I accept your clarification. The rest is tangential.
2020 Election Thread!!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter GoodEnoughForMe
- Start date
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2011
- Messages
- 6,181
Booker needled himself some space into Session's hearings today. It seems like every senator on the hill is aware that Booker wants to run for president 4 years from now. Its up to him to build that base now to do so, but I think moves like this (assuming he can pull it off) will put him in the limelight to make him the serious contender for the party
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Atheism is an outright religion, though the adherents deny it. It looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, so I call it a duck. Agnostics are more amorphous. Generally, they take the stand that they have never witnessed God and neither has the person they are talking to. Apathetics are too involved with themselves to deal with a higher power.
J
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Lexicus
Deity
Kind of like saying that no toppings on a pizza is a topping
It kind of is.
Whether Atheism is a "religion" is basically irrelevant (to this discussion), what is relevant is that no one who openly claims to be Atheist could be elected President. Frankly I am skeptical that Gabbard can win as a known Hindu. Romney failed as a Mormon (despite the fact that Mormonism is technically Christian), Sanders couldn't even get nominated as a Jew. Claiming Christianity as your religion isn't a Constitutional requirement, but it seems to still be one in practice.
I was thinking of this last night watching Obama's farewell address. Do Hindus say "God bless America"? I honestly don't know but it seems unlikely, because of the (hard) polytheism (as opposed to the "soft" polytheism of Catholicism). How will it play out when they ask her to say "God Bless America"?
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Lexicus
Deity
Well, that's weird, because they sure don't charge me for no toppings like it's a topping.
And atheism is a religion that doesn't require commitment or effort. Seeing any parallels here?
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
Nope.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
For me personally, as an Evangelical from the Bible Belt and a registered Republican, I might very well vote for Tulsi Gabbard. I'm sick of politicians suddenly claiming to be Christian while their lives show no evidence of it. I never believed Obama was a Muslim, but I also doubt that his claim to Christianity was anything more than an attempt to gain votes. Trump was the worst when it came to religious pandering, though.
I don't speak for everyone, but I really don't care if we have a Hindu President. I don't care if she wants to be sworn in with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita. She's one of the few national politicians in either party that I actually have some respect for. I think a lot of people are with me on this.
As far as whether or not a Hindu can be elected in America. I think that you could follow any major religion besides Islam and be elected President. Regular churchgoers aren't going to be the ones angry about a non-Christian President. The people who are going to be angry are the the hardcore cultural Christians who go to church occasionally but rant about the "War on Christmas" while being completely ignorant anti-Christian persecution around the world.
I don't speak for everyone, but I really don't care if we have a Hindu President. I don't care if she wants to be sworn in with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita. She's one of the few national politicians in either party that I actually have some respect for. I think a lot of people are with me on this.
As far as whether or not a Hindu can be elected in America. I think that you could follow any major religion besides Islam and be elected President. Regular churchgoers aren't going to be the ones angry about a non-Christian President. The people who are going to be angry are the the hardcore cultural Christians who go to church occasionally but rant about the "War on Christmas" while being completely ignorant anti-Christian persecution around the world.
Again, I'm sure most people would say something similar... "You can be any religion and get elected POTUS"... but its nothing but unsubstantiated speculation. The actual, demonstrable, measurable, fact, is that no non-Christian has ever been elected POTUS, period.
To me though, this is dancing on the line of saying that the Trump voters were fooled by Trump, ie they were too stupid to realize that "truthiness" is not actual honesty. I tend to lean towards the idea that Trump voters had their eyes open.
I also beg to differ with you that people find women to be more trustworthy. I think this is just false. Men complain, write songs, poetry, etc., about the duplicitous nature of women... Heck, the holy tome of our country's majority religion is partially dedicated to the idea of warning everyone that "women are not to be trusted... beware! beware!" Generally speaking, men don't trust women at all, especially not in positions of power and authority. And frankly, women are even more suspicious of other women than men are.
In short, we've got no proof that a woman can be elected POTUS. Sure everyone can claim they think a woman can win, but that is unsubstantiated speculation. There is no precedent for it. There is proof that a man can win, there is no proof a woman can win. The only example we have of a woman getting nominated has her losing in spectacular fashion, getting creamed in the electoral college when everyone expected her to win. The simplest, explanation is "shy-I'm-not-feeling-a-woman-as-POTUS-voters"... When I think about it... why is the concept of the tons of "shy Trump voters" out there so easy for folks to embrace, but the idea that there are "shy no-woman voters" is just beyond belief? Why is so easy to believe that people would vote for Hillary "just because (or in significant part because) she's female" but just mind blowingly impossible to accept that people would vote against her "just because (or in significant part because) she's female"? Help me out here.
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onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Your premise is, "we've got no evidence that a woman can be elected POTUS." Then, you prove your premise to be false by citing evidence. Tsk.
What you are claiming is that the evidence is inconclusive, not that there is no evidence.
J
Fair enough, I should have said "proof", post edited. It's a very small sample size, so I will give you inconclusive.
I will add that you are still technically incorrect about my premise. The premises are more like "a woman has never been elected POTUS", and "the only way to prove that a woman can be elected POTUS is by electing a woman POTUS" and the conclusion is "Therefore, there is no proof that a woman can be elected POTUS."
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
That is true. However, before 1960 none of our Presidents had been Catholic and before 2008 none of them had been black. While I am just going on speculation. But I'd be surprised if I was wrong. Let's assume that we're talking about Tulsi Gabbard:
I really can't imagine that there would be a significant number of Democrats who wouldn't vote for a non-Christian. Most Republicans are going to vote for the Republican candidate regardless so let's ignore them for now. Most people who would be opposed to a non-Christian candidate are Republicans/Republican-leaning people who would only ever vote Democrat in local elections if at all.
As far as the different non-Christian religions go, this is what I'd guess:
Judaism: Most respected besides Christianity. Judaism is not considered a "foreigner" religion as Jews have been here for a long time. Large majorities in both parties would support a Jewish candidate. Even some racists think poorly of anti-Semites. Bernie Sanders would have beat Donald Trump.
No religion: It would raise some eyebrows. This would hurt a candidate in the South and Midwest. However, a candidate that is charismatic enough or facing a terrible opponent could win.
No religion, openly atheist: This one would be more difficult. America might not be ready in 2020 but probably by 2040.
Other major religions (besides Islam): This could be tricky. Hinduism and Buddhism are seen as "foreigner" religions so it would be significantly harder to be a Hindu President than a Jewish President. However, if Donald Trump proves to be an unpopular president, Tulsi Gabbard could easily unseat him.
Islam: Virtually impossible in current political/cultural climate. A Muslim might be able to win the Democratic nomination (I'm not even sure of that), but not the general election. This is because many Americans associate Islam with terrorism.
But, then again, I could be totally wrong.
While not a religion, it does have religious elements (dogma; what the term has come to mean anyway, for no one can know if there is no deity).
A bit like freudianism was similar to a religious dogma, presenting the rather dogmatic premise that all (ALL) mental phenomena can be attributed to sexuality.
Protagoras the sophist--paraphrasing from memory- said:
That said, usually people saying they are atheist tend to mean they don't believe in the god(s) of some specific religions. Godless would be a more telling term, in english. Theos is just the greek term for god.
No non-Christian has seriously attempted to be elected POTUS until very recently, so it's hard to say for sure what the impact is. There's no evidence that Romney's Mormonism hurt him in any way at all: he won the white evangelical vote 78-21, better than McCain's 74-24. Trump is also not even remotely religious, and his claiming to be a Christian fooled no one, although his choice of running mate and the other bones he's thrown to the religious wing probably helped negate that. On the other hand, Sanders' atheism and secular Judaism probably did hurt him among older black voters, especially in the South, although it didn't seem to hurt him among working-class whites. That might be a big stumbling block for Gabbard too.
I suspect that Cory Booker is in the best position to win the primary in 2020. I can live with that: he certainly has the charisma that Clinton lacks, and he seems pretty indistinguishable from Obama in most respects - which is fine, since Obama's record and approval rating are quite solid, unlike anything else about the Democratic party. I'd prefer more of a course change than just electing an Obama clone, but that's still certainly better than Hillary in terms of electability.
That's probably true, actually. I was mostly just extrapolating off my personal experience of finding female politicians trustworthy but Clinton very much not. For most people, it probably does worth the other way. Point conceded. Still, I think there are a large number of women who do come across as trustworthy.
She probably lost some votes because of it, with the caveat that the vast majority of people who did that really are telling the truth that there are at least some women they would vote for. But it's pretty likely that people weighed that in as a secondary negative factor, and it may have been a net negative: she may have lost more votes than she gained for being a woman.
There have been a significant number of women Senators and governors now, including Republicans, and their poll results and approval ratings are fine. Of course they are still grossly underrepresented, at just over 20% of Congress. It just appears that the filters are applied before the general election.
I disagree that we have no proof a woman can be elected president. Specifically, a woman not only won the popular vote but came within 0.8% in three swing states of winning the election. She led the polls against Trump by a margin that varied cyclically, and the election just happened to be held at a time when Trump was doing relatively well. Had the election been held two weeks earlier, she would certainly have won. As it was, the margins were so thin that stupid things like Comey and the Podesta emails were fairly likely to have tipped it. Extremely close margins do count as evidence that the election could have gone the other way.
But how do you really know that? Some politicians fake it because they realize that the country isn't ready to accept a leader who doesn't believe in the supernatural. That's true here in Canada as well, btw. While there are quite a few openly gay/lesbian politicians here now, I know of no openly atheist politicians. That doesn't mean there aren't some who have kept quiet so far.
And that's your "evidence" - because of men complaining and writing songs? Newsflash: women complain about men, write songs about how untruthful and untrustworthy men are, they write poetry... and sometimes they're not even adult women. Marie Osmond was only 14 when she recorded "Paper Roses".
Funny... other countries manage it. Canada had our first female Prime Minister over 23 years ago. The Conservative Party of Canada is having a leadership race right now, and several candidates are women. That said, the only highly-placed female member of that party that people might generally consider as a real contender for Prime Minister is one who isn't running... because she's the interim leader and the rules forbid her to run for the official leadership. I think if Rona Ambrose were able to run for leader, she'd win in a cakewalk, and right-wing voters wouldn't have a problem with her if she were to become Prime Minister.*
*Note that I'm saying what it's logical to assume the Conservatives would think and do. Personally I can't stand her.
Fine, here it goes:
Dear U.S.A.:
Grow up.
Signed,
Canada
