U.S. Politics: There's Identity Politics, On Many Sides

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

I have no crystal ball.  But my guess is that if things keep going they way they are going currently, Trump will be reelected.

I think those who think Trump is in trouble because of his low approval ratings don't understand the phenomenon they are witnessing.  Nobody actually "approves" of Donald Trump.  But they'll settle for him if they don't like the alternative.  And chances are, they won't like the alternative. 

The hard part was getting elected.  Compared to that, getting re-elected will be relatively easy.

If the economy nosedives, or some other tragedy happens, all bets are off.  

That was always going to be the case, though. And there's  not a lot Democrats are going to be able to do about it. The notion that some 'amazing message' can make people change their mind is bullshit; if a message mattered, Clinton would have won. For that matter, so would Dukakis. It doesn't matter. The message barely matters. The messenger matters. 

Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Republican POTUS can be largely meh and win, as we've seen with Bush, Trump, Nixon. Only Reagan breaks that mold, and he won in massive landslides. Democrats can't do that unless they're coming on the biggest events in modern political history like Nixon. Carter is really the only 'meh' Democrat candidate, and there's a reason he had one term. 

As I said above, the default value in the US is Republican. Despite all the absurd amount of evidence that Democratic POTUS make the US stronger, better, more valuable, more successful, the US defaults to Republican.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

That was always going to be the case, though. And there's  not a lot Democrats are going to be able to do about it. The notion that some 'amazing message' can make people change their mind is bullshit; if a message mattered, Clinton would have won. For that matter, so would Dukakis. It doesn't matter. The message barely matters. The messenger matters. 

Hillary had an amazing message? 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Hillary had an amazing message? 

Policy wise, she was absurdly prepared - prepared with things that could actually be done, with or without congressional help. She was by far the most prepared candidate I've ever seen, with thoughtful ideas that could really transform the US. So...yes?

But the media barely covered anything about her  that wasn't emails (this is pretty well-documented now, though I can find links to it), but ultimately it didn't matter. 

Now, if you're talking about a message like 'Yes we can" or "Make America Great Again" or whatever, sure - she didn't have a crappy platitude that was nearly as marketable. But that's not a message, that's an empty promise. That's a slogan. And the slogan doesn't matter unless you have someone you really care about. 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Wait a minute, isn't it the official Republican line that the internet is NOT a utility and therefore net neutrality rules can be axed? If the internet itself (i.e. companies that provide the data stream we all use) isn't a utility then how can businesses that operate via a non-utility be a utility?

That is the line of the establishment Republicans, but the Breitbart crowd hates the latter only slightly less than they hate liberals. On some issues (e.g. illegal immigration), they might even hate them a bit more.

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Given Facebook and Youtube are internet megaphones owned by private companies no one has any right to use those platform, People only get to use those platforms on the whims of the company. So long as the company's whims are lawful then you have no recourse other than to appeal to their greedy nature as corporations whose sole aim is to increase profits.

The definition of lawful depends on the people enforcing and interpreting the laws. If Teddy Roosevelt was around, he'd have found a way to deal with them as many of them are effectively monopolies. Unfortunately, there isn't anyone willing and able to take the Big Stick to them.

59 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Eh. Part of the election last year is how much is really against a Democratic candidate no matter who they are, at this point. Clinton especially. When you have literally another nation-state using espionage tactics against you, it's reasonable to say that there are things outside of your control. 

But on the other hand, she did have an overwhelming fraction of the US media on her side, the existence of the "Never Trump" movement and other dissent within the Republican ranks and, last but certainly not least, twice as much money as her opponent.

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Policy wise, she was absurdly prepared - prepared with things that could actually be done, with or without congressional help. She was by far the most prepared candidate I've ever seen, with thoughtful ideas that could really transform the US.

Give me $100M and I can probably hire people to come up with something just as good and with just as much sincerity and just as good an impression that I actually intend to do any of them with plenty of cash to spare. Her most ambitious and most memorable idea was probably in that quote about a hemispheric common market with open borders, but I'd be surprised if she discusses it in her book.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

But on the other hand, she did have an overwhelming fraction of the US media on her side, the existence of the "Never Trump" movement and other dissent within the Republican ranks and, last but certainly not least, twice as much money as her opponent.

There was almost no dissent among republicans, and certainly not compared to the Sanders people. The best dissent you had was from Cruz, who was booed at the convention and then made up for it later. By comparison, about 20% of Sanders supporters walked out of the convention. 

As to an overwhelming fraction of the media on her side - I think that's an insane reinterpretation of what happened. The coverage on Clinton was overwhelmingly about emails; the coverage on Trump was all about all sorts of things. The media was somewhat negative about Trump, at least some of them, but they were never positive about Clinton to any degree. And in the end, the media's desire to make a big deal about the email was what doomed her the most. 

The money thing is pretty important until you realize that Trump got approximately 2 billion dollars in free media coverage during the election.

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

Give me $100M and I can probably hire people to come up with something just as good and with just as much sincerity and just as good an impression that I actually intend to do any of them with plenty of cash to spare. Her most ambitious and most memorable idea was probably in that quote about a hemispheric common market with open borders, but I'd be surprised if she discusses it in her book.

Possibly; it certainly is the case that most other politicians don't bother doing that sort of thing. They don't think about it in the least - they offer pithy soundbites and absurd promises and never deliver, or they make small promises that they keep. What's especially true about Clinton was how deep her policy proposals were and why, and how many policy wonks she had on staff to talk with her. That isn't typical for a candidate, and it certainly didn't happen with Obama or Gore or Bill Clinton. It's something that Hillary cared a lot about. It just wasn't something that Americans do. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Eh. Part of the election last year is how much is really against a Democratic candidate no matter who they are, at this point.

Particularly considering the cyclical and environmental factors against the Dem nominee.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

My understanding was that in the book she also takes a lot of personal blame.

Whether she does or not she chose to highlight the Bernie thing by releasing this excerpt.  And doing so is counter-productive and only serves to elevate intraparty tensions all in the interest of Hillary.

13 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Give me $100M and I can probably hire people to come up with something just as good and with just as much sincerity and just as good an impression that I actually intend to do any of them with plenty of cash to spare.

I'm hardly her biggest fan, but only an idiot would suggest Hillary wasn't as, if not more prepared on a policy level and for the legislative arena than any nominee in the modern era.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Whether she does or not she chose to highlight the Bernie thing by releasing this excerpt.  And doing so is counter-productive and only serves to elevate intraparty tensions all in the interest of Hillary.

Apparently she didn't release it, though that speaks more to her lack of control than anything else. 

 

[James Arryn]

I think 2016 was Biden's woulda shoulda, if not for his son...perfect foil for Trump. But he's 77 in 2020, is that doable? The more I read about Harris, the less I'm enthused. What are the thoughts on Castro, Franken and Warren?

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Apparently she didn't release it, though that speaks more to her lack of control than anything else. 

 

I have a very hard time believing her camp wasn't behind the "leaks."

[OldGimletEye]

On 9/5/2017 at 9:01 PM, dmc515 said:

Whether she does or not she chose to highlight the Bernie thing by releasing this excerpt.  And doing so is counter-productive and only serves to elevate intraparty tensions all in the interest of Hillary

I think this is my biggest problem with the book, whether her allegations are true, partially true, or not true. It's the timing is bad.

Trump is like the Night's King with a very, very, bad toupee, except I'd argue the NK has more charm, is smarter, and is probably more humane. Anyway, everyone's gotta unite to fight the Orange Night's King Swamp thing and the release of this book seems like it's going to intensify intra-party squabbles.

[Altherion]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

There was almost no dissent among republicans, and certainly not compared to the Sanders people. The best dissent you had was from Cruz, who was booed at the convention and then made up for it later. By comparison, about 20% of Sanders supporters walked out of the convention.

Most of the Sanders people were angry, but voted for Clinton anyway. Trump couldn't even manage an outright majority in Utah because a third-party conservative got 20%+ of the vote.

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As to an overwhelming fraction of the media on her side - I think that's an insane reinterpretation of what happened.

I don't think so.

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The money thing is pretty important until you realize that Trump got approximately 2 billion dollars in free media coverage during the election.

Trump earned it by being entertaining -- for some people because they liked him, for others because they thought his campaign resembled a train wreck. Clinton wasn't nearly as interesting.

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Possibly; it certainly is the case that most other politicians don't bother doing that sort of thing. They don't think about it in the least - they offer pithy soundbites and absurd promises and never deliver, or they make small promises that they keep. What's especially true about Clinton was how deep her policy proposals were and why, and how many policy wonks she had on staff to talk with her. That isn't typical for a candidate, and it certainly didn't happen with Obama or Gore or Bill Clinton. It's something that Hillary cared a lot about. It just wasn't something that Americans do.

Nobody does it because they know that it will only matter for a small number of people. Most people who are smart enough to understand those detailed plans are also smart enough to understand that most of them aren't going to happen. It takes considerable charisma to pull this off and H. Clinton simply wasn't at that level.

[The Anti-Targ]

13 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

That was during the primaries; when it was believed that Trump was the candidate Hillary could beat.  Even then, the media thought it was helping Hillary.

So the media doesn't understand the concept of any publicity is good publicity? 

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Most of the Sanders people were angry, but voted for Clinton anyway. Trump couldn't even manage an outright majority in Utah because a third-party conservative got 20%+ of the vote.

Many of the Sanders people didn't end up voting. 

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't think so.

Oooh, endorsements from newspapers! How quaint. I'll see that and raise you a study that Clinton's emails got more coverage than any other topic by a large margin.

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Trump earned it by being entertaining -- for some people because they liked him, for others because they thought his campaign resembled a train wreck. Clinton wasn't nearly as interesting.

Yes - and this disagrees with my premise how?

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Nobody does it because they know that it will only matter for a small number of people. Most people who are smart enough to understand those detailed plans are also smart enough to understand that most of them aren't going to happen. It takes considerable charisma to pull this off and H. Clinton simply wasn't at that level.

And this disagrees with my premise how?

[LongRider]

Quote

    4 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

From what little I've seen of it, it's horrible being on Twitter anyway, which is why I don't have an account.

 

3 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Is that the same thing as that Tweeter thing Rick Perry was talking about?
Always wanted to tell people they could follow me on tweeter. But, it sounds like a real bummer. So I guess I won't.

I've started reading some twitter folks and am actually enjoying them.  This article talks about twitter threads and some of these threads can be quite interesting,

Quote

We don’t get to choose the literary genre of our epoch, and in this worst-of-times-worst-of-times political era, we have the Twitter thread. A series of tweets, written by one person and strung together by Twitter’s vertical border wall, the thread has emerged as this year’s ascendant form of argument: urgent, galloping, personality-driven and—depending on your view of the topic—either tacky and misleading or damned persuasive.

Readers of political Twitter know well a thread’s opening rumble. Threaders burst into being like tub-thumpers, without warning and from unexpected soapboxes; they generally announce themselves by pounding the bar: “THREAD.” (Sometimes, more recessively, they use the “1/”—a foreboding half-fraction suggesting a first installment with no end in sight.) A conundrum opens the performance, a pedantic premise or a statement of flat-out horror: “Jeff Sessions threatened to jail journalists who use anonymous sources,” “the DPRK might now be able to nuke Boston.” Then, a thread lays out its zealous case—walking readers to a conclusion with a hissing fuse of tweets and links, an artful digression, an awesomely cocksure QED.

 

[LongRider]

Hillary running again would be like when Mitt tried again this past summer. His party had to tell him it was over and they were done with him. I don't see why Clinton wouldn't get the same message.

It's time to put the Clintons behind us and move on.  Let her support the party and raise money, that she should be able to do well. 

[Shryke]

5 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

On my phone, so can't address specific paragraphs separately.

Progressives were always going to be wary of Clinton, though, and Sanders' campaign didn't invent the corruption narrative, especially with regards to the DNC. There were rumblings about the DNC being in the bag for Clinton as far back as the release of the debate schedule in 2015, before Sanders was anything more than a joke candidate. I see your point, but I think the release of the hacked DNC emails added more fuel to that fire than anything else. More importantly, what's the point of Clinton opening up wounds that are trying to heal?

From what little I've seen of it, it's horrible being on Twitter anyway, which is why I don't have an account. But my point was not to say that no Bernie supporters were sexist, but rather that her statement seems to imply that the breadth of sexism among Bernie supporters was greater than it actually was.

Agreed that Clinton went to the mattresses for Obama after his primary win.

Also agreed that the right's quarter century campaign is just disgusting.

Sanders didn't invent the corruption narrative, no. He didn't invent a ton of narratives about Clinton. What he did was introduce them to left-wingers, many young people new to politics even, and more importantly he normalized them as things it was ok to think on the Left. He made attacks by the right-wing media legitimate stances and beliefs for his supporters to take.

The fact that it's still fairly easy to find people on the left and among democrats who think the DNC rigged the primary in some fashion is a testament to the power of this.

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Policy wise, she was absurdly prepared - prepared with things that could actually be done, with or without congressional help. She was by far the most prepared candidate I've ever seen, with thoughtful ideas that could really transform the US. So...yes?

But the media barely covered anything about her  that wasn't emails (this is pretty well-documented now, though I can find links to it), but ultimately it didn't matter. 

Now, if you're talking about a message like 'Yes we can" or "Make America Great Again" or whatever, sure - she didn't have a crappy platitude that was nearly as marketable. But that's not a message, that's an empty promise. That's a slogan. And the slogan doesn't matter unless you have someone you really care about. 

I think the slogan matters a lot more then you are giving it credit for. Trump and Sanders both presented simplistic narratives about who was to blame. In an election year where people felt shitty and were demanding change, this sells well. Clinton was presenting a lot of concrete wonky policy, but no real solid slogan and it hurt her.

But yeah, the media coverage was insane. I think the perfect illustration of this was when CNN showed an empty podium where Trump was soon going to speak rather then Clinton who was literally at that exact moment giving a speech. You can't fight that shit.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Trump was the candidate they thought Hillary could beat.  So they gave him "good" publicity.  In the primaries.

As for the Access Hollywood tape and other sex allegations they saved for the last month or so, I'm pretty sure they felt that was an exception to the "any publicity is good publicity" rule.

And yet, clearly it was not an exception. 

[The Anti-Targ]

So what's with this thing about DACA being unlawful? Was Obama not applying or following the law when he brought in DACA? Does it need a law to be passed to be a long term and permanent solution?

Are the complaints against Trump more about how he's going about this rather than the ultimate solution he's seeking? Or is it being disingenuous to revoke and palm it off to Congress saying it's up to them to sort it out, I'm just following the law?

[Yukle]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Nobody does it because they know that it will only matter for a small number of people. Most people who are smart enough to understand those detailed plans are also smart enough to understand that most of them aren't going to happen. It takes considerable charisma to pull this off and H. Clinton simply wasn't at that level.

That's not true; Clinton won the popular vote by a clear margin. It was the Electoral College that she didn't win.

There is no easy fix for that, especially since the Electoral College isn't even properly representative. If it was, Clinton would have won easily as, for instance, California is under-represented and Wyoming very much over-represented.

And for some unknown reason Americans keep defending the EC as necessary - but not a single one of their own 50 states use it at state level, so I don't know what other proof you need that it's a stupid idea. Especially since most states have urban centres and rural areas, and many have populations larger than the USA was when the EC was conceived.