Yeah, I should also recommend avoid Elizabeth Warren’s twitter replies and facebook comments for a while. There’s some almost gamergatian shit going on over there right now.
[quote=“daneel, post:92, topic:79465”]
What are you going to do when John McAfee gets the Libertarian nod?
[/quote]He’s not, though. He lost to Gary “I can promise whatever I want, I’ll never win and have to follow through anyway” Johnson.
What’s your plan, then? It’s one thing to say “I refuse to vote for X because it makes me physically ill”, which is odd, but to say “I plan to vote for X because I prefer them to the mainstream candidate” is a proactive solution.
Oh, I missed this:
Gotcha. So, a productive solution, then.
I’m unsurprised, but I don’t really get it.
She didn’t do anything to harm Sanders’ chances by endorsing Clinton (nor did she do anything to help Clinton’s). She’s a politician, she did what politicians do.
The only person Warren’s endorsement potentially has any impact on is Warren. It now sounds like she’d be up for being Clinton’s VP; which in my mind can’t be a bad thing. I’d take her over any of the other suggestions I’ve seen in a heartbeat, and I’m sure Massachusetts would elect someone similar to replace her, so we wouldn’t miss her too badly in the Senate.
It’s not like Warren can really wait until 2024 for a chance to run for President.
I didn’t realize they’d already held their convention. Oh well. As mentioned elsewhere, while absolutely not a Libertarian, I quite like Gary Johnson, and he’ll be an effective spoiler for Trump, to boot.
To be fair, a single vote doesn’t matter in the least except in the rarest circumstances…and then mostly at the primary level.
If Trump wins by a dozen or so votes then feel free to tell those of us who didn’t vote Hillary that we might have been able to help for the first time in our lives. If not then there was zero impact statistically and there was no point in criticizing an individual’s voting decision.
Well, until they actually do that, or at least try, we’ll never know, will we?
yes, one single vote is statistically meaningless.
one person telling a dozen people not to vote is less meaningless.
those dozen people getting on message boards and whining is even less meaningless.
Every person should vote for whom they want to vote for. Thinking your individual vote means nothing is untrue.
[quote=“daneel, post:105, topic:79465”]
I’m unsurprised, but I don’t really get it.
She didn’t do anything to harm Sanders’ chances by endorsing Clinton (nor did she do anything to help Clinton’s). She’s a politician, she did what politicians do.
[/quote]Yeah, it’s pretty silly. But I do kinda get it - a lot of sanders supporters are feeling disappointing and a bit crushed right now. While many get over that like normal people, there’s some people who either won’t, or can’t, and how they get that out is by spewing horrendous bile and screeching at people.
Combine that with how things tend to go on the internet(even though they fucking well shouldn’t), and the fact that in their eyes, someone they liked and respected has turned on them and hopped in bed with the capital-E Enemy numero uno they’ve been railing against for months now, it’s not much of a surprise. And honestly, I think that is one of the most disappointing and saddening things in this election so far.
I disagree that it won’t help Hillary - Sure, the primary is pretty much done and dusted, and it won’t help with that, you can’t double-win, but it will help in the general. Remember, she’s got to get as much of that Sanders vote on board as possible, and I think Warren will help with that.
[quote=“daneel, post:105, topic:79465”]
I didn’t realize they’d already held their convention. Oh well. As mentioned elsewhere, while absolutely not a Libertarian, I quite like Gary Johnson, and he’ll be an effective spoiler for Trump, to boot.
[/quote]You and 90% of America, I suspect. He beat McAfee by something like 200 votes - a huge margin, at a convention that size. It’s worth reading up on some of the accounts of the event, some wierd shit went down - like a VP candidate using his two minute stump speech to perform a striptease, or a candidate getting resoundingly booed for saying he doesn’t think it should be legal to sell heroin to five-year-olds.
That said, I don’t mind old Gazza either. He seems a mostly alright kinda dude - I mean, sure, he promises the earth to anybody who will listen, and he knows that he’ll never have to follow through because he’s not an idiot, but hey, doesn’t seem like a bad dude, for a politician. Certainly one of the more level and realistic heads within the Libertarian party.
I probably won’t, but given the noise from Trumps digital brown shirts, I do believe there is some privilege involved. The people on the front lines are once against going to be POC and the LBGQT community, yeah?
Thanks for the link… out of likes, though!
It doesn’t mean nothing, it’s just statistically almost guaranteed not to impact the results.
I know we like our ‘get out the vote’ efforts and such, but there’s no benefit in denying reality and pretending our individual votes are more significant than they are, and the only way a single human impacts the results at all is by getting a bunch of other people to vote. Yes, technically all of those individuals add up, but when you’re having these conversations with individuals that ceases to be true.
It’s super basic math. Honestly I think pushing the voting thing too hard just results in a whole bunch of us putting too much energy in one cycle and then being disillusioned as time goes on. It’s not tethered to reality.
A lot of them were also never going to vote for Hillary because she’s part of the system they’re fighting. Expecting them to suddenly go from anti-establishment to pro-establishment is probably not appropriate.
Changing the rules and saying ‘now you have to participate and vote against Trump’ could easily be perceived as a bait-and-switch
You mean this guy? Ugh… no thanks!
I’m not looking for much. All she needs to do is give me a sense of the good things she actually plans to do in office. I’m not the trustin’ type, but I bet she’s got a LOT of policies I agree with. Let’s hear about 'em and stop talking about the Attention Whore you’re running against.
Taibbi is, as always, frighteningly on-point.
The terrifying possibility is that Trump will win because he manages to leverage his “outsider” rhetoric into getting enough annoyed folks in Florida to vote for him over Hillary. The fact that most Democrats consider that unthinkable is the hubris that might cost them the election and plunge our nation into some of the darkest four years it’s ever been in.
People who are considering voting for Trump aren’t going to be persuaded NOT to vote for Trump by Hillary pointing out how frickin’ crazy he is. They KNOW he’s crazy, and they’ve got reasons that excuse that cognitive dissonance. She’s going to have to do better than “LOL, SMH”
Well, thanks for the pedantry, but li’l old naive me will still vote, and I hold out a weird, old-fashioned hope that others will, too, despite it being apparently meaningless, according to Super Basic Math.
It’s not pedantry, I’m not the one implying greater meaning than is supported by the numbers.
Not saying you’re the only one on the other side or that it’s wrong to dive in, it’s a good mind hack if it works for you. I kind of wish it’d work for me! 
I’m not saying that we should fault you, but rather that it’s also reasonable to expect you not to fault us and pretend we’re doing something ‘wrong’ by protesting or not participating.
She’s not hiding her platform:
IMO it’s not the best of all possible platforms, but it’s not bad.
I don’t think most Democrats think that it’s impossible, most things prominent Dems. are saying seem indicating they see a Trump presidency as a very serious threat. Clinton effectively clinched the nom. a day or two ago, and just now she’s starting on the campaign for the general, which is the normal way things are done. Judging her for a phase of a campaign that started a day ago not doing the things you’re looking for’s probably a bit premature.
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization (there was more than “LOL, SMH”), and it’s only from day or two ago onward that we’re going to see her strategy for the general unfold. Let’s see how the first debate goes, at least, before deciding she’s taking a win for granted.
…and when she starts talking about it in the open, it’ll be good to hear it.
I’m not set in stone on this, but the fact that her first major opening was “Trump’s crazy!” and not “Here’s why I’m awesome!” isn’t a great start. I’m listening.
It’s not like that’s all she’s doing, though, and that’s a bad paraphrase:
https://bluenationreview.com/full-transcript-of-hillary-clintons-june-7-victory-speech/
The media’s going to highlight the most sensational things, so that’s what you’ll hear, just like in every stupid general, so the punches will always filter up. While she does spar with Trump, this is what every other candidate in the general has done, and it’s not all she’s doing or saying by a long shot:
https://hillaryspeeches.com
Every American should vote.
It is our right. It is our privilege and something we should take very seriously. Low voter turnouts are due to exactly the sort of thinking that makes people think there’s no reason to go out and vote because “it’s meaningless due to math”. And that’s how Trump gets elected, because people think they may as well stay home instead of doing their civic duty.
If you aren’t voting, yes, you’re absolutely doing something wrong.
That was more or less my point upthread.
