US Politics: Show Trials & Tribulations

[Gaston de Foix]

Honestly her comments were spectacularly ill-advised, if for no other reason, than that doing so on the eve of impeachment has provided counter-programming and/or has been buried underneath the impeachment coverage.  If you are going to shoot for the Bernie, shoot to kill.  

Speaking of impeachment, Adam Schiff destroyed Trump's defenses this afternoon in the first hour.  We'll see if it makes some difference to amending Mitch's resolution...

[aceluby]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Sorry, I'll be a bit clearer - Sanders voters didn't vote 25% for Trump, they only voted 12% for Trump - but 25% of them didn't vote for Clinton.

15% of Clinton voters voted for McCain in 2008, and liberal minded people on this very board are contemplating a Trump presidency being better than a Sanders one.

Fact is, cult of personality is part of the current political environment.  People swept into Clinton's in 2008 voted for McCain.  People swept into Sanders, voted for Trump.  Trump was able to harness his to get key votes in states that weren't competitive in elections past.  I expect whoever gets the nod that 15% of the opposing primary voters to not vote for them.

If anything, this is the new normal.  Which sucks and is definitely helping Trump's reelection.

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

He antagonised her how? By running against her in a primary, which is what you're supposed to do?

By doing 41 events for her and encouraging his followers to get behind her once she became the nominee?

She probably blames all the antipathy toward her on Bernie, kind of like how Trump blames everything on Obama. But the truth is the antipathy is coming from the public, not from Bernie, and it's due to  her corruption and war-mongering.

Yeah she really got a lot done during her time in Congress. The Iraq War...The Patriot Act... 

She doesn't realise this is just another point in Bernie's favour. Americans don't like Congress. They see Congress as bought and paid for by special interests. So someone who isn't getting anything done in a corrupt Congress is someone who's probably trying to do something right.

Wonder if that "one senator" she said wanted to work with him is Ron Paul, another guy who rejected corporate corruption.

Every once in a while I try to get to like Bernie more. Hillary Clinton making needless mistakes to criticize him would be something to push me more in his direction. And then a Bernie Bro starts waxing poetic about the pleasing aroma of Bernie's farts and I recoil all over again.

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, aceluby said:

15% of Clinton voters voted for McCain in 2008, and liberal minded people on this very board are contemplating a Trump presidency being better than a Sanders one. 

25% didn't vote for someone other than Obama, however. 

And to my knowledge zero people save perhaps @Altherion are saying Trump would be better than Sanders. They're saying that if they're in safe states that don't matter, they'd just not vote. I don't agree with that for the exact reason that I don't agree with Sanders supporters, but that's a very different thing than what you said. 

8 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Fact is, cult of personality is part of the current political environment.  People swept into Clinton's in 2008 voted for McCain.  People swept into Sanders, voted for Trump.  Trump was able to harness his to get key votes in states that weren't competitive in elections past.  I expect whoever gets the nod that 15% of the opposing primary voters to not vote for them. 

In general, 10-15% of primary voters will vote for the other guy for a variety of reasons - open primaries, independents, better arguments, racism, sexism, whatever. 25% is a lot more than that. I don't think that the cult of personality is normal; I don't think anyone would argue that Clinton particularly drove a cult of personality for instance. I think that this is basically very much about Trump and Sanders. 

 

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, aceluby said:

liberal minded people on this very board are contemplating a Trump presidency being better than a Sanders one.

Who dat?  I don't recall any left-leaning poster asserting a Trump presidency would be better than a Sanders presidency.  There was a brief discussion in the last thread where @Mlle. Zabzie expressed consternation with potentially having to vote for Sanders, but that was in the context that she votes in NY and therefore her vote is meaningless - and even then she didn't even entertain the prospect of actually voting for Trump.

12 minutes ago, aceluby said:

If anything, this is the new normal.  Which sucks and is definitely helping Trump's reelection.

This is one of my pet peeves.  Talking heads always drone on about this - "all this infighting is just helping their real opponent."  This has never been borne out credibly in research - and many many people have tried to examine the effect of competitive primaries on general election results.  In Congress, yes, a competitive primary challenger is usually an indicator of a weak incumbent.  But that's almost wholly accounted for by polarization - i.e. vanishing moderates, mostly seen via the rightward shift of the GOP.  Obama/Hillary was just as heated as Hillary/Sanders.  What was the difference?  Well, environmental factors first, but the other aspect is Barack Obama was a good candidate and Hillary Clinton was not.

[Darryk]

Honestly, I suspect he did more. He also did more to hurt her than almost any other person not named Trump. And per a more recent poll, 25% of Sanders voters ended up voting for Trump. So if he did 41 events, well, 

it wasn't enough.

I think the person who did more damage to Hillary Clinton than either Trump or Bernie is Clinton herself. Her history of coziness with Wall Street, supporting Iraq Qar and Patriot Act, and supporting bad trade deals came back to bite her.

If she's upset because Bernie ran against her in a primary and called her out on her past failures then she doesn't understand how an election works. At least Bernie didn't make up stuff about her like Trump did.

If you believe that congress only serves corporate interests, perhaps I can introduce you to my son, whose cancer was treated and covered because of the ACA?

The ACA did a lot of good but it wasn't enough. I'm glad it saved your son but there are many still uncovered under it. It was a half-measure to try get some good done without pissing off the insurance companies.

Going all the way and getting universal health coverage (as does every developed country in the world has and it's a joke that USA doesn't have it) would provide coverage to everyone, but Congressmen are either afraid to go against the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, or funded by them.

I don't know what the point of this is.

You asked what the point of a Congressman in a Congress is if he doesn't get anything done? The point is to fight the good fights, even if you hardly ever win them, just so you can keep the message out there and give hope to people who want to see those things achieved.

There's YouTube videos going back 30 years showing Bernie Sanders fighting for the right issues long before those issues were popular. In the early 90s he wanted to amount of budget devoted to military reduced and more money used for schools and social programs. He didn't have a hope in hell of "getting anything done" on that score, but it matters that he was fighting the issue. 

Personally I think voters care more about what a person's record in Congress says about their values rather than their legislative achievements. 

No, she's got every reason to complain about it, because he complained about it too. That's how it works.

She's got cause to complain about Bernie doing something that she did 8 years earlier? I mean I know politics are messy, but she could at least try to stay consistent.

I was told on twitter that I was being paid by Clinton to talk her up and then another person accused me of making up my son's cancer in order to engender support for her. So forgive me if the notion that Bernie Bros being some 'vicious slur' is ludicrous.

I'm really sorry you had that experience. I don't deny there are a lot of bad eggs in Bernie's movement. I just concentrate on what he's fighting for rather than what some of his cultish followers get up to.

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Uh, it's not just MSNBC that's pointed out Sanders is disliked in Congress.  This has been well established for decades.  And yeah, if the presidential election was confined to Vermont voters, Bernie is a shoo-in.

Haha, that's funny. You said he was unpopular "in his workplace", well if he's got such a high approval rating in Vermont I don't see how that could be the case. "unpopular in his workplace" is different from "unpopular in congress" as his workplace also includes running his home state presumably.

Being unpopular in Congress is just another point in his favor right now since Congress itself is so unpopular.

Again, attacking the accuser rather than responding to the criticism.  I know you weren't attacking me in the previous response, my point was about the tendency of Bernie supporters to make it a polemic rather than soberly and cogently countering any criticisms.  That tendency reflects how his supporters treat him as a demagogue.

Does that mean Hillary's supporters see her as a demagogue? They're also pretty polemic. The difference is Bernie's support mostly operates through social media, where things tend to get pretty messy and heated; whereas Hillary has her proxies attacking Bernie's character on mainstream networks like MSNBC, with no pushback from so-called journalists.

[Darryk]

12 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Every once in a while I try to get to like Bernie more. Hillary Clinton making needless mistakes to criticize him would be something to push me more in his direction. And then a Bernie Bro starts waxing poetic about the pleasing aroma of Bernie's farts and I recoil all over again.

I guess I just prefer supporting candidates based on what they stand for, rather than whether or not I'm uncomfortable with the level of support they get online.

But by all means, let the media-invented "Bernie Bro" boogeyman determine your voting alignment.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

"unpopular in his workplace" is different from "unpopular in congress" as his workplace also includes running his home state presumably.

I suppose it's fair to say MCs commit a large portion of their time to ensuring reelection, which means going back home and appealing to their constituents.  However, this is primarily the case if the MC is not in a "safe" seat.  Bernie has almost always had a safe seat during his tenure in Congress.  Describing the Hill as his workplace over the past 30 years is a pretty damn objective definition.

4 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Does that mean Hillary's supporters see her as a demagogue?

Uh, no.  If Hillary's supporters consider her a demagogue, they're pretty bad at.  Hillary's support always was lukewarm - that's why she lost.  "I'm With Her" was much more a subject of ridicule rather than a clarion call.  And spare me the media criticisms.  There are plenty of people on MSNBC that would prefer Sanders over Hillary, in a vacuum.  Your criticism here seems to be confined to Morning Joe.  Which, yes, I agree with that.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

I think the person who did more damage to Hillary Clinton than either Trump or Bernie is Clinton herself. Her history of coziness with Wall Street, supporting Iraq Qar and Patriot Act, and supporting bad trade deals came back to bite her. 

There's a whole lot of people who did damage to her, herself included. Sanders certainly was one of the people. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

If she's upset because Bernie ran against her in a primary and called her out on her past failures then she doesn't understand how an election works. At least Bernie didn't make up stuff about her like Trump did.

When your best argument is that Sanders did attack her a whole lot, but didn't actively lie too much, well, thanks for that!

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

The ACA did a lot of good but it wasn't enough. I'm glad it saved your son but there are many still uncovered under it. It was a half-measure to try get some good done without pissing off the insurance companies. 

Yes! TRYING TO GET SOME GOOD DONE IS IMPORTANT. I would much rather have someone try to get SOMETHING GOOD DONE than fail to get the perfect thing done. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

Going all the way and getting universal health coverage (as does every developed country in the world has and it's a joke that USA doesn't have it) would provide coverage to everyone, but Congressmen are either afraid to go against the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, or funded by them. 

The sad thing is that for the most part, people are happy with their health coverage. Someone said that the problem with the US is that people have too good of health coverage, and that's probably accurate - because while a whole lot of people have shitty coverage, about 70% have actually really good coverage and don't want to lose it. That isn't just an insurance issue or a big pharm issue - that's an issue with the US system.

The US has a horrifyingly bad system that is bad for health outcomes, costs, patients, worker mobility and job security. But it is also largely popular, or at least popular enough to not have strong opposition to major changes. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

You asked what the point of a Congressman in a Congress is if he doesn't get anything done? The point is to fight the good fights, even if you hardly ever win them, just so you can keep the message out there and give hope to people who want to see those things achieved. 

Hope doesn't save my son. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

There's YouTube videos going back 30 years showing Bernie Sanders fighting for the right issues long before those issues were popular. In the early 90s he wanted to amount of budget devoted to military reduced and more money used for schools and social programs. He didn't have a hope in hell of "getting anything done" on that score, but it matters that he was fighting the issue.  

Fighting the good fight and getting nothing done does not, actually, matter. It is literally the definition of useless protest. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

Personally I think voters care more about what a person's record in Congress says about their values rather than their legislative achievements. 

I suspect voters don't care about it one way or another all that much. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

She's got cause to complain about Bernie doing something that she did 8 years earlier? I mean I know politics are messy, but she could at least try to stay consistent. 

I don't see why this is inconsistent. She did it, her opponent complained. Sanders did it, she complained. That's pretty consistent. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

I'm really sorry you had that experience. I don't deny there are a lot of bad eggs in Bernie's movement. I just concentrate on what he's fighting for rather than what some of his cultish followers get up to. 

And yet you called BernieBros some kind of slur, like there aren't cultish followers doing this to people regularly. This didn't just come out in a vacuum, and one thing you don't see? Sanders supporters shouting down the BernieBro asshats. Just like you rarely see Sanders himself decrying his own supporters for doing this. 

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

Does that mean Hillary's supporters see her as a demagogue? They're also pretty polemic.

I really don't think you know what those things mean. 

 

[Darryk]

41 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Sorry, I'll be a bit clearer - Sanders voters didn't vote 25% for Trump, they only voted 12% for Trump - but 25% of them didn't vote for Clinton.

Makes perfect sense since Bernie attracted a lot of voters who usually don't vote at all, since they believe the candidates are all bought and paid for. So if he's not running, why would they suddenly change their minds and vote for a candidate who is bought and paid for?

The ones who voted for Trump are from the Rust Belt, where both Bernie and Trump were popular because they were talking about trade and outsourcing jobs to China, an issue which destroyed communities in that region. 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Darryk said:

But by all means, let the media-invented "Bernie Bro" boogeyman determine your voting alignment.

Again, this isn't a media-invented thing. It is at this point exceedingly well-documented and all you're doing is attempting to gaslight people's actual experiences.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Apparently (as usual) her interview was taken out of context to a certain degree. 

That said, it seems odd to think that it's bad for her to criticize sanders but okay to criticize other dems. 

Bullshit. It was not taken out of context at all.

She was directly asked whether she would endorse and campaign for Sanders IF HE WINS THE PRIMARY, and she dodged the question.

That's not refusing to endorse someone during the primary in order to "stay above the fray". That's practically an admission that she won't do either.

And before someone spouts off with "she has a documentary coming out, blah, blah, clicks, controversy"...she knows, or should know for damn sure, that this isn't the type of click-bait the Democratic party needs right now, so in that vein it's irresponsible and self-serving even more so than it would be under less fraught circumstances.

[Darryk]

When your best argument is that Sanders did attack her a whole lot, but didn't actively lie too much, well, thanks for that!

No the argument is he called her out for things that were legitimate, and avoided the kind of nonsense Trump banged on about, like the stuff about her emails.

And yet you called BernieBros some kind of slur, like there aren't cultish followers doing this to people regularly. This didn't just come out in a vacuum, and one thing you don't see? Sanders supporters shouting down the BernieBro asshats. Just like you rarely see Sanders himself decrying his own supporters for doing this.

The slur is implying this is a phenomenon unique to Sanders, that he's somehow supporting it; as opposed to it being the unfortunate nature of discourse on social media as well as the mob mentality of large crowds.

I really don't think you know what those things mean.

*shrug*

 

 

[aceluby]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

25% didn't vote for someone other than Obama, however. 

And to my knowledge zero people save perhaps @Altherion are saying Trump would be better than Sanders. They're saying that if they're in safe states that don't matter, they'd just not vote. I don't agree with that for the exact reason that I don't agree with Sanders supporters, but that's a very different thing than what you said. 

In general, 10-15% of primary voters will vote for the other guy for a variety of reasons - open primaries, independents, better arguments, racism, sexism, whatever. 25% is a lot more than that. I don't think that the cult of personality is normal; I don't think anyone would argue that Clinton particularly drove a cult of personality for instance. I think that this is basically very much about Trump and Sanders. 

 

Ok, I can admit to misinterpreting some posts about not voting for Sanders.

Also, it seems your article you linked isn't saying what you're implying.  

Quote

The largest number of #NeverHillary voters, as a share of the Democratic primary electorate, were in Alaska, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Vermont, Idaho, Nebraska, Utah and Kentucky. 

...

Although there may have been something of a market for a populist candidate in these states, it’s also likely that Sanders benefited from being the only alternative to Clinton. In fact, there are several states where the #NeverHillary vote pushed Sanders over the top and where the pro-Sanders vote alone wouldn’t have been enough for him to win. These are Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island and West Virginia.

 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Bullshit. It was not taken out of context at all.

She was directly asked whether she would endorse and campaign for Sanders IF HE WINS THE PRIMARY, and she dodged the question.

That's not refusing to endorse someone during the primary in order to "stay above the fray". That's practically an admission that she won't do either. 

Here's the full quote (or at least as full as I could find):

Quote

 

If he gets the nomination, will you endorse and campaign for him?

I’m not going to go there yet. We’re still in a very vigorous primary season. I will say, however, that it’s not only him, it’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women. ... I don’t think we want to go down that road again where you campaign by insult and attack and maybe you try to get some distance from it, but you either don’t know what your campaign and supporters are doing or you’re just giving them a wink and you want them to go after Kamala [Harris] or after Elizabeth [Warren]. I think that that’s a pattern that people should take into account when they make their decisions.

This is what Sanders said a month before he endorsed Clinton:

Quote

 

Asked what it would take to throw his support behind Clinton, Sanders told "CBS This Morning" that "it's not a question for me. We got 13 million votes, we got in virtually every primary and caucus the vast majority of young people - people 45 years of age or younger, and what those voters are saying to the establishment, to Secretary Clinton -- 'Hey are you gonna stand up for us? Are you gonna raise the minimum wage in fact to 15 bucks an hour?'"

When pressed why he hasn't endorsed her yet, the Vermont senator responded: "Because I have not heard her say the things that I think needs to be said."

What I get from that quote is both a bit of his own medicine and a desire to get some concessions from Sanders first before she endorses him. You know, just like he did. 

 

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Darryk said:

No the argument is he called her out for things that were legitimate, and avoided the kind of nonsense Trump banged on about, like the stuff about her emails. 

Saying that the entire democratic system is corrupt is not legitimate.

4 minutes ago, Darryk said:

The slur is implying this is a phenomenon unique to Sanders, that he's somehow supporting it; as opposed to it being the unfortunate nature of discourse on social media as well as the mob mentality of large crowds.

There is no equivalent on the left to BernieBros for any other candidate or politician. It is not just social media. It is not just large crowds. This is the kind of bizarre lack of ownership Sanders supporters continue to have. Sanders has been able to attract the angry young white man crowd very well, just like Trump has. That comes with some costs, and Sanders doesn't appear interested in managing those things, and his supporters largely appear to want to ignore them as well. 

7 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Ok, I can admit to misinterpreting some posts about not voting for Sanders.

Also, it seems your article you linked isn't saying what you're implying.  

I'm not sure how it doesn't say that, or how it's decrying what I wrote. Care to explain? 

4 minutes ago, Darryk said:

*shrug*

How, precisely, would you characterize Clinton as a demagogue? Does she hold huge rallies? Does she have large speeches? Does she fire people up when she talks or makes decisions? Does she say things that are largely populist in nature meant to rile people up? 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

What I get from that quote is both a bit of his own medicine and a desire to get some concessions from Sanders first before she endorses him. You know, just like he did. 

 

Hmm...I stand corrected. I can't think of one single thing that's happened within the last 3+ years that would make her doing this a bad idea. Proceed, by all means!

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Hmm...I stand corrected. I can't think of one single thing that's happened within the last 3+ years that would make her doing this a bad idea. Proceed, by all means!

To be clear, I think this is an incredibly stupid thing she's doing. I think that she's holding a grudge and showing Sanders what it was like, and punishing him. I think it might be costly. 

But I don't think for an instant that she won't end up endorsing Sanders if he wins, and I don't think for a second that she won't be out there campaigning for him if he wins. And Sanders supporters complaining about it is particularly rich. What Sanders is experiencing is exactly why you don't do the sort of shit that he ended up doing, and it does hurt him and the system - because people ARE petty and have long memories and get pissed off. 

[Fragile Bird]

My lord, I am sick and bloody tired of the Clinton haters.

 

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think for a second that she won't be out there campaigning for him if he wins.

I honestly wonder whether/how much any Democratic nominee is going to want Hillary - or Bill - out there campaigning for them in the general.  In Hillary's case, it's not only a self-admitted weakness, she deliberately begged off from campaign events in the heat of the election.  Which was quite obviously a mistake - and I was quite pissed at the time - but if she doesn't even really get out there for her own campaign...