We are heading towards an Idiocracy!

[Aerozord]

I just hope this whole thing has scared both parties into shaping up the systems they use. Because regardless with the DNC it made something quite apparent, what you registered democrats want doesn't really matter. As these young voters grow in number and power they will chip away at it more if not appeased.

Republicans have the opposite issue. He is conservative for sure but goes against the parties official platform. Showing their voter base is getting away from them as well. Republicans (as in those that follow the ideals of smaller government and greater state autonomy) might not survive. Sure the party "republican" will endure but looking like it will be so in name only. In fact I might even call it officially dead at this point. Trump made it clear neo-conservative is the actual party and they were just voting republican since it was the closest one to their beliefs.

[Gregness]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Actually, the files have proof of modification, so the idea that they're raw information is incorrect. What the extent of that modification is, who can say.

Yeah, gonna need a citation on that.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Actually, the files have proof of modification, so the idea that they're raw information is incorrect. What the extent of that modification is, who can say.

I think the recent actions taken with the resignations of DNC leadership has proven your assertion fundamentally incorrect, insofar as Democrats themselves are generally conceding the information in the leaks is accurate. If Russia and Wikileaks really were doctoring the e-mails, we'd have heard the DNC counter the veracity of certain statements by now. Instead, everyone's quibbling over how certain ambiguous statements in certain e-mails should be interpreted (IE, "That e-mail where I asked the media to question a candidate about religious affiliations wasn't directed at Bernie Sanders, but some other atheist!" Which is bullshit, it was totally directed at Bernie Sanders.)

The information in the leaks is also, however, overblown, insofar as there's no evidence that the DNC did anything truly malicious to Bernie that cost him the primary election. There's no 'smoking gun' in the form of e-mails where DNC officials brazenly admit in private communications that they're scheming to make Bernie lose. And I say this as someone who rooted for Bernie and who's dismayed at the bias against him -- but that's all that is, a bias, statements of preference and statements of annoyance with Bernie for refusing to concede and start 'unifying' the party when it was mathematically unlikely he'd win the nomination. If it was substantially more salacious, I doubt Bernie would have taken the conciliatory path during the conference.

So, yes: The DNC never liked Bernie, most of their supposedly unbiased officials were rooting for the establishment candidate (which is true, whether it's conceded or not, of both the DNC and the RNC in every election -- they're predominantly DC insiders), and in the most troubling e-mails, a few DNC officials were plotting for the media to ask Bernie questions he'd likely offer unpopular answers to, or just generally expressing a private distaste for him and his supporters. This is unfortunate! I'd prefer the DNC not act in such a manner.

I also highly doubt -- and remember I've supported Bernie and expressed a distaste for Hillary -- that it cost Bernie the primaries. What cost Bernie the primaries was his inability to appeal to minorities and older Democrats. He needed a broader coalition than young, white millennials to carry him over the finish line and he subsequently lost by millions of votes. As the RNC proved to us with their bumbling over Drumpf, the DNC and the RNC are both insufficiently powerful as organizations to decide millions of people's voting preferences. Voters participating in caucuses and primaries decided the election, and lots of millennials simply didn't vote, even after major Bernie stories occurred (like him miraculously defying the polls in Michigan.)

If you're viewing a typical amount of DNC insider bullshittery to dissuade you from doing your part to stop Donald Drumpf, shame on you.

[rpgdemon]

Let me clarify my position further:

Given the recent resignation, I'm certain most of the information is accurate, or at least grounded in reality. It's not that the information is likely to be an outright lie, so much as omitting anything that would make the DNC look like they actually did anything right. If there was a contingent within the DNC, for example, pulling for Bernie to be supported equally, they won't be shown at all. These leaks are specifically trying to portray the DNC terribly - as a machine designed to keep their own power at any cost, against the will of the people. Any good, progressive, ideals that they might have will be purged from the records, so that people lose all faith in the Democratic party, and splinter off into third parties, or just become so apathetic that they don't turn out to vote at all.

Sure - If this happens, it's not like the left would be gone forever. In fact, a further left party would likely form, because of how this schism is being made. However, it would be enough to shatter the voterbase for this election, and if Trump wins this election, will it matter how well the left galvanizes next election? The damage will be done for an entire generation - At least one Supreme Court seat will be filled by him, and given the age of everyone on the court, it would be incredibly unsurprising to see the next president fill another two. That determines the course of the country for an entire generation, and that's a huge deal.

Citation about the modified files.

The metadata in the leaked documents are perhaps most revealing: one dumped document was modified using Russian language settings, by a user named “Феликс Эдмундович,” a code name referring to the founder of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka, memorialised in a 15-ton iron statue in front of the old KGB headquarters during Soviet times. The original intruders made other errors: one leaked document included hyperlink error messages in Cyrillic, the result of editing the file on a computer with Russian language settings.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all...d-the-dnc-hack

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

What cost Bernie the primaries was his inability to appeal to minorities and older Democrats. He needed a broader coalition than young, white millennials to carry him over the finish line and he subsequently lost by millions of votes.

I would argue that what cost Bernie the primary was the way the media reported on him. He got almost no press in traditional media as a viable candidate for ages--something that the DNC definitely colluded on, and we know this even without the e-mails (things like scheduling debates for times when no one watches debates or that conflict with other things).

For instance, reporting the super delegates as if they were normal delegates throughout the race made Bernie appear to be far further behind than he was. He was within a stone's throw of Hillary for quite awhile, but the average voter believed that he was already outpaced by nearly double the votes after Super Tuesday because of how Super Delegates were reported.

I.E. they weren't mentioned as being able to swap their votes, and were shown as definitely voting for Hillary.

And then you have e-mails showing that a politico writer was sending full drafts to the DNC before his editors and you start to see strong collusion between Sanders and the media in the way they reported the primaries.

This combined with e-mails talking about using his Jewish heritage against him in the south (which many southern voters think is part of why he did so poorly amongst minorities there--he didn't do so poorly with minorities once it got out of the southern baptist regions).

Did this cause Sanders to lose? Honestly, it's hard to tell. A race that was reported more honestly near the start (as rather close) may very well have lead to momentum in later states and stronger turn out amongst Bernie's supporters who--as you said, didn't go out and vote in many of the primaries.

Because why would you when he already lost one week in according to the media?

But mostly I wanted to reply to this:

millions of votes.

Because it's KIIIIND of bullshit.

Yes, it's technically true, but Bernie won most of the Caucus states which averaged about 11% turn out compared to just under 40% (39 point something) in primary states.

What this means is that you'd have to more than triple the vote counts in Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Wyoming, and North Dakota.

Of those, Bernie won in Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Wyoming, and North Dakota.

So basically, while Hillary may have still won by a lot of votes--it almost certainly wasn't four million.

Washington state, for instance, actually had pretty good turn out for a caucus (about 24%).

Meaning about 1,730,000 people voted. Out of 7.2 million in the state. Of that, 71% was Bernie, so 1,230,000 (rounding to nearest ten thousand). While Hillary would have gotten the remaining 500,000.

So Bernie got 730 thousand more votes than Hillary there.

However, if it had been a primary state you'd have seen a turn out of closer to 40%, meaning we need to multiply all that by 1.6.

Which nets Bernie, just in Washington, assuming it'd have an average turnout via primaries rather than a turn out that is concurrent with the average larger turn out in primaries (I.E. about 4x larger), 1,120,000 more votes than Hillary, reducing her 'four million' vote lead by ~390,000, to 3.61million more votes.

Were we to assume Washington's turnout would be correspondingly higher than average in a primary as it was in the caucus, it'd be 2,920,000 more votes. Cutting Hillary's 4 million vote lead down by more than half.

The primary season was achingly close until the last few states, but it was never reported that way and that likely contributed to it ending the way it did.

As did other things like Bernie himself not believing he had a chance at first and not gearing up to run a proper campaign ahead of time and making deals with the media of his own (as presidential nominees tend to do). Or the fact that he made no attempts to actually attack Hillary until late in the race after she had already done so to him (and he was still much nicer about it than she and her PUMAs were to Obama).

Also: For the record I'm mostly glad that I live in one of the two states that has gone blue since 1976. (In 1972, literally, the entire country voted republican, excluding that you have to go to 1952 to find a time Minnesota went red).

Which means I don't have to worry about voting for a lesser of two evils or whatever. Hillary will carry my state no matter what. Barring an act of God.

Florida man's vote matters infinitely more than mine.

[rpgdemon]

Barring an act of God.

Or extreme apathy, and voter attrition to third parties. Like we're seeing.

You're not taking a moral high ground by refusing to act - You're saying that you do not care about the results.

When you go into a voting booth, you're not showering praise on the candidate that you're voting for - All you are doing is ticking off a checkbox. You have a choice of checkboxes to tick, and you choose one that you think has the highest priority to lead the country down the best outcome, out of all the checkboxes. You aren't making a moral judgement on the character of the person whose name is next to that checkbox - You're just saying that odd are, if you check off THIS specific checkbox, it leads to a better timeline than if you checked off any other of the checkboxes available.

Under that point of view - It is immoral and illogical not to vote. Unless you genuinely believe that it doesn't matter which checkbox you tick off. And you said that you don't because of Minnesota's history! Okay.

*

Oh, by the way, it's a close race in Minnesota with both of them within 5 points of eachother - And Trump is leading in at least one of the polls. Plus, Trump galvanizes people - People find it "immoral" to go out and vote for Hillary.

You need to vote.

*Yes, this is about a year old now. But, I don't think that the DNC leak ups Hillary's advantage at all, and I couldn't find any newer poll results for Minnesota specifically.

---------- Post added at 05:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 PM ----------

Also - Bear in mind that many people in the Brexit vote didn't vote Leave because they wanted to leave, but because they wanted to send a message, and thought a good chunk of people voting Leave would send that message (I don't know what the message was - That they were ignorant racists?)

People expecting a vote to turn out one way act stupidly and illogically. Maybe Minnesota voters will decide to vote Trump, or Stein, or Johnson, or not vote at all, just so the DNC sees how close it was and doesn't feel entitled to their vote.

But we all know how that one turns out.

[Solid Snake]

If Minnesota of all states goes to Trump this election, Hillary Clinton would be facing a blowout of such staggering proportions nationwide that Minnesota's electoral votes wouldn't alter the outcome anyway.

From that perspective, I'm okay with Krylo doin' whatever he wants. (As if he'd even need my 'permission.')
(But I would feel entirely differently if he lived near me in Colorado, or in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, etc.)

[Overcast]

Everyone has the right to vote or not vote. Aggrieving them and accusing them doesn't make them feel better and probably isn't going to convince them to vote, in part this is an issue with the Hillary congregation's attempts at grabbing Bernie voters in general, they aren't allowing them to begrudgingly support Hillary despite her mountain of flaws. They want to display party unity and force them to take up the I'm With Hillary business. Come as you are is not a very tempting slogan sure, but it would be the best course of action considering how hard fought these voters were to begin with.

[pochercoaster]

Although I would vote if I could, it is important to remember that voting is not the only way to better your country. You can do things in between 4 year increments. Also, here is an alternate perspective: http://thenewinquiry.com/features/de...en-princess-8/

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

But I would feel entirely differently if he lived near me in Colorado

If I lived near you in Colorado I wouldn't be posting here because I'd be too busy having the best goddamn pizza of my life.