The Democrat Utopia

[JJ Husker]

9 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

Those are your words copied and pasted my man not mine. 

But what does any of this have to do with anything? How somebody may have felt about Romney 12 years ago? If your point is that many people are or used to be highly partisan, well hello captain obvious.

 

And back to my response and your sensed incongruity of my prior statements. I may be slightly misremembering when my thoughts about Obama changed. No, I didn’t like him originally and yes, I did change to thinking he was okay. Did I vote for him instead of Romney in 2012? TBH I don’t remember for sure. I may have voted for Romney and sometime later come to accept Obama. s#!t man, I’m getting old and that was 12 years, an insurrection and a pandemic ago. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything currently except that is the timeframe for when the republican party jumped the tracks, for me anyway.

[Archy1221]

10 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

But what does any of this have to do with anything? How somebody may have felt about Romney 12 years ago? If your point is that many people are or used to be highly partisan, well hello captain obvious.

 

And back to my response and your sensed incongruity of my prior statements. I may be slightly misremembering when my thoughts about Obama changed. No, I didn’t like him originally and yes, I did change to thinking he was okay. Did I vote for him instead of Romney in 2012? TBH I don’t remember for sure. I may have voted for Romney and sometime later come to accept Obama. s#!t man, I’m getting old and that was 12 years, an insurrection and a pandemic ago. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything currently except that is the timeframe for when the republican party jumped the tracks, for me anyway.

The reasons I brought that up are listed below and  it’s not to belittle you or, stir the pot like some other poster has wrongfully claimed so he can confuse the situation again and try to get a reportable post.
 

1). You have on more than a few occasions accused me of not having consistent opinions.  Specifically about Trump.   You have actually tried belittling me about he many times claiming I was a stooge for him and constant defender of his when you clearly know my feelings towards him have changed since AFTER the 2020 election.  Sounds like you now acknowledge feelings can change which is good.  
 

2). You have accused me of not supporting rational Republicans like Romney when you yourself only voted for him, or maybe you didn’t, because there was no other option and you didn’t like one single thing about him.   Romney is the same person who he was in 2012.  Wishy washy, change with the wind, but he’s certainly Anti-Trump which is what attracts him to you.   And that’s fine, but politically and policy (which is what matters) he’s the same guy.   I haven’t really changed my tune on him.   And yes, if Romney were the nominee THIS year, I would be like you and hold my nose while voting for him as he is better than JB.  As I’ve stated, I won’t be doing the same for DJT.  

3). The hatred towards DJT and some of the Republican crazies doesn’t make Obama’s terms any more successful than what you claimed at the time.  I believe your thoughts were pretty respectful and spot on.  There is a reason someone like DJT made it through to the end in 2016 and it’s because people were so unhappy with the direction of the country (and HRC) 
 

4). I also believe that 80-90% of our national and world views are pretty much the same and the biggest difference is how we viewed the 2017-2020 years which probably lead to unnecessary digs towards each other on both our parts.  I certainly own my part in that.   
 

5). I don’t support the Republican Party lock stock and barrel.   I support the ones I vote for or would vote for and would defend them from false/misleading accusations.  The other Republicans  I either don’t care about or wished they moved on (Gaetz, Boebart, MTG, Tuberville, McConnell).  The ones I don’t care about are just a means to an end for policy advancement.   If they enter crazy land, then I hope they get replaced with a better version with sound policy.  
 

I was wrong about the 2022 GA Senator race, and am glad Walker lost now.  I own that.  The Dem, while placing crappy votes, hasn’t been as insane as I assumed he would be, while the House has been able to keep the Senate from advancing some dumb votes.  And it hopefully showed the GA Republicans to nominate better candidates (we shall see I guess).  

[Guy Chamberlin]

20 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

 

 

That wouldn’t be me.   My issue with her is she couldn’t get over 2020 and only focused on 2020.   One of my same beefs with Trump post 2020 as you have read me post a few times now.  THAT would be me, mi amigo.  

 

You shouldn't be in any hurry to "get over" the attempt to overthrow a democratic election, or to stop fighting the GOP takeover by Trump's intellectually challenged sycophants and their dangerous agenda. It's the very core of What's The Future of the Republican Party. 

 

I've read your posts for years, including your mocking dismissal of Liz Cheney. If I were to sum up your positions, favoring strong conservative policies, rejecting personality politics, choosing articulate conservative candidates, and moving the party on from Donald Trump, Liz Cheney should have earned your support. But that wasn't you. 

 

I haven't forgotten Liz Cheney's voting record, or the larger Cheney legacy. As a liberal I can only say that when Liz Cheney is worried about right wing extremism, maybe we should all be worried. 

[JJ Husker]

1 hour ago, Archy1221 said:

3). The hatred towards DJT and some of the Republican crazies doesn’t make Obama’s terms any more successful than what you claimed at the time.  I believe your thoughts were pretty respectful and spot on.  There is a reason someone like DJT made it through to the end in 2016 and it’s because people were so unhappy with the direction of the country (and HRC) 
 

 The other Republicans  I either don’t care about or wished they moved on (Gaetz, Boebart, MTG, Tuberville, McConnell).  

No, DJT and the other R crazies don’t change a thing about what Obama did or didn’t do. But he did attempt to work across the aisle in an attempt to better our country. And he did get at least something done towards trying to fix our healthcare quagmire. It may be in retrospect now but those are things absolutely nobody on the R side has even attempted in a long time. It’s more nuanced than simply saying DJT or some crazies alone changed my mind.

 

I think the problem with your list of Gaetz, Boebert, MTG, Tuberville and the Turtle is that it does not include Desantis. Given your feelings about him, it really casts a cloud of suspicion over your denouncement of the others. JMO as he is from the same cut as the others.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Did someone just ask me for a long post detailing my personal voting history? I'm pretty busy today, but here goes: 

 

I haven't really changed my voting pattern in 44 years. I may not have loved or even liked the Democratic candidates -- national and local -- but given a choice of imperfect platforms I would support the party that leaned harder into public education, international diplomacy, environmental stewardship, social safety nets, and civil rights. I was always fiscally conservative in my personal life, and learned pretty quickly that both parties talked a better game than they played, while working out of the same basic economic playbook and taking money from the same lobbyists. Attempts to define our economic well-being by Presidential administrations don't really hold up. That being said.....

 

I was not a fan of Ronald Reagan at the time, and haven't really warmed to him over the years. I do believe that the Reagan Revolution locked us into a supply side mindset that even the supply side influencers from the Chicago School of Economics now admit had the opposite consequences. Still, Reagan felt human, and managed to take many positions that would have him labeled today as a shameless RINO. My first vote, in 1980, was for maverick Republican John Anderson. 

 

I no doubt talked s#!t about George Herbert Walker Bush, but I honestly didn't think there would be a life-changing difference between a Bush and Bill Clinton administration. In 1992, I voted for Ross Perot. 

 

I would rather have had a beer with Bob Dole than Bill Clinton, but I liked the Democratic platform better, and frankly a lot of conservatives were doing just fine in the Clinton years, despite Janet Reno's attempt to drop lesbian school teachers on unsuspecting towns from her black helicopter. 

 

In 2000, I believed George W. Bush when he said he was running as a uniter, not a divider, as his record in the Texas governorship seemed to support it. I had no qualms voting for Al Gore, but figured a Bush administration wouldn't be a jarring transition. I was wrong. It turned out to be a d!(k Cheney revenge tour, with Bush's lack of intellect demeaning the U.S. presidency worldwide.

 

John Kerry was the Joe Biden of the 2004 election. Although he drained all enthusiasm from my vote, it was still a no-brainer. Some liberals today are tempted to rehabilitate George Bush based on his opposition to Trump and cuddly relationship with Michelle Obama, but we shouldn't forget how awful he was in his own right. 

 

As a Democrat and a liberal, I opposed John McCain and Mitt Romney, though I alway gave McCain points for integrity and a good sense of humor. He actually was a maverick, and I respect the rarity of that. It did not escape me that McCain was the lonely moderate on that 2008 GOP debate stage. I thought the leaked audio on Romney's "makers vs takers" speech was pretty telling and damning. But even in the moment I did not fear a Romney presidency would change much of the existing balance. He was a reasonable alternative to the right wing flame throwers.

 

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and felt pretty good about it. Obama started losing me almost immediately, when he began appointing old school Democrat war horses to every position. Wasn't quite the hope and change I'd been hoping for, in many ways replicating the Bush administration on key policies. It should have been 8 years of relative calm as Obama proved to be far more centrist than the GOP claimed, but once Republicans seized on obstructionism as its one and only strategy, the national mood started getting uglier than ever. It was the early days of social media. That was part of it, and it hasn't gone away.

 

I never cared for Bill or Hillary Clinton on an emotional level. Everything about them seemed practiced political calculation. She was no doubt enraged when Obama quickly overtook her in 2008, and when fringe player Bernie Sanders almost upended her machine again in 2016. I enjoyed that. But when forced to articulate her values and policies in places like Presidential Debates.....yeah. Hillary Clinton was saying pretty much what I believed in. Ignoring how we got there, I had zero problem voting for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, and didn't consider a protest vote for a second.

 

In 2020, Joe Biden played the role of John Kerry, as mentioned. 

 

As I consider those last 44 years, I can honestly say that I've never seen anything like Donald Trump. Never seen an electorate speaking such gibberish. Never seen America actually jump the tracks before. Wouldn't have dared predict it, even during Republican administrations I opposed ideologically. I may have called previous Republicans racists, misogynists and xenophobes, especially if they were, but never considered them demagogues, fascists, toxic narcissists, and cult leaders. There is a difference and it's not that subtle. 

 

But on some level, perhaps, I envy the voters who adore Donald Trump. I have never felt that way about a politician in my life. 

[Archy1221]

1 hour ago, JJ Husker said:

 

I think the problem with your list of Gaetz, Boebert, MTG, Tuberville and the Turtle is that it does not include Desantis. Given your feelings about him, it really casts a cloud of suspicion over your denouncement of the others. JMO as he is from the same cut as the others.

DeSantis has given conservative citizens pretty much everything they could ask for and is the only one who follows through on the policies he advocates for.  I assume you don’t care for his Disney stance (of which courts have sided with him), or the 6 week abortion law Florida has passed (I think that’s a bit extreme for an entire populace of a state with differing opinions).  The law was passed by legislature though and he signed instead of veto’d.   Beyoncé that, what policy things could you possibly have an issue with? 
 

DeSantis is not in the same universe as this I mentioned and as shown with Florida, he would make an exceptional President.   Unfortunately you are allowing the national media narrative about him to color your perception instead of looking at the body of work

 

1 hour ago, JJ Husker said:

And he did get at least something done towards trying to fix our healthcare quagmire. It may be in retrospect now but those are things absolutely nobody on the R side has even attempted in a long time.

Just getting “something done” is not a very good strategy for success.   Getting the right things done are what we should be shooting for.  The “getting something done” has skyrocketed the cost of healthcare for everyone.  

[Lorewarn]

12 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

But on some level, perhaps, I envy the voters who adore Donald Trump. I have never felt that way about a politician in my life. 

 

 

It's surely something to see the folks so out of breath about 'identity politics' end up being the folks going the most full send into cult of personality because, "he gets us".

[JJ Husker]

48 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

DeSantis has given conservative citizens pretty much everything they could ask for and is the only one who follows through on the policies he advocates for.  I assume you don’t care for his Disney stance (of which courts have sided with him), or the 6 week abortion law Florida has passed (I think that’s a bit extreme for an entire populace of a state with differing opinions).  The law was passed by legislature though and he signed instead of veto’d.   Beyoncé that, what policy things could you possibly have an issue with? 
 

DeSantis is not in the same universe as this I mentioned and as shown with Florida, he would make an exceptional President.   Unfortunately you are allowing the national media narrative about him to color your perception instead of looking at the body of work

 

Just getting “something done” is not a very good strategy for success.   Getting the right things done are what we should be shooting for.  The “getting something done” has skyrocketed the cost of healthcare for everyone.  

The cost of healthcare was/is skyrocketing with or without the ACA. That they failed to address that most important aspect is my biggest disappointment. At least some people who couldn’t afford coverage can now. If the Rs wouldn’t have spent every waking hour fighting against it and the mandate, maybe it could’ve been better. So yeah, doing something is an improvement over obstructing everything.

 

And btw, my perception of Desantis doesn’t have anything to do with national coverage. He’s a whiny little dicknosed b!^@h that is more interested in headlines than actual policy.

[Archy1221]

17 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

He’s a whiny little dicknosed b!^@h that is more interested in headlines than actual policy

It looks like you know pretty much nothing about his policy objectives and what he has put in place for Florida.   This confirms to me the national media narrative is what you are going by instead of his actions.  That’s fine and all, we each have to base our decisions on something.  I’m just making mine on accomplishments instead of false narrative. 

[Guy Chamberlin]

19 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

The cost of healthcare was/is skyrocketing with or without the ACA. That they failed to address that most important aspect is my biggest disappointment. At least some people who couldn’t afford coverage can now. If the Rs wouldn’t have spent every waking hour fighting against it and the mandate, maybe it could’ve been better. So yeah, doing something is an improvement over obstructing everything.

 

 

That's the 2008 shift in a nutshell. Obama came in promising national healthcare. Instead of the hot potato of Single Payer socialism, he offered the ACA, written and endorsed by private healthcare insurers, approved by Republicans since the Nixon administration, and successfully implemented by their own Mitt Romney in Massachussets. 

 

Republicans could have taken credit for pushing Obama to the center, embraced the ACA as their own, and bought into it at the state level, where the ACA would have immediately enjoyed a better economy of scale to pass on to the public. IIRC, they came up with the name Obamacare and undermined it at every turn as the socialism it wasn't. 

 

That's when the burgeoning Tea Party started showing up at local political speeches and fundraisers, accusing everyone left and right of putting us on the slippery slope to socialism. I think the Tea Party was a fairly organic movement, but Republican Leadership were thrilled by the show of resistance and quickly co-opted the Tea Party for their purposes. They thought they could use and control this wing, but the Tea Party and subsequent rightwing subgroups turned out to be more independent minded, and started relieving the party traditionalists of their duties.   

[JJ Husker]

2 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

It looks like you know pretty much nothing about his policy objectives and what he has put in place for Florida.   This confirms to me the national media narrative is what you are going by instead of his actions.  That’s fine and all, we each have to base our decisions on something.  I’m just making mine on accomplishments instead of false narrative. 

Believe what you want. I’ve heard him speak numerous times and am aware of his far right preferences regarding schools, books, wokeness etc. If you want to blame it on “the media” for showing him speak, I guess I can’t stop you. He’s just a guy I will never like even if he had policies I found attractive. Seems like he has little d!(k syndrome to me 

[Archy1221]

18 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

21 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

 

Believe what you want. I’ve heard him speak numerous times and am aware of his far right preferences regarding schools, books, wokeness etc.

What are his “far right preferences regarding schools, books, wholeness, etc?”  If you are aware of them.  Thanks in advance for providing clarity 
 

18 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

If you want to blame it on “the media” for showing him speak, I guess I can’t stop you

Have you listened to his speeches or press conference Q&A’s from beginning to end or just clips posted on social media, news channels that may or may not be taken out of context?  I’m guessing the latter.  Thanks in advance for providing clarity 
 

18 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

He’s just a guy I will never like even if he had policies I found attractive

It’s a shame you vote based on personality vs policy in my view.   It’s what people usually complain about with Trump voters.  Voting based on cult of personality.  
 

18 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

Seems like he has little d!(k syndrome to me 

I wouldn’t know.  I don’t worry about or think about the size of a man’s d!(k 

[JJ Husker]

2 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

What are his “far right preferences regarding schools, books, wholeness, etc?”  If you are aware of them.  Thanks in advance for providing clarity 
 

Have you listened to his speeches or press conference Q&A’s from beginning to end or just clips posted on social media, news channels that may or may not be taken out of context?  I’m guessing the latter.  Thanks in advance for providing clarity 
 

It’s a shame you vote based on personality vs policy in my view.   It’s what people usually complain about with Trump voters.  Voting based on cult of personality.  
 

I wouldn’t know.  I don’t worry about or think about the size of a man’s d!(k 

I’ll save you some time and myself some effort. I don’t like Desantis. It’s that simple. If you want to believe it’s because of the national media or because I haven’t personally vetted him properly, I’m okay with that. You’re not going to change my mind. And it doesn’t matter anyway. He has already come as close as he ever will to sniffing the WH. If you want to write him in, fine by me. Hell I wrote in Liz Cheney on my primary ballot just to send a message.

[Archy1221]

On 2/26/2024 at 7:18 PM, BigRedBuster said:

I call BS for $1000. 

I’ll take things that happened for $1,000Looks like your guy David Brooks can confirm and got involved

 

 

[teachercd]

40 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

I’ll take things that happened for $1,000Looks like your guy David Brooks can confirm and got involved

 

 

Of course it happened.

 

I think a lot of people, myself included, simply do not understand how "bananas" people can be, especially in hyper-offended areas of the country.  

 

 

I see things like this, from time to time, just at the high school level with students.  

 

"You buy stuff from Scheen?  HOW CAN YOU DO THAT, they take advantage of kids!"