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I disagree with the "racist code speak" idea, but I certainly know enough on the left that believe it to be true. To them, even if conservatives or Republicans are doing the "right" things, there are those that say they're just covering up their racism. It's disingenuous at best.

As for the religious part, I rather resent that sentiment. While I have no desire to force my religion on anyone, there is no question that if I were to hold public office, my faith would guide my decisions, just as someone else's ideology would guide theirs. Incumbent, of course, on Constitutionality.

You may get your opportunity to vote for the GOP sooner than you think, though. Party leadership would love nothing more than to jettison conservatives and "evangelicals". I figure I'll be a man without a party pretty soon.

There's a difference between letting one's faith guide how they lead and enacting legislature whose entire basis is "the Bible says so". It's the latter that I can't stand. Let your faith give you an idea for something but justify it in humanist terms for all those who don't share your faith.

We have a broken economic system that continues to reward the top 1% and gets tax breaks, bailouts, and deregulation to work in their favor while the class divide continually widens. I want a president who will break up the banks so we don't have to bail them out again, who will regulate Wall Street, who supports labor unions, who wants to raise the minimum wage to a more liveable rate, and who will change the tax structure so that it isn't the wealthy who benefit most.

Climate change is a reality, not a debate. I want a president who listens to science rather than denies it, and who recongizes that we need to live as part of nature, rather than to destroy it out of selfishness and fear.

We have an overly militarized police force that has resulted in a wave of police shooting people without due process. These are largely black people, and the cops are often let off the hook easy. I want a president who will help demilitarize police so that they better serve their function to protect and to serve, and who holds bad cops accountable for their actions, and who isn't afraid to say black lives matter enough to do something about this uniquely black issue.

We have a healthcare system that leaves many people uninsured, burdened with medical bills, and paying way too much for overpriced medications that have been price gouged. I want a president who wants to better regulate the pharmaceutical industry and who views healthcare as an American right, not a privilege.

We have a failed war on drugs that has put many people in jail and failed to actually curb drug usage, and which also mistakenly classifies drugs like marijuana as being on a similar legal level to heroin. I want a president who will stop treating drug use like a criminal issue and instead treat drug addiction as a health issue.

I want a president who serves his people through democratic processes and who doesn't simply listen to whoever pays the biggest donations to the campaign. I want a president who will serve all people whether they be white, black, or brown; men or women; straight or LGBT. I want a president who will listen to detractors rather than have them thrown out or assaulted. Someone who tries to unite the people rather than divide them and who understands that love is more valuable than hate.

In case you haven't guessed it yet, I want a president named Bernie Sanders.

J T wrote:We have a broken economic system that continues to reward the top 1% and gets tax breaks, bailouts, and deregulation to work in their favor while the class divide continually widens. I want a president who will break up the banks so we don't have to bail them out again, who will regulate Wall Street, who supports labor unions, who wants to raise the minimum wage to a more liveable rate, and who will change the tax structure so that it isn't the wealthy who benefit most.

Climate change is a reality, not a debate. I want a president who listens to science rather than denies it, and who recongizes that we need to live as part of nature, rather than to destroy it out of selfishness and fear.

We have an overly militarized police force that has resulted in a wave of police shooting people without due process. These are largely black people, and the cops are often let off the hook easy. I want a president who will help demilitarize police so that they better serve their function to protect and to serve, and who holds bad cops accountable for their actions, and who isn't afraid to say black lives matter enough to do something about this uniquely black issue.

We have a healthcare system that leaves many people uninsured, burdened with medical bills, and paying way too much for overpriced medications that have been price gouged. I want a president who wants to better regulate the pharmaceutical industry and who views healthcare as an American right, not a privilege.

We have a failed war on drugs that has put many people in jail and failed to actually curb drug usage, and which also mistakenly classifies drugs like marijuana as being on a similar legal level to heroin. I want a president who will stop treating drug use like a criminal issue and instead treat drug addiction as a health issue.

I want a president who serves his people through democratic processes and who doesn't simply listen to whoever pays the biggest donations to the campaign. I want a president who will serve all people whether they be white, black, or brown; men or women; straight or LGBT. I want a president who will listen to detractors rather than have them thrown out or assaulted. Someone who tries to unite the people rather than divide them and who understands that love is more valuable than hate.

In case you haven't guessed it yet, I want a president named Bernie Sanders.

Great post, I agree.

MrPopo wrote:There's a difference between letting one's faith guide how they lead and enacting legislature whose entire basis is "the Bible says so". It's the latter that I can't stand. Let your faith give you an idea for something but justify it in humanist terms for all those who don't share your faith.

Ah, right. I agree with that.

J T, I was gonna ask before you had that at the end, "Bernie? Izzat you?"

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Bernie pulled off a miracle and actually won the primary and ended up in the White House he'd be a massive disappointment. He can't dismantle the system that has built up over the past couple centuries and coming out of a Bernie presidency with little changed would be a major disillusionment for people who support him.

BoringSupreez wrote:That cross-party and cross-demographic appeal is precisely why he's doing well so far, and why the "establishment" and the media are so perplexed about his success. I'm too lazy to gather the links for this post, but he's picking up larger percentages of minorities than any other Republican candidate. He got the majority of the vote in the most Muslim city in America, Dearborn, Michigan. He's winning a higher percentage of black votes than the other candidates, and IIRC he's doing well with hispanics too.

http://www.cityofdearborn.org/images/Db ... s/EL45.pdf

Enjoy your facts. Your candidate didn't win the majority, he won a Plurality. In case you fail to understand what a majority is, it's greater than 50%. Sanders won 59% of Dearborn's Vote. That's a majority. Oh, and Bernie got 7,126 to your candidate's 3,153. Hillary still beat out Trump, 4,730 to HRC. Looks like a sizable difference. I sincerely doubt Donald is getting the pull you think he is from diverse constituencies.

Even so, what's more troubling is how you speak about your poor experiences with Muslims in Turkey and about a refugee crisis that we catalyzed by going to war and destabilizing a region, and then are speaking positively about how Trump's winning the most Muslim city in America. You can't go from making borderline Islamaphobic comments in one sentence then making claims like your candidate won a majority in the most Muslim city in America when it benefits your argument. That's the very definition of pandering.

So no, Trump did not win Dearborn. Like hell would they vote for the man who wants to put a stay on Muslims entering the country. A good portion of those Arab Americans living in Dearborn are Lebanese, another country that's had plenty of strain from this refugee crisis and its fair share of horrific war not 30 years ago. They still have relatives in Lebanon. They are reluctant to vote for a person whose foreign policy continues to devastate the region they emigrated from. Hence why they voted for the Jewish man.

BoringSupreez wrote:Thing is, identity politics don't win elections any more than they sell movie tickets or video games.

Keep telling yourself that. It's why Bernie got massacred in the deep-south in the democratic primaries. You make the claim that poor working class whites who belong to unions vote democratic, I disagree. Tons of states have become increasingly right to work in the past decade, eroding collective bargaining and union influence. Beside that, uneducated working class vote tends to favor the Republicans. The only problem, is that working class, uneducated whites have become only 36% of the vote. So it looks like you'll need some identity politics to broaden your voter base, right?

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/18/462027861 ... g-reliance

Trump looks at classism in a similar fashion that Bernie does. The premise, we've been sold raw deals. Their approaches and policies differ. The turmoil in both parties does stem from establishment politics and a government that doesn't represent our interest or serve us. The only difference is that Bernie's message of empathy resonates way better with diverse constituents than Trump's message.

J T wrote:Snip...

In case you haven't guessed it yet, I want a president named Bernie Sanders.

+1 Cheers.

MrPopo wrote:I have a sneaking suspicion that if Bernie pulled off a miracle and actually won the primary and ended up in the White House he'd be a massive disappointment. He can't dismantle the system that has built up over the past couple centuries and coming out of a Bernie presidency with little changed would be a major disillusionment for people who support him.

You're right, he'd need some fellow colleagues in a variety of positions across the nation that emulate or support his platform. He needs a Congress, State & Local Governments, and Governors that are similar or receptive to compromise. Certainly not the obstructionist GOP-led Congress that has an approval rating of 14%.

This is only compounded that we live in an age where immediate gratification is expected and demanded. People want instantaneous change, and Bernie hasn't been exactly transparent about how long the political revolution he is calling for will take. Pro-tip, it's at least a couple of decades. It'd be interesting how he'd plan out his presidency, and prioritize which reforms.

MrPopo wrote:I have a sneaking suspicion that if Bernie pulled off a miracle and actually won the primary and ended up in the White House he'd be a massive disappointment. He can't dismantle the system that has built up over the past couple centuries and coming out of a Bernie presidency with little changed would be a major disillusionment for people who support him.

Sums up how broken and archaic the presidency is. They can only do so much.

Xeogred wrote:

MrPopo wrote:I have a sneaking suspicion that if Bernie pulled off a miracle and actually won the primary and ended up in the White House he'd be a massive disappointment. He can't dismantle the system that has built up over the past couple centuries and coming out of a Bernie presidency with little changed would be a major disillusionment for people who support him.

Sums up how broken and archaic the presidency is. They can only do so much.

It's not the position, it's our perception of the position. The presidency has a lot of power and has been shown to flex it over and over through our history. But the difference between the president and congress is the president has a face; congress does not. Sure, you'll have prominent members of congress get lots of time on the news but the general public perception is still as congress the faceless body. So everything good and bad lands on the president and the public thinks the president can do more than the position is constitutionally able.

All good points and true, sums up how Obama aged 20 years within his term.