So...even though we haven't gotten to the mid terms yet, president candidates are always on my mind, and we're starting to see a field of potential candidates, good and bad, who may run in 2020. Today I'm gonna discuss this field and what I think of some names being thrown around.
Bernie Sanders - Obviously, this is my #1 choice. He's old, he's gonna be 79, but that isn't gonna stop me from voting for him. However, he's going to need a STRONG running mate to be a good ticket, because obviously, he has a high risk of dying in office and will leave office at the age of 83 or 87. He has the ideas, he is popular, and I think he can win. There are some remaining Clinton holdouts and centrists who hate his guts, but still, I don't think they'll swing the election away from him.
Elizabeth Warren - It's unclear whether she will run, I mean she was highly desired by many in 2016, and much of Sanders core of support came from the demographic that supported her, but she's a solid #2 choice for me. Some progressives will criticize her for not speaking out against the democrats enough, holding her tongue on Keystone XL, etc., but honestly, I think she's left enough to represent a significant shift in American politics to the left, while potentially winning over some of the alienated Clintonites. She's kind of a compromise candidate that's still favorable to the progressive wing of the party. If she runs I just hope she doesn't turn into another Obama, talking a big game while running to the center in practice. Still, she is someone I would vote for.
Andrew Yang - Yang is an interesting candidate to me. He's an entrepreneur, which is normally a bit of a turnoff to me, and he's inexperienced, but he supports universal basic income, which, if you guys recall, is a huge policy that I am supportive of, if not it being the most sought after policy of mine. This in itself is enough to let me give him a look. However, he wants to fund his UBI with a VAT, which is regressive and hurts the people he's trying to help, and his plan doesn't mesh well with social security, causing a coverage gap for some over 65. Honestly, I would like this guy to revamp his plans and gain some political experience. I think he would be best used as a potential VP for Bernie Sanders. This would groom him and position him for a 2028 run, putting him in a much stronger position. For now, I'll consider him a protest vote if the neoliberal wing of the party wins and I'm not happy with their platform, similar to how I voted for Jill Stein, but I'd honestly like someone with more experience as a primary option.
Joe Biden - He's probably one of the favorites of the neoliberal wing of the party. He's a strong new democrat with a long political career. While he would likely be a decent president, he just isn't what I want. If he wins, the GOP will just gain strength again and the democrats will fall apart again. He's too old timey for me, if that makes sense. He still thinks the world is what it was when he was growing up and doesn't understand how things have changed. He also has a habit of shooting his mouth off and making gaffes which alienate people. And, this is troublesome to me, but he opposed basic income on the grounds of "dignity of work". I'm sorry, but I don't buy into that dignity of work crap, work is a necessary evil to make things we need, it shouldn't represent what life is supposed to be. As such I'm not really big in Biden as a candidate and may consider a green vote again if he is the nominee.
Kamala Harris - She's a favorite of the neoliberal wing. She's a minority woman and they won't want you to forget it (you know how the neoliberal wing is big on symbolic victories). On policy she's mixed. She has some decent ideas, is socially liberal, even supports medicare for all, but honestly, she is a character of much contention among the left. It seems like despite being progressive on paper she has little follow through, and as such may try to woo progressives with promises she does not intend on keeping. I MIGHT support her if she makes a strong enough case for herself, but I'm kind of iffy at this time. Many people compare her to Obama, very inspirational and sounds good, but is kind of a loser in practice.
Cory Booker - More neoliberal than Kamala Harris, with none of the progressive pretense. Seems to be a big representative of the pharmaceutical industry, which is big in his home state of new jersey, which makes him not really a prime candidate for "medicare for all." I don't like the guy. Running him is a good way to get me to protest vote again.
Tammy Duckworth - Tammy Duckworth is a woman with a story. She fought in Iraq, she lost her leg, and she sacrificed for her country. She refers to draft dodger Trump as "cadet bone spurs" and this kind of thing will go over very well for much of the public. She does some good things on policy like wanting to audit the Pentagon and supporting stricter gun control, but she's kind of an unknown on economics, and as you guys know, that's kind of my number one thing here. That said I see her as a bit of an unknown. The neoliberal establishment is pushing her but I'm a bit of a skeptic as to her being a good candidate here.
There are probably others I did not mention, but these are the names I currently see showing up in discussions online. Some of these candidates I could get behind. Bernie Sanders is obviously the best but his advanced age is a weakness at this point. Warren is also solid but tends to sometimes fail progressive "purity tests." I would still vote for her though. Andrew Yang is interesting but he kinda needs some experience with policy before I feel comfortable with him. I'd support him but kind of in the way I supported Stein...voting purely on ideas and ideology rather than actual pragmatic concerns. Joe Biden is a strong candidate, but he's a bit of a centrist and I would not be inclined to vote for her. Harris talks a big game, but has little follow through making her an untrustworthy alternative for progressives. Cory Booker is a straight up neoliberal I would not support. Finally, Tammy Duckworth is an interesting person but seems to say little on economics and this would not be a preferred choice. Stacking these guys up against Clinton, I would say most of them are an improvement. I'd be kind of leery of the more centrist/neoliberal of the group like Booker and Biden, and would likely consider another third party vote if they ran, but I see some names I could support. Of course, a lot could change in a few years. Especially if the dems pull dirty tricks again. For reference at this point in 2014 I would've actually been open to Clinton, even if Sanders and Warren were already my #1 and 2 choices. That changed primarily because of Clinton's campaign and the democratic ground game. It all depends how things go.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Looking forward to 2020, electoral college math
So, I felt like discussing something with the electoral college today. Trump might have won in 2016, but this should not be seen as a normal path to victory. It was, in my opinion, a fluke caused by the worst case scenario for democrats. I discussed electoral college math last election extensively and even had frequent updates. I did not see the rust belt turning to Trump, but it's safe to say outside of that unforeseen development, that the electoral college heavily favors democrats. Here's why.
If the democrats held the blue wall, Clinton would have won 296-242. With Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania held by democrats, I only saw one path to victory for Trump, and it would've given him a narrow 270-268 victory. This with the GOP sweeping the board more or less. You could MAYBE throw in Colorado and Virginia in there, which used to vote republican more, but that would still have Trump winning less than he did with the states he won.
In an election cycle the democrats aren't quite as unpopular and unlikable, the dems will kick the crap out of the republicans. Take this map for instance. This is a much more middle of the road map in my opinion. The dems win, but not by a massive margin. Basically Trump's 2016 margin or Obama's 2012 margin. If the democrats really do good, this isn't out of the question.
Considering how the GOP will not be nearly as popular or the democrats nearly as unpopular going into 2020, I could see the democrats winning, assuming they win the rust belt. The rust belt is currently the most integral region to swinging elections. Traditionally democratic territory in recent years but has been turning more purple as the democrats have basically abandoned these people. If the democrats can win them back with a strong working class message, and run a candidate not nearly as disliked as Clinton, the democrats could have won 2016 with ease. And they'll likely win 2020 with ease too.
A huge aspect of Clinton's strategy that fell apart was she was trying too hard to go on the offensive in the south in states like Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, appealing to Latinos and moderates in an attempt to swing those states. But these states aren't purple enough to consider Clinton a serious candidate, and as such, she not only failed to win them over, she lost more traditional battleground states and rust belt states who wanted something different. Triangulation works good for democrats in theory, but in practice, is a double edged sword. You stand to gain 2 demographics instead of 1, but you could also lose both, which is what Clinton did.
The current political map favors democrats overall, it just requires them to run a competent game plan that doesn't gamble away their advantage in hope of a landslide victory. It doesn't matter if you win by 270 electoral votes or 400, you're president all the same (although admittedly 400 does give you a stronger mandate). It's highly likely in my opinion that Trump will lose his bid for a second term, although it's not a foregone conclusion. If the democrats go into next election overconfident again, they could end up with another rude awakening.
If the democrats held the blue wall, Clinton would have won 296-242. With Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania held by democrats, I only saw one path to victory for Trump, and it would've given him a narrow 270-268 victory. This with the GOP sweeping the board more or less. You could MAYBE throw in Colorado and Virginia in there, which used to vote republican more, but that would still have Trump winning less than he did with the states he won.
In an election cycle the democrats aren't quite as unpopular and unlikable, the dems will kick the crap out of the republicans. Take this map for instance. This is a much more middle of the road map in my opinion. The dems win, but not by a massive margin. Basically Trump's 2016 margin or Obama's 2012 margin. If the democrats really do good, this isn't out of the question.
Considering how the GOP will not be nearly as popular or the democrats nearly as unpopular going into 2020, I could see the democrats winning, assuming they win the rust belt. The rust belt is currently the most integral region to swinging elections. Traditionally democratic territory in recent years but has been turning more purple as the democrats have basically abandoned these people. If the democrats can win them back with a strong working class message, and run a candidate not nearly as disliked as Clinton, the democrats could have won 2016 with ease. And they'll likely win 2020 with ease too.
A huge aspect of Clinton's strategy that fell apart was she was trying too hard to go on the offensive in the south in states like Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, appealing to Latinos and moderates in an attempt to swing those states. But these states aren't purple enough to consider Clinton a serious candidate, and as such, she not only failed to win them over, she lost more traditional battleground states and rust belt states who wanted something different. Triangulation works good for democrats in theory, but in practice, is a double edged sword. You stand to gain 2 demographics instead of 1, but you could also lose both, which is what Clinton did.
The current political map favors democrats overall, it just requires them to run a competent game plan that doesn't gamble away their advantage in hope of a landslide victory. It doesn't matter if you win by 270 electoral votes or 400, you're president all the same (although admittedly 400 does give you a stronger mandate). It's highly likely in my opinion that Trump will lose his bid for a second term, although it's not a foregone conclusion. If the democrats go into next election overconfident again, they could end up with another rude awakening.
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
The past year or so in review
So...as you know, I havent written in a while. A lot of this is due to lacking motivation and wanting to focus on other things. It's not that I'm still not passionate about politics, but with me passion ebbs and flows, sometimes I'm super motivated and other times...not so much. And the past year or so I haven't been that motivated. And why would I be? We have republicans in charge who don't give a crap about us, and democrats who want to be in charge who don't give a crap about us. The political system is a total crapshow and the entire narrative is so far away from where it needs to be to actually make the quality of life for your average American better. And that's gonna be my general undertone of this article.
Russia and the democrats
The democrats have spent most of this year focusing on Russia and trying to rally the narrative around them as a righteous mccarthyist alternative to a nation full of traitors. The democrats go after Trump with Russia to bring attention away from themselves, and to attack Trump and disaffected lefties like me who just won't buy the mainstream narrative.
I'm gonna be honest, I haven't been paying attention to this season of The Apprentice with all the firings going down from this Russia stuff among other things, and quite frankly, I don't care (to be honest at this rate it looks like Mike Pence is gonna win). Drama bores me, and this reminds me of the kinds of witch hunts the republicans did against Clinton with Benghazi. If there's truth to be told and charges to come out, let them come out, after all we can't tolerate actual traitors, but I think we should avoid the kinds of alarmism the democrats are doing on this subject.
One thing I will point out the clear the air here is when I was active with this blog in 2016, I wrote some articles about Guccifer 2.0 and the wikileaks leaks. Yeah, apparently those were actually released by Russia. I just wanna clear the air and be honest here. Russia apparently released the info and I didn't know it at the time.
Does this mean I bought into Russia propaganda though? No. And here's why. I am a critical thinker, I've been calling BS on the democratic party since before this stuff came out, and when this stuff came out it was evidence of previous claims. All Russia did was confirm what many of us already figured out. And because the information came from Russia, does that mean it's all of the sudden wrong? If you're a democrat, apparently so, but if you're me, a critical thinker with no real solid affiliation to any organization I would sell out my values for, no. That's a whole bunch of poisoning the well right there. Does Russia have motivations for releasing this stuff? Yes, they wanted Trump elected because he's an idiot. Does the DNC have motivations for trying to get everyone to ignore it? Yes, they want to cover up their corruption and whip everyone up in a patriotic fervor and get them to forget all about their misdeeds. There, plain and simple. Everyone has motivations all around and we shouldn't just buy into one narrative and ignore the other because we don't like who says it. You're gonna "buy into someone's propaganda" no matter what you do, all you can do is make your own narrative and interpret information within your own interests. Which is what I'm doing. We should punish and sanction Russia for doing this crap to us. I'm not saying we shouldn't (although a democrat will interpret it that way). But we also shouldn't turn a blind eye to the democrats and their corruption. They still had an unfair primary and when taken to court didn't even defend themselves, they basically said they had a right to rig it. And yeah, I just wanted to clear the air there. The way I see it the democrats still did shady things, regardless of where the information came from.
HRC still doesn't get it
Clinton is still as clueless as ever as to why she lost. She wrote a book last year called "What Happened?" and while there were a few moments of clarity in there (gee, maybe I should've run on a basic income platform, maybe that would've won!....ya think?!), she largely missed the mark and blamed Russia, Bernie Bros, James Comey, etc. While these factors likely did have an impact, it almost has a "and I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids" vibe. Yes those factors mattered, but the big thing is that YOU SUCKED AS A CANDIDATE. Seriously, Clinton was the worst candidate the democrats could've run and she still lacks the self awareness mostly to understand why she lost. Even more recently, she had a statement about how she won the productive people, forward thinking people and basically insulted people who didn't vote for her by implying they're racist and sexist. Yeah, you didn't win the unproductive people because they're pissed off you had nothing to offer them. DUH. And the democrats haven't won racists over since the 60s really. Really, I wish she would just go away. She's clueless.
Trump is an incompetent moron
Given how the democrats act, I don't really regret my Stein vote, but man does Trump push it sometimes. He's largely pushed a right wing agenda, but thankfully, he can't seem to pass anything. ACA is still intact, and his only real legislative accomplishment is some tax cuts he's now crediting an "economic boom" for. I kinda knew this would happen. Trump is weak and lacks leadership. On foreign policy he's a joke and spends more time insulting Kim Jong Un on twitter than doing anything productive, and I hope the idiot doesn't start a war. He doesn't seem to understand Kim Jong Un is putting on an act. And Trump is taking him seriously and that's scary. It's like being the only one not in on a joke and getting offended and you hope the now rampaging idiot doesn't start hitting anyone. Domestically, again, largely a failure, ACA still intact, Mexico not paying for the wall (who didn't see that one coming?), and okay, yay trickle down.
To topple the actual tax cuts thing being good for america, let me say a few things. We have a system in capitalism in which we have booms and busts. 2008 was a huge bust. 2010 and onward the economy has been "booming" or expanding. 8 years later it's relatively prosperous as the stock market is high, we're getting our growth back, and unemployment is down. "Thanks, Obama!" No really, Obama oversaw the crap years and now Trump's trying to take credit for a logical expansion of years of recovery. Even then, I am still of the opinion things aren't great. What good is a good stock market and growth if the gains go to the top and the people at the bottom are in just as precarious of a position as ever? Oh yay you got a 1k tax cut! Big deal, that's chump change compared to what you SHOULD be getting. What good is low unemployment when labor participation is down, you still need 3+ years experience for an "entry level" job and you're stuck working jobs you hate? Trump and the republicans have a way of twisting the optics of the economy to look like things are better than they are. The democrats tried to do this but failed because let's be honest, a lot of people on the left are aware of the shortcomings of the economy as it exists, but the right....the right loves this kind of stuff. They can claim token victories on various issues and make it look like they're doing a lot. Meanwhile the democrats who are literally do nothings look like crap in comparison...this is what happens when you triangulate. You get the results of the republicans, without being able to take credit because you're muddying ideological grounds between democrats and republicans. Sure sometimes you can win enough on both sides to win, but otherwise both the left and the right turn on you. Which is what happened.
But yeah, I just wanted to write on my feel of the Trump presidency. Doesnt know what he's doing, incompetent to pass much, outside of tax cuts, and tax cuts are highly exaggerated in their effect.
Roseanne premiere and democratic hate
Meanwhile, Roseanne had a series reboot last week and the democrats are hating on that. Why? Because her character, like her real life counterpart, supports Trump. Because of this a lot of democrats are losing their minds and refusing to watch. Which is stupid. Roseanne has always been a show about the white working class in the rust belt. You know, the people the democrats NEED to pay more attention to. She's always pushed progressive values on her show, tackling controversial topics like race relations, abortion, gay marriage, and stuff related to worker rights and the crap people near the bottom have to go through. How abusive and obnoxious her various bosses were over time and how degrading wage employment is. Heck her show even has SOCIALIST sympathies as during the lottery season she fantasized of buying out her old place of employment and turning it over to the workers. Yeah, that happened. Real life roseanne isnt much different. As recently as 2012 she ran for the green party on a socialist platform and eventually ran on another party when she lost to Jill Stein.
Now, feminist, progressive, socialist roseanne supports Trump. What the actual ****? The show doesnt have tons of an overt political focus, but she mentioned on the show "he talked about jobs and shaking things up." You know, something Clinton didn't. And just look at the themes of the new show. Darlene is moving back home after losing her job, her kid is gender curious, DJ's kid is black, and they're paying twice as much for half the meds. This show really does a good job I think of painting Trump supporters less of the "deplorable" stereotype people like Clinton are trying to push, but of really progressive people who actually are living in a craphole of an economy. See my above themes in the Trump section. Notice how the democrats failed to address these problems. Yeah, okay, unemployment is 4%, so why are people still struggling? We passed the ACA, why is healthcare so unaffordable? The democrats OBVIOUSLY need a different direction, and could easily win over these people if they weren't afraid to embrace capitalism, but they won't. They're too busy writing off working class voters to appeal to rich moderate republicans in cities. No, literally, this is Chuck Schumer on the democratic party's election strategy in 2016:
Conclusion
Yeah as you guys can tell, Im deeply cynical with the current state of things. The republicans are idiots, of course I knew they would be. The democrats are clueless and have sold out the people and would rather go on a mccarthyist crusade and vote shame than actually run a platform people can vote for, and nothing is getting done. I struggle to even consider myself a democrat these days. I definitely have more of an affinity toward the greens and the like and wished they ran more competent people than Jill Stein (someone more like Nader maybe?). Only reason I'm registered as a democrat is because I still want to maybe try to influence primaries again. But if the democrats don't shape up, Im probably gonna stuck with third parties from here on out.
Russia and the democrats
The democrats have spent most of this year focusing on Russia and trying to rally the narrative around them as a righteous mccarthyist alternative to a nation full of traitors. The democrats go after Trump with Russia to bring attention away from themselves, and to attack Trump and disaffected lefties like me who just won't buy the mainstream narrative.
I'm gonna be honest, I haven't been paying attention to this season of The Apprentice with all the firings going down from this Russia stuff among other things, and quite frankly, I don't care (to be honest at this rate it looks like Mike Pence is gonna win). Drama bores me, and this reminds me of the kinds of witch hunts the republicans did against Clinton with Benghazi. If there's truth to be told and charges to come out, let them come out, after all we can't tolerate actual traitors, but I think we should avoid the kinds of alarmism the democrats are doing on this subject.
One thing I will point out the clear the air here is when I was active with this blog in 2016, I wrote some articles about Guccifer 2.0 and the wikileaks leaks. Yeah, apparently those were actually released by Russia. I just wanna clear the air and be honest here. Russia apparently released the info and I didn't know it at the time.
Does this mean I bought into Russia propaganda though? No. And here's why. I am a critical thinker, I've been calling BS on the democratic party since before this stuff came out, and when this stuff came out it was evidence of previous claims. All Russia did was confirm what many of us already figured out. And because the information came from Russia, does that mean it's all of the sudden wrong? If you're a democrat, apparently so, but if you're me, a critical thinker with no real solid affiliation to any organization I would sell out my values for, no. That's a whole bunch of poisoning the well right there. Does Russia have motivations for releasing this stuff? Yes, they wanted Trump elected because he's an idiot. Does the DNC have motivations for trying to get everyone to ignore it? Yes, they want to cover up their corruption and whip everyone up in a patriotic fervor and get them to forget all about their misdeeds. There, plain and simple. Everyone has motivations all around and we shouldn't just buy into one narrative and ignore the other because we don't like who says it. You're gonna "buy into someone's propaganda" no matter what you do, all you can do is make your own narrative and interpret information within your own interests. Which is what I'm doing. We should punish and sanction Russia for doing this crap to us. I'm not saying we shouldn't (although a democrat will interpret it that way). But we also shouldn't turn a blind eye to the democrats and their corruption. They still had an unfair primary and when taken to court didn't even defend themselves, they basically said they had a right to rig it. And yeah, I just wanted to clear the air there. The way I see it the democrats still did shady things, regardless of where the information came from.
HRC still doesn't get it
Clinton is still as clueless as ever as to why she lost. She wrote a book last year called "What Happened?" and while there were a few moments of clarity in there (gee, maybe I should've run on a basic income platform, maybe that would've won!....ya think?!), she largely missed the mark and blamed Russia, Bernie Bros, James Comey, etc. While these factors likely did have an impact, it almost has a "and I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids" vibe. Yes those factors mattered, but the big thing is that YOU SUCKED AS A CANDIDATE. Seriously, Clinton was the worst candidate the democrats could've run and she still lacks the self awareness mostly to understand why she lost. Even more recently, she had a statement about how she won the productive people, forward thinking people and basically insulted people who didn't vote for her by implying they're racist and sexist. Yeah, you didn't win the unproductive people because they're pissed off you had nothing to offer them. DUH. And the democrats haven't won racists over since the 60s really. Really, I wish she would just go away. She's clueless.
Trump is an incompetent moron
Given how the democrats act, I don't really regret my Stein vote, but man does Trump push it sometimes. He's largely pushed a right wing agenda, but thankfully, he can't seem to pass anything. ACA is still intact, and his only real legislative accomplishment is some tax cuts he's now crediting an "economic boom" for. I kinda knew this would happen. Trump is weak and lacks leadership. On foreign policy he's a joke and spends more time insulting Kim Jong Un on twitter than doing anything productive, and I hope the idiot doesn't start a war. He doesn't seem to understand Kim Jong Un is putting on an act. And Trump is taking him seriously and that's scary. It's like being the only one not in on a joke and getting offended and you hope the now rampaging idiot doesn't start hitting anyone. Domestically, again, largely a failure, ACA still intact, Mexico not paying for the wall (who didn't see that one coming?), and okay, yay trickle down.
To topple the actual tax cuts thing being good for america, let me say a few things. We have a system in capitalism in which we have booms and busts. 2008 was a huge bust. 2010 and onward the economy has been "booming" or expanding. 8 years later it's relatively prosperous as the stock market is high, we're getting our growth back, and unemployment is down. "Thanks, Obama!" No really, Obama oversaw the crap years and now Trump's trying to take credit for a logical expansion of years of recovery. Even then, I am still of the opinion things aren't great. What good is a good stock market and growth if the gains go to the top and the people at the bottom are in just as precarious of a position as ever? Oh yay you got a 1k tax cut! Big deal, that's chump change compared to what you SHOULD be getting. What good is low unemployment when labor participation is down, you still need 3+ years experience for an "entry level" job and you're stuck working jobs you hate? Trump and the republicans have a way of twisting the optics of the economy to look like things are better than they are. The democrats tried to do this but failed because let's be honest, a lot of people on the left are aware of the shortcomings of the economy as it exists, but the right....the right loves this kind of stuff. They can claim token victories on various issues and make it look like they're doing a lot. Meanwhile the democrats who are literally do nothings look like crap in comparison...this is what happens when you triangulate. You get the results of the republicans, without being able to take credit because you're muddying ideological grounds between democrats and republicans. Sure sometimes you can win enough on both sides to win, but otherwise both the left and the right turn on you. Which is what happened.
But yeah, I just wanted to write on my feel of the Trump presidency. Doesnt know what he's doing, incompetent to pass much, outside of tax cuts, and tax cuts are highly exaggerated in their effect.
Roseanne premiere and democratic hate
Meanwhile, Roseanne had a series reboot last week and the democrats are hating on that. Why? Because her character, like her real life counterpart, supports Trump. Because of this a lot of democrats are losing their minds and refusing to watch. Which is stupid. Roseanne has always been a show about the white working class in the rust belt. You know, the people the democrats NEED to pay more attention to. She's always pushed progressive values on her show, tackling controversial topics like race relations, abortion, gay marriage, and stuff related to worker rights and the crap people near the bottom have to go through. How abusive and obnoxious her various bosses were over time and how degrading wage employment is. Heck her show even has SOCIALIST sympathies as during the lottery season she fantasized of buying out her old place of employment and turning it over to the workers. Yeah, that happened. Real life roseanne isnt much different. As recently as 2012 she ran for the green party on a socialist platform and eventually ran on another party when she lost to Jill Stein.
Now, feminist, progressive, socialist roseanne supports Trump. What the actual ****? The show doesnt have tons of an overt political focus, but she mentioned on the show "he talked about jobs and shaking things up." You know, something Clinton didn't. And just look at the themes of the new show. Darlene is moving back home after losing her job, her kid is gender curious, DJ's kid is black, and they're paying twice as much for half the meds. This show really does a good job I think of painting Trump supporters less of the "deplorable" stereotype people like Clinton are trying to push, but of really progressive people who actually are living in a craphole of an economy. See my above themes in the Trump section. Notice how the democrats failed to address these problems. Yeah, okay, unemployment is 4%, so why are people still struggling? We passed the ACA, why is healthcare so unaffordable? The democrats OBVIOUSLY need a different direction, and could easily win over these people if they weren't afraid to embrace capitalism, but they won't. They're too busy writing off working class voters to appeal to rich moderate republicans in cities. No, literally, this is Chuck Schumer on the democratic party's election strategy in 2016:
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”Yeah, how did that turn out for you?
Conclusion
Yeah as you guys can tell, Im deeply cynical with the current state of things. The republicans are idiots, of course I knew they would be. The democrats are clueless and have sold out the people and would rather go on a mccarthyist crusade and vote shame than actually run a platform people can vote for, and nothing is getting done. I struggle to even consider myself a democrat these days. I definitely have more of an affinity toward the greens and the like and wished they ran more competent people than Jill Stein (someone more like Nader maybe?). Only reason I'm registered as a democrat is because I still want to maybe try to influence primaries again. But if the democrats don't shape up, Im probably gonna stuck with third parties from here on out.
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