Democratic Party Presidential Candidates for 2020

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Beebo Brink

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It's not a scandal. It's business as usual. Some of us are looking for the opposite of business as usual.
And that's exactly the attitude that got us Trump. Different side, same disaffection.

The danger of working within the system to effect change is that progress is slow and sometimes the system beats you down. But working from outside the system has it's own risks too. Jimmy Carter learned that all too well. Outsiders have a way of being blocked and rendered ineffective by the system, then removed. Or the Outsider turns out to be a rogue lunatic like Trump, who is effective in all the wrong ways. He's dismantled the very best parts of our "business as usual" government and left the corruption not only intact, but enhanced.

The only way to get rid of the very entrenched status quo, to decisively root out capitalism's stranglehold on our democracy, is through revolution or collapse. Both lead to exceptionally unpleasant conditions for everyone involved, whether your head ends up on the guillotine or not. One or the other of these outcomes is probably inevitable, given the train wreck up ahead (climate change emergencies, resource depletion, famine, refugees, plagues). Some other system will eventually arise from the rubble, but there is no guarantee it will be any better, and human history points to it being a hell of a lot worse.

You say you want change. Be careful what you wish for.
 

Han Held

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And that's exactly the attitude that got us Trump. Different side, same disaffection.

The danger of working within the system to effect change is that progress is slow and sometimes the system beats you down. But working from outside the system has it's own risks too. Jimmy Carter learned that all too well. Outsiders have a way of being blocked and rendered ineffective by the system, then removed. Or the Outsider turns out to be a rogue lunatic like Trump, who is effective in all the wrong ways. He's dismantled the very best parts of our "business as usual" government and left the corruption not only intact, but enhanced.

The only way to get rid of the very entrenched status quo, to decisively root out capitalism's stranglehold on our democracy, is through revolution or collapse. Both lead to exceptionally unpleasant conditions for everyone involved, whether your head ends up on the guillotine or not. One or the other of these outcomes is probably inevitable, given the train wreck up ahead (climate change emergencies, resource depletion, famine, refugees, plagues). Some other system will eventually arise from the rubble, but there is no guarantee it will be any better, and human history points to it being a hell of a lot worse.

You say you want change. Be careful what you wish for.
As you -correctly- say; collapse is inevitable.

Even if solutions could be found, it's questionable that the polticial will to find them and enact them is there.

Just for my own sanity (sic), I'm choosing to give up on the national stage; it's a corrupt shit-show and we can see very clearly where it's headed. Instead, I'm looking at what I can do in my state which admittedly isn't much, given my $/age/physical limitations -but I can write a mean email fairly quickly and if there's something to go to, I'm more than happy to go and sign or rally or whatever.

The presidential race obviously effects me -however, I don't affect it. I do affect (slightly) things locally...so for that reason I take a "whatever" attitude about the national stage.

By the time our ballot's close here in Ak the decision's already made, you know?
 

Beebo Brink

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By the time our ballot's close here in Ak the decision's already made, you know?
Same here in West Virginia. By the time we had our primary, Clinton was already the official candidate, having crossed the line of necessary votes. (I voted for Bernie anyway.) And as for the general... well, that was just spitting in the wind.
 
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Brenda Archer

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This is her campaign slogan...



These are the words that come out of her mouth...



But this is the guy she hires to handle her campaign finances. A wealthy, super-PAC supporting, dark money bundler.

It's not a scandal. It's business as usual. Some of us are looking for the opposite of business as usual.
This is her campaign slogan...



These are the words that come out of her mouth...



But this is the guy she hires to handle her campaign finances. A wealthy, super-PAC supporting, dark money bundler.

It's not a scandal. It's business as usual. Some of us are looking for the opposite of business as usual.
Right but you know I’m a Sanders supporter and, as a local, was one long before he decided to run for President.

Do you think we’re unaware of what is involved with being a Democratic Party insider? This is what’s so baffling about this line of posting. It can’t surprise anybody with a bit of knowledge about how the machine works.
 

Brenda Archer

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?
I'm interested what you mean by that technically. Client side cookies can last basically forever or they can be wiped out immediately. As far as I know, there are no "server side cookies". There is fingerprinting. There is my ip address to match but (especially overseas) ip addresses are shared.
I know that even in private mode in Safari I’ll eventually run out of views. It’s not a stored cookie but a web server sees more than just that.
 

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Bartholomew Gallacher

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Just for my own sanity (sic), I'm choosing to give up on the national stage; it's a corrupt shit-show and we can see very clearly where it's headed.
Also this is by no means whatsoever new. Maybe you do remember this fellow here below - referring to the actor and not the role?



Anyway Larry Hagman had an interview in 2002 with a big German newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Per my knowledge it was not published in English, so chances are high that it is widely unknown in America. So here is the transcript of it in the published language, German - Interview mit Larry Hagman .

Hagman was in the 1960s against the war in Vietnam; that's the starting point, and some excerpts:

Q: Your public image is different [that of a hardliner]. At the beginning of the 80s there were two American actors, who spread fear amongst the world: one named Reagan, the other one was you.
A: In reality nobody had to fear Larry Hagman contrary to Reagan. The people had good reasons to fear him.

Q: Why?
A: Reagan was a corrupt politician incarnate. He was owned by General Electric. Reagan was a total idiot.

Q: What? Is that really the way to talk as an American, even more so coming from Texas?
A: Of course when getting asked; it's just that I am not getting asked this often.

Q: I thought that you were a republican.
A: Everybody thinks that I am a republican. I've played an oil magnate over a decade long, I am wearing a stetson when I like to and I am from Texas. That's all about it. I am still getting letters by the GOP asking if I don't want to make commercials for them. I am telling them every time: "Leave me alone with your god damn bullshit!" The republicans were and are responsible for the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. They are responsible for the destruction of social balance in America. Maybe we should talk a little about the religious fanatism they are spreading throughout the country?

Q: Even many democrats in retrospect do think about Reagan as a strong president.
A: Look, he was a really dangerous man. He brainwashed himself. He really believed that his lifestyle was the "absolute one and only way of life." He was good at telling jokes, delivering speeches and misleading people. He was quite intelligent. But already back then when he was the president of the actor's union in Hollywood he sided with the companies, not the actors. As president he then sided with the oil and electrical power companies, but not the normal people.

Q: If you want, but we still should...
A: While the idiot Reagan was dangerous, but not dumb, the idiot George W. Bush is a different affair: our country is governed today by a president who is dangerous and dumb. George W. Bush is completely out of the window what you and I would consider a normal human being. He cannot deliver speeches. He cannot read. He's legasthenic. And now for the best part of it: he's our president.

Q: Are you living in a hysterical country?
A: What a jolly good question: of course I do! It really started with the Clinton-Lewinsky thing. Big entertainment for the religious right. People played judge who really are in no position to do so. And since 9/11 America became in terms of ideology and brainwashing of the masses a country, which bears astonishing similarities to the begone USSR.

Q:: What does that exactly mean?
A: They have taken away almost all rights from the people, while the police in exchange got so much power and freedom to do as they wish, that's it is completely insane. Also the thought control of the religious right in America is a topic which you Europeans often do not recognize for its full potential. They are everywhere, in the companies, schools, everywhere. You might think that I am paranoic. But there are many clear-thinking people in America who do fear what the religious right is doing to our country.
 
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Han Held

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Also this is by no means whatsoever new.
Not new, not surprising, no.
California had free college -until Reagan changed that as governor of California.
Nixon started the drug war in the 70's.
Reagan -as president, did a fuckton of shady crap -I'm reasonably sure that the police forfeiture shit started under him though I may be wrong. He was the first president (that I'm aware of) to go after Unions.
W: instituted the no-fly lists, the TSA and homeland security -too much shady civil liberties crap to name.
"Also the thought control of the religious right in America is a topic which you Europeans often do not recognize for its full potential. They are everywhere, in the companies, schools, everywhere. You might think that I am paranoic. But there are many clear-thinking people in America who do fear what the religious right is doing to our country." -Larry Hagman
He's right, you know:
Barry Goldwater said:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

If anything, Hagman seemed to understate the problem -I mean ...today, in 2019 we in the US
have concentration camps, children in cages and we don't even know half of what went on in Abu Gharib -and don't get me started on extraordinary renditions...

And I haven't even touched on the assault on environmental protections...
 

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"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

...1968. Shit's been going off the rails for a damned long time...getting rid of the annoying orange man won't even begin to fix it.
 

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Clara D.

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...1968. Shit's been going off the rails for a damned long time...getting rid of the annoying orange man won't even begin to fix it.
That was extended by Reagan's "War on Drugs" and then had the "Homeland" bullshit piled on top of it.
 
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Romana

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Here we go again:

Politicians' stans creep me out, whether they're Bernie's or Yang's or anyone else's superfans,
I'm not referring to anyone on this forum, but the people in that interview and the ones that can be found on social media. Anyone who would let donnie win if their hero isn't the candidate has more than a few screws loose.
 

Beebo Brink

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Anyone who would let donnie win if their hero isn't the candidate has more than a few screws loose.
The single-minded focus on capitalism is similar to the one-issue voting on abortion; it's a set of blinkers that narrows the complexity of life down to one surreal slice. There's so much more to running the federal government than opposing or supporting capitalism as our financial system. We have a mammoth civil service/bureaucracy that is about keeping the mechanics of government working. Research, parks, agriculture, foreign service, post office, IRS, social security, service programs, information campaigns, just hundreds and hundreds of agencies that used to be at least somewhat insulated from the impact of elections, but Trump has dismantled more and more of that structure.

There may not, in some people's minds, be any difference between Trump and an Establishment Dem candidate, but that's only true if you ignore all the rest of what government does. Hillary Clinton would have, at the very least, allowed non-partisan agencies to remain so and to continue their activities. Trump's administration has failed to fill dozens of key positions and hampered agency activities. There is a systematic effort to dismantle the functions of government in ways that are detrimental to ordinary citizens. For that reason alone I will vote for any Dem, even Biden, over Trump, even if my favorite candidate doesn't get the nomination (which is pretty much the story of my life).
 

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There may not, in some people's minds, be any difference between Trump and an Establishment Dem candidate, but that's only true if you ignore all the rest of what government does. Hillary Clinton would have, at the very least, allowed non-partisan agencies to remain so and to continue their activities.
And...
  • She wouldn't have allowed Putin to shape our foreign policy.
  • She wouldn't have put children in cages. Let me repeat that since as a nation we're trying hard to forget its still happening - she wouldn't have put defenseless, innocent children in cages.
  • She wouldn't have taken us out of the Paris Accord.
  • She wouldn't have taken us out of the Iran deal.
  • She wouldn't have tried to restart the coal industry.
  • She wouldn't have gotten rid of protections for endangered species.
  • She wouldn't have gutted Obamacare. She would have strengthened it. The Obamacare we keep talking about as a failure is a gutted version of something the Republicans already weakened.
  • She wouldn't have started a trade war with China.
  • She wouldn't have given giant tax cuts to the rich.
  • She wouldn't have deserted our allies once they weren't convenient anymore.
When I see people saying she would have been the same thing as Trump, I really wonder what universe they are living in.
 

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And...
  • She wouldn't have allowed Putin to shape our foreign policy.
  • She wouldn't have put children in cages. Let me repeat that since as a nation we're trying hard to forget its still happening - she wouldn't have put defenseless, innocent children in cages.
  • She wouldn't have taken us out of the Paris Accord.
  • She wouldn't have taken us out of the Iran deal.
  • She wouldn't have tried to restart the coal industry.
  • She wouldn't have gotten rid of protections for endangered species.
  • She wouldn't have gutted Obamacare. She would have strengthened it. The Obamacare we keep talking about as a failure is a gutted version of something the Republicans already weakened.
  • She wouldn't have started a trade war with China.
  • She wouldn't have given giant tax cuts to the rich.
  • She wouldn't have deserted our allies once they weren't convenient anymore.
When I see people saying she would have been the same thing as Trump, I really wonder what universe they are living in.
The scary part is, Trumpsters would argue that those are positive points, to support their claim that Trump has done so much good for this country.
 
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