People got fooled by Trump.
Anything can happen.
Anything can happen.
I would guess that when there's a riot in an urban neighborhood you don't say they have an ideology which only cares about hurting people and destroying things. You should look at this in a similar way.
Politics isn't a game, it's about running an actual country where people live.
Trump is a symptom of that. A big giant scream that says simply 'can you hear me now?'.
I even disagree with you about it not being a game. It is. It has real life stakes and consequences, and scary ones at that, but it is a game.
As for liberals just trying to fix the country, while saying equivalent of 'we r gonna nix insurance companies, coal factories and big coke' may simply not be perceived as such. It needs to be addressed and not shoved down people's throats.
You have to be willingly blind to your own side propaganda to not see this big emergent picture.
Seeing it as a game is a massive part of the problem. It's not a game. It's real. Trying to "win" at the cost of the country and the people in the country is doing very real damage.
The liberals are the ones who are trying to get everybody affordable health insurance. It's the Republicans who keep sabotaging that. The reason the solution is starting to look like one without private insurance companies, is because those companies deep desperately trying to be part of the problem: not paying people for the treatment they need, using any excuse to deny people coverage. All that is doing is proving to the people that this system is not going to work. Hence the increasing popularity of Medicare-for-all type systems.
The insurance companies are not the goal, good health insurance is. The Republicans and their supporters keep insisting insurance companies are more important than health coverage for Americans.
I see the picture. I'm not subject to your propaganda, as I'm seeing this from the outside, but I do see that your arguments try to paint black as white and white as black.
But going back to the original thread. How are my arguments miscolored? I think your internal frame reference might be off. Could you elaborate? I do not want to assume and I find the conversation interesting.
Do you understand why I find it hard to have any sympathy for that?
Along comes Trump and uses that pain to his advantage. We won't go after the companies, but we will sure deport them all. Kinda stupid idea given the sheer number of illegal aliens, but it is better than nothing. Some people nod. We will then build a wall. Kinda stupid, but it is a good visual. Some people nod. We will renegotiate NAFTA. People are listening. They know this is one of the reasons their little community fell apart. Nodding intensifies. And so it went on.. Trump was better than doing nothing.
It was a scream for help and it was ignored by everyone, but Trump, Bernie and Yang. Everyone else pays lip service, but do not seem to understand the underlying socio-political current in the US.
And more to your point, all the policies that you disagree with, the discrimination and all that jazz stems straight from that pain. Those people feel persecuted not because someone is getting equal rights, but because the country that they were born and raised in, sold them out in a truly American fashion. They felt betrayed. They would likely give zero to no shits about LGBTs, foreigners or women if their bellies were full and were left alone. But they are not and were not. Foreigners are a proxy for NAFTA issues. LGBT is a proxy for change. ( I think you may be onto something with women.)
And you have no sympathy for that? And you are surprised they are lashing out?
Then get ready for another 4 years of Trump. Unless you.. we somehow manage to go beyond our comfort zones and openly talk about what ails us, there is no hope for reconciliation, the polarization will increase with likely even worse results than what we have now; though I fear to speculate.
Thus, little sympathy is advised.
edited voting record out
They keep voting for the party that's hurting them, because that party keeps lying to them, and they keep buying those lies.
And it is a feature Trump successfully exploited. It is interesting to note that Sanders and Bloomberg are also exploiting that system; just in different fashions. And I am perfectly OK with both of their approaches though I favor Sander's as it seems more honest.
All that said, with your point about being better off under Democratic reign of terror versus Republican reign of terror, I just gave you an entire list of grievances of the forgotten class ( as the current president sometimes dubs them ). Those grievances did not get addressed by either party over the last 40 years. Worse, Clinton signature is on NAFTA papers.
I would agree with you on Trump vs Sanders as they, amusingly, shared a lot of the populist message. I have my pet theories, but they would just derail this thread altogether.
I would like to note that it is hard for me to argue that Trump policies ( with exception of Soybeans and the bailout there ) has not done anything for them. For better or for worse, Trump is very keen on listening to his core supporters. He seems to genuinely care about his ratings, which does lead to all sorts of theatrics ( as you note ).
That said, note that regardless of how it was achieved and how we are going to pay for it in the future, unemployment now is low and entry level wages are up. Just that fact alone should give you pause, because that likely means that some do feel relief under Trump.
You have to admit that from that perspective a voter may be inclined to vote for Trump again in 2020.
I certainly think it'd be good if the Democratic and Republican parties both disappeared, but it's not true that both are equally corrupt or equally guilty to the problems facing the US. It really is since Reagan that economic inequality started to rise, middle class wages stagnated, and national debt started to spiral out of control. It's absolutely true that the Democratic party has been controlled by its conservative wing, with presidents Clinton and Obama not significantly changing the neoliberal direction set out by Reagan. Even so, the current economic recovery in the US was started by Obama, and that's what Trump is currently benefiting from.
But if voters want real change, the progressive wing of the Democratic party would be a better bet than voting for increasingly conservative Republicans.
I had such high hopes for humanity with the emergence of the internet. With the all the world's knowledge at our fingertips, including detailed information about political fundraising, voting records, etc., it would be SO EASY to find and elect the "right" people.
I truly long for thoughtful discussions about real issues. I'm still holding out a little hope for the next great awakening.
Starting with local politics first, then regional, THEN national - the question of who will govern us and set rules and make laws is of critical importance. What good does it do to solve the world's problems if our representatives are robbing the coffers and crashing the plane into the mountain?
Voting for somebody you don't want to win is the definition of "throwing your vote away."
Even if you're unwilling to do that, then practically speaking, there were more than 2 teams. If a party receives 5% of the popular vote, they qualify for federal funding in the next election. It might not necessarily get them on the debate stage, but we're talking about a lot of money to get their messages out there one way or another. Libertarians got 3.28% of the popular vote in 2016. It might be naive to think that they or the Green party could have reached 5%, but I'm not one to take the defeatist attitude that voting for a 3rd party is throwing your vote away.
At first the press only talked about Trump to ignore real republican thought, then it became a reinforcing cycle as people bought into the despair.
Illinois counties downstate (I live in a bordering state) ran out of Republican primary ballots last election. These people come out in droves. They will continue to come out in full force, 150%. I believe we will see record turn out in the fall, and it will be mostly Trump supporters.
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- The wall
- Fight against sanctuary cities, including now support for a bill that would allow relatives of murdered US citizens who were victims of aliens protected by Sanctuary laws, to sue those sanctuary cities.
- Travel ban, which for me is a litmus test as to whether you are a "crazy leftist" by whether or not you actually think it's a "muslim ban."
- Stronger economy through less regulation
- Bring back jobs to US
- Rational trade deals that prioritize US, not sacrifice it. (China, USMCA, etc.)
- A general aversion to taking other first-world countries' shit, who simultaneously exploit us for money and protection, and say how horrible we are.
- Reversal of Iran deal
- Efforts to remove US from middle east
- Prison reform
- Drug price transparency
- "Drain the swamp" / exposure of the "deep state" / revelation that this concept is real and simple: the natural bias that occurs within government when there is a 90%/10% political imbalance. (Currently 90% democrat/10% republican.) This manifests as things like the Mueller report: based on a lie, started by hostile government actors, causes a shit-ton of political casualties who would not even be considered if they were on the other side, wastes everybody's time and money. And it is only possible for it to happen one way: against Republicans. This is transparent and obvious.
- 5 year foreign lobbying ban
- Repeal and replace Obamacare. (As an anecdote, my mom said that out of the whole 8 years of Obama as president, the only thing that really changed for her is that she paid more for insurance while receiving less, a direct result of Obamacare.)
- Support the vets / VA
- Space Force
- Supreme court justice
- Protection of religious expression in schools
- "Fuck you" to liberal elites [1]
> which for me is a litmus test as to whether you are a "crazy leftist"
Implying that those who disagree with you are "crazy leftists" might be one reason for a downvote, for a start.
>- Travel ban, which for me is a litmus test as to whether you are a "crazy leftist" by whether or not you actually think it's a "muslim ban."
Can you elaborate on this? While it's not a literal ban on muslims, it does disporportionately affect muslims.
>- Bring back jobs to US
What Trump policies can be attributed to this? AFAIK there a bunch of reports that a bunch of companies that "brough back" jobs were planning on doing it anyways (eg. carrier/honeywell, couldn't remember which).
>- Efforts to remove US from middle east
Sure, he hastily pulled out of Syria, but earlier this year we were on the brink of war with Iran. What gives?
>- the natural bias that occurs within government when there is a 90%/10% political imbalance. [...] This manifests as things like the Mueller report: [...]
But Mueller is a registered republican?
>- Prison reform
>- Drug price transparency
>- Protection of religious expression in schools
I'm not aware of any of these. Can you elaborate?
> But Mueller is a registered republican?
One thing you will notice is that a lot of Trump supporters hate both Democrats as well as many Republicans. Trump himself ran on attacking the Bush era. Remember his debate with Jeb Bush? Same with him hating on McCain (who gave the Steele Dossier to the FBI). That's why, Trump and a lot of his supporters dislike majority of dems but also many republicans.
> Can you elaborate on this?
The countries are predominantly muslim but how does that make it a "muslim ban"? Are muslims still allowed from other countries? Yes. Are Christians from those banned countries allowed either? No. Seems straightforward then that it is not a muslim ban. The list of countries was composed by the Obama administration, not Trump. Trump just made a rational application of it. If there were a European ban, would it be a Christian ban? It would "disproportionately affect" Christians. Seems outlandish to think so. This characterization is ridiculous.
> What Trump policies can be attributed to this?
China trade war tariffs, for example. The China trade deal more broadly. The USMCA. The effort to make the US energy independent and a net exporter. [1]
> earlier this year we were on the brink of war with Iran
This depends on your choice of media and its bias and characterizations. The choice to strategically eliminate a single terrorist general with a missile, rather than wait for the plans he was brewing to bubble, prevented things from escalating and did it with zero casualties. This is an example of, not a counterpoint to, efforts to remove.
> But Mueller is a registered republican?
This seems like a very hollow thing to say. Whether or not the specific investigator is of a certain party is generally meaningless when his appointment is the decision of someone else, and the work on his team was mostly not carried out by him, but his staff. This would be true anyway, but it was clear in his deposition that he was also a mostly ignorant figurehead, unaware of a lot of what was happening. More broadly, I used the mueller investigation as an example of a wide trend, and that Mueller is a republican has nothing to do with that trend, or the statistical makeup of DC.
> Prison reform
Please literally google "trump prison reform". The First Step Act on Wikipedia is the first result.
> Drug price transparency
Please literally google "trump drug price transparency". The whitehouse fact sheet is the first result. [2]
> Protection of religious expression in schools
Please literally google "trump protection of religious expression in schools". The whitehouse fact sheet is the first result. [3]
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If you are genuinely surprised you've never heard of these things before, you may consider what aspects of your information intake may be bubble-like and self-reinforcing. It would be healthy to question the media narratives that you tend to consume, and/or opening your stream to other news sources.
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[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential...
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-do...
[3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-do...
Because a Muslim ban was what Trump said he was going to do, and he explicitly linked the policy in question as the fulfillment of that commitment?
https://www.cato.org/blog/dozen-times-trump-equated-travel-b...
If you have a child that claims he's going to dig a hole to china, but people tell him this is futile and he should consider digging a well instead, which is an action sort-of in the same direction but meaningfully different and actually practical, and then he agrees and digs a well, then you appreciate the well and call it a "well," you don't continue to call it a "hole to China," which it clearly is not. You could, but you'd be displaying your attachment to your original anger.
There is a massive, silent, and barely political segment of the population between far left and far right. For that silent majority, the only real impact they will have noticed from the Trump presidency is that they paid slightly less in tax.
Most people genuinely don't care about politics. Everyone cares about their money. I think the tax cuts are more important than you let on.
They don't know or care about tax policy, what deductions apply when, how rates are calculated, none of it. They will only notice that they paid less this year than normal, and that will make them happy.
Congress has abdicated responsibility for far too long to the Administrative branch. The greatest example is on immigration where they would rather act by decree, issued by court or their own guy as President. Unfortunately Congress answers to their party affiliation first and the people last. Used to be committees made Congress work but they have been slowly torn down since the Republican take over in 96 and Democrats have shown no desire to bring them back.
Congress works when both sides work it out and debate, this only happens with a strong committee structure and until it returns Congress will be controlled by their parties who have the power to punish members of the party.
Trump spent less than Clinton and she lost [0]
[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/politics/campaign-spen...
It feels like a Simpsons episode. We are the democratic party. I don't know how we are going to blow it, but we will give it our best shot.
It gets very depressing.
However as an outsider (I'm not American), he actually seemed more on message and resonated more with his base than his opponent in 2016 so when Hillary became the nominee for the Democratic party I actually bet 100 NOK with my co-worker that Trump would win.
Nb I'm not using populism as a negative term here, and do not consider something automatically bad because it's populist.
Now, to defend describing his supporters as having been "fooled", I'd say the strongest evidence for that would be that some of his major proposals weren't ever really proposals, and still haven't meaningful become proposals (his "most perfect" or whatever health care reform comes immediately to mind—what exactly was that supposed to be? Very good, the best, whatever it was.) and that his support many of these positions is very probably opportunistic and disingenuous.
To tack back the other way, I personally would accept someone I knew or suspected to be opportunistically, rather than genuinely, supporting my interests if I believed they were likely to meaningfully advance them regardless, so my support of such a person wouldn't necessarily be evidence that I'd been "fooled". Probably some were (I mean, there've been no shortage of interviews with Trump voters all over the media in the last 3 years, and clearly some were not, uh, going in with both eyes open) but who knows how many knew he was full of shit (I mean it's kinda his thing? What he was famous for everywhere, including right-wing radio, before he became a Republican politician?) but thought he'd effectively advance their interests anyway. Possibly a lot.
I have no idea where people get this from. I am an Indian immigrant and India recently finished building their border fence/wall with Bangladesh. It works and helps reduce illegal crossing. Plus Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and other democrats are on video from back in 2000s and 2012 where they advocated for the exact same thing.
Simply labeling everything you disagree with as far-right is silly.
There is a reason republicans are falling all over themselves to lick his boots. He controls the power now.
The more entertaining candidate wins.
Bush was more entertaining than Gore and Kerry. Obama was more entertaining than McCain and Romney. Trump was more entertaining than Clinton.
My prediction is that Trump will win again this year. I personally don't want that to happen, but I feel that it will. I'd love for Sanders to win.
The other major factor I see is how Trump handles scandal: brag about getting away with it, and accuse everybody else of doing the same thing. It's certainly dramatic -- I'm loath to call it entertaining... but it's hard to tear oneself away from this news cycle
Exactly the same, for (probably—also Midwestern) similar reasons. As soon as he Wile-E-Coyote'd over the cliff of his first couple big scandals in the primary and made it clear that the secret to being scandal-impervious was simply never to look down, that plus his message meant I started telling people he'd probably win the nomination. He sounded like a mash-up of every Republican I'd ever talked to, and even kinda like a lot of older-school Union Strong sorts of Dems—not like a Republican politician or "intellectual" or media figure, mind you, but a voter, which is entirely different. Not even Palin had a message that close to what you might overhear at the local coffee, beer, & bait shop. It was uncanny.
Then Hillary became his opponent and while everyone else was laughing about the whole thing I was like, "Uh oh. Shit. Trump's probably gonna win. Doesn't matter if it's fair or not, fact is she's widely hated and, hate to break it to you, it's not just die-hard Republicans or irredeemable misogynists who feel that way. Should they hate her? Doesn't matter. They do."
And here we are. Sigh.