All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[BeastieRunner]

I'm not denying that the Clinton Campaign made huge mistakes. However, they might have made fewer of them if the person they were running against was someone they understood. Someone like like Ted Cruz, or John Kasich, or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush.

Half of America was expecting Bush III vs. Clinton II.

I think that played a role, too.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

Leftist politicians doing silly things like praising Castro's Cuba while running for president isn't helping, either.

Eh. That was blown way out of proportion imo.

[Joker]

I'm not denying that the Clinton Campaign made huge mistakes. However, they might have made fewer of them if the person they were running against was someone they understood. Someone like like Ted Cruz, or John Kasich, or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush.

That's entirely possible. We'll never know. And, FWIW, I'm not saying you are pretending they didn't make mistakes. I just haven't seen much introspection on that front from Dems. Maybe I missed it. Trump kinda took over the news cycle.

[Tami]

That's entirely possible. We'll never know. And, FWIW, I'm not saying you are pretending they didn't make mistakes. I just haven't seen much introspection on that front from Dems. Maybe I missed it. Trump kinda took over the news cycle.

The introspection was there, but often not played out in public. I suspect that the Biden Campaign learned some things from Cinton's mistakes, just enough to beat Trump [with help, of course].

[MacrossPlus]

Can we just end political fandoms already? Like, maybe it's just possible that both progressives and establishment dems both make good points that the other side should consider when it comes to policy reform?

[Tami]

Can we just end political fandoms already? Like, maybe it's just possible that both progressives and establishment dems both make good points that the other side should consider when it comes to policy reform?

It would be interesting if Politics wasn't so tribal, and if each public official/politician acted on facts instead of 'group think'. I doubt that could ever happen in the long run. Eventually alliances would be made, peopel who shard common ideas would group together, and eventually it would return to a tribal nature.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I'm of the mind that there was another reason why they thought Clinton would win. There has never been a candidate for President like Trump, at least not one who made it past the primaries.

His winning was a shock to nearly everyone, possibly including many who voted for him.

The Dems couldn't believe that Trump woudl have enough support to win

The Republicans were even skeptical that he could win

Even Trump himself was doubtful that he'd win

And even Putin doubted Trump would win.

I remember seeing a magazine article about what went on in the Trump war room after it had been announced that he had won. The piece included an artist’s rendering of the moment where everyone, INCLUDING Trump were openly shocked at the outcome while Melania was in tears, but not tears of joy as she probably wanted no part of being First Lady or living in the world’s largest fishbowl that was the White House. So yeah, Trump’s win literally was out of left field, the only candidate who could have made for a more improbable a victor in a presidential election would’ve been Ross Perot if he won in 1992.

[Iron Maiden]

I really lost faith in the public at large when Trump won in 2016 in spite of:

The Access Hollywood tape where he brags about assaulting women
Mocking of a physically disabled reporter
Insulting John McCain and POWs in general by saying they're not war heroes


All of these things are indisputable and we're seen by millions. And I am not even going to count his grifter ways, Trump University, etc. If millions of people can vote for someone like that it just makes me frightened and sad about the future of this nation. Not that I am a big fan of Oprah but she once got into hot water for saying that there is a whole generation of people that are " born and bred and marinated, in that prejudice and racism and they just have to die" It's Trump loyalists, the ones that show up at this rallies and defend him online, etc not the politicians will go where the wind blows to get elected that are the issue. IMO they will not suddenly be struck by a bolt from the blue and "see the light". They will be with us for years to come. We have to hope that interest in Trump and his politics will die out in succeeding generations

[worstblogever]

By the way, we found some voter fraud.

By that I mean a reporter found a voter fraud scheme where a Republican lawyer in Florida was telling people in his party to pretend to move to Georgia so they could vote Loeffler and Perdue and then just stay in Florida.

Obviously illegal. Obviously not the voter fraud Republicans want to talk about, because they can pervert democracy as long as they win and no big deal.

[worstblogever]

I really lost faith in the public at large when Trump won in 2016 in spite of:

The Access Hollywood tape where he brags about assaulting women
Mocking of a physically disabled reporter
Insulting John McCain and POWs in general by saying they're not war heroes

I'll add "openly soliciting for foreign assistance in a press conference with the collective media present" to this list. As well as "Mexicans are rapists". And the Muslim ban. And...

I'll stop. It could take a while. But this nightmare should have never been a thing.

[Tami]

Here is a thought, a psychological perspective.

Voters voting for Trump, 2016 and 2020, could justify their vote by saying 'if anything he did was really bad, or if anything 'they' said he did was true, then no one would support him. So, since my neighbors are supporting him, since my Republican State and Federal representatives and other elected officals are supporting Trump, then I can ignore all the bad things everyone says about Trump.'

However, this is a circular thought process. Imagine a group of people standing in a circle, each one pointing to the person next to them and saying the same thing, that this guy supports Trump so I will.

Even among politicians, they point to their base and say that they support Trump, while the base voters point to the politician and say, he/she supports Trump.

This isn't always the case, many politicians supported Trump for more unsavory and self0gratifying reasons.

[MacrossPlus]

and to think all of this happened because of a publicity Stunt. Trump only announced his run for president as a way to pressure NBC into giving him a pay raise

[Malvolio]

I never thought Trump would make a serious run in 2016. I thought he would just use an exploratory committee to grift money like he did in 2012. But then he realized that he could grift even more money as an actual candidate and the rest is history.

[Amadeus Arkham]

It just occurred to me that Trump really did want Oprah to be his VP, lol. Imagine how different the timeline we’re living would be different had that actually happened.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I never thought Trump would make a serious run in 2016. I thought he would just use an exploratory committee to grift money like he did in 2012. But then he realized that he could grift even more money as an actual candidate and the rest is history.

I knew he'd be a hot mess from the beginning. I voted for him in the primaries just to screw with the GOP.

Blue state, in my defense