2020 Presidential Election

[Martina]

One? One? Google for God's sake. Seriously???? And this post got thanked by sane people???

How about her strong support of the Iraq War?

How about her continuing to tout welfare reform in her 2008 campaign, legislation which increased extreme poverty by 150%. I remember that. I didn't vote for Bill the second time because of welfare reform. He said, oh we'll clean it up with further legislation. But they didn't. They didn't even follow what happened to the kids removed from welfare. We now know it was a fucking nightmare. And then, in a mind-blowingly cynical act of hypocrisy, in 2016, Hillary kept talking about her time working with Marion Wright Edelman. The Marion Wright Edelman who didn't speak to her for five years after welfare reform. But since she was dead in 2016, she couldn't be asked about it.

How about her close ties to the Walton's and her efforts to undermine labor unions in Arkansas?

How about her support for charters? How about her bone ignorance of education issues except to follow the lead of her billionaire buddies in the tech industry?

How about her opposition to nearly every effort that will probably be part of the 2020 Democratic platform?

How about her close ties to Wall Street? The money from Goldman Sachs being the tip of the iceberg?

How about the foundation which was just more cozying up to corporations from whom the Clinton's made a fortune via speaking and consulting frees.

How about the way she refused to acknowledge economic inequality until forced to? And how she continues to talk about our system as a meritocracy when there is tons of research showing upward mobility is harder than ever and that class privilege predetermines success in almost every arena.

How about her basic support for the TPP, saying it just needed tweaking, continuing her husband's disastrous economic policies which have hollowed out the American middle class?

How about her hesitation on the minimum wage?

How about her interventionist strategy in Libya, which she now regrets?

How about the phrases super-predator and the deserving poor? Those phrases came out of her mouth.

How about her support of every neo-liberal, anti-worker, anti-poor, racist policy her husband's administration came up with?

Google. You'll find more.

Oh, and I sure as hell ain't no cowering wimp. Nor am I self-flagellating when I oppose candidates like Hillary Clinton. I have NOTHING in common with the people who have been destroying our nation for thirty years. And I have about as much in common with a hard core Hillary supporter as I do a Trump supporter. You don't like left wing populists? Who the fuck cares? Bernie had to give an extra speech in Iowa today because there were so many people who couldn't get into the venue. There are lots of us, and we don't give a good God damn what you think.

You clearly know next to nothing about US politics.

[dark_crystal]

The Clintons were yuppies.

Bill won because people still liked yuppies in the early 90s and because GHWB was somehow equal parts wimpy and sinister.

I personally had a hard time with Clinton bc she reminded me of my most annoying second-wave boss, but i do not understand why people vilify her so specifically.

Every problematic thing either Clinton ever supported was typical yuppie shit.

We need to recognize and own, as a culture, everything that was wrong with the entire ethos of the have-it-all eighties and quit projecting it all onto a single woman.

She was dirty from day one bc she entered the workforce at a time when every single thing was gatekept by a male, and female empowerment, back then, was possible only under the terms set by men, which required a wholehearted embrace of capitalism. There were a zillion movies about it.

You had to get dirty to play-- it was still either that or be a teacher/nurse/secretary, and even then, while you may not have to be like men, you at least had to be for them-- compliantly pretty and demure and tolerant of mild harassment and light assault.

There is a whole lot of pernicious shit that any woman in her generation would have internalized, that we are only just now even able to begin to challenge. This is why she still has supporters-- a whole lot of women who had those same experiences are still voting.

She's not evil, she's just a yuppie.

Should she have realized, before running, that the time was past when a yuppie was anything anybody still needed?

Has any yuppie realized this, ever?

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

Has any yuppie realized this, ever?

...in the interest of keeping it 2020 and not relitigating 2016:

[Martina]

Yes, Biden is a mainstream Dem who supported most of this stuff. However, he has been a consistent supporter of unions, whose destruction has been the linchpin of neo-liberal domestic politics. Reviving unions is also they key to returning this country to someplace workers can afford to live. The Clinton's undermined unions at every turn and from the beginning.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

...in the interest of keeping it 2020 and not relitigating 2016:

[Martina]

Well the election is over and Trump won, thanks to mainstream Dems having their heads lodged firmly up their asses.

The point of that little thing I posted is that almost any Democratic candidate is likely to do much better this time around. It was semi-encouraging.

I will say that those who fear the left have less to worry about this time. I have read that the Bernie voters who went Trump are a group that no longer exists in terms of voting behavior. Duh.

I voted Clinton. But fuck every fucking asshole who tells third party voters not to vote their conscience after fielding a candidate like Clinton. She would have won if her campaign had not been so smug, stupid, and incompetent. I will vote for any Democrat who is nominated as I imagine most Trump haters will.

But those Clintonites excoriating third party voters then and now don't have a leg to stand on. Your horrendous candidate lost. And not because of Berners. Because she lost Obama voters and urban African Americans and because she didn't reach the suburban white women she spent so much money courting. Not a fucking thing to do with voters who never have and never will vote Dem. They honestly never expected to get them, so those post game arguments are ignorant. What she figured wrong was the base and how fucking sick to death they are of mainstream Dems not having a clue about their lives and priorities.

Listen, I have hated with a burning hot hatred both Clinton's for two decades. I hate Bill more. I am not sexist, and I don't feel one morsel of regret for hating most of what she stands for. She is a power hungry politician who doesn't give a fuck about poor and working people. She never has.

Yes, Biden has stood for most of the same. But the support for unions is redeeming. I believe him re that. He's far from my first choice. Far. But I will vote for him with much less angst than I brought to voting for Clinton.

[Martina]

All this stuff about her being a woman candidate. I don't give a damn what gender a candidate is. I never have. The Brits had Margaret Thatcher. Gender doesn't guarantee shit. I won't feel a thing when the first woman candidate wins the Presidency. I get it that is meaningful. But it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care. Don't give a tinkers damn. I cared when Obama was elected. I thought I'd never see the day. And I will care when a gay person is elected.

There are lots of women in power. I wouldn't dream of extending them the benefit of the doubt because of gender. Women are the backbone of the Republican Party. My family is full of right wing women. I don't understand why every post mentions it. One was like if you want a perfect woman, dig up . . . Or a perfect man, dig up. Who the fuck thinks that way? I guess lots of people. I just don't care.

It's true that even decent men have blind spots. And no apologies for that. But being a decent human being, a brave and strong candidate, and standing up for the American people -- I kind of put that first.

[Martina]

They scapegoated poor people and people of color to get Bill reelected. I think that's evil.

There's a great book called Listen, Liberal, which explains the neo-liberal anti-worker politics that the Clinton's epitomized. It's not about being a yuppie yourself. It's about supporting the professional classes at the expense of workers while blaming the workers for their losses. The fact is that Clinton politics and their consequences destroyed the middle class in ways Reagan could never have envisaged.

It's a truly evil politics, capitalist to the core. Heartless and cynical.

[kittygrrl]

Originally Posted by Martina

One? One? Google for God's sake. Seriously???? And this post got thanked by sane people???

How about her strong support of the Iraq War?

.

You clearly know next to nothing about US politics.

yes, etc etc etc...let's depreciate each other and listen to the clapping from fox news fans...seriously?...can we all get on the same page and just agree to disagree?? I repped her comment becuz i get super bummed listening to the whining of bernie burners and any one else getting off on the "lock her up" chant.. can we just move on with 2019 issues and get over a woman running for president?? O.m.g. get over 2016!!!!@@

[charley]

Originally Posted by Martina

One? One? Google for God's sake. Seriously???? And this post got thanked by sane people???
...

You clearly know next to nothing about US politics.

Well, umm.... I don't equate lack of knowledge (information) about a candidate and sanity. They have nothing to do with each other.

Now, thank you for providing all this knowledge about Hillary, which I confess, I really didn't know much about. As I have said more than once, I was so busy prior to retirement, I was not prepared to understand how Trump won (how Hillary lost). It's all been a learning curve of information and subsequent understanding. So again, thank you.

Insofar as winners go, I remember seeing on TV a woman who had voted for Trump say that she had held her nose at the thought of voting for Trump, but did it anyways. Yeah, I think there are Republicans who "know" that Trump was/is an a**hole. Personally, I think most politicians are corrupt, even evil. Ya know, as Lord Acton, expressed in an opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

So, one is usually faced with a dilemma when placing anyone in a powerful position. Insofar as the States are concerned, I have understood one thing, that this powerful person is also in charge of appointing judges, besides legislation.

Since Trump has been in power, he has appointed the following:

As of March 7, 2019, the United States Senate has confirmed 89 Article III judges nominated by President Trump, including 2 Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 34 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 53 judges for the United States District Courts, and 0 judges for the United States Court of International Trade - for a total of 178 judges appointed by a Republican government. Personally, I don't believe at all as the Chief Justice made a statement to the effect that they are impartial - rubbish!

There are currently 60 nominations to Article III courts awaiting Senate action, including 8 for the Courts of Appeals, 50 for the District Courts, and 2 for the Court of International Trade.

So, that is where the power lies.

As you are all aware, Manafort got a lesser sentence than even his defense attorney suggested, and this by a Reagan-appointed judge.

So even if Hillary smelt, the point of the election for those who did not support Trump, was to ensure that the Dems won.