Election 2016

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:04 am

It's good to know that Hillary Clinton officially endorses the position that the Koch Brothers saying the sky is blue means it must be purple.

Also, Hillary Clinton will pass bipartisan climate change legislation.

This is where you insert that picture of the popeye sailor laughing.

Sanders apparently loves Bush, according to Clinton. Yeah, I'm going to stop watching this now.

Sanders actually can't answer a question directly asked of him unless it specifically is about Wall Street and how evil it is. Because all answers must be about filthy Wall Street (and by extension Clinton).

Clinton is... well, at least her dysfunctions are different each time.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:40 am

Who do Israelis want as US President?

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:17 am

OgreBattle wrote:Who do Israelis want as US President?

That question implies a unity to Israeli opinion that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist, but if you mean who does Bibi and his current government want as US President then its probably Cruz or Rubio, as both are likely to give the Israeli right exactly what it wants up to and including starting a war with Iran for no good reason. Kasich, insofar as he counts, probably about the same.

On the democrat side Clinton would likely maintain Obama's policy of dramatic support for Israel in everything significant way while still pushing for some actual peace talks and asking for Israel to be at least slightly less dickish about the whole settlements thing. Bernie is probably the least favored candidate because he might actually reduce support and/or openly side with the Palestinians on something of substance.

As for Trump, um, who knows, but at this point I don't think any foreign leader (with the possible exception of Putin) would take comfort at the idea of Donald Trump having nuclear codes.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:05 am

Prak wrote: But in the primary, you can be damned sure I'm voting Bernie and trying to excite other people about a candidate who's at least willing to try to tell Wall Street to go fuck itself and listen to minorities on the matters that are actually about them.

On the other hand, that isn't necessarily a good thing due to issues of competence. While sticking it to the bankers sounds like a good idea, you really don't want ideology to lead you to stacking your financial regulatory agencies with people who don't know how the banking system actually works.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:12 am

As opposed to people who knows how the banking system works because they personally bent it over the cashier's counter, hyzmarca?

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:34 am

Kaelik wrote:It's good to know that Hillary Clinton officially endorses the position that the Koch Brothers saying the sky is blue means it must be purple.

Also, Hillary Clinton will pass bipartisan climate change legislation.

This is where you insert that picture of the popeye sailor laughing.

Also eat a dick for misrepresenting my position Kaelik. And choke on it for calling me a fascist when you bring out the long knives towards anyone who doesn't feel the Bern you tired fuckmothering windbag. Take your hyperbole and shove shove it so far up your ass you regurgitate it again like you have ever since you've been on this board. Maybe after the millionth time you excrete the same tired shtick something novel will get stuck in it?

It's shitty to throw up blocking votes/spoiler votes that are basically done out of spite. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. I want either Democratic candidate to get the nomination because holy fucking shit have you seen the GOP but this petty bullshit your average internet Berne supporter does is annoying and ultimately pointless.

At the end of the day, the talking points brought up by either candidate on the Dem side are most likely going to be adopted, then dashed by the right leaning state reps so you're basically getting worked up by whether you want your old white career politician to have the "outsider" label and a dick or not.

And Prak: RobbyPants was saying that voters who wouldn't vote for Sanders but voted for Hillary would vote for Trump, which is so myopic and marginalizing of minorities (especially black people) it's actually offensive.

I like Bernie. I really do. But I hate every single one of his supporters I have met on the Internet. I will still vote for him, if it comes down to it (which would be nice), but fuck all of you.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:40 am

Mask_De_H wrote:
I like Bernie. I really do. But I hate every single one of his supporters I have met on the Internet. I will still vote for him, if it comes down to it (which would be nice), but fuck all of you.

I voted for him in the primary, but as you might have noticed, I don't argue about Hillary vs. Bernie on the Internet. Or in person.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 8:28 am

DrPraetor wrote:Finally, the crossover voting almost entirely ran the other way, with Dems voting in the Republican race and not vice versa.

According to CNN, the margin of victory in Michigan was less than 2% and the number of votes in the Democratic Primary that were registered Republicans was 3%. While potential Hillary voters doing strategic votes in the Republican Primary was doubtless a much bigger deal, the strategy of convincing Republican voters to troll the Democratic Primary was itself also enough to switch the election from a modest Sanders loss to a modest Sanders win (although not enough to make the difference of the massive failure of the polls and huge swing towards Sanders).

But that's just "Registered Republicans." The fact is that about half of the people who reliably vote Republican are registered "Independent." Hillary Clinton won actual Democrats in Michigan by 14 points, while Bernie Sanders won these "Independents" by a lot. Some of those people are actual swing voters who were voting for a perceived outsider and shit, but a whole lot of them were just more Republicans trolling us.

DrPraetor wrote:You're assuming that Bernie would be a weaker candidate - for which there is no objective evidence.

Uh... so far Bernie Sanders has been able to win three kinds of elections:

Tiny caucuses dominated by white people.
Places next to Vermont.
Heavily Freeped elections where Republicans are trolling us.

Bernie Sanders is more than 200 pledged delegates and more than 1.9 million actual votes behind Hillary Clinton. He hasn't carried the actual Democratic coalition. He hasn't gotten 40% of the black vote anywhere. We don't win without people of color. We haven't won without people of color since the 1960s.

Hillary Clinton wins with the coalition we actually have. The one that actually wins elections. The one that is getting bigger demographically over time. Bernie Sanders has a case that he can win over disaffected working class white people. That is unproven. It might work, but who gives a shit? Working class white people are a shrinking demographic that Obama lost by more than 20 points to R-Money in 2012 and still fucking won the election handily. If a Sanders candidacy can bring us back to competitiveness with working class whites but he continues to fail to inspire black people to come out and vote, we fucking lose.

At the beginning of this election, 53% of the country said that they wouldn't vote for a socialist. I really hope that Bernie Sanders has moved that needle. But it's a huge gamble to roll the dice on that shit now when we have no real evidence that anyone with the word "socialist" after their name can get to the finish line with more than the 47% of the vote that Romney failed to win the presidency with.

Prak wrote:But in the primary, you can be damned sure I'm voting Bernie and trying to excite other people about a candidate who's at least willing to try to tell Wall Street to go fuck itself and listen to minorities on the matters that are actually about them.

Got any more whitesplaining you want to do? Holy fuck Prak, you're a fucking idiot. Hillary Clinton wins the minority votes, by a lot, because she listens to what they have to say and says things that they like. You and I are white liberal socialists, and we have ideas about what would be good for people of color that are probably pretty similar to Bernie Sanders. But they are not buying what he is selling because their idea of what matters to them is not the same as what our idea of what matters to them.

From my perspective, and from Bernie Sanders' perspective both, the old Bulworth quote is perfectly true:

Rich people have always stayed on top by dividing white people from colored people; but white people got more in common with colored people then they do with rich people.

The dream is to get white working class people and disadvantaged people of color to see that in reality they are oppressed by the same system and that they should be on the same side. That is the vision of Bernie Sanders, and people aren't fucking buying it. Why?

Well, for starters the people of color are probably looking at Trump rallies with tens of thousands of working class white people doing actual Nazi salutes and threatening their right to even exist. People of color really aren't on the same side as working class whites. We can (correctly) whine that the institutional racism that turns working class white people against people of color is a scam, but it's a scam that has worked. And it's a scam that has worked for two hundred fucking years. We can game theory and work out class interests and lay down secular humanist ideals and all that shit and demonstrate that people of color and working class whites should work together, and we've done that since the days of Karl Marx and we haven't got a lot to show for it.

Bernie Sanders is going all in on trying to get working class white people to vote their class interests instead of doing the stupid tribalist voting they've been running themselves into the ground with for the last 50 years. We haven't had much success with those attempts in the last half century, and we have a perfectly viable election strategy that simply accepts that white people are gonna be racist assholes instead of class conscious progressives. It's a huge gamble that we have no reason to believe will succeed and no need to even try.

But the bottom line is that your belief that Bernie Sanders listens more to minorities and their desires than Hillary Clinton is the reason that Bernie Sanders is not winning with people of color. Consider Michigan. It was Hillary who first brought up the Flint Water Crisis in the debates, not Bernie. It was Hillary who first visited Flint, not Bernie. It was Hillary who first organized clean water deliveries for Flint residents, not Bernie. And Hillary won black people in Michigan by thirty fucking points. The fact that white Sanders supporters think that hammering about economic inequality by itself makes them more on the side of poor black people than Hillary Clinton is why their message has not and will not resonate in the black communities. Yes, black people are screwed over by the rigged economic system, but black people also get screwed over in countless other institutional ways that poor white people are gleefully complicit in.

The Obama Coalition has won and will win in November. Sanders is promising us a new coalition. One which has no proven track record outside of tiny New England states that do not resemble the rest of the country very much and which the Obama coalition already wins anyway.

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:20 am

Mask_De_H wrote:And Prak: RobbyPants was saying that voters who wouldn't vote for Sanders but voted for Hillary would vote for Trump, which is so myopic and marginalizing of minorities (especially black people) it's actually offensive.

You might want to smack your head against your palm until you find the reset button and then take another crack at understanding what he said.

FrankTrollman wrote:I will say that getting Republican voters to vote for Bernie in the primary with the intention of making it harder for Hillary is pretty loathesome behavior. I understand why you'd do that, but that's really fucked up. Those are votes that could have been used to stop Trump.

I am not actually the least bit bothered by people voting on "the other side's" primary. It bothered me when I was younger, but then reality kicked me in the balls.

I live in a heavily Republican area in a swing state. That means when I vote in a general election, most of the shit I'm filling in doesn't matter. It's a purely symbolic act of protest. That means when I vote in a Democratic primary, most of the shit I'm filling in doesn't matter. None of those people are going to win. But if I register Republican and start voting in Republican primaries, then I suddenly have a say in those races. I don't even have to vote for those people in the general. And why the fuck shouldn't I? Are you really going to fucking tell me it's unethical for me to have a say - any say at all - in who represents me in the U.S. House of Representatives because I disagree too much with my neighbors? And there are people who have it worse than me - I'm in a swing state, so at least when I vote on statewide ballot items it matters. Some people can't even claim to have that much going for them.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:35 am

No. I'm saying that the tactic of getting Republicans to play spoiler in our election when they could be playing spoiler in their election is betraying our side. If enough people vote for "not Trump" that the Republicans end up going to a contested convention, their team goes down in flames and acrimony. If Trump sews it all up in the next month, then by the time the convention rolls around the Republicans will have been brought in line and all suddenly remember that fascism isn't so bad.

A quick victory by Trump makes a victory by an explicitly fascist candidate a real possibility. Not likely, but possible. The fact that the Bernie campaign demonstrably and explicitly courted voters whose default choice would be to sew chaos on the Republican side to come sew chaos on our side instead is betrayal. It was tactically sound, and it worked. But it was betraying us and playing an incredibly dangerous game.

-Username17

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 11:24 am

Bernie's coalition isn't even the white working class, I mean that's the coalition he probably wants, but most of those people are either voting Trump, Cruz, or Clinton (there are still some older working class democrats and union members).

Bernie's coalition is young people. He's winning the under 35s by a massive margin, one that resembles Hillary's margins with black people. There's a huge generational gap in the democratic coalition (there may be one in the Republican coalition too, haven't seen much reporting on that and there are considerably fewer young people in that coalition at all). Precisely why this age divide exists is unclear. It may be the influence of the internet, it may be a history of 16 years of Bush+obstruction blocked Obama government - if you're under thirty five you weren't an adult prior to the Bush administration and most of the Bill Clinton policies that still affect you were the crappy ones like the crime bill or welfare reform, it might be that because of student loan debt and other factors the millenials haven't recovered as well as others under Obama, it might be something else. It could even be the simple fact that people under 35 are, as a cohort, massively more comfortable with socialism and socialists than people over 35 - who tend to associate that word with the country Putin's currently ruling and its many nuclear missiles (is this rather ridiculous, yes it is, but it does matter).

The problem is, young people aren't enough. Also, turnout is down. Bernie is mobilizing young people but he's not mobilizing some vast number of them from the ranks of the non-voting - which for his political revolution to happen is absolutely necessary. That's a real shame actually. If Bernie could increase participation by left-of-center 18-35 Americans by even, oh, 15 percentage points not only would he win the primaries convincingly he'd smash the Republican nominee in the general.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:57 pm

Frank wrote:Got any more whitesplaining you want to do? Holy fuck Prak, you're a fucking idiot. Hillary Clinton wins the minority votes, by a lot, because she listens to what they have to say and says things that they like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMegFe2GUp4

But no, tell me more about how Hillary listens to black people and has a better idea of what would be good for them.

But the bottom line is that your belief that Bernie Sanders listens more to minorities and their desires than Hillary Clinton is the reason that Bernie Sanders is not winning with people of color. Consider Michigan. It was Hillary who first brought up the Flint Water Crisis in the debates, not Bernie. It was Hillary who first visited Flint, not Bernie. It was Hillary who first organized clean water deliveries for Flint residents, not Bernie. And Hillary won black people in Michigan by thirty fucking points. The fact that white Sanders supporters think that hammering about economic inequality by itself makes them more on the side of poor black people than Hillary Clinton is why their message has not and will not resonate in the black communities. Yes, black people are screwed over by the rigged economic system, but black people also get screwed over in countless other institutional ways that poor white people are gleefully complicit in.

I'm not arguing that Hillary (inexplicably) has the black vote. Whether she does or not does not change the fact that the only black people Hillary has listened to in her current campaign are ones with money

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:13 pm

Mask_De_H wrote:Also eat a dick for misrepresenting my position Kaelik. And choke on it for calling me a fascist when you bring out the long knives towards anyone who doesn't feel the Bern you tired fuckmothering windbag. Take your hyperbole and shove shove it so far up your ass you regurgitate it again like you have ever since you've been on this board. Maybe after the millionth time you excrete the same tired shtick something novel will get stuck in it?

I agree that one of is clearly a deluded asshole who attacks anyone who says anything bad about the candidate that we like. I just think you are wrong about which one.

For example, instead of "bringing out the long knives" against anyone who insulted Sanders, I have, repeatedly, on many occasions, including in the post you quoted, criticized Sanders. I am explicitly on record saying that if I get to pick the nominee I pick Clinton.

But yes, one of us is clearly responding irrationally to anyone criticizing our favorite candidate.

Mask_De_H wrote:And Prak: RobbyPants was saying that voters who wouldn't vote for Sanders but voted for Hillary would vote for Trump, which is so myopic and marginalizing of minorities (especially black people) it's actually offensive.

As DSM has pointed out, that is not even remotely what RobbyPants said. You clearly have no idea what any conversation is actually about, because you are too busy complaining that Sanders winning a state is somehow a magic death knell for the Democratic party because we aren't sufficiently unified behind our GodKing.

And that is you being a fuckboi. And I'm going to keep calling out Hillary Clinton supporters acting like fuckbois until they stop disproportionately acting like fuckbois. Or more likely when Sanders drops out, and they start acting like fuckbois to Trump supporters, because Clinton fans will never stop being fuckbois about this.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:27 pm

Prak wrote:
Frank wrote:Got any more whitesplaining you want to do? Holy fuck Prak, you're a fucking idiot. Hillary Clinton wins the minority votes, by a lot, because she listens to what they have to say and says things that they like.

Hillary is completely right. Anger isn't policy. If all you have is anger then the very best you can do is tear shit down and blow shit up. You're never going to make things better without actual coherent policies and plans.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:32 pm

...have you paid any attention at all to Black Lives Matter? They have more than anger, they have coherent policies and plans, and they want to know that the next president is going to listen to them and at least try to help them in their main policy of "cops should not walk away with a paid vacation after shooting a black child"

here's the video where you can see Hillary trying to look like she's listening but not really listening at all, and turning around with a "well, help yourselves, then we'll talk" sort of response.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:35 pm

Hillary's disrespect towards Sanders in the last debate has gotten my latino New Yorker friend's parents and so on siding against her now.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 4:14 pm

The funniest part is that Prak and Frank are right.

hyzmarca wrote:
Hillary is completely right. Anger isn't policy. If all you have is anger then the very best you can do is tear shit down and blow shit up. You're never going to make things better without actual coherent policies and plans.

You mean like this:

http://www.joincampaignzero.org/#campaign

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 4:26 pm

Mask_De_H wrote: And Prak: RobbyPants was saying that voters who wouldn't vote for Sanders but voted for Hillary would vote for Trump, which is so myopic and marginalizing of minorities (especially black people) it's actually offensive.

I never said that.

I said that the people I know anecdotally would never vote for Clinton (choosing Trump in a Clinton-Trump matchup), but would vote for Sanders over Trump in a Sander-Trump matchup.

So, basically, that one guy I mentioned who voted for Sanders did so because he doesn't want to vote for Trump in the general, and he'd rather vote for Sanders (the guy he cast his vote for) in the general out of the three of them.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 4:40 pm

Prak wrote: here's the video where you can see Hillary trying to look like she's listening but not really listening at all, and turning around with a "well, help yourselves, then we'll talk" sort of response.

First of all, those videos of Hillary Clinton talking tactics and sausage making got her a lot of African American votes. If you don't understand why that is, you have very little to contribute to a discussion of how to get minorities into the coalition. If you thought you were showing Hillary Clinton gaffing and losing more African Americans than she gained, you are dangerously out of touch.

Clinton's spiel about how you can't change every heart but you can change institutions was a big deal. The specific black guy she was saying it to did not want to hear that, but that was very definitely a powerful message to the African American community. And that is part of why she beat Sanders in the Mississippi black vote by more than eight to one.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 4:54 pm

Look, I admit that I have only a bare idea of why Clinton has so much of the black vote, but that video was specifically meant to show her not listening to black people in front of her, not necessarily gaffing.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:09 pm

Prak wrote:Look, I admit that I have only a bare idea of why Clinton has so much of the black vote, but that video was specifically meant to show her not listening to black people in front of her, not necessarily gaffing.

Here is quick tip: Black people are not monolithic, well that applies to everyone.

Just because she was not "listening" to these people doesn't mean that the message she was giving didn't resonate with others.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:09 pm

Prak wrote:Look, I admit that I have only a bare idea of why Clinton has so much of the black vote, but that video was specifically meant to show her not listening to black people in front of her, not necessarily gaffing.

If you think that is what it showed, you haven't been listening to black to black people very well.

What that video showed was a couple of amateur lightweights asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?" questions and having Hillary Clinton take them to fucking school about the long run goals and tactics for getting human rights, civil rights, economic opportunity, and basic respect for African Americans. I mean seriously, he actually asked her "What has changed in your heart?" The fact that she didn't get up and walk the fuck away at that point is more patience than you can possibly expect from anybody.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:28 pm

What about the video of the young black woman being ushered away?

Look, I just look at the Dem side of this election, and I see one candidate who is basically popular with blacks because she's associated with men that black people like (Bill, Obama), and another who was on the civil rights front lines in the sixties when the first was a young republican. One tells the current "big" movement that concerns itself with black issues, amateur or not, to "learn about real politics" or whatever, and the other gives them podium time and listens to their concerns.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:44 pm

Prak wrote:What about the video of the young black woman being ushered away?

Look, I just look at the Dem side of this election, and I see one candidate who is basically popular with blacks because she's associated with men that black people like (Bill, Obama), and another who was on the civil rights front lines in the sixties when the first was a young republican. One tells the current "big" movement that concerns itself with black issues, amateur or not, to "learn about real politics" or whatever, and the other gives them podium time and listens to their concerns.

Holy shit, Hillary literally told them how to get a bigger voice, which was done with Campaign Zero. Yes, Bernie was on the front lines, but he also hasn't gotten much done because he hasn't been able to get people together. He talks a good game, but so far he hasn't shown to get things done.

This is coming from someone that likes Bernie more than Hillary.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:48 pm

Prak wrote:Look, I just look at the Dem side of this election, and I see one candidate who is basically popular with blacks because she's associated with men that black people like (Bill, Obama), and another who was on the civil rights front lines in the sixties when the first was a young republican.

If that is what you see, you need to open your eyes harder. For starters, being a Republican before 1968 doesn't mean that you were not on the side of black people. Remember that George Wallace did his Segregationist bid for president in 1968 as a splinter faction from the Democratic Party. 1968 was the watershed when the racists all got kicked out of the Democratic Party. Switching party affiliation to the Democratic Party in 1968 is actually praiseworthy.

-Username17