The 2016 Sleazy Elitist Democratic Presidential Candidates

[Dalty]

The fear of it will hopefully motivate.

[Adam54]

Trump just needs to keep talking. Encouraging the Russians to hack the government doesn't really do him favors with anybody.

[Dalty]

Except for people who think Hilary genuinely is a criminal???

[Adam54]

Who were never considering voting for her anyway.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I think there are people on the left who think her genuinely a criminal and who are considering voting for her anyway. Some segment of her Democratic supporters are probably banking on this. It's the old "Lesser of Two Evils" scare tactic. It was recently used by Cruz supporters, but they had a lot less success with it.

I'm sure a lot of Democrats feel their arms are being twisted/feel they're being asked to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

For some, voting this year may feel like they're being asked "What's your favorite color?" and then being told "Fuck you, pick yellow or orange!" before they can even answer.

[Dalty]

Your favourite colour is blue and you WILL LIKE IT GOITER!!

[Dalty]

Watching Obama's DNC speech in full online now.

Damn that guy is one hell of an orator.

[Master Skywalker]

Watching Obama's DNC speech in full online now.

Damn that guy is one hell of an orator.

He is indeed. Made sure to watch it last night since it was the last time he'd be addressing such a large televised audience.

[Dalty]

"Don't boo.... Vote!"

One throwaway statement nailed it.

[Master Skywalker]

"Don't boo.... Vote!"

One throwaway statement nailed it.

Yeah. I loved that. Simple and effective.

[Dalty]

It's how he managed to give an "America - Fuck Yeah!" Call to arms without seeming like an asshole about it. I am seriously impressed by this speech.

[Master Skywalker]

It's how he managed to give an "America - Fuck Yeah!" Call to arms without seeming like an asshole about it. I am seriously impressed by this speech.

I felt that he, Biden, and Bloomberg provided a very formidable set of back-to-back-to-back gut punches to the notion anything about Herr That Orange Guy could be considered "American." Biden in particular was very good with his folksy charm, while Bloomberg -- a former Republican and billionaire in his own right -- demonstrated why no one should be listing That Orange Guy's business acumen as a reason to elect him.

[Dalty]

I (we, as in the rest of the world) truly hope that's enough. America is too important to be left in the tiny hands of Trump.

[Adam54]

The Bernie supporters appear to be quickly falling in line and there are plenty of those Republicans. I'm back up to a solid 80% confidence he won't win.

A new poll (and only a minorly flawed one!) has her up 9 in Pennsylvania. Combine that with the remarkable turn around that's happened at the DNC since Monday and I'm back up to 100% confidence he won't win.

[Dalty]

Like a human poll!

[Mal Shot First]

You're unbothered by the ethics of a campaign that publicly embraces someone who actively undermined the democratic process?

Sorry, I'm late to this party, but I wanted to write a couple of things about this issue.

I guess it doesn't bother me that the Democratic Party has its favorites and would secretly support one candidate over another. Just like the Republicans, the Democrats are not bound by the popular vote to choose a candidate, which to me also means that their leadership can unofficially (or even officially) support one candidate over another if they want to. It doesn't necessarily undermine the democratic process - the democratic process won't come into play until November, and if you feel disenchanted with both major political parties, you can choose to vote for an alternative candidate who has not been endorsed by what amounts to a private club.

I am bothered, however, by some of the bigotry (and quite frankly, that's what it is) that comes out in the leaked e-mails. Especially the references to Sanders's cultural heritage are shocking, considering that Wasserman Schultz shares this heritage herself. More than the political implications of the e-mails, this is what probably actually bothered me. That, and the fact that no Democrats are really addressing this part of the whole thing - probably because they don't want to call attention to it themselves.

It's becoming harder and harder to stand behind them with true confidence.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It doesn't necessarily undermine the democratic process - the democratic process won't come into play until November, and if you feel disenchanted with both major political parties, you can choose to vote for an alternative candidate who has not been endorsed by what amounts to a private club.

I'd say they undermined the democratic process without necessarily undermining the Democratic process. They were plotting (whether or not they actually went through with it is unclear) to plant people in the audience to say specific things to fluster Sanders and otherwise steer the conversation. It's enough that, as you say, the Democrats are not bound by the popular vote to choose a candidate. The DNC appeared to be intriguing to shape the popular vote to their liking, and in a pretty dishonest way. They also appeared to be doing this despite telling the American public that they were not, in fact, picking favorites. So, again, I will appeal to the difference between "democratic" and "Democratic." When you use lies (not spin or interpretive license, but actual lies) in an conscious attempt to shape the people's opinions, I consider that an undermining of the democratic process.

The slander of cultural heritage really stood out to me in a negative way. I think I mentioned that above, but I might not have. It seems worse, somehow, coming from the Democrats, since the US Democratic Party paints itself as being a safe haven from and fighter of that kind of slander.

Regarding what you say about choosing an alternative candidate, a number of Clinton supporters are promoting the idea of "Lesser of Two Evils" voting. One article I read suggested it was "ethically wrong." (I think that was the construction used, but I couldn't find the article that used it.) It feels a bit like fear tactics to me. Ethics isn't that simple. This article, which I'm guessing was mostly written by Halle and more or less just signed off on by Chomsky, is getting a lot of play.

(What follows is a modified version of a post I made on a friend's Facebook wall.)

There are problems with the "Lesser Evil" argument. One of them is that it attempts to assign graded values/degrees to evil. Creating a good/evil spectrum is inherently problematic. (Some might say there's even an element of absurdity to it. Said potential absurdity can be highlighted, maybe, by some conceptions of Heaven and Hell. Where should the cutoff be? The idea of there being a soul that makes the Heaven cut despite being the "least" good and a soul that gets relegated to Hell despite being the "least" bad can be a pretty tough for some to get behind, especially since--for some conceptions of Heaven and Hell, at least--the joy and misery experienced in both places is said to be uniform.) Can one trust a "minor" evil not to bloom into a "major" evil? Can one trust that a "minor" evil isn't already a "major" evil in disguise? Can an evil be "minor" enough for an opponent of evil to say she's OK with promoting it? Does her promotion of it also make her evil? In short, can any form of evil be considered trustworthy enough to keep itself in check?

The "Lesser Evil" argument and "Greater Good" argument share some features. They're both problematic in the same way that utilitarianism, in general, is problematic. (Without wasting too much time discussing how utilitarianism is problematic, I guess I could just point to de Sade and the ease with which he abused utilitarian notions.)

There's also potential for getting trapped in a manner of "Lesser Evil" spiral. The "Lesser Evil" mentality is a mentality that seeks to self-perpetuate, and it does a pretty good job of it once a voter has subscribed to it. In a capitalist system with two major parties (both of which are controlled by capitalist interests), a potential "Lesser Evil" scenario will always be present, and an opportunity to vote outside that system may never arise. The voter may feel browbeaten into never effecting change/voting for someone other than the two major parties' candidates as a result of this, and the voter who believes there to be a good/evil spectrum may feel himself trapped in a series of increasingly evil "Lesser Evils." If one accepts/embraces the idea that Trump and Clinton are both evil, is their candidacy an expression of this "Lesser Evil" spiral? That is, have we been (perhaps unwittingly) championing the cause of the "Lesser Evil" for so long that the current situation is a natural effect of it? I probably wouldn't go that far. It risks oversimplifying things, and I don't like oversimplifying things. I'm also not sure I'm ready embrace the idea that either of the two major party's candidates are evil.

Does this mean a person should never vote the "Lesser Evil"? (Considering how I chose to end the paragraph just above this one, I feel I should probably emphasize that I have been putting "Lesser Evil" in quotation marks this whole time to underscore it as a hypothetical. Again, I'm not ready to make the "evil" judgment call.) I don't know. I only know it's problematic to claim that it's ethically unsound to take any approach to voting that's not the "Lesser Evil" approach.

Whatever the case, people shouldn't forget to focus on the House and Senate time around. This should be more a focus than it is every time we have elections, of course, but it's become increasingly about the president as a kind of figurehead/standard bearer for the country. (Granted, the modern president has more powers, maybe, than past presidents.) I'm not too keen on the shift. The president isn't the whole government. If you're worried about a president being an absolute shit, one of the best ways to combat this is to set up countermeasures within the other branches.

I think the Halle article Chomsky probably just put his name on so that people would take it seriously attempts to address some of the above points--if it doesn't, some like it do--but I don't feel it adequately addresses all of them. The problems remain problems whether Halle and others want them to or not. The Halle article, in particular, certainly isn't the QED it appears to believe itself to be.

I suppose a person pushing for a "Lesser Evil" vote could argue that all refutations of it are needless thought experiments, that they should all be dismissed out of hand, and that we should focus on the practical aspect of voting in the "Lesser Evil." This strikes me as a weird tack to take, since the idea of "Lesser Evil" is its own thought experiment. It also runs the risk of smacking (for some outside observers, at least) of desperation.

A people can come together and push an alternative party to the fore--if, that is, they live in a society wherein the people truly choose the president. Focusing on the unlikelihood of this is defeatist, and browbeating people into thinking it's an impossibility or near impossibility isn't all that far removed from psychological bullying.A party can also implode, fracture, or be absorbed into other parties. It's been Republicans and Democrats in the US for a long time (160 years, I think), but it didn't start out that way. Hot-button issues--maybe not unlike some of the ones driving the current political discussion--can effectively end a party. The issue of slavery tore the Whig party apart. (Well, I'm sure it was more than just that. That's what sticks out in my mind, at any rate, when I think about the break down of the Whigs.) Who's to say something comparable (immigration, say) won't tear apart one of the Big Two in the near future?

A vote's only really thrown away if a person chooses not to vote. A Sophie's Choice scenario is not necessarily one that offers a real choice, just like a confession under torture is not necessarily a real confession.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

(I decided to add a few paragraphs to the end. They're a modified version of a separate post I made on the same friend's Facebook wall.)

[Space Tycoon]

I should read that Chomsky-Halle article.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It's pretty sloppy. It's especially sloppy for someone like Chomsky, since he professes to be concerned with the politics and subtleties of language.

It occurs to me that the "Greater Good"/"Lesser Evil" argument being used by some on the left shares features with the "All Lives Matter" argument coming from those on the right. One would think that many of the people on the left who insist that the "All Lives Matter" argument draws focus away from the real issues might respond similarly to the "Greater Good"/"Lesser Evil" argument, or that they would at least be a little more reflexive.

I feel that both the "All Lives Matter" and the "Lesser Evil" arguments seek to dismiss real problems within a system to focus on something more universal, which creates a scenario wherein attention is drawn away from some pretty problematic actions--which actions go on, in effect, to be excused. In the "All Lives Matter" scenario, it appears that the attempt is to draw attention away from--and, to a certain extent, demonize--the "Black Lives Matter" movement. In the "Lesser Evil" scenario, it appears that at least some attempt has been made to draw attention away from some of the bad done by the DNC and Hillary Clinton. Both are instances, I feel, of larger power structures attempting to silence protest.

They're not identical scenarios, granted, but they share enough features for one to think there would be more overlap than there is. One would think more champions of the "Black Lives Matter" movement would be calling for accountability where Clinton and the DNC are concerned. I don't think this means, necessarily, that the call should be to remove Clinton from the running, but there should at least be a louder call to punish the DNC and to acknowledge wrongdoing. I also expected more of the Democrats to say they have deep problems with Clinton, that they are ashamed of their party, and that, despite this, having their party in power is more important to them than their adhering to certain of their own moral codes. They're right to say, "Look at how bad Trump is! He's worse than Clinton!" but I feel they're stopping shorter than they should be.

Those who are stopping short are probably doing it out of discomfort. It's probably pretty hard to say, "Look at how bad Trump is! He's worse than Clinton! Still, boy, Clinton's very unlike what I want to see, as a Democrat, in a candidate, and I am letting my party lean on my party loyalty and coerce me into voting for someone who doesn't represent my anti-war or financial interests!" I realize some are saying this. I'm just surprised more aren't. The Democratic voters, I feel, are doing themselves no favors by being so uncritical of their candidates. By not being more critical, they increase the potential for poorer and poorer candidates to be offered to them.

(The "All Lives Matter" and "Lesser Evil" arguments aren't as similar, say, as some of the Climate Change deniers' Climate Change refutations are to some refutations of Pascal's Wager. One of those refutations: "You can't prove to me that ceasing to engage in heavy-carbon-footprint behaviors will save Earth, so I will continue to engage in these behaviors." It resembles the "You can't prove to me that my not acknowledging the existence of the Judeo-Christian god will result in my being sent to the Judeo-Christian conception of Hell, so I will continue not to acknowledge the existence of the Judeo-Christian god. The big difference between the two is that there are tons of empirical data behind those who argue that heavy-carbon-footprint behavior is destructive on a planetary level. [It's a bit of a reversal, since some of the refutations of Pascal's Wager focus on an absence of empirical data.] Climate Change deniers, unfortunately, reject empirical data outright and claim that it was faked or made intentionally misleading for reasons of oppression and corporate gain. They respond to empirical data, then, in much the same way that many respond to specific Judeo-Christian religious claims. In short, if you refuse to acknowledge that the empirical evidence arrived at by the scientific community is valid, Climate Change denial can look a lot like a specific refutation of Pascal's Wager. There are a number of refutations of Pascal's Wager, of course, and some are fairly elegant. The one above isn't one of the more elegant ones.)

Whether by hook or crook, Clinton's in as the Democratic nominee. I can understand why Sanders supporters are unhappy about that, and I can understand why they continue to put up a fight. Still, whether or not the superdelegate situation gave some corner of the constituency a feeling of hopelessness before the voting even started, whether or not the DNC actively misled its constituency, whether or Clinton colluded with them, or whether or not the DNC was going to put Clinton in regardless of what popular vote dictated, Clinton's not going to be removed as the Democratic nominee. Despite this, I don't think the people planning to vote Democrat should let up on her. They should continue to put the same kind of pressure on her that Sanders supporters and Sanders, himself, put on her during her campaign for the Democratic nomination.

I should clarify that I feel the pressure Sanders put on her was more the firmness and constancy of his left-of-center positions and less direct pressure. Once Clinton saw the popularity of his positions, she slid ever-so-slightly to the left in response. The pressure some of his supporters put on her was, obviously, more direct. Sanders probably didn't challenge her in an open way--at least not as much as he should have--for fear of being labeled a smear campaigner. Not that it mattered. He ended labeled thus, anyway. Whatever the case, the result of the pressure put on her is that she actively adjusted her platform, mid-campaign, in hopes of grabbing more votes. This is, potentially, its own form of demagoguery (especially if there's no plan to follow through), and one would think this would have made the Democrats more wary than it seems to have made them.

I'd like to see more of those voting for Clinton reminding her that, should she win the presidency, making the Democratic base unhappy enough could result in her party abandoning her, despite her incumbency, in 2020. It's not unprecedented. It happened to Franklin Pierce. (Was he the only one? I can't remember. I just remember that, as with the dissolution of the Whig party, the matter of slavery figured into it. Don't let the states' rights folks fool you. Slavery was a huge, huge topic for many years, it figured into all kinds of political squabbling up to and during the Civil War, and it was the primary cause of the Civil War. Speaking of, it just occurred to me that the same thing that happened to Franklin Pierce happened to James Buchanan during the very next election cycle: despite being the incumbent, he didn't secure his party's nomination to run for president. Once again, slavery was at the heart of it. There was also the thing with LBJ in 1968, but I think he technically withdrew. It's doubtful he would have won the nomination, regardless. For once, it wasn't slavery. It was Vietnam.)

I guess there are those who genuinely don't have a problem with any of what Clinton or the DNC have done leading up to Clinton's nomination. I suppose those who have no problem with any of it may feel no drive to put pressure on their party's representatives to behave better or do a better job adhering to the various mission statements of the US Democratic party. This is not a mindset I can empathize with, just as I have difficulty empathizing with the generic US Republican Party mindset, but I don't deny the possibility of its existence. It's kinda hard for me to believe people can let slide some of the things they let slide, but I'm sure there are things I let slide that would confuse, infuriate, and/or chill to the marrow some Voter X.

To be clear, I'm not saying I don't understand the "There Are Bigger Fish to Fry" argument. I may, on the other hand, be saying I don't understand the "There's Only One Fish We Need to Worry about Frying Right Now" argument.

[Space Tycoon]

I never responded to Goits' well-written post. And I'd kinda given up on this thread yet again. However....



You know how people used to say "George Bush is the kind of guy I'd like to have a beer with?" Well, I think Cenk Uygur is the kind of guy I'd like to have a beer with.

Not that I need much prodding there.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It appears this kind of stuff happens a good bit with Clinton. If it's happening as regularly as it appears it's happening, it's not good. It's not good that so many on the left seem willing to excuse it, and it's not good that at least some of those ready to excuse it are more than likely among the ones complaining about people on the right being too willing to excuse Trump items X, Y, and Z. It's not good that people on both sides consider "Our candidate may be bad, but yours is worse!" to be both their reality and something approaching acceptable.

[Space Tycoon]

Yeah. I tell people that even now, I still consider both candidates unacceptable, and they look at me as though I they thought I were certifiable.

And not even for the usual reasons people generally think that.

[Mal Shot First]

Guys... listen. Clinton wasn't my first choice as the nominee for the Democrats, but after Sanders lost, I was left with only a few choices:

1) Flip out over the rigged nomination system, the way a bunch of other Sanders supporters did, and vow to give my vote to Trump out of protest.

2) Go with one of the main third-party alternatives, Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Of those two, I'd be leaning a lot more toward Jill Stein because her platform resembles most closely that of Sanders. However, I'm too much of a coward to trust that enough other people would vote for her or her party to make a real difference in US politics. At the same time, in an election where the Republican candidate essentially has the intellect of a toddler and is still polling at 40%, I am deeply concerned about taking away votes that would otherwise go to his strongest opponent.

3) Which brings me to the last choice: Hillary Clinton. I'm not defending Clinton or excusing any of the shady things that have been revealed about her. Under normal circumstances, I probably would not be voting for her. I know this sounds like the lesser-of-two-evils argument, but let's leave arguments about morality aside for a second. If you look at Clinton's career, you can see that she is a capable politician and that she stands up for the interests of her constituents (e.g., on the issues of health care, women's health and women's rights, or the redevelopment of Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks). Yes, she is more conservative and has a history that would suggest that she's more aggressive in her foreign policy than Sanders would be (and probably more aggressive than Obama has been). On the other hand, I think that she can work to enhance our country's economic stability, and she is liberal enough on social issues so that I can tolerate her as a compromise vote.

Frankly, I don't see any positive qualities in Donald Trump, who seems like he has never done anything in his life that didn't benefit his own interests. That is one of the most mind-boggling things about this election. If you want to see Trump as an outsider who doesn't play by Washington's rules - fine, you're probably right that he's not going to play by the book. But supporting him because you think Clinton is in the pockets of various corporations and because you think Trump will stand up for the working and middle classes is simply delusional. Trump is corporate America and wouldn't do anything unless he stood to gain something from it.

[Scotia]

Here's a recent and unforgiving piece from Rolling Stone that best describes the rise and fall of Donald Trump. And how the cowards in the GOP let it happen. Speaks to what Mal was just talking about.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/fe ... mp-w444943

Some delicious highlights,

"How Giuliani isn't Trump's running mate, no one will ever understand. Theirs is the most passionate television love story since Beavis and Butthead."

"Trump's shocking rise and spectacular fall have been a singular disaster for U.S. politics. Built up in the press as the American Hitler, he was unmasked in the end as a pathetic little prankster who ruined himself, his family and half of America's two-party political system for what was probably a half-assed ego trip all along, adventure tourism for the idiot rich."

"In the absolute best-case scenario, the one in which he loses, this is what Trump's run accomplished. He ran as an outsider antidote to a corrupt two-party system, and instead will leave that system more entrenched than ever."

And.... not the best endorsement for Clinton but a rather convincing one for sure,

"The best argument for a Clinton presidency is that she's virtually guaranteed to be a capable steward of the status quo, at a time of relative stability and safety. There are criticisms to make of Hillary Clinton, but the grid isn't going to collapse while she's in office, something no one can say with even mild confidence about Donald Trump."