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The Partisan Divide on Issues
#41
(12-02-2019, 06:20 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 03:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-29-2019, 05:16 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: "you are expected to conform and vote Republican"? What kind of crap is that? Doesn't America have secret ballots?

Yes, and yet these areas do vote Republican by margins of 4 or 5 to one. That's conformity. If you don't agree, you keep your mouth shut and have no influence. Those 4 or 5 to 1 stats are quite verifiable in most rural and small-town, white-dominated counties in America. You can check it out. And people in those areas do not have access to much besides Fox News, Christian broadcasts and right-wing talk radio, and they are more susceptible to conspiracy theory and fake news, which they take as gospel.
Dude, we all have access to the national broadcast channels ABC, NBC, CBS and most likely Fox too these days. What's your opinion of the urban areas that vote Democratic by margins of  8 to 2 these days? Do you have a problem with that issue? I don't a problem with that at all and I'm pretty sure the Republicans don't have an issue with that either.

I do have a problem, because the Democrats represent just the normal range of opinion, while the Republicans represent an extreme right-wing malevolent point of view. If the Republicans weren't so extreme and opposed to every social advancement or solution, then the urban areas would be less extreme today, as they were before Reagan. My county, for example, supported President Ford in 1976. It only gave Trump about 20% of the vote.

The right-wing white rural folks do not watch ABC, NBC or CBS, but only Fox News. They are ostracized if they watch anything else. And even if they do watch the older networks, these stations only present neutral, superficial bare-bones news of daily events rather than the slanted broadcasts of commentary on Fox. And they have very little in the way of talk shows or news magazines like Fox has anymore; most of them have been converted into murder mysteries.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#42
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition. I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end. That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add. The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000). Their burbs are both very Red. I think that's typical.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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#43
(12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition.  I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end.  That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add.  The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000).   Their burbs are both very Red.  I think that's typical.

Right, and in our electoral college system, the Trump voters in big blue cities and counties do not matter. The Trump voters, with their overwhelming majority in rural and small-town areas, turn states red that do not have big blue cities in them, and they have far more clout in the electoral college, because it's set up to favor smaller states. So, the source of the power of Trump and Republicans today, in the Senate and in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, is the rural and small town and small city areas that vote Republican by overwhelming margins.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
#44
(12-04-2019, 12:37 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote:
(12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition.  I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end.  That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add.  The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000).   Their burbs are both very Red.  I think that's typical.


My point is that the vast majority of Trump supporters even in red states do not live in small towns and rural areas. States west of the Mississippi have extremely parsley populated rural areas yet 2/3’s of them voted for Trump over Clinton. Even east of the Mississippi River where rural areas are more populated still have more Trump voters in the exurbs/suburbs/small to large sized cities than in the countryside. The average Republican in Tennessee lives either in a city the population of 50k or more or in the metro of Nashville or Memphis. Trump won the Midwest because of the shift of non-college educated whites to him primarily mid and larger sized cities (since most midwestern suburbs are already fairly Republican outside of like, Chicago’s or Dane county WI).


I just find this conversation around rural/small town Trump supporters to be very silly given that a strong majority of Republicans don’t live there. If the GOP were centered primarily in rural America then they’d be a minority Party.

No, this is not silly at all. You're not getting the point. The electoral college determines our elections for president; have you ever heard of it? Those small town Trump voters determine the outcome of our elections. Republican voters in big blue cities are grossly outvoted these days. They don't matter, since their electoral votes go to Democrats. "Rural" in this case also means small towns and cities. These are in "red" counties that vote Republican by 3,4 or 5 to one or more. There are thousands of them. They turn their states red, and they often turn purple states red. And speaking of color, these voters are almost all white, and they are predominantly non-college educated.

The Trump vote that turned blue states red in the midwest came primarily from areas outside the big cities.

In normally red states, like Oklahoma, Texas or Tennessee, the big cities there vote blue by narrow margins, or vote red in a smaller margin than in the more rural counties. In these bluer portions of red states, I've seen that in most cases they voted for Trump by a smaller margin than they voted for Romney, while in the rural areas the margin for Trump increased over that for Romney.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
#45
(12-04-2019, 01:30 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition.  I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end.  That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add.  The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000).   Their burbs are both very Red.  I think that's typical.

Right, and in our electoral college system, the Trump voters in big blue cities and counties do not matter. The Trump voters, with their overwhelming majority in rural and small-town areas, turn states red that do not have big blue cities in them, and they have far more clout in the electoral college, because it's set up to favor smaller states. So, the source of the power of Trump and Republicans today, in the Senate and in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, is the rural and small town and small city areas that vote Republican by overwhelming margins.
What? Absolute number no longer matters to the liberals anymore. What are the liberals going to do when Trump gets the majority of the vote in 2020, wins  the majority of the electoral college again, regains the majority of the House, strengthens the majority of the Senate and has the majority of the Supreme Court and the right to pick them too? Right now, I'd say that those unpleasant realities for liberals are more likely going to happen at this point. Are you going to support liberal revolts/riots and support liberal movements to secede from the Union at that point?
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#46
(12-04-2019, 09:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-04-2019, 01:30 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition.  I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end.  That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add.  The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000).   Their burbs are both very Red.  I think that's typical.

Right, and in our electoral college system, the Trump voters in big blue cities and counties do not matter. The Trump voters, with their overwhelming majority in rural and small-town areas, turn states red that do not have big blue cities in them, and they have far more clout in the electoral college, because it's set up to favor smaller states. So, the source of the power of Trump and Republicans today, in the Senate and in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, is the rural and small town and small city areas that vote Republican by overwhelming margins.
What? Absolute numbers don't matter to the liberals anymore. What are the liberals going to do when Trump gets the majority of the vote in 2020, wins  the majority of the electoral college, regains the majority of the House, strengthens the  majority of the Senate and has the majority of the Supreme Court too? Right now, I'd say that those unpleasant realities are more likely going to happen at this point.

Go into mourning, knowing that the United States has become an Evil Empire, a plutocratic equivalent of the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era.  But that is if things go as you expect. I realize that people who know you who happen to be liberals know enough to avoid discussing politics with you, so you might be clueless about how Americans think.

Here are the facts. The only ones in Trump's favor are, first, that Donald Trump can win an essentially-binary election with a mere 45% of the popular vote (that is how the Electoral College now works), which means  that  Donald Trump could get a smaller share of the popular vote than someone who won only 111 electoral votes (Dukakis, 45.62%  of the popular vote in 1988) and get re-elected. Second, the Master Class that seeks to maximize profits through monopoly pricing and Third World wages, can open the spigots for political campaigns as it did in 2010  and 2014. Third, America is not in a recession or  a war going badly.

On the other hand, the perception that Donald Trump is an obnoxious, abrasive, cruel man remains. It sickens me that he got nominated for president and then elected after he was exposed as saying  "I grab  'em by their p---ies" and after mocking a reporter on the autistic spectrum. Grabbing women by their crotches without their consent is "criminal sexual conduct" in Michigan, and rape should there be penetration. I'm not going to compare the offense that ridicule of people for handicaps  is to ethnic slurs, but I will say this about religious slurs: I am on the autistic spectrum and I often have been attacked for being Jewish on the Web... both hurt. (I fit three Jewish stereotypes  very well). 

Demographic change does not help Donald Trump or the GOP. Figuring that the electorate is mostly aged 25 to 85 and the over-55 part of the electorate is about 5% more Republican than Democratic and that the Millennial generation  is about 20% more Democratic than Republican, about 1.67% of the electorate turns over due to death and debility. That is about a 1.67%  shift from R to D in the popular vote. The GOP has nothing to offer young adults except crony capitalism that yields below-average opportunities for young adults in return for greater inequality of economic result.

Approval numbers for Donald Trump have been poor, and disapproval numbers have been even more ominous. Eleven months the 2020 election, Trump is losing every state that he lost in 2020 with approval numbers in the thirties and disapproval numbers in the high fifties and higher. Trump is being crushed in all giant cities and is losing many of the suburbs that used to go R as late as 2004. This should be little surprise, as Suburbia has a majority of adults with college educations.  Trump still wins under-educated white people, but that will not be enough in 2020.

The current President is monstrously corrupt, and he is not getting away with it. OK, the Senate might quash an impeachment, but the damage to his credibility is not going away. The negative ads practically write themselves. Certain deeds, including bribery and extortion are so vile that the attempts to commit them are themselves crimes.  (See also murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, espionage, theft, and arson).

I see a catastrophic failure of this President by historical measures, and I thus see him losing.
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.


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#47
(12-04-2019, 10:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Go into mourning, knowing that the United States has become an Evil Empire, a plutocratic equivalent of the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era.  But that is if things go as you expect. I realize that people who know you who happen to be liberals know enough to avoid discussing politics with you, so you might be clueless about how Americans think.

Here are the facts. The only ones in Trump's favor are, first, that Donald Trump can win an essentially-binary election with a mere 45% of the popular vote (that is how the Electoral College now works), which means  that  Donald Trump could get a smaller share of the popular vote than someone who won only 111 electoral votes (Dukakis, 45.62%  of the popular vote in 1988) and get re-elected. Second, the Master Class that seeks to maximize profits through monopoly pricing and Third World wages, can open the spigots for political campaigns as it did in 2010  and 2014. Third, America is not in a recession or  a war going badly.

On the other hand, the perception that Donald Trump is an obnoxious, abrasive, cruel man remains. It sickens me that he got nominated for president and then elected after he was exposed as saying  "I grab  'em by their p---ies" and after mocking a reporter on the autistic spectrum. Grabbing women by their crotches without their consent is "criminal sexual conduct" in Michigan, and rape should there be penetration. I'm not going to compare the offense that ridicule of people for handicaps  is to ethnic slurs, but I will say this about religious slurs: I am on the autistic spectrum and I often have been attacked for being Jewish on the Web... both hurt. (I fit three Jewish stereotypes  very well). 

Demographic change does not help Donald Trump or the GOP. Figuring that the electorate is mostly aged 25 to 85 and the over-55 part of the electorate is about 5% more Republican than Democratic and that the Millennial generation  is about 20% more Democratic than Republican, about 1.67% of the electorate turns over due to death and debility. That is about a 1.67%  shift from R to D in the popular vote. The GOP has nothing to offer young adults except crony capitalism that yields below-average opportunities for young adults in return for greater inequality of economic result.

Approval numbers for Donald Trump have been poor, and disapproval numbers have been even more ominous. Eleven months the 2020 election, Trump is losing every state that he lost in 2020 with approval numbers in the thirties and disapproval numbers in the high fifties and higher. Trump is being crushed in all giant cities and is losing many of the suburbs that used to go R as late as 2004. This should be little surprise, as Suburbia has a majority of adults with college educations.  Trump still wins under-educated white people, but that will not be enough in 2020.

The current President is monstrously corrupt, and he is not getting away with it. OK, the Senate might quash an impeachment, but the damage to his credibility is not going away. The negative ads practically write themselves. Certain deeds, including bribery and extortion are so vile that the attempts to commit them are themselves crimes.  (See also murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, espionage, theft, and arson).

I see a catastrophic failure of this President by historical measures, and I thus see him losing.
I know a bunch of old diehard Democrats who recently passed away. I know of two older fellow Republican voters who passed away recently. I assume that you believe that those associated with the demographic changes are either to dumb, to poor, to timid or sensitive, to afraid or to untrusting of white people, to racially motivated and oriented, to highly educated or educated to much in liberal values and liberal beliefs, to familiar with the way the liberal system specifically caters to them and their needs, to reliant on their big government related checks, to reliant upon their welfare benefits, to cozy with their plush liberal oriented jobs and so forth to even consider voting Republican these days or in the future. Do I seem to care about what liberals think/believe these days? The liberals who know me, who now avoid discussing and possibly getting into a serious political argument with me,  learned that being conceded and being thoughtless and getting personal with me in front of others turned out to be a major mistake that ended up damaging them way more than it damaged me.
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#48
Pbrower, You and Eric especially need to understand that progressives (Supporters of Bernie, Tulsi, Yang, Marianne, Krystal ball, etc.) Supporters and Conservatives are increasingly coming to both hate Establishment Neoliberals a lot more than they do each other. The Clintonistas talk of fighting "red" libertarian/Conservatives politically but are unaware of the resentment they are generating within their own party regarding the the Last primary and likely the Current primary as well. The DNC in its current familiarly known form may not even make it to the actual Democrats vs Republicans phase of the 2020 election next fall; if they pursue the course they are showing obvious signs of doing.

Regarding Impeachment, the DNC is obviously using it as a political cheap shot, which is why they are embracing the laughable idea of a closed-door impeachment. If Establishment democrats genuinely feel so strongly about impeachment and/or grounds for an prerequisites for that process; then why aren't you even attempting to do it the constitutionally mandated way, because that would mean the establishment candidates would have to return to DC to participate in congressional and senatorial review sessions, if that occurs (Bernie would also have to go back to DC, but he already has name-recognition so that wouldn't matter that much to him). Most of the establishment candidates would be crippled in the primary if that happened. The political motivations behind impeachment are quite transparent.

If the DNC screws us, you will face a mass internal party revolt of Millennials, White Moderates, Latinos, Northern Blacks and Asians. The DNC would be left with Establishment White Liberals, Some Neocon defectors and Southern Blacks basically. It would be impossible for clintonistas to even think of defeating Classic-Xer-type "reds" if that happens. Instead you won't even be able to have the option of focusing your electoral weight against solely the conservatives: Because you would have provoked a "Two-front War".

Classic and Kinser can weigh in on this discussion as well.
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#49
(12-04-2019, 10:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-04-2019, 01:30 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition.  I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end.  That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add.  The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000).   Their burbs are both very Red.  I think that's typical.

Right, and in our electoral college system, the Trump voters in big blue cities and counties do not matter. The Trump voters, with their overwhelming majority in rural and small-town areas, turn states red that do not have big blue cities in them, and they have far more clout in the electoral college, because it's set up to favor smaller states. So, the source of the power of Trump and Republicans today, in the Senate and in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, is the rural and small town and small city areas that vote Republican by overwhelming margins.
What? Absolute number no longer matters to the liberals anymore. What are the liberals going to do when Trump gets the majority of the vote in 2020, wins  the majority of the electoral college again, regains the majority of the House, strengthens the majority of the Senate and has the majority of the Supreme Court and the right to pick them too? Right now, I'd say that those unpleasant realities for liberals are more likely going to happen at this point. Are you going to support liberal revolts/riots and support liberal movements to secede from the Union at that point?

I might support a Calexit or other secession movements, but riots are not effective. Otherwise, we just keep trying to move the nation forward instead of the backward direction you expect. And I expect our side will win.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
#50
(12-05-2019, 01:12 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-04-2019, 10:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Go into mourning, knowing that the United States has become an Evil Empire, a plutocratic equivalent of the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era.  But that is if things go as you expect. I realize that people who know you who happen to be liberals know enough to avoid discussing politics with you, so you might be clueless about how Americans think.

Here are the facts. The only ones in Trump's favor are, first, that Donald Trump can win an essentially-binary election with a mere 45% of the popular vote (that is how the Electoral College now works), which means  that  Donald Trump could get a smaller share of the popular vote than someone who won only 111 electoral votes (Dukakis, 45.62%  of the popular vote in 1988) and get re-elected. Second, the Master Class that seeks to maximize profits through monopoly pricing and Third World wages, can open the spigots for political campaigns as it did in 2010  and 2014. Third, America is not in a recession or  a war going badly.

On the other hand, the perception that Donald Trump is an obnoxious, abrasive, cruel man remains. It sickens me that he got nominated for president and then elected after he was exposed as saying  "I grab  'em by their p---ies" and after mocking a reporter on the autistic spectrum. Grabbing women by their crotches without their consent is "criminal sexual conduct" in Michigan, and rape should there be penetration. I'm not going to compare the offense that ridicule of people for handicaps  is to ethnic slurs, but I will say this about religious slurs: I am on the autistic spectrum and I often have been attacked for being Jewish on the Web... both hurt. (I fit three Jewish stereotypes  very well). 

Demographic change does not help Donald Trump or the GOP. Figuring that the electorate is mostly aged 25 to 85 and the over-55 part of the electorate is about 5% more Republican than Democratic and that the Millennial generation  is about 20% more Democratic than Republican, about 1.67% of the electorate turns over due to death and debility. That is about a 1.67%  shift from R to D in the popular vote. The GOP has nothing to offer young adults except crony capitalism that yields below-average opportunities for young adults in return for greater inequality of economic result.

Approval numbers for Donald Trump have been poor, and disapproval numbers have been even more ominous. Eleven months the 2020 election, Trump is losing every state that he lost in 2020 with approval numbers in the thirties and disapproval numbers in the high fifties and higher. Trump is being crushed in all giant cities and is losing many of the suburbs that used to go R as late as 2004. This should be little surprise, as Suburbia has a majority of adults with college educations.  Trump still wins under-educated white people, but that will not be enough in 2020.

The current President is monstrously corrupt, and he is not getting away with it. OK, the Senate might quash an impeachment, but the damage to his credibility is not going away. The negative ads practically write themselves. Certain deeds, including bribery and extortion are so vile that the attempts to commit them are themselves crimes.  (See also murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, espionage, theft, and arson).

I see a catastrophic failure of this President by historical measures, and I thus see him losing.

I know a bunch of old diehard Democrats who recently passed away. I know of two older fellow Republican voters who passed away recently. I assume that you believe that those associated with the demographic changes are either to dumb, to poor, to timid or sensitive, to afraid or to untrusting of white people, to racially motivated and oriented, to highly educated or educated to much in liberal values and liberal beliefs, to familiar with the way the liberal system specifically caters to them and their needs, to reliant on their big government related checks, to reliant upon their welfare benefits, to cozy with their plush liberal oriented jobs and so forth to even consider voting Republican these days or in the future. Do I seem to care about what liberals think/believe these days? The liberals who know me, who now avoid discussing and possibly getting into a serious political argument with me,  learned that being conceded and being thoughtless and getting personal with me in front of others turned out to be a major mistake that ended up damaging them way more than it damaged me.


You ramble even more than I do. So point by point:

1. (knowing that to is a preposition expressing direction or the particle signaling the infinitive and that too is an adverb expressing excess... as in one takes Interstate 80 to get to Iowa from Greater New York, but that if you have reached Nebraska, then you have gone too far  (the exception is Carter Lake, Iowa, a community cut off by an oxbow of the Missouri River and now accessible more  from Omaha, Nebraska than from any part of Iowa)... You did get two correctly as the number 2. 

Practically all Asian-American groups are better educated and richer than white people as a whole. The black bourgeoisie and the growing Hispanic middle class are both above average in income. Among these the only groups among them that vote largely-Republican are descendants of the early refugees from Castro's Cuba... to be middle-class in income in America is inconsistent with stupidity. With an anti-intellectualism that goes beyond the old target of wayward professors like Timothy Leary in his day and Ward Churchill or Rachel Dolezal in more recent times to such people as accountants, schoolteachers, and engineers who are big parts of the middle class. The Hard Right hates education other than training for specific tasks because genuine education might make people think. People with genuine educations are much less likely to fall for demagoguery and propaganda than are people barely literate. Tyrants such as Stalin, Mao, and Saddam promoted basic literacy so that people could read propaganda, instruction manuals, and warning signs. In contrast such tyrants as Hitler, Castro, and Pinochet, who had literate populations in place debased formal education into mere 'basic literacy' so that people would be unable to think their way into dissent. When the United States liberated Germany the Army had custody over over German POWs it found that the younger German troops were far below American standards of education at the time and needed basic education as well as deprogramming from National-Satanist ideology. Graduates of German universities were well regarded if they graduated at any time other than the Nazi era; in the Nazi era the universities were diploma mills.    

Most of the people that I know support Donald Trump have limited education and -- worse -- no curiosity.  People who have great respect for formal education at the least for professional development learn other things, such as that there is music other than 'country', and that there are other ways to see the world than what their parents told them.  

2. There are stupid people, and they are going to become poor quickly if they are not poor already. Such people must be watched for for their own sake so that they not be exploited, so that they not neglect something necessary for survival, and so that they not be duped into doing something horribly wrong. The right environment for such people is often a sheltered workshop in which they get to make contributions to their society for modest rewards. People who care for them can ensure that they get some delights that do them little harm... once a year to the amusement park or a sporting event, occasional movies, nights out for dinner and a movie.  

3. Timid? Some of us are cautious. People with disabilities -- even the least troublesome item on the DMS-IV (Asperger's syndrome, which I have) -- know that things can go very badly, but especially for themselves. Sensitive? Damned right! We ought to be sensitive about hearing a racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, or anti-handicap smear; we are all in the same world, and the gain from cruelty or bigotry is not worth the harm to the victims.       

4. I know lots of white people, and I can warn people who are not unambiguously white that there are some vile racists among white people. Some people do not merit trust even among their own groups (think of the contempt that many Italian-Americans have for the Mafia, most German-Americans have of neo-Nazis, and most Hispanics have of MS-13)... and while there are white racists who would treat me well so long as they don't figure that I be Jewish (they often figure that out -- wrongly), I would not introduce such people to anyone who is not unambiguously a white gentile.      

5. THE BIG ONE -- we used to have a large part of the electorate that truly believed in small-scale government that provided few services and expected people to take care of themselves. Liberals promoted the welfare state as a means of helping people better at creating prosperity than in getting their fair share or people that capitalism left out. As such, liberals got6 associated with Big Government. In recent years the Right has found that Big Government can support lucrative-but-destructive crony capitalism both by providing such goodies as wars for profit, suppression of labor unions, public-private partnerships (the taxpayer takes the risk, but a profiteer gets monopoly profit arising from guaranteed profit and exemption from competition), and enforcement of monopoly constraints. Everyone is for Big Government so long as it is the sort of big government that he wants. Otherwise he is $crewed.  

We may have some economic disaster in which government must retrench either due to more pressing concerns (such as an apocalyptic war) or hyperinflation at some time. Add to this, crony capitalism ordinarily proves averse to innovation and modernization when such offers competition or efficiency that hurts its cost-plus model in which it can get away with bloating the costs of doing business.  Perhaps we will need to alter the culture to foster small-scale entrepreneurialism when the dinosaurs die of their own corruption, incompetence, unresponsiveness, and even criminality. That's how life was in early New England: own the business (even if it is only a tradesman's outfit) or starve. 

6. The Republican Party is the Tea Party... and Donald Trump is its Presidential expression. Such may not portend survival. America was better before the Tea Party gave a populist veneer to a plutocratic agenda. We have a Hard Right, a large center-Left, a tiny Hard Left, and regrettably a tiny (and seemingly irrelevant) center-Right. The center-Right has usually been associated with people with savings, life-insurance policies, and small portfolios of stocks and bonds. It has been for reasonably-stable prices but an economy vibrant enough to protect savings from being devoured in economic downturns. It is also wise enough to recognize speculative booms for the impending disasters that they are. 

Maybe the Democratic Party will attract the center-right for the lack of a home... and will start cultivating it. Maybe it will eventually break from the Democratic Party as the Republican Party that we now know goes as politically bankrupt as it is now morally bankrupt. Extremists are hostile to stability, but the center-Right is the most reliable supporter of solid conservatism -- the sort that stands for something worthy of protection from radical assaults of both the Left and the Right.
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.


Reply
#51
(12-05-2019, 03:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(12-04-2019, 10:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-04-2019, 01:30 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(12-03-2019, 01:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:
(12-01-2019, 01:32 PM)Snowflake1996 Wrote: The overwhelming bulk of support for Donald Trump and the GOP lie in non-rural areas. These include exurbs, suburbs, small and medium sized cities, and even large cities.

Just looking at large cities alone:
  • Los Angeles County had more Trump voters than the entire state of Kansas.
  • Cook County IL had more Trump voters than the entire state of Idaho. 
  • Brooklyn + The Bronx combined had more Trump voters than Wyoming.

This isn’t to say Trump voters don’t have actual legitimate grievances. But in terms of raw numbers, the vast majority of them are not living in rural areas or small towns below the size of 20k people. Most live in metros the size of 50k-100k people or more.

You're comparing pumpkins and grapes.  Sure, there are a lot of Trump voters in highly populated areas, but the percentage is what's important -- not the absolute number.  Likewise, low population areas can only have so many voters, by definition.  I live in the exurbs, and it's Trump, end-to-end.  That's true of low and high education individuals, I might add.  The two closest cities are small-to-medium size, with one being Purple (~80,000) and the other solidly Blue (~110,000).   Their burbs are both very Red.  I think that's typical.

Right, and in our electoral college system, the Trump voters in big blue cities and counties do not matter. The Trump voters, with their overwhelming majority in rural and small-town areas, turn states red that do not have big blue cities in them, and they have far more clout in the electoral college, because it's set up to favor smaller states. So, the source of the power of Trump and Republicans today, in the Senate and in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, is the rural and small town and small city areas that vote Republican by overwhelming margins.
What? Absolute number no longer matters to the liberals anymore. What are the liberals going to do when Trump gets the majority of the vote in 2020, wins  the majority of the electoral college again, regains the majority of the House, strengthens the majority of the Senate and has the majority of the Supreme Court and the right to pick them too? Right now, I'd say that those unpleasant realities for liberals are more likely going to happen at this point. Are you going to support liberal revolts/riots and support liberal movements to secede from the Union at that point?

I might support a Calexit or other secession movements, but riots are not effective. Otherwise, we just keep trying to move the nation forward instead of the backward direction you expect. And I expect our side will win.
True, riots aren't effective with us and don't really have much of an impact on us at all these days.
Reply
#52
(12-05-2019, 10:06 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Pbrower, You and Eric especially need to understand that progressives (Supporters of Bernie, Tulsi, Yang, Marianne, Krystal ball, etc.) Supporters and Conservatives are increasingly coming to both hate Establishment Neoliberals a lot more than they do each other. The Clintonistas talk of fighting "red" libertarian/Conservatives politically but are unaware of the resentment they are generating within their own party regarding the the Last primary and likely the Current primary as well. The DNC in its current familiarly known form may not even make it to the actual Democrats vs Republicans phase of the 2020 election next fall; if they pursue the course they are showing obvious signs of doing.

Regarding Impeachment, the DNC is obviously using it as a political cheap shot, which is why they are embracing the laughable idea of a closed-door impeachment. If Establishment democrats genuinely feel so strongly about impeachment and/or grounds for an prerequisites for that process; then why aren't you even attempting to do it the constitutionally mandated way, because that would mean the establishment candidates would have to return to DC to participate in congressional and senatorial review sessions, if that occurs (Bernie would also have to go back to DC, but he already has name-recognition so that wouldn't matter that much to him). Most of the establishment candidates would be crippled in the primary if that happened. The political motivations behind impeachment are quite transparent.

If the DNC screws us, you will face a mass internal party revolt of Millennials, White Moderates, Latinos, Northern Blacks and Asians. The DNC would be left with Establishment White Liberals, Some Neocon defectors and Southern Blacks basically. It would be impossible for clintonistas to even think of defeating Classic-Xer-type "reds" if that happens. Instead you won't even be able to have the option of focusing your electoral weight against solely the conservatives: Because you would have provoked a "Two-front War".

Classic and Kinser can weigh in on this discussion as well.

The anti-Trump energy in the Democratic Party isn't going to be vanquished by some lame internal battle.  It just won't.  Now, the battle for the army of independent voters is another story.  Who knows how that will play.  It's already in FOAK territory, so bizarre is possible.  Setting bizarre aside, it's hard to see anyone looking at obvious illegal activity, and just ignoring it.  Republicans will swallow hard and back Trump anyway.  Democrats will be out in force to do the opposite.  That leaves the mushy middle to decide, and a well presented impeachment case followed by a party line vote to acquit should tip the balance against Trump decisively.  Should, but bizarre is still out there somewhere.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
#53
(12-05-2019, 10:06 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Pbrower, You and Eric especially need to understand that progressives (Supporters of Bernie, Tulsi, Yang, Marianne, Krystal ball, etc.) Supporters and Conservatives are increasingly coming to both hate Establishment Neoliberals a lot more than they do each other. The Clintonistas talk of fighting "red" libertarian/Conservatives politically but are unaware of the resentment they are generating within their own party regarding the the Last primary and likely the Current primary as well. The DNC in its current familiarly known form may not even make it to the actual Democrats vs Republicans phase of the 2020 election next fall; if they pursue the course they are showing obvious signs of doing.

Utter, incomprehensible bosh. 


Quote:Regarding Impeachment, the DNC is obviously using it as a political cheap shot, which is why they are embracing the laughable idea of a closed-door impeachment. If Establishment democrats genuinely feel so strongly about impeachment and/or grounds for an prerequisites for that process; then why aren't you even attempting to do it the constitutionally mandated way, because that would mean the establishment candidates would have to return to DC to participate in congressional and senatorial review sessions, if that occurs (Bernie would also have to go back to DC, but he already has name-recognition so that wouldn't matter that much to him). Most of the establishment candidates would be crippled in the primary if that happened. The political motivations behind impeachment are quite transparent.

To the contrary: Democrats do so in defense of the Constitution and our political heritage. The military, the intelligence services, the diplomatic corps, and federal law enforcement, three of which are usual havens for people on the Right side of the political spectrum but all of which insist upon rationality and integrity... found a complete lack of rationality and integrity in a right-wing President, and found liberal Democrats, their usual second choice, willing to defend the rationality and integrity necessary for a functioning democracy. The alternative is a coup that became a non-zero possibility under Trump. The military listens to the cruelty of Trump and sees someone who would drag the Armed Forces into war crimes. The Intelligence Services see a President who has sold out to dictators. The diplomats see what diplomats of other nations see in Trump -- a sick joke. Federal law enforcement sees a man of lawlessness. 

The closed-door sessions involve national secrets and the protection of law enforcement. We should expect such.      

Quote:If the DNC screws us, you will face a mass internal party revolt of Millennials, White Moderates, Latinos, Northern Blacks and Asians. The DNC would be left with Establishment White Liberals, Some Neocon defectors and Southern Blacks basically. It would be impossible for clintonistas to even think of defeating Classic-Xer-type "reds" if that happens. Instead you won't even be able to have the option of focusing your electoral weight against solely the conservatives: Because you would have provoked a "Two-front War".

Classic and Kinser can weigh in on this discussion as well.


For now the legitimate concern is a President acting like a dictator or a despot. One good thing about an impeachment of this President is that we will be establishing more protections against the abuse of power. Remember: Democrats must never do what they impeach Donald Trump for, much as American military officers must not do what they executed Nazi officers for doing.
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.


Reply
#54
(12-05-2019, 10:06 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Pbrower, You and Eric especially need to understand that progressives (Supporters of Bernie, Tulsi, Yang, Marianne, Krystal ball, etc.) Supporters and Conservatives are increasingly coming to both hate Establishment Neoliberals a lot more than they do each other. The Clintonistas talk of fighting "red" libertarian/Conservatives politically but are unaware of the resentment they are generating within their own party regarding the the Last primary and likely the Current primary as well. The DNC in its current familiarly known form may not even make it to the actual Democrats vs Republicans phase of the 2020 election next fall; if they pursue the course they are showing obvious signs of doing.

Regarding Impeachment, the DNC is obviously using it as a political cheap shot, which is why they are embracing the laughable idea of a closed-door impeachment. If Establishment democrats genuinely feel so strongly about impeachment and/or grounds for an prerequisites for that process; then why aren't you even attempting to do it the constitutionally mandated way, because that would mean the establishment candidates would have to return to DC to participate in congressional and senatorial review sessions, if that occurs (Bernie would also have to go back to DC, but he already has name-recognition so that wouldn't matter that much to him). Most of the establishment candidates would be crippled in the primary if that happened. The political motivations behind impeachment are quite transparent.

If the DNC screws us, you will face a mass internal party revolt of Millennials, White Moderates, Latinos, Northern Blacks and Asians. The DNC would be left with Establishment White Liberals, Some Neocon defectors and Southern Blacks basically. It would be impossible for clintonistas to even think of defeating Classic-Xer-type "reds" if that happens. Instead you won't even be able to have the option of focusing your electoral weight against solely the conservatives: Because you would have provoked a "Two-front War".

Classic and Kinser can weigh in on this discussion as well.
I think the impeachment thingy going on in the House is needed to insure that the liberal Democrats remain in power and remain the ones in charge of the DNC. The DNC is basically the cash cow or liberal  piggy bank they need to have control over and fund everything of value related to liberal's themselves these days and the liberal system of preference that we are seeing first hand these day.

Personally, I don't see the Democratic party coming out of this thingy ( 3T/4T/1T/whatever one believes) in one piece.  The southern blacks are different than the northern blacks. The southern blacks aren't as socially/politically coddled as the northern blacks these days. So, I see the southern blacks returning to the party of Lincoln and MLK's values and I see the northern blacks remaining with the party of Obama and liberal values. This is just my take. After two world wars, I don't see us going back to isolationism. However, I do see us eventually withdrawing from several liberal oriented agreements with the UN and see us becoming more of an independent, American first country that has more of a limited role globally.
Reply
#55
(12-05-2019, 08:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(12-05-2019, 10:06 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Pbrower, You and Eric especially need to understand that progressives (Supporters of Bernie, Tulsi, Yang, Marianne, Krystal ball, etc.) Supporters and Conservatives are increasingly coming to both hate Establishment Neoliberals a lot more than they do each other. The Clintonistas talk of fighting "red" libertarian/Conservatives politically but are unaware of the resentment they are generating within their own party regarding the the Last primary and likely the Current primary as well. The DNC in its current familiarly known form may not even make it to the actual Democrats vs Republicans phase of the 2020 election next fall; if they pursue the course they are showing obvious signs of doing.

Utter, incomprehensible bosh. 


Quote:Regarding Impeachment, the DNC is obviously using it as a political cheap shot, which is why they are embracing the laughable idea of a closed-door impeachment. If Establishment democrats genuinely feel so strongly about impeachment and/or grounds for an prerequisites for that process; then why aren't you even attempting to do it the constitutionally mandated way, because that would mean the establishment candidates would have to return to DC to participate in congressional and senatorial review sessions, if that occurs (Bernie would also have to go back to DC, but he already has name-recognition so that wouldn't matter that much to him). Most of the establishment candidates would be crippled in the primary if that happened. The political motivations behind impeachment are quite transparent.

To the contrary: Democrats do so in defense of the Constitution and our political heritage. The military, the intelligence services, the diplomatic corps, and federal law enforcement, three of which are usual havens for people on the Right side of the political spectrum but all of which insist upon rationality and integrity... found a complete lack of rationality and integrity in a right-wing President, and found liberal Democrats, their usual second choice, willing to defend the rationality and integrity necessary for a functioning democracy. The alternative is a coup that became a non-zero possibility under Trump. The military listens to the cruelty of Trump and sees someone who would drag the Armed Forces into war crimes. The Intelligence Services see a President who has sold out to dictators. The diplomats see what diplomats of other nations see in Trump -- a sick joke. Federal law enforcement sees a man of lawlessness. 

The closed-door sessions involve national secrets and the protection of law enforcement. We should expect such.      

Quote:If the DNC screws us, you will face a mass internal party revolt of Millennials, White Moderates, Latinos, Northern Blacks and Asians. The DNC would be left with Establishment White Liberals, Some Neocon defectors and Southern Blacks basically. It would be impossible for clintonistas to even think of defeating Classic-Xer-type "reds" if that happens. Instead you won't even be able to have the option of focusing your electoral weight against solely the conservatives: Because you would have provoked a "Two-front War".

Classic and Kinser can weigh in on this discussion as well.


For now the legitimate concern is a President acting like a dictator or a despot. One good thing about an impeachment of this President is that we will be establishing more protections against the abuse of power. Remember: Democrats must never do what they impeach Donald Trump for, much as American military officers must not do what they executed Nazi officers for doing.
Dude, if the President was acting like a dictator as you say, the President would be doing what your Democratic leader and her Democratic supporters in the House are doing right now. The more you open your mouth, the more dense you come across to those of us on the other side with higher intelligence levels than the typical liberal morons that people like you are more likely to attract these days. Now, if you want to support the party of NOTHING, by all means do it and take pride in doing it. However, if you do it and lose an entitlement, don't whine to me or blame me because your the fool who voted for NOTHING. Whatever dude, I have no interest in you whatsoever.
Reply
#56
(12-05-2019, 08:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Dude, if the President was acting like a dictator as you say, the President would be doing what your Democratic leader and her Democratic supporters in the House are doing right now. The more you open your mouth, the more dense you come across to those of us on the other side with higher intelligence levels than the typical liberal morons that people like you are more likely to attract these days. Now, if you want to support the party of NOTHING, by all means do it and take pride in doing it. However, if you do it and lose an entitlement, don't whine to me or blame me because your the fool who voted for NOTHING. Whatever dude, I have no interest in you whatsoever.

He made a big mistake: he started purging his own Party before knocking out the formal opposition. We Democrats are still here, and we really do believe in the old decencies that used to exist in the Republican Party. Trump may have tried to govern as a dictator without establishing a monopoly of power. He has not banned, muzzled, or controlled the Democratic Party. Design or blunder? Maybe he thought that after 2016 the Democratic Party would lose relevance. It is back, and it has the vital role of making this President accountable.
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.


Reply
#57
(12-05-2019, 06:25 PM)David Horn Wrote: The anti-Trump energy in the Democratic Party isn't going to be vanquished by some lame internal battle.  It just won't.  Now, the battle for the army of independent voters is another story.  Who knows how that will play.  It's already in FOAK territory, so bizarre is possible.  Setting bizarre aside, it's hard to see anyone looking at obvious illegal activity, and just ignoring it.  Republicans will swallow hard and back Trump anyway.  Democrats will be out in force to do the opposite.  That leaves the mushy middle to decide, and a well presented impeachment case followed by a party line vote to acquit should tip the balance against Trump decisively.  Should, but bizarre is still out there somewhere.
I think the Republican Senate is licking its chops and preparing to counter the liberal trial with liberal rules in the House with a good old fashioned American court trial with American rules and an American judge. Nope, the anti Trump, anti conservative, anti Republican, anti American, anti social conservative, anti law enforcement energy in the Democratic party isn't going to be vanquished by a trivial internal dispute alone as you say, it's going to be shutdown by those who have seen enough of the liberal bullshit and the liberal games and vote to have the Republican party shut them down and essentially place them on ignore so that some more important American related stuff can be accomplished and properly funded.
Reply
#58
(12-05-2019, 09:18 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(12-05-2019, 08:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Dude, if the President was acting like a dictator as you say, the President would be doing what your Democratic leader and her Democratic supporters in the House are doing right now. The more you open your mouth, the more dense you come across to those of us on the other side with higher intelligence levels than the typical liberal morons that people like you are more likely to attract these days. Now, if you want to support the party of NOTHING, by all means do it and take pride in doing it. However, if you do it and lose an entitlement, don't whine to me or blame me because your the fool who voted for NOTHING. Whatever dude, I have no interest in you whatsoever.

He made a big mistake: he started purging his own Party before knocking out the formal opposition. We Democrats are still here, and we really do believe in the old decencies that used to exist in the Republican Party.
The old decencies still exist on the Republican side these days. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, public decency tends to take a backseat where ever there are liberals involved these days.
Reply
#59
(12-05-2019, 09:43 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-05-2019, 06:25 PM)David Horn Wrote: The anti-Trump energy in the Democratic Party isn't going to be vanquished by some lame internal battle.  It just won't.  Now, the battle for the army of independent voters is another story.  Who knows how that will play.  It's already in FOAK territory, so bizarre is possible.  Setting bizarre aside, it's hard to see anyone looking at obvious illegal activity, and just ignoring it.  Republicans will swallow hard and back Trump anyway.  Democrats will be out in force to do the opposite.  That leaves the mushy middle to decide, and a well presented impeachment case followed by a party line vote to acquit should tip the balance against Trump decisively.  Should, but bizarre is still out there somewhere.

I think the Republican Senate is licking its chops and preparing to counter the liberal trial with liberal rules in the House with a good old fashioned American court trial with American rules and an American judge. Nope, the anti Trump, anti conservative, anti Republican, anti American, anti social conservative, anti law enforcement energy in the Democratic party isn't going to be vanquished by a trivial internal dispute alone as you say, it's going to be shutdown by those who have seen enough of the liberal bullshit and the liberal games and vote to have the Republican party shut them down and essentially place them on ignore so that some more important American related stuff can be accomplished and properly funded.

At this point I expect the Republican Senate majority to quash an impeachment trial quickly with a swift vote before hearing any testimony or evidence. Mitch McConnell will establish the rules, and I expect the Republican majority to go along with him.  The American public will get two diametric cases: the carefully-enumerated case against the President that deprecates him with much derogatory testimony and evidence and a quick dismissal close to party lines. Republicans will stand for this President. 

In the general election, House evidence and testimony will be used against the President... and against Senate Republicans seeking re-election. I will not predict individual races at this point, but being connected to bad behavior of the President could be political suicide.
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.


Reply
#60
(12-05-2019, 05:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(12-05-2019, 01:12 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(12-04-2019, 10:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Go into mourning, knowing that the United States has become an Evil Empire, a plutocratic equivalent of the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era.  But that is if things go as you expect. I realize that people who know you who happen to be liberals know enough to avoid discussing politics with you, so you might be clueless about how Americans think.

Here are the facts. The only ones in Trump's favor are, first, that Donald Trump can win an essentially-binary election with a mere 45% of the popular vote (that is how the Electoral College now works), which means  that  Donald Trump could get a smaller share of the popular vote than someone who won only 111 electoral votes (Dukakis, 45.62%  of the popular vote in 1988) and get re-elected. Second, the Master Class that seeks to maximize profits through monopoly pricing and Third World wages, can open the spigots for political campaigns as it did in 2010  and 2014. Third, America is not in a recession or  a war going badly.

On the other hand, the perception that Donald Trump is an obnoxious, abrasive, cruel man remains. It sickens me that he got nominated for president and then elected after he was exposed as saying  "I grab  'em by their p---ies" and after mocking a reporter on the autistic spectrum. Grabbing women by their crotches without their consent is "criminal sexual conduct" in Michigan, and rape should there be penetration. I'm not going to compare the offense that ridicule of people for handicaps  is to ethnic slurs, but I will say this about religious slurs: I am on the autistic spectrum and I often have been attacked for being Jewish on the Web... both hurt. (I fit three Jewish stereotypes  very well). 

Demographic change does not help Donald Trump or the GOP. Figuring that the electorate is mostly aged 25 to 85 and the over-55 part of the electorate is about 5% more Republican than Democratic and that the Millennial generation  is about 20% more Democratic than Republican, about 1.67% of the electorate turns over due to death and debility. That is about a 1.67%  shift from R to D in the popular vote. The GOP has nothing to offer young adults except crony capitalism that yields below-average opportunities for young adults in return for greater inequality of economic result.

Approval numbers for Donald Trump have been poor, and disapproval numbers have been even more ominous. Eleven months the 2020 election, Trump is losing every state that he lost in 2020 with approval numbers in the thirties and disapproval numbers in the high fifties and higher. Trump is being crushed in all giant cities and is losing many of the suburbs that used to go R as late as 2004. This should be little surprise, as Suburbia has a majority of adults with college educations.  Trump still wins under-educated white people, but that will not be enough in 2020.

The current President is monstrously corrupt, and he is not getting away with it. OK, the Senate might quash an impeachment, but the damage to his credibility is not going away. The negative ads practically write themselves. Certain deeds, including bribery and extortion are so vile that the attempts to commit them are themselves crimes.  (See also murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, espionage, theft, and arson).

I see a catastrophic failure of this President by historical measures, and I thus see him losing.

I know a bunch of old diehard Democrats who recently passed away. I know of two older fellow Republican voters who passed away recently. I assume that you believe that those associated with the demographic changes are either to dumb, to poor, to timid or sensitive, to afraid or to untrusting of white people, to racially motivated and oriented, to highly educated or educated to much in liberal values and liberal beliefs, to familiar with the way the liberal system specifically caters to them and their needs, to reliant on their big government related checks, to reliant upon their welfare benefits, to cozy with their plush liberal oriented jobs and so forth to even consider voting Republican these days or in the future. Do I seem to care about what liberals think/believe these days? The liberals who know me, who now avoid discussing and possibly getting into a serious political argument with me,  learned that being conceded and being thoughtless and getting personal with me in front of others turned out to be a major mistake that ended up damaging them way more than it damaged me.


You ramble even more than I do. So point by point:

1. (knowing that to is a preposition expressing direction or the particle signaling the infinitive and that too is an adverb expressing excess... as in one takes Interstate 80 to get to Iowa from Greater New York, but that if you have reached Nebraska, then you have gone too far  (the exception is Carter Lake, Iowa, a community cut off by an oxbow of the Missouri River and now accessible more  from Omaha, Nebraska than from any part of Iowa)... You did get two correctly as the number 2. 

Practically all Asian-American groups are better educated and richer than white people as a whole. The black bourgeoisie and the growing Hispanic middle class are both above average in income. Among these the only groups among them that vote largely-Republican are descendants of the early refugees from Castro's Cuba... to be middle-class in income in America is inconsistent with stupidity. With an anti-intellectualism that goes beyond the old target of wayward professors like Timothy Leary in his day and Ward Churchill or Rachel Dolezal in more recent times to such people as accountants, schoolteachers, and engineers who are big parts of the middle class. The Hard Right hates education other than training for specific tasks because genuine education might make people think. People with genuine educations are much less likely to fall for demagoguery and propaganda than are people barely literate. Tyrants such as Stalin, Mao, and Saddam promoted basic literacy so that people could read propaganda, instruction manuals, and warning signs. In contrast such tyrants as Hitler, Castro, and Pinochet, who had literate populations in place debased formal education into mere 'basic literacy' so that people would be unable to think their way into dissent. When the United States liberated Germany the Army had custody over over German POWs it found that the younger German troops were far below American standards of education at the time and needed basic education as well as deprogramming from National-Satanist ideology. Graduates of German universities were well regarded if they graduated at any time other than the Nazi era; in the Nazi era the universities were diploma mills.    

Most of the people that I know support Donald Trump have limited education and -- worse -- no curiosity.  People who have great respect for formal education at the least for professional development learn other things, such as that there is music other than 'country', and that there are other ways to see the world than what their parents told them.  

2. There are stupid people, and they are going to become poor quickly if they are not poor already. Such people must be watched for for their own sake so that they not be exploited, so that they not neglect something necessary for survival, and so that they not be duped into doing something horribly wrong. The right environment for such people is often a sheltered workshop in which they get to make contributions to their society for modest rewards. People who care for them can ensure that they get some delights that do them little harm... once a year to the amusement park or a sporting event, occasional movies, nights out for dinner and a movie.  

3. Timid? Some of us are cautious. People with disabilities -- even the least troublesome item on the DMS-IV (Asperger's syndrome, which I have) -- know that things can go very badly, but especially for themselves. Sensitive? Damned right! We ought to be sensitive about hearing a racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, or anti-handicap smear; we are all in the same world, and the gain from cruelty or bigotry is not worth the harm to the victims.       

4. I know lots of white people, and I can warn people who are not unambiguously white that there are some vile racists among white people. Some people do not merit trust even among their own groups (think of the contempt that many Italian-Americans have for the Mafia, most German-Americans have of neo-Nazis, and most Hispanics have of MS-13)... and while there are white racists who would treat me well so long as they don't figure that I be Jewish (they often figure that out -- wrongly), I would not introduce such people to anyone who is not unambiguously a white gentile.      

5. THE BIG ONE -- we used to have a large part of the electorate that truly believed in small-scale government that provided few services and expected people to take care of themselves. Liberals promoted the welfare state as a means of helping people better at creating prosperity than in getting their fair share or people that capitalism left out. As such, liberals got6 associated with Big Government. In recent years the Right has found that Big Government can support lucrative-but-destructive crony capitalism both by providing such goodies as wars for profit, suppression of labor unions, public-private partnerships (the taxpayer takes the risk, but a profiteer gets monopoly profit arising from guaranteed profit and exemption from competition), and enforcement of monopoly constraints. Everyone is for Big Government so long as it is the sort of big government that he wants. Otherwise he is $crewed.  

We may have some economic disaster in which government must retrench either due to more pressing concerns (such as an apocalyptic war) or hyperinflation at some time. Add to this, crony capitalism ordinarily proves averse to innovation and modernization when such offers competition or efficiency that hurts its cost-plus model in which it can get away with bloating the costs of doing business.  Perhaps we will need to alter the culture to foster small-scale entrepreneurialism when the dinosaurs die of their own corruption, incompetence, unresponsiveness, and even criminality. That's how life was in early New England: own the business (even if it is only a tradesman's outfit) or starve. 

6. The Republican Party is the Tea Party... and Donald Trump is its Presidential expression. Such may not portend survival. America was better before the Tea Party gave a populist veneer to a plutocratic agenda. We have a Hard Right, a large center-Left, a tiny Hard Left, and regrettably a tiny (and seemingly irrelevant) center-Right. The center-Right has usually been associated with people with savings, life-insurance policies, and small portfolios of stocks and bonds. It has been for reasonably-stable prices but an economy vibrant enough to protect savings from being devoured in economic downturns. It is also wise enough to recognize speculative booms for the impending disasters that they are. 

Maybe the Democratic Party will attract the center-right for the lack of a home... and will start cultivating it. Maybe it will eventually break from the Democratic Party as the Republican Party that we now know goes as politically bankrupt as it is now morally bankrupt. Extremists are hostile to stability, but the center-Right is the most reliable supporter of solid conservatism -- the sort that stands for something worthy of protection from radical assaults of both the Left and the Right.
Dude, the center right is your biggest problem and the center right has always been the blues biggest problem politically.  Now, if you want to be foolish and continue to believe that Hard right is larger and more powerful than all of us that's up to you and by all means continue worrying about the return religious inquisitions and heretics being burned alive or the fear of someone like Hitler taking power and so forth because we are to dumb and not educated enough or as book smart as you guys to be able to recognize the obvious signs and so forth. That's fine with me. I read a sign the other day that read, "In America, we don't redistribute wealth, we earn it".
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