Real change we can believe in at the polls.

[0utlaw-immortal.livejournal.com]

Joke under cut.




Not that there is any part of the 2016 election that isn't a joke.

Comments

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Where's the joke?

[garote]

:P CNN polling never was, and still isn't, representative of anything but CNN watchers.

[blackdwarv.livejournal.com]

Also left out: Trump is even *less* trusted.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Mrs Clinton may or not be untrustworthy according to whatever media outlet one pays attention to. However, Trump say one thing, then denies it, then says he was being sarcastic.
Trump, sarcastic or not, though for those of us that still have the original transcripts etc, is simply not electable to rational people.

Now the test is to see whether the US is rational.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

The main frustration I see here in the US is that Hillary supporters can't really come up with a better reason to vote for her than "Trump will be sooo much worse!"

Don't get me wrong. That reason is 100% true and compelling, but it is demoralizing to vote AGAINST rather than voting FOR. As a result, the public doesn't like her very much.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

It is a no-brainer. I have opined elsewhere that even Loki would make a better leader than Trump; that may be an exaggeration, but when your opposition is the Donald, even Nixon is a better bet.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Sure, but that doesn't mean people will suddenly fall in love with Nixon...

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

True, mind you I'm beginning to reappraise him in the light of subsequent Presidents.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

The reason that "She's better than Trump" becomes the justification so often is that the people who dislike Hillary often don't themselves have a concrete or justifiable basis to dislike her. Ask any person what she's been dishonest or lying about. Her e-mails? Well, specifically how? That she wasn't entirely on top of how tens of thousands of e-mails were handled? Well, would you be? She was the Secretary of State, not an IT professional! Her Goldman Sachs speeches and the Clinton Foundation? Is there any concrete evidence of influence peddling there? Or is it just inherently dishonest for a former president to solicit donations from non-U.S. donors, per se?

[garote]

I'm still wrestling with the question of how much of this is attributable to plain old sexism.

Eight years ago when Palin ran as a VP pick, it was hugely energizing to the GOP base, but her credentials were so questionable that a backlash started almost immediately. It was clear to Democrats, and eventually clear to almost everyone, that she was chosen because she was a relatively young and pretty woman who was enough of an outsider that the GOP could control her. When she went off-reservation and started spilling her own crazy ideas, we all had fun shouting "I told you so!"

Now we have presidential candidate Hillary who is pushing 70. She's not trending online as a MILF, she's not winking in debates, she's not an outsider that people can project their hopes of revolution onto, and yet ... again ... we have a backlash of people saying "She's just popular because she's a woman."

With Palin it was, "If she wasn't a woman, you'd recognize her as a know-nothing lunatic." With Clinton it's, "If she wasn't a woman, you'd recognize her as corrupt and criminal and evil."

Now, to me, this is apples and oranges, because I think Palin is a know-nothing lunatic, whereas I don't consider Clinton to be criminal or evil, and not particularly corrupt. But what I'm wondering is, how much of the "corrupt and criminal and evil" narrative arose simply because people wanted something to tack on to the end of "If she wasn't a woman..."?

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

I agree with every word of this comment!

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

While the character assassination is certainly the largest contributor, there is the question of her policy decisions. How people feel about Clinton is tied pretty closely to how they interpret her changes in policy on NAFTA, DADT, Gay Marriage, The Iraq War, TPP, etc. Those who believe that she has changed her stance on these issues because she saw new evidence about these issues and had to make an informed decision to change her support to the opposing side are greatly in favor of her. Those who feel that she made those changes due to political expediency (namely, the instant her stance might damage her opportunity for advancement, she flip-flops), are not trusting of her as a politician with ideals.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Ask any person what she's been dishonest or lying about. Her e-mails? Well, specifically how?"

First two minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1Mc6-RDyQ

Do I care, not really. But politicians lie. If suddenly you are arguing that HRC never lies like some magical fairy-tale politician....

Which lies you tell, is telling.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Lying requires more than false testimony; it requires knowledge of the falsity. Simply pointing out contradictions between Hillary's apparent understanding of what she'd done and the result of an exhaustive inquiry into what she'd actually done does not prove that she lied.

I'd never said that she had never lied. What I said was that, to the extent she hasn't been entirely correct about what she'd done with respect to her e-mails, most of her errors seem to fall within the realm of the forgivable and far short of a pattern of mendacity that causes me much concern. Do you know where all of your work e-mails are saved and what servers they pass through on their way to their destination? Or am I making the mistake of assuming you might actually have a job where you use e-mail?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Lying requires more than false testimony; it requires knowledge of the falsity."

You are not so stupid as to hold that standard up to the highest of possible scrutiny. You cannot prove I have a consciousness, let alone what is going on inside of my mind.

You should realize, however, that the argument you propose does not really paint HRC in a much better light. The only options she has for false statements is: deliberately false or accidentally false.

If it's deliberately false, then she lied (in what would appear to be a way to protect herself--aka "false exculpatory evidence")

If it's accidentally false, then she was too stupid to get the correct information, about what has been an ongoing scandal for months and months. It's not a good look for someone who is running for president to be unable to get the facts straight about her private email server, which contained classified information.

Now: I'll repeat myself, since you are one dense mofo. I don't actually give a fuck about her emails. Much like I don't give a fuck about her husbands infidelity. That's not my objection. But, I do object when people attempt to sugar-coat and falsify on her behalf.

"Or am I making the mistake of assuming you might actually have a job where you use e-mail? "

Go suck a bag of dicks, you pompous little ****.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

[I have to split this into 2 posts, because it exceeded LJ's allowed character length. This is part 1.)

The reason that "She's better than Trump" becomes the justification so often is that the people who dislike Hillary often don't themselves have a concrete or justifiable basis to dislike her. Ask any person what she's been dishonest or lying about. Her e-mails? Well, specifically how? That she wasn't entirely on top of how tens of thousands of e-mails were handled? Well, would you be? She was the Secretary of State, not an IT professional! Her Goldman Sachs speeches and the Clinton Foundation? Is there any concrete evidence of influence peddling there? Or is it just inherently dishonest for a former president to solicit donations from non-U.S. donors, per se?

All of this. The reasons people give for not liking her are often so vague that they can't be addressed meaningfully without asking a lot of questions first, and even that doesn't always get to the bottom of things (assuming people are willing to engage to that extent, which is definitely not always the case).

I will confess that I personally have a hard time understanding the whole knee jerk "Hillary is untrustworthy" trope. No matter what one may say about the latest "nontroversy" (currently, the emails, I guess), I honestly believe that it really all comes down to decades of slamming and smearing that way too many people have bought into, without, imo, even realizing what they're buying into, much less who is selling it and what their motivation is.

Nothing she says or does is ever taken at face value. All of it is put under a microscope, and if there is any way whatsoever to interpret something in a negative light, it will be interpreted that way.

When it comes down to it, almost anything someone says or does can be interpreted in more than one way. And when that someone is Hillary, a lot of people will immediately jump to the worst possible conclusions. I have seen things she's said or done get twisted and spun until the original facts are barely recognizable under all the layers of interpretation people have encrusted them with.

Any time she says something that can be taken badly, don't worry: it WILL be. That's true of all politicians, to a greater or lesser extent, but I really feel it's carried out to a greater extreme with Hillary than most other politicians. And the real kicker is that when she says something of a positive nature (like a statement about something GOOD that she plans to do as potus), the same people who would love to see that action taken will avoid acknowledging that Hillary just voiced an idea they agree with, because "Oh well, you can't believe anything she says anyway;" and instead of a reason to vote for her, that erstwhile positive statement becomes just another excuse to call her a liar. Give me a freaking break! She's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. There is absolutely nothing she could do that would change the minds of people who are dead set against giving her any credit for anything, and I sure as hell don't think that anything I could say is going to change that.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

[This is part 2.]

I have done a lot of research since this election cycle started, because I don't want to support someone for the wrong reasons. And no matter how hard I look for actual EVIDENCE that she's done the horrible things she's constantly accused of doing, I can't find. anything convincing, in the vast majority of cases. Oh, sure, accusations abound; but actual hard evidence that proves any of those accusations is another matter entirely.

But I've found it doesn't do any good to point that out to people who have made up their minds to believe the bad stuff. They may not be able to prove she did xyz, but I can't prove she didn't, either, because it's damned nigh impossible to prove a negative. If I'm not mistaken, that's one reason people are supposed to be regarded as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But that rule doesn't apply to Hillary where an awful lot of people are concerned. For those who are convinced she's guilty of [fill in the blank}; they just "know" she is, and in my experience, nothing I can say will make any difference.

Otoh, it's relatively easy to illustrate what's wrong with Trump and how scary the idea of him controlling the nuclear codes or appointing the next several decades of Supreme Court justices (to name just 2 examples) would be. So it's a lot easier to focus on that. Why that isn't enough to convince people that it would be a good idea to vote for the One Person in the Entire World who has the capability of keeping him out of the oval office is something that I honestly don't understand. I literally can't get my head around why that is NOT a good enough reason to vote for her, even if one isn't a big fan. But then, to me Trump is the equivalent of Satan incarnate, Adolf Hitler, and a drunk Mel Gibson, all rolled into one. I'd vote for Newt Fucking Gingrich before I'd vote for him, no lie. If some one doesn't hate and fear him as much as I do, I guess I can kinda, sorta understand why they wouldn't want to vote for his opponent.

Maybe.

Possibly.

No, not really. I honestly don't understand why anyone who is not a mouth-breathing, Confederate flag-waving, islamophobic, misogynistic, white supremacist wouldn't be happy to cast a vote AGAINST that orange hellbeast. I REALLY don't get it.

{P.S. Sorry, this is so long and sort of rambly. This hit a nerve with me, and when that happens to me, the result is usually a teal deer stampede! I've tried to tighten it up, but every time I go back through it, I think of something to add. Deal with it, lol.)

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I literally can't get my head around why that is NOT a good enough reason to vote for her, even if one isn't a big fan.

I think it really comes very simply down to who those people are. White, straight men. To a person, it seems; I do know a few women Bernie-or-Busters, but these few have never voted for Democrats before Bernie. But for the most part, the people who seem to see little difference between a Trump and Hillary presidency are the people who won't have to worry about being the target of a resurgence of militant sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc., that Trump has all but promised to usher in. They're the ones who look for and amplify all of Trump's stated, "moderate" and unorthodox positions but ignore everything else about him, his authoritarianism, his choice of Pence and support for the standard Republican platform, etc. And then they're attacking anyone pointing this very curious pattern as engaged in "hate speech" against white, straight men.

It's astonishing to me. I've been saying for a few years that the liberal optimism that we're on a path of ever-broadening progressivism is unfortunately naive. And we're here, right now, seeing that possibility of a regressive, reactionary shock happen.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Say it with me now: I did not have political relations with that congressman!

[garote]

That's pretty sad. But it's also not the complete story, obviously.

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/clinton-on-sanders-health-care-history/

The background is an interesting caricature of the two candidates, actually: Sanders consistently arguing for exactly what he wants, come hell or high water, and Clinton talking about political expediency and what is possible. I can see how both of them would believe that the other was just not on board, in retrospect.

But hey, you didn't bring this up because of its subtext. You brought it up to take a potshot. How proud you must feel.

[madam-shapo.livejournal.com]

Even if you are so entrenched in your candidate to the maximum, acting so uninformed (trying not to be offensive) is ridiculous. She didn't have to know anything about IT, she just needed to use her secured government account. But in that case FBI could access her e-mails, and God Forbid, electorate could see what she was up to. Instead she hires an It firm to set up private server. All that because she was too dumb or to busy. Makes total sense to you.

[garote]

Almost none of any of this makes sense. :)

[madam-shapo.livejournal.com]

Makes total sense to Clinton supporters.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

It's a shame that a majority of CNN viewers aren't aware of actual statistics with regards to which candidates are more/less trustworthy/honest.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

Sad but true.