Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

love the show but gotta say these dudes and their cadre on twitter seem just a leeetle too sure that a lot of those trump voters aren't really racist and would have so totally voted for Bern. and shit, man, thats just wrong.

― will, Thursday, January 12, 2017 10:23 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the same rust belt voters who voted for Obama would be in play for Bernie. He polled well with them.

Here we go again

Actually ilx user man alive and, eventually, k3vin, you're both wrong and will is correct

I think they, rightfully, recognize a difference in the 40%+ who will vote Republican no matter what and the seemingly large percentage who swung at the last moment with Comey's letter-slash-were looking for an excuse to not vote Hillary.

I pretty much agree with all of that. HRC carried a lot of baggage. I mean that was a big reason why a lot of us opposed her in 08. I feel like it's impossible not to subscribe to Bernie Might Have Won, I can't imagine why anyone would definitely dismiss that.. "Would Have" I've seen embraced by Bernie or Busters who I had to watch repeat right wing talking points..

*definitively

Of course Bernie "might" have one, Hillary might have won too given different butterfly wing patterns, the only ones being overconfident are those acting like Bernie definitely would have

We never got to see the oppo against him enacted but trump was a better politician than either of them

*won

That kind of reminds me how hypothetical candidates always poll better and you never know what narrative will take shape when the actual campaign happens so it's kind of annoying when they cite polls as proof that Bernie's victory was some kind of certainty. That's a definite "baby's first election" kind of thing though that tendency is in no way exclusive to the young.. But this was an election where conventional thinking was proven incorrect and conventional thinking certainly formed the basis of a lot of Dems choice of Hillary over Bernie.

For the Chapo crew (and similar people like Katie Halper), the "Bernie would have won" thing sounds less like continuing the primary and more like a rallying cry around having the Democrats actually act like a progressive party.

They didn't want Bernie to get the nom for Bernie's sake, they're leftists who want to see the Democrats move left. For better or worse that rallying point right now is Bernie.

it's one thing to suppose all of trump's rust-belt voters were too committed to racism to vote anyone but trump and another to suppose all of hillary's no-shows were too committed to no-showing to show for anyone at all.

There's also that small matter of getting the almost half of the country that doesn't vote involved

That kind of reminds me how hypothetical candidates always poll better and you never know what narrative will take shape when the actual campaign happens so it's kind of annoying when they cite polls as proof that Bernie's victory was some kind of certainty.

also worth bearing in mind that polling was essentially totally fucking useless in this election cycle

eh, for every rust belter voter Bernie would have put "in play" with there would probably have been a Virginia voter worried about their taxes going up

I never intend "Bernie Would Have Won" to be a literal certainty. For me it's a shorthand for "Donald Trump was beatable and you need to rethink your conventional wisdom about electability and centrism."

National polls showing that Bernie was more popular than Trump or Clinton certainly do not guarantee he would have won. However, national polls about Clinton's unpopularity proved accurate.

Her popularity rating only became negative in 2015. At one point she was the most popular politician in the US. So as volatile as they were, their accuracy was hard to know about.

It's not that I'm sure Bernie would have won, but the reasons given for why he "definitely wouldn't" are stupid. "He's a Jewish socialist." So what? Barack Obama is a black man with a muslim father who spent part of his childhood in indonesia and whose middle name is Hussein. "They have opposition research on him." Same is true of every candidate. "He's too far left." Things don't always break down along clear political lines. People respond well to the gut feeling that someone cares about them and that they can trust them. "Bernie Would Have Won" = abandon your truisms about presidential elections, the ones that helped you lose this election.

That post Ian painfully stupid. Barack Obama is the best politician of his generation. Bernie sanders is wish fulfillment candidate for people harboring a fantasy that most of the country is secretely super left wing & we just need to type in the right cheat code

*is painfully stupid

Bernie Sanders is not super left wing, as right-center politician Barack Obama said a couple weeks ago

Like, I agree the Democratic Party should push to the left. I don't agree that pushing to the left will inherently win us elections. It's the right thing to do; it is not intrinsically the way to win

Putin has video of Bernie in a hotel getting up to pee 20 times in one night

lol

Like, I agree the Democratic Party should push to the left. I don't agree that pushing to the left will inherently win us elections. It's the right thing to do; it is not intrinsically the way to win

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, January 13, 2017 10:54 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Of course it won't "inherently" win elections, but neither will continuing to pick "compromise" candidates that very few people actually feel any enthusiasm for!

no thread is safe from this crap apparently

main problem w Clinton was perception that she was corrupt, not that she was too centrist #BidenWouldHaveWon

this thread is one of the circles of hell

NRO: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443804/new-left-dirtbag-left-chapo-trap-house-jacobin-magazine-liberals-democratic-party

Of course it won't "inherently" win elections, but neither will continuing to pick "compromise" candidates that very few people actually feel any enthusiasm for!

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, January 13, 2017 11:06 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And no one here thinks it will

#CarcettiWouldHaveWon

there is an infrastructure surrounding the remnants of HRC's campaign, very influential and well connected, that is committed to absolving itself of any mistakes *and* simultaneously heading off any policy shift in the party.

there is an infrastructure surrounding the remnants of HRC's campaign, very influential and well connected, that is committed to absolving itself of any mistakes *and* simultaneously heading off any policy shift in the party.

― goole

yes yes the curia of the democratic party, sure, but they failed to get hrc elected and they're going to fail to absolve themselves. people are, apparently, finally sick and tired of letting these dirtbags get away with business as usual, at least if reaction to cory booker is anything to go by.

is that reaction amongst "the people" or the people on twitter?

that NRO profile is actually pretty good!

Of course it won't "inherently" win elections, but neither will continuing to pick "compromise" candidates that very few people actually feel any enthusiasm for!

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, January 13, 2017 11:06 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And no one here thinks it will

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, January 13, 2017 12:31 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And one consequence of that realization, among others, should be the realization that being "left" does not PER SE disqualify a candidate, and that the centrist candidate is not PER SE more electable just because s/he is a "compromise." That's the point I am trying to get across.

I mean you're saying "no one thinks it will" but that was exactly the justification we kept hearing for why Clinton was the better candidate.

eh, for every rust belter voter Bernie would have put "in play" with there would probably have been a Virginia voter worried about their taxes going up

didn't know chuck schumer posted here

they're using the most alarming parts of the trump win -- the harassment, the illiberalism, the racism, the links to russo-european nationalism -- as a club to beat anyone who says hillary just might have blown this a little bit. if you say the democrats should and could have done something differently, then you somehow in favor of these forces

the harassment, the illiberalism, the racism, the links to russo-european nationalism

also, butterfly theory

didn't know chuck schumer posted here

he posts as xhuxk sxhumer iirc

lol

love the show but gotta say these dudes and their cadre on twitter seem just a leeetle too sure that a lot of those trump voters aren't really racist and would have so totally voted for Bern. and shit, man, thats just wrong.

― will, Thursday, January 12, 2017 10:23 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

literally no one on the left - well at least no one were talking about in this thread - is saying bernie would have swayed trump voters, or that a move to the left will turn trump voters into future democrat voters. in fact in one of the post election shows matt made this very point, saying "fuck trump voters", which i think we can all get behind.

trump basically got the same votes as mitt romney, the swing of the dreaded WWC to trump from obama was actually fairly small (although really highlighted in the liberal media, quelle surprise). the "bernie would have won" idea is that perhaps working class people - not just white - would've turned out to vote more than they did if the dem candidate had spoke more to working class economic concerns instead of going for the now infamous chuck schumer strategy: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia".

imo both democrats and republicans have raced to the bottom to get those suburban voters

I could see republicans actually liking a stronger presence further to the left because they'd have a counterpoint to debate against instead of the current neoliberal glut where they're pushing further on stupid positions in order to create a voting bloc. When, in the search of something to stand for, you come up with "strip all the healthcare from people we possibly can" and "guns should be available to all people in all places at all times" your platform is bankrupt

but at least you stand for something!!

i think this is why things like chapo are valuable: the 'infighting' just has to be gotten on with. it can't be avoided, the differences are real.

what are you supposed to do with sentiments like these?

https://twitter.com/smoothkobra/status/819425543464583168

https://twitter.com/carlckitchen/status/819795551822565376

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C16sGQyXEAEyIhR.jpg

this last person worked for newt gingrich for a while! i mean, fine, there's mercenaries in DC, but come on

ftr i don't think the dem primary was 'rigged' or that sanders was cheated out of it or something. HRCs vote margins were unfakeable and his strength in the odder caucus formats was (uh) problematic

sometimes I daydream about an inversion of our current political scenario where the cities are hotbeds of racist right-wing nutjobs murdering each other with their guns and no healthcare, and a minority of leftist voters in the rural heartland actually run the country thx to the institutionalized electoral apportionment flukes of our stupid system

I didn't know Fred had three Twitter accounts, weird.

idk if that Albright lady should be held up as an example of anything because she's so insanely wrong-headed about... pretty much everything

literally no one on the left - well at least no one were talking about in this thread - is saying bernie would have swayed trump voters, or that a move to the left will turn trump voters into future democrat voters.

Lol this is blatantly not true. Scroll up?