You can't be into politics and then complain about politics. That's the game and it's a dirty business overall. Just look at it as ends justifying the means.
2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins
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You can't be into politics and then complain about politics. That's the game and it's a dirty business overall. Just look at it as ends justifying the means.
Trump is just a genuinely disturbing and disgusting individual; so much so that if I know anyone voting for him, I have to seriously question whether I can remain cordial to such a person.
CNN facebook has a video showing loads of blatant Trump flip-flopping, quite a lot of it in the last 6 months and in a few cases literally within days of each other 
They always go on and on about 'the end of day'...
But what if they call his bluff and don't blink?
Any American Caftards got views on how Trump will fare in live TV debates? I can imagine it being volatile. Think the first one is about six weeks away.
During a foreign policy briefing, Donald Trump Asked 3 times "if we have nuclear weapons why can't we use them?"
Of all the things Bill Clinton has done in his political career - this is by far the most brilliant.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b30bb8-3ae3-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b30bb8-3ae3-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html
Can't imagine how bad Trump's going to get when/if he's on the verge of losing. See him more as a "let's go down swinging" type of guy.
fecking hell!! I know a lot of people who are like they want to see Trump presidency just for the shits and giggles, but it ain't gonna be pretty..
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Fox going big on cash to Iran for hostages.
You mean the Iran/Contra scheme perpetuated by St. Ronald Reagan in the 80s? Or do you mean the negotiations St. Ronnie teasonfully scuttled with the Iranians to subvert and humiliate Jimmy Carter during the presidential campaign in order to take the presidency? I can´t believe Fox would dump on Ronald Reagan like that.
He meant the lifting of sanctions in the Iran nuclear deal I think.
Is this for real? I hope those guys responsible to drop nuclear bomb would tell him to feck off if he orders them.
No. Fox are saying that Obama gave 400mil to Iran for release of hostages and trying to make it look like a shady deal done under the cover of darkness.
Did they blame him for the historic business deal Iran struck with the Boeing to buy 100 commercial jet liners as well? Did they also blame Obama that now there are more females than clerics in the Iranian government and that reformists and moderates now outnumber conservative rivals for the first time since 2004?
All that's just the liberal agenda bias, don't you know.
The guy that makes the statement (Joe Scarborough) is a former congressman and prominent Republican, initially he used to be pro Trump but has since become quite anti-Trump so he's been privvy to information and has providing some insight into the Trump campaign recently. Back in the primaries he got caught with hot mics on asking Trump if they went easy enough on questioning him.
Can't see the Yanks voting in a Putin apologist/champion.
Thanks, it needed to be said. To attack Trump they are now embracing Reagan (at the convention) and Bush. Just airbrushing whatever those guys did from history.
What? Are you serious? Dems are doomed if they and damned if they didn't. How are they airbushing anything Reagan and Bush did?
On their platform is: stronger regulation of Wall Street, stopping the unions from being further crushed, increasing healthare coverage. But they invoked Reagan at the convention itself to talk about national security, and will do the same with Bush. They are trying to be more Catholic than the Pope.
Now, if they hadn't embraced these two, I would not have had a problem, but others would. I know my opinion isn't shared by almost anyone so you can't say "doomed if they and damned if they didn't." Only a minuscule minority will damn them for this.
'No more war' chants drowned out by 'USA' was a pretty low moment.
And that Republican they brought up on stage who was aide to Reagan as well.
All is fair in love and war, alas.
We all know that Hillary won´t care one bit about rhetoric once in office. If we look – realistically – at the different policy fields, she is almost perfectly in line with moderate republicans.
Foreign policy: She is more or less as hawkish as Bush. She loves regime change and military interventions. She believes in american exceptionalism and the consequences is a very deluded black-white picture of the world. We´ll see more intervention in the middle east and more belligerent rhetoric towards Russia/China. It is not an accident, that classic realists like Kissinger or neo-cons like Kagan (and pretty much the whole republican foreign policy establishment) are backing her.
Transparency/lobbying: The democratic party already walked back Obama´s reform that restricted them from taking money from various lobbyists. She´ll follow exactly the same kind of sleazy course and end up in bed with anyone who has money. That was one of the main lines of attack towards republicans. All is forgotten.
Economic policy: She is a proponent of the status-quo of state-led capitalism. She´ll take all the input from major industrial players into account. She is precisely the politician, who designs laws in a way, that all the powerful special interests are okay with it. She´ll bail-out wallstreet again, make laws, that protect big business from competition, discriminate against SME and do all the classic stuff (market entry, bureaucracy etc.pp) that prevents a genuine level playing field.
Domestic/justice policy: She is a law-and-order politician. We already talked enough about the legacy of the Clintons when it comes to criminal justice. The Dems were also never honest when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform. It is not a bug, that Obama deported more Mexicans than Bush. It is a feature of two parties, where only rhetoric is really setting them apart.
Social policy: Yes, okay that might be one area, where she might be slightly different compared to republicans; that said the welfare state was hardly ever slashed by the GOP. Additionally the whole system is getting completely out of control and ignoring that is catastrophic.
Trade policy: She´ll be for TPP and TPIP. I am very much in favor of anything that advances free-trade, but she is indistinguishable from moderate republicans.
I could go on and on and on. The bottom line is that Hillary is a lot like Bush.
Did Democrats embrace Bush? I know there was a lot of invoking of St Reagan but that's largely because of the pedestal he is put on by Conservatives?
Personally while I get Cindy Sheehan's comments about Conservative votes for Hillary, it's largely being driven by what a narcissist the is in charge of the other camp rather than Democrats embracing further conservatives.
Personally while I get Cindy Sheehan's comments about Conservative votes for Hillary, it's largely being driven by what a narcissist the is in charge of the other camp rather than Democrats embracing further conservatives.
I'm not sure that amounted to airbrushing anything. Whether Bernie Bros/Sandersistas/Sanders himself likes it or not, US is a superpower and clearly invested today in current events of the world. Total Isolationism is stupid, even Sanders himself said he'll go and destroy ISIS in his stump speeches. Even Michael Bloomberg spoke on stage about Trump. Michael Bloomberg was on stage too,
Are you saying talking about national security summarily disqualifies their platform on Wall Street regulation and increased health coverage? Wasn't national security an issue on the Sanders platform. Did you run and condemn Sanders when he said he'll destroy ISIS? How will he destroy ISIS without a plan for national security? Somehow, we've come to understand that the Democrats are the weak party, who isn't interested in National Security and just want to give hand outs. This view is prelevant among republicans and now it seems Dems themselves want to not talk about national security lest they appear to endorse previous republican presidents.
I still have trouble understanding this invoking Reagan and Bush. I seemed to have missed a video at the DNC which shouted down a full throated approval of Bush and Reagan's foreign policies. What did they do exactly do to defend these Republican presidents? To my recollection, DNC highlighted the difference between two Republican nominees (Reagan with his city on a hill speech and Trump with his Midnight in America speech) to tell America, including Republican and Democrats that it's not as bas as it seems. Does this amount to embracing these two presidents? I'm sorry Berbatrick, will you say that this platform is against AIDS because they invoked Reagan?
You have to completely blind yourself to Clinton's record as senator and SoS if you think that the scope of what she and Bernie would do in Syria is similar* (even their rhetoric was different).
More importantly, you also have to blind yourself to all subtext. At the sidelines of the DNC there were lobbyists telling NYT and Politico journalists they are happy that the primary is over (Bernie is gone) so they can operate openly again. That should make you pause when you consider how credible the economic promises of the platform are. There was a Reagan advisor, a CIA director, a general, and a military vetean speaking about national security. One of the main reasons the Dems came back in 2006 and 2008 was anger at the Iraq War, and at the centre of the convention was one of the strongest backers of the war. She has received endorsements from half the Bush foreign policy team, many of them before Trump was even a factor.
*Edit: the irony is that she's been backing intervention steadily since day one. It's just that the targets changed, midway and without any public display of the fact. First it was for regime change. Now it is to destroy ISIS, Assad, and install magical moderates.
The subtext here is that you'll be voting for Jill Stein (if you had the right to vote) when Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton, and admitted that the final platform also included many of his proposals. I have no problem with that stance, you can continue to believe that having a CIA director and a Reagan advisor will amount to endorsing Reagan and Bush, but that doesn't make it true. There will be the militant base of Sanders support which can't be won over and we'll have to live with that.
I've made my stand very clear. If I had the right to vote, which I absolutely don't have or want (my chance to vote against Modi is more valuable to me :P) , I would consider if I was living in a swing state, if yes, I would look at how close the state polling was between Hillary and Trump (basically, will my vote make a difference in stopping Trump) and the decide between the Greens and Hillary accordingly.
I didn't watch last day of DNC live. Caught tidbits of it on Reddit/twitter and I could barely believe that it's not RNC. Said as much in this thread at the time.
The open embrace of right wing 'patriotism' is something every left-leaning person should be at least displeased by. I can't imagine the GOP would ever put someone who proceed to praise JFK on stage the night their nominee is going to speak.
Let's not kid ourselves though, the Democratic Party is every bit as hawkish as the GOP. Their dovish youth/progressive wing has its counterpart in the GOP isolationist/libertarian crowd. Both establishment operate on similar neo-imperialistic foreign policy.
I'm tired of the left wing vs right wing debate. The answer lies in moderation and a common sense policy that is required at the time of law. I don't care if anyone believes in American exceptionalism, I want common sense Gun laws, I want a platform that prevents Wall street and banks running amok and causing an artificial recession. I want the income inequality gap lessen considerably. I don't know enough about TPP, but I understand Sanders call for abolishing TPP is equally worse as endorsing TPP in it's current form. I want affordable college and universal healthcare. I want separation of church and government and I want policies that doesn't discriminate based on sex, creed and nationality. At this time, only one platform gives me all this. I don't know if HRC will do it or slither out of it like a snake, but considering Sanders also endorses her vigorously, I have to believe this platform will deliver on most of it, if not all. The answer is not 'Never Trump', but only one platform gives me all of this and voting for the other platform doesn't give me any of it. Voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson is a throwaway rebel vote and anyone who thinks otherwise is extremely naive.
I also want common sense policies on national security, immigration and terrorism. What is good for today will not be good enough in 2 years or even an year. I want a politician who will acknowledge the dynamic nature and how he's willing to adapt with the changing times. It's one of the reasons I don't believe in captain hindsight of the internet criticizing an action taken at the time without taking any of the events in context. In my opinion, it is equally stupid to expect voters in Idaho and Utah to influence the Iran nuclear deal based on fears of how it will bring America to doom as much as it's stupid to pander to a liberal youth voter base from California to pressurize Clinton to denounce Israel immediately.
Is it right wing patriotism that the DNC have embraced? A lot of the patriotism was about embracing the diversity of America and they sure did in terms of speakers make sure every box was ticked.
Well said
well, you must hate Clinton.
I completely disagree that there is some magical wisdom at the "centre" (wherever that may be) between the 2 parties.
Belief in American exceptionalism is fine on the surface, but it leads to both "Make America great again", "an America-centric foreign policy" becoming viable sentiments and eternal war becoming policy.
You want to constrain Wall Street and reduce inequality? How is this "centrist"? Hillary has during the primary embraced a strong critique of Wall Street, so if we take her at her word, she might constrain them. The GOP definitely does not have any inclination to do that no matter what Trump says. So you have taken a non-centrist position, and started a tiresome left-right debate.
If we take her at her word she will also stop TPP, which might reduce the rate at which income inequality is increasing. But you want the TPP too? You want environmental protections to be reduced to the lowest common denominator? You want corporations to have the power to sue governments in international tribunals whose decisions cannot be appealed? You want peoplefrom all countries affected by the treaty to have reduced access to cheap medicines? You want to continue the decades-long flight of manufacturing jobs from the US? I'm sure there will be great income equality, since 99% of the population will be flipping burgers. Oh wait, that will get automised soon. Oh, but you want a different TPP. Guess what, both the free trade agreements that the US is negotiating (TTIP and TPP) have similar provisions. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Side note: if you want to constrain Wall Street, the TPP will make it much harder: you will be impeding the rights of those companies to do business freely.
Source: http://inthesetimes.com/article/18695/TPP_Free-Trade_Globalization_Obama
Bill Clinton governed successfully from this mythical centre. He was president during the dotcom boom and a great economy. This economy was in part booming due to deregulation. During his tenure, he embraced centrist policies: NAFTA (opposed by Dems when Bush I was in power), the crime bill, and welfare reform. As the boom ended, poverty rates rose, and people had no safety net, thanks to welfare reform. Still, at least Wall Street was making money... and then 2008 happened, thanks to his many deregulations. And unemployment increased (despite the fact that welfare reform was supposed to increase employment by forcing the lazy poor into work), and studies found good correlations between NAFTA and unemployment. The US has the highest number of prisoners in the world, despite being a fraction of India/China's side. Lots of campaigners point to mandatory minimums that were made into federal law by the crime bill.
Source: http://www.salon.com/2016/03/14/bil..._thomas_frank_on_the_real_history_of_the_90s/
You want religion out and non-discrimination in government, good. Again, why is this centrist when one party says yes and the other says no? Youre' taking a partisan view, like I do with TPP.
I'm assuming the dynamic remark was about how Clinton's targets changed. Well guess what, if she had bombed Assad out of existence, ISIS would be even stronger today. Then we could bomb them too! Great. The history of intervention says one thing: Mossadegh in Iran, Indira Gandhi propping up Bhrindanwale to fragment the other opposition, the Mujahideen in Afganistan should make her pause. She is the smartest candidate, everyone says so. She has a great grasp of history surely. Perhaps it is her belief in American exceptionalism that made her think removing Assad would go better than removing Saddam and Gaddafi had?
Finally, there is zero chance of Israel's strongest (and only faithful) ally ever abandoning them, and no amount of tiny hippy protests can change that. Bernie was the least pro-Israel candidate in decades because he said that bombing Gaza killed a lot of people. The centre is very much for the financial and military backing Israel receives, as are the Dems, the GOP, and the leftist Dems. To compare them to GOP opposition which almost killed the nuclear deal is wrong. One is a tiny group with no power and no voice and no consequence, the other controls more than half the country.
Good post @fishfingers15 . Good governance always happens in the political center where compromise and cooperation are most likely to take place. The Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders idealism sounds sexy to their constituents but doesn't allow for any sort of progress in governance.
For me a common sense measure would be to have a drastic increase in federal funding for renewable energy, and steadily increasing taxes on fossil fuels. But this puts me to the left of Bernie. And I can safely say that the centrist compromise on this issue will kill humanity. It doesn't seem like common sense to me.
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