DOOM, or The Official 2016 US Election Thread

[Leo]

the clinton campaign felt portraying trump as unsafe, too volatile, too risky, etc. was the way to reach and win over female voters (it obviously didn't work on enough of them).

but is any of this really new to this election cycle? it seems more like traditional political campaign strategy. because while everyone (reporters, op-ed writers, pundits, commenters) always claims a desire to discuss the issues and policy positions, in actuality voters don't pay much attention to that stuff (either they don't understand it or it just bores them) and they tend to get swayed more by negative attack ad campaigning.

perhaps this was the election cycle where most of the traditional campaign elements were simply out of sync with the times.

 

[vimothy]

Another response to Krugman, by Tim Duy: http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2016/11/on-krugman-and-the-working-class.html

That Krugman can wonder at the source of the disdain felt toward the liberal elite while lecturing Trump’s voters on their own self-interest is really quite remarkable.

 

[Leo]

in fairness, no small number of people do vote against their self interest. doesn't mean those people shouldn't have disdain for pundits who bring it to their attention, but also doesn't mean the pundit is necessarily incorrect.

 

[sadmanbarty]

Another response to Krugman, by Tim Duy: http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2016/11/on-krugman-and-the-working-class.html

This tendency to attack the liberal elite due to personality faults rather than policy is really tedious. Who cares if they're "paternalistic" just so long as they propose policies that are beneficial to people.

"That Krugman can wonder at the source of the disdain felt toward the liberal elite while lecturing Trump’s voters on their own self-interest is really quite remarkable." This is another annoying thing about punditry recently; it's become politically incorrect to challenge the white working class on their Trump support. You can publicly disagree with every other type of person, but your only allowed to patronisingly "sympathise" with the white working class.

 

[Leo]

This tendency to attack the liberal elite due to personality faults rather than policy is really tedious. Who cares if they're "paternalistic" just so long as they propose policies that are beneficial to people.

"That Krugman can wonder at the source of the disdain felt toward the liberal elite while lecturing Trump’s voters on their own self-interest is really quite remarkable." This is another annoying thing about punditry recently; it's become politically incorrect to challenge the white working class on their Trump support. You can publicly disagree with every other type of person, but your only allowed to patronisingly "sympathise" with the white working class.

i think the author's point is he finds it "remarkable" that krugman doesn't get the source of the disdain (ie., how people who were described as deplorable might hold their accusers in disdain). i see his point, but also agree with you about punditry in general.

 

[sadmanbarty]

Another response to Krugman, by Tim Duy: http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2016/11/on-krugman-and-the-working-class.html

"The Republicans are the party of the rich; the Democrats are the party of the rich and poor. Those in between have no place."

I'm not quite sure what's meant by this (I assume that proposals such as paid family leave and reducing childcare costs would benefit middle class families as well as the poor), but it's something i hadn't really considered.

 

[sadmanbarty]

"But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

 

[sadmanbarty]

Deplorable

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-race-idUSKCN0ZE2SW

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/2...nce.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/DglN61YzC4

 

[Mr. Tea]

"The Republicans are the party of the rich; the Democrats are the party of the rich and poor. Those in between have no place."

I'm not quite sure what's meant by this (I assume that proposals such as paid family leave and reducing childcare costs would benefit middle class families as well as the poor), but it's something i hadn't really considered.

I think it's about time that people in the USA as well as UK stopped using "working class" as a synonym for "poor" and "middle class" as a synonym for "more or less well-off".

That's not a dig at you personally, just a general observation.

 

[Leo]

I think it's about time that people in the USA as well as UK stopped using "working class" as a synonym for "poor" and "middle class" as a synonym for "more or less well-off".

That's not a dig at you personally, just a general observation.

over here, i think most people think of it as four levels:

- poor (uneducated/unemployed, often without work prospects and on welfare/food states),
- working class (employed in blue-collar jobs [police/firemen/factory worker/truck driver/plumber/construction, etc.] probably renting in an ok but not particularly desirable area, doing ok but probably not able to save),
- middle class (white-collar or higher-paying blue-collar jobs [construction supervisor, police sergeant, etc.], can afford to own a house in the suburbs, maybe owns two cars).
- rich (white collar, big house or posh apartment, sends kids to private school, etc.)

of course, you could add the super rich as a fifth category.

 

[Mr. Tea]

My point was more that 'class' as a cultural or psychological phenomenon is far less strongly coupled to wealth than it used to be. I have a friend who's a full-time research fellow with a fair amount of teaching responsibility (at Cambridge!) and she earns about half what a London Tube driver starts on, and fair bit less even than the median earnings for a plumber or electrician. I earned about the same in my first 'proper' job as an analyst in the UK civil service (everyone in the part of the department I worked in had a research master's degree in a science subject, like me, if not a PhD.) And that's before you even consider the huge number of people you'd probably call 'middle class' if you met them at a party - who grew up in a house with its own front door in a leafy suburb or an attractive village, almost certainly went to uni and maybe have a higher degree as well, drink red wine, eat olives and read The Guardian, but who earn minimum wage doing a hospitality/catering/retail job or perhaps have no job at all. (Now where's that article titled 'Hipsters on Food Stamps'? Edit: here, funnily enough.) In contrast to well-paid 'blue collar' jobs in industry of one sort or another, of the sort that are still quite common in middle America but far scarcer (and less secure) than they used to be.

 

[firefinga]

"The Republicans are the party of the rich; the Democrats are the party of the rich and poor. Those in between have no place."

I'm not quite sure what's meant by this (I assume that proposals such as paid family leave and reducing childcare costs would benefit middle class families as well as the poor), but it's something i hadn't really considered.

The Republicans are the party for and of the rich voted for by the poor. The democrats are the party the liberals vote for.

 

[firefinga]

This tendency to attack the liberal elite due to personality faults rather than policy is really tedious. Who cares if they're "paternalistic" just so long as they propose policies that are beneficial to people.

Depends totally if the proposed policies are being perceived as benificial. If so, the policy can be totally paternalistic. I am old fashioned anyways so my opinion isn't worth shit by todays liberal standards, but the big mistake the liberals/left made the last few...umm...decades really was to emphasisze "identity politics" instead of what used to be THE core issue of the left, namley wealth distribution, economy , ya know, that un-sexy shit.

 

[droid]

Chomskers again

"He certainly is off the spectrum. There's never been anything like him," says Chomsky, an award-winning author, who is witnessing the 16th president over the course of his lifetime.

"He has no background at all in any political activities. Never held office, been interested in office. He has no known political positions," says Chomsky. "He's basically a showman."

Chomsky, who has spent decades critiquing US presidents, calls Trump an "ignorant, thin-skinned megalomaniac" and a "greater evil" than Hillary Clinton.

"Do you vote against the greater evil if you don't happen to like the other candidate? The answer to that is yes," says Chomsky, on Americans who cast their votes for third party candidates or simply stayed home on election day.

"If you have any moral understanding, you want to keep the greater evil out," says Chomsky. "I didn't like Clinton at all, but her positions are much better than Trump's on every issue I can think of."

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes...l-noam-chomsky-trump-era-161125114959227.html

 

[Mr. Tea]

The Republicans are the party for and of the rich voted for by the poor. The democrats are the party the liberals vote for.

The Reps this year had their strongest support among people in the middling income range. Although of course they were really voting for Trump, not the Republican party as such.

 

[Leo]

And that's before you even consider the huge number of people you'd probably call 'middle class' if you met them at a party - who grew up in a house with its own front door in a leafy suburb or an attractive village, almost certainly went to uni and maybe have a higher degree as well, drink red wine, eat olives and read The Guardian, but who earn minimum wage doing a hospitality/catering/retail job or perhaps have no job at all.

hold on...how is it possible to live that life while earning minimum wage or not having a job at all? cuz i'd like to get in on that racket! the only people i know who are under/unemployed and live comfortably with their red wine, olives and ny times digital subscription are those with help from their parents. i have a cousin who's an artist, worked shit jobs for a year or two out of undergrad, then went back to art school full time and has since lived in brooklyn and leipzig with pretty much no jobs, all made possible by mom and dad.

in the states, the notion of "class" seems largely based on income.

 

[Mr. Tea]

hold on...how is it possible to live that life while earning minimum wage or not having a job at all?

I didn't say good red wine, and the Guardian is all free online, and I was talking about the houses they grew up in, not where they live now - unless we're talking about the ever-increasing number of 20- (and 30-) somethings who are still living with their parents, or who've moved back in. And I don't mean people who've been literally destitute for years, just people finding that having a degree and being more or less 'well spoken' isn't quite the ticket to a steady, well-paid job that it once was. I'm doing OK now but I've been in that situation a couple of times, and I'm lucky enough to be a science graduate.

in the states, the notion of "class" seems largely based on income.

I was going to say earlier, and probably should have done, that the relationship between (cultural) class and income does seem to be stronger in the USA than over here.

 

[luka]

If you duck dive and theive from the till you can keep it together.

 

[luka]

Nothing irritates me more than people claiming you can't possibly live in London on less than 30k. You can live very comfortably on 30k if you don't have kids or debts. I've never earned anything like that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah I did OK on 25k, wasn't living the high life or anything (well, occasionally, lol) - although that was a few years ago. It all just depends what sort of area and what sort of home you consider desirable or acceptable.