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[Velcro Fly]

She will be terrible in the same way that Barack Obama was terrible, in that if you already don't like her, anything she says and does will automatically piss you off anyway.

 

[NewFresh]

She will be terrible in the same way that Barack Obama was terrible, in that if you already don't like her, anything she says and does will automatically piss you off anyway.

It's the bitch-crackers conundrum.

 

[Drek]

Is Jill Stein a Republican? Because she doesn't have kind words about Hillary in her response to Bernie's endorsement. Republican propaganda there, too?

No, she's just an idiot playing for votes for her meaningless protest party full of other idiots. Anti-nuclear power, anti-GMO, yet turns to science as the backup for aggressive climate change action. The Green Party, and Jill Stein, pick and choose what parts of reality they want to actually acknowledge.

I also see some stuff said here about Bernie or Bust people. The two hardcore Bernie fans in my Facebook feed were invested and posting about politics long before this election cycle, so they're not just groupies.

That doesn't mean they have a goddamn clue what they're talking about. Look at Bernie Sanders, he has solid core ideas but from a policy standpoint doesn't have a firm grasp on reality.

Some people on here just love to paint Bernie supporters as naive, ignorant college students and Hillary supporters like themselves as objective and truly knowledgeable about politics.

You know why people do that? Because it's true. Objective and truly knowledgeable people on the subject of politics will have a heavy bias towards Clinton because her stances are actually backed up by real policy with nuance and pragmatism. Key elements to getting anything done.

Meanwhile naive idealists gravitate towards Sanders because he says what people want to hear but it lacks the real substance needed to make it into a reality.

Both campaigned on the concept of Universal Healthcare for example. Clinton throughout her career has been open to a wide variety of methods to achieve that, but right now given the passage of the ACA sees that as the best method to push forward. Her most recent "joint proposal" with Sanders is basically where she was at in 2008 including a public option. Nothing new for her there.

Sanders meanwhile refused to budge from universal single payer and many of his supporters really believed in his suggestion that we could go from a country with a nearly $900 BILLION dollar a year health insurance industry to entirely single payer government funded healthcare overnight. Not only would no one else in DC support that, it would displace tens of thousands of workers, lead to mass confusion, and bog down the medical care system so completely as to grind it to a halt. It is both impractical and reckless, all for the glorification of a single path over the desired outcome itself. It's means justifying the ends thinking. Never mind that this also required us to join into the fantasy that employer healthcare contributions would be graciously turned over to employees immediately to make up for the increased taxation needed to pay for the program.

Or college tuition where the plan was to give everyone regardless of interest or career viability free four year college education, built on the two pillars of state matched funds and a Wall St. transaction tax. The former absurd because it asks for a 1:1 match on billions of dollars from every state while the ACA was only asking for a 1:10 match for medicare/medicaid expansion and had about two dozen states fight it it tooth and nail with many declining the effectively free money to make a statement about not letting more poor people have healthcare. The later would not only effectively penalize everyone using a 401K for retirement, it would also be the first thing to get repealed in another economic recession, making the entire program a hit to national debt.

Meanwhile President Obama has been making real strides in achieving a much more viable path - free community college for all, increases in federal grant funding, and educational loan repayment reform. Things that can actually happen now and don't rely on ignoring the consequences of actions in pursuit of an ideology.

I can't even vote in this election, not having citizenship, yet I still find the Bernie hate on Gaf supremely annoying. The level of condescension from Hillary supporters is irritating.

And here's the real crux of the matter. It isn't condescension, it's a reality check. What Sanders has been claiming he could bring wasn't remotely viable. The methods he suggested to achieve them were outright dangerous. It was bad policy written to align with an ideology, not reality. That isn't how good governance works.

The real condescension in this primary process though? That was all the people screaming about "REVOLUTION!" like they were on some new glorious quest for justice when just eight years ago we elected a black man from outside the party elite who has, in just that short window of time, made real lasting change in how this nation operates. Is it perfect? Not at all. Has he been perfect? Of course not. But the revolution already arrived and it brought with it 20 million more people with healthcare coverage, greatly expanded rights for the LGBT community, a massive rollback in U.S. interventionism even in the face of further discord and strife in the Middle East, big tent programs to ease the burdens of student loan debt on everyone, not just those currently in or about to enter college, and a host of other crucial issues.

We have achieved more societal progress in the past eight years than in the 30 years prior, but now that revolutionary change needs to be locked in and the only way that happens is with a capable and pragmatic POTUS who can vigorously defend those achievements, push for further expansion upon them, and selects Supreme Court nominees as well as lower court appointees who enshrine it all into law via legal precedent.

Sanders supporters spent the primary shitting on that and say it's not enough, or that it's worthless because it involved some form of compromise, or that working through the established pathways of political reform makes us establishment shills. That is the real condescension here, not people who know what the fuck they're talking about trying to explain what the fuck we're all talking about to people unwilling to understand the actual methods of governance and political action that exist in this country.

It's great that Sanders finally got around to endorsing the only worthwhile choice in the race for any right minded individual. I agree that it's an absolute travesty that our country could only turn out one of those in this election cycle. But that isn't a problem with the political system, that is a problem with society where social media and various other methods allow people to live deeper and deeper in extremist echo chambers. Sanders is an extremist, just one with a functioning moral compass. Trump is an extremist who very clearly lacks that. Gary Johnson is an extremist who lacks a real understanding of how the 21st century actually works and Jill Stein is an extremist deep within the weeds of crackpot pseudo-science. If we continue to argue for more devotion to ideology over effective policy we're only going to go further down this road.

 

[bomma_man]

Why are you disappointed? Bernie got a huge chunk of his platform adopted by Hillary Clinton for his endorsement. That's a win. You can't demand for everything you want to change at once. This is a huge shift in the right direction in our country. It's not even a "lesser of two evils" at this point.

People vote for personality and symbols, not actual policy.

 

[RustyNails]

I mean, this isn't the Wii U we're talking about here. If your position is disgusting and immoral, you should probably expect some pretty strident responses.

But Wii U is horrible.

 

[Aureon]

They really aren't, actually. Costs are biting everyone using nuclear in the ass, just covered up nicely (see the UK's new nuclear power plant, which is about as close to communism as the Soviets ever got).

Still a lot cheaper than all other renewables that are not resource-limited, though.
Wind and Solar generators love ignoring their own externalities.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

People vote for personality and symbols, not actual policy.

Some Hillary Supporters in this thread are continuing to act like BernieBros on reddit. Some toxic vindictive garbage posts in this thread. I'd support Hillary if I had to vote in November, but this pathetic fanboy antics make me dislike the cause she is trying to create unity for, much like extreme Bernie supporters. It's the same shit, different candidates.
I feel bad for the mods who have had to suffer through this gullible nonsense throughout the last year. What a pointless exercise in aligning yourself with a personality while defaming the other.
It's not that I don't get why Hillary has such a vile defense force given the shit she has had spewed at her (as a person. mocking her below the belt with things that has nothing to do with her policies) but you would at the very least have hoped that Hillary-GAF would have acted more tactful than those BernieBros who chased away sensible people and poisoned their well.
PoliGAF itself is just an excellent example of a vacuum that only parades positive, one-sided news stories about their candidate while defaming the other. Exactly the same type of vacuum that exist on reddit. It's incredible sad and unproductive and leads to these stump speech posts being repeated over and over. Something something kid gloves purity fallacy bullshit.

 

[pigeon]

They have a very long RoI, I agree, and the UK deal with China was also a total shambles, I agree, but a) over their lifespan, nuclear plants still work out moderately cheaper than most renewables at the moment, even if the costs are mostly all upfront, and b) they're obviously much cleaner than coal. They're a stop-gap solution, at least until thorium becomes widespread, but that still a necessary one.

This is kind of a messy place to be in a field where there's a lot of technological focus right now, though. "Pay a bunch now and in 50 years you will have saved a lot of money unless anything got invented in that period!"

 

[TestOfTide]

If you're in a swing state, not voting Clinton is de facto voting Trump. If you're in Alaska or whatever, vote who you feel like. Heck, you can vote Trump in Texas, no skin of my nose. But if you're in North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, Nebraska's 2nd district, or possibly even Missouri, for the sake of anyone who is poor or gay or a minority, please vote Clinton.

Look, obviously convincing people to vote for Clinton is the ideal result, but with some people it is just not possible.

So you instead try to at the very least convince people to not vote for Trump, because in order to win a state, Hillary only needs a plurality. Convincing 20 potential Trump voters to vote for Johnson or Stein is actually just as helpful as convincing 10 potential Trump supporters to vote for Hillary.

 

[Azzanadra]

People vote for personality and symbols, not actual policy.

Its not that many Bernie supporters don't align with Hillary from a policy perspective, its just that they don't trust her to enact and send by these platform changes. Part of me wants to think she really does care about these issues, but its more likely she is just trying to appease Bernie supporters.

I can understand voting third party if you are a Bernie supporter, what I don't understand is voting for Trump. He's exactly the type of plutocrat that Bernie is trying to revolt against.

 

[Piggus]

Bleh. I'm moving on. Way too tired to continue fighting. 1 vote for Hillary for my little brother and sister's sake and then I'm through. Africa(Ghana) is looking quite a bit better these days.

What an upgrade!

 

[EmpressInYellow]

Its not that many Bernie supporters don't align with Hillary from a policy perspective, its just that they don't trust her to enact and send by these platform changes. Part of me wants to think she really does care about these issues, but its more likely she is just trying to appease Bernie supporters.

But again, what is that assumption based on? What part of her track record leads people to jump to that conclusion?

 

[shadowsdarknes]

No, she's just an idiot playing for votes for her meaningless protest party full of other idiots. Anti-nuclear power, anti-GMO, yet turns to science as the backup for aggressive climate change action. The Green Party, and Jill Stein, pick and choose what parts of reality they want to actually acknowledge.


That doesn't mean they have a goddamn clue what they're talking about. Look at Bernie Sanders, he has solid core ideas but from a policy standpoint doesn't have a firm grasp on reality.


You know why people do that? Because it's true. Objective and truly knowledgeable people on the subject of politics will have a heavy bias towards Clinton because her stances are actually backed up by real policy with nuance and pragmatism. Key elements to getting anything done.

Meanwhile naive idealists gravitate towards Sanders because he says what people want to hear but it lacks the real substance needed to make it into a reality.

Both campaigned on the concept of Universal Healthcare for example. Clinton throughout her career has been open to a wide variety of methods to achieve that, but right now given the passage of the ACA sees that as the best method to push forward. Her most recent "joint proposal" with Sanders is basically where she was at in 2008 including a public option. Nothing new for her there.

Sanders meanwhile refused to budge from universal single payer and many of his supporters really believed in his suggestion that we could go from a country with a nearly $900 BILLION dollar a year health insurance industry to entirely single payer government funded healthcare overnight. Not only would no one else in DC support that, it would displace tens of thousands of workers, lead to mass confusion, and bog down the medical care system so completely as to grind it to a halt. It is both impractical and reckless, all for the glorification of a single path over the desired outcome itself. It's means justifying the ends thinking. Never mind that this also required us to join into the fantasy that employer healthcare contributions would be graciously turned over to employees immediately to make up for the increased taxation needed to pay for the program.

Or college tuition where the plan was to give everyone regardless of interest or career viability free four year college education, built on the two pillars of state matched funds and a Wall St. transaction tax. The former absurd because it asks for a 1:1 match on billions of dollars from every state while the ACA was only asking for a 1:10 match for medicare/medicaid expansion and had about two dozen states fight it it tooth and nail with many declining the effectively free money to make a statement about not letting more poor people have healthcare. The later would not only effectively penalize everyone using a 401K for retirement, it would also be the first thing to get repealed in another economic recession, making the entire program a hit to national debt.

Meanwhile President Obama has been making real strides in achieving a much more viable path - free community college for all, increases in federal grant funding, and educational loan repayment reform. Things that can actually happen now and don't rely on ignoring the consequences of actions in pursuit of an ideology.



And here's the real crux of the matter. It isn't condescension, it's a reality check. What Sanders has been claiming he could bring wasn't remotely viable. The methods he suggested to achieve them were outright dangerous. It was bad policy written to align with an ideology, not reality. That isn't how good governance works.

The real condescension in this primary process though? That was all the people screaming about "REVOLUTION!" like they were on some new glorious quest for justice when just eight years ago we elected a black man from outside the party elite who has, in just that short window of time, made real lasting change in how this nation operates. Is it perfect? Not at all. Has he been perfect? Of course not. But the revolution already arrived and it brought with it 20 million more people with healthcare coverage, greatly expanded rights for the LGBT community, a massive rollback in U.S. interventionism even in the face of further discord and strife in the Middle East, big tent programs to ease the burdens of student loan debt on everyone, not just those currently in or about to enter college, and a host of other crucial issues.

We have achieved more societal progress in the past eight years than in the 30 years prior, but now that revolutionary change needs to be locked in and the only way that happens is with a capable and pragmatic POTUS who can vigorously defend those achievements, push for further expansion upon them, and selects Supreme Court nominees as well as lower court appointees who enshrine it all into law via legal precedent.

Sanders supporters spent the primary shitting on that and say it's not enough, or that it's worthless because it involved some form of compromise, or that working through the established pathways of political reform makes us establishment shills. That is the real condescension here, not people who know what the fuck they're talking about trying to explain what the fuck we're all talking about to people unwilling to understand the actual methods of governance and political action that exist in this country.

It's great that Sanders finally got around to endorsing the only worthwhile choice in the race for any right minded individual. I agree that it's an absolute travesty that our country could only turn out one of those in this election cycle. But that isn't a problem with the political system, that is a problem with society where social media and various other methods allow people to live deeper and deeper in extremist echo chambers. Sanders is an extremist, just one with a functioning moral compass. Trump is an extremist who very clearly lacks that. Gary Johnson is an extremist who lacks a real understanding of how the 21st century actually works and Jill Stein is an extremist deep within the weeds of crackpot pseudo-science. If we continue to argue for more devotion to ideology over effective policy we're only going to go further down this road.

This is my favorite post I've read in a long time.

 

[dLMN8R]

the fucking god damned truth

This post brought a tear to my eye. I shall save it and cherish it forever.

 

[Battlechili]

Jill Stein's popularity seems to be skyrocketing after she berated Sanders for this and it makes me incredibly excited. I don't expect the Green Party to win the election, but I really hope she gets a lot of votes and attention from the media as a result. She's getting a TON more funding now from people and if you look at her facebook page, in the last week the number of likes its gotten has gone up 600% according to Facebook. I'm really excited; if she gets even a sizable number of votes it'll help the Green Party gain power throughout the States, and this may help the party game more legitimacy and attention, perhaps someday destroying the two party system the US is currently plagued by. And for that, I could hardly call a vote for her throwing away one's vote.

 

[forgeforsaken]

Jill Stein's popularity seems to be skyrocketing after she berated Sanders for this and it makes me incredibly excited. I don't expect the Green Party to win the election, but I really hope she gets a lot of votes and attention from the media as a result. She's getting a TON more funding now from people and if you look at her facebook page, in the last week the number of likes its gotten has gone up 600% according to Facebook. I'm really excited; if she gets even a sizable number of votes it'll help the Green Party gain power throughout the States, and this may help the party game more legitimacy and attention, perhaps someday destroying the two party system the US is currently plagued by. And for that, I could hardly call a vote for her throwing away one's vote.

US needs to move off a first past the post system. Watch this to understand why 3rd parties are doomed in the current setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

There has been some noise lately to move to alternative/instant runoff voting, think it's on the ballot in Maine. So maybe someday it could happen.

 

[Mercury Fred]

Jill Stein's popularity seems to be skyrocketing after she berated Sanders for this and it makes me incredibly excited. I don't expect the Green Party to win the election, but I really hope she gets a lot of votes and attention from the media as a result. She's getting a TON more funding now from people and if you look at her facebook page, in the last week the number of likes its gotten has gone up 600% according to Facebook. I'm really excited; if she gets even a sizable number of votes it'll help the Green Party gain power throughout the States, and this may help the party game more legitimacy and attention, perhaps someday destroying the two party system the US is currently plagued by. And for that, I could hardly call a vote for her throwing away one's vote.

How can a party that is so grossly anti-science gain any real legitimacy?

 

[HK-47]

How can a party that is so grossly anti-science gain any real legitimacy?

Dunno, ask the Republicans.

 

[cheezcake]

How can a party that is so grossly anti-science gain any real legitimacy?

You're asking this when the Republican party already exists?

Most people don't understand science, most people dislike things they don't understand

 

[Deleted member 231381]

This is kind of a messy place to be in a field where there's a lot of technological focus right now, though. "Pay a bunch now and in 50 years you will have saved a lot of money unless anything got invented in that period!"

Climate change is sufficiently important the the risk premium is very high. Even if these technologies might turn out cheaper in the future, I want lower CO2 guaranteed immediately.

 

[Battlechili]

How can a party that is so grossly anti-science gain any real legitimacy?

I wouldn't say its anti-science; there are certainly issues, especially with Jill Stein in particular, with regards to her understanding of science. Her being anti-vac being the biggest one of all. However one of the party's main standings is to push for the preservation of the environment, which is extremely pro-science. Then there's things like its support for the LGBT community. There's plenty of "pro-science" to be had in there in the midst of the less than stellar views of the party. Its legitimacy as a power in the US all depends on how many people support it and whether or not many people consider its pros to outweigh its cons.

Either way, the current turn of events could certainly help it see the light of day as a power someday in the future. I never would have expected Sanders endorsing Hillary to make me as excited as I am.

 

[forgeforsaken]

Its legitimacy as a power in the US all depends on how many people support it and whether or not many people consider its pros to outweigh its cons.

No. We are stuck with two parties until we ditch first past the post. Greens would have to usurp either the Democrats or the Republicans and become one of the two parties and I just don't see that happening. Seriously go watch that CGP Grey video.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Jill Stein's popularity seems to be skyrocketing after she berated Sanders for this and it makes me incredibly excited. I don't expect the Green Party to win the election, but I really hope she gets a lot of votes and attention from the media as a result. She's getting a TON more funding now from people and if you look at her facebook page, in the last week the number of likes its gotten has gone up 600% according to Facebook. I'm really excited; if she gets even a sizable number of votes it'll help the Green Party gain power throughout the States, and this may help the party game more legitimacy and attention, perhaps someday destroying the two party system the US is currently plagued by. And for that, I could hardly call a vote for her throwing away one's vote.

Darkest timeline

 

[davepoobond]

I wouldn't say its anti-science; there are certainly issues, especially with Jill Stein in particular, with regards to her understanding of science. Her being anti-vac being the biggest one of all. However one of the party's main standings is to push for the preservation of the environment, which is extremely pro-science. Then there's things like its support for the LGBT community. There's plenty of "pro-science" to be had in there in the midst of the less than stellar views of the party. Its legitimacy as a power in the US all depends on how many people support it and whether or not many people consider its pros to outweigh its cons.

Either way, the current turn of events could certainly help it see the light of day as a power someday in the future. I never would have expected Sanders endorsing Hillary to make me as excited as I am.

I think we can do without a "plenty of" pro-science anti-science party in America right now, but to each their own.

 

[Risette]

Darkest timeline

Single-payer magic water and healing crystals for all!