American Politics the 2016 edition

I say give Obama another 4 years (just make it happen somehow) 

As a white middle-class/upper-middle-class professional male, it is in my best interest to vote Republican...but I have always been a Social Democrat.  It just sits better with my belief system...but sadly most things that matter don't really matter to me personally. 

I'll never need an abortion.
I'm not ever marrying another dude.
I'm not an immigrant and have little concern of illegal immigrants taking my job. 
I am not a minority.
My employers have always provided me with health insurance so I'm actually a little worse off because of ObamaCare.
I don't believe that I will ever do anything that will result in me facing the death penalty.
Although I support gun control...the reality is that cat got out of the bag long ago and the truth is that if "you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns".  I respect people's rights to own guns and living 8 miles from the city of Detroit, I fully understand why "normal" citizens would want to own guns to protect their families.
I've never collected unemployment nor welfare...I appreciate the safety net being there, but fully believe that the system is broken and needs to be fixed.  Something needs to be done to make abusers employable.
I am not in the military and currently do not have any family members in the military so war or no war has no personal effect on me.  I believe that peaceful means and diplomacy is generally the right way of things, but sometimes, whether we like it or not, the USA needs to step in and be the "parent" to make the misbehaving "children" behave.  Yes, that is US arrogance, but that is the role that our ancestors have chosen for us to be the world's policeman. 

Everything screams at me that I should be a Republican, but aside from arguably being more fiscally responsible, nothing about the Republican side appeals to me.  Number one on my list being the religious fanatics.  Being Agnostic, every phony religious thing that comes out of Republican politicians mouths irks me.  From my point of view, they are either smart enough to know better and are lying through their teeth or they are gullible and have no business governing over men.  I respect people's rights to believe in the flying spaghetti monster or whatever else you want to believe in but don't force your beliefs upon me.  The sad part is that many of those beliefs are actually not really such a bad thing...i.e. the ten commandments.  Teaching people morals is actually a good thing, for the most part.  etc. etc. etc.

ClemofNazareth wrote: micky wrote: great post Bob let me pick something out of that to take this further... the "American Dream" as it was taught to me wasn't about getting rich or powerful.  The point was that anyone could come from anywhere and change their circumstances here do you really think that still applies today.. it seems to me (and others) to not be the case. Ie there are a lot of people and one political party with a vested interest in playing the politics of fear and division... and forgetting about the American dream unless one is white and born here... I do hear the sentiment that this country is not what it was when they were younger and things have changed here and NOT for the better.. yes I do blame the GOP for it but that is beside the point, who might be responsible for it.  The point of contention is ... those admirable notions are one of the core founding aspects of this country. A good number of people think we have completely lost track of that.. and NOT coincidentally....not being less a nation to be proud of having lost sight of what once made this country great.  thoughts? Is the country a better place than it was in the past?  I'm not sure.  Certainly an argument can be made either way.  There certainly have been plenty of darker days in our history. - 85 years ago the unemployment rate was over 25% and we were living through the biggest financial crisis in history.  Today unemployment is a fraction of that and inflation is almost non-existent. - in the 1950s more than half of blacks in the U.S. lived below the poverty level.  Today that rate is about 24%. - in 1945 we killed or injured more than 300,000 Japanese civilians in the name of "peace".  A couple years before that we rounded up 120,000 Americans and put them in internment camps just because of their ethnicity. - in the 1960s we saw the murders of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and scores of civil rights workers and protesters throughout the South.  Lots of countries have had coups and assassinations and political upheaval since 1963, but in that half-century the worst political issue we've had is a bunch of idiots running the country.  - also in the 1960s the president had to send federal troops to escort little girls to school just to ensure they were allowed in because they were the 'wrong color'. - in the 1980s the federal government had to take control of the public schools in Kansas City because the city was enforcing segregation and unequal education.  This was in 1985, not 1885! So yeah, a lot of things suck in the U.S. today.  Could be worse, and it has been.  That's not an excuse of course, but I think sometimes we have to take a broader view.  Today I've been married for almost 30 years to an immigrant minority and nobody bats an eyelash.  That wasn't true even when we got married.  Home ownership rates in the U.S. are among the highest in the world.  We have the oldest working constitution and continuous government of any country in the world. So like I said, things could definitely be better, but if I had to pick a time to live in the U.S. I'm not sure I can think of a better one.  Glass half full, I guess ...

excellent post again Bob. Indeed glass half full...

It is definitely worth noting that indeed things have been a lot worse here in the past and we have made some progress in those things.  Where the glass is half empty is completely regressing in other areas. 

Economic mobility being a prime one in my mind, thus a vital component of the 'american dream' is rendered moot unless one considers progress... and the american dream to move here from some sh*t hole to perhaps not have your life outrightly threatened.. but to be still treated as a outsider, invader and corruptor of core american values. Assuming of course one was able to navigate the miles and miles of roadblocks this country has thrown in potential immigrants paths.  I would think that most of us could and would agree that we have become a much more clearly delinated society of haves and have nots and with ongoing 30 year war, and resulting shrinking of the middle class, there is much less chance today of ecomomic mobility. Hard work  gets you survival for many.. not a way up the ladder.

^ *sounds of crickets chirping*   btw.. in the wild west days of this site we didn't limit our search and destroy missions to 'DT fan'  we also took great pleasure in trying to eradicate libertarians. 

yeah.. politics can be pretty mind boggling.  If one tries to take a view that candidates should be likeable and the kind of people you'd consider having a friend. Pfff..  they are all crooks, cheats and the highest from of leaches of the taxpayer dollar.

Don't not vote.  It is as much a duty as well as a responsibility IMO. I assume you have opinions on your economic welfare...  the state of this nation. Take stock of where your heart and/or your mind is taking you.. and you vote/support will follow.

micky wrote: great post Bob let me pick something out of that to take this further... the "American Dream" as it was taught to me wasn't about getting rich or powerful.  The point was that anyone could come from anywhere and change their circumstances here do you really think that still applies today.. it seems to me (and others) to not be the case. Ie there are a lot of people and one political party with a vested interest in playing the politics of fear and division... and forgetting about the American dream unless one is white and born here... I do hear the sentiment that this country is not what it was when they were younger and things have changed here and NOT for the better.. yes I do blame the GOP for it but that is beside the point, who might be responsible for it.  The point of contention is ... those admirable notions are one of the core founding aspects of this country. A good number of people think we have completely lost track of that.. and NOT coincidentally....not being less a nation to be proud of having lost sight of what once made this country great.  thoughts?

A Person wrote: micky wrote: here is the McMatrix of political predictions                  Trump                Cruz                     Rubio Clinton        Clinton        Clinton landslide       tight Clinton Sanders      Trump             Sanders            Rubio landslide as most do think...  I think Rubio is the most electable thus most dangerous.. though exposed for an unexperienced political shrill.. it was done early. He has time to be better coached up by his handlers and puppeteers for a general election.  So far in the polls I've seen, Sanders wins against all GOP candidates by a wider margin than Clinton. Of course, those kinds of polls are not very useful at this stage, but still.

just goes to how worthless polls are..  I'll put it on record here... for all to see.

I buy a 6 pack of whatever beer you want.. for everyone on this damn forum if Sanders became President

Just as this country will never elect a far right wing wacko.. they'll especially never elect one seen as a leftist liberal.  Obviously I don't think he is...compared to the rest ..even Hillary he will sure be seen that way and this country has a natural 'righty' lean to start with and is more prone to elect someone more to edge of hard right than hard left. Regarless of what he really ..perception is often reality when it comes to politics. Only Cruz would make him look less extreme mainly because I think even right leaning voters think Cruz is f**king lunatic.

Politics I guess is the rich man's game.

Our founders certainly never intended for a permanent class of elitists to rule over us.

Raff wrote: micky wrote: no doubt darling.. but I think Steve hit that particular nail directly on the head in his post prior to yours. Agreed. However, many of those people are also those who in the past repeatedly voted for the people Steve listed, and fell for bunk such as the American dream. This country (the US) is built on the worship of wealth and success, and it is not surprising that the strongest elements in society have taken advantage of it to the detriment of the rest of the population. Unfortunately, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the American model has been left alone to hold sway all over the world - with the consequences we see now.

Raff wrote: Remember that the European meaning of "liberal" is not the same as it is here in the US. Here it is more or less synonymous with progressive, while in Europe it stands more for "free-market supporter". As to the reason why white low-wage earners vote GOP, I think it was John Steinbeck who said something about American poor seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires - which  brings me back to the whole lot of bunk called the American dream, and this country's self-destructive worship of wealth and success.

I've always thought that the American Dream was a way rich people trick poor people into making them richer.