I'll bet we could get more votes if we reinstituted slavery
We should totally do that.
Fuck civil rights. Fuck personal freedom. As long as we win the election, who cares if we shit on people or their rights? We should be more pragmatic and less pure.
Oh, and no government regulations either. Fuck that stuff if it prevents us from slicing off a few Trump voters. We need them, so fuck our values and principles!
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has worked so well at getting us more votes -
because "running blue dogs in 2006 gave us control of Congress," not "W was the most hated man in America and the economy was headed for the tank," because our additional gains in 2008 running principled liberals don't count, AND because we should just ignore the fact that when the Bush factor was removed in 2010 four times as many blue dogs were swept out of office than liberal democrats?
Yeah, it's our principles that are killing us at the polls.
Nobody with fawlty grammer gets my vote, evah!
Let's equate reasonable anti-abortion sentiments in a minority of Democrats to slavery!
While the Republicans are stacking the court to take away choice.
Yeah, fuck pragmatism.
presidential and senate elections are not gerrymandered.
As I keep reminding people - 9 months now - if you toss out California's results, Trump won the popular vote in the 49 remaining states, too.
How does the Democratic Party successfully compete in gerrymandered red districts? We only need 25 districts to take back the House? The only way to do this is take the seats from Republicans!
We came up about 80,000 votes short in the three states credited for giving Trump the Electoral College victory. Do you know how many votes Jill Stein received in those three states? And how many more voted 3rd party in 2016 than in 2012? The votes were there. They just didn't vote for Hillary. I would argue, as promised. But we are not allowed to go there, are we? 
Has become crazy.
But I have something to say to EVERYBODY regardless of their position on do we sell ourselves out or do we not. It's something I've repeated multiple times here and I'm going to keep saying it and I don't care if nobody is listening.
Elections are tainted, by Russia yes, but mainly by gerrymandering and voter suppression. Look for ways outside of the electoral process to institute change. Debunk and discredit the tropes and cliches which fuel the right wing on an everyday basis. Politics is something we do every day, not one day every even numbered year. Don't put all your eggs in the voting basket.
The Trump administration has shown the danger of the power of the executive branch, but it also shows that we have a cult of personality around the oval office. We are at a crossroads here; love for the environment, standing up against authoritarianism, standing with the trans community, refusing to normalize the alt/far right, and saying no to romanticizing war on one side and respect for the office of the President on the other. We can't have both, but we have people, even here, who think it is their ally, who will stand for it, maybe because they think they can use this office some day in the future if they play their cards right. No. This office is poisoning our country.
And if we're not fighting "It", then we aren't going to win. Period.
Funny thing is, I am a white heterosexual male working class person. I'm the person people want to keep pandering to and are willing to throw other groups off because I'm so special I guess. But I've never been so anxious in my life, watching the medical concerns of people like my two year old nephew being on the table or seeing the 'othering' of the GLBTQ communities or Muslims, people in these groups I include among my loved ones.
So thanks for all the pandering (and nightmares I have every other night) guys. It's been a blast so far.
You know, the more I talk with people about this, that insidious line from Mister Sheen has continually been slithering into my brain.
Since concessions to anti-choice wing-nuts have been in the mix, to suit the "districts", so many now insist, why not go all the way...let's promote full-on theocracy, dominionism, even...that's the ticket! Support for such candidates will become wildly popular in these difficult areas of the country...for fundraisers, we could hold public stonings or maybe sponsor a truck-dragging or two. Winning! Once all of those red states have been rendered "blue", then we can get down to the serious business of repealing the 19th Amendment.
No. It's nothing to joke about.
But believe me when I say that I have very much had my eyes opened in that time, and it forces me to reflect on opinions I held in the past.
I can't really fault others for not having made the same realizations, so I've tried to avoid attacking anyone on this issue (though I would kick my own ass if I could go back in time to do it). Still, I only reached my current understanding thanks to the persistence of people (mostly women) who felt strongly about it and who were willing to explain it, so I feel obligated to give it a go, too.
seen that proposed and seconded here. mccain and powell as i recall. maybe others. 
is why this is the issue that we're supposed to be ok with abandoning, as if women will simply smile and nod and vote Democrat because... why, exactly?
And when the comparison is made to the forfeiture of any other right, the comparison is mocked and dismissed.
I was worried we were going to get through the weekend without another repetitive hyperbolic thread about abortion. Relieved that isn't the case.
