I dunno. Here’s what I’ve noticed:
People are happy to talk about Sanders or Trump: They’re interesting to talk about. But you’ll hear a little comment about Sanders, “Oh, he should brush his hair better”. Or “Yeah, I don’t know if his ideas are practical, but I like them”. Or you’ll hear something about Trump, “It’ll be nice to have someone in charge but sometimes he goes a little far.”
Those are little clues that you might have a Clinton supporter.
The thing is: There’s nothing really special about her. She’s really, when it comes down to it, a run of the mill politician, hovering somewhere around center. Uninteresting to most people – and I think for a lot of people, the President is kind of invisible; as long as nothing bad happens that affects them, they don’t pay much mind.
So, when they vote, they vote for the everyday politician so things stay more or less as they’ve been.
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I don’t think you will, not at first. I’ve found some but you have to dig. They SEEM to be Sanders or Trump supporters but if you read between the lines, or they let their guard down enough, they’ll say it.
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She only generates excitement in the negative. In the positive, you won’t hear anything except in the polls. She’s not exciting to be positive about. More like ‘default politician’ compared to alt.right or alt.left.
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Thing is: Checks and balances. He’s campaigning. Campaigning isn’t politics. Politics is negotiating, compromising, getting things accomplished (usually very slowly), having your head on the chopping block when something goes wrong but first in line to take credit when something goes right.
What you see now – all this talk from all sides – has to go through Congress. Has to be legal. Can’t break Fed vs State lines. Has to respect existing government organizations and their various status quos.
Anybody can say anything (almost) when campaigning, but when it’s time to be a politician, they have to do political things. They all get their wings clipped.
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Example: Look at the shit of Obamacare. What we got isn’t what he talked about. It isn’t what he proposed.
It’s riddled with so many holes with riders and add-ons that it’s a big pile of shit. But, it’s “sorta close” so he had to sign it, get his name stuck to it (even though it was the combined effort of many opinions, many of which were designed to destroy it) and he’ll have to sit back and wait for the next President (whoever it is), to dismantle it, because it’s unpopular.
Same is likely to happen with some of the grandiose promises you hear from all campaigners now.
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I don’t know my rep. I keep forgetting who my governor is. I have no idea who my mayor is. And yet, THAT’S the politicians that we should focus on, because THEY’RE the ones that make actual change in day-to-day life.
But I was never one for politics anyway. I vote, after spending a week studying the stuff on the ballot, but I rarely get super ‘into it’.
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McAfee? Oh wow. “They’re after me. My guard saw a foot print.”. I can’t take him seriously. I think the other Libertarian has a shot, Gary something, to at least put a decent dent into things now that an alt.left and an alt.right have broken the ice for a potential future 3-way race… but I dunno about Mcafee. But we go way back to early 90s and MS-DOS sorta.
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ohnson! that’s his last name. Always forget it. and with McAfee — yeah, I mean it’s possible that ppl are after him, but I can’t see him as anything but a famous rich dude turned Radio host (or something) like the red headed kid from the Partridge Family. He’s got a great voice, but when he self-promotes, I cringe.
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Same. When I was 8, I rooted for a guy they called “dark horse” (1980). I liked the idea of a guy starting trouble. I’d watch the news, trying to make sense of it as best i could. I forgot his name now: John Anderson – that was it.
In ’92 + ’96 I voted for H.Ross Perot. Dude with the funny ears. I felt bad ’cause they pushed him out of the debates.
People said in ’92, “Perot supports threw away their votes: their 17% should’ve gone to Bush!”
and I’d raise my hand and go, “No, I wasn’t gonna vote for Bush and I voted for Perot”. It shut them up.
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I would’ve considered Ron Paul but I only realized recently what it is about libertarianism that bugged me: my ideals are “too close” to libertarianism but just different enough.
I took one of those political tests: it put me as “social anarchist” [ie – left libertarian]. That explained it to me.
So, in the future, I could comfortably vote libertarian if that was a significant choice [I’m independent and plan to remain that way unless there’s some drastic new party emerging] because, deep down, I’m a fan of the Constitution as a whole and yet, I don’t believe “efficient small government” is a real possibility because it’s fundamentally designed to be complicated and slow for national stability. Still, I find the idea endearing.
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For example, I’m a supporter of states’ rights. If a state wants to institute gun control laws, then they should be able to. If another state wishes to relax them, they should be able to. Some states interpret 2nd amendment as “organized state militia”. Other states interpret 2nd amendment as “individual gun ownership”.
I’ve lived in both types of states and I’m glad each of the states have the ability to choose their interpretation.
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Ah, but he didn’t lose. He’s fighting in each and every state.
I’m from New Jersey. Nobody EVER campaigned for President in New Jersey in the 30 years I lived there. When I heard that Sanders was actively drawing crowds in New Jersey, speaking to groups just as if it was Iowa or Massachusetts or some other ‘significant’ state, I was cheering inside because FINALLY somebody has the balls to say, “I’m fighting anyway and you deserve the same treatment as every other state”.
That was pretty cool I thought. Finally each state is going to get respect from SOMEBODY instead of them just waltzing through like they’re nobody’s.
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I fully expect him to run as an Independent if he doesn’t get the nomination for Democrat. It’s time we have more than two parties in the country and I think he’ll be the one to pull it off.
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Either one will get their wings clipped once they get in. This is the campaign-promise part of the election cycle. Once they’re doing politics in office, everything changes.
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Plus, the more he keeps pushing, the more the other candidates will have to adopt more and more of his ideas to try to win over voters.
We’ve seen that with Clinton a lot already, and Trump is starting to do so as well. It’s fun to watch Sanders’ ideas infecting their campaigns… or perhaps curing them.
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lol hahaha to me, I don’t notice the govt much. I *did* when I had employees ’til I went to 1099. Every three months…. ugh. 1099s are easier. But even with taxes, I expect them. I’m lucky to live in a state (Florida) that is very business friendly and easy on taxes for most. At the same time, though, their social programs are crap so the local areas have to pick up the slack and get fed funding and donations ’cause the state doesn’t do a lot.
Plus, it’s a pretty transparent govt and criminal system. You do wrong, your deeds are online. That’s why Florida looks like nutcases: other states are allowed to hide stuff. Not Florida.
I’m from NJ where everything was super secret. Between the two, I kinda like it better here.
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That’s an excellent point: I’m continually surprised how many people I’ve known through the years that just aren’t on Facebook or barely online anywhere. I’m like, “what the heck is wrong with you?” but then again, they look at me like I’ve got a green screen dumb terminal for a head, so…
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Replace stem and wheels with a human body, and I think this is how some people see me when I start talking about online stuff. I try not to associate with them ’cause they seem as much from another planet, as I do to them.
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Indeed. I’m weird ’cause I’ve been online since 1989, got first computer in 1983, so I breath Internet and computers. I was shocked through the 90s just how much of Generation Y WASN’T interested in computer or online.
I had to wait until the end of GenY and all of Generation Z to FINALLY see a huge influx of people who were all online fluent.
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