US elections: aiding an' Abedin

[TrackerNeil]

 

28 minutes ago, SerPaladin said:

Your worst case doesn't include Trump taking the rural Maine vote? I'd thought that one was a toss up, and would lead to the very dramatic "no one wins" scenario. That would be a true worst case, as we'd have yet another few weeks of the election.

My hope now is for a 285 to 295 electoral vote victory for Clinton, with a 48-46 popular margin, and a 51-49 Republican Senate. Nothing near a mandate for her, and the cloud of e-mails and foundation scandals hanging over her for a few years. That produces a virtual status quo politically, no radical Trumpist changes, no progressive craziness, and a fatally weak bully pulpit.

Well, I'm glad you're hoping for no solution to the various problems facing this nation. 

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, mormont said:

No, I don't think so. Because I believe a candidate like Trump wouldn't get the Democrat vote, party affiliation or not. (Assuming that somehow he got the nomination.) Those voters would likely consider a moderate Republican instead, should such a beast still exist.

Another way of saying this would be that there is a mass of angry voters looking for an angry politician, but largely they're on one side of the aisle. Whether they started there or gravitated there, it's not just about party affiliation: it's about where that inchoate anger vote goes. In some countries it's propelled minor parties to power or close to it. In the US, it's taking over one of the major parties. 

That's not to deny that party loyalties in the US are important and significant. That's very true. But it doesn't explain why Trump isn't held to the 'normal' standards, which is what I was talking about.

 

Sanders got fairly close, and he was also channelling voter anger. In a different direction than Trump sure, and a lot less hateful, but his support was still mostly about anger. And if Sanders got the nomination he'd have roughly the same level of support as Clinton does now; likely with some more non-college educated whites and some less college-educated whites and even bigger problems with African American turnout. But roughly the same.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

17 minutes ago, SerPaladin said:

 I think Clinton is too stubbornly progressive/ liberal, which is bad for me long term.

This is something I never quite understand: How is the president/congress being progressive/liberal bad for YOU?  Is it just that you’ll (maybe) pay a few more taxes?  I really do want to understand this.

 

I never understand where people are coming from in this.  As far as the rest of the “liberal” values, I will never understand the objections. I personally have a few conservative values (stop laughing people, it’s actually true…well, maybe only1), but publicly/policy wise, I am 100% in favor if the liberal side of them.  I just don’t do the thing I object to.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

 

Florida's nearly a coin flip, but I think Clinton has a real, substantial edge in North Carolina. Its not guaranteed, but it looks good.

The race is back to being a referendum on Clinton. I'd treat all the coin flips as advantage Trump. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Then they aren't true coin flips. What you are arguing about is something beyond the polls, something intangible. The most likely outcome for coin flips is to split them half and half between Trump and Clinton.

[mormont]

32 minutes ago, Fez said:

Sanders got fairly close, and he was also channelling voter anger. In a different direction than Trump sure, and a lot less hateful, but his support was still mostly about anger. And if Sanders got the nomination he'd have roughly the same level of support as Clinton does now; likely with some more non-college educated whites and some less college-educated whites and even bigger problems with African American turnout. But roughly the same.

Ah, but why did Sanders fail where Trump succeeded? Because they're not the same. Sanders was channeling voter anger: Trump is just expressing it and taking advantage of it. He doesn't really care what voters are angry about, so long as he can harness it: Sanders wanted voters to be angry about some very specific things and not to be angry about other things. That gave him a hard limit to his support that he could not exceed. But, at the same time, it's not possible (to me) for a Democrat not to set those kinds of boundaries. They would lose too many parts of their coalition along the way.

If Sanders had got the nomination, he'd be competing with Trump for the angry-outsider vote - but he can't do that schtick as well as Trump can. He'd be doing worse than Clinton, IMO.

[Fez]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The race is back to being a referendum on Clinton. I'd treat all the coin flips as advantage Trump. 

I disagree. On both counts. We'll see in a week though.

6 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Then they aren't true coin flips. What you are arguing about is something beyond the polls, something intangible. The most likely outcome for coin flips is to split them half and half between Trump and Clinton.

Hence, why I said 'nearly a coin flip.' I think Clinton has a tiny, tiny advantage in Florida, but its very easy to see it go to Trump instead. It all depends on whether Democrats can boost African American turnout at least a little bit from where it is right now.

Just now, mormont said:

Ah, but why did Sanders fail where Trump succeeded? Because they're not the same. Sanders was channeling voter anger: Trump is just expressing it and taking advantage of it. He doesn't really care what voters are angry about, so long as he can harness it: Sanders wanted voters to be angry about some very specific things and not to be angry about other things. That gave him a hard limit to his support that he could not exceed. But, at the same time, it's not possible (to me) for a Democrat not to set those kinds of boundaries. They would lose too many parts of their coalition along the way.

If Sanders had got the nomination, he'd be competing with Trump for the angry-outsider vote - but he can't do that schtick as well as Trump can. He'd be doing worse than Clinton, IMO.

But it'd be easy to see Sanders winning the nomination under different circumstances; for instance if Biden had also gotten to the race its entirely possible he would mostly draw support away from Clinton. Enough for Sanders to sneak through. IMO.

[Week]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

If Sanders had got the nomination, he'd be competing with Trump for the angry-outsider vote - but he can't do that schtick as well as Trump can. He'd be doing worse than Clinton, IMO.

Agreed. Trump has been stoking the anger of grievance politics in order to build support. The anger that Bernie tapped into was wholly different which he articulated a position of responsibility, progressivism, and egalitarianism. Trump (and the GOP) would whip his base as well as potentially a broader group into a tizzy with red scare nonsense. The outrage over Trump's sexism would not have as easy for Bernie to harvest and weaponize as it has been for Clinton.

I don't think this election would have been a cake walk for any Democrat other than another Obama. Young, charismatic, eloquent. As has been said, the Dems/Left need to quickly fill their bench.

[TrackerNeil]

10 minutes ago, mormont said:

Ah, but why did Sanders fail where Trump succeeded? Because they're not the same. Sanders was channeling voter anger: Trump is just expressing it and taking advantage of it. He doesn't really care what voters are angry about, so long as he can harness it: Sanders wanted voters to be angry about some very specific things and not to be angry about other things. That gave him a hard limit to his support that he could not exceed. But, at the same time, it's not possible (to me) for a Democrat not to set those kinds of boundaries. They would lose too many parts of their coalition along the way.

If Sanders had got the nomination, he'd be competing with Trump for the angry-outsider vote - but he can't do that schtick as well as Trump can. He'd be doing worse than Clinton, IMO.

I hear a good many Trump-Sanders comparisons, but I don't put much stock in them. I can see some slight similarities, but at the end of the day Sanders had some actual policy ideas and was a plausible candidate for the presidency, whereas The Donald is a white-nationalist, misogynistic bag of air who views the Oval Office as just something he can add to his brand.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, TrackerNeil said:

I hear a good many Trump-Sanders comparisons, but I don't put much stock in them. I can see some slight similarities, but at the end of the day Sanders had some actual policy ideas and was a plausible candidate for the presidency, whereas The Donald is a white-nationalist, misogynistic bag of air who views the Oval Office as just something he can add to his brand.

Whose main economic policy idea is supply side economics.

Does anyone here think that Sander's would have gotten Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow as his advisers?

And Trump wants to dump Dodd-Frank.

Anyone that thinks Trump and Sanders are comparable is being way off base.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

52 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

 

Well, I'm glad you're hoping for no solution to the various problems facing this nation. 

He probably thinks that progressive agenda doesn't include real solutions for those problems, and may even make things worse.

I'm inclined to partially agree with that. But I don't think Clinton is that progressive by modern standards, fortunately.

[Ariadne23]

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

Ah, but why did Sanders fail where Trump succeeded? Because they're not the same. Sanders was channeling voter anger: Trump is just expressing it and taking advantage of it. He doesn't really care what voters are angry about, so long as he can harness it: Sanders wanted voters to be angry about some very specific things and not to be angry about other things. That gave him a hard limit to his support that he could not exceed. But, at the same time, it's not possible (to me) for a Democrat not to set those kinds of boundaries. They would lose too many parts of their coalition along the way.

If Sanders had got the nomination, he'd be competing with Trump for the angry-outsider vote - but he can't do that schtick as well as Trump can. He'd be doing worse than Clinton, IMO.

I may be overly optimistic about human nature, but as Sanders was saying things that are true, and that he really believed, I think he could have been more effective at harnessing the psychological needs that Trump is manipulating if he'd gotten the same media attention, but it is the media's way to indulge the public's desire to rubberneck at the highway pile-up for clicks, and here we are.

[Boris the Blade]

1 minute ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

He probably thinks that progressive agenda doesn't include real solutions for those problems, and may even make things worse.

I'm inclined to partially agree with that. But I don't think Clinton is that progressive by modern standards, fortunately.

Ah, the good ole centrists  / conservatives thinking progress would ruin things and make it worse. how tiring and boring and flat out ignorant. 

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

1 minute ago, Boris the Blade said:

Ah, the good ole centrists  / conservatives thinking progress would ruin things and make it worse. how tiring and boring and flat out ignorant. 

Boring but correct.

[SerPaladin]

54 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

 

Well, I'm glad you're hoping for no solution to the various problems facing this nation. 

I don't think the problems are so big. Therefore, big programs to address them would, by nature, be inefficient. I enjoyed Bill Clinton's era of triangulation. This is as close to that as I can hope for.

[OldGimletEye]

6 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I'm inclined to partially agree with that. But I don't think Clinton is that progressive by modern standards, fortunately.

She is a mildly left of center Democrat.

The only people that think she is a far left progressive are conservatives. Then, again, according to lots of conservatives, everyone is a "liberal" whether you're center-right, center, center-left, and or extreme left.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

4 minutes ago, Boris the Blade said:

Ah, the good ole centrists  / conservatives thinking progress would ruin things and make it worse. how tiring and boring and flat out ignorant. 

To elaborate, history is not an inevitable march of progress to utopia.

"Progress" had taken a lot of wrong turns over the past few centuries, and lot of the correct turns were rushed, made without watching out for oncoming traffic.

[BloodRider]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If Assange is using Wikileaks for his own personal political agenda, then it is no longer an objective, unbiased open source of leaked information. Which means it's lost all credibility. Whistleblowers will need to find another outlet the foundation for which is the stroking a person's ego.

They are.  cf Panama Papers

[Boris the Blade]

7 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Boring but correct.

Maybe to you and your ilk.

[Boris the Blade]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

She is a mildly left of center Democrat.

The only people that think she is a far left progressive are conservatives. Then, again, according to lots of conservatives, everyone is a "liberal" whether you're center-right, center, center-left, and or extreme left.

Fucking commies.