Prelude to the Apocalypse

[GaijinPunch]

I think America turning into a third world shithole is proof enough that something isn't working, and in that something i would certainly include the government, among other things.

Out of curiosity, how many times have you left your home state?

President-elect Joffrey

LMAO.

[quash]

Yeah, remember a couple days ago when the Chicago Tribune published an article where it mentioned someone at Boeing being mildly critical of Trump's policies and within minutes of the article being published Trump went to twitter threatening to cancel billions of dollars worth of Boeing government contracts?

Hasn't your side been crying for defense cuts for years? Well, now we have a president who wants to do it in the smartest and most effective way there is: renegotiating contracts. I'm afraid that money saved won't go to welfare programs, but surely it's still worth celebrating.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm afraid that money saved won't go to welfare programs, but surely it's still worth celebrating.

So, pray tell, where IS the money going? Trump's already told us, but what the hell, this "discussion" is a farce anyway. Speaking of which, Opus, that whole "something's gone wrong with the government" bit of hand-wringing? We may be closing in on something a little more specific to that end here: stay tuned!

The EPA pick is as heinous as anyone could have predicted.

Wait 'til you - and anyone who (somehow) honestly thought Trump gave half a shit about working people - see his choice for Labor!

[Domino]

Wait 'til you - and anyone who (somehow) honestly thought Trump gave half a shit about working people - see his choice for Labor!

Good choice, seriously. No problems on my end.

[BryanM]

It's like putting Montgomery Burns in charge of everything.

Well, not so much "like" as much "literally".

[atheistgod1999]

You know how my US History teacher is a Hillary supporter?
When writing an essay, that was the major assignment that ended the second unit, that was about whether the Federalists or Antifederalists were right, I chose to write about why the Antifeds were right. The last body paragraph had to be a modern-day example of why they were right, and I retardedly decided to say that Hillary being let off the hook for the emails shows that the "checks and balances" system failed us, and that her being nominated over Bernie despite her past conservative views while Bernie had liberal views his entire life shows that wealthier people have an advantage. I realized I was fucked, and hoped that I got a B at best.

Spoiler

After about a month of waiting for my grade (my teacher is really lazy), I found out that I somehow got an A, and he even praised me. Are even Hillary supporters beginning to realize how retarded they were...?

[Giest118]

It's almost like people are complicated or some shit.

[BryanM]

#NotAllHillary supporters are empty partisan husks.

Was this teacher saying anything about Clinton/Sanders back during the democratic primary, which was the only actual election we had this year?

(The general election isn't really a national election, it's an election in fourish states where they ask "do you think this democrat will put money in your pocket: yes or no?")

(Willfully ignoring the median household income always makes my face scrunchy. Burn it into your brain: "Longer hours. Lower wages.")

[atheistgod1999]

Um, he wasn't even my teacher during the primary; that was last school year.

[EmperorIng]

I don't know dude, will we ever get music better than Linkin Park?

[BryanM]

Look at the rich kid, going to a school with multiple teachers n' shit.

The rural and urban divide is really crazy. City kids always trigger something when they talk about what their schools had. Makes me feel like a dirty lowly peasant.

I don't know dude, will we ever get music better than Linkin Park?

This is truly My December.

[atheistgod1999]

I don't know dude, will we ever get music better than Linkin Park?

You know, if I pretend that I'm someone else, my posts are actually fucking hilarious to me, too.

[Opus131]

I don't know dude, will we ever get music better than Linkin Park?

Stop trying to trigger me.

[BulletMagnet]

Okay Donald, your party is officially all set to kill Social Security (and yes, I do mean "kill", not "make sustainable" - the plan not only takes the requisite meat axe to benefits, but simultaneously reduces the program's inflow by *surprise!* cutting SS taxes on the wealthy even further), in direct opposition to your repeated campaign pledges to leave the program intact - should we expect anything different compared to your similar "promise" on Medicare and Medicaid, or will your most hopeless sycophants have to rush to your defense when you demur to "the establishment" yet again?

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

Called it

[Domino]

Also, any opinion piece from the LA Times would need to be read with a gain of salt (like this article). I hope you don't quote your sources from Huff Post, Salon, and the other silly liberal sites. I don't even go on the right-wing versions of those sites.

[BulletMagnet]

All the author's figures come directly from Johnson's own documentation - click the links at the bottom of the page and fact-check away.

[BulletMagnet]

Jesus, if this one turns out to be true, all we need is a Walton or two and we can pack in this pitiful mess.

EDIT: And just to fan the flames a bit more, a post-mortem on the hopelessly biased media Trump had to "overcome" to get where he is.

[Rob]

Our glorious corporatocracy. Bless you Great Leader.

[BryanM]

I like the part where the people responsible for getting president Trump elected are pretending Bernie Sanders would not have walked this election. Like it would have been THAT hard to get +0.01% more in the rustbelt.

So much bad faith acting. Could have had a repeat of 2008 but they decided to have a repeat of 1928 instead.

(Though in their defense it wouldn't be a repeat of 2008, because we'd be electing a guy who actually believes in raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare that doesn't serve the insurance companies, and walking hand in hand with unions.)

Yes, but voting for the lesser evil is STILL EVIL!

Yep, woulda been really nice to have someone neutral or good to vote for.

Good thing the current evil has a -20% favorability rating it'd be really bad if you had someone who was evil with a +20% favorability rating.

[atheistgod1999]

Does anyone in this thread know how to put names in quote tags?

[GaijinPunch]

Does anyone in this thread know how to put names in quote tags?

Yes. Put their names in the quotes.
Hit the quote button and see the BBC code that's generated. Just copy that.

[Mischief Maker]

Whoda thought when Trump kept harping over and over again about how Hillary should share the transcripts of her quarter million dollar Goldman Sachs speeches he was actually looking for pointers?

[BulletMagnet]

I like the part where the people responsible for getting president Trump elected are pretending Bernie Sanders would not have walked this election.

I really, really have no idea where the notion comes from that there's this huge, untapped bastion of liberal support floating around out there just ripe for the picking, and that all anyone has to do is run the leftiest candidate/platform they can find to insta-win any election, when absolutely none of the necessary groundwork for anything remotely like this to happen has been laid, and nobody is even attempting to lay it, or even acknowledge that it needs laying at all.

Yeah, there are lots of people angry about having been screwed over, but here's the problem - for decades now, they have been told, with minimal resistance from the same "those idiots totally shoulda run Bernie" crowd, who long ago dismissed the whole lot of them as "lost causes" (and now wonder where all that silly resentment comes from), that the ones screwing them are not the ones whose bank accounts have been ballooning non-stop for a half-century now, but people even poorer than they are, and moreover are completely fine with their own social services being gutted (and upper-end taxes being repeatedly cut, because haven't you heard, trickle-down totally works), just to ensure that nobody "undeserving" gets a cut either. Notice that the biggest note of contention that Trump's supporters - who wanted to vote for Bernie so bad - have with his horrific transition is his reluctance to follow through on jailing Hillary - everything else? Just hunky-dory! Loving it!

Remember: it wasn't just Trump who got elected a month ago, but almost every Republican incumbent across the whole freaking country was reelected right along with him. Remember how even the half-measures Obama attempted to take were vociferously, mendaciously and often maliciously stonewalled (i.e. "I'd rather deny my own constituents Medicaid than not have to pay a cent for it")? Lots of people are totally okay with that, and even if Bernie was somehow elected, guess what? They wouldn't rally behind him in the face of conservative opposition any more than they did behind Obama, especially if the Comeys and Alex Joneses were set upon him the way they were set upon Hillary (how does that .001% of mislabeled emails look in the rearview mirror, now that the next cabinet is taking shape? Guess what, it doesn't matter now; they figured that out months ago, we're still coming around to it!). It's frankly a miracle that Dubya wasn't able to privatize Social Security when he tried to; with how badly the discourse has deteriorated since then, if he took a second shot at it now (and his successors are doing just that) he'd likely see it through, and the crowds would cheer their heads off all the while.

In a rational country, should the "liberal" party be running candidates much farther to the left than they have been. Absolutely. Just one problem: in case you hadn't noticed, rationality is in very short supply in our politics these days, and most liberals (and "liberals") seem to prefer to continue with the "oh, just keep on, those idiots will get it, someday" narrative, instead of actually, directly confronting the narratives which got us into such a pitiful place to begin with, as opposed to just kind of waiting for them to go away. And before you dig it up yet again, no, you can never convince everybody, but God almighty, no matter how hilariously wrong they're proven to be on any number of issues, one thing about conservatives is that they will fight like hell to achieve their ends, while too many of us are convinced enough of our own superiority to keep taking the easy route, just let it happen, demographics shifts and whatnot make it inevitable (while simultaneously wagging a resentful fingers at whoever supposedly thought Hillary was "destined" for office or whatever you thought you heard rattling around in your skulls).

Sorry, but so long as tax cuts for rich people solve everything, the corporate-owned media is hopelessly liberal, Reagan is the second coming of Christ and everyone knows it, we have absolutely nothing to be proud of or confident in when it comes to the support of our fellow citizens, and absolutely no reason to believe that we had this last election in the bag and foolishly frittered it away, even against an unmitigated disaster like Trump. And until we first and foremost realize just how deep a hole we're in, neither we nor the people we claim to want to help so badly have any future whatsoever.

[BryanM]

Bulletmagnet, you're talking about your feelings and emotions. The same argument could be made by conservatives whenever they lose in a landslide: "We can't win because there are people who believe in gay marriage and raising the minimum wage in this country grr." (Actually that's a much more reasonable argument: I'm so sure people voted for Trump because they wanted to cut his taxes. )

I'm talking about cold, hard facts:

* Hillary polled +3%. She got +2.5%. The polling was dead on.

* Bernie polled +10%. Even if his polling was super special and somehow wasn't dead on like Hillary's and everyone else's was, he could underperform by more than half and still get +4%.

* Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were all lost by margins of less than 1%. You're claiming Bernie Sanders would not have outperformed Hillary in these states by 0.5%. You're pretending people like this don't exist. These poor bastards certainly don't think tax cuts for the rich are going to help them any.

* Hillary's net favorability is -20%. Trump's net favorability is -20%. Sanders's net favorability is +15%.

* Did I mention the polls? They told us that Trump was the nominee, that Clinton was probably going to be the nominee, and that an election between Clinton and Trump would be a coin flip. That was back toward the end of 2015.

* Obama was a "socialist" black guy who claimed he wanted universal healthcare and destroyed the election.

* Democrats win elections by getting democrats to vote for them. Amazing idea, I know. Hillary tried to get the opposition party to vote for her:

For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin

Genius. Obama campaign 2008 had to turn away volunteers because there were too many. Hillary 2016 had to pay nearly everyone, and still those offices were empty.

Anyway. Here are objective, solid reasons Bernie would have been less likely to win:

* The millionaires on TV hate him.
* The billionaires who own TV hate him.

That's it. Republican voters preferred him over Clinton 2 to 1. The reasons why should be obvious.

But you know all this. You know we live in a liberal country, like every other country on the planet. You know people don't like Donald Trump, that he's a crook. All you have to do to win is not run a crook. Or at least run a crook that can pretend to care about people. You're jumping through hoops to defend a crook.

And of course your argument is still in bad faith since it paints a ridiculously wide brush. A FOX News view of reality. The people you're talking about are 85 years old and live in a bomb shelter decorated with the skulls of Muslim Mexican-americans. They did not decide this election alone, they're less than 20% of the electorate. Everyone else is a little more nuanced than that.

Go back to page two and read every single thing Domino has to say about the democrats this year. That's much closer to the average conservative's opinion than the hacks you'll see on FOX News and talk radio.

[quash]

I have to say that I am actually with BM on this one. Bernie never had to take Trump head on, and given how Trump was able to flip many traditionally blue states I don't think there's enough evidence post-mortem to say that Bernie would have "walked" him. Perhaps the entire rust belt wouldn't have flipped, but it's a bit much to extrapolate a landslide from pre-general election polls for a hypothetical general election that we unfortunately never saw. As much as it was interesting to see Trump take down an entrenched party favorite with all the traditional campaign strategies on point, it would have been much more interesting to see two grassroots candidates go at it.


Just imagine the nicknames Trump would've thrown at him in a general election. "Breadline Bernie" would be tough to shake off.

[BryanM]

"Breadline Bernie" would be tough to shake off.

OH NO IF ONLY HILLARY HAD CALLED HIM A SOCIALIST AND IF ONLY PEOPLE ALREADY KNEW HE WAS ONE WE COULD HAVE VETTED HIM AND AVOIDED THIS AMAZINGLY CUNNING ATTACK

Oh wait, all of that already happened.

+15% favorability. +10% national vote. Obama 2008 all over again.

Notice how the Trump guy isn't wondering how much Tump would have been "destroyed" if he went against someone who pointed out that he wants to get rid of the minimum wage, instead of Hillary who spent all her money on pointing out Trump says mean things.

Sigh. Hillary did everything to try to lose, and still almost won by a sliver. An inert bag of flour would have won this election against Trump. No partisan hack fantasy opinion can change that fact.



List of republican voters who give a shit about what democrats think: Zero.
List of democrat voters who give a shit about what republicans think: Zero.

Good thing we have an opportunity in 2020 to prove who is right.

[Rob]

Just imagine the nicknames Trump would've thrown at him in a general election. "Breadline Bernie" would be tough to shake off.

Weak. People give that tactic way too much credit. Easy to think that it's stunningly effective when the opponents are all complete turds.

[Domino]

BM reminds me of my friends, including one who was a delegate for the DNC convention not too long ago.

HATES Repubs to the core, completely bitter about life, barely making ends meet. Worse when she said that she believes that the Repubs will rape and kill her since she is Trans.

The negative outlook of life, the negativity of just every post BM makes. I don't want to be too personal but BM I really think you need to step back from any political. This might cross a line but sometimes I think you might be on the computer too much. I know you are a mod and such but I just think you just aren't happy period and might need to go back to some shmups or go outside to help you clear your mind. Perhaps I am wrong since text don't have any tone. Just hearing stress of most of my friends, some who want to commit suicide due to Trump winning, it is just not good for anyone's health.

On BryanM's quote about me, yes, that is very true. I am pretty libertarian on almost all of the issues, but the average conservatives aren't all dumbass hicks in the woods. Hell, more of my conservative friends were thinking about voting for Bernie than Shillary. I still believe 100% that this was Bernie vs. Trump then Bernie would win no question's ask.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm so sure people voted for Trump because they wanted to cut his taxes.)

Sorry, but rubber is still not meeting road here: the problem is the fact that he advocated another round of upper-end tax cuts didn't instantly disqualify him in the minds of half the electorate. And that's just one thing among many which should have rendered his candidacy completely dead on arrival, but didn't. The fact that he managed to make it onto the primary ballot should have been an enormous warning shot to everyone who actually cares about how the country is run, but then again so should have Election 2000, and everyone seems as determined as ever to keep their heads in the sand on that one, too. The issue is not that a close election was (again) lost: it's that considering whose interests each side represent, no election should be that close in the first place. The issue goes far deeper than most liberals, for some reason I've yet to comprehend, seem willing to acknowledge...but somehow I'm the one "lacking nuance".

Obama was a "socialist" black guy who claimed he wanted universal healthcare and destroyed the election.

...who was, even when he didn't go anywhere near the far-left stuff he was accused of advocating, still mercilessly stonewalled by everyone to the right of, well, Hillary, and voters were by and large completely okay with that. Why in heaven's name wouldn't the exact same thing have happened to President Bernie, especially since they could dig up or make up even more ridiculous stories about the stuff he would propose, assuming he'd even get that far?

Republican voters preferred him over Clinton 2 to 1.

List of republican voters who give a shit about what democrats think: Zero.

How exactly is someone supposed to parse these statements? How many GOP'ers did you think were just aching to vote for Sanders, even before the Jewish New World Order/Individuality Will Be Outlawed/He Hates Successful People nonsense would have inevitably ramped up, even with the margins in the swing states as close as they were (by the by, why aren't more folks taking issue with the "winner take all" structure most states use for electoral votes, which would be far more helpful under any circumstances you could name than anything we could gain from second-guessing the nomination)? Heck, did the thought ever cross your mind that those polled said they "preferred" him because they thought he'd be easier for their party to defeat?

You know we live in a liberal country, like every other country on the planet.

We live in the only "advanced" country in the world which still hasn't demanded, let alone implemented, some form of universal health care. Which still has a sizeable portion of the population freaking out, to the point of determining their vote, over abortion and gay marriage. Which still hasn't figured out - or even tried particularly hard - to give all of its citizens both equal opportunity and equal representation anywhere but on paper. Which still doesn't have some form of mandatory paid leave for workers. Which still thinks climate change is up for debate. Whose leaders, freshly re-elected, are actively and feverishly working to dismantle literally every single gain the non-rich have made over the course of a century. Sorry, I wish it were otherwise, but the rest of the world got the necessary work done on this front a long time ago, and even some of them are having to deal with far-right resurgences (and they had a much closer brush with it in recent history than we did, to boot); exactly what chance would you have given us of putting up anything resembling a real, united front against it?

You're jumping through hoops to defend a crook.

*sigh* Dude, I'm getting really tired of the "if you love Hillary so much, why don't you marry her?" bullshit. Literally nobody thinks Hillary was a great candidate, or anything remotely close to a "game-changer" when it comes to the country's direction, but when you insist "all we had to do was nominate somebody objectively better than Trump", all I can say is "we DID that, and STILL lost". And all I keep hearing back is "E-mails! Speeches! World War 3!" Well, if you really think it was that much of a wash all along, even considering what horrors we're seeing from Team Trump on a daily basis before he even takes office, I honestly don't know what to tell you at this point.

I don't want to be too personal but BM I really think you need to step back from any political.

Appreciate the concern, but the reason I'm negative on a lot of this stuff is because both I and pretty much anyone in a position remotely like mine - i.e. the vast majority of the country, presumably including you - stand to lose a lot over the next several years, and all that can be done to limit the damage - if not now, then next election cycle - is to keep on top of the entire flaming mess and ensure folks know how it happened and place the blame where it belongs. Can it grate? Don't I know it - but no, I'm not in favor of doing anything drastic on either a personal or institutional level (I roll my eyes at the "I'm moving to Canada" set, like everyone else), just gritting one's teeth, facing reality, and ensuring that those responsible for making said reality worse for others aren't able to escape the consequences of their actions. All I can hope is that enough other people are willing to do the same.