Some people are still talking on the old thread even though Heebie started a new thread. Sad!
Clearly the product of a pre-this-thread's-existence mindset.
Millennials don't even remember what life was like in the old thread.
I was only talking in the old thread because there was a specific line of active conversation that would have been difficult to carry across threads (in part because referring to prior comments becomes difficult). Obviously any new thoughts go in this thread.
Are there ever any new thoughts?
Did all the Republicans really commit to send ground troops to fight Daesh?
6: Yes, except apparently Rubio didn't get a chance to do so.
4: Little urple defends old thread dead-enders. Has no new ideas to offer in new thread. Loser!
Lets fight another land war in Asia. What could go wrong?
Liar MHPH said in his little comment that I was wrong about some things in the old thread, but in fact everyone agreed that I was right about everything. You can look it up. Do your research, reporters.
everyone agreed that I was right about everything
JRoth will be greeted as a liberator in Baghdad!
Little JRoth is just lying. My comments in that thread were huge. The longest comments ever.
Carson endorses Trump. So that's the VP nomination sewn up.
The Guardian:
Here's a summary of the nice things Ben Carson said about Donald Trump just then:
"He's very cerebral."
"He is actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America."
"There's a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was."
"He's malleable."
"He's a much more reasonable person than comes across."
Trump agreed with Carson explicitly about many of his, Trump's, qualities:
"I'm a big thinker."
"I'm a very deep thinker. I know what's happening, OK?"
15: No -- Trump has already suggested he's going to choose a politician. He needs somebody who can do the work for him.
Carson could be Surgeon General.
"He's a much more reasonable person than comes across."
That means so much coming from you, Ben.
So for those of you in Chicago, 5 Rabbits is going to be selling some more of their Chinga Tu Pelo beer at the brewery on March 12. (Facebook announcement thingy at the url).
Based on my one FB friend who's a member of various Dem Party organizations and is a possible candidate for judge pretty soon, Sanders is doing well among NYC politically engaged Domincan-Americans. Or could be it's just Fidel.
My FB feed is alarming full of data about political polling in Wales. I had originally assumed everybody's is like that but now I think it may be just me.
I live a hundred miles from the Welsh border and it's news to me that there's anything happening in Wales that would justify polling. What are we missing?
You probably had a different roommate in graduate school.
He talked normally, but he had a funny accent.
Not interesting-funny, like regular people from Wales. Just regular-funny. He's English.
28: Not only do I have know idea what this is about, the instructions make no sense. How can I not masturbate to not masturbating?
29: You've got a lot of nerve -- "know idea" indeed!
A couple thoughts, following up on the previous thread.
1) I liked the Kevin Drum post that Tigre linked to about Clinton's honesty, and I think it makes an important point. I also think it misses the point because it doesn't understand what people mean when they say that they don't trust Hillary. I think the concern is less that she flat out lies and more that she adopts positions out of convenience -- this is MHPH's feeling about her, that no matter what she says, he believes that she will pivot away from issues that he cares about as soon as she's given an opportunity to do so.
That's a different thing to rebut. Somebody can respond to claims of being a liar by providing supporting evidence, but that doesn't work as a response to accusations of being an opportunist -- it just looks lawyererly. The way to respond to that is, going back to Mark Schmidt's line about, "What matters is what your issues say about you, not what you say about the issues" having a clear narrative that connects the positions to personal beliefs and explains how you arrive at and prioritize those interests.
Sanders is much, much better at doing that than Clinton, and I think it's a genuine strength for him and weakness for her. I think it's something that Clinton needs to be better at, and also that it is a clear example of what she means when she says that she isn't a natural politician like Bill or Obama; I just think it isn't something that comes easily to her. I also think that MHPH's description of her is a bit of a nasty caricature but that's politics. . .
2) As a (more or less) Clinton supporter, I do think that foreign policy is the area in which I have the greatest concerns. I don't think she's going to start a war with Iran, I think she'll be slightly more aggressive than Obama was (which isn't a good thing) but largely continue on the Obama policies (which is a good thing).
I also think it's hard to predict what Sanders' foreign policy would be like. I think it would be less militaristic than Clinton's, which is a plus, but I also think he's put less energy into foreign relations in general, which is a negative. I still think that the most important foreign policy question of this generation isn't the middle east, but US-China relationships, and I can't predict what either Sanders or Clinton would do, but I think Clinton has valuable experience which would help her understand that relationship.
3) Going back to Mark Schmidt, I remember him saying about some idea which was popular in the blogosphere in the mid-2000s that, it looked like a good idea but he was concerned that none of the people who were paid to win elections seemed to have any interest in running on it. It made him suspect that they had good reasons to think it would be a harder sell than it might look.
Sanders is an interesting test case for that. He's running on a couple of ideas which are fairly popular (and populist) but he's also running on a bunch of ideas which fall into the category of, "most of the professionals have avoided these." This is the thing which both appeals to me and concerns me. If he can run on those and win it would significantly shift the sense of what's possible politically. On the other hand, if he's the nominee and congressional candidates are all scared of being associated with his platform that would be a problem -- it would limit his coattails and make the party feel much more fractured in the general election.
3) My biggest reason for supporting Clinton is that I think presidents have limited power to set the agenda and spend a majority of their time reacting to other people (call this the, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." theory of the presidency), and I think Clinton would be much better prepared for that. But it also important to be able to offer goals and a vision of the future and, again, that isn't Clinton's strength.
That said, I still believe that will be easier for Clinton in a general election. Part of why she looks like the conservative Democrat in the race is because she's being challenged from her left. When she does try to make lefty arguments there's the potential for it to seem like she's late to the party and that Sanders already claimed that space or for Sanders to say, "that's great, we should do even more." Whereas in a general election in which she is clearly the more left candidate I think that will make it easier for her to own liberal positions.
Except that Trump is going to run to her left.
I think (1) might be a little unfair: I said that one of my major (and much bigger, actually) problems with her is that she isn't that way about some important things. And when it comes to some of those things she's consistently bad.* Looking at what people move around on in respect to shifting opinion is a good way to tell what people actually care a lot about and what they're willing to ignore or trade away because it's not that important.
So, for example, in foreign policy she's been entirely consistent for her entire political career, as far as I can tell, and close enough to a neocon/kissinger-ite that I think it's a really big strike against her. She's also been very consistent in her support for (what I think is a slightly limited view of) womens' rights, which I don't think is a strike against her at all, except there she's up against someone who isn't appreciably worse so it doesn't carry much electoral weight.
Free trade agreements have been a place where she's been more wobbly (but not in the radical sense as awesome as that would be). She's been toning down her previous support for them*, but still tends to phrase her positions in terms of good-idea-bad-execution, which makes me think there's more calculation there than a genuine rethinking of the ideology behind those deals. I think she recognizes that (1) they're close to poison in democratic primaries and (2) the results of some of the older ones have been either bad or (my suspicion as far as her thinking goes) mixed. So I believe her when she says she's opposed to the TPP itself, but in a pretty qualified sense where I suspect that if it came down to it she wouldn't risk much to veto it and is mostly hoping that it'll be off the table one way or another when she takes office. (And there's a good chance that if she gets to negotiate one herself she'll believe that her one does have enough protections in it that it won't be bad and sign it.)
*Although when is a tricky thing: she was doing it in 2007/8 during the primary then, but then was a booster of the TPP while she was Secretary of State (which doesn't mean that she supported it fully, although I don't know if there's evidence she opposed it the way we know she did about some of Obama's more dovish policies). And then as far as I can tell she just fell silent about it until now and she's back to 2008 style positions.
Re: honesty, I think the bit quoted here is a good case of her saying something that is probably not a lie (she probably doesn't want to see that!) but is pretty fundamentally dishonest (and very crass in a politician-ly way) as a response to Sanders—a former Sec'y of State of all people should know quite well that the US has no problem working with and fomenting all kinds of scuzziness abroad.
I do think though that there's a strong pattern of 'triangulation' stuff, especially when it comes to racial or economic issues, in her past. And whether or not that means "revealing her true devious agenda!" or just "political instincts that do not match the times anymore" that is a serious issue. (Even if it isn't related to her, it's true of the people she's surrounded by and is loyal to, and she has a history of changing very slowly in response to changes which makes me very suspicious of the idea that she would act differently this time.) I think (very strongly) that if she's faced against Trump/Cruz in the general election, like seems pretty inevitable, she's going to go straight for beltway-consensus stuff as far as possible and try to play the election as "sane stable Hillary who won't change anything too significant versus Jesus Christ it's a box of high explosives sitting over a campfire". And that will mean shifting to a lot of stuff that really is nasty and that at the very least Sanders is forcing her to ignore right now.
I think (1) might be a little unfair: I said that one of my major (and much bigger, actually) problems with her is that she isn't that way about some important things. And when it comes to some of those things she's consistently bad.*
(1) was not intended as a complete description of your position, I was just using you as an example (and I do think it's fair to say that your concerns about Hillary are not based on whether she can provide corroborating evidence for her statements).
I think the bit quoted here is a good case of her saying something that is probably not a lie (she probably doesn't want to see that!) but is pretty fundamentally dishonest (and very crass in a politician-ly way) as a response to Sanders
See my comment (2) about foreign policy, but I also think that's a fairly slanted description of the exchange. Beyond that, I think that, on some level, debates are the right place for crass political attacks. Within limits, of course, but part of the purpose is to see whether politicians can deliver and respond to attacks.
Just to be clear, you're welcome to criticize Clinton for making that statement and taking that line of attack against Sanders, but I don't think it's fair to cite that as an example of an honesty problem.
I do think though that there's a strong pattern of 'triangulation' stuff, especially when it comes to racial or economic issues, in her past.
Just out of curiosity, I'd be interested in some examples that don't come from the 2008 campaign (I say that for two reasons, one that if it's a "strong pattern" there should be ample evidence to chose from and (2) unfogged spent so much time hashing out the 2008 campaign at the time I'd much rather talk about something else -- even it means talking about Bill Clinton's presidency as we did in the previous thread).
42 makes a good point. I should drop out of this thread for a while.
Believe it or not, 34 was intended as a productive comment. I was continuing some of the arguments, but I was trying to push the conversation away from back-and-forth sniping into a bigger picture but, ah well.
36- not in every case,but he is already to her left on trade, social security, fiance, and foreign policy he's not going to be more right wing in the general.
Won't keep me from voting for her in the general, but I hope we don't have cause to regret her apparent saber-rattling inclinations for China in particular ("don't want my grandchildren to live in a world dominated by the Chinese").
Why not? What would be so bad about Chinese domination? I'm all for rigorous literature-based exams for the civil service.
44 requires assuming that he's not just spouting bullshit to see what sticks. If you took everything he has said that seriously, he's mostly a monster.
What would be so bad about Chinese domination?
The utensils! They can have my fork when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
I feel a bit guilty making a serious comment in this thread, but the previous one seems pretty degenerate, so this must be the place: I'm of the wild and crazy pie-in-the-sky opinion that you should vote for the candidate you agree with more. In addition to principle, there's also the fact that all other factors seem either overestimated or to have little difference, at least in this election. Electability? Clinton's is taken for granted too much, but really, they both could win or lose depending on the opponent and the fundamentals of the race. Getting stuff done? They'll both face unrelenting opposition from definitely one and maybe both houses of Congress. Honesty and consistency? I view that as a strength of Sanders, but, eh, I'll admit that triangulation has some value. Executive experience? Sanders doesn't have much, and Clinton does, but if you don't like her record her experience isn't a good sign. Which brings it back to her record.
I'm supporting Sanders in the expectation of actual accomplishments adding up to just 5 to 10 percent more leftism than we'd get from Clinton, when all is said and done. But that's still more.
44: Wait, what has Trump said that's to the left of Clinton on Social Security?
Also, my own thoughts from the previous thread:
390
Sanders dropping out means "no one pays attention to the Democrats for the next three or four months".
This deserved more attention than it got. You know what actually could hurt electability? Getting less free media coverage. Right now the Republican primary is a huge circus, but at least the Democrats are technically having debates and commentators are talking about their strengths relative to each other. If those stop, media coverage of the Democratic nominee will almost completely be reduced to the Republicans' barbs not aimed at Trump. I don't know exactly how bad that is but it's probably not good. All else being equal, Sanders should stay in the primary as long as it stays relatively issues-oriented.
470
I'm skeptical of any explanation that involves a small group of people bending american politics to their will (for good or evil), because I think, in general, too little attention is paid to bottom-up changes. But, if that description is correct, it could explain a lot of the asymmetries between the two parties.
I agree with this, both the attractiveness of blaming it all on the Koch brothers after all, and the preference for a bottom-up explanation. It's just plain weird how Democrats do OK-to-great at presidential elections, per 370, and so terribly in lower offices. (Gerrymandering is a factor but not all of it.) I tend to think of it as a lack of local organizing. Weakened unions, churches have trended conservative for the past 40ish years and I'm atheist anyway, etc., and the problem trickles up. Another ex recto guess: the left has been a victim of its own success in education. Broadening the base of people going to college has made it less ideological, separately from the effect of right-wing attacks. Sound plausible? Not sure how to fix this, but overall it seems like an even bigger problem than who to vote for in this primary.
Trump has only promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare, right? Clinton's platform actually has minor expansion/preservation proposals (raising the income cap, expanding benefits for widows and family carers).
47- No it doesn't. I know he's a fast buck con artist, and that anyone who trusts him is going to regret it, but that doesn't mean his rhetorical position is irrelevant.
49-He has said social security shouldn't be cut. She has been on board with grand bargain bullshit.
Strongly agreeing with Cyrus's first paragraph.
I was trying to think of stuff that Pres. Sanders might deliver that Pres. Clinton might not. The two I came up with were that 1) Pres. Sanders might be more willing/able to have the IRS do our taxes for us, which I understand is being blocked by tax-preparing companies, 2) Pres. Sanders' Interior department might be less inclined to follow through on this deal with the oligarchs at Westlands.
Deciding those issues on a "fuck the 1%" basis could get an administration to a slightly different place than general lefty principles.
I'm just pointing out that if you take his rhetorical position seriously, "he's a fascist" is a more reasonable summary than "he's to the left of Clinton on a subset of economic issues."
Can someone convince me that this is a horribly ungenerous and inaccurate misreading by Gawker because if it isn't that's jaw-droppingly insane.
I frankly have no idea why Obama's Interior department has been willing to enter that deal with Westlands. A co-worker speculated that in exchange for the Westlands deal, the Resnicks didn't oppose his peacemaking with Iran. I don't know.
I agree he's a fascist. I don't think it makes sense to be dismissive of the issues he's left on i.e. trade, social security, fiance, and foreign policy.
I think once somebody crosses a certain line, it makes great sense to dismiss those views. For example, social security coupled with open advocacy of racial and religious discrimination is not left wing. It's just special interest politics for white people.
Again you are right. I think we might be underestimating the constituency for those thing. We are talking about something pretty close to the new deal coalition after all.
Believe it or not, 34 was intended as a productive comment. I was continuing some of the arguments, but I was trying to push the conversation away from back-and-forth sniping into a bigger picture but, ah well.
This is exactly how I read it, for the record. I didn't think there was anything unproductive in it, and I did mean "little" in that first sentence. I just wanted to push back against the way that I think the stuff about opportunism got a little exaggerated, that's all.
Clinton's platform actually has minor expansion/preservation proposals (raising the income cap, expanding benefits for widows and family carers).
Aww crap. I did not know that about her. That's... great. I mean, it's minimal and it's not like Obama didn't spend years making the same noises but seriously I think every democrat should be taken aside for a few hours at this point and have "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SOCIAL SECURITY IT IS NOT GOING BANKRUPT" branded onto their forearms to remind them not to go in for this shit.
NOT LEFT WING? HITLER WAS A NATIONAL SOCIALIST.
Also I have no idea what could be going on in that bit from 54. Maybe she was accidentally mashing together AIDS and Alzheimers? I guess you could say most of those things about (Nancy) Reagan's work on Alzheimer's (and I guess Ronald Reagan helped publicize it as well, but in a very different way.) I can't think of any way to make sense of it other than just the random way absentmindedness pops up and makes all of us look like idiots sometimes.
Perhaps she is trying to give Andrew Sullivan a heart attack.
54, 61: and also ruling class solidarity, of a piece with her stuff about Kissinger and (IIRC) Nixon. This person is of my class and thus really can't be said to have done anything truly blameworthy.
She has been on board with grand bargain bullshit.
Cite please? During 2008, some of the most heated arguments around here were based on the fact that Obama attacked Clinton for not being on board with grand bargain bullshit. He chided her for denying that SS is in a "crisis". I don't recall her being wobbly on Bush's privatization scheme. There was vague talk about SS towards the end of Bill's second term, but nothing serious on the administration's part, and certainly nothing* that can be hung around her neck. AFAICR, she's been on board with expanding SS throughout this campaign, including before Bernie gained traction.
On trade, Trump's position is mercantilism, which AFAIK isn't technically a leftist position.
On finance, he has said bad stuff about investment bankers, but I'm pretty sure his actual published proposals don't lay a finger on them. I mean, if you just want to give him full credit every time he says something vaguely left, even if he repudiates it in the same speech, then he's going to be on her left for almost literally every position. Hell, he said something nice about Mexicans once, does that mean he'll run to her left on immigration?
Last night he pledged to send tens of thousands of ground troops to fight ISIS, something that HRC has opposed this entire cycle. Why is that running to her left?
*that I recall, but I was paying a lot of attention to this specific issue at the time, so I'd be surprised if I've forgotten
We are talking about something pretty close to the new deal coalition after all.
I know this hasn't been discussed recently, but the New Deal coalition hasn't won an election in literally 40 years.
Why couldn't Hillary have just said, "Her picture with Mr. T was the best thing about the Reagan presidency" and leave it at that?
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/say-it-aint-so-hillary-clinton-youre-open-idea-raising-retirement-age She is better than I thought she was, but I did remember that right.
I don't want to give Trump any credit, but he's been staking these claims during the Republican nomination fight, do you really think he's not going to follow up during the general? This stuff is going to offer him substantial room to maneuver. It is going to give him real protection from claims of inconsistency. (Not that he appears worried about those.)
Old people are worse than young people.
Trump has been very consistently on the left in a protectionist manner. This is the big issue that politicians of both parties have unanimously decided to ignore and not run on for the last 30 years. Every normal person hates free trade agreements. Every national politician likes them. Not Trump! Hopefully in the general election it will be revealed that he is a gigantic fraud with contempt for us all, but I am worried.
I was just reminded a few days ago of the fact that "China is engaging in currency manipulation and we should fight back with tariffs" was also the position of Romney in 2012. Given the way it's being discussed as part of 'cra-aa-zy Trump' stuff it was kind of surreal to see it there - and almost in almost the exact same way, if not quite as bluntly/crudely put.
The people who negotiate these agreements, the people who sit down with the Chinese and sit down with the Mexicans and others, are people, by and large, who've spent their life in politics, and the politicians come together and try and understand how the economy works.
I think I'm probably the only guy on the stage who's spent most of his career in the business world. I understand how the economy works. I understand how if you make a certain adjustment in the agreement, it's going to have a huge impact on the United States.
And so for instance, if we agree to sit down with China, I understand that if we don't get real careful and protect patents and designs and technology, intellectual property is going to get stolen by the Chinese. I recognize we're going to have to have people who understand how the business world works, how the economy works, and make sure that the playing field really is level by having people that understand the economy and the business world being part of that effort.
71 not actually a response to 70! It just takes a while to track down the right link and fiddle with the html to make it work.
Yeah, no one I know is dumb enough to consider voting for him. heck I like him better than anyone I know. It seems impossible that he could even win the Republican nomination. But the press is promoting him at every opportunity, and they hate the Clintons. If people turn out to be dumber than seems possible to me, things could go sideways.
I've mentioned a Clinton-supporting neighbor who's been a bit annoying: part of the problem is that gay rights is one of the issues she's triangulated on most severely, but I don't want to bring it up because (a) I don't think she's likely to actually make things regress, and (b) he's gay himself, so I'd feel pretty stupid trying to educate him on it. His reaction to the Nancy Reagan thing might be amusing, though.
71: Of course the trouble is that China hasn't been manipulating its currency for awhile now. I'm pretty sure it was already false when Romney said it*, but it's absolutely false now.
Anyway, I take "Trump will run to Hillary's left" about as seriously as I took "Palin is going to doom Obama". If Trump goes vegetarian, does that mean he'll win over Bernie voters?
*without checking, I think the manipulation basically ended with the recession, since the manipulation was to keep domestic inflation under control, a non-issue once the Chinese economy slowed down
Anyway, I take "Trump will run to Hillary's left" about as seriously as I took "Palin is going to doom Obama". If Trump goes vegetarian, does that mean he'll win over Bernie voters?
Hillary is the one Democrat you can run to the left of. She seems to be friends with every corrupt oligarch worldwide in both political and business worlds. I don't know if you could say that about John Kerry, Al Gore or even Mitt Romney as candidates.
I'm pretty sure it was already false when Romney said it
I think that this is a pretty good rule of thumb already, without specifying any particular subject matter.
Also there's definitely one sense in which he's going to run to the kinda-left of Clinton: really aggressive herrenvolk democracies always end up look like pretty great welfare states for at least one group of people in them, so when he describes things he wants to have happen they're going to sound (a bit) to the left of the stuff Clinton wants. The sting is in the "...but not for everyone" bit, which even Trump has been muttering more quietly under his breath (for now).
73: I was thinking about this earlier. I really think the deal is that there is nobody who isn't voting for Trump (or Cruz) now who will vote for him in the general. I mean, I don't literally think that he'd get 25% or whatever the relevant number is, but my point is that people who are excited by Trump are already going to his rallies and voting*. There aren't millions of Obama voters just waiting for their chance to vote Donald. There aren't millions of Republicans who think he's great but haven't bothered to show up (the demographic that loves him best is also the demographic that turns out best). Sure, there are tens of millions of Republicans who won't bother with primaries but will show up in November to press the R button, but we already know that there aren't enough of those to win Presidential elections anymore.
As has been noted, his supporters==authoritarians. Authoritarians simply aren't a majority in this country, and if you think he's a clown (as most non-authoritarians do), a tactical shift won't change much. As always, the caveat remains that a disaster or meltdown could create a lot more authoritarians**, so I'm not saying it's impossible he wins; I just think that projecting his appeal beyond his existing base isn't realistic.
*remember in the fall when everyone was sure that his supporters wouldn't actually materialize at the polls?
**although even here, remember the contrast between McCain and Obama in the fall '08 crisis: hoi polloi wanted a guy who seemed to have his shit together, not a clueless demagogue.
Anyway, I take "Trump will run to Hillary's left" about as seriously as I took "Palin is going to doom Obama".
I'm on the way out, but the only part of it that gives me pause is what Roberto mentioned in the other thread. Peel 5 percent of the white votes off, and things can change in a hurry. White union and other working and middle class types strike me as exactly who might listen to Trump talk protectionism and keeping SS.
76
Hillary is the one Democrat you can run to the left of.
Eh, here's a counterpoint in Clinton's defense, ironically from another Sanders supporter.
Look, if Clinton were running against 70% of other Democrats, I would support her. Feinstein? Schumer? Clinton in a heartbeat. It so happens she's running against an actual social democrat, which is the only time ever that I have a chance to vote for someone who supports my actual politics. It doesn't have to be so complicated and overwrought.
That being said, if anyone thinks that any Republican actually is going to run against Clinton from the left... vote Sanders!
heck I like him better than anyone I know.
You must have some pretty awful friends and acquaintances.
54: Hillary walked back and apologized for the insane Nancy Reagan AIDS thing. God knows what happened there.
Well, regarding 83 anyway. Though that was kind of an impressive coincidence there.
83: I would be happy to believe that it was exhaustion from campaigning and both words starting with "A". But if she says that, people'll ask if she's up for being president.
Glad she said it was a mistake. It was pretty inexplicable otherwise.
I don't get it at all, but it's more complicated than a word substitution:
It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular, Mrs. Reagan, we started national conversation when before no one would talk about it, no one wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that really appreciated, with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say 'Hey, we have to do something about this too.'
It could still be an "I'm so tired" misspeaking, but a complicated mental error, not just bumbling a word.
You're right. That is more than a mis-speaking. I don't know why she said that, then.
It's definitely time for me to step back from reading and thinking about American elections for awhile, because my main reaction to the Reagan thing was looking forward to the shitstorm that would ensue. (I particularly liked someone sharing the story on FB with the tagline: "Go for it, Clinton apologists. This is your boss level.")
Meanwhile, a Danish court just fined a woman about $3.3k for giving a refugee family a ride with her to Copenhagen from the south of the country (not even across any borders).
Ronald did quite a bit to start a national conversation about Alzheimer's. Nancy, not so much.
By 1988, plenty of people were saying we should do something about his problem.
It's the kind of mistake you can't make unless you really don't care much about the issue - like mixing up Syria and Sudan or something when talking about the Middle East.
80: Yeah, I'm just not convinced those people voted for Obama the last time around, either. That is, the Romney or McCain coalitions were already whiter than they would otherwise have been. We can't prove that those whites are exactly the ones you're describing*, but come on: we're talking about people who voted for Kerry but against Obama (twice). Those are people who are open to the Democratic message, but are so reactionary/racist/whatever that they couldn't vote for the black Democrat. That's pretty much whom Trump' populist/herrenvolk message is designed to appeal to.
Now, Trump is a more appealing vessel for that group than Romney or McCain, but the point remains: the 5% we're talking about peeling off pretty much have already peeled. Replace Obama in 2008 with non-creepy Edwards, and he wins with another 3-4 points worth of whites, which might now be at risk to Trump, meaning that instead of a landslide, Clinton could win only by a couple points.
*and come to think of it, it probably doesn't matter: if we regain one set of whites while losing another, it's still the same effect as one group staying away
82- I do spend an inordinate amount of time here...
95- I wish I knew for sure.
I just keep thinking of sayings like "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." and that Adlai Stevenson quote.
Plus the media has a pretty good record of success manipulating people, I don't think it makes sense to discount that.
For the AIDS thing, I wonder if this is to a politician like Hillary Clinton an example of having the conversation while to us the Reagan's were terribly, tragically late. Remember Clinton is someone who was opposing gay rights in the 1990s. Maybe she thinks talking about it 10,000 plus deaths into the crisis is still OK work for a politician that needs to triangulate.
The AIDS comment was particularly weird because ever since Nancy Reagan died, my FB feed has been replete with links to the awful Rock Hudson story. What I'm saying is, if Hillary Clinton would just follow my FB feed, she wouldn't make own goals like this.
That makes sense for AIDS (it's a lie, but it makes sense), but it's gibberish for Altzheimers.
Vox has a theory.
Most likely [Clinton] had in mind reports that inside the context of the Reagan administration, Nancy was from the faction that eventually pushed the president to do something. Nancy was helpful on AIDS ... by Reagan administration standards
What does seem to be true is that when the Reagan administration eventually did decide to respond to the AIDS crisis, Nancy Reagan was among the influential administration figures pushing for that decision.
"I think that she deserves credit for opening up the AIDS money," historian Allida Black told PBS in 2011, saying that along with Koop the first lady pressed the president and the secretary of health and human services to allocate research funding to HIV/AIDS issues.
...
Identifying Nancy Reagan as a progressive force inside the Reagan administration on AIDS may be accurate, but it's also setting the bar profoundly low. The reason there was no national conversation on AIDS before the Reagan administration is that literally nobody had ever been diagnosed with AIDS before Reagan took office.
As an aside, that's an example of what I like about vox. That may be incorrect, but it's plausible, and they're fairly good about getting something up quickly which contains useful information.
This is exactly how I read [comment 34], for the record. I didn't think there was anything unproductive in it, and I did mean "little" in that first sentence. I just wanted to push back against the way that I think the stuff about opportunism got a little exaggerated, that's all.
Your reaction was fine. It's just an example of an annoying thing about internet conversations. I made a comment which I thought was fairly intelligent, trying to add value and which was directly critical of Clinton in two of the 4 points (while saying that I still consider myself to mostly be a supporter). The first replies I got were three different people being (what felt to me) critical from the perspective that I was being too generous to Clinton.
None of those were bad replies (though I still disagree with roger the cabin boy's comment to the point that it baffles me slightly), but as a group it made me feel both (a) a little peeved and (b) like I was having that experience which can happen in comments when you realize that you aren't having a conversation, you're just talking past each other because everybody is addressing themselves in part to other comments that were made before or to other things they've read which might or might not even be on unfogged . . .
I did like the concluding sentence of that Vox piece:
But the fact that Clinton would point to Ronald and Nancy Reagan as leaders on a national conversation around AIDS, rather than to the activists themselves, is revealing of her insider perspective on social change.AKA "ruling class perspective"
I guess you are talking about #35. I guess the unstated assumption I have is that if Trump is the Republican nominee then the election should be a forgone conclusion with either Democrat a shoe-in. Unless Trump manages to continue to defy conventional wisdom with his success. It doesn't seem likely to me, but he has been so successful so far that I want to at least think about it.
Arguments based on Hillary's electability don't seem to make much sense in an election with Trump as the opponent. Either he has no chance, or there is one weird trick which makes him win. I don't think there is any valid reason to believe HRC more electable than Sanders when you are worried about a Trump win.
Either he has no chance, or there is one weird trick which makes him win.
That makes sense as a perspective. I am inclined to think that Trump has (almost) no chance, but there is the scary possibility that he's a better politician than we think he is, that he has a real chance to win and that nobody has figured out how to successfully attack him yet. I don't believe that, but it's a scary possibility.
What confused me was saying that Trump, who has proposed a $10T (that's Trillion!) tax cut is to the left of Clinton on Finance and Trump who says things like this (from a recap of the Debate last night)
Mods: "Do all Muslims hate America?"
Trump: "Well a lot of 'em do!"
Crowd: *applause*
Is taking a left position on foreign policy. I just feel like we clearly are talking about different things when it comes to evaluating a candidate's a "left" positio on Finance and foreign policy.
I don't know why it took the goddamn Sacramento Bee to first (in my memory) make the connection between Trump and Schwarzenegger (paywall, try incognito). But it makes it feel still more like California has seen this all before - where CA is now, DC will one day be - but who knows how bad things will get in the meantime, since Schwarznegger didn't have nukes.
He has also said that he will "tax Wall Street." http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-09/-tax-wall-street-trump-pledges-after-stock-market-selloff
Almost no Democratic politicians have said baldly that Bush lied us into war. Very few even talk about the Iraq war as a waste.
Call them breadcrumbs. He is leaving a trail he can point to later to say he supports rational positions. There are many things about HRC's record that he can point to as evidence of stupid elitist leanings. I'm not saying attacking HRC from the left is definitely his one weird trick, but he certainly will have some ammunition and I think he will use it to some extent.
The trouble is that for each "rational" thing he says he has a dozen crazier, stupider things in circulation. He has said semi-rational things about the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example, but they're not very meaningful in light of his bigger, crazier and more often repeated anti-Muslim statements. He has been able to state that the Iraq War was a mistake... but it's clearly not one he's learned anything from if there's any truth to his claims that he'll send armies into Syria after ISIS.
I'm not convinced any of the crazy stuff he says will hurt him. He's the one who gets all the free air time to say whatever he wants, not his opponent. He is the one who is good at attacking.
In HRC's plus column she is used to defending, but I wouldn't count on the press to cooperate.
I'm not convinced any of the crazy stuff he says will hurt him.
With his racist base it won't, they're not really moved by facts or the lack of them anyway. But trying to "run to Hillary's left" it sure will.
(I mean, John Oliver already demonstrated all you need to do to counter Trump's periodic attempts at "rationality" or sounding sane. Just play a sane quote and a crazy quote back to back. Will the real Trump please stand up? The flip-flopper what-does-he-really-believe narrative writes itself in his own words. The only reason this tactic is off limits to his GOP opponents is because none of them are allowed to use facts and all of them have said similarly crazy things to his crazy things.)
For that matter, has Trump made any attacks based on policy position at any point during the primary? I remember Cruz and Rubio having a long back-and-forth about their immigration positions, but when I think of Trump's attacks everything that comes to mind is personal -- calling Bush low-energy, Cruz Canadian, and mocking Rubio for drinking water.
101: Well, to be fair, she wasn't attending an activist's funeral.
102: or there is one weird trick which makes him win.
That would be increasing the Republican voter turnout: tons (I don't know how many) of his supporters allegedly have never voted before. That completely messes up the most reliable form of polling we have, polling of likely voters -- those who have a history of having voted in the past. Throw a bunch of newcomers, Trump supporters, into the mix, and yes, Clinton's electability becomes more of an open question.
You raise some good points.
Though not every liberal is smart.
Trump might be able to change tactics with circumstances.
I probably don't have the one weird trick anyway, but it was worth a try.
Clinton's platform actually has minor expansion/preservation proposals (raising the income cap, expanding benefits for widows and family carers).
That's her public platform. In private, she's been promising to privatize the whole system. That's the bombshell contained in those Wall Street speeches she is refusing to release.
If it's not true, she could show us the speeches.
That's basically the same logic that proved aliens crashed in Roswell.
112, cont'd: That said, conceivably an equal and opposite number of Republican voters could stay home if Trump is the nominee. 61% of Americans say they would never vote for Trump: that includes roughly 30% of Republicans and about 60% of Independents.
That is from July of last year, however, and people become remarkably refocused toward party loyalty once the nominees are set.
I would stay home on election day if somebody gives me a house made of cob.
118: I worry that there may be a huge number of people who say they would never vote for Trump as an abstract way of expressing that he is very much not their preferred candidate, who might still nonetheless choose to vote for him in November when faced with an alternative they don't like, especially once Trump has had months of general election campaigning to moderate his tone and temperament.
I don't think Trump has one weird trick, necessarily, but there are some skills that he's better at than any of the other candidates: he's a very good TV performer, and he's a bully who can also make people laugh. Those are useful.
meaning, I don't for a minute believe that 30% of republicans will ultimately refuse to vote for trump. 10%? Maybe. But I think he can draw at least that many new voters/independents to bridge the difference.
122: Yeah, exactly. It's a downright known unknown.
Trumpdate: Trump rally at UIC Pavilion in middle of Chicago cancelled after scenes like this erupted earlier in the afternoon at rally in downtown St. Louis. Hmm, I wonder why Trump is holding these things downtown, where everyone viscerally hates him. How about the suburbs? Or Decatur?
Well, to be fair, she wasn't attending an activist's funeral.
Don't go to fucking Nancy Reagan's funeral might have been the good move here.
112: But is Trump actually outperforming his polls in a way indicating that? There's higher turnout among Republicans, but if he's bringing in more supporters he's also bringing in more opponents.
We should get Nate Silver to come and do a statistical analysis of Unfogged election threads to see if there's some way to predict the winner based on number of gratuitous anime references bob makes or something.
125: If you skip the service, you can't go to the lunch.
Apparently there's a fellow flying a sign by the McDonald's in Uptown that says "Give me a $1 or I vote for TRUMP!"
Doing land-office business, I understand.
Zero comments in this thread. Okay, now one. But since you asked:
This season has two masterpieces and two very good shows
"Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu" is a adult (meaning adult chars and serious themes) series about post-WWII stage storytellers, a dying art form. "Shinjuu" is the word for double suicide. Reminds me of Kokoro, and is as usual a metaphor for Japan.
"Boku Dake ga Inai Machi" (Town Without Me) is about a 29 yr old who time travels back to his 11 yr old body to prevent his friends from being killed by a serial killer, also active in his present time. He doesn't know who the killer is, but more a psych thriller than mystery.
But of these will be accepted classic ten years from now.
Then there are two series about young people thrust into a magic D & D environment. An old trope, but done is these cases surprisingly well. The community did not predict these two would turn out to be favorites.
"Kono Subarashi Sekai ni Shukufuku" is the funny one. These characters are powerful, but fairly stupid and incompetent. A little T & A, but not a harem. Very very funny.
"Hai to Gensou no Grimgar" is the realistic slice-of-life, with more emphasis on characters development and emotions than battles. These are also incompetent at the beginning, but in this case they must learn to murder sentient chess playing pet stroking goblins everyday or starve. The goblins also want to kill them, and sometimes succeed. This has in addition to an extremely slow and introverted pace, an unusual watercolor-like visual style. Next to Rakugo, this might be my favorite.
Although Boku Dake ga is just magnificently transferred from the manga and directed. Tight and expressive.
You're welcome.
From what I know of the polling data on the Republican side it's usually Trump performing basically where he's polling, and Rubio (undecided people giving up and going for the least horrifying one), and Cruz (apparently incredible machine on the ground) overperforming their polling. I think Rubio has been replaced by Kasich at this point, though, as it's become clear that he's basically out of the race. So whoever Trump is bringing in from outside it's not making any obvious difference to the results.
The danger with Trump is that (1) he's a great showman, (2) he genuinely is what a large chunk of Americans want (I don't believe those 'wouldn't vote for' numbers one bit), (3) Hillary really is bad at reacting on the fly to things, and the press is just salivating to play the Clinton Scandal Game again*, and, most importantly, (4) the second he's genuinely inevitable the press is going to start saying that while he's dramatic and a showman and gets the rubes all riled up sophisticated analysts know that's all for show and in fact in many ways he's the moderate candidate in the race (they're already flirting with it right now). So nothing really magical or special, but definitely enough to be worried/not-complacent.
*The only thing that's good enough to draw their attention away from it is The Magnificent Trump Show, and once the race narrows we might get to see both happening at once, especially since I would be shocked if attacking her for made up stuff isn't exactly what Trump starts doing the second he doesn't have to worry about competitors for the nomination.
Trump's toxicity to the establishment is quite genuine. The Republican establishment presumably hopes at some point to get Latino and Muslim voters again, for instance. Those constituencies are even more crucial to their Dem counterparts. To think that it's suddenly going to be the mainstream line that he's a secret moderate when he gets the nomination is fantasy. His "entertaining" bully act likewise is toxic outside his base for all the same reasons that base itself flips the fuck out for it.
I think we will genuinely see a large part of the Republican tent peel away if Trump gets nominated -- it won't be everyone who's now saying "anyone but Trump" but it will likely be a far bigger factor than all those Bernie Sanders voters who are supposedly going to flip to Trump or stay home if they don't get their boy.
This has so much verisimilitude I now am seriously wondering if Trump is a high-functioning alcoholic.
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Huh a little more on Boku Dake ga, closer is "The Town With Me Erased" shorter "Erased"
A lot of controversy with the last episode, with one public review downgrading the whole show to a 'D'
Well, as I said above, the guy goes back in time to save his friends, not to find the killer. This plays out in ways that not only come back onto the protagonist, but confound the audience expectations.
Americans are pretty set in the ways they think crime stories, or all stories should go, with white hats and black hats and justice. See these political threads.
I haven't found the Japanese to be any good with detective stories, in part because of their disinclination toward black-white thinking and a preference for real tragedy. Real tragedy is no good guys no bad guys shits just all fucked and bullshit. Real tragedy can be beautiful.
What the Japanese are good at is the intricate ironic examination of psycho-social roles and the people who perform them. Bunuel's Belle du Jour strikes me as primitive and obvious compared to stuff I've watched from Japan.
|>
133: Trump, supposedly at least, has never drank at all. (He comes from a family of alcoholics and always abstained.) So... maybe, but it would be a change for him.
To think that it's suddenly going to be the mainstream line that he's a secret moderate when he gets the nomination is fantasy.
The fact that it would be palpably false has yet to stop the mainstream line from being anything else, so I don't know why it would stop here. It's clear that latinos, muslims, an awful lot of women and so on would see exactly what he is - it's not subtle. But that's been true of candidates before, just not this garishly. The point of the secret-moderate-puttin'-on-a-show thing isn't to make people think he isn't what he says he is, it's to give them kind of plausible but less plausible than it used to be with Republicans deniability. There's a strong constituency for racist candidates among people who very sincerely don't think of themselves as racist and who back away quickly from voting for candidates that they think would make them look racist for supporting: change that to 'aww he's just riling up the rubes - us sophisticates are savvy enough to see through the con to what's really going on' and you've got someone they will vote for.
Like when Ash finds out Team Rocket is causing the trouble, and then somehow they get exploded away.
Related: Does anybody know why Naruto has so many talking dogs?
Sometimes, the media just hates someone, or loves someone. It's partly ideology, partly obeying their paymasters, and partly some random personal chemistry. They liked Clinton more than Bush Sr. in 1992. They liked McCain more than Bush Jr. in 2000, but they liked both more than Gore. They liked Obama against the field in 2008. They love putting Trump on TV, but they sure don't like him as President. Plus, they're lazy. Every time Trump supporters beat somebody up, they get to write the same "Questions about supporters behavior dog candidate" story over and over.
133: He's drunk on something.
135: That's the thing, see. 'Aw, he's just rilin' up the rubes' doesn't fly with a candidate who's delivered the Mexican rapists and Islam-hates-us speeches. It's not the kind of thing you can put over at parties as cheerful Republican hooey that doesn't really matter, that's why the tone of the coverage is so different from that of the dogwhistle politics that the establishment treats as routine. It's the kind of thing you look racist voting for because it's openly racist.
Mind you I can see a constituency of closet racists voting for him anyway, but the "mainstream" line suddenly morphing into "awww he's just a cuddly closet moderate" not so much. Too much explicit calling-out of his act as racist and fascist has gone on for that to work. He's a figure where people walk away from you if you stand too close to him in the open, now; if you want to know what it's going to look like to hit the reset button and suddenly start pretending he's a normal candidate, look at the experience of Chris Christie.
Mind you I can see a constituency of closet racists voting for him anyway, but the "mainstream" line suddenly morphing into "awww he's just a cuddly closet moderate" not so much.
It's going to be more than just a bunch of closet racists that vote for him. You've got largish numbers of Republicans convinced that liberals are destroying America. They won't not vote against Clinton or Sanders. You could consider them a subspecies of closet racists because they worry more about stopping poor people under 65 from getting government-provided health coverage, but they aren't thinking that Trump is a closet moderate. They're thinking that Hillary is Stalin.
141.1 was supposed to be in italics, of course.
You could consider them a subspecies of closet racists because they worry more about stopping poor people under 65 from getting government-provided health coverage
Indeed, since the poor people they're concerned about are usually the "undeserving poor" which is code for "spics and n*****s." But anyone who's motivated by the belief that Hillary is Stalin is going to be full on the whirly-eyed Trump train and probably already is. They're not going to need or event want reassurances that Trump is a "closet moderate," his extremism is his selling point for people that far gone.
Anyway, I think there will be plenty of people who voted for Romney in 2012 who can't vote for Trump, but I'm thinking maybe a maximum of 5% net (after accounting for people who wouldn't vote for a more typical Republican but will vote for Trump).
But anyone who's motivated by the belief that Hillary is Stalin is going to be full on the whirly-eyed Trump train and probably already is.
I doubt it. American has many ways to be whirly-eyed and right wing. It's kind of our thing. There are people who have been thinking Hillary is Stalin since Trump was just an asshole who ran casinos. Many millions of them. They don't want reassured that Trump is a moderate, of course, but I don't think all of them (or even most of them) will see Trump's racial threats as a plus. There was a huge effort to put out ideas like "Affirmative action is the real racism" and "welfare hurts minorities" and "no, you're the real racist." Lot of people who vote Republican see these types of arguments as true. (Hint: This is easier if you live some place that is 98% white.)
Anyway, I don't think these people will stay home in 2016 and I think they would have much preferred Cruz.
135
Trump is a populist, so his declared positions are all over the map vis a vis conventional left-right binaries. His "one weird trick" is "I hate the establishment, you hate the establishment, vote for me." Really simple. To look more "moderate" he just tones down some of his rhetoric while continuing to dog-whistle it to his supporters. What he can't do without them deciding he's another "compromiser" is start loudly supporting stuff the establishment likes (free trade, "amnesty," etc.).
I'd be willing to bet we'll see some stuff about how even illegal immigrants are victims of the establishment, most of them are just looking for a better life, etc. ("Too bad we have to deport them; better we deport Hillary!") I doubt we'll see much more moderate rhetoric about Muslims, though.
(All this assumes that "Trumped" isn't a documentary.)
139
I have no doubt that the media dislikes Clinton on a personal level, but sucks up to her because of her position. Must be fun the in newsrooms this year. They are still writing about Trump in a bemused "covering the clown show" way. At some point they will decide that much as they think he's a joke, he might be President, and so they will find strange new respect for him. So it's the same dislike/suck up dynamic, and it's hard to tell which they will settle on the end.
He does take his crowds and he fires them up. And sometimes it's a positive reaction he gets, and sometimes it's negative. [...] That said, look, we know politics has been messy in this country for hundreds of years, so let's not pretend that this is the first time that we've seen something like this happen.[He goes on to say that really Trump just needs to exercise a little more control over his rallies, the way McCain did, and try to deescalate when things get too nasty.]
So far the only trouble seems to be that Trump really just isn't playing along with them nicely enough, so they try this and then ten minutes later someone in one of his rallies attacks someone, or he says something horrible, or whatever. But it's not like there aren't people trying out versions of "well he was a big of a demagogue but hey that was really rhetoric he's part of the fold/moderating things/talking about how we need to be flexible, you know" stuff.
One of Cruz/Rubio/Kasich's lines that they try to use to sell themselves to their supporters is that they'll be able to beat Hillary, and I'm guessing a significant but minority of the anti-Trump voters are substantially motivated by "he can't beat Hillary", and if he is the nominee they'll be out there to vote for him in the same way that the "we need to vote for Hillary/Sanders because they're the only one that could beat Trump" people are bound to come out for the other one if Trump is the candidate.
People like to talk about the Republicans' dog-whistle rhetoric, without ever articulating who's not hearing the whistle. I think now we know who: it's moderate Republicans. Whether or not they should have known better, or even do know better on some subconscious level, they were the ones the coded rhetoric was designed to fool.
I do have to say that in some ways I don't understand why it is that Trump is the one who strikes them as going too far. Violence at rallies seems unique to Trump, but the rhetoric is like 0.001% worse than normal Republican rhetoric. But it sure doesn't seem that way to moderate Republicans.
145: I think for the kind of people you're talking about, "you're the real racist" and similar arguments... do they "believe" them? Maybe in the sense that Ginsu knife salesmen have to "believe" they're selling the greatest of knife technologies, but it's always seemed what I would call kayfabe. The attitudes underneath were always predictable and not that different from those of the less crypto-racist; it's what people say publicly when they would much rather be dropping N-bombs but know that polite society frowns on this. Those are precisely the kind of people who've either discovered or are likely to discover the liberating power of watching Trump come out and say all that racist shit that polite conservatives have to reserve for when Those People are out of the room.
IOW I don't really think there are all these fine gradations in the Republican tent, underneath it all. There are just people with fundamentally similar inclinations trying to figure out how much of a disaster a Trump run will really be. The difference of opinion is over whether he should have dropped pretense, not about what the pretense is hiding. Religion as this big litmus test in the Republican coalition is falling away -- bad timing for Cruz who crafted his whole image to work that angle -- along with all the other illusions, like libertarianism mattering. Race hate and white supremacism was always the primary power source of what once was called the "Southern" Strategy, and it's shining back through in its pure form and either GOP voters will gamble on its winning or they won't.
The proportion of them who'll peel away are those who still believed they were adhering to some "conservative principle" or libertarian ideal and are genuinely repelled by race hate and prejudice. That can't be a large constituency at this point, certainly not as large as it would like us to believe. But like I said earlier, there's probably substantially more of even those than there are actual Sanders voters likely to go Trump.
If the argument is that someone will try to argue that Trump is really a moderate, then yes. I concede that someone, somewhere, will argue that Trump is a moderate.
Also, Luttwak? That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. If you had told me he died a decade ago, I would have believed you.
147: But it's not like there aren't people trying out versions of "well he was a big of a demagogue but hey that was really rhetoric he's part of the fold/moderating things/talking about how we need to be flexible, you know" stuff.
People have been trying that stuff out since Trump's primary campaigns first caught fire. It just hasn't stuck.
I think for the kind of people you're talking about, "you're the real racist" and similar arguments... do they "believe" them?
I think the Ben Carson surge shows that there are considerable numbers that do. And like Ben Carson, I think they'll go to Trump.
It was never just the Southern Strategy. It was always that plus the Money plus the social conservatives. While there is overlap among the three groups, tt was (and is) more of a coalition than an ideology.
(Nobody but libertarians ever thought libertarians were a serious part of the coalition.)
But I agree with 149.3.
Also, Luttwak? That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. If you had told me he died a decade ago, I would have believed you.
If that was his personal website or something then sure, maybe. But that was an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. If they're publishing "he's a secret moderate" stuff from anyone it's a pretty big indicator of what we'll see coming from the respectable-right, and what comes from the respectable-right turns into 'well you have to admit that...' stuff from the general DC centrist groups pretty quickly.
Also Julie Pace from the AP link up there is the Chief White House correspondent for the AP, and a regular guest on Chris Wallace's sunday morning show on Fox. And Chuck Todd is the other one linked to. Those aren't just random-out-of-nowhere assholes.
He's from the same respectable right that put out a letter signed by 50 members of "the Republican foreign-policy establishment" denouncing Trump.
How do you think the Republican party works? There's a big uberbrain that decides the direction of everything, and everyone falls in line? (I might have believed that myself six months ago.) There are individuals and factions that are going to throw their lot in with Trump. There are other factions who think that Trump is not cut out to be President, or it's better for him to lose and keep their place in the party than him win and they lose it. As long as they split over it, they give the media cover to do whatever they want.
I'm sure if you looked, you could find a WSJ editorial saying "Palin is not an idiot." But even Republicans were split on whether she was an idiot, which left the media free to paint her as an idiot.
How do you think the Republican party works?
It used to work slightly less half-assedly than the Democratic party. So, I see opportunity.
I'm hoping there's a job opening in the big uberbrain department, since the current one is damaged, or drunk.
You mean, the media as in people like Julie Pace and Chuck Todd?
Look - like I said above - I'm not saying people will buy it. But I am saying that the press is absolutely built for this, and has covered over any number of completely demented things in the past in exactly this way. The issue is that Trump isn't letting them do that, because The Trump Show is working too well for him right now. If you give him a few months of 'moderate, flexible, safe Trump' then you'll definitely see a bunch of the stuff fading away into the past. The only question is whether he has any intention of doing that for real - whatever else people say about him he's not an idiot the way Palin was so he does at least have the ability to do that kind of thing.
But he's shit at gestation compared to her.
If your argument is that somebody in the media will take the Trump is a moderate line, then I concede. Someone in the media will take that line. Someone in the media probably took the line that Al Gore was not the biggest lying lair who ever lied, too.
'Trump is a moderate compared to the thugs shutting down his rallies' -- there are definitely people who are going to buy that. At this point, this is a weapon for Trump to use on Kasich, especially if he can get some kind of incident/failure of order over the weekend in Ohio. But once he turns to Stalin Clinton or Lenin Sanders, it'll ring again. And, indeed, there will be plenty of protesters and plenty of violence at the convention in Cleveland, and at Trump rallies all fall.
I'm not sure this actually increases turn-out, but it probably does decrease the number of disgruntled Cruz supporters who would otherwise stay home.
151.1
Luttwak has op-eds pretty regularly in various magazines/newspapers. He's the go-to guy for Official Hard-Headed Realism. (Gotta admit I loved his "Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook" back in the day. Still have a copy, but I've never had the chance to put it into practice. "The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire" was disappointing, though.)
160
The media is vast. It contains multitudes.
'Trump is a moderate compared to the thugs shutting down his rallies' -- there are definitely people who are going to buy that.
Sure. The people who are already at his rallies behaving like thugs.
And, indeed, there will be plenty of protesters and plenty of violence at the convention in Cleveland, and at Trump rallies all fall.
God, the rally thing is such a giant error on the part of anti-Trumpests. Political violence plays right into the guy's hands - Trump can portray himself as the authoritarian who will bring law and order.
Moreover, it puts our own (probable) candidate in the unenviable position of either defending the use of protests to silence speech, or condemning some of the most motivated members of her own side. She had to try to finesse it by reaching for the Charleston analogy, but couldn't pull it off.
164 is so so right. You're being used as props, people.
There was apparently not much in the way of actual violence at the Trump rally. I suspect from that account that the reason it was really cancelled was simply that not enough of Trump's own supporters turned out, and he was going to have to do his act to a mixed room.
I saw a picture of a cop with blood on his head. That's all it takes.
I mean, who even knows how the blood got there? It doesn't matter.
I'm sure if you looked, you could find a WSJ editorial saying "Palin is not an idiot." But even Republicans were split on whether she was an idiot, which left the media free to paint her as an idiot.
Thinking about it, McCain / Palin is one of the examples that makes me less scared about Trump. Not because the media called Palin on being an idiot, but that part of why McCain seemed scary was that he was very good at manipulating the media, and was loved for his maverick reputation.
But it felt like part of what killed him in the general election was that he wasn't a good enough manager to handle that scale of campaign. I remember one article that said you could imagine McCain as the sort of person who staffed up by walking into a room picking somebody out and saying, "I like the cut of your jib, son, are you ready for a challenge" and that was too ad-hoc and haphazard for a national campaign.
It didn't kill him in one blow, it wasn't like the media treated him as a non-serious candidate, but it gradually cost him, over the course of the campaign, that he just wasn't as organized as Obama.
That's why I think that something like this Kevin Drum post matters. Not because people care about foreign policy that much, but because it will catch up with him originally -- you can only bluster so long.
Of course one lesson of american politics is that you can't read too much into one data point (and there are never enough data points to make clear generalizations about presidential campaigns). But it's part of why I don't worry about Trump.
164: Sorry, are you seriously implying protesters are looking to be violent? Or do you mean any kind of confrontation buoys up Trumpites?
I am skeptical of the efficacy of protests myself but as Trump breaks more and more norms (check out the Maddow montage of him over and over in the same words telling his supporters to assault protesters) I worry what I will think of myself in twenty years if I do nothing.
I personally thought the protesters in Chicago adopted quite an ingenious tactic for showing Trump's crowds up for the glorified Klan rallies they really are. They simply showed up to the event and occupied some seats, and showed up the total inability of the Trumpites to cope with their presence or existence without flipping their lids. It revealed beautifully what Trump's rhetoric is really about and what he's really trying to stoke.
167: That's an alarmingly specific fetish.
I've been worried about the protests for a while: on the one hand it's definitely not cool to let the Trump rallies go on with the people in them thinking that everyone pretty much agrees with them. But the escalating violence isn't just some kind of expression of the nastiness of the people there, it's straight up part of the show people go to see. They might as well print "now someone attacks a protester!" on the schedules.
Sorry, are you seriously implying protesters are looking to be violent?
By and large, no. But if the end result is violence, or can be portrayed as violent and out of control, its only going to make Trump stronger.
There is also the detail of mobilizing and energizing an anti-Trump base instead of asking them to sit around watching these insane hate-fests on the news.
164, 165, and 171.1:
I admit I've found myself fairly kerfuffled about this. Protesters at Trump rallies who march around shouting, shaking their fists in the air, and brandishing large signs declaring that Trump is a racist are simply bound to incite -- yes, I said that -- violent reactions from that crowd. I'm not sure what they hope to achieve. A public eye cast on the violent reactions against what is, after all, peaceful (though vigorous) protest?* If so, it's working. Trump and his supporters are looking increasingly fascistic.
I don't at all say the protesters shouldn't do it. It's resulted in Trump saying increasingly freakish things at his rallies, for example.
* The alternative and quite possibly concomitant goal might be to stop the rallies altogether, of course. That's working too at the moment.
On the increasingly freakish things Trump has been saying, Maddow had some clips of his remarks just yesterday in St. Louis. Can't find a link to a solo clip of those remarks, but maybe included in this Maddow montage, which may be the one Minivet referred to upthread. I can't watch it now because apparently my Flashplayer is outdated, as is my Firefox version. How annoying.
Yeah, it's at minute 8 (introduced by Maddow) in that montage. Trump yesterday declaring that protesters have to be treated overly nicely and gently by police due to political correctness, when in fact we have to get a lot tougher, folks, a lot tougher.
That's the most frightening I've heard from him.
171, 176 -- The anti-Trump rally doesn't have to be inside the Trump rally, or even adjacent to it outside the arena to serve the purposes you're talking about. It could actually be at a Sanders or Clinton rally.
Violence fires people up on all sides, granted. My guess is that the balance on that is pretty unfavorable, at least prior to the general. That is, so long as there are alternatives to be for, I think one can reasonably be asked to weight the consequences of certain acts against. A riot at Trump's inauguration? Fine.
Obviously, though, individual peaceful protesters getting manhandled at Trump rallies goes our way. Scaling it up is what can become problematic.
especially if he can get some kind of incident/failure of order over the weekend in Ohio.
Scaling it up is what can become problematic.
+1. Just because a lot of people seem to think we are replaying 1930's Germany doesn't mean that should be everyone's strategy.
178: Jesus Christ. Well I think it's fair to say we've gone full fascist there.
182 -- Not enough for him to be asking 'where the hell is that absentee governor while riots are being incited and people getting hurt' -- he needs to try a little harder.
184: I do wonder whether broadcasting such remarks far and wide (in Democratic anti-Trump political ads) would do any good, would give a significant number of Republican voters pause.
But it's too soon! Don't run such ads yet! Wait until he's the nominee, and then slam him.
Ian Welsh is really good. I often agree with him. This is one of those times: http://www.ianwelsh.net/if-you-want-to-beat-the-right-call-the-left/
186: I'm not convinced it wouldn't be appealing to as many people as it turned off, Republican or Democrat, which I know is probably too cynical but...
188: Indeed, that was my thought a moment after I'd written that. You'd need some effective interpolated commentary pointing out just how, uh, anti-American his sentiments are. We're a nation of laws, and all that.
187: Just don't wait to call them; often it will be too late
A commenter linked to the Daily Telegraph
Trump is a blowhard. His views are unconstitutional, illiberal and sometimes they trigger hate. But he did not take America to war in Iraq on flimsy evidence, establish Guantanamo in contravention of human rights law, licence the torture of enemy combatants, oversee the gargantuan NSA data-gathering operation, launch a dirty war of drone strikes against both terrorists and those unfortunate enough to live near them, undermine the religious freedoms of employers who do not want to subsidise the sex lives of their workers, overrule the states' wishes on marriage, compel citizens to buy healthcare products or deport thousands of illegals through aggressive round-ups. No: these things were done by "moderate" Republicans and "liberal" Democrats.
I don't know if historical comparisons to "people we can do business with" are apt.
But the comments there really do expect Clinton to get Britain into another war. And TPP will get passed in the lame duck.
People are getting tired of suffering for your symbols.
Thoughts on Chicago:
1) Too late. Reminds of KPD fighting Nazis in the streets in the early thirties while the liberals who had profited from Weimar hid or ran away. You make the alliance with the left against the center when the center is most powerful and able to give goodies, not after the center loses hold.
Like Ian Welsh? He said in 2009 that the Obama needed to be attacked from the left with all the energy now used against Trump.
2) Old and haven't paid attention, but I am very impressed with the current Afro-American style of "non-violence." Very aggressive, no longer sit and go limp. I use quotes because if three young women drew up within three inches of me on three sides, projecting hate and rage, I am willing to call that violence. But the law would not. Smart and scary and makes me want to look further. Of course things would have been learned in the last fifty years.
"I'm not touching you, not touching you."
2009 Would have been a good time to try to push Obama left.
Political violence plays right into the guy's hands - Trump can portray himself as the authoritarian who will bring law and order.
It's hilarious how even some liberals seem to think that there is no greater marker of true American authenticity than white working-class racism.
These incidents are not Wonderful News for Trump!
No but this is: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-trumps-endorsements-should-scare-your-pants-off-20160311?page=3
This is one of those times: http://www.ianwelsh.net/if-you-want-to-beat-the-right-call-the-left/
I kind-of-sort-of disagree. I think that working to build up an engaged and active left is a good thing. I also think there is power to having political groups who are willing to put bodies in the street, as well as vote and/or donate money.
I also think there's a risk, in that sort of article, in engaging in green-lanternism; in believing that a small group of people who are intensely committed is always better than a large group of people who are moderately committed.
This is where the question of, "how much do you think the Koch brothers matter?" comes in. I believe that a movement which attracts 20-25% of voters, and also has strong financial backing which is willing to put money in to a wide range of groups -- funding think tanks, and newsletters, and local and off-year elections -- for decades can do a lot to move the political landscape. I think the same 20-25% of people without that funding is in a much tougher position.
Now, if it turns out that it's possible to get 35% of voters passionately committed to a Democratic-socialist cause (and to turn out for local and off-year elections, etc . . .) that would be great. But the thing which made me think that there's a element of hope/wishful thinking in his description is this (emphasis mine):
You were offered people like Dean and Edwards and so on. You refused to take the road away from hell.
I for one am very glad that Edwards was never the Democratic nominee, and don't think in any way, that's a judgement on social-democratic policies. He was just a creep and not a very effective politician. If Ian Walsh really thinks that if only people had listened to him sooner they could have nominated Edwards, and gotten American politics onto a better trajectory at that point . . . I think that's a massive stretch.
I'll also note, in passing, that he seems to be endorsing the idea that the Sanders and Trump campaigns are drawing energy from the same sort of antti-establishment energy, something that most Sanders supporters I've seen have argued against.
Finally, the idea that poor economic performance increases the appeal of racism and divisive politics is fairly conventional wisdom and something that neo-liberals would agree with. Which is just to say that it doesn't necessarily follow that the best response is a confrontational left, the best response is peace and broad prosperity -- the debate, of course, is how to get that.
We've had 70 straight months of job growth and gas is under 2 dollars per gallon, so it's only natural that fascism is becoming an especially attractive political philsophy.
"I'm not touching you, not touching you."
Ah yes, the old "siblings in the back seat of a station wagon" strategy. I don't think its effective.
Compare it to the classic model of non-violent protest, where, for example some folks sit down at a lunch counter, exercising their rights and demonstrating their own personal dignity. If people are doing that and get roughed up, that's an effective means of drawing an outpouring of sympathy and support. It can change peoples minds. Ghandi and MLK had that figured out.
If someone is in someone's face shouting slogans - walking up to the very edge of the line of the definition of violence - and gets punched for it, then its too easy for outsiders to look at that and say "well, violence is bad, but they kind of had it coming." The only sympathy it generates is from the people who were already on their side. In the worst case, they look like opportunists trying to pick a fight, which can be used as propaganda against the cause they are trying to support.
?If someone is in someone's face shouting slogans - walking up to the very edge of the line of the definition of violence - and gets punched for it
I think it is used primarily by women against men.
We've had 70 straight months of job growth and gas is under 2 dollars per gallon
Sure, we got hit so bad its taken 70 months to recover, but at least fossil fuels are cheap!
Have we fully recovered?
Well, unemployment is reasonably low. But interest rates are in the dirt, which suggests underlying fragility and a weak investment environment. Also, the "catch up growth" to get us back toward trajectory we had been on never seemed to materialize.
200: My ankle still freezes after I sit still and I can't run more than four miles.
The point is not that this is the greatest economic boom the world has ever seen, the point is that Trump's appeal is not as economically determined as some seem to think it is. If gas was 8 bucks a gallon, people would have no problem linking that to Trump's rise.
By the way the Republicans are already running ads about violence at Trump rallies, these make him look a reckless idiot supported by violent morons (see this for example).
I am not that big of a fan of Edwards though I was a supporter I never trusted him that far. I am kind of down with blaming voters though, they really should have been voting for the most left wing option for a while now.
People should make sure to stock up on things like this before there's NMM to the Rubio campaign.
Violence at rallies seems unique to Trump, but the rhetoric is like 0.001% worse than normal Republican rhetoric. But it sure doesn't seem that way to moderate Republicans.
Ezra Klein mentions one incident which I had missed*, and which does seem clearly different than a normal Republican (in terms or Trump's response).
would add another "incident" to Graves' list [of violence at Trump rallies]. Back in August, two young Trump supporters, Scott and Steve Leader, were charged in the beating of a homeless Mexican man. They found him sleeping outside a subway station and began hitting him with a metal pole.
According to police, Scott Leader justified the assault by telling them, "Donald Trump was right -- all these illegals need to be deported."
Asked to react to the beating, Trump said he had no knowledge of it, which would have been fine. But he didn't stop there. "I will say that people who are following me are very passionate," Trump replied. "They love this country and they want this country to be great again."
197: Yeah. I've needed to get to a hospital in a hurry on several occasions. Getting in my way to make a statement would be a fast way of getting to see the ER or morgue. Two cars full of playful kids tried to get in my way while taking someone to Emory for a liver transplant. They have no idea how close the drivers came to being organ donors.
||
Sam Kriss on the violence in Chicago
"that in the end, it's precisely this impulse, the horrified rejection of any violence within politics, the keening appeal to legitimacy in all things, which is ultimately capable of bringing about the most horrific forms of repression."
"Representatives vote on a law; thereafter, if you don't do what they tell you, eventually you will find yourself being confronted by armed men in the service of the state. The role of politics within society is to distribute and legitimise the application of violence: to say that violence has no place in politics is like saying that money has no place in the economy, or that words have no place in literature."
"They're not saying it openly, not yet, but if it looks like Trump might win the Presidency, the liberals want a military coup. If nothing else, the overthrow of the civilian government is a certain defence against violence finding its way into politics."
....
Everybody wants the weapons of the strong (Scott), everybody wants to use the tanks, snipers, air force to repress the other half, those bad guys who illegitimately use violence. This is liberalism, gain a legislative majority to use force on the minority.
For myself, what I imagine or dream is for the military to repress itself and repress the cops, keep the weapons of the state out of it, and let the citizens battle it out on the streets with golf clubs and paring knives.
208:
The role of politics within society is to distribute and legitimise the application of violenceis roughly true, and
if it looks like Trump might win the Presidency, the liberals want a military coupmight be true, but
the horrified rejection of any violence within politics, the keening appeal to legitimacy in all things, which is ultimately capable of bringing about the most horrific forms of repressionis bullshit, and
let the citizens battle it out on the streets with golf clubs and paring knivesis insane. Good government minimizes violence, bad government increases violence, fascist government maximizes violence. The Rs are a hop and a skip from actual fascism, and the actual fascists would have been best stopped by coups, not mob violence.
(Bob is trolling. I know this, and I love his style, but this was a bit much.)
The 'military coup' bit sounds a bit dumb too: if people made it through Bush being literally just appointed by the Supreme Court they'll make it through Trump being elected. Rationalization is a powerful thing.
The bit about golf clubs and baring knives is crazy though, yeah. We're talking about decent, intelligent people here, so obviously they wouldn't do anything like that. Paring knives are for stabbing people from behind, quietly, without anyone seeing you're about to do it. For open violence in the streets you use a chef's knife.
For myself, what I imagine or dream is for the military to repress itself and repress the cops, keep the weapons of the state out of it, and let the citizens battle it out on the streets with golf clubs and paring knives.
Bob is entering his Ballardian phase.
I don't think I've heard so many shit-stupid definitions of what "liberalism" is supposed to be as I have in the last couple of weeks of this primary.
The link in 194 really nicely encapsulates my concerns. Nickel summary:
The significance of all of these endorsements can't be understated. The way you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things. We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers, and once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up.
Liberalism is like a box of chocolate, except there's no federal standing limiting the number of bug wings that can be found before you need to reject a batch.
Anyway, if you can't trust Sam Kriss's re-heated Jonah Goldberg, who can you trust?
and the actual fascists would have been best stopped by coups, not mob violence.
Can you actually think of a single instance where a fascist takeover has been prevented by a military coup? It was delayed by military resistance in Spain, but the civil government remained in office. Otherwise, I think, nada.
Try a general strike. There aren't many successful instances- seeing of the Kapp Putsch in 1922, Sudan in the 60s, Venezuela around the turn of the millennium, but I don't know of any other tactic that has EVER successfully seen off a determined fascist insurgency. Of course, first you need an organised working class, so it won't happen in America this year.
I'm starting to think The Despair of Marco Rubio would make for a good movie at some future point, whether it's a documentary or a biopic. I don't know if it would be a tragic or comic film though - probably it would depend on the audience. (Do I sympathize with him in that clip? Not even remotely. That little Tea Party fucker is getting exactly what he deserves.)
217: I should have said better stopped, rather than best stopped. What I was getting at is that having ordinary citizens killing each other in the streets is seriously bad news for society.
Better or best, I'm still waiting for you to cite an example of it happening.
Moby- Were you referring to this http://www.catsnotwar.com/2014/06/the-mark-of-agent.html or this? https://samkriss.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/the-grand-imperial-puppet-show/
What I was getting at is that having ordinary citizens killing each other in the streets is seriously bad news for society.
My contention has been since early 2002 that citizens killing each other in the street is better than citizens allowing their gov't to kill Iraqis or perhaps under Trump, setting up extermination camps.
Damn, lost the election unfair and crooked, but Bush is Prez, law is law, and now a few million brown people must die. Not my fault, I voted for the other guy.
All the state isn't violence, and I do identify with the Post Office, Forest Service, Food Stamps.
But I have never felt that the Army was my army, or the police were my police, effecting my will, protecting me. I know the same philosophy that integrated Little Rock killed the Black Panthers and millions in Asia.
This is not a tool you can control, and it is exactly the abrogation of control that allows you to gain the benefits of violence (or suffer the losses) without the responsibility.
I suppose I could pretend to renounce violence, but like in the move Taebaek Mountains about the Korean War, or Gandhi watching the division, I would be the last smug pacifist sitting on a mountain of corpses, preening myself.
221: Italy 1943, Argentina 1955 (if Peron counts). Assuming Wikipedia is at least roughly accurate, the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela was right-wing but not fascist, and there were union and military elements on both sides.
Reading up on the Kapp putsch though, I agree with you, strikes and mass noncompliance look a whole lot better.
...strikes and mass noncompliance look a whole lot better.
Absolutely. SF, Minneapolis, Toledo all 1934.
But I follow Rosa L, and when they offer you 30% of what you want, and prepare the troops...you amp the fucker up.
A general strike is not a negotiating tool or position. It's a mobilization.
Isn't literally the whole deal with America that our citizens have better weapons than golf clubs and paring knives? Hell, I'm not even a gun owner but I have stuff around the house that could easily take out some dude coming at me with a golf club and a paring knife.
Is that supposed to be what the people in Braveheart 2050: Freedom for Scotland's High-End Tourism Industry use, or something?
226: Oh consider it irony or a joke, a substitute for the proverbial pitchfork.
I don't have a pitchfork either, but the semiotics of "pitchforks" is that everybody can mobilize with tools at hand.
The only union negotiation I've ever been involved in as a member was held up for months because a dissenting faction wanted a right in the CBA to participate in a general strike. Which I believe has happened maybe 5-6 times in American history and once since 1945. And by definition isn't something you should worry about in a bargaining agreement with the employer because, you know, you're at the point where you're having a general strike. I bet everyone can guess the industry the union was in.
228 sounds quintessentially daft. It's like writing the right to revolution into your constitution, which a few countries have done. If you're in a revolution, you're past worrying about constitutional compliance.
Sure, if you're in a revolution (or general strike), you're past the point of worrying about compliance. But having those extreme measures acknowledged as a possibility in the constituent documents (whether constitution or labor agreement) helps legitimate them as options, thereby making them more likely to be exercised when circumstances seem right. I am not familiar with academic research on this point (which surely must exist), but I'd actually be surprised if the real world effect wasn't quite significant.
(And I would doubt the real world effect is that general strikes/revolutions are actually more common, but instead that threats of them would be much more credible, thereby increasing the bargaining power of the parties exercising those threats.)
231: We are constantly hearing from gun lobbyists today that the Second Amendment writes the right to revolution into the constitution. That's why we can own guns and people elsewhere can't! Our enlightened founders realized that someday there might be a bad government, and the people should be able to easily overthrow it.
232 -- should definitely add it to your drafter's precedent bank, then.
More seriously,and assuming probably wrongly that 232/33 is for real, the credibility of a threat of revolution or general strike isn't meaningfully enhanced or decreased by its mention in a collective bargaining agreement.
First, I doubt that this local (grad students, of course, who else would ever be this ridiculous except maybe Professors) would at any time in the history of mankind be able to credibly be the vanguard of a general strike. But even putting that aside, "we're going to work with other unions as part of the upcoming mass revolutionary general strike! And you can't stop us because it's in the CBA" isn't meaningfully more credible than "we're working with other unions as part of the mass revolutionary general strike! And you can't stop us, whatever it says in the CBA!"
235: I appreciate the sarcasm, of course, but the enhanced legitimacy isn't directly vis-a-vis the employer. It's a tool for persuading other workers that the general strike is (1) a legitimate weapon (2) that they should join. The reason it's not a credible threat with the employer is that it's very difficult to persuade workers and worker representatives of those points. Having it explicitly laid out in the bargaining agreement makes that an easier argument. (Not easy, but easier.) And if it's an easier argument, *that* is what would make the threat more credible with an employer.
What percentage of the population needs to be unionized before you can have an effective general strike? Asking for a friend.
I've been reading about the Spartacists, as one does. We should let Rosa Luxemburg's death be a warning to us. She was killed by Pabst and haven't we all seen the danger from that direction.
General strikes don't really work anyway in all honesty, no matter how unionised the population is, absent revolutionary conditions which aren't really that correlated with union density.
In the '23 General Strike, whether or not unrelated unions could come out in support of the miners was an issue that was fought in the courts, and it put some unions in position of risking very substantial strike funds and other assets if they did come out in support of the Strike, and that did - I think - reduce the support the Strike got. So it's not quite as absurd as you might think.
Organizing a general strike in the absence of unions strikes me as a particularly difficult problem, though. What do the kids use to organize general strikes these days? Facebook?
241: Of course. Twitter. Or other localized social media.
The only examples I know about include Egypt, Iran, Greece, Byelorussia (sic?), Turkey
Found this on a quick search Chicago Rising
#protest, #Chicagoprotest,Occupy Chicago, #BlackLivesMatter
Occupy was getting a general strike going in Oakland, right? Or working with unions that were working on that?
214 An Egyptian friend described the Tahrir folks as "facebookers" and they basically overthrew the government. Although, as often happens, didn't have the power to even participate in the creation of something new.
I think they were using Twitter, though.
Facebook will only work as long as Mark Zuckerberg is on your side.
Very interesting story from one of the people involved in protesting the Trump rally in Chicago (via Scalzi).
She's either aging very well or not one of those fair-weather Nazis who gave it up just because Germany was defeated.
241 - political parties are, I think, the other main option for strikes. Or, in principle, any wide reaching social institution. The general strike, inasmuch as it (generally) isn't a workplace issue but a political issue, is actually more amenable to non-union organisation than a strike in the context of bargaining or whatever.
So, its January 2017 and President Trump has just been sworn into office, having duly won a fair and democratic election. The INS has been ordered to deny entrance to any Muslims wishing to enter the country, and the Army Corps of Engineers has been sent to the southern border with orders to initiate the construction of a big-ass wall. Across the country, Mexicans are being interned in advance of deportation.
What are the options?
250: So, no joke, I'm kind of scared by Trump's call to have his supporters go to Sanders rallies. Spike's scenario doesn't seem so far fetched right now.
What are the options?
Tune in. Turn on. Drop Out.
I once explicated this at Obsidian Wings as
Tune In: Connect and Listen. Learn.
Turn On: Get committed. Pick a side. Find a Cause
Drop Out: Get alienated. Understand you are now out of the social mainstream. Become outlaw.
You know, what alarms me more than anything is American liberalisms' well-worn habit of abject panic and defeatism when conflict looms on the horizon. Trump sending his people to Sanders rallies would be the biggest media gift he could hand to Sanders specifically and the Dems generally. I can understand being concerned for people's safety, but mordantly deciding that all is lost already is just a wee bit Threepio. (See also L.A. Times coverage that's already referencing Trump as "frontrunner for President" and other such nonsense.)
Trump sending his people to Sanders rallies would be the biggest media gift he could hand to Sanders specifically and the Dems generally.
I disagree. Unless Sanders is able to maintain control over the situation (and that will be very difficult, as it would also be for Hillary), it makes Democrats look weak and unable to lead.
Trump would get some bad press, yeah - but how much is it going to hurt him? "Look what he's doing this time! Surely this will be the downfall of his candidacy!"
Meanwhile, to his supporters it looks like hes standing up for himself and isn't going to be kowtowed by political correctness.
An atmosphere of political violence benefits the authoritarian.
Trump wouldn't necessarily have to win election to take office. Bush didn't.
254: I don't doubt it will thrill his supporters, nor that it will swell the ranks of people motivated to vote against him. Ultimately that works against him unless it comes down to his actually being able to terrorize polling stations in November.
(Which if America is that far gone in authoritarianism that he'd be allowed to get away with that, then you're genuinely fucked. But I'm not buying that.)
Ultimately that works against him unless it comes down to his actually being able to terrorize polling stations in November.
It would have to be Trump's people doing the terrorizing. An ISIS attack in October would do the trick. They are natural allies.
An atmosphere of political violence benefits the authoritarian.
Completely wrong. In order to have a shot in the general election, Trump needs to convince lots of Republican voters that it's OK to vote for a clown because it doesn't really matter who the President is. An atmosphere of political violence is not going to help him, not when it's a piece of cake to pin the violence directly on him (the Republicans are already doing that).
So, no joke, I'm kind of scared by Trump's call to have his supporters go to Sanders rallies.
I hadn't heard that. I guess I should start to pay more attention.
But, I don't think an atmosphere of violence helps Trump much, especially not while there's still technically a chance of somebody else getting the Republican nomination.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the current U.S. level of violence is sufficiently higher than the level of political street violence in Weimar Germany that we have a kind of immunity if Trump found his own Ernst Röhm 2.0.
It should probably go without saying, but I've never met, or read anything by, anybody who was as obsessed with "political correctness" as ... everybody on the Internet, I guess, and come away thinking "That person has some interesting thoughts, about which I wish to learn more."
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
Yeah, it really depends on how it plays out. Maybe the Trumper spouts racist shit and that's the narrative, maybe he/she lucks into someone really unsympathetic taking a whack at her/him.
Trump's now calling for the arrest of demonstrators -- I guess he likes the optics of police-on-minority violence.
There isn't a chance of someone else getting the R nomination, is there?
Who knows because the entire country has decided that they can live with max crazy or close. It probably goes away in a few months after the nomination is pulled from Trump or he loses the election massively. But the offer to pay a violence-inciter's legal bills was pretty stunning. And maybe we're now in an America in which people are literally driven to unthinkable acts by smartphone living in a bubble internet generated hysteria. Massively increasing the bubble-dom of political talk and reducing the time between news and action may not be super great. On the other hand this is all most likely a frothy bubble that will calm down soon once we're in an environment that doesn't reward pushing a portion of the most politically engaged people on either side of a divide to their lomitts, which hopefully will happen soon.
Anyone else watch the town hall? I thought it was pretty good. They both did well though I thought Sanders had the best moments.
I haven't thought hard about this, but tentatively if Trump is elected (which thank God is super improbable) I tentatively for Sunday night thinking might favor a military coup to remove him. We are a country with a ton of nuclear weapons and if our democracy has failed to the point of literally electing a madman committed to undermining the law then it might be time. I realize this is the same conclusion that the ultimate nutters have used on Obama. But it's not just ideological -- there's a difference between being very right wing, which I deeply disagree with but might be legal and from which America would survive, and the kind of stuff Trump is doing, which takes it to the next level. I think there's a reasonable argument that Cruz might be worse than Trump. But if current violence-inciting crazy person style Trump wins the election (again, extremely improbable) and can't be removed by other means it doesn't seem crazy to hope that the sane portion of the officer corps takes him out to restore legality latet.
There's a 95% chance that I'll later regard this comment as part of the hysterial moronic froth of primary season 2016. Maybe as early as tomorrow I'll regret it. But I'm pissed that we're in a position in primary season 2016 where these kinds of banana republic conversations become plausible.
There isn't a chance of someone else getting the R nomination, is there?
The possibility is not mathematically eliminated.
Trump just won 7% of the vote in the Wyoming caucus. If he can stay at that level he might avoid the nomination.
The big news is that Clinton beat Sanders in the Northern Mariana Islands.
Just read how the Republican establishment stopped David Duke in Louisiana by openly and enthusiastically telling people to vote for his opponent, Edwards. Edwards who spent 8 years in prison for corruption and was fucking loathed by La Republicans.
Bumper Stickers "Vote for the Crook Edwards"
I don't know if this would work for Trump, or what the supporters that get him the nomination would or will do.
I do very much believe that this is not over yet and the GOP still has cards to play to stop Trump, but I always have.
We are not yet in pre-Nazi Germany territory, get a grip, but gonna be a long hot summer, and we should likely brace for madness.
I won't sign on to a coup. Just let the Secret Service say they going home, if oaths have to be broken.
I mean seriously people, we survived 1968 when hundreds of Americans were dying every week (I think 12 or 16k in Vietnam that years) and mass rioting was a weekly occurrence and no one was this scared. Assassinations. Worldwide disorder.
You think Trump is scarier than Wallace? Than Goldwater?
Anybody remember Nixon siccing the hardhats on hippies?
We have had a lack of politics for a long time. This is what the real stuff looks like. War by other means.
For once I'm in complete agreement with bob. 274.4-5 and 275.1-3 especially.
No coups.
Oh, I think Trump can definitely be beaten in the general, and expect moderate Rs to be voting for the Dem candidate in some numbers. I just don't think the Republican establishment has the balls to impose a different nominee over the objections of the Trumpkins.
272 -- Can Cruz win 3 of five on Tuesday: IL, MO, NC, OH, FL? I'll be surprised, and expect him to win 1 at most.
Admit it, this is the closest you all have ever been to buying a gun.
I don't think RT was suggesting that we personally instigate the coup.
Also, we're seriously talking about coups now? Maybe Hillary Clinton's Kissinger stuff was more meaningful than I realized. (Also, bob.)
Birth and Demise of the Street Barricade Damn that Hausmann!
From The New Inquiry Sunday Reading, which also has a couple of articles about how and who the Chicago Trump Protests were organized. Facebook, Google Maps, WhatsApp
Also social media in Lagos, Nigeria is in those links somewhere. I just click and skim
People keep giving me guns so I don't see the need to buy one.
Apparently, Rubio is a bigger threat than Trump.
Fortunately, his insatiable lust will be constrained by his need to appeal to the evangelical vote.
This probably goes in the other thread, but if Ted Cruz stole your girlfriend, I bet you don't publicly confront him on it. You probably make up a face-saving lie, like that you gave her warts or you castrated yourself with a soup spoon.
270
If Trump is elected, there's not going to be a "Trump Party" of any size in either the House or Senate, and the Supreme Court is going to stay what it is even if they have to cyborg RBG until his term is over.
If he tries to pull any "executive power" stuff (thanks so much, Obama, for legitimizing this), they can impeach him. If he wants to nuke anyone (which, honestly, he doesn't really seem to have any interest in), the military will refuse the illegal order.
President Cruz, on the other hand, would have a significant party behind him.
Can Cruz win 3 of five on Tuesday: IL, MO, NC, OH, FL? I'll be surprised, and expect him to win 1 at most.
I think Cruz has a shot at MO and, given his performance in Kentucky, had a shot at OH as well even though the polling doesn't look like he managed it (maybe, though). He also has a really strong ground game and has been consistently outperforming his polling by decent margins so I can see maybe scraping out a win in IL. (I don't think he'd manage a significant enough one to take all the delegates there - which he could in MO - but a win is a win as far as the press goes.) NC and FL are very, very likely to go for Trump but NC doesn't matter as much because it's actually proportional. Ohio... who knows? The polling is jumping around there enough that I think it's sort of a coin flip between Trump and Kasich.
Cruz getting two, Kasich getting one, and Trump getting two (or, really, one and a half) seems to me to be Trump's worst case scenario, at least once you factor out things like "gets hit by meteor" or something.
Also, while he's now escalated to just plain telling his supporters to beat up protesters, I think the most unnerving thing from this article on it is this bit:You can find the full video -- where Trump also says he loves the American flag more than Chuck Todd does, and repeats a hoax about a protester being aligned with ISIS before saying "I only know what's on the internet"
So, togolosh should be brutally beaten to death for posting a primary link on one of the few non-primary threads, right? To do less is tantamount to pulling the lever for Trump yourself.
The fact that Trump can't even consistently keep Brietbart reporters on his side shows why it's unlikely the "Trump is a secret moderate" line is unlikely to get traction. He got to where he is through his political instincts. If he tries choosing between his instinctive impulses, he'll have trouble choosing the right ones. It's his intemperance that makes him popular, and as soon as he starts moderating he could undermine his own popularity.
On the other hand, since he is all instinct, he is -- as I explained on the other thread -- easily replicated by modern AI techniques.
287 -- you're right. The coup comment was dumb, and mostly wishful thinking that there's some backstop for legality if American democracy fails to the point where people elect the guy. But far more likely scenarios are (1) he doesn't get elected, meaning yay democracy or (2) massively less likely, he does get elected but is deeply constrained by legality and so can't have that bad an impact, in which case yay legality.
Oh FFS Clinton. You knew you were going to run for President in 2016. Everyone knew you were going to run for President in 2016.
And before I moused over I assumed 292 was the George W. Bush hug.
292- Of course everyone knew she was going to run. Bill never would have gotten that 16 million if there hadn't been a good chance she was going to become president.
I don't know if that's true - the "known powerful statesman is associated with us!" thing is how an awful lot of these people end up making obscene quantities of money. I'm pretty sure there were other people of around-to-lesser that position who ended up "board members" of Laureate Universities or something. It's an easy selling point, and, hey, it's not like Bill Clinton doesn't know every single influential person on the planet at this point.
294: While the fact that the Clintons have been on the take is a serious knock on them, I don't think you appreciate how much money the rich have now. Paying 4 million dollars a year to pretend that a former US President is one of your leaders is nothing. Once you get to a certain status, endless phony-baloney jobs await. There aren't that many former US Presidents around. Obama can make the same kind of bank if he wants, even if no one in his family ever has anything to do with politics ever again.
Well I guess I have to admit I don't know for sure either, but 16 mill seems like a unreasonably large sum for an endorsement. It would make more sense to me if she was politely letting them know "Nice business model you've got there, shame if anything should happen to it.
For an ex-President? Could you imagine the scam you could run in 2017 if you could get Obama on board? He's probably be worth 10 million a year for 4 days of work.
Just being able to put a photo on your latest brochure (for policy makers or investors) of your board of directors with Obama somewhere in the background is probably worth half your marketing budget for the year, yeah.
If he wants to nuke anyone (which, honestly, he doesn't really seem to have any interest in), the military will refuse the illegal order.
Serious question while we're discussing the limits of legality and potential coups: if military leaders really refused an order from President Trump, he could just fire them on the spot, right? (He's actually good at this.)
297: obscene as it sounds, $4m a year really is just pocket change in a large budget.
Ex-President retainers don't come cheap.
300: Whether anybody sane would obey a completely legal order to use nukes was something of an open question, mass retaliation-wise, during the Cold War.
I checked out Laureate Education on the Web and it seems to be very Int'l with a lot of Latin American branches.
More than just a face on a brochure, an ex- or future President I presume can with a overseas phonecall get a foot in the door, facetime with the right person, some 2nd or 3rd degree grease of the permit process. Or an invitation to a networking event at the White House.
I also don't know enough about educational opportunities and limitations in some of the expansion countries to say it is entirely a grift. Or even if a grift, that the grifters in the overseas markets are ones we wouldn't find useful, even from a progressive viewpoint, to support and nurture.
Not that I am giving her a pass, but suspending judgement more than in the Goldman speeches.
And the Global Cosmopolitan Elite as revealed in Laureate is diverse, multicultural and multicolored, and opaque where it counts. Like Clinton.
So you guys are sure that she wouldn't do such a thing? And it goes without saying that this will have no effect on her future decision as President on whether or not to regulate for-profit schools.
303: of course, but I believe there's already been noise about disobeying Trump for orders less extreme than nuclear war. My question is canst he just fire the insubordinates?
Truman fired MacArthur for insisting on invading China. I don't see why Trump couldn't fire somebody for not invading China.
303: That's why there were tactical, intermediate, theater range and the Triad. The strategists were aware of the difficulty, and imagined a gradual ramping up to strategic mutual destruction. First the little ones to stop the tanks in the Fulda Gap, then they respond, then...
And the guys in the silos were vetted carefully.
Colonel Pat Lang always said of course they would follow orders. He never had a minute of doubt.
Obama Would Have Bombed Iran ...doesn't say nukes
I'm hating on the Goldberg Atlantic series, and all the posts about it, as much as I hated Woodward. These guys, especially not the President, are not reliable sources and not the first or second draft of history.
307 explains why I haven't been feeling myself lately.
The noise about disobeying Trump if he ordered the military to do something that violated US/International law seems to me to be about as credible as the noise about people moving to Canada if he's elected. It's just people trying to express how appalling they find the idea of having him be President, and in actual fact if he was elected nothing remotely like that would happen.
293: Just saw that. Ugh.
I've been loving that blog, btw.
That site looks really cool. Also, ugh, that picture isn't great optics at all. I hadn't seen it before now, though, so maybe that means it's not zooming it's way through the internet/news/whatever?
Third time I've seen it today. Its zooming.