DOOM, or The Official 2016 US Election Thread

[luka]

Allowing YouTube, reddit, newspaper comment sections to become platforms for virulent racism and misogyny might have been an error, in retrospect.

 

[firefinga]

Allowing YouTube, reddit, newspaper comment sections to become platforms for virulent racism and misogyny might have been an error, in retrospect.

Don't forget my pet peeve, Farcebook - which would delete bare boobs in a heartbeat but has nazi imagery unchecked.

 

[Corpsey]

Allowing YouTube, reddit, newspaper comment sections to become platforms for virulent racism and misogyny might have been an error, in retrospect.

This is a good point. I think the utopian view of the internet is that it will allow more people to be educated about things, when in fact it simply allows people to be educated about things in the way they want to be.

Found this podcast very interesting:
Fresh Air discusses the 2016 election with Atlantic Magazine correspondent James Fallows, who spent three years flying his own plane to small towns across the U.S., reporting on the people he met.

GROSS: It was interesting that - in that in this election trade really figured heavily into people's thinking. I mean, NAFTA and trade policies are usually considered to be issues that put people to sleep because they're complicated and nobody really understands them. But they were big in this election.

You've lived in Japan. You lived in China. You've studied trade deals. So if you could just sum up for us what some of Donald Trump's main points are on trade, things he'd like to change.

FALLOWS: So his main point, it's based on something that is in my view largely just wrong and connected to something that is - that is real...

GROSS: I mean, wrong you disagree or factually incorrect?

FALLOWS: Factually incorrect - and that is the idea that essentially the economic problems America has is because China is - in particular but also Mexico and Japan and South Korea - are stealing our factories and stealing our jobs. And this is the main reason why the U.S. has the economic problems, the employment problems that it has. I think if 20 years ago, when China was beginning its ascent, you could say that a lot of the economic problems of the early '90s were much more directly traceable to outsourcing decisions than anything that's going on right now, similarly for NAFTA.

But if you go many places now, the people who have been losing jobs in the last 10 years have been losing them only minorly to Mexico, China, South Korea, Japan. They've been losing them mainly to automation. They've been losing them mainly to the robotization of factories around the world. And that is why I can tell you from going back and forth to China that in every single country of the world, including China and Japan and South Korea and Mexico, the employment problem is the hollowing out of factory-type jobs because of automation.

You know, based on past centuries, we can say in the long run this will create more jobs. But right now, in the short run, it's a big engine against the creation - it's the engine of job destruction in the middle. That is the real thing that Donald Trump is - it's the real anxiety he is working from.

I think to blame it as he does on bad-and-stupid deals with Mexico, China, Japan and South Korea both is out of date about the problem and really off about the solution because I don't think there's anybody who is involved with those countries who thinks that much tougher or canny or dealmakers is going to bring a lot more factories back to Indiana or Illinois.

But it's not just, like, two people in a room and one pounds his fist harder and the other one says, oh, I give in, we're going to take another $100 dollars of your steel. It is a part of this giant complex fabric of things where the negotiators are actually good now and just having somebody say make better deals, it's - it would be like saying, like a principal saying, OK, we're going to have smarter students. And I want all your teachers to give us smarter students starting tomorrow. There's more to it than that.

 

[luka]

Still think you lot should get aquainted with conspiracy culture now it's in the political mainstream personally

 

[firefinga]

Still think you lot should get aquainted with conspiracy culture now it's in the political mainstream personally

Another international trend... after all, the candidate for the Austrian presidency, Norbert Hofer (an aeronautics engineer BTW) - who will likely win the upcoming election - believes in chemtrails.

 

[droid]

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.

This is all I can find ATM. I think there was another later ABC poll with Sanders running mid 50s and Clinton almost neck and neck with Trump.

 

[droid]

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.)

Did you read the article I posted earlier, it makes a very convincing case.

And there's more:

If Clinton’s campaign seemed bizarrely pitched toward the interests of those who were always going to vote for her anyway, Sanders was uniquely positioned to reach voters with a different sensibility. In contrast to the millionaire polish of the Clinton camp, Sanders has a somewhat shambolic, grandfatherly presence that conveys an unpretentious and approachable character. Clinton struggled to use Trump’s wealth against him, in large measure because she herself is an immensely wealthy woman. (In fact, she frequently suggested that Trump wasn’t really all that rich, a ludicrous line of attack from a primary in which Sanders’s play for Nordic-style egalitarian policies won him favor in battleground states such as Pennsylvania.) Sanders would have been able to contrast Trump’s ostentatious wealth with his own shabby aesthetic. The message writes itself: Trump talks a good game about economic anxiety, but why would you trust this New York billionaire to put your interests first?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...sanders-could-have-won/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b

Of the three major-party presidential candidates who remained in the race at that time, Sanders was the only one with a net positive favorability rating. Clinton had a net favorability rating of negative 21 percent and Trump’s was negative 29 percent.

In fact, Trump and Clinton were the least popular presidential candidates in the history of the United States. An August ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Trump had a 63 percent unfavorability rating among U.S. adults, with Clinton following closely behind at 56 percent — amounting to record-breaking levels of dislike and distrust.

Sanders, by contrast, is the most popular major political figure in the U.S., according to an October report. The popularity of the longtime independent Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist skyrocketed throughout his campaign, which mobilized millions of people and launched a massive grassroots movement.

http://www.salon.com/2016/11/10/ber...flow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

 

[droid]

And you might retort that I would of course say that, but look at this.


You can scoff at his earnestness, but it cant be denied that Sanders would have appealed directly to the people who turned against Clinton. He was the mirror image of Trump, a populist outsider candidate who argued policy, rose above personal attacks and offered a positive message.

He would absolutely have won.

 

[droid]

here's that current affairs article. Devastatingly prescient:

http://static.currentaffairs.org/20...s-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency

Trump’s various unique methods of attack would instantly be made far less useful in a run against Sanders. All of the most personal charges (untrustworthiness, corruption, rank hypocrisy) are much more difficult to make stick. The rich history of dubious business dealings is nonexistent. None of the sleaze in which Trump traffics can be found clinging to Bernie. Trump’s standup routine just has much less obvious personal material to work with. Sanders is a fairly transparent guy; he likes the social safety net, he doesn’t like oligarchy, he’s a workaholic who sometimes takes a break to play basketball, and that’s pretty much all there is to it. Contrast that with the above-noted list of juicy Clinton tidbits.

Trump can’t clown around nearly as much at a debate with Sanders, for the simple reason that Sanders is dead set on keeping every conversation about the plight of America’s poor under the present economic system. If Trump tells jokes and goofs off here, he looks as if he’s belittling poor people, not a magnificent idea for an Ivy League trust fund billionaire running against a working class public servant and veteran of the Civil Rights movement. Instead, Trump will be forced to do what Hillary Clinton has been forced to do during the primary, namely to make himself sound as much like Bernie Sanders as possible. For Trump, having to get serious and take the Trump Show off the air will be devastating to his unique charismatic appeal.

Against Trump, Bernie can play the same “experience” card that Hillary plays. After all, while Sanders may look like a policy amateur next to Clinton, next to Trump he looks positively statesmanlike. Sanders can point to his successful mayoralty and long history as Congress’s “Amendment King” as evidence of his administrative bona fides. And Sanders’s lack of foreign policy knowledge won’t hurt him when facing someone with even less. Sanders will be enough of an outsider for Trump’s populist anti-Washington appeal to be powerless, but enough of an insider to appear an experienced hand at governance.

Trump is an attention-craving parasite, and such creatures are powerful only when indulged and paid attention to. Clinton will be forced to pay attention to Trump because of his constant evocation of her scandals. She will attempt to go after him. She will, in other words, feed the troll. Sanders, by contrast, will almost certainly behave as if Trump isn’t even there. He is unlikely to rise to Trump’s bait, because Sanders doesn’t even care to listen to anything that’s not about saving social security or the disappearing middle class. He will almost certainly seem as if he barely knows who Trump is. Sanders’s commercials will be similar to those he has run in the primary, featuring uplifting images of America, aspirational sentiments about what we can be together, and moving testimonies from ordinary Americans. Putting such genuine dignity and good feeling against Trump’s race-baiting clownishness will be like finally pouring water on the Wicked Witch. Hillary Clinton cannot do this; with her, the campaign will inevitably descend into the gutter, and the unstoppable bloated Trump menace will continue to grow ever larger.

Sanders is thus an almost perfect secret weapon against Trump. He can pull off the only maneuver that is capable of neutralizing Trump: ignoring him and actually keeping the focus on the issues. Further, Sanders will have the advantage of an enthusiastic army of young volunteers, who will be strongly dedicated to the mission of stalling Trump’s quest for the presidency. The Sanders team is extremely technically skilled; everything from their television commercials to their rally organizing to their inspired teasing is pulled off well. The Sanders team is slick and adaptable, the Clinton team is ropey and fumbling.

 

[droid]

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?

This may all be true, but you're not arguing against the substantive points that have been made. Many of his stated policies deeply resemble fascist positions. His propaganda is implicitly fascistic.

Like I said earlier - maybe he was just pretending to be fascist to get votes - and even if that is true - if he follows through, and we see detention camps, and mass deportations, and badges for Muslims, and the full weight of the security apparatus deployed on dissenters, and the dismantling of democratic institutions... well then the distinction will be irrelevant.

 

[droid]

Plus, the Clinton campaign deliberately fuelled Trump's ascendance with their 'Pied Piper' strategy because they thought that shed have a better chance against an extreme right wing candidate. Sanders beat her in the Rust belt nomination battle - all this in an election that ended up having a very close margin even with the most unpopular Dem candidate ever.

We may have all been sacrificed on the altar of one woman's venal ambition and the short sighted stupidity of the democrat establishment.

 

[droid]

...

It is a vision of a future so apocalyptic that it is hard to even imagine.

But, if leading scientists writing in one of the most respected academic journals are right, planet Earth could be on course for global warming of more than seven degrees Celsius within a lifetime.

And that, according to one of the world’s most renowned climatologists, could be “game over” – particularly given the imminent presence of climate change denier Donald Trump in the White House.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...imate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html

 

[luka]

Of course Trump is racist. I'm not sure bernie wins against Trump though. A Jewish socialist. Maybe. Doesn't matter now anyway WWIII is round the corner.

 

[droid]

...

Professor Michael Mann, of Penn State University in the US, who led research that produced the famous “hockey stick” graph showing how humans were dramatically increasing the Earth’s temperature, told The Independent the new paper appeared "sound and the conclusions quite defensible".

“And it does indeed provide support for the notion that a Donald Trump presidency could be game over for the climate,” he wrote in an email.

“By ‘game over for the climate’, I mean game over for stabilizing warming below dangerous (ie greater than 2C) levels.

“If Trump makes good on his promises, and the US pulls out of the Paris [climate] treaty, it is difficult to see a path forward to keeping warming below those levels.”

 

[sadmanbarty]

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

"make no attempt to appeal to workers...contempt for the working poor"

I think it has to be emphasised that this argument is applicable to rhetoric rather than policy. Clinton's policy proposals were actually beneficial to the working class, whereas Trump's are beneficial to the rich.

Also, although the "deplorables" thing was a gaffe and bad politically, in context she did say that trump support stemmed from the economically and politically disenfranchised as well.

 

[firefinga]

"make no attempt to appeal to workers...contempt for the working poor"

I think it has to be emphasised that this argument is applicable to rhetoric rather than policy. Clinton's policy proposals were actually beneficial to the working class, whereas Trump's are beneficial to the rich.

Correct but a moot point bc she/her campaign couldn't get that across

 

[droid]

I'm not sure bernie wins against Trump though. A Jewish socialist. Maybe.

I would have said the same before Obama, but it seems even more likely now that a hugely unpopular female candidate won the popular vote.

 

[firefinga]

I would have said the same before Obama, or indeed, before a hugely unpopular female candidate won the popular vote.

Sure but then... just imagine if Sanders would have been candidate - the jewish socialist thing would have unleashed hell on talk radio/certain tv stations/social media echo chambers. Plus he would have had big business pitted against him, too.

 

[droid]

Hell was unleashed anyway. Nothing would have stopped the hell.

The point made in the articles above is that Sanders would have appealed directly to the segment of traditionally democratic voters who swung it for Trump. That he was uniquely equipped to combat Trump's strategies.

He was the only candidate with a favourable rating, and was miles ahead of them both. He was born to beat Trump.

 

[Corpsey]