Pence is more easily beaten than Trump. An election against Pence will be more traditional, plus we can hit him for thinking that smoking doesn't cause cancer.
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PoliGAF 2016 |OT16| Unpresidented
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
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Pence is more easily beaten than Trump. An election against Pence will be more traditional, plus we can hit him for thinking that smoking doesn't cause cancer.
balladofwindfishes
Member
How embarrassing for Pence would it be to serve a year and a half as president and then be beaten
By a gay man for true irony
By a gay man for true irony
Lord Frieza
Member
Honestly, the way I see to do it is two-fold. First, weaponize Trump against Trump. Use the same tactics he did, imply and make controversial statements for attention, tell people what they want to hear, etc. Repeat things over and over. Like, for instance, no matter what happens during a Trump Presidency, constantly remind people that 'Trump has done nothing this whole term, where are the jobs? He's created no jobs.' Or if something big happens (which, knowing Trump, we'll have one big scandal during his term, at the very least), remind people of that over and over. Flood the waves with it. Even go on Fox News, and the like, and just flood the waves. Give him a quick and easy nickname like "Don the Con" or something and repeat it over and over. Maybe be less blunt about as Trump, but do it enough to flood the waves and the consciousness of voters.
Second, frame the election as a 'Return of the Jedi' moment for America. I know how goofy those memes are and all, the whole New Hope being Obama and Empire Strikes being Trump, but it's an easy narrative to launch onto. Stressed that's it true over and over that we lost (not We as in Democrats, or we as progressives, but We as in America, We as in the public), and this election is the time to return to the right path. I would say a campaign slogan that calls to returning to the right side of history, or something like that would be ace. In the same way that Trump called to making America Great Again, frame the election as a way to take a derailed country that was conned out of its destiny and put it back on the right track to where it belongs.
You do this with a semi-charismatic candidate that doesn't have a lot of baggage, and I think you have a very good chance of taking out Trump. There will be issues of voter suppression, but I ultimately think it can be overcome, especially once Trump moves from being the 'outsider' to the establishment (something Democrats need to get on reframing him as ASAP). Dems/Libs won't like doing a lot of this, because it basically co-ops a lot of things they hate that Trump does, but I think with an unorthodox situation with Trump and how he's handled by most of the mass media, you need to adapt overall. But I think it's all doable without sinking all the way to bottom.
Cesare Borgia
Banned
While I kinda agree...I think Trump's ego demands he become a two term president. The level of disdain he has shown for four of the last five presidents (Reagan, Clinton, W, Obama), who all won two terms, suggests to me that not matching their accomplishments would eat him alive. Not to mention his focus on stamina/strength.
Sure, I'm not shitting on Cuomo, he's done some good things and his post-election letter addressing everyone scared of Trump was pretty heartening to see. My point was that Isaac Otherworld continues to post things like this:
When I've seen literally no one here but him suggest that Tim Kaine, Andrew Cuomo or Rahm Emanuel are in any way the future of Democratic presidential hopefuls. I'm just saying, it's a totally disingenuous argument. I'm not jumping on the "give Bernie the keys to everything!" bandwagon, and don't think turning the Democrats into a strictly white working-class populist party is the secret to success. That doesn't mean I want Cuomo or Kaine or Rahm (lol) running the ship either.
Hell, losing the popular vote is eating him alive as it is.
Nah, shit on him all you like. I do it all the time, just felt like the dude deserves like an iota more credit than given most of the time.
Also, Rahm?!?! The fuck kind of future in the party is he going to have? The kind where we need to bail him out of jail?
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
I said that, and I stand by it.
You have to engage the electorate at the shallow level with which they engage in politics. That was one of our big fuck-ups this election. If people have a bad opinion about "the Left" because the person at the top is someone they despise, then someone even MORE to "the Left" - and somebody with a long political history in the place they're running, to boot, in an election in which much of the country was in a formless anti-establishment fervor and probably had very little understand of what Feingold's platform even was, in the first place, just that he was "a name" - was going to get it even worse. The fact is, in a duopoly, people are forced in one direction or the other, and because Hillary was at the top of the left side of the ticket, people in the right places went the other way, which had effects downticket. I said last night, and I'll say it again - Feingold wins if his populist message is a supplement to the the rhetoric flowing from the top of the ticket, loses if it feels like a divergence, which it did. Bernie would have spent time in Wisconsin, spent time highlighting Feingold's record of progressivism and the importance of "the movement" rippling down to the local levels.
Clinton may not have RUN as a Third Way, but her entire career and "I'm a pragmatist!" ethos is suffused with it. Expecting people not to treat her according to the way she's conducted her career - forging a convoluted overhaul of the healthcare system in secret, championing a disastrous military intervention - rather than the focus-tested campaign rhetoric she fine-tuned over twelve months or so is entirely unreasonable.
Clinton ran on literally the opposite of Third Way, since Third Way was much more about running against people of color and showing that the Democrats were also a party for racists than it was about financial regulation. And yes, this is part of why she had trouble with voters of color, clearly. But understanding that Bill's Third Way was about white supremacy would get in the way of this narrative about economic populism!
Policies matter. Trump ran on very clear and explicit policies of white supremacy. Stop immigration, deport everybody, Muslim watchlist, nationwide stop and frisk, stop people of color from voting by claiming massive fraud.
Those were all things he talked about during his campaign, and they're all things he's talking about now that he's president-elect. Those are actually policies! The media just talked around them because they were so explicitly racist that they wanted to interpret them as showing off for his racist base, rather than actually saying "I am a white supremacist, and if elected I will put into power policies that will give white people political superiority in this country."
But people heard those policies and they voted for them.
Isaac Otherworld
Member
While I am very far left, I consider myself a pragmatist. While I'm eager to push policies leftward, and support and join progressive causes, I believe more so in doing the option that is most likely to get results. I'm a believer in being loud, and visible and aggressive, and having the appearance of being uncompromising, but I am not actually against compromise. Government as an entity is a compromise by design. I didn't consider myself anti-establishment until the establishment started failing to get results. You talk about how Pelosi and Schumer get the dollars needed to invest in and win elections, but here's the thing; they aren't winning elections. That's my problem.
If democrats had control over the federal government, and we were getting policies like family leave, mandatory paid sick leave, police and criminal justice reform, increased minimum wage and other progressive issues I'd still be bitching about not having medicare for all. But I wouldn't be calling the democratic party a complete failure. Because it factually wouldn't be.
The democratic party has become a complete failure. It's failed electorally on every front.
If Bernie Sanders can out fundraise Hillary Clinton by the end of the primary entirely through small donations, I find having a traditional donor class to be obsolete and counter productive. While Clinton might have out raised Trump this time, when you look at the party as a whole and most of their candidates you are fighting on Republican's terms when you do that. You're never going to out big business Republicans so when you let them frame the fight that way it makes you more likely to lose. Worse, it fundamentally undermines your ability represent the workers and middle class and when are so closely tied to private and business interests that actively oppose workers and their needs. Those donors are the ones lobbying the democrats to not raise the minimum wage. Those donors are the ones lobbying against getting money out of politics.
If there is anything to take away from this election it's this; the American public have completely lost faith in the ruling elites both in business and in government. The 2008 crash destroyed the American public's trust in our elite business leaders. And the fact that none of the people responsible suffered and consequences destroyed the American public's trust in our elite government leaders. Hillary Clinton's campaign died a death of a thousand cuts. But that Trump ran against the failed elites, and Hillary could not help but be tied to them, was a cut that hit an artery.
Yeah, Donald Trump ran a racist xenophobic campaign. A large part of Donald Trumps voter base are aggressive racists and bigots waiting for an excuse to say and do all the horrible things they've thought throughout the years but were afraid to publicly. But what you and a lot of others miss is that he fed people racism and hatred. And he could only do that in a time where people have lost faith in the elites to govern and hold power. The public, aside from the top 1% that are doing very well, are struggling and angry. It's pervasive and you can feel it everywhere. Trump tapped into the real justifiable anger in this country, but he directed it in an ugly, destructive and wrong direction. But at the end of the day Trump recognized there was anger and pain in the country.
Honestly, I'm still not really sure what Hillary's overall message was to this day. She adopted a number of Bernie's policies but she certainly didn't run on them. It's very hard to run as someone who is going to bring the failed business leaders and government leaders to task when you're giving the companies that crashed the economy paid speeches for $200,000 a year.
I currently work three jobs. All of which are poor paying jobs. I Sometimes four if I pick up a temporary job. I work 70-90 hours a week. I graduated college years ago with good grades and with a degree that should get me a decent career. I can't get a good paying job that I can actually live on. I'm not whining or bragging about my ability to work long hours. This describes almost everyone I know personally. I'm not living in some rural dying town in the middle of nowhere, but a city that's doing well and has a good economy.
People are angry. People are hurting. Unless the democratic party recognizes and taps into that hurt and anger in a positive way, and distances itself from the failed elites that have caused so much damage we're going to continue to lose.
But keep calling me and people in my situation children. That'll teach me.
Yes yes yes yes yes!
Democrats have to realize that we're dealing with a worldwide uprising of Nazism and that playing cute or being an idealist isn't appropriate right now.
I'd even go so far as to say that after we win, assuming we take back the senate, we need to have a massive war on drugs offensive that goes after rural communities and their heroin and opioid addiction with strong mandatory minimums of 10-15 years. We need to frame their struggle as Reagan framed the struggle of inner-cities. In an ideal world we can tip the scales back a little bit by having millions of heroin addicts off the voter rolls for good to compensate for the voter suppression they're going to try to pull off.
And maybe, just maybe, we'll get criminal justice reform after this that reinstates a felons right to vote once millions of republican rural voters become disenfranchised.
I'm curious to see if he even wins a second term at this point because I don't think he will win the popular vote at this point in the next election, but I'm not sure if he will win the electoral college again.
For some reason, the reveal that Cuomo was partly involved in Bridgegate made me laugh more than anything else.
He fell back in line with the Trump camp months ago, after Trump threatened to tell the world about Joe and Mika's affair.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Dems need to take a page out of Trump's playbook and step up the marketing. Bernie's "political revolution" was too far, prob too scary for much of the electorate, but Obama showed in 2008 that people in America ARE willing to feel like "part of something", even if liberal, if that something is perceived as sufficiently different from the parts of the status quo they dislike or perceive as fucking them.
balladofwindfishes
Member
But you hate Cuomo...
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You know he's pushed for and passed basically your entire list, right?
Remember, progressive policies don't count if they were pushed for by the establishment.
MOB. TIES.
Seriously though, dude probably thought there was something to be gained from keeping the secret so he did. It's just how Albany works.
I was waiting for someone to point this out.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Speaking of mob ties, why did Trump palling around with mafiosi in his early career not get any play in the media during the election? Lack of documentation?
It is. It should have tipped me off 4 years ago when they furtively asked if Obama can declare that he can have a third term as the stories went back then.
Indeed. I guess outrageous fake news was relegated to the tabloids and the "respected media" distanced itself from them. Nowadays it's all blended online so the separation line is blurrier and blurrier. It's an interesting idea though, whether social media platforms should sanitize what's posted or not.
Pretty much. Everyone knows he's got mob ties, but no one has any proof.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101903473/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Good preparatory reading for understanding Steve Bannon.
If you mean political/non-fiction books, I've mentioned it before, but worth it again, I think - Alter Egos is a good read. Hitler: Ascent seems good, but I've barely started the first chapter, so... Oh! And Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East is very interesting, and very relevant, I think.
Non-political/fiction, the Ancillary series (technically "Imperial Radch" series) is a fantastic SF trilogy.
Unrelated to books, related to politics...
Talking to New York City Public Advocate Letitia James About How to Get Involved in Local Politics
All relevant, I think, but these two Q&As in particular:
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I really think something completely going under the radar about trumps presidency is labor conflict with the civil service.
IDK what form its going to take, but its gonna make the air traffic controllers look like nothing.
Gingrich as already hinted he's planning on going after them.
IDK what form its going to take, but its gonna make the air traffic controllers look like nothing.
Gingrich as already hinted he's planning on going after them.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I think clash of civilzations is actually far more important for Bannon than the holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451628978/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Reading the buzzfeed story. That's really what his thesis seems to be its the Judeo-Christian world vs. Islamic world (don't know how he feels about China).
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Sounds like we need AI to give context to news
I have heard some speculation from civil servants I know that he wants to go after the Merit System Protection Board. This is designed to prevent nepotism and reward merit, so dismantling it would really damage the effective functioning of the civil service, and libertarians have always hated it.
I mean, he was talking to Pope Francis. I think Buzzfeed kind of screwed up by saying "meet the real Steve Bannon" instead of "meet the Steve Bannon who talks to the Pope."
Bannon saying he's a Leninist and wants to destroy the system first makes me think Hitler's planned anarchy is more important to understand.
Ultimately it is vital for people to see Bannon's game here. Poor white Americans are mad and scared, sure, but ultimately they're just not mad and scared enough to sign off on racial purges at the level that Bannon would want. America's standard of living is still just too good.
But that's fixable. Slash the social services they depend on -- say, by privatizing Medicare. Increase the cost of goods -- by dropping out of free trade agreements, signing tariffs, and damaging our diplomacy with other countries. Maybe cause a depression by politically pressuring the Federal Reserve. All you need is to find ideologues in Congress who genuinely want all these policy changes.
Now how mad are the poor white people in Ohio? Now what are they willing to accept?
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Corruptions such an old song that we can sing along in harmony
And nowhere is it stronger than in Albany
This colonys economys increasingly stalling and
Honestly, thats why public service
Seems to be calling me
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Lets go back to the 1880s! When we had assassinations because of nepotism!
I'm not sure I agree with you on what he believes. He wants to protect white americans and Christians. More fortress america than nazi america. I mean we can argue on the differences that actuall entails but I think its important for how he plays politics.
The lennist quote is less about anarchy IMO than destroying the old "tsarists system" of elites.
So apparently there is this Norwegian article asking if it's Jon Stewarts fault Hilldawg lost. Any opinion on this?
http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/var-det-jon-stewart-som-tok-knekken-pa-demokratene/65378490
http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/var-det-jon-stewart-som-tok-knekken-pa-demokratene/65378490
There's been a couple of hot takes out there saying that had Jon not left the Daily Show when he did that he could have made something stick to Trump or forced the media into giving his shit real coverage, but even if you do believe that it's just a way of absolving the rest of the media for not doing their job right in the first place.
So this is just fantasy. I understand it -- it is nice to live in a fantasy where America wasn't founded on white supremacy and where white supremacy isn't present in every mostly-white community, waiting to be tapped. It's nice to imagine that MLK wasn't shot just fifty years ago and that there aren't black people alive today who remember going to school under the auspices of the National Guard, there to protect them from white people who would be happy to murder them to prevent it.
It is nice to imagine that all the people who voted for a white supremacist did so because liberal government failed them (or, to be more precise, because the Republican Party spent eight years preventing liberal government from helping them), so that you can absolve them of their choice. But it just isn't true.
The reality is that lots of people in America are okay with white supremacy, and that to the degree that people have lost faith in the elites it's because they have repeatedly elected people from a party built since the 60s on white supremacy, who have explicitly set out to destroy government and impoverish those people. Maybe they did it for their own gain, or maybe they did it to empower white supremacy. Either way, I mean, the fundamental problem here is that people keep making the moral choice to sign off on white supremacy.
The Lamonster
Member
Are you saying Bannon in power is more dangerous for other countries than it is for America? Because as it is right now, it seems like it's Team Trump vs liberal/minority America. I'd be looking more at Civil War than World War.
TheLaughingStock
Member
Politifact is excellent 90% of the time. They just fact checked a Democrat the other day who like Hillary and other Democratic leaders is not for the people.
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/...yer-wrongly-says-us-has-surpluses-its-trade-/
Excellent site for the most part doing a great service.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
IDK about who he's more dangerous for. I'm not even sure he's pro-war. I just think that's his world view. The west (christian) vs. Islam. And he sees the (((elite))) as having sold out the west.
TestOfTide
Banned
I agree that with the VAST MAJORITY of Trump voters we can't waste time reaching them.
But any Trump voter that also voted for Obama can absolutely be reached by the democrats, ESPECIALLY after Trump fails to bring back those jobs that he claims were lost by trade (but were really lost by automation).
And reaching those Obama/Trump voters won't require abondoning civil rights issues either. All it will require is that in addition to having civil rights being a major part of the Democratic platform and campaign, you have a huge chunk devoted to a message that flanks the anti-trade rhetoric by saying "There are jobs that will be gone for good by automation, but there are still areas that need more workers. Areas that if we start training people for, we will not only start having a booming economy again, but we will also become THE economic superpower again by having a workforce that every country wants to import."
A Serious Man
Member
If Trump actually withdraws the US from free trade agreements it will likely trigger a global recession and economic unrest increases the likelihood of conflict. One of the big reasons the US leaned into free trade after WWII was because it encourages peace, interlocking economies and making your neighbors more prosperous reduces tension.
You understand what those parentheses represent, though, right? And who he blames?
TestOfTide
Banned
If it becomes a Civil War, then we will lose. Team Trump will have the support of Military, Police, and gun nuts armed to the teeth.
And an American Civil War in the 21st century is EXACTLY what Russia wants because it will make the US look weak and unstable.
I mean, if you believe this, I would move to Germany right away.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
Hillary's loss required such a specific confluence of events and decisions that you can feasibly argue that literally anything happening differently would have changed the election. Jon Stewart staying with The Daily Show. Ten more minutes and fifty extra dollars in the rust belt states. Not contracting pneumonia directly following a smear campaign about her health. The Cleveland Indians putting the World Series to bed.
Unraveling the civil service will blow back hard and likely result in further disintegration of urban Republicanism unless Trump's got some kind of WPA scheme up his sleeves. Then again, I guess I should stop pretending this isn't anything less than a smash and grab operation at this point.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
On this particular Monday morning I'm wondering if the most good I can do is contribute or figure out how to help vulnerable people move to major urban centers. There might not be much else to do once shit really hits the fan
Pretty much, it was that kind of election. You can point to pretty much anything and say, "If this thing had been different Trump wouldn't have won."
Already there. The fact that Trump won means the US is weak and unstable - If people laughed at Obama's line in the sand, they're going to piss themselves with laughter at Trump trying to be strong.
If the US drifts into civil unrest (which I can see it doing in short order, and is more likely than Civil War), Germany will step up to be the pro-active strong-man (woman, technically) of the West. I can see a unified Europe/Canada/Japan/China/Australia through trade agreements (minus the UK, of course, assuming Brexit passes). Because, as A Serious Man points out, it's a way to unify countries through financial benefits, and eases tensions. There's a reason why Japan became an economic powerhouse in post-war period.
It's not just a smash and grab. Like I said above -- for a white supremacist, dismantling social structures that help poor white people is exactly what a Nazi would want right now, in order to further radicalize those white people and prepare them for more extreme action against people of color in the future.
A Serious Man
Member
I've been hoping that other world leaders would convince Trump that climate change was a serious threat but then I remember this is a man who reads and believes Infowars. He has access to as much information as anyone on Earth now and he's still reading fucking Infowars.
And Trump doesn't give a fuck - his words and actions aren't designed to unify the US.
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