The Gaming Den

erik wrote:If it comes down to it, Hillary would support Bernie and vice versa. Because they are not each other's greater enemy.

Again, the rest of the western world tells us that the left faction will do the right thing and support the center right faction.

But that does not ever happen the other way around. Seriously. Ask the UK. Like. Right now.

erik wrote:No, they're the greater enemy because their goals lead to death, despair and disenfranchisement of fellow Americans.

I'm pretty sure Tussock's goals lead to death, despair, and disenfranchisement of fellow Denizens.

Hillary Clinton would be willing to work with an actual leftist in the exact same way that she (and Obama, and Bill, and half the Senate) have proven they are willing to work with Republicans.

Now Republicans have firmly and completely moved all the way to never working with anyone with a D, but that doesn't change the fact that we know that no Democratic president since Clinton, and most of the major players in the party, has ever been willing to move even slightly to the left without huge gaping concessions from all actually left positions to being bullshit Center Right positions.

These people aren't terrible people, but they blatantly and obviously devote more of their effort to shutting down left progress than they do right progress.

Again, if Clinton does even one single thing that can actually be called "left of Eisenhower" let me know, but until then, she's another Center Right politician who hates the concept of actual leftism more than making deals with Republicans, and is only going to move the country slightly left because we live a psycho rightist utopia created by Fox News, Gingrich, and Reagan.

PhoneLobster wrote:And however much you want to pretend Clinton is doing well... no she isn't. She has ONE opponent, he is quiet frankly pretty fucking mediocre and she is already struggling and indeed while still ahead, for now, is in real danger of a previously unthinkable loss against an opponent that for all he seems pretty nice political talent wise may as well be a fucking empty chair with a left pointing arrow painted on the back.

That is NOT the narrative she wants, nor is it the narrative she expected, it is not the narrative she needs and while I'm pretty sure she will win she has already failed to demonstrate the strength she and her supporters claimed to have.

Even if she turns it around and wins hands down from now on the political narrative for the next election WILL be "she nearly lost against A TOTAL NOBODY, now can she beat TRUMP?". That's not an unbeatable narrative, but it's NOT the "Hillary the predestined Queen vs republican nobody" narrative she wanted and is certainly harder for her to work with.

First of all, given the way the US mostly-winner-take-all nomination system works, having one opponent is significantly harder to beat than having multiple opponents. If Hillary was running against Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, and a Martin O'Malley with actual traction should would crush them all because they would split the vote of the portion of the party that either simply doesn't like her or prefers a candidate significantly to the left. This is exactly what's happening (only in bizarro reverse) with Trump on the Republican side.

Secondly, the overwhelming majority of the public isn't paying attention to the primary season sufficiently to parse what a narrow loss actually would be. Given the way the delegate counting works, and especially the superdelegates, Hillary - if she ultimately wins - is likely to have a massive margin of delegates. In 2008 Obama vs. Hillary was much, much closer than Hillary vs. Bernie is likely to be (Hillary actually won the popular primary vote) and Obama's delegate margin was still 302.5. A close win won't look like a close win superficially and won't be reported as a close win by the media (Nevada was a close win and it sure wasn't reported as such by the media).

Yes the primaries so far have demonstrated that Hillary has dramatically failed in connecting with a specific slice of the electorate: young educated primarily white voters or basically the modern campus/social media left. That is a problem as this is a significant voting block and following the primaries she will have to take major steps to win them back. She's very calculating so this will happen, the question is whether she will be sufficiently convincing or the Republican nominee will be sufficiently scary.

At the same time it is absolutely impossible to ignore the fact that there is a sizeable block of weakly-center voters that are likely to vote for Hillary who will be scared out of voting for candidate Sanders after several solid months of Republicans labeling him as the Socialist Candidate for President. It absolutely sucks that that is a thing, but it will happen. I mean seriously, Bernie would lose a non-zero percentage of votes simply for being Jewish (or really, for not being at least nominally Christian), as horribly embarrassing as that fact is to even contemplate in 2016.

Kaelik wrote:Again, if Clinton does even one single thing that can actually be called "left of Eisenhower" let me know, but until then, she's another Center Right politician who hates the concept of actual leftism more than making deals with Republicans, and is only going to move the country slightly left because we live a psycho rightist utopia created by Fox News, Gingrich, and Reagan.

Bernie isn't moving the country any further to the left than Clinton. His set of policy proposals is significantly to the left of Clinton and would be better for the country overall if he were in a position to pass really any of them as President, but he won't be, because the Republicans aren't losing the House. The only leftward progress that will occur under either a President Clinton or a President Sanders until at least 2022 (when a House utilizing new post-2020 census districts is elected) will be through executive action than manages to bypass a (hopefully more liberal thanks to the absence of Scalia) Supreme Court. Bernie doesn't talk about this much on the campaign trail - which is totally legit because it isn't to his advantage and he possible outright believes he could deliver a liberal wave election sufficient to turn the House blue - but it's inescapable.

Shorter mechalich.

"The left can never hope to win anything ever because I and other center rights say so.

So it should stop fucking trying and coming so fucking close despite us, it's ostensible allies, fighting it tooth and nail ever step of the way. It's making us look like we don't know what the fuck we are talking about and is messing with this nice little scam we've got going here. So please stop it already.

Anyway, all us serious people know that the best way to achieve left wing goals is to not have any in the first place."

Mechalich wrote:Bernie isn't moving the country any further to the left than Clinton. His set of policy proposals is significantly to the left of Clinton and would be better for the country overall if he were in a position to pass really any of them as President, but he won't be, because the Republicans aren't losing the House. The only leftward progress that will occur under either a President Clinton or a President Sanders until at least 2022 (when a House utilizing new post-2020 census districts is elected) will be through executive action than manages to bypass a (hopefully more liberal thanks to the absence of Scalia) Supreme Court. Bernie doesn't talk about this much on the campaign trail - which is totally legit because it isn't to his advantage and he possible outright believes he could deliver a liberal wave election sufficient to turn the House blue - but it's inescapable.

Look fuckface, when you learn how to fucking read, get back to me, but until then, I'm just going to file you under idiot and ignore you until you show even the faintest hint of an ability to fucking read.

Kaelik wrote:Again, if Clinton does even one single thing that can actually be called "left of Eisenhower" let me know

I hate saying this, but you need to check your privilege. The idea that Hillary isn't to the left of Ike is something that only a straight white man could give voice to. Eisenhower said that women had full and sufficient equality in 1954. Eisenhower was ambivalent about using the power of the federal government to fight the disenfranchisement of black people. Eisenhower tasked the FBI by executive order to investigate all suspected homosexuals working for the federal government.

I know that Eisenhower presided over the highest top end marginal tax rates of the modern era and that as a straight white man that is all you care about, but there is indeed more than that to leftist policy. Civil and human rights are also important, not just tax rates. The much (and rightly) maligned "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the first Clinton administration was a hard left turn of Eisenhower's "never ending inquisition of the gays" policy.

It should also be remembered that while Eisenhower was in favor of an expansion of the healthcare safety net, that Ikecare was way to the right of Obamacare. No mandatory coverage (instead: subsidies to private corporations to encourage them to increase coverage), no individual or employer mandate, no caps on profiteering, government owning of insurance company losses with no public share of company profits. It made Obamacare look like Fidel Castrocare. And remember: Obamacare is positioned firmly to the right of Hillarycare and that several necessary pieces of Obamacare are actually things that Obama had campaigned against including which Hillary Clinton successfully argued for after she joined the administration.

So even if you don't care about women, blacks, or gays, presumably you care about health care. And Hillary Clinton is way to the left of Eisenhower on healthcare. She supports the continued transition to a Bismarckian system like Belgium. Eisenhower supported letting private companies do whatever the fuck they wanted while the government stepped in to clean up the mess when (not if) those companies went bankrupt or fucked off with everyone's money.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:The idea that Hillary isn't to the left of Ike is something that only a straight white man could give voice to.

Or you know, someone who wasn't even alive at the same time as Eisenhower.

FrankTrollman wrote:I know that Eisenhower presided over the highest top end marginal tax rates of the modern era and that as a straight white man that is all you care about, but there is indeed more than that to leftist policy. Civil and human rights are also important, not just tax rates.

Oh fuck right off your high horse. First of, as an actual straight white male, you don't get to play the "you are a straight white male, so your opinion doesn't count" card on actual fucking minorities of any kind.

Second of all, Ike also appointed Warren and Brennan to the Court, so you'll excuse me if I give him credit for only accidentally ending segregation instead of intentionally ending it.

The rest of your post pretty much amounts to "I'm straightfacedly comparing a President in the 50s to a President in 2016 and ignoring all social progress which changes the context of all those positions."

Eisenhower isn't the greatest guy in the world, but that's the fucking point Frank, he's thoroughly average for his time, he's ahead of zero issues. And neither is Clinton, Clinton is less behind on every important issue than any Republican, but she's still behind on every social issue, and still right of whatever would be a reasonable center position in any sane country on every economic issue.

Because of other reasons, and the general terribleness of this country, that makes her the best candidate this year, but that doesn't make her not pathetically right-center.

Kaelik wrote:And neither is Clinton, Clinton is less behind on every important issue than any Republican, but she's still behind on every social issue, and still right of whatever would be a reasonable center position in any sane country on every economic issue.

Were you asleep for the healthcare battles of the last 30 years?

Are you too insular to realize that pro-cyclical fiscal policy has become accepted as the reasonable center position in every advanced country on Earth except the United States?

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Are you too insular to realize that pro-cyclical fiscal policy has become accepted as the reasonable center position in every advanced country on Earth except the United States?

Frank is pretty much right on this one; on general economic issues, the Democratic party establishment is about as sane as centrism gets. He would not have been right ten years ago, but the fact is that Europe's left is... well... it's collapsing. Not so much in terms of support, but in terms of "being fucked royally by its own political establishment."

A big part of why that happened is that most "leftist" political parties are actually ran by centrists, and centrists only ever adopt leftist economic positions to win leftist votes. So of course as the conservative media seized on the crisis as an opportunity to push a narrative about socialism gone wild, the centrist media nodded sagely and said, "sounds right to me," and immediately turned from sane fiscal policy to "austerity, always and forever!!1!'". The reality is that it's been economic conservatives running against economic conservatives all along, and the only difference is that one group swings left to pick up votes and the other group swings right to pick up corporate sponsors. That's pretty much it.

Which is kind of PL's point. Centrism and leftism really are enemies. Hillary Clinton doesn't really believe in any of this shit. Given past statements, she probably doesn't even believe in gay marriage. But she does believe in being president, and in order to be president she has to define her policies in a way that lets her build a coalition capable of defeating the Orwellian clusterfuck that is the Republican party. So she'll swing to the left economically and she'll put aside her personal ambivalence for the dignity of homosexuals in order to get Democratic voters off their asses and out to the polls. And as long as centrists like Hillary are playing this game, progress is going to be glacially fucking slow. But the alternative is Trump 2016 so hurrah for centrists playing pretend!

DSMatticus wrote:Which is kind of PL's point. Centrism and leftism really are enemies.

And on the economic policy front you pretty much nailed it. But the enmity extends beyond that and, in the context of things like setting party policy platforms or determining candidates it is very much a matter of enmity as an internal party political matter. And a matter of factional survival.

The centrists, or really center right democrats/labor/etc... in developed nations have little to no grass roots base. The "center" is little more than unreliable swing voters at best and many surveys of public opinion on policy suggests it might as well not exist outside of the idea of centrism itself which is all about the appeal of the middle ground fallacy.

And as for appealing to the right? No. They will ALWAYS be the second choice, the "secret communists" who can never be fully trusted no matter how much they embrace right wing policy, which they can never do quiet as much as the actual right wing parties because their entire tiny niche is "just like them but very slightly to the left".

They can ONLY exist as long as they are the only and furthest viable alternative on the left. Because their only stable constituency is the left. But, they of course don't actually want to BE on the left which means they have to destroy all viable alternatives to their left so that this constituency has no choice but to support them as the lesser of two evils.

The repeated message of the last 40 or so years of Western Politics is again and again regurgitation without foundation "The left can only win at anything in politics by being center right instead". This mantra is repeated not because it is true, but because the centrist right domination of left wing parties REQUIRES it to be true to maintain their personal power. And they will, and DO, do anything they can to MAKE it true.

When centrists talk about the sustained media smear campaign Sanders would suffer through, they aren't talking about what Murdoch will do to him. When they talk about him being condemned as a communist they aren't talking about what Trump will say. Because THOSE guys will be doing that anyway regardless of the candidate, that's just the standard right wing crazy playbook these days, it's negligible and if you want to talk about "baked into the numbers" it's baked into the numbers for the fucking PARTY and has been since fucking McCarthy. No, what they are really saying, not too subtly, is what THEY the center will do and say should anyone to the left of them gain a hint of power in their party.

And never forget. When Margaret Thatcher was asked what her greatest achievement was. She said "New Labor".

DSM wrote:And as long as centrists like Hillary are playing this game, progress is going to be glacially fucking slow.

Is it?

Obamacare provided health insurance to an extra 15 million people, basically the entire population of Guatemala. We went from Proposition 8 passing in fucking California (although not with sufficient majorities to be legally enforceable) to Obergefell in less than 7 years. Wind generation of electricity has more than five times the share of total US power generation than it did when Bush was president, and the increase in solar has been even more dramatic (although from a lower starting point).

There's certainly stuff not to like, and there's lots of stuff to do. The Democrats chicken out and sell you out all the time. It's a broad coalition and it has to make internal compromises with subgroups that aren't really all that on board with every progressive goal. The public option didn't happen. The stimulus was way too small.We still don't have the most basic common sense gun control. The banksters didn't go to jail. Medicare still doesn't have the power to negotiate drug prices. We still haven't passed the fucking ERA. Guantanamo Bay isn't even closed. And while most of this can be lain at the feet of hard core Republican obstructionism, it's important to recognize that not all the Democrats even want to fight on all these issues.

But remember also that when the conservatives claim that they barely recognize the country because it has moved so far to the left, they aren't completely talking out of their ass. There has been a lot of progress in the last 8 years. And there's every reason to believe that there would be a lot of progress in 8 years of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

What I can tell you is that the opportunistic nature of the chin scratching pragmatist class of center-leftists that run the Democratic Party mean that I am completely unable to tell you what shape that progress will take. Like, none at all. When I voted for Obama I had made peace with the fact that his healthcare proposals were ineffective right wing bullshit but that at least we'd close down our torture prisons and stop bombing in the Middle East. 8 years later we are still bombing in the Middle East and the prisons are still there. But there's been huge gains in gay rights and sustainable energy. And Obama negotiated left on healthcare such that what we got was a lot better than what Obama was selling during the campaign. A Clinton presidency will surely provide fast progress on some issues and maddeningly little progress on others, and I have no idea which issues will be which and I don't think Hillary does either.

-Username17

The reason nobody on the left likes Hillary is because she was never on the left of...anything. Except healthcare, which she has solidly moved to the right on (but maybe she's just lying for centrist votes). I think Hillary will only move left on things AFTER public opinion has been there for, I don't know, 4+ years.

Clinton is not progressive on social or economic issues. She annihilated her husband's rape accusers (so feminist), she does not give a shit about gay people (much equality), she was a part of her husband's administration and was the senator of NY during the crash (very labor). She moves left to get left votes but there's no way she actually gives a shit about getting leftist policies in place.

On the other hand we have Bernie fucking Sanders who was arrested while protesting segregated housing, allowed super early pride parades and who has always (since the 90's) been talking about how shitty our economy actually is because it isn't helping our middle class. He was ranting against the banks before the crash because Sanders noticed how bad income inequality was getting. Bernie fucking Sanders has been on point for his entire career on all issues except gun control (because Vermont).

Whoever we elect isn't going to get anything done for at least 2 years, but I at least want the person who truly represents what I want. Watching Clinton's shitty smear campaign against Bernie is why I'm probably voting Jill Stein in the general if she gets the nomination (unless polls start showing a close race, but I'm in MA).

Hillary isn't the best we have so we should pick a real leftist. Bernie consistently polls better than her for the general anyways. I'm honestly worried Hillary would lose the general because half the country just doesn't like her.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:On the other hand we have Bernie fucking Sanders who was arrested while protesting segregated housing, allowed super early pride parades and who has always (since the 90's) been talking about how shitty our economy actually is because it isn't helping our middle class. He was ranting against the banks before the crash because Sanders noticed how bad income inequality was getting. Bernie fucking Sanders has been on point for his entire career on all issues except gun control (because Vermont).

I think he was also wrong on immigration too until... very recently.

Kaelik wrote:

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:On the other hand we have Bernie fucking Sanders who was arrested while protesting segregated housing, allowed super early pride parades and who has always (since the 90's) been talking about how shitty our economy actually is because it isn't helping our middle class. He was ranting against the banks before the crash because Sanders noticed how bad income inequality was getting. Bernie fucking Sanders has been on point for his entire career on all issues except gun control (because Vermont).

I think he was also wrong on immigration too until... very recently.

I thought he's always been pro-citizenship and his stance on immigration was mostly opposition to guest worker programs. He's been all about letting people become citizens.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Clinton is not progressive on social or economic issues. She annihilated her husband's rape accusers (so feminist), she does not give a shit about gay people (much equality), she was a part of her husband's administration and was the senator of NY during the crash (very labor). She moves left to get left votes but there's no way she actually gives a shit about getting leftist policies in place.

Are you sure you're peddling pseudo stupidity?

First of all, Bill's rape allegations? Seriously? You're going there? Look, the people who accused Bill Clinton of rape also received money from Bill Clinton's political opponents for doing so. Those accusations have no credibility at all. You know how little credibility they have? They have so little credibility that Kenneth "three pages of creepy speculations about semen stains" didn't bother trying to hit him with that one.

There is nothing unfeminist about telling paid slanderers to shut the fuck up. Regardless of whether those slanderers happen to be women or not. Bill Clinton is not Bill Cosby; there weren't a bunch of powerless women trying to get their story out to an unforgiving press that didn't want to hear it. There was a decade long effort bankrolled by multiple billionaires paying bounties for any scrap of dirt no matter how far fetched.

In the case of Juanita Broaddrick, which is the one you are referencing, remember that she said in court under oath that Bill Clinton never made any sexual advances toward her. And that she continued being a public supporter of Clinton weeks and years after the supposed events took place. And that it was only after she started taking Koch money that she accused him of rape. And further, that the accusation that Hilary Clinton knew about the incident and threatened her didn't come out until 17 years after that, after she took money from the Trump campaign to smear dirt on Hillary. That accusation is less credible than the Swiftboat stuff they aimed at Kerry.

It's not just that you're repeating right wing smear campaigns as fact, it's that you're repeating right wing smear campaigns that even the right wing don't put much stock in. You might as well be questioning Obama's birth certificate.

As far as gay people, Hillary Clinton has proposed policies towards gays that were always slightly to the left of whatever the center was. When the choice was between DADT and active persecution, she supported DADT. When the choice was between DADT and openly gay soldiers, she opposed DADT. When the choice was civil unions or nothing, she supported civil unions. She came out as a gay marriage advocate when polls put support for gay marriage at exactly 50%. Almost exactly like she was willing to spend political capital to fight any fight she perceived as winnable and not any other. But very importantly she has never been on the wrong side of gay people in whatever the fight of the day happened to be.

PS wrote:Bernie fucking Sanders has been on point for his entire career on all issues except gun control (because Vermont).

Or immigration. Or the fucking gold standard (he voted for Paul's inane congressional takeover of the money supply bill). Hell, that crime bill that Hillary is supposedly so terrible because Bill Clinton signed it in 1994? Bernie voted for it. The idea that Bernie Sanders is ideologically pure is complete horseshit. He voted the same way as Clinton 93.1% of the time, and he was only in the right slightly more often than he was in the wrong in the less than 7% of the votes where they went separate ways. If you agree with Sanders 96% of the time, you probably agree with Clinton 94% of the time.

Yes, Bernie Sanders is a real progressive by the standards of the United States. But that means that Hillary Clinton is a real progressive by those standards as well.

-Username17

Kaelik wrote:you don't get to play the "you are a straight white male, so your opinion doesn't count" card on actual fucking minorities of any kind.

which kinda minority are you? because I like to think it's 'anime waifu' and that your profile picture is your actual portrait.

FrankTrollman wrote: It's not just that you're repeating right wing smear campaigns as fact, it's that you're repeating right wing smear campaigns that even the right wing don't put much stock in. You might as well be questioning Obama's birth certificate.

Did I say Bill Clinton raped people or the allegations were serious and not political fuckery? Fuck no, I said that Hillary specifically attacked the reputations of several women who accused her husband of crimes (you're right only one was a rape accusation, I didn't pay much attention to the charges as they're obvious bullshit but now I've googled it). It's a thing she does, like to Gennifer Flowers. Our society still bashes women who say they got raped and Hillary certainly did that shit. You don't need to attack people who say obviously bullshit claims, you can let the obvious bullshit be obvious bullshit.

FrankTrollman wrote:As far as gay people, Hillary Clinton has proposed policies towards gays that were always slightly to the left of whatever the center was. When the choice was between DADT and active persecution, she supported DADT. When the choice was between DADT and openly gay soldiers, she opposed DADT. When the choice was civil unions or nothing, she supported civil unions. She came out as a gay marriage advocate when polls put support for gay marriage at exactly 50%. Almost exactly like she was willing to spend political capital to fight any fight she perceived as winnable and not any other. But very importantly she has never been on the wrong side of gay people in whatever the fight of the day happened to be.

What is DOMA?

FrankTrollman wrote: Or immigration.

Where has he been bad on immigration? The worst thing you can say about him is he's more against guest workers than he is for immigration. That's a reasonable enough stance.

I did not say Bernie is ideologically pure, I said he's right about pretty much everything and Hillary is not clearly a progressive. She and Bernie vote the same way often, but the differences are BIG FUCKING DEALS. Supporting NAFTA and the TPP is a big fucking deal. Repealing Glass-Stegall is a big fucking deal. DOMA was a big fucking deal. Taking huge stacks of money from massive donors and promising campaign finance reform is a big fucking deal. Not talking about our shitty infrastructure is a big fucking deal.

Hillary is not a progressive and she is not someone I trust to do the things she says she wants to do. Maybe she'll do a good job if she wins (I certainly hope so), but I have no reason to trust her over Bernie fucking Sanders.

PhoneLobster wrote: While I'm at it I predict Clinton WILL get the nomination, but she will get desperate and burn bridges hard while doing so. She will only barely come out with the win and will anger and alienate much of her own base in the process.

These are Phonelobster's wild baseless predictions for the week about something he only barely follows.

That's what my wife predicts. She's been spending a lot of time following Sanders and planning events every couple of weeks. So, she's largely been immersed in a pro-Sanders echo chamber. According to her, 90% of Sanders supporters already hate Clinton, and are torn in which way to say "fuck you" to the DNC if Clinton wins the primary.

Now, I have no idea where she's getting this figure from other than "anecdotal feelings from other super Sanders supporters".

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Our society still bashes women who say they got raped and Hillary certainly did that shit. You don't need to attack people who say obviously bullshit claims, you can let the obvious bullshit be obvious bullshit.

No, that's wrong. Attacking obviously bullshit people who are attacking your and/or your husband is perfectly fucking reasonable. You practically do need to attack them.

If Hillary Clinton ever said "She was a slut, and she was asking for it." then yes, she would be a terrible person who was in the wrong. But she didn't. I don't know what she did say, but I'll bet it amounts to "those accusations are false for the obvious reason they are false, she didn't bring them up before, said that didn't happen, and is now getting paid to say otherwise." But nicer and more Clintony.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I did not say Bernie is ideologically pure, I said he's right about pretty much everything and Hillary is not clearly a progressive. She and Bernie vote the same way often, but the differences are BIG FUCKING DEALS.

It's not just that where they differ are big deals, it's that voting the same way 93% doesn't mean that they agree on those broader issues 93%.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton both presumably voted the same way on Obamacare, because that was the bill they got to vote on at the end of the day. But if someone put a bill for singlepayer up, it's not clear that Hillary would vote yes. I suspect that outside crass political capital calculation, she would, but she's Hillary Clinton, so she would do those crass political calculations. I mean look at Frank's specific example of Hillary Clinton being pro-gay, when pro-gay marriage reached 50% she changed her mind. That's not spending political capital, that's having the history knowledge of a 5th grader and realizing that of course that number is only ever going to get higher and is already more than 50% of the people who will ever vote for her, so she damn well should just get on board to start collecting the support of the people who might vote for her.

The same thing for literally any other issue. Voting for not terrible only bad laws that replace terrible laws isn't proof that they are equally on the same side. It proves that the left is willing to compromise on shitty not as terrible laws with the Center Right that rules the democratic party, and that there are no votes on gay marriage legal for all federally, or raising taxes, or please for the love of god any position that isn't shit.

The difference between Sanders and Clinton isn't the magical 7%, it's the magical number between 7% and 100% that accurately represents their actual goals and positions.

RobbyPants wrote:Now, I have no idea where she's getting this figure from other than "anecdotal feelings from other super Sanders supporters".

People who are at Sanders events are already like, 1% of sanders supports, and the most involved and fanatic of them, so her sample size is not random

Eikre wrote:which kinda minority are you? because I like to think it's 'anime waifu' and that your profile picture is your actual portrait.

As a male, I make a pretty terrible waifu. I'm 1/4th Vietnamese and bisexual, which means I will basically never be telling anyone to check their privileged, because I can pass like 100% with minimal effort, so my minority credentials are basically non-existent around actual minorities. But as the least minority a minority can be in the US, I still get to tell actual straight white males to fuck right off for playing the privilege card.

PS wrote:Where has he been bad on immigration?

Like, always and everywhere until about 2010. In 2007 he teamed up with Chuck Grassley to kill immigration reform. While he talks the right talk now, back in the 90s he was a reliable vote for any piece of immigrant bashing you wanted. Leading to [url=https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/stat ... 8066819072]this twitter exchange[/i].

PS wrote:You don't need to attack people who say obviously bullshit claims, you can let the obvious bullshit be obvious bullshit.

That's such an obviously bullshit claim that I don't know how to respond. Would you have me just leave it out there and point to it saying "Eh?! Eh?!" and raising my eyebrows at passersby? If people attack you and your family with smear campaigns full of obvious bullshit, it is absolutely on the table to attack the people doing it. Like obviously.

Robby Pants wrote:That's what my wife predicts. She's been spending a lot of time following Sanders and planning events every couple of weeks. So, she's largely been immersed in a pro-Sanders echo chamber. According to her, 90% of Sanders supporters already hate Clinton, and are torn in which way to say "fuck you" to the DNC if Clinton wins the primary.

Now, I have no idea where she's getting this figure from other than "anecdotal feelings from other super Sanders supporters".

These people are actually pretty small in number. Clinton has a favorable rating of 76% among democrats, which is higher than her Nevada vote share by 20 points. The people who like Sanders mostly also like Clinton, and the people who want to vote for Sanders do so because they like him more. There are obviously some non-zero number of dead enders who freak out about how it's Bernie or nothing, but those people were never going to be good for anything anyway because you need to elect hundreds of people in state, federal, and local positions to accomplish any real change.

My reading is that it's a stage of grief when they realize how unlikely their campaign is to actually get the nomination. Some people lash out at the candidate who is beating their candidate because they are sad and angry. Hopefully this will pass for most of them by November. But fortunately and very importantly: there aren't actually all that many of these people.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote: What is DOMA?

Defense of Marriage Act

Pseudo Stupidity wrote: Did I say Bill Clinton raped people or the allegations were serious and not political fuckery? Fuck no, I said that Hillary specifically attacked the reputations of several women who accused her husband of crimes (you're right only one was a rape accusation, I didn't pay much attention to the charges as they're obvious bullshit but now I've googled it). It's a thing she does, like to Gennifer Flowers. Our society still bashes women who say they got raped and Hillary certainly did that shit. You don't need to attack people who say obviously bullshit claims, you can let the obvious bullshit be obvious bullshit.

Dude. If you want to someone to support random women over family during legal drama, then you have an absolutely absurd view of what feminism is.

I mean, the total caricature amazon misandrist levels of absurd. Real women, feminist or otherwise, are not going to put abstract notions of universal sisterhood above personal loyalty.

Kaelik wrote: If Hillary Clinton ever said "She was a slut, and she was asking for it." then yes, she would be a terrible person who was in the wrong. But she didn't. I don't know what she did say, but I'll bet it amounts to "those accusations are false for the obvious reason they are false, she didn't bring them up before, said that didn't happen, and is now getting paid to say otherwise." But nicer and more Clintony.

She called one of the girls trailer trash. I think that's the meanest thing she said in public, but it's a completely unnecessary and classist insult. By all means go into detail on how fucked the accusations are, but maybe don't personally attack the person and definitely don't say trailer trash.

Kaelik wrote: Everything else.

Yes.


Frank, Bernie voted against immigration reform in 2007 because of shitty guest worker portions and he's on record saying that. Pointing to a bill from the 90s that had a ridiculous amount of support is so fucking weird. What are you actually trying to prove? He's been pro-citizenship for a long time, I don't think there's any real way to smear him on immigration unless you think guest worker programs are the best thing evar.

Bernie has definitely made mistakes and I don't know his full voting history because that's a lot of votes, but that you ignore DOMA and all of Hillary's documented fuckedness about gay marriage is really weird. It's not like Sanders ever came out and said "America is for Americans" like Hillary has come out and said "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman."

I'm not getting the rancor of this argument.

I mean obviously in the primaries I want to vote for the candidate with whom I am in 94% agreement with over the candidate with whom I am only in 87% agreement with.

And equally obviously, if and when my favorite candidate loses in the primaries, I'm going to accept 85% agreement with a good shot of winning over the 30% agreement (best case) opposing nominee. While I am Constitutionally allowed to use my vote in the general to vote for the 3rd party candidate who rates 91% on Josh's favored policy scale instead of settling for a mere 85% - the mechanics of first past the pose and history both say that doing so is for all practical purposes helping the 30% candidate win.

But by the last couple pages of this thread, that sort of strategy apparently makes me a center-right weasel with no principals.

FrankTrollman wrote: My reading is that it's a stage of grief when they realize how unlikely their campaign is to actually get the nomination. Some people lash out at the candidate who is beating their candidate because they are sad and angry. Hopefully this will pass for most of them by November. But fortunately and very importantly: there aren't actually all that many of these people.

Anecdotally speaking (I've been sharing a lot of those, haven't I?), I think this explains both my wife and me.

We're both Sanders supporters, but I'm much more comfortable voting for Clinton than she is. She's been spending more of her time reading anti-Clinton sites. Assuming the statistically probable happens, I'm hoping she can get more comfortable voting for Clinton.