It can. But a staggering number of documents from the Confederacy (letters of succession, constitutions, the cornerstone speech) pretty much make it clear that slavery was the primary reason. They weren’t happy that Lincon was elected via electoral college (he lost most if not all of the Southern states); but their…

Because you have schools teaching that it was about state’s rights and calling it the war of northern aggression.   I’ve have heard this bullshit more times than I care to count.   

Tell me again how it was really about state’s rights?

He seems completely indistinguishable from a normal New Dem-type at the exact moment when that ideology has never had less to offer, fully supports the US imperial war machine and markets, and still, y’know, lost (in an election with record turnout, at that). What’s noteworthy or compelling about him on a policy…

I’m not endorsing him but it was pretty big deal to me that he went around saying he wasn’t taking corporate cash, even if he is a corporate guy at heart. Not a lot of Dems are talking that way yet.

Would you rather they had done a deep dive into his voting record before the election? Because I have a feeling the #resistance cell that stalks this site would have shit depleted uranium bricks over it.

I have nothing against Beto O’Rourke but I agree that he is not what he seems to be. There is a lot of projection occurring endowing potential candidates with traits they don’t possess in order to pigeon hole them into the narrative that they are the one to restore our nation and depose the tyranny of stupidity that…

He built a grass-roots campaign and fundraising infrastructure basically single-handedly in a state that the DNC had written off as red forever. And a lot of down-ticket races went blue specifically because their candidates were able to lean on that infrastructure.  All while coming within 3 percentage points of…

You should probably stop replying, that’s Tomato’s new alias.

She. lost. the. election. Is she in the White House? No, she isn’t. 

She was the second least-liked candidate in polling history. She, unlike other losing candidates, has only gotten less well-liked since losing.

He was “good enough” because he was running against Cruz, who is worse. Now he’s being compared to potential other candidates in a Democratic primary, who are, in many cases, better. This isn’t difficult to understand.

He’s a charismatic handsome who did well in Texas and raised a shit ton of money from small donors. He was also completely unknown nationally two years ago (which actually does separate him from most potential 2020 contenders.) It’s not hard to see why people get excited about someone like that.

Except you’re not moving on. You’re going to be here every day shitting on leftist policy from your smug high horse from now until the heat death of the universe. 

“Hi I’m Beto O’Rourke and I believe *kickflip to nose manual* the free market can better serve all of society’s needs!”

A steaming turd would be better than anyone on the (R) side of the aisle. We need to raise the bar a little bit...

Yeah but running “any Dem” gave us The Orange Hitler presidency. How about the party establishment backing a “not-shitty” Dem for starters? It would go a long way

For the life of me, I cannot figure out the rationale behind O’Rourke 2020 other than the natural appeal Democrats might find in a third-wayer who massively outraised and outspent a widely-loathed cartoon villain version of a Republican only to still lose.