(01-22-2019, 01:29 PM)David Horn Wrote:(01-21-2019, 11:40 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't work in manufacturing and I'm not a manufacturing/blue collar worker who would normally vote Democratic. I'm a professional/skilled tradesman who owns and operates a small business who would normally vote Republican. I'm not one who is/has been complaining as you say. Although, I have listened to the complaints of those who expressed concerns over the years and my solution was very similar to what Trump has been doing to change existing trade deals and addressing illegal immigration which hurts middle class workers and the working poor the most. I'm bullet proof as far as a cheap illegal coming in and replacing me or eliminating my job. I'm also pretty bullet proof as far as the global economy goes as well. Right now, my primary issues are ILLEGAL immigration and HEALTHCARE costs.
If you ask anyone who really understands trade, you'll find a consistent position that trade is a net benefit to the US. You'll find the same for employing immigrants. Both cases can be proven mathematically. In both cases, the overall amount of economic activity in the US increases, with the side benefit of immigrant labor vastly improving the actuarial problems with both Medicare and Social Security -- even if they get to claim benefits themselves later. The real issues are off-shoring, which is possible because big business has gotten tax breaks rather than penalties for doing it, and automation, which eliminates entire classes of jobs. In short, the jobs are going to low-pay areas, then vaporizing. Trump's policies have made that even worse, by letting big business reclaim their off-shore earnings on the cheap, with 99% of the benefit going to shareholders and management.
None of that is effected by illegal immigration, and healthcare costs will never be brought under control until the government takes over and demands fairness.
And remember well: immigrants are attracted most to the places with the greatest opportunities or at the least, accessible improvements in their lives. One of the largest migrations in human history has been the tide of blacks from the agrarian South to the industrial North -- from the part of America that had traces of a feudal heritage to full-blown capitalism.
Classic-Xer Wrote:At what point did the Democrats stop voting the way Democrats should have been voting or used to vote instead of voting on behalf of the interests millionaires and billionaires (Big Business and wealthy foreign interests associated with the global economy and wealthy movie stars and the wealthy heirs of old robber barons or industrialists and voting on behalf of welfare recipients and voting in favor of more welfare programs and supporting the expansion of welfare programs.
Supporting the interests of big business used to be the GOP mainstay, not the Democrats, but all that changed under Nixon and, later, Reagan. Throw in the "New Democrats" under the Clintons, and interests of business have been the prime focus of both parties. I think that's finally changing. Notice the departure date on my earlier posted chart. That's when it started, and it didn't just affect factory workers. It affected everyone in the country, with the top decile getting ahead and the rest falling behind.[/quote]
Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama all felt the seduction of technology as a solution to all problems that this country has. No technological fix can solve the fact that real estate is fiendishly expensive in places with genuine opportunity, that much of America's old industrial base is crumbling or becoming irrelevant, or that cartels and monopolies dominate the economy. The Right has had no delusion that its optimum comes from the debasement and pauperization of all people but themselves. It would bring back the lash or institute Nazi-style labor camps to get maximal profit through brutal discipline of workers.
Technology is largely a good thing -- unless it comes under the command of evil people.
Classic-Xer Wrote:Now, if you were able to use/apply some common sense reasoning and you were able to use or apply an objective (non partisan) view and/or take of things, you could easily determine that the two are connected to each other politically and view them as being a major Democratic problem as far as it's primary political interests are concerned. So, what happened under your nose that you weren't aware of as far as the Democratic party or left wing politics goes? I've had no interest in the Democratic party or left wing politics my entire adult life as you can see by my views and my posts. I have Democratic voters for friends ( the majority of whom are affiliated with trade unions or affiliated with a labor union or affiliated with their parents party that they haven't come to grips with the fact that it no longer shares the same values and beliefs as them).
Here You lose me, because you seem to favor a return to much more liberal economic policies by the Democrats, yet you complain they are too left wing. Are your issues with Democrats more cultural? No one is more leftie on economics that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, yet her entire economic platform is focused on a return to the policies that predate the Nixon-Reagan era. Here's a good article by two leading economists that discusses that in enough depth to see the whys and wherefores.[/quote]
His issues with Democrats probably are cultural. He sounds much like "Archie Bunker", and I can almost expect him to call his harried wife a "dingbat" and the Mexican-American fellow dating his precious daughter (I had to update it) a "meathead".
But this said, I have huge 'cultural' problems with Donald Trump for his vicious sexism, his callow greed, his contempt for the intellect, and his soulless ostentation.
America needs a return to liberal education as the norm for undergraduate education so that people can make best use of the fruits of their toil, and strong unions that can stand up to narcissistic executives who see workers as livestock at best and vermin at worst. We have probably gone as far as we can with technology (except perhaps in medicine to extirpate some nasty diseases) as we can in improving human existence. Above all, America needs to assert in 2020 and 2022 that the quality of political leadership matters far more than does the ability of some demagogue to press the right buttons.
Quote:Classic-Xer Wrote:I'm not a avid fan of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity or any of the major conservative talk show hosts these days. Although, I would most likely agree with most of their views pertaining to the liberals (blues)/ the majority of the Democratic party these days. The Democratic voters are going to have a choice/ decision to make now or in the not so distant future relating to their future and the future of their children. The American right has already decided which direction it's going and the direction that it's chosen isn't in the direction socialism, fascism or Communism. As I've mentioned before, the blues have issues they better figure out ways to resolve among themselves pretty quick or they're going to learn first hand what it was like when left wing utopian societies like those of Nazi's, Bolshevik's and so forth came crashing down around them. So, as you see, I share your view as far as the end result. Hint: If our wages (Republican/conservative/classical liberal voters) were flat, you'd have more support from those on the American right these days.
If anyone is marching toward Fascism, its the Trump administration. I have no idea where you get the idea that you have an ally there. Trump is 100% about himself, and he'll lie, cheat and steal if it gets him something he wants … which is primarily money. And when exactly did the anti-Communist right start to love Russia so much?
And fyi: the Nazis and Fascists were anything but left wing. They were, and still are, as far to the right as you can get. For that matter, they share a love of autocracy with the old Communists. In no case were any these utopian.
David, your assessment of Donald Trump is spot-on.
The Right used to hate the Soviet Union because it was socialist in the sense of the government owning everything and leaving nothing to a privileged class of capitalists. The Right envied the labor discipline and the command system, wishing that it could adopt such in the service of class privilege.
Putin is ex-KGB, but unlike his predecessors as bosses from Dzierzhinksy to Kryuchkov he has never had to sell Marxism-Leninism. He needs not try. He can appeal to the vanity, selfishness, and cruelty, and alienation of capitalists just as his predecessors could appeal to the vanity, selfishness, cruelty, and alienation of people willing to sell at the least some spy secrets to the USSR. Putin can offer a business deal as a Soviet-era Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, or KGB never could. Putin can find more traitors willing to sell out democracy because those who sell out no longer need sell out their class privilege or identity. A traitor like Donald Trump who wants to change the system to fit his vision (he has a vision, and it is a sick one) has more to offer than does a treacherous spy like Aldrich Ames who wants to keep up some Good Life that necessitates the survival of the system whose secrets he sells for 'thirty pieces of silver'.
But Donald Trump has something in common with Commies: a contempt for liberal democracy. The President that we elect in 2020 must reassert the values that really did make America great.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.