The Clinton Thread II - Part 3

[Fenrir]

That is a dangerous line of thinking. If Trump had said he wanted to bring back segregation, would you still not vote because Hillary deleted some emails? How far down the rabbit hole does this have to go for people to decide to vote against something?

You think it was just about some emails?

You think it had nothing to do with her stance on the Keystone XL pipeline? Or fracking? Or the TPP? Or healthcare? Or Wall Street? Or her hawkish foreign policy and her bragging about getting endorsements from Henry f**kin' Kissinger? Or the s**t she pulled with the DNC and her media partners to put down Sanders and his supporters? Or her shameless snubbing of the core of the Democratic party (the progressives) after the primaries and instead chasing after Republican donors?

I mean really, take your pick.

 

[Fenrir]

I'm not American, I didn't vote for Hillary, and I think she was a horrible candidate. The democrats picked literally the only person who could lose to Trump.

There you go. She was not only someone who was now disliked by the core progressives of the Democratic party because of the heated primaries, but also someone Republicans absolutely loathed with a passion for years. She was the only candidate that could have divided the Democrats and united the Republicans...and the DNC chose her. But despite that tacit admission, it is still somehow our fault for not voting for her, eh?

What I am though is someone from a country that knows fascism extremely intimately, and I also had the privilege of staying in the US for three years when I was younger. I recognize after this election that people like you are ignorant simply because the USA doesn't know how fascism grows or what it even looks like, so there's no way for you to protect against it.

There is a difference, those Europeans know how it looks because they lived through it, their hackles come up when something even vaguely resembling it rears its head. The USA is blissfully ignorant of authoritarian rule, the only thing they know about it is they stopped it seventy years ago.

It's amazing how me talking about Trump's deficits has you calling me a "Hillbot" when for the last week all I was doing here was saying she should account for her actions. The Americans really seem to have a psychotic obsession with their bipartisan religion. Hopefully you and people like haven't put America's own Kristallnacht firmly on the agenda. Whatever happens from here on out, you and similarly uncaring people have a hand in it.

Wow, you really don't know how those fascist European leaders came into power in the first place, because you're looking at the symptoms and not the root causes. People elect hardliners, fascists, ultranationalists and dictators only after widespread disillusionment and hopelessness. Yes, the racists backed Trump but do you know who else did? People who are f**king sick of the status quo. People are suffering - suffering from unemployment, from stagnant wages, from subpar (or complete lack of) healthcare and education, from political corruption, from rising income inequality - people who have no faith whatsoever in the political establishment (as evidenced by the single digit approval ratings of Congress and the Senate)...I can go on and on. You can make up B.S statistics about how "things aren't as bad as they seem", "it's all FINE" and whatnot, but that doesn't change the ground reality for those going through this in their daily lives. Those of us who supported Sanders did so precisely because of the fact that band-aid solutions and gradualism are not going to work anymore and that radical measures - social, political and economic - were needed.

Hillary decided to run on keeping the status quo knowing full and well the extent of the populist anger that was driving the support for the Sanders and Trump campaigns. If she wanted to be our leader and couldn't even feel the pulse of the country, then she deserved to lose.

 

[Fenrir]

The party machinery wouldn't have been as strong for Sanders if he won and he wouldn't have been able to fundraise for advertising as well as Clinton did. There was the belief that Bloomberg was also threatening to run as a third-party centrist option if the election came down to Trump and Sanders.

Sanders' popularity was growing by the day and so was his fundrasing. He had people energized, volunteers were flying from across the country to help his campaign but the DNC (and the media) decided it was safer to back someone who was not going to completely turn over their apple cart with radical policies. The fact that news channel had a live feed of an empty Trump podium for 30 minutes instead of covering Sanders' rallies and victory speeches speaks volumes about their own role in this debacle.

The Republicans wanted to do the same thing with Trump, but unfortunately they didn't have superdelegates to stop him.

 

[Fenrir]

There's truth to that. I see more posts on Facebook, reddit, and other forums cheering the fact that Hillary lost, than celebrating a Trump win.

Exactly!

 

[DeadPresident]

There you go. She was not only someone who was now disliked by the core progressives of the Democratic party because of the heated primaries, but also someone Republicans absolutely loathed with a passion for years. She was the only candidate that could have divided the Democrats and united the Republicans...and the DNC chose her. But despite that tacit admission, it is still somehow our fault for not voting for her, eh?

Not completely, but you contributed because you seem to think voting is a moral exercise and not a pragmatic one.

Wow, you really don't know how those fascist European leaders came into power in the first place, because you're looking at the symptoms and not the root causes. People elect hardliners, fascists, ultranationalists and dictators only after widespread disillusionment and hopelessness. Yes, the racists backed Trump but do you know who else did? People who are f**king sick of the status quo. People are suffering - suffering from unemployment, from stagnant wages, from subpar (or complete lack of) healthcare and education, from political corruption, from rising income inequality - people who have no faith whatsoever in the political establishment (as evidenced by the single digit approval ratings of Congress and the Senate)...I can go on and on. You can make up B.S statistics about how "things aren't as bad as they seem", "it's all FINE" and whatnot, but that doesn't change the ground reality for those going through this in their daily lives. Those of us who supported Sanders did so precisely because of the fact that band-aid solutions and gradualism are not going to work anymore and that radical measures - social, political and economic - were needed.

Hillary decided to run on keeping the status quo knowing full and well the extent of the populist anger that was driving the support for the Sanders and Trump campaigns. If she wanted to be our leader and couldn't even feel the pulse of the country, then she deserved to lose.

I'm not sure why this diatribe is aimed at me? I've been echoing the same sentiments in various other threads so you're preaching to the choir.

My point is that from a comparative perspective despite all the problems in the states it's still better than 95% of other places in the world, but you and others who want an immediate utopia are too sheltered to realize that.

 

[Fenrir]

Not completely, but you contributed because you seem to think voting is a moral exercise and not a pragmatic one.

Voting is a moral exercise. It is precisely because of our tolerance for all these ills and vices (corruption, corporate pandering, scandals, media manipulation) under the pretext of pragmatism that we ended with a debacle like Trump. When times are tough and people are completely disenchanted, idealists and radicals take over. All that game theory nonsense and political calculus is thrown out the window - and what's surprising is that some people are still oblivious to this fact despite the pattern repeating itself all over the world. The FT and AP are now reporting that the Trump win has further bolstered the chances of Marie La Pen and other far right European parties, just as Brexit did to Trump.

http://econ.st/2eN8IAj
http://on.ft.com/2g0BD5H

The anti-elite and anti-establishment sentiment is real, and it's gone global.

I'm not sure why this diatribe is aimed at me? I've been echoing the same sentiments in various other threads so you're preaching to the choir.

My point is that from a comparative perspective despite all the problems in the states it's still better than 95% of other places in the world, but you and others who want an immediate utopia are too sheltered to realize that.

I'm sorry that is a bunch of baloney. I've lived and worked in Canada (Toronto), Europe (Glasgow, London, Sheffield, Manchester, Geneva, Zurich, Florence), Asia (Singapore, Taipei, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur) and even in the Middle East (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha). For all intents and purposes, I'm a bloody nomad. Anyone who thinks that the U.S is better than any of those places in every way is a deluded, uninformed fool. Sure they all have their own problems, but I can also name more than a dozen things about every single one of those cities that are better than the U.S.

 

[thheather]

bad day for america, and for the world. is so sad .....

 

[BatLobster]

I think ultimately, even IF Sanders had won the primary and even IF he won the election, he very well may have been a one-term president and it's very possible someone else like Trump or maybe even worse would've come along to challenge him in 4 years. The right-wing media demonized Obama for 8 years for being a "secret socialist". How do you think they would have portrayed somebody who wears it like a badge of honor? They would've been in full meltdown mode, and the Republican base would be even angrier and more desperate whether or not Bernie would've even been able to accomplish half of what he said. And for that matter, they would've gone into meltdown mode with Hillary just because of how much they hate her on a primal level.

Let us not forget, Hillary won the popular vote in the primary by a pretty wide margin. I voted for her in my state primary. I would've happily supported Bernie if he won. I knew it was a populist election cycle, but when it comes down to it I believed she would've made a better president and ultimately I voted for her based on that. To me, when the people are angry I want somebody up there who isn't just a mirror reflection of that in demeanor. I believe she would've worked tirelessly for the middle class and families. I believe she would've made a fine President. That's my my opinion and I'm entitled to it. Ultimately she did win the popular vote in the election too.

I think my point here is that, perhaps we were headed for some more tough times here regardless of who got elected. Maybe Trump being in office will be a bit of a shortcut to the inevitable fall that was coming. All we can do now is just hope that Trump isn't as bad as we feared. The one silver-lining I see here is that Trump still had millions and millions of people vote for him who don't really like him and were more voting against Hillary. That's some base-level of unity here that was missing. I think the majority of Americans on both ends of the political spectrum are probably feeling a bit anxious now because they simply don't know what a Trump presidency will look like.

In a weird way this reminds me sort of what it felt like post-9/11 to me, in that I feel like we just need to get through this thing together and we'll come out of it stronger. We don't let Presidents define who we are as a people.

 

[The Overlord]

You think it was just about some emails?

You think it had nothing to do with her stance on the Keystone XL pipeline? Or fracking? Or the TPP? Or healthcare? Or Wall Street? Or her hawkish foreign policy and her bragging about getting endorsements from Henry f**kin' Kissinger? Or the s**t she pulled with the DNC and her media partners to put down Sanders and his supporters? Or her shameless snubbing of the core of the Democratic party (the progressives) after the primaries and instead chasing after Republican donors?

I mean really, take your pick.

I don't think Trump is going to be better on a lot of this stuff.

At worst Hillary was going to mediocre, God knows what Trump will be at his worse.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Give me a pragmatic, status quo neocon over a neofascist extremist or white nationalist any day of the week.

 

[samsnee]

I agree but I can see where some voters are sick of the status quo. The problem isn't the President though. It's the same members of Congress that get nominated over and over like the McConnell's and McCain's and Pelosi's.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I used to complain about the establishment then I realized:

1) Everyone has a different idea of utopia and the so-called status quo is simply a compromise between many ideals you probably agree and disagree with.

2) Most people on the planet live under less than ideal conditions and would kill for our establishment and status quo "problems".

3) The status quo is far more pragmatic than the extreme beliefs people would rather impose on you.

4) I'm reasonably happy. Why jump out of the pan and into the fire like many countries did after the Arab Spring (Libya, Egypt, Iraq, etc).

 

[samsnee]

I used to complain about the establishment then I realized:

1) Everyone has a different idea of utopia and the so-called status quo is simply a compromise between many ideals you probably agree and disagree with.

2) Most people on the planet live under less than ideal conditions and would kill for our establishment and status quo "problems".

3) The status quo is far more pragmatic than the extreme beliefs people would rather impose on you.

4) I'm reasonably happy. Why jump out of the pan and into the fire like many countries did after the Arab Spring (Libya, Egypt, Iraq, etc).

Compromise works when both parties walk away not 100% happy. I believe Democrats do still believe in compromise. Republicans believe "working together" means we write the bill and you vote for it.

 

[BatLobster]

For most of this election cycle, I thought the GOP would be destroyed by this election and be in ruins following Trump's loss. That also meant the possibility of them coming back stronger eventually, and maybe even into something worse.

Given the election went the other way, perhaps the silver lining here is now it's the Democratic party that will have to emerge stronger. And hopefully as something better.

I completely understand the frustration of Sanders supporters right now. 100%. I understand the urge to shout "told you so". Everyone's all still a bit emotional right now.

Ultimately though, I think the revolution Sanders started didn't end. That was true before the election and it's true now. It's up to progressives now to roll their sleeves up and start going to work starting at the local levels. The opportunity is there for Dems to become the champions of the working class.

I used to complain about the establishment then I realized:

1) Everyone has a different idea of utopia and the so-called status quo is simply a compromise between many ideals you probably agree and disagree with.

2) Most people on the planet live under less than ideal conditions and would kill for our establishment and status quo "problems".

3) The status quo is far more pragmatic than the extreme beliefs people would rather impose on you.

4) I'm reasonably happy. Why jump out of the pan and into the fire like many countries did after the Arab Spring (Libya, Egypt, Iraq, etc).

I completely relate with this thinking. That's why I'm sure I would've been pretty okay with a Clinton presidency. That said, here we are. We can only put one foot in front of the other at this point.

 

[terry78]

The universe has to balance itself out I guess.

 

[Schlosser85]

Give me a pragmatic, status quo neocon over a neofascist extremist or white nationalist any day of the week.

Yup.

 

[Legendver2]

This whole election is people voting out of emotion instead of self interest. With all the talk about Clinton's wall street ties, if you research her stance she wants to regulate wall street and big pharma. Trump wants no regulations on those things. His voters are in for a rude awakening with medication cost rises, especially with those with no insurance...oh wait he's killing Obamacare too...lol

 

[Smashlilman]

This whole election is people voting out of emotion instead of self interest. With all the talk about Clinton's wall street ties, if you research her stance she wants to regulate wall street and big pharma. Trump wants no regulations on those things. His voters are in for a rude awakening with medication cost rises, especially with those with no insurance...oh wait he's killing Obamacare too...lol

If people were voting out of emotion they would have voted for Hillary out of fear of Trump. What happened is that those people decided they didn't like either candidate and didn't vote at all. Trump got less votes than Romney but Hillary Clinton saw a 44% drop of Democratic voters from 2012. She's a dumbass that makes bad decision for political reasons. People were hurting economically and were upset with Millionaires and Billionaires donor buying political favor with candidates. The first thing than that Hillary Clinton did after she stole the nomination during the convention was have her Billionaire donors speak at the DNC. Then on top of that she went out of her way to court Neo-Conservative voters. People are just sick and tired of this crap. They punished all the Republicans during the primaries for it what made you think they weren't going to punish Hillary Clinton for it. She lost every debate with Trump and Bernie but the media keep saying she won and all those Democratic lemmings that watch MSNBC and CNN believed it.

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[Dark Raven]

This is a nice story:

A "Heartbroken" New York Mom Bumps Into Hillary Clinton While Hiking

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/new-york-mom-bumps-hillary-clinton-hiking-chappaqua-946306

 

[Greens]

The anti-elite and anti-establishment sentiment is real, and it's gone global.

Yup. The extreme right has been garnering a lot of support in Europe over the last few years. Some of it is anti-establishment, a lot of it is fear of the unknown (Muslims, refugees).

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The universe has to balance itself out I guess.

The universe isn't going to have any problem balancing all this out, what we can't afford is for Trump and his anti-science climate change denying cronies to "unleash" the fossil fuel industry and get rid of the crappy current regulations we have in place now. Half of this country has effectively signed the death warrant for our planet and future generations. We may be able to vote him out in 4 years but it will take decades to undo the damage they plan to do if it's even possible at all. That's what people need to up in arms about.

 

[regwec]

Yup. The extreme right has been garnering a lot of support in Europe over the last few years. Some of it is anti-establishment, a lot of it is fear of the unknown (Muslims, refugees).

Muslims and refugees are not "unknown" in Europe.

 

[Greens]

Muslims and refugees are not "unknown" in Europe.

That's not what I'm saying.

For example, there were multiple cases of refugees sexually assaulting girls in their host countries. Now, every refugee is seen as a potential threat. In my experience, refugees are regarded as unscrupulous and people would generally prefer them to go elsewhere. That's the fear of the unknown. They're not like me and they don't speak my language so I'd rather not deal with them at all. I know a lot of people who feel this way.

 

[regwec]

That's not what I'm saying.

For example, there were multiple cases of refugees sexually assaulting girls in their host countries. Now, every refugee is seen as a potential threat. In my experience, refugees are regarded as unscrupulous and people would generally prefer them to go elsewhere. That's the fear of the unknown. They're not like me and they don't speak my language so I'd rather not deal with them at all. I know a lot of people who feel this way.

Which is it?

 

[Greens]

Both.