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

TrashJack Confirmed Doomer from beyond the Despair Event Horizon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Confirmed Doomer
#189001: May 15th 2017 at 9:32:35 AM

[up] And thus, one of the Founding Fathers' multiple plans and institutions meant to stem the dangers of populist demagogues actually worked as intended.

Now if only that pesky Electoral College managed to fix the problem rather than contribute to it.

edited 15th May '17 9:59:40 AM by TrashJack

"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#189002: May 15th 2017 at 9:38:21 AM

This is exactly why I think having the country to build multiple independent institutions to govern is the safe approach to democracy.

Spread the power instead of concentrating in the hands of a few usually works.

Inter arma enim silent leges
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#189003: May 15th 2017 at 9:38:29 AM

[up][up] It potentially could've (probably wouldn't have, though) if States didn't force their Electors to Elect who won the Popular vote.

At the very least, Trump would've gotten under 300 Electoral Votes.

edited 15th May '17 9:38:46 AM by DingoWalley1

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#189004: May 15th 2017 at 9:44:55 AM

Claiming Trump as an example of the failures of unfettered democracy requires engaging in significant historical revisionism; in fact i'd argue he's a fine example of how putting too many checks on the democratic process out of fear of mob rule doesn't really do much to stop populist demagogues from gaining power, and in fact allows them to be even more exclusionary than usual by catering to the specific classes of people who are privileged by the restrictions rather than having to win broad support among the general public.

edited 15th May '17 9:45:23 AM by CaptainCapsase

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#189005: May 15th 2017 at 9:56:05 AM

And thus, one of the Founding Fathers' multiple plans and institutions meant to stem the dangers of populist demagogues actually work as intended.

Well not exactly. The Senate was originally appointed by state legislatures and meant to protect the rich against the poor or else "the poor would take everything from the rich".

edited 15th May '17 9:56:47 AM by MadSkillz

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#189006: May 15th 2017 at 10:10:46 AM

You'd think that whole Civil War incident would also be an argument for a strong federal government to...

Funny thing about the Civil War, the Confederacy exerting a lot more direct power and government interference with the military and economy than the Union did.

It's kind of at odds with the neo-Confederates and such who are always on about "no big government" and "states rights!", but considering how much control they want the individual states to have with people's personal lives, I doubt the hypocrisy would be apparent to them.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#189007: May 15th 2017 at 10:23:12 AM

[up] Confederacy fanboys and fangirls knowing jack shit about the actual Confederacy? I'm not surprised.

edited 15th May '17 10:23:39 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
fruitpork Since: Oct, 2010
#189008: May 15th 2017 at 10:54:21 AM

[up] it's an excuse for racism. That's all it's ever been.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#189009: May 15th 2017 at 10:55:10 AM

How Trump gets his fake news
The president rarely surfs the web on his own, but his staff have made a habit of slipping news stories on to his desk—including the occasional internet hoax.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/donald-trump-fake-news-238379

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus issued a stern warning at a recent senior staff meeting: Quit trying to secretly slip stuff to President Trump.

Just days earlier, K.T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser, had given Trump a printout of two Time magazine covers. One, supposedly from the 1970s, warned of a coming ice age; the other, from 2008, about surviving global warming, according to four White House officials familiar with the matter.

Trump quickly got lathered up about the media’s hypocrisy. But there was a problem. The 1970s cover was fake, part of an Internet hoax that’s circulated for years. Staff chased down the truth and intervened before Trump tweeted or talked publicly about it.

The episode illustrates the impossible mission of managing a White House led by an impetuous president who has resisted structure and strictures his entire adult life.

edited 15th May '17 10:55:24 AM by sgamer82

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#189010: May 15th 2017 at 10:57:45 AM

[up] What. The. Fuck.

Disgusted, but not surprised
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#189011: May 15th 2017 at 11:11:37 AM

So what happens if we slip him news about how congressional Republicans plan to use him to stuff courts and drop him once he's too hot as if nothing happened?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#189012: May 15th 2017 at 11:13:24 AM

[up] Tempting, but do we really want to give Trump a valid reason to scream "FAKE NEWS"?

Granted, that might actually be true...

edited 15th May '17 11:13:52 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#189013: May 15th 2017 at 11:18:51 AM

Well, yeah, the irony of that particular bit of "fake news" is that it's much closer to the truth than many would admit in public.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#189014: May 15th 2017 at 11:57:03 AM

So, it's not just one idiot, but a bunch of idiots giving stupid things to a bigger idiot, then?

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#189015: May 15th 2017 at 12:00:26 PM

Because the bigger idiot throws tantrums whenever he doesn't get his way, so the lesser idiots have learned to give him things that pacify him.

edited 15th May '17 12:00:42 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Bisected8 A casual tief of punk from Her Hackette Cave (Primordial Chaos) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
A casual tief of punk
#189016: May 15th 2017 at 12:48:32 PM

More like a bunch of villains using an idiot as a patsy.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#189017: May 15th 2017 at 1:04:20 PM

Gillibrand was/is a Blue Dog Democrat so she kind of was a Dino

Y'know, back in April or so I saw another post like this and was supremely pissed off by it, but I didn't have time to post on here and eventually let it go. But since the issue of Mad's purity tests won't go away, I'm going to take some time to post a few facts.

Gillibrand won a congressional district in 2006, which was a vastly different political landscape, where the Republican won with 66% of the vote the election before she ran, and 73% the election before that. Most of the area is backwoods nothingness and dead towns, or in other words, prime Republican territory. She spoke publicly in fairly moderate terms and joined the Blue Dog group, but her actions were very different.

She supported first Civil Unions and then Marriage Equality, and threatened to withhold funding from the military if they didn't allow gay people to serve openly, prior to the financial collapse she pushed additional regulations of banks and specifically mortgages, she was unabashedly pro-choice, pushed for green energy and favored replacing all oil and coal with renewables, and expanding government provided health care, specifically Medicare and CHIP. She voted to expand and lengthen unemployment benefits, pay discrimination, workplace discrimination, etc., etc., etc.

When someone talks like a moderate and votes like a strong liberal in a region that is Republican dominated, that's not being a DINO or a real Blue Dog, that's being smart and expanding the reach of the Democrats. This shit is chess, not checkers!

And to give an idea of how republican primed that area is... my college is part of where that district was during Gillibrand's time before redistricting. And in most of that area you can't throw a stone without hitting a pro-Trump, MAGA, or anti Black Lives Matter placard, sign, or flag. Tea Party Republicans got elected there, and I have physically seen people riding around in their cars with signs on them like "Forget pets, spay or neuter liberals!" or "Serve your country, shoot a liberal". (Both of those were from last week, forget all the ones that hd things like "Impeach Cuomo" in the wake of the gun control bill signed after Newtown, or "We don't call 911, we call .357" or the ever present Gadsden or thin blue line police flags.)

What Gillibrand accomplished was an act of political sorcery. And she crushed the competition in 2008 before she could move to the Senate, where she wasn't subject to the fickle whims of a constituency that might turn against her at any moment. And by the way, the first regular election after Gillibrand left, the Republicans won it back pretty solidly.

So Mad, if you really do want more leftist government, how about not tearing down everyone for the sin of not talking like they're in the bluest part of the country? A lot of the people you've talked down about in these discussions are your allies and want a lot of the same things.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#189018: May 15th 2017 at 1:07:29 PM

[up]I think I like Gillibrand now.

EDIT: Also, can I save that to use for future reference?

edited 15th May '17 1:48:05 PM by IFwanderer

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#189021: May 15th 2017 at 1:39:09 PM

As a Rep, Gillbrand joined the Blue Dog Coalition. Her views may have shifted further left since but Mad is stating a documented fact here, not an opinion. (DINO is stretching too far though.)

I also grew up in Saratoga Country, part of her district. A lot of it is rural but I believe you're vastly overstating how rural and red it is. The description is arguable for parts of it (i.e. the less touristy parts of the Adirondack region) but there's a lot of influence from Albany and the Capital District, vacationers from downstate and a lot of tech companies moved in over the last ten years. Wikipedia puts their voting record as very solidly purple (and currently blue).

(Dissing Saratoga and the Adirondacks might be a thing I'm liable to take personally. Can't speak for the Catskills. I'm not sure where your college is.)

(Edit, actually the makeup of the district is a bit more nebulous because of shifting district lines but I'm still sure the redness of it is overstated. They went for Obama both before and after the latest redrawing though.)

edited 15th May '17 2:00:57 PM by Elle

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#189022: May 15th 2017 at 1:45:17 PM

She may have joined that voting bloc, but her record looks quite progressive.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#189023: May 15th 2017 at 1:48:15 PM

A NY Blue Dog is apt to be much bluer than, say, a West Virginia Blue Dog. If you poke at the state level you can even find some Republican politicians that aren't completely whacked.

Still, no need to flip out at Mad for bringing up the fact. It is technically true.

edited 15th May '17 1:51:50 PM by Elle

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#189024: May 15th 2017 at 1:51:37 PM

Damn, son. Talk about getting BTFO.

[lol]

New Survey coming this weekend!
NoName999 Since: May, 2011
#189025: May 15th 2017 at 1:57:20 PM

[up][up]Too bad this progressive gatekeeping nonsense is getting out of hand.

If someone was able to make actual liberals progress in an area that openly supports maiming liberals, why insult them by basically calling them fake Democrats? Doubly so since her own views moved further left anyway

The far left should never try to kick out the "centrists." It won't work as it did for the Tea Party as the left has no Koch Bros of their own.

edited 15th May '17 1:58:27 PM by NoName999


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