2016 US Election thread: the begininning

[Fez]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

 But I'm also sure that the two campaigns represent very different, substantially separate, threads of anti-establishment sentiment.

Less than you'd think. The reporters out there in Iowa often ask people who they are voting for and why. Here's a sampling of the responses from Trump supporters that I've seen:

"I'm much too passive in my life, I want a more aggressive government."

"I'm voting for Trump because he'll get things done; although he may be the anti-Christ."

"He's the only one who isn't a criminal."

Trump supporters are attracted to him over his tone, not his ideology. Which is why he has broadly the same level of support among all the different types of Republicans, including both 'Republicans who identify as Tea Partiers' and 'Republicans who want to raise taxes on the wealthy' (yeah, that's a thing; albeit small) give him plurality support. Its just raw un-channelled anger.

A lot of Sanders supporters are angry too. But its being channelled into leftwing policy solutions instead. If Sanders adopted Trump's anger he probably could attract a decent number of Trump supporters, since they are so non-ideological in their support. The problems are: 1) Trump will be the nominee, so that won't work and 2) Even if Trump isn't, Sanders would need to fully adopt that anger, which would turn-off a lot of Democratic voters. Especially the minorities who are already leery of him.

It also helps that when Trump actually turns to economic and budget policy, he's often straight-up leftwing himself; talking about protecting Social Security and Medicare, raising capital gains taxes, letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, etc. Trump is like that type of European right-wing party that wants a strong social benefit system, but only for the right kind of people. Sanders also wants a strong social benefit system, he doesn't want to restrict it to only white people, but he also hasn't been properly addressing the policy issues most concerning to minorities. Under different circumstances, like if the US was a parliamentary system with lots of parties, it would not be hard to see the Trump party and Sanders party working together (unless Trump just got blackballed the way those European parties often are by the mainstream).

[DanteGabriel]

8 hours ago, Commodore said:

Sanders/Cruz are truly anti-establishment (although Sanders isn't as despised by his party's leadership), while Trump is just a world class bullshitter who is skilled at exploiting those sentiments.

Ha ha ha, the Harvard-Princeton lawyer who held positions in George W. Bush's administrations in Texas and the Presidency is "truly anti-establishment." Good one.

I thought you were at least cynical enough about politics and politicians to avoid buying into Cruz's grift. 

[TrackerNeil]

3 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Ha ha ha, the Harvard-Princeton lawyer who held positions in George W. Bush's administrations in Texas and the Presidency is "truly anti-establishment." Good one.

I thought you were at least cynical enough about politics and politicians to avoid buying into Cruz's grift. 

I think he clerked for Rehnquist, too, didn't he? The only thing "anti-establishment" about Ted Cruz is that the Republican establishment, of which he is a part, utterly detests him. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

9 hours ago, lokisnow said:

 

Sanders is Goldwater (if he's successful in earning the nomination) it will be fifty years or more before democrats have candidates advocating the left wing extreme equivalents of what trump is advocating.

I am rather irritated at sanders continued talk of revolution in politics, if he's brewing a populist revolution there should be footsoldiers of his running for every state legislative office possible in 2016, and running for every seat up for election in congress. If sanders can Marshall support of people supporting his agenda to be his base of support in federal and state governments, then he is leading a revolution, but if he's not leading inspiring or cajoling 2000+ candidates to be running for office on agendas akin to his own then all his talk of revolution is just empty worthless rhetoric. If he wants to get things done, he's going to need an army of support, and other than one challenger to dws, I've not seen any indication anyone is entering politics on bernies side.

Sanders doesn't need to recruit 2000 candidates to run across the country, because his ideas already have significant support in the Democratic Party's progressive wing. Consider the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which Sanders co-founded in 1991, and has since grown into the largest Democratic caucus in the House (Worth noting that Nancy Pelosi came out of the Progressive Caucus, only leaving it when she was elected to the leadership. The House under her Speakership managed to pass a truly progressive agenda, much of which was killed by the Senate). His ideas also seem to have wide support among base voters, even those who don't support his candidacy. Sanders hasn't operated as if the Democratic Party is a hopeless case since he got to Congress, he's always caucused with them. What he wants to see is the progressive wing take control from the pro-corporate, pro-war, triangulating centrist wing- the Clinton wing (exemplified more by Bill than Hillary, but it goes for both of them). His nomination would send a powerful message to Democrats across the country about where the base is, and what kind of political messages are acceptable- the era of our national political discourse being dominated by arch-conservatism on the right and neoliberalism/milquetoast-centrism on the left could actually be ended.

Your prediction of electoral doom in the event of his nomination is, of course, just the usual from you. But here's a decent article on that.

[lokisnow]

I've been reading lots of articles like that the past two weeks and I don't think sanders will doom democrats anymore. At least no more than Clinton will. Honesgly, the more I dig into the nitty gritty of how sanders legislated the more I really really like him.

I think the Democrats need to make the safety net great, then focus on expanding it. Invest money to make medicare great insurance, the expand it to younger ages. Invest money to make social security great, then expand it to paid family leave.

Do things to increase the popularity of your signature popular programs then make them bigger and better.

You can sell some redistribution if it is small percents. redistribution efforts, like the Medicare capital gains taxes in Obama care, are invisible to the public and media because the percentage is so low they never bother talking about it. In other words, small percentage redistributive tax increases can be passed with no one noticing, no revolution required.

But the regardless of order, paid family leave needs to be priority number one for democrats. Also making it tax free or allowing taxes to be withheld from it (as you can with unemployment).

Priority number two, infrastructure bank, funded by the federal reserve bonds, as it did back in the day. Next time we do quantitative easing it goes into infrastructure automatically, not just inflating wall street billionaires bottom lines with free money.

Priority 3, expanding social security, increasing benefits and lowering the retirement age.

Priority 4, make medicare be at least as good as the worst exchange plan and lowering the enrollment age.

Priority 5, repeal welfare reform narrowly so mothers can stay home with their kids rather than be forced to work.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 hours ago, Commodore said:

Sanders/Cruz are truly anti-establishment (although Sanders isn't as despised by his party's leadership), while Trump is just a world class bullshitter who is skilled at exploiting those sentiments.

Cruz isn't as anti-establishment as his rhetoric is. That's why, in part, his colleagues dislike him. And it's not just leadership, it's everyone not named Mike Lee.

[TerraPrime]

40 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think he clerked for Rehnquist, too, didn't he? The only thing "anti-establishment" about Ted Cruz is that the Republican establishment, of which he is a part, utterly detests him. 

You're just not listening to Cruz, that's all. He said he's against the establishment, and he said he hates doing all the stuff that career politicians do. So, you know, he's the Outsider! Like McCain was the Maverick and W. Bush is the Decider!

[OnionAhaiReborn]

27 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

 

I've been reading lots of articles like that the past two weeks and I don't think sanders will doom democrats anymore. At least no more than Clinton will. Honesgly, the more I dig into the nitty gritty of how sanders legislated the more I really really like him.

I think the Democrats need to make the safety net great, then focus on expanding it. Invest money to make medicare great insurance, the expand it to younger ages. Invest money to make social security great, then expand it to paid family leave.

Do things to increase the popularity of your signature popular programs then make them bigger and better.

You can sell some redistribution if it is small percents. redistribution efforts, like the Medicare capital gains taxes in Obama care, are invisible to the public and media because the percentage is so low they never bother talking about it. In other words, small percentage redistributive tax increases can be passed with no one noticing, no revolution required.

But the regardless of order, paid family leave needs to be priority number one for democrats. Also making it tax free or allowing taxes to be withheld from it (as you can with unemployment).

Priority number two, infrastructure bank, funded by the federal reserve bonds, as it did back in the day. Next time we do quantitative easing it goes into infrastructure automatically, not just inflating wall street billionaires bottom lines with free money.

Priority 3, expanding social security, increasing benefits and lowering the retirement age.

Priority 4, make medicare be at least as good as the worst exchange plan and lowering the enrollment age.

Priority 5, repeal welfare reform narrowly so mothers can stay home with their kids rather than be forced to work.

I agree that this is a potential path- and I think Sanders does too (he'd prefer the political revolution, but his record proves he'll take increments). He's already campaigning on social security expansion and paid family leave, on health care he's shooting for the moon but I can't imagine he'd not support lowering medicare enrollment age if it came before him. Now, he probably won't get any of that (barring an electoral wave), but with Clinton I have deep concern that we could actually move in the opposite direction. All the talk of her supposedly superior ability to 'get things done' just raises the specter of an entitlement slashing "Grand Bargain" to me. There's little else that could plausibly get done with a Republican Congress at the negotiating table, and it would be classic Clintonian politics.

[TrackerNeil]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Cruz isn't as anti-establishment as his rhetoric is. That's why, in part, his colleagues dislike him. And it's not just leadership, it's everyone not named Mike Lee.

I just think it's great that, thanks to Ted Cruz, Donald Trump is no longer the most unpleasant candidate in the race.

[Sir Thursday]

This interview came up on my Facebook feed recently that I thought was quite an illuminating anecdote about Clinton:

I found it interesting that it shows both some of the attributes Hillary is keen to promote about herself ("She gets things done! She understands the issues!") and the side of her that her critics dislike ("She's in the pocket of big business! She changes her mind a lot!").

I also thought Warren's point about the pressures and constituency being different was a good one. Is the White House more insulated from lobbying and money-interests once you get in there than a senator would be? Would Clinton's behaviour change for the better once she no longer needed to be as cozy with potential sources of income?

ST

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

30 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I just think it's great that, thanks to Ted Cruz, Donald Trump is no longer the most unpleasant candidate in the race.

He really is the one person that can make Trump look reasonable.

Also, I wish I would have read this page before I posted. You fine folks had already done a sufficient job of burying Commiedore for that silly post.

[TerraPrime]

Here's the thing with Wall Street donors and politics in the U.S., as I see it:

Politicking requires money, because you need money to run campaigns. Campaigns are necessary because most people who bother to go to vote (which is not most eligible ones) do not have the time nor interest in analyzing the issues they face. So, campaigning is needed to get your name out there to these likely voters if you want to stand a chance at winning. If you're a Republican, you can also work to discourage voters to turn out to vote, but that also takes money.

Since campaigns cost money, candidates need donors. As a fraction of total asset, corporations and wealthy donors have a much larger pool of resources available. A candidate can spend the time to convince 1000 likely voters to each donate $50, or s/he can spend a fraction of that time to convince 10 donors to each donate $1000. If they can leverage the time saved and extra cash earned to results at the polls, then that's a winning formula. In general, you can leverage that quite readily, and so that's the way that fundraising goes.

What that means to me on a personal level is I don't get too hung up on the presence of corporate donors in the list of donors for a candidate. I expect them to be there. I expect a successful candidate to be efficient with his/her time, which means s/he *should* go for the big donors. And since there ain't no free lunch, I also expect a candidate to represent corporate interests at some point. The way the election system is set up here makes it unavoidable. Any candidate who claims that they are not beholden to corporate interests is lying. It's all a matter of degree, and also, which corporations have the most influences. Corporations like GE or WalMart are different from entities like ALEC and other Koch Brothers outfits, imo. That is where voters should make the differentiating decision, imo, and not at whether a candidate garners campaign financing from corporations/single large donors or not.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

4 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

What that means to me on a personal level is I don't get too hung up on the presence of corporate donors in the list of donors for a candidate. I expect them to be there. I expect a successful candidate to be efficient with his/her time, which means s/he *should* go for the big donors. And since there ain't no free lunch, I also expect a candidate to represent corporate interests at some point. The way the election system is set up here makes it unavoidable. Any candidate who claims that they are not beholden to corporate interests is lying. It's all a matter of degree, and also, which corporations have the most influences. Corporations like GE or WalMart are different from entities like ALEC and other Koch Brothers outfits, imo. That is where voters should make the differentiating decision, imo, and not at whether a candidate garners campaign financing from corporations/single large donors or not.

Sanders isn't.

[Commodore]

I mean, the entire Iowa GOP is trying to sink Cruz to the point of throwing in with Trump, all because of his opposition to ethanol subsidies. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

8 minutes ago, Commodore said:

I mean, the entire Iowa GOP is trying to sink Cruz to the point of throwing in with Trump, all because of his opposition to ethanol subsidies. 

And because he's apparently alienated literally everyone in the United States Senate in his brief time there...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Commodore said:

I mean, the entire Iowa GOP is trying to sink Cruz to the point of throwing in with Trump, all because of his opposition to ethanol subsidies.

This has nothing to do with him being part of the federal level establishment.

[TrackerNeil]

42 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

What that means to me on a personal level is I don't get too hung up on the presence of corporate donors in the list of donors for a candidate. I expect them to be there. I expect a successful candidate to be efficient with his/her time, which means s/he *should* go for the big donors. And since there ain't no free lunch, I also expect a candidate to represent corporate interests at some point. The way the election system is set up here makes it unavoidable. Any candidate who claims that they are not beholden to corporate interests is lying. It's all a matter of degree, and also, which corporations have the most influences. Corporations like GE or WalMart are different from entities like ALEC and other Koch Brothers outfits, imo. That is where voters should make the differentiating decision, imo, and not at whether a candidate garners campaign financing from corporations/single large donors or not.

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

[Kalbear]

If Sanders isn't going to consider corporate interests as president then the Democratic party is going to reside solely in the executive office. That kind of behavior would obliterate what small amount of dems exist in Congress.

While a president isn't beholden like congressmen are, they are even more so because of their party. Corps holding back on paying for the campaigns of 300 congressmen is a pretty big carrot. Not doing so is an even bigger stick.

[BloodRider]

On 1/31/2016 at 0:56 PM, OnionAhaiReborn said:

It's not all about macro-employment effects, I agree that there won't suddenly be a greater demand for jobs that pay well and demand Bachelor's degrees. What there will be is equality of opportunity, regardless of economic class, to pursue careers that require higher education. On top of that, education ought to be seen as a good in itself, not merely an employment credential. It's good for people to be able to pursue academic interests, it gives immediate pleasure and serves them well in many walks of life, not just the job market.

These reasons may be why the right is sooooo against education for all.

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, TerraPrime said:

Here's the thing with Wall Street donors and politics in the U.S., as I see it:

Politicking requires money, because you need money to run campaigns. Campaigns are necessary because most people who bother to go to vote (which is not most eligible ones) do not have the time nor interest in analyzing the issues they face. So, campaigning is needed to get your name out there to these likely voters if you want to stand a chance at winning. If you're a Republican, you can also work to discourage voters to turn out to vote, but that also takes money.

Since campaigns cost money, candidates need donors. As a fraction of total asset, corporations and wealthy donors have a much larger pool of resources available. A candidate can spend the time to convince 1000 likely voters to each donate $50, or s/he can spend a fraction of that time to convince 10 donors to each donate $1000. If they can leverage the time saved and extra cash earned to results at the polls, then that's a winning formula. In general, you can leverage that quite readily, and so that's the way that fundraising goes.

What that means to me on a personal level is I don't get too hung up on the presence of corporate donors in the list of donors for a candidate. I expect them to be there. I expect a successful candidate to be efficient with his/her time, which means s/he *should* go for the big donors. And since there ain't no free lunch, I also expect a candidate to represent corporate interests at some point. The way the election system is set up here makes it unavoidable. Any candidate who claims that they are not beholden to corporate interests is lying. It's all a matter of degree, and also, which corporations have the most influences. Corporations like GE or WalMart are different from entities like ALEC and other Koch Brothers outfits, imo. That is where voters should make the differentiating decision, imo, and not at whether a candidate garners campaign financing from corporations/single large donors or not.

I generally think the influence of donors as a pay-for-service relationship is overstated.

On one level, we know (as I remember anyway) that donations tend to drop if you anonymize them because it turns out people give money, especially those giving alot of money, on the belief that it will curry favour.

But I think the more potent part of the connection is generally that you end up with politicians talking alot to these people because they go to the fundraisers and dinners and such where talking to <insert powerful politician here> is the entire point. That's what you are paying for.

And so these people end up spending alot of time talking to people with specific viewpoints on issues and that shapes their ideas and the policies they see and like. That's why you see the behaviour you see in US federal politics, as DC is essentially a social bubble where certain ideas are seen as totally serious while actually being complete bullshit and/or unsupported by the general public. (see - cutting SS as one of the classics)

The issue imo is less who is giving them money as who are they talking to and listening to.