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[Powder Miner]

Maybe choose to stop identifying with the increasingly terrible political party then.

I would like to vote in a primary, and even the tenuous match the Republican party has with my views (mainly fiscally, and in some ways reach of government) beats the Democratic one. Registering Republican doesn't bind me to a vote, after all, and it's inevitably much more useful to put my vote to try and push things in the party I do favor of the two rather than just registering Independent or Libertarian for the hell of it.

[Culise]

Goddamn. So they just straight up said "fuck the primary, we're just giving it all to Cruz"? Imagine if the rest did that. Oh, the shitstorm it would be.

I'm still not entirely clear on what happened, but as far as I can tell, both yes and no.  Technically, they don't even have a primary, but rather a set of caucuses, so it seems they went with the rules exactly as written - seven congressional assemblies for the seven congressional districts, and a party convention for the statewide delegates.  They just actively refused to do anything else beyond that, most notably by conducting any sort of official poll that could have returned any unfortunate data that would have forced their delegates to stump for Trump instead of voting their "conscience" (read: Cruz), and relied on the naturally confusing rules that had never been streamlined due to a lack of need (being both small and late, when's the last time Colorado had a major say in the candidate for either party?) to keep the Trump supporters out of the loop until it was too late.

EDIT:
...OK, this made me laugh a bit, given what's happening right now.

The caucus system was adopted by Colorado voters in 1912 as part of a package of progressive reforms. It was seen as a way to limit the power of party bosses and to attract more grassroots involvement.

EDIT 2:
Ah, but before we hasten to blame this on a blatant attempt to derail Trump, it appears from the first story I linked that they cancelled the preference polls in August 2015, long before the Trump trainwreck became visible just 'round the bend.  And, as noted in this post here, they did not cancel the caucus votes outright.  It seems I was snookered more than a bit by those lovely incendiary headlines.  That's what comes of reading up when it's both late and one's more than a bit ill, I suspect. >_<

[Reelya]

Maybe choose to stop identifying with the increasingly terrible political party then.

I would like to vote in a primary, and even the tenuous match the Republican party has with my views (mainly fiscally, and in some ways reach of government) beats the Democratic one.

Unfortunately, the actual history of Republican vs Democrat presidents on actual spending doesn't really match the rhetoric:

From Forbes.com:


^ and this graph is even after counting the 2009 budget as Obama's (even though it contains stimulus spending approved by Bush), and it doesn't take into account the 2% annual inflation, either. Do either of those things, and federal spending actually dropped during Obama's first term. Sure, some people credit the fact that a hostile congress blocked spending. But hell, why would you elect a Republican then, who could push through spending without a hostile congress? After all, it matches the spending history of all the previous Republicans.

The deficit did increase, but that was because of collapsed taxation revenues, not from increased spending. In other words, Obama's term shrunk total spending, and collected less tax revenues than any Republican has in 35 years. Which should be a Republican dream come true if we think about that rationally. In other words, while the Republicans control congress, the best bet for fiscal restraint is a Democrat president, regardless of who you give the credit for the flat-lining of spending growth.

[Orange Wizard]

That's hilarious, actually.

[smjjames]

I mean seriously, why did they think it was a good idea?

>implying all politicians are completely sane and rational.

[Cruxador]

civil war something like the Spanish one

Dibs on Christinos!  Suck it Carlists!

CNT-FAI now and forever. But I merely meant that the divisions would be mostly ideological and there would be a lot of disunified fuckery within each side, and probably foreign volunteers as well.

If we do have a civil war, I think California will win so long as we bring L.A. with us. Which admittedly makes the whole project kind of counter-productive, but still, at least we're free from the South.

California would be a strong force in the west, but I doubt her ability to project force across the Great Basin. I don't think any regional faction aside from the Feds has the possibility of subjugation on a larger geographic scale, and they would probably lose a lot of that in any civil war where they face substantial opposition. I therefore think that the inevitable outcome of such a war would be division into multiple countries of more normal size and global influence. California probably wouldn't break up during that war, because as much as the north and south don't get along, people would band together against the outside. In a subsequent period of peace, that situation might end, and I think most people know where they'd align themselves if it came down to in a Norteño v Sureño conflict.

IT WAS MOSTLY SLAVERY GUYS. Srsly. "Lost Cause" revisionism is responsible for the common misconception of it being about states' rights and sovereignity and whatnot. Sure, they wanted to secede. BUT IF THEY DIDN'T WANT TO SECEDE IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN A PROBLEM, HUH?

Slavery vs Abolitionism was one of the reasons, and almost certainly the biggest one, that the South was pissed enough at the north to secede. But the war itself wasn't about slavery until Lincoln said it was in the Emancipation Proclamation. Saying the Civil War was about slavery is as gross an oversimplification as saying it was about states rights.

I think the vindictive reaction from Southern states at the end of the reconstruction era all the way up through the civil rights movement suggests that, no, it was not just mainly about economy or states rights.

That's like saying World War I was obviously about Jews. The south was not as fucked over by the peace as in many civil wars, but they were still killed and disenfranchised in massive numbers and denied victory in a war with self-determinism as a goal. That's a lot of bitterness, and such sentiments are often expressed on whatever victims are available.

So, realization- this election? The 2016 presidential election? It'll be nothing compared to the 2020 election, since this one clearly shows extreme dissatisfaction with the way things are ran and still won't result in any change. Imagine how pissed off the electorate will be in 2020.

As long as it's better than the 1860 election.

The North Carolina one was essentially in opposition to a bill in a county that said basically the opposite of HB2, allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that corresponded to their identity.

I always found it weird that male-female bathrooms are legally enforced in the first place

It's honestly a bit odd that they're even a thing. There's places where they aren't and it works absolutely fine. And in may smaller businesses, there will be a one-room single person bathroom, which works, and then many slightly less small bathrooms will have two of them, private and totally identical but for the sign on the door. Why? It doesn't matter at all.

RIP this great union.

There's one thing that will never happen. If the US dies, the death will be tumultuous.

Yeah, s'far as I'm aware in most (maybe all, I'unno) states it hasn't been. Should be pretty obvious just by dint of how many smaller businesses and restaurants and whatnot only have a single restroom.

S'actually kinda' amusing that mandating separate male and female facilities is pretty anti-small business, ha. The little guy's important right up until you've got to stomp on a mostly non-existent boogieman in order to screw someone over, I guess~

A non-gendered bathroom isn't necessarily subject to laws about gender-specific bathrooms.

[Egan_BW]

I mean seriously, why did they think it was a good idea?

>implying any politicians are at all sane or rational.

FIFY

[Twi]

I mean seriously, why did they think it was a good idea?

>implying any politicians are at all sane or rational.

FIFY

Many politicians are both sane and rational, even if that means doing stuff we don't want them to that's nonetheless good for their self interest.

I doubt these politicians in particular are sane, but depending on their voting base, who knows, they may be rational

[Egan_BW]

Many politicians are both sane and rational

lies and slander

[Andux]

My opinion of broadcast news media has reached a new low.

[Twi]

My opinion of broadcast news media has reached a new low.

You say that, but I'm fairly certain this sort of thing has happened before*. Although I'm not sure which thing it was. I'd have to go looking. Might have been Occupy, might not have been.


(*big, radical protesting happens,probably right in DC, mainstream media gives no fucks)

[Cruxador]

It turns out that the sort of people who watch cable news are old, set in their ways, and have a well-documented set of preferences for what they watch. Cable news companies care more about this than giving "fair" coverage, especially to young people who would rather watch some youTube kids named after committers of genocide.

[Twi]

That is also probably true. I'm still in favor of the 'follow the money' reason for that sort of thing myself.

mind you I'm not saying it doesn't suck, I'm just saying it isn't new. :v

[mainiac]

My opinion of broadcast news media has reached a new low.

Because they didn't give coverage to a protest by a few hundred people?

MSNBC anchor asks "why does the democratic party even have voting booths?" in regards to superdelegates.

Sander won 55.7% of the votes but got 50% of the delegates in Wyoming.  Democracy usurped!

Sanders won 39.9% of the vote in Arizona but got 44.0% of the delegates.  I dont remember you bitching and moaning back then and asking why we have voting booths.

[Aklyon]

50% of 18 is 9, not 7.