The plus side is that if the first black president was a jolt, the first woman president will be a lighting strike to the old white guys. It will be fun to watch the absolute meltdowns when she wins (for a while at least). The political comedy shows will have a ton of material.
The US electoral system is just a bad design, that ensures a broken two party system with neither party reflecting the interests of the party members, and an Electoral College that effectively disenfranchises most of the country save the few weird undecideds that live in swing states. The fact that we give Florida so much power to decide something so important shows clearly what a terrible system it is.
I think even if Clinton has an effective and inspiring first two years, the right-wing-hate-machine is so well tuned to fostering bitterness and hostility among the base and getting the old white people to turn out that 2018 will be a bloodbath in the House, if only because this is Hillary Clinton, she who killed Vince Foster, deliberately let Americans die in Benghazi, wants to bring Sharia to the US, will be grabbinâ your guns any time now, etc. Last time there was a Clinton in the White House they GOP base was honestly more rage-blinded than they are now with Obama, since Obamaâs been a choir boy, while the Clintons could get a bit fast and loose with rules. The fact that we have House elections every two years contributes to the whole mess, since it doesnât moderate things so much as ensure partisan gridlock.
With Trump as president, Congress might just remember that they hold the cards, and that the president is just the administrator.
The American executive branch, especially in peacetime, is a couple of orders of magnitude more powerful than it should be, and a few selective impeachments are well in order.
Am I optimistic enough about this outcome to vote for Trump? In a word, no.
that would imply large republican majorities in both houses of congress.
more likely would be the immediate appointment of someone to the right of scalia, the repeal of obamacare, the outlawing of abortions nationally, and a host of other pet projects that have been bottled up by obamaâs veto for the past 8 years.
Nor is it all that good. Another 8 years of zero movement on sustainable energy research while the rest of the planet advances, another 8 years of wars of aggression that the oligarchs want continued no matter the ultimate price to the rest of the world, 8 more years of income and wealth gaps growing, 8 more years of taxes being entirely too low on capital gainsâŚ
But hey, at least the SCOTUS wonât be able to turn back Roe v. Wade because no one will have replaced Scalia yet.
Oh you, harshing the Clintonites buzz and all. Canât you just fall in line and celebrate her great victory for all womankind and help her defeat the next-level monster so she can assume her rightful place? Itâs her turn you know, so why not just give up your childish dreams of a better world for anyone but her and her kind?
iâm not a clintonite. i voted for sanders in the primary and i know very well the clintonsâ problematic relationship with progressives but i also realize that clinton is going to give me much more, a universe more of what i want than trump will and i have no interest in âheightening the contradictionsâ on the backs of the broken.
Another eight years of zero movement on sustainable anything while the entire planet burns.
All those scientists who were pleading back in the '90âs about how we have to act immediately or weâre all screwed? They werenât wrong.
They werenât wrong about delayed action being associated with exponentially increasing harms, either.
If the world truly recognised the reality of the situation, there wouldnât be a functioning coal mine left anywhere on the planet. Today. Regardless of the economic cost.
I think this is mostly the distinction between âtheoretical neoliberalismâ and âpractical neoliberalismâ.
Theoretical neoliberalism makes a bunch of false assumptions about how we magically wonât get regulatory capture, market power, executive capture, externalities, etc etc. Practical neoliberalism is paid for by those who use their wealth and influence to entrench market power, achieve regulatory capture, etc etc. Theoretical neoliberals are the useful idiots of practical neoliberals.
Iâm OK voting for Hilary, once she stops saying âYou have to vote for me, I mean, just look at Donald Trump, heâs so crazy! Remember, America, Iâm the Default!â
She could embrace some of Bernieâs policy suggestions, start to change the partyâs structure, etc., etc., etc. Lets see what sheâs got.
If all sheâs got is âIâm better than Trump!â, then sheâs asking for a lot of Democrats to stay at home on election day.
âŚand when Democrats stay at home and Republicans come out in force because they want America to be led by everyoneâs sleazy, racist uncleâŚ
Wonât matter in my home state, I imagine, but in some of the more purple placesâŚ
As one of the few conservative-ish old white people on BB, can I have a go at this?
Naah, nobody gives a toot about this except the most fevered 1.5 percent of the right wing blogosphere. The issue is as dead as olâ VInce himself.
No, she didnât. But Clinton and Obama took a situation which was not too bad (Qaddafi was minding his own business and not exporting terrorism) and turned it into a class A1 clusterfuck. One thing I had hoped from Obama was that he would not have America start any more wars that we could not finish. Dummy me.
There are probably a few Republicans who think this. I trust in the good sense of the American public that this will not happen.
Given the history of the last few years, if I were a gun manufacturer or dealer I would be contributing as much to Hillaryâs campaign as I could afford.
Now letâs talk about the two things you didnât mention.
One, the millions of dollars of influence bought by Wall Street âspeaking feesâ and two, the tens of millions of dollars of influence bought by foreign governments and multinationals through the Clinton âFoundationâ, all of which represent markers that will be called in shortly after Hillary is sworn in.
Her ideology bothers me a little bit from time to time. but itâs a drop in the bucket compared to how much I dislike the fact that she and her husband have relentlessly devoted themselves to translating political power into personal wealth for the last four decades.
Pretty sure her first appointment would be a replacement for Scalia (assuming senate Republicans continue their unprecedented decision to block any appointee Obama puts forward).
Garland will be railroaded through between Nov and Jan when the GOP belatedly realize heâs a gift to them compared to what they might get (although I have my doubts that Clinton will pick another Sotomayor).
Frankly the Founding Fathers probably didnât forsee a lot of scenarios in which the people elected to office flat-out refused to fulfill the duties they were explicitly tasked with, so there are few recourses available short of recall elections.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
If youâre an obstructive arsehole, you can sit on that mention of consent and refuse to do anything.
