#say what you will about the libertarian party but that graphic goes hard

[weaver-z]

Having a wild one on twitter

[whitehotharlots]

Handicapping the 2020 Dem primary

Tier Four

The Tom Vilsack Memorial “No Chance in Hell” Tier

These are the candidates whose family members won’t even vote for them. They will drop out either before or immediately after Iowa. Some of them will be working specifically to plant the seeds of a 2024 run, while others are auditioning for an MSNBC gig.

Joe Kennedy

Any person who is simultaneously old enough and illiterate enough to have any fondness for the Kennedys is 100% in the Trump camp. Joe has zero appeal outside of this voting bloc, which literally does not exist. He won’t even win Massachusetts--won’t even be in the top five in Massachusetts.

Michael Avenatti

My man ain’t even announced his run and he’s already facing domestic assault charges. A potential Avenatti run had a mystical WWF vibe to it. I will admit, I was excited, the same as I’d be excited to finally pull alongside the accident that caused the pile up. No one has any idea what his policies are, because neither does he. He might honestly beat Trump in the general, as he is far and away the most likely candidate to physically assault Trump if the two ever share a stage (any Dem who punches Trump will be automatically 100% guaranteed to win the election). But he probably won’t even run.

Mitch Landrieu

Mitch will appeal to that small demographic of erstwhile independent voters who were drawn to Trump solely because he is an openly corrupt grifter. By May he will be a panel participant on a new MSNBC show that’s like Shark Tank but but all the contestants are trying to get the panel to fund their medical gofundme’s.

Eric Holder

Like every other member of the Obama administration, his faults are glaring and the relatively good stuff he did takes way too much context for most voters to understand. Under his leadership, the DoJ began began to litigate hate crimes, which had been almost completely neglected under Bush. That’s good. Also, under his leadership, the DoJ stalwartly refused to prosecute the war criminals who lied us into Iraq or the bankers who tanked the world economy. That’s bad. Politically, he has the platform of a Republican circa 1992. Personally, he has the charisma of a very dry snail.

Steve Bullock

He looks and sounds like the dumb guy sidekick of an old cartoon villain. He is therefore the Bebop/Rocksteady of the field. His policies are indistinguishable from any other civil moderate/fiscal conservative candidate, and his moistness will drive away both donors and media . (NOTE: With Bullock, the Avenatti Rule applies: if he threatens to physically assault Trump or any member of Trump’s family--especially including Baron--he will rocket to the top of the pack. If he actually assaults them, he will win the general election and usher in a glorious Centrist Utopia)

Kristen Gillibrand

She was once considered a front-runner for the same reason Corey Booker kinda sorta still is a frontrunner--because she looks similar to a previous Dem nominee, and many liberal strategists and commentators cannot conceive of a politics beyond identity markers. Trouble is, unlike Booker, Gillibrand pissed off her donor base by leading the the charge against Al Franken. I don’t for a second think that Gillibrand’s efforts had anything to do with principles. She just leaned into the wrong direction of the skid of cynicism: if there’s one thing Democrat donors hate, it’s a candidate who appears to adhere to any kind of moral framework. And Gillibrand is not the sort of candidate who stands a chance without full institutional support.

Tier Three

The “Gormless Dweebs” Tier

These people might stick around until late in the game for the same reason they’d stay at a house party until well after they were no longer welcome. Each also possesses a very particular strain of weirdness that might resonate with voters in New Hampshire enough that they’d finish in the top 3, but none has a realistic chance to live past Super Tuesday.

Martin O’Malley

O’Malley is the Democrat John Kasich. He’s mostly running because he wants to have people to talk to. Several New Hampshire people will nod at him and that will be it. 

Terry McAuliffe

Imagine if Joe Lieberman were a governor and slightly less physically repulsive. He is still a very moist man, and his only moments of attention will come when he criticizes one of the more left-leaning candidates after they point out that the Iraq war didn’t go so good. (Let me ask Senator Sanders a question. We he says that global warming is the biggest threat we face... has he ever heard of ISLAM?” *Tufts University crowd goes wild*)  Terry might come in top 3 in Virginia, and he also might stick around if a frontrunner is facing some kind of big scandal. But his main effect on this debate will be that of a zebra mussel on the side of a leaky rowboat, hoping it fills with just enough water that he’ll be able to slither aboard for the last few minutes before it sinks.

Elizabeth Warren

Warren is one of small handful of Dem candidates whose economic politics fall to the left of Margaret Thatcher. That doesn’t really work for her, though, because it’s hard for a quiet dweeb to project any sense of populism. She’d be a significantly less horrible president than most on this list, probably. But there’s no way she would beat Trump head to head. He can bait her with literally any claim and her response will always be “golly gee I will refute this man with logic and evidence and then those who repeated his taunts will surely see the error of their ways.” By August, it would get to the point where she’d be sending out topless pics to prove she really doesn’t have several teats and therefore is not a pregnant dog, as Trump suggested. But thankfully she will have flamed out long before that.

Tier 2

The “Viable Candidates Who Are Gonna Get Rat Fucked Really Hard” Tier

Sherrod Brown

Same general platform as Bernie, only without the voting record, name recognition, or widespread appeal. We are also living in an age where crudity is now taken for a sign of sincerity, and while he does kinda give off a “disheveled history teacher” vibe, that’s not enough to really combat Trump. Trump can only really be beaten by a platform, not a personality, so Brown might have a chance. But he’ll also almost certainly bow out before Super Tuesday. My guess he won’t be able to take the heat nearly as well as Bernie and he’s gone before Iowa.

Bernie

Bernie will win New Hampshire. He will win for the same reason he won it in 2016: he’s well-known there, he will be the only believable candidate running on a civil libertarian platform. He will win it by a bigger margin, because the Establishment field will be more split. He will win Iowa for the same reasons: much more name recognition now. Pledged delegates-wise, he will be far and away the frontrunner after the first two contests, although on-screen graphics will continue to present him as a longshot, due to superdelegates. He will then square off in a contest between 1-2 of the following candidates, whom the establishment will rally behind. He could win the nomination, but you and I literally cannot imagine the absurdity of the smears he will face. If he wins the nomination he wins the general Reagan vs. Mondale-style, and we might narrowly avoid civilization collapse. There’s only about a 25% of that happening, though.

Tier 1

The “If the Establishment Unites Behind Any One of These People They Will Beat Bernie for the Nom Then Get Stomped by Trump” Tier

None of these candidates would have a realistic chance against Trump, but each of them is well positioned to take advantage of the unique corruption of the Democratic Party. Our only real hope--as a society and a species--is that they manage to split the vote between themselves.

Kamela Harris

Did you watch HBO’s The Jinx? It’s about a weird, repulsive millionaire serial killer who keeps evading justice. She was the prosecutor who tried to convict him. To stress: she could not convict Robert Derst. She’s running in the right direction, though, (disingenuously) espousing some populist positions while hoovering up donor cash. She could very well wait this thing out and then see the donors line up behind her enough so that he "victory” is called by the AP right before the California primary.

Beto

Centrism couldn’t win in Texas, even with a candidate who was immensely more appealing than his opponent. That’s exactly what Centrism is designed to do, and it didn’t do it. It failed. It will always fail. Still, Beto is very handsome and very shameless and not Republican-level evil, which means he will make some money and also sway some idiots. But he’s not nearly connected enough, yet, to win the nom. He will come close however, and bow out at the right time so as to not burn any bridges. Beto will be the nominee in 2024, when he will narrowly win the popular vote but lose the electoral college to Immortum Joe.

Corey Booker

Laugh if you must, but Booker appeals strongly to the exact strain of idiocy that controls the strategy within the Democratic Party: He is a black male...  like Obama! That means he will win, since Obama did. Yes, anyone who spends a few minutes studying Booker will realize he lacks Obama’s intelligence, wit, and oratorical ability. But that’s not how the Democratic establishment understands politics: they believe, genuinely, that the way to win is to raise the most money while being in possession of the correct identity markers. Should a candidate do this and lose, as Hillary did, it was the inevitable result of machinations outside of their control. Ergo, we must appoint the anointed one and see if he pleases the gods. Plus, if you mute the TV and squint, Booker totally looks like Obama!

Hillary

The main benefits of wokeness--why it has so many adherents, so far as I can tell--is that it allows certain people to skirt all responsibility for everything they say and do, even as it forces others to attempt to adhere to literally impossible programmatics of speech and comportment. And so Hillary’s recent nativist turn will be forgiven (it will most likely go unmentioned), while Bernie’s wardrobe and posture will be used as evidence of his sexism. She can continue making jokes about Colored People Time, while any of her competitors will be crucified for not using the exact right terms in describing whatever happen to be the Woke Cause of the Day. This insulation from criticism is Hillary’s biggest strength with the Democrat electorate, while her fiscal conservatism will continue to help her with donors. She will get beaten horribly in the general, but still stands a strong chance in the primary.

Joe Biden

I have no idea how this man is leading in some polls other than name recognition. Which--don’t get me wrong, name recognition is huge, especially in early goings within a crowded primary field. But what does Biden bring to the table, policy-wise or personality-wise? I realize the people who bleat about how they don’t want any more OLD. WHITE. MALES. running for president are just trying to make their cruel centrist politics appear radical--but could they be shameless enough to actually throw their support to Biden? Biden, the dude who most certainly would have been MeToo’d were he still in a position of power? Biden, the pro-war economic conservative who repeatedly says that young people just need to stop whining? That’s the guy you’re gonna run against Trump? Probably. I would take a 50/50 bet on him winning the nomination.

Final odds:

Biden: 1:1

Hillary 1.5:1

Bernie 4:1

Booker 8:1

Beto 10:1

Harris 12:1

Field (including only aforementioned candidates): 30:1

[moisblogs]

Enough is Enough

Each day since the Inauguration of [President] Trump, things have been spiraling out of control. Ranging from protests to hypocritical name calling like "Snowflakes." However, my thoughts aren't about all the wrongs coming out as a result of something, it goes closer to the root of the problem: the Party System. I know that there are many Parties in US politics, Libertarian, Independent, Socialist Party of America, Nazi Party of America, Green Party, etc., but this blog post will go over the two dominant Parties: Republican and Democrat (I'll be referring to them as Conservative/Right-Wing and Liberal/Left-Wing respectively every now and then).To both of them, I say "Enough." I'll start with the Republican Party. Quick disclaimer: I am not saying this applies to everyone in the party, but I am addressing my observations with the Republicans currently in Congress aside from the President. A while ago, I was talking with a friend who highly suggested that I look at right-wing media as closely as I do left-wing media. If you're reading this, I can't bring myself to do that, and here's why: I'm very detail oriented. In music, I can tell when something is off at the lowest of volume, in graphic design I can tell when something is a pixel off in a 16:9 aspect ratio image, and in video, a frame going at 60 FPS. In media, I can tell the agenda of a source by how the source is written. For normal news, Fox is the same and NBC to me. For political news, so far every right-winged source I've read has the underlying message/rhetoric that I fear people buy into "hook, line, and sinker": Fear Everyone. "But I need to protect the people I love" yeah, I get that. I want to be able to protect my friends and family too, but expecting the worst out of anyone who looks, speaks, prays, and act different than you only brings you closer and closer to paranoia. I can't get myself to follow right-wing media because I can't get myself to fear people who are culturally different. Excuses aside, I am not going to allow conservative fear mongering to control who deserves to exist in America. This is not to say that Democrats have the right idea either. I have the same disclaimer with Democrats and I do Republicans. When people from the DNC say that Clinton worked hard to get the nomination, I call bullshit. My generation knows that Clinton had ties with people in the DNC so the nomination was gift wrapped to her. Most of the people I talk to say that they supported Bernie Sanders, and what happened to him? He got cheated. Recently I saw a video of a college student asking a Democratic Representative about how a lot of Millennials feel that Capitalism isn't working for them. The response, "that's just the way it is." Capitalism promotes hard work in order to be successful, but we've reached a point where to be successful you need to be born into success. Trump inherited everything about the Trump Franchise. In the '60s, it was possible to work your through college. We're in 2017. Things have changed. People are graduating college with thousands of dollars of debt. Yes, there are people that saved money and graduated debt-free, but those are what we call "rare case scenarios." The common case in the US is that students come out college with a degree and a whole lot of debt. It is possible to pay off that debt, but usually the job desired is not guaranteed. Before immigrants are blamed, the job issue is not because immigrants steal them; you can't claim theft if the thing being "stolen" was given to them. Regardless, Democrats are just as out of touch with society as Republicans are. However, through observations, I've reached the conclusion that both Parties have a lot in common, but for the time being, Republicans has an agenda that appears to simply say "F You" to Democrats. Don't believe me? Dem: we need to make sure people who should not have guns can't get them. Rep: F you! We'll loosen up the background check process. Dem: we need to make sure people won't be denied proper health care regardless of pre-existing conditions. Rep: F you! We'll force it to fail just so we can get rid of it after you realize that it doesn't work (Affordable Care Act). Dem: We need to lower the cost of public college and make it more affordable for young adults. Rep: F you! We won't let your communistic view points affect our American way of life. I can keep going, but I'm pretty sure this gets the point across, and like I said: this is through observation. As far as what they have in common: the elected leaders of both Parties refuse to change, what they consider, the status quo. The same leaders that have been in office for 30+ YEARS refuse to back down and make room for new leaders. Both Parties don't know what society really wants as a whole and don't care either. Republicans are pro business while Democrats are pro profit. Etc., etc., etc. There is one trend that I noticed: the opposition from both sides are based off of the affiliated Party. Meaning Republicans won't agree with Democrats simply because they're Democrats, and vice versa. With that comes stereotypes. Stop me if you heard these before: "They're just a bunch of Liberal Snowflakes." "They're White Supremacists." "They just take from those who actually work hard." "They pay less in taxes than the average citizen." "They don't know anything about politics." Get the picture? That last statement, by the way, applies for both parties. If simply being in a Party is causing these issues, then maybe we should get rid of the Party system entirely because NOTHING IS GETTING DONE. These past "laws" were put in effect because they are Executive Orders. They don't need to go through Congress, and Trump issued a lot of EOs in one month alone. Trump is looking more like a dictator than a President, and so far, Republicans want to keep it that way. Enough is enough!