Actually it is about what they say. We have decades of records and research showing that politicians do keep their promises, or at least try to, once they are elected. Why? Simple, because they want to get reelected.
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DNC suspends Sanders campaign access to database after staff breached Hillary's data
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Actually it is about what they say. We have decades of records and research showing that politicians do keep their promises, or at least try to, once they are elected. Why? Simple, because they want to get reelected.
Yoda
Member
This response is to a lot of people in this thread, but I due to how articulate Amir0x was w/the sentiment I quoted him. I'd call settling for Hillary IF you prefer another candidate on the assumption it increases the probability of the other party losing the election a version of Game Theory. The problem is the democratic party has been doing this for decades to the point where Obama's (establishment democrats) economic policies don't differ much from Republican ideologies. It's easy to cherry-pick certain sensational areas where the gulf is giant, but as an aggregate, I'd argue they aren't that different:
- Free Trade - if TPP is fully ratified, it will be because Republicans get it through Congress for him.
- Privacy / Cybersecurity - Obama is arguably more ruthless in this arena than Bush/Cheney.
- Net Neutrality - Loads of amazing documents and statements from the FCC's former cable company quack; The big players continue to ignore said rules, because there isn't adequate enforcement. Slow and inefficient, by design or by choice?
- Taxation (personal income), It's literally a few lines of statue(s) that needed to be rewritten and some numbers bumped up. When there was an ample opportunity to do it (2009), it wasn't politically feasible. Democrats who represent very wealthy individuals always fights increases to capital gains very subtly. For example, when it comes up, Chuck Schumer insists the ENTIRE tax-code be rid of waste (a noble endeavor on the surface) but he knows thats a political dead-end.
Now the argument is about whether couples making >= 250k ought pay + or - 3%? That's our tax debate? It should induce one to ask why both "outcomes" seem to not move the needle.
The answer is the premise of my post, the country has been shifted to the right w/o most people acknowledging the shift. Progressive social issue victories have blinded the majority of the country to the fact that another who isn't considered rich has had their wage depressed, economic mobility diminished, etc... One of the reason the Right has managed to pull this off is due to the fact people attracted to conservative ideologies are less likely to compromise in general; the reverse is true for people who associated w/the Left. Voting for Hillary, is a vote for Corporatocracy. I believe the reason Bernie calls for a "revolution" is because he knows short of such, meaningful change can't happen. This country is more "Right leaning" than @ anytime in recent memory, despite polls always claiming the opposite:
- Conservatives occupy more governorships
- Conservatives occupy a majority in 2 of the 3 branches of the federal government
- Conservatives occupy the military/intelligence establishment, all opinions tend to be in alignment. For example look @ the middle east problems (ISIS). The debate is about "how much" America should commit to fighting, never does the subject of us not involving ourselves/divesting ourselves ever come up. The few braves souls who do purport such claims are called heartless (lack of empathy for Syrian refugess) or quacks for "not understanding how the world works".
Another good example is how Obama handled health-care. He compromised with himself and brought said plan the Republicans, and like anyone with an ounce of political aptitude they tried to negotiate/water it down(kill it) further.
The Left likes to believe they are winning the political soul of America; we see statistics and polls which quantitively prove our ideology is "winning". Census data says that the aggregate of minority demographics will soon outnumber the majority (whites), thus this means we will gain the political majorities we currently lack? If we include the people who abstain from voting and apply who we think X individual will vote for if they voted, democrats should be winning in Spades, at least we shouldn't be having elections like the 2014 election. The playing field never-stops changing, and we never acknowledge it changes. Look at the tax "debate" we had awhile ago 36% vs. 39% + capital gains off the table (mega rich don't pay a penny more). Whats the point of winning the game if the Right's ideology is implemented regardless of who wins?
excelsiorlef
Member
Suspended for doing tech support?
Must be so they can investigate if they are Hillary DNC plants...
Ahhhh fuck it I can't even stomach that shit sarcastically.
I can't believe Sanders is making themselves out to be the victims here
Battersea Power Station
Member
What do you expect? That whole team is full of opportunist sleazeballs who are only in it to try to discredit Hillary, and it all starts with the man in charge. I wouldn't be surprised if Sanders is a GOP plant in an attempt to railroad Clinton's campaign. Ok, that's hyperbole for the point of illustration, but who knows.
He has been an agent his whole political career for just this moment.
Being with MLK was just a trick; his goal was to kill Hillary.
Good. He needs to go through and make sure his campaign staff is clean and nobody working for him has been up to anything even slightly shady, or that could even just look shady. He clearly, at the very least, has a few people that are willing to jeopardize his campaign by doing poorly thought out things.
I really wish this could have been something he had done yesterday, when the story was first breaking.
I also wish his personal response at the debate from his own mouth was something he could have said yesterday, but I sort of understand why he waited with the debate being only 1 day away.
Well the campaign themselves were sure quick to fire one guy fast.
Without even temporarily suspending any others that might have been involved, while they investigated. The press even had the name of at least one other who was seemingly involved, Russell Drapkin.
I don't know why they were so fast in one instance but not in other ways.
Elfforkusu
Member
The bolded is all the wiggle room an effective politician needs.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
That's really disingenuous.
SolicitorPirate
Member
As an Australian. I used to consider Democrats the sane side of American politics.
Looking at the reactions of Sanders supporters however, I can see I was mistaken.
Looking at the reactions of Sanders supporters however, I can see I was mistaken.
That's putting it mildly.
EDIT: Though I shouldn't be surprised, every time someone brings up one of those 3 or 4 studies that tends to be the response.
They're not even Democrats. Sanders isn't a Democrat. These are our Socialists.
Didn't Hillary tell you to move on?
For the two years Bernie and Hillary shared in the Senate, they voted the same exact way 93% of the time. I'm sure somewhere out there, there's someone calling him an independent-in-name-only.
Let me get this straight, Bernie "let's fund colleges through taxes, let's publicly fund campaigns, let's tax the rich etc etc" Sanders doesn't want to talk about the real issues while Hillary "9/11 forced me to accept bribes from bankers" Clinton does. Yeah sure, that's what happening.
Why do you insist on making America look bad to the world?Didn't Hillary tell you to move on?
If you stepped out of your Reddit echo chamber more often you'd realize that pretty much no one in reality thinks that Bernie has a better grasp of policy than Hillary.
If you stepped out of the liberal echo chamber you'd realize that it doesn't matter what you assume most people think, Bernie objectively wants to change the country and proudly supports the policies needed to do that, Clinton on the other hand is the same old republican-lite Democrat (compared with today's republicans, compared with the 90s republicans she's a hardcore republican) that carefully tries to hide her true intentions and ideology under a mountain of bullshit and distractions.
So yeah, Bernie definitely isn't the one who would want to change the subject.
Yeah that's not how polls and votes work.
Polls rate popularity, not everyone who would vote for Hillary knows about her "grasp of policy" or in fact who Sanders is given how little the corporate media cover his campaign (gee, I wonder why). Polls can also be skewed to serve the interests of the ruling class and influence voters.
Laugh all you want, I'm supposed to trust polls organized by the same corporate media that seem terrified by Sanders and deliberately don't cover his campaign. No thanks.
Classy.
Classy.
So, you're not actually refuting my argument about the impact of the socialist label just moving the goalposts to say that they're going to throw everything they can at him which I doubt anyone would dispute or doesn't expect, including Sanders himself. But apparently you think he can't even comprehend it, with that bit of wholly unsubstantiated bluster and bravado at the end there. Well alright then.
Again, this is nothing but flippancy for its own sake. Sanders' campaign is hardly in rare company for having the occasional campaign management issue or other unforced error. Even successful presidential campaigns have their fair share. Considering this particular issue doesn't look like it's going to linger in the press anywhere near as long as many other campaign scandals have (including some notably recent ones...), trying to make any hay over his ability to manage his campaign because of this is nothing but a ridiculous stretch.
And I submit the condescension is unnecessary. I'm aware it's not a game. But I'm not the one proposing a gating factor that's wholly irrelevant since neither candidate in question would be able to achieve it.
That's not risk, there is no risk yet; there's just an initial assessment of each candidate's current electability before we've even held a single primary. If Sanders starts winning primaries then the odds makers and pollsters naturally will begin to "concede" a new assessment of his electability. That's what they do, that's why they poll/reassess odds regularly and frequently, not just once and done.
I have no intention of trying to pretend away where Sanders currently stands, I just don't agree that his chances are as set in stone as you seem to think they are, or that there's any "massive" risk to giving him the benefit of the doubt for awhile yet.
titiklabingapat
Member
Oh there are a few nutjobs, anti-science and tinfoil hat wearing peeps on the Left too. See the anti-nuclear, anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO folks. Granted they do not have an outsized influence in the party, but the fact that they exist irks me, too, just as much as the existence of the crazies on the Right. Stupid has no political leanings.
No goalposts were moved. You made a statement, and I replied to that with what it means. Republicans are going to throw everything at Bernie were he the nominee. He has literally never once had to deal with that level of scrutiny. Hillary has been dealing with it for years. The Socialist label has demonstrably been proven to be incredibly damaging to candidates in the past, and Bernie is on record.
Once again, it keeps coming down to people pretending this shit doesn't matter. It's huge. We can keep playing these games where we pretend it's not, but it is. America fucking hates socialists. Every self-identifier poll, every comparison poll, virtually every survey that has ever been done on the subject says so. We can debate about how deep that disdain goes, but that's where Bernie stands. I can acknowledge this all while knowing that Bernie's policies are, on the whole, infinitely more appealing to me than Hillary's (wherever they differ anyway).
So once again, no goalposts. The socialist attack is going to consume Bernie and eviscerate him in the general. It'll be the numero uno attack. But on top of that, they're gonna throw everything else at him - from his tenuous connection to the Democratic party all the way to this scandal of accessing Hillary's campaign data. Everything. Understanding that the socialist attack is going to be the most damaging to Bernie but that Republicans are also going to throw everything else at him which Bernie is not even remotely prepared for is not moving the goalposts. It's called seeing the entire picture. One thing can be true while the other is also true. Nuance.
Hardly the first. Except he couldn't even keep it together during a hardly competitive Democratic primary season in which very few eyes were on him at all. This matters to people, it calls leadership qualities into question.
I'm not saying it's a fair attack, I'm saying most Democrats are not willing to take the risk of this sort of candidate. His odds are worse, the polls say his odds are worse, and these sorts of things make it worse yet. And on top of that, the dude is giving Republicans every little bit of ammo they need to destroy him in the general in his own words.
So, I'll just keep repeating that unless anyone on the entire friggin' internet can tell me how Bernie can get any of his policies passed, how Bernie has just a good of a chance as Hillary, how it's worth risking a much less likely to win candidate when Supreme Court justices are on the line... then all this shit is for nothing. It's ideology. And ideology means shit to me.
Make a map to his policy initiatives being passed. Failing that, he's worthless and most people won't be taking a risk on him.
In the end, it doesn't matter because I know he has no chance of being nominated. So I'm content knowing the Democratic party collectively won't take that risk for the sake of a "conversation" about Democratic Socialism which will result in massive losses in the mid-terms and no policies even getting passed in that path. Others are, and hey it's your vote. Do you. But if we're going to have a serious discussion about why people are picking Hillary over Bernie, it has nothing to do with cowardice or giving up or some sad commentary on American politics. It's just understanding the way the system is until we fix certain problems regarding redistricting and get-out-the-vote efforts. Bernie's presidency would equal a Hillary presidency, because they're both passing nothing but the most moderate of legislation and nominating Justices.
So it comes down to who is more likely to win in the end. You're not going to change how the system actually works (no matter how angry that system makes us) with sheer idealism, which is essentially the only thing Bernie supporters have for their case. There is no argument that he is a better chance to win the White House that any politically savvy individual can take seriously. At least, not until we start getting real meaningful evidence this is the case across the majority of polling data, not just the errant exception.
Of course there is risk. HUGE risk. When you want to vote for someone who has less odds at winning than the alternative, you're taking a risk of losing the presidency and you're taking the risk of losing Supreme Court Justices and hugely important cases for generations to come.
You don't need to have a single vote cast to make a risk assessment over something. People make such risk assessments all the time. In fact, it's a political necessity as well as a normal skill people use every single day. Most choices involve risk assessment, even when not a single thing has been put into action regarding the choice you're trying to make. And mathematicians understand you can calculate probabilities for these sorts of things on top of it. Sure, in some future point some event might happen that might improve Bernie's risk assessment. But that doesn't actually change what the risk assessment says in the current moment. What you're basically saying is that odds makers are going to change their predictions if Bernie beats the odds. Well, duh. That's why it's called beating the odds. It doesn't actually change the risk calculation prior to that. So you're saying there might be a hypothetical point in the future when Bernie is less risky. We'll talk when that happens.
Saying there's no risk yet doesn't actually make it true, and it's not condescending to point all this out. This really is not a game, but Bernie supporters keep coming at Hillary supporters like it is. Bernie supporters, your ideology means shit if he can't get anything past Congress. And that's as simple as it gets. It comes down then to who is most likely to get elected after that.
SolarPowered
Member
The last six months of democratic (not republican) debate on GAF has been building up to this, but that doesn't make it any less embarrassing. Not really the fault of the mods or GAF itself. It has just spiraled out of control.
PYRAMID SCHEMES AND NEOCONS!
Chuckwagon
Banned
Damn, after reading this my INT is -2
Disappointed Sanders campaign pulled the victim stuff. Going from being caught to filing a lawsuit is pretty messed up on a personable level. I like a lot of stuff Bernie has talked about, like any reasonable person should, but never thought he had much of a chance in the general. Even so, hoped the guy would stick around and drive people more to the left.
Absolutely agree. It's discourse like this that helps to fuel political apathy. People that may have a genuine interest in educating themselves or sharing their insight will only need to read a few comments before thinking better and bowing out. This may just be an OT for a gaming forum, but we all should expect more than this.
It's political gamesmanship at it worst, just a series of smug ad hominems and strawmen... and for what? Just because the GOP has an obvious, ideological split within their party doesn't mean we have one, too. Let's quit acting like the staunchest Bernie or Hillary supporters speak for all of us. It's not correct nor is it conducive to anything. Like Malvolio says, it's a major turn off for potential voters.
legacyzero
Banned
Yep. Even just reading this last page has me shaking my head.
"Being caught" implies that it was Bernies intent. There were a few bad apples, and the campaign dealt with it. It's that easy.
ModBot
Not a mod, just a bot.
Since the thread has turned into just another thread of people shitting on each other, we'll just lock it up, shall we? Feel free to make a new thread when new news comes out about the issue and behave better or we'll take the time to do the culling necessary to improve behavior.
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