We've had a predilection for outsiders for the past 25 years
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
We've had a predilection for outsiders for the past 25 years
Have we, though? I guess it depends on whether you define Bill as an outsider.
They did at the time, which is the relevant thing for that particular point.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. - Fitzgerald
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
I'd love it if Democrats didn't have to take money for corporate interests, but the reality (especially now) is that Citizen's United isn't going anywhere.
I'd rather Democrats not bring a pillow to a gunfight in attempt to placate and encourage a notoriously unreliable sect of the Left to vote for them. There is no "correct" answer here.
We've had a predilection for outsiders for the past 25 years
The country believed Reagan's nonsense about the federal government. And internalized it. Nobody more so than the press.
Also the 60s and vietnam and Nixon helped. But those people are all retired or dead. It's what they taught us that is active now. Today's press came from us.
We want continuous revolution. We want the government to be unstable and constantly in flux, because we believe corruption is inevitable.
Even though the parties are more divided than ever, neither party is solid. They're both in turmoil because we don't trust anybody to unite them.
What we want is revenge against the government. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are icons of revenge. We want them to suffer like we suffer under their rule. We want the political ambitions of those who climb the ladder rung by rung to be dashed by an upstart because we hate their careers and what they stand for.
Is this wrong? I feel like it explains a lot about why Mrs. Clinton seemed to not derive any gain from her ample experience, networking, and plans, which would be a slam dunk resume in any other job. We loved it when she embarrassed Donald Trump and promised to disrupt the Republican machine. We loved that government hated her. We loved that about Mr. Obama too. We love the underdog.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
What we need is a new Voter Education Project modeled after the one from the Civil Rights era, a large-scale, coordinated, professional effort across the country to foil voter suppression laws. Figure out how to get people IDs for voting, get busing to polling places, hold classes on how to stymie all the efforts.
Forget all this philosophical squabbling. Plenty of people want to vote but had it suppressed, and they don't know how to get it back.
What we need is a new Voter Education Project modeled after the one from the Civil Rights era, a large-scale, coordinated, professional effort across the country to foil voter suppression laws. Figure out how to get people IDs for voting, get busing to polling places, hold classes on how to stymie all the efforts.
Forget all this philosophical squabbling. Plenty of people want to vote but had it suppressed, and they don't know how to get it back.
It would be a fight, like before, because i'm sure voter ID laws would become a moving target if it became seriously evident that such a project was going to swing an election, but then again voter-registration people have faced worse in the past.
I bet it's something a person with a laptop, a clipboard, and a car could do in their free time. I bet a lot of political obstacles are like that.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Also the 60s and vietnam and Nixon helped. But those people are all retired or dead. It's what they taught us that is active now. Today's press came from us.
We want continuous revolution. We want the government to be unstable and constantly in flux, because we believe corruption is inevitable.
Even though the parties are more divided than ever, neither party is solid. They're both in turmoil because we don't trust anybody to unite them.
It is and is isn't. While the Dems are in the wilderness it's been an overreaction to losing to Trump that he party is completely in shambles, which is a theory mostly found in the media and Far left circles. Many think Hillary losing to Trump was a complete wipeout, when she won the popular vote - people are quick to forget Trump won by strategic votes that got him the EC as well overlooking gaps in the Dems support which Obama covered.
What we want is revenge against the government. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are icons of revenge. We want them to suffer like we suffer under their rule. We want the political ambitions of those who climb the ladder rung by rung to be dashed by an upstart because we hate their careers and what they stand for.
This is more popular on the right than the left, as shown by Trump winning his party's nomination, Bernie losing in the Dem's primary and how both Johnson and stein never had any actual chance at winning the presidential.
Is this wrong? I feel like it explains a lot about why Mrs. Clinton seemed to not derive any gain from her ample experience, networking, and plans, which would be a slam dunk resume in any other job. We loved it when she embarrassed Donald Trump and promised to disrupt the Republican machine. We loved that government hated her. We loved that about Mr. Obama too. We love the underdog.
It is and it isn't wrong. It's not wrong to want better government and fight a status quo who is corrupt. It is wrong when every establishment candidate is tarred as corrupt and beyond redemption and the media has it out for a particular candidate because reasons.
Hillary gained plenty from her connections and resources, she put up a hell of a fight for someone who wasn't barrack Obama. It's like he normalized how perfect Dems candidates have to be when he was one of our very best in his generation, you can't hold your stands for every candidate up to his level - it's impossible. Not that Hillary wasn't very good either (she was the only candidate to ever pose a threat to him when they were in the primaries), but she is flawed and lacks some of his strengths (having to be covert about race is an advantage she couldn't duplicate) - and it can't be stated enough what a wildcard Trump is. He literally broke how politics works, everyone who underestimated him has lost. Everyone. Then there's the additional complications: the media who preferred Trump to her, Comey, Russia's interference, an unstable Dem voting bloc who preferred Trump over her because reasons (yes, Hillary and her campaign should have listened to people like Bernie warning her about this*) etc. She wasn't utterly destroyed here, quite the contrary.
We do love the underdog, but sometimes the underdog deserves to lose.
* assuming the damage could have salvaged. It really depends how bad the Dems reputation is to that voting bloc, if it is as bad as think it is no establishment candidate would have fared much better with them (well, maybe Biden) the Dems may have to do serious damage control to bring them back for years/generations - assuming such a thing is truly possible.
I bet it's something a person with a laptop, a clipboard, and a car could do in their free time. I bet a lot of political obstacles are like that.
The hard part is getting it into law. The GOP are going to obstruct a project like that something fierce, and water it down considerably if they let it pass (IE ACA).
I bet it's something a person with a laptop, a clipboard, and a car could do in their free time. I bet a lot of political obstacles are like that.
The hard part is getting it into law. The GOP are going to obstruct a project like that something fierce, and water it down considerably if they let it pass (IE ACA).
I bet it's something a person with a laptop, a clipboard, and a car could do in their free time. I bet a lot of political obstacles are like that.
The hard part is getting it into law. The GOP are going to obstruct a project like that something fierce, and water it down considerably if they let it pass (IE ACA).
One of the cuts that helped bleed Clinton dry was her capitulating to the far left and taking on Sanders' positions. All that did was make her look like a phony to not just the far left people who wouldn't ever vote for her anyway, but to the people more to the center who watched her give concessions to the loser like a weakling.
The energy her campaign put into appeasing those folks in the name of party unity only to get backstabbed down the road would have been better used elsewhere, like assuring the Rust Belt that we care about them.
Clinton lost because she didn't campaign or GOTV in places she needed to campaign and GOTV.
That's pretty much it.
No, there's more going on then just that.
Trump needed a ton of things to go right. He basically went all in on an inside straight draw against Hillary's three of a kind and won:
1) Dems needed to nominate a candidate some portion of their base, for whatever reason, didn't fully trust
2) The primary loser and the Green Party candidate had to reinforce those narratives
3) Shelby County had to be in effect and the GOP had to have control in the right states to make it extremely influential in some of them (notably NC, Florida, and Wisconsin)
4) Citizens United had to make his inability to raise funds less necessary, because the money could go through the RNC and the shadow party the Kochs have set up
5) The media had to help make up for his inability to raise funds by giving him billions in free air time
6) The media had to continue their campaign of false balance to make one dumb Clinton scandal the equivalent of fifty disqualifying Trump scandals
7) The FBI had to flat out lie to the press about the status of investigations into Trump's connections with Russia
8) The FBI had to insinuate the worst things about Clinton
9) The media had to enable #7 and #8
10) Russia had to hack the DNC and Podesta's e-mails and distribute them via a source that could play the people from #1
11) The media had to play along with those hacks, too
12) Clinton had to campaign for a giant win rather than any win, assuming she was going to win the upper Midwest and Pennsylvania
13) Comey had to orchestrate a soft coup
Any one of those thirteen things don't happen and Clinton is President. There are probably a few others like if Bill Clinton doesn't talk to Lynch on that fucking tarmac so Lynch retains control of the investigation and limits Comey's ability to insert himself into the narrative the way he did.
Admittedly, all but 7, 8, 10, 12, and 13 are entirely predictable. So yeah Clinton gets some of the blame, but the FBI gets most of it in my mind.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
The energy her campaign put into appeasing those folks in the name of party unity only to get backstabbed down the road would have been better used elsewhere, like assuring the Rust Belt that we care about them.
Hindsight is 20/20, though most of the Far Left were swayed to her side so it was a good decision.
Assuring the Rust Belt would have been difficult for many reasons. One of which the Dems thought they were more trustworthy than they thought, and they had little reason to worry about that due to them voting for Obama. It wasn't an obvious problem, once they knew what was wrong it was far too late to do anything.
This assumes Hillary and the Dems would be able to regain that trust in one election, without an Obama type leader to attract them. Sure they may have made some gains, but the problem may be bigger then what they can fix even if they did know and prepare ahead of time. If it's as bad as I think, it would barely have made a dent and she'd have still lost.
The energy her campaign put into appeasing those folks in the name of party unity only to get backstabbed down the road would have been better used elsewhere, like assuring the Rust Belt that we care about them.
Hindsight is 20/20, though most of the Far Left were swayed to her side so it was a good decision.
Assuring the Rust Belt would have been difficult for many reasons. One of which the Dems thought they were more trustworthy than they thought, and they had little reason to worry about that due to them voting for Obama. It wasn't an obvious problem, once they knew what was wrong it was far too late to do anything.
This assumes Hillary and the Dems would be able to regain that trust in one election, without an Obama type leader to attract them. Sure they may have made some gains, but the problem may be bigger then what they can fix even if they did know and prepare ahead of time. If it's as bad as I think, it would barely have made a dent and she'd have still lost.
I mean this whole exercise is about hindsight, so pointing that out is unnecessary. A lot of what I read from people in the rust belt was that the fact she didn't visit their areas was enough for them to not vote for her. I'd think in a world where the Clinton campaign held fast to their positions, she wouldn't have been as cocky since she'd have less support from Sanders supporters and wouldn't think she could afford to ignore them the way she did.
I mean this whole exercise is about hindsight, so pointing that out is unnecessary. A lot of what I read from people in the rust belt was that the fact she didn't visit their areas was enough for them to not vote for her. I'd think in a world where the Clinton campaign held fast to their positions, she wouldn't have been as cocky since she'd have less support from Sanders supporters and wouldn't think she could afford to ignore them the way she did.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
* who's enthusiasm was fading over the years since they seemed to blame him for not succeeding rather than the GOP, and governing is not a profession where idealism powers through obstacles
Either the FBI director coming out and calling one of the presidential candidates a treasonous criminal, four days before the election will be an one-time aberration, a curious and unfathomable detail in the history books... or it will become standard practice. And if so it won't be a both sides the same thing.
Either the FBI director coming out and calling one of the presidential candidates a treasonous criminal, four days before the election will be an one-time aberration, a curious and unfathomable detail in the history books... or it will become standard practice. And if so it won't be a both sides the same thing.
The latter if history is to go by. The Dems are in a corner with these things not only by red tape, and a system which wasn't wasn't designed to handle this bullshit but a mainstream political party who won't hesitate to start a civil war if they don't get what they want. That's why they're paper tigers at the end of the day.
edit: It was bad enough with W., but what Trump is doing is going to untold damage to how politics works now going forward. He's literally remaking the office of president into a king dictator and no one is able to stop him.
Clinton lost because she didn't campaign or GOTV in places she needed to campaign and GOTV.
That's pretty much it.
I mean there are a lot of other factors, most outside her control, but the big one that she could've done different is forget Texas and Nebraska and campaign in the midwest like... even a little bit (more than just replaying the same bullies ad and sending surrogates)
In Michigan and PA many of the districts she lost that Obama had have been devastated by heroin addiction, Flint was a big deal, Wisconsin needed someone to come give labor a defibrillator so the campaign focus isn't hard to figure out for those places
The reason why this is the important one to focus on is that the next dem can't count on the media being fair, or people being less racist, but they can control where they campaign and what issues they cover in each state
Either the FBI director coming out and calling one of the presidential candidates a treasonous criminal, four days before the election will be an one-time aberration, a curious and unfathomable detail in the history books... or it will become standard practice. And if so it won't be a both sides the same thing.
Option 3: the FBI will become an active participant in elections, running witch-hunt investigations against Democratic candidates and publishing disinformation reports containing insinuations or outright fabrications to smear them, in order to get Republican candidates elected and earn concessions eroding civil liberties and reinforcing their own power.
Either the FBI director coming out and calling one of the presidential candidates a treasonous criminal, four days before the election will be an one-time aberration, a curious and unfathomable detail in the history books... or it will become standard practice. And if so it won't be a both sides the same thing.
Option 3: the FBI will become an active participant in elections, running witch-hunt investigations against Democratic candidates and publishing disinformation reports containing insinuations or outright fabrications to smear them, in order to get Republican candidates elected and earn concessions eroding civil liberties and reinforcing their own power.
FBI as the Praetorian Guard? Fun fact: the latter more often acted as secret police than elite military unit.
Although if the FBI had auctioned off the presidency Trump wouldn't have been able to afford it.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
g, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
That's not why she lost- the region has been devastated by job loss and for better or for worse Trump was the "jobs" candidate this election. He was the one that hammered companies for sending jobs overseas and he was the one that promised they'd come back. Hillary offered to teach the laid-off factory workers how to code. Voting to screw over the rich assholes who laid you off isn't "instability", and if you want to win there in 2020 you have to appeal to that same populist chord.
g, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
That's not why she lost- the region has been devastated by job loss and for better or for worse Trump was the "jobs" candidate this election. He was the one that hammered companies for sending jobs overseas and he was the one that promised they'd come back. Hillary offered to teach the laid-off factory workers how to code. Voting to screw over the rich assholes who laid you off isn't "instability", and if you want to win there in 2020 you have to appeal to that same populist chord.
"You want us to lie to those, people, their precious jobs aren't coming back!". Ok then, in that case they will keep voting to make sure that everybody else goes down with them. Why they shouldn't? Altruism? White guilt? Pffft.
g, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
That's not why she lost- the region has been devastated by job loss and for better or for worse Trump was the "jobs" candidate this election. He was the one that hammered companies for sending jobs overseas and he was the one that promised they'd come back. Hillary offered to teach the laid-off factory workers how to code. Voting to screw over the rich assholes who laid you off isn't "instability", and if you want to win there in 2020 you have to appeal to that same populist chord.
Those jobs aren't coming back they went to robots
again and again you just keep coming back to "lie to middle America better" as a political platform
g, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
That's not why she lost- the region has been devastated by job loss and for better or for worse Trump was the "jobs" candidate this election. He was the one that hammered companies for sending jobs overseas and he was the one that promised they'd come back. Hillary offered to teach the laid-off factory workers how to code. Voting to screw over the rich assholes who laid you off isn't "instability", and if you want to win there in 2020 you have to appeal to that same populist chord.
Those jobs aren't coming back they went to robots
again and again you just keep coming back to "lie to middle America better" as a political platform
It is a political platform.
Hillary went in with understanding of their situation and expertise in the issues and a comprehensive and realistic plan to remedy the problem. Trump went it with empty angry rhetoric and blatant lies. Did you not notice which one the people voted into office?
g, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
That's not why she lost- the region has been devastated by job loss and for better or for worse Trump was the "jobs" candidate this election. He was the one that hammered companies for sending jobs overseas and he was the one that promised they'd come back. Hillary offered to teach the laid-off factory workers how to code. Voting to screw over the rich assholes who laid you off isn't "instability", and if you want to win there in 2020 you have to appeal to that same populist chord.
Those jobs aren't coming back they went to robots
again and again you just keep coming back to "lie to middle America better" as a political platform
It is a political platform.
Hillary went in with understanding of their situation and expertise in the issues and a comprehensive and realistic plan to remedy the problem. Trump went it with empty angry rhetoric and blatant lies. Did you not notice which one the people voted into office?
The thing about conning people is they figure it out once the money's gone. Trump's still in campaign mode, and he's losing badly.
Fuck em. You up the urban area turnout a few points you don't need nearly as many of these voters as you think
Ellison is right the Dems need to focus on getting new voters into the fold.
YES! Strength in numbers. We're more numerous then them, therefore we're sure to win. I mean, the only way this could go wrong is if Republicans resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression, disenfranchisement, spreading disinformation about voter rights and the election, voter fraud, and outright removing the voter rights act. And they respect democracy and the will of the people too much to ever try anything like that!
Perez was on Maher a few days ago, and he basically said the things that I think about the election. Racism had a part to play, but it wasn't the only part. And we can't put up a table at the county fair once every 4 years and call that organizing.
You want to bales anyone for that, blame the GOP - Obama and the Dems tried to fix that with Obamacare and other acts. Their competition unfortunately was a 800lb gorilla.
Hillary was going to raise wages to $12 and was going to work on programs for colleges to make it cheaper IIRC. Presidents aren't kings, if you don't think Obama would have loved to do that I don't know what tell you.
Obama walked in with a majority of the vote and congress. Any amount of "but but but" doesn't cut it. Dems had a mandate, dems controlled the rules, dems decided the policy. Somehow all those houses were still foreclosed on, somehow the rich kept consolidating wealth, somehow wages stayed stagnant, somehow medical costs kept getting higher, and somehow, the Obama coalition didn't show up in 2010 to keep the blue dogs in congress to maintain the majority.
Trump is going to walk into office with a minority of the vote and already they have legislation lined up to keep their most hardcore base happy. Worth thinking about.
Yeah and we passed health care reform, created a new nuclear treaty, got "don't ask don't tell" repealed, passed a trillion dollar stimulus, saved the auto industry, saved the housing industry, passed the dodd-frank act (which created the consumer protection bureau), confirmed a new supreme court Justice, created new housing regulations, got BP to pay to clean up their mess, amongst numerous other things.
And nobody gave a shit because we didn't get single payer and put the entire banking industry to the sword, which would have destroyed our damaged economy
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
You want to bales anyone for that, blame the GOP - Obama and the Dems tried to fix that with Obamacare and other acts. Their competition unfortunately was a 800lb gorilla.
Hillary was going to raise wages to $12 and was going to work on programs for colleges to make it cheaper IIRC. Presidents aren't kings, if you don't think Obama would have loved to do that I don't know what tell you.
Obama walked in with a majority of the vote and congress. Any amount of "but but but" doesn't cut it. Dems had a mandate, dems controlled the rules, dems decided the policy. Somehow all those houses were still foreclosed on, somehow the rich kept consolidating wealth, somehow wages stayed stagnant, somehow medical costs kept getting higher, and somehow, the Obama coalition didn't show up in 2010 to keep the blue dogs in congress to maintain the majority.
Trump is going to walk into office with a minority of the vote and already they have legislation lined up to keep their most hardcore base happy. Worth thinking about.
Yeah and we passed health care reform, created a new nuclear treaty, got "don't ask don't tell" repealed, passed a trillion dollar stimulus, saved the auto industry, saved the housing industry, passed the dodd-frank act (which created the consumer protection bureau), confirmed a new supreme court Justice, created new housing regulations, got BP to pay to clean up their mess, amongst numerous other things.
And nobody gave a shit because we didn't get single payer and put the entire banking industry to the sword, which would have destroyed our damaged economy
We won 3 million more votes, people cared. Just 80k specific people fucked us.
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Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Have we, though? I guess it depends on whether you define Bill as an outsider.
They did at the time, which is the relevant thing for that particular point.
I'd rather Democrats not bring a pillow to a gunfight in attempt to placate and encourage a notoriously unreliable sect of the Left to vote for them. There is no "correct" answer here.
The country believed Reagan's nonsense about the federal government. And internalized it. Nobody more so than the press.
Also the 60s and vietnam and Nixon helped. But those people are all retired or dead. It's what they taught us that is active now. Today's press came from us.
We want continuous revolution. We want the government to be unstable and constantly in flux, because we believe corruption is inevitable.
Even though the parties are more divided than ever, neither party is solid. They're both in turmoil because we don't trust anybody to unite them.
What we want is revenge against the government. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are icons of revenge. We want them to suffer like we suffer under their rule. We want the political ambitions of those who climb the ladder rung by rung to be dashed by an upstart because we hate their careers and what they stand for.
Is this wrong? I feel like it explains a lot about why Mrs. Clinton seemed to not derive any gain from her ample experience, networking, and plans, which would be a slam dunk resume in any other job. We loved it when she embarrassed Donald Trump and promised to disrupt the Republican machine. We loved that government hated her. We loved that about Mr. Obama too. We love the underdog.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Forget all this philosophical squabbling. Plenty of people want to vote but had it suppressed, and they don't know how to get it back.
It would be a fight, like before, because i'm sure voter ID laws would become a moving target if it became seriously evident that such a project was going to swing an election, but then again voter-registration people have faced worse in the past.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It is and is isn't. While the Dems are in the wilderness it's been an overreaction to losing to Trump that he party is completely in shambles, which is a theory mostly found in the media and Far left circles. Many think Hillary losing to Trump was a complete wipeout, when she won the popular vote - people are quick to forget Trump won by strategic votes that got him the EC as well overlooking gaps in the Dems support which Obama covered.
This is more popular on the right than the left, as shown by Trump winning his party's nomination, Bernie losing in the Dem's primary and how both Johnson and stein never had any actual chance at winning the presidential.
It is and it isn't wrong. It's not wrong to want better government and fight a status quo who is corrupt. It is wrong when every establishment candidate is tarred as corrupt and beyond redemption and the media has it out for a particular candidate because reasons.
Hillary gained plenty from her connections and resources, she put up a hell of a fight for someone who wasn't barrack Obama. It's like he normalized how perfect Dems candidates have to be when he was one of our very best in his generation, you can't hold your stands for every candidate up to his level - it's impossible. Not that Hillary wasn't very good either (she was the only candidate to ever pose a threat to him when they were in the primaries), but she is flawed and lacks some of his strengths (having to be covert about race is an advantage she couldn't duplicate) - and it can't be stated enough what a wildcard Trump is. He literally broke how politics works, everyone who underestimated him has lost. Everyone. Then there's the additional complications: the media who preferred Trump to her, Comey, Russia's interference, an unstable Dem voting bloc who preferred Trump over her because reasons (yes, Hillary and her campaign should have listened to people like Bernie warning her about this*) etc. She wasn't utterly destroyed here, quite the contrary.
We do love the underdog, but sometimes the underdog deserves to lose.
* assuming the damage could have salvaged. It really depends how bad the Dems reputation is to that voting bloc, if it is as bad as think it is no establishment candidate would have fared much better with them (well, maybe Biden) the Dems may have to do serious damage control to bring them back for years/generations - assuming such a thing is truly possible.
The hard part is getting it into law. The GOP are going to obstruct a project like that something fierce, and water it down considerably if they let it pass (IE ACA).
That isn't an effort that has to be law.
It wouldn't hurt to be on the books.
Clinton lost because she didn't campaign or GOTV in places she needed to campaign and GOTV.
That's pretty much it.
No, there's more going on then just that.
Trump needed a ton of things to go right. He basically went all in on an inside straight draw against Hillary's three of a kind and won:
1) Dems needed to nominate a candidate some portion of their base, for whatever reason, didn't fully trust
2) The primary loser and the Green Party candidate had to reinforce those narratives
3) Shelby County had to be in effect and the GOP had to have control in the right states to make it extremely influential in some of them (notably NC, Florida, and Wisconsin)
4) Citizens United had to make his inability to raise funds less necessary, because the money could go through the RNC and the shadow party the Kochs have set up
5) The media had to help make up for his inability to raise funds by giving him billions in free air time
6) The media had to continue their campaign of false balance to make one dumb Clinton scandal the equivalent of fifty disqualifying Trump scandals
7) The FBI had to flat out lie to the press about the status of investigations into Trump's connections with Russia
8) The FBI had to insinuate the worst things about Clinton
9) The media had to enable #7 and #8
10) Russia had to hack the DNC and Podesta's e-mails and distribute them via a source that could play the people from #1
11) The media had to play along with those hacks, too
12) Clinton had to campaign for a giant win rather than any win, assuming she was going to win the upper Midwest and Pennsylvania
13) Comey had to orchestrate a soft coup
Any one of those thirteen things don't happen and Clinton is President. There are probably a few others like if Bill Clinton doesn't talk to Lynch on that fucking tarmac so Lynch retains control of the investigation and limits Comey's ability to insert himself into the narrative the way he did.
Admittedly, all but 7, 8, 10, 12, and 13 are entirely predictable. So yeah Clinton gets some of the blame, but the FBI gets most of it in my mind.
Hindsight is 20/20, though most of the Far Left were swayed to her side so it was a good decision.
Assuring the Rust Belt would have been difficult for many reasons. One of which the Dems thought they were more trustworthy than they thought, and they had little reason to worry about that due to them voting for Obama. It wasn't an obvious problem, once they knew what was wrong it was far too late to do anything.
This assumes Hillary and the Dems would be able to regain that trust in one election, without an Obama type leader to attract them. Sure they may have made some gains, but the problem may be bigger then what they can fix even if they did know and prepare ahead of time. If it's as bad as I think, it would barely have made a dent and she'd have still lost.
I mean this whole exercise is about hindsight, so pointing that out is unnecessary. A lot of what I read from people in the rust belt was that the fact she didn't visit their areas was enough for them to not vote for her. I'd think in a world where the Clinton campaign held fast to their positions, she wouldn't have been as cocky since she'd have less support from Sanders supporters and wouldn't think she could afford to ignore them the way she did.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but I find that the only reason they didn't vote for her was because she failed to visit (which yeah she should have) is not exactly a shining example of that region being super loyal Democrats begin with. It have been a firewall for Obama* and maybe Biden and Bernie, but for establishment candidates it was a region who'd severe ties from the Democrats with the slightest excuse. That type of instability can't be healed for a centrist within a few months during an election IMO.
* who's enthusiasm was fading over the years since they seemed to blame him for not succeeding rather than the GOP, and governing is not a profession where idealism powers through obstacles
The latter if history is to go by. The Dems are in a corner with these things not only by red tape, and a system which wasn't wasn't designed to handle this bullshit but a mainstream political party who won't hesitate to start a civil war if they don't get what they want. That's why they're paper tigers at the end of the day.
edit: It was bad enough with W., but what Trump is doing is going to untold damage to how politics works now going forward. He's literally remaking the office of president into a king dictator and no one is able to stop him.
I mean there are a lot of other factors, most outside her control, but the big one that she could've done different is forget Texas and Nebraska and campaign in the midwest like... even a little bit (more than just replaying the same bullies ad and sending surrogates)
In Michigan and PA many of the districts she lost that Obama had have been devastated by heroin addiction, Flint was a big deal, Wisconsin needed someone to come give labor a defibrillator so the campaign focus isn't hard to figure out for those places
The reason why this is the important one to focus on is that the next dem can't count on the media being fair, or people being less racist, but they can control where they campaign and what issues they cover in each state
It really isn't. Complicated situation is complicated.
Like how she still would have needed to win either PA or FL, two states she campaigned in pretty heavily.
Option 3: the FBI will become an active participant in elections, running witch-hunt investigations against Democratic candidates and publishing disinformation reports containing insinuations or outright fabrications to smear them, in order to get Republican candidates elected and earn concessions eroding civil liberties and reinforcing their own power.
FBI as the Praetorian Guard? Fun fact: the latter more often acted as secret police than elite military unit.
Although if the FBI had auctioned off the presidency Trump wouldn't have been able to afford it.
"You want us to lie to those, people, their precious jobs aren't coming back!". Ok then, in that case they will keep voting to make sure that everybody else goes down with them. Why they shouldn't? Altruism? White guilt? Pffft.
Those jobs aren't coming back they went to robots
again and again you just keep coming back to "lie to middle America better" as a political platform
It is a political platform.
Hillary went in with understanding of their situation and expertise in the issues and a comprehensive and realistic plan to remedy the problem. Trump went it with empty angry rhetoric and blatant lies. Did you not notice which one the people voted into office?
Ellison is right the Dems need to focus on getting new voters into the fold.
The thing about conning people is they figure it out once the money's gone. Trump's still in campaign mode, and he's losing badly.
YES! Strength in numbers. We're more numerous then them, therefore we're sure to win. I mean, the only way this could go wrong is if Republicans resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression, disenfranchisement, spreading disinformation about voter rights and the election, voter fraud, and outright removing the voter rights act. And they respect democracy and the will of the people too much to ever try anything like that!
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yeah and we passed health care reform, created a new nuclear treaty, got "don't ask don't tell" repealed, passed a trillion dollar stimulus, saved the auto industry, saved the housing industry, passed the dodd-frank act (which created the consumer protection bureau), confirmed a new supreme court Justice, created new housing regulations, got BP to pay to clean up their mess, amongst numerous other things.
And nobody gave a shit because we didn't get single payer and put the entire banking industry to the sword, which would have destroyed our damaged economy
We won 3 million more votes, people cared. Just 80k specific people fucked us.