US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6194

On November 11 2016 16:21 plasmidghost wrote:
I hope Ron Paul can become Treasury Secretary and take a sledgehammer to the Fed

On November 11 2016 15:58 Jaaaaasper wrote:
Even this year Democrats won the popular vote, they don't have to do abusrd gerrymandering to have a serious wave effect when fixed districts take effect. They do need to get young voters to the polls with out going far enough to the left to lose votes from the center. That means less Bernie and more populists with workable policies.


Districts are meant to be based on population, not geography. Thats why Alaska has fewer districts than Maryland

On November 11 2016 16:25 CorsairHero wrote:

what do you want the fed to do?

On November 11 2016 14:09 GreenHorizons wrote:

The most upsetting thing for me and many other people on the left isn't him (or most/all? of the conservatives here) not saying anything about people like Clark calling for torches if he lost. It's how right he is about a group of protesters, that even I seriously question.

Sexism. The media. James Comey.

On a call with surrogates Thursday afternoon, top advisers John Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri pinned blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss on a host of uncontrollable headwinds that ultimately felled a well-run campaign that executed a sensible strategy, and a soldier of a candidate who appealed to the broadest coalition of voters in the country.

They shot down questions about whether they should have run a more populist campaign with a greater appeal to angry white voters, pointing to exit polls that showed Clinton beat Trump on the issue of the economy. They explained that internal polling from May showed that attacking Trump on the issue of temperament was a more effective message.

They offered no apology for the unexpected loss.

On the call, Clinton surrogates who have supported the campaign from the outside for the past 18 months offered their thanks to the Brooklyn-based operatives. The mood was light and supportive, with Podesta and Palmieri expressing gratitude for everyone’s hard work.

But some people on the call were seething.

“They are saying they did nothing wrong, which is ridiculous,” said one Clinton surrogate. “She was the wrong messenger and everyone misjudged how pissed working class people were.”

But in general, Bill Clinton’s viewpoint of fighting for the working class white voters was often dismissed with a hand wave by senior members of the team as a personal vendetta to win back the voters who elected him, from a talented but aging politician who simply refused to accept the new Democratic map. At a meeting ahead of the convention at which aides presented to both Clintons the “Stronger Together” framework for the general election, senior strategist Joel Benenson told the former president bluntly that the voters from West Virginia were never coming back to his party

On November 11 2016 16:30 Introvert wrote:
I am, however, curious to see if picking more radical leftists into power in the Democrat party is a working strategy. Just as many, you yourself included, mock the idea that the Republicans need a more conservative candidate, I'm not sure the Democrats need a more progressive one.

In the October 2016 wave of the ongoing Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics study, we asked respondents to place Trump and Clinton on a 7 point ideology scale. On average, voters put Trump 0.64 points to their right — and put Clinton a whopping 1.88 to their left. Put differently, the average voter saw Clinton as decisively to their left, while ranking Trump’s views as closer to their own. They also had more uncertainty about exactly where to place Trump. Should he win, one of the challenges he will likely face is that he may be forced to clarify just how conservative he is through the process of governing.

On November 11 2016 16:30 Introvert wrote:


Just to snipe this bit out. For whatever it matters, conservative twitter and elesewhere roundly mocked Clarke for that, and don't like the idea of him having a cabinet post. He's viewed as being right on some things but also a nut, thought that's hardly universal.

But I don't do saw much Republican bashing here because this thread does it for me. I'm not inclined to pile on, especially when the hyperbole kicks in.

I am, however, curious to see if picking more radical leftists into power in the Democrat party is a working strategy. Just as many, you yourself included, mock the idea that the Republicans need a more conservative candidate, I'm not sure the Democrats need a more progressive one. They certainly need less Clintonism though, that's pretty obvious.

On November 11 2016 17:51 TheYango wrote:
Clinton supporters made the argument for the entire election cycle that she was working toward the same things he was, just that she was a better messenger for them.

The same argument works in reverse--from a pure policy perspective, Bernie isn't particularly more radical than Clinton, he was just easier to trust in terms of actually working toward said goals.

On November 11 2016 17:51 TheYango wrote:
Clinton supporters made the argument for the entire election cycle that she was working toward the same things he was, just that she was a better messenger for them.

The same argument works in reverse--from a pure policy perspective, Bernie isn't particularly more radical than Clinton, he was just easier to trust in terms of actually working toward said goals.

On November 11 2016 18:03 Dan HH wrote:

And who knows, maybe Clinton would have won if she stayed more centrist instead of pandering to Bernie's base who she failed to win over significantly more than she would have done by default.

On the other hand if Bernie would have won, as far as I'm concerned it would have been despite being a social-dem rather than because of it. His biggest appeal was the anti-establishment element, electoral reform and trade barriers in particular. The latter being the main reason Trump got elected.

On November 11 2016 18:14 GreenHorizons wrote:


I don't necessarily disagree with that, though I would certainly add being the most trusted and favorable candidate in the race would have helped quite a bit too. One of Hillary's major problems was that between Trump, the Media, and Hillary, Trump was the most trusted. That simply wouldn't have been the case with Bernie.
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Women across the country are rushing to get IUDs. Or at least, they're tweeting about rushing to get long-term birth control, according to a surge of messages on social media.

They're concerned that the Trump administration might end Obamacare provisions that require insurers to cover intrauterine devices (IUDs) and other contraception, and cut funding for abortion and reproductive health overall. So women are looking for long-term solutions like IUDs: ones that will outlast a presidency. But they may have a bit more time than they think.

They're not just talking about it on social media; they're looking for more information, too. Google Trends showed a massive peak searches for "IUD" "birth control" and "Planned Parenthood" on Wednesday.

The online conversations have left a lot of women wondering how much longer their birth control will be available without copays, as is required under the Affordable Care Act. The short answer is that while memes say women should get their IUDs before Inauguration Day, things might not be quite so urgent. The wheels of government take time to turn, so no one will lose their coverage on Day 1 of the Trump administration.

But women are already acting.

"I booked an appointment with my gynecologist the instant North Carolina went red," Kate McPhillips, a young professional in Boston, posted to her Facebook page Wednesday morning. She's considering the switch to a copper IUD, the type that lasts for 10 to 12 years, "just in case the unimaginable happens."

Dr. Anne Davis, consulting medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health and an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, says that on Wednesday six women called "in a panic" to schedule IUD appointments. Normally, only about one woman calls to book an IUD insertion each day.

"And these women weren't just looking for an appointment somewhere in the future. They wanted one right now. They were very, very scared and distraught that they would lose access to birth control," Davis says.

Others who work in women's' health and reproduction are very concerned about the long-term changes a Trump presidency might bring. "It's an understatement to say that we're nervous," says Dr. Eve Espey, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.

On November 11 2016 19:01 Swisslink wrote:


Was definitely one of the reasons. For me though, it just seemed like Hillary had little appeal to the voters. And here I see a huge issue with the entire Hillary campaign: Even the democratic campaign was focused on Trump. Trump did this, Trump did that, Trump is not fit to be president, Trump is a racist, Trump is a sexist, Trump has a bad temper, Trump cannot handle his Twitter, how should he handle the nuclear code, Trump, Trump, Trump all over the place. After watching lots of campaign adds, the debates and different rallies I knew way more about why Trump should not be elected than why Hillary should be elected.

Of course there were people that voted for her because they liked her. But I feel like lots of people only voted for Hillary because they really disliked Trump and wanted to avoid a Trump presidency. This might give some votes too, but I doubt the mobilizing power was even remotely as big as it could have been with Bernie Sanders as candidate.