US Presidential Election 2016: Place Your Bets!

Care to explain away the racist statements he has made, two of which I quoted just above your post?

Per usual you are only looking to score political points. You have no clue what real racism is, nor do you apparently understand the context of those quotes, nor do you even bother to care whether or not they were removed from larger quotes to be intentionally taken out of context (cherrypicking; something you ARE intimately familiar with); if you did you would not seek to get so offended on behalf of the nameless, faceless minorities you claim have been slighted.

If you had one ounce of self-awareness or perspective you would see how offensive your tactics are, but I doubt you will ever look in the mirror long enough to gain such a thing. That is sad. You could be a productive member of these discussions and debates and a productive member of our political system; instead, you choose to rage at every politician, party or system that has let you down, even if in only the most minuscule of ways, without even considering how such a restrictive, petty and selfish stance might affect those around you. You damage every conversation you enter by taking such a hostile stance that seeks to off-set any biases you perceive without being aware of your own bias.

The real issue, though, is that you have erected such a large Somebody Else's Problem field that facts and good faith engagement pass you right by; you are left completely unawares of their very existence because, just like all politicians have failed you, so has everyone else. We don't "get" you. We're so "mean" to you. Jesus Christ, Brett, you accuse me of trolling you when I have attempted, time and again, against my own better judgment and against other people's advice, to engage you in productive conversation, only to be out-right ignored at best or later accused of trolling or attacking you at worst.

The next time you go start bandying about the Big R, perhaps you should think about what that really entails. There are real people who are really affected by bad policies or worse out there who know what real racism is, and your attempting to falsely equate some dirtneck's gaff to that level of racism is fucking repugnant.

How about Susan Collins? She's the right sex and moderate enough to pull the middle. Republicans have a Tea hangover and need to move to the left.

Sure. He's said some dumb things, most of which tend to be about a really, really white guy grappling with the complexities of racial signaling and politics that he simply did not grow up around. It's possible to have perspectives tinged with what we would call "racial insenstivity" these days, that are no more or no less representative than what the bar was 40-odd years ago when Joe was just getting into his first term.

Also, I looked, but (apparently!) he doesn't own a ranch named "Niggerhead." So there's that, too.

And it was hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot. <3 <3 <3

Which is why it will happen. The Republicans are already withdrawing deeper into their unreality bubble and blaming the loss on Romney not being conservative enough. Barring a complete shitstorm in the mid-terms (which won't happen because a) gerrymandering and b) midterm "throw out the bums" effect), they're going to lurch even further right in a demented snipe-hunt for ideological purity.

It's going to take Texas and/or Arizona turning into swing states before the GOP decides to try sanity again, and by that point it might even be too late for them.

Texas as a swing state. I want to believe.

Assuming the GOP keeps doubling-down on the lunacy and given enough time, it will happen. It's simply the state demographics - the current majority (white, male, GOP-voting) population is old and getting older while the younger generations are less homogeneous (more latinos, less WASPs) and also more liberal-leaning.

I don't disagree with your conclusion, but isn't is also generally accepted that an non-trivial percentage liberal youths skew less liberal as they age, which would thus negate some of that effect? That might somewhat blunt the trend. Given how far into drinking their own tea the GOP has been and appears to be stuck in even after the election, it may also be just enough that they truly don't see the fundamental problem.

That snipe line is quite funny! Great line.

I'm in Arizona, and it's an odd place.

The state demographics are very young but an striking number of the younger folks just aren't at all interested in voting. Heck I've met many who twist not voting into some odd badge of honor. Some of that is a Hispanic community with a deep distrust of anything regarding registration with the government, even when immigration status is not an issue for most on the individual level (i.e they are citizens, yet still won't register out of distrust/insulted by having to jump through extra hoops to prove it simply because of their skin color).

On the other hand, there are a lot of retirement communities which are very very conservative (and very very white). You should see the crazy stuff these people believe. Sometimes my conversations with the elderly with whom I worked in a prior job here made me wonder if I was having a stroke and/or hallucinating ... it was that out of touch with reality. But, and that's a BIG but, they VOTE. They wield power far out of sync with their numbers.

I guess my long-winded point is that the demographics are already in place here, but they haven't made a difference yet.

They've had an effect, it's just not enough to flip AZ or TX yet. Youth voting is way up.

That's excellent to hear. I'd much prefer to hope my experience is not indicative after all.

I know the math, I just don't want to get my hopes up prematurely.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

But of course it might not happen that way. It might be that the Republicans moderate their stances and we end up with a much more sane and still viable Republican party. Or more seriously, maybe their disenfranchisement efforts will buy them a few extra years?

It's a no-lose situation. Either they get less crazy, or they keep losing, even more so. I haven't felt so optimistic about US politics ever.

Disenfranchisement? In the age of Facebook it's a lot harder to confuse the youth out of knowing what day is Election Day.

The things people are saying now about the republicans is much like the dems back about 20 years ago, and look how quickly things have changed.


http://news.yahoo.com/don’t-get-coc...st-like-you-did-two-decades-ago-13564462.html

Not understanding the post. People are saying the GOP has gone over the crazy cliff and needs to step back from the ledge and engage the people factually with actual ideas and proposals.

Article says that 20 years ago Dems were over the crazy cliff and Clinton pulled them back from the ledge and engaged the people factually with actual ideas and proposals.

So basically: article agrees with thread?

Edit: this link really only makes sense if you think we're all saying "The GOP is dead!" instead of "the GOP need to return to reality so they can start getting elected and governing properly again"

I for one have no interest in a single party system, but I also will absolutely not vote for the modern GOP because they're bat shit insane and refuse to use basic shit like math, and have turned their side of the federal government into the non stop abortion/religious issues/please let this investigation reveal a scandal crazy train. I want people who can MATH me why tax increases wouldn't help balance the budget. I want people who can SCIENCE me why cap and trade or alternative energy research is a terrible idea and what we should do instead. And when the GOP does (and they will) come back to the table with actual facts backing them up, we'll start having interesting elections again where I need to think about my choice instead of being pretty sure that I can either choose the math and science people, or the people who keep saying distressing things about rape and their right to impose religious beliefs on others, or how this nation of immigrants can't handle any more immigrants.

I deeply desire a sane GOP. Not a liberal GOP, just a sane one based in facts and science with a different subjective view on how things should work.

The article isn't really very good, in terms of how it frames the two time periods. If you accept its version of history though, it's appropriate in the context of the thread's more sweeping pronouncements as it puts forth the idea that the right candidate could turn the GOP "around" the way that Bill Clinton allegedly did. So no, I don't think the article agrees with the thread, but I also don't think there's a lot to be said for either the article or the inevitability of demographics argument against the future of the GOP.

How had I not heard the "Axis of Drivel" phrase before? Echo chambers are failing me!

Or they loosen up on immigration but double down on social conservatism.

Who in the party today is the reasonable one who could rise up and return the party to sane conservative positions though? It'd almost have to be someone we've never seen before, because none of the current contenders are fit to be The One.

Ted Cruz?

I think Christie could be a moderate voice in the party.

And if you actually bothered to read that article, you'd see that the reasons the Dems were able to return to power was because Bill Clinton shifted the party more towards the center to attract moderates and swing voters instead of doubling down on far-left support. The GOP should take notice of that lesson.

Good grief, I choose not to parse my analysis in political affairs in terms of agreement or anti-agreement with Jeff frigging Greenfield. The Democrats got massacred while Clinton was in office, and at any rate both parties were finishing the process of post-'68 realignments, the Republicans more rapidly than the Democrats.

The acceptance, by Clinton, of certain aspects of neoliberalism popular worldwide with centre-left and centre-right parties was neither a good thing nor something we can in fairness call a culpable blunder. But the remnants of the Clintonian DLC, in conjuction with the more obviously wrongheaded "blue dogs," were an anchor around the Democratic neck during the 2000s when being pummelled by the more ideologically coherent (if batshit insane) Republican Party.

The entire US political spectrum is skewed right by the standards of international politics in the developed world. There is a fringe of the "sandals-granola-and-vegetarianism left," certainly, but they're not a significant entity in national politics (or any other politics except, I dunno, some municipal arenas?)

The article's premise - that the 'far left' were ever involved meaningfully in American politics - is false to begin with. There is no more disenfranchised group on the political spectrum in terms of having a national voice than the far left. We don't tend to hold office above the level of, say, Berkeley City Councilman.

EDIT: Actually, maybe I misread the article a bit. Point remains, stop equating the leverage the Tea Party has with the leverage that the very marginalized American left does. They're not comparable.

Eh. If we're defining "far left" as "on the left edge of the Democratic Party at a federal level, or just to the left of that" - and it's reasonable to do so, since such people are routinely called "far left" - then, no, they don't "tend to be insane." Other countries' parties of the left tend to have a reasonable number of people espousing those sorts of policies.

In relegating actual left wing policy to the political fringe, US politics may tend to see, on average, a more quixotic run of politicians than elsewhere espouse those policies? That's about as far as I'd go. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is a sedentary PBS pledge drive waiting to happen compared to the Tea Party.

Yes, well, in the US, anyone slightly to the left of Obama is accused of being "far left." As you well know.


EDIT: I mean fuck, OBAMA is accused of being far left.

I'm closer to these people than I am to anyone in the national parties, but I'm juuuust pragmatic enough to still vote Democratic.

I believe he also didn't deliver 27 of the 29 precincts in his hometown

I think you'll find that the lefty parties in very few other developed countries back the same policies that the US "far left" Democrats do.

If by "ridiculously, absurdly far left" you mean the democratic socialism that makes up the real left in most of Western Europe, I'm going to go ahead and still disagree with your characterization of them as "fucking insane." If not, please be more specific?

This happens because the Republicans have done a bang-up job of shifting the definitions of political viewpoints in the past fifty years or so. At some point they figured out that language matters, and their three point plan:

1. Move farther and farther to the right while always self-identifying as just "conservative," so that the definition of that term is always drifting rightward.
2. Tar opponents with the word "liberal," make it sound like an insult, and do this irrespective of their actual stances, such that the definition of that term is also always moving to the right.
3. Define "moderate" not as the middle of the actual political spectrum but rather as the point between whatever the prevailing Republican and Democratic Parties' views are, advance the idea that what really counts is moderation and moderate candidates are the sensible ones that sensible voters prefer because after all who wants a bunch of extremists running the place, such that the definition of that term is also always moving to the right.

...has paid huge dividends and allowed them to effectively dominate the political conversation in this country since about 1980, including during times when they aren't even in power. And that's why we now have a system with only two parties: a center-right one and a far-right one.

Fortunately 'liberal' has lost a lot of its teeth since the 90s. Unfortunately this just means that instead of describing politicians they don't like as 'liberals', they just describe them as 'socialists'.

Which as a registered Socialist* (they didn't give me a card, I'm disappointed) always brings the lulz for me. (Come back to us, Comrade Lum).

*The party is actually called Socialist Party USA which always makes me think of a hybrid of a 50's teen beach movie and Dr. Strangelove.

You're still gonna have to define what constitutes the fringe there.