Yes, it was and I think you may be missing the point entirely.

Nice read.

Bill Maher is discriminating me for being latino as well. I cant watch the video.

If parties realign, I'd expect that the realignment would completely destroy the right/left spectrum. My money would be on:
1) Authoritarian/Status-Quo Party: #ImWithHer D loyalists (Max, Wookie, ElliotR types), D & R neocons, Bush-type Rs, bankers, military and "defense" industry types.
2) Alternative Party: Progressive Ds, populist Rs, independents.

I think that this is already slowly happening behind the scenes, but is wildly unlikely to manifest explicitly.

Makes sense. Steve Scmidt had a similar take regarding the parties no longer being split along ideological divide but rather the winners and losers of globalization.

I think there's a lot of truth in this. Every time she spoke, I couldn't stop from thinking of the word "phony," even though I think she really does believe deeply in her convictions. She's just not charismatic, and she tried to be, and failed horribly.

It does seem like a good time for a new party.

Maybe Apple could try the iParty. Or Elon Musk the Teslacrats. Googletarians.

4Chanicans vs. Tumblrcrats

At least we can be united behind this righteous protest.

Of course it's a thing. Of course he will still be president Jan. 20. ldo. That's not the point.

The point is he has ripped the already fragile social fabric of this country for personal gain. People aren't going to forget, dismiss or forgive his actions/rhetoric these past 18 months. 36.3% of the nation ... just talking about minorities here, not even white women were personally insulted by Trump (individually, their sisters, their fathers, their uncle who is a vet, there adopted child, etc.). Many of these people don't feel safe in their country for the first time ever.

The next time you're in a stadium or restaturant or theater look around. POTUS insulted in the cruelest and crudest ways 36 of 100 ppl there. People are taught to respect themselves above all us. How can you respect yourself and Trump at the same time? Cliffnotes: you can't.

I read where there's going to be a Million Women March in D.C. on Jan. 21. I don't remember a million person march the day after a previous POTUS' inauguration. Do you?

The ACLU has received a record amount of online donations since Tuesday. I don't remember this being the case in the organization's 96 year history. Do you?

Trump and his administration are going to be scrutinized, observed, sued, stonewalled, obstructed, confronted, investigated, fact-checked, etc. like no administration before him -- that's just domestically (and that's saying something when you consider how Obama was railroaded by the Rs for the past 8 yrs). Wait until the international participants jump into the fray. dude's ghana probably quit before year 1 is over.

My Mom is a lifelong democrat, hater of all things Republican, lover of MSNBC and when she told me that she disliked it every time Hillary tried to get loud and angry and fake passionate, I had pause for concern on how that may be coming across to those who are not as hardcore Dem.

If Biden or generic white male Democrat ran against Trump, the "he's dangerous" line would have worked much better. Persuadeable Republicans were never voting for Hillary b/c she's Hillary.

This is a huge issues world-wide, one of the major problems of the 21st century and if we dont understand it and act then trump/brextit is just going to be the beginning of a great deal of pain.

During the Brexit campaign there was a spontaneous hiss of anger when a politican responded to a question about low wages with 'that's why we're raising the minimum wage', and that hiss was from people that overwhelmingly support the minimum wage and support raising it. It's not a contradiction but the reasonable belief that the minimum wage is supposed to be a minimum to protect the most vulnerable workers from exploitation. it's not supposed to be the norm for vast groups of people or become the ceiling on what people can expect to earn.

We have to recognise that the jobs are increasingly going and never coming back. We have to start to tackle the link between working and self-worth while finding ways to distribute all the wealth that no-one is working to create. This is one of the defining problems of our age - we can try to get ahead of it or we can reap the whirlwind and put it back together afterwards.

It's pretty clear that "Persuadable Republicans" is not actually a thing. In the end they fell in line like they always do and used whatever post-hoc justifications they needed to explain voting for a man many of them knew wasn't fit to hold the office.

there just needs to be a candidate who will not manipulate and lie to voters and who will stand behind principles that he genuinely think that are good for the country

very simple but impossible

Look at the counties that flipped to R from D in last election. People wondered why Trump made visits to safe D states right before election. Looks like he was on to something no one else was.

http://www.cnbc.com/heres-a-map-of-t...rom-democrats/

Big psychological difference between government creating conditions that allow for new jobs (empowering handout) vs. giving people cash (pity-driven handout).

If Trump can implement FDR-style programs while not ****ing up anything big he might win by 10 points in 2020.

Good post. I am old and jobs and self worth go hand in hand. I know trust fund adults who never needed to work and have had a hard time organizing their lives.

This is true. The question is how do we get politicians (who have an eye on being re-elected and keeping a career) to level with people, to serve up the bad medicine, to tell it like it is?

We need strong leadership, but politics is thoroughly lacking in this quality.

Term limits would be nice, but is a moonshot.

Politics should be 80% eye on the long-term. 20% on the short-term. But now it is 99% on the short-term. sigh.

You might be right. Maybe the next utopian social engineering program the left can engage in is to drop justice for the historically oppressed and get to work destroying the norm that your productive capacities are what constitutes your value and your dignity. In a world of increasing automation without the need for unskilled labor where material wealth will be provided via technocratic instruments like universal basic income, seems like our best shot.

The classes that feel dispossessed certainly don't want to be told to respect racial and religious minorities. Can't hand 'em money, at least not yet. Looks like we first have to get them comfortable with sitting around all day playing video games. Got high hopes this is going to work out for the younger generations. Doesn't seem like a huge stretch.

it is what it needs to be
simple as that
everything is deterministic
you drop a rock and it falls on the ground
big bang happens and x years later there we are: typing on the computers talkin about trump (good living)

Interesting map. Thx for sharing.

Dan, she played at PA bigly and still lost. If she campaigned in the midwest and won her blue wall states, she still would've lost the election, and would have lost PA and FL by more.

I know that to you, when HRC doesn't campaign in states where facts and data overwhelmingly point to victory, it is the very definition of technocratic hubris, but in reality, her campaign made good strategy decisions based on the info by playing at FL and playing "defense" in PA (we know now that it was actually offense). Playing at NC was terrible - I said as much in the old thread - and you can make the case for hubris there, but that's about it.

Generally speaking, I'm not seeing how it can be too hubristic to assume you won't disastrously underperform your predecessor in the blue wall states when your opponent is the worst candidate in history. What you perceive as hubris is probably more like too much faith in the R's to behave like the D's and stay home or protest vote when they disapprove of the nominee. Or to tell the ****ing truth to the pollsters.

I mean in the spirit of magnanimity we're all gonna have to come together in dystopian Trump America. If he's serious about the return to the alphabet soup work relief programs like the WPA and the CCC to keep restless angry people busy digging holes in exchange for a paycheck and staying sedate, we're gonna have to get the next generation of right-wingers to not blame liberals for all the half-assed hole digging projects and unproductive indolent blacks living off the government dole building playgrounds and useless bridges once Democrats start winning elections again and after the next market correction hits and the rich elites start getting envious at all those paychecks going out to hole-digging classes are costing them slightly smaller yachts. Give me some implicit guarantees here and I won't mention you stole all our ideas. Like we've played this one out before but I'll give it one more go if we agree to play nice.

It's a bit different as Fly and dvaut (and indeed me) are good chaps who are never going to anything but vote on the liberal/progressive side.

The compromise is that we can all do what we think best and we can all handle and take onboard others disucssing the pros and cons of what we do. We dont all have to agree on exaclty what is best. In fact I'd strongly argue that it's best that we dont all come to an agreement on exactly what is best - some range of behavior and views is actually best.

Works easy enough for college students. Lots don't work yet don't suffer from social worth issues.

I didn't just pull my concern over Michigan out of the blue based on a gut feeling.

But please, keep telling me how the Clinton ran a good campaign after they lost to DFT.