No, but I can at least fathom how a voter who wasn’t paying much attention would think (for example) “the Democratic rich white Protestant male Yale-educated Skull-and-Bones member who supported going to war in Iraq isn’t all that different than the Republican one.”
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I was going to suggest it’s more a question of when.
One has the support of Black Lives Matter*, the other has the support of the KKK. Don’t try to convince me these candidates are interchangeable.
[*ETA: not all of Black Lives Matter, obviously—but many leaders including “Mothers of the Movement”]
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I like Hillary. She’s a politician, and a crapload of political baggage comes with that (with any politician). No politician will be perfect, but I think an extra burden of perfection is heaped on her because she’s a woman.
Are there things I don’t like about Hillary? Of course. (There are things I don’t like about every person I know, to some degree.) Anyone looking for perfection will be sorely disappointed in the world of politics.
While I think Hillary is electable and desirable as prez in her own right, there’s no avoiding comparing her to her opponent. But Trump isn’t a politician, and we need to change the paradigm! True, he’s not a politician, but he’s a lot of other very undesirable things: buffoon, clown, racist, anti-(fill in the blank), self-serving beyond the scope of any politician, divisive, ignorant on how anything in government actually works, an embarrassment, and would have a generation-long negative impact on who sits on the Supreme Court.
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No, don’t you see? It’s our God, our guns and our religions that keep him in line. It’s because of our eternal vigilance that he’s kept in check.
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Bill will no doubt spend his time planting seeds for and smoothing the way for Chelsea.
I must also add, I did happen to notice a possible edge to your post that might suggest that you were being slightly critical of Hillary Clinton. Have you considered therapy for your obvious violent misogyny? We’ve all been put on notice that the acceptable parameters of discussion have been tightened pending the audacity of some delegates at the DNC who had the sheer rudeness to voice their opinions at the convention of Democrats assembled to voice their opinions. If you continue to take that tone, sir, I am going to have to either a) belittle your naiveté b) ridicule your temper tantrum c) remind you that you sir, alone, will be responsible for Holocaust 2 and the complete erasure of anything good that ever happened or will happen in America which will commence immediately after the election of Donald Trump and probably last forever. Just a friendly reminder. Carry on expressing your (favorable) opinions of Mrs. Clinton and her struggle up from the bottom of hell to free all rich white women to now pursue those previously impossible dreams such as providing for a family while working two jobs for $8-10 an hour or no longer getting let go in ‘Right to Work’ states because they gained weight or god forbid bred or wouldn’t service the assistant manager or called in sick or refused to come in with 30 minutes notice on their one day off in 14 days. Sorry, I’m getting emotional thinking of Clinton’s inspiring public service.
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Dude. God, yes. Thank you.
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Uhhh… Say what? When did this happen? They are marching IN PROTEST today at the DNC. They have voiced some pretty harsh criticism (consistently now) of Clinton for many valid reasons.
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GOP has been telling us to dislike her for 3 decades.
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As one would expect for a movement that has no formal leadership, which is fine. It’s a chance to get more exposure for their cause.
But look at who are some of the actual invited speakers at the DNC, then ask yourself why they weren’t at the RNC speaking on behalf of Trump:
Not. The. Same.
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So much of American voting is based on pop-psych and ‘brand loyalty’. We have a lot of ‘reality television’ type voters, and very low voter turnout. It’s a shit show, and we should all be ashamed. But it’s also what the establishment (including the Democrats) have long worked for. An easily manipulated electorate. If I understand correctly, Canadian voters vote for a party. American voting is very much about ‘I like so and so because he looks like my uncle and I’d like to have a beer with him’. Or ‘she just speaks her mind’. Very few voters (or Americans, for that matter), value or practice critical thinking. Elections here are largely based on appeals to emotion and outright manipulation of voters, media, and circumstance. Watch the themes on American media. You’ll notice very quickly American media is completely politically vacuous, and focuses almost exclusively on ‘horse race’, cult of personality, and meaningless social gaffs and meta. Virtually no effort whatsoever goes into questioning candidates values, policy positions, analysis of past and integrity, etc.
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I dislike both Clintons actually. They seem predisposed to create personal problems, and then make them worse. They have so much squandered potential for good.
That’s why I dislike them. Republicans simply dislike the air that they breath.
There was a great documentary on PBS a couple if years sgo that allow you to relive the Clinton presidency.
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A candidate with unrealized potential for good still beats a candidate who has unlimited potential for evil.
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Let’s not leave out corporate-friendly, charter-school-pushing Cory Booker. Clinton is happy to have black people around her, as long as they’re the right kind.
As Assange said yesterday, this election is like a choice between syphillis and gonorrhea. Yes, one is worse, but I’m not going to pretend they’re not both horrible diseases.
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Yet there was no chance of something better getting passed. ACA barely passed with a D controlled Congress. Don’t get all rose tinted about how there was a better way and “Obama failed”. Or about how Sanders would pass his agenda if he had won the presidency. A president can’t even write a bill, he needs Congress.
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You’re not wrong. Technically we vote for a local representative (like your House of Representatives), but since they must belong to the party system it is a simple shorthand to just vote for their party instead.
On one hand, I like the concept of an Executive Branch and voting directly for the person who represents your country to the world. That would separate a lot of hateful rhetoric here about “You’re voting for which party? Do you really want that person to be Prime Minister?” by placing direct control in the hands of the voters. On the other hand, it places direct control in the hands of the voters.
So, everyone hates the system… but it’s only now, at the point in time least likely for something to change that people are becoming upset about it? Do they not know or care how this system they hate has a built-in subsystem for self-change? (it does, right?)
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There sure are.[quote=“thirdworldtaxi, post:51, topic:82140”]
Watch the themes on American media. You’ll notice very quickly American media is completely politically vacuous, and focuses almost exclusively on ‘horse race’, cult of personality, and meaningless social gaffs and meta. Virtually no effort whatsoever goes into questioning candidates values, policy positions, analysis of past and integrity, etc.
[/quote]
TV and visual media especially. I can’t think of a single TV personality that I could call a journalist. Maybe Cooper on the rare occasion when he asks hard questions and doesn’t take prevarication for an answer. If you want analysis and discussion of policy, you’ll have to rely on outlets like NPR and The Economist.
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I’m with Hillary politically. But I live in dread if the next Clinton shoe-drop.
That’s why all the other election races are so important.
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A group of us once had a stack of movies and were trying to decide which one to watch, and one of the guys introduced us to “The Game That Everyone Loses”.
The rules are simple: Go through the stack of options and one person at a time throws out the movie they like the least. At the end the remaining movie is something no one voted against enough to reject, but (anecdotally) always something that no one is really that interested in watching either.
The process may be the opposite in the case of elections, but I can’t help feeling there’s a parallel when observing the results.
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