Fairly good article, i'd prefer more examples but it's sentiment is sound.
Another issue that's astounding to me is the number of "Democrats" who bought into the Wikileaks Democrats are Corrupt narrative. It's one of the objectives of what Russia hoped to achieve with the hacks. Worst of all, there was no systemic corruption, or any notable corruption in the first place! Considering the sheer amount of internal data released, i'd argue the Democrats are abnormally clean.
Let's say the same thing happened with the RNC this election, given the sheet amount of conflict of interest and corruption of Trump, even if there was damning criminal evidence, it would not have mattered. Dems fell for it without any evidence! The fringe groups and sites like, but not limited too, TYT, US Uncut, and even a good chunk of The Intercept have made enemies of what should be allies.
Yes. Do you not remember the Waco raid and other similar event in the '90s? Not wanting a repeat of that and the resulting backlash has completely changed how police try to approach those types of situations.
It's not a bad example. They are literally, right this minute, trying to give themselves permanent control of the state. Going down there and helping draw media attention, trying to stall out their time, etc. - that all helps.
You're making a giant mistake on reading these polls. Votes are what matter, and they're the only thing you can use to assess future voting. If you want favorability, then I'll point out that Hillary was more popular than Trump, who won. Bernie was more popular than Hillary, who won. The entire GOP field was more popular than Trump, who won. Etc...
The only thing I dispute is that minorities somehow "have a problem" with Sanders, or that there is some large trend of minorities that apparently don't like too much talk about economics.
Obviously, I know Clinton won more votes in the primary vs. Sanders. I just caution against using a single vote in a specific primary to make larger demographic claims such as "Black folks think X about Sanders. Hispanic folks think X about issue Y", "Minorities have a problem with Z", etc.
And I dispute the idea that "votes are the only thing you can use to assess future voting". I would think getting non-voters to become future voters would be pretty important!
Look at the primary's voting numbers. Hillary would not have won without her dominant minority support. Period. There's no other reading of that. Her wins in the South in particular are entirely done by black people, and places like CA and TX came from Hispanic voters. Bernie's only minority-heavy wins were from HI and AK.
Of course. In a primary between Bernie and Hillary, we have evidence that minorities largely preferred Hillary for a lot of reasons, and voted accordingly. And while there were plenty of valid reasons why one would do so, her supposed "electability" (look at the "Could Win General" question, there was a big gap there) was one of the big ones. But looking at all the data as a whole, what it doesn't show is that there's some large trend of minorities that have a problem with Sanders or his type of policies. That's all I'm pointing out.
And the reason you're getting pushback on this is because, specifically this year had Sanders gotten the nom, the general election would be between the candidate picked by right wing white people versus the candidate picked by left wing white people.
And left wing black people, and left wing hispanics, and minorities who don't like Clinton, younger minorities, poor people, and all sorts of other people.
I mean, the vast majority of voters in general are white people, so why do we pretend like this somehow would be unique to Sanders? Clinton had high support among rich people, why is she not the candidate "picked by rich people"? Clinton had overwhelmingly high support from old people, why is she not the "candidate picked by old people"?
If Sanders had gotten the nom...he would have gotten more minority votes pretty much by definition (as we both agree, he needed more of them to win). And of course, he already got a large group of minority votes (minority is more than just black people!), and it's actually more accurate to say that he didn't win a lot of older minority votes. As has been shown before, younger black folks leaned towards Sanders.
But you don't see a lot of articles about "Sanders old people problem", even though that was actually more accurate to say. I'd argue that there's a reason for that, and the Clinton campaign specifically was very interested in making the "Sanders has a minority problem" talking point more well known as opposed to "Sanders has an old people problem". But hey, that's politics. Trying to imply your opponent is racist makes more sense in a Democratic primary than trying to imply your opponent is ageist.
Again, my larger point is that a preference for Clinton in a specific primary is not the same as disliking Sanders or Sanders' policies and views. And when we attempt to make demographic arguments, it wouldn't hurt to be a little more accurate in what those breakdowns actually are.
I'd still have voted for Sanders in such a race, easily, but I certainly wouldn't be enthused by it.
Judging by the general election results, and the fact that non-voters are often poor and non-white, enough minorities and other traditionally disenfranchised groups apparently weren't "enthused" for Clinton either (or at least, not enough to win an election against Donald Trump).
And again, looking at the issue breakdowns for various demographics, what I largely see is people overall in the primary (including minorities) were mostly fine with both of them and their viewpoints, but went towards Clinton for various reasons, a major one being "electability".
And you could easily argue that such massive disenfranchisement of the minority vote would have lost you more votes in Philly, Detroit, etc... anyway.
Wait...why does Sanders winning a primary (which pretty much by definition means he would have won more minority votes than he did) "disenfranchise" the minority vote?
Are you talking about some alternate scenario where superdelegates would have given the nomination to Sanders? That's certainly not what I'm referring to. Though it is funny that even in that extreme case, that's just following the party rules, which was used as the argument to defend all sorts of other undemocratic aspects of presidential primaries. Reminds me of how some were arguing that no one should call October 2015 registration deadlines in New York "disenfranchisement" because parties are private groups that can set whatever rules they want, and all candidates knew the rules going in.
Of course, I obviously don't know if you were one of those people who made that argument, so this isn't specifically addressed to you, but your use of "disenfranchisement" certainly reminded me of that time during the primaries, lol.
For the record, my personal view is that this hypothetical scenario where Sanders got the nomination through superdelegates would be 1) undemocratic as fuck and should be changed for future primaries, and 2) still within the rules at the time. Pretty much the same as my views on the Electoral College, I suppose.
Maybe Sanders could've padded that (and more) in the rural parts of those states, but all this talk of just going to the Sanders side in the future is based on the assumption that people of color will fall in line.
Why would people of color supporting a candidate who they largely agree with on issues be considered "falling in line"?
I'm not saying that Sanders or a future Sanders type should somehow stop trying to win the votes of people of color. I'm just saying that when people claim to speak on behalf of what people of color all want, it helps to actually look at polling data, and their actual collective views on multiple issues and candidates, and not just go "They voted for Clinton, so they would never support someone like Sanders!"
There's no evidence that that is true, which was the point of my post.
Fuck that. The DNC is the big tent party of all demographics, and if you can't win more than white people by a decent margin, then you aren't going to win as a Democrat.
I guess this is the framing that I'm challenging. "Not beating Hillary Clinton in a primary among older black people" isn't the same as "it's impossible for Sanders or a Sanders-type to ever win over black people", yet it's often treated as if these are obviously the same things.
The other framing that I try to challenge is the idea that talking about economic issues somehow means you're not talking about "minority issues". Again, based on the data in my post, economic issues are minority issues and attempting to separate the two is silly.
The other framing I disagree with is that "minority" often gets used to just mean "black people" (I'm even guilty of this).
I wonder if this is a side effect of the Democratic Party's longtime obsession with "checking boxes" when it comes to policies (and a national media that focuses so much on demographics for horserace related reasons, and not due to actual issues). "Criminal justice for black people, immigration for hispanics, abortion rights for women, means-tested subsidies for poor people, say nice things about Muslims even though I'm putting Bloomberg on stage at my convention..."
The idea that Black/hispanics/female/muslim/etc. voters are actually interested in more things than just their specific "minority issues" (and might even consider those issues more important than traditional "minority issues") seems foreign to a lot of people.
Edit: And I understand the need for discussion of this. It's good. But one of the core tenets of being a Democrat is that (for example) when someone asks you "Can you explain why Black Lives Matter?" you need to give an answer that doesn't in any form sound like "All Lives Matter."
I remember Sanders did an African-American town hall in Minnesota (I think?), and when asked about black people struggling, he said something along the lines of "in some places, it's black people. Others Hispanic people, even poor white people in some places...." and that just deflated the room. You have to be present, if that makes sense. Sanders has a wandering mind when it comes to politics, and he's always listing back home (which is fine, he's been a Vermont politician for longer than a lot of posters have been alive!). His home doesn't have to stay on message because of the demographic makeup of Vermont. So it's totally consistent that he's not super trained on this stuff in the same way a senator from New York City would be. There's not a hatred of the guy here, but I have strong doubts that he knows how to enthuse people of color specifically. You can't just say "I'm going to help everyone, and they'll get helped too" since people of color have historically been ripped off by such language starting from "All men are created equal."
That's fair. I actually do agree that Sanders isn't always up to date on the "language" of social justice, even if his actions show he obviously supports those same goals. And of course, I personally think his policies and embrace of grassroots organizing is far more likely to actually achieve social justice, in comparison to the "just give it to me, I'll make deals and get things done" that is the Clinton/Obama approach.
What I don't get is when people use this to make larger claims such as "...and this is why minorities don't like him!" as if we're all making our voting decisions based on how often someone uses "intersectionality" and "white privilege" in a speech, lol.
I also don't get that if it's speeches and rhetoric that bothers people, and not the actual policies...then there's years of awkwardness from the Democratic Party as a whole when discussing these issues (even Obama gets too "pull your pants up" at times, and he's no stranger to condescension himself)? If we're giving influential members of the Democratic Party a pass on this because they're still ultimately still on the right side of the issues, then it seems odd to make Sanders (or anyone else further left of the mainstream Democratic party) out like they're uniquely flawed on this issue.
Again, obviously if you feel he should do better when speaking about it, then I don't really disagree. I just disagree that this is something unique to Sanders or "the far left", and I disagree that the specific type of rhetoric he uses is the major problem that dooms him with minority voters (there doesn't seem to be any evidence of this), especially considering that almost all politicians are flawed at it in some way, shape, or form. And even if you get the rhetoric, and speeches, and symbolism right, that doesn't necessarily mean that the policies will match up, so we can't just limit it to that either.
this is what happens when I'm bored at work, sorry for all the long posts, lol
No, we don't hate either. We should be mad that literally everyone that fucked up, outside of the Clinton campaign, did so because they thought they could kick the can and let her clean up whatever mess they were meant to. Obama, reddit, the newsmedia, the GOP, the CIA, the people who didn't vote...what I'm saying is there's a long list of people to blame for this situation.
Why would people of color supporting a candidate who they largely agree with on issues be considered "falling in line"?
I'm not saying that Sanders or a future Sanders type should somehow stop trying to win the votes of people of color. I'm just saying that when people claim to speak on behalf of what people of color all want, it helps to actually look at polling data, and their actual collective views on multiple issues and candidates, and not just go "They voted for Clinton, so they would never support someone like Sanders!"
There's no evidence that that is true, which was the point of my post.
No, we don't hate either. We should be mad that literally everyone that fucked up, outside of the Clinton campaign, did so because they thought they could kick the can and let her clean up whatever mess they were meant to. Obama, reddit, the newsmedia, the GOP, the CIA, the people who didn't vote...what I'm saying is there's a long list of people to blame for this situation.
Yes. Do you not remember the Waco raid and other similar event in the '90s? Not wanting a repeat of that and the resulting backlash has completely changed how police try to approach those types of situations.
Well, I don't because I wasn't born yet But I'm not seeing why it's okay to protest because it looks bad to get your arm blown off or how that's justified by Waco. Why is public resistance to serious social problems a bad thing?
And you keep stating that Occupy didn't accomplish anything and it didn't immediately, but it's gotten youth involved and organized and has moved onto issues like the Fight For Fifteen.
Well, I don't because I wasn't born yet But I'm not seeing why it's okay to protest because it looks bad to get your arm blown off or how that's justified by Waco. Why is public resistance to serious social problems a bad thing?
And you keep stating that Occupy didn't accomplish anything and it didn't immediately, but it's gotten youth involved and organized and has moved onto issues like the Fight For Fifteen.
That would explain why you're not seeing what I'm seeing regarding an implied threat. Waco and other incidents are the reason you haven't seen something like that occur since the Clinton administration.The political risk of escalation and backlash is unbelievably high. Did you ever wonder why they didn't just clear them out even though they were stationed like a giant wall?
Fight For Fifteen is an advocacy campaign bankrolled by union groups. It's not grassroots. (please don't let us get sucked down a wormhole into minimum wage minutiae lol)
edit:
Obama has scheduled a press conference for 2:15PM tomorrow.
Something is up. (Whoever compared the CIA report leak timing to the Comey timing may have been on to something.)
It's not a bad example. They are literally, right this minute, trying to give themselves permanent control of the state. Going down there and helping draw media attention, trying to stall out their time, etc. - that all helps.
But that attention isn't at all different from the national attention that Congressional protests would bring. Do you think the NC GOP cares about its public perception in a way that the national GOP doesn't? Why would this be the case? Why does protest work in the instance you care about but not the one you don't?
Again, obviously if you feel he should do better when speaking about it, then I don't really disagree. I just disagree that this is something unique to Sanders or "the far left", and I disagree that the specific type of rhetoric he uses is the major problem that dooms him with minority voters (there doesn't seem to be any evidence of this), especially considering that almost all politicians are flawed at it in some way, shape, or form. And even if you get the rhetoric, and speeches, and symbolism right, that doesn't necessarily mean that the policies will match up, so we can't just limit it to that either.
this is what happens when I'm bored at work, sorry for all the long posts, lol
To clean this talk up, my main argument with you is that I'm unsure whether you're talking about Sanders or some future candidate that somehow does everything he did but also adds real minority outreach that specifically caters to those demographics. The former seems to be a useful discussion in the sense that it matters a bit. The latter (which I now think you've been talking about) is pointless. Obviously if we've got some perfect candidate then that'd be great!
But Sanders himself wasn't and isn't this candidate. He did poorly with minorities, specifically Hispanic and black voters. That disparity was a damn good method of predicting which states he'd win and which ones Hillary would win. If you want to see what happens when 2 candidates do well with various demographics, that's Hillary vs Obama, which was much tighter. Sanders was never gaining decent ground with people of color.
I'm on board with candidates that are fiery and can talk a good economic game. But if that candidate can't make it through a minority town hall without mentioning white people, then I'm not going to vote for them (in the primary). My vote in the primary hinges on this because the visibility of the Presidency is largely the only office that affects cultural change. Economics can be completely covered in Congress, but people don't define American culture by various legislators, they do it by the words and whatnot of the President. It's one of the byproducts of people not caring enough about the downticket, but it's not really one of the terrible byproducts of that. The White House sets the tone for the country.
But that attention isn't at all different from the national attention that Congressional protests would bring. Do you think the NC GOP cares about its public perception in a way that the national GOP doesn't? Why would this be the case? Why does protest work in the instance you care about but not the one you don't?
But how is this interference going to matter when you say national interference doesn't? The NC GOP has no more reason to be deterred by this than the national GOP would be.
But how is this interference going to matter when you say national interference doesn't? The NC GOP has no more reason to be deterred by this than the national GOP would be.
Attention to mobilize resources and shine a spotlight on the insanity. Using physical bodies in an attempt to make it so that they can't hold a session. These things are possible. These are tangible things you can accomplish.
Simply protesting outside a bank or capital for generic reasons - it's not going to do anything like that.
I hope to fuck this election cycle proves to Democrats that they need to stop being so fucking complacent with the power they have in whatever offices they control. So much passiveness compared to the aggressive proactive moves Republicans make to ensure influence over the country.
I hope to fuck this election cycle proves to Democrats that they need to stop being so fucking complacent with the power they have in whatever offices they control. So much passiveness compared to the aggressive proactive moves Republicans make to ensure influence over the country.
So this is a complex thing. I mean, think of the simple example of a bully picking on a kid. Well, the bully is an ass, aggressive, making sure he projects his bullshit everywhere, the poor kid is probably nice, understands others better than the bully, but when push comes to shove maybe finally knocks that bitch out.
I have no doubt we are at a moment the Dems are becoming fighters. Because Dems, much moreso than fuckface repubs, know they are on the right side of history and will fight when they feel real threats are against that. They will have all the justification they need to get dirty, because in the end its saving many others. It is when there isnt a large divide that the dems show passive weakness, because at the end of the day their base want people to get along and work for the better good, which is why a dem will compromise much more than a fuckface repub. Dems simply cant believe people would go so low and that's why they didnt act like they would, whereas repubs are digging into whoever the fuck with their claws as fast as possible to gain an inch and not give a fuck. Also, fuck repubs. pieces of shit.
Attention to mobilize resources and shine a spotlight on the insanity. Using physical bodies in an attempt to make it so that they can't hold a session. These things are possible. These are tangible things you can accomplish.
Simply protesting outside a bank or capital for generic reasons - it's not going to do anything like that.
To clean this talk up, my main argument with you is that I'm unsure whether you're talking about Sanders or some future candidate that somehow does everything he did but also adds real minority outreach that specifically caters to those demographics. The former seems to be a useful discussion in the sense that it matters a bit. The latter (which I now think you've been talking about) is pointless. Obviously if we've got some perfect candidate then that'd be great!
But Sanders himself wasn't and isn't this candidate. He did poorly with minorities, specifically Hispanic and black voters.
Yes, in a race against Hillary Clinton. Is this because minorities were opposed to Sanders, or was it because minorities preferred Clinton? After all, primaries will tend to have candidates on the same "side", so it makes sense to determine if people would actually be "unhappy" with a second choice, or do they just have leanings in one direction but are basically cool with both.
I think people treat the two ("preferring A" and "opposing B") as the same thing, whereas I think those are two entirely different statements, especially within the context of a party primary. And figuring out which is which seems pretty important going forward.
That disparity was a damn good method of predicting which states he'd win and which ones Hillary would win. If you want to see what happens when 2 candidates do well with various demographics, that's Hillary vs Obama, which was much tighter. Sanders was never gaining decent ground with people of color.
But the obvious question is "why didn't Sanders get votes of people of color
more accurately, older voters of color
". Usually, the response is someone's pet theory about how he doesn't speak to their issues, and that's why they don't like him. But that giant post I made seems to indicate that that specific theory isn't true in any collective demographic sense since the issues he talks about the most are the issues minorities also care about the most. Sure, obviously there are plenty of individuals that feel differently, which is fine, and that should be heard, I just didn't see any evidence of that being a larger trend, which is usually what I'm responding to.
I'm on board with candidates that are fiery and can talk a good economic game. But if that candidate can't make it through a minority town hall without mentioning white people, then I'm not going to vote for them (in the primary).
Did you not vote for Clinton because she once said All Lives Matter then?
My vote in the primary hinges on this because the visibility of the Presidency is largely the only office that affects cultural change. Economics can be completely covered in Congress, but people don't define American culture by various legislators, they do it by the words and whatnot of the President. It's one of the byproducts of people not caring enough about the downticket, but it's not really one of the terrible byproducts of that. The White House sets the tone for the country.
That's actually a pretty interesting perspective. In some respects, I do agree with the "setting the tone for the country" viewpoint of the Presidency, though probably where we differ is that I think there are pretty big limits to that (as the past 8 years have shown). We had pretty much the best possible "setting the tone for the country" president in Obama, but everyday black and brown folks didn't always get the benefits of that "tone" (it's obviously well known that BLM started during his presidency, and Obama has no problem deporting immigrants, and income inequality continues to increase). So I guess I'm less enthused about the symbolic aspects of the Presidency than other people.
Though interestingly enough, you're currently engaging in a discussion and defending the use of protest and general grassroots activism to achieve social change (which I do agree with!). That's actually one of the reasons why I leaned towards a scandal-free candidate that had no problem shouting out BLM, looks to Fight for $15 and #NoDAPL for energy, and actively speaks about and encourages bottoms up grassroots movements and organizing, as opposed to the candidate that effectively just said "I can get things done, I know how the system works, I can change it from within". The former view happens to line up with my view of how big social change gets made, so even when discussing "symbols" that seems far more useful than any symbolism Clinton possessed.
And just to clarify, Clinton and Sanders are just representations for larger philosophical, policy, and governing differences, so feel free to mentally substitute "candidate that embraces top-down decision making and inside the system tweaks and reforms and is willing to compromise with powerful financial interests to make social change" when I say Clinton, and "candidate that embraces bottom up activism and protest, and thinks powerful financial interests are often a big reason (though not the only one) for the lack of social change" when I say Sanders, heh. In the primary, the specific people mattered since Clinton had such an obvious name-recognition advantage and history of "insider connections" and Sanders didn't play the Democratic Insider game the way Obama did, so it was pretty much on uneven ground from the start. But in other primaries and elections, if we get two candidates with those philosophies that are equally well known or equally unknown, it'd be interesting to see what could win out.
So this is a complex thing. I mean, think of the simple example of a bully picking on a kid. Well, the bully is an ass, aggressive, making sure he projects his bullshit everywhere, the poor kid is probably nice, understands others better than the bully, but when push comes to shove maybe finally knocks that bitch out.
I have no doubt we are at a moment the Dems are becoming fighters. Because Dems, much moreso than fuckface repubs, know they are on the right side of history and will fight when they feel real threats are against that. They will have all the justification they need to get dirty, because in the end its saving many others. It is when there isnt a large divide that the dems show passive weakness, because at the end of the day their base want people to get along and work for the better good, which is why a dem will compromise much more than a fuckface repub. Dems simply cant believe people would go so low and that's why they didnt act like they would, whereas repubs are digging into whoever the fuck with their claws as fast as possible to gain an inch and not give a fuck. Also, fuck repubs. pieces of shit.
We do not live in a static world. Opinions shift, social movements happen, candidates evolve, strategies change. There's been a good number of presidents that lost primaries before eventually winning the presidency, including our next president. Learning from the primary is one thing, but acting like that result is forever prognosticative and dismissing new data is silly.
We do not live in a static world. Opinions shift, social movements happen, candidates evolve, strategies change. There's been a good number of presidents that lost primaries before eventually winning the presidency, including our next president. Learning from the primary is one thing, but acting like that result is forever prognosticative and dismissing new data is silly.
I think his point was, the opinion of the people who show up to vote matters. By extension, we should value the vote results more than something like that general opinion poll.
Once voter data is updated, we will be able to work with some more complete data.
President Obama says the United States will respond to Russian cyberattacks that the intelligence community has concluded were part of an effort to influence the 2016 presidential election.
In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that will air Friday on Morning Edition, Obama said, "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections ... we need to take action. And we will at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be."
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that hackers working for Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee's computer network, as well as the private email of John Podesta, a top adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
With the question of Russia's ultimate motivation for the hack becoming increasingly divisive, Obama was careful to not endorse a CIA assessment, reported by NPR and other news outlets, that asserts that Russia's goal was to elect Trump.
Obama said his goal is for a definitive White House report on the matter to be issued before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. He was also careful to say that while the Russian hacks benefited Trump, he is not suggesting Trump's campaign helped coordinate the attacks or played any role in them, other than to exploit them for political advantage. "They understood what everybody else understood, which was that this was not good for Hillary Clinton's campaign," the president said.
Obama acknowledged that every "big power" spies and collects intelligence on each other, but, he said, "There's a difference between that and the kind of malicious cyberattacks that steal trade secrets or engage in industrial espionage, something that we've seen the Chinese do. And there is a difference between that and activating intelligence in a way that's designed to influence elections."
Obama discussed cybersecurity with Vladimir Putin during a 90-minute meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit held in China in early September. The president characterized the meeting at the time as "candid, blunt, businesslike."
While Obama is threatening to retaliate against Russia, he has only about five weeks left in the Oval Office. Trump has dismissed in fact, mocked intelligence assessments tying the DNC and Podesta hacks to Russia, and he campaigned on improving the U.S. relationship with the country.
In his interview with NPR, Obama appeared mystified by that stance.
"The irony of all this, of course, is that for most of my presidency, there's been a pretty sizable wing of the Republican Party that has consistently criticized me for not being tough enough on Russia," he said. "Some of those folks during the campaign endorsed Donald Trump, despite the fact that a central tenet of his foreign policy was we shouldn't be so tough on Russia. And that kind of inconsistency I think makes it appear, at least, that their particular position on Russia on any given day depends on what's politically expedient."
The president cited a recent Economist-YouGov poll that found Republican voters view Putin much more favorably now than they did before the 2016 presidential election.
"This is somebody, the former head of the KGB, who is responsible for crushing democracy in Russia, muzzling the press, throwing political dissidents in jail, countering American efforts to expand freedom at every turn; is currently making decisions that's leading to a slaughter in Syria. And a big chunk of the Republican Party, which prided itself during the Reagan era and for decades that followed as being the bulwark against Russian influence, now suddenly is embracing him."
Yes because of his background and general ignorance on how to govern. The government isn't a business as a business looks to increase profit and revenue so it can invest on things like R&D, new products, maintenance, etc . Many things that the government spends on are not for profit; it is to provide a service. Things like tax cuts benefit corporations because it always increase their revenue, but cutting taxes does not benefit the government because of less taxes coming in. Also the benefits that the government provides are there to relieve the citizens; like if some healthcare programs was taken out of the government hands like SS and medicaid it fall into corporations hands and many millions will still lose out. The problem is that is an additional burden on the citizens as they have to pay more for their health.
Trump appointing businessmen does not make sense in some areas as some of the departments they run has nothing to do with gaining money.
Yes, in a race against Hillary Clinton. Is this because minorities were opposed to Sanders, or was it because minorities preferred Clinton? After all, primaries will tend to have candidates on the same "side", so it makes sense to determine if people would actually be "unhappy" with a second choice, or do they just have leanings in one direction but are basically cool with both.
I think people treat the two ("preferring A" and "opposing B") as the same thing, whereas I think those are two entirely different statements, especially within the context of a party primary. And figuring out which is which seems pretty important going forward.
I don't argue that minorities hate Sanders at all. In fact, I agree that they preferred Clinton (if you're hung up on the word). But that still doesn't dismiss what I'm saying. Had he won the nomination with his voters looking demographically the way they did, then the preferred candidate of most people of color (you can dismiss older voters if you want, but their votes do count!) would've been knocked out before the GE. And then in the GE you'd have the 2nd choice of people of color versus their last choice. So yes, Sanders would get most votes from people of color who vote in such an election, but I'd argue that turnout would be down. There's really not a sound argument for why it wouldn't be down (and I mean down from Clinton, not just Obama. Surely you would agree that she likely saw a larger turnout from people of color than Sanders would have, particularly with Hispanic voters).
But the obvious question is "why didn't Sanders get votes of people of color
more accurately, older voters of color
". Usually, the response is someone's pet theory about how he doesn't speak to their issues, and that's why they don't like him. But that giant post I made seems to indicate that that specific theory isn't true in any collective demographic sense since the issues he talks about the most are the issues minorities also care about the most. Sure, obviously there are plenty of individuals that feel differently, which is fine, and that should be heard, I just didn't see any evidence of that being a larger trend, which is usually what I'm responding to.
So this is actually one of those articles I share as a bad example of how to explain Clinton's support with people of color. There's barely any credit given to black people in here at all. Bullet Point 1 assumes that black people have voted against their interests like idiots. Bullet Point 2 again says that black people aren't happy with Clinton (despite their votes!). Bullet Point 3 is straight up offensive because it's the "they just know the name Clinton and pull the lever." Bullet Point 4 just handwaves the problem, which is quite literally the exact criticism that we all throw at Clinton for not going to the Rust Belt enough. Bullet Point 5 is just a purity argument that also doubles as an insult to black voters (maybe they just think that, much like every social program in our nation's history, black people will probably get screwed out of free college?).
If your starting point after a loss is the PrincipalSkinnerIt'sTheChildrenWhoAreWrong gif, then you're starting at the wrong point. Clinton (and her supporters) can't run from the losses in the Rust Belt, but the far-left can't run from their traditional losses in heavy minority states. [/QUOTE]
Did you not vote for Clinton because she once said All Lives Matter then?
Clinton wasn't making that argument in 2016, certainly not as often as others.
That's actually a pretty interesting perspective. In some respects, I do agree with the "setting the tone for the country" viewpoint of the Presidency, though probably where we differ is that I think there are pretty big limits to that (as the past 8 years have shown). We had pretty much the best possible "setting the tone for the country" president in Obama, but everyday black and brown folks didn't always get the benefits of that "tone" (it's obviously well known that BLM started during his presidency, and Obama has no problem deporting immigrants, and income inequality continues to increase). So I guess I'm less enthused about the symbolic aspects of the Presidency than other people.
I actually disagree that Obama was very good at setting the tone culturally. He was (understandably) scared of being "too black" and he frequently undercut his own position to not get called radical or biased or whatever. He hoped that the GOP wouldn't twist the knife on that weakness, but he was clearly wrong. The message forward from the last 8 years should be "If you win an election, no matter the margin or other elections, be like Dubya and claim a mandate."
Though interestingly enough, you're currently engaging in a discussion and defending the use of protest and general grassroots activism to achieve social change (which I do agree with!). That's actually one of the reasons why I leaned towards a scandal-free candidate that had no problem shouting out BLM, looks to Fight for $15 and #NoDAPL for energy, and actively speaks about and encourages bottoms up grassroots movements and organizing, as opposed to the candidate that effectively just said "I can get things done, I know how the system works, I can change it from within". The former view happens to line up with my view of how big social change gets made, so even when discussing "symbols" that seems far more useful than any symbolism Clinton possessed.
I'm actually not really a fan of protesting once you win office. At that point, just call your elected official as a constituent. Protest is what you do when the other side wins and you want to slow them down since they're on a time limit (until the next election). It's why I'm not much of a critic when the GOP protests Obama about stuff; it's just the game. However I will be calling them out if GOP folks protest now when they're in charge. A metaphor would be "Protest is what you do when you're in the backseat and you don't want the driver to go where they set the GPS. It is not something that makes sense when you are the driver and can therefore just change the GPS."
In my ideal outcome, we'd have someone who works within the system in charge of the system right now. I'd have voted for Sanders for sure, but he'd be a protester with literally zero excuse to protest. He'd be in charge, and I'd argue one of his best qualities would be completely wasted in that capacity. He's actually much better in the Senate where he can continue his obstinate streak under the new Admin.
I still don't see why you think these protests in NC matter though. Either the NC GOP has the power to do what they're planning or they don't. Shouting in the street (as you say) shouldn't stop them.
We do not live in a static world. Opinions shift, social movements happen, candidates evolve, strategies change. There's been a good number of presidents that lost primaries before eventually winning the presidency, including our next president. Learning from the primary is one thing, but acting like that result is forever prognosticative and dismissing new data is silly.
I think his point was, the opinion of the people who show up to vote matters. By extension, we should value the vote results more than something like that general opinion poll.
Once voter data is updated, we will be able to work with some more complete data.
Suikoguy is correct. What I meant is that opinions of the public at large are pointless without the best of likely voter screens, and after this past election, I think such a reliance on these screens without some serious overhauls would be a mistake. Votes are rock solid. A nebulous "Yeah, I like that idea" is less solid.
Edit: As an aside, no particular reason, but is there a character limit on posts? haha.
I don't think it's stopping him, I think we're going to see action taken re: Russia with an anvil hanging above if Trump tries to turn the lever the other way.
Gretchen carlson got pissed off on tv for getting wrecked by a Harvard law prof lol.
Also Poli gaf I got a dilemma.
So some friends of mine are very pro trump. They told me that the democrats are a bunch of losers for waiting until now for the elector thing and said that this qould have happen with Democrats not caring about popular vote.
What should I do?
Also, Hillary only won the popular vote due to California. This points to a huge disconnect between the Dems and the rest of America. Dems need to stop the foolish blame games and come to terms with this if they want to have ANY chance in the future.
Obama acknowledged that every "big power" spies and collects intelligence on each other, but, he said, "There's a difference between that and the kind of malicious cyberattacks that steal trade secrets or engage in industrial espionage, something that we've seen the Chinese do. And there is a difference between that and activating intelligence in a way that's designed to influence elections."
yeah, ya send grants these days not assassins, get with the times ya dummies
The U.S. State Department sent nearly $350,000 to an advocacy group that worked to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a Senate report released Tuesday.
OneVoice Movement, a group that supported peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian factions, received grants from the State Department during a 14-month period ending in November 2014, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report.
Shortly after the U.S. grants ended, OneVoice merged with an Israeli group Victory 15, which launched a political campaign in Israel with a goal to elect "anyone but Bibi," a nickname for Netanyahu.
...
According to the report, the State Department grants helped OneVoice build its political infrastructure, including voter contact lists and professionally trained organizers. It also included expanding social media platforms intended to support peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Senate subcommittee said Tuesday no evidence was found that OneVoice spent the grant money to influence the 2015 Israeli election, but found in its report that "despite OneVoice's previous political activism in the 2013 Israeli election, the [State] Department failed to take any steps to guard against the risk that OneVoice could engage in political activities using State-funded grassroots campaign infrastructure after the grant period."
The report also said the State Department was unable to produce all the documents the subcommittee requested because it failed to retain complete email records.
Also, Hillary only won the popular vote due to California. This points to a huge disconnect between the Dems and the rest of America. Dems need to stop the foolish blame games and come to terms with this if they want to have ANY chance in the future.
Suikoguy is correct. What I meant is that opinions of the public at large are pointless without the best of likely voter screens, and after this past election, I think such a reliance on these screens without some serious overhauls would be a mistake. Votes are rock solid. A nebulous "Yeah, I like that idea" is less solid.
According to the YouGov poll: Among people that voted for Clinton in the GE, Sanders has higher favorability than Clinton. Same is true for the other two groups of voters of course. But I'd also suggest that ignoring the millions of people that don't often vote (often because they find the political establishment incredibly unappealing) is a mistake. Sanders failed to create the political revolution he talked about in this one cycle, but it's naive to think that proves it could never arrive. Poligaf likes to frame it like he went into this thing on equal grounds, but he demolished everyone's expectations. As Trump has shown, public sentiments can be very fluid. Expecting things to stay the same is shortsighted.
Also, Hillary only won the popular vote due to California. This points to a huge disconnect between the Dems and the rest of America. Dems need to stop the foolish blame games and come to terms with this if they want to have ANY chance in the future.
Omarosa Manigault, a contestant on the first season of the president-elects show The Apprentice, was one of nine new members of the transitions executive committee named Thursday.
But I'm not seeing why it's okay to protest because it looks bad to get your arm blown off or how that's justified by Waco. Why is public resistance to serious social problems a bad thing?
