Looks like the DNC really did pick a winner after all!
That is, if you want the winner to be Donald Trump. (which I would accept over Clinton to be honest.)
Take a look at this map of the most recent poll results from RealClear Politics.
So, looking at where she is at now and coupling that with the ever present "Clinton Slide" (My term for the phenomenon of how the the more she is exposed to the public the less they like her.) and it does not paint a pretty picture for the Clintons.
I see a few "Toss up" states that I am pretty certain will not go to Clinton, Florida, Georgia and NC have a stronger chance of going to Trump and I wouldn't rule out the significant possibility of Michigan and even Wisconsin also going to him.
PA may be more of a toss up, but there is even a chance she could lose that one, particularly if Trump comes out hard against Fracking there.
Arizona and Ohio could go either way but I would be surprised if AZ ended up going Clinton.
As far as the "Leans" states go, does anyone think Texas is going to go anywhere but Red this cycle? I don't. So there is another 38 votes for Trump.
The only leans state for Trump that I could see flipping to Clinton is Utah and maybe, just maybe Indiana.
Looking at the Leans Clinton states I see only 1 or two that may go the other way. Oregon and Colorado. Both have Liberal holdouts but also a large portion of those states are rural and tend towards the Republicans. If Trump were to embrace FULL legalization (Something he has come out favorably for in the past but has hedged a bit recently on probably to woo the more conservative voters in the Primary) he stands a STRONG chance of upending those as Hillary has been completely against doing anything about Cannabis reform until the polls forced her to take a somewhat tepid stance towards medical applications only.
I would suggest those of us that intended to do so should start working on their, "Hey, we warned you..." diaries for TOP. 
Comments
I don't want Trump as President
But there is a part of me that wants to see the collapse of these fake, power hungry, corrupt, "liberals" who are currently running the Democratic Party. I want to see Bill Clinton, Hillary, Ed Rendell, Barney Frank and all these other sycophants who placed Hillary's ambitions (and their own) above the best interests of 330 million Americans, be forced to confront their own depravity.
Jill Stein for President.
Beware the bullshit factories.
I Share Your Pain
The only hope we'd have should Trump win would be the Congress acting to defend the nation from his excesses. At that point, the only things turning Blue would be those holding their breaths waiting for that to happen.
Jill Stein For President.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
We can count on Bernie
to filibuster in the Senate. And to lead the opposition....to either Trump or Clinton.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
Sad fact is...
all the people you mention would be a lot more comfortable seeing Trump's agenda implemented as opposed to Bernie's. At the end of the day, the Clinton contingent and the Trump contingent are still just competing factions of the 1%.
inactive account
... and don't forget DWS --
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
Might not want him
But I'll take him over Hillary for the inevitable gridlock and opposition from the parties. Hopefully both of them, anyway. I don't want to see both parties cheering us into 3 or more middle eastern wars on top of the ones we're already involved in.
Who get's your vote?
#Steingetsmine
well we tried to tell them but they just wouldn't listen
how much influence can Clinton have? or is it really blackmail?
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
It's by design...
If the Democrats were to nominate someone who would crush the GOP, then the GOP may implode. If that happened, we may actually get a chance to split the Democrats and have a real progressive party. The establishment does not want that.
Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?
It won't take a Trump victory to splinter the Democrats--
it will simply require the Dems to nominate Medusa, a course upon which they embarked even prior to any candidate's formal announcement
If it
truly comes down to clinton or trump, the only thing that can save her is the republicans. The R establishment would certainly rather have her and a large block of the right wing believes trump is a clinton mole and will likely vote for Johnson. If the republicans field a traditional candidate she's toast. My niece is a rabid trump supporter and she's starting to have buyers remorse and is believing he doesn't really want it. I asked her "if they steal the nomination from donald at the convention will the trump supporters vote for his replacement?" She said, "hell yes as long hillary is on the ticket!"
Seeing similar with Trump supporters
fugwb, your observation regarding your "...rabid Trump supporter" niece is mirroring what I'm picking up from my Trump-backing co-workers (which is the vast majority of them). Their hate for Clinton seems to trump (sorry) their allegiance to Donald. Thing is, I suspect Donald Trump has his finger on the pulse of his supporters and can probably sing the We Hate Hillery tune better than the GOP establishment types.
I would love
see some polls such as; clinton vs paul ryan or clinton vs romney. I'd bet she'd get trounced in them
yuck
i would grudgingly vote for clinton over that arrogant little fuck ryan. i can't imagine the demo in which he'd have a chance at the presidency.
GIANT ALL-CAPS SIG
Yep - a Ryan candidacy is the only thing that would make me
consider a Hillary vote. She's a nightmare, but he's far worse. Evil little bastard that he is.
Ted Cruz, too. (n/t)
"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change." Stephen Hawking
NEW: http://www.twitter.com/trueblueinwdc
Ahem. There are alternatives.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
Damn right, I'm going Green regardless
these weaselly little creeps had the mask ripped off. They're two sides of the same coin and we KNOW that is a FACT--other than "social/wedge issues" which are very important as well yet still end up dividing us--fiscally, they want to claw everything back from the People that has value, that isn't nailed down.
Dems, GOP--both disgusting, awful, unworthy, corrupt charlatans. Go Green. It's time.
I filled out my change form yesterday and now it's sitting in an
envelope (only because I couldn't do it online.) waiting to get mailed out.
Just filling out out lifted a lot of weight off my shoulders so now I am just trying to decide if I want to mail it with the planned #Demexit event or do it immediately.
I still am chuckling over the fact that when I went to google to search for it yesterday I only typed "Florida CH" before it auto completed with "Florida Change Party affiliation."
Is there a way to see if just "Change Party Affiliation is trending in the search engines besides that?
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
If it's any consolation,
I bet that both Romney and Ryan are apoplectic about not being the nominee and having the chance to run against Hillary. "That should be ME, not Trump! I could have beaten her!"
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
I think the GOP could still buy out Trump
wrongfoot the dems, and win with a landslide.
FYI
Bernie Sanders book Our Revolution coming in November 2016 (Entertainment Weekly)
Bernie Sanders to write book out in November (CNN)
WI & MI
Been saying this since the primaries.
Gooper voters out polled Dem voters in both states (both of which Hillary lost). Bernie voters aren't guaranteed by any stretch, and if there is one thing that will unite the various Republican factions it is the prospect of voting against Hillary.
MI especially will be tough for her, but she can't lose afford to lose either one and still expect to make 270.
It's going to be very interesting to see how long the establishment Dems stick with Hillary.
The loyalty of rats to sinking ships comes to mind, but the longer they continue to promote her charade of inevitability, the less likelihood they have of finding a lifeboat.
Personally, I'm hoping they all go down with the ship.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
I hope they all get swallowed by a red wave.
Yes, the next four years will suck if that happens, but weakening the Democratic establishment will not only enable folks like Bernie to take back control of the party from the inside, but could also boost the status of third parties like the Greens as a viable alternative.
If the losses are overwhelming against someone like Trump in November, Hillary could become the corporatist equivalent of "McGovern," someone that we can hold over the heads of the establishment every single time they tell us to get in line and vote for the lesser evil.
Sometimes I think like you, and sometimes....
I think we're very close to the end of the 1920s where the left lost to Mussolini and Hitler because they refused to deal with the Democrats of their day.
So, for me, it comes down to answering this question: Is society still healthy enough to respond to a shock in a healthy manner, or are we seeing something far more similar to the 30s, where both the left and the liberals need each other to fight off something far worse?
If I only look at America, I have some hope that maybe we'd respond to shock in a healthy manner.
When I look at the world, I'm not at all sure. From Europe replacing democracies with technocracies, to the rapid removal of the leftish governments in Central and South America, etc.... things aren't looking good. At all.
From the rise of the right wing populist movements in France to Hungary to the Nordic countries to our Trump, things aren't looking so hot.
When I look at the world, I have serious doubts that shocks will be addressed by a wave of leftism rather than a wave of rightism.
I think we're very close to
Uh, well, the Hillary supporters are fucking useless, and Hillary is a terrible candidate who's more likely to BE the next Mussolini and Hitler than to prevent one, so I'm not sure what there is to work together on, frankly. We did our best to deal with the Democrats of our day and they stonewalled us.
Yes, Hillary is a terrible candidate and people wonder
why in the latest polls she's trailing (or barely tying) Trump in PA, OH & FL. And if you include the third party candidates, Clinton is trailing Trump in all three states. And Democrats are shocked! Shocked I tell you!
/s
Honest answer
I think we are more likely to go fascist in some form in this country than socialist. Borrowing notions from Thomas Franks (although they are pretty obvious to anyone who has an open mind), the Democrats abandoned poor and middle income people with the advent of the Clintons and the DLC. The Republicans used racism and social issues to win the votes of most lower and middle income white voters. Republican policies, however, and those of the Clintons and their allies have worsened the lives of poor and middle income people. People are losing hope and they are mad as hell, but neither of the parties has their interests in mind. They hate both Hillary and the Republican establishment (as well as Muslims and Mexicans, etc.). If the Democratic Party adopted Bernie ideas, they could again become the party of the people, but this will not happen as long as HRC and her ilk are ascendant. If things really crash (not unlikely) poor and middle class people with no electoral outlet will be ripe for exploitation by racist, fascist types. Trump is really a protofascist and his success shows how close we are to fascism in some form in this country. I am not saying it is unavoidable, but I am saying it is entirely possible.
I think it's possible too....
and less likely here than in Europe. Just seems we're really on a bad, bad road.
And we don't have the left organization we used to have, and climate disaster doesn't give a fuck about politics.
I think it's a culimination
of those factors. And the right has been exploiting the middle class for decades ala Raygun, Communism and the Cold War, gummint is the problem, free trade, and a financial bailout that did nothing for them and everything for the wealthy, who many of them perceive are of the Left and that isn't so far off the mark anymore. Many Trump supporters have already lost hope, that's why they respond so well to his rhetoric - they know something's wrong but they don't know who to blame, and when you try to explain to them it is so complex and interrelated that many just give up and blame the brown person, so much simpler. And they've been trained for the last 30 years to do just that via Faux, Rush, Coulter, Hannity and that whole ugly grifting crew. And you're so right in that it is Repugnant policies, along with the Dems who sold out to them long ago, that have broken many of these people but they are so hypnotized by the RWNJ propaganda that they cant, or wont, see that the very polices they vote for are the ones hurting them. My own family members were of this "won't" persuasion and one even told me that Liberals simply talk too much and make things too complicated..... As if things are not complicated and interconnected, but Liberals simply make them so, Jeez...
I read a couple of Perlstein's books, the Reagan one, a Nixon I believe, and trying still to get through the Goldwater. Those have given me a lot of insight into where a lot of the old RWNJ taboos came from and just how they were implanted so successfully in many Americans - my own parents included. I've argued with the parentals for years, but reading those books gave me some insight on just how they too were so manipulated by that for so many years, from youth on up. And I find it harder to blame them as much for their RWNJ views as I can see how they got there. This neo-liberal agenda has been a long time in the making and they're all part of it - Dems and Reps. Hell, the last honest Democrat who really cared about the working class really was FDR and even he had his "issues" - Kennedy and the wars, Johnson, Carter and the beginnings of bank deregulation and no friend to labor, then of course the obscenity of the Clinton's and the betrayal of Barack Obama. The rightward shift is nothing new, not at all.
I think fascism is more likely too, and I've thought since the beginning of the Tea Party that if those voters ever figure out just how they've been duped, things will come to a head much more quickly. And the only way for that to happen, in my mind, would be for a completely Repugnant government to do just what it intends to do, openly. Gut SS and Medicare, do not repair aging infrastructure, continue and multiply the wars, do nothing about climate and very little to even deal with the ever growing catastrophes from it. Only then might some of the Righties and neo-liberal "left" see the real damage and demand a stop to it because it will effect them directly. While I don't plan on voting for Trump to make that happen, and am horrified at the thought of how much damage it will do, I am to the point where I'm not sure the American people in enough numbers wake up and stop the madness before we do end up fascist. With the security apparatus we're getting closer every day to maybe not being able to stop it either.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Actually, Hillary is more likely to add fascism because of TPP
IF TPP passes Congress either under Obama in a lame-duck session or IF Hillary is elected and gets TPP passed, she and TPP will usher in world-wide fascism because of the empowerment of so many corporations involved with TPP. (She did work on the draft version, after all, and only said she didn't approve of TPP in its current form after establishment Dems saw that Bernie was cheered wildly when he said he is against TPP.)
Remember, their triumvirate corporate judges have more power than any court in any country, including SCOTUS in the US, and if corporations are awarded enough money to bankrupt a country, their corporate rule will be absolute. There is no appeal to a higher legal court under TPP. That is the #1 reason I strenuously object to TPP. A half step behind that is my concern for the international copyrights, trademarks, and control of prescription drugs and genetic studies done by pharmaceutical corporations.
Fascism and oligarchy seem to be the same concepts called by two different terms.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ..., where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. — President John F. Kennedy, Houston, TX, 12 September 1960
Thank you so much for your
Thank you so much for your comment, NonnyO! You've nailed it beautifully!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Where we are at is the Reappearance of the Christ
What we are witnessing is the old power structures grasping at every conceivable strategy to hold on to power while the story which has been around since the early 1980s (which head honchos within the the traditional media know as a fact yet never reported) finally comes to fruition. This is the age of Maitreya and all this chaos and confusion is only the old dying while the priority of the future - sharing the world's resources so all may lives of dignity - slowly comes into focus.
Exactly this!
It's not that I WANT to see Trump as president, but it would indeed give us a LOT of ammo to use on the rank and file dems, "Look, this 3rd way centrist crap isn't working obviously if we could lose to an evil Ooompa Loompa! We need to get back to the core progressive values this party once held if you want it to have any chance of being a political force in the future. Obviously based on the results of the last 30 years triangulation has not worked to our, or the parties favor."
My goal is not to see Trump or Clinton elected, my goal is to destroy the corporate grip on the party or barring that the destruction of the corrupt group of sellout rich boys club house. AKA the DNC.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
This Can't Work
Obama is going to get TPP pushed through the Congress during the Lame Duck session. It's essentially already a done deal. At that point, there is no hope remaining that the Democrats will rediscover their traditional support base values. Corporatism WILL rule the world to the detriment of us all, and which candidate wins the White House isn't going to matter one bit.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
They'll try to push it through during the lame duck
but I'm pretty sure Bernie's planning an old fashioned talking filibuster if they try.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
Obama is not going to get his way on TPP
Not now. Not since Brexit. Even the low-info voters are paying attention to "trade deals" now, and they're pissed.
Besides, Sanders has vowed to stop that piece of shit corporate treason if he has to filibuster to the death. So we ALL need to have his back. Starting right now.
Do you really think so, Luna?
If our "representatives" gave a rat's ass what the people wanted, I'd agree. But any one of them who votes to pass it can basically write their own checks, if not re-elected. They'll just go suck off the Corporate teat and get paid for passing the wonderful corporate giveaway.
I think they'll pass it and tell us all to go F ourselves. What are we gonna do about it?
But I sincerely hope you're right. I really do.
I hear ya
and I'm trying to be hopeful--honestly, before that vote in the UK, I had all but given up. That Brexit passed demonstrates that people are starting to wake up a bit from their government-induced stupors and are at least trying to fight back (even if all that they're fighting isn't really the point--like, "immigration" is a smaller component of the EU, IRT sentiment in the UK, but it's the part that's got peoples' attention).
And that gave me hope--I'll try to find some of the overseas op-eds on it, there seems to be a bit more awareness of how bad these deals really are. I'm not down and out yet. I could be totally off base, but IMO, we're not alone in this as a nation, by any stretch. The world is watching and they fight better than we do sometimes.
Which reminde me to opine that we could sure help ourselves an awful lot if we get the nerve and the will to fight here like they fight in Europe. We don't do General Strikes and we desperately need to learn how and start doing them.
Great points, and please let it be so
I like to hope, still, even after all this. And there is a big contingent of younger people who aren't going to give up so easily either when they have less to lose and more to gain. Thanks for that positive thought!
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Or is 'the anti-immigration
Or is 'the anti-immigration stance' just one of the talking points to denounce people who don't want themselves and their countries to be mere corporate assets?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I tend to agree with Haikukitty
I would give 60-40 odds that it will pass. It will probably be part of some package deal--e.g. a vote on a bad supreme court justice nominee in exchange for a vote on the odious TPP. This will give some people cover. The people at ToP will see it as a necessary compromise. Bernie, God Bless him, will fight. Sherrod Brown will fight, probably Elizabeth Warren and some others. But the corporate powers are relentless and it has been demonstrated rigorously that there is no correlation between popular opinion as expressed in polls and the passage of legislature. There is a very good correlation between corporate stance and legislature passage. In other words HK is right, they don't give a rat's ass what we want.
And then the bad corporate
And then the bad corporate Supreme Court Justice nominee can form the deciding vote in quashing Constitutional challenges to the notion that any public servant in the Oval Office effectively owns the country and people during his time of public service and can therefore hand over The People's democracy/right of domestic law to outside hostile powers.
Edited for an actual complete sentence, lol.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I Hope You're Correct
Except that hope isn't a good strategy for anything.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
The Dem establishment...
Will ride SS Hillary down to the bottom of the North Atlantic - all the while blaming 'progressives' for abandoning them. The Clintonistas ARE the Democratic establishment.
Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?
Sure looks that way right now.
But time will tell how many are truly willing to sacrifice their own political careers for the sake of Hillary's quixotic quest.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Let them cry and blame and yell at progressives
they refused to listen to us. I don't give a shit if they're gonna be upset about it. They built that. They own it.
As long as TPTB (and shouldn
As long as TPTB (and shouldn't be) are happy with their President, what else really matters?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Nearly half of Bernie supporters to vote third party ...
Probably as many of us old farts too.
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
Oldies
I would love to see "oldies" polled regarding their preferences for President 2016. Many of Bernie Sanders supporters were retired people like myself. We were progressives back in the 1960's and 1970's and stayed that way. For me, I always voted Democrat because it used to be the party of FDR, then it became the lesser of the 2 evils. Now, the neoliberal economic policies adopted by the Democratic elite result in the party being no different from the Republican party. I'm voting Green party for the first time in my life.
That sounds more plausible
than the earlier poling suggesting most of us were willing to head on over and join the dark side.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
and a lot of them will stay home
eom.
A lot of them always stay home
I'm not sure how that's helpful to note, other than "there will be turnout problems". There's nothing unusual about that.
I have caucused with lots of young Bernie supporters
They would have come out for Bernie but they will not come out for HRC and most will probably not come out for Jill Stein or down ballot races for that matter. The novelty is in the fact that Bernie was able to attract huge numbers of people that have not voted previously.
Utah for Clinton?
Utah hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. Oh, and they hate Clinton besides.
I don't think Clinton has a chance in Colorado. Bernie would have won big.
EDIT: Texas isn't in play unless Clinton puts Julian Castro on the ticket. Young Hispanic native Texan, former mayor of San Antonio. His brother is now in Congress and would be an additional surrogate. Julian could camp out in Texas, registering new (Hispanic) voters. Then maybe, just maybe...
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
The only reason I give a SLIM chance to Clinton in Utah is
due to the large Mormon population.
My wife is a reformed one, but many of her family, who are still deeply in the church, view Trump as disgusting to their beliefs.
Not that religious people don't have a long history of compromising their beliefs to fit their personal bias but for many of them I imagine his lifestyle and mannerisms are such a strong contradiction to their religious beliefs that they may have as hard of a time holding their nose and voting for him as progressives would for voting for Hillary.
So while I feel the odds are incredibly slim I wanted to try to be as fair as possible in my analysis and not rule out such factors.
Utah is a strange place.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
Utah
I volunteer in upstate NY with a revolving crew of young Mormon missionaries ("elders"). They saw my Bernie pin & told me they weren't allowed to vote while they were missionaries; they weren't even supposed to think about politics. But when I spoke with them after Utah went for Bernie, they were unable to hide their joy.
The Billionaires aren't that smart.
They will add a strong corporate homie as VP. Clinton and Shultz will do as they're told.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Castro wouldn't make any significant difference
in Texas even if he headed the ballot, sorry to say.
I live here. No Dem can win a statewide race at the moment. Still.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
Not my circus, not my monkey
Sanders' supporters did all we possibly could to give the Democratic Party the candidate who was polling ahead of Trump all along. I will vote for Stein in November because I truly believe that, long-term, a Hillary Clinton presidency is the worst alternative, yes, worse long-term than a Trump presidency. Maybe short term, too.
Stein will not win. The winner in November will be Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee. However, the best thing for America that can happen this November is that third parties make a good showing.
I think Stein can prevent anyone from getting 50 percent.
Then it will be decided in the NEW House of Reps.
Now about those new progressives running for congress in EVERY district . . . .
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
Bill Clinton Never Got 50%
Your scenario ONLY happens when no candidate gets 50% of THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE!!!!
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
She would have to win...
A couple of states to do that. Even Ross Perot didn't win any states.
Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?
Yep.
Although I don't think that's totally out of the question. Very unlikely, yeah. But Stein is going to get a lot of 'revulsion' votes. God knows what might happen in 4 months.
I do too
And I also think the naysaying "it'll never happen" mantras going on these last few days seems to emanate from the same quarters all the time. Please, just....enough of this, before it starts getting really obviously divisive. Nobody ever got anywhere yelling NO WE CAN'T over and over again.
Besides, I suspect that 'NO
Besides, I suspect that 'NO WE CAN'T' has been patented by Team Hillary.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
progressives running for congress
Progressives running for congress? In CO-5? Shirley Iugeste!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Personally, I think it's
Personally, I think it's stark staring nuts to prefer Trump over Hillary. The idea of "lesser evils" still does favor Hillary in this thing.
Also...single poll. The aggregates and the analysts (Silver / Wang) have Clinton far ahead, including state by state and with the electoral vote count.
I can't lose sleep over this poll.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this point.
We have a choice between a candidate with a known record of supporting regime change, bombings, selling out our interests to foreign parties, supporting Fracking and the death penalty.
Verses someone who outside of being a stark raving asshole, tends to run to the left of Clinton on some pretty important issues, such as trade and military interventionism.
I think this may be a case where, "The devil you know..." may not be the best choice.
I am way more afraid of the things Clinton could accomplish with bipartisan support than any garbage that Trump will try to get through while dealing with obstruction from both the parties.
It has been said that it would take a Democrat to kill social security, and Clinton is just the person for the job.
I also feel it would be MUCH easier to oust Trump in 2020 than an incumbent Clinton.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I agree with you. I'm more worried about
Hillary being president than Trump. Also, the dems in Congress will have to work a lot harder. Good.
Verses someone who outside of
I understand that line of thinking.
But I tend to think that Trump is more of a flunky for the more duplicitious and insidious in the Republican party. If he wins, the GOP will also be retaining Congress.
Ryan and McConnell are on board. Pence is now the VP nominee.
Trump is currently functioning as their Manchurian candidate. I don't like it one bit and would rather have some progressives in Congress, including Bernie Sanders, in a position to light fires under Hillary Clinton's ass.
But why do you think a Trump win means Congress too?
I think pretty much everyone is planning to support any progressive downticket candidates. (Most people anyway).
Best case scenario, in my opinion, is Trump with a progressive Congress.
Recced, although my opinion
Recced, although my opinion is that, barring a Bernie miracle, (he is known for pulling the impossible off,) best case scenario would be a miraculous Green win, avoiding both evils.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Well, of course, Ellen, that goes without saying!
But I just meant in terms of the status quo, likely outcomes.
YES to that last statement
that to me is huge. She can do one HELL of a lot of damage with one term, never mind what she could do with two. And it will be harder to get her out than Trump, if he even accepts the job. I'm skeptical Repugnants will refuse to work with him though, they are underneath it all bigots and assholes in their own right, but we can hope. They'll work with Shillary alright, on what they want - gut SS and Medicare, the wars and the cops, drilling, etc. Any progress on anything meaningful at all will be held up by those Impeachment hearings they're sure to bring. They'll need that show for the Midterms.
God what horrible choices.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Not planning on voting for either.
But Clinton has the body count. And Trump's just a blowhard.
What makes this
so sad:
is that its true.
I disagree with
your premise that voting for the lesser of two evils is always the best course of action. It fails to take a timeline into account. It is possible that the short term greater evil is not the same as the long term greater evil.
I think that we are lost if do not work towards a powerful genuinely progressive party and this would likely come about more quickly if the current incarnation of the Dem party is smashed and broken beyond all recognition. (a much more likely thing if Trump as opposed to Clinton wins the GE).
Of course opinions and analysis may vary and I am not saying mine is correct but it does provide an example of how the lesser evil is always preferable is a flawed premise.
FWIW I agree with your writings 99% of the time
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
They have her far ahead
in polls that are how recent?
That's the thing with Hillary. The more voters see of her, the more they find their dislike grow.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
Clinton vs. Trump
There are times I too would accept Trump over Clinton - gosh I can't stand the Clintons, either one of them.
But then that's where my focus has been. When I peel my eyes away from the Sanders/Clinton campaign, I realize that I hate Trump equally on a visceral level.
However people end up coming down come election day, I think the left needs to thing Trump thru a bit more than, for instance, I have yet to do to date. I imagine I'm not alone in my focus to date on Sanders vs Clinton rather than Trump vs Clinton.
I do this: I see some folks minimizing the threat posed by Trump. Leaving Trumps' threat relative to Clintons' aside, if Trump was our only choice, how would we feel about him?
For myself, I'd be utterly appalled and would see him as a piece of a larger puzzle where right wing populists are popping up all over the world, from Britain to Spain, from France to Hungary, etc.... Even in Nordic countries.
It seems to me that the world is on path to replicating the 30s economically, institutionally, rhetorically and politically, and where I think a technocracy (see Eurpope) has already made more inroads than in the 30s using tools at their disposal that technocrats could only dream of back then.
We live in scary times, and I really don't think we should minimize the threat of both right wing populism combined with firmly entrenched technocrats (ie, the opposite of "democrats") who now posses far more powerful tools to maintain their status than the world has ever seen.
Will Clinton "fight the power"? Of course not, but she's also not committed to destroying some "rights" we currently posses merely to impress some of the worst elements in our society, ie, the crazy, armed, rights wing lunatic fringe.
For myself, I haven't decided if I'll vote Clinton. But I don't think we should treat what's happening in the world in regard to folks like Trump popping up everywhere. A month ago I felt 99% sure I would not vote Hillary. Today, as I actually turn my attention to Trump, especially in context of what is actually going on in the world, I'm leaning towards "the lesser evil", as I remember that the left lost the upheavals of the 30s because they refused to work with the Democrats of their day. Thus we got Mussolini and Hitler.
Here's a bit by Yanis Varoufakis talking about Europe - not my favorite video by him, but can't find my favorites right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIjfyGIO4xA
Would Trump be worse than
any other Republican though? My instincts are that he will not be as bad as a say, Cruz, or Kasich for example.
I am not advocating voting for Trump - just trying to put the fear, and the lesser of two evils argument, in perspective.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
No, not really, I think Cruz would be MUCH worse....
But I find it unlikely that they will have a contested convention and even if they did nominate Cruz I doubt he could beat Clinton.
It's a tough call though because they are both completely corrupt and self serving and would be equally bad, just in different areas.
Cruz would probably be the greater evil in that Scenario but I still would not vote for Clinton. My Florida vote will be going to Stein unless it looks like Clinton is running close to Trump, in which case I would indeed have to break my pledge to no longer hold my nose and vote for the lessor evil.
I would really have to consider voting for Trump in that case, which is a position I will never forgive the democrats for placing me in.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
Cruz would be worse.
And Trump minus world wide trends wouldn't be as bad as Trump considering world wide trends.
I'm torn as far as who I'll vote for. For now I'm supporting both Sanders and Stein, but realize neither will win the nomination. As for Clinton, I'll just have to wait to see how things unfold.
Trump would not be as bad as Kruz or Kasich
Trump: Against TPP, against US military expansion [Amount of money saved: in the trillions.] That has to be weighed against his general hyperbolic mendaciousness which would involve making the executive wing into a national and international reality TV show and suckering Congress and SCOTUS into the picture to keep Moronic Media focused squarely on him because of his narcissism..., not to mention his bigotry, misogyny (& lewd and lascivious remarks), and egomaniacal personality,
Kruz & Kasich are both reichwingnut religious freaks and would use Dumbya's unconstitutional and illegal 'office of faith-based initiatives' [which Obama retained and expanded] to try to implement a national religion. Hillary, in her & Bill's new-found friendship with Bush the Lesser (since they have charities together via the Clinton Foundation), would let The Fellowship, aka The Family, do something just as stupid, and would leave the unconstitutional office in place. I don't believe she is religious, in spite of her friendship with Coe and going on retreats with The Family, but she knows how to exploit those who believe hypocritical religious values are good.
No matter which way one turns, the only viable candidate who has the interests of We the People at heart is still Bernie Sanders, and he's the only one fit to be president. All the others are unacceptable for multiple reasons.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ..., where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. — President John F. Kennedy, Houston, TX, 12 September 1960
Yep - the truth is I hate them equally.
Although I theoretically believe Trump's incompetence would make him less dangerous, simply because he couldn't get much done - when I actually hear him speak, he just disgusts me. She does too.
Which is why I simply can't vote for either of them. Let the chips fall where they may. Either way, its going to be a miserable 4 years, at a minimum.
I honestly don't think Trump is committed
to anything other than self promotion.
And even if he were actually committed to destroying civil rights (as it seems when he shoots his mouth off about this, that or the other thing) he would discover...surprise surprise! that the president doesn't actually have the authority to do any of that.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
No, but Congress does have the power
to destroy civil rights.
Arguably though
I suspect that there will be more distance between a Trump administration and the GOP side of congress (especially the Senate) than any other candidate in any other cycle. A Trump WH may be fairly isolated - even on their own side. Another reason why this election may be the one not to worry too much about the lesser of two evils argument.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
I just really doubt that. It has boggled my
mind that most commentators (MSM, etc....) think there's a meaningful divide between the Repubs and Trump. I think the real issue is that he didn't come from the inner circle far more than any actual huge policy difference. And I suspect that there are those who can't wait to be more free to express their true thoughts and feelings when it comes to women, blacks, etc.... And some who can't wait to have free reign to rev torture back up, dream of using nuclear weapons on their enemies as a way to feel their own tiny dicks at night, etc...
Really, I think there's a number of congress creatures who would trade legal abortion for the chance to unleash their barely constrained hate for everyone but themselves in a heart beat.
They have destroyed our civil rights already
All counter to the rights granted to us under the Constitution. Congress has NOT yet given us back our rights, either.
While the icky Patriot Act was finally allowed to expire, the most objectionable part, Section 215, was voted back into effect two days later, thanks to Democrat Patrick Leahy who wrote a new bill encompassing that section into it. [Talk about idiocy!]
They also need to repeal (in full) MCA '06, FISA '08, and MCA '09, more unconstitutional spying and threats of illegal and prolonged incarceration without due process that hangs over our heads.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ..., where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. — President John F. Kennedy, Houston, TX, 12 September 1960
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