U.S Elections, The Ides of March; Et tu Ohio?

[MerenthaClone]

13 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

As a Democratic voter, I'd be pretty pissed at them if they weren't maximizing their anti-Trump efforts.

Ideally for the down-ticket eveffects too.  Getting the Senate back before 2018 comes back with a vengeance is really important even if it is an outside shot.  Trump helps those odds, imo.  

Altherion:  I really don't think you're thinking about the potential horrible effects of letting Trump into the Oval Office.  You say the working class has the least effect of feeling any negative effects, and to that, I can only look at you confusedly wondering at your thought process.  I can't even begin to formulate a response to it because I honestly do not understand what you're basing it off of.  The only thing I can come up with is that you feel like they're so disadvantaged now that there's nowhere to go but down, and to that, my response is only that your imagination is failing you utterly.  There are so many ways it could be so much worse and I cannot imagine that "wages are too high" Trump is going to be the guy to support the groups you want.  

[Kalbear]

Quote

I cannot imagine that "wages are too high" Trump is going to be the guy to support the groups you want.  

As an example, Republicans in general have been in favor of not just not raising the minimum wage but actually abolishing it. This would take an act of congress to do, but it would be a majority vote that, at least right now has a very good chance of passing. 

[lokisnow]

so it looks like Marco Rubio is essentially endorsing Ted Cruz. Very smart of Kasich to be a complete dick to Rubio when Rubio made a pro Kasich maneuver before Tuesday's election.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/03/16/candid-marco-rubio-says-media-narrative-frustrated-electorate-hurt-his-campaign/

He didn’t endorse either Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the two other remaining candidates. But Rubio praised Cruz as “the only conservative left in the race.”

[MerenthaClone]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As an example, Republicans in general have been in favor of not just not raising the minimum wage but actually abolishing it. This would take an act of congress to do, but it would be a majority vote that, at least right now has a very good chance of passing. 

And Trump's defense of his use of migrant and illegal workers on his properties was essentially "its required to function in the local economic environment."  What, then, are we supposed to believe will be his response to a global economic environment?  Wage deprecation and stripping of worker protections?  I certainly think so, given that that is how he ran his business.  He had an opportunity to hire local workers and chose to hire 200 illegal Polish workers instead, presumably because they were cheaper.  I cannot imagine he'll run the country differently, and to be blunt, my biggest fear as far as long-term prospects for myself is a rise in corporate power in the United States.  Yes, Clinton has some ties to Wall Street that are concerning in that regard.  Trump is an appalling figure of existential terror in my view, because I honestly believe he will happily fuck over the working class in the US without a single regard for their existence.  

Saying, in a time when per-worker productivity is at an all-time high, real wages haven't risen for decades (?), and two-income households are required to come close to functioning in society, when there's a class of highly educated workers with a ton of debt entering the economy, that "nobody wants to work" is just blind to the realities of the working class.  He means "nobody wants to work for the wages I wanted to pay them" because they are not sustainable or sufficient basic wages.  

Trump is a plutocratic oligarch who has managed to shift blame to the immigrant and the Other for the crimes of his own class.  Supporting him and hoping that he'll the working class is Stockholm Syndrome at its finest. If he does, it'll be accidentally and because he hasn't found a way to extract extra profits from them yet.  

[Kalbear]

And on that note, let's play a game - best case, worst case. For any candidate you choose, what is the best case (as you see fit; I personally am going to go for the best reasonable case and not, say, 'destroys the aliens of Independence Day and saves the world' type things) and the worst case if they become president. Note that I'm talking about if they become president - so things like the email scandal doesn't matter here, as Clinton wouldn't be president if that became really bad. 

Clinton best case: With her win and sweeping wins in the House and the Senate along with the US economy staying fairly strong, she is able to enact a number of her specific domestic policy choices very quickly. Knowing the lessons of the Obama administration from 2008, she spends her time gettiing the biggest bangs for the buck knowing that there may be opposition and reprisal fairly soon, and therefore focuses on acts that are broadly very popular or essentially impossible to revert. Her first act would be to enact federally enforced kindergarten and preschool care for all, and her second act comes a federally guaranteed parental leave plan that is not quite as good as, say, Sweden, but is far better than what we currently have. She spends her first 100 days nominating various judicial positions and getting them through hearings at a record pace. To facilitate this, she abolishes the filibuster for judicial hearings (per Loki's analysis above). 

Her big 'landmark' vote in her first two years is to propose a set of laws around oversight from corporations on donations, on requirements of giving matching funds to presidents and congressional races, and finally to propose and get a constitutional amendment effectively overturning citizens united - something unthinkable 2 years ago but made possible by a friendly Supreme Court and massive popular backing from the groups that supported her, Sanders and Trump. 

In foreign policy Clinton shows her acumen and ability to intelligently utilize military force and manages to convince a coalition of forces to occupy Syria - including Russia, whom she essentially wins in a staring contest and forces to back down. Syria has a massive amount of occupying forces but these allow for a ceasefire to stretch into peace talks, migrants returning to their homes, and Assad to be removed after elections take place. ISIS is defeated quickly and decisively with a very short ground campaign - not led by the US but led by forces around the region. Clinton's decisiveness and ability to bring the world together are praised throughout the world, she wins the Nobel Peace Prize (with a picture of her hugging a Syrian mother on the cover of Time), and a second Arab Spring starts blooming, this one with a bit more external support. 

Clinton worst case: Clinton wins in the narrowest electoral run in 2 generations, barely beating out Romney and Trump. Low turnout is blamed on her lack of likeable factors and Sanders poisoning the well and turning back to being independent in his senate bid. Senate and House seats stay largely static. 

Clinton's first month in presidency is marked by the worst terror attack - some kind of WMD - on an ally in recorded history, and the US is plunged into another asymmetrical war. Clinton shows ruthlessness and strength in fighting back but this is only viewed as confirmation of her bloodthirsty ways by many - even though it ends up being a fairly justified military action. The global economy plummets and the US economy follows with it, dropped lower by oil prices surging (and thus aiding Russia, which becomes more adventurous) and worries about US ability to deal with war. When given the opportunity for the US to salvage a peace and withdraw somewhat early she chooses instead to not back down and continue to fight - a stance lauded by many right wingers but actively condemned by Sanders and much of her democratic congresspeople. She is unable to get any legislation done due to gridlock, is fought even harder than Obama on any appointment, is forced to nominate a moderate judge with pro-gun leanings to replace the untimely death of Justice Kennedy and is besieged on all sides by disappointed, disillusioned members of her own party. The final straw is Bill Clinton doing something horribly scandalous that she spends months dealing with as an embarrassment. 

[Altherion]

29 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

Altherion:  I really don't think you're thinking about the potential horrible effects of letting Trump into the Oval Office.  You say the working class has the least effect of feeling any negative effects, and to that, I can only look at you confusedly wondering at your thought process.  I can't even begin to formulate a response to it because I honestly do not understand what you're basing it off of.  The only thing I can come up with is that you feel like they're so disadvantaged now that there's nowhere to go but down, and to that, my response is only that your imagination is failing you utterly.  There are so many ways it could be so much worse and I cannot imagine that "wages are too high" Trump is going to be the guy to support the groups you want.

There are many ways it can be much worse, but not without provoking serious unrest. Take a look at Trump's rallies or the response to them in Chicago: even as things stand, there are quite a few people on the threshold of a violence. Trump is giving them a vague license for it, but this would not produce the results that we've seen if people weren't already angered to very nearly the point of violence. He would have to be blind or insane to provoke them further.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

44 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

so it looks like Marco Rubio is essentially endorsing Ted Cruz. Very smart of Kasich to be a complete dick to Rubio when Rubio made a pro Kasich maneuver before Tuesday's election.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/03/16/candid-marco-rubio-says-media-narrative-frustrated-electorate-hurt-his-campaign/

He didn’t endorse either Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the two other remaining candidates. But Rubio praised Cruz as “the only conservative left in the race.”

Just came here to post this.

He also said he's essentially done in politics, having no interest in running for office again. Bye Marco!

[MerenthaClone]

12 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There are many ways it can be much worse, but not without provoking serious unrest. Take a look at Trump's rallies or the response to them in Chicago: even as things stand, there are quite a few people on the threshold of a violence. Trump is giving them a vague license for it, but this would not produce the results that we've seen if people weren't already angered to very nearly the point of violence. He would have to be blind or insane to provoke them further.

So, accelerationism, then?  Is your theory "well, its so bad that if it gets worse we'll get widespread rioting in the streets so it clearly won't get worse?"  Because that's a risk I am completely unwilling to take.  When you say "working class" do you mean "white working class?"  Or just "people I think who are working class because I have no idea what the actual financial makeup of the country is"?  Because, as a point of comparison, I'm a late 20s male working with 2 years of experience in a job that requires a 2yr/4yr degree, with 70k in debt, a tiny apt with two roommates, and I make more than the US median household income.  Could I have made better choices when I was 18?  Yes.  Would adequate public mental health programs have saved me...probably at least 40k in debt?  Also yes, but I'm objectively doing better than most of the country, and its still rough, in part because of pro-corporate policies and attempts to slash worker protections across the country.  Are you sure you want to provoke serious unrest based on the vague hope that a man who is actively encouraging it now somehow won't once he's in office?  That he'll somehow care when he hasn't so far?  All for a "well, I don't know what'll happen!" sweet nothing?  I'm glad your life is sufficiently insulated from potential problems, but mine isn't.  Please don't make it harder for me.  And definitely please don't make it harder for those who are less fortunate than myself, all because you...I don't know.  I really don't.  

He is blind, Altherion, because he does not care.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Now that Graham has endorsed Cruz, I really have to ask:

Did he now choose the bullet or the poison?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Hillary Clinton’s Indefensible Stance on the Death Penalty

IF THERE WAS anything surprising about Hillary Clinton’s defense of capital punishment when questioned by an Ohio death row exoneree Sunday night, it was only that she was not better prepared to deliver it. This was no gotcha question, no unscripted ambush like the one carried out last month by Black Lives Matter protesters who confronted Clinton at a fundraiser with her ’90s-era rhetoric about “superpredators.” Although the CNN-sponsored Democratic town hall dictated that candidates do not receive questions in advance, the Clinton campaign almost certainly knew that Ricky Jackson, who spent an incomprehensible 39 years in prison as an innocent man, would be in the audience — and that if called upon, he would probably ask Clinton to justify her support for a policy that sent him to die for a crime he did not commit.

Yet, face to face with an emotional Jackson, who had to pause to regain his composure as he described how he came “perilously close” to execution, Clinton could only repeat a line that Jackson himself later described as “canned.”

“You know, this is such a profoundly difficult question,” she began. “And what I have said — and what I continue to believe — is that the states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all of the rights a defendant should have, all of the support that the defendant’s lawyer should have. And I have said I would breathe a sigh of relief if either the Supreme Court or the states, themselves, began to eliminate the death penalty.”

But then she pivoted. “Where I end up is this — and maybe it’s a distinction that is hard to support — but at this point, given the challenges we face from terrorist activities, primarily in our country, that end up under federal jurisdiction, for very limited purposes I think that it can still be held in reserve for those.” Invoking the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11, Clinton said, “That is really the exception that I still am struggling with.”

Clinton has been honing this response since at least November, when she tempered her long-held support for the death penalty at a Democratic forum by saying it should be reserved for “really heinous crimes,” mostly at the federal level. There, too, she criticized the states — “predominantly but not exclusively in the South” — for hastily seeking death sentences. And there, too, she said she would “breathe a sigh of relief” if the death penalty was abolished — in this case, by the Supreme Court, on the grounds that it is “cruel and unusual punishment.” Clinton struck the same note at a Democratic debate last month, telling MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “I deeply disagree with the way that too many states are still implementing” the death penalty. “I have much more confidence in the federal system,” she said.

“If it were possible to separate the federal from the state system by the Supreme Court,” Clinton added, confusingly, “that would, I think, be an appropriate outcome.”

If it’s hard to imagine how the Court might strike down the death penalty for states but not the federal government, this is just one problem with Clinton’s hedging on capital punishment. It is emblematic of Clinton as a politician that she has managed to stake out a position that lets her have it both ways while costing her absolutely nothing: vague semi-opposition to the death penalty at the state level (for which she would bear no direct responsibility as president), paired with confident support for executions at the federal level — the only realm in which opposing the death penalty could have any practical impact.

Apart from being slippery and convoluted, Clinton’s stance also happens to rest on a view of the death penalty that is both outdated and misleading. Worse, she has decided to perpetuate the insidious notion that the death penalty can be reserved for the “worst of the worst” — a myth that has been debunked again and again.

THE REALITY, as Clinton is no doubt aware, is that at the state level, capital punishment is already on its way out. Seven states have ended the death penalty in the past 10 years, including her own adopted state, New York. Executions have dropped precipitously — and additional repeal efforts are underway across the country, from Delaware to Utah, both of which tried and failed to pass abolition legislation this year. Public support for the death penalty remains, but has reached historic lows in recent years — not an unlikely explanation for Clinton’s move to distance herself from it now. (A 2015 Quinnipiac Poll found declining national support for the death penalty — except for terrorists.)

...

Although federal death row prisoners still represent a small fraction of the total number of people facing execution in the United States  — 61 versus nearly 3,000 at the state level — today the vast majority of those condemned to die by the federal government were sentenced under the 1994 law.

The crimes that now carry the death penalty include various types of murder for hire, fatal drive-by shootings, kidnapping resulting in death, and other crimes that, though violent, hardly qualify as terrorism or mass murder. Indeed, apart from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to die last year for the Boston Marathon bombing, there is not a single other convicted terrorist on federal death row. (Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2001.)

Instead, it is an assortment of gang members, drug dealers, rapists, and thieves, with varying degrees of blood on their hands. Like at the state level, some of them participated in but did not carry out the killings for which they were sent to die. Arboleda Ortiz, a Colombian national, played a partial role in the killing of a drug dealer (his co-defendant, the triggerman, died awaiting execution); Brandon Bernard, then 18, lit a car on fire after his 19-year-old accomplice shot a pair of youth ministers and put their bodies in the trunk; Dustin John Higgs ordered another man to kill three women — the triggerman was given a life sentence.

Like more than 40 percent of the prisoners on federal death row, Bernard and Higgs are both black — a reflection of the stark racial disparities within the federal death penalty system. Of the 62 people on federal death row as of last March, according to the DPIC, 27 were black, eight were Latino, one was Native American, and one was Asian.

It is hard to imagine that Clinton is unaware of the biases in this system she defends; a statistical study ordered by her husband “revealed that 80 percent of the cases submitted by federal prosecutors for death penalty review” between 1995 and 2000 “involved racial minorities as defendants.” Of the revelations in the report, then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said, “I can’t help but be both personally and professionally disturbed by the numbers that we discuss today.”

In many ways, the federal system is a microcosm of the very same pitfalls that have come to define the death penalty as a whole. State death penalty trials are notoriously costly — at the federal level, they cost an average of eight times as much as non-capital trials. While no one has been exonerated from federal death row, some cases have raised serious questions about innocence. In 2001, Bill Clinton commuted the death sentence of an Alabama pot grower named David Ronald Chandler, convicted in a murder for hire, amid grave questions about his guilt — raised in part by the recanted testimony of the triggerman himself. Chandler is now serving a life sentence.

Other familiar problems include mental illness, ineffective assistance of counsel, defendants who have insisted on representing themselves, and a lack of consideration for the trauma and abuse predating their crimes. Among the few people ever executed at the federal level since 1988 was Louis Jones, a black Gulf War veteran convicted for a rape and murder on a military base; Jones had no criminal history and had been diagnosed with PTSD. He died by lethal injection in 2003.

...

Perhaps it is true that Clinton will “breathe a sigh of relief” if and when the death penalty finally ends. But that statement alone speaks volumes about her leadership — and the kinds of reforms she will be willing to deliver in the end. A vow to feel relieved when others finally win the fight against capital punishment is not exactly a profile in courage. Clinton knows full well that the death penalty — as it actually exists — is wrong. She’s just not going to waste any power doing anything about it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Notone said:

Now that Graham has endorsed Cruz, I really have to ask:

Did he now choose the bullet or the poison?

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you,"  -Lindsey Graham

[lokisnow]

48 minutes ago, Notone said:

Now that Graham has endorsed Cruz, I really have to ask:

Did he now choose the bullet or the poison?

the pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle the chalice from the palace holds the brew that is true.

[Veloknight]

8 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Hillary Clinton’s Indefensible Stance on the Death Penalty

 

 

I'm an ardent and total death penalty abolitionist, and I still saw Clinton's take on the Death Penalty and her handling of the question as a fantastic sign. It's hardly news that a far-left New Englander opposes the death penalty - but for someone as integral to the Democratic Party as Hillary Clinton to be saying that it should be abolished at the state level is a positive sign to me that the establishment is at least sympathetic, and that her judicial appointees will likely be generally hostile to the death penalty as well. Hardly a profile in courage for her - but a great sign for abolitionists.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

31 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

the pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle the chalice from the palace holds the brew that is true.

:')

[Martell Spy]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/erick-erickson-anti-trump-gop-unity-ticket-220933

 

Conservatives call for ‘unity ticket’ to stop Trump

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, MerenthaClone said:

So, accelerationism, then?  Is your theory "well, its so bad that if it gets worse we'll get widespread rioting in the streets so it clearly won't get worse?"  Because that's a risk I am completely unwilling to take.  When you say "working class" do you mean "white working class?"  Or just "people I think who are working class because I have no idea what the actual financial makeup of the country is"?  Because, as a point of comparison, I'm a late 20s male working with 2 years of experience in a job that requires a 2yr/4yr degree, with 70k in debt, a tiny apt with two roommates, and I make more than the US median household income.  Could I have made better choices when I was 18?  Yes.  Would adequate public mental health programs have saved me...probably at least 40k in debt?  Also yes, but I'm objectively doing better than most of the country, and its still rough, in part because of pro-corporate policies and attempts to slash worker protections across the country.  Are you sure you want to provoke serious unrest based on the vague hope that a man who is actively encouraging it now somehow won't once he's in office?  That he'll somehow care when he hasn't so far?  All for a "well, I don't know what'll happen!" sweet nothing?  I'm glad your life is sufficiently insulated from potential problems, but mine isn't.  Please don't make it harder for me.  And definitely please don't make it harder for those who are less fortunate than myself, all because you...I don't know.  I really don't.  

He is blind, Altherion, because he does not care.

How do you suppose things will ever get better? Or, to put it differently, what would cause the angry people become less angry? Do you think if Clinton is elected, they will miraculously be placated?

The ruling class has been squeezing everyone else for at least two decades. The did it under B. Clinton (though the internet was taking off so it was difficult to notice), then under Bush and now under Obama. I thought that they'd have to give some ground for sure when the Great Recession hit, but no, all we got out of it is a bizarre health insurance scheme co-written by the insurance industry. Do you think H. Clinton will stop this trend? I think it is far more likely that even if she has a free hand (i.e. if Democrats take over both the House and the Senate), at best she will enact some nice-sounding laws (see Kalbear's post) and then move on to real business with bipartisan support: the TPP and bombing some part of the Middle East we haven't bombed yet.

And no, I am not sufficiently insulated from this anger -- I am not sure that anyone in the middle class is. It is certainly possible that Trump simply doesn't care, but I doubt it. His stage persona is that of a boor, but he outplayed the Republican establishment using less than an order of magnitude of the resources and fools only manage feats of that nature in fairy tales.

Incidentally, here is a survey of the armed forces (not entirely scientific and mixing the Republicans and Democrats together, but with a fairly large sample size). Can anybody guess who got the most votes and who came in second?

Spoiler

The Republican front runner Trump was the most popular candidate in a subscriber poll that closed Monday morning, with 27 percent saying they would back the business mogul if the election were held tomorrow. Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, was a close second at 22 percent, besting Trump among Navy and Air Force respondents.

If the ruling class believes that the armed forces are more satisfied with them than the general population is, they're in for a surprise.

[Ormond]

26 minutes ago, Altherion said:

 

Incidentally, here is a survey of the armed forces (not entirely scientific and mixing the Republicans and Democrats together, but with a fairly large sample size). Can anybody guess who got the most votes and who came in second?

  Reveal hidden contents

The Republican front runner Trump was the most popular candidate in a subscriber poll that closed Monday morning, with 27 percent saying they would back the business mogul if the election were held tomorrow. Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, was a close second at 22 percent, besting Trump among Navy and Air Force respondents.

If the ruling class believes that the armed forces are more satisfied with them than the general population is, they're in for a surprise.

As your link itself points out, to describe this survey as "not entirely scientific" is very misleading, because it is not a "scientific" survey at all. "Entirely not scientific" is really how it should be described, because it is a completely "volunteer: survey where readers of the publication "Military Times" were asked to respond to an email:

Between March 9 and March 14, Military Times conducted a voluntary, confidential survey of subscribers who include verified active-duty, National Guard and reserve component service members. More than 59,000 subscribers received e-mail invitations to participate. In total, 931 respondents completed the survey.

931 out of 59,000 is a response rate of 1.58%, which is just about the most abysmal response rate I've ever seen reported. That sort of makes your comment about there being a "fairly large sample size" suspect. More importantly, those 931 people are in no way a random or representative sample of all military personnel. When you ask for volunteer responses, you automatically get respondents who are more emotionally invested in their candidate. I think almost everyone would agree that Trump and Sanders supporters are on average more "emotionally invested" than supporters of other candidates this year. That gives them an unfair advantage and makes it very likely that the results of this unscientific (which means "largely worthless") survey show them both having higher levels of support that they would have if a true random survey of active duty military personnel was conducted. 

[lokisnow]

40 minutes ago, Altherion said:

How do you suppose things will ever get better?

Things have gotten better, though. Things are much better now than they were in the 1980s. We're not suffering from a plague the government refuses to acknowledge exists, civil liberties are better protected and more accessible, mass incarceration is trending down, drug use and teen pregnancy have collapsed, the internet, and so on.  And the 1980s were much better than the 1950s. Things have been getting better for a long time, and continue to tend to get better.

Unless we elect Donald Trump to try to burn the USA to the ground because reasons.

I just don't get why people think things have not gotten better, for the vast majority of those worst off, things have gotten much better. They have not improved at as rapid a pace as they did from 1950 to 1980, but that's because Republicans enacted major policies in the 1980s to prevent things from continuing to improve at that pace.

And the populace is much less angry than they were in the 60s and 70s.

[Veloknight]

23 minutes ago, Altherion said:

How do you suppose things will ever get better? Or, to put it differently, what would cause the angry people become less angry? Do you think if Clinton is elected, they will miraculously be placated?

A drumbeat of moderately liberal policies like paid parental leave and immigration reform (which, in bringing undocumented workers out of the shadows, will likely raise their wages, putting an upward pressure on wages still). The Obama administration's new overtime rules for salaried workers will stay and have more time to sink in. She may be forced to require - which she can do executively, I believe - that companies that do business with the federal government have a high minimum wage. This would affect millions, even if it wasn't as comprehensive as a federal wage increase. If her victory is accompanied by more statewide wins from liberal-leaning politicians, we could see a lot of momentum in various parts of the country, too.

Health care is one of the largest and most expensive problems for the middle class. Hillary's election - and the certainty that Obamacare will survive - may bring House Republicans to the table to reform the program, which can address some of the outstanding issues, including cost mitigation and the medicaid/subsidy gap.

23 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The ruling class has been squeezing everyone else for at least two decades. The did it under B. Clinton (though the internet was taking off so it was difficult to notice), then under Bush and now under Obama. I thought that they'd have to give some ground for sure when the Great Recession hit, but no, all we got out of it is a bizarre health insurance scheme co-written by the insurance industry. Do you think H. Clinton will stop this trend? I think it is far more likely that even if she has a free hand (i.e. if Democrats take over both the House and the Senate), at best she will enact some nice-sounding laws (see Kalbear's post) and then move on to real business with bipartisan support: the TPP and bombing some part of the Middle East we haven't bombed yet.

Okay, but why did Democrats do these things? Why did the U.K.'s Labour party move to their own "New Labour" platform at the same time? Because they were getting their butts kicked! So they moderated their economic policies, because that is what the people wanted. The idea that they would've somehow been just as corporatist otherwise never made any sense to me.

I also think that the fact that neoliberal policies have squeezed the middle class shouldn't be considered without context. Neoliberalism arose due to big structural problems with the world economy in the 70s and 80s, it's not just that "the system is corrupt" (though it may well be). I sympathize with the desire to look to anti-neoliberal politicians for answers, but that doesn't mean that mainstream ones like Clinton don't recognize the problems, and have ideas to address them.

7 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Things have gotten better, though. Things are much better now than they were in the 1980s. We're not suffering from a plague the government refuses to acknowledge exists, civil liberties are better protected and more accessible, mass incarceration is trending down, drug use and teen pregnancy have collapsed, the internet, and so on.  And the 1980s were much better than the 1950s. Things have been getting better for a long time, and continue to tend to get better.

Unless we elect Donald Trump to try to burn the USA to the ground because reasons.

I just don't get why people think things have not gotten better, for the vast majority of those worst off, things have gotten much better. They have not improved at as rapid a pace as they did from 1950 to 1980, but that's because Republicans enacted major policies in the 1980s to prevent things from continuing to improve at that pace.

And the populace is much less angry than they were in the 60s and 70s.

Very true! And social justice issues are not entirely economic, but they certainly impact our national wellbeing in many ways. I do think we're seeing unprecedented levels of government dysfunction, but that's really not something that simply electing a radical President would solve.

[Ormond]

26 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Things have gotten better, though. Things are much better now than they were in the 1980s. We're not suffering from a plague the government refuses to acknowledge exists, civil liberties are better protected and more accessible, mass incarceration is trending down, drug use and teen pregnancy have collapsed, the internet, and so on.  And the 1980s were much better than the 1950s. Things have been getting better for a long time, and continue to tend to get better.

Unless we elect Donald Trump to try to burn the USA to the ground because reasons.

I just don't get why people think things have not gotten better, for the vast majority of those worst off, things have gotten much better. They have not improved at as rapid a pace as they did from 1950 to 1980, but that's because Republicans enacted major policies in the 1980s to prevent things from continuing to improve at that pace.

And the populace is much less angry than they were in the 60s and 70s.

I agree with you that in general things are objectively "better" in most ways than they used to be,

However, I am not sure about the accuracy of your last sentence. Is that just your impression or do you have actual scientific polling data to back it up?