I didn’t watch a single second of the Republican National Convention last week and I plan to grant the Democratic National Convention the same honor. I think that at best national political party conventions are boring and a little alarming and, well, these particular national political party conventions are unlikely to be at best.
Tell me if I’ve missed anything.
Just as a reminder, I can’t envision circumstances under which I’d vote for either of the major party political candidates. We shouldn’t lose track of the fact that when you vote for the lesser evil, you’re still casting your support behind evil. As I watched the parade of people on the talking heads programs yesterday trying to convince us or, maybe, themselves that Hillary Clinton is a good candidate or even a good person, it nauseated me. The very best you can say about her is that she isn’t Donald Trump.
When evil is your good and good your evil, you’ve taken a step too far.
Dr. Joyner, at his site, is proffessing to be “at a loss” as to the Trump phenomenon. That appears to me to be an insiders, or R vs D mindset. I saw bits and pieces of the convention. Standard issue populism.
50 years of ineffectual government. The Republicans offered more of the same. The Democrats offered more of the same. Trump identifies an opening and walks through the door. How can anyone be at a loss?
If the Republican Party collapses, it will be for the same reason that the Whig Party did 160 years ago—because there was no difference between it and the Democratic Party.
I did not intend to watch any of the convention, but I did catch Trump and his daughter. If I were a Republican, I would be worried. The non-Trump Republican party could fit in a modern walk-in closet. Sen. Cruz is sadly mistaken in his belief that he would ever win over Trump supporters.
If Republicans could have rigged their primary like the Democrats did theirs, Trump would not be the nominee. In fact, the reason for all the pouty-faces among the Republicans is because they did not rig the process well enough.
If Trump were evil, we would have heard about it by now, but he is not. He cannot be affected by the usual methods, and the people who use these methods are furious. The only way to stop him is to cast him as evil. That only works until people begin to realize that he is not the monster he has been portrayed as. Then, the portrayer becomes a laughingstock.
If you think that Trump is evil, Hillary Clinton is your gal. She is the embodiment of everything you are for. She represents the ideal to which you would have your government and public officials strive. She is a product of the rigged system you idolize. You should be proud to be on her side. She is the best that the status quo has to offer.
Trump supporters are not impressed with the rigged system, and they have a little different take on Hillary Clinton. A rotten system produces a rotten apple, and the rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.
A President Hillary Clinton will not produce better candidates in four or eight years.
Efforts to sabotage the Sanders campaign are getting all the attention but the real story is in the leaked fundraising emails. It’s clear the DNC is no longer a political party as properly understood but a money-sucking machine with no regard for its source or the price of acquiring it.
Democrats have kept a lid on their problems but they’re as dysfunctional as the Republicans.
I didn’t watch any of it and actively avoided they news “analysis” by the talking heads. With was interesting to note how varied perceptions were.
Agree with Ben also. I’ve read some people with insider knowledge say that kind of stuff is normal in both parties.
I assume that all I need to know is what I’ve picked up on Twitter, namely that the convention was an utter disaster of biblical proportions that finished the Trump campaign once and for good, and that he got a ten point bump in the pols out of it.
Really, that right there is proof positive that the media no longer has any fucking clue what is going on in the country. Insularity in location and social networks insures they can’t possible know what’s going on. And yes, it’s always funny to see the look on the faces of people when they realize that THEY’RE the ones to be first up against the wall. It’s always the same. “What? ME?!!? But … but … but … I’m FOR the people! I’m with you! Don’t be deceived by my mountain bike that costs more than every car you’ve ever owned! I’M A MEMBER OF THE PROLETARI… [BLAM!]”
Good times! Good times….
Also, it’s good to finally see someone on this site admit that voting for the lesser of two evils is actually just surrendering to evil.
Ah, but you betray a certain uneasiness.
How can something be both boring and alarming?
Trump hasn’t proven his evil, though he might be.
He has proven he causes a certain uneasiness to many.
I’ve never been a fan of the belief that voting for the lesser of two evils is an endorsement of evil — really it’s a resigned preference for less evil.
At this point, barring sudden death, one of two people will be president in six months. You have options of more evil or less evil or shrugging. The right answer there seems obvious to me — less evil is, well, LESS evil.
You hold your nose, you make the choice, you work to try to make things better for the next election.
Or you realize you are in a safe state and that your vote doesn’t matter… Kansas and New York aren’t going to suddenly change sides.