2020 Presidential Election

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

I listened to his interview on Pod Save America this morning and i like him! He's a little centrist in health care, though.

Well, not centrist so much as incrementalist. He wants to put a Medicare-for-all plan in among the other plans you can choose on the exchanges and let people come to their support through experience.

He said that is how we got from the "Death Panel" town halls in 2010 to the "Save the ACA" town halls of 2017-- people's impressions changed after the issue was no longer theoretical and had become part of their experience.

I also like that he is a veteran and that he is very serious and that Bernie is the politician he most admires.

Oh! And that he calls out the condescension that coastal progressives show to the midwest, which is a huge problem that only the right seems to call out (that i've noticed)

I like him, too. He has good ideas and a good temperament. But I think he's just too young and green. He should run for Governor first and get more seasoned.

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

I like him, too. He has good ideas and a good temperament. But I think he's just too young and green. He should run for Governor first and get more seasoned.

Yah, Mayor of South Bend is not much. The City i work for has the same population and any of the four mayors i've worked under would be laughed out of a Presidential primary, with cause.

[Martina]

I am not sure that there is anyone among the Dems running who people dislike as much as Hillary, so I guess it's encouraging. Or not. The Dems are not to be trusted. They still blame everyone else but Clinton for the loss. Anyway, this was interesting:

"Trump was able to win in 2016 because that election came down to a choice between him and Hillary Clinton. Clinton was the second-least-liked major party nominee of all time, and there was 18% of the electorate that liked neither Clinton nor Trump. Trump won this 18% of the electorate by 17 points and with it the election. In other words, Trump was seen as the lesser of two evils."

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/05/pol...www.cnn.com%2F

[Andrea]

Since I find it difficult to remember the good and the bad for so many different 2020 candidates, I suspect others have the same problem. Heck, I am having trouble just keeping up with who has announced a run and who is just considering a run.

Would it be of interest to have one thread for each candidate? A place to list what we like about them and what we don't like?

[homoe]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Since I find it difficult to remember the good and the bad for so many different 2020 candidates, I suspect others have the same problem. Heck, I am having trouble just keeping up with who has announced a run and who is just considering a run.

Would it be of interest to have one thread for each candidate? A place to list what we like about them and what we don't like?

This is food for thought! I'm thinking maybe we should wait for individual threads for each until a bit close to election time.

Thanks for posting, I searched and searched for this thread but gave up and posted in the Breaking News thread about Bill Shine heading Trump's 2020 re-election campaign!

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by Martina

I am not sure that there is anyone among the Dems running who people dislike as much as Hillary, so I guess it's encouraging. Or not. The Dems are not to be trusted. They still blame everyone else but Clinton for the loss. Anyway, this was interesting:

"Trump was able to win in 2016 because that election came down to a choice between him and Hillary Clinton. Clinton was the second-least-liked major party nominee of all time, and there was 18% of the electorate that liked neither Clinton nor Trump. Trump won this 18% of the electorate by 17 points and with it the election. In other words, Trump was seen as the lesser of two evils."

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/05/pol...www.cnn.com%2F

Please give me one good reason why Hillary was the 2nd least liked major party nominee of all time. When did that happen? Who made that happen? You all really believe there was ever only one nominee less Satanic than Hillary?

I've never really understood why Democrats and the Left allow Repubs and the Right to define and smear their candidates, accept the smear as legit, and then spend the rest of their political thought defending agst straw man bullshit

Why are so many of you such cowering wimps, so eager to self flagellate and accept every nasty distraction tossed at you.

Ignore the A..Holes. That's what they do because they understand that the public is too ignorant to distinguish fine argument.being constantly on the defensive is just dumb.

Stop going on abt how bad Hillary was. Leave that to the Right.
Want the perfect male candidate, resurrect Jesus.
Want the perfect female candidate, dig up Mother Teresa.
Want the worst possible candidate, let the Right pick one for you and then go on and on about whether they got it right.
What a divisive waste of time and resources.

[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:

[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.

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Please give me one good reason why Hillary was the 2nd least liked major party nominee of all time. When did that happen? Who made that happen? You all really believe there was ever only one nominee less Satanic than Hillary?

I've never really understood why Democrats and the Left allow Repubs and the Right to define and smear their candidates, accept the smear as legit, and then spend the rest of their political thought defending agst straw man bullshit

Why are so many of you such cowering wimps, so eager to self flagellate and accept every nasty distraction tossed at you.

Ignore the A..Holes. That's what they do because they understand that the public is too ignorant to distinguish fine argument.being constantly on the defensive is just dumb.

Stop going on abt how bad Hillary was. Leave that to the Right.
Want the perfect male candidate, resurrect Jesus.
Want the perfect female candidate, dig up Mother Teresa.
Want the worst possible candidate, let the Right pick one for you and then go on and on about whether they got it right.
What a divisive waste of time and resources.

Decided to repost that so folks could see what I actually did say and not what I didn't say. But I suppose that's neither here nor there at this point.

[Martina]

Yes, "cowering wimps" is such a charming thing to call people. I can see why you'd want to repost it.

[charley]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Please give me one good reason why Hillary was the 2nd least liked major party nominee of all time. When did that happen? Who made that happen? You all really believe there was ever only one nominee less Satanic than Hillary?

I've never really understood why Democrats and the Left allow Repubs and the Right to define and smear their candidates, accept the smear as legit, and then spend the rest of their political thought defending agst straw man bullshit

Why are so many of you such cowering wimps, so eager to self flagellate and accept every nasty distraction tossed at you.

Ignore the A..Holes. That's what they do because they understand that the public is too ignorant to distinguish fine argument.being constantly on the defensive is just dumb.

Stop going on abt how bad Hillary was. Leave that to the Right.
Want the perfect male candidate, resurrect Jesus.
Want the perfect female candidate, dig up Mother Teresa.
Want the worst possible candidate, let the Right pick one for you and then go on and on about whether they got it right.
What a divisive waste of time and resources.

Have boldened and put into red all insults... (also removed my thanks, for having re-read this particular post).

One wonders why the above author is persistently trying to provoke/incite/goad some of the posters? This is definitely not fine dialogue or any kind of dialogue, nor is it helpful.

Actually, I think it is creating division and argument, and there is nothing about that promotes constructive thought, and it is not bringing all of us together.

[C0LLETTE]

Wonder away.

I'm quite sure my meaning is quite clear to most readers who can distinguish my references to Democrats from references to Republicans, references to the Left from references to the Right.

Also they may notice that I am not attacking anyone here personally nor loading my post with personal insult.

I should have known better.
Please do not go after me personally again.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Please give me one good reason why Hillary was the 2nd least liked major party nominee of all time. When did that happen? Who made that happen? You all really believe there was ever only one nominee less Satanic than Hillary?

I've never really understood why Democrats and the Left allow Repubs and the Right to define and smear their candidates, accept the smear as legit, and then spend the rest of their political thought defending agst straw man bullshit

Why are so many of you such cowering wimps, so eager to self flagellate and accept every nasty distraction tossed at you.

Ignore the A..Holes. That's what they do because they understand that the public is too ignorant to distinguish fine argument.being constantly on the defensive is just dumb.

Stop going on abt how bad Hillary was. Leave that to the Right.

So you quote me, ask me direct questions and then continue to use the word "you," referring to folks on the left, to say "why are so many of YOU cowering assholes." Then you continue to use "you," in the imperative, saying stop hating on Hillary. That's pretty fucking direct.

But that's not a personal attack? The entire post is dripping with disdain and disrespect. Just charming. An example to us all.

And before you or someone calls me out for parsing your post, YOU reposted it so we could all see how you expressed yourself.

[charley]

"Trump has made 9,014 false or misleading claims over 773 days"

"As of the end of Sunday, March 3, the 773rd day of his term in office, Trump has reportedly accumulated 9,014 suspicious claims, Washington Post reports, citing The Fact Checker’s database. According to the American newspaper, the US president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. In his second year, Trump reportedly hit nearly 16.5 a day and so far in 2019, he is averaging nearly 22 claims a day."

https://www.legit.ng/1226115-fact-ch...ys-report.html

All these lies are indicative of the dark cancer spreading over a certain sector of the American population.

Roger Stone's [who is one of Trump's best buds] motto is "never apologize". Trump never apologizes either. Apart from all of Trump's lies and his deliberate ad hominem attacks, one can always tell just how evil the man is (or anyone else who lies) by the way that even after never apologizing, such a bully will not only increase their passive-aggressive rant, but they will also play the victim, even making veiled threats.

[As an aside, I am still aghast at Justin Trudeau's behavior in my post regarding the SNC-Lavalin scandal. A reporter had approached him and asked him whether he would apologize - he ignored the question and left - oh my goodness, the darkness is spreading to Canada as well! smh!]

No one dares ask Trump to apologize. One can always tell just how bad a group/collective is when the majority associated with such an evil man remain silent in the face of all his abuse.

Trump's latest comment lie is horrific: "The Democrats hate Jewish people." He is trying to get the Jewish vote, lol.

The fact is that more than approx. 75% of Jews in the States voted for democrats in the midterms.

From "Morning Joe", in 2016, Jewish voters voted 71% for the Democrats, and in 2018, 79% for the Democrats.

The Far Right and the Neo-Nazis are most likely pleased with Trump, finding validation for their antisemitism. Trump knows this, and has used them and their prejudices to get their support.

Anything to win - just another example of someone who will use any and all means to reach their ends, which is just another example of how evil Trump is.

What a mess!

[Kätzchen]

Just read a good article about Pete Buttigieg on CNN, this morning. And I plan to donate to his campaign when I get home from work today.

Here's the article, in case anyone is interested:

Pete Buttigieg Calls Mike Pence a 'Cheerleader for the Porn Star Presidency'

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by charley

"Trump has made 9,014 false or misleading claims over 773 days"

"As of the end of Sunday, March 3, the 773rd day of his term in office, Trump has reportedly accumulated 9,014 suspicious claims, Washington Post reports, citing The Fact Checker’s database. According to the American newspaper, the US president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. In his second year, Trump reportedly hit nearly 16.5 a day and so far in 2019, he is averaging nearly 22 claims a day."

https://www.legit.ng/1226115-fact-ch...ys-report.html

All these lies are indicative of the dark cancer spreading over a certain sector of the American population.

As i mentioned ion a previous post, the US suicide rate has increased 30% since 2000:

Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.

The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the study on Friday.

The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999.

Yesterday i was on the Galveston Daily News website and i was reading the comments under a story on projected sea level rise, and 90% of commenters (most of whom can see the Gulf of Mexico from their houses) were calling climate change a liberal hoax perpetuated by money-hungry academics.

The reason US evangelicals are so rabid about Israel is because they need for the geopolitics of the situation to go a certain way so the apocalypse and rapture can hurry up and get here.

What i am saying is that the "dark cancer" is a death wish that has taken over about half of the population.

Our species as a whole is suicidal.

We've always had a suicide switch hiding inside of us-- you can see this in the apocalypse prophecies that feature in so many religions. Those are there because we know there has to be an ending to our story, because we also know, instinctively and subconsciously, that our existence is unsustainable-- just the mathematical fact of exponential population growth within a finite environment has a bad ending coded in from the beginning.

I think the suicide switch in our evolutionary makeup was triggered in 1945 when we dropped the first nuclear bomb. Our ending began that day-- as soon as it became possible for man to destroy life on earth, it also became inevitable on a long enough timeline. We know that, deep down, and we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since.

What's happening now is that more and more people are tired of the suspense and just want to get it over with.

That is why we have Trump/Brexit/Marine le Pen, Bolsnaro, etc. If enough countries slide off the rails and into nationalism, the cooperation we need to save ourselves becomes impossible.

Deep down, a lot of people want that. We can't save ourselves without some discomfort and a big slice of the population would rather we all die instead of cutting consumption of anything at all.

Its not Rs vs Ds, or progressives vs liberals-- it's Team Apocalypse vs Team Carry On-- except all of the infighting and purity testing we have in certain corners of Team Carry On makes me think the suicide bug has bit a lot of us, too. Like, let's take a decade-long time-out right here, with one minute to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, and throw a couple of elections so we can break the back of the two-party system.

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by Martina

So you quote me, ask me direct questions and then continue to use the word "you," referring to folks on the left, to say "why are so many of YOU cowering assholes." Then you continue to use "you," in the imperative, saying stop hating on Hillary. That's pretty fucking direct.

But that's not a personal attack? The entire post is dripping with disdain and disrespect. Just charming. An example to us all.

And before you or someone calls me out for parsing your post, YOU reposted it so we could all see how you expressed yourself.

Point of personal privilege: Nowhere in my post did I write "why are so many of YOU cowering assholes". Where did that misleading quote originate?

Parse away but please reread my post first. Perhaps I should repost it again to help out .

As for the use of the word "you", is there a plural form of this word? I'd think many readers could distinguish between "you" being used singularly and "you" being used in the plural. I suppose I could have used "Y'all". Lesson learned.

On another matter: Does anyone know how to do that red bold typeface?