Believe it or not, I also don't think the best answer to problems is to throw money at it, that there are most likely a metric shit ton of government programs that serve little to no purpose and can be eliminated, and public assistance should be tied to the receivers either working or getting education/training. Oh, and welfare should not be in the form of what looks like a tax return.

We probably differ on how we would go about solving problems, but if people would be more pragmatic and less tribal you could actually have a discussion.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Actually Lamb winning shows the opposite. He got votes of Trump voters because he is more moderate. The people that voted for trump don't want the extremist. Trump is different, but he's not Far-Right. In fact he is probably more moderate than the candidate who shall not be named was. Just like on the left, you see pockets where a Maxine Waters can be nominated and win. That is not the Norm in most of the country.

And if both sides put up quality candidates there will be some really good races. It's like has been said before, the reason the Dems lost the president race was they put up a candidate more flawed than Trump. And that is really hard to do.

Trump by no means is a moderate. Most things he has done have been in line with the heavy leaning side of the party. Immigration, Supreme court, tax cuts, health care, etc. He may say things that have a moderate lean to it, but he says a lot.

can i ask you, since you are among the more reasonable thinkers on this board as well as i can tell, what you have against nancy pelosi? because, i don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other. which is, i think, a pretty logical position, because most of us don't really know much about the inner workings of leadership in the house. i never had any problem, really, with john boehner. i thought denny hastert seemed fine, until...

paul ryan seems like a decent guy trying to do a hard job. i don't hate any of these people. but, a lot of people seem to really have a hate on for nancy pelosi. and i don't know why that is. can you help?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I don't have that much (if anything) against Pelosi herself. I'm not sure I know enough about her to dislike her on a personal basis and I doubt our politics are all that far apart.

But she can't be the mouthpiece. She rubs too many people the wrong way. And even if it isn't her fault, she has become a rallying point for the opposition and they use her to turn off the middle.

Yes there is a problem of letting your opponent pick your players. But you have to win elections in order to rule. And I think she hurts more than she helps at this point.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I don’t think you’re as far left as you think you are ;-)

The tribalism drove me away from the Repub party. I’m simply a concerned citizen, without a party affiliation now.

in other words, the big industry money fueling the messaging on the right - fueling fox news, limbaugh, etc. - has successfully made pelosi an object of extreme hate and vitriol. and because of that, democrats need to pick a new person that has not yet been defined by the right. is this what you're saying? because, if it is, then fine. but then let's all just agree that the voters on the right who have this extreme hate for pelosi have let big commercial money make them into the gimps in the basement. again.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Why do you hate God so much?

I'm not sure I would use those exact words :), but yes, she has become a lightning rod.

I don't think that it helps at all that she is older, a woman, and does not have a pleasing voice. Perception matters. And for the middle of the road voter between the Rockies and the Appalachians she isn't moving the needle. I'm not saying she needs to leave Congress. I'm saying the Democrats need new visible leadership. Clinton, Pelosi and Reid were no longer appealing to people.

Over time people tend to wear out their welcome. For politicians it is especially difficult because you end up taking difficult positions for a variety of reasons.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Any alt-righter worth his/her tinfoil hat will tell you... it's not Pelosi, its "Peh-loh-ZEE"

so, she needs to be a man. she needs to be a certain age, regardless of her ability. and she needs to have a different timbre. those are her disqualifications.

look, i don't know that i disagree with you, that perhaps there just ought to be a change because of longevity's sake. you oughta be on that job only so long and then someone else perhaps ought to take over. otherwise you perpetuate the view that nothing is going to change.

but let's be honest about what the real reason is. if the problem is the hatred of pelosi - not what you and i are talking about, but the hatred - this needs to be called out for what it is: the willing suspension of fact and reason in support of the natural gravity toward hate that pulls on everyone. the limbaughs and hannitys of the world are traffickers of hate. they are funded by those who traffic in hate. who use hate as a weapon. and the unreasonable, out of any proportion, hatred of pelosi, hillary clinton, and obama is the result of that.

if you hate pelosi, the problem is not pelosi. the problem is your intellectual laziness, your moral compliance. if you hate obama, same. these are decent people, and it's okay to disagree with them. it's okay to vote against them. i disagree with much of what gary johnson, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, jeb bush, mitt romney, have to say. bill weld is a republican/libertarian. i disagree with him on issues. but how can you hate that guy? he is the least hatable person in politics.

if nancy pelosi gets replaced, okay. but we need to agree that the main reason is because we sat by and said nothing as people were simply harangued to hate her. and how shitty is that?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

What I can tell you about Pelosi is that when she used govt transportation to go home on the weekends she did not find it seemly to have a USAF gulfstream parked on the ramp at her local airport. So she sent it back empty, then had it fly back to CA empty to pick her up for the ride home. Talk about a waste of cash ...

Of course, this goes for politicians on both sides of the aisle. Somehow they forget that they represent us, they do not rule us.

drn92

For me, Pelosi just doesn't seem to have much of a voice in the national political discussion, nor much vision and leadership. I only occasionally see her speak, and those times are mostly short sound bites of her giving a speech somewhere. This means the narrative we hear is what the news organization chooses to show... just a clip. Maybe it's different over on the west coast...

I see and hear much more from Chuck Schumer. I don't always agree with him, but I certainly know what he thinks about many issues.

The Democrats need a communication tool to counter Trump's twitter account. They have allowed him to dominate this means of communication, with little in the way of a response. They should be thankful they have CNN to hold a fire to the feet of the crap Trump does and says, because the Democrats are doing a poor job of doing that themselves IMO.

So I don't think it's a problem Pelosi is a woman, or even a little older. I do think it's a problem that I have no idea what she thinks about most things, and I rarely see her on TV. I would MUCH prefer someone like Cory Booker (I know he's a Senator) be the main voice of the Democrats in the House. Booker is highly articulate, passionate and reasonable, despite many who try to paint him as some kind of radical.

Speaking of Booker, I enjoyed this interview:

https://www.theatlantic.com/...gainst-trump/554072/

I think when people say they "hate" Pelosi they mean they hate her politics, not her personally. You seem to have propped up "hate Pelosi" into something it isn't, at least not to me. How can one hate her personally when they don't know her personally? (side bar, should we apply that to Trump too?) And I think I'm neither a gimp nor intellectually lazy to feel like I disagree with her politics and the direction she would lead this country if she were SOTH again.

I call BS. Can you cite a source for this claim that she sends it back to DC?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

That's great, and you're probably right about why the right tries to vilify her, but it doesn't change my views or perception about her. Maybe she needs to spend less time fundraising out west and more time in Washington. I honestly don't know.

Snipping because the quote was getting long.

"so, she needs to be a man. she needs to be a certain age, regardless of her ability. and she needs to have a different timbre. "

Well, those don't hurt in politics right now. I think Gavin Newsome and Cory Booker are going to get a better response than Pelosi, using the same script. Kind of like how this Eddie Izzard bit describes



I'm looking at it as straight strategy. Not making a moral judgment. I enjoy the game of politics and figuring out what motivates people. From that perspective it does no good to be righteous and lose.

But I agree, the strategy in how to respond needs to change. When someone uses the tactics of Hannity or Limbaugh you need to respond and use that against them. Too often people shrink from that confrontation. That makes you look weak and makes their attack work even better. I'm a fan of aggressive campaigning. It doesn't have to go low, but it does need to be strong.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

fine. let's remember this. perhaps we'll circle back to see whether i'm just making this up, that the alt republican hate entertainment complex (hannity, limbaugh, laura ingraham, ann coulter) hates pelosi, or whether they hate pelosi.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Amazing talent, Eddie Izzard. He's done stand up in English, French, German and Spanish, and this year is learning Arabic and Russian to do shows in those languages too!

I don't understand your point in this post entirely (you do seem infatuated with conservative talk hacks) but you didn't limit your comments about people who "hated" Pelosi to those guys, at least it didn't seem that way -- basement living gimps and intellectual laziness seemed to apply to anyone who, in your words, "hates" her. Did you not mean it that way?

The right has made Pelosi a campaign target just as the left has Trump. Hannity, Maddow. Tomato, Tom-ah-to.

i am not infatuated with conservative talk hacks. unfortunately, many conservatives are, and this feeds into the public perception of pelosi. there is a terrific hatred - not disagreement with, but abject hatred - of certain personalities on the left by certain of those on the right. and, no, it is not symmetric. so, when i read hillbilly elegy and i try to understand this cohort's point of view, the hatred is one thing that keeps us from talking.

yes, there is anger. we keep hearing about that. anger. frustration. etc. but, if its my responsibility to understand what makes white working class man angry, he has a responsibility too, which is to separate the root reason for his anger apart from the reasons rush limbaugh is feeding him.

the thing is to not willingly become a basement living gimp. the thing is to not let limbaugh and hannity walk you down to the basement. and to recognize that if you react to obama, or pelosi, with visceral hate then do you have a rational reason? if so, fine. what is it? if not, you're in the basement. it's gotten well past any sort of disagreement you and i can talk about as neighbors.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You can't really believe that.

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War is god

yeah. i do. and it's patently true to anyone with ears to hear. there is one group of people - most recognizable as the trump enthusiast (as opposed to the let's give him a try trump voter), who is also very likely the limbaugh/hannity listener - who is programmed to hate. who has been taught to hate.

this isn't a left-right thing. this is a kind of person who has been programmed to hate both the left and the right. right now mitch mcconnell is getting his dose of the hate machine. the tactic here isn't just to take issue with mcconnell. it's to sneer at him, to make him a derisive figure worthy of hate.

i don't like mcconnell's politics at all, nor am i a fan of his tactics. but he's very likely a decent man.

there is no hate machine at work in normal conservative politics. you don't see george will, david frum, max boot, michael steele, eric erickson, et al, engaging in hate politics. you don't see a hate machine on the left. you only see it from the hate media complex.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

And this is the problem in our politics today ... both sides think it is asymmetric.