It's today then ... (Trump thread)

[chokeout]

7 minutes ago, Dolph Pigglers said:

The video of Sanders trying to snatch the mic from Acosta's hands and him moving his hand away from her that's up on her twitter is their evidence he violently put his hands on her?

Sad thing is, Trump's loyal base will lap that up.  Shockingly, Fox News aren't reporting on it in that way, but it is only 6am/8am over there so give it time I guess.

No one stood a chance in that circus of an election against Trump.  He played it amazingly and now has free reign to lie and bullshit his way through this and his next term.  In the alternate universe where Hillary won, it would have been a massacre of a year with investigations, allegations and hateful rhetoric.  Essentially just Freaky Friday but The Apprentice would have higher ratings.

 

 I love how quickly stuff like this can kick off. The pro Trump supporters are now claiming the videos saying it's fake are fake. Those that admit it are comparing it to the incident when one of Trumps aides pushed a supporter. It's all madness

[Carbomb]

20 minutes ago, Gus Mears said:

Do you mean the Depression? The American economy was booming by the end of WW2. 

Sorry, meant the Depression - New Deal era and all that. I honestly don't know why I said WW2. Brain-fart.

[Dolph Pigglers]

24 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

I disagree, had Clinton actively campaigned in what she considered safe areas that went Republican, she would've won.  Had she ran a campaign that hadn't taken for granted she would win, then she would've won in my opinion.  I honestly think she lost the election as opposed to Trump winning it.

A friend of mine is Jewish and from Brooklyn.  He said there was even some feeling among older Jews that they didn't want Saunders to win because there would be the perception of if things didn't go well, there would be a huge "Look what happens when Jews are put in charge" resentment.

You do have a fair point there.  There was a sense of arrogance and entitlement to Hillary walking it against this . 

My opinion stems from how I feel now as apposed to during the campaign.  It honestly feels like no matter what happens or comes to light, shit just won't stick to this administration so I see how they operate now and just think it was like that back then.  Guess I'm too jaded.

[Merzbow]

An unexpected wrestling link.

[PJ Power]

1 hour ago, Carbomb said:

It's also a country that has historically not just ignored socialism, but actively demonised it and made that demonisation part of their culture (despite it being having a huge influence on pulling them out of the post-WW2 doldrums, something they've revised heavily), whilst at the same time pandering to the historically racist elements of the South and its white supremacist elements. The only real chance Sanders had was that, when the economy's heavily in the shit and people are suffering as a result, they'll turn to the more perceived radical elements to provide answers where the status quo let them down.

There is quite a bit of that dreaded "socialism" in the USA which those that use it to scare their children are quite happy to embrace it when they feel like it. There is some element of a welfare state in place, though not one that is extensive as in Europe and other western countries - if I remember right there are some 45 million people getting SNAP assistance (which replaced the old Food Stamps system) as an example. Pretty much every child in the country is entitled to attend a school of education paid for by local & state taxes among others, and in many cases you can get your children picked up outside their front door to the school's front door. Like most of the western world, around 99% or more of the roads are public highways that anyone can travel on within given restrictions (e.g. valid licence), paid for out of taxes. You have various levels of police departs enforcing laws at local, state and federal level. In terms of monetary cost they have the biggest socialist enterprise in the world - the US Armed Forces. The subcontracts that are made out by the USA government are often given to manufacturers whom often base their factories in poor red states to the point where even Republicans at the very edge of the lunatic fringe of the free market are always chasing for contracts to subsidise job in areas they represent. And that just represents a small amount of the "pork barreling" that nearly every notable politician there gets involved with. Not to mention the large subsidies to farmers, a lot of whom would vote Republican even if Satan himself was representing them on the ballot. In fact across the board there are numerous private endeavours that are subsidised by public money and grow fat on it. If the money was being used to prop up a government owned body or company that had a monopoly in the same field you'd never hear the end of it, but if it's a private company holding the monopoly getting government subsidies then that is OK for whatever reason. Ever used a public park? The key is the word "public".

There's probably a fair few more examples, but I can't be arsed to do a huge post right now.

[Factotum]

Quote

Assuming every seat has 3 candidates you can mathematically win every seat in parliament with 33.4% of the vote under our system.

Oh I know the UK systems failure. The concept of a mandate is always seriously flawed. HOWEVER I would much prefer to have the UK parliamentary system than a US style system. Some sort of PR would be great in UK politics, but when we had the chance to vote for it...nobody showed up to that referendum.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by Factotum

[Carbomb]

55 minutes ago, PJ Power said:

There is quite a bit of that dreaded "socialism" in the USA which those that use it to scare their children are quite happy to embrace it when they feel like it. There is some element of a welfare state in place, though not one that is extensive as in Europe and other western countries - if I remember right there are some 45 million people getting SNAP assistance (which replaced the old Food Stamps system) as an example. Pretty much every child in the country is entitled to attend a school of education paid for by local & state taxes among others, and in many cases you can get your children picked up outside their front door to the school's front door. Like most of the western world, around 99% or more of the roads are public highways that anyone can travel on within given restrictions (e.g. valid licence), paid for out of taxes. You have various levels of police departs enforcing laws at local, state and federal level. In terms of monetary cost they have the biggest socialist enterprise in the world - the US Armed Forces. The subcontracts that are made out by the USA government are often given to manufacturers whom often base their factories in poor red states to the point where even Republicans at the very edge of the lunatic fringe of the free market are always chasing for contracts to subsidise job in areas they represent. And that just represents a small amount of the "pork barreling" that nearly every notable politician there gets involved with. Not to mention the large subsidies to farmers, a lot of whom would vote Republican even if Satan himself was representing them on the ballot. In fact across the board there are numerous private endeavours that are subsidised by public money and grow fat on it. If the money was being used to prop up a government owned body or company that had a monopoly in the same field you'd never hear the end of it, but if it's a private company holding the monopoly getting government subsidies then that is OK for whatever reason. Ever used a public park? The key is the word "public".

There's probably a fair few more examples, but I can't be arsed to do a huge post right now.

Oh, definitely - I should've been more specific about "ignoring" or "demonising" socialism: what I meant was that it's been ignored or demonised as a political belief and/or choice, rather than the systems in place. Indeed, the very fact they have all these things yet continue to denigrate socialist structures in American mainstream culture kind of highlights my point.

[Keith Houchen]

 I always think of this when I hear of someone in American politics being referred to as from the left.

[David]

I think in some parts of the US they use the word "Communist" when they really mean that they think the person is a prick, or a twat. 

Would have made more sense, and probably been closer to her true feelings if she'd yelled out "Obama's a prick!" 

[Chest Rockwell]

Well that's the point isn't it. That it's such a dirty word it has become a generic pejorative.

[Sergio Mendacious]

Obama had a Ed Leslian list of calumnies — Kenyan marxist racist furrin Bathhouse Barry Soetero HUSSEIN Obama — but the Marxist bit gets thrown onto any democrat, no matter how centrist. Hillary is a Marxist, Joe Manchin is a Marxist... I bet Joe Lieberman was called a Marxist a fair few times. Not that the left doesn't heave fascist at some pretty milquetoast GOPers sometimes, but it doesn't tend to come from the mainstream left media and the party apparatus, just some overzealous/stupid types on the left.

[Factotum]

True. I suppose I meant it was barely debated. The merits of PR were just ignored by a Tory Government who were determined to fuck it off. If I remember correctly, didn't Brown offer PR to the Lib Dems if they went in coalition with Labour?

[The King Of Swing]

18 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Even with it being a total stitch up c20 million turned out.  Sadly of those only 1/3rd supported any change 😢

And if I remember correctly it was watered down compared to what the Dems actually campaigned for.

Sadly unless one of the big two actually start campaigning for PR, I don't see the political system ever changing. And neither Labour or the Conservative party are interested and won't be unless they see change as favouring their election chances.

Edit.

Brown probably would have stitched Clegg up as well. Regardless though, the numbers for a LabLib coalition just weren't there.

Edited November 9, 2018 by The King Of Swing

[Keith Houchen]

2 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

And if I remember correctly it was watered down compared to what the Dems actually campaigned for.

It was, we voted on the Alternative Vote system, not the Proportional Representation system.

I know I'm a total paranoid cynical fucker with fuck all to back up opinions, but I'm still convinced that the result of this vote  was one of the things that convinced Cameron to include the Brexit referendum in his manifesto.  I think he was expecting another hung parliament and would have given the EU referendum the heave ho as a concession to the Lib Dems.  That was he could've blamed them for not going through with it.  But because FPTP pissed this vote, he thought if it came to it and they had to run the referendum, Remain would win because he was backing remain.

Even typing that out I could hear Danny Dyer in my head.

[Gus Mears]

30 minutes ago, Factotum said:

True. I suppose I meant it was barely debated. The merits of PR were just ignored by a Tory Government who were determined to fuck it off. If I remember correctly, didn't Brown offer PR to the Lib Dems if they went in coalition with Labour?

He allegedly offered a referendum on AV, so exactly the same as the Conservatives. Labour also made it party policy to oppose the change at the referendum. AV isn't really anything like PR either, it's a pretty shite middle-ground. It would have resulted in an even less proportional result in the 2015 GE than FPTP did!

@Keith Houchen That was absolutely conventional wisdom on the subject from Conservative researchers/party workers I have spoken to since 2015. For all the world, it was assumed it would be a Hung Parliament and he could bin the whole thing for five years again. Apart from the fact the referendum commitment was an obvious attempt to get UKIP voters back, I am pretty much convinced that the first Conservative leader to get a majority with or without that commitment would have been forced by nutter back-benchers to hold one anyway. Or it would have become an essential thing to back in any leadership contest assuming Cameron did resign/retire before 2020 as he originally planned to.

Edited November 9, 2018 by Gus Mears