I'm not sure that's really ironic. I'm also not too sure it's to much less effect considering nobody really knows the effects of the facebook crap. Then again, I'm not sure any of it is to significant effect. I know you have this insane over the top hatred for republicans, but I would contend liberals are just as easy to rile up.
I say much less effect because no BLM leader was elected to the presidency or congress. The left, for all its flaws, is at this moment in time far less gullible than the right.
Ehhh... maybe. I do remember A LOT of denial about Hillary, and no shortage of silliness about nazis and whatnot. I also saw polls that claimed 50%+ of democrats believed Russia hacked the voting machines. That's pretty gullible. To be fair though, I'm not sure anything will match the pervasiveness of the Obama birther nonsense in terms of magnitudes of stupidity and duration.
I'm not so sure about that. I'd be interested to see what people think of this post I ran across on Reddit the other day: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/c...gold_star_widow_breaks_silence_trump/dornc4n/ The premise is that Republicans are sheep, more likely to follow the leader than their convictions, and there's a ton of data to back that up.
Crying over the sanctity of the flag is supposed to be inconsistent for republicans? Ha! There was a lot of that kind of shit in there. What the hell does that prove? So they have an improving outlook when someone they think will better manage the economy is managing the economy? Well gee, no shit. There's also the problem of this - why didn't they just nominate someone who was establishment then? If this wasn't their views why didn't they you know, vote for their views? I don't disagree in general, a lot of voters are gullible. It should be noted that things like 'wage gaps' and such nonsense tend not be factored in when people talk about gullibility though. That article was the kind of thing you could easily write about either party. Listen and believe! Unless it's Bill Clinton...
Holy fucking shit! That’s the first I’d heard about that story, I haven’t kept up with the news lately. This might well be the most embarrassing thing I’ve seen trump do. At least that wasn’t captured on video. I told my wife about the story and she said “oh yeah they were talking about that on The View. If the widow was white though they wouldn’t have mentioned her.”.... Truer words have never been spoken.
I'm not saying the left is full of geniuses, but mainstream Republican thought at this point is really fucking dumb and unprincipled.
All these noble Senators and Speakers jumping overboard and dropping FIRE battle raps on their way out...you impress no one. Oh, there's a problem in the party? You're unhappy with current leadership? So you bail, and leave a spot open for more of what you're protesting. Fantastic logic, there. Do your job, uphold your ideals, you MIGHT actually get reelected by a grateful citizenry.
Here in Alabama the Senate race is looking close. We might have a Democrat senator next year. I am excited that there is a political shakeup. The Republican party seems to be imploding. It has been economically stagnant in the south as long as I can remember, and people keep voting in the same over and over. While most younger people I know who identify as conservative don't go for a lot of the extreme ideas that seem to touted by the GOP, it seems like the party has locked in to pleasing their more vocal, extreme base members, who also tend to be older, and who vote. There are a lot of great people and great culture down here. We have been locked into regressive politics for so long, maybe this will pick things up. Unless something changes, I don't see a viable or prosperous future for myself here.
Last time I heard the Republican Party was dead they swept an election. I'll believe it when I see it.
The Alabama senate race being close is about as true as "Texas is in play" from during the general election. It's not going to happen. It's getting awkward hearing this the past two elections and then watching the democrats fall further from power. In reality, the seats that are up are really ugly for the democrats in 2018. They shouldn't be thinking about taking majorities. They need to worry about not giving the republicans (even more) massive majorities. I think people haven't noticed something important. Trump is not popular. That is true. However, people hate the democrat party right now. A decade of whining about unbelievably stupid shit has worn thin on people. People can pretend it isn't hurting them, but it obviously is. When you're losing to a party that sucks as hard as the current republicans you have serious problems.
I really do think things have changed with Trump, though. The Republicans have had a serious opportunity to make the changes that they've been railing about for years, and TOTALLY shit the bed. Very, very publicly, with Trump's antics leading the way. There's no way that that doesn't shake things up, and there's no way you can point to history and say, "it didn't matter then, it won't matter now", because I don't think it's ever been like this before. I think they've done some serious damage to themselves, and while it might not be an implosion, I do think it will be significant. In the same way it was the silent group that made Trump a reality, I think it will also be the silent group that will make their voices heard again, but not in the Republicans favour... and through the results, not in social media.
I agree with this kinda. I dislike Trump. I also dislike the way democrats are pushing further to the left. I would rather vote for a republican who is against Trump than vote for a far left democrat, a bernie sanders type if you will. However, I am not blind to the fact that there is a lot of support for what's going on with social and political reform on the left. It's just a matter of, will those supporters vote? In the past at least, the same demographic of people who riot, who protest, who make their voices heard on social media, are also the demographic of people who don't vote (One of many sources). We'll see if that changes.
This is very true, but a few things to consider: - He still has a year before the election cycle. That's a lot of time to still pass bills. - The economy is doing well. The stock market is higher than it ever was under Obama. Does Trump or the republicans deserve credit? Probably not, but they can claim it and it will work, to an extent. - The democrats are still incredibly annoying and unpopular. - The map in 2018 is extremely unfavorable to the democrat party. Most of the toss up elections for the senate are currently democrat held seats. - They have shown zero awareness about why they lost in 2016. None. At all. It's always "People are stupid." "People are racist." "People are sexist." "Hillary lost because she's a woman." "Everyone who explained why they voted the way they did are wrong. I'll tell them why." "Russia did it." "It was voter fraud." "The republicans cheated." "Russia hacked the voting machines." And so on. It's a very bad sign. - They are still leaderless for the most part. There's Bernie, but he's too far left to do well across the whole population. I very much do hope they pull their heads out of their asses because the disparity in power is getting worrisome. If you're talking about the far left government do everything for you sort of stuff... yeah it's getting a lot more popular. As far as the social justicey stuff, not so much. The percentages of people who describe themselves as feminists continues to plummet. Less people support BLM. Even a good chunk of the left is sick of it at this point. I'm looking forward to seeing if the 'Justice Democrats' movement can accomplish anything. It's kind of like the tea party of the left. Hates the establishment, is a reaction to losing a general election, grass roots, is further down the aisle from their party mainstream. They are a mix of crazy and intriguing. We'll see what happens. The biggest problem is they want the rich to pay for fucking everything and it gets a bit silly.
The Democrats have earned quite a bit of spending cash for 2018, and it's making Republicans nervous, somewhat justifiably. If you're a Republican donor, chances are you've yet to recoup your investment because literally nothing has been done, so I see cash for some of the 2018 races being a serious problem for Republicans. I also have to point out that Trump got millions in free media coverage during the campaign. That's not likely to happen again (if anything the less airtime he gets the better for the Republican party), and it will hurt the Republicans because they will be on the defensive. You keep saying that Democrats are stupid, etc. but I'm seeing more people run at the local elections, I'm seeing a historically unpopular president with an R in front of his name that's an unmitigated disaster (Bush had 8 years of incompetence to be worse, Trump's had 10 months and what could he have possibly done worse?) and I'm seeing the Democrat leadership shook up for the first time in a while. It's not as dramatic as the Tea Party, but the Republicans are divided into factions and the Democrats, for once, are not. The map and the schedule aren't favorable to Democrats, but literally everything else is. I slightly disagree that the Democrats have their head in the sand about why 2016 was brutal for them, and we're not seeing wholesale policy changes being put forth because there's not an election to stake them on yet. My thought is that the Democrats blow a fuckton of money on seats in places like Alabama and Texas they have no hope of holding or realistically winning, or blow their wad prematurely on a bunch of "reformed" primaries to show they learned their lesson from Bernie Sanders. There will be a pendulum swing in some surprising places, and I think the past few elections proved that social media is a factor that neither side can truly account for yet.
A big factor to remember is that a lot of dems don’t vote if their candidate isn’t a beacon of perfection. Obama got a lot of votes because he was highly charismatic and handsome. He said the right things, kissed all the babies, etc. Republicans will always vote republican because even if their candidate is a flaming pile of dog shit, they will get their policies passed or at least attempted to pass. Even with varying degrees of conservativsm, they all pretty much fall in line with a lot of the issues.
Actually, they don’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Go back and look at the data from that reddit post I linked to a few days ago. Dems follow their policies, Reps are very malleable and tend to follow their leader more than the policies. I found it quite interesting, and I’d love to see any data that shows differently.
And the rich run this country. They always have and they always will. Money buys you power, and power gets you more money. And the rich and powerful are never giving away their money. The people who want those handouts, who want the government or the rich to pay for everything -- they're throwing energy into something that just isn't going to change, so that energy that would be better spent elsewhere.
I can't wait to see the effect that the health care changes have to a large swatch of people who voted for them. It's one thing to talk platitudes and hypotheticals, but when changes made by the party you voted for royally fuck over your wallet, that makes things so much more personal. The number of people who voted to get rid of Obamacare, and yet praise the Affordable Care Act is entertaining. They are now learning the difference, the hard way. They may be slow, but they'll get there eventually. Once you take away those voters from the next round, who's left?