Why I'm Switching to Clinton

[IMPress Polly]

Everyone here knows that I've been supporting the presidential campaign of my state's populist Senator Bernie Sanders since early last summer for a great many reasons related to his positions on the issues, and especially economic and political issues (e.g. he supports Medicare for all, free tuition at public colleges and universities, serious investment in the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure, a $15/hour minimum wage, a mandatory public campaign finance system, etc.), but also for his more dovish legacy and approach to foreign policy and also, most importantly frankly, for the means by which he has proposed to affect these changes: by way of a political revolution, i.e. by mobilizing a sustained groundswell of grassroots support to pressure politicians for these radical reforms in an unwavering way until they happen. I voted for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday as well. (He won the vote in my state, which is also his home state, by a razor thin margin of 72.5 points (...:laugh:), which was a big enough landslide to deny Hillary Clinton any of this state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention, so I think we did a pretty good job of organizing and mobilizing the Bernie vote here!) Alas, as of yesterday, I have nonetheless decided to switch camps in terms of who I'll be supporting going forward. There are a couple of reasons why:

Reason #1: The revolution's clearly not happening. The idea that Bernie Sanders could marshal a mass movement that would upend the existing power structures in this country and pave the way for a torrent of serious political and economic reforms, each calculated to chip away at the rigged nature of our economy and the corrupt elements in our political system, just isn't coming to fruition. It's not that Bernie can't win the delegate count because the "super" delegates are overwhelmingly going for Clinton. That wouldn't cause me to change my support at all! On the contrary, if that were the sole reason Clinton was winning this race, that would reinforce and reinvigorate my support for Bernie Sanders! It's not that. It's that Bernie's clearly not able to win even democratically. Thanks to our efforts, Clinton cannot be said to have a funding advantage despite relying heavily on corporate donations (in fact, Bernie has spent more on advertising than Clinton so far, believe it or not!), yet Clinton is still winning legitimately. In theory, Bernie is more popular among the youth (e.g. when they vote, it's for him), but the fact of the matter is that he's not succeeding in mobilizing the youth to get out and vote at all. Turnout in the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far is way down from 2008 across the board. That's especially true of black voters, whom Sanders has proven himself unable to win over, either of the older generations (who are actively voting for Clinton) or the younger millennials (who by and large simply aren't voting). I think this crucial point should raise to our realization the truth of the current election cycle: that, at the end of the day, economic issues are NOT going to be the principal ones in this election cycle, but rather social issues are. Say what you will about the lack of energy in the Clinton campaign: she's able to mobilize more people to the polls than Sanders, and that fact I think really eviscerates the core of Sanders' argument.

More deeply, even if Bernie were losing, if he at least had some kind of viable path to the most democratically-allocated delegates to the DNC, I'd still support him. But he doesn't. At this point, Bernie would need to win 60% of the remaining delegates up for grabs in order to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for president, including of the "super" delegates. The candidates insists he can do so. He also insists that, as part of that path to the nomination, he can win the contest in Louisiana tonight and that in Michigan on Tuesday, in both of which current polling finds him trailing Clinton by more than 20 points. I don't believe him. I think the argument for Sanders' basic viability is getting pretty disingenuous at this point. He needed to be more competitive on Super Tuesday than he was is the bottom line, and to do that, he needed to be more successful in persuading African Americans to support his campaign. I don't think we should insult anyone's intelligence. There's no path to the nomination left for Bernie. It's time to concede defeat and focus on stopping the yes inevitable Republican nominee from becoming president, given just how serious a threat to what remains of our democracy he represents. Besides, Hillary Clinton's platform, while not as bold as I'd like, is more than acceptable to me.

Reason #2: I have my priorities straight. Recently, some 100,000 Bernie Sanders supporters created and signed a Change.org petition calling for the arrest of Bill Clinton on third-degree felony charges on the grounds that he violated election laws by showing up to a polling place in Massachusetts last Tuesday. In reality, it turns out he didn't break any laws at all (i.e. did not advocate for Hillary Clinton within 150 feet of polling spaces) and that the penalty, even if he'd been guilty of that charge, would only have been a $20 fine, i.e. it wouldn't have been a felony anyway. You'll notice that these Sanders supporters have not created a petition calling for Donald Trump's arrest despite the fact that he did the same thing on the same day in a far more disruptive way -- in a way that actually stopped voting for a while. This development has really clarified things for me. It would seem that many of my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters (especially the online activists) are more concerned with winning than with the rule of law and more opposed to the communitarian Hillary Clinton than to the fascist Republican front-runner. I am not.

I fear that many Bernie Sanders supporters will ultimately vote for Donald Trump in the general election. I just want to be crystal clear about something in that connection: Trump is the closest thing to an Adolf Hitler we've ever had in this country. If he's cool with you, you aren't cool with me. Obviously I can't do anything to make you change your position, but I can at least say that no one -- I mean no one -- who supports Trump in any way, or remains neutral on him becoming our next president for that matter, is going to remain my friend, for whatever little that may be worth. There is no such thing as neutrality on Trump any more than there was for Germans on Hitler. Neutrality means you're cool with what he represents; that you're willing to accept it.

While I really, really hope that Hillary Clinton chooses an economic populist like Elizabeth Warren as her running mate in view of her (Clinton's) obvious weakness with the youth and with working class people (especially working class white people) because I think doing so would cut off most of the Sanders-to-Trump pipeline's flow, from my perspective, even if she doesn't, there is a matter of principle here: social justice matters. I don't care what your stance is on economic nationalism: if you're willing to support mass deportations, the relegation of Muslims to a second-class, truly persecuted subset of the population, the systematic targeting of unarmed women and children for destruction, the return of waterboarding and even crueler forms of torture, suspension of freedom of the press, etc. etc. etc., in my mind you are not a civilized human being. If you're willing to make this country work pretty much like the Islamic State in the name of combating it and of reasserting and reinvigorating American hegemony the world over, I will have nothing to do with you. Just wanted to be clear on that. I hope you'll be able to get your priorities straight.

[PolWatch]

I have been very surprised during this campaign. I did not believe that Sanders or Trump had any chance at the nomination. I have been pleasantly surprised to see the support for Bernie Sanders. I have also been surprised to see Trump treated as more than a bad joke.

I think the time has come for this nation to have more than 2 dominate parties. I know that Alabama will always go for the repub candidate but I will vote for Stein, if I vote at all.

[IMPress Polly]

I was hopeful that the Democratic Party would be the one that got revolutionized in this election cycle, but I guess that's not going to happen this time around. Longer term though, I'm not sure our current two-party system necessarily has an indefinite future either. Basically, if Trump is elected president, I think that's the end of democracy in this country. If he wins, I'll be gone by Thanksgiving and will never look back.

On the other hand, if Trump is defeated in November, that I think will reinvigorate the Republican Party establishment in much the same way that Barry Goldwater's defeat did for more than 15 years after the 1964 election. Such a development would force many Republicans to realize that they simply cannot have everything they want; that they have to become more reasonable to win the White House in the 21st century. But the Trump movement will have permanent significance nonetheless, much as the Goldwater movement did. It's entirely possible that the most hardcore, racist pro-Trump elements that compose about 25% of the Republican Party will respond to defeat by bolting and forming a major quasi-fascist third party.

I also suspect that Bernie's strong performance this election cycle, particularly among the millennial generation (who overwhelmingly support him over Hillary), signals the eventual inevitability of a populist revolution in that party as well, as millennial voters will compose the majority of Democratic voters by 2020. Said revolution will transform it into a populist party (i.e. a party essentially, if not entirely, of workers and farmers), thus sending the corporate wing elsewhere; perhaps to the GOP or perhaps to form a corporatist third party that regularly nominates candidates in the style of Michael Bloomberg and generally loses.

[PolWatch]

The generational differences are very striking. My younger, liberal friends support Sanders while the older & more affluent ones support Clinton. I know there will be screams of protest but among my conservative friends the divide isn't age, its education.

[IMPress Polly]

PolWatch wrote:
The generational differences are very striking. My younger, liberal friends support Sanders while the older & more affluent ones support Clinton. I know there will be screams of protest but among my conservative friends the divide isn't age, its education.

Isn't age a factor on the Republican side too though? For example, surveys of self-described Trump supporters find that his support base skews older; most are over 50, i.e. can (perhaps fondly) remember institutionalized racial segregation and the old, racist immigration quota system and so forth.

These surveys find specifically that 5% or less of Trump's support comes from Republican and Republican-leaning voters under the age of 30, in contrast to Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, who is preferred by about 85% of the Democratic and Democratic-leaning youth. Indeed, the contests so far show that voters under the age of 30 are the only group that Trump loses among reliably even on the Republican side. The Republican youth support party establishment candidate Rubio, indicating that they are not revolutionaries and that they are more socially moderate and economically right wing than the current front-runner. That strikes me hence as being the eventual future of the Republican Party. However, the Republican Party's membership in general skews old, so it may take a long time for the millennial generation to gain any influence therein. Decades.

[midcan5]

While I find the phrase 'the lesser of two evils' off point there is a place in which reality resides and must be honored. We cannot create perfect people in spite of the vain belief they exist somewhere. Hillary Clinton is the best choice this go round, her legislative and judicial choices fit better the idealism we liberals aim for. God doesn't even know what Trump would do as his narcissist behavior is a quality most people find abhorrent. There are real consequences to presidents, George W. Bush should have proved that once and for all.


'Just the facts Ma'am, just the facts....'


http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/feb/09/what-did-hillary-clinton-tell-families-people-who-/


.

[Chris]

Clinton, a 0.1%er, neocon, and liar. Good choice!! :Doh!:

[hanger4]

Clinton, a 0.1%er, neocon, and liar. Good choice!! :Doh!:
Plus a totally flippant attitude toward national security.

[Chris]

Plus a totally flippant attitude toward national security.

Yea, ‘What difference does it make?’

[PolWatch]

We are in year 16 of the Bush/Obama administration...the same policies & neocon views. She could be right: what difference did it make?

[IMPress Polly]

PolWatch wrote:
We are in year 16 of the Bush/Obama administration...the same policies & neocon views. She could be right: what difference did it make?

I'm under no illusions that a Clinton administration would usher in an age of economic or even social progress, but at this point, I have become a conservative. Conservative in the sense of seeking to preserve the status quo because it's better than the alternative the teeming masses are demanding. I've become conservative because the masses have given up on progress, at least for now, and the prevailing demand is now that of going backward in time, to "the good old days" when everyone knew their proper place in this world. In the practical, this means indulging obviously extremely popular xenophobia to the hilt and writing off any dissent thereto as "political correctness run amok" and/or threatening those dissenters, perhaps with physical violence.

'Do Mussolini quotes and the backing of the Klan worry you? Does openly advocating extreme torture and mass murder make you queasy? Do you feel compassion for your fellow human being? You're such a girly weakling! My dick is bigger than yours and you better never criticize me again or else!'

That is the political climate of today's America. I'm sorry to step on fashionable, generic "anti-establishment" rhetoric, but the corresponding political program is not a better alternative to the current state of affairs! In the face of THAT kind of reactionary prevailing attitude, simply defending the better aspects of the status quo and the merits of social justice constitutes an act of subversion. When the tide is moving a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction, sometimes the boldest thing you can do is simply stand in its way and proclaim "We're not going back while I'm standing!"

It has become clear to me that real progress is something for a future generation. Today's battle is against the imminent threat of the world's most powerful nation becoming a police state that starts World War 3. It's a depressing realization, but it's the truth. That is another accomplishment of the Trump campaign: it has helped me forfeit all dreams and aspirations and just hope things don't get too much worse. And if they do get much worse, I'm leaving, I swear to god. Neither my conscience nor fear for my own physical safety will allow me to endure a Donald Trump presidency. Hillary Clinton may not be perfect, but there are light years worth of positive difference between what she stands for and the alternative before us.

[birddog]

Anyone voting for an old, bankrupting socialist such as Sanders or a lying, corrupt, murdering scumbag like Hillary should be ashamed! They should not vote or do a write in for say Jim Webb.

I support Cruz, but any of the Rs will be acceptable.

[The Xl]

Hillary Clinton represents the same policies of the past 20 years and is bought by the same people that bought those guys.

We need a reset button. The options for the reset button were Trump and Sanders, sadly the democratic elitist have toppled Sanders.

[AeonPax]

`
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I'm thoroughly convinced neither candidate is worthy of being president and both parties operate as one.

[IMPress Polly]

The XL wrote:
Hillary Clinton represents the same policies of the past 20 years and is bought by the same people that bought those guys.

We need a reset button. The options for the reset button were Trump and Sanders, sadly the democratic elitist have toppled Sanders.

My thoughts on this are encapsulated in post #11 at the top of this page, but to sum it up for you briefly, I don't think that Trump represents a better alternative to the status quo, but something much worse.

It's fashionable right now to think of opposition to the status quo in the abstract, where there exist but two options: support it or don't. Pro-establishment vs. anti-establishment. No content discussion. Reality is more complicated. In reality, more than one alternative program exists and the alternatives the voters have been presented with are not equal. With Sanders effectively defeated at this point, the people have rejected the progressive alternative. Therefore the remaining options are 1) continue along the existing trajectory, or 2) try and turn the clock backward 50, 60, or 70 years through overwhelming state force. You can call me a defeatist if you want, but to me the former sounds better. A LOT better.

[domer76]

Yea, ‘What difference does it make?’

^ Speaking of one of the big lies.....

[The Xl]

My thoughts on this are encapsulated in post #11 at the top of this page, but to sum it up for you briefly, I don't think that Trump represents a better alternative to the status quo, but something much worse.

It's fashionable right now to think of opposition to the status quo in the abstract, where there exist but two options: support it or don't. Pro-establishment vs. anti-establishment. No content discussion. Reality is more complicated. In reality, more than one alternative program exists and the alternatives the voters have been presented with are not equal. With Sanders effectively defeated at this point, the people have rejected the progressive alternative. Therefore the remaining options are 1) continue along the existing trajectory, or 2) try and turn the clock backward 50, 60, or 70 years through overwhelming state force. You can call me a defeatist if you want, but to me the former sounds better. A LOT better.

I don't think Trump is worse. Clinton and the others are proxies for elitists that have waged wars for profit, allowed bankers to ruin the economy, destroy peoples lives, and bail them out on top of it, and are cronies of the insurance industry. Trump isn't bought by those people, so he has no loyalty to those people.

Trump is rude and crass, sure. At this point, I don't care about that at all. People need to get their priorities straight, Trump is an obnoxious asshole, but the Clinton's and Cruz's are threatening WW3. Once you get past the fluff, it's easy to see that the establishment candidates are far worse.

Trump actually has real divides with the power structure. Is against unfair trade, isn't hostile with Russia, wants to end the state insurance monopolies, etc.

If you need to see Trumps badge of authenticity, look at the unprecedented level of attacks from the republican and democratic establishment and the mass media. He's extremely flawed, but if Sanders is out, he's absolutely the guy to me, no question.

[Mark III]

Everyone here knows that I've been supporting the presidential campaign of my state's populist Senator Bernie Sanders since early last summer for a great many reasons related to his positions on the issues, and especially economic and political issues (e.g. he supports Medicare for all, free tuition at public colleges and universities, serious investment in the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure, a $15/hour minimum wage, a mandatory public campaign finance system, etc.), but also for his more dovish legacy and approach to foreign policy and also, most importantly frankly, for the means by which he has proposed to affect these changes: by way of a political revolution, i.e. by mobilizing a sustained groundswell of grassroots support to pressure politicians for these radical reforms in an unwavering way until they happen. I voted for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday as well. (He won the vote in my state, which is also his home state, by a razor thin margin of 72.5 points (...:laugh:), which was a big enough landslide to deny Hillary Clinton any of this state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention, so I think we did a pretty good job of organizing and mobilizing the Bernie vote here!) Alas, as of yesterday, I have nonetheless decided to switch camps in terms of who I'll be supporting going forward. There are a couple of reasons why:




Thank you Polly for your forthright comments.

This cycle is not going to bring the "revolution", personally I don't think there was ever even a chance of it. The groundwork has not been laid. That has to be done over years and numerous national elections. We need MANY more progressives in the House and Senate than are there now. As you said, turnout reveals that Sanders alone was unable to spike turnout. If there were dozens and dozens of progressives in Congress I think that may have been different. You have to crawl before you can run, etc.

Hillary Clinton is not perfect, but the political right has drawn this picture of her as a criminal rogue who wants to rule a private fiefdom of corruption and financial plunder for her own benefit, unequaled across American history. This is all nonsense and lies. The weapon of the right is the big lie. None bigger than birtherism, by the way, the rancid and racist theme that made a conservative hero out of Donald Trump 5 years ago.

Sanders has been a good Moses , and he has conducted himself with fortitude and dignity, but progressives need to rally around Clinton so the gains of the Obama administration can be protected against the coming darkness.

[Chris]

^ Speaking of one of the big lies.....

Are you saying she didn't say that?

[hanger4]

Thank you Polly for your forthright comments.

This cycle is not going to bring the "revolution", personally I don't think there was ever even a chance of it. The groundwork has not been laid. That has to be done over years and numerous national elections. We need MANY more progressives in the House and Senate than are there now. As you said, turnout reveals that Sanders alone was unable to spike turnout. If there were dozens and dozens of progressives in Congress I think that may have been different. You have to crawl before you can run, etc.

Hillary Clinton is not perfect, but the political right has drawn this picture of her as a criminal rogue who wants to rule a private fiefdom of corruption and financial plunder for her own benefit, unequaled across American history. This is all nonsense and lies. The weapon of the right is the big lie. None bigger than birtherism, by the way, the rancid and racist theme that made a conservative hero out of Donald Trump 5 years ago.

Sanders has been a good Moses , and he has conducted himself with fortitude and dignity, but progressives need to rally around Clinton so the gains of the Obama administration can be protected against the coming darkness.

"This is all nonsense and lies."

Yup, that personal, secret off the .gov grid email server is a figment of our imagination and all those classified emails on it are forgeries.

[Chris]

Thank you Polly for your forthright comments.

This cycle is not going to bring the "revolution", personally I don't think there was ever even a chance of it. The groundwork has not been laid. That has to be done over years and numerous national elections. We need MANY more progressives in the House and Senate than are there now. As you said, turnout reveals that Sanders alone was unable to spike turnout. If there were dozens and dozens of progressives in Congress I think that may have been different. You have to crawl before you can run, etc.

Hillary Clinton is not perfect, but the political right has drawn this picture of her as a criminal rogue who wants to rule a private fiefdom of corruption and financial plunder for her own benefit, unequaled across American history. This is all nonsense and lies. The weapon of the right is the big lie. None bigger than birtherism, by the way, the rancid and racist theme that made a conservative hero out of Donald Trump 5 years ago.

Sanders has been a good Moses , and he has conducted himself with fortitude and dignity, but progressives need to rally around Clinton so the gains of the Obama administration can be protected against the coming darkness.



I like how you make up things about the right as a straw man to knock down. What a piece of work.

Clinton is a consummate liar. She's 0.1%er. She's a neocon. And yet the left defends her?

[Chris]

`
`
I'm thoroughly convinced neither candidate is worthy of being president and both parties operate as one.

I believe this too.

[Crepitus]

Sanders isn't done yet. Clinton is a criminal and will not get my vote under any circumstances.

[Mark III]

I like how you make up things about the right as a straw man to knock down. What a piece of work.

Clinton is a consummate liar. She's 0.1%er. She's a neocon. And yet the left defends her?

I don't take advice about politics from anarchists, sorry.

Clinton is a one percenter and is something of a neocon. I dont believe she is uniquely criminal or corrupt, she is one of a large crowd in that department. She is also a democrat who can be moved by pressure from her left. 1000 times better than a Trump or Rubio who would be moved from pressure on their right.

Clinton is the LESSER of available evils, without a doubt , and should be the next president.

[Crepitus]

Anyone voting for an old, bankrupting socialist such as Sanders or a lying, corrupt, murdering scumbag like Hillary should be ashamed! They should not vote or do a write in for say Jim Webb.

I support Cruz, but any of the Rs will be acceptable.
Way to stay on topic there Wile E.

14283

[Chris]

I don't take advice about politics from anarchists, sorry.

Clinton is a one percenter and is something of a neocon. I dont believe she is uniquely criminal or corrupt, she is one of a large crowd in that department. She is also a democrat who can be moved by pressure from her left. 1000 times better than a Trump or Rubio who would be moved from pressure on their right.

Clinton is the LESSER of available evils, without a doubt , and should be the next president.


I didn't offer you advice, thanks for yet another strawman.

I didn't say she's criminal or corrupt, yet another strawman.

Are you saying Clinton, Rubio and Cruz, so easily moved, have no principles?

Why do you want to vote for evil?

[Peter1469]

lol. With Hillary, placing her out of the evil box is denial. :wink:


While I find the phrase 'the lesser of two evils' off point there is a place in which reality resides and must be honored. We cannot create perfect people in spite of the vain belief they exist somewhere. Hillary Clinton is the best choice this go round, her legislative and judicial choices fit better the idealism we liberals aim for. God doesn't even know what Trump would do as his narcissist behavior is a quality most people find abhorrent. There are real consequences to presidents, George W. Bush should have proved that once and for all.


'Just the facts Ma'am, just the facts....'


http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/feb/09/what-did-hillary-clinton-tell-families-people-who-/


.

[Peter1469]

Clinton, a 0.1%er, neocon, and liar. Good choice!! :Doh!:

Liberal war hawk. Different from neocons in goal. Same problem- use military force too quickly.

[Peter1469]

Fear not. Many Bernie supports will never vote for Clinton (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/1/hillary-clinton-cant-count-on-bernie-sanders-suppo/)- for many reasons. The best line is End the Plutocracy.




I'm under no illusions that a Clinton administration would usher in an age of economic or even social progress, but at this point, I have become a conservative. Conservative in the sense of seeking to preserve the status quo because it's better than the alternative the teeming masses are demanding. I've become conservative because the masses have given up on progress, at least for now, and the prevailing demand is now that of going backward in time, to "the good old days" when everyone knew their proper place in this world. In the practical, this means indulging obviously extremely popular xenophobia to the hilt and writing off any dissent thereto as "political correctness run amok" and/or threatening those dissenters, perhaps with physical violence.

'Do Mussolini quotes and the backing of the Klan worry you? Does openly advocating extreme torture and mass murder make you queasy? Do you feel compassion for your fellow human being? You're such a girly weakling! My dick is bigger than yours and you better never criticize me again or else!'

That is the political climate of today's America. I'm sorry to step on fashionable, generic "anti-establishment" rhetoric, but the corresponding political program is not a better alternative to the current state of affairs! In the face of THAT kind of reactionary prevailing attitude, simply defending the better aspects of the status quo and the merits of social justice constitutes an act of subversion. When the tide is moving a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction, sometimes the boldest thing you can do is simply stand in its way and proclaim "We're not going back while I'm standing!"

It has become clear to me that real progress is something for a future generation. Today's battle is against the imminent threat of the world's most powerful nation becoming a police state that starts World War 3. It's a depressing realization, but it's the truth. That is another accomplishment of the Trump campaign: it has helped me forfeit all dreams and aspirations and just hope things don't get too much worse. And if they do get much worse, I'm leaving, I swear to god. Neither my conscience nor fear for my own physical safety will allow me to endure a Donald Trump presidency. Hillary Clinton may not be perfect, but there are light years worth of positive difference between what she stands for and the alternative before us.

[The Xl]

I know personally many liberals who aren't going to vote Clinton in the general election because of the fact that she's establishment, or because the dems openly screwed Sanders. Or both in some cases.

The general election isn't going to be the cakewalk some liberals think it will be. Trump isn't going to be throwing softballs at her like Sanders mistakenly did.

[Chris]

I know personally many liberals who aren't going to vote Clinton in the general election because of the fact that she's establishment, or because the dems openly screwed Sanders. Or both in some cases.

The general election isn't going to be the cakewalk some liberals think it will be. Trump isn't going to be throwing softballs at her like Sanders mistakenly did.

Right now Trump embarrasses himself. In the general, he'll embarrass Clinton.

[Peter1469]

Right now Trump embarrasses himself. In the general, he'll embarrass Clinton.

Clinton will physically break down if in a debate with Trump. Unless he goes easy on her. I don't see that happening.

[The Xl]

Clinton will physically break down if in a debate with Trump. Unless he goes easy on her. I don't see that happening.

Clinton visibly cracked and lost her composure in one of the debates, all it took was Sanders lightly insinuating that she's bought. She's going to get killed in the general debates.

[Peter1469]

Clinton visibly cracked and lost her composure in one of the debates, all it took was Sanders lightly insinuating that she's bought. She's going to get killed in the general debates.

She goes into coughing fits. A doctor says she had a bad concussion and has serious side effects from it.

Trump will bring that out of her.

[TrueBlue]

Thank you, IMPress Polly, for your well thought out commentary. It shows that not only are you an intelligent person but are pragmatic as well in your political views such as to determine, at this point, that there is no viable path for Bernie Sanders to win the upcoming presidential election. You are correct in that.

My personal beliefs are that Bernie Sanders is a good man with some good points but no real plan to pay for all of what he is promising to give out, other than to shift the burden of cost to the taxpayers as he has said many times he would do. Yes, he is being honest about it but it would still cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars in the process of getting his programs enacted and that, only if Congress would fully support him in that endeavor which is quite doubtful. That has been one of my major concerns.

Therefore, your decision to come over to Hillary Clinton's side is a very wise choice. I hope more of Bernie's supporters will reach that same conclusion after examining the facts and realizing that his days are unfortunately numbered and that Clinton is the clear choice to be the Democratic nominee for president. What I would farther hope would happen, because it really needs to, is for those who may still remain with Sanders for them to fully realize starting at this point in time but especially on election day that they and all of their friends and family, etc. need to come out en masse and Vote To Support Hillary Clinton this November because as you say the alternative of having Trump as the next president would be utterly devastating to this country, imho. His thoughts, actions and platform have both greatly surprised and disappointed me to the point that I cannot understand how anyone with good sense could give their support to him under any circumstances.

[Green Arrow]

I cannot sign on to this, for a number of reasons.

For starters, this is about more than just the nomination. At this point it's unlikely Bernie will win the nomination. Giving up isn't the answer, though. The more delegates we win, the more power we wield to completely remake the party. In 1988, Jesse Jackson lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis, but won a bigger victory: he used his delegates to force the DNC to issue a minority report advocating his issues. Bernie could very well win more delegates this cycle than Jackson did then, which would give him the political capital to ensure Hillary chooses a progressive running mate AND force changes to the platform and party administration. That has been my goal from the beginning, as I never believed we could win democratically or otherwise.

Second, Hillary Clinton is far from being a progressive, far enough that she shouldn't even be considered a progressive or a legitimate choice for progressives. Yeah, Bernie has forced her to run to the left somewhat, but that is all meaningless. When push comes to shove and she's in powerful positions to enact progressive ideals, she declines, every time. She was barely more than a Republican as Secretary of State and Republican-lite as senator. She briefly tried to fight for progressive ideals as First Lady, but the minute she faced resistance she dropped it all and became a regular old corporate hack. I don't believe for a second that if we give her another chance, she'll do anything different. She's saying whatever she has to in order to get elected and none of it will matter once she wins.

Third, believing anything Trump says at this point is naive. Donald Trump is not going to be the second coming of Adolf Hitler. He's not going to deport all Muslims and ban them from coming to the U.S. He's not going to build a wall, he's not going to kill terrorist families any more than Hillary would or Obama did. He's not going to deport people any more strongly than Obama has. Donald Trump has been a lifelong friend of the Clinton family and has been a faithful backer of Democrats for forty years. Everything he says now is designed purely to get him elected and destroy the GOP. The ONLY thing that will change between Trump being president and anyone else being president is that the U.S. will be more openly controlled by the aristocracy.

With all of this stuff, Hillary and Trump in particular, we cannot afford to have tunnel vision. We can't look at what they say now absent of history and believe it. That's what they want.

[Green Arrow]

I don't think Trump is worse. Clinton and the others are proxies for elitists that have waged wars for profit, allowed bankers to ruin the economy, destroy peoples lives, and bail them out on top of it, and are cronies of the insurance industry. Trump isn't bought by those people, so he has no loyalty to those people.
@The Xl (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=865)

I look forward to your endorsement of Lloyd Blankfein for President. After all, he's not bought by anyone either.

[The Xl]

@The Xl (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=865)

I look forward to your endorsement of Lloyd Blankfein for President. After all, he's not bought by anyone either.

Donald Trump is a low level billionaire that isn't pushing serious policy behind the scenes. We all know high level bankers are.

[Peter1469]

Face it. The vast majority are for the single dual sided coin of corruption. :wink:

The brights get it.

[IMPress Polly]

@The Xl (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=865)


The XL wrote:
I don't think Trump is worse. Clinton and the others are proxies for elitists that have waged wars for profit, allowed bankers to ruin the economy, destroy peoples lives, and bail them out on top of it, and are cronies of the insurance industry. Trump isn't bought by those people, so he has no loyalty to those people.

Trump is rude and crass, sure. At this point, I don't care about that at all. People need to get their priorities straight, Trump is an obnoxious $#@!, but the Clinton's and Cruz's are threatening WW3. Once you get past the fluff, it's easy to see that the establishment candidates are far worse.

Trump actually has real divides with the power structure. Is against unfair trade, isn't hostile with Russia, wants to end the state insurance monopolies, etc.

If you need to see Trumps badge of authenticity, look at the unprecedented level of attacks from the republican and democratic establishment and the mass media. He's extremely flawed, but if Sanders is out, he's absolutely the guy to me, no question.

Maybe we need a moment of clarity here. Over the course of the campaign, I've taken to writing down the stated positions of each of the candidates. The differences between what Clinton is advocating and what Trump is advocating are stark, particularly as regards social and foreign policy, and I mean in a way that, for me, does not favor the latter. At all. Here's the breakdown of their positions:


SOCIAL POLICY

Trump

-Deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States and their citizen children. <--This position alone should be decisive for any civilized human being, in my view. It's racist, unconstitutional, and consider the means by which he proposes to implement it: door-to-door searches by the military. Sounds like a police state to me!

-Construct a 50-foot wall between the U.S. and Mexico, paid for by seizing the back wages of impoverished Mexican undocumented workers.

-Reduce the number of work visas America offers so that fewer people can migrate here annually. <--Just in case you thought the above items weren't racially motivated.

-Ban Muslims from moving to, or even visiting, the United States unless they are foreign dignitaries.

-Require all Muslims to register with the government and track their movements.

-Install monitoring equipment in all mosques to spy on what is said therein and "shut down" any mosques with content deemed questionable.

-Deport all refugees of the Syrian war we're participating in (thus helping actively create refugees) back to Syria.

-Sign an executive order abolishing gun-free zones (including at schools and on military bases) on day one of his presidency. <--What could possibly go wrong?

-Further expand the military.

-Opposes same-sex marriage.

-Opposes public funding for Planned Parenthood even though none of it pays for abortion procedures, but rather for evidently controversial things like breast cancer screenings. (No word on whether Mr. Trump intends to similarly oppose state funding for fake abortion clinics that hand out religious tracts and known misinformation (crisis pregnancy centers, as they're called), such as many have introduced.)

-Require disclosure of campaign contribution sources. <--YaY, one position I agree with! THAT sure makes up for all the others! :laugh:

Clinton

-Appoint only Supreme Court justices who will reverse the Citizens United ruling and, absent such an opportunity, pass a constitutional amendment to get dark money out of politics.

-Nationwide automatic voter registration for all American citizens 18 years of age and older.

-Absent comprehensive immigration reform, expand President Obama's executive order Dream Act to shield more people from deportation; namely the parents of Dreamers, in order to keep families together.

-Allow undocumented immigrants to acquire driver's licenses.

-Take in 65,000 thoroughly-vetted Syrian refugees per year (in contrast to the 10,000 Obama has proposed to).

-Treat drugs as a medical issue, not a criminal issue, i.e. decriminalize drugs and replace incarceration for drug possession offenses with mandatory rehab.

-Abolish private prisons (including for-profit prisons).

-Demilitarize the police and require all officers to wear body cameras.

-Supports applying the death penalty only in cases of terrorism; says would not oppose a Supreme Court verdict ruling the death penalty unconstitutional altogether.

-Opposed the Keystone XL pipeline and opposes drilling for oil in the arctic.

-Supports women's bodily autonomy.

-Supports same-sex marriage.

-Require criminal and mental health background checks for all gun purchases.

-Ban the sale and purchase of new assault weapons.

-Eliminate gun companies' special exemption from prosecution. Willing to enact this policy change through executive order.


FOREIGN POLICY

Trump

-Blow up Iraq's oil fields (thus destroying ISIS' economic backbone), then gift them to American companies (like ExxonMobil) to rebuild, and send in American ground troops to secure those said oil fields.

-Opposes Iran nuclear deal.

-Opposes negotiating peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

-Reauthorize waterboarding (currently illegal under both American and international law) and "much worse than waterboarding".

-Impose a 35% tax on basically all imports and renegotiate trade deals with other countries only on an individual basis rather than multilaterally.

-Somehow fine Mexico $100,000 for every Mexican immigrant who enters the United States without going through the proper legal channels.

-Concerning Syria, prioritize defeating ISIS over ousting Assad. <--Closest thing to an item I agree with on the Trump foreign policy position list.

Clinton

-Opposes sending proper combat forces (i.e. regular troops) into Iraq and/or Syria.

-Supports Iran nuclear deal.

-Supports diplomatic rapprochement with Cuba, including lifting the trade embargo.

-Opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Says will only support new trade agreements if they include binding, enforceable labor and environmental protections going forward (unlike NAFTA and other current agreements that only include non-binding provisions).

-Has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone over sections of Syria in order to convince Russia to come to the negotiating table and agree to focus on attacking ISIS instead of other rebel groups backed by the U.S. Unclear if she still supports this position now that we have a cease-fire in Syria that appears to be holding. <--This view I strongly disagreed with.


ECONOMIC POLICY

Trump

He almost never talks about economics, but here's what he's got on offer, broken down by class:

For workers and other ordinary people:

-Abolish the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other unnamed government agencies and programs. "I will cut so much it'll make your head spin!"

-Repeal the Affordable Care Act.

-Pledges to cut "waste, fraud, and abuse" out of Social Security. <--What's the definition of "waste, fraud, and abuse"? Benefits? Clarity badly needed!

-Opposes raising the minimum wage because "wages are too high."

For capitalists:

-Cut top marginal personal income tax rate from current 39.6% to 25%.

-Cut corporate tax rate from current of 40% to 15%.

-Introduce new corporate tax loophole.

-Eliminate the estate tax.

-Eliminate capital gains tax loophole...but make up for it by reducing taxes on capital gains, thus but formalizing the status quo.

Note: According to the independent Tax Foundation, Trump's tax plan would cut the tax rates of the richest 1% of the U.S. population by 27% annually; a reduction exceeded only by corporate candidate Marco Rubio's plan, which would cut them by 27.9%.

-Eliminate corporate welfare for oil companies. <--YaY, the one Trump position per list I can agree with! :tongue:

Clinton

For workers and other ordinary people:

-Raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

-Offer financial incentives (e.g. tax credits or direct subsidies) to companies that share their profits with their workers. <--Most exciting Clinton economic proposal, IMO! Needs to be discussed more often!

-Require employers to provide paid family leave and have the government provide child care options to shrink the pay gap between men and women, increase family time and improve child care.

-Supports the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would crack down on gender discrimination in pay rates.

-New, $275 billion economic stimulus package, funded in part by the establishment of a new infrastructure bank, to accelerate the development of clean energy (wind, solar, etc.) and help clean up the existing energy supply.

-Establish universal pre-kindergarten education.

-Grant students tuition-free admission to community colleges. Paid for by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and requiring a 10-hour work week labor contribution from the student.

-Allow students to refinance existing college debt at lower interest rates.

-Match the amount of money that state governments invest in education.

-Reduce the number and frequency of standardized tests and afford teachers more leeway to teach.

-Create a national health insurance program to expand the number of people covered by the Affordable Care Act, but doesn't believe it should be Medicare (i.e. necessarily free to consumers) or that it should be the sole provider of health insurance (i.e. buying in should be optional).

-Increase the reach of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion to all 50 states.

-Impose a price ceiling of $250 on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs.

-Enable Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.

-$5,000 annual tax deduction to compensate for rising prescription drug costs.

-Additional $10 billion to be allocated annually to programs combating mental illness and drug addiction.

-Expand Social Security benefits for the poorest recipients. <--Financing plan listed under "For capitalists".

For capitalists:

-Close capital gains tax loophole and others.

-Impose a 4% tax hike on people making more than $5 million a year.

Extend the life of Social Security and rxpand Social Security benefits for the poorest recipients by either lifting the cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security fund or by taxing capital gains in such a way that those funds go into Social Security.


SO...yeah, between the two, the choice for me is pretty clear.

[Green Arrow]

Donald Trump is a low level billionaire that isn't pushing serious policy behind the scenes. We all know high level bankers are.

Really? So what were all those checks he cut to the Clintons for? How about the checks he cut to Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer?

You know, Peter Thiel donated to Ron Paul's campaign and looked like a legit libertarian. Then the dude gets a seat as CHAIRMAN of the Bilderberg Group's annual meeting and develops programs to help the CIA spy on us.

[PolWatch]

Trump admitted during the first debate that he received favors for donations. He plays the same game as the others. He just wants to be the recipient of donations now instead of the payer. His entire life has been devoted to money....what makes anyone believe he has had an epiphany?

[Peter1469]

Trump admitted during the first debate that he received favors for donations. He plays the same game as the others. He just wants to be the recipient of donations now instead of the payer. His entire life has been devoted to money....what makes anyone believe he has had an epiphany?

For one, we know his opposition is utterly and completely corrupt.

If he goes back on his word and screws the common man, all we can say is situation normal all fucked up. SNAFU.

Vote for the others is bending over pre-lubed.

[The Xl]

Really? So what were all those checks he cut to the Clintons for? How about the checks he cut to Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer?

You know, Peter Thiel donated to Ron Paul's campaign and looked like a legit libertarian. Then the dude gets a seat as CHAIRMAN of the Bilderberg Group's annual meeting and develops programs to help the CIA spy on us.

No one ever said Trump is above using the broken system to his benefit. He's admitted as much.

Is he starting nonsense wars like Iraq? Is he bailing out banks? Is he securing the insurance industry monopoly? No, no, and no.

If he was more of the same, the establishment wouldn't be moving heaven and earth to stop him. Their response to him speaks volumes.

[The Xl]

For one, we know his opposition is utterly and completely corrupt.

If he goes back on his word and screws the common man, all we can say is situation normal all fucked up. SNAFU.

Vote for the others is bending over pre-lubed.

Right. Unlike all the other candidates, all he has is himself and the people. He really can't alienate the people, he has no other allies.

[Green Arrow]

No one ever said Trump is above using the broken system to his benefit. He's admitted as much.

Is he starting nonsense wars like Iraq? Is he bailing out banks? Is he securing the insurance industry monopoly? No, no, and no.

Not yet, but he certainly supports it all.


If he was more of the same, the establishment wouldn't be moving heaven and earth to stop him. Their response to him speaks volumes.

By that logic, Hillary isn't establishment. The GOP establishment is certainly moving heaven and earth to stop her.

[Peter1469]

Trump is getting foreign policy advice from realists. What would the world be like if realism (http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/01/08/what-would-a-realist-world-have-looked-like-iraq-syria-iran-obama-bush-clinton/) ruled in foreign policy the last decade and a half? It would be a much better place for the US.

[The Xl]

@The Xl (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=865)



Maybe we need a moment of clarity here. Over the course of the campaign, I've taken to writing down the stated positions of each of the candidates. The differences between what Clinton is advocating and what Trump is advocating are stark, particularly as regards social and foreign policy, and I mean in a way that, for me, does not favor the latter. At all. Here's the breakdown of their positions:


SOCIAL POLICY

Trump

-Deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States and their citizen children. <--This position alone should be decisive for any civilized human being, in my view. It's racist, unconstitutional, and consider the means by which he proposes to implement it: door-to-door searches by the military. Sounds like a police state to me!

-Construct a 50-foot wall between the U.S. and Mexico, paid for by seizing the back wages of impoverished Mexican undocumented workers.

-Reduce the number of work visas America offers so that fewer people can migrate here annually. <--Just in case you thought the above items weren't racially motivated.

-Ban Muslims from moving to, or even visiting, the United States unless they are foreign dignitaries.

-Require all Muslims to register with the government and track their movements.

-Install monitoring equipment in all mosques to spy on what is said therein and "shut down" any mosques with content deemed questionable.

-Deport all refugees of the Syrian war we're participating in (thus helping actively create refugees) back to Syria.

-Sign an executive order abolishing gun-free zones (including at schools and on military bases) on day one of his presidency. <--What could possibly go wrong?

-Further expand the military.

-Opposes same-sex marriage.

-Opposes public funding for Planned Parenthood even though none of it pays for abortion procedures, but rather for evidently controversial things like breast cancer screenings. (No word on whether Mr. Trump intends to similarly oppose state funding for fake abortion clinics that hand out religious tracts and known misinformation (crisis pregnancy centers, as they're called), such as many have introduced.)

-Require disclosure of campaign contribution sources. <--YaY, one position I agree with! THAT sure makes up for all the others! :laugh:

Clinton

-Appoint only Supreme Court justices who will reverse the Citizens United ruling and, absent such an opportunity, pass a constitutional amendment to get dark money out of politics.

-Nationwide automatic voter registration for all American citizens 18 years of age and older.

-Absent comprehensive immigration reform, expand President Obama's executive order Dream Act to shield more people from deportation; namely the parents of Dreamers, in order to keep families together.

-Allow undocumented immigrants to acquire driver's licenses.

-Take in 65,000 thoroughly-vetted Syrian refugees per year (in contrast to the 10,000 Obama has proposed to).

-Treat drugs as a medical issue, not a criminal issue, i.e. decriminalize drugs and replace incarceration for drug possession offenses with mandatory rehab.

-Abolish private prisons (including for-profit prisons).

-Demilitarize the police and require all officers to wear body cameras.

-Supports applying the death penalty only in cases of terrorism; says would not oppose a Supreme Court verdict ruling the death penalty unconstitutional altogether.

-Opposed the Keystone XL pipeline and opposes drilling for oil in the arctic.

-Supports women's bodily autonomy.

-Supports same-sex marriage.

-Require criminal and mental health background checks for all gun purchases.

-Ban the sale and purchase of new assault weapons.

-Eliminate gun companies' special exemption from prosecution. Willing to enact this policy change through executive order.


FOREIGN POLICY

Trump

-Blow up Iraq's oil fields (thus destroying ISIS' economic backbone), then gift them to American companies (like ExxonMobil) to rebuild, and send in American ground troops to secure those said oil fields.

-Opposes Iran nuclear deal.

-Opposes negotiating peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

-Reauthorize waterboarding (currently illegal under both American and international law) and "much worse than waterboarding".

-Impose a 35% tax on basically all imports and renegotiate trade deals with other countries only on an individual basis rather than multilaterally.

-Somehow fine Mexico $100,000 for every Mexican immigrant who enters the United States without going through the proper legal channels.

-Concerning Syria, prioritize defeating ISIS over ousting Assad. <--Closest thing to an item I agree with on the Trump foreign policy position list.

Clinton

-Opposes sending proper combat forces (i.e. regular troops) into Iraq and/or Syria.

-Supports Iran nuclear deal.

-Supports diplomatic rapprochement with Cuba, including lifting the trade embargo.

-Opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Says will only support new trade agreements if they include binding, enforceable labor and environmental protections going forward (unlike NAFTA and other current agreements that only include non-binding provisions).

-Has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone over sections of Syria in order to convince Russia to come to the negotiating table and agree to focus on attacking ISIS instead of other rebel groups backed by the U.S. Unclear if she still supports this position now that we have a cease-fire in Syria that appears to be holding. <--This view I strongly disagreed with.


ECONOMIC POLICY

Trump

He almost never talks about economics, but here's what he's got on offer, broken down by class:

For workers and other ordinary people:

-Abolish the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other unnamed government agencies and programs. "I will cut so much it'll make your head spin!"

-Repeal the Affordable Care Act.

-Pledges to cut "waste, fraud, and abuse" out of Social Security. <--What's the definition of "waste, fraud, and abuse"? Benefits? Clarity badly needed!

-Opposes raising the minimum wage because "wages are too high."

For capitalists:

-Cut top marginal personal income tax rate from current 39.6% to 25%.

-Cut corporate tax rate from current of 40% to 15%.

-Introduce new corporate tax loophole.

-Eliminate the estate tax.

-Eliminate capital gains tax loophole...but make up for it by reducing taxes on capital gains, thus but formalizing the status quo.

Note: According to the independent Tax Foundation, Trump's tax plan would cut the tax rates of the richest 1% of the U.S. population by 27% annually; a reduction exceeded only by corporate candidate Marco Rubio's plan, which would cut them by 27.9%.

-Eliminate corporate welfare for oil companies. <--YaY, the one Trump position per list I can agree with! :tongue:

Clinton

For workers and other ordinary people:

-Raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

-Offer financial incentives (e.g. tax credits or direct subsidies) to companies that share their profits with their workers. <--Most exciting Clinton economic proposal, IMO! Needs to be discussed more often!

-Require employers to provide paid family leave and have the government provide child care options to shrink the pay gap between men and women, increase family time and improve child care.

-Supports the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would crack down on gender discrimination in pay rates.

-New, $275 billion economic stimulus package, funded in part by the establishment of a new infrastructure bank, to accelerate the development of clean energy (wind, solar, etc.) and help clean up the existing energy supply.

-Establish universal pre-kindergarten education.

-Grant students tuition-free admission to community colleges. Paid for by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and requiring a 10-hour work week labor contribution from the student.

-Allow students to refinance existing college debt at lower interest rates.

-Match the amount of money that state governments invest in education.

-Reduce the number and frequency of standardized tests and afford teachers more leeway to teach.

-Create a national health insurance program to expand the number of people covered by the Affordable Care Act, but doesn't believe it should be Medicare (i.e. necessarily free to consumers) or that it should be the sole provider of health insurance (i.e. buying in should be optional).

-Increase the reach of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion to all 50 states.

-Impose a price ceiling of $250 on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs.

-Enable Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.

-$5,000 annual tax deduction to compensate for rising prescription drug costs.

-Additional $10 billion to be allocated annually to programs combating mental illness and drug addiction.

-Expand Social Security benefits for the poorest recipients. <--Financing plan listed under "For capitalists".

For capitalists:

-Close capital gains tax loophole and others.

-Impose a 4% tax hike on people making more than $5 million a year.

Extend the life of Social Security and rxpand Social Security benefits for the poorest recipients by either lifting the cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security fund or by taxing capital gains in such a way that those funds go into Social Security.


SO...yeah, between the two, the choice for me is pretty clear.

Forgive my short and brief response, but I'm simply not a great typer on the phone.

I'm not a fan of everything trump is advocating either, I strongly oppose his deportation and torture stance, but I'm at the point where nearly anyone is above the establishment. He intends to do some good, he doesn't want war with Russia like the rest, and he isn't beholden to the insurance companies, among other things.

Understand that every progressive thing Hillary advocates on the surface is all show. She isn't raising the minimum wage, and get rid of dark money in politics? Yeah right, she is the personification of a corrupt establishment candidate funded by dark money. Hillary is lying about pretty much every appealing thing she says.

The choice is clear to me, the establishment and the interests that own them must fall, that's priority number one.

[The Xl]

Not yet, but he certainly supports it all.



By that logic, Hillary isn't establishment. The GOP establishment is certainly moving heaven and earth to stop her.

Trump supports that? Yeah, that's why he's threatening to release classified info on 911, has come out against Iraq strongly and basically even blamed Bush, and has exposed the state insurance monopolies. Don't think he's on their side.

The left media always attacks the right and vice versa. It's part of the smoke and mirrors. Literally everyone is attacking Trump, it's literally unprecedented. Not even close to the same situation.

[MisterVeritis]

SO...yeah, between the two, the choice for me is pretty clear.
Me too. Trump.

[Green Arrow]

Trump supports that? Yeah, that's why he's threatening to release classified info on 911

Right, like how he's threatened to release Obama's "real" birth certificate and file lawsuits about Marco Rubio's and Ted Cruz's ineligibility to be president because they aren't natural born citizens :rollseyes: I mean it's not like we have any reason to doubt Trump would be lying :rollseyes:


has come out against Iraq strongly and basically even blamed Bush

So has Hillary. Is she absolved from supporting it in the Senate in 2003?


and has exposed the state insurance monopolies.

That everyone already knew existed.


Don't think he's on their side.

I didn't think Peter Thiel was on their side either, until he was.

[Green Arrow]

Let's be clear. If it's a choice between Hillary and Trump, you won't find me supporting Hillary.

Of course, you won't find me supporting Trump either.

If the rest of you want to buy their lines, be my guest. I refuse to be a pawn in their scheme for one more year.

[Chris]

Polly lists a whole lot of things Clinton and Trump promise, and classifies them by Marxist classes, worker v capitalist, which isn't all that valuable a view for most Americans anyhow, but I wonder how many of any of the promises are something a president can constitutionally deliver on.

[The Xl]

Right, like how he's threatened to release Obama's "real" birth certificate and file lawsuits about Marco Rubio's and Ted Cruz's ineligibility to be president because they aren't natural born citizens :rollseyes: I mean it's not like we have any reason to doubt Trump would be lying :rollseyes:



So has Hillary. Is she absolved from supporting it in the Senate in 2003?



That everyone already knew existed.



I didn't think Peter Thiel was on their side either, until he was.

To even suggest Saudi Arabia had something to do with 911 publicly is unprecedented, as is basically blaming Bush for it on stage. Clinton voted for the Iraq war, did she not? Like everything else, her assertions hold no credibility.

If Trump was more of the same, you wouldn't see this unified establishment hysteria.

[IMPress Polly]

Green Arrow wrote:
I cannot sign on to this, for a number of reasons.

For starters, this is about more than just the nomination. At this point it's unlikely Bernie will win the nomination. Giving up isn't the answer, though. The more delegates we win, the more power we wield to completely remake the party. In 1988, Jesse Jackson lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis, but won a bigger victory: he used his delegates to force the DNC to issue a minority report advocating his issues. Bernie could very well win more delegates this cycle than Jackson did then, which would give him the political capital to ensure Hillary chooses a progressive running mate AND force changes to the platform and party administration. That has been my goal from the beginning, as I never believed we could win democratically or otherwise.

The delegate point you make is actually a good one. The means make a difference to me though. It just seems absolutely ridiculous to me that the big thing now among Bernie Sanders supporters is calling for Bill Clinton's arrest for no particular reason. It looks wildly out of touch with reality to everyone who observes this spectacle. That's not making a difference, it's just making fools of ourselves and discrediting this movement, especially with the Clinton backers needed to change the outcome. It seems almost as desperate as Marco Rubio's new personality and it will make just as much difference: none, or at least none for the better. When a campaign enters desperation mode and its people begin saying and doing literally anything to win, it's at that point that, to me, it stops being a productive endeavor that people can or will take seriously going forward. All this development does in my mind is reinforce the impression that this stage of the race is clearly over and that it's time to move on to the next one.


Second, Hillary Clinton is far from being a progressive, far enough that she shouldn't even be considered a progressive or a legitimate choice for progressives. Yeah, Bernie has forced her to run to the left somewhat, but that is all meaningless. When push comes to shove and she's in powerful positions to enact progressive ideals, she declines, every time. She was barely more than a Republican as Secretary of State and Republican-lite as senator. She briefly tried to fight for progressive ideals as First Lady, but the minute she faced resistance she dropped it all and became a regular old corporate hack. I don't believe for a second that if we give her another chance, she'll do anything different. She's saying whatever she has to in order to get elected and none of it will matter once she wins.

Third, believing anything Trump says at this point is naive. Donald Trump is not going to be the second coming of Adolf Hitler. He's not going to deport all Muslims and ban them from coming to the U.S. He's not going to build a wall, he's not going to kill terrorist families any more than Hillary would or Obama did. He's not going to deport people any more strongly than Obama has. Donald Trump has been a lifelong friend of the Clinton family and has been a faithful backer of Democrats for forty years. Everything he says now is designed purely to get him elected and destroy the GOP. The ONLY thing that will change between Trump being president and anyone else being president is that the U.S. will be more openly controlled by the aristocracy.

With all of this stuff, Hillary and Trump in particular, we cannot afford to have tunnel vision. We can't look at what they say now absent of history and believe it. That's what they want.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that Hillary Clinton is a hardened leftist. However, remembering the 1990s, her 2008 campaign, and this one, I have observed a very real and definite tack to the left over time. My biggest concern with Hillary Clinton isn't the positions she stakes out (because, while not radical, they are broadly left-of-center and agreeable to me), but her propensity to compromise them away because she does indeed take corporate money and whatnot. But there was still a very big difference even in the 1990s between what the Clintons represented and what say Newt Gingrich represented on the other side, despite their occasional agreements. And the Clintons also enacted some very significant policy changes, particularly in the early '90s, that really were bold, at least one of which has benefited me directly: the Violence Against Women Act. So it's not all contempt and distrust of the Clintons for me. Today the economic positions she's staking out in particular are definitely less neoliberal and more communitarian than the ones the Clintons supported two decades ago.

More importantly though, it seems to me that your lack of concern over what Trump stands for is what's rooted in naive thinking here. You're very much depending on the idea that he's lying about every position he stakes out. A habitual liar and a bad one he may be, but everyone has some kind of compass and Trump hasn't changed many of his positions so far since getting into this race. I think it's naive and dangerous to take nothing he says and threatens seriously just because he talks like a juvenile schoolyard bully who never grew up. How many people have lost their careers now underestimating the credibility of this man's campaign? Trump has to be taken seriously. Without attempting to suggest that Hillary Clinton is a perfect candidate or that she doesn't need to select a populist running mate, having gone through a number of these election cycles now, my observation is that the threat of a full-on police state here is more real and more imminent than it has ever been, at least in my living memory and that it needs to be taken seriously.

What Sanders' I think we can safely say essential defeat at this point signals to me is that we (progressives) are not positioned to go on the offensive at this time like I hoped we were. Instead we are trapped on the defensive for the time being. I dislike that as much as you do, but I also feel pretty powerless to do change that situation. I've put a lot of time and effort out there already into doing so and this is where things wound up. I just feel like the choice now comes down to basically retooling the status quo, casting a throwaway vote just to look cool, or outright conceding to what's pretty much the worst alternative I can imagine. With the threat of fascism as the alternative, I'll take the status quo any day of the week, flawed as it may be. And while I'd like to believe that continuing on with the Bernie Sanders campaign could do something positive like increase the voices of progressives at the DNC and further influence Hillary Clinton's choice of running mate in a way that's both positive and bolsters the ticket's appeal to working class people, the means we're seeing right now seem more desperate than productive.

[Mister D]

To even suggest Saudi Arabia had something to do with 911 publicly is unprecedented, as is basically blaming Bush for it on stage. Clinton voted for the Iraq war, did she not? Like everything else, her assertions hold no credibility.

If Trump was more of the same, you wouldn't see this unified establishment hysteria.

There is something to that for sure. I would add that this same establishment is responsible for Trump's ascendance.

[IMPress Polly]

The XL wrote:
I'm not a fan of everything trump is advocating either, I strongly oppose his deportation and torture stance, but I'm at the point where nearly anyone is above the establishment. He intends to do some good, he doesn't want war with Russia like the rest, and he isn't beholden to the insurance companies, among other things.

Nope, he just wants war (war proper anyway) with Iraq instead. Originally he supported the 2003 Iraq War, then he came out against it in 2004, now he says we need a new one even while positing his anti-war credentials on this very conflict (which are more limited than those of Hillary Clinton incidentally, who came out against the Iraq War earlier than Mr. Trump and doesn't support another one now) as a validation of his superior judgment.


Understand that every progressive thing Hillary advocates on the surface is all show. She isn't raising the minimum wage, and get rid of dark money in politics? Yeah right, she is the personification of a corrupt establishment candidate funded by dark money. Hillary is lying about pretty much every appealing thing she says.

Here's the thing: even if you're 100% right about that and nothing whatsoever changes between now and 2020, that in my mind will still be a thousand times better than what will happen to both this country and the world if Donald Trump wins the presidency instead!


Forgive my short and brief response, but I'm simply not a great typer on the phone.

You manage it better than I do. I almost never type unless I'm at home on my computer. That's one part of why I'm not on too often. :tongue:

[Green Arrow]

To even suggest Saudi Arabia had something to do with 911 publicly is unprecedented

No, it really isn't. It's an evident suggestion that's even been joked about on Family Guy for god's sake.


as is basically blaming Bush for it on stage. Clinton voted for the Iraq war, did she not? Like everything else, her assertions hold no credibility.

Everyone blames Bush for the war in Iraq, even many Republicans.


If Trump was more of the same, you wouldn't see this unified establishment hysteria.

You would if they wanted to get an establishment figure elected in an anti-establishment year without letting on that people were voting for the establishment. It's political theatre, it's hardly new.

[The Xl]

Nope, he just wants war (war proper anyway) with Iraq instead. Originally he supported the 2003 Iraq War, then he came out against it in 2004, now he says we need a new one even while positing his anti-war credentials on this very conflict (which are more limited than those of Hillary Clinton incidentally, who came out against the Iraq War earlier than Mr. Trump and doesn't support another one now) as a validation of his superior judgment.



Here's the thing: even if you're 100% right about that and nothing whatsoever changes between now and 2020, that in my mind will still be a thousand times better than what will happen to both this country and the world if Donald Trump wins the presidency instead!



You manage it better than I do. I almost never type unless I'm at home on my computer. That's one part of why I'm not on too often. :tongue:

Is there something sourced that shows Trump was for Iraq in 03? Either way, he wasn't as informed as those in government, and coming out as against it in 04 at least shows that he isn't playing politics here, as he's been against it for 12 years, far before he had presidential aspirations.

[The Xl]

No, it really isn't. It's an evident suggestion that's even been joked about on Family Guy for god's sake.



Everyone blames Bush for the war in Iraq, even many Republicans.



You would if they wanted to get an establishment figure elected in an anti-establishment year without letting on that people were voting for the establishment. It's political theatre, it's hardly new.

Comparing a family guy skit to the statements of the republican frontrunner on a prime time debate and passing them off as the equivalent of each other is certainly a stretch, to say the least.

[Green Arrow]

The delegate point you make is actually a good one. The means make a difference to me though. It just seems absolutely ridiculous to me that the big thing now among Bernie Sanders supporters is calling for Bill Clinton's arrest for no particular reason. It looks wildly out of touch with reality to everyone who observes this spectacle. That's not making a difference, it's just making fools of ourselves and discrediting this movement, especially with the Clinton backers needed to change the outcome. It seems almost as desperate as Marco Rubio's new personality and it will make just as much difference: none, or at least none for the better. When a campaign enters desperation mode and its people begin saying and doing literally anything to win, it's at that point that, to me, it stops being a productive endeavor that people can or will take seriously going forward. All this development does in my mind is reinforce the impression that this stage of the race is clearly over and that it's time to move on to the next one.

Yeah, to be honest, I don't know what that's all about. I know my area's Bernie camp hasn't even hinted at support for such a thing and the thought never even entered my mind. I hadn't even heard about it until you brought it up. I'm not disputing that it happened, just saying I think that's probably a minority of Bernie's camp and Bernie himself isn't backing it.


I don't think anyone here is suggesting that Hillary Clinton is a hardened leftist. However, remembering the 1990s, her 2008 campaign, and this one, I have observed a very real and definite tack to the left over time. My biggest concern with Hillary Clinton isn't the positions she stakes out (because, while not radical, they are broadly left-of-center and agreeable to me), but her propensity to compromise them away because she does indeed take corporate money and whatnot. But there was still a very big difference even in the 1990s between what the Clintons represented and what say Newt Gingrich represented on the other side, despite their occasional agreements. And the Clintons also enacted some very significant policy changes, particularly in the early '90s, that really were bold, at least one of which has benefited me directly: the Violence Against Women Act. So it's not all contempt and distrust of the Clintons for me. Today the economic positions she's staking out in particular are definitely less neoliberal and more communitarian than the ones the Clintons supported two decades ago.

I don't loathe everything about Hillary. There are decisions she's made, like the Violence Against Women Act, that I liked and agreed with. But overall I find her and her corporate hackery detestable and can't bring myself to support her. I won't support Donald Trump either. I'll likely vote Jill Stein.


More importantly though, it seems to me that your lack of concern over what Trump stands for is what's rooted in naive thinking here. You're very much depending on the idea that he's lying about every position he stakes out. A habitual liar and a bad one he may be, but everyone has some kind of compass and Trump hasn't changed many of his positions so far since getting into this race. I think it's naive and dangerous to take nothing he says and threatens seriously just because he talks like a juvenile schoolyard bully who never grew up. How many people have lost their careers now underestimating the credibility of this man's campaign? Trump has to be taken seriously. Without attempting to suggest that Hillary Clinton is a perfect candidate or that she doesn't need to select a populist running mate, having gone through a number of these election cycles now, my observation is that the threat of a full-on police state here is more real and more imminent than it has ever been, at least in my living memory and that it needs to be taken seriously.

I take Trump very seriously, just not for the same reasons. I also don't believe that Trump will make it through his first year, let alone his first term, unless he severely moderates his behavior and attitude.


What Sanders' I think we can safely say essential defeat at this point signals to me is that we (progressives) are not positioned to go on the offensive at this time like I hoped we were. Instead we are trapped on the defensive for the time being. I dislike that as much as you do, but I also feel pretty powerless to do change that situation. I've put a lot of time and effort out there already into doing so and this is where things wound up. I just feel like the choice now comes down to basically retooling the status quo, casting a throwaway vote just to look cool, or outright conceding to what's pretty much the worst alternative I can imagine. With the threat of fascism as the alternative, I'll take the status quo any day of the week, flawed as it may be. And while I'd like to believe that continuing on with the Bernie Sanders campaign could do something positive like increase the voices of progressives at the DNC and further influence Hillary Clinton's choice of running mate in a way that's both positive and bolsters the ticket's appeal to working class people, the means we're seeing right now seem more desperate than productive.

This is another area where we disagree. Progressives weren't positioned to go on the offensive in 1890-1912 either, but we did and we won significant victories. We beat the Democratic corporate machine and made Joseph Folk governor of Missouri. We beat the Republican corporate machine and made Robert M. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette Sr. governor of Wisconsin (and later U.S. Senator). We got Theodore Roosevelt elected president and then brought him to one of the largest third party finishes in history in 1912 as leader of the U.S.'s first ever Progressive Party.

We've been playing defense long enough. Time to go on offense. I played the status quo game at 16-17 and quite literally risked violence to fight for John McCain in 2008. I promised myself after losing that fight that I would never sign my name to the status quo again and would fight for the right things. If I'm going to shed blood, sweat, and tears, it'll be for a fire-breathing progressive reformer. Win or lose.

[Green Arrow]

Comparing a family guy skit to the statements of the republican frontrunner on a prime time debate and passing them off as the equivalent of each other is certainly a stretch, to say the least.

I did no such thing. Your claim was that it was unprecedented to claim Saudi Arabia was responsible for 9/11 in public. That is false.

[Boris The Animal]

I was hopeful that the Democratic Party would be the one that got revolutionized in this election cycle, but I guess that's not going to happen this time around. Longer term though, I'm not sure our current two-party system necessarily has an indefinite future either. Basically, if Trump is elected president, I think that's the end of democracy in this country. If he wins, I'll be gone by Thanksgiving and will never look back.

On the other hand, if Trump is defeated in November, that I think will reinvigorate the Republican Party establishment in much the same way that Barry Goldwater's defeat did for more than 15 years after the 1964 election. Such a development would force many Republicans to realize that they simply cannot have everything they want; that they have to become more reasonable to win the White House in the 21st century. But the Trump movement will have permanent significance nonetheless, much as the Goldwater movement did. It's entirely possible that the most hardcore, racist pro-Trump elements that compose about 25% of the Republican Party will respond to defeat by bolting and forming a major quasi-fascist third party.

I also suspect that Bernie's strong performance this election cycle, particularly among the millennial generation (who overwhelmingly support him over Hillary), signals the eventual inevitability of a populist revolution in that party as well, as millennial voters will compose the majority of Democratic voters by 2020. Said revolution will transform it into a populist party (i.e. a party essentially, if not entirely, of workers and farmers), thus sending the corporate wing elsewhere; perhaps to the GOP or perhaps to form a corporatist third party that regularly nominates candidates in the style of Michael Bloomberg and generally loses.
Translation, the GOP would shift so far to the Left they would be indistinguishable from the Communist Democrats, right Komrade Polly?

[Boris The Animal]

Yeah, to be honest, I don't know what that's all about. I know my area's Bernie camp hasn't even hinted at support for such a thing and the thought never even entered my mind. I hadn't even heard about it until you brought it up. I'm not disputing that it happened, just saying I think that's probably a minority of Bernie's camp and Bernie himself isn't backing it.



I don't loathe everything about Hillary. There are decisions she's made, like the Violence Against Women Act, that I liked and agreed with. But overall I find her and her corporate hackery detestable and can't bring myself to support her. I won't support Donald Trump either. I'll likely vote Jill Stein.



I take Trump very seriously, just not for the same reasons. I also don't believe that Trump will make it through his first year, let alone his first term, unless he severely moderates his behavior and attitude.



This is another area where we disagree. Progressives weren't positioned to go on the offensive in 1890-1912 either, but we did and we won significant victories. We beat the Democratic corporate machine and made Joseph Folk governor of Missouri. We beat the Republican corporate machine and made Robert M. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette Sr. governor of Wisconsin (and later U.S. Senator). We got Theodore Roosevelt elected president and then brought him to one of the largest third party finishes in history in 1912 as leader of the U.S.'s first ever Progressive Party.

We've been playing defense long enough. Time to go on offense. I played the status quo game at 16-17 and quite literally risked violence to fight for John McCain in 2008. I promised myself after losing that fight that I would never sign my name to the status quo again and would fight for the right things. If I'm going to shed blood, sweat, and tears, it'll be for a fire-breathing progressive reformer. Win or lose.
Then expect to never win, Bolshevik. America does not want the Communism you embrace, Komrade.

[domer76]

Then expect to never win, Bolshevik. America does not want the Communism you embrace, Komrade.

^Tinfoil on aisle 7. Aisle 7 for tinfoil!

[Boris The Animal]

^Tinfoil on aisle 7. Aisle 7 for tinfoil!^Typical Leftist ignoramus.

[Chris]

General warning: Leave discussion to discussants. Take jabs elsewhere.

[Dr. Who]

She goes into coughing fits. A doctor says she had a bad concussion and has serious side effects from it.

Trump will bring that out of her.
In all of the brain injury claims I've had cross my desk, from mild concussion to severe traumatic brain injury and it's got to be at least several hundred by now, coughing has never once been one of the sequelae. Anxiety however can result from the cognitive problems secondary to a brain injury and anxiety can produce nerveous coughing. However, were that the case it would be persistent, not sudden fits of coughing. It's more likely that she gets a dry throat when speaking or that she suffers from acid reflux, which has damaged her throat and makes it suseptible to irritation.

[TrueBlue]

Fear not. Many Bernie supports will never vote for Clinton (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/1/hillary-clinton-cant-count-on-bernie-sanders-suppo/)- for many reasons. The best line is End the Plutocracy.
But in the end they will be opening their own coffin and falling right into it. Those Bernie supporters who would not vote for Clinton, for whatever reason, will most assuredly live to regret that action once Trump or another Republican gains the White House. If you think that Clinton wouldn't help the common folks You're Dead Wrong! She would and she has and she will continue to. It's the Republicans you have to worry Much about. They will not lift one finger for you, Bernie supporters. Know and realize that already. They won't. They are just hoping you are stupid enough to stay home if Hillary gets the nomination, which she will, so that they can get the White House and give you a nice kick in your rear and laugh at you for the next four if not eight years at how stupid you were to give them your vote by de facto while they plan to never support you in anything significant that you may need in your life. Don't believe that? I hope you are not that gullible as to put it to the test as you might as well have a six-foot deep grave ready for you and your loved ones if you do.

[Peter1469]

In all of the brain injury claims I've had cross my desk, from mild concussion to severe traumatic brain injury and it's got to be at least several hundred by now, coughing has never once been one of the sequelae. Anxiety however can result from the cognitive problems secondary to a brain injury and anxiety can produce nerveous coughing. However, were that the case it would be persistent, not sudden fits of coughing. It's more likely that she gets a dry throat when speaking or that she suffers from acid reflux, which has damaged her throat and makes it suseptible to irritation.

Whatever the reason, I predict Trump will cause a physical reaction for Hillary. Epic.

[TrueBlue]

Whatever the reason, I predict Trump will cause a physical reaction for Hillary. Epic.
Yes! Exactly like this one! http://smiley.nowdararpour.ir/aim/6.gif

[JVV]

Another example of why the revolution can't happen.

It has been a victim of self-fulfilling prophecy all along.

Enough people have to believe at once or of course it won't happen.

And it won't happen in 2020 either. Or 2024 either.

The corporatist power brokers are breathing a sigh of relief that together, Clinton and Trump and the media and the PACs and lobbyists managed to hold off Sanders. They'll make sure that no one who wants to empower the people ever gets as close again as Sanders has. He caught them by surprise. They won't be surprised again.

[Green Arrow]

Yes! Exactly like this one! http://smiley.nowdararpour.ir/aim/6.gif

That's what I think when I think of Hillary.

[midcan5]

A veteran writes:

“I love the poorly educated.” — Donald Trump

'Trump's rise proves we're full of loud, illiterate and credulous people — and he's a mirror of them'


"I hate to have to say it, but the conclusion stares us in the face: We’re a stupid country, full of loud, illiterate and credulous people. Trump has marched straight to the nomination without offering anything like a platform or a plan. With a vocabulary of roughly a dozen words – wall, Mexicans, low-energy, loser, Muslims, stupid, China, negotiate, deals, America, great, again – he’s bamboozled millions of Americans. And it’s not just splenetic conservatives supporting Trump or your garden-variety bigots (although that’s the center of his coalition), it’s also independents, pro-choice Republicans, and a subset of Reagan Democrats."


http://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/america_youre_stupid_donald_trumps_political_trium ph_makes_it_official_were_a_nation_of_idiots/

[Chris]

“I love the poorly educated.” — Donald Trump


'Trump's rise proves we're full of loud, illiterate and credulous people — and he's a mirror of them'


"I hate to have to say it, but the conclusion stares us in the face: We’re a stupid country, full of loud, illiterate and credulous people. Trump has marched straight to the nomination without offering anything like a platform or a plan. With a vocabulary of roughly a dozen words – wall, Mexicans, low-energy, loser, Muslims, stupid, China, negotiate, deals, America, great, again – he’s bamboozled millions of Americans. And it’s not just splenetic conservatives supporting Trump or your garden-variety bigots (although that’s the center of his coalition), it’s also independents, pro-choice Republicans, and a subset of Reagan Democrats."


http://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/america_youre_stupid_donald_trumps_political_trium ph_makes_it_official_were_a_nation_of_idiots/



LOL, so Hillary hates the poorly educated?

Amazing, from that Salon concludes the nation is poorly educated.


(Trump also said he loves the highly educated. So much for cherry picking.)

[IMPress Polly]

The XL wrote:
Is there something sourced that shows Trump was for Iraq in 03? Either way, he wasn't as informed as those in government, and coming out as against it in 04 at least shows that he isn't playing politics here, as he's been against it for 12 years, far before he had presidential aspirations.

Not a problem. Here he is interviewed on (I know you'll be shocked :wink:) the Howard Stern Show on September 11, 2002, shortly after after the Congress voted to authorize then-President Bush to invade Iraq. The audio includes his thoughts then (when he at least seemed a whole lot more articulate than he does today, you may notice) and compares them to what he currently says his position was at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77P6fxa2KOs

While Hillary Clinton did indeed (wrongly) vote for the war authorization, she gave a speech opposing the actual invasion the day it began, claiming that she'd trusted President Bush to have better judgment with the war authorization and wait for the evidence concerning WMDs to be fully in. It was extremely unpopular to take that position at the time; about 80% of Americans supported the Iraq invasion at the time it happened. By contrast, the earliest point in time at which Trump stated opposition to the Iraq War was in July of 2004 (http://www.nytimes.com/live/republican-debate-election-2016-cleveland/in-fact-trump-opposed-iraq-war-but-after-it-started), more than a year into the conflict, by which point support for the war in this country hovered just above 50% overall and at less than 50% in Trump's native New York. That still didn't stop him from supporting President George W. Bush's re-election bid anyway though.

As to WHY Mr. Trump occasionally criticized the conduct of the war and eventually came out against it after initially offering tacit support for the invasion, one must bear in mind that Mr. Trump had a direct financial interest in opposing the war (http://www.factcheck.org/2016/02/donald-trump-and-the-iraq-war/), so I don't think his belated turn to opposition had anything to do either with pure motives or as a reflection of good judgment concerning what was good for America or the Middle East. Do not be naive, Mr. XL.


Green Arrow wrote:
This is another area where we disagree. Progressives weren't positioned to go on the offensive in 1890-1912 either, but we did and we won significant victories. We beat the Democratic corporate machine and made Joseph Folk governor of Missouri. We beat the Republican corporate machine and made Robert M. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette Sr. governor of Wisconsin (and later U.S. Senator). We got Theodore Roosevelt elected president and then brought him to one of the largest third party finishes in history in 1912 as leader of the U.S.'s first ever Progressive Party.

We've been playing defense long enough. Time to go on offense.

While I get what you're saying about the merits of willpower (and you know I'm a sucker for historical reference points :wink:), which have indeed been demonstrated in this election cycle by the fact that Bernie has outraised Hillary without even using a Super PAC (a truly remarkable feat!), let's not kid ourselves: willpower has limits. The objective conditions for radical reform have to be there. It wasn't just the willpower of a minority that yielded what became known as the Progressive Era, but rather a groundswell of the majority, indeed ultimately across party lines. Demographically speaking, we will soon be at that point vis-a-vis the Democratic Party, but we're not there yet.


I played the status quo game at 16-17 and quite literally risked violence to fight for John McCain in 2008. I promised myself after losing that fight that I would never sign my name to the status quo again and would fight for the right things. If I'm going to shed blood, sweat, and tears, it'll be for a fire-breathing progressive reformer. Win or lose.

I'm happy to say that I never even considered supporting McCain. :tongue: I actually sat out that election cycle after a series of Democratic candidates I favored (my first choice having been Dennis Kucinich, second choice John Edwards, and final recourse Hillary Clinton) were successively defeated by a certain Senator who was running as the campaign's most resolute centrist and enjoyed the support mostly of wealthier voters.

My propensity over the years has been to support whatever viable candidate comes off to me as the one least supported by the corporate world. While corporate America, including the major banks, had broadly supported Obama in 2008 because he had actually beaten his rival, McCain, to calling for the bank bailout, by 2012 Obama had alienated Wall Street by signing the Dodd-Frank reform into law, to which the Republicans responded by picking a Wall Street executive as their party's nominee (which kind of said it all, no?). Therefore, I was much more supportive of Obama in 2012 and ultimately voted to re-elect him.

When it comes to the current election cycle, correspondingly I have supported Bernie Sanders up to this point. Now that the Democratic race appears to be winding down, going forward I think we know at this point it's going to come down to Clinton vs. Trump, and no matter what they're saying at this particular moment in order to get their most preferred candidate, Marco Rubio, chosen as the Republican Party's nominee for president, I guarantee you that all of those millionaire and billionaire Rubio backers are going to be singing Donald Trump's praises by the summer and that at least two-thirds of corporate America is definitely going to support Trump over Clinton. They may not be able to donate to his campaign directly, but they've already laid out their plans in that regard: they've said that their approach will be to donate to the Republican National Committee instead as an alternative means of showing their support for the party's nominee, so look for a surge of corporate donations to the RNC right around the start of the summer. I can likewise guarantee you that the financial sector specifically, writ large at least, will once again be a party to the Republican team, especially when you consider that it's going to be another one of their own running on that side of the contest. And I'll add that I think corporate America's support for Donald Trump will be a truly...interesting testament to what they're willing to support in order to get their economic program enacted.


I don't loathe everything about Hillary. There are decisions she's made, like the Violence Against Women Act, that I liked and agreed with. But overall I find her and her corporate hackery detestable and can't bring myself to support her. I won't support Donald Trump either. I'll likely vote Jill Stein.

I'm considering the merits of doing that myself, given that it's very unlikely that the Republican nominee will even come close to victory in my state and also considering that the Green Party candidate usually performs measurably better in Vermont than nationally, e.g. usually getting 2 to 5% of the popular vote in Vermont, as compared with less than 0.5% nationally. In that kind of context, with Trump very unlikely to win in Vermont anyway (he barely even won the Republican vote here on Super Tuesday, nearly losing to John Kasich) and the Green Party candidate as generally a losing-but-relevant factor in my state's politics, it might be both safe and worthwhile to vote for Jill Stein in my book, as it would serve to register a meaningful vote of protest without plausibly risking a Trump victory. However, that said, because the race will likely be more hotly contested elsewhere in the country, I won't push others to follow suit, and I myself am not actually going to go that route just yet. There are a couple reasons:

1) I certainly want to wait until after Clinton's running mate is decided. I think there is a considerable chance that, given the weakness that this race with Bernie Sanders has exposed in terms of Mrs. Clinton's lack of support among the youth and the white working class, I think there's a very good chance that she'll wind up choosing a populist running mate like Elizabeth Warren. I keep mentioning her because I really want it to be her. I mean you can't help but notice that she's conveniently gone out of her way to make herself available to either ticket by being one of the only major elected officials (and the absolutely only one from Massachusetts) to refrain from endorsing either Democratic candidate. I think she wants to be picked. After all, becoming the sitting vice president would best position her for a future presidential run of her own and goodness knows that she already has the star power in progressive circles to mount one. Even right now, she definitely wouldn't struggle for name recognition like Sanders has.

If Clinton picked Warren as her running mate, I wouldn't just support the Clinton campaign, I'd be enthusiastic about it! For one thing, I'd find it particularly exciting to see the first all-female ticket and, in an even more important sense, picking someone like Warren who is known for being an enemy of Wall Street and whose selection would definitely eviscerate whatever support the Clinton campaign has from the financial aristocracy would signal that she (Clinton) is serious about taking on corporate America; that she's willing to sacrifice the limited measure of support they're offering her campaign. I think the voters would get exactly that same message loud and clear from such a selection and that there would be a massive surge of energy behind the Clinton campaign among millennial voters and working class people as a result. And unlike Jill Stein's campaign, a Clinton-Warren ticket could, and probably would, win. So I do want to hold out for that serious possibility at the very least. We'll surely know the answer on that before the Democratic National Convention in late July, which isn't all that far away.

2) I also really, really want Trump to be defeated. In my mind anyway, he's easily the worst, most dangerous candidate I've ever seen run for a major party in this country. If Clinton ever launches a new war or something, I can march in the streets against that, but I can't deal with Trump for four years. I really can't. I can barely stand him for the one I have to, and I only manage because he can't currently shape public policy. I have no intention of waiting around for the army to bust down my door in the name of seeking out immigrants without green cards. If he's elected, I'll be gone by Thanksgiving along with, as you may have noticed, an increasingly large contingent of other Americans who feel the same way. If Trump is polling anywhere near the prospect of victory -- as in within five points of Clinton -- come say September or October, I'm not going to take the chance on voting third party.

So those are a couple circumstances under which I'd vote for Hillary Clinton and right now I'd say that that adds up to a probability of greater than 50%. And I am going to tentatively support Clinton for the time being in good faith that she'll make the right and reassuring call when it comes time to pick a running mate. If she doesn't fulfill my wishes in that regard, I may reconsider depending on what the circumstances wind up looking like in September and October, but we'll see. Tentatively, I'm in the Clinton camp in good faith.


Boris the Animal wrote:
Then expect to never win, Bolshevik. America does not want the Communism you embrace, Komrade.


^Typical Leftist ignoramus.

Whatever you say, little Boris. :wink:

[Green Arrow]

Fortunately, I live in Tennessee. It will go solidly Republican no matter what for at least a few more election cycles, depending on the GOP's viability after this year. That leaves me free to vote for whoever I want without having to worry about tipping the balance either way.

As always, IMPress Polly, I respect your choice (though I still can't make it myself) and respect the amount of thought you put into it. Thank you.

[Tahuyaman]

The Sanders supporters who are partisan Democrats will all be jumping ship soon. It's obvious that his campaign is going nowhere now.

[IMPress Polly]

Green Arrow wrote:
Fortunately, I live in Tennessee. It will go solidly Republican no matter what for at least a few more election cycles, depending on the GOP's viability after this year. That leaves me free to vote for whoever I want without having to worry about tipping the balance either way.

As always, @IMPress Polly (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=399), I respect your choice (though I still can't make it myself) and respect the amount of thought you put into it. Thank you.

Aaaah, Tennessee. Okay, it's making sense now!

Well anyway, thank you. And I respect your views as well.

[TrueBlue]

I don't know what's up but recently a friend from Texas came up and had a bumper sticker with the slogan "Clinton - Castro 2016" I think it is very good strategy on their part to do that although Hillary has not picked a clear vice presidential running mate as of yet.

Julian Castro is a strong leader, of that there can be no doubt, and has elevated into a high national position as HUD Secretary from his former job as Mayor of San Antonio and just think of the tremendous support he would bring to the ticket with Hispanics and Latinos that are going to be the strong indicators of who gets the White House and you may just have a winner! While Elizabeth Warren would no doubt be a good VP candidate also, she has shown literally no interest in being considered for that position. Castro has left that question open at present and it would be a good move on Clinton's part to consider him as her running mate coupled by the fact that President Obama keeps strongly hinting he prefers Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

[Green Arrow]

I don't know what's up but recently a friend from Texas came up and had a bumper sticker with the slogan "Clinton - Castro 2016" I think it is very good strategy on their part to do that although Hillary has not picked a clear vice presidential running mate as of yet.

Julian Castro is a strong leader, of that there can be no doubt, and has elevated into a high national position as HUD Secretary from his former job as Mayor of San Antonio and just think of the tremendous support he would bring to the ticket with Hispanics and Latinos that are going to be the strong indicators of who gets the White House and you may just have a winner! While Elizabeth Warren would no doubt be a good VP candidate also, she has shown literally no interest in being considered for that position. Castro has left that question open at present and it would be a good move on Clinton's part to consider him as her running mate coupled by the fact that President Obama keeps strongly hinting he prefers Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

Castro would do absolutely nothing to get rid of the sour taste in my mouth Clinton provides.

If she picked Elizabeth Warren as Polly suggested, I'd soften a bit, but not Castro.

[Cigar]

Everyone here knows that I've been supporting the presidential campaign of my state's populist Senator Bernie Sanders since early last summer for a great many reasons related to his positions on the issues, and especially economic and political issues (e.g. he supports Medicare for all, free tuition at public colleges and universities, serious investment in the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure, a $15/hour minimum wage, a mandatory public campaign finance system, etc.), but also for his more dovish legacy and approach to foreign policy and also, most importantly frankly, for the means by which he has proposed to affect these changes: by way of a political revolution, i.e. by mobilizing a sustained groundswell of grassroots support to pressure politicians for these radical reforms in an unwavering way until they happen. I voted for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday as well. (He won the vote in my state, which is also his home state, by a razor thin margin of 72.5 points (...:laugh:), which was a big enough landslide to deny Hillary Clinton any of this state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention, so I think we did a pretty good job of organizing and mobilizing the Bernie vote here!) Alas, as of yesterday, I have nonetheless decided to switch camps in terms of who I'll be supporting going forward. There are a couple of reasons why:

Reason #1: The revolution's clearly not happening. The idea that Bernie Sanders could marshal a mass movement that would upend the existing power structures in this country and pave the way for a torrent of serious political and economic reforms, each calculated to chip away at the rigged nature of our economy and the corrupt elements in our political system, just isn't coming to fruition. It's not that Bernie can't win the delegate count because the "super" delegates are overwhelmingly going for Clinton. That wouldn't cause me to change my support at all! On the contrary, if that were the sole reason Clinton was winning this race, that would reinforce and reinvigorate my support for Bernie Sanders! It's not that. It's that Bernie's clearly not able to win even democratically. Thanks to our efforts, Clinton cannot be said to have a funding advantage despite relying heavily on corporate donations (in fact, Bernie has spent more on advertising than Clinton so far, believe it or not!), yet Clinton is still winning legitimately. In theory, Bernie is more popular among the youth (e.g. when they vote, it's for him), but the fact of the matter is that he's not succeeding in mobilizing the youth to get out and vote at all. Turnout in the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far is way down from 2008 across the board. That's especially true of black voters, whom Sanders has proven himself unable to win over, either of the older generations (who are actively voting for Clinton) or the younger millennials (who by and large simply aren't voting). I think this crucial point should raise to our realization the truth of the current election cycle: that, at the end of the day, economic issues are NOT going to be the principal ones in this election cycle, but rather social issues are. Say what you will about the lack of energy in the Clinton campaign: she's able to mobilize more people to the polls than Sanders, and that fact I think really eviscerates the core of Sanders' argument.

More deeply, even if Bernie were losing, if he at least had some kind of viable path to the most democratically-allocated delegates to the DNC, I'd still support him. But he doesn't. At this point, Bernie would need to win 60% of the remaining delegates up for grabs in order to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for president, including of the "super" delegates. The candidates insists he can do so. He also insists that, as part of that path to the nomination, he can win the contest in Louisiana tonight and that in Michigan on Tuesday, in both of which current polling finds him trailing Clinton by more than 20 points. I don't believe him. I think the argument for Sanders' basic viability is getting pretty disingenuous at this point. He needed to be more competitive on Super Tuesday than he was is the bottom line, and to do that, he needed to be more successful in persuading African Americans to support his campaign. I don't think we should insult anyone's intelligence. There's no path to the nomination left for Bernie. It's time to concede defeat and focus on stopping the yes inevitable Republican nominee from becoming president, given just how serious a threat to what remains of our democracy he represents. Besides, Hillary Clinton's platform, while not as bold as I'd like, is more than acceptable to me.

Reason #2: I have my priorities straight. Recently, some 100,000 Bernie Sanders supporters created and signed a Change.org petition calling for the arrest of Bill Clinton on third-degree felony charges on the grounds that he violated election laws by showing up to a polling place in Massachusetts last Tuesday. In reality, it turns out he didn't break any laws at all (i.e. did not advocate for Hillary Clinton within 150 feet of polling spaces) and that the penalty, even if he'd been guilty of that charge, would only have been a $20 fine, i.e. it wouldn't have been a felony anyway. You'll notice that these Sanders supporters have not created a petition calling for Donald Trump's arrest despite the fact that he did the same thing on the same day in a far more disruptive way -- in a way that actually stopped voting for a while. This development has really clarified things for me. It would seem that many of my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters (especially the online activists) are more concerned with winning than with the rule of law and more opposed to the communitarian Hillary Clinton than to the fascist Republican front-runner. I am not.

I fear that many Bernie Sanders supporters will ultimately vote for Donald Trump in the general election. I just want to be crystal clear about something in that connection: Trump is the closest thing to an Adolf Hitler we've ever had in this country. If he's cool with you, you aren't cool with me. Obviously I can't do anything to make you change your position, but I can at least say that no one -- I mean no one -- who supports Trump in any way, or remains neutral on him becoming our next president for that matter, is going to remain my friend, for whatever little that may be worth. There is no such thing as neutrality on Trump any more than there was for Germans on Hitler. Neutrality means you're cool with what he represents; that you're willing to accept it.

While I really, really hope that Hillary Clinton chooses an economic populist like Elizabeth Warren as her running mate in view of her (Clinton's) obvious weakness with the youth and with working class people (especially working class white people) because I think doing so would cut off most of the Sanders-to-Trump pipeline's flow, from my perspective, even if she doesn't, there is a matter of principle here: social justice matters. I don't care what your stance is on economic nationalism: if you're willing to support mass deportations, the relegation of Muslims to a second-class, truly persecuted subset of the population, the systematic targeting of unarmed women and children for destruction, the return of waterboarding and even crueler forms of torture, suspension of freedom of the press, etc. etc. etc., in my mind you are not a civilized human being. If you're willing to make this country work pretty much like the Islamic State in the name of combating it and of reasserting and reinvigorating American hegemony the world over, I will have nothing to do with you. Just wanted to be clear on that. I hope you'll be able to get your priorities straight.

So you're not Feeling the Bern .... :tongue:

[Chris]

So you're not Feeling the Bern .... :tongue:

Polly used to be a Marxist. Then she felt the Bern of democratic socialism, not she feels the oppression of Capitalism in 0.1%er Hillary.

[IMPress Polly]

Cigar wrote:
So you're not Feeling the Bern .... :tongue:

Not particularly these days anyway. I really like Bernie Sanders and supported him while I thought there was a chance. I just think the political moment is over and am moving on.


Chris wrote:
Polly used to be a Marxist. Then she felt the Bern of democratic socialism, not she feels the oppression of Capitalism in 0.1%er Hillary.

Polly is still a communist (though not really Marxist specifically anymore). The fact that she supports political candidates whose views are more moderate than her own and don't belong to her class is a phenomenon called pragmatism: the realization that there are very few (serious) socialists in this country and even fewer communists and that members of the working class cannot afford to run for president in this country.

[Chris]

Not particularly these days anyway. I really like Bernie Sanders and supported him while I thought there was a chance. I just think the political moment is over and am moving on.



Polly is still a communist (though not really Marxist specifically anymore). The fact that she supports political candidates whose views are more moderate than her own and don't belong to her class is a phenomenon called pragmatism: the realization that there are very few (serious) socialists in this country and even fewer communists and that members of the working class cannot afford to run for president in this country.



A communist voting for a capitalist pig is pragmatic? Or have you simply succumb to the false notion that winning is all that's important.

[JVV]

....

If Clinton picked Warren as her running mate, I wouldn't just support the Clinton campaign, I'd be enthusiastic about it! For one thing, I'd find it particularly exciting to see the first all-female ticket and, in an even more important sense, picking someone like Warren who is known for being an enemy of Wall Street and whose selection would definitely eviscerate whatever support the Clinton campaign has from the financial aristocracy would signal that she (Clinton) is serious about taking on corporate America; that she's willing to sacrifice the limited measure of support they're offering her campaign.

....


No way does Clinton choose another woman.

[Ethereal]

Hillary Clinton is a Wall Street puppet and an inveterate militarist with the blood of innocents on her hands. I'm shocked and disappointed that you would support such a person.

[Ethereal]

I'm under no illusions that a Clinton administration would usher in an age of economic or even social progress, but at this point, I have become a conservative. Conservative in the sense of seeking to preserve the status quo because it's better than the alternative the teeming masses are demanding. I've become conservative because the masses have given up on progress, at least for now, and the prevailing demand is now that of going backward in time, to "the good old days" when everyone knew their proper place in this world. In the practical, this means indulging obviously extremely popular xenophobia to the hilt and writing off any dissent thereto as "political correctness run amok" and/or threatening those dissenters, perhaps with physical violence.

'Do Mussolini quotes and the backing of the Klan worry you? Does openly advocating extreme torture and mass murder make you queasy? Do you feel compassion for your fellow human being? You're such a girly weakling! My dick is bigger than yours and you better never criticize me again or else!'

That is the political climate of today's America. I'm sorry to step on fashionable, generic "anti-establishment" rhetoric, but the corresponding political program is not a better alternative to the current state of affairs! In the face of THAT kind of reactionary prevailing attitude, simply defending the better aspects of the status quo and the merits of social justice constitutes an act of subversion. When the tide is moving a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction, sometimes the boldest thing you can do is simply stand in its way and proclaim "We're not going back while I'm standing!"

It has become clear to me that real progress is something for a future generation. Today's battle is against the imminent threat of the world's most powerful nation becoming a police state that starts World War 3. It's a depressing realization, but it's the truth. That is another accomplishment of the Trump campaign: it has helped me forfeit all dreams and aspirations and just hope things don't get too much worse. And if they do get much worse, I'm leaving, I swear to god. Neither my conscience nor fear for my own physical safety will allow me to endure a Donald Trump presidency. Hillary Clinton may not be perfect, but there are light years worth of positive difference between what she stands for and the alternative before us.

Trump only talks about doing bad things. Clinton has actually participated in them. She voted in favor of invading and occupying Iraq; she pushed Obama to intervene in Libya; she compared Putin to Hitler; her State Department has been involved in clandestine operations resulting in coups in Ukraine and Honduras; and she helped to destabilize Syria. She is one of the worst war criminals in history. She is so utterly corrupt and evil that she makes Donald Trump look tame by comparison. You are fooling yourself if you believe she is somehow different or better than him.

[Ethereal]

Anyone voting for an old, bankrupting socialist such as Sanders or a lying, corrupt, murdering scumbag like Hillary should be ashamed! They should not vote or do a write in for say Jim Webb.

I support Cruz, but any of the Rs will be acceptable.

Ted Cruz eats his own boogers.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34kR3HK3Btk

[Ethereal]

Thank you, IMPress Polly, for your well thought out commentary. It shows that not only are you an intelligent person but are pragmatic as well in your political views such as to determine, at this point, that there is no viable path for Bernie Sanders to win the upcoming presidential election. You are correct in that.

My personal beliefs are that Bernie Sanders is a good man with some good points but no real plan to pay for all of what he is promising to give out, other than to shift the burden of cost to the taxpayers as he has said many times he would do. Yes, he is being honest about it but it would still cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars in the process of getting his programs enacted and that, only if Congress would fully support him in that endeavor which is quite doubtful. That has been one of my major concerns.

Therefore, your decision to come over to Hillary Clinton's side is a very wise choice. I hope more of Bernie's supporters will reach that same conclusion after examining the facts and realizing that his days are unfortunately numbered and that Clinton is the clear choice to be the Democratic nominee for president. What I would farther hope would happen, because it really needs to, is for those who may still remain with Sanders for them to fully realize starting at this point in time but especially on election day that they and all of their friends and family, etc. need to come out en masse and Vote To Support Hillary Clinton this November because as you say the alternative of having Trump as the next president would be utterly devastating to this country, imho. His thoughts, actions and platform have both greatly surprised and disappointed me to the point that I cannot understand how anyone with good sense could give their support to him under any circumstances.

Pardon me while I puke...

[Ethereal]

Another example of why the revolution can't happen.

It has been a victim of self-fulfilling prophecy all along.

Enough people have to believe at once or of course it won't happen.

And it won't happen in 2020 either. Or 2024 either.

The corporatist power brokers are breathing a sigh of relief that together, Clinton and Trump and the media and the PACs and lobbyists managed to hold off Sanders. They'll make sure that no one who wants to empower the people ever gets as close again as Sanders has. He caught them by surprise. They won't be surprised again.

I don't think the power brokers are breathing a sigh of relief. They seem to be panicking at the prospect of a Trump Presidency.

[Tahuyaman]

I don't think the power brokers are breathing a sigh of relief. They seem to be panicking at the prospect of a Trump Presidency.

They are smart enough to know that it won't happen.

[Subdermal]

Not particularly these days anyway. I really like Bernie Sanders and supported him while I thought there was a chance. I just think the political moment is over and am moving on.



Polly is still a communist (though not really Marxist specifically anymore). The fact that she supports political candidates whose views are more moderate than her own and don't belong to her class is a phenomenon called pragmatism: the realization that there are very few (serious) socialists in this country and even fewer communists and that members of the working class cannot afford to run for president in this country.

There are only two classes of people who support Communism. People who have never experienced it, and people who run other people's lives utilizing it.

[The Xl]

They are smart enough to know that it won't happen.

That remains to be seen, however, they sure aren't acting like it isn't going to happen.

[Tahuyaman]

I believe most Sanders supporters will gladly support Hillary Clinton. There's a small minority who won't.

[Tahuyaman]

There are only two classes of people who support Communism. People who have never experienced it, and people who run other people's lives utilizing it.

I know a guy who supports communism. He's a professional athelete who's never had a real job. He's in his early 30's and you'de swear he was 16 or 17 years old if you had a conversation with him. He's extremely immature. I mean astonishingly and shockingly immarture.

[zip98053]

Clinton, a 0.1%er, neocon, and liar. Good choice!! :Doh!:

0.1%er? -- yes.
neocon? -- are you kidding me?
liar? -- only according to Faux news. Umpteen Republican Congressional investigations have found nothing. I suppose that we could say that the reason that they didn't find anything is because Republican Congressmen are incompetent which would be a damn good argument but, the other explination is that there is nothing there.

[Ethereal]

0.1%er? -- yes.
neocon? -- are you kidding me?
liar? -- only according to Faux news. Umpteen Republican Congressional investigations have found nothing. I suppose that we could say that the reason that they didn't find anything is because Republican Congressmen are incompetent which would be a damn good argument but, the other explination is that there is nothing there.

More proof that Clinton supporters are some of the dumbest, most deluded people in America.

[Ethereal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZHO1vo762c

Clinton says she 'misspoke' about sniper fire (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/25/campaign.wrap/index.html?iref=hpmostpop)

She "misspoke" about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. What kind of an idiot would believe that? Oh right. A Clinton supporter.

So, yea, she's a proven liar. But video could emerge of Clinton feasting on babies and her supporters would still find a way to deny or rationalize it.

[Ethereal]

And here is a good summary of her neocon foreign policy record in regards to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, all of them unmitigated disasters:

Huffington Post - Parsing Hillary Clinton's Disingenuous Foreign Policy Record (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-ritter/hillary-clinton-foreign-policy-record_b_9221284.html)

This article doesn't address her involvement in the coups in Honduras and Ukraine.

So, yes, Clinton is unquestionably a neocon on foreign policy.

[Ethereal]

HILLARY CLINTON GOES TO MILITARISTIC, HAWKISH THINK TANK, GIVES MILITARISTIC, HAWKISH SPEECH (https://theintercept.com/2015/09/09/hillary-clinton-goes-militaristic-hawkish-think-tank-gives-militaristic-hawkish-speech/)

Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on Israel (https://theintercept.com/2016/02/18/hillary-clinton-with-little-notice-vows-to-embrace-an-extremist-agenda-on-israel/)

Mmmmmm...

[Peter1469]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZHO1vo762c

Clinton says she 'misspoke' about sniper fire (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/25/campaign.wrap/index.html?iref=hpmostpop)

She "misspoke" about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. What kind of an idiot would believe that? Oh right. A Clinton supporter.

So, yea, she's a proven liar. But video could emerge of Clinton feasting on babies and her supporters would still find a way to deny or rationalize it.
Or embrace it.

[donttread]

Everyone here knows that I've been supporting the presidential campaign of my state's populist Senator Bernie Sanders since early last summer for a great many reasons related to his positions on the issues, and especially economic and political issues (e.g. he supports Medicare for all, free tuition at public colleges and universities, serious investment in the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure, a $15/hour minimum wage, a mandatory public campaign finance system, etc.), but also for his more dovish legacy and approach to foreign policy and also, most importantly frankly, for the means by which he has proposed to affect these changes: by way of a political revolution, i.e. by mobilizing a sustained groundswell of grassroots support to pressure politicians for these radical reforms in an unwavering way until they happen. I voted for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday as well. (He won the vote in my state, which is also his home state, by a razor thin margin of 72.5 points (...:laugh:), which was a big enough landslide to deny Hillary Clinton any of this state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention, so I think we did a pretty good job of organizing and mobilizing the Bernie vote here!) Alas, as of yesterday, I have nonetheless decided to switch camps in terms of who I'll be supporting going forward. There are a couple of reasons why:

Reason #1: The revolution's clearly not happening. The idea that Bernie Sanders could marshal a mass movement that would upend the existing power structures in this country and pave the way for a torrent of serious political and economic reforms, each calculated to chip away at the rigged nature of our economy and the corrupt elements in our political system, just isn't coming to fruition. It's not that Bernie can't win the delegate count because the "super" delegates are overwhelmingly going for Clinton. That wouldn't cause me to change my support at all! On the contrary, if that were the sole reason Clinton was winning this race, that would reinforce and reinvigorate my support for Bernie Sanders! It's not that. It's that Bernie's clearly not able to win even democratically. Thanks to our efforts, Clinton cannot be said to have a funding advantage despite relying heavily on corporate donations (in fact, Bernie has spent more on advertising than Clinton so far, believe it or not!), yet Clinton is still winning legitimately. In theory, Bernie is more popular among the youth (e.g. when they vote, it's for him), but the fact of the matter is that he's not succeeding in mobilizing the youth to get out and vote at all. Turnout in the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far is way down from 2008 across the board. That's especially true of black voters, whom Sanders has proven himself unable to win over, either of the older generations (who are actively voting for Clinton) or the younger millennials (who by and large simply aren't voting). I think this crucial point should raise to our realization the truth of the current election cycle: that, at the end of the day, economic issues are NOT going to be the principal ones in this election cycle, but rather social issues are. Say what you will about the lack of energy in the Clinton campaign: she's able to mobilize more people to the polls than Sanders, and that fact I think really eviscerates the core of Sanders' argument.

More deeply, even if Bernie were losing, if he at least had some kind of viable path to the most democratically-allocated delegates to the DNC, I'd still support him. But he doesn't. At this point, Bernie would need to win 60% of the remaining delegates up for grabs in order to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for president, including of the "super" delegates. The candidates insists he can do so. He also insists that, as part of that path to the nomination, he can win the contest in Louisiana tonight and that in Michigan on Tuesday, in both of which current polling finds him trailing Clinton by more than 20 points. I don't believe him. I think the argument for Sanders' basic viability is getting pretty disingenuous at this point. He needed to be more competitive on Super Tuesday than he was is the bottom line, and to do that, he needed to be more successful in persuading African Americans to support his campaign. I don't think we should insult anyone's intelligence. There's no path to the nomination left for Bernie. It's time to concede defeat and focus on stopping the yes inevitable Republican nominee from becoming president, given just how serious a threat to what remains of our democracy he represents. Besides, Hillary Clinton's platform, while not as bold as I'd like, is more than acceptable to me.

Reason #2: I have my priorities straight. Recently, some 100,000 Bernie Sanders supporters created and signed a Change.org petition calling for the arrest of Bill Clinton on third-degree felony charges on the grounds that he violated election laws by showing up to a polling place in Massachusetts last Tuesday. In reality, it turns out he didn't break any laws at all (i.e. did not advocate for Hillary Clinton within 150 feet of polling spaces) and that the penalty, even if he'd been guilty of that charge, would only have been a $20 fine, i.e. it wouldn't have been a felony anyway. You'll notice that these Sanders supporters have not created a petition calling for Donald Trump's arrest despite the fact that he did the same thing on the same day in a far more disruptive way -- in a way that actually stopped voting for a while. This development has really clarified things for me. It would seem that many of my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters (especially the online activists) are more concerned with winning than with the rule of law and more opposed to the communitarian Hillary Clinton than to the fascist Republican front-runner. I am not.

I fear that many Bernie Sanders supporters will ultimately vote for Donald Trump in the general election. I just want to be crystal clear about something in that connection: Trump is the closest thing to an Adolf Hitler we've ever had in this country. If he's cool with you, you aren't cool with me. Obviously I can't do anything to make you change your position, but I can at least say that no one -- I mean no one -- who supports Trump in any way, or remains neutral on him becoming our next president for that matter, is going to remain my friend, for whatever little that may be worth. There is no such thing as neutrality on Trump any more than there was for Germans on Hitler. Neutrality means you're cool with what he represents; that you're willing to accept it.

While I really, really hope that Hillary Clinton chooses an economic populist like Elizabeth Warren as her running mate in view of her (Clinton's) obvious weakness with the youth and with working class people (especially working class white people) because I think doing so would cut off most of the Sanders-to-Trump pipeline's flow, from my perspective, even if she doesn't, there is a matter of principle here: social justice matters. I don't care what your stance is on economic nationalism: if you're willing to support mass deportations, the relegation of Muslims to a second-class, truly persecuted subset of the population, the systematic targeting of unarmed women and children for destruction, the return of waterboarding and even crueler forms of torture, suspension of freedom of the press, etc. etc. etc., in my mind you are not a civilized human being. If you're willing to make this country work pretty much like the Islamic State in the name of combating it and of reasserting and reinvigorating American hegemony the world over, I will have nothing to do with you. Just wanted to be clear on that. I hope you'll be able to get your priorities straight.

So you approve of and support the DNC's open "cheating" for Hilary against Bernie? Because ultimately that is what you just chose to support. The will of the DNC over the will of the democratic voters in the important early primaries. Why have primaries at all?

[birddog]

I realize all politicians bear watching, but I am totally amazed that anyone would be ignorant enough to vote for Hillary! Does it prove that liberals truly do suffer from a mental disease?

[donttread]

I realize all politicians bear watching, but I am totally amazed that anyone would be ignorant enough to vote for Hillary! Does it prove that liberals truly do suffer from a mental disease?


Not exactly, as it's no different from a vote for Obama, Bush , or Boehner. It's more like a sign that the American voter wants to be told who to vote for rather that doing all that work and taking all that responsibility of evaluating all the choices. even the ones not shoved down their throats by mainstream media

[texan]

Everyone here knows that I've been supporting the presidential campaign of my state's populist Senator Bernie Sanders since early last summer for a great many reasons related to his positions on the issues, and especially economic and political issues (e.g. he supports Medicare for all, free tuition at public colleges and universities, serious investment in the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure, a $15/hour minimum wage, a mandatory public campaign finance system, etc.), but also for his more dovish legacy and approach to foreign policy and also, most importantly frankly, for the means by which he has proposed to affect these changes: by way of a political revolution, i.e. by mobilizing a sustained groundswell of grassroots support to pressure politicians for these radical reforms in an unwavering way until they happen. I voted for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday as well. (He won the vote in my state, which is also his home state, by a razor thin margin of 72.5 points (...:laugh:), which was a big enough landslide to deny Hillary Clinton any of this state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention, so I think we did a pretty good job of organizing and mobilizing the Bernie vote here!) Alas, as of yesterday, I have nonetheless decided to switch camps in terms of who I'll be supporting going forward. There are a couple of reasons why:

Reason #1: The revolution's clearly not happening. The idea that Bernie Sanders could marshal a mass movement that would upend the existing power structures in this country and pave the way for a torrent of serious political and economic reforms, each calculated to chip away at the rigged nature of our economy and the corrupt elements in our political system, just isn't coming to fruition. It's not that Bernie can't win the delegate count because the "super" delegates are overwhelmingly going for Clinton. That wouldn't cause me to change my support at all! On the contrary, if that were the sole reason Clinton was winning this race, that would reinforce and reinvigorate my support for Bernie Sanders! It's not that. It's that Bernie's clearly not able to win even democratically. Thanks to our efforts, Clinton cannot be said to have a funding advantage despite relying heavily on corporate donations (in fact, Bernie has spent more on advertising than Clinton so far, believe it or not!), yet Clinton is still winning legitimately. In theory, Bernie is more popular among the youth (e.g. when they vote, it's for him), but the fact of the matter is that he's not succeeding in mobilizing the youth to get out and vote at all. Turnout in the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far is way down from 2008 across the board. That's especially true of black voters, whom Sanders has proven himself unable to win over, either of the older generations (who are actively voting for Clinton) or the younger millennials (who by and large simply aren't voting). I think this crucial point should raise to our realization the truth of the current election cycle: that, at the end of the day, economic issues are NOT going to be the principal ones in this election cycle, but rather social issues are. Say what you will about the lack of energy in the Clinton campaign: she's able to mobilize more people to the polls than Sanders, and that fact I think really eviscerates the core of Sanders' argument.

More deeply, even if Bernie were losing, if he at least had some kind of viable path to the most democratically-allocated delegates to the DNC, I'd still support him. But he doesn't. At this point, Bernie would need to win 60% of the remaining delegates up for grabs in order to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for president, including of the "super" delegates. The candidates insists he can do so. He also insists that, as part of that path to the nomination, he can win the contest in Louisiana tonight and that in Michigan on Tuesday, in both of which current polling finds him trailing Clinton by more than 20 points. I don't believe him. I think the argument for Sanders' basic viability is getting pretty disingenuous at this point. He needed to be more competitive on Super Tuesday than he was is the bottom line, and to do that, he needed to be more successful in persuading African Americans to support his campaign. I don't think we should insult anyone's intelligence. There's no path to the nomination left for Bernie. It's time to concede defeat and focus on stopping the yes inevitable Republican nominee from becoming president, given just how serious a threat to what remains of our democracy he represents. Besides, Hillary Clinton's platform, while not as bold as I'd like, is more than acceptable to me.

Reason #2: I have my priorities straight. Recently, some 100,000 Bernie Sanders supporters created and signed a Change.org petition calling for the arrest of Bill Clinton on third-degree felony charges on the grounds that he violated election laws by showing up to a polling place in Massachusetts last Tuesday. In reality, it turns out he didn't break any laws at all (i.e. did not advocate for Hillary Clinton within 150 feet of polling spaces) and that the penalty, even if he'd been guilty of that charge, would only have been a $20 fine, i.e. it wouldn't have been a felony anyway. You'll notice that these Sanders supporters have not created a petition calling for Donald Trump's arrest despite the fact that he did the same thing on the same day in a far more disruptive way -- in a way that actually stopped voting for a while. This development has really clarified things for me. It would seem that many of my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters (especially the online activists) are more concerned with winning than with the rule of law and more opposed to the communitarian Hillary Clinton than to the fascist Republican front-runner. I am not.

I fear that many Bernie Sanders supporters will ultimately vote for Donald Trump in the general election. I just want to be crystal clear about something in that connection: Trump is the closest thing to an Adolf Hitler we've ever had in this country. If he's cool with you, you aren't cool with me. Obviously I can't do anything to make you change your position, but I can at least say that no one -- I mean no one -- who supports Trump in any way, or remains neutral on him becoming our next president for that matter, is going to remain my friend, for whatever little that may be worth. There is no such thing as neutrality on Trump any more than there was for Germans on Hitler. Neutrality means you're cool with what he represents; that you're willing to accept it.

While I really, really hope that Hillary Clinton chooses an economic populist like Elizabeth Warren as her running mate in view of her (Clinton's) obvious weakness with the youth and with working class people (especially working class white people) because I think doing so would cut off most of the Sanders-to-Trump pipeline's flow, from my perspective, even if she doesn't, there is a matter of principle here: social justice matters. I don't care what your stance is on economic nationalism: if you're willing to support mass deportations, the relegation of Muslims to a second-class, truly persecuted subset of the population, the systematic targeting of unarmed women and children for destruction, the return of waterboarding and even crueler forms of torture, suspension of freedom of the press, etc. etc. etc., in my mind you are not a civilized human being. If you're willing to make this country work pretty much like the Islamic State in the name of combating it and of reasserting and reinvigorating American hegemony the world over, I will have nothing to do with you. Just wanted to be clear on that. I hope you'll be able to get your priorities straight.


You you will need to summarize. Jesus

[birddog]

Not exactly, as it's no different from a vote for Obama, Bush , or Boehner. It's more like a sign that the American voter wants to be told who to vote for rather that doing all that work and taking all that responsibility of evaluating all the choices. even the ones not shoved down their throats by mainstream media

You make a good point in a practical sense, but Bush and Boehner certainly rank higher than Obama.

[domer76]

So you approve of and support the DNC's open "cheating" for Hilary against Bernie? Because ultimately that is what you just chose to support. The will of the DNC over the will of the democratic voters in the important early primaries. Why have primaries at all?

What "cheating" would you be referring to?

[domer76]

I realize all politicians bear watching, but I am totally amazed that anyone would be ignorant enough to vote for Hillary! Does it prove that liberals truly do suffer from a mental disease?

Are you a Trumpeter?

[birddog]

Are you a Trumpeter?


First of all, any of the four would be far better for our country than Hillary or Bernie! Any of the four will likely win in a landslide. There are blue states that will turn red.

Trump is not my first choice, Cruz is, but Trump certainly would be effective and interesting. I will vigorously support whoever the Republican nominee is, our country cannot tolerate another lying, corrupt dimocrat!

[domer76]

First of all, any of the four would be far better for our country than Hillary or Bernie! Any of the four will likely win in a landslide. There are blue states that will turn red.

Trump is not my first choice, Cruz is, but Trump certainly would be effective and interesting. I will vigorously support whoever the Republican nominee is, our country cannot tolerate another lying, corrupt dimocrat!

Better lube up and bend over pally. You're gonna get another 4-8 years of a Democrat.

[birddog]

Better lube up and bend over pally. You're gonna get another 4-8 years of a Democrat.

Wishful thinking on your part! How can a sick, lying, corrupt, murdering Hillary win? The dims have no one capable of winning this time.

You won't need lubricant, the Republican president will be good for you.

[domer76]

Wishful thinking on your part! How can a sick, lying, corrupt, murdering Hillary win? The dims have no one capable of winning this time.

You won't need lubricant, the Republican president will be good for you.

Take a reality pill, pal, look at the Republican candidates and get back to me on the winner from that group of fuckups

[birddog]

Take a reality pill, pal, look at the Republican candidates and get back to me on the winner from that group of $#@!ups

You have it "bassackwards!" None of the R candidates are in serious liklihood of having a recommendation of indictment for criminal activities soon.

All four of the R candidates will be presidential, patriotic, and more protective of our country.

You have an old, bankrupting socialist in sanders and a lying, corrupt murderer in Clinton! Geeez!

[donttread]

What "cheating" would you be referring to?

The practice of using "super delegates " to over ride the democratic primary voters will

[donttread]

HILLARY CLINTON GOES TO MILITARISTIC, HAWKISH THINK TANK, GIVES MILITARISTIC, HAWKISH SPEECH (https://theintercept.com/2015/09/09/hillary-clinton-goes-militaristic-hawkish-think-tank-gives-militaristic-hawkish-speech/)

Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on Israel (https://theintercept.com/2016/02/18/hillary-clinton-with-little-notice-vows-to-embrace-an-extremist-agenda-on-israel/)

Mmmmmm...

She is the prototypical Donekephant political whore