@enoch

No, are you are saying when you get to the far fringes of beliefs that ideas and beliefs get more... "far fringe-ish"? Tell me that isn't true! lol

I identify as a Conservative. I'm no bible thumping, gun wielding, racist lunatic though the media and liberals spew that far fringe as the "norm". Oddly enough, other than my acceptance of the idea of there being a God and that my rights come from Him and NOT Government, my beliefs have very little to do with religion.

And I doubt every Democrat is a anti-God, rioting, anti-white racist either. Although I do believe that currently the fringe left of the Democrat part is much more in power than the more moderate Democrats. In fact, I dare say the current Republican party is more like the old Democrat party of 20 years ago and the Conservatives like myself were left pretty much without a party at all.

And at the core, what is my personal belief? My belief is that big government is BAD for a free people. Smaller, more localized Government is better for a free people.

I see the US Constitution as a great guide toward what I would like the Government/State relationship to be. We should be 50 quasi-nations, loosely bound together by a common defense, common currency, and inter-state laws. Other than that, the Federal Government should be staying out of the way of the States.

Let California and New York embrace partial-birth abortions and let Texas ban abortions except in cases of life/death or whatever other reason they see as being reasonable. I don't care, I just don't want it in the hands of the Federal Government . There is no NEED for most of the crap we deal with every day to be a NATIONAL issue...

Is it that hard to agree with me?

Your just rewording exactly what I said. Your just rewording exactly what Bill Burr said. Trump didn't win by bringing out a whole bunch of brand new racist voters that stayed home when Obama was running. It was Hillary's failures, and her party's failures that were the difference in Trumps win.

I know that leads to a more uncomfortable reality were we don't have the black and white ability to blame everything on the evil racists who voted Trump in, but it is the reality. Clinton and her party LOST the votes of too many people, the numbers on the Republican side show pretty clearly it wasn't extra votes Trump gained by courting racists that turned the election.

That reality though demands a lot of self reflection from the Democratic party about how they failed and why, and they have to do it at the time when the country needs them as a counter balance the most. The trick is, if they don't get back the voters they lost they can't be a counter balance.

Here's part of the problem: people blaming Trumps win on racists voting for him, or choosing to believe that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist. That's just not the reality that is confronting you guys in the US. Most voters in this election, like all the past elections, voted their party ticket as they and their grandpa always have. That's the one of the biggest influences on how folks vote. Surveys also show that given the choice between a ideals and jobs, people choose jobs. The democratic party was promising carbon taxation at the same time as Trump was promising to bring back coal and oil jobs. Now all the counties that rely on coal or oil have a very different reason to vote for Trump outside of his racist remarks.

Oh, and check out Bill Clinton's remarks on Robert Byrd. Does that association to the KKK make it hard for racists to choose between Trump and Clinton?

People don't trust politicians in general and assume them all to be evil, corrupt and untrustworthy so dismissing some of Trumps worse parts came a bit easier for many.

I find the history of how the Dems got here interesting. This isn't something I know much about. Is it accurate?

Personally, I'd like to see a third (and more) party. I think the Independents which are a majority in number could come together around a platform and be a force. Bluntly, fuck both the Dems and the Republicans.

One more point is that I don't think the state of the Democratic party is as dire as Cerk suggests. There were still 3 million more votes for Hillary without a fifty state strategy and with horrible gerrymandering and vote suppression.

Utter Bull shit.-- The Liberal Left still don't get it.

Trump won because it is promising jobs and to make America great again.

No one gave a shit that Obama was 1/2 black.
The birth certificate -- fake as a $2bill.

But the left are using these as the reasons for the massive Democrat party loss.

Keep it up -- live in bubble and keep loosing.


I wanted Cruz
But it was between Trump and Clinton. A millionaire crook or a billionaire businessman. And the left blames it on racism and the Russians. Delusional.

After the huge loss the Clinton Foundation is closing it doors. Guess it had no more favors to sell.

Fantastic sift, @bobknight33. Even IF Putin himself ordered KGB types to hack into Hillary and the DNC's email, Russia didn't "destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton". Clinton and the DNC did that to themselves.

Trump had similar problems resulting from motivated parties going through his past to see what muck they dig up. There was a lot there -- "grab them by the pussy", etc.

Hillary lost. Against that. FFS, if that doesn't send a clear message to the Democrat party that they need to seriously rethink how they operate, I don't know what will. Your progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are really well liked by core Democrats and quite appealing to moderates, on-the-fence types, and independents. Listen to them, not the rich fat cats and corporate lobbyists that represent everything that you criticize about the GOP.

I swear, both parties are just too goddamn stupid to survive. Evolve or die.

@bobknight33
you realize chaos is from new zealand right?
so while the democratic party may be a disgrace,unless the party is GLOBAL,it certainly is not HIS party.

i truly do not understand your (or anybodies for that matter) continued loyalty to this broken,dysfunctional and utterly corrupt two party dictatorship.

i have no issue with you pointing out the rot that has been bleeding out the democratic parties metaphorical ass.during this election cycle the DNC was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.they were exposed as the rotten and corrupt institution we all had suspected,but couldn't prove,rigging the primaries,changing the rules of application to keep people off the primary ballot (laurence lessig),and crushing one of the most promising,and politically energized campaigns by bernie sanders.(who,just like ron paul,raised his war chest on small donations).

hell,even the recent jill stein voter recount exposed even MORE DNC voter manipulations and fraud!

but are you SERIOUSLY going to sit there,and with a straight face,attempt to make the case the republicans are better?

that they are NOT just as vile,rapacious and corrupt as the democrats?

you think the democrats are the ONLY half of this two party duopoly that engages in voter fraud?
see:crosscheck
or crushes any politician that does not tow the party line?
see:ron paul

can you REALLY,without any sense of irony or sarcasm,tell me that the republican party represents YOU?

the one thing that has given me hope during this past presidential election is that my fellow americans seem to finally be getting it,finally understanding that neither the democratic party nor the republican party represent "we the people".

they represent:wall street,big banks,the military industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

and of course....their own continued power and political domination.

binary politics does not work anymore.
this false left/right dichotomy does not work anymore.
this "lesser of two evils" is no longer acceptable..any...more.

but i gather it still works for you bob.
what a waste..
you seem a decent sort,but to continue to identify with a party that has thrown you overboard decades ago....is just sad.

and i guess you will be just like those obama voters who became disturbingly silent while obama:expanded executive powers,NDAA of 2012,zero indictments to the criminals on wall street,prosecuting more whistleblowers than any other president combined,obamacare(the biggest gimme to the health insurance industry and big pharma),assasination programs,kill lists,expanding military operations into 6 other sovereign countries,regime change in libya...

those little pussies became good little apologists,and it appears YOU ...
bob..
will become a good little pussy and do your partisan duty,and turn into a dutiful little apologist for trump and the inevitable atrocities that are most certainly heading our way.

you know,i do not always agree with chaos,but at least he has BALLS.he stands for something.
you are just rooting for a certain team,might as well be rooting for the packers.
it is just so tired and WEAK...

eh..maybe you are just messing with chaos,but if that is the case,could you bring a little more flair and energy?
your technique is a tad..stale.

so step it up BOB!
your putting the audience to sleep.

This whole diatribe is exactly what pushed middle spectrum voters to actually vote against Clinton. More aggressive division and partisan line drawing is the problem, not the solution.

Anybody not 100% committed to a pro-choice stance was sick and tired of the far left calling them evil for it.

Anybody that had any thoughts that your choices regarding how to have sex and who to have it with were in fact choices were tired of being called slurs like homophibic.

Anybody who didn't believe carbon taxes or cap and trade markets were the answer to climate change was sick of being charged with hating the children and 'denying' fundamental science.

Anybody watching angry calls for safe spaces re-implementing segregation as though it was a good thing was tired of it.

Like it or not, a large part of America disagreed on the extremity of the establishment's direction on these and other areas. Trump was the one candidate nobody wanted, not the media, not the Democratic party, not even the Republican party.

I believe the divisive winner takes all approach to complex and sensitive social issues drove a lot of voters to pick Trump as the none of the above option.

For the record, I didn't vote Trump. I'm Canadian and couldn't vote at all, but if I could I'd have voted Clinton. I would have voted Clinton in spite of disliking her as a clone of her husband that actively fought to prevent action on the Rwandan genocide. Which is to say, in any other election I'd have lobbied for a vote anyone but Clinton campaign. Awful that the Republicans managed to find someone worse in Trump...

If the "Liberal Elite" within the Democratic Party hadn't been so pigheaded and worked against Bernie at every turn, and maybe accepted him as a candidate, then maybe this interview would be with President Sanders.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz being immediately appointed to the head of Clinton's campaign after the Wikileaks revealed how she was undermining Sanders behind the scenes showed just how out of touch the party had become. Without realizing it, the "Liberal Elite" of the Democratic Party chose Trump to become the next president.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Lessig---who was running on the single most important issue facing American Democracy today---couldn't even get on the ballot during the primaries.

blame?

i don't know if i would use such a charged word to describe a very and nuanced question.i think there is plenty of blame to go around,and it is never quite as simple as the media soundbytes we are all subjected to on a daily basis.

who do i blame most?
democrats..hands down.

but there are other factors that all served to produce this circus of an election cycle.

1.the failure of the left to actually understand just how frustrated and angry the working class had become.those people may be politically unsophisticated,but they are not dumb.

this really had very little to do with republican vs democrat.this was a large portion of the american population that had simply become fed up with a system that they finally understood had thrown them overboard decades ago.many of the people who voted for trump also voted for obama..TWICE..because they wanted to see "change" and what they got nothing,zip,zilch,zero,nada.

they simply refused to play charlie brown to the democrats lucy.

2.the DNC and debbie wasserman shultz,may she burn in hell for eternity.
this woman singlehandedly secured the nomination for clinton,while blocking a sanders nomination.

remember laurence lessig?
well,don't feel bad if you don't,because wasserman and the DNC kept changing the rules of application so lessig couldn't even get on the primary ballot.

the DNC basically said to the sanders supporters "sanders? fuck you! you get hillary and will like it".

3.the ultra left liberals,for being so sensitive and touchy (don't get mad,you guys are way too soft skinned) that they restrict their interactions in these weird,singular echo chambers.where everybody is agreeing with each other and nobody is challenging anything,no critical examination.

so when trump won.
they damn near lost their minds in shock!
because anybody who may have shed some actual light on the situation was already blocked or on ignore.

4.the republican party,who hated trump but allowed him to fan the flames of dissent with his bombastic speeches,emotionally charged rhetoric and divisive language.

they let this go on for almost a year,and while publicly denounced trump,privately sought a way to capture his thunder.

want carson?.....nope
cruz?...nope.
kasich?..nope.

because just like the left,they too,had misjudged just how pissed off people were in regards to our political system,and their plan backfired.

5.the democratic party for allowing such a shit candidate,and just like the republicans,not fully understanding just how pissed the electorate was.

6.the corporate media,who sought solely to profit from the election by giving us all this mish mash of reality tv,wrestling and days of our lives.they didnt report the issues,they fed the drama.

and every political pundit,every pollster,every opinion news mrs mcprettyface,got it FUCKING WRONG.

7.bernie bros who stayed home in protest,but this entire election was a protest vote.

so,
yeah..a lot of mitigating factors went into trumps win.

i didn't think he was going to win but i knew it was going to close,but i sure as fuck was not surprised.i was actually laughing at loud.

would you look at that...
my fellow countrymen just hit the nuclear option.
i didn't want a trump victory..no sir..but i have to admire the audacity of my fellow citizens to hit that shiny red button.

fuck you washington!

we live in interesting times my friends.
interesting and terrifying times.

and really...what would clinton have given us?
more of the same?
more wars and regime change?
more tax breaks for the super rich while children starve and more people become homeless?

i may find my fellow americans choice horrifying,but i have to respect it.
either way kids...something is gonna change.

If Hillary couldn't beat an unknown socialist in a fair fight, why did the Democratic party think she could beat any Republican front runner?

Did they really think that no one would read the wikileaks? Did they think that none of their backroom shenanigans to keep additional candidates from running (e.g. Lawrence Lessig) and push Clinton to the front of the pile just because it was her turn would be a winning strategy? It backfired, and it turned people off.

Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party, basically handed the presidency to Trump.

I agree with his 5 points completely, but I am optimistic that it will be easier to swing back the other direction in 2018 (midterms) or 2020 than he thinks.

Trump got a lot of angry, disenchanted voters to swing his direction because a complete question mark sounded better to them than Clinton's known-quantity establishment. But if he doesn't follow through for them (which is essentially impossible in many cases for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is self-contradictory stances/promises that can't ALL be followed) much of that support will collapse fast.

IF the Democratic Party gets its act together semi-quickly and follows at least some of Cenk's ideas, they can ride the wave the other direction.

One thing I am looking forward to are good polemics as part of the election's post-mortem. In terms of video footage, both Cenk and Kyle over at TYT and Secular Talk respectively went off the rails quite nicely. But the good stuff, the really good stuff, will trickle in, and exclusively in written form.

Lambert over at NC makes a decent start, given his lack of sleep:

The Democrat establishment was warned about their weak candidate, and they were presented with a popular and well-funded alternative: Bernie Sanders. Instead, as the Podesta emails show in lavish detail, they used their control of the party machinery and their service providers in our famously free press to rig the primary in their favor at every turn. When their candidate was nominated, the Democrat establishment tacked right, and proceeded to explain to Sanders voters that their votes were not needed or even desired because, as #BernieBros, they were racist and sexist. Sanders supporters have every right to say #WeWereRight and #WeToldYouSo.

If this were Japan, we’d be seeing Democrat Party leaders committing seppuku, or cutting off their little fingers or — supposing them not to be gangsters — ritually and tearfully bowing to the people they betrayed. This being America, and these being Democrats, they are feverishly deploying the Blame Cannons at racist and sexist #BernieBros, Johnson, Stein, and the dogs who wouldn’t eat the dog food. These assclowns will only leave office if they’re whipped out with scorpions. So get to it, Sanders supporters. This is your time.

That if is a mighty big if.

And the lessons you think they "need to learn" from this election are probably different from the lessons that the professional class (credit to Thomas Frank) thinks the Democrats need to learn. To them, it's not about getting a candidate that has a higher favorability rating than a meteor strike, but to find a candidate that maintains their status in society. They are the winners of "free trade" (see Rigged by Dean Baker) and globalisation, while a vast number of people have been thrown into debt peonage, wage slavery or worse.

Unless the Democratic Party emancipates itself from the donors and the professional class, I don't see them becoming a home to champions of the people. Look at how the DNC conspired with the Clinton campaign to crush the Sanders candidacy -- lots of juicy bits about that in the Podesta emails. Look at Corbyn, who is basically caught up in a civil war within Labour, despite overwhelming support by the party base.

The Third Way (Social-)Democrats have bought into neoliberalism at such a fundamental level that I just cannot see anyone turning them into a vessel for social equality without getting utterly corrupted or even crushed along the way.

The lesson they learn might be to not nominate a member of a dynasty with so much baggage attached to them. Yet even that depends on them actually recognising the baggage in the first place, which they seemed unwilling to during this election cycle. Everything was brushed off.

And then you're still stuck with a representative of a system that doesn't work for a lot of people. The situation of the rust belt is not a result of anything particular to the current or previous candidates, but of the Washington Consensus and the widespread acceptance of neoliberalism as gospel.

Without major outside pressure, I don't see the party changing its ways sufficiently enough to become a representative of the people again. Maybe a Trump presidency is enough to create such movements, maybe not. Occupy was promising, yet crushed by the establishment in bipartisan consensus.

Yeah, I think he pretty much nailed it.

If you are dismayed by what has happened, please consider:

* Perhaps some of your anger should be directed at the Democrat party brass. They pulled hard for Hillary from day one. They have superdelegates because they don't trust Democrat voters to choose "correctly". All of them swung for Hillary, without even seriously considering any alternative. The brass dismissed Sanders as unelectable and nutty. Oops.

If there were no superdelegates, and the party hadn't consistently propped up Hillary as their highly favored candidate, the primaries would likely have been very different. And my contention is that Trump vs Sanders would have ended in a landslide victory for Sanders. Because Sanders would have appealed to these "blow up the system" people too, AND been much more palatable to people on the fence than Trump.


I think Trump is an idiot blowhard. I think he will make a terrible president (not apocalyptically terrible, but terrible). BUT, I am willing to give him a chance to prove me wrong. I would have been willing to give Hillary a chance if she had won, too.

Outside of the immediate setback that this represents to the Democrat party, I think the future of the party is actually extremely bright -- IF they learn the lesson that they need to from this election. Choose candidates that people like. People that are actually worth voting FOR, rather than propping up someone that you hope will be seen as the "lesser of two evils".

I don't like Trump. Yet with all that's known about Hillary's corruption, there is no way I could vote for her in good conscience. The democratic party had the opportunity to push forward a fantastic candidate with a spotless record in his public service. Instead, they used backroom deals and underhanded means to thwart democracy. I see no reason to reward such behavior.

As president, Hillary would likely get one or two bills passed improving some kind of social service-improved access to healthcare, or healthy foods or something like that. And the rest of her time will be devoted to enhancing the corporatist agendas of her owners. She is a puppet to those donors.

If I lived the the US (and I don't) I would be deciding between Stein and Johnson.

I see no reason to reward Hillary's corruption with a mandate.