Democrats and Republicans are essentially the same

where is the option for "i am a nerd who wants to explain my position on this in several paragraphs"

Outsider view: Aren't they pretty much the same except some like to kill doctors who perform abortions?

trolly morbsbait

where is the option for "i am a nerd who wants to explain my position on this in several paragraphs"

DAMMIT

lol max otm :/

https://store.robotlove.biz/image/MYSD%20nice%20try%20card%201.jpg

voted agree 'cause I do, though I know enthusiastic democrats at this point have a reliable script to which they resort on this q

let me know when that script defines a difference between "nobody gets prosecuted for torture" and the democratic version of same, which reads "nobody gets prosecuted for torture"

voted disagree cause there are plenty of issues important to me beyond 'do people get prosecuted for torture' and on a considerable amount of those issues, democrats and republicans disagree.

right, like whether federal health care should include reproductive services, another key issue on which the two agree 100%

Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly:
How to Unify the Political Right with a Third Party that Can Win

By Nelson Hultberg

New Revised Edition, Softcover, 112 pgs., $11.95

We are taught in school that the strength of the American political system lies in the fact that we have a "two-party process." This is akin to teaching that babies come from storks. It is a fairy tale we spin out to avoid messy details of reality we prefer not to face.

The reality is that America is now a one-party state. The Democratic and Republican parties have become nothing but two divisions of the same party -- the Central Leviathan Party. Both divisions are lap dogs for the special interests. No matter who wins, we always get more spending, more taxes, more inflation, more bureaucracies, more wars, and LESS FREEDOM.

The Demopublicans now tax over 50% of our earnings every year. They steal hundreds of billions from our savings through currency debasement. They have brought us a national debt of over $8 trillion. They have saddled us with $45 trillion in unfunded liabilities to come due on the backs of our children. They have bankrupted us as a nation. They are consuming the freedom and the substance of our lives like a swarm of locusts consumes a golden wheat field.

There is only one hope for meaningful reform. Americans must challenge this overweening prodigality with a third political party. But it must be a real third party that can actually pose a threat to the Demopublicans' monopolistic rule.

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Here are just some of the valuable insights (provided in non-technical language) that you will find in Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly:

* Why America is rapidly evolving into a system of economic fascism.
* How the Great Depression came about and why our schools teach it falsely.
* Why an economic mega-crisis is looming up ahead, and why we must have a viable third party in place to confront it.
* Why our growing debt addiction will engulf us like a Tsunami sweeping over a seaside village.
* How the federal government is "cooking the books" just like Enron did so as to hide the truth from the people.
* What the "Two Pillars Strategy" is and why it will revolutionize politics in America.
* What the crucial "tax key" is that, once enacted, will reverse the culture of spending in Washington and end the tyrannical growth of government.
* How to easily stop illegal aliens from swarming into America.
* The real reason our manufacturing jobs are leaving America to go overseas.
* Why Republicans always get corrupted in Washington and lose their stomach for a freedom fight.
* Why we need a message far more powerful than Buckleyite urbanities and Wall Street Journal cliches to promote the cause of freedom.
* Today's battle lies, as it did in 1776, between the New Sons of Liberty and the complacent Tories of the establishment.

We can restore the free, Constitutional system that the Founders envisioned. But in order to do so we have to start thinking outside the box. We need a fresh and radical approach that attacks the source of the Leviathan's growth and also corrects the two fundamental strategy flaws of all third parties. The means to accomplish this are laid out simply and clearly in Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly.

What the Demopublican power structure in Washington fears most are independent men and women who refuse to go along with the regimentation of their society and the erosion of their freedom. If you the reader are possessed of this kind of independence, if you are fed up with the Darth Vaders of the Potomac riding around in black limousines and confiscating still more of your money, rights and freedom, this book is for you. Read and disseminate its message. America's hope is in your hands.

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Make checks out to: Americans for a Free Republic

About the Author

Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas, a graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, and the Executive Director of Americans for a Free Republic. His articles have appeared in publications such as The Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio Express-News, Insight, The Freeman, Liberty, The Social Critic, and on many Internet sites such as Free Market News, Financial Sense Online, WorldNetDaily, and SafeHaven. He is the author of Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax and the IRS (1997) and a soon to be released work on political philosophy titled, The Golden Mean: The Case for Libertarian Politics and Conservative Values.

What They Are Saying about This Book:

Many of us can recall the works of John T. Flynn (among others) in the 1940s and 50s, in defense of limited government, gold-based currency, and equal rights for all. Mr. Hultberg's work reminds us again of the importance and soundness of the principles set forth with such eloquence fifty years ago, and gives forewarning of the dire consequences of ignoring them. Mr. Hultberg pulls us out of the economic dream-world in which so many Americans live today.

-- Dr. John Hospers, Professor Emeritus
Former Chairman of the Philosophy Department
University of Southern California

Mr. Hultberg does far more than playing the role of a latter-day Cassandra in exposing the greatest danger Western civilization has ever faced. He offers a program to reverse the historical tide of collectivism. The vision of Mr. Hultberg is breathtaking. Yet it is no more impossible than was the vision a quarter of a century ago that the Soviet Union and its Evil Empire could be overthrown virtually without bloodshed.

-- Dr. Antal E. Fekete, Director
Lips Institute, Zurich, Switzerland
Author of Monetary Economics 101

This is a wonderful book. Nelson Hultberg is right on the mark when he points to the need for a third party, which can unite conservatives and libertarians in a common political front. Hultberg's plan can be effective, even if Congressman Paul does not do what we hope he will, by extending his campaign beyond the Republican primaries in 2008.

-- Dr. Paul Gottfried, Professor of Humanities,
Elizabethtown College, Author of Conservatism
in America: Making Sense of the American Right

The two-party system is one of the main forces driving America to ruin. We desperately need a viable third party to break the Demopublican monopoly and get us onto a saner path. Unfortunately too many independents, conservatives, and libertarians live in an alternative universe, ignoring political realities. Hultberg, by contrast, realizes that we have to start where people are. His political realism is just what the doctor ordered.

-- Dr. John Attarian, Author of
Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis

This is an excellent work that offers a powerful plan to reconstitute a party of liberty that -- if adopted -- would drastically reduce the size of government in an "incremental" way, which is the only workable strategy. Nelson Hultberg may be one of the educators we someday come to thank.

-- Gregory Bresiger
Business Writer and Editor, Traders Magazine

The only way to shrink the size of any government is to deprive it of nourishment, and that is what AFR hopes to do with a two-pronged attack on the nation's monetary system and revenue generating apparatus. Everyone who is seriously interested in knocking the two main parties from their pedestal and creating a constitutionally limited democratic republic should wish Nelson Hultberg and his colleagues well in their endeavor.

-- Jerome Tuccille, Author of 21 books
Including "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand"

As Nelson Hultberg shows, our country is hurtling towards Mussolini's Economic Fascism. Big business, big government, the money-center banks and the financial press are so intertwined, they have corrupted our formerly free financial markets and free financial market press. This is leading us down a devastating path and must be exposed. Now is the time to implement Mr. Hultberg's incremental plan to give Americans a viable alternative to the present choices in our political system when financial market chaos strikes in the upcoming years.

-- Bill Murphy, Chairman
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee

Bull's eye! Nelson Hultberg has hit the target dead on with this latest work. Like a skilled surgeon, he lays open the root cause of the cancer that has afflicted this nation for too long. Not content with merely diagnosing the disease, Hultberg harnesses his keenly insightful analysis to articulate a thoughtful and achievable cure. All those who love liberty and long for true, limited government, as bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers, must read this book.

-- Dan Norcini, Market analyst
LeMetropoleCafe.com

Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly is a manual for realistically achievable political change in the U.S. Its core truth can be summed up in one single quote: "Without a credible third party in the [US presidential] race, dictatorship looms over the horizon." Nothing said in U.S. politics over the past 100 years has been more true! Nelson Hultberg points his finger at all the pitfalls that have ensnared third-party attempts in the past, and offers an ingenious set of practical, do-able solutions. Nothing will stop this train once it gets moving!

-- Alex Wallenwein, Editor & Publisher,
The Euro vs Dollar Currency War Monitor

After reading Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly, a quote from Henry David Thoreau comes to mind: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." This simple, yet elegant political platform, in my view, strikes at the root of the problem.

-- Dave Lewis, Founder and Publisher
Chaos-onomics.com

Obviously, something must be done if we are ever to save the Republic. Hultberg clearly shows the problems inherent with the current third parties in their attempts to turn things around. And he correctly advocates that frustrated activists put together a new effort with a specific economic message that can appeal to supporters of both groups of migrating Republicans and disenfranchised Democrats.

-- Tom DeWeese, President
American Policy Center

Nelson Hultberg offers not only an inspiring vision, but a practical plan to end the seemingly never-ending expansion of government and to restore the current "One-Party-Masquerading-as-Two" American political system to one of fairness, integrity and perhaps most importantly, sound fiscal policy. I would urge anyone not 100 percent thrilled with the illusion of political choice available today to take a look at Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly.

-- Mark M. Rostenko, Editor
The Sovereign Strategist

Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly, by Nelson Hultberg, clearly illustrates the serious situation facing this republic. A wonderful overview, Mr. Hultberg's book provides a solution to this ongoing crisis. We can take back America. Indeed, there is hope, but Americans must take action now if we are to avoid political and economic turmoil.

-- Peter Spina, Owner
GoldSeek.com & SilverSeek.com

To order copies of Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly
using credit cards, click below

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Call your credit card order in at: 1-888-404-2155

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The "Inconvenient Man" movie about Ralph Nader in 2000 is really a sad look into the general election. The bit about the debates is the saddest of all. Basically that shit is chosen by some TV executive.

thank god for ralph nader, what would the 2000 elections have been like without him

yes, what an awesome world we'd live in if the evil villain ralph nader hadn't robbed al gore of the presidency...think of the idyllic wonderland we'd all be enjoying now without evil ralph

'essentially' being key word here, but yes, i think 90% of what happens in this country/world happens regardless of which party is in office, and the other 10% is either some trivial b.s. or the result of corruption/bad influence which affects all politicians equally regardless of party affiliation

well then sleepingbag I guess my question to you is why do you hate freedom

i wuv freedom! that's why i wuv this country. because pretty much no matter who's in charge, they ain't coming after me. until they do.

Heh, thats "An Unreasonable Man", not "Inconvenient Man".

voted agree 'cause I do, though I know enthusiastic democrats at this point have a reliable script to which they resort on this q

let me know when that script defines a difference between "nobody gets prosecuted for torture" and the democratic version of same, which reads "nobody gets prosecuted for torture"

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 10:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

voted disagree cause there are plenty of issues important to me beyond 'do people get prosecuted for torture' and on a considerable amount of those issues, democrats and republicans disagree.

― iatee, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 11:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

right, like whether federal health care should include reproductive services, another key issue on which the two agree 100%

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

j0hn, youre smarter than this

democrats are people that do awful shit in govt for the right reasons.

republicans are people that do awful shit in govt for the wrong reasons

no I'm not max, I know you're passionate about the small-gains game and stuff but to my mind boil the stuff down and the difference is Democrats talk a game I like and play one I dislike, Republicans talk a game I dislike and play the game they talk

uh i prefer j0hn's description actually. maybe i should say dems do awful things for the 'right' reasons.

not usually tbh

Dems don't do anything for the wrong reasons.

or rather: Dems do nothing, for the wrong reasons.

was this thread really necessary though!

(max you should seriously put me on ignore for this from the exact moment Obama said "not one penny for abortion" in the SOTU, btw, because my ability to be rational about it evaporated in that moment - big visceral "fuck you for pissing on ideological ground people gave their lives to gain" happened for me then and no about of parsing the broader game is gonna make up for conceding the philosophical edge there (which, mind, is in fact a practical issue imo) and the disinterest of democratic partisans in the q makes it even worse)

(no amount of parsing the broader game)

im not going to put you on ignore and im not even disagreeing with you--just saying there are better arguments for 'essentially the same' than 'both parties refuse to prosecute torturers and neither party will give federal money to abortion'

think of the idyllic wonderland we'd all be enjoying now without evil ralph

For one thing, some of the "stfu if you won't swear fealty to the Dems" crowd would be driving deathtraps.

in any even this is a question that depends two things 1) how do we define dems vs. republicans (elected officials? party platforms? registered voters?) and 2) ones pov w/r/t ideology

it's a deathtrap
it's a suicide rap
we got get out while we're old
cause tramps like us
baby we were born to trollllllllllllllll

(for morbz)

Wait, now you're telling me Ralph Nader cheated me out of owning my own deathtrap?

Oh, you mean it would have killed ME, don't you. Never mind.

Mr Que, user of seatbelts, ladies & germs

I voted no because Republicans are the bully assholes that beat kids up and Dems are the bully assholes' friends who wouldn't otherwise beat kids up, but, y'know, since first punch was thrown we can get away with it right?

in any even this is a question that depends two things 1) how do we define dems vs. republicans (elected officials? party platforms? registered voters?) and 2) ones pov w/r/t ideology

just ftr, I was deliberately vague about this because I wanted to see which default position people would go to on these questions

the new Dodge Deathtrap, now equipped with a razorblade gearshift

haha i know you were dan thats why im not going to vote and probably enver going to answer conclusively

see what a couple hundred grand and an english degree will get you? endless hedging!

the new Dodge Deathtrap, now equipped with a razorblade gearshift

a razorblade geirshift amirite

i still disagree that they are the same ... though i confess that it IS getting harder to tell the difference in some very important things (e.g., torturing POWs, bailing out and taking mad cash from Wall Street). i attribute some of this "lack of the difference" to the ONE thing where there still IS an undeniable difference b/w the two parties -- that the Democrats have no balls.

Mr Que, user of seatbelts, ladies & germs

i voted for Nader in 2000, fyi

these labels were invented for politicians. citizens accept them for themselves via the equivalent of a gun at the head.

or an overblown metaphor

im not going to put you on ignore and im not even disagreeing with you--just saying there are better arguments for 'essentially the same' than 'both parties refuse to prosecute torturers and neither party will give federal money to abortion'

how I do my math: 1) what issues are most important to me? 2) what is the position of the parties on these issues, once you've done whatever sifting you can do of what they say vs. how they vote? both parties imo are chiefly interested in power; what drives/inspires them to want that power is something we probably differ on. my main point of interest in it is "who will these people sell out to maintain power, setting aside for a second the question of why they want to maintain power?" the answer is usually "women first" and post-Bush we have an extra "also, people held without charge & tortured" which really I mean...you should completely ignore me, because my honest opinion is, any politician who isn't willing to stake his entire career on righting that wrong is a moral coward worthy only of scorn, whatever else he does. "asking for magic," I know.

just make sure the metaphor doesn't go off

xp

all i can say is, that i am beginning to long for the old days when the Democratic Party had some old-school political bosses and hacks in high places nationally who at least understood that you HAVE to share SOME of the loot in order to stay in power. which is basically a plea for a return of the likes of LBJ and Clay Davis, but at least folks like that aren't the bunch of overly-polite pussies who are running things nowadays.

going 2 airport now, I'm gonna be stoked for this thread when my flight gets delayed, see u then

how I do my math: 1) what issues are most important to me? 2) what is the position of the parties on these issues, once you've done whatever sifting you can do of what they say vs. how they vote? both parties imo are chiefly interested in power; what drives/inspires them to want that power is something we probably differ on. my main point of interest in it is "who will these people sell out to maintain power, setting aside for a second the question of why they want to maintain power?" the answer is usually "women first" and post-Bush we have an extra "also, people held without charge & tortured" which really I mean...you should completely ignore me, because my honest opinion is, any politician who isn't willing to stake his entire career on righting that wrong is a moral coward worthy only of scorn, whatever else he does. "asking for magic," I know.

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:53 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

forgive me if im butchering yr take on this but youre saying "both parties do the same thing w/r/t issues i care about" [sidebar: i dont think the no fed $$ for abortion is rad or anything but yr not doing yrself any good services by pretending that these two parties have anywhere NEAR the same position on abortion or womens rights]--which is fair, i guess, but also kind of unfair--i mean it bums me out that both parties are rational techno-capitalists and that we dont just sit around all day and read holderlin and hunt deer and talk about 'being' & by that standard yeah theyre exactly the same. but it seems kind of futile & ultimately destructive to both the political system here and your own blood pressure to say, these are the only two issues that matter, and there is no difference between parties so long as they do the same thing here

There's also the troubling subtext of absolutist statements like that that says if one party fully backed voluntary abortion funding but with a rider that made sterilization for gays and minority men mandatory, you would vote for them.

other differences (esp. amongst the well-off donor set that both parties seem to be catering to nowadays): (a) do you take Ayn Rand seriously? and (b) are you willing to put up with Jesus Freaks, racists, and out-and-out ignoramuses (even if you're just using them to obtain power and secretly think that they're full of shit)? if you answer "yes" to both, you are a Republican. if "no," you may or may not be a Democrat but at least you aren't a Republican.

maybe if they made sterilization for all men mandatory, then the point would be moot

anyway i will agree with the statement that the democrats are only different from the republicans is that they are "less bad" but i will take what i can get when one party is so morally, ethically, politically and philosophically bankrupt i am genuinely afraid of its taking power again

i mean it bums me out that both parties are rational techno-capitalists and that we dont just sit around all day and read holderlin and hunt deer and talk about 'being' & by that standard yeah theyre exactly the same.

you'd fit right in with the british tory party, or the more traditional part of it

are you willing to put up with Jesus Freaks, racists, and out-and-out ignoramuses (even if you're just using them to obtain power and secretly think that they're full of shit)?

haha this might have been the republican party 15-20 years ago, but these days your aveage GOP politician IS a jesusfreakyracistignoamus

Both parties are fucked on social and moral issues. Democrats are less fucked, so I lean towards them; the torture issue is bothersome, the (varying degrees of) lip service on women's rights, gay rights and minority rights issues are bothersome, but they have to date refrained from actively telling me I should leave the country AND they have taken steps in the direction I think the country should go.

I sort of feel like everyone should be taxed at 60% and never again have to pay for medical care, education or transportation.

like, thinking democrats = republicans doesn't give republicans nearly enough credit for how far they've ventured into pure crazyland

the "even if" was a qualifier, acknowledging that there WOULD be some GOPers who really ARE jesusfreakyracistignoramuses. i was thinking more about some GOPers i know personally (e.g., lawyers and financial industry folks) who have nothing against gays, black people or non-Christians and wouldn't willingly send their kids to schools run by folks who think that the Flintstones was a documentary -- but aren't above humoring such people if that's what it takes to stay in power.

Those people are what I like to call "evil".

Then again I like calling most people "evil" so it doesn't really mean much.

yes, what an awesome world we'd live in if the evil villain ralph nader hadn't robbed al gore of the presidency...think of the idyllic wonderland we'd all be enjoying now without evil ralph

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:31 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Glad you love Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNtGYdm2rOY

yes, what an awesome world we'd live in if the evil villain ralph nader hadn't robbed al gore of the presidency...think of the idyllic wonderland we'd all be enjoying now without evil ralph

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:31 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Glad you love Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court

Like you're supposed to anticipate every consequence, for fuck's sake.

Yeah, anyone who's got any kind of chip on their shoulder against Nader just for running really needs to be slapped hard in the face every time they enter a poll.

Nothing in Al Gore's resume – his entire public career approved and egged-on by the warmonger New Republic – crowd suggests he wouldn't have committed American troops on some pretext.

The Supreme Court issue is what made me stop supporting Nader in 2000. Nader himself made me glad of that decision shortly thereafter. (I definitely think people have the right to support him but he's said a few too many incredibly suspect racial comments for me to really want anything to do with him.)

you'd fit right in with the british tory party, or the more traditional part of it

― pro bono publico (history mayne)

in uk-centric threads this is the equivalent of the comment that quiets a saloon right down btw.

folks who think that the Flintstones was a documentary

LOL! the willingness to humor these ^^ ignorami underlines one essential difference between dems/repubs

I thought the whole reason we all HATE the Dems this year is b/c they ARE willing to humor these ignorami!

i wouldn't vote for Nader again

you'd fit right in with the british tory party, or the more traditional part of it

― pro bono publico (history mayne), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 10:09 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.andybarefoot.com/politics/poster.php?line1=We+can%27t+go+on+like+this.&line2=Let%27s+just+read+Holderlin+and+hunt+deer+all+day.&logo1=SMOKE&logo2=MORE&logo3=POT&tagline1=I+was+an+English+major.&size=3

looooooool

The GOPers I'm personally closest to are like the ones you're talking about, Eisbaer: socially liberal atheists who love their money and have lots of it, are financially generous with those close to them but not otherwise, and are scared silly by the threat of Islamic terrorism. They don't really believe in democracy since they don't believe in that "we the people" business (they're smarter and richer than the plebs, they think), but they know they need allies so they "work with" social conservatives. Basically, they're like Cheney. They're just looking out for themselves and those close to them.

Like you're supposed to anticipate every consequence, for fuck's sake.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 3:20 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Before every election for like forever, I have heard people say "I may as well vote for the Dem (as flawed as he is) because at least his Supreme Court appointees will be slightly better"

i don't want to rehash the pros/cons of the Nader 2000 campaign. but there are some things that i AM positive that a Gore presidency would NOT have done that HAVE harmed the nation -- the Supreme Court (and lower court appointments) is one area; but there are also the 2001/2003 tax cuts (never would've been proposed by a Gore administration), a slew of appointments to various administrative posts (even now, this is STILL a key difference b/w Dems and Republicans [witness the hoo-hah going on right now over Craig Becker]), quite possibly no war in Iraq (though still a war in Afghanistan). some other things there may not be any different -- e.g., i kinda doubt that Gore would've demanded that Alan Greenspan leave the Fed post-haste after the dot-com bust, since Obama appointed Geithner i could also see a Gore administration putting in the likes of Henry Paulson et. al. at Treasury, and while it's an open question as to whether financial industry regulation would have been as non-existent as it was under Bush i also think that it's NOT unreasonable to think that deregulation would have continued apace (since the Clinton Admin was generally onboard with this concept anyway).

the "even if" was a qualifier, acknowledging that there WOULD be some GOPers who really ARE jesusfreakyracistignoramuses. i was thinking more about some GOPers i know personally (e.g., lawyers and financial industry folks) who have nothing against gays, black people or non-Christians and wouldn't willingly send their kids to schools run by folks who think that the Flintstones was a documentary -- but aren't above humoring such people if that's what it takes to stay in power.

eis - my point was that the jesusfreakyracistignoramus types are no longer just the party's base, they're also the people in charge of the party. the rich northeast republicans might still give $ and votes and get their taxes cut, but the republican party's congressional representation has gone from 'very southern/rural' to 'very very very southern/rural'. sarah palin is a LEGIT contender for the GOP nomination next round - she would not have been in 2000.

that's about right, Eisbaer.

Also: most neocons are "moderate" on social issues.

i.e. "they don't give a shit"

Like you're supposed to anticipate every consequence, for fuck's sake.

haha ya who could have anticipated that
a. this was gonna be a close election (o wait there were polls)
b. nader had and never will have any chance at becoming president because there are not 51% of americans who want him to be president and there never will be because there are 51% of americans who agree w/ him on the issues, let alone 30%

* there aren't 51% of americans

Nader's votes were not Gore's by divine right. If he hadn't run, the dickless Dems still would've let Bush steal the election.

I was so much older then, I'm younger now.

I mean I end up saying as much in every political thread, but:

a. I'm basically as far left as morbs/j0hn/the other angry old men on ilx
b. I vote and support the democrats and have no guilt about doing so because I'm willing to accept that a relatively small % of this country holds political beliefs anywhere close to mine

Vote how you want but holding some kind of grudge against people for actually campaigning FOR the issues that matter to you (when the Dems certainly aren't) is beyond ridiculous.

I don't mind people campaigning for those issues, just campaigning for the presidency

smh

said it before, will say it again -- to the left of the likes of gabbneb, to the right of morbs/john d (which still puts me somewhere on the left, i guess). while i'm not a Marxist, i DO think that social class is the most determinative factor for politics and economic matters are the strongest (though not the only) determinant of who gets my vote (and my economic views are definitely closer to those of the Democrats [even as watered-down as they've become from Clinton onwards]).

my biggest beef w/ the Dems (and yes, w/ Obama) is that act like a bunch of pussies over and over again. which puts me in agreement w/ Morbs right now, i think. how much of that is a general unwillingness to get into the ring and play dirty (all of this hoo-haw about "bipartisanship") and how much of that is a deliberate ploy (don't want to piss off those hedge fund managers who up until now were NOT willing to humor the Tea Party ignoramuses) depends on the issue at hand.

Guys, no use in arguing what would have happened if Gore won the presidency. Because HE DID!!

he could have won it a lil more

i mean, have the balls to overhaul the fucking filibuster rules in Senate for Christ's sake. sure, the GOP and the Teabaggers will scream and will shift their tactics to something else if such a change were to occur, but so fucking what?!?

Guys, no use in arguing what would have happened if Gore won the presidency. Because HE DID!!

Talk to James Madison.

Madison doesn't return my calls; also, I distrust short guys

If Madison was returning your calls, we would either have to have you committed for schizophrenia or be terrified that the zombies had figured out how to use phones

have I outlined my Zombie Founding Fathers movie script for you?

Haha no! Now is clearly the time for it, what with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies etc

i dunno why, but these two posts from my favorite anti-obama writer seem appropriate:

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/01/bengals.html

Personally, I don't find either concept of the Constitution particularly appealing, less yet convincing. How about this:

A gang of propertied tax yahoos who'd read a bit too much Cicero did what any patriotic Roman might've done in days of yore. They raised a private army and made civil war on a tyrant. They won! And in the decade the followed, they crafted a Roman-style aristocratic Republic, from slaveholding through general manhood citizenship through a vaguely consular system of government. That's not some anachronistic metaphor. That was their self-conscious project. How many fasciae, how much cognomenizing of Washington as Cincinnatus does it take, huh? Anyway, after a few hundred years, that Republic, which was a little less glimmering than nostalgia recalls, is now deformed beyond recognition or repair. It has inevitably acquired an imperial identity, as you'd expect given its past economic and military success, and its consular-dictatorial office has acquired the trappings of a monarchy, although yes, true, the Senate does still hold some sway--though its power is entirely negative; it can dither and defer, but it cannot positively act.

None of this is especially germane to the Citizen's United decision by the Supreme Court, except insofar as it points to the essential silliness of discoursing on the decision as if some eternal principle were either traduced or upheld. The Constitution is a neat historical document, like the Twelve Tables, or Leviticus, or Hammurabi's code, but it is the law of the United States in the same sense that we are guided by, say, the Ten Commandments.

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/02/clever-hopes-expiring.html

If you begin with the premise that nothing about American society or government is especially admirable, that the Constitutional Republic was a dead-letter by the time it was ratified, that our history is a history of slavery, genocide, aggressive expansion, imperialism, and war, and that our great wealth and global predominance were more an accident of available resources and favorable historical circumstances than any particular national genius, then all this caviling about our dying principles and betrayed values seems a little silly. And that is not to say wrong. As a diagnostician of our constitutional malaise, Gleen Greenwald is very good, and yet these sorts of analyses seem myopically focused on the present moment and the current generations. Maybe the harsher reality is that we are and have always been basically a venal, craven, and cowardly society whose committment to equal rights and democracy has never been more than superficial, a fearful and xenophobic people who long ago beat our ploughshares into swords and are now not reaping what we did not sow.

(there are outgoing links in each post)

haha sick burns

"Maybe the harsher reality is that we are and have always been basically a venal, craven, and cowardly society whose committment to equal rights and democracy has never been more than superficial, a fearful and xenophobic people..."

There's a lot of truth there, and why I think the Dems' claims to being the party of justice and fairness are on pretty weak grounds: if we played a big game of trading places b/w the haves and have-nots in the USA I don't think things would necessarily turn out better.

But it's complicated by the USA' Protestant heritage, and how that affects "our" conception of the body politic. But this is a heavier matter than I'm going to get into on ILX.

Both parties are broad and represent slightly irrational coalitions which, added to the fact that one thing they can both agree on is not letting any new parties in, is why they may seem similar, though it's a matter of perspectiveas to how different or similar they may appear; up close they look very different though they may not from afar and if they can gin you up on one of their single issues, the other side is easy to diabolize.

Woah hell yes goole!

The main reason for me voting 'agree' right now is a result of going through the past year and seeing a dem-dominated federal government doing little-to-nothing to work toward progress. Seems like they are going along with the same old shit for fear of seeming 'radical' and 'liberal'. That they are getting called these things constantly makes it easier to move the political desires of the whole country rightward. Witness the loss of the public option, etc.

si

I wonder how differently people would have approached this thread had it been "Democrats and Republicans are effectively the same"

Or "Democrats and Republicans are affectively the same"

As a diagnostician of our constitutional malaise, Gleen Greenwald is very good, and yet these sorts of analyses seem myopically focused on the present moment and the current generations. Maybe the harsher reality is that we are and have always been basically a venal, craven, and cowardly society whose committment to equal rights and democracy has never been more than superficial, a fearful and xenophobic people who long ago beat our ploughshares into swords and are now not reaping what we did not sow.

This is an insight? Guys like Greenwald write under these assumptions.

i'm scared of voting the same choice that ron paul would so i'm voting "undecided"

"Demopublican" is such a stupid, awkward-sounding word. Doesn't "Republicrat" sound a lot more natural?

To the extent that Dems and Republicans must please different constituencies, they differ. The major constituency the Republicans must please are the religious conservatives. The major Democrat constituencies are less monolithic and result in a less cohesive set of Democratic policies, but they would include social progressives and the labor unions.

To the extent that they share the same constituencies, they are alike. The major constituency they share are all large corporations, military contractors, and powerful elites such as the wealthy (e.g. bankers, lawyers, business owners, stockbrokers, etc.)

Because neither party will risk alienating the rich and powerful, neither party is interested in policies that will shift power in any direction but upward. That is why their major differences cluster around social issues that have no ill consequences for the powerful, regardless of their outcome.

Addendum: Since I think that power, and who has it and who exercises it, is the essential subject of politics, and since both parties steadfastly will not change the current power structure, it would be definitionally correct to say that, although their politics are not "the same", they are the same when reduced to their essence.

forgive me if im butchering yr take on this but youre saying "both parties do the same thing w/r/t issues i care about" [sidebar: i dont think the no fed $$ for abortion is rad or anything but yr not doing yrself any good services by pretending that these two parties have anywhere NEAR the same position on abortion or womens rights]--which is fair, i guess, but also kind of unfair--i mean it bums me out that both parties are rational techno-capitalists and that we dont just sit around all day and read holderlin and hunt deer and talk about 'being' & by that standard yeah theyre exactly the same. but it seems kind of futile & ultimately destructive to both the political system here and your own blood pressure to say, these are the only two issues that matter, and there is no difference between parties so long as they do the same thing here

those two issues are just the top of the list max & you know that - warrantless wiretapping, the right of workers to organize, the right of immigrants to receive social services, the list is long.

my b/p averages 100/60 btw, some of you guys on these threads like to paint me as an angrier dude than I am - sure I get angry about the willingness of progressives & moderates to accept the constant ongoing failure of the only party that even pays lip service to their interests (long angry dude aside here: and about the eagerness of progressives & moderates to insist that people who share their beliefs ought also to share in their acquiescence when imo the only way the Democratic party will change is when enough money & votes are withheld from them that they lose power; if/when they think that they can get more donations & votes by (say) cutting the bullshit on the subject of a woman's right to choose, or by actually pursuing the dudes who thought some bullshit cowboys-vs-Indians ideology was a great way to run shit, or by pursuing sane & compassionate approaches to the status of the disenfranchised generally, et al, then they'll come around, not because they're awesome but because what motivates them is donations & votes, and to continue to vote for them otherwise is to tell them "I am satisfied with your performance") but I mean that's just 'cause I'm engaged with the discussion & am a wordy blatherin' motherfucker

ok but on that long list how many things are actually no different btw the two parties? not even positively: how many of the things you care about would go right out the window if the GOP was in power? and im not asking, "do you support the democrats," or "are the democrats good," or even, "do the democrats actually care"--im asking, if the GOP runs shit, are immigrants going to receive fewer social services than the democrats? if republicans are in charge, is their foreign policy going to be worse than democrats'?

i mean look: i know ive been tarred as a democrat apologist, which is... funny but fine--i just really cant imagine that there is "no difference" between democrats and republicans when i can see a difference btw obama and bush on (yes, important!) issues after only a year!

max do you honestly think john's position is that there's "no difference"? what he's saying is that neither does a good enough job, and that rewarding the democrats for compromising with the right on every issue he cares about isn't going to get the shit he wants done. not that hard to understand imo

voted agree 'cause I do

if/when they think that they can get more donations & votes by (say) cutting the bullshit on the subject of a woman's right to choose,

the thing is, when it comes down to it, pro-life voters care more about the subject than pro-choice voters. they care about it in a sense that it's their #1 issue - by a big margin - in a way that it isn't for many pro-choice people. (yes it is for SOME, but it's not for a majority.) something like federal funding in the health care bill - that's not a flexible issue for pro-life dems or the overwhelmingly pro-life GOP because it's THE issue for them. (and an issue that can very easily lose them their seat cause it's THE issue for their voters)

federal funding - has to be flexible issue for pro-choice dems cause we have lots of issues and we can't get them all. if we want that to be THE issue for us too - fine - but that also basically puts something like health care at a numerical deadlock (not that it already isn't) because you have two groups who absolutely refuse to budge. fine, there you go, some people who were willing to stand up for what they believed in and achieved nothing.

the phrasing is "essentially the same." that is what I believe! "essentially the same" and "no difference between the two" are statements which are not, essentially, the same!

anyway my real beef with j0hn is over the definition of 'essentially'

xp haha

i think it's perfectly rational to think "you are not good enough, you are never good enough, what the hell is wrong with you" and "it is desperately important that you are in power, given the alternative" about the democratic party. but i say this all the time, every time.

it's true the american political system is wholly hands-off, by design, the underlying economic churning of the nation. the rich and powerful remain so when democrats get elected & they generally have nothing to fear. the kinds of problems that it is even possible to address in this environment seem absurdly narrow, given the scope of the problems we face. given all this i'm still happy to work to keep, let's say, barack obama in the job he has. fuck, why not? it can't hurt. most often "it can't hurt" is the best option and of the utmost importance to millions of people.

federal funding - has to be flexible issue for pro-choice dems cause we have lots of issues and we can't get them all. if we want that to be THE issue for us too - fine - but that also basically puts something like health care at a numerical deadlock (not that it already isn't) because you have two groups who absolutely refuse to budge. fine, there you go, some people who were willing to stand up for what they believed in and achieved nothing.

pretty much exactly where I stand on this important ideological ground. not willing to trade what better people than I accomplished through lifelong struggle & commitment to an important cause. imo standing up for your beliefs counts as an accomplishment in & of itself that need yield no further fruit to be worthwhile, btw, integrity is its own reward, especially when it does such dishonor to a century of struggle to say "we're gonna concede some of the ground you broke because we've got this other thing we want"

I'm glad integrity is its own reward, I sorta want health insurance tho

that's an interesting and laudable position that i find totally incomprehensible.

don't really mean 'laudable' to be a faint-praise damnation, but there it is i guess.

the focus on obama v bush, or even dem caucus vs rep caucus, is such a narrow sliver of how federal power operates - such a large part of it is about who got appointed to HUD, who gets appointed to the EEOC, what is the agenda that they're given, are the people running it people who believe in the power of the government to effect positive change in the world or are they people whose guiding principle is stand back and let the big dogs eat? and dems tend to be the former. initiatives like the national information infrastructure bills pushed by gore, which allowed me to go to chicago, live rent-free in a UIC dorm room and teach community organizations how to use email - there is just a vaste spate of off-the-radar stuff that no amount of kos-reading or times op-ed columns (or anybody, really) is going to inform you about

Problem is that Democrats always cave on federal funding and then cave on health insurance too, and if at all possible cave on another issue just for kicks.

If ideological horse trading actually paid off, maybe fine, but since it just continually moves the agenda further to the right, fuck 'em.

living rent-free is its own reward

pretty much exactly where I stand on this important ideological ground. not willing to trade what better people than I accomplished through lifelong struggle & commitment to an important cause. imo standing up for your beliefs counts as an accomplishment in & of itself that need yield no further fruit to be worthwhile, btw, integrity is its own reward, especially when it does such dishonor to a century of struggle to say "we're gonna concede some of the ground you broke because we've got this other thing we want"

= also why pro-life dems/republicans are more than willing to prevent a health care bill from passing

I'm glad integrity is its own reward, I sorta want health insurance tho

I can dig it, I don't begrudge you your conclusion the way you begrudge me mine! if the things that are important to me aren't important to you, cool, get yours, but quit demonizing people who value the gains that the progressive movement went through a great deal of toil & struggle to get, and who aren't willing to trade those gains for your insurance, when it comes down to it.

right except I don't see 'no federal funding' as trading gains, just accepting the limitations of the political reality (where some politicians are representing the millions of american who are pro-life! some of them democrats!)

it's trading ideological ground - important ideological ground. it also sets dangerous precedent for placing reproductive services as occupying some scarlet-letter area of health care when it's no less a part of health care than a check-up. if there were a provision in the health care bill stating that the universe is only 6,000 years old, and we couldn't get the bill through without that, I'd be against that, too.

haha okay I don't think we're gonna agree

IOW "health care" = "health care," a position no self-respecting left-of-center person should really have a problem with imo

xpost you are correct sir!

I mean if you have zero room for pragmatism, how can politics be ANYTHING but non-stop frustration for you?

insisting that you not allow your opponent to dangerously reframe the definition of "health care" isn't "zero room for pragmatism," iatee

a lot of people fought to make reproductive rights a part of the liberal consciousness, resulting via the twists and turns of politics & history, in the Roe decision as a point of constitutional law. further state & federal fights are carried out either for or against reproductive rights in Roe's shadow, is this the struggle you're talking about, john? abortion is legal.

now, a new set of federal regs'n'subsidies may, explicitly, not pay for people to get abortions. i don't see how this is a step backward, a betrayal, rather than a lack-of-a-step forward.

(i guess there are analyses out there suggesting stupak-style language might endanger Roe itself. i can't evaluate that, to be honest)

no I mean the 6,000 year thing

if there were a provision in the health care bill stating that the universe is only 6,000 years old,

Universe is more like 4K+ years old, I thought.

no I mean the 6,000 year thing

lol

Some of those Congresspeople represent millions of Americans who are Jehovah's Witnesses, but if they tried to prevent federal funding for blood transfusions we'd be rightly outraged.

when it comes down to it, there are 300 million americans and most of them are gonna disagree with you on some or maybe lots of stuff and they are gonna vote for politicians who also do. it is not crazy to expect a significant amount of ideological compromises if you're interested in EVER getting anything passed as law. yes, pragmatism. yes, compromise. the root cause is not weak and wimpy politicians but the 300 million people who they represent.

Some of those Congresspeople represent millions of Americans who are Jehovah's Witnesses, but if they tried to prevent federal funding for blood transfusions we'd be rightly outraged.

yes but if there was a jehovah's witness majority state and they had a senator then it'd be pretty rational to expect that senator to act in that manner.

Some of those Congresspeople represent millions of Americans who are Jehovah's Witnesses, but if they tried to prevent federal funding for blood transfusions we'd be rightly outraged.

― El Poopo Loco (Pancakes Hackman), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 3:42 PM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark

wtf kind of logic is that, the only congressers who represent "millions of JH's" also represent millions upon millions of other people!

there are lots of places where fully more than half the population doesn't like abortion one bit, it's not like some parochial minority gripe.

xp

there are lots of places where fully more than half the population doesn't like abortion one bit, it's not like some parochial minority gripe.

^^^ this

I am as pro-choice as anyone here, but I don't think that my vote is more important than a pro-life peson's vote simply because I happen to be right.

i used to think that parliamentary systems -- like what you have in Italy or Israel -- were an unqualified bad thing, mainly b/c you end up hostage to piss-ant fringe parties who bolt your coalition whenever the other coalition partners don't kiss their asses sufficiently (as happens in Italy and Israel). as we're seeing now, though, it really isn't that much different over here -- only it's that both the Dems and Republicans (moreso the Dems, but still) are hostages to intraparty fringes that bring everything to a standstill if they don't get their way. add that to the Senate's filibuster rules, then you get the mess we're in right now.

wtf kind of logic is that, the only congressers who represent "millions of JH's" also represent millions upon millions of other people!

Uh the same is true of congressers who represent millions of Americans who are anti-abortion. There is no 100% anti-abortion district anywhere in the US, I guarantee it.

here are lots of places where fully more than half the population doesn't like abortion one bit, it's not like some parochial minority gripe.

But really, so what? There are lots of places where fully more than half the population doesn't like lots of things -- homosexuality, alcohol use, dancing -- that are perfectly legal! That doesn't mean we cater to their preferences!

The fact that people are even willing to let themselves get tricked into calling anti-abortion people "pro-life" is kinda amazing to me, too. With very few exceptions none of these people live by any consistent set of principles that could be summed up as "pro-life," so screw that.

well, in the case of abortion, it means we do cater to their preferences. what do you want me to tell you, that's the world.

a lot of people fought to make reproductive rights a part of the liberal consciousness, resulting via the twists and turns of politics & history, in the Roe decision as a point of constitutional law. further state & federal fights are carried out either for or against reproductive rights in Roe's shadow, is this the struggle you're talking about, john? abortion is legal.

yes, it's legal - access & availability are what the struggle continues to be about, as well as the framing of the dialogue, which it's hard to get people fired up about, but which imo is v. important to ensuring that abortion continues to be available to all who need it - "available" here includes "affordable," which is where federal funding ought to come in. again I think this ought to be an uncontroversial point among Democrats - if you're pro-choice, then abortion services come under health care services.

well, in the case of abortion, it means we do cater to their preferences. what do you want me to tell you, that's the world.

it need not be btw.

There is no 100% anti-abortion district anywhere in the US, I guarantee it.

there are a hell of a lot of 65-80% anti-abortion districts, tho, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?

homosexuality, alcohol use, dancing

lol @ these three things even being put together.

look, it's a basic point, anti-abortion politicians are serving and answering to a very real and large constituency. it is no fringe.

The fact that people are even willing to let themselves get tricked into calling anti-abortion people "pro-life" is kinda amazing to me, too. With very few exceptions none of these people live by any consistent set of principles that could be summed up as "pro-life," so screw that.

right, and the other side believes that 'pro-choice' is a sketchy term for the same reason. the babies don't have a choice!!! so let's compromise and use the terms that the other side prefers 'anti-abortion' and 'pro-babykilling'

other sides*

well, in the case of abortion, it means we do cater to their preferences. what do you want me to tell you, that's the world.

it need not be btw.

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.),

yeah *that* frustrates me. "that's just how it is" is obviously true but i'm not a bad person if i don't feel like participating.

the focus on obama v bush, or even dem caucus vs rep caucus, is such a narrow sliver of how federal power operates - such a large part of it is about who got appointed to HUD, who gets appointed to the EEOC, what is the agenda that they're given, are the people running it people who believe in the power of the government to effect positive change in the world or are they people whose guiding principle is stand back and let the big dogs eat?

except that... obama or bush, one caucus or the other caucus: these are the people who appoint and approve nominees to HUD or EEOC and determine their agendae

well, in the case of abortion, it means we do cater to their preferences. what do you want me to tell you, that's the world.

It's giving them a power they haven't earned. It's letting them treat this one perfectly legal thing differently, among the entire universe of possible things. Why this thing? Why don't we give, say, pacifist voters that same power to have their preferences catered to? Or vegetarians? Or anybody? By allowing anti-abortion zealots to control the dialogue instead of saying, "Abortion is legal so tough shit for you," what exactly are we accomplishing?

And John D. is hitting at some very important stuff, which is that it goes far beyond just the state of the law. If you're a woman who's pregnant and broke, and you're 5 months along, and have to drive 500 miles to find a doctor who will perform an abortion, in reality you're SOL.

xp right, and the other side believes that 'pro-choice' is a sketchy term for the same reason. the babies don't have a choice!!!

But this isn't a reasoned position, it's a childish "Nuh-uh!" Whereas, clearly, what "pro-life" people really are is, well, anti-abortion. "Pro-life" is a propaganda term that they came up with and convinced everyone to buy in. And, again, it gives them power they haven't earned. Because the opposite of "pro-life" is clearly not "pro-choice," it's "anti-life." And unless you're Darkseid, nobody wants that.

Sorry, guys, I'm pissy today thanks to headlines like this: Veteran Murders Cleveland Homeless Center Director with an Ax

But Darkseid IS the RNC chair!

It's giving them a power they haven't earned. It's letting them treat this one perfectly legal thing differently, among the entire universe of possible things. Why this thing? Why don't we give, say, pacifist voters that same power to have their preferences catered to? Or vegetarians? Or anybody?

CAUSE THERE AREN'T A HUNDRED MILLION OF THEM

you are arguing the pro-choice case to me. i know that access is essentially more important than the right to have something in and of itself.

i am telling you that anti-abortion voters are a much much much bigger part of america (half! for fucks sake!) than vegetarians, or pacifists, or jehovah's witnesses. it's not (or not only) a small group of zealots holding the rest of the political system hostage.

how exactly have they "not earned" their power? they worked as hard as we did, i assure you.

except that... obama or bush, one caucus or the other caucus: these are the people who appoint and approve nominees to HUD or EEOC and determine their agendae

ding ding ding ding

love that pluralization btw

"because there are many of them, we must not resist them" just is not a compelling argument to me

oh i see tracer i thought you were saying like... dont argue about obama, this is actually about REGULATORY COMMISSIONS and i was like...

"because there are many of them, we must not resist them" just is not a compelling argument to me

how about 'because they are a significant % of the american public, it is not absurd to expect the democratic process to partly reflect their views.'

"because there are many of them, we must not resist them" just is not a compelling argument to me

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 4:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

IS THIS WHAT I SAID

pancakes hackman keeps arguing that the anti-abortionists have some kind of unfair level of power. i'm saying, first, given the numbers it's not that unfair, and second, what the fuck does fair have to do with it? they're powerful!

how about 'because they are a significant % of the american public, it is not absurd to expect the democratic process to partly reflect their views.'.

Rights aren't up for a vote so "the democratic process" doesn't enter into it iirc.

max i sort of am saying that - whether it's obama or someone else, that fact that it's a dem in the white house radically changes the energy, personnel and agendas of the "regulatory commissions" that actually get shit done for people underneath the headlines - which is why when people say "oh democrats, republicans, they're pretty much the same" i basically write that person off as an idiot

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

Rights aren't up for a vote so "the democratic process" doesn't enter into it iirc.

yeah well the anti-abortionists believe that the baby has a *right* to live and you're infringing on that. hey look! other people in the world with other views on morality! I hope they don't start voting!

right we on the same page bro

Rights aren't up for a vote so "the democratic process" doesn't enter into it iirc.

― El Poopo Loco (Pancakes Hackman), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 4:17 PM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark

oh hell yes they are. "soft on crime" and PATRIOT act re: the 4th amendment. journo shield laws and the citizens united ruling re: the 1st. i mean, everything is always political, even rights.

rights don't exist in the empyrean, they are tussled over in the present constantly. and the old battles are never over. jesus christ we have the right wing making noise about the New Deal establishment, using the 10th amendment. welcome to the '30s! sure they're nuts, but it's not like the fight ever goes away.

tracer-bro i mean

like, compare superfund activity between dems and republicans - tell the people who live next to toxically polluted groundwater the two parties are "essentially the same"

i am giving you daps with my mind

Both sides are trying to frame the argument in a way that favors them. There are pro-lifers, real ones, who oppose war, the death penalty and abortion and while I respect the coherence of their position wrt fellow-travelers who are primarily pro-life only regarding abortion, I still deplore their willingness to impose their views laws on people whose very lives may depend on the availability of choice and who weigh the respective rights of a citizen and a non-viable (yet) fetus as a thorny one that should be left to the person involved.

Eh, let me rescind that, because we're not talking about the fundamental right but about Federal funding. In which case I just figure that, again, since abortion is legal, it makes no sense to me that in the event of a push we default to the wishes of the anti-abortion side.

yeah well the anti-abortionists believe that the baby has a *right* to live and you're infringing on that.

Then they can damned well get a Constitutional amendment passed or some Supreme Court recognition of that right. Until then, they're pissing in the wind. Sorry, but THAT'S the world, too.

some Supreme Court recognition of that right.

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/scalia-gesture_1.jpg

yeah how much are you gonna love 'right's when they actually do?

I don't refer to them as anything but anti-abortion or anti-choice. I remember, many years ago at a biker rally (don't ask), seeing a man refuse an anti-mandatory helmet law sticker because it bore the word 'choice' and it made him uncomfortable as an anti-abortion advocate to tout 'choice'.

I mean, what they believe has no bearing on the actual state of the law and of the rights we actually enjoy. And yet it's the pro-choice side that gets told, "Sorry, gotta let these guys have their way, that's the world."

yeah how much are you gonna love 'right's when they actually do?

They won't.

Why am I arguing about abortion on the internet?

you're bored?

"Sorry, gotta let these guys have their way, that's the world."

IS THAT WHAT I SAID

I can't imagine another reason to click on a thread called 'Democrats and Republicans are essentially the same' xp

like, compare superfund activity between dems and republicans - tell the people who live next to toxically polluted groundwater the two parties are "essentially the same"

i am giving you daps with my mind

But you can also argue that Democrats are just as guilty for the existence of that polluted groundwater as Republicans in the first place - they may not be equally friendly to 'business needs,' but they're friendly enough to do a lot of damage.

I don't think it's fair to say that Rs and Ds are essentially the same - obviously there are major, important differences. Whether Democrats are capable of good governance, whether they result in a net good for society (or if we're held back by continually settling for a party that compromises at every turn) is harder to answer.

Fuck the 'pro-life' bloc, imho. The anti-abortion coalition lost its right to tell the rest of us that foetuses were people too when they started shooting/killing doctors, or tacitly approving of people who do.

yes, but they didn't lose their democratic right to vote for people who agree w/ them on stuff

(or if we're held back by continually settling for a party that compromises at every turn) is harder to answer.

There lies the rub, though. The Democratic coalition is far broader and diverse than the Republican one.

Rights aren't up for a vote so "the democratic process" doesn't enter into it iirc.

This is horrifyingly close to right-wing/Randroid PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE REAL THINGS nonsense, tbh (or insert absolutist takes on gun rights, fetus rights, etc. as necessary).

really bizarre, in a historical sense, that a particular political sticking point can warp entire populations around itself. there are millions of people whose whole metaphysical outlook on life is basically predicated on making abortion illegal. did these kind of people even exist even 40 years ago?

The anti-abortion coalition lost its right to tell the rest of us that foetuses were people too when they started shooting/killing doctors, or tacitly approving of people who do.

I understand their crazy logic, though I too, deplore it, but no-body has lost any 'rights' in a democratic debate just becuase they were full of shit.

really bizarre, in a historical sense, that a particular political sticking point can warp entire populations around itself. there are millions of people whose whole metaphysical outlook on life is basically predicated on making abortion illegal. did these kind of people even exist even 40 years ago?

― goole, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:34 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

there was a frustratingly inconclusive article in the nyer a couple months ago about the "politics of life" w/r/t abotion, end of life procedures, etc

yeah, i'm no fan of the anti-abortion crowd or their arguments but the majority of them do not support shooting abortion doctors or harboring the criminals who do.

really bizarre, in a historical sense, that a particular political sticking point can warp entire populations around itself. there are millions of people whose whole metaphysical outlook on life is basically predicated on making abortion illegal. did these kind of people even exist even 40 years ago?

Roe v. Wade didn't.

roe v wade is what i'm talking about, by saying "a particular political sticking point"

Rights aren't up for a vote so "the democratic process" doesn't enter into it iirc.
This is horrifyingly close to right-wing/Randroid PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE REAL THINGS nonsense, tbh (or insert absolutist takes on gun rights, fetus rights, etc. as necessary).

the most otm thing so far

I mean this comes down to 'our views on morality/rights/government are objectively superior to the other side's and if the democratic process fails to reflect that, fuck it, it must not be working' - fine if that's your view, have fun and enjoy your company.

It's all really about punishing harlotry, though, isn't it?

I surrendered my party affiliation in 2001 or 2002. Although I lean left, I no felt comfortable as a Democrat after the 2000 election. Moreover, I'm too much a contrarian and reader to separate instinct from knowledge.

*no longer

They did not deny RvW was a necessity, because they were so close to a time of nice middle-class white people using dangerous/illegal means to terminate, and knew how well that was working out for most people. My mom has become less pro-choice the older she has become.

Most anti-abortion people are pro subjugation of woman to the will of man, either overtly or as an element of their 'culture'.

suzy, you don't have to convince anyone here that anti-abortion people are stupid/wrong/evil/whatever

(otoh you do have to convince me that they shouldn't have the right to express their stupidity/wrongness via the democratic process)

w/t getting all Ayn Rand-extremist about it, property rights ARE real things. in that it's important for civil society to work that a person can't be deprived of his/her property w/t due process of law.

Property rights can be rendered null and void the minute people with enough power to take them away choose to do so. Rights are ideas - deciding that a right is vitally important to our concept of how society should be does not make them real in the sense that conservatives believe (absolute and unchanging - no different from a physical object).

"convince me that they shouldn't have the right to express their stupidity/wrongness via the democratic process"
I have no problem with such people being manipulated into not voting by clever advertising or shaming them or something.

me neither fwiw

how about 'because they are a significant % of the american public, it is not absurd to expect the democratic process to partly reflect their views.'

how far are you willing to take this, you know? there are a lot of people who believe a whole lotta batshit stuff. I'm stoked that there are laws on the books that say, for example, that a person who commits a crime can be found not guilty by reason of insanity, and I'm stoked that those laws aren't open to the democratic process, since a whole buncha yahoos think mental illness is a fairy tale. since, in Roberts's phrase, Roe v. Wade is settled law, I'm completely comfortable saying "the democratic process need not defer in any way to parties, however large, whose disagreement is with a matter of settled law." you know? there's a bunch of people who think medical marijuana should be explicitly in any federal health care bill, me among them, but because that's an issue that states decide, I'm not about to make hay on it, even though my sympathy for people who'd deny medical marijuana to cancer & AIDS patients is zero.

I'm stoked that there are laws on the books that say, for example, that a person who commits a crime can be found not guilty by reason of insanity, and I'm stoked that those laws aren't open to the democratic process

suzy, you don't have to convince anyone here that anti-abortion people are stupid/wrong/evil/whatever

(otoh you do have to convince me that they shouldn't have the right to express their stupidity/wrongness via the democratic process)

― iatee, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:48 PM (3 minutes ago)

dude the point is that women aren't getting access to necessary healthcare and blue dogs like you are willing to sell them out. it's got nothing to do with the 'democratic process' and everything to do with spineless dems sympathizing with right-wingers

or what j0hn said

btw blue dogs don't sympathize w/ anyone except the ones who pay for their campaigns

those laws are open to the democratic process in exactly the same way abortion-rights laws are

xpxpxp

right wingers with money, fair point xp

how far are you willing to take this, you know? there are a lot of people who believe a whole lotta batshit stuff.

this point is being made again and again and the response is apparently never read - yes there are tons of interest groups in america. the ones that number in the millions and live in the same geographic area are getting their views represented. I'm sure my congressperson from the bay area would be pro-medical marijuana in the health care bill. unfortunately there are not 100 million voters who are dedicated to this issue the same way the anti-abortionists are dedicated to their issue of choice.

i voted "agree" in this poll fwiw

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx

unfortunately there are not 100 million voters who are dedicated to this issue the same way the anti-abortionists are dedicated to their issue of choice.

I would think, then, iatee, that a better use of your political passions would be convincing others of the importance of funding women's health care than in convincing people that we can't beat the fundies so we gotta give ground

do I need to do that here?

goole your poll indicates largely the failure of Democrats to stop scaling back their postion in exchange for imagined gain - public opinion didn't just magically shift. a rhetorical war has been going on for forty years. since Reagan landslide, Dems have been conceding rhetorical ground on this issue every election, a little more. this is what it has gotten them, imo.

I would think, then, iatee, that a better use of your political passions would be convincing others of the importance of funding women's health care than in convincing people that we can't beat the fundies so we gotta give ground

I totally agree with that, but since the Democrats are (mostly) useless and never going to be valuable in this pursuit, perhaps the game for progressives should be to work outside electoral politics. Be as cynical as you want, vote tactically for Democrats while hating them (or don't bother), whatever - but try to do political good in unconventional ways.

also lol at being called a 'blue dog'

(iatee what you're doing here is arguing in favor of compromising on this issues. compromising on these issues is the slow crawl back to criminalized abortion, make no mistake about it. I will not take the first step backward on that, and I don't think you or anyone else should, either, no matter what you think you'll get in exchange for it.)

abortion is as heated a political problem exactly because the diffs in national opinion hover in the low 50s. a half and half rough split is a guarantee for endless conflict -- nobody can conclusively win or lose the issue.

to compare it to something like medical marijuana that has a much much smaller cohort of supporters is just disingenuous.

or, from the right wing, comparing to to, the push to dismantle the department of education or the federal reserve system or something.

No laws are immutable, guys. No such thing as Settled Law either.

'compromising on issues' = the democratic political process

I keep a very hard line about the right of a woman to determine what happens to her own body. JDOTM on 'slow crawl'.

Also, we have to legislate not for what we say we are, but for what actually happens. Many pro-lifers are very anti-abortion unless/until their teenaged daughter gets knocked up by someone the family would consider infra dig. Then they go to Planned Parenthood ASAP, get it over with, and maintain their political stance as if nothing happened to them. RvW is there to help the 'do as I say, not as I do' crowd just as much as anyone else.

I think we should take a hard line on funding for abortion - but I don't see how not including something that doesn't exist is a "slow crawl back to criminalized abortion." Not nationalizing hospitals via the healthcare bill is not a "slow crawl back to privatized healthcared," it's, uh, just the way things are.

^^^ otm

^^^ otm

^^^ otm

oops

internet acting up

but also, my otms are otm

john you seem pretty quick to believe that a shift in opinion is CAUSED BY Dem capitulation. no, public opinion doesn't just "magically" shift, but fuck if i know why it does! (lol at calling it "my poll" btw)

a forty year rhetorical war? of course it has been. then what explains the ups and downs of that poll at a given time? why is it 56-33 in 1996, but holding steady at 48-44 for the next decade, until now?

taking a stand on principle is one thing, arguing that anti-abortion sentiment is at all fringey is just wrong.

i don't even know why the fuck we're arguing about this, maybe cos iatee and i are being accused of "capitulation" every other post, just for describing the world?

i don't even know why the fuck we're arguing about this, maybe cos iatee and i are being accused of "capitulation" every other post, just for describing the world?

it's the tradeoff for accusing anybody whose principles are important to them of living in some magical unicorn-infested dreamland my friend!

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx

― goole, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 6:02 PM (8 minutes ago)

would love to hear the point you're trying to make with this, and would be curious to know if you are cool with prop 8 because the people agreed on it

yeah that isn't what i did either, j0hn

& yeah basically the "get used to it, that's the way the world is" sentiment isn't resonating with me

would love to hear the point you're trying to make with this, and would be curious to know if you are cool with prop 8 because the people agreed on it

lol what kinda bizarro logic is this

iatee it is exactly the logic being presented on this thread - "face it, a majority doesn't agree, so you have to give them ground"

no, you have to change the majority

the point i'm making over and over again is that we really don't live in a magical unicorn-infested dreamland

fucking christ alive, the point i am making with posting a poll of anti-abortion sentiments is to show that comparing it to political positions (pro-marijana, total pacifism) that have very little popular support is way off base. being anti-abortion is in no way a fringe position. to be pro-choice is always going to be an enormous struggle with the constant possibility of stalling and backward motion. the other side is huge and it gets to play too.

you don't "have to give them ground" but they are going to try like hell to take your ground from you, and sometimes they will win.

this all seems pretty banal when i type it out again

but yes, until that happens, you do have to give grounds to other POVs

it sucks!

xp

I see the argument presented as "face it, a majority doesn't agree so people who want to keep their seats have to give them ground." For a career politician, electability trumps everything - if any politician stakes claim to a position the majority of his constituents strongly oppose, he's going to be voted out. This is universal.

This is why unpopular, but important, ideas (like, say, civil rights), never come from the top down. And why it's important for people who want to create a better world don't depend on the DNC to do it.

The problem with Democrats is that many of them cave to special interests (Big Insurance) even when a majority of their constituents support an issue (public option).

hesitant to wade into this discussion and i'm not really sure how i feel about the title qn but:

everything i've read abt abortion politics says that a large margin of ppl are sort of in the middle on this - that a lot of pro-life sentiment is basically just that. and i think if you give too much ground you can sort of end up 'normailzing' being anti-abortion as a default position for a lot of ppl that don't feel that strongly abt and a) arent going to make that a deciding factor and b) might be persuaded that this legal abortion is the only equitable postion

i guess im just trying to say that acting like "vasts portions of the electorate or anti-abortion" is some unchangeable obstacle

i guess im just trying to say that acting like "vasts portions of the electorate or anti-abortion" is some unchangeable obstacle

it's for sure changeable! it changes toward the "even vaster" option when the fucking POTUS stands before both houses and points his finger confidently asserting that not one penny of his budget will fund a safe and legal medical procedure.

oh got cut off

"acting like..." is foolish because these opinions arent entirely black or white. lol @ posting while doing other stuff. yeah basically j0hn d otm here. i think its particularly galling bcuz it sets the tone of the debate

is foolish because these opinions arent entirely black or white

they are for considerable amounts of people who have political representation!

there's a right time to do the right thing, and that's when you're sure everyone else agrees with you

lol what does 'doing the right thing' have to do with politics

hesitant to wade into this discussion

cosign

i'm aware that this is a small detail, but this article on the dems repro rights capitulation is worth reading. while it's true that well-intentioned ineptitude should be criticised as strongly as purposefully negative action; and that like this thread explores, carrying out the same deed albeit for better purposes is super-depressing; and that democrats eventually were using abortion rights as a negotiable in healthcare, i still think it's inaccurate to suggest that they were horse-trading principles rather than manoeuvred into it by aggressive anti-choicers. not apologising; just saying.

"I think without question it was a mistake to begin in a compromised position," says Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Its our job as the advocacy community to make clear what the optimal policy outcome would be for Americans who care about access to abortion services, and to strenuously argue that the bill should not differentiate between abortion services and other health care."

Instead, early on, leaders in the pro-choice movement decided to try to take abortion off the table.
...
But when the status quo is your opening offer, there's nowhere to negotiate but down.

Someone who might actually give a shit about women's rights:

http://minnesotaindependent.com/54900/franken-keynotes-roe-v-wade-event

Alright dudes, you have a $100 million warchest to do this -- how do you pass health care w/ federal funding for abortion access?

spend all 100 million on telling members of your party who won't vote with you that they don't want to live with the consequences of not voting as a single bloc

do that about six months ago

spend anything left on cake

instead of fucking appeasing dems who won't get on board all the live-long day ffs

totally

spend anything left on cake

Just to be a true Democrat, I say we get burritos, instead.

So... rent-a-thugs basically?
'you'll vote for single-payer if ya know whats good for yas, see?'

Oh, c'mon, arm-twisting, hell, ball-twisting is as old as deliberative party politics.

How do you buy that kind of leverage if not through imposing scowly guys with baseball bats?

it's true that the Dems are lacking in discipline (strangely not in the lower chamber, however) but there are limits to leg-breaking. a threat to a nelson or a landrieu is just not credible, nobody significantly to their left will be elected from NE or AK.

there i go, capitulating again.

Barbara Kruger has a point here:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nGtw0-cHs0k/SZ2uRtvb2RI/AAAAAAAAAms/CLS7T7rfmWk/s400/ProChoice.jpg

much respect to kruger, but I don't think this will win too many hearts and minds of congressmen. Maybe their impressionable daughters...

"anti-abortion leaders" is a strange phrase. do they mean elected pols against choice or what?

prob. NGOs, pols and 'church leaders' imo...

ilx posters

it's true that the Dems are lacking in discipline (strangely not in the lower chamber, however) but there are limits to leg-breaking.

indeed! those limits unfortunately seem presently to begin at "applying any sort of pressure whatsoever, ever, and instead, granting all concessions asked, even before they're asked"

"especially if those concession have something to do with women's rights to self-determination, which, hell, let's just put that right out on the table from the jump"

Well, how would you get these guys to shape up then? If you had, say, avatar money. My personal inclination would be to see if there's any on the opposite side who could be bought off.

stripping people of committees & meeting with them to make them understand that the party will not help them in their bids for reelection should they fail to toe the line. there is absolutely nothing any of them won't do if the threat of not being reelected is raised; that's what most of their willingness to stall reform hinges on in the first place, but none of them are foolish enough to think they can prevail if the party actually was willing to do to them what they're willing to do to the party. weird historical irony at work here in that the renegades seem to understand party politics better than the party does, but that's not surprising, given the historically unprecedented incompetence of the party.

but that's dreamland because most straight-ticket voting dems can be convinced that any sort of rebuke even to a not-actually-with-us dude like Lieberman would be too much, a bridge too far, not worth alienating the dude, etc

because the democratic party is straight fuckin' garbage, is why

John, I think you greatly overestimate the power of the party over Democrats from conservative states/areas. They can't be re-elected if they toe the party line on issues to the point they lose the crossover they're picking up.

I think principle trumps electability, but that's why I'm not a politician or hack.

Lieberman is an odd case - the rank and file TRIED to punish him for his sins and if he were a long-time member of the House he would have been stripped of power. But the collegiality of the Senate protects him. I'm thinking more of the Jim Webbs and Ben Nelsons, who are otherwise loyal party members except for certain issues.

it's all supposition in any case as the party won't, on any issue, assert itself or the values it claims to espouse - "compromise first, on any issue" is pretty much the mantra, whether it's torture or warrantless wiretapping or the right to choose or the right of workers to organize or whatever progressive principle you care to name

Whatshisface Obama nominated to the NLRB is not a bad option from a labor perspective, and I don't mind having Sotomayor on the bench for most of my lifetime. Not everything the party does is stabbing progressives in the back.

Holy shit, you fucking people, we have this debate every two months. If you think Obama and Harry Reid are impotent against Blue Dog opposition, then you don't know Senate history. Every strong president of the 20th century, even when their party was out of power, exercised considerable control over committee appointments. But Obama, the Great Conciliator, is either temperamentally or philosophically opposed to hardball.

If Richard Nixon, who never had a Congressional majority, could get continued funding for Vietnam almost to the end -- even toy with the possibility of avoiding impeachment -- thanks to his harassment of Mike Mansfield and Hugh Scott, what the fuck is keeping Obama with his reduced majority of 59 senators from exercising his will?

Jon Stewart's right. Honestly, I expected Obama to flex the Unitary Executive powers bequeathed to him by Bush in foreign AND domestic spheres.

Alright then, what's the roadmap to success an alt-universe hardball Obama should take? Which appointments could he make without incurring costs making them not worthwhile?

If Obama's people genuinely studied the Reagan presidency as closely as they claim, they'd note that Reagan steamrolled the Dems for a year despite a single-digit majority in the Senate. Reagan also took office claiming a New Era. Most legislators remember him and his people as personally affable but relentless -- like FDR really. Even Dems he steamrolled got some pork for their districts or federal jobs for hacks. At the other end we have George W. Bush, who was neither personally affable nor politically astute.

there's nothing anybody can say to you, Philip, is there, that will dissuade you of your conviction that the Democrats are doing thier level best & should be congratulated for getting so much done against the terrifying burden of having majorities in the House and Senate

times don't call for a Great Conciliator, they call for a Great Asskicker/Armtwister. which is rehashing Obama vs. Hillary arguments from two years ago, but still here we are.

I mean you're just going to keep coming with "what should they do, then?" how about SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE CRAP THEY'RE PULLING.

I mean what specifically they should do, as armchair QBs with fictional $100M warchest.

what the fuck is keeping Obama with his reduced majority of 59 senators from exercising his will

I agree, but haven't you heard? He is singlehandedly turning us into Nazi Communist Germany. Doing anything radical like that would damage his reputation among people that draw Hitler mustaches on his picture.

i for one haven't got a clue. the unprecedented shit-pulling of the opposition has made the senate impassable, but nobody up top seems to have anything to say about it other than "this is unprecedented"

it's all a big charade -- the Dems don't do what they were ostensibly elected to do (and for the most candy-assed reasons imaginable even when they have solid majorities in both houses), they lose seats and possibly even the majority in one or both houses, the GOP goes beyond the pale as they always do b/c they don't give a shit about the sorts of behavioral tics that turn Democrats into such pussies, the Democrats eventually prod themselves into mouthing outrage over GOP abuses and claim that they've learned and besides shit is real fucked up now, the GOP loses power, the Dems go back to being the balls-less pansies that they were at the start of this cycle ...

rinse, lather, repeat.

I mean what specifically they should do, as armchair QBs with fictional $100M warchest.

you've really got me there - I would be a terrible President, Congressman or Senator. I guess anything I might say about how shitty their performance is has been thoroughly eviscerated now! in other news, all my critique of art is revealed as toothless because I can't paint better myself

time to revive the Whig party imo

fuck yes

The Dems as a whole seem not to know their message, mainly because they are not quite sure who their major constituency is, apart from the corporations and the rich. So they waffle and try to appear uncontroversial, except for a few firebreathers from safe districts with a clear audience for a particular message.

The Republicans suffer from no such confusion. They come to work, represent the rich, pander to the religious right and neo-John Birchers, cash their checks and go home.

to be honest after Obama took office it was a tremendous relief not having the constant feeling that I could actually do a better job than the president.
Every day it was all, restricting stem cell lines? That's the exact wrong decision! You should have done the opposite of that!

I think you guys are still sellingyourselves short. are you saying you couldn't have run a less disastrous senate campaign in mass.?
Btw why wouldn't you be able to commission great art with a $100mill budget?

I'll happily run for senator, guys, with your support.

swear to God Alfred if you run I will come down there and canvas for you - I have experience canvassing in Congressional districts about which I will tell you all sometime for much laffs

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Fuck you, ILE.

Cap'n Save-a-Bamz

boo. the correct answer is yes. yall aren't paying attention

this wasn't actually a surprise to you guys right tho

yall been paying attention to this cpac thing in which the republicans are being different from democrats, a bit?

anyway i will agree with the statement that the democrats are only different from the republicans is that they are "less bad" but i will take what i can get when one party is so morally, ethically, politically and philosophically bankrupt i am genuinely afraid of its taking power again

― max, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 3:08 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

i read the thread up until this point, but this pretty much says all i think really needs saying in any real-world sense. i just pretend the D means disappointment and the R means revulsion, and generally vote accordingly.

no no. there is no difference whatsoever between ron paul, barack obama, and richard nixon.

Don't be silly; Ron Paul hasn't killed anybody.

GOOD POINT

thanking u

he kills my brain cells when i hear his spiel about the gold standard.

If there were an option for "I am disappointed in both, but for different reasons" that would probably win, is the thing. I get that there are totally valid reasons to be disappointed in both for the same basic reasons but yeah I dunno, it's just for me that one of the parties has people in significant positions who are anti-science*, or all creepy and Randian, or have an unwavering belief in the infallibility of American exceptionalism, and the other one is just kinda lame, and self-satisfied for not being the other guys.

* Anti-vax people have a pocket on the left, as compared to creationists/IDers and global warming deniers, but the only prominent anti-vaccine dude of any political name I can think of is RFK Jr.

geared up for the ron paul v. barack obama 2012 general election.

I am kinda worried that Ron Paul is the Barry Goldwater figure in Nixonland II: Libertarian Boogaloo, although I have no idea who in the current GOP is as skilled at gaming politics as Nixon (or Reagan) was.

no-one who is currently a nat'l-level leader. not sure who they've got among their governors.

you guys who keep equating "are essentially the same" with "no difference whatsoever" understand how that doesn't actually work, correct?

I wonder how differently people would have approached this thread had it been "Democrats and Republicans are effectively the same"

― Michael Steele, the first black Superman (HI DERE), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:48 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

---------

anyway my real beef with j0hn is over the definition of 'essentially'

― max, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:24 PM (1 week ago)

It's not a "no difference whatsoever" thing, at any rate. It's probably foolish, but I conceive of generic Democrat in a different way than I conceive of generic Republican, in terms of what they're for and why they're for it, and what they're against and why they're against it, and why they are already pissing me off.

Exception for everybody desiring elected office wanting to keep/retain elected office however that seems most feasibly accomplished.

Democrats and Republicans are anally the same

All I've ever known is that I'm not a Republican (although I voted for one in my district last year), but I don't see myself ever being comfortable in the Dem ranks.

I don't see myself ever being comfortable in the Dem ranks.

just curious: why not? feel free to tell me to mind my own business, obv.

i've never, ever thought of myself as "a democrat." i mostly vote for democrats, but major political parties are such corrupt and soul-sucking institutions that i don't want to associate with them any more than necessary. but that still doesn't mean that they are equally or interchangeably corrupt and soul-sucking.

Wow! Way more votes than I expected!

(also didn't expect any votes for undecided)

I voted for hope

i wish there'd been an option for "they both suck in entirely different and admittedly disproportionate ways"

gets a lil more obvious every year

The New Deal and Great Society still should earn the dems continuing thanks from the working poor, but they've done damn little to earn their thanks in the past 3 decades.

how do we feel on this now? suspect many still feel the same considering the squandering of the left's blank check in the first quarter of Obama's term, and the endless kowtowing and capitulating when the folks across the aisle aren't willing to do the same.

however - seeing the result now of a demagogue elected President, has that made any hardliners steer any towards pragmatism? Like I think we saw some of the ideas in the thread come true with Democrats casting protest votes or not voting because "if we don't ever stand up to the weak Democratic Party, we'll never have progressives in office", even people saying "Hillary is no better than Trump" during the election. Do we think the denial of Hillary will ultimately be the first step in ceding the nod to a Bernie Sanders-type as nominee in the future, will the potential destruction of the indefinite Trump era be too much to overcome?

re-reading through this I'm sympathetic to aerosmith's position simply because I've always lamented how the party will never be progressive enough and the curious desire to be seen as "moderate" on issues as if that is the key to retaining power, even though the GOP has never cherished that label and has done just fine. but, at the same time, I'm plenty pissed the fuck off at Democrats who knowingly cast protest votes or abstained in states where the result wasn't a foregone conclusion, when they knew that the end result could be the end of Roe v Wade, ACA, LGBT rights, as well as increasing income inequality and religious discrimination against LGBT folk, while also possibly ushering in a new recession (which tbf, might have happened under Hillary's watch as well)?

I get that aerosmith's point in 2010 was that if you continually accept this as reality and then don't take any other action to internally revolt in order to reshape the party, we're accepting selling out our ideals and the rights many of us have worked hard for. but I think it is possible to do that while acknowledging the reality that's on our current doorstep (i.e., would many Democrats be as militantly "fall in line" if we had one or both halves of Congress or this election fell in simpler times where so much radical change wasn't imminent? or if the GOP candidate wasn't so psychopathic?).

I do think Democrats tend to pull the "now is not the time to vote third party" in every election cycle whereas I do feel there are some where there is value in doing so, and I don't begrudge anybody who lives in a state like NYC or California, or somewhere where it really won't fuckin' matter for abstaining or protest voting. but it's hard for me not to be angry at people who felt playing roulette while President Trump was a possibility was a good idea - like yes, sure, we all thought Hillary had it locked up, but I don't think any of *us* believed there was no chance of Trump winning, it was one of those "things look good but can we be careful, please" moments.

Maybe this election does teach us that it's completely pointless to keep splitting the difference because the GOP will never return the favor, and that Democrats will be called "cucks" and "pussies" and face resistance from the right no matter how much we do or don't swallow poison pills. idk though - the amount of voters I still see saying "they go low, we go high" and advocating this hippie-dippie approach to politics that has fucked us for decades doesn't have me optimistic.

san dimas high school football rules.

lol this was a fun thread. ah, youth

i called iatee a blue dog itt

but I don't think any of *us* believed there was no chance of Trump winning

uh you ALL believed this

not the point of this thread

ok, how about, dems are at least as stupid as repubs

this thread was seven years ago? Holy hell

I'll happily run for senator, guys, with your support.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:43 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

swear to God Alfred if you run I will come down there and canvas for you - I have experience canvassing in Congressional districts about which I will tell you all sometime for much laffs

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:57 PM (

fwiw and he can surely speak to this himself but i think aerosmith's opinion has evolved on this

I think so

Some Democrats are different from other Democrats.

eg the ones who planned to nap for Clinton's first term

I'll run. Fuck'em.

I have family in Florida. We will work for you.

Let's do this.

uh you ALL believed this
― sleepingbag, Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No. I firmly believed Hillary was going to win but I had many sleepless nights the week before. I'm not going to waffle and pretend I didn't publicly say she had it in the bag but privately I worried a lot

Like the day of Comeygate i was basically refreshing news stories every 2 minutes

Estoy con Soto

I'd vote and canvas for Soto

Except on weekends cos im lazy

Vote 1 Alfred

Martinis 4 Everyone

Every Friday is a public holiday for cocktail enjoyment

alfred i'm available as ruthless machiavellian strategist, if you end up not being able to land treeship

fwiw and he can surely speak to this himself but i think aerosmith's opinion has evolved on this

― Mordy, Sunday, January 22, 2017 8:44 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Convenient

pocorn.gif

how do we feel on this now? suspect many still feel the same considering the squandering of the left's blank check in the first quarter of Obama's term, and the endless kowtowing and capitulating when the folks across the aisle aren't willing to do the same.

Blank check was always a strong description of the situation. Some democrats are dick Durban and some are Joe Lieberman

fuck Lieberman so hard

never vomed in my mouth as hard as I did when he made that cringeworthy and unnecessary disclaimer during the Iraq prisoner torture hearing

two m's

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vom#English

aero's position is now v. proudly "the difference is important enough to vote Democrat, encourage others to do so, and shame 3rd party dudes like aero used to be" so yeah. I mean I still think the party's terrible in so many ways but I don't give even the tiniest fuck about that, I'm persuaded that 1) you're going to get one or the other and 2) one of these will do less harm than the other

but I don't think any of *us* believed there was no chance of Trump winning

I believed this so hard that reality kicked the living shit out of me on election night.

https://monolithik.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/obamney3.jpg?w=520

xpost yeah I mean I won't front like I wasn't shocked by it or act like I saw it coming (cos I really didn't) but there was always 2% of me that was terrified that I was wrong. sleep didn't come on election night.

I actually had a nightmare about a month before that Trump won ....

it took me a really long time to decrypt these transmissions. never take breaks from ilx

i called iatee a blue dog itt

funny that this is an archaic insult already

never believed the thread title but always believed that the post-2008 dems would have been wiser to break more sharply w reaganclintonism at home and dubyism abroad. but i voted for hillary and even my purge-the-libs jacobinism these days remains boringly within the dem party; i wanna primary people and shift the party's funding, and it helps that they're more vulnerable and ideologically adrift right now than they've been since i was 1. the party imo is the mechanism that's available, while it's available.

iatee still making zero sense

Thing I've been wondering about: I know in Maine they passed a law redoing federal elections away from the 'first-past-the-post' format, to make sure someone like Paul LePage doesn't win again. That sounds pretty great from a third-party standpoint as well. But when I see people talking how to break the duopoly, the focus almost always seems to be on building a separate power base, rather than undoing the conditions that created the duopoly in the first place. Am I wrong? Are people elsewhere following the Maine example? And is it smart or stupid to do so?

Trump would have had a very good chance of dominating a race with more than two candidates. Not that a single outcome should determine what system we have but something to consider.

if Hill had won we would just swap Russian conspiracy w Saudi

But with ranked choice, as instituted in Maine, that could have been helped. Right? There's a Slate article about it here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2016/11/maine_just_passed_ranked_choice_voting_bravo.html

if Hill had won we would just swap Russian conspiracy w Saudi

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 23 January 2017 14:13 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You might have

Convenient

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Sunday, January 22, 2017 11:18 PM (yesterday)

huh?

Have you guys read the pieces like the one in yesterday's NYT that the Repubs are worried that Trump will continue to be a "big-government" populist?

(this is where the putative fissure could come, for those who expect one)

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/crop_0_451_4170_2351,scalefit_630_noupscale/58863f342900002800dd1374.jpeg?cache=rkrpwlrz7v

If things had gone a 'lil differently it'd just be Hillary and the Democrat Regime signing the far-reaching, anti-abortion, so-called "Mexico City policy" on the second day of her presidency too, right?

let's go to Things No One Has Ever Said, Alex

the answer is...today's daily double

having a laugh. fine.

that anyone Has Ever Said it is the fucking poll at the top of the fucking page.

I guess it would depend on each person's interpretation of "essentially" in the poll question. Those who think it means "exactly" would also believe that every position held by Republicans is held identically by Democrats.

I'm not sure anyone was using that particular interpretation of "essentially". You could poll it again, substituting "exactly the same" for "essentially the same" and see if the results varied.

never believed the thread title but always believed that the post-2008 dems would have been wiser to break more sharply w reaganclintonism at home and dubyism abroad.

― difficult listening hour, Monday, January 23, 2017 7:15 AM (thirteen hours ago)

maybe this is naive or something but i kinda feel like...they have? the party as a whole seems far more to the left than it was in the 90s, and the platform hillary clinton ran on was light-years more progressive than the ones bill clinton ran on. and obama's foreign policy despite its problems was not really very similar to dubya's. (i initially wrote "is" and felt glum for a few seconds before fixing it.)

from some vantage point there's no difference between the most enlightened democracy and the most benighted fascist hellhole since one day all this will turn to dust and we will be scattered among the stars. from the vantage point of knowing anything about anything answering affirmative to the op's question is insane. even if they are both terrible, they're clearly terrible in vastly different ways that produce dramatically different outcomes.

from some vantage point there's no difference between the most enlightened democracy and the most benighted fascist hellhole since one day all this will turn to dust and we will be scattered among the stars

this vantage point exists and is nothing to do with entropic inevitabilites and everything to do with the absurd ease of embracing yr tumblrised political exceptionalism iirc

right i really should've specified that one's perspective need not be so dramatic; just that is an example of a reasonable approach to living among humanity that might honestly answer yes to the op q.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls8m51b2Dn1r0v3yho1_1280.jpg

imagine still believing this

also i've been reading Rick Perlstein's book about Goldwater and, like, it only took a handful of conservative activists like 2 decades to turn Einsenhower's Republican party into the Party of Reagan? so just like, be patient, hold your nose and organize or stfu? i really don't get how, strategically, bothsidesarethesame-ism, is going to get you anywhere

Convenient

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Sunday, January 22, 2017 11:18 PM (yesterday)

huh?

― Mordy, Monday, January 23, 2017 9:55 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its convenient that after the election of donald trump someone's thinking could 'evolve' this way

especially someone who wasn't v forgiving of barack obama, an actual politician's, "evolved thinking" excuse for not supporting gay marriage initially

you are disapproving of something v unclear here but yr comments are surely noted

maybe this is naive or something but i kinda feel like...they have? the party as a whole seems far more to the left than it was in the 90s, and the platform hillary clinton ran on was light-years more progressive than the ones bill clinton ran on. and obama's foreign policy despite its problems was not really very similar to dubya's. (i initially wrote "is" and felt glum for a few seconds before fixing it.)

Socially, vastly more progressive than the days of Clinton signing DOMA and highlighting the execution of Ricky Ray Rector and Sistah Soulja and welfare reform or even of a party that was terrified to support gay marriage 6 years ago. Even on abortion it's more solidly pro-choice as a party. It was easier and more justifiable in 2000 to say Gore vs. Dubya, what's the diff because the Democrats were not as socially progressive as they are today.

Unfortunately, that's given some cover to the continued rightward drift economically and in foreign policy. You can't say "they're the same" and throw up your hands because they're objectively not, but the socially progressive party is still pretty awful in many meaningful ways.

i dunno what meaningful means there but i think i disagree with my understanding of the word meaningful in this context

off the top of my head: TPP, extrajudicial killings of American citizens, unwilling to take on the drug war or police militarization in any major way, asset forfeiture, the absolute necessity of single-payer healthcare, continued coziness with Wall Street, continued enhancement of surveillance state

The center and right of the party, at best, represent things not getting worse (or not getting worse much faster). That was and is my main problem with Hillary - she didn't inspire many people to hope for a better deal in life. You have to do that if you want to win back some of those Rust Belt voters and/or get the millions of people who just don't bother to vote to do so.

it's meaningful not because the democrats are morally corrupted and thus voting for them makes one morally corrupted oneself -- but because their economic policies (and donor base) continued to exacerbate rather than relieve the exact conditions that they weren't unwarned might spawn fascism.

WE WARNED YOU

especially someone who wasn't v forgiving of barack obama, an actual politician's, "evolved thinking" excuse for not supporting gay marriage initially

actually, when I started working directly for reproductive justice w/naral etc all 5 or 6 years ago, and when I became a parent 5 1/2 years ago, I found myself undergoing the softening that happens to a lot of parents -- buying into a lot of the smaller-ameliorations arguments that used to strike me as so odious. it happens; it's growth. I should say however that it doesn't happen to all of us, as we know -- but hope springs eternal, you sad, obsessed fellow

yeah but the problem with Obama's 'evolution' was that he was already evolved as an Illinois state legislator, cool with gay marriage.

presidents are "structural monsters," some worse than that

we will get your kids in the College Greens/Coffees/Nihilists, if there is still college

college ended years ago

guys it's just like that Nobody Speak video

yeah but the problem with Obama's 'evolution' was that he was already evolved as an Illinois state legislator, cool with gay marriage.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 23, 2017 7:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems like that would make it *less* of a problem since u know he's in your corner

actually, when I started working directly for reproductive justice w/naral etc all 5 or 6 years ago, and when I became a parent 5 1/2 years ago, I found myself undergoing the softening that happens to a lot of parents -- buying into a lot of the smaller-ameliorations arguments that used to strike me as so odious. it happens; it's growth. I should say however that it doesn't happen to all of us, as we know -- but hope springs eternal, you sad, obsessed fellow

― though she denies it to the press, (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Monday, January 23, 2017 7:24 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last time ppl made this argument we ended up in the iraq war, it makes no sense to me that ppl made it eight years ago, or ten years ago, or etc

seems like that would make it *less* of a problem since u know he's in your corner

That's a rosy way of looking at it and in hindsight makes perfect sense on this specific one, but when it happens it's a knife. It reminds you your issues won't be addressed at the national level because they're seen as liabilities.

And on national security, the 100% hit rate of the DIC + spy agencies turning Democratic anti-war politicians into all but trained assassins probably really makes some people extremely grouchy.

As people have said better before on this thread, it's what Democrats do after winning that makes them seem more conniving and duplicitous to liberals and lefties, while from that perspective it looks like Republicans are upfront about being evil. Which is totally false but then we're back in "everybody KNOWS" territory

Also, highly educated people tend to vote Democratic, so it's also a betrayal when they act like fucking morons:

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/01/is-our-democrats-learning-2

I'm not trying to defend democrats, nor Obama pretending for the purposes of electoral politics that he couldn't make his mind up about gay marriage, but I still find it difficult to read--especially from someone who has been hardline in this and other arguments w me & others--suggestions that the two parties were basically the same in the past evolving his thinking & not allowing the same from others, esp when on this particular issue it was just as obvious years earlier

I wrote this from my phone on the toilet so forgive the run on sentence as you would a hardline leftist who now sees the difference between "heckuvajob brownie" and the president who brought us back from the rink of economic ruin

*brink

can we find fred and lock him in this thread with deej and tombot

-- temporarily, cuz banks too big to jail

xp

That's a rosy way of looking at it and in hindsight makes perfect sense on this specific one, but when it happens it's a knife. It reminds you your issues won't be addressed at the national level because they're seen as liabilities.

This was one of the two reasons I didn't vote for him in 2008. My politics are more sullied these days.

we're all very sorry someone argued online with you in 2008 or whatever

if you're interested in peering at the underlying reasons im so peeved by this kind of behavior, its bc the current shape of discourse very rarely seems to brook dissent in the moment, nor allow for an open-mindedness to think outside the box of received wisdom, and i often feel as if jon bon jovi of the group arctic monkeys is one of the primary arguers in this style. but it's a trend i've noticed across the board, perhaps magnified by social media, where people are rewarded for reflecting consensus views in any given moment, but seldom held to account when they switch positions 180 degrees as consensus swings the other direction.

lol welcome to humanity

and though im kind of picking on him he's def not the worst case scenario of this; the worst case scenario is stuff like leftists sharing fake news w/ a sense of outrage, like the anger that the white house had taken down all these websites!!! Donald Trump took down the disabled americans websites!!! (6983423K RTs, 239183K Favs). oh wait, the obama administration took them down because that's standard procedure... . . . . how are we supposed to believe you the next time you're outraged ? how can i take an argument as a statement of principle when its so easily swayed?

obviously everyone has opinions that change over time, i'm not so much looking for rigidity in thinking. but if you're going to be one of those people, you should at the very least be more understanding of how others "evolve their thinking"

anyway it just struck me as funny & ironic! ok im done

this argument would make more sense if a) the position switch you're discussing had happened after this election and not 3-4 years ago and b) it hadn't been widely acknowledged by the person who made it when asked about it

Srsly. I asked aero our of curiosity, not so he could be criticized on shit he believed six years ago.

But those two have 'history' so...

I'll say this for deej, he knows how to hold a grudge

the parties are much more fluid the last few months, eg

@ggreenwald
Dems have spoken fondly of CIA since Obama began running it, but since the election, the reverence has become quasi-religious #TheSacredWall

any port in a storm

this argument would make more sense if a) the position switch you're discussing had happened after this election and not 3-4 years ago and b) it hadn't been widely acknowledged by the person who made it when asked about it

― (The caption: “fine dining.”) (DJP), Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:40 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess, if you somehow thought the iraq war wasn't enough of a signal that thoughtful ppl should reconsider this notion

re: part b, let me have my moment !!

wait waht? Remind me where the Dems opposed the Iraq War

I'll say this for deej, he knows how to hold a grudge

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:43 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cmon, J & i beefed not a month ago about something completely unrelated, this isn't one sided

wait waht? Remind me where the Dems opposed the Iraq War

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:49 PM (twenty-three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a dem president would not have pushed for war in iraq; the entire motive for war was concocted in a right wing lab basically

right but the Democrats went right along w it, which doesn't really mark them out as "different"

cmon, J & i beefed not a month ago about something completely unrelated, this isn't one sided

still mad about lil peep eh

I wonder sometimes if 9/11 would have happened on Gore's watch. It very well may have. If it does, the Afghanistan war definitely still happens, Iraq probably not, but bombings overseas in no fly zones almost certainly would have continued. He was a neo-Clintonite and all.

not sure how i feel about new politically outspoken deej god this is fucking tedious

iraq would not have happened under gore, cmon

god this is fucking tedious

― Mordy, Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:54 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

your opinions are bad, but good thing you're not tedious or disagreeable

somehow your new shtick in 2017 is worse than all your previous shticks put together

some Dems opposed the Iraq war, just not the ones w/ presidential ambitions

we usta call Gore the Senator from Likud

deej + morbz; honestly cannot figure out who best completes the package of ignorant, shrill and self-righteous anyway u 2 have fun *remove bookmark*

wow how self righteous of me to want someone i argue w/ to stand behind what they're saying & not shift when the social media winds blow

your perception of this is bizarre and wrong and you should stop posting about it

iraq would not have happened under gore, cmon

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, January 24, 2017 3:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's....exactly what I said

damn the one time J admits he's wrong & i cant enjoy it? ffs

your perception of this is bizarre and wrong and you should stop posting about it

succinct and correct

Getting an idea and lying and manipulating to try and achieve that idea on the one hand, and looking at the manipulated evidence and going 'I guess ok' on the other hand, in no way is the same. And I personally think it's incredible anyone fell for the Iraq WMD scam, but falling for it is not the same as creating it.

also all democrats didn't fall for it ... cf our last president

is it possible that trump is.... making ilx better

no hear me out!

pocorn.gif

― k3vin k., Sunday, January 22, 2017 11:18 PM (two days ago)

do i know how this message board works or do i know how this message board works

spelling popcorn incorrectly notwithstanding

Darragh, the passing of Obama and Clinton from the main stage has refocused certain posters' derision onto targets that are more unanimously hated around here. So yes, things are a bit more copacetic.

that was my line of thought but i went and got a sandwich instead

be the change and all that

darraghmac's sandwich '18

sadly it didnt survive the nomnomination process

iraq would not have happened under gore, cmon

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, January 24, 2017 3:55 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bernie woulda won

flee the bern

it's funny how Bernie change a situation

oh man do i hate reading my posts from the early obama years yikes~

proud of your party's confirmation votes, Mordy?

My mother-in-law spent a little of her time today getting through to Sherrod Brown's office to light some poor staffer all the way up. I think she burned through two of them actually. Roz gonna fuck you up, dude.

@pmgentry
Obama entered office with a huge voter mandate and control of both houses in Congress. Republicans managed to destroy it all in two years.

Pro tip: Republicans didn't do it by being reasonable and "picking their battles."

@DougHenwood
Republicans have a set of beliefs they’re passionately attached to. What are Chuck Schumer’s principles?

yes

Republicans have a set of beliefs they’re passionately attached to.

party's leader is currently an areligious dude who wants to tear apart free trade agreements and buddy up w/ russia, so

and yet he's enacting huge swaths of the conventional GOP wingnut wishlist, go figure!

He is kind of an outlier, though, and he is enabling Republicans with a set of beliefs they’re passionately attached to.

xp

d-40 given that labour led the UK into iraq would you be tempted to agree that labour & the conservatives are thus essentially the same or do you have a deeper underlying objection to this dismissal of mainstream party politics?

Well, Doug Henwood has convinced me. With the smart and admirable way the GOP is acting right now, they should definitely be emulated by Dems.

go march with iatee, into the sea

'everything obama did is bad, how can we tear it up' isn't a set of core beliefs. post-dubya, republicans have defined themselves by what they aren't rather than what they are, which is why somebody was able to run a campaign that broke w/ things that they took for granted for decades.

xp

'lower taxes' is a core belief

so long as Trump keeps signing executive orders and starts signing Ryan/Heritage legislation he's a Republican.

Trump/Reagan tradition

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/30/reagan-alumni-for-trump-remind-america-that-gop-didnt-start-making-things-up-in-2016/

pollution comes from trees!

He asked George Will at a White House reception what made the Blue Mountains blue.

iraq would not have happened under gore, cmon

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, January 24, 2017 3:55 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bernie woulda won

― flopson, Tuesday, 24 January 2017 23:10 (two day

I mean obviously anyone that thinks "Gore would have invaded Iraq too" is delusional but depressing to think anyone unironically
thinks the second thing is as equally certain