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[penguinofhonor]

Yeah, but Democratic candidates don't really comment on the republican party falling apart. They know politics well enough to realize it won't happen. It's more of an armchair political discussion thing, where people take any nationally visible conflict in the Republican party and speculate that it will go to the absolute best-case scenario for the Democrats that hands them control of the country. Because hey, it happened in history once. The Whigs or something.

[smjjames]

Scott Walker is dropping out. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/scott-walker-2016-drops-out-213894

[Helgoland]

If the Republicans did indeed split, we'd see a couple years of Democrat hegemony - and then they'd probably split as well. It's not like the Democrats don't have their sub-factions, it's just that not handing victory to the Republicans is a very, very big motivation to compromise and work with each other.

[Baffler]

I would love it if the Democrats split up after the Republicans did, when they saw that they could get away with splitting off and not just guaranteeing a Republican victory. As it is I have to choose between a candidate that hates poor people and foreigners, and a candidate that tolerates¹ poor people but supports abortion. And what kind of choice is that?

¹they still don't actually care, but at least they aren't actively doing harm.

[RedKing]

For me, it's more that I have to choose between two candidates who overwhelmingly support Wall Street-style capitalism (regardless of some of the rhetoric being tossed around lately).

The only ones (other than Sanders) who actually have some economically populist stands tend to often be the same people who somehow think Wall Street is in cahoots with poor people to steal money from the middle-class. Or think money is the Mark of the Beast. Or think the Bilderbergs and the Trilateral Commission are using the orbital mind control lasers to run everything.

I just want a socially liberal, common-sense social democrat like they have in Scandinavia. Is that too much to ask?

[Helgoland]

I would love it if the Democrats split up after the Republicans did, when they saw that they could get away with splitting off and not just guaranteeing a Republican victory. As it is I have to choose between a candidate that hates poor people and foreigners, and a candidate that tolerates¹ poor people but supports abortion. And what kind of choice is that?

¹they still don't actually care, but at least they aren't actively doing harm.

Eh, abortion is sort of a small issue, isn't it? Its importance is more ideological than practical. How many critical abortions, ie abortions that you would rather not allow, happen each year in the US?

[mainiac]

I would love it if the Democrats split up after the Republicans did, when they saw that they could get away with splitting off and not just guaranteeing a Republican victory. As it is I have to choose between a candidate that hates poor people and foreigners, and a candidate that tolerates¹ poor people but supports abortion. And what kind of choice is that?

¹they still don't actually care, but at least they aren't actively doing harm.

The choice your country deserves not the choice your country needs.  We love to hate on politicians but let's be honest, voters are assholes.  Voters are self aggrandizing assholes who dont want politicians to help the poor because that must come from the pockets of "real americans" and think politicians are lying to them (politicians lie, amirite?) when they point out that helping the poor makes financial sense.

So politicians have learned to hide the programs that benefit the poor.  The earned income tax credit is an improvement over traditional welfare in the sense that it doesn't look like a poverty reduction program.  They even redefined poverty statistics to not reflect the EIC so that someone who doesn't know anything about the subject (I.E. the assholes voting) could think it doesn't reduce poverty.  Wonder why the affordable care act was so complicated?  Mostly insurance reform.  Wonder why it spent so much money?  Mostly helping the poor.  But a hundred billion to give medicine to the poor would be unpopular so you split it up through a byzantine web of a few hundred billions laundered through medicare, a few hundred billions laundered through means tested market programs, a few hundred billions by adjusting the pricing mechanisms so the burden of premiums is different.  Still helping the poor but in a round about way so that no one knows it's happening.

And I think it's a much more concerning and downright depressing fact that politicians went to so much work to hide these poverty reduction measures then a few hunks of red meat tossed to the base during a primary.

[misko27]

I just want a socially liberal, common-sense social democrat like they have in Scandinavia. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, it is. Remember that that is exceptional. What does it mean to be exceptional? It means that it is an exception to a rule. The rule is something that everyone who isn't a very, very, very small subset of the global population has to live with. If you look at it historically, and think about the billions who lived before, and the billions who've never even heard of such a thing, perhaps you'll realize that what you are asking for is a very, very tall order. There's no law that requires it to exist, after all.

Scott Walker is dropping out. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/scott-walker-2016-drops-out-213894

I just came here to post this. And then there were 15. I never would have guessed that the great anti-labor crusader, who seemed to be shaping up as the conservative challenger to Bush, would be out before Rand and Christie (Christie!). But complete and utter inability to stick out in any way in a heavily crowded field ultimately got to him (Can you remember a single moment where he stuck out during the second debate?), as well as becoming simply Trump^lite. I wonder who will be the prime beneficiary - Walker doesn't have much in the way of polling to give, but he's well-funded IIRC, and those funds have to go somewhere (unless they don't - perhaps his funders simply get annoyed at the whole shebang and stop giving money). The article references Rubio, so perhaps him? Rubio, from a strategic POV is helped by this tremendously, since his main flaw was that his base was breadth, not depth; Bush and Walker had deep support in their areas, and they eclipsed his broader but shallower base of support. Of course, Trump is still there.

[nenjin]

Maybe they took a look at the polling numbers and realized running an anti-labor platform may have worked in bumfuck Wisconsin but wouldn't win you the presidency.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eh, abortion is sort of a small issue, isn't it?

lol

Most Republican Presidential candidates over that past 40 years have explicitly promised that they will stack the Supreme Court with justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and ban abortion in America. There's a hot button right now about bringing up the video that supposedly shows a Planned Parenthood director opining about how she loves killing babies and harvesting their organs for sweet dosh, but not how the group that recorded it was court ordered to release their raw footage. Many Republicans explicitly call abortion the American Holocaust. There are major state-level movements that, while unable to ban abortion outright, have made it their mission in life to pass laws making it as traumatic for the woman having the abortion as possible.

It's a small issue in terms of practical ability to ban (they'd probably never go through with it to keep milking this political train), but it's major in the minds of voters.

[Baffler]

-snip-

I really hate to see this kind of thing. I might agree with pro-life groups in principle, but things like the Planned Parenthood video you mention usually make me unwilling to admit it.

Eh, abortion is sort of a small issue, isn't it? Its importance is more ideological than practical. How many critical abortions, ie abortions that you would rather not allow, happen each year in the US?

Per CDC statistics there were about 730,000 total last year, but there doesn't seem to be data on how they break down so I can't answer your question properly. In a more general sense, abortion is alright with me if it comes down to "it's either the baby, or you and the baby" but is otherwise unacceptable.

Edit: Made less flamey.

[mainiac]

but murder remains illegal regardless of how economically convenient or emotionally satisfying it might be for the murderer, and I don't see why this should be any different.

Yeah the thing about abortion is that if people agreed that it was murder, they wouldn't support it.  Calling abortionists murders is begging the question at very best.

I mean would you find it very convincing if I told you to stop eating meat because "murder is murder, no matter how tasty"?

[WealthyRadish]

making it as traumatic for the woman having the abortion as possible.

Man, reading that page further confirmed my suspicion that Colorado really is the Best State. Excepting the trigger law, but that'll probably never matter. Come for the weed and hassle-free abortions, stay for the pretty mountains.

[Baffler]

but murder remains illegal regardless of how economically convenient or emotionally satisfying it might be for the murderer, and I don't see why this should be any different.

Yeah the thing about abortion is that if people agreed that it was murder, they wouldn't support it.  Calling abortionists murders is begging the question at very best.

I mean would you find it very convincing if I told you to stop eating meat because "murder is murder, no matter how tasty"?

Wait, so making a claim = begging the question now? And it's impossible to disagree with a claim that was not made fallaciously?

[mainiac]

In this circumstance, yes.