Here from PA to disagree. I believe that if Bernie had won in 2016, his VP would be our president-elect right now, and Trump would've never attempted a return to politics.
Fuzzy_Dunlop
Harris, Biden, and Clinton are not progressives. The DNC shut out a popular progressive in 2016 and learned nothing then. D voters as a whole are too quick to dismiss anyone that might be a threat to their main candidate. Of course, Sanders running independent in 2016 would've secured an even more humiliating loss for Clinton. But it would've steered us toward a more productive conversation by now, and Trump likely wouldn't have won a second term, or probably even another nomination. Instead, let's move to the right and try to appeal to those "moderate"/"swing" voters.
I don't think Biden would've won without Trump's (mis)handling of the pandemic. There's certainly misogynists out there that would never vote for a woman, but the pandemic was the other major differentiator. The DNC is fine with serving their donors with the most appealing not-Trump puppet, rather than getting a candidate that the citizens genuinely want to vote for.
Are you listening to yourself? Trump is crazy/senile. Many of the people that support him know this, but will continue to support him because he appoints the (R) judges they want. He could be the craziest person on the planet, but his supporters just won't care as long he can be relied upon to deliver the courts.
A month ago, I though Harris had a good chance at winning. But as we got closer to election day, ads, headlines, and commentators focused more and more on how bad Trump is, rather than what she stands for or promises. That's why she lost. No one was going to change the minds of any Trump voters. She needed to get undecided/swing/unmotivated voters to vote FOR her, rather than vote against Trump. "We're not going back"? Fine, I don't want that either, but instead of repeating that over and over, how about you remind people what it means for a Harris administration to move us forward? You can't do that because you're keeping us in bed with Israel and people are concerned about the implications from that? Yeah, she was going to lose to the "pet-eating" douche.
Say whatever you want about Trump and his supporters, and sure, there's plenty to disagree with. But, they had someone they were voting FOR, and that means more than being scared of the alternative.
Compromise only "worked" to avoid war, though. It didn't work too well for the slaves. I guess my question really should've been...was slavery so firmly established as a "right" by this point that war was inevitable if slavery in the US was to end? If Buchanan had worked out some new compromise, it wouldn't have been a permanent solution. My guess is that it would've meant a delayed, but bloodier war because of an even stronger sense of entitlement from the South.
I'm not too knowledgeable of Buchanan's role specifically in the events leading up to the war, and I'm not asking this as some attempt to defend him, but so many times I've read something along the lines of "Buchanan consistently ranks at/near the bottom because of his failure to find a compromise to prevent the Civil War".
Was there really a compromise to be had in regard to slavery? What would that have been? Let some states peacefully secede because the whole country couldn't agree on slavery? Set up some legal guidelines/restrictions on slavery if they stay in the Union?
I can't see how anyone in office at that time, Buchanan or not, would've avoided a war without allowing slavery to continue. I'm sure there are Constitutional experts out there that could explain how secession could work when there are significant differences amongst major segments of the population. But the conversation is different when you're talking about inbred rednecks that are willing to die for their "right" to own other people.
So seriously, what compromise was this poor douche supposed to pull out of his ass?
Trump wasn't in the Democratic primary.
And what the fuck does the holocaust have to do with anything?
Who cares who got RFK to run? Let the candidates debate, and let the citizens vote. Why are so many people scared of that concept that no one is talking about the fact that the DNC rigged three consecutive primaries?
I do believe that just about every major issue that this country/world is facing deserves a more nuanced discussion than just the (R) and (D) party platforms. Life is rarely that simple. Wouldn't you like to have had a better idea of where Harris stands on everything and maybe have been questioned and challenged a bit before the convention? Or are you just happy to have a not-Trump candidate that isn't senile?
Then the Dems would have nothing to fear by letting him run in the primary, right? Oh wait...if he got even 1 delegate, they couldn't have just handed the nomination to Harris. There might have been a debate or a vote? The party that's "defending democracy" can't have that, I guess.
And in some instances, both sides actually do the same shit. Can you really not see that since at least Perot, if not McGovern, they've both been doing whatever possible to exclude third parties when they're a threat, or support them when it's convenient?
I bet you think professional wrestling is real too...
But isn't Trump a Russian asset?