I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

The only way a third party will emerge is if conservatives leave the GOP to the Trumpist racists. Which will mean ceding a bunch of elections to the Dems for awhile.

If that occurs, whatever new party the conservatives call home will ultimately take over from the Republicans, but probably only after the alt-right goes on a spree of violence that will make the lynching years look tame.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I know it won't make a difference, but I have to try... So, um, please vote for Johnson. Pretty please?

He's polling nationally at 9%. If he can get into double digits, that's a huge boost to Libertarianism. Sure, he's not a real Libertarian. I get that. But nobody is. Nobody's a "real" anything because govt inevitably requires compromise. Every vote for Johnson (or Stein, is you've Green sympathies) is a vote against the two party system that's given us this pair of deplorable pieces of shit from which to choose.

McMullin is a bespoke Utah candidate. A vote for him is a novelty vote. It is truly throwing away your ballot. Johnson and Weld may not be exactly what you demand or expect, but they're closer than anybody else on the stage, and they get that word we're all forgetting... that word that progressives and right-wingers ignore... back into the election lexicon: "Liberty."

I'm happily and proudly voting for Johnson, clueless as he might be. I'd implore you to do the same. Because in case you aren't paying attention, you have a quasi-criminal statist cipher running against a con man with dictatorial leanings. You think it's going to get any better next cycle? You probably think the choice couldn't be any shittier than these two. You're wrong. It can, and it will. If a third party doesn't emerge, we're fucked. Johnson and Stein are carrying the flags of the only alternative parties which can put reasonable numbers on the board. I view the decision to vote for one of the two of them as the only logical and ethically defensible choice.

Johnson 2016. Or Stein 2016. Do what you know is right.

We're not going to get a meaningful third party because our Constitution essentially establishes a two-party system. Congressional districts and Senate seats are single seats going to the winner, and this means that voting for a third party is pissing away your vote. A third party that wins 20% everywhere will not be represented in the government, and people will stop voting for it quickly. The only way a third party is going to get any traction is if it can get a majority of voters in some region, and in our country that will mean the South, which I suspect is not the kind of third party you want.

What you really want is a new GOP, one that decides that it can't win on its Trumpist slide and goes in a different direction. To get it, you should vote for Democrats until the GOP comes around.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

TM

Yeah. We need to open some borders. For the good of all of us.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Yeah. We need to open some borders. For the good of all of us.

[Adder]

A thought I've not been able to articulate fully: the reaction to Trump's alleged groping from the right reveals something about how much some people care about sexual assault. Like, the only thing that matters about the effect on politics. The Clinton accusers are valuable because they can help Trump, so the thinking goes, and the Trump accusers are liars trying to offset it. As if the underlying conduct isn't the issue.

It's the same as racism. They think it's just a thing that libtard accuse them to score political points.

Some actual conservatives have learned from Trump that this isn't true. Has anyone learned anything about how we treat women?

[SEC_Chick]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Yeah. We need to open some borders. For the good of all of us.

Or, in the alternative, you could let only women vote and it would look pretty much the same.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

A thought I've not been able to articulate fully: the reaction to Trump's alleged groping from the right reveals something about how much some people care about sexual assault. Like, the only thing that matters about the effect on politics. The Clinton accusers are valuable because they can help Trump, so the thinking goes, and the Trump accusers are liars trying to offset it. As if the underlying conduct isn't the issue.

It's the same as racism. They think it's just a thing that libtard accuse them to score political points.

Some actual conservatives have learned from Trump that this isn't true. Has anyone learned anything about how we treat women?

Read this. People's views about particular issues are often formed by their political allegiances.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Or, in the alternative, you could let only women vote and it would look pretty much the same.

It doesn't really need to be either/or now, does it?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

A thought I've not been able to articulate fully: the reaction to Trump's alleged groping from the right reveals something about how much some people care about sexual assault. Like, the only thing that matters about the effect on politics. The Clinton accusers are valuable because they can help Trump, so the thinking goes, and the Trump accusers are liars trying to offset it. As if the underlying conduct isn't the issue.

It's the same as racism. They think it's just a thing that libtard accuse them to score political points.

Some actual conservatives have learned from Trump that this isn't true. Has anyone learned anything about how we treat women?

I'll say it: The Access Hollywood thing has 0.0000 impact on me. I vote on policy. Trump has few, and those he does have change by the week. Clinton also has no policies save those whatever crowd she's in front of at the moment wants to hear. And she'll raise taxes. I don't care that her husband is a sex fiend.

If Trump wasn't a mess, and had good policies, I'd vote for him. If Hillary did, I'd vote for her. His and her spouse's deviant behaviors are selling points for low information voters. It's gross, yes, but whatever. We've got a lot more important shit to worry about than the lurid sexual brags and cigar-cunnilingus of a pair of old men.

Our country's heading into a recession. We have no tools left to fix this. And we're talking about... dirty old men. Fuck us. As Mencken noted, our frivolous population deserves to get the fruits of its democracy... good and hard

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Or, in the alternative, you could let only women vote and it would look pretty much the same.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll say it: The Access Hollywood thing has 0.0000 impact on me. I vote on policy. Trump has few, and those he does have change by the week. Clinton also has no policies save those whatever crowd she's in front of at the moment wants to hear. And she'll raise taxes. I don't care that her husband is a sex fiend.

If Trump wasn't a mess, and had good policies, I'd vote for him. If Hillary did, I'd vote for her. His and her spouse's deviant behaviors are selling points for low information voters. It's gross, yes, but whatever. We've got a lot more important shit to worry about than the lurid sexual brags and cigar-cunnilingus of a pair of old men.

Our country's heading into a recession. We have no tools left to fix this. And we're talking about... dirty old men. Fuck us. As Mencken noted, our frivolous population deserves to get the fruits of its democracy... good and hard

I was going to write a whole big response, but then I came to my fucking senses.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll say it: The Access Hollywood thing has 0.0000 impact on me.

I mean, it had zero impact on me too, but that doesn't make it not appalling and disqualifying. Especially now that there are accounts of him actually doing what he said he does.

Which, of course, leads someone like me to have to ponder whether we'd vote again for Bill Clinton in today's world. I'd like to think not, but I might be fooling myself.

I vote on policy.

You need to read Ty's link and apply some introspection.

If Trump wasn't a mess, and had good policies, I'd vote for him.

It would have been much shorter to write, "I do not care about women being sexually assaulted."

We've got a lot more important shit to worry about than the lurid sexual brags

Like, perhaps the safety of women?

Our country's heading into a recession.

As usual, your economic predictions are crap.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Clinton also has no policies save those whatever crowd she's in front of at the moment wants to hear.

This is the loopiest thing you have said in quite some time. Go nuts reading all of this, and thank me later.

eta: The bigger point is that unless the House and Senate flip, she has no chance of getting legislation passed, so it may not matter. Happily, Trump's implosion may give us a government prepared to do something.

eat: Krugman today:

I don’t know why so many pundits claim that Mrs. Clinton lacks a vision for America, when she has actually provided an unusual level of detail on her website and in speeches.

Broadly speaking, she would significantly strengthen the social safety net, especially for the very poor and children, with an emphasis on family-related issues like parental leave. Such programs would cost money, although not as much as critics claim; she proposes, credibly, to raise that money with higher taxes on top incomes, so that the overall effect would be to reduce inequality.

Democratic control of the House would also open the door for large-scale infrastructure investment. If that seems feasible, I know that many progressive economists — myself included — will urge Mrs. Clinton to go significantly bigger than she is currently proposing.

If all of this sounds to you like a second round of what President Obama did in 2009-2010, that’s because it is. And why not? Despite Republican obstruction, Mr. Obama has presided over a remarkable rise in the number of Americans with health insurance, a significant decline in poverty and the creation of more than 11 million private-sector jobs.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by thurgreedmarshall

i was going to write a whole big response, but then i came to my fucking senses.

Tm

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