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On May 16 2017 04:00 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2017 02:27 Velr wrote:
If you voted trump and still would, yes, your the very definition of stupid partisanship.
I can get behind plenty of conservative (not religious conservative) positions because i deal with hardcore conservatives everyday (which tend to be a bit more religious here too).
I don't agree with them but i see where they are comming from and thanks to my job i see the stupidity of the left daily.
The thing is: If you now still stand behind trump, you better get paid by him or your just dillusional and want your country to go down.
Ffs "not voting for someone like trump" is actually the best argument "the establishment" had against the hard right since... i don't know, i'm 34 and don't remember such a shitshow in any modern/firstworld country.
Berlusconi looked better than Trump when he was at his worst. Which is why I have to keep bringing it up. Because people don't believe there were actually two choices at play, and there's compelling arguments for repeating that vote for Trump. Oh, and by the way, this continually blasting of Trump's mistakes while recognizing none of the background arguments is called nonpartisanship or something by the left and it's frankly drop-dead hilarious. "He's objectively ..." mmhmm I'll listen in when hardcore alt-Left and regressive-Left persons make conservative positions not look unideological. You'll have to take off the horse blinders while staring gape-mouthed at Trump for maybe a couple weeks to notice the media, DNC, and leftist cultural warriors are all complicit. Now let's all repeat together that Trump is awful and all his supporters are "delusional and want your country to go down." Because that's how you show you're above "the very definition of stupid partisanship."
Jesus Christ, this x1000. Given my stated positions and policy preferences, who the fuck am I supposed to vote for if not Trump? Sure as shit won't be a Democrat for obvious reasons. And which Republican should I be voting for? Most of them sucked donkey ass last time around, and I'm not holding out hope that the next crop will be much better if Trump fails.
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On May 16 2017 04:06 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2017 03:36 Wulfey_LA wrote:On May 16 2017 03:23 NewSunshine wrote:On May 16 2017 03:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 16 2017 02:49 Nevuk wrote:By a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans say the health care legislation that was recently passed by the House and supported by President Donald Trump is a bad idea instead of a good idea, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Forty-eight percent say it's a bad idea, including 43 percent of respondents who "strongly" believe that.
By contrast, just 23 percent call the legislation a good idea, including 18 percent who "strongly" say that.
That 25-point gap between good idea and bad idea is larger than the NBC/WSJ poll ever found for Barack Obama's health-care plan. Back in December of 2013, following problems with the rollout of the HealthCare.Gov website, 50 percent had said the Obama plan was a bad idea, versus 34 percent who said it was a good idea.
This past February, however, 43 percent of Americans called the Obama plan a good idea, while 41 percent said it was bad.
On May 4, the House approved legislation - by a narrow 217-213 majority - to repeal and replace Obama's Affordable Care Act. No Democrats voted for the bill, and the legislative activity has since moved to the U.S. Senate.
According to the new NBC/WSJ poll, 52 percent of Republican respondents say the GOP health-care legislation is a good idea, versus 77 percent of Democrats who believe it's a bad idea. Among independents, it's 44 percent bad idea, 18 percent good idea.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/amp/poll-48-percent-say-house-gop-health-care-bill-bad-n759201 Meanwhile single-payer polls better than both of them and is the lowest of the 3 on either party's agenda because that makes sense. And yet it's a successful model for universal health coverage, as indicated by its adoption in some form in nearly every 1st world country. Except the USA. And I don't expect it to change anytime soon, the big money is so entrenched in it at this point, it would take a lot. It is very easy to say "let's have single payer". It is far harder to craft legislation that can move us from the extant reality of private insurance dominated health care to medicaid for all. You would have to bulldoze all the private health insurance that many people approve of. Think of all the people in high W2 paying jobs with fancy insurance that provides good coverage. You have to significantly increase their taxes and put them on a public plan. That transition would be brutal and the Democrats wisely don't advocate pushing that transition. Well, I'm aware there would be a hefty transition to consider, which is largely why I don't see it happening anytime soon. It does ultimately work better though, because you don't have to fight to make sure you're covered, you don't have to play games with pre-existing conditions, you don't have to worry about your premium going up because you merely used the service, etc. The arguments in favor of universal healthcare are so numerous compared to against, that the transition would be tough but worth it.
I hear the arguments for universal health insurance. But the political question then becomes, what should the Dems sell? Bernie/Hard left say sell Single Payer. But why sell something you know you can't possibly deliver in the next congressional season? The best a Dem congress could do would be a giant ACA patch that shores up universal private health insurance backed up by heavily expanded medicaid. Trying to sell something you can't deliver opens you up to valid critiques from the right and center that you are full of shit and won't be doing single payer. And then when a hypothetical Dem congress doesn't deliver, you get all the Bernite / Alt left shit flinging about how the Dems are big sellouts. All this leads to why I think the Dems are rightly not trying to sell single payer ... yet.
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It's not about Trump's politics, it's about his fitness. Fitness comes before any other "background argument".
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On May 16 2017 04:17 Doodsmack wrote:
It's not about Trump's politics, it's about his fitness. Fitness comes before any other "background argument".
And what was my anthem during the election on that point? "ROLL THOSE DICE!" I've yet to see anything to suggest to me that he is so unfit for office that I should have voted for Hillary or backed another Republican. Maybe we'll all crap out during Trump's term, but I'm not about to second-guess my support for him during the campaign.
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On May 16 2017 04:13 xDaunt wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 16 2017 04:00 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2017 02:27 Velr wrote:
If you voted trump and still would, yes, your the very definition of stupid partisanship.
I can get behind plenty of conservative (not religious conservative) positions because i deal with hardcore conservatives everyday (which tend to be a bit more religious here too).
I don't agree with them but i see where they are comming from and thanks to my job i see the stupidity of the left daily.
The thing is: If you now still stand behind trump, you better get paid by him or your just dillusional and want your country to go down.
Ffs "not voting for someone like trump" is actually the best argument "the establishment" had against the hard right since... i don't know, i'm 34 and don't remember such a shitshow in any modern/firstworld country.
Berlusconi looked better than Trump when he was at his worst. Which is why I have to keep bringing it up. Because people don't believe there were actually two choices at play, and there's compelling arguments for repeating that vote for Trump. Oh, and by the way, this continually blasting of Trump's mistakes while recognizing none of the background arguments is called nonpartisanship or something by the left and it's frankly drop-dead hilarious. "He's objectively ..." mmhmm I'll listen in when hardcore alt-Left and regressive-Left persons make conservative positions not look unideological. You'll have to take off the horse blinders while staring gape-mouthed at Trump for maybe a couple weeks to notice the media, DNC, and leftist cultural warriors are all complicit. Now let's all repeat together that Trump is awful and all his supporters are "delusional and want your country to go down." Because that's how you show you're above "the very definition of stupid partisanship." Jesus Christ, this x1000. Given my stated positions and policy preferences, who the fuck am I supposed to vote for if not Trump? Sure as shit won't be a Democrat for obvious reasons. And which Republican should I be voting for? Most of them sucked donkey ass last time around, and I'm not holding out hope that the next crop will be much better if Trump fails.
Hey, I know who you could've voted for.
NO ONE.
Do you honestly think Trump is doing a good job here? I'm not talking about all the "propaganda" against him here, I'm talking about him actually doing his job as a president. On what fronts would he be doing a good job? Is he actually doing a job? If you two could enlighten me on what it is that I'm missing that this president seems to do so right, I'd like to see it right now, because somehow I'm not. This is an honest question to persuade me for your side. What does the person you've voted for have to offer at this point in time. You may elaborate on that as briefly or as in depth as possible. Because all I want to see right now is some kind of silver lining instead of the seemingly endless shit show that comes out of mainstream media.
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On May 16 2017 03:59 Nevuk wrote:
I'm sure nothing said here will contradict what Trump has said. God I want Trump to testify under oath so badly.
On a side note im extremely curious to see what comes from the congressional request for "tapes."
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
We were presented with two losing choices. We can talk now about how bad Trump is because he deserves it but let's not try to pretend that this all happened in a vacuum. Both major party candidates were unpalatable to a very large swath of the population and we don't live in a country where third party candidates can win. None of the "how could you vote for such an IDIOT" is justified because the other choice was completely and utterly terrible as well (and no, none of the pretending about how good she is helped, and all of the suck-up articles in the MSM were counterproductive). And the Congressional Democrats proved to be not all that much better than the Republicans that they rightfully bashed for shitting up the country.
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On May 16 2017 04:30 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2017 04:13 xDaunt wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 16 2017 04:00 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2017 02:27 Velr wrote:
If you voted trump and still would, yes, your the very definition of stupid partisanship.
I can get behind plenty of conservative (not religious conservative) positions because i deal with hardcore conservatives everyday (which tend to be a bit more religious here too).
I don't agree with them but i see where they are comming from and thanks to my job i see the stupidity of the left daily.
The thing is: If you now still stand behind trump, you better get paid by him or your just dillusional and want your country to go down.
Ffs "not voting for someone like trump" is actually the best argument "the establishment" had against the hard right since... i don't know, i'm 34 and don't remember such a shitshow in any modern/firstworld country.
Berlusconi looked better than Trump when he was at his worst. Which is why I have to keep bringing it up. Because people don't believe there were actually two choices at play, and there's compelling arguments for repeating that vote for Trump. Oh, and by the way, this continually blasting of Trump's mistakes while recognizing none of the background arguments is called nonpartisanship or something by the left and it's frankly drop-dead hilarious. "He's objectively ..." mmhmm I'll listen in when hardcore alt-Left and regressive-Left persons make conservative positions not look unideological. You'll have to take off the horse blinders while staring gape-mouthed at Trump for maybe a couple weeks to notice the media, DNC, and leftist cultural warriors are all complicit. Now let's all repeat together that Trump is awful and all his supporters are "delusional and want your country to go down." Because that's how you show you're above "the very definition of stupid partisanship." Jesus Christ, this x1000. Given my stated positions and policy preferences, who the fuck am I supposed to vote for if not Trump? Sure as shit won't be a Democrat for obvious reasons. And which Republican should I be voting for? Most of them sucked donkey ass last time around, and I'm not holding out hope that the next crop will be much better if Trump fails. Hey, I know who you could've voted for. NO ONE. Do you honestly think Trump is doing a good job here? I'm not talking about all the "propaganda" against him here, I'm talking about him actually doing his job as a president. On what fronts would he be doing a good job? Is he actually doing a job? If you two could enlighten me on what it is that I'm missing that this president seems to do so right, I'd like to see it right now, because somehow I'm not. This is an honest question to persuade me for your side. What does the person you've voted for have to offer at this point in time. You may elaborate on that as briefly or as in depth as possible. Because all I want to see right now is some kind of silver lining instead of the seemingly endless shit show that comes out of mainstream media.
Voting for "no one" is a pussy move and not something that I'm going to do. It's worse than voting for a third party candidate. And how Trump is performing now is irrelevant to why people voted for him in the first place.
As for how he's doing, I've already stated that I don't like most of what he's done so far and there are many things that I've found disappointing. However, he is not even four months into his presidency -- a presidency in which he has faced unparalleled political opposition and headwinds from Day 1. All in all, I'd still give Trump an "Incomplete" for a grade. The country isn't on fire, and he seems to have a decent grasp international relations. The biggest thing that I'd knock him for is not more aggressively pursuing his campaign platform and promises.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Voting no one is akin to voting for apathy and not a good move. I did that once, never again. You just get written off as "one of those people who don't vote" and it makes no statement of anything other than just a wee tick down on the "voter turnout" percentage.
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I can understand you have your principles, but if you have to choose between shit stain 1 and shit stain 2, why do you still want to make the decision? Why is the lesser of two evils still better? I don't think it is and I think this is a huge problem in mentality that you can't stray away from that.
Trump might be getting waaaay too much overexposure, but this is his legacy of how he ran his campaign. He ran it like a reality tv superstar and is reaping what he sows. You might not want to credit him for that, but the media somehow (I wonder why) can't get enough of him.
Have you ever wondered why the media just can't let go of this guy?
On May 16 2017 04:41 LegalLord wrote:
Voting no one is akin to voting for apathy and not a good move. I did that once, never again. You just get written off as "one of those people who don't vote" and it makes no statement of anything other than just a wee tick down on the "voter turnout" percentage.
I agree somewhat, but not when faced with these options. I'm of strong opinion that voting should be mandatory, it's how a country should work. It's the least you can do for an institution that's trying to keep a nation together.
But when your choices are THIS abysmal? Protesting, revolting, trying to make these two parties crumble -because they've become complete caricatures of themselves- or whatever it takes, is the more apt thing to do imo.
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It is totally possible to vote and leave the presidential slot vacant. I'm pretty sure there were record numbers who did that last year. I would encourage any who abstain from voting in protest to do that instead, to at least vote for local measures and ballots if you can't stand to vote for a member of either party.
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On May 16 2017 04:41 LegalLord wrote:
Voting no one is akin to voting for apathy and not a good move. I did that once, never again. You just get written off as "one of those people who don't vote" and it makes no statement of anything other than just a wee tick down on the "voter turnout" percentage.
That's why I voted 3rd party. I knew the candidate wasn't going to win, but there's proof that my vote was tallied, neither of them got it, and they knew where I stood on things.
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Our choice in 2016 was awful, make no mistake, and that can be pinned on no other candidate managing to beat them to the election, for whatever the cause may be. The fact that Trump might be the less shitty of two thoroughly shitty options, and you can't even know that for sure, doesn't excuse him of accountability. The man is an ape who believes absolutely everything people tell him, and he finds himself in a government that cares far more about party lines than actually making progress.
That Hillary was also a bad choice does not give you any reason to defend Trump. If you're given two rotten apples, each one being rotten doesn't make the other one turn fresh. You look for better apples, because you don't want to get sick from eating them.
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On May 16 2017 04:43 Uldridge wrote:
I can understand you have your principles, but if you have to choose between shit stain 1 and shit stain 2, why do you still want to make the decision? Why is the lesser of two evils still better? I don't think it is and I think this is a huge problem in mentality that you can't stray away from that.
Because I didn't view Trump as simply "shit stain 2." Like I've said repeatedly, voting for Trump was a calculated risk. He has the potential to be a truly great president and do some great things for the country. On the other hand, he also has the potential to be really bad. And if the latter turns out to be the case, then the gamble was that any damage that he could do would be greatly -- if not almost entirely -- mitigated by the resiliency of the American system. In other words, I didn't see much downside in voting for Trump. I didn't mind swinging for the fences -- especially when shit stain 1 was the alternative.
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You cannot at the same time refuse a blank vote and complain that you didn't have a choice but vote for Trump. If he's a positive over no one, then that's the primary reason why you voted for him, not the lack of choice that you were given, and so the martyrdom is unwarranted.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On May 16 2017 04:49 NewSunshine wrote:
Our choice in 2016 was awful, make no mistake, and that can be pinned on no other candidate managing to beat them to the election, for whatever the cause may be. The fact that Trump might be the less shitty of two thoroughly shitty options, and you can't even know that for sure, doesn't excuse him of accountability. The man is an ape who believes absolutely everything people tell him, and he finds himself in a government that cares far more about party lines than actually making progress.
That Hillary was also a bad choice does not give you any reason to defend Trump. If you're given two rotten apples, each one being rotten doesn't make the other one turn fresh. You look for better apples, because you don't want to get sick from eating them.
Yes, he's bad, but what it does give you a reason to defend is the idea that there is a reason other than being a complete idiot that someone may have had to vote for Trump back when the choice was between Hillary and Trump. If we're strictly talking about the present, he is independently shitty.
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On May 16 2017 04:52 Nebuchad wrote:
You cannot at the same time refuse a blank vote and complain that you didn't have a choice but vote for Trump. If he's a positive over no one, then that's the primary reason why you voted for him, not the lack of choice that you were given, and so the martyrdom is unwarranted.
Not that that's what I'm doing, but why not?
And since you seem to be confused, I'm not apologizing for my Trump vote at all, nor am I claiming that I voted for him because there was no viable alternative (even though there wasn't).
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On May 16 2017 04:50 xDaunt wrote:
Because I didn't view Trump as simply "shit stain 2." Like I've said repeatedly, voting for Trump was a calculated risk. He has the potential to be a truly great president and do some great things for the country. On the other hand, he also has the potential to be really bad. And if the latter turns out to be the case, then the gamble was that any damage that he could do would be greatly -- if not almost entirely -- mitigated by the resiliency of the American system. In other words, I didn't see much downside in voting for Trump. I didn't mind swinging for the fences -- especially when shit stain 1 was the alternative.
See, you say that he has the potential to be a great president, but almost nobody sees this angle. Please explain how he has the potential to be a great president. Because reforming a country on hot air isn't being a president, and you should know that. Do you think that the elected is going to just be able to execute their wish list for the country?
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On May 16 2017 04:56 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2017 04:50 xDaunt wrote:
Because I didn't view Trump as simply "shit stain 2." Like I've said repeatedly, voting for Trump was a calculated risk. He has the potential to be a truly great president and do some great things for the country. On the other hand, he also has the potential to be really bad. And if the latter turns out to be the case, then the gamble was that any damage that he could do would be greatly -- if not almost entirely -- mitigated by the resiliency of the American system. In other words, I didn't see much downside in voting for Trump. I didn't mind swinging for the fences -- especially when shit stain 1 was the alternative. See, you say that he has the potential to be a great president, but almost nobody sees this angle. Please explain how he has the potential to be a great president. Because reforming a country on hot air isn't being a president, and you should know that. Do you think that the elected is going to just be able to execute their wish list for the country?
What do you mean by "nobody" sees this angle? You must not hang out with anyone on the political Right.
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Yes, excuse me, I'm not at all right leaning. This was bias on my part. But please elaborate further on my post and not just the first sentence.
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EPT
