“Even with IRV and no EC we’d still have FPTP and Duverger’s Law would still leave us with a two party system.”
I do NOT believe this to be true, at least not to the extent that IRV/RCV is to be considered inferior to our typical “spoiler effect” voting system (“winner-takes-all” bloc voting).
IRV/RCV would ensure that the candidate elected is at least approved of by more than 50% of the voters, even if they are not their first choice.
That’s simply not true. He excoriated Clinton for giving speeches that were pretty anodyne as speeches go. He encouraged his followers to believe they were being cheated and to react accordingly. After they rioted at a caucus, he excused their behavior. Rather than conceding defeat, he spent the days leading up to the convention agitating for superdelegates to overthrow the will of the voters after previously demanding they vote the way their states voted.
According to CBS News, from an article at the time:
"After months of saying he did not consider Clinton’s private email
server to be a campaign issue, Sanders said on Sunday that voters and
Democratic delegates should take a “hard look” at a new report criticizing Clinton for her email use.And
after Sanders supporters disrupted the Nevada Democratic state
convention in mid-May, causing security to end the event early and
sending death threats to the state party chairwoman, Sanders didn’t call
his supporters off–instead he added fuel to the fire,
issuing a statement saying Nevada’s party leadership "used its power to
prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place."Since then, he’s also called for the ouster
of Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
and has even started raising money for her primary opponent. Over the
weekend, he also demanded that Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and former
Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank be removed from top DNC convention
committee positions. Both are Clinton supporters. "
Sanders was not divisive until it was clear he was losing, and then he went all in negative, even worrying about her emails after previously dismissing them. He let his ego run away with him.
In contrast (again from the CBS article), in the Clinton/Obama contest, when it became clear Clinton was on a losing path she continued to campaign but began to moderate her rhetoric and build up Obama’s reputation among her supporters. She didn’t wait until a month after the convention was over.
“he didn’t encourage the assholes, and tried to rein them in.”
That’s not quite true.
When his followers rioted at the Nevada convention, and some of them made death threats against the state party chair, Sanders did the exact opposite of calling his supporters off. He instead added fuel to the fire by issuing a statement blaming the party for “[using] its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.”
At the end of the day, we have to live with the data. And the data say that the country is essentially frozen into partisan camps with no one left to convince in the middle. That’s why the polling averages in this race were an essentially flat line throughout the campaign.
The data show that black turnout was down slightly but not a lot so the SCOTUS ruling hasn’t had much effect – yet.
The data show that white voters weren’t any larger share of turnout than in the Romney election.
In a frozen polity like that, with virtually the entire country stuck inside their respective camps, it is a big deal when a small number of voters are pushed out of one of those camps but not the other. That’s what the Sanders campaign did.
And it is an even bigger deal when they will lead to sufficient inaction on climate change to push us past a point of no return. The 1.5 degree target of the Paris treaty is already fantasy. Even fully implemented, all climate models predict at least a 2 degree rise by 2100. Since changes are currently running ahead of all climate model predictions, my seat of the pants guess is more like a 3 degree rise.
That’s getting into the territory of thawed permafrost, melted ice caps, and interference with thermohaline circulation in the oceans. And that is as close to the end of the world as makes no odds. Do you understand why I don’t care about anything else?
Which is the point of the third party, right? (And fourth, if we count the tea partiers fulfilling that role in their own despicable way for the Republicans.)
Maybe you should have backed Sanders to start with then, since he was the candidate that thought climate change was the biggest threat:
COOPER: Thirty seconds for each of you. Governor Chafee, what is the greatest national security threat to the United States?
CHAFEE: It’s certainly the chaos in the Middle East. There’s no doubt about it.
COOPER: OK.
CHAFEE: And it all started with the Iraq invasion.
COOPER: Governor O’Malley?
O’MALLEY: I believe that nuclear Iran remains the biggest threat, along with the threat of ISIL; climate change, of course, makes cascading threats even more (inaudible).
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, the greatest national security threat?
CLINTON: I – I think it has to be continued threat from the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear material that can fall into the wrong hands. I know the terrorists are constantly seeking it, and that’s why we have to stay vigilant, but also united around the world to prevent that.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, greatest national security threat?
SANDERS: The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is a major crisis.
COOPER: Senator Webb?
WEBB: Our greatest long-term strategic challenge is our relation with China. Our greatest day-to-day threat is cyber warfare against this country. Our greatest military-operational threat is resolving the situations in the Middle East.
Do you really want to spend the next four years dividing opposition to Trump and cursing the people you should be working with? Really?
Look, once again, Sanders’ campaign did have some role in fucking up this election - we agree, even if we don’t agree on all the nuances. Clinton’s campaign also had some some role in fucking up this election. A worthless press had a huge role in fucking up this election. Russia worked very effectively at manipulating US voters. The FBI worked very effectively to manipulate US voters. The GOP worked very effectively at voter suppression to manipulate the outcome of this election.
If you want an enemy, pick the right fucking one. Even if you’re technically right in one sense, exclusively demonizing Sanders is giving GOP voter suppression, a worthless press, and a ton of other genuine evils a pass. You’re wrong in pretending there’s one demon, and you’re wrong in that you’ve picked the worst demon to decide to attack. You’re attacking Sanders but excusing the SCOTUS for gutting the Voting Rights Act? Sanders, for all his flaws, at least had his heart in the right place - he wasn’t intentionally trying to elect a fascist. You should be pissed, but there are other, better targets for your wrath. Use that wrath for something that’s going to help in the crisis we’re facing instead of wasting time fighting with potential allies.
As for the AGW issue, you’re right, we’re massively fucked, it was my single greatest concern, and has been since Gore ran (honestly I’m still fucking pissed at the “Greens” for their role in helping destroy the environment). Figure out what your goal is and figure out how you can accomplish it. If your goal really is to demonize Sanders, look in a mirror for a while, figure out how you life reached that point, and turn things around. We need to be together on fighting the fucking fascist right now, not bickering over whose fault it was we got here, when most of the fault lies on the fucking fascist and his right-wing enablers.
Thunderdome
This! A thousand times this!
No, he asked that she release transcripts of speeches she gave to wall street bankers. [quote=“pjcamp, post:82, topic:89457”]
to believe they were being cheated and to react accordingly.
[/quote]
On some level that’s true. Do you think a level playing field exists for all of us and that the political parties in power aren’t partial responsible for letting that happen?
Citation?
NEW report is key here.[quote=“pjcamp, post:82, topic:89457”]
“used its power to
prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.”
[/quote]
If true do you NOT see that as an actually problem which contributes to voter apathy?[quote=“pjcamp, post:82, topic:89457”]
he’s also called for the ouster
of Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
[/quote]
Seems like she helped tip the scales in clinton’s favor. The process wasn’t transparent.
He did that for a whole host of progressive candiates to the left of the Dems mainstream. Good for him.[quote=“pjcamp, post:82, topic:89457”]
began to moderate her rhetoric and build up Obama’s reputation among her supporters. She didn’t wait until a month after the convention was over.
[/quote]
I wouldn’t be surprised if promises were made for 2016 about her position on the ticket or maybe she got promised the Sec. of State job to get her to do so.
???
I also have an animated one:
I’ve tried to load the canonical thread of animated gifs and save some of the cooler ones locally for re-use, but even with gif animation disabled it crashes every browser I’ve tried.
I suppose I could get really inspired and use a page downloading tool, or site:bbs.boingboing.net in Google image search so only a page at a time loaded, but… I’m lazy? 
And here we go still advocating for the failed 2 parties and 2 parties only system that got us were we are today…meh
Yes it must be the Greens fault that Hillary couldn’t win against trump…if it helps you sleep at night dude…
If that’s your takeaway from my post, I’m quite disappointed in you.
Already one established. Jump aboard matey!
Who are “we”? That certainly hasn’t been my position.
