The politics in the future of the millennials could be quite different from what it is today.
I grew up as liberal as one could possibly imagine. Haight Ashbury, Golden Gate Park and Telegraph avenue were where my politics were rooted oh so many years ago. My politics today are hardly those of a "flower child"
Many of these "progressive" millennials are going to have a run in with reality over the next few decades, whether they choose to remain "progressive" remains to be seen.
Millennials will be 75% of the population by 2020. Hmm, wll they go with Hillary or Rand 2016?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/travis-irvine/millennial-progressives-and-libertarians_b_4520203.html
The politics in the future of the millennials could be quite different from what it is today.
I grew up as liberal as one could possibly imagine. Haight Ashbury, Golden Gate Park and Telegraph avenue were where my politics were rooted oh so many years ago. My politics today are hardly those of a "flower child"
Many of these "progressive" millennials are going to have a run in with reality over the next few decades, whether they choose to remain "progressive" remains to be seen.
Millennial that has grown up with constant war is over, my friend. We are moving in the direction of neoliberalism. Enjoy your small business while you can, your children will never have the luxury and freedom of working for self. Fascism our economic destiny, sorry. Let's loosen the laws and have some fun, aye?
-- Modified on 8/18/2014 5:44:40 PM
That is right. Look at legalization Marijuana, same sex marriages. neocons will have to stick to their, as President once said "their religion and guns". The ballot boxes are taken.
.... and they will see to it that all the bigots who want to legislate based on their "religious beliefs" are packed and sent home for good. I mingle with young and millennial Cubans in Miami and they are all dead beat Democrats. Add the millennials in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Orange counties and they are all dead beat Democrats. These are people who won Florida for President Obama.
.... 99% of African American votes and 99% of Hispanic votes and 99% of single women votes will go to Hillary Clinton. What is left are old and angry Whites who cannot get away from FOX News.
Just gotta keep em in line.
Can't let any Oreos screw things up.
.... 99% of African American votes and 99% of Hispanic votes and 99% of single women votes will go to Hillary Clinton. What is left are old and angry Whites who cannot get away from FOX News.
Like them or Love them or Hate them. They are all US citizens with a right to vote. They are looking in to the future and don't want to be taken back to the stone age by the religious bigots a.k.a Republicans.
Can't believe some Republican religious bigot telling my wife how to live her life!
we know how concerned you are for your wife.
Rand is quite an interesting figure on the political stage. He deserves a lot of credit for seeking support from voting blocs which the rest of the GOP has long since written off (blacks, Silicon Valley, etc).
He's clearly gearing up for a run for Pres in '16. It will be very interesting to see how things play out. For sure, the "old guard" of the GOP does not want him to be the nominee. They'd rather go down to defeat with Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, than risk winning with Rand and having "Paul-ism" become the new ethos of the Republican Party.
There have been many battles in various state GOP organizations between pro- and anti-Paul forces. If Rand can keep raising money from outside traditional GOP pockets, he very likely will be the nominee in '16..because:
Many states have "open primary" rules. You walk into the polling place on the day of the primary, and you decide whether you'd like to take a Democrat or Republican ballot (personally, I think this system is nuts, but it is what exists in most states). If these newly-minted "millennial libertarians" are actually energized enough to get off their asses and head down to the polling place, they're not going to get hung up on party labels. All they'll want to know is "which ballot do I need in order to vote for Rand Paul?"
All Rand has to do is survive past Iowa and into the open primary states, and he very likely will take the nomination, with a whole bunch of non-traditional voters who are not normally thought of as Republicans.
Can he win against Elizabeth Warren? (Yeah, my wild-ass guess is that she's the Dem nominee in '16--I don't think Hillary is gonna make it)
Rand Paul vs Elizabeth Warren. Isn't that a matchup that you'd love to see? It would be a whole new ballgame..
No matter who is the nominee of the 15th century Republicans, he (never a she in GOP) will NEVER win the big states necessary to get to the White House (NY, PA, CA, WA, OH, FL, MA, NJ, WI, MI, OR, NV, CO, VA, VT, NH, ME, RI, MD)
Hillary all the way to the White House again BUT this time to the Oval Office.
-- Modified on 8/19/2014 7:13:52 AM
Really? You managed to pack a lot of spurious thinking into just a few lines in your post.
"The 15th Century Republicans"? Why don't we carefully examine the platform of the Republican Party of the 15th Century, and see how it matches that of today. Oh wait, I'm sorry...There was no Republican Party in the 15th Century. It was founded in the middle of the 19th Century, on a platform of abolition of slavery (as compared with its predecessor party, the Whigs, which was "pro-choice" on the slavery issue). OTOH, it seems that the Democrats are the ones who have consistently told the "underclass" that they lack the skills or the smarts to make their own way in the world, and can only "make it" if they vote for the Dems. This message is precisely what turns me off to the Dems, and I've seen no change in that basic message of theirs in my lifetime--if anything it's become more strident, and more overtly stated now than ever before.
The GOP would probably nominate a woman without much squawking. The precedent of "parties of the right" (whatever that means) supporting candidates for the highest of political offices has been set in the Anglospheric world many times, with Lady Thatcher being the most prominent example.
As for "big states": RI and NH are not big states electoral college-wise. Further, you (intentionally or not) made no reference to my point that Rand is making a purposeful commitment to talking to not-traditionally-associated-with-the-GOP constituencies, in the hopes of making inroads with those voting blocs.
Look at Rand getting a standing ovation in Berkeley (Berkeley of all places!) recently and otherwise getting a strong reception from the Silicon Valley crowd because of his unwavering commitment to protecting privacy rights (a huge concern of the "liberals" and "progressives" who are right there on the cutting edge of the tech revolution, and are all too aware of how that technology is being used for repressive ends by the current and former Administrations).
And remember also that WA has a strong tech presence as well, courtesy of Microsoft. Any GOP candidate who can make those two states be competitive (never mind winning them outright--that may be too much to anticipate) in '16 may have won the election right there.
Besides, OH and WI both have Republican Governors now, and both get high marks in their own states, even if neither has a huge national following. CO is an obvious place for a libertarian candidate to drum up support, with it's recent vote to legalize marijuana. Many of these "big states" of yours are far from solidly Democratic as far as I can see.
More generally speaking: The 2000 and 2004 elections were both remarkably close. 2008 was a different story, of course, as was 2012. But these kinds of "trends" don't necessarily last all that long in politics. After 1980, we were supposedly on a track of the GOP forever holding the White House. Then along came Perot in '92, which shook the box up sufficiently that people were willing to look at alternatives, and gave us Bill Clinton. These "forever" trends have not lasted more than two or three presidential terms in the post-WWII era. There's nothing that convinces me that the Dems now have a permanent lock on the White House.
And I still think that Hillary will not be the Dem nominee in '16--that would be as suicidal as the Republicans nominating Jeb Bush.
Wow. Imagine that as your choice in '16; you could have a Bush or a Clinton as President. Now there's change I can believe in....
yes, Elizebeth Warren and Rand Paul would be great match-up. Love them both!
Both are very important, but I believe Rand Paul is more important now with restoring our civil rights, privacy, freedom and liberty. Elizebeth Warren will be needed in the future, at the time when the banks will want a bailout again.
And you are correct, Hillary is not a Libertarian but she is a progressive, neo-liberal like her husband and Al Gore.
-- Modified on 8/19/2014 5:46:44 AM
and while his good ideas are very good, his bad ideas are just so "kooky" I could never take him seriously as a candidate for POTUS.
Rand Paul OTOH, "Might" just be that new kind of politician we have all been waiting for. Personally I have been waiting for a "Pragmatic Libertarian" my entire life. I don't want to dismantle the entire system that has been 250 years in the making, but there are some things seriously broken, and it would be nice to actually vote "for" somebody, instead of holding my nose and voting for whoever I think will do the least damage.
Is Rand Paul that guy? I don't know yet, but I am interested in listening to what he has to say over the next year or two.
Personally I would rather have the Hildabeast rather than Elizabeth Warren. Say what you want about Hillary, and I have said plenty, but at least she could go toe to toe with the likes of Putin, she is a "bitch with balls" unlike the current occupant of the White House, or Elizabeth Warren, who I believe would command even less respect on the world stage than does our current POTUS
I think the cat is out of the bag and "he who promises the most" gets the votes.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy”.[12]
"Free" health care, living wages, retirement income, 40 hour work week, amnesty for illegals.
Utopia is at hand.
That is the type of candidate I would and could support, but I have no idea yet if that describes Rand Paul in the slightest, I know it certainly did not describe Ron Paul. He was, and still is a kook IMO.
I totally get the concept of small % of something is usually better than a large % of nothing but seems to me we have too many go along to get along types. Or should I say, "say whatever I need to to keep my position of power".