It's today then ... (Trump thread)

[Fog Dude]

6 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

Another thing was that when you take the offices of President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State, the last time someone not called Bush or Clinton held one of those was 1980.  We have a monarchy but American political families are the equivalent.

From November 2012 to January 2017 those offices were held by Obama, Biden and Kerry respectively... but the point still basically stands. Those two families dominate US politics far too much (and wield way more actual power than the Windsors do here). 

[Keith Houchen]

27 minutes ago, Fog Dude said:

From November 2012 to January 2017 those offices were held by Obama, Biden and Kerry respectively... but the point still basically stands. Those two families dominate US politics far too much (and wield way more actual power than the Windsors do here). 

Fucking hell, poor John Kerry, totally forgot about him!  Thanks for the clarification.

Apparently, after Acosta had the mic taken he mentioned the pipe bombs sent to CNN and that's when Trump said he was the enemy of the people.  And there was a white nationalist group at the White House today, they're called Identity Evropa.  That's what the racist question was all about.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Who’s this Beto O’Rourke guy? Hadn’t heard of him before today but everyone seems to be talking about him.

Challenger to the Texan seat narrowly retained by Ted Cruz, the snivelling Zodiac Killer lookalike who went on to back Trump after losing an ugly primary in which Trump insulted his wife and parents.

 

[Gus Mears]

The Acosta stuff is a smokescreen to deflect from the fact that he's just fired Jeff Sessions and the implications that has to the Mueller investigation. There is a real danger of the media getting preoccupied with CNN when we've basically just seen a repeat of Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. The Acosta situation is petty, vindictive and utterly wrong, but Sessions being fired could result in something hugely constitutionally troubling. 

Edited November 8, 2018 by Gus Mears

[David]

I guess we need to wait and see if America has actually learned anything from the Trump fiasco. 

It's like a much larger, more mental version of the UK and the Brexit vote, where those who live in the leafy suburbs and cycle to work while mulling over what they can recycle that evening after a tasty vegan dinner seem to think that the rest of the country is exactly like them, which isn't the case.

There's a different demographic out there, where people work in jobs that require actual physical labour, and where you'd love to feed your children the healthy options from Waitrose but find that your £7.83 an hour job doesn't quite finance that.

The latter group has felt, rightly or wrongly, that they've been ignored, or treated like an inconvenience. If you ignore one sizeable section of society you run into problems, which is what we've seen in the US, and to a lesser extent in the UK.

The next realistic candidate in the US has to be someone who can relate to the people who voted for Trump, who can convince them that they have their backs, as well as not being a complete fucking goon.

The shit we see on social media from the entitled types who lambast Trump (which is fair enough), but by association lambast those who voted for him isn't going to do anyone any favours.

And for the record, before anyone accuses me of bashing the first UK demographic I mentioned there, I am very much a part of that upper middle class group. I don't shop at Waitrose though, that would be going too far.

[BomberPat]

People can talk about "legitimate concerns about immigration" or a poor left-behind working class, but it doesn't hold weight. Everyone wringing their hands about why unemployed steel workers voted for Trump or why the North East voted for Brexit, and writing cloying think-pieces about how they've been let down by modern politics, aren't going out and surveying the middle class Brexit voters of Canterbury and Hastings and asking why they feel "let down" or "left behind" by politics. Nobody's asking the many, many wealthy Trump voters why they feel like politics doesn't speak to them.

When politicians talk about "the working class", there's a silent "white" in there. "The working class" never refers to ethnic minorities who, in America, make up the vast majority of that demographic. 

Case in point - amongst low income voters, Trump lost. 7 out of 10 people who voted Trump in 2016 were earning in excess of $50,000, compared to 6 out of 10 for Clinton. More people in the $50,000+ and $100,000+ income brackets voted Trump than Clinton. By a wider margin than either of those income brackets, more people earning less than $50,000 voted Clinton. So the narrative of "Trump won because he won over the poor working class, and Clinton lost because she only appealed to wealthy elites" is wrong on both counts. In fact, the notion of Trump having won over the working class only adds up if - as is so often done when making arguments like this - you erase ethnic minorities from the equation. 

 

It's partly due to how well the post-Nixon political language has successfully cast ethnic minorities as something separate from "the working class" - without ever having to use the language of race, so plenty of plausible deniability - but also down to how much the media/public at large would prefer to stick to the idea of a working class revolt, either as something positive, as a cautionary tale, or as a way to point and laugh at "uneducated" rural racists, without drawing attention to the wealthy business owners voting for the same candidate. But to assume that the working class, as a whole, are so easily swayed as to only ever be a grievance or two away from voting for fascism, is profoundly insulting, and not politically useful/helpful in the slightest.

 

All that aside, I think Trump wins again in 2020. Unless the Democrats can field an Obama-like candidate who's more or less out of nowhere (in comparison to a Clinton or a former VP), they just don't seem to have a clue how to combat Trump's brand of politics. Because the rules have completely changed - you can't expose hypocrisy or broken promises in someone who lies brazenly and shamelessly every time he opens his mouth. You can't concoct a scandal to bring down a president that has what would be a career-ruining scandal for any other politician seemingly every week. The man is so without shame, integrity or principles that he's almost bulletproof. 

Edited November 8, 2018 by BomberPat

[David]

I have no doubt that Trump appealed greatly to the wealthy in America, as he's undoubtedly one of them, but he did appeal to many of those in certain parts of America that simply have been overlooked for decades now, didn't he? Or was that all just bollocks?

I'm only going on what I see on TV here & there, and I certainly don't look into it as much as you look to have done. Christ, I've not even voted in almost a decade now.

[Factotum]

I think places like Detroit, which clearly felt left behind, turned to Trump as Hilary was seen as 'more of the same'. I still have no doubt Sanders would have appealed to that section.

The problem ultimately is America's outdated electoral system.  America's electoral college is farcical. In the last 6 general elections, a Democrat has won on every occasion bar 2004. Yet they have only ha done Democratic President in there. Clinton won the popular vote by 3 millions votes. Democrats got far more votes than Republicans in these Mid terms, yet they are reduced in the Senate. The fact that California has the same number of Senate seats as states 3/4 its side is mad.

You have a President and a Senate who the majority of the Country didn't vote for but has the most power. It is absurd.

I have to say, Parliamentary democracy, despite its utter faults, still remains the best. I am thankful we have it. I'm also thankful that I can walk into a church hall at any time on election day and vote. Voter suppression in the US is scandalous.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Factotum

[Gus Mears]

35 minutes ago, Factotum said:

I think places like Detroit, which clearly felt left behind, turned to Trump as Hilary was seen as 'more of the same'. I still have no doubt Sanders would have appealed to that section.

The problem ultimately is America's outdated electoral system.  America's electoral college is farcical. In the last 6 general elections, a Democrat has won on every occasion bar 2004. Yet they have only ha done Democratic President in there. Clinton won the popular vote by 3 millions votes. Democrats got far more votes than Republicans in these Mid terms, yet they are reduced in the Senate. The fact that California has the same number of Senate seats as states 3/4 its side is mad.

You have a President and a Senate who the majority of the Country didn't vote for but has the most power. It is absurd.

I have to say, Parliamentary democracy, despite its utter faults, still remains the best. I am thankful we have it. I'm also thankful that I can walk into a church hall at any time on election day and vote. Voter suppression in the US is scandalous.

While I agree that the American electoral system is a mess, the Senate argument based on the results yesterday isn't a good one even though it feels like it should be. Democrats got the most votes and won 20/35 contested seats. The overall vote figures were skewed a bit by California (heavily populated) where both candidates were Democrats (different system). The map also was probably the least favourable for the Democrats in 100 years because of where they were defending vs. where Republicans were likely to win in states carried by Trump.

While Republicans are advantaged heavily by representing states with lower average populations, it's also a matter of what Senate seats are being defended in an electoral cycle, their population and what party will rack up 'unnecessary' votes to win. Two seats per state in 2018 is a bit ridiculous, especially when it's a legacy of slave vs free states,  but that's a slightly different argument. 

Edited November 8, 2018 by Gus Mears

[Merzbow]

13 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

Apparently, after Acosta had the mic taken

The Whitehouse is now claiming that Acosta violently put his hands on Sarah Sanders and their "proof" is a heavily doctored video.

[BomberPat]

I don't think Sanders ever had a chance, really. While there's perhaps something to be said for him tapping into the same "more of the same" resentment that Trump played off against Clinton, how does that work against Trump? Two "outsider" candidates running against each other probably negates that factor.
It probably would have become a race built more around Wealth vs. Equality, and in America that's a contest race is always winning. It also could be framed as (perceived) Integrity vs. Dishonesty, and Trump (and his supporters) have proved that dishonesty in a presidential candidate isn't an issue if the candidate doesn't even pay lip service to the notion that they're telling the truth, and freely bullshits away every time he's given a live mic.

Ultimately, I struggle to see how anyone could look at a country that elected a corrupt, bigoted, billionaire celebrity tycoon and argue, "if only we'd had a Socialist Jew, we'd have won this one".

[Dolph Pigglers]

4 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

The Whitehouse is now claiming that Acosta violently put his hands on Sarah Sanders and their "proof" is a heavily doctored video.

The video of Sanders trying to snatch the mic from Acosta's hands and him moving his hand away from her that's up on her twitter is their evidence he violently put his hands on her?

Sad thing is, Trump's loyal base will lap that up.  Shockingly, Fox News aren't reporting on it in that way, but it is only 6am/8am over there so give it time I guess.

No one stood a chance in that circus of an election against Trump.  He played it amazingly and now has free reign to lie and bullshit his way through this and his next term.  In the alternate universe where Hillary won, it would have been a massacre of a year with investigations, allegations and hateful rhetoric.  Essentially just Freaky Friday but The Apprentice would have higher ratings.

[Carbomb]

14 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I don't think Sanders ever had a chance, really. While there's perhaps something to be said for him tapping into the same "more of the same" resentment that Trump played off against Clinton, how does that work against Trump? Two "outsider" candidates running against each other probably negates that factor.
It probably would have become a race built more around Wealth vs. Equality, and in America that's a contest race is always winning. It also could be framed as (perceived) Integrity vs. Dishonesty, and Trump (and his supporters) have proved that dishonesty in a presidential candidate isn't an issue if the candidate doesn't even pay lip service to the notion that they're telling the truth, and freely bullshits away every time he's given a live mic.

Ultimately, I struggle to see how anyone could look at a country that elected a corrupt, bigoted, billionaire celebrity tycoon and argue, "if only we'd had a Socialist Jew, we'd have won this one".

It's also a country that has historically not just ignored socialism, but actively demonised it and made that demonisation part of their culture (despite it being having a huge influence on pulling them out of the post-WW2 doldrums, something they've revised heavily), whilst at the same time pandering to the historically racist elements of the South and its white supremacist elements. The only real chance Sanders had was that, when the economy's heavily in the shit and people are suffering as a result, they'll turn to the more perceived radical elements to provide answers where the status quo let them down.

[Gus Mears]

Just now, Carbomb said:

It's also a country that has historically not just ignored socialism, but actively demonised it and made that demonisation part of their culture (despite it being having a huge influence on pulling them out of the post-WW2 doldrums, something they've revised heavily)

Do you mean the Depression? The American economy was booming by the end of WW2. 

[Keith Houchen]

11 minutes ago, Dolph Pigglers said:

No one stood a chance in that circus of an election against Trump.

I disagree, had Clinton actively campaigned in what she considered safe areas that went Republican, she would've won.  Had she ran a campaign that hadn't taken for granted she would win, then she would've won in my opinion.  I honestly think she lost the election as opposed to Trump winning it.

A friend of mine is Jewish and from Brooklyn.  He said there was even some feeling among older Jews that they didn't want Saunders to win because there would be the perception of if things didn't go well, there would be a huge "Look what happens when Jews are put in charge" resentment.