Now you're trying way too hard to mesh your perception with your typical narrative. It reads well but is probably the most intellectually vacuous serious post you've ever made.

I'm gonna vote for Jeb

Jeb!?

Thanks for the feedback. Your opinion has been weighted appropriately.

Well, the good news is everyone can stop caring about the 2016 Presidential Election now.

You never know, Sanders could sweep California.

That would at least make the election entertaining if not for the tragedy.

Or perhaps his perception meshes with his typical narrative because he doesn't have cognitive dissonance.

I think you're seriously underestimating Trump's tendencies toward self-aggrandizing behavior.

Of course he doesn't. It doesn't bother him at all to write that. He doesn't actually believe it. He just wants others to believe it.

I like how Sanders keeps winning states JUST often enough to sustain the narrative that he's a viable candidate, but not enough (or by high enough margins) that he could ever actually win the nomination.

I think he says it because it's exceedingly clear to any non-delusional American that this is how Republicans have run for office for the last four decades. The establishment doesn't like Trump because he openly states that which had previously only been insinuated.

He's unpopular with the power brokers within the party because he exposes the base for what it is. The conservative electorate is built on racism and xenophobia, so naturally a man running on a platform constructed of solely those things is the most popular.

It could be that I give Jon`C too much credit. I believe him to be very intelligent so when he says, "on the other hand, literally everything Trump has said and done so far can be easily played off as grandstanding for a stupid conservative base that demands their leaders act like incestuous racists," I have to assume it's just #Lyin'Jon at it again.

First, stupid and conservative are mutually exclusive. You might not like conservative policy but it's not possible to be conservative and stupid. Being conservative implies some sort of understanding that stupidity can't allow. In contrast, you can't be liberal and smart. Progressive is another matter. You have to be quite diabolical to be a true progressive.

Second, Trump has not just alienated conservatives but insulted them throughout the campaign. He started by pretending to be conservative but rapidly turned back to the populist left. He chose to court the stupid 1/3 of the party over the 1/3 conservative base of the party. Of course that energized more stupid people to turn out and alienated the same people that didn't turn out for McCain or Romney.

Next, Trump hasn't actually promoted any racist rhetoric. Sure there's the wall but that has nothing to do with race and it's not going to happen. Conservatives know that. There's the no Muslims for awhile thing but that has nothing to do with race and it's common sense not to import terrorists unless you want to promote chaos so that's just an anti-progressive thing anyway.

Lastly, as the field narrowed, Trump became the safest candidate for Democrats and establishment Republicans to support because if he actually has any values they're liberal NYC values and that's better for the establishment than a wildly intelligent true believer like Cruz.

Believing Jon`C to be wickedly smart and knowing the facts above I have to believe he's being deceptive. Perhaps he's not as smart as I think he is.

lol, good one.

So, Poe's Law, right?

There is a certain kind of person who benefits from the conservative's eternal lien of austerity with low inflation. It's certainly not good for anybody else, but at least it is a rational choice for those people. If you are that kind of person, you are allowed to be smart and be conservative.

Otherwise, you are just a useful idiot.

Most conservatives are useful idiots BTW.

I don't think Wookie has heard yet that Cruz dropped out of the race.

Most of this forum appears to be Jon`C's useful idiots. Unless, of course, I am giving Jon`C too much credit.

What do you actually expect anyone to say to you? You're acting like a jackass.

Be nice. You'd be cranky too if you just found out that everything you believe is a lie.

Be honest, Wookie: How much do you drink?

Also:



Yep, we're right between #2-3 at this point.

Donald Trump, a New York Democrat, will win more primary votes than any other Republican candidate in history, and all it took was whining about Mexicans and publicly lusting for his own daughter. It turns out that a plurality of registered Republicans cares more about ethnic unfairness than they do about so-called "real" movement conservative issues. Well, that, and daughter-****ing.

And then you've got the balls to bring up the other 60%, call yourselves "true believers" like you deserve some kind of ****ing medal?

Yeah, okay. Let's talk about the intellectual rigor of a flat tax:

Oh, I guess we're done already.

Half of you pig****ers are living off of the EITC, and here you are, talking about how smart and ideologically pure real conservatives are, because they'd vote themselves up from -5% tax to +15% tax just because some libertarian crypto-anarchist at the Cato Institute wants a new pool. The only conservative movement here is the conservative bowel movement the Koch brothers took all over your party's chest. And you'd better get used to the steaming, stinking log, because that's all conservatives are worth anymore. The idiot whores of the rich, who say what they're paid to say, and vote for what they're paid to vote.

(By the way, the Democrats are conservatives too.)

Cruz was a strong believer in free trade agreements. Cruz also wanted to abolish the government department responsible for negotiating free trade agreements.

Some crazy 4 dimensional chess going on here!

I honestly wonder what someone like Wookie would say if he read actual historical work (e.g., not Hayek), especially on institutions of right wing propaganda.

Have I mentioned this week how neoliberals like Wookie06 and Cruz are complete ****ing poison for anglo culture? You know, the thing they're supposed to "conserve"?

- Neoliberals erode family unity by cutting labor rights. Their business friends make more money, but parents are forced to work away from each other and their children for longer hours.

- Neoliberals demand fear of others, which weakens our communities. They tell us that we need to be afraid of everybody so they can expand the powers of the state to "protect" us, but all it does is make us more isolated and less attached to neighborhoods, employers, and even our own countries.

- Neoliberals harm the Christian faith by heresy, by embracing the prosperity gospel and the blasphemers who preach it. They also support usurious financial companies, whose practices are forbidden.

- Neoliberals slash public spending for the arts and sciences. Patronage is an honored tradition in our culture, dating back thousands of years, but neoliberals do not respect such traditions.

- Neoliberals oppose public education, making the average citizen less intelligent and less capable of performing complicated work.

- Neoliberals use anti-democracy electoral trickery to win, like redistricting and selective understaffing. This tatters the social contract, permanently reducing both the trust of the public and the legitimacy of the government itself to rule.


Calling Wookie06 a neoliberal is perhaps too kind, since neoliberalism isn't liberal. He's really more the serf of a newly-hatched and wholly irresponsible aristocracy. Naturally, though, Wookie06 would know none of this, having no real knowledge of his party's history despite voting in the last 8 presidential elections or so.

Amen.
But getting back to the original topic, I think it is still too early to announce a Clinton victory. Months ago, I was absolutely sure that Trump had no chance at all of winning the nomination, and would be shunned and forgotten within a few weeks. The sentiment was widespread, and you heard people on just about every outlet laughing off Trump's chances.

Now he will most certainly become the nominee, using unorthodox methods to do it. Now all he has to do is win enough Sanders voters over.

Trump vs Clinton will be very much like Trump vs Cruz. Clinton is seen as a corrupt warhawk sell-out that should never be allowed to reach the presidency. She is the establishment in the Democratic Party, and this year has been the year of the "people vs the establishment".

I won't predict who will win, but I will say, it's too early to tell.

Also, Hillary could get indicted. That Romanian hacker just confirmed he hacked her server and has 2+ gb of her emails.

Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SUWK_pWrbw

I'm guessing this about sums up Wookie's understanding of intellectual history.

Apparently there's suspicions regarding her campaign financing and she's being interviewed by the FBI soon. So I think you're actually right. Too early to call and her reputation only seems to be getting worse.

Oh yeah! Totally forgot about that scandal (avoiding individual donation limits via a money laundering type scheme). Even if she doesn't get indicted for anything, I can totally see Trump using all her controversies as ammunition, and whatever unpredictable things he may do. He has a better chance at winning the general election than any of the other candidates had. In my opinion, the toughest opponent he could get is Sanders, but that could only happen if Clinton gets indicted.

Even if she doesn't get indicted, it still looks bad. It's a blow even if nothing happens.

Sanders is the only candidate worth electing on nonrelative grounds, despite him being a radical leftist on par with Eisenhower. At least he's not as left as that insane communist nutjob FDR. The biggest problem Sanders faces are people like Wookie who legitimately, earnestly believe in supply-side economics and that labor rights are the worst thing since Hitler made Germany a socialist dystopia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-robbins/fix-our-election-system_b_9847102.html

No clue as to the efficacy of this, but basically the conservatives in charge of the Democrats legitimately believe Bernie Sanders is a threat. Because he is, to them.

I suspect you're joking but the way you've bandied around words like progressive, conservative and liberal as if they were just names of teams rather than real terms with their own meanings is ridiculous and something I've noticed a lot from (particularly right-wing) American political rhetoric. It's like we don't even speak the same language let alone have a disagreement.

Anyway, we just had an election here in Scotland and my first time voting in an MMP system. The campaigning and hustings were fairly short and respectful, no party dominated unfairly in the results; it was good. Obviously the USA has more people and more at stake but I find it incredible that we're about a year on since the parties' presidential candidates announced themselves and after all the showboating, hooting and name-calling we're still only just finding out who's going to be running for the two big parties.

I want to argue with Wookie but I am liberal and pretty dumb so I don't really have a leg to stand on

What the **** are you talking about dude. Did you really just say that

conservative ⇔ ¬ stupid

? Do you believe half the garbage you write? In either case, can you please tell us right now why you shouldn't be banned, until you agree to stop posting deliberately non-nonsensical statements?

lol, look at this fool, his L fell over.