Prioritize the Trump target.

Politics & Elections
81

OK, issues. On the issues, as a leftist, I would much rather have Hillary Clinton as President than Donald Trump.

But I’m afraid that it’s better for the Democratic Party’s ability to win other races in 2020 if Hillary Clinton loses. I recognize I might be wrong. I’d like to be wrong.

But you see, I remember the 1990’s. I remember people saying they liked divided government, and a Clinton in the White House with a Gingrich in the House. And I just lived through the Obama Presidency, where divided government has led to chronic under-staffing and utter performance failure–and where a 2010 electoral wave led to a long-term lockout of the Democratic Party.

And the Democrats have nominated someone for whom the entire scaffolding of the permanent negative campaign is already in place. Every Republican can run against her for eight years, probably longer. They already do, but making her the leader of the party extends that.

I want the GOP to lose and lose big. I want them to be broken so hard they fall apart. Failing that, I want the anti-science crowd as far out of power as possible. I really don’t want Trump to win. But I have to think about 2020, too.

Issues? On issues, Martin O’Malley was a Democrat. Bernie Sanders was a Democrat. Hillary Clinton was…a “centrist Democrat,” and barely a friend of labor, who got in on the strength of her name recognition and her vast fan base. And now she’s Clintoning the race again, running a personality campaign against Donald Trump while letting the larger issue of party policy, and the campaigns for other offices, slide. This is only good if you want more divided government.

Is this what she’s going to pull in four years? Of course it is. Cult of personality around her while the coalition burns, the Clinton way.

Clintonism, as a style of campaigning, is an issue. It has to be. It may have cost the Democrats too much already.

Hillary’s bad reputation with the American people–to the point that her private email server went from being a minor violation of regulations to grounds for a conspiracy investigation–is an issue. Her name is mud with too many people. This is dangerous–not just this year but over the next several.

I’m not far gone enough to vote for Trump just to end her career. I’m just fed up enough with her faction of the party that you can’t count on my vote. I’ll be looking at the polls, and I may let myself be talked into it. But at this point, I think anyone not in the tank for the Donald or the Clinton fam really owe it to the country to vote Neither-of-the-Above in some way. Of the two, she’s the “better” in my eyes, but if it’s a choice between a mad arsonist and a slow poisoning, even that’s fuzzy.

If the election were held tomorrow, I’d probably vote for Jill Stein. If I ran for office myself after this, I might run as a Green.

Sorry, man.

82

The Democrats can still get my vote for President. It would help a lot if Hillary had to suddenly step down for health reasons, and they unexpectedly put in someone willing to work with the rest of the party on getting progressives into statehouses. :smiley:

If Hillary wants both to win and actually to govern as a progressive, the honest truth, jokes aside, is she has to break every rule she thinks she knows and run toward her base, right now. Get Chelsea to apologize for saying “Pot kills.” Campaign against the whole conservative movement, not just against “Donald.”

Really want to win? Write a leftie’s contract with America, with, let’s say for example, abolition of private prisons, prevailing wages for prison labor, increased rights for labor organizers, shorter sentences for drug crimes, a $15 minimum wage indexed to inflation, whatever Elizabeth Warren wants to do to banks, and a federal statute criminalizing manslaughter by police. A real contract with penalties, while we’re at it–because we simply can’t take her at her word. Sign it in blood. Get Chuck Schumer to sign it in blood. Etc.

That won’t happen. And Democrats, probably, will keep losing. Because the country has moved “left” and they’re still triangulating within a shrinking proportion of voters that are now right of center on issues of importance to the masses.

Campaigning against Trump just isn’t enough.

83

This is the least they need to do, and the Clinton campaign, at least, is not. They’re “disaggregating”

This is crazy. And it makes the Hillary Victory Fund look like a giant mistake, or if you’re cynical enough, a scam.

Democrats have reason to be angry with the Clinton team. But she whispered words of loyalty in their ears long enough to be the nominee. Apparently, for Her Royal Clintonity, loyalty only goes one way.

Trump is a probable disaster for the country. Clinton might prove a disaster for the party that elected her–probably a smaller disaster.

So, yeah. I’m going to keep griping about her, because if and when she wins, we get to see this kind of disregard for the rest of the coalition, and typically for the leftish parts of the base,* again, *for a few years.

84

The best answer to this can change quickly now that the season for October surprises has arrived.

Trump’s recently leaked video bragging about sexually assaulting women will undoubtedly take the top spot on this list, at least this week, and it makes the whole Machado incident seem dull by comparison.

My guess is that there is still even more revolting stuff waiting to be released - he just has too big a mouth and ego to have ever done anything discreetly so there is bound to be more coming soon.

85

So we have white women as swing voters in swing states who can make or break the election and a video of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women.

GOP down ticket candidates are now on the hot seat if they are going to continue to support Trump or not.

Hummmm. This is such a tough question. What to focus on?

86

It HAS to be a paper loss right? How does someone lose a BILLION dollars without being totally in the shitter and living out of his car?

I have no concept how someone can personally lose that sort of money, and still have the sort of lifestyle Donald Trump has - unless it was offset by other years where he made a billion dollars…but if that were the case - wouldn’t he be announcing it from the top of Trump Towers?

87

Start with 2 billion? Is this a hard question?