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

reminds me of the PLP* member in my high school who after a friendly argument in the student newspaper office, screamed "LIBERAL!" at me as he walked out, expecting i guess that it was the devastating coup de grace.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Labor_Party_%28United_States%29

― wizzz! (amateurist), Monday, March 7, 2016 4:28 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark

jhe was right

he's trying to take votes away from Trump, right?

he's trying to take votes away from Rubio and assume the role as the establishment alternative to Trump

xxp

in conversation with my mom she made the point that Christie's the type of person who would fuck over his peers or the populace out of spite or to make a point even when it'd reflect badly on him (re: the bridge thing)

that seems like a pretty good indicator of Trumpness

it came up in the conversation in the context of a really short-lived state governor we had who canned a bunch of people after he got elected -- people in his own party that happened to not support him in the primary

Bloomberg officially not running is good news for Democrats. I don't think he would have been strong enough to cause an electoral college split and hand the decision to Congress, but it seems possible he'd pull enough votes from the Democratic side to throw the election to the Republicans.

can't even imagine what high school would have been like if it had had intra-leftist politics in it

you can't strike with us!

top google suggestions to "Ted Cruz..."
is canadian
is a robot
is...
is hispanic

wtf google has modified that, up until last week the fourth result was "is the zodiac killer"

Bloomberg officially not running is good news for Democrats.

uh not for me -- I wanted targets after Marquito loses the Sunshine State next week.

jhe was right

― Hungry4Ass, Monday, March 7, 2016 4:18 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heh. i take a tiny bit of pride in attracting insults from folks like this.

it's a full life

yeah idgi, I thought all his colleagues hate the guy
― μpright mammal (mh)

The highlight of every Republican debate for me is when Trump turns to Cruz and says "Nobody likes you." It's a gentle, well-meaning reminder.

Voting for someone you hate vs voting for someone you hate. What a dilemma.

With the prospect of Donald Trump’s nomination looming over the GOP, Cruz is set to unveil endorsements from more than four senators this week, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

In Lapine, the rabbit language from Watership Down, they would call Cruz Prince-with-a-thousand-senate-endorsements.

Frith and Inlay, what hraka these candidates are putting out. One might as well silflay with Hitler's owsla as entertain these candidates' rhetoric.

multiple xposts-

I'm glad, collardio, that there were some white people around to explain the point I was making to you; now if you'll excuse me I need to take these recommendations Mr Bledsoe gave me up to Mr. Emerson's office.

DJP, you didn't accompany the article you shared with your own comments, so why should I make any conclusions about what point you were making? I don't presume that anybody has explained anything on your behalf. All I had to go on were the excerpts you copied, and yes, I did take issue with some of Ross's readings (e.g., re the 20 year old anecdote). I do think there's lots of instances where Sanders exhibits cluelessness w/r/t race issues (and have posted about this on these primary threads). But in this case, because I focused on those points of disagreement, it came off as "Bernsplaining", I can see that.

(Way off-topic but apparently I'm able to store fictional-rabbit vocabulary in my head for 37 years SOLELY so that I can pull it out at just the right moment, but I still don't have any idea where my fucking car keys are most of the time.)

Trump is such a Bigwig.

Which makes Barack Obama Hazel, and Robert Reich is Fiver.

A hrududu full of millionaires

Kasich is the nice-seeming rabbit who invites them into the warren full of snares.

Some Rubio guy is all indignant because of a CNN story saying that Rubio's advisers are split on whether he should drop out.

In other news, Rubio's advisers are split on whether he should drop out.

I dunno at this point why quit before Florida? I guess unless yr worried about coming in 3rd your home state

^gotta be it, right? so when's this dude getting kicked out of the senate?

Cos Trump is gonna gonna blow this pic up:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Marco_Rubio_in_high_school.jpeg/398px-Marco_Rubio_in_high_school.jpeg

That's the reason--embarrassment. They also mentioned loss of VP credibility, which seems far-fetched--I know there have been some improbable 180s with VP picks, but Trump-Rubio seems unthinkable. (Cruz-Rubio, sure.)

the mind boggles as to who trump is going to pick as vp

the hulkster?

Christie is gonna feel shafted when Trump says he's going to be his own Veep

What better than one Trump? Two Trump.

otm re: Rubio's only reason to leave now is to avoid embarassment/political suicide in FL

We already consider him an embarrassment

"when's this dude getting kicked out of the senate?"

He isn't running for reelection, so his term will be up in January. But he can choose to resign earlier. (And he might, given that he pretty much said he hates the job.)

Not sure I posted this: one of our major dailies won't endorse a GOP candidate.

the mind boggles as to who trump is going to pick as vp

― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Monday, March 7, 2016 7:22 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

Kasich clearly angling for it already

Trump v clearly going to run "The Apprentice: VeePee" every year of his presidency guys

the campaign machinery/collateral prepared here is bananas http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-not-running-for-president.html

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/behind-the-trump-phenomenon

The socioeconomic forces are real, but Trump is also the beneficiary of a long process of Republican intellectual decadence. Paul Ryan denounces Trump but not the Tea Party rhetoric that propelled his own political ascent. John McCain holds Trump in contempt, but selected as his running mate Sarah Palin, the Know-Nothing of Wasilla, one of Trump’s most vivid forerunners and supporters. Mitt Romney last week righteously slammed Trump as a “phony” and a misogynist, and yet in 2012 he embraced Trump’s endorsement and praised his “extraordinary” understanding of economics.

who is Dennis Perrin btw

― micro brewbio (crüt), Monday, March 7, 2016 11:52 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think he's the gawker guy

Not to worry, everyone. They're gonna get this mess all sorted out.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/56ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d

Third google answer for "Ted Cruz is" for me: Ted Cruz is a Microdont.

Amazing

DJP, you didn't accompany the article you shared with your own comments, so why should I make any conclusions about what point you were making? I don't presume that anybody has explained anything on your behalf. All I had to go on were the excerpts you copied, and yes, I did take issue with some of Ross's readings (e.g., re the 20 year old anecdote). I do think there's lots of instances where Sanders exhibits cluelessness w/r/t race issues (and have posted about this on these primary threads). But in this case, because I focused on those points of disagreement, it came off as "Bernsplaining", I can see that.

Part of this is my fault; I had typed out something on two separate Facebook conversations and thought I'd also typed something out here. Regarding the 20 year old anecdote, while I am certain we can all agree that the question was terrible, answering "where are your blind spots with regards to race" with "20 years ago, I learned that black people have problems getting cabs" and following it up with statements filtered through your economic justice filter that turn issues that face the entire black American population into issues that only affect poor people implies that poverty is an intrinsic part of the black experience and leads to these interactions. Which, obviously, is horseshit, and should be challenged rather than handwaved.

DJP, your summary brings it together really clearly, thank you. That kinda sums up why I was leaning towards the position of the article you linked even though I at first felt similarly to some of the other posters here that in some way Sanders was being misread or taken out of context.

I do still feel like some of the coverage of this has pulled parts of his response out of context, and that the "ghetto" part was way more problematic than the comment on policing, and that it's not 100% clear that Sanders is saying that this experience of the police is exclusive to poor communities, and that his ropey taxi anecdote suggests that in his mind it's definitely not that - even Congresspersons experience racism, etc. etc. He's an old guy and his thoughts don't hang together perfectly and I think he kinda drifted from one thought to another and some parts of it fit this picture of the all-economic-justice filter more than others.

But... even with all that said, this is one spot where I think it's fair to say, let's demand something better from our dream progressive radical candidate than that a discussion of racism always means a discussion of impoverished black inner-city dwellers. (I don't want them cut out of the picture either, and it's cool that he wants to talk about their problems IMO because ever since Clinton I it's kinda just been middle-class this middle-class that.) But yeah I don't want to be in the position of saying "Oh well, he's so very very right on so many things, can't we just let this one little thing that he doesn't 'get' pass by?" Cause actually this thing is kind of a big deal. Like maybe next time we can get a candidate who when they get these questions we all go, holy fuck, Candidate OTM, rather than having to carefully parse the "got sorta in the ballpark of something great" and "totally blew it" parts of the answer.

and yeah i know i kinda waffled my way through the first couple paragraphs there. it's hard for me to let go of the impulse to defend him; i'm fond of this guy and his candidacy! but i do think the surer critical position is to demand better, not to make excuses.

great post

From a Facebook friend of a friend:

Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and share my experience at Donald Trump's rally in Warren, MI today. We'll start with why I went. I am a firm believer in being educated on ALL candidates, not just the one you're rooting for, so redacted and I decided to attend. If you know me, it's no surprise that I am not a fan of Trump due to his racist, misogynist, and popularity-searching "campaign". But I try to keep an open mind, understanding that people have different views and everyone is entitled to their own. I wore a shirt bashing Trump, and redacted wore a pro-Bernie Sanders baseball hat. We had no intentions of causing a scene, starting any fights, or even speaking negatively towards any Trump-supporters.

We stood in the crowd with everyone else, even made small talk with a few different people, asking back and forth about each other's views. A women supporting Trump even complimented our hat and shirt. This is not a post to bash all Trump-supporters. Most of the people we spoke to were very kind to us, as we were to them. Trump came out and started his speech. As hard as it was, we ignored the screams and chants of building walls and exporting citizens. We stood quietly and listened to the man speak. Every 15 or so minutes, a scene would happen where the crowd would yell about protestors and Trump would scream, "Get them out, send them out of here!" and the crowd would scream "USA, USA, USA" until the attendees who were asked to leave were escorted out.

So, about 45 minutes to an hour into his speech, a group of teenage boys (who had been harassing us the entire time while we ignored their comments) screamed and pointed at us, yelling for us to be kicked out. At first we laughed it off, of course we couldn't be kicked out, we were just standing here silently. Wrong. A secret service member and a police officer were there within the minute, grabbed redacted and I by our arms, and started to lead us out. One of the Trump supporters we were chatting with even stood up for us, explaining that we weren't doing anything and weren't being disruptive. By now the crowd was chanting their USA run and a large portion was also booing us out.

The walk through the crowd was very upsetting, being screamed at and filmed, even one man said "Go to China if you like communism so much!" (Communism?? Don't you mean democratic socialism??). But also, along the walk out, some attendees would high five us or shake our hands, and thank us for coming and supporting Bernie. It felt weird to be thanked, due to us not doing anything besides standing quietly. As the two men walked us out, one explained that if we returned we would be arrested. Redacted quickly asked why that was. The man replied with "They don't want you here," to which she said "Isn't it a constitutional right to silently protest?" The officer replied "Not here."

The rude remarks and yells didn't stop at the door, for Trump-supporters who didn't get in greeted us with just as much hatred. The walk back to my truck even included a man yelling from his car about how this was for Trump people and that we didn't belong here and shouldn't have come. This kind of hatred is what is ruining this country. To think that my right to protest was taken from me AT A RALLY, scares the hell out of me for if Trump actually became president and got that power. What else would he take away from us if he can't even stand two teenage girls standing silently at a FREE, PUBLIC, OPEN-TO-EVERYONE event? If you're thinking of voting Trump this year, please rethink your stance. This much hate belongs nowhere near the presidency.

^^
frightening.