A reminder from President Clinton

[Clancy]

Are they the 2 most disliked though? Trump is disliked by a large number of people but absolutely adored by a frighteningly large group. Near as I can tell, it’s an election between a dangerous, every-phobic wannabe war criminal businessman adored by a scarily large subset of the population and the hated status quo, with the best chance for the frightening consequences of a Trump victory being that the other option is the evil we know…

[Wanderfound]

@mcsnee

All it takes is majorities in both houses and a President willing to sign it! Why didn’t Obama think of that?

He had a majority. What he didn’t have was the numbers to overcome the GOP’s unprecedented abuse of the USA’s ridiculous filibuster tradition.

Should’ve nuked that the second that it became obvious the GOP were going to use it to block everything.

The filibuster is barely justifiable if it’s reserved as an emergency measure; the way it has been used for the last decade is completely indefensible.

[nimelennar]

@Wanderfound

The filibuster is barely justifiable if it’s reserved as an emergency measure; the way it has been used for the last decade is completely indefensible.

From my understanding:

The filibuster was a good idea. It meant that the part in power couldn’t shut the other party up if they still had something to say. However, how it used to work is that, until you closed debate, you couldn’t move on to the next bill. So, sure. Don’t vote to close debate. You’ll prevent this bill from passing, at the expense of getting nothing else done until the measure is voted on.

Then they introduced multiple streams, and filibustered bills could die without interfering with the other work that the Senate wanted to get to. This is what opened the filibuster to abuse, and to letting dozens of bills sit in “debate still open” status until they die at the end of a Senate session, which is never what it was intended for.

[Wanderfound]

Allowing silent filibusters didn’t help either.

You want to filibuster? Fine. Stand and talk for as long as you want to maintain it; you’ll either inspire the nation to support you, or make yourself look so stupid that you lose all credibility.

[thirdworldtaxi]

@rocketpj

Because if you believe hard enough it can be very hard to notice when you become wrong.

And our elections have turned ‘making you believe’ into a fucking science. Because if they had to actually represent your interests to get your vote and demonstrate that, the system collapses. Because the interests of human beings are patently incompatible with the interests of unmitigated capitalism. Even though these corporate sycophants are entirely beholden to money, they need your consent every once in awhile. And thanks to the media making a frosty few hundred mil every few years, you better believe they aid and abet in this as not to draw the ire of those spending that campaign coin (not to mention the fear of losing access to a pol if they publish critical news).

[lolipop_jones]

@anon27007144

I get that I have to vote for HRC. Don’t have to like it, but I have to do it.

@rocketpj

Any remotely sane comparison of Clinton and Trump would have someone running screaming to the polls to vote for Clinton. But remotely sane just isn’t done these days.

@Bemopolis

But what we’re left with now is Hillary or Pantone 021C Baron Harkonnen, and I know what I’m doing in November.

@ToMajorTom

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.

@Brainspore

A candidate with unrealized potential for good still beats a candidate who has unlimited potential for evil.

@Brainspore

All elections are about moral and ethical compromises, because the “perfect candidate” has never existed and never will. If your last living act is one that helps put a fascist in office just because the alternative is imperfect then I’d say “good riddance to you.”

@Quinquennial

Trump at his most evil would, with the blessing of a conservative Congress, dismantle decades of the progressive movement, victimize minorities and women in ways we haven’t seen in a century, and lock that destruction in with an ultra conservative Supreme Court that will maintain this oppression for decades to come.

@robulus

It’s just that the status quo is actually, unbelievably, starting to look attractive now that Donny no-friends at the RNC is the Republican candidate in real life for actually really real and not in some dystopian novel.

@heh

But come on. Trump is way worse in every aspect

Okay. Lots of people here are saying that no matter how corrupt and venal Hillary is, she needs to be supported because Trump.

I may not necessarily agree with that, but I respect it as the product of rational decision making.

But let me ask you: was there a Republican candidate this year that would have changed your mind? Not so much that you would vote Republican, but at least enough that you would have voted third party or not voted for President?

If the answer is “no, I would vote for Hillary in order to defeat any Republican”, then it’s not about Trump. It’s about the DNC owning your vote.

[milliefink]

@lolipop_jones

Okay. Lots of people here are saying that no matter how corrupt and venal Hillary is, she needs to be supported because Trump.

You included me in your list of Hillary supporters, but I request deletion. I support neither syphillis nor gonorrhea.

[lolipop_jones]

Consider it done, and my apologies.

[Brainspore]

@lolipop_jones

But let me ask you: was there a Republican candidate this year that would have changed your mind? Not so much that you would vote Republican, but at least enough that you would have voted third party or not voted for President?

This year? No. It was pretty much a shit show, though there were still better choices than Trump. In the history of the party? Sure, if there was a Lincoln or an Eisenhower or even a Ford in the running I’d at least give them some serious consideration.

[daneel]

@lolipop_jones

was there a Republican candidate this year that would have changed your mind?

@lolipop_jones

It’s about the DNC owning your vote.

It’s not Clinton’s fault that all 16(?) candidates proposed by the GOP were fucking awful.

Mentioned him lots of times, but I quite liked Huntsman (in his own right) in 2012. And crazy Rand Paul would definitely have made things more interesting this year, at least in some constituencies (like readers here, I guess). But the party is toxic.

Rather than the DNC ‘owning’ my vote, it’s more of a case of having to support ‘anyone who can win who isn’t the GOP’. That party needs to DIAF.

[lolipop_jones]

1,100 donors to a Canadian charity tied to Clinton Foundation remain secret

(Edit) I just realized this was an article from last year. Would not have posted if I’d been more careful. Sorry!

[Mister44]

Yeah, but Trump isn’t Stalin/Hitler either. It isn’t like we don’t have politicians in office worse than him both in the past and in the present as far has his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views. Being a racists and an over all horrible person doesn’t necessarily take one up to genocide level of fascism.

Like I said, don’t misconstrue any of this as support. I am just getting tired of the hyperbole. I was tired of political hyperbole BEFORE this election even started.

[Quinquennial]

“If you don’t believe this election is important, if you think you can sit it out, take a moment to think about the Supreme Court justices that Donald Trump would nominate and what that would mean to civil liberties, equal rights and the future of our country.” - Bernie Sanders at the 2016 DNC

It’s about the people who stand to suffer for the rest of my lifetime that I’m worried about the most.

[lolipop_jones]

“if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920’s–then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.”

• FDR’s 1944 State of the Union address

Yep, Thomas E. Dewey, incipient Führer.

When every Republican is compared to Hitler, and we live through Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II without extermination camps, world wars, or state control of the media, eventually most people stop paying attention to the comparison.

[daneel]

I guess the follow-up question would be ‘Which of the DNC candidates would have been unacceptable’?

Bernie would be great, natch.

I assume that if Martin O’Malley had (somehow) won, he’d be being backed as well.

But what if Jim ‘I Killed a Man’ Webb had won? Or Lincoln Chafee?

[thirdworldtaxi]

@jlw

GOP has been telling us to dislike her for 3 decades.

This is a pretty lazy deflection. Are you really claiming that Clinton is distrusted on an unprecedented level because her critics have bought into Sarah-Palin-level-of-sophistication conspiracy theories? Do you believe Clinton’s record, words, behaviour, actions could have anything to do with her unprecedented low approval ratings? Is it because she is a woman? If so, how do we explain that she is distrusted by women as well?

[jlw]

@thirdworldtaxi

Are you really claiming that Clinton is distrusted on an unprecedented level because her critics have bought into Sarah-Palin-level-of-sophistication conspiracy theories?

Yes. The people that loved Sarah Palin believe these conspiracy theories.

[Wanderfound]

Y’all remember what happens at the end of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, right?

“Don’t sound false alarms for kicks” is not the only moral of that fable.

[generic_name]

@Daaksyde

That corruption is a big deal, it’s been a recurring story throughout her career. And at every opportunity, she seems to do what’s best for her at the expense of others, including liberals who wouldn’t otherwise hate her.

My view is that this is a problem with the entire process; she is simply good at playing the game, but almost everyone plays it. To run for office you need money, lots of money, so our elected officials are always in the pockets of whoever has the money, and spend most of their time trying to raise more money instead of dealing with legislation (there are exceptions to the rule, but so few.)

The first step is changing how our elected officials run for office. While I am sure a President Sanders would be working on serious campaign reform, I am not convinced he would actually make any headway-- the GOP is notorious for opposing this issue. Of course, I don’t know that Hillary would be any better, but right now she’s our best hope. She has at least proposed reform, whereas it’s not really on Trump’s radar.

[anon91351441]

@Mister44

I was tired of political hyperbole BEFORE this election even started.

Man, I was tired of politics before they were famous.