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So you agree with the sheriff who says it’s wrong to protest the verdict?
I want you to read that WHOLE post again and determine where i made such a statement.
When you can do that, we’ll continue.I know you didn’t say that. I’m asking ya if you do agree with him, though. It’s a separate question from your post, etc.
Sounded more like, “Do you still beat your wife?”
No, I don’t agree with him. It’s our inalienable right to protest whatever we want.
That said, it’s a stupid protest. Democracy is what those people want, unless it goes against their wishes.The electoral college is fundamentally anti-democratic. As mentioned elsewhere, it cancels out your vote, if you voted for the losing candidate in that particular state. Even if you chose the person who collected the most votes nationally, your vote was basically nullified. It becomes meaningless.
And it IS a vote for president of the entire country. It’s not for governor or senator. Holding individual contests per state is bizarre, and it’s goes back to 1804, when the nation was just the East Coast.
I’m actually really happy to see those protests. It’s a great sign, as far as I’m concerned, that a good portion of the country isn’t insane. To strip away all of the nuance and detail of extended debate on our current politics, I’ll just say this:
Voting for Trump was insane, in my view. Americans had lousy choices from both halves of the duopoly. But choosing Trump between the two parties was pure madness.
But hey. At least now, hopefully, that corporatist Clintonista bullshit is dead and we can go back to work on the progressive agenda. Hopefully.
That’s pretty good, Nittany.
But I’m not getting Mac’s comment, really. How could the existent of the Clintons prevent “progressives” from working on their agenda? It didn’t stop Sanders or Warren. To me, it’s still far too weak tea. We need something much stronger than the “progressive movement.” We’re not going to solve this mess until we get rid of THE main cause:
capitalism.
Having an economic system in which the few get to own the many is not amenable to any effective “reform,” and it’s set up to either prevent that reform in the first place, or if it slips by to snuff it out all too soon. Letting a few people own a ton of other people is morally reprehensible, and that’s capitalism in a nutshell. Aside from ownership, it’s designed to concentrate wealth (which means power) at the very top, sucking it up from everyone else, and unify all markets. This also requires massive government intrusion and the coordination of governments around the world.
It’s the opposite of “freedom and liberty,” the phony battle cry of its supporters. Unless one is talking solely about “freedom and liberty” for the super rich.
That’s my take, anyway. Good use of Yoda, though.
;>)
I tend not to invest in what comedians say about politics but what he said in part Tuesday night struck home w/ me.
“This is a moment for people to understand that political involvement is a
responsibility. It’s not just words on paper. You can opt out of voting
but you cannot opt out of the effects of your lack of action. It’s important
to not lose heart.”Personally, I don’t think we are now somehow “done”. I choose to view this as the
last bullet in the rural white man’s six shooter to defend against the country’s changing and darker complexion and a pie in the sky hope to somehow change our evolving culture.Waterfield,
It’s also the result of a highly successful campaign by the super-rich to scapegoat people of color. It’s worked. Far too many white people blame those people of color for supposedly stealing their jobs and lowering their wages, and Trump exploited this already existing belief effectively. The cultural aspects of seeing one’s unquestioned status as top dog slip away is another factor. It’s an extension of what we saw in the Jim Crow South among poor and middle class whites. They once could always look at black people and think or say out loud, “Well, at least I’m not them.”
Bottom line: Instead of looking up at the people really screwing them — billionaires like Trump, corporate America, and both of the major parties working for those financial elites — they just blame people of color and one half of the duopoly. They’ve been fed so much bullshit propaganda, they can’t see straight, and they’re so filled with paranoia, they refuse to hear otherwise.
Both parties have failed these people and the rest of us. But they both work for the super-rich, with few exceptions, and too many people on the right are oblivious of this fact. Instead, they think their enemies are unions, public sector workers, feminists, environmentalists, leftists, liberals and people of color — here and overseas. They have their skepticism and paranoia meters preset to register only one small part of the whole, while turning it off entirely for the super-rich and their fellow right-wingers in general.
In short, they’ve been bamboozled.
Man, I love that quote! Have never seen it before. But it’s so . . . . cosmically aware. With a little bit of comically aware to boot.
bnw,
Heard Chris Christie last night admit — and he’s not the only person from Trump’s circle to do this — they didn’t think they were ahead going into the race either. Their own internal polling had them behind. He said their polling did have them a point or two better than the public polls. But still behind.
It’s a mistake to view the polling as some kind of conspiracy against Trump. Remember, it also includes right-wing polling like Fox News and Rasmussen. They had Clinton winning going in, and at times in this race, up by double digits. It’s also quite possible that a commanding lead, even a steady one, provokes apathy and drives down voter participation. That helps Trump.
(Overall voting was down from 2012. As of this morning, seven million fewer Dems showed up, apparently. I didn’t catch the most recent totals for Trump, yet, but since he lost the popular vote, and he doesn’t even have as many as Romney’s losing total, it’s likely GOP turnout was down, too.)
Very few people, across the political spectrum, predicted a Trump victory. This guy was one of them:
Whenever I looked into the methodology of polls that showed Hildabeast so far ahead I always noticed an absurd oversampling of democrat voters. That and the fact that she couldn’t draw any crowds on her own once she got the nomination while Trump filled every venue everywhere in this nation to overflowing for a year and a half, and as I posted months ago that when I traveled I only saw Trump signs everywhere and many of those signs were home made. Thats why I never believed the polls that said he was behind.
If Democratic turnout had reached 2012 levels, that methodology would have been more than solid. And that’s how they typically do it. They go based upon the previous election breakdown, and update for population increases. What ended up happening — at least from what we know now — is that fewer (by 7 million) Dems turned up at the polls than they did for Obama in 2012. That’s why the polling was wrong. Not because of the way they set up the (sampling) differences between the parties.
And, remember, Clinton won the popular vote. Trump got fewer total votes. And I’m guessing, when all the counting is finished, she’s going to have a nearly 2 point advantage there.
As for crowds. Historically, those have been poor indicators for elections. Sarah Palin, for instance, would draw huge crowds in some places for John McCain. But Obama beat them decisively. Of course, he did pretty well in that realm too. But I don’t think we can make accurate assessments about a country this diverse, this large, if we go by partisans turning out for speeches.
That’s my take, anyway.
The silver lining is that…hopefully…the progressives who are mad as hell and motivated with Bernie’s run (and many kept at it through the election) will take the mantle and keep fighting and can now do so without the DNC cockblocking them.
Cuz…fuck the corporate sellout DNC. They’ve been slamming progressives…even co-opting the progressive moniker while taking on virtually no actual progressive positions…even engaging in slimy character assassination that would make Karl Rove proud…all so that they could keep those corporate bucks rolling in.
Margin call, bitches.
Now is the time to get to do the REAL, Progressive work and hopefully not have to deal with any more DNC, centrist interference.
In my view, it’s past time for progressives, too. They’re better than centrists, who are in turn better than wingnuts. But we need stronger medicine than progressivism, and that needs to come from the anticapitalist, radical egalitarian left.
Our only real hope to achieve social justice is to shit-can the current economic system entirely, IMO. It’s also the only way we’re going to be able to save this planet for wildlife and ourselves.
