DOOM, or The Official 2016 US Election Thread

vimothy

yurp
Thomas Frank on the liberal elite: https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it

The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. They are last week’s scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.

The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied, pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are written. This bunch doesn’t have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.

They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves....
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member

I don't have a problem with the main body of the piece (essentially rich lobbyists have undue influence) but the ad hominem stuff is just infantile. At the end of the day Clinton's policies to increase health coverage, paid family leave and reduce childcare costs will help ordinary people (and of course Trump's combination of recession, job losses and tax increases won't). Pointing out that these people have a different lifestyle from the people they're trying to help isn't clever, useful or relevant.
 

Leo

Well-known member
yeah, i know, who cares what a dumb ass celeb thinks, etc., but i know more than a few people who share some of these views (also good for a laugh, which we could use right now...)

 
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droid

Well-known member
Andrew Sullivan soaking his bed, and TBH, I cant fault his argument.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/andrew-sullivan-trump-america-and-the-abyss.html

The Republicans in Washington complemented this picture of crisis by a policy of calculated obstruction to every single measure a Democratic president has attempted, rendering the Congress so gridlocked that it has been incapable of even passing a budget without constitutional crisis, filling a vacant Supreme Court seat, or reforming a health-care policy in pragmatic fashion. They have risked the nation’s very credit rating to vent their rage. They have helped reduce the public support of the central democratic institution in American government, the Congress, to a consistently basement level never seen before — another disturbing analogy to the discredited democratic parliaments of the 1930s. The Republicans have thereby become a force bent less on governing than on destroying the very institutions that make democracy and the rule of law possible. They have not been conservative in any sane meaning of that term for many, many years. They are nihilist revolutionaries of the far right in search of a galvanizing revolutionary leader. And they have now found their man.
 

Leo

Well-known member

he was on msnbc "hardball" last night predicting a trump victory. he is a bit OTT, but not without reason. she's still got the lead and the get-out-the-vote ground game but he's got the momentum, and we've still got four days left for one last "surprise" (wikileaks, fbi leak, terrorist attack, etc.) that could tip the scales.
 

droid

Well-known member
I still hope Clinton will shade it, but I dont think his fears of the consequences of a Trump win are unjustified or hysterical.
 

Leo

Well-known member
as a friend on FB said, "did you ever think you'd see the day where the FBI, the KKK, and the KGB all endorse the same candidate for President of the United States?"

yeah, "endorse" might not be the appropriate word but still...
 

vimothy

yurp
Our politics have ceded the future to the market and Silicon Valley. The question of social organization, presumably, has been mostly solved by the wonks. Liberal democracies are increasingly convinced that there is no innovation in political thinking allowed. We simply adjust the levers of policy at appropriate times, and focus on atoning for past sins. The global elite is converging on economic integration, low trade barriers, universal benefits, light regulation, and the cultivation of a global class of politicians and plutocrats who socialize and groom each other and their children for continued benevolent rule. Sometimes, in their darker moments, they cede the future to China, thinking that some kind of autocratic capitalism might produce better trains and faster growing cities.

And again, this is not surprising, Two baby boomer candidates were almost always going to settle into the two default positions. One would represent those who felt they lost something of the vim and promise of their youth. And another would naturally represent those who are mostly satisfied with the work their generation has done, who generally admire the distribution of rewards in our society, but wouldn't mind more credit themselves.

A normal age would produce a culture of letters that recognizes this for what it is: exhaustion on a deep level.

Our politics are obsessed with the past because we aren't invested in the future the way a normal society should be. So we hardly imagine what we might build. We live on credit in the somewhat secure knowledge that our creditors can't collect even if they were to rob our graves. Like the Clintons, our elites live with dual incomes and one kid. And we search for ways to do good, when the getting's good for us too. Like Donald Trump, we're hoping to stick some nameless others with our moral and financial debt.

This pattern of life — a life oriented to no future at all — will end soon, because it is unsustainable. And because, if we can bear to look, it disgusts us.

http://theweek.com/articles/659087/...links&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=twitter
 

Leo

Well-known member
considering how partisan US politics has become (GOP pledging to impeach hillary before she's even elected and to not even review her supreme court selections for her entire four-year term, etc.), i wonder if today's candidates feel there isn't any point in having a grand vision or big idea. i'm not condoning the small/backwards thinking he discusses here and it's indeed a sad indictment of political leadership, but it could be a natural reaction to facing an opposition bent on obstructionism and gridlock.

bless bernie sanders, but one of the reasons he lost the primary by over 4 million votes was his grand vision, while inspiring to a minority, was widely viewed as pie-in-the-sky by most voters. i sense "the new frontier" or "thousand points of light" would be perceived today as grandiose BS spin by skeptical/cynical voters who feel threatened by reduced employment opportunities and a changing demographic.
 

droid

Well-known member
Trumps numbers seem to have stablised - down from 34% to 33.5%. Guess he's gotten all the Johnson voters he's gonna get.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
leo said:
bless bernie sanders, but one of the reasons he lost the primary by over 4 million votes was his grand vision, while inspiring to a minority, was widely viewed as pie-in-the-sky by most voters. i sense "the new frontier" or "thousand points of light" would be perceived today as grandiose BS spin by skeptical/cynical voters who feel threatened by reduced employment opportunities and a changing demographic.

Sanders "Grand vision" was basically a go back to the pre Thatcher/Reagenite times. He lost the primaries bc he is too old, too white, and too academic.

Still, his impact was very important to get some sanity back into that circus.
 
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droid

Well-known member
Good news for Clinton.

Black numbers up in Florida and Nevada. Latino numbers apparently through the roof.
 

droid

Well-known member
Bad news for Clinton.

Dem numbers in North Carolina matching 2012, but Rep & Ind numbers up.
 
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