And then there were two. Now that the Democrats have a Presumptive Nominee of their own, I’m thinking we could use an open thread to talk about Hillary’s big win, Bernie’s future, and how to derail the Trump Train (figuratively speaking).
Also, Little Green Footballs has a nice little Trump poster generator. Check it out.
Here are a couple of mine, all of them making use of Trump’s actual words. Post your own! Let’s have a little meme contest or something!
I supported Bernie Sanders but congrats to Hillary on her big moment last night now it’s time for us to unite and take Donald Trump down.
Either way, I’m screwed.
Make America Bankrupt Again!
While I personally thought Bernie Sanders would have been more ideal, Hilary Clinton is a good nominee. Fingers crossed she makes Trump cry, and we see him blubbering like an idiot on the election day. As a UK resident I hope this is the outcome! 🙂
I’m wondering if Trump will ever relent and release his tax returns.
So I prefer Bernie over Hillary, so I get why people are disappointed, but I’m seeing shit on my Facebook feed about how “queasy” people are feeling at the thought of voting for her. Would they feel the same if the choice were a man with the exact same policies and voting records? I strongly doubt it, since some of the things they complain about are things Bernie also voted for. I’m not saying they’re grossed out at the idea of voting for a woman, but their perceptions and expectations seem to be very different for her than for male candidates.
Ahaha I’m super worried about the election. I keep trying to tell myself that it won’t be the apocalypse if the republican nominee wins but I’m still just freaked out. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.
But yeah I mean Hillary isn’t perfect but no one is right? Mixed feelings but I can’t say I’m not happy to have her.
ETA @kupo I feel you. Bernie sure as hell isnt perfect the way some make him out to be. I keep reading all this “she keeps playing the sexism angle!” When I can’t help but think that if Hillary said the things Bernie did she wouldn’t have gotten where she is. There was a good essay I read about this.
Here’s the essay I mentioned, I’m not so great with words when I have mixed feelings, so this just about expresses everything for me
https://medium.com/@laurenbesser/had-bernie-been-bernadette-the-heartbreaking-truth-about-american-patriarchy-ea29caf04331#.61d2wfdd3
kupo, I’ve been thinking about that. A lot of people have an idea about women that somehow the world will be all roses and peace talks if women ruled. Hillary doesn’t fit the proper mold of what women will be like. She isn’t soft and maternal, and she supports an aggressive foreign policy.
It’s not anti-woman so much as it is mistaken rosy ideas about rule by goddess or rule by mother, who would do away with our arsenals and replace them with kindergartens. Hillary is much like the previous neo-liberal presidents we have had. Her policies are very similar to Obama’s, and not as different from Bernie’s as most people claim. But they want something different – something womanly – that Hillary isn’t giving them, and they blame her for things that are no different than those things men get a pass on.
Meanwhile, she is light years away from Trump, and yet many people I hear are saying there is no real difference between her and Trump (except, perhaps, that she isn’t orange). This is truly false. She is basically a center-right politician with some progressive social ideas.
To iknlast
Many people have no illusions about women or what they’re like. We’ve seen Margaret Thatcher years ago as the worst a woman leader can be.
Honestly Hillary is no Maggie Thatcher.
And that said, it’s an important glass ceiling to break. Just as Obama didn’t cure all racism magically, he did in fact set an important precedent for African Americans. Likewise Hillary also sets a precedent that the right wing will not like
I’m a UK person and at the moment we have the unedifying spectacle of professional buffoon Boris Johnson making a grab for the Tory leadership over the EU referendum and I have these horrible nightmares about Trump and Johnson both getting into power and our world exploding or something. Please win Hilary, even if it ends up involving tanks on the Whitehouse lawn.
Off topic: Someone on here who I can’t recall the name of, recommended the Deadpool MAX comic series to me a month or so back. I just finished the hardback collection I treated myself to and would like to thank the person here who pointed them my way. Cheers!
I really don’t like getting involved in political discussions (mostly because I almost always know way less about them than everyone else), so all I’m going to say on the subject is that I’m tired of the liberal side of America still largely being represented by the center-right.
I very glad that Hilary won and that she’s likely to be President.
For good or ill the US is a major player in world affairs and Hilary has the experience in that area. It’s not just what she knows it’s also who she knows. She doesn’t need to be brought up to speed in these areas; she can hit the ground running.
Perception is also very important in politics and Hilary exudes competence. It may be she’s not a ‘spectacular’ President (although she may surprise us) but she’s a safe pair of hands and that may be what the US and the world needs right now.
I don’t think it’s possible to not have absorbed any of what society teaches us about the differences between the genders. We all have bias. We like to tell ourselves we don’t, but we all do. Every last one of us.
The super delegates don’t count until July! You’re just part of the lamestream media’s attempt to steal this nomination! Everyone I know voted for Bernie so how did Clinton win?
I… can’t. I wanna make jokes about the worst of the Sanders supporters but there are some very sad people being very obtuse in public. It sucks to see your candidate lose but so much of the rhetoric online feels like GG. Which is unfair to all the passionate but not douchey supporters.
I feel like you could almost find/replace Clinton with Sarkeesian (or vice versa) and have more trouble telling the difference than you would suspect.
For those who supported Sanders, after the mourning is over, I would suggest looking at Clinton with new eyes. So much of this reminds me of the claim Gore and Bush were indistinguishable.
Like many here have already said, I also preferred Bernie as a candidate but I don’t dislike Hillary (and I will take pretty much anyone over Trump).
Anyone But Trump 2016!
Ah darn it, wished it was Bernie. Well, at least she’s not Trump so there’s that.
@opium4themasses
Nothing has been more dispiriting to me than the disingenuous claim from Sanders supporters that is “no difference between Hillary and Trump”.
I think a lot of it is the vociferousness of politically immature Sanders supporters new to the process who believed in Sanders the personality without understanding that the election is ultimately about party and policy not people*.
Sanders or Clinton, either one as nominee for the Democratic Party, would be running on the party platform – which is not set by the candidates, but by the party delegates at the convention – and is the same platform candidates run on for local, state, and national elections outside the presidency. That party platform: pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ rights, pro-immigration, pro-union, etc. is completely different from the Republican platform. So…no, they are not the same, and never would or could be.
The Democratic Party was never going to suddenly veer right and turn evil just because the nominee is Hillary, just like it wasn’t going to suddenly veer further left and usher in a socialist utopia because Bernie was the nominee.
Instead of complaining that their guy had his crown stolen from him or threatening to collaborate with Trump (which, in a two party system is what working against Clinton is) because they didn’t get what they want, Sanders supporters should be using his political leverage to shape the Party platform on issue that matter to them. That’s what I plan on doing.
*Same for Trump supporters – he is going to, ultimately, run on the same old GOP platform devised by life long conservatives not on a platform devised by The Donald himself.
I’m not that wild about Hillary as a candidate, not sure I’ll vote for her (didn’t vote for Obama), but I have to say I was impressed by the points in this article:
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/7/11879728/hillary-clinton-wins-nomination
@feartheminotaur
I get the impression a lot of people are just now learning how our political system works. I’m seeing Person A argue that people should not do a write-in vote for Bernie because in my state they will not count any votes for unregistered candidates and Person B asking how their voice is supposed to be heard if they vote for Hillary. It’s like this is the first time they’ve learned about how elections work, and they’re throwing a fit because the candidate they wanted wasn’t selected by their favored party so now they’d like to bypass the party system by not voting at all.
I’m not a fan of our electoral process and I feel it’s easily manipulated by powerful people, but the answer is not to throw your vote away in a temper tantrum no one will hear. :/
Yeah, I’m the same. I really would have preferred Burnie, but Hillary’s still better than Trump.
I think people don’t want to hear the hard truth, which is that the best and only way to influence the party platform is to become active in the party at the local level. All year round. Every year. And try to work your way up in the party. Especially if you live in a conservative or moderate district. If you live in a progressive district, chances are the people representing you are already voting for a progressive platform. Falling in love with a presidential candidate every four years is ultimately not going to make that much difference. It’s almost like activism is work or something.
To clarify, I do realise that having the time and ability to do activism often takes some privilege. I’m not saying that people who only vote and don’t do much else are lazy and horrible. But I have the feeling that most of the people threatening to not vote because Sanders lost are of the more privileged set.
@wwth I agree that they seem to be of the more privileged set. Revolutions shake things up and the people least able to handle shake ups are the under-privileged.
Clinton isn’t center-right. She’s more liberal than many of the people suggested as alternatives.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/
I agree with the eventual goals of Sanders in many cases, but Clinton has more feasible plans to see tangible changes put in place.
@dslucia
ditto, I got tired of it long before now, hence why I left the US in 2008.
I expected something like Drumpf to rise to the surface of the authoritarian right.
actually, I even expect worse before it gets better. Authoritarians are empowered and entrenched like they were in Europe right before the start of the 2 world wars.
I can’t support a system like that. Also, not going to pay money to a country that decided on an armed takeover of Iraq which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and completely destabilized the entire region, and the world is STILL paying for it, and will be for at least the next generation.
nope.
the American people need to rise up and burn their current system to the ground and start the fuck over.
Until that happens… the US will only continue to cause HARM in the world. No way was I going to be a part of that any more.
you literally are going to be voting for a shit sandwich vs a giant douche.
and you have no choice in the matter, none.
Good for Hillary, but I am very worried about her winning against Trump. People on WHTM should know how ingrained and pernicious misogyny is in the US (and elsewhere too of course, but this is about US elections). Are you sure Hillary can bring enough democrats and independents to the voting booth to defeat Trump? I’m pretty damn sceptical.