#SOTU v. #GOPDebate v. #DemDebate
Jan. 18th, 2016 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherIt was a big political ball o' wax these past 7 days, what with President Obama giving his final State of the Union address, The Republicans having their... 84th? Debate and the Democrats gathering to hash and hashtag it out with their own debate.
I want to make a brief note of pride that the first "social media" vlogger that asked a question of the Democrats was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chescaleigh, who was a guest on my talk_show blog way, way, way back in the day. Since then, she has exploded on YouTube, does a web series for MTV called "Decoded" and has been making appearances on everything from Anderson Cooper to The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. In some ways I feel like I discovered her, but she would have (and really did happen) without me!
But, let's start with the Dems, and how they are tracking. Bernie Sanders is really getting a boost, and I have to think there are several issues to explain why. The first is, obviously, that he has a penis. It's kind of difficult to overlook that Bernie Sanders is, in fact, male, and that there are just a bunch of people who think that the Leader of the Free World needs to have balls to do that job. That's especially true when it comes to dealing with warring factions and terrorism coming from who knows where, which is the world of 2016. Keep in mind that selecting a Presidential Candidate is only partly borne from logic and common sense. There's a lot of emotion involved too, and picking the person you think best represents either yourself, your values, your country, which, again, is more emotional than rational.
Additionally, the mud slinging is starting to happen, with Bill Clinton entering as support for his spouse and with the continual efforts by the Republicans, despite their big committee about Hillary's emails yielding no proof of wrongdoing, to imply that she is not trustworthy. That's one of the rules of hypnotics: if you keep saying something over and over, eventually people start to believe it.
Hillary, who this time last year was the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic Nominee, now seems to be on a similar track to 2008. Is it just her personality? Her pedigree? Her pants suits? It just seems like people don't like her...
And that's a perfect segue to the Republicans, who have a front-runner that a lot of people don't like, including many within the party. Donald Trump has a negative rating by a lot of people, yet every bad thing he says seems to have no effect on his polling numbers. How is it Trump, who clearly has people up in arms for some of the outrageous things he has said is still crushing it, but Hillary, who has all of the experience of being a First Lady, a Senator and Secretary of State, is fading away?
Emotion plays a part, and negativity lasts longer than positives. People remember that her husband was impeached for a sex act on the job. So, they consider that element, not that she worked diligently to coax the Congress into setting up health care for Americans, back in the 1990s. They think about her privilege and how she "doesn't need their money," and yet, they don't think that way about Donald Trump, who is a lot more privileged than Hill when it comes to the ledger.
But, we have to give props: Trump really might be the smartest of the all of the candidates. He has orchestrated a campaign where he says everything the base wants to hear, he says something outrageous every week or so to keep the media fascinated and he always has a counter-move for when he is attacked by any of his opponents. That's right, the 2016 election is a Chess Tournament for Trump and he's making like Gary Kasparov. It's undeniably genius. He's also been picking off the others in the race, one by one. Now, apparently, it's basically Trump, Cruz and Rubio remaining. This, though last year Jeb Bush appeared to be the likely one.
There are no accidents with The Donald. He has plotted and planned everything, and has foreseen scenarios that the rest of us haven't imagined yet. No doubt he's created an answer to every question. That's why, despite all the machinations from the GOP, Trump is almost guaranteed to win the nomination at this point. Yes, there has been discussion of a split vote and needing to resolve things at the Convention. But that's still going to come down in favor of Trump... unless there are some dirty tricks going on, and I can't rule out that someone in the RNC will try to work things so that someone other than Trump will win, if it's close. I mean, we all remember 2000, don't we? Still, I would wager that if there was some sort of manipulation to give someone other than Trump the nomination, the plot would be discovered and Trump would be awarded his place at the top of the ticket.
Just keep in mind, President Trump could happen.
And that brings us back to our current leader, who gave a magnificent final State of the Union. Just a few of the quotes worth preserving from that speech:
"Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction."
"We have to make college affordable for every American. No hardworking student should be stuck in the red."
"Social Security and Medicare are more important than ever; we shouldn't weaken them, we should strengthen them."
"Food Stamp recipients didn't cause the financial crisis, recklessness on Wall Street did."
"If you doubt America's commitment, or mine, to see that justice is done, ask Osama bin Laden."
(I particularly loved this one, as it was a rare case of the President touting something he accomplished)
"That's why we need to reject any politics, ANY politics... that targets people because of race or religion."
"End the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around."
"Each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us."
When the Republicans constantly state that Barack Obama is a failure, that his administration did not accomplish the goals of "Hope" and "Change" that he proclaimed during his runs for the White House, they point to all of the things still not completed. What they don't do is admit that they were responsible for sabotaging the President's best efforts through filibuster, congressional voting and refusing to lift a finger in support. They have never admitted that the gun lobby has them sewn up and that there will never be any proper legislation to make it more difficult to get guns. That they don't want to help the neediest people in our country and would prefer to take more away from our nation's most impoverished so that they can treat their corporate moguls and wealthiest One Percenters with a few more trinkets.
Never mind that Obama's diplomacy has lead to a path for warming relations with Iran, and that those efforts have freed 5 prisoners this past weekend. Ultimately, how the story is told depends on how you want to spin it, I guess.
We know that the Republicans did everything they could to prevent President Obama from having any success in any endeavor. It appears that they plan to destroy everything he has accomplished if they get their guy into the White House. Unlike the 44th President, if that guy gets in, there will be no reaching across the aisle to do anything. It will be an ebb tide of everything from the past 8 years, and beyond, with the potential defunding of Planned Parenthood and the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade... plus the Voting Rights Act, which has already been cut off at the knees in 15 states, may take us back to something closer to Jim Crow for the first time since the Kennedy administration.
I'm not being an alarmist, but that seems to be the direction the Republicans want to go.
I can't believe I may end up longing for the days of George W. Bush.
I want to make a brief note of pride that the first "social media" vlogger that asked a question of the Democrats was
chescaleigh, who was a guest on my talk_show blog way, way, way back in the day. Since then, she has exploded on YouTube, does a web series for MTV called "Decoded" and has been making appearances on everything from Anderson Cooper to The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. In some ways I feel like I discovered her, but she would have (and really did happen) without me!But, let's start with the Dems, and how they are tracking. Bernie Sanders is really getting a boost, and I have to think there are several issues to explain why. The first is, obviously, that he has a penis. It's kind of difficult to overlook that Bernie Sanders is, in fact, male, and that there are just a bunch of people who think that the Leader of the Free World needs to have balls to do that job. That's especially true when it comes to dealing with warring factions and terrorism coming from who knows where, which is the world of 2016. Keep in mind that selecting a Presidential Candidate is only partly borne from logic and common sense. There's a lot of emotion involved too, and picking the person you think best represents either yourself, your values, your country, which, again, is more emotional than rational.
Additionally, the mud slinging is starting to happen, with Bill Clinton entering as support for his spouse and with the continual efforts by the Republicans, despite their big committee about Hillary's emails yielding no proof of wrongdoing, to imply that she is not trustworthy. That's one of the rules of hypnotics: if you keep saying something over and over, eventually people start to believe it.
Hillary, who this time last year was the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic Nominee, now seems to be on a similar track to 2008. Is it just her personality? Her pedigree? Her pants suits? It just seems like people don't like her...
And that's a perfect segue to the Republicans, who have a front-runner that a lot of people don't like, including many within the party. Donald Trump has a negative rating by a lot of people, yet every bad thing he says seems to have no effect on his polling numbers. How is it Trump, who clearly has people up in arms for some of the outrageous things he has said is still crushing it, but Hillary, who has all of the experience of being a First Lady, a Senator and Secretary of State, is fading away?
Emotion plays a part, and negativity lasts longer than positives. People remember that her husband was impeached for a sex act on the job. So, they consider that element, not that she worked diligently to coax the Congress into setting up health care for Americans, back in the 1990s. They think about her privilege and how she "doesn't need their money," and yet, they don't think that way about Donald Trump, who is a lot more privileged than Hill when it comes to the ledger.
But, we have to give props: Trump really might be the smartest of the all of the candidates. He has orchestrated a campaign where he says everything the base wants to hear, he says something outrageous every week or so to keep the media fascinated and he always has a counter-move for when he is attacked by any of his opponents. That's right, the 2016 election is a Chess Tournament for Trump and he's making like Gary Kasparov. It's undeniably genius. He's also been picking off the others in the race, one by one. Now, apparently, it's basically Trump, Cruz and Rubio remaining. This, though last year Jeb Bush appeared to be the likely one.
There are no accidents with The Donald. He has plotted and planned everything, and has foreseen scenarios that the rest of us haven't imagined yet. No doubt he's created an answer to every question. That's why, despite all the machinations from the GOP, Trump is almost guaranteed to win the nomination at this point. Yes, there has been discussion of a split vote and needing to resolve things at the Convention. But that's still going to come down in favor of Trump... unless there are some dirty tricks going on, and I can't rule out that someone in the RNC will try to work things so that someone other than Trump will win, if it's close. I mean, we all remember 2000, don't we? Still, I would wager that if there was some sort of manipulation to give someone other than Trump the nomination, the plot would be discovered and Trump would be awarded his place at the top of the ticket.
Just keep in mind, President Trump could happen.
And that brings us back to our current leader, who gave a magnificent final State of the Union. Just a few of the quotes worth preserving from that speech:
"Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction."
"We have to make college affordable for every American. No hardworking student should be stuck in the red."
"Social Security and Medicare are more important than ever; we shouldn't weaken them, we should strengthen them."
"Food Stamp recipients didn't cause the financial crisis, recklessness on Wall Street did."
"If you doubt America's commitment, or mine, to see that justice is done, ask Osama bin Laden."
(I particularly loved this one, as it was a rare case of the President touting something he accomplished)
"That's why we need to reject any politics, ANY politics... that targets people because of race or religion."
"End the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around."
"Each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us."
When the Republicans constantly state that Barack Obama is a failure, that his administration did not accomplish the goals of "Hope" and "Change" that he proclaimed during his runs for the White House, they point to all of the things still not completed. What they don't do is admit that they were responsible for sabotaging the President's best efforts through filibuster, congressional voting and refusing to lift a finger in support. They have never admitted that the gun lobby has them sewn up and that there will never be any proper legislation to make it more difficult to get guns. That they don't want to help the neediest people in our country and would prefer to take more away from our nation's most impoverished so that they can treat their corporate moguls and wealthiest One Percenters with a few more trinkets.
Never mind that Obama's diplomacy has lead to a path for warming relations with Iran, and that those efforts have freed 5 prisoners this past weekend. Ultimately, how the story is told depends on how you want to spin it, I guess.
We know that the Republicans did everything they could to prevent President Obama from having any success in any endeavor. It appears that they plan to destroy everything he has accomplished if they get their guy into the White House. Unlike the 44th President, if that guy gets in, there will be no reaching across the aisle to do anything. It will be an ebb tide of everything from the past 8 years, and beyond, with the potential defunding of Planned Parenthood and the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade... plus the Voting Rights Act, which has already been cut off at the knees in 15 states, may take us back to something closer to Jim Crow for the first time since the Kennedy administration.
I'm not being an alarmist, but that seems to be the direction the Republicans want to go.
I can't believe I may end up longing for the days of George W. Bush.