the will of the people? good job DNC....

wow talk about pushing away their party base, good job DNC....  The e-mails were interesting, the head steps down in light of scandal only to be picked up by the very compaign that the scandal was about.  Talk about a fraudulent nomination....

The Democrats have chosen to coronate a Presidential candidate with historically low approval ratings and they’re in a hurry to let you know it’s YOUR fault if she loses to Donald Trump. Who, as the Democrats will put it, is even worse than the love child of Hitler and Mussolini on steroids.

In the next several months popular actors, comedians, talking heads, and your annoying liberal neighbor will join in on an epic gaslighting campaign to make sure you know you’re a terrible human being if you won’t vote for Hillary Clinton. You can try to reason with them, explain why you can’t vote for her, and even include why you won’t vote for Trump either if that’s your choice, but it won’t matter, not at all; if you’re not voting for Hillary Clinton, you are supporting Trump, and therefore by virtue of the infallibility of liberal gaslightin
g logic, you will be voting for the immediate Nazification of the United States, and therefore you must yourself be a Nazi. No way around it.

Of course the same logic does not apply in reverse. If you support Clinton you are not supporting any of the questionable things she did as Secretary of State, like supporting a coup in Honduras, facilitating the record-breaking sale of weapons to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia that kill Yemeni children (and donate to her foundation), execute atheists and homosexuals, and deny human rights to women, or selling a large chunk of America’s domestic Uranium rights to Russia. No, those things simply won’t be mentioned because they don’t fit the Orwellian liberal Democrat narrative.

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So vote your conscience. They are not the only candidates running for the office.

I wish everyone would simply vote for who they thought was the best candidate. Enough of the voting for someone you dislike less philosophy.

john12ax7 said:

I wish everyone would simply vote for who they thought was the best candidate. Enough of the voting for someone you dislike less philosophy.

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Unfortunately, that's the situation in most democratic countries, where two-party is becoming the norm. It's the same situation in France, where the current government has shown its incompetence and nobody has forgotten the lacks of the former one . The only remaining parties cannot be thought as capable of governing.
That's the failure of democracy; the very nature of the game detracts valuable contenders. In order to be a presidential candidate, one has to have the talents of a stand-up artist. Me, I'd rather BE a stand-up artist; they have a longer carrier and everybody loves them...

In the next several months popular actors, comedians, talking heads, and your annoying liberal neighbor will join in on an epic gaslighting campaign to make sure you know you’re a terrible human being if you won’t vote for Hillary Clinton. You can try to reason with them, explain why you can’t vote for her, and even include why you won’t vote for Trump either if that’s your choice, but it won’t matter, not at all; if you’re not voting for Hillary Clinton, you are supporting Trump, and therefore by virtue of the infallibility of liberal gaslightin
g logic, you will be voting for the immediate Nazification of the United States, and therefore you must yourself be a Nazi. No way around it.

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Yes, I have experienced for myself these same sentiments from my left-wing friends.  There is a kind of intellectual arrogance that denies any dissent.  They are also middle class and live in nice areas and have absolutely no idea of what it is like to live on a council estate (projects).  I think that it salves their conscience  to think that way, I spare them nothing and continually point out their hypocrisy, yet we stay friends.

DaveP

In Sweden we have eight parties in the parliament and it is not so good for political reasons because… as them all want to be in charge they tend to focus more on the opponents ill will rather than what they actually really would like to change or fix… They randomly create coalitions against all voters and try to rule the country from a platform that doesn't hold the ground.

My guess is that personal career moves are more important than actually listen to the people… Perhaps (and unfortunately) the people need a disaster to select their leader with a cause, but sadly these leaders tend to be set aside when the disaster is cleared… like Churchill during and after the WWII. The longer the time in peace the more from facing reality politicians.

Regards

/John

DaveP said:

In the next several months popular actors, comedians, talking heads, and your annoying liberal neighbor will join in on an epic gaslighting campaign to make sure you know you’re a terrible human being if you won’t vote for Hillary Clinton. You can try to reason with them, explain why you can’t vote for her, and even include why you won’t vote for Trump either if that’s your choice, but it won’t matter, not at all; if you’re not voting for Hillary Clinton, you are supporting Trump, and therefore by virtue of the infallibility of liberal gaslightin
g logic, you will be voting for the immediate Nazification of the United States, and therefore you must yourself be a Nazi. No way around it.

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Yes, I have experienced for myself these same sentiments from my left-wing friends.  There is a kind of intellectual arrogance that denies any dissent.  They are also middle class and live in nice areas and have absolutely no idea of what it is like to live on a council estate (projects).  I think that it salves their conscience  to think that way, I spare them nothing and continually point out their hypocrisy, yet we stay friends.

DaveP

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People that are true left won't vote for Hillary, so I don't see how that's the same thing. In addition, I find the accusation of hypocrisy ridiculous. If you're an anarchist (for example) and are living in a more or less democratic country, and that country has through the democratic process decided that the entire country should be capitalist with all of the legislation that entails, then you have no choice but to adapt. According to what you imply these people then have to essentially live in poor conditions or illegally in order to not be hypocrites, and I think that's a ridiculous premise.

In other words: If you force someone to live in a certain system against that person's will, you can't really blame them for both doing the best they can within it while also advocating for a different one.

johnheath said:

In Sweden we have eight parties in the parliament and it is not so good for political reasons because… as them all want to be in charge they tend to focus more on the opponents ill will rather than what they actually really would like to change or fix… They randomly create coalitions against all voters and try to rule the country from a platform that doesn't hold the ground.

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I think the Swedish system is vastly superior to the American for example. By virtue of having eight parties in parliament you actually have at least eight versions of people's wishes represented in that chamber. If all of the people there voted according to what the people who elected them wanted then you'd have a true representative democracy. On any given issue you'd see legislation reflect the will of the people as much as possible.

That they form coalitions is more of a thing of the past I think. With more parties that are arguably further away from each other they'll be weaker and more volatile. Back in the 70's/80's we had, what, Social Democrats, Communists, Centrists, People's Party and the Moderates? Five parties where you really only had two blocks with the Communists being the fringe. And then you got the Christian Democrats, also belonging to the right. But now we also have the Green party and SD, both also clearly different from the rest I'd argue.

So I think that moving forward politicians will be forced to either create broader coalitions and "give" more to make them work, or if they choose more narrow coalitions they'll have to pick some uncomfortable issues and basically change their party policy on them to get more votes. In other words, if parties want to neutralize SD they'll have to either have broad coalitions or they have to adopt SD's core issues that appeal to voters (anti-immigration/refugee).

mattiasNYC said:

johnheath said:

In Sweden we have eight parties in the parliament and it is not so good for political reasons because… as them all want to be in charge they tend to focus more on the opponents ill will rather than what they actually really would like to change or fix… They randomly create coalitions against all voters and try to rule the country from a platform that doesn't hold the ground.

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I think the Swedish system is vastly superior to the American for example. By virtue of having eight parties in parliament you actually have at least eight versions of people's wishes represented in that chamber. If all of the people there voted according to what the people who elected them wanted then you'd have a true representative democracy. On any given issue you'd see legislation reflect the will of the people as much as possible.

That they form coalitions is more of a thing of the past I think. With more parties that are arguably further away from each other they'll be weaker and more volatile. Back in the 70's/80's we had, what, Social Democrats, Communists, Centrists, People's Party and the Moderates? Five parties where you really only had two blocks with the Communists being the fringe. And then you got the Christian Democrats, also belonging to the right. But now we also have the Green party and SD, both also clearly different from the rest I'd argue.

So I think that moving forward politicians will be forced to either create broader coalitions and "give" more to make them work, or if they choose more narrow coalitions they'll have to pick some uncomfortable issues and basically change their party policy on them to get more votes. In other words, if parties want to neutralize SD they'll have to either have broad coalitions or they have to adopt SD's core issues that appeal to voters (anti-immigration/refugee).

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Yes, for a democratic purpose, many choices to accommodate peoples wishes, is good… but mostly true in theory (in modern cases)

As you just stated in the 70*s and 80's we had fewer parties but the vast difference where that they all were more pragmatic than they are today. Also we have the "green party" that came into the political world in Sweden in a time where environmental issues came to peoples mind in more realistic sense, but today they are more or less a pro-communist party with ideas that no longer have a realistic connection to the world… they are one of the smallest parties but are in the government ruling together with the social democrats just because the social democrats wants to rule even though they don't have majority of the votes… they wouldn't rule with the left party or the more right-wing orientated parties… so to get majority they teamed up with the most stupid party in the north… and problems are showing itself.

When people with diametrical opposite point of views try to get along in a democratic way the outcome will be nothing. Also as you mention all the parties actually focused on excluding the sweden democrats (a rather immigrant-hostile party for our none swedish readers) from the democratic process and it all turned out to have a counter productive result.

Instead of focusing on real issues in the domestic politic they just tried to avoid talking about the major domestic problem… the question on how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming to sweden (this is the most discussed issue in the parliament at the moment). Blaming just the sweden democrats for being racists for a year of passivity they finally stipulated laws that all where according to what the sweden democrats actually said before the election in 2014.

All in all in sweden we are in fact just facing a bunch of blah blah blah from our politicians at the moment and I am afraid that it include them all.

/John

I really miss the good old days when I could ignore the government between elections. I also miss occasionally voting for the winning side. 

I expect the mud slinging this time to be more vicious than normal and very well funded.

Congrats to Hillary for being the first woman presidential candidate (from a major party). Spoilers like to note that the first woman to run for president (Victoria Woodhull) was a suffragette who couldn't even vote for herself in 1872 and was younger than 35yo so ineligible to serve. Apparently over the years there were several women nominated for that office by sundry political parties, but Hillary has a good chance to win.

JR 

John I do not share the same sentiment in clinton  because it was less the honest.

2016 and gender trumps content of character.

pucho812 said:

John I do not share the same sentiment in clinton  because it was less the honest.

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I am not endorsing or supporting her, just recognizing the historical significance of her nomination, and the reality that she "could" win... She has more cash than Trump, and more political establishment backing her. 

2016 and gender trumps content of character.

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Voting for her just because she is a woman, is as wrong as voting for Pres Obama just because he is black, while I suspect many did and many will.

I didn't mind as a nation checking that box, while that is about the only thing i didn't mind about the last two presidential elections. Still waiting for the post-racial calm that never arrived.

Since I have been paying fairly close attention to the primaries I feel little need to revisit talking points from either side. I'm sure we'll all get more than enough political spin elsewhere. I doubt any of us can avoid hearing it if we try. I'm kind of glad I don't live in a contested state and I can DVR through the few commercials I do get. 

JR

I find the accusation of hypocrisy ridiculous. If you're an anarchist (for example) and are living in a more or less democratic country, and that country has through the democratic process decided that the entire country should be capitalist with all of the legislation that entails, then you have no choice but to adapt. According to what you imply these people then have to essentially live in poor conditions or illegally in order to not be hypocrites, and I think that's a ridiculous premise.

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I agree with your logic, but I am talking about people who could volunteer for social projects that correspond to their political beliefs, but instead choose to see the gorillas in Rwanda, the poor in Bolivia and tour India, Laos Cambodia etc.  They advocate green credentials and living as long as it doesn't stop them travelling to politically correct destinations around the world.

I think even you Matt would detect a whiff of hypocrisy in their lifestyle.

DaveP

Well, I don't really know what this type of traveling you are talking about is and I don't see how it's hypocritical.

Carly Simon, "You're so vain".

"You're where you should be all the time......................"


I have noticed this phenomenon across the spectrum, I know rich people who drive the right car and wear the right watch and dine at the right restaurant and holiday in the right country.

The same applies to the left wing couple I know, they would visit Laos and Cambodia but not Vietnam because it's too touristy now.    The point is, you can't just go on holiday, you have to make a statement at the same time.

I hope that is clearer, now we need to get back on topic.

DaveP

what about taking a private jet to fly from California,  all the way to France to  attend a talk about climate change, the enviroment, reducing carbon footprint, etc.
Seems hypocritical to me....
Or how about those in charge who are pushing for more gun control yet get caught with a firearm themselves?
Seems hypocritical to me....
Or what about making a stink about building a wall on the southern U.S. border yet was so comfortable with a wall outside of your very own convention
Seems hypocritical to me....
 

The majority in both parties have essentially become corporate shills that do the work of the highest bidder.

If you are actually liberal or actually conservative, don't see how you can continue to support either party.

I think this is a good article on a similar line of thought - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot