The Senate.gov links in your second link does show her voting for the consumer protection amendments.

"I'll show those Republicans! I won't vote until the perfect Democrat comes riding in on a unicorn donkey! OBAMA = BUSH!!!"

If you do not think the country is left-enough, you should vote for whoever the best candidate is (that means Sanders in the primaries, but he'll be defeated by Clinton regardless) and then Clinton in the general election. Then, continue talking about liberal issues and going so far as to get involved yourself. Aside from rare examples like FDR, and his reforms weren't entirely about doing the right things, no leader of the United States is going to just do good things unless they think they have to. The way you make them think they have to is by relentlessly talking about what needs to change. No politician wants to go against banks, but most of them feel they have to by this point, because they electorate is still extremely angry with them. Being shown as being in the pocket of bankers is death to an American politician.

Martin O'Malley is my primary protest vote: the former mayor of Baltimore and 2-term governor of Maryland is campaigning on global warming being the most serious issue of this election, which of it is and will be til human extinction.

Then in November, I'll hold my nose and vote for the former senator from Goldmann-Sachs and AIPAC.

Martin O'Malley was mayor of a city of 600,000 people that had 100,000 arrests per year.

Maybe he's good on climate change, but he is 100% A-OK with super-aggressive and violent police and the over-prosecution of poor people, so fuck him.

I'm not a single issue voter or anything, but Bernie Sanders' weird love affair with the NRA is slightly off-putting.

People who vote for Bernie are exactly the people who got Bush elected in 2000.

No one gives a fuck about an anonymous protest vote. It does not "send a message," it does not "make a statement," it does not "show Washington the people demand change."

And you know how I know this? Because the same people voting Sanders don't even remember Ralph Goddamned Nader. You people don't even remember your own previous bullshit protest vote. Why should the history books?

I can understand supporting Bernie and preferring him to Hillary. But people who would refuse to vote for Hillary in the general election ... fuck them, they are shit.

Yes, that's right. Vote for the pro-war social conservative who gave unconditional support to the PATRIOT Act, wants flag burning to be illegal, and spent the better part of a decade on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors, helping the most-hated company in America break up those pesky unions. BECAUSE OTHERWISE, UNICORNS.

Serious question here: why don't Americans just give up on democracy? As far as the majority of voters are concerned, we live in a one-party system; there's no sense in even discussing issues or policies (which in theory is the type of discourse that democracy is based upon) because everyone now has Their Party, usually the party of their friends or favorite mass media celebrities, and dagnub it, they're gonna vote for That Party whether or not the choice makes sense!

Don't listen to anyone here. Don't even listen to me. Vote for whomever the hell best reflects your political beliefs; it won't matter in a practical sense anyway {1}, but at least you will walk away secure in the knowledge that you voted to your convictions.



{1} Remember, your behavior in the voting booth has literally zero impact on the outcome of an election. Voting is merely a formality meant to acquire "consent", however tenuously, for whatever it is the rich wish to do with you next - much as when a corporation demands that you sign a mandatory 30-page EULA before installing their software. Since there are neither practical nor pragmatic benefits to voting either which way, you might as well vote for your conscience.

... of course, if you think NSA whistleblowers should be punished harshly, hate video games, love Israel, fear guns, are a Presbyterian with significant Wal-Mart stock ownership, and get all hard at the idea of the United States being controlled by two hereditary families for three decades and counting (22nd Amendment be damned), then by all means, your conscience dictates you vote Hillary. Hope she makes you happy.

Of course a unicorn jab would set Evil Homer off.

Americans have given up on democracy. That's why half of them don't vote. Those who do vote are probably doing it out of habit for the most part. They're like nominal Christians who only go to church on Easter and Christmas. They lack real faith but they go through the motions anyway.

Man do I hate the "Ralph Nader gave us Bush" argument.

Because he did. He absolutely did. Your ideals don't mean shit. Numbers do. Democrats lost the 2000 election by 300 votes, and your opinion does not change that. If 300 Ralph Nader supporters did not split the ticket, history would have turned out significantly better.

I'm sorry you think some abstract political theory would have changed that, but reality absolutely does not give a fuck.

"People who vote for Bernie are exactly the people who got Bush elected in 2000."

Uh, you know that Sanders is not competing with Clinton in the general election, right?

Primaries are the stage in the process when voters get to support preferred candidates without voting against their own party. This is precisely why Democrats repeatedly admonished Nader during all of his runs for not competing for the nomination instead.

Breaking out the lesser-evil arg at this stage is not practical or realpolitik. It does not demonstrate strategic insight or some Very Serious commitment to consequences and outcomes that transcends ideology. It's just reflexive anti-democratic authoritarian bullshit.

>> it's about getting shit done

Like funding ISIS, spying on citizens without warrants, and making sure our country has a larger prison population than Nazi Germany and the USSR.

I said this in the last election, and I'll say ti again here. The only realistic hope the left has (assuming that we want "the left" to mean something other than pro-war, paternalistic neo-liberalism) is for the Republicans to win this election. The reason for this is simple: most Americans think the way you do, SDC, that is, in "gang terms". When "your gang" is on the outs, that's the only time when criticism and meaningful reform can take place.

As soon as Obama came into power, the left ceased to be the left. The anti-war left disappeared from public discourse; not because anything meaningful had changed, but merely because it was no longer in the interests of the rich backers of the Democratic Party (who control at least four of the six media oligarchies in this country) to support any form of anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian rabble rousing.

I mean, I hear you, SDC, I really do. Realpolitik, right? As a meme, realpolitik's got a very tempting allure about it. But you know what I have to say about that...?

https://youtu.be/9-cM5FLTGhU?t=55s

Bad things about Obama and Obama-Led Democratic Party:

Drone Strikes
NSA
Witch Hunt of whistle blowers
Failures in Iraq and Afghanistan
TPP (probably, at least)
Failure to prevent Russia taking over sovereign territory
Failure to close GITMO

Good things:

Gay rights
More liberal Supreme Court Justices
Obama Care (fuck you if you don't think it's better than the old system)

If anyone thinks that the republicans would have been a better choice, then you're smoking crack.

Gays wouldn't be able to marry. We'd have even more drone strikes, even more NSA privacy violations, even more wars in the Middle East. We'd have so many conservatives on the Supreme Court, our justice system would be set back by fifty years.

We'd also have an tax code even further rigged in favor of big businesses and trickle-down economics.

Remember when people were like: Gore vs. Bush? They're completely the same!!!!

Except Gore would have never have dragged our country into a pointless war with Iraq or appointed conservative judges like Alito and Roberts.

SDC, I think you're confusing the politics of compromise with this:

Welcome to Modern Politics.
Before starting a new campaign, please pick one!

Red Team: Corporate-Government ritual orgy requires sacrifice of middle class. Your enemies fear you. -2 rights. Almost all of the poor suffer unduly. You successfully trick the middle class into forming two teams and hating each other.

Blue Team: Corporate-Government ritual orgy requires sacrifice of middle class. Your enemies laugh at you. -2 rights, +1 right. Most of the poor suffer unduly. You successfully trick the middle class into forming two teams and hating each other.

Not everyone really gives a shit about playing that game. If there's ever a successful reform movement, it might come after a couple of elections of growing discontent and 'wasted' votes for third parties. Obama certainly isn't the worst or best president we've had, but he certainly didn't do anything to fix the oligarchy. Even if Obamacare had been perfect, which it ain't, the whole corporate-government overlap is dirty as fuck.

Right, because clearly the Democrats CREATED all those problems rather than being able to magically fix them all over night.

Holy shit everyone! Problems still exist! And Democrats are in power! Clearly it must be because Democrats love problems and not because politics are extremely fucking complicated.

EvilHomer: Let me break this down for you real slow. If Obama could push a button that would create world peace, get nonviolent offenders out of prison, grant everyone health care, and save the economy, he would press the goddamned button. But he can't because it only exists in the minds of people on the Internet. Actual governance requires constant compromise, an idea that most people need to be beaten over the head with endlessly.

That guy: Of course not everyone gives a shit about playing that game. They're called "unelectable."

Have any of you noticed that you keep referring to this magical fantasy candidate who represents "THE PEOPLE", and how this populist fairy tale never comes true? Have you ever wondered why that is?

Really, think hard about this. Why has your savior never arrived? If all THE PEOPLE have to do is rise up with one voice and blah blah to solve everything overnight, why hasn't that happened? Please, someone, explain it to me like I'm a five year-old. And then do it yourself, because clearly politics is the world's easiest riddle.

This sounds like you're saying "Don't try to fix entrenched problems because it's extremely difficult. Society can't change because it hasn't."
Do you want a medal for that thought?

'Throwing your vote away' and convincing others to do likewise could be a step toward change. It usually starts with somebody spitting into the wind.

It's more pragmatic to have some ideals than none.

If your ideals empower people completely opposed to your ideals, then your ideals are shit.

Let's not talk Nader because the differences between Republicans and Democrats were not quite as visible in 2000 as they are today, so 15 years ago a person could legitimately have not expected Republicans to whiz 9/11 and then invade an unrelated country. But today we know; there is no way not to see the differences. And if your "ideals" are such that you can countenance sitting the election out and letting Republicans into power, then you are clearly fine with racism, full-scale invasions, theocracy, oppression of women, oppression of the LGBT community, and ever-increasing income inequality.

If you're seriously concerned that the Democrats fall short of your ideals, get involved in primary season. Talk to some of them, and try to persuade them to your side, as Elizabeth Warren did in this video. But if your ideals never see any actual activity, they aren't ideals at all.

I vote for candidates whose policies I support. I don't vote for candidates whose policies I don't support. Meta-voting concerns aren't part of my decision-making calculus -- largely because I am aware that my individual vote makes no difference.

Yes, I can do the math. I know the candidates I support aren't going to win. However, since my vote literally *does not matter*, I am comfortable spending it on the people I like -- rather than that one guy who is slightly less shitty than that other guy.

If you want to make me feel bad for spending my completely meaningless vote in a manner of my pleasing, have at you; the end result is that you will likely only convince me that you are bad at math.

If your vote for the Democrat wouldn't matter then it doesn't matter for your preferred shitball either.

But this isn't about whether you personally make all the difference, any more than whether a single deserter would change the outcome of a war.

Of course it doesn't matter. Which is why acting like it's a moral outrage to vote for the people you'd like to see in office -- rather than the people who have a chance to get into office -- is so profoundly absurd. It doesn't matter!

You seem outraged that people would vote for the candidates they'd like to see win -- rather than the candidates they know will win. You're accusing these people of having shitty ideals.

But that's silly: Ideals don't have to be about shaping the world in the most effective way possible; they can also be about affirming who you are. The world's full of people who get into fights they know they can't win. There's no shame in reaching for unreachable things -- even if the reaching sets you back farther than where you began. It's fun, therapeutic, and teaches you about yourself.

Besides: If the Democratic candidate needs the third party vote to win -- maybe they could try something off-the-wall, and... I dunno... try to actually *represent* the people in the third party?

Wacky idea, I know.

There's also this whole weird 'practical in principle' mistake you seem to be making? Where you assume an ideal is 'better' because -- even though it has zero impact -- it's still practical 'in theory'.

To use your example: You might claim the deserter is a shitty idealist because he deserted to end the war. "It would have been more practical to stay and fight, to try and shorten the war -- sparing more lives. Therefore, the deserter's ideals are impractical."

But so are *yours*. The deserter can neither end the war by deserting -- nor can he kill enough enemies to significantly shorten the war. Neither action has any *actual* practical value. Yes, the war might end up being short; however, that will happen *regardless* of the deserter's decision. His actions have no significant impact on the war's length.

Candidate A cannot win. Candidate B *might* win. Either way, my vote has no significant impact on A or B's chances -- so how is it more 'meaningful' or 'practical' for me to vote for B? Both are idealistic choices; neither carry any actual practical value.

A great many Bernie supporters have sworn that they will never vote for anyone ut. I believe them.

Half the registered voters never vote for anyone. Thousands of people who support Hillary Clinton every day when asked are not going to vote for her. Same with Bernie. Same with Bush.

Where is the outrage towards the solid half of registered voters who never vote? 2000 election, 50.3% voter turnout. Why the hell aren't voters for anyone at all constantly pissed at them? Why tear apart the actually politically involved?

If you're a Bernie supporter, all you have to do is have a higher voter turnout (65% would be a landslide) than the Hillary supporters. He would be unstoppable by simply nominating him. Assuming NO ONE who supports Hillary will vote for Bernie, a 90% Bernie supporter turnout would still beat the standard Republican civic mindedness.

People who never vote for anyone are the biggest problem, and also the reason all these arguments are moot, since if you want someone to be president, you can elect them effortlessly by simply not being the nominal level of lazy about voting. Not enough Bernie supporters exist to prevent Hillary from becoming president if Hillary supporters weren't also half lazy non-voters.

What a mess.