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U.S. Politics 2016: The Mayans Were Only Off By 1418 Days


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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On 12/2/2016 at 9:37 AM, Fez said:

Could always chalk that up to the "serious, not literal" thing that he's done a few other times. I agree it'd be a risk to go off-list, but I think so long as he picks someone who is committed to overturning Roe v. Wade most of his supporters will be fine with whoever it is and whatever other stances they have.

I have this fever dream where he nominates Garland.

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11 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Ben Carson nominated as head of HUD.  There goes fair housing practices. Didn't Carson say a few weeks ago that he was unqualified to work in government?  

Yeah, he could have been the Secretary of Health and Human Services, but turned it down because he felt he wasn't qualified to head the agency. So in theory, he's even less qualified to head up HUD. 

http://www.lifenews.com/2016/11/15/ben-carson-turns-down-cabinet-position-in-trump-administration-could-have-been-hhs-secretary/

53 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Isn't it wonderful having a juvenile with no understanding of international politics taking the office of President of the United States...

His lack of understanding isn't even the biggest issue. He doesn't seem like he wants to learn anything.

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Isn't it wonderful having a juvenile with no understanding of international politics taking the office of President of the United States...

If the President-elect threatens to start World War III (or instigate a series of events that will lead to WWIII) between election day and the day the electoral college meets (19 December), would that provide a reasonable grounds for the electoral college to vote against them?

If you want to stand tall against China and send strong messages to them, there are various ways you can do that, like Obama sailing American warships through international shipping lanes and telling the Chinese to fuck off when they said they were territorial waters. The Chinese eventually did nothing about it.

However, China regards Taiwan as its own sovereign territory. From their POV it's like a foreign power suggesting that California declare independence and offering to send them money and military equipment. China will not stand for that for a moment. Taiwan is a massive red line for them and they will go to war over it. This should be the #1 policy line on China given to incoming Presidents: "Do not fuck around with Taiwan, ever." There are tens of millions of lives involved. China doesn't want war with anyone (not with the economic ramifications), but this is the one subject that they will risk it over, as it cuts to the heart of the Communist Party's history and their identity, the fact that Taiwan is unfinished business left over from the Revolution itself.

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meh, GWB was very strong in support of defending Taiwan, didn't cause WWIII

Reagan said tear down this wall and people lit their hair on fire that it was a provocation.

I don't have a problem per se with what Trump did in a vacuum. The problem is there was likely zero strategic thinking behind it. 

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3 hours ago, Cubarey said:

I disagree with you on what can be done through reconciliation. Fact is that the Democrats used reconciliation because it was the only way they could enact a final bill once Scott Brown's election made it impossible to close debate on the final bill in any other way.

Fact: there are some things are cannot be changed through reconciliation. The Senate can change its rules regarding this, of course, but they cannot simply repeal everything though that parliamentary maneuver as it currently exists. That still provides the GOP with the ability to screw things up, but they can't simply wipe away the law.

(I see @aceluby already responded to this, so let me say I agree with him.)

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36 minutes ago, Commodore said:

meh, GWB was very strong in support of defending Taiwan, didn't cause WWIII

Reagan said tear down this wall and people lit their hair on fire that it was a provocation.

I don't have a problem per se with what Trump did in a vacuum. The problem is there was likely zero strategic thinking behind it. 

Reagan, G.H.W Bush, and George W. Bush did bluster within protocol.  Trump decided a new rule that plays in a more dangerous area.  

That is in Germany which is not consider to be part of Russia.  Tawain is view as part of China.  This is Georgia and Ukraine with less International status.

War will not happen over this but China will have a reply once Trump is in office and the situtation has been elevated.  

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18 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

Reagan, G.H.W Bush, and George W. Bush did bluster within protocol.  Trump decided a new rule that plays in a more dangerous area.  

That "tear down this wall" line was widely recognized by Soviets to simply be a rhetorical flourish that had no real policy weight behind it. I wonder if China reads Trump's gesture towards Taiwan the same way.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

If the President-elect threatens to start World War III (or instigate a series of events that will lead to WWIII) between election day and the day the electoral college meets (19 December), would that provide a reasonable grounds for the electoral college to vote against them?

There's a push in the electoral college to vote for Kasich instead. But it sounds like its almost only Democrats. They might get one or two Republicans, but they need 37 to block Trump. I'd be shocked if anything happened in the next 14 days to cause that level of defection. But I was also shocked on election night, so who knows?

 

In some good news though, Pat McCrory has conceded the North Carolina governor's race to Roy Cooper. So that's another governor's race where the electorate split from the presidential result. There was a fair amount of that this year even as ticket splitting for senators ended. Unfortunately, I believe Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers in North Carolina, so Cooper is going to have severely limited influence at least until the mid-terms. Hopefully he can accomplish some by at least reversing whatever executive actions McCrory's done.

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2 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Ben Carson nominated as head of HUD.  There goes fair housing practices. Didn't Carson say a few weeks ago that he was unqualified to work in government?  

I sort of wonder if this weird insistence on getting Carson involved is because they need a black cabinet member for reasons of perceptions, and Trump doesn't personally know any other prominent black Republicans.

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Okay, I want to preface this with that I still do believe that race and gender issues and issues over sexual orientation or identity still play a big role in our politics. And that we still have work to do on those fronts.

Exhibit A is the fact that the Republican Party has been largely white party since Barry Goldwater. And there is certainly evidence that Republicans have more negative views towards minorities racial or otherwise.

And then you have Republicans generally being completely dismissive of things like BLM, when there is plenty of evidence that there are some issues with the way we do criminal enforcement in this country and those issues should concern all fair minded people.

But, the two papers below by Autor et. al do seem to indicate that trade issues had an impact on the election and/or our politics. As far as I know, Autor isn't an intellectual hack.

1. Paper One

2. Paper Two

Let's start with a basic fact: When you do free trade some jobs are going to disappear. That's the implication of older trade models like the Heckscher-Ohlin model or New Trade Theory.

Free Trade, at least in the short, redistributes income. It's true in the aggregate society is made better off according to theory, but some people do lose. You'd hope those people would eventually be able to migrate to jobs where you have comparative advantage or to jobs where you have external economies of scale. But, based on other work by Autor, it looks like that didn't happen as seamlessly as we had hoped.

And some people are not happy about that. And that is understandable. For lots of folks having a decent job is important to their emotional well being and their feeling that society has a place for them.

Now Trump's proposed solutions to the fact that some jobs are going overseas is simply redistribution of income. That's what tariffs do and that is what the tax deals he is giving to Carrier do. Some conservatives would like to play this little game that they are not, but they are.

The fact of the matter though is we do need to do redistribution of income here. Just not the way Trump does it. We have to figure out some way to get people that have lost their jobs through trade or automation or whatever employed again, using redistribution policies if we have to.

Now conservatives will also say, "well golly cut corporate taxes and watch all the jobs come!". Now personally I think there is some stuff we could do on corporate taxes, but I'm highly skeptical of this conservative line of reasoning. For one, assuming cuts in corporate taxes boost the real rate of return in the manner conservatives claim they would, the current account deficit would likely get worse. Not that is necessarily a bad thing. But it doesn't follow that the higher investments would go into those industries where people have lost jobs. Most likely the additional investments would go into those industries where we have comparative advantage or advantages in external economies of scale.

In short, this is a story about labor market adjustments. Even if the United States had zero corporate taxes many jobs will still be shipped overseas, once you take into different labor cost and exchange rate adjustments.

Of course, not of all this is about free trade. As many would point out, much of this is about the increasing role of technology too. But, whatever exact source of labor market dislocations, the Democratic Party has a lot to gain politically by implementing policies that will help to solve these problems It's also helpful that this is the right thing to do too.

Some might take Autor's conclusions as being a bit depressing. And well it  is depressing that Trump was able to sell a bunch of bull on free trade policy to win the election. But, I would suggest that there is a silver lining here. If the Democtractic Party can come up with some good policies to help these folks that have lost their jobs because of free trade or the perception, thereof, it can some of or many of these folks back, without giving up it's push for better treatment of minorities, racial or otherwise.

In short, the Democratic Party can continue with it's "identity politics", which is really what politics are all about anyway. The Republican Party is just mad cause the Democratic Party was cuttin in on their action.

For instance, the Democratic Party can push for more fairer criminal law enforcement, which is a concern of it's African American voters, while pushing for policies for those rural or "low skilled" white voters that have suffered because of lost jobs. And many of those same policies will help other groups too. It turns out that many of these identity groups have similar interest.

Of course, this doesn't mean the Democratic Party will get the alt-right crowd back or other people, but it probably shouldn't worry too much about them anyway.

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6 minutes ago, mormont said:

I sort of wonder if this weird insistence on getting Carson involved is because they need a black cabinet member for reasons of perceptions, and Trump doesn't personally know any other prominent black Republicans.

A bit of that I think. But also that some of these prominent black Republicans aren't as keen on serving with Trump, for reasons. You don't see Keyes around Trump much, for instance. But he does have that Police chief from Milwaukee in his pocket.

 

He can always start with Amarosa, like he did with his campaign.

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20 minutes ago, mormont said:

I sort of wonder if this weird insistence on getting Carson involved is because they need a black cabinet member for reasons of perceptions, and Trump doesn't personally know any other prominent black Republicans.

I'm sure that's part of it amongst his advisers, but I assume that it might be more to do with the Trump personality portrayed in the Slate article from last week, where it was noted that he craves approval above all else. People who mock him must be punished and people who praise him must be themselves lauded and rewarded. Carson never attacked Trump in the primary and backed him early.

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23 minutes ago, Hereward said:

I'm sure that's part of it amongst his advisers, but I assume that it might be more to do with the Trump personality portrayed in the Slate article from last week, where it was noted that he craves approval above all else. People who mock him must be punished and people who praise him must be themselves lauded and rewarded. Carson never attacked Trump in the primary and backed him early.

Yeah. The people in Trump's picks are largely people that backed him either verbally or monetarily. Flynn, Bannon, Mnunchin, Carson, Ross, DeVos - all were Trump backers. Oddly, the people that seem to not be backers like Haley or Romney are being pushed to foreign positions, not domestic ones.

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38 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Why would Mittens want to tidy up the mess Trump seems keen to inflict on the world? There can almost be no job more thankless than trying to avoid war with China over Taiwan, for example.

The common belief is that he's willing to serve as Trump's SoS to try and mitigate the damage that could be done, and I actually respect him for doing so. That said, Mitt won't be the SoS. 

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