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 Post subject: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 11:54 pm 
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Hey! Glad to be able to finally find some time to post... Being an unexpectedly single dad of two and widower kinda cut down on my spare time for awhile. (For more info on that I posted on the introductions forum)

So am I the only one who's pumped to see:

1) Hillary be a bridesmaid yet again - First Obama sends her to the bleachers and now maybe Sanders... How mad must she be right now? I just can't like her... I want to, but I just can't do it. She has the charisma of a particularly bland tofu and a record for being behind whatever's good to be behind at the time. Also, while I'm not an OMG Bengazi spouting idiot, it did happen on her watch and she must bear at least peripheral responsibility for it. That buck stopped on her desk at least partially as SecState IMHO.

2) Trump v. Sanders - Unabashed "Democratic Socialist" Bernie Sanders vs. Unfiltered "I'm just saying what all you racists think in the back of your mind" Donald Trump. OMG. Where is my popcorn, that sounds like fun!

3) The Republican Party vs. Trump. There are an awful lot of people trying their darnedest in the party itself trying to find any sort of poop to throw at Trump and they can't make any of it stick. The harder they push, the more attractive ol' Yellowhair looks to the anti-establishment primary voters. He's out there saying things nobody in the GOP is willing to say (cause they're batpoop crazy things to say) that the GOP base absolutely loves. Problems with illegal immigration? It's those darned Mexican Rapists! Problems with fundamentalist Islamic terrorists? It's ALL Muslims' fault, keep them out! Who's keeping 1930s Germany down? It's the Jews! Oops, wait, wrong demagogue.

4) Big money SuperPAC donors freaking out as two leading candidates tell them to "go hang, I don't need your stinking cash". "It smells bad and has unexpected strings attached." Take that, Citizen's United ruling! The average donation to Sander's campaign is something around $30 and he's still hanging with the big... um... dog.

5) The epic fail that both Sanders and Trump will face if elected as it becomes clear that just like Obama before them, POTUS can't pass *bleep* without Congress and that institution jumped the shark at least 35 years ago. Nobody from either establishment parties is going to be willing to make a deal with them, and barring a shocking electoral result POTUS will lack a supermajority in the Senate, without which NOTHING moves in today's US government. Obama wanted Gitmo shut down, Congress blocked for pretty much two full terms. Pretty much all the President has left is his powers as Commander in Chief of the military and over some of the federal bureaucracy.

Now, having said all that, I'm a Canadian citizen so I can stand back on the northern border and laugh my frozen buttocks off at y'all. It's -30 outside my house right now, with a 15km/h wind.

But don't ask me about Trudeau Version 2.0. I don't mind the Liberal Party, I like their generally centrist (as defined in Canada) party platform but I don't like the gigolo we just got as PM.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 11:12 pm 
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baconbotsforever wrote:
5) The epic fail that both Sanders and Trump will face if elected as it becomes clear that just like Obama before them, POTUS can't pass *bleep* without Congress and that institution jumped the shark at least 35 years ago. Nobody from either establishment parties is going to be willing to make a deal with them, and barring a shocking electoral result POTUS will lack a supermajority in the Senate, without which NOTHING moves in today's US government. Obama wanted Gitmo shut down, Congress blocked for pretty much two full terms. Pretty much all the President has left is his powers as Commander in Chief of the military and over some of the federal bureaucracy.

I may be wrong but what I think I see from Sanders that we didn't from Obama is he doesn't seem nearly as concerned with looking like the nice guy and being afraid to call a spade a spade. Of course he won't be able to get but a fraction of his wish list but if he gets the chance to use the bully pulpit to tell it like it is then who knows how much public support he can garner.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 4:27 am 
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Just to nitpick, Sanders isn't actually a democratic socialist, he's a social democrat. There's a difference, and yes, he himself gets it wrong. The former thinks the government should control all the major industries (kind of like Britain in the 1940s), the latter supports a Nordic-style welfare state.

In the event that he does become the Democratic nominee, I seriously think that there are enough Americans who would rather have a self-proclaimed racist dickbag in the White House than a self-proclaimed socialist. But I'm fairly sure it's gonna be Clinton. I will prostrate myself before you if I'm wrong, though.

Enjoy your Canadian citizenship. I'm jealous.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 9:31 am 
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For getting things done, Sanders has the advantage, that he does not sell himself as a uniter as Obama did, but as clearly partisan candidate. In my experience self proclaimed uniters tend to aggrevate splits and camp based bickering.

I guess that is a group dynamics effect, as the uniter will originally come up with a plan, that is already a compromise, and while thoose from the other camp might be in principle be ready to agree to that as final solution, they still need some visible change to the original proposal as trophy to carry home into their camp and publically display. Someone who styles himself as partisan hardliner will come up with an original plan totally unacceptable to the other side, and (provided they are pragmatic) in the end get to a workable compromise, where the other side got many face saving changes.

What his chances are in the election are really hard to say. When have the democrats last gone for a far left candidate anywhere where it is not a save seat anyway?

IIRC in Styria (an Austrian State), after they managed to get strong enough to get viable chances to get into the (sate)parliament and thus also got the media coverage are getting many voters who vote Freedom Party (our racist dickbag party) in national elections. It's hard to explain based on the political platforms, i guess for some voters "If they get into the office, them guys from the establishment get a stroke, Muhaha!!!" is the primary motivation.

So "vote Sanders to show it the the Wall Street crowd" might work as well as "Vote Trump to show it to the political correct crowd" to attract angry voters.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 4:52 pm 
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I hadn't taken Bernie seriously yet, because he seemed like such a long shot, but it seems like all bets are off in this race... I'll have to study up a little more about who he really is.

All that said, ot's still hard for me to believe a Trump vs Sanders race could actually happen. The establishment is the establishment for a reason...

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:02 am 
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Interesting article about Bernie Sanders's platform here. If he wants to be a serious presidential candidate, he's gonna have to wonk it up a whole lot in a hurry.

If we get a Trump vs. Sanders contest, that makes two candidates who don't have any idea how policy works, but I can only picture one of them caring.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:30 am 
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Kea wrote:
If we get a Trump vs. Sanders contest, that makes two candidates who don't have any idea how policy works, but I can only picture one of them caring.

This idea that Sanders doesn't know how policy works because his current campaign wishlist isn't finely detailed yet is just wrong. He has been getting stuff done when possible for a good while.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:58 am 
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Amending a lot of bills to address individual issues or fund single programs is not the same as designing a realistic health care system from scratch. There's a jump between being an effective congresscritter to being the president, and if he's seriously running for president (as opposed to trying to play the gadfly), he needs to make that jump by hiring some brainiac experts to work out detailed policy proposals.

That's still miles ahead of Trump who acts like you can solve problems by shouting at them.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:57 pm 
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We have a realistic health care system, it treated my breast cancer. It merely needs to be expanded.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 5:58 pm 
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Probably the good poll values of Trump and Sanders fuel each other. After all if the other side is going to have that loony, we can run with the candidate we really like, rather then the compromise candidate, that we otherwise would have to take, to have a chance against the serious candidate of the other side.

Sanders having no detailed plans at this time does not say anything bad about him IMHO. AFAIK presidents are not making policies by pulling complete legislations out of a top hat, that impress the other branches of government enough to get along. A lot of interest groups will want to take part in creating the final draft, if only to prove their own importance. So it seems like a good strategy to start with a broad strokes plan, and let them come up with some of the details, that if you tried to make the plan all on your own, you would have gotten to eventually anyway. That way they can feel included and leave their mark, without changing anything about your plan just to show they can.

And you only can start to get interest groups on board, when they start take you seriously. If Sanders is there at all yet, he is not there long enough for that to have an impact.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 12:07 am 
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Kea wrote:
Enjoy your Canadian citizenship. I'm jealous.


Thanks, I'm rather fond of it myself. If you decide to use your exit strategy, consider Canada... We're sort of like America but colder and more socialist. Also, you're highly unlikely to be expected to carry an M-16 family firearm in either a military capacity or to the local Chipotle restaurant.

As an added bonus, we have large contingents of people in our larger cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto etc. who do indeed speak a variety of Cantonese or Mandarin. My grandmother did 99% of her daily business in Cantonese in the city of Calgary. We sort of took the melting pot idea and threw it out; the general idea is that diversity creates energy and ideas. Believe it or not, we even champion... gasp... Multiculturalism.

arcosh wrote:
Sanders having no detailed plans at this time does not say anything bad about him IMHO. AFAIK presidents are not making policies by pulling complete legislations out of a top hat, that impress the other branches of government enough to get along. A lot of interest groups will want to take part in creating the final draft, if only to prove their own importance. So it seems like a good strategy to start with a broad strokes plan, and let them come up with some of the details, that if you tried to make the plan all on your own, you would have gotten to eventually anyway. That way they can feel included and leave their mark, without changing anything about your plan just to show they can.


This exactly. I don't care that Sanders hasn't laid out precisely his exact plans as President, I simply think it's best to find the right guy for the chair and let him do his best to find a way to get some positive things done. Any sort of detailed plan released months and months ahead of the general is just going to be complete pipe dream anyways. But, again, this comes from the perspective of someone who just went through an election cycle in Canada which lasted 78 days... which is over twice as long as the one before it. The length of American election cycles seems certifiably insane to us.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:25 am 
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baconbotsforever wrote:
The length of American election cycles seems certifiably insane to us.

It seems that way to plenty of us, too.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 2:43 am 
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Now that it looks increasingly unlikely that Bernie will beat Hillary, what do you think Bernie supporters should do in November? Hold their nose and vote for Clinton? Vote third party? Sit this one out? I've even heard of a few cases where Bernie supporters say they'd rather vote Trump than Clinton. Whaaa?

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 6:14 am 
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I guess it depends on the general election behaviour of the candidates.

I suppose Clinton can get most of them to vote for her, if she trusts her centrist and establishment credentials are good enough for the center and makes a mobilize the left base campain.

If she uses the traditional strategy and campains for the center in the general election, she will alienate many Bernie supporters.

It also depends on Trumps behaviour (assuming he is the candidate). If he keeps flipping off the republican establishment throughout the general election campaining, i guess he can pick up some Bernie supporters, who are primarily anti establishment. If "Trump pisses off prominent republicans" stories stop coming up less so.

I guess a lot will depend on VP choices. If Clinton takes an other centrist as VP, a lot of Bernie supporters will interpret it as flipping them off. If Clinton picks Bernie or someone else nearly as left as he is, it will be seens as indication, that sees it as neccessary to provide something substantial to the left base.

If Trump picks an establishment republican or an established tea party candidate, he looks like he is bringing republican or tea party rule and thus is scary to leftwing anti establishment voters. If he picks someone as palatable to the other republican camps as he is, an anti establishment leftwinger will have the choice between a centrist democrat, who keeps the unliked status quo in an orderly fashion, or a chaos candidate, who will achieve nothing but with the loudest possible noiselevel. That means a much lesser distinction between evils.

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 Post subject: Re: Feeling the Bern?
 Post Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 1:55 am 
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Honestly, I don't think those considerations will matter that much. What it will come down to is this: are Bernie Sanders supporters willing to let Trump have the country for the next 4 years in order to stick it to Clinton? Are they so disgusted with the establishment that they'd rather have a moronic demagogue than another corporate-friendly centrist?

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