The Politics Thread

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

YYYAAAAYYYY HILLLARY!

[DRW50]

Congrats to Hillary - that was a must-win and she and her team had spent a long time making sure not to take Nevada for granted. 

 

I do worry about the Hispanic and youth support for Sanders, because if Rubio wins the nomination then I think they may be tempted by him.

[Juliajms]

No need to worry Carl. Donald Trump is kicking ass and taking names.  

 

I'm so horrified by this turn of events. It's not even that I think he could truly win the white house. I'm just completely disturbed that so many people are voting for someone who outright said he would ban a particular religion. The very people who are constantly quoting the constitution when it comes to their gun rights. Add all the other horrifying things he's said and this is an incredibly disappointing result.

[DRW50]

I have to admit I thought it would be closer (I thought he'd win by about 5%), but Rubio being tied for second with Cruz tells you where the race is going. I think at some point he will overtake Cruz's support and the combined votes along with the support from those who backed Jeb, Kasich, etc. will be enough to knock out Trump later in the race.

 

Meanwhile, Trump's America:

 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/protest-mosque-event-refugees-texas

[DRW50]

Yikes.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/20/dolores-huerta-says-she-was-shouted-down-with-english-only-chants-from-a-sanders-crowd/

[DRW50]

And Jeb's out:

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/breaking-news-jeb-bush-is-suspending-his-presidential-campaign-219564

 

Watch the media use this to tell us the real winner tonight was Marco.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

I mean the media should do polls regarding the Muslim thing...I dont hate Muslims. I don't hate Islam. But I can't deny that it seems like a lot of mentally screwed up violent people are coming out of that religion committing horrible acts of terrorism against innocent people. And plenty are plotting all over this world. Whats the one thing most of these major terrorism groups has in common? Islam?

 

So yes I'm not surprised people are angry/scared and want a ban. That aside some people think its a logical decision/move until we get a freaking handle on who exactly is coming over into the US and crossing into Europe.

 

And of course Rubio is the winner here...I mean all the money behind Jeb will go to Marco....

Edited February 21, 2016 by ThePrinceOfSunspear

[Juliajms]

I agree this is terrible, but I don't think Sanders has said anything to encourage or condone this type of behavior. In that sense the candidate himself is different from Trump, even if he has also acquired some racist and sexist followers.

[DRW50]

Well as it turns out it may have been a mishearing. I agree with you about Sanders.

 

http://www.snopes.com/sanders-english-only-huerta/

[Vee]

In memoriam.

 

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[DRW50]

That was brilliant.

 

This campaign was Jeb's worst nightmare. Not only to fail, but to fail to a circus clown, and to fail after primary voters rewarded said clown for shitting on his brother's main legacy as President.

[Vee]

The sad thing is, as many of the pieces on his exit indicate, though I never agreed with Jeb politically I think most of us regard him as 'the least objectionable Bush' who given his own family (i.e., his wife) and history wasn't necessarily out to ship the brown folks off on a bus - I think he meant it when he repeatedly said he wanted to run a positive campaign looking to the future without hate, bigotry, etc. The problem is he was the only Republican frontrunner interested in that, and certainly his base does not give a [!@#$%^&*]. It's not his GOP anymore. This is the party and the constituency he and the rest of them created, and now he doesn't understand his own people. He looked lost and confused the whole time.

[Juliajms]

I take it Bush leaving the race mostly helps Rubio? I'll admit I felt a little bit sorry for Jeb through this. I thought he had a good chance when this whole thing started, which goes to show how out of touch I was with the average Republican.

 

Is this really the party the GOP elite created? I'm not so sure. If it were wouldn't they be flocking to Rubio? If it is, I'd say Frankenstein has lost control of his monster and the villagers are f*cked.

 

Here is a good piece on Trump by Ezra Klein. I think he makes some great points.

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/10/10956978/donald-trump-terrifying

[DRW50]

Media darling Marco is the new media darling Mitt and media darling McCain - everything helps him. They will do anything - anything - to get him in the White House. And at this point the only thing stopping that is probably Trump. Cruz is so incredibly unpleasant in every single way that he is managing to lose a base that should be locked up for him (the "Jesus told me to hate you" voter) to Trump, of all people. I imagine he's also losing some of that to Rubio. Now of course a lot of Jeb's support will flock to Rubio, as they have nowhere else to go, unless Kasich suddenly has a pulse, which I doubt. 

 

There are few things more cynical than the breathless spin that Rubio, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are showing everyone the "new" Republican Party. They are actually just doing the thing that conservatives despised (tokenism) for decades. Their views and policies will do nothing but grind POC into the dust. I assume most POC aren't swayed by this shell game (even if Democrats don't give them a lot to vote for), but guilty white liberals in the press corps lap it up. I still remember the oceans of fawning press coverage when W and Condi Rice went to Iraq incognito and posed as a married couple. How progressive and how far we've come, etc. 

 

Trump's anti-Muslim diatribes are now so casual they are more dangerous than ever. It's not about protecting America - it's about reflexive, easy hate. "Joking" that Obama would only go to Scalia's funeral if it were held in a mosque is the most crass, and sadly most successful, bigotry. 

 

As for Jeb, he ran as an extremist in 1994 and lost, which likely led to the identity crisis that followed since. This lengthy writeup on his behavior in the Terri Schiavo case is a good look into his mind.

 

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-terri-schiavo-114730

[Vee]

Nah, what's stopping Rubio is that he's not good enough and never was. I don't know if he's as crashingly inept as Mitt was or as tired and confused as McCain was in '08, but he's not good enough. I've never taken him seriously and I never will.

 

There's always going to be a Beltway press that will stump for some of these guys and try to make them happen, but until the GOP completely flushes the lunatics and obstructionists out of their system - a process which will take years - I don't believe they will find a candidate for whom a manufactured Beltway narrative will actually match the man or woman trying to take office.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Vee