Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

Read that as lil based

lib base voted for the war u mean

no, that isn't what I mean!

scroll upthread

collardio claimed the Dem lib base has been silent when POTUS proposes to murder "thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians". The lib base vigorously protested the last time this happened - the Iraq War - resulting in the largest anti-war protests EVER. It was the Dem establishment (incl Hillary) that nonetheless voted for it. Key liberal office-holding Democrats, however, did vote against it, including my Representative and one of my Senators (Feinstein otoh can go die in a fire, I hate her).

Mikulski, Boxer, Feingold, Kennedy etc. - the liberal wing of the party - were not for it.

otm, that's always made HRC's vote especially unforgivable to me

this is why i was making a distinction between vapid hawks and idealistic hawks

RIP Ben Carson

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/04/ben-carsons-new-job-getting-christians-to-vote/?_r=0

not quite going to let Mordy get away with characterizing American intervention in Libya as only resulting in 1K deaths therefore a relative success when there are half a million displaced people there and of course its ongoing slide into failed statedom as well as a major source of people smuggling. the question is about judgement and follow-through, not about precision of the headline operation.

YES I USED AN 'E' AFTER THE 'G' IN JUDGEMENT, DON'T JUDGE

I judg thee

the only thing i can say on libya is that i don't know what happens in the counterfactual where NATO doesn't get involved. we know sometimes you don't get involved and it leads to horrific consequences that weigh on the ppl who said no (cf samantha powers).

Voting for the Iraq war is unforgivable. Voting for trump is more unforgivable imo

i might've missed it in the 1500+ posts on this thread but has anyone actually proposed voting for trump?

I just read some ridiculous thing from Bruce Bartlett where he said he voted for Trump precisely because he will destroy the GOP, and the GOP in its current formulation needs to suffer a humiliating electoral defeat

people's rationales are strange some times.

i guess that's an iteration of the "it has to get worse before it gets better" argument

which is always a bad argument, because it can get so, so much worse

Accelerationism and dark enlightenment claptrap are the retreats of people who think their material circumstances wouldn't be much worse in a collapse scenario, i.e. white men.

i might've missed it in the 1500+ posts on this thread but has anyone actually proposed voting for trump?

Jim Webb, today. Not sure if he might vote for Donald Trump.

tbf to Bartlett he's talking about voting for Trump in a primary to nudge the GOP to a historic defeat in the general, not trying to get him elected. TNR's Brian Beutler had a similar theory that Trump winning the nomination is necessary to reform the R's but damn if it doesn't feel too risky for comfort.

Jim Webb x-post

you ppl into forecasting etc might want to listen to Nate Silver gettin' grilled on On the Media this week

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/on-the-media-2016-03-04/

some people think forecasting is actually like looking into a christal ball

christal ball was one of trump's wives, right?

Accelerationism and dark enlightenment claptrap are the retreats of people who think their material circumstances wouldn't be much worse in a collapse scenario, i.e. white men.

― petulant dick master (silby), Friday, March 4, 2016 6:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i say the same thing about folks who argue that there's no or little difference between the parties. -- these aren't people who are dependent on medicaid and so forth.

that said, you're stereotyping -- plenty of white men experience precarity. in fact the fallacy that those utilizing the safety net (the one the likes of rubio and cruz would tear to shreads) are largely minorities plays into the racist fears of reactionaries...

collardio claimed the Dem lib base has been silent when POTUS proposes to murder "thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians". The lib base vigorously protested the last time this happened - the Iraq War - resulting in the largest anti-war protests EVER.

Οὖτις I appreciate your argument and have probably been too facile and rhetorically footloose (some would say: full of shit), but you do somewhat mis-paraphrase me. I didn't claim that the Dem lib base has been silent when the POTUS proposes to kill thousands etc. (and fine, i'll back down on the "upon thousands"), but rather when he does kill thousands etc. The distinction is important because yes, when GWB proposed military intervention in Iraq, the protests were massive, no doubt about it. Once the war got underway, however, the raw numbers as well as the soccer mom: crusty activist ratio decreased quite drastically. What's more, once Obama assumed power, the protests all but evaporated... even as Obama expanded the portfolio to include Yemen, Somalia, Libya, as well as greater involvement in Pakistan and of course Afghanistan.

I think my broad point is that presidents, particularly when they are Democrats, can get away with a boatload of civilian slaughter and human rights violations (I did mention indefinite detention as well) in this age of war by remote-control and volunteer armies, without ruffling all that many Democrat feathers.

i think it's just practically harder to sustain protest against the ongoing slog of empire than the imminent threat of an act of war

i guess that's an iteration of the "it has to get worse before it gets better" argument

which is always a bad argument, because it can get so, so much worse

― wizzz! (amateurist)

it's more than that- the idea that making things worse makes things better is just not right. it's like trying to lose weight by eating nothing but hardees thickburgers, on the theory that eventually you'll have a heart attack and your doctor will make you start eating healthy.

Feels like several lifetimes ago that Ben Carson's mysterious past ("He's supposed to be very good with a knife, but only in matters of business or some sort of reasonable complaint") was a big topic of concern.

Yup

Btw Trump speaking in Wichita right now, weaving Sanderisms into his speech ("By the way it's not me; we're all together") and making no pretense about identifying with the GOP ("The Republicans are eating their own")

witchita, kanasas

"Trump knows best, let's just adopt this spelling ongoing"

Have yall seen this

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/14/politics/donald-trump-medical-bill-health/

So North Korea

he's gonna have arteries so clean you're not gonna believe it

I'm hoping low dem turnout numbers is just because most people are waiting for the main event (vs. GOP numbers, where more people may be participating because they feel they can actually evince an outcome). Hoping dems will rally when the actual campaign begins, and I hope as always that congress/senate is not overlooked.

Was talking politics with friends this morning, and we noted the irony that in the event of some sort of disaster or terrorist attack when it's Trump vs. Clinton, the script has been flipped so hard that it would probably actually benefit Clinton more.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/705886964994678785

see also: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/02/01/how_much_does_voter_turnout_matter_112990.html

lol

"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," Bornstein, an internal medicine and gastroenterology specialist who works at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, wrote in the letter dated December 4.

Bornstein is not believed to have evaluated any past presidents.

not only is high republican turnout this year not a positive indication about general turnout but it's actually a negative indication. there's such high turnout bc the party is splitting in half and both sides (really more than 2 sides, mainstream/party republicans, trump voters, evangelical voters, with some overlaps?) are energized to try to maintain control of the party. but that passion suggests that the party won't be reconciled.

Looking at the dude, I do not believe the blood pressure figure this doctor cited

It's normally thought that turnout = enthusiasm, but it doesn't really have to be that way. The high turnout on the GOP side seems pretty explainable as desperation - the top two candidates are HATED by a large contingent of GOP voters - and low turnout on dem side could be contentment? Both dem candidates are pretty popular amongst dem voters, so many perhaps doesn't care?

surprised the doc did not add something about how trump's fingers were among the longest he'd ever seen in his long years of practice.

i find it very difficult to believe that the dem base + broader left won't turn out to keep trump or cruz out of office

gastroenterology specialist means congrats Trump you don't have Chrohn's, IBS or Barrett's Esophagus, bastion of health you!

Rubio says there's no magic number for the Supreme Court--nine, eight, seven, it's all the same. He included eight in that sequence--may need a refresher course in basic number theory.

http://www.zazzle.com/rhetorical_party_poopers_yall_tee_shirt-235076862719583508

what?! I just noticed this. DJP, thank you, I'm going to have to get this, if only to help keep my hyperbole in check.

Trump should bottle and sell his gut flora. Regardless, sure, he's probably healthier than many if not most former presidents. I mean, George Washington even had wooden teeth! Poor hygiene there, and besides, Trump would have gone gold. Much classier.

The idea that Trump is healthier than Obama was when he became president in 2009 strains credulity.

Rubio says there's no magic number for the Supreme Court--nine, eight, seven, it's all the same. He included eight in that sequence--may need a refresher course in basic number theory.

― clemenza, Saturday, March 5, 2016 12:37 PM (1 hour ago)

he's not wrong tbf

um "it's all the same" may need further examination