Election 2016

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:28 am

Hillary has a considerably more extensive record than Bernie Sanders, because she's been in many different levels of national government and non-government push groups on a national scale, while Sanders has been representing variously sized portions of Vermont since 1981.

Bernie Sanders has a longer record in the legislature, but doesn't have any real non-legislative history since before 1991. And I don't think you get a lot of information about Sander's executive priorities by analyzing him being the Mayor of Burlington in the eighties. Clinton, on the other hand has been Secretary of State and a member of various steering committees and shit.

Very famously, Clinton and Sanders voted together 93% of the time when they were Senators together. And when they voted apart they were mostly "protest votes" where one Senator or the other was simply grandstanding to make a point on a motion that was passing overwhelmingly rather than any deliberate policy effort. Do we really think that Sanders wanted to discontinue diplomatic engagement with India rather than making a broader point about nuclear proliferation when he voted against the US-India Nuclear Deal of 2008 (that measure passed 86-13 and already had a veto-proof majority when Sanders cast his vote)? There really isn't that much daylight between them as far as their legislative record goes. And what daylight there is doesn't show very much.

Thanks to massive Republican congressional overreach, we actually do have a pretty exhaustive record of Clinton as an executive. We can see all her emails going back and forth about what the best tactical move for gay rights were. And remember: the administration's strategy for getting equal rights for gay people may have looked slow and uncaring at the time, but it actually succeeded quicker and more completely than almost anyone thought possible.

Anyone who says that Hillary is a cipher and we know everything about Bernie is living in a fantasy world. Hillary is the most over-vetted candidate in American history. No exceptions. There has never been a candidate that people have been allowed to sort through the private correspondence of looking for tactical choices and potential dirt before they even win the nomination of their party. That is not a thing that has ever happened to any candidate ever.

-Username17

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 3:09 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Hillary has a considerably more extensive record than Bernie Sanders, because she's been in many different levels of national government and non-government push groups on a national scale, while Sanders has been representing variously sized portions of Vermont since 1981.

Bernie Sanders has a longer record in the legislature, but doesn't have any real non-legislative history since before 1991. And I don't think you get a lot of information about Sander's executive priorities by analyzing him being the Mayor of Burlington in the eighties. Clinton, on the other hand has been Secretary of State and a member of various steering committees and shit.

Very famously, Clinton and Sanders voted together 93% of the time when they were Senators together. And when they voted apart they were mostly "protest votes" where one Senator or the other was simply grandstanding to make a point on a motion that was passing overwhelmingly rather than any deliberate policy effort. Do we really think that Sanders wanted to discontinue diplomatic engagement with India rather than making a broader point about nuclear proliferation when he voted against the US-India Nuclear Deal of 2008 (that measure passed 86-13 and already had a veto-proof majority when Sanders cast his vote)? There really isn't that much daylight between them as far as their legislative record goes. And what daylight there is doesn't show very much.

Thanks to massive Republican congressional overreach, we actually do have a pretty exhaustive record of Clinton as an executive. We can see all her emails going back and forth about what the best tactical move for gay rights were. And remember: the administration's strategy for getting equal rights for gay people may have looked slow and uncaring at the time, but it actually succeeded quicker and more completely than almost anyone thought possible.

Anyone who says that Hillary is a cipher and we know everything about Bernie is living in a fantasy world. Hillary is the most over-vetted candidate in American history. No exceptions. There has never been a candidate that people have been allowed to sort through the private correspondence of looking for tactical choices and potential dirt before they even win the nomination of their party. That is not a thing that has ever happened to any candidate ever.

-Username17

What in her e-mails shows that she did anything particularly good? I've not looked into, or cared about the e-mails because all the media surrounding that was a bunch of accusations suggesting that she somehow fucked up and gave away American secrets to the Russians/Chinese/Terrorists so I paid it no attention.

I know a lot more about what Sanders gave speeches over and I've actually been subscribed to his Youtube channel since before he even started running in the race so I don't have nearly as many doubts about what Sanders wants compared to Hillary.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 3:17 pm

What creeps me out about Hillary is that she's calling single-payer too expensive, knowing full well it's way cheaper for people making less than 100k a year and still a pretty sweet deal for people making up to 200k (also the various government savings and better health outcomes). She also misrepresented the numbers and assumed employers would be putting what they have to pay on their employees, whereas they currently pay part of the premiums for their employees so why the fuck would they not foot some of the bill again? If she's a secret progressive she's keeping it very well hidden.

I'm still voting for her if Bernie doesn't win the primary, but I'm not expecting her to do anything except not destroy the country and maybe make more global trade deals that are brokered behind closed doors with ultra-powerful people. So yeah, not real excited about her.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 3:24 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Anyone who says that Hillary is a cipher and we know everything about Bernie is living in a fantasy world. Hillary is the most over-vetted candidate in American history. No exceptions. There has never been a candidate that people have been allowed to sort through the private correspondence of looking for tactical choices and potential dirt before they even win the nomination of their party. That is not a thing that has ever happened to any candidate ever.

My point was that we know a lot about Hillary, and what we know shows her to be politically savvy and to be willing to straight not give a shit about things she won't be able to do, regardless of saying she wants them done. That may make her a good President, but it also makes the fact that she says she wants to do something non-indicative on its own, of whether anything will actually happen.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 9:50 pm

Kaelik wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Anyone who says that Hillary is a cipher and we know everything about Bernie is living in a fantasy world. Hillary is the most over-vetted candidate in American history. No exceptions. There has never been a candidate that people have been allowed to sort through the private correspondence of looking for tactical choices and potential dirt before they even win the nomination of their party. That is not a thing that has ever happened to any candidate ever.
My point was that we know a lot about Hillary, and what we know shows her to be politically savvy and to be willing to straight not give a shit about things she won't be able to do, regardless of saying she wants them done. That may make her a good President, but it also makes the fact that she says she wants to do something non-indicative on its own, of whether anything will actually happen.

She does, however, also have a track record of making things happen. Maybe not everything she wants to make happen, but some things. From a practical perspective, having things not happen because the president tried to make them happen and failed is not in fact an improvement on having things not happen because the president determined they wouldn't be possible and didn't try to make them happen.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:11 pm

name_here wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Anyone who says that Hillary is a cipher and we know everything about Bernie is living in a fantasy world. Hillary is the most over-vetted candidate in American history. No exceptions. There has never been a candidate that people have been allowed to sort through the private correspondence of looking for tactical choices and potential dirt before they even win the nomination of their party. That is not a thing that has ever happened to any candidate ever.
My point was that we know a lot about Hillary, and what we know shows her to be politically savvy and to be willing to straight not give a shit about things she won't be able to do, regardless of saying she wants them done. That may make her a good President, but it also makes the fact that she says she wants to do something non-indicative on its own, of whether anything will actually happen.
She does, however, also have a track record of making things happen. Maybe not everything she wants to make happen, but some things. From a practical perspective, having things not happen because the president tried to make them happen and failed is not in fact an improvement on having things not happen because the president determined they wouldn't be possible and didn't try to make them happen.

'

FUCK IT BERNIE FOR PRESIDENT I HOPE CLINTON IS NEVER ELECTED TO OFFICE AGAIN JUST BECAUSE HER SUPPORTS ARE SO COMMITTED TO BEING THE BIGGEST DOUCHENOZZLES EVER.

What the fuck do I have to say to not get a fucking Clinton supporter jumping in with "BUT ACTUALLY, SHE'S THE GREATEST THING EVER" for fucks sake, she a politican and I can't know what she does or doesn't care about. I try to phrase this in the least offensive way possible by expressly fucking complimenting her as the future greatest president of all time and that still isn't enough for you to not fucking jump in and tell me how great she is.

I just want to be able to express the obvious super super super obvious fact that that I know what Bernie cares about and Clinton in a cypher, so there is plenty of good reason to be ambivalent about her candidacy and the possible shitty trade deals, shitty tax cuts, and shitty failure to push for actually economically leftist positions because making time warner rich is more important without being told I'm not allowed to think that.

It doesn't matter if she doesn't do economically left things because she doesn't want them or she does and decided her political capital was better spent on being a centrist. How can I possibly phrase that without having you fucking jump all over and tell me I'm not allowed to not support her because she will be the greatest president ever? No, I really want to know, because calling Bernie Sanders a small market local politician and Clinton a good president was apparently too much support for Bernie Sanders and not enough support for Clinton for you to avoid your instinctual urge to tell me that I'm only allowed to vote for Clinton.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:32 pm

name_here wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Anyone who says that Hillary is a cipher and we know everything about Bernie is living in a fantasy world. Hillary is the most over-vetted candidate in American history. No exceptions. There has never been a candidate that people have been allowed to sort through the private correspondence of looking for tactical choices and potential dirt before they even win the nomination of their party. That is not a thing that has ever happened to any candidate ever.
My point was that we know a lot about Hillary, and what we know shows her to be politically savvy and to be willing to straight not give a shit about things she won't be able to do, regardless of saying she wants them done. That may make her a good President, but it also makes the fact that she says she wants to do something non-indicative on its own, of whether anything will actually happen.
She does, however, also have a track record of making things happen. Maybe not everything she wants to make happen, but some things. From a practical perspective, having things not happen because the president tried to make them happen and failed is not in fact an improvement on having things not happen because the president determined they wouldn't be possible and didn't try to make them happen.

I don't believe that the Democratic party would grind to a stop just because Sanders got the nomination instead of Hillary. The thing that made me get out of bed and vote for Obama was the fact that I believed he would push really hard for actual changes I wanted. While he has done quite a bit I have been (especially during his first few years) disappointed with what I've perceived to be a very passive attitude towards the left. I don't think he really b was as open with the public about what's going on as he could have been and a number of things (like the TPP and increased drone strikes in the middle east) leave a bad taste in my mouth. I fear Hillary might be the same going forward and essentially be Obama 2.0. I'd personally would rather have Sanders at least trying to push for and speak out against the establishment. Hell I seriously suspect that the big movers and shakers are purposefully trying to help Hillary because they believe that he's different enough to actually cause them problems. Of course that's just me speculating but thinking that really only makes me want to see him become President more.

He probably won't be because I do believe that Hillary is better at politicking but if she is indeed going to be THE candidate we have to have I don't see myself being inspired to get out of bed to make it happen.

Post by **fbmf** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:40 pm

Hypothetical: Sanders is the Dem nominee. Trump is the GOP nominee. How does that end for us?

Discuss.

Game On,
fbmf

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:42 pm

MGuy wrote:He probably won't be because I do believe that Hillary is better at politicking but if she is indeed going to be THE candidate we have to have I don't see myself being inspired to get out of bed to make it happen.

When the inevitable happened, I will remain inspired by whatever stupid crazy fuck the Republicans put forward.

Hillary Clinton 2016, almost certainly better than genocide and complete economic collapse.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 11:49 pm

We have Republican candidates citing the internment of the Japanese during WW2 as justifications for their Islamophobic policy suggestions. Saying that you find it "difficult to get inspired" to vote for the centrist disappointment that Hillary Clinton will inevitably be (and we all fucking know that's what will happen, why are we even talking about this)... well...

Look, you are living in a world where Republican frontrunners are basically the next generation of the world's fucking Hitlers. The modern incarnation of the Republican party is what things look like just before they get very very very bad. Even if the level of plutocratic fellatio each party were promising were the same (and it isn't), the bare minimum fact that the freedoms and possibly lives of millions of Americans hang in the balance - as well as a possible hard-right take over the Supreme Court - should definitely fucking get you out of bed in the morning.

The Republican party has simply never been this radical or this desperate. The 2016 presidential elections may very well end up being the most important in your life, though we'll only know for sure if they end up going horribly wrong - so let's not find out. (Beyond 2016, the inevitable march of demographics bodes poorly for the Republican party.)

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:37 am

"By the power invested in me by this giant bald bird The president shall not be the shiniest of two turds"
Which is basically what Hillarity sounds like to me right now . .
We do NOT WANT TRUMP! We don't want Hillary either, but we have to make sure to NOT GET TRUMP . . so instead vote Hillary and live with it, because it will be less bad than it would be with Trump!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 1:00 am

Look, the way our system works, we pretty much have to vote for the shiniest of two turds, because third party candidates are basically a joke. As much as I'd like third party running to be viable, it just basically isn't without a huge change in how the voting public thinks. So while Sanders would be the best of the, what, fourteen current candidates?, if it comes to Trump v. Clinton, it's not like writing in Sanders is going to accomplish a lot, so of course we vote for Hillary, because when you're offering me the choice between actual poison, and a hamburger you dropped on the floor that's otherwise fine, I'm not going to throw the burger away for the not-dropped one that isn't actually on offer.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:32 am

So we've reached the point where the best thing we can say about our preferred candidate is literally "at least they're not Hitler."

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:47 am

No, we've only reached the point where we can say that about every candidate but one. There's a lot of good things to say about Bernie and Hillary, and if you pressed me I might be able to find something good to say about all the republican candidates other than Trump. Like Carson was a very successful neurosurgeon, this is a good thing. Literally nearly every other thing about him is bad, but that doesn't change the fact that he has demonstrably saved lives.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 9:13 am

Chamomile wrote:So we've reached the point where the best thing we can say about our preferred candidate is literally "at least they're not Hitler."

Hey, you take that back. My preferred candidate is Bernie Sanders, and is not a complete centrist asshole. But yes, when Hillary inevitably defeats him in the primary, the thing that will get me to the polls to vote for her is that "it's either Hillary or a possible fascist takeover of the United States."

That's, again, not a pessimistic exaggeration. I need to stress that. The United States is not some special snowflake which is immune to the ravages of corrupt and insane political parties. Hungary elected a nominally "centre right" party this decade which then immediately set about rewriting the constitution, packing the judicial branch of the government with sock puppets, turning Hungary's state-sponsored media into their personal propaganda machine, and seriously discussed - in public - criminalizing their major political opposition. When they started losing seats, they allied with Jobbik to maintain their much needed two-thirds majority. Jobbik is a far-right anti-Semitic party which, as recently as 2009, had its own paramilitary organization. Jobbik is literally a bunch of fucking neo-Nazi's. The newly empowered Law and Justice party of Poland is in the middle of the exact same process.

That is what is at stake. The ugly truth behind modern politics is that vast parts of the Western world are one bad election away from a fascist coup - and if that happens, how the fuck are we going to fix it? There's not going to be a WW3 to shut down the next batch of Western dictators (or if there is, "who's in power at the end of it" will be the least of our concerns). We already have police walking the streets waving assault rifles at protesters, and likely a third of the country would embrace having the government destroy their Democracy in the name of stopping "those dirty liberals and the damn terrorists" to begin with.

When it comes to toppling illegitimate regimes, there haven't been a lot of victories in recent history - at the end of the day military grade force and propaganda go pretty damn far. Hungary probably isn't going to find its way back to sanity. The next few months will likely decide the fate of Poland for actual decades if not the rest of my life. Do you not think the Republican party would do the exact same things given the opportunity? The Republican party has been floating (and then immediately "SHH SHH NOT YET"-ing themselves) the idea of tying the assignment of electoral college votes to house districts since the success of the 2010 gerrymandering. If a Republican wins in 2016, odds are good they'll get to stack the Supreme Court. "Rewrite the constitution to rig the electoral system and take full control of the courts" are the first things Hungary's Fidesz did, and they are the things that Poland's Law and Justice is trying to do right now.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 11:15 am

Yeh, the Republicans in the US are tied to the white racist vote since the southern strategy shift, and now demographic changes are rapidly killing them as a party. Another few cycles and the old gerrymanders will mostly topple across to D and that'll be that, forever.

This election they have basically announced they're just going to criminalise all of the brown people so that they can't vote, as a way of solving that problem. That's not a particularly fancy dog whistle Trump is using, he's just saying that if white racists want to hold control of the country they need to get rid of all the Mexicans, and he'll do it for them with executive orders and homeland security and shit.

And for that to stick, they will need to stack the supreme court with crazy people, probably young and enthusiastically crazy people.

Which all has him leading in the race for R nomination. That's a minority position in the US as a whole already, he shouldn't win the election, but people who don't agree with doing that actually have to go out and vote for whoever the Ds put up.

Because he's not kidding at all. Donald Trump's history is that of a very racist and hateful man, who admires cruel tyrants, and loves kicking people when they're down on a very personal level.

--

Hypothetical: Sanders is the Dem nominee. Trump is the GOP nominee. How does that end for us?

Demographics says the D machine could put a dog in a clown suit up and win, the real election is right now between Sanders and Clinton. Maybe one of them will offend minorities and progressive whites more than Trump has, but I don't think that's possible. Trump would swing centrist for the real deal, but it doesn't matter if he gets all the R vote, it's just not big enough.

Sanders would have to fuck a goat on live TV to lose to Trump, basically.

So D wins big in 2016, but still can't take the house, and then loses the senate again in 2018, but then wins bigger in 2020, and eventually stops losing the house or anything, and after a few more gets so big they fragment into the two new main parties, and maybe even fix the fucking voting system first.

All the next D pres has to do is block any more rounds of voter suppression and gerrymandering, keep the supreme court so they are at least sane, and they win.

All the next R pres has to do is put more and more brown people somewhere they can't vote, and do a little bit more of it, all the time, forever more, no backsies. Even then they eventually lose, it's just ... more likely to go all genocide.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 6:17 pm

So, DSM, you're phrasing all of this as though my statement was sarcastic, but it really wasn't.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 7:38 pm

Chamomile wrote:So, DSM, you're phrasing all of this as though my statement was sarcastic, but it really wasn't.

No, I understood. I'm not ranting at you, just ranting.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:50 pm

Chamomile wrote:So we've reached the point where the best thing we can say about our preferred candidate is literally "at least they're not Hitler."

Well, that depends on what you mean by "best."

Hillary Clinton was actually a very effective secretary of state, and our diplomatic position is much improved from when she took over. Consider that we were at the point of publicly renaming "french fries" to "freedom fries" under the Bush administration, and now we're all "Je suis Paris" because there was a very big gulf between France and the United States when Colin Powell was secretary of state, and a much much smaller one when Clinton was. A big part of that is that we no longer have a Great Decider in charge demanding that we alienate all our allies, but the benefits of having a competent politician and bureaucrat at the helm of our state department should not be overlooked.

But that kind of thing is not the reason you have to vote for Clinton next November. The reason you have to do it is that the other guys are literally threatening to put ten million people into concentration camps or worse. The Republicans are literally running Hitler. So regardless of what you think about Hillary's efforts at promoting women's rights abroad and whether you think that was a net positive or ultimately put us in more danger by angering Islamists or whatever, the reality is you just have to fucking vote for her.

-Username17

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 12:34 am

Additionally, while Bernie would absolutely 'push for' a progressive agenda while in office, because of the Republican stranglehold on the House, none of it would get passed. None, zero, nada, significant legislation from a Democrat president, whether Hillary, Bernie, or Jesus Christ himself is not getting through the House until 2020 at the earliest, and more reasonably, probably around 2022-2024.

Likewise, on the judicial appointments front, the need for Senate confirmation means that any major appointee that gets through is going to be a moderate liberal with impeccable credentials who has been thoroughly vetted by the establishment - people like Kagan and Sotomayor. The net difference between Bernie and Hillary is again zero.

Bernie can set considerably more liberal people at the head of federal agencies and he can sign executive orders to influence the priorities of those agencies in significant ways - empowering the SEC to go after Wall Street for example - but the House can come right back and try to cut the funding of those same agencies, and at the end of the day there's still no money for major new initiatives and government agencies are generally terrible (for a variety of reasons) at doing new and more stuff with their current resources. So the net effect is small at best.

The area where a democrat President will have the greatest latitiude by far is foreign policy. The number one reason to support Bernie over Hillary, is, quite simply, that Hillary will absolutely launch at least one major foreign military campaign that Bernie wouldn't launch. That's the biggest difference between hypothetical Clinton and Sanders presidencies - Sanders will bomb a significantly lesser (though still probably non-zero) number of deserts, jungles, and other underdeveloped parts of the world.

The Republicans, on the other hand, will commit ground troops to at least one, and probably several, foreign quagmires, and are at this point seriously contemplating war with Russia which is a literally nuclear level of crazy.

Tussock wrote:Demographics says the D machine could put a dog in a clown suit up and win, the real election is right now between Sanders and Clinton.

The D demographic advantage isn't quite that good. There is a very real possibility of the Republicans (assuming they nominate someone who can fake being a sane center-right politician for a few months like Rubio) winning the election is a significant event, like a recession or major terrorist attack on US soil, were to occur between now and the election.

Morat · Post by **Morat** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 1:58 am

Yeah, Cruz was talking about he was going to "carpet-bomb" Syria until he "finds out whether I can make sand glow in the dark". Like, a week ago. Rubio has surrounded himself with the same neocon PNAC loons that got us into Iraq. Trump is encouraging a race war at home, and the only reason I don't think he's as likely to start shit with Russia is that he apparently goes googly-eyed for Putin's willingness to kill dissidents.

TBH, I don't really care much about the Democratic primary because Clinton is going to be the only candidate left long before my state gets a vote. But I care a fucking lot about the general election.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 4:03 am

That should be trump's slogan:

"No Foreign Wars, I promise to wage all my wars against american citizens!"

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 4:20 am

Incidentally, while we're on the topic, I'm very scared that war with Russia could be a lot closer than anyone is willing to admit.

I mean, Turkey (a NATO member) has exchanged fire with Russia. Plus there's still the mess in Ukraine.

We really don't need a posturing chickenhawk in the White House at the moment, regardless of political affiliation.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:20 am

As Turkey, Hungary, and now Poland start breaking with the West on such important issues as "fascism" it remains to be seen how much NATO actually has their back with regards to their increasing adventurism. Turkey attacked Russia, and not the other way around. And NATO did not spring to back them up. I don't think NATO is really itching to back up Poland's dreams of annexing parts of Belarus, and I know that NATO looks dimly on Hungary's weird rants about taking territory from Slovakia and Romania.

There is a big realignment going on. Basically the old Central Powers are up to shenanigans, and it is not impossible that the Allies from World War I are going to have to lay the smack down. It's really important that someone vaguely competent has their finger on the button and not some blow hard know-nothing.

-Username17

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:18 am

Mechalich wrote:There is a very real possibility of the Republicans (assuming they nominate someone who can fake being a sane center-right politician for a few months like Rubio) winning the election is a significant event, like a recession or major terrorist attack on US soil, were to occur between now and the election.

Nah. Terrorism actually makes them popular, whoever is dear leader. Same as starting wars does. Nothing like a big us vs them moment for everyone to decide the enabling patriot act is a great idea after all.

Like, it can happen, when the Tea Party Caucus turned off the government for shits and giggles, they lost about 3% of the population permanently. But that's not "a recession happened", that's "they fucked a goat on national television".

They still have 25% of the population thinks they're good for the country, down from 28%, and they deliberately turned off the government for a few days, people don't care, that's their tribe, they're voting for it.