American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by saillias

No. Are you serious, really? Did you pull this opinion from Fox or a Trump tweet? An approval poll is not the same as predicting the vote of a future election.

Not to mention that the polling average of Clinton winning the popular vote by about +3 is totally reasonable given that she was +2 in the actual popular vote. No reason no distrust polls based on the election; only reason to actually read them properly.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by saillias

No. Are you serious, really? Did you pull this opinion from Fox or a Trump tweet? An approval poll is not the same as predicting the vote of a future election.

I'm dead serious...you guys can all be smug for another 3.5 years about what a fool Trump is and how he is doing a horrible job (I don't disagree) but unless something changes there is a good chance he wins again.

Election rules aren't changing, facebook and twitter are not gonna block fake news ect. So cry all you want about it but the "Trump is an racist, sexist idiot so vote for the dems" narrative isn't enough.


"That isn't an ass-kicking, that's a BS system giving a guy a win because Nebraska's votes count more than California's"

and the point is? same rules will apply next time

306>232

He won by a large margin where it mattered people need to stop living in denial or history will repeat itself

[direwolf]

Great story from Vox today on a group of kids and their parents who went to try and lobby Congress to save the ACA and Medicaid.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ifetime-limits

Several Democratic senators — who roundly opposed the repeal bill — made time for the group. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) sat with the family in his office conference room.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) bumped into the group in the hallway. She immediately began taking photographs with them, brushing aside aides’ reminders of another meeting she had to get to. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) invited the group to visit his offices right outside the Senate chamber and popped out for a minute to thank them.

The meetings were often quick. They followed a formula: Senators would thank the families for their work, ask them to visit Republican offices, and take a group photo. And the families would wonder: Did this actually make a difference? Would it shape the debate at all, meeting with senators who already agree with them?

Michelle and Elena had collected more than 100 stories from other parents of medically fragile children all over the country. They handed out copies of those stories to the senators who might use them to fight for the Affordable Care Act.

They mostly wanted to talk to Republican senators — but those meetings were a lot harder to get.

Advocates have struggled to wield influence over the Senate’s secretive health care process. Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had declined meetings with health groups including the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, and the March of Dimes.

“A representative from McConnell’s office told them staff schedules were too busy,” Levey wrote.

Mark Morrison tried to call McConnell’s office Wednesday morning but couldn’t get through; the message box said it wasn’t accepting more voicemails.

The Morrisons focused their outreach efforts on Republican senators’ offices but didn’t have much luck. They corresponded with an aide in Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) office but were unable to pin down a meeting. They had some families from Pennsylvania try Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) — they even faxed him a letter — but that didn’t work, either.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by direwolf

Great story from Vox today on a group of kids and their parents who went to try and lobby Congress to save the ACA and Medicaid.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ifetime-limits

Republicans simply don't care about the lower and middle classes. They haven't for a long time now

[Thor]

Honestly the Dems are part of this too, I cannot recommend enough the Netflix doc Requiem for an American dream.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I'm dead serious...you guys can all be smug for another 3.5 years about what a fool Trump is and how he is doing a horrible job (I don't disagree) but unless something changes there is a good chance he wins again.

Election rules aren't changing, facebook and twitter are not gonna block fake news ect. So cry all you want about it but the "Trump is an racist, sexist idiot so vote for the dems" narrative isn't enough.


"That isn't an ass-kicking, that's a BS system giving a guy a win because Nebraska's votes count more than California's"

and the point is? same rules will apply next time

306>232

He won by a large margin where it mattered people need to stop living in denial or history will repeat itself

He won by a large margin in the metric that ultimately matters, but I'd agree that it can't be characterized as an 'ass kicking'

It's more like winning a hockey game 4-1 with two empty-netters while getting out-shot 30-26. Sure, looking back over the scores at the end of the season you might go 'oh, we thumped the Sabers' or whatever, but a closer look at the game reveals a much closer-run-thing than the score indicates.

I do agree that there is an opportunity for the Democrats to lose, but I think it will be harder than you do. I see no reason to suspect that Americans will be happy with 'Washington' three years from now. Whichever candidate manages to position themselves as the outsider will be the one who wins. That will be easier to do for the Democrat as they won't be the incumbent.

Now the Democrats could balls that up by running someone like Biden or Pelosi or something like that, but I suspect they'll find a somewhat experienced outsider, like a one-term governor or something, who campaigns on 'shaking things up' and 'changing the status quo' while Trump will have a four-year record of failure and broken promises.

[ResAlien]

Kamala Harris is setting herself up to lead the Bernie group whilst I think Booker will be the candidate. I'm almost positive it will be a POC, I believe a fair portion of the younger liberal crowd believes that an old white guy can't be their leader.

[dino7c]

Trump will stop at nothing to win...starting a war in mid 2019 should do the trick

keeping america safe and what not

Dems need to move on...Anyone who hasn't realized that Trump is a terrible human being by now isn't going to suddenly change their mind. Issues should be the focus now

health care, schools, millitary, ect....you know government stuff

[photon]

All the podcasts I listen to say the same thing (and have been focusing more on issues while still being up to date on any Russia developments).

Problem is issues aren't salacious, it's not what the media covers.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Trump will stop at nothing to win...starting a war in mid 2019 should do the trick

keeping america safe and what not

Dems need to move on...Anyone who hasn't realized that Trump is a terrible human being by now isn't going to suddenly change their mind. Issues should be the focus now

health care, schools, millitary, ect....you know government stuff

If you ever listen to the more progressive podcasts and radio shows - I'm thinking specifically of Pod Save America - they completely agree with you. While it's necessary to continually remind the US that Trump, his administration, and the behavior of the Republican party is not normal and dangerous, it's not a way to win elections.

The Montana house election for example, the Democrats focused entirely on health care and almost never mentioned Trump.

[photon]

Not to mention it's hard to gain any ground on issues when everything reported about issues is an example of liberal media bias.

[HockeyIlliterate]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Dems need to move on...Anyone who hasn't realized that Trump is a terrible human being by now isn't going to suddenly change their mind. Issues should be the focus now

health care, schools, millitary, ect....you know government stuff

The only issues that most voters truly care about are those that affect their pocketbook and those that affect their body or that of their immediate family members.

Nothing else matters.

Health care (or, more properly, health insurance) isn't a significant issue for the healthy, or for those with (what they believe to be) decent employer-provided insurance, or for those wealthy enough to pay for health insurance or health care out of pocket.

Improving schools isn't a significant issue for the childless, or for those who already live in good school districts, or for those wealthy enough to pay for private school.

The military isn't a significant issue for those who aren't in it, or who do not have any family members in it.

Just like Nancy Reagan didn't care about stem cell research until her Ronnie got sick, most voters simply do not care about anything unless and until it personally affects them.

The Republicans are very good at exploiting this human trait.

Democrats, however, continually try to convince voters that they should care about an issue, but without a savvy marketing plan or any solid rationale(s) why a voter should, other than amorphous arguments that doing so "is the right thing to do" or that "it feels good."

In recent history, that line of action hasn't been particularly successful for the Democrats, and I don't see it changing anytime soon until Democrats can convince voters how spending their money for someone else* puts the spender in a better position than they would be otherwise.


* Who, to be honest, the spender probably doesn't even like, or think is worthy of any expenditure, or believes should even be in the country.

[photon]

A "discussion draft" of the Senate Trumpcare bill has leaked. Pretty much as expected, great if you're healthy or rich, not so much if you aren't. Not the bill America needs, but probably the bill it deserves.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/power...876_story.html

EDIT: Haha it kills funding for Planned Parenthood (because vaginas), but it also removes restrictions in the house bill that stopped federally-subsidized health plans from covering abortions. Doesn't that make it worse for both the moderates and the far right?

[fanman]

Originally Posted by photon

EDIT: Haha it kills funding for Planned Parenthood (because vaginas), but it also removes restrictions in the house bill that stopped federally-subsidized health plans from covering abortions. Doesn't that make it worse for both the moderates and the far right?

So they`re basically just trolling everyone with this new health care bill now. What a mess. The sad thing is a lot of people will actually support it passing until their family and friends get sick, by which time it will be far too late.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Looks like the Sun, not Mexico, will be paying for the wall now.

[kermitology]

A solar wall? Why not a coal wall? Now he's taking away American jobs! Get him!

[Fuzz]

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 26m26 minutes ago

...Why did Democratic National Committee turn down the DHS offer to protect against hacks (long prior to election). It's all a big Dem HOAX!

Totally unhinged. A hoax? Time to move on Donny. Another string of odd tweets this morning.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

...Why did Democratic National Committee turn down the DHS offer to protect against hacks (long prior to election). It's all a big Dem HOAX!

Totally unhinged. A hoax? Time to move on Donny. Another string of odd tweets this morning.

His clueless, gullible, not bright base will believe him though. This is probably turning out even easier than he thought.

[Fuzz]

So Trump doesn't have any tapes:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-c...173335?cmp=rss

But why did he take so long to say that?

[photon]

Because of the gigantic hole in his soul that he tries to fill by doing anything possible to make sure people are paying attention to him.

Why doesn't a reporter ask him about the RNC leaving the personal information for almost 200 million voters available for download on the Internet, if his claim is that the RNC is so much more secure than the DNC.