2017 Democratic Thread

[Reddy]

The most compelling thing about Schultz is that he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

The Dems need to pick more entrepreneurial candidates that understand how to grow an economy.

Agreed.

[bmags]

Dems always think the resume of a candidate matters. Just see who gets people to respond.

[Heads22]

I honestly think Booker is the favorite at the moment.

[caulfield12]

Booker has some strikes going against him.

 

Too close to the pharmaceutical industry. Industrial NE "home territory" doesn't help the Dems expand back into the Heartland, Rust Belt and Near West.

 

The fact that he will inevitably be compared to Obama due to race. Some will feel that it's instead "time" for a woman, Hispanic-American, Asian-American/Indian-American, etc., to have an opportunity.

[StrangeSox]

You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you

 

long-ish (and non-partisan) Oatmeal comic on the "backfire effect" and how our brains react to things that challenge our worldview, and why sometimes presenting evidence against someone's worldview only strengthens their belief in it.

[StrangeSox]

Boy am I hyped for that field

 

I'd be interested in seeing a Franken campaign tbh

 

I honestly think Booker is the favorite at the moment.

 

[bmags]

Booker has some strikes going against him.

 

Too close to the pharmaceutical industry. Industrial NE "home territory" doesn't help the Dems expand back into the Heartland, Rust Belt and Near West.

 

The fact that he will inevitably be compared to Obama due to race. Some will feel that it's instead "time" for a woman, Hispanic-American, Asian-American/Indian-American, etc., to have an opportunity.

 

This third paragraph is so hilariously dem thinking.

 

"Oh, if we just get a white southern working class male, we will win the white male working class vote!" ...

 

"What? We put John Edwards on the ticket? How could we lose?"

[StrangeSox]

I still have no idea why Tim Kaine was Clinton's VP. Who the hell was he supposed to appeal to?

[southsider2k5]

I still have no idea why Tim Kaine was Clinton's VP. Who the hell was he supposed to appeal to?

 

Knowing the Clintons, he was probably put there so that he wouldn't attract attention, good or bad.

[CanOfCorn]

Yeah a guy from an "industrial home territory" will never be able to connect with the Rust Belt like a NY skyscraper living real estate mogul did.

 

How about they just come up with the best candidate instead of picking one based on ethic background or genitalalia? I am thinking we need a trans president. Nevermind whether the individual is qualified the country is ready for it. Plus, there's the added benefit of being able to call every person who prefers the other candidate transphobic.

 

Trump was not the best candidate. Not by a longshot. Until people can actually determine who the best candidate is, those factors have to be included. Not based on, but included in the discussion.

[caulfield12]

Of course, there are numerous articles out there blaming Kaitlyn Jenner being embraced by ESPN as the reason for the mass firings, as well as mostly positive coverage Colin Kapaernick's national anthem protests.

Edited May 3, 2017 by caulfield12

[Heads22]

Biden is the definition of being from the northeast industrial part of the country, and he probably wins the election.

 

One cold hard fact I've learned is that no one can screw up a good thing like the democrats.

[caulfield12]

i think we overestimate Biden.

 

He has lots of annoying traits that would come out over the course of a long campaign. Biden tends to put his foot in his mouth, and quite a bit. He knows his stuff, but he used to come across as too self-righteous and sanctimonious. The plagiarism charges that dogged him in 1988 would be resurrected (that said, if you can bring back Jeff Sessions from the 80's, why not Biden?)

 

On one hand, he has a strong grasp of foreign policy and a family with a military background.

 

That said, it's kind of like Michelle Obama or the back-up QB phenomenon. As First Lady or VP, they're not really exposed to doing anything controversial or unpopular.

 

 

 

 

As far as the Dems shooting themselves in the foot, you can argue the GOP did the same with Palin and Romney. All things considered, a "placekeeper" president (at his age) with no new ideas and an oppositional Congress wasn't going to accomplish much of anything. From my perspective, this is where the Democratic Party is really forced to figure out what they stand for, and whether that's the correct strategy winning elections, both national/regional/local, going forward.

You wouldn't have all this grassroots activism and engagement with Clinton and/or Biden in office. Just gridlock.

[Reddy]

This third paragraph is so hilariously dem thinking.

 

"Oh, if we just get a white southern working class male, we will win the white male working class vote!" ...

 

"What? We put John Edwards on the ticket? How could we lose?"

 

Obligatory "Edwards would've won if he were the actual candidate but thank god he didn't because holy s*** what a douche" post.

[Heads22]

i think we overestimate Biden.

 

He has lots of annoying traits that would come out over the course of a long campaign. Biden tends to put his foot in his mouth, and quite a bit. He knows his stuff, but he used to come across as too self-righteous and sanctimonious. The plagiarism charges that dogged him in 1988 would be resurrected (that said, if you can bring back Jeff Sessions from the 80's, why not Biden?)

 

On one hand, he has a strong grasp of foreign policy and a family with a military background.

 

That said, it's kind of like Michelle Obama or the back-up QB phenomenon. As First Lady or VP, they're not really exposed to doing anything controversial or unpopular.

 

 

 

 

As far as the Dems shooting themselves in the foot, you can argue the GOP did the same with Palin and Romney. All things considered, a "placekeeper" president (at his age) with no new ideas and an oppositional Congress wasn't going to accomplish much of anything. From my perspective, this is where the Democratic Party is really forced to figure out what they stand for, and whether that's the correct strategy winning elections, both national/regional/local, going forward.

You wouldn't have all this grassroots activism and engagement with Clinton and/or Biden in office. Just gridlock.

 

Judging off of who we just elected, none of that matters. He can appeal to people in swing states and people would be willing to vote for him. No reason to overthink it.

[caulfield12]

Well, Heads might be right.

 

With Biden as president, you would be able to protect Obamacare for four more years...but that would inevitably lead to another set of losses in the 2018 midterms, with the perpetual campaign against Obama's signature act.

 

You certainly wouldn't have an imbalanced tax "reform" plan. The GOP would have probably fared much better in terms of the budget continuing resolution/government shutdown threat.

 

I do think people on both sides of the aisle are much more politically engaged than ever before. More polarized sure...but maybe that's exactly what the country needs, instead of punting all the big problems down the future (critics would argue those budgets and tax reform plans are doing exactly that, growing the debt more and not addressing the long-term issues with Social Security and Medicare funding mechanisms).

 

There's also no doubt that Biden would have had little more luck than the typical Democrat in terms of being able to control profits of insurance companies OR lowering drug costs.

[StrangeSox]

http://freebeacon.com/culture/netflix-edit...termine-gender/

 

Netflix edits out segment from Bill Nye the Science guy that talks about chromosomes determining sex.

 

"See, inside each of our cells are these things called chromosomes, and they control whether we become a boy or a girl, " the young woman continued. "See, there are only two possibilities: XX, a girl, or XY, a boy."

 

That's scientifically inaccurate, so good on them if they fixed an objective error.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, there are more cases than just XX or XY, and there are also some cases where XX or XY doesn't result in the sex it typically does. They may not be common, but saying "there are only two possibilities" is wrong.

 

[StrangeSox]

I dunno, I guess I don't see why anyone would be upset or would bother writing an article about a factually incorrect statement about biology being edited out. It's not a "rule" that can or can't be nullify, it just is.

[StrangeSox]

It's pretty obvious. An engineer who goes by "The Science Guy" and influences children bucks scientific fact when politics get involved. That's bad.

 

Removing an incorrect statement isn't bucking scientific fact, though. Wading into a dumb culture war and insisting that the statement in the video isn't factually incorrect is. If Bill Nye influences children to correctly understand that there are more than two possibilities, that's good.

[StrangeSox]

It was a scientifically incorrect statement to claim that there are two possibilities with chromosomes. I don't know why you keep insisting otherwise.

 

There is also scientific evidence that sex and gender are determined at different points in development. It's in the second episode of this program: http://www.pbs.org/program/nine-months-that-made-you/

 

I don't know what Nye's said recently, but I also don't know how he'd be "exposed" as being "full of it" for having produced a video in the mid-90's that (incorrectly) stated that there are two chromosome possibilities but now claiming sex (did he say sex or gender?) is a choice in 2017. They're both pop-science videos rather than research papers, and they're probably not even talking about the same thing.

[StrangeSox]

 Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Suppressed 200,000 Votes in 2016 (Trump Won by 22,748)

 

 Prior to the 2016 election, Eddie Lee Holloway Jr., a 58-year-old African-American man, moved from Illinois to Wisconsin, which implemented a strict voter-ID law for the first time in 2016. He brought his expired Illinois photo ID, birth certificate, and Social Security card to get a photo ID for voting in Wisconsin, but the DMV in Milwaukee rejected his application because the name on his birth certificate read “Eddie Junior Holloway,” the result of a clerical error when it was issued. Holloway ended up making seven trips to different public agencies in two states and spent over $200 in an attempt to correct his birth certificate, but he was never able to obtain a voter-ID in Wisconsin. Before the election, his lawyer for the ACLU told me he was so disgusted he left Wisconsin for Illinois.

 

Holloway’s story was sadly familiar in 2016. According to federal court records, 300,000 registered voters, nine percent of the electorate, lacked strict forms of voter-ID in Wisconsin. A new study by Priorities USA, shared exclusively with The Nation, shows that strict voter-ID laws, in Wisconsin and other states, led to a significant reduction in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters. Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes, according to the new analysis. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes.

 

Voter suppression works very, very well for the GOP.

[BigSqwert]

 Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Suppressed 200,000 Votes in 2016 (Trump Won by 22,748)

 

 

 

Voter suppression works very, very well for the GOP.

 

But didn't they prevent 3 people from committing voter fraud? It all evens out.

[GoSox05]

 Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Suppressed 200,000 Votes in 2016 (Trump Won by 22,748)

 

 

 

Voter suppression works very, very well for the GOP.

 

I give that guy credit for even going that far. Most people would try a few things and then if they still weren't able to vote they would probably just forget about it. Maybe forever.

 

 

Scott Walker is human garbage.

[StrangeSox]

I know Quinnipiac is slightly Dem favorable, but holy moly their latest poll

 

American voters, who gave President Donald Trump a slight approval bump after the missile strike in Syria, today give him a near-record negative 36 - 58 percent job approval rating, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Critical are big losses among white voters with no college degree, white men and independent voters.

 

By a 54 - 38 percent margin, American voters want the Democratic Party to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the widest margin ever measured for this question in a Quinnipiac University poll, exceeding a 5 percentage point margin for Republicans in 2013.

 

If Democrats had won control of the U.S. Senate in the 2016 elections, the country would be in a better place than it is now, 41 percent of voters say, while 27 percent say it would be in a worse place and 30 percent say it would be the same.

 

American voters dislike Democrats less than they dislike Republicans:

Voters disapprove 71 - 22 percent of the way Republicans in Congress do their job;

Voters disapprove 58 - 34 percent of the way Democrats in Congress are doing their job.

 

We're still a long way from November 2018, and these poll results need to translate into votes and the frustration/outrage levels need to be maintained.

 

On the other hand, we're only 4 months into this s***show and November 2018 is still a long ways away. Just imagine how many more spectacular failures Trump & Co will have!

 

 

e: from the same poll, the first word that came to people's minds about Trump:

 

and this trend lol

 

Edited May 10, 2017 by StrangeSox