Something I noticed...

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After watching this:



I was struck with a thought. A lot of people say Hillary Clinton was some left-wing zealot and that's why she lost 2016, but I don't think that's the case. She's pretty centrist, and has always been. But I guess it serves the narrative of centrists to hold her up as an example of why a progressive should not be the Democratic nominee in 2020, even if it has no basis in reality.

She was seen as being haughty, political, and maybe corrupt....and part of a Clinton “dynasty.”

Clinton is a mass murdering corrupt war monger. She is the embodiment of the establishment. Even some Sanders voters switched over to Trump.

And Warren is a fraud.

Do centrists say that? I've only seen that from Trump supporters, and even then only from a minority.

Clinton is economically a radical centrist, and socially a committed liberal. There was nothing centrist or moderate about her stances on equality and civil rights.

Great moment from Warren. I think she's a relatively bad candidate compared to most of the field and don't share her socialist politics, but if she wins the Democratic nomination I would support her candidacy (while still having some criticism for the policies I disagree with). While I'd like the best candidate possible, she'd be a respectable President who would make America a better place with her social policies.

Yeah, I'd disagree with any claim that Hillary was uber-left. If anything she reeked too much of Davos and too much of the kind of neoliberalism that's offshoring jobs or aiding the system to be as social-Darwinian as it is (which is why Trump got as many votes as he did, and why I think the 'but she really won - 3 million more votes!' completely skips out an any attempt to identify why he even got one million votes).

There are kinds of centrism we do want, Eric Weinstein and Andrew Yang's conversation recently was a great example of that, where it's an examination or exploration of non-ideological best fit solutions and ideas that can pan from left to right across the spectrum but ultimately as a whole land in the center in the sense of faith in free speech, free conscience, and some cautious optimism in the possibility of human reason to both clean up fragments of old ideas and examine them against data to make sense of the world and solve problems empirically rather than falling down on variants of 20th century 'isms. There's an idea that adult-adults, not just legal or chronological adults, can potentially retake the institutions and if that's so more power to them.

What I think the midwest and a lot of the people who voted for Trump saw was something alone the lines of Marie Antoinette telling them (the poor, working, and lower-middle class) eat cake and with a choice between a known evil and an unknown evil, the later that might attack the structures of the known evil and cause problems for them, the temptation to set a cat among the pigeons was more than they could resist.

Maybe the best thing the Democratic party could do is not throw the working class under the bus, or at least know that if they do that these people will have nowhere else to go but either to the Republican side or some third party they might try to establish. If the working class is just too 'icky' for the party that doesn't say good things about where the party's at.

Also known as a “Limousine Liberal”...

Basically, a “Do as I say, not as I do” type (e.g., Hypocrite) of wealthy elitist who has the “best” ideas on how regular tax-paying working-class people can sacrifice their comforts and conveniences to help alleviate the sufferings and ills of the poor while the Limousine Liberals themselves quietly excuse themselves from the actual in-the-field activities they demand that others should do.

For example:

• They'll tell us to ride bikes or use public transportation to get to work to conserve energy while they get taxied around in limos and private jets.

• They'll tell us to use solar powered energy in our homes and air dry our laundry while they live in huge mansions that use more electricity in one month than the average household uses a year.

• They'll do "sit ins" on a construction site to stop the building of shopping malls or condominiums to "preserve the land" while they own several acres of land for their own personal use.

• They tend to be strong advocates for gun control or in some extreme cases gun banning. But see nothing wrong with the armed bodyguards they employ for their own personal protection.

• They tend to take a soft on crime stance and stand up for murderous thugs like Mumia Abu Jabar or Tookie Williams while they live in gated communities with round the clock surveillance that isn't within 50 miles of the nearest ghetto or any other high crime area.

• They are going to change the world if they have to spend every last buck of YOUR money to do it.

Your basic limousine liberal is a wealthy person who feels guilty about being wealthy but doesn't want to give up his fortune or sacrifice his conveniences. So he'll take the “pass the buck” approach by wagging his finger at the general public for not doing their share to help with the world's problems to deflect the guilt off himself.

excellent summary, Fnord. I appreciate that.

Back to the original point of electability.

Being engaging and funny is going to greatly help the electability of a candidate no matter what their policy positions are. It is always has been and always will be that way. The problem with Hillary was more that she came off as always uptight, her jokes sounded forced more than she was centrist. The way she presented aided Republican chargers of elitism and perpetual lying. If Warren can keep on being that funny and not politically correct like she was at the forum the other Democratic candidates and Trump better buy a supply of diapers.

I am not saying issues don’t matter at all. The “deplorables” comment hurt Hillary and if the Democrats keep on talking about destroying the coal industry it could be lethal in the states we are discussing. No amount of promises of retraining will be believed people will just see their own jobs going away or the jobs of people they need to spend on their business going away. Reparations might also be a problem with conservative leaning but not hardcore Trump voters.


Somewhat related to something Cenk was discussing I have seen a number of discussions by anti Trump conservatives talking about Trumps tweets costing him the election. Their thinking is the economy is good a lot of conservatives agree with his key policies, his persona/racism etc is the reason he can’t get above 44 percent approval rating.

Warren definitely has a good chance at winning if she keeps things up.She really seems to be pulling away from the crowd at this point.I think the Ukraine scandal is ruining Biden at this point,everyone knows he is as corrupt as Trump at this point.

No one EVER EVER EVER admits to anything but hatred for Hillary Clinton.

But I have NEVER EVER heard anyone, right left, or center, say they hated her because she was "too far to the left", or "too progessive", nor anything like that. At least no one who is more mainstream in modern thinking than Jefferson Davis, or Marie Antonette, thought she was "too far to the left".

you're suppose to hate her because she is corrupt, a murderer, a sex trafficker, a Reptoid alien from Arcuturus, or even hate her because precisely because she is a Centrist, or precisely because and she benefitted from the DNC supposedly suppressing progressives like Sanders.

So if you're gonna debunk a myth get your myth right first!

Clinton was dumb and arrogant.

She was calling potential voters names like RACIST … ZENOPHOBIC .. DEPLORABLES.

Hillary supporters are like outdoor Christmas lights...

... They all hang together, half or them don't work, and the ones that do aren't very bright.

Lol.

I voted for Hillary, but I was more gobsmacked by the idea that, of everyone in the U.S., Trump and Hillary were the two options deemed fit for the highest office in the land.

Never has the South Park episode about having the choice between voting for a douche or a turd sandwich been more apt.

Exactly.

In fact, during that stressful year of 2016 I would avoid talking politics with near strangers whom I worked with at a temp job, by saying "its a choice between a lady who belongs in an orange jumpsuit, and a guy who belongs in a straightjacket". Regardless of who the other person favored they ALWAYS doubled over laughing and would say "ain't THAT the truth!". Even if they would then add "but I am taking my chances with the man/women in the jumpsuit/straightjacket".