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

keeping on keeping on...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Donald_Trump_hair_from_above_and_behind.jpg

glad there's a new thread, that one was wayyyyyyy too long and hard to load

creepy to get that close to the Donald / Der Fuhrer

it must look so crazy when there's no stylng gel to hold the wings back and in place- like if it was combed straight down Cousin It style it would look so fucked

anyway does anybody know if his bogus bullshit about the trade deficit has actually convinced people that Mexico has some weird jackpot of cash that can be earmarked for a US infrastructure project? do his supporters actually believe that?

God, can you imagine what Trump looks like getting out of the shower? There's no aspect of that mental image that isn't vom-inducing.

That close and you didn't whip out the Nair?

Some food for thought here:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/02/given-that-trump-is-winning-which-views-should-we-update.html

I wonder how much blame social media should accept for the rise of Trump. Does he really have a strong social media presence? I see very little favorable about him, but that may be a result of self-selection.

Thanks. This thread #4 also leaves behind the unfortunate NSFW thread title of #3 that still showed up in bookmarks and My Recent Posts.

I guess Trump has his Twitter feed, which allows him to get his insults and provocations out without any media framing or filter. But most of what I see about Trump on FB, blogs, etc. is negative. Again, could be self-selection though.

...though every time the old thread loaded we got a yuge NYPost Trump-as-Clown pic.

Now we're going to get to see a yuge picture of albino orangutan ass? Uh, thanks, I guess.

how the fuck is someone going to 'blame social media' what does that even mean

unfortunate NSFW thread title of #3

thread lasted a whole month! Are we seriously gonna have a new thread every month

I was referring to Cowen's post I linked to above, xp:

Since most of us have been surprised by the rise of Trump, presumably other, broader views must be updated too. But which ones? I see a few options, which are not for the most part mutually exclusive:

1. Social media are more powerful than we had thought, and more powerful in politics in particular.

2. Republican voters are less conservative, less “Tea Party,” and less libertarian than many people had thought. And the “periphery Republicans” are stronger and more numerous and more easily excited than we had thought.

3. Republican primary voters are more racist than we had thought.

4. Backlash against immigration and immigrants sets in more quickly, when middle class wages are stagnant, than we had thought. And true cosmopolitans are hard to find.

5. The value of commanding and dominating media attention, in a year with no clear front-runner Republican candidate, is higher than we had thought.

6. Trump is more skillful at trolling and pulling levers of public opinion than we had thought.

7. Democracy is less stable than we had thought.

8. New Yorkers are more nationally marketable than we had thought.

Perhaps all of these are true, and yet Trump’s leading role still remains a fundamental surprise. Which other hypotheses am I missing? In any case, it is time for some updating

i guess it means the potential for a candidate (like trump) to bypass traditional media outlets and create his own news, using twitter in his case. he farts out a tweet, then the cable networks and online news cover his tweets and the reactions to them until it's a more traditional news story, then they invite him on to talk about the news he just created. meanwhile other candidates are just trying to get anyone to pay attention to them. not sure he could have been making his own news so easily back in 2000 or whatever.

oh, sorry, that was all very obvious and i think i completely missed the point, whoops

Are we seriously gonna have a new thread every month
hopefully

the potential for a candidate (like trump) to bypass traditional media outlets and create his own news

Yabbut how many "candidates like trump" are out there? If every election cycle is going to be dominated by a massively famous rich person who gets free media by being outrageous, might we run out of those people at some point? Or will it just be Kanye/Kim, Chelsea/Timberlake, and Bristol/Willow from now on?

Or will things slide back to a model in which professional politicians buy ads again?

I think that depends on how badly Trump gets beaten this go-round.

Yabbut how many "candidates like trump" are out there?

beats me. i'd guess there might be more than you think. if i were a politically-minded rich celebrity followed by millions of people, i would strongly consider making a run for some sort of office. you'd have access to a readymade publicity machine that pretty much no one else does.

like imagine what would happen if beyonce ran for governor or something

i can almost hear the eyerolls through the internet for anyone who read it, but i don't think it's outlandish

I suspect there many innovative ways to manipulate American media

I remember lamenting, circa 2008, that I was no longer in advertising, because it seemed like a sweet industry to be in when people were willing to spend like half a billion dollars to not quite elect Mitterson Romney IV.

Soon the streets of the capital will be littered with panhandling ex-consultants. Their suits will grown increasingly threadbare as they hold cardboard signs reading "Will rebrand for money." Sad, really.

Nah, those people are still ok. And besides, the Ben Carson campaign is a nice opportunity to make money on the side this election cycle

GOP accusations of Trump's fascism from are p interesting. There's a lot of them at the moment: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/02/29/the-gop-will-splinter/

Yabbut how many "candidates like trump" are out there?

linda mcmahon didn't fare too well, but maybe she'd have done better in a different state than connecticut

Jennifer Rubin is an imbecile though.

so is George Will!

usually they reserve their accusations of fascism for leftists, this is just an interesting inversion of their usual rhetorical habits

I think the Trump and Bernie campaigns also suggest that a truly straight-talking politician with a some actual crossover charisma (and un-repellent views) would be tough to beat.

If every election cycle is going to be dominated by a massively famous rich person who gets free media by being outrageous

also, i think trump is only one version of how it could work. he's good at being an outrageous blowhard, but i know like dozens of outrageous blowhards, and none of them are currently capturing a presidential nomination by a major political party. it's the addition of his wealth and fame and his ability to manipulate the media that makes it happen for him. but imagine wealth/fame/media manipulation + charisma and occasionally saying something that is intelligent. it could be unstoppable. there's gotta be at least ONE other wealthy famous media manipulator that is also smart.

like, I *expect* uber-leftists to call the GOP frontrunner a fascist (almost regardless of who it is, but even moreso now that it's Drumpf), it's highly unusual to see the right agree.

xp

at least ONE other wealthy famous media manipulator that is also smart.

lol smart ppl generally don't become wealthy famous media manipulators

alright, i actually only know a handful of outrageous blowhards. dozens was an exaggeration. i'm on a coffee buzz, i'm bending the truth, and i'm sorry

Clooney/Affleck '20

there's gotta be at least ONE other wealthy famous media manipulator that is also smart.

I can think of one, but he's already President.

like imagine what would happen if beyonce ran for governor or something

i can almost hear the eyerolls through the internet for anyone who read it, but i don't think it's outlandish

― Karl Malone, Monday, February 29, 2016 4:54 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol Michael Rapino as shadow government

Copied from the previous thread:

That said, it's still kind of LOLWUT that there's a bunch of people out there saying "Stick it to the snobbish Eastern one-percenter elites by voting for the billionaire Manhattanite who went to Wharton!"

― carry me a laser down the road that i must travel (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, February 29, 2016

The irony is there, but Trump doesn't fit the "snobbish Eastern one-percenter elite" profile. He's vulgar. He's gaudy (in a nouveau riche way). He turns debates into Jerry Springer episodes. Also, his gestures are stereotypically "ethnic." He talks with his hands. He makes the type of over-the-top affectionate declarations we're accustomed to hear in mobster movies or showbiz-speech ("I love you all", "you're beautiful"). He's "New York", but what people (including Ted Cruz) miss is that New York doesn't only exist in the American imagination as the least-American place in America. "New York" simultaneously exists in the culture as the most American place in America: the place where the ordinary guy with a borough-bred accent, a hustler's mentality, and a loud personality can make it big time. If Clinton was the first black president, Trump would be our first Jewish president (if by "Jewish" we mean all those traits goy culture traditionally ascribes to the big-city Jew). He's no Romney, that's for sure.

If Clinton was the first black president, Trump would be our first Jewish president (if by "Jewish" we mean all those traits goy culture traditionally ascribes to the big-city Jew).

slow yr roll there pardner

I think the perception of Trump being a super confident alpha male in a field of nervous beta males helps him considerably.

haha I knew someone would say that xp

people have such weird opinions about New York

Seinfeld

If Clinton was the first black president, Trump would be our first Jewish president (if by "Jewish" we mean all those traits goy culture traditionally ascribes to the big-city Jew).

slow yr roll there pardner

― Οὖτις, Monday, February 29, 2016 5:18 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no way this is so otm. "yuge"

no Jew would draw that much attention to themselves.

uh

http://www.commdiginews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/jesus-christ.jpg

tone it down a bit, Jesus

Jesucristo had other people hyping him up tbh

Jesusbros

Trump tweeted a pic of himself as grand marshal of the Salute to Israel parade (from a dozen or so years ago) last week

Jesus also loved the poorly educated!

Great run of posts itt hi 5 all

my political participation ended with OWS as i have slowly going broke from illness to deal with, but thx M.

and it's all over btw, nothing to be done

i am a Beckettian.

and yes, the 'sexiness' of presidential races certainly factors into it. as must voter suppression efforts and the comparative ease of voting for the affluent etc. like, all the factors that obtain in every election which favor republicans, which we hashed out with some charts and stuff a little while back, apply in midterm elections but without the enthusiasm push that comes from the sense of a major event, a manichean choice of direction, a contest between a couple of symbolic individuals. yeah that stuff is dumb but it probably HELPS progressive turnout in the presidential years more than it can be said to hurt it in the non-presidential years.

people are meeting at bernie rallies, they're adding each other on facebook. a minority are volunteering, forming groups, canvassing neighborhoods, exhorting friends to come to events. some number of those are likely to continue in those efforts after this election. they will form other groups, start other campaigns - or when they hear about other campaigns, they will have many more people at their fingertips that they can try to draw to come along with them. this will obviously not be most of the subset of sanders supporters who got 'involved' in the first place, but it will not be zero and this will matter. but this too is a non-sexy, low-level kind of process. so basically, sanders-as-presidential-candidate is enabling the boring low-level stuff that some complain the focus on sanders-as-presidential-candidate somehow prevents or blocks. so now who's putting too much emphasis on the symbolism of the quadrennial contest versus the "day to day" stuff? "boy, i sure wish sanders would do more to help the diffusion of progressivism! like for example, he could stop appearing on TV or at giant rallies promoting progressivism! if only they'd put me in charge!"

for whoever said that people aren't energized by downticket races b/c moderates: there are plenty of genuine progressives in downticket races! in wisconsin there are a whole bunch!

except no one said he should stop appearing on TV or promoting progressivism so you're just arguing with yourself xp

political participation is strategic and not a demonstration of personal values

too bad average ordinary folk who vote tend not to think so. Most ppl who do have stopped voting.

what we need is a sexy bernie sanders

I'm already planning to capitalize on the excitement with my Feel the BERN Xtreme Skate, Punk, Circus Sideshow and Midterm Voter Registration Festival Tour

yes correct - Americans have the lowest participation numbers of iirc pretty much every other Western democracy? probably bc we're so exceptionally infatuated with individualism that americans believe "well my vote doesn't make the difference" is a good reason not to go to the polls. xxp

i think you've misread the glenn greenwald comment but i don't feel like scrolling up to revisit it.

here's the relevant posts again since yeah it was almost two hours ago. i have many differences with morbz but i don't think his posts need to be totally mischaracterized in order to disagree with him every time.

i think b) is better. but there's an assumption built into it, which is that keeping his campaign alive helps to build support for progressive ideas. by inspiring a lot of people who weren't previously engaged in politics or aren't satisfied with going with someone like hillary clinton for president, he's helping to inspire a lot of young people to get involved in local/state elections. no, not many - most will just vote in the primary or in november, and then completely forget about everything until 2020, again. but some people nonetheless will get inspired and become active that would not have been otherwise. for example, most people here have known all about single payer healthcare for decades or more, but you should remember that there are tons of college kids who were either too young or too politically disengaged to really pay attention to that short-lived debate during its most recent turn in the spotlight in 2009/2010. so having a democratic socialist in the news everyday to popularize these ideas (and trounce hillary in some states, on top of that) is inherently valuable to the future of progressive politics.

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 1:09 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

KM otm

re trouncing (explain it's all a mirage, we've heard that-- the OPTICS are good)

‏@ggreenwald
Last 7 states:

ID- Sanders 78%
UT- Sanders 79.3%
AZ- HRC 56.5%
AK- Sanders 81.6%
HI- Sanders 68.8%
WA- Sanders 72.7%
WI- Sanders 56.5%

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, April 6, 2016 1:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what we need is a sexy bernie sanders

oh yeah....

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1586639544/Screen_Shot_2011-10-13_at_11.43.30_AM_400x400.png

oooooh yeaaah

Karl, make us a new thread, plz. ty.

DC - either way, he quoted approvingly of a post that showed that the left is resurgent + "trouncing" in the last batch of states only like an hour before asking what left. now he has clarified that what that means is the democratic party has not stirred his loins enough to make it worth the trouble voting during off-years.

These long paragraphs are breaking my monitors.

i vote, fucker, and ive always lived in ultrasafe Dem districts

also DC: "boy, i sure wish sanders would do more to help the diffusion of progressivism! like for example, he could stop appearing on TV or at giant rallies promoting progressivism! start endorsing down ticket candidates and making public calls for his supporters to get involved with their local politics." you don't need to strawman your opponents and doing so gives me the impression that you actually are sensitive to this critique.

yes correct - Americans have the lowest participation numbers of iirc pretty much every other Western democracy? probably bc we're so exceptionally infatuated with individualism that americans believe "well my vote doesn't make the difference" is a good reason not to go to the polls. xxp

― Mordy, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 2:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it also seems super hard to vote. what with some state laws that make it difficult for some people to participate in the electoral process (Florida iirc). also i had friends waiting 2 hours at poll stations in pennsylvania, here in the second metropolis of Canada it rarely takes me more than 10 minutes. in France, the electoral day is a national holiday. Australia has a mandatory voting system, etc. I just think the problem happens to do more with infrastructure than the culture of the american people.

i think infrastructure is a problem too! but the only way to fix that is to vote!

man spoke for a lotta ppl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk

oh my god listen to what george carlin says. he doesn't complain about politicians. TAKE A NOTE.

(great carlin clip tho. if only you were even a tenth as insightful)

what value are you adding through repeatedly telling morbs your opinion of him, mordy?

i'm not sure venting is a value but it sure it fun

yes Americans are morons, i wonder if youve ever heard me echo that

no worries i def think you've echoed the idea that Americans are morons

Karl, make us a new thread, plz. ty.

i would like to, but cannot. my pun game is very, very weak.

mordy i have no idea what you're arguing really, unless you just want to repeat the canard that progressives like "whining" (and not "organizing" or whatever the fuck you want them to be doing while you're out supporting center-right democrats like clinton). "it's a free country, you should nominate some people you like" is a fine enough point, i guess, but the subject under discussion is narrower: is "the candidates on the ballot in november don't look much like leftists" possibly a factor? i also brought up the various economic and practical obstacles to voting but you don't seem very interested in that explanation either. it's all just whiny, lazy leftists to you.

all of this of course is argument about a future that hasn't happened yet. we can make some pretty good guesses about how the 2018 midterms might go, but in the context of arguing about what the effects of sanders's candidacy, the organizing it spawns, and his own future activity will be, it becomes a bit circular. i could say, perhaps sanders's campaign will lay groundwork for a better progressive performance in 2018 than we've seen in the past, as candidates see how well bernie did and model themselves on him, crowdfund themselves hardcore, press his message, get bernie to show up for the rallies, promise to throw the bums out and fight stridently for income equality etc. "oh no, progressives won't show up for midterms, because progressives don't show up for midterms."

re: people wanting sanders to drop out - it's not a strawman! that has been explicitly advocated in this thread by shakey, two days ago, and followed up with in his post today to the effect that, in aimless's gloss (endorsed by shakey) "his campaign for the presidency is foolishly prioritizing his campaign for the presidency." you're trying to substitute in a milder business of endorsing downticket candidates and so on (which we should acknowledge is at least something of a mine-field, assuming they even want the endorsement given the unsettled race) for the much stronger claim - sanders would do more good by either quitting or giving up the pretense of running to win - that actually provoked the discussion.

You guys do realize that it is exactly because Americans are morons that I have to danesplain everything?

(sorry)

the other day i thought of the thread name "Brokered Asshole Convention; National LOLfest" but it's kinda more for the period after the last primaries maybe, also people don't like swears in the thread titles and maybe dislike circa 2000 indie rock even more

Shakey/Mordy: Let's Gabbneb-leap to 2018

Could we just have Karl & Doc C co-anchor prez threads? they're among the few sane civil smart posters in 'em.

DC I understand your optimism. I even remember you saying that you anticipate Bernie in 2 years heading a kind of national movement (which I'm very skeptical about). And you're right - we have no idea what his campaign will augur until it does. I'm just saying that right here right now I see a lot of enthusiasm for Bernie and not a lot of enthusiasm for the movement at large and I am concerned that this will have real consequences this year and the idea that "oh, we don't know, maybe it'll be better 2 years from now," strikes me as a lot of wishful thinking. maybe you're right and bernie is running everything perfectly and it's all going to turn out great. or maybe there are things he could that he isn't that would be productive + valuable. but i don't think you're in a space to hear the latter, and it's telling that anyone who makes that case you write-off as a hillary supporter. like you have no fucking idea. it's just coasting on a good feeling.

maybe you're right and bernie is running everything perfectly

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the bern.

i guess it's pretty pertinent to point out (as i think karl did earlier) that obama failed miserably at organizing the kind of long-term progressive coalition that some of his biggest fans on this board are demanding bernie create

And Obama won the presidency.

You guys do realize that it is exactly because Americans are morons that I have to danesplain everything?

(sorry)

that's probably going to get lost in the thread, esp since a new one will show up in a minute anyway, but for the record stfu man

well it helps to have a leader who isn't risible when he claims to be progressive

xxp

It is the Dems' fault they never took Dean seriously as candidate and DC chair. The disappointment's even made him a Clinton supporter.

there are absolutely things he could do differently that i think would be productive and valuable. i have made a number of critical remarks about sanders on these threads! i just think, as i've said repeatedly, that clinton supporters advocating for sanders to do this or that in order to supposedly better serve his progressive agenda, is classic concern-trolling. i would accept it, maybe, with heavy caveats like "i am actually a hardcore leftist and my heart is with sanders but i am supporting clinton only for narrow tactical reasons about which we might politely disagree." the proliferation of "sanders should do X" stuff online, from people who have never wanted sanders or his message to get anywhere in the first place, is dumb and irritating. i should be clearer about not lumping all posters here into that group, yes.

as to the enthusiasm/midterm point - yeah it's an uncertain future. i still don't know what's so implausible about a progressive congressional candidate in 2018 getting sanders to show up for a rally to boost turnout/enthusiasm, but that's only one possible way he could make a difference. shakey brought up the things howard dean did within the party (after the primaries were over) that may have made a difference in the long term. perhaps sanders will follow such a path (if the party lets him). or some other one. who knows? i guess more generally i don't really get how you disentangle "enthusiasm for Bernie" from "enthusiasm for the movement at large" to the point where you can say confidently that the latter is not to be found. the enthusiasm for bernie is there because people are fucking stoked to hear somebody saying this shit, and they agree with him! that's... good for the movement, right? or maybe there's a conflation here between enthusiasm and nuts-and-bolts organizing and downticket fundraising, where when you say enthusiasm for bernie i think of people showing up for rallies, sharing shit on facebook, winning over skittish friends and family members who agree in principle but are worried about x y and z.... but where you say enthusiasm for the movement at large i think you're talking about all the downticket organizing stuff. i don't think one excludes the other and while yeah sanders might do more to push that stuff, is he really doing it any harm by providing a powerful national symbol that progressivism is not a 4% fringe idea but a huge, potentially election-winning bloc?

tbh i also haven't followed his activities close enough to say that he HASN'T been doing any downticket stuff. don't local figures (candidates, activist leaders) appear at his rallies and get to speak (in front of gigantic crowds)? i honestly am not sure. i do know that he's spent a lot of donation money giving huge props and national attention to erica garner's activism, and that of exploited farmers, in those two really beautiful (imho) short-film advertisements. i am going to go out on a limb and say they probably spent more on those than on billboards in san francisco (though i dunno, it's an expensive city). this and the fact that he pays his interns are my basic justification for giving the guy donations - isn't that a pretty direct channeling of "bernie enthusiasm" (donor money, people's likelihood to click 'share' because the video came from their hero bernie) to other progressive movements and organizing activities?

also re: co-anchoring, i endorse karl malone but i am not ready for prime-time, unless i can be that weather guy who speaks only in tribe called quest lyrics.

just have a blazer on.

And write shorter paragraphs.

yeah, i guess i don't see the sharing and big reddit threads as indicative of any kind of enthusiasm that translates into real political change. it seems more like feel good stuff to me where what i would like to see is what you call the nuts-and-bolts organizational and downticket fundraising stuff. my state has suffered under republican leadership, and i know that other states have had it much worse. so when you ask me what's more important - the good feelings + enthusiasm of the bernie campaign (which admittedly i am less optimistic about their chances of winning than other ppl) or getting toomey thrown out of office - for me it's the latter every time. if it looked like bernie was directing his young supporters into these other races it would honestly make me feel a lot better. i don't want us to get to november and toomey is winning bc well we had our focus on a campaign that ended up not coming through and then we have what? literally nothing to show for all that enthusiasm and all those facebook shares. nb i am an undecided voter who sees strong arguments for both dem candidates. i am not concern trolling - i am concerned.

okay, so fair enough. i think it comes off as concern trolling because in general you're much more supportive of clinton than most posters here (which, you're right, i should not assume makes you a clinton supporter as such), and because you seem so down on sanders even having the capacity to do any of the things it's hypothesized that he might do, so the 'advice' seems somehow less sincere. but i can relate to being concerned and worried about the prospects of things. if it comes around to november and sanders is not doing anything with his massive support base to help then maybe we can reopen this conversation.

it's a tricky one too for all the reasons that someone skeptical of sanders in the first place might point out: is it better to back a fetterman, whose politics are right on, but risk losing by a hair or more against this total asshole incumbent who will otherwise become a permanent fixture? or back a middle-of-the-road democrat that has less in common with the sanders movement (and thus inspires less roaring enthusiasm) for the sake of just getting toomey gone? (then there are lots of x factors: what if fetterman sucks as a candidate? what if his look and feel end up turning off a lot of people that agree with his message?) this is stuff that's really easy for me to say in the abstract - go left, be bold, don't look back - but not so easy for me to impose on people living in pennyslvania. also part of what i mean about it being a minefield for sanders to get into the habit of endorsing every progressive candidate for everything, or in general for people who haven't secured their own nominations to go around hitching their wagons together with unknowns - - - some of them might turn out to be raving uninformed campus liberals, some might have horrible skeletons in their closet ("BREAKING: SANDERS PAL IS PORNO KING"), god knows. i know this sounds like me arguing for the 'safe' and personally/visually normative centrist. but we're having a conversation about strategy/tactics (what's the most useful thing for sanders to do with limited money and limited hours in a day), and these things probably do enter into it.

(in the interest of reassuring you, separate from sanders: i think people will be pretty motivated by the presence of a trump/cruz at the top of the ticket to come out and vote blue all the way down. impossible to predict this far out but if the unappealingness of the republican nominee makes this even a baby-sized 'wave' election, then toomey - who didn't win by a huge margin in 2010 and has horrible approval ratings - would need a heck of an incumbency effect to keep his seat imo.)

welp, i can't think of anything, so here we go:

Conventional Mealy Mouths: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 5

no it's not funny and it's a terrible name but fuck man, i'm at work

as for 'feel good stuff' and facebook - well, i dunno. i refer to facebook, not reddit, because i am thinking of a very person-to-person kind of thing (also i have never used reddit and don't really understand it) so my model are things like my best friend going to sanders's campaign-video shoot last week in brooklyn, and sharing stuff and then catching her sisters at dinner and having a long long conversation about sanders (re: their agreement with his policies vs. their pre-existing desire to support clinton for 'historic'/female president reasons) and maybe winning one or two of them over. that's anecdotal, and it's tiny by itself, but those are real effects. given that they are her sisters it's likely this conversation would have happened without facebook (actually i may even be screwing up the order of events), but i'm just saying, it's that kind of communication that leads me to invoke facebook - - - not talking about hiveminds of bernie die-hards unknown to each other, echo-chambering their tiny world and excorciating their perceived enemies/conspiracies/whatever. though i'm sure that goes on, based on my sweaty and ill-smelling stereotype of reddit.

anyway my point is that where you're seeing "good feelings" i'm seeing a commitment to spread the word, to persuade, to fight on. it's hard for me to entirely grasp tbh because i'm still kinda cynical and inactive and old and sure, lazy i guess. this friend though, she seems really lit up, like she's been waiting without realizing it forever to hear candidates talk about stuff like this, and she's getting in touch with people doing multi-lingual voter organizing and shit. i can't assume right this second that she's going to pack all of that in once bernie quits, or that the voter organizing and registration and stuff won't end up mattering in november even if she does. i would also refer you to my post above concerning possible knock-on effects of just people staying involved and organized and getting their friends to turn up when there's a rally for the minimum wage next march or whenever. it mighta got buried in a longer post; sorry for paragraph rockin'.

oh oops. well, farewell old thread. we still have il douché and we certainly still have discontent. but it's been a good one.

Thread sucked

the new thread has close-ups of mouths, you should check it out d

I've been in and I like the look of it already, good work imo I've not felt this optimistic about a change in US politics since Bernie sanders ran for the Dems in 2016