Trump and Clinton Win

“I think Trump’s campaign is almost tailor-made to defeat an elitist associated with practically every economic and political failure of the past 30 years.”

I suspect you are correct. All the stupid sheep who voted for the murderous warmonger because of “electability” might be in for a surprise. President Trump will be, in large part, their fault.

The USA is well into collapse mode and Trump isn’t going to alter that (neither will Clinton, of course). It isn’t going to be pretty. May the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on all.

Long time reader, first time posting. I was a strong Hillary Clinton supporter in 2008 and still believe to this day that she was the best candidate over Barack Obama. This year, I believe that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to lead the country. I am disappointed that Americans have once again shown that they are not ready for real progress. It is even more upsetting to see that Republican voters this year know more than Democratic voters the candidate in their party who would be the best for their economic interests, even if that person is a fascist. I will vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, but it is disheartening that Americans will not allow a once-in-a-lifetime candidate like Bernie Sanders the chance to lead the USA in the right direction for the first time in decades. I am still young so I hope that I am wrong and America will see another candidate like Sanders in the near future. That being said, Sanders should stay in the race until the convention just as Hillary did in 2008. I dislike the calls for Sanders to drop out as much as I was annoyed by Obama supporters’ pressuring Clinton to drop out of the race early.

It is too early to count Sanders out. The problem that I think might be happening, however, is that a lot of people are second-guessing the chances of Sanders against a GOP nominee (Trump, obviously, at this point). (I’m basing that on just a few conversations with friends in which they or their friends say “I love Sanders but he can’t win…”) We have a situation where people agree with Sanders on the positions but think, rightly or wrongly, that other people will not vote for him—it’s like one of those game theory situations, e.g., a substantial majority of players want Outcome S but think not enough people will in a later round against Outcome T and so each one votes for Outcome C, which no one truly wants—I’m overstating the situation to illustrate the point.

Hillary has always been the front-runner and this Tuesday certainly hasn’t changed that, and has definitely made the optics rather poor for Bernie. On the other hand, the next half of the delegate race is substantially more favorable for Bernie. On the other other hand he would still have to win by pretty huge margins in those favorable states.

Here is my sorta prediction; it will go down to the wire, and Bernie will fight to the end(he has the cash). By the end of these primaries, the delegate spread will be a lot closer than it is now. Depending on how close it is (ie Hillary only wins due to super-delegates and Bernie actually wins the overall popular vote), Bernie may find an excuse to run as a third party candidate despite his past claims that he will not. Trump vs. Hillary vs. Sanders (now a much better known figure by November), might be a VERY interesting general election. Trump vs. Hillary will equal a Trump win as alotta people(democrats and Bernie supporters) will just stay away from the polls.

You have to root for the Dem to win no matter what for the simple reason that when you have a Republican the entire left devotes its entire energy to retaking the WH for a Dem.

The only 2 times left-wing candidates have made any dent in the election race since the 70s was Nader and Sanders, both after 8 years of disappointing democratic rule.

@Tom W Harris: Sorry, but Illinios, Ohio and Missouri are not southern states. I would love to see Bernie win so that I could vote for a Democrat in the general election, but it’s not going to happen. I will be doing a write in vote again this year.

Looks like the Democrats and Republicans will be nominating two grifters. One’s an egomaniac, and the other has a 757. (rimshot)

“…it’s a bit odd how all the establishment Republicans are running around with their hair on fire about Trump…unless, of course, people aren’t nearly as sanguine about Clinton’s chances against Trump as they make themselves out to be.”

Indeed, while urban Bernie supporters made fools of themselves [and lost the chance of his nomination], by wasting their energies on trashing Trump instead of focusing their very limited bandwidth on useful endeavors.

Instead of talking about Bernie’s opposition to NSA/CIA sponsored wars and Hillary’s war crimes, instead of Bernie’s opposition to Wall Street trillions in governmental largess and Hillary’s [and Bill’s] embrace of looting the US treasury to enable welfare for the wealthy, it was Bernie’s folks talking Trump trash…24/7.

Meanwhile, out here in the hinterlands, folks who’d have given Bernie a shot at reform, will now vote Trump. Bernie’s rural viewpoint of opposition to restrictive gun control had resonance here and could have pulled votes in the rural northwestern states. All gone in a moment cathartic nihilism, as Mark said: “meant to make one feel good about oneself”. Sanders folks who spent their time talking Trump trash instead talking up Bernie and revealing Hillary should take a bow, you gave Hillary the nomination.

I can hear Hillary cackling the same way she did when heard that Qaddafi had been sodomized to death by her machinations. Only Trump stands between the world and this monster taking the reigns of power…the self indulgence of small group of Bernie supporters brought us to this, no doubt, secretly supported by Hillary’s minions, but still…self indulgent fools…they are the medium in which evil swims.

@ Escher:

Yes, interesting and disheartening.

To me, it’s both an indication of how corrupt, distorted, and broken the system is—people are not sure that other people will vote for a candidate who has positions supported by substantial numbers of Republicans (both Sanders and Trump are anti-neoliberal candidates; both Sanders and Trump support, broadly speaking, Social Security, etc.)—and of how, under the exigencies of the moment (i.e., Trump is viewed as an existential threat), that uncertainty is exacerbated.

This piece from The Daily Beast back in February by a Clinton supporter exemplifies the thinking—it says, in essence, people won’t want to vote for a “socialist” who wants to “raise taxes.” The most favorable reading of the article is not quite “Bernie wants to do x” (even if he doesn’t), it’s that “Too many people will think (or be made to think) Bernie wants to do x” (so his actual positions are irrelevant)—a commenter on this blog has made that same argument—and even if most don’t now (which the polls favoring Bernie over any Republican candidate indicate), too many will later. The argument, apparently, is that, in a battle governed largely by misperceptions, Clinton is a better candidate. It’s pretty difficult to unravel how wrong, on so many levels, that is.

Why didn’t Sanders primary Obama in 2012? Why are his voters so passionate now when they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Oligarchy then? All they could do is swoon over the first Black president’s mis-leadership. The Democratic party is done. It committed suicide in 2012 when it didn’t primary one of its greatest neoliberal warmongers. Anyone working within it won’t transform much of anything. But they might win a Nobel Peace Prize on the eve of war in the Crimea. War is Peace . . .

Sanct. Purist, back in 2008, some of us were saying that Obama was bad news. What we really needed was a third party because the Democratic party not only didn’t represent progressives anymore, it was actively hostile to us. The response I got from people who had the connections and position to get this process going was very interesting, if useless. Basically, they would not consider supporting a third party unless it was already formed, and had already won significant numbers of elections. That is, they would not support a third party until their support was no longer needed.

Buzzard; you could be part right right and part wrong. I’d bet $100.00 the “community organizers” were Hillary operatives since she was the only person to gain, but it’s hard to argue that the ground troops weren’t Bernie troops…albeit “bamboozled” by Hillary’s provocateurs.