Could it be that instead of slaying the dragon of Social Darwinism, the Trump phenomenon has refocused its fire on a different target?

Where previously the wrath of the Social Darwinists was directed at the poor in this country, it is now being directed at poor countries and foreign entities - Mexicans. Muslims, etc.  There is still the same call for "rolling up the drawbridge against the peasants," as per a comment that appeared in The Weekly Standard some two decades ago.

It is no longer about the wealth and poverty of persons.  It is now about the wealth and poverty of nations.

Just now I'm seeing some strange behavior.

A post I made a couple of hours ago has vanished (it was made on the Election 2016 thread).

Meanwhile, a post made a few minutes ago by Playright on the Trump and Putin thread semi shows up. Clicking directly on the "latest post" feed you can see it but it is invisible in the actual thread hierarchy.

Hopefully this will pass with no issues.

Hopefully there is no data loss.

A question for those who are old enough; was it common for celebrities to speak at political conventions before boomers took over?

The growing divide by socio-economic status among whites isn’t good news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/upshot...p=cur&_r=0

Quote:The list of voting groups generally alienated by Donald J. Trump is long: Hispanics, women, the young, the college educated and more. How is it that he’s in such a close race with Hillary Clinton?

The answer lies with a group that still represented nearly half of all voters in 2012: white voters without a college degree, and particularly white men without a degree.

Mrs. Clinton is showing enormous weakness with this group. And these voters are supporting Mr. Trump in larger numbers than they supported Mitt Romney four years ago. It’s enough to keep the election close. It could even be enough for him to win...


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/upshot...p=cur&_r=0

This article should be interesting. Here is the URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/upshot....html?_r=0

Here is the article:

Quote:Donald Trump officially became the Republican party’s nominee Thursday night, and on Monday, the Democratic convention begins in Philadelphia. In the coming weeks, you can expect lots of polls — and headlines — suggesting new insight into the state of the presidential race.
With some caveats, our advice is: Don’t pay too much attention to them.
You can see what we mean in the chart above. It shows how much the polling average at each point of a presidential election cycle has differed from the final result. Each gray line represents a presidential election since 1980; the bright green line represents the average difference. In general, as the election nears, the polling average comes closer and closer to the election’s final result — but not for the next few weeks.
History suggests that in the short periods after the conventions, the polling average can often move away from the final result, not toward it. That’s because polls taken in the middle of the convention are often unreliable: Gains made by the party’s nominee can often be short-lived.
One approach is to ignore the polls during this tricky period. Our presidential forecast, which currently gives Hillary Clinton a 74 percent chance to win, does something different: It imposes a small penalty on polls taken when a candidate might be receiving a convention bounce. This penalty, based on conventions since 1980, fades out over the next few weeks.
At the same time, and perhaps more important, the model increases its variance estimate — how uncertain it is about its assessment of the race — during the convention period. Because of this volatility, it makes sense to judge polling over the next few weeks with more skepticism than usual. As a general rule, when variance goes up, it helps the underdog, so it’s possible that the model’s estimate of Mrs. Clinton’s overall chance of winning may decline slightly in the weeks ahead.
Of course, it’s also possible that Mr. Trump will not get a convention bounce at all, reflecting perhaps the most disorganized, unpredictable and bizarre convention in decades.
It’s unclear whether conventions still hold the power they once did. The bounces candidates received in 2008 and 2012 were more modest than some in years past, but television ratings for the conventions remain high. Ratings for the 2012 Democratic convention were the highest since 1992, and ratings for the Republicans in 2008 were the highest since 1976.
Bounce or no bounce, the history lesson remains: Polling averages tend to be volatile in the weeks after national conventions. As the election nears and the short-term effects of the conventions fade, the polling averages will rapidly become more precise.
In other words, if you’d like to take a break from political polls for a few weeks, you won’t be any worse for it. We’ll be here when you get back.
Until then, take a look at this series of charts showing how conventions have affected polling averages in every election since 1980.
What polls say about the 2016 election
Mrs. Clinton held a steady lead going into the conventions.
Trump becomes presumptive nominee
What polls said about the 2012 election
President Obama seemed to receive a bump in polls from the Democratic convention and the “47 percent” video of Mitt Romney released by Mother Jones. But polls tightened again in the month before the election. In 2012, Mr. Obama outperformed his polling averages on Election Day by about three percentage points.
“47 percent” video published
What polls said about the 2008 election
In some ways, the 2008 election mirrors this race, with two Democratic candidates fighting over the party nomination after the emergence of a presumptive Republican nominee. At this point in that election, Mr. Obama and John McCain were nearly tied, but that was before Mr. Obama was the clear Democratic nominee. Once he was, he became the favorite. The most significant movement came in the closing months of the contest, amid the 2008 financial crisis.
McCain: "The fundamentals of the economy are strong."
Obama clinches nomination
What polls said about the 2004 election
John Kerry held a slight lead for a couple of months in 2004, but George W. Bush hung on to his five-point Republican convention bounce for a narrow victory.
What polls said about the 2000 election
With all of the controversy surrounding the 2000 election, and the Florida recount in particular, it is easy to forget that the national polling average in November showed George W. Bush with a comfortable three-to-four-point lead over Al Gore.
But on Election Day, it was Mr. Gore who won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College.
What polls said about the 1996 election
Third-party candidates add an extra complication to presidential polling. Frequently, they perform well in polls early on, but their support tends to fall off.
In 1996, early polls showed the Reform Party candidate Ross Perot at 15 to 20 percent, a number that dwindled to 8 percent by Election Day.
You can see the well-defined convention bounces in 1996, as first the Republican and then the Democratic convention seemed to swing the polling average toward each party temporarily.
In terms of raw numbers, the 1996 election was the worst polling miss since 1980, with the Election Day average missing the final vote by over four points. But the ultimate result was never in doubt; Bill Clinton won by almost twice that margin.
What polls said about the 1992 election
The combination of the Democratic convention in July and Ross Perot’s abrupt departure from the race seemed to be responsible for a swing in polling average toward Mr. Clinton of over 20 points. Mr. Perot re-entered the race in October, but it did not substantially alter Mr. Clinton’s standing in the polls.
Perot drops out
At this stage of the 1988 election, polls were very far from the final result, swinging a full 20 percentage points over the next five months, generally favoring George H.W. Bush after the Republican convention. Mr. Bush did win handily, as expected, though by a slightly smaller margin than polls predicted.
President Reagan led by double digits in most polls at every stage of his re-election campaign, but even these numbers swung wildly after Walter Mondale emerged as the Democratic nominee, and after both conventions.
Mondale clinches nomination
The 1980 contest is a good example of how a candidate’s standing in the polls can collapse.
Jimmy Carter led by around 10 points in early April.
A spate of polls in the week leading up to Election Day suggested that Mr. Carter might have narrowed Mr. Reagan’s lead – three of the nine polls released in the final 10 days of the campaign even showed Mr. Carter ahead – but ultimately, Mr. Reagan won handily.

New York magazine put up a lengthy post that doesn't quite endorse cyclical history but pretty darn close.  Disastrous culture shattering events happen about when the people die off that remember the last such disaster.  One mechanism mentioned in the article is a tendency for tyranny to follow democracy.  At a time when the most freedom and equality triumph, when the many are the most free, when the elite are least potent, that is the time when a narcissistic demagogue will rise, blame some other race or culture for not so serious problems, and bring the whole thing down.

Originator of the theory?   Plato.

Reason the United States lasted so long as a democracy?  The founding fathers read Plato.  They put certain mechanisms in the Constitution, now fading in influence, that kept the elite in power.

Theme of the article?  Trump is Hitler.  Doom and the destruction of civilization as we know it is coming.

It's worth a read.  Democracies end...  when they are too democratic

It used to be that a President or First Lady had died, when the flags were lowered.

Now, every violent event can cause them to be lowered.

Does this mean that the standards for lowering the flags have dropped, or does it mean that our society has dropped to the level that we should be mourning it?

Whatever happened to Republicans attacking the Democrat by saying they are liberal extremists?  Now the GOP attacking the Democrat for not being liberal enough.

Quote:https://gop.com/what-they-are-saying-kai...gressives/


"Liberal Groups Were Teed Up To Criticize The Pick" Of Kaine
The Huffington Post: "(Clinton's) Choice Could Also Aggravate The Elizabeth Warren Wing Of The Democrat Party…" "Kaine may help Clinton carry that state, but her choice could also aggravate the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democrat Party, which sees the Virginian as a business-friendly centrist unlikely to champion their top financial reform goals." ( The Huffington Post, 7/22/16)
The Washington Post: "Liberal Groups Were Teed Up To Criticize The Pick" Of Kaine. "Even before Sen. Timothy M. Kaine (D-Va.) was unveiled Friday as Hillary Clinton's running mate, liberal groups were teed up to criticize the pick." ( The Washington Post , 7/22/16)
Charles Chamberlain Of Democracy For America Said Kaine's Support For Wall Street Should Be "Disqualifying." "On Thursday, as speculation was mounting that Kaine would be Clinton's choice, Charles Chamberlain, executive director of the activist network Democracy for America, which backed Sanders in the primaries, said that it should be 'disqualifying' for any potential Democratic vice-presidential nominee to 'help banks dodge consumer protection standards.' That was based in part on a bipartisan letter that Kaine signed on Monday urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." (John Wagner, "Kaine's VP Pick Greeted By Blowback From Progressive Groups," The Washington Post , 7/22/16)
"On Friday, Norman Solomon, The Coordinator Of A Group Billing Itself As The Bernie Delegates Network, Called Kaine 'A Loyal Servant Of Oligarchy.'" (John Wagner, "Kaine's VP Pick Greeted By Blowback From Progressive Groups," The Washington Post , 7/22/16)

• "The Group Has Threatened To Protest During The Democratic Convention If Kaine Is The Pick." (John Wagner, "Kaine's VP Pick Greeted By Blowback From Progressive Groups," The Washington Post , 7/22/16)
  

The Washington Post Headline: "Kaine's VP Pick Greeted By Blowback From Progressive Groups" ( The Washington Post , 7/22/16)
Los Angeles Times Headline: "Progressive Groups Have Already Warned They Aren't Ready For Tim Kaine" ( Los Angeles Times , 7/22/16)
Politico: "Kaine's Selection Likely Won't Satisfy The Liberal Wing Of The Party…" "Kaine's selection likely won't satisfy the liberal wing of the party, which had pushed for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or another liberal stalwart to balance out Clinton." (Politico, 7/22/16)
Washington Examiner's Byron York: "MSNBC Debate: Kaine Is A Progressive. No, He's Not." (Twitter.com, 7/22/16)
Los Angeles Times : "Some Progressives And Former Backers Of (Sanders') Presidential Candidacy Signaled Their Dissatisfaction With The Choice Of Sen. Tim Kaine…" "Some progressives and former backers of Bernie Sanders' presidential candidacy signaled their dissatisfaction with the choice of Sen. Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton's running mate before it was even announced." ( Los Angeles Times , 7/22/16)
Adam Green, Founder Of The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Questioned The Choice Of Kaine And Attacked His Support For TPP. "Adam Green, founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was neutral in the primary but has ties to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, questioned the choice of a running mate who supports the Trans Pacific Partnership. 'It will be very ironic if voters go into election day thinking Donald Trump is better on the TPP issues than the Democratic Party,' he said." (Michael A. Memoli And Evan Halper, "Progressive Groups Have Already Warned They Aren't Ready For Tim Kaine," Los Angeles Times , 7/22/16)
Slate's Nora Caplan-Bricker Called Kaine's Selection "A Symbolic Kick In The Teeth For The Feminist Organizations That Faithfully Championed Hillary Over Bernie Throughout The Long Primary Season." "It's not just that Kaine, like all 47 veeps in our nation's history, is a white dude, not a 'first' who could have driven home just how historic Hillary's candidacy is. He's also, at least in his personal views, opposed to abortion due to his Catholic faith-a symbolic kick in the teeth for the feminist organizations that faithfully championed Hillary over Bernie throughout the long primary season." ( Slate, 7/22/16)

If one believes the 4T started in 2008 then that’s makes this election a parallel to 1936 so who is a more incompetent candidate Trump or Alf Landon.

So a Saeculum that started with McCartyism is ending with a candidate in the pocket of the Kremlin...


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trum...ly-a-thing

Quote:Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin's increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there's quite a bit more to the story. At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support of Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.

Let me start by saying I'm no Russia hawk. I have long been skeptical of US efforts to extend security guarantees to countries within what the Russians consider their 'near abroad' or extend such guarantees or police Russian interactions with new states which for centuries were part of either the Russian Empire or the USSR. This isn't a matter of indifference to these countries. It is based on my belief in seriously thinking through the potential costs of such policies. In the case of the Baltics, those countries are now part of NATO. Security commitments have been made which absolutely must be kept. But there are many other areas where such commitments have not been made. My point in raising this is that I do not come to this question or these policy questions as someone looking for confrontation or cold relations with Russia...



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trum...ly-a-thing