Democrats seem determined to lose to Trump again
This is starting to feel a whole bunch like 2016.
Back then Trump managed to steal the white working-class votes in the Rust Belt states because he talked about bad trade deals and how they cost us whole industries, while the Democrats wouldn't even consider the topic. The Democrats didn't care about the white working class in the Rust Belt states. They took them for granted for 40 years.
Instead of learning from that mistake Democrats have doubled down. They've made an obvious and unmistakable display of rejecting young leftists. They seem to take pleasure in humiliating any leftist voter and mocking their values.
Well guess what? Someone noticed. And that someone is President Trump.
It's no coincidence that Trump has made a flurry of the executive orders that are all targeted at values young leftist voters hold close to their hearts.
While at the same time the Democratic establishment is telling those voters "we don't want you, we don't need you, and we will not represent you, but if we lose it will be your fault."
Trump ordered to continue deferring federal student loan payments through the end of the year with no interest accrued. It's only 3 months, but it's a big deal that the Dems couldn't be bothered with.
Trump signed an executive order to extend enhanced unemployment benefits at a reduced rate of $400 per week. It's mostly unworkable in it's current form, but he gets more credit than Congress.
But the really big ones came yesterday, and these deserve to be talked about.
President Donald Trump on Friday signed four executive orders aimed at lowering the high cost of prescription drugs in the United States in what would make sweeping changes to the prescription drug market in the U.S. if they are finalized.Industry trade group PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, called them a “reckless distraction” to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"if finalized" is the key phrase, but Big Pharma has big reasons not to like them.
The first order targets high insulin prices, requiring federal community health centers to pass discounts they receive on the drug and EpiPens directly to patients. The president said those providers shouldn’t receive those discounts while charging their patients “massive, full prices.”
The second order would allow states, pharmacies and wholesalers to import drugs from Canada where they typically cost less than in the U.S. In most circumstances, it is illegal to import medications from other countries for personal use, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Those two right there would be HUGE! Earthshaking! But that's not all.
The third order is aimed at preventing “middlemen,” also known as pharmacy benefit managers, from pocketing “gigantic discounts,” Trump said.
Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters on a conference call after the signing ceremony that drug companies currently pay about $150 billion in undisclosed kickbacks to middlemen often in exchange for more favorable insurance coverage for their drugs...
The fourth order, which Trump said he may not need to implement, would allow Medicare to purchase drugs at the same price other countries pay.
In just one day, Trump outflanked the Dems on the left, and could legitimately claim to be the lesser evil...if he was serious about these.
Which he isn't.
But we all know that Biden will never, ever propose these common sense reforms.
Just to add a cherry on top, Trump even virtue signaled to The Left about a pet cause.
Speculation is growing over whether Donald Trump might pardon Edward Snowden after the US president told an interviewer that the exiled former intelligence operative was “not being treated fairly”.The comments came as the Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican, made a surprising call on Friday for Snowden to receive a presidential pardon.
Before taking office, Trump tweeted at least 45 times denouncing Snowden as a traitor and calling for his execution. So Trump won't do sh*t for Snowden.
But that really isn't the point. Young Leftists are being kicked in the face by the Dems, while Trump is articulating actual leftist policies. He wouldn't be doing this if the Dems hadn't handed Trump this golden opportunity to steal away critical votes.
Trump can't be trusted. He never came through for the white working-class voters in the Rust Belt states. He'll never come through for young leftist voters.
But it is certainly an effective political strategy to throw young leftist voters a bone while the Democratic establishment makes it abundantly clear that progressives will get absolutely nothing from them.
Comments
Very true but.......
Can young leftist voters trust biden and harris on anything they say?
Conundrum.
I trust neither party to work for the commoner.
*Edited to add: Nice job gjohn.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Biden\Harris can be trusted not to give a f*ck
Is that the answer you were looking for?
Their open contempt for young leftists is the only honest part of their campaign.
Expansion
Not to mention old leftists as well. Hell, any leftists.
But, yeah, the undiluted vitriol is reserved for the nation's youth. Gawd, these people are awful.
A Winning Slogan Guaranteed to Attract the Left
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Neither candidate is acceptable
And unfortunately, the Green guy seems to be quarter assing it at best.
As not voting is similarly out of the question, any suggestions for a decent "none of the above" type candidate?
They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore
I know Bernie is on Team Biden now, but
I think it would be a big f-u to the Dems to write his name in. It’s probably an act of futility, though, as messages, even the f-u kind are supposed to flow down to the mortals from Mt. Olympus and never the other way.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Dennis Kucinich maybe
I'm sure that's due
to his enormous budget and great legion of fans. Resources make the man.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
American Politics 101
Best liar wins.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
So now we have our answer
Do we accept the politician who at least pretends to respond to our pressure or the politician who openly stands against us?
The Democrats are leaving us with no choice and laughing at us. Well the joke just might be on them, like it was last time.
On to Biden since 1973
I, for one
will not be bothered by another trump win.
We're alive to witness the fall of an empire regardless of who is stationed on the masthead.
What comes next promises to be breath and life taking.
Who writes the story of history when no one survives?
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
The only thing
we can trust is Biden/Harris to go after the "radical" left, and law'n'order Kammy to go after ANTIfa (whatever that is) with vigor, to prove her moderate creds.
That would be the ultimate irony
If a Biden/Harris presidency crushed all of the left and left-of-center protest movements, and any real grassroots progressive movement in this country.
That could be a bridge too far, but I can't rule it out. After all, Obama\Biden crushed OWS.
Speaking of that...
Please tell me that is a spoof post.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Just more Virtue Signaling
at the expense of any and all honest opinions.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
IDK
I found it on reddit. It may be real. It may not.
Legit
It’s from their Instagram feed.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
BLM - compromised as always
Wow! It's real. Appears BLM is more ID politics than I'd even imagined.
Talk about scuttling your own ship... If they embrace Harris, they're sunk. And, from that Instagram post, they've evidently more than done it. They even fired someone who posted "something disheartening" about KH.
It's going to be tough for Black Americans to fight against BLM as they've pretty much got the media (other than RWNJ media) sewed up. Any pushback against them will get nowhere as no one will even know about it.
I'd had hope that BLM had come around a mite in the last few months. But, no. It's still the same outfit that attacked Bernie, yet schmoozed Hillary. Apparently, nothing has changed but their bank account balance – which, to be sure, is not in the red.
I’d heard rumblings
that BLM had been taken over by the usual suspects that invade every social movement on behalf of the neoliberal establishment. That kinda confirmed it.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
And that's exactly how it works.
That's how creating and running a fake social justice campaign can benefit you, if you're a fascist piece of shit. It becomes incredibly difficult for people to oppose your fake social justice campaign without being seen as opposing social justice. At that point, people with credibility have to publicly point out the fakery, repeatedly, persistently. Good luck getting the media to spread that message.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What a load of garbage.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Perhaps some different phrasing needed
"Trump managed to steal the white working-class votes"
"Steal" would imply the D's owned those votes, and I think every voter owns their own vote. Besides, is it possible to steal something that was tossed away as trash?
Imagine if the Dems won the presidency
House and Senate.
Then they would have to actually do something useful for the population. Far too scary a prospect. Best to just win a little bit. A tad of a victory. Donor friendly.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
DC Dems still wake up in cold sweat
when they dream of 2009-2011.
Obama?
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
As Marie said,
we must excise the specter of the years 2009-2011 from our minds. Never happened. Or else it was the mean Republican obstruction in the Senate. Which was real, but of course, they could have used their supermajority, which they had for a total of 4 1/2 months (non-consecutive) to put through a piece of legislation making it impossible, or at least illegal, for the Republicans to use the filibuster that way.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That would e the time to reach across the aisle and
govern for ALL the people. As if Republicans hadn’t already gotten everything they wanted and more already! We never see them meeting Dems halfway. When The GOP is in power, they run things. When the Dems are in power, the GOP runs things.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
They can't be that stupid
not to know that when it comes down to fake rethugs and the real thing, people will choose the real thing.
Too busy courting the right (who don't want them anyway, ah, unrequited love). Not quite Shakespeare, but good theater nonetheless.
Exactly,
make just enough of a showing to keep the money rolling in, and the plutocrats happy. Dress it up in virtue. Keep a monster in the closet to bludgeon us with when we get out of line.
Donorcrats.
More like 2004
except the DNC/DP poobahs got their act together more quickly. After a long career of dreaming about being POTUS, Kerry was totally lame on the primary campaign trail. Then bam, out of nowhere the party pulled out a win in IA and that led to his win in NH. Edwards was still counting on SC to put him back in the race, but the old guard was having none of that.
So, what was Kerry running on? (I'm not Bush?) Couldn't very well use the by then obvious fact that GWB lied the country into a major war because he'd signed onto it. Could have taken advantage of the Bush torture doctrine, but didn't.
Left of center center voters were still furious about the Iraq War. So, Kerry chose as his VP a Senate co-sponsor of the IWR. What was this supposed to accomplish?
In the end, Kerry flipped FL, IA, and NM for GWB.
Thank you for this post.
I was trying to make this analogy earlier this evening but I’d really forgotten so much about 2004 that I was struggling. In the back of my head, I was pretty sure this comparison was valid. So thanks for connecting the dots.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
There are a few more similiarities
and some notable differences.
1. An incumbent running for re-election. Voters tend to favor giving an incumbent a second term/second chance. Carter and GHW Bush weren't worse in their first terms than Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, GW Bush, and Obama. However, both were more obviously screwing the "little guy" and there were larger than usual intra-party divisions in 1980 and 1992 when the opposing party was united.
2. As it was still the Clinton DP in 2004, Kerry was supposed to lose to open the space for HRC in 2008. While it may now look as if it's the Clinton-Obama DP, I suspect a split remains. If both had settled on Harris in advance of the primary cycle, their objective wouldn't have been the same. Obama wants to play king-queen maker and get back in power; therefore, he absolutely wants a win for Biden-Harris. HRC still wants to prove that she didn't lose to Trump and a Harris win would refute that.
3. Dean and Sanders. The DP threw both under the bus, and regardless of how nutso they became in supporting the official DP nutiness in an attempt to claw their way back to DP relevance, remain persona non grata. Took a bit longer in Dean's case than Sanders,
After Kerry lost the general election, the anti-Iraq War faction was behind getting Dean appointed to DNC chair. He was an able administrator, unlike his predecessor McAuliffe, but he wasn't a Clinton guy. Irrelevant in 2005 because other than HRC, the DP bench was empty for 2008. When it became less empty than expected, Dean declined to put a thumb on the scale for HRC. Obama knows damn well that he wouldn't have been the nominee if HRC had controlled the DNC in '08 (and very likely that one of HRC's demands to support Obama in '08 was that Dean would be exiled). Understood well that Wasserman-Shultz was put in there in 2011 as insurance for HRC's '16 nomination. Her loss gave him the power to put in his own lackey who while a bit slow (possibly wasting time trying to get Harris to the top of the leader board) was able to orchestrate the Biden nomination.
4. With a few exceptions, notably Gore, Democrats were no more an alternative voice in the run-up to the Iraq War than they have been in the development of the coronavirus pandemic. From December 18 through February 5, Democrats were consumed with the impeachment and trial of Trump. The critical time period for getting ahead of the pandemic was from mid-January until the first week of February. They had nothing then and other than passing GOP supported massive cash giveaways, they still have nothing. As China demonstrated, stomping on SARS-CoV19 could be done, but it required international cooperation and government transparency. Now we've settled down into a chronic SARS-CoV19 pandemic and argue over its lethality, lockdowns, school openings, masks, etc. and throwing a lot more money at the economic pain that the bad public policies over the past six months have created. So very much like the non-constructive debates over the Iraq War in 2004.
You should write an essay.
this is good stuff.
Let me thrown another log on the fire, if you haven’t seen this yet: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationsh...
There’s a lot of nuggets there. I think it confirms your thoughts on the Clinton/Obama sides having an uneasy alliance l. To my reading, it enforces my thoughts that Biden is a Trojan horse to get President Kamala, who they’d decided on as far back as 2017. Since she wiped out so badly, they had to find the most neutral candidate in the bunch who would have a shot at winning but could be removed when it was time.
So that’s Biden. He’s a old and sundowning so having him step down for medical reasons isn’t a stretch. And no one will be too upset when he does because no one is really for him. But he’s not necessarily turn committed Dems away either, especially if they think someone else is running the show.
I don’t know. I haven’t really put it all in words but maybe you see where I’m going with this. Treating this like a murder mystery is the only enjoyment I’m getting out of this election.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Months ago
Biden referred to himself as a "transition candidate", which is about as close as can be expected to suggesting he would be just a one-term president.
When Biden steps down........
and makes Harris president she is going to need a vice president right? Yup. And rumors are that Hillary has made herself clear that she would happily accept a position in Biden's cabinet. Well there ya go.. whoa-la there is Hillary's chance to step up.
laughing cuz it's so true.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
VP Pete.
you heard it here first. Lol
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
That would take far more time and
effort to write up a very long essay that would exceed the attention span of even C99 readers.
The Politico article is a puff piece for Biden. The quotes are probably accurate but misleading within the writer's thesis that Joe got the 2020 nomination all on his own and no thanks to Obama.
What Biden has never understood, and Obama has never revealed to him or anyone else, he was offered the VP slot in '08 because 1) he'd been in the Senate for a long time and Obama needed that to shore up his thin resume and 2) he wasn't intended to be Obama's successor and Obama assumed that he would be too old even to attempt it. That role had been filled before Biden was given the nod. If I've got this right, Biden was one of three on the short list: Baucus, Biden, and Dodd. As the oldest, Baucus would have been the least likely to expect to run on his own. Dodd would have been the most likely. Baucus was too overtly conservative and Dodd wouldn't have been content to play cheerleader in chief.
So of course Obama never encouraged him. And in his own right, Biden didn't have a constituency and fundraising operation that would have allowed him to be competitive without direct support from Obama. It was only the outpouring of sympathy for his dead son that made Biden think that he was finally in a position to 'go for it' again if only Obama and his team organized it and raised the bucks.
Had to laugh about the claims that Obama is a cold, policy wonk and Biden is warm and knows how to connect with people. Guess that's why Biden got 1% and Obama won IA in '08.
Beyond having designating HRC as his immediate successor, Obama wants to remain the power in the DP for a long time to come. That isn't facilitated by going all in with a dead-ender. HRC was closer to that than Obama would have preferred, but that deal was instrumental in putting him in power.
Behind the curtain
Bingo!
For me, the common denominator with all the various shenanigans we have seen – from the pick of Tom Perez, to the shafting of Bernie, to the "landslide' primary wins of Biden – is Barack Obama. He sits in his mansion in Martha's Vineyard and cashes checks.
How many mansions does he own?
There's the DC Kalorama house, Martha's Vineyard vacation house, Chicago house (presumably used when he drops in to check on the progress of his monument to himself). They apparently declined to buy Ranch Mirage digs and so far not interested in Hawaii (too far from the action except when traveling by AF1).
He's just using a version of the Clinton playbook who also didn't want to leave office and wanted remain at the top of the political power heap. A major difference is that Obama can be far more covert than Bill Clinton was because his wife has no intention of being his successor. This stuff can get complicated because stuff happens in the interim. Had HRC won, Obama's power would have been diluted, but unlike Bill, he could live with that power sharing for four to eight years.
Where both of them erred was in overestimating their power with voters. The believe too much in their own propaganda. Gore may have turned towards populism (rejecting Clinton) to get into the 2000 race even as his campaign was underfunded compared to Bush's, but he did win. Obama lost to a nincompoop that spent half of what HRC spent. (He also took out several very well funded competitors in the primary and did it without RNC cheating for him.) A Biden-Harris loss will be on Obama even if he didn't want Joe as the nominee, he did want Harris who ran so poorly in the primary that she couldn't make it to IA.
Summertime...
Obama will get Harris in the end. Maybe even before January. Planned from the beginning? Maybe not, but does Obama knows medical information re Biden that few know? Still, I don't think they considered Harris getting wiped out so badly in the primaries.
Seems that Obama is positioning himself so as to avoid blame if or when Biden/Harris go down. My money is still on Trump. If there's an actual "debate," I'll triple it.
Didn't know about the other Obama houses. Just this one:
Livin' is easy for some folks...
Hi traveler
The Clinton and Obama personalities were not yet on the scene 40 years ago, when Martha's Vineyard was still a very special, uncomplicated place. I spent as much time as possible there at Gay Head (Aquinnah). The only famous people I knew of that lived on the island at that time were the musical Taylors and Carly Simon. It was very low-key. Wealth, especially of the Clinton and Obama variety hadn't fucked it up yet. I find the excess of the Obamas and Clintons revolting.
[video:https://youtu.be/fpK0kv3CuaI]
Complications have arrived.
Wish I could say I'd been there, but I have not. My wife grew up in New York state and has been to it, so I know of it from her. Funny that you'd mention Taylor and Simon; I had never even heard of the place until I read that they lived there. Long ago now.
You'll never keep wealthy folks out of a place that beautiful, but you can hope for some who realize that it's something rare and not to be destroyed. Those days are likely gone.
I feel incredibly thankful and privileged
to have experienced a few of the vast and amazing American landscapes while they were still relatively natural.
Change
Yes, I understand. While I've traveled less in the eastern and southern US, my family took us kids to many areas of the Rocky Mountain west on vacations. These vacations started back in the mid 1950's, so I was able to experience areas that later became very populated and overpriced. As an adult, I even lived in a few of these places – luckily before the massive influxes of population and money.
It even applies to not-so-natural places. I envy people who knew the NYC of many decades ago. Glad I'm able to remember Cripple Creek, Colorada, when it was little more than a ghost town with only a tiny handful of residents ...far from that now. Forty years after living near the beach in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, I can barely find familiar landmarks when I use Google Earth to cruise around. You'd have to be at least a millionaire to live there now.
I know you understand traveler.
Even though I was born in Brooklyn and was lovingly cared for there, my heart and fortunately my being has resided mostly in the beauty of natural landscapes.
Where we be not always where we are
Seems my essence still remains somewhere in the high plains of Kansas, specifically the Flint Hills. My residence has often been elsewhere. I think William Least Heat-Moon understood it when he wrote PrairyErth.
It looks like you can see forever in the Flint Hills.
What imagination it must have inspired.
https://www.mickeyshannon.com/gallery/flint-hills-photography/
Great comments here to recommend the book -
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/163868.PrairyErth
Thanks traveler.
Ruts
Thanks for the link to Mickey Shannon's Flint Hills photos! I had not seen those before. I have actually been to a good number of the locations in that album! There is one noted as of Pillsbury Crossing – I've been there a hundred times if I've been there once. It's called a "crossing" as it was used as a crossing for wagon trains back in the day. There's an area of very shallow water running over a rock shelf. So many wagons crossed there that the ruts are permanently graved into the rock. I know of a number of places like that.
Yes, you can pretty much see forever.
Thanks traveler, for the prompt to explore
new lands, through photographs. It's also nice to know where others have lived and loved.
First time on the Vineyard
Decided to hike from Miami to Maine one summer. Must have been '78 or so. Explored the coast, mostly on foot. Did the coastal islands of northern FL and GA, Outer Banks of the Carolinas, as much beach as I could manage, many little ferry's until getting into the metro NYC area. Caught a LI RR out to Montauk, then skipped across LI Sound to CT. Another commuter train out to Cape Cod, another ferry across to the Vineyard.
Some nice lady picked me up and brought me by this little grocery store (she needed ice cream. The proprietor was whistling very musically. Turns out it was Livingston Taylor. She then called teacher friends who were building a house for a client during the summers. They put me up in a bedroom with a skylight over head for the night.
Then made it out to Provincetown (slept in the bushes) and across to Boston. Getting out of there was another trip (bus, hitch hiking, helpful local cops) and eventually back to the NH coast and into Maine. Got as far as Bar Harbor, had (another) epiphany there. Got a ride from a South African dentistry student in a VW bug heading to Montreal. Then boarded a train across Canada and got back to Ann Arbor to finish up my psychology studies at U of M. Quite a trip.
The first epiphany was on the west coast, but that is another story.
Cheers!
What a trip, QMS
It sounds like it was life-changing and epiphany-inducing.
And to think we might have crossed paths. I’m pretty sure it was Livingston Taylor behind the counter at the Chilmark general store, when I'd stop for supplies (and ice cream) on my way to Menemsha.
Cheers!
Mostly on foot ! ! !
that was an era!
Took about 3 months
carried a hammock and a space blanket
not much else, maybe a couple hundred bucks
life was easier then!
Great essay
Hillary lost 2016 because she refused to offer anything to the “deplorables” except contempt. Biden is a little better at appearing human, but he’s repeating the same mistake.
There was this great interview Jimmy Dore did in 2016 with a guy who is a Kentucky coal miner and to paraphrase, he said we could vote for Hillary who is telling us things are already great and offering us nothing. Trump is saying he understands and is going to do something. Now, we don’t have any reason to believe him and are pretty sure he’s lying. But just the fact that he is even admitting things are not great for the bottom rungs is reason for people to vote for him.
Simple, isn’t it? People need something to vote for. And no, I don’t believe Trump either. But what he did is a much better look than Hidin Biden or Nancy going on vacation.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I just replied to a tweet that said voters let democrats
down by not voting for them. I told him that he had things backwards and it’s democrats who should be doing things for us to get us to vote for them. It’s amazing how many people think that one owes their vote to democrats even after they screw us over and over.
Some folks are blaming Nader for Bush starting the Iraq war. Why? Because he dared run against the establishment. I reminded them that democrats voted for it and he should hold them responsible for it.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
While I never considered voting for Nader
(in 2000), I agreed with his critique. Although it was a clumsy attempt to articulate what the Clinton/DLC gang had done to ordinary working folks. As such, I also never blamed the Nader voters for GWB and was repulsed by Democrats spending years shaming Nader voters*. Those Democrats were as unhinged as the Russiagaters because they too failed to look at the facts:
#1 - Gore trailed (often by a significant margin) GWB from the earliest polling and up until the DNC convention.
#2 - Gore found his inner populist voice (family tradition) for his acceptance speech. Clinton and ilk were furious about that. (It broke with the 'brave new world they had spent years building and a Gore win wasn't on their agenda.)
#3 - Gore chose a terrible VP. Cheney wiped the floor with Lieberman in their debate.
#4 - Gore still won, but the DP were okay with not counting the FL votes and letting the SC make the final call.
The Senate vote on the IWR took place on October 16, 2002. At that time their were 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 1 Independent (Jeffords). Democrats had the votes to stop the IWR if they weren't as bloodthirsty as Bush/Cheney. Could have been 52 to 48. But no, only 21 Senate Democrats, Jeffords and Chafee were smart enough to see through the Bush/Cheney pack of lies. (Russiagate suggests that there may not be even one rational Democratic Senator left.) Even more stupid are those that blame Nader for the Iraq War.
---
*On Nader 2000 voters -- a high percentage were informed and what I would consider authentic anti-neoliberalism voters and therefore, are to be respected. A certain percentage were voting against Tipper's misguided and ultimately failing music censorship effort from the 1980s and/or wanted legal pot. I don't know if any FL or NH Nader voters were among the dumbfucks, and there could also have been NH Nader voters who remained butthurt over Bradley's NH primary loss, but that's more on Gore who ran an unnecessarily brutal NH campaign.
That's pretty much how Trump won his first term
...running to the Left of Hillary all the way down the line. In his rally speeches, he was way to the left on the wars, to the left on health care, to the left on the TPP, even to the left on AIPAC. He was a bad fit for the Republicans and had a mocking disdain for the Media. He was under attack by the CIA, the FBI by the summer of 2016. And the Neocons were defecting to the Democratic Party.
What Trump had going for him was issues. He was running on issues. Talking about issues. None of it worth the powder to blow it to hell. But issues nonetheless.
Hillary's big cause was running against Donald Trump. That's all she had. She stood to the Right of Trump on the issues that were important to the People, and the Democratic Party was careful to avoid the issues, or to flip them into identity politics. That left the People with nothing to vote FOR, so they were urged to focus on voting AGAINST Donald Trump. That was all that mattered. It was basically a hostage situation.
As for the People, they began lying to the pollsters after the Convention and right up to Election Day. And I imagine the pollsters lied, too, right up to the last minute.
The People would not become aware for another three years that beginning in 2016, the Attorney General, the National Security Advisor, and authorities at key US intelligence agencies, along with foreign intelligence assets — under the auspices of the Obama Administration— were actively engaged in an attempt to sabotage and overthrow the 2016 Presidential Election.
We lived through the greatest Constitutional Crime in American history. The Crime we witnessed was denied right to our faces. The Media engaged in full scale gaslighting and an intense propaganda storm lasting for years. Any attempt to discuss the facts of the subversion and the ongoing cover-up was shouted down by the perpetrators. This crime was never prosecuted nor redressed.
In the end, William Barr is not going to touch it. I read today that, after millions of dollars and many years of investigations, the investigators who have blindly nibbled around the edges of this monumental crime have decided to charge one person with one crime. They plan to charge a file clerk/lawyer working in the bowels of the DOJ, with changing two words in an email to the FISA judge, in order to mislead her. Everyone else walks. Naturally, all internal investigations of the US government are nothing more than cover-ups. So we watch these legal lions come out of retirement to top off their millions by conducting a kabuki investigation that is actually designed to cover up the criminal activities of their cronies — and hide their own deliberate obstruction of justice. And somehow — the corrupt political class in DC thinks that they can throw another deceitful election, four years later, like nothing ever happened? THEY BROKE IT!
They broke the entire system, shattered the illusion, and set loose the Black Swans that are landing all around us. The Pandemic! The looting of the Treasury! The collapse of the Dollar! The loss of trade and low prices and an expanding dystopia mired in inflation! A rogue Deep State determine to start a hot war with Iran, and then China! A climate catastrophe that we can see and feel! An onrush of suffering and poverty! A lost generation in the making! A US Passport that is only accepted by a handful of nations in the world. We're trapped inside. That's the REAL lockdown, Karen. Chaos happens when you BREAK THE SYSTEM.
The Party Bosses are trying to pretend things are normal by pushing through another Presidential election — while every aspect of it is falling apart. The candidates are both mentally defective. The Conventions have been reduced to a dozen Party Elite in a hotel suite with a fake podium and some video gear. The Presidential Debates will certainly never happen. The Democrats have enthroned a President-in-waiting that nobody ever voted for. The President is running the country with a checkbook because Congress won't stay in Washington. They prefers to run out the clock chasing their Big Donors.
Congress knows if they come back, they're going to get blamed for what's going on in America. Children are being forced back into schools, where they will likely trigger a cascade of SARS-CoV-2 infections that will push US public health care back into the dark ages. As for voting, the Post Office Eagle is already dragging one wing through the dirt — defunded and underperforming. The Postal Service warned 46 states today that their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots. Yet the Party Bosses and most of the People are pretending that the US has a functioning democracy and that their views are represented. Congress is pretending that the system wasn't destroyed completely in 2016 by their catastrophic crimes, their wretched corruption, and the eternal greed of their empty souls.
William Barr is not going to touch it
This is my take on it too. Durham is said to have not even spoken to Brennan, Clapper and Comey and of course Barr would never let this touch Biden. Just what the GOP are going to find with their investigation into the FBI's bogus Hurricane into Trump remains to be seen. Already we have seen CrowdStrike admitting to Schiff in 2017 that they saw no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC and Podesta's emails. But even though that info is available people still believe it. They think the GOP is going on another Benghazi witch hunt and totally disregarding the damning evidence coming out. The swamp always protects the swamp.
Absolutely and well said. that congress is sitting at home with all the crises hitting Americans should piss of every person in the USofA, but it hasn't. Centrists are pretzelizing their minds to say that the country absolutely needs the 2 worst candidates of 2020 where neither one of them were close to winning the election and saying Biden is who we need at this time. Not seeing that his legislation is one of the biggest reasons Trump could win over Hillary who they also whitewashed her history.
Trump might win again by running to the left of Biden. Who couldn't run to the left of him?
I am betting the debates this year will be cancelled. Democrats can't let Biden speak unless Trump agrees to film it in advance and edit the video. I think Bernie did that deal because Biden wasn't making coherent statements around that time and yet he sounded sane during the debate? Please.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Barr's problem is that, when he sweeps away the lies
...the propaganda, and the fake evidence — at the level where the Intelligence agencies were sabotaging the 2016 Presidential election — he's not left with with a clean slate he can manipulate or ignore. When he sweeps away the sabotage and the hoax, he's left with the real evidence of the crime that was committed!
Barr didn't take the DOJ job to hang his cronies out to dry.
Bill Biney described what Barr is looking at — and it is not something that Barr wants to touch. Although, Biney want's to believe that Barr will expose the crime. Sometimes these people are so gullible. Even Ray McGovern.
This is explained and discussed on the Wikileaks Reddit.
Bill Barr has a Lady McBeth problem.
For 125+ years, Hawaiians had been trying to educate Americans
about how their system isn’t really legitimate and, except for a tiny, manipulative wealthy minority that runs things, crushes people and never really serves or responds to their needs …
Never gained any traction. Few Americans were willing to go that far in their criticism …
Then Trump won the 2016 election and all the usual boosters of the U.S. way of doing things went crazy …
Hawaiians are like: Chee, all dis time wen try fo tell dem, but da buggahs neva listen. Oh, at long last, now they see it, do they?
Those strangling hands on the Hawaiian nation’s throat — Americans finally began to notice and feel them on their own throat …?
So in that sense, Trump has been good. He woke everyone up and, on many levels, has shown us the current system’s true nature.
Get Biden, Harris, and all those Obama and Bush alumni back in there and then what? As with Merkel and Macron in Europe, there’ll probably be a big push to get everyone to trust globalist elites, economists, and experts again …
…in the hope that, hearing the hypnotic PR patter, from academia and media and in ads, most people will forget they ever thought about causes of the stress and fuss, and just (yawn) go back to sleep …
The land of the hopelessly
lolo, as one of my profs at University of Hawaii used to say, although not about electoral politics in particular but I wonder if he thinks that today about Americans in general....
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
From my perspective as a blue collar worker who knows mostly
others who are the same, our issues break down to money and jobs. No Democrats, and certainly not AOC or similar, are able to address our issues. Unmitigated illegal immigration has killed our power to get higher wages, there are people willing to work for much less.
AOC, Biden, Harris, they all want the same thing,,, legalisation for those here, much less enforcement at the border. It's a no brainer. Trump is a horror show, an idiot killing us with Covid and doing the bidding of the wealthy, but he is good on immigration even if his Republican donors want expanded H2 visas. The only noise you ever hear from anyone is about H2Bs, (white collar) never H2As which are blue collar.
Wages,,,, Democrats might increase minimums at some time in the future to 15$. Already 15 bucks is poverty wages, how will this improve with time? Republicans are worse, but that's not a reason to vote.
Offshoring jobs. Is any Democrat of any flavor supportive of limiting imports from other countries? No. Neither are Republicans.
I talked to a woman who is bright, young, "of color" who said she would never vote for Trump. She asked me who is Kamala Harris, she'd never heard of her, so I told her good things, then she asked what's the downside, I told her about Harris's thoughts on immigration. The woman said "maybe I will vote for Trump". She works in an occupation that is fairly protected from foreign workers, yet there it was. I didn't know what to say. I can't vote for Trump myself, it's just too much, but I'm not sure I can vote Biden/Harris either.
That "bright" WOC
you spoke with doesn't sound very bright, or well informed. Never heard of Kamala Harris? Or does she not even follow the basic news headlines. You told her KH's views on immigration -- whatever it was you told her, presumably that KH is "too soft" on undocumenteds -- and on that one issue alone she decides she would vote for the Don? Doesn't sound bright to me. And a one-issue voter, with the issue being toughness on immigration, it sounds like she was already Trump inclined.
Jane Doe
She's probably as bright as any of us, but most people don't follow politics like those of us on C99 follow it. Hell, my wife barely knows who KH is, and she hears my ranting all too much.
I've mentioned KH to about three people since her anointing – a grocery checker lady, and two neighbors. None of them knew anything about her and one didn't even know who Biden was. One thing those three had in common is that they all work their asses off all week long. They have no time for anything else. Work, eat, and sleep.
Lots of folks who are just trying to hold their heads above water have little time for politics ...by design, me thinks.
Nope
What killed our power to get higher wages is FTA's.
Not immigrants.
Just do the math. What sorts of jobs got exported, versus what sorts of jobs go to immigrants.
FTA = free trade agreements? EOM
@gjohnsit When a job that pays
When a job that pays $30 an hour suddenly becomes a $15 an hour job it's not that it's a low paying job, it's that the pay was lowered. The trades did not used to be low paying, and those are the jobs going missing. It's not apple pickers and lawn mowers anymore.
Dems "losing" the WWC
vote in a few states in 2016 was, in the initial election post mortem, a bit overstated and misleading. Ds have been losing this segment since RR in 1980, largely for cultural/perception reasons rather than pocket book issues. I think those "Reagan Democrats" were lost years ago.
Imo, it will be hard to get them back, unless Ds suddenly go anti-immigrant and anti-POC, which is not going to happen. This group isn't all racist or anti-immigrant -- some/many like the appeal of the simplistic tough-guy messenger, and probably in their private moments aren't unhappy having an authoritarian as opposed to a leader in a democracy. Too much issue-talking and nuance drives them nuts -- them fancy coastal elitist Democrats with all their smarty-pants talk .
The most important factors in 2016 did not relate to the WWC but were a) complacency by Ds and indie D-leaners who thought HRC had it in the bag and so could afford a free vote for a 3d party or a non-vote by sitting it all out, b) the decreased turnout by AAs, esp the younger ones, not excited by the Clinton/Kaine white bread ticket, and who's to blame them, and c) Hillary's negatives, the result of decades of (mostly) RNC-generated hostility and conspiracy lunacy. Oh and the faux-outrage concern over those emails, which the FBI Director helped to foment just before the election.
Not a good argument
Trump paying lip service to younger voters without intending to follow through is the same as Nancy Pelosi offering a prayer for whatever that was.
To think that younger voters will be swayed by Trump's PR statements is to believe those voters are a bit stupid, which they're not.
So many factors to influence the outcome
If anything, Trump's left leaning actions will not generate votes for him, but instead create ennui and disgust among left voters toward Biden/Harris/Obama/Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer. But at this point seems so many events can change the course of the election.
One factor which can turn the election are the riots and looting that seems to follow peaceful protests as day follows night. At least in Portland and Seattle they have moved into residential areas. Remember Reagan democrats? Are the riots creating a new class called Law and Order Reagan democrats? The fear of disorder may be greater than the fear of corvid.
At this point I am more concerned what a Biden/Harris ticket will do if they win. Jim Dore had segments where he just railed that the worst right wing policies could have only been done by democrats. For example, Bush could not get NAFTA full implemented, but Clinton could.