Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

[NotMiki]

Sure.  If you're Hillary Clinton, surveying your entire political career, what has the press ever done but amplify and enable political attacks against you?

[Cmdr_King]

Which does little to explain the Obama administration being more hostile to the press than the Bush administration.  Not that the modern press is worth a shit, but getting it from both ends is not making the problem better.

[Grefter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/obama-kenya_n_6970314

Article from December 2015.  Gets labelled with Birthers  Birtherism  Obama Birthers

I wonder why he might be hostile to media outlets.

[dunie]

https://www.facebook.com/notes/ray-everett/dan-savages-epic-rant-about-third-party-candidates/10154315640699808

Podcast:
https://overcast.fm/+GeYZTxTEE/20:31

Tinier text transcription here:

CALLER: Hi my name is Pheasant and I live in Kansas. My question is, why — you guys talk a lot about politics — I would love to hear you guys talk about third party politics: Independent Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party.
I’m a huge Green Party supporter; I’m voting for Jill Stein. And I realize that people say that if you vote for these, it’s just a wasted vote, it’s a vote for Republicans.
But I also feel we need to start sending a message to Washington and to our political leaders that we’re sick and tired of this two party system and candidates who are controlled by corporations and special interest groups. And they can’t piss off their donors, you know, because they buy the votes.
So I’m just wondering why you guys never talk about it because I think Jill Stein — she’s a member of the Green Party — she’s amazing. And for the people that bitch and moan about… Hillary didn’t always support gay rights, and Bernie didn’t always support this… I agree with you Dan, I think it's ridiculous how — that people can change. That’s what we want, we try to get people — hey, stop being a homophobic asshole, hey stop being a racist prick. But you know the Green Party has never changed. They’ve always supported gay rights, equality for all, the environment…
DAN SAVAGE: Alright, blah blah blah. Sorry I had to stop you. Yeah, let’s talk about the Green Party for just a moment, or third parties, getting a third party movement off the ground here in this country. Because we are sick of the two party system!
Here’s how you fucking do that: you run people not just for fucking president every four fucking years.
I have a problem with the Greens, I have a problem with the Libertarians. I have a problem with these fake, attention seeking, grandstanding Green/Libertarian party candidates who pop up every four years, like mushrooms in shit, saying that they're building a third party. And those of us who don't have a home in the Republican Party, don't have a home in the Democratic Party, can't get behind every Democratic position or Republican position, should gravitate toward these third parties. And help build a third party movement by every four fucking years voting for one of these assholes like Jill fucking Stein, who I'm sure is a lovely person, she's only an asshole in this aspect.
If you're interested in building a third party, a viable third party, you don’t start with president. You don't start by running someone for fucking president.
Where are the Green Party candidates for city councils? For county councils? For state legislatures? For state assessor? For state insurance commissioner? For governor? For fucking dogcatcher? I would be SO willing to vote for Green Party candidates who are starting at the bottom, grassroots, bottom up, building a third party, a viable third party.
You don't do that by trotting out the reanimated corpse of Ralph fucking Nader every four fucking years. Or his doppelgänger, whoever it is now, Jill Stein and some asshole-to-be-named four years from now.
You start by running grassroots, local campaigns. And there've been — and I'm sure we're going hear from lots of people out there listening — there have been a couple of Green Party candidates who’ve run in other races here and there across the country. But no sustained effort to build a Green Party nationally. Just this griping, bullshitty, grandstanding, fault-finding, purity-testing, holier than thou-ing, that we are all subjected to every four fucking years by the Green Party candidate.
And the folks, including you caller — and I love you and I respect you and we’re having this debate and I'm not treating you with kid gloves because I respect you — who are fooled by them, who are sucked into this bullshit, who are tricked by these grandstanding, attention-seeking, bullshit-spewing charlatans, into wasting your vote. 
Which is what you are going to do, I'm sorry to say, to circle back to the top of your call. You are essentially, if you're voting for Jill Stein, helping to potentially elect Donald J. Trump president of these United States.
Which would be a catastrophe. Which is what some people say that they want.
People supported Ralph Nader in 2000 and said there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush, therefore we could all afford to throw our votes away, protest-style, on Ralph Nader, who had no hope of getting elected, because there was no difference between Bush and Gore.
These same people, at the same time, said that George Bush was so manifestly obviously terrible that he would bring the revolution if he got himself elected somehow. They didn’t say this about Gore, he wouldn’t bring the revolution. They’re exactly the same, exactly as awful, but one would bring the revolution and one wouldn’t. Which means they weren't exactly the same and they weren't equally awful.
And we're hearing the same thing now about Hillary and Donald. That they’re both equally awful. They're both equally terrible, corrupt two party system, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. Fuck them both, fuck both their houses! Vote for Jill Stein!
And if Donald should get elected, oh he’s so terrible, so much worse than the equally awful Hillary Clinton, that his election will bring the revolution.
It's bullshit.
The revolution did not come in 2000 when George W. Bush got close enough to winning to steal the White House. It will not come if Donald J. Trump gets his ass elected.
Disaster will come. And the people who’ll suffer are not going to be the pasty white Green Party supporters — pasty white Jill Stein and her pasty white supporters. The people who’ll suffer are going to be people of color. People of minority faiths. Queer people. Women.
Don’t do it. Don't throw your vote away on Jill Stein/vote for, bankshot-style, Donald Trump. 
And if you want to build a viable third party, more power to you. I could see myself voting for a Green Party candidate for president in 25 years, after I've seen Green Party candidates getting elected to state legislatures, getting elected to governorships, getting elected to Congress. Then you can run some legitimate motherfucker for president.

[NotMiki]

Nice rant.

One aspect of that that he didn't get into: Bernie Sanders.  Ran as non-Democrat for political office until this year, then joined the party in order to get his message out, borrowing the apparatus he had not theretofore supported in order to use it as a mouthpiece.  Pretty obvious he couldn't have gotten attention as a third-party candidate - being up on stage in a Democratic field nearly emptied by Clinton's early dominance was what he needed.  Is that a model worth copying?

Been thinking about this recently, one consequence of this election could be that the Democratic party becomes more conservative - simply by adding more conservative and centrist candidates repelled by today's GOP.  Seems to me if that happens it's MORE important for liberals to exert influence from within the party rather than attack it from outside.

[dunie]

I hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it, so to piggyback: perhaps simultaneous internal and external pressure is safer? So while there is an ideological battle inside the Democratic Party, figures who may or may not be green/lib/ind can finally get their choochoo trains running with more steam. I think Bernie wouldn't have been a successful invader had he not a particularly lazier younger generation overloaded on baby boomer drama. I'm still waiting to meet my elders who were in the mix that actually felt the bern.

[NotMiki]

I'm still waiting to meet my elders who were in the mix that actually felt the bern.

My mother certainly fits the bill - very enthusiastic Bernie supporter.

[Cmdr_King]

Is that a model worth copying?

Nope.

It was worth trying once, but the lesson I took from all this is that the rank-and-file of the Democratic party are extremely hostile to outsiders on the left.  Any question of their stance is naive, childish, and to be dismissed out of hand.

It's telling what areas the platform was willing to "move" left on and which they insisted on remaining in the "center".  The party is ideologically rigid, and will remain so until the baby boomers are all dead.  And probably a little bit past that, since-

Been thinking about this recently, one consequence of this election could be that the Democratic party becomes more conservative - simply by adding more conservative and centrist candidates repelled by today's GOP.  Seems to me if that happens it's MORE important for liberals to exert influence from within the party rather than attack it from outside.

But since there's no place in the party for liberals for a certain persuasion, what'll realistically happen is refugee conservatives extend the lifespan of the existing party.  It's vital to create a more liberal counterpart, especially as Democrats entrench themselves in the center and the remaining 30% or so of voters with the Republicans run fascist after fascist.

Which circles us back around to the rant there.  He's not wrong in the conclusions, but the anger there is misplaced.  Because yeah, fuck the Green Party; they've had 20 years to pull their heads out of their asses and try to actually form a viable liberal alternative, but they'd rather support homeopathic remedies and tease with anti-vaxers.  But here's the thing: we don't have 25 years to build a new liberal party, and we don't have 25 years for generational turnover to drift the Democrats far enough left to support shit like universal healthcare, properly funding primary education, and basic income.  The fuckin' barbarians are at the gates, and they're only going to get stronger over time.  Being angry at people for trying to break the paradigm by the only means available to them (reminder: in large chunks of the country, local politicians run unopposed because there aren't enough politically-minded people to even run both major parties) is stupid.

Then again, in my state we re-elected a dude who poisoned a mid-sized city then didn't remove him from office after he got caught.  Maybe I'm just in an unusually awful place and it's biasing my impression of all this.

[superaielman]

My response to that rant is an eyeroll you can see from space.  One of the few effective ways third parties have to reach the general public is presidental elections, why shouldn't they push it there? It's some kind of start.

And a triple fuck him for saying voting third party is throwing your vote away. I think both Hillary and Trump are terrible and I'm not voting for either( barring hell freezing over and Trump looking like he has a prayer of winning the general). There is nothing wrong with flipping them both the bird and voting for whatever third party pick you want.

[Cmdr_King]

Addendum: one issue with third parties is that elections and how they're tabulated in the US are about 75 years past it's expiration date.  The entire system favors local politics and attempts to put more power in their hands, and that's not how people live anymore.  States can no longer function as semi-independent nations with a mutual defense pact, they're completely incapable of competing economically if they do, but election laws assume that's what they're doing.  Cities are structured like they have to go weeks or months without outside input, rather than, y'know, seconds. 

The net effect is that the law assumes people organize themselves by locality; that their community is their neighbors.  The need for self-sufficiency ended in the early 50s with mass communication reaching the visual stage, and once that happened where you lived began in irreversible and accelerating trend away from that organization.  So now, you have say 5% or so of people that are with the Green party, except there's no place in the country that 5% translates into an ability to win an elected office.  16 million people with no outlet because they're a non-physical community.  So as much as the Green party are kinda worthless and refuse to actually try to be more than a protest party, at some level I'm not sure what the fuck else they're supposed to do.

[Grefter]

Do the greens really have no representation in local government or are they also just throwing your vote away ridiculous platforms that "no one" would support?  We have a massive independent representation here in Aus during elections and that is still the excuses used here.

[Cmdr_King]

From wikipedia:

In 2014, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin was the most notable Green elected official in the United States. McLaughlin was serving her second term as mayor of Richmond, California at the time. McLaughlin defeated two Democrats in 2006 to become mayor,[83] and was reelected in 2010 before stepping down in 2014.[84] Richmond, with a population of over 100,000 people, was the largest city in the country with a Green mayor.

They actually aren't even on the ballot in all 50 states, and never have been.  I suspect it's related to their self-imposed ban on accepting campaign donations over certain amounts.  Another layer to them running presidential candidates and not a lot else: if you get over a certain amount of the vote (I think 5%), you're entitled to a share of the federal campaign fund.  Since they won't take any other money, it's their best option to get the funding to even be a viable party.

[Hunter Sopko]

Yet again, more instance where that whole echelon of politics seems like a competitive gamer complaining that the metagame doesn't allow them to win the way they want to win.

[Cmdr_King]

Pretty much.  Tellingly, the Libertarians, while still much more ideological than either major party, do actually play the game, and make a conscious effort to woo sympathetic donors, make use of established leaders (mostly defectors like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson) to get the message out, and so on, and lo and behold they're poised to actually launch onto the national stage this year.  Jill Stein meanwhile gets on talk shows once in a while and comes off as a fucking nutjob, and while to some extent yeah she is, it's also because she has no sense for how to fucking message because she has no real political training.

[Grefter]

I don't think you need representation in all 50 states at all levels of government to be a "legitimate" party or presence.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Excal]

It's at this point that I have to wonder how much funding do you need to run for dogcatcher?

[Cmdr_King]

I don't think you need representation in all 50 states at all levels of government to be a "legitimate" party or presence.

If half the electorate doesn't even have the option to vote for you, in what way are you remotely influencing anything except as a spoiler?

[Grefter]

You are representing in the part of the electorates that you can represent.  A seat is a seat.  You actually have the ability to put forward legislation, you have a much stronger voice than someone with none.

Like to use a local example this fucking guy has influenced so much more legislation than one person ever should in their lifetime.  He has been in the game for a long time.  Dropped the majour parties at some point.  Has been politically relevant for over 20 years easily.

[dunie]

Eh, I didn't support the rant 100% but loved his emphasis on local elections. That's partly the problem for Georgia Green, who filed a lawsuit about the 1% voter signature ballot restriction only for the 2012 US presidency, only using the inability to elect statewide officials as an example. They've appealed since dismissal, but they do need to think more creatively or openly about fundraising for these petition costs that doesn't mean lying in bed with a corporation.

Edit* Excal, supposedly it's $2 per signature on a 1% total voters still registered from the previous election. At least in GA. When they would need 50,000 voters, for example, the GP here's said that, "due to filing difficulties like write in-errors, courts contesting notaries.... bureaucracy, etc.," they estimate for 78,000 signatures. So $156k just for your name, excluding labor, time... I have no way to compare this with any other group.

[metroid composite]

I mean, the "never vote for an independent, they'll never be relevant" line kind-of ignores 1992, where Ross Perot was literally leading in opinion polls in June with 39% of voters saying they would vote for him.  I mean, yes, his poll numbers tanked later...quoting Wikipedia directly here...

"Perot severely damaged his credibility by dropping out of the presidential contest in July and remaining out of the race for several weeks before re-entering. He compounded this damage by eventually claiming, without evidence, that his withdrawal was due to Republican operatives attempting to disrupt his daughter's wedding."

So that's a thing that happened.



Saying you need representatives on the local level first...yeah, no, you see there's a system where that's the case.  It's called the Parliamentary system; countries like Canada and Australia have it.  The US does not.  Hypothetically Jill Stein could win the election without a single green candidate in the house or senate.  I agree that's shitty--she has no experience running a government, and would gridlock with the house/senate instantly.  Don't like it?  Get the system changed; adopt the parliamentary system.  Until then quit whining about parties "not doing it right"--by the rules of your system what they're doing is perfectly fine, actually.

[Cmdr_King]

I wouldn't read much into Ross Perot myself; unlike Donald Trump, he was an actual billionaire, and in the days before Citizens United that meant his ability to personally fund a campaign was actually competitive with the major parties.  Which is the issue with the Greens in particular; they won't fund themselves, and if you're not doing that you can't run at the national level in a meaningful way.  See also: not on the ballot in every state.  So having smaller offices and building a base for the party over time is the alternative if you're not going to actually have money to run with.

Although actually there's a quirk here.  Perot formed a political party (the Reform Party) in '95 to capitalize on his success in '92.  Jesse Ventura (who later went on to be Governor of Minnesota in '98 on the Reform Party ticket) was mayor of a mid-sized Minnesota town in 1992.  So essentially there was a base for his platform here and there even if they weren't organized into a political party at the time.

[Hunter Sopko]

Even then, Ross Perot is still probably the most relevant factor in that race. Bill Clinton didn't have much of a chance without Perot siphoning such a significant amount of votes off Bush.

I think you're taking the word Need too literally, mc. Sure, you're right in the abstract that the way they're doing things is perfectly fine and acceptable in that it's legal, not immoral or unethical, etc. But the question, as you pointed out, becomes efficacy. If they run the party the way they do, there is a very high unlikelihood they will succeed in their goals. Does it mean it's impossible? No, but very unlikely. It's self-defeating, or maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy, to say that your party can never get ahead and establish itself in the American mainstream when you hamstring yourself like that. 

Most policy that actually affects Americans' everyday lives happens at the local and state assembly level. This is where they need to get in to start real change. That's not to say they can't also run for President too. But to build a genuinely effective third party alternative, you need to run and get elected candidates in ALL levels of government before you can actually say with any legitimacy that you're viable, even if you don't win the Presidency. Especially if you don't win the Presidency. It's probably going to be the best way to start showing people your policies can work for them. Especially now that people are looking so hard for alternatives that even Jill Stein and Gary Johnson seem appealing to them. I'm in full agreement with Grefter that just getting to the table anywhere can make a huge difference on influencing policy.

They CAN play the game however they want. But if they want to win, then they have to realize being a Johnny in American politics isn't necessarily giving them the best (or any) chance at victory. Sometimes you gotta be a Spike.

[dunie]

Saying you need representatives on the local level first...yeah, no, you see there's a system where that's the case.  It's called the Parliamentary system; countries like Canada and Australia have it.  The US does not.  Hypothetically Jill Stein could win the election without a single green candidate in the house or senate.  I agree that's shitty--she has no experience running a government, and would gridlock with the house/senate instantly.  Don't like it?  Get the system changed; adopt the parliamentary system.  Until then quit whining about parties "not doing it right"--by the rules of your system what they're doing is perfectly fine, actually.

You do need representatives on the local level here, for the routine everyday laws that pass with a swiftness. Texas didn't get away with its strict legislation on women because it desires the approval of Congress. East coast states aren't passing anti-LGBT laws that are first vetted by Washington. Behind all that Soppy says.

Honestly, condemning a system is easy and idealistic. If your response is anyway linked to mine, in no way am I arguing to keep things the same, but we have many instances of people who succeed in overhauling legislation, & the morals attached to them, by starting at the local level. While this oligarchy continues to protect its monetary and political interests tooth and nail by influencing decisions, that is how citizens can still affect their immediate realities. That is more important, or rather seems more feasible to me, than asking citizens who don't even know their state reps names to demand a different political apparatus.

[NotMiki]

So Ted Cruz's line about voting your conscience was in the prepared version of his speech disseminated to the press prior to him saying it.  In other words, the RNC and Trump people knew ahead of time that's what he would say and they didn't stop him.  So that's weird?

[Grefter]

It is pretty much this.