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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Puerto Rico voted for Statehood. In a fucking landslide
.
edited 11th Jun '17 2:12:27 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV“I have a record of standing up and fighting the status quo to get things done,” Handel said, “and I will take that fight to Washington.”
Damn. Well, assuming Congress doesn't dismiss this based on the boycott (seriously, why would the pro-Commonwealth organize a boycott instead of voting to stay Commonwealth?), I believe the next step is drafting a State Constitution. Is that correct?
edited 11th Jun '17 2:37:07 PM by TheAirman
PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They![]()
Boycotting a referendum is exactly the same as simply abstaining, except people get to act smug about it.
But seriously, why would anybody vote to stay a territory? Why would anyone want to be part of a democratic nation without any real representation of their own?
edited 11th Jun '17 2:40:44 PM by Kayeka
Going by that logic a lot of elections are lacking in legitimacy.
PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/TheyA bit on a different note, I wonder if the recent British election says something about the chances of a left wing populist candidate in the US. Assuming that they get past a Democratic primary (for which they'll need much sounder race politics than what Sanders had), Krugman was arguing that they can't win a general election anyway because right-wing populism is really a form of white identity politics and thus such voters can't be won over with an economic policy.
He did argue so in part on the basis of a Vox article that argued the same thing with respect to Corbyn (who is in large part an English Sanders) ... except that in this election, the right-wing populist UKIP collapsed and Corbyn picked up a substantial (50% if memory serves) share of their voters. So we might underestimate the appeal such a candidate might have outside of what we consider a traditional left wing populist electorate.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Another X-factor is whether candidates that wouldn't normally win public support will do so because of backlash to right wing populism.
My knowledge of the subject is admittedly pretty limited, but the way I've heard it is that while a lot of Puerto Ricans are aware they can't survive on their own, they also cherish being Puerto Rican as being distinct as being American and apart of the United States and would rather not give that up.
Of course, it seems like pragmatism for the most part wins out there, which why true independence is hardly supported on the island, and why statehood did so much better here than in all the other referendums: the situation has become much worse than it's ever been for them.
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It makes a bit of sense, though, you can decry this landslide of like 97% is bogus if turnout is bad. You can't do the same thing if the boycotters vote and statehood still gets like 60-70% of the vote like was predicted.
edited 11th Jun '17 3:31:08 PM by LSBK
@Septimus Heap: I think Krugman may be overestimating how big the hardcore racists are, in regards to the whole white identity politics thing. Not to say it's not a substantial problem, because hoo boy is it, but I think he's overestimating it just a little. Plus, I don't know that another Sanders "like" figure would try to play that sort of game. Get someone like him, not a carbon copy, who understands the race issues a hell of a lot better, and we'd have a good chance.
The thing to remember about the special election though is that it was just that; a special election that happened while emotions were still running high about the whole Brexit mess. We've got quite a bit more time on our particular political roller coaster and no idea what's going to happen in that time.
Before we start re-litigating the primaries again, I want to remind people two things (one "in favor" of the "Bernie would've won" and one against):
- All of the bad stuff about Sanders that Hillary didn't bring up in the primaries (rape essays, NIMB Yism about nuclear waste) may not have had a big effect on the general population, either being brushed off by the rabid parts of his base as propaganda, or being ignored by the general population the same way they ignored Trump's "pussy-grab" comments.
- While Sanders might have kept the Rust Belt, his lower appeal among minorities may have hurt turnout enough for some states that go Democrat because of POC to go red (like this, for example
), or, you know, while the things that I mentioned wouldn't hurt his appeal among the general population, they might still hurt it among some specific demographics (hispanics with the NIMBY thing or women with the rape essays), enough to cause a map like the one I showed.
edited 11th Jun '17 4:40:40 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KVPuerto Rican turnout lowest in history.
So, yeah, the boycotts were a coordinated tactic.
I still don't really get what the people coordinating things think they get out of doing this though, or why so many people went along with it, but, eh.
Preet Bharara Says Trump Tried to Build Relationship With Him Before Firing
Mr. Bharara said the contacts with Mr. Trump made him increasingly uncomfortable because they broke with longstanding Justice Department rules on communicating with the White House. Mr. Bharara, who first publicly disclosed the contacts and his concerns about them after he was fired, said Mr. Trump’s communications were strikingly similar to those between the president and those described by the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who was fired last month.
“When I’ve been reading the stories of how the president has been contacting Jim Comey over time, felt a little bit like déjà vu,” Mr. Bharara said Sunday on “This Week” on ABC.

edited 11th Jun '17 1:37:58 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised