Timsup2nothin
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Surprise..."I want to take this opportunity to attack the moderators" ends badly.
Clown Car 2016
- Thread starter JollyRoger
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Surprise..."I want to take this opportunity to attack the moderators" ends badly.
ParkCungHee
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I'll try to articulate this in one post, but it's a big pile of things.
First, I'll get the disclaimers out of the way:
I don't actually vote, and don't think anyone should vote, because of a position of deontological pacifism. The entire idea of an election for PotUS is revolting, and in an ideal world not only would no one vote, but no one would run. So keep in mind this isn't so much what I consider necessary, or right, but my personal take on the least worst option in a whole system I want to undermine, and feel has no legitimacy. The way most posters might speculate on the campaigns of Xi Xingping vs Jiang Zemin.
I don't think highly of trump because of any personal qualifications or qualities. I don't think much of the 'personal qualities' of candidates matter much at all. Obama seems like a very smart man to me, but he's his administration has been incredibly stupid. Bush by all accounts is a kind, softhearted individual, and his administration committed the most extreme barbarities of my lifetime. This perhaps explains why I'm inured to the most obvious, superficial criticism of Trump: that he is an ***hole.
Sure, he's an ***hole, but should he be president?
Now, once personal qualities are aside there's two things you can use to decide who to vote on: Policy and the change a candidate represents.
I've long made the case that if you listen to the policies and positions, Trump is by far the most sane candidate in the Republican field. A key example of this is the No-Fly Zone policy. Every other candidate, except for Rand Paul, has called for the creation of a No-Fly Zone over Syria and Iraq, to shoot down planes that our Allies invited to be in that air-space, belonging to a nuclear superpower, who is bombing our enemies.
This is the kind of insanity that can pass without serious comment or concern in the modern political establishment, and is in fact, accepted as a sign of a 'serious' politician.
You look around and overall, he's got the policies, and at least a temperament far more mature then his competitors. He bemoans that the Iran treaty is a bad deal, and thinks he could have done better, but he doesn't claim that a deal is impossible, and he doesn't talk about tearing it up and bombing Iran. He knows that's not how serious nations behave.
I could give you a laundry list of things such as medicare and social security, his willingness to consider taxes on the wealthiest people, etc. etc. that he is simply more in touch with the real world than his opponents.
I think there's only two issues that he really stands out as genuinely "controversial" and that's Immigration, and Trade.
Immigration is a matter that I'm sympathetic to both sides on. But while at least some of the democratic camp seems to actually care about immigrants and want to help them through a policy of amnesty, the Republican position has never been anything than transparently cynical. Lip service is given to the idea that Republicans can win latino voters with such a policy.
The real reason is simple (and it also drives much of the democratic bloc in favor of this). More workers means a larger supply of labor, meaning the price of labor decreases. It is an unoffensive way for a Republican to show that he is "moderate" and "sensible" without actually offending the donor class. At the same time, one of the things that has always sat most uncomfortably with me about the issue of illegal immigration is Americans never voted for or approved it.
This didn't happen because Americans, at one point, decided this was the direction we wanted to take our nation, or that we wanted to open our borders. The law was never amended to allow for this, it started happening, and our political betters decided it was unenforceable (which has never stopped them before: See war on drugs, anti-piracy, etc.) and we were simply expected to accept it. And so effective was this strategy that Donald Trump turning it into a issue that there is ANY debate on this year was completely unexpected, even among political insiders. INSIDE the Republican party it was considered a dead letter, because the Republican elites decided so after 2012.
Related into this is Trump's policy of Economic Nationalism. Which seems pretty straightforward: Most Americans don't benefit from America throwing open it's economic borders to the world. Our trade "partners" have not been acting in good faith for decades (Especially China, Korea and Japan), and this actually hurts working class Americans, who actually don't benefit much from their new found ability to offer their spare capital to the latest Chinese start up.
And this all ties in to the more immaterial aspects of Trump's candidacy. Or rather, why Trump is scaring people. I think you doubted before, but I'm going to make the case here that Trump actually scares powerful people. The first is that he's willing to pursue policies that go against the interest and power of the investment class in America. Not simply taxing them more, or regulating them more, but pursuing a kind of economy where they are no longer in power anymore. That scares them.
Related to this is his unwillingness to allow the media class to set the terms of debate as to what is acceptable. Because clearly, they do not exercise this power responsibly. They transparently use it to enforce their own interests, because again, insanity is allowed on both sides of the political isle.
The center of this consensus of 'civility' is that no politician is ever accountable for anything. You can go on a wild goose chase for a Benghazi conspiracy, to blame Hillary, but you can't blame Hillary for the entire attack, because she decided to destabilize Libya. You can't hold her responsible for the Iraq war either.
You also can't attack Bush for being asleep at the wheel during 9/11, until Trump did it. You also can't attack someone for overusing their political schtick, and you certainly can't hold them accountable for it being a schtick, like McCain's POW status.
The Meiji constitution has been described as a system of "Collective Irresponsibility." The Emperor wasn't responsible for anything because he was a figurehead who only had access to his advisors. The army wasn't responsible for anything, because they answered only to the Emperor. The Cabinet wasn't responsible for anything, because they only offered advise. The Parliament wasn't responsible for anything, because they only controlled the budget. The Zaibatsu weren't responsible for anything, because they didn't have any power to influence the government, etc. etc.
America today is a system of Collective Irresponsibility. Nobody's career is ended or even damaged for being wrong. The media is never held to account by politicians for supporting the previous administrations line unquestioningly, and the politicians are never held accountable by the media for the things they do. Not even a proper scandal can take you out anymore, if you're someone like General Petraeus.
Trump violates all these rules by refusing to apologize when he calls someone to account. He owns up to his words and actions for the most part (even when the pundits, and politicians and media BEG him to take the easy way out) and does the same to others.
Fox News tried to neuter him in the first debate with that whole oath-taking garbage, and lobbing softballs to everyone, accept Trump. They thought if the political process couldn't bring him to order, they would. They expected him to be cowed, intimidated and apologize to Megyn Kelly, and quietly enter into the brotherhood of collective irresponsibility.
He declined.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
That's kind of deep. But I don't see Trump that way. His blasts against PC language are just him trying to minimize the damage his words have caused by blaming opponents for being too sensitive. He's not accepting responsibility perse, he's just trying to game the system.
Yeah, good post ParkCungHee. A lot to think about.
ParkCungHee
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When I say "takes responsibility" I don't mean in the sense that he recognizes his wrongdoing and seeks to honestly atone for them. He doesn't see himself as wrong, and doesn't feel the need to do so.
But that is a responsibility of a kind that's unacceptable in modern politics. "Yes, I said those words. And I meant them. And if you don't like it, go **** yourself." Has been the gist of Trump's response to every 'gaffe.'
The accepted political custom in America is, even if you're caught on video, caught on record saying something, if you distance yourself from it afterwards, it has no effect on you.
Consider, for example, Mitt Romney's 47% comments. That was absolutely shocking to me. Back then I still was enough of an optimist that I was certain it would tank Romney's prospects. I expected that Romney would be one of the worst major presidential bids in American history, saying something so openly elitist and villainous. But he didn't. It barely made a mark in his polling numbers, because he refused to repeat it. He can say it as many times as he likes, as long as he expresses sincere apologies for any offense he caused when he gets caught.
But that is a responsibility of a kind that's unacceptable in modern politics. "Yes, I said those words. And I meant them. And if you don't like it, go **** yourself." Has been the gist of Trump's response to every 'gaffe.'
The accepted political custom in America is, even if you're caught on video, caught on record saying something, if you distance yourself from it afterwards, it has no effect on you.
Consider, for example, Mitt Romney's 47% comments. That was absolutely shocking to me. Back then I still was enough of an optimist that I was certain it would tank Romney's prospects. I expected that Romney would be one of the worst major presidential bids in American history, saying something so openly elitist and villainous. But he didn't. It barely made a mark in his polling numbers, because he refused to repeat it. He can say it as many times as he likes, as long as he expresses sincere apologies for any offense he caused when he gets caught.
Well said
Trump, TRUMP, TRUMP!
Donor class hates him ya.
Link to video.
I'm still mad at Trump about the birth certificate stuff, but if Trump can tie the Republican establishment into a pretzel this year, I'll forgive him.
Speaking of the stupid donor class...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ce-to-spend-100-million-to-destroy-tea-party/
grr, hard enough to fight the democrats
Red on Red
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce
Some more donor class stuff:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...onor-class-must-put-a-bullet-in-donald-trump/
Thank goodness Wilson didn't say this about a democrat.
Imagine the outrage if he said it about Obama.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
Interesting. Could you elaborate on this further?
ParkCungHee
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grr, hard enough to fight the democrats
Red on Red
Red on Red is dead bro. That's what I've been talking about with this implosion of the Republican party. 2016 is Trump-Sanders versus Bush-Clinton, implicitly. Future election cycles, it will be explicit.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
Nvm.
Stupid post
Stupid post
ParkCungHee
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I will, but that will require some time to compose.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
He has single-handedly demonstrated to millions of people what an effing joke this system is. Done more damage to the so-called establishment types than I ever thought possible.
I couldn't resist laughing halfway through it!
This is a really important point. Offline conservatives I've talked to (no shortage in GA) are convinced that Hillary is a serial murderer and mob boss like Tony Soprano. Hell, they use "vince fostering" as a verb.
He's always been a bit nutty in this race. Just quietly nutty.
I think those media attacks will play very well with their base. Tons of cheering.
Some thoughts on your thoughts:
I would use my vote a bit more tactically since I have it anyway, but you clearly evaluate this as a moral issue and it's more appropriate for the other threads where voting was discussed. I think I missed the recent one and will have to look it up.
I fully agree that Trump's stylistic bravado conceals what passes for his policy platform. Occasionally that's horrible, like when he calls for the Trail of Tears 2.0, and sometimes it's sane when the policy involves not starting WW3 while he claims to be the most militaristic guy around and it will make your head spin. He's the epitome of the radical moderate.
I also agree that he, as a major established media persona, actually has the influence to challenge the media narrative and discourse. Example: I couldn't believe hearing an interviewer say that he couldn't talk about Bush and 9/11. The interviewer. Only Trump could have gotten away with doing that in this cycle. The telling thing was Jeb!?'s response, where he said that people who think that have been marginalized in society. That's absolutely correct, and the media is fully complicit in that marginalization. This is distinct from the standard righty line on political correctness (which he also employs) in that it forces the issue of political accountability instead of being a cloak for treating people with contempt and disrespect and being annoyed when called out on it.
When do you think this will become explicit?
This. I have felt this way about Trump since he made the "Mexican rapists" comment and went up in the polls. Politics is WWE wrestling and Trump is Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase.
I think it already is for Republicans. They seem to have finally reached the "fooled me once" stage vis-a-vis their establishment... they're done with those guys. Democrats are not there... yet.
They have toed up to the line and backed away when it came time to cast the ballots, such as not forcing multiple ballots for the Speaker of the House this week and ultimately rallying around Romney in 2012.
In terms of an actual party fracture, I think the biggest threat would be Trump bolting for a third party bid, but he's passed up on the opportunity to do that seriously based on ballot access laws and deadlines.
As for the Democrats, I think so long as they can win the White House they will ultimately stick together. I think the most likely way this shakes out is a Freedom Caucus bolt, a third party right-wing bid, and then a Democratic fracture after those prior two become permanent. If they don't, the Dems hold together out of fear of the opposition if not anything else.
I do not see a real Freedom Caucus bolt. They will always leech off of the existing Republican party structure.
I can't really see it happening either unless there is A Great Betrayal Even Greater Than The Prior Great Betrayals. Like, Cruz wins a majority of the delegates, then the RNC ejects all his delegates and picks an establishment-friendly guy to run for the presidency. That might be enough.
For entertainment purposes, I am really hoping for a brokered GOP convention though I know it will not happen.
I've been hoping for a brokered convention from either party ever since I started following politics, not just for entertainment purposes but intellectual curiosity at how it would play out in the modern media environment. Haven't had one of those in decades.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
It is still a long time until the convention.
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