US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3121

On March 03 2016 01:13 GreenHorizons wrote:


Let's not pretend the messenger doesn't play a role. Nate Silver himself tried to explain away Trump for months before he finally put out the exasperated tweet about being completely wrong. The targets are a nice general guide but it's not the mathematic Rosetta Stone for the election that some may really want it to be.

If Sanders gets 30-40% of Black/Hispanic voters in some states that changes a lot. It's not going to be easy, but it wasn't easy going from 5% to 50% nationally either (folks were just as confident that wouldn't happen too).

He's about 100 behind where it says he should be. That's not as insurmountable as you would like to make it sound, particularly if Hillary continues to lose support with minorities (remember Sanders started in the single digits with black and Hispanic voters).

On March 03 2016 01:48 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm not going to hash out why I disagree with the arguments about Sanders performance to date right now since several were made and I'm done for now, but I do disagree and I could rattle of some reasons but this is just pointless.

We'll see where we are after the next few races and see what we think.

Just so we're clear, what would you all have to see in among Black/Hispanic voters for Bernie's chances to change in your eyes? 30%, 40%, 60%, somewhere in between?

On March 03 2016 01:41 oneofthem wrote:
im having a lot of fun with the mass. exit polls

some choice nuggets,

+ Show Spoiler +

On March 03 2016 01:18 oneofthem wrote:
it's incredibly difficult for sanders unless hillary has some unexpected catastrophe.

moreover, it is instrumental for sanders and hillary to work together to craft a coalition with enthusiasm. if sanders or his followers persists in this 'rather trump than hillary!!' idiocy they are simply what i said, more interested in protest than governance.

regardless of their policy position i'd never feel good handing either a national campaign or the federal government over to people without political common sense. the amount of reckless shit sandernistas could do is seemingly unlimited.

On March 03 2016 01:48 oneofthem wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008#Super_Tuesday

seems like nbc writer did goof

On March 03 2016 01:50 Souma wrote:

Aaand what's wrong with wanting to protest against the DNC?

I'd rather see Trump win the Presidency over Hillary and watch the country burn than carry on the same nonsense for another 8+ years just because people who have just enough to be comfortable with their lives are okay with waiting for actual systemic change while millions struggle. It wasn't political common sense when the country went to war with one another to free the slaves, but similarly there always comes a point when it's much more beneficial for the long run to meet catastrophe head on than to crawl along the trodden road of minuscule change when a significant amount of lives are in the balance (oh look at this radical comparing the civil war to the present, stfu it's an analogy).

Say Hillary gets the nomination and a decent amount of young voters do go out and vote for her and she wins the Presidency (which I think is the much more likely case than Trump winning, because Trump is dumb enough to scare enough people to show up to vote against him on the Democratic side). The only policies she'll be able to get through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and filibustered Senate will be policies the Republicans want, and she will of course compromise and I have no doubt in my mind she will pass bills with high "unintended" consequences as has been the history of her career. Come midterms she will meet the same fate as Obama and not be able to drum up enough support to defend against another Republican wave, as she is less inspiring than Obama. The referendum that we all thought Obama had after his reelection was not even enough to make the Republicans buckle. So for all this talk about "Sandernistas" not being realistic about change, the naivete of the "realist" is pretty hilarious.

It's even funnier when the "Bernie bros" are being blamed for turning their backs on the corruption of a party that disables them to capitalize on one of the most terrible parties in the history of the nation which in turn causes the "Bernistas" to plea to an outsider to bring them a semblance of decency within politics.

Next time you want someone to vote a certain way, it might be a good idea to not kick them in the balls first. Me voting for the DNC now (which I didn't do in 2012 anyway) would be akin to me lending money to someone who conned me.

On March 03 2016 01:50 Souma wrote:

Aaand what's wrong with wanting to protest against the DNC?

I'd rather see Trump win the Presidency over Hillary and watch the country burn than carry on the same nonsense for another 8+ years just because people who have just enough to be comfortable with their lives are okay with waiting for actual systemic change while millions struggle. It wasn't political common sense when the country went to war with one another to free the slaves, but similarly there always comes a point when it's much more beneficial for the long run to meet catastrophe head on than to crawl along the trodden road of minuscule change when a significant amount of lives are in the balance (oh look at this radical comparing the civil war to the present, stfu it's an analogy).

Say Hillary gets the nomination and a decent amount of young voters do go out and vote for her and she wins the Presidency (which I think is the much more likely case than Trump winning, because Trump is dumb enough to scare enough people to show up to vote against him on the Democratic side). The only policies she'll be able to get through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and filibustered Senate will be policies the Republicans want, and she will of course compromise and I have no doubt in my mind she will pass bills with high "unintended" consequences as has been the history of her career. Come midterms she will meet the same fate as Obama and not be able to drum up enough support to defend against another Republican wave, as she is less inspiring than Obama. The referendum that we all thought Obama had after his reelection was not even enough to make the Republicans buckle. So for all this talk about "Sandernistas" not being realistic about change, the naivete of the "realist" is pretty hilarious.

It's even funnier when the "Bernie bros" are being blamed for turning their backs on the corruption of a party that disables them to capitalize on one of the most terrible parties in the history of the nation which in turn causes the "Bernistas" to plea to an outsider to bring them a semblance of decency within politics.

Next time you want someone to vote a certain way, it might be a good idea to not kick them in the balls first. Me voting for the DNC now (which I didn't do in 2012 anyway) would be akin to me lending money to someone who conned me.

On March 03 2016 01:55 oneofthem wrote:
because this is also the election where democrats can take the congress. they will get obliterated in the midterm election.

there are incrediblly high stakes just due to how radically unpredictable and rash trump is. i've talked about trade and whatnot. moreover, hillary has always been a tough fighter for the less privileged and i have faith in her to balance that fight with not pushing for bad policy.

On March 03 2016 01:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:


But can you really compare turnouts on super tuesday or earlier with the turnout in later stages? Because yeah, that NBC article compares state by state - but it seems intuitive to me that more people will vote the earlier a primary or caucus takes place because the early states are defined as more important?

I'm not disputing the idea that republicans in general seem very energized though, and my impression is basically that a lot of Trump's votes comes from earlier non-voters. Remove Trump from the equation, and you basically get 2008 numbers for republicans. Additionally, 2008 saw a very energized democratic voter base, so it intuitively makes sense that you might have had some decline there as well.

On March 03 2016 01:50 ticklishmusic wrote:
xDaunt has a point about Trump basically signalling he is the alpha male, which is actually a pretty important thing in business and no doubt contributed to his success (though one could question if he had started off without a massive fortune to back his bluster if he would have been nearly as successful). I've seen a ton of people similar to him my age, but very few senior level people (like MD's, C-suite, partners and the like) who act like him. That's anecdotal experience though.

I wouldn't conflate that with leadership or perhaps more importantly restraint.Trump has other qualities, like an instinct (or perhaps strategic knack) for tapping into the zeitgeist and he's no doubt far smarter than the average American. Still, Trump would probably have the Chinese and Russians leave a meeting joking (or not) about nuking him/us. I think we saw an attempt by Trump to seem more presidential at his press conference last night-- it started off ok, but became pretty erratic and then degenerated into the usual namecalling and false magnanimity.

On March 03 2016 01:58 corumjhaelen wrote:

Tough fighter for the less privilegied, and you were laughing about the repartition if votes between Sanders and Clinton depending on education.
You keep on givin'

On March 03 2016 01:59 oneofthem wrote:

that's rather a reflection of information/knowledge. but if we want to poll amherst english majors maybe it's a better reflection of privilege? bernie would win that one hands down

On March 03 2016 01:55 oneofthem wrote:
because this is also the election where democrats can take the congress. they will get obliterated in the midterm election.

there are incrediblly high stakes just due to how radically unpredictable and rash trump is. i've talked about trade and whatnot. moreover, hillary has always been a tough fighter for the less privileged and i have faith in her to balance that fight with not pushing for bad policy.