Don't blame Stein or Bernie supporters if Trump wins

zn wrote:

I’ll blame them. Shrug. Not that anyone should or will care if I do.

If you are a progressive Trump is clearly worse than the Clinton. That is if you look at policies. And by worse, it’s significantly worse. Not 6 of one half a dozen of the other– worse.

That’s even at the level of economic policies.

And this is not “opinion.” An objective comparison of policies shows the difference.

And I might add, the ones who will be the most screwed over by Trump do not include anyone posting here.

I can’t remember your take on this, ZN. Did you blame Nader for Bush in 2000? I’m guessing you didn’t, but am not sure.

From my research, the folks who did just don’t have a case. First off, our electoral system doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t allow for one state to ever be definitive. It works on cumulative totals, obviously. Bush won 30 states. Gore won 20. Bush doesn’t get to the 271 without all of them. No one state can be definitive, just as a last-second field goal doesn’t actually “win” the game. All the things leading up to that count, too.

Second: even if we go by the premise that Florida was definitive — it can’t be — some 308,000 registered Dems voted directly for Bush. So Nader’s 24,000 votes from likely Dems is dwarfed by that, obviously. And, again, all 50 states have their variables as well. Counterfactuals can’t be cherry-picked and still have some chance at mattering.

Anyway . . . . if the choice is between Clinton and Trump, I hope Trump loses. But I’m not happy with those choices, at all.

I don’t blame them at all.

If the Democrats put up such a crappy candidate that she can’t even beat Donald Trump, they don’t deserve to win.

It HAD to be Hillary. It HAD to be her turn.

If not for her–this wouldn’t even be close. Bernie? Biden? Warren? Hell—almost anyone.

And I say that, as I constantly say–as someone who will vote for her.

But I will never blame the Bernie or Stein supporters if she loses.

As far as Trump being worse? Well–keep in mind he’s a con artist and I don’t believe a thing he says anymore than Clinton making promises to progressives. But on the TPP? Is he better on that? I think so. Hillary makes a statement that she won’t support it, “as is”.

We know what that means.

What about wars?

Trump may start WWIII for all I know. But the way he TALKS about things, he wants less involvement–not more. To me, his recklessness, and dishonesty–and the fact that the faceless Republicans will be doing most of this(Pence) “trump” his talk.

There are a million reasons I don’t trust him and never want to see him be president.

But he is making an appeal to voters who may like some of the things he says. And with the crappy pick the Dems made, it isn’t their fault if people do not vote for her. Doesn’t mean they’ll VOTE for Trump. They may just feel he can’t be much worse if they vote for Stein.

Like you, I’m rolling the dice with Hillary. But I AM rolling the dice.

In the end—if she does lose–I blame the Democratic party.

If the Democrats put up such a crappy candidate that she can’t even beat Donald Trump, they don’t deserve to win.

See this is all rhetoric, which is why I always prefer focus.

You can easily turn that statement around. THat is the reason a Hillary would lose to someone as bad as Trump is because of people voting against the dems and then blaming the dems for it. I see no “truths” there just spin.

I get no consolation out of that particular spin. It just means there are a lot of people who are not calculating how much worse Trump will be.

I am a pragmatist not a purist. Worse is worse. Once I see that clearly—that worse is worse—all the rest is rhetoric to me.

I have never LOVED or APPROVED OF anyone I have ever voted for in my life, and I don’t care about that.

If Trump gets elected things will be so fucked. That’s all I know or care about. You may be able to wrangle around with some folks on this but I;m a lost cause when it comes to that. To me worse is worse and all the rest is just whistling past the graveyard.

Chances are I won’t be able to talk anyone into thing, so really I am not even trying, but on the other side, don’t expect me to patiently listen to anything that ignores “worse is really really genuinely worse.” That’s my focus. All the rest to ME, personally, is just words.

Billy_T wrote:

the shot about “trying to find a dubious truth.” Um, no. That’s not what I was trying to do. I was analyzing the facts on the ground, and just asked for your take on Nader’s role in 2000.

Beyond all of that? We don’t differ on the terrible effects of a Trump presidency. I despise everything he stands for.

I am telling you how things appear to ME. And I get dozens of people telling me “the facts on the ground,” and they’re all different, and all I ever hear in it is spin. For example I have friends who are career published professional political scientists who spin it differently, both from you and from each other, and I also see how all the people behind the different spins all sincerely believe what they gave me was “the truth.” I would even take the considerable time it took to sort it out, but, I can’t climb over this one wall—the wall being, I don’t care.

Of course we both despise Trump. The difference being, maybe, I would never risk, under any circumstances, him being elected. So the minutia and details and different historical spins I hear? I tune it all out.

That’s a fair warning to you about how I personally approach this issue.

And my entire life I have never met anyone who possessed “the truth” on anything when it comes to political vision. I always just see better or worse theories, and clashing assumptions and premises. That’s just how I approach all of this. That’s me.

And my entire life I have never met anyone who possessed “the truth” on anything when it comes to political vision. I always just see better or worse theories, and clashing assumptions and premises. That’s just how I approach all of this. That’s me.

That’s fine. But if you actually do believe no one possesses the truth, then it’s sensible for you not to lead with the claim that someone else is “searching for a dubious truth,” when all I did was use numbers and draw a logical inference from those numbers and our electoral system.

It’s not “spin” to say what is self-evidently the case. Presidents don’t win because of one particular state. Again, just as that last-second field goal can’t possibly “win the game.” And within those states, they don’t win based on third-party votes which don’t even match those lost to Democratic voters who DIRECTLY voted for Bush. By definition, the voting process is cumulative within each state. By definition, the electoral process is cumulative within the nation as a whole.

Those ARE facts. No spin. Just facts.

Billy_T wrote:

And my entire life I have never met anyone who possessed “the truth” on anything when it comes to political vision. I always just see better or worse theories, and clashing assumptions and premises. That’s just how I approach all of this. That’s me.

That’s fine. But if you actually do believe no one possesses the truth, then it’s sensible for you not to lead with the claim that someone else is “searching for a dubious truth,” when all I did was use numbers and draw a logical inference from those numbers and our electoral system.

It’s not “spin” to say what is self-evidently the case. Presidents don’t win because of one particular state. Again, just as that last-second field goal can’t possibly “win the game.” And within those states, they don’t win based on third-party votes which don’t even match those lost to Democratic voters who DIRECTLY voted for Bush. By definition, the voting process is cumulative within each state. By definition, the electoral process is cumulative within the nation as a whole.

Those ARE facts. No spin. Just facts.

BT, all that’s lost on me. I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you. You have no idea how many bright, very knowledgable people make the claim to know facts just facts not spin and they all differ from one another. Differ from one another and differ from you. And when I say this to any of them they all get offended and remind me that their narratives are just true. I tune it out.

I just don’t play the game.

I can give you a perfectly good analogy from football talk. Back in the St. Louis days I read several different guys who attended camp regularly. And there were always times over certain issues where inevitably they all differed on what the facts were. I would point this out and each individually would take offense because each individually KNEW the facts on that issue, even though they all differed. My take was, well to you you may “know the facts” but to me you are all different so I account for that.

Actually when it comes to sorting out the facts over football analysis I am more patient than I am with political history. And actually the different voices talking to me about political history are also different from football in this respect…I care about football. To me the political scientists are all arguing over a sport I don’t even care about. That is, whose narrative of political history is just the facts. They all claim it’s them. But to me it’s like hearing a drawn-out detailed story about baseball when I don’t care about baseball.

So with political history, what I do instead is look at all the highly informed and detailed people telling me opposite things, and I go…I don’t care.

My focus is on the present and what I believe are the choices in the present.

When it comes to the facts of political history, I have many camp reporters trying to get me to “hear” distinctly different, opposed narratives. Every single one of them is offended when I say this to them, too.

I listen to be polite, until I reach “enough” mode, but either way there always comes the time when I have to decide for myself, and the decision for myself is to set priorities and focus. The minutia is just guys arguing over a sport that doesn’t interest me.

Billy_T wrote:

You have no idea how many bright, very knowledgable people make the claim to know facts just facts not spin and they all differ from one another.

Um, well, why would you think I wouldn’t know about that?

Because I was talking about my personal experience with people I know on an individual basis, and, you couldn;t know about that.

That entire post was about how I am personally positioned in this.

I know several dedicated professional political scientists, and as it happens, the last couple of days, on the phone and through email and in facebook PMs, they have all been putting the screws on.

I get competing, different narratives, all claiming to be just the facts I need to account for, and I tell them that I am getting more than one narrative that claims to be the facts I need to account for, and so I cannot help but notice how different they are. And in terms of this conversation with you here, it’s how different they are from each other, and how different you are from each of them. And when I say that to any single individual each individually gets offended.

So my reminder is always this.

I can’t take the time to sort out and debate details because one crucial thing is missing and its absence makes all the difference. That crucial thing is—I don’t care. It’s hard to sort out the details when you’re not interested.

In light of that I draw back and say, this is my real priority, and it absorbs all my energy.

The focus is on the present difference in policies going forward. On the one hand, I will be resigned to more of the patient slow awareness that progress is slow…and that’s the way I have lived this (politics) my entire life. So it’s not new.

On the other hand, there’s clear, regressive, catastrophe where we (as I see it) will lose ground.

That’s my focus and that’s what I tell everyone who is pressuring me at the moment to ascent to their narrative of past facts about past elections.

Enough. It’s cacophony. In contrast the focus is simple and easy.

That’s all I am saying.

…

zn wrote:

Again, how it appears to me.

No it;s not a cliff v. quicksand.

It’s a cliff v. ground that needs to be ploughed.

It’s not catastrophic both directions. It is only catastrophic one direction.

——————-
Yeah, there’s where we disagree. I think its a “cliff vs quicksand”.

No big deal to me ; We just disagree on it.

…and now, if you say ‘you dont know enuff about Trump’,
I will say ‘you dont know enuff about Hillary’….so lets not do that 🙂
w
v

Wow look at all the fear mongering in this thread! President Trump will be transformative in a good way. People have had enough of the establishment and Hildabeast is the establishment. Why would anyone in good conscience vote for someone that stole the nomination? That pissed on the voters in the process? What about all the money spent by the states for an election fraud? How about the message the fraud sends to the people about such a candidate?

Trump now leads in the polls and after the debates will still have a substantial lead. Hildabeast will try to seal it though and that would be unfortunate. Wonder what Bernie was paid to endorse her?

I look at the same clinton-policies and i see
‘quick sand’, destruction of the poor, destruction of the biosphere…blah blah blah.

And I think you’re wrong. In fact I think you’re misreading this whole thing, and it’s not simply a matter of “opinion.”

Certainly there’s nothing utopian or ideal there, with this round of dems.

But the destruction stuff? That’s Trump.

THe right-centrist Dems? It’s more like not doing enough. Or enough of the right things. That’s not destruction. That’s just the usual progress at a slow pace that measures the difference between my youth and the world my daughters live in.

Meanwhile if you are not white or male or straight or christian/or/mainstream, Trump’s policies will directly and materially make the world much, much worse for you. Direct impact stuff.

zn wrote:

I look at the same clinton-policies and i see
‘quick sand’, destruction of the poor, destruction of the biosphere…blah blah blah.

And I think you’re wrong. In fact I think you’re misreading this whole thing, and it’s not simply a matter of “opinion.”

Certainly there’s nothing utopian or ideal there, with this round of dems.

But the destruction stuff? That’s Trump.

THe right-centrist Dems? It’s more like not doing enough. Or enough of the right things. That’s not destruction. That’s just the usual progress at a slow pace that measures the difference between my youth and the world my daughters live in.

Meanwhile if you are not white or male or straight or christian/or/mainstream, Trump’s policies will directly and materially make the world much, much worse for you. Direct impact stuff.

——————–
Yes, i know you think that. We are not covering any new ground
here. Which is fine, but we are just repeating the same stuff here.

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

I’m not trying to talk anyone into anything, rather I’m letting other Rams fans know that this place isn’t the Communist Corner of Purity since I post here and they could too.

bnw,

Sheesh, man. You should have quit while you were behind. Now you’re edging past JBS/paranoid, red-baiting territory, which was puerile, fascist garbage back in the 1950s. It’s all the worse for age and wasn’t any better in the original German.

You need to own it. You said communist is what you desire but not what was presented during the cold war. That is why I used it. Your memory is failing you.

bnw wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I’m not trying to talk anyone into anything, rather I’m letting other Rams fans know that this place isn’t the Communist Corner of Purity since I post here and they could too.

bnw,

Sheesh, man. You should have quit while you were behind. Now you’re edging past JBS/paranoid, red-baiting territory, which was puerile, fascist garbage back in the 1950s. It’s all the worse for age and wasn’t any better in the original German.

You need to own it. You said communist is what you desire but not what was presented during the cold war. That is why I used it. Your memory is failing you.

Own what? Your potted version of “communism”? Sorry. Not gonna do it. And you know that’s not the point anyway. It’s your red-baiting, out of nowhere, for no reason. Because you have no argument so you thought you had to lash out, blindly, and try to mock and bait the people here.

I’m a socialist. A libertarian socialist. And I see the end goal of actual “communism” as a noble one. It means the absence of the state. It goes much, much further than the right’s “minarchism” in that respect. But it gets there via true democracy and the end of all class divisions, all concentrations of wealth, power, access and privilege. It gets there by ending the class system, period.

That’s the opposite of the right’s plan, which would end up with a few billionaire warlords running the show and the most tyrannical ruling class in history.

I also know human beings are natural small “c” communists and always have been. So my desire for the human race is that it evolves enough to live in harmony with the planet and itself. It will never do that as long as the right runs the show. It will always be in opposition to the best we humans can be, and the earth, as long as the right is in charge.