You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[A Black Falcon]

The Democratic Party re-litigating the primaries is one of the more annoying things about losing...

Hildawg is a fake plastic person and I can scarcely watch her without cringing. As I watched her debate and even deliver speeches, I could digest it on two levels, one of her substance and the other of her ostensibly robotic delivery. If I were an ignorant person, I'd be more easily wooed by Trump's ability to use simplistic language, speak in a confident way, and deflect questions / distract from the important issues. That Hillary lost to someone as odious as Trump speaks volumes of her viability as a candidate. That is to say, in how likeable and trustworthy she appears. Apart from that, any reasonable person can see that she's magnitudes better than Trump from a standpoint of competence, diplomacy, organization, and policy.

Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine Bernie doing worse than her, even with all the **!!! SOCIALIST !!!** rhetoric that Republicans would have been shouting from the rooftops. Bernie at least had the ability to rouse people. Voters clearly wanted an outsider candidate. There are voters dumb enough to have voted for Trump over Hillary, but would have happily voted for Sanders over Trump. Sad, but true. I'd be very interested in seeing an alternate reality of Bernie getting the candidacy.

I cannot imagine Bernie getting a majority of the popular vote in 2016, never mind the electoral college. There's almost no way, not with his record, or with the kinds of attack ads they could easily have made.

One flaw in this theory, of course, is that Sanders's primary fanbase are young people, those who are notorious for not voting. And it's no doubt that he lacked the minority support that Hillary had behind her. Still, once Hillary was out of the picture, it's easy to imagine Sanders snatching those up. Without all the scandals, with being a better public speaker, with inspiring voters with lofty (albiet unrealistic) goals of free health care, infrastructure spending, taking on Wall St., etc, I really do think Sanders would have beaten Trump.

Sure, minorities would have voted for Sanders, but you'd probably have had lower turnout than Hillary got due to lower enthusiasm. And if his appeal among younger voters really was that huge of a help, wouldn't he have won the nomination? And beyond that,remember, Bernie particularly dominated low-turnout caucuses, and did worse in primaries which are easier to vote in. He had/has a diehard base of support, but it wasn't huge in terms of numbers, and the Republican attacks would have limited his mass appeal once in the general election.

(Oh, and I am still quite convinced that the largest determining factor in Trump's victory was simply that Hillary is female.)

BTW fuck those dumb worthless republicans for failing on health care and Trump bragging about being a super genious negatiator and totally shitting the bed and then predictably blaming his failures on others.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/r8Kxit1l.png

They're turning on Paul Ryan, though honestly, Trump couldn't have done any better... hell, we KNOW he couldn't, because he tried! Then got impatient and stomped his feet and gave an ultimatum. What a moron.

But in any case, we'll see if they manage to oust Ryan. Honestly, I sympathize with whoever they elect to next be the leader of the house. Even someone like Ryan, with his repugnant Randian beliefs.

But then I remember his vanity gym shots and say "fuck that dumbass".

[img]http://i.imgur.com/jlScmzTl.jpg

If they do manage to force out Paul Ryan, who in the world would actually want that job? Remember, he was only kind of forced into becoming Speaker because after Boehner quit, in large part because of frustration with his caucus, nobody else wanted the job. And after Ryan's terrible heath care bill and predictable failure to get it through, the job would only be harder for the next person! Right now I'd guess that Ryan hangs on, but who knows.

As for the failure of the Trumpcare/Ryancare bill... well, I did kind of see it coming. Pretty much ever since the election I've thought that the most likely result is that Obamacare stays in place, because you can give this Republican Party a majority but that is not fixing their very deep internal divisions! And indeed, that is exactly what happened, as their divisions, between the few center-right "moderates" (if there even are any real moderates in their party anymore, it's doubtful) to the very far right main bulk of the party to the "burn it all down" Freedom Caucus, are too deep to bridge. That the far right managed to save Obamacare because they refused to accept a worse but Republican variant on the bill, because they want a full repeal and won't accept anything else, is kind of amusing, but after getting this far on a "Party of No" platform what else could you expect? Opposing everything has brought their party far, and just because you cannot govern on an oppose-everything platform doesn't mean that people like the Freedom Caucus won't stick to that anyway. And they have, hence the health care bill failure.

So, I wish the Republican Party much luck in ripping itself apart for years to come, keeping even more terrible things from becoming law!