Election 2016

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 10:11 pm

Koumei wrote:Anyway, what exactly is mansplaining?

The word people use when they want to sound as stupid people who say "mangina" unironically without quite actually being that stupid.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 10:13 pm

To explain from a male point of view to a woman, usually condescendingly, usually unknowingly so.

Edit: the Urban Dictionary page on it is a kind of amusing demonstration of mansplaining, actually.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 10:59 pm

ishy wrote:
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:and Bernie may be better in policies for women than Hillary. Bernie is into paid parental leave for everyone, Hillary is not.
Are you talking about paid parental leave for women (the standard outside the united states) or paid parental leave for everyone (including men)?

I think Bernie is into leave for both genders when they have a kid, but I'd have to double-check. Either way it is a good thing (and if the US was ever more progressive than other countries that would be fucking amazing).

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 2:58 am

Prak wrote:Edit: the Urban Dictionary page on it is a kind of amusing demonstration of mansplaining, actually.

There are times when Urban Dictionary makes me itch. That page reads like a "BOTH SIDES!" kinda thing.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 4:52 am

Shrapnel wrote:
Prak wrote:Edit: the Urban Dictionary page on it is a kind of amusing demonstration of mansplaining, actually.
There are times when Urban Dictionary makes me itch. That page reads like a "BOTH SIDES!" kinda thing.

That's tamer than any Youtube comments section. Obviously you need to read more terrible comments sections and then you won't itch as much.

I love all the "no seriously guys women aren't paid less than men" entries, and the attempt to portray the anti-vaxxer movement as a straw feminist thing somehow. Personally I'd imagine MRA types to consider vaccines an attempt to feminize boys somehow. And turn girls into lesbians.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 4:57 am

...I would be ok with that.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 6:09 am

Hiram McDaniels wrote:I wish I could chew popcorn and watch idiots bloviate with detached amusement, but instead I worry that we'll be treated to 8 more years of belligerent obstructionism in congress and the senate if Hilary is elected. Then again, I think Hilary is less likely to take that sort of thing lying down.

Speaking as a foreigner, but I don't think there's any real chance of the US Republican party regaining sanity if the Democrats chose and got elected an elderly white male president. It would take something else at this point to make that change.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 4:52 pm

People who gain all that power, and control all that wealth, they are not insane. It's probably impossible to be a Republican president at this point, because their base doesn't have a consistent set of beliefs and the internet shows your California speech to the Ohio crowds and then you're fucked. Hell, the anti-poor shit Romney had to feed to his rich-ass privileged and ignorant donors got out last time.

But the party itself is doing fine, because the California Republicans and Ohio Republicans campaign on different platforms and then party-vote for the same things most of the time (at least in the Obama years). They're not insane, they're in control of the biggest budget on the planet. Insane people in the US live in the street and beg.

They just get a lot of votes from people who want opposite things to each other. Small government and more pork. Less spending and more Medicare and farm subsidies. Surpluses and lower taxes. No bailouts and jobs for everyone. You can't give all those speeches and be president, but they could win super-majorities in both houses under another Clinton. Doesn't matter who's President then.

Wouldn't even be able to appoint any decent SCJs, which y'all desperately need.

It's an interesting system really. You get two years of the president maybe having some power, and then six years of bullshit because the executive loses the majority and has to fuck around starting wars and shit to have anything to fill in their day.

Post by **fbmf** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Under what circumstances would Bernie Sanders actually have a legitimate chance? I'm thinking perhaps if the Republican Candidate is batshit crazy enough...

Game On,
fbmf

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:37 pm

fbmf wrote:Under what circumstances would Bernie Sanders actually have a legitimate chance? I'm thinking perhaps if the Republican Candidate is batshit crazy enough...

Game On,
fbmf

Bernie Sanders has very little appeal among minority voters. It's not that he doesn't mean well or that he doesn't take the right stand on issues like the Confederate Flag. He does. He just doesn't really have a lot of appeal among the non-white population. He's a senator from Vermont, and he just doesn't have enough political connections in the various ethnic communities to have made much of an impression. Bernie Sanders is popular with white liberals like me, and um... that's it.

So he can do well in New Hampshire. Less than 8% of people in New Hanpshire are non-white. He might even win in New Hampshire. But there's no path to the presidency that doesn't involve mobilizing the Obama coalition in the general election. Obama beat Romney among Hispanics by 44 points, among Asians by 47 points, and among black people by a ridiculously unheard of 87 points. Black people chose Obama over Romney for the question "Who should be president?" by more than they choose Yes over No for the question "Would you like free fried chicken?" And the democrats win presidential elections by pulling those kinds of numbers. Romney was a pathological liar whose plans would be economic devastation for most of the country, but he still got almost sixty percent of the white vote. The Republicans could nominate an empty haircut with a creepy grin and they'd still get a near super majority of white voters - because they did and they did.

Now Sanders realizes this, because he's not a fucking ego-maniacal moron who is going to be caught without a concession speech on election day. And he is even at this moment working to expand his minority appeal. But even though it's a year and change before the election, the time to get started on that project was 4 years ago when Hillary Clinton was taking photos with the president of Brasil.

Bernie Sanders would need to work really fast to put together the name recognition in the non-white coalition demographics to have a chance in the general election. I mean, right now he could actually win the primary in New Hampshire (>92% white) and Iowa (>91% white), but there's no way he's going to win over Hillary in states with brown people in them, she has an actual DREAMer on her campaign staff.

If Clinton drops out of the race because of a heart attack or a scandal or something (and I mean a real scandal, not more Benghazi crap or revelations about her emailing people asking if the fax machine was still broken), then Bernie is the nominee by default. You are not going to vote for Webb or Chafee and neither am I. It then becomes a race to put the Obama and Clinton machines behind Sanders as quickly as possible to get minorities and women more excited about him. Probably need a charismatic minority woman to be VP. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris isn't a senator yet.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:32 pm

Race for 10

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 3:45 am

It's like a reality TV show. Which ten will move to the next level of competition?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:18 am

Maj wrote:It's like a reality TV show. Which ten will move to the next level of competition?

The best part is that if when someone has their "oops" moment in the first debate and their poll numbers tank, there's a pool of six understudies to draw from to replace them. So for example, in the latest poll there's a three way tie for the 9th and tenth slot between Cruz, Christie, and Santorum. Now in the coming polls between now and August 4th, one of those clowns is going to do worse than the other two, because of statistical noise if nothing else (all three managed to gain three percent in the 6/26 poll by CNN, and the margin of error is three percent).

Now whichever one of those assholes has to stay outside in the rain during the first Republican Debate is still going to have a body of polling data through July that puts them in near contention. So if they stay in the statistical noise range of getting about 3% and one of the guys who actually got on the stage did badly enough to lose points on the polls running the month after the first debate, then they swap out in the second debate.

The format demands a performance by 10 clowns. Getting eliminated just means that the next performance gets a different clown.

-Username17

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 5:28 pm

Okay, I knew this guy was a straight up joke candidate as soon as I read his "educational credentials", but this is hilarious:

his campaign website wrote:In what he calls “a gift for children”, Bickelmeyer proposes an orbital weapons platform that would function by the collection of solar radiation, which would then be magnified and directed to the surface as a lethal beam.

Here, let's do him a favor and share this sort of thing around:

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 5:32 pm

The ten-clowns debate is going to be hilarious.

We've had three-to-five candidates in debates here in the far north, where all candidtates were credible people, and they were still a mess.

Short of forcing the candidates into soundproof booths and trotting them out as needed, there is no way the debate will be anything but seven crazies shouting random crap to get noticed and drowning out the three old white dudes trying to pacify the base while not alienating everybody else.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 5:33 pm

Holy hell, that's like some Reagan Star Wars era bullshit.

... Then again, I would love to have an orbital weapons platform raining down hot plasmatic beamy-ness on my damn noisy neighbors next door.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:47 pm

An Orbital Weapons Platform is only a gift to children if they let children fire it.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 12:20 am

What the fuck is Trump's problem?

I mean, yes, I know that he's a powerful and rich asshole and he has to appeal to powerless and ressentiment filled assholes if he wants to even have a proper GOP Presidential book tour. I get that. Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Huckabee, yadda yadda.

But why is he trying to savage Jeb Bush, the establishment candidate, with anti-immigrant dog whistles aimed at his wife? Hell, that's not even dog whistles at this point, that's like a bullhorn. That doesn't even make sense from a Xanatos-ish Faux-Sister Souljah perspective (if you buy into conspiracy theories) because all it's doing is riling up the crazies against the establishment candidate. Who, exactly, benefits from this? Maybe Scott Walker, but it's too convoluted. Certainly not Trump or Bush. Even if Trump manages to destroy Jeb Bush all that will do is cycle Rubio or Walker in. And Walker is much more poised to capture the asshole vote than Trump.

Let's see how the GOP handles Trump over the next month. If they don't cut him down I think that will be ample evidence, in addition to what's happened over the past 4-5 years, that the Masters of the Universe have fully lost control of their rabid dogs.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:31 am

Trump doesn't give a shit about politics, he just wants to grift. Burning the GOP's last bridges with latinos is a dreadful political strategy, but it's great grifting. His plan seems to be saying racist things in public and collecting the money that racists throw at him – there are a lot of racists, that's probably going to be a lot of money. Sure, he's never going to get another TV show except within the Murdoch media empire, but so what? That's a pretty big empire, and his audience base grows every time he claims all brown people are pedophiles or whatever he's up to by now.

Yes, the immigration conversation is a lose-lose one for the Republicans, and by forcing that conversation, Trump is probably accelerating their descent into regional party status pretty hard. But he was never in it to win anything except his own personal lottery jackpot.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:32 am

Trump is in it to make money. Trump makes money by getting the most attention. Trump gets the most attention by saying the most outrageous things. He's basically following the Ann Coulter guidebook.

Or, and this is where Poe's Law comes in, he's actually a megalomaniac that sincerely believes what he's saying, and is aiming terrible jabs at Jeb Bush because he sees Jeb as his greatest competition. The thing is, there's literally no way to intuit Trump's true motivation from his actions. The things that he would do as a jaded asshat just in it for the benjamins and the things that he would do as a devout Republican looking to secure the nomination are basically indistinguishable at this point; the bar of realpolitik has been set so low that there's not a lot a candidate can't do and remain in the race at this point. If Mike Huckabee was caught with child porn on his laptop tonight, people would still give him money.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:43 am

I'm, like, 99.99999999999999999999% certain that Trump doesn't actually care about winning the presidency. He would take a pay cut as he would have to put someone else in charge of his business and focus on pretending to be the leader of the free world, and could exert more control through bribery lobbying bribery, coercion campaign contributions coercion and market manipulation.

He's not playing to win, he's playing to get attention, because it's an investment.

Edit: Also because it's a way for him to get free money that he doesn't have to produce anything for. Hell, he's basically paid to market himself. Shows call him up and probably pay a speaking fee just to have him come on and spew shit about his stupid ideas, and Conservative morons throw money at him without buying his shit.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 2:16 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Sure, he's never going to get another TV show except within the Murdoch media empire, but so what? That's a pretty big empire, and his audience base grows every time he claims all brown people are pedophiles or whatever he's up to by now.

See, that's what gets me. I could understand this strategy from Palin or even Cain, but Trump's net worth is way more than a few dinky shows on Fox News could get him. Even if he becomes the poster boy for the cranky right-wing dead enders, how does this grow his pie higher than what it already is? Being blacklisted on ABC, NBC, and the non-News part of Fox would cut into his potential finances more than just doing some low-grade grift.

O'Reilly's net worth doesn't even crack a hundred million. Trump makes more than forty times that. I guess he could use his fame on Fox or whatever to hawk new business ventures, but is the surge in support from the American mouthbreathers worth alienating the rest of the world? I doubt it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 2:26 am

I'm pretty sure Donald Trump would [EDITED]-punch his own grandmother for a dollar.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:20 am

Luck can make you a billionaire, but it takes a super-self-important asshole to stay a billionaire. I'd be ashamed if I had so much wealth and wasn't actively using it to help other people.

Anywho, I think Trump believes at least some of what he preaches and figures since he's rich that he's the one to run America. Extremely wealthy people live in almost literally a different world, and that can make people believe all sorts of stupid shit. Like that they have not just an entitlement, but a divine mandate. He may believe he can win, or maybe he just wants to be kingmaker and pick the winner so that he can get policies he wants instituted.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:44 am

Oh, I don't doubt he believes the shit he spews, I just think that he literally doesn't care what people think about it, only what the effect on his bottom line is.