US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Mods Help]

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

interesting.

hate this sentence though,"twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves" as if we are still slaves.

[james]

Any Predictit tips for the next week?

Im noticing huge swings but no polls to justify them.

And no one has a fucking clue about Puerto Rico. I wouldnt be surprised if Kasich takes it

[Phoenix Dark]

I put $10 in just to see how it works and to be cautious. I bet on Trump being the nominee (about 4$) and Clinton winning the White House (about $6). My gain was around a dollar yesterday, now it's 38 cents. Now that it seems safe I'll throw some bigger bills on Clinton.

Kind of tempted to buy Rubio winning the nomination lol...

[Dickie Dee]

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

interesting.

hate this sentence though,"twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves" as if we are still slaves.

 

[benjipwns]

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

interesting.

hate this sentence though,"twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves" as if we are still slaves.

1. That 20% thing comes from a YouGov poll (not PPP) that got savaged...and also had like 5% of blacks as opposed to emancipation.

A.

Last September, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst named Matthew MacWilliams realized that his dissertation research might hold the answer to not just one but all three of these mysteries.

MacWilliams studies authoritarianism — not actual dictators, but rather a psychological profile of individual voters that is characterized by a desire for order and a fear of outsiders.

As it turns out, MacWilliams wasn't the only one to have this realization. Miles away, in an office at Vanderbilt University, a professor named Marc Hetherington was having his own aha moment. He realized that he and a fellow political scientist, the University of North Carolina's Jonathan Weiler, had essentially predicted Trump's rise back in 2009, when they discovered something that would turn out to be far more significant than they then realized.

Authoritarians are thought to express much deeper fears than the rest of the electorate, to seek the imposition of order where they perceive dangerous change, and to desire a strong leader who will defeat those fears with force. They would thus seek a candidate who promised these things.

Even Hetherington was shocked to discover quite how right their theory had been. In the early fall of 2015, as Trump's rise baffled most American journalists and political scientists, he called Weiler. He asked, over and over, "Can you believe this? Can you believe this?"

What we found is a phenomenon that explains, with remarkable clarity, the rise of Donald Trump

After an early period of junk science in the mid-20th century, a more serious group of scholars has addressed this question, specifically studying how it plays out in American politics: researchers like Hetherington and Weiler, Stanley Feldman, Karen Stenner, and Elizabeth Suhay, to name just a few.

The field, after a breakthrough in the early 1990s, has come to develop the contours of a grand theory of authoritarianism, culminating quite recently, in 2005, with Stenner's seminal The Authoritarian Dynamic — just in time for that theory to seemingly come true, more rapidly and in greater force than any of them had imagined, in the personage of one Donald Trump and his norm-shattering rise.

According to Stenner's theory, there is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies. These tendencies can be triggered or "activated" by the perception of physical threats or by destabilizing social change, leading those individuals to desire policies and leaders that we might more colloquially call authoritarian.
...
Authoritarians prioritize social order and hierarchies, which bring a sense of control to a chaotic world. Challenges to that order — diversity, influx of outsiders, breakdown of the old order — are experienced as personally threatening because they risk upending the status quo order they equate with basic security.
...
When they face physical threats or threats to the status quo, authoritarians support policies that seem to offer protection against those fears.

The second was Stenner's theory of "activation." In an influential 2005 book called The Authoritarian Dynamic, Stenner argued that many authoritarians might be latent — that they might not necessarily support authoritarian leaders or policies until their authoritarianism had been "activated."

This activation could come from feeling threatened by social changes such as evolving social norms or increasing diversity, or any other change that they believe will profoundly alter the social order they want to protect. In response, previously more moderate individuals would come to support leaders and policies we might now call Trump-esque.

Other researchers, like Hetherington, take a slightly different view. They believe that authoritarians aren't "activated" — they've always held their authoritarian preferences — but that they only come to express those preferences once they feel threatened by social change or some kind of threat from outsiders.

The third insight came from Hetherington and American University professor Elizabeth Suhay, who found that when non-authoritarians feel sufficiently scared, they also start to behave, politically, like authoritarians.

Together, those three insights added up to one terrifying theory: that if social change and physical threats coincided at the same time, it could awaken a potentially enormous population of American authoritarians, who would demand a strongman leader and the extreme policies necessary, in their view, to meet the rising threats.

The first thing that jumped out from the data on authoritarians is just how many there are. Our results found that 44 percent of white respondents nationwide scored as "high" or "very high" authoritarians, with 19 percent as "very high." That's actually not unusual, and lines up with previous national surveys that found that the authoritarian disposition is far from rare

Authoritarianism was the best single predictor of support for Trump, although having a high school education also came close.

political science research errybody always re-"discovering" what it already knew and always, always using the NES data for everything

spoiler (click to show/hide)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[close]

[brob]

vox always get me rustled with their breathless 101 community college explainers smh

[benjipwns]

MSNBC has been whitewashed: Melissa Harris-Perry exits, buffoonish white pundits rule once more
MSNBC sidelines smartest voice in name of "hard news," gives us unending Scarborough idiocy, lying Brian Williams

When MSNBC cut ties with host Melissa Harris-Perry over the weekend, one network executive described her as a “challenging and unpredictable personality.”

You can see why MSNBC’s brass might see things this way. When the network stripped Harris-Perry’s team of editorial control, she could have taken it in stride, counting herself lucky to be one of the few black women to host a news show. She could have brushed it off when MSNBC regularly pre-empted her weekend slot for two more hours of mind-numbing 2016 blather. She could have continued to wait patiently to hear from network executives after a month of unreturned emails and phone calls, just as she did when MSNBC summoned her to the Iowa caucuses only to bench her the entire time.

Instead, Harris-Perry violated a cardinal rule for minorities who want to get ahead in a world controlled by old white dudes like NBC chairman Andy Lack and MSNBC president Phil Griffin: She spoke up for herself.

[Phoenix Dark]

I seem to remember MSNBC having a similar policy in 2008 and 2012 in terms of interrupting morning programming for election season coverage.

BTW Perry is also the one who claimed you shouldn't use the term "hard worker" because it's offensive to slaves.

[Trent Dole]

It's pretty much going to be Drumpf/Shillary at this point, isn't it? They've both got some crazy baggage. Wonder who can swing the masses over to them more or if this'll be like 2000 where only half the populace bothers to show up at the polls and the true winner is none of the above.

[benjipwns]

I seem to remember MSNBC having a similar policy in 2008 and 2012 in terms of interrupting morning programming for election season coverage.

BTW Perry is also the one who claimed you shouldn't use the term "hard worker" because it's offensive to slaves.

#nerdland

In 2012, just as Harris-Perry was leaving Princeton after being denied a full professorship, West gave a pretty unhinged interview in Diverse magazine, saying about her, "She's become the momentary darling of liberals, but I pray for her because she's in over her head. … She's a fake and a fraud. I was so surprised how treacherous the sister was."* He went on to say, “I have a love for the sister but she is a liar and I hate lying.” West, who himself is out of control in so many ways, called her second book, Sister Citizen “wild and out of control” and added, “there’s not a lot of academic stuff with her just a lot of twittering.”
...
And people I spoke to from her Princeton days did not want to be quoted about it. But from a dozen interviews with her colleagues at the time, a fairly consistent picture emerged. The consensus among her fellow professors was that Sister Citizen, which is about stereotypes used to describe black women, was not sufficiently scholarly by Princeton standards. Her colleagues considered it a work of popular sociology that synthesized concepts that were already well known in African-American feminist thought.

At Princeton, the more Harris-Perry went on TV the more she became estranged from her colleagues. They described arguments over hires, over teaching loads, and over actual politics. Harris-Perry identified strongly with the rise of Obama but more radical members of the African-American studies department remained skeptical that he would stay true to the cause. When in 2011 she came up for a vote for full professorship, the African-American studies department voted unanimously against her. (At the political science department, the majority abstained from voting.)

[benjipwns]

The one about the GOP is the good joke in the Romney clip.

[Phoenix Dark]

How have I not seen the Star Wars clip

[benjipwns]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clinton-voter-turnout.html

Some Democrats now worry that Mrs. Clinton will have difficulty matching the surge in new black, Hispanic, and young voters who came to the polls for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

“Barack Obama without that surge is John Kerry,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked on Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign, referring to the losing Democratic nominee in 2004. “Just turning out the traditional minority base is not a 51 percent pathway going into November.”

In three precincts of Virginia’s Third Congressional District, the heart of the state’s African-American community, where overwhelming black turnout in 2008 helped Mr. Obama win the state, turnout was down by an average of almost 30 percent on Tuesday night. The district includes most of Richmond and Petersburg, as well as Newport News and Norfolk, Va.

In Nevada, exit polls suggest that Hispanic voters — who have helped push the once deeply Republican state toward Democrats in national elections — voted in significantly lower numbers than in 2008.

Even Mrs. Clinton’s strong victory in South Carolina, which was celebrated for her dominance among African-American voters, obscured a big decline in black turnout of about 40 percent. In Iowa, where Mrs. Clinton eked out a narrow win after a hotly fought battle last month with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, exit polls suggested that turnout for voters under the age of 30 dropped by roughly 40 percent from 2008.

Meanwhile, on Morning Joe...

JOE SCARBOROUGH: The fact of the matter is that you know there is no historical precedent with someone doing as well as Candidate Trump did yesterday — winning New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, [losing the nomination] has never happened before, and as you know there is a momentum, a forward progress–

BILL KRISTOL: Right, so we have to stop the momentum, I totally agree.

SCARBOROUGH: So that’s my question. There’s no cheering here. I am looking at facts.

KRISTOL: To your credit, you have correctly seen that this was not going to be the historically normal year, and it’s not, so maybe we go–

SCARBOROUGH: So how do you beat him?

KRISTOL: You have to beat him in Florida and Ohio, the first two winner-take-all states, which means there has to be a de facto agreement between the opposition candidates — between the resistance to Trump, which I am proud to be a part of, because I think he’d be a terrible nominee and a terrible president…

SCARBOROUGH: You have the authority to broker that deal right now?

KRISTOL: Well, they need to. They need to defer to Rubio in Florida and probably to Kasich in Ohio, and say, or imply, that if you are a Cruz voter in Ohio, and if you look up the day before the primary and it’s Trump 42%, Kasich 35% — vote for Kasich. And the truth is if Trump doesn’t win Florida and Ohio, it remains very much of an open race. …

Donald Trump [so far] has 35% of the popular vote and 47% of the delegates. That’s a lot better than having 24% of the popular vote and 25% of the delegates, granted. …

JOHN HEILEMANN: Just to go a little further on this topic of what Bill’s advocating: As you talk more and more to Republicans, who will say to you privately and sometimes publicly, that they would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump, [these are the] people who are going to try to stop him — their attitude is: We know that would happen at a contested convention if we took the nomination away from a Donald Trump [who has won through] a plurality of delegates.

What would happen is that we would likely alienate his supporters and we would likely lose the presidential election. But their position is that it would be better for us to lose the [general] election than to have Donald Trump tear the Party in half as the nominee.

Now you can say that’s suicidal, but that is the posture of people [worried] about the negative effects down ballot.

KRISTOL: And [Trump] would still lose the election. And shouldn’t win the election, So, yeah, I agree.

[benjipwns]

How have I not seen the Star Wars clip

Good luck with that.

[Phoenix Dark]

primary turnout doesn't matter
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/02/01/how_much_does_voter_turnout_matter_112990.html

Hillary doesn't need a surge, given demographic shifts in the country.

[Dennis]

Fox News Chief: "We can't do the Rubio thing anymore."

In his role as the donor class's darling, Marco Rubio has enjoyed support from the Republicans' media arm, Fox News. Throughout the primary, Fox provided Rubio with friendly interviews and key bookings, including the first prime-time response to Barack Obama's Oval Office address on ISIS. Many of the network's top pundits, including Stephen Hayes and Charles Krauthammer, have been enthusiastic boosters. Bill Sammon, Fox's Washington managing editor, is the father of Rubio's communications director, Brooke Sammon.

But this alliance now seems to be over. According to three Fox sources, Fox chief Roger Ailes has told people he's lost confidence in Rubio's ability to win. "We're finished with Rubio," Ailes recently told a Fox host. "We can't do the Rubio thing anymore."

Ailes was already concerned about Rubio's lackluster performance in GOP primaries and caucuses, winning only one contest among the 15 that have been held. But the more proximate cause for the flip was an embarrassing New York Times article revealing that Rubio and Ailes had a secret dinner meeting in 2013 during which the Florida senator successfully lobbied the Fox News chief to throw his support behind the "Gang of 8" comprehensive immigration-reform bill. "Roger hates seeing his name in print," a longtime Ailes associate told me. "He was appalled the dinner was reported," the source said.

Already, there are on-air signs that Fox's attitude toward Rubio has cooled. This morning, anchor Martha MacCallum grilled Rubio about his poor Super Tuesday performance. "Is that a viable excuse at this point?" she asked, when he tried spinning his second-place finish in Virginia.

Fox's corporate support of Rubio has also been a growing source of tension with the network's more conservative talent. Sean Hannity was furious that the Times article reported how he went along with Rubio's immigration proposal. During an interview with Trump on Monday, Hannity barely defended Fox while Trump trashed Rubio backers like Hayes. "He shouldn't be on the air," Trump said. The best Hannity could muster was to change the subject. "Have you ever watched MSNBC?" he said. "They suck."

Ailes is now back to searching for a candidate the channel can rally behind. "He's thinking, What do we do about the whole damn thing?" one of the news executive's friends said.

Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti did not return a call for comment.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/marco-rubio-just-lost-fox-news.html

topkek

[Syph]

 

[Joe Molotov]

[TakingBackSunday]

Yes.  For fucks sake, yes

[ToxicAdam]

I'm late to it, but Taibbi's article on Trump was brilliant. This little nugget tickled me.


It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

[benjipwns]

Now the Democrats are going to need to find a compromise candidate to save them at the Convention:

The Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.

The official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.

Maybe Mitt Romney can run on both tickets? Romney/Rubio vs. Romney/Biden

[Joe Molotov]

I'm late to it, but Taibbi's article on Trump was brilliant. This little nugget tickled me.


It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

I liked this one

"Like autoerotic asphyxiation, supporting Donald Trump is an activity many people prefer to enjoy in a private setting, like in a shower or a voting booth."

[Great Rumbler]

Yes.  For fucks sake, yes

Trump, Cruz, and Rubio make Romney look like FDR.

[benjipwns]

Weird thing is nobody is polling the Flint stuff anymore. Or the Snyder recall.

Also, EPIC-MRA is run by a guy named Bernie Porn. I just felt you should know.

[Joe Molotov]

Sadly, Bernie Porn was the not the most searched for term on Pornhub in any of the Super Tuesday states.

[Phoenix Dark]

Who will Snyder endorse

[benjipwns]

Sadly, Bernie Porn was the not the most searched for term on Pornhub in any of the Super Tuesday states.

I think that term is going to start delivering different results from how it did say two years ago...

Who will Snyder endorse

He said he was going to endorse this week about a month ago, but last week he said the Flint crisis is taking his priority and so won't.

Though he did suggest it wouldn't have been Trump.

[Mandark]

Jamelle Bouie says a lot of the stuff I was getting at re: Clinton/Sanders and black voters on his Twitter feed.

[Samson Manhug]

vox always get me rustled with their breathless 101 community college explainers smh

I always feel this way about subjects I am well-versed in, but then am secretly thankfully when I'm reading one on a topic I don't know much about. They serve a purpose.

[benjipwns]

I don't particularly begrudge the voxsplainers even if I think they're nearly all terrible short-sighted research, but I think a lot of the ones they do to be "timely" are not only worse than just looking something up on wikipedia but ignore what's supposed to be different about them. Also, they don't seem to assign them to their best or supposedly most knowledgeable writers more than half the time. So it often is just re-written wikipedia entries.

Most importantly, never forget "40 maps that explain Europe" or whatever featuring a picture of a boat.

And the breathless earnestness of some articles is just offensive. Never do they actually "explain" anything and provide the "context." But that's mostly just holding them to their unrealistic standards and proclamations of the announcement, like with fellow site Polygon. They couldn't even really articulate then why it'd be different or revolutionary.

Ezra: Democratic voters want an experienced politician. Good thing they have two of them.
Watch Samantha Bee embarrass a Texas lawmaker who doesn’t know how abortion works
Ezra: Obama's chief strategist on how a Democrat could beat Trump
John Oliver has the Donald Trump takedown America has been waiting for

Ezra's big piece this week is kinda emblematic.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/3/1/11144614/super-tuesday-republican-party-broken

Political parties, at their core, exist to do something simple: help their voters make good decisions by helping them decide whom to trust.

That function is necessary and important in a world as complex as ours. No normal human being can understand everything from trade relations with China to nuclear deals with Iran to insurance market regulation. Political parties are supposed to simplify those choices by directing us to politicians who share our values, our hopes, our dreams.

A political party's power to deliver on its mission comes from its credibility with voters. And the Republican Party has clearly, undeniably lost credibility with its base. The winner of Super Tuesday, on the Republican side, is Trump. The second-place finisher is Ted Cruz — the only politician Republican elites arguably hate more than Trump.

This is Republican voters rejecting the judgment — and thus the purpose — of the Republican Party, or at least of the elites who currently comprise what we think of as the Republican Party.

I was on a call with a White House official once, asking why the administration didn't do this or that obvious thing. I've never forgotten his reply. Look, he said, we may have gotten it wrong. But all those things were considered and rejected by smart people who are way better at this stuff than you or me. It's almost never the case that there's an obvious right answer and everyone else was just too dumb to do the obvious thing until a bunch of pundits pointed it out.

This is how parties veto. They send signals. They mobilize their influencers. They use the media. Their most prominent politicians speak out. They make sure the party faithful know that this isn't our kind of guy, he doesn't believe what we believe, he isn't the kind of person we support.

Republicans know all that. They've heard their party. They've heard everyone else, too — the condemnations of Trump have been a nonstop clamor, a roar that's drowned out all other political coverage. But Republican primary voters just don't give a shit. It's worse than that — they like that Trump pisses off the establishment. The backlash only makes him stronger.

Everyone says this is an anti-establishment year, but elites are just mouthing the words; they still don't quite believe it. They still think that if only the Republican establishment had been a bit better organized, a bit quicker on the draw, they could have kept control. The truth is probably closer to the opposite.

The party doesn't have any magic powers. All it has is its credibility with its voters. And the Republican Party has, for whatever reason, lost its ability to influence its voters.

Parties are vehicles for structuring information. Their role is literally to help voters decide by helping them choose whom to trust. The fact that Republican voters seem to prefer candidates whom their party is screaming not to trust reveals a profound failure in the GOP's core role. The Republican Party is truly broken.

Where's the explanation? He just says "for whatever reason" it's a failed political party because 2/3rds of the party's voters is rejecting the supposed TPTB.

This isn't new. Christine O'Donnell? The woman who wasn't a witch? Sharron Angle who blew a winnable race against Harry Reid by being nuts? This didn't start this election with Trump.

I'm probably just jealous. I don't even like the color scheme.

[benjipwns]

Jamelle Bouie ‏@jbouie  4h4 hours ago
Today I ruined my mentions by arguing that black voters should be understood on their own terms.

Wow. Disgusting. The Democrats need to get out in front of this story and fast before the whole party is painted as extremist.

[Mandark]

This isn't new. Christine O'Donnell? The woman who wasn't a witch? Sharron Angle who blew a winnable race against Harry Reid by being nuts? This didn't start this election with Trump.

They didn't run for president.

[doctavius bonbon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/daugaard-vetoes-trans-bathroom-bill

 

[benjipwns]

They didn't run for president.

Only because they lost due to an avalanche of Democrat smears.

[brob]

vox always get me rustled with their breathless 101 community college explainers smh

I always feel this way about subjects I am well-versed in, but then am secretly thankfully when I'm reading one on a topic I don't know much about. They serve a purpose.

tbh the only way people get paid by publications to write anything these days is either a hot take or a 'splainer. together these two kinds of writing form a sort-of binary between the personal gut reaction of a (supposedly) educated opinion on whatever and a ostensibly objective 'this is the facts' run down. Given the realities of newsrooms and freelance writing neither of these are usually written by someone knowledgable and you get a wiki article and/or reddit post. Ezra Klein certainly isn't distinct from a try-hard redditor who uses mod privileges to pretend his writing is worthwhile.

If you're interested in following a particular beat in journalism it's usually better to seek out particular writers who follow it with dedication, and in my experience they usually end up being "freelancers" (bloggers) who don't often appear on bigger media platforms.

[Brehvolution]

(Image removed from quote.)

As much as I miss having a car elevator.

[Brehvolution]

Who will Snyder endorse

The Culligan man. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.culligan.com/?gclid=CJTRosnopMsCFZZbhgodapkFpw

[close]

[Joe Molotov]

http://www.texastribune.org/2016/03/02/newly-elected-gop-chair-texas-capitol/

The newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry’s sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton’s penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail.

He also found time to call Hillary Clinton an “angry bull dyke” and accuse his county vice chair of betraying the values of the Republican Party.

Morrow, who’s also tweeted that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is “very likely a gayman who got married,” said he supports the brand of Republican politics he most closely associates with Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz.

“We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money or resisting any attempt for him to access data or our social media account,” Mackowiak told the Tribune. “I’m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover.”

“Tell them they can go fuck themselves,” Morrow told the Tribune.

One of his most recent tweets:

Robert Morrow ‏@RobMorroLiberty  25m25 minutes ago Austin, TX
Porn idea: Barbara Bush with vibrating butt plug, stroking foot long dildo while German shepherd licks peanut butter off pussy. Thoughts?

[Human Snorenado]

vox always get me rustled with their breathless 101 community college explainers smh

I always feel this way about subjects I am well-versed in, but then am secretly thankfully when I'm reading one on a topic I don't know much about. They serve a purpose.

tbh the only way people get paid by publications to write anything these days is either a hot take or a 'splainer. together these two kinds of writing form a sort-of binary between the personal gut reaction of a (supposedly) educated opinion on whatever and a ostensibly objective 'this is the facts' run down. Given the realities of newsrooms and freelance writing neither of these are usually written by someone knowledgable and you get a wiki article and/or reddit post. Ezra Klein certainly isn't distinct from a try-hard redditor who uses mod privileges to pretend his writing is worthwhile.

If you're interested in following a particular beat in journalism it's usually better to seek out particular writers who follow it with dedication, and in my experience they usually end up being "freelancers" (bloggers) who don't often appear on bigger media platforms.

We polled 500 people on this shocking topic, and their answers will surprise you!

Here's why.

[Brehvolution]

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/271620-prominent-gop-defense-figures-vow-to-work-against-trumps-election

The fuckery about to happen. 

The establishment discarding the will of their voters in plain sight and without apology.

The disdain for democracy out in the open. 

[Human Snorenado]

If they fuck him over, there is only a 110% chance Trump would run as a 3rd party/independent candidate, so this seems in line with the rest of the GOP's well thought out strategies.

[Brehvolution]

I'd even wager that a lot of trump voters would never vote for the gop again if this happens.

[Mods Help]

Jamelle Bouie says a lot of the stuff I was getting at re: Clinton/Sanders and black voters on his Twitter feed.

any particular tweets? seemed to me he was going after bernie supporters, not the man himself

[Great Rumbler]

If they fuck him over, there is only a 110% chance Trump would run as a 3rd party/independent candidate, so this seems in line with the rest of the GOP's well thought out strategies.

That's my thinking, as well. And I've seen a couple of articles arguing that the GOP establishment might actually cede the election to Hillary just to stop Trump from getting the nomination. But even that is dependent on a brokered convention, which may or may not happen.

[Mods Help]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/obamas-justice-department-gave-bernie-sanders-presidency_b_9372012.html

 

[Samson Manhug]

vox always get me rustled with their breathless 101 community college explainers smh

I always feel this way about subjects I am well-versed in, but then am secretly thankfully when I'm reading one on a topic I don't know much about. They serve a purpose.

tbh the only way people get paid by publications to write anything these days is either a hot take or a 'splainer. together these two kinds of writing form a sort-of binary between the personal gut reaction of a (supposedly) educated opinion on whatever and a ostensibly objective 'this is the facts' run down. Given the realities of newsrooms and freelance writing neither of these are usually written by someone knowledgable and you get a wiki article and/or reddit post. Ezra Klein certainly isn't distinct from a try-hard redditor who uses mod privileges to pretend his writing is worthwhile.

If you're interested in following a particular beat in journalism it's usually better to seek out particular writers who follow it with dedication, and in my experience they usually end up being "freelancers" (bloggers) who don't often appear on bigger media platforms.

I think freelancers/bloggers are p. cool

[Samson Manhug]

The Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-clinton-email-investigation-justice-department-grants-immunity-to-former-state-department-staffer/2016/03/02/e421e39e-e0a0-11e5-9c36-e1902f6b6571_story.html

Perhaps there is still hope for Bernie yet. . .

[Phoenix Dark]

Jamelle Bouie says a lot of the stuff I was getting at re: Clinton/Sanders and black voters on his Twitter feed.

any particular tweets? seemed to me he was going after bernie supporters, not the man himself

I think that's in large part the point. Sanders supporters have spent so much time telling black people what they should think about Clinton/Sanders, and little to no time listening to what black people actually have to say. Clinton has a bad record there's no question about it. However I think these discussions tend to ignore some of the good things Bill Clinton did with respect to black people, and the importance of making people think you want to hear their thoughts.

Bill and Hillary have been heavily involved in all types of "black stuff" since the 90s. Whether they were funerals or policy discussions, they show up. A lot of emphasis has been placed on how republicans often ignore events held by black people, or refuse to go to inner cities and talk with black people, etc. If these are fair criticisms of republicans they're also fair criticisms of Bernie Sanders. He hasn't been seen by the black community until now.

And I think the final point, which many white liberals don't understand (and many black activists refuse to acknowledge), is that a lot of older black people are conservative in many ways. A lot of black people and communities were demanding something be done about rampant crime in the 80s and 90s. A lot of black people and communities supported the Crime bill. I was living in Detroit in 1994, my mom was president of our block club; she spent a lot of time complaining to police and advocating what was virtually the broken window theory. A lot of older black people in inner cities have views like that, while simultaneously distrusting/disliking police.

[Joe Molotov]

"I don't know what happened to him," Trump said during a rally in Portland, Maine. "You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said Mitt 'drop to your knees.' He would have dropped to his knees."

 

[brawndolicious]

I'd even wager that a lot of trump voters would never vote for the gop again if this happens.

Yeah there has definitely been some shit in fan action at this point. The best case scenario for GOP is that Trump gets elected and pisses off non-conservative Americans more than Dubya ever could. But it's more likely that if he gets the nomination, he'll lose massively and the Republican Party will suffer in the short-term as far as down-ticket races. My favorite scenario, because of the chaos it would cause, is that Trump gets a plurality of delegates but doesn't get the nomination and that ends up causing a split. A permanent split where he runs as an independent (and fails of course) and then in 2018, he comes in on a new Trump/Cruz centric third party which might actually push out the GOP in some conservative seats.

Republicans are never, ever going to be able to forget that 2/3 of their base wanted a crazy, anti-establishment candidate in 2016.

[brob]

Jamelle Bouie says a lot of the stuff I was getting at re: Clinton/Sanders and black voters on his Twitter feed.

any particular tweets? seemed to me he was going after bernie supporters, not the man himself

I didn't click thru at the time but I presume it was this series of tweets that I saw retweeted on my own timeline:

Ah, still reading whole threads of Twitter and Reddit folks angry that black people didn't back Bernie like they apparently should.

The good news is that almost all of these folks are keyboard commandos who will have no actual impact on politics.

Past few days have been very revealing. It's helpful to see which "allies" give up pretense of anti-racism when blacks b/c competition.
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705173680507195392)

I mean, "white people refuse to treat black voters as citizens capable of informed decisions" isn't a new story. But still.
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705176168954269696)

This, from Reddit!, is a surprisingly good explanation of why many black people still bang with Clinton's. https://np.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/472fj6/why_isnt_bernie_sanders_doing_well_with_black/d09sdaw

I have plenty of quibbles and disagreements, but the broad description rings true.
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705177498926125056)

And here is my take on why black voters back HRC. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/hillary_clinton_s_ties_to_black_democrats_will_save_her_campaign_from_bernie.html
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705182596226027525)

[Mods Help]

Jamelle Bouie says a lot of the stuff I was getting at re: Clinton/Sanders and black voters on his Twitter feed.

any particular tweets? seemed to me he was going after bernie supporters, not the man himself

I think that's in large part the point. Sanders supporters have spent so much time telling black people what they should think about Clinton/Sanders, and little to no time listening to what black people actually have to say. Clinton has a bad record there's no question about it. However I think these discussions tend to ignore some of the good things Bill Clinton did with respect to black people, and the importance of making people think you want to hear their thoughts.

Bill and Hillary have been heavily involved in all types of "black stuff" since the 90s. Whether they were funerals or policy discussions, they show up. A lot of emphasis has been placed on how republicans often ignore events held by black people, or refuse to go to inner cities and talk with black people, etc. If these are fair criticisms of republicans they're also fair criticisms of Bernie Sanders. He hasn't been seen by the black community until now.

And I think the final point, which many white liberals don't understand (and many black activists refuse to acknowledge), is that a lot of older black people are conservative in many ways. A lot of black people and communities were demanding something be done about rampant crime in the 80s and 90s. A lot of black people and communities supported the Crime bill. I was living in Detroit in 1994, my mom was president of our block club; she spent a lot of time complaining to police and advocating what was virtually the broken window theory. A lot of older black people in inner cities have views like that, while simultaneously distrusting/disliking police.

True, they've been seen. But at the same time, a lot of notable black people like Angela Davis have thrown their support towards Sanders.

Sanders' supporters are pretty diverse, and one of the his biggest supporters and advocates is Killer Mike.

To be honest, how white Sanders' supporters act towards black voters is how I'd imagine a lot of Hilary supporters would act if they were underdogs in this situation. Keep in mind, a lot of Hilary supporters flaunt the fact that they have a lot of the black "vote". as if that's all they see us as: an asset to getting the presidency. When I volunteered for HERO, I was treated as a tool because I was an inter sectional interest by being a black trans woman. So I'm pretty used to this sense of telling the people what's best for them to use us to propel an agenda feels like. And I think others do too.

So that's not really surprising in the least. So I don't think "Sanders supporters have spent so much time telling black people what they should think about Clinton/Sanders, and little to no time listening to what black people actually have to say" has merit when Clinton (and I'm not talking about her supporters) has done very much the same thing. It's not that what you're saying isn't true, the problem in how it's applied. Even you and Mamacint did the "Sanders is your best hope" dance when BLM interrupted him. Remember?

Can you back up with data and evidence that Sanders supporters are telling black people what to think or is it just anecdotal evidence on "progressive" sites like neogaf?

There's also the problem with your language. The way you say Sanders supporters while applying the idea that all of his supporters are white, which isn't true.

[Mods Help]

And yeah, a lot of older black folks are conservative. Not really new info tho. But you need to also consider that a lot of those same older black folks have history with socialism. So I don't think the S-word is a deterrent here because black Americans have a very, very storied history with socialism and I don't think their supposed conservatism is playing into that. Of course, Bernie is not in any way a socialist. I think the lack of black support for him is less about how his history or his supporters, but more about how he's parsing his rhetoric. It's very, very American left-esque. When I say that, I'm not talking about how American's perceive the left (as in including liberals), but like, the actual left, as it would be viewed if it were in Europe. Today's American left, despite having massive roots with racial minorities, is very white and very educated. Vularai is, sorry no offense, a textbook example.

So Bernie comes off as disconnected from black issues, because he's not in them. Much like how many people on the left are desk workers making fat cash and not working alongside their fellow proletariat. His rhetoric concentrates on specific people, and although I think his policies would improve lives for all of us, it's very much aimed at a "middle class", which for black people, is often a luxury. His language is essentially "income inequality will solve racism" in the flesh that you read so much on message boards. And if anyone who has studied Cuban post-revolution treatment of black people and our place on the totem pole over there, you'd know that's not how it works. Of course, this is an opinion colored by someone whose father is from Oakland and grew up there during the rise of Panthers and their Marxism. So I could be off, but correct me if I'm wrong. Bernie has good intentions and I don't think it's his intention to make black people feel like we're left out. I do, however, think Clinton legacy is getting in the way here more than anything, whether it has merit or not. So the older folks' conservatism doesn't really apply here, from my observation.

Jamelle Bouie says a lot of the stuff I was getting at re: Clinton/Sanders and black voters on his Twitter feed.

any particular tweets? seemed to me he was going after bernie supporters, not the man himself

I didn't click thru at the time but I presume it was this series of tweets that I saw retweeted on my own timeline:

Ah, still reading whole threads of Twitter and Reddit folks angry that black people didn't back Bernie like they apparently should.

The good news is that almost all of these folks are keyboard commandos who will have no actual impact on politics.

Past few days have been very revealing. It's helpful to see which "allies" give up pretense of anti-racism when blacks b/c competition.
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705173680507195392)

I mean, "white people refuse to treat black voters as citizens capable of informed decisions" isn't a new story. But still.
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705176168954269696)

This, from Reddit!, is a surprisingly good explanation of why many black people still bang with Clinton's. https://np.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/472fj6/why_isnt_bernie_sanders_doing_well_with_black/d09sdaw

I have plenty of quibbles and disagreements, but the broad description rings true.
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705177498926125056)

And here is my take on why black voters back HRC. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/hillary_clinton_s_ties_to_black_democrats_will_save_her_campaign_from_bernie.html
(https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/705182596226027525)

Good piece on slate from Jamelle. First time reading it.

The reddit post is the best.

This

Who is he? No, not saying "black people haven't heard of Bernie Sanders", I mean, who is Bernie Sanders? He's this guy from Vermont apparently that claims he was very active in the Civil Rights movement but has been auspiciously absent from just about every black struggle since then.

and this:

Because we already know what it's like to have someone promise us the moon and leave us out to dry. Believe it or not, we actually have a great deal of experience with far left politicians and figureheads. MLK, it's argued, was a socialist. The Black Panthers were socialists. We've had these ideas and promises run up and down our communities from East to West coast, North to South.... It never pans out. We've seen assassinations, fraud, all sorts of dirty tricks... Oftentimes though, it's as simple as politicians flat out lying to us. Bernie Sanders isn't new. So all these promises sound great and all, but they all sound like pipe dreams.

Are what I mean my paragraphs above. Tunnel visioned lefty is what I'm using to attribute to Sanders' lack of black support.

[brob]

I think the lack of black support for him is less about how his history or his supporters, but more about how he's parsing his rhetoric. When I say that, I'm not talking about how American's perceive the left (as in including liberals), but like, the actual left, as it would be viewed if it were in Europe. Today's American left, despite having massive roots with racial minorities, is very white and very educated. Vularai is, sorry no offense, a textbook example.

I disagree with this. There isn't really an American left that is comparable to European leftism, mainly due to presence/lack of parlamentarism and difference in labor movement history (and how deeply enmeshed the latter is with white supremacy for the US vs colonialism for many European nations). but also the rhetoric you are talking about is very familiar to me as it is the sort of talk that has been employed by ethno-protectionists over here as long as I have been alive. And even if Social Democratic liberalism is further left of clintonian neoliberalism, it is still far from 'the actual left' imo.

and none of this lines up with marxist-leninism, which is the science vularai champions.

[Mods Help]

I didn't say social democrat is actual left. But it's left for us.  The American left is so small and separated by so many factions, that it's not even a real thing here.

I'm a marxist as well.

Continuing, I do think Bernie doesn't get credit in regards to race relations. Though, he could do more than what he's doing with his language.

http://madamenoire.com/593341/bernie-sanders-sandra-bland-say-her-name/

I'd like to stress, that black people are pretty diverse and have our own opinions. I disagree heavily with some of that reddit post. It also does a bad job of lumping all black people into the same pile. So While I think the arguments have merit, the ultimate problem here is treating minority voters like we're all one group making conscious group decisions and not people with our own opinions and biases.

I find his defense of the super predators to be condescending. As if you're black you would agree with it.

[octopushover]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=197477704&postcount=62

lol holy shit is this real?

what do you think

[Mods Help]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=197477704&postcount=62

lol holy shit is this real?

The text is floating on top of the shirt.

 

[brob]

I didn't say social democrat is actual left. But it's left for us.  The American left is so small and separated by so many factions, that it's not even a real thing here.

I'm a marxist as well.

Continuing, I do think Bernie doesn't get credit in regards to race relations. Though, he could do more than what he's doing with his language.

http://madamenoire.com/593341/bernie-sanders-sandra-bland-say-her-name/

I'd like to stress, that black people are pretty diverse and have our own opinions. I disagree heavily with some of that reddit post. It also does a bad job of lumping all black people into the same pile. So While I think the arguments have merit, the ultimate problem here is treating minority voters like we're all one group making conscious group decisions and not people with our own opinions and biases.

I find his defense of the super predators to be condescending. As if you're black you would agree with it.

the american left is very fractured, yes, and social democratism is certainly to the left of the current democratic centrism, but I still think it's possible to talk about 'the actual left' in the US (as a coalition of various factions) and it doesn't include people who think employment amounts to reparations.

Sanders' focus has been bringing poor, disenfranchised whites to the left since Al Gore lost. That's the basis for his rhetoric on race, guns, etc. Without explicitly grappling with how white supremacy is melded into society at every level, I don't think this is terribly useful.

And unless black voters are given the option to express their plurality, is there any reason for (or way to force) politicians to stop treating them like a singular voting body? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Mods Help]

How do we talk about the actual left in America? The S-word is just now become not so much bad word anymore but the C-word? LOL!

I think an actual left is possible but not with the current way in how it's perceived to be exclusively for white yuppies. What's funny is that you go to any major socialist site, and it's got pictures and pictures of minorities. Which is my experience irl as well. Check my party's website: http://www.socialistalternative.org/

How do we express our plurality?

[Phoenix Dark]

In terms of white Sanders supporters v white Hillary supporters...sure, I think we all remember some suspect shit coming from white Hillary fans when Obama was beating her. And I'm sure someone could find a 2008 "Hillary has done more for black people than Obama" think piece. But overall I think it's very hard to deny Sanders fans are far more confrontational and dismissive of black views than Hillary fans were in 2008. Multiple outlets have reported on Bernie fans and their problems, I don't need to re-litigate those arguments. And no, this does now mean ALL Bernie fans are like this.

I actually agree with Sanders' view that an improved economic situation would greatly benefit black people. A lot of inner cities are in disrepair in large part due to deflated tax bases. Liberals can inject cash into inner city schools every four years all they want but the problems persist when tax funding is low and people don't have jobs. The problem is that Sanders hasn't really made this argument to black audiences effectively, and often outright ignores local issues that can help his point. He wants to talk about Flint, MI by hitting Wall Street. It doesn't make any sense.

But as I've said, Sanders has no connection to the community. He made no attempt to make one. And no, I'm not talking about his BLM confrontation; I still have no problem with how he handled it, and you know my views won BLM. I'm talking about having a visible presence in the community, be it through meeting with activists, attending black events, etc etc. All the things Hillary has attended for decades, mind you. Remember, both Obama and John Edwards made these overtures as early as 2006-2007 in preparation for the 2008 election. Because they understood  you can't win the nomination without the black vote. Sanders did none of that and instead showed up in late 2015 talking about MLK. It's not surprising why it didn't work.