It's the 10 year anniversary of Bush jr's re-election!

[Mischief Maker]

This country has learned NOTHING!

[BryanM]

It has, just only with the people who grew up in that era.

The abortion wedge issue is still their #1 tool. Demonstrated in the horrible slur of "Abortion Barbie" against Davis. 40% of their voting base demographic are white evangelical protestants. This ancient Romney/Obama demographic shows the long tail ahead of us.

It's easy to get discouraged after midterm elections with their low turnout. But. The trendline is still against crazy, though it'll still be a few decades before it's gone.

This reminds me that the Dark Dungeons movie is out now..

[trap15]

Yeehaw

[Blackbird]

Voting in my area boiled down to a choice between a proven crook and someone who believes that minorities shouldn't enjoy basic human rights. Depressing -_-.

[Acid King]

"Abortion Barbie"

I would purchase this product.

[Xyga]

Are there people who actually miss him ?

Anyway back to the present. How about we trade Presidents for a few years ?

(We get Barack you get François. Please say yes.)

[BryanM]

Voting in my area boiled down to a choice between a proven crook and someone who believes that minorities shouldn't enjoy basic human rights.

Everyone knows you pick Douche over Turd Sandwich. Who would want to eat a disgusting turd? While the douche has lots of under-appreciated uses.

Are there people who actually miss him ?

Yes, there definitely are. God knows there's enough people who want to start a ground war with Iran. Polls frequently result in 40% of respondents that want to kill the shit out of them for their imaginary nuclear weapons program that doesn't exist. (This sounds somewhat familiar.... nah, I must be imagining things, that can't be right...)

About 20% of any population results in blood gurgling sociopaths who want to crush foreigners, hear the lamentations of their women, and loot their stuff. This is a reason getting a government to do something... non-sociopathic is so damn hard. You don't have to convince 60% of the population. You have to convince 75% of the 80% who are sane.

(We get Barack you get François. Please say yes.)

I consent to this. Pull the trigger, make it happen.

[soprano1]

We get... Pinocchio with different man-skin every 4 years.
Oh, here's something interesting for people in the US: Even though my country has more than two parties (even 2 communist parties!), for the last 40 years of democracy (we had 50 or something years of a dictatorship going on before) only 2 parties have been so far in power. Does anything similar happen in other European countries?

[Xyga]

Yeah same pattern in most cuntries, sometimes with a close third periodically getting more votes when people wake up a bit and realize the 'big two' suck.
Problem is the third party is sometimes a fucking den of barely undercover nazis.

[GaijinPunch]

Give it two years, it will be all democrat again.

1) People think the world is shit and blame the current party
2) Votes in the other party
3) Rinse->Repeat

I'd really like to see on paper what is so bad now compared to 2 & 6 years ago. Also the fact that only 1% of middle class and up Americans really grasp the (lack of) NHS problem generally means that will always be a thorn in the ass.

[BryanM]

Well if it makes anyone feel better, you can glance at some races where voter suppression could have been the determining factor. I know that always cheers me up.

[rapoon]

It has, just only with the people who grew up in that era.

.

agreed, and with the remainder there's an overwhelming sense of apathy (conscious effort?)

hate the be a prick and make broad, absurd generalizations but concerning millennials, where is the
rebellious, anti-authoritarian, independent spark so characteristic of gen-xers? that's really an entirely
different discussion, but the point i'm make here is that as we 'progress' forward, move further up the echelon,
the responsibility to question decisions made by the/any administration is diluted.

and, republicans swept texas. big fucking surprise /s. and i wouldn't be a bit surprised if they're engaged
in some sneaky shit equivalent (voter id law???) to the illegal redistricting many years ago.
but, a win is a win is a win and perry being out is a win. fuck him.

[Ed Oscuro]

It's pretty much as expected. I'm happy that the Republicans didn't get especially big sweeps anywhere - yes, they do control the Senate now, but perhaps for only a couple years. They didn't pick up huge numbers of seats in the House or governorships. Not a great result, but pretty much exactly as expected.

[CMoon]

Give it two years, it will be all democrat again.

1) People think the world is shit and blame the current party
2) Votes in the other party
3) Rinse->Repeat

My only issue with this is that everything now seems clear that Gore got elected instead of Bush. The real sequence should have been Clinton - Gore - Obama, although it is impossible to say how things would have really played out if Gore had fought for the recount. The real problem with a switch in parties every 4 years or so is that the demographics of the US are changing in a way that is not represented by republicans. American desperately needs two viable parties, but as things stand, I don't really expect republicans to win another presidential race unless the democrats completely cripple themselves. As far as mid-terms, let's face it, young people don't have the time to get angry and vote, and without the hype, they aren't going to show up to the mid-terms.

[Mischief Maker]

I don't really expect republicans to win another presidential race unless the democrats completely cripple themselves.

Democrats excel at that!

[Domino]

It was pretty bad in Florida Gov race where you got a John Kerry Waffle House and a guy with fraud-stigma on him with the blahhhhh. It is ok since I didn't vote for either one of them. Too bad the Weed Amendment didn't make it to 60% yes. But give it a few years and I expect it to vote with 60% in the future.

Too many people I know voted for the lesser of two evils in the FL Gov race. The guy who won is who many voted for....

The best part is when Facebook is blowing up of pretty much attacks against friends. One said Repubs will kill the LGBT population and kill ACA and they are scum, and one stated the Demojackasses is making the cost of living to go up the roof.

Oh the fun........

Give it two years, it will be all democrat again.

1) People think the world is shit and blame the current party
2) Votes in the other party
3) Rinse->Repeat

I'd really like to see on paper what is so bad now compared to 2 & 6 years ago. Also the fact that only 1% of middle class and up Americans really grasp the (lack of) NHS problem generally means that will always be a thorn in the ass.

To be quite honest I don't know anymore. I'm sick of the Demojackasses/Repubs regularness to be honest. Lets get Bernie Sanders to run for President oh yes I would buy popcorn to see that happening.

[BulletMagnet]

I don't really expect republicans to win another presidential race unless the democrats completely cripple themselves.

Democrats excel at that!

The fact that such a brutish plutocratic goon squad as the modern-day Republican party leadership even exists, let alone wins elections, is a testament to how completely feckless and ineffectual American liberalism has become, insofar as it even exists anymore.

[Domino]

I don't really expect republicans to win another presidential race unless the democrats completely cripple themselves.

Democrats excel at that!

The fact that such a brutish plutocratic goon squad as the modern-day Republican party leadership even exists, let alone wins elections, is a testament to how completely feckless and ineffectual American liberalism has become, insofar as it even exists anymore.

There are the goon squad in the Democrat party as well, it's called the Democrat Senate Leaders. Shutters when I think about Harry Reid and Chuck Smuck, oh I mean Chuck Schumer.

[The Coop]

(We get Barack you get François. Please say yes.)

I consent to this. Pull the trigger, make it happen.

Nice going. You just got this site flagged by the FBI for using "trigger" when referencing someone mentioning Obama. Now it's being monitored for deletion because it's a site about shoot 'em ups.

[Ed Oscuro]

Get out the vote efforts obviously didn't happen, and probably were much more influential than the voter suppression. Battleground Texas seems to have been an abject failure, for instance.

Too bad the Weed Amendment didn't make it to 60% yes. But give it a few years and I expect it to vote with 60% in the future.

We're up to 18M Americans living in weed-legal territories now.

One said Repubs will kill the LGBT population and kill ACA and they are scum

Don't know about the LGBT thing, but stunts like this would give me pause. They were for it before they were against it, you know. Mischief Maker has a good point about the Dems, but - in stories like this you often see somebody using the old phrase "the dog knows he's been kicked." Well, people keep getting kicked and they keep not realizing who it is (look at the picture of the protester blaming Obama for the Mississippi governor's shenanigans).

Eric from Redstate had a kind-of interesting view of the Republican victory:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... 12463.html
Long story short, he sees the Republicans taking a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach at the cost of the party base and activists. I'm not sure it's an unwise strategy - certainly not for the people getting rich running campaigns - politicians aren't much different from anybody else, sitting around in smoke until they see the fire, and then rushing to put it out.

I'm more interested to see what the Democratic strategy should be like.

[BulletMagnet]

Long story short, he sees the Republicans taking a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach at the cost of the party base and activists.

Rush Limbaugh stated in no uncertain terms the other day that Republicans were not elected to govern, they were elected to make life hell for Obama: in otherwords, if you were expecting any "strategy" to end Congress's stagnation apart from "until the Dems totally surrender on everything we won't do squat, and it'll be totally their fault, because we have a mandate to be obstructionist" I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention.

I'm more interested to see what the Democratic strategy should be like.

At this point almost anything besides "nearly as in thrall to corporate interests as the GOP, but not quite" would be an improvement.

[Captain]

[CMoon]

I was looking for a good article to express this sentiment: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... -unpopular

On a really fundamental level, I don't get why people are so upset with Obama and the democrats in general right now. That said, my general view of politicians in general is like asking chimps to write shakespeare. It is very likely you will never get what you want and more than likely the outcome will be pretty undesirable. Regardless, most of the issues I have with our current government stem directly from our non-functional congress that is, you guessed it, the product of republicans cock blocking every single thing that doesn't service their rich corporate constituents, which brings me to this second url and why the most important change our government could make would be criminalizing corporate influence in government: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/jon- ... big-money/

[BryanM]

although it is impossible to say how things would have really played out if Gore had fought for the recount.

It was incredibly fucked up that the supreme court decided who won.

> If the butterfly ballot wasn't used in Palm Beach, Gore won.
> If Gore asked for a FULL recount, instead of the partial one he did, and the supreme court had a scrap of justice in it, rather than just being an extension of the political parties, Gore won.
> If the Supreme Court didn't decide that Florida election law doesn't count this one special time only, Gore won.

That the margin was in the margin of error (except in the universe where Palm Beach got a normal friggin ballot) means we had Schrödinger's president either way.

That the worn out machines that couldn't punch a hole through paper to make sure all the votes of Santorum's so-called "blah people" would only count in a hand recount were used, well... same shit, different year. Gerrymander, suppress votes, control courts, win.

Democrats excel at that!

They suuure do. 2014 election: People love the democratic platform, they just hate democrats.

Maybe they'd be more likable if they ran on the democratic platform instead of looking like oily snakes that only care about poll numbers. That inept bullshit where Grimes acted like Obama was cancer and didn't bring up that Kynect = Obamacare, pathetic.

Obama pretending to only support "civil unions" but not marriage was pretty dumb too. It's not like republicans aren't straight forward about what they want to do.

Lets get Bernie Sanders to run for President oh yes I would buy popcorn to see that happening.

I'm optimistic and give him a 10% chance of winning the democratic primary if he runs. We didn't want Hilary in 2008, we won't want her in 2016.

It's somewhat nice that primary voters are more engaged. It was funny though when Democrats ran a tv ad saying "Todd Akin is too conservative for Missouri" and they gobbled that shit up. With the inevitable bomb he dropped later because Todd Akin gonna Todd Akin.

(For the record, Todd Akin regrets apologizing for his "legitimate rape" comments.)

Battleground Texas seems to have been an abject failure, for instance.

I've gotta disagree. Wendy had no chance in hell of winning in 2014, she was always going to take a dive.

They have to look at the long tail. It isn't about 2014, it's about 2020 and beyond. We've seen seismic shifts before (Kansas being the heart of liberalism, Texas being a swing state); that can't happen in the timespan of two years.

[Ed Oscuro]

Maybe Battleground Texas did something good, but we heard a lot of people saying good things about Project ORCA after the fact, too.

The "I'm a Democrat running against Obama" thing really was pretty stupid overall. In most every state and race besides a few like maybe Virginia / West Virginia, I don't think there were people who were interested in the candidates without Obama. It's not clear whether the problem was just that it was not a Presidential election year, or that Obama wasn't on the ticket one way or another.

[BryanM]

It's about getting people registered, and getting the state from a state of a non-voting state to a kinda-voting state. My understanding was the organization was going to continue for about a decade, no?

It was absolutely retarded of them to act like he was the modern George Bush. Read a poll, omg he's got low approval numbers, don't let him stump for meh and raise people's awareness that I exist. It's like, god. Maybe infer deeper than that one question, you know? Like, maybe not everyone who's in the disapprove column isn't a hate filled racist New Republic-flavored turd sandwich, maybe they're just disappointed he isn't allowed to do anything positive? Instead of running against the guy, maybe try running ahead of the guy?

[BulletMagnet]

On a really fundamental level, I don't get why people are so upset with Obama and the democrats in general right now.

Because if a liberal (or should I say "liberal") dares to act on anything he's "hyper-partisan" or "anti-compromise" or "tyrannical", and if he takes a back seat he's a "flip-flopper" or "too busy golfing" or "refuses to lead". There is literally nothing Obama could do outside of resigning the office, publicly shooting himself in the head and appointing Emperor Cheney in his place that would earn anything resembling praise from his opposition...and more importantly, pretty much nobody of any importance seems to see any reason to point this out, let alone put forth any manner of criticism of how cynical and damaging this setup is (and how the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world would be screaming bloody murder to this day if Pelosi had taken the same "our only job is to make life hell for him" attitude towards Bush that McConnell has towards Obama).

[Domino]

On a really fundamental level, I don't get why people are so upset with Obama and the democrats in general right now.

Terrible policies, a mess the ACA is currently is right now, gun control, blame the rich for everything, higher taxes, blah blah blah. You can change a few things around and you get people are so upset with the Republican party.

When people are hurting they are hurting. Some people don't care if you have a R or D in front of your name they just want to vote the current people out. Both sides will attack each other but at least from my perspective both parties are equally worthless.

[gameoverDude]

*double post, sorry

[gameoverDude]

It's sad that voters aren't willing to give the third party candidates a try other than voting Demoblican/Repocrat. This would help break the D/R/D/R seesaw of blame by allowing other choices.