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It should be easy to find another way to do the party conventions. I'm not sure about the legalities on the election, but If the US hasn't yet found a way to do it without having voters stand in lines for hours it seems unlikely it will be able to do so in less than 8 months. There's obviously a concern that Trump will abuse the situation if it looks like he would lose. https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...lection-134349Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I don't think either the Ohio or Connecticut primaries should have been postponed and the same goes for the remaining ones. If things have gotten back to normal by the summer, I say go ahead with the Party Conventions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
But under no circumstances should the General Election be postponed. With all this uncertainty and people being on edge, we need to have some stability and to remind people that life will go on once we get to handle on this thing. We didn't postpone elections during WWII or after 9/11. Democratic societies find a way to soldier on during times of crisis and make sure one of the principles of said society, free and fair elections, take place.
I think I read that the Democrats may pospone their Convention by a month, to August, but I assume that too can change.
Meanwhile I seek clarification of 'mail ballots' which I assume are what we call postal votes in the UK?
“Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country,” the president said. The ballots are “forgeries in many cases - it’s a horrible thing,” he added, citing no evidence to back the claim.
Trump himself voted by mail — in March. "
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...log-navigation
-posted at 23.29pm
The BBC looks at this:Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
Coronavirus: Could Donald Trump delay the presidential election?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52326166
Not surprised that Donald Trump thinks Mail Ballots are a very dangerous thing for the country,because him and his cronies are trying to surpress the votes,even though he voted by mail last month.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Joe Biden has said that he intends to nominate a woman to run as his Vice-President. The article linked below argues that choosing a woman from the Senate might weaken the Democrat presence there, if its Elizabeth Warren, but probaby not if it were Kamala Harris, the difference being that a Republican might win in Massachusetts, but not in California.
It seems the choices are: a) a Senator; b) a Congressional Rep; c) a State Governor; d) a Mayor; or e) someone else.
Thus:
Elizabeth Warren
Kamala Harris
Amy Klobuchar
Gretchen Whitmer
Meghan Rapinoe
Michelle Obama
Mrs Robinson
Angelina Jolie
Any thoughts?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/biden-choo...154412390.html
My pick would be Amy Klobuchar. I think you need someone from the mid-west to help balance the ticket and I found her impressive during the Democratic primary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
To soothe any hurt feelings, I would sell Elizabeth Warren on the idea of being the Secretary of Treasury and Kamala Harris on a nomination for the Supreme Court.
I think that Kamala Harris would be an excellent candidate for Attorney General,because she has the experience and was a prosecutor and District Attorney of California,and Amy Klobuchar as Joe Biden's running mate for Vice President.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Agree that Klobuchar would make a good running mate. I prefer to keep Warren, Harris and Sanders on the Senate; we need people there.
I've seen two interviews with Stacey Abrams, who ran against the shmuck in Georgia who is trying to open all of the nail salons, and I liked her. About a month ago I saw a bunch of articles about how she would be a good vp candidate and I agree. I haven't heard anything since. I don't know whether she would be better than anyone who's previously been mentioned, but she's not in Congress and she is smart, which tends to help.
Completely agree that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is a schmuck for wanting to reopen barber shops,hair.&.nail salons,massage parlors,bars and gyms by Friday . This idiotic decision of his is a very bad idea and shows that he cares more about the economy than the health and safety of the people of the state he is in charge of running.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
I prefer a fairly safe play for President - usually an establishment sort that can work with all parties to get things accomplished. It certainly helps to have reviewable record in the Senate or sometimes as a state Governor. Having said that, it should be no surprise that my favorite choice before the debates began, was Joe Biden. That changed as the debates wore on. It seems Joe’s age, as it does with many of us eventually, has clearly taken a toll. Watching him do interviews on CNN haven’t helped the way they should - easier to script and usually gentle - but still the long incoherent sentences continued. I’ve watched almost EVERY one of the party debates (I think I missed two)...and he had those babbling moments in almost all of those. I don’t think it would be that great a factor in running the country because I’m sure he’ll have a terrific staff, but it does make you put more thought into a Vice Presidential choice.
Getting back to the debates - there were too many and the choices should have been narrowed down sooner, to get more info out of nominees left on stage (Tom Steyer, who was there until almost the bitter end, served zero purpose up on that stage, except to take up valuable time and oxygen). Biden got worse, but for me, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar got better (Elizabeth Warren, after starting off strong, sputtered down the line, probably taking on too much and waffling about it later on). I feel Mayor Pete didn’t have enough high end, governmental experience for the job, but it’s hard to ignore someone with those quick oratorical skills. Amy Klobuchar clearly has the experience, but it took her a while to find her comfort zone in the spotlight. When she finally found it...and she definitely did, it was a bit too late. Bernie I wouldn’t have voted for, so I’m glad he’s out of it. In all fairness, I believe he probably should’ve be an Independant Candidate (as probably Michael Bloomberg should have been, had he entered earlier).
So anyhow, since ultimately I actually prefer Amy Klobuchar to Joe Biden, it seems almost natural to make her the choice for Vice President, although with all sincerity, that ticket would be better flipped.
I liked Mayor Pete plenty. To some people he was invisible and to others he was cast as a villain which was bizarre to me. In the end he just didn't have enough appeal to progress very far. I wasn't concerned about his lack of high level experience because he seemed bright, capable, and intense enough to learn quickly.
I watched Joe debate Bernie and even though I trust Joe more to handle any tough situation I couldn't help but notice Bernie's answers were crisper, clearer, and more incisive. I have just never been a Bernie fan, even moreso when I heard he had wanted to primary Obama in 2012. I always thought he was a guy who liked to rant about what he wanted to see but never really had any coherent vision about how to get there. His fans, extremely online people, are among the least like-able, most unreasonable people I've ever come across. They don't want to improve lives as much as they like to vent and vilify and mostly call attention to themselves.
Joe has broad appeal, he is personable, his oration has gotten worse but I trust him to surround himself with professionals. Honestly, I liked Amy Klobuchar better personally than I did as a candidate. I only watched one debate but thought she stumbled a bit in some of her answers. I'm sure she would do well as VP and it would be interesting to see her debate Pence.
One thing we're seeing is that it matters who you staff our executive agencies with. It matters who is on the Court. I could go for lots of compromise right now either way. Give me someone competent and honest and my ideals can wait.
It has been interesting to read the recent comments above, and it confirms my view that if the priority is to make the present incumbent a one-term President, it proves that 'Conservatives' have been setting the agenda now for the last 20 years- perhaps more. I say this because the Obama Presidency also proceeded with caution as far as policy goes, and that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the most radical of his policies, was opposed by the Republicans then and since, but exhibits the extent to which 'radical' policies seem to be feared, and the obstacles they encounter in a divided Congress. Whether or not one does regard the PPACA as radical is thus beside the point, that its intention was to force real change on health care and that it has either failed, or been allowed to fail raises the deeper question: can the US reform itself where reform is ugenty needed?
I would thus pose the question: can the US continue to maintain a health care business that denies health care to millions of Americans, or should it consider the creation of a public health service that guarantees access to health care when needed, for every American citizen, from the day that they are born, to the day that they die?
I do understand the way in which the US works, and that Federal programmes are resisted or re-interpreted by States, but as a basic moral question, do the weaknesses and failings in the US system -and the need for the Federal Govt to step in to the process with billions of dollars in aid -make this now an urgent question?
But, and this is the key question: what would be the reaction to such a proposal? Would it be seen as 'too radical' for the US to even consider? But is there not a bitter irony here, that the US can find trillions of dollars in emergency relief, but cannot spend one trillion dollars on the structural change that would unify health care and guarantee it to every American based on need not the ability to pay?
It is this need for structural change that I think rings alarm bells, but who is doing the ringing? If it is the case that since the end of the Reagan Era, the Democrats have had to shape their agenda to match what they inherited, it means the 'centre ground' of American politics was moved to 'the Right' by Reagan, but never moved back when Clinton was elected, indeed for all his successful policies, just to get elected he needed to persuade 'Reagan Democrats' he could be trusted, and he did just that. But as the agenda of politics was set by Reagan, when things went wrong, instead of the movement being toward the left, it appears that the existing Conservative bias enabled discontented Conservatives to make alliances with previously marginal figures on the 'Christian' or 'Moral Majorty' resulting in the election of a man who is not in the strict sense of the word a 'Conservative' but a maverick with a libertarian streak.
Thus the Obama Presidency, like Clinton's was terrified of upsetting those 'Reagan Democrats' with more radical policies, hence the continuing mess that is US Foreign Policy in the Middle East, but the sense among some that US policy since Reagan had not matured but reached a sell-by date with politicians reluctant to throw it away and do something new. There is another bitter irony here, because while 2008 rather than 9/11 may be seen as the watershed moment in American politics, it was the Obama Presidency that rescued the banking and financial system, that inherited job losses running at 800,000 a month, that produced annual declines in unemployment and annual rates of growth in the economy, but is now denounced as a failure.
It means that the radical policies are not emerging from the Democrats or even the so-called 'left' but from Billionaires, Religious Freaks and Libertarian Fantasists, that States Rights now trump Federal Law and the Constitution, that the US can step by step withdraw from the UN and its agencies disrupting, perhaps even demolishing the international order it helped to establish after the Second World War; that its President who once wondered why the US doesn't use the nuclear weapons it has, may decide the time has come to use them. It means the Environental Protection Agency should be re-named the Environmental Destruction Agency as it makes it easier for energy companies to pollute rivers, streams indeed, the water table, while restrictions on the emissions of motor vehcles are lifted to the detriment of clean air and public health.
The language has so changed that the Democrats that used to be dismissed as 'Liberals' are now 'radical left' and 'extremists' -but who are the extremists?
So I understand your caution when the question is 'do the Democrats want to win this election'? But at some point, the question must also be, in policy terms, 'what are we voting for'?
And at some point when the clearest statement is 'we can't go on like this', the policies must be at the core: education, health, transport, the environment, foreign policy -but who is setting the agenda, and if the US is technically bankupted by Covid 19, where will the money come from to change America, and do the Democrats have a leadership that wants real change, and can both propose it, and deliver it?
And, ultimately, the question is, can the Democrats re-unite the USA, or is the country now so polarized, so divided, and so bitterly divided that healing will not work, that as a union, the USA is in fact doomed to fail?
I’m with Fred on the point that a lot of candidates should’ve been weeded out early on. Among those who were ‘really’ candidates Bernie was my last choice; Biden my second last choice.
I worry about Biden’s son and how the opposition can exploit him. I also know that Biden was always a gaff machine even before he got old. Besides that he’s always been way too touchy feelie, which especially doesn’t play well in this MeToo era. But those objections are all, cosmetic.
When Joe had the Senate Judiciary Chair during of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings I thought he was either ineffective or an utter patriarchal asshole - can’t decide which. Either way, Thomas got on the highest bench in the land largely thanks to Joe's handling of those hearing (in my opinion).
Nevertheless, Joe’s our candidate. We either turn out in droves and vote for Joe, or we put up with another four years of the self-serving, orange idiot who is now in office. I think I’m going to go inject myself with clorox now.
There are a lot of ideas in your post but this is central in my view. The Republicans push very far right, on social issues, on financial issues, on social welfare issues, on foreign policy and then Democrats reclaim the center because we're so sensitive to the damage they've done. The various strategies to deal with this dynamic are finite, though in the details there can be a lot of variation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
As a party do we claim the center hoping to maximize our voter base and accept we won't get everything we want? If we move to the center, should the far left use leverage and threaten protest votes to provide an incentive not to compromise away values? Do we move further left to deter extremism from Republicans by showing that failure to compromise will lead to polarization? What percentage of votes in the center does this lose?
Every electorate is different but if you go back to Filghy's good synopsis of our political weaknesses, one that sticks out is that culturally, we do not believe we should sacrifice individual rights for a better collective outcome. We've enumerated rights to protect ourselves and in some cases we even make up phantom encroachments to avoid having to care for one another. Ultimately, we need our politicians to respond to the voters or we get nothing but setbacks. The far left is looked at with suspicion in this country, and we are aligned differently than Europe on this axis.
That said, I do think we should push forward and try to develop a Universal health care system. PPACA was a necessary stop along the way, creating employer coverage, minimum standards of coverage, and better subsidization of high risk people by low risk people using mandates. The federalism issues are resolvable in my view, and there is the possibility, with enough political will that we create an imperfect, mostly uniform system of care for everyone.
A last pedantic point: undoing harm imposed by Republicans is voting for something. If they erode gay rights for instance, and we protect them, it's not exciting but it's a tangible difference worth fighting for, even if it's an old battle.
I hope my reply to the above is not going to be too theoretical; if it is that is because I 'don't get' a lot of American politics because I don't live there, thus respond with sadness to the gentle despair of Trish's post above. A cliche I know but can't you do better than what you have?
It seems to me that a fundamental problem the US shares with Europe, that is, in Liberal Democracies, is that our systems have evolved through the agency of political parties in broadly speaking a 'Parliamentary' system of representative democracy. And it appears to me that over the years, the relatively clear ideas that divided parties used to have, so that voters had a choice between them has become blurred to the extent that some voters dismiss, in a two-party system both parties for being 'the same'.
Without going back through the fault-lines of American politics represented by the New Deal Admistrations on the one hand, and 'Reaganomics' on the other, what we have seen is a process of 'accommodation' whereby parties have become so fixated on a 'risk free' centre ground, you can now in the UK refer to Labour and the Conservatives as 'Red Tories' and 'Blue Labour', just as in Germany Angela Merkel, after all a protégé of Helmut Kohl, could these days just as easily be the leader of the Social Democrats.
If we take 2008 as the most recent fault-line, we can see how extremist parties that once populated the fringe have appealed to a wider part of the population that feels let-down or even betrayed by their former representatives, and that what we have is a fragmentation at the level of ideas, but also in terms of polical geography: Scotand is now more 'independent' or 'autonomous' in the UK than was thought possible -or even necessary- when I was born; the core group of States that are 'opting out' of Federal Law just so happen to be those who formed the Confederacy once upon a time.
What puzzles me is why 'the left', by which I mean mostly the socialist/social democrat parties in Europe, but only in a limited sense of the word to the US Democrats, have not been able to defeat (indeed, have been defeated by) those parties and politicians emerging from a fringe which at least has some connection to the Libertarians opposed to Government and taxation -and wonder, is it because the one thing that the Democrats were and have been terrified of -RISK- has become attractive?
Look again a Trish's post -what she seems to want, and I hope I am not putting words into her mouth, is 'Safety' -Joe Biden the man might not be the best candidate, Uncle Joe is a safe pair of hands, he will be like Obama, a good manager in a crisis. Great, job done.
The problem is that the fragmentation of ideas that has led parties to steal each other's policies or to scramble to occupy the 'centre ground' has left that ground looking irrelevant to those who have rejected politics as it used to be, and in a sense, both parties have become casualties of the reality they shaped over many decades.
It is complicated by the oddest thing that has happened, not the Democrats embracing the legacy of Ronald Reagan, but the Republicans ceasing to be a Conservative party, because this divided party has in effect traded in its Conservative credentials to adopt Libertarian policies, and I don't see how the party can re-discover its own past without one side confronting the other and causing a split that would mean, in effect, the end of the party as a party of Federal Government, though it would probably continue to win in individual states. And yetk if the Republican Party in terms of its history and the ideas it was committed to is in a crisis why does the Democrat party not attack it where it is at its weakest, and focus on one man where the real business is taking place in the Judiciary, for example?
If you have the patience to listen to Alan Wolfe's lecture in the link below you will note that he says those States that contain politicians most committed to a Libertarian agenda correspond almost exactly to the Confederacy that broke away from (and then attacked) the US in 1861. Wolfe spends most his lecture dismissing the links between Liberal and Libertarian ideas (Ryan argues there are connections), and argues that it cannot be a Liberal or Conservative based ideology because it is inherently authoritarian, which underlines my point that those Republicans that are Libertarian have rejected a fundamental aspect of the American Conservative: conserving an estabished political system, and one that was in its origns, an expression of Liberal ideas, because the contemporary distinction between Liberal and Conservative did not exist before the Depression and only evolved to where they are today because of it.
In addition, and Wolfe also makes this point, Liberarians can never govern, because they don't believe in government, and can never realize a 'market led economy and society' because it is not something the people want -but they can create enough dysfunctional behaviour to make efficient government difficult -and it seems to me that what is happening with State's Rights is that anti-Federal States have found a way to effectively withdraw from the US without doing so in a formal way, and that as long as they can act to make a Federal Union impractical -because so many States opt out of Federal law with the blessing of the Supreme Court- then there is nothing short of war 'the Feds' can do about it.
It means that in the divided USA with a fragmented political system, the Democrats a) can only win an election in 'swing states', and b) can only win by offering a risk-free agenda, thus offering no hope of real change; and giving all the excitement to their opponents.
It means also that Democrats are relying on ideas about Rights which have been challenged by the 'alt-right' and which raise the prospect that the Democrats are going to rely on risk-free polcies derived from ideas about Rights that have been rejected by Libertarians of the kind that we assume have voted for the 45th President whether ror not he has any intellectual understanding of ideas that originate with Stephen Miller and people like him.
It comes down to a sense in which Rights are perceived as property rights, and only property rights, something that Alan Ryan talks about (around 37.29) in the same colloquium that Wolfe spoke at -but then Ryan drops the bombshell in answer to a question (56.57 "the crucial issue in American politics is race".
What then follows is the argumen that Libertarians and some Conservatives make whether it is explictly racial or not: that My Rights exist in what I own and have worked hard for- which the State takes/Steals from me in Taxes-and then gives to unemployed/lazy/Black people -and this is equivalent to slavery.
Even if you delete the remark on slavery, the concept of taxation as theft, governments spending 'other people's money' on projects they can do themselves, worse of all, through welfare taking money from people who work to give it to people who have no inention of doing so is, well, Krazy.
But what is the Democrats response? Do they extol the virtues of Taxation as they may have to/should do, or with Immigration when it becomes a Toxic issue in the forthcoming election? Somewhere in the last 12 years in particular, it seems to me that Democrats have failed in the US to command the agenda of what is important, and have become terrified of offering change that is positive but contains risks; whereas the Right is offering the opposite of 'conservatism=stability' and going for broke -change + risk, just as in the UK we have opted for Maximum Risk and Change with Brexit when the UK and the EU is in economic chaos.
Thus, the Democrats can win the Presidential election, even win a majority in both House and Senate but can they win America, so divided and so bitterly divided? The fragmentation of ideas and party loyalty means there is no centre ground, that extremes are to some -not a majority but enough- appealing and appealing because they disrupt and are dysfunctional, and because at the root in the US the argument that Rights are identified as Property means that Rights as Power can be set aside because it is too dangerous, yet if Rights are not Power, what are they? And because in some parts of the USA, Rights as Power=Equal Power, and the Black Man will never be an equal to a White man. Just ask the 45th President to make that call.
The National Crisis of 2021 has seen the Commander-in-Chief exposed as a coward, running away from his responsibilities. Is the Democrat Party about to reveal that it is the coward's party, too scared to tell the US it must pay higher taxes, share more of what it earns with each other, and make the Constitutional right to equality a reality for all Americans?
Alan Ryan's lecture is here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C__7LPu48-I
Alan Wolfe's lecture is here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHnLnlB4vs
I think the simple answer is that the populist nationalists on the right are providing an answer that less-educated people find easier to grasp, especially as it appeals to underlying tendencies in human nature: the cause of your problems is some 'other' - elites, immigration, unfair foreign competition, unaccountable international bodies, etc. Also, the costs of pursuing this approach are not evident to unsophisticated people, who perceive incorrectly that all the costs are born by the 'other' rather than them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
The answer of the left is that we need more government to rein in the excesses of capitalism and distribute the benefits more fairly. That has an obvious cost in terms of higher taxation, and even if most of the burden is placed on the rich people still focus on their own taxes. Opponents on the right can also argue that people's freedoms will be restricted and their jobs will be threatened if more restrictions or burdens are imposed on their employers. There also seems to be antipathy toward welfare benefits that are perceived as going to undeserving 'others'. So there are many ways for the right to persuade the white working class to vote against redistributive policies that would appear to be in their interests.
Another key point in relation to the US is that the Republicans have actually been the minority party for a long time; eg they've won the popular vote in only one presidential election in the past 30 years. They have only gained a disproportionate share of power through the vagaries of an electoral system devised in very different circumstances, outright manipulation through voter suppression and gerrymandering and control of the courts. This is a self-perpetuating process where achieving power allows you to manipulate the system to entrench yourself in power.
Although I agree with much of what you say, I think my main interest is in the way that in the US Conservatives have failed to prevent their most basic ideas being corrupted by political practice and expediency, that they have attempted to re-define it but ended up in effect turning it into a meaningless concept, and that the Democrats have failed to exploit this confusion by failing to re-define what it is that they believe in. It may indeed be simple in a country like the US to blame someone else for things that go wrong, but since 2008 it is the established parties that have been blamed, and surely the whole point of the Maverick candidate winning the Presidency is that it was on that level, a rejection of traditional politics, with the benefit for the Republicans that they won seats owing to a man who has no loyalty to them, but that as long as that accommodation delivered, then they just held their noses and looked the other way. Whether or not they can now maintain their electoral success with someone who has so manifestly failed in the Covid 19 crisis remains to be seen, but just as you are right to highlight the ways in which Republicans assert themselves through jerrymandering, rigged electoral practices and the Electoral College, so one wonders why the Democrats are not proposing a Federal plan to overhaul the way elections are managed all the way down to the smallest units. That the Supreme Court seems to duck out of this and leave it to the States may no longer be acceptable, but just as the Democrats are struggling to define who they are and what they want, can Americans be confident postive change is on the Democrts agenda?
There is a similar problem in the UK but for different reasons, where Brexit has given the one party that for more than 200 years refused to adopt an ideology precisely that. To the extent that when Boris Johnson became leader, MPs who did not proclaim their faith in Brexit were expelled from the party, as if on this one issue alone rested their commitment to a Conservative Britain, as if the Conservatve Party must now be defined by Brexit, rather than some wishy-washy appeal to pragmatism. It was followed by a budget which committed the Conservative Government to levels of spending that were not so different from what Labour had proposed, which were variously derided as bonkers, crazy, mad- until Boris Johnson proposed them. Add in the staggering sums we expect the Pandemic to cost, and one can see that the fundamentals of Conservatism that Thatcher did claim to represent: thift, sound money and balanced budgets, have been discarded as if it were she who as the fantasist.
The reason why this so-called, and incoherent populism has become so attractive, is due to the practical failures of left and right to manage capitalsm, and the loss of any clarity about the purpose of the parties concerned. Yet it is the lef that so far has suffered most, with socialist and social democrat parties that were influential in Europe for the best part of 100 years reduced to nothing in national legislatures, while angry birds like the 5 Star Movement or the League, or even the 'Brexit Party' can win seats which they then use for no purpose at all, other than to squabble with each other, or seek an exit from the Parliament they just entered -about the only successful outcome the Brexit Party can claim.
Lastly my point in the links was to highlight the contradictions in the ideas that form the Libertaran discourse as a means of explaining why I think its advocates in the US and the UK (hard to believe but this includes Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel) have no long term future in central government, but I think will endure at some level in some US States.
This is going to be a theme, I expect, but a risky one for a man who has his own links to China, via the Bank of China and those permanently complex property deals in New York; not to mention his lovely daughter and the trade marks in China and other related issues. A blessed son, and a blessed daughter -who will take the Crown?Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
"Hello, is that the Bank of China? Can we do business together"-
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...na-debt-205475
"Hello, China -let's do some business. My Name is Ivanka. My blood is blue and my daddy is like, super-rich"
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iv...ting-machines/
I'm not sure that philosophical coherence is essential or even possible these days. In order to achieve that parties would need to have a support base whose interests are well-aligned and large enough to form an electoral majority.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
In the old days the major parties could have coherent philosophies because politics was based essentially on economic class. The party of the left represented the working class (manual workers), while the party of the right represented the middle and upper classes (business people, professionals and land-owners). Cultural issues were less important because both sides accepted the predominance of Christianity, patriarchy, heterosexuality and whiteness. This seems no longer tenable because of economic and social changes.
The Republican party started playing the race card around 50 years ago because it realised that it could no longer rely on traditional free market conservatism to win electoral majorities, as the middle class became more educated and more liberal. In order to appeal to white working class voters it emphasised 'culture war' issues to distract attention from its primary agenda of advancing the interests of the well-off. This started well before Trump; he has just taken it further.
The obvious tension is that if the working class continue to struggle when Republicans are in power they might realise that their economic interests are not being served. So far they have been able to offset this by further ramping up the culture wars and appealing to blue collar workers through protectionism, anti-immigrant policies and opposing environment policies affecting their industries.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have seen their traditional support base eroded though shifts in the economy away from highly-unionised blue collar jobs in manufacturing etc. They have attempted to compensate by broadening their appeal to minorities and socially-progressive educated urban voters. This has created tensions that have contributed to white working class voters drifting toward the Republicans.
The centre-left policy agenda over the past 30 years has been to accept a largely deregulated globalised economy, while supporting relatively moderate policy interventions to ameliorate its excesses. Regardless of the result in November I tend to agree that playing safe and hoping to benefit from the other side's excesses and mistakes will not suffice going forward. The right time for a policy rethink would have been after the 2016 election loss. Unfortunately, the US system, where the opposition party does not even have a leader until the election year, does not seem to lend itself to this.
I agree with your post, but rather than resolve the contradiction in American politics, which also exists in the UK but in a different form, the intellectual basis of my argument matters, for this reason-
It may be true that in the US now, the Liberal and the Conservative do not correspond to the terms as they were understood in 1776, indeed, that today the claim appears to be that the Liberal American is more or less a socialist who seeks to change the Constitutional intentions of the USA, where it is the Conservatives who seek to refurbish its original intentions.
But this is manifest rubbish, for the one thing that the American Revolutionaries were not and never could have been is Conservative, because the whole purpose of the Revolution was to argue against Burke and his uncritical subservience to the Crown, and embrace a Liberal concept of the State which had no King and where power was distributed in common with an emphasis on individual and community as the sources of power. In this sense, Liberalism is 'the American ideology' and one must assume every American who believes the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution are the foundations of the US, is by definition, a Liberal.
Wolfe disagrees but Ryan argues Libertarian ideas cannot be separated from Liberal ideas, which means that on one level, the Liberatarians in the US are closer to the Founding Fathers than Conservatives and Liberals so-called today ie Democrats and Socialists, but confuse their own agenda, because of their Libertarian commitments, presenting an extreme version of the Revolution that was not there at the time and has never found its way into any law, because there must be a Federal State and the Federal Government that the Libertarians find obnoxious, even as they seek to capture power locally in their State in order to enact their own version of or 'restoration' of the Revolution -the Liberal Revolution of 1776 never envisaged the absence of Government, and this is what utimately makes the Libertarian movement in the US today a contradiction in terms.
So what? you might ask. But the Federalist Society which has played so major a role in the 'selection' of hundreds of Judges in the US (see link at end of this paragraph), appears at times to favour what it claims is a 'Conservative' agenda, when in reality it is not Conservative, because it seeks to change rather than to conserve so much of US Law that has been passed in since the 1960s, but it is not Liberal either, because it can only pay lip service to much if not most of the Constitutional arrangments that were laid down between 1776 and 1789 which in realty they object to. Two other factors are also at work here: Christian Fundamentalism, and Race, two factors that Libertarians ought to object to.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ca-republicans
Thus, my suggestion is that somewhere in this fog of definitions, something is happening that many Americans may object to, because
a) the idea that the Government ought not to intervene in the economy sounds fair, but is not met in the conditions of contemporary Capitalism, whether the President is the 'radical left' Democrat Obama or whatever label you want to pin on his successor -both have inherited an economy dependent on Federal and State Government contracts, and neither did, or intend to make any structural changes to replace Government with free markets -it is worth noting that Obama's successor has claimed he does not believe in 'free markets' but 'fair markets' which I guess is how he defines the US taxpayer bailing out his failed businesses.
b) the Liberal idea that social and individual choices shoud keep the Government out of the Library and the Bedroom was not exactly met in the 19th century because 'peer pressure' in society allowed the imposition of rules on behaviour, at a time when most Americans lived in small religious communities where a 'higher' authority established those rules. So what is interesting is how it may not be the Libertarian elements in the Judiciary and the State that are seeking change to intervene in the Library and the Bedroom but the 'Evangelical Christians', and though they may share social prejudices that were common in 1800, today the agenda goes beyond the prohibitions of Abortion, Divorce and Homosexualty, to embrace mystical ideas the 'End Times' and the 'Tribulations' sounding at times more like a death cult than a practical religion.
d) thus there is not only a contradiction in the so-called Conservatives as to what they believe in, they make common cause with the Evangelical Christians with whom they must disagree on most things but only to secure positions of power and authority, so that the real Americans who have no interest in either, face the prospect of their freedoms and their rights being mashed between the jaws of Libertarians and Evangelical Christians who in numerical terms represent a minority of the population, with the added confusion that Race, which ought to mean nothing to both, is the anvil on which to re-shape their America, Black Americans its permanent victims.
If there is one last thought on this attempt to unite the obscure with the real present, it is that one cannot escape the argument that the Founding Fathers of the American Revoution were slave-owners who were motivated to remove the Crown from American life so that they could benefit from the economic opporunities that America gave them. I think it was Charles Beard who first argued that the American Revolution was a classic -and class-based- Revolution of the property-owning bourgeoisie against an absentee landlord who never worked a day for a dollar. History has shown how the poorest immigrant to America could 'make it', where 'make it' was an American dream of freedom and prosperity, but just as money and wealth was at the basis of the Revolution, where wealth could be valued in terms of land and 'human chattel', the cynic might argue that what underpins the Republican project today is to capture Federal and State Government, because whatever policies they prefer -it is where the money is.
Follow the Money may now tell us more about American governance than the Bill of Rights or the Gettysburg Address.
The founding fathers were essentially believers in limited government and universal individual rights. As you say, this would have put them in the liberal rather than the conservative camp in those days. Where they would stand in today's politics is a moot point because I think they viewed their work as providing a framework to govern how decisions are made and political power exercised, rather than setting out what governments should be doing 250 years ahead. They would certainly have been appalled by the current administration's claims of unlimited executive privilege, which are against everything they stood for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
The problem I have with thinking in terms of liberal vs conservative (or left vs right) is that it assumes that political views can be characterised along a two-dimensional spectrum. There are probably three main spectra affecting political views these days:
(i) smaller government vs larger government
(ii) socially conservative/unicultural vs socially liberal/multicultural
(iii) nationalist vs internationalist
The Republican Party at present is smaller government, socially conservative and nationalist, while the Democrats could be characterised as larger government, socially liberal and internationalist. There are 6 other combinations which are also conceivable, which makes it hard to think in left vs right terms.
As a description of what Liberals and Conservatives think today, your post sums it up. But in doing so, it begs the question -have Liberals and Conservatives been faiithful to ther ambitions?Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
The Republican Party might claim to want smaller government, but has not only not achieved this, it has literally increased the size of American Government through the GW Bush Administration's creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which in some areas does the same work as the FBI. Indeed, one wonders why the 45th President of the USA, having insulted the former leadership of the FBI as 'human scum' has not gone one stage further and shut the FBI down on the basis the DHS can do that job. At least here in the UK ,having created the Department for Exiting the European Union (cost: £100 million a year), the Government has now shut it down.
One could also argue that if the debt is the indicator, Republicans since Reagan have opted for Colossal rather than Little Government. By now a tired comparison, but to compare Eisenhower's economics to Reagan's is like comparing a slice of toast to an ALL YOU CAN EAT Buffet, probably in Texas.
There is also the view that if American Conservatives once defined their aim as 'to conserve stability', the currrent 'Conservatives' are addicted to disruption and instability.
There are plenty of other contradictions with both parties, but perhaps the most intriguing is the extent to which, influenced it seems by 'Evangelical Christians', it is the politics of the bedroom, which Republicans have adopted, as if it were a fetish...but I shall stop here as I am in any case grateful to anyone who reads my usually very long posts.
I agree with your description of our political climate but I am not sure what kind of strategy change would be effective. Does a post-mortem of the 2016 election indicate that we lost because of mistakes in broad policy objectives or because Hillary was a candidate who had been effectively maligned over a long career and made some errors while campaigning.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
Your knowledge of our long term political trends far exceeds mine but I am not sure that significant changes in what we present to the public wouldn't have the effect of taking a small loss and making it larger. Obviously the point Stavros has made, which is that you have to have some sense of what you win if you win matters. You have also previously made the point if I recall correctly that one cannot automatically assume that the most moderate platform pulls the most voters. Voter turnout matters and so does the excitement of the public about your platform.
Why don't I keep my query short since I'm enjoying the quality of the discussion. What kind of platform could the Democratic Party run that would achieve their objectives of more fairness in the marketplace and better programs but would also give them a better chance of winning? Regardless of the actual outcome of the primaries, who most embodied that?
Regarding point (i): I don’t believe the divide centers on the size of government, but rather on the functions government should serve. Very few liberals want a needlessly large government and very few conservatives (with a few exceptions) want absolutely no government. We all want a government just large and authoritative enough to serve our needs and protect our rights, but not so powerful and authoritative as to threaten our freedoms. However, we disagree on what our needs, our rights and our freedoms are. Thus issue (i) slides into issue (ii): are our needs, rights and freedoms to be determined by a single culture or are do they allow for a plurality of cultures. At least on the issue of religious cultures the Constitution already favors a plurality (in that it determinedly places no one religious way life above another).
Personally, I love Jesus, pick-up trucks, country music, cheap beer and AR-15’s. Everything else is un-american.
Gotta say, running Biden is not putting our best foot forward. (Has anyone been watching Cuomo give his daily briefings? They’re genius.) But it’s probably too late to change. The question is, “What can Biden do to excite the base and draw others in?” Obviously the platforms of both parties are going to promise to revive the economy while keeping us safe. The winner is the one that’ll sound the most convincing to the largest number of idiots. In this race, I’m hoping the well-meaning idiots outnumber the rest.
Hillary lost because she was the wrong candidate at the wrong time and because she made too many mistakes to overcome it.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Instead of the Democrats realizing that and trying to figure out why they lost and what could give them the best chance to win in 2020, they spent the past 3.5 years picking battles with Trump that that they eventually went on to lose. Now they're stuck with a candidate that by all rights should be able to win in November. But at the same time, has to deal with issues like his son's position with a foreign company. As well as possibly being guilty of sexual assault.
As for what platform the Democratic Party should run on, its simple as this. 4 more years of Trump means he gets to pick another Supreme Court nominee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I think Republicans do believe in small government, except when it comes to their preferences for social conservatism and America First nationalism. They don't believe in government action to promote social equity or to regulate market failures (such as environmental externalities, public safety, monopoly power, financial instability). So I guess (i) is really about a subset of government functions, although in most countries it would cover most of what government does.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
The Democrats should have been strong favourites to win in 2016 because the economy was good, the outgoing president was popular, and the opposition candidate was flawed and unpopular. It might be that Trump's victory was somewhat accidental, but the real question is why was he close enough that a combination of accidents got him across the line. I think that was because voters in previously Democrat-leaning 'rust-belt' states were sufficiently dissatisfied with the status quo to overlook Trump's flaws and vote for someone who promised to shake things up. As I've argued before, I can't see that trying to restore the pre-Trump status quo can be the answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
In terms of policy directions I think part of the answer will involve a more questioning attitude toward globalisation, as economists like Dani Rodrik and Joe Stiglitz have been arguing - not crude protectionism but something more strategic. There also needs to be more active policies to promote economic development in the rust-belt states, like Roosevelt did in the New Deal. Higher-education reform should also be a priority to increase economic opportunity - the current US system seems almost designed to impede upward mobility. There should also be a better safety net, but I think the main organising principle needs to be to give the left-behinds a hand up to improve their lot through their own efforts.
I'm curious as to why these should be big problems for Biden when the same issues apply to Trump in spades.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
Because how does it look when the party that became the champion of the Me Too Movement and who used a sexual assault allegation as a reason to try to block Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. Then turns around and nominates and endorses a candidate that who also has been accused of sexual assault. Especially when the media hasn't really been in a rush to talk about the story.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
While in the grand scheme of things given who is currently sitting in the White House, you're right those things shouldn't be problem. But for some Democratic voters who aren't too excited about Biden in the first place, this just gives them more reason not to be thrilled with him. Then there is also the question how do Independent voters feel about him.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to how much you are willing to hold your nose as you overlook some of the candidate's past transgressions and vote for them. Whether they're proven to be real or are they just allegations. Trump supporters have shown they're willing to do just that. Will some Democrats and Independents be willing to do the same. Speaking for myself, I know I'm.
[QUOTE=trish;1926637
Personally, I love Jesus, pick-up trucks, country music, cheap beer and AR-15’s. Everything else is un-american.
-A pity, I was hoping you were going to say you like Tom Hanks, Miles Davis, Zinfandel and... a table tennis paddle...(!)
Has anyone been watching Cuomo give his daily briefings? They’re genius.
-Have seen some of it in the UK, but don't know much about the man, other than I think his father was once Governor? Can he be written in to the ballot at the Convention, or more precisely -is he any good at the rest of his job? I assume you don't become Governor of New York without getting your hands dirty.
Ps Today is the anniversary of that day in 1789 when George Washington was sworn in as the first elected President of the USA. I think these days that is what is known as a 'Fun Fact'. Ho ho.
Sexual assault is difficult to talk about because it's a heinous crime that frequently can't be corroborated by physical evidence or testimony from a disinterested witness. And yet an accusation of sexual assault tends to be very reliable and by itself can form the basis of a criminal conviction. While it is true that false accusations are rare, they do occur. There is a difference between reflexively assuming every person accused is definitely guilty and thinking that an accusation makes them likely to be. The slogan for the Me Too was, "believe women." Yet, the only avenue for a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman to exculpate himself is to make sure people don't believe that woman.
In the case of Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats wanted his accuser to be heard. She was and he had an opportunity to respond. In doing so, he made himself sound unfit for office. His accuser, Dr. Ford Blasey, sounded credible. Brett Kavanaugh could have been replaced with a wing-nut who had not been credibly accused of sexual assault. This was not acceptable to Republicans.
Then there's the case of Donald Trump. Like Biden, he has also not had his day in court and been found guilty of sexual assault. But he has been accused by dozens of women of assaulting them. While a person who is accused by one woman of assault might not be guilty, the probability that Trump committed sexual assault is near certainty. This will certainly not go on a campaign ad for Joe Biden: I might not have, he definitely did.
But we come to the fact that either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be elected President. Given that practical reality, not voting for Joe Biden because of Tara Reade's accusation doesn't seem logical to me.
Sorry I didn't mean for "office". I meant for taking away women's reproductive rights.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
I have a problem with this statement Bronc. You say he could have been replaced with a wing nut who had not been credibly accused of sexual assault...but the fact that he was “credibly” accused is always going to be in contention. “You” deemed her “credible” in that Previous sentence. By what standard though? I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve worked in the court system for a very large portion of my life. I’ve learned that, emotions aside, reliable credibility comes from corroborating testimony or other factual evidence. There was none of that at the Kavanaugh hearings. To say that it doesn’t matter because at the very least he over reacted emotionally at the hearings isn’t fair either..he has a wife and children....how would you or anyone else have reacted with an accusation almost 30 or more years ago?Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Let me re-adjust this in a more honest matter - For whatever reason, you find out, that in fact, Joe Biden inserted his unwanted fingers into Tara Reade’s vagina...maybe it’s shown to you in a dream...whatever. Do you still vote Biden ...or Trump?
You’d vote Biden...why? Because he’d still be the best candidate in your eyes. If you have to vote between two people, one’s a criminal the other one incompetent, you vote for the criminal (in the hope he gets caught, goes to jail, his Vice gets the job...no problem)...because the alternative is to vote for someone who might really fuck things up in a really BIG way..lol ( in your view, anyway).
Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
The accusations never would have made their way to court 30 years later because it wouldn't have given Kavanaugh an opportunity to defend them. If it went to court, as you say there is nothing in the way of specifics or corroboration that would have gotten a conviction. I take a liberty with the word credible because I only mean that I listened to both Ford and Kavanaugh and found her convincing and him evasive and not very forthright.Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
Let's assume Kavanaugh was innocent, which is the assumption we're supposed to start with. That means that when Dr. Blasey Ford came forward he really had no clue what she was talking about. It would undoubtedly be hurtful and embarrassing and a nightmare for him. I just don't know see that's how he would have/should have responded. You're right, it provoke all kinds of distress and strong emotions, but one would expect he would try to demonstrate there was nothing to the accusation with thoughtful testimony.
My only point about the Republicans is that they were not faced with a choice between Kavanaugh and a Democrat. If they really believed Dr. Ford, and if they thought Kavanaugh conducted himself poorly they could have appointed someone else with the same Judicial philosophy at no political cost.
I would vote for Biden over Trump even if he committed sexual assault because I'm certain Trump has violated multiple women. It's awful, but it's a choice between two candidates in the election. What if Trump hadn't done the things he's openly bragged about doing to women? I can see how this becomes a very difficult moral dilemma. I'm faced with the fact that I see Trump's incompetence and unique character deficits costing thousands of lives. I really see it that way.
Let’s see Bronc...lol. I posted that in the middle of the night after two bottles of wine. I think my point was that a lot of what we do is tribal anyhow, and that - whether we realize it or not, our opinions on political events, sometimes extraneous to an election , but not always, are already shaped in a preconceived way...something like that. Why do I say that? Because I can literally picture the same event in reverse - with the concerned party (Kavanaugh) having a reliably liberal ideology and submitted by Democrats...and you (or another poster), writing that whether or not it’s a criminal hearing or a “job interview”...western civilizations generally operate under the principle of Innocent until proven Guilty and blah, blah blah..
But anyhow, it’s tough ..because a considerable amount of time has now passed and I’ve already forgotten some of the smaller details. Wasn’t there some type of time constraint for the appointment? I’m not sure. I did find an interesting article on how he’s ruling on decisions now, but the Time article is dated the summer of 2019 :
https://time.com/longform/brett-kava...rt-first-term/
As to :
”I would vote for Biden over Trump even if he committed sexual assault because I'm certain Trump has violated multiple women. It's awful, but it's a choice between two candidates in the election. What if Trump hadn't done the things he's openly bragged about doing to women? I can see how this becomes a very difficult moral dilemma. I'm faced with the fact that I see Trump's incompetence and unique character deficits costing thousands of lives. I really see it that way.”
- I think there may have been a time when it was easier to pick between two choices like that , because perhaps the political parties weren’t so far apart at one point. Whether or not that was ever actually the case I’m not sure of since I’m really not much of a history buff, but at the very least, at this point in time , you’re really not making a choice “just between two guys”. If you suspect, for instance, that nominee Mr. A may have committed a crime, but seems competent and his opponent, Mr. B, is squeaky clean....but an idiot...then you’d still have the problem of electing , not only a moron, but someone who’s heavily ideologically opposed to your personal beliefs. Both Guilty of similar crimes, both innocent of similar crimes or...your guy guilty and the other guy innocent...it really doesn’t matter to a selection so much anymore. Maybe it really is time to break away from the two party system...I’m not sure. Anyhow this whole thought pattern came out when, I’m not certain if you remember this anymore, I asked a long time ago what it would take for someone to cast a vote for a candidate in the opposing party...if certain crimes were involved, and I believe you and Trish responded. Sometimes local elections are more fun because the fiber still seems to matter more than the Parties they attach their names to...sometimes just a way to get on a ballot. Sorry for the rambling post, but thanks for the response.
Oh and, I believe, Biden is probably innocent unless other women step forward. Problem is - he’s always been so creepy touchy feely, that a sexual assault allegation of unwanted touching seems plausible. That’s on him and his personality. I never really bought the whole “I’m from another time” argument either. I NEVER thought it was appropriate for guys to touch women a lot, even if they claim it was in a Paternal way...and I’m not that young either. It’s just weird. Interestingly enough, I always thought Trump was the opposite - that he didn’t even like to touch people, or be touched, at all.
Wait, got another one...What if you believed Biden was guilty, but Trump has a heart attack and someone else becomes the nominee...someone more even keeled, would that make a difference? Lol...either way - Have a Great Day!
I remember you asking what it would take for me to vote for a Republican, but I'm not sure I remember it in the context of the Democrat committing crimes. But what if it were a lefty who was really out there and maybe a Republican who was a moderate? Maybe you didn't ask it that way but I came to the conclusion that in most cases it would be really hard for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
It's not just political affiliation but there are a few social issues that were sticking points for me. But what if Mitt Romney ran against Jill Stein? I would vote for Mitt Romney over any of the candidates I've seen from the Green Party here because frankly they've been a dump site for every conspiracy theorist on the planet. I know she's not a Democrat, but the Green Party does sometimes cannibalize votes from Democrats.
If I were a conservative, how would I respond to the President calling the media the enemy of the people and claiming he has total power over the states, then calling for Virginians to protect their second amendment rights through civil unrest during a pandemic? Or if a Democrat did similar things, would I vote for the Democrat because they're pro-choice and support gay marriage? I think I wouldn't and it may be tribalism but I haven't seen a Democrat show such a flagrant disregard for institutions and people as Trump.