General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 27

What happened with the primarys is something thats going to have to be sorted out in academia for a little while once theyre actually over and people get to look over the events with something resembling objectivity, but the easiest explanations is that the insurgent wing of the republican party that has been festering for the last 7 years as Anti-Obama (re: racists without actual policy goals) were finally given a candidate that spoke specifically to and for them. Coupled with the way Republican primaries are set up and a diluted field of candidates - imagine if all but one of Marco, Kasich, Jeb, and Christie were in the race as the face of the "establishment" from the jump, with all the resources and vote percentages that entails - and that's recipe for a situation where Trump, who isn't winning anywhere close to 50% of the actual republican votes, can manage to become the presumptive nominee.

If any republican had a real chance at winning, their politics would have to somehow mobilize basically every single conservative voter to go out on election day without inspiring a similar turnout from left-leaning voters. The demographics simply are not there as it stands today; otherwise they'd have to basically ditch major conservative principles of the republican party and engage with the left in a substantive way to lure people away from the democratic nominee. The democratic coalition grows larger every single year as whites comprise a decreasing percentage of the total population (which is another piece of the trump puzzle - 2012 was the year white people finally became less essential, and that freaks them the fuck out) and people under 30 comprise more and more of the voting bloc. The real battles for policy and progressive ideals will be playing out in statehouses and in congressional elections for roughly the next decade after the redistricting of a few years back.

 

"Dominating wins" is not whats happening. He's been winning mostly with pluralities so far. General election polls about actual voting behavior mean little to nothing, but thats not what I'm talking about. Polls for unfavorable numbers have a better chance at representing reality (and they're better if they're state, rather than nationally, conducted).

 

yeah they're too evangelical

 

First off, there are ways to be actively anti-Trump without being pro-Hillary / voting for either candidate. My problem with using my vote for Hillary is that it's not as though she would recognize my support as being conditional, or given to her on the basis of trying to keep Trump out of office. It would be used as an endorsement of her platform, along with all others who would prospectively vote for her due to similar reasons. Terms like "mandate" would be thrown around.

Liberals keep saying to Sanders supporters "remember who the real enemy is." My political enemy is anyone who perpetuates the bombing of innocent people around the world, doesn't have a record of consistent support for the poor and middle class, and has ties to major corporate interests that conflict with their rhetoric (Clinton and private prisons, e.g.). There are a handful of democrats who more or less meet my criteria for support at the Congressional/Federal level, but not many more than that. Hillary is not one of them.

 

Here's the scary thing about Trump. There's like a 70% chance that he has no chance at all and Clinton crushses him in a Reagan-esque landslide. But then there's like a 25% chance that he wins handily because he's able to swing a few traditionally blue seats red. His favorability is really low, but Clinton's isn't that great either, and she's hated jussssst enough that Trump could possibly motivate enough previously idle GOP and Indy voters to vote for him.


And seriously, anyone that thinks a Hillary presidency would be just as bad or worse than a GOP presidency right now needs to try and step out of their own biased thoughts for a second and realize what you're saying. Stop letting your hatred for Hillary cloud reality.

 

He won five states yesterday with at least 56 percent of the vote in all of them. He's not winning pluralities anymore. Trump's awful favorability numbers are masking the fact that Hillary's are pretty bad too. I haven't seen them at the state levels, though.

I agree Trump doesn't have much of a shot at this point, I just don't see Hillary maintaining this level and I wouldn't count Trump out yet.

 

The northeastern primaries aren't exactly representative of what's been happening though, as JC said it's always been expected he'd trounce whoever up here because of the way his appeal works. Plus, now there's only three of them and as of last week every major news outlet was reporting that cruz and kasich can't mathematically win and in the last few days have announced they're basically conspiring to prevent him from the nomination. That kind of stuff affects voter preferences. Nate silver was, however, talking about how the numbers last night signify that something has changed to benefit trump, and i think it's that voters are either resigned to his nomination or responding to that kind of establishment conspiracy.

Hillary's unfavorable numbers are pretty shitty too, this is true. Not as bad as trump's and she doesn't have the same kind of out in the open virulent racism (anymore) that he does and which motivates any left leaning or independent people to vote against him. We'll have to see as it draws closer because a lot can change once attacks and debates start coming between trump and clinton, but i dont really buy that her numbers are as dire in the general as his

 

Don't underestimate the stupidity of Americans....there are a ton out there who will vote for Trump because and only because he's an "outsider" and "not a politician".

 

I'm Asian and I'm a woman. I'm two demographics that the GOP would like to not exist. I can't fathom why I would ever support the GOP on anything. I might not like Hillary and what she stands for, but at least she and Bernie seem to acknowledge that people like me exist.

 

I live in the only Delaware House district that Trump didn't win...woo!

Sanders lost my district by 139 votes

 

lol oh my god...

 

I don't know what I'll do come election day, but my mark will not be for Hilary. I'd rather it "go to waste" then live with the feeling that I voted for her. At least I'll be able to sleep at night knowing I didn't vote for her.

 

because when it's clear you're going to win, the other side gets demoralized and doesn't show. that's why turnout wasn't very high last night, which boosted trump's share of the vote in every contest.

big picture, he's winning a subset of a subset. the republican party is shrinking as a percentage of the electorate and he's been winning less of it to this point than past presumptive nominees. romney got creamed while winning 44% of the women's vote in 2012, a number trump's not going to come close to. and he's not running nearly well enough with men, even with hillary's unfavorables, to bridge that gap. the only way he can win mathematically is with candidates splitting the democratic vote, which is why he keeps lobbying for bernie to run as an independent.

 

Haha, this is amazing.

 

PS-I agree with whoever said that the next President will be a one termer. I said that a while ago too. I don't think Hillary or Trump hold onto it for two terms. If Trump wins, Corey Booker will positive message him to death in 2020. Hillary just isn't that popular and anything short of an economic boom will probably mean we get Paul Ryan or Marco Rubio in 2020.

 

With the way things are, there's going to be a string of one term presidents for a while. People are far too reactionary for anything to get done because they want instant results.

 

rubio is done as a national candidate, the demographics will not allow for a republican president in 2020 barring some kind of major shift either in how demos vote or republican policy in the next four years anyway. if the recalibration of the party that everyone thinks will happen post-trump comes to pass i dont see any major figure in the party today being able to muster the support necessary four years from now to run a successful candidacy

 

thanks chris christie?

 

are you calling me chris christie or

 

No, haha, referencing how Christie basically delivered the death punch to Rubio's campaign

 

I predict a Hillary presidency will basically be Obama 2.0 in terms of progress.

 

Hillary will be fine, politics as usual. A lot of changes will be great but we don't get a real chance for that until the next four years.

 

This does create an interesting conundrum:

Hillary wins, and you get more of the same for at least four years. In 2020, Hillary will likely try to run again, so you're pushing the chance of getting a more progressive candidate in office out to 2024.

Hillary loses, and you can potentially get someone sooner. If Trump turns out to be as bad as people fear, a hard swing left could certainly be in order.

 

democrats dont go left when they lose, they go right