DOOM, or The Official 2016 US Election Thread

[sadmanbarty]

I haven't been watching much coverage, has the media paid much attention to racial resentment?

During the campaign polling suggested that racial resentment was a good indicator of Trump support. One of the pieces about exit polling I posted before in the thread suggests that opinions on whether the justice system is fair to black people was a good indicator of who people voted for.

 

[craner]

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would have done no better than Clinton against Trump, possibly worse. (This apart from the fact that Biden said he would not run quite definitively last September.)

The claims that Trump is a Fascist are hysterical; I don't even think he is really a racist or a homophobe. He is certainly an amoral egoist, and not ideological at all. He will rule like a self-regarding money man with no integrity or virtue. The most worrying thing about this is his personal temperament rather than his opinions (the latter seem to be extremely contingent and shallow), so the real question and test will be, how robust will the complex architecture of American democracy be against a trivial cult of personality? The very thing it was originally designed to contest?

It will be interesting, to say the least.

 

[craner]

I think Marine Le Pen is more formidable, intelligent and charismatic than any of these guys so far, and has a real chance of taking France. And she means what she says. In a weird way, that could be more worrying than Trump being the most powerful man in the world, because at the moment he could actually be anything. But she is the most serious and genuine far-right politican we have seen in my conscious lifetime. And France, in it's current mood, is hers to take.

 

[firefinga]

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would have done no better than Clinton against Trump, possibly worse. (This apart from the fact that Biden said he would not run quite definitively last September.)

The claims that Trump is a Fascist are hysterical; I don't even think he is really a racist or a homophobe. He is certainly an amoral egoist, and not ideological at all. He will rule like a self-regarding money man with no integrity or virtue. The most worrying thing about this is his personal temperament rather than his opinions (the latter seem to be extremely contingent and shallow), so the real question and test will be, how robust will the complex architecture of American democracy be against a trivial cult of personality? The very thing it was originally designed to contest?

It will be interesting, to say the least.

It will all depend on who his team will consist of. If he plays them, or if they play him. The rumor mill points strongly to the latter - Newt Gingrich for crying out loud as Secretery of State???

 

[Mr. Tea]

I don't even think he is really a racist

Ridiculous. If you constantly say racist things then you are racist, even if you don't go around thinking awful things about blacks and Jews and Muslims all the time.

Or rather, courting racists and deliberately stoking racial prejudice is an inherently racist thing to, even if you're "merely" doing because you're an amoral self-publicist who wants popular support at any cost.

 

[Leo]

actually, the most worrying thing isn't trump himself. it's the republican majorities in house and senate which will rubber stamp the vision of a very religious conservative vice president pence (who will for all intents and purposes be running policy). trump might be out in four years and GOP congressional majorities in less, but conservative supreme court appointments can enact laws that last a generation or more.

not to discount the potential for trump being a hot-headed, thin-skinned, trigger-happy nuke jockey, but it's much more likely that the GOP/religious right domestic policy agenda will have the most impact.

i know that doesn't concern most of you all, but it does me.

 

[firefinga]

actually, the most worrying thing isn't trump himself. it's the republican majorities in house and senate which will rubber stamp the vision of a very religious conservative vice president pence (who will for all intents and purposes be running policy). trump might be out in four years and GOP congressional majorities in less, but conservative supreme court appointments can enact laws that last a generation or more.

not to discount the potential for trump being a hot-headed, thin-skinned, trigger-happy nuke jockey, but it's much more likely that the GOP/religious right domestic policy agenda will have the most impact.

i know that doesn't concern most of you all, but it does me.

Good points bc the GOPers have quickly realized Trump won them the jackpot by dominating the congress. All the talk of breakaway of the "moderate" wing is gone with the winds. And the GOP is very good when it gets to establishing long term political structures that they benefit from.

 

[craner]

Trump had a reputation for being brutal to people who got in his way when he was a "property developer"; they were working class minorities for the most part, the point was they were in his way, and they were working class losers, so he evicted them. He had no problem being great pals with blacks who were not "losers"; successful sportsmen, businessmen, politicians, actors, etc.

In his campaign he was saying Hillary should be locked up, and Obama didn't have an American birth certificate; in the last two days he's said that America owes Hillary a greal deal of gratitude for her public service and described Obama as a "very good man". He believes or means all of these things in the sense that he doesn't believe or mean any of them: he says what he needs to get the required outcome for the good of Trump. The issue is his temperament, which is now a global and historical factor, rather than his opinions or beliefs, which will depend upon what his temporary needs or desires are.

He will be more likely to start a war due to personal pique rather than ideology. That's the scary thing, and that's where the test of the American system will reside. And that's the fundamental difference between Trump and Reagan.

 

[craner]

General Mike Flynn will certainly be in there, which puts a spoke in the pro-Russia narrative, and my favorite Alaskan girl Sarah Palin will surely get a job.

 

[vimothy]

But muh rainbow coalition of marginalized identities will smash the kyriarchy as we sprinkle magic diversity pixie dust over everyone and create a shiny liberal Starbucks utopia. Yesterday was 18 Brumaire CCXXV according to the French Republican calendar, by the way. Just a happy coincidence, I’m sure.

Left liberal “progressives” did this to themselves. This is exactly what retreating into cultural (i.e., identity) politics, while abandoning class as the basis for a socially transformative coalition, gets you. If you make no attempt to appeal to workers qua workers, the Right will inevitably make inroads within that group. As they indeed have. So I don’t pity anyone who is seriously distraught by these results. Blame for Trump cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of “crackers” and hicks; he did significantly better among blacks and Latinos than Romney, his Republican predecessor....

Educated liberal elites expressed nothing but contempt for the working poor in flyover country, whom they vilified as “one reactionary mass” — i.e., a “basket of deplorables” — of ignorant racists.

In such an atmosphere, even the slightest overture to the working class was bound to resonate enormously.

https://thecharnelhouse.org/2016/11/09/reap-the-whirlwind/

 

[firefinga]

It would mean the end of humanitarian/"humanitarian" (delete applicable to taste) intervention, sure.

The idea of "humanitarian" intervention was a very shortlived idea born out of the political climate of the early 1990s and strongly promoted by the then UN secretary B. Ghali. And even started by Bush Senior at the end of his turn in Somalia '92. It soon ended after the dead, naked body of a US soldier was dragged through the dust of Mogadishu in 1993, showing the "gratitude" of the "helped". However Bill Clinton appeared to believe in the idea of "humanitarian intervention" for a while. Every US - military intervention after the Somalian debacle was primarily motivated by Realpolitik.

 

[vimothy]

Not gonna lie: the Schadenfreude of watching all the Hillary supporters crying at her planned celebration party was pretty exhilarating. It almost approached the Kantian dynamic sublime, in the strict sense of the term — tfw there are forces swirling all around you that could crush you like a bug, but you’re suspended in it, and can feel its awesome majesty. Seeing her long-held presidential ambitions crushed by a blithering buffoon who resembles a Cheeto felt like a morbid, dizzying, asymptotic ascent. Fucking hilarious. Peals of laughter before the void.

I can relate.

 

[vimothy]

I don't believe that US foreign policy is substantially driven by Realpolitik. It's much less rational. It's about ideology.

 

[firefinga]

Berlusconi kept winning. Mind you he led an impoverished peasant state with no global influence

Well, northern Italy still is and was back then a higly industrialized country. Spot on tho regarding Southern Italy tho. But yeah, the Italians voted thatdude in THREE fucking times.

 

[firefinga]

https://thecharnelhouse.org/2016/11/09/reap-the-whirlwind/

Sadly enough totally spot on. I have my doubts, but maybe it's time now (especially for the US democrats, but also applicable for most european left-leaning/liberal parties) for a few hurtful reality checks.

For instance, that the leaders of such parties, usually stemming from the (upper) middle class, might take into consideration that there still is a considerable working class (and a struggling middle class) which has been neglected for decades by now. That the uncostly "feel good" liberalism of Gay Rights, Women's rights etc. doesn't resonate with those people. That for these people globalisation usually means less money, more competition, more uncertainty etc. etc.

 

[baboon2004]

I think Marine Le Pen is more formidable, intelligent and charismatic than any of these guys so far, and has a real chance of taking France. And she means what she says. In a weird way, that could be more worrying than Trump being the most powerful man in the world, because at the moment he could actually be anything. But she is the most serious and genuine far-right politican we have seen in my conscious lifetime. And France, in it's current mood, is hers to take.

Agreed with that. The fact that Alain Juppé has been crushing her in polling for the most likely second round match-up, seems to mean almost nothing right now. Could mean even less come next May.

Re US foreign policy, I'm tempted to agree with Vimothy that it is most substantially steered by ideology. State Dept documents on the Middle East read as if written by people who thought Star Wars was a documentary.

 

[Leo]

I can relate.

a bit juvenile, if not dickish. enjoy.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would have done no better than Clinton against Trump, possibly worse.

Droid, have you got a link to that poll from earlier in the year showing that Sanders did far better than Clinton in "Who would you vote for out of Trump and [Dem. candidate X]" type questions?

I'm sure we're all taking polls with a very large pinch of salt these days, but if I recall correctly, the difference was impressive.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The idea of "humanitarian" intervention was a very shortlived idea born out of the political climate of the early 1990s and strongly promoted by the then UN secretary B. Ghali. And even started by Bush Senior at the end of his turn in Somalia '92. It soon ended after the dead, naked body of a US soldier was dragged through the dust of Mogadishu in 1993, showing the "gratitude" of the "helped". However Bill Clinton appeared to believe in the idea of "humanitarian intervention" for a while. Every US - military intervention after the Somalian debacle was primarily motivated by Realpolitik.

I didn't put the quote marks in for decorative purposes, you know.

 

[vimothy]

a bit juvenile, if not dickish. enjoy.

I'm not proud of it, but every cloud and all that.