2016 US Election MEGATHREAD: JZL likes it sticky

I don't believe that his reaction to Trump helped him one bit. He came across as a cry baby mama's boy.

That's just it...he brought a knife to a gunfight.

^^^ This. It seemed like he was just a deer in headlights sometimes. I think no one is more surprised than he is how shitty he did.

I read the Schaivo story that was linked. That story may be one-sided, but even if it's only 2/3rds true, there's no way I'd have voted for him. (Plus there's the whole helping steal the election for his worst-President-ever brother thang)

This is getting really depressing. I like Bernie but he's a rank amateur in foreign affairs. That he voted against the Iraq invasion is great, but that isn't enough. I guess the GOP candidates are rank amateurs, too.

Sigh. We need a Dem just to veto all the batshit crazy stuff our Republican Congress and Senate will try to push through if a Republican president is elected.

This is by far, the worst election I've seen. We really don't get a good choice. We only get a lack of options.

Sanders would be Putin's little bitch within three months, Kasich isn't electable this time around, and Paul is already out anyway. He must be the only person over 21 years old who ever took Ayn Rand seriously besides Ayn Rand herself.

America is not a socialist nation. Wealth is extremely concentrated in the hands of a few very rich individuals and/or corporations. Workers and/or the government own very little of the means of production and the government has only ever controlled wages and prices during a few very rare instances, almost exclusively during wartime. That the government has little or no role in a capitalist economy is an outright myth usually perpetuated by the right.

If we were to go strictly by campaign bullshit speeches and soundbites, we'd be hunky dorey no matter who got voted into the whitehouse.
The road to ruin is paved with good intentions. We need a viable third party, something to fill the growing gap between right and left.

I'm really more concerned about the appeals to fear that are running rampant in this cycle, largely due to Trump, than I am about appeals to hunky-dorey. E.g., unemployment is at it's lowest in years. Sure that's just a statistic. It always has been though and always will be. It doesn't account for the quality of jobs. But it's a fact that unemployment, as it's measured, for whatever it's worth, is very low. Then you have Trump saying it's as high as 25% or "I heard it's really 42%" and people eat it up. But that's outright BULLSHIT. The last time we had measurable unemployment as high as 25-30% was the Great Depression, where people were jumping out of windows, there were breadlines, and in Europe they were paying people with wheelbarrows of money. This is Hitlerian fear-mongering at it's worst. The Republicans have been doing it for at least two decades but Trump has turned it into an art-form.

Well, I guess the appeal to hunkey-dorey is the flipside of the same coin. "We're in the shitter. We need to roll things back to THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF 1955 when everything was GRAND*. All you need to do is vote for me and everything will be . . . "

* So long as one happened to be a WASP male. My personal nickname for the good-ole-days types is "fifty-fivers" or "schfifty-fivers,"
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XccUMOQ978

So far, I don't really have anyone I can honestly say I support. I hear a lot of words, see a lot of political BS from every single player. This cycle is the de-evolution of our political system
showing just how screwed we (voters) are right here. No matter who wins, we the people lose. Disenfranchised? Yeah, you'd have had to of been there.

Yes, I understand there is some redistribution of wealth in the US, and also that socialism and communism aren't equivalent. That there are some socialistic aspects of our economy doesn't make it socialist. That there are capitalistic aspects of China's economy, or even the old Soviet Union's economy at that time, doesn't and didn't make them capitalist. By the way, big government in the US started during WWI, not the New Deal. And in this sense I mean government as a percentage of GDP.

I see wiskas started a website: http://crooksandliars.com/

"Yeah, you'd have had to of been there." wiskas' did you ever feel enfranchised? That statement seems to imply that at one point you did.

Yes, I was "enfranchised" to a high degree. I was a major progressive in the 70's and very active in politics as a progressive. I was making the current equivalent of 35 bucks an hour when I was 17.
Much of my problems were of my own making. I was able to pick myself up, dust myself off and start over many times. I've owned properties, cars, toys and had big retirement savings. Then the late 80's happened. Suddenly, it quickly became impossible to start over. 401K's were stolen by the collapses on wall st., and jobs lost out to income inequality. The cost of living soared while pay went down. The opportunities that used to be abundant, are simply not there anymore. Being productive used to assure a real shot at the American Dream. Not so much anymore.
What a lot of people see as negativity on my part may just be that I have seen an additional 20-30 years of downward spiral of the state of current affairs.
I started working and learning a decent trade in 1968. What I didn't realize then, was that the
downward shift had already started. The current generation wants to blame everything on the boomers, but even we inherited a society that was robbed by our preceding generation. I was somewhere around 25 when I noticed that my parents generation was all about 'take-the-money-and-run'.
I really feel for the millennials. So many are going to fall only once and not be able to pick up and start over. Out of concern, I became very vocal in sounding out on the lies and politics as well as the economic inequality. Nobody wanted to see it though so I gave up. That doesn't mean I shine a blind eye on the game. I'm just a spectator now and it's going to be a slaughter.

I know, it sucks balls bad. It isn't going to get better, especially for the next generation. Opportunity is directly linked to jobs. Where are they?
http://www.bls.gov/fls/chartbook.htm

A real candidate of value would be concentrating on things like jobs and wages. One that doesn't (100% of the candidates), is just blowing smoke up our collective asses imho.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts



Someone is making gains, those are where the answers and solutions are. This may be slanted, but there are real comparisons here:
http://thetruthwins.com/archives/28...nd-america-today-which-do-you-think-is-better

Trump appeals to lots of people who have seen these changes and want something/anything different that what has been. I maintain that it's the people/entities that
have profited the most from the changes of the last 60 years that decide who it is we get to vote for every four years. In essence, we get to vote for who it is we are allowed to vote for.
It's pretty much a big ruse.

Sanders took a major hit in South Carolina today. He especially did poorly among African-Americans. He may be pretty toasty after Super-Tuesday.

When you promise people more out of the national treasury, they vote for you....simple as that. It's the oldest of political tricks. Billary got the sooner, promised more.

Yeah, at least as far back as the Romans and probably the Greeks, too. Bread & Circuses Video Games 4TW.

Lollers @ "Billary."

Yes, it's nothing new at all.

1787 Alexander Tyler

http://www.thegazette.com/2011/08/10/u-s-may-be-in-final-steps-of-decline

and:

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/2...zation-8-simple-steps-to-squandering-it-all/#

This election cycle is like a cross between the WWF and March Madness. Quite the spectator sport it is. I keep asking myself if this is for real.

True. We're also a nation that should adopt this as our national slogan:
"Damn the unintended consequences and full speed ahead!"