This is what we should fear from a Trump presidency:
I didn’t think I’d say this but I’m going to say it, and I hate to say it, but if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception, there has never been anything like it and we’re going to have a special prosecutor.
That’s a classic Trumpism, to try to blunt the odious nature of what he is about to say by claiming that he hates to say it. He clearly knows he’s stepping over the line by advocating turning the US into a Stalinesque autocracy because he needed that initial, meaningless disclaimer, but that’s a real threat, and believable because that’s exactly what the Republicans have done over and over again. They drag the country into what ought to literally be described in this case as a witch hunt, led by fanatical inquisitors, over empty accusations. They will consume time and money. They will be nothing but a true distraction from the business of the Oval Office, and we’ve seen it multiple times, from Whitewater to Benghazi, and every time the sanctimonious asshole in charge, whether it’s a Ken Starr or a Trey Gowdy, will persevere despite a lack of evidence, because the purpose is not to arrive at the truth, but to prolong the harassment.
Trump just promised to legally hound a defeated political opponent with the same tactics that have been used against the Clintons for decades…this time, an opponent who would be out of office and out of power. A potential president of the United States just threatened to use all of his power to torment a private citizen.
Clinton stayed cool, and even smiled, and told everyone to go check the facts, that there’s nothing there.
We have literally Trump, you can fact check him in real time. Last time, at the first debate, we had millions of people fact-checking. So I expect we’ll have millions more fact-checking because, you know, it is, it’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.
Yes, go look up the facts. There is nothing criminal in what Clinton did. A Republican FBI director has already thoroughly scrutinized the data determined that there was no intent to hide anything, and that what was deleted was a collection of personal emails, and that Clinton wasn’t even responsible for their removal. But this fluff and nonsense is what Trump thinks is a useful goal.
He also interrupted Clinton’s response.
Because you would be in jail.
A candidate for the American presidency just threatened to abuse his power and imprison his opponent after the election.
Stop right there. The man is incompetent and unfit for office, and wants to be a tyrant. Fear for the Republic.
Meet my new prosecutor; George Edward Stapo. He’s nice! He’s really nice. I mean like totally nice. So nice. Nice! He’s got all the nice. And sure he’ll lock you away – he invented lock you away – but he’s nice!
Wants to be a tyrant?
I’d like to know what his employees think of him. Have any ever dared to come forward & say, or are they all too scared?
What about former employees; are they scared too, or, on the other hand, is he a good boss?
I’m interested in the answers to these questions.
Yes that was probably the most awful thing he said, with the possible exception of all the other awful things he said.
Personally, what I find chilling is that he would have the de-facto power to do such.
The president can fire the AG for whatever they want to do – see the Saturday Night Massacre – so there’s no rule against saying “Either appoint a special investigator or pack your shit up and leave by noon”.
To me, it’s still his proposal for nation-wide Stop-and Frisk.
Never mind that police departments are local, and so he simply cannot implement this. But he’ll try.
And I agree, his pledge to attack Hillary legally is wrong. It cannot be allowed.
But national Stop-and_frisk is a nation-wide punishment on black people.
The thing is, this is not chilling to me. If you wanted to turn me into a radical, an activist, you couldn’t do better than presenting Trump as a serious candidate. It’s him first, right above the police in Ferguson.
If I had a choice, and the candidate didn’t have a say, I’d probably vote for Elizabeth Warren for President. But for now, Hillary will do.
Hillary is definitely the best option out of the two of them by a long way, but she’s vile. People were prosecuted and jailed for doing far less than she did.
Chambers Dictionary gives “trump” as an obsolete verb meaning “deceive”. “Trumpery” is “showy and worthless stuff; rubbish; ritual foolery”. WYSIWYG.
@ dusk
No, they haven’t. People have been prosecuted and jailed for INTENTIONALLY mishandling classified information, for exposing large amounts of classified information in a way that suggested intentional wrongdoing, and for indications of disloyalty to the US or intention to obstruct justice. The FBI director found no indications of any of those three elements.
@dusk.
I don’t think she is. Also, this is simply not a fight worth having. I’ll say this over and over – I want Trump to be crushed. My ideal candidate is not in play – which is fine. I’d like to see this crap buried.
I’m done with Trump voters. Whether they’re white nationalists, or just party-line voters, I can’t.
I have no chill left.
This is one of those situations where the lesser evil is vastly super-preferable.
As in, I would actually vote for Clinton if I was a Mercan.
You can use intestinal parasites as an analogy. A tapeworm is icky, but it will not kill you. A larval alien xenomorph will kill you every time.
I’d like to see Clinton prosecuted for the torture and war crimes, but if launching a witch hunt to prosecute her over a nonissue is the only way she sees the inside of a jail cell then I’d be willing to settle for the lesser evil.
@Jake
Question one is what torture and war crimes and then question two is why just Hillary Clinton?
I like Hillary Clinton. She’s dedicated, capable, clear-eyed, intelligent and will be a good public administrator. She is the best that the United States can hope to have right now. She would be a great candidate even if her opponent was anyone of the clowns in the Republican clown car. The fact that her opponent isn’t fit to run a library adult program on finance should just make the choice that much clearer. Yet every time on the internet I see “she’s the lesser of two evils”. She isn’t.
Trump is just letting his inner Putin out. A lot of his followers, I suspect, would secretly love to have Vladimir in charge, and if they elect Trump they might just get their wishes.
The best strategy now is not merely to vote for Hillary, but to work hard to get both the Senate and House majority Democrat. Then if Hillary screws up she won’t have any excuses. With a Republican Senate and House on the other hand, she’ll have every excuse because they will block absolutely everything she wants to do. Then of course they’ll try to blame it all on her anyway.
Give her a democratic house and senate for four years and then you’ll be able to judge the results and she won’t be able to deflect the blame if blame there is. If you are going to blame her give her the power to be blameworthy.
I was half-expecting to be excoriated for not knowing the answers to my questions (@ 2). But, silence.
I have a Sheldon-like interest in popular culture, so I genuinely don’t know, but I am now curious because if D T Rump were to be elected President, that would take his antics beyond merely popular culture.
@ antigone10
Answer one: The torture program perpetrated by the United States is well-known by this point as are the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, and so forth. That Clinton served as a Senator and then as Secretary of State throughout a hefty chunk of it is also public knowledge.
Answer two: I didn’t say just Clinton; if someone proposed prosecuting Bush, Obama, and everyone else down to the lowest-ranked soldiers at Guantanamo, I’d be all for that too. I only mentioned Clinton because she’s the only person for whom the prospect of a prosecution was directly proposed.
Jake, your personal hatred for Clinton is well known. You have stated your case. Now let those who deal with reality talk.
@14 Ed Seedhouse:
We already tried that with Obama. Plenty of people here tried making excuses for him anyway. At this point, Clinton could advocate nuking Aleppo and half of Pharyngula would defend her on the grounds that she’s “capable, clear-eyed, intelligent and a good public administrator” and besides Trump wants to nuke Aleppo and Damascus so we should refrain from criticizing her lest he win.
@17:
Troll, your personal hatred for me is well known. You have stated your case. Now let those who deal with reality talk.
Fact checks by NBC News from the debate. Trump is still a full fledged liar and bullshitter who doesn’t acknowledge reality. Links to answers in the NBC post.
Jake the asshole.
Oh, your beloved Greens are called viable (electable) by you. They are polling 2-3%. Delusion city if you think they are electable, showing with prima facie evidence your lack of reality.
@antigone10
“I like Hillary Clinton. She’s dedicated, capable, clear-eyed, intelligent and will be a good public administrator. “
I agree, but notice that those are all what we’d call “secondary virtues” in Germany. You can be a capable, clear-eyed, intelligent concentration camp administrator (excuse the Godwin, but it is a German subject…), because those virtues lack a moral dimension. Hillary Clinton has all those secondary virtues you mention while also being greedy, power-hungry and without discernible moral convictions.
What makes her the “lesser of two evils” is that Trump is not only even more morally bankrupt but also an idiot.
Rejected!
If you payed any attention back in ’08, you’d know that Obama was a centrist. I cried when he was elected, and almost went out and marched in the streets, simply because I was amazed to see a black guy elected president after doing everything right…but let’s review.
We watched the GOP throw a massive, 8-year long fit. We saw the Tea Party, folks screaming “you lie!” , Herman Cain and so on. Hell, for a moment we even saw that horrible idiot Allen West. We saw Mitch McConnnel literally put his party above the country. We saw he republicans, at the behest of Ted Cruz, almost flounce on our deficit payments.
This is beyond the pale. It’s completely irresponsible. It has to stop.
@Zeppelin #22, so that’s why she put so much money and effort into helping women and children and helping AIDS victims get affordable medicine, because she’s greedy power-hungry and no morals. Um… I can’t see the link I admit.
@Troll, 21:
That’s one straw man and a pair of PRATTs so it’s clear you’re still far too disconnected from reality to be worth my time.
But since I’m feeling charitable, I’ll remind you that I don’t support the Greens (let alone consider them “beloved”) and I’m well aware their chances of winning are abysmal. I am, however, voting for Jill Stein simply because there is no alternative for the 2016 presidential race. And for all your whining, you have never even tried to offer a viable alternative.
Yes, Trump threatened to throw Hillary Clinton in jail.
This is pure fascist totalitarianism!!!
It’s what the Nazis, commies, and almost all non-democratic states do.
There is never just one cockroach!!!
After Hillary, who is next? There will be a next enemy.
And when will president Trump and Rethuglican party get…to us/me? I hope I can take my cats when we get set to the FEMA Reeducation camps.
“A candidate for the American presidency just threatened to abuse his power and imprison his opponent after the election.” ~ Yea, but as it happens, the folks who support this candidate see nothing wrong with this.
Our problem is *not* to point out how Trump is a scary person. Our problem is that a large number of people either think that’s a good thing, or think it’s less bad than voting for Hil.
“If you think these people are bad, you ought to see the folks who voted for them.” ~ Molly Ivins.
That behavior would be totally the norm for the average African dictator.
@Ariaflame
Charity is something rich people do to buy moral acclaim for money after a lifetime of doing shady shit to acquire that money in the first place.
It’s not like any of it entailed personal sacrifices on Hillary’s part. She still has more money than she could ever need. It’s the king riding through town and throwing some gold coins to the beggars once a year. We shouldn’t be praising rich people for giving us alms, we should be demanding that they hand over their useless wealth to those who need it.
Note that none of this is a condemnation of just Hillary Clinton specifically. She’s not bad for a successful US politician, it’s just that that’s a very low moral bar to clear. It’s not enough to make me like or even particularly respect her as a person.
Trump isn’t kidding.
We’ve been here before.
Richard Nixon had his enemies list. LBJ had his FBI.
It’s not unheard of for the US government to use state power to harass its perceived enemies and critics.
One of them was…me. And a few million other anti-Vietnam war protesters. I do have an FBI file from those days. I consider it one of my finest accomplishments.
The facile Southpark allegory of “Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwich” has been proven wrong by every US general election, not just the one that spawned that meme, and this one is no different.
This decision is more like “cocktail of polonium and methanol vs. supermarket orange juice.” Not as environmentally friendly or healthy as self-pressed garden orange juice, but still a pretty good source of vitamins and quencher of thirst in stark contrast to the other option.
There are a lot of ways for governments to harass people they don’t like. A common one often used is a simple one. Just kill them. It only takes a few seconds and a bullet.
In times past, the US government has used the IRS.
And of course, the FBI.
@applehead
I’d say it’s more like choosing between a fast-acting poison and a slow-acting one. If you’ve any hope left you should obviously pick the latter because it’ll give you more time to try and find an antidote.
But if you pretend it’s not poison because it doesn’t taste as bad and doesn’t eat through your guts immediately, you’re still doomed.
I guess what I was getting at was that I’m not so much afraid of Trump making these claims as much as I’m afraid from the fact that he’s totally capable of making good on them.
As someone whose country of origin just had a dictator clean house and purge the government, the fact that Trump or any other President can just go “Purge this person or you’re fired” to the AG doesn’t bode well.
Also, thank god we have Applehead to downplay war crimes.
Because god knows, it’s impossible to support your candidate of choice without acknowledging the fact that we’re slaughtering civilians in drone strikes to kill one or two insurgents at a time.
Jake @ 11
I’m sorry, did you just say that you would like to see someone put behind bars for crimes she was cleared of, simply because you believe she should be tried for other crimes? Conviction by coincidence is not how I want my justice system to work.
#33, Zeppelin,
the dose makes the poison. I’d argue Clinton is caustic enough to succesfully govern, to make significant change for the better happen and make it stick. What would’ve happened with a gallon of purified water like Sanders? America would be demineralized and keel over. Not only would he have lost against Trump, as a socialist-in-name-only who has never achieved anything of national note he wouldn’t be able to get anything pass Congress, be short-changed in international negotiations, etc.
Hillary knows how to see policy executed.
If you want a future in which America doesn’t drone-bomb wedding societies, mass-surveils the population, or whatever heinous acts you rightfully despise (just like I do, mind), you need to make sure there IS an America still standing in the future.
And President Hillary Rodham Clinton is that rung in the ladder of incremental political change.
Meaningless dribble.
We would’ve had something to drink which wasn’t poisonous? Or maybe it could clean the windows, I don’t know. Do you have something against water? All of our lives somehow manage to depend on it utterly, so it seems to be … you know … effective at stuff.
Perhaps you should go to rhetoric school and take an introductory course in metaphorology, because you suck at it.
But what about our precious bodily fluids? They won’t be sapped and impurified, right?
Citation needed. The muck that clogs locker room drains would have a chance against Trump at this point.
Uh… since when does being elected president not count as achieving anything of national note? You’re saying that on the condition that he is elected, we’re still supposed to be pretend as if that isn’t the case. Because you’re a bullshitter who isn’t even trying to think clearly, just “win” an argument.
What does this even mean? Were we supposed to get change in return for something? Does the president typically conduct negotiations personally?
How do you know anything like this? Etc.
Why would America not be standing in the future if Sanders were elected? You don’t actually need to say the most absurd thing which comes to mind, but honestly I don’t expect anything less, so just go for it I suppose.
I am no fan of Clinton by any stretch of the imagination, but Raven @ 26 and 30 has a point – Trump’s targeting of Clinton would inevitably be the thin end of the wedge. If he gets to set up his special prosecutor and thus use state power to exact personal revenge on a defeated political opponent, he will soon develop a taste for that, and then it will be open season for anyone in the US who has ever been critical of him. John Oliver would be well advised to return to the UK post haste, but many others would not have any such luxury. Trump and co. have whined about ‘witch hunts’ throughout this election, but if he gets into power we will see the real thing. A petty, delusionally self-obsessed and arrogant man with that much power is one of the most volatile of political cocktails.
#38,
My Gods, aren’t you just droll. You must think yourself supremely eloquent educating us unthinking masses.
A common accusation leveled against Cheetoh Jesus (because that’s self-evident) is that he doesn’t have the faintest about politics and would be outsmarted by every mid-level bureaucrat in spite of all the talk how he knows how to “make the best deals.” Now imagine a weak, populist brocialist like Sanders in the same shoes. Do you seriously believe that guy would have the vehemence to stand up to, say, Putin and his lackeys?
No, of course he would not. But Hillary can, because she’s a strong leader.
Ari Melber: “Trump’s pledge to jail Clinton – which Pence just defended today – was literally one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon:…”
Becca Stareyes @ 36
When I first read this I thought I had misinterpreted what I had seen. I couldn’t conceive of anyone arguing in all seriousness that a false, manifestly groundless accusations should be used as a premise to imprison someone as a means to go after them for unrelated charges. And then I looked at Jake Harban @ 11, and saw that Becca was absolutely right.
Jake Harban @ 11;
So, just throw little, apparently unimportant things such as due process and the right to a fair, unbiased trial straight out of the window so that you can enact your own little political purge against Clinton in a fashion that good old Stalin himself would be truly proud of? You real think that is a lesser evil? Do you even listen to yourself? How do you think setting that precedent would end? Once you establish that law is no more than a tool for the pursuit of political vendettas, how long do you think it would be before you or someone you cared about would be on the receiving end?
@applehead
“If you want a future in which America doesn’t drone-bomb wedding societies, mass-surveils the population, or whatever heinous acts you rightfully despise (just like I do, mind), you need to make sure there IS an America still standing in the future.”
Since I’m not American, a sufficiently dire collapse of the US would also accomplish this without inconveniencing me too much (and would satisfy my darker urges for retribution and the like). But I agree, there’s a better way.
And President Hillary Rodham Clinton is that rung in the ladder of incremental political change.
I think she and her ilk are more like the dirt the ladder needs to stand on, but yes. Which is why I think calling her the “lesser evil” is exactly accurate. She’s still part of a caste of despicable oligarchs, she’ll still continue the violent imperialist foreign policy and the capitalist exploitation of her own people. Under her, the US will still drone-bomb wedding societies and read my e-mails. She’s still poison, but voting for her at least leaves a chance for things to improve later.
@Zeppelin
“greedy, power-hungry and without discernible moral convictions”. I don’t know how Hillary Clinton qualifies as greedy. Power-hungry yes, but if you wanted to put that in more morally neutral terms it would be “ambitious”. Every single person who runs for the President of the United States is ambitious- you would have to be to want to govern 320 million people. And I think she does have moral convictions- she has never wavered on women’s rights for one. She just doesn’t have the same moral convictions of every liberal in the United States, not the least of which is because we don’t agree on them. And even then we rank which ones we think are the most important, as she has clearly done.
I don’t know if I would like Hillary Clinton personally, I rather suspect I would find her interesting to talk to based on her white papers. But I don’t care if I would personally like a politician. I don’t want to drink a beer with them. I want them to execute to the best of their ability the party platforms. And I think she will execute, to the best of her ability, the Democrat’s platform which I mostly agree with.
Why am I imagining this? Do you intend to support anything you say? Whenever you stop dreaming, let everybody know if you have any fucking evidence.
Does he need “vehemence” to stay out of a war with Russia? Or are you hoping he’ll vehemently start one while “standing up” to Putin?
Leading us into wars wouldn’t make anyone a good leader. But let’s give Clinton some credit: she’s not as stupid as you are and would be just as much of a pacifist as Sanders when it come to Russia. I have no idea what you think she would do differently about Putin, and I sincerely do not give a shit about your silly fucking thoughts. But since you assume the US wouldn’t be standing with Sanders as president, you’re apparently predicting an extremely violent outcome — not just predicting it but aching for it I guess, because you think that’s a sign of “leadership.” And that’s really fucking disturbing.
#43, Zeppelin,
If you sincerely, steadfastly, believe a dire collapse of the USA wouldn’t so much as inconvenience you – and not a single thought spared to the countless innocents both inside and outside the Union afflicted! – you cannot be helped, not by me or anyone and anything. Words fail.
@antigone10
I am also looking at this as an inhabitant of the Rest Of The World. Democratic Realpolitik is pretty much the same as that of the Republicans’ — Obama is still fighting imperialist wars, still reading my e-mails, still murdering people in other countries without trial using drones, still pushing for international trade agreements that will further erode my government’s control over corporations and the economy, still making my country a target for terrorists because our stupid politicians won’t stop following the US from clusterfuck to clusterfuck…
Hillary is absolutely a less distasteful person than Donald Trump. If I could vote, I would vote for her. Her views on soclal wedge issues are more palatable, and she’s obviously more competent…but she is complicit in all of these crimes (and they absolutely would be called crimes if anyone but the US was doing it). Given her political history I see no reason to think she intends to change any of this — she’s not even paying lip service to that sort of radical change the way Obama did.
@applehead
I did say that it would satisfy my darker desire for retribution. As a reasonable person I understand that this desire is irratiional and that the average American doesn’t deserve to suffer for the crimes of their government, even if I’d like to slap them around the ears sometimes. Which is why I agreed with you that there is a better way.
As to the level of inconvenience to me personally, I am torn whether another 50 years (or however long I’ll live) of US hegemony and slow decline are preferable to a sharper collapse with a hope of improvement afterwards and at least some of the US’s war criminals brought to trial. Especially now that we’re steering towards another Cold War.
@applehead
But your sanctimonious outrage has been taken on board and will be ceremoniously committed to the sea once we leave port.
I’m just curious – if some foreign leader started bombing US population centers with the intent of killing international criminals, would we just write it off as a minor moral failing on that leader’s part, and certainly nothing to get upset or call them a war criminal over?
@36 Becca Stareyes:
Conviction by coincidence is not how I want my justice system to work either, but declaring the rich and powerful to be completely above the law is far worse than convicting them of something unrelated to their actual crimes.
If you want a future in which even the rich and powerful can be convicted of their crimes, you need to make sure they can be convicted of anything at all.
And convicting Hillary Rodham Clinton over a nonissue is that rung in the ladder of incremental political change.
@39, 42 Gregory Greenwood:
Right, because it’s not as if politically motivated witch hunts have happend before.
See, this is what separates pragmatists like me from the left-wing extremists like you. Due process and the right to fair unbiased trial isn’t a viable option. It never existed and it won’t exist in the immediate future.
The only viable options are to declare Clinton above the law and let her get away with her crimes or to convict her of something – anything – and successfully impose punishment even if it’s procedurally flawed.
Obviously, the latter option is infinitely preferable to the first, but ideological purists like you will happily see the former just so you can claim your personal hands are clean.
@50, Vivec:
Of course not. If a foreign leader bombed American cities and murdered thousands of civilians on the flimsiest pretext, you can be certain that we would be very reluctant about supporting them. In fact, we might even put clothespins on our noses as we voiced our approval!
Jake Harban @ 51;
So, in the world according to Jake Harban, prior unethical behavior makes a promise of future worse, even more explicitly unconstitutional and anti-democratic behavior by a presidential candidate, a non-issue? How curious.
Once again, I am left very nearly as profoundly glad that you have no political power as I am of the fact that Trump has none, at least as of yet.
Since when does believing in the rule of law and due process as important civil liberties make one an extremist, whether Left wing or otherwise? How is it pragmatic (rather than dangerously short sighted) to tear up the rule book and allow anyone in power to abuse the authority of the state to settle personal scores?
Citation needed.
Or – and here is a radical thought – you could pursue a legal prosecution, have your day in court and, should you lose, accept that this is how legal proceedings operate in a democracy. Appeal if you want to, but accept that due process must be respected. You could put your ego aside and accept that the rule of law must never be subverted, not even to act as your personal means to settle scores. Larger issues (like, you know, fundamental civil liberties) than your sense of outrage are at stake here.
Except I never once said that Clinton or anyone like her should be above the law, simply that they should be subject to the entirety of the law, both its sanctions should they be proven guilty (the part you seem to like so much) but also its protections, as should be true for every citizen, no matter who they are. You are the one who wants to corrupt the law to get the result you desire. You are mistaking principle and a commitment to a functional legal system that guarantees the rights of all citizens for unthinking political purism, which is doubly ironic given that you have amply demonstrated that your political stance matters more to you than anything else, including the essential rights that protect us all from the abuse of power and privilege. You would burn down the core architecture of the legal system itself and leave every American citizen exposed just to get one woman. It is monomaniacal, and like all obsessions, it is blind.
@52, Gregory Greenwood:
Maybe you should get down off your high horse and accept reality. There has never been due process in this country. The right to a fair trial has only ever existed on paper. Everyone in power has abused the authority of the state to settle personal scores.
If you want to challenge that, you’ll need to come to terms with the fact that when powerful people commit serious crimes, there are only two options— you can consider them above the law, or you can accept any conviction you can get even if it’s not the one you wanted. If you want to afford every protection an idealized fair system would offer, that’s up to you, but to take that approach morally and ethically you need to come to terms with the fact that doing so is equivalent to doing nothing at all. It’s the same thing as declaring you believe her above the law.
The only way to get a fair system that treats everybody equally under the law is through gradual incremental change— and the obvious, viable first step is to win a conviction against a powerful criminal who was otherwise considered above the law.
Of course, then you will have to stop masturbating over how much purer and better you are than anyone else.
Except, in the example of Clinton being convicted by the Trump administration, the de facto crime she’d be guilty of was ‘attempting to thwart someone richer and now more powerful than her’*. It doesn’t matter if the crime on paper is her emails or Benghazi or Vince Foster or wearing white after Labor Day. Which doesn’t lead to a world where the rich and powerful can be convicted of their crimes, unless you redefine crimes as only counting against other rich and powerful people. That’s not a useful change to a world where everyone is accountable, unless everyone is also redefined.
At this point, people know they may actually face consequences if they punch up, even if there’s only a few people above them. Hell, they know that they might face consequences when punching up in self-defense. To get a fair system, we need to start working on punching down, and not furthering the idea that ‘if you punch upward, you get buried in lawyers’.
* And I can’t believe that Trump truly cares about proper handling of classified documents, or funding embassies or use of drones in the Middle East or whatever he’s on about. I believe he cares about hurting Hillary Clinton for the mean things she says about him.
Oh, and adding. If Clinton hadn’t been investigated for these things exhaustively, then Trump saying it wouldn’t sting as much. Trump can be a selfish asshole AND we can live in a society where problems should be checked out and things should be assessed for wrongdoing. (Namely: if Clinton runs someone over with her campaign bus while drinking, Trump can say she should be arrested and be right, even if he only cares about getting her off his case.)
But we have rules against things like double jeopardy and attempts at rules to prevent harassing people through litigation. Trump opening an investigation done in exhausting detail doesn’t seem to have any legal value in finding wrongdoing in this particular case. It’s Trump convinced that throwing lawyers at his enemies is a valid tactic.
@54, Becca Stareyes:
You might want to get your sarcasm meter checked.
Jake if you want to charge Hilary with war crimes, then perhaps you might also want to prosecute Kissinger for his role in bringing Pinochet to power, Bush II, Cheney, Rumsfeld, ah hell even Colin Powell as well for starting a war that killed hundreds of thousands. You’d probably get a solid chance with those guys than you would with Hilary.
@gijoel:
Now that goes without saying.
If Trump appoints a special prosecutor and throws Clinton in jail, it would not be a case of the powerful getting prosecuted.
It would be a case where someone is prosecuted only after they’ve become powerless. It’s not a step toward justice; it’s a step towards even more centralization of power.
Or, to put it another way – in a contest of power, when the loser gets jailed, that’s got nothing to do with justice. Lots of countries have leaders that jail their political enemies, who probably used to be pretty rich and powerful, and all of those purges aren’t steps towards justice.
I’m generally pretty well on the ‘ends justify the means’ side of the question, but I’m really, really wary of justifying frivolous false tribunals to eliminate political enemies. That’s going on in my home country, and I’m pretty fucking sick of it.
Are people really not picking up what Harban’s putting down here? They’re parroting some of the arguments used against them when debating the merits of voting for HRC. It’s not a remotely intellectually honest approach, it’s offered in bad faith, the analogies are weak and missing their intended marks but it’s also really obvious in its heavy-handedness. Read the comments again.
Why don’t you explain it to those of us who are fed up with Harban’s lies and bullshit.
Well, I count myself amongst your numbers, but I did, in fact, explain it. He’s accusing his interlocutors of fetishizing purity over incremental, progressive change that will provide benefits and protections over time. Does that reasoning–divorced from the risible suggestion that HRC be imprisoned for crimes she hasn’t committed–sound familiar?
Jake Harban:
Yes, we certainly need to make sure they can be convicted for being humans, for being poor and impotent, for being alleged to have views identical to yours, for distributing unicorn testicles without a license, for squaring the circle, for proving that the square root of two is irrational, and so forth.
The rich and powerful often aren’t convicted for their crimes, so the solution to that is obviously to have a system in which they can be convicted for [insert anything at all here]. Because if the solution isn’t patently absurd, it won’t work.
That reminds me. I didn’t explicitly mention it, but of course the rich and powerful may also be convicted for practicing witchcraft. For great justice. It may be “procedurally flawed,” which is of course acceptable, but I’m sure that’s the only criticism one could level against a conviction like this.
Failing to convict people for allegedly expressing views identical to yours (or failing to obtain any other conviction) is equivalent to doing nothing. Obviously.
Gah… only “need” should be italicized.
Zeppelin wrote:
Unfortunately, it probably would inconvenience you. The U.S. mortgage crisis was enough to push the economy of several European countries (whose economies may not have been terribly healthy to begin with) over the edge, despite the fact they had nothing to do with the crisis itself. The U.S. economy is so entangled with most other countries’ economies that any instability in the U.S. inevitably hits the rest of the world, even when the cause is entirely domestic (including things like Ted Cruz’s ridiculous government shutdown).
jake
it was guys like you that helped me drop out of all political involvement even at the spectator level. Nothing in any way you are advocating can be construed as incremental change.
I do not see how you can claim that if we ignore the rule of law to convict some rich above the law person that will lead to the rule of law and justice for all as you imply.
I am not of the educated elites though I have some education some of it self taught and much of it technical in nature. I am just one of the working poor.
What you advocate offers me next to nothing you just want to be the new boss,
With the same rules only you do the deciding same as the old boss.
from where I set and in my life right now and for the foreseeable future there would be no change with your purity of motive and arbitrary justice.
uncle frogy
What you don’t explain is why anyone should bother trying to decode Harban’s drivel.
@snuffcurry
If that was what he was trying to get at, it was a spectacular failure.
Jake Harban @11:
With that much hyperbole, I am surprised you are still gravitationally bound to the solar system. Statements like this are not going to help you to be taken seriously. Neither will suggestions that people you don’t like should be thrown in jail on your personal whim, for that matter.
@LyleX, I wholeheartedly agree.
@KG, I don’t actually believe anyone need bother with obvious trolling, which is why I initially commented, because I felt, anyway, people were wasting their time once I recognized other people’s words* and rationalizations in Harban’s proverbial mouth to advance a demonstrably silly proposition that contradicts everything Harban has posted here in the past.
*one obvious example is applehead at 37, who used the phrase “rung in the ladder of incremental political change” to refer to HRC’s presidency. Harban later used the same phrase in comment 51 to describe why her imprisonment was necessary. Likewise Harban’s use of “purity,” something they have been accused of fetishizing many times in the past when discussing the US general election. And ditto, of course, Harban describing themselves here as a “pragmatist” and their interlocutors as “left wing extremists.” (That’s a bit of obvious flattery to Harban’s ego, of course, because I don’t recall them ever being characterized as an extremist, exactly, just blinkered by Clinton Derangement Syndrome and both-sides-do-it-ism, maladies he shares with his candidate of choice who is, frankly, also a troll at this point.)
here you go:
http://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2016-10-03/ap-how-trumps-apprentice-moved-from-capitalism-to-sexism
do contractors count? plenty of contractors have filed lawsuits against him for not getting paid the wages they contracted for. not hard to find.
LOL
You have lost your friggen mind.
but YOU’RE the pragmatic one.
again, with emphasis…
ROFLMAO
time to say bye bye to you.
yup.
ffs
@71 snuffcurry:
So you’ve been reduced to claiming anyone who disagrees with you is a troll. Nice.
You picked up on the details but missed the greater point— when offered a choice between two very different but more or less equally evil options (a wanna-be fascist too petulant to seize power and a slick polished Democrat who would gradually erode democracy with the complete approval of the left), a hefty chunk of this forum has declared, sans evidence, that the latter option is obviously superior and the only reason people wouldn’t whole-heartedly embrace it is because they’re blinded by privilege, obsessed with “ideological purity” or other similarly absurd claims.
And when they see those arguments used in service of a different absurd conclusion, they take them completely seriously. I’m not sure if it’s because they genuinely believe their arguments are legitimate or if they’re just overwhelmed by tribalism to the point where my reluctance to vote for Clinton makes me an Other to be dismissed out of hand.
It was “campus Marxist” actually. Close enough.
I’ve often pointed out that Clinton is basically a pro-choice version of Bush, but having her fans make the exact same arguments as Bush’s fans right down to the specific terminology is a bit excessive.
Considering that this thread started with a post condemning the “chilling” nature of Trump’s plan to launch politically-motivated persecutions of the sort Obama is infamous for and Clinton has no qualms about, it’s clear that this is an area in which Democrats and Republicans are, in fact, equally guilty.
It seems you’re too blinded by tribal loyalty to notice; Trump (hypothetically) persecuting Clinton is obscene, but Obama persecuting Snowden, Manning, Kiriakou, al-Awlaki, and more is perfectly justified or at least a minor failing to be quietly swept under the rug in the name of loyalty to the Party.
My candidate of choice isn’t on the ballot so I won’t be voting for them. I’m stuck holding my nose and voting for the least evil option there is.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
@73, Ichthyic:
You have lost your sarcasm meter.
@74 Ichthyic:
Hold up.
Are you defending Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld?
I mean, I know Clinton is almost indistinguishable from Bush and Clinton’s fans are increasingly similar to Bush’s fans but there’s no way you could seriously be doing that. I mean, that’s way too absurd.
no, I’m laughing at you for claiming to be pragmatic in wanting to put everyone from Kissinger to bush on trial for war crimes.
but you don’t get that, because you’ve lost the plot.
says the man with the most absurd idea of pragmatism I have ever seen.
again, laughing at your ability to claim things sans evidence… while projecting that very thing onto everyone else.
what a pathetic creature you are.
(1) I’m not a man.
(2) You seriously need to get your sarcasm meter fixed. You’re making a fool of yourself.
(1) Obama has persecuted whistleblowers (see Snowden, Manning, Kiriakou).
(2) Obama has ordered American citizens murdered (see al-Awlaki).
(3) Obama has negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership in secret and supports it to this day.
(4) Large numbers of people here approve of Obama (or at minimum consider him worth supporting).
Which of the above, if any, do you dispute?
Dear PZ
So you thought you got rid of the Thunderdome…
think again…
…
mwahahaha
Jake the troll
oddly, I thought you were talking about Clinton, not Obama.
run along and play, you aren’t fooling anyone here any more.
and this is why nobody takes you seriously any more.
Jake, in your mind everything is an evil conspiracy, and we are all missing the details in favor of tribalism.
but you never consider that maybe it’s YOU that’s adding details that aren’t real, and making conclusions that aren’t based on any sound reasoning whatsoever.
you’ve been doing it for MONTHS now, and people should indeed not be putting up with it any more.
you’re a hack, an irrational conspiracy addict. you don’t know what you are talking about.
@85, 86, 87 Ichthyic:
Sanity test. While Clinton and Obama are very similar in this regard, the case against Obama is considerably easier to prove. If you’re willing to deny the evidence against Obama, then you’re far too disconnected from reality to make it worthwhile to show the case against Clinton.
And there’s the tribalism again. There are people here who have pointed out Clinton’s faults with greater eloquence than I, but in your little world only people who support Clinton count. Therefore, “nobody” agrees with me, or any of the other people who agree with me.
Of course I’ve considered it. I just haven’t seen any evidence of it, and it used to be a tradition on Pharyngula that you don’t believe something without evidence just because a group of loud obnoxious people insist that it’s true and that refusing to believe it is a moral failing.
For what it’s worth, this is not the first time I’ve seen this routine. Awhile back, a hobby forum I belonged to got infested with alt-right nutters who used the same technique as you— gathering in groups to make repeated posts, containing a mixture of insults and PRATTs, gaslighting, and repeated insistence that “everyone” agrees with their alt-right viewpoint and no one takes my extremist views seriously. You have captured that perfectly right
@85, 86, 87 Ichthyic:
Sanity test. While Clinton and Obama are very similar in this regard, the case against Obama is considerably easier to prove. If you’re willing to deny the evidence against Obama, then you’re far too disconnected from reality to make it worthwhile to show the case against Clinton.
And there’s the tribalism again. There are people here who have pointed out Clinton’s faults with greater eloquence than I, but in your little world only people who support Clinton count. Therefore, “nobody” agrees with me, or any of the other people who agree with me.
Of course I’ve considered it. I just haven’t seen any evidence of it, and it used to be a tradition on Pharyngula that you don’t believe something without evidence just because a group of loud obnoxious people insist that it’s true and that refusing to believe it is a moral failing.
For what it’s worth, this is not the first time I’ve seen this routine. Awhile back, a hobby forum I belonged to got infested with alt-right nutters who used the same technique as you— gathering in groups to make repeated posts, containing a mixture of insults and PRATTs, gaslighting, and repeated insistence that “everyone” agrees with their alt-right viewpoint and no one takes my extremist views seriously. You have captured that perfectly right down to the fine details, like pretending you don’t understand sarcasm, taking snark literally, getting righteously angry at me for “believing” the opinion I expressed sarcastically and, when corrected, continuing to use that anger as support for your argument.
Oops, sorry for the double. Hit-Enter-Too-Soon Man attacked me mid-post.
lol
more like a bullshit test… one you failed.
but hey, everyone is the same right?
Clinton is Obama is Bush.
completely indistinguishable.
no, I simply cannot take you seriously.
this has fuck all to do with tribalism, since apparently, I’m the only one beating you over the head with your goddamn insipid and misleading comparisons.
you’re entirely intellectually bankrupt.
I no longer give a fuck what you have to say, at all.
Bullshit. We just call your bullshit out.
Only in Jake land. You have nothing, know you have nothing, and you can’t bluff us with bullshit attitude. Neither can Trump, who you are sounding like. Jail everybody. Very authoritarian.
I swear, every time you people post you prove you’re indistinguishable from the alt-right trolls that shut down that other forum I was on.
Nothing but insults, bald-faced assertions, and the occasional shredded straw man, all motivated by your tribalistic belief that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is an Other that must be destroyed.
I’m not even sure what you want from me at this point. Do you want me to approve of all the horrible things Clinton has done? Deny them? Pledge to support her in spite of them?
Jake Harban @ 93;
OK, just to clarify, do I still count as a Left wing extremist because I believe in the importance of due process and the rule of law as you claimed @ 51 (apparently with an option of moral vanity based masturbation @ 53), or do I now count as indistinguishable form one of the alt-right trolls from that other forum as you claim of the commenters on this thread @ 93?
I don’t really see how I could be both, so a final ruling on what particular flavour of scary perfidy I supposedly embody would be appreciated…
[meta]
Oblivious irony is the sweetest kind.
Stop your single issue campaign against the democrats. Simple. If you have only one issue that means so much to you, it makes your decision for you, you aren’t thinking about the TOTAL consideration, just the one. YOUR PROBLEM.
I’m looking more at the total package, and In my totality the democrats beat the greens every time when it comes to a more progressive policy that could be implemented, especially as they are set up to govern with down ballot elected representatives at all levels.
Sorry, blockquote fail @97.
Stop pretending it doesn’t matter whether Trump or Clinton becomes president, and that everyone here who disagrees with you is a “tribalist”. That’s the minimum of intellectual honesty required from you for any conversation with you to be worthwhile.
@94, Gregory Greenwood:
You qualify as someone who seriously needs to get their sarcasm meter checked. You’re flailing at phantoms here.
@95, John Morales:
This only makes sense if you assume the unwritten remark: “Jake Harban did not post evidence in post #93 of this thread, therefore Jake Harban never posted evidence at all.
This imposition of absurd unstated rules is exactly the sort of thing I was mentioning re: the alt-right trolls.
@96, Troll:
Perfect example of the tribalism I was talking about. I criticize two people, namely Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but in your little world that means my sole concern is the destruction of the Democratic Party.
Maybe you could explain how my plan to vote Democratic is part of my “single-issue campaign against the Democrats” perhaps?
At no point have I ever said, suggested, or implied that there is any “one issue” that defines my decision, so you clearly just made that up.
Wow. This is rather densely packed wrong, and you’re really far too disconnected from reality for me to bother wasting my time unpacking it.
Just to scratch the surface— (1) I’d love to hear how you think persecuting Manning, bombing Syria, bailing out bankers, torture of political prisoners, and developing the Trans-Pacific Partnership count as “progressive.” You may also note that those are five issues off the top of my head, in stark contrast to your earlier claim that I only care about one. (2) I don’t see “the Democrats” or “the Greens” listed on the ballot for the presidency; I see Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein. Are you saying I should vote for Clinton because Warren is competent? (3) What do down-ballot races have to do with the Presidency? If Stein won the White House and the Democrats took Congress, what do you think would happen?
Actually, let’s make that a proper question since I don’t think you can give an answer you’ll like. If Stein won the White House and the Democrats took a majority in both houses of Congress, what do you think would happen?
@97/98 KG:
So the “minimum of intellectual honesty required” is that I agree with you. Gotcha.
I never said everyone who disagrees with me is a “tribalist” but you’re certainly making a fair case that you are.
Now to clarify my earlier point which I know you’re planning to take out of context. Consider this a test to see if you meet the minimum of intellectual honesty.
If you focus entirely on the next two years and ignore anything that comes after that, then Trump would almost certainly be worse than Clinton. However, it’s far more complex than you seem to think it is.
First, if Trump wins the White House but the Democrats take Congress, then they’ll be able to prevent him from doing anything damaging; there’s very little a President can do with a hostile Congress to prevent it. If the Democrats choose to allow Trump to do damaging things, that completely shatters the notion that the Democrats are superior as frequently claimed.
Second, there is a very big difference between Trump winning a majority of the vote and Trump “winning” only because the majority was split between Clinton and Stein. While both mean Trump in the White House in the short term, the latter is most likely to result in liberal candidates running in future elections and a shift in the priorities of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Clinton winning with the enthusiastic support of the left will only reinforce the idea that the Democrats can take us for granted and run increasingly conservative candidates in future elections. Given that the presidency is a visible but relatively powerless office (see above), it’s a tolerable piece to sacrifice in service of long-term gains.
Third, with Trump crashing and burning, the claim that he’s an immediate and obvious threat is becoming a bit silly. With Trump no longer viable, we can show strong support for Stein and still have Clinton win.
Fourth, while this may come as a shock to the privileged, there actually are people who are worse off to the point where there really isn’t a distinction between Clinton and Trump. I don’t see either of them offering to expand the social safety net so that I can qualify for disability benefits, so from my perspective they’re both equally happy to see me starve.
Fifth, Clinton winning would have a direct adverse effect on subsequent elections. (a) The President’s party almost always loses seats in midterm elections, so Clinton would damage the Democrats in 2018 without any clear benefit to show for it, and (b) primary challenging an incumbent seeking reelection is all but impossible, so if Clinton wins we won’t be able to take back the White House until 2024 at the earliest, while if Trump wins we can win it back in 2020.
So the idea that Clinton is inherently and inevitably better than Trump is not nearly as well established as you think it is.
Jake’s #99 provides an excellent example of why I can’t take greenies seriously. Fortunately, it also illustrates why they are so irrelevant that they can be safely dismissed.
What do you mean by “greenies?”
Oh, I’m sorry, Jake. Are you too pure even for the Green Party?
Jebus wept, you’re even more of a joke than I thought.
If you’re still spouting that well-worn lie about “purity,” then you clearly didn’t read my post #99, so maybe you should have done that before commenting.
Honestly, you’re like a creationist responding to one of PZ’s posts on evolution to say: “This provides an excellent example on why I can’t believe everything came from nothing by pure chance alone.”
Jake Harban, could it be that if everyone is misunderstanding what you think was very clear, that you were rather more opaque than you’d hoped to be?
Also, and separately from the above, may I ask which pronouns you prefer?
Jake Harban:
Really.
1. So, do you dispute my contention that your claim is equivalent to the claim that you find my little bon mot senseless otherwise?
(You literally have no idea as to what I refer?)
Let me be more blunt: what I quoted is rather accurately described as “Nothing but insults, bald-faced assertions, and the occasional shredded straw man […]”, which is why it’s ironic.
2. Remarkably, this claim is also rather accurately described as “Nothing but insults, bald-faced assertions, and the occasional shredded straw man […]”.
(Whence this purported imposition of (unstated!) unstated rules I know not)
—
I put it to you that you remain oblivious, at least ostensibly.
Only the bailouts and the TPP might be considered part of a Democratic platform (though certainly not all of them).
I would say you should vote for Clinton since she has a decent chance to win electoral votes. Risking a Trump presidency is unbelievably stupid and morally untenable. Since you’re clearly criticizing Dems too, you should just accept that you have to support that as well, not just criticisms of a single person here or there.
Most likely, Clinton wins and Democrats don’t take the House. The chances of Clinton winning are much better than Democrats taking the House. Stein’s chances are of course much worse than both. Why are we concerned about what happens in the event of a bunch of perversely unlikely outcomes?
More likely: Trumps wins and they don’t take it. You’ve always got these big “Big ifs” that you take for granted and expect us to believe. Even if we had a reason to take them seriously, you never take them in a coherent direction. Just a lot of bullshit.
Why? Having a majority in Congress doesn’t imply anything like that. For one thing, the president has veto power. And in many ways the president can and does act unilaterally, without an effective check/balance from the legislature. Trump appointing a Scalia-type clown (or several) to the Supreme Court is an example of “anything damaging,” which certainly isn’t confined to the next two years. Now try to consider all other executive-appointed positions, in cabinets and agencies and so forth.
It’s not a question of whether they “choose to allow” this or that. You neglect the idea that a constitutional democratic government should operate according to laws, and that many many processes don’t simply depend on the existence of a majority in Congress who identify with a certain party. Meanwhile, you see many Republicans standing by Trump through every horrific thing he says/does, so we should expect them to continue to be supporters of his horrific shit.
Enthusiastic supporters aren’t ones with a strong sense that they shouldn’t be enthusiastic. To whom is this idea being reinforced, if not the enthusiastic supporters?
Let’s go back a step:
Why isn’t a Trump win, in conjunction with a reasonably-large proportion of progressive votes for Stein, likely to result in more conservative Democratic candidates in the future? Many people will not be thinking that Stein was a winner, because she got more than expected, since she didn’t win and almost certainly didn’t even win more votes than Clinton — thus, not a role model (for better or worse) like Clinton might be. Some will be thinking Trump was a winner, because he won, and want to imitate him. You haven’t offered anything here supporting the idea that things will swing one way rather than the other. You just say crap like this and expect us to believe you.
He is still viable. The popular vote is fairly close to even, and at best you can be hopeful (for Clinton, obviously, not Stein) about the projections for the electoral college distribution — that makes it very far from “a bit silly.” But even if there were a 1% chance of Trump winning, that is too high a risk. It’s sort of like a 1% risk of dying today — you don’t want odds anywhere in the neighborhood of that, with something so catastrophically bad.
Trump is very likely to rip the safety net to shreds, decreasing whatever benefits you and others would get. So if you’re not worried about that, but only thinking that Clinton (along with Trump) won’t expand such programs, then you’re not thinking clearly.
Also, of course, there are many people who don’t see things like this at all. Sexism, racism and all sorts of hate are rampant in this election. You make it sound like you’re at “a point” (while not currently qualifying for disability benefits, which I sincerely hope works out for you) which is worse off than the situations of women, LGBT, black/brown people, Muslims and other religious minorities (and atheists), etc. That is, your lack of a certain type of privilege has somehow transcended beyond all that, where there is no longer a distinction to make. Sounds absolutely terrible, but I don’t fucking believe it for even a moment.
Correlation is not causation.
Besides, if Stein wins, if you’re going to pretend to be serious about the possibility, the same “almost always” true thing applies: she “would damage” the Green party in 2018, without any clear benefit due to being rendered irrelevant by the two major parties… although the Greens may be so damaged already that this isn’t noticeable.
I’d finally get a unicorn for Christmas?
But seriously, the idea of “lose now so that you win later” is the kind of thinking that got us 12 years of Reagan/H.W. and 8 years of W.
@ JakeHarban 77
Reduced implies some manner of former association between us. I don’t know you and have never engaged with you. You’re a troll for precisely the reason I mentioned: attempting a feeble and fallacious gotcha! by using arguments advanced in favor of democratically electing HRC to support an entirely different and intentionally fatuous proposal, her injust imprisonment. The suggestion is ludicrous, of course, no better than Trump announcing that he will persecute political enemies by extrajudicial means or by creating laws explicitly designed to render ex post facto behavior of his opposition illegal. To reiterate, that’s not what I’m calling trolling.
You tried a little game here, amusing to yourself, and you lost badly. No one actually took your bait. I am amazed few recognized what you were doing–hoping your interlocutors would disavow their own words if you copy-pasted them into an alien context of your own making– but I imagine that’s largely because people tune you out as you’ve grown increasingly obtuse and hostile. And now you’ve thrown a tantrum. So, yeah, as you say, “nice.” Were you to behave like this in my forum, you’d be banned.
@104, CaitieCat:
It’s entirely possible. I swear, sometimes I say something that seems completely straightforward, but other people hear something completely different. For example, I say: “I wish there was a cure for autism” but other people hear: “I think all autistic people should be killed.”
Or, I say: “I think the most reasonable option for the 2016 Presidential election is to vote for Jill Stein for these various reasons,” but other people hear: “I am dedicated to the absolute destruction of the Democratic Party because my sole personal and political concern is some ill-defined notion of purity” or something like that.
To make it perfectly explicit, I think there’s no reasonable alternative to holding my nose and strategically voting for Stein in the 2016 Presidential race. Note that I use the term “strategically” to mean voting in the manner most likely to bring about liberal government in the future, not to mean voting in the manner most likely to defeat Donald Trump in 2016 at any cost or something along those lines. I’m well aware that Stein isn’t a particularly desirable candidate, and it’s highly unlikely that she’ll win (although there is evidence of an Abilene problem; it’s hard to say what might happen if she had a proper campaign). Unfortunately, the only alternatives are Clinton, who is a billionaire-coddling warmongering bigot and Trump who is, well, Trump. While the former may be minimally preferable in the short term, the idea that the Democrats can simply take the left for granted continues a dangerous precedent. Meanwhile, although Trump would certainly be a disaster, he is not the existential threat some people make him out to be; if anything, putting him in an office with a lot of visibility but no power would be helpful down the line.
For slightly complicated reasons, I don’t have any preference at the moment. Once I’ve cleared a few major tasks from my to-do list and have the brainpower to actually think about this, that may change.
@105, John Morales:
You quoted selectively.
I’ve already posted evidence for my positions; that I don’t feel the need to repeat it in response to every single troll does not imply I’ve posted nothing but insults, etc.
@106, consciousness razor:
It doesn’t matter what’s in the Democratic Party platform. If you want me to vote for Clinton, what matters is what Clinton does.
Why do I even need to explain that politicians lie? Or has Obama pardoned Manning, since persecuting her isn’t part of his party’s platform? Has America’s alleged involvement in Syria been a right-wing lie?
So does Trump and I wouldn’t vote for him either. “Winning” an election by backing a candidate you don’t like simply because they can win is a fool’s errand.
I dispute that, and I dispute the implicit assumption contained within.
First, there’s the implicit assumption that not voting for Clinton means I’m “risking a Trump presidency.” That’s simply not the case. By voting for Stein, I’m no more “risking a Trump presidency” than I am risking a Clinton one. It also seems vaguely related to a set of assumptions many people seem to make about how Trump voters would only ever have supported Trump while Stein voters are Clinton voters who ran away and need to be convinced to return.
Second, we’re talking about the presidency here. Even if Trump wins, he wouldn’t be a dictator. Sure, it wouldn’t be much fun (Bush sure wasn’t) but over the long term it might actually be better than Clinton.
After all, Trump has left the Republican Party in disarray. He’s given the Democrats a good shot at taking over the Senate and put the House up for grabs. Frankly, I’d love for him to be the face of the Republican Party in 2018 and 2020— there may not even be a Republican Party in 2024.
While Bush was a disaster for the country, he was also a disaster for the Republicans after eight years. The Democrats took complete control of the government and, had they been so inclined, they could have put the final nail in the Republicans’ coffin. All they’d need to do was start investigating the Bush era misdeeds; the indictments and trials would drag on for years. Instead, they elected to “look forward not backward” and swept everything under the rug; hell, they even continued the worst of it.
I want another 2008. I want to see the Democrats swept back into power with a mandate to actually pass some progressive policies and hold the Republicans accountable for the damage they’ve done. And I think the best way to do that is for Clinton to lose courtesy of a liberal third party and let Trump’s “natural charm” crater the Republicans a second time around.
The Senate is good enough. If the Democrats take the Senate, they won’t let Trump enact any of his policies and they won’t let him appoint anyone to the Supreme Court. We’ll just get more gridlock but this time Trump will be blamed for it.
Polls suggest the Democrats have a good chance at taking back the Senate. That’s not exactly a “big if.”
So he can simply build a wall without Congress approving it? Declare war unilaterally without authorization from Congress? Presidents don’t get to make laws.
That only blocks laws. It doesn’t make them.
We have Obama to thank for that, in a way. That, incidentally, is another reason to be wary of Clinton; while she may not want to become dictator herself, she is likely to continue Obama’s policy of eroding the limits on executive power to the point where future Republican presidents can simply seize control and become dictators.
It’s also something that requires the Senate to approve. He can’t do it unilaterally.
What do you mean? If Trump asks the Senate to pass a bill to build a border wall, do the Senate Democrats not have a choice about whether to vote for it?
An absurd straw man. Seriously?
Or in other words, even if the Democrats have a majority, the Republicans can still get their agenda passed because many Democrats are indistinguishable from Republicans. Come on, you can say it.
Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant by “enthusiastic.”
If 90% of the left says: “I despise Clinton, but I will hold my nose and strategically vote for her,” then Clinton has won with the enthusiastic support of the left. That is, I use “enthusiastic” to refer to a large number of liberals voting for her (however reluctantly), not to refer to individual voters being enthusiastic about supporting her.
Reluctant votes count just as much as any other. If a pro-choice Bush Republican can run as a Democrat and receive large numbers of liberal votes, the Democrats will learn that they can take the left for granted no matter how reluctant those votes may have been.
Presumably because there are people in the Democratic Party who know about strategy? If the left is a “swing” demographic that may vote Democratic or Green, then the Democrats have to appeal to us or risk losing. If the left is guaranteed to vote Democratic no matter what, then they can safely ignore us.
I’m not sure what you mean by “role models” but if Stein gets a hefty chunk of the vote it would give her an advantage in the next election— it would be a major blow to the idea that third parties are politically irrelevant and establish her as a viable option for 2020, or at least “viable” enough that the Democrats have to think twice before simply assuming that the left will vote for them no matter what.
Well, considering that the Democrats already try to imitate the last Republican president, we wouldn’t be any worse off.
I can’t present definitive proof of something that hasn’t happened, obviously. I have presented evidence that it’s a reasonable possibility and it’s not like “vote blue no matter who” has been working out for us so far.
First, I’d happily accept a 1% risk of dying today if I was offered something worthwhile in exchange.
Second, the prospect of Trump winning isn’t as catastrophically bad as you seem to think it’d be. If you want to claim he’d be worse than Bush I’ll want to see some evidence.
This is not a thing a president can unilaterally do.
Also, I’m currently receiving zero benefits so I’m not sure exactly how they could be reduced.
Yes, I’m well aware that there are other people in different situations with different problems.
However—
(1) Clinton is not necessarily good on any of those issues. She’s incredibly anti-LGBT and she’s a hyper-aggressive colonialist who would oppress countless people in the name of American (business) interests. She’s sort of your standard-issue white moderate— in some ways, that’s actually worse.
(2) Given that we’ve often excoriated Republican voters for “voting against their own self-interest,” it seems perverse to demand I do the same. I’m going to vote for the candidates whose policies will most likely result in my being alive to vote in 2020.
(1) Strong correlation implies some causal link; evidence backs this up.
(2) Trump’s candidacy is already costing Republicans in other races; do you think two years of Trump will make people more supportive of him?
So they’ll have less than zero seats? I’m not sure how that would work, mathematically.
That argument doesn’t really work with the Greens.
If Clinton wins, she will not advance any progressive policies, but she will give an advantage to the Republicans because she will be the public face of the government, such as it is, making people inclined to oppose her the only way they know how— by voting Republican.
If Stein wins, she’ll upset the entire equation for both parties and establish that the left is a politically relevant force. If they’re paying attention, the Democrats will move to the left to take advantage of that force. If so, Stein’s presidency will end up hurting the Greens, but who cares?
@107, Maroon:
And the idea of “support any Democrat just so you can say you backed the ‘winning’ candidate” got us 8 years of Bill Clinton and 8 years of Obama. Not exactly an improvement— Bill Clinton and Obama legitimized Reagan/HW and W respectively, granting each Republican’s worst policies the stamp of bipartisan approval that transforms them from right-wing excesses to The Way Things Are.
When Bush went to war in Iraq, the left marched in the streets. When Obama went to war in Libya, there was nothing but eerie silence. When Bush ordered torture, it was an atrocity but when Obama ordered it, it’s a personal failing on his part.
Which is worse, getting punched ten times by your worst enemy or getting punched once by your spouse you thought you could trust?
@108 snuffcurry:
I did nothing of the sort.
I made a sarcastic remark about the particular brand of short-sighted “strategy” preached by Clinton’s die-hards. If you took it completely seriously because you genuinely believe the second-most-evilism logic to be valid, I’m afraid that’s on you.
OK, so sarcastically mocking someone’s fallaciously logic by using it in service of an obviously absurd conclusion is not trolling. Glad we agree. The “trolling” was when you were got by a “gotcha” question I didn’t actually ask then?
I wasn’t playing any games and I didn’t leave any bait. However, Gregory Greenwood, Nerd of Redhead, Ichthyic, and more all assumed I’d left some bait and jumped at the place they thought it would be.
While I didn’t originally post for the sake of amusement, I must admit I was slightly amused to read Ichthyic defending George W. Bush in #74/79, and you using Bush’s rhetoric and memes in #71.
Again, I made one sarcastic remark. When people took it completely seriously, I tried being more obviously sarcastic. When it reached the point where I couldn’t lay it on any thicker, I finally stated outright that I was being sarcastic, but by that point enough people had gotten sufficiently invested in hating the position I never held that they had to rage at me for something.
I wasn’t intending to make anyone look like a fool. They did that on their own.
Uh huh. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with them missing the sarcasm because they believed the argument was valid.
Seriously? You rip some straw men, accuse me of some massive conspiracy, and repeatedly insult me all because you accidentally took a sarcastic comment literally and you think I’m the one throwing a tantrum? Only movie theater employees project harder than you.
Likewise.
@ Jake Harban 110
Of course I didn’t take any of your remarks seriously nor was I “got” by them. What an absurd suggestion. I merely pointed out an unmistakeable pattern in the bulk of your comments (not “one,” but many) in this thread. And you flatter yourself if acknowledging this out loud is tantamount to accusing you of a conspiracy. You’re not that special, just another troll flailing for a cheap gotcha in place of any serious or persuasive argument.
And as you admit that what I’ve said is true, you occupy no moral high ground and evince only dishonesty, rather than a willingness to engage. Making what you call increasingly “sarcastic” statements to a thread full of people obviously taking your more subtly “sarcastic” words seriously while expressing bewilderment over your perceived about-face is not the behavior of an honest person, but someone who wants to draw out an unnecessary, unhelpful, self-absorbed derail in order to amuse themselves at the expense of commenters they often treat as mortal enemies drowning in a pool of toxic pragmatism. Funny, that. So much for your vaunted idealism, though, yeah?
I’m not sure I need to respond to this since you do such a good job of rebutting it for me.
You’re not that special, just another troll flailing for a cheap gotcha in place of any serious or persuasive argument.
… someone who wants to draw out an unnecessary, unhelpful, self-absorbed derail in order to amuse themselves at the expense of commenters they often treat as mortal enemies drowning in a pool of toxic pragmatism.
You tried a little game here, amusing to yourself, and you lost badly. No one actually took your bait.
I am amazed few recognized what you were doing–hoping your interlocutors would disavow their own words if you copy-pasted them into an alien context of your own making
One off the cuff remark is somehow “bait” in a “game” to trick people into disavowing their arguments with a cheap gotcha because I treat everyone as a mortal enemy but you aren’t accusing me of a conspiracy, nope.
I’m actually chuckling a little at this one. Responding to the sarcasm-impaired by making the sarcasm more obvious is dishonest?
If I’d responded to #12 by explaining that I was being sarcastic, you’d probably accuse me of being condescending.
What idealism?