The sooner we all realize that Americans are not good people and that we deserve what’s happening to us, and accept it, the better. This is the death of hope.
Nesrie
5670
Oh good, we’re going to start measuring wallets now. Good discussions should always route back to who has the most money.
Timex
5671
In a democracy, the people get to choose their leader.
If you put up a candidate and they lose, the problem isn’t the population. The problem is that you put up a candidate who didn’t appeal to them.
A rational person would consider appealing to a majority of the population, rather than just ranting that the majority is somehow terrible.
Nesrie
5672
Oh hell no. We got Trump. The problem is the population. I mean, just look around. Trump is the result of the bullshit Republicans have been selling for decades, generation even.
Timex
5673
So what is your solution, if you think that the population of the country is the problem?
JoshL
5674
You’re aware 3 million more people voted for Hillary than Trump, right?
RichVR
5676
I just don’t like the following:
He’s too old. See: Bernie heart attack.
That he is too confused about reaching out to various republicans. He’s trying to get the I’m not sure vote.
He’s too centrist or too midline. Well at least he isn’t alienating a swath of voters.
I want a Democrat in office. An old white man fits the bill. He isn’t a bad guy. And he could very well win.
And as well, a woman candidate is problematic in these days. No matter how great she is.
CraigM
5677
Don’t forget the media, where asymetric warfare goes on. We have a media ecosystem where hard right propaganda is pushed as ‘news’ and the rest of the media is so kowtowed by the right that they so fear being labeled as biased, that they instinctively adopt and push the right wing framing on every topic.
Timex
5678
Yeah, and she lost because she was thinking about how they were gonna win Texas, instead of focusing her efforts in the rust belt states where she could have actually won.
But really, YOU were the one saying that the problem was the population if you lose.
Nesrie
5679
Yeah. Trump is not the cause. Trump is a symptom of a portion of the population. The solution, make sure more not crazy people go out and vote compared to the crazies that do. We can’t remove the crazies. They just die off or grow more, but if we can get more people to go out and vote, and more of those people don’t hate brown people, believe in crazy things like facts and science, don’t want to dominate women and get upset when they are called out for doing it, then we can move past Trump.
I would much rather be debating about why I think a wealth tax is a stupid idea and discuss real ways to trim and slice at the top that is feasible than sit here wondering what neo nazi is going to be in charge of what appointment next, but a wealth tax does not automatically make Warren a crazy leftist. It’s just a policy I don’t agree with. We used to be able have those things like… disagreements and not just open war for survival.
One of the big reasons we got Trump, is because the Democrats nominated Hillary. In no small part the reason we got Hillary, is the Democratic leaders rigged the system to discourage anyone else from running against her. In race between Bernie, and Hillary, I think the Democrats made the right choice.
But holy shit, that’s pretty bad set of options. I know people bitch there are too many folks running, but I’d much rather have too many than 2016 again.
Nesrie
5681
The worst thing Hillary ever did for this country was grow a vagina and talk to some men like she was their equal. The Republican party went out of their way to demonize every little thing and try and act like a strong woman was somehow a horrific thing for their voting group. Just look at what they’re doing with Pelosi, Warren, AOC. The difference between now and then isn’t that Hillary changed or needed to change it’s that the Emperor has no clothing, the Republicans sold their soul for some silver, and now that deal is obvious to the groups that were maybe on the fence about things before.
Strollen, you and I likely don’t agree on a lot of policy, but I really like a big tent. I’m glad you’re here as a member of the Democratic Party. We shall agree to disagree on the merits of Brooks’s writing. ;)
CraigM
5683
Ok, thank you Rich. So electability basically.
Which electability arguments are often circular, and annoy me as well. I don’t think you’re a bad person, I rather like you, but I disagree here.
FWIW I also think Bernie is too old.
I think reaching out is a tactical mistake. And while it may help in elections for you, it will harm you downstream as well as in actually pursuing policy. Especially when reaching out means inviting the Steve Kings of the world to the table.
The centrist thing is as much about shifting the overton window. Playing to the center, as dems have done for decades, while the GOP tacks further and further right and gets rewarded? There is something to pushing ideas with vigor. People sense, rightly or wrongly, that DC is ignoring them. And appealing to the public with a strong vision, I think, is a way to appeal to them. The centrist deal maker does not do that. Explaining the issues, how they relate to policies, and what your proposals can do to improve things requires having a vision. The centrist is far too captured in the corporatists mindset to actually achieve meaningful victories for the bulk of America. And long term that only serves to harm the country as more dissatisfied people flee towards authoritarian answers when democratic ones do nothing.
As for the old white man? Sadly there is truth to sexism and racism. However, I don’t think that should force us to only ever nominate old white men.
I agree he isn’t a bad guy, but being a good or bad person isn’t the same as being a good or bad nominee. I just see his brand of politics as ineffectual and unable to cope with the political and media landscape we unfortunately have to deal wtih.
The media is made of journalist, who are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats. Fox is with vanishingly few exceptions a propaganda machine. I really don’t think the solution to Fox is too turn all the other outlets in to leftwing Foxs. MSNBC has it’s place, but I’d hate to see everybody become propagandist
The job of good journalist is to present multiple sides to a story. Hell even the PBS Newshour, routinely says thing Like “President Trumps say without any proof that Joe Biden son was doing the same thing.” Do we want them too simply not say what President of the United States says?.
CraigM
5685
Too little, too hidden, too easily they adopt the framing.
Like, seriously, this topic has been covered a hundred ways. But what more proof do you need to show that the media is unbalanced than the number of stories about Hillary’s emails versus all of Trumps scandals combined?
Also that one propaganda outlet? It’s the largest cable ‘news’ network. I’m not asking for left wing Fox, I’m asking for them to stop giving unchallenged time to the right wing talking points. They have finally started to push back, but look at the tenor of things like the supposedly left wing NYT covering the Biden story.
They are a bunch of fucking cowards and failures who have, through sheer cowardice, led to a public that gets entertainment and horse races rather than serious reporting.
I’m genuinely confused, what should the NY Times done instead? “Caesers wife must be above suspicion” is pretty good rule, Hunter Biden’s actions didn’t look proper. I would hope that the NY Times and other real news agencies would investigate and report what they found.
They investigated Hunters’s actions and found that he did nothing wrong, and I read reports in both NY Times and WaPo that Biden’s actions were completely the opposite of what Trump alleged. Biden was trying to get rid of the Ukraine prosecutor because he was moving fast enough to investigate companies like Bursima.
You think they should have done what instead?
Aww damn I missed the David Brooks pile on. Here, let me add a picture of some of Brooks’ best moments:
For the rest of the Brooks’ discussion, I agree that it is initially confusing, e.g. why do they keep letting this person write Op-Eds even though he is so clearly wrong, ignorant, useless, dumb, etc. Why keep this person on staff when they are so clearly bad at their job? And the answer is that Brooks’ isn’t kept around because he of his effectiveness as an analysis node, or his effectiveness in providing useful and insightful commentary to the rest of us. Instead Brooks is kept around for the same reason that a Pravda writer is kept around, or a WWE heel is kept around, or a male street walker is kept around. He provides a service, he tells a certain story, and that story and service are useful to the people who pay his salary. That’s it. He’s there to churn out both-siderist, Republican defending drivel week after week, year after year. Any connection of his articles to the real world is purely incidental. Hopefully that makes his op-eds less confusing.
