As Trump takes Nevada, Republicans face facts

No actually what you’ve got there is the root development of the fluoride conspiracy.

Back in the day a few good samaritans were enjoying a nature walk around southern Georgia when they came across a couple in the worst condition they’d ever seen anybody!

The woman’s hair was falling from her scalp in clumps, the man had no hair left at all. Both had teeth that had somehow resumed growing, the way a rodent’s do, and were sticking out of their mouths and through their lips and cheeks as though each had a mouth full of ugly yellow rocks the length of an adults thumb.

They were sunburned, had open sores and were clearly suffering from extreme exposure. Salt stains were evident on both, as though they had been wading waste deep in an estuary, one full of leeches, big ones by the looks of the welts covering their lower halves.

Their eyes were beyond rational description, because there was nothing rational in them.

The good samaritans approached with grave concern for them, but also warily as they could not reconcile the horrors evidenced in the strangers condition.

When the couple realized someone was near, they began wailing incoherently “Guvmet?! Guvtmeth?! I’re ruk yooff fear ock!” but then lay back crying when their would be rescuers couldn’t give them whatever they were asking for. The woman died in that moment, overcome by all that was evidenced in her condition.

The madman that remained shocked the good samaritans horribly then, when he saw she had expired he grabbed desperately at her corpse, and for a fleeting second the samaritans were struck with a strong empathy for his loss… until they saw he was going through her pockets, and finding nothing savagely kicked the corpse away from him angrily.

His anger and madness gave him a jolt of strength and he lunged at the samaritans! Knocking one to the ground as he lunged deflected him onto the other whom he grabbed by the throat and sought to throttle!

But it was at this point that the adrenaline of his would be victim became physically manifest and the madman’s horrible condition made him a poor opponent then. Yet as the madman’s body sank to earth, his hands would not relent, his grip fastened on the samaritans throat like a vise, unbreakable! The samaritan, fearing for his life, throttled the madman in turn, they each turning red in the face, then blue, the samaritan sputters out:

“My god man! What has overtaken you!”

To which the madman replied with his last wisp of breath, just as the light faded from his eyes as he died:

“Fluoridah…tha horrurs…fluorida…”

The samaritans fled then, for fear of encountering anymore like these, and left the matter unreported in their fear and shame. But later, discussing it among themselves, knew that the couple had mentioned the government initially, and fluoride at the last… they resolved to prevent these harms from befalling another and the mission continues to this day.

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A growing number of conservatives, like Tom Nichols, would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump.

…Star-struck, low-information celebrity cultists will vote for Trump under any circumstances because they do not know any better and do not care. For them, Trump is whatever they want him to be, and they will never change their minds. The rest of us, however, have a much more difficult choice to make. Will we really oppose Trump to the point of accepting any alternative, including Hillary Clinton?

The answer, at least for me, is: Yes. If forced into a choice between Clinton and Trump, I will prefer Hillary Clinton. The future of the entire conservative movement is at stake, and a Clinton victory over Trump might be the only hope of saving it. …

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Florida in the water would do actually affect people’s thought processes

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I’m getting more and more concerned about the number of stalwart Sanders supporters who focus on how much they loathe Hillary and how they would never, never support her, no matter what. If this election goes to Trump, it’ll be because of Democrats who stayed home out of spite.

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Draft Biden!


Anyway, there’s the rub. Clinton is divisive. And unpopular amongst independents. She is really going to have to convince Sanders supporters she’s genuinely progressive and will govern that way. She’s responsible for how they perceive her now.

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I share that concern, esp. because democratic socialism is less about insisting on pristine candidates and more about hard, shared long term community work to remedy actual harms.

Risking policies we know will only increase risks of harms for girls, women, LGBTQ and undocumented people — not to mention workers and small farmers generally — is not something Bernie Sanders would do.

It’s not democratic socialism so much as mirror-gazing Emersonian idealism. We need to value and practice real solidarity with other, sometimes more vulnerable, real people.

There are many important ways to do that work in addition to voting in national elections.

Isn’t it also the 100+ year lesson of the democratic left — renewed every 20 years or so — to resist factionalizing and share political work locally and cooperatively with real communities?

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I think this is a general issue with a two party system. We’re seeing it from both sides.

The idea that there are only two sides is a myth. There aren’t just two streams of thought, there are a couple of very broad coalitions. Eventually, those on the edges of the coalitions get pissed off with being continually told to suck it up and vote for the least worst option, if every time when they do they feel like they’re being taken for granted.

If there were lots of smaller parties, the coalitions could be looser and congress would be more representative (we’d need PR). I suspect (maybe) that if Sanders were (say) the leader of the Democratic Socialist party and Clinton of the Democrat Party, members of the DS party might be more amenable to voting for her after Sanders in a preferential voting system.

You’d have to make congress elected by proportional representation and fix the gerrymandering, get rid of the electoral college, do something about the massive overrepresentation of small states in the Senate…

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I hear they are making immigration easier now up there… Need an American historian/studies person as a neighbor? :wink:

My daughter approves of that plan…

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This. Trump is completely capable of taking Hillary’s history of corruption and her Wall Street strings, welding her to the economic status quo, and making it the central issue of the campaign from a populist POV.

Sanders’ unwillingness to do this (and no, Bernie, it’s not about e-mails) is one reason why he will not be able to deny her the nomination.

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I agree and can add two other thoughts.

First, if Clinton edges Sanders out, there’s still newly aligned caucus work in the party which is consistent with DSA goals. Sanders has made clear that he will support the party’s candidate.

It’s not “just pragmatism” to, for example, protect vulnerable girls and women in Texas from losing access to clinics. We can help keep injured people safer, esp, if they’ve asked for help.

Second, stepping back from electoral remedies, there are other types of remedies to consider. There are legal, political, policy and economic remedies in addition to voting or GOTV in a national election.

We’re maybe happily constrained by rent and bills and caring for loved ones. We’re also constrained by some isolating routines of commercial media.

But voting is in some important ways the first task, not the last one.

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So are mine though not for the same reasons.

I hate political dynasticism; it’s a slap in the face to the American Dream, and contrary to the notions of real representative democracy.

That said, Clinton II’s campaign enshrines a fundamental tautology: America is clearly ready for a female president. Hillary Clinton is the only person in a position to fill that role because she is the only person in a position to fill that role.

Clearly, If we are ever going to have a woman president, it is going to be through circumstances uncannily similar to the situation we are now in. Given the history of American politics, of course the first female president would be the wife of a former president. I’ve always wanted to see a woman become president, but

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…I’d still vote for her though.

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Eerily similar story to Cristina Kirchner.

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Interesting that she was the second female president, the first being Isabel Martínez de Perón in the 70’s, who was herself the wife of a prior president.

I guess that’s just how the system works.

Obama 2024!

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Wait, for what reasons? Mine would want to a) Leave America because president trump, and b) move to Japan, because anime… What would their reasons be?

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One, lean in. Two, don’t be stupid, people, and Banksy. :smiley_cat:

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Or because Democrats stayed home because they didn’t have any confidence in the candidate chosen by their party. It doesn’t have to be spite. I assume you wouldn’t vote for Trump if he were somehow the democratic candidate, so it’s just a question of where the line is and what side people think Clinton is on. I know that must sound absurd to people who genuinely believe Clinton would do a good or at least a reasonable job, but there are a lot of people who think she’s just plain awful, and not all of them are Republicans. I’m sure some Clinton supporters would refuse to show up for Sanders too because they think he is a dangerous socialist.

I’d offer to share my place in Canada, but in the event of a Trump win I think I’d better save any extra space for Muslim refugees (I wish this was purely a joke).

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I know it’s hard to get him to answer an actual, real question, but I’d really be interested in who President Trump would appoint to the Supreme Court. Seriously.