US Election: Saint Bernard the obstinant

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

But with Trump it goes well beyond lying about unachievable policies. Every politician does that to some extent. Trump lies about everything and there seems to be little fallout for doing so. I mean, you can sometimes hear his supporters laughing at a blatant lie and it doesn't seem to diminish their support for him one bit.

The nature of the lie doesn't really matter. That's the whole point of signalling. The literal truth of what you are saying doesn't really matter. 

Look at it another way - our election process is kind of a joke. There's this consensus reality that many people inhabit that says that politicians have to be very controlled in what they say and that one misstep can end a campaign. Ten years ago, George Allen basically lost his senate seat because he called some guy a macaca and it was caught on tape. Trump has tapped into a well of discontented people who don't give a shit about this game. They think it's funny when he goes out of his way to say something outrageous and doesn't suffer any repercussions for it. They like that he trolls people. He's signaling to them that he is not bound by the rules of conventional political thinking. He's proven all of the pundits dead fucking wrong, and they love it. I mean he straight up suggested that Ted Cruz's father had a hand in killing JFK. Nobody believes this. Everyone knows it's a troll. But it's not the literal truth of what he's saying that matters. 

There is a legitimate appeal here that you have to be blind not to see. 

[Shryke]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

But with Trump it goes well beyond lying about unachievable policies. Every politician does that to some extent. Trump lies about everything and there seems to be little fallout for doing so. I mean, you can sometimes hear his supporters laughing at a blatant lie and it doesn't seem to diminish their support for him one bit.

The crazy thing is how Trump lies, like, reflexively. He says something then a day later denies he said it, even though it's like on film.

He just says whatever is on his mind at the time, at any time, regardless of what he's said before.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

The nature of the lie doesn't really matter. That's the whole point of signalling. The literal truth of what you are saying doesn't really matter. 

Look at it another way - our election process is kind of a joke. There's this consensus reality that many people inhabit that says that politicians have to be very controlled in what they say and that one misstep can end a campaign. Ten years ago, George Allen basically lost his senate seat because he called some guy a macaca and it was caught on tape. Trump has tapped into a well of discontented people who don't give a shit about this game. They think it's funny when he goes out of his way to say something outrageous and doesn't suffer any repercussions for it. They like that he trolls people. He's signaling to them that he is not bound by the rules of conventional political thinking. He's proven all of the pundits dead fucking wrong, and they love it. I mean he straight up suggested that Ted Cruz's father had a hand in killing JFK. Nobody believes this. Everyone knows it's a troll. But it's not the literal truth of what he's saying that matters. 

There is a legitimate appeal here that you have to be blind not to see. 

Isn't it more of a GOP versus Democrats thing? In terms of personal integrity of politicians the GOP has always talked a big game about moral, values and what not. But their politicians often times do not live up to that standard, and their base gives them a pass. While the Democrats, well they have their fair amount of politicians whos moral compass had lead them adrift. But unlike the party of family values, the Democrat's base holds their politicians more often accountable than not. 

As an example former Senator and future face of the Democratic Party John Edwards gets caught cheating on his late wife while she was battling cancer. His political career is over now. 

Newt Gingrich gets more or less a free pass on cheating on 2 sick ex-wives, and becomes for some time the frontrunner in the GOP Primary in 2012. 

Then we have the cases of Spitzer who resigned over escorts.

While Sanford went hiking the Appalachian trail, and continued as Governor of SC. 

I am not even talking about the Christian anti-gay GOP hardliners, who gave in to their ungodly urges. 

[Kalbear]

I think that _was_ the case. I think we're getting into a lot more importance on people caring about identifying with someone and making sure that that person is in their in-group, and less about which political party.

That we see this in both Sanders and Trump as a need to be ideologically pure and not caring about things like policy positions, honesty, or even making and debating people based on statements made is kind of a big deal here. Same with the notion about how person X has always supported this, therefore good, and if you changed your mind you're not really a True X. 

I like this theory, as it's one of the only rational ways I can explain Altherion's behavior. 

[Altherion]

I'm not sure how Trump can possibly be labeled "ideologically pure" -- he not only held positions in the pre-campaign past antithetical to the ones he holds now, but "evolves" his positions from day to day even during the campaign. I think there is a lot of truth to this:

1 hour ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

Look at it another way - our election process is kind of a joke. There's this consensus reality that many people inhabit that says that politicians have to be very controlled in what they say and that one misstep can end a campaign. Ten years ago, George Allen basically lost his senate seat because he called some guy a macaca and it was caught on tape. Trump has tapped into a well of discontented people who don't give a shit about this game. They think it's funny when he goes out of his way to say something outrageous and doesn't suffer any repercussions for it. They like that he trolls people. He's signaling to them that he is not bound by the rules of conventional political thinking. He's proven all of the pundits dead fucking wrong, and they love it.

 

[Martell Spy]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/sanderss-scorched-earth-strategy-is-working.html

 

Bernie Sanders’s ‘Scorched Earth’ Strategy Seems to Be Working

 

[Shryke]

5 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/sanderss-scorched-earth-strategy-is-working.html

Bernie Sanders’s ‘Scorched Earth’ Strategy Seems to Be Working

I find this rather dubious considering the entire conclusion is based on polling data that they assume is caused by Sanders when the fact that Trump just won the nomination and got a bump from it is the more likely, or at least as likely, explanation.

 

 

[lokisnow]

15 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/sanderss-scorched-earth-strategy-is-working.html

 

Bernie Sanders’s ‘Scorched Earth’ Strategy Seems to Be Working

 

Polls are at their election year nadir of predictive accuracy in late May and early June of said election year.

Most polls get the general election outcome more correct in February of the election year and do not recover to that February level of accuracy until August of the election year at which point polling accuracy steadily increases until election day.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/05/22/february-national-polls-are-the-best-you-get-until-august/

 

 

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Polls are at their election year nadir of predictive accuracy in late May and early June of said election year.

Most polls get the general election outcome more correct in February of the election year and do not recover to that February level of accuracy until August of the election year at which point polling accuracy steadily increases until election day.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/05/22/february-national-polls-are-the-best-you-get-until-august/

 

But this means that Clinton +12 and Clinton +0 are both equally predictive, since they both just happened in the period mentioned. That doesn't make a lot of sense. ETA: misread this. What this is saying is that right now polls are the least useful that they're going to be from a predictive standpoint. 

Quote

 

I'm not sure how Trump can possibly be labeled "ideologically pure" -- he not only held positions in the pre-campaign past antithetical to the ones he holds now, but "evolves" his positions from day to day even during the campaign. I think there is a lot of truth to this:

 

While he has a lot of very weird and sometimes super contradictory positions, he doesn't change on a few no matter what - the wall, immigration being bad, politicians sucking and being politically correct. Note the people saying that 'he says what he thinks' and the like - that hasn't changed. And that's been true of him for 30 years. The ideology of being a total asshole is what he's running on, and that is absolutely something people like. Just like they do with Putin. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

The nature of the lie doesn't really matter. That's the whole point of signalling. The literal truth of what you are saying doesn't really matter. 

Look at it another way - our election process is kind of a joke. There's this consensus reality that many people inhabit that says that politicians have to be very controlled in what they say and that one misstep can end a campaign. Ten years ago, George Allen basically lost his senate seat because he called some guy a macaca and it was caught on tape. Trump has tapped into a well of discontented people who don't give a shit about this game. They think it's funny when he goes out of his way to say something outrageous and doesn't suffer any repercussions for it. They like that he trolls people. He's signaling to them that he is not bound by the rules of conventional political thinking. He's proven all of the pundits dead fucking wrong, and they love it. I mean he straight up suggested that Ted Cruz's father had a hand in killing JFK. Nobody believes this. Everyone knows it's a troll. But it's not the literal truth of what he's saying that matters. 

There is a legitimate appeal here that you have to be blind not to see. 

You make some valid points. But I have a hard time seeing a large section of the electorate agreeing with the bolded section. It's a sizable chunk, no doubt, but It wasn't even a majority of Republicans, and they're the crowd more at odds with the PCing of American politics. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

You make some valid points. But I have a hard time seeing a large section of the electorate agreeing with the bolded section. It's a sizable chunk, no doubt, but It wasn't even a majority of Republicans, and they're the crowd more at odds with the PCing of American politics. 

That might be true. at the same time, we're seeing the rank and file republicans get in line to blow Trump, including people who said that they would rather die than do so like Lindsey Graham. That's going to signal a whole bunch of people who think that Trump is an idiot to at least think that maybe the party can handle him.

[Swordfish]

5 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I knew it! I knew that bottom-feeding, over-polished, ambition-drenched opportunistic little scumbag was going to come around. I didn't think Little Marco could be more pathetic after losing his home state, but apparently there is at least one way in which Rubio never disappoints: he can always be more pathetic than you think.

Ok, wait a second here....

Isn't this the EXACT thing you guys are going ballistic about Sanders NOT doing?  

Coming out and endorsing Clinton?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That might be true. at the same time, we're seeing the rank and file republicans get in line to blow Trump, including people who said that they would rather die than do so like Lindsey Graham. That's going to signal a whole bunch of people who think that Trump is an idiot to at least think that maybe the party can handle him.

It is rather astonishing how quickly many in the #NeverTrump crowd capitulated and transformed into #NeverHillary. It would have happened eventually, because their hatred of her is clearly greater than their hatred of Trump, but I expected the process to take a lot longer.

On the plus side, the GOP's seeming rush to align with Trump will make it harder in the future for them to distance themselves from him should his campaign start to collapse. 

[Swordfish]

2 hours ago, Notone said:

Isn't it more of a GOP versus Democrats thing? In terms of personal integrity of politicians the GOP has always talked a big game about moral, values and what not. But their politicians often times do not live up to that standard, and their base gives them a pass. While the Democrats, well they have their fair amount of politicians whos moral compass had lead them adrift. But unlike the party of family values, the Democrat's base holds their politicians more often accountable than not. 

 

I'd love to know what you are basing this assumption on.

[Kalbear]

Ugh. I had forgotten that Michael Moore was one of the 'Bush and Gore are EXACTLY THE SAME' people back in the day. Bah. Anyway, here's an article on why you shouldn't vote for your conscience - it's because, arguably, you are not a human tire fire.

Quote

So get your fucking shit together once Hillary is the nominee, unless your ego and need to talk about stuff at your organic locally grown dinner parties for the next four years is greater than your respect for and compassion for the people who would suffer terribly under a GOP presidency and the Supreme Court for the next 10 to 40 years.

 

[Mudguard]

I'm OK with what Sanders is doing right now, so long as he gets behind Clinton at the conclusion of the convention and encourages all his supporters to do the same.  I think this will happen.  My guess is that he is still trying his best to move Clinton to the left, which I think is fine so long as he supports Clinton after the convention.  I don't think Clinton is entitled to his support at this moment, and I think some of the posts stating that Sanders needs to run his campaign decisions through Clinton first are ridiculous, but after the convention, yes, he should support Clinton.

Maybe he believes, like many others, that Clinton will easily beat Trump in the general, and that any damage he is currently doing to Clinton now can easily be reversed when he supports her after the convention.  I'm not so sure about Clinton winning though, even if Sanders had dropped out months ago.  Trump is a huge wildcard to me, and I don't think I'll get a good sense of things until after the debates.

[Kalbear]

Quote

and I think some of the posts stating that Sanders needs to run his campaign decisions through Clinton first are ridiculous, but after the convention, yes, he should support Clinton.

It's not every decision - but doing things like debating with the Republican nomination when you haven't won and are far, far behind is a really dangerous thing to do. It's certainly the sort of thing that should have been asked about and talked about, especially if your overall goal is to beat Trump in November. 

As an example, while Sanders debating Trump is seen as a huge potential problem for Clinton and a major gain for Trump, if Clinton and Sanders coordinated a bit prior to the debate and made sure that Sanders only went after major talking points - and also made sure to emphasize that there is nothing that he has in common with Trump and fight that assertion at every step - it might end up being a positive for Democrats. Having a way to make sure that Sanders supporters don't support Trump is kind of a big deal, and there are ways to make that at least more likely. Sanders, say, calling Trump a proto-Nazi and summoning up what happened to his Jewish friends in WW2 and saying how he has nothing in common with said Nazi is really hateful rhetoric that would suck - but it's also not coming from Clinton and is precisely the sort of thing that Sanders can do in a way that wouldn't hurt Clinton.

[DanteGabriel]

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Ugh. I had forgotten that Michael Moore was one of the 'Bush and Gore are EXACTLY THE SAME' people back in the day. Bah. Anyway, here's an article on why you shouldn't vote for your conscience - it's because, arguably, you are not a human tire fire.

 

It's satisfying to read, but I am worried that liberals are throwing these red meat attack pieces at each other. I liked this column from Dahlia Lithwick:

 

Quote

The 2016 campaign has been focused on rage. Donald Trump’s cunning redirection of his supporters’ economic and racial fury into electoral support has been well-documented. But the fury on the progressive end of the spectrum has been harder to pin down. Some of us on the left seem to be suffering from many of the same symptoms we deride in Trump supporters: outrage with the political process; over-identification with our anger and under-identification with our commonalities; and a pervasive sense that anyone who doesn’t agree with us suffers from debilitating false consciousness.

I’m not a psychologist and can’t speak to the outrage. But I think a lot about how we speak to one another, and I worry that my progressive friends and I are falling victim to some habits and ideas that have made it virtually impossible for the left and right to even engage—much less debate—serious issues anymore in this country. I see them in myself in alarming new ways when I find myself digging in on Bernie vs. Hillary. I wonder if now is the time to talk about it out loud.

 

[Mudguard]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

It's not every decision - but doing things like debating with the Republican nomination when you haven't won and are far, far behind is a really dangerous thing to do. It's certainly the sort of thing that should have been asked about and talked about, especially if your overall goal is to beat Trump in November. 

As an example, while Sanders debating Trump is seen as a huge potential problem for Clinton and a major gain for Trump, if Clinton and Sanders coordinated a bit prior to the debate and made sure that Sanders only went after major talking points - and also made sure to emphasize that there is nothing that he has in common with Trump and fight that assertion at every step - it might end up being a positive for Democrats. Having a way to make sure that Sanders supporters don't support Trump is kind of a big deal, and there are ways to make that at least more likely. Sanders, say, calling Trump a proto-Nazi and summoning up what happened to his Jewish friends in WW2 and saying how he has nothing in common with said Nazi is really hateful rhetoric that would suck - but it's also not coming from Clinton and is precisely the sort of thing that Sanders can do in a way that wouldn't hurt Clinton.

He's still running against Clinton.  There's no reason he should need permission from Clinton to debate Trump.  I also don't assume the worse in Sanders, unlike many Clinton supporters that assume Sanders will use the debate as a platform to bash Clinton with Trump.  As you say, Sanders can easily use the debate to bash Trump instead.  

I also don't think it will be that easy for Trump to steal away Sanders supporters during a debate, no more than it will be easy for Sanders to steal away Trump supporters.  Trump still needs the support of the Republican base.  It would be very dangerous for him to have a love fest with Sanders in an attempt to woo a small number of Sanders supporters that would really consider voting for Trump.  

I actually don't see much upside for Trump in a debate with Sanders.  He would need complete control of the moderators of the debate in order to be able to drive his agenda.  I really doubt that the debate will actually happen.

[Kalbear]

Talking it over with friends I think you need both.

You need the anger and the outrage sometimes - though I think the anger needs to be directed outward, not at a specific person, in order to be effective in changing minds. And then you need the mediator. You need the anger to cause people to want to do things. To see something as unfair and wrong, and make their emotional mind engage and want action. And then you need the mediator to show that you can, indeed, join the other side and not lose your signaling identity and won't be a traitor. 

At the same time - I've not felt this angry about some of my acquaintance's behavior in 6 years, since one of my friends came out as a bigot. It bothers me on a very basic moral level to think that people would be okay with sending the US into chaos and violence and open revolt so that maybe in a few years things would be better. It bothers me that their friend's rights are so meaningless to them that they would happily spend them if it meant (maybe) getting something more like what they want down the road. 

Maybe this is really personal for me because of events this year that happened to my family. When I think that there were 20 million people previously that could have had the medical bills that we have had...and have nothing with medical insurance, that angers me incredibly. When I think that there are about 3 million American kids who can have their parents deported despite living in the US for 10-20 years and even owning property - that angers me incredibly. That's not even talking about the stupid foreign policy blunders that await, mind you. That's talking about just what will happen to US policy if Trump (or realistically, almost any Republican in current vibes) comes into power.