2016 U.S. Presidential Race Megathread Mark 2.

Billy86 · 16-11-2016 04:54PM

marienbad wrote: »

- Donald Trump would have hammered Bernie in a general election

I do agree to some extent that the 'vast conspiracy' against sanders is quite overblown, but I would also highly, highly doubt that bit I quoted. This was an election of personalities, not of policy or experience or anything else. Like it or lump it, sanders has a lot more of that than Clinton, also has a penis (because yes that's a sad truth for some voters also), was able to create far more fervour/excitement/enthusiasm than Clinton. These may not seem like or possibly even be good reasons to vote for a candidate, but they clearly are what us voters gravitate to for whatever reasons.

And most importantly, he was appealing to the same anti establishment base as Trump as well as on bringing the jobs home, which would have cut considerably into perhaps Trumps two largest blocs.

alastair · 16-11-2016 04:58PM

Magnate wrote: »

Reality is subjective, but I appreciate it's a tough pill to swallow.

Reality isn't subjective at all - he objectively lost the nomination. Because enough people didn't vote for him.

16-11-2016 04:59PM

Magnate wrote: »

Reality is subjective, but I appreciate it's a tough pill to swallow.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/tweetstorm-bernie-sanders-former-press-secretary-amazing

Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) July 25, 2016 wrote:

But let me be clear - NO ONE STOLE THIS ELECTION! Team Sanders we did AMAZING WORK. But we lost. It's a hard reality for some.

Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) July 25, 2016 wrote:

It was a hard reality for me. Because I fought hard. Now, we won some great battles, but the reality is the system didn't cheat us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symone_Sanders

Symone Sanders was the national press secretary for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Magnate · 16-11-2016 05:00PM

alastair wrote: »

Reality isn't subjective at all - he objectively lost the nomination. Because enough people didn't vote for him.

Okay you don't believe there was voter fraud. But suppose there was and Hillary stole the nomination as a result and nobody knew about it. Your reality and the reality of everyone else would be that she won fair and square, because enough people didn't vote for Sanders.

However the true reality in that case, which I happen to share is that voter & election fraud did occur.

Billy86 · 16-11-2016 05:00PM

Magnate wrote: »

Reality is subjective, but I appreciate it's a tough pill to swallow.

No, you're being a bit ott to be honest. Sanders didn't do as well in urban areas because the status quo suits them quite well at present as opposed to the more rural areas (who came out massively for Trump on those grounds) and also because sanders economic plans, much like Trumps, we're not very good. Bring g production home, protectionism, etc are not good for an economy if they come from left or right.

That said, I still would have preferred him to Clinton or Trump. Shake up the system etc, but without all of the nastiness and validation granting of sexism, racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, etc. I also believe he would have been more likely to follow through on the shake up than Trump looks to be, so far.

alastair · 16-11-2016 05:09PM

Magnate wrote: »

Okay you don't believe there was voter fraud. But suppose there was and Hillary stole the nomination as a result and nobody knew about it. Your reality and the reality of everyone else would be that she won fair and square, because enough people didn't vote for Sanders.

However the true reality in that case, which I happen to share is that voter & election fraud did occur.

You're confused about the difference between opinion and fact. Your opinions (and those of the people you link to) are no substitute for actual facts. Factually - you've no case with regard to a degree of voter fraud that ensured Bernie lost the nomination. He was simply out-voted.

KingBrian2 · 16-11-2016 05:10PM

The Republicans deserved to win they fielded more candidates than the Democrats and if you look at the Democrats they are hardly known by anyone. Someone like Jessie Jackson or Joe Biden or Ron Paul campaigning as a Libertarian would have been far more liked by the people.

Magnate · 16-11-2016 05:11PM

alastair wrote: »

You're confused about the difference between opinion and fact. Your opinions (and those of the people you link to) are no substitute for actual facts. Factually - you've no case with regard to a degree of voter fraud that ensured Bernie lost the nomination. He was simply out-voted.

I presented you with a hypothetical situation to prove reality could be subjective.

As for having no case, I gave you with plenty of "facts" which you chose to disregard.

K-9 · 16-11-2016 05:12PM

Who knows who'll come along in 016?

Nobody foresaw Obama in 08 either.

16-11-2016 05:14PM

Magnate wrote: »

I presented you with a hypothetical situation to prove reality could be subjective.

As for having no case, I gave you with plenty of "facts" which you chose to disregard.

Why is facts in inverted commas? Is it because they weren't facts?

Why do you believe 'some blog post on the internet' over Bernie's press secretary?

KingBrian2 · 16-11-2016 05:19PM

Billy86 wrote: »

I do agree to some extent that the 'vast conspiracy' against sanders is quite overblown, but I would also highly, highly doubt that bit I quoted. This was an election of personalities, not of policy or experience or anything else. Like it or lump it, sanders has a lot more of that than Clinton, also has a penis (because yes that's a sad truth for some voters also), was able to create far more fervour/excitement/enthusiasm than Clinton. These may not seem like or possibly even be good reasons to vote for a candidate, but they clearly are what us voters gravitate to for whatever reasons.

And most importantly, he was appealing to the same anti establishment base as Trump as well as on bringing the jobs home, which would have cut considerably into perhaps Trumps two largest blocs.

Men and women voted for Trump the sexist card is being used way too often these day. It had nothing to do with gender Trump getting elected. He already got those voters in the primaries. Are their sexist out there yes but they were always in the bag like the Democrats have a portion of the minority voters in the bag just waiting in the voting booths. For these guys it was an easy election.

alastair · 16-11-2016 05:19PM

Magnate wrote: »

I presented you with a hypothetical situation to prove reality could be subjective.

No you did not.

Magnate wrote: »

As for having no case, I gave you with plenty of "facts" which you chose to disregard.

"facts" are not facts. If your mate with the voter fraud theories doesn't 'intuitively' understand that rural conservative voters are no more likely to vote for any Democratic candidate, leaving the field of remaining rural voters just as likely to vote for Bernie as Hillary - and that Hillary fared far better with urban/minority voters than Bernie did, so why would anyone expect Bernie to be favoured by urban counties?

brevity · 16-11-2016 05:20PM

Billy86 wrote: »

Including Obamacare, until a Republican is in office when all of a sudden it's not so bad.

They don't care about the deficit now either.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/deficit-donald-trump-republicans-231372

K-9 · 16-11-2016 05:24PM

alastair wrote: »

No you did not.

"facts" are not facts. If your mate with the voter fraud theories doesn't 'intuitively' understand that rural conservative voters are no more likely to vote for any Democratic candidate, leaving the field of remaining rural voters just as likely to vote for Bernie as Hillary - and that Hillary fared far better with urban/minority voters than Bernie did, so why would anyone expect Bernie to be favoured by urban counties?

Suppose Hillary supporters would then have faced the choice:
Sanders or Trump?

Magnate · 16-11-2016 05:35PM

alastair wrote: »

No you did not.

Jesus christ.

Okay let's flip the situation and say Sanders won but secretly rigged it. Your reality would be that he won fair and square based on your knowledge and your known facts. But this case you wouldn't know all the facts(that he secretly rigged it). If you then found out that he rigged it, your reality would be that he rigged it and didn't win fair and square.

Now lets say you never find out that reality, because you refuse to consider new evidence. Your reality is that he still won fair and square. Now imagine Bernie goes to your friend and admits he rigged it to win, your friend's reality is that he rigged it.

Reality is subjective.

16-11-2016 05:36PM

You are using the word reality when you mean perception.

alastair · 16-11-2016 05:37PM

K-9 wrote: »

Suppose Hillary supporters would then have faced the choice:
Sanders or Trump?

I'm talking about the nomination vote. Clearly most Hillary supporters would have voted Sanders, if he had got the nomination, just as most Sanders supporters voted for Hillary. I have my doubts about Sanders faring any better than Hillary did though - aside from the antipathy for anything leftist in the electorate mainstream, there's his religion. Still a lot of anti-semitism about.

marienbad · 16-11-2016 05:37PM

Magnate wrote: »

Jesus christ.

Okay let's flip the situation and say Sanders won but secretly rigged it. Your reality would be that he won fair and square based on your knowledge and your known facts. But this case you wouldn't know all the facts(that he secretly rigged it). If you then found out that he rigged it, your reality would be that he rigged it and didn't win fair and square.

Now lets say you never find out that reality, because you refuse to consider new evidence. Your reality is that he still won fair and square. Now imagine Bernie goes to your friend and admits he rigged it to win, your friend's reality is that he rigged it.

Reality is subjective.

Are you for real ? Facts are still facts even when you don't know about them .

Magnate · 16-11-2016 05:48PM

Deleted User wrote: »

You are using the word reality when you mean perception.

There's a difference between objective & subjective reality.

Your subjective reality (perception of the objective reality) is a result of what you choose to believe and what you believe to be true given what you know. It cannot take into account what you do not know.

Feck it I'm out. Better things to be doing.

marienbad · 16-11-2016 06:02PM

Magnate wrote: »

There's a difference between objective & subjective reality.

Your subjective reality (perception of the objective reality) is a result of what you choose to believe and what you believe to be true given what you know. It cannot take into account what you do not know.

Feck it I'm out. Better things to be doing.

that is not reality though is it ?

16-11-2016 06:03PM

Magnate wrote: »

There's a difference between objective & subjective reality.

Your subjective reality (perception of the objective reality) is a result of what you choose to believe and what you believe to be true given what you know. It cannot take into account what you do not know.

Feck it I'm out. Better things to be doing.

So yes.

Deleted User wrote: »

You are using the word reality when you mean perception.

Everyone and their mother uses the term reality to mean your 'objective reality'.The term 'objective' is redundant. They also use perception to mean what you are calling 'subjective reality'.

alastair · 16-11-2016 06:07PM

marienbad wrote: »

that is not reality though is it ?

Nope. Because reality isn't a subjective condition - that's merely perception.

Akrasia · 16-11-2016 09:04PM

alastair wrote: »

I'm talking about the nomination vote. Clearly most Hillary supporters would have voted Sanders, if he had got the nomination, just as most Sanders supporters voted for Hillary. I have my doubts about Sanders faring any better than Hillary did though - aside from the antipathy for anything leftist in the electorate mainstream, there's his religion. Still a lot of anti-semitism about.

Trump probably had the racist anti semitic paranoid conspiracy theory votes sown up alright, but Sanders was very popular amongst independents and his message was just as anti establishment as Trumps, and he promised a lot for middle America, promises that are 'extreme' when viewed through american eyes, but centrist compared with many other advanced economies.

Sanders' version of hope wasn't vague platitudes about 'making America great again' It was about giving the american people the same rights and standard of living that is taken for granted in other nations, and by spreading the wealth a little bit, the vast majority of americans would be much better off.

I have absolutely no doubt that Sanders would have won this election against Trump.

Trump won by bringing up his opponents murky past and using that to negate his won murky past. Sanders' past is his record of faithfully standing up for what he believes in.

Trump won by appealing to a quarter of the population of America. Sanders would have energised the other 75%

Suryavarman · 16-11-2016 09:10PM

Akrasia wrote: »

Trump probably had the racist anti semitic paranoid conspiracy theory votes sown up alright, but Sanders was very popular amongst independents and his message was just as anti establishment as Trumps, and he promised a lot for middle America, promises that are 'extreme' when viewed through american eyes, but centrist compared with many other advanced economies.

Sanders' version of hope wasn't vague platitudes about 'making America great again' It was about giving the american people the same rights and standard of living that is taken for granted in other nations, and by spreading the wealth a little bit, the vast majority of americans would be much better off.

I have absolutely no doubt that Sanders would have won this election against Trump.

Trump won by bringing up his opponents murky past and using that to negate his won murky past. Sanders' past is his record of faithfully standing up for what he believes in.

Trump won by appealing to a quarter of the population of America. Sanders would have energised the other 75%

The country that is moving towards the nationalist right would have voted for an anti-American communist over Trump? Sure they would have.

Akrasia · 16-11-2016 09:20PM

Magnate wrote: »

Jesus christ.

Okay let's flip the situation and say Sanders won but secretly rigged it. Your reality would be that he won fair and square based on your knowledge and your known facts. But this case you wouldn't know all the facts(that he secretly rigged it). If you then found out that he rigged it, your reality would be that he rigged it and didn't win fair and square.

Now lets say you never find out that reality, because you refuse to consider new evidence. Your reality is that he still won fair and square. Now imagine Bernie goes to your friend and admits he rigged it to win, your friend's reality is that he rigged it.

Reality is subjective.

But only one version of events is true, is actually real.

Nobody knows everything, we have beliefs about reality to various degrees of certainty, but the underlying facts about reality are true or false independently of what your beliefs are. (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle aside)

The reality is that we all live inside our own brains version of reality. Our mind creates a model of the universe based on our brain chemistry, our past experiences, our genetics and the information that we have previously and currently have access to.

But objective reality is what is independent of our own perception. Science is the art of separating out the signal from the noise. Getting the underling truth of something from a messy jumble of information by experimenting, repeatedly under carefully controlled conditions, and recording the results so that we can make objective claims about the nature of reality.

Radio waves can transmit information because we understand very well the exact properties of those waves at different frequencies and wavelengths, and we can build machines to take advantage of those signals to transmit information via 'thin air'

Reality is not subjective when a million people can independently tune in their radio to the same frequency and hear the exact same song broadcast at the same time.

Akrasia · 16-11-2016 09:26PM

Suryavarman wrote: »

The country that is moving towards the nationalist right would have voted for an anti-American communist over Trump? Sure they would have.

A quarter of the U.S. voters voted for Trump in a two horse race, and he still won.

You can conclude that the U.S. is moving towards 'the nationalist right' based on that, or you can conclude that the majority of people have lost faith in the establishment politics and wanted to throw a hand grenade into the system.

Your charactarisation of Sanders as an 'anti american communist' is the best that the Trump campaign could have come up with, and I think that Sanders could have defused that by comparing his position with an american hero like Roosevelt, and promising to offer the American a New Deal to rebuild the middle class

In fact, when Obama was being called a communist by the same people who call Bernie a communist, he did exactly that, he pointed at FDR. Obama was elected in no small part because people wanted a new FDR, but he wasn't dedicated enough and compromised too much with the establishment and the republicans. Sanders could have won by tapping into Obama's voters hope and idealism, and promising to deliver this time.

marienbad · 16-11-2016 10:01PM

Akrasia wrote: »

A quarter of the U.S. voters voted for Trump in a two horse race, and he still won.

You can conclude that the U.S. is moving towards 'the nationalist right' based on that, or you can conclude that the majority of people have lost faith in the establishment politics and wanted to throw a hand grenade into the system.

Your charactarisation of Sanders as an 'anti american communist' is the best that the Trump campaign could have come up with, and I think that Sanders could have defused that by comparing his position with an american hero like Roosevelt, and promising to offer the American a New Deal to rebuild the middle class

In fact, when Obama was being called a communist by the same people who call Bernie a communist, he did exactly that, he pointed at FDR. Obama was elected in no small part because people wanted a new FDR, but he wasn't dedicated enough and compromised too much with the establishment and the republicans. Sanders could have won by tapping into Obama's voters hope and idealism, and promising to deliver this time.

Sanders has given too many hostages to fortune over a long career . Trump and the GOP would have made mince meat of him .

Look how they succeeded in convincing so many HRC belonged in jail rather than running for election , this despite being investigated for 30 years and never convicted of anything

Christy42 · 16-11-2016 10:57PM

Akrasia wrote: »

Trump probably had the racist anti semitic paranoid conspiracy theory votes sown up alright, but Sanders was very popular amongst independents and his message was just as anti establishment as Trumps, and he promised a lot for middle America, promises that are 'extreme' when viewed through american eyes, but centrist compared with many other advanced economies.

Sanders' version of hope wasn't vague platitudes about 'making America great again' It was about giving the american people the same rights and standard of living that is taken for granted in other nations, and by spreading the wealth a little bit, the vast majority of americans would be much better off.

I have absolutely no doubt that Sanders would have won this election against Trump.

Trump won by bringing up his opponents murky past and using that to negate his won murky past. Sanders' past is his record of faithfully standing up for what he believes in.

Trump won by appealing to a quarter of the population of America. Sanders would have energised the other 75%

Trump would have just fit the word communist into his speeches and making communists the great enemy (maybe avoiding saying Sanders is a communist directly).

K-9 · 16-11-2016 10:58PM

Suryavarman wrote: »

The country that is moving towards the nationalist right would have voted for an anti-American communist over Trump? Sure they would have.

Trump won, or did very well with the disaffected union vote, Sanders would have cleaned up there.

FA Hayek · 16-11-2016 11:44PM

Sanders would not have lost the rust belt, that is for sure. Remember he won states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin during the Democratic Primary when he was polled to lose them. If he would have won over all, not sure, but at least people could have looked at him and said, 'there is change right there' and at least people would know he was genuine and a man of integrity. He earned excitement and enthusiasm. Unlike Clinton who was establishment and dull through and through.

Biden would have won, do doubt about that but then again, Hillary was always going to get the nomination. It was a done deal done in some back room back in 08 after Obama got election and she got Sec. of State. Shows why she lost. People are tired of backroom deals. The US is a Republic, not a monarchy where the powers that be anoint the next President. The people gave them a big F... Y..

2016 U.S. Presidential Race Megathread Mark 2.

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