POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

[MaizeRage]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

He proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure spending package - they liked hearing that a lot more than Hillary's token "spend more on tech". Now that's been pushed off to next year, and most likely will fade into memory. Way to keep your promises, Donnie.

Yeah, sure. It was the "infrastructure package".

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

He proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure spending package - they liked hearing that a lot more than Hillary's token "spend more on tech". Now that's been pushed off to next year, and most likely will fade into memory. Way to keep your promises, Donnie.

Lies.

It's not a 1 trillion dollar infrastructure package. It may amount to a trillion dollars but that's meaningless. Don't let them fool you like they fool everyone else.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

I would say that the blueprint for Dems is the Bill Clinton formula. Franken could maybe aww shucks it up a little here and there enough to pull it off.

The problem to me for Dems is that the kind of broad appeal Midwestern Dem that really could win going away, doesn't seem to be what the Party wants at all.

It isn't what the party wants. At all. They will likely go with someone who appeals to a broad range of the identity politics that have been costing Democrats elections all over the country for years now. Unless and until the party focuses on jobs, wages and the economy -- pretty much to the exclusion of everything else -- it will continue to flounder.

Look at the 5h!tty results over the last few years. We have held both houses of congress for a total of 4 years since 1994. After nearly 40 years of holding both, sometimes with overwhelming majorities. The party is down to just 16 governors offices. There are just 12 states with Democratic controlled legislatures and shockingly only 5 states where Democrats control both the executive and legislative branches, compared with 25 that are under complete Republican control.

The Democratic party is a wasteland of electoral defeats in nearly every corner of the country. When Tim Ryan challenged Nancy Pelosi he tried to sound the alarm, but his overwhelming defeat for House Minority leadership signals to me that the party continues to be clueless and represents very few Americans anymore. Yes they can pull in a lot of votes in a presidential election, but that really isn't even half the battle.

No matter what you believe in your heart, progressives need to realize that there are a lot of people out there who are tired of hearing about gay rights, immigration rights, trans rights, black lives matter, and anything else that they don't believe speaks specifically to THEM. They may not hate their black neighbor or believe that most Muslims are terrorists, but as long as they can't find a good enough job to live where they want and feed their families, they will seek out a scapegoat. Take away the need for a scapegoat and you take away the potential for all the animosity.

I care deeply about things like marriage equality, the environment or pretty much any progressive cause you can name. But progressives have got to see that until we reach a state of more equal economic justice, all of the other things take a backseat that really isn't even in the same car. If the Democratic party embraced this ideal and put the vast majority of their party's focus on it, they'd win elections again. And not just in Massachusetts or California. It is something the Hillary campaign failed miserably to grasp, and why it lost in PA, OH, MI and WI. I worked for a good part of 2016 on political issues and saw this up close and personal. White guys who looked (and sometimes sounded) like me were begging for someone to speak to them. In the vacuum they saw from Democrats stepped Trump. Sure they were dumb enough to believe his lies, but they would have believed the truths if the Democratic candidate would have addressed them.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

Suckers.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...bama-s-n735171

Donald Trump promised during the campaign to implement a "secret plan" to defeat ISIS, including a pledge to "bomb the hell out of" the terror group in Iraq and Syria.

Now, the Pentagon has given him a secret plan, but it turns out to be a little more than an "intensification" of the same slow and steady approach that Trump derided under the Obama administration, two senior officials who have reviewed the document told NBC News.

Seriously. How ****ing stupid is this electorate??

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

It isn't what the party wants. At all. They will likely go with someone who appeals to a broad range of the identity politics that have been costing Democrats elections all over the country for years now. Unless and until the party focuses on jobs, wages and the economy -- pretty much to the exclusion of everything else -- it will continue to flounder.

Get out of my head!

Actually, you can stay, you say the things I think more clearly than I.

Identity politics is going to continue to hurt Democrats. It's as irrelevant to young people today as the New Deal was to young people in the 60s, but its practitioners still dominate the mainstream party and, worse, its crusaders still dominate university faculties. The consequence is even though there is no longer a market for that product in the real world, the model keeps on dropping off the assembly line. If you listen to the students shouting down speakers at Middlebury they are still speaking the language that their professors originated in the 60s. They speak it because that is what they are rewarded for on papers or public statements, or in articles submitted to high tone lefty magazines.

We have a weird situations in which young activists are behind their own times. The identity themes that drive Women's Studies and African American Studies departments and Daily Kos and the New York Times Op Ed page and progressive radio and marches are fifty years out of date. Two generations of normal people have moved past them and are now laser focused on economic themes where the real issues are, but the machine that churns out the leadership on the left is literally not competent to lead those young people. Hillary's campaign was only an atrocious extreme of what is an endemic liberal problem. The self-appointed "vanguard" has lost touch with the rank and file. They still want to scream about symptoms: sexism and racism and homophobia. But young people who haven't been programmed by Harvard or Bard already take all of that as read, and have moved on to root causes: inequality, militarization, the surveillance state.

It would be OK if it were just a matter of waiting for the old pols to die. That's what happened in the 60s. But the next generation of "leaders" are still parroting the old language, and utterly miss where the people have gone. So you get the grotesque result that Donald Freaking Trump talks more effectively about plutocratic elites than the Democratic nominee.

[unofan]

That wasn't the problem.

American didn't reject a woman. They rejected that woman.

While true to an extent, there are more in the former category than you apparently realize.

[alfablue]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

No matter what you believe in your heart, progressives need to realize that there are a lot of people out there who are tired of hearing about gay rights, immigration rights, trans rights, black lives matter, and anything else that they don't believe speaks specifically to THEM. They may not hate their black neighbor or believe that most Muslims are terrorists, but as long as they can't find a good enough job to live where they want and feed their families, they will seek out a scapegoat. Take away the need for a scapegoat and you take away the potential for all the animosity.

Yes, but. Pretty much all of the items you say people are tired about hearing about are items that Republicans have tried to tighten the control of over, or outright ban. As a society, we had gotten into kind of a stalemate in terms of gay and trans rights- and all of a sudden, anti-gay marriage things popped up all over the country. Which thrust the issue into the lime light, and ended in a pretty inevitable ending at the SCOTUS. Or, as the case is for trans rights- has lead to NC being boycotted by a number of groups- most recently noted the NCAA's regional tournament that should have been there over the weekend.

BLM- that's just because minorities are tired of getting the brunt of wrong police action- be it shooting or treated wrong. That bubble was going to burst at some point, and I'm kind of surprised that Hispanics have not joined into that fight. Again, the whole war on drugs, "rule of law" kind of trend came from Republicans.

And the recent Muslim actions speak for themselves.

So, pretty much across the board- all of the current social issues that are being played out, that people are tired of, that you want to not talk about- are started because of restrictions put down by Republicans.

How can we not speak up against that?

Unless it's a massive distraction to keep the general electorate on one side or the other.

To me, the problem is that there are SO many new issues that the economic issues that Democrats DO talk about get completely missed. Of they have already changed the channel.

We can't sit back and let one side restrict people's rights. Heck, any time gun control is brought up, the NRA is there in spades.

[alfablue]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

Suckers.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...bama-s-n735171



Seriously. How ****ing stupid is this electorate??

The obvious problem with intensifying the fight- more refugees. So the EU's going to love that.

Well, Putin will love that. Especially since we ain't going to take anyone.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

Lies.

It's not a 1 trillion dollar infrastructure package. It may amount to a trillion dollars but that's meaningless. Don't let them fool you like they fool everyone else.

Sweet Jeebus no. Cheeto Benito's not fooling me. I'm telling you what the fools who voted for him, heard him say. You know, the people who watch Fox as their "mainstream" news source, and read Breitbart or Red State for "the truth".

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

It is ironic that you use an absolute in decrying absolutes.

I did it for a reason.

And remember I am not speaking for me just what seems to be the case with the average midwestern rube

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

The obvious problem with intensifying the fight- more refugees. So the EU's going to love that.

Well, Putin will love that. Especially since we ain't going to take anyone.

The Middle East sure is wagging the dog. They apparently love conflict and they have the whole world ****ed up over it.

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

Yes, but. Pretty much all of the items you say people are tired about hearing about are items that Republicans have tried to tighten the control of over, or outright ban. As a society, we had gotten into kind of a stalemate in terms of gay and trans rights- and all of a sudden, anti-gay marriage things popped up all over the country. Which thrust the issue into the lime light, and ended in a pretty inevitable ending at the SCOTUS. Or, as the case is for trans rights- has lead to NC being boycotted by a number of groups- most recently noted the NCAA's regional tournament that should have been there over the weekend.

BLM- that's just because minorities are tired of getting the brunt of wrong police action- be it shooting or treated wrong. That bubble was going to burst at some point, and I'm kind of surprised that Hispanics have not joined into that fight. Again, the whole war on drugs, "rule of law" kind of trend came from Republicans.

And the recent Muslim actions speak for themselves.

So, pretty much across the board- all of the current social issues that are being played out, that people are tired of, that you want to not talk about- are started because of restrictions put down by Republicans.

How can we not speak up against that?

Unless it's a massive distraction to keep the general electorate on one side or the other.

To me, the problem is that there are SO many new issues that the economic issues that Democrats DO talk about get completely missed. Of they have already changed the channel.

We can't sit back and let one side restrict people's rights. Heck, any time gun control is brought up, the NRA is there in spades.

No we cant but the problem is there are more people inclined to vote to restrict than there are to vote NOT to. There is a reason why the Dems have issues in midterms. Their single issue voters just arent as motivated as the GOP single issue voters. If they were women wouldnt have voted for Trump...

I am as a big "more rights for all" guy as there is (hence my love a true Progressive Party/Agenda) but I am the exception not the rule. Many like me choose not to vote. (or vote for dicktwits like Johnson or Stein)

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

Had to laugh at the two articles on this front page. And yet people are still trying to tell me that the candidate that proposed major improvements to rural internet infrastructure was the one that didn't care about them. Playing into the weaknesses of vulnerable people(their fears and their prejudices) is not the same as giving a crap about them. In fact, it's the opposite.

What does better internet get you if you don't have a jerb?

She had job training and education and such on her campaign website, but she didn't talk about it much, and how it would affect people. Trump just told them they'd all have great jobs again, and they were either so hopeful it would be true, or so stupid to be conned by it(or maybe a little of both) that they gave him the benefit of the doubt and pulled the lever.

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

average midwestern rube

This is a great name for a Madison band.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.6 - Russia Is Just A Witch Hunt

What does better internet get you if you don't have a jerb?

She had job training and education and such on her campaign website, but she didn't talk about it much, and how it would affect people. Trump just told them they'd all have great jobs again, and they were either so hopeful it would be true, or so stupid to be conned by it(or maybe a little of both) that they gave him the benefit of the doubt and pulled the lever.

Right. She told the truth. Left out key details. He lied. Lying wins.