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Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I don't necessarily think Pruitt getting kicked out is a lock. I think as EPA head he is doing exactly as Trump wanted him to do, which is to keep it totally de-fanged.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I've come to realise something. You can say whatever you like about Trump as a politician / human being, but you can't deny he's an amazing storyteller. Before the election and afterwards, his narrative has been unwavering, energising and has an impenetrable internal logic, telling his supporters exactly what they needed / wanted to hear.
Realism, retcons and plot holes are very much non-issues to the audience when a story is romantic, thrilling, or engaging enough.
He's performing to an audience. To quote myself:
NinthMusketeer wrote: Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
True that. I thinking the working class are a big portion of the hard core supporters though. The wealthy are just using it as a cover to do a little of the old rape and pillage...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/08 22:27:59
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
No one really knows for sure... some say working class pulled trump... some say that the white voters voted like a bloc... while other said many stayed home believe HRC would win in a landslide. Maybe it's a mix-mash of all of that...
However, the simplest answer was that HRC lost because of HRC.
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
No one really knows for sure... some say working class pulled trump... some say that the white voters voted like a bloc... while other said many stayed home believe HRC would win in a landslide. Maybe it's a mix-mash of all of that...
However, the simplest answer was that HRC lost because of HRC.
Trump won white voters by a margin almost identical to that of Mitt Romney, who lost the popular vote to Barack Obama in 2012. (Trump appears likely to lose the popular vote, which would make him only the fifth elected president to do so and still win office.) White non-Hispanic voters preferred Trump over Clinton by 21 percentage points (58% to 37%), according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool. Romney won whites by 20 percentage points in 2012 (59% to 39%).
However, although Trump fared little better among blacks and Hispanics than Romney did four years ago, Hillary Clinton did not run as strongly among these core Democratic groups as Obama did in 2012. Clinton held an 80-point advantage among blacks (88% to 8%) compared with Obama’s 87-point edge four years ago (93% to 6%). In 2008, Obama had a 91-point advantage among blacks.
In the 2016 election, a wide gap in presidential preferences emerged between those with and without a college degree. College graduates backed Clinton by a 9-point margin (52%-43%), while those without a college degree backed Trump 52%-44%. This is by far the widest gap in support among college graduates and non-college graduates in exit polls dating back to 1980. For example, in 2012, there was hardly any difference between the two groups: College graduates backed Obama over Romney by 50%-48%, and those without a college degree also supported Obama 51%-47%.
Among whites, Trump won an overwhelming share of those without a college degree; and among white college graduates – a group that many identified as key for a potential Clinton victory – Trump outperformed Clinton by a narrow 4-point margin.
Trump’s margin among whites without a college degree is the largest among any candidate in exit polls since 1980. Two-thirds (67%) of non-college whites backed Trump, compared with just 28% who supported Clinton, resulting in a 39-point advantage for Trump among this group. In 2012 and 2008, non-college whites also preferred the Republican over the Democratic candidate but by less one-sided margins (61%-36% and 58%-40%, respectively).
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think its because his core supporters are those people who are so afraid of change and long for the 1950s where everything was "perfect" and men like Trump were more accepted. Plus he does have the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on his side as well and I doubt they will be leaving him anytime soon.
Hell I would said that last group has become way more emboldened because of Trump, at a play about Anne Frank at a college nearby mine they had a dude in a don't tread on me hat stand up and give a Nazi salute to the actors playing the Nazis in the middle of the performance.
Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Even if we hold that as true (which I would debate strongly in some ways and agree with in others), here's what I don't get though...Trump doesn't appear to either once the window dressing is gone.
Yeah, we've heard a lot of talk about the border. The border however isn't why a 58 year old factory worker can't get work in most cases. We hear a lot about foreign trade and jobs going overseas. In large part this has been overblown and, when it hasn't, those jobs aren't ever coming back here anyway because they'll be automated or phased out entirely. Trade war with China? Well, pretty much anyone in the world of economics is going to tell you that nobody is going to win that with the targets Trump is going after and it's going to be bad for *everyone*. I'm not seeing any policies that are going to ultimately make life better for that group. Having just finished our own trade show at work, talking with our suppliers and the contractors who form our customer base, almost all of which (including myself) fall into that "white working class" label, nobody was excited about any of that. Almost every major policy Trump is behind seems tailor made to economically screw the "white working class", particularly in the long run.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/08 23:10:58
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Then why did the flow reverse under Obama? The number of illegal persons actually dropped while he was in office.
It's probably better to just leave that statement be. There's so much wrong with it I don't even know where to start.
On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Then why did the flow reverse under Obama? The number of illegal persons actually dropped while he was in office.
It's probably better to just leave that statement be. There's so much wrong with it I don't even know where to start.
On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
It’s always sad when the Parties put zero sum partisanship ahead of actually governing the country. Just like it’s sad when Congress allows the President to amass more unconstitutional authority when the same Party has a majority and the Preaodency while the minority Party objects to an imperial preaodency and then when the roles are reversed the former objecting minority Party that’s now in charge gladly let’s the President amass more power and have Congress abdicate more of its authority.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Tell me, just how many illegal immigrants work at high-paying jobs everyone wants, as opposed to the number of them crummy minimum-wage jobs or farm labor that Americans refuse to do?
But if this is a problem for you, there's a simple solution. Contact your federal representatives and tell them to QUICKLY - while they have a majority - make it a felony to employ an undocumented worker in any manner whatsoever, with a fine equal to the entire income of the person, business, or agency doing so. If employing illegals means bankruptcy, no one will do it. No jobs, no illegals.
Now of course we both know Congress won't do it; there's too much corporate profit being made from using illegal workers making less than minimum wage....
d-usa wrote: If the Dems get 51 seats in the Senate, is anyone really going to be surprised if no SCOTUS seats get filled until 2021?
The Republicans set the precedent on that so no I wouldn't be surprised, though I wonder if any posters on this forum will go the hypocritical route and complain about it while they were cheering the turtle and co.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think its because his core supporters are those people who are so afraid of change and long for the 1950s where everything was "perfect" and men like Trump were more accepted. Plus he does have the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on his side as well and I doubt they will be leaving him anytime soon.
Hell I would said that last group has become way more emboldened because of Trump, at a play about Anne Frank at a college nearby mine they had a dude in a don't tread on me hat stand up and give a Nazi salute to the actors playing the Nazis in the middle of the performance.
Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Even if we hold that as true (which I would debate strongly in some ways and agree with in others), here's what I don't get though...Trump doesn't appear to either once the window dressing is gone.
Yeah, we've heard a lot of talk about the border. The border however isn't why a 58 year old factory worker can't get work in most cases. We hear a lot about foreign trade and jobs going overseas. In large part this has been overblown and, when it hasn't, those jobs aren't ever coming back here anyway because they'll be automated or phased out entirely. Trade war with China? Well, pretty much anyone in the world of economics is going to tell you that nobody is going to win that with the targets Trump is going after and it's going to be bad for *everyone*. I'm not seeing any policies that are going to ultimately make life better for that group. Having just finished our own trade show at work, talking with our suppliers and the contractors who form our customer base, almost all of which (including myself) fall into that "white working class" label, nobody was excited about any of that. Almost every major policy Trump is behind seems tailor made to economically screw the "white working class", particularly in the long run.
According to the most recent Gallop approval poll Trump has a 39% approval rating which is the lowest on record for the 5th quarter of a first term. Trumps approval breaks down as 85% of Republicans approve of Trump 33% of Independents and 8% of Democrats. That Republican/Democrat split has been pretty consistent throughout his term. When his term started Trump had 42% and 13% approval from Independents and Democrats respectively but they’ve never been that high since, staying in the 30s for Independents and single digits for Democrats with Republican support in the mid 80s. Aside from having an (R) next to his name I’m not sure why 85% of Republicans would think Trump is doing a great job.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Tell me, just how many illegal immigrants work at high-paying jobs everyone wants, as opposed to the number of them crummy minimum-wage jobs or farm labor that Americans refuse to do?
But if this is a problem for you, there's a simple solution. Contact your federal representatives and tell them to QUICKLY - while they have a majority - make it a felony to employ an undocumented worker in any manner whatsoever, with a fine equal to the entire income of the person, business, or agency doing so. If employing illegals means bankruptcy, no one will do it. No jobs, no illegals.
Now of course we both know Congress won't do it; there's too much corporate profit being made from using illegal workers making less than minimum wage....
Employers save a significant amount by using illegal labor even when they pay them fair market wages. There are a lot of illegals working in the construction industry because Federal labor laws put the labor burden in that industry at 35-40%. That means illegal workers are 35-40% less expensive even when they are paid the same hourly wage as illegal workers. The attraction of illegal labor is the savings from avoiding paying benefits and payroll tax not from low wages. Low wages will get you low quality work and low quality work won’t let you stay in business.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/04/09 01:27:07
First of all, socialism and fascism are objectively opposite ideologies with entirely incompatible world views. I don't mean that they just couldn't possible agree with what things should be like, I mean that they can't possibly agree with what things are like. Their understandings of what society is and how it works are incompatible. Attempting to triangulate something that is inbetween them is... a strange endevaour to say the least.
I wrote, clearly and simply, "selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right". In response to this you said that process was bad because it was impossible to reconcile fascism and socialism. Whether you think fascism and socialism both exist within the range of moderate left to moderate right, or whether you didn't bother to read the single sentence describing the thing you wanted to rant against can be debated, but the answer doesn't matter. What matters is that your posts completely missed the point.
This centrism contains nothing. It's the weakest possible ideology because it doesn't actually believe in anything. All they do is nervously follow Data and Trends. That's why Clinton failed.
You've confused the general concept of centrism with a specific application. This is a common and generally fatal mistake to make in political analysis.
So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
That's why the Democratic Party is in freefall.
This claim is wildly ignorant of political results in the last 18 months.
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Prestor Jon wrote: Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
Yeah, and while I find having having such a large single cut to be far too crude a way to manage income assessment, I come from the point of view of an accountant who's been trained in and worked in tax. For people who are really intimidated by the tax system I see the benefits of this much simpler single claim.
The bigger problem here is the increased standard deduction sunsets, like most other personal tax cuts in the bill. Which means come 2025 most people will suddenly find themselves much worse off than they were before this bill.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/09 02:10:38
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
...and around, around it goes.
Frankly, I'd have them change the filibuster rule to require the Senator to be on the floor talking... but, that's too archaic or something.
Prestor Jon wrote: How do you figure that socialism and fascism are wholly diametrically opposed ideologies?
One of the primary drives of the rise of pre-war fascism was as a response to socialism.
I think you're making the mistake that many Americans make, particularly libertarian leaning Americans, that tend to see everything through the lens of individual and property rights. Sure, in that light both socialism and fascism are similar in their levels of government interference, but in many parts of the world individual and property rights were far from the primary considerations. In those parts of the world the conflict between progressivism and conservativism, between equality and hierarchy, between internationalism and nationalism, and so on were essential to the political conflict.
Take all that with a grain of salt, because there's more definitions of fascism than the number of actual fascists, and the actual fascists themselves weren't really given to abstract, political analysis of how all the stuff they shouted about angrily all fit together in a coherent whole. And also remember as well not to think of Nazi Germany, which was a much messier application of fascism, but instead think of Spain or Italy.
Anyhow, there was a lot with Rosebuddy's post, but the idea of socialism and fascism being in opposition wasn't really one of the problems.
*And in this context conservatism relates to the preservation of the old, heirarchical social structures of the aristocratic world, not the modern, American meaning.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Prestor Jon wrote: Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers. https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
Yeah, and while I find having having such a large single cut to be far too crude a way to manage income assessment, I come from the point of view of an accountant who's been trained in and worked in tax. For people who are really intimidated by the tax system I see the benefits of this much simpler single claim.
The bigger problem here is the increased standard deduction sunsets, like most other personal tax cuts in the bill. Which means come 2025 most people will suddenly find themselves much worse off than they were before this bill.
...eh... it'll be made permanent or extended before then.
I think the whole "small crumbs" or "repeal the tax cut" the Democratic leaders are championing now is a big mistake.
No matter how altruistic people are... most of them don't like having their taxes raised.
Edit: The increase in standard deductions won't be realized till next year... however, with the tax witholdings adjusted last February, my take home pay increase is not insignificant... could afford a nice brand new car payment. Or a foregworld spending spree.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/04/09 02:39:28
Blood Hawk wrote: Also while many of the provisions are set to expire with the tax reform bill, tax provisions that are set to expire are often just renewed by congress right before they expire. Sometimes they are even renewed during the middle of the tax season. This happens almost every year.
This is true, but this bill was passed as a purely partisan bill, against very large protests. And the structure of the bill was to permanently lock in place the least popular elements that gave the lion's share of the benefits to the very rich, while leaving in place sunset clauses for the parts that benefit middle and lower income earners.
The fight is already laid out - Republicans will look to extend or make permanent the allowances, and when they face opposition they'll claim Democrats are trying to raise taxes on the poor and middle class. Democrats will say they support extending or making permanent the allowances, but only if the high income and corporate tax cuts are wholly or partially restored, and when they face opposition they'll claim Republicans are letting the low and middle income tax cuts sunset to protect the high income earners.
This is the exact same fight that played out over the Bush tax cuts, except that time both high and low income taxes were sunsetting. This time the high income cuts were made permanent, so Republicans think they've got a stronger tactical advantage in keeping them out of the debate. It's probably true, up to a point.
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Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
Whatever happens to Pruitt now, Trump would be mad to use him to replace Sessions. Firing Sessions would already be playing with fire and risking a constitutional crisis, the last thing you want to do in that situation is make your replacement someone who was already known for his own abuses of power.
Thing is, all this stuff coming out in public all at once makes it clear someone is leaking this stuff with a purpose in mind. My first, more conspiratorial thought was it was done by the IC to stop the plan to have Pruitt replace Sessions as AG - the IC wanting to ensure Mueller finishes his work. But that was a really speculative thought that just popped in to my head with nothing to back it up.
The leaks coming from Kelly is much more mundane, but a lot more likely to be true. But whoever the leaker or leakers were, one effect is Trump needs to find another person to replace Sessions, because trying to use Pruitt now would be making a hard job near impossible.
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Elemental wrote: I've come to realise something. You can say whatever you like about Trump as a politician / human being, but you can't deny he's an amazing storyteller. Before the election and afterwards, his narrative has been unwavering, energising and has an impenetrable internal logic, telling his supporters exactly what they needed / wanted to hear.
Realism, retcons and plot holes are very much non-issues to the audience when a story is romantic, thrilling, or engaging enough.
It is amazing how charismatic and forceful a story teller can be, when he is untroubled by facts or conscience.
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Frazzled wrote: Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Frazzled wrote: Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
And these two posts, and the move from one to the next, is the very core of the issue. It always starts with no-one having concern for the white working class, but when that's challenged the issue shifts to immigration.
Democrats keep answering the first challenge on economic grounds. Democrats are for higher minimum wages, protecting medicaid/medicare and social security, and for shifting the tax burden back to the rich. That's stuff will directly benefit the white working class on economic terms.
But that goes nowhere, because right now the concerns of the white working class, at least the white working class that Trump has won in large numbers, their concerns are nothing to do with economics. They'll claim they oppose immigration on economic grounds, but that's not slightly true. Immigration positively impacts growth and wages, something that's been proven time and again and is intuitively obvious to anyone really trying to think about it. The cause of decline of incomes among the white working class is due to the redistribution of wealth towards the top, and the massive drop in the number of jobs in manual labour and their rates of pay.
This is something we know to be true, because when we look at support for Trump and control for ethnicity and education to focus in on the white working class, we see something interesting - support for Trump goes up as income goes up. The highschool grad who owns the building company is a lot more likely to support Trump than his highschool grad apprentice. Movements around economic anxiety don't see support increase as income increases.
On seeing this a lot of people have concluded that it must instead be all about racism, but that's not really true either. Well, not racism in the sense of hating someone with a different skin colour. But in the sense of status, of feeling like a majority in your own country, that's the way that race drives the Trump thing. People don't have to hate people of another race or culture to not panic when they realise their own group won't be a majority in their country any more. That's why immigration is such a factor - note that areas that showed the biggest swings to Trump included the areas that are just now experiencing their first major inflows of immigrants.
It is about immigration, but it is a reaction against the cultural and social changes of immigration, not the imaginary economic threat. And these are genuine impacts that deserve to be debated, but aren't because any debate touching on race in the US is so toxic that genuine debate never happens.
Realising this should help people realise why the claim that Democrats have abandoned the white working class is repeated by so many, and is something Democrats have made no inroads against despite their many economic policies. Because the feeling of abandonment is not about economics at all.
Democrats should realise this, and recognise that to a large extent, wooing back those voters is fundamentally impossible to reconcile with their idea of a multicultural nation. It doesn't mean give up on the economic messaging as it will some voters on the margins, but the party can win strong majorities by activating other groups to vote, it shouldn't depress those votes chasing voters that aren't coming back.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
With the end of filibuster Republicans you can confirm with 50 + the VP. The Republicans can do it by themselves. Now its true that Democrats are responding to the Republican strategy of 2013 to 2014 of go-slow, using procedural tricks to make each appointment process take as long as possible. That's not cool, and as you say it isn't justified because Republicans did it first.
But that's far from the only thing going on. Both parties are using holds to delay appointments, and extract concessions from the Whitehouse to allow appointments to pass through. Grassley has probably issued more holds than anyone. Gardner is a one man operation holding up DoJ appointments to keep Sessions marijuana policies in check. So it isn't just Democrats.
But the biggest cause of the low rate of appointments is Trump. He doesn't show much interest in filling these jobs at all. The White House office charged with recruiting talent has less than a third of the staff it had under previous presidents, and it's headed by a college drop out with convictions for fraudulent checks and drink driving. As a result the rate of appointees is slowed to a trickle, and many coming through are hopelessly unqualified and rejected in a bi-partisan fashion. The judicial appointee who was caught up making repeated errors on basic procedural matters until he admitted he'd never actually been in a court in a professional sense comes to mind.
The reason for this is pretty obvious. In a broad sense Trump is small government, but more than that the guy is deeply lazy. Building a culture that attracts excellence, then has recruitment staff actively draw elite performers in, and then ushers them through the political battleground of Washington is is really hard to do. Way more work than Trump can even conceive of.
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whembly wrote: ...eh... it'll be made permanent or extended before then.
I think the whole "small crumbs" or "repeal the tax cut" the Democratic leaders are championing now is a big mistake.
No matter how altruistic people are... most of them don't like having their taxes raised.
You're so buried in Republican talking points you don't even realise when you've failed to see the issue outside of their framing. Democrats talking about repealing the tax cut aren't talking about taking away the little bit given to the working class and middle class. They're talking about restoring corporate rates, high income rates, and all the little allowances that only suited the very rich (like the private plane deduction), and using that to boost to low and middle class cuts to being something actually real.
Oh, by the way, remember when we debated this stuff by pm and I said the tax cut would pass, and then in 2018 Republicans would return to pretending to care about the deficit to push cuts to social security and medicare? You said you weren't sure if the tax cut would pass, and refused to consider that within 12 months of blowing up the deficit the Republicans would return to claiming it was an issue to drive cuts. At some point you need to admit I know the Republican party a lot better than you do.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2018/04/09 05:37:01
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote: I wrote, clearly and simply, "selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right". In response to this you said that process was bad because it was impossible to reconcile fascism and socialism. Whether you think fascism and socialism both exist within the range of moderate left to moderate right, or whether you didn't bother to read the single sentence describing the thing you wanted to rant against can be debated, but the answer doesn't matter. What matters is that your posts completely missed the point.
Thinking you can mix and match from leftist and rightist policy in a technocratic attempt to reconcile two ideologies that are irreconcileable is doomed to fail. Watering them down into "moderate" versions (whatever that means, being as how moderation only exists within context) doesn't help any because either both your moderate versions remain fundamentally left-wing and fundamentally right-wing or one of them is compromised away from being itself and you end up with a left and a weak left or a right and a weak right.
So, in the US, centrists think they're being better than anyone else by picking the "moderate" positions between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party when all they're doing is waffling between fascism-leaning liberalism and less-open fascists.
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
The democrats, just like the republicans, are serving the interest of their donors. They just have different PR strategies.
I think stating that both the democrats and republicans are moving on fascism because they are more towards right wing politics is completely ridiculous. There are more political ideologies on the right than just fascism. Neither party is even approaching fascism. Its more a weird mix between libertarian urges and protectionism/almost mercantilistic policies by the Trump admin.
Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
Rosebuddy wrote: The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education.
"Don't agree with my left-wing politics" and "not educated" are not the same thing. A lot of people in the US do in fact believe in centrism for the sake of centrism, not just because they haven't been educated enough to understand that your positions are the indisputable truth.
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There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
This whole time I thought I was a center-left guy because that's about where my beliefs lay, not because I was too ignorant to know that's actually the level of fascism I am comfortable with.
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
This is something that was very visible during the last election, and something that is still visible as well. Take coal as an example:
The reality is that coal jobs have been hit by a large variety of factors: automation, cheap natural gas, global regulations on emissions. Even if we get an administration that is anti-regulation, every business in the United States knows that administrations alternate back and forth and that regulations will come and go. So the majority of corporations will continue to do business as if regulations still exist, because it's cheaper than pretending that they will never return and then struggle with compliance every time the administration changes.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, and offered policies that allow workers to be retrained in other fields in order to gain employment and have careers, and policies that support workers that are unable to work.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, stated that they can somehow force those businesses to ignore the fact that their competition is cheaper, and somehow bring jobs that have been gone for a decade back to rural communities. That candidate also ran with the support of the political party in favor of abandoning the safety nets that protect the workers hurt by coal jobs that are never coming back.
The "I don't want to learn a new skill, I want my old job back and pretend the global economic changes that caused these jobs to leave never happened to begin with" crowd was the winner.
What I never understood, beyond why anyone would possibly think those coal mining jobs would ever come back regardless of who wins the presidency, is why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers. For some reason the 18k people in a dying industry garner substantially more respect and political attention than the 3.7 million fast food workers who had the audacity to demand the wage growth americans got shafted out of over the last 2 decades.
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
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