.
Periodic Reminder: the 2016 Dem primary is less heated/divisive than 08, its just that Twitter gives people an outlet they didnt have in 08
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) May 18, 2016
I agree with Dan Pfeiffer, who was working for the Obama campaign at the time. Just as most PUMAs calmed down and eventually did the sane thing in 2008, I assume that the vast majority of Sandernistas will calm down and vote for the Democratic candidate come November. And in 2024, there will no doubt be at least one band of progressive revolutionaries who will announce that they’ll BURN IT ALL DOWN, before they realign, readjust, and vote for the corrupt/incompetent/wicked Democratic candidate after all. Some of them will surprise everyone, not least themselves, by ending up in The System, maaaaan…
After 2004 loss lot of Dean people ran for & won party positions at precinct, local, congressional, county, & state level.
Will Bernie ppl?
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 17, 2016
And many Dean campaign alums became major players in the Obama campaign and are leading strategists today. https://t.co/uVozrluHeo
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) May 17, 2016
Depends: The actual Democrats will and are.
The people who supported Ron Paul last time? Not a chance. https://t.co/bHXaEneHhh— Dave Sund (@davesund) May 17, 2016
different-church-lady
Pfeiffer is right about actual dems for Bernie. Sund is right about the new kids who were never dems and never going to be dems and for whom Sanders’ entire appeal was the fact that they thought he was going to destroy the party in order to save it.
Eric U.
how do you block that autoplay ad but not the twitter feed?
Mike J
NPR just ran interview with Howard Dean with a, “there, there, we all know you’re upset, and maybe you have a right to be, but it’s nap time now” tone.
lollipopguild
First? Can’t be, I type too slow. Meanwhile I can’t wait for the GOP con in Cleveland where The Domald(TM) Will explain it all for us-how he is going to do Eleventy Million things at once when he becomes our elected Dictator.
Mike J
@Eric U.: Just block everything from ora.tv.
cokane
Yep, don’t forget Clinton was accusing Obama of all that nasty Rezko shit, not to mention was the likely the campaign that leaked the turban photo, the Rev. Wright shit. Not saying this to demonize Clinton. Politics is blood sport, but Bernie v Hillary has been flag football by comparison.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: Good for him.
I have a rapidly-scheduled interview with a cool think tank tomorrow, wish me luck!
orogeny
One big difference, in 2008, Clinton never ran against the Democratic Party. Sanders is doing something that seems unprecedented in a major Party’s candidate, saying that his own Party is crooked and illegitimate.
srv
Striking Distance:
What will it take for people to wake up.
Brachiator
All this Bernie vs Hillary stuff is too aggravating. We need something non-controversial, something that does not have any trace of anti-woman bashing.
We need the new all-women Ghostbusters trailer. No controversies here, you betcha!
Kropadope
@orogeny:
Fixed for accuracy and I’d have a hard time disagreeing upon consideration of the facts that running for President is a billion-dollar affair and that SuperPACs can just steamroll over Congressional and state-level candidates.
Fr33d0m
I keep hearing “they didn’t have twitter back then” and I always think they did.
Twitter was released in July of 2006.
Just the facts ma’am (not that they matter all that much in this case).
WarMunchkin
Not only did Hillary say all that awful stuff about Obama, there was the “Hillary Clinton packing a six-shooter like she’s Annie Oakley” comment that I still remember from 2008 by Obama. Man, those were dark times, and we were facing the prospect of a third Republican term in a row. Imagine just how badly that would have doomed us.
Rather than relying on Sanders to “drop it” and unify the party, I’m cautiously optimistic about Hillary being able to summon a bit of Bill’s charm and Obama’s ability to weave history around him, to make a compelling case for her candidacy when the time comes.
Trollhattan
@srv:
The same thing it will take you to go the fuck back to bed.
Kropadope
@Brachiator: I didn’t understand all the hatred directed toward the trailer. It looked like a cute, if not excessively funny, movie.
Anne Laurie
@Mike J:
I think that’s important. Dean has been asked to run against Sanders in 2018, and said that he didn’t think that was necessary. If Sanders wants to hold on to his ‘safe’ Senate seat, he doesn’t want Dean to change his mind!
(Yeah, yeah, Sanders is hella popular with his VT constituents, we are told. Losing a presidential run — no matter how that happens — tends to sour low-info voters. I say this as someone who watched first Mike Dukakis and then John Kerry get media-abused for months because they “lost” to the Bush Crime Family. Maybe Bernie plans to retire anyways, but if he doesn’t, he needs to start calculating for a political future that does *not* involve the Oval Office.)
Kropadope
@Fr33d0m: Twitter may have existed back then, but it didn’t affect the political discourse the way it does now (mainly creating arguments over bumper-sticker length posts that spill over into other fora).
srv
What will be the optimal time for Loretta Lynch to announce the indictment, presuming they want to hand the keys to Biden and not Sanders? Biden has all sorts of friends in the DoJ.
Benghazi wasn’t about Benghazi, it was about the email server. What if this was all part of Obama’s grand plan to keep Hillary out and blame the GOP?
Too 11-dimensional for you sheep?
Trollhattan
Good news for New Yoahkers from Union of Concerned Scientists.
benw
@Major Major Major Major: good luck! We’re all pulling for you to get a job… so you can stop bothering us with your interviews! :)
scav
@Kropadope: He seemed pretty fine with the system as is when all he wanted was the senatorship, but when he didn’t get the presidency delivered with gift wrap and universal accolades, well!
Major Major Major Major
@Fr33d0m: I worked on the campaign for a few months in 2008, we used Twitter. It was good for getting the sense of boots-on-the-ground stuff and IIRC some people monitored it during GOTV to catch & report irregularities.
@benw: Yeah, yeah. Hey, I gotta get the good luck wishes where I can! :) thanks
Mary G
I remember a big fight at the beginning of the last two Republican conventions about unfair rules and stealing delegates from the Paulbots. I think they are now pulling the same thing on our side.
Kropadope
@scav:
Odd claim to make about someone whose main platform plank is getting the money out of politics. He certainly is not OK with the electoral system as it exists and has not been since…probably never,
SRW1
@srv:
LOL.
JPL
I want my pony, and I want it now.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
Best of luck! (or should that be ‘Break a leg’?)
chris
I read this today. I’d like everyone else to read it because it hit me like freight train.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major:
Good luck! If John Cole is an example, there’s damn little thinking going on in tanks. (I kid, I kid. He’s not half bad, crusty persona and all.)
germy shoemangler
Tonight is the season finale of “Blackish” and they do an homage to Good Times…
Fair Economist
@Kropadope:
All women in the leading roles for a blockbuster reboot = hatred.
scav
@Kropadope: Words. How long has he been playing along again? — but suddenly now is the time to burn it all down. Keep believing there — it makes everything true.
germy shoemangler
@Fair Economist: Wait til Batgirl vs. Supergirl …
azlib
One difference from 2008 is Hillary endorsed Obama. Let’s see if Sanders endorses Hillary. There may be a bit of pressure on him from his Senate Caucus colleagues to do so given the Dems may return to the majority next year and committee chairs are plum positions.
Kropadope
@Fair Economist:
I was trying to think of a counter-example, but I honestly don’t think something quite like this was ever tried before.
Chyron HR
Because, you know, it just axiomatically IS. He said it was a “reminder” and everything.
Trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
Reboot of pretty much perfect ’80s comedy = befuddlement.
Shana
@Major Major Major Major: Best of luck to you!
Kropadope
@scav:
I’m still not buying into the relentless assertions that he wants to burn it all down.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: I see what you did there.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@srv: Somehow you’ve gotten into Biden’s special stash. There will be no indictments.
Shana
@Kropadope: I seem to recall an all-black cast for a remake of Steel Magnolias that caused a bit of a stir, but I could be wrong.
Redshift
@Kropadope:
I’m hard pressed to judge which of you or Ella is better at taking what you hear Sanders saying in your head and declaring it to be more “accurate” than what he actually says. Yes, his started out complaining about big money. But this is not that:
He has repeatedly excused his losses by declaring that the Democratic Party process is rigged against him, not just that big-money campaigning makes things impossible for small donor-powered candidates. Even if you edit out that part in your head, it’s still there out here in the real world.
Kay (not the front-pager)
And I’ll bet many will be the same people who want to BURN IT DOWN this year.
germy shoemangler
Another 19th-century fable from Ambrose Bierce:
lollipopguild
@JPL: Amazon is delivering your pony by Drone.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@orogeny:
Not his party. Not even his adopted party. Maybe his foster party?
Brachiator
@germy shoemangler:
There was interesting background to this episode in the recent New Yorker profile of the show’s creator.
When this show was first announced, I didn’t think it could be interesting. But it’s turned out to be a funny and often thoughtful piece of television.
JPL
@Major Major Major Major: That’s excellent news, and good luck.
Kropadope
@Redshift: A particular instance by a particular state party does not mean the whole party, nor do the questionable actions of individual powerful party actors. Extrapolating individual instances to the whole is not good logic.
JPL
@lollipopguild: splat
That’s how I feel about this election season.
Major Major Major Major
@chris: The opioid problem is getting really, really bad. I remember naloxone coming up during the dem debates, and IIRC suboxone is undergoing a rule change in HHS(?) that will let doctors prescribe it more–which is huge, given that there’s usually a long lag in this sort of thing, and it’s indicative of the increasing shift in the addiction treatment mentality. I can’t help but notice, though, that we’re only now taking drug addiction especially seriously (outside of the public health sphere) now that it’s affecting, you guessed it, white people. Even a lot of my liberal friends out here didn’t understand why we had needle exchanges and needle disposal kiosks around town before I explained harm reduction to them.
There are a lot of billboards around here advertising a new medicine specifically for opioid-induced constipation, which is just the biggest symbol I’ve seen lately of how completely fucked up our healthcare system is here.
Kropadope
@Shana: That one missed my radar, never saw either version of Steel Magnolias.
ETA: Also, wouldn’t count this as a blockbuster, especially given that the all-black remake was a made-for-TV movie.
JPL
@Kay (not the front-pager): It was the party that allowed him to run on the democratic ticket.
germy shoemangler
@Brachiator:
I agree. It has a little bit of everything. Nice character details, satire and enough absurdity (like little Diane’s “feud” with Dre’s co-worker) to keep it unpredictable.
Major Major Major Major
@lollipopguild: Drony!
scav
@Kay (not the front-pager): Maybe the one he gate-crashed and is now upset he’s not the guest of honor?
This is bizarre. How many years have I waited for a more than token socialist-tinged candidate and this one comes along and suddenly its like a nightmarish “beware of what you hope for. This is so utterly not the messiah I was looking for. Is there some bad testosterone going around? What is it with men at the moment?
germy shoemangler
I was reading about the acquisition of Time Warner Cable, and the GIANT severance payout the previous CEO got (92 million?) and again I turn to Ambrose Bierce:
Gian
Did Hillary and Bernie sign loyalty pledges like Donald?
germy shoemangler
@scav:
Aren’t republicans saying (replace socialist with conservative) the same thing about Trump?
Thoughtful David
@orogeny:
It’s not “his own party.” That’s the problem. And that’s why he thinks it’s ok to burn it down.
benw
@chris: heartbreaking. Thanks for the link.
Kropadope
@Thoughtful David: He doesn’t think it’s OK to burn it down. That’s why he refused to run third party and frequently states Hillary’s clear superiority like a little prayer to placate the leftish dittoheads.
ETA: I’m pretty sure all you loyal registered Democrats need to be constantly reassured that everyone thinks Hillary is better than the Republicans (man, what a high bar) because somewhere deep down, you aren’t sure yourselves.
dedc79
Alright, I know it’s Fox News and all, but it’s time we Democrats get our act together and rally around our candidate:
Slag
I’d feel better if I didn’t think sanders had at least one foot in lala land.
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope: If he didn’t think Hillary was a superior candidate to whoever the GOP picked, then I would assume he should be kept as far away from the White House as possible including no invitations to brunch, rather than merely severely questioning his leadership skills and executive abilities.
germy shoemangler
@dedc79: Who did they ask? Their viewers?
Matt McIrvin
@chris: Me too, and I linked to it earlier.
I thought about it some more, and what strikes me is this.
The author knows, as stated in the footnote, that what’s happening is that a lot more white people are finding themselves in a situation at the bottom of the economic heap that was formerly mostly occupied by black people (and Native Americans, and some other minorities). She also asserts that Democratic politicians, up to and including Bernie Sanders, obviously can and will do nothing about it through normal political channels, and Hillary Clinton obviously just doesn’t give a shit, and it’s therefore understandable that people would be driven to vote for somebody like Trump to burn it all down.
So… why didn’t black people abandon the Democratic Party decades ago? Why are any black people voting for Hillary? Is it, by this reasoning, just false consciousness?
(And does the presence of Republicans at crucial veto points through almost the entire past 16 years, with the exception of two years of a tenuous majority during which Democrats just barely managed to expand government-subsidized health care, have any bearing on this?)
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Best of luck to you!
patroclus
@chris: Thanks for that link! The Team America parody was kind of funny, but I was alive in the 80’s and a lot of my friends were dying and no one seemed to care. As annoying as ACT-UP was, it did do an excellent job of focusing attention on the HIV crisis, and no thanks to Nancy Reagan, the CDC and NIH did get funding and they did develop drugs and therapies that actually saved lives.
The point of the piece, though, was that with the heroin/meth addiction crisis, we are now seeing similar rates of deaths through overdoses and suicides that we saw then. And there hasn’t been a whole lot of attention paid nor policies advocated to address it. It’s reaching crisis-level and we’re instead arguing about Bernie’s ego and a whole lot of process issues. I wish we would actually focus on policy and address this. Now! Other countries have had similar problems and have developed strategies. Why haven’t we?
scav
@germy shoemangler: That’ll only turn out to be apt if he turns out to be as much an actual socialist as Trump is a conservative. Trump is pure long-term random narcissism and self-promotion: I’m not ascribing that to Bernie without more evidence.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
Good luck!
Dr. Bloor
@scav: “At the moment?” That’s how we roll, ma’am.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@JPL:
Exactly. And I don’t see any evidence that he feels at all beholden to us for allowing him access to our infrastructure and imprimatur.
Major Major Major Major
@patroclus: We (dems) are starting to address it, see my post above; the drug that saves you from overdose was mentioned several times in the debates, even by Republicans here and there (tho not in debates); and the drug that delays withdraws until the psychological part of rehab treatment can ‘kick in’ is about to be a lot more prominent. As two examples.
MomSense
@Mary G:
I agree. I think the Bernie bros are former Ronulans.
scav
@Dr. Bloor: Entire Tautology-powered?
starscream
I have been saying it for a while, this is not going to be a blowout. My prediction is still the 2012 map minus Ohio. AZ, GA, etc are pipe dreams.
Matt McIrvin
@Kropadope:
Or mayyyyyyyybe it’s because an actual fascist with endorsements from Nazis and the KKK and promises to do mass expulsions and crackdowns on the media is the Republican nominee, and we’re scared pissless that he’s going to get in because a defeated primary candidate decided to sabotage the election just like this guy back in 2000.
cokane
@Fr33d0m: Dumb. What was twitter’s user base in 2008? What is it now? Those are the relevant facts.
dedc79
@Kropadope:
Who is “everyone”?
danielx
Warning: rant ensues.
Item – Bernie Sanders is never going to be president. Fuhgeddaboutit. I don’t care if Sanders and his followers blow up the Dem convention, burn the DNC to the ground and sow the ground with salt, he’s still not going to be president. Ever. If Hillary Clinton withdrew from the race tomorrow, he’d still never be president.
I never in my life thought I’d see a replay of the never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed Nader vanity campaign of 2000. But goddamnit, here it comes…again. If Bernie Sanders’ ego and his supporters’ purity fetish lead to a Trump victory, Sanders had best realize that if that occurs – and I can see the possibility – whatever influence he hopes to have on the future path of the Democratic Party will be gone, vanished, sunk without trace. Here’s your ticket for the clue train, gang – there is no mass of ostensible Trump supporters out there who are just waiting for a chance to switch their support to Bernie in the general. There is no silent majority of libs out there either for that matter. It don’t exist, it ain’t happening, much as I’d like to believe otherwise and likewise believe it would be a better world if that was the case. Most of our fellow citizens are dumb shits who can barely be bothered to vote, let alone focus on issues as opposed to bright shiny objects.
Most Trump supporters would rather drop a load in their drawers in public than cast a vote for an avowed socialist; for that matter a great many Americans view the labels socialist and communist as a distinction without a difference. Bernie Sanders has already pushed the Dems a lot farther to the left than would ever have been the case without his campaign. He’s made a difference, and one for which I sincerely believe he deserves accolades and appreciation. But the ongoing childish bullshit from him and his supporters, and that’s exactly what it is, helps no one except Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Fine, you’ve made your point and FSM bless you for it. You’re still not going to win.
Can anyone – 2000 Nader supporters in particular – really say and believe that this here US of A was better off with Dubya in the White House instead of Al Gore? Can they truly believe there would be no real difference a Clinton in the White House and a Trump in the White House? More to the point, when will the fucking purity brigade realize that the difference between bad and worse is a whole lot bigger than the difference between good and better?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@chris:
I guess my question is, the same pathologies have shown up in the white community that showed up in the minority communities when the jobs left and drugs arrived, yet only the white community turns to Trump. Why is that?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Good luck!
patroclus
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I know. The Maine legislature passed a bill (making those drugs more available) that Paul LePage vetoed. Other states have responded too. But the issue should be more high-profile. And Hillary should grab a hold of it. The rest of the article lambastes her and lauds Trump for some unknown reason. But this could be a real nationally significant contrast issue that would really impact lives right now. And address the author’s concern. Trump has almost assuredly no idea about it at all.
Chyron HR
@dedc79:
The “loyal registered Democrats” that Krop holds in sneering contempt, duh.
Dr. Bloor
@starscream: Yeah, I don’t get anyone making that prediction. I think she wins, but breaking 300 EVs isn’t a certainty by a long shot.
RK
Most Bernie supporters who won’t vote for Clinton never intended to anyway so any current acrimony is overblown. Let the Bern man do his thing which he has every right to do; he’ll eventually endorse Clinton and all will be forgotten. At any rate, whether Clinton wins or loses in November will ultimately be about her alone, which in part is why some Dems are feeling uneasy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL:
What? No Unicorn?
tobie
Agree with Dan Pfeiffer to a point. HRC was in closer contention for the nomination in 2008 than Sanders is today, which meant she had a much larger base of supporters than his 9 million voters thus far. On the other hand she wasn’t running against the Democratic Party as Sanders is doing, so there wasn’t the fear that her supporters would take down the party if they didn’t get their way. My sense is that a good portion of Sandernistas wouldn’t mind punishing the party because they think it’s been unfair to their hero, um candidate, and he’s spent a fair bit of time arguing that the Democratic Party is a sclerotic, corrupt institution that needs to be destroyed. Hence Susan Sarandon’s remark early in the primary calendar that maybe it’s better to elect a monster like Trump than to let the Democratic Party continue in its current incarnation.
Soon we will see the name “Sanders” next to “spoiler” in the dictionary.
starscream
@Dr. Bloor: I feel like the race right now is probably Clinton +2 or +3, and might go back up to around +5-6 once the primary is over.
Emma
@Matt McIrvin: Simple answer: people of color don’t have the privilege of behaving like special snowflakes. They have the experience of knowing that every bit of progress is hard-earned and the battles refought as necessary. Besides, white people don’t want to burn the “whole thing down”, they want “those others” trampled back down so they can climb up on their backs again.
patroclus
@Dr. Bloor: It was a likelihood about a month ago, when the Republicans were still imploding. But, since Indiana, they’ve been unifying and we’re still dealing with Bernie, so the general election has really narrowed since then. Hillary is still likely to win, but it’ll be close and Bernie will be going after her for still another 3 weeks or more which will delay any reconciliation.
BillinGlendaleCA
@germy shoemangler: DY-NO-MITE!
dedc79
@Kropadope:
@Chyron HR: Ah, ok. Well, then I feel comfortable saying, on behalf of “everyone”, that Hillary is way better than any Republicans and we don’t need reassurance of that fact.
Fair Economist
@Kropadope:
And this is partly why – there’s a certain type of guy who really doesn’t want women to really be equal, and the studio heads don’t want to tick them off. It’s also partly more sub-conscious sexism within the studios that produces so many movies that flunk the Bechdel test.
ThresherK
@Major Major Major Major: Good luck.
(Is it theatrical? Should I be saying “break a leg” instead?)
Major Major Major Major
@patroclus: I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it come up. Again, Hillary mentioned naloxone sorta out of nowhere at one of the debates, so it’s certainly on her radar. And it has kind of an interesting political one-two punch going for it–it helps poor people, and encourages the conservatives to get their “addiction is a lifestyle choice, naloxone just prolongs the inevitable, these people are evil” hate-boner on. I don’t know if this is something that would flip any votes, frankly I don’t care, but it would be an added benefit.
FlipYrWhig
@MomSense:
No, they’re the people too young to have been hippies and too old to be students, who got excited that there was finally a liberal with attitude running for President, so they finally had a chance to play-act as the radicals they always fancied themselves they would have been if only they had been born a bit earlier.
danielx
@Kropadope:
I’m damn sure of it, just like I was sure in 2000 that Al Gore, for all his faults, was a hell of lot better and more qualified candidate than George W. Bush.
Major Major Major Major
@ThresherK: Where is everybody getting this theater thing from? It’s at a think tank :)
Thanks!
BillinGlendaleCA
@patroclus:
It’s because we view addition as a moral failing in this country.
Brachiator
@chris:
A little scattershot, but heartfelt and thought provoking.
danielx
Republicans in action, with a representative from my own benighted state:
Rep. Todd Rokita wants to restrict free school lunches
Because hammering poor people never goes out of style for Republicans. Or for Donald Trump in particular.
dogwood
@dedc79:
National polling is pretty meaningless in a system that doesn’t have national elections. Trump has to flip several Obama states to get to W.’s slim margins of victory. He can run up his numbers in Texas and the rest of the Confederacy, and win Ohio, but it won’t be enough. Ohio has been pretty republican for a long time anyway.
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
Well, there’s always TV. From Jezebel:
WarMunchkin
So, Sanders accepted a Democratic debate hosted by Fox News.
Bernie y
Matt McIrvin
@danielx:
But most of us will be killed anyway, so it will hardly matter.
Micheline
@dedc79: Is there an explanation for the drastic drop?
Matt McIrvin
@patroclus: I didn’t read it as lauding Trump, it was more like “fuck everything, I might as well blow up the world.”
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes, it’s very much on her radar. She started her campaign with the “listening campaign” where she was indeed listening, and came back after a month or two saying she was surprised at how much of a problem drug abuse was and (typically) already working on solutions to it.
Matt McIrvin
@dogwood:
Except that an EV/PV split is actually a pretty rare event–it happened in 2000 just because the election was freakishly close and also being actively messed with. Usually, the popular-vote winner wins the election.
However, you could still have a point on another level: for reasons that are not entirely understood, national PV polling seems to be a less accurate predictor of the popular vote than state-poll aggregation is of the electoral vote. But it’s on the order of a few points bias, not massive inaccuracies at showing major shifts in the race.
Trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
Speaking of.
NYT Linkie.
dedc79
@Micheline: My theory is that polls that poll both Clinton v. Trump and Sanders v. Trump are going to lowball Clinton’s numbers. Trump has the benefit of being the presumptive nominee. Clinton does not, yet. But it’s just a theory….
The Thin Black Duke
@WarMunchkin: Of course he did.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Allegations of fraud and misconduct at Nevada Democratic convention unfounded Fuck you Bernie, Jeff Weaver, Berniebros and all you other Sandernista assholes. Just fuck you.
? Martin
@Kropadope:
Equal parts reboot fatigue and men discovering middle-child syndrome for the first time.
JPL
@dedc79: Actually from what I read that is true.
Villago Delenda Est
The infiltration by Paulistas is disturbing. These people want to party while the world burns, because they’re under the delusion that they’ll be the new feudal lords.
Matt McIrvin
@dedc79: If you look at favorability numbers, Trump’s are still lower than Clinton’s, but his are rising rapidly since he became the presumptive nominee. Republicans who didn’t support him are deciding he’s not so bad. That process hasn’t happened yet with the Democrats.
FlipYrWhig
@? Martin:
Or the second, the first being Hillary Clinton holding front-runner status for the Democratic nomination.
tsquared2001
I am not worried about November. Senator Sanders is acting like a complete dick but 90% of his followers will come home. Hispanics are being registered in record numbers and a woman is actually heading the Team Blue ticket which WILL cut into that married women discrepancy (it is a secret ballot after all).
In other words, the Obama Coalition is real despite the white working man blow jobs the Beltway press delights in bending their knees for. I look at the ’12 electoral map and cannot see Donny doing anything but fucking up what Rmoney accomplished, especially after POTUS is unleashed on the campaign trail when the primary ends. Did anybody see the Rutgers commencement address? Without even saying his name, POTUS throat punched Donny – just wait until everything is official and watch the fireworks since Donny CANNOT stop his dumbass from reacting to every little thing.
Ever since the ’04 election, when I had to go to work SO SO tired and hung the fuck over, I have scheduled the day after the election as a vacation day. I did the same for ’16 but I do believe that I will be only up late waiting on the Senate returns on November 8.
Matt McIrvin
@Villago Delenda Est: I think the Paulistas in the Sanders movement are relatively rare.
dww44
@Mike J: I heard that interview and appreciated Dean’s insight, i.e. that he’s known Bernie for 40 years who’s an extremely competitive guy and who has a difficult time accepting the reality of any loss but particularly this one that could presumably put him into the Presidency. He believes that Bernie will come around in the “end”.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@tsquared2001:
Yup. We will get No Fucks Left To Give Obama determined to preserve his legacy from falling into the hands of Donald Fucking Trump, and we will get En Fuego Obama, in addition. We just need to tune out all the bullshit noise from the naysayers here like NR and BiP, and the useless horse race media and their meaningless polls. Bernie fucking Sanders needs to be taken out behind the wood shed though – that would help a lot.
gogol's wife
@tsquared2001:
thank you for that you restoreth my soul
tybee
@BillinGlendaleCA:
subtraction is pretty bad, too.
gogol's wife
I spent the middle of the day reading BJ threads, then went to two faculty meetings, and then at dinner I looked at my husband and said, “You, and all of the people in those meetings, have no idea that anything particularly interesting is going on in national politics right now, do you?” He looked at me blankly, and I was reminded that BJ world is a very, very special place. It kind of calmed me down.
? Martin
@tsquared2001:
The real clue was 2012 when the traditional media got completely taken. I love Maddow, but MSNBC like all others is white people media. They have no insight whatsoever into what’s happening within the latino community or the black community, etc. They don’t know how to poll these communities (toss in millennials there) and they don’t have any real handle on enthusiasm, motivation, turnout, etc. They can model african americans because they are so incredibly predictable, but the others completely catches them out. I suspect they also have some weakness on understanding women in this election because we’re walking into a situation that we’ve never seen before, and it’s reasonable to have a result that we can’t predict. They’ll try, of course, and they’ll almost certainly fuck it up.
Applejinx
@chris:
That’s amazing, and I think it outlines the problem with total clarity. This isn’t ‘first world problems’ anymore :P
gogol's wife
@? Martin:
We should get that Univision guy that Trump threw out of a press conference to come and do a guest front page post. Jorge Ramos?
Citizen_X
On the one hand, I’m not worried about November, because I remember 2008. On the other hand, I am terrified about November, because I remember 2000.
schrodinger's cat
I was watching BBC World News Tonight and they Jay Newton-Small of Time on it. She referred to poll where Donald Trump was leading Hillary Clinton among Hispanic voters. I don’t buy it, has anyone heard of the said poll?
gogol's wife
@Citizen_X:
And I remember 1980.
tybee
@Trollhattan:
dunno about half of them leaving a JCB job fair but i do know that’s a sought after place to work and i’m not aware of them having issues hiring folks.
and ray gaster is a certified bigot, asshole and all around dipshit.
smith
@gogol’s wife: I remember 1972. And, for that matter, 1968. All kindsa deja vus.
Frank Wilhoit
You are oversimplifying this and framing it wrongly. It is not about Sanders vs. Clinton and it is not about socialism vs. neoliberalism (whatever in Hell that is). It is barely even about idealism vs. pragmatism. What it is about is the ability to see dependencies and think through consequences.
So you say that Wall Street (whatever in Hell that is) is evil? Very well then, I entirely agree with you. Suppose we knock it down, right now, without warning or preparation. THEN WHAT? Then, tomorrow morning, no electricity, nothing on store shelves. There were dependencies. There was collateral damage.
The dependencies are not an excuse. They are part of the problem. But a cancer surgeon does not open a patient’s chest, spot the least-belonging-looking thing in the cavity, wrap his full hand around it and yank. The gravity of the threat the thing poses is a function of its entanglement with things that it ought not to be entangled with. The more of them and the worse the entanglement, the more care is required to disentangle it.
Should the American economy, in principle, be rebooted, under entirely new conditions of accountability? Yes, it should.
Are any of Senator Sanders’s people — any single one of them — prepared to deal with the consequences? No, they are not.
Nearly half of the Democratic Party would, by a very gentle extrapolation, try to find a gas leak by striking a match. And this frets me.
dr. bloor
@schrodinger’s cat:
Here.
A Gravis poll.
Tom Q
@dedc79: Back in ’76 (yes, I’m old), when Carter had clinched his nomination but Ford and Reagan were still battling it out, polls were showing Carter beating either of them by 30 points. In the end, he only nipped Ford by 2 — so there’s some precedent for ongoing primary battles creating misleading GE match-ups.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Brachiator:
That movie looks hysterical! Bridesmaids is one of the funniest movies too!
Haha, that scene where she shit in the street…Classic!
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Anne Laurie:
Doesn’t he have something along the lines of a detente with the state Democratic Party? Pretty sure his seat is more than safe. And I can only help but wonder if all the shade that the Clintonistas are throwing at Sanders won’t solidify Vermont Voters opinions. Kinda like hey it’s ok if we make fun of him, but not for outsiders
Tom Q
@tsquared2001: I made the decision in 1994, after a sleepless night post-the midterms, that I would always take off the day after a presidential or midterm election.
tsquared2001
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I CANNOT wait. No Fucks Giving Obama is under Donny’s skin in a YOOGE way. POTUS already got Donny to tweet a defense of ignorance – this summer and fall will be full of own goals on Donny’s part, mostly going down the path of sexism.
schrodinger's cat
@chris: I read it, someone else had linked to it before over here. I don’t agree with this person’s rationale of voting for Trump.
chopper
@Brachiator:
and just remember M^4, remember how the internet works.
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: The what now?
SRW1
Maybe the fact that 400+ of Bernie’s elected delegates didn’t bother showing up for the state convention in Nevada speaks to that question?
JMG
@Tom Q: Well taken point, BTW, Fox poll becomes the second, after Rasmussen, to show Trump ahead of Clinton. Also shows Obama with positive approval rating. How odd. Also shows more Republican registered voters than Democrats, which just ain’t so.
LABiker
In 2000 we had the Brooks Brothers Riot. This year it’s the Birkenstock Riot.
BillinGlendaleCA
@tybee: Doh!
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Because they did not expect things to be this hard?
Soylent Green
@Kropadope:
How do you guys say this shit with a straight face? This endless refrain that Hillary is corrupt or untrustworthy is a 25-year-old Republican smear dating from when we first got a First Lady who was too uppity to be satisfied with choosing the table settings at state dinners. The thugs have been pounding the same set of lies ever since, and now we have so-called Democrats who are either too young to know the origin of these lies, or are blinded by their contempt for all centrist politicians and live in a dream world in which some revolutionary hero will magically usher in a progressive paradise by strength of will alone.
Obviously HRC does not possess Obama’s natural gifts as a politician — most policy wonks don’t — but damn is she smart and qualified and goddamn is she light years better for America than any Republican on Earth.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@FlipYrWhig:
Haha, play act. I don’t think those “radicals” are play acting in ur Facebook feed. We are out there fuckin shit up on the streets with Fight for 15$ and 350.org and showing solidarity with the striking Verizon Workers.
That’s who we are.
Denigrate the New Left all u want. We are but a product of the broken age of Crony Capitalism ;)
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@LABiker:
As a matter of fact I’m wearing Birkenstocks at this very moment!
I may even use them to Vote!
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
So if the entire electoral system is corrupt and illegitimate, why is he a part of it at all, much less running to head one of the three branches of the corrupt and illegitimate system?
tsquared2001
@? Martin: No lie. Segregation ain’t just for schools anymore. I am already waiting for the think piece that concern trolls the (ludicrous) idea that the turnout rate for black people will be down since Mr. Obama is not on the ticket. The press might ignore or downplay the KKK endorsement that Donny received but, PLEASE BELIEVE, black people are fucking listening to that shit. Big time.
HRA
How many US states and US cities have a healthy Polish American population?
http://observer.com/2016/05/bill-clinton-declares-war-on-poland/
divF
@Major Major Major Major:
Good luck !
Omnes Omnibus
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
And no Clinton voters are activists? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
tsquared2001
@Tom Q: Living in the Great State of Minnesota and a resident of the Fifth District, I don’t worry so much over midterms since I know my guy Keith Ellison (like Martin Sabo before him) will always be my Congressman until he doesn’t want to be my Congressman.
I do shake my head that other states are behind the times but I can’t help that and only hope for that Day of Jubilee when they wake the fuck up.
FlipYrWhig
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Delusions of grandeur seem to be common among this crowd. Clicking “like” on your Berniac friends’ fawning Facebook posts does not an up-shit-fucking make.
smith
@HRA: Yeah, that’ll flip Chicago for sure.
FlipYrWhig
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You’re a 31 year old person wearing Birks and you claim _not_ to be cosplaying revolution? Self-awareness called, it said it hasn’t seen you in a while.
tsquared2001
@SRW1: Ya think?
At a poker table, that is known as a tell
burnspbesq
ICYMI, U.S. District Court in Kansas invalidated the state’s requirement that people registering to vote at DMV show proof of citizenship. Narrow ruling, on statutory grounds, applies only to Federal elections. Stayed to allow time to appeal. Kobach, needless to say, vowed to appreal. Fuck him, etc.
tsquared2001
Ugh. Forgot the rules and made a reference to a card game that is played for money. My apologies, moderators.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: Hey, not every 31-year-old in Birkenstocks is cosplaying revolution. Some of us just grew up in Denver.
tsquared2001
@FlipYrWhig:
“Clicking “like” on your Berniac friends’ fawning Facebook posts does not an up-shit-fucking make.”
Well done. I chortled most heartily.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: I’m, ahem, around twice that age and wear Birkenstocks. A comfortable shoe is a comfortable shoe.
Bob In Portland
Jesus, working for think tanks!
I’m sorry, I thought this was a website for Democrats. You know, people who actually care about people.
FlipYrWhig
@Gin & Tonic: @Major Major Major Major: Touche, but also, feh. In my world, Birks = Dadshoes, and I’m 44.
Mike in NC
@schrodinger’s cat: Newton-Small is a Village Idiot and was also a big fan of Eric Cantor.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Who knew that Kay and all of the union reps she was working with in Ohio were actually street-fightin’ leftists?
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: Do you even know what a think tank is, Bob? I mean, your track record of knowing “things” and “word meanings” ain’t that great, so I don’t have a lot of hope. Do you take exception to, say, Economic Policy Institute?
Jack the Second
@Soylent Green: Honestly after 25 years of hearing countless lies and trumped up baseless claims about the Clintons, I could see Hillary kill a man in front of me with one hand while holding three forms of ID in the other and still be like 30% sure it was just a right-wing smear.
p.a.
Why local politics matters, why party unity matters, vol. 123,357: Verizon strikers in RI win unemployment compensation. IBEW 2323 supported Raimondo for gov and dedicated some COPE $ to her and other state Dems. Head of RI Dept of Employment & Training (Raimondo appointee) ok’d payments as soon as timetable allowed. Mass decision (Repub gov due to Mass Dem party apparent tradition of running incompetents and/or only caring about legislative dominance- Massholes feel free to correct this characterization) was due 5/16, then 5/18. Still no word.
schrodinger's cat
@chris: I read that post and other posts on the blog. Lots of self indulgent, nihilistic and pessimistic navel gazing full of doom gloom. This supposed serious person thinks that a Trump ascension to presidency will be no big deal.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Last I heard, Fight for 15 was being driven by the SEIU, who endorsed Hillary. Are you now claiming that you know labor issues better than the SEIU?
chris
@Applejinx: Thanks for reading. Same for all the rest of you. (Good luck, Major Major Major Major!)
We had an election last year in Canada. there was much talk on all sides (5+ parties) about the “hard-working middle class.” enter Justin’s shiny new government which immediately gives a 2.5% tax break to the middle class. Yays all around while eliding the fact that those whose income is higher also get the break because marginal tax rates, etc. In the process of course they finally had to define the middle class. You’re middle class if you make between $44700 and $89900.
Take a look at those numbers, I imagine the US is much the same. Turns out that $44700 puts you in the top 40% of income earners. Except for the children there was precious little mention of the rest of us, the precariat and, my favourite new word, the unnecessariat. Because who cares, right?
The Donald and Hillary and Bernie (Eek a socialist! Um, no.) are all talking about the middle class. Bernie and Hillary might even care a little bit about them. But nobody pays much if any attention to the bottom two thirds of the people and the bottom two thirds is beginning to realise it. As an actual socialist I could never vote for Trump but I can understand the urge. If you already live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland why not vote for the guy that will burn the rest of it down. At least it’ll be entertaining and besides long term poverty makes one mean and resentful.
Just my 1.5 cents.
JMG
Based on the Sanders people on this Website, I would predict a Trump landslide. They WANT to feel miserable, betrayed and oppressed. Only people who’re none of those three ever feel that way. But I’m also pretty sure there’s more than one Ron/Rand Paul bumpersticker on many a car of the Sanders comment thread army.
To the non-trolls among them, my sympathies. You fought hard. You did your best and it was pretty damn good. But the fight’s over. You lost. The longer you keep fighting, the better chance the country loses. I’m not ready for WW III to be the result of a Twitter flame war by the President of the United States.
tsquared2001
Jeremiah Johnson is now playing on Turner Classic – what a godsend this channel is since it helps me drown the political minutia that I. Can’t. Seem. To. Quit.
schrodinger's cat
@chris: Midwest is a post apocalyptic wasteland? Isn’t that a tad dramatic?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
Of course, he has a degree in Latin.
Davebo
@dedc79:
That’s quite an interesting poll.
They are claiming that every call produced a cooperative answer. That’s a poll of Kim Jong Un proportions!
If polling history is any indicator, this is a poll of, at best, 200 registered voters.
Mnemosyne
@chris:
Here’s the problem with that essay, though. What’s actually happening is that people in those states are looking around at the aftereffects of 40 years of Republican rule and would rather burn it all down than give the Democrats a chance to fix it.
It’s yet another suicidal gesture, and the essay’s writer is too close to see it as such.
trollhattan
@tsquared2001:
Skin that one, pilgrim, and I’ll get ye another.
Love that movie.
Gin & Tonic
@FlipYrWhig: Life is too short to drink lousy beer or wear ill-fitting shoes.
chris
@schrodinger’s cat: A metaphor, SC. Try living on $15000 a year.
chris
@Mnemosyne: I agree and I can see some of that here.
gogol's wife
@Jack the Second:
ROFL
gogol's wife
@tsquared2001:
But where the hell is Robert Osborne? Mankiewicz doesn’t deliver 1/10 the same tranquilizing effect.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: They just know the Democrats haven’t fixed it because they don’t give a shit.
schrodinger's cat
@chris: I have been through some tough times and uncertainty too. I didn’t have the luxury of giving in to despair, which I certainly felt on more than one occasion.
chris
@schrodinger’s cat: I suspect that it’s harder not to give in when it’s generational and all around you.
I have right now several reasons why I could give in but I’m not going to. Life is short enough as it is. Besides I gave up my chemical dependencies a long time ago and I’m too old to start that shit again. Dog knows, despair is easy when you’re hungover.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
I know my fellow TCM fans don’t want to hear this, but we have to let poor Robert Osborne retire at some point.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
That’s exactly what it seemed like to me too. Another data point of despair from the white perspective that doesn’t incorporate the despair of all *those people* who came before them, and are also in the same boat with them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Wouldn’t you be the New New Left. The New Left was late ’60s to early ’70s. Read some history.
J R in WV
@orogeny:
The Democratic Party is not Bernie Sanders’ party at all ! That’s why he feels free to slag it while running for it’s nomination. So strange, off kilter, weird.
That’s our Bernie!
/snark
schrodinger's cat
@chris: {{{Chris}}} here is to not giving in to despair.
chris
@schrodinger’s cat: Cheers, SC. I can’t anyway because I made a commitment about a month ago to an elderly lady. Meet Pumpkin-I-did-not-name-her! She and the boys need me to keep the gravy train rolling. Me too.
schrodinger's cat
@chris: She is floofy! My kittehs keep me sane, even though they are insane.
chopper
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
fixed that for you.
Elie
@Major Major Major Major:
Best to you! You will do fine! (I know how it feels)
Elie
@J R in WV:
Its consistent with an abuser’s pathopsychology: ” I love you but I have to hurt you for your own good.” Every abused wife feels the psychology of this and every woman feels its threat, whether active in her life or not. This is why I cannot stand Sanders — and his enabling, psychologically capive wife. He is actually a dead zone without much aspirational or inspirational example… he is naked ambition, resentment and entitlement.
Captain C
@Frank Wilhoit: I think would-be revolutionaries should have to pass the plumbing test before being taken seriously*. To wit: if you can’t explain, in detail, how you’ll keep the drinking water coming in and the sewage going out without a hitch, you have no business trying to take over and change society.
Note also that by this standard, the people who caused the Flint lead situation have clearly proven themselves unfit to hold their offices and jobs.
*That is, this is a necessary but by no means sufficient condition.
Davebo
Uncle Cosmo
@efgoldman: “When efgoldman posts, people co-sign.” At least I do this time, emphatically.
Frank Wilhoit
@Captain C: One strand in all this is denial of the nature and extent of the real problem, which is the comprehensive failure of institutions. The real hairpuller is the notion that one might turn off the bad things and the good things will just somehow keep on keepin’ on, even if they are deprived of fuel or raw material.
Take a very concrete example. How much of the total American economy trickles down from [what is arguably] corruption in Federal procurement? Large corporations have three potential profit centers, in no particular order: overseas, Federal, and Treasury cash management. Actually doing what it says on the sign runs at a loss and is subsidized by the other three. Sanders’s people would like, for different reasons, to see each of them crimped. (So would Trump’s people, but from them we expect no better.) Are you a small-business fetishist? Is your model small business a supplier to a supplier to a supplier to a supplier to a supplier to a defense contractor? Good news: muck out that stall, and your model small business fails same day.
I could go on but I weary me of this.
nellcote
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
and yet Bernie is still paying Verizon 6K+ a month for services…
rikyrah
@HRA:
Chicago has the biggest Polish population outside of Warsaw.