I wouldn’t call social justice and equality ‘identity politics’, it’s probably the most important thing about being a Democrat and ultimately drives every other decision on economics and foreign policy. You can definitely disagree about economics and foreign policy, all that stuff is crazy, especially now, and constantly needs to be improved. I don’t necessarily agree with half those policies that the party comes up with.
My being a Democrat is 100% based on individual freedoms, equality, human rights, justice, kindness, fairness and love. And destroying the racist, bigoted, hateful, ignorant ideas pushed by the Republican party and the worst dregs of the universe that Trump has managed to dredge from the septic tank of Trump tower… ok, got ahead of myself there.
There are way more important things this party is about than just squabbling about budgets and trade deals. If you don’t like them, fine, be patient and keep fighting for what you want. Just don’t take all that ‘identity politics’ for granted, they have been well fought for over centuries and there is still so much to be fought for and too many enemies to hold back.
Well, I do know several Irish American Catholics who venerate JFK via refrigerator magnets and such. For what symbolic firsts are worth (not much to me, really. Far as I’m concerned, Thatcher already smashed the gendered glass ceiling, and look at all the damage she managed to do.)
Know what? I’ll bite:
Yes, the inclusion in her platform and the DNC’s are lies. They were included in the platform only to keep the sizable percentage of the electorate who wanted someone to vote for, not to vote against someone to vote for Hillary come November, with no actual intent to implement any of it.
They expected an easy nomination and they didn’t get it. Now they’re in trouble because, as Trevor Noah put rather well, they’ve now found themselves in the only possible race that they could lose because they decided on their candidate years ago and damn if they weren’t getting her. To hell with the polls saying that if they put Hillary up against anyone but Trump there was no way they could win, and their chances against Trump were slim to begin with (I remember projected numbers back in January or February being Hillary 51, Trump 49.)
It’s pandering in the most depressing, horrid way because they know that they have no intention of following up on the campaign promises, and they know that we know that, yet they still expect us to vote for them because at least it’s not Trump. Honestly I’m almost seeing the appeal in the idea that I’ve heard from some people to vote Trump into the White House, vote Progressives into everywhere else because then Trump will be able to do fuck-all. Considering how powerful Executive Orders/Memos have become and of course the importance of Supreme Court nominations, I can’t quite bring myself that far though; I just certainly won’t be voting either party for President in November, give me all the shit you want for being in a swing state.
~ A pissed off first time voter who thought he might just be able to get excited for the presidential race for once, but who’s now back to the plan he’s had for years of just writing in the Greens as a protest against the two party system.
Here’s the very important thing: they are not factually lies.
You are assuming that they are lies based on your gut feeling. Like other people here, you dislike Hillary and assume everything she (and the DNC, by extension) is saying is inherently untrue.
That doesn’t mean you’re right. They aren’t lies. They are the party platform. They may turn out to be lies two years down the road, four years out, or a year from now. Or they may be truthful. It really just depends on your personal opinion of the candidate and the party she’s running for.
As I’ve said, I don’t choose to see her as inherently untruthful by default. I couldn’t care less if you’re pissed off or not excited, really. It’s about being pragmatic, not thrilled. I’m not choosing a pop star. I’m choosing someone who I think can get the job done versus someone who’s eager to tear shit apart.
Yours is a shallow take. Speeches, of course, have a lot of value. They transmit ideas. But I suppose JFK should even be blamed for not having the courage to go to the moon himself. Well, I can tell it’s not really going to be productive trying to put anything into a closed fist (or mind), but I tried.
So I just want to throw in that Bernie Sanders is still the Senator for Vermont; he also just went Independant, so there’s that.
That means he is still in it in a big way, and will actually be writing the legislation for his ideas and they can still be enacted, and Hillary would sign it into law, guaranteed.
Now we just need to take the House and Senate back and just watch how fast change can be made!
It’s certainly possible they’re not lies, also to be clear it wasn’t directly at you; want to make myself clear. More just airing my frustrations about this election in general.
Anyway, like I said, it’s theoretically possible they’re not lies, but my gut tells me that the party isn’t going to do a sudden 180 in the span of a convention and actually start meaningfully espousing so many ideas that are actually good. Here’s hoping I end up very surprised.
Oh, absolutely, I didn’t take it that way. I can tell you’re angry and frustrated at your options. I know a lot of people are.
Jill Stein’s smart. She’s got some solid ideas and she’s a good person to lead the Greens. By no means whatsoever do I think she’s ready to run the country.
Yeah, bullshit. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people that would very likely still be alive today had those voters allowed their delicate consciences to suffer pushing in the chad for what was in their opinion an “unlikeable” candidate – in order to prevent opening the door wide open for what they knew goddamn well was a disastrous one. Hope the Green party voters feel the same sense of righteousness when they’re standing in the rubble three or four years from now.
Can we all just agree that, regardless of whether or not Clinton herself is worth voting for, the best way to get the platform adopted by the DNC to happen is to go out and vote Democratic on the downticket races?
I mean, Presidents have some nice powers, but they don’t write the laws; they can only advocate for them and sign them in to law.
This is the truth regardless of whether Bernie or Hillary tops the ticket.
This is a really complex issue, but suffice to say that you and I seem to have very different ideas of what constitutes “social justice” if you think economic and foreign policy in the US are not fundamental to the concept of social justice.
I’m really, really happy that gay people can get married now. I’m even willing to suppose the #BLM could only have ever gotten traction after the election of Barack Obama and give the Democrats some credit for that accordingly. However, I simply don’t think that these issues outweigh all the ones I mention above.
In fact, many of the items I enumerated where Clinton and Obama presidencies betrayed liberal policies were social justice items in the more narrow sense that you seem to use – William Clinton’s presidency was terrible for black people. Obama at best made some half-hearted gestures at starting to clean up the huge mess made by Clinton. So excuse me for not being totally on board with the Democrats’ social justice credentials either.
This is an incredibly reductive view of what I meant by “economics and foreign policy.” Economics and foreign policy have to do with: energy policy, global warming, and the giant social justice disaster that will occur as the world’s coastal areas become more and more unlivable and prone to flooding; the social justice disaster that is the dismantling of the US welfare state; the free trade policies that force workers from different companies to compete in a race to the bottom with respect to worker right; consumer protections; environmental and banking regulations; and of course this is a non-exhaustive list, just a few items off the top of my head.
Just as an example, here’s an intersection between trade deals and social justice:
What I’ve referred to as “identity politics” – the social justice measures that Democrats are actually willing to advocate – will make tens of thousands of lives more livable, and that is a great thing.
The economic and foreign policies pursued by the Democrats will kill and impoverish millions.
Again, I am simply not willing to accept the latter in return for the former.
Why would you choose to believe that someone who has been forced to adopt a position will then stick with it when they are no longer in a weak position?
I hope you haven’t supported any rhetoric that implies the Bernie or Bust people are naive.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people that would very likely still be alive today
Now you’re just making up sci-fi to justify what would have happened if Gore weren’t a shitty candidate. There’s more to blame in the 2000 election than just Ralph F. Nader, but if it helps you to sleep at night voting for Monster A instead of Monster B, more power to you.
If you’re truly anti-war (which I’m making an assumption due to your nebulous assertion of dead people), why are you supporting the 2nd-most hawkish candidate who ran in either primary?
First time poster, long time reader. Sorry I didn’t make it all the way through the thread, only got through the first half Hopefully I am not repeating what others have stated. My basic take is this:
Everyone is always free to vote for someone that won’t win. I don’t agree, but that is your right.
If you are going to vote for someone that could win, I would look at who do you hope will do what they say vs. who you are afraid they will do what they say? Why ever vote for the person that you are afraid will do what they say?
On a related note, according to Politifact:,
Trump is “mostly false”, "false or “Pants on Fire” 71% of the time.
Hillary and Bernie both tell “mostly false”, "false or “Pants on Fire” only 28% of the time. That puts Hillary on equal footing as Bernie (although full disclosure, Bernie had 0% pants on fire, while Hillary had 2%).
This conventional wisdom that Hillary is always lying compared to other politicians (including Bernie) looks a bit biased …
But is the job she’s going to get done one that benefits the country or just her and elites? I don’t want the job she clearly wants to get done. I want someone to actually work on fixing our economic problems, not making them worse or just putting a bandaid on things.
Because, even more so than in the 2000 election, the alternative is a fucking psychopath. That’s kind of the point.
And… nebulous assertion of dead people? Really? Does Bush’s invasion of Iraq --and the raging hell fire that is the middle east that stems from it-- really have to be explained?
There’s nothing sci-fi about it. If you think Gore would have gone beyond Afghanistan after 911, you’re deluding yourself. That’s squarely on Bush’s daddy issues and his neo-con cronies. But as long as the Nader voters feel good about their purity I guess it’s all okay.
Are we going to re-hash 2000 every time some speaks against voting for a Democratic candidate? Al Gore had the presence of a block of wood and the establishment fielded him anyway. It isn’t up to us, the voters, to be forced to like a candidate that we don’t like. It is up to them to make us want to vote for them.
Hopefully I am not repeating what others have stated. My basic take is this: