Presidential election, 2016

[pbrower2a]

(11-18-2016, 06:40 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(11-18-2016, 06:25 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-17-2016, 11:51 PM)taramarie Wrote: I am just going to leave this right here.

You want to build bridges you have to cease identity politics and labeling.
It is about engagement and part of that is dropping stereotype at the door and listening. Then you know the person more and what the core issues are. THEN you can discuss.

Should be the top video. Sorry I found this interview on fb. If not it is the video that has "Its about engagement" at the top.

Its about engagement

But identity politics is nearly a surrogate for ideology in a country so polarized between center-left and Hard Right. It's who gets the goodies and who gets the shaft. For the next four years, the well-connected Right will get the rewards and everyone else will get taxed to support those rewards..

At the worst, consider (if without the serial mass murders of Saddam Hussein) Iraq under Saddam Hussein. If one was in the right side of the regime one could live up to standards characteristic of at least southern Europe. If not one was living under standards characteristic of India (except with great fear). Government worked for one or made life miserable in what proved an Apartheid system (Christians and non-Kurdish Sunni Muslims OK, Shiites and Kurds not OK).

It's patronage or punishment. It looks as if Donald Trump will be a big-government Republican, using the Treasury to reward those to whom he made the biggest promises but cutting off government services that he can get away with cutting off aid to everyone else. That happened on a smaller scale with the younger Bush.

Those who defend it feed the problem.

People defend it to protect themselves or to get questionable benefits that come from hurting others even worse.  Really, if I defend any it is people not of my demographic (non-white, non-Anglo, non-Christian members of the American middle class who stand to be burned by what looks like a White Power government. I have no loyalty to the White Race, an entity that has never needed help in American history... but has done great harm to people other than itself (mistreatment of First Peoples, Jim Crow practice).

Yes, white working people have done badly due to de-industrialization and the weakening of labor unions. Of course, people left behind develop their own  tribal loyalties while others who leave the 'tribe' either abandon or fail to maintain loyalties to the tribe.

So what can we do for miners and industrial workers whose opportunities are best described as increasingly-intense competition for fewer, and less-remunerative spots? Maybe for wages  to fall even faster than the decline in opportunities while subsidizing failing or dying industries? Donald trump has promised to bring back coal mining to its old economic glory... all I expect is for him to throw subsidies at coal barons. I'm guessing that that is how Donald Trump and the far-right Republican Party does things.

[Mikebert]

(11-17-2016, 06:25 PM)Odin Wrote: The Atlantic: How the Election Revealed the Divide Between City and Country

Quote:The earthquake that elected Donald Trump has left the United States approaching 2020 with a political landscape reminiscent of 1920.

Not since then has the cultural chasm between urban and non-urban America shaped the struggle over the country’s direction as much as today. Of all the overlapping generational, racial, and educational divides that explained Trump’s stunning upset over Hillary Clinton last week, none proved more powerful than the distance between the Democrats’ continued dominance of the largest metropolitan areas, and the stampede toward the GOP almost everywhere else.

Trump’s victory was an empire-strikes-back moment for all the places and voters that feel left behind in an increasingly diverse, post-industrial, and urbanized America. Squeezing bigger margins from smaller places, Trump overcame a tide of resistance in the largest metropolitan areas that allowed Clinton to carry the national popular vote, but not the decisive Electoral College.

This election thus carved a divide between cities and non-metropolitan areas as stark as American politics has produced since the years just before and after 1920. That year marked a turning point: It was the first time the Census recorded that more people lived in urban than non-urban areas. That tangible sense of shifting influence triggered a series of political and social conflicts between big cities teeming with immigrants, many of them Catholic, and small towns and rural communities that remained far more homogeneously, white, native-born, and Protestant.

In an extended tussle over the country’s direction, forces grounded outside of the largest cities overcame urban resistance to impose Prohibition in 1919 and severely limit new immigration in 1924. The same fear of “a chaotically pluralistic society,” as one historian put it, fueled a resurgence of religious fundamentalism and a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Then, as now, the lines between city and country were not absolute: both Prohibition and immigration restriction drew meaningful support from within the urban professional and intellectual classes. But contemporaries like Walter Lippmann, the era’s preeminent newspaper columnist, recognized that at their core these disparate disputes represented “the older American village civilization making its last stand against what to it looks like an alien invasion,” as he wrote in The Atlantic in 1927.

Lippmann had no doubt about which side would ultimately prevail: “The evil” that rural America believed it was resisting, he wrote, “is simply the new urban civilization with its irresistible economic and scientific and mass power.” Before long, the polyglot “urban civilization” established unquestioned dominance over the nation’s direction in culture, the economy, and ultimately politics, when it emerged as the cornerstone of Franklin Roosevelt’s lasting New Deal coalition.

Echoes of this struggle to define the nation’s identity and direction are growing louder today. This campaign crystallized the long-developing separation between a Democratic Party centered in the urban areas at the forward edge of growing racial diversity, new family and sexual arrangements, and the transition to a globalized information economy; and a Republican Party consolidating a deepening hold on the non-metropolitan places where many view those changes with suspicion, if not hostility.

Bill Clinton was the last Democratic nominee to demonstrate wide appeal across that divide: In both 1992 and 1996, he carried nearly half of America’s 3,100 counties. But since then, Democrats have retreated into the nation’s urban centers. In 2000, Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote, but carried fewer than 700 counties. In 2012, President Obama squeezed even more advantage from the biggest places: He carried 86 of the nation’s 100 largest counties (including the District of Columbia), winning them by nearly 12 million votes combined. That allowed him to win comfortably, although he carried only about 600 of the remaining 3,000 counties, and lost them by nearly 7 million votes combined.

This year, Hillary Clinton pushed that model just past the breaking point. Pending final results, she now leads in 88 of the nation’s 100 largest counties (including D.C.). Suffering a slight decline in African American support, Clinton did not quite match Obama’s vote margins in some crucial metropolitan areas, particularly Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.

But overall, she delivered a dominant performance in most urban centers and many affluent white-collar suburbs. She held Trump to less than one-fourth of the vote in such mega-counties as Manhattan, Cook (Chicago), and Los Angeles; expanded on Obama’s margins in growing Sunbelt cities such as Miami, Charlotte, and Houston; and utterly routed Trump in thriving new economy centers like Austin, Silicon Valley, and Seattle. At latest tally, Clinton won the nation’s 100 largest counties by fully 12.6 million votes—an historic lead certain to widen with many more West Coast ballots yet to count.

But Clinton suffered far greater losses than Obama outside of this vibrant urban core. Tom Bonier, the chief executive of the Democratic targeting firm TargetSmart, says that with final results still pending in some states, Clinton has won only about 420 counties total—far fewer than any popular vote winner over the past century. In the roughly 3000 counties beyond the 100 largest, Trump trounced Clinton by about 11.5 million votes. In the decisive states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the electoral map was a sea of Republican red interrupted only by lonely blue islands in big cities and college towns.  

Reeling from Clinton’s defeat, many Democrats have declared economic populism the key to restoring competitiveness beyond the party’s urban strongholds. But, as Bonier notes, the Democrats may have permanently reduced their ceiling of support in non-urban areas by unifying behind liberal positions on almost all social issues.

The converse is that several big city mayors are already promising to fight Trump’s plan to accelerate deportations of undocumented immigrants, while other collisions with urban attitudes loom over his pledges to loosen gun laws and tighten surveillance of Muslim communities. The chasm between town and country that this election exposed will only widen as the already tumultuous Trump presidency unfolds.

I would point put that this article supports the 2016-1920 analogy I posted earlier, that was based on an assumed Trump victory in 2016.

[Classic-Xer]

(11-18-2016, 04:35 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(11-18-2016, 07:31 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-18-2016, 06:40 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(11-18-2016, 06:25 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-17-2016, 11:51 PM)taramarie Wrote: I am just going to leave this right here.

You want to build bridges you have to cease identity politics and labeling.
It is about engagement and part of that is dropping stereotype at the door and listening. Then you know the person more and what the core issues are. THEN you can discuss.

Should be the top video. Sorry I found this interview on fb. If not it is the video that has "Its about engagement" at the top.

Its about engagement

But identity politics is nearly a surrogate for ideology in a country so polarized between center-left and Hard Right. It's who gets the goodies and who gets the shaft. For the next four years, the well-connected Right will get the rewards and everyone else will get taxed to support those rewards..

At the worst, consider (if without the serial mass murders of Saddam Hussein) Iraq under Saddam Hussein. If one was in the right side of the regime one could live up to standards characteristic of at least southern Europe. If not one was living under standards characteristic of India (except with great fear). Government worked for one or made life miserable in what proved an Apartheid system (Christians and non-Kurdish Sunni Muslims OK, Shiites and Kurds not OK).

It's patronage or punishment. It looks as if Donald Trump will be a big-government Republican, using the Treasury to reward those to whom he made the biggest promises but cutting off government services that he can get away with cutting off aid to everyone else. That happened on a smaller scale with the younger Bush.

Those who defend it feed the problem.

People defend it to protect themselves or to get questionable benefits that come from hurting others even worse.  Really, if I defend any it is people not of my demographic (non-white, non-Anglo, non-Christian members of the American middle class who stand to be burned by what looks like a White Power government. I have no loyalty to the White Race, an entity that has never needed help in American history... but has done great harm to people other than itself (mistreatment of First Peoples, Jim Crow practice).

Yes, white working people have done badly due to de-industrialization and the weakening of labor unions. Of course, people left behind develop their own  tribal loyalties while others who leave the 'tribe' either abandon or fail to maintain loyalties to the tribe.

So what can we do for miners and industrial workers whose opportunities are best described as increasingly-intense competition for fewer, and less-remunerative spots? Maybe for wages  to fall even faster than the decline in opportunities while subsidizing failing or dying industries? Donald trump has promised to bring back coal mining to its old economic glory... all I expect is for him to throw subsidies at coal barons.  I'm guessing that that is how Donald Trump and the far-right Republican Party does things.

"I must say to my people who stand on the worn threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity
and discipline. must not allow our crea­tive protests to degenerate
into physical violence." "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." MLK.

I think that applies to today but for everyone regardless of what colour, sex or belief we have. Stop what divides us.

You're seeing what happens and witnessing the negative results when there's a major divide/difference/gap that exists between the level of character or the content of ones character. I consider myself to have a fairly high level of character and I prefer to hang out and socialize with those who have higher levels of character. I'll drop down a few notches in character in order to directly and effectively engage with certain progressives on an equal playing field.

[Eric the Green]

(11-18-2016, 06:25 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: But identity politics is nearly a surrogate for ideology in a country so polarized between center-left and Hard Right. It's who gets the goodies and who gets the shaft. For the next four years, the well-connected Right will get the rewards and everyone else will get taxed to support those rewards..

At the worst, consider (if without the serial mass murders of Saddam Hussein) Iraq under Saddam Hussein. If one was in the right side of the regime one could live up to standards characteristic of at least southern Europe. If not one was living under standards characteristic of India (except with great fear). Government worked for one or made life miserable in what proved an Apartheid system (Christians and non-Kurdish Sunni Muslims OK, Shiites and Kurds not OK).

It's patronage or punishment. It looks as if Donald Trump will be a big-government Republican, using the Treasury to reward those to whom he made the biggest promises but cutting off government services that he can get away with cutting off aid to everyone else. That happened on a smaller scale with the younger Bush.

Exactly. The more I see of the new presidency, the more this is clear. We have these 3 choices: resist, surrender and suffer, or leave.

Resistance can take many forms. It's not just what I think should be done, or what I might do or say. But it's up to the people who would like someday for the 21st century to begin, to find a way, to speak up and take action so that someday it can happen.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-19-2016, 12:25 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You're seeing what happens and witnessing the negative results when there's a major divide/difference/gap that exists between the level of character or the content of ones character. I consider myself to have a fairly high level of character and I prefer to hang out and socialize with those who have higher levels of character. I'll drop down a few notches in character in order to directly and effectively engage with certain progressives on an equal playing field.

I'd watch the difference between a gathering of people of high character, and a gathering of people with the same values.  We recently had a discussion involving appreciation of classical music making fans of classical music feel superior to fans of country and western.  The resulting perception if one isn't a fan of classical music is arrogance, which can result in hostility.  Now, I'm not particularly obsessed with either form of music, I tend to jump styles a lot, but have favorite songs from both traditions.  Still, It seems politically impatient and just rude to be snobbish and superior.

But to me you come across as a strident partisan rather than a person of high character.  This is not to say you are alone in this.  We have no lack of people here with quite variant positions that I perceive of as strident partisans.  I guess you could claim that intensely clinging to one's beliefs might be part of having a high character.  Still, do the extreme partisans advocating blue perspectives come across to you as having high character?  Do they not make it clear how they perceive you?  

I appreciate any effort you might try to make in engaging with progressives.  We need more of that from both sides.  I don't know that being willing to listen and reducing the antagonism and hostility ought to be described as dropping down your character, though.  At least from my perspective, people of good character ought to be able to listen and share, ought not to be so defensive about flaws in one's own perspective, so aggressive in demonizing one's opposites.

[pbrower2a]

[quote pid='13435' dateline='1479542212']

Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-19-2016, 12:25 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You're seeing what happens and witnessing the negative results when there's a major divide/difference/gap that exists between the level of character or the content of ones character. I consider myself to have a fairly high level of character and I prefer to hang out and socialize with those who have higher levels of character. I'll drop down a few notches in character in order to directly and effectively engage with certain progressives on an equal playing field.

I'd watch the difference between a gathering of people of high character, and a gathering of people with the same values.  We recently had a discussion involving appreciation of classical music making fans of classical music feel superior to fans of country and western.  The resulting perception if one isn't a fan of classical music is arrogance, which can result in hostility.  Now, I'm not particularly obsessed with either form of music, I tend to jump styles a lot, but have favorite songs from both traditions.  Still, It seems politically impatient and just rude to be snobbish and superior.

It's just me. I love classical music, but I know plenty of people who don't. If I want to introduce someone to classical music I obviously introduce that person to some of the more accessible music -- like Mozart, whose music is attractive for the same reason that Big Band music is attractive -- that it works at several aesthetic levels at once. Magnificent as the late quartets of Beethoven are, I would not introduce those first to anyone new to classical music. Those are clearly 'acquired tastes'.

I have even coined my own euphemism for death for someone not d@mned to Hell for wickedness: "(insert name) is listening to a lot of Mozart now".

Quote:But to me you (Classic X'er) come across as a strident partisan rather than a person of high character.  This is not to say you are alone in this.  We have no lack of people here with quite variant positions that I perceive of as strident partisans.  I guess you could claim that intensely clinging to one's beliefs might be part of having a high character.  Still, do the extreme partisans advocating blue perspectives come across to you as having high character?  Do they not make it clear how they perceive you?  

Indeed I rarely see Classic X'er using history or art of any kind as a rationale for his beliefs. I rarely see anything other than his personal experience. Contrast me: I recognize how distorted and limited my experiences are for discussing history. I would not wish the last five years of my life on anyone else. I'd like wider experiences in the world than I now have... and it could be that my knowledge of classical music or old movies reflects that at one time such were easy to get; perhaps because of Asperger's syndrome that has given me plenty of leisure time instead of the opportunity to make a good living, I can go in depth in culture and knowledge as few can without being employed to do so.

Doesn't everyone think that I would rather have a normal family life and a solid work history at a series responsible positions that, with my aptitudes for language and mathematics would have made me a rich man, at the expense of familiarity with music that offers difficulties worth the delights? That's Asperger's undiagnosed far too long. It has messed my life as badly as could a prison term or an extended involvement with addictive drugs. With that nasty condition as a known quality, I might have made some fitting adjustments -- like a vasectomy. My (in reality, non-existent) wife and I would probably have far better things to do than participate on a blog. Our children (adopted, and probably resembling neither of us) would likely be academic and vocational successes instead of having been aborted or abused.

Yes, sustainable happiness is the sole reasonable measure of a wholesome life (thank you, Aristotle). If I had to choose between being a creative person of profound achievement but an otherwise-miserable life (Richard Wagner, Vincent van Gogh) or a happy person with a steady-but-banal job and plebeian tastes, then I would take the latter.

Quote:I appreciate any effort you  (Classic X'er) might try to make in engaging with progressives.  We need more of that from both sides.  I don't know that being willing to listen and reducing the antagonism and hostility ought to be described as dropping down your character, though.  At least from my perspective, people of good character ought to be able to listen and share, ought not to be so defensive about flaws in one's own perspective, so aggressive in demonizing one's opposites.

He engages us, but he has done nothing to convince us. Maybe I would have been wiser to learn to install and service heating-and-cooling units instead of attending college. But who could ever know that at age 18? Would I have the same political values as he? Probably not. Would I enjoy classical music that has some difficulties worth transcending for profound feelings in the music, as with Anton Bruckner's symphonies? Maybe.

[/quote]

[Eric the Green]

(11-16-2016, 07:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trickle-in electionomics:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...rue#gid=19

Hillary leads Trump by about 1,200,000 and still counting.

Make that 1,700,000

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-19-2016, 05:18 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: He engages us, but he has done nothing to convince us.

This seems all too true. It might also be said of a lot of folks. There is a lot more intense articulate writing going on here than open minded listening. The failure to be convinced is not necessarily a problem with the writer.

[Eric the Green]

Why Can't Democrats Win Three Consecutive Terms?
By Bill Scher
November 21, 2016
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article...32403.html


A Democrat presidential fails to succeed a popular two-term incumbent president from the same party, despite low unemployment, an opponent who appears out of his depth, and, oddly enough, winning the most votes on Election Day.

I’m not only talking about Hillary Clinton, but also Al Gore.

Their inability to protect the Oval Office raises a big question for Democrats: Can they win the White House without a charismatic outsider for a nominee and without a Republican-made mess to clean up? Because neither of those factors is always easy to come by.

No Democrat (except one) has been able to take the baton and keep party control of White House for a third term since Martin Van Buren in 1836..... Since then, only Franklin Delano Roosevelt was able to win a third (consecutive) term for the Democrats, but he had the luxury of finishing what he started. (Republicans have had a slightly easier time stringing together three or more consecutive terms, accomplishing the feat four times since the party’s founding 162 years ago.)

So this is not a new problem, but the reasons for the most recent defeats diverge from the problems of the more distant past.

Before Gore and Clinton, blame for failing to piece together winning streaks landed squarely on the incumbent Democratic presidents. The 1920 nominee, James Cox, had no shot after Woodrow Wilson waged the unsuccessful fight to join the League of Nations, while neglecting the turbulent transition to a post-war economy. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey had the thankless task of trying to unite a party shattered by Lyndon Johnson’s war in Vietnam.

The Gore and Clinton autopsies are more complicated. They were felled by similar weaknesses. Both were ensnared in arguably small-bore ethical scrapes that became overheated in the campaign crucible. And both suffered late hits from external forces. Gore was ultimately defeated by the Supreme Court. Clinton had to fend off Russia, WikiLeaks and the FBI.

But most importantly, both were "technocrats" who sought to sell their policy smarts rather than try to make an emotional connection to the electorate, while being juxtaposed with incumbents who made connecting look effortless. Without that connection, attacks on character and integrity are much harder to overcome.

(Note: watch those horoscope scores!)

(Note: Odin's references to "technocracy" would appear to be related to the style of candidates rather than policy substance)

This is not just a matter of personality type, but political timing. When you are trying to extend a streak, you are, by definition, running as a representative of the existing "Establishment," a far less exciting and inspiring task than running as a fresh-faced agent of change.

You can try to strike a populist note, as Gore (“they're for the powerful; we're for the people”) and Clinton (“the deck is stacked in favor of those at the top”) tried to do. You can try to emphasize certain differences between yourself and the incumbent. But there’s no getting around the fact that you supported the policies of the past eight years, and, if not literally promising status quo, would govern in a similar vein.

If the electorate were ever firmly on the side of the ruling party, such a “stay the course” message would be sufficient. But voters have a tendency of being nonplused by political achievements. When you consider that Prime Minister Winston Churchill was cast off by British voters two months after Germany was defeated in World War II, it makes one better understand Gore’s difficulty in running on Bill Clinton’s balanced budgets or Hillary Clinton’s challenge in touting Barack Obama’s steady job growth.

It’s unusual for a ruling party to have a sweeping and unequivocal success that can solidify its bond with a sizable majority. Typically, policy advancements are incremental, and their positive impact is unevenly distributed. For example, Hillary Clinton celebrated that 20 million more people have health insurance thanks to Obamacare, the incumbent’s signature domestic achievement. That’s a big number, but the electorate was more than six times bigger. Moreover, others who previously had insurance and saw their premium rise won’t appreciate that the rise might have been higher without Obamacare. In turn, support for Obamacare in the 2016 election was split down the middle, almost perfectly tracking the national popular vote.

The problem of lingering dissatisfaction with incremental change is a major obstacle for ruling parties, but especially Democrats. As the party of activist government, the Democratic Party tends to be judged primarily on the scope of its domestic policy performance. If Democrats can’t condition voters to accept a realistic pace of change, the boom-bust cycle of initial hope followed by crushing disappointment is bound to bedevil them.

As Democrats will suddenly control no branch of the federal government, solving the puzzle of how to win a third term in a row is probably low on their list of priorities. But if they are to have an opening to wrest the White House back from Trump in 2020, it will probably be because Trump failed to meet the outsized expectations he gave himself. When Democrats look to seize any such opening, they may want to be careful not to overpromise all over again.

Bill Scher is a senior writer at Campaign for America's Future, executive editor of LiberalOasis and a contributor to RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at contact@liberaloasis.com or follow him on Twitter @BillScher.

[pbrower2a]

To be fair, both Gore and Hillary Clinton won the majority of the popular vote.

It's now up to Democrats to ensure that the real-life Berzelius Windrip (from Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here) be a one-term President.

[Warren Dew]

Didn't Truman win a fifth consecutive term for the Democrats? Given that, the article Eric posts seems kind of whiny.

[Eric the Green]

(11-21-2016, 01:03 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Didn't Truman win a fifth consecutive term for the Democrats?  Given that, the article Eric posts seems kind of whiny.

As Margaret Thatcher might say, there's lots to whine about.

Yes, Truman won that.

The pattern in the past has been that one party becomes predominant during and/or soon after a 4T. Neither party has achieved that yet in this 4T.

Republican dominance during and after the civil war lasted longer than the Democratic dominance during and after the Depression and WWII, although the Democratic Party's control returned after Ike and Democratic policies were mostly maintained even during Ike's reign. In 2T's apparently, the dominance breaks down.

[MillennialJim]

(Hi - former T4T forum user, occasional poster under handles similar to this one), no one of any consequence though - going back to 2003 or so.  Glad someone set this up!)

Thought regarding the 2016 election:

One could think of the New Deal as a deal in part with southern whites.  That is, the tacit price of new deal legislation was arguably no movement or little movement on civil rights and the perpetuation of Jim Crow etc into the 60's.  Until LBJ, many new deal type democrats were in fact white southerners.  

Go back to the 4T of the founders.  A key compromise in the federalist system was the issue of slaves.  


I understand that Trump is equally likely to be a robber baron in power as he is to be what he campaigned on.  But, if for example he starts pushing through trillion dollar infrastructure bills, and essentially courts the white working class voters on both the left and the right (who may overlap on key issues.  Trump met with Bernie Sanders supporter Gabby Giffords today, in fact), could Trump be a product of this type of tacit political compromise?

In a 4T, in other words, is our political system set up in such a way that we can only make these big conceptual changes for the white majority, waiting for a young prophet generation in a 2T to open up opportunities for excluded groups?

I have strong opinions on this but wanted to ask the question rather than answer it myself.

[Eric the Green]

There is a possibility that Trump has gained a white working-class voter base that accepts racism or xenophobia. He has promised some economic things that appealed to this base, like an infrastructure spending bill and better trade deals. In other respects though, his promises depend on supply-side trickle-down economics that gives big breaks to "free market" corporations and business. This is purely right wing. It is a strange and motley mixture, but the right-wing elements predominate. And they hurt the people, regardless of race.

He is unlikely to fulfill on his promises, even though his positive thinking, self-esteem skills help him (and help him to deceive the people and keep up some popularity). But there's plenty of whites on both right and left that don't approve of enormous increases to the debt, as Trump proposes (both through spending and tax cuts). And getting better trade deals seems unlikely. He is a good deal maker, but politics is different than business, and his insults against religions and nations are far more relevant to whether he can succeed at this game, than in his business dealings where these aren't a factor.

[Galen]

(11-21-2016, 01:03 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Didn't Truman win a fifth consecutive term for the Democrats?  Given that, the article Eric posts seems kind of whiny.

That is his normal state.

[Marypoza]

(11-21-2016, 02:28 PM)MillennialJim Wrote: (Hi - former T4T forum user, occasional poster under handles similar to this one), no one of any consequence though - going back to 2003 or so.  Glad someone set this up!)

Thought regarding the 2016 election:

One could think of the New Deal as a deal in part with southern whites.  That is, the tacit price of new deal legislation was arguably no movement or little movement on civil rights and the perpetuation of Jim Crow etc into the 60's.  Until LBJ, many new deal type democrats were in fact white southerners.  

Go back to the 4T of the founders.  A key compromise in the federalist system was the issue of slaves.  


I understand that Trump is equally likely to be a robber baron in power as he is to be what he campaigned on.  But, if for example he starts pushing through trillion dollar infrastructure bills, and essentially courts the white working class voters on both the left and the right (who may overlap on key issues.  Trump met with Bernie Sanders supporter Gabby Giffords today, in fact), could Trump be a product of this type of tacit political compromise?

In a 4T, in other words, is our political system set up in such a way that we can only make these big conceptual changes for the white majority, waiting for a young prophet generation in a 2T to open up opportunities for excluded groups?

I have strong opinions on this but wanted to ask the question rather than answer it myself.

-- Tulsi met with the Donald too

[pbrower2a]

(11-21-2016, 02:28 PM)MillennialJim Wrote: (Hi - former T4T forum user, occasional poster under handles similar to this one), no one of any consequence though - going back to 2003 or so.  Glad someone set this up!)

Thought regarding the 2016 election:

One could think of the New Deal as a deal in part with southern whites.  That is, the tacit price of new deal legislation was arguably no movement or little movement on civil rights and the perpetuation of Jim Crow etc into the 60's.  Until LBJ, many new deal type democrats were in fact white southerners.  

Go back to the 4T of the founders.  A key compromise in the federalist system was the issue of slaves.  


I understand that Trump is equally likely to be a robber baron in power as he is to be what he campaigned on.  But, if for example he starts pushing through trillion dollar infrastructure bills, and essentially courts the white working class voters on both the left and the right (who may overlap on key issues.  Trump met with Bernie Sanders supporter Gabby Giffords today, in fact), could Trump be a product of this type of tacit political compromise?

In a 4T, in other words, is our political system set up in such a way that we can only make these big conceptual changes for the white majority, waiting for a young prophet generation in a 2T to open up opportunities for excluded groups?

I have strong opinions on this but wanted to ask the question rather than answer it myself.

I expect Donald Trump to betray American workers. Once elected he may never need their votes again or may never have any doubt about them voting 'right', because 2016 could be the last Presidential election for a  very long time that has any semblance of freeness and fairness. The Republican Party is all about power of the Master Class to exact as much toil from working people for as little as possible and to cut corners on workplace safety and the environment as necessary to maximize profits. Expect American cities to have as polluted air as Krakow, Poland in the Commie era -- it was worse than Greater Los Angeles at the time, and not because it had a huge number of automobiles. The Commies wasted energy from coal, treating energy costs and environmental damage as practically trivial costs in the desire to create a large industrial base around a university town that never had been a manufacturing center. The Republicans will almost certainly do what they can to entrench themselves permanently in an absolute plutocracy that has the inequity characteristic of Imperial Russia in the first decade of the 20th century, if not the plantation order of the antebellum South.

Expect the big projects to be full of graft, with mobsters (especially Boris Putin's buddies in the Russian Mafia) taking huge cuts, effectively gutting much of the benefit of the big projects. If you wonder why the two are such good buddies -- the Russian Mob has huge hooks into both.

Despite turning the calendar back eighty-to-ninety years in labor-management relations, race relations, and treatment of the elderly (get rid of Social Security and let the elderly work until they drop dead or get killed in industrial accidents because their reflexes are too slow), things could be a net positive for white working-class people... so long as Donald Trump should largely imitate an Apartheid system. Things were freakishly good for white people of modest skill and talent in Apartheid-era South Africa.  For lack of opportunities to maintain middle-class American ways of life, non-white, non-Anglo, and non-Christian minorities might sell out their homes and business properties cheaply to white Anglo Christians. Even California (which has lots of Mexican-Americans owning expensive houses because the owners' families bought them in the 1960s or earlier when California housing was still affordable) could become affordable again. But at the same time "Silicon Valley" might have to relocate to some place without the American Apartheid. Mexico seems obvious enough.

It's still a raw deal, all in all, for working people because they will die in more industrial accidents and work harder and longer for less while they get to pay higher taxes that the super-rich get excused from paying. The truly dangerous part will come from the sowing of seeds of ethnic and religious discord in a perverse effort to divide and conquer -- in which case the USA could be the next Yugoslavia. I can imagine the USA fracturing along cultural lines that bear little resemblance to any modern, official map of the United States -- note even on state lines. For example, I can imagine a new republic centered on the southern shore of Lake Michigan that includes Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Hammond, South Bend, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek, containing parts of four states yet united to nothing, perhaps separated by hostile territory from Detroit-Flint-Saginaw-Toledo. On one side of the line a Confederate flag in your possession might be cause for summary execution. On the other side a picture of Barack Obama might be cause for summary execution. That is how 'racial' wars go when they have an ideology behind them.

We may be stuck on such a course because enough Americans fell for a malicious demagogue. I have seen plenty of instances in history in which ruthless demagogues stir up ethnic and sectarian strife for short-lived political advantage; I know of no instance when such   fails to create monumental suffering, if not mass death.

I apologize for seeing this all from the bleakest possible view. I expect any good to come from a Trump Administration (more investment and more-- if far-lower-paying jobs) to have a much bigger offset in harm.

[MillennialJim]

(11-21-2016, 04:52 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(11-21-2016, 02:28 PM)MillennialJim Wrote: (Hi - former T4T forum user, occasional poster under handles similar to this one), no one of any consequence though - going back to 2003 or so.  Glad someone set this up!)

Thought regarding the 2016 election:

One could think of the New Deal as a deal in part with southern whites.  That is, the tacit price of new deal legislation was arguably no movement or little movement on civil rights and the perpetuation of Jim Crow etc into the 60's.  Until LBJ, many new deal type democrats were in fact white southerners.  

Go back to the 4T of the founders.  A key compromise in the federalist system was the issue of slaves.  


I understand that Trump is equally likely to be a robber baron in power as he is to be what he campaigned on.  But, if for example he starts pushing through trillion dollar infrastructure bills, and essentially courts the white working class voters on both the left and the right (who may overlap on key issues.  Trump met with Bernie Sanders supporter Gabby Giffords today, in fact), could Trump be a product of this type of tacit political compromise?

In a 4T, in other words, is our political system set up in such a way that we can only make these big conceptual changes for the white majority, waiting for a young prophet generation in a 2T to open up opportunities for excluded groups?

I have strong opinions on this but wanted to ask the question rather than answer it myself.

-- Tulsi met with the Donald too

TFW you brain fart and type the wrong name on your first post back...  

[Marypoza]

(11-22-2016, 11:16 AM)MillennialJim Wrote:

(11-21-2016, 04:52 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(11-21-2016, 02:28 PM)MillennialJim Wrote: (Hi - former T4T forum user, occasional poster under handles similar to this one), no one of any consequence though - going back to 2003 or so.  Glad someone set this up!)

Thought regarding the 2016 election:

One could think of the New Deal as a deal in part with southern whites.  That is, the tacit price of new deal legislation was arguably no movement or little movement on civil rights and the perpetuation of Jim Crow etc into the 60's.  Until LBJ, many new deal type democrats were in fact white southerners.  

Go back to the 4T of the founders.  A key compromise in the federalist system was the issue of slaves.  


I understand that Trump is equally likely to be a robber baron in power as he is to be what he campaigned on.  But, if for example he starts pushing through trillion dollar infrastructure bills, and essentially courts the white working class voters on both the left and the right (who may overlap on key issues.  Trump met with Bernie Sanders supporter Gabby Giffords today, in fact), could Trump be a product of this type of tacit political compromise?

In a 4T, in other words, is our political system set up in such a way that we can only make these big conceptual changes for the white majority, waiting for a young prophet generation in a 2T to open up opportunities for excluded groups?

I have strong opinions on this but wanted to ask the question rather than answer it myself.

-- Tulsi met with the Donald too

TFW you brain fart and type the wrong name on your first post back...  

-- oh so you meant Tulsi all along then. I thought the Donald met with both of them. Anyhow, Tulsi is apparantly up for a cabinet position- the token Dem in his administraton. That's a good sign if he's gonna work with the Berniecrats, to prefer them over the neolibtard Dems

[Eric the Green]

How did things go in the state legislatures? Apparently, the Democrats gained just one state, and one chamber, and may have ended supermajorities in a few. I'm still trying to make sense of this article:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/11...to-GOP-s-3

maybe I can post this graphic: