U.S. Elections: 3rd Party Masturbatory Fantasies

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 

Carry on...

[Kalbear]

Seems on topic.

 

Quote

WILSON: … who think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is the greatest thing. Oh, it's something. But the fact of the matter is most of them are childless, single men who masturbate to Anime. They're not real political players. These are not people who matter in the overall course of humanity.

 

[Iskaral Pust]

It seems much easier to co-opt one of the existing parties rather than reform to add viable others. The Dems & GOP basically switched position on who is the party of small govt and racism within a relatively short period.

And now the GOP could switch from hawkish and free trade to isolationist and protectionist. These big tent parties seem pretty fluid and inherently Zoroastrian in their completeness.

I think it's more pragmatic to seek reform in the primary system because that is de facto a huge part of the election process but with even lower turnout and crazier rules that favor the extremists.

[Squab]

Bernie (Privilege) Sanders interrupting HRC in a debate on the eve of international women's day was quite a bit ruder than I expected him to be however, given how Bernie Bros behave, I shouldn't have been surprised.

[jarl the climber]

7 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

It seems much easier to co-opt one of the existing parties rather than reform to add viable others. The Dems & GOP basically switched position on who is the party of small govt and racism within a relatively short period.

And now the GOP could switch from hawkish and free trade to isolationist and protectionist. These big tent parties seem pretty fluid and inherently Zoroastrian in their completeness.

I think it's more pragmatic to seek reform in the primary system because that is de facto a huge part of the election process but with even lower turnout and crazier rules that favor the extremists.

The parties have a lot of say and leeway in terms of how their caucus and primary system works out, I'm not sure if that would be possible.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

18 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 

Carry on...

Nice thread title.  Not self congratultory or masturbatory at all on your part.

[Bonesy]

Bernie Sanders is more privileged than Hillary Clinton because?

Edit: Btw, he interrupted her interruption, politely.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Bernie Sanders is more privileged than Hillary Clinton because?

Because he's a man?

[Bonesy]

And that would be the only possible answer.

Does that make up for their other attributable disparities of privilege?

[ThinkerX]

12 minutes ago, jarl the climber said:

The parties have a lot of say and leeway in terms of how their caucus and primary system works out, I'm not sure if that would be possible.

Except it did happen, and is a major source of grief for the Republicans this time around.  The Tea Party, a third party in all but name, is effectively hamstringing the republican party.

 

After this election, the democratic party could be in a somewhat similar situation with Sanders followers. 

[Tempra]

50 minutes ago, Squab said:

Bernie (Privilege) Sanders interrupting HRC in a debate on the eve of international women's day was quite a bit ruder than I expected him to be however, given how Bernie Bros behave, I shouldn't have been surprised.

What? She constantly interrupted him and he, finally, stuck up for himself and said "excuse me.  I'm talking."  HRC is not a delicate flower.

[Kalbear]

49 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

And that would be the only possible answer.

Does that make up for their other attributable disparities of privilege?

The concepts of intersectional privilege aren't about competing to see which person has it the worst. 

[Squab]

9 minutes ago, Tempra said:

What? She constantly interrupted him and he, finally, stuck up for himself and said "excuse me.  I'm talking."  HRC is not a delicate flower.

A delicate flower she is not.  He did seem to enjoy letting a woman know when she could speak

[Bonesy]

He seemed to enjoy it? She interrupted him while he was, by agreed upon rules, speaking. She did this several times. The moderators repeatedly asked her to keep to the agreed upon time, which she ignored. Rudely.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Nice thread title.  Not self congratultory or masturbatory at all on your part.

I don't know bout anybody else, but when I think about me I touch myself.

[Bonesy]

And Kal, I agree with your statement, and therefore wonder why Squab would cast that aspersion.

[Howdyphillip]

This is a quote on Facebook today from a friend of mine who writes fro the Houston Chronicle by the name of Jef Rouner. I thought it was a very nice rant. I voted for Bernie Sanders because I still have a bit of idealist left in me, but as I have already mentioned, it was an incredibly hard choice for me because of how much I believe in Hillary Clinton...

 

This one is going to be a rant. Sorry.

One thing I think that never seems to come up in the eternal Clinton / Sanders debate is the regionalism. I can’t tell you how it continually galls at me to see people say things like, “Oh well of course Clinton is winning the southern states” with a sneer that implies we’re all complete yokels who probably don’t even know Europe exists. There’s this intense dismissal that is part of an American classism that stretches back hundreds of years.

There’s this gut reaction I get when I hear someone like Sanders, an old white dude from an older, whiter state, stand up and tell me everything will be great if I just believe him and his grand plans for single payer and free college. All the cogs will fit into place if I just renounce Clinton, who doesn’t really care for me any way.

The south is different. It’s a place where the phrase “Bless your heart” is the human equivalent of a rattlesnake shaking its tail, and that tells you more about us than you think it does. It means that we value façade as a lubricant to get past things and work together. It means that we live shoulder to shoulder with problems that are often more abstract thoughts for the better educated and better off. And make no mistake, the north is better educated and better off than we are and always has been. That doesn’t make us stupid or lazy, just rougher and more likely to do what we can with less.

This doesn’t apply to everyone, of course. There are plenty of people I know up north who were part of Occupy Wall Street fighting the hard fight and there are clueless hippies here as well. I’m just talking about roughly broad trends. Don’t take any of this as a personal judgment.

Still, there’s a reason Martin Luther King Jr. was a man from Georgia and not from Ohio. The south is a place where change happens because it MUST happen, not because it would be nice if it happened. We live in states where the most important health care initiative of the 21st century so far passed us largely by because of corrupt bigots and where women have to drive 200 miles for basic health care thanks to the same. It’s a place where God is real because His effects on our daily lives thanks to His followers is inarguable.

So when I hear Bernie Sanders talk about what’s holding us back I just want to shake him because the sort of things he’s talking about are shit that happens in Vermont, but never Texas. We can’t get the full ACA yet, and you want me to dream of single payer? Are you fucking high? It’s like telling someone on food stamps they should drive 15 miles to Whole Foods and eat organic because the long-term health benefits outweigh the initial cost.

Clinton is someone I can relate to, someone I could see my own mother being in another life. She’s someone covered in the shit that is our reality, and who keeps on fighting for the greater good whenever she can. Sanders… Sanders is someone with very good ideas, very right ideas, and yet he might as well be promising anti-gravity as far as I’m concerned. In Clinton I see someone who mirrors the grim struggle those of us who would love to see change in the south happen how it’s actually played out. She’s no platonic ideal, but I feel she knows me and what it costs to be a voice for change where change is hardest. That’s what I love about her.

It costs very little for Sanders to be Sanders, being who he is from where he is. To quote one of my favorite movies, GYPSY ’83, try being a freak in the middle of nowhere. For all that socialism remains a dirty word in America it hasn’t hurt him, not really. Hillary Clinton came to Arkansas and stepped into fights the likes of which would send most of us cowering in corners. There’s lots to hate, sure. She ain’t perfect, but we don’t do perfect down here. We just do, and if it’s held together with spit, string and prayer then it’s held together with spit, string and prayer.

The point is this: down here those of us on the left are in a constant battle against the absolute worst bigotry and ignorance. We need Wolverines, not Captains America. I can admire ideological purity, sure. Sanders seems like a great guy, but he might as well be running for president of another country from my point of view. Clinton, is running for president of my reality, and I appreciate that.

[BloodRider]

26 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

He seemed to enjoy it? She interrupted him while he was, by agreed upon rules, speaking. She did this several times. The moderators repeatedly asked her to keep to the agreed upon time, which she ignored. Rudely.

Dude, Squab is trolling the Sanders supporters.  He is a Trump voter, and is stirring the shit.  Probably in the hopes that Dems will get pissed and not vote.  I'll lay dollars to doughnuts that he could give a fart in a windstorm about Clinton or how she was treated.

[Demonblade]

Yeah it's laughable that so many people in the media, both traditional and social, harp on how rude Sanders was, and using the same footage while doing so.  The footage in question, where Sanders says, 'excuse me, let me finish', which was supposedly so brazenly misogynistic, was an obvious contradiction in outrage.  As mentioned, Clinton was continuously interrupting Sanders, and when she interrupted him in that time, it was to cut him off when he was beginning to respond to a mischaracterization that she just made.  The gotcha spin that this was a sign of Sanders's condescension was so transparent in its attempt to characterize him as a hypocrite, I am amazed that they didn't even bother with nuance.  Where is the outrage when Clinton kept trying to overtalk Sanders all the bloody time?

 

And not to beat a dead horse, if Gore had not been so determined to win without Clinton's help, he would have won easily.  Sure getting Bill to come and campaign for him may have roused those who hate him to vote against him, but despite Watergate, Jones and Lewinsky, Clinton was still pretty popular among his supporters.  Gore could have used Clinton in the southern states, most importantly Tennessee, and if that happened, nothing that happened in Florida would have mattered.  Blaming Nader for Gore's loss is deflecting the blame away from Gore's many mistakes during that campaign.  I mean, for fuck's sakes, he lost to a guy whose main appeal to the 'average voter' was that he was a guy you could sit down and have a beer with, despite Bush being an alcoholic who likely wouldn't have been able to stop after that one hypothetical beer.  Bush not being able to pronounce 'subliminal' or 'nuclear' properly was seen as charming and authentic, while Gore was viewed with suspicion and skepticism, like when he was criticized for going against Clinton's stance on the Elian Gonzalez controversy.  

[Squab]

15 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

Dude, Squab is trolling the Sanders supporters.  He is a Trump voter, and is stirring the shit.  Probably in the hopes that Dems will get pissed and not vote.  I'll lay dollars to doughnuts that he could give a fart in a windstorm about Clinton or how she was treated.

Trump voter?  I'm not even American.

I was bringing up points I had found relevant in the news today regarding how Bernie is being seen around the world and how Clinton was treated during the debate is a large part of that.  Especially considering its international womens day where I am. 

Trump is seen as a lot worse but people realise he doesn't care.  Says a lot more about Americans in general than Trump.

I do not care, nor think anything I say will influence, if democrats vote or not.