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Open thread! It’s Super Tuesday here in the US. Discuss today’s primaries, the evil that is Trump, politics in general.
The anti-Obama racism has been bad, but I think we’ll look back on it fondly once we see what Clinton faces in the general election. We already know how Trump treats women; it’s just going to be a nonstop stream of insults about her face, her family, the fact that she has bodily functions…
Looking at the smear campaign against her makes you realize what a strong candidate she really is. A long-running, concerted, bipartisan attempt to discredit her by any means possible couldn’t come up with anything juicier than the email thing.
Yeah I’m not going to vote for Hillary’s corruption and Wall Street banking and selling billions of guns to Saudi Arabia. I’m with Bernie all the way. He has a clean record which Trump can’t counter, Hillary does. Frankly with how the DNC has stacked the entire game, I frankly find it disgusting.
Let’s see accusing Bernie of sexism when she doesn’t support feminist candidates, stealing Bernie’s talking points after stating she wouldn’t do Bernie’s stump points, oh and didn’t even support lgbt rights and was AGAINST them til it was politically palatable, when Bernie always was for lgbt rights.
Release the Goldman Sach Speeches.
@Moggie Perhaps because Rob is Canadian? Or that the book is from the 80’s?
@Oogly: But if Bernie doesn’t win the nomination, will you vote Trump out of spite?
If so, might I recommend doing something more productive like staying home and getting piss drunk?
Well, this is going to be my first election ever that I am allowed to participate in. I have been interested in politics since I was around 13 or 14, so I have waited for this day for a long time. I remember cheering on Obama the second time he was elected, (and being so happy that he won) since the first time (2008 election) I was too young and could care less about politics. Now I am finally getting to participate. It really makes you appreciate what the suffragettes and Civil Rights movement have accomplished, since not that long ago I wouldn’t have been able to vote at all.
But anyway, I’m excited and nervous. Excited because I finally get to vote this year (feel the Bern! 😉 ) but nervous because I am terrified for the US if any Republican gets elected. I have a dreadful feeling it will come down to Trump and Clinton, and an even more dreadful feeling about who will win…
But God damn it, I’m still getting out there to vote. It saddens me that I have heard a lot of young people at my school (who are going to be old enough to vote this year, like I am) say they’re not going to vote at all or refuse to vote for Clinton if she wins the Dem nominee. Which is really scary, because that’s just giving the vote to Trump/whoever the Republican candidate is. I have managed to sway some people to vote (what can I say, I’m a debater) but there are still a lot of people my age who flat-out refuse if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination.
My Bernie campaigning friends are now publishing a meme (if that’s the right word) comparing a speech made by Hillary where she speaks of gangs of ‘super predators’ needing to be ‘brought to heel’ with a speech of Bernie’s saying to stop ‘disproportionately punishing blacks’.
If they believe Hillary is a racist it seems unlikely they’ll shift their vote to her if Bernie drops out. I don’t condemn people for wanting an ideologically pure candidate but the practical effect is, as people have pointed out eloquently, that you let in someone far worse.
Has that ever happened? I’ve seen people accuse a vocal minority of his supporters of sexism – because it’s true, the BernieBros are sexist as hell, just ask Bernie – but that’s not the same thing.
You’re making me feel old, Social Justice Atheist. My first election was 1998 and the first presidential candidate I voted for was Gore. I can’t believed it was 16 years ago that I melodramatically wore all black in mourning after the Supreme Court stole the election for Dubya.
Anyway, Hillary just won a whole mess of states so you’d probably best get used to persuading your friends! Speaking of the Supreme Court, I think that’s going to be the talking point of the year to get people out to vote.
If you’re interested in politics and like doing voter persuasions, definitely do whatever canvassing or phone banking you are to do. If you need a summer job, there’ll probably be opportunities if you live in a metro area. I’ve done paid election work several times and it’s a ton of fun as well as necessary. It’s even more during the midterms actually, but I admit that the presidential race is always the most exciting. Just a thought. Sorry if I sound presumptuous.
Take a little heart though. In my experience, there are people every year who threaten to flounce if their candidate doesn’t win the primaries. In the end, most people who are at all politically inclined will wind up voting after they get over their candidate’s loss. I was a Howard Dean supporter and ended up campaigning for Kerry.
Alan,
Thus far Clinton has been doing much better with the black vote than Sanders. I don’t think the Hillary Clinton is racist meme will go far. It’s probably young white voters she’s going to have to win back from Bernie in the general.
SFHC,
Shakesville has been trying to cast Bernie Sanders as a raging misogynist, but that’s the only place I’ve seen it. It’s Berniebros that are the issue.
But that’s just goofy-ass cherry-picking of a literally 20-year-old remark. You could just as easily have juxtaposed one of Bernie’s cranky responses to Black Lives Matter from this summer with, say, Hillary’s campaign with the mothers of Black Lives Matter in South Carolina. So it’s a good example of a cynical misrepresentation meant to discredit her.
And mostly-white people who are convinced 80% of black people are wrong about race issues…well, I’m not taking that too seriously.
Well, Shakesville is shit. I’m not in love with Bernie’s gender politics (mainly his lack of attention thereto), but he’s not a sexist and it’s goofy and ridiculous to suggest he is.
@ WWTH
Yeah, I love my friends and their passion but that “Remember who the real enemy is” thing crops up far too much in “left wing”* politics.
(*by UK standards Hillary is probably centre right and Bernie is centre left)
Apparently, whilst Bernie is getting nearly 80% of the young vote, fewer than 20% of young voters have turned out for the primaries. I don’t know if low turnout is common in the primaries but clearly the candidates need to work on that for the actual election.
@WWTH
Actually, I could use a summer job and that does sound like fun!
My friends and I have all agreed that we are going to vote no matter what. We all like Bernie but are willing to vote for Hillary to avoid getting a Republican in office, which would be a far worse outcome.
There are some young people, however, that just refuse no matter how hard you try to sway them. What really frightens me though, is that I have seen a good number of people at my school who are in favor of Trump. Not nearly as many as people who like Bernie/Hillary, but there are a good many. Funnily enough, I hardly ever hear anyone mention any other GOP candidate.
@WWTH
Ah, okay. I’ve never been to Shakesville and didn’t think to check it, oops. In that case, they’re fucking idiots and they’re not helping.
Yes. The comments at Salon (which I’ve chucked for good) after South Carolina were pretty shocking.
The Salon comment section has always been mostly trolls, so that’s no surprise! But I’m sad that the content of the site has gone so far downhill over the past few years.
@ SJA
Newsnight, the BBC flagship news programme here, just did a very interesting piece about the primaries. They interviewed some of the Republican campaign managers. They were surprisingly candid. Rubio’s manager expressed the belief that because there were 17 candidates, that effectively diluted the attention to the point that only a candidate with previous name recognition could make an impression and stick in the public consciousness. Even Trump’s guy thought that things would become more difficult if other candidates dropped out and he was up against just Rubio or Cruz.
Sanders has no chance and never did. He’s generated a lot of excitement amongst young people, and especially amongst young white people, but young white people don’t win elections, or even nominations. What wins Democratic nominations is black women, and the Clintons have put in the time and effort with African Americans for thirty years. Bernie Sanders is johnny-come–super-lately here.
You could argue (and you would have a point) that Bill Clinton did very little for African Americans when in office, and in some ways rolled shit back for them. Nevertheless, Bill and Hillary have gone into black spaces and spoken with and listened to African Americans over and over and over and over. That’s what wins Democratic nominations, and it goes a long, long way toward general elections. What doesn’t win is some white guy ignoring black people for most of his career and then hoping they will come out for him. That’s what almost all Democratic politicians do, and it’s what Hillary Clinton has not done.
SJA: Early congratulations on your first election! Thank you for being awesome by doing your civic duty.
I don’t remember exactly how old you are and I think people may have mentioned this before, but if any of your friends are 17 but will be 18 by the election, make sure they check because their state might still allow them to vote in the primaries.
@ WWTH I stopped reading several years ago but gave them another try last fall when I got sick of Kos. They’ve been so relentlessly negative about Clinton, though, that I wouldn’t be surprised if they ran an article saying she did kill Vince Foster.
I’m probably just out of touch, but I was really surprised when I went to the Huffington Post for election coverage and realized they’d turned into a sketchy tabloid rag. Multicolored links in giant fonts and the whole nine yards.
@katz
Thank you! I am certainly excited. 🙂
I just turned 18, and some of my friends are 17 and some are 18.
I live in SC, and voted in the primaries. Some of my 18-year-old friends did as well.
@Policy of Madness
I am black and am for Sanders. But like I said, I am not opposed to Hillary. I do agree with you that she is probably going to get the nomination.
My state doesn’t have the primaries today, and often times the general election is over before we even finish voting. So there is a slight feeling of helplessness, even though I intend to vote anyway.
Bernie is my first choice, Hillary is my “At least it’s not Trump” choice.
I remember becoming old enough to vote, just in time for Obama’s first election. For the 2012 election, Romney seemed to have a bit of a lead until California’s whopping number of electoral votes got Obama the win. So I’m hoping for Sanders or Clinton to be the ones to win that state at least.
@SJA
??? Okay. If ~80% of African Americans vote for Clinton, that means ~20% voted for someone else. It was never in question that some African Americans would vote for someone other than Clinton.
@Policy of Madness
I know, and I wasn’t trying to dispute that at all. I was just sort of adding that in. I know that Bernie probably won’t get the nomination, but a good many of us do like him. That doesn’t negate the fact that most will vote for Hillary. I will still vote for her if she gets the nomination, which will probably happen.
I like him, too. I hate the BernieBros fan club, but unlike Trump, Sanders has no problem denouncing problematic backers. However, his platform has like 2 planks and both of them are economic in nature. Economics are important, but let’s be straight here: the POTUS has far less influence over the economic trajectory of the country than is popularly believed.
Clinton knows this, which is probably why her economic promises are not very radical. She has no chance of keeping radical ones, and it’s dangerous to tell conscious lies to one’s base. Sanders can get away with it, because he seems to actually believe the nonsense he’s saying. That wouldn’t be true for Clinton.
In any event, Sanders is too late to the game to win black women. That means he can’t win the primary.