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[Loud Whispers]

Like I care which brand of tea he drinks.  They're all frogs.

American knowledge of outsiders really should extend to more than vague approximations of what continent lies where and who lies on it, if you don't know even the slightest about your enemy they'll run rings around you forever

Also American diplomacy in a nutshell

[mainiac]

I mean, imagine a scenario where one candidate gets 95% of the delegates required for a majority, and a variety of other candidates don't break the 50% line

Almost, but not quite, impossible in politics as it exists today.  You would need four different candidates winning several states each.  The perfect storm of Trump and Cruz running together was the most likely way of it happening and it still didn't happen.  We probably wont see a perfect storm again for a long time.

Now if the republicans had democratic nomination rules and there were some really pronounced regional issues it would be maybe possible.  So democratic rules plus dust bowl 2.0 plus Trump 2.0.

[Loud Whispers]

I just have to respect that level of bravery required to so audaciously screw over your voters. Anyone who'd do that certainly has more balls than I do.

Nah there's no bravery needed, there's one thing you can bet your life on (literally) is the apathy of the American people

[smjjames]

How are these delegates selected? Do they get voted on?

The details vary from state to state, but yes, they are voted on.

Plus the rules of the convention are kind of complicated sometimes.

At least in the age of 24 hour media and a camera in every pocket (cellphones/smartphones), it's going to be closely watched.

CALIFORNIA SHALL BE THE GATEKEEPER!!!

Okay, shameless plugging of my state aside, it's just an interactive graph of delegate probablilites for both parties. Interesting to check out.

[BurnedToast]

So, let me this straight....Bernie would be ineffective because he couldn't get anything through Congress, and that's his own fault.

Clinton won't be able to get anything through Congress because the Republicans control it (and very likely still will after November) and that's the Republicans' fault?

Seems legit.

So in the end, neither will be very effective, but dammit we have to vote for Clinton because pragmatism is better than idealism, regardless of similar outcomes (which sounds more like anti-pragmatism).

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/26/i_have_had_it_with_naive_bernie_sanders_idealists/

TL;DR quote (but you should read the whole thing):

The problem with Bernie Sanders and his supporters isn’t ideological. The difference between Sanders and Clinton is a matter of degree more than any fundamental ideological disagreement. They both advocate moving in the same direction, but by different methods. Bernie Sanders says he will bring about a political revolution to make his dreams of a democratic socialist society come true, which seems an unlikely proposition given that the GOP is sure to control one house of Congress and may well control both. Hillary Clinton advocates a pragmatic approach: protecting the progressive gains won under the Obama administration, taking what new gains may be possible in a divided government and setting the political table to back for more later.

Historically, it is this latter approach that has produced change. In any democratic system of government, progress is incremental. Only one time in our history as a nation have we seen such sweeping ideological change at a fundamental level happen in a brief span of time, and that change came at the price of five years of bloody civil war and some 500,000 deaths.

[BurnedToast]

Salon is a paedophilia-apologist rag, and that's putting it politely.

Maybe so, maybe not, but they aren't wrong in that article.

[mainiac]

Salon is a paedophilia-apologist rag, and that's putting it politely.

That is putting it both rudely and falsely.

Salon is a "rag" that expressed sympathy for someone with pedophile impulses who did not commit pedophilia and condemned the act of pedophilia.

[Bauglir]

but mainiac, wording it like that makes it less satisfying to get angry

[Descan]

because the best thing we can do to keep children safe is tar and feather any and all people who express having the impulse, but have never acted on them

that'll keep them coming forward to get help and keep our children safe

good job, covenant

makin' amurrica great again, one lynching at a time

[Shadowlord]

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/26/i_have_had_it_with_naive_bernie_sanders_idealists/

TL;DR quote (but you should read the whole thing):

Ah, yes. Insults. Now instead of potentially persuading me, he's just alienated me instead.

[mainiac]

makes it less satisfying

My work here is done!

(no not really)

[RedKing]

Salon is a paedophilia-apologist rag, and that's putting it politely.

Maybe so, maybe not, but they aren't wrong in that article.

I never realized there was a civil war just before FDR came into office. Or Teddy Roosevelt for that matter.

Frankly, that article was bad, and the author should feel bad.
Krugman, I respect. I disagree with him on this instance, but I respect him. This Avignone dude, on the other hand, writes like a hack.

Incrementalism is Thomas Friedman saying "The next six months will be pivotal in Iraq". For the nineteenth time.
It's a starving Oliver Twist asking "Please sir, I want some more." from fat, exploitive masters.

Americans ALMOST EVERYONE are tired of being told things will get better in "the next few years" and then those years go by, and they're no better off than they were (or are worse off), and the rich and powerful continue to amass wealth and power.

[SalmonGod]

Rolan7: What did Bernie said?

I wonder if Bernie would have had more of a chance if he had run a more aggressive campaign. Both democrats have been pulling their punches on attacks to avoid weakening the Democrat ticket in the general election.

It's often quoted as "When you're white, you don't know what it's like to be poor" which is just wrong (stitched together misleadingly).
"When you're white you don't know what it's like to be living in a ghetto, you don't know what it's like to be poor, you don't know what it's like to be hassled when you walk down the street or to get dragged out of a car".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6IlGoeDIUQ

Sure, it's in the context of those experiences happening more often to black people, and making the case that it's the government's fault and responsibility to fix.  But all those things happen to white people.  It has more to do with being poor than with race.  (I said *more*, race is a factor of course)

I mean, people have pointed out that women get hassled on the street.  And gay people (and hippies, and protesters) have been victimized by police for a long time.

Watch that clip again.  Your presentation of his quote is still misleading, by leaving out how he very pointedly prefaced his statements with how a black woman approached him to describe the issues faced by her community.  Bernie was careless here.  He should have been more precise with his language, because this subject is incredibly vulnerable to re-framing and diversion.  But the context is quite clearly that being poor and black is different from being poor and white, and it's hard for me to believe that anyone who has watched the actual clip isn't willfully ignoring this.

And if you're still upset about the nature of what he said, because you think it's insensitive to the suffering of poor white people?.... that's horribly reminiscent of being unable to let someone talk about problems faced disproportionately by women, because men have problems too...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For a parallel, it's like he said: "I'm a guy, so I don't know what it's like to be a woman--I haven't been raped." We've already discussed why that's a problem in this very thread. There are statements similar to that statement that would not be offensive, but what he said in that context, and then following it up with "don't lecture me about poverty [that I just said I don't know about]" was a very bad combo.

I also interpret his defense of the statement completely differently from you, Vector.  Again not the best wording, but what I hear (while he's trying but failing to be more tactful than this) is "Yeah, poverty effects more than just black people and it's a horrible problem.  Everyone's calling me out on this when I've been the fucking choir this whole campaign season, because just once I describe how it relates to a racist issue.  Fact is we have a problem with our criminal justice system that needs to be addressed, which targets poor black communities."

And if people can still disagree with that after the investigation of law enforcement in Ferguson, I don't even know what to say...

[smjjames]

At what Bernie said, it sounded more elitist to me if anything, and Sanders himself grew up poor I believe, so, I don't know. I'm not dismissing the issue, just saying.

[mainiac]

I never realized there was a civil war just before FDR came into office.

FDR, the guy who accepted a social security bill that excluded agricultural workers?  (know why?)  The guy whose job creation programs didn't happen until he made a big song and dance about pay cuts for federal workers?  The man who would prop up the Mexican government but allowed the creation of an underclass of Mexican residents?  The guy who talked big about standing up to Hitler but refused to ask congress to pay for it?

No, there probably wouldn't be a civil war seeing as he was willing to buy off any political interest group, constantly appease the center and make any compromise he needed to win.

FDR was a good president, a radical even for his time.  But the New Deal didn't reduce politics down to either you are with me or against me.  Sure FDR had a good stump speech about millionaires but at the end of the day he took whatever he could get through Congress.  And that was the freaking New Deal, where the democrats had an 80% majority in the House.  Doing it when democrats have 48% in the House?  Give me a freakin' break.

Redking, if you were voting back in 1932, it wouldn't have been for FDR.  If we were discussing the 1932 election, you'd be calling him a sellout and a monarch who expects a coronation.  But hey, Norman Thomas was a good man.