We worry about Putin gettin' the old gang back together for a Russia with USSR borders - but the opposite may be a bigger threat.

When the USSR ran out of money and ideas, it broke apart. Russia, which contains 200 unique peoples over 11 time zones, faces a similar risk. Yeltsin promised a federation, but Putin be snatching it away. Lots of regions would be glad to get out from under Moscow rule.

Then you got missiles and nukes all over the place.

pacino wrote:Appalachia is one of the most conservative parts of the country, regardless of party. Joe Manchin is a Democratic Senator from West Virginia.

What do you mean by Conservative? Serious question. My sense of Appalachia is that it is the last stand of the New Deal Dixiecrat... thoroughly populist economically, thoroughly conservative and, perhaps more pointedly, anti-progressive socially. They are the "lost" voters of the Democratic Party - the ones who could still buy Democratic economic programs - but are too easily riled up by anger at a changing society that they perceive as having left them behind, and having benefited minorities at the expense of working class whites. In other words, they are very much for GETTING Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and SNAP, but are very much convinced that while they use such programs "responsibly," the country is going down the toilet because blacks, Latinos, etc., are abusing said programs, taking more than their fair share, etc.

This is the demographic that Bernie, I believe, is targeting by trying to harp on the economic underpinnings of apparent racial inequality. It's why people like my Obama-hating, usually-Republican-voting, but inconsistency-ridden-ideology populist uncle appears to be genuinely considering voting for Sanders, and why people like him - white, working class - are drawn to Trump.

i think he's referring to my post about the clerk being a democrat

pacino wrote:Federal judge tells Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, to stop denying marriage licenses because she hates gay people. She'll be in contempt if she continues this path.

Fwiw, she's been divorced three times.

She refuses the Supreme Court's order.

The call for volunteers will be going out soon, no doubt. Who will be joining the First Pennsylvania in Civil War II?

Why isn't she just being fired? Are clerks elected or something? She is publicly refusing to do her job.

The Dude wrote:i think he's referring to my post about the clerk being a democrat

Yes, I know, but "conservative" seems a slippery term for a certain kind of Appalachian voter who was a Democrat through the 60s certainly, who voted for Carter and for Clinton twice (Clinton did well in Appalachia), who is undoubtedly a social conservative but whose economic interests might be more accurately described as "populist" to even "liberal," as long as said voter restricts his/her thinking to white people anyway.

JUburton wrote:Why isn't she just being fired? Are clerks elected or something? She is publicly refusing to do her job.

Elected.

mozartpc27 wrote:

JUburton wrote:Why isn't she just being fired? Are clerks elected or something? She is publicly refusing to do her job.

Elected.

Democracy is a funny game.

mozartpc27 wrote:

The Dude wrote:i think he's referring to my post about the clerk being a democrat

Yes, I know, but "conservative" seems a slippery term for a certain kind of Appalachian voter who was a Democrat through the 60s certainly, who voted for Carter and for Clinton twice (Clinton did well in Appalachia), who is undoubtedly a social conservative but whose economic interests might be more accurately described as "populist" to even "liberal," as long as said voter restricts his/her thinking to white people anyway.

i meant culturally. i should've clarified.

mozartpc27 wrote:

The Dude wrote:i think he's referring to my post about the clerk being a democrat

Yes, I know, but "conservative" seems a slippery term for a certain kind of Appalachian voter who was a Democrat through the 60s certainly, who voted for Carter and for Clinton twice (Clinton did well in Appalachia), who is undoubtedly a social conservative but whose economic interests might be more accurately described as "populist" to even "liberal," as long as said voter restricts his/her thinking to white people anyway.

Clinton was a long time ago, and they still send the majority of their politicians to Washington as Republicans.

JUburton wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

JUburton wrote:Why isn't she just being fired? Are clerks elected or something? She is publicly refusing to do her job.

Elected.

Democracy is a funny game.

we elect the Register of Wills, Clerk of Courts, Controller, Coroner, Recorder of Deeds, Prothonotary, none of which should really have a political value. It's a leftover from an old way of doing things, a time when there was a backlash to patronage jobs and the political machine in a particular area.

The Dude wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

The Dude wrote:i think he's referring to my post about the clerk being a democrat

Yes, I know, but "conservative" seems a slippery term for a certain kind of Appalachian voter who was a Democrat through the 60s certainly, who voted for Carter and for Clinton twice (Clinton did well in Appalachia), who is undoubtedly a social conservative but whose economic interests might be more accurately described as "populist" to even "liberal," as long as said voter restricts his/her thinking to white people anyway.

Clinton was a long time ago, and they still send the majority of their politicians to Washington as Republicans.

I do agree with this. Just because someone personally uses a program does not mean they think others should be able to use that program, or that program should exist in the current form. I deal with people everyday who, while receiving benefits, think too many people receive benefits and hold very conservative political views, if not also social. We are the tip of Appalachia. It only gets starker as you get to the heart of it.

liberal democrats don't get elected in those parts. Robert Byrd was an interesting case.

Fair enough, and I agree they are not "liberals." But the economic populism was clearly a driver of Appalachian politics from the Great Depression through the late 60s. I am even thinking of folks like my Pop-Pop, who was from Shenandoah, still technically part of Appalachia I think, though he lived most of his life in Philadelphia. A racist certainly, conservative socially about anything you'd care to name, and a committedDemocrat his whole life (died in 1992), to whom FDR was an enduring hero.

Caseycrats

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:Caseycrats

Yeah, there you go. Although aside from the abortion question, I'm not sure how "conservative" Casey was socially. But I think his abortive thought to run for the 1996 Democratic nomination was definitely about that subset of voters - but Bill Clinton, who won upper Appalachia resoundingly anyway (which is where I am really talking about when I talk about Appalachia, places where labor unions took hold, not so much in the deep-South areas of Appalachia like northern MI or AL), would not have been the guy to challenge in just such a case (Clinton won TN, KY, OH, WV, PA & GA in 92, and won them again except for GA in 96 - GA is I would argue more 'Southern' than 'Appalachian' anyway).

mozartpc27 wrote:Yes, I know, but "conservative" seems a slippery term for a certain kind of Appalachian voter who was a Democrat through the 60s certainly, who voted for Carter and for Clinton twice (Clinton did well in Appalachia), who is undoubtedly a social conservative but whose economic interests might be more accurately described as "populist" to even "liberal," as long as said voter restricts his/her thinking to white people anyway.

"reactionary"

CNN has decided to change the criteria for their debate so it is now likely that there will be 11 candidates instead of 10 in the 9/16 Reagan Library shindig. Fiorina has been well into the top 10 in the post FNC debate polls, but there have been so few of them/so many right before the last debate where she was doing badly that their average which stretches back to the middle of July had her in a distant 11th. They've added in the addendum that if you're top 10 in the average post debate 1, you are on the big stage. If Christie or Kasich do very poorly in whatever polls come out between now and Sept. 10th, they might drop out of the top 10 for the whole period, but seems more likely that there will be 11 on stage.

Lol

seems like a pretty rational reaction to 1. an unusual primary and 2. a very radical swing in recent polls.

Is Hillary specifically losing popularity among black voters or not, because that makes things a lot more interesting