I didn’t vote for Trump, you cunt. And yes, the SCROTUS has decreed that state governments are the final arbiters of what you can and can’t do in the state you live in. What, precisely, am I expected to do about a bunch of reich wing fascist justices who’re in place for life? I mean, I do have a possible solution but everyone gets mad when I propose it. I say I’m just practical. If there’s an object in your way, makes sense to remove it if you can’t find a way to go around.
As for women getting abortions, I will be helping to get women here to no-holds-barred abortion access Oregon. I will actually be doing WAY more to help women access reproductive care than all your recreational outrage so again, fuck you–useless cunt.
At a per-state level, voting is a zero-sum game. It’s basic math. Voting third party, or not voting, or voting for a write-in is a half vote for Trump. And half an infected anal pustule is still an infected anal pustule.
At this point? Nothing. You guys fucked it up for the next few decades, probably. Hillary could have been exactly the same as Trump policy wise (she wasn’t), and yet she still wouldn’t have nominated a slate of justices from the Federalist Society. All that needed to happen to prevent right-wing domination of the Supreme Court is anyone but Trump.
Now, to be fair, you really do live in a state where your vote doesn’t matter, and I have some sympathy for lodging a protest vote in that case. It’s your counterpart in Florida or Ohio that I care about. You’ve shown no ability to think strategically or even know how your vote works, so I don’t have much hope for them, either.
Bernie couldn’t even beat Hillary in the primaries, and that was with all the Republican support they could muster. From the NPR website:
Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. That is according to the data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a massive election survey of around 50,000 people.
Those were not progressives disappointed in the outcome, those were Republicans who supported Bernie as the most easily defeated candidate. Once the primary was over they were voting for Trump regardless of the Democratic candidate.
Oh, I fear that that may turn out to be way too optimistic a take on the situation. ISTM that we may well end up with some version of Republican minority rule that has no problem with saying that sometimes state governments supersede federal law and sometimes vice versa, depending on what they want the outcome to be. A Democratic state like Oregon (which of course has its own issues with anti-left attitudes and right-wing extremism) is not necessarily going to be insulated from the consequences of that.
Nitpick: AFAICT, that should actually read “any Democrat”. I’ve seen no indication that any other of the potential 2016 Republican nominees would have made substantially different SC picks than Trump did.
There are lots of non-Trump Republicans who would have been much less incompetent and corrupt than Trump, though that’s not saying very much, but I’m not sure there are any electable ones who would have produced a significantly different Supreme Court.
The Russians did their part, too. From the Mueller report (p. 23):
By February 2016, internal IRA documents referred to support for the Trump Campaign and opposition to candidate Clinton. For example, directions to IRA “Main idea: Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary [Clinton] and the rest (except Sanders and Trump - we support them).”
Here’s a link to the whole thing, for anyone who can be bothered to read it.
The Russian interference part is only the first 200 pages, It’s still quite heavily redacted, so it’s not even much of a challenge. I mean, if someone really cares to know about these things.
Or if even that is too much trouble, just read the summary starting on p. 4 through 10.
I guess the electability of a candidate doesn’t really enter into the equation for you? You acknowledge he was an unpopular candidate even within his own party, but you think he should have been the candidate anyway, because… reasons? You guys really are some entitled little fuckers.
Yes, agreed. I spoke of Trump since he was the actual candidate, but in some alternate universe where it was someone else, it would almost certainly have been just as bad. I guess it’s conceivable that some other candidate would have been a tiny more thoughtful and nominated some more middle-of-the-road justices, or at least ones not quite so hell-bent on reversing RvW (if for no other reason than that most Republicans didn’t support a repeal), but I sure as well wouldn’t have wanted to make that bet.
^ This 100%. See the testimony by Rusty Bowers. Even though he was called in front of the 1/6 commission and testified against Trump, he said he would vote for him again. WTF?
I’m struck by how many people here see a complaint that more Democrats should have supported Sanders, and think that pointing out that a lot of Democrats didn’t support him is some sort of cogent rebuttal.
But it is helping me understand why we ended up with Clinton as the nominee.
Democrats didn’t support Sanders because Sanders wasn’t a Democrat, and because he was a singularly ineffective lawmaker. Sixteen years in the house, zero bills passed, nine years in the senate, one bill passed. not including ceremonial things like naming post offices. I’m just amazed by all the Bernie Bros who to this day insist that had he only gotten the nomination from the party he’d been a member of for about ten minutes he’d have been swept into office on a wave of populism, borne on the shoulders of the people who couldn’t be bothered to vote for him in the primaries.
Yet if you actually poll people on specific policies, the results seem pretty progressive to me. Wealth tax has 64% approval 53% even by Reps (2nd Google hit = cite). But then yeah if it is the Dems reccing such a policy then said support suddenly drops a ton for some mysterious reason…
But that’s part and parcel of democracy. Either we work within that or toss democracy. The right is currently at the ‘toss it all’ stage while the left is at the delusional ‘there’s a hidden majority of people who would vote us into office on progressive issues’ stage.
The idealist in me has its preferences, but the realist in me admits the general American public might, in a vacuum, say they support certain things, but when it comes time for actual bills, suddenly balks and requires several years/decades of prep work to get there. The Republicans have been good at the generational planning (aided because they’re generally proposing to go back to some imagined halcyon age that never really existed) while no wing of the Dems has been particularly good at it.
Obamacare is a particular example. They eventually got a flawed bill passed. But it barely passed and still cost them control of Congress in the midterms. Though every individual piece of it garnered majority public support while wrapping it with a bow was incredibly popular. Now, in hindsight, people don’t want to get rid of it. But the Dems who barely passed it still get hit from all sides - from the right for getting it done and from the left for not doing more.
And as to how come Trump even increased his own turnout in 2020 after all he did, well, some populists just plain and simply want to “sock it to the establishment” even if it kills them , and some of them already believe there’s no point in formal liberal democracy so WTF I’ll vote to say “fuck you all!!”
Why was there ever a difficulty? Clinton was a perfectly viable mainstream candidate that would have pushed mildly on some progressive issues while not rocking the boat too much. She was a perfectly viable if uninspiring candidate. And she did have the one quality that dominates all others, which is that she wasn’t going to nominate justices from the Federalist Society.
…what a shame that the perfectly viable mainstream candidate that would have pushed mildly on some progressive issues while not rocking the boat too much had their campaign completely derailed by the inability to respond to a couple of talking points and got defeated by a buffoon.
And now we have a perfectly viable mainstream President that only pushes mildly on some progressive issues while not rocking the boat, his party has the majority of the House and the Senate, yet is watching helplessly while the minority party is taking the country to the cleaners.
Perhaps, right at this moment, pushing mildly on some progressive issues while not rocking the boat is not what your country needs.