2020 US Election (Part Two)

[amadeus]

I didn't quote @amadeus.

That’s fine, I’m just happy to be recognized once in a while.

(despite it's broad and light-hearted phrasing)

Well, to begin, the brevity of the post is intentional because picking apart specific failures of foreign policy post-‘89 doesn’t get me any closer to making my point about Trump in context. It’s a big picture overview; if you want to talk about specific policy, I’d be happy to engage in it elsewhere as this is mainly a thread about the upcoming election. I did have a foreign policy thread months ago but neglected to expand on my thoughts. Oops for me!

The lightheartedness, well, I’m in a lighthearted mood. Right now, I’m standing in a shady spot in a small park near my apartment. There’s some obnoxious construction going on in my neighborhood and I had to get out of the noise before I had to pop some anxiety medicine. It’s a hot one out here!

 

[Zkribbler]

There’s some obnoxious construction going on in my neighborhood and I had to get out of the noise before I had to pop some anxiety medicine. It’s a hot one out here!

This has been the last few weeks of my life, as the city jack hammered up the street, repaved it, re jack hammered it, and is now repaving it again.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Bad news.

"Third time's the charm" actually originated in the paving industry.

 

[mitsho]

I think he did (look at his book from 2000) but he’s just given up the ship for some reason. Too bad, because he did have some decent ideas.

The he in this quote is Trump, right? I'm afraid to tell you, he didn't write that book. He had a ghost writer do it like with all his writings. He maybe blabbered on, but the ghost writer surely addrd this and that so that his arguments at least are coherent. You can't know what he really thinks based on a book written by someone else.

 

[Lexicus]

America had the illusion of doing just fine because of Trump's massive borrowing. He continues his tradition of driving his companies into bankruptcy and sticking others will the bill.

No, America had the illusion of doing just fine because, just like in Obama's two terms, the affluent folks in the top 20% or so have no concept of how bad things are for the rest of the population. The central "illusion" of American life today is this drastically different experience of America based on wealth, and how it is largely invisible to those at the top of the economic ladder.

Incidentally, using this metaphor of the Federal government as a company only plays into the hands of Republicans who promise to run the country like a business. Trump's "borrowing" is the one aspect of his policy that is not going to leave a mess for future generations. Literally everything else...will have to be cleaned up at some point.

 

[Velegon]

If it were not for COVID-19, Trump would win this election hands down because America was doing just fine, especially on the economy.

Actually many economists were predicting a recession in 2020 before COVID arose - COVID likely just accelerated the arrival time and augmented the eventual recession. Also the Black Lives Matter protests likely still would have happened due to the deaths from police shootings.

 

[Patine]

the affluent folks in the top 20% or so have no concept of how bad things are for the rest of the population.

And this concept did not even remotely start with Obama, or is even remotely unique to the United States. It just tends to a standard human socio-economic model for a broader, nation-level system...

 

[Lexicus]

And this concept did not even remotely start with Obama, or is even remotely unique to the United States. It just tends to a standard human socio-economic model for a broader, nation-level system...

I wouldn't claim that elite cluelessness about the suffering of ordinary people is a new phenomenon or only limited to the United States, obviously, but I would say that the contemporary (last 50-60 years or so) has seen an increasing physical segregation of rich and poor in the United States, which has in turn led to a diminished consciousness on both sides of the divide- aside from elite cluelessness, which I won't get into further in this post, ordinary Americans tend to drastically underestimate the true level of inequality, and I would argue this is largely due to very little real exposure to the lifestyles of those in the upper 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.001% and so on.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The robber barons of the 1890's didn't have their own separate media ecosystems/echo chambers to the nearly same extent people have now so would have been more exposed to and aware of what's going on in the wider society. And as @Lexicus pointed out, segregation of all stripes is actually worse now than it's ever been.

 

[Patine]

The robber barons of the 1890's didn't have their own separate media ecosystems/echo chambers to the nearly same extent people have now so would have been more exposed to and aware of what's going on in the wider society. And as @Lexicus pointed out, segregation of all stripes is actually worse now than it's ever been.

The robber barons in the 1890's read completely different newspapers (the only big source of media in the era), conducted completely different social lives at completely different businesses and hospitality establishments and never dealt with the hoipaloi personally, unless they were employees, and thus professionally in a subservient role. So your analogy is incorrect. The segregation of socio-economic classes was FAR WORSE back!

 

[Ajidica]

The robber barons of the 1890's didn't have their own separate media ecosystems/echo chambers to the nearly same extent people have now so would have been more exposed to and aware of what's going on in the wider society.

But was that true? I'm no expert on late 19th / early 20th century media consumption, but from the assorted bits I've picked up, the impression I got is that the upper/middle class were genuinely shocked by the exposes on working conditions (famously in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) or living conditions (Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

But was that true? I'm no expert on late 19th / early 20th century media consumption, but from the assorted bits I've picked up, the impression I got is that the upper/middle class were genuinely shocked by the exposes on working conditions (famously in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) or living conditions (Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives).

I mean the same is true right now, I do not think anyone understands the horrors going on in meat packing in the time of Covid for the most part.

Today you have access to an even more granular level of selectable media ecosystem compared to before that it represents a step change in my opinion. I can build my news feeds not just around space topics but only about say commercial space efforts and completely cut off anything to do with military space, for example. That level of granular control just wasn't there before. And even more damning, the level of alternative facts is frighteningly high as well, though that too went on with yellow journalism. I just think things are worse now given how much media there is and how easy it is to cocoon yourself into only the specific things you want to see and hear.

 

[Patine]

But was that true? I'm no expert on late 19th / early 20th century media consumption, but from the assorted bits I've picked up, the impression I got is that the upper/middle class were genuinely shocked by the exposes on working conditions (famously in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) or living conditions (Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives).

There was the well-to-do large family farm owners and self-employed skilled tradesman and small business owners (which is the class you're referring to) and there were the captains of industry, rail barons, the big landowners, the bankers, the mine owners, the political families, etc. (which is the class I'm referring to). I think the discrepancy in the narrative is that the detached and segregated upper crust has not always been 20% of the population - but a such a class has always been a fixture in any nation above the tribal level in recorded human history.

 

[Camikaze]

If it were not for COVID-19, Trump would win this election hands down because America was doing just fine, especially on the economy.

This is an interesting take, because it's somewhat counter to Trump's own narrative - people should vote for him to "Make America Great Again", because implicitly it wasn't doing just fine. A simplistic summary of how Trump won in 2016 was that he recognised the grievance, while Clinton was promising more of the same. The pitch this time around might essentially be boiled down to "Make America Great Again, Again" (in fact, Pence said just that). The Trump campaign is pitching that more in the sense that Democratic-led cities are warzones that need Trump's strong hand, than as a post-Covid recovery vision, because the latter implies there has been a failure of Trump from which recovery is necessary. But it's still a message relying on the idea that America is in bad shape and needs fixing.

 

[Takhisis]

No, America had the illusion of doing just fine because, just like in Obama's two terms, the affluent folks in the top 20% or so have no concept of how bad things are for the rest of the population. The central "illusion" of American life today is this drastically different experience of America based on wealth, and how it is largely invisible to those at the top of the economic ladder.

I think it's because it's aspirational. From a lot of 'Murican propaganda and some RL friends who've moved there I gather that there's a large sector of the population that wants to be rich because that's how life should be, i.e. a struggle to be rich or remain rich and it's the natural order of things.
It's like Ivanka Trump: corrupt and definitely not self-made (even her hair colour is artificial)? No problemo. Women who want to be like her feel validated in their aspirations. And guys who want to get in bed with women who want to be like her feel that if such people get there as well then they who want all women to be like that (sexualised even by her own father) are validated too.

 

[Patine]

This is an interesting take, because it's somewhat counter to Trump's own narrative - people should vote for him to "Make America Great Again", because implicitly it wasn't doing just fine. A simplistic summary of how Trump won in 2016 was that he recognised the grievance, while Clinton was promising more of the same. The pitch this time around might essentially be boiled down to "Make America Great Again, Again" (in fact, Pence said just that). The Trump campaign is pitching that more in the sense that Democratic-led cities are warzones that need Trump's strong hand, than as a post-Covid recovery vision, because the latter implies there has been a failure of Trump from which recovery is necessary. But it's still a message relying on the idea that America is in bad shape and needs fixing.

Sanders also recognized that the United States was not doing well, and also saw many of the problems, albeit from a very different perspective. But, alas, the rigged American political machine that says only one of each Duopoly party is allowed to run in each General Election and be allowed a chance of winning, and the fact that Sanders was easy for the DNC to screw over in the UNREPRESENTATIVE and EASILY-MANIPULATED party primary system, means that you got the "Establishment lying evil monster," and the "pro-change lying evil monster," and, like always in corrupt American politics, "Door Number Three is ALWAYS guaranteed to be a goat."

 

[sendos]

This is an interesting take, because it's somewhat counter to Trump's own narrative - people should vote for him to "Make America Great Again", because implicitly it wasn't doing just fine. A simplistic summary of how Trump won in 2016 was that he recognised the grievance, while Clinton was promising more of the same. The pitch this time around might essentially be boiled down to "Make America Great Again, Again" (in fact, Pence said just that). The Trump campaign is pitching that more in the sense that Democratic-led cities are warzones that need Trump's strong hand, than as a post-Covid recovery vision, because the latter implies there has been a failure of Trump from which recovery is necessary. But it's still a message relying on the idea that America is in bad shape and needs fixing.

Trump's main slogan for this election is "Keep America Great". Pence's line sort of botched that main slogan. Trump is also talking law and order because it is a convenient distraction from COVID-19. It is probably his way of trying to appeal to Democrats in these supposed "warzones", while exciting his base to say more of this will happen under Biden.


I also wonder if 2020 is going to be yet another year of the wrong poll? Last year's 2019 UK election polls easily tipped Boris Johnson would win by a landslide and he did.

 

[Estebonrober]

Trump's main slogan for this election is "Keep America Great". Pence's line sort of botched that main slogan. Trump is also talking law and order because it is a convenient distraction from COVID-19. It is probably his way of trying to appeal to Democrats in these supposed "warzones", while exciting his base to say more of this will happen under Biden.


I also wonder if 2020 is going to be yet another year of the wrong poll? Last year's 2019 UK election polls easily tipped Boris Johnson would win by a landslide and he did.

“war zones” is a myth only being bought by shut ins and NIMBYs in the suburbs and rural. It sucks it works so well, but so does the general narrative of crime ridden cities although crime rates up to COVID had been down over 50% across the board.

where the polls in 2016 actually wrong though? Seemed to be within margined time me. Especially since he lost by 3 million votes.

 

[Kyriakos]

Is this impacting republican voters?

 

[Sommerswerd]

No