How can this be happening...

[ZiprHead]

Bernie a "slam-dunk"? Hardly.

No one actively campaigned against Bernie. If they had, they would have stressed that he calls himself a socialist, which is apparently okay in Vermont where people know. Not so much in the rest of the country. They would have stressed that he is probably an atheist. He's a Jew. He's spent time in Russia. Shady real estate deals (I know they are not really shady). Nepotism for his wife. And probably many other issues.

His history would have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and anything real or perceived would have been used against him. That's what happens in presidential politics.

Please don't think I'm trying to run him down. I voted for him in the MI primary. Just making the point that he was far from a slam-dunk.

 

[Elixir]

Bernie a "slam-dunk"? Hardly.

No one actively campaigned against Bernie. If they had, they would have stressed that he calls himself a socialist...

They DID. At least here in CO - which eventually went for Bernie despite the distortions.

which is apparently okay in Vermont where people know. Not so much in the rest of the country.

.

CO is redneck country...

They would have stressed that he is probably an atheist.

We heard that too. I think it's about time for ... not a strident atheist, but a non-religious sort.

He's spent time in Russia. Shady real estate deals (I know they are not really shady). Nepotism for his wife. And probably many other issues.

...nonw of which afflicted El Cheato. Not sure why it would be so much worse for Bernie.

His history would have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and anything real or perceived would have been used against him. That's what happens in presidential politics.

Again... except for El Cheato? How hypocritical would it have looked for Trumpsuckers to criticize Bernie (or Hillary for that matter) to have "gone to Russia"?

... he was far from a slam-dunk.

I don't think you are considering the difference between HRC's reactions to Trump in the debates, to what Bernie would have done.Remember "Puppet?! No PUPPET YOU'RE the PUPPET!" HERC just took it, almost like saying, "Yes, Mr. Trump, I'm the puppet". Imagine Bernie...

 

[ZiprHead]

They DID. At least here in CO - which eventually went for Bernie despite the distortions.

which is apparently okay in Vermont where people know. Not so much in the rest of the country.

.

CO is redneck country...

They would have stressed that he is probably an atheist.

We heard that too. I think it's about time for ... not a strident atheist, but a non-religious sort.

He's spent time in Russia. Shady real estate deals (I know they are not really shady). Nepotism for his wife. And probably many other issues.

...nonw of which afflicted El Cheato. Not sure why it would be so much worse for Bernie.

His history would have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and anything real or perceived would have been used against him. That's what happens in presidential politics.

Again... except for El Cheato? How hypocritical would it have looked for Trumpsuckers to criticize Bernie (or Hillary for that matter) to have "gone to Russia"?

... he was far from a slam-dunk.

I don't think you are considering the difference between HRC's reactions to Trump in the debates, to what Bernie would have done.Remember "Puppet?! No PUPPET YOU'RE the PUPPET!" HERC just took it, almost like saying, "Yes, Mr. Trump, I'm the puppet". Imagine Bernie...

Sorry to say it, but imagination is all you've got at this point.

If Bernie runs again, I will again support him. I will, however, support whomever the party picks as their candidate (barring total insanity, Jeffrey Fieger).

 

[Malintent]

I don't think you are considering the difference between HRC's reactions to Trump in the debates, to what Bernie would have done.Remember "Puppet?! No PUPPET YOU'RE the PUPPET!" HERC just took it, almost like saying, "Yes, Mr. Trump, I'm the puppet". Imagine Bernie...

I was screaming at my TV during the debates. Trump rolled out lie after lie and HRC just laughed (like she had nothing to criticize) and tacitly mentioned something about a website you can go to for fact checking.
I was like, "WIPE THAT FUCKING SMILE OFF OF YOUR FACE AND CALL OUT THE LIES WITH FACTS YOU STUPID BITCH!!!!"

After the second debate, I suspected that she was in on some kind of scam between the parties.

She would have done far better had she simply not showed up.

 

[ZiprHead]

A Depressing Psychological Profile: My Meeting With Donald Trump Shows His Obvious Impairment Has Only Gotten Worse

 

[Elixir]

I don't think you are considering the difference between HRC's reactions to Trump in the debates, to what Bernie would have done.Remember "Puppet?! No PUPPET YOU'RE the PUPPET!" HERC just took it, almost like saying, "Yes, Mr. Trump, I'm the puppet". Imagine Bernie...

I was screaming at my TV during the debates. Trump rolled out lie after lie and HRC just laughed (like she had nothing to criticize) and tacitly mentioned something about a website you can go to for fact checking.
I was like, "WIPE THAT FUCKING SMILE OFF OF YOUR FACE AND CALL OUT THE LIES WITH FACTS YOU STUPID BITCH!!!!"

After the second debate, I suspected that she was in on some kind of scam between the parties.

She would have done far better had she simply not showed up.

YES. She pretended that disregarding the facts of her opponent's corruption and dishonesty meant she was taking some kind of "high road"... wimped out BIGLY. When Cheato went all purple in the face after she called him a puppet, she should have never let him off the hook. The entire rest of the campaign should have been "TrumpPuppetTrumpPuppetTrumpPuppetTrumpPuppetTrumpPuppetTrumpPuppet" until that was the only thing is the minds of the electorate. He OBVIOUSLY couldn't handle it, and her inability/unwillingness to pick up on that was an exact parallel to the DNC's disregard for the passion shown by the Bernie supporters.

 

[prideandfall]

Right, amazing candidate...lol.

yes, an amazing candidate.

a lifelong political insider with established ties to the bureaucracy and broader government operations, established international relationships, and a solid background in supporting important liberal and democratic platform issues.

how is that not an amazing candidate for president?
when did "will run the country in an effective and efficient manner and keep things stable" stop being a quality people looked for in a president?
does every single political figure now have to be a polarizing fringe figure spouting off the most pandering shit possible?

there's only two ways you can look at clinton and not see a stellar presidential resume:
1. blatant raging sexism.
2. being the kind of idiot who is either a bernie bro or who falls for the right wing narrative.

 

[Elixir]

Right, amazing candidate...lol.

yes, an amazing candidate.

a lifelong political insider with established ties to the bureaucracy and broader government operations, established international relationships, and a solid background in supporting important liberal and democratic platform issues.

how is that not an amazing candidate for president?
when did "will run the country in an effective and efficient manner and keep things stable" stop being a quality people looked for in a president?
does every single political figure now have to be a polarizing fringe figure spouting off the most pandering shit possible?

there's only two ways you can look at clinton and not see a stellar presidential resume:
1. blatant raging sexism.
2. being the kind of idiot who is either a bernie bro or who falls for the right wing narrative.

Having a stellar presidential resume is one thing - which she has. Being a viable - let alone amazing - candidate is quite another.

 

[prideandfall]

Having a stellar presidential resume is one thing - which she has. Being a viable - let alone amazing - candidate is quite another.

only if you consider a presidential election to be like a popularity contest, which i thought the predominant membership of this board felt was intellectually beneath them.

i'm reading this exchange up the page about the debates... seriously? who gives a shit about the debates? if you're just in this for the charisma factor do us all a favor and go vote on american idol and not on politics, because it's beyond ridiculous to base your choice for the head of the operational body of your government based on who scored the most "points" in what is essentially an SNL skit that everyone is collectively agreeing to pretend has any merit.

i feel like there's a collective air of hypocrisy in the PD forum right now because people want to pretend like they're above it all and that politics should be about policy, not insults - i specifically recall a mentality that "being for your candidate is preferable to being against the other candidate" and yet here we have people saying that clinton's strategy of touting her accomplishments and not attacking trump was some kind of moral failure on her part.

 

[J842P]

Having a stellar presidential resume is one thing - which she has. Being a viable - let alone amazing - candidate is quite another.

only if you consider a presidential election to be like a popularity contest, which i thought the predominant membership of this board felt was intellectually beneath them.

i'm reading this exchange up the page about the debates... seriously? who gives a shit about the debates? if you're just in this for the charisma factor do us all a favor and go vote on american idol and not on politics, because it's beyond ridiculous to base your choice for the head of the operational body of your government based on who scored the most "points" in what is essentially an SNL skit that everyone is collectively agreeing to pretend has any merit.

i feel like there's a collective air of hypocrisy in the PD forum right now because people want to pretend like they're above it all and that politics should be about policy, not insults - i specifically recall a mentality that "being for your candidate is preferable to being against the other candidate" and yet here we have people saying that clinton's strategy of touting her accomplishments and not attacking trump was some kind of moral failure on her part.

No, **it was a political failure**. Trump was one of the most unpopular candidates in history, and yet, the Democrats lost the election because they decided to nominate the one Democratic candidate that had years and years worth of frothing rage built-up against her by a right-wing media machien, the only candidate that you could convince broad swaths of the right to hold their noses and vote Trump over. And yes, the Clintons do skirt the line of legal and ethical propriety, and they get away with it because they are powerfully connected in Washington.


My own disagreement with Hillary as the nominee is fundamentally one of policy, but politics matter in a political election. It is not hypocritical to disagree with Hillary ideologically/policy-wise, and to consider her nomination to have been bad politics.

And the claim that the DNC did not do their damnedest to make sure she was elected is unsupportable. There was no "conspiracy", this is just plain fact - she was the establishment choice, just like Bush was the establishment choice for the Republicans. They did their best to limit exposure to Bernie, and to limit the debate, because they know what everyone in the Democratic party (and really, anyone who has paid attention to politics in the last 20 year) knows: the more the electorate is exposed to Hillary Clinton, the lower and lower her support becomes. They were trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2008, when Obama came out of no-where and took the nomination from Hillary, much to the chagrin of the Democratic establishment. If you don't think they knew that and were trying to avoid the same thing happening with Bernie, then it is hard to take you seriously when discussing Democratic party politics.

And fuck off with your Bernie Bro slur. It is the fault of you neo-Liberal, DLC, Third-way, Republican lite types that has us in the mess in the first place. It is *the policy positions you support* that have lead to the disastrous economic and foreign policy decisions for the last 3 decades. I'm sorry that being a Republican who isn't mean to minorities was sufficiently good politics in the 90s, but I hate to break it to you but that dog won't hunt any longer, because the failure of that ideology is plain enough for everyone to see who is really "a kind of idiot".

 

[funinspace]

They DID. At least here in CO - which eventually went for Bernie despite the distortions.

which is apparently okay in Vermont where people know. Not so much in the rest of the country.

.

CO is redneck country...

CO certainly has redneck elements, but it is not steeped in the shit like quite a few other states, as HRC won there in Nov 2016.

They would have stressed that he is probably an atheist.

We heard that too. I think it's about time for ... not a strident atheist, but a non-religious sort.

We got one with Don the Con More seriously...I agree, but I'm not sure the electorate is.

He's spent time in Russia. Shady real estate deals (I know they are not really shady). Nepotism for his wife. And probably many other issues.

...nonw of which afflicted El Cheato. Not sure why it would be so much worse for Bernie.

His history would have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and anything real or perceived would have been used against him. That's what happens in presidential politics.

Again... except for El Cheato? How hypocritical would it have looked for Trumpsuckers to criticize Bernie (or Hillary for that matter) to have "gone to Russia"?

I give you the 2004 election with draft dodging Bush's friends having little trouble making tons of noise about how Kerry was sleazy with his purple hearts and how he hated Merica...that snake oil seemed to sell well enough.

... he was far from a slam-dunk.

I don't think you are considering the difference between HRC's reactions to Trump in the debates, to what Bernie would have done.Remember "Puppet?! No PUPPET YOU'RE the PUPPET!" HERC just took it, almost like saying, "Yes, Mr. Trump, I'm the puppet". Imagine Bernie...

I think it would have been a very unpredictable race with the charges of socialist-atheist screamed from the roof tops. I never thought, until the last few weeks of the race, that FFvC could win. So I think predicting the outcome of a hypothetical match up between Sanders and FFvC would be a tough call...

 

[prideandfall]

No, **it was a political failure**. Trump was one of the most unpopular candidates in history, and yet, the Democrats lost the election because they decided to nominate the one Democratic candidate that had years and years worth of frothing rage built-up against her by a right-wing media machine

who are "the democrats" in this scenario?

the only candidate that you could convince broad swaths of the right to hold their noses and vote Trump over. And yes, the Clintons do skirt the line of legal and ethical propriety, and they get away with it because they are powerfully connected in Washington.

i have to disagree with this as well as your earlier assertion that trump was unpopular, because that is not what i witnessed at all.
also, i find it potentially oxymoronic that your argument is that trump was so unpopular people had to hold their nose to vote for him, and yet that implies that the inverse should be true as well and people should have held their nose and voted for clinton.
kinda seems like that argument cancels itself out.

My own disagreement with Hillary as the nominee is fundamentally one of policy, but politics matter in a political election. It is not hypocritical to disagree with Hillary ideologically/policy-wise, and to consider her nomination to have been bad politics.

for the record i have huge issues with clinton, so don't conflate "great democratic presidential candidate" in a vacuum with "the awesomest person ever go clinton go" - i'm not a clinton supporter in fact, and this tangent is getting a bit off the rails (though still in the same sphere as the OP) but i'm trying to argue a pro-clinton position... simply that she really wasn't bad, and it's a rather tremendous effort of will to try and paint her otherwise.

And the claim that the DNC did not do their damnedest to make sure she was elected is unsupportable.

uh... okay? i guess i missed the part where that subject was in any way broached by anyone in this thread.

And fuck off with your Bernie Bro slur. It is the fault of you neo-Liberal, DLC, Third-way, Republican lite types that has us in the mess in the first place. It is *the policy positions you support* that have lead to the disastrous economic and foreign policy decisions for the last 3 decades. I'm sorry that being a Republican who isn't mean to minorities was sufficiently good politics in the 90s, but I hate to break it to you but that dog won't hunt any longer, because the failure of that ideology is plain enough for everyone to see who is really "a kind of idiot".

no, i will not fuck off with it - because it's a logistically accurate profile of the political impact of the mindset at play.
trump is what you get for voting for nader or being "bernie or bust" or whatever other idiocy those type of schlubs get up to with their political boners.
there is a pragmatic reality about the politics in this country and putting one's fingers in your ears and pretending you can overcome facts with the power of shouting is why bush 2 got elected twice and is why trump got elected.

furthermore it's the internet and it's not like you actually care about the positions of the person you're responding to, but i'm so left that your paltry attempts at an insult there would basically like accusing me of literally being an iguana.
this may surprise you, but one can be extremely liberal and also think that it's ethically, morally, and political insane for people to undermine the closest thing the US has to a liberal political party on the basis on ideological purity when the consequence of that undermining is that people like bush 2 and trump become president.

also, i don't even vote as a matter of political conscience (and also while i'm keenly interested in and fascinated with the politics of the US, i don't actually care about the future of this country or of the human race in general so it's all an amusing but ultimately irrelevant side-show to me) so i have absolutely no responsibility for this bullshit.

 

[funinspace]

trump is what you get for voting for nader or being "bernie or bust" or whatever other idiocy those type of schlubs get up to with their political boners.
there is a pragmatic reality about the politics in this country and putting one's fingers in your ears and pretending you can overcome facts with the power of shouting is why bush 2 got elected twice and is why trump got elected.

<snip>

also, i don't even vote as a matter of political conscience (and also while i'm keenly interested in and fascinated with the politics of the US, i don't actually care about the future of this country or of the human race in general so it's all an amusing but ultimately irrelevant side-show to me) so i have absolutely no responsibility for this bullshit.

So how is actually voting, albeit for a third party candidate in a presidential race, 'what you get' as compared to someone who doesn't vote but would have preferred HRC?

 

[Malintent]

Having a stellar presidential resume is one thing - which she has. Being a viable - let alone amazing - candidate is quite another.

only if you consider a presidential election to be like a popularity contest, which i thought the predominant membership of this board felt was intellectually beneath them.

i'm reading this exchange up the page about the debates... seriously? who gives a shit about the debates? if you're just in this for the charisma factor do us all a favor and go vote on american idol and not on politics, because it's beyond ridiculous to base your choice for the head of the operational body of your government based on who scored the most "points" in what is essentially an SNL skit that everyone is collectively agreeing to pretend has any merit.

i feel like there's a collective air of hypocrisy in the PD forum right now because people want to pretend like they're above it all and that politics should be about policy, not insults - i specifically recall a mentality that "being for your candidate is preferable to being against the other candidate" and yet here we have people saying that clinton's strategy of touting her accomplishments and not attacking trump was some kind of moral failure on her part.

As much as I would LIKE to believe that:

a) the presidential race is not simply a popularity contest
and
b) that the American populace is more sophisticated than a herd of uneducated sheep that will vote for the first 5th grade class president that promises no homework on Fridays and free pizza every Monday...

That is simply not the case.

The debates demonstrated Trump's ability to create "Alternative Facts", establish them as "actual facts", and also that HRC is incapable of defending reality.

Her approach was "the record speaks for itself"... however, records do not speak, unless they are read. She failed to do that in a way that is consumable to the public.

 

[prideandfall]

So how is actually voting, albeit for a third party candidate in a presidential race, 'what you get' as compared to someone who doesn't vote but would have preferred HRC?

because i don't vote at all, ever - i am not part of the process, and i have never been, and i never will be.
(consider me a conscientious objector: i think voting is good in the abstract, but within a volunteer voting system in a huge country with an astoundingly inbred naval gazing rigged political system that is "all or nothing" i consider voting to be tacitly endorsing the system, and i don't endorse the system.)
so my vote simply doesn't exist, it's a non-issue, it never would have gone to anyone.
politicians in the US are something that just happens to me, so i'm never particularly excited or upset by them (outside of general philosophical disagreements, i am after all a raging liberal and so the antics of conservatives disgust me) but i'm very bemused by the whole thing and keenly interested in politics.

however, if you're inclined to vote... you're part of the process, and that process is a 'first past the post' system. whomever gets the most votes out of the pool of people who do vote wins, with obvious caveats to that being made for the electoral college system, which is an other completely fucked up pile of bullshit and why i don't vote but that's another derail entirely.

elections in this country are really easy to break down if you just look at history.
of the voting population, as in the chunk of people given to voting every presidential election:
45% vote R
45% vote D
10% vote third party or write in or whatever stupid bullshit nonsense they're up to masturbating in public.

the trick here is that of the 45% who will vote for your party, some stay home if they're indifferent enough, or some may get siphoned off to the 10% pile.
and in a system where 'the biggest bag at the end of the day' wins, that's how you hand a victory to your enemies by being uppity.

so if you vote, you had two choices and two choices only: clinton or trump. one of those two were going to become president. there was never any other option.
and if you vote, you could either put the numbers behind a career politician who's pretty good on the bureaucratic efficiency side but not a very strong liberal candidate, or you can put the numbers behind trump.
if you vote and you didn't vote for clinton you voted for trump - that's how this country's voting system works.

so if you're liberal and you refused to vote clinton because clinton isn't liberal enough, congratulations you voted for trump... and his presidency is what you get.

 

[prideandfall]

As much as I would LIKE to believe that:

a) the presidential race is not simply a popularity contest
and
b) that the American populace is more sophisticated than a herd of uneducated sheep that will vote for the first 5th grade class president that promises no homework on Fridays and free pizza every Monday...

That is simply not the case.

oh i don't think it is either, i wasn't supporting the notion that elections aren't popularity contests, merely pointing out that a strain of kind of snooty intellectual liberal likes to pretend that they shouldn't be... and then turns around and rips on democratic candidates who aren't charismatic enough, which i find hypocritical.

The debates demonstrated Trump's ability to create "Alternative Facts", establish them as "actual facts", and also that HRC is incapable of defending reality.

now here i have to disagree.
the debates demonstrated the ability of the american conservative to have no need for a thing to be true in order for them to support it vigorously, and it also demonstrated that apparently both libeals and conservatives in the US need to have reality "defended" for them to know what's going on, because otherwise they can't figure it out on their own.

Her approach was "the record speaks for itself"... however, records do not speak, unless they are read. She failed to do that in a way that is consumable to the public.

which is a failure by a political figure to get a good read on the public, absolutely, but i think the more important point is that it's a huge condemnation of the mental inadequacy of the public.

reason #387 i don't vote.

 

[ZiprHead]

because i don't vote at all, ever - i am not part of the process, and i have never been, and i never will be.
(consider me a conscientious objector: i think voting is good in the abstract, but within a volunteer voting system in a huge country with an astoundingly inbred naval gazing rigged political system that is "all or nothing" i consider voting to be tacitly endorsing the system, and i don't endorse the system.)
so my vote simply doesn't exist, it's a non-issue, it never would have gone to anyone.
politicians in the US are something that just happens to me, so i'm never particularly excited or upset by them (outside of general philosophical disagreements, i am after all a raging liberal and so the antics of conservatives disgust me) but i'm very bemused by the whole thing and keenly interested in politics.

however, if you're inclined to vote... you're part of the process, and that process is a 'first past the post' system. whomever gets the most votes out of the pool of people who do vote wins, with obvious caveats to that being made for the electoral college system, which is an other completely fucked up pile of bullshit and why i don't vote but that's another derail entirely.

All of this just sounds to me like "I'm just so much better than this process, so I'll sit by the sidelines and just bitch about it."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

who are "the democrats" in this scenario?

In the South, black voters overwhelmingly went for Clinton, and that was her margin of victory.

 

[prideandfall]

because i don't vote at all, ever - i am not part of the process, and i have never been, and i never will be.
(consider me a conscientious objector: i think voting is good in the abstract, but within a volunteer voting system in a huge country with an astoundingly inbred naval gazing rigged political system that is "all or nothing" i consider voting to be tacitly endorsing the system, and i don't endorse the system.)
so my vote simply doesn't exist, it's a non-issue, it never would have gone to anyone.
politicians in the US are something that just happens to me, so i'm never particularly excited or upset by them (outside of general philosophical disagreements, i am after all a raging liberal and so the antics of conservatives disgust me) but i'm very bemused by the whole thing and keenly interested in politics.

however, if you're inclined to vote... you're part of the process, and that process is a 'first past the post' system. whomever gets the most votes out of the pool of people who do vote wins, with obvious caveats to that being made for the electoral college system, which is an other completely fucked up pile of bullshit and why i don't vote but that's another derail entirely.

All of this just sounds to me like "I'm just so much better than this process, so I'll sit by the sidelines and just bitch about it."

good for you.

 

[ZiprHead]

good for you.

Thanks. It's nice to be appreciated.

By the way, after that rant of yours, I find your screen name quite ironic.