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fantastic-nonsense · 31 minutes ago

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@panacea420 : Porto Rico doesn't want statehood. Why. The people would lose their free money. Yes, they get money they won't vote for statehood . Second Trump trying to clean out Washington is a good thing. Think. A more efficient government. More money to keep in your pocket. Third my biggest hope will be flat rate taxes. Think. If we're supposed to be equal then we should pay a flat tax no deductions. Every person bissness. No give backs. Think. About it billionaires can't use tax breaks. If you make a buck pay a dime. No one gets a break. Were equal under the law. Plus a simple 5% national sales tax. Another way to make corporations pay their fair share. (After they try to say we didn't make a profit or pay their ceos too much. ) think about it?? Also stock options still you have to pay taxes on them as income. Then if the make money on them they pay again. Unlike the current policy. Of only when they cash out . Flat taxes are the only fair taxes I am a liberaltarian. Not a republican. And a registered independent. Why?? Think about this. If a political party thinks you'll vote for them no matter what. Then they will. Not care what you want??? Make each party work for your vote. Just think about that . Used to live in Indiana they didn't have a independent group why?? Again think about it. If both party's are in. Bed with each other?? Dick Chaney was the most hated person by the democrats now he was working with the democrats to keep Trump from winning???? Again think about this please

Sir this is a Wendy's and I have no idea why you put these replies on my post. Anyway, let's get a few things straight:

"Porto Rico doesn't want statehood. Why. The people would lose their free money" Puerto Rico has affirmatively voted for statehood four times over the past decade: in 2012, 2017, 2020, and a week ago, on November 5th, 2024. Yes, the exact significance of various individual referendum results is heavily debated due to a variety of local politics (including referendum boycotts, leadership infighting, and differing status choices), but the point stands: Puerto Rico has voted for statehood several times in the past decade, including a 52.52%–47.48% win in 2020, when Biden won. Hence, why I noted that the Democratic trifecta should have done the correct thing and admitted both PR and DC as states immediately upon taking their seats.

Second Trump trying to clean out Washington is a good thing. Think. A more efficient government. More money to keep in your pocket.

One, this is not what's going to happen. By any objective standards, Trump ran an insanely corrupt, incompetent, and inefficient government during his first term in office. He's a six-time failed businessman and convicted felon who cozied up to corrupt dictators around the world and attempted to run the government like he was Vito Corleone. He was literally impeached for corruption and attempted intimidation of another world leader. He's not interested in "cleaning out" anything, and you're frankly stupid for thinking he is. Why on earth do you trust a corrupt businessman who partied with Jeffery Epstein for years to "clean house"? He is part of the problem you're complaining about.

Two, it's hilarious you think anything Trump does will "put more money in your pocket." He has no interest in helping you. He does not care about you. He will not put money in your pocket. He will not lower your rent or put more groceries in your shopping cart. He's a conman who only cares about himself and enriching his own family and billionaire friends. Or did you forget about how US billionaires got over $1 trillion richer during the four years of Trump's presidency, or how Trump personally reported that his businesses made over $1.6 billion dollars in the same timeframe (largely due to the aforementioned corruption and attempts to curry favor)?

What happened to you in that same time period? Did your wages go up? Did your healthcare get better? Were you finally able to buy a house? No. Because Trump doesn't care about you and your "normal working class person" problems, and never has.

Third my biggest hope will be flat rate taxes. Think. If we're supposed to be equal then we should pay a flat tax no deductions. Every person bissness. No give backs. Think. About it billionaires can't use tax breaks. If you make a buck pay a dime. No one gets a break. Were equal under the law. Plus a simple 5% national sales tax. Another way to make corporations pay their fair share. (After they try to say we didn't make a profit or pay their ceos too much. ) think about it?? Also stock options still you have to pay taxes on them as income. Then if the make money on them they pay again. Unlike the current policy. Of only when they cash out . Flat taxes are the only fair taxes

Flat taxes are regressive. People whose incomes are lower end up paying a larger portion of their income than rich people under that model! They do not create "equality." If you're actually concerned about making sure rich people and corporations "pay their fair share," I am begging you to understand that flat taxes do not accomplish that goal. Rich people WANT you to advocate for flat taxes because it means they end up paying less money. Please go sit in on a Political Economy 101 class, I am begging.

But since I'm nice, I'll give you the short tl;dr on why flat taxes are bullshit and make rich people richer, straight from the IRS:

Take a look at Chart A and Chart C. Look at the actual amount of money that Family A is left with vs. Family C in those two scenarios after you take out taxes. Now compare those numbers to Chart B. You taken a good look at those numbers? Do you understand why flat taxes would be useless at "making billionaires pay their fair share" now, when Family C ends up with $98,000 in Chart A and $80,000 in Chart C vs. the $70,000 they end up with in Chart B (the correct way to tax rich people)?

Finally:

I am a liberaltarian. Not a republican. And a registered independent. Why?? Think about this. If a political party thinks you'll vote for them no matter what. Then they will. Not care what you want??? Make each party work for your vote. Just think about that . Used to live in Indiana they didn't have a independent group why?? Again think about it. If both party's are in. Bed with each other?? Dick Chaney was the most hated person by the democrats now he was working with the democrats to keep Trump from winning???? Again think about this please

I have no idea what you're trying to say here with your rambly little rant except "I hate the system as it stands." Which like. fine. Whatever. so do a lot of us. But this has absolutely nothing to do with anything I actually said and no, actually I don't have to "think about it." I would actually very much like you to shut up and stop rambling incoherently in my replies about something that is wholly irrelevant to the content of my post.

Anyway, this is all to day...sir, this is a Wendys and I am uninterested in you. Go back to high school civics class and come back only when you can actually explain to me, a political staffer, how any level of government (federal, state, or local) actually works on a basic, operational level.

Ok it's been 24 hours and my official post-mortem is literally just "Elizabeth Warren was right: Democrats should have appointed an Attorney General who was committed to prosecuting Trump and everyone who enabled him, cleaned house of Trump's appointees, nuked the filibuster to pass DC and Puerto Rico statehood, and prioritized dealing with corruption"

#us politics #this is partially why I stopped talking politics on here lmao. bc I CONSTANTLY get weirdos on my posts whenever I do so

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mongowheelie · 10 months ago

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Republican accuses McConnell of giving 'Biden and Democrats a win' amid border infighting - Alternet.org

Democrats will work with Republicans, but most of the Republicans won't work with Democrats! This has been going on for years now and is why congress is dysfunctional! Trump doesn't want a border deal so he can use it as a cudgel on Biden! Even if Trump is elected, he won't do anything about the border except tell everyone it's fixed and repair some fences!

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harbingermotel · 2 years ago

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i had a dream that all the house republicans got sick of infighting over the speaker vote and simply quit their jobs on the spot, letting democrats win

#funniest thing #avi speaks

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hellstobetsy · 6 months ago

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The fundamental political problem for Democrats is that "the left", or even the subgroups of "liberals" and "progressives", are a collection of disparate interest groups who are nominally on "the same side" but whose beliefs are often at odds with each other and thus are constantly infighting for prioritization. Biden just passed a big tariff on Chinese EVs. This pisses off a lot of leftists (because it's not an environmentalist move) and even a lot of moderate effete liberal types (who tend to be more free trade), but I bet it plays well with unionized auto workers in Detroit, Michigan, and Biden's team has calculated that this move will get more UAW votes than it'll lose leftist/liberaltarian votes in swing states (and maybe also that "Biden, the Champion of the Working Man!" is the most compelling pro-Biden narrative that lets them highlight his positives in a theme).

Republicans also have their subgroups, of course, but conservatives are ironically much better at collective action than the left, and even anti-Trump Haley-voting conservatives will turn out to support The Team because conservatives really want Republicans to win elections and Leftists don't really want Democrats to win elections and so the left spends the last six months of every fucking election doing the same teeth-pulling discourse of "I don't want to vote for a shitlib Dem who does bad things" vs "It is objectively better for every issue you claim to care about if Democrats win all the time" on infinite loop while pro/anti-Trump Republicans put aside their differences in service to the Greater Cause and rally around their guy.

This is like literally just Delusional. This is beyond Hilary Clinton’s fuck up campaign in strategy, like. I can’t even begin to fully articulate how delusional this is.

#Politics

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 3 years ago

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The Michigan GOP party faithful Saturday supported two political outsiders backed by former President Donald Trump to serve as the state's next chief elections officer and top law enforcement official.

Following months of infighting over the future direction of the party, Republican convention delegates endorsed Oak Park educator Kristina Karamo for Secretary of State, and Kalamazoo lawyer Matt DePerno defeated former state House Speaker Tom Leonard in a runoff for Attorney General.

Neither DePerno nor Karamo has held elected office previously, but the pair rose to national prominence following the 2020 election for their unfounded claims of widespread fraud and vote manipulation.

In addition to the support of the former president, DePerno and Karamo also secured the endorsement of Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock. Party leaders typically stay out of contested races. Maddock's unusual intervention in the races angered some Republicans, including candidates who said they were promised by her that she would remain neutral.

At a Trump rally in Macomb County for DePerno and Karamo, Maddock called on members of her party to "join together" and "lay down" their differences to unite behind the candidates endorsed at the convention.

Following the convention, Maddock thanked Trump "for focusing on Michigan" and said that her party will unite behind his preferred candidates.

But the convention appeared to underscore divisions in the party after the attorney general's race was forced to a bitter runoff between DePerno and Leonard.

Voters supporting both candidates faced off against one another on the convention floor ahead of the vote. DePerno supporters chanted, "Let's go DePerno," one sounded a siren on his megaphone and others clapped noisemakers bearing DePerno's name.

In the first round of voting, DePerno received 49% of the convention vote while Leonard received 40%. State Rep. Ryan Berman received 11% of the vote and quickly endorsed Leonard ahead of the runoff.

Upon accepting her party's endorsement, Karamo encouraged delegates to support DePerno in the runoff. Berman appeared to try to take the stage but was rebuffed after his loss and endorsement of Leonard.

In the runoff, DePerno secured 55% of the convention vote to Leonard's 45%, according to machine totals set to be verified by a hand count.

Following the party's announcement of DePerno's victory, Leonard acknowledged his loss, saying the "race did not turn out the way we had hoped," in a statement that expressed his gratitude for delegates who supported what he called his "positive, issue-focused campaign."

Voting was still going on more than two hours after the convention was supposed to adjourn. Delegates said that this was the longest convention they could remember attending. At one point, the voting paused because of an error in the order of races that appeared on the screen to guide voting, which at first displayed the Attorney General race as the last race when it was the first race on the ballot.

Michigan GOP spokesperson Gustavo Portela defended the convention process, saying that neither the DePerno nor Leonard campaigns expressed concerns about the mix-up and that the party does not believe any votes were affected.

Karamo was seen as a clear front-runner in her race against Chesterfield Township Clerk Cindy Berry — the only candidate with experience as an elections administrator — and State Rep. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain. On Saturday, she sailed to victory to receive her party's endorsement, winning nearly 70% of the convention vote. Upon accepting her party's endorsement, Karamo encouraged delegates to support DePerno in the runoff. Berman appeared to try to take the stage but was rebuffed.

Political observers expected a tight attorney general's race and billed it as a test of Trump’s strength in the party.

Candidates running against Trump's picks argued that DePerno and Karamo face longer odds of victory in the fall than them. Some Republicans have said that moderate and Democratic voters needed to win elections in the swing state will reject DePerno and Karamo as too extreme.

Beth Antor, a 54-year-old delegate from Sparta Township, said she was going to support DePerno and Karamo but wasn't sure her two preferred candidates would gain the support of enough independent and Democratic voters.

"I have no idea what they’re going to do, but just the fact that the conservative grassroots base is waking up, I like that," she said.

"I don’t want somebody that meets in the middle. I don't want to vote for that."

Greg Ward, a 51-year-old delegate and Leonard supporter, expressed reservations about DePerno's candidacy.

"I understand this is a party convention, but he’s run negative and Trump forever and I don’t know that those are winning-ticket items come November," he said.

DePerno might even struggle to win over some members of his own party. Jessica Nieto, a 37-year-old delegate from Taylor who supported Leonard, said she wasn't sure she could vote for DePerno in November, calling his personal attacks "embarrassing" for her party. The Attorney General's race has been mainly defined by "one candidate's mudslinging at another, that is ridiculous to me," she said.

State Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, who spearheaded the GOP-led State Senate Oversight Committee investigation into the 2020 election that debunked claims the vote was rife with widespread fraud suggested that a DePerno and Karamo endorsement would put his party on a path toward defeat in the general election.

Speaking outside the voting hall minutes before delegates began casting their ballots, he said that the endorsement of the two Trump-backed candidates would signal that "a majority of the people here would rather send a very strong message about what they want and the message they want to deliver to the party and to the nation, rather than winning the election in November."

Michigan GOP Chairman Ron Weiser called those in his party who said that DePerno and Karamo cannot defeat the Democratic incumbents "poor losers."

He said that the party is going to "unite together" and "win this election this fall."

The weekend GOP gathering in Grand Rapids marked the party's first-ever endorsement convention. Republicans had hoped it would unite Republicans and boost the chosen candidates' campaigns months before the midterm election.

Some said that internal debate was inevitable. David Robbins, a 56-year-old alternate delegate at the convention, said that "in the end, the boxing match is with the Democrats in November."

"When you're training for a boxing match, you have to spar, you have to sweat, you have to bleed," he said.

The party will convene again in August for another convention in which GOP precinct delegates — the lowest-ranked elected Republicans who essentially constitute the party’s base — will officially nominate candidates for the November ballot. The August convention will include delegates newly elected during the primary.

Michigan is among only a handful of states that select nominees for major statewide offices at party conventions instead of in primary elections. Nominations for governor, congressional and state legislative seats will be made by voters in the Aug. 2 primary.

DePerno Secures GOP Support After Attorney General’s Race Sees Vicious Personal Attacks

DePerno gained notoriety in 2020 when he represented an Antrim County resident in a lawsuit that served as a vehicle to advance conspiracies about electronic voting machines used to tabulate ballots. Antrim County, a rural GOP stronghold, was the site of a clerical error that briefly led to an inaccurate report of unofficial election night results. The Michigan Court of Claims Thursday upheld a trial court's ruling dismissing DePerno's lawsuit. DePerno has vowed to appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Trump won Antrim County, and a hand count of the ballots there affirmed that the voting machines accurately tabulated the results.

But Trump seized on a debunked report filed in support of DePerno's lawsuit to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him. He cited the report extensively in a draft executive order to order the military to seize voting machines that was never issued.

On the campaign trail, DePerno repeatedly attacked Leonard as an establishment Republican and sought Leonard's firing from his private law job, suggesting that his opponent had access to privileged information DePerno provided as a client of the firm where Leonard works.

In the letter to Leonard's employer, DePerno said he retained the law firm in response to an investigation by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission related to his lawsuit in Antrim County. The Commission has the authority to initiate disciplinary proceedings that can revoke Michigan lawyers' licenses to practice in the state.

A comprehensive report on the 2020 election by the GOP-led State Senate Oversight Committee also called on the Attorney General's office to investigate "those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends." Attorney General Dana Nessel's office subsequently launched an investigation. Nessel has identified DePerno as a potential target of the investigation but said that her office set up a firewall preventing her participation in the probe against her political opponent.

DePerno has repeatedly pledged to investigate and charge Nessel, along with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. He has suggested Michigan's three highest ranking Democrats have all committed misconduct. Berman and Leonard have blasted his statements as unethical.

But the candidates found agreement on other issues on the campaign trail.

All three called for the end of the Whitmer administration's legal efforts to shut down Line 5 to prevent a spill or leak of the dual gas and oil pipeline into the Great Lakes. And the three also touted themselves as opponents of abortion rights, a potentially key issue in the event the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 landmark decision Roe v. Wade.

The decision nullified a 1931 Michigan law that makes performing almost any abortion a felony. Leonard was the only candidate in the race who said he would enforce the law but not prosecute pregnant people who seek an abortion.

Karamo Receives Overwhelming Support Among Republicans

Candidates running against Karamo said she would struggle to win a general election.

But Karamo received overwhelming support among GOP convention delegates to take on current Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who has characterized the contest as a battle for the future of democracy.

In 2020, Karamo joined legal efforts to delay the certification of the election and overturn the results.

Right-wing media embraced her as an election fraud "whistleblower" for her unfounded claims that she witnessed fraud and misconduct in Detroit where she worked as an election challenger observing the absentee ballot count.

"I've got a big mouth," Karamo said ahead of the convention when asked how she caught the attention of the former president.

Trump endorsed her last fall and held a rally in Michigan before the endorsement convention encouraging Republicans to support her and DePerno. Appearing alongside Trump, Karamo thanked him for his support and said he "pulled the scales off of so many people’s eyes about (how) there’s a cabal of people in leadership bent on destroying our country," using language evocative of the QAnon conspiracy that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles run the U.S.

During the campaign, LaFave nicknamed his opponent "QAnon Karamo" and pointed to a conference in Las Vegas with connections to the QAnon movement that Karamo spoke at last fall. Karamo's campai gn told Bridge Michigan ahead of that gathering that she "does not and never has supported QAnon."

She is part of a group of so-called "America First" Secretary of State candidates whose campaigns have peddled misinformation and conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election. She said at the Oakland County GOP convention held a week before the state party convention that the coalition "is just to return the rule of law" and "citizen oversight to the election system."

Even though the group is made up of GOP candidates, she said that "everybody should be excited" about the group's focus on election security, which she called a voting rights issue. "It's to benefit all people. It's not to benefit Republicans, it's to benefit the republic," she said.

She said that while the Michigan Secretary of State's race is a partisan election, the "office is not partisan" and said her campaign has focused on gaining the support of independent and "soft" Democratic voters.

Speaking about the Michigan GOP's own election procedures, she heralded her party's decision to pair a machine count of ballots at the convention with a hand count. She said that there are "some legitimate concerns" with electronic voting systems despite no evidence to support claims that surfaced in the wake of the 2020 election that voting tabulators incorrectly read ballots.

Karamo said that the use of a hand count for the first time at a Michigan GOP convention would help unify Republicans.

If officially nominated at the party's fall convention, she will be the first Black woman Republicans back for one of the top three statewide offices.

Board Of Education And University Board Races

GOP convention delegates also endorsed candidates for State Board of Education and university boards.

The state Supreme Court race was uncontested with incumbent Justice Brian Zahra running for reelection and lawyer Paul Hudson vying for the second open seat on the court.

For the State Board of Education, the party backed Tami Carlone and Linda Lee Tarver. Democrats hold a majority on the eight-member board that currently has only two Republican members. Democrats currently hold the two seats that are up for reelection. Carlone is the coalitions vice chair for the Michigan GOP. She previously ran for the State Board of Education in 2020 and lost. Tarver is a former Michigan Department of State employee who participated in legal efforts to delay the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

The party also endorsed Christa Murphy and Craig Wilsher for the Wayne State University Board of Governors. Democrats hold the two seats that are up for reelection. For the University of Michigan Board of Regents, the party supported Lena Epstein and Sevag Vartanian against two incumbent Democrats running for reelection. Finally, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees race saw Mike Balow and Travis Menge receive the backing of the Michigan GOP.

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years ago

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If John F. Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, would he have gotten us involved in Vietnam like Johnson did?

The United States didn't commit troops until early 1965 following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964. The North Vietnamese fired on an American ship, which Congress used as justification for war. Would Kennedy's foreign policy decision be significantly different from Johnson's?

Kennedy's critics derided him as a communist (or at the very least soft of communism), but following the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and multiple failed attempts to assassinate Fidel, I'd say he was decidedly anti-communist. Hell, he was SHOT by a communist! Do people think Lee Harvey Oswald killed him because they agreed too much? He wouldn't just sit back and let the North Vietnamese get away with their attack, but I don't think he would commit troops halfway across the world when he refused to commit them just 90 miles away to Cuba. His father was a notorious Nazi appeaser, and his older brother a full out Nazi sympathizer, both of whom opposed US Involvement in World War II; with the stalemate in Korea so fresh in people's minds, would Kennedy want to start another war so soon? JFK wasn't a Nazi like the elder Kennedys, and he certainly wasn't a pacifist either, but I don't know if he would.

Kennedy was young and inexperienced, while Johnson was a mover and shaker; whatever LBJ wanted to do, it got done. As former Senate Majority Leader, he was able to get the entire Democratic Party in line behind him, even when the southern faction opposed the Civil Rights Act and the the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Kennedy couldn't throw his weight around like that, so partisan infighting would be much stronger had he finished his term, even more so if he was re-elected. Johnson won 1964 in a landslide, 60-40 against segregationist and father of modern conservatism Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was guaranteed to lose because of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, but would Kennedy have gotten it through Congress against internal opposition? If he did, would it still be a landslide, or would southern moderates who voted for Johnson have passed him up in favor of Goldwater? Goldwater was the first Republican to win the Deep South since reconstruction; Johnson dominated his home state of Texas, but it has gone red every election since. Goldwater was Ronald Reagan's mentor, so his presidency would have been the worst parts of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s combined. Can you imagine how much worse off we would be if the country started abandoning FDR's New Deal even earlier? With no Great Society and no war on poverty, we would probably be thrown into a deep depression; Goldwater would go down as Hoover 2.0, though America's rightward social shift would occur much earlier. No Johnson means no Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court (a minor positive consequence of this is that there would be no Clarence Thomas either. George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas to replace Marshall because they were both black, a sick joke to replace a super liberal justice with the most conservative man to ever sit on the court. The Republicans did the same thing in 2020, replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett because they were both women)

Kennedy probably would have won in 1964, but it would have been really close. The 1968 Democratic race would be between the moderate Johnson and the more liberal Bobby Kennedy, JFK's baby brother and Attorney General. Johnson could win, Bobby couldn't. Johnson wouldn't be weighed down by his war crimes in Vietnam, but Bobby would be endlessly compared to his brother who very likely would not be popular going into 68. He had decent approval up until he was assassinated, but nobody's second term is ever as productive or prosperous as their first.

#alternate history #jfk #john f kennedy #Kennedy #Vietnam #the vietnam war #vietnam war #gulf of tonkin #1964

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citizensmth · 4 years ago

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So... what comes next?

Regardless of your political allegiances or personal feelings about Donald Trump, it is a national security concern when the president is ill. To make matters worse, the White House isn’t exactly being transparent. At times they seem more concerned with projecting a certain image than providing a timely, precise assessment of the situation. It is also a significant national security threat when a huge chunk of the senior Executive Branch, unknown numbers of White House staff, and a growing cluster of US Congressman are under quarantine or sick. It’s never good to have a government in quarantine.

So on that note, I’ve seen a lot of discussion on what happens in the event that a President or presidential candidate is incapacitated from COVID or dies during an election. I love a good thought experiment so let’s break this down. This is all based on my best understanding of current rules/regulations/precedence/ect. I try my best to be accurate but I’m only human and not a lawyer. Opinions and speculations are strictly my own.

Scenario 1: President is alive but incapacitated or unable to continue serving as President until he recovers.

So the basic idea of having a VP as a spare in case the president dies is pretty simple. In practice however, the transfer of power in the original constitution is pretty vague outside of the president suddenly dropping dead in the middle of a term. The 25th amendment was adopted a few years after the Kennedy assassination to address some of these grey areas. Fun fact, the 25th amendment contains the only means of forcefully removing a president from office other than impeachment (section 4 of the 25th amendment).

Ok, so back to our scenario. If Trump is incapacitated (say, on a ventilator) or is too unwell to continue serving, the 25th amendment can be invoked to temporarily transfer power to Vice President Pence. This can be done 2 ways. First, Trump can declare in writing that he is unable to discharge his duties (section 3, 25th amendment) and transfer power temporarily to Pence. Presidents actually invoke section 3 pretty routinely if they know they will be unavailable for a time such as undergoing a medical procedure. Trump remains in office as president but Pence becomes ‘acting president’ for the time being. Second, the Cabinet can strip Trump of his power if they believe he is unfit but he refuses to turn over power to Pence (section 4, 25th amendment). Section 4 has never before been invoked but it exists as an option.

In terms of the election, the ticket would be unchanged. A vote for Trump-Pence is still a vote for Trump-Pence. Trump is still president and Pence is only a temporary ‘acting president’. The assumption is that Trump would eventually resume his duties and his place at the top of the Republican ticket.

Scenario 2: A president running for re-election dies before the election

So if Trump dies before the election, Pence would immediately be sworn in as President. Since that would then make him the sitting president during an election year, precedence says he is automatically the GOP nominee. This close to the election, it is too late to officially withdraw a candidate and re-submit another one. Even if you could still replace a candidate, there isn’t time to re-print ballots. But since he was part of the original ticket on the ballot, I don’t see this being an issue or a source of confusion. I imagine votes already cast for Trump-Pence will simply count towards Pence alone. It is unclear how this will impact the electoral college. Likely, the votes will be allocated as normal to the Trump-Pence ticket, with Pence officially becoming President elect instead of Vice President elect once the vote is certified. The Speaker of the House is next in line should something happen to him while he does not have a VP. Assuming he wins, I speculate he would vet and select a VP for his administration before inauguration. But until there is a VP to serve under him, Speaker of the House remains next in line. A presidential candidate has never died so close to an election.

Scenario 3: A presidential candidate dies before the election

If a candidate dies after the primary, I believe RNC and DNC rules state that the leadership meets to vote on a replacement. However, this close to an election, it is past the deadline to officially withdraw a candidate from the ballot and re-submit another candidate. Even if that were not the case, it is too late to-reprint ballots. My best guess is that the VP pick would become the top of the ticket, similar to scenario 2. This seems like the easiest thing to do. It does not require withdrawing the ticket and it minimizes confusion at the polls. It is unclear if this would create headaches for the electoral collage. I imagine electoral college votes would likely go to a Biden-Harris ticket as normal with Harris officially becoming President elect instead of Vice President elect once the vote is certified. In Congress there is also the practice of ‘widow’s succession’ where a spouse steps up to fill the void left by a Congressman’s death until the next election or until a special election can be held. This practice was actually pretty common in the early 20th century. Senators can be replaced by a Governor’s appointment, a president can be replaced by a VP. But Congressmen, who serve short 2 year terms, have no replacement strategy so widows succession made some amount of sense to prevent political infighting and ensure a smooth transition after a death. I highly doubt widow’s succession will ever be invoked or even suggested if something happens to Biden, especially with such a capable VP pick ready and able to step up on the ticket.

Scenario 4: A candidate dies after the election but before electoral college meets and the vote is certified

This scenario creates the most headaches. The rules are most murky during this scenario and things will likely get very, very messy. Elections are run by individual states and states have different rules impacting how electoral college votes must be allocated. At present, some states require that electors vote for the candidate that won the popular vote in that state. Some states don’t explicitly bind electors to the winner of the state popular vote but impose penalties on so called ‘faithless electors’. Some states have no laws on the books and voting for the winner of the state popular vote is merely precedence. In general faithless electors are not very common. There actually HAS been a candidate death between Election Day and the electoral college. In 1872, Democrat Horace Greeley (ran against President Grant) died before the electoral college met. 63 of his 66 electors voted for other people. Unfortunately, things are not as simple in 2020 as they were in 1872. There is a question about whether or not certain electors will be unbound if the candidates to which they are pledged dies before the collage meets. The courts will almost certainly have to get involved and possibly the House of Representatives. The 20th amendment of the Constitution mandates that a president MUST begin their term on January 20 and if the electoral collage remains inconclusive, the Constitution (via the 12th amendment I believe) leaves it up to the House of Representative to hold a contingent election and vote on a winner (I think the Senate votes on a VP). The House HAS previously decided an election. In 1824, neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson secured a majority of the electoral college (there were 4 candidates that year). The matter went to the House which voted for Adams to become President. Should the election end up in the House of Representatives, the Democrats have the majority. Since someone MUST be seated as President on inauguration day (Jan 20), I am not 100% sure what happens if the election remains a total mess and the House is hopelessly deadlocked. I think under the 20th amendment, the Vice President elect becomes acting President until the matter is resolved. If there is no Vice President elect, then the Presidential Succession Act states the Speaker of the House becomes acting president.

Scenario 5: President-elect dies before inauguration but after the election is certified.

This one is actually pretty easy. In this scenario, the Vice President elect becomes the president elect and is sworn in on inauguration day. This is covered by the 20th amendment.

Whew! Well, that was quite a thought experiment. If I write any more it will be the beginnings of a book. That ends my civics discussion for the day.

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jcmorrigan · 5 years ago

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In Defense of Archibald Snatcher

Oh, wow, we’re coming up on almost the sixth anniversary of The Boxtrolls, my favorite film of all time, and though the fandom for it seems to be either dead or in hibernation, I still have the torch lit.

I actually have been of the mindset of the opinion/s I’m about to present here for all those six years, but never really thought it prudent to lay them out until I recently had a friend I was recommending the film to who I warned about some of the elements considered “problematic” and I offhandedly mentioned that I could do a whole essay about why they don’t bother me and said friend replied with a desire to want to hear it because we share infodump for infodump, so here we go, I’m poking the hornet’s nest surrounding a controversial film with a dead fandom.

But if you were on Tumblr back in the heyday, you might’ve seen the reaction to this film when it first debuted. Specifically, what a lot of people honed in on wa that the villain, Archibald Snatcher, employed a dragsona to be able to push his agenda and implement his evil scheme. There was outrage. There were accusations. There was lambasting. And above it all, one question hovers: was this transphobic?

I want to start, before we get into the weeds, by saying that if you are anywhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and you were offended by this film or this character, your experiences are completely valid. I’m about to present the counterargument in language that assumes my take is fact for the purpose of not having to write fifty thousand clunky disclaimers, but analytical as this may be, it IS an opinion, and if you don’t think it’s right, then hey, that’s super valid, and I’m not gonna try and change your mind, because if you’re hurt, then you’re hurt! You just may want to nope out of this post right now because I’m about to lay out my observations and thoughts to the contrary of the accusations of this being homo/transphobic.

First of all, the obvious facet that comes to mind is how strange it is that we only ever saw the word “transphobia” put on this phenomenon rather than “homophobia” when using a female alter ego as a disguise or a performance art is not the same as being a woman assigned male at birth. One only needs to take a look over at RuPaul’s Drag Race to see examples of this culture. Lots of gay men wearing dresses. No women perceived male.

All the same, I will say that on the surface, adding any kind of queercoding to the story’s villain, who the audience is supposed to boo and hiss at, looks really, really bad on paper. However you interpret it, Snatcher is definitely queercoded. He openly flirts with the man he’s trying to trick as a means of getting what he wants, he displays sincere enjoyment of wearing the dress, and he runs the gamut of flamboyant hand gestures. But if you dig a little further, there’s even more to the story: his tale is one of a man who desires to pass as one of the elite class in his society, but is held back by something he can’t change about himself no matter how he denies it.

Let’s look at the rest of his story. Snatcher is in pursuit of the White Hat: the ultimate status symbol. To that end, he’s decided to otherize the Boxtroll population of the town and play upon the culture shock in Cheesebridge to convince the humans of the “upper world” that the Boxtrolls are predatory monsters who must be killed. This sounds like a pretty black-and-white good-and-evil scenario, right? You’ve got your population of innocent sweethearts being attacked and your genocidal racist orchestrating their destruction. But there’s a third layer still: Lord Portley-Rind, the chief White Hat himself. Lord PR is actually the worst of the lot. It’s because he doesn’t accept Snatcher that Snatcher feels he has to resort to this tactic. He demonstrates open hatred of the Boxtrolls and of Snatcher (”I’m not sure who should be more worried: the Boxtrolls or us!”). There are implications in how he treats his daughter that he’s a textbook sexist who believes there are men’s roles and women’s roles in society and nary the twain shall cross. And he’s the rich guy controlling the entire city and letting children’s hospitals and crumbling bridges go to waste by spending the budget on frivolous cheese. In short, Lord PR is basically the ur-example of a nightmarish fictional Republican (and oh, how I WISH he hadn’t been so prophetic).

I’m not saying Snatcher was justified or good. No. He’s in no way redeemable. But over the course of his interactions with Lord PR, you can see just how much society’s elites treat him as inhuman or like a dirty buffoon. He’s looked down upon, he’s insulted even when he’s doing the “service” Lord PR desires, he’s rejected until he’s gone above and beyond his contract and I think it’s even a little bit implied that Lord PR would’ve reneged on the whole deal if the mob hadn’t cheered for Snatcher in the end. So what you have is a prim and proper billionaire who subscribes to gender roles telling a man of the lower class, obviously economically downtrodden, that he doesn’t deserve what Lord PR has.

The idea of meritocracy is woven throughout the film. Listening to the speech in the background of Snatcher’s anaphylactic attack, while the visuals are focused on Eggs rescuing Fish, you can hear Snatcher rambling about how his father told him that if you work hard, you will receive a White Hat, but he worked hard all his life and got nothing. One of the White Hats literally says he got his through being rich. It’s not hard to infer that Snatcher has figured out how broken the system is and realized the only way to win the game is to cheat.

But there’s still one more thing holding him back from his victory, something that actually trips him up when he achieves what he wanted. Cheese is presented as another status symbol: the rich eat it and are connoisseurs of its flavor. Snatcher is deathly allergic to it. The goal he’s chasing, he can’t even have without threat to his own life. His reaction is to pretend he isn’t allergic and to expose himself to having allergic reactions on the regular to show how much he’s ready to become part of the elites. I’ll reiterate: Archibald Snatcher wants to join the elites, but is held back because of something about himself he cannot change that only matters because the upper crust said it should.

Okay. So we’ve established the man is gay, or somewhere on the queer spectrum. How is this not really, really horrible?

Because the narrative invites you to feel some sympathy for him. No, not for his actions or any secret soft side or tragic backstory (that’s a job for the fans), but because he is chasing a dream he cannot attain. Perhaps the film’s biggest shortcoming is how little consequence comes to Lord PR in the end, because Lord PR, for all intents and purposes, is the worse villain on the board. Snatcher’s ploy is to take the class below the one he inhabits and paint its members as the bad guys: a nuisance that must be exterminated for the betterment of society. And we’ve seen this. We’ve seen plenty of real-life examples of have-nots turning on have-lessers because the haves benefit from oppressed groups infighting and being distracted from who holds the money and the power. A lot of times, you see that while intersectionality is definitely something we need to pay attention to, racism, sexism, and homophobia are not concepts that are all explicitly linked. If you experience one, that doesn’t mean you don’t project one or two of the others on other people - particularly if you’re trying to make yourself feel better about the discrimination you face.

When you look at the hierarchy, Snatcher is, I reiterate, a very bad person. But he’s also a victim. Not as much of a victim as the poor Boxtrolls, who get the malice trickling down from both the Red Hats and the White Hats, but he is a victim. We see him mocked, laughed at, turned away. And though he’s not redeemable, there are aspects in which he is sympathetic.

But what about Frou Frou? What about that particular disguise?

Well, for one, it’s used to make yet another allegorical statement. Snatcher is able to get attention paid to him if he weaponizes female sexuality - though it is a very shallow attention that largely results in the straight men of the town swallowing his propaganda while also objectifying him. Most of the comments made on Frou Frou are slimy, smarmy “compliments” on her body from the White Hats. Lord PR’s wife harbors a distinct distaste for Frou Frou because her husband most certainly prefers ogling Frou Frou to actually paying attention to their marriage. Frou Frou is a propaganda vehicle to make it look like more than one person is on the same page as Snatcher; Snatcher himself drives the action of his scheme and gets the dirty work done.

It’s also worth noting that if you take away the implications, villains using alter egos to trick their nemeses is a tale as old as time, from sea witch Ursula making herself more supermodel-esque in order to marry the prince to mythological Loki actually crossdressing much in the same vein in order to fool the Frost Giants. There’s a reason disguise masters and shapeshifters are intriguing villain archetypes: because we’re always a little bit afraid that someone isn’t who they say they are, and because - yeah, I’m about to go here - I think we all wish we could shift shape ourselves to take on new forms that suit the goals we’re trying to accomplish, even if that means “fooling” others. So it’s reasonable to think Laika wasn’t aware that there was any queercoding to even be had here - but I do think the crew was aware, and not in a malicious way.

However, watching Snatcher’s scenes as Frou Frou, there’s something that comes across in his character that you don’t see so often when he’s presenting male: he’s legitimately having fun. He dances, he flirts with the crowd, he adds more flourishes to his speech, he gets sassy. Frou Frou is a means for him to express himself, to allow himself to be feminine when he has built his philosophy on needing to do “what a man does” (he repeats this at least twice) in order to achieve greatness. He can be a little more himself when he’s Frou Frou, even though Frou Frou isn’t him. Taking a new identity that’s allowed the other half of the gender roles allowed in Cheesebridge (which runs on a binary because it’s run by the White Hats) lets him act a little less like what he needs to be to be taken seriously and a little more like he has freedom.

Put this back in context of the greater narrative: given all the parallels we’ve seen, it’s safe to assume that Cheesebridge, as a whole, is not accepting of deviations from gender roles, whether it’s being open and proud of your LGBTQ+ identity or simply wearing the clothes that don’t belong to your gender. Snatcher is taking an enormous gamble here by using Frou Frou at all. On one hand, it’s a calculated risk; he knows if he can appeal to Lord PR’s unchecked sexist libido, he can secure another avenue to being heard. On the other, however, it’s not really much of a leap to say this is something he wants to do, someone he wants to be more like, and isn’t allowed to, and since he’s cheating at the game anyway, he might as well go all the way and do what he wants with his life.

I’ve seen a lot of people take issue with the scene where he reveals himself to Lord PR and comparing it to some actual homophobic/transphobic media. And again, if that still stands to you as your primary analysis and emotional reaction, then feel free to turn away, reject my analysis, and know your thoughts and feelings are completely valid. But I think this scene differs from your usual “person with male parts tricked you into thinking they were a woman” scene in a couple ways.

For one, Snatcher decides to out himself on his own. To Lord PR, it’s when he’s got nothing left to lose. Again, when he realizes the game is broken and the odds are against him, he takes control and decides to be himself a little more. Now everyone knows he likes to act a dragsona because he wanted them to. But also, earlier on, when he revealed himself to Eggs, it was again on purpose. Eggs didn’t figure him out. Snatcher needed Eggs to know the level of the threat he was dealing with: that he was the person Eggs has been running from since the start and is no less dangerous in a dress. It’s always been of his own volition. There’s no “I thought you knew” or disrobing to see a body that doesn’t match expectations - Eggs ripping Snatcher’s wig off is maybe a little iffier, but again, in context, that’s him trying to show Snatcher’s identity, not as a man but as Archibald Snatcher, to expose the corruption, and Snatcher actually plays it completely off because he’s that good of an actor.

Which brings me to my second point. There’s only one person who reacts in an “Oh, gross!” manner to this revelation, and it’s Lord Portley-Rind. The one we’ve established is sexist, homophobic, and your textbook Rich White Straight Cis Man. The one at the top of the food chain. The one who’s been objectifying Snatcher and acting like a slobbering pervert about Frou Frou from the beginning. The homophobe realizes he has been a little gay. The sexist realizes his objectifying a particular person he perceived female has consequences. And this is why to me, that scene is actually hilarious. Because I don’t feel like I’m laughing at Snatcher’s expense. I’m laughing because Lord PR just got called OUT, and this is exactly the kind of discomfort that is karmic given how he’s treated his daughter, his wife, and everyone in his city who’s needed him.

Cycling back to when Snatcher outs himself at the ball, Eggs doesn’t really seem to care that there’s a gender-role-play involved here. His concern is not that this is actually a man; his concern is that it’s specifically the person who he knows is trying to ruin everything. Same with Winnie when Eggs passes it on. Eggs trying to reveal Snatcher to the crowd doesn’t even begin with “Frou Frou is fake,” but a line I will never forget: “Archibald Snatcher has lied to you all.” Not even drawing attention yet to the fact that he’s in the room. Starting out by having everyone remember that guy they are all sure ISN’T there and pointing out he’s bad news.

To look at Lord Portley-Rind’s “Oh my God! I regret so much!” as a dig at Snatcher is to say that Lord Portley-Rind is the lens through which we should be viewing this story, which it most certainly isn’t. The lens is Eggs and Winnie. Adjacent lenses are Fish, Shoe, and Jelly. Lord Portley-Rind is an antagonist to every single character in this film save the other White Hats.

Which is why if this film falls flat anywhere, it’s in letting Lord Portley-Rind get away without consequence. I think I can take a guess as to why this primarily happened: it needed to wrap up in a little under two hours, and dismantling systematic oppression and abuse of socioeconomic power can’t be done in a two-hour escapade. I still wish he were at least villainized a little more, as that’s where the narrative was leading up to that point. One of his earliest scenes with Winnie foreshadows that he will have to choose between her and the hat, and it takes him two tries to make the right choice. This story, until the very last act, has not supported him being a character to like or sympathize with, even in such subtle ways as Trout and Pickles stealing his hat and running around with it to taunt Snatcher - showing that a symbol is really only a symbol, and doesn’t indicate your worth. Anyone can put on a hat. Lord PR has just been brought onto an equal footing with them, if only for a moment.

Okay, so why have this whole three-layer narrative anyway? Couldn’t we have made this story more clear-cut between the Boxtrolls and White Hats, with no queercoded villain to get in between?

Yes...but I’m not sure that would have been best for the viewing audience. And there’s plenty of precedent as to why Laika thought it was a move for the better.

Queercoded villains are in every aspect of our fictional and fandom lives. Here’s a bitter pill to swallow: all your favorite Disney villains are queercoded. All of them. “But Frollo’s arc is about - “ Being a man in a religious system afraid of being tainted as sinful for being attracted to the wrong person. “Gaston, though, is - “ Very chummy with LeFou, and I’m talking the animated versions. They’re all colorful, flamboyant, foppish for the men and full of socially-unacceptable strength for the women. These were the cornerstones of our childhood nostalgia and characters we still feel culturally attached to.

It’s not just in Disney. Are you a fan of musical theater? Well, then your favorite villain probably got a big song and dance in which they wore some glitter. Classic lit? Google the name of your favorite literary canon villain and “queer theory” and see what happens.

I don’t think we can really say this is good or bad. On one hand, it’s not great that a marginalized group can only see themselves in the character we’re supposed to hate. On the other, though, we don’t always hate that character. Villains hold a unique place in our culture. They do bad things, horrible things, but the story can’t take place without a conflict, and we like when that conflict has a name and a cool design such as a tall, imposing sorcerer/witch in flowing robes - or perhaps a tall, graceful man in a long red coat and a towering crooked top hat.

I’ve had lots of friends and trusted Internet reviewers talking about how queercoding in villains can actually be really empowering. If you’re a fan of the villain, you get to see a power fantasy in which someone who has something very big in common with you gets to enact karma on others for wronging them! You get to wear the cool robes, sing the fun song, do things that are not really legal or acceptable! I think a great analogy is if you check out the book “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers” by Sady Doyle. It’s primarily about sexism rather than queer issues (though it does touch upon them!), but examines how women throughout pop culture and storytelling history have always been the witch, the monster, the demon, and how that sucks, but it also means that women have a great pile of fictional power fantasies to pick from to indulge in. It’s the same principle. I myself may not be same-gender-attracted, but I am asexual, and still waiting on my glamorous villain who uproots society as revenge for being forced to do something analogous to having a sexual relationship...*taps wristwatch*

Meanwhile, queercoding is not as prevalent in heroes. And I think that’s where everything’s tripping on its own feet. Because a gay villain among a bunch of straight heroes does look pretty bad. Are some of the heroes queercoded as well, though? Well, that’s just realistic diversity. People are gay, and there happen to be some good ones and some evil ones here. I don’t think Snatcher’s dragsona is entirely unproblematic, but I do think it could have been mitigated a lot with more implications that Eggs and Winnie might be queer in some way (and believe me, I choose to interpret them that way, because the more the merrier).

The thing is that in pop culture as of late, there seems to be a trend to scrub away all villainous queercoding because it’s seen as a black-and-white issue. To go back to the Disney villains, do you feel like the live-action recreations of Jafar, Scar, and Gaston are missing a certain je ne sais quoi? Well, think about it through this lens and it might be that you savez quoi after all. They’ve all been made incredibly straight as of late, with off-the-record actor confirmations about having obsessive crushes on the film heroines. I can’t speak to why this has happened; there’s a lot of history behind any given social movement, and I haven’t managed to really unpack this one. “Blame Tumblr” is too easy; I would want to know who were the loudest voices, why they said what they said, and what was the intended accomplishment, not to mention if this had built on other social-media or real-life platforms over the years and was influenced by any outside source by news or marketing. I can’t say why queercoded villains are being burned; I can only say it’s happening. And it was happening big-time in 2014, when The Boxtrolls was released.

I also feel like I would be remiss to mention that The Boxtrolls is based on “Here Be Monsters,” which I believe to be one of the worst books I’ve ever read, bar none. That version of the story has...pretty much everything that’s perceived to be in the film version’s text as problematic. Frou Frou is presented as something to laugh at Snatcher about throughout, largely because everything about Snatcher is presented to make him seem gross or like a buffoon. There’s a whole scene of the hero rifling through his desk to find soiled underwear. Not to mention that the original purpose of Frou Frou in the text was to manipulate the town’s women by dictating the fashion trends they should follow and the beliefs they should hold in order to fit in. This is something that does need commentary on it, but in that text in particular, it seems like the women are silly and easily swayed, and that they’re the town’s weak link because they’re slaves to fashion. The Boxtrolls completely flips this around so that the town’s weak link re: Frou Frou is the rich MEN who objectify women, particularly the men that happen to be in charge of the whole town, and looking at that divide alone tells me how much care was put into this adaptation at every level.

So why’d I do this, besides having a friend who wanted to read it? Because Archibald Snatcher is legitimately one of my favorite fictional characters. Yeah, I know, he’s a horrible person and terribly racist, and no, I don’t think his demonizing an entire people is anything to be emulated. But on one hand, there are places where I not only empathize but identify with him, particularly where it comes to living out the majority of one’s life trying to live up to a meritocracy - I did everything right, so why am I not on top? He’s also just fun and satisfying to me. He’s the exact brand of evil I eat up. He’s quippy, flamboyant, sadistic to a point, and altogether enjoying his job way too much. Even though he isn’t in power all that long, he is a power fantasy for me, too - wishing I had his talent to talk my way into others’ hearts by saying the right thing, and maybe cultivating a little bit of that I didn’t realize I had (but not to use for evil purposes). I loved him from the moment he turned up because of his sheer dynamic presence - his drawn-out vowels, his sinister smile, his silver-tongued manipulations - and to this day I find him an inspiring character when it comes to writing fiction, both in the realms of fanfiction and original villain creation. You could say he’s a comfort character to me. And maybe this has been the delusional rambling of a woman trying to protect a character she likes for surface reasons by spelling out what look like analytical points of discussion.

But I don’t think Laika was trying to be mean-spirited or homo/transphobic in their character creation. I think they were trying to make an engaging villain who had some layers you could pick at to see more about the narrative as a whole and the message of societal corruption and how the way to overcome it is to be true to yourself rather than defined by your status: a lesson Snatcher fails at the finish line when Eggs gives him one last chance to “make you.” And ultimately, if you really and truly did like Archibald Snatcher, you’re not wrong or invalid in the least.

#archibald snatcher #the boxtrolls #boxtrolls #laika #analysis #discourse #long post #hot takes #controversial opinions #you know...all the fun stuff #and then the sequel: op gives him a crossover villain ship to help him self-actualize

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vettingsanders · 5 years ago

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He Did Nothing For Years

The Bernie Sanders Story

I was going to title this post something that more adequately expresses my rage, like “Bernie Sanders is a Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human,” but then I decided to be classy and paraphrase a quote from Evita instead. But I’m also petty so consider the subtitle of this rant to be “A Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human.”

I was going to wait to post this until the primaries are over because if by some unholy hell miracle Sanders wins the nomination, obviously we all have to unite behind even the shittiest, most doomed to fail candidate, but fuck it. Vote blue no matter who, that goes without being said, but Sanders is the worst possible choice and was even when there were a dozen plus horses in this race, and now y’all are going to hear all the reasons why.

The Early Years: Sanders the Deadbeat

Sanders graduated from the university of Chicago in 1964 with a BA in Political Science and chose not to work until he was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981

I say “chose not to work” because he was fully capable but preferred being a bum. He had no student debt, he had no health conditions that prevented him from working, and the 1960s were characterized by rapid growth of the workforce, with three out of four college graduates holding high level positions by 1970

Sanders occasionally did some freelance writing and carpentry during these years, according to his resume, probably so he could claim he was trying to work in order to collect unemployment. Let’s take a look at some of his writings:

At age 28, he wrote an article for alternative newspaper The Vermont Freeman entitled “Cancer, Disease, and Society.” In the article, he argues that sexual repression can cause cancer, and women who are virgins, have fewer orgasms than their peers, or simply don’t enjoy sex are more likely to develop cancer. The article includes statements such as “the manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer, among other things” and “How much guilt, nervousness have you imbued in your daughter with regard to sex? If she is 16, 3 years beyond puberty and the time which nature set forth for child-bearing, and spent a night out with her boyfriend, what is your reaction? Do you take her to a psychiatrist because she is “maladjusted” or a “prostitute,” or are you happy that she has found someone with whom she can share love?” He also argues that the education system contributes to cancer, as does having “an old bitch of a teacher (and there are many of them).” https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

In 1969, in another article for The Vermont Freeman, he wrote, “In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride/

His resume, incidentally, also lists him as a freelance youth counselor during his period of unemployment, which is just great. The man who thinks thirteen year olds should be getting pregnant and children should touch each other’s genitals, counseling your kids. Fantastic.

In the 1970s, Sanders stole electricity from his neighbors rather than paying his own bill. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927

He stole food from the refrigerator of The Vermont Freeman’s publishers https://newrepublic.com/article/122005/he-was-presidential-candidate-bernie-sanders-was-radical

He was asked to leave a hippie commune in 1971 due to sitting around engaging in “endless political discussion” rather than working. Let me repeat, he was too lazy for a hippie commune. https://freebeacon.com/politics/bernie-sanders-asked-leave-hippie-commune/

Now, all of this apart from the theft is arguably okay. It’s his own life, and if he wants to squander it publishing poorly written essays and doing jack shit, whatever. Except it wasn’t just his life, because he had a son, Levi. And he was a deadbeat, paying no child support and causing Levi’s mother, Susan Mott, to rely on welfare, which made her face discrimination when trying to find housing. https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1093295853907922946

Bernie Sanders is a deadbeat dad. No respect.

Failing Upwards: Sanders the Politician

In 1971, Sanders joined the Vermont Liberty Union Party, a socialist political group. From 1971 to 1977, Sanders was the party chief and habitually ran for office, failing every time. He left the group in 1977, stating that they did not do enough to fight banks and corporations during non-election years. This is just one example of Sanders decrying everyone else as too impure for him.

In 2016, the Vermont Liberty Union Party voted to brand Sanders as a war criminal. Their general secretary, Peter Diamondstone, said of Sanders, “ He never was a socialist!" https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnjby3/the-vermont-political-party-bernie-sanders-founded-isnt-into-him-anymore This is just one example in the long list of Sanders alienating his allies.

He finally won the mayoral election for Burlington in 1981, by only ten votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Burlington_mayoral_election

Sanders was only elected to the US House of Representatives in 1990 because he had the support of the National Rifle Association. The incumbent Congressman, Republican Peter Smith, advocated for an assault weapons ban, so the NRA flooded Sanders with money. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/stickin-to-his-guns-the-nra-helped-elect-bernie-sanders-to-congress-now-hes-telling-a-different-story/Content?oid=27816693

In 2006, 2012, and 2018, when running for the Senate, Sanders ran as a Democrat in the state primaries, then declined the Democratic nomination, and ran as an independent in the general. This made it basically impossible for any Democrat to run against him. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/21/bernie-sanders-democrat-independent-vermont-601844

After a landslide loss to Secretary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, Sanders demanded changes to the DNC primary structure that would make the process easier for him to win with just a plurality of delegates instead of a majority. These rule changes were the reason the 2020 Iowa caucus was such a clusterfuck. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-iowa-caucus-winner-trump-democrats-a9317761.html

Despite all his talk of getting out the youth vote and inspiring disenfranchised voters, Sanders planned all along to squeak by with only thirty percent of the delegates in the 2020 primary by provoking infighting among other candidates to split the moderate vote. The supposed movement he claimed to lead is a sham. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/bernie-sanders-thinking-he-will-win-it-all-2020/587326/

“I Never Saw Him”: Sanders and Civil Rights

Sanders touts his participation in the March on Washington in 1963 as proof of his devotion to civil rights activism. He loves to remind people that he marched with MLK, as seen during the She the People 2019 forum where he repeated that old chestnut for the millionth time and was booed by the attendees. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-met-with-boos-after-name-dropping-martin-luther-king-at-she-the-people-summit

In actuality, Sanders was one of 250,000 people at the march, along with Mitch McConnell, who is clearly no champion for civil rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/7-things-know-about-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-part-flna6C10621413

Representative John Lewis, an actual civil rights hero who worked with Dr. King and whose skull was fractured by police on Bloody Sunday, said that he “never saw [Bernie Sanders]. I never met him,” during the movement. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2016/02/11/john-lewis-never-saw-bernie-sanders-during-civil-rights-era/80263450/

Sanders was charged with resisting arrest during a segregation protest in Chicago in 1963, and was charged $25. He later white flighted to Vermont, one of the whitest states in the country. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago/

Sanders never bothered to vote during the Civil Rights movement, only putting forth the effort when he himself was running. https://imgur.com/gallery/mmS40Gq#460q6bS

During his speech in Jacksonville on the 50th anniversary of MLK’s death, Sanders rewrote history and tried to claim that King’s real focus was economic justice and not civil rights. "All of us know where he was when he was assassinated 50 years ago today. He was in Memphis to stand with low-income sanitation workers who were being exploited ruthlessly, whose wages were abysmally low, and who were trying to create a union. That’s where he was. Because as the mayor just indicated, what he believed — and where he was a real threat to the establishment — is that of course we need civil rights in this country, but we also need economic justice.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to civil rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

In 1994, he praised the bill and stated that the US needed more jails. https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1221468426855755776

He touted his vote for the crime bill on his website at least until 2006, as proof he was “tough on crime” and “strong on the cops” https://web.archive.org/web/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

In 2015, during a meeting with police reform activist group Campaign Zero, Sanders responded to being asked why he thought a disproportionate amount of people of color were incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses with “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African-American?” Those present at the meeting stated, “Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

In 2018, fifteen racial and social justice leaders in Vermont, including multiple NAACP branch presidents, ACLU organizers, and BLM activists, sent an open letter to Sanders and the Sanders Institute to complain that they were “excluded” from the “national progressive movement that Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to foster.” The letter asks “how could Senator Sanders host what is supposed to be an intersectional, progressive event without inviting the very people whom he serves?” http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/vpr/files/201812/sanders-letter-2018.pdf

Curtiss Reed, Executive Director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, stated that the exclusion of Vermont POC from the Sanders Institute’s event was “a catastrophic failure of his sort of tone deafness to marginalized communities in the state of Vermont” and added “I’m tempted to say this is no longer a question of benign neglect on the part of the senator, but willful ignorance on his part not to include marginalized voices in this national conversation on the progressive movement.” https://www.vpr.org/post/we-find-ourselves-excluded-racial-justice-leaders-ask-bernie-sanders-get-program#stream/0

Vermont Black leaders stated they were “invisible” to Sanders, and that the senator “was just really dismissive of anything that had to do with race and racism, saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the issues of income inequality. He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/vermonts-black-leaders-we-were-invisible-to-bernie-sanders

In his 1998 autobiography, Sanders repeatedly and needlessly used the n-word. He chose to keep the word in the text when republishing the book in 2015. https://www.inquisitr.com/5620596/bernie-sanders-under-fire-for-use-of-n-word-in-2015-book-clip-from-audiobook-version-goes-viral-friday/

“I Will Not Make It a Major Priority”: Sanders the Ally

During an interview as mayor of Burlington, Sanders said LGBTQ rights were not a “major priority” for him and he would “probably not” support a bill to protect gays from job discrimination. https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/10/bernie-sanders-on-marriage-equality-hes-no-longtime-champion.html

Also during his time as mayor, Sanders signed a resolution affirming that marriage is between “husband and wife.” https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/02/06/clinton-surrogates-pounce-on-sanders-over-82-marriage-resolution/

Sanders and his wife stated in 1996 that they opposed the Defense of Marriage Act simply because it would weaken states’ rights. Only later did he claim his opposition was due to support for same-sex marriage. https://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/

Sanders argued same-sex marriage was a states’ rights issue in 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=kej9QAsS3uI&feature=emb_logo

In that same year, after same-sex civil unions had been legal in Vermont since 2000, he responded to a reporter asking if same-sex marriage should be legalized in Vermont with “Not right now,” after the “very divisive debate” preceding the civil union legislation. https://web.archive.org/web/20160407064606/http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS/606070302/1003/NEWS02

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to LGBTQ rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Sanders the Warmonger

Sanders loves to tout his opposition to the Iraq War as proof of his moral superiority. But in 1998, he voted for the Iraq Liberation Act, which states that “it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.” He also supported Clinton’s airstrike on Iraq. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1998/h482

In 1999, Sanders had anti-war protesters at his office arrested. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/27/bernie-sanders-savior-or-seducer-of-the-anti-war-left/

The Iraq War Bill that Sanders voted against required Bush to first try diplomatic efforts and abide by UN rules of military conduct. It also required transparency and progress reports. https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Act (AUMF), which Sanders did vote for, required none of that and is the reason the Afghanistan War was so much of a clusterfuck. Bush would have used the AUMF to invade Iraq even if Congress had voted down the Iraq Liberation Act. The only person to vote against the AUMF was Representative Barbara Lee. Sanders voted in favor of it. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/sjres23/text

Sanders claims to oppose the defense industry. But he brought Lockheed Martin and their 1.2 trillion dollar, over budget, outdated stealth fighters to Vermont. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-loves-this-dollar1-trillion-war-machine

During his tenure as mayor of Burlington, he fired the assistant city treasurer when she was jailed for an anti-war protest. https://academic.oup.com/publius/article-abstract/21/2/131/1917641?redirectedFrom=PDF

Sanders the Healthcare Crusader

Sanders was chairman of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee during a 2014 scandal when dozens of veterans died while waiting for medical care. During his tenure, Sanders only held seven hearings on VA Oversight, as opposed to the House committee’s forty-two hearings. Veterans argue that Sanders was too invested in the idea of the VA as a shining example of government healthcare to address its failings. Despite the scandal and tragedy, Sanders as recently as 2017 bragged that he was involved with “the most comprehensive VA health care bill in this country.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-veterans-scandal-on-bernie-sanderss-watch

He voted against the Clinton plan for universal healthcare in 1993. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/14/1501210/-Where-Was-Sanders-on-Health-Care-in-93-and-94-Against-the-Clintons

Sanders also voted against CHIP, the children’s health insurance program that AOC relied on to see a doctor in her youth: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1997/h345

Despite campaigning on Medicare for All since 2015, Sanders was unable to explain how much the program would cost during a 2020 60 Minutes interview. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-2020/index.html

When Senator Warren did the math for him and released her detailed M4A plan, Sanders attacked her, calling his plan “more progressive” and saying hers would “have a very negative impact on creating jobs.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/03/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-health-care-plan/index.html

Sanders claims that his healthcare plan is standard in other countries. But his M4A plan would ban private insurance, which is not done in any country but Canada. In the Scandinavian countries Sanders loves to hold up as an example of government healthcare, the market for private insurance is growing. https://aapsonline.org/no-bernie-other-countries-do-not-ban-private-care/

“Too Brassy, Too Bitchy”: Sanders the Feminist

In his autobiography, Sanders quoted an article calling his 1996 primary opponent Susan Sweetser “too brassy, too bitchy.” https://books.google.com/books?id=_2YjBm2_JGUC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=sanders+too+brassy+too+bitchy&source=bl&ots=SWrIR5Xa8m&sig=ACfU3U2-Hj1-UXIOM0Zz274h6_Nu8juoBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHhtObq6LmAhWvUt8KHc8mDVUQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sanders%20too%20brassy%20too%20bitchy&f=false

In his Vermont Freeman article “Cancer, Disease, and Society,” Sanders called teachers “old bitch[es]” and blamed them for men developing cancer. He also said women developed cancer due to sexual repression. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

Referring to their 1986 governor race, his opponent Madeleine Kuhn stated, “When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared.” https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/04/when-bernie-sanders-ran-against-vermont/kNP6xUupbQ3Qbg9UUelvVM/story.html

Sanders called Planned Parenthood “a part of the establishment” because they endorsed Secretary Clinton for president. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/planned-parenthood-bernie-sanders-218026

Sanders called Hillary Rodham Clinton, former law firm partner, former First Lady, former Senator, and former Secretary of State, unqualified to be president. https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-qualified/index.html

In January 2020, leaked phone banking scripts from the Sanders campaign called Warren a candidate of the affluent who wouldn’t bring any new voters to the Democratic base. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594

In response, members of Warren’s campaign leaked information that, at a dinner in 2018, Sanders had told Warren he did not think a woman could win the presidency. Sanders and his supporters decried this as a lie, even though reporters knew of the dinner and had been asking Warren if Sanders had discussed women’s electability there for over a year. https://twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/1104477933886935040?s=19

Sanders supporters then flooded Elizabeth Warren and her supporters’ Twitter mentions with snake emojis.

Sanders said of Secretary Clinton, “It is not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!” https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/21/13699956/sanders-clinton-democratic-party

Bending the Knee: Sanders the Dictatorship Fanboy

During a 2020 60 Minutes interview, Sanders inexplicably decided it would be a good idea to start praising Fidel Castro’s genocidal regime, stating, “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. When Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?” https://www.vox.com/2020/2/24/21147388/bernie-sanders-cuba-60-minutes-nicaragua

He doubled down on this praise at the next debate, whining, “Really? Really?” when the crowd booed him. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240627047.html

In 2014, Sanders visited Cuban prisoner Alan Gross, who lost over 100 pounds and five teeth during his captivity. During the meeting, Gross recalls Sanders telling him, “I don't know what's so wrong with this country.” https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811729200/former-prisoner-recalls-sanders-saying-i-don-t-know-what-s-so-wrong-with-cuba

In 1985, Sanders praised bread lines and food rationing. “American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death." https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/21/1920767/-Time-to-switch-out-from-Bernie-he-praised-nations-with-bread-lines-that-s-a-good-thing-Danger

Sanders hung a USSR flag in his office as mayor of Burlington. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/bernie-sanders-reveals-his-radical-inclinations-ov/

He honeymooned in the USSR, and praised the state of the Soviet Union. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bernie-sanderss-1988-10-day-honeymoon-in-the-soviet-union/2019/05/02/db543e18-6a9c-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

In the 1980s, Sanders attended a Sandinista rally in Nicaragua where the attendees chanted, “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders recently praised China, saying that it has made "more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization." https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/458976-sanders-china-had-done-more-to-address-extreme-poverty-than-any-country-in-the

“They Can’t Stop Us”: Sanders the Conspiracy Theorist

Despite conceding the 2016 primary and stating that “Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination and I congratulate her for that” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/index.html), he later made the Trump-esque statement “Some people say that if maybe that system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination and defeated Donald Trump.” https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-defeat-donald-trump-2016-rigged-primary-dnc-nbc-kasie-hunt-1446116

On February 21, Sanders tweeted, “I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.” https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1231021453270769664

After Super Tuesday, Sanders stated that Buttigieg and Klobuchar were pressed to drop out as part of an establishment plot to defeat him. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/486503-sanders-klobuchar-and-buttigieg-ended-campaigns-under-great-deal

Sanders has repeatedly attacked the press as “paid by the corporations and billionaires who own the media.” He’s promoted the conspiracy theory that Jeff Bezos makes The Washington Post write negative articles about him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/27/bernie-sanders-attacks-media-press-fair-or-trump-2020-democrats

During the Nicaraguan conflict, Sanders accused American reporters of ignoring the truth and told a CBS reporter, “you are worms.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders accused The Washington Post of trying to harm him in the Nevada caucus by reporting on Russia’s attempts to boost his campaign. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

“We Support Them”: Sanders the Spoiler

Robert Mueller’s investigation found that Russian interference sought to boost both Sanders and Trump’s 2016 campaigns, stating “we support them.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/17/indictment-russians-also-tried-help-bernie-sanders-jill-stein-presidential-campaigns/348051002/

Sanders was well aware of the Russian efforts, stating “What we knew is–well, of course we knew that. And of course we knew that they were trying to cause divisiveness within the Democratic party. Uh, that’s no great secret.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDYbHult0Do

When The Washington Post reported on Russia’s efforts to boost Sanders in 2020, Sanders had already known for weeks and said nothing. After the report came out, he attacked the Post and accused them of trying to tank his performance in the Nevada caucus, stating “I’ll let you guess, about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out? It was The Washington Post? Good friends.” https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

The Fish Rots from the Head: The Sanders Campaign

The 2016 campaign breached the Clinton campaign’s voter data and harvested and stored voter information https://time.com/4155185/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/

The 2016 campaign received a 645 page letter from the FEC detailing the campaign’s finance violations (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/) and had to pay a $14.5 K fine to the FEC after receiving donations from non-citizens. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/376373-sanders-campaign-pays-145k-fine-to-settle-fec-complaint

The 2016 Nevada campaign director sought to rig the state’s caucus by urging staffers to buy double-sided coins for tie-breaking coin tosses http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanderss-nevada-director-floated-two-sided-coins-for-tiebreaks-report/ar-AAhHiAI?getstaticpage=true&automatedTracking=staticview

The 2016 campaign initially decried superdelegates as “undemocratic” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/opinions/superdelegates-democratic-party-kohn/) before attempting to persuade them to go against the primary’s outcome and back Sanders instead of Clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/19/478705022/sanders-campaign-now-says-superdelegates-are-key-to-winning-nomination

The 2016 campaign was accused by staffers of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment toward women, and pay disparity by gender https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

Weeks before the 2016 general election, Jane Sanders retweeted a video from an April town hall of her husband telling an attendee to “make these decisions yourself” regarding whether or not to vote third party if Secretary Clinton won the primary https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/26/retweet-bernie-sanders-wife-jane-raises-questions/91140254/

The 2020 Sanders campaign appointed Russian interference denier and Jill Stein 2016 voter Briahna Joy Gray as the campaign’s National Press Secretary https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/888555665865814017?lang=en

Following promises to run a civil campaign, Sanders hired David Sirota, a man who’d spent months attacking other primary contenders online, as a speech writer. The campaign also confirmed that Sirota had already been serving in an advisory role prior to his official hiring https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray called for the doxing of a Sanders critic on Twitter. If there was any repercussion for this behavior, it has never been made public. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/14/1879124/-Bernie-Sanders-s-Campaign-Doxed-a-Critic-on-Twitter

The 2020 campaign hired and fired YouTuber Matt Orfalea within 24 hours after being alerted of his sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist content, suggesting he was not vetted before his hiring https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bernie-sanders-matt-orfalea-mlk-youtube-video/

Despite his firing and the campaign decrying his behavior in October 2019, in January 2020 Jane Sanders was still retweeting and praising Orfalea. https://twitter.com/Rob_Flaherty/status/1236861997398048768

In March 2020, Orfalea posed as a Biden volunteer and made calls to voters claiming that Biden has dementia. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgeanp/a-man-fired-from-sanders-campaign-is-calling-biden-voters-and-saying-he-has-dementia

They hired and fired Darius Khalil Gordon after two days after being alerted of his sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and ableist Tweets https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-new-head-organizer-called-people-fgs-bhes/

The campaign also hired former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate. The Women’s March cut ties with Sarsour following anti-Semitic statements. https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/womens-march-founder-calls-on-current-leadership-to-step-down/

Sarsour was also condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for the statement that “a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.” https://forward.com/news/national/435964/bernie-sanders-linda-sarsour-jewish-voters/

Sanders National Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner claimed that Biden’s strong support among Black voters is due to the voters’ “short memories” and “not a true understanding of the history” https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/473161-top-sanders-officials-hits-biden-over-riding-on-obamas-coattails

The 2020 campaign paid staffers working 60 hours a week an average of 13 dollars per hour despite Sanders campaigning on a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/20700841/bernie-sanders-minimum-wage-staff-pay

Bernie Bros attacked Biden’s Detroit rally on 3/9/20, striking senior aide Symone Sanders in the head with an iPad and knocking her down. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/joe-biden-detroit-protests-sanders-124874

“Nobody Likes Him”: Sanders Himself

In 1996, Congressman Barney Frank said of Sanders, “Bernie alienates his natural allies. His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.” https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/04/11/history-barney-frank-bernie-sanders-criticize

In her recent Hulu documentary series, Hillary Rodham Clinton briefly spoke about Sanders, saying “He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” https://twitter.com/Burkmc/status/1235863901813661697?s=09

A former campaign staffer called Sanders “unbelievably abusive.” Another campaign insider called him an asshole, and a former Senate staffer recounted, "He yelled in meetings all the time.” https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/anger-management-sanders-fights-for-employees-except-his-own/Content?oid=2834657

One aide stated that Sanders “never makes you feel like you’re good enough to be in the room with him.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/politics/bernie-sanders-image.html

Sanders voted in favor of dumping nuclear waste on the poor and predominantly Latinx community of Sierra Blanca, Texas https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/28/Sanders-Nuclear-Waste-Votes-Divide-Texas-Activists/

When asked if he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca, Sanders answered “Absolutely not.” https://archives.texasobserver.org/issue/1998/09/11#page=11

Sanders voted five times against the Brady Act which required universal background checks and a waiting period to buy firearms. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-voted-against-brady/o

He also voted against the AMBER Alert System. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/09/21/sanders_vote_on_amber_alert_emerges_as_key_campaign_issue/

He wanted to primary Obama in the 2012 election cycle. https://www.thenation.com/article/yes-bernie-sanders-wanted-obama-primaried-in-2012-heres-why/

After saying millionaire senators are immoral (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/bernie-millionaire-senators-immoral/index.html) and railing against millionaires and billionaires in his 2016 campaign, Sanders responded to criticism of his millionaire senator status by saying “if you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” His stump speech now only rants about billionaires. https://theweek.com/speedreads/834228/bernie-sanders-says-millionaire-like-write-bestselling-book

Upheld a ban on rock concerts as mayor of Burlington like a Footloose villain https://i.redd.it/atpybo1rcwa31.jpg

Despite running on forgiving student loan debt since 2015, when pressed for specifics during an interview with Dana Bash, Sanders responded, “I don't have the plan in my pocket right now,” because, you know, why on Earth should he know the details of his key campaign promises? https://mobile.twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/1137779734467792897

Two days before the 2016 general election, Sanders tweeted “I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.” https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/794941635931099136?lang=en

Sanders had a heart attack at age 78, making his continued life expectancy 3.1 years. https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/acute-coronary-syndrome/study-65-older-mi-patients-die-within-8-years

He could have dropped out of the race after his heart attack and endorsed Warren, and she could have spent the primary building coalitions with the demographics where she was the weakest, and could well have been the front runner by now. Instead, he selfishly stayed in the race, screwing her over and knowing full well the odds are against him living through a single term. He continued to do the only thing he’s good at: fucking everyone over.

Say whatever you want about Biden, it’s not like there aren’t things to say. But I’ve seen so many posts about how “Sure, Biden’s the worst EVER, but he is EVER SO SLIGHTLY less worse than Trump,” and excuse me, fuck off. Biden horribly lost his wife and daughter before his 1972 Senate term even started, and instead of dropping out, he continued to serve his constituents while commuting home two hours every night to raise his sons. Meanwhile, in 1972, Sanders was a deadbeat bum stealing electricity. There’s no comparison.

#long post #Bernie Sanders #politics #2020 election #election 2020 #primary 2020 #2020 primary

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spraxinoscope · 4 years ago

Text

Oct. 14: Why I still think Trump has a ~75% chance of winning

Epistemic status: Who even am I? You shouldn’t listen to me. But see the final section for details.

By ‘winning,’ I mean still being president on 1/22/21, and there being no serious actionable plan to get him out.

2500 words of paranoia and bad math after the cut.

Polling factors:

Today, 538 gives Trump a 13% chance of an EC victory, so let’s use that as a starting point. As Nate Silver will tell you every chance he gets, 2016 presidential polls were only off by a few percentage points, and that’s probably still true. But a similar (or even smaller) systematic polling error would be enough to flip some battlegrounds, bumping Trump up to something like 25-30%. Have pollsters managed to correct for the systemic errors of 2016? There’s true meaningful debate around this, but the balance of evidence seems to be that the pollsters never figured out what caused the errors, and so were not able to fix them.

Note that Trump’s decline in the polls is driven by voters who approved of the president until very recently. Consider the sort of person who still had a favorable of opinion of Trump right up until fall 2020. Generally, dips in Trump’s favorability ratings seem to have been due to conservative infighting. Often, when a person stops supporting Trump, it’s because he is being insufficiently racist. These constituents’ loyalty may be wavering, but they are not likely to switch sides.

As a complete asspull hypothesis, I’d guess that some people who tell pollsters they no longer support Trump are trying to pressure him into adopting more hardline policy and will never vote for a Democrat.

I would posit that the 13% number is the absolute hard minimum chance of Trump winning an EC victory, fair and square. Error bars push that number higher. Taking average polling data over time also pushes that number higher, since it’s almost never been this low.

Dysfunction factors:

So, those are the odds for a free and fair election. What are the odds of the election being free and fair? I’m glad you asked! Zero.

Election integrity has taken major hits recently. Citizens United turned elections into ad campaigns. Shelby County v. Holder made laws against discriminatory election practices unenforceable. The Hatch Act is also not being enforced. The numerous alleged campaign finance law violations brought against the 2016 Trump campaign all amounted to nothing (except jail time, and subsequent pardons, for some functionaries).

Fine, let’s say elections can never be perfectly fair, but even if we grade on a curve and request that elections be as fair as possible, we’re still not doing great, and it’s been getting worse since 2010.

Hey, remember all those jokes from like 2004 onwards about how unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines are? That shit never got fixed. Remember the story from this week about some 90,000 New Yorkers getting the wrong mail-in ballots?

Remember when the Russians got into the Illinois voter database in 2016? The institutions that were supposed to defend against that kind of thing have since been gutted or captured by republicans.

Hey, remember when the Iowa primary was so dysfunctional that they ended the vote count without ever producing a final tally or figuring out what the problems were?

Election integrity groups have been sounding the alarm continuously on this one. Electoral commissions and underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained in use of modern systems. This is a huge problem all by itself, and it gets worse when applied to the next issue.

Malfeasance factors:

In my American public school civics education, I learned that Richard Nixon was a crook who paid some burglars to spy on the democrats, because of how crooked he was. I did not learn that ratfucking is bog-standard procedure, in every election, all over the world. I had to learn that on my own, later. Generally speaking, the election integrity talking heads take the opinion that most countries routinely interfere in the elections of most countries, and the Ds and the Rs have never not been spying on each other. The extraordinary thing about Watergate was that Republican congressmen were weirdly amenable to allowing an investigation into one of their own, a mistake they have never since repeated.

Some amount of ratfucking is to be expected. The nation has weathered this factor before. But, like electoral competence, this may be getting worse over time. State governments have very wide purview when it comes to voting procedure, and Republican states are wasting no time in finding creative new ways to toss out ballots. The most common reason for a mail-in ballot to be rejected is that the signature on the envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file. There is no official criteria or standard practice for how close a signature has to be to count as a match. Signatures are not useful security for anything, anyway.

Georgia’s 2018 election was arguably illegitimate. Irregularities included voting sites closed at the last minute for unclear reasons and fraudulent ballot collectors stealing ballots. Calls for recounts all failed. Other southern states are on thin ice. All the big Texan cities are getting one ballot drop box each, in case you thought Texas would be allowed to turn blue.

Red states already have various laws permitting them to throw out ballots that arrive after the election. Sabotaging the post office or throwing out all uncounted ballots soon after the election, as most sitting Republicans in congress and governors have already gone on record to suggest may be necessary, is a violation of the letter but not the spirit of existing restrictive voting laws.

The big thing, of course, is that the right wing media landscape has been fully saturated with the idea that Democrats will engage in conspiracies to steal the election, and action will need to be taken to thwart these plots. To that end, Republicans at all levels of government, including at the DOJ, have repeatedly signaled willingness to take unprecedented measures to stamp out fraud. These include numerous voter purge plans, new criteria for dismissing ballots, and sending the DHS or other law enforcement agencies to take custody of ballots.

In addition, the MAGAs are organizing ‘poll watcher’ groups to secure urban voting sites. Even if these groups fully obey the law and do not engage in anything that could legally be termed intimidation or harassment, that’s still a lot of leeway. Of course, over the last couple years, we’ve all learned that right wing protesters can sometimes bend or break the law and get away with it, and sometimes receive cooperation from the police. This goes triple for blue cities in red states, which is exactly what we’re worried about.

Malfeasance in general is made easier by the unprecedented levels of geographically-sorted voting blocs. It is trivially easy to tell whether a district will go hard for Trump or hard for Biden. So, whether interference is coming from law enforcement officers, protesters, or semi-sanctioned militias, they will know which lines to intimidate and which boxes to steal.

Russiagate set a clear precedent: It doesn’t matter if it’s blatant, outrageous, or corrupt. Republicans do not want to defect, and right wing media will keep the base in line. Democrats will be outraged, and then fold. There are no remaining nonpartisan referees to appeal to.

Pundits like to imagine that sitting Republicans in congress will not blatantly steal an election for fear that it will lead to them getting voted out of office, to which I would suggest that the obvious answer is the correct one: Voted out how?

Democrats shooting themselves in the goddamn foot factors:

Trump likes to say that the election will be illegitimate if he loses. Mainstream news outlets like to push back against this. The NYT, for instance, has been loudly insistent that the election is totally secure all year.

It’s not, and they’re morons. No experts agree with them on this. Trump fabricating a bunch of fictional threats does not invalidate the numerous actual threats.

Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer would not be anyone’s first pick for the task of contesting an election, but that’s who we got.

Possible October surprises:

Hey, what do you guys think this year’s James Comey is going to be? The only real prediction I have is that something very destabilizing happens in the week before the election, but the particulars could be anything. Some fun possibilities:

DNC hacked again

Federally sanctioned repeat of the 1985 MOVE bombing

Hunter Biden cocaine sex tape

Anything that startles people, destabilizes institutions, and distracts from other issues is a viable possibility.

Scenarios after a contested election:

There are plenty of bluechecks and think tanks who have already gamed this out in detail. You don’t have to take my word for any of this part. The choices are:

There are rival sets of state electors, and Congress decides which ones count. Result: McConnell and Barr play Calvinball until they get the outcome they like, Trump remains in office.

The supreme court decides. Result: Trump remains in office.

The militias decide. Result: Trump remains in office, plus the Handmaid’s Tale happens.

There’s an orange revolution. After months of protracted struggle, Trump is ousted from office. However, in the meantime, ~8 states have seceded and Russia has annexed Alaska. In the ensuing chaos, John McAfee claims the presidency.

Probability estimates:

Trump’s odds of a ‘legitimate’ EC victory are only at 13% as of this moment, but the running average is higher, with occasional spikes above 30%. Polling errors add a little extra. Let’s say 25%.

Trump’s odds of losing the EC vote, but clawing it back through malfeasance until enough Republicans agree that he’s won, are very low in the case of a Biden landslide. But a landslide is unlikely, and as the results are closer, the probability of Republicans declaring themselves winners approach one. Note that, at least from mainstream news coverage, this won’t look like the power grab that many democrats fear. It will look like a lot of confusion and disarray, with an unclear EC count, followed by a cascade of authorities and sources declaring Trump the winner and securing the acceptance from government bodies one at a time. For the most likely election outcomes in which Trump doesn’t win straight up, I’d say a 30% chance Trump remains in office.

The election being a total dysfunctional disaster, with multiple states unable to certify results, is at least 5%. At least! In such a case, I’d give Trump an 80% chance of remaining in office.

In general, I believe that the only way that Biden gets to be president is if everything basically holds together and works like it’s supposed to, and also Trump legitimately loses the EC. There is one way for everything to go right. There are many ways it can go wrong.

The NYT has fixated on the possibility that Trump clearly loses, but refuses to leave office anyway. I’d give this no more than a 1% chance of happening. But I think there’s a major blind spot around the possibility that we have no idea who won, because the whole thing is obfuscated by multiple layers of confusion and malfeasance. What tools to democrats have for investigating malfeasance? What tools do they have for persuading people that they won when the results are in question? What tools to they have for enforcing election laws that they didn’t have in 2017?

I think they have approximately one asset, and it’s a populace that’s willing to rise up in defense of their rights. But the DNC spent the last five-ish years antagonizing and alienating anyone left of Dianne Feinstein, so, the efficacy of a potential national mobilization has been severely compromised.

Any protracted contested election scenario either favors Trump remaining in power, or the eventual balkanization of the US. One reason there are no good scenarios for a contested election is that mainstream media has been so adamant that the election is secure. When the Democrats are trying to contest results, they will be struggling against their own narrative.

Then, I add a 10% chance that a last minute October surprise tips the race to Trump. It happened last time, and Comey wasn’t even trying; now that every government office is staffed with Trump appointees who are trying, they have a decent shot at this.

Summing up these odds, I arrive at Trump having around a 70% chance.

Then, I add another 5%, because I bet there’s things I haven’t thought of, and every year there’s some small chance that the far right will go all in on a race war, and this would be a good opportunity for them.

I will take actual bets on these odds.

My biases:

Numerous.

I grew up in a red community in a red state and was bullied a lot by kids who grew up to be far-right; I have a chip on my shoulder about this that precludes dispassionate analysis.

I believe the RNC has looked at US demographic trends and likely consequences of climate change, and has accepted a certain amount of fascistic will to power as a necessary evil. This is mere supposition on my part.

Despite the fact that I am more or less an asshole stoner burnout weeb, I remain convinced that the editorial staff at the NYT and several other major American journalistic institutions are somehow even dumber than I am. Although this may sound unlikely, this assumption has been invaluable for making predictions about the world.

I am a paranoid person.

My motivations for writing this:

Believe it or not, I’m only doing this to assuage anxiety. I’ve been convinced that Trump’s odds for remaining in office have been significantly higher than polls would suggest since 2018, and it’s maddening to see so few other people agree even though my core assumptions keep not going away.

If anyone read this far: I’m sorry, and I hope this motivates you to vote, if you weren’t going to already. If Trump remains in office, protests against him will benefit from having the mandate of a clear popular vote win, even if not an EC win, so I do believe that even people outside battleground states should vote.

I don’t know about Tumblr, but on Twitter, ‘no-hopers’ are characterized (fairly or not) as being defeatist Bernie bros who think that Trump should win the election to teach the DNC a lesson. I disavow this idea in the strongest possible terms. I think Biden can win and urgently should win. But every time I see someone talking about the Biden presidency as if it were a sure thing, it takes another year off my lifespan.

No matter what happens, we will be fighting racism and corruption for the rest of our lives, because that’s what ethical behavior entails in this world. But a Biden term vs. a second Trump term are in no way equivalent, and things can still get worse.

In conclusion, [that picture of the guy at the folding table with the ‘prove me wrong’ sign]

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