U.S. Politics 2017: Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

[Altherion]

30 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Paradoxically, one could use history to argue that forcing peoples to live together decreases racism in the long run. Racism tends to flare as a short-term reaction to phenomena like immigration (there are really many other possible factors, and economics is very important as well). After enough time it tends to subside. In fact, in spite of everything that's been happening in the past decades it's still possible to say that the long-term trend goes against nazis. Which, ironically enough, is something they recognize and why they are so active today.

I am not sure that this is true: sometimes it subsides and sometimes the foreigners are expelled (or worse). To take Europe for an example, there were once significant fractions of it which were dominated by Muslims, but by the beginning of the 20th century, most had been driven out or forced to convert. I am also not sure forcing peoples to live together ultimately decreases racism -- despite half a century having passed since it was driven underground and subjected to an all-encompassing propaganda campaign in the US, it's still very much present and arguably stronger than in the past 25 years or so.

I suspect it depends a great deal on how similar peoples in question were in the first place as well as on the level of competition within a given society as well as pressure by external forces. It's not very difficult to convince the peoples of what were once East Francia and West Francia that they're not each other's enemy when both are prosperous and both exist in a world where an increasing number of states is clearly more powerful than they are. It's much harder to integrate an entirely different culture into a society where inequality is high (and therefore competition for a decent position is already insane even without them).

59 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Anyway, I don't know whether Merkel & co bit off more than they can chew. Maybe. Or maybe they did it because they knew they weren't really taking that big a risk. Also, there was a humanitarian crisis to be dealth with. Perhaps angering a few bigots is well worth the price of acting decently.

Perhaps it is... but keep in mind that you may merely be setting the stage for yet another humanitarian crisis.

51 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Propaganda or not, all recently released polls have shown the numbers trending in Jones' favor. That's the real story. 

And given the movement in numbers of all the other polls, it seems rather hard to believe that the other polls are propaganda while Breitbart's is the real deal, and even the Breitbart-commissioned poll shows movement in Jones' favor.

It would be really surprising if there was no movement at all -- the question is the magnitude of the movement and there the results range from near negligible (the two polls in the article vs. the poll that actually has Jones winning).

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It would be really surprising if there was no movement at all -- the question is the magnitude of the movement and there the results range from near negligible (the two polls in the article vs. the poll that actually has Jones winning).

Actually, six polls have been conducted since the allegations came out, including the one Breitbart-commissioned poll (only one of the Breitbart polls counts, since the first poll was conducted prior to the story breaking). The JMA poll shows Jones with a 4 point lead, one showed a dead tie, 46-46, three others showed Moore leading with a margin of 2-3 points, and the Breitbart poll had Moore up by 11 points. The Breitbart poll is very much the outlier.

[LongRider]

Oh that Steve Bannon, always a class act.

Quote

Steve Bannon has sent two of Breitbart News' top reporters, Matt Boyle and Aaron Klein, to Alabama. Their mission: to discredit the Washington Post's reporting on Roy Moore's alleged sexual misconduct with teenagers.

Bottom line: This story is about to get even uglier, if that's imaginable. I expect more counter-attacks will play out in Breitbart News and other outlets over the coming days.

https://www.axios.com/breitbart-aims-to-discredit-moores-accusers-2508913180.html

.........puking emoji goes here...........

[Yukle]

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Actually, six polls have been conducted since the allegations came out, including the one Breitbart-commissioned poll (only one of the Breitbart polls counts, since the first poll was conducted prior to the story breaking). The JMA poll shows Jones with a 4 point lead, one showed a dead tie, 46-46, three others showed Moore leading with a margin of 2-3 points, and the Breitbart poll had Moore up by 11 points. The Breitbart poll is very much the outlier.

It's probably fair enough to say that polls at this stage are close enough that a confident prediction isn't possible. Most scandals have a semi-elastic effect; they'll cause a large bounce against the affected party but then a partial return to the original norm.

The bounce from this issue really ought to be all of the votes Moore already had, but frustratingly it isn't. Most rebounds happen over about two weeks, so if Jones is ahead in two weeks' time, then he could be considered more likely of victory than not.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Yukle said:

It's probably fair enough to say that polls at this stage are close enough that a confident prediction isn't possible. Most scandals have a semi-elastic effect; they'll cause a large bounce against the affected party but then a partial return to the original norm.

The bounce from this issue really ought to be all of the votes Moore already had, but frustratingly it isn't. Most rebounds happen over about two weeks, so if Jones is ahead in two weeks' time, then he could be considered more likely of victory than not.

Oh I agree, and I'm definitely not making a prediction of a Jones victory. Every single one of these polls are within the margin of error (other than the Breitbart outlier). Rather, I'm simply saying the trend is moving in Jones' direction. RCP had the aggregate at Moore +6.0 prior to this. Now the aggregate is at Moore +1.7.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Oh that Steve Bannon, always a class act.

https://www.axios.com/breitbart-aims-to-discredit-moores-accusers-2508913180.html

.........puking emoji goes here...........

Breitbart top reporters! Lulz. Kind of like a short order cook using the "best cuts of SPAM" to make your musabi.

[Dr. Pepper]

7 hours ago, WinterFox said:

C'mon, guys! I was working on you all night.  

I hate droning in general. Valid military targets is one thing, indiscriminate murder is not acceptable. Not even to kill Nazis. 

Maybe it's because I spent all evening playing Cards Against Humanity, but I was fucking dying laughing at your posts.  I get you.

[Martell Spy]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/10/16625308/trump-supporters-2020-polls

“Trump country” stories help explain our politics, not the next election
Trump can keep his base and still lose reelection in a landslide.

[Rippounet]

6 hours ago, Altherion said:

I am not sure that this is true: sometimes it subsides and sometimes the foreigners are expelled (or worse). To take Europe for an example, there were once significant fractions of it which were dominated by Muslims, but by the beginning of the 20th century, most had been driven out or forced to convert.

How "forced to convert" or "driven out" are we talking about? Are you referring to Spain or Eastern Europe? I'm not certain.

As you say, how different the cultures are plays a role. But there's also the fact that many Muslims originally arrived in Europe through military conquests which is kind of a special case. Obviously invaders and refugees aren't seen in the same light.

6 hours ago, Altherion said:

I am also not sure forcing peoples to live together ultimately decreases racism -- despite half a century having passed since it was driven underground and subjected to an all-encompassing propaganda campaign in the US, it's still very much present and arguably stronger than in the past 25 years or so.

Dude, half a century is nothing. And the fact that a black man became the US president since then is extremely encouraging.
In the long-run, integration and tolerance are far stronger than racism. Racism can at best claim temporary victories with -generally- limited consequences. And short of genocide and/or mass deportation, it's actually pretty damn difficult to prevent different peoples from mingling. The idea of a white-ethno-state is a pipe dream. But it's a useful tool for some who benefit from divide-and-conquer strategies (i.e. the 1%).

6 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's much harder to integrate an entirely different culture into a society where inequality is high (and therefore competition for a decent position is already insane even without them).

That is true, and that's the one nuance I would bring to my argument. It's hard to predict how environmental crises will affect population movements -and integration- in the coming decades or centuries. Many conflicts will arise because of this.

The thing about neo-nazism is that it prevents the emerging of class consciousness and indirectly prevents lasting solutions to the global problem of inequality. It's very useful to the "masters of the world" as Chomsky calls them.

Humanism is going to be increasingly precious in the times to come.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

The black and white integration in the US has also been hampered by the fact that there were never any reparations paid.  I think if we had paid reparations to black Americans either after the civil war or after during the civil rights movement that racism today would be much less an issue.  

[Yukle]

4 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Oh I agree, and I'm definitely not making a prediction of a Jones victory. Every single one of these polls are within the margin of error (other than the Breitbart outlier). Rather, I'm simply saying the trend is moving in Jones' direction. RCP had the aggregate at Moore +6.0 prior to this. Now the aggregate is at Moore +1.7.

Oh yes, that makes sense.

538, which is excellent at statistical analysis (and rarely understood for what it is: predictive, not diagnostic), says that Moore would still be the more likely winner.

They say that the fundamentals favouring Democrats are:

The President's party generally loses ground in special elections and mid-terms.

An unpopular President will cause their party's overall vote share to drop due to lower turnout and swing votes.

An open spot is easier to flip than an incumbent seat.

Democrats do better when gerrymandering is not a factor, as is the case in state-wide votes.

Independent voters are easily favouring Jones.

 

The fundamentals favouring the Republicans:

Republicans are more likely to back an intolerable candidate compared to Democrats, who are more likely to abstain (this isn't a huge effect).

Neither party's voters are likely to back an opposing party but Republicans are less likely to do so.

Republicans overwhelmingly outnumber Democrats in the state.

The impact of the scandal is at its largest in its short-term aftermath. It is more likely for Moore to regain votes than for Jones to extend his lead (unless the scandal develops with new information).

Democrats have gained little ground with white working-class voters since Clinton's victory (in the popular vote, not the Electoral College. Nice one, USA). Their increased vote is more due to increased turnout rather than flipped voters.

[DireWolfSpirit]

27 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

The black and white integration in the US has also been hampered by the fact that there were never any reparations paid.  I think if we had paid reparations to black Americans either after the civil war or after during the civil rights movement that racism today would be much less an issue.  

I think reparations arent even a correct word for it though. Reparations in most peoples minds imply a financial payment to an injured party. A more correct description of the issue would be the U.S. government needing to uphold its end of a promised transaction. The slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule, the government neglected to keep its end of the bargain. Much like all the broken treaties with Native Amer. tribes.

Instead of thinking of the issue as reparations, I prefer to think of it as holding the government accountable and making sure they uphold their responsibility to a contract, just as citizens are required to meet their responsibilities in contracts.

[Bonnot OG]

 

10 hours ago, Notone said:

Ah, the good old, there would be no racists, if it weren't for the damn refugees. I am surprised noone bothered to challenge that argument.

Afterall, what was Kennedy thinking,what would happen,  when he sent the civil guard to protect those damn negros attending a white school. If it wasn't for them there would be no KKK, or white supremacy.

But I suppose there were some good people, with violence on both sides etc. Bottom line to this, not every stupid old argument has the potential to turn into a golden oldie. Sometimes a shitty argument, is just that.

Yea, he's just spewing his white supremacist garbage yet again. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 11/8/2017 at 0:21 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

One thing if people ever start talking about how our tax rate is the highest in the world (the corporate income tax rate is - and the noise around the effective tax rate is basically noise) - the rebuttal is that we don't have a VAT or national sales tax. 

Just re-perusing the thread and didn’t see this at first, but I’ll add a few things here:

1. A lot of the argument about the US having the highest highest corporate tax rate in the world, takes on the tone of neo-mercantilist nonsense. I mean if this is based on the US’s trade deficits or whatever, a decrease in corporate taxes is likely to increase those deficits.

2. A lot of Trumpest nonsense is about America losing it’s competitive advantage and the trade deficits are proof of that and a cut in the corporate tax rate will cure that some home (when in reality it’s likely to increase trade deficits). There is a whole lotta nonsense here working. The trade deficits are likely to considerable extent because the United States is the world’s monetary hegemon – the main world supplier of liquidity and safe assets and as a result runs trade deficits. People around the world hold dollars and US financial assets as trusted stores of value. Contracts for goods or services are often written in US dollars and US financial assets are often used as sources of collateral.

3. I think a quick perusal of global Fortune 500 would show that American companies are well represented, which kind of puts a hole in the theory of ‘Murica can’t compete story.

4. If you believe that the Chamely-Judd line of models really represents the reality of capital taxation, then argue for those reasons to cut capital taxation. Chamely-Judd of course applies to closed economies too. And of course Chamely-Judd likely makes a number of dubious modeling assumptions to derive their results.

5. If you don’t believe in the Chamely-Judd line of models, and that capital taxation can improve labor’s welfare, then you’re basically arguing for lower US corporate taxes to stop international tax arbitrage games. Of course I’m sure many in the business community would like us to just throw our hands up in the air and say, “Oh well, there is nothing we can do. I guess we’ll just have to cut corporate taxes.” But, I really don’t know why the international community is so willing to put up with this nonsense.

6. As pointed out by others the US isn’t a small open economy and accordingly one doesn’t simply assume an exogenous world rate of return. If US returns rise, then so likely is the world rate of return to some extent, which would offset some of the capital inflows which will allegedly happen if corporate taxes are cut.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Yukle said:

Oh yes, that makes sense.

538, which is excellent at statistical analysis (and rarely understood for what it is: predictive, not diagnostic), says that Moore would still be the more likely winner.

They say that the fundamentals favouring Democrats are:

The President's party generally loses ground in special elections and mid-terms.

An unpopular President will cause their party's overall vote share to drop due to lower turnout and swing votes.

An open spot is easier to flip than an incumbent seat.

Democrats do better when gerrymandering is not a factor, as is the case in state-wide votes.

Independent voters are easily favouring Jones.

 

The fundamentals favouring the Republicans:

Republicans are more likely to back an intolerable candidate compared to Democrats, who are more likely to abstain (this isn't a huge effect).

Neither party's voters are likely to back an opposing party but Republicans are less likely to do so.

Republicans overwhelmingly outnumber Democrats in the state.

The impact of the scandal is at its largest in its short-term aftermath. It is more likely for Moore to regain votes than for Jones to extend his lead (unless the scandal develops with new information).

Democrats have gained little ground with white working-class voters since Clinton's victory (in the popular vote, not the Electoral College. Nice one, USA). Their increased vote is more due to increased turnout rather than flipped voters.

Yes, I agree with all this, especially the part about the trendline moving in Jones' favor immediately after the story broke and then returning to the baseline as time passes, barring new revelations.

But I think Jones had some positive news even prior to the allegations breaking. He was running unusually close to Moore as a Democrat in Alabama, suggesting that Moore's floor of support is much lower than an average Republican's would be in a statewide election. He's also done so with little outside support from the national party. National support from the DNC could be a double-edged sword in Alabama for Jones though, since the party brand is so toxic there.

But that is why my preferred strategy if I were running Jones' campaign would not be trying to get Alabama voters to believe the allegations, because at this point it's a he-said, she-said affair. Rather, I'd try to focus on the state party members who tried to defend Moore by saying it didn't matter if the allegations were true, they'd still vote for a child molester over a Democrat. Try to create cognitive dissonance; not by trying to convince them the allegations are true, but by trying to get them to think "I really don't want to support the party who thinks it's okay to vote for a child molester".

I don't care how toxic the Democrat brand is in Alabama; the child molester brand is even more toxic.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I don't care how toxic the Democrat brand is in Alabama; the child molester brand is even more toxic.

You'd hope so. But, never underestimate the conservative ability to come up with the most idiotic and convoluted reasoning possible when reality isn't to their liking.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/evangelicals-love-roy-moore-even-more-following-abuse-allegations/

Quote

But they’re also hard to refute after today’s polling shows that 37% of Alabama evangelicals are actually more likely to vote for Roy Moore after hearing the allegations against him, and 34 percent said it would make no difference.

FWIW, I think there’s a pretty good alternate explanation: 37 percent of Alabama evangelicals think the allegations are an obviously fake political attack designed to smear a conservative candidate. The fact that liberals are scared enough of Moore to mount an attack like this just shows how effective he is—and thus even more worth supporting.

 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

You'd hope so. But, never underestimate the conservative ability to come up with most idiotic and convoluted reasoning possible when reality isn't to their liking.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/evangelicals-love-roy-moore-even-more-following-abuse-allegations/

 

Right, but I think this actually bolsters my point. If you keep the focus on Moore and the allegations, then you're fighting a losing battle, because all his supporters have to do is dismiss it as a smear campaign - politics as usual. After all, only Moore and Corfman know the truth of what happened that day.

But you have Moore supporters saying on record that it doesn't matter if Moore is a child molester. They can't argue they didn't say that. I think that's the chink in the armor.