Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Nothing says outsider like having the head of the RNC as your chief of staff...

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Um. Trump just made noted white nationalist Steve Bannon his chief strategist. I don't know how having no filter and a tendency to exaggerate diminishes the racist attitudes in play and in power here.

Uncle Informant, I have some very bad news for you. I am really scared of Donald Trump. I am so terrified that I had to write some script pages of Quinn Mallory telling me how to keep moving forward so that I could fall asleep at night. But Quinn is only a fictional character and he can only go so far, so I will be depending on you heavily to de-escalate the left-leaning hysteria and possibly direct me to some better news sources. I'm frightened and I don't even live in America.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Do you have any evidence that he is a white nationalist? I've seen the accusations, but no actual evidence.

I have read comments from people who know the man, both in the form of articles online and just from comments on Facebook and they all pretty much say the same thing... The guy may be an opportunist and kind of an asshole, but he isn't an anti-Semite or a white nationalist.

There is a lot of anger and many bruised egos right now, especially in the media which all but called this election for Hillary as soon as Obama's last campaign ended. They are saying a lot of things, and not all of them are based in truth.

I fully expect Trump to piss me off and do many stupid things. I don't need to freak out over fake stuff when the real stuff will come along soon enough.

At the end of the day, I don't think that Trump will blow up the world. We have a whole system in place to stop that from happening (though Obama got around the system often enough). The economy sucks, race relations are at a low point in my lifetime, the healthcare system is a trainwreck, we have terrorist attacks on our soil every couple of months it seems, our military has been weakened... The system in place now is not working in any way. I'm not as scared of what Trump will do as I was of what would happen if we stayed on our current path.

Open borders do not make us safe. Sanctuary cities do not make us safe. A president who tells federal agents to stop enforcing the law doesn't make us safe. A president who feeds a culture of divisiveness and hatred... We already have one of those, and it is leading to violence, and bloodshed. I hope that Trump can do something to make that better, but I honestly don't think he could put us on a road to make it worse unless he goes full-in Nazi, which seems unlikely.


There is a lot of exaggeration going on, which is making people .ore scared than they should be. If anything, I expect Trump to step back from his campaign positions and lean toward the center. He was a liberal for quite a long time. I don't trust him, I don't like him... But I'm going to wait and see what he actually does before I flip out. There's always a slim chance that he won't suck. And if he does suck, we're just back to where we started before he came along.

Obama is a horrible President, not to mention a racist, hateful person. We survived him. We've survived other bad Presidents. We should be wary of any politician, some more than others, but just sit back and hope for the best until that's no longer an option. Then take it one day at a time. I'd save the actual fear for the next episode of Supergirl.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Well. I want to believe.

During this election, Temporal Flux renounced the Republican Party. Despite not being American, I largely identified with Democrats, but I now renounce the Democratic Party. There's nothing particularly democratic about them at all; they've largely been run for the benefit of plutocrats, corporations, banks and other financial institutions.

They make a big show of claiming to care about the working class while facilitating the devastation of their livelihoods while making stumbling overtures in civil rights and health care that turn out to be little more than gestures. Obama and Clinton are really just Democrats in name; they only play Democrats on TV.

I guess, in my head, I justified it by saying that sometimes you give a little to get a little, you go along to get along, the role of corporate enterprise in supposedly democratic political action was an unfortunate evil but that they were better than the alternative -- except this approach has alienated at least half the country and turned the US Presidency over to either an ignoramaus, a madman, or both. This doesn't work. This isn't working.

The GOP terrifies me and the Democratic Party has betrayed me through sheer force of egotistical incompetence, sabotaging a decent candidate to push forward an ineffectual one and now I'm writing ****ing SLIDERS scripts to shore up my ability to get through the day.

Anyway. I'll try it your way.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

What terrifies you about the GOP, exactly? Maybe we can work through those issues and help you come to a better understanding that you may disagree with, but which doesn't fill you with fear.

Now, that isn't to say that the GOP is great. I think most of, or possibly all of the politicians are corrupt in one way or another. They should be under our microscope and held accountable. The people of the country are supposed to be one of the safety measures in place to keep the government in check, but the people have gotten lazy and usually done care.

Still, fear isn't good. Maybe we can work on that.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

None of these people terrify me, because I know they are largely cowards!  Quite a bit of evidence there.  However, the deep ties/chains to lobbyists for the energy, Pharma, banking and other industries is really the large concern.  Both parties are ruled by these interests.  McCain Feingold was gutted by a conservative Supreme Court, and until something similar is written to law, it will only get worse. 

I think the Democrats are actually in an interesting position, IF they truly can finally purge themselves of the Clinton camp.  This seems likely.  Will they be further left?  Probably, but to be honest, it's clear populism is IN. 

As for Trump, I found it funny that the "Prediction Professor," who has a perfect Prez election record, has now said he expects Trump to be impeached at some point.  We'll see about that, but his team is perhaps the most insular I've ever seen.  They are loyalists first, experience second, an incredibly big red flag.  They have already tried to hide from the press, and we saw how they acted during the campaign. 

To me the gravest threats posed to the American people are due to climate change and cyber attack.  The days of nuclear and even foreign terrorism being high on the list are over.  You're much more likely to have your personal identity and even finances stolen from cyber terrorists.  The nation's economy is at very HIGH risk as well, due to hacking.   I felt like Obama did nothing about this, and Trump will do even less, especially after benefiting from Wikileaks and refusing to point the finger at Russia as EVERY intelligence service did.  Climate Change is the #1 threat, to both the United States and the world.  The amount of death and financial destruction is second to none.  GOP has been so bad on this, it is frankly treasonous.  They are in the pockets of the energy industry, and nothing has gotten done.  Trump will likely reverse the orders Obama has given on this, driving the US and the world into the abyss much sooner.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Terrorism is still a pretty real threat, both in the US and around the world. I don't see how you can downplay that fact. Yes, cyber security is a major issue that needs to be addressed, but unfortunately, it's not either/or. We have to deal with both. One of those terrorist attacks was right down the street from where I live. It's hard to ignore the threat when you have helicopters circling your home for a week and the police blowing up backpacks while you're trying to watch TV.

Climate change... Honestly, I think it's a stretch to call anyone treasonous over it. It isn't an issue that I'm super invested in. And I would go into more detail, but it's hard to go on long-winded rants about corruption and science when I'm typing with my thumbs. ☺

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Grizzlor wrote:

Climate Change is the #1 threat, to both the United States and the world.  The amount of death and financial destruction is second to none.  GOP has been so bad on this, it is frankly treasonous.  They are in the pockets of the energy industry, and nothing has gotten done.  Trump will likely reverse the orders Obama has given on this, driving the US and the world into the abyss much sooner.

I agree that the Republican stance on climate change is ridiculous, but let's not pretend that things were going to get any better under Clinton's watch.  She's just as tied to the oil companies, and she's basically Johnny Frackingseed.

This is the problem with electing presidents that are going to be dead in the next couple decades.  Why would they care about climate change when they won't be here much longer?

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The odds are far greater that you or your property will be killed or damaged by climate change, gun violence, or decrepit infrastructure than terrorism. 

The latest is Newt Gingrich is talking up his moon base again.  Something the scientific community feels is a dead end with regard to getting to Mars.

490 (edited by Informant 2016-11-21 22:24:42)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The fact is that we have a group of people who have declared war on not just America, but anyone who isn't like them. They will kill as many people as they can, in the hopes of wiping all of us off of the face of the Earth. You don't shrug and do nothing about that. Ignoring cancer doesn't make it go away.

And sorry, but your line about the odds of me being killed on my own property would have been a lot more convincing if a stray bullet from terrorist attack couldn't have conceivably done me in a few months back. Climate change didn't show up in my neighborhood with a bunch of guns, planning to mow down as many people as they could. Terrorists did.

I fail to see the logic in not acknowledging the threat that we can see with our own eyes all the time. You want to talk climate change? Great. We can do that if you want. We can discuss gun violence. We can discuss the economy. We can discuss healthcare. We can discuss alien invaders from the planet Fritolay if it comes to it. But why ignore something so blatantly obvious the people who have the will and the increasing ability to kill us?

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

If terrorism was truly Trump's #1 concern, he'd be building his wall on the other border

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

There are many issues that need to be dealt with. Not all Presidents will pick one topic to care about and let everything else go wild. Terrorism is an issue. Illegal immigration is an issue. Healthcare is an issue. Education is an issue.

We're gonna have to walk and chew gum at the same time here.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/yo … ying-wolf/

Not exactly my point of view, but it is a really good take on the situation.



On a somewhat similar note, I'm finding this whole post-election display fascinating. You have people and celebrities going on about a civil war, or how Trump supporters need to die, but that venom isn't being reported very widely. Nor are the incidents of anti-Trump people beating Trump supporters in the streets.

Then you have people saying that Trump is to blame for all of the recent racism and hatred, but it doesn't make sense. One person on Facebook was like "One day into President Trump"... But we aren't a day into President Trump. He won't be sworn in for two more months. There has been a spike in hate crimes (a rather vague and broad classification), but the election period statistics haven't been factored in yet, so they have nothing to do with Trump.

Then we have a sudden surge of reports of racist actions by people who all appear to be wearing "Make America Great Again" hats... I don't think I've ever even seen one of those hats being worn by normal people in public, so isn't it weird that all of these incidents involve people wearing a hat that makes it easy to identify them as Trump supporters?

I don't know. A lot of this doesn't make sense. In terms of Presidential blame, Bush and Trump seem to be overlapping. It's like Obama never happened. In a couple of years, they'll be saying that Trump caused a spike in racial tension, despite the fact that it happened before he was elected (similar to the way people forget that the economy started to suffer under Clinton). And the failure of Obamacare will probably be chalked up to Trump not giving it a chance. I don't get how the actual President is walking away from years of racial tension building up on his watch, and he is sparkling clean in the media as people riot in the streets... Again.

I'm just having a difficult time understanding the flow of the narrative that's going on. If it were written as a story, I'd tell the author that they need to work on it because it's just not making sense.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The white supremacists who always support the Republicans have gotten more press this time around.

I wouldn't trust any news from Facebook.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

That's another weird thing... White supremicists have much more history with the Democrats, yet they're always talked about as though they're a Republican problem. Historically, Republicans are the ones who have fought harder for equal rights.

Though at this point, there probably aren't enough white supremicists around to matter anymore.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Informant wrote:

That's another weird thing... White supremicists have much more history with the Democrats, yet they're always talked about as though they're a Republican problem. Historically, Republicans are the ones who have fought harder for equal rights.

Though at this point, there probably aren't enough white supremicists around to matter anymore.

Ancient history.  There's a reason Strom Thurmond and his ilk switched from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Informant wrote:

There are many issues that need to be dealt with. Not all Presidents will pick one topic to care about and let everything else go wild. Terrorism is an issue. Illegal immigration is an issue. Healthcare is an issue. Education is an issue.

We're gonna have to walk and chew gum at the same time here.

I think the two primary things Trump has to do right away, is first, pick a legit cabinet, not one simply to reward his few hard-core backers.  Many of those people are incompetent or so saddled with dirty laundry they should have no major role.  Trump has pledged to tap the best of the best and drain the swamp, and people like Rudy Giuliani are the worst examples of that. 

Second objective is to establish that no conflict of interest will be present between Trump administration and Trump businesses.  Donald has sounded like he's NOT going to do this, and I think this is not only a serious issue in terms of governmental integrity, but also a big danger to himself.  If anything propelled him to victory, it was the public distaste for the Clinton system of pay to play, grease, graft, nepotism, etc.  To use the office of President to enrich your family business is a conflict of interest we may have never encountered before.  I'm sure even Republicans will be gasping at how the press will handle that. 

As for celebrities and who's to blame for what, I think the Internet has simply blown everything out of control.  Honestly, this may sound counter-intuitive, but I think Washington functioned a lot better back when nobody kept track of them!

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Not really ancient. A lot of the democratic politicians of today came up in that era. We're not talking about the Civil War here.

Look, there are plenty of bad people who support both sides. We could spend all day going back and forth, finding the worst people in the world and seeing which party they support. It might be an interesting conversation, but using it as a broad stroke against someone doesn't really work. If the implication is that the conservatives are racist and therefore attract racists, it's just not based in reality. The fact is that whatever white supremacists exist today are a tiny percentage of the population. They're a fringe group so small that they only get media attention when that media is looking for the slimiest headline they can get their hands on.

When have Republicans ever been a party of racism? They weren't the ones forming the KKK. They weren't the ones who were fighting against equal rights. They weren't the ones supporting the eugenics movement. You say that all of this is ancient history, so what does the present look like to you now? How big of an issue do you truly and honestly believe the white supremacist movement to be in the Republican party? Because I know a lot of people, with a lot of political beliefs, and the white supremacist thing has never really been an issue with anyone I've ever met.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Sorry Grizzlor. I didn't see your post until this morning. I wasn't ignoring you. I'm just replying slowly. smile

It's a weird comment, but I kinda agree with your last comment. The problem is that politics and celebrity have been combined. Now, you have Presidents acting like Hollywood elites (it didn't start with Obama... oddly enough, it didn't start with Reagan either). We shouldn't be looking at politicians in that light. We should be looking at them under the harsh light of an interrogation room, under constant scrutiny, not inviting them to film a Carpool Karaoke segment (I know, that was Michelle, not Barack. But the comment still stands).

The sad thing is that far too many people get their news from comedians and twitter these days. This makes people really, really stupid. I've seen people who seem to think that Trump is already in office, and it makes me want to slam my head into a wall. Grown adults shouldn't need the dumbed down, coloring book version of the news.


As for your other comments, I obviously agree that he needs a competent cabinet. I'm not a big Rudy Giuliani fan either. Right now, I'm just in a holding pattern. We're already jumping off this cliff and there's no going back (sorry to anyone who donated to that recount... it's a waste of money). I'm just going to do what I did with Obama last time. Close my eyes, wait for the impact and try to address the wounds as best I can once they happen.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Informant wrote:

(sorry to anyone who donated to that recount... it's a waste of money).

Speaking of that, I found this article amusing (especially if true):

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-2 … ount-costs

The comments however are awful.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

That's interesting. It's like 1984, where the recorded history is altered and everyone goes on remembering it the new way, without anyone ever mentioning the original history ever again. smile


I just think this is funny. A short while back, Donald Trump said that he wouldn't promise to just accept the election results and he would have to look at the situation when it happened. He was torn to shreds. People said that it was un-American, immature, just another example of why he shouldn't be elected... and of course, it was an example of what would make Hillary so great. Remember when they were trying to say that a democrat has never challenged an election before or refused to accept the results? (it was a lie, but they still said it)

This high road mentality was when they thought they would win.

Flash forward a few weeks and those same people are demanding a recount and refusing to accept the results of the election. Not because they actually stand a chance of winning, but because they want to show that they're fighters and all that.

I feel like I should get some popcorn or cotton candy if I'm going to be forced to watch this circus perform.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I think it's a waste of money (recount), but once again Trump acts like an infantile dufus by attacking the process.  He ought to welcome it, and commend the "extra mile" to prove our system works as intended.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Do any of you listen to Dan Carlin?  He's a history buff who runs a couple of podcasts.  His one on Trump was very good and pretty much said everything I've ever wanted to say about this election.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/dancarlin/cswdcd11.mp3

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Is this the reason for the recount effort?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 … ounts.html

It would add another asterisk by Trump's name in the history books.

505 (edited by Grizzlor 2016-11-28 09:25:31)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

TemporalFlux wrote:

Is this the reason for the recount effort?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 … ounts.html

It would add another asterisk by Trump's name in the history books.

Ha ha!  It's possible the deadlines could be extended by a judge...

Honestly I don't know what the end game truly is for Jill Stein, who is not a Democrat.  She also wouldn't guarantee the money she raised would go to recounts.  I think Hillary's involvement was merely to "give it a blessing" or at most provide some legal advice.  Obama does NOT want the recount, they wish to work on the transition with what seems like an ever-bickering, inexperienced, and confusing Trump transition squad.

I think it's a bad precedent, whereby all future elections will have to go through costly recounts.  On the other hand you could argue that the goal is to force the state's to greatly improve their electoral systems in general.  That all said, it's tough to imagine a buffoon who claims millions of dead people have voted against me needs to be worried about an asterix from this process.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Question - Did Romney or McCain have widespread recounts, or was Gore the last time this happened?

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The point that will be missed is that Trump's campaign firestorm is a convenient distraction away from this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/po … s&_r=1

The real reason I'm sure odds in British parlor's are probably pretty good on him being impeached.  Historically clear and IMO bad conflicts of interest with Trump Inc.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Every time a celebrity complains about Trump, I laugh.  If the Democrats had taken this election even a little seriously, they would've won in a landslide.  The Republican Party is still divided about Trump.  The Democrats ran a candidate *so unpopular* that she was defeated by a portion of the Republican Party.

This was the most winnable election in history, and the party decided it was more important to feed Hillary's lust for power.  And now they're paying for it.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I'm not sure what's weirder, that presumably professional politicians insisted on running with a candidate who was deeply disliked and fundamentally unpopular among the constituents she'd need to win over, or that the Clinton campaign employed a political strategy and gameplan that seemed better suited to 1996 than 2016. And now we're *all* going to pay for it.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I heard that Bill Clinton wanted to change the strategy up and focus on the Rust Belt, and they laughed him out of the room.  The dude re-wrote the book on American elections, and they laughed him out of the room.

And he was right.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

He was a good politician but the mention of Bill Clinton makes me sick. Much as I dislike Trump, I am so relieved that Bill won't be near the White House again.

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512 (edited by Grizzlor 2016-11-29 23:42:45)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I heard that Bill Clinton wanted to change the strategy up and focus on the Rust Belt, and they laughed him out of the room.  The dude re-wrote the book on American elections, and they laughed him out of the room.

And he was right.

Michael Moore called it back in like February or March.  He said Hillary would lose those states if she wasn't careful.  The margins were very thin, only 10K in MI, 22K in WI, and 60K in PA.  At the end of the day, the reason is simple.  Clinton failed to get enough people who agreed with her to vote. 

Informant wrote:

He was a good politician but the mention of Bill Clinton makes me sick. Much as I dislike Trump, I am so relieved that Bill won't be near the White House again.

I'm sure your sickness is not the same source as mine, but I wholeheartedly agree.  I felt his behavior in 2008's primary towards Obama was flat putrid and shameful.  Even at 70 or 80 or whatever his age is, can't keep it in his pants either.  Trump's behavior was 100 times worse, but Bill took what were 50/50 feelings I had between B.O. and H.C., and soured me on Hillary for life.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Grizzlor wrote:

Trump's behavior was 100 times worse, but Bill took what were 50/50 feelings I had between B.O. and H.C., and soured me on Hillary for life.

Well, we say that Trump is worse, but I'm not 100% sure he is.  They run in a lot of the same circles....including private sex parties with underage girls.  When Trump talks about Bill, I would tend to believe him.  I think they're very similar, but Bill is much more tactful about it.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

When Trump talks about Bill, I would tend to believe him.

I have yet to see any reason to believe Trump when he talks about anything. Ever. It's just as likely he's gotten his information from Alex Jones or an Internet meme as anything else. And he'll deny having said something ten minutes after having said it, even if you play him a recording of it. I have no love for Bill Clinton, but there really is no comparison between him and our fascist in chief.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Look into Jeffrey Epstein.  In most of the articles you find, you'll find the words "pedophile" and "sex slave for powerful friends"

You'll also find names like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.  Remember that Bill and Donald are friends.  Have been friends for years (http://www.newsweek.com/history-donald- … hip-464360).

Donald might not be an expert on Isis.  Or the economy.  Or trade deals.  Or CHI-na.  Or Russia.  Or Putin.  Or the coal industry.  Or elections or Hillary or America or anything.  But he's probably pretty versed on scumbags.  And I think they're both scumbags.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Well Trump is taking credit for saving less than 1000 of the 2100 Carrier jobs they were moving to Mexico.  In response, the parent company will get regulatory favors, not to mention who knows how much $$$ from the state of Indiana.  Bravo, I guess?  Trump said he'd save ALL the jobs or Carrier would be paying a TAX for moving to Mexico!  Clearly Mike Pence is running this show, not some anti-establishment trade warrior.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

So, Donald Trump is Time Magazine's man of the year. Makes sense. The winner of the election is usually chosen for the year they're elected. However, I've looked back through the different covers and I haven't seen commentary like "President of the Divided States of America" printed on the cover.

Let's get something straight... America is "divided" every time there is an election. No matter who wins, people aren't happy. Some think that it will bring about the end of the world. Some threaten to leave the country. This is not unusual. And looking at the map of states and counties that Tump won, the country as a whole doesn't look super divided by him. Certainly, Obama and his handling of racial issues over the past eight years has caused more division than Trump has (especially since he's not even in office yet!). So what we have here is another media outlet creating narrative, rather than reflecting what is actually happening in the world.

It's getting old. And it explains why traditional news outlets are dying off.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Yea. There's an arrogance there that didn't shift.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I say every year I'm amazed there's still a Time Magazine.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

CIA says Putin interfered on behalf of Trump.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … p-win.html

Trump names Putin's buddy and CEO of ExxonMobil as Secretary of State.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … -NEWS.html

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Damn, wouldn't it have been great if the Democrats had taken this election seriously?

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

https://youtu.be/6Y9oVC-mGW8

Lolz

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

https://twitter.com/Salon/status/809523473978683392

Seriously, what is wrong with people? Just goes to show how legitimate the conversation will be once he is actually president.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Has the Democratic Party done anything to fix whatever mistakes led to them losing so much?  Has anyone quit or been fired? 

Or is it just going to be four more years of complaining while not fixing anything?

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

From what I've seen, it's mostly just been a lot of complaining about the popular vote and not really getting that the US is not a democracy (our schools have failed so hard on this point). They think they won, so they're not thinking about how they failed.

At least, this is what I've seen.

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526 (edited by Grizzlor 2016-12-19 08:56:48)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

There IS a discussion about the failure, with a fairly strong push to oust Nancy Pelosi as minority leader.  I think some argue that since Hillary had nearly 3 million more votes, it's not that bad.  I of course would argue that my dog could have beaten Donald Trump by 3 million votes.  The Clinton's and their tentacles one would hope are finally gone, but we'll see.  As much as Obama's "Chicago crowd" was labeled as crooked, the man will leave office FREE of scandal, whereas the Clinton's were as slimy as ever.

Now they could treat Trump as the GOP treated Obama, and refuse to support anything the guy wants.  It's worked quite well for Republicans.  Americans really get exactly what they deserve.  They bitch and bitch, but they're too lazy to hold elected officials to account for specific votes or non-votes.   

I think confirmation of Rex as Sec of State is gonna be a problem for Trumpy.  I think that guy is way too cozy with Putin, and frankly this Alt-Right affinity for that turd is really stunning.  Not stunning that they feel that way, what's stunning is how little the rest of the country seems to mind.

527 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2016-12-19 09:19:47)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

From what I've read, Pelosi made some mostly-ceremonial concessions, but she's still very-much in charge.  From the research I did, I don't think much of anything has changed.  The faces of the party are still the same today as they were when they decided to use every ounce of power to force through Hillary over Bernie Sanders.

Whether or not Hillary won the popular vote, the Democrats got destroyed in this election.  There was talk before election of the Democrats winning the House, and that ended up being laughable.  They didn't do nearly as well as they thought they would in the Senate.  The election was an absolute disaster, and if they don't fix it, they're going to be in a worse position in the midterms.  And those are midterms that a) Republicans traditionally do well and b) were already projected to be bad for Democrats.

The good news is that whoever the Democrats choose will be the frontrunner against Trump unless Trump exceeds expectations.  The problem is that Trump's expectations are incredibly low.  So if the country doesn't literally catch fire and if Trump isn't impeached, the Democrats would be wise to actually hold a real primary this time.  If they throw out more old white people, I can't imagine the black vote will show up in 2020 either.

At the end of the day, the Democratic Party was shown to be *very* corrupt.  Obama is excluded from that discussion because they didn't want him in the first place.  Hillary was supposed to be the nominee in 2008, and Obama was only able to run because no one thought he had a chance.  The deck was stacked against him like it was for Sanders, but Obama was able to overwhelm the establishment.

Instead of learning from Obama and his victory, it was very clear that the establishment just cared about making sure Hillary got the nomination.  And once that happened, they were woefully unprepared to accomplish anything else.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Firstly, Pelosi is in charge, yes.  The point though was that there was enough of a backlash that it's been suggested this is likely the last go around for her, Hoyer, and Clyburn.  They're all in their 70s anyway, and need to step aside.  As for corruption, I think it's more about the DNC at the highest level.  The entire party is not corrupt, it's just the central core which was stacked with Clinton loyalists.  Wasserman-Shultz should never have been in charge, she was absolutely heinous to then Sen. Obama in the media.  Donna Brazile is another crook, who's on the way out.

Now, as for performance, one thing to remember is that even though Republicans pulled out the Senate, most of those were very close races, which could have gone either way.  There's no doubt, the FBI much with Hillary plus the Russian's hacking the emails had a negative affect on the Dem results.  Similarly, Trump flipped four rust best states with very slim margins of 1 or 2%.  So again, it's not like Trump swayed massive of amounts of people.  He did NOT.  He has no mandate, he was preferred by less of the electorate.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Trump is not going to run again.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I don't think the Russian hacking had any effect on Senate races.  People kept saying that Trump was going to hurt Republicans down ballot, and that didn't happen.  I don't think it was because Trump was popular, but I think it's because pundits think too much of the connection between the president and down-ballot candidates. 

The senate races were close, but they lost.  The presidential election was close, but they lost.  It was a devastating election, and the people in charge should be gone.  They bet everything on Hillary Clinton, and they need to pay the price.  The fact that everyone in charge still has their job shows just how corrupt the party leaders are.

What's crazy is that Democrats should be furious at their party leadership, and they're not.  If people were protesting Pelosi and the DNC, they'd get fresh leadership.  Hopefully they turn their attention from Trump and focus internally, or they're going to run into the same problems in 2018 and 2020.  And hopefully the party can go back to being something that people believe in.  Because, right now, it's hard to tell the DNC from the RNC.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

pilight wrote:

Trump is not going to run again.

The Democrats better hope that he does.  Beating Trump should be (and, honestly, is) a lay up.  They just went with the one candidate that could be seen as a lesser evil.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

There are a lot of balls to juggle here, so let me try to quickly address different points without rambling too much...


Obama was never qualified to be President, and remains unqualified to this day. He got the support that he did because he was pretty much Oprah's book of the month. Once she put her label on him, he got other celebrities behind him and he became a pop culture icon. People voted for his poster, not his ability.
The reason that Obama has remained without scandal is because the people who decide what is and is not a scandal have deemed Obama untouchable. They will not ask questions about his past, or demand his records the way they do with most candidates and Presidents. They gloss over his missteps or stupid slip-ups (I'm still hearing about Rick Perry forgetting the name of the EPA while on medication, but never heard anyone bring up Obama's 57 states comment). They do not hold Obama accountable for his failures. There is now an overlap between blaming Bush and Trump, with absolutely nobody in between. They ignore his failings when it comes to the economy and national security. They ignore the way he blatantly pushes for racial tension and violence. Obama is no better than Trump when it comes to arrogance or the trash that comes out of his mouth. The difference is that the media spit-shines every turd that Obama drops. The man is known to have associated with radicals and terrorists, and it is considered racist to question him.
There is plenty of material for a scandal when it comes to Obama, but the scandal makers won't go there. They love him too much. While George W Bush had movies and video games depicting his assassination, Obama gets fictional rom-coms and glorification. He abused his power. He created an unthinkable amount of debt. He failed to protect us from terrorists, choosing to target law-abiding American citizens instead. He did significant damage to out healthcare system. And the only reason that the unemployment numbers are so low is because workforce participation has dropped so low. Obama is a failure in every respect, and a man who loves to divide the American people. But good luck getting that record to show up in the history books. He'll be as shiny as FDR for generations to come.

George W. Bush was blamed for natural disasters. Obama isn't even blamed for his own actions.


Hillary Clinton never should have been in the running. The democrats failed their people by acknowledging her existence, both this year and in 2008. People don't like the Clintons, but the establishment democrats love them. I don't think that Sanders would have won against Trump, because he is too far in the wrong direction for a country that is trying to get away from Obama right now, but I do think that the democrats would have had a better chance if they could have chosen a less extreme, more relatable, possibly even human candidate. Both parties have the same problem, in that the establishment is very far removed from the people that they are supposed to serve. The republicans suffered dearly for that this year, and so did the democrats. The people are not happy with the way things are being done. Term limits are needed, and I think that the people that we elect should have to spend less time in Washington and more time amongst the people that they serve. They need to be reminded that they are not supposed to be our masters, they are supposed to be our voices.


Until the popular vote means something, it means nothing. You can say that Hillary won the popular vote, but most of those votes come from very specific areas and do not represent the country as a whole. I, for one, would not be a huge fan of California deciding the fate of our country. Their state is a mess, and they have no idea what it is like to live in "fly-over country". We have an electoral college for a reason, and it's a good reason. Acting as though the popular vote means something fails to take into account the fact that these are pretty localized groups, and the fact that there are also millions of people who don't vote because their states aren't in question. I know people who don't vote in Texas, because it's a waste of their time. Until the national popular vote actually matters for something (which it shouldn't), you can't hang your hat on that number. Hillary Clinton lost. Her loss was quite significant.

I think she lost because of arrogance. Her campaign didn't believe that they needed to earn the trust or the votes of people, and abandoned a lot of states that they assumed would be going for them no matter what. Trump picked up a lot of votes because of that, and we are seeing a lot of whining and bickering and foot stomping now, because Hillary's camp thinks that they deserved to win. That they were entitled to it. That they had a right to it, because it was theirs. Simply put, she lost because she deserved to.

So now we have Trump. A man who is undoubtedly already on the media's list of worst Presidents in history, for his failure to make Obamacare work, and whatever else is going wrong in the world. There will be no talk of the mess that was left for him when he entered office. There will be no "It takes a decade for the economy to reflect a President's impact!" There will be no forgiveness when we are attacked by terrorists again and again and again. There will be no unity behind the man when a race war breaks out. And I'm not saying that he should get away with any of his failures. I'm just saying that it doesn't matter what he does, because the narrative is already being written and the headlines are, in some cases, already being published.


The democrats failed the democrats. The republicans failed the republicans. The media failed everyone.


Merry Christmas!

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/ … index.html

Democrats want someone new.  The establishment is still in charge.  Get excited for another 70+ white person no one wants to run in 2020!

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The media are just the worst of all, that's for sure, which is why I no longer watch ANY political television!  The economy is actually very strong, but the way of the world is automation and robotics, the latter we spend no money on in this country.  It's all over seas technology.  It sucks, but at some point we have to realize that pumping oil is a thing of the past.  Digging for coal is a thing of the past.  We should be investing in renewables much more, because the Chinese will run laps around us while Trump is stacking his cabinet with oil industry billionaires.  Xenophobia was very critical for Trump, just as it is for the right in Europe.  The problem is they blame globalization which is not the cause.  If anything "sharing" the wealth has helped more out of poverty AND kept them in their home countries.  No, what's done it is destabilizing regimes.  Bush, Obama, Clinton, they're all guilty of this.  But they are controlled by the war machine, and good luck to Donald on that account.  Also guilty is his new buddy Vlad Putin, who has destabilized Syria, assisted in a likely genocide there, etc.  Again, I think Trump has the potential to bring believably uneducated policies that can wreak havoc on the economy as well as the environment.   Climate Change, which brought on massive droughts, was the match that lit the Syrian war.  It will happen again, and in more places.  To deny it is simply insane.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

You can't really say that oil and coal are things of the past. They are still the best source of energy that we have, and unless people are prepared to stop consuming energy, we need them. No other source will fill that need in the near future, especially since nuclear power isn't being used more. Not to mention, windmills are death farms for birds.

We can't just pretend that we're beyond using oil and coal.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Informant wrote:

We can't just pretend that we're beyond using oil and coal.

We also shouldn't pretend that there's any future in them.  Coal consumption in particular has been dropping dramatically, despite the increase in energy needs.

537 (edited by Informant 2016-12-22 16:32:46)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

And we should be working on all sorts of new innovations. But until we get to a point where we can rely on some other source of energy, we can't abandon what works. Right now, our options are severely limited and it's not due to a lack of anyone trying to find a better way.

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538 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2016-12-22 16:38:46)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Well, the problem is that these companies have no incentive (in fact, the opposite) to innovate.  The baby boomers aren't a real forward-thinking generation, and the cash is still rolling in.  If someone invented a clean, cheap, renewable energy, it'd be bought and mothballed before it ever reached the public.

The problem with ripping Trump for his connection to the oil companies is that Hillary was right there with him.  http://fortune.com/2016/09/07/hillary-c … donations/

Once again, we had two absolute garbage candidates.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I don't think that's true. If I invented a way of pulling a crap-ton of energy out of a little solar panel and this could power homes, cars, or whatever, I'd GoFundMe that son of a bitch and never stop counting the money that rained down on me. There are a ton of companies that would love to bring this technology to consumers. There is nothing but incentive for most of the people in this world to be that person who finds a way to put a little panel on a roof and powers a high-rise for all eternity, and no evil oil company would have the ability to take that away from them. At best, politicians could try to regulate it into the ground, but even that is iffy in an age where a tweet can reach three million people in two seconds. And if politicians in the US try to regulate it into never existing, there are plenty of other places that someone could go to develop that technology.

People give too much credit to the mysterious men in black suits.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The problem is that these people have all the money.  Instead of letting you sell your solar power invention, they'd buy it from you (paying you basically whatever you want) to buy it.  They'd say they'd be working with it, but after a while, it'd go away.  Cheap energy doesn't do anyone in power any good - the companies can't sell it, and the government loses a ton of lobbying money.

It's the same with pharmaceutical companies.  It's cheaper to cure diseases than to treat them.  It's why medicine is a huge industry, and we haven't cured much of anything in the last half century.