US Politics - All He Wants for Christmas Was His Two Dead Sheep

[Zorral]

Honestly you can't believe that all these problems caused by a 1% getting obscenely wealthy over the last half century, while everyone else gets further behind, can be solved by one of those 1%?

I wish Bloomie would pay off the debt imposed upon Haiti by the IMF.  If he did that, I might give him some credit for money in his mouth.

The amount would be pocket change for him, and do enormous good, not only for Haiti, but the entire hemisphere.

 

[Darryk]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I was referring to them as "GOP-leaning voters" to conform to the methodology of the poll I linked - there was no "independent" option item, so you have to assume if the respondent said they were GOP-leaning in 2016, they almost certainly voted for Trump (a pretty safe assumption).  Anyway, while you can conceivably arguing almost anything would have switched the results in the 3 rust belt states since they were so close, there's little evidence indicating trade policy had any discernible impact on vote choice.

And no, no one really cared about foreign policy overall in the general, let alone Hillary's vote on Iraq 14 years earlier.

You don't think it interesting that Bernie, the only person besides Trump who was talking about the decline of American manufacturing and the outsourcing of jobs, beat Hillary in the primary for two of those Rust Belt states (Michigan, Wisconsin). Admittedly he lost to her in Pennsylvania, although it's worth mentioning that was a closed primary, while the other two were open primaries. Closed primaries definitely benefited Clinton

As for foreign policy, it certainly would played a role in the amount of progressives who refused to vote for Clinton, which was also a factor in her losing.

[Darryk]

1 minute ago, Triskele said:

It's been kind of fascinating to see how the American right's FP views seem to have shifted since 9/11.

They were so jingoistic under Bush but then seem to have totally flipped to being anti-war now. with Trump being anti-Iraq war when running in the GOP primaries, the only candidate who was, if memory serves.  It seems like a lot of red America really soured on these foreign wars and that Trump has some instinct for that.  

Hell, if I had a gun to my head and had to say one thing about Trump that I think has gone OK it's that he hasn't invaded Iran or something like that.  

It's cause the Republican party never really had any principles and have now jumped on the Trumpism bandwagon cause it's politically expedient. 

Of course I don't consider the Democrats to be paragons of virtue either, but with Republicans it's just so cartoonishly obvious. They were all jingoistic war maniacs and free trade fanatics during the Bush era, now they've done a complete 180 on both positions and just seem to be hoping no one would notice. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Just now, Triskele said:

This is part of what's convinced me that this is all so much about culture than it is about policies and why the UK election worries me a bit as a harbinger for the US.  We can all look at all kinds of GOP policies that we think we can make arguments about why they're terrible, but maybe it just doesn't matter to huge swaths of voters and Trump can just get them with cultural appeals.  

Substitute "emotional" for "cultural" and I tend to agree.  Which, btw, is why turnout will be the key. . . . .

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

You don't think it interesting that Bernie, the only person besides Trump who was talking about the decline of American manufacturing and the outsourcing of jobs, beat Hillary in the primary for two of those Rust Belt states (Michigan, Wisconsin).

No, I don't think it's interesting to look at primary results as a way to extrapolate to the general election.  In fact I think it's patently stupid.  Hillary also won Ohio along with Pennsylvania.  And even ignoring the fallacies involved when mapping a primary electorate of a state onto their general electorate, there are many other factors involved.  Most notably the schedule, which Bernie benefited from just as Hillary did in 2008 when the nomination was all but locked up for Obama.  The challenger-that-refuses-to-drop-out tends to get a boost when the winner's voters realize there's no reason to show up in the first place, which in 2016 would be the case for all of those contests except Michigan.

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

As for foreign policy, it certainly would played a role in the amount of progressives who refused to vote for Clinton, which was also a factor in her losing.

This is based on absolutely nothing.  As is the free trade hypothesis.  All you're doing is parroting Bernie talking points that have no substantive merit.

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

This is part of what's convinced me that this is all so much about culture than it is about policies and why the UK election worries me a bit as a harbinger for the US.

The emergence of the radical right internationally is not a new thing.  Other than that, there's no reason to directly compare the UK electorate to the US' electorate.  It's rather silly, actually, considering the demographic differences.  Johnson's win means nothing to the US presidential election other than it allows a bunch of pundits to publish op-eds that speculate about it with no grounding.

[DMC]

16 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I'm not sold that this is correct.  Or at least I'm not convinced that there's nothing to glean from it.  Here's one take that I find fairly convincing in the sense that this cannot be totally ignored

There are parallels, sure.  I'm not denying they're trends among western democracies becoming more authoritarian right now.  But that's pretty banal analysis.  Fact is, 2016 was decided by 80,000 votes.  What happened in a UK election prefaced primarily on brexit does not transfer well to what could happen in a US presidential reelection of Donald Trump in 2020.  At least in any empirical way, which is why - again- such "takes" like what you cite are wholly conjecture with no basis.

[Altherion]

58 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I'm not sold that this is correct.  Or at least I'm not convinced that there's nothing to glean from it.

It's hard to say. One the one hand, it's hard to even come up with a measure that would determine to which extent the chances of UK and US conservatives doing well are related, but on the other, if one looks at history, there are certainly points where loosely linked societies seemed to move in similar directions on timescales too close to each other to be purely coincidental. We'll see.

In other news, the impeachment proceedings appear to have cost the Democrats a Representative:

Quote

A conservative-leaning Democrat from New Jersey who defied his party in opposing the impeachment of President Trump is expected to switch parties and become a Republican.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a first-term Blue Dog Democrat who represents a swing district in southern New Jersey, intends to change parties after some of Van Drew's internal polling showed that he was becoming increasingly unpopular in his purple district, according to a senior Democratic aide.

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

In other news, the impeachment proceedings appear to have cost the Democrats a Representative

Good riddance.

[Jeor]

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's hard to say. One the one hand, it's hard to even come up with a measure that would determine to which extent the chances of UK and US conservatives doing well are related, but on the other, if one looks at history, there are certainly points where loosely linked societies seemed to move in similar directions on timescales too close to each other to be purely coincidental. We'll see.

Yes, it's hard to come up with solid evidence that the two results are linked (I'm not sure what type of evidence would cut it?) apart from drawing qualitative similarities between candidates and platforms, but there is some similarity there, even if Brexit was a confounding issue.

To run with @Altherion's history point, if you look at the recent history of culturally-related Western democracies (UK, USA, Australia*), when has a truly left-wing leader won an election? In Australia, the only Labor prime ministers in the past 40 years have come from the right faction of the party (Keating, Rudd, Gillard was from the left but made a deal with the right faction). In the UK, the only Labour leader to have won an election in the past 40 years was Tony Blair with his decidedly centrist, if not right-wing, New Labour platform. Bill Clinton in the USA also won with his Third Way politics. That leaves Obama as the only other election winner from the supposed left, and he turned out fairly moderate in the end, too.

If they are going to win - and note that I'm making an electability point, not a moral one - Sanders or Warren are going to have to rewrite this history of Anglophone democracies of the past 40 years, where any winners from the left have always been centrists. Granted, the political landscape has significantly changed in recent times, but no one really knows exactly how that plays out, so I don't think you can ignore history altogether.

*I don't know enough about Canada to comment on its political history, otherwise it should probably be included too.

[DMC]

18 minutes ago, Jeor said:

In the UK, the only Labour leader to have won an election in the past 40 years was Tony Blair with his decidedly centrist, if not right-wing, New Labour platform. Bill Clinton in the USA also won with his Third Way politics. That leaves Obama as the only other election winner from the supposed left, and he turned out fairly moderate in the end, too.

This is called governing, as well.  Give me a break.  Sure, Clinton "triangulated," and Blair did much of the same.  Obama did what he had to do.  But..

21 minutes ago, Jeor said:

If they are going to win - and note that I'm making an electability point, not a moral one - Sanders or Warren are going to have to rewrite this history of Anglophone democracies of the past 40 years, where any winners from the left have always been centrists.

...I know this is what everybody said about Obama when he was elected.  It was the same that was said when Reagan was elected too.  Know what those two have in common?  They're the two elections people like me^TM won things and argue about "realignments" as if they know what they're talking about.  Sanders isn't going to win because he's a joke.  Can be dispensed with in a two minute sketch on SNL.  Warren can win though.  When he goes after her, he's gonna look like the pathetic dick he is.  She don't have Benghazi or Comey or all that shit hanging over her head.  Best chance we got.

[ThinkerX]

7 hours ago, Triskele said:

So we have some white power hand signs being flashed at the Army / Navy football game plus Trump getting a big applause unlike when he got booed at the MLB game a bit back.  

And we're only a little ways away from him almost certainly getting acquitted in the Senate trial.  Can't imagine he'll feel there's much checking him after that.  

Barr is sounding worse and worse all the time which is impressive considering how bad he started out. 

And to counter all of this we have "No Malarky."  Hard not to despair, isn't it?  

Trump will check himself.  Consider:

 

Eight months ago, the whole Ukraine mess was barely even a rumor.  Now, *entirely* through Trump's own actions, including disregarding the recommendations of both career staff and his handpicked political cronies, Trump is likely to become the third impeached president in US history, at least in the house.  Think about it - from the 'ghost of a rumor' stage to impeachment in half a year.

 

First, this gives the democratic party excellent political ammunition even if Trump is acquitted - they can say 'Trump is a literal criminal.'  The republican senators who voted to acquit can be attacked as supporting corruption.  (I still maintain running adds that flat out state Trump has Alzheimer's is a viable option - Trump *would* react to those regardless of council, and shoot himself in the foot in the process.)

 

That said, there is most of a year until the general election.  Given Trumps track record, there *WILL* be another major scandal, with Trump as the primary culprit before then.

[Rippounet]

9 hours ago, DMC said:

There are parallels, sure.  I'm not denying they're trends among western democracies becoming more authoritarian right now.  But that's pretty banal analysis.  Fact is, 2016 was decided by 80,000 votes.  What happened in a UK election prefaced primarily on brexit does not transfer well to what could happen in a US presidential reelection of Donald Trump in 2020.  At least in any empirical way, which is why - again- such "takes" like what you cite are wholly conjecture with no basis.

I like your empirical approach. I do believe however that there is a case to be made that the right-wing trend in Western democracies can be attributed to media coverage of immigration and immigration-related issues. I've come across a few analyses along these lines that I found fairly convincing. Of course, it's an easy argument to make while the causality itself is extremely difficult to demonstrate in a scientific/professional manner. Basically experts can easily show how the coverage an issue has increased and what it looked like and correlate to the evolution of public opinion and election results, but the causality always involves some degree of guesswork, and it certainly doesn't allow one to make any reliable prediction for the future.

Anyway, I'd argue similar causes have similar effects throughout the West. I'd also argue that, paradoxically, media coverage of climate change is actually helping fuel those ethno-nationalist movements ; although right-wing voters often display indifference or scepticism when it comes to discussing climate change I believe it adds to their natural state of anxiety toward "the Other," hence making them more receptive to anti-immigration discourses.

Not that this says anything about results in the UK having an impact on the US... To ascertain that possibility one would have to examine US media coverage of BoJo's GE victory, bearing in mind that there are huge variations depending on the media's biases and target audience... But since domestic issues are always predominant in voters' minds I don't see how one could ever infer or demonstrate any form of causality...

[Jeor]

5 hours ago, DMC said:

Sanders isn't going to win because he's a joke.  Can be dispensed with in a two minute sketch on SNL.  Warren can win though.  When he goes after her, he's gonna look like the pathetic dick he is.  She don't have Benghazi or Comey or all that shit hanging over her head.  Best chance we got.

I agree Warren has a better chance of winning than Sanders  - comes up better on age, and Sanders can be caricatured too much. But while Warren doesn't have Benghazi or emails, she has the Native American thing (and I say "thing" because that's all the general populace knows, assuming it has to do with her taking advantage of affirmative action, which is red meat to the right).

And she is far to the left of Clinton, so the GOP will hammer her as a socialist (which in America has become some sort of grievous, terror-inducing label).  While not all Republicans are comfortable with Trump's personal, sexist attacks and name-calling, 100% of them will feel free to join in on attacking her as a terrifying left-wing loony. She's going to be demonised just as much as Clinton.

Trump also gets a pass on so many things already, so it's hard to believe that making personal attacks on Warren is going to move the needle much on that front.

[Darryk]

No, I don't think it's interesting to look at primary results as a way to extrapolate to the general election.  In fact I think it's patently stupid.  Hillary also won Ohio along with Pennsylvania.  And even ignoring the fallacies involved when mapping a primary electorate of a state onto their general electorate, there are many other factors involved.  Most notably the schedule, which Bernie benefited from just as Hillary did in 2008 when the nomination was all but locked up for Obama.  The challenger-that-refuses-to-drop-out tends to get a boost when the winner's voters realize there's no reason to show up in the first place, which in 2016 would be the case for all of those contests except Michigan.

The primary results aren't the point, it's the issues people in those areas care about, and which candidates cater to those concerns.

Bernie was beating Clinton in primaries and running her very close in others (where her position as the supposed-to-be-neutral DNC's heir apparent clearly gave her the edge), long before the votes were sewn up. Hence why the Clinton campaign began to initiate a smear campaign against Bernie, as revealed by the wikileaks emails; because they saw him as a threat.

This is based on absolutely nothing.  As is the free trade hypothesis.  All you're doing is parroting Bernie talking points that have no substantive merit.

If you think that Hillary's foreign policy history, whether it be Libya or Iraq or her antagonism toward Putin (I hate Putin but no one wants a war with Russia), didn't play a role in the way progressives and independents viewed her, then you haven't been paying attention to anything outside CNN.

You can look up progressive Youtubers like Kyle Kulinski on 'Secular Talk', Jimmy Dore and Sam Seder to see what the left thinks of Hillary Clinton and her war record.

And it's not just the left, even Trump's most hardline supporters attack him when he does anything that resembles hawkish behavior. It was Tucker Carlson who reportedly convinced Trump not to bomb Iran in response to the drone incident. The country is so war-weary that even Trump propagandist are terrified he'll lose support by getting America involved in a war.

As for trade policy, Michael Moore, who knows that area very well, wrote an article before the 2016 election on why Trump would win and he called it exactly: https://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

"Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states."

"From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here."

He also brings in Hillary's reputation as a hawk:

I actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that promise. 

The emergence of the radical right internationally is not a new thing.

It's not a new thing but it didn't turn out so well last time. 

Anyway I agree there's no point comparing Britain and American elections; the UK election was all about Brexit. Boris Johnson isn't even radical right really, he's actually closer to Obama in terms of policy, except unlike Obama he often puts his foot in his mouth and makes racist comments

 

[mormont]

Apart from that tiny detail of being a racist, Johnson is basically politically similar to Obama?

I mean, the rest of the last post is nonsense, but for absurdity, that one rivals the last suggestion about running a VP candidate that isn't eligible because reasons. Johnson is in no way at all similar to Obama in terms of policy, and also differs somewhat in being a vain, incompetent, habitual liar. 

[Kalbear]

Am curious why it is that if the whole thing was so rigged against Sanders last time why he isn't beating Biden this time. 

Also: Sanders did not beat Clinton in primaries. He beat her in precisely one primary (Michigan). He won caucuses repeatedly, but not primaries. Not understanding that is somewhat of a major issue.

[Darryk]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Apart from that tiny detail of being a racist, Johnson is basically politically similar to Obama?

I mean, the rest of the last post is nonsense, but for absurdity, that one rivals the last suggestion about running a VP candidate that isn't eligible because reasons. Johnson is in no way at all similar to Obama in terms of policy, and also differs somewhat in being a vain, incompetent, habitual liar. 

He supports the National Health Service and believes in fighting climate change, along with other traditionally left-wing positions that US republicans would scoff at. In fact even Obama thinks universal healthcare is too far left.

"The rest of the last post is nonsense" <---- any reason you can give or are we just gonna have to take your word for it?

Quote

Am curious why it is that if the whole thing was so rigged against Sanders last time why he isn't beating Biden this time.

Well it hasn't started yet? Sure Biden has a lead (quite narrow in some cases) over Bernie in the polls but polls aren't the primary process

The DNC have said they're going to change the super delegate role that gave Hillary such an advantage in the 2016 primaries, but they've still got their propaganda wing, MSNBC, viciously smearing Bernie at every opportunity while propping up corporate-friendly candidates like Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

I mean, MSNBC actually had on a guest who said anyone who votes for Bernie over Warren is misogynistic, Bernie "makes her skin crawl" and that Bernie "hates women". The MSNBC hosts didn't challenge her on it at all, just cut to commercials. It was laughable, and a perfect illustration of the "insider" vs "outside" battle in the Democrat party that ensures the likes of Bernie and Tulsi will always be battling against the media machine as well as their fellow candidates. 

As for Biden, the Rust Belt sees him as one of their own (whereas they saw Hillary as the candidate of coastal elites) so I think he could beat Bernie in a primary without needing extra help, the problem is the baggage he has which makes him as easy target for Trump.

Quote

Also: Sanders did not beat Clinton in primaries. He beat her in precisely one primary (Michigan). He won caucuses repeatedly, but not primaries. Not understanding that is somewhat of a major issue.

No he beat her in the Wisconsin primary as well, and a few others.  Beating her in Michigan was a major upset considering he was coming out of nowhere with no name recognition and no big-money donors behind him.

And I know full-well his record in caucuses were superior to hers, which makes sense because caucuses cater better to grass roots movements. And surprise surprise, the DNC is trying to reduce the amount of caucuses in the coming Democratic primary. Hmm, I wonder why.

 

 

[mormont]

5 minutes ago, Darryk said:

He supports the National Health Service

He claims to. In UK politics, you have to claim to do this, even while you privatise it. 

5 minutes ago, Darryk said:

and believes in fighting climate change

Right up to the point where it costs businesses a single penny, at which point his 'support' evaporates.

5 minutes ago, Darryk said:

"The rest of the last post is nonsense" <---- any reason you can give or are we just gonna have to take your word for it?

I mean, it is. There's no need to take my word for it. It's there on the screen.

To take the most egregious example, you were asked for evidence that Clinton's position on the Iraq war actually cost her votes in the election and wasn't just parroting a Sanders talking point, and you cited the fact that there are left-wing vloggers on YouTube who were parroting the same talking point. This isn't evidence, it's an example of confirmation bias in action. 

[Gorn]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Also: Sanders did not beat Clinton in primaries. He beat her in precisely one primary (Michigan). He won caucuses repeatedly, but not primaries. Not understanding that is somewhat of a major issue.

Actually, Sanders won nine primaries. And Clinton won several caucuses.

Also, Obama's decisive delegate lead in 2008 came from winning caucuses, while Clinton won the actual popular vote. Does this make his victory less valid?

[Maithanet]

9 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Also, Obama's decisive delegate lead in 2008 came from winning caucuses, while Clinton won the actual popular vote. Does this make his victory less valid?

Clinton only wins the popular vote if you include Michigan and Florida, which had been stripped of their delegates by the DNC because they moved up their primaries against DNC rules.  Those states were not contested by the Obama campaign, and in the case of Michigan, Obama wasn't even on the ballot.  So any talk of a popular vote win for Clinton is with a HUGE asterisk.