Kennedy to retire - USSC will swing even further right

It actually was not low, that's a great one of the grand myths of 2016 evaluations...frankly to the extent it was low it was due in no small part to thousands of votes that were suppressed in the midwest, among other places.


I'm sick of hearing self flagellation about this.

People like Mitch McConnell didn't say "well we just need to run better candidates"

he said "well I'll ****ing set democracy on fire and install a fetid stinking turd whose in the oval office because that's my job".

Time to realize this and act accordingly.

 

Well...Sam's drunk.

 

Well I don't think the rhetoric on message board matters.

I agree that the next Democratic candidate needs to be positive and ignore Trump's insults and whatever else Trump throws their way instead of going down to his level and they need to focus on the policies and not "I'm not Trump, vote for me" strategy.

I do think they need the DNC needs to hammer Trump though and they can do that without insulting his followers, not that I think it matters too much, Trump cultists would vote him king if they could, but it may matter to outsiders.

Right now though, since it is the midterms, the Democrats need to rile up their base and sometimes that means making their base angry.

Well, if it was low because of suppressed votes or not, I'm just saying that it was low. I agree that suppression played a part in it but Clinton did not have a good campaign. If she had, she would have won. I had to struggle to get liberals to vote, just talking to them, many shrugged and didn't care.

I'm not just pulling this out of my butt
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...ayed-home-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

But yeah, suppression, I agree that happens but we are not going to change that until we win elections and control the state governments. Otherwise, it will unfortunately keep happening :/ sort of like worrying about Warriors illegal picks right? We know it's going to happen and we just have to deal with it and overcome because no one on the other side is going to give us any pity as you well know.

With that said, I don't like McConnell as much as the next liberal. I feel like he is a huge part of the problem with why our politics are so toxic nowadays...but he had little to do with Trump taking office. The GOP primary actually produced the hottest candidate, the one their base and party was most excited about...despite most of the GOP brass not liking Trump...at all. They pulled out all the stops to try and make sure he would not be their candidate because they were sure that Clinton would roll right over him, everybody was, but she didn't. Now f those guys for bowing to Trump after they opposed him so hard but what can you do? Can't shame people who don't have no shame at all.

I'm not sure the Democratic primary chose the hottest candidate. I'm not saying that "Oh Bernie should have won.." I'm not getting into that discussion, but we had a lot of good candidates that just stepped aside so that Clinton could have her turn. I think Biden would have wiped the floor with Trump and I think should he be 2020 candidate he'd wipe the floor with Trump still...I guess time will tell. I think a lot of the dislike for Clinton had nothing to do with her being bad but just the idea of legacy politics. "Another Clinton? Another Bush?" but I guess we'll see. I'm not Anti-Clinton, I'm not a berniebro, just that she should have won that race and she has only herself to blame on that one. In the end, whether Bernie or Biden or whoever would have beat Trump in 2016 is something hard to prove right now, we do know that Clinton lost her race and we are paying for her failure.

 

it wasn't really low.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...6AOwQFggwMAM&usg=AOvVaw1GkhQWsUpDxkKSv0bqvB4B

assigning blame in an ultra thin margin anyway is a foolish game. Lots of things can be argued as the cause of defeat - some of which have a lot more statistical basis like Comey interference or good old fashioned racism

 

The issue I have with blaming those things is that Clinton is avoiding blame and she deserves most of it. Trump stoked racial tension, to be sure, I don't deny that at all. But, she still lost key states, she lost the election, which means she didn't convince enough people to vote.

As for every other factor, we can attack those separately. For areas being suppressed the local democrats need to do all they possibly can to work within the rules the GOP has set, get these people registered to vote. About the racism, not much we can do about that but outnumber them...but Clinton focused on Trump too hard man. If she focused on her policies I think she would convince more people to vote for her and thus won the election.

 

[Premium Post]
Look at all these excuses for the 2016 election defeat. The Russia fantasy, Comey, racism, voter suppression... All nonsense of course. How about the obvious choice: Democratic policies are simply unpopular. American voters believe there is a better way of governing that what the Democrats are putting forth. Plain and simple.

GOOD DAY

 

More people voted democrat last election than republican.

 

Yeah but more states voted Republican than Democratic.....including states that hadn't voted Republican in decades. If that's not an eye opener for the DNC, nothing would be.

 

[Premium Post]
Sweet, so let's go put the Presidential Seal on Hillary's back brace and fit Air Force One for a stair lift!

Spoiler

GOOD DAY

 

Well, let's wait for more detail. Gorsuch may have made a loyalty pledge, if he's a simpering weakling, but I doubt the others have any natural sympathy for the Grand Narcissist, especially if they are more traditionally conservative than Trumpian (which is kind of a weird shamanistic, anti-factual, bombastic hedonism, from what I can tell).

The overarching problem for the court, especially if Two Scoops gets double scoop terms in office: the SCOTUS is really what stands between us and something much inferior to democracy, especially with a compliant and dysfunctional legislative branch. Two Scoops will keep doing more extreme things to see what he can get away with. It all ends up in front of the SCOTUS: suppressed voting rights, restricted voting hours in certain districts, legal detention based on "suspect" political history (like what happens to opposition candidates in Turkey and Russia). All of these things sound kind of crazy, but the last 18 months have already been pretty crazy, just compared to our history. And look at the hardcore GOP posters even in this thread: think they would bat an eye if a popular democrat was suddenly jailed on some kind of weird charge? With fox news providing full obfuscating cover? I really doubt it.

As I say, I think Two Scoops is too deeply stupid and inconsistent to accomplish a more authoritarian system, BUT it's the next version of him, a smart and more charming version, with a stacked and perhaps fascist-sympathetic SCOTUS, that should worry Americans who give a crap.

 

Congressional Democrats are demanding that the vacancy not be filled until after the Senate is re-seated in 2018.

Saying this is incredibly stupid.

You stand to gain nothing because you cannot legally stop the Republicans from moving forward and instead you cede the moral high ground (for whatever the hell that's worth) and make yourselves massive hypocrites in relation to your objection of Mitch McConnell's actions re: Merrick Garland

How do these people get out of bed in the morning without helplessly ******** themselves and falling down a flight of stairs?

 

Fast forward to 2019: Supreme Court votes 5-4 that the president can pardon himself...

#chaos

 

I mean, if everyone was being an adult in the chamber, it's fair to ask: hey Turtle, is this the new way of doing business, or isn't it? I thought we waited for an election before filling each new vacancy now? Or... is that just when the President is black? Point me to the fine print, please.

But yeah, I agree with you: it ignores the political reality of the moment completely. You don't have the majority, so you can't play hardball as if you had the speaker's chair. And it spoon feeds a "parties are the same" narrative to stay-at-home voters and "look at those sniveling liberals" narrative to the fox base.

 

I agree that it looks bad and is incredibly stupid, but I understand why they are doing it. They are pandering to a certain part of their constituency that are freaking out right now and demanding that they stop the Republicans so they have to at least make it look like they tried even if it looks stupid to most.

 

I don't even see how this boosts favorability among Democrats. Unless you're running for Congressional Representative of the humanities department at Cal Berkley.

The correct way to opposite this is exactly what B Bob said. Just quote the turtle.

 

Well it's aimed at the lunatic fringe on the left, so the fact that you don't see eye to eye with them is a good thing. They've been flooding twitter since teh announcement screaming for Democrats to obstruct by any means necessary....despite the fact that there are no means in which to do so.

I think you can probably try to twist the situation by stretching the truth with regards to the Garland situation, but I'm not sure you are really going to move the needle by doing so there either. I think you just stress the importance of voter turnout by pointing to the fact that the Democrats are powerless to stop this. Perhaps it helps mobilize the vote a bit better for them.

 

They see which way the wind is blowing and don't want to get primaried, tarred and feathered by the #resist crowd.