Travelgate? Seriously? No kidding? And then Charlie Manson? Are you sure you’re getting enough ketchup? It has natural mellowing agents…
I haven’t heard anyone say Hillary “had no flaws,” only that they were ***significantly ***less troublesome than the flaws of the Republican nominee.
Voters were deplorable (or stupid) for not realizing that non-controvertible fact.
So what is the issue? I get that you think that Clinton developed a Quid pro Quo relationship with the DNC. We get the quo part (Clinton paid off a bunch of the DNC’s debts from her own fund raising) what is the Quid?
Fill in the blank,
In exchange for this cash the DNC ____________
The DNC prevented another pesky Obama problem by _________________
The DNC unfairly skewed the primary in Clintons favor by _________________
where blank is extraordinary actions that go beyond the bias that individual DNC members might have felt for a woman who had been a stalwart supporter for theirs for decades.
Also to Saint Cads point I don’t think that Clintons supporters think that she was flawless anymore than Obama supporters think he’s the Messiah, we just don’t think that she is the evil incarnate as portrayed by 3 decades of character assassination by the Republicans and accepted without question by the Bernyites.
asahi, you make a very good argument and as much as I want to vote in a way that keeps the Bushes, Trumps, McConnells, and Ryans out of government, voting for Democrats who are also funded by corporate interests and want to continue to be, just makes me feel like I’m on a hamster wheel and I want to get off. It’s so difficult to continue to justify voting when I’m simply voting for more of the same and I don’t like the same. I feel like I’m being manipulated into supporting candidates who are clearly beholden to big banks and corporate sponsors, not to their individual constituents. It’s not that I don’t see a difference in the policies between Republican and Democrat; it’s that they neither seems to be generally interested in removing corporate interests from politics. It’s getting harder to argue with my non-voting friends who don’t think their vote is worth anything. The only thing that makes it worth something to me is that I get to say something with my vote. What am I saying if I vote for a woman who doesn’t want me to know what she’s telling Goldman Sachs? It just doesn’t feel right.
Those are not the Dems I’m talking to (i.e. Hillary was the lesser of two evils). I am addressing this to the Dems that are Clinton-apologists no matter what she did claiming she was the most qualified candidate ever and honestly believe she has never done anything wrong in her public life.
I respectfully submit that if you look hard enough you would see there are more than a few posts like that in this board’s history. I mean ElvisL1ves is taking the position that I dislike Hillary only because I’ve been conditioned to (I guess by the Evil Republicans). As for Travelgate, Hillary Clinton made false statements to investigators. Gee didn’t Martha Stewart go to prison on obstruction for the same thing? But here’s the point, elucidator will not admit she lied to Federal investigators and even if he did he doesn’t feel like I should dislike her because of it. At the best he and ElvisL1ves will ignore it and say “Trump is worse” as if that excuses their beloved’s failing. Clearly they have never heard of the tu quoque fallacy.
Maybe they’re not. But there are degrees of “corporate influence.” I can live with some. Corporations need to exist and prosper too.
And you seem to not have ever heard of the concept of the excluded middle. So to you its either Hillary is a perfect and flawless human being, or she is exactly everything the right wing has said about her for almost 30 years. That is an enormous valley of middle that you’ve excluded there. Like parting of the Red Sea/Grand Canyon kind of middle.
“Beloved”? Hoss, if you had to give me a dollar for every time I’ve said how much I don’t like her, you’d probably have to sell your entire Beanie Baby collection.
Brown Eyed Girl you are exactly right. There are NO alternatives to the major parties and most of the time no alternatives to the incumbent. We cannot elect Representatives by proportion but rather district which are gerrymandered to elect a Democrat or Republican.
What would be great is if we take all the non-voters and have them vote 3rd Party .
Just wanted to say that I have appreciated the discussion as well and really don’t think we are that far apart on our feelings regarding voting. Conversations like these tell me that it is still possible to discuss politics with those that don’t 100% agree with us in a civil way that can maybe even result in finding some common ground and understanding. Something I’ve not had a lot of hope for in the last year+.
There’s a saying: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It sounds as though that’s a view you reject–you seem to be demanding ‘perfection or no vote.’ But many people feel that a vote is simply an instrument to be used to work toward what they want (even if it won’t give them exactly what they want), rather than a prize to be awarded only to a candidate who is perfect.
This past Tuesday—the day of the Blue Wave of Democratic victories—we saw many examples of people getting involved in politics, who probably never expected to:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/election/article183560906.html
Will some or all of the new-to-politics winners become corrupted by the need to raise money in order to keep their seats? Probably, they will–not because they are inherently Bad People, but because human beings respond to incentives, and the incentives in politics as the rules are now are all about raising masses of cash.
Which is why most progressives place a high priority on changing the current rules which rewards massive spending by wealthy corporations and individuals. (Most notably, the infamous Supreme Court ‘Citizens United’ decision.) But change can happen only if the political will for it exists.
And if eligible voters turn up their noses at voting because it’s so money-dominated and dirty, then nothing will change. Change takes lots of voting at all levels, local to federal.
Agreed. But I think that Democrats and Republicans have stepped over the line into “there’s too much corporate influence.” I see nothing wrong with corporations prospering when they improve the society in which they prosper, by valuing the environment, their employees, and their communities. It’s when they actively work to make sure the government allows them to profit *at the expense *of society, whether it’s polluting, shifting tax burdens to individuals, paying employees so low that they qualify for and have to rely on government subsidies, etc., that makes perceive that those legislators and politicians are more concerned with placating their sponsors than serving their constituents. That’s when I feel like those corporations should cease to exist. Same goes for those banks and investment firms that were responsible for the subprime lending debacle.
Right back atcha. I think the only way we’re going to see an end to the increasing partisanship is to start listening to each other, having those debates, and rejecting the demonization of people with whom we disagree.
I get what you’re saying, but trust me that’s not where I’m coming from. I’ve not yet voted for anyone I thought was perfect because it doesn’t exist. There are too many issues and perspectives and, further, I don’t think for a second that I have all the right answers. But I know which issues I feel strongly about and they may or may not be the same as yours. Bernie Sanders nailed my bugaboo like we’d had a long conversation about it over dinner. I care most about seeing that all Americans have the opportunity to make a reasonable living, to have access to healthcare and education, to not be subject to unreasonable banking fees and predatory lending practices, to not live in polluted or exploited communities so some big conglomerate can make an extra buck at their expense. I believe that the extraordinary income gap and enormous shift of wealth to an exceedingly small percentage of Americans is very, very bad for our country and should be our top priority. For all the issues I agreed with Clinton on, I never got the impression she was very sincere about fixing this particular problem. The speeches really didn’t help. The putting down Sanders to prop her own previous work up on healthcare didn’t help either, so I actively came to distrust her. It didn’t sound to me like she wanted to build a coalition of a wider spectrum of liberals, especially embracing Sanders’ passion and populism, progressive bona fides, and years of experience as a legislator. That was a big mistake for me; I felt like she squandered what could have been a rebirth for the Democratic party. Honestly, had she been able to land Sanders as VP, I would have been willing, if not eager, to vote for her. I never thought she was evil and I actually think she’s probably a very interesting and highly intelligent person. She seems personable and I think I’d probably like her if I met her, but none of that really came through in her campaign. She came across as measured, completely the opposite of Bernie Sanders.
So no, I wasn’t looking for perfection, and I didn’t think the Green party has offered anything close to perfection. Jill Stein has many flaws, but she never made me feel like I couldn’t trust her to work for the people.
I could not be happier about this latest news and I couldn’t agree more. But if it becomes apparent that some of those people become corrupted in order to win elections, I don’t believe they will still possess the political will to cut off their stream of funding from corporations and I won’t support them in spite of the (D) after their names. At this point, I don’t see a whole lot of success for Democrats at higher levels if they don’t get out of the pockets of big business and capitalist cronies. Otherwise, eligible voters will continue to cut off their noses to spite their faces at home on election day. We live in a country of citizens who are not invested in their vote because they fed up with the status quo and perpetuating it is no longer the path to redemption. That’s why Trump got elected. The DNC needs to offer the sane and competent version of Trump. Did we learn nothing from Obama’s campaign?
My apologies, again, for severely hijacking this thread. I don’t know what else to say about Donna Brazile. I’m not sure whether to believe her book or not, but it reinforced the distrust and disappointment I already felt with Clinton’s campaign. I guess it’s pointless now since Clinton appears to be finished with running for office, but it should also make the DNC think about distancing themselves from anyone connected with it if they intend to convince a not-insignificant number of progressives that they can be trustworthy and effectual in the next major election.
Maybe I should have added to my last post that, as I said before, I still vote for Democrats down ballot and I can be persuaded to vote for Democrats at the top again if and when I see a candidate that is going to upset the status quo, that does not have or even a whiff of an appearance of having his/her hand in the corporate cookie jar. That candidate is going to raise money in the manner that Obama and Sanders did. They are going to speak passionately about changing our rigged economy to one that ensures we all have bootstraps to pull ourselves up by.
Of course I think it entails serious responsibilities. But our system isn’t set up properly for that. We let people who have no sense at all vote and there are a lot of them. Therefore, politics takes that into account. You can’t run based upon rational principle, you need to appeal to the emotions of the electorate.
I think getting people to consider the facts and vote rationally based upon their perceptions of their own interests is important. Telling them what their interests are and how they should vote is not a productive method though. People resent the perceived arrogance.
Who’s to say that a person who voted third party didn’t value sending a message of dissatisfaction more than the policy differences of Clinton or Trump?
I get what you’re saying Senor Mace. I just don’t agree, or I agree to disagree.
p.s. I dig your Monty Python reference. 
When the degree constitutes billions of dollars in campaign contributions each election, with the pretty obvious result that policy positions and legislation passed typically has no correlation to polls of what voters want, and a direct correlation to what donors want, we’ve clearly crossed the line from “some” corporate influence into “too much” territory.
nm
I agree with you on principle here, but I have to say, it’s not about perfection. It’s demanding “no corruption, or no vote.” It’s not unreasonable to demand that candidates you’ll support, will not also accept support from organizations with interests that are diametrically opposed to your own.
Change that will continue not happening if we continue voting for incumbents, and career-politicians who were corrupted by those incentives a long time ago. And even new candidates, who are playing by the same rules and making the same mistake of becoming beholden to the interests of large donors.
**
**Voting for what?
If you vote for candidates who get elected by accepting large amounts of corporate cash, they sure as hell aren’t going to vote to limit campaign contributions or publicly finance elections when a bill gets introduced in the future. It’s directly against their own self-interest. And any time that candidate is faced with voting for an issue where corporate interests want a Yes vote, and their constituents want a No vote, or vice versa, many of them will ask themselves, even if only subconsciously, where their paychecks are coming from.
The only way forward in reforming the political system - removing the corrupting influence of legalized bribes - is to support candidates that are funded directly by the voters and pledge to never accept corporate and PAC money. And replace the politicians who do so by challenging them in primaries.
There are a few groups actively doing this, with varying amounts of success:
I’ve heard of Justice Democrats… someone told me The Young Turks were involved… despite that, I hope they’re successful.
Those two sentences seem opposed to each other. You support educating voters, but not informing them?
Voting the “Screw 'em all” ticket is not a responsible act, no matter the sincerity of the voter doing it. Somebody *is *going to win, because somebody has to take the office, and not voting for a candidate is simply an attempt at abdicating responsibility for the result.