Fair enough. Give me a little bit of time and I will find a whole host of things.

Well you just proved my earlier point. I'll still go super in depth because I feel like it will be needed.

To my earlier point you challenged me on what the left has done to lose the trust of the country... You just said they have been involved in a lot of scandals. That alone should be enough to lose the trust of the country. The only reason it hasn't is because the right has been involved in just as many scandals. Your second point about them "haven't simultaneously waged a war on law enforcement, the free press, etc. in an attempt to convince the country that their misdeeds aren't, in fact, misdeeds but rather the world's in conspiracy against them." just isn't true.

Why isn't that true? Honestly I don't even know where to began and this will take awhile. Lets just start with this past election. My goal here is to convince you that both the political parties are corrupt and we need a third. You disagree and think only the right needs to change. So let's just take this issue by issue based on this past election.

For Hilary. Here is a link to her platform that she ran on from her website. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues /

Ok First she has.....

A fair tax system
Making sure the wealthy, Wall Street, and corporations pay their fair share in taxes.

Alright this is painful for me to hear from her. She talks about making sure the wealthy and wall street pay their fair share in taxes. Yet isn't this the same lady who gets paid half a million per speech from wall street bankers.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/20/news/economy/hillary-clin...

Here is the link. Look she never released the transcripts from these speeches and even if she did can't you see the problem here. They're giving her money so she can get into office. Once she is in office don't you think there is a high chance that she will think "hey they scratched my back so I'll scratch theirs."
Not to mention that we don't need more tax revenue. We have a spending problem. We need to cut the size of our fed. People already pay to much in taxs. Let capitalism prevail. Also wasn't she one of the people pushing for a bailout back in 08

SMH.... Corrupt

Next we have

Addiction and substance use
Through improved treatment, prevention, and training, we can end this quiet epidemic once and for all.

This on gets me even more pissed off. This lady has been in offices for how long? Yet the war on drugs is still going on. She could've stopped this issue a long time ago. We have spent years trying to stop drugs from coming into this country and what has happened?? It has made things worse. Just like with alcohol if you make it illegal you create a black market for these substances which increase crime as well as make it more difficult for the people with these issues to get help. Not to mention by making it illegal you see police officers discriminating against minorities and create a whole job market off our prison system which we have to pay for in taxes.

SMH....... Corrupt

Next we have

An economy that works for everyone
We need to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.

Can't argue with this but notice how she doesn't say how to do this... Hey maybe cutting taxes and making drugs legal would help

An end to Alzheimer’s disease
We can prevent, effectively treat, and make an Alzheimer’s cure possible by 2025.

Cool but again she's not a scientist and outside of taxes us more I don't see how she gets this done. This should be done by private companies. Which unfortunately if you look at the pharma industry pumping opioids into our streets is also corrupt. Something she never dealt with in her long time in government.

Autism
Millions of Americans live with autism—and we’ve got to do more to support them and their families.

This is cool

Campaign finance reform
Our democracy should work for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected.

Yes but my god who is less guilty of this than her.

Campus sexual assault
It’s not enough to condemn campus sexual assault. We need to end it.

I agree with this but I will say I don't like the way the left has viewed men in recent history. Google Jordan Peterson and he will let you know the truth about what theyre doing.

Climate change
Taking on the threat of climate change and making America the world’s clean energy superpower.

This is cool.

Combating terrorism and keeping the homeland safe
It’s not enough to contain ISIS and the threat of terrorism—we have to defeat it.

She created ISIS when she was in office with Obama. Terrible foreign policy.

Also didn't she vote for the Iraq war?? The most important vote of her career and she screws it up.... Yet this is the best choice the left can muster. How was she not destroyed in her debates on this? Maybe because the DNC wanted her to win?? Shout out to Bernie

Criminal justice reform
Our criminal justice system is out of balance.

Yes but it's because of drug criminalization which you have kept in place.

Disability rights
We must continue to expand opportunities for Americans with disabilities.

this is cool

Early childhood education
Every child deserves the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential.

This is cool

Fixing America’s infrastructure
Strong infrastructure is critical to a strong economy.

This is cool

Gun violence prevention
We can—and must—end the epidemic of gun violence.

This isn't cool. She consistently attacks the second amendment which isn't the problem. We need to fix mental health. She has done nothing to do this.

Health care
Universal, quality, affordable health care for everyone in America

Don't know enough about it but it seems as if this is another issue where neither side will listen to eachother.

HIV and AIDS
We have reached a critical moment in our fight against HIV and AIDS.

This is a pretty random health choice to pick. much has been done to fight this... Why not talk about opioids. Maybe because she is corrupt

Housing
We need housing policies that connect working families to opportunity.

Yes but how will you get this done

Immigration reform
We need comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship.

How

Jobs and wages
We can make the boldest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II.

how

K-12 education
Strong public education is the key to preparing our children for the future.

how. and she has been in office again for 20 + years and our schools don't seem any better

Labor and workers’ rights
When unions are strong, America is strong.

meh

LGBT rights and equality
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans deserve to live their lives free from discrimination.

This is cool

Making college debt-free and taking on student debt
Hillary will make debt-free college available to everyone and take on student loan debt.

Who will pay for this

Manufacturing
Hillary Clinton’s plan to strengthen manufacturing so we always “Make it in America.”

She stole this from trump and barely campaigned in the Midwest. Which has been hurt bad in the manufacturing decline. Many people here blame nafta which her husband voted for. She has no credibility on this subject.

Mental health
We have to address the mental health crisis in America and end the stigma and shame associated with treatment.

Yes

Military and defense
We should maintain the best-trained, best-equipped, and strongest military the world has ever known.

yes but we spend way to much on it. We have to cut spending here. Also making drugs legal would help vets with ptsd which again she didn't campaign on and never worked on fixing during her political career. Even though anyone who is making their decisions on facts and not corruption would have never supported drugs being illegal.

National security
With policies that keep us strong and safe, America will lead the world in the 21st century.

created isis with Obama

Ok I'm exhausted. The rest are more just quotes than issues, but you're up. What do you think? I'll hit on trump and the rights problems tomorrow but if you see all these problems with Hillary and still rig her into getting the party nomination then how could I possible support you and you're party. You're on a team. You don't care about the problems with your candidate you just care about the problems with the other teams candidate.

Feel free to question any of my points.

Ok yes so I don’t get why you disagreed with my original post. I roughly said both the left and right are both corrupt and we need a 3rd party. Do you not think that if both parties are corrupt then we need a new one?

lets focus on this. You agree that the left and the right is corrupt. Even if there is a difference between how they’re corrupt, they’re both still corrupt. Wouldnt corruption be good grounds for a new party?

As far as his constant lies that doesn’t really bother me. Haven’t both sides been lying for years. I kinda agree with him on fake news too. All of the major networks are terrible. You should stop watching them and go to YouTube instead. They put two people on a panel to discuss an issue that neither have an expertise in and then they put up straw men of eachother arguments. There are places where the news still reports the facts but two often it is twisted into using a single correct fact on a multi level issue, that is then turned into a opinion on the issue, without addressing the other components of it. CNN is waging a war on the right just like fox is waging a war on the left. And as this happens the country gets pulled farther and farther apart.

I get what you’re saying that what the right is doing is dangerous but I would argue they’re doing it because their base feels disenfranchised and the media refuses to achnolegde the true reason why Hillary lost. instead of accepting all the flaws you and me both agree Hillary had, they just blame it on trump and racism.

Nor have they publicly stated that they will not pass one piece of legislation the President wants.

In my first post, I asked why you felt the left has lost credibility in the last election cycle. Prior to that point, the conversation here had been about the President's lies. I was thinking the point you were making about credibility was specific to lying. You explained your point further, and I agreed with much of it. I don't think the gap between those be two things is as far as you think, given the context of the conversation prior.

Your critiques of news refer to one specific medium. I don't watch cable news. On occasion, I'll watch the nightly news. Can't really speak to it's accuracy, honestly. So again, you're arguing with an idea of a liberal you think you know. But not with me. You keep insisting there are teams. You don't know me or my voting record. You don't know my political views. I admit they align more closely with the Democrats than Republicans, but that's due to lack of choice more than anything else. A venn diagram of my beliefs laid over the Democratic platform is far from a single circle.

Further, and I mean this respectively: you're a whiny little "snowflake". Seriously. I know that sounds like an insult, and I don't mean it to be. That's why I'm putting it in quotes; because it's a word that means something specific these days and I think you might recognize it. But look at your assessment of the news. It's all based on your feelings.

"I feel like every time I turn on the news they’re talking about trump in one way or another and it’s almost always negative. Now when I would’ve watched news clip about Hillary they seemed to be mostly positive."

"Another problem is isn’t it weird how things couldn’t be better in terms of human progress in the world and yet all the news is 90% negotive."

"If the news was evenly distributed with its criticism then I wouldn’t have a problem. Yet it isn’t."

Americans have become such sniveling little ****ing babies. Everybody thinks their viewpoint or opinion deserves equal billing. Do you honestly think that Donald ****ing Trump -- a guy who has ****ed and paid off a porn star, sexually harassed a dozen women, made fun of a disabled reporter, and a million other things -- hasn't earned the coverage he's received? Do you honestly think it isn't part of his plan? He knows what he's doing. He's manipulated the media into covering nothing but him and manipulated his followers into thinking is just so very unfair that little old him get criticized so much by mean people in New York and LA who don't understand real Americans at all. That's the entire point. He wants you to feel like it's unfair. He ran an entire campaign on the fact that people feel aggrieved and disenfranchised.

You think it's the media's job to portray Trump and Clinton exactly equally? It's not. The Constitution doesn't guarantee a fair, balanced press. The press has a right as citizens to hold opinions. They have the right as publications to voice those opinions. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.

That's what all of this boils down to: feelings. That's what politics is now. On the left, it's identity politics. A feeling that the world's unjust and forces of oppression are keeping the world from becoming just. And on the right? The exact same ****ing thing; the forces of oppression are just different. It's the deep state. Or the fake media. Everybody is aggrieved. The person kneeling during the National Anthem's aggrieved and the person whose feelings he hurts is equally aggrieved.

But dismissing things you don't like as 'fake' without presenting evidence isn't helpful. Insisting that 99% of the media doesn't report facts is patently ridiculous. It requires an unbelievable level of cognitive dissonance to truly believe that.

Don't get me wrong, I think you get a lot right. The news is undoubtedly set up to pit two common opinions against each other. CNN/Fox News/MSNBC, etc. are notorious for 'both sidesing' things and in the end, all that happens is that existing or pre-disposed views are reinforced. I don't disagree with that assessment. But I think that's a mere fraction of the media landscape and that smart people can and do avoid that. There's a huge gulf between 'all news is fake' and 'cable news is bad.'

I also think you are over-simplifying just a tad. I mean, in your own assessment of Clinton's policy proposals you reached the conclusion on multiple points that "you don't know how to accomplish that" or "you don't know who would pay for that", etc. And yet your expectation of the news is that they should promote solutions?

What's the solution in the Middle East? How do we make healthcare affordable and widely available to everybody who needs it? How do we end gun violence?

There's a reason these debates wage on and on. It's because they're incredibly complex, difficult problems to solve. Are the debates always ethical? Not at all. Should politicians put solutions to these problems over special interests? Of course. Do I wish the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar got more attention than the royal wedding? Yep. But there's a fundamental reason it doesn't: Americans are dumb and clamor for more coverage of the dumb stuff.

Which is all just to say: there's good news out there. A lot of it. Read the Atlantic. Watch the Vice documentary on ISIS. Look at the work Ronan Farrow is doing taking down sleazy old men. There are a dozen examples a day. Writing off all news as fake because CNN and Fox suck is like saying every school in the MAC is like Akron and Kent. It's wrong and ultimately, it just gives people who don't know any better the wrong impression.

I actually just criticized Obama, while pointing out that the outcome (gay marriage) was, in my opinion, the right one. There's plenty of other shit I'll criticize Obama for, too.

I called him brazenly political and said it's shitty when politicians care more about votes than principle. Feel free to explain how you came to the rest. Sort of confused, because I didn't say any of the things you seem to think I did. Honestly, I'm not sure how you can read what I wrote as complimentary of Obama.

You brought up Obama's evolving ideas on gay marriage, I think, as a way to demonstrate that politicians beliefs change. The point I was trying to make and probably wasn't clear about is that I don't think that's an example of evolving views. I think it's an example of political opportunism. Obama's views on gay marriage were what they needed to be to get him elected. And that's shitty. Just as it should be shitty that Trump's views on abortion 'evolved' to lock in the Evangelical vote.

I think we can all agree it would be nice to have politicians whose views weren't always evolving based on polling data.

If you mean to say I’m whining about the problems with our democracy and how the news is playing a part in rigging it then I take that as a compliment. What should a democratic voter do. Not speak up!?! This is our democracy!!

I’m sorry that I labeled you on a team, but even if you aren’t on one a lot of people are.

I say you’re on the left because every time I bring up the flaws with the news or the left you act like I am pro trump. I didn’t vote for him either. You said he wants to make the news seem unfair to get elected right? I agree with you I’m sure he does want that, but I don’t feel this way cause of trump, I feel this way because it’s actually unfair. Trump is saying it’s unfair to use it to his advantage, I agree with that, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fake news. Even once trump leaves office I will still feel this way. You say you don’t watch the cable news but what about the rest of the country that does. I don’t watch it either but my parents do. Do they not matter? Don’t they deserve to get the actual news instead of this two headed debate. They aren’t alone. I think older Americans as well as poorer Americans still get their news this way. So yeah you may say I’m whining but that’s a huge ****ing flaw in our system that nobody addresses. You can’t just forget about a huge segment of our country. You complain about why trump says fake news then you admit you rarely watch it. That’s a problem. Unfortunately it’s not just cable. These new tech companies tend you lean very left and YouTube has been caught unrightfully censoring the right multiple times. Yeah I’m sure those news outlets have a lot of great stories as do most but I’m sure I could find a lot of bias in there too. So idk what else to say on fake news you kinda just admitted the cable outlets like fox and cnn were fake so idk what to say. I think you should realize that’s a huge problem tho and until it’s fixed trump will keep saying fake news and the people who still watch those networks will agree. So you can ignore it but while you do the country is pulling apart. That’s why I’m saying we need a 3rd party and hopefully we can find better news sources for the country. Personally I really like listening to podcast as my news source because you can have long drawn out, in depth discussions on these issues that our needed instead of these short 10 minutes debates. Also I just remembered don’t these same news networks we agree our corrupt hold are national presidential debates....... isn’t that a huge flaw!?!?!?!

I’ll leave it there

Bobcat Bandit,

You seem to be conflating having an editorial slant with being "fake news", which I think is very dangerous. The problem with Fox News, in my opinion, is not that they have a conservative view point. It's that they are willing to report outright falsehoods to push their, and the President's, agenda. When you watch cable news and see two people debating an issue, it is very clear on MSNBC and CNN that those are opinions. Fox News lets their opinions seep into their news coverage to an extent that they actually report untrue things that fit their agenda.

I think all cable news as bad and probably makes people dumber, but you are drawing a false equivalency.

I think the same goes for Hillary/Trump. You said both parties and both candidates are corrupt. Then you listed off a bunch of policy positions that Hillary has taken, and how you disagree with them. That's not corruption. That's just disagreement. I don't agree with everything the Democratic Party believes in, but that doesn't make it corrupt. Hillary was the most qualified candidate for President in our history. She has done so much good in here decades in public life. I don't agree with her on everything, but the idea that she was an equivalent to Trump is mind blowing. And you claim that the media only put out good news about her and negative about Trump but that's not even close to being true. She actually dealt with overwhelmingly negative coverage that focused on her supposed email scandal. From the Washington Post:

“Clinton’s controversies got more attention than Trump’s (19 percent versus 15 percent) and were more focused,” noted study author Thomas E. Patterson. “Trump wallowed in a cascade of separate controversies. Clinton’s badgering had a laser-like focus. She was alleged to be scandal-prone. Clinton’s alleged scandals accounted for 16 percent of her coverage—four times the amount of press attention paid to Trump’s treatment of women and sixteen times the amount of news coverage given to Clinton’s most heavily covered policy position.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/...

She made huge mistakes in campaigning. But she got no help from the media. They hammered home the email controversy, which turned out to be a big nothing-burger. In fact, several Trump officials used private email servers including Ivanka and Jared, but that got very little coverage. In an attempt to seem fair and balanced most media sources have let tons of stuff from the Trump administration just slide right by.

EDIT: Didn't see BLSS's post about email coverage, so props for pointing it out first.

I think you and I have a different definition of corrupt. Unless you think she broke some law to become the candidate?

And she talked about the issues A LOT. I think you're right that the media did a poor job covering that. Like I said, almost all of her coverage was negative, while they ignored her policy positions. She actually put out very detailed policy papers. Dozens of them and over 100,000 words of policy specifics. She ran on policy details. That was her entire appeal. On the other hand, Trump said this:

"I am a person who does not necessarily believe in plans that have 14 steps. Because when the second step gets out of whack, you're screwed. I don't think the voters care about specifics. I think the press cares, but I've never had a voter ask for my policy papers."

They took OPPOSITE approaches. She bet that voters and the media would want to hear about her detailed proposals and he bet that nobody was paying attention and they just wanted quick, easy, memorable soundbites with no actual details. He was right, apparently.

Honestly man, what the shit are you even talking about anymore? What's your central thesis here? At one point, you were making some sense but the more you talk the more muddled your points become and the further we get from a coherent point of view.

You are, if I understand correctly, saying that the media, because they air commercials for foods that are bad for you, purposefully misinform citizens about healthy eating choices AND refuse to call out Presidential candidates for failing to make recommendations about healthy eating?

I say this kindly: what the ****?

If you want to try and make an argument that the media hasn't covered the fact that smoking and sugar are bad for you, knock yourself out. I'd be really curious to see you try.

But until you're able to do so, you just going to sound like a ranting conspiracy theorist who isn't smart enough to understand that the answer to affordable healthcare isn't as simple as Donald Trump telling people not to drink soda.

There were nine Democratic debates during the primary and 13 candidate forums that both Clinton and Sanders participated in (O'Malley was there for some of them too, and Webb and Chafee were at one of the debates). I don't know what you mean by "properly" debated on them. The rest of what you're saying relies on speculation, not facts.

And again, you seem to be conflating the "media" with cable news debate shows. I agree that cable news is a very flawed model but it's not the only source out there and it doesn't do us any good to buy into Trump's propaganda and call the media fake news. The fact that cable news focused more on scandal and such than on policy is disconcerting to me but you seem to think they were part of some conspiracy with the Clinton campaign. I think your energy would be much better directed at getting people to read newspapers than to vilify the entire media because you don't like cable news debate shows.