Yes? Neither was appointed by Dems.
You are arguing an unrelated, if absolutely valid point outside of this context.
Thomas certainly benefitted from “Southern Democrats”, the like of which rarely vote with the party.
Anyway, I won’t belabor my other position any further.
Back in the days when the party bosses picked the candidates, we got the likes of Lincoln, Cleveland, Garfield, Coolidge (for me) FDR (for you), Truman, Ike, and JFK…
I don’t think the smoke-filled room system ever gave a choice as bad as Clinton versus Trump.
If Gore were in any way an intellectual, this assertion might make a bit of sense. But, he was & is relentlessly middlebrow. As are most of the Clinton power group. You can get more nuance and haut thinking from Putin than from those glib, ‘Big Chill’* style dullards.
In the context of the Beltway, ‘elitist’ is not a commendation. I probably should have used the term ‘insider’ to differentiate them from people who think, read, and fight to develop an appreciation of their fellow man. Gore is & was an ‘insider’. It was evident from the curl of his lips that he knew himself to be one.
He lost on his own merit.
*(A particularly snotty movie from the early 1980s).
I can’t say that I’ve never dreamt of a benevolent dictator from time to time.
No such a thing, my friend… what’s benevolent to you is tyranny to someone else.
But wiki says there are!
people said this about bush v. gore, yet bush ignored repeated warnings about al qaeda, wound up instigating two wars, and managed to tank the economy. recent progress on minority rights and healthcare have happened in spite of the republicans, not because of them. the two parties are definitely not the same.
based on what i see in the rest of the world, the democrats seem slightly to the right of center. that makes it tough for folks on the left to whole heartedly support the demos, but it doesn’t mean the two parties are the same.
Which is why they remain solely in my realm of gloriously efficient and effective fantasy.
Since the thread won’t stop talking about Nader, just two things:
(1) Nader was actually wrong about the Corvair. The NHTSA did some rollover tests in the 1970s - tests that are now standard because of Nader’s earlier advocacy - and included a '63 and a '67 Corvair just for the heck of it. They both passed with flying colors:
The Corvair handling and stability compared favorably with the other contemporary vehicles used in the NHTSA testing programs. Vehicle rollover did not occur in any of the comparative tests for the Corvair, Falcon or Valiant. The Volkswagen and the Renault did rollover in some of the comparative tests.
The resulting product safety law is a good thing, but the motivating example was false.
(2) Voting for Nader in 2000 did not do anything to shake up the 2-party system or move the party to the left. Progressives leaving the party in a fit of pique (a) just leaves the decisionmaking to the conservatives who remain, and (b) lets the conservatives not worry about the party’s future direction (anyone who disagrees with us will just leave, so we don’t need to accommodate them).
The Democratic party isn’t going anywhere soon. The best chance for change is to move the party back to the left. (For example, my state just elected a Sanders supporter as party leader.) If you have a congressperson or senator who supported HRC, every time Clinton reneges on a promise or position made in reaction to the campaign’s push to the left let your representative know you are holding them accountable for this. Do it by phone call or snail mail, which legislators take far more seriously than they do email or change.org petitions.
And not just that: for its “facts”, the article sources opinion pieces by unbiased sources like Jim Hightower, Ralph Nader’s campaign co-chairman. Is dailykos really the place that one goes to for evenhanded coverage? (Answer: No.)
Me too, but I always wake up screaming.
After four years of markers being called in by Wall Street and the foreign corporations who have written big checks to Bill, Hillary, Chelsea, and their “foundation”, I suspect that the 2020 equivalent to Donald Trump will have pretty smooth sailing to the White House.
It’s one thing for Bernie to say, “I’m voting for Clinton because Trump is worse”. It’s something else entirely for him to praise this bankers’ tool as somehow good for the country.
Yeah… having studied that regime, the US certainly considered it benevolent, and Tito was certainly better than most, but given that Albanians were being ethnically cleansed during this period, not everyone agrees.
Did you forget the nasty mudslinging about Sanders, his supporters, and his campaign from Clinton’s campaign?
Clinton is probably even more susceptible to this criticism than Sanders. Does that give you any pause in making that criticism? Didn’t seem to.
Is it because you weren’t aware of Clinton’s mudslinging, or because you don’t care? Or was it a momentary oversight?
Not in the slightest. Clinton’s campaign absolutely indulged in nasty mudslinging; I never said they didn’t. They painted Sanders with as dirty a brush as they could. It wasn’t pretty to watch or appreciated.
My comment was only about Sanders’ campaign, which started out with the high-minded intent to rise above the mud and only engage the issues. I really appreciated that, and it was great to see a politician refuse to ‘get dirty’. I wish that his campaign hadn’t started using the same sort of baseless accusations that Clinton did. [EDIT: please note that I’m not speaking about Sanders, the man. I’m talking about the folks who ran his campaign and controlled his message. When he was speaking for himself, he certainly avoided mudslinging.]
Well, I’m convinced that hardcore Clinton supporters are elitist (and proud of it apparently), condescending, smarmy, moralistic jerks who resent the fact that other people have opinions that differ from their own and try to shame them for it.
This attitude is exactly why Trump supporters support Trump. Maybe a little bit because they like Trump, but mostly because you hate Trump, and they hate you. A vote for Trump is a vote for hating you!
In case you ever wonder, that’s the same reason that the same demographic voted for George W. You think they gave a shit about policy? Hell no. The main thing they cared about was giving Gore supporters the middle finger. Why?
Because Gore is exactly the same kind of elitist, condescending, smarmy, moralistic jerk as I mentioned above, and voting against him was voting against everything he represents for the people who did so.
And, incidentally, the political ideology of such elitists? it’s called technocracy, not democracy. It’s inherently authoritarian since it entails experts making decisions about how other people live their lives without giving those people a say in the matter. (Yes, it’s frustrating when you’re obviously right and other people dig in their heels and won’t agree. But a) that’s why patience is a virtue and b) you’re probably not as obviously right as you think you are, and you should probably keep a more open mind when discussing issues with people who disagree with you.)
So yes, lecture Sanders supporters about their moral obligation to vote for your pet candidate. Refuse to take their opinions seriously – call them childish and petulant, tell them they’re actually supporting Trump. Treat them like children and refuse to take seriously their capacity for agency and independent thought.
And watch the democratic party implode just like the republican party did, and for the same exact reasons.
Maybe Sanders supporters aren’t the only ones self-righteously digging in their heels for misguided reasons?
I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but pretty much all those descriptions could apply to many Sanders supporters. As a Sanders supporter I don’t think we’re above any of that. It’s politics. There are a a ton of Republicans, Dems, Greens, and Libertarians who are elitist, condescending, smarmy, moralistic jerks who resent the fact that other people have opinions that differ from their own. If the true reason someone gets elected President is because of the tone of some supporters of a candidate then I want Trump elected so the Constitution can be burned, the country razed to ashes, and we can end what must be the most idiotic system of government ever conceived.
Oh, this thread…
It’s still July. Just think how much fun things will be in October.
