Posted on 04/17/2016 4:34:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
You hear it all the time: “The system is rigged.” On so many issues, people wrap themselves in this abdication of individual responsibility to insulate themselves from the negative consequences of their decisions and actions. Still others use it to empower themselves, acting as political Pope and absolving others of their mistakes.
Context matters. In some cases, the system is rigged. In others, the system itself is doing the rigging.
Nowhere has the “the system is rigged” theme been more commonly used than in the political world.
Donald Trump cries it every time he loses, every time he realizes he’s been outsmarted, every time it’s clear he’s in over his head and didn’t hire competent people who understand, or even read, clearly stated rules. But his refrain is hollow and damaging only to those to whom he’s lying.
The more nefarious usage of the phrase comes from the recipient of Trump’s political donations – Hillary Clinton.
When a politician, particularly the standard bearer of a major political party, complains “the system is rigged” against people getting ahead, it’s the same as telling them they should quit. It saps those susceptible to such things of their ambition, their drive.
When you say this to people who, because of skin color, sexuality, economic status or whatever, already may be receptive to the idea, it resonates – maybe not that day, but someday. When something doesn’t go their way, the way something doesn’t go people’s way all the time, they now have an excuse.
The next time they fail to get a job or lose one, regardless of the circumstances, they can come more quickly to the “realization” the system is rigged against them and they can’t succeed no matter what.
Some people will quit, wait for some politician to “unrig” the system and become and remain loyal to that person and party who vows to “protect” them. It’s worked out swimmingly for the black community, hasn’t it? Now Democrats want to work their same magic to “help” Hispanics.
The vote is more important than lives to progressives. It’s power über alles.
Hillary claims the system is rigged? She rose from a middle-class family to marry a man from a poor family and then become one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in the world. Her story, like that of President Obama and so many other progressives, embodies the American Dream.
Why not just rely on that story, which would do a lot of good? Because it doesn’t give enough credit to government for her success.
“The system is rigged” absolves everyone of the responsibility of their mistakes. You went to prison not because you were doing something illegal, but because the system was rigged. You can’t afford rent not because you wasted your money on other things, but because the system is rigged. You have a crummy job not because you smoked a lot of weed in high school rather than studying, but because the system is rigged. The possibilities are endless, the blame – and the results – are the same.
If Hillary wants to talk about rigged systems, she knows all about one that truly is rigged – the Democratic Party’s nominating system.
She can’t win her party’s nomination without unelected party elites pushing her over the top, which her campaign acknowledged this week. Further, Tuesday’s primary in New York already is a victory for her before the first vote is counted. Unless Bernie Sanders, a fellow traveller in the “the system is rigged” brigade, beats her in a landslide, she will leave the state with significantly more delegates.
Yes, some systems are rigged. But not the ones most progressives would have you believe. The economy is not rigged. How delegates are won or lost may be, but everyone knows the rules.
No, the real rigging in most people’s lives is the lie that someone other than the individual is responsible for the state of our lives.
Looking externally for redemption, fulfillment, or making anything great again is the individual rigging the system against themselves. So maybe all the systems are rigged after all.
Have a nice day.
OK, I get it. You’re another innumerate cruzombie.
Have a nice day.
I believe both are too damaged to win in Nov and neither one is going to be successful in getting all the base behind them especially coming out of a contested convention
Besides, the electorate map is against ANY GOP candidate right out of the gate.
But it’s going to be even tougher to beat Hillary with a candidate that becomes a whiney snowflake when things don’t go this way and his favorite tactic is Twitter wars and is disliked by the general electorate more than her
I just like to think outside the echo chamber. I don’t assume, like Trumpers, that the electorate sees the candidate I prefer the same way I do
Trump supporters keep saying on one hand that we shouldn't expect Trump to know all the rules about the way delegates are selected because "he's not a politician"; and on the other hand, they say we should support Trump because he is a really great businessman, who hires really great people, and he has been really successful in completing very complex projects, so he will be able to fix our very complex government...
Let's not forget that this is not the first time Trump has considered running for president. He has been toying with the idea for a couple of decades at least. We must assume he decided to run as a Republican because after investigating running as a third-party (Reform), he realized he could never win that way. So he decided to hijack one of the existing parties, and decided the GOP would be the easiest. But if Trump was such a good businessman, you would think he would have hired some of those "really great people" with actual experience in presidential campaigns last summer if not long before that, and had them investigate the primary process and the delegate selection process in each state early on. No one can anticipate the unexpected, but nothing about the delegate selection process was unexpected - those rules have been in place for years in most states. For Trump to not have people that know the process is political malpractice. It would be like starting to build a skyscraper and getting halfway done, only to realize you needed an environmental impact report, you didn't file for building permits, and you didn't dig a deep enough foundation.
It all comes down to poor planning, management and organization on Trump's part. And he wants us to put him in charge of a MUCH more complex job than just running a presidential campaign. And now he wants to whine about his failures. And because his supporters all have the same mob mentality as the BLM and OWS crowds, his whining gets them worked up into a frenzy.
Yes the system is rigged. No matter what we want we always a Romney.
Moreover, the detailed delegate selection rules for each state are published in a handbook that was provided to every campaign (including Trump's) last October.
There is absolutely no excuse for being "uninformed"..
No question about it. I remember a very high level Air Force civilian delivering a contract to her soon-to-be private employer, as “a present.” Everyone way down the hierarchy had to take ethics classes as a result.
If it wasn't they would never let us vote.
“In Fla, a winner take all state, Trump got all Fla delegates with less than 50% of the vote and not a word from anyone.”
But didn’t Cruz supporters show their outrage and accuse the GOPe of rigging the system and stealing delegates? Didn’t they whine and complain non-stop about “lyin, cheatin Don?” No they didn’t. Says volumes.
Are you a lawyer yourself? That would explain why you are so insistent that Cruz actually won by fair rules, when to any impartial observer, it looks like the system was rigged. It is no different to me than getting a clearly guilty suspect exonerated on technicalities.
Quit trying to excuse the CO debacle. It does not matter what the rules are, or how convoluted the explanation is of how they were actually fair. The perception is that the CO GOP cheated to keep Trump from getting delegates. The perception is that CO voters had no input into the delegate assignment.
Perception is reality.
Have you ever heard the old adage about winning the battle but losing the war? Because that is what is happening here—Cruz picked up a few delegates because of a technicality, but Trump capitalizes on the obvious lack of voter input, just like Trump capitalized on the emails that some Cruz supporters sent to Iowa voters wrongly telling them that Carson was out of the race when he was still in. These might have been tactical wins for Cruz, but Trump has used them for strategic advantage.
Also, don’t kid yourself. If Cruz is the nominee, he goes down in flames against any Democrat. These very tactics that he’s used to get delegates assigned without voter input will be thrown in his face. The Democrats might have stacked the deck with their superdelegates, but they at least are holding elections.
So a guy who wins 37% of the popular vote and has 46% of the delegates is being rigged against by a guy who has won 27% of the popular vote and has 34% of the delegates? Poor Donnie. Why is everybody so mean to him?
The system is not rigged, but it can seem complicated to people who don’t want to bother to check it out.
The scary thing to me is that trumpers here seem to be willing to abandon states rights ...one of our most precious things .. in order to have Donald Trump dictate how state conventions should be run.
How is the system ‘rigged?’
The system is not rigged. Sometimes the people who are willing to go to caucuses and do the work come out with more delegates than people who are lazy and clueless.
de nada, And I believe Romney got 24 or 27 delegates in the end.
The rules have been rigged for a long time. It’ s nothing new for 2016. If you review the history of both the national and particular states’ rule changes, it’s patently obvious. Frontloading HQ is a good source that examines this in a nonpartisan way.
They will modify the rules multiple times until they feel assured they will achieve their desired result. This explains the extremely low participation by voters. Most have given up a long time ago in these states with less than 3% voter participation.
Why invest time and energy in a game that has a predestined outcome. You may be used as a young fresh face-decoration to project the image of equality and fairness—a Patsy. In reality, the real delegates were handpicked long ago. They are entrenched in the system and are close friends, family members, or business partners of the state party chair.
Amen to that. Donald Trump is dangerously corrupt. He is now inciting violence at the convention if things don’t go his way.
He is inciting it in a backhand manner by coyly saying that he ‘hopes it doesn’t happen but is afraid it will.’
No. We must not abandon states rights, a precious thing, to allow any national supervision of state conventions or caucuses.
Why should we favor the lazy who think they should have someone come to their house and give them a ballot.
Donald Trump is now offering to bribe people to vote for him. Now if you want to talk corrupt and illegal... out and out bribing.
“Donald Trump cries it every time he loses, every time he realizes he’s been outsmarted, every time it’s clear he’s in over his head and didn’t hire competent people who understand, or even read, clearly stated rules. But his refrain is hollow and damaging only to those to whom he’s lying. “
This is the dumbest article I’ve ever read with the tired GOPe talking point that the Donald is being “outsmarted” and doesn’t “understand the rules”
Ok, yeah, if by “outsmarted” you mean a very hostile GOPe using all their insider power to sabotage a very popular frontrunner, ok sure.
So if you’re an insider GOPe then you’re cleverly “outsmarting” Trump.
Everyone else on the planet would called that “rigged”.
jeez.
Florida ran a real election and millions voted.
Trump won by over 500,000 votes to Cruz.
People had a voice and a vote in a fair open election.
Quick & Easy. No wrangling with bribery, tricks, coercion.
No one is complaining about this election.
Trump won 99 delegates.
If this were a caucus state, Bush controlled.
1,000- 2,000 party insider good ole boys would have voted JEB!
And Jeb! would be the presumptive nominee, TODAY.
And this whole forum would be moaning and going ballistic.
And Cruz can not coerce or bribe the delegates since they’re bound until Ballot 4!
It’s become obvious that Donald Trump was never prepared to campaign in the usual sense.
He got a billion dollars in publicity from the networks that the trumpers whine are against him.
He holds huge meetings that have become like rock concerts to the attendees.
And that’s it.
He didn’t bother to hire a competent staff and now he sits back and whines about the rules.
Cruz with no press to speak of and not much money is running circles around him because Cruz is willing to work at campaigning.
Stop whining about long set rules when they suddenly don’t go your way, and tell your candidate to man up.
Yep... he is a bad guy and I agree... dangerously corrupt.
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