2016 US Presidential election

Well now it's basically confirmed that Clinton is the nominee for the Democrats, time for the super-fun ACTUAL THREAD for the horrors of the next five months

 

Samantha Bee has been killing it with the election stuff (and pretty much everything else for that matter).

 

Poor America. That's gonna be one GRIM looking ballot. Donald Trump is a joke gone too far and I'd rather vote for Spongebob Squarepants than Hillary Clinton.

 

That says more about you than Hillary.

 

I hope she bombs you first.

 

Actually it also says something about the millions of Americans who don't wanna vote for either of them. She's obviously the lesser of two evils, but anything would be next to Trump.

 

There's no use pretending the options are anything other than what they are. Who would you vote for?

 

I would vote for Trump because it means a former wife of a US president was a Big Brother contestant.

I don't want to say who I think would win because I might be wrong like when Bonnie Greer appeared on the BBC saying he wouldn't get the nomination and then they brought her back on when he did.

 

I know I know, it's negative and shitty. But from those two neither. But if I had to, I'd vote for Hillary because she'd do less damage. And she will win. I know it's been said millions of times, but I despise the heavy role the media plays in the election. You barely hear about Sanders' rallies and his successes.

 

I don't know about the rest of the world but we heard quite a lot about Bernie's successes here.

 

Bernie can still TECHNICALLY win, can't he?

 

Compared to Trump and Clinton though? He's had a FRACTION of the coverage. He was doomed from the start.

 

Within the next few hours, yes.

 

Obviously I would vote for Hillary of the two, but other than the 'YAAAAS BREAK THE GLASS CEILING KWEEN' factor, she's not exactly an appealing prospect.

 

But villainesses are SO much more interesting

 

How DOES a reigning president secure a run for a second term? Do they get it automatically and run against the opposite party nominee? Or do they compete against new potential nominees in their own party?

 

I wouldn't vote for him but I'd rather Trump was President than Hillary, any time. Hillbillies of America, I have faith in you

 

They go through the same primary process as any other candidate. It's very rare for anyone else in the party to seriously challenge them in practice.

 

Call yourself a left-winger!

 

Provided superdelegates (who dislike and distrust him about as much as Labour MPs do with Corbyn) decide to switch to him despite him having 4 million fewer votes, sure.

 

You really think the party which found itself choosing between Trump and Cruz is going to sort itself out in the next four years?

 

Please. Hillary is about as left wing as DAVID CAMERON. She's an awful neocon under a liberal disguise, which is much more dangerous than a straight up populist right-winger.

Four years of Donald Trump mental and utterly non-starter policies like LET'S KICK ALL MUSLIMS OUT OF THE US (like that's ever going to happen) will swing the barometer back to the REAL left in four years time. America is getting there, Bernie has laid the groundwork.

 

That whole 'cut pensioner healthcare and pensions to the bone to fund tax cuts for the rich' plan didn't go down too well when he was Romney's VP.

 

Strange, I don't recall the Conservatives ever promising universal pre-school or guaranteed paid leave.

The whole accelerationism idea never works, as should've been obvious when Thatcher and Reagan weren't followed up by radical left wing governments. You're not going to get a presidential candidate elected on a platform of 45% tax increases for average earners in your lifetime - if anything, it's one of the few policies that will get white people voting for a racist with ease.

 

Wouldn't having another four years of (a form of) universal healthcare, and a stacked Supreme Court be much better groundwork?

 

By that logic, France should vote Marine Le Pen in 2017 to get the country back to the left.

Yeah, okay.

 

The world is INSANELY DIFFERENT to what it was in 1991. Bernie is part of a bigger political insurgence that is the sign of our times, not the Eighties. It's true that, ironically, the people that will be worse off with Trump as president will be Americans themselves, but in as much as their foreign affairs affect me and other non-Yanks around me, I'll take Trump over Clinton any day.

 

Yeah that's exactly what I said!!!!!

 

Are people suddenly much happier to pay loads more tax now than they were in 1991? It's certainly not backed up by what they say. Near on two thirds of Americansthink they pay too much tax - ironically, pretty much the same level as did in 1991. A candidate doing well in a party's primary (or even winning it) isn't a sign that the broader public is any more keen on it now than they were then.

 

It's pretty much the identical principle to what you said.

 

I feel like 2016 likes to overstate how radical it is.

 

Quite. For all the supposed 'anti-establishment wave', how many of them have actually got elected?

 

Well, almost half of Austria voted for a NAZI (well, almost) president just a couple of weeks ago.

 

Hillary's main problem right now is a complete lack of momentum. I also wonder if she will be able to win round Bernie's supporters. Her brand has taken such a beating and Bernie's supporters seem so loyal that I don't think it's going to be as easy as it was for Obama to unite the party in 2008.

Her saving grace is that she is up against Donald Trump - surely a man so off putting to the majority of Americans that they will feel they have no option but to vote for her.