I'm not saying reddit is a great representative sample necessarily, but I'm always shocked by how many young "Libertarians" are infesting that site. I wonder how many are sock puppets sometimes. If reddit *is* a representative sample of the social, political, and economic views of the 20-summat crowd, then I'm not optimistic at all about the waning of Boomer political influence changing much.
I have a theory that, basically, reddit and tumblr are a good image of what the two parties in the US will look like in twenty years. One libertarian and paying lip service to social progress and the other socialist and actually socially progressive, but also where all the woo people end up.
Scott, you really need to read Boomsday, a political satire novel from the same guy who did Thank You For Smoking, about the young people rising up and starting a political war with old people.
As for the political party affiliation quiz, I did it on the phone while pooping and did not save my image results. I was 90-something percent democrat, 80-something percent green, 70-something libertarian, and 50-something republican. So I am a very fucked up person. Apparently I am everything. I did not take the time to gauge how important various questions were to me.
My only advice is something I believe others have already said. Get invested in local politics. Try and make change happen at the lower levels of government where more day to day things affect you.
Doing nothing is the only fruitless thing.
Spend your whole life trying to change government. In the end, succeed or fail, you forgot to live the life you were trying to improve.
I'm very determined to avoid spending as much time actually living and as little time on meta as possible.
I refuse to feed the meme that Bernie can't win. He's the ONLY credible/moral candidate in the entire lot as far as I'm concerned. If he picks Warren for his running mate he might be a surprise.
That's if you don't firmly believe that Diebold and friends are rigging the fuck out of key districts anyway... which I do.
Yea, he's running to just raise issues, should be fun to watch but ultimately a footnote.
It'll be a good thing I think. Those kinds of issues poll real well with folks who vote on Presidential elections, and Hillary will be forced to answer them positively if she she wants to win, That it will take the wind out of the faux populism sails that the GOP contenders are raising is just a feather in the cap.
Sanders can also be Hillary's attack dog by proxy; he can take the heat in sound-bites lashing out a how stupid the GOP contenders are, without tarnishing Hillary's campaign.
For a guy who doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, he'll be doing a lot of good.
And hopefully it will shut people up about Warren. As if she was going to run anyway, but with Sanders in she literally can't since they pull from the same crowd of voters, and she's not an idiot (like Rand Paul) to throw her hat in anyway.
Sorry Muppet, I don't want to be that harsh on this subject but Bernie has less of a chance in the primary and general than Ted Cruz.
As Banta said, he'll do a lot of good by shifting the issues and keeping Hillary on her toes but the guy is a self declared Socialist in a country that even the Democrats run from that word. I like Bernie sanders a lot but in the end he's older than anyone else in the race, comes from a small state with a population the fraction of most states. He wouldn't be picking his running mate till after the majority of primaries so there wouldn't be a Sanders/Warren ticket when it would matter.
Also he doesn't have any real campaign apparatus and I doubt he has a quick and easy way to make money. He doesn't have the fame that Ron Paul has on the right (though probably respected).
Bernie/Warren will only serve to pull Hillary publicly a bit more left, but she's going to be president. She'll do a fine job most likely, but will be on the same trajectory of Bill Clinton / Obama.
Warren is a 2024 candidate with Bernie has her running mate, not the other way around.
The only reason Bernie hasn't got a chance is that the media will repeat that he hasn't got a chance ad nauseum, and people like you will take up the meme under the auspices of "understanding politics." Fuck that.
Socialism is still a bugaboo in the south but increasingly resonates with a growing population of millenials. It's not a dirty word to the extent that it was. Cold War bugaboos are getting obsolete despite the attempts to reignite them by pretending that Putin is relevant.
Older Americans are deeply afraid of "socialism" by and large. We need two full generations to die before it will be a useable word again politically. Millennials won't have enough political capital to outweight them nationally until the reaper takes his grim harvest.
City/State level, action is already happening. New York City is chafing more and more under New York State's bit and fighting for more and more autonomy. Straight-up socialism and rent control is widely popular down here, as is a super high city-only minimum wage.
Hilary is a phony and shill at best. The idea of her as president makes me nauseous. Her support is not as broad as it's represented to be in the first place, but she'll win because the GOP has ZERO credibility for the office of POTUS at this point.
Hillary is a shrewd and intelligent professional politician who earnestly tried to get universal healthcare long before Obama existed as a meaningful entity.
Well, fair enough she can't be worse than Obama, who is also a fraud. Anything is better than whoever the GOP is going to run, but the grim reality is that "better than terrible" isn't good enough and isn't going to repair our society and culture to the extent that repair is required. The long, interminable slide is still to the Right and will be for decades at this rate.
Sorry Muppet, I don't want to be that harsh on this subject but Bernie has less of a chance in the primary and general than Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz raised 30 million in one week, and that's nothing to sneeze at. If he can bring that in consistently, then he wont be as hamstrung as the other non-Bush GOP candidates considering Bush has the alpha PACs and SUPERPACs on lock.
He's also the one that I really, really, really want to get the nod. The man's a walking, talking political hypocrisy, and Hillary would destroy him in the general.
GOP can't win the general anyway. Too many old people have already died.
I don't think the GOP can win the general, but I wouldn't overstate the value of dying Boomers and older. There's plenty of Useful Idiot young GOP faithful and their numbers seem to be growing, too.
This election is hugely important for four simple reasons:
78 80 80 83
Those are the ages that Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be when the next president is sworn in, respectively. The next president we elect (assuming he or she serves two terms) could very well be the individual who selects FOUR Supreme Court Justices.
Think of the lasting effect this could have on our country. If Hillary gets elected, despite what you think of her personally, and she gets to select four Supremes, this would shift the balance of the court from a 5-4 Conservative leaning (with Kennedy occasionally voting with the Liberals) to a 6-3 Liberal majority. Goodbye Citizens United. Goodbye relaxed campaign finance. Goodbye all kinds of other pro-business, antidemocracy decisions. Even if someone doesn't like Hillary personally, or think she's a hack or a fraud, I'd still take her 100% over any of the Republican nominees.
Imagine what would happen to our country if Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or even Jed Bush got to select four Supreme Court Justices...
if you really want someone in the D primary that is not Hillary you are going to have to work your butt off and other than a bit of grumbling on the left I haven't seen anything close to an up swing of activity other than from the left wing and even they are just grumbling not really interested in getting very involved.
It's going to be a hard election for whatever D runs, the US isn't real keen on electing someone from the same party consecutively especially if they serve two terms, if you think about recent history, Roosevelt (D), Truman (D) (because Roosevelt died,barely won relection for his own term), Eisenhower (R) two terms, Kennedy (D) One term, Johnson (D) (because Kennedy was shot, only ran one term and finished Kennedy's), Nixon (R) , Ford (R) (because Nixon left office, only served the rest of Nixon's term) Carter (D), Reagan (R), Bush Sr (R) (the only really legit win after a full 8 years in office of the same party, only served one term) Clinton (D), Bush W (R), Obama (D).
Generally voters of the in power party start to get annoyed with their party leaders on things they don't address or get complacent while the party out of power is more engaged.
We've also seen a hard right wing power play over the last few years, stuff like the government shutdowns, that I hope would energize the Dems to come out and vote because it's fairly obvious that they need a fillibuster proof majority in the Senate and try to take back the House to get any actual work done.
This election is hugely important for four simple reasons:
78 80 80 83
Those are the ages that Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be when the next president is sworn in, respectively. The next president we elect (assuming he or she serves two terms) could very well be the individual who selects FOUR Supreme Court Justices.
Think of the lasting effect this could have on our country. If Hillary gets elected, despite what you think of her personally, and she gets to select four Supremes, this would shift the balance of the court from a 5-4 Conservative leaning (with Kennedy occasionally voting with the Liberals) to a 6-3 Liberal majority. Goodbye Citizens United. Goodbye relaxed campaign finance. Goodbye all kinds of other pro-business, antidemocracy decisions. Even if someone doesn't like Hillary personally, or think she's a hack or a fraud, I'd still take her 100% over any of the Republican nominees.
Imagine what would happen to our country if Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or even Jed Bush got to select four Supreme Court Justices...
It isn't that simple to divide the justices based on politics. Remember, it was Roberts who provided the crucial 5th vote to uphold Obamacare, and Scalia was one of two justices, the other being John Paul Stevens, who said that Hamdi deserved a criminal trial while the rest of the court essentially said he could be held without a real trial, let alone a criminal one.
Comments
As for the political party affiliation quiz, I did it on the phone while pooping and did not save my image results. I was 90-something percent democrat, 80-something percent green, 70-something libertarian, and 50-something republican. So I am a very fucked up person. Apparently I am everything. I did not take the time to gauge how important various questions were to me.
I'm very determined to avoid spending as much time actually living and as little time on meta as possible.
That's if you don't firmly believe that Diebold and friends are rigging the fuck out of key districts anyway... which I do.
Sanders can also be Hillary's attack dog by proxy; he can take the heat in sound-bites lashing out a how stupid the GOP contenders are, without tarnishing Hillary's campaign.
For a guy who doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, he'll be doing a lot of good.
And hopefully it will shut people up about Warren. As if she was going to run anyway, but with Sanders in she literally can't since they pull from the same crowd of voters, and she's not an idiot (like Rand Paul) to throw her hat in anyway.
As Banta said, he'll do a lot of good by shifting the issues and keeping Hillary on her toes but the guy is a self declared Socialist in a country that even the Democrats run from that word. I like Bernie sanders a lot but in the end he's older than anyone else in the race, comes from a small state with a population the fraction of most states. He wouldn't be picking his running mate till after the majority of primaries so there wouldn't be a Sanders/Warren ticket when it would matter.
Also he doesn't have any real campaign apparatus and I doubt he has a quick and easy way to make money. He doesn't have the fame that Ron Paul has on the right (though probably respected).
Warren is a 2024 candidate with Bernie has her running mate, not the other way around.
Socialism is still a bugaboo in the south but increasingly resonates with a growing population of millenials. It's not a dirty word to the extent that it was. Cold War bugaboos are getting obsolete despite the attempts to reignite them by pretending that Putin is relevant.
City/State level, action is already happening. New York City is chafing more and more under New York State's bit and fighting for more and more autonomy. Straight-up socialism and rent control is widely popular down here, as is a super high city-only minimum wage.
He's also the one that I really, really, really want to get the nod. The man's a walking, talking political hypocrisy, and Hillary would destroy him in the general.
Run Warren and I'll go canvas neighborhoods for her. Hilary can rot.
78
80
80
83
Those are the ages that Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be when the next president is sworn in, respectively. The next president we elect (assuming he or she serves two terms) could very well be the individual who selects FOUR Supreme Court Justices.
Think of the lasting effect this could have on our country. If Hillary gets elected, despite what you think of her personally, and she gets to select four Supremes, this would shift the balance of the court from a 5-4 Conservative leaning (with Kennedy occasionally voting with the Liberals) to a 6-3 Liberal majority. Goodbye Citizens United. Goodbye relaxed campaign finance. Goodbye all kinds of other pro-business, antidemocracy decisions. Even if someone doesn't like Hillary personally, or think she's a hack or a fraud, I'd still take her 100% over any of the Republican nominees.
Imagine what would happen to our country if Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or even Jed Bush got to select four Supreme Court Justices...
He goes hard in the paint so you know he'll get things done.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/04
It's going to be a hard election for whatever D runs, the US isn't real keen on electing someone from the same party consecutively especially if they serve two terms, if you think about recent history, Roosevelt (D), Truman (D) (because Roosevelt died,barely won relection for his own term), Eisenhower (R) two terms, Kennedy (D) One term, Johnson (D) (because Kennedy was shot, only ran one term and finished Kennedy's), Nixon (R) , Ford (R) (because Nixon left office, only served the rest of Nixon's term) Carter (D), Reagan (R), Bush Sr (R) (the only really legit win after a full 8 years in office of the same party, only served one term) Clinton (D), Bush W (R), Obama (D).
Generally voters of the in power party start to get annoyed with their party leaders on things they don't address or get complacent while the party out of power is more engaged.