No one. I wish I'd voted for no one this time around. I held my nose and voted (and donated) for someone I had serious reservations about, and then she confirmed those reservations in the most dramatic way imaginable by losing something that should have been a 100% lock.

When it comes to politics I'm saltier than I've ever been... And I remember every excruciating moment of Bush the second.

I'm seriously not interested in rhetoric anymore. I don't want to hear about what you'd do in an ideal world... I want to hear about what we're going to do in this one. At this point when I hear Democrats talk about what they are for I just feel a throbbing resentment. You can be for anything you want... If it doesn't translate into getting stuff done it doesn't matter.

The other party just stole a Supreme Court nominee and the White House after spending 8 years intentionally stalling out everything you wanted to do. Not only did you fail to punish them for this behavior in the non presidential elections, you let them take both houses of congress and damn near every statehouse in the country including MINE.

I used to make fun of conservative Christians for voting on abortion when nothing was ever going to get done on it. I found it ironic that they were voting against the teachings of their Messiah because of an issue that had zero chance of them making any progress on. Fast forward a few years and they have pretty much made abortion illegal in a lot of their states and I'm starting to think the joke's on me. It's MY candidates who are blowing smoke and pretending to be getting things done while making sure they get taken care of.

BoredSocial,

Honestly it isn't worth engaging with Hillary shills that will baselessly attack you and lie about your positions.

You have questioned the neoliberal democratic establishment, ergo you are Trump-loving racist liar in these parts.

Ah yes, the True Liberals are the ones who throw their hats in with the Republicans.

I've never aspired to be a 'True Liberal' or any other kind of ideologue. I'll take my politics with a heaping serving of reality. That's why I'm soul crushed and you guys are all spending your time arguing about stuff that will never ever happen.

Dan purports to be the True Liberal here.

So you are thinking about not voting because you think the difference between Democrats being in charge and Republicans being in charge is not much. That's pretty much all there is to your position.

The GOP has only succeeded on abortion because they've won elections at the state level and below. They aren't like outsmarting the Democrats at every turn with crafty political moves. Democrats in office would have prevented that development.

I can't force self-respect upon you for allowing people to make false accusations about BoredSocial that directly contradicts his views. Clearly it has annoyed him, and rightfully so.

He's the one openly hoping the Republicans succeed in slashing progressive gains.

BoredSocial,

There is a big difference between neoliberals + democratic establishment shills + fake liberal corporatists and.... true liberals with real progressive ideals and values. You will find plenty of the former around here, just look for those waiting to call you a racist and a republican despite your clearly stated positions and posts.

Yes they are. They are demographically inferior and yet they are producing radically superior electoral results. They just got done winning an election with an Orange Clown who seemed to have made a pledge to abstain from telling the truth for a candidate and half the money. If you don't feel like Wiley Coyote right now you aren't paying attention.

You think letting the other party win tons and tons of local and state level elections isn't on the Democrats? The Republicans mobilized national support for local and state elections and the Democratic party slept on it. That's a HUGE part of how we got here. It was political malpractice of a pretty extreme variety.

EDIT: One of the things that really fractured my whole world view was Democrats losing this election (something that they said was all but impossible) and then blaming Comey and the media. The same media that had been running a couple of super negative stories a day on Trump. The NYT and the WaPo basically never ran a positive story on Trump the entire election cycle. The WaPo wrote a book of true and terrible things about Trump and it didn't make a difference. Yes Comey might have tipped things, but why in gods name were they even close? They were close because your ads were bad, your campaign strat was bad, and your candidate (that you forced through) was worse.

OK, but it's the "Democrats are bad at politics, ergo I want the Republicans to be unchecked in enacting their agenda at every level of government they control" that has everyone confused.

It's not that it's not "on" the Democrats, it's that it's a tough problem to solve. Republicans' primary demos vote more in local elections, straight up. Do you have a solution to that problem?

I'm not hoping that they will slash progressive gains.. I know for a fact that they will. They have both houses of congress, the presidency, and the supreme court... And there is nothing they won't stoop to to get what they want. The democrats don't have a prayer of stopping them from doing whatever they want until 2018... And the upside in that election is pretty limited unless Trump does something we probably can't take back.

At this point I'm just hoping that they also do something to bring us closer to fair trade and do some infrastructure. The Democratic party has reduced me to trying to find the silver lining in Donald Trump. I hope they are happy.

lol dude have you read his posts? he directly states that he is going to support the republicans. so, I really dont think its falsely attributed when he says exactly that.

At least then we'll get to see what the results of those policies are so that people can vote on it. I would love to see the party in power get to do whatever they like... So that they can face the consequences of their choices with the electorate.

The most toxic thing about the last 12 years of political history is that neither side could get anything real done, so both sides could make whatever claims they wanted to get elected. It's been great for politicians and a complete disaster for the rest of us.

You can't have accountability without action being possible.

EDIT: There's a part of me that hopes the Republicans get to go full Kansas on us for a couple of years. They say they want to make Medicare into a voucher system? Let them. That will be the end of them as a political party. They'll lose by 10%+ the next election.

Action Dan cannot even be bothered to try convince a Democrat from switching parties and becoming a ****ing Republican. Not even, I agree that these guys are wrong, but don't go to the dark side bro. Rather he encourages it!

Has he EVER tried to actually advance a liberal agenda on this board? Always criticizing but never, ever, ever showing the "shills" "how its done" despite countless opportunities. Truly Ikesonian.

Start by spending as much on local and state elections as the R's do. The fact that they haven't even done this much shows how deep the idiocy runs. I'd also strongly suggest hiring real advertising people to work all campaigns. Hillary's national campaign ran REALLY bad ads. Most local Democrats run ads that could have been made by a slightly below average high school student. Given the price of creative marketing these days this is inexcusable.

Start paying for full time Democratic activists setup in communities permanently to keep the local population engaged. Be significantly more shameless in claiming credit for public projects. Talk about specific stuff that is happening on the ground in the community, not empty promises that will never happen.

Admit that a lot of government regulation is stupid. Admit that the federal bureaucracy is massively inefficient. Advocate for a complete overhaul of the federal purchasing system. Being tied to something that a lot of voters have direct personal experience with is bad. You can't tell someone who has tried to get a permit for anything that government makes everything better... They will immediately experience thinky pain and then be open to the GOP message.

Yo, even Kansas is still hard Republican despite being a trainwreck. It's a complete myth that voters will hold Republicans to blame for bad social policies, or that Republicans will learn from mistakes.

The future of progressivism does not lie with the corporatists.

There is considerable evidence that they do spend as much as Republicans do, and that in the areas they don't it's because there are fewer big donors to pull from.

"Get more money" isn't a real solution. The fact that you think it's some sort of conscious choice on the part of the DNC to not have more money doesn't speak to their idiocy.

Two points. First, that might be your view, but I doubt it is the view of most Republican leaders. I think a lot of 2008 Republicans would reject their obstructionist strategy if they knew it would lead to a rejection of the Republican party leadership by their voters and the election of Donald Trump as President.

Second, insofar as you think Trump is such a distillation, my point still holds. In that case, one of the things distilled in Trump are the purity tactics used by the Tea Party to gain power over the Republican leadership (pretty recognizable in his attacks on the other GOP candidates during the primary).

It's Kansas. It was pretty ****ty before they took over too. Let them take a good hard swing at entitlements. They need a massive reform one way or the other so them actually connecting and getting what they want for a year or three isn't going to have any more long term impact than Obamacare.

Less than 100 posts ago he said he is leaving the Democratic party and throwing in with the Republicans. Are you high?

Ah, I see it now. Not sure how I missed the Berniebroism to begin with

The Dems spend WAY less on local and state elections than the R's do. A lot of this is the fact that the Koch brothers are disciplined about putting money everywhere. You can't write off small races because they don't matter like the Democrats do. Taken in bulk those elections are probably more impactful than high office holders.