The Politics Thread

[marceline]

That's the problem with having campaigns that last for years.

[DramatistDreamer]

The trolls can move to the next candidate now. 

[Chris B]

 

Honestly that is shocking to me considering she already qualified for the next debate and may have seen yet another bump from that. Still, I respect that she got out early and didn't string anybody along. 

 

To me this is devastating. This is the second black woman to run to my knowledge and the media didn't treat her campaign with the historic respect it deserved. They beat her down at every turn for ANYTHING. First "flip flopping" on healthcare when in reality she hasn't formulated a plan previously. Now Elizabeth Warren has copied her plan but nobody says she's flip flopping. Biden and Sanders are both having money issues and laying off people and closing offices, but it's only front page news for Kamala. She had to be ten times as good as anybody to get decent coverage. It's racist and a shame. And she was still doing well, but probably realized she couldn't compete with unrealistic expectations of a black woman running for president.

 

Now I will just be showing up in November. I have no desire to actively support anybody running. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden are the best shot and Trump will easily eat both of them up with the media's help. I'm sickened by the media now saying how devastated they are that Kamala dropped out when they made this so. 

[Toups]

 

Why is that?  It's so long!  The primaries seems so stupid to me.  LOL    In this year's Canadian federal election, the campaign was 40 days! 

[Khan]

 

Same.  I just want to do my part to get Trump out of office.  That's all.

 

 

That's the way it should be here as well.  Unfortunately, the minute we elect a new president in the U.S., the media pivots immediately to the next election, which is four long years away.  It's one of the many, many, MANY reasons why Americans tend to be indifferent about politics.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Khan

[DramatistDreamer]

 

 

That is the one upside, if you can call it that.  I can just tune out at this point and show up when I must.  Shirley Chisolm was the first and only other black woman to run for president.

 

The pandering to Kamala Harris' would be voters on social media has already begun in earnest and honestly, it's embarrassing to watch it unfold.  These candidates ought to just give it a day before making desperate appeals this way.  The only one who actually sounds sincere is Castro, who was locked out of the last debate and will likely be locked out of the next one.

 

I have to say one thing though and that is that it is damn impressive that in the midst of being relentlessly trolled by Russian troll farms and disparaged at every turn, Harris was still able to co-sponsor a piece of legislation passed the House Judiciary on a bipartisan vote.  Bernie has been in the Senate since Jesus was a boy and I don't think he has gotten that far.

 

 

[Soapsuds]

When is Booker and Castro pulling out? They have no chance. 

[Khan]

 

Feel the BURN, lol.

 

Meanwhile, here's an article about Fox News being its' usual, (un)fair and (im)balanced self:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fox-news-personalities-continue-to-stump-for-gop-candidates/2019/12/03/7bbae48c-1525-11ea-9110-3b34ce1d92b1_story.html

[DramatistDreamer]

 

 

That's the influence of (dark) money in politics.

I have a lot of family who live in Canada and the last time I visited with them, Canada just happened to be in an election years ago.  It was orderly, straight-forward seamless process. I was struck by how, even in a metropolis like Toronto, people were able to get in and out without a bunch of commotion. In the U.S., that would only happen if you live in a small town but not in a large city.  It's generally chaotic!  Canada's political system is streamlined, the U.S. is unwieldy and at this point, I think it's like this by design.

The party of "inclusion".

 

Edited December 4, 2019 by DramatistDreamer

[Toups]

 

I did early voting and it literally took me 5 minutes to walk into the building and walk out. And even if you do vote on voting day, you don't have to wait the entire day or 5-10 hours like I see on the American news.    And what I love about the voting system in Canada is that it's paper ballot and all you have to do is mark an 'X' in the circle beside the candidate's name.   Then you put your ballot in a box.   Whenever I hear about ballot issues (hanging chads!, electronic machines not working, people having to drive, or being driving to, for hours to find a voting station), I just shake my head.   The American elections (campaigns and voting methods) are so chaotic.  I don't know, maybe it's easier because we only have 38 million people. 

 

 

As for Harris, I'd love to see her as VP or AG. 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I know, I actually accompanied my cousins to their polling site on Election Day years ago!  It was so quiet and orderly and everyone was in and out in minutes, LOL! Only once have I had an election experience that comes close! 

 

I've voted in the Midwest, I have voted in NYC and in the suburbs about an hour and some minutes away, where I now reside and only if I show up at off-peak hours during midterms when turnout is suppressed, is it relatively quiet and orderly. But the small city nearest mine always, always has problems during election time. It's a mess and I'm not holding out much hope for it to improve by the primaries. 

[marceline]

 

I suspect we'll see them both gone by the end of the month. Fingers crossed that Yang goes with them.

[DRW50]

 

I've seen Warren heavily criticized for flip-flopping and she has suffered poll losses in part due to those attacks, but I do agree that Bernie has gotten a free pass (so has Pete Buttigieg, although I think that's partly down to him clearly having no chance - he is a vanity story the press can run with for a month or two before they dump him around February).

 

I think the media, some of them anyway, did genuinely like Kamala. Her announcement got a lot of buzz, as did her takedown of Biden at the debate. She also got her share of criticism, but I think the more recent coverage was part sexism and racism and part sharks circling the water. Her campaign problems detailed in those articles were so detailed and so systemic that I couldn't help thinking of Hillary's campaigns, especially her 2008 campaign, which was full of bitterly divided camps who stepped over any message she should have had. 

 

One of the other ugly elements of this primary, as @marceline is how much the hectoring of people on social media has dominated coverage and skewed perceptions. I've lost count of how many times I've seen black voters belittled on social media if they, say, support Biden. It's especially offputting to me when I see white people on Twitter who are going on about "white supremacy on the debate stage" to get likes and retweets, when there is an actual white supremacist in office and white supremacists run our Senate and are packing the courts. It's not fair that Tom Steyer could just throw money and get on the stage, but Booker and Castro have made appearances on the debate stage, with Booker in particular getting effusive media praise and the media asking why this hasn't increased his polling numbers. 

 

The conversation has tilted more and more toward telling voters they are racists or secret Republicans or what have you if they don't support Twitter's favorite candidate, and less and less about Trump. I would have voted for Kamala in the primary (the only other person I would have wanted to vote for is Warren), but even if Booker and Castro make it to the voting stage, I just don't know, especially about Booker, who decided dating a movie star was more important than running a coherent campaign. Castro I might have voted for, but I think he has run a bad campaign too focused on telling people how wrong they are than on much else. 

 

I feel like no one left can beat Trump, and I feel like deep down more and more people feel this way so the blame game has already started and people are already coming up with the reasons why they will stay home or vote third party. It's disheartening.

[Khan]

 

As mad as I'll be if/when is Trump is re-elected, I won't be surprised, because it's like what @DramatistDreamer says upthread: this country has the leader(s) it deserves; and either no one in charge wants to fix what is clearly broken, or they don't know how, or they THINK they know how, but their solutions to the troubles crippling our entire democratic process are outlandish and impractical.

 

Oh, well.  Maybe Gen Z will figure out what to do...or not.

[Chris B]

It's on purpose. Republicans know that the easier it is to vote the smaller their chances are. Some major states don't even have early voting. Not to mention the rigged machines. I think it was here where I saw a recent article about voting machines showing a Democrat received ZERO votes so they did a recount of paper ballots and the Democrats actually won that race. 

 

As for Senator Harris, the more I think about it and how sudden this is, I can't help but wonder if she cut a deal with Joe Biden for VP. Pete doing well in Iowa/NH will hurt Warren and Bernie who are already gonna split votes. Then as they go to more diverse states Biden will do well. If Kamala stayed in and took a good chunk of the black vote from Biden we could end up at the convention with a free for all. By her dropping out now, he doesn't have to worry about anybody splitting the black vote for him and he could pull out a win. 

 

That's just a theory, but I could see it happening. Her exit days after saying she exceeded her fundraising goal by 12% is just odd. She had too much momentum. There had to be another way *unless* a deal was cut. Another way Biden could've sweetened the deal is by telling her he'd only do one term.