It’s hard to read about the reasons people have for supporting Donald Trump. People say the dumbest things and it hurts my spirit to see how people are misled or how disorganized their thoughts are, or how unsophisticated they can be.
But I have to remind myself that voters aren’t being given many choices in this election despite the unprecedented number of candidates. I mean, I can relate to the following sentiment even if its substantially different from my own:
Without ever having seen Trump’s reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” [Holly] Martin [a freelance technology writer] has come to think that he has a rare ability to get things done. She was a Republican all her life — until her party regained the majority in Congress in 2014 and proceeded, she said, “to do nothing. They did nothing on Obamacare, nothing on cutting spending, nothing on restoring honesty. They hate us, so now I’m done with Republicans. Trump is not one of them. He doesn’t hate us. He really believes we can make America great again, and I’m not an optimistic person, but I think he can, because he’s got a built-in ability to use the media, just like Obama.”
I don’t know why she thinks giving people access to health care is a bad thing, and I have no idea why she’s worried about government spending. I’m not really sure what kind of dishonesty is troubling her. But I understand that the Republicans made a bunch of promises, some of which they had no hope of keeping and others of which they had no true intention of actually delivering. It’s also clear that the folks in the so-called Republican “Establishment” are frustrated beyond endurance with people like Holly Martin who actually believed their bullshit and expected them to be effective. That she, and so many other voters like her, have no interest in Jeb Bush or Scott Walker or Marco Rubio makes them crazy, and it’s not too strong to say that the Establishment basically “hates” their own base of supporters.
So, she looks at Donald Trump and she sees in him someone who’s pretty effective in getting media attention and driving the national conversation and it looks like he’s a better bet to actually shake things up and make possible things that currently look impossible. It might be a Hail Mary pass, but what’s the alternative?
And is it really all that different from a similar sentiment on the left that looks to Bernie Sanders to create a “revolution” in the political climate that will make a progressive America possible?
Perhaps the main thing that is wrong with both sentiments is the inability to understand the role that political parties and Congress play in defining the limits of the possible. If you nominate a candidate that the party power players do not want to work with, you’re going to have a lot of problems trying to win the general election. And if you somehow manage to make that happen anyway, the new president will have to try to deliver on their promises with two antagonistic parties in Congress instead of the customary one.
Maybe that’s what you want because the two parties stink to high heaven and can’t work together anyway, but you shouldn’t invest much hope in the results. You’re creating a recipe for a failed presidency and hoping that it will somehow fix the system. Unfortunately, it’s more likely to create chaos.
What’s making this risk seem attractive is partly that a lot of folks don’t understand that they’re inviting chaos in the first place, but it’s mainly that things are already too chaotic. So, people think “What’s the difference, really?”
And it’s getting hard to argue with them.
I think most people are going to be more practical. Hillary Clinton may seem like more of the same to a lot of people despite the fact that she’d be the first woman president, but she also represents stability. Those factors, together, are probably enough to overcome this sense of frustration with the status quo, because things really aren’t as bad as they’re often made out to be. And, where they’re truly bad in a kind of unprecedented way is in the political sphere where the inability to act is being driven by dysfunction and divisions on the right.
Still, it’s an argument. And the folks who want to blow everything up and see what happens have a stronger case than they should. It’s the old thing about doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a better result. That’s insane.
So, we’re kind of in the sad condition of picking between stupid and insane, or it at least appears that way too much of the time.
In this environment, the thing that’s neither stupid nor insane is to lower your expectations and follow the Hippocratic Oath, which is to first do no harm.
I pretty much have two actions (three choices) that I can take with respect to who has power in this country. In February on SuperTuesday, I can vote for the candidates on the Democratic Primary ballot. In Novemeber, I can vote for the candidates on the general election ballot. Or I can stay home. That’s it. No guarantees that those people even if elected do anything that I would choose relative to policy. And the same time, I and many of my friends and neighbors see that business as usual in politics and economics is leading us to economic,… Read more »
A close reading of American history will reveal that there was no period when American political discourse was neither insane nor stupid.
There was no Golden Age.
Being neither insane nor stupid is far from having a golden age.
If there was a golden age in American politics according to popular history it was when political decisions were made under the influence of peach brandy or hard cider at the polls and bourbon in the legislative chambers.
Better drunk than insane or stupid.
This is the second time you’ve used that expression in this forum. Curious what you mean by it. Is it:
a) The comment replied to doesn’t count because it implies a “golden age” when there wasn’t one?
b) Just pointing out that nothing was ever perfect.
Maybe it’s not your intent, but it sounds dismissive to me.
The pervasive belief that it was all better back then, before Billary and the DLC came and peed in our progressive cornflakes, is not without relevance in the context of current events.
.
It’s pretty ironic in a way.
The choice in November will between a candidate who will promise everything under the sun, with no chance of delivering it.
Versus another candidate who will promise little and not even be believed when it comes to that.
Can’t wait.
Well said. Especially if by ironic you mean tragic …
Oh I mean it tragically. I am reaching the conclusion that the only real hope is Bernie. If you actually believe that progressive politics matters, you would be trying to get Clinton on the record on substance now – before Iowa votes. But they aren’t. Dailykos just defends her. Nobody is asking questions about substance. Welfare Reform? What about it? What’s that? When was the last left blog that wrote a word about Welfare Reform? I am more depressed about American politics than I have been in my adult life – because people who I thought knew better don’t. Markos… Read more »
In the past few weeks I’ve been desperately trying to convince myself that my distress at the current political landscape only feels worse than in past election cycles because it’s current and it’s difficult to recapture the real time feelings from long ago. Or maybe those old and real depressions faded because nothing as potentially dire as my distress suggested materialized and we accommodated to new normals not of our choosing that were inferior to the old normals for most people. Yet, it feels more like the metaphor of Easter Island. A life spent trying to get new trees to… Read more »
It is different. At this point in 2004 I was pumped and attending the meet ups. Many political newbies were attending and getting involved for the first time. I felt that way up to shortly after Iowa. Still, I’ll always be grateful to Dean because at those meetups I met and talked with openly gay people for the first time and discovered they didn’t have fangs, they were just people much like me. In one case exactly like me, including profession. the only difference was what she did in her bedroom and I already knew that was none of my… Read more »
I can’t speak for fladem, but for myself it’s a non-cognitive sense of some point when air begins leaking out of MO. Sometimes that sense is instantaneous. Like Game 6 in the 2003 playoffs. I watched in solidarity with a friend that was a huge Cubs fan and MO evaporated instantly with the fan interference. Same with election night 2000 when the call for Gore in FL was retracted, it hit me, “OMG, they fixed Florida.” Dean supporters did remain pumped until Iowa, but he began taking hits in early Oct. and they kept coming from various and not always… Read more »
My early interactions with gays were all with child molesters, which gave me a distinct bias the other way until I met normal gays. Same with a lot of Catholic friends who were altar boys. One is 64 and still can’t get over it. This may also explain why they accept lesbians more readily. Lesbians aren’t a physical threat.
“…child molesters,” in your early interactions? That statement is incendiary in its offensiveness. Did you mean something else? How many gays were there? Did they molest you directly, or was it others that you heard about and believed. Are you talking about Catholic priests? Are you just joking? (No, your above statement about interactions with the Dean campaign doesn’t save you from the lie of the opening sentence in this shitty little post.) You’re branded.
Well if you must know, two. One a grade school shop teacher, the other a classmate and erstwhile friend. That one tried to rape me at gunpoint.
Lie? How would you know if I was lying? Gay child molestation never happens? The Catholic Church has been paying millions for nothing?
You want to talk about it? Here?
And you’re banned.
Leave gratuitous horseshit out of your comments and I promise never to reply to one ever again.
You knew or knew of men that were both gay and child molesters? I cut you some slack on your comment because on several topics/issues you cling to a circa 1960 conventional belief of that time. And for those that personally experience confirmation of that belief, as rare as it is within the general population, it has greater power. However, just because large numbers of people believe something doesn’t make it so — UC Davis – Psychology The number of Americans who believe the myth that gay people are child molesters has declined substantially. In a 1970 national survey,… Read more »
Check out Sanders first TV ad. Plain, simple, and straightforward. Yet, this is no amateur production. It’s really, really good.
¨…cruise around looking for optimists to crush…¨ can accurately describe those who mischaracterize the achievements in whole of recent Democratic POTUS Administrations as complete sellouts to Republican-conservative-wealthy interests.
Trying to imagine how Americans in small towns would respond if placed in a the same position as the residents of Sumte: RT German village of 102 getting ready to house… 750 refugees getting ready by order of the government that ignores the lack of infrastructure increase the number of residents by more than seven times.
they do have highly functioning infrastructure
Yeah. The rightward lurch of the Republican party and conservative movement has damaged the left pretty deeply, I think. It’s just so easy to be far, far better than the competition. The bar has been set incredibly low.
Saw your comments on the Bob Johnson thread.
Yes it can.
People cannot be made to buy what they do not want, through the topical application of talk radio, or we’d be entering our second decade of privatized social security. And Veterans’ Day parades next week would have contingents of veterans from the Nicaraguan War.
You apparently have not witnessed the changes in your friends and family over the past 40 years that I have witnessed. If advertising (talk radio is a form of advertising) did not work, it would not have been a major industry for the past 80 years. Or maybe we are just dealing with a multi-billlion-dollar religious cult. The notion of “what they do not want” is a slippery one when framed by advertising. We have had the creeping privatization of Social Security for 30 years, and there are contingents of veterans of the Nicaraguan war. The latter tend to be… Read more »
We re-elected the Kenyan socialist Muslim by a healthy margin.
You need to widen the circles you travel in.
Well not the electors from my state despite my best efforts.
So Rush and Trump were right? Glad he got away with it.
Traveling has become a very expensive thing available only to the privileges. I move in the circles that are available to me. And they are quite diverse but include some long-time friends and family who give me insight into what the media cloud is saying.
Not sure about that. How far are we from privatizing SS anyway? We have privatized health care and Ryan and some of his friends want to make medicare a voucher program and schools and prisons are going private. And the cost of private education is making people poor or bankrupt. Someone must think they are good ideas, or at least not communist or, horror, socialist. Maybe that is all it takes, convince them it is the American way through whatever lie or falsehood you need. Limbaugh is a good salesman. Anecdote: we had our floor tiled and the workmen listened… Read more »
I would have told them no Limbaugh in my house. If they can’t agree to that, find someone else.
Those are your only options? Do you think people who get involved in campaigns are just wild-eyed optimists in rose-colored glasses?
Those are your only options for voting. Now if you want to talk about using the campaigns to work on transforming the political process, that’s another matter entirely. And some new ideas would be welcome. But if you want to talk about involvement in marketing a candidate door-to-door supported by expensive mass media, that really is not longer an option if you want to see a different politics; that is business as usual. And business as usual in this cycle to means that we are exerting a lot of energy in order to be rewarded with the shaft. That is… Read more »
I’m not a Bernie-bot but I do support Sanders. I also come at this from a faith perspective. What you’ve written is a helpful lens to take a look at our political situation. It has a ring of truth, perhaps more than I’m willing to acknowledge. At the same time, I think of who Sanders is. He is a good person whose values align with mine. He is sincere in what is trying to do. And this broken system doesn’t often get a person like him to get behind and fix it. I’m inclined to take the risk… Read more »
I’m not a person of faith, but agree with what you’ve written. All political candidates attract a certain number of “bots” — which is an emotional and mostly irrational faux-relationship with a person they don’t and never will have an authentic relationship with. Nothing wrong with the emotion (we do almost nothing in life without it). It’s problematical when the emotion is 1) based on nothing other than shared identity or 2) when it wags a dog of irrationality that is also impervious to facts. In one of his books, Chalmers Johnson spoke of how he rejected 1960s anti-Vietnam… Read more »
Right. “Playing it safe” is actually dangerous. And there are fewer people with a looser grasp of reality than those who think of themselves as political “realists”. They need to look around at the reality of what decades of political “realism” has allowed to happen.
Sometimes doing harm is an unavoidable consequence.
No revolution without martyrs!
Lets engage in discussing who each canpaign hurts and why.
I don’t know why she thinks giving people access to health care is a bad thing, and I have no idea why she’s worried about government spending. Plenty of reasons. People thought their old healthcare plans were good when they weren’t because they never used them. Now they see a huge jump in premiums and conclude that it’s bad. People who know a little more see they are paying hundreds of dollars per month for policies with a $12,000 deductible. IMHO the only good part of the ACA is expanded Medicaid and Obama should not have been adamant about not… Read more »
Just spitballing here, but I’m guessing a Democratic president has a pretty good whip count of a Democratic Jouse and Senate.
And surely Kia and Hyundai fenders would already be Korean…
If the vote was going to be lost, why not hold it? Then Lefties would have had their vote and the Eighties would’ve been able to say, “You had your vote, you failed, now shut up!” Buicks had no Korean fenders. At least my shop got me a genuine GM fender by telling State Farm that he estimated 60 hours labor to properly adjust and fit the Korean fender they sent. BTW, Korean steel has a very bad reputation for rusting and it’s well known in the industry that they use a thinner gauge. In any case, I prefer to… Read more »
Spell check changed “righties” into “Eighties” instead of”Righties”
As I recall he had some tough opposition, not least of which was Max Baucus who controlled the Finance Committee. There were other characters as well.
Sorry. Unsupported by the Narrative.
He. Didn’t. Even. Try.
Still waiting for my pony.
But I thought his point was to give the lefties a chance at the apple. Prolly a waste of time.
I think it’s perfectly logical that a new president would positively jump at the chance to lose a high-profile vote on a major policy initiative at the very beginning of his presidency, especially if it fails passage absolutely — involving nays from his own party — and not just by falling short of a filibuster-proof Senate vote.
The ACA with huge deductibles for Bronze plans will likely lead to more medical bankruptcy. And we already hear anecdotal stories about the way insurance companies bend the rules. What a surprise! If you can afford a more expensive plan the deductible will fall and the Medicaid expansion was a positive step. In my view the ACA though is far too expensive and weighs like an anchor around our necks. I can only wish we can fix it with Medicare for all. Therein is the problem. Without a sympathetic congress it is a bad joke. This and other programs on… Read more »
We would be able to point to this already were it to be happening. Because there’s almost a decade worth of experience in Massachusetts.
It isn’t. As of 2014, Massachusetts was the only state where medical debt wasn’t the #1 reason for personal bankruptcy filings.
ok. I can accept the possibility. Gold and platinum plans have low deductibles and higher premiums. But why should medical care insurance put one in risk of it at all, whether number 1 or 10? I think there should be a better way to fix health care and it should be universal.
And I should be married to a supermodel.
No I don’t think medicare for all compares to a super model. Just better than high cost (at both individual and national level), narrow network, not universal insurance. YMMV. But my sparkle pony.
Private health insuance plans purchased unde the ACA-regulated insurance marketplaces limit policyholders´personal out-of-pocket costs from premium payments, co-pays, deductibles and other charges to $6,600 per year. This severely reduces the need for policyholders to need to resolve their medical debt thru bankruptcy. Insurance purchased without ACA regulation often stuck policyholders with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars if their health care needs were expensive that year. And the many millions who have gained health insurance thru Medicaid expansion have almost no costs for their front-line care. Prescriptions can be a financial burden for Medicaid beneficiaries and access outside of… Read more »
Sez you. Our fight to create Medicare For All can, and in fact must, sit side-by-side with tendentious carping, rewritten history and just-so stories.
Our experience too. My daughter has a CareFirst (Maryland’s BlueCross/BlueShield) policy and its cost has risen only slowly. My wife and 22-year-old son have a CareFirst policy and its cost went up 50% last year, so we had to switch to a lower tier, higher deductible plan for them. This newer plan’s cost is scheduled to go up by about 30% in the coming year, so we’ll have to look into an even lower tier plan. (I’m on Medicare and none of us are able to afford dental coverage.) On the other hand, back in 2009 (before I became eligible… Read more »
I think most people are going to be more practical. Hillary Clinton may seem like more of the same to a lot of people despite the fact that she’d be the first woman president, but she also represents stability I could care less about her sex or sexual orientation. I’m not going to go to bed with her. I’m selecting the person who will be responsible for the safety and well-being of the Nation and ALL of it’s inhabitants. I feel she is concerned ONLY about the one percent, and ultimately Hillary and Chelsea Clinton only (I strongly doubt if… Read more »
I disagree with every word of what you’ve just written.
Including “Trump has no political experience. He will make a terrible President.” ? and “I’m not going to go to bed with her.” ?
OK, I know you are a Hillary supporter, God knows why as you are otherwise an astute political observer.
I wish all us astute political observers would at least remember that it’s not just the presidency that’s at stake. How would Donald Trump and a Republican Congress compare to Hillary Clinton and a Democratic Congress?
Or is there some chance that the American people are going to elect Donald Trump and a Democratic Congress next year? That would probably be better than Hillary Clinton and a Republican Congress, anyway, but it seems unlikely.
Most likely scenario is HRC as President, a Republican House (probably with a smaller majority) and MAYBE a Democratic Senate but just barely and not filibuster proof. Outlook: a lot more lesser evil, lot more third way, a lot more privatization and trade deals, although TPP seems to be complete capitulation of US control over it’s own economy. But Liberals will be happy with more symbolic immigration reform (more cheap labor for the corporations) some more (recreational not pharmaceutical) drug reform and whole lot of racial and gender symbolism to make the slaves more happy. Obviously, I don;t think that… Read more »
Surely not every word, unless you think Voice is gonna get lucky with Clinton?
As a woman that couldn’t on paper be more in Clinton’s “sweet spot” — white, educated, career in financial services, life-long feminist, and senior citizen — Voice gets a lot closer to the truth than your post did.
As a white, middle-aged, college-educated, upper-middle-class woman, I’m with Boo.
Chances are your pocketbook will be better off with Republican economic policies.
Actually, I doubt that.
It never has been in the past.
When I coached novice policy debate, I stopped rounds as soon as I heard a speaker begin a constructive, affirmative, or negative, with the words ‘I feel…’.
Because I feel I’m an incredible chick magnet. And your statement, and my statement, have equal probative value.
I might — early in the season — have let ‘I strongly doubt…”” slide. But not in February or March.
I am not a super supporter for HRC but I am trapped by the lesser problem. She has already indicated her willingness to cut into SS by raising the age, she is a hawk. I don’t trust her.
But there is no world out there I would trust Carson, Trump, et.al. more. And she will get to appoint many Supreme Court Justices over the next eight years.
Do you really think Trump would nominate better Supreme Court justices than Clinton? That he would be less of a war-monger? Would he work harder against income inequality? Would he fight harder for civil rights?
Unfortunately, nobody gets to vote for their perfect candidate, or sometimes even a good candidate. All we can do is pick the lesser evil. That’s democracy.
I’m saying Clinton would likely appoint far better justices not worse than Trump, et. al. That is one of the lesser for me.
I understand what you said and agree with you. My questions were for Voice in the Wilderness up above.
Trump is saying if we vote for him he’ll make it all better.
If you’d actually read listen to Senator Sander’s stump speech you’d know he is saying he can’t do it alone and people have to get together and organize to effect change.
This, in my estimation, is called “a substantive difference.” YMM, of course, V.
I agree. Bernie needs something of a political revolution to get elected and just as important to get anything done.
An article in the NYTimes to day starts with “Sanders doesn’t kiss babies….” He does not interact as much as other politicians. More than this, it makes me wonder if he already thinks this thing is out of reach and the best he can do is ignite a movement or reinvigorate one.
He thought this thing was out of reach the day he announced his candidacy.
Sanders isn’t that oblivious.
He thought it was out of reach the day he announced? Damn fooled me.
Where are all the attacks on Hillary?
If he were in it to win it, we’d have seen them.
Because — and there’s plenty of people here to write them — that’s what winning campaigns do.
And she is — and there’s plenty of people here to explain exactly how — that terrible.
It’s not an either/or. He doesn’t think it’s out of reach, but he doesn’t know whether it’s going to be reached this time around. What he does know is that the movement must be ignited irrespective of whether he will win or not. If he doesn’t win the presidency, he will be there to lead the movement.
The environment isn’t stable. May not appear to be unstable because weather will always be variable within a certain range and the human lifespan is too short to recognize that what we see isn’t what we’re creating. When it’s a river that catches on fire from a number of years of toxic chemicals being dumped in it or people start dying from exposure to asbestos decades earlier, we deal with it to prevent more burning rivers and new people being exposed to asbestos (although it does remain prized for building construction in parts of the world today). Repealing Glass=Steagall… Read more »
This point needs to be repeated again and again. Get past a superficial reading of the two being “anti-establishment” they are advocating for quite different ideological positions and policies.
I agree. Once upon a time in America all things seemed possible. Then somebody invented the Third Way and all opposition to neoliberalism vanished.
This explains why the Democratic caucus, in both the House and Senate, is more liberal now than at any time in the last 40 years.
Lets celebrate when we have a majority liberal congress and President.
Do you mean neoliberals aren’t conquering all before them?
That remains to be seen. But they did hit huge bump in 2008 (and not from the election of Barack Obama). Pretending that theirs is the only way forward is much more difficult to do on practical grounds. Doubling down on the ideology is still a possibility.
we’ll need a majority of liberals in the country first and that’s a long way off
Only because you are asking them to self-describe as liberals.
That’s why Bernie Sanders using the socialist label is so disorienting. It shakes people out of labels enough to wonder how he thinks he can win.
What we really need are people seeking practical governance instead of ideological fantasies of “free enterprise” and “no taxes”.
I think you’re vastly overestimating the power of Sanders’s message. If he fails to win the nomination, which is likely, his message will be lost to history and will probably never be more than a footnote.
This sentence, says a lot about the gap between pundits and everyday people: ” Those factors, together, are probably enough to overcome this sense of frustration with the status quo, because things really aren’t as bad as they’re often made out to be” This is frankly very wrong on a number of levels. It ignores the steady erosion of the security of the middle class. The center will struggle to hold because the center is failing – it is not delivering increasing incomes, it is not delivering opportunity. It IS delivering for the righ: but no one else is… Read more »
We can’t even define “middle class” but most people think they’re in it. 47% say they lack ready cash to pay a surprise $400 bill. “Security” is real but comes our way in many forms and mostly not in forms that are readily or at all measurable in dollars. At one time there was more of a recognition that most of us are workers and would be hard pressed to provide for ourselves/families without an employer. Dependency reduces security. Of course employers are also dependent on employees. We got close to a “grand bargain,” not unlike MADD, between workers… Read more »
And if Bernie Sanders does win enough primaries to argue for the nomination, it is the superdelegates who will have the choice of whether to do no harm. Will they? Will they get behind the choice of the party “rank and file” or will they do what they did to McGovern in 1972?
‘
If there is no Santa Claus, it doesn’t matter if he’s too fat to get down my chimney, does it?
“They” have set it up better this time than they did in 1972. Also in ’72, they did fear repeating the ’68 convention. So, they “let” McGovern have the nomination and went to work re-electing the sleazy crook. Plus, 2016 is an open seat election. “They” were better prepared in ’76 by not letting any of the liberal candidates get out of the starting blocks. They screwed up a bit. With Wallace and Jackson splitting the “conservative” vote. Leaving Carter as the default candidate. Had the GE been a choice between Ford or Jackson, I honestly don’t know what I… Read more »
I worked on Mo Udall’s campaign in ’76, and don’t recognize that version of the year at all.
Carter was an outsider, not trusted at all by party regulars outside the south. Bentsen and Bayh and Jackson were all considered better bets, better connected, better potential fund-raisers.
What killed liberal candidates in that electio was the post-Vietnam rise of ‘social issues’ — busing, in particular, and late entry. Both Frank Church (Church Committee) and Jerry Brown got in after the new year.
Didn’t mean that Carter was the DC approved default candidate, but he wasn’t a liberal. Both Carter and Wallace were outsiders, and even “they” didn’t want a Wallace ticket; so, when the preferred Jackson and Bentson floundered, Carter became the default candidate. Last time “they” let a true outsider become the default candidate.
My understanding of ’76 was that it was an inside versus outside race – hardly surprising 2 years after Nixon’s resignation.
There was a decent stop Carter effort – led by the liberal establishment – that for some time was focused on Humphrey – and then migrated to Brown after he got in.
Bernie Sanders is a Hail Mary pass. I don’t expect success. I never did. Honor compels me to try.
I do see our present political situation as analogous to the late Roman Republic. Two parties, one overtly supporting the Aristocrats, the other ostensibly supporting the masses (and had done so in the past), both, in reality, just concerned with their own power and wealth. The end result was civil war and five centuries of dictatorship.
I might add that the dictatorship only ended because the whole civilization collapsed due to climate change.
Another possible analogy.
In which case our own collapse will be considerably swifter, if even the most conservative of climate change projections bears out.
The comment on health care sparked an idea. Suppose Trump wins the nomination. I think we’re past the point that most non-wingnuts think that’s impossible. So, he wins pretty much based on his arrogant style, his ability to weather any bad news day, and his willingness to spend on a complete election organization (many have noted he’s not doing media buys – he doesn’t have to). But if he wins the nomination the general assumption is that he can’t win the general election. Sure, the GOP will rally around him, even those who hated him in the primaries, because it’s… Read more »
Well, if Trump is up against Sanders in the general, his calling for a single payer system wouldn’t help, because Sanders is already calling for it.
Of course, some people would trust Trump to deliver on it more than they’d trust Sanders, but people with that loose of a grasp on reality would vote for Trump anyway.
What would be interesting to me would be Trump v Clinton and Trump proposes single payer.
Not half as interesting as Trump v. Clinton, and Trump suggests seizing ownership of the commanding heights of the economy in the name of the workers.
Approximately as likely, though.
You must be real fun at parties.
Not ‘parties’, but ‘The Party’.
Nobody that says his daughter’s hot is going to win the general election. He’s still who he is. The Democratic Party will fillet his simple ass. He’s never run for office and he reacts whenever he’s offended. You really don’t want the Presidency to be your first office run.
This week is the perfect time for someone on the left to break out of the ideology. While the right whines about debate questions. That Russian plane crash is the opportunity to question the rights idol Putin. Is Putin arming the Syrians with air to surface missiles like he armed his Ukraine allies? The inability of the current candidates to react to anything that does fit established talking points is a weakness that no one is taking advantage of.
You’re lamenting the failure so far to hold the usual auction, to see who can promise more bombs and boots-on-the-ground?
words fail me
ok, I’m going to try: One of Russia’s major problems is militants destabilizing various regions, most significantly a region a mere day’s drive from Syria, hence Russian fears about ISIS expansion. this is a primary factor in their working to stabilize Syria. whether or not the airline was destroyed in response to the engagement in Syria remains to be seen. you’re thinking the wrong way around, did the militants get the airline as a payback for the current engagement in Syria is the question.
It would be nice to go with, “First, do no harm,” but I don’t think there’s enough time to repeal the 22nd Amendment.
There will be harm done with this election unless a miracle occurs. Serious harm.
Booman, I’ve spent decades lowering my expectations (except for a short-lived upswing in 2008).
Screw that. People need to raise their expectations. Because lower expectations — the “well, what did you expect” attitude — is essentially giving permission for poor results.
Expect more. Because it’s better to have high expectations with the risk of disappointed than it is to have low expectations and guarantee more of the awful results of being right.
Well, Trump is exactly what happens when the Democratic party spends a generation turning its back on working people. I’m with Thomas Frank on the major fault of the Democratic party- in its quest to be the “other” party of business, it has given up advocating for working people. This complete lack of a counter message to tax cuts and the worship of the cult of wealth has created the perfect environment for demagogic hacks like Trump. Look, Americans really are angry. They have good reason to be. Trying to answer the propaganda of the right (gays, guns, brown people,… Read more »
Well, if you think Democrats were fighting for working people a generation ago, many of the people they were fighting for went to the polls for Reagan. A generation before them, they went for Nixon.
The “working people” in the South, Midwest, and other areas of the country went with Nixon’s “silent majority” in 1972 and never came back. That was based on two issues: race and the Vietnam War. While a lot of America was laughing at Archie Bunker, Archie Bunker types were voting for Nixon. There hasn’t been more than a couple of years during World War II that Democrats (not to mention Republicans) haven’t be turning their back on working people. Notice that the first major rollback occurred with the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, passed over Harry Truman’s veto when the Republicans… Read more »
a perfect example of why I keep coming back here and why I kick in a few bucks when I can afford it. I very much appreciate political analysis that doesn’t rely on wishful thinking either on the part of the analyst or the audience. I don’t always like your conclusions, but I rarely disagree with them, and I’m generally sure you’re sharing your honest and informed opinion on a bunch of complex issues.
Kelly, exactly what you said!
“And is it really all that different from a similar sentiment on the left that looks to Bernie Sanders to create a “revolution” in the political climate that will make a progressive America possible?”
On the level of sentiment, no, it’s not all that different.
On the level of reality, yes, it’s totally different.
I think the strongest argument for Sanders in terms of actual policy is foreign policy, Here the President is little constrained by Congress, particularly if he is refusing to enter wars rather than trying to. Under a Sanders Presidency, I do not see us getting more involved in Syria. The way things are going, we could be majorly involved by the time the next President takes office, in which case I see Sanders trying to find a way out and Clinton trying to find a way deeper in. This is a difference in actual policy that will be enacted, and… Read more »
Booman writes: In this environment, the thing that’s neither stupid nor insane is to lower your expectations and follow the Hippocratic Oath, which is to first do no harm. But…HRC will continue to do harm, Booman. Will it be less harm than Trump? How can one quantify “harm” on this level? It would be different harm, for sure, but it most certainly would be at the very least a continuation of the still ongolng Obama downslide. To bring your statement all the way around to the individual, if one sees potential harm coming from all practical winners, “doing no harm”… Read more »
Einstein is almost as quotable as the great Yogi Berra. Here’s one that may be apropos: ” try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value”. Trump is a man of success. Sanders is a man of value. Even if Sanders’ candidacy is ultimately not successful it will still have had value, in highlighting and reframing important issues for the American people. I don’t think it’s magical thinking to support that at this point in the campaign ( provided one keeps some perspective regarding political reality).
This is very important. It allows for the understanding that the new time itself is morphing the ‘ground underneath our feet’. (Actually, just newer perturbations of the mind stuff) A whole new world is opening up and just maybe, personal integrity is the order of the day. What’s wrong with a little ‘magical thinking’? How has that ‘non-magical thinking’ been working out for us? I think that this is a good time for magical thinking because the memes of the established edifice are crumbling. There now is room for focused intent to help ‘flip’ the tide of humanity to the… Read more »
I’ve been asking since 2014: What exactly is Hillary Clinton going to do when she doesn’t get the House in 2016 and she all-but-assuredly loses the Senate in 2018? What does she do if there’s an environmental or economic crisis? And the serious, hard-headed people still don’t have an answer to this basic question. It’s gotten to the point where I used to posit that it might be better for the Democratic Party to take a dive so that they could counter-attack in 2018 and 2020 and maybe have Congress — rather than just sitting on their ass for four… Read more »
Nobody knows. But then, nobody knows what any president will do.
Both World Wars featured American participation led by presidents who promised to keep out of them while campaigning only a year before.
I think you’re veering into a pretty fatuous argument here.
The German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, may have had just a teeny tiny bit to do with American presidents deciding to ask Congress for declarations or war, campaign rhetoric be damned.
What kind of weak copout is that? We know that the Republicans will run on a platform of maximum obstruction, up to and including denying USSC nominees and replacements for the Fed. We know that the current demographics for the Obama Coalition makes them lopsidedly weak in midterms. We know that US Household debt and the trade deficit is creeping up again — meaning no money cushion for the next economic calamity. Interest rates are already at the lower zero bound. And the only controllable way out of this is to run a fiscal deficit. You know what is most… Read more »
There’s another economic contraction on her watch and even when it gets to the point where she can’t Pangloss her way out of it, the Republicans tell her to suck it while they increase their midterm majority in Congress and the state houses and then ride economic dissatisfaction to getting all three chambers. This is in sharp contrast to Sen. Sanders. If there’s another economic contraction on his watch it will quickly get to the point where he can’t Pangloss his way out of it, as the Republicans tell him to suck it while they increase their midterm majority in… Read more »
The way out of that mess is with a Democratic Congress. Unfortunately, the current composition of the Democratic Party’s voters (that is, the Obama Coalition) makes winning the House difficult in Presidential elections and all-but-impossible in midterms. If the Democratic Party wants to win Congress, it needs to either: A.) Get more of its weakly-voting supporters to vote. The Democratic Party’s points of weaknesses are poorer voters, people who aren’t black nor white, and 18-29 year olds. The latter category in particular tanked in turnout going from 2008 to 2012. B.) Get more people outside of its coalition to vote… Read more »
I think that C) breaking the gerrymanders is a much more plausible way to retake congress, but that’s not going to happen without sorting out the state party stuff. The only person I’m seeing doing anything on that is Hilary Clinton who is creating revenue sharing agreements with state parties to help get them funds and reinvigorate them. It’s a strong part of her ground game that’s been engaging with local activists from the start of her campaign. From where I’m sitting, as a liberal local elected official, that attempt to get the local parties back in the game is… Read more »
Interesting how your plan to break the gerrymander and retake the state houses (it’s implied that the latter is a prerequisite for the former if you want it done in a timely fashion) doesn’t mention actually increasing vote turnout. Instead, it relies more on the same-old plan of throwing more money at the problem and nebulous ‘organization’. Do you think that the Democratic Party’s primary obstacle to regaining Congress is a money and coordination problem? Personally, I think that organization and ground games are way overrated. For all of the talk about Obama’s slick campaign operations, 2008 and 2012 weren’t… Read more »
The same thing that has been done for the last 4 years, though with a somewhat great likelihood of military intervention.
I truly do not understand the point of commentary that amounts to “we’re fucked this time, but holy cow, we’re REALLY fucked next time.” My only reason for preferring Obama to Clinton in 2008 was that she refused to take responsibility for her support of Dubya’s Iraq war. If she had just said, hey, I was wrong, I’m sorry, she would have had my vote, because policy-wise, Obama and Clinton were barely distinguishable. In case people haven’t noticed while denouncing Hillary Clinton’s links to Wall Street, the Obama Justice Dept. hasn’t prosecuted a single bankster. Just one example. In 2016,… Read more »
ah, the old “Obama didn’t prosecute bankers” meme; implied, he didn’t do anything else. well, carry on.
One, it’s no meme.
Two, your inference isn’t my meaning at all.
I truly do not understand the point of commentary that amounts to “we’re fucked this time, but holy cow, we’re REALLY fucked next time.” The sentiment I’m trying to get across is “holy cow, we’re REALLY fucked next time if we continue along this course of action.” The sensible, pragmatic thing doesn’t mean coasting on a no-risk, short-term viable solution. Sometimes being sensible and pragmatic means taking a risk, even a huge risk. HRC and her wing of the party so far shows no inclination to do anything but win the Presidency in 2016. And I agree that her plan… Read more »
Thanks for the clarification. Agreed about the Clinton campaign and the party leadership.
If Hillary Clinton goes down in flames, it will be because enough people get fed up with the way that she says and does nothing that hasn’t been vetted by a bunch of Beltway operatives and assorted focus groups. It the fact that Sanders does not operate that way that attracts so many people.
OT:THIS IS HUGE! ………………… OBAMA BANS THE BOX By Ari Melber ——————- On Monday, President Obama is announcing a new order to reduce potential discrimination against former convicts in the hiring process for federal government employees and contractors. It is a step towards what many criminal justice reformers call “ban the box” – the effort to eliminate requirements that job applicants check a box on their applications if they have a criminal record. While the rule was once seen as a common sense way for employers to screen for criminal backgrounds, it has been increasingly criticized as a hurdle that… Read more »
what’s with the newbies going after DavisX? well, stand your ground, Davis, stand your ground
The dumbest thing this election cycle I heard up to this point was a woman who said that while her values lined up with Bernie she was voting for Hillary because she liked how Hillary stood up to the Republicans at the Benghazi hearings. How about Hillary standing up to Wall Street by supporting the return of Glass-Steagall after being Wall Street’s donation favorite, standing up to climate change liars Exxon-Mobil after talking large donations or standing up to the private prison industry after accepting large contributions. To top this as the dumbest thing of this election cycle we now… Read more »
We don’t need any kind of regression analysis to understand why people support Trump – it’s the Alan Keys 29%…
No — Dr. Ben is getting the Alan Keyes 29%. Trump is scooping up the angry white vote that believes no experience is necessary for the job of POTUS. The Perot, Forbes, etc voters.
Well…”no experience” certainly describes Obama’s work history prior to being elected, doesn’t it? At least on the federal level, which is where the action is. No experience as an executive. Very short experience as a senator. Who voted for him? Answer…the media-controlled voters. Trump is actually being supported by the media, in a “Call me anything but spell my name right” sense. This is his…I hesitate to use the word genius but the term might fit if he wins the RatPub nomination. He is running against the media…like a baseball pull hitter suddenly hitting to the opposite field when he… Read more »
Thanks for explaining that I was a “media-controlled voter”, unlike Your Eminence, the only person left standing who retains the power of critical thinking.