2016 American Presidential Campaign

[Phil.McKeer]

republican/nra/whatever scare-mongering on this issue makes it pretty hard to have a conversation...

alasdair

Cereally. Forget about warantless wiretapping, indefinite detention of citizens without charge or bail, capital cronyism, corporate welfare, the fact that in the span of a couple decades we went from a country where a single working parent could pay the mortgage and put food on the table and have money left for savings to one where both parents can work full time and still not make ends meet (despite the fact that worker productivity has increased by several orders of magnitude, meaning that surplus value for the capital employer class has increased and workers' share of profits decreased - drinking your milkshake, as it were), forget about stolen elections and widespread graft, fraud and theft from the commonwealth, constant disinformation and the neutering of the fourth estate, military and prison industrial complex gone wild, and the price of education reaching exorbitant highs to the point that in effect, a class barrier exists for attaining a higher education.

Forget about all that. The only salient threat against our rights is the guvmint taking our guns.

 

[GenericMind]

The problem with gun violence isn't even gun laws. I don't understand why people don't get that.

The reason there are so many mass shootings here compared to other countries that have similar gun laws is because our social, political, and economic conditions are fucked up and it makes people snap. Constantly struggling to pay crazy high medical bills, barely making enough money to survive, being overworked and underpaid, having your entire political system be corrupt, people not being able to afford higher education, violent militarized police forces, corporations exploiting the population, all that shit have an effect on people. Want to stop gun violence? Make peoples' everyday lives less horrible.

 

[socko]

I admit I am not very knowledgeable about how this works and how real is any threat to gun rights. I recall a very real nationwide ban in the early 1990s. Not sure à bout its current status . I still believe it is possible. Just not sure how likely.

I agree with generic's theory on the root cause of gun violence.

not really.

Is Obama a Threat to the 2nd Amendment?(my emphasis)

republican/nra/whatever scare-mongering on this issue makes it pretty hard to have a conversation...

alasdair

Edit: This is an emotional and not a rational topic for a lot of reasons. Wild game was my only source of meat during much of my childhood. My family was often too poor to buy meat or any kind of nutritious food. So, either my father, neighbors, or when old enough, I would harvest deer and other animals. I'm not the only one from such a background either - this kind of poverty isn't that rare in the US. For this and other reasons, gun laws are seen as something that threatens survival.
I think this is a reason why the 2nd Amendment gets such a knee jerk reaction.

 

[GenericMind]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-na-clinton-money-20160218-story.html

 

[noone1]

Also a big factor is that he's still raising tons of money. And we all know money rules campaigns. I saw a statistic the other day saying that over however many congressional elections, the candidate who spent the most money won 85% of the time.

Bernie outraised Hillary in February with a staggering $42 million from small donors. Meanwhile Hillary is maxing out on donations. She's already received most of the Super PAC and corporate money she's going to get. As long as Sanders keeps raising money like that he can stay in the race and remain competitive all the way up to the convention in July.

I love Sanders but money isn't everything look what happened to Jeb. You need money and the media behind you. The media loves trump, even if they're against him, in fact that helps him. His insane base loves the fact that he's an outsider.

They give Sanders like 20 seconds of air time compared to an hour of Trump.

Sanders is the president we need, Trump is the president we deserve. Get ready for Benito Mussolini.

 

[GenericMind]

I agree you usually need the media on your side, but Bernie is proving that social media can make up for media bias. He's basically taken over the Internet and is raising more money from everyday people than even the Super PAC and big donor candidates are.

He's the peoples' champion, mang.

 

[noone1]

I agree you usually need the media on your side, but Bernie is proving that social media can make up for media bias. He's basically taken over the Internet and is raising more money from everyday people than even the Super PAC and big donor candidates are.

He's the peoples' champion, mang.

Oh I agree but I think the media, DNC and having Shultz against him is going to be enough to tip the scales against him. Look at what happened in MA with Bill Clinton.

I'm hopeful now that he's mostly past the southern states that he can bring out much more people to vote for him. But I'm still incredibly skeptical that he can win.

 

[alasdairm]

...the guvmint taking our guns.

which isn't happening.

The problem with gun violence isn't even gun laws. I don't understand why people don't get that.

The reason there are so many mass shootings here compared to other countries that have similar gun laws is because our social, political, and economic conditions are fucked up and it makes people snap. Constantly struggling to pay crazy high medical bills, barely making enough money to survive, being overworked and underpaid, having your entire political system be corrupt, people not being able to afford higher education, violent militarized police forces, corporations exploiting the population, all that shit have an effect on people. Want to stop gun violence? Make peoples' everyday lives less horrible.

i totally agree with you but when you consider everything you've written, and factor in how easy it is for an unstable person to get a gun, it's a recipe for continuing gun violence.

alasdair

 

[GenericMind]

Can't argue with that. We've got a lot of work to do before we can start getting close to a solution.

And I hear you noone1. I just think that with enough support the DNC can be forced to warm to Sanders. More important than making sure Hillary gets the nomination is making sure the nominee beats the Republicans. One of the most important things to either party is an ability to fundraise. Bernie is shattering records in that. If that keeps up the DNC may very well be forced to change their tone.

Making Hillary win the nomination won't do them any good of she can't keep raising enough money to pace the Republican donors.

 

[noone1]

Making Hillary win the nomination won't do them any good of she can't keep raising enough money to pace the Republican donors.

I suspect if she wins the nomination the money from Superpacs will start to roll in more than now, that's when Wallstreet will open its purse all the way. She's begging for donations and pleading poorness for show. If you criticize her after she wins they'll just go "do you want a republican in office?! nothing to see here, move along"

 

[GenericMind]

The problem with that logic is a lot of Bernie supporters are going with the nuclear option and pledging to refuse to support Hillary in the general election. Republican voter turnout has already been crushing Democrat turnout. When hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions of Democrat and Independent voters abstain or vote for the Green Party candidate or Trump, Hillary has no chance of winning.

 

[Escher's Waterfall]

Will ganging up on Trump backfire for the GOP?

At this point, the GOP has a large percentage of its base that's pretty skeptical of what they'd term as Washington insiders. If Trump can spin the attacks by other candidates as Republican career politicians attacking an outsider, he may gain support.

 

[spacejunk]

yeah, it's doomed to failure for sure.
Will it backfire? Probably.
The problem for the GOP is that the other candidates are just as repulsive as Trump.
He's not got the politician polish that Cruz and Rubio seem to affect, which probably works in his favour, at least in my amateur analysis.

 

[Droppersneck]

If trump is the president i will applaud a tougher stance on illegals, but the vast majority of his proposals are authoritarian overreach. That being said I'd take him over a democrat. Why couldn't rand just of stayed in and gained a personality.

 

[GenericMind]

It always boggles my mind when poor and middle class people vote Republican. Like wtf u doin?

 

[mal3volent]

It always boggles my mind when poor and middle class people vote Republican. Like wtf u doin?

here in the south its really bad. Very little education. People believe what fox and talk radio tell them to believe.
Also its the social issues. Thats what really drives the votes.

 

[Bardeaux]

I'm not the only one that feels this way. The #BernieOrBust movement has been gaining a lot of traction lately. Almost 60,000 registered Democrats and Independents have already signed a pledge to either abstain from the general election, vote for the Green Party candidate, or vote for Trump if the DNC forces a Hillary nomination. People are sick of being forced to vote for a candidate they don't even like because their party's official decided that's who should get the nomination. It's the "nuclear option" and it's really the only leverage the everyday voter has against the DNC. Either let the voters decide who to nominate or risk a Republican Whitehouse. It's that simple. Those 500+ Superdelegates that have already pledged to Hillary have until June to change their mind. And if they don't then Trump is probably going to be the next president. It's an internal revolution in the Democratic party and people are finally saying enough is enough, we want control back from the scandalous establishment.

https://citizensagainstplutocracy.wordpress.com/

The DNC is powerful, but not as much as one would think. Those 720 super delegates have already been distributed. They mostly all went to Hilary, which gives her twice as many delegates as Bernie right now. The actual delegate count though, is extreme close. within 100 iirc. Clinton can't rely on super delegates anymore, that card has been played. California and New York alone would surpass Clinton's super delegate count. The south is about to wrap up.

Let's see how well Clinton does in the progressive (and highly populated) states. Clinton doesn't have anything close to the grassroots infrastructure Bernie does in these states.

It ain't over yet.

 

[Nixiam]

I hate Trump sooooo much. But I bet he'll get in.

 

[spacejunk]

It always boggles my mind when poor and middle class people vote Republican. Like wtf u doin?

The aspirational working classes always vote against their own interests on the off chance that they will be rich one day.
It's bizarre and sad. The whole "i get taxed less under republicans" idea seems to trump (no pun intended) other social and economic factors.

 

[babyangel_]

I voted for Sanders in the early vote around a month ago , im upset that he's not doing so well