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U.S. Politics: From Russia, With Love


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4 hours ago, mormont said:

'Seems pretty obvious' =/= 'is actually true'.

From what I've read, most of those white working class voters were in the upper earning brackets of the working class, still had jobs (although they may have lived in communities which had seen high unemployment) and were mostly motivated by race or racial issues. None of these factors suggest that these voters are a great fit with Sanders' message. If they voted for Sanders in the primary, I would suggest it was out of distaste for Clinton. I'd further suggest that a lot of them would be likely to have deserted Sanders for Trump in the election. Trump's appeal wasn't based on rational self-interest: there's no evidence to suggest that Sanders' message would have inoculated these voters against that.

Come on.  You can't make the claim that the theory is incorrect due to lack of evidence, and then propose a different theory utilizing the same lack of evidence.  

Either they are both possible and there's no clear evidence to prove otherwise (which is true), or there is evidence to support your theory.  And given that your theory is based solely on suggestions with no clear evidence, how about we move on and just say we'll never know and there will never be enough evidence to prove it one way or the other?

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4 hours ago, mormont said:

'Seems pretty obvious' =/= 'is actually true'.

Trust me, if you were on the ground here in the Midwest you'd just how obvious it is.

4 hours ago, mormont said:

From what I've read, most of those white working class voters were in the upper earning brackets of the working class, still had jobs (although they may have lived in communities which had seen high unemployment) and were mostly motivated by race or racial issues.

Yes, most of them fall into the categories you listed, but that doesn't change the fact that enough Sanders supporters swayed the election by either staying how or voting for Trump. 

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6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Have any of you seen the new Trump 100 day ad? It's creepy as hell and feels like it comes straight out of a futuristic dystopian movie. 

It's really bad.  I don't see how anyone thought this would be a good idea.  You can't tout that the 100 day mark is a made up benchmark with no value and then spend $1.5 million on an ad touting how great your first 100 days are.

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Trump's now tweeting about his disappointment with the budget deal and that he hopes for a "good shutdown" in September to sort things out. So first of all, he proves once again he's all empty talk (if he really wanted a shutdown he'd have pushed for one now) and secondly he's not interested in any outreach to Democrats; just slinging comments from the sidelines while others make the deals.

Also, minor thing, but he's just factually wrong as well (surprise, surprise). The current deal, assuming its passed, funds the government through the end of September. If there was a shutdown it'd be at 12:00AM, October 1.

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6 minutes ago, Fez said:

Trump's now tweeting about his disappointment with the budget deal and that he hopes for a "good shutdown" in September to sort things out. So first of all, he proves once again he's all empty talk (if he really wanted a shutdown he'd have pushed for one now) and secondly he's not interested in any outreach to Democrats; just slinging comments from the sidelines while others make the deals.

If he wanted a good shutdown, all he has to do is veto the bill.  Did he forget about that particular Presidential power, or is he just hoping that we did? 

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49 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Come on.  You can't make the claim that the theory is incorrect due to lack of evidence, and then propose a different theory utilizing the same lack of evidence.  

Of course I can! But you're perfectly entitled to point out the same flaw applies.

Still, I've just never found it plausible, this idea that Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters are in some significant proportion made up of horny-handed traditional left-wing stalwarts just desperate to vote for anti-capitalist leaders like Sanders, Corbyn and Melenchon. For one thing, they largely don't vote for those guys. For another, these voters aren't really anti-capitalist at all: at least there is no indication that they are, and plenty that they are not.

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The traditional blue collar Democrat base is abandoning them though. 

 

How does the Freedom Caucus hold so much power in the Republican strata anyway ? For one thing these guys are bound to certain geographic regions. A large percentage of Senators from the Republican side don't agree with their agenda, nor do they need to tap in the said electorate to win again. So why are these nutjobs so powerful ?

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8 minutes ago, mormont said:

Of course I can! But you're perfectly entitled to point out the same flaw applies.

Still, I've just never found it plausible, this idea that Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters are in some significant proportion made up of horny-handed traditional left-wing stalwarts just desperate to vote for anti-capitalist leaders like Sanders, Corbyn and Melenchon. For one thing, they largely don't vote for those guys. For another, these voters aren't really anti-capitalist at all: at least there is no indication that they are, and plenty that they are not.

I think the area of disagreement is what constitutes a significant shift. We're arguing that there was enough at the margins to swing the election, not a wholesale shift that represents some kind of realignment. 

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21 minutes ago, The King in Black said:

How does the Freedom Caucus hold so much power in the Republican strata anyway ? For one thing these guys are bound to certain geographic regions. A large percentage of Senators from the Republican side don't agree with their agenda, nor do they need to tap in the said electorate to win again. So why are these nutjobs so powerful ?

They ironically highlight the power of organized labor in negotiations with their "bosses" (Congressional leadership). They always stick together and there's enough of them that if they vote no, Republicans can't pass anything on their own. The only options are to do nothing, appease them, or to work with Democrats, and the way partisanship is now the last option is impossible unless its a must-pass bill. Which basically just means keeping the government open and at status quo and raising the debt ceiling when necessary.

And doing nothing is fine when Democrats have a full veto on Federal activity, but its embarrassing and demoralizing when Republicans control all branches of the government and Democrats only power is the filibuster; which can be somewhat worked around through reconciliation.

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53 minutes ago, Fez said:

Trump's now tweeting about his disappointment with the budget deal and that he hopes for a "good shutdown" in September to sort things out. So first of all, he proves once again he's all empty talk (if he really wanted a shutdown he'd have pushed for one now) and secondly he's not interested in any outreach to Democrats; just slinging comments from the sidelines while others make the deals.

He also called for the end of the legislative filibuster. His ignorance is breathtaking. 

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

Still, I've just never found it plausible, this idea that Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters are in some significant proportion made up of horny-handed traditional left-wing stalwarts just desperate to vote for anti-capitalist leaders like Sanders, Corbyn and Melenchon. For one thing, they largely don't vote for those guys. For another, these voters aren't really anti-capitalist at all: at least there is no indication that they are, and plenty that they are not.

 

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think the area of disagreement is what constitutes a significant shift. We're arguing that there was enough at the margins to swing the election, not a wholesale shift that represents some kind of realignment. 

I agree with Mormont that even if we're talking about a swing at the margins from far-left (Sanders voters) to Trump is rather implausible.  However, the point is Trump didn't need that shift because (1) many Sanders voters were disillusioned enough with the Hillary candidacy to vote third party and (2) Hillary did not turnout the solid Democratic constituencies at the levels Obama did - particularly in large cities.  

It's not too hard to find evidence on this.  Simply google "Clinton in big cities vs. Obama," and this is the first result showing the main counties in which Clinton underperformed vis-a-vis Obama were the counties of Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and to a lesser extent Flint and Toledo.  That's how you lose the Midwest.  Again, Trump got one percent less of the electorate than Romney.  He didn't win by persuading leftist voters.  He won be reinforcing his base while Clinton failed to do so.

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I will weigh in on Tywin's side of this debate.  I think that where people are going wrong is that a lot of lower information voters I've talked to (such as many of my in-laws) do not view things in a right-left way.  They felt like things were really bad in their community - no one can find a good job, crime and schools are getting worse.  Given that perspective, they are given a choice between the status quo candidate Clinton and the "establishment hates me" candidate Trump, they went with Trump.  This really frustrated me, since they definitely benefit from programs like Obamacare, medicaid and food stamps, but those details didn't really resonate with them. 

It basically boiled down to: if business-as-usual is utterly unacceptable, then people are a LOT more willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.  If both Sanders and Trump were offering a shakeup of the norms, the race would have played out very differently.

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

Of course I can! But you're perfectly entitled to point out the same flaw applies.

Still, I've just never found it plausible, this idea that Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters are in some significant proportion made up of horny-handed traditional left-wing stalwarts just desperate to vote for anti-capitalist leaders like Sanders, Corbyn and Melenchon. For one thing, they largely don't vote for those guys. For another, these voters aren't really anti-capitalist at all: at least there is no indication that they are, and plenty that they are not.

I think lumping Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters into some all encompassing group is a mistake.  Since we were talking specifically about Trump and Sanders, I'll choose to stick to that election.  The election was incredibly close and was decided by less than 100k votes, so it doesn't have to be all that significant for the difference could be made.  And the argument presented was that there are plausibly 100k voters that voted for Sanders, but didn't vote for Clinton; not that they necessarily voted for Trump (though there are some that fall into that category).  I think it's dismissive to say that it isn't plausible for that to happen.  Among my left leaning friends in the midwest it was quite pervasive.

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33 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I think that where people are going wrong is that a lot of lower information voters I've talked to (such as many of my in-laws) do not view things in a right-left way.  They felt like things were really bad in their community - no one can find a good job, crime and schools are getting worse.  Given that perspective, they are given a choice between the status quo candidate Clinton and the "establishment hates me" candidate Trump, they went with Trump. 

Well that's a different demo.  It's been empirically demonstrated the least informed also tend to be the least partisan, but they also tend to be the least likely to participate in primaries.  These are certainly not the people I conceive of when I think of Sanders' core constituency.  It is true, however, that they're the most easily persuadable, and therefore the most likely to switch from Obama to Trump based on personal characteristics of the candidates, e.g. the attacks on Clinton.

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Where I got drawn into this discussion was from a comment on another thread which did draw the Le Pen/Trump parallel, and there's absolutely no doubt that there is a narrative on both sides of the political aisle that says this is all part of a worldwide trend. It's the idea of traditional white working-class voters left feeling left behind by capitalism and ignored by the preoccupation of their left-wing leaders with social equality, and in response turning to barely disguised racists because they promise to do something about capitalism.

I worry about the willingness of some on the left - whether in the US, UK or Europe - to buy into that narrative uncritically. But that's a whole 'nother discussion, for another time.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

He also called for the end of the legislative filibuster.

This is actually the interesting part. The shutdown stuff was old a few years ago -- it was scary at first, but now nobody believes they're actually  going to do it and, at most, all of the games they play just end up hurting individual federal workers and people who rely on the latter for services. However, if the filibuster can be removed altogether, then either a lot of things become possible or at the very least we learn about which politicians in a given party really disagree with it. Of course, it is unlikely that he will succeed at eliminating the filibuster, but this is a much more progressive goal than many of his others.

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29 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This is actually the interesting part. The shutdown stuff was old a few years ago -- it was scary at first, but now nobody believes they're actually  going to do it and, at most, all of the games they play just end up hurting individual federal workers and people who rely on the latter for services. However, if the filibuster can be removed altogether, then either a lot of things become possible or at the very least we learn about which politicians in a given party really disagree with it. Of course, it is unlikely that he will succeed at eliminating the filibuster, but this is a much more progressive goal than many of his others.

I really doubt the legislative filibuster is going anywhere; Republicans have been clear that they view it as their most important defense whenever they're in the minority (and as Hatch pointed out recently, when it comes to the senate, Republicans usually are the minority). Also, lots of members from both parties have been clear that they consider it their most important difference from the House, an institution they look down on. Earlier this year, 61 senators signed a letter to McConnell saying they supported keeping the legislative filibuster no matter what. Schumer didn't sign the letter because it was also addressed to him as minority leader, meaning there are at most 38 votes in favor of ditching the legislative filibuster; and likely even less than that.

 

In other news, the other upcoming congressional special election kicks off today with primaries in South Carolina, 5th district. Both parties have run-off primaries if no candidate breaks 50% today, and then the special election itself is June 20. Meaning people may need to vote 3 times in less than 2 months, which is not a great sign for turnout.

Its a longshot chance, especially since this is a district where Trump did better than Romney or McCain did, and it was already a very red district. But its not as red as Kansas-4 was, and a swing that large here actually would flip the district. Also, Democrats did hold this seat until the 2010 wave (and had held all the way back to 1839, other than a short break during Reconstruction) and by 2010 most of the South had already flipped; so there are a lot of voters there who still very recently were willing to vote for Democrats for some offices.

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30 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's the idea of traditional white working-class voters left feeling left behind by capitalism and ignored by the preoccupation of their left-wing leaders with social equality, and in response turning to barely disguised racists because they promise to do something about capitalism.

Yeah the new thrust within poly sci circles among Europeanists (which, it should be noted, I very much am not) is that anti-globalist sentiment represents a new dimension of political competition orthogonal to the traditional right-left in an attempt to explain emergent far-right parties.  I'm very skeptical of this because the issues far-right parties "own" (immigration, EU integration) have been buoyed in large part by real world events raising their salience among the public.  While this engenders niche party support among right-leaning voters, leftists have their own responses - embodied by the rise of Melenchon in the first-stage of the French election.  I think it's far more likely these issues are integrated into traditional left-right competition than seeing leftists abandon their other principles for racist demagogues.  So, increased polarization?  Sure.  Full-fledged realignment?  Very unlikely.

The main issue where the far-right and far-left completely agree IRT anti-globalism is trade, but this has been the case for decades.  Has trade really risen in salience among the public?  I haven't seen it.  Of course, Trump is a great example of attitude shifts - Republicans are all of a sudden dramatically against free trade! - but this is different than salience and actually supports the point above about integrating such issues into traditional left-right.  I don't want to completely discount an alignment of the extremes, in large part because one of my cohorts is actually writing her dissertation on the influence of trade policy on elections.  She's a good researcher and an awesome person, but I need more to be convinced.

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