All those reports about high turnout actually ended up just being the hopes and dreams of various interest groups and journalists, purely anecdotal. Actual turnout was 55%, about at 2004 levels:
There are two conclusions I draw from this:
People who don’t vote much won’t come out unless inspired. This awful election actually did end up depressing turnout.
The base that voted for Obama, we were wondering if it was just him, or whether it was a general election vs. midterms phenomenon. Now we know. They are only there for him. Every election is a midterm for the next decade or two. This is the normal electorate and Democrats will have to adjust to that fact until demographics change a lot more.
Also, Bill Maher was right; Obama totally, and Hillary, but for one occasion, refused to call out radical Islamic terrorism by its name. Exit polls had Trump winning in a landslide on the issue of terrorism.
The repudiation of the DLC, and “being Republican-lite” is something the Dems shoulda known only Obama, the man, could get away with.
This is a dumb point, but it shows that we’re in a period of history where dumb points can “win” if you repeat them often enough and don’t listen to the other side.
World leaders generally choose not to play into the hands of the terrorists by making counter-terrorism sound like a holy war against islam. Or as if most Muslims are terrorists, which is something many people with no contact with actual Muslims seem to often believe IME. Words matter. Just because Obama avoids use of this term does not mean he plays soft on this issue and his record bears that out very well.
And as I’ve said before I’m quite a fan of Bill Maher, but he misses the point terribly on this issue by trying to focus on the religion. The Bible isn’t short on genocide, it’s not about what the holy texts say but how a particular society and culture interprets them. Plus he often uses generalizing language: I like Ben Affleck’s takedown of this nonsense when he guested on Real Time.
Yeah, but you also can’t deny what’s right in front of people’s faces. I don’t think this issue was about terrorism at all, actually, I think it was about respect, and the Islamic terrorism only mattered to the extent that it might have seemed like Democrats go out of their way to respect everyone but working class whites, who they make fun of.
Can you imagine Barack Obama ever saying that Muslims in the Middle East are suffering so cling to guns and religion and hating people who are not like them? actually, that’s totally true(just like it is with working class whites), but the fact that Obama would never say that about anyone BUT working class whites is a problem.
There’s a difference between respect and pandering. The Republicans don’t respect working class white people. They pander to them by creating enemies for them to blame their troubles on. Republicans want to scare people with stories about how gay people want to destroy your marriage and Muslims all want to kill you and trans people want to attack you in the bathroom and Mexicans want to rape you and black people want to disarm the police and women want to emasculate you. Then the Republicans say “We’ll save you from those terrible people who are threatening you.”
Meanwhile, the Democrats are trying to talk about real problems. They’re saying things like “You don’t have good healthcare and your kids aren’t going to decent schools and you’re driving on dangerously unmaintained roads and bridges and your taxes are going to pay off interest on a huge deficit. This are the things you should be concerned about.”
You know, back during the Bush years, I might have agreed with you. But we saw how generic “war on terror” bothered progressives, and how Radical Islamists said things like “the Crusader ‘war on terror’ is a war on Islam.” Meaning they’ll ALWAYS accuse us of waging war against Islam.
Also, ME Muslims often don’t see it as western liberals do. See this article, not written by a conservative.
See, this equating what’s going on in the world today, to Crusades from 1000 years ago, that’s how you elect Trump. People like Trump because people think he feels what they feel, phrases things as they phrase them. Relatability. And you know what? If there are a few Muslims who would be offended with the term “Islamic terrorism,” as the tradeoff for people like Trump, it would’ve been worth it.
Sure, and like I just said: making it into a war of religions is what many of the terrorists are trying to achieve. Of course they are going to talk that way.
We shouldn’t play into that and help cause the very divisions they are trying to stoke.
Not at all, and I didn’t mention the crusades. I’m responding to the typical Bill Maher line (since you brought him up) of saying Islam is inherently not a religion of peace because look at what it says in the book. If that’s the criteria, neither is Christianity.
Sure and lots of people want to use the N-word or whatever, so what if a minority doesn’t like it?
More seriously, there’s no practical reason why we should insist on using a particular term known to cause division. No-one’s trying to pretend that much of the terrorist threat right now does not come from various extremist forms of Islam.
Still it makes sense to condemn the violence first and foremost and not try to make it us and them.
The problem isn’t Islam per se, it’s terrorist ideas. When I was a child growing up in the UK, the terrorism threat was from Irish, Catholic, separatists.
The two main issues that have been addressed at black voters recently are “The Republicans are trying to take away your vote through ID laws” and “The police treat black people differently than white people.” I think these are both important real world issues and I don’t see them as pandering.
Ah, but you’re comparing apples to oranges here. It’s not that the issues aren’t legit so much as they describe them in apocalyptic terms. Such as the Democratic ads in November 2014 that said that electing Republicans would mean more Fergusons. Yet there’s no real evidence that Democratic governments restrain police departments any better than Republican ones. Also, promising to just not enforce laws in regards to immigration is a really ridiculous form of pandering to Latino voters. and something which directly incites white working class voters even without Republicans egging them on.
There is no reasoning with this person whose prejudices and performance are set.
But if there is the consideration for labeling that works with you. To call the DAESH by that name and to call them not jihadis but takfiri is to use a language that divides them away and makes less sympathetic.
the use of clever discourse is of course important, and should be used in ways that are effective for you, not ineffective.
And Maher would likely agree that Christianity is also not a religion of peace. But that part gets lost among those on the right who like his anti-Islam rants ;).
When it comes to religion, almost no one tells the whole story. So Maher’s side of things is important to have in the public discussion. Religion has accomplished great things in this world, and also a lot of bad things.
once again, countries on every continent aren’t spending billions to fight marauding terror groups who yell “Jesus/Vishnu/Yahweh is Great.” Because they do for groups which yell Allahu Akbar, that’s why it politically matters.
Well, we know that Democrats will turn out for a good candidate, and not for a terrible one. How would they turn out for a just average candidate? I can’t believe it’s not enough to make up a 0.2% margin.
Yes, political ads are stupid Having said that, if you were a voter who identified police brutality as a major issue, looking at the leadership and policies of each party, which one would you think is likely to make this issue a higher priority?
I agree that Hillary should have talked tougher about enforcing immigration laws, and I agree that this was likely a strategic attempt to pander to Latinos, but saying that the Democrats “promised to just not enforce the laws” is a gross distortion of their platform and record.
I’m a big fan of Maher, and Sam Harris; but I have found that for my taste, **Derek **sometimes takes it too far. Harris has it dialled up just right, and I sure wish Hillary had delivered the speech he wrote for her.
I would like to see someone like Sherrod Brown try a robust economically progressive message (living wage, universal health care, maternity/paternity leave), but link it back a little better than Bernie could (despite his love for Debs) to a “lunchbucket” packaging. And such a candidate should make a show (Sister Souljah style) of rolling their eyes at some of the more extreme figures in the rabble-rousing left, like a lot of the BLM people (while still signalling strong support for civil rights, of course) and the PC idiots on college campuses who lose their minds over Halloween costumes. I rather doubt if many of those people turned out for Hillary anyway, and a lot of them are in states like California and New York where their votes are irrelevant even if they did.
And for pity’s sake, Democrats: it was a huge mistake for the Obama Administration to bring down the federal hammer and tell small town heartland schools that they had to let teenagers with male genitalia who identify as female change their clothes openly in the girls locker room, without a curtain, and observe the other girls doing the same. This was over a year ago, and it still boggles my mind–it’s like an absurd caricature of the fears of people in “flyover country” about what liberals will do to them, given control of the federal government.
NB:As of Friday, Nov. 11, 2016 at 11:59 p.m. CST, I’m unsubscribing from all political threads and will no longer participate in discussions in the Elections board, nor in political discussions in the Pit or MPSIMS. If you reply to a political post of mine after that point, I will not see it; please do not PM me to try to pull me back in to the debate. Thanks!
I don’t actually have a big problem with Obama doing that, but I see how bad the optics are. One thing I constantly hate liberals for doing is poo-pooing legitimate warnings that conservatives make about what will happen if they take power and then they turn around and do it. Let’s have these debates in the open.
In the early Bush years, I joked to a friend that Rove had everyone in Red America convinced that the “Democrat gay agenda” was not just to get gay teachers in schools, but to have them take over sex ed and teach the boys how to give blow jobs. I was rolling my eyes about the ridiculous distortion of Democrats’ real gay rights agenda, but this locker room thing comes a lot closer than I *ever *would have guessed!
NB:As of Friday, Nov. 11, 2016 at 11:59 p.m. CST, I’m unsubscribing from all political threads and will no longer participate in discussions in the Elections board, nor in political discussions in the Pit or MPSIMS. If you reply to a political post of mine after that point, I will not see it; please do not PM me to try to pull me back in to the debate. Thanks!