My unpopular opinion: it’s a testimony to the Clintons’ extraordinarily hardball political acumen that they’ve been subjected to these fever dream theories for 30 years and go-along-to-get-along Obama never was.
Meanwhile:
@simonwoods Obama was extraordinarily ethical for a politician. The Clintons were much more typical, so the right wing had fodder that Obama never gave them. But they hated Hillary from the start—there was a shit show when she said she didn't plan to be a typical first lady and bake cookies; they claimed she murdered a friend who had committed suicide; they tried to turn a failed land deal into a rerun of Watergate and failed. Bill gave them an out from the last one with his unethical behavior towards Monica, but there was nothing like Iran-Contra or the CIA torture regime from his respectable predecessor and successor.
@Bruce He-said, she-said is literally a game we expect children to play for a short time. It's a shame to see a respectable pundit continue to indulge in this activity, though I suppose not at all surprising; it's certainly easier than the actual work involved with attempting to stop dystopia from happening more than it already has.
@simonwoods Perhaps if he had directed it at the NYTimes? It would be great if we didn't have a rerun of "Lots of Smoke Around the Clinton Foundation"* versus barely a word about Trump's "Foundation"—the "liberal media" has completely different standards for Republicans than for Democrats.
I do think part of Trump's victory was the obsession with Emailz!.
* OMG, Hillary met with a Nobel Prize Winner after he made a donation! The State Department declined a donor's special visa request!
@Bruce It shouldn't even be part of the discourse for people opposing Trump, no matter who they choose to support as candidates. Too many Progressives in both the US and UK fail at this fundamental level: we cannot help ourselves and choose to feed the trolls by playing their game. Again and again and again, no matter just how well we know it to be a waste of time.
@simonwoods I guess I'm confused what your preferred discourse is? What do we do when the trolls include Maggie Haberman? 😑
@Bruce Who gives a shit? Honestly? WHERE are your preferred candidates? Share that! WHERE are the best implementations of policy you think should be used more? Share that! etc etc etc... at some point we all have to grow up and stop wasting our time with these childish things, debunking what we already know is nonsense, obsessing over Trump's tweets, etc etc etc
I'm sorry but this is all fairly basic stuff for critical thinking and constructive discourse and yet I feel like I'm living in a world where these ideas have never been presented! It is utter madness to see the opponents of bad people spend their time behaving in the exact same way they did for the last Presidential election.
Since I love lists, this is my basic approach whenever I feel the creeping desire to get pulled into the nonsense:
- Push the positives.
- Ignore the nonsense.
- Use your time well.
@simonwoods Well, my preferred candidate is Warren and she has plenty of plans; I especially like her proposal to reform corporate governance. I also think that HR 1 should be reintroduced if the Dems take the Senate, along with abolishing the filibuster and granting statehood to Puerto Rico and DC. A new Voting Rights Act that brings back pre-clearance for the entire country and outlaws extreme gerrymandering is also essential. Something has to be done about the sheer amount of money flowing into politics, but reforming that would take packing the Supreme Court. Which may end up being necessary.
For pretty much any progressive legislation to happen, we need to change the structural factors that are preventing the Dems popular vote wins from translating into governing majorities. Both nationally and at the state level.
But how do we let voters know about any ideas if most of the media industry won't report it?