Over at The Corner, Jim Geraghty frames things just right:
The pivotal question about Donald Trump’s speech is, do the viewers at home listen to his description of the country’s problems – lawlessness, a growing terrorism threat on our own soil, illegal immigration, a fear that their job could be outsourced overseas – and say, ‘Yes, finally, this man gets it”? Or does Trump’s style get in the way of his powerful message?
Trump’s message is powerful, and he delivered it in a powerful way at his convention. These themes carried the day in the Republican primaries, which is worth noting especially because Trump’s solutions so often violate Republican orthodoxy. Just for today’s example, Daniel Pipes quit the Republican Party after watching Trump’s speech. Pipes’ rationale is about half based on substance and half based on Trump’s character and style. But, opposition from people like Pipes didn’t stop Trump from securing the nomination, nor did it prevent him from winning a record number of votes.
It matters that Trump now leads a fractious party, much of which simply does not have his back, and some of which will work actively to defeat him. It matters that the country’s media and intelligentsia, including most traditionally conservative media outlets, will wind up endorsing Hillary Clinton. It matters that Trump is undisciplined and inexperienced as a politician. It matters that Trump will be badly outspent.
But, in the end, the pivotal question is going to be how much his themes resonate with the American public. Trump’s wealth, celebrity and dubious claims of his dealmaking ability are components of his appeal, but he would not have gotten this far if people were not very upset about immigration and terrorism and job losses and wage stagnation.
And, yes, it’s true that violent crime is at an historically low level and that unemployment is down sharply and that Trump doesn’t have plausible or even articulated solutions to how to deal with any of the problems he describes. These are important factors that will diminish both the appeal of his candidacy and the resonance of his issues.
But, if he has any chance to win it won’t be because he suddenly becomes a better campaigner. It will be because Clinton doesn’t convince people that she’ll address their concerns with new solutions and policies.
In other words, it’s important to disqualify Trump in the minds of the public, and this really shouldn’t be that hard to do because almost every national oar will be rowing in that same direction. But, if there’s a still a risk of a Trump presidency, it’s if the response to Trump is to dismiss the validity or importance of the themes he raised in his speech last night. You can’t fact-check them away. Their appeal is only loosely connected to any factual basis, so the rebuttal to them must meet people on a more subconscious, visceral, and emotional level.
No one should assume that light is equal to darkness, or that reason can prevail against fear.
Some people will be observers and critics. Others will go get their oars. But the Clinton campaign needs to understand where the boat should be headed. And they’ll need plenty of life-vests, because the water is choppy ahead.
David Brooks, of all people, had an interesting point last night. Trump pointed out that 70% of the country thinks we’re on the wrong track, he said, but a big chunk of that population is millenials and black people whose definition of “wrong track” doesn’t align with Trump’s vision.
Brooks needs to quit grazing at the Applebee’s salad bar.
Trump has no vision. Only recycled sound bites from presidential campaigns since 1968. Expect in one of the debates, he’ll pull out, “the question is are you better off today than four years ago?”
“Vision” in USG federal politics over the past few decades has been limited to “Increase the income and wealth of those at the top and snooker the rest of the population into not seeing their flat or declining income/wealth and personal financial insecurity. So far they have been remarkably successfully in implementing their vision.
Ironically African Americans are more likely to think the country is on the right track.
But he has a point.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/trumps-acceptance-speech
Read the whole thing, but I just want to point this out from the comments (validity unverified):
hmm. Not into the Clintons or Bush fils, but not opposed to using Bill and Hill for a photo op. A Reagan Republican and since the party failed to fill that role, he stepped up and filled it himself.
From that thread, a couple of highlights from Trump’s speech observations that liberals might want to take note of:
Where are the photos of Trump hanging out in communities that have been crushed and the laid-off workers? The guy doesn’t even get out of his limousine as he shuttles from his NY Tower and his plane or helicopter.
Unfortunately, his portrait of HRC is accurate enough, but the remainder is all promotion/advertising BS. Beyond getting their votes, he has no more interest in ordinary working folks than HRC. As someone in the thread pointed out, we’re all trailer park trash to both of them.
The first sentence is lie, but HRC supporters have been running with “I’m with her” and that is more simplistic and inane than “I like Ike.” Sad to see Trump stealing the response from Bernie supporters (he’s with us) but place himself as the speaker. He lies. But a majority of Democrats declined to support the candidate the was with us and didn’t lie.
” He lies. “
They ALL lie.
Some more than others. Some a lot. And some not so much. (I try to give the latter a pass because sometimes so many factors or variables come into play that outsiders aren’t privy to or can’t see close and upfront that maybe it isn’t really a lie.)
Those that habitually lie about small and seemingly inconsequential stuff are dangerous because they don’t have the ethical mindset not to promulgate big lies. Democrats are so astute in evaluating the Republican lies and liars that it never fails to perplex me how and why they are so blind to Democratic lies and liars.
Democrats flatter themselves that they are not blind tribal loyalists the way Republicans are. But the indifference they’ve shown towards Obama’s terrifying attacks on civil liberties – the execution without trial of American citizens, the rampant abuse of the Espionage Act, his all-out war on whistleblowers – give the lie to this.
Before thought or cognition, I have this visceral response to lies and liars. My body screams “flee, this is toxic stuff.” Change the station if it’s on TV/radio is an easy enough instantaneous response. Thus, I was able to avoid GWB from early in the 2000 campaign. However, as a good citizen, I did have to watch the debates. I can manage that much without too much distress. Forcing myself to watch GWB’s “the bombing has now begun” address was an tough exercise in mind over matter. As was the “missiion accomplished.” Except for the 2004 debate, I managed to avoid watching/hearing GWB after that.
I was very much surprised as to how soon that same visceral response overwhelmed me after Obama won in ’08. For my own physical well-being, I have almost entirely avoided watching/listening to Obama since his first inaugural address (the 2012 debate excepted).
Suspect I’m not unique in wanting to flee from lies and liars. But I may lack what partisans in both parties have — an unconscious mind of matter compensation for one of own’s own tribe. Thus, they miss the first perceptual signal that lies and a liar is present. Without that, it doesn’t feel imperative to investigate the nature and import of the lies and the actor.
Enjoyed your analysis. Would point out:
“It matters that
TrumpClinton now leads a fractious party, much of which simply does not have his back, and some of which will work actively to defeat him.”I expect most BernieBros will come crawling back as commanded, but a significant portion will go to Jill Stein, who perhaps is destined to be labeled “the new Nader”, who denied Clinton the Presidency”.
Don’t know how many, but although Bernie himself responded to the whip, not all of us will.
Republicans don’t have a monopoly on scapegoating.
“Bernie himself responded to the whip”
That is just such completely insulting bullshit. What is the precedent in his political career for Sanders’ behavior to be spun that way? He gave a clear statement of his reasons for endorsing Hillary Clinton as he stood next to her. So somehow everything he said in the campaign up to that point was honest, but his endorsement speech was not?
Try looking at the world through something other than your I-Hate-Hillary lens.
Please stop denigrating Bernie. He withstood all the slings and arrows of the Clinton campaign, 90% of the Democratic Party elites and their institutions (both federal and state, and most of the MSM for over a year.
He didn’t get enough votes (or didn’t get a fair count of the votes in several states). Multiply your two closest and dearest that voted for HRC (because?) across the country and that was the margin of her victory. YOU (WE) weren’t good enough for Bernie.
So, at the end of the day, Bernie was given a choice between being disappeared or tilting at windmills and retaining the small perch from which he’s operated since 1992. That small perch was what he built on in this election cycle. A much smaller perch that he made much larger than countless other Democrats have done in ever so long. How long did Governors Dean, O’Malley, and Richardson last in their quests before folding when hit with a wet noodle? (Hell, Dean has gone down multiple times when hit with a wet noodle.)
Sanders’ supporters should be politically sophisticated enough to read properly what he has said. A huge no to Trump, but he, like the rest of us, at this point have no viable path to defeat both Trump and HRC. He’s picked his poison now because he doesn’t have the luxury of delaying it until November like his supporters. He’s not going to disappear and will be with us should conditions change give us a different choice.
Primary campaign planning at the DNC (from Wikileaks:
Why were DNC employees searching for means to defeat Sanders in KY and WV? Why do they propose to denigrate those that don’t have an irrational belief in a sky god? Why do they refer to Democratic voters as “peeps?” Better to be a BernieBro than a peep.
They do NOT want to talk about issues. They really want to bury them deep. It’s all about the personal. And fear, fear, fear.
I haven’t checked out that wikileaks dump but I do wonder who received that email. I’m not surprised by any lack of independence at the DNC.
I’m not sure it makes sense to call out people for denigrating atheists and then denigrate theists. As for why.. it’s pretty obvious that one can exploit religion or the lack of it for political gain.
Sorry — I’m speaking of politics. I support the right of people to subscribe to any faith based system they choose or were indoctrinated into as children. Provided it doesn’t physically harm adherents or others. What I don’t tolerate is having religion injected into politics or science. Different spheres of the human experience. (Although the “heaven and hell” form of most religions isn’t a rich tapestry of the experience and used more like a comfort blanket.) Those that don’t respect the separation of church and state should expect that others will mock their irrational beliefs.
I agree that beliefs are fair game when its being exploited for political purposes.
I am militantly secular. I acknowledge, however, the role of religion in progressive advances. It’s not possible, for example, to dismiss the contributions of Christians and Jews to abolition of slavery or the civil rights movement.
I’d say religion played a role in the rise of the welfare state and politicians still use it justify support for certain causes. See Kasich and Medicaid expansion.
I’m, of course, only referring to the positive examples. We’re slowly moving towards post-Christianism in both parties so it will be interesting to observe how that affects politics.
Has always been problematical in the US. Having a social conscience/unconsciousness that facilitates recognizing the right thing to do doesn’t require one to subscribe to a religion. However, many that get there do so through religion, either authentically or using religion as a cover and way to sell doing the right thing to the masses is all too frequent. Confuses and contaminants the issues because there’s always differing religious interpretations and religions have been at war with each other throughout history.
While it may have been present in the original public debates on Medicare/Medicaid — I was too young and information didn’t flow as fully or freely back then — I don’t recall that. It seemed to me to be about doing the right thing for seniors and the very poor. Also have to acknowledge that by then the proportion of the population that had health insurance was large and had grown rapidly during the prior two decades. Thanks in large part to unions (if one assumes the private health insurance was the way to go). If 60+% of a population enjoys any good or service and it’s very affordable and secure for them, sharing a bit for others to have a similar good or service is usually accepted by the people.
He should have taken Cruz’s path.
It’s really difficult for me, at least, to interpret your remarks owing to your intense and oft-stated loathing for all things Clinton. Quite frankly, I don’t see a lot of difference between the sort of vitriol you’ve written about Hillary Clinton for months and the sort of vitriol that GOP conventioneers were flinging earlier this week in Cleveland.
A Hillary Clinton presidency represents, in all likelihood, a period of modest liberal gains resisted by the GOP with the same fanaticism and unhinged personal attacks as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama faced.
A Gary Johnson presidency would be more systematic dismantling of the federal government’s role in just about anything other than national defense. But it would be done with a smiley face instead of with spittle flying.
A Jill Stein presidency? Sorry, it’s hard for me to imagine this, because she and the so-called Green Party appear to have so little substance that they’re eager to hand their presidential nomination to someone who hasn’t sought it.
And a Donald Trump presidency represents a threat to the survival of the American republic.
I can’t think of a single presidential election since 1972 in which I’ve not felt that the choices presented to me were inadequate. It’s always been a matter of voting for the candidate I thought I could tolerate. 2016 is no different.
I have a feeling that Bernie Sanders probably feels the same way. He’s not excited about a Hillary Clinton presidency; he just sees it as the only credible option to avoid a Trumpian disaster. SO instead of telling us what Sanders should have done, it might be more instructive to reflect on what he actually did and the reasons he gave for his actions.
What he actually did? What he actually did was say that his whole campaign was a pack of lies by endorsing the person who actively opposed all those policies and the supposed vision. What he actually did was reveal that his campaign was all about political power and not a people’s revolution. That was just the vehicle he used. I’m very startled that Cruz had the integrity to refuse to endorse Trump. You acknowledge defeat. You do not endorse your enemy and throw away your principles.
Yes. Yes. He did it to have some meaningless words added to a meaningless document.
Trump is an amateur and probably a nasty person. But not Hitler. Clinton fills that mold better and has the political organization to do it.
Strongman Trump is dangerous because he is a nasty person who has tens of millions of right wing authoritarian bigots who will do whatever he implicitly or explicitly tells them to do, once he gets into the White House.
Hillary Clinton, by almost any account, isn’t all that liked by the population voting for her, never mind everyone else.
You have reality exactly backwards here when you compare HRC to Hitler, and downplay Strongman Trump as just a jerk to be laughed at.
The danger isn’t the person, it’s the people they control.
You can use the throaway phrase “Hillbot” if you like, but are you afraid of Hillbots who are going to go online and tell you in a really mean tone to vote for Hillary in 2020? Because Strongman Trump supporters have been making death threats against me for over a year now, which I’d argue is substantively worse than the “Hillbots” who express wonder over why someone would vote for Stein or Mickey Mouse when there’s a real tyrant to be defeated in 2016.
But that’s just me. I don’t hate Hillary Clinton with all my being. Hell, perhaps I’m so oblivious that I don’t even recognize that right now I’m terrorizing you on behalf of Hillary Clinton, a candidate I plan to vote for because she’s the only realistic option. I have no idea what reality is like on your side of the computer screen.
“The danger isn’t the person, it’s the people they control.”
Yes, and Trump doesn’t know how to control government people. He doesn’t even know WHO to control. Hillary does. A blustering clown is no danger.
You trust Strongman Trump in charge of the IRS and DOJ.
Hilarious.
By the way, I’m not afraid of the average US Soldier.
I am afraid of right wing authoritarian bigots with guns who believe that Strongman Trump will protect their actions to Make America Great Again.
Your all wrong Trump was just describing Gotham City. He must of watched some Batman shows recently.He was a prime example of the angry white man screaming with red face. That will go well with his base but not so well with the huge majority of the rest of the voters.
Trump as a president would be like a 5 yr old in his responses to any other country that refused his way of doing things. That is not a Presidency I want to see, nor does the world. We have seen that before and the results were not good.
Since she practically wore an OBAMA 2016 shirt during the primaries, she had better get hopping on that.
Tim Kaine? I just know that with a couple more trade agreements that jobs will be coming back.
That he’s continuously lying and that who knows how he could implement what he promises are irrelevant in that ppl whose issues he expresses so forcefully will be drawn to him. the other problematic side is that his attacks on HRC will resonate. so much for the “she’s already been vetted” argument. how is she going to refute that the statement is in the FBI report and that she accepts Wall St $? say it doesn’t matter? it matters to Trump’s audience. have no idea how the dem party expects to address this situation, but Tim Kaine is not going to help. something I never thought would even cross my mind, but Sanders as vp should be considered bc Sanders can answer Trump.
…unemployment is down sharply???
It really depends on several factors:
do you live on the coasts?
do you have more than a high school education
are you minority?
are you young?
You still don’t get it, do you, Booman.
You write:
There is an electoral majority (Possible? Probable? Already in existence? No one really knows yet…won’t “know” until Election Day. more than likely.) that would respond to this statement by saying that you can take your oars and shove them up your asses. They are so tired of being sold down the river in leaky rowboats that they are right on the cusp of saying…and meaning… “WE WILL NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!” They are going to row in the opposite direction from the mass media even if it gets them in even worse trouble than they were before they started rowing. And…these people are multiracial and multicultural. From the struggling middle class right on down to Foodstampville and beyond. Bet on it.
Now…Trump is very cleverly articulating this fed up feeling. He is actually quite correct on many issues…bad trade balances, massive overspending on military adventures that do not redound to the country’s favor, the massive bureaucratic bloat that stops anything from being done and done well by Big Gov., just for starters. i believe that if you gave HRC and/or Obama some sort of truth drug they would agree with all of that. They are highly intelligent people, and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see what is happening here.
But…they are not articulating those problems well, because they think that they will be able to solve them with ever more neoliberal actions. They are believers, plus they’re riding that sick donkey and can’t step off without being stranded.
Trump? He may be right on a number of issues, but…in my opinion, anyway…most of his aupposed “solutions” are half-baked and liable to get the U.S. into even deeper waters than the ones in which it is slowly drowning now. He thinks that he can…by the sheer force of his personality combined with the economic and military might of the U.S…bully the rest of the world into giving him (Not “us”…him.) the deal(s) that he deems necessary to “make America great again.” I personally don’t think that America has been so “great” (except to a certain percentage of its population) ever since it was founded, and I believe that you would find a great deal of agreement on that subject from the darker-skinned populations of both the country and the world in general. About the only rerally “great” thing the U.S. has done in the last 80 years or so was ally itself with the anti-Hitler forces during WWII, thus swinging the balance of power away from the German/Japanese axis and back towards what would the NATO forces…a U.S./Northern European century. At least that was the plan. 70 plus years later? there are multiple rips and tears in that fabric and it appears to be about ready to fall apart.
So what will happen if Trump wins? The rest of the world will humor him for a while, but if he gets too aggressive they will simply pull the economic rug out from underneath the U.S…you know, some appreciable portion of that little ( $19.3 trillion and growing exponentially) debt will be called in. Or else. Or else what? Sanctions. We could be the next Cuba. Bet on that as well.
Which leaves us with HRC. Death by Trump disaster or the death of a thousand cuts that is being imposed on us now by the neolib multinationals.
Hmmmmm…
Guess which one the electorate will take.
Dylan Thomas pinned it 2 years after WWII ended.
So it goes.
Watch.
It’s going to be close, I think, plus any number of things can happen in the interim. Sirhan Sirhan kinds of things, John Edwards kinds of things, Spiro Agnew kinds of things, even Nixonian kinds of things. But this anger i see in the U.S. public will not be quenched by a neoliberal sort of “rationality.”
You don’t bring a political science book to a knife fight.
Watch.
AG
P.S. The fim “Network.” An act of prophecy. 1976.
Watch.
Trump has.
Bet on it.
Sound familiar?
1976.
This has been boiling up for 40 years!!!
And now it’s right on our ass.
Whatchoo gonna do about it?
Really.
Whatchoo gonna do about it?
Damned if i know.
Do you know the secret of survival?
Survival.
Let us pray.
Or be preyed upon.
You and I see it, but the rest don’t. We must be talking to a very different public.
We’re talking to the same public, Voice.
One mind at a time is all we can hope for.
So it goes.
One mind at a time.
Up like a motherfucker.
AG
The Brit elites didn’t learn it until they got a Brexit bat to the head. Maybe they still havent. We’ll see.
Words can’t express how tired I am of your gibberish.
It’s the same note you’re hitting over and over — an adolescent description of “chaos” filtered through condescending references to high school/college-level top-ten-favorites like Chayefsky, Dylan and Yeats. God help us if you eventually discover Marcuse or The Doors.
Yes, Arthur, the world is turbulent; congratulations for noticing. The fact that the rest of us (BooMan especially) choose to attempt clear-headed analyses, affixing specific notions of causality and developing predictive analytical models of the issues of the day, rather than basking in the wildness and confusion of it all (and sneering at the rest of us as if this blurry image of yours warrants all this “Watch. Like dat.” scrutiny — as if you’re actually advancing a legitimate understanding of anything, rather than simply repeating a bunch of, as I say, adolescent scare images) should give you pause, but, of course, it doesn’t.
You want us all to stop trying to figure anything out and, instead, join you in marveling at how crazy and scary it all is. Despite all the nonsense, you’re probably a reasonably smart person, and you’re obviously politically committed; if you just stopped running around waving your hands in the air shouting, you could contribute something meaningful and valuable rather than making foreboding collages.
I believe that I am “[contributing] something meaningful and valuable,” JO.
One mind at a time.
it’s the best that I can do.
“…high school/college-level top-ten-favorites like Chayefsky, Dylan and Yeats?”
Who you reading, JO? One of Obama’s doubtless ghostwritten campaign books?
I’m also reading Shakespeare and the Sufi poets. Hafiz particularly.
This week.
Here’s some Hafiz for you to scoff at:
You?
AG
P.S. I’ve got a PhD from USNY…the University of the Streets of NY. I’ll match up with anybody. People from major universities and conservatories come to study with me. Bet on it.
The point isn’t that there’s anything wrong with that source material or that I’m reading anything better. The point is that you keep running into the room waving Dylan lyrics or Howard Beale clips in the air like a kid who’s found a penny on the sidewalk, as if the rest of us are unfamiliar with obvious, basic remedial-level cultural material like this, and — worse — scold us for not joining you in being continually bowled over by the juvenile insight that, yes, the world is dark and chaotic. We know this; we’re trying to move forward with a more sophisticated analysis of the issues of the day while you keep insisting that we return to wow-gee-gosh first principles of progressive alienation and disillusion. You’re like a teenager insisting that the adults stop debating so he can play them a Pink Floyd record.
FUCK Pink Floyd!!!
And…if you think that great poetry is “basic remedial-level cultural material’ and further that you are “… trying to move forward with a more sophisticated analysis of the issues of the day…” while at the same time supporting the woman who has been deeply involved in the events and actions that have led up to the absolute failure of attempts so far to do anything but exacerbate said issues…then you are beyond reaching.
Beyond help.
As I have said to centerfield…go vote your sao-called conscience. We’ll all end up paying for the vote eventually, no matter which way it goes.
AG
Loved the poem, thanks.
Read what you just wrote. You’re talking about yourself (again). You want us all to know that you find this poster’s comments here unintelligible. Got it. That you lack the little bit of soul required to enjoy them is clear. Fine. But please, in future, if you dislike these comments, just ignore them.
Point taken, but I don’t understand what you mean by “hypocrite.” Am I a hypocrite? In what way?
Yes, elements of a powerful speech. And yes, Trump’s own history as well as his style get in the way of the message. His career has not been one where he has ever been interested in much less demonstrated an ability to take a faltering or failing company and built it back to health.
Not his style. He’s not a fixer. He’s a breaker.
Trump will be running the first campaign of the 21st century. Clinton will be running the last campaign of the 20th.
Really? Trump is barely running a campaign at all. No one else could want to duplicate Trump’s disorganized lazy campaign in the future. If he wins it won’t be because of the way he put together his campaign, it’ll be because Clinton dropped the ball. Personally, I think she’s going to destroy him.
I’m willing — based both on observable data (Trump’s disorganization, Trump’s incompetence, and all the rest) and strong personal preference — to believe that Clinton is going to come out the winner in November. Whether or not she’ll destroy him is a harder call but to the extent that she does so it will be a defeat not only for Trump and the right wing but for white supremacy more broadly (consider for example BooMan’s post above about David Duke running for Senate — that happens in a context, and I hope to see that context destroyed or damaged). So certainly A Good Thing.
My point was that Trump has mastered the politics of resentment and shown what it can deliver. And it would be naive to believe that he does not have a large cast of apprentices — Cruz being only one — who are trying to figure out how to ride that tiger to their own dreams of power. Their goal will be to try to improve on Trump’s incompetence, on his disorganization, while mining the resentment — they won’t be trying to reprise Mitt Romney.
Meanwhile Clinton has to walk an increasingly narrow path between the interests of her constituency — the people who fund her and the Democrats — and the interests of the voters; between the promises of globalization, outsourcing, deindustrialization, neoliberalism — and the reality they deliver. Because that’s the basis of resentment politics: it’s a real thing. Trump’s using it, Clinton’s denying it — but the space for that strategy will last just about as long as it takes for the next war or financial crisis to break out.
OK, I’m following you better this time. I agree with this. Trump is an expert at mining the cesspool for votes. I hope you’re wrong about that being a model for the future; though sometimes it’s worked in the past.
I think where the ‘worry’ falls apart is that the republicans have been running on that ‘cesspool’ for years now. Within the context of republicans (or their incubator, Fox ‘news’) there is not really anything unique about Trump, except he removed the camouflage and verbally came out in the open.
Obama won twice against republicans that wore the camouflage. They still got rejected. Yet now some want us to believe those same voters who rejected the camouflage will now vote for Trump.
No, they won’t.
.
Well said.
And the press can be thankful that Trump is the messenger this time…
“Meanwhile, the Guardian, the house paper of the British left – long the preferred choice of teachers, social workers and Labour activists – has been savaging Corbyn too, all while it haemorrhages readers and sales revenue.
Online, the Guardian’s reports and commentaries about the Labour leader – usually little more than character assassination or the reheating of gossip and innuendo – are ridiculed below the line by its own readers. And yet it ploughs on regardless.
Corbyn and his supporters threaten a paradigm shift. The old elites, whether in the parliamentary Labour party or the Guardian editorial offices, sense the danger, even if they lack the necessary awareness to appreciate Corbyn’s significance. They will fight tooth and nail to protect what they have. They will do so even if their efforts create so much anger and resentment they risk unleashing darker political forces.”
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/Blogs/2987931/why_corbyn_so_terrifies_the_liberal_eli
te.html
British newspapers operate under a different set of rules than ours. They’re openly partisan, for starters. I was living in England when Blair called an election in 2001, and it was fascinating to see how news and editorializing freely mixed, beginning on page one, in every newspaper that I ever bought. Writers savaging politicians is routine in the British press.
But anyway, what is the “paradigm shift” on offer from Jeremy Corbyn? Please respond without invocations of Tony Blair and the Iraq War. We all know about that sorry situation, and I don’t think British elections hinge on foreign policy anyway. The “paradigm shift” must be an allusion to domestic politics. But what exactly?
Check out Chris Dillow’s Stumbling and Mumbling blog for a good discussion of Labour party leadership – what it has, what’s on offer, and what it needs.
And interesting contrast…http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/02/why-bernie-sanders-is-no-jeremy-corbyn/
Sanders the candidate, the iconoclast, the rabble rouser, and not Sanders the executive.
Heard that in Vermont a fair amount.
Reminds me of the Washington Post and Bernie Sanders. Hit piece a day.
I know he’ll never see it since I’m not even a Brit, but I sent an email to his office after the Brexit vote expressing my support for him.
It’s more basic than that. It’s that people believe that someone within the system CAN’T change things. So when Clinton gets up and talks about her 12 point plan, people think that it all sounds nice but it will never happen.
And you know what. They aren’t wrong to be cynical about that.
People believe the process is broken. It IS broken, in part because the GOP made the deliberate decision to break it.
It is interesting reading the fact checkers about Trump. In many ways they devolve into a defense of the status quo.
And what scares the crap out of me is that the status quo isn’t popular.
So the election will be fear of change versus desire for change.
It’s not a frame that is necessarily one we would want. I still think Clinton wins going away.
But Trump can win.
“It IS broken, in part because the GOP made the deliberate decision to break it.”
And, in part, because Obama didn’t turn to the people and use the bully pulpit to rouse them against the GOP.
There are many possible explanations. For instance, maybe he still was pursuing bi-partisanship. Maybe, he has a deep down contempt of the public (it often seems that way). Or, it just may be that he wanted them to throw him into the briar patch.
The people ARE dumb, unsophisticated, uneducated and poor. But every century or so they rise up in wrath and destroy the powers that be (i.e. France, Russia, China, today’s Middle East). Then they meet the new boss, same as the old boss, but that’s another story.
But just often enough to keep hope alive, the new boss isn’t the same as the old boss. We Americans have been lucky to get three (with a smattering of halves).
Trump has zero qualities of those three; so no way in hell would he make it four or even be another half. But the larger problem is the real possibility that he would get along just fine with the neoliberalcon majority in Congress.
But we know his opponent is fine with the neocon/neolibs. She and her husband invented it!
Voice, you can’t be more disappointed than I am or more in a muddle of where to go from here. However, it’s not constructive (and actually blinding) to give into one’s anger and the all too human characteristic of blaming those that don’t deserve it. It’s too much like the poor white farmer being ripped off by “the man” and taking it out on poor black farmers.
It’s okay not to know what you will do in November. Whenever Hillbots demanded I say that I would vote for HRC if she were the nominee I always said that I would make my decision when I had to based on all the information available at that future point in time. Right now there are no damn good options and none that even in a small way is constructive to further progressive principles and values. Voting against may be the best I can do this year, but it will be a first for me and is a very big step because it wouldn’t be a vote FOR the actual candidate.
I don’t want to re-litigate the arguments from 2009. FDR had bi-partisan support for the New Deal: Obama confronted a more united GOP front. Did he understand that as well as he should have? Maybe not.
But her surely failed to understand how important holding Wall Street accountable was. In failing to do so he in a way he accelerated a crisis in legitimacy that was already under way.
That failure, more than anything else Obama has done, created Donald Trump.
I need to stop posting on my phone. Or stop posting period. One of the two.
we make allowances.
Agreed.
Its not just broken its structurally outdated. Most constitutions get changed with the times ours is still stuck in the past. One less and less suited to addressing the challenges of our current society.
Sharing this very apt blast from the past.
“OLD MAN TRUMP” ~ Written by Woody Guthrie in 1952 while living at the Beach Haven apartments in Queens, NY under the landlord, Fred Trump…
“OLD MAN TRUMP”
Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Ryan Harvey
I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project
Beach Haven ain’t my home!
No, I just can’t pay this rent!
My money’s down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!
I’m calling out my welcome to you and your man both
Welcoming you here to Beach Haven
To love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place
To have your kids raised up in.
Beach Haven ain’t my home!
No, I just can’t pay this rent!
My money’s down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!
© Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. (BMI) & Ryan Harvey (ASCAP)
Check out Ryan Harvey’s video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkwEIuTFBgA
The Guardian — Munich shooting: police say several people killed in ‘rampage’ – live.
As usual, lots of unconfirmed reports. No suspect has been apprehended.
Trump is a fear monger amd an inveterate liar. If it suits his purpose, he will say it , regardless of what he said before. I seriously wonder if the man is not a lunatic, but most certainly unhinged and likely with mental problems. It is incredible to me that anyone could think voting for this fool is wise, including even the most ardent Sander’s supporters. So it is certainly true that when it comes to this disgrace be afraid, be very afraid. Just think of him, an extreme narcissist, with the nuclear codes. Really!