2016 US Election thread: the begininning

[TrackerNeil]

54 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

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.

But we've just circled back to the notion that Americans will rise up and demand single-payer and the other portions of the Sanders agenda**. If you believe that will happen, then I suppose Congress will buck corporate pressure to do the work of the people. I've not seen any reason to think this will actually happen, but OK.

**Before anyone gets upset, I happen to agree with much of what I have heard about the Sanders agenda, so this isn't a knock on Bernie. All politicians have agendas.

[Shryke]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

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).

I don't think this is true. I think both you and Mormont are kinda missing the point.

Trump is not some sort of populist rhetoric with a side of racism, he's anger channelled into racism with a side of random policy positions. His racism and bigotry IS the appeal. That's what he's selling: someone to blame and a strongman to make it all better for you, like it used to be. Make America Great Again!

Sanders is essentially incompatible with this because his whole idea is to ignore that divisive bigotry in favour of economic populism, whereas Trump is explicitly basing his appeal on that social division. Sanders wants to say "Don't worry about those other people, I'll get more for you no matter what!" and Trump's message is "Those other people are the whole problem, let's get em!"

 

As for the rest, Trump's policy positions are kinda incoherent, but they aren't really left-wing. It's a combination of populist positions for the old white conservative set and pro-corporate policy. He talks about the the fat cats but his tax policy benefits the rich far more then anyone else. His policy is still standard conservative shit, it's just he ditches the DC-consensus stuff the base hates (like cutting SS and Medicare) and then throws in some extra hate for the scapegoats.

[Fez]

20 minutes ago, Shryke said:

I don't think this is true. I think both you and Mormont are kinda missing the point.

Trump is not some sort of populist rhetoric with a side of racism, he's anger channelled into racism with a side of random policy positions. His racism and bigotry IS the appeal. That's what he's selling: someone to blame and a strongman to make it all better for you, like it used to be. Make America Great Again!

Sanders is essentially incompatible with this because his whole idea is to ignore that divisive bigotry in favour of economic populism, whereas Trump is explicitly basing his appeal on that social division. Sanders wants to say "Don't worry about those other people, I'll get more for you no matter what!" and Trump's message is "Those other people are the whole problem, let's get em!"

 

As for the rest, Trump's policy positions are kinda incoherent, but they aren't really left-wing. It's a combination of populist positions for the old white conservative set and pro-corporate policy. He talks about the the fat cats but his tax policy benefits the rich far more then anyone else. His policy is still standard conservative shit, it's just he ditches the DC-consensus stuff the base hates (like cutting SS and Medicare) and then throws in some extra hate for the scapegoats.

Trump is incredibly racist, and has used that to attract the support of the out-and-out racists. But its not only the racists who support him, because its not only anger at "them" that he pushes, its also anger at DC. And in both cases, but especially the DC-hating folks, a lot of that anger is actually about folks being angry at their economic circumstances and blaming others for it. And an awful lot of Sanders supporters are also angry about their economic circumstances, or about the country's as a whole, and blame corporations by way of DC, for it. Trump and Sanders have different solutions, but I think they have very similar underpinnings for why people support them.

Which is why I think both could probably attract some of the other's supporters; but with the caveat that the cost of doing so would probably lose them far more people from the rest of the party. For instance if Sanders didn't change anything else but started being incredibly racist or if Trump didn't change anything else but released a tax plan that dramatically raised taxes on the wealthy (with a massive deduction only for real estate development of course) and budgeted that money to a variety of government programs.

[Commodore]

2 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

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

you're making my case, his favorables are fine among general electorate, but people in power do hate him

[Altherion]

20 minutes ago, Fez said:

Trump is incredibly racist, and has used that to attract the support of the out-and-out racists.

Out of curiosity, can you point me to a statement of Trump's that illustrate this? Some of his supporters are most certainly out-and-out racists, but from what I've seen of Trump so far, he has mainly been nativist and nationalist.

[Fez]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

Out of curiosity, can you point me to a statement of Trump's that illustrate this? Some of his supporters are most certainly out-and-out racists, but from what I've seen of Trump so far, he has mainly been nativist and nationalist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_us_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b

[Ghjhero]

There's also that whole wanting to ban Muslims from entering the country thing. Not exact a "race", but still incredibly prejudiced.

[Altherion]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_us_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b

8 out of the 9 statements have nothing to do with race. He seems to have something against Mexico, but "Mexican" is not a race, it is a nationality. Only the very last one mentions race, but, as far as I can tell, the statement is true (even the expert linked by the Huffington Post doesn't actually deny it, he just calls it blunt and unhelpful).

[aceluby]

3 minutes ago, Altherion said:

8 out of the 9 statements have nothing to do with race. He seems to have something against Mexico, but "Mexican" is not a race, it is a nationality. Only the very last one mentions race, but, as far as I can tell, the statement is true (even the expert linked by the Huffington Post doesn't actually deny it, he just calls it blunt and unhelpful).

That's because he's ignorant and wraps up all the brown people he doesn't like into 'Mexicans' and 'Muslims'.  He doesn't care if they are from Guatemala, if they're coming over from the south, they're 'Mexican'.

[mormont]

Just now, Altherion said:

8 out of the 9 statements have nothing to do with race. He seems to have something against Mexico, but "Mexican" is not a race, it is a nationality.

It is of course utterly inconceivable that anyone might use nationality or religion as a proxy for race when making racist remarks. Never happens. Instead, we should always parse all allegedly racist remarks carefully to see if there's any technical sense in which they might not be racist if we cover one eye and squint and jiggle the page around a bit. Because, in the end, the distinction is really important, isn't it? Being prejudiced against someone because they're Mexican or Muslim is morally A-OK and nothing like racism in any way that matters.

Just now, Altherion said:

Only the very last one mentions race, but, as far as I can tell, the statement is true (even the expert linked by the Huffington Post doesn't actually deny it, he just calls it blunt and unhelpful).

Again, nobody ever presents technically accurate statements in such a way as to make them racist, I imagine.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

1 hour ago, Commodore said:

you're making my case, his favorables are fine among general electorate, but people in power do hate him

 

Your claim was that opposition to him was "all because of his opposition to ethanol subsidies." I refuted that by saying, no, it's also because everyone in the Senate hates him. You seem to agree with that, so we agree that your claim about ethanol subsidies was wrong.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

31 minutes ago, mormont said:

It is of course utterly inconceivable that anyone might use nationality or religion as a proxy for race when making racist remarks. Never happens. Instead, we should always parse all allegedly racist remarks carefully to see if there's any technical sense in which they might not be racist if we cover one eye and squint and jiggle the page around a bit. Because, in the end, the distinction is really important, isn't it? Being prejudiced against someone because they're Mexican or Muslim is morally A-OK and nothing like racism in any way that matters.

Again, nobody ever presents technically accurate statements in such a way as to make them racist, I imagine.

You have it entirely backwards. You don't have to "carefully parse" Trump's comments in a way that makes them not racist. You just have to read the comments with their plain and ordinary meaning, in which Mexican is a denotation of nationality and citizenship, not race, since there is no Mexican race. It's those who are alleging that Trump's comments are racist that are doing the parsing. And I say that without casting any judgment as to whether or not that parsing is correct or incorrect. Maybe Trump's comments are racist. Maybe they aren't. But you're doing the parsing, not Altherion. 

I do wonder what it means to make a "technically accurate" statement that is also racist. If accurate statements can also be racist, does that mean that the truth is racist? Because if I have to choose between being accurate and being a racist, I suppose, rather grudgingly, that I'd have to be an accurate racist than an inaccurate non-racist. 

[Tywin et al.]

Racism is the wrong word to discribe Trump's remarks. But they are clearly bigoted. And his biggest spikes in the polls came after his remarks about Mexicans and banning Muslims.

[TerraPrime]

32 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

I do wonder what it means to make a "technically accurate" statement that is also racist. If accurate statements can also be racist, does that mean that the truth is racist? Because if I have to choose between being accurate and being a racist, I suppose, rather grudgingly, that I'd have to be an accurate racist than an inaccurate non-racist. 

Really? If a statement is factually correct, then it cannot also be racist?

If I say that the majority of traffic offenders being ticketed in Ferguson are black motorists, without further explanation, then it's a factually correct statement, but also a racist statement in omitting the fact that Ferguson police differentially enforce the traffic stop searches along racial lines. One can be unaware of such an enforcement bias, or one can be aware and choose not to amend the statement anyway. In either case, the statement ends up painting a negative picture of a race, despite the veracity of the statement.

[Shryke]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Racism is the wrong word to discribe Trump's remarks. But they are clearly bigoted. And his biggest spikes in the polls came after his remarks about Mexicans and banning Muslims.

Indeed, I feel like if your argument amounts to, at best, "Trump isn't a racist, he's just a bigot", you should maybe consider why you are even bothering? What are you hoping to actually prove beyond arguing over the pedantry of bigot vs racist in the context of how the term Mexican is being used in this context?

[TerraPrime]

2 hours ago, Commodore said:

you're making my case, his favorables are fine among general electorate, but people in power do hate him

You do know that the chart tile says "unpopularity", right? So that means Trump is the most unpopular person listed, at 60% unpopularity. So what is this a poll of, "people in power?" Should I even bother asking for a link?

[TheMightyKC]

It's pretty telling that Carson has the lowest unfavorability rating of any candidate in recent history.  A solid performance in Iowa could turn the tide and have him riding the wave.

Even the main stream media admits it's a possibility.

[Mudguard]

5 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

You do know that the chart tile says "unpopularity", right? So that means Trump is the most unpopular person listed, at 60% unpopularity. So what is this a poll of, "people in power?" Should I even bother asking for a link?

His post was not about Trump, but about Cruz.  His contention is that although Cruz is detested by his colleagues in the Senate, American's in general don't view him unfavorably.  According to this chart anyway, Cruz's unfavorability rating is less than 40%, which compares favorably to many other presidential candidates.

[Commodore]

4 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

You do know that the chart tile says "unpopularity", right? So that means Trump is the most unpopular person listed, at 60% unpopularity. So what is this a poll of, "people in power?" Should I even bother asking for a link?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/30/donald-trump-is-the-least-favorably-viewed-presidential-candidate-since-at-least-1992/

Gallup peak unfavorability ratings of various POTUS candidates. Cruz is relatively low even though we are told that everyone hates him (I imagine this would change if he were the nominee). Politicians and lobbyists (ethanol) hate him quite a bit, but not the public. Thus he could accurately be described as anti-establishment. Unlike Trump who is just faking it for the rubes, Cruz is a true traitor to his class (which is where much of the resentment comes from). 

[TerraPrime]

I see. That makes more sense.