The Politics Thread

[marceline]

 

Bernie, like all populists including Trump, tells people that there are simple answers to complex problems and that the only thing stand in the way is some enemy. For Trump that enemy is the elites and minorities, for Bernie it's the "establishment."

[Khan]

My heart goes out this morning to Cummings' loved ones.  As it says in the Bible, he fought a good fight.

 

 

I studied enough sociology in high school to know that men like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are no better than men like Jim Jones and Charles Manson, ESPECIALLY in how they inspire an all-consuming loyalty among their followers.  They derive their powers from the impressionable and the weak.

 

In more certain times, Americans would have been able to push aside the Bernie Sanderses and Donald Trumps whenever it came to politics.  Now, however, we're so beaten and battered that we're left with the possibility of voting one into office as president JUST to get rid of the other. 

 

Not that I think Bernie will make it that far.  But, as Chuck Berry once said, you never can tell.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Khan

[Gray Bunny]

I have no problem wishing death upon someone (yikes, my karma's rotten

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) and I've been hoping another triple monikered man would follow in the footsteps of John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald for the past three years. 

 

@Khan Coinciding with your analysis, the best thing for this country right now would be for anything (healthwise or otherwise) to wipe out Trump and Sanders, and may the best woman (or man, I guess) win against Prissypants Pence. 

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Gray Bunny

[Khan]

 

Yup.  Mike Pence is as dangerous to us as Donald Trump.  However, Pence doesn't inspire the level of loyalty among Americans that Trump does.  No one's AS likely to, say, gun down an entire Walmart full of customers because they support his stance on immigration.  Ergo, for the Democrats, it'd be almost like a cakewalk.

 

My dream scenario: in 2024, it's Pete Buttigieg vs. Mike Pence, with Buttigieg becoming our first gay president.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Khan

[JaneAusten]

I knew Elijah Cummings was ill, although not this ill. I am in shock. When I imagine leaders in the US , he epitomizes the ideal.  I just wish his life and work could inspire an entirely new generation to step forward. He will be missed.

 

I know he was chair of the Oversight Committee, but can we detach his work from that cretin in the White House for one day and focus on his contributions and his decency.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/politics/elijah-cummings-dead.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

[Khan]

DJT: "I got to see first hand the strength, passion and wisdom of this highly respected political leader."

 

Was that before or after you called his city a rat-infested slum, Mr. President?

[DRW50]

 

Who do you want to see win in 2020? Or do you think (as I do, sadly) Trump will probably be reelected?

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I agree with you Jane.  Cummings' legacy is about so much more than this impeachment proceedings or what that cretin in the White House did or said.  Let's give the man his proper due by recognizing his decades in public service and what he meant to his community and to this nation.

[Khan]

 

There's no "probably" about it: Donald Trump WILL be reelected.  At this point, only death will stop that horrible man from enjoying another four (or more!) years in the WH.

 

The MSM has done a bang-up job -- and, I might add, in almost record time -- in tarnishing Joe Biden with the same, proverbial, Ukrainian-manufactured brush that continues to tarnish what remains of the Trump administration.  Come next year, when it's time to actually VOTE, millions will face a "dilemma" that will be familiar to the one they faced in the last election: should they vote for the candidate they hate, but has had four years to prove how unfit he is for the job; for the candidate they ALSO hate, but whom the media has convinced them (on absolutely no tangible evidence whatsoever) would be just as bad as the first guy; for the third-party outlier (should one come along), thereby "throwing away" their votes; or for no one at all (which is essentially the same as voting for the first guy, as I have come to realize)?

 

"BUT HER EMAILS!" has been replaced with "BUT HIS SON!".  And I don't like it one bit.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Let. Bernie. Run.  Forget about Biden and Elizabeth Warren.  Forget about Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke.  They're all fantastic candidates -- and, if I'm being perfect and frank, each one could offer a lot more to this country than Bernie Sanders ever could, or will.

 

However, none of the other Democratic candidates inspire the sort of freakish loyalty among their voters that Sanders does among his.  His followers, like Trump's followers, are ready and willing to immolate themselves (and the rest of us) for him.  They sabotaged Hillary Clinton's chances in 2016, because "their man" didn't get to be the nominee.  Believe me, no matter what any polls at the moment might suggest, they're ready to do the same in 2020.

 

Look at it this way: if Sanders runs against Trump and actually wins, then, at the very least, we'll be rid of Trump.  (Barring, of course, any attempts on Trump's part to delegitimize the election results and remain in power -- which I see happening regardless, lol). 

 

True, a Sanders administration would present its' own, unique set of challenges to the nation.  Again, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think much of his so-called platform is pie-in-the-sky crap that, at best, is not doable; and, at worst, is as potentially destructive to our government as anything the Trump administration has foisted upon us.  However -- and I cannot stress this enough -- four years of life under the oppressive, pseudo-dictatorial regime of Donald J. Trump has, if nothing else, made Americans more equipped to cope with just about anything else that will come our way.

 

But...if Sanders runs and LOSES, which I believe would be the more likely outcome, then it would prove my point about the man.  Namely, that no matter how much people obnoxiously sing his praises, to the point that the Democratic Party has had to adjust its' official platforms merely to appease his devotees, pushing us ever further to the left as a result, Bernie Sanders does NOT have what it takes to win an election of this magnitude.

 

It won't matter what his most hard-core supporters have to say about him OR his ideals after he loses against Trump.  As far as the rest of the Democratic Party and the nation will be concerned, all questions will have been answered, and all doubts will have been removed.

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Khan

[Khan]

 

Amen!

[ReddFoxx]

It's going to be very, very hard for Trump to be re-elected. To be re-elected he would have needed to have started keeping a lower profile two years ago and started being more level headed. His biggest obstacle is that people are sick of hearing about him and will turn out to vote just to get him out of office. He's turned a lot of apathetic voters into guaranteed voters.

 

That aside, the Ukraine phone has done irreparable harm to him. That pretty much backed up the Mueller Report and pushed any people who were skeptical about it into the impeachment camp. The call to Ukraine was made the day after Mueller testified, so it's almost like Trump became so overconfident that he was cleared (he really wasn't) that he committed a crime that he couldn't get out of.

 

Having been elected with a plurality across three states that were quite unfriendly to Republicans in the midterms, it's hard to see Trump being re-elected.

[marceline]

 

Yep. People underestimate the exhaustion factor. People who voted for Trump to "shake things up" didn't mean abandoning our allies to genocide or letting Ukrainian soldiers die on the field just to get dirt on Joe Biden. They also didn't mean being barraged with delusional tweets all day every day. The hardcore MAGAts will follow him into the void but he's hemorrhaging the soft support he had. Suburban women especially have abandoned him in droves. Fifty-two percent of the voters want him impeached and removed from office including many Republicans.

 

Of course, I'm not confident that the Dems won't mess this up. If we nominate Warren, we will lose. Progressives don't want to hear it but Democrats win when we run centrists. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both centrist Democrats. We flipped the House running centrist Democrats in swing and purple districts. We would've won 2016 were it not for foreign interference in the election.

[Vee]

I don't agree. I think Warren can and will win. And one way or another I think Trump will lose. Nihilism is one thing, but the polling runs against it.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Vee

[Khan]

 

Yup.

 

Progressives and conservatives have one thing in common: both believe in all-or-nothing propositions.  If either group doesn't get everything they want -- and I mean everything -- they'll burn it all down, regardless of how that might affect the rest of us.

 

Those two groups never understand that compromise and consensus are crucial in any political system where more than one party participates.  That's why I hate how the Democratic Party has co-opted some of the progressives' platforms in order to bring them into the tent.

 

To me, it's like giving into a spoiled toddler who wants his woobie Right! Now!, instead of telling him to stop crying "or I'll give you something to cry about!".

[Vee]

There's progressives - who have always been a part of the party - and then there's the Bernie wing, which is very different. I consider myself a progressive.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Vee