I vividly remember in the 70’s, in various places, there were extremist leftists who thought an extremist right-wing government would bring on “The Revolution! ℠™®”
And me thinking “Umm, maybe you guys should read up on just how popular brutal dictators have been for . . . well, too fucking long. Just a thought.”
The past lives on, in your front room
The poor still weak, the rich still rule
History lives, in the books at home
The books at home (or, more accurately, No books at home* :()*
It’s not made by great men
It’s not made by great men
Each party decided what they wanted the declaration to say. The choices were:
or
neither declaration stretches beyond the 2016 presidential primaries (they say nothing at all about what you plan on doing during the downticket primaries later this year). And the state is claiming that it’ll scrub that information in July. Hopefully, for the 2020 cycle, that won’t be needed and we can go back to being completely unregistered as opposed to unregistered 95% of the time.
I googled and on the first page, all I found were the extremely important states of New York and California, which represent a considerable amount of voters and delegates crucial to this primary process, particularly given the concentration of Independents and Democrats in those states when compared to others.
I didn’t bother to keep googling because this alone represents a huge problem with the process.
I guess unless you suck the penis of the Democratic party or the Republican party like it was the fountain of youth, your ability to influence the outcome of a primary or the general election should be curtailed.
Considering the zero thought it takes to vote a straight party ticket, and how bad it is for the country considering the ineffectiveness and corruption of incumbents, one would think having independent voters have equal influence would be a good thing.
But no… unless you’ve declared a lifelong commitment to one of the two corrupt parties and the 1% pumping funds into both major national parties, you shouldn’t get a say in who is the party’s nominee. People who want to change the leadership don’t get to vote, people who think the two parties are just splendid as they are, you get to vote.
Oh, independent voters will get to vote between two candidates once the parties have reduced it to that. That’s when their vote will matter. Like it matters at that point.
The system needs to change. It’s the fact that it hasn’t changed which is the problem.
And, since the primary season is over, it will quickly vanish from everyone’s minds, and no one will care about it again for another 4, likely 8 years. Where it will only come to the forefront of people’s minds once it is too late, and vanish again once the process is over.
Because people have short attention spans. And that works to the advantage of the two parties who control whether or not the rules stay the same.
Sure. Now make it so I can register as a Democrat sometime closer to the primary vote than 180+ days beforehand, when it’s possible someone has won my vote. You know, from winning debates and persuading me.
It’s also possible (albeit, not in the past several election cycles) that the best candidate for President is a Republican, and I want to make sure that person wins the Republican primary.
How do I do that if I can only vote in one of the primaries, and I’ve got to decide a half a year in advance?
I guess we just need to make up our minds a full two years before the election cycle is over. Is that why campaign season is so long? To preach to the already converted?
Seems like a waste of money to me, and for show, since you’d have already had to decide before the campaign season.
I like the idea of Independent voters having a say during the primary season, where people have a say in who it is anointed as one of the only two viable voter choices.
You know, so I don’t end up voting between a Bush and a Kerry.
When it matters, when it’s possible there’s other options besides two doofuses.
Sure, because I absolutely adore who the two parties have chosen to make sure the system never changes, and campaign finance and district drawing continues to shut out anyone who doesn’t have a couple of billion dollars to personally spend.
Let’s shut all the independent voters out of the process that ultimately REALLY decides who the President is. Because A or B politics is really great for democracy.
Let’s streamline the process, and just have a one party system. Only party members get to vote in the primary, and the only candidate that ever wins is the one funded and supported by the establishment.
The difference between that and what we have now is superficial. It’s one of two parties, neither of which represents any person not purchasing a $10,000 a plate dinner.
It’s not a fluke that Bernie got as far as he did, not being a lifelong Democrat. It tells you how fed up people are with business as usual. Had independent voters gotten an equal say, you’d have the first person who wasn’t a career-long democrat or republican in the oval office. Then it might have been possible to affect change.
As it stands, you’ll just have a Clinton or a Bush in charge of the country for 24 out of 32 straight years. That’ll make something different happen.
I strongly like and admire Bernie Sanders. I endorse his policies (though the details need work). Bernie’s electoral successes and the enthusiasm of youth for Bernie gives me great hope. I hope these new voters turn out in 2018, etc. and elect progressive candidates at all levels.
But the fact is that Hillary will be a more competent President and will actually do more for the progressive agenda. And that’s beside the point. Hillary is the candidate, and we should all get behind her.
The superdelegate system is the system — do the BernieBrats want her to simply renounce those votes? To ask the Convention to disenfranchise them? I happen to think it’s a good system. These superdelegates are not random scumbags; they include the elected Democratic Senators, Representatives and Governors.
This comment confuses me. It almost sounds like a suggestion that black voters not have a say in candidate selection since they’re going to vote for the nominee whoever she/he is. :eek:
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As for the idea that a horrible Trump Presidency would somehow be good for the country — that it might wake America up — Please Don’t fall for that bullshit idea. This approach once appealed to me, but it just doesn’t work. History shows that revolutions happen under lenient rulers, not under the most oppressive. Reagan’s right-wing lurch was followed by decades of further right-ward movement, not a correction to the left. However emotionally appealing the idea of Elect Trump to teach American Idiots a Lesson might be,* it just doesn’t work*. And even if it did, the damage four yearrs of Trump could do is huuuuge.
Hillary will probably be elected in November, and, at this point, is the best President we can hope for. But her election is not a sure thing. The misconceived Nader movement in 2000 led to 8 years of G.W. Bush. Cynical progressives could cause a Trump victory in November that might be far FAR worse than the Bush-Cheney fiasco. Please Please think carefully during this election cycle.
Sanders ran as a Democrat out of political expedience, to get ballot access and some legitimacy by being a major party candidate. That was his choice. He could have run as an independent – he should have run as an independent (he certainly doesn’t actually care about the Democratic Party) and all the people who don’t want to belong to a party could still have their guy to vote for. No superdelegates, no saying that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was too mean, no saying that New York needs to let any vote in party primaries, no Clinton “rigging the system”, etc. You could have supported him with your dollars to keep his campaign viable and independent of all that. And, shit, since you don’t care if Trump wins anyway (stick it to the man!) then who cares if Sanders’ independent bid split the Democratic vote in November?
So there you go: that was the solution. Sanders should have run as an independent and the only one to blame for him taking the easy way and running as a Democrat and stealing your chance to put a non-life-long D/R into office is… well, Sanders. So it goes; just blame the right guy.
I think a Leninist strategy is valid to a degree, if you have democratic institutions so people can vote in the opposing ideology. This is one strategy to bring down Islamist ideology in the muslim world. Create democratic institutions, let the Islamists come to power and fuck everything up, and then the people will learn their lesson and vote them out.
But if things get too bad, people get desperate and they start looking for radical answer. I think the rise of the hard left and hard right come about when people are desperate (communism and fascism). Neither has worked well.
I agree people are tired of the establishment, but I think the establishment is code for corruption, income inequality and the plutocracy. People didn’t seem to mind the establishment back when wages were still rising, health care was affordable and people thought their kids would do better than their parents. Also I think in the past people were less aware of how important money was in politics.
Also Bill Clinton had some accomplishments for economic inequality. He raised taxes on the wealthy and gave subsidies and credits to the poor. Obama did the same. So there is some movement towards combating too much income inequality.
I think both Trump and Sanders are fundamentally candidates who represent anti-corruption and pro-worker stances. Unless the two parties actually listen, there are going to be more candidates like them. I’m wondering if the two parties will respond by just eliminating the primary system and going back to appointing candidates. That would be easier than actually engaging in anti-corruption and pro-worker legislation.
The fact that Bernie raised at least $200 million from small donors should ideally send a shockwave through politics.
I didn’t have to see it, I studied History - which is pretty much enough to teach you that your odds are really really bad.
Americans have a skewed view of revolution - ours turned out about as well as any of them - and honestly didn’t cost us that much because Britain had other fish to fry (like France). We’d probably have a better view of revolution if we called the Civil War “the failed Southern Revolution.”
The Chinese Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the English Civil War - bloodbaths.
Trump’s campaign has been about pro-worker stances. His long term business practices - his actions - are very much about increasing his share of the wealth.
I know that in Maine, we have same day voter registration. We had a closed caucus, but if you were an independent, you could have gone to the caucus, re-registered as a Dem at the door, and voted. I believe there was an earlier deadline to switch from Republican or Green though.
Do you live in New York? If so, I’m sorry - I think that amount of lead time is absurd. But if not, good news! You can already register as a Democrat closer than 180 days before the primary day and vote!
I will say that Hillary Clinton had an advantage, but no worse than a home field advantage for a sports team - nobody says a game is rigged because a team is playing at home.
She had the same advantages she had in 2008… And she lost.
Jeb Bush had the same advantages that she had on the Republican side just this year: Name recognition, related to a former White House occupant, had more media attention, had the donor class and a lot of money at his disposal. He got his ass kicked.
It’s not possible for someone to not have an advantage in a political contest, is it? Someone is considered the “front runner” because of stature or experience or resume or early polling or any combination of factors. That’s politics.
Even the General Election has an advantage for the Democrat with the way the Electoral College Map looks. This doesn’t mean it’s rigged.
I also think that Debbie Wasserman Schultz did her best to make things easier on Hillary and I hope she loses her job for it (that and for generally being horrible). But I don’t think her efforts were very successful - there were several more debates and dozens of forums with both candidates involved after the initial small number was announced and when the DNC tried to slap Bernie over some stupid things, he fought back and won that exchange.