Well, since the 'chump' is the one that got furthest of those two candidates, I don't know if a valuable lesson was learned at all. I think it's equally likely that the system will get more polarized along that axis as well - that the Republicans will double down on the crazy populism next time around, continuing the trend of Palin to Cain to Trump, and the Democrats will want to play it even safer* and more establishment because of the gaping maw of insanity on the other side.

It might even be that this is the preferred way for this to shake out in their eyes - the Democrats go on to take the White House this term and the next, and the Republicans lose the presidency but gain more ground on the local level. I'm not saying that the Republicans want to lose the presidency, but since almost every local Republican runs on the premise that they'll stand up to Washington, it doesn't hurt to be in opposition. Supporting Trump might not get you the white house but it might make you mayor. Plus, that's where the Koch money is, for now.

*On the other hand, let's not go nuts. Right now, given how the election's turned out, Clinton seems like an incredibly establishment, incredibly traditional politics, choice - but when they made the decision to run, it must have still seemed like a risky move, since no woman had ever made it all the way before. I can't imagine that anyone predicted what this race would look like (?), so maybe the 'lesson' from 2016 can't be accurately applied by either party.

As usual you are confused, a secular country is not an atheist country. A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion NOR IRRELIGION. We have atheist politicians. https://www.google.com/#q=list+of+atheist+politicians. I'm sure many more are closeted or deists or not as well known. The mayor of the major city I live in is atheist. The United States is the model of a secular nation in that we invented the idea of a separation between church and state. Secular doesn't mean religious people can't hold office. Also, secularism doesn't mean that the wall between church and state doesn't require constant vigilance to uphold.

Both candidates are not the same based on their platforms which he equates to the be same which is a laughably naive notion. Beyond that, he fails to see the importance that the next president will seat at least 2 if not 3 judges on the supreme court. That isn't up for an election every 4 years. That is 30+ years. 1 supreme court vote made a difference between having Citizens United and not. Alito being dead has already had an influence on how some rulings went e.g. Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole and United States v. Texas.

Furthermore, his whole contention lies on the ability for the American people to vote people out of office. Well in 4 years George Bush managed to invade 2 nations and destroy relationships around the world and creating an even larger terrorist threat that Obama had to deal with drones because the American people wanted safety and didn't want troops deployed and you needed a third way. Then the economy tanked. I can't believe people have this view that we didn't need to bailout the banks, it was a difficult decision but the other choice was a complete collapse of the financial system. Obama just came into office. What would you have done?

I don't understand this bizarre view Americans have every 4 years that when a new president gets elected the whole thing resets like the fucking Matrix or something. A lot of what Obama had to do was to undo the damage of the previous administration. 2008 crash can be linked back directly to Bush's promise that every American deserves to have a home. All while the right and the GOP constantly undermined him. Tell me the last time the government was shut down by the GOP over a health care act meant to help Americans?

Nader got 2.74% of the popular vote in 2000, the people who voted for him might as well as burned their votes because there is no post for 2nd or 3rd place. You just lose. Nader was very well known among the American people. Who is Jill Stein or Gary Johnson?

We've all been here before. Last time it was Ron Paul. But Sanders did succeed in creating a new class of fired up people who I hope will focus on the actual battlegrounds of any progressive movement mayoral, state, senate and house races. Not just wake up every 4 years.

You know, politics happen even when the presidential election is not happening. Start small and make this much noise in your local government -- you can actually have a voice there.

And fuck Jill Stein for the same reason. Start small. Gain traction in the local governments. Don't just pop up your head every 4 years and say, "Hey! See! I'm a 3rd party candidate!"

Go to city council meetings. Find a candidate for governor or mayor that you like and help them out both financially and with your feet and mouth.

That's how we got here. We wait 4 years until we decide to get political, as though that's the only time to do so. Even if Trump gets elected (which is seeming more and more plausible every week) that doesn't mean you have to stop making noise.

i am just going to add to the opinions and perspectives that @MilkmanDan ,@ChaosEngine ,@dannym3141 and especially @newtboy who i agree with so clearly that i swear we are related.

since many dynamics have already been covered, i.e:police culture,racism,incompetence etc etc.

i shall offer a historical perspective in the ways of the power dynamic.

while this is a power vs powerlessness dynamic dealing with agents of the state,it helps to understand just how we got to this point,and it is NOT the first time we have been here.

see:labor movement of the 30's and the labor strikes,and the response from not only the business community but our own government.

see: the civil rights movement and segregation,and how demagouges used political power to divide by way of racism,and then used police to intimidate,beat and imprison.

there are many MANY examples here in america where the police have been used to suppress and oppress a people or community for less than altruistic reasons,and most certainly not aligning with the ideology we were taught in school the function of police.nevermind the syrupy sweet,idealized picture shoved down our throats since an early age.

so we see on our facebooks,our twitters and/or whatever social media you prefer,that black lives matter...and the counter point,that NO..ALL lives matter.

now this would make sense in a world that never took history into account,or a growing cultural norm of violence and oppression that had been slowly seeping into poor communities (mainly black and latino).

oh wait..
that's right.
social media pundits NEVER fucking consider any of those factors,because just like bill o'reilly,those are pesky nuances and context conflict with their own narrow narrative.

but let us consider them and how they may possibly be a major driving factor in americas current climate.

let us take ferguson as an example,that is a good place to start.
and let us go back to 2008,where we can see the boiling begin to take place in this extremely impoverished community which was already struggling.

the population is a black majority,poor to working poor.home ownership is low,food stamp recipients are high and the future is pretty bleak.

in 2008 ferguson received approximately 18% of it's total fiscal revenue from misdemeanor infractions i.e:traffic,parking,moving violations.small time stuff.basic fines for small infractions.in 2008 that number jumped to 66%.

why?
what happened?
what changed?

well the comptroller of ferguson (and greater st louis),along with HUNDREDS of other smaller municipalities across the country,had bought the rotten fish that wall street was selling in the form of bullshit derivatives.

now wall street and the big banks got their tax payer bailout,but towns like ferguson did not.they lost millions,sometimes billions.this meant pensions were either reduced or outright denied,because there was NO money!

but a town still has to pay police.
fire fighters and school teachers,
clerks and judges,
keep the roads paved and the street lights working.

so what is a local government to do?
can't tax the working class who own homes.you already jacked their property tax to the roof.
can't tax the local business,you already squeeze them as well.
how about those non-property owning people in ferguson?
they need to pay up as well,and let's use the police force to relinquish them of the paltry money they don't have.

to the tune of 66% of all of fergusons revenue.
that is insanity.

so what if you live in ferguson?
chances are you are black,and either poor or working poor.

you make,if you are lucky,20 grand a year and by one man's testimony he paid over 2,000 in traffic tickets in one year.the majority of americans dont see those kind of numbers their entire lifetime.

and what if you began to realize that it was not just you.that almost every person you know or talked to had similar stories.

would you begin to feel a tad bit targeted?

what if the city of ferguson started to become very creative with not only their rules but how they enforced those rules?

what if every year the fines went up?
not remained the same,but actually UP? every year.

what if,as a community people began to actually fear the police? to experience anxiety just by the sight of a patrol car,even though they were not engaging in anything illegal? and who knows...maybe there is some new ordinance on the books that you are unaware of?

would you become paranoid and suspicious of law enforcement?

and then..what if....you started losing friends to cops.people you grew up with being shot in the street,and every time the mayor comes out and calls it a "justifiable killing".

would that make you feel any better?
any less paranoid or anxious?

there was ONE police shooting in ten years and then..as if by magic ..(which is how the media seems to always portray this..shocking news..at 11)..you lose 5 friends in a year.all to cops..all "justifiable".

would you begin to think there was a conspiracy?
targeting you and your neighbors?

i BET you would.
i know i would.

now lets look at the cops.

they are just a tool.
an instrument for the state to uphold the law and write citations for infractions.they dont MAKE the laws,nor the infractions,not even the fines.

they just do what they are told.

and they are told to go into these poor and working poor neighborhoods and write tickets,a LOT of tickets.

do you really think they are unaware of the growing hostility towards them? the looks of disgust,fear and apprehension?

but...this is their job,and they do what they are told.

they see.
they know.
they are aware of the growing hatred towards them,and this makes them anxious..and defensive..and in some horrible,tragic cases...trigger happy.

a natural and normal response to heightened stimuli in the face of great uncertainty.

so they react impulsively and out of fear in a way that ten years ago would have been unheard of.

they think themselves good cops.
they do a good job.
they do what they are told.
and the people hate them for it.
so they respond instinctively and with poor judgement.

we..as citizens,respond with disgust and indignation when a cop abuses his/her authority.we see this as a major moral breach in the citizen/cop relationship,because we feel as agents of the law they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us...and rightly so,but when you put a human being in a tense and dangerous situation,not of their making,they will fail at some point to react correctly and with sound judgement.

they SHOULD be held accountable,but so should the city council members and the mayor and all the local representatives who created this toxic climate in the first place.

the lesson to be learned here is that nothing is a binary situation when people are concerned.

so when black lives matter protestors address people to make them aware of the situation,this is what they are talking about.the police killing are only a last stage manifestation of a situation that began in 2008 on wall street.

and we need to be aware,because right now it is the predominantly black communities,but soon coming to a neighborhood near YOU.

the poor and working poor have become expendable.no longer relevant to the system.which is why police shootings are being handled the way they are.our value is ever increasingly being judged on how well we can feed the system.

until this disparity is addressed there will continue to be police shootings.people will die and there will be no indictments.

because police do what they are told.

it is up to us to make policy makers accountable for their actions,and in doing so address a toxic climate that both the poor,working poor and cops alike have to swim in.

stop forcing cops to write tickets to fund a city that lost it's savings due to fuckhead bankers.

this blood..all of it..is on those bankers hands.

Was that the Mayor's phone going off as soon as the chief started to speak?? That's kinda... perfectly summarizing of the whole scenario, isn't it?

Yeah, the wife liked it. It was okay the first couple of seasons but when Mulan, Anna, and Elsa started showing up they kinda jumped the shark. I will say that Lana Parilla does an amazing job playing the Evil Queen/Mayor, as does Robert Carlyle as Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold.

First order of business, free honey for everyone.

Yaayy mayor bee, mayor bee!

This is terrible, even with a Mayor Butts involved.

Sounds like some officers need to give a very specific account of why they used deadly force, perhaps before a jury.

I was gonna say "is this even a real story?" But then I found a better news link:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/couple-killed-inglewood-police-shooting-asleep-mayor-butts-369902981.html

I stick to people who believe in America.

Voodoo the fetus that got away from the abortionist.


You can stand with Pedophile Bill and criminal Hillary or an a bum named Bernie who never had a real job till he was 40,


http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/bernie-sanders-the-bum-who-wants-your-money/


Bernie Sanders, The Bum Who Wants Your Money


2016: Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Monday his parents would never have thought their son would end up in the Senate and running for president. No kidding. He was a ne’er-do-well into his late 30s.

“It’s certainly something that I don’t think they ever believed would’ve happened,” the unabashed socialist remarked during CNN’s Democratic town hall forum, as polls show him taking the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire.


He explained his family couldn’t imagine his “success,” because “my brother and I and Mom and Dad grew up in a three-and-a-half-room rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, and we never had a whole lot of money.”

It wasn’t as bad as he says. His family managed to send him to the University of Chicago. Despite a prestigious degree, however, Sanders failed to earn a living, even as an adult. It took him 40 years to collect his first steady paycheck — and it was a government check.


“I never had any money my entire life,” Sanders told Vermont public TV in 1985, after settling into his first real job as mayor of Burlington.

Sanders spent most of his life as an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything. And yet now he thinks he deserves the power to run your life and your finances — “We will raise taxes;” he confirmed Monday, “yes, we will.”

One of his first jobs was registering people for food stamps, and it was all downhill from there.

Sanders took his first bride to live in a maple sugar shack with a dirt floor, and she soon left him. Penniless, he went on unemployment. Then he had a child out of wedlock. Desperate, he tried carpentry but could barely sink a nail. “He was a shi**y carpenter,” a friend told Politico Magazine. “His carpentry was not going to support him, and didn’t.”

Then he tried his hand freelancing for leftist rags, writing about “masturbation and rape” and other crudities for $50 a story. He drove around in a rusted-out, Bondo-covered VW bug with no working windshield wipers. Friends said he was “always poor” and his “electricity was turned off a lot.” They described him as a slob who kept a messy apartment — and this is what his friends had to say about him.

The only thing he was good at was talking … non-stop … about socialism and how the rich were ripping everybody off. “The whole quality of life in America is based on greed,” the bitter layabout said. “I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation.”

So he tried politics, starting his own socialist party. Four times he ran for Vermont public office, and four times he lost — badly. He never attracted more than single-digit support — even in the People’s Republic of Vermont. In his 1971 bid for U.S. Senate, the local press said the 30-year-old “Sanders describes himself as a carpenter who has worked with ‘disturbed children.’ ” In other words, a real winner.

He finally wormed his way into the Senate in 2006, where he still ranks as one of the poorest members of Congress. Save for a municipal pension, Sanders lists no assets in his name. All the assets provided in his financial disclosure form are his second wife’s. He does, however, have as much as $65,000 in credit-card debt.

He honeymooned in Russia.


Bernie Sanders is a Communist Sympathizer.

Bernie Sanders is the first Democrat who is honest about being a socialist. After all, with their policies demanding more and more government intrusion into our business and personal lives, they could only hide the truth of what they actually believe for that much longer. However, since socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried, Bernie even admitted that the word socialism has become somewhat of a hindrance. Of course, you could point out all the despotic Socialist regimes, and you’d be making a good point. However, Bernie would still disagree with you! Not because he doesn’t think the mass murder and famine were a bad thing, but a good one. That’s right. An interview with Bernie emerged where he praised Fidel Castro’s regime. If you think his rape fantasy essay was shocking, or his folk album was hard to stomach, just wait until you hear his opinion on Communist Dictators A lot of people don’t know this, but Bernie actually hung a Soviet Flag in office when he was mayor of Burlington. According to reporter Trevor Louden, Bernie hung the Soviet flag in his office to honor the Soviet sister city of Yaroslavl. You know, singing praises to the opposing side while you’re at war might seem treasonous to some, but if you’re a mayor of a major city, it’s perfectly acceptable and everyone will forget about it. No need to mention that the USSR was responsible for what some believe to be the biggest genocide in history. You’d be crazy to call Bernie a Communist. He only proudly hung their flag in his office.

Bernie Sanders did not only vacation in the Soviet Union, he honeymooned there. He described it as “strange honeymoon”. Once again, Sanders used the excuse that he did so in his town’s sister city of Yaroslavl. You have to wonder how much bad the Soviet Union could have done that Sanders was willing to overlook . Perhaps if Bernie loves Yaroslavl so much, he could do everyone a favor and move there.

Chump-- Making America Hate Again.

Once again we see the rented cops (actual Tulsa Police in this case) ignore the Trumpers actually being violent and go after the protesters, because in Trump's America, you can't calmly and/or quietly dissent or you need to GIT DE FUK OUT!
I don't understand why local police aren't stationed inside ready for this at every Trump event, knowing full well that any protester WILL be assaulted by the morons. In fact, it seems a good reason for any mayor to refuse to allow a Trump event in their town, and I hope some protesters sue cities for knowingly allowing this behavior, otherwise they'll never learn to do their jobs, even when they're being paid by others.

Sometimes I pretend I’m the Mayor of my kitchen and veto fish for dinner. ‘Too fishy’ is what I say!
— Marie Curie