Prelude to the Apocalypse

[BulletMagnet]

The difference is that Trump is not in any way, shape or form dependent on the GOP. He could run as an independent at this point and give the middle finger to everyone.

Except the fact that he has pledged not to. (And if his "independence" is both so important and so self-evident, why even bother?)

He could always go back on that promise, of course, though methinks he'd need a hefty assist in polishing the "I'm not an egomaniacal despot, I'm a maverick!" turd another shade brighter.

[quash]

At this point it may actually ensure his shot at the presidency if he were to do so.

The more I learn about Sanders, the less I like him. But putting that aside, the dude is clueless when it comes to campaigning.

A year ago:
"I'm a socialist guys! Isn't that crazy?"

Now:
"Guys, socialism isn't that crazy. Everything the government does is socialism!"

Sorry Bernie, but you did this to yourself. Hillary isn't looking to get stabbed in the back again, but at least she won't be able to beat Trump.

[BryanM]

The more I learn about Sanders, the less I like him. But putting that aside, the dude is clueless when it comes to campaigning.

Knowing your guys' record of predictions and performance, this is honestly the best compliment and reassurance that he can win that I can imagine. Thanks for that pick-me-up.

For the people who don't know anything about Sanders, this is pretty much everything quash is talking about.

cuckie mccuck

Hey, that's President McCuck to you mister. It's short for McCucker.

[Rob]

The more I learn about Sanders, the less I like him.

How does this happen? Are you evil?

[quash]

How does this happen? Are you evil?

Don't flatter me like that.

Can't deny that the dude is passionate, but that's kind of the problem. He's been barking about making a difference his entire career, and what difference has it made?

Be honest with yourselves and just admit that you are supporting the leftist version of Ron Paul.

[antron]

Only in a populist's naive grassroots approach. But it's power to the people with laws vs no laws (abortion aside).

[BryanM]

I just wrote an email to Jeb trying to help the guy out. He's not gonna read it or listen to it, but I had to try.

Yeah, I know it's stupid. The guy's a multimillionaire, disenfranchised black people so his brother could become president, total monster, etc. I still feel horrible for him. Trump has made him look like a little child. He needs the help.

In my heart I do not believe for a second Jeb's mother is going to vote for him. She'll vote for Rubio or Trump. And he'll never know.

"Did you vote for me, mom?"
"Of course I did, dear! Of course I did..."

Can't deny that the dude is passionate, but that's kind of the problem. He's been barking about making a difference his entire career, and what difference has it made?

Vermont used to be republican stronghold. Very rural. Completely impenetrable to democrats.

Then a man by the name of Bernie Sanders happened. Through decades of just talking to people and giving a shit, he added a few points to the D side permanently.

When he created the Progressive Caucus, it had six members. It now has 69 in congress and even fucking Hillary is calling herself a "progressive" now since, as a professional weathervane, she knows where the wind is blowing. This Caucus is the source of the only shred of humanity our government ever displays. Currently they're opposing the horrible TPP in a coalition with tea party guys. Without them, the TPP would already be passed and signed. The CPC and tea party are the only people in congress not representing Capital. It'd be completely unthinkable back in the 90's the peasants would have any power in congress whatsoever.

If he wins the nomination he will win the election. Then, should he not die of age or treachery, he will revert the democrats back to what they used to be. The republicans too - back into moderate republicans like Hillary Clinton and liberal republicans like Jim Webb or Dwight Eisenhower.

These ayn randian economic fucks and purge the races jerks would be swiped off the political table forever. They are a tiny sliver of the population, and only have power because all the politicians that have been pushed on us by television were human garbage. Since most people don't like to think of themselves as human garbage, they don't care about our politics and don't vote.

You scoff and think things can only ever be as they are. Those without imagination can not appreciate how fragile the status quo always turns out to be - the only thing certain to come is change.

leftist version of Ron Paul.

Ron Paul had 11% of the GOP on his side in an election full of total losers, with a total support of 6% of the population. The economic agenda of the GOP, "eliminate minimum wage+medicare+social security" is a loser when stripped away from "throw the mexicans out".

Bernie Sanders has 40% of the democratic party on his side in an election against one of the most well known and well regarded women in the world. In the year before that election even takes place

So I agree 100% with your assessment that he's the leftist version of Ron Paul. Since the left is usually right about everything (proven objectively by history) it is only natural that

Bernie is cool and good, Ron is dumb and lame.

[quash]

Looks like I hit a nerve. Nothing a bit of Kool-Aid can't help.

When he created the Progressive Caucus, it had six members. It now has 69 in congress and even fucking Hillary is calling herself a "progressive" now since, as a professional weathervane, she knows where the wind is blowing.

So he gave the very people he was railing against a way to tap into populist sentiment to directly or indirectly further the causes he's supposed to be against. Road to hell, good intentions, etc.

This Caucus is the source of the only shred of humanity our government ever displays. Currently they're opposing the horrible TPP in a coalition with tea party guys.

Going across the aisle? Seeing purple? We've all heard this before. At the end of the day this is just a battle of interests. Your utopian politburo collaborating with the fucking Tea Party is all the proof anyone should need.

If he wins the nomination he will win the election.

The way things are looking right now, that is a pretty big if.

he will revert the democrats back to what they used to be.

Just be sure he doesn't miscalibrate his time machine.

I don't necessarily think Sanders is an awful person, nor do I think he'd make an awful president, but he is far from the One True Choice his supporters are making him out to be. For every issue on which his leftward lean makes sense, there are three others where he either takes it way too far or it is entirely undesirable. Granted, the president is only one person, and if Obama's tenure in office should have taught us anything, it's that there's only so much the president can do; last I checked, Gitmo is still open and we're still in Iraq.

Additionally, given how teeter-totter team blue's presidential bid is, I can't help but suspect that he is getting played hard and either not realizing it or not considering the very real possibility that he is simply being set up for failure. As a Sanders supporter, you cannot say it's over until it's over. Numbers may say otherwise, but Clinton > x. Unlike Obama, he doesn't have a tidal wave of media support to ride to election day, and the Clintons have been known to instigate some sea change to garner support.

[BryanM]

She's losing 2 to 1 with everyone under 45 and is leaning on the same losing coalition she had in 2008: women over 60. It's exhausting watching history repeat itself in excruciatingly slow pace while everyone repeats the same kind of stuff about how the woman who's never won a competitive race in her life is invincible. It's going to be a close race. Unless they can ratfuck him good like they just tried to do.

And win or lose, the 90's New Democrat is on its way out. Just would rather see it happen sooner than later, before we've got death camps and shit.

[quash]

Don't worry, FEMA's got us covered. Would you like some fluorinated water to drink in your flame retardant, steel beam shelter?

[BulletMagnet]

Can't deny that the dude is passionate, but that's kind of the problem. He's been barking about making a difference his entire career, and what difference has it made?

We've all heard this before. At the end of the day this is just a battle of interests. Your [candidate's vision] collaborating with the fucking Tea Party is all the proof anyone should need.

So he gave the very people he was railing against a way to tap into populist sentiment to directly or indirectly further the causes he's supposed to be against. Road to hell, good intentions, etc.

...he is far from the One True Choice his supporters are making him out to be.

For every issue on which his [outward] lean makes sense, there are three others where he either takes it way too far or it is entirely undesirable.

Additionally, given how teeter-totter [his party's] presidential bid is, I can't help but suspect that he is getting played hard and either not realizing it or not considering the very real possibility that he is simply being set up for failure.

Once again, every single caveat you posted above can be applied just as easily, if not more so, to Trump - moreover, even when it takes approximately two seconds to shoot a cannonball straight through your own stated Big Difference between Sanders and Trump, you simply dismiss it as only applying to the other guy, not yours, without bothering to (re-)state why. How is anyone looking for a genuine discussion supposed to take you, or your candidate of choice, remotely seriously? (The "challenge" from a page or two ago still stands, by the way.)

[BryanM]

Trump is a really good politician and has a voice made for twitter. He's a twitter god. Look at him scoring points today:

"See, Sanders backed Hillary on E-mails at the debate, hurting himself, and then she threw him under the bus (but failed). Disloyal person!"

He's really trying to win this thing.

[Mischief Maker]

He's really trying to win this thing.

Won't that be wonderful?

[BryanM]

Halfway through the book Sanders mailed me. (He's a commie so he just gave it away.) The tail end of one paragraph succinctly describes how the GOP wins when it should be off the board using their current tactics:

"No. Gingrich, his colleagues and corporate sponsors can't discuss or resolve the real problems facing the average American, but they can certainly deflect attention from them. They can pass legislation that will make some of us feel better, by making others feel worse. They can divide the middle class from the poor, and all of us by race, gender, national origin, and sexual orientation. They can beat the hell out of the weak and the powerless. It's a mean, ugly kind of politics. But it's a kind of politics that wins elections."

A crystal clear example of "Beating the hell out of the weak and powerless" is Trump's complete destruction of the man shaped glob of mayonnaise that is Jeb on an hourly basis. Think about it. Here's this multimillionaire that disenfranchised black people so his brother could win an election. He belongs in jail by any objective or just measure. And I feel sorry for him. His own mother isn't going to vote for him, that's the saddest thing I ever heard. I feel really sorry for him.

I e-mailed Jeb some advice the other day. I hope there's some scant chance he'll read it and try adjusting his tactics somewhat. It might add +1.5% to his losing score if he tries applying some of it.

What was once glorious and wonderful has, with repetition, turned into a sad empty ritual.

[Bananamatic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cup60p9pii8

[Lord Satori]

That's good, but I think this tops it.

https://youtu.be/i9-5DJhBh6M

[quash]

Once again, every single caveat you posted above can be applied just as easily, if not more so, to Trump

Trump has not spent his entire adult life barking at the beltway. The GOP candidacy is all but confirmed, Trump is and has been ahead by a wide margin for most of the race. Trump is not directly or indirectly disingenuous about anything he says, and while his opinions have changed drastically over the years, his positions have been consistent within this campaign.

You didn't "shoot a hole" through anything. The only reason Trump isn't running as an independent is because he wants life to be marginally easier once he takes office.

You are embarrassing yourself by projecting your own insecurities about your favored candidate onto another. I wish I could say there was a better candidate than Trump, but the only one that even comes close is Sanders, who as I am pointing out, is not all he is chalked up to be.

[Rob]

.

[BulletMagnet]

Trump is not directly or indirectly disingenuous about anything he says

If he truly believes, just for starters, that Mexico is purposely sending rapists over the border, that he can solve the problem by tracking down and deporting millions of people and putting up a wall behind them, that Muslims should have their own national ID database, that he can get anything he wants out of any foreign leader because he's (supposedly) good at cutting business deals, and that he can close the 10 trillion dollar hole his tax plan will leave in the budget by only cutting "wasteful" spending (of course, the massive cut he's giving to his fellow rich doesn't qualify) then being "disingenuous" is the least of his problems, he's just plain delusional, and so is anyone who thinks that a single thing he says makes a lick of sense. I'm frankly not sure which possibility is more disturbing; that Trump's just been messing with us this whole time, or that he actually believes a word he says.

his opinions have changed drastically over the years

There's an understatement for you; if he's really as smart as he insists he is, why did it take him this long to finally see the light on so many issues, to the point that he's done a complete 180 on many of them?

Trump has not spent his entire adult life barking at the beltway.

He's certainly thrown enough money at various candidates over the years before he decided to cut out the middleman, though the only thing he's been "barking" at lately has been the moon.

[Rob]

Do people like Quash not care about being lied to or being treated like an idiot child constantly? Remember the time (just last month) when Trump passed along that obviously false "fact" sheet with the punchline about black on white crime in America? He truly is consistent.

Fact check: The ‘King of Whoppers' for 2015 is Donald Trump

He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong.

I mean, it's cute if you're amused by shameless liars and arrogant, ivory tower assholes. You can say that he's crafty, but you can't say that he's smart in a general sense. Smart people think deeply about complex issues after checking the facts. But some Americans desperately want a strong daddy figure or the guy who promises them easy money (like he's had).

[quash]

I've already pointed out that Trump is not the self-made miracle that people seem to think he is. I also said I don't necessarily think he is the smartest man in the room, but he understands enough about how people react to get what he wants from them.

You can claim that he's crazy or disingenuous, but then how is a self-proclaimed socialist running for the highest office in America not inherently disingenuous?

I get it; most of you guys are leftists and don't really care as long as someone who aligns closer with you than who the establishment is supporting finally gets a shot. As much as I don't care for the Clintons or Bushes of the world, I don't necessarily think Sanders is a viable alternative. Not from the standpoint of being unelectable, rather from the standpoint of really not caring for his platform (which I will say, is still at least marginally better than the rest of the Dems he's up against).

I'm still not heartbroken if he's elected though, because without reconciling with his own party and then attempting to break bread with the Republicans, there isn't much he can do. Same can be said of Trump, honestly. The dude has never worked in government and has no idea just how much red tape there is. I'll be surprised if he doesn't resign halfway through his first term.

Regardless of who wins, I think the real changes to the political landscape are already being made. I just think we can thank Trump for that more than anyone else.

[Mischief Maker]

You can claim that he's crazy or disingenuous, but then how is a self-proclaimed socialist running for the highest office in America not inherently disingenuous?

Could you please give your definition of the term socialist?

[quash]

Don't worry about my definition, worry about his.

[quash]

What is so funny about all of this is that I know someone is just dying to tell me that he isn't really a socialist, that he's just appropriated the term for political gain.

So how would you describe this to a child? Surely you wouldn't say that he's... lying about his positions? But no, only Republicans do that.

[BryanM]

Hilldiggity unleashing another barrage of cringe worthy pandering. Trump knows no one likes this phony plastic bullshit.

Going back over the videos of the youth caucus really demonstrates how bad our politicians are. They try to say nothing and then say "vote for me for no reason." Several of these clips are of the very mockable "hello, fellow kids" variety.

Bernie is really strong in his - like always he spends only a sentence or two on a particular topic before moving to the next one. So if you don't like this one, maybe you'll like the next one. Carson tries to do a similar elevator pitch, but all I can remember is how he's very worried that our electrical grid will go down from a solar flare. Because he spent most of his time lingering on it.

Rand is totally invisible in his ad. It reminds me of what someone said about the DNC doing things to help Clinton: "If your candidate were any good, the last thing you would want to do is hide her."

[quash]

A good friend of mine is a hardline socialist, and constantly links me to the craziest, "no one leans enough to the left" types of articles.

Jacobin is a goldmine if you're into that kind of stuff, whatever the reason. Even the people that should be supporting him in spite of whatever minor differences they may have will instead bitch and complain about how the dude who says he's a socialist isn't good enough for them.

In other words, Sanders refused to consider an independent presidential campaign not because he had little chance of winning, but because he didn’t want to compete for votes with the Democrats’ eventual nominee. There’s no reason to believe he will be a “bold alternative” at the end of his doomed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

For example, Sanders rightly denounces the minimum wage as a “starvation wage,” but he doesn’t support the low-wage workers movement’s demand for $15 now. Instead, he proposes a more “realistic” increase to $15 “over a period of years, not tomorrow.”

Sanders’s backing of US imperialism compromises his support for workers rights. For example, Sanders supports the basing of the new F-35 warplane at Burlington’s airport, despite the fact that the fighter-bomber’s ear-shattering noise made scores of working-class housing unsafe for habitation.

It almost makes me feel bad for the guy when the very people he is supposedly bringing into the political sphere are so fucking greedy that they can't accept even a shred of compromise. At the same time, some of the guys who accuse him of only being a socialist in name are asking for him to decry the label entirely, not realizing that this is an enormous opportunity for them even if this particular guy isn't far enough to the left for their tastes.

And you guys think the right is in trouble.

[BryanM]

Going back over the videos of the youth caucus

I honestly thought Bernie could be considered the greatest politician of all time if he won.

But then these videos made me realize you can't really call someone pushing on an open door all that great.

This is what we get when politicians are selected by money and not natural selection.

Law of the jungle, that's Trump baby.

It almost makes me feel bad for the guy when the very people he is supposedly bringing into the political sphere are so fucking greedy that they can't accept even a shred of compromise. At the same time, some of the guys who accuse him of only being a socialist in name are asking for him to decry the label entirely, not realizing that this is an enormous opportunity for them even if this particular guy isn't far enough to the left for their tastes.

And you guys think the right is in trouble.

Nah, I agree with you 100% on this one quash. Many leftists are fuckin' tards. Just as bad as hardline libertarians at times.

What comes immediately to mind is when Frank Luntz appeared on the Nightly Show and the crowd said they thought Bernie won't win. Frank immediately held a snap poll with the crowd: who do you want, Hillary or Bernie. It was obvious Bernie was the overwhelming favorite. "That's why your party is fucked." he finished.

They feel like they're too good for the world, so it's better to be perfectly pure and lose in a corrupt system than try to sneak in and burst forth from within like some kinda "chest burster". They don't really want to win - if the system is corrupt and they won that must mean they're corrupt themselves, right? And doing what Bernie did took an entire lifetime to do - most people simply don't have the patience. It takes an incredibly rare combination of being addicted to boredom and giving a shit to fight back effectively.

They're so fixated on the crimes we do abroad, the big picture, that they don't see that the only way we start caring about the lives of outsiders is if we're the kind of people who actually care about our own first. You can't go right to home base without circling the field first.

And leftists want to die on the hill of gun grabbing right this minute. smh

When they've won on every major social issue now that the grail of gay marriage is realized, and emptied the arsenal of wedge issues Democrats used to draw a contrast with the Republicans. If ever there was a time to unite and acknowledge there's an ongoing class war, it's now.

[Xyga]

A social-democrat is someone who's a shining socialist in public, and perfectly okay with right-wing policies in practice when it's convenient for him/her and 'friends'.
Smart right-wingers know it lulz, in Europe it's always funny to hear opposition right-wing figures criticize everything social-democrats in power do, when in secret they actually approve of many pro-capital-anti-welfare laws and reforms they really pass.
Deez poker faces lulz.
EDIT: sorry to state the obvious.

[BIL]

They're so fixated on the crimes we do abroad, the pig picture

The US did #Hameron?

:3

[BryanM]

Damn dyslexia.

Damn pig rapists.