2016 Presidential Race Thread

[John Wilkes Booth]

in other words... bernie sanders will only serve to provide clinton's opponent in the real election with plenty of political rhetoric and ammo against her.. cause every commie appeal she makes to win over the 'base' is going to be used against her later.. and then in the long run she will back peddle like crazy and even if she does get elected, little to none of it is going to translate into anything concrete when push comes to shove

if obama's presidency demonstrated anything to me, it's that the talking points that get you elected aren't going to be the primary guiding force behind your policy decisions for the next 4-8 years.. which really reminds me of the initial apathy with which i approached this thread. i really dunno how you guys manage to stay invested in this **** when your outlook is this bleak.

[Chula Vista]

Someone's gonna win the election. I just want it to be the lesser of all of the evil bastards.

[John Wilkes Booth]

yea i guess that's just not good enough for me to make me care

honestly i really doubt i'll even notice the difference if the republicans won vs the democrats and vice versa

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Someone's gonna win the election. I just want it to be the lesser of all of the evil bastards.

No, you want the evil bastard whose platform most closely resembles yours. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the least evil. Just the most personally appealing.

[Chula Vista]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

No, you want the evil bastard whose platform most closely resembles yours. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the least evil. Just the most personally appealing.

The lesser evil from my point of view.

[Josef K]

I have to get more concise - not only does it make people less likely to read my posts, it means I'm always several posts behind.

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

in other words... bernie sanders will only serve to provide clinton's opponent in the real election with plenty of political rhetoric and ammo against her.. cause every commie appeal she makes to win over the 'base' is going to be used against her later.. and then in the long run she will back peddle like crazy and even if she does get elected, little to none of it is going to translate into anything concrete when push comes to shove

if obama's presidency demonstrated anything to me, it's that the talking points that get you elected aren't going to be the primary guiding force behind your policy decisions for the next 4-8 years.. which really reminds me of the initial apathy with which i approached this thread. i really dunno how you guys manage to stay invested in this **** when your outlook is this bleak.

I don't know, I think there's value in somebody being on the record supporting something good that they otherwise wouldn't be. Although we saw this less with Obama because he sort of ran as the anti-establishment candidate (although, let's be honest, that is/was theater), it's definitely the case that just to get "progressives" (whatever that means) to settle down, Clinton's campaign is going to focus more on certain issues which, even if she doesn't actually put policies in place to accomplish whatever these things are, will bring said issues to the forefront of public discourse and hopefully mobilize supporters. Obviously that won't solve all problems, but I think it can result in good things happening.

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

yea i guess that's just not good enough for me to make me care

honestly i really doubt i'll even notice the difference if the republicans won vs the democrats and vice versa

But your personal well-being isn't the metric by which you ought to evaluate elections. I'm probably personally better off if Republicans win because my family is pretty well-off (although my parents also teach at a public university, and there's some health care reform stuff that affects me because of my leg, but whatever, not the point), but I also value not going to war with Iran (just for example). Even if you aren't one of the Iranian civilians who would die if we invaded, even if you aren't going to be in the military, even if it's really really unlikely that you're going to be hurt by a terrorist attack that's blowback from American imperialism, even if you aren't affected at all, this election still affects lots of people who aren't you, and I believe that you ought to care about them, because, you know, it's good to care about people. (I should also note now that I'm sort of uninterested in debating from first principles whether this is a productive outlook to have or not.)

I guess that brings me to the other thing I want to address, which is that I strongly believe in voting for the lesser of two evils, and I strongly believe in voting for a party and not a person. This doesn't quite make me a straight-ticket Democratic voter (uh, when I can vote, that is) - I am a socialist and in a race that isn't close I will either not vote or vote for the candidate who I think best represents my views - but it's important to recognize that lives do hang in the balance, if not in your individual decision about how to vote, then in the ultimate result of the election. In fact, this next presidential election is crucial because the winner will potentially be able to appoint four Supreme Court justices - so you should decide whether you'd like a Court with five Sam Alitos, or a Court with a moderate/liberal majority. If you prefer the former that's fine, although I disagree, but given that the Court is making decisions that affect tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people, you absolutely should care.

Originally Posted by The Batlord

No, you want the evil bastard whose platform most closely resembles yours. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the least evil. Just the most personally appealing.

Yeah I'm fine with saying this. I have no doubt that most politicians are not good people, but I really couldn't care less about that. Frankly the policies a person is likely to put in place and the administration they're likely to appoint are much more important to me than, like, whether they've cheated on a spouse.

[Moss]

I think at Bernie's age he may not be all that concerned about angering the dem powers that be. And I agree, if nothing else he will change the conversation in a good way.

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

No, you want the evil bastard whose platform most closely resembles yours. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the least evil. Just the most personally appealing.

if i'm being perfectly honest.... whenever i can bother to watch politics... i feel like republicans are just trolling and ****

i mean i want to be fair and be like "both sides are corrupt" etc etc but if i'm being really honest... nah, they're not quite the same. democrats are basically just watered down pro-establishment drones, where as republicans actually spread straight up bull**** in order to muddy the waters enough to let the financial and business elite exploit the populace

so i can see the lesser of two evils argument as legit... but it's just such a mediocre vision to strive for... that it can't motivate me to get out and vote for that ****

if that's the best we can do as a society... then i don't really care if the business and financial elite rape us. we more or less deserve it for being so ****ing mediocre. so at that point my only thoughts are that if you are worried about money and **** in this country, and you have any sense at all, you won't waste your time chaining yourself to the sinking ship that is the collective working-class/poor. instead focus your efforts on getting yourself into the winning team.

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by Josef K

But your personal well-being isn't the metric by which you ought to evaluate elections.

why not?

[Josef K]

Originally Posted by Moss

I think at Bernie's age he may not be all that concerned about angering the dem powers that be. And I agree, if nothing else he will change the conversation in a good way.

I hope he is concerned with that. He's effective because he works within the system, and I really hope that he doesn't sacrifice whatever good things he may have left in him just to either troll the Democrats or make some stupid point.