U.S. Politics: "Trump Is Dumber Than A Bag Of Hair"

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I've called myself a "Classical Liberal" for a long time.

In terms of political philosophy, "classical liberal" means the arguments of John Locke and Adam Smith.  This type of perspective was abandoned by serious thinkers during the Great Depression, but sustains with the charlatans that take up the "libertarian" mantle on economic grounds, i.e. the Pauls.

2 hours ago, Fez said:

I wonder how many of those voters would've been gettable by any Democratic nominee. There were plenty of Democratic primary voters, especially in Appalachia, that really are DINOs and only voted in the primary so that they could vote against Clinton twice. I'm sure there were some Sanders supporters who were legit Sanders supporters who ended up not voting or at least not voting for Clinton, but was it actually a relevant number?

And at the same time, there were quite a few people who voted for Clinton who probably voted for Rubio, Jeb!, or Kasich in the Republican primaries. It's what led to Clinton having such a good showing in affluent, white suburbs and causing people early on on election night to think she was headed for a landslide.

I disagree with this line of thinking.  Clinton lost first because of turnout.  But 1A was plenty of Obama voters (mostly young) decided to vote third party.  These voters may have been motivated by another candidate - or Clinton herself - if she made a more concerted effort during the campaign.  To be clear, I don't think Sanders would have done any better, and probably would have done worse.

41 minutes ago, Ormond said:

You are correct on the conservative vs. liberal, but your own link directly contradicts you on Democrats and Republicans, proclaiming that now 38% of Americans identify as Republican and 45% as Democrats, with the seven point gap in favor of the Democrats the largest one since April 2015. 

Actually, now that I reread that maybe you did understand the second link, but the "(slightly less) more" was an extremely confusing way to phrase that. 

 

Sorry for the confusing wording with the "(slightly less) more."  The point was that while more people identify as Democrats than Republicans, this margin is less so than it is in terms of more people identifying as conservative than liberal.  I should have just kept it simple, i.e. more people identify as both Democrats and conservatives - what I meant by "slightly less" pertained to the difference in differences, which is indeed confusing.  My bad.

[Martell Spy]

Why Didn’t Republicans Promise a Conservative Health-Care Plan? Because They’re Not Idiots.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/why-republicans-didnt-promise-conservative-health-care-plan.html

[denstorebog]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's not 18 fake votes. It's 18 fake voting registrations. Those people did not vote or register at all.

It's really not even the same thing whatsoever. 

That part of the post was pretty much a throwaway joke about how little the article had to do with the discussion of Democratic overperformance in special elections. (He was trying to explain that phenomenon with the notion of Democrats stealing elections.)

Meanwhile, USA and Russia will now setup a joint cybersecurity force, because what could go wrong ...

All while

Trump's State Dept. Grants U.S. Visas to 150 Russian Spies ...

and Clapper thinks that 2018 is the target.

Yeah, this is gonna be fun. Even if Russia doesn't manage to sway many actual votes, these stories are doing a perfectly fine job of undermining our belief in a fair election result.

[OldGimletEye]

On 7/7/2017 at 6:17 PM, dmc515 said:

In terms of political philosophy, "classical liberal" means the arguments of John Locke and Adam Smith.  This type of perspective was abandoned by serious thinkers during the Great Depression, but sustains with the charlatans that take up the "libertarian" mantle on economic grounds, i.e. the Pauls.

.

"I shall always regard this aspect of my dispute with Keynes[opposing expansionary policies to end the Great Depression] as the greatest mistake of my professional career, and my book, The Great Depression...as something which I would willing see be forgotten."

"To treat what developed subsequently in the way which I then thought valid was as unsuitable as denying blankets and stimulants to a drunk who has fallen into an icy pond, on the ground that his original trouble was overheating.” 

-Lionel Robbins

recoverying classical liberal
And the guy that brought Hayek to England.

[OldGimletEye]

On 7/7/2017 at 6:29 PM, Martell Spy said:

Why Didn’t Republicans Promise a Conservative Health-Care Plan? Because They’re Not Idiots.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/why-republicans-didnt-promise-conservative-health-care-plan.html

 

Quote

Conservatives cannot point to any real-world examples of a country or even a state that has successfully implemented the sort of health-care system they desire. (Some of them mistakenly cite Singapore, whose health-care system relies on massive state intervention American conservatives could never accept.) That’s because there’s no electorate in any industrialized country that would tolerate it.

They also seem to have some weird fantasies about Swiss style healthcare. While it's true Switzerland doesn't provide healthcare directly, its also true they have universal coverage and the government is heavily involved in the insurance market and heavily regulates it.  Conservative policy healthcare "expert" guy and bullshit artist Avik Roy seems confused about this.

Quote

The Republican Party’s fanatical struggle against Obamacare gave conservative intellectuals a great deal of false hope.

I just have to say, that perhaps those are two words that should never appear side by side.

 

[DMC]

39 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

"I shall always regard this aspect of my dispute with Keynes[opposing expansionary policies to end the Great Depression] as the greatest mistake of my professional career, and my book, The Great Depression...as something which I would willing see be forgotten."

Of course, there's also the famous quote "We are all Keynesians now," attributed to Nixon but actually remarked by Milton Friedman in 1965.  Friedman later qualified the statement as, "In one sense, we are all Keynesians now; in another, nobody is any longer a Keynesian."  Anyway, Nixon's actual quote in 1971 was more straightforward:  "I am now a Keynesian in economics."