatible with being a representitive of entrenched economic and military interests.
It's the difference between a political trajectory towards modern day Russia, and Nazi Germany. The choice is obvious, but you'd rather not have to make it in the first place.
I'm not sure you've noticed, but party affiliation has been dropping like a rock over time, and thus both the Republican and the democratic constituencies are becoming an increasingly rarified sector of the population. That's probably got something to do with the fact that both candidates have historically low approval ratings.
edited 7th Sep '16 1:51:57 PM by CaptainCapsase
Even on the left, we are entrenched in a "post-fact" world where people's opinions and feelings are given precedence over basic truth. Hillary is not "the most corrupt politician ever" — in fact, she's remarkably clean for someone who's been under relentless attack from the right-wing media for 20+ years.
edited 7th Sep '16 1:53:18 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I never said that the Greens and and Libertarians were sensible. Can you guys quit putting words in my mouth and acting like I'm some tankie?
"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."Sanders was unelectable enough that he couldn't get elected the Democratic candidate for president. I fail to see how that makes him electable nationally.
Yes Sanders was a good enough fit that had he become the candidate the folks rage quiting instead of voting for him would have been being idiots, but he lost, so the idiots are the ones rage quiting instead of voting for Clinton.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThose people are called Republican voters, and I did preface my statement with "If the Republican Party collapses". The Republican Party as a whole would only collapse or return to sanity if those particular people you just mentioned stopped mattering in a significant way. They are the people who decided that, out of all the choices on offer from the Republican Party, Donald Trump was the best choice to run for President and Ted Cruz was the second-best. The United States has to live with that sort of right-wing party for the foreseeable future.
edited 7th Sep '16 1:56:20 PM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food Badly![]()
Democratic electorate != national electorate =! Republican electorate.
In fact, they're diverging more and more over time. People have lost confidence in American political institutions like parties, and thus the parties are dominated by the wealthiest or on occassion loudest voices in them, since fewer and fewer people are willing to participate.
edited 7th Sep '16 1:57:05 PM by CaptainCapsase
Edit: You changed what you were saying.
Yes, the middle is getting narrower and narrower, with most people solidly on one side of the ideological divide. This is part of why someone like Trump can command an even split in national polling despite having odious policies: a good 40 percent of the electorate wouldn't vote Democrat even if Mother Theresa ran against Adolf Hitler.
This is a very bad sign for our democracy, and one symptom of it is that the extreme left is feeling its oats and trying to pull the same shenanigans as the Tea Party did: demanding ideological purity in politicians and rejecting anything that smells of compromise. This is bad, not good.
edited 7th Sep '16 1:59:04 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The middle is getting narrower because political apathy is on the rise. Big time. That leaves either the loudest voices or those with the deepest pockets (usually this) running the show in both of the major parties.
Moreover, that's a redressed golden mean fallacy. The middle is not automatically better. We have moved so far to the right that we no longer have any true left wing parties by historical standards; the furthest left opinions can go and remain viable is new deal democrats.
edited 7th Sep '16 2:02:34 PM by CaptainCapsase
Yeah, no one has really be able to adequately explain to me how Sanders is more electable than Clinton. Even if we take "not winning the nomination doesn't mean he isn't more electable" as truth, do you really think people wouldn't be screaming "Socialist!" constantly? A label he accepts (even if it's apparently ill applied) and given his general temperament I can't see him dealing much better than Clinton with her various "scandals".
This was probably going to be annoyingly close but with Trump still ultimately loosing, no matter which one of them got picked.
edited 7th Sep '16 2:03:21 PM by LSBK
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Except on the right, where Trump has defied the "big pockets" of the political elite by playing to the party's most extreme and historically disenfranchised elements. What I seem to be hearing is that emulating this on the left would be a good thing. It would not; it would fracture our democracy irreparably and might lead to another civil war.
For most of human history, life has sucked most of the time for most of the people. Communism didn't fix that; it replaced one type of suckage with another. Regardless, the only way we're going to get out of our current quagmire is by restoring rationality to politics, not by tearing down our candidates and demanding adherence to impossible standards of ideological purity.
edited 7th Sep '16 2:06:23 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I guess this is becoming a trend not in the US but everywhere else. It is annoying the hell out of me that politics have become something tied on a personal level and people who end up becoming emotionally invested in whatever political party or ideology they believe in, are getting the attention of the political parties and politicians because they are a voter base that will support them on rhetoric alone and ignore everything else.
Inter arma enim silent legesAlso
No, I think that's on Trump, the people who voted for them, and the people who didn't vote for Clinton because "she's just as bad". That seems a lot more reasonable than just assuming the guy who couldn't even get the nomination was more electable. But, honestly, you don't usually come off as rational in regards to her.
Re: Jill Stein arrest warrants
So Stein is the first one to get arrested?
edited 7th Sep '16 2:13:22 PM by sgamer82
It's very hard to make a case that there is any natural progression towards equality in human civilization: each advance in that regard has been achieved at great cost and with constant attempts to pull it back. Western societies exist in a post-revolutionary world that is currently in the midst of such a retrenchment. It is a bitter struggle that you cannot win by playing the "we need another revolution" card.
edited 7th Sep '16 2:21:29 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Thanks for reminding me that Mike Pence exists.