US Politics thread

[PeacefulAnarchy]

Come her to talk about how Trump is the new Mussolini

Clinton is corrupt

or how Stein and Johnson are also people that exist and want to be president.


You can also talk about other US elections like the senate and congress, but it's not like those actually matter, right?

[Dolwphin]

First.

[Cippenham]

I had not heard of Stein before recently and really it's a pity these extra candidates have no chance, given the lack of quality in the main choices.

[RBG]

can't we just keep him

[allisoncm]

Bernie asked Nina Turner to nominate him and the powers at be at the DNC took her off the roster and prevented her from speaking. So apparently, he wasn't even given a chance.

A DNC coffin was thrown over the DNC wall intended to keep the wrong people out. Trump doesn't need to build a wall anymore. DNC has already built one. The pics are pretty crazy. I'd suggest googling them if you're interested.

[Cippenham]

can't we just keep him

No

[albajos]

Jill Steinn actually invited Sanders to run with her, but that would of course divide the democratic votes and get Trump elected.

[xianjiro]

can't we just keep him

repeal the twenty-second amendment!

[xianjiro]

hillary is officially the nominee. when this all began i said i didn't believe she was really electable. there's no way the patriarchy allows us a female president directly after a black president. but then i didn't believe obama would win either, until he did. twice. i also don't think trump truly wants the job, he just wants to win and he probably can't imagine much worse than being beat by a girl. go hillary

sanders himself moved to declare hillary the nominee by unanimous consent, as clinton did for obama in 2008

Imagine if Trump wins and then says, thanks but no thanks, I don't want the job imagine it depends at what point he does that..

nah, he's going to turn it into his next reality TV show - The Real West Wing starring President Donald Trump. On today's episode: it's been two weeks since the firing of a cabinet secretary and The Don's itching to see a head roll.



sorry, I'm just not interested enough to replace Lucy Liu's face with The Don's.

[xianjiro]

hillary is officially the nominee. when this all began i said i didn't believe she was really electable. there's no way the patriarchy allows us a female president directly after a black president. but then i didn't believe obama would win either, until he did. twice. i also don't think trump truly wants the job, he just wants to win and he probably can't imagine much worse than being beat by a girl. go hillary

sanders himself moved to declare hillary the nominee by unanimous consent, as clinton did for obama in 2008

There was a roll call yesterday. Effectively, Sanders tried to contest the convention. He was successful in the AM session so they reconvened in the PM. They changed the rules and effectively declared Hillary the nominee despite not going through the proper channels. At least half the people at the DNC walked out and now there's massive protests.

Sorry, I thought we had a democracy, so this is a shock knowing the American people officially don't have a voice. Excuse my naivete or ignorance. I'll continue the revolution through Brand New Congress and Bernie Sanders' new organization Our Revolution.

so, you actually bought that crap they peddled in public school? this is a 'representative democracy' and the people have never directly elected the president. We've only been electing US senators for 100 years - until the seventeenth amendment, that was a privilege reserved for state legislatures. Why? Because the founding fathers only trusted 'the people' (white, land-owning men) to be able to elect members of the House of Representatives. The whole thing is smoke and mirrors and the man behind the curtain's been naked the whole time but we're just told he's the Great and Powerful Galactic Emperor.

Welcome to the dark side - Cynics Unite!

[xianjiro]

You won't continue a damn thing if Trump is elected.

You could say the same thing about Hillary. She stole this election fair & square. The sad thing for her, though, is that the IRS is investigating the Clinton Foundation.

I don't understand why you don't listen to Bernie. You talk about helping him with Our Revolution (I am part of that, by the way) yet you refuse to understand what the reality of letting Trump win the election will do. With potentially 3 Supreme court justices if Clinton wins, plus all the progressives that Bernie will help get elected through his movement, we could actually get some amazing bills passed. Especially given the clout Bernie currently has within the democratic party.

However none of that will be possible with a Trump presidency and things will be set back for years.

I don't understand how you, and others out there, do not understand that.

There will never be a "Revolution" in this country the way you want it. This country needs to be changed one law at a time, one bill at a time. This is something Sanders understands and has had to deal with his entire life. The fact that you and others are too thick to understand the realities of politics, even when your hero explains it to you, is truly baffling.

I guess the generation of "I want it now, or never" is truly as disgusting as they say.

anyone else remember the Howard Dean movement?

this shit never lasts - I think Perot (Mr Big Sucking Sound himself) put together the longest lived alternative movement (sorry, we need a better word, this word had a certain, special meaning in our house and often followed the word 'bowel') - anyway, within two presidential election cycles Perot's party (see, better word) was all but history.

Back in the day I was all for John Anderson for President - another youth 'movement' that wanted an alternative to Reagan's anti-women, corporate welfare schtick. And weren't young voters all gaga about Gary Hart until the lamestream media offered pictures of Hart with his mistress on some boat? Talk about killing democracy by any means.

SSDE

[xianjiro]

There will never be a "Revolution" in this country the way you want it. This country needs to be changed one law at a time, one bill at a time. This is something Sanders understands and has had to deal with his entire life. The fact that you and others are too thick to understand the realities of politics, even when your hero explains it to you, is truly baffling.

I guess the generation of "I want it now, or never" is truly as disgusting as they say.

There is a possibility for a revolution, or at least a drastic change in America, but we'll need something more apocalyptic for that.

You clearly need to spend more time in this country. There will NEVER be a revolution the way Allison and others understand it.

are you talking Glorious Revolution? Velvet Revolution? or something more along the lines of the French and Russian Revolutions - we know what those were like.

[xianjiro]

thanks for moving my posts? I guess? At least I quoted so the train of missed thought can be maintained. I do feel singled out at this point though.

[PeacefulAnarchy]

thanks for moving my posts? I guess? At least I quoted so the train of missed thought can be maintained. I do feel singled out at this point though.

Going back and moving old posts would have been a lot of work and there's no 'right' cutoff point, so I just decided everything from before I made the thread stayed there. I moved yours because they were posted after I made the thread, I'll move any others in the future, no singling out intended.

[xianjiro]

well, I'm not sure exactly why you decided to move post #13 - related to Armenia and Turkey - other than you just assumed I was only posting about US elections?

[PeacefulAnarchy]

I guess I clicked one too many I meant to leave that one, like I left the other two, moving posts on zetaboards is a bit of a chore. Edit: Moved it back, merged with another post of yours, hope that's ok.

[funkybusiness]

sorry, I'm just not interested enough to replace Lucy Liu's face with The Don's.

Lucy's hands are too big to sub in for Donald's, that would take all my photoshoppin skillz, 2 da max. for days. to fix.

[xianjiro]

I guess I clicked one too many I meant to leave that one, like I left the other two, moving posts on zetaboards is a bit of a chore. Edit: Moved it back, merged with another post of yours, hope that's ok.

if not, i'll just throw you more shade

[xianjiro]

sorry, I'm just not interested enough to replace Lucy Liu's face with The Don's.

Lucy's hands are too big to sub in for Donald's, that would take all my photoshoppin skillz, 2 da max. for days. to fix.

like seriously! and O-Ren is just such a stud anyway - why mess with perfection!?!

[xianjiro]

So here's a question - if Bernie Supporters feel so committed to their candidate, why not do a write-in campaign? And no, I don't need a response about how this would guarantee Trump's election. I'm more interested to hear if people are seeing any interest in such given the clear dissatisfaction with Clinton.

Went to a dinner tonight and we had a Bernie Supporter get all worked up and it was almost surprising that he used basically the exact same arguments @allisoncm has used here.

It will be interesting to see what happens next from the Bernie camp. I've also heard it said that it's not such a surprise that his supporters are so reluctant to return to the fold given the rhetoric of the primary campaign. I don't believe we can change their minds, but am very interested in understanding their passion - and really hate to see the commitment evaporate as most of these things have over the years.

[albajos]

What Bernie supporters don't get is that with the amount of support he got they should have the possibilities to change the development of DNC's platform. So some of Bernie's policies should be able to be part of Clinton's campaign. That is what they should focus on.

I don't know if that happened or not, or if GOP and DNC are very different in how they make their platforms. But at least one of them do take the primaries delegates into concideration when making this term's platform.

[xianjiro]

yeah, and it's my understanding that a number of Bernie's key issues made it to the platform but I can't really defend that statement with details - either of Bernie's planks nor the complete DNC platform

[RBG]

they adopted a whole bunch of bernie's positions. clinton even said she won't back the TPP and convinced tim kaine to say so too. then yesterday terry mcauliffe (gov of VA and a big TPP supporter) said that clinton will probably change her mind on this once she's in office, setting sanders people off again. it's one step forward and two steps back over there. but yes, they have plans for a new glass-steagall amendment among other things. it's the most progressive dem platform in history according to bernie and it's why he held out for so long

also the press are repeatedly pointing to polls claiming that 90% of sanders voters will back clinton -- compared to 60% of clinton's voters who said they would back obama in 2008. that wasn't even a tough choice for me. ok i've vowed to stop paying attention to this and hope for the best. i cannot keep up this level of alarm for 3 more months

[RBG]

as one commentator said last night: even if people do decide to burn it down this election, Barack's speech tonight would prove a fine epitaph to the ideals the country once espoused.

[Kasparius]

Jill Steinn actually invited Sanders to run with her, but that would of course divide the democratic votes and get Trump elected.

And also ruin everything Bernie worked for. He's getting progressives elected in various states through the democratic platform. That's going to be his real legacy.

[Noirville]

repeal the twenty-second amendment!

They should. If more Americans want Obama to stay rather than having either Clinton or Trump as their new president it's only fair if he stays on for another term (if he makes himself electable)

Same goes for any other president or elected leader in any other democratic country. It's ridiculous that the 22nd amendment even exists

[Kasparius]

In this case, I would really love a third term.

[RBG]

ehh it would only feed the conspiracy nuts who are waiting for obama to declare martial law and make himself dictator for life. anyway i think he wants out and who can blame him

[RBG]

trump says he was "being sarcastic" about russia hacking clintons emails. next year:

Donald Trump claimed he was just being sarcastic when he said, “I will nuke China so hard if they don’t agree to this trade deal. You have no idea. Like huge mushroom clouds over Bejing. It will be the worst thing to hit them since Godzilla destroyed Tokyo.”

[Pretentious Hipster]

[PeacefulAnarchy]

repeal the twenty-second amendment!

They should. If more Americans want Obama to stay rather than having either Clinton or Trump as their new president it's only fair if he stays on for another term (if he makes himself electable)

Same goes for any other president or elected leader in any other democratic country. It's ridiculous that the 22nd amendment even exists

I agree, especially since it's an amendment that only came about in reaction to Roosevelt. It kind of makes sense in countries that have a history of democratic coups or other abuses of presidential power, but there's very little rational reason for term limits in the US.

[Pretentious Hipster]

[fever tornado hat]

the argument i've heard in favour of term limits is that they prevent a system where politicians in power are constantly running for re-election. since re-election campaigns require a lot of money and public support, a politician in office who wants to win another term will pass legislation that will secure him campaign contributions and short term popularity (regardless of long term consequences). but if you have a two term limit, a politician in her second term cannot campaign for a third. she can 'do the right thing' without worrying about anything else.

that's a loose paraphrase of the argument i heard gary johnson make at the end of his conversation with dave rubin. i mention it not because i agree with it, but only to add another perspective. i don't have an opinion either way, i see merits to both sides.

[Pretentious Hipster]

This is pretty much the perfect explanation for why Trump should be president.

[Rich]

Sanders really got to her. She has promised most of what he wanted except for universal health care.

[Cippenham]

Sanders really got to her. She has promised most of what he wanted except for universal health care.

In that case perhaps Trump is a lesser risk for American people and the world, but really they would be better off with another candidate the problem is it is Hobson's choice, if people don't vote they may get the one they like least. So it's a question of the lesser of two evils. And that depends on your point of view.

[Cippenham]

Trump should talk more about his economic and tax policies, no one to,pay tax under 25000$ and with bands after that and low tax for businesses, this could create economic boom, certainly his tariffs on China are controversial, but good news for us in Britain and other countries as China would be keen for trade deals elsewhere if that happens. He needs to talk about more his economic policies and less about building a wall or other seemingly odd ideas, but would his ideas create more jobs?

[xianjiro]

Trump should talk more about his economic and tax policies, no one to,pay tax under 25000$ and with bands after that and low tax for businesses, this could create economic boom, certainly his tariffs on China are controversial, but good news for us in Britain and other countries as China would be keen for trade deals elsewhere if that happens. He needs to talk about more his economic policies and less about building a wall or other seemingly odd ideas, but would his ideas create more jobs?

yeah, but unfortunately it's his base that really likes to hear about building walls and keeping Muslims out, etc.

I think some wags might also suggest the reason he doesn't talk more about economic policies and plans is that he doesn't really have anything - especially anything substantial enough to withstand the withering critique that is sure to come.

No, it appears to me that Trump prefers to run on the discontent and little more.

[Kasparius]

He just said he wanted to hit the people who talked against him at the DNC.

[Dolwphin]

Sanders really got to her. She has promised most of what he wanted except for universal health care.

Now let's see if she does an Obama on all those promises. Hopefully the pressure is great enough to force her to go against her donors about 10 % of the time. #IncrumentalChangeTrain