US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[Madrun Badrun]

The Democrats should nominate Trump, that way they can't lose. It's brilliant. Trump will never see it coming. And the Russians and FBI will be on their side this time.

This is why no one takes commies seriously.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Hilary got some people excited. Obviously not enough, but to some pockets of the Democratic coalition (2nd wave feminists, certain subsets of the gay community) she was a rockstar. I was in rooms where I saw excited and passionate support for Hilary, and it wasn't all about hating Donnie.

-Al Gore won an Oscar, a Nobel Prize, and became a leading advocate for fighting climate change
-John Kerry went back to being a Senator and eventually Secretary of State

So what should Hilary do? Hilary has for the first time in her whole adult life been left without anything to do, politically (presuming that running for office is a gig). I don't expect her to go away exactly, and perhaps she shouldn't. She can shake the money trees that those patrician folks like her grow out of, or she can represent the party to her most vociferous backers. She does have a role to play, I would imagine that she's eager to play it.

[Boredfrom]

Best thing this week has actually been Kurt Eichenwald and his saga of honking off to Hentai.

Man, the panicked reaction didn't help him at all.

[benjipwns]

Best thing this week has actually been Kurt Eichenwald and his saga of honking off to Hentai.

THOSE WERE HIS CHILDREN

[Boredfrom]

Best thing this week has actually been Kurt Eichenwald and his saga of honking off to Hentai.

THOSE WERE HIS CHILDREN

His children's tentacle hentai porn that he could not find proof for his wife in google images...

[etiolate]

A family that hentais together, stays together.

[benjipwns]

Yeah no.

https://politicalwire.com/2016/12/07/clinton-faced-negative-media-coverage/

Full piece is a lot more interesting than that tiny topline summary: https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/

Even those numbers understate the level of negativity. Much of the candidates’ “good press” was in the context of the horserace—who is winning and who is losing and why. At any given moment in the campaign, one of the candidates has the momentum, which is a source of positive coverage. Figure 2 shows the tone of the nominees’ coverage on non-horserace topics, those that bear some relationship to the question of their fitness for office—their policy positions, personal qualities, leadership abilities, ethical standards, and the like. In Trump’s case, this coverage was 87 percent negative to 13 percent positive. Clinton’s ratio was identical—87 percent negative to 13 percent positive.

The press’s negative bent is not confined to election politics (see Figure 4).[2] In recent years, when immigration has been the subject of news stories, the ratio of negative stories to positive ones has been 5-to-1. In that same period, news reports featuring Muslims have been 6-to-1 negative.

[benjipwns]

I was wondering where Sanders was, and they did a whole thing: https://shorensteincenter.org/research-media-coverage-2016-election/

The report shows that during the year 2015, major news outlets covered Donald Trump in a way that was unusual given his low initial polling numbers—a high volume of media coverage preceded Trump’s rise in the polls. Trump’s coverage was positive in tone—he received far more “good press” than “bad press.” The volume and tone of the coverage helped propel Trump to the top of Republican polls.

The Democratic race in 2015 received less than half the coverage of the Republican race. Bernie Sanders’ campaign was largely ignored in the early months but, as it began to get coverage, it was overwhelmingly positive in tone. Sanders’ coverage in 2015 was the most favorable of any of the top candidates, Republican or Democratic. For her part, Hillary Clinton had by far the most negative coverage of any candidate. In 11 of the 12 months, her “bad news” outpaced her “good news,” usually by a wide margin, contributing to the increase in her unfavorable poll ratings in 2015.

Figure 12: Trend in Election News Topics

 

[benjipwns]

huh, that's second to last finish is a bit shocking:

Figure 13: Attention to Email Issue by News Outlet

which reminds me, why haven't we locked her up yet over these?

[benjipwns]

shut the fuck up and go die in a barrage of tactile baseball bat beatings already benji

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/11/donald-trump-state-visit-to-britain-put-on-hold

lol

[agrajag]

what a snowflake

[VomKriege]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/11/donald-trump-state-visit-to-britain-put-on-hold

lol

Not a lot of trips to come on the schedule then.
More days to make America great again get America under par, then !

Meanwhile, the news cycle has swallowed it a thousand times, but there's a court case on the matter of emoluments being slowly processed and that the administration would very like to see vanish :
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/09/532302106/trump-administration-calls-for-lawsuit-about-his-businesses-to-be-dismissed

[Raist]

I was bored ()

[Nola]

Like it or not, fair or not, she(Hillary) is a relatively low charisma politician stuck with 25 years of accumulated slander and attacks. Along with the built up damage that comes with the natural missteps and mistakes that arise from decades of high level public service while front and center in the public eye. Most unjustified but many still effective in building a negative narrative around her that made it hard for many to identify with her as the campaign went on. At least in terms of key battleground states. Made worse by running a relatively average campaign in terms of operations and messaging in a very polarized but anti-establishment election.

She was always going to be at a greater disadvantage then most over the long slog of a campaign.

[Nola]

Assuming I concede that point, what's the application going forward?

If someone is lapping all potential challengers in the polls in December 2014, but a loud faction on the internet insists that person is low-charisma and vulnerable to slanderous attacks, what is anyone supposed to do?

Suppose it's like Warren with 60% Democratic support in a straw poll right after the midterm. What's your move?

All the solutions I see involve the party actually doing what Sanders supporters incorrectly accused it of doing last time around.

Like liberals used to advocate more routinely, seek improvements to the underlying mechanisms and systems that produce candidates and influence decisions (I will not pretend to have that solution, but I guarantee there is a wealth of democratic government scholars and case studies here and around the world that could help) and let things play out.

In 2004 everyone felt that the solution to the John Kerry/Al Gore problem that gave George Bush 8 years was to find a folksy candidate that had southern credibility but could still give enough signals to the base. Basically they imagined John Edwards was the heir apparent.

Turned out the best solution was a black guy from Chicago with a name contemporaneous to our country's most prominent villains.

[Great Rumbler]

Voter turnout was very low [23%, or somewhere around there], but 97% of the ballots cast in Puerto Rico were for statehood:

http://resultados2017.ceepur.org/Noche_del_Evento_78/index.html#en/default/CONSULTA_DESCOLONIZACION_Resumen.xml

[Mupepe]

A coworker of mine was talking about this the other day.  She was mad that statehood would lift travel restrictions between the US and Puerto Rico and it would result in Puerto Ricans moving to US cities to take jobs.  I didn't have the heart to tell her.

[Joe Molotov]

Damn foreigners

[Mandark]

I feel like Hillary and Bernie stans ought to be taking pretty similar lessons away from their defeats.

But aggrieved shitposting is also good!

[Trent Dole]

Bernie would have won in the general even though he couldn't beat Hillary in the primary and Hillary lost the general cause Bernie ran in the primary!

[Boredfrom]

There aren't really any mechanisms that produce candidates. It's essentially a free for all that starts about 2 years before the election. The invisible 2020 primary will begin in fall 2018.

Ultimately people are going to vote for who they want to vote for. We aren't going to actually start rigging things because of some people's perception that Democratic primary voters collectively made the wrong choice in 2016 (and telling millions of female and black voters that they made the wrong choice in the primary is kind of gross tbh).

I don't see how it's unreasonable to ask that in 2020, all left-leaning voters rally around the candidate that the primaries produce.

Didn't help the perception that something rigged actually happened.

[Nola]

There aren't really any mechanisms that produce candidates. It's essentially a free for all that starts about 2 years before the election. The invisible 2020 primary will begin in fall 2018.

Ultimately people are going to vote for who they want to vote for. We aren't going to actually start rigging things because of some people's perception that Democratic primary voters collectively made the wrong choice in 2016 (and telling millions of female and black voters that they made the wrong choice in the primary is kind of gross tbh).

I don't see how it's unreasonable to ask that in 2020, all left-leaning voters rally around the candidate that the primaries produce.

I am not sure if this was intended as a response to me(it seems like it though) because I don't feel like I implied or took most of those positions you seem to be arguing against.

[VomKriege]

Will we ever be able to move on from the 2016 US elections? Jesus Fuck. Let it go, mother fuckers.

My loser is better than your loser !

[Brehvolution]

Will we ever be able to move on from the 2016 US elections? Jesus Fuck. Let it go, mother fuckers.

You mean that time when the winner campaigned on:
Bringing back coal jobs? (He isn't)
Not Cutting SS or Medicaid? (he is)
Punishing companies sending jobs to other countries? (he's only payed them so far)
Making health care better and more affordable? (AHCA is the opposite)
Tax reform? (cutting taxes for himself and super wealthy)
etc....

You can rag on Hillary and her lack of this or that all you want, but anyone with an IQ over 65 should have seen that Trump was full of shit. Bigly.

[Brehvolution]

I wasn't specifically calling you out even though quoting you kinda looks like it. I'm just as tired of it as most of us here are.

[benjipwns]

A coworker of mine was talking about this the other day.  She was mad that statehood would lift travel restrictions between the US and Puerto Rico and it would result in Puerto Ricans moving to US cities to take jobs.  I didn't have the heart to tell her.

I've had these conversations what seems like so often.

A few months ago some Puerto Rican guy killed a couple women and lady was all "these damn illegal immigrants anchor babies Obama amnesty" but I gave her a pass because the dude was from New Jersey or something.

[Human Snorenado]

Will we ever be able to move on from the 2016 US elections? Jesus Fuck. Let it go, mother fuckers.

You mean that time when the winner campaigned on:
Bringing back coal jobs? (He isn't)
Not Cutting SS or Medicaid? (he is)
Punishing companies sending jobs to other countries? (he's only payed them so far)
Making health care better and more affordable? (AHCA is the opposite)
Tax reform? (cutting taxes for himself and super wealthy)
etc....

You can rag on Hillary and her lack of this or that all you want, but anyone with an IQ over 65 should have seen that Trump was full of shit. Bigly.

People don't care about actual issues. Humanity is a shitty, garbage species.

[Brehvolution]

Will we ever be able to move on from the 2016 US elections? Jesus Fuck. Let it go, mother fuckers.

You mean that time when the winner campaigned on:
Bringing back coal jobs? (He isn't)
Not Cutting SS or Medicaid? (he is)
Punishing companies sending jobs to other countries? (he's only payed them so far)
Making health care better and more affordable? (AHCA is the opposite)
Tax reform? (cutting taxes for himself and super wealthy)
etc....

You can rag on Hillary and her lack of this or that all you want, but anyone with an IQ over 65 should have seen that Trump was full of shit. Bigly.

People don't care about actual issues. Humanity is a shitty, garbage species.

But her emails.

[benjipwns]

People don't care about actual issues. Humanity is a shitty, garbage species.

The people do want a focus on the issues:

[Joe Molotov]

Presented without comment:

[benjipwns]

Presented without comment:

(Image removed from quote.)

Chad Ford just bumped him up ten spots in his 2025 draft rankings. Look at that height and wingspan. Great hands too, not like his dads.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/874297532553318404

[Madrun Badrun]

The Other Old White Man Party

[benjipwns]

[Great Rumbler]

Trump held a televised cabinet meeting for everyone to praise him:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/06/trump-leads-televised-praise-session-for-himself/

[benjipwns]

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) introduced legislation Monday to classify presidential social media posts — including President Trump's much-discussed tweets — as presidential records.

The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement (COVFEFE) Act would amend the Presidential Records Act to include "social media."

[CatsCatsCats]

Gworllllllll

[Madrun Badrun]

https://soundcloud.com/deepstateradio

[benjipwns]

Me mentioning my shock at how long she's been in that role in PoliGAF did bring up the good point there of who any other choice is. Pelosi's entire existence is to block Steny Hoyer from becoming House Democratic Leader, but it's not like he's a Blue Dog, he's just a share less progressive voting wise than her. (Plus he's 77.)

The caucus isn't made up of how it used to be where they could put a southern moderate at the top and keep the whip on the progressives.

[seagrams hotsauce]

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/874297532553318404

The Jeffersons

[Human Snorenado]

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/874297532553318404

The Jeffersons

The Aristocrats

[Nola]

On a related "unfairly or not, this political figure is hated by a lot of people" note, I'm wondering if Pelosi's proven ability to whip votes and effectively lead her caucus outweighs the fact that she is so despised by Republican voters that GOP House candidates can effectively run against her instead of their opponents. Gianforte ran a bunch of ads arguing that a vote for Quist was a vote for Pelosi. Handel seems to be trying to do the same thing in GA-06, but it's not working as well because Ossoff is wisely running as a centrist reformer who just wants to make things work better. Plus Ossoff is quite charismatic, which helps. Still, in marginal races, if Republicans can even slightly increase turnout by motivating their voters to go vote against Pelosi, that might make the difference in some races.

Basically I'm wondering if keeping her as the caucus leader was the right move.

Like Hillary, she seems to be a figure that unfortunately a lot of the GOP rhetoric has sunk in even across the aisle. But on the right is a boogeyman only a step below Clinton. Especially the older the Democrat/Republicans and further away from the coasts. Though in Pelosi's case I find it even less justifiable.

But just to put it into perspective, her approval rating at large is actually below Trump's. Sitting with only 19% approval and 44% disapproval(though a large portion of respondents took no position). So either way you cut it she doesn't really have a strong base of support.

To argue myself though, that seems to be the case for congress overall, no matter who is leader. For instance Paul Ryan and Schumer both are and have remained in the toilet. I can't even think of many majority leaders that maintained strong approval and didn't become villains TBH.

[benjipwns]

In part, you're a national figure but the only constituency you truly care about is the one you represent and THEN your caucus which automatically half the country hates anyway.

Polling on them has always probably been shit nationally with over half not knowing who they are unless they're a Newt or Pelosi, that's why Tom Foley is rather infamously the only Speaker since Reed gave it power to lose an election. In fact, he lost in part because his opponent used his high national position against him since he supposedly wasn't paying full attention to the district.

[benjipwns]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4596300/PIERS-MORGAN-Hate-filled-liberals-bad-Trump-death-jokes.html

American liberals are very sensitive people.

Some might say, a tad over-sensitive.

Not a minute of any day goes by without one of them being mortally offended by something.

Usually, it involves Donald Trump.

The wild, foot-stomping, shrieking hysteria that greets the President's every utterance and movement is beyond anything I have ever witnessed in global politics.

He seems to turn liberals into gibbering wrecks of blazing fury.

And I say this as someone who would self-identify as more liberal than not.

what does trump (putin) have on piers morgan

[Human Snorenado]

On a related "unfairly or not, this political figure is hated by a lot of people" note, I'm wondering if Pelosi's proven ability to whip votes and effectively lead her caucus outweighs the fact that she is so despised by Republican voters that GOP House candidates can effectively run against her instead of their opponents. Gianforte ran a bunch of ads arguing that a vote for Quist was a vote for Pelosi. Handel seems to be trying to do the same thing in GA-06, but it's not working as well because Ossoff is wisely running as a centrist reformer who just wants to make things work better. Plus Ossoff is quite charismatic, which helps. Still, in marginal races, if Republicans can even slightly increase turnout by motivating their voters to go vote against Pelosi, that might make the difference in some races.

Basically I'm wondering if keeping her as the caucus leader was the right move.

Like Hillary, she seems to be a figure that unfortunately a lot of the GOP rhetoric has sunk in even across the aisle. But on the right is a boogeyman only a step below Clinton. Especially the older the Democrat/Republicans and further away from the coasts. Though in Pelosi's case I find it even less justifiable.

But just to put it into perspective, her approval rating at large is actually below Trump's. Sitting with only 19% approval and 44% disapproval(though a large portion of respondents took no position). So either way you cut it she doesn't really have a strong base of support.

To argue myself though, that seems to be the case for congress overall, no matter who is leader. For instance Paul Ryan and Schumer both are and have remained in the toilet. I can't even think of many majority leaders that maintained strong approval and didn't become villains TBH.

Congress in general polls terribly, and everyone's personal Congressman polls better. "Those fuckers up in Washington are all shit, except for my dude, I guess he's cool."

[Phoenix Dark]

I feel like Hillary and Bernie stans ought to be taking pretty similar lessons away from their defeats.

But aggrieved shitposting is also good!

"why didn't she campaign in Wisconson?"

"why didn't he campaign in the south?"

fuckin amateurs 

[Human Snorenado]

I feel like Hillary and Bernie stans ought to be taking pretty similar lessons away from their defeats.

But aggrieved shitposting is also good!

"why didn't she campaign in Wisconson?"

"why didn't he campaign in the south?"

fuckin amateurs

LOW ENERGY! SAD!

[Nola]

https://twitter.com/judywoodruff/status/874397738108145665

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Joe Molotov]

Problem solved.

[VomKriege]

Only the worst optics. So much guiltyness. Wow ! Sad !

[Nola]

Come on, nothing bad has ever come from pressuring your AG or DAG to fire a Special Counsel investigating your campaign's activity.

[agrajag]

Come on, nothing bad has ever come from pressuring your AG or DAG to fire a Special Counsel investigating your campaign's activity.

These are different times. I don't trust this Republican congress to do anything but bend over for trump.

[Nola]

Come on, nothing bad has ever come from pressuring your AG or DAG to fire a Special Counsel investigating your campaign's activity.

These are different times. I don't trust this Republican congress to do anything but bend over for trump.

I get the sense this is probably a stalking horse to see how his party and their media take it.

Chris Ruddy was on PBS Newshour floating this while almost simultaneously Gingrich was on Fox News making the case to fire Mueller.

Right-wing blogs have started pushing this farcical angle that Mueller has hired "questionable" prosecutors and there is clear conflicts of interest(ignore that the conflicts that exist are almost always the type where the investigator would be compelled to go easy on the investigated). Something both Gingrich and Ruddy mentioned in their arguments.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

If Democrats were smart they would refuse to bite and not make a fuss. Let Trump feel he actually has cover to do this in the court of public opinion.

[close]

[Trurl]

https://soundcloud.com/deepstateradio

Thank you. I didn't know that David was still podcasting

[benjipwns]

Nixon survived firing the special prosecutor, he would have survived Watergate easily had it ended there. His problem was he didn't seem to know how to operate a criminal conspiracy and that a key part was not to make yourself more and more the center of one rather than delegating with plausible deniability.

Feel free to apply this thinking to Donald Trump.

[benjipwns]

Nixon's dumbest move was agreeing to supply transcripts to the public but not the tapes to anyone even the court, you destroy evidence dummy, not keep it around to write extensive transcripts off of that you then turn over to the entire planet.

[benjipwns]

That's why Hillary was the better candidate, she was smart enough to wipe the implicating e-mails while leaving mundane ones for people to pour through, and she went through probably four or five parties to get Seth Rich whacked before he could bring down the whole thing.

[agrajag]

Nixon's dumbest move was agreeing to supply transcripts to the public but not the tapes to anyone even the court, you destroy evidence dummy, not keep it around to write extensive transcripts off of that you then turn over to the entire planet.

Sounds like Trump is ahead of Nixon here. Even if he has or had recording, which is doubtful, no one is ever hearing them.

[Nola]

Nixon's dumbest move was agreeing to supply transcripts to the public but not the tapes to anyone even the court, you destroy evidence dummy, not keep it around to write extensive transcripts off of that you then turn over to the entire planet.

Sounds like Trump is ahead of Nixon here. Even if he has or had recording, which is doubtful, no one is ever hearing them.

Just gotta stop blabbing to NBC and the Russians that you fired your FBI director to relive pressure from the Russia investigation and he will be all set.