Skin

2 hours ago, alphanguy74 said:

OF course, nobody knows what truly occurred. There are a lot of people who try for a payday, and the fact that she took money, tells me it's most likely that. If it were me, and it REALLY happened, I wouldn't take money, I'd go for jail.  

That's not the way things work. Sexual assault is hard to prove even in the best of cases. Even when you have eye witnesses, DNA evidence, video evidence and character witnesses, the individual will just claim it was consensual and they like rough sex, and it becomes a he said/she said issue. Look no further than Brock Turner for a case study in this. Individuals "settle", because it is the only way they can get something out of the process, after being harmed. I would say it is often the reverse. If they are settling they likely did something wrong. They just want to use money, to make the situation go away. 

I know a lot of people are feeling a lot of pain by his death. It's shocking to have someone so young, die in such a quick fashion. He was only 41 years old. He was very young, that said I never really cared for basketball, so I'm not as heartbroken as some. I think what people are seeing is that they just weren't big fans or in love with Kobe, or basket ball. So to them it's just another day in the life, and they remember what he was accused of. 

I'm happy for him, he knows how to stay employed. He's been on The WB/CW/CBS for 20+ years now. Few people know and understand their audience like him. It will pay dividends for him and his future. 

16 hours ago, YRBB said:

Wonderful season 2 premiere. I loved Meryl Streep: The promos overdid it with her; there IS something very sinister about Mary Louise but in the episode its more subtle and definitely more sympathetic as it is all framed under her grief. 

 

I don't know about this - I think it's an act, she feels predatory in a way that I don't normally associate with many Meryl Streep characters, so I have to feel that some of this is coming from the script. I think she is trying to act like a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's clear that Celeste is incredibly vulnerable, it wouldn't surprise me if she is using Celeste for her own interests. Whatever they are - you can tell by the way she interacts with Madeline, that she isn't a dowdy Grandmother who is out of her depth. There's a sharpness there that is underneath her doting, soft, grieving persona. 

I'm calling it - the entire team will turn against Madeline, before it's all over. There's too many hints that people feel it's her fault and hold her accountable, but she is also the only one who seems to be able to keep it together of the core group outside of Renata. 

Well. That happened. This show is really a pale version of what it once was.

On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 3:43 AM, MrPrezident said:

This season has felt unbelievably rushed and now it all makes sense, what with the show runners helming the next Star Wars film. Its obvious these guys haven’t a clue what to do since they’ve run out of source material. Sure they have the blueprints but when not one of your actors can honesty say anything good about the way this show ends you know we have a problem. Which is a shame because everything else on this show from the acting, to the cinematography, to the music is outstanding! Bad writing and pacing is dragging down what should’ve been an incredible final season to one of my favorite shows.

Sophie seems tickled pink with this season from her interviews. 

18 hours ago, Vee said:

I knew she'd do it. People who are complaining about Daenerys this season were never paying attention.

I think everyone knew that she could do it, it's just the way in which it was done, which was so surprising. D&D pretty much gave her no cover, and forced her to become the villain of the series. They could have had Cersei refuse to surrender - that would have more or less been in character, and that would have made her actions a bit more morally grey, but it's clear they wanted to make her the Mad Queen 2.0, and they needed her to be unjustifiable in this. There's no where else for the character to go at this point. They boxed her into a corner and have now thrown her away. They pretty much ruined the chance for plausible deniability for her, and can't salvage anything left of her character. It's tragic, and crazy unfortunate, being how hugely popular Daenerys is for the show. Sad to see that this is how GRRM sees the character. 

On 12/23/2018 at 3:47 PM, All My Shadows said:

Another show about gay men looking for dick in the club every weekend doesn't really strike my fancy. There are other varieties of us out there.

That's not what the original series was about. Especially not in the later seasons.

On 2/16/2019 at 9:59 PM, Taoboi said:

Well...I happen to like the intrigue that came with the introduction of Tess personally.

Tess herself, wasn't the problem so much as the way she was utilized as a plot contrivance to bring the show in a different direction. I think had the show gone about bringing her on differently, there wouldn't have been much of a controversy around her addition to the group. She was added to bring strife to the group, and she broke up the set that was mostly formed by the time she got there. Had she been added to the group sooner (and differently) - I think she would have been more accepted.  The fact that she came nearly right at the end of the first season made fans look at Tess as an interloper.

There's also a larger metaphor that they don't like the way the show deviated and got worse over time around the time she became apart of the main cast. The larger problem was that the WB didn't know what they wanted Roswell to be, they didn't know if they wanted it to be a romantic teen melodrama like Dawson's Creek/Felicity, or if they wanted it to be a huge arc carrying sci-fi action series like Buffy/Smallville and the network interference caused a lot of issues in the second season. I think the series writers even lamp-shaded this in an episode where they had two of the characters argue which movie was better "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "The Matrix". It didn't help that the writers didn't know what they wanted either.

If you take a look at Season Two of Roswell, it's all over the place. They went from a secondary alien invasion from a rival species, to Time Travel to Evil Twin Aliens to Alien Possession Parasites to Alien Teen Pregnancy to Alien War on a Remote Planet. A hodgepodge of ideas, none of which had real legs. A lot of people give season three grief, but it was clear that the show was going off the rails as soon as season two. Season three just inherited a lot of bad debt. The writers tried everything they could but the show couldn't stick with anything, and by the end they couldn't bail themselves out of bad story-telling. It's telling that most fans now either ignore those plot points completely or forget they even existed. The Sci-Fi portion of  the show never found the right direction, and never took off. I don't know if it's because they couldn't or they didn't want to. 

On ‎2‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 7:51 PM, vetsoapfan said:

 

To be fair, only the first season of the original show was really good. The second year was still okay and had its moments, but the third and final season was abysmal; really hard to watch. Plus, Shiri Appleby was pretty wooden and expressionless as Liz. (Don't get me wrong. I still love the first incarnation of Roswell, thanks to its great debut season and the hunky Jason Behr as Max, but I have read comments on-line from devoted fans who say it was the greatest thing on earth, and I would have to disagree.)

It was really the chemistry of the actors that made Roswell work as a character study, rather than as a show. I don't know many people who watch Roswell who were in love with the plotting and storylines but rather the actors, couples and pairings which made the show work. It had a dedicated fanbase directly because of those actors/character ships. Liz/Max (Dreamers), Maria/Micheal (Candies), and even Isabel/Alex (Stargazers) really were what kept the series afloat. When they started messing with those characters and the relationships, friendships and connections within the series the show pretty much tanked, as a lot of fans felt betrayed in seasons two and three. 

On ‎2‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 3:53 PM, Wales2004 said:

I don't know how much of the first season of this show I watched but I let it go once I knew Elena was going to be with Damon.  I don't think I am ever going to be there for any show with siblings switching mates. 

 

This is one of the worst things about television series these days. How they let their leads get away with despicable disgusting things that would irrevocably scar their protagonists - and make them as non-events in the way of redemption. This happened all through out seasons 1 and 5 for Damon and then later on when Stefan became the Ripper with the only difference for Stefan being the Angelus like excuse of his humanity being off. What Damon did to Vicki, Jeremy and Caroline was unforgivable - and purposely killing entire families because of a grudge match even after Elena supposedly changed him was infuriating - and then he winds up happily ever after? This is our hero. No thanks.  

13 minutes ago, Khan said:

And even if they were here (or here again), do you think most working class whites would sign up for them?

I remember reading about the working conditions in places like China, India and the like from a friend who traveled there, and the conditions sound horrible. The work for pennies on the dollar and have virtually no holiday pay outside of the new year. If there is ever a talk about a strike, they threaten to move the plant to somewhere else where pay will be cheaper. You can't fight against that kind of greed, because it's a race to the bottom. They have no laws to protect their workers.

Opinions on the Affordable Care Act are just so odd. You have a large amount of American's who receive healthcare from their employer, and you also have millions of Americans who don't want to pay for health insurance and are angry because they don't want to sign up for insurance. But these are the same people who will be in the poor house if they didn't have insurance or if they wind up with a pre-existing condition when they want care.

55 minutes ago, JONNYSBRO said:

Give us our US jobs back too. I feel like India has invaded our country with taking over our hotels and jobs everywhere. Quit the outsourcing 

Those jobs are forever gone.

Single payer is when the government pays for all of your health insurance and healthcare associated costs. Like many European countries already do. The drawback to this and the only one I could think of is that most people won't be able to have luxurious hospital visits where each individual patient receives their own suite, with gourmet food, premium cable channels, and won't be able to order any medical service they want ala carte. But this is mostly for the blue cities in New York, California, who have that kind of money and embrace that kind of technological innovation in their hospitals. That is not a concern in say a place like Kansas - where the average hospital is 100 miles or so away from some residents.

There is something to be said about it's ability to ration out medical services -- for instance the 15 year old soccer player who bumped her head and is saying it hurts won't be able to get a CT scan, and twelve other tests to make sure their isn't a problem with her, and neither will a 65 year old who is 200 lbs over weight and complains of angina won't be able to receive a new heart valve -- but those are the kind of unrealistic expenses that American's shouldn't have had in the first place.

It's more regulation - but it's from a place that is a bit more moderated and knows it has finite resources amongst it's population.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

it all basically boiled down to existential anxiety about a changing world - feeling displaced economically was a big talking point, but to me that is just a convenient cloak.

 

When those people see Trump tank things even worse, there will be a backlash among the confused, depressed middle-class whites. The question is just what kind of spiral it will be. I wish I could feel more sympathy, because someone in the DNC will have to as a profession.

I'm actually willing to play ball with some of the mid-west voters who feel that they are being displaced by the economy. But only very marginally, the great recession may have been a huge wake up call for them that they weren't as "solid" as they believe themselves to be. The reality of the situation is that wages have been stagnant since the 80's, and as such due to inflation the dollar doesn't stretch as it once did and everything is rising and their salaries are not -- this is all true, but it's been true since forever. I think what blew out a candle or made the light go off was the recession that was more or less a lot like the Great Depression. I think for a lot of them these past few years have been a major wake up call that whatever they have can be gone in a split second, and they are right. On average people are only 3 or 4 steps away from homelessness and that's a hard pill to swallow when you feel that you were artificially "safe" for decades before. However this demographic is not the manufactured working class worker that Donald is pitching too. This specific subset of people are those who are currently employed pulling upwards of 50k+ jobs and are somewhat educated and in the age bracket of 50 or older. These are the demographics who have more or less been "safe" from the worst effects of the recession and who don't have faith that their children will have a better life then they had it. These are the folks who are hosting their kids after they paid for their college or are currently paying college tuition. This is a problem, but it's also inherently capitalistic - this isn't going to get better with Regan lite policies. When you live in a capitalistic society you end up with winners or losers always, and this is the nature of our country. These are the same people who are profoundly afraid of socialism but then hem and haw about the ill effects of capitalism and not being able to build wealth, and being 3 or 4 bad moves away from losing everything and having nothing for their children. These concerns are valid but they keep voting for more of the same and they are a big portion of the electorate -- precisely 70% of it.

I have no sympathy for the working class whites who refuse to acknowledge the end of manufacturing and do not want to change fields. This same thing happened in the black community and no one blinked an eye at it, but now because it's happening to poorly educated whites everyone is supposed to care.  At least they don't have to put up with the added stigma of believing that they are just lazy, violent, people who wanted to live on the welfare state and nothing about them or their problems was ever worthwhile.

Largely these problems aren't anything new, it's just - just like with social security these problems are so reactionary that they are coming up late in big ways. What makes me a bit upset is that if we had strong leadership we probably could be talking about ways to make this better - but due to the electoral college these problems will never get solved. Obama wasn't able to break the Reagan footfold in the belief of trickled down economics - but maybe Trump will be able to get them to realize that none of this stuff is going to work. Republicans have been set on an agenda that will harm their constituents the most, and I can only hope for the backlash of what will happen when they realize all of their aid is cut off and they can't eat or pay bills in addition to slashed wages. I'm worried about what form this backlash will be as well the Bundy's just got away with holding government property at gun point just last year. That kind of extremism with guns is horrifying.

1 hour ago, Juliajms said:

I do think it's possible some of Trump's supporters will turn on him once things get bad enough.  His approval ratings are already disastrously low. We're going to pay a terrible price for it, but I do think his election is waking people up (including myself).

His approval ratings are a disaster and they keep getting lower and lower. He has already lost Democrats and Moderates, the only thing keeping his score from completely collapsing is Republicans which favor him nearly 90%. Democrats and Moderates have rated him so low that his score has fallen down to something like 44% which was down from 51-52% (when he won the election) and down again from 48% (Republican candidate). If Republicans collapse on him he won't have anything to buoy his score. So far they are the only ones who have faith in him. I can only imagine what the floor will be. I'm predicting record lows by 2018.  

Twelve states to keep an eye on:

• Arizona

• Colorado

• Florida

• Maine

• Michigan

• Minnesota

• Nevada

• New Hampshire

• North Carolina

• Pennsylvania

• Virginia

• Wisconsin

These were all won with a percentage margin of 5% - these states can flip either way. Democrats need to start mobilizing now to make significant gains over the next 2-4 years. 147 electoral votes right here.

1 hour ago, Juliajms said:

I think the major problem here is that it would take a pretty big transfer of wealth to make the ACA work for more people. People up thread have asked why we can't make single payer work in the US and that's basically the reason.  Europe has a much higher tax rate. The rich obviously don't want to be taxed more in the US. Don't get me started on the middle and lower classes who refuse to band together and make the rich pay more.

 

So truly, if we can't tax the rich to make the ACA affordable to anyone but the poor, were does the money come from? I'd much rather see the debt increase then kick people off their health care. Maybe we can hope that's the direction the Republicans will go in rather than take away a benefit that people have become accustomed to and facing the political fallout.

There's also the problem that healthcare is a market that just keeps exploding in regards to cost. It's a for profit industry that doesn't really care at all about it's consumers, patients or sick people. They just want to make money. I don't necessarily think the problem is just taxation, it's that the healthcare industry doesn't want healthcare to be affordable, or work for everyone. That's why the costs keep escalating. A lot of people belief that the ACA is the reason for their increased health costs and bills, but it's really just the messenger or something that has been escalating at a great rate for years now.

2 hours ago, Juliajms said:

In something like 20 years. That's a long time to wait. A lot of irrevocable damage can be done in that time.  Not to mention when 29% of Latino men vote for Trump, that tells me that as they move up the economic ladder they aren't necessarily going to stick with Democrats on mass. Not that I necessarily blame people for voting their own interests, I'm just saying I think it's a huge mistake to take anyone for granted.

I was reading an article, and I agree with it, it basically said that the floor for Republican voters is going to be around 20-30% with Latino voters, which makes sense. Not everyone is going to have Republicans with a fervor. It's just not in the cards. The solidly liberal camp is only but maybe 15-20% of Americans, and then we start delving further into the spectrum of left leaning, moderate, and right leaning. If these latino voters stay in this 20% I don't think that's much of an issue. The Hispanic/Latino population is diverse, and you have some that have internalized hatred for their race, and others who are angry with undocumented immigrants because they feel they got over when they didn't. That kind of infighting can't really be helped. You also have segments of the population who can "pass" for white or who have accumulated a sense of economic status like Cubans who left Castro - and they feel they belong to that demographic more then those who recognize their diversity and true heritage. Colorism is alive in all races. Some feel they can "pass" for white, and they would rather indulge that belief. As white-Hispanics grow in the population this may happen. But there is more growth outside of the latinx/Hispanic demographic.

22 hours ago, ReddFoxx said:

Putin seemingly wants control of the Baltic States, which are all part of NATO. Trump pulling the US out of NATO or at least reducing it's involvement is what Putin is after.

This is the kind of stuff that scares me, it brings me Cold War and WWII vibes. The escalation and verge of war out break and appeasement is terrifying to me. This isn't 1960 anymore.

52 minutes ago, Juliajms said:

Otherwise we have to believe that there are 60 million rabid racists (and sexists) in this country and I doubt that for a lot of reasons.  It would also explain why some of the people who voted for Obama twice turned to Trump.

 

Kellyanne Conway alluded to this idea when she said that her polling showed that there was a difference between what offended people and what affected them.

 

I also heartily agree that it's a huge mistake to believe that demographics will just naturally turn this country towards democrats. I fell for that this last election, but I never will again. It's actually sort of arrogant for Democrats to just think non whites will turn to us by default without candidates having to earn their votes. A lot can change in the next few years and I think it would be a big mistake to just assume the numbers will turn in our favor because people have no where else to go.

Honestly that doesn't make me feel any better. The fact that racism, ablism, sexism, homophobia, and Nazism and everything else wasn't enough to disqualify this man is enough to make me lose complete faith in this country.

As to those whites who voted for Obama and then Trump - I think those could most accurately be described as those change candidates someone in this thread described earlier. They just want change, not realizing what change will actually be or consist of. Again they feel and seem largely uninformed about what it takes for them to recover, and honestly this whole sympathy narrative is incredibly taxing because these same individuals in the Republican party have said despairing things about the black communities for decades now, and now all the sudden now that whites are having similar problems we must roll out the red carpet in order to see to their needs. It's the crack/cocaine/heroine dichotomy all over again where you demonize one race for something and then give endless understanding and sympathy to the other.

What I am coming to realize in regards to the numbers and trending issues is that we most likely will get there in regards to representation - we already see this happening with winning the popular vote, what I am most concerned about is the Republican's redistricting everything and putting forth suppression laws to make these numbers not count. It's a perversion of everything America stands for, and Republicans can and will do whatever it takes to disenfranchise as much people as possible. We may end up getting those numbers - but they may not end up meaning anything in the long run.

13 hours ago, DRW50 said:

One of the things that I'm most wary of with Democrats is those who have the naive belief that we're always on a path to getting better, and people just have to understand this reality. Many people don't and won't understand that. I'm not saying cater to these views, because Democrats have tried to do that too and often failed - but you can't just dismiss them. It's difficult, because views are so hardened now, even the most compassionate or skilled Democratic candidate isn't going to convince a voter to agree or to compromise, but there has to be a middle ground between pandering and essentially writing off huge portions of voters and entire states, entire sections of the country, as impossible to reach, and saying it won't matter because demographics means other parts of the country will "catch up." Republicans have shown just how efficient they are at that rendering that impossible.

 

There's something inherently decent in many Democrats that they believe everything will move toward equality, fairness, and tolerance (although some struggle to adjust to the reality of this not involving white liberals patting POC on the head), but this also means many of them simply can't and won't understand the huge portions of the country that don't feel this way. Many can't be reached, but the sliver that can be reached - not through pandering and lurching to the right, but in empathy and honest talk - are worth the effort. Instead we either have sneering and elitism, or the tedious wanking of "What's the Matter With Kansas?" that yearns for a past that is never coming back. 

 

Republicans are generally ruthless and vile and have a killer instinct, and most Democrats in power in many recent decades rarely seem to have the same instincts. They just seem dumbfounded. Democrats seem to be showing more spine now because Trump is just that wretched, but it needs to not just be petulance, but planned action up and down the country, from legislatures and councils on. I'm wary of just how many Democrats are only focused on Trump and not on everything else in the party that empowered him. The more I see people say that Pence is better, the more I'm reminded of how easy it will be for Republicans to move on once Trump is gone. 

 

Without big changes, then, as unlikely as it is anytime soon, if the Republicans ever did thread the needle on social issues or on being such open bigots and racists, Democrats would be rendered all but extinct, because those are the main reasons to vote for Democrats now. You aren't voting for them - you're voting against Republicans. And this year that wasn't enough. I'm not sure if will be enough in 4 years (if we aren't nuked out by then) either. 

Democrats like America itself is at an all important crossroads, at this point in time, and I think it needs to be underscored America needs change, but at the same time doesn't know how to action any of those changes, and government inherently is difficult and takes forever for anything to change or resolve anything. I think the American people feel and understand that more now then ever, but the cycle is pervasive and unending. Nothing will get done, and we have a community that is too large that has diametrically opposed views on what direction they want to go in. The cycling back and forth between two parties just ends up manifesting itself as largely standing still, because the previous party has to walk back on all the things the previous party did while they were in power. It's an endless cycle that isn't efficient. Something needs to happen to break the cycle - I doubt more and more that this two party system will ever work.

I think the unending lie of the democratic party is that demographics will swing towards them, no matter what and they just need to be patient for these parties to arise, not realizing that the goal of the Republican party is to make sure that day never comes in the form of allocating all the resources they can to disenfranchising as much people as possible. The gerrymandering and anything that comes through over the next 4 years will be a solidification of doing all they can to keep power in the establishment and lower the position of minorities.

That being said democrats need to be focused on winning elections. The popular vote is nearly always in their favor but the electoral college is not. That being said I do not believe it is worth cannibalizing the entire platform for these individuals that may never vote for what they propose. Analysis needs to be done on if these voters fit into the demographic of newer or converted blue states like New Mexico and Colorado. I think in about 8 years, even Texas could be competitive. So Democrats have a lot to potentially look forward to, but at the same time they have to protect the vulnerable demographics who are most at risk. At the same time there are voters who are just plenty uneducated about so much -- thinking about Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the like who voted for Trump and then are completely afraid that they will lose Obamacare or that their aid will get defunded which is a cornerstone of the Republican party. They are essentially Snidely Whiplash characters who want everyone to either die, starve, become homeless or become entrepreneurs. I don't think they will ever understand or come to the other side unless we let them get exactly what they asked for. We can't be the liberal soft hearts anymore trying to stop enablers from drinking poison. I'm not afraid of the Republicans ever becoming decent because they haven't shown that for years, and their hypocrisy can only be supported by those who don't intelligently look at their arguments. It takes a special kind of person to ignore the fact that the party leader of the Republicans was a recipient of government aid, and now wants to abolish the program because he got what he needed from it.

12 hours ago, Vee said:

I think Carl is right on about a lot of the problems with Democrats. My problem is that, just as you say, there has to be a middle ground between reaching out and reconnecting to the white working-class (however distasteful I presently find reaching out to that segment of apathetic Trump voters or non-voters) versus catering to them and largely abandoning our progressive social values.

 

I say 'social' because I think the far left and a lot of the Sanders contingent are all too eager to re-focus entirely on the white working class and economic issues, and call social issues, racial issues, diversity issues merely a 'distraction' just as Sanders did during the primaries. I think it makes the predominantly white, often-aging far left far more comfortable to be in the driver's seat on those issues and simply name-dropping Bernie, Howard Dean, etc. (not that I have anything against Dean, but he is in the mold: white and loud) vs. engaging with a more racially and sexually diverse progressive movement in the age of Obama and post-Obama, which is part of why many of them never trusted him and resented him IMO - because he usurped their power base, their message, their easy throne. It's the same meltdown we've seen with many progressive vanguard commentators from the Bush years, from Glenn Greenwald on down, when the angry white leftist on the Internet reigned supreme. Their attitude towards Obama, since 2008, has too often been 'who does he think he is?' IMO, Barack Obama was as much an agent of racial panic and resentment for the far left as he was for the right and the undecideds.

There is a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party but it's not just about bridging the working class gap, it's about reconciling our ideology with the predominantly white, straight, male elements of the party who do not want to let go of being not only morally 'right' but in full control. And that begins with the Sanders diehards, and there is a racial and otherwise discriminatory element. It was the same in my mother's day when she was an activist - in the '60s the men always took the megaphone.

I think it goes back to seeing how far gone these people are. If they really believe that minorities are evil people and that they don't deserve to exist then there not much that can be done. At that same token there needs to be responsibility on their side to understand that the jobs that they lost aren't coming back and they need to move to another field or industry. Many of them refuse to see that - and as such they will continue to be destroyed as we move into the future. The cutting of aid programs will only exacerbate their issues. If people can't understand that all people deserve equality and a chance and deserve the opportunity of a better life America is dead. Overall the party needs to be about progression and integration. That's what I always understood the party to be and that's what I believe it still is - but it's also morphed into an elitist and intellectualized hub of diversity, and those ideologies have been demonized by the right. As if it's cool to be ignorant and not know information. This anti-intellectualism has grown with the last two Republican president elects - George W. Bush and Donald Trump. It's really abhorrent and disgusting.

12 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

I think Trump may just find that it will be harder to undo something things than he may have thought. Meanwhile, he'll be on the hook to the Russians, who no doubt have intel on him as they hacked the RNC records but opted not to use any information. The Russians need only have a third party embarrass Trump on the world stage and he becomes a national liability.

What I love is that Obama is putting in as many roadblocks as he can to stop Donald's craziest proposals. It will take a while for Trump to effect things on a significant scale - I'm hoping that with Obama's orders it will take him 2-2.5 years to really implement many of his changes, but with the Republican lead Congress and Senate, as well as a Supreme Court - it's going to be a rough time, and if Democrats lose any more seats (which is likely in the mid year elections) Trump could alter the constitution.

11 hours ago, Khan said:

 

Also true.  Which is why I feel so...conflicted over Carl and Vee's brilliantly drawn arguments.  Because I DO agree that they are a lost cause, incapable of growth or compromise; and I fear that reaching out to them (and not correcting or outright rejecting them) will only result in reinforcing their false ideas and keeping this country as divisive as ever....

 

And yet, Carl and Vee are right: the Democratic party can't regain any footing if they don't at least try.

We really have to see if they can be educated and if they are willing to learn the reasons for their problems and the personal responsibility of their actions, and how they have caused their failings. The recession hit everyone hard, but the economy has largely sprung back. They need to ask themselves hard questions like why haven't they recovered while others have.

11 hours ago, Vee said:

Trump is a desperate attempt to reinforce a lot of people's comfortable views of an America that is fading. Eight years of a black guy plus rapidly changing social issues and now a woman made a huge segment of our old culture face an existential crisis. Trump was a last, petulant gasp for baby boomer-era white supremacy. But he is the last. And his coalition is not a coalition at all, it's just a bunch of disparate voters plus the Republican/Tea Party bigot base, all of whom can and will turn on him in a flash for a million reasons.

 

I don't like any of these people right now; I actively detest many of them. But the ones who are apathetic, disaffected, party-less, passively racist or at least deeply uncomfortable with their place in a changing America - many of them can be peeled off from Trump, reconnected with, brought into the fold and told it's not gonna be so bad. And some of them will have to be. I just don't know if I'll be the one able to do that.

Don't quite believe this, I think they will be emboldened and united with every law Trump passes that harms minorities. It's already happening that the Republicans are targeting Muslims, Gays, Immigrants and Women - it's only a matter of time before he begins targeting the black community, if they haven't already. No one is safe, and every action or measure that is taken that harms these groups will rally his base even more. They like the idea of hurting people who are not white, straight and cis-gendered. Every measure he takes against them will be an action against their war against liberals.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

 

One of the things that I'm most wary of with Democrats is those who have the naive belief that we're always on a path to getting better, and people just have to understand this reality. Many people don't and won't understand that. I'm not saying cater to these views, because Democrats have tried to do that too and often failed - but you can't just dismiss them. It's difficult, because views are so hardened now, even the most compassionate or skilled Democratic candidate isn't going to convince a voter to agree or to compromise, but there has to be a middle ground between pandering and essentially writing off huge portions of voters and entire states, entire sections of the country, as impossible to reach, and saying it won't matter because demographics means other parts of the country will "catch up." Republicans have shown just how efficient they are at that rendering that impossible.

 

There's something inherently decent in many Democrats that they believe everything will move toward equality, fairness, and tolerance (although some struggle to adjust to the reality of this not involving white liberals patting POC on the head), but this also means many of them simply can't and won't understand the huge portions of the country that don't feel this way. Many can't be reached, but the sliver that can be reached - not through pandering and lurching to the right, but in empathy and honest talk - are worth the effort. Instead we either have sneering and elitism, or the tedious wanking of "What's the Matter With Kansas?" that yearns for a past that is never coming back. 

This is important, want to come back to this when I have the time.

11 hours ago, Juliajms said:

I know. Same with all the white women that voted for him as far as I'm concerned. Whenever I think of women voting for that man, I just feel hopeless.

Women I understand a bit more of, there is a ton of internalized misogyny in this world, and white women can still profit and benefit from white men being in power. Arguably less so with minority women who are from a darker pigmentation spectrum. I think one of the biggest problems with this presidential race was that everyone was grouped into brackets, not understanding that white women in the mid-west are fundamentally different from white women in the urban centers. I think that was a costly measure as it looks more and more like white women backed their white men. Those women may be pissed that they can't be homemakers anymore, and that their men can't make enough to where they don't have to work and they may be able to just sit at home and worry about the house. Maybe they want it to be 1950 as well, where they didn't have to worry about being independent, and just had to have dinner ready before 5.

Those other individuals who voted for him, I imagine Hispanics and Latino's also seem to have a hatred for undocumented immigrants, not realizing that they could be just like them if not for a number of possibilities. I don't understand nationalist sentiments, as it's not something that is controlled for. Even though I was born in America, that means nothing to me, as I can't control where I was born. That's like holding something against someone simply due to uncontrollable factors. We can't control where we were born, what color our complexion is, if we are able bodied or if we are male, female or transgendered. I don't understand why people continue to hold this belief that one is inherently better than the other, when that is out of their control.

1 minute ago, Juliajms said:

How about the argument that over 25% of Latino males showed up for Trump and 13% of black males? Given that black women paid that man in the dust he deserved that's quite a high number.

That illustrates so much self-hate right there, I don't even know what else to say.

On ‎12‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 4:55 PM, Juliajms said:

One thing that struck me is that the average Trump voter had an income of something like $70,000. So it's not like it's necessarily the people who lost their jobs were voting for him or if they did they found new ones that pay a living wage.  Once I saw that number my sympathy for these people evaporated. But at the same time more than those people voted for Trump. He couldn't have won otherwise. 

I remember reading an article from the Nation titled: What Time is it? Here's what the 2016 Election tells us about Obama, Trump and What Comes Next.

It was an insightful read that really goes to task about Trump and what he means and that Obama was a figure that tried to fight against Reganomics but ultimately failed. The writer likened Trump to Jimmy Carter as a "disruptor" or a disjunctive President that won't get much of anything done because he isn't aligned with his party and he thinks he can do everything himself. Ultimately we need to know where we stand as a nation. There were white working class voters who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, that did not vote for Hillary in 2016. Is there any way or path for the Democrats to get back things that they should have never lost in the first place? Part of the thing that was most frustrating about this election cycle was that there was an organic effort in the Democratic party that touched the same vein Trump did in regards to income equality and lobbyists - but it was snuffed out and stifled by the DNC, to their own destruction. Is the far left out of touch with "modern" America? And by how much? Do we really have to sacrifice big revolutionary changes for incremental change? Or is Trump just an inflation and representation of an America that is tired of the same old, same old - and Democrats just needed a better alternative that wasn't apart of the system?

These are the questions the party needs to answer and quickly. Trump will be a disaster, but what happens next cycle?

On ‎12‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 8:09 PM, DramatistDreamer said:

I know we're all sick to death of polls but this goes to show that that letter by Comey in the last week and a half or so probably did a great deal of damage to Clinton as the Clinton campaign alleged.

 

Voters Really Did Switch To Trump At The Last Minute

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with this election is that everything is so completely skewed that it's hard to make heads or tails out of what just happened and how to move forward because so much of what once was has been turned upside down. Does the majority of this country really skew Republican, and are we really that far backwards ideologically? Or are people really just fed up with government and the Republicans and just decided to say the hell with it all and elect Trump as a way to screw the system? Democrats really need to do their research here and study what the problem is, because if they over correct themselves based on this one election they could make themselves even weaker and more irrelevant than ever by turning their backs on their base supporters.

The Trump base is so ideologically screwed I don't know what to make of them. They vote Republican and then cry about losing Obamacare. They hate taxes, and yet don't realize how much they benefit from those taxes by living in red states which statistically are provided the most aid. Was Hillary such a bad choice in a candidate that they couldn't bear voting for her, and would they have won had they chosen another candidate that wasn't mired in endless scandal and corruption gossip? Trump won by such a slim margin and was completely trounced by the popular vote so there is hope. But we need a detailed and complete analysis of what the hell happened this year, and we need leadership to unite the party and move it forward. It's a shame that this loss happened but I fear that the party will remain divided. It reminds me of what the Democrats were like prior to Bill Clinton, during the Reagan years.

Is the Republican party a true representation of this nation or has it been artificially inflated due to Trump's ignorant populism? His approval rating is low - lower than an incumbent President's ever been, which bodes well for the nation, and the democratic party - but some of these people are just so ideologically backwards I don't have much hope. They don't trust media, they don't trust government, and they seem to have these crazy conspiracy theories that the government is out to get them.

Macy is a talented actor but honestly I was just waiting for Fiona to say that she can't wait for Frank to die too during their scene together outside the house. That would have been everything, I ever needed from Fiona.

This was easily the best season since season 4.