Nutjobs Continue to Rule GOP

[trish]

Because of that ridiculously laughable remark one might easily think Hank Johnson was another dim-bulb republican and hence belongs in this list of other Republican nutjobs. Not so. Hank's a Democrat.

[martin48]

So the Republicans don't have a monopoly on stupidity! But the Republicans do have history

[trish]

It will be interesting to see what Donald Trump's promise means if the delegates switch their vote after the first ballot. As much as I think Trump would be the worst possible president, he would have an argument to run as an independent if the GOP ignored the will of their constituents.

I don't know anything about the labyrinthine process Stavros outlined above (perhaps I should take a civics class...or perhaps parties should adopt a nomination process that is more straightforward and sensible).

I'm not sure what the point is of having an alternate contest at the convention, except to reconcile the difference between what Republican voters and Republican leaders want. Perhaps it was designed this way with people like Trump in mind, who might win the vote of party members but not move the party in a direction the leadership is comfortable with. But couldn't such a person always cannibalize votes as a third party candidate?

The above is actually from a the thread on what Brits think about Drumpf. I didn't want to turn it into a discussion between U.S. citizens.

If Trump wins on the first round but is dealt out of the nomination by a backroom deal at the GOP convention, I think he would be effectively released from his obligation not to run as an independent (regardless of what the GOP might say).

I also expect party leaders to maintain the integrity of their party and what it stands for and that probably is the why the nominating process is designed the way it is (but I'm just guessing and agreeing here).

I'm not sure Trump is the worst of all the GOP candidates. In fact, I think Cruz is. All of them are far from being moderate in any sense of the word. Gov. Kasich is lauded among pundits as a moderate, but he just killed all funding for Planned Parenthood in Ohio. He's a complete ideologue, as is Rubio (although Rubio flaps in the political winds). Trump is too ignorant to be an ideologue and too impulsive to be trusted with the Nation.

I'd love it Trump if was denied the nomination in a back-room maneuver and ran as a independent. It would hand the election to the Democratic Party. On the other hand, Bloomberg promised to enter the race as an independent if it was between Trump and Sanders. Even though Bloomberg is a Republican, I can't help think he would draw more votes from Dems and Independents, then from Republicans.

[Stavros]

If I was an American voter I would be looking at the field of candidates most likely to be nominated for the Presidency and wonder if there was a crisis in US politics, not just in the Republican Party. From what I can gather, Mrs Clinton will base her policy agenda on the 1990s, Sanders on the 1960s, and Trump on the 1930s. I am not sure about Cruz and Rubio who seem to base their world view on a mix of Bronze Age biblical texts and the late Roman Empire. I can't see any of these people being more than a one-term President, and it may be that the Republican 'establishment' has given up and decided that Trump will be their candidate and lead them to a crushing defeat in November, but that this will enable the party to re-define its identity and purpose and attract a strong and credible candidate to dominate the 2020s.

But where are the leading politicians who can offer a vision of the US in 10 or 20 years time, when it is estimated that over the next 30 years automation will replace up to 50% of the jobs currently being done by humans; when the global decline of population growth beginning around 2050 will thus see a a net and steep increase between now and then, not including immigration patterns. What are we to make of a country that cannot provide drinking water in the north, or water at all in the south? Crucially, where are the policies that will create jobs and grow the economy, and deal with these hugely complex issues?

You have a generation of politicians looking backwards, and it may be that the best minds in America have fled politics for the arts, the sciences, engineering and medicine, and that they will continue to innovate and grow while the political system atrophies in a stale Presidency and a rigid Congress. We have a similar range of problems in the UK, and on a wider scale in Europe, but the US has always been able to innovate its way out of a crisis and is still the country of the future, but you need politicians who believe in that future, and don't look back with nostalgia at some point in the past. The past is another country, they do things differently there.

Give us some hope, at least that!

[trish]

...you need politicians who believe in that future, and don't look back with nostalgia at some point in the past. The past is another country, they do things differently there.

You paint a frightening picture of our political scene. I must admit, I've been asking myself lately, "Who have I been living with? Who are these people who are coming out of the woodwork to nominate Trump? Could they possibly be my friends and neighbors? How could I have not seen them for who they are?" Although the Democratic candidates are old, I don't agree they're living in the past. They both believe in anthropogenic climate change; none of the GOP candidates do. The Democratic candidates believe the CDC should be allowed to study the relationship between firearm distribution and the public health; the GOP candidates do not.

It is sad that there are very few young and sane politicians on the horizon. I might mention Cory Booker (he's already 46), but he's neither a nutjob nor republican and so an unsuitable subject for this thread.

[Stavros]

Trish, I may be setting the bar too high, but I think that in mature democracies we have a right to expect the best of the politicians we elect, not a self-satisfied clique who award themselves pay rises beyond rates they would allow for bus drivers or doctors, who fiddle their expenses, and make pompous moral judgements about marriage while paying for sex or conducting illicit affairs of their own.

It is frankly a weak argument to endorse either Clinton or Sanders for believing in 'anthropogenic climate change' when climate change has been on the agenda since the 19th century along with environmental politics in the USA such as the Sierra Club, founded in 1892; the National Audubon Society, founded in 1905; and the Wilderness Society in 1935. It is not as if these have been somnolent societies of sandal clad fishermen and twitchers, they were instrumental in delaying the development of the petroleum industry in Alaska for the best part of five years, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Act which in turn created the Environmental Protection Agency, acts of a Republican -yes, a Republican- President that these days would be condemned by the GOP as socialism gone mad -and you think American politicians are not looking backwards for solutions when they are also identifying the past as the source of current problems?

While issues related to climate change are impossible to ignore and feed into a variety of policy issues, from environmental protection to water management to energy in general, fundamental to the future is the 'world of work' because capitalism continues to innovate its way out of crises of production, distribution and supply, but does not necessarily have the USA in mind as it goes on its merry way into the future.
One example of just how stupid a politician can be -allowing for one brief moment his aspiration to be a politician- is Donald Trump's claim that if he becomes President Apple will have to make its products in the USA not in China, which presumably will also apply to all other US firms who make products outside the country. Trump may have no faith in free trade, and I don't suppose he would accept a compromise from Apple to move its production from China to Mexico or American Samoa, but what is so outstanding in this position is the man's utter ignorance, or studied indifference as to why Apple and other computing firms make their products in China. With millions of Americans fed up with stagnant wages and rising costs, is Trump going to propose reducing the minimum wage to $1 an hour? Does he see his tariff barrier policies so depreciating the value of the dollar that it won't be long before it is cheaper to make computers in Michigan than it is in China? The mind boggles, even before you send this economic nationalism through the cheesegrater called Congress, not to mention the way it conflicts with trade deals the USA has been signing all over the place.

As I indicated in the previous post, automation is going to decimate jobs over the next 30 years unless someone or a new industry comes along that needs human labour. The revolution in communications does not just make it easier for people around the world to be 'connected' and, in a democratic sense, give everyone a voice, it is also part of a growing surveillance culture in government and industry that is leading governments, such as the UK, to introduce laws that would give the police the right to trawl though my email and browsing history in case I am a terrorist or a drug baron or maybe just don't like the Conservative Party and am not afraid to say so. Commerce now has facial recognition software in stores so that if someone is a regular in Saks they know which items in the store he or she tends to look at and buy, or steal if they are shoplifters -as in time the software will set off an alarm and a security guard will escort them outside; or prompt a sales assistant so sidle up and purr into your ear about a new range of underwear on special offer.

These examples might sound trivial, but I think the point is that capitalism seems to move so fast politicians are always playing catch-up, they are behind the curve not shaping it. The end result is that we have in Europe and North America lost a lot of the industries that used to employ millions of people, often low to unskilled workers; people in work have seen their wages rot while costs rise, with endless anxieties and arguments about health care, housing and education. In response you have the pathetic whining of Sanders and his designated enemy -the 'Bankers'- as if he had no idea where the money for old age pensions comes from, while Mrs Clinton doesn't seem to have a single answer to the question of jobs other than creating more and more federal funded jobs by expanding the remit of federal agencies -is this 'welfare to work' or 'work as welfare'? and raising the minimum wage which as many employers as possible will avoid paying anyway.

Maybe the Federal government, as with the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s, should permanently employ 25 million Americans to repair the physical infrastructure?

Or it could just be my age and that a younger generation sees the future containing greater potential than I can see. But are the candidates before you the ones to take you into a future that is not just different from, but better than the present?

[broncofan]

Environmentalism may not be a new movement, but when it comes to whether anthropogenic climate change is occurring, there is a major partisan division. The GOP for the most part believes it is not a real phenomenon and that scientists are deviously plotting to slow production by faking meteorological data.

I think the argument that both parties are nostalgic is almost tautological. There is no platform under the sun that is not in some way derivative (the same issues arise over and over again until they are resolved and the solutions are finite). Sometimes previous generations get certain things right; I don't think it's less progressive to acknowledge that.

What separates a progressive from a traditionalist is that the latter believes the previous iteration was right simply because that's the way it's always been done. The progressive may support a previous proposal because it serves some value that is not currently being given enough emphasis and that no practice should remain in place simply because we don't have the determination to improve it.

What I like about Sanders is that he's willing to look at what other countries do and say, "we can use a little more of that". I don't like that he tends to be one-dimensional and has set himself up as the anti-establishment guy. This would end up being a role that would pigeonhole him. He would have to continuously re-establish his credentials or be accused of hypocrisy.

Sometimes you are more motivated by fear of bad proposals than hope. A Republican President would result in a very different supreme court (depending upon whether any liberal justice dies or retires; one spot is already vacant and awaiting replacement) and resulting changes in the legality of same sex marriage, abortion, and limitations on corporate campaign contributions, etc. It may also result in the repeal of our healthcare system which is a major part of Obama's legacy. This is motive enough for me to say that someone who is reasonable is good enough...not inspiring, but there you go.

[broncofan]

Actually there's quite a bit more I don't like about Bernie Sanders than I stated but that's not the purpose of the thread I suppose. As long as the viable options result in two very different outcomes, I don't feel that bad about being motivated by fear of the nutjob...it's not ideal, but ideal would be that nobody would want to ban same sex marriage, would reject a well-founded scientific consensus, or think it's okay for people to go without health insurance.

[broncofan]

In response you have the pathetic whining of Sanders and his designated enemy -the 'Bankers'-

Strongly agree. For anyone who knows anything about finance, Sanders condemnation of bankers and Wall Street is without any nuance...seemingly without any comprehension of the trade-offs legislators must consider in enacting financial regulations...and also what is required to prosecute someone for violating banking laws (a violation of a current law rather than an aspiration). I don't doubt that many more crooks could have been prosecuted post 2008 but if you were to listen to Sanders you would not really know who should be prosecuted and for violating which specific law.

[Stavros]

Environmentalism may not be a new movement, but when it comes to whether anthropogenic climate change is occurring, there is a major partisan division. The GOP for the most part believes it is not a real phenomenon and that scientists are deviously plotting to slow production by faking meteorological data.

I think the argument that both parties are nostalgic is almost tautological. There is no platform under the sun that is not in some way derivative (the same issues arise over and over again until they are resolved and the solutions are finite). Sometimes previous generations get certain things right; I don't think it's less progressive to acknowledge that.

What separates a progressive from a traditionalist is that the latter believes the previous iteration was right simply because that's the way it's always been done. The progressive may support a previous proposal because it serves some value that is not currently being given enough emphasis and that no practice should remain in place simply because we don't have the determination to improve it.

What I like about Sanders is that he's willing to look at what other countries do and say, "we can use a little more of that". I don't like that he tends to be one-dimensional and has set himself up as the anti-establishment guy. This would end up being a role that would pigeonhole him. He would have to continuously re-establish his credentials or be accused of hypocrisy.

Sometimes you are more motivated by fear of bad proposals than hope. A Republican President would result in a very different supreme court (depending upon whether any liberal justice dies or retires; one spot is already vacant and awaiting replacement) and resulting changes in the legality of same sex marriage, abortion, and limitations on corporate campaign contributions, etc. It may also result in the repeal of our healthcare system which is a major part of Obama's legacy. This is motive enough for me to say that someone who is reasonable is good enough...not inspiring, but there you go.

I think you miss a critical point about nostalgia -the 'traditionalists' do not look back to the Reagan era and say 'why can't we be like that' because 'that's what America is', they resurrect the past as a replacement for a future they do not seem to comprehend -or to want.

If it is true I set the bar too high for politicians as people then maybe in a capitalist society there is a limit to what politicians can -even should- achieve, just as people probably think a President can do more in the US system than he (or she) can.

But here are some sobering realities at a time when I have not heard candidates in the Republican Party saying jobs in the public sector should be transferred to the private sector.

The largest private employer in the USA (2015 figures) is Wal-Mart, with 2,200,000 employees. The next largest is McDonalds, with 420,000, followed by IBM with 412,000.

In the 'knowledge economy' and social media, Microsoft employed 99,000 worldwide (2013); Apple employed 80,300 worldwide (2013), Google 24,000 worldwide (2010) and Facebook 12,691 worldwide (2015).

The Ford Motor Co in 2014 employed 187,000 worldwide in 2014 with 48% of its workforce in the USA having employed 213,000 worldwide in 2008. But in the 1940s Ford employed 90,000 at just one plant in the Detroit area -River Rouge- while between 1948 and 1967 Michigan saw the loss of 130,000 jobs in the auto industry.

In 2014 the Federal Government employed 2,711,000 excluding non-civilian military and this was the lowest since 1966, the highest numbers being recorded in the 1980s.
In 2014, local government employed 14 million, and while the trend was downwards, in the 1950s local government rarely exceeded 4 million.

What this suggests is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans know what the future of work looks like, but it does seem that even with Ford hiring what it calls '5,000 hourly paid workers' in 2014, many jobs in industry are insecure, short-term, part-time, zero-hours or 'soft jobs' on the basis of which planning a family is very risky; or the new tech industries and social media can become global superstars but without employing vast numbers of people; and thus the largest source of jobs is either the Federal government, or state and country authorities. The money is all either in the hands of government, broadly defined, or corporate giants with access to global markets and billions of dollars of investment. Somewhere in the middle are small to medium firms overwhelmed with red tape, layers of tax and pressures on cost, but even if Trump promotes 'the little guy', what in reality can Trump do to give the 'little guy' a break, because there is not going to be an 'even break' with the way capitalism is at the moment. And no appeal to the 'small town America' of 1816 is going to work now, that nostalgia for the age of Jefferson and Adams is only going to work in Hollywood (or Netflix).

As for the Supreme Court, Obama must nominate Sri Srinivasan as soon as possible because the man has already been appointed without objection to his current post so for Republicans to deny him would look vindictive, but note too that nominees to the Supreme Court often vote on the law rather than by party line, and while Antonin Scalia might have been the exception (and Souter in the Roosevelt era), it has been mostly Republican nominees who drifted away from their party once they got on the bench.

Anyway, I still think there is a woeful lack of real depth to political debate in the USA and also here in the UK and more widely in Europe.

Lastly, is there any depth to the rumours that Marco Rubio is/was gay?