Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2016

And to that end: we implement the full monty of the Republican line:

1) Austerity measures that make it impossible (more than it already is) for anyone to save money.

2) Do away with Social Security, unemployment, welfare, Affordable care, medicare and medicaid, all of the so-called "entitlements".

3) Don't allow ANYONE to immigrate to this country. If you weren't born here and don't already live here get the hell out.

4) Don't allow women to make as much as men for the same work, don't allow them any form of healthcare and/or contraception.
No choice or control over their own bodies.
And while we're at it: just ban them from work altogether, that way they can be where they belong- barefoot in the kitchen.

5) Start a war with Iran and Russia (and maybe China too, that way we don't have to honor the trillions that they hold in US treasuries).

5) Everyone will have free reign to carry a weapon - even an assault weapon. Hell, even anti-aircraft weapons.

6) Do not allow minorities to vote. I would say reinstate slavery, but that will follow naturally from all of the above.

7) Do absolutely nothing about CO2 emissions, climate change etc.

Result:
This country will become the biggest shytehole on the planet. Then they'll learn (or die) whichever comes first.

I'm not for the dystopian approach, especially as I am entering retirement. I think the needed to be a less radical approach. I have previously recommended a full-bore PR campaign just extolling the virtues of democratic leadership. Dems are actually better on the economy and defense than Republicans ever have been. Quick, name the last successful GOP war President. Stumped? I thought so.

Would that your approach could work. Somehow it seems that people only learn after they get burned. No use telling them that fire will burn.
But on the dystopian front: Hollywood makes bundles selling that horse dung. You never know...

The stupidest thing is that Deer actually killed three people that had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood: One was a police officer and two were simply accompanying patients. Do you think maybe somebody should tell him he killed three innocent bystanders?

This has a lot to do with "fact free news". It used to be that if Walter Cronkite said it on the news, it was probably mostly true. Now people go on TV and pretend to be news and present any opinion as essentially equal, even about things that are not subject to opinion. So you see a story with one moron saying "the earth is flat" and one scientist saying "the earth is roughly spherical". A certain percentage of people (about the same percentage as Trump supporters) will decide to believe the flat-earth guy.

Maybe we need a big red band saying FALSE at the bottom of the TV whenever the story is BS and a big green band saying TRUE when it is objectively true. Then the morons could just follow the color coding, and only illiterate color-blind Americans would go in for mass shootings.

William Falk, the editor of The Week Magazine, had the following to say regarding the state of our union and the upcoming election.

Here’s a strange thought to chew on a year before the presidential election: The votes of 95 percent of Americans likely to cast ballots are already determined. People who lean conservative will vote for any Republican who emerges from the scrum (with the possible exception of the divisive Donald Trump). Ditto for people who lean liberal. New research by Michigan State political scientist Corwin Smidt confirms that the percentage of voters who are truly “independent,” swinging from party to party, has plunged from 15 percent in the 1960s to just 5 percent today. Crossing over party lines to vote for the other tribe’s presidential candidate has become unimaginable. As Jonathan Chait put it this week in NYMag.com: “The dominant fact of American politics is that nobody is changing their mind about anything.”

It wasn’t always this way. For much of the latter half of the 20th century, there were liberal-leaning Republicans and conservative-leaning Democrats. It was not impossible to find common ground. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both actively sought the votes of people who traditionally vote for the other party, and enjoyed great popularity partly as a result. But since 2004, polarization on immigration, climate change, abortion, religion, and social issues has become so acute that every presidential election seems to represent a major turning point, with the very definition of our nation at stake. Polls suggest that the gulf between the two parties is actually widening. Republicans loathe Hillary Clinton as much as they do Barack Obama; Democrats see Trump and Ben Carson as wackos and frauds, and have only slightly less contempt for the rest of the field. So here’s a safe if depressing prediction: The new president John Roberts swears in on Jan. 20, 2017, will be very quickly despised and distrusted by roughly 45 percent of the nation. Is this a democracy, or a dysfunctional family?
William Falk, Editor-in-chief


Not much I can add to that. I feel dispair.

Is there a difference?

To avoid despair, I go back to my last suggestion: an all-out DEM PR campaign. It's not as if they don't have the bona fides to support it. Social Security, Medicare, ACA, clean water, clean air, consumer protection, etc. - all Dem accomplishments. Balanced budgets, keeping America safe - actually Dems too.

I won't give into despair. I believe a GOP meltdown is more likely than a Democalypse.

Don't you love the smell of Republican Civil War in the morning?

The fact that they are ALREADY talking about a brokered convention means that The Donald is going to be ousted one way or another.
If he runs on an independent ticket, so much the better. He'll take away votes from whomever the nominee is.
It's a lose-lose for the Repubs.