At this point in 2015, it’s hard to understand how actively racist and bigoted party goals are the equal of actively fighting racism, bigotry, and xenophobia while advocating for positive economic reform.
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#FEEL THE BERN!
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In the Canadian system, where most jurisdictions have at least three parties reasonably vying for power, you hear a lot about vote splitting, but rarely does reality match the punditry. Even America’s most famous spoiler, Ross Perot, probably didn’t influence the election much as exit polls suggested he drew equally from the Republicans and the Democrats. Same for Nader in 2000, people just assume for he took from the Democrats, but the reality was much more mixed.
Most people don’t align with their party on a huge number of issues. Honestly, if it’s Clinton vs. [insert Republican] vs. Trump, I’m not that convinced he would spoil for Clinton terribly effectively. Now I think Sanders would benefit hugely from Trump, because Trump’s biggest appeal is authenticity and he doesn’t have anything on Sanders in that regard (and Sanders has not-being-despicable to add to that). I just don’t believe that vote splitting works the way we are told (over and over) that it works. If the Republicans lose the next election, with Trump running as independent, they will certainly tell themselves they lost because of Trump, but the reality is they will have lost because of themselves.
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I’d agree, broadly, but the level of exposure (and popular affection, owing to his “straight-talkin’” manner) makes him, I think, a more significant third-party candidate. Additionally, both Perot and Nader began the election as independents–Trump’s already benefitted from the exposure and (grudging) backing of the GOP, which means he can pull a much larger pool of voters directly away from them if he goes independent.
At first, I wondered if Trump’s campaign was a Democratic plot to split the vote. Then, months later, I began to wonder if his campaign was a Republican plot to make the rest of their candidates look moderate by comparison. Recently, I started wondering if he was simply going for Performance Artist of the Century award. Now I’m beginning to suspect that none of these scenarios are mutually exclusive because Trump is just that much of an asshole.
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In a lot of ways, Obama won because he represented a dramatic shift away from the Bush years. Instead, what we got is a lot of broken campaign promises, most notably his weak health bill (does nobody remember his promise to push for universal healthcare in contrast to lying down for the GOP opposition?), the continuation of Gitmo, more military interventions (foremost in Libya and Syria), a dramatic escalation of the drone war, and a perpetuation of the Afghanistan War. Combined with these actions, Obama’s more moderate rhetoric has in effect completely normalized the War on Terror. This is what Dems do, and it’s why they are integral to the decades’ long shift to the right.
Obama’s adminstration also coordinated the violent, anti-democratic crackdown on Occupy, set a record for special forces deployed in so-called “secret wars” (135 countries), and set records for immigrants deported. Not very inspiring, except for Machiavellian personalities perhaps.
The contrast between Obama’s rhetoric, as well as the rhetoric of his would-be successors, and their actions is profound. They differ from the GOP in that the latter’s rhetoric is more or less at one with what they want to accomplish. That makes Dems more insidious, in my view.
In contrast, Trump’s perversity comes from saying the things out loud that are generally left unsaid by other status quo politicians, even those in the GOP.
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“I see no circumstances under which I would tear up that pledge,” — Some short-fingered vulgarian
(Admittedly, 3 months1 is longer than I thought he’d go before he started backing away from it, given that the pledge itself is completely non-binding.)
1. Yes, the image says “August”. He signed the wrong month.
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We have basically the same problem in Canada.
We have three major federal parties: The Liberals, the Conservatives, and the NDP. There are two more (the Bloc and the Greens) that often elect a handful of MPs (think Representatives), but they don’t really have a lot of pull because of their low seat count.
Anyway, the Conservatives generally do what they say they’ll do, but I don’t really like what they say they’ll do.
I like what the Liberals say they’ll do: they just don’t usually end up keeping their promises.
As for the NDP, I like what they say they’ll do, and generally trust them to keep their promises, but they are (with a few exceptions) perpetually the third-place party.
So, I can’t stand the Conservatives, can’t trust the Liberals, and can’t elect the NDP. I have middling hopes, though, for Trudeau - the proof of which will be how he treats the TPP.
Best case scenario is usually the Liberals get a minority of the seats, and the NDP have enough MPs to form a kind of informal coalition with the Liberals and keep them honest. It doesn’t happen all that often.
I’ve heard good things about Sanders, especially his consistency.
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Absolutely; he promised to push for and sign a universal healthcare bill. But when his push for that bill came up with massive resistance, I think it was very smart of him to adapt his push to universal insurance coverage as “baby steps”, as he put it, rather than shoot for a European-style single-payer plan that was clearly going to have zero results. Instead, we got the largest healthcare reform in a century. I’m okay with that.
Which has been blocked repeatedly by the GOP, despite his efforts.
I’m really, really not interested in discussing the concept of the Democrats being “insidious” because of their supposed, in your view, lies, when contrasted with a group of Republican candidates who want to gut healthcare, ban Mexicans and Muslims, and erase all social progress made in the past eight years. I see one group on the right side of history, and another group working to destroy America.
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I think you are at least partially right, but still:
You’ve got one guy promising good things, but you know he will only doing 10% of them, and you know that he’ll be doing a certain amount of bad things.
You’ve got another promising to do the same bad things, and then more bad things on top of them. And you think he’s more honest than the first guy.
Why would you ever choose the second guy in such a scenario?
I’m sorry to say it, but it looks like you’re stuck voting for the first guy until democracy comes back to America.
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So Obama is just as bad as the Republicans because Republicans at every level of government spent years fiercely waging a coordinated partisan battle to keep him from accomplishing any of the good things he was actively trying to do?
That’s like saying the guy who pledged to clean up the local Union is just as bad as the local mob boss because his bloated corpse was found in the river before he could make good on all his promises.
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You don’t. But instead, you don’t vote for either and then you can say ‘well, I didn’t vote for him’ whatever happens.
[quote=“daneel, post:52, topic:70442”]
But instead, you don’t vote for either and then you can say ‘well, I didn’t vote for him’ whatever happens.
[/quote]I wonder why there aren’t more monuments built to honor those principled heroes who refuse to participate in the political process in any way whatsoever?
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I think his own Hateful Awful People Party managing say 30% of the national vote would be quite a victory for him. Set him up to go for it even harder next time.
Don’ be so excited for this.
Have a bad 4 years of terrorist attacks or other nastiness. People going fully blown apocolyptic sexist over Hillary…
I don’t really think the Democrats are intentionally insidious. I also never really believed Obama was really a progressive, even before he was elected. But yeah, Republicans have been standing on the brake pedal all this time while yelling about the radical Muslim communist fascist reptile who’s coming for your guns any day now and locking up the entire Christian population of Texas inside tunnels under Wal-Mart.
And I don’t expect that level of crazy to change much when Hilary or Bernie get in, it’s just that the not-even-thinly-veiled racism will shift to sexism and/or the hilarious statements that come from a total failure to recognize the difference between slightly regulated capitalism, Democratic Socialism, actual textbook socialism, Fox News socialism, Leninism, and tree frogs (maybe with a side dish of anti-Semitism from the particularly virulent types).
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The idea that Obama (or any sitting Dem president) is an innocent victim of GOP sabotage while remaining truly earnest is beyond belief. Obama could have closed Gitmo with an executive order, but didn’t. He could have pulled out of Afghanistan, but didn’t. He didn’t have to keep blowing up Muslims in the Middle East, but he did (and even urged “tolerance” toward them while doing it, to the cheers of his supporters). He didn’t have to deploy a record number of special forces to 135 countries, but he did. He didn’t have to set records for immigrant deportations, but his administration did. His administration wasn’t pressured by the GOP into prosecuting a record number of whistleblowers, but that’s what happened.
The narrative that Dems are the perpetual victims of a bullying GOP might work except that Dems quite deliberately carry out policies of the kind that I have described.
Still, there would be an argument for the healthcare issue, except that Obama’s administration utterly failed to counter the barrage of misinformation out out by the GOP at the time. The noise coming out of his administration was muted in comparison; it was in fact weak. What was eventually passed did nothing to alter the catastrophic status quo. Millions of the most vulnerable people are still not covered, and many who are can barely make their payments.
There is of course one more crucial problem with the narrative of Obama (and Obamacare) as victim: Dems had a majority in the House and Senate when it was passed. Why didn’t Dems do more with their majority while they had it?
I support a lot of what progressives say they want, but when Dems do the exact opposite and still get progressive support, I have to question progressives’ sincerity.
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Splitting the electorate and all that is great, I’m all for it. My concern is for those that may be killed in the process. It relaxes my glee muscles, and exercises my worry ones.
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Fair enough. I guess I still have enough faith that it won’t come to that? Maybe that’s optimistic of me.
