A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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How Hillary Clinton unleashed the Great Awokening
Time at last to refight the 2016 primary
by Matthew Yglesias
The 2016 presidential election was obviously an important moment in American history. But one important aspect that I think remains somewhat under-discussed is that the cycle, starting with the primary campaign, put the Democratic Party into a kind of wormhole of misperception that it has been struggling ever since to come out from.
This is a high-level narrative about 2016 that you rarely hear but that I think is broadly true:
• After eight years of Barack Obama serving in office, the national policy mood had — for predictable if somewhat mysterious thermostatic reasons — swung somewhat to the right.
• Rather than running a candidate who promised to be somewhat more moderate than Obama, Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton on a platform of being somewhat more progressive than Obama.
• Republicans, having lost twice in a row, nominated someone who agreed to abandon the conservative view on Social Security and Medicare while successfully fudging on dropping opposition to same-sex marriage.
• This combination of ideological repositioning and thermostatic public opinion should have set the stage for a commanding GOP victory, but their candidate was scandal-plagued and incompetent, so Democrats came this close to winning.
• The clear lesson for Democrats was to next time pander more aggressively to public opinion and for Republicans to nominate people with Trump-y issue positioning but who are not scandal-plagued buffoons.
Instead, Democratic Party elites shifted leftward on policy while rank-and-file Democrats decided the most important thing was to nominate a white man, and Republicans convinced themselves that Trump was some kind of political magician.
Part of the issue here is that Democrats have consistently chosen to interpret the fact that Trump is a scumbag as indicating that Trump is an ideological extremist, when these are just different questions. But I think in some ways the bigger and more unconsidered issues have to do with how the 2016 primaries played out. In particular, Clinton got spooked by Bernie Sanders’ stronger-than-expected early showing and decided to respond by outflanking him to the left on social issues. I believe that this backfired and caused Sanders to do better with moderate Democrats than he otherwise would have done and also bolstered his popularity with the general electorate.
But both Clinton and Sanders seemingly believed that her efforts in this regard were highly effective.
After the primaries, the Sanders team decided they needed to outflank the establishment by moving even further left on identity issues, and the establishment decided that front-loading identity issues was their ticket to holding an incipient socialist takeover at bay. So while the question in the 2016 primary was something like, “should we move left on identity or on economics?” the answer ended up being, “let’s do both.”
Misreading the Iowa caucus
I’ve run this backfire theory past some people involved in BernieWorld, and they think that I’m wrong.
But I think I’m right. The context, you have to remember, is that for most of 2015 the Sanders campaign wasn’t a real presidential campaign. Everyone understood that the primary was a Clinton coronation after the progressive wing failed to persuade Elizabeth Warren to run. Bernie was running a nominal protest race to draw attention to his key issues and to pin Clinton down on a couple of points like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But then he somewhat unexpectedly caught fire with young people. In part because of the clarity of his vision, but also in part, I think, because Democratic Party leaders had a mass forgetting about how angry people were over the Iraq War.
People being upset that Hillary Clinton went along with Bush’s war was the key issue in the 2008 primary, and she lost. People who wanted to see a mainstream Democratic Party woman elected president should have remained mindful of this and put forwar
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Wow. That's some epic revisionist history right there.
Kudos!
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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"Jesus vs. Jeezus"
http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly050504.htm
Artist's Statement:
Drawing the "real" Jesus turns out to be tricky. The image carries a lot of baggage. We have absolutely no contemporary physical description of the man at all, and for some reason it's very important to everyone what he looked like. He has to be knowing, wise, compassionate, kind, stern, and humorous, all at once. Of course he ended up looking like Gandalf. My depiction is somewhat indebted to Chester Brown's characterization in his adaptation of the book of Mark in Yummy Fur-Christ as a fierce, high-browed, hatchet-faced desert prophet. In a moment of possibly misguided inspiration I gave him one blind eye, in imitation of Modigliani, who in his later portraits painted subjects he admired with one eye blank, turned inward, to suggest inner sight. Of course Christ wouldn't really have had a blind eye, or any other serious injury or deformity, because, duh, he could've healed it himself. The book of John, especially, is full of stories about Christ being mocked and chased away by crowds, so I'm sure we would've heard about the obvious contradiction if he'd had any physical infirmities.
Drawing Jeezus, on the other hand, was nothing but a good time: sanitized, kitschy, sentimental, racist, jingoistic-a big cheerful football player with twinkling blue eyes and feathered blond hair. I grew up in an Anabaptist sect that was persecuted early on for its insistence on the separation of church and state, so the sight of an American flag in church would have been tacky and offensive when I was a kid, to say nothing of Christ being draped in one. We were also one of the historic pacifist churches, so the image of the Prince of Peace wielding an M-16 is, to me, sort of obscene. But people actually pray over sporting events, imagining that God roots for one football team over another, they thank Him when they win Oscars, as though God were managing their Hollywood careers, so why not imagine that he's on our nation's side against all others? Pretty much everyone in every other nation-state in human history has believed the same thing.
More at http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly050504a.htm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Wow.
There's not a single joke in there that hasn't been told 1,000 times before.
How easily impressed you are.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:If you read just one line from the Bible, you miss the meaning. For example, one sentence used in the comic "Jesus vs. Jeezus" from Matthew 22:21 is:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Wow.
There's not a single joke in there that hasn't been told 1,000 times before.
How easily impressed you are.
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Very easy to remember Bible verse.
But what does it mean? After reading the entire Bible chapter, Jesus means "Don't cheat when paying your taxes." East Texas Christians don't pay their taxes. They also vote for Trump, who doesn't pay his taxes. Not very Christian of Trump, is it?
When you read the entire chapter, Jesus' opinion is clear about Christians who are tax-cheaters:
https://www.bible.com/bible/114/MAT.22.NKJV
The Pharisees: Is It Lawful to Pay Taxes to Caesar?
15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. 16 And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. 17 Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? 19 Show Me the tax money.”
So they brought Him a denarius.
20 And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?”
21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.”
And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
22 When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.
When Republicans read the Bible, it is always TL;DR. I think that is why Republicans cheat on their taxes. They never read enough scripture to know what it means.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I'm not a Republican AND I don't read the Bible, you dumb motherfucker.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:I know so many people in East Texas who say they aren't Republicans, but they hate Democrats. They say they would vote for Trump again, they don't go to church, don't read the Bible, and they don't pay taxes because they cheat/they're poor. They are you, 6ix. (They also tend to not be married, but they may have children. "Why get married when it just ends with divorce?" is the kind of thing those Texans say. That's you, again, 6ix.)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm not a Republican AND I don't read the Bible, you dumb motherfucker.
Just so you get the point, 6ix, there are millions and millions of Texans exactly like you. They hate Democrats. They will vote for Trump, again. They don't pay taxes, either because of poverty or cheating. And they are nobody special. They are run-of-the-mill.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Nobody cares dude.
Nobody believes one single lie you've ever told about yourself.
Second is a poorly written character.
And eventually you're going to get this handle banned off this site just like you got your other one banned.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:6ix, other things you've got in common with millions and millions of Trump voting Texans, besides the low economic status, the family problems that extend back generations and will go forward forever, is mediocrity and a short temper. By the way, I have not been banned under any other handle. You've got me confused with somebody else, which is another thing about Trumptards -- they are confused by the simplest ideas. Must be they are so brilliant. Just ask them about themselves and they will tell you how smart they are. Trump does the same, making him the biggest blowhard in America. And very likely the biggest tax-cheater.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares dude.
Nobody believes one single lie you've ever told about yourself.
Second is a poorly written character.
And eventually you're going to get this handle banned off this site just like you got your other one banned.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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No. You are Reaverfan.
P.S. Here's a list of all the times you've lost your temper that I was able to archive.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65116
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Repost of thread to HAKEN created on June 17, 2022 and updated on June 22nd, 2022.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65116
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NOTICE TO HAKEN: Second's Death Threats, Assassination Attempt Fantasies, Violent Posts, and other toxic behavior
The remaining members of Fireflyfans.net should not be subjected to Second's behavior, his calls for violence, his racism and his wishing death on others he doesn't agree with.
I'm asking Haken now to finally remove Second from these boards. Ever since his other handle Reaverfan was banned from Fireflyfans.net, his Second handle has devolved into little more than a violence fantasy factory.
NOTES:
July 30, 2019: Death threat against President Trump
https://archive.ph/i73bY
October 31st, 2020: Death threat against Amy Coney Barrett
https://archive.ph/6nwD9
October 31st, 2020: Second death threat that day against Amy Coney Barrett
https://archive.ph/6nwD9
September 2nd, 2021: Death threat against the Supreme Court Justices
https://archive.ph/IJw76
April 28th, 2022: Death threat against President Trump
https://archive.ph/NFbSt
March 30th, 2022: Death threat against President Trump
https://archive.ph/L0Zeq
March 30th, 2022: Second death threat that day against President Trump
https://archive.ph/nVqVC
May 2nd, 2022: Second throws around the N word like he owns it
https://archive.ph/B8ocv
May 25th, 2022: Death threat against the Supreme Court
https://archive.ph/OaT3U
June 4th, 2022: Second wishes death on me (Under his Second handle, not his Reaverfan one)
https://archive.ph/J0RY6
June 5th, 2022: Death threat against President Trump
https://archive.ph/rIr6u
June 22nd, 2022: Second threatens to burn my house down in an Italian Mafia style "It would be a shame if your house burned down" kind of way.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220622232014/http://fireflyfans.net/mthr
ead.aspx?bid=18&tid=64666&p=7
July 13, 2022: Death threat against President Trump.
https://archive.ph/rX2bm
July 14th, 2022: Death threat against President Trump
https://archive.ph/pWizO
I decided at this time not to add the stuff that Kiki has archived on her own through this site, because there are no time stamps here and unless there is a way to find posts and date/time stamps on the administrative side to verify them, they were not archived offsite like the preceding posts were. Though I do know that her archival were things he said in the past, it is too easy to fake somebody else's posts by these means without an outside archival website and I will not enter them here unless asked for them.
At this point I ask Haken either to give a stern talking to at Second about his behavior, or just outright ban him from the site entirely. There is a line, and he has repeatedly crossed it under his Second handle nearly as frequently as he did under his unabashedly toxic Reaverfan handle after he lost it.
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Archived posts after thread was created:
June 22nd, 2022: Second threatens to burn my house down in an Italian Mafia style "It would be a shame if your house burned down" kind of way.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220622232014/http://fireflyfans.net/mthr
ead.aspx?bid=18&tid=64666&p=7
His death threats / kill yourself posts to other fireflyfans.net members under the Reaverfan handle can all be found here:
1: 1/23/2021: https://archive.vn/Vt9GX
2: 1/23/2021: https://archive.vn/eZZPM
3: 1/23/2021: https://archive.vn/Nmigt
4: 1/24/2021: https://archive.vn/fvxGX
5: 1/25/2021: https://archive.vn/KApRQ
6: 1/28/2021: https://archive.vn/RjISM
7: 1/31/2021: https://archive.vn/glDW5
8: 1/31/2021: https://archive.vn/EkRc2
-: 1/31/2021: https://archivNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME