US Politics - Turtles crawl, the constipation sensation that's gripping the nation.

[felice]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

The comments are so. Fucking. Out. Of. Context it's absolutely bloody ridiculous.

I'm not convinced the context helps him much. It's not intended as an attack on farmers, sure, but it still grossly misrepresents the amount of knowledge and skill required by farming. And he appeared to be saying that blue collar workers weren't capable of learning to do modern jobs even with education?

Does he have a solution to the job issue?

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

He also says he thinks the cost of university tuition should be high, and even higher, to force the rich to pay for tuition, which money should then be used to subsidize everyone else. Free education is wrong because you'd give the rich a free ride.

That doesn't sound like a very smart plan. Just tax the rich and pay for free education that way; then you don't have the overhead of collecting fees and administering subsidies, and all the rich contribute, not just the ones whose kids are currently studying. If they're paying a reasonable tax rate, there's no need to be concerned about them getting the same access to public services as everyone else.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

It's honestly a little baffling to me how anyone could have watched the 2016 election and seen anything other than America's complete and utter rejection of the center-left. Bloomberg stans, help me understand. Why?

Well, to begin with, the centre-left candidate in that election (assuming you mean Clinton, I wouldn't even describe her as centre-left, just centre) got more votes than the left-wing candidate in the primary, and got more votes than the right-wing candidate in the election itself. So to interpret that as a 'complete and utter rejection' seems to me slightly weird and not sustainable as a position.

I'm not a Bloomberg stan, by the way. There appears to be only one of those in these threads. OTOH there are a lot of people saying that they'll vote for whoever the nominee is, whether it's Sanders or Bloomberg or, by some freak of happenstance, a mallard duck. 

[Liffguard]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

And btw, Bloomberg runs his business a helluva a lot differently than Trump ran his. Bloomberg notes he was away from the business for 13 years, and when he came back he saw changes had been made that he felt he had to roll back. He did not give titles to people, and discovered all kinds of people with business cards with titles on them. Gone. The workplace was open concept, and while it sort of looked that way, certain people had their desks near conference rooms which surprise, surprise, had pictures of their family members in them. Down came the glass walls and conference rooms were gone. He had his desk on the floor along with everyone else, and he noticed some people had bigger desks than others. One day they all came in to find all the desks were the same size and the extra stuff in the bigger desks was in boxes on top of their new desks.

I’m baffled that you consider this to be a defence of Bloomberg. Primarily because the idea that his office management preferences outweigh every other terrible thing he’s said and done is bizarre. But also because the preferences you highlight here aren’t exactly great. Open office plans are hellscapes and if I had the choice of one person I could personally send to hell, it would be the inventor of open offices.

But more to the point, you’re presenting it as if Bloomberg was implementing egalitarian policies (no offices, same size desks) when in fact it seems like the exact opposite. Did he ask anyone what their preferences were? It’s the aesthetics of equality under an authoritarian power structure.

Also, given the number of outstanding claims against him by various women, I'm not sure he ran his organisation that differently from Trump.

[karaddin]

22 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, to begin with, the centre-left candidate in that election (assuming you mean Clinton, I wouldn't even describe her as centre-left, just centre) got more votes than the left-wing candidate in the primary, and got more votes than the right-wing candidate in the election itself. So to interpret that as a 'complete and utter rejection' seems to me slightly weird and not sustainable as a position.

I will again hammer on the point that Bloomberg isn't even centre though, there was certainly no indication that in a country where the primary hurdle in an election is GOTV that the next candidate should be someone comfortable in the other party.

[mormont]

43 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I will again hammer on the point that Bloomberg isn't even centre though, there was certainly no indication that in a country where the primary hurdle in an election is GOTV that the next candidate should be someone comfortable in the other party.

Agreed. Boomberg's political history, and current presence in the Dem primary, seems to be a function of the fact that politically he doesn't fit comfortably into either party right now. But there was a time, not so long ago, when he'd have been a Republican for sure, in the days when that party tolerated unorthodox views on issues like gun control (or unorthodox views on anything, really). 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

whether it's Sanders or Bloomberg or, by some freak of happenstance, a mallard duck. 

It's got my vote!!!

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I will again hammer on the point that Bloomberg isn't even centre though

You'd be hard-pressed to come up with better examples of a truly "center" politician in American politics.  I think this is a broad misconception based on referring to the Clintons and/or Obama as "centrists."  No, both presidents governed from the center-left.  This is measurable, reflected in DW-NOMINATE scores.  These scores can't reliably be transferred to mayors, but there are recent Democratic MCs that in all likelihood would have more "conservative" NOMINATE scores than Bloomberg - Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, Claire McCaskill, Conor Lamb, Heidi Heitkamp.

But - and it's a huge but - in the age of polarization a "true" centrist doesn't really belong in either party's presidential primary.  Hell, even in a Downsian sense (which is outdated these days), a true centrist should not be one of the two party's nominee - instead each party should be competing for that median voter.  Another "but" would be Bloomberg's centrism varies based on policy area - obviously he's much more center-right on economic issues (and crime) while much more center-left on most other social issues.  This mixture, and its mirror image, are of course fairly common for actual "centrists."

[A True Kaniggit]

41 minutes ago, DMC said:

It's got my vote!!!

Shit spewing duck vs. shit spewing pumpkin.

Fight!

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

That seems to me like rejection, but your mileage may vary.

Losing by .23% in MI; .72% in PA; and .77% in WI - in an environment that slightly favored the GOP candidate, btw - qualifies as "complete and utter rejection" to you?  That seems like pretty laughable conceptual definitions to me, but indeed, ymmv. 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

Do you really think those margins are something to be proud of?

No, I just don't think they qualify as complete and utter rejection.  At all.

[Gorn]

Bloomberg's political positions as whole, like those of most Americans, cannot be neatly charted on a one-dimensional left-right axis. Holding a mix of right-wing and left-wing positions doesn't make someone "centrist".

[Fragile Bird]

5 hours ago, felice said:

I'm not convinced the context helps him much. It's not intended as an attack on farmers, sure, but it still grossly misrepresents the amount of knowledge and skill required by farming. And he appeared to be saying that blue collar workers weren't capable of learning to do modern jobs even with education?

Did you even listen to the speech? He’s talking about a time when 98% of the population farmed. When was that, felice? Last year? He is not talking about today’s farmer, who probably went to college to learn complex skills, he’s talking about 500 years ago. And then he’s talking about the industrial revolution, when 10 year olds worked in the mills. Do you think you had to go to to grade school, high school, or university to have the skills to run a machine in an 1800 mill if they used workers as young as 10? England passed child labor laws in 1802, not to prevent children from working in mills but to restrict work hours to 12 hours a day.

And he grossly exaggerated the number of people farming in the US today - he said 2% of the population, when it’s actually 1%.

5 hours ago, felice said:

Does he have a solution to the job issue?

Do you actually think there is “a” solution to the issues of employment? He talked about education and the need for government to recognize the vital need for people to have jobs. Do you think he was supposed to map out how governments are going to do that in a half hour interview at a university speaker series? 

 

5 hours ago, felice said:

IThat doesn't sound like a very smart plan. Just tax the rich and pay for free education that way; then you don't have the overhead of collecting fees and administering subsidies, and all the rich contribute, not just the ones whose kids are currently studying. If they're paying a reasonable tax rate, there's no need to be concerned about them getting the same access to public services as everyone else.

Hey, I absolutely agree. But we are talking about the US here, not Europe. I read my US friends’ posts on Facebook, and their friends tell them there’s no effing way they are going to pay for the health care of other people. I can’t imagine widespread support for paying for the university education of other people. If Sanders wins, it will be fascinating to see if he can actually implement his agenda or if Democrats, along with Republicans, will refuse to do so. As is constantly pointed out by Republicans, there were many things Obama did not do even when he had a majority in both houses.

 

4 hours ago, mormont said:

I'm not a Bloomberg stan, by the way. There appears to be only one of those in these threads. OTOH there are a lot of people saying that they'll vote for whoever the nominee is, whether it's Sanders or Bloomberg or, by some freak of happenstance, a mallard duck. 

I’m not sure what a stan is, I assume you meant fan, but are you talking about me? A week ago the only thing I knew about Bloomberg was that he was a financial wizard who made billions bringing technology to his industry, and that he had been mayor of NYC for three terms. I happened to note that I heard a news report that he had already created a network larger than the one Obama had in his election run and that he offered it up for the use by the winning nominee in the event he did not win. Then I got attacked for saying that. It is absolutely beyond my comprehension that once again people are saying they will never vote for a candidate should that candidate win the nomination, that they would actually prefer another four years of Trump.

I was curious to see what kind of out of context bullshit was involved in the clip of Bloomberg being interviewed and that’s why I posted the article with the complete interview clip. 
I don’t think that makes me a fan supporting his nomination. For the third time (or fourth or fifth)I will repeat that I am a ‘fan’ of Elizabeth Warren. I’d be fine with Sanders winning, I just doubt that he will because he will be torn to shreds by Trump et al because socialism is such a dirty word to Americans.

[karaddin]

I've said multiple times that were I entitled to vote, I'd be voting whoever the Dems put up even if it were Bloomberg. I think he's a losing candidate, but I'd still vote. What I won't do is judge minority voters if they refuse to turn out for a man that only a few years ago talks so callously about cops literally throwing their kids into walls, harassing and traumatizing them, to instill fear of the police into them because he thinks all criminals are of their race.

Maybe I'd feel like I could judge that if they were in Australia, with compulsory voting, adequate polling booths and weekend voting. But I'm sure as hell not going to judge someone who looks at that man and decides they don't have the energy to wait 6-8 hours in snowy winter conditions to vote for a man that views them like that. And I think these hurdles tend to get overlooked when some of us foreigners talk about US election turn outs - the voter suppression efforts aren't just the headline stuff, not opening adequate voting locations, and not staffing them adequately, in black and minority neighbourhoods is absolutely something that is done to reduce voters, and when someone has already worked a 8-10 hour grueling shift on minimum wage asking them to wait another 6 hours to vote is just... So exhausting. To inspire people to do that, they need to believe you'll be more than just "a little less awful".

[IheartIheartTesla]

As far as I can tell, 'Stan' is a superfan, probably in reference to the Eminem song 'Stan' (featuring vocals from Dido in some versions).

I believe 90% of us will vote for the eventual nominee (even Bloomberg). Now is the time to vent and be courted a little bit, luckily the MI primary will turn out to be important so I look forward to some targeted emails in the near future.

[karaddin]

10 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

As far as I can tell, 'Stan' is a superfan, probably in reference to the Eminem song 'Stan' (featuring vocals from Dido in some versions).

Yeah the Eminem reference is the origin.

I've just seen the point made, and think it's a reasonable one, that as a Democrat president Bloomberg may have an easier time passing awful racist shit due to the Dems backing their own guy, while the GOP would agree to back the racism.

At the very least I think he's more likely to wind up the nominee if everyone believes the entire party will fall in line than he is if he's seen as a bad bet that will split the party, so even if you would actually vote for him in the end there's a tactical reason to give off the impression you wouldn't while we're at this stage.

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I've just seen the point made, and think it's a reasonable one, that as a Democrat president Bloomberg may have an easier time passing awful racist shit due to the Dems backing their own guy, while the GOP would agree to back the racism.

I'm not so sure.  The Democratic party isn't nearly as unified behind the dear leader as the Republican party, so I'm doubtful that Bloomberg will have much luck pushing policies that are outside of the Democratic mainstream.  Perhaps he could sell out minorities with policies aimed at achieving other liberal goals (like a regressive climate change plan for example), but that would be it.  And the GOP will reflexively oppose anything a Democratic president does, regardless of whether it is Republican policies he's pushing.  The Obama years demonstrated that total opposition works to depress Dem turnout without any pushback from their own voters. 

Quote

At the very least I think he's more likely to wind up the nominee if everyone believes the entire party will fall in line than he is if he's seen as a bad bet that will split the party, so even if you would actually vote for him in the end there's a tactical reason to give off the impression you wouldn't while we're at this stage.

Interesting point.  I think that the potential of disastrous splitting of the Democratic party has me worried enough not to play with that fire, but I suppose others are not so risk-averse. 

[Ormond]

21 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I believe 90% of us will vote for the eventual nominee (even Bloomberg). Now is the time to vent and be courted a little bit, luckily the MI primary will turn out to be important so I look forward to some targeted emails in the near future.

Well, the 90% figure is certainly true of the "us" that constitutes the tiny group who are regular posters on this thread. I worry that it does not translate to "typical Democratic voters". 

As for Bloomberg and his remarks -- I am sure they were taken out of context. But I'm not sure that their focus on education is going to be helpful in the long run.

In psychological terms I think "class" is much more linked with education than it is with income. I think that most farmers who still do a lot of "hands on" outdoor work do not identify with the college-educated suburbanites who are anti-Trump even if they have high incomes. And even those who technically have four year college degrees probably don't see themselves in the same way as people who didn't major in Agriculture. The same goes for the remaining unionized factory workers in states like Michigan who have incomes that qualify them as "middle class" but who still have blue collar attitudes.

I think the resentment and anger felt by people who support Trump is focused on "elites" as defined by education, not income. My right wing relatives are very fond of reposting on Facebook statements about how having a college education doesn't make you smarter than anybody else. And these are mostly people who have very good incomes. In my personal experience, people who have middle class or higher incomes but don't have four year college degrees with "liberal arts" majors are even more resentful of "educated intellectuals" than poor people are. 

[karaddin]

12 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Perhaps he could sell out minorities with policies aimed at achieving other liberal goals (like a regressive climate change plan for example), but that would be it.  And the GOP will reflexively oppose anything a Democratic president does, regardless of whether it is Republican policies he's pushing.  The Obama years demonstrated that total opposition works to depress Dem turnout without any pushback from their own voters. 

Yeah I don't think that would apply generally, I was thinking of areas where the Dem (and more generally equivalent parties in other countries) are already scared of being perceived as weak or incompetent - I had Middle East policies and islamophobia in mind. I suspect there would be some economic ones at well and that these would likely be his primary goal.

[Fez]

14 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

To an extent I can take your point, clearly the surprising weakness of Biden in particular has opened up an opportunity for Bloomberg, and it's allowed him to pursue a strategy of skipping early primaries that would normally never work.

With that said, why is it that Bloomberg has taken off instead of the other non-Biden "moderate" options? Why is it that they're weak but Bloomberg is surprisingly strong? Is Bloomberg particularly charismatic? Not really. Does he have an especially impressive political resume? Maybe more than Buttigieg but not more than Klobuchar or several other candidates whose campaigns went bust well before this point. Is he better aligned with the Democratic electorate ideologically? Certainly not. Does he have an absurd amount of money to throw around? Yes. 

Speaking broadly, most of the Democratic field (including the ones who dropped out) are not particularly charismatic; they can't give an electrifying speech. Most of them are incapable of breaking through a Trump-saturated media landscape and getting their headlines; due to a combination of having rote, boring campaign events and speeches and not doing anything to viral. Many of them have large amounts of baggage that various types of Democratic voters dislike. Some of them were poor fundraisers, and some of them had poor strategies to attract voters (like Harris trying early to get to Sanders' left on health care) or made tactical missteps. Lastly, many of the top candidates are quite old for running for President, which is an issue for some voters.

And this isn't just the moderates either. Sanders has less of these problems than most, which is why he's the frontrunner right now, but he does have a lot of baggage to moderate voters. Warren had more of these problems.

Now let's look at Bloomberg. He's not that charismatic either, he's also old (though some people don't seem to realize it) and he's got plenty of baggage for a lot of voters, but he doesn't suffer from the other problems. The money helps him for certain. But I think if another candidate were able to avoid all, or at least most, of these problems, Bloomberg would never have gotten anywhere. Hell, I think if Sanders had all his same positions but were 30 years younger, 6'2" with a winning smile, and sounded less grouchy, he'd already have the nomination wrapped up.  On the flip side, if Buttigeig was a senator, straight (I do think that's an issue for some still), slightly older, and not quite as smarmy, I think he'd be far and away the frontrunner right now.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

On the flip side, if Buttigeig was a senator, straight (I do think that's an issue for some still), slightly older, and not quite as smarmy, I think he'd be far and away the frontrunner right now.

Hell, if Buttigieg had even just a couple of terms as a Congressman, I'd feel a lot better about him.  There are a lot of things I like about his candidacy, but it is hard for me to really get behind a guy with such flimsy qualifications. 

I remember that some people talked about racism that Buttigieg gets talked about as a Rhodes Scholar where Booker did not.  But the alternative explanation is that "Rhodes Scholar" is like the #3 qualification for Buttigieg, whereas Booker had an actual resume, which made Rhodes Scholar less meaningful for him. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

Well it's certainly not an endorsement.

True but the margins and the (again slightly) disadvantageous position of the Dem nominee in 2016 suggest that in this cycle - as long as Trump's approval and the congressional ballot indicators hold - ceteris paribus, a "center-left" candidate would be the one with the slight advantage in such an environment.

1 hour ago, Gorn said:

Holding a mix of right-wing and left-wing positions doesn't make someone "centrist".

Actually, holding a mix of center-right and center-left positions is pretty much the universally accepted conceptual definition of "centrist" among those that study this for a living.  Look, I'm not trying to be the language police here.  Define centrist however you want - indeed most people do tend to skew their perception of right/center/left based on their own biases.  It's just empirically inaccurate to assert Bloomberg's not a centrist based on the hundreds of researchers that have produced thousands of projects over the last half century.

26 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I'm not so sure.  The Democratic party isn't nearly as unified behind the dear leader as the Republican party, so I'm doubtful that Bloomberg will have much luck pushing policies that are outside of the Democratic mainstream. 

Right as Grossman & Hopkins show, the Democratic party still remains a classic catchall party in that it's a coalition of interests, or more precisely social groups.  A President Bloomberg is not going to be able to bring thing entire party to heel as a cult of personality the way Trump has successfully done.  He is going to be reliant on the influence of many groups that conflict greatly with his prior preferences when framing his policy agenda.

11 minutes ago, Fez said:

On the flip side, if Buttigeig was a senator, straight (I do think that's an issue for some still), slightly older, and not quite as smarmy, I think he'd be far and away the frontrunner right now.

Yeah I think it's the age thing that subconsciously gets to me.  He's only three years older than me, and I'm a Toys R Us kid.