Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 79: No Comment *winkwink*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mr Lasastryke posted...

that's what obama's policies turned out to be, yes, but he did run on an "i'm going to help the poor" platform.

I mean, not really. There were plenty of promises he could have made but didn't. If you consider "the poor" as a homogenous group, then yeah he ran on help for "the poor", but within that group he deliberately chose not to address issues like racial injustice, employment nondiscrimination for LGBT people, native peoples' land rights, etc. And he had plenty of opportunities to do so while in office, so his rhetoric matched his actions.

Mr Lasastryke posted...

it's my belief that that's ultimately the reason why he won, too. people just found the things he was saying far more appealing than what hillary was saying.

"The people" elected Clinton so I don't think this argument holds as much water as it appears at first glance. It was more a combination of this and an outdated system designed to give racists more effective votes.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-ahca-health-care-obamacare-2017-3



This is basically what I've been saying - republicans don't actually have a workable plan for health care, and their wishes are obviously counterproductive to one another to anyone actually in the industry. You want to call bernie supporters naive for wanting free college and handouts? Republicans are even more naive about the health industry. You can't have lower deductibles AND lower premiums. You can't have competition across state lines AND allow the states to regulate themselves. You can't have high risk pools without massive subsidies and cost shifting. You can't have a clause forcing insurers to take on preexisting conditions (even though yes, a lot of this is bulls*** and insurers are not perfect at assessing risks - we can only do it to the best that our data allows us to) AND not force healthy people to buy in.
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Regaro posted...

More like Trump's subset is the people who actively do not need help.

Do we mean Trump supporters or the people in Trump's establishment

A lot do need help but they aren't going to get it from his policies tbqh
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VeryInsane posted...

Do we mean Trump supporters or the people in Trump's establishment

The people that Trump's policy will help.

I think everyone can agree Spicer is a whiny little b**** right?
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Yes

I have no sympathy for him or the situation he's in though.

Eddv posted...

I think everyone can agree Spicer is a whiny little b**** right?

If my boss hated me for doing my job because a comedy show decided to have me portrayed by a woman, I might potentially be a whiny little b**** too.

Not SPICER whiny, but eh.
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I'm just watching him give a briefing and his frantic "no no NO let me FINISH" is just...sad? Like he is so clearly not suited for this
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Maybe he's like tillerson and he didn't really want this job
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Pretty sure he had a chance to refuse.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/41efc88c9eaa8c0e9368caf7f7f1ae5d/tumblr_nkldfmOWHf1tduuewo1_540.jpg

Just an amusing image that goes well in this thread, I think.
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...Tillerson didn't want his job? Or Spicy McCarthy? I've only heard a variation of this about Rick Perry.
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Yeah, the tillerson thing was a page or two ago maybe? Basically, he only took it because his wife told him it's what God wants
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VeryInsane posted...

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/22/tillerson-job-my-wife-told-me-im-supposed-to-do-this.html

Blackscar posted this earlier but people have him on ignore so lol Tillerson

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Considering the fact that Trump is having trouble filling under-secretary positions I secretly think no one wants to work for Trump.
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I overlooked that link then, whoops! Thanks.
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TheRock1525 posted...

Considering the fact that Trump is having trouble filling under-secretary positions I secretly think no one wants to work for Trump.

Secretly?
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Well I mean it is secretly cause Tillerson doesn't come out and say "I don't want to work for Trump." He says "I didn't want the job" like the job was the issue, not Trump.
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Peace___Frog posted...

Yeah, the tillerson thing was a page or two ago maybe? Basically, he only took it because his wife told him it's what God wants

"what god wants" rofl what a buffoon that guy is... and his wife.
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"Rex, God told us Trump is the apocalypse. And only you, and four other old men with attitude, can stop them! You must become the Power Secretaries!"
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Would that make Betsy DeVos the Pink Ranger?
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Since Elaine Chao has to be the Yellow Ranger.
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Red Ranger: Rex Tillerson
Blue Ranger: Jeff Sessions
Yellow Ranger: Elaine Chao
Pink Ranger: Betsy DeVos
Black Ranger: Ben Carson
White Ranger: James Mattis
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Eddv posted...

I'm just watching him give a briefing and his frantic "no no NO let me FINISH" is just...sad? Like he is so clearly not suited for this

I like how the trend in places like WaPo recently has been to cast him as a victim. Really EMPATHIZING with the Hell his job must be.

They are basically manipulating him into giving up on Trump and giving them all the dirt
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https://twitter.com/ugarles/status/844581409184460801

Trump getting that work done
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Jakyl25 posted...

https://twitter.com/ugarles/status/844581409184460801

Trump getting that work done

Lmao how can he hold all these L's?
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Jakyl25 posted...

https://twitter.com/ugarles/status/844581409184460801

Trump getting that work done

dude couldn't even book a band for his inauguration, dunno why he thought his "hard sell" would work here
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Wow, Trump does something right for once.

And all he had to do was fail!
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He did get one Republican to change their "no" vote

https://twitter.com/repthomasmassie/status/844646398092029952
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And hey, look at this! A Republican politician committed voter fraud... after saying on his radio show that every instance of voter fraud was done by dems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39355015

We've said out a million times, but the Republican strategy of "accuse your opponents of doing the same things as you" is pathetic as hell.
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There's nobody competent anymore who's still under the illusion that Trump didn't have significant number of illegal votes, certainly more than Hillary.
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neither candidate had a significant number of illegal votes.

neither.
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If healthcare "reform" goes down in the House that will certainly be something.

It'd be a lot funnier to watch if you know, the stakes weren't so high. This is classic "dog chases car, finally catches it, has no idea wtf to do" only repeatedly.

Republicans clearly had no idea what to do with the "replace" side of things, with some probably not even really wanting a replace just a repeal. And just kind of banked on the idea that they'd never be in a position where they'd have to actually present a plan and not just use rhetoric where their supporters could imagine some perfect dream plan on an individual basis.

Then when they scrambled together and put together a "plan" I'm thinking their assumption was it'd fall in the Senate to the filibuster and they'd just blame the Democrats for it and go "welp we tried" (ignoring the fact they could just eliminate the filibuster.)

But if it goes down in the House?

Kind of wonder if Ryan remains Speaker if that happens. Also morbidly curious to see how they try to blame the Democrats for it when they would have had absolutely zero ability to block it in the House and it's all on them.
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Dems probably wouldn't even NEED to fillibuster it in the senate anyway.
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Yeah, but I think leadership could argue that they should all vote for it regardless of what they actually think and make the Democrats filibuster for the purely political purpose of being able to blame them for stopping it.

Basically, "look it's going to get stopped either way, but we can try to pin the blame on them if you vote for it now"

I mean the 2018 Senate map is so friendly to them I'm not sure if there'd really be any swing seats up where they'd be worried about having the vote on their record.
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And here I was at the beginning of the year stressed out about how the Republicans are going to f*** things up.

I mean, I was right in the long run. But at this rate, people will be begging for a Democratic President in 2020.

Though my policy still stands - I'm all about values, not party, and the day a Republican president represents my values better than a Democratic president does is the day I vote Republican.

But the problem is that a Republican candidate that represents my values wouldn't last 5 seconds in the primaries, in the current political climate. So yeah.
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BowserCuffs posted...

Though my policy still stands - I'm all about values, not party, and the day a Republican president represents my values better than a Democratic president does is the day I vote Republican.

tbh this is sort of like saying "I'm not a cat person, I just only like pets that meow." <_<
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BowserCuffs posted...

And here I was at the beginning of the year stressed out about how the Republicans are going to f*** things up.

I mean, I was right in the long run. But at this rate, people will be begging for a Democratic President in 2020.

Though my policy still stands - I'm all about values, not party, and the day a Republican president represents my values better than a Democratic president does is the day I vote Republican.

But the problem is that a Republican candidate that represents my values wouldn't last 5 seconds in the primaries, in the current political climate. So yeah.

xp1337 posted...

Yeah, but I think leadership could argue that they should all vote for it regardless of what they actually think and make the Democrats filibuster for the purely political purpose of being able to blame them for stopping it.

Basically, "look it's going to get stopped either way, but we can try to pin the blame on them if you vote for it now"

I mean the 2018 Senate map is so friendly to them I'm not sure if there'd really be any swing seats up where they'd be worried about having the vote on their record.

After Brexit and Trump, I would hope people have learned their lesson about voting for something they don't want out of protest of something.

We hoped people knew better in the first place.

Then we hoped people knew better after Brexit.
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I was talking about Senate Republicans there you know.

i feel like the lesson they learned from that was a bit different than the one you were hoping for
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Kenri posted...

BowserCuffs posted...

Though my policy still stands - I'm all about values, not party, and the day a Republican president represents my values better than a Democratic president does is the day I vote Republican.

tbh this is sort of like saying "I'm not a cat person, I just only like pets that meow." <_<

Huskies can approximate a meow, though.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

Kenri posted...

given their policies it was more "the people need help and I will help certain subsets of them while actively not helping others".

that's what obama's policies turned out to be, yes, but he did run on an "i'm going to help the poor" platform. trump, however, ran on a "screw poor people" platform.

it's my belief that that's ultimately the reason why he won, too. people just found the things he was saying far more appealing than what hillary was saying. i think that's a far more important reason for his victory than the "he's such a master persuader" s*** scott adams was spouting.

that's also why i think bernie wouldn't have beaten trump, btw. the US population would never, ever have let a socialist become president. (he probably would have done better than hillary, though.)

I'm guessing you don't live in the United States, Lasa?

Hillary lost by the smallest margin in U.S. electoral history. I believe it was something like 100,000 people across a few states that would have swung the outcome in her favor. Pretty nuts. Not to mention she won the actual vote by an insane number of nearly 3 million people.

Trump didn't run on a screw poor people platform -- that's only come after he won the election. He ran pretending he was for working class people and that's what likely won him the presidency in the first place, since many states that were hurting the most from neo-liberal policies switched from Obama to him.

And the main point I want to make here is this: all evidence suggests Bernie would have mopped the floor with Donald. Screw the "socialist" rhetoric. Americans don't care anywhere near as much about that kind of thing as media pundits like to believe. They care more about who's going to really look out for them, rather than the labels with which people identify themselves. Trump and Sanders had an incredibly similar populist appeal -- it's just that Bernie wasn't a con man. Not only did Bernie beat Trump by a ridiculous average of 10 points on one-on-one match-ups with Trump in the polls, but if you go issue for issue, the American people align with Bernie on every. single. thing. This isn't my own biases talking here and I'm not exaggerating -- look up the polling data. Healthcare as a right? Check. Higher taxes on the rich? Check. Higher minimum wage like most every other modern nation? Yep. Free higher education? That too. A majority of Americans agree with all these. Probably because they're, you know, pretty common sense things.

Sure, there's an unreachable far-right crowd out there who the word socialist will never be un-demonized for, but Bernie's vast appeal among many of the people who eventually voted Trump shows how little people care about labels at this point in our history. Bernie winning Fox News polls on favorite presidential candidate proves this. And as someone who personally has a father who only watches Fox News and repeats all their talking points yet still says he would have voted for Bernie, I've witnessed this firsthand.

This was a change election, and I'd wager that Bernie had about a 98% chance of beating Trump if the Democrats didn't do everything they could to run their establishment candidate. I actually think Bernie would have struggled significantly more against someone like Ted Cruz (as appalling as that is), since he could have appealed to the traditional conservative base for a different kind of change -- that of small government -- which Trump didn't even try to do.
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1. Bush vs. Gore literally came down to 534 votes in Florida deciding the winner.
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Inviso posted...

1. Bush vs. Gore literally came down to 534 votes in Florida deciding the winner.

ah yeah

I'm a dummie. Everything else I said still stands though!
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2. 107,000 votes.
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SupremeZero posted...

107,000 votes.

Thanks for the fact check. I'm lazy today.

I'm pretty sure this is the smallest victory margin among multiple swing states in history then? I know there was some margin record this election broke.
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So if Trump was found to have coordinated with Russia to harm hilary's election chances. What would be the actual result of that? Is that an impeachable offense?
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It was actually more like 80000 votes after all of the provisional ballots were counted

I'm pretty sure one or two others were also closer. I want to say Kennedy/Nixon was?
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Bernie would not have beaten Trump, and to pretend he would have is to understate just how powerful the GOP media mudslinging machine is. Bernie has plenty of skeletons in his closet, and you can bet the Repubbies would have exhumed every single one of them if he became the nominee. During the primary they were playing with the kid gloves on where he was concerned because they wanted him to be the nominee.
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INCEPTlON posted...

So if Trump was found to have coordinated with Russia to harm hilary's election chances. What would be the actual result of that? Is that an impeachable offense?

Theoretically.

Hard to know if congress as it is now would care, though.

Maybe after they get sick of the health care s*** after a while.
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Hell, conservative rags like the Washington Times were running pro-Bernie articles to damage Clinton. My best guess of how a Bernie v Trump election would have gone is that he would have picked up Michigan and Wisconsin and lost Virginia and/or Nevada. There are too many variables to make any definitive conclusions, though.
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