Politics Official 2024 Presidential Election Thread

Cenk's still a populist left-winger. I guess you're with me, voting for whoever is the successor to Bernie Sanders. I'll let AOC know.

 

100% right where I am.

 

I haven't found myself agreeing with Cenk much in recent years, but I thought he had the stronger arguments and better presentations here. Destiny seemed to be all flustered and just came off as a guy supporting an approach that's been a pretty consistent loser.

It's interesting, too, that the Democratic establishment made Cenk look like he was turning right when he and Musk tweeted at each other, but here Cenk presents it as basically taking a shot at MAGA in doing it, and then he got a chance to make a point at the Democrats' problems when Musk actually engaged him.

I'll say this, too, Cenk's hitting on something that resonates with me because I had Clinton supporters in 2016 that told me I needed to get behind her when Bernie stopped his run and I said they needed to incorporate some of Bernie's more popular ideas into her campaign. I was in no uncertain terms told to shut up and back her, so I voted for Sanders. If you want to say it was people like me that allowed Trump to win that election, fine, but I think that ignores the fact that we didn't know how bad Trump would be at the time and Clinton's campaign was pompous to think it earned my vote by not giving me anything I wanted and saying I have to vote for her. She was completely tone deaf.

 

I rediscovered Kyle Kulinski late in this election cycle and I think he and Pakman are guys that make a lot of arguments that make sense to me.

 

Agreed. I took it the same way and also voted for Sanders. I knew Oregon would go for Hillary and thought Trump was just bloviating. I didn't realize he'd be as effective at ripping down guardrails.

So I voted Bernie. And I don't blame you for doing so. That run cost the Dems a ton of support, IMO. He was the better candidate and did nearly as well as Hilary (and Joe) while fighting against the tide of both the Dems and Republicans, and all the media. I just wish he would have been a couple decades younger.

 

Independent

 

I usually agree with you, Barfo, but I don't think that's fair here.

First, you don't know what MY issues were. You didn't ask. You just jumped to a conclusion. I think my issues and Bernie's issues were pretty much issues that were important to a lot of people across parties and demographics.

Second, I didn't owe Hilary Clinton anything. Her local campaigner didn't make me feel my issues weren't important to him. He TOLD me they weren't. TOLD me. He TOLD me I'd vote for Clinton and like it even though my issues, which included getting big money out of campaigning and continuing to improve on healthcare for everyone and working for things like better pay and benefits across the board, didn't matter to them. There wasn't even an attempt to make a point why I should vote for her.

At the time, I didn't think Trump would be a fascist. But if you think Clinton's attitude toward her constituents had a part in the loss, then you are way out of line.

 

I was as anti-Trump as anyone on this board this time, but, yeah, I didn't vote for someone that literally told me they didn't care what I thought was important and it's my fault for not caring about them winning or losing in 2016. OK.

 

I was voting for Clinton in 2016 until her campaigner in my area came right out and said I was going to vote for her whether she addressed anything I thought was important or not.

She had my vote.

She lost my vote.

That's on her.

 

It really stinks when one is super passionate about something extremely important to them and someone in a position of power says “no you don’t get this and you have to support me anyway lol get owned freak” simply because they have political leverage since the other option is a literal fascist. Any rational actor would have their hands tied.

The decisions one makes in that situation really reflect on how one prioritizes the self versus others, or the group one belongs to as a whole and what they need.

Choosing one’s own needs over the needs of the many is a reflection of that prioritization, for good or bad.

 

It's Clinton's job to earn votes.

This blaming voters is such a bad strategy.

 

Of course they do. When the "better" choice does a bad job of getting through to the people.

 

This Democrat is addressing my issues but there isn't enough detail! I just don't know enough about her! So vote for sociopathic demented fascist!

 

And candidates don't?

Good lord, so she can't get people together to develop a platform to make her worth voting for, they're actually turning away people who were going to vote for them, and I'M the problem because I see that as a problem?

To me, that looks like someone too weak to lead.

The more Clinton people defend her like she's an invalid, the less bad I feel about voting for her. The defense now actually is that she is incapable of doing anything.

 

Which, BTW, by extension, is that Clinton supporters were part of the problem.

When you can't talk to people on your side, and people you need, and drive them off, that's a Clinton campaign issue, not something about the people that didn't feel they owed it to your candidate to vote for her after they told those people we don't care about your concerns/problems/issues/rights.

 

If I had the foresight to know Trump was going to be the worst president in history and develop into an existential threat, helped by the Democratic leadership being incapable of learning the lessons from 2016 and still not being able to grow its base or get a very good message out there 10 years later, it might be different.

Yet here we are, two presidential elections later, and Clinton people still can't heal the bruised egos and own their own part of what happened in 2016. It's everyone else's fault, they say. OK, live in that fantasy world. But our candidate -- and, again, she was who I was voting for until one of her higher-level volunteers in my area actually said to me what I'd like to see didn't matter at all -- campaigned very poorly, and Trump, at the time, looked like he'd just be an inept example of why GOP policies didn't help Americans, not an actual threat to democracy that this ego-driven Clinton worship allowed him to grow into, because Democratic leadership still can't admit its own warts.