Reddit reviews City of Rivals: Restoring the Glorious Mess of American Democracy

> So you accuse me of hating Lincoln because she was "paraphrasing" him.

That's not even close to what I said. I thought she was actually backed up by a quote regarding the 13th amendment, but I was mistaken. She was still channeling Lincoln or at least believed she was. So the idea is basically the same, but I shouldn't have used the word "paraphrased".

> It's clear that you've already made up your mind about Hillary and you're working backwards from your conclusion that she's working in good faith. She literally just admitted that she lies to the public but here you are defending the merits of public servants deceiving their constituents.

No, I just realize that she's a reasonably intelligent person and she's not going to announce some evil plan like that to the world. It's clear what sort of point she's making, which is about the nature of politics in general as it has existed/been practiced across time and place: "I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be.". She recognizes that having a public/private position is "unsavory" in some sense but it's what needs to happen to accomplish good.

She probably feels similarly about earmarks. They may be unsavory "bribes" to win votes for legislation, but they help get things done - since they were banned, everything happens on basically a straight-line partisan vote. See, e.g., City of Rivals where two former Senate Majority Leaders of both parties wrote the forewords.

All politicians have and will continue to "lie", and I'm largely fine with it. That's what she was pointing out.

> People on the right rarely cite reasons for hating her

Agreed, and that's what I've basically been saying.

> This is a legitimate reason that people on all sides of the aisle refer to because it's such an open and shut case.

Yeah, but people still hate her for no good reason when people on their side say similar "eye-opening" and "corrupt" statements (ones I would argue are worse) and they don't bat an eyelash. The Republican leadership was caught on tape with the current House minority leader saying that he thinks Putin pays Trump (and Rep. Rohrabacher who likely was compromised by Russia), laughing at it, and then having Paul Ryan swear them all to observe omerta because they're all "family". Barely disturbed the news cycle. Trump's current chief of staff and former cabinet secretary in various positions, Mick Mulvaney, was caught on tape literally saying that as a Congressman he only met with lobbyists who paid him. Republicans do not hate him and are not demanding his resignation, nor are they reproachful of Trump. A guy who attacked Hillary for being beholden to Wall Street and then proceeded to name a bunch of slimy Goldman Sachs alums to his cabinet.

They also don't care about the fact that Trump ordered a botched SEAL raid in Yemen after thinking about it for 5 minutes after being approached at dinner, and got a SEAL and an 8yo American girl killed. He also had a group of US soldiers wiped out by an ambush in Niger where they were operating without proper support. Trump told one of the soldier's mothers that "he knew what he signed up for". Yet neither of them blew up to become Trump's Benghazi.

There's something different about Hillary that makes them utterly loathe her. I think it's the fact that she's a woman, either directly or indirectly. It doesn't mean there aren't reasons to dislike her, but her gender casts her in a different light than a (white) man who had done the same thing.

> You pretend that there's no option C which is "I don't agree with this position but my district seems to overwhelmingly support it. I will vote in line with your opinion but I will not stop trying to change your minds". It's been used many times before but that actually takes some degree of nuance.

Sure, that's an option that is also deployed in some circumstances. But that doesn't necessarily buy you voters' respect. And sometimes your voters are simply wrong and you need to do the right thing against their wishes. Which is where we get to scheming. Basically every controversial measure that passes by one vote usually has a ton of people who voted 'no' only after vigorous political gamesmanship so they can avoid voting for something unpopular and tell their constituents they disapprove of it so they can protect their seat, while still getting it done. This can be abused, obviously, but it's a legitimate strategy. Very often the voters are just not paying sufficient attention or are not smart enough to notice when this is happening - so it becomes a necessary strategy, or else someone else who is better at playing the game will come along and implement it anyway.

> I have no words. You've gotten to the point where not only is this not an admission of guilt, it's a positive aspect of her.

I do see it as positive in a way. Time after time we have politicians who think they're going to walk into Congress or the presidency and reform the entire system, but they never even come close. That's because there are laws to politics almost like physical laws, and they only accommodate certain strategies. It's almost impossible to change or break these laws because a lot of them owe their existence to human nature.

So it'd be nice to have someone like Hillary who's not naive who doesn't think like Bernie or Warren or Trump that they're going to get elected president and remake the entire government in their image. It'd be nice to have someone who would sit down with McConnell in a smoke-filled room and do what needs to be done to achieve as many of our priorities as possible, while making necessary compromises and ensuring our side comes out the better, saying and doing anything within reason to achieve that end.

> That aside, this is another inaccurate analogy. This would only applicable if he was secretly AGAINST the bill in private while publicly supporting the bill.

Well, it's kind of the reverse. He supported the bill in public, while privately opposing it in the presence of certain senators and making it seem like he was on their side but merely pursuing a tactic to keep black people from getting too "uppity".