The High Price of the Politics of Petulance

[Harry Bosch]

It's me questioning who is more warmongery.

Shouldn't that be "who is warmongerier"?
As you note, Trump wants to bomb and obliterate ISIS, and keep us out of unnecessary wars. That's his rhetoric anyhow. His rhetoric is also "I have a relationship with Putin" and "I have no relationship with Putin", and thousands of other flat-out self contradictions. He's fucking insane. I'll take the known warmonger over someone who will likely "get us out of unnecessary wars" by turning entire regions into glowing glass the next time he has a bad day.
More important - Hillary is under considerable pressure to nominate Supreme Court justices that will tend toward getting money out of politics and stop eroding civil liberties. She could turn out to be a Bush in disguise, but I think she's canny enough to know that it is in her interest to at least keep up the appearance of honoring campaign platform promises.

Trump is one of the greatest salesman in my lifetime. If people would just read what he actually says, his support would vanish.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Why?

Because they won't vote for HRC?

People who are voting for Trump also are not voting for HRC and are ACTUALLY VOTING FOR TRUMP.

Wouldn't a Trump preisidency be the fault of people who voted FOR Trump?

As someone else said, because your vote matters. Or, taken in the context of the 2000 election, it's probably more accurate to say that your vote has consequences.

If people truly want a third party, then we would be seeing a significant number of Greens and Libertarians in Congress and the Senate. We'd see at least a few of the same in State Governorships.

But we don't see that. At best they show up once every four years like a spiteful toddler and try to turn a Presidential election. And all they do is convince a certain number of people to throw away their vote. Then they disappear from the scene until about four years later.

And in this election, where disaster looms, and just 16 years ago we all saw what can happen, it is not only a wasted vote, it's an irresponsible vote.

We couldn't reasonably foresee what would happen with the Bush/Cheney administration--at least not the full extent of it. But with Trump, bad things are easily foreseeable. I'd list them but it would be redundant as they've been well-documented here and everywhere else.

You do realize the SCOTUS and Gore himself gave the election to Bush.

 

[Harry Bosch]

As someone else said, because your vote matters. Or, taken in the context of the 2000 election, it's probably more accurate to say that your vote has consequences.

If people truly want a third party, then we would be seeing a significant number of Greens and Libertarians in Congress and the Senate. We'd see at least a few of the same in State Governorships.

But we don't see that. At best they show up once every four years like a spiteful toddler and try to turn a Presidential election. And all they do is convince a certain number of people to throw away their vote. Then they disappear from the scene until about four years later.

And in this election, where disaster looms, and just 16 years ago we all saw what can happen, it is not only a wasted vote, it's an irresponsible vote.

We couldn't reasonably foresee what would happen with the Bush/Cheney administration--at least not the full extent of it. But with Trump, bad things are easily foreseeable. I'd list them but it would be redundant as they've been well-documented here and everywhere else.

You do realize the SCOTUS and Gore himself gave the election to Bush.

Actually, Bush won Florida by 537 votes. Nader cost Gore two states:Florida and New Hampshire. Nader won more than 100,000 votes in Florida. In New Hampshire, nader took more than 22,000 votes. Either state would have carrie the country for Gore.

 

[ksen]

so would have gore's home state which he couldn't even win

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[barbos]

Iraq
Libya
Syria
Iran
Guatemala

At least five examples of areas where Hillary Clinton enabled war/violent coup, or in the case of Iran threatened war.

Trump, as far as I know has only beat the drums of war for one place, where ISIS is located.

eta: Has there been an American conflict since Hillary has been in the national spotlight where she has not supported the war option?

Why did you ignore what I posted about her Iraq vote?
She did not want that war. She wanted Bush to negotiate. She said so. In writing. On camera.
If you believe, despite the evidence, that she was "for" that war, what else that's not true are you believing despite evidence to the contrary? Should I bother to look up the other things for you when you got the first one so obviously wrong?

If that's what happened then she clearly does not understand how voting works. Should make you reconsider her qualification to be a president.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

You do realize the SCOTUS and Gore himself gave the election to Bush.

Actually, Bush won Florida by 537 votes.

I disagree.

Nader cost Gore two states:Florida and New Hampshire.

No, Gore, with a bigger war chest, greater name recognition and possession of the VICE PRESIDENCY failed to win enough votes.

Nader won more than 100,000 votes in Florida.

Bush won more than that, why not blame him?

In New Hampshire, nader took more than 22,000 votes.

No, Gore failed campaign effectively enough to win Nader voters support.

Either state would have carrie the country for Gore.

As long as people blame Democratic nominees defeats on everyone and everything except the nominees inadequacies and Republican voters, Republicans will win. Alliances in the next election become that much harder when potential allies are maligned and berated for the failures of previous campaigns.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Why did you ignore what I posted about her Iraq vote?
She did not want that war. She wanted Bush to negotiate. She said so. In writing. On camera.
If you believe, despite the evidence, that she was "for" that war, what else that's not true are you believing despite evidence to the contrary? Should I bother to look up the other things for you when you got the first one so obviously wrong?

If that's what happened then she clearly does not understand how voting works. Should make you reconsider her qualification to be a president.

Sorry for the aside, but is there anyway that you could comment on the near universal Russian overt support for Trump? What is driving it? Is it a desire to weaken NATO and expand into Eastern Europe. Is it business deals with Trump. Is it the perceived machoness? What is it? I'd love your opinion.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, Bush won Florida by 537 votes.

I disagree.

Nader cost Gore two states:Florida and New Hampshire.

No, Gore, with a bigger war chest, greater name recognition and possession of the VICE PRESIDENCY failed to win enough votes.

Nader won more than 100,000 votes in Florida.

Bush won more than that, why not blame him?

In New Hampshire, nader took more than 22,000 votes.

No, Gore failed campaign effectively enough to win Nader voters support.

Either state would have carrie the country for Gore.

As long as people blame Democratic nominees defeats on everyone and everything except the nominees inadequacies and Republican voters, Republicans will win. Alliances in the next election become that much harder when potential allies are maligned and berated for the failures of previous campaigns.

I really don't want to tell someone how to vote. But all that I'd say is that the US and the environment would be a much better place today if Gore had won.

 

[barbos]

If that's what happened then she clearly does not understand how voting works. Should make you reconsider her qualification to be a president.

Sorry for the aside, but is there anyway that you could comment on the near universal Russian overt support for Trump? What is driving it? Is it a desire to weaken NATO and expand into Eastern Europe. Is it business deals with Trump. Is it the perceived machoness? What is it? I'd love your opinion.

I think it's strong dislike of HRC which itself is an extension of a strong dislike of current administration and Obama.
So it's pretty uncomplicated, HRC worked in Obama administration and talked fair amount trash about Russia, Trump, on the other hand, have said few compliments to Putin, it's no brainer who will have nominal support in Russia. But analysts understand that Trump is unpredictable and most likely going to lose, hence You don't see any official trashing of Hillary or "endorsement" of Trump.

US media is blowing this thing out of proportion. I mean there is much less talk about Trump in Russia than in US about Trump&Russia. Also, I would really be surprised if Trump had some business with Russia. That email hacking is unlikely to be government sanctioned.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Sorry for the aside, but is there anyway that you could comment on the near universal Russian overt support for Trump? What is driving it? Is it a desire to weaken NATO and expand into Eastern Europe. Is it business deals with Trump. Is it the perceived machoness? What is it? I'd love your opinion.

I think it's strong dislike of HRC which itself is an extension of a strong dislike of current administration and Obama.
So it's pretty uncomplicated, HRC worked in Obama administration and talked fair amount trash about Russia, Trump, on the other hand, have said few compliments to Putin, it's no brainer who will have nominal support in Russia. But analysts understand that Trump is unpredictable and most likely going to lose, hence You don't see any official trashing of Hillary or "endorsement" of Trump.

US media is blowing this thing out of proportion. I mean there is much less talk about Trump in Russia than in US about Trump&Russia. Also, I would really be surprised if Trump had some business with Russia. That email hacking is unlikely to be government sanctioned.

What do you mean by "some business with Russia"? Of course he has business dealings in Russia and out with Russians. Well of course there would be much more talk about Trump & Russia in the US. It's all about the presidency of the United States. And he'll have support in Russia due to his comments on NATO. This is the bizarro part of this election in that the dem is the hawk and the republican comes across as the dove. Not really a dove, just doesn't understand/care about anything that is going on in the world beyond fulfilling his own desires. ISIS managed to break into Trumpworld only because it hits home.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

If that's what happened then she clearly does not understand how voting works. Should make you reconsider her qualification to be a president.

Sorry for the aside, but is there anyway that you could comment on the near universal Russian overt support for Trump? What is driving it? Is it a desire to weaken NATO and expand into Eastern Europe. Is it business deals with Trump. Is it the perceived machoness? What is it? I'd love your opinion.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, Bush won Florida by 537 votes.

I disagree.

Nader cost Gore two states:Florida and New Hampshire.

No, Gore, with a bigger war chest, greater name recognition and possession of the VICE PRESIDENCY failed to win enough votes.

Nader won more than 100,000 votes in Florida.

Bush won more than that, why not blame him?

In New Hampshire, nader took more than 22,000 votes.

No, Gore failed campaign effectively enough to win Nader voters support.

Either state would have carrie the country for Gore.

As long as people blame Democratic nominees defeats on everyone and everything except the nominees inadequacies and Republican voters, Republicans will win. Alliances in the next election become that much harder when potential allies are maligned and berated for the failures of previous campaigns.

I really don't want to tell someone how to vote.

I think you kinda do.

But all that I'd say is that the US and the environment would be a much better place today if Gore had won.

Which has nothing to do with Nader, and everything to do with the what you see as good qualities in Gore and bad qualities in Bush. And on those qualities, we probably agree more than we disagree.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

You do realize the SCOTUS and Gore himself gave the election to Bush.

Actually, Bush won Florida by 537 votes. Nader cost Gore two states:Florida and New Hampshire. Nader won more than 100,000 votes in Florida. In New Hampshire, nader took more than 22,000 votes. Either state would have carrie the country for Gore.

Exactly. There's something Trump-supporter-esque about Greens who refuse to admit the reality that they played the most significant role in putting Bush/Cheney in office. It means they would have to concede the consequences that their futile outsider votes for Nader at a time when the country was at relative peace and had a budget surplus.

Hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded (if not more), a massive recession, trillions of dollars spent on war, and the loss of legitimacy around the world, and that the consequences of this are still hurting us, and will continue to do so for decades more.

But hey, vote for a third party candidate with absolutely no hope of getting into office and help get Trump elected. What's the worst that could happen?

 

[ksen]

It must be nice that when a politician loses a race it's never their fault.

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[Colonel Sanders]

It must be nice that when a politician loses a race it's never their fault.

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The point is about the foreseeable consequences of casting a vote for a third party candidate that has no chance of wining and that can only help bring disaster. You're saying that the Titanic should have been built to run into icebergs rather than considering all the other reasons for the ship's demise.

 

[ksen]

It must be nice that when a politician loses a race it's never their fault.

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The point is about the foreseeable consequences of casting a vote for a third party candidate that has no chance of wining and that can only help bring disaster. You're saying that the Titanic should have been built to run into icebergs rather than considering all the other reasons for the ship's demise.

No, what I'm saying is that if a politician can't even generate enough excitement to win his own state then that's his own fault. Maybe stop running prevent defense type campaigns because the prevent defense hardly ever works the way you want it too.

As for the continual scaremongering, meh. I'm done with it. Every election is the most crucial election evar! It gets tiring. How about instead of running to keep the other party out of office you instead base a campaign on winning voters over to your side instead of trying to scare them onto your side.

The country isn't going to end if Trump becomes president. The world won't end either.

 

[ksen]

Coincidentally there's an article in The Atlantic explaining my point about trying to scare voters with the other guy much better than I did above.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/the-democrats-who-cried-wolf/493928/

 

[ronburgundy]

If Trump is elected, the country will be vastly different than if Clinton wins. There's just no way to logically argue that there's no difference between them.

Trump is a completely open question mark, so there COULD be no difference between them. Trump is a yuuuuge risk to take. A yuuuge gamble. For all we know he COULD sit on his golden throne and listen to the right people and they may do a better job than Clinton, not worrying about elections/politics. Or he could usher in total tyranny. We simply don't know.

Bullshit. Trump will be and think as President as he has been and thought all his life and in the campaign, a dangerously ignorant, petulant, sociopathically amoral narcissist willing to do or say anything to advance himself no matter the harm it causes others. And no, that is not equally true of all politicians, no matter how mindlessly it might be claimed that it is. Also, we know that Trump's ego will compel him to focus much of his efforts on trying to win re-election, because he will be seen as a failure otherwise. means we know that his policies and SCOTUS appointments will be designed to please the same medieval interests and mentality that are currently the base of his support.

Trump is essentially Putin, and he will be as bad or worse for the US and the world as Putin has been for Russia and the world.

IOW, we know beyond all reasonable doubt that any impact that Trump has on his own decisions will worse than the impact Hillary has on her own decisions, and we know that it will be the GOP that overall shapes his decisions (especially SCOTUS nominees), which is far worse than the Dems shaping Hillary's nominee's.

There has probably been no election in the last 50 years where the probable impact between the two major options has been more different.

 

[Rhea]

There may be some people who are thinking to "blame" Nader/Perot/Sttein supporters "for the loss" but most are saying something different, that you are missing (Athena, ksen, etc)

They are not saying what you "should" or "should not" do. They are saying that they do not understand why you think voting in a way that decimates your values is a way of promoting your values.

I sure don't understand it. I'm not chastising you, but I don't understand.

You're not one-issue humans. You're complex and you have many nuanced views. We get that. We see that. You're like us. We have some of those views in common. We have some that we agree on but place different degrees of importance on. That's totally normal.

Some of you want a much more progressive and aggressive left. I do, too.
And then some of you say it is ALL or NOTHING!
And you lose me.

For one thing, because it's not "nothing." It's negative. It's losing ground (horribly). Bush lost ground vs. Clinton on many of the issues you say are important. And Gore would not have. Just renewable energy, for one.
And for another thing it's unheard of to have it all. Even if your candidate says he has it all (no gun control! woot!) he still needs congress. So it'll never be all.

I want a much more progressive left, too. My vision for that is town-up, not president-down. Because in my view, president down can be stopped too easily. Third party vote? I am ALL OVER THAT on state, county and town elections. I am likewise ALLL OVER creating a viable platform and hawking it to existing dems and getting them to endorse it and "caucus with us" to build momentum.

And any vote that is not actively stopping the GOP, metaphorically the elephant in the country, harms future 3rd party candidates and ideas. In my analysis.

You clearly disagree. You appear to argue, Athena, that a Florida vote for Nader advanced environmental causes and did nothing to act against them. You say we should "blame the GOP". It makes no sense to blame them for voting for what they wanted. I cannot understand, though, how people voting for Nader didn't act against their own stated interests in the environment. I don't "blame them for electing Bush," since that was obviously the preferred outcome in their minds over a vote that would prevent him from getting elected, but I do discount every claim they have to love the environment when they refused to act to save it during the most influential moment.

I don't get that logic. It's not logic that I can follow. Burn the planet down so that we can have the "right" person try to save what's left of it 8 years from now.

It's like Christians saying they won't use birth control to prevent abortions.
Showing that preventing abortions wasn't their actual prime directive in the first place.

So I don't "blame" Naderites or BernieBusters for "losing" an election since they weren't trying to win it. But I do say, "wow, I thought we both cared about the environment and war and civil rights, but it turns out only one of us had those as high priorities and the other was going after something different and was willing to let those items fail in the quest."

I don't get it. I just don't get how anyone concerned about the environment who voted for Nader _doesn't_ regret their vote. They don't obviously, and that's their right. It just doesn't match environmentalism. And I don't get how anyone concerned for civil rights would be willing to put that goal off for 8 years.

So for me, I vote blue. I vote to stop the GOP on every level. If I can get it blue first, then I can get to green. But I'll never get to green from red.

 

[Deepak]

It must be nice that when a politician loses a race it's never their fault.

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The point is about the foreseeable consequences of casting a vote for a third party candidate that has no chance of wining and that can only help bring disaster. You're saying that the Titanic should have been built to run into icebergs rather than considering all the other reasons for the ship's demise.

Absolute bollocks. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative, first off, not as someone who would engage in nation building in the ME. If this was a foreseeable consequence, in any real sense, one wonders why no one in the 2000 election was warning us of that. Moreover, what contributions did you make to Gore's campaign in Florida to prevent the stupid Green Party voters from enabling such foreseeable consequences? My guess is somewhere between nothing and bitching about it afterwards.

More importantly 200k registered Ds in Florida voted for Bush. It takes a peculiar form of retardation to lay Gore's loss on the Green Party voters.

 

[Rhea]

The point is about the foreseeable consequences of casting a vote for a third party candidate that has no chance of wining and that can only help bring disaster. You're saying that the Titanic should have been built to run into icebergs rather than considering all the other reasons for the ship's demise.

Absolute bollocks. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative, first off, not as someone who would engage in nation building in the ME. If this was a foreseeable consequence, in any real sense, one wonders why no one in the 2000 election was warning us of that. Moreover, what contributions did you make to Gore's campaign in Florida to prevent the stupid Green Party voters from enabling such foreseeable consequences? My guess is somewhere between nothing and bitching about it afterwards.

More importantly 200k registered Ds in Florida voted for Bush. It takes a peculiar form of retardation to lay Gore's loss on the Green Party voters.

Wait, WHAT!?!
There were warnings all over!
He had frickin' _CHENEY_ as a vp?
We absolutely knew how much oil was going to figure into every decision they made.
They wrote a goddamned _paper_ on wanting to invade Iraq!

This was EVERYWHERE!

What cloud were you on in 2000? "why was no one warning us?"!?!? eek!

 

[Deepak]

Absolute bollocks. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative, first off, not as someone who would engage in nation building in the ME. If this was a foreseeable consequence, in any real sense, one wonders why no one in the 2000 election was warning us of that. Moreover, what contributions did you make to Gore's campaign in Florida to prevent the stupid Green Party voters from enabling such foreseeable consequences? My guess is somewhere between nothing and bitching about it afterwards.

More importantly 200k registered Ds in Florida voted for Bush. It takes a peculiar form of retardation to lay Gore's loss on the Green Party voters.

Wait, WHAT!?!
There were warnings all over!
He had frickin' _CHENEY_ as a vp?
We absolutely knew how much oil was going to figure into every decision they made.
They wrote a goddamned _paper_ on wanting to invade Iraq!

This was EVERYWHERE!

What cloud were you on in 2000? "why was no one warning us?"!?!? eek!

I was watching and reading all of the material that was available. I remember the bit about smart tax cuts, I remember the Medicare lock-box, I remember entitlement trusts, but I don't remember anything about Bush wanting to engage in nation building. Perhaps you could link me to the Gore campaign ads or to the parts of the party platform that call this out.