The choice isn’t no change on guns, or all guns are confiscated. Moderate common sense gun control is the popular position. The Democrats have to start out to the left on that or there is no room to negotiate back to the moderate position once the sausage making starts. There is also a primary to win prior to the general election.
We are never going to have both major Presidential candidates as pro gun 2nd amendment absolutists. There is zero chance of this. Just like there is zero chance of gun confiscation.
Why can’t the 2nd amendment absolutists who are otherwise moderates vote for pro gun congressional and local representation and accept the candidate that gives them most of what they want for President? This is not a perfect world. Waiting for it to be before taking an action seems like an excuse for those who just don’t really want to take that action, but also don’t want to take any responsibility.
People are literally arguing that Oak throwing his vote away does change the calculus, and he is helping Trump win the election.
Because one cannot attribute group behavior to each member of the group. The criticism of Oak is doing just that.
I wish he wouldn’t throw his vote away, and instead make the choice of voting for whomever I think is best. But he seems pretty strongly inclined against doing that OR voting for Trump, which makes his vote irrelevant. Not helpful to Trump, but irrelevant.
Bring me someone who is on the fence on voting for Jill Stein or the Democratic nominee, or Gary Johnson or the Democratic nominee – there’s someone whose vote is in play and does make a difference.
That’s Trump style pretzel logic. I should vote for a candidate that straight up tells me he supports a gun ban, on the theory that the current makeup of Congress will always stay the same, so the candidate can’t really do what he says he wants to do? That makes no sense. We have elections on a regular basis. Control of one or both houses of Congress could change in any given election. If Team Blue takes the White House and both sides of Congress, then I’d fully expect the candidate to do exactly what he told me he was going to do…ban “assault weapons” and/or impose registration.
So on election day he is irrelevant that morning, and on the way to the polls too, but in the booth he chooses dt. Is he still irrelevant? If he chooses the D is he irrelevant? I thought he was asking here for a candidate that he could be relevant in voting for, (a D), and avoid voting for dt. Sounds relevant to me.
Let’s say that in the booth he reflects on this thread, decides that we haven’t sold him and votes for the R. Is he relevant or irrelevant?
Look, you can do whatever you want with your vote. That is your choice, and your right. You can vote for Baby Yoda if you want. What you cannot do is choose who the two major parties nominate for President via the primary system. You do not have that control. I do not have that control. Nobody does. You can vote in the Democratic primary in your state if you wish. That is the sum total of the control you have over who is on the ballot in November. The candidates on the ballot come November will be chosen by the primary voters in each party. Nobody is forcing any candidate on the ballot, it is a democratic process.
When you get to the polls in November you will have a choice in front of you. What you choose to do is up to you. Blaming everyone else for forcing your hand is bullshit though. Sorry. We are all in exactly the same situation as you with exactly the same amount of control. You are not special. None of us are. We are all exactly one vote. Yours does not count more than anyone else’s. Choose what you will but know that it is your choice. Everyone else will have the same choice and we all need to take responsibility for ourselves and the choices we make. That’s pretty much all I’ve been trying to say in this thread.
Sure you do. When did I say anything about opinions? I don’t recall using the word opinion at all. You are the one who is trying to get a major political party which represents roughly half of the population to capitulate to your personal demands or else. I’m pointing out the folly in that thinking. You can have and express any opinion you like, but opinions don’t change anything. Actions do.
You seem to have this need to feel like someone is taking something from you, why is that? We all have the exact same choices in front of us. You and me are the same when it comes to our ability to affect the election and the nomination process. That’s all I’m trying to say. I’m not trying to limit you in any way. Pointing out the limits that we all face is not about you personally
Discussions like this one are a way to effect the dem nominee. Lots of people voting in the primaries consider electability as the single most important feature in the person they are voting for (basically LHOD’s argument) by letting those people know there are contingents of Republican adjacent voters who are very persuadable to voting for the Dems if they just drop the gun thing can sway who people view as electable.
We’ve had a ton of threads about how the left needs to ignore the middle and move hard left to excite the base. This thread is reminding voters that moving to the right will gain votes especially if done in certain ways. Even if it doesn’t effect this election maybe in 4 years the new crop of dems will hear enough of people on the right willing to vote left that we can get a centrist candidate to even run.
Um, no. I’m not trying anything like that. I started a thread on a message board. I did not contact the Democratic National Committee or whatever they call it with any sort of demands. If I had, they’d have maybe laughed before hanging up. The thread started with a simple request for information as to whether any Dem candidate for POTUS holds positions important to me. People then wanted to talk about other stuff, so we did. Some of those people were apparently perplexed by my position on the matter. So be it.
I apologize for only having browsed the thread. Hopefully, I have something new to say anyway.
This.
Also
For similar game-theoretical reasons to why we have only two sexes (across an enormous diversity of creatures) we will only have two parties as long as our current election system holds. We have had shifts from a failed party to a new party a couple of times, but it’s still two parties with a lot of the same dynamics that you don’t like.
If you hate the two party system:
Push for ranked choice, or some other substantive change in the election system
Try to get your preferred style of candidate elected to local offices, where there are fewer voters and it’s easier to effect significant change, and where personality and connection may matter more than party
In the meantime, vote for the less offensive major party candidate for major offices, where minor parties stand no chance.
If you want to influence the D primary, several of the D candidates aren’t all that extreme on gun control, or in general. For instance, Amy Klobuchar’s site says"
Yes, she wants to ban a few things. But honestly, that’s not going to happen, because it’s low on her list of priorities, there are people like you who care a lot, we have this pesky constitutional amendment, and she’s going to end up settling for:
which is immensely popular and will give her credibility with gun-control crowd while she focuses on things she cares more about.
…and this, I think I’m communicating with complete incompetence in this thread. Ravenman’s statement is orthogonal to what I’m trying to say, and Oredigger’s paraphrase of my argument is 100% not what I’m saying at all. But if after all my posts that’s what folks think comprise good responses to what I’m saying, I gotta take responsibility for that. I’m gonna bow out for now.
Rightly or wrongly, Guns matter to a lot of Americans. Beto O’Rourke came out against guns … and disappeared from the stage. If a D came out as a gun-lover would this increase or decrease his support? I think we have evidence right here in this thread the the D’s masochistic insistence on gun control costs votes and may give us four more years of the Orange Ogre.
ETA: Read what puzzlegal wrote in #290. (“If you want to influence the D primary, several of the D candidates aren’t all that extreme on gun control, or in general. For instance, Amy Klobuchar’s site says…”)_
In local elections, the key issues for you seem to be Guns, Guns, Guns! In elections for the highest office in the land, your key issues seem to be Guns, Guns, Guns!
I wonder what your key criteria are for state-wide elections? How many guesses do I get?
The “local elections” I mentioned were state wide. There were no anti gun candidates in the top state races. Both of the candidates I supported were denounced as radical liberals comparable to AOC, Pelosi, Bernie, et al by the Trump sycophants. They aren’t, of course, but truth doesn’t seem to matter much in politics these days.
I know you’re just making a bullshit satirical response, but seriously having a position of universal healthcare isn’t some far left idea. If we went ahead and said, universal healthcare + the government covering ALL grey areas, cosmetics, etc… then that’d be an actual far left position.
This idea that Bernie is radical couldn’t be further from the truth. The line has been drawn so far to the right that the media can portray his policies as far left radical ideas. This is an attack to dismiss the merit of such proposals, and does nothing to solve the problems we’re facing in this country. It would be nice if people like you wouldn’t downplay such things and make blatantly untrue assertions.
If it comes down to literally anyone versus “Take their guns first, worry about due process second”, what the hell does it matter?
If you believe O’Rourke is only one election cycle away from breaking down your door and taking everything that even remotely LOOKS like a gun, I would suggest you view Trump in the same manner.
If your firearms are what you judge candidates by, you’re hosed in 2020. Better luck next election.
Trump ran promising better universal healthcare than the flawed Obama plan. He didn’t deliver on that promise, but he made it
Candidate trump wasn’t all that far right. His “radicalism” was more about being a racist who likes to grab pussy than about his views on the major political arguments.
PLEASE vote to prevent the America-hating fuckstick’s re-election (on account of the facts that (1) a third-party candidate will not be winning the election, and (2) a vote that is given to a third-party candidate deprives the Democratic Party candidate of a that vote, this means that in order to vote to prevent the re-election of the America-hating fuckstick, your vote next November must be cast for the candidate that the Democratic Party nominates).
There. You’ve been appealed to. Don’t go moving the goalposts, now.