Manchin just said the divide started when Dems passed ACA w/ "ONLY" 60 votes

[JCanete]

69. I don't get the Stein vote. I get abstaining though. I personally DID NOT. But there are legitimate

arguments for blaming even the existence of a Trump candidacy on our broken political system, which is very much the establishment's fault. Dems, since they are the ones who are actually supposed to be fighting for the people and not for the rich oligarchs, have continued to let this broken system fester by not calling it out...by ignoring or giving feint protest to some of the very biggest issues.

The whole thing is quite rigged against Dems and liberals in particular, but you can't play in that rigged system by those rigged rules and expect to change anything. Somebody has to be bringing the real issues to the people so that there is a groundswell of pressure to make fixes.

That all said, I was hopeful of a Clinton Presidency, but ONLY because she and the DNC, under that pressure, tacked left to accommodate messaging that the political discourse has been ridiculously bereft of for far far too long. I chose to be less cynical given that. I can understand others remaining cynical and thinking that a Trump catastrophe now rather than a worse Trump later, would be a good wake-up call for Americans while we can still wake up. That is by the way, the actual rationale. Most people don't actually think there's no difference between Trump and Clinton...they think Clinton was too cozy with the powers-that-be who like things the way they are for obvious reasons. They think Trump is an artless buffoon who is dangerous, but only due to his incompetence and willingness to sign on to any piece of shit legislation the GOP offers up.

That he can't do any of that effectively though, is a point in these voter's favor. They may be wrong, and Trump may ultimately destroy us...he is certainly making lives harder quickly...and his incompetence could actually undermine our stability and safety at a breakneck pace.

...but they may be right, and his Presidency might make our party take more note of populist dissatisfaction, and Americans of all stripes take note of just how dangerous Trump and the GOP are. Nobody is happy with what they are proposing, and more and more people are actually paying attention to it.

Anyway, I'm sure you disagree with my assessment and that's fine. That's me voicing understanding for people like Sarandon in this case, not necessarily agreeing with her. There was a point though, where I admit I was uncertain myself about whether or not I was going to cast my vote for President. At the time though, I just didn't want to contribute to a Clinton platform mandate(since her platform was fairly unimpressive to me), but I was certainly not interested in helping Trump get into the White House, and was more certain than anything I've ever been certain of that he had no chance in hell. In retrospect, I was very wrong about that.