I suspect she’ll be more or less what she’s been for most of the past decade, very progressive on women’s issues, slightly less on other issues, and a wonkish moderate left on economic issues.
I think Clinton is similar to Obama in that respect, both are personally very progressive but recognize that they can’t govern as progressive as they desire.
Many of the frustrations about Obama have been because his rhetoric is quite sincere but doesn’t capture how he’s forced to govern. I think Clinton’s political rhetoric has evolved to the point where it mostly represents how she’ll govern,
I did not imply that climate change was not happening, or that it would not do harm. I interpreted “What part of EVERYBODY DIES do you not understand?” to mean ‘If something substantial is not done about climate change right now, everyone will die.’ Can you support that implied assertion, or did you mean something else? Remember, I did not imply that climate change was not happening, or that it would not do harm. Lengthy arguments with assertions I didn’t make are a waste of time and energy, and also demonstrate a poor grasp of how rational persuasion is accomplished. So does a tone of hysteria even if hysteria is justified.
I gave you a detailed response because it is a complicated topic, because I was posting for more readers than just yourself individually, and because I wanted to explain why “let’s all just stay calm about this” is neither appropriate nor effective.
Will every single person on the planet simultaneously drop dead next Tuesday if we fail to act immediately? Of course not.
Will a failure to act on climate change with extreme urgency lead to a death toll that makes WWII look like a beach picnic, and very likely collapse human civilisation in the process? Yes.
So what you should do, I think, is make the assertion you actually intend, and then support it with evidence, preferably from the material world. At least, that’s what I would like to see.
No, I wasn’t suggesting that change can happen only through a presidential election. Far from it. However, I think voting for Clinton, although it is a microscopically trivial act, is an act against change. Clinton is a war freak, possibly a war criminal, and a plutocrat. One vote will almost certainly not decide the outcome of the election, but it will affect the voter morally, because she or he will, or will not, become the accomplice of the things Clinton does. (Or the other one.) One of the reasons we are having this awful election is that people keep accepting the unacceptable, and they do that because they have demoralized themselves by voting for and agreeing to things they know are wrong – disastrously wrong. It’s time to stop.
If some sort of electoral purity test is your idea of change for the better, by all means, don’t vote for Hilary.
For me, the pragmatic argument is persuasive (though I support almost every effort of others to not make this EASY for her - ousting DWS is a win, and it wouldn’t have happened without people being VERY upset!). Hilary isn’t great, but she’s the best chance, and if enough pressure is put on her, she’ll do the politically expedient thing (as she always has). She’s someone we can work with, and I’m basically willing to vote for that.
For sure, but that doesn’t mean it was possible to break their ranks or change the political climate.
Obama’s biggest asset is his communication skills, he gives fantastic policy speeches. However he really stepped back after assuming the presidency. And when the Republicans formed a united front against the ACA he never did much to defend it, and as a result they were able to build in a lot of public opposition to it and define themselves as the anti-Obamacare party.
He got more vocal later and if Obama had a redo I think he’d be a lot more involved in the day-to-day political conversation and I think that could have improved things. I think that was a consequence of his inexperience not realizing how the Republicans were re-defining the political landscape.
Foreign policy? Pretty similar to Obama except a bit more pro-Israel and a bit more optimistic when it comes to the ability of the US to have make a positive impact when meddling overseas. I think the claims of her hawkishness are mostly exaggerated.
The rest of us are quite happy with a detailed, accurate, well presented explanation that more than responded to your pretend concerns.
I for one don’t care in the slightest if you don’t get the specific response you’ve decided is required (which, let’s face it, can never happen because there will always be some other jot or tiddle that didn’t quite get covered properly).
I remember well, I was following the debate closely, the Republicans were hammering the ACA on every front and Obama was mostly trying to stay above it, presumably to avoid further politicizing it.
I think it he engaged fully and addressed the concerns with a speech like he did with Reverend Wright, and acknowledged some of the awkward reality that led to the mandate, I think he could have won the debate.
Instead Obamacare is unpopular and repeal Obamacare has become a plank of the Republican party.
I’m not sure experience would have benefited him all that much. What the Republicans did was pretty much unprecedented… they didn’t even pretend to respect the office POTUS. Even though George W. Bush was far more deserving of the kind of disrespect shown Obama, he never faced anything close to the kind of insult that Obama faced… remember Joe Wilson yelling “You lie” during one of Obama’s State of the Union speeches? Unprecedented. The closest thing to this GWB faced was when he got roasted by a comedian at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ dinner (and, honesty, I don’t know what on earth they expected to get when they invited Stephen Colbert to speak at that dinner, but I am pretty glad they did).
I figure that with more experience with the way things were prior to 2008, Obama would have spent a bit more time being gobsmacked at the disrespect he was receiving. Not so with Hilary… if she gets elected, she’s just going to run roughshod over the Republicans, since she’s taken, like, 25 years of their shit.
I have to say I don’t see the pragmatism. Your vote will almost certainly not change the outcome of the election, but it will change you, and probably not in a good way. You’ll be a person who has settled for something reprehensible on the infinitesimal chance that your vote will somehow prevent an even more reprehensible alternative. I would not call that ‘practical’, in fact, it seems very much like the ‘purity’ you seem to decry – a sort of purity of paralytic cynicism.
I really don’t see how anyone is going to pressure Clinton, either, as her VP choice shows. If she can get away with literal and metaphorical murder, then what is going to pressure her? Getting her to cause an inconvenient underling to fall on her sword is hardly evidence of any kind of ‘working with’. Besides, the Ministry of Truth in Washington says Putin – the guy with horns and a pointy tail – did it.
I don’t think her voting for Bush’s illegal war in 2002, or her recent crowing about killing Qaddafi, were exaggerated. I have also heard, although I can’t cite a reliable source, that she has pushed for much stronger action against Russia in Ukraine and Syria, and against China. These would all run the risk of starting major wars, but they do follow the neocon philosophy to which she seems attached. An association of warfare abroad with Welfare and general uplift at home is nothing new. These seem like important factors in estimating what a Clinton administration would be like, and I’m surprised you omitted them.
No. Sarcasm is too blunt an instrument. I was going to go off into a thing about how, as long as we maintain capitalism, the environment is going to be destroyed and billions will die and what are you going to do about it, but you’ve probably heard that already, too. Bigger and bigger SUVs just keep coming along to shove my bicycle off the road. Maybe it’s the Death Wish.
