In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
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.
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.
Perhaps it's not that we need more progressive candidates (as in "radical leftist") Democrats just need to do a better job of representing the ~75% of the population that didn't vote for Clinton. While polling is limited, most of what Bernie was proposing (call it radical if one wants) was actually supported by a majority of people. There were more than enough of those that progressive Dems could fight for and win, so long as they really fought since it's the majority opinion, many by pretty significant margins.
It shouldn't go without saying a lot of the reason many people on the left think Sanders proposals weren't popular was because they believed the lies coming out of the Clinton/Republican campaigns. We all know the WP wasn't Bernie central and even they couldn't deny it on several issues.
EDIT: You may remember when it was noticed that it's establishment politicians who are the opponents to these types of proposals, the argument shifted toward "he won't be able to get it done anyway", which obviously falls apart if the representation matches the public opinion.
So the idea that Berniecrats would be too radical to win, I don't think matches the popularity of the positions they support.
You know what, I saw this or similar debates in the primary season, and how that went. Nvm.
Burn all that political capital in this first few days.
During the campaign, coverage of the issues was blotted out by coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Donald Trump’s broad suite of sociopathic tendencies. And of the issues that did receive any attention, a conspicuously missing one was Paul Ryan’s plan to push Medicare beneficiaries into private health insurance. Reporters just assumed that, since Trump never talked about it, it won’t happen. But Paul Ryan still wants it to happen. And in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Ryan said Medicare privatization is on.
“Your solution has always been to put things together, including entitlement reform,” asks Baier, using Republican code for privatizing Medicare. Ryan replies, “If you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. … Medicare has got some serious issues because of Obamacare. So those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.”
Ryan tells Baier, “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” This is false. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of the truth. The Medicare trust fund has been extended 11 years as a result of the passage of Obamacare, whose cost reforms have helped bring health care inflation to historic lows. It is also untrue that repealing Obamacare requires changing traditional Medicare. But Ryan clearly believes he needs to make this claim in order to sell his plan, or probably even to convince fellow Republicans to support it.
On November 11 2016 15:13 Jaaaaasper wrote: The DNC needs to focus on winning state houses and state legislatures in 2020 to undo gerrymadnering with out doing it themselves and teaching millennials that not voting or voting third party is the same thing as voting republican. And they really need to make people realize that Berniecrats aren't electable. Taking the party way to the left is just going to lose elections. Honestly Clinton going high against bernie left the false impression that he was electable, leading to a whole bunch of angry protest votes or non votes. If she'd run adds about Bernie thinking all women have gang rape fantasies or that abstinence causes cancer, I highly doubt we'd have president Trump or people thinking that Bernie would have won if we did. Progressives didn't show up to defend Obama's legacy or the Supreme Court, conservatives showed up to kill it and hold the supreme court. In the end thats what did this.
Yup,the democrats are not willing to accept reality. In 4 years they will come with a candidate similar to Clinton and loose again,wondering afterwards how it could have been possible.
In 2016, millennials surpassed baby boomers as the nation's largest living generation. Yet for all that voting power, millennials are still woefully under-represented in Washington. Donald Trump just replaced Ronald Reagan as the oldest elected president in history, and in the new Congress, baby boomers will outnumber millennials 50 to one.
About a third of millennials (age 19-35 years) aren't old enough to run for the House, since you need to be at least 25 years old to hold office. But if the 435 members of the House were apportioned to match the generational divide of everyone who meets the age requirement, millennials would hold 97 seats, about a quarter of the chamber.
Only five millennials were elected Tuesday, up from three in the last Congress. In Senate races, both millennial candidates, Patrick Murphy, 33, of Florida and Jason Kander, 35, of Missouri, lost bids to become the nation's first millennial senators. Among the age groups, generation X made the biggest House gain, picking up 11 more seats than it held in the previous Congress. Baby boomers continue to control a majority of the 435 seats. Congress may be slow to look like the rest of America
Despite an approval rate hovering at about 15 percent, Congress remains a mostly static body that re-elects incumbents 95 percent of the time. This is one reason why House members are disproportionately older—the median age is 58 years—than the voters they represent.
During the campaign, coverage of the issues was blotted out by coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Donald Trump’s broad suite of sociopathic tendencies. And of the issues that did receive any attention, a conspicuously missing one was Paul Ryan’s plan to push Medicare beneficiaries into private health insurance. Reporters just assumed that, since Trump never talked about it, it won’t happen. But Paul Ryan still wants it to happen. And in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Ryan said Medicare privatization is on.
“Your solution has always been to put things together, including entitlement reform,” asks Baier, using Republican code for privatizing Medicare. Ryan replies, “If you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. … Medicare has got some serious issues because of Obamacare. So those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.”
Ryan tells Baier, “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” This is false. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of the truth. The Medicare trust fund has been extended 11 years as a result of the passage of Obamacare, whose cost reforms have helped bring health care inflation to historic lows. It is also untrue that repealing Obamacare requires changing traditional Medicare. But Ryan clearly believes he needs to make this claim in order to sell his plan, or probably even to convince fellow Republicans to support it.
Gee Ryan, Maybe medicare wouldn't have looked so bad if all the Republican states didn't deny the medicare extension...
Scoring political points by purposefully increasing the plight of the poor really is low and I'm saddened that the Republicans have not been called out on it more.
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.
On November 11 2016 15:57 Wegandi wrote:
On November 11 2016 15:53 Mysticesper wrote: they need to win state legislatures who rewrite the districts after the 2020 census. Thats how the repubs did it in 2010. You got some funky ass districts in states like South Carolina (or north) and the like because of that. It would be hard to gain control of the house without winning state legislatures first,.
The reason the Dems will continue to lose the House isn't because of gerrymandering, it's because 90% of the Dems live within a small radius of each other. The Dems are so tilted to large cities that they've pretty much isolated themselves from 90% of the country. Should look at a distribution on a map sometime.
Districts are meant to be based on population, not geography. Thats why Alaska has fewer districts than Maryland
Wegandi's right though. gerrymandering favors Republicans, but not by enough to swing the house. As has been pointed out a lot, Republicans also went too far in some cases and actually gave themselves districts with people they'd rather be more evenly dispersed so they were less determinant of outcomes.
Democrats problem at the local level is the same reason they won the popular vote but lost the EC by a lot. It's a distribution thing, combined with an archaic system designed to elevate the opinion of slave owning states. That Democrats couldn't care less when it favors them helps me understand why all these outlets feel the need to remind (or tell people for the first time) that the EC is leftover from trying to help the south basically count like their slaves just voted the same as their masters.
It had 91 electors when it started, we went from that to 538 without figuring out the reason we had it (the legitimate one had to do with a lack of clarity in the original constitution's presidential/VP elections) had no modern application (more than 100 years ago).
The only reason it's coming up now is because they thought it was a lock for Dems for the foreseeable future, and they figured out demographics don't matter if you put up a candidate that can't get their base to show up (that's on the candidate, not the base, people need to stop with that).
Gerrymandering hugely benefits the republicans,at least that is how the media here explains it. Without gerrymandering the republicans would be unable to win any election. I seriously wonder why the democrats accept this in the first place,it is extremely undemocratic. Maybe they want to keep the 2 party system in place. If the republicans would fall behind to much then it would make room for a new party.
Its funny btw, trumps main concern seems to be healthcare. Every president ever had his own health care project,its almost as if it is the only thing that the president is allowed to really decide upon.
On November 11 2016 14:43 plasmidghost wrote: Has any news agency officially called Michigan?
Sportsbet paid me out on my Michigan/Republican bet for what it's worth. My NH bet is still pending but it looks like NH will go to Hillary by a few thousand votes.
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.
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.
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. .
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.
They sold us that Trump was the end of the world knowing full well they didn't believe it and people could smell the bullshit from a mile away. Will Trump be bad? If he does/tries what he says, probably. Is Trump dangerous for the world? Every person in power thinks less so than actually preventing him from being president.
Just because something was held up by true as the media, it doesn't make it untrue by definition. His stance on climate change, as a president with a government that will follow it, IS dangerous for the world. There is no real way around that.
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.
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.
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. .
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.
They sold us that Trump was the end of the world knowing full well they didn't believe it and people could smell the bullshit from a mile away. Will Trump be bad? If he does/tries what he says, probably. Is Trump dangerous for the world? Every person in power thinks less so than actually preventing him from being president.
Just because something was held up by true as the media, it doesn't make it untrue by definition. His stance on climate change, as a president with a government that will follow it, IS dangerous for the world. There is no real way around that.
I'm not just talking about the media, I'm talking about the politicians who told me his presidency would mean almost certain death, then they let him waltz right in and give him the tour, and tell all of us to let him lead us to our oblivion.
The calculation must then be: "It would be worse to stop him, than it would to let him do the worst things he can". There's no way that can be true if they actually believed the things they said.
On November 11 2016 14:23 Logo wrote: I accept how annoying those people are and understand that if you sit under the same umbrella you have to be complicit with their beliefs (even in the case of terrible actions you disvow).
Disagree strongly. While some of us do choose our umbrellas, a lot of us choose our position and get annoyed when an unsavory umbrella drifts over us. And then you want to hold us responsible for whomever's on the other side of the umbrella?
Pretty much yes. If you benefit from those people identifying with you and aren't actively stopping them from identifying that way it says a lot about what you value as more important whether you want it to or not.
At the very least you need to acknowledge why the right crazy people and left crazy people should be viewed very differently in respect to how they are to their more reasonable acting people that share their belief.
On November 11 2016 21:36 Kickboxer wrote: This guy is spot on. Political correctness has had its run, it failed, and now it's time to dumpster it and start a real debate.
1). I know he's acted wtf? It's not a secret. 2). His astute analysis of the disastrous failure of the progressive left all over the globe is making fun of me? That is an odd way to interpret satire.
On November 11 2016 21:53 Kickboxer wrote: 1). I know he's acted wtf? It's not a secret. 2). His astute analysis of the disastrous failure of the progressive left all over the globe is making fun of me? That is an odd way to interpret satire.
Yes, it seems you fell for Poe's Law. What you call an astute analysis is him talking the kind of gibberish Alex Jones and Molyneux do because that's the object of his satire
On November 11 2016 21:36 Kickboxer wrote: This guy is spot on. Political correctness has had its run, it failed, and now it's time to dumpster it and start a real debate.
I actually agree with a lot of what he's saying, where he falls short is that bad arguments win a LOT. Regardless of the facts it's easier to convince people their problems are because of an other, than it is to convince them it's their own fault.
Take for example this Hillary thing, the strongest argument based on the facts is that she was a terrible candidate (at minimum electorally) but it's a lot easier for many Hillary supporters to put the blame anywhere else, not because it's the better argument, but because it's easier for people to accept.
"PC" is often substituted for "common decency and respect", Hillary's campaign abused this, and said anything negative about her was misogynistic, anything negative about PoC saying it for her was racist, etc... That is destructive. But treating people you disagree with, with enough respect that they are capable of having a discussion is necessary to productive dialogue. You can't just tell people to have conversations with people who show them no basic level of respect, and that goes both ways.
But that means accepting that you don't get to control what is offensive to someone else, and they have to have reasonable expectations.
The problem we face is that after centuries of America, our calibration for what's offensive to say and what's fair to be offended by is way off. Until people on both sides of that equation are ready to come to grips with that, "dumpstering" PC would just put an end to whatever few reasonable discussions we have left.
To be clear though, this is just a taste of what it's been like being on the other side. For all of American history what was "PC" was offensive as all hell to people outside white men, for maybe 8 years it's just slightly started to favor the offended, now we have Trump and it's already back to favoring the offenders and people still don't think that's enough.
I have no question that even if Bernie would have lost, his campaign wouldn't have been so destructive as Clinton's has been as a result of these types of attacks/defenses.
On November 11 2016 21:53 Kickboxer wrote: 1). I know he's acted wtf? It's not a secret. 2). His astute analysis of the disastrous failure of the progressive left all over the globe is making fun of me? That is an odd way to interpret satire.
Yes, it seems you fell for Poe's Law. What you call an astute analysis is him talking the kind of gibberish Alex Jones and Molyneux do because that's the object of his satire
Ok keep pretending this is true while things keep rolling along these exact same tracks.
From where I stand, he's making fun of you.
The piece and everything in it is not only factually true (these things are happening), it also resonates 100% with myself, many people I know and, apparently, over 50% of the interested electorate in some of the world's most powerful countries.
People just don't talk about it in public because that's literally not safe to do in the current climate. Had I posted this on my Facebook wall, I might have lost clients in real life. It's just not worth the hassle to express my opinion unless it comes perfectly aligned with "ultra-progressive" dogma, some of which I simply, profoundly disagree with. Do you think that is a healthy vibrant climate of progressive discussion?
You guys might think everyone else is stupid, but unfortunately for you democracy is the order of the day and there are masses of people who simply don't share your worldview.
WASHINGTON ― On Thursday, Democratic Party officials held their first staff meeting since Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss to Donald Trump in the presidential race. It didn’t go well.
Donna Brazile, the interim leader of the Democratic National Committee, was giving what one attendee described as “a rip-roaring speech” to about 150 employees, about the need to have hope for wins going forward, when a staffer identified only as Zach stood up with a question.
“Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?” he asked, according to two people in the room. “You backed a flawed candidate, and your friend [former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz] plotted through this to support your own gain and yourself.”
Some DNC staffers started to boo and some told him to sit down. Brazile began to answer, but Zach had more to say.
“You are part of the problem,” he continued, blaming Brazile for clearing the path for Trump’s victory by siding with Clinton early on. “You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy.”
Zach gathered his things and began to walk out. When Brazile called after him, asking where he was going, he told her to go outside and “tell people there” why she should be leading the party.
Two DNC staffers confirmed the exchange.
Asked for comment, Brazile said in an email, “As you can imagine, the individual involved is a member of the staff and I personally do not wish to discuss our internal meetings.”
A DNC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Brazile, a seasoned Democratic strategist, is the DNC’s interim chair until March 2017, when party officials hold a full DNC meeting to elect a new chair. Brazile has been filling in since July, when then-chair Wasserman Schultz stepped down after WikiLeaks released internal DNC emails showing party officials trying to help Clinton win the Democratic primary.
Brazile ran into her own bit of trouble in October when Wikileaks released emails showing that, in her role as a CNN strategist, she shared questions for CNN-sponsored candidate events in advance with friends on Clinton’s campaign.
Neither of the DNC staffers who spoke to HuffPost knew Zach’s last name, or much about him. They noted that he wasn’t alone in his sentiments. Some in the room nodded as he spoke, they said, and after he left, some talked about him being right on some points (perhaps not his claims about imminent death by climate change).
I doubt even the Republican congress will get on board with Ryan fucking up Medicare and Medicaid. Will piss off a lot of people who voted for him. Plus it will just immediately be undone in 2020 if it happens and isn't filibustered to death.
WASHINGTON ― On Thursday, Democratic Party officials held their first staff meeting since Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss to Donald Trump in the presidential race. It didn’t go well.
Donna Brazile, the interim leader of the Democratic National Committee, was giving what one attendee described as “a rip-roaring speech” to about 150 employees, about the need to have hope for wins going forward, when a staffer identified only as Zach stood up with a question.
“Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?” he asked, according to two people in the room. “You backed a flawed candidate, and your friend [former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz] plotted through this to support your own gain and yourself.”
Some DNC staffers started to boo and some told him to sit down. Brazile began to answer, but Zach had more to say.
“You are part of the problem,” he continued, blaming Brazile for clearing the path for Trump’s victory by siding with Clinton early on. “You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy.”
Zach gathered his things and began to walk out. When Brazile called after him, asking where he was going, he told her to go outside and “tell people there” why she should be leading the party.
Two DNC staffers confirmed the exchange.
Asked for comment, Brazile said in an email, “As you can imagine, the individual involved is a member of the staff and I personally do not wish to discuss our internal meetings.”
A DNC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Brazile, a seasoned Democratic strategist, is the DNC’s interim chair until March 2017, when party officials hold a full DNC meeting to elect a new chair. Brazile has been filling in since July, when then-chair Wasserman Schultz stepped down after WikiLeaks released internal DNC emails showing party officials trying to help Clinton win the Democratic primary.
Brazile ran into her own bit of trouble in October when Wikileaks released emails showing that, in her role as a CNN strategist, she shared questions for CNN-sponsored candidate events in advance with friends on Clinton’s campaign.
Neither of the DNC staffers who spoke to HuffPost knew Zach’s last name, or much about him. They noted that he wasn’t alone in his sentiments. Some in the room nodded as he spoke, they said, and after he left, some talked about him being right on some points (perhaps not his claims about imminent death by climate change).
EPT
