Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 428

He wasn’t talking about your hat, Warbler.

Jeebus said:

Hillary Clinton says Bernie Sanders caused ‘lasting damage’ in book

Damn, she is incapable of taking responsibility.

Reminds me of the classic joke;

[book cover]

“Rarely is a question both posed and answered on the cover of a book.”

As I have said, I voted for her in the primaries and general, and I would have voted for her in '08 if not for Obama running… but this so much makes me want to shake my head and sigh. She really has no concept of why she lost and seems incapable of taking ownership of any of it.

To quote Bernie Sanders: It’s not a question of what happens in the last week. The question is that she should have won this election by 10 percentage points. The question is why it is that millions of white working class people who voted for Obama turned their backs on the Democratic Party.

I’m sick of Hillary playing the stupid blame game. She lost. She should own it.

yhwx said:

He wasn’t talking about your hat, Warbler.

To be fair, that wasn’t made clear in the context of the conversation. I didn’t really understand either.

While I thought Bernie’s ideas, especially for things like free higher education for all, were far-fetched—as well as I thought he was rather a one-issue candidate that kept feeding us the same stump speech—I liked Bernie a lot. I thought he was honest and sincere, he had well-reasoned positions and legitimate arguments, and he showed he could identify with (much of) the working class on at least an ideological level. I just disagreed with him on his policies.

Meanwhile, I voted for Hillary because I thought her policies were more realistic, but I can’t stand the immaturity, insincerity, and arrogance in this sore-loserly “woe is me” attitude.

It’s hard to say how well I would take it if I lost an election to Trump. I’d certainly be devastated, maybe even suicidal, when faced with the knowledge that Americans prefer Trump to me. It’s hard to imagine anything more humiliating for someone in her position. She is obviously psychologically “managing” it by dropping into a sort of self-defense “justification” mode. It’s not uncommon, although all it does is further tarnish her image.

The whole DACA thing is really sad. The thought of being 25 years old, having lived here my entire life, and being told I have to abandon everything and move to some far away strange country where I have never been, is just inconceivable. I understand that the “reason” is to dissuade future parents from bringing their kids here. But what a cruel way to accomplish that, punishing young people who are ENTIRELY innocent (to be in the dreamer program, you have to have a squeaky clean record). Furthermore, many of these young people have done EXACTLY what we keep saying they need to do – work hard to excel and assimilate. Heck, they have lived here their entire life and never even had to “assimilate”, any more than someone who was born here.

I also understand that sometimes innocent people are hurt in large numbers - but that is in wartime situations. This isn’t war, it’s economics. If this is the republican solution to some perceived crisis, then it shows me just how heartless and self-absorbed they have become.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

If this is the republican solution to some perceived crisis, then it shows me just how heartless and self-absorbed they have become.

There’s a sort of longer-term trend of Republicans drinking their own Kool-Aid. For decades, supply-side economics was just a grift – Reagan and Bush I said the words to get votes, but they had the sense to listen to economists when it mattered. Reagan raised taxes when his tax cuts failed to increase revenue. Bush famously said the truth about voodoo economics before campaigning on it. But Bush II was all aboard the supply-side train and only started to half-listen to sense when America needed to crawl out of the smoking economic crater. Brownback is still on board the supply side train, the solution to the ongoing Kansas fiscal disaster always being more of the same. Basically they’ve been saying the words so long that some of them actually believe this stuff now.

I think it’s the same with immigration now. Republicans have been talking about immigrants taking jobs, causing crime, and surging over the border so long that they actually believe it. Before, it was a cheap two-fer, appealing to xenophobia/racism while also providing a simple (and wrong) explanation for economic woes. You didn’t actually have to believe it, Mr. Tancredo, it was just magic words you could say now and then, and then the votes would just materialize. But now, it’s a belief system. And when you base national policy decisions based on outlandish conspiracy theories instead of facts, you get… well, you get the invasion of Iraq. But you also get the current wave of anti-immigrant policies, of which this DACA business is just one of many.

If presented with the following quiz:

Undocumented Mexican immigrants started leaving the US in greater numbers than they were arriving:
a) Before Obama took Office
b) During the Obama administration
c) During the Trump administration
d) This has not actually happened yet

I suspect most Republicans would answer D. Sadly, I suspect most Democrats would answer C. The correct answer is A.

DominicCobb said:

Jeebus said:

Hillary Clinton says Bernie Sanders caused ‘lasting damage’ in book

Blame game or not, this is pretty much true.

Honestly I think her framing of the whole thing is pretty wrong. Bernie was just offering the same policies you’d expect him to offer regardless of Hillary’s positions – the fact that his positions were sometimes simply more generous versions of hers pointed more to the fact that there wasn’t a whole lot of ideological difference between them on those issues. And this could just as easily be described as Bernie “pulling Hillary to the left” – Hillary offering milder versions of Bernie’s spicy entrees in order to appeal to a broader audience. In fact, I personally feel that does better describe the situation.

Bernie also repeatedly came to Hillary’s aid by taking the high road – loudly and memorably refusing to entertain the e-mail “issue” when there were real policies to be discussed, and giving her a heartfelt, sincere, impassioned endorsement at the convention. And his supporters moved to supporting Hillary at a faster rate than Hillary’s moved to Obama, so if Bernie’s supporters were being unreasonable, at least they were less unreasonable than Hillary’s.

Yes, I thought he ran his campaign far too long, when it was clear he’d lost on Super Tuesday (if not before), but again that’s not really any different than Hillary’s 2008 run, when she also effectively lost on Super Tuesday and created the (dumb) tradition of “going all the way to the convention in spite of math”. And she doesn’t take into account at all that so many of the most vocal “Bernie supporters” were actually Republican operatives and weren’t going to vote for either of them anyway. You’d think she’d be all over a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Frankly Al Gore did a much better job of staying out of the limelight and letting the world dub him “Saint Gore”, savior of the alternate timeline where Bush never became President (regardless of whether Gore would have actually made a good president or not). Hillary’s got an even easier job becoming Saint Hillary, if only she can stop herself.

TV’s Frink said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Americans prefer Trump to me.

Only via the Electrical College.

That’s even worse!

Warbler said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

TV’s Frink said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Americans prefer Trump to me.

Only via the Electrical College.

That’s even worse!

I don’t think you understand. She won the popular vote and lost in the electoral college.

But Frink said she lost in the ELECTRICAL College. That’s even worse!

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Warbler said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

TV’s Frink said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Americans prefer Trump to me.

Only via the Electrical College.

That’s even worse!

I don’t think you understand. She won the popular vote and lost in the electoral college.

But Frink said she lost in the ELECTRICAL College. That’s even worse!

Warbler said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Warbler said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

TV’s Frink said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Americans prefer Trump to me.

Only via the Electrical College.

That’s even worse!

I don’t think you understand. She won the popular vote and lost in the electoral college.

But Frink said she lost in the ELECTRICAL College. That’s even worse!

oh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XY-WjKkkeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy1Xq9a1qOI