I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

the weirdest thing about that Killer Mike bit is that he did it exactly the way Trump does it

i have no idea how Trump does it but sounds like bullshit.

the idea that a man can't say that is some fucking liberal PC garbage, embodied by that Doyle chump.

i don't think the polity is looking to "dismantle" the current US economy

oh no, it's not, that's why we're doomed.

The feminist case for Sanders makes sense to me, I just kind of think it loses some of its salience when it's men making that case.

that Goldberg piece is v good

xp

yea great piece, i agree w/ pretty much all of it

Listening to James Adomian & Anthony Atamanuik doing their Sanders vs Trump routine, I do wonder what actually would happen if you get Bernie or Hillary sharing the same the same stage as the guy. Both have very true, righteous justifications to loathe everything about him, but would both be able to handle him in his blowhardy train-careening-off-the-track-and-not-caring? It's like they both hav had to put up with conservatives fuckheads giving them shit in real-time for years, would they be able to deftly counter it or would they get flummoxed? How does that 2-6 hours of television play out?

On a related note, here's the recent Comedy Bang Bang appearance of the Sanders/Trump show, where Gilbert Gottfried occasionally chimes in to ask them about very specific episodes of early 80s American sitcoms:

http://www.earwolf.com/episode/trump-vs-bernie/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/feb/17/us-presidential-election-campaign-live-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-donald-trump-nevada-caucus-south-carolina-primary

Everyone agrees these things don't mean anything anymore, and now Trump reverses the process completely--he'll turn this into a 10- or 15-point bump in the polls.

Greil Marcus wrote one Clinton essay at the height of impeachment hysteria that's almost as stirring as Joan Didion's "Vichy Washington," but he's a classic case of a writer becoming besotted with a literary creation that has no bearing on reality.

re: the goldberg piece

it is good, in that it feels like an honest description of why someone would choose to support clinton while acknowledging her faults, but paragraphs like this miiiiight explain the lack of enthusiasm among younger voters

For a progressive, how you reconcile conflicting truths about Clinton depends, to some extent, on how much you empathize with her. Supporting Clinton means justifying the thousands of concessions she’s made to the world as it is, rather than as we want it to be. Doing this is easier, I think, when you are older, and have made more concessions yourself. Indeed, sometimes it feels like to defend Clinton is to defend middle age itself, with all its attenuated expectations and reminders of the uselessness of hindsight.

that para resonates deeply w/ me

I'm not quite middle-aged yet, but I'm in my late 30s, and I don't feel that way. If anything I'm shifting a bit back toward idealism, in a twice-born, pragmatic under the surface sort of way.

It's not the concessions, real and imagined, she's made with which we should empathize. It's the positions she's taken.

many of which have been loathsome

yeah, and the article kind of skirts around why she doesn't support sanders. it just expresses support for some of his positions, then says she doesn't think he has a chance in the general, and then shifts to talking about how clinton has low expectations and concessions must be made while the wonder years theme song autoplays in the background

That middle-aged thing resonates with me too. I keep having to restrain myself from making crotchety-old-man criticisms of Bernie's millennial supporters. I can see how someone whose first Presidential election cycle was 2008 might be forgiven for thinking that idealism always wins, and that picking a nominee is the same sort of exercise in self-expression as picking an online avatar or curating one's Instagram feed.

Why A Selfie Stick Is The Pragmatic Choice

the michelle goldberg piece is one of the better pro-clinton articles i've read, but it strikes me that basically none of these defenses of clinton as a pragmatic progressive have anything much to say about her foreign policy, which is all the more odd since she's a former secretary of state. i've seen more ppl talking about her support of health care in the '90s, when she didn't hold any elective office, than any of the many actual policies she pursued as the highest foreign policy official in the federal government. most of these pieces read like they could have been written in 2008.

The unrealism and optimism of youth actually leads to major changes in this country in generation after generation -- probably never 100% of what those optimistic youth wanted, but much better than what we'd get if we just went by the views of defeated middle-agers.

the thousands of concessions she’s made to the world as it is, rather than as we want it to be

projection projection projection

This smacks of "Deep In Their Hearts They're Actually SO Liberal" ive read heard about every big post-DLC Dem, which is almost always 1) unpersuasive and 2) irrelevant. As that HillaryBro Joan Crawford Loves Chachi says, it's not about your feelings.

it seems to me that bernie's made plenty of concessions to the world as it is, and that ppl who glibly caricature him as an ineffectual idealist are being disingenuous.

Middle-Age / Complacency '16! \/\/ 0 0 + !

I'm Resigned to H->illary!

btw Old Nixon told his last secretary re HRC "Watch out for that one!" thinking her a neo-Trotskyite. I think he wd've changed his mind by now.

i think it's more like - i have made decisions that involved compromise in my life where i gave up on dreams i had bc i felt i had more to gain (or less to lose) from the pragmatic decision. i don't actually know who would make a better president between the 2 of them. (i also don't know who stands a better chance of winning in nov.) on one hand i think there's something to be said for starting from a more radical position before compromising and that was one of my complaints of obama over his terms - that he seemed too ready to compromise his position out of some kind of generating good will, whether with the republicans on the sequester or with iran on the nuclear program. but even there he has had some serious successes and been a fairly transformative president - esp for my lifetime - so maybe he was right and i was wrong. this is why i'm not registering democratic and voting in the primary when the circus comes to town. let the rest of the party make up their mind and i'll vote for whoever they decide is best. part of this i guess is a luxury - my life is okay enough that i don't feel like it's a life-or-death decision between bernie + hillary, tho i certainly understand that for some ppl it is.

someone asked above if hillary would support single payer even if it just landed in her lap but isn't that what she campaigned on in 2008?

MRS. CLINTON: You know, I have thought about this, as you might guess, for 15 years and I never seriously considered a single payer system. (The New York Times, March 27, 2008)

Oh right, the individual mandate.

i don't think it is "important" (as opposed to "historic") that there be a woman in the white house

thank you, Most Incoherent Critical Eminence of All Time, for going from A to Not-A there.

not only incoherent but jesus god what happened to marcus's prose? there are a few unparsable run-on sentences in that paragraph. i'll be charitable and assumed he dictated that into his iPhone while driving across the Bay Bridge

I asked that, upthread. And of course she didn't support it in the 90s either. So I know what position she supports. But the point I was (poorly) trying to make was that I still have no fucking clue what she actually wants. Presumably she went with the more compromised positions in the 90s and after Obama's election because she thought it was the only way it could pass. But in an ideal world, which system would she implement? Who knows. Most politicians are plagued by the same kind of wavering and positioning - but that's why Bernie sanders stands out and people like him

i think it's being very charitable to clinton to chalk up her many compromises and flip-flops and her rampant doublespeak to her "pragmatism". that's what she wants you to think; that she's had her eyes on the prize all these many decades and has just been bogged down by circumstance in the complexities of Getting Things Done. that's certainly true some of the time, but it overlooks the sheer personal opportunism and mendacity that has characterized the actions of both clintons for years, as well as the fact that it isn't just that she's "compromised with" corporate america but that she is very much a part of it.

btw didn't greil marcus think clinton was elvis or something?

And I guess you could counter that who cares about their ideal policies, we live in the real shitty world where pragmatism rules. And that's a legitimate position to hold. But I still think it's important to have an idea of what the candidate truly believes in

Xpost

russ feingold is an example of a legislator who has consistently made his principles clear while at the same time being a pretty effective, productive politician.

i think sanders has been somewhat effective to, but less at high-profile legislation than in adding progressive riders to big bills -- kind of stealth legislation. i don't know what that says about whether he'd be very effective and getting anything significant done with a republican congress (if anyone can do such a thing).

somehow i'd missed that feingold was running for the senate again, that's awesome

btw i want to repost this b/c i'm an asshole i think it's important

i think it's being very charitable to clinton to chalk up her many compromises and flip-flops and her rampant doublespeak to her "pragmatism". that's what she wants you to think; that she's had her eyes on the prize all these many decades and has just been bogged down by circumstance in the complexities of Getting Things Done. that's certainly true some of the time, but it overlooks the sheer personal opportunism and mendacity that has characterized the actions of both clintons for years, as well as the fact that it isn't just that she's "compromised with" corporate america but that she is very much a part of it.

i think to the extent we are discussing clinton's career largely in terms of "pragmatism" and "compromise" it means that she's taken control of the narrative. and maybe she should! but i think that this spin on her career, even though it's often cast in negative terms, is actually a very positive one relative to the critiques offered by michelle alexander and other progressives.

honestly i almost responded to that comment bc i think it's deeply unfair but idgaf and i know how things roll around here

i guess -- i don't jump down people's throats like other folks. i'd genuinely be interested to hear your take on it!

Trump and Cruz both threatening to sue each other. They shouldn't toy with us like that.

Karl's last few posts OTM. Saying my thoughts with his words.

Strumming your heart with his fingers?

I asked that, upthread. And of course she didn't support it in the 90s either. So I know what position she supports. But the point I was (poorly) trying to make was that I still have no fucking clue what she actually wants.

Hard to know what when she knows the Senate is the only legislative branch that may flip. One of those articles sourced by "senior campaign advisers" say she and Bill Clinton remain haunted by Reagan. A DLC-esque response is all she can muster.

TS: In a world where single-payer health magically became a politically viable option, what would Clinton think? Vs. If unicorns became real, would Clinton want their horns to be sparkly, or shimmery?

*became* real?

i'd genuinely be interested to hear your take on it

i think probably you could make any argument i'll make - i don't have any particularly unique insight. ultimately i think hillary (as well as prez obama) is a good person motivated by ideals of serving the american public. is hillary also motivated by other more craven things like getting elected? yes, of course, that's the measure of success for a professional politician. and has she done things i don't like? yes, again, as has every politician I've ever known anything about. but i don't feel like she's any more opportunistic or deceptive than other pols and probably much less. she seems to me like a good person working in a flawed system and i'd be v proud for her to be potus.

"Mika" and Scarborough lead a Mornign Joe town hall on MSNBC. Trump just said Obamacare is a disaster because it's a terrible plan. Three tautologies he unleashed in a roll, frustrating even Scarborough. He sounds like an imbecile, and Mika, to her credit, is not hiding her contempt.

i bet nobody on that stage could explain why obamacare is terrible. answers will range from "socialism!" to "it's terrible!"

also "obama!"

Ben Carson says brain surgery is much, much tougher than politics. And yet, he's really successful at brain surgery, while--spoiler alert--he's terrible at politics.

It's kinda hard to even pretend to be surprised about any aspect of Trump's campaign but there is definitely a small moment in every debate, when he goes "Obamacare is a disaster, and we're gonna replace it with something that works way better," and I really have to work to believe that there are people to whom this is a super compelling line. Oh, okay, way better. That's what we need. The other Republicans are only promising something better, and I'm sure the Democrats want something way worse, so Trump's the only one out there talking sense!

I know comparisons to middle school class president get thrown around a lot, but there's like, no space at all between the one and the other. How do you fight someone who doesn't even concede that "works way better" leaves more to be explained? The guy doesn't even have a health care section on his website. "Something better" is the program.

yeah, it's like trump was sent to earth as a litmus test of just how credulous a big segment of the american people is.

I get the sense credulity doesn't even factor into their support. Trump represents more like a giant "fuck you" vote, results be damned.

for some people, sure. for a lot of others, there seems to be some conviction that he's a guy who "gets things done," who thinks on the fly, who doesn't need a ton of advisors whispering into his ear now, because once he's in office he'll be able to sort things out. in short, they trust his judgement. which is terrifying. and hilarious. but mostly terrifying.