General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 302

because the same wildcard that rewrote the rules for how the republican primary plays out is in the general election now?

 

With Bernie Busted, Young Adults See Third-Party Appeal

Maybe it means young people have decided to break with the neoliberal consensus.

 

or maybe they're leaning more conservative?

 

Out of curiosity, do people think there is anything that could have been done short term (ie beyond correcting the years of racism and sexism and inequality we've allowed to fester) to legally prevent Trump's rise? I'm trying to think about how the GOP could have quashed him without him still succeeding, or coming up with an answer beyond a pat "the media."

 

having like 300 primary candidates didnt help their case, they were divided. should have consolidated earlier behind one establishment candidate to fight outsider duo of cruz and trump.

 

Those second amendment people maybe could, I don't know

 

If it was any other candidate vs just trump, another republican would have won it. Except maybe Jeb.

 

I'm not seeing anything quantifiable in the article. Were they breaking it down issue by issue? As it stands, when one goes issue by issue, the general public stands far to the left of both parties.

 

Do you mean in the Republican primary? If so, I disagree. I think Trump's firm electability within the Republican electorate was solidified when Cruz and Kasich, who together bring in the far-right and moderate voters, couldn't get a non-Trump plurality.

Also, Democrats need to be cognizant of how lucky they are to have Trump as an opponent. Had, say, Rubio been nominated, Clinton would be looking at almost certain defeat.

 

I can't think of anything that could have been done to stop him, aside from actually addressing the conditions that gave birth to the reactionary movements. The problem is, the GOP has an explicitly racist/fascist base, so when the primaries took place, none of the candidates actually had any ground on which to challenge him. If the GOP establishment had done anything to undercut him, then they risk angering that base of upper-middle class and working class voters that would see it as confirming their belief that the elites care nothing for them. As such, they were effectively locked in. If both parties had wanted to actually stop him, then it would take more than taking a moral high ground and denouncing his rhetoric, because they're both guilty of indulging and perpetuating it at various points. They would have had to jettison various components of their ideological make-up. But, they can't or they won't. Republicans, in particular, made a conscious effort to reject the outcome of the 2012 election and drill down further into the vast undercurrents of white resentment and class war.

 

i dont agree with any of this for any number of reasons

trump solidified against cruz and kasich by portraying it as the system trying to lock him out and scam the voters, his numbers went up when he started using that messaging. dividing the establishment support between kasich, rubio, jeb, christie, etc really fucked them early on and trump should never have been allowed to reach the point where he could say that his final two opponents were openly conspiring to skirt the will of the voting members of the party.

the demographics and strategies for a republican presidential win really just arent there at this point. rubio wouldnt have been able to mobilize the kind of support he needed after backing away from immigration reform and saying things about zika infected women not being able to have abortions. clinton might be historically unpopular but the democratic national coalition is so strong that republicans would have needed to pivot their strategy years ago to have a fighting chance. when your 2012 nominee's voting base is 90% white and you score 60% of the white vote overall and still lose by a decent margin, you're fucked for the foreseeable future unless you actually work to be more inclusive to POC and other marginalized groups.

 

disagree, any candidate on their own would have a much better chance to get their message out if they werent drowned out by a similar sounding field. Trump stood out by being insane, if that field was reduced to one candidate then it'd be insane people vs standard republicans, Trump would be outnumbered.

Clinton paying trump to run making more and more sense as a conspiracy theory.

 

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.n...615389/stein1040-2015_Redacted.pdf?1470615389

Jill Stein's income is nearly $350,000. Not quite in the top 1%, but pretty close to it. She is in the top 5%, and makes over $100,000 more than Bernie Sanders. Her effective tax rate was also 22.1%. Interesting.

 

I am actually a little surprised this theory didn't have more legs.

 

Trump did donate $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation

 

maybe! but his ability to do so may have relied upon conditions unique to the republican primary (large number of candidates, right-leaning voters only).

 

Well I imagine he lined the pockets of people on both sides of the aisle throughout his career. But when you think about things like the birther movement originating with the Clinton faithful and Trump turning that shit up to 11. Then you watch the 2016 campaign and see how every time Clinton or the DNC get in a little hot water, Trump is there to take the news cycle back by saying something crazy.

 

this issue hits so close to home (obviously) and its so fucked up and makes me so upset. the war on drugs and the out of control pharmaceutical industry have done so much damage

 

Yeah, that's a large part of my frustration. I hear people talk about "sensible Republicans" and while I disagree fundamentally with republican ideas of market deregulation and social issues, I'm wondering if there just haven't been sensible Republicans since... Like, 2000? How many years have they built climate change denial, regressive religious influence, and racism and sexism into their policies and platforms? And how long did sensible Republicans try to go along with that, to what end, whether they agreed or not? Which I suppose implies perhaps the DNC is inevitably set on eating its own tail as well.

But that said, then, that's not a short term change that could have been realized, and I'm getting the impression there wasn't any way to stop Trump without retroactively uprooting all the toxic misinformation and prejudice that we've baked into our country.

 

sure. but now you have conditions in the general election where he is running against an unpopular symbol of the establishment who hasn't done a great job of rallying real support (instead of just 'uh okay yeah I guess this will have to do'). At this point, I'd still say Clinton is more likely to win in November. But I'm very hesitant to point to any election trends and assume they'll hold this year because this year just feels very different.

 

http://i.imgur.com/kd7Zty3.jpg

Hillary doesn't agree with the DEA's mary Jane decision.