[1] Alabama has a Democratic state senator for the first time in decades.
This isn't a game where you earn points for purity. You can pat yourself on the back for not voting for "a neoliberal or corporate Democratic candidate" all you want, but the election had consequences, one of which is Trump becoming President. Presumably as a supporter of Sanders you oppose most if not all of the policies Trump is pursuing, yet your refusal to vote against Trump helped enable everything he is doing whether you intended or like that. Real-world consequences happen regardless of how you think or feel about them.
You're putting your own vanity over actual beliefs. If you truly stand for what you claim, you'll fight for it any way you can, even if that's not personally appealing or ideal.
I'm putting principles (edit: autocorrect fixed) first. I don't fault you if you don't, but what I "stand for" (people taking an active interest in the political landscape) is still going to come to pass, even faster than previously with Trump having been elected (while notably, he has very little control over actual policy). Congress will see more tilting towards progressives under a Trump administration than it ever would have under Clinton.
Step 1: Set fire to house
Step 2: "Do we have your attention now?"
Step 3: Progress
Congress drafts legislation, true, but it would be much harder for Republican legislation to pass if they didn't also control the White House. You'll recall that legislation needs to be approved by the President to become law, and at the very least a President Clinton would not be assisting a Republican Congress and Senate in passing all these things you oppose.
>I'm putting principals first.
They do work hard to lead their schools and deserve admiration for that, but we should probably be discussing principles.
> I don't fault you if you don't, but what I "stand for" is still going to come to pass
Maybe, but faux-religious certainty of future victory ignores the very real suffering that comes between now and the glorious future. People losing access to food or healthcare today thanks to Republican policies, for example. That could have been avoided with a different electoral outcome, and telling someone who can no longer afford to eat or get the medication or treatment they need that some day we'll have universal healthcare or UBI or whatever isn't exactly helping.
>Step 1: Set fire to house
>Step 2: "Do we have your attention now?"
>Step 3: Progress
Step 1: Set fire to house
Step 2: You are homeless and have nothing
Step 3: Some day this situation will fix itself, I guess? In the meantime you are starving and living in the street.
How quickly we forget that Bill Clinton was responsible for dismantling welfare in the 1990s. [1] Hillary would've done better? I don't believe so. Nor does Hillary Clinton think she could get universal healthcare done [2].
> Step 3: Some day this situation will fix itself, I guess? In the meantime you are starving and living in the street.
Step 3 is in progress. Step 2 was beyond our control due to Republican majorities. Excuse our dust while we fix our country.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/03/the-wor...
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-he...
No one forgot, it's just not relevant to this conversation. The choice was between Hillary Clinton and Trump. Whatever Bill did can be discussed on their merits.
>Nor does Hillary Clinton think she could get universal healthcare done
And she's right by your very own admission: the Republicans currently control Congress. Universal healthcare isn't happening anytime soon. What could have been done is limiting the damage the Republicans could do while working to take back the legislature. You chose to exchange that real chance for idealistic fantasy.
>Step 3 is in progress. Step 2 was beyond our control due to Republican majorities.
But, again, there didn't have to be a Republican President to implement their policies. It was very much within our control. You are, again, ignoring reality.
>Excuse our dust while we fix our country.
We who? The Republican majorities you seem to oppose are now both in power and have a President who works with them. The "dust" is the human misery currently being caused by them while your glorious Golden Age beckons just over the horizon. I'm not happy calling that suffering "dust" or accepting it as the price to pay for some nebulous future, and I don't think "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette" is very principled at all, especially when those affected in the meanwhile are the poorest and most vulnerable, exactly the people you claim to want to help.
I'm not quite sure if that was true if Clinton had one, we'll never know, but one thing is for certain: The opposition to the current government and policies seems reinvigorated, and the generational aspect of it could be true as well. Perhaps this country really did need an enema.
There's probably a Democratic wave happening nationally, but the Alabama special election is really poor evidence to use for it.
Yes, there's definitely some unusual factors that went into this race, and the Republican party made a lot of unforced errors that let the race be competitive. But the fact that it was even possible for it to be competitive seems like evidence of a wave to me, especially when you pair it with the recent Democratic wave in Virginia.
Which sounds impressive, except that he was running unopposed (not just no Democratic opponent but no other candidates filed for the election at all) in both the primary and general election.