goose fleet posted:

Bernie is basically the left-wing Ron Paul

jadebullet posted:

Eh, I'm fine with everyone being upset because it might cause some changes to the way the primary system works. (It's a really odd system)

I've also been seeing news articles lately that the RNC might still go with someone besides Trump, which I am hoping for because that shitshow will be fantastic.

That being said, holy poo poo are there a lot of people who think that the primaries work completely differently than they do.

chitoryu12 posted:

I'd rather see Trump as the nominee, honestly. I don't predict a Republican win no matter who gets picked, but Trump is likely going to be a weak candidate once it comes down to the general just because of the sheer vitriol he generates even among Republicans. He's easy to defeat and he and his supporters will go ballistic when they lose.

And if the RNC just picks some random we've never heard of (or a guy who's admitted to dropping out) just to keep Trump out of the running, the Trump contingent may very well refuse to support him on principle after the party reveals that it really is just doing whatever the hell it wants regardless of its electorate.

Really, no matter what happens the Republican side has epically torpedoed its campaign as the culmination of decades of cultivating a base of crazy right-wing fundamentalists to get more votes. The only thing I could see leading to Hillary losing is if she literally eats a human being at a debate.

BJPaskoff posted:

I sometimes like to peek in over at the terrible right-wing conservative "news" sites like RedState when a news story breaks to get some schadenfreude based on how upset they are that things aren't going their way, and I was surprised to see equal amounts of Hilary and Trump bashing. They wanted Ted Cruz so bad.

I admit I haven't paid too much attention to how much the Republicans hate Trump, or the odds that they'll put up someone besides Trump just to lock him out. Probably a topic for another thread, though I don't know where.

china bot posted:

Deceitful Penguin posted:

chitoryu12 posted:

It's hard to get a feel for the end result unless you look at the numbers for the different sides and compare them. If I remember correctly, Trump is only leading specifically in the GOP voting segment. Among the nation in general, Hilary's got a bigger share of potential votes. I think I read an article from the early primary voting where it was pointed out that Hilary won a state by a larger margin than all of the votes Trump received in the same state.

Prester Jane has a really neat thread where she uses her experience being raised among cults, conspiracy theorists, and crazy fundamentalists to describe the inner workings of authoritarian groups like Trump supporters, sovereign citizens, and Scientologists. She actually made some eerie predictions early in the thread, like guessing the Malheur Standoff months before it would occur. More relevant to this discussion, she and others talked a lot about exactly how the Republican Party got to the point that a crazy fascist businessman with no political experience who's openly and unashamedly a racist has become their front runner.

The answer goes back all the way to McCarthyism, but the main point is that the Republicans started embracing the right-wing fringe at a time when Democrats were pushing away the left-wing fringe. Originally the parties were much closer together and many Republicans are well-regarded or at least considered fairly moderate even today, like Eisenhower and John Lindsay. However around the time of Watergate the GOP began openly pandering to fringe groups like Christian fundamentalists and racists to try and get votes. There was no real deep strategy behind it, just an attempt to get the support of a voting bloc that's normally ignored because they're too distasteful to associate with.

This reached its peak when George W. Bush got elected twice and we all saw the results of a Christian fundamentalist with a boner for blowing up the Middle East like his daddy got into power. And now Donald Trump, a man distinguished by little other than a string of awful business decisions (most of his "success" is on the backs of other people's work and his own decisions are notoriously lovely) and extremely bad behavior toward other people, is the man the base wants to elect as president.

The guys who are actually in power on the Republican side are now scrambling to figure out what the hell went wrong. The base of crazies and idiots they cultivated has now taken over the power in the party. The lunatics are running the asylum. The short-sighted decision to try and get power by appealing to awful people when nobody else would has backfired spectacularly, and the GOP is currently in the process of eating itself alive from the inside-out. I legitimately would not be surprised if we see the party fragment or totally change hands within our lifetimes.

Chomp8645 posted:

Come on this one's kinda funny.

chitoryu12 posted:

It's hard to get a feel for the end result unless you look at the numbers for the different sides and compare them. If I remember correctly, Trump is only leading specifically in the GOP voting segment. Among the nation in general, Hilary's got a bigger share of potential votes. I think I read an article from the early primary voting where it was pointed out that Hilary won a state by a larger margin than all of the votes Trump received in the same state.

Prester Jane has a really neat thread where she uses her experience being raised among cults, conspiracy theorists, and crazy fundamentalists to describe the inner workings of authoritarian groups like Trump supporters, sovereign citizens, and Scientologists. She actually made some eerie predictions early in the thread, like guessing the Malheur Standoff months before it would occur. More relevant to this discussion, she and others talked a lot about exactly how the Republican Party got to the point that a crazy fascist businessman with no political experience who's openly and unashamedly a racist has become their front runner.

The answer goes back all the way to McCarthyism, but the main point is that the Republicans started embracing the right-wing fringe at a time when Democrats were pushing away the left-wing fringe. Originally the parties were much closer together and many Republicans are well-regarded or at least considered fairly moderate even today, like Eisenhower and John Lindsay. However around the time of Watergate the GOP began openly pandering to fringe groups like Christian fundamentalists and racists to try and get votes. There was no real deep strategy behind it, just an attempt to get the support of a voting bloc that's normally ignored because they're too distasteful to associate with.

This reached its peak when George W. Bush got elected twice and we all saw the results of a Christian fundamentalist with a boner for blowing up the Middle East like his daddy got into power. And now Donald Trump, a man distinguished by little other than a string of awful business decisions (most of his "success" is on the backs of other people's work and his own decisions are notoriously lovely) and extremely bad behavior toward other people, is the man the base wants to elect as president.

The guys who are actually in power on the Republican side are now scrambling to figure out what the hell went wrong. The base of crazies and idiots they cultivated has now taken over the power in the party. The lunatics are running the asylum. The short-sighted decision to try and get power by appealing to awful people when nobody else would has backfired spectacularly, and the GOP is currently in the process of eating itself alive from the inside-out. I legitimately would not be surprised if we see the party fragment or totally change hands within our lifetimes.

chitoryu12 posted:

It's hard to get a feel for the end result unless you look at the numbers for the different sides and compare them. If I remember correctly, Trump is only leading specifically in the GOP voting segment. Among the nation in general, Hilary's got a bigger share of potential votes. I think I read an article from the early primary voting where it was pointed out that Hilary won a state by a larger margin than all of the votes Trump received in the same state.

Prester Jane has a really neat thread where she uses her experience being raised among cults, conspiracy theorists, and crazy fundamentalists to describe the inner workings of authoritarian groups like Trump supporters, sovereign citizens, and Scientologists. She actually made some eerie predictions early in the thread, like guessing the Malheur Standoff months before it would occur. More relevant to this discussion, she and others talked a lot about exactly how the Republican Party got to the point that a crazy fascist businessman with no political experience who's openly and unashamedly a racist has become their front runner.

The answer goes back all the way to McCarthyism, but the main point is that the Republicans started embracing the right-wing fringe at a time when Democrats were pushing away the left-wing fringe. Originally the parties were much closer together and many Republicans are well-regarded or at least considered fairly moderate even today, like Eisenhower and John Lindsay. However around the time of Watergate the GOP began openly pandering to fringe groups like Christian fundamentalists and racists to try and get votes. There was no real deep strategy behind it, just an attempt to get the support of a voting bloc that's normally ignored because they're too distasteful to associate with.

This reached its peak when George W. Bush got elected twice and we all saw the results of a Christian fundamentalist with a boner for blowing up the Middle East like his daddy got into power. And now Donald Trump, a man distinguished by little other than a string of awful business decisions (most of his "success" is on the backs of other people's work and his own decisions are notoriously lovely) and extremely bad behavior toward other people, is the man the base wants to elect as president.

The guys who are actually in power on the Republican side are now scrambling to figure out what the hell went wrong. The base of crazies and idiots they cultivated has now taken over the power in the party. The lunatics are running the asylum. The short-sighted decision to try and get power by appealing to awful people when nobody else would has backfired spectacularly, and the GOP is currently in the process of eating itself alive from the inside-out. I legitimately would not be surprised if we see the party fragment or totally change hands within our lifetimes.

Fathis Munk posted:

http://i.imgur.com/Umc1YYK.jpg

hackbunny posted:

They censored the wrong part of the photo

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

It got a chuckle from me but I am fairly easily amused

Bored posted:

Yeah. A set of plastic keys will keep you entertained for hours.

Edit: because you are a bird, you see.

Weatherman posted:

You're basically a horrific cross between Fishmech (endless sperg eternal) and Landerig (so tone-deafly chill that I punch my own face). Stop posting your essay-length opinion pieces that are tangentially-relevant to the thread at best and blog-post blathering at worst. This is the Idiots on Social Media thread, not "Hay guys let's post post poast about the loving 2016 election" molten salt reactor. For fucks sake, even with you on ignore you still get quoted by idiots and force me to see your lovely, lovely posts.

in before "u mad bro "

edit: ^^^^ Bless you, LoB.

Blind Pineapple posted:

chitoryu12 posted:

She actually made some eerie predictions early in the thread, like guessing the Malheur Standoff months before it would occur.

cash crab posted:

Is being acknowledged for your achievements like being the Highlander where we can only have one person being praised at once ir

John Big Booty posted:

Did she predict the dildos?

Blind Pineapple posted:

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

Blind Pineapple posted:

But wait there's more...

This is from a comment war of another person who shared the image. Highlights include praising the initial image as subtle, and an unironic "are country."

Admiral Joeslop posted:

hackbunny posted:

They censored the wrong part of the photo

Admiral Joeslop posted:

Blind Pineapple posted:

Alaois posted:

guy from my town dies in iraq and they name a fuckin bridge after him, where's my bridge huh

Ularg posted:

Woops something I said might be considered feminst, sound the alarms.

Blind Pineapple posted:

Puppy Time posted:

It remains entertaining to me that "fag" now means "interested in women."

budgieinspector posted:

That... is not a budgerigar.