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[Rolan7]

Harold Penisman 2020.  Free drugs, atheism, and reeducation for all!

[misko27]

He's a whopping 8 years older than Clinton.

Let that sink in.

I don't know if two SUPER OLD WHITE GUYS who both look like they'll drop dead at the slightest breeze is the election America needs right now. Yes Clinton is old. Trump is older. Bernie is even older. Being only slightly older than your opponents does not change that all of these people are really old.

Cathar, weird question, but is your username related to Catharism? If so, can I ask you questions about an alternate-history story I'm writing?

Also, one difference between 2016 and 2020: Clinton will face opposition from a bloodthirsty array of candidates chomping at the bit to fight Trump to death. The likely parallel is the Republican field of 2016, with her as Jeb!... which is a little spooky, given that that gave us Trump.

[smjjames]

Eh? None of them look so frail as if they’d drop dead at the slightest breeze, jokes made at Hillary’s expense aside.

With the speculative field looking possibly TWICE the size of the Republican field was in 2016 (and various fandoms have already started coming out), there’s a very good chance that the Democrats will run into the same issues the Republicans had with the field refusing to narrow down quickly and slicing up 60-70% of the pie thinly between candidates with one getting roughly a quarter total.

[Kagus]

Wasn't the Green chick the one who was "concerned" about the danger of vaccines? Not exactly the worst sin, compared to what we ended up with, but...


Also Bernie won't die in a breeze, he maintains a low profile to minimize wind resistance.

[Doomblade187]

Wasn't the Green chick the one who was "concerned" about the danger of vaccines? Not exactly the worst sin, compared to what we ended up with, but...


Also Bernie won't die in a breeze, he maintains a low profile to minimize wind resistance.

I choose to believe that Gamora is anti-vaccine.

[smjjames]

I think it was her running mate? Anyhow, while Trump pulled off quite a feat with the way he he pulled a third party body snatching on the Republican party, it requires a whole bunch of things to align and happen correctly and the Democrats don’t have all of the conditions that led up to it. Doesn’t mean that a similar situation won’t happen considering it looks like we’re headed towards a repeat of how the crowded Republican primaries went.

[Teneb]

Quote Snip for president

Rolan, Bernie ain't a socialist. Seriously. In countries where a left exists instead of "right" and "right on steroids", he'd be labelled as... a right-winger.

[Cathar]

Cathar, weird question, but is your username related to Catharism? If so, can I ask you questions about an alternate-history story I'm writing?

Holy shit huge kudos for you to know about that. This is not my area of expertise at all, but if I can help I'm very glad to.

Spoiler: Quibbling (click to show/hide)

Voting in a Democratic Primary doesn't force you to vote for their candidate, no.  But it ought to be a factor, since the point is to unify a diverse base behind one person.

If there hadn't been primaries, the 2016 election might have had ~5 Republican candidates, a populist, a Libertarian, a Clinton, a Green, and "socialist".  Guess who's winning that?  The Clinton.

But the Republican party is smart, so they run a Primary to combine their voting power.  They even let the populist and Libertarian join, because it just strengthens the alliance (and there's no chance in hell of those fringe ideas actually *winning* the primary... oops...)

The Democrats also hold a primary.  The Green doesn't join because she's too badass, like, I actually have a lot of respect for her.  The socialist *does* join (He became a Democrat in 2015).  We've argued in circles about whether the party gave him a fair chance, or sabotaged his run, but I have to disagree with "they'd never let him win"...  He almost DID win.  It was close.  And Hillary's supporters would have respected the spirit of the primary, despite him being literally a Democrat In Name Only (honestly, he's too progressive and independent to be a typical Democrat).

But I'm really not looking to blame Progressives for lacking faith in Hillary, I get that.  The blame for 2016 mostly lies with the Republican Party catering to populists and worse.  They were *vicious* in their primary, telling Trump exactly how they felt, but then he won and...  they all fell in line, pretending like it never happened.  Which is sorta how a Primary is supposed to go.  It's not how the Democratic primary went, though, because we have idealist ideas.

I would like to add that abstaining is not a good idea.  Vote for a third party, even write someone in.  Abstention reads as apathy, not protest.  The turnout (of eligible voters) was 60.2%...  If that 39.8% voted for third parties, we could actually bring down this monstrous 2-party quagmire.  We could actually start voting for candidates we want, instead of strategically against candidates we can't afford.

I'm okay with quibbling ! Let's quibble and have a beer afterward

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mean that is the problem I think, right there, is in all democracies in the west, we're doing things backward. It shouldn't be the job of the public to wonder what the politics are thinking about them, it should be the other way around. When you start asking yourself "how will it be perceived if I don't vote ? Will they think I'm apathetic ?" you've already lost; because you are the judges, and they are the judged, not the other way around.

You are (collectively) their boss, and they are your (public) servents. Having politicians blame the public because the public didn't felt compelled to follow the rules they stirred out of their backside, and fall in line after they made some opaque back door arrangement is totally upside down.

(not only I don't vote, but I also blame my politicians for it. Present to me a politician with a vision and I'll vote, until then I'll silently protest by sleeping extra on sunday. And while I do that consciently, I believe people do that unconsciously in the scale of countries)

To me it's not really a question of Hillary or Sanders. I'm not a progressive and I'm not an american. But I talk to people and somehow I come to understand people want some kind of change, are sick of being voiceless the matters of their country. At least that what transpires when I talk to both progressives and trump supporters in my contacts. Like that's a pretty big trend, cross partisan lines. Also again, if Trump could catter, almost uncontested, to guys like coal miners, it really come to show that the democratic party lost its touch with the lower class, which should be its traditional voter base.

About the primary, this is conjecture I'm not sure about, so I'll just propose that, feel free to correct me ; but having a third party candidate in the democrat primary was, sort of bound to fail for Sanders ; as the house always win. I just don't see what else he could have done. Going full indep would have just handed the victory to Trump.

But I agree with most of what you say. Reps fell in line pretty hard after a vicious primary campaign... and I don't have a lot to say about that.
What I wish for, is for Dem politicians to take a big hot mug of humili tea, understand they are the main responsible party for their failures and take measures to win in 2020. If Hillary comes for round 2, the message it'd send will be a pretty clear "you told us no, but remember we own you, now bark" and people will take none of it. Of that I'm fairly certain

[Kagus]

Cathars? Oh, you mean the Buggers!


And I dunno, I like to think that Norway has a slightly broader selection of ideologies at the deli meat counter, and Bernie would certainly ruffle the feathers of our righties with his "immigrants are humans" and "maybe don't privatise healthcare" ideas.

[Rolan7]

I *always* want to hear more about the Cathars!
Sadly I don't have any quibbles with Cathar's reply

Quote Snip for president

Rolan, Bernie ain't a socialist. Seriously. In countries where a left exists instead of "right" and "right on steroids", he'd be labelled as... a right-winger.

I put it in quotes, and it's what he labels himself as.
I also think you're exaggerating.

[Cathar]

Nooo Quibbles are cool and I'm always cool with hearing opinions even when I disagree with them (not that my own opinion even matters in the first place)

(Long story short catharism is a heresy that spawned in the occitan region in france after a big ass economic boom which suddently made the regional lords more powerful than their parisian liege. Balance of power shifted heavily in their direction and it reminded the french king that he had a small penis and the idea was kind of hurtful for his ego. So he found some people in the area who had their own interpretation of the bible, wink wonked the pope and got investiture to launch a crusade and take their shit. That's the insanely TL;DR version)

[smjjames]

Quote Snip for president

Rolan, Bernie ain't a socialist. Seriously. In countries where a left exists instead of "right" and "right on steroids", he'd be labelled as... a right-winger.

Yep, sometimes we (as in Americans) forget that the American political center is right shifted (or should I say, red-shifted, heh) from where the center is in some places around the world and our progressives would actually be considered somewhat moderate. Not even sure what a heavy left winger in Europe would look like for us since the Republicans already make the more progressive politicians look extreme. Other than maybe ‘COMMUNISM!COMMUNISM!COMMUNISM!’ 

[Kagus]

Not even sure what a heavy left winger in Europe would look like for us

Well, here's the current head of Norway's "Red" (communist) party:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bjørnar Moxnes, redistributing moxie

It's even worse than it looks. You see, he's... He's... *shudder*

An idealist.


If you'd like to continue this study course on Identifying Politicians in the Field, here's a flattering image of a gremlin the Center Party's leader:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Trygve Slagsvold Vedum. Yes, his middle name is literally "Fightviolence".

And he's not just a looker! He's also got a silky voice to match that could charm the diaper right off a 3-year-old...


You'll notice I haven't addressed any actual stances these individuals hold. This is in order to ensure proper neutrality of the press, and only focus on the important matters; such as how Mr. Moxnes champions the proletariat by never dressing above "smart casual".

[Egan_BW]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mean that is the problem I think, right there, is in all democracies in the west, we're doing things backward. It shouldn't be the job of the public to wonder what the politics are thinking about them, it should be the other way around. When you start asking yourself "how will it be perceived if I don't vote ? Will they think I'm apathetic ?" you've already lost; because you are the judges, and they are the judged, not the other way around.

You are (collectively) their boss, and they are your (public) servents. Having politicians blame the public because the public didn't felt compelled to follow the rules they stirred out of their backside, and fall in line after they made some opaque back door arrangement is totally upside down.

(not only I don't vote, but I also blame my politicians for it. Present to me a politician with a vision and I'll vote, until then I'll silently protest by sleeping extra on sunday. And while I do that consciently, I believe people do that unconsciously in the scale of countries)

To me it's not really a question of Hillary or Sanders. I'm not a progressive and I'm not an american. But I talk to people and somehow I come to understand people want some kind of change, are sick of being voiceless the matters of their country. At least that what transpires when I talk to both progressives and trump supporters in my contacts. Like that's a pretty big trend, cross partisan lines. Also again, if Trump could catter, almost uncontested, to guys like coal miners, it really come to show that the democratic party lost its touch with the lower class, which should be its traditional voter base.

About the primary, this is conjecture I'm not sure about, so I'll just propose that, feel free to correct me ; but having a third party candidate in the democrat primary was, sort of bound to fail for Sanders ; as the house always win. I just don't see what else he could have done. Going full indep would have just handed the victory to Trump.

But I agree with most of what you say. Reps fell in line pretty hard after a vicious primary campaign... and I don't have a lot to say about that.
What I wish for, is for Dem politicians to take a big hot mug of humili tea, understand they are the main responsible party for their failures and take measures to win in 2020. If Hillary comes for round 2, the message it'd send will be a pretty clear "you told us no, but remember we own you, now bark" and people will take none of it. Of that I'm fairly certain

You say that you should be in charge, but you don't take charge. Silent protest tends to result in nobody hearing you.
At least casting an empty ballot shows that you care enough to show up.

[Culise]

Wasn't the Green chick the one who was "concerned" about the danger of vaccines? Not exactly the worst sin, compared to what we ended up with, but...

Jill Stein did, yes, though she tends to present it in context of the dangers of big pharma and the old toxic mercury/thiomersal bugbear.  She also wanted to legislate a move to 100% renewable energy in 14 years while simultaneously rejecting the idea of nuclear power, wants to phase out GMOs, and is concerned about the health effects of wi-fi.  She...isn't exactly the best candidate the Greens have put forward in my opinion, and that includes the 9/11 truther (Cynthia McKinney) who was concerned about FBI classified documents on the assassinations of MLK and Tupac.  She's better than Trump, but as you say, that's a very low bar.