At the risk of boring the few dozen family and friends I am closest with, I have been SPAMing them with emails about TPP and links to complain to their Congress-critters.
I mean no offense by this, but I may never understand how so many intelligent, thoughtful people managed to become so fully convinced of such a naive narrative.
But that isn't what I was getting at.
There was this mass euphoria surrounding one candidate, in which his supporters seemed to believe–despite all evidence to the contrary–that their candidate would somehow represent a kind of messianic deliverance from the status quo–at long last!–as if he would somehow be magically exempt from the forces that created the status quo in the first place.
I understand how people could bring themselves to believe such a thing once, but how they largely came back for more in the reelection, and are now shocked–shocked!–to discover there is gambling going on in this establishment, is beyond me.
Registering disappointment this late in the game says more about the voter than it does the politician, frankly.
I just want to understand how people who aren't lacking in intelligence came to, for lack of a better term, fall for it. The thinking of lot of highly rational people became more emotionally-driven than I've ever seen.
Because that is essentially what that choice boiled down to, Kang or Kodos.
First paragraph: "I don't believe for a second that had 2008 or 2012 turned out differently, commercial forces would have any less influence on those who write the laws, ratify the laws, or he who signs them. It's the nature of the beast."
Anyway, there was virtually no lesser-of-two-evils narrative in '08 or '12 from the American left, or at least as little as there's ever been in recent history. From either side, really.
Maybe not at rallies, but if you read lefty commentary or conversation sites it was nothing but lesser-of-two-evils in '08 and '12. Likewise on the right. Thoughtful people always know the score and Obama has been as hopey and changey as anyone could reasonably hope for -- specifically, he has been a little better than the one before him.
We have obamacare; for all it's flaws, we've both massively reduced the number of uninsured in the United States and slowed the growth of health costs. It's a huge win, and while I would have loved single payer -- hmos and all health insurers are nothing but parasites -- the fact is he didn't have the votes in the Senate and Obama did as well as possible. I'm pretty confident that in the 20 year timeframe we'll have something pretty close to single payer, whether it's true single payer or strong caps on how much resources insurers can suck. Obamacare is also a massive gift to anyone who would like to start a company, both for the original founders and for early employees.
We have many fewer troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While I wish Obama were much better, those are two big differences from Bush.
I was only trying to suggest that there was something more pragmatic than wide-eyed naiveté at work when people voted for Obama the second time. There were plenty of Democrats who were tired of Obama and were ready to jump ship if only the Republicans had met them halfway and presented a candidate who wasn't contemptible.
But, fall for what really? This was the best chance at hope-and-change amidst the reality of 'commercial forces', twice. As another respondent said, the alternatives were clearly worse.
I'd rather have a hopeful-of-change person in charge constrained by "the beast" than a status quo option also constrained by the beast. At least the former can apply some pressure via public support.
Even those that realise the beast is largely in control of proceedings had to reach that at some point; I didn't realise the extent of it until I was 35.
I'm not saying you should like or agree with these policies, but I can't sympathize with your expressions of surprise. I'm hawkish enough (as a classical economic liberal or 'neoliberal' if you like) that I broadly support the policies mentioned above, and it was part of why I decided I'd prefer to see him in the job back in 2007.
It's about raising trade barriers together to protect incumbent industries at the cost of consumers and competition. They want to lengthen copyright, invade privacy, regulate internet services while empowering gatekeepers, strengthen licensing and reporting and taxation demands on small business, expand and unify patent regimes, and the like.
Canada, Mexico, China, Australia, and Japan are already reciprocal Most Favored Nation trading partners. We're not going to be getting any more access to their markets. They're not going to be selling us anything new, either.
The contents of the deal are still an official secret, but we've had leaks. It looks like the worst kind of big cartel, Disney, telecom monopoly, NSA, surveillance state, patent troll plan to terrorize consumers and innovating businesses. In fact, it's probably exactly what you might expect powerful insiders to negotiate in secret at the expense of the public.
Free trade is something different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agree...