You know, I've talked a lot about how the democrats are in a bubble. I've also spent a lot of time about whether they actually care or not about appealing to progressives. Well, today, I came across an article that suggested that the democrats shift their focus away from the midwest and appeal to areas in the southeast and southwest of the country.
I'm not as interested in looking into whether the idea of feasible, as much as what the idea means for the democratic party and progressives. In short, it's not good. The logic behind the idea is this. The republicans have been making inroads in the midwest in recent years, to the point that it is no longer safe territory for the democrats to hold. Trump won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for the first time in debates, and the republicans have been taking over the states on a more local level, controlling governorships and state houses. Meanwhile, the republicans are underperforming in areas of the country that republicans generally hold. In the future, due to demographic shifts, the democrats might have a shot at states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona. By appealing to growing minority populations in these regions, as well as upper class educated whites, the democrats could afford to lose the midwest, assuming they pick up parts of the south. This will essentially realign the parties, destroy the republicans, and force them to have to pick up the pieces for quite a time to come.
I don't like this idea because of what it means for progressives. I want the republicans to lose too, but let's be clear of why I hate the republicans so much. I hate the republicans because they're a party that is run by the rich, and for the rich. They basically tried to royally screw workers in 2012 in order to help their rich cronies, and I left the republican party in part because of this reason. Beyond that, the party is anti intellectual. They appeal to religious crazies and social conservatives and even freaking racists in order to win. They are against everything I stand for, and want their ideas to be pushed into the dustbin of history.
I have issues with democrats too...primarily that they're too much like the republicans. Take note of this. I dislike the democrats, because they act too much like republicans. I refused to support them this election because they pretty much appealed to the rich and threw the working class overboard. They focused on identity politics to divide and conquer, driving people to the republicans, and made many stay home. And as I said before, this is why they lost the midwest.
The core problem with this idea is it requires doubling down on the tactics that cost them this election. When you appeal to the wealthy, that means you lose the desire to push for economically populist ideas. When you appeal to minorities like this, this requires doubling down on identity politics. If the democrats go through with this idea, the white working class they they lost this election will be lost forever to the republicans. They will become a party of identity politics and center right economics. They will throw the white working class overboard. When you talk about moving from the midwest, and picking up the south, that's what the democrats are talking about doing. Appealing to the wealthy and racial minorities in order to double down on the strategies that cost Clinton the election this time. Will it work in the future? It might. Republicans are losing their foothold in these regions as the articles state and it's possible that as demographics change, we might see them shift to being swing states or solid blue states.
But at the same time, where does this leave progressives? Out in the cold, basically. We will either be forced to begrudgingly join a neoliberal democratic party made in Hillary Clinton's image, or we will be forced to join a republican party made in Donald Trump's image. If the democrats basically throw the white working class overboard, we might see a strange coalition between social democratic types like myself, and the super anti welfare, anti immigration, anti intellectual, quasi fascist republican party. We might be forced to choose between economic conservatism with social liberalism, or economic liberalism and social conservatism. Or even worse, we might see two conservative parties, one that appeals to suburbanites and neoliberals, and the other that appeals to what the conservatives have become. This is not good.
If the democrats are as corrupt as the last few articles I've written are considering, this seems like a good strategy for them. It will divide the working class and shut the left out for at least another generation. It will be a party realignment, but one that splits the country between socially liberal globalists, and socially conservative nationalists. The republican party will become quasi fascist, and the democrats will become corporate owned elitists.
I don't believe the midwest is a lost cause, and I don't believe the left should give up its identity to the neoliberal centrists in charge. I believe we can win it again if we adopt an economically populist message. I believe the only reason we've lost it is because the democrats aren't acting like freaking leftists, and this is forcing the democrats to stay home. I believe the reason the republicans are winning is a failure in left wing politics, not a need to move further to the right.If the democrats rebuild the blue wall and make the republicans pay for it, the south will eventually fall into place too if demographics are to be believed. As I said, I believe class politics and identity politics have a place within the democratic party, and that by combining both, you're putting all the economic elites and the fascists and the anti intellectuals and the religious nuts all in one party. Progressives will be the dominant strain of the democratic party, and all the neoliberals and economic right wingers can have fun dealing with a basket of deplorables, to use a Clinton term.
I guess we'll have to see what happens and whether the iron law of institutions is really as true as my last article implied it might be. If the democratic party has a soul, they can win without selling out the progressive movement, but bringing them to the table. If they don't, and they're just another party bought and paid for by the 1%, and put their own power and job security over the common good, they'll throw us overboard and pursue more centrists next time. We'll have to see what happens. I think this election is counting out chickens before they hatch and that this cycle, the ideas of the past won, not the ideas that will bring us into the future. I think this might be one of the last elections of the previous alignment, not the first one of the next. It really depends on the actions of the parties, particularly the democratic party.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Continuing my continuing of a line of thought: democrats and the iron law of institutions
So, yesterday I discussed various theories in which the democrats either were incompetent, or they knew what they were doing and had their own ulterior motives. This article is going to continue more on the second. I briefly mentioned the iron law of institutions, but I came across it after I wrote the majority of the article so I kind of just added it as a slight tangent. Today, I want to discuss it more in depth and how it might explain the democrats' actions.
The iron law of institutions, according to political blogger Jonathan Schwartz, essentially states that:
In other words, applied to this election, the democrats would rather lose this election and maintain their power within the institutions, than to win and be out of the job. Originally, the law was actually applied to the democrats ignoring anti war protesters in 2007, but it applies very well this election cycle. The democrats have arguably acted as they have, been hostile to progressives even to the point of not caring that they lose to Donald Trump, because if they ran Sanders and won, establishment democrats would lose their control of the party. They would be out of the job. The party would move in a different direction without them, and they would be consigned to the dust bin of history. So instead, they ran the most establishment candidate they could find with a willingness to run (the former first lady of the president that allowed them to come to power to begin with) and shut out everyone else who was a threat to their power structure. And now that they lost, what happened? Well, they made Pelosi and Schumer the de facto heads of the party. It's as if they learned nothing.
In all fairness though, this theory is just a theory and we are seeing some changes. I don't endorse this as truth of what happened, this and the previous article are speculating on the democrats in general and their intentions. They're not intended to say "this is definitely what happened". In 2008, the democrats did pivot to Obama, who spoke out against the Iraq war (although to be fair, he got us in a bunch of other minor conflicts across the world and basically largely continued Bush's policies). After the election, they did give Sanders more power within the party. So maybe political pressure that comes from loss can make them pivot somewhat. Which is quite frankly what I was counting on if the democrats lost to Trump. That the democrats would be forced to appeal to progressives to win elections. So maybe change will come, it just needs to happen slowly and it's only been a few weeks. Only time will tell.
The iron law of institutions, according to political blogger Jonathan Schwartz, essentially states that:
”The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.
In other words, applied to this election, the democrats would rather lose this election and maintain their power within the institutions, than to win and be out of the job. Originally, the law was actually applied to the democrats ignoring anti war protesters in 2007, but it applies very well this election cycle. The democrats have arguably acted as they have, been hostile to progressives even to the point of not caring that they lose to Donald Trump, because if they ran Sanders and won, establishment democrats would lose their control of the party. They would be out of the job. The party would move in a different direction without them, and they would be consigned to the dust bin of history. So instead, they ran the most establishment candidate they could find with a willingness to run (the former first lady of the president that allowed them to come to power to begin with) and shut out everyone else who was a threat to their power structure. And now that they lost, what happened? Well, they made Pelosi and Schumer the de facto heads of the party. It's as if they learned nothing.
In all fairness though, this theory is just a theory and we are seeing some changes. I don't endorse this as truth of what happened, this and the previous article are speculating on the democrats in general and their intentions. They're not intended to say "this is definitely what happened". In 2008, the democrats did pivot to Obama, who spoke out against the Iraq war (although to be fair, he got us in a bunch of other minor conflicts across the world and basically largely continued Bush's policies). After the election, they did give Sanders more power within the party. So maybe political pressure that comes from loss can make them pivot somewhat. Which is quite frankly what I was counting on if the democrats lost to Trump. That the democrats would be forced to appeal to progressives to win elections. So maybe change will come, it just needs to happen slowly and it's only been a few weeks. Only time will tell.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Continuing a previous thought: is the democratic party simply incompetent or is there something more insidious going on?
I posted an article a week ago, maybe a couple weeks ago, about how the democratic party doesn't seem to have a desire to change. Some people are wondering, based on how clueless they are, if they even want to change. As such, in this article, I'm going to explore a various theories to explain the democratic party's current behavior. Some of these imply incompetence, some imply corruption, and some imply both.
Theories involving incompetence
In this section, I am going to analyze models that assume the democratic party is simply incompetent and clueless.
It's possible that the democrats' perceptions of reality are simply due to the fact that those control the party are older and have been socialized to see the world in certain ways. As we know, younger people flocked to Sanders, and older people to Clinton. I don't think this is a coincidence. In party alignment theory, it's possible that alignments and realignments happen based on age cohorts. That people who were born at certain times and grew up in certain situations just see the world in a certain way and this affects their views. Talking to older democrats, I've noticed many of them are far more centrist. This is in part because older people have more of a stake in the status quo and have more teeth in the game due to their lifetime of accomplishments, but it's also because the political situation in their lifetime influences how they think. A lot of older democrats came to age and lived in a time in which the new deal coalition fell apart. They might remember Humphrey, and McGovern, and Carter. They might remember the rise of Reagan. They might remember that after seeing their party destroyed by the GOP that the thing that finally worked for them was moving to the center in the 90s under Clinton. Just as the "watergate babies", much more economically conservative and socially liberal democrats, replaced the old fiery new deal types who came to power in the 1930s, it could be possible we're seeing some friction between older baby boomer democrats who grew up in conservative times and have conservative ideologies, and the far more liberal younger generation that faces new challenges like graduating from college only to end up as baristas and stuff. Older people generally do have a tendency to not get the younger generations, and fail to realize the world is moving on from their ideas. So they focus on the past and run conservative candidates because they are conservative and also because they don't believe liberals can win.
I've seen a lot of more old timey conventional thinking based on the accumulated wisdom of the last several decades coming out of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. It's possible the reason they blew off the Sanders people was because they understand from previous failures that pushing too far to the left is dangerous and costs them elections. They understand that in 1992 Clinton brought the democratic party from the brink of death by triangulating: moving to the center to appeal to the center right while still enjoying the traditional liberal base. And to them, this is their formula for success. It would explain why they run to the center and ignore the left fringes of their party. Because to them they ARE fringe, and they see appealing to the center as more important to appeal to than the "purists." It's been said by some that for every progressive the democrats piss off, they will gain two centrists or disaffected republicans. As such, it's far more important for the dems to move to the center come the general than to appeal to their base, going by this logic. This might explain their hostility for the left and why they so believed Clinton was so electable.
They might have also relied on conventional knowledge regarding the primaries, which led them to believe that defection from their ranks was not going to be as large as it was. In 2008, Obama and Clinton had a brutal, bitter primary in which people threatened not to vote democrat in November, but in the end most of them did and they won the election anyway. It's possible they literally just did not think Sanders people were serious when they said they did not intend to vote democratic, and thought they legitimately could get people to fall in line.
As far as the political structures of the democratic party, it's possible that they are as they are in order to help them win. They might have added superdelegates and the like not to suppress the will of the people per se, but to protect the party from running an unwinnable candidate like McGovern. To them, superdelegates and the whole process that favored Clinton were there in order to stop insurgents who can't win in the general to take over and hijack the party. Democrats are more interested in winning elections than anything else, and as such, they rely on these measures to temper the process and ensure it protects them.
Theories that the democratic party or larger political system is corrupt
Despite the prevalence of a lot of the above logic, some suspect that there's more to the story to what was mentioned above. That the democrats are too unresponsive to their electorate even in facing defeat, that they do not care what the people think. They have their own agenda, and that the only reason to explain the cluelessness of the democratic party is to assume insidious intentions on their part. The scope of these intentions can vary a lot, and the scope of the corruption without our political system can vary depending on what theory is to be believed.
It's possible that the democratic party is normally fair, but that this election was one in which they were just extraordinarily corrupt. In 2008 and 2012, I got the impression that despite Obama's centrism, he at least WANTED to move to the left, and he did care about the people. I was drawn to the democratic party because I felt they cared about the working class or the 99%. Obama worked to defend social programs and protect the working class from the excesses of the republicans and their ideology of just ramming a raw member up the 99% behind in order to expand the benefits of the rich. While Obama was fairly moderate and reasonable in dealing with the republicans, he legitimately did seem to have the best interests of the people at heart in his own way. I think that years of progressive discourse under Obama also set the stage for Sanders, as people recognize what Obama did was not enough, but that the party must evolve and build on that progressive legacy. I don't think it's any coincidence the Sanders movement appeared now, but that it's a continuation of what started in 2008 and 2012.
I did not get that vibe from the establishment democrats this year, though. Despite the rearing to go among the progressives, the centrist democrats had a much different message that came off a lot like "screw you, we don't care what you think, we want Clinton, and you better support her. They didn't care what the people had to say. They seemed to care about one thing and one thing only, making Hillary the president of the United States. Why would they go all in with Hillary? Well, there are a few possible models, but party patronage seems to be a reason. They felt she was owed the presidency for previous things done to the party, and because of her relationship with a previous president who made the democratic party successful, so they basically rigged it this year for Clinton.
Let me give you guys a time line of some events that I think might be relevant to this theory. In 2008, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went through a prolonged, bitter primary. Eventually, Clinton conceded, but she didn't seem willing to go down without a fight. Since the party cares about unity and winning elections, perhaps there was some back room deal about how Clinton should concede in order to unite the party and give Obama the nomination. In return, the democratic party may have offered Clinton support for a future run for the White House. So Clinton signed on with the Obama administration, and served as secretary of state, biding her time until it would be HER turn to run things (hence the whole "it's her turn" mentality I seemed to get from the party). Tim Kaine was the DNC chair from 2009-2011. It's possible Obama asked him to step down from the chair, as the Clinton campaign called in a favor, and promised HIM a powerful position in return for stepping down. As we know, this election, he was Clinton's running mate. Who did they install in Kaine's place? Debbie Wasserman Schultz. A former high ranking member of the Clinton campaign, and the person in charge during most of the 2016 campaign, and who was accused of being extremely biased toward Clinton. Using her media connections and her power as chair, she tilted the scales in favor of Clinton this election cycle, ensuring she got the nomination.
While Snopes tends to be skeptical of the intentions of this theory, stating different publicly known reasons for the DNC chair shifts, I think the fact that wikileaks implied that Kaine was Clinton's VP from the get so is arguably a reason why this theory seems kind of interesting. It may be false, but if true, it explains why the democratic party had such a cavalier attitude toward their voters. Part of me does not believe that the democratic party is so out of touch it doesn't know what it's doing, it knows exactly what it's doing, but it had to honor its past agreements and promise Clinton the presidency, which would explain the creepy "it's her turn" vibe I got from this election. Clinton running, and being a centrist who wanted things her way, meant that the party would inevitably return to the way it was in the 90s when Bill was in charge. Instead of the progressive message offered by Obama and expanded upon by Sanders, we got the centrist politics of the 90s combined with identity politics. We progressives were thrown overboard, and dissent was suppressed. Because the establishment knew it had little to offer progressives, they instead focused their message on appeals to unity and taking one for the team, and when that didn't work, lots of bullying, threats, suppression, and other dirty political tactics. This would explain why the democrats were so hopelessly out of touch. Their obligations pigeon holed them into defending a turd and because they couldn't turn Clinton into a progressive, they used fear tactics and other damage control techniques to force us into line.
Again, accept the theory, reject it, whatever. There's reason to ignore is as a conspiracy theory, but I find it thought provoking and think it explains a lot. The inevitability narrative. The "it's her turn" vibe. The shift in tone from borderline progressivism back to blatant centrism. The lack of positive message and resorting fear tactics and bullying to get people to support a turd. It was her turn. She was calling the shots, she was doing it her way, and NOTHING was gonna get in her way, especially those meddling progressives. In this model, the democratic establishment is a country club. They reward people with positions based on their willingness to advance the party's goals, and candidates aren't selected by the people, but by the establishment, and then justified to the people through the media and other narratives.
There's yet another insidious theory, and this one is even worse. It's possible that not just the democratic party is corrupt, but the entire political system is corrupt. In this theory, elites control the political system. They donate money to the candidates, they bankroll them, they ensure job security, and they are once again one big country club. The job of the political candidates is to preserve the interests of the elites. Which would explain why our foreign policy is so imperialist (it's all about the money), and why our two parties are so far to the right these days. In this theory, politics is a matter of political theater, and the republicans and democrats are on the same side. They have similar donors with similar interests.It doesn't matter who wins, their interests are served either way. And the democrats in particular act as a gatekeeper to ensure that real left wing movements have no place in American politics.
When a candidate like Sanders runs, it is a threat to the establishment and its interests. So those guys are shut out of the process when they try. Doubly so for third party candidates. So the parties suppress debate, the media affiliated with them introduces a strict spectrum of debate to use Chomsky-esque terms, and thought outside of this debate is discouraged. It is better for the democrats in this model, to lose an election defending a centrist, than to have their party taken over and not controlled by the elite financial interests. This idea is supported when looking at the iron law of institutions, which expresses similar thoughts.
This also would explain the hostility the democrats have toward their voters. When the democrats act entitled to votes and seem to be engaging in so many mental acrobatics to deny the premise that parties should appeal to their voters, it tells me that the parties don't care. And where do we have to go? We can't take over the party because their machinery discourages that. And if we run third party, we're squashed. And even if they lose, many people like Schumer and Pelosi maintain their positions in office, and the gravy train keeps rolling. However, if the democratic party worked for the people, the gravy train would stop.
In a nut shell, in this theory, the United States is an oligarchy. Elections are political theater to lull a complacent public to sleep. They're there to give the illusion of choice and limit the spectrum of debate, and when Sanders' movement came out of nowhere, it threatened the established order of things so they squashed it and are completely unrepentant about it. This theory is scary. because it tells us that there's no hope for change. We're not really politically free, we're actually an oligarchy and our system is a sham. Try as we might, the democratic party will not change, and they would rather let the republicans win than to let it change.
Conclusion
I don't know what theory is true. I guess we'll have to see how the next few election cycles play out. It is possible the democrats are just so freaking clueless they just don't change on a dime, and legitimately believe they're doing the right thing. But it's also possible that there are more malevolent intentions at work. It's possible they wheel and deal behind the scenes and raise people based on patronage and contribution to the organization, and it's even possible we're not really a democracy and our system only gives us the illusion of choice.
In some of these models, the parties have hope of changing. They could be forced to be more receptive to the people, even if the results aren't readily apparent. We might see the democrats learn by 2020 and improve their message if their behavior is the result of groupthink and conventional knowledge that no longer applies. Even if they did rig it for Clinton, it might just be a one and done deal and that other elections were more fair and will be more fair. On the flip side, we might see them continue this abusive behavior in future elections if they wheel and deal or if the system is oligarchical as that last theory implies. I don't know the truth. This post is mostly speculation. I'm trying to find ways to rationalize the behavior of the democrats.
Theories involving incompetence
In this section, I am going to analyze models that assume the democratic party is simply incompetent and clueless.
It's possible that the democrats' perceptions of reality are simply due to the fact that those control the party are older and have been socialized to see the world in certain ways. As we know, younger people flocked to Sanders, and older people to Clinton. I don't think this is a coincidence. In party alignment theory, it's possible that alignments and realignments happen based on age cohorts. That people who were born at certain times and grew up in certain situations just see the world in a certain way and this affects their views. Talking to older democrats, I've noticed many of them are far more centrist. This is in part because older people have more of a stake in the status quo and have more teeth in the game due to their lifetime of accomplishments, but it's also because the political situation in their lifetime influences how they think. A lot of older democrats came to age and lived in a time in which the new deal coalition fell apart. They might remember Humphrey, and McGovern, and Carter. They might remember the rise of Reagan. They might remember that after seeing their party destroyed by the GOP that the thing that finally worked for them was moving to the center in the 90s under Clinton. Just as the "watergate babies", much more economically conservative and socially liberal democrats, replaced the old fiery new deal types who came to power in the 1930s, it could be possible we're seeing some friction between older baby boomer democrats who grew up in conservative times and have conservative ideologies, and the far more liberal younger generation that faces new challenges like graduating from college only to end up as baristas and stuff. Older people generally do have a tendency to not get the younger generations, and fail to realize the world is moving on from their ideas. So they focus on the past and run conservative candidates because they are conservative and also because they don't believe liberals can win.
I've seen a lot of more old timey conventional thinking based on the accumulated wisdom of the last several decades coming out of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. It's possible the reason they blew off the Sanders people was because they understand from previous failures that pushing too far to the left is dangerous and costs them elections. They understand that in 1992 Clinton brought the democratic party from the brink of death by triangulating: moving to the center to appeal to the center right while still enjoying the traditional liberal base. And to them, this is their formula for success. It would explain why they run to the center and ignore the left fringes of their party. Because to them they ARE fringe, and they see appealing to the center as more important to appeal to than the "purists." It's been said by some that for every progressive the democrats piss off, they will gain two centrists or disaffected republicans. As such, it's far more important for the dems to move to the center come the general than to appeal to their base, going by this logic. This might explain their hostility for the left and why they so believed Clinton was so electable.
They might have also relied on conventional knowledge regarding the primaries, which led them to believe that defection from their ranks was not going to be as large as it was. In 2008, Obama and Clinton had a brutal, bitter primary in which people threatened not to vote democrat in November, but in the end most of them did and they won the election anyway. It's possible they literally just did not think Sanders people were serious when they said they did not intend to vote democratic, and thought they legitimately could get people to fall in line.
As far as the political structures of the democratic party, it's possible that they are as they are in order to help them win. They might have added superdelegates and the like not to suppress the will of the people per se, but to protect the party from running an unwinnable candidate like McGovern. To them, superdelegates and the whole process that favored Clinton were there in order to stop insurgents who can't win in the general to take over and hijack the party. Democrats are more interested in winning elections than anything else, and as such, they rely on these measures to temper the process and ensure it protects them.
Theories that the democratic party or larger political system is corrupt
Despite the prevalence of a lot of the above logic, some suspect that there's more to the story to what was mentioned above. That the democrats are too unresponsive to their electorate even in facing defeat, that they do not care what the people think. They have their own agenda, and that the only reason to explain the cluelessness of the democratic party is to assume insidious intentions on their part. The scope of these intentions can vary a lot, and the scope of the corruption without our political system can vary depending on what theory is to be believed.
It's possible that the democratic party is normally fair, but that this election was one in which they were just extraordinarily corrupt. In 2008 and 2012, I got the impression that despite Obama's centrism, he at least WANTED to move to the left, and he did care about the people. I was drawn to the democratic party because I felt they cared about the working class or the 99%. Obama worked to defend social programs and protect the working class from the excesses of the republicans and their ideology of just ramming a raw member up the 99% behind in order to expand the benefits of the rich. While Obama was fairly moderate and reasonable in dealing with the republicans, he legitimately did seem to have the best interests of the people at heart in his own way. I think that years of progressive discourse under Obama also set the stage for Sanders, as people recognize what Obama did was not enough, but that the party must evolve and build on that progressive legacy. I don't think it's any coincidence the Sanders movement appeared now, but that it's a continuation of what started in 2008 and 2012.
I did not get that vibe from the establishment democrats this year, though. Despite the rearing to go among the progressives, the centrist democrats had a much different message that came off a lot like "screw you, we don't care what you think, we want Clinton, and you better support her. They didn't care what the people had to say. They seemed to care about one thing and one thing only, making Hillary the president of the United States. Why would they go all in with Hillary? Well, there are a few possible models, but party patronage seems to be a reason. They felt she was owed the presidency for previous things done to the party, and because of her relationship with a previous president who made the democratic party successful, so they basically rigged it this year for Clinton.
Let me give you guys a time line of some events that I think might be relevant to this theory. In 2008, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went through a prolonged, bitter primary. Eventually, Clinton conceded, but she didn't seem willing to go down without a fight. Since the party cares about unity and winning elections, perhaps there was some back room deal about how Clinton should concede in order to unite the party and give Obama the nomination. In return, the democratic party may have offered Clinton support for a future run for the White House. So Clinton signed on with the Obama administration, and served as secretary of state, biding her time until it would be HER turn to run things (hence the whole "it's her turn" mentality I seemed to get from the party). Tim Kaine was the DNC chair from 2009-2011. It's possible Obama asked him to step down from the chair, as the Clinton campaign called in a favor, and promised HIM a powerful position in return for stepping down. As we know, this election, he was Clinton's running mate. Who did they install in Kaine's place? Debbie Wasserman Schultz. A former high ranking member of the Clinton campaign, and the person in charge during most of the 2016 campaign, and who was accused of being extremely biased toward Clinton. Using her media connections and her power as chair, she tilted the scales in favor of Clinton this election cycle, ensuring she got the nomination.
While Snopes tends to be skeptical of the intentions of this theory, stating different publicly known reasons for the DNC chair shifts, I think the fact that wikileaks implied that Kaine was Clinton's VP from the get so is arguably a reason why this theory seems kind of interesting. It may be false, but if true, it explains why the democratic party had such a cavalier attitude toward their voters. Part of me does not believe that the democratic party is so out of touch it doesn't know what it's doing, it knows exactly what it's doing, but it had to honor its past agreements and promise Clinton the presidency, which would explain the creepy "it's her turn" vibe I got from this election. Clinton running, and being a centrist who wanted things her way, meant that the party would inevitably return to the way it was in the 90s when Bill was in charge. Instead of the progressive message offered by Obama and expanded upon by Sanders, we got the centrist politics of the 90s combined with identity politics. We progressives were thrown overboard, and dissent was suppressed. Because the establishment knew it had little to offer progressives, they instead focused their message on appeals to unity and taking one for the team, and when that didn't work, lots of bullying, threats, suppression, and other dirty political tactics. This would explain why the democrats were so hopelessly out of touch. Their obligations pigeon holed them into defending a turd and because they couldn't turn Clinton into a progressive, they used fear tactics and other damage control techniques to force us into line.
Again, accept the theory, reject it, whatever. There's reason to ignore is as a conspiracy theory, but I find it thought provoking and think it explains a lot. The inevitability narrative. The "it's her turn" vibe. The shift in tone from borderline progressivism back to blatant centrism. The lack of positive message and resorting fear tactics and bullying to get people to support a turd. It was her turn. She was calling the shots, she was doing it her way, and NOTHING was gonna get in her way, especially those meddling progressives. In this model, the democratic establishment is a country club. They reward people with positions based on their willingness to advance the party's goals, and candidates aren't selected by the people, but by the establishment, and then justified to the people through the media and other narratives.
There's yet another insidious theory, and this one is even worse. It's possible that not just the democratic party is corrupt, but the entire political system is corrupt. In this theory, elites control the political system. They donate money to the candidates, they bankroll them, they ensure job security, and they are once again one big country club. The job of the political candidates is to preserve the interests of the elites. Which would explain why our foreign policy is so imperialist (it's all about the money), and why our two parties are so far to the right these days. In this theory, politics is a matter of political theater, and the republicans and democrats are on the same side. They have similar donors with similar interests.It doesn't matter who wins, their interests are served either way. And the democrats in particular act as a gatekeeper to ensure that real left wing movements have no place in American politics.
When a candidate like Sanders runs, it is a threat to the establishment and its interests. So those guys are shut out of the process when they try. Doubly so for third party candidates. So the parties suppress debate, the media affiliated with them introduces a strict spectrum of debate to use Chomsky-esque terms, and thought outside of this debate is discouraged. It is better for the democrats in this model, to lose an election defending a centrist, than to have their party taken over and not controlled by the elite financial interests. This idea is supported when looking at the iron law of institutions, which expresses similar thoughts.
This also would explain the hostility the democrats have toward their voters. When the democrats act entitled to votes and seem to be engaging in so many mental acrobatics to deny the premise that parties should appeal to their voters, it tells me that the parties don't care. And where do we have to go? We can't take over the party because their machinery discourages that. And if we run third party, we're squashed. And even if they lose, many people like Schumer and Pelosi maintain their positions in office, and the gravy train keeps rolling. However, if the democratic party worked for the people, the gravy train would stop.
In a nut shell, in this theory, the United States is an oligarchy. Elections are political theater to lull a complacent public to sleep. They're there to give the illusion of choice and limit the spectrum of debate, and when Sanders' movement came out of nowhere, it threatened the established order of things so they squashed it and are completely unrepentant about it. This theory is scary. because it tells us that there's no hope for change. We're not really politically free, we're actually an oligarchy and our system is a sham. Try as we might, the democratic party will not change, and they would rather let the republicans win than to let it change.
Conclusion
I don't know what theory is true. I guess we'll have to see how the next few election cycles play out. It is possible the democrats are just so freaking clueless they just don't change on a dime, and legitimately believe they're doing the right thing. But it's also possible that there are more malevolent intentions at work. It's possible they wheel and deal behind the scenes and raise people based on patronage and contribution to the organization, and it's even possible we're not really a democracy and our system only gives us the illusion of choice.
In some of these models, the parties have hope of changing. They could be forced to be more receptive to the people, even if the results aren't readily apparent. We might see the democrats learn by 2020 and improve their message if their behavior is the result of groupthink and conventional knowledge that no longer applies. Even if they did rig it for Clinton, it might just be a one and done deal and that other elections were more fair and will be more fair. On the flip side, we might see them continue this abusive behavior in future elections if they wheel and deal or if the system is oligarchical as that last theory implies. I don't know the truth. This post is mostly speculation. I'm trying to find ways to rationalize the behavior of the democrats.
On Trump's comments on banning flag burning
So, Donald Trump said today that people who burn flags should lose their citizenship or be sent to jail. While it looks like he won't be able to revoke citizenship of natural born citizens at least, Trump's desire to suppress freedom of speech disturbs me.We are supposed to be a free country, with freedom of speech and the freedom to dissent from the status quo, and honestly, I think the desecration of national symbols should not be banned. Quite frankly, to me, the only thing I think should be punishable about burning a flag is the potential fire hazard it creates.
I know a lot of people have this really creepy authoritarian vibe about how important the flag is, and I know the American civil religion runs deep in many peoples' thinking, but I think that those who want to ban this behavior kind of miss the point. Veterans, for example, will talk about how they fought for this country and how it offends them that some desire to burn the flag they defended. They claim they fought to defend freedoms and that burning the flag is a slap in the face to them.
To this, I ask, what is more important, the flag itself? Or the freedoms it supposedly represents? How can we call ourselves free when you're trying to punish people for exercising their freedom of speech? I feel like people who get so uppity over flag burning miss the entire point of what America is supposed to be about from their own perspective. To ban freedom of speech and expression, even to criticize and disrespect the country, is a far more grievous harm than the burning of a piece of cloth is. If veterans really fought for freedom, and care about the ideals of that flag, they'll allow people to burn it, even if it upsets them. That's freedom. That's their right. To ban this behavior is to weaken the freedoms of this nation these people supposedly love, and make us wonder...what did veterans really fight for? What did soldiers really die for? They should be getting way more offended at the idea of their government trying to take their freedoms away than the idea of burning a piece of cloth.
I know a lot of people have this really creepy authoritarian vibe about how important the flag is, and I know the American civil religion runs deep in many peoples' thinking, but I think that those who want to ban this behavior kind of miss the point. Veterans, for example, will talk about how they fought for this country and how it offends them that some desire to burn the flag they defended. They claim they fought to defend freedoms and that burning the flag is a slap in the face to them.
To this, I ask, what is more important, the flag itself? Or the freedoms it supposedly represents? How can we call ourselves free when you're trying to punish people for exercising their freedom of speech? I feel like people who get so uppity over flag burning miss the entire point of what America is supposed to be about from their own perspective. To ban freedom of speech and expression, even to criticize and disrespect the country, is a far more grievous harm than the burning of a piece of cloth is. If veterans really fought for freedom, and care about the ideals of that flag, they'll allow people to burn it, even if it upsets them. That's freedom. That's their right. To ban this behavior is to weaken the freedoms of this nation these people supposedly love, and make us wonder...what did veterans really fight for? What did soldiers really die for? They should be getting way more offended at the idea of their government trying to take their freedoms away than the idea of burning a piece of cloth.
The ideology of mainstream economics
So, I've been intended to write this one for a while, but it got put on the back burner due to election coverage and me taking a break from blogging. But I had a discussion today that made me realize I tended to write this, so I'm rewriting it from scratch and making my argument for why economics is a fairly ideological discipline, and that people should take its recommendations with its assumptions in mind. This isn't to say economics is useless and should be ignored, it most certainly is not. I'm just trying to make a case for why it should not be accepted as objective moral truth either.
A little about economics and its value system
As many people know, economics essentially is considered a value system by many people. Whether this is intentional or unintentional remains to be seen, but it generally favors laissez faire capitalism and the like. The ultimate goal for the system on a macro level is economic growth. The ultimate goal for corporations is to maximize their own profits. Full employment is also highly emphasized. Everything is often interpreted within this framework. More employment, more growth, more profits = better/desired.
It is taught that markets are made up of people who are buyers and those who are sellers. People come together in a market place to determine how much they will buy and sell products and services for. The same also happens for the labor market. It is generally implied that the best outcomes (as in, the ones that produce the most stuff), come from letting buyers and sellers do their thing without restrictions. It is generally deemed as implicitly "bad" when the government interferes with the market in many cases, because this can harm productivity and incentives. For example, taxation causes "distortions" in the market, and interferes with decision making made by agents within it. If a certain level of profit to people is taken from them for engaging in an activity, it might stop them from engaging in it because the rewards are no longer worth it. Regulations also distort markets in some ways. Minimum wages are deemed to be harmful because they can cause unemployment in the very basic models of economics. As the price is forced artificially higher, fewer businesses are willing to hire people, leading to a shortage of work. Rent control can cause shortages in housing as the government forces markets to lower their prices below which some sellers are willing to rent out apartments for. It might also interfere with the construction of new housing. All in all, economics generally implies that governments tend to mess up when they interfere with the markets, and the "best" outcomes are normally achieved when people are left alone do to their own thing.
Some problems with this
The core problem I find with economics is that too many people turn the above economic approach to life into an objective morality that should not be violated. Economics clearly has a value system that favors a laissez faire appproach to itself, but some people turn this into a full fledged moral system that becomes very conservative or libertarian in nature. Taxation and regulations become moral evils in these systems, not merely undesirable consequences.
But in reality, morality is very subjective, and I believe adherence to these economics outcomes should be taken more with a grain of salt. u/god_over_djinn of reddit once made an excellent point that economics is merely a model. It tells you some things that are useful, but it's best not to accept it as a grounds for moral truth. It is only valid insofar that its assumptions are valid, and often they are not. This is true both on a functional and a moral level.
u/god_over_djinn discussed this in many ways. He talked about assumptions like that the labor market is perfectly competitive, and in many ways it's not. I've discussed all of the problems with the labor market, for example, before, and have shown how skewed it is toward the so called "job creators" and how unfair it is to the workers, reducing them to virtual slaves. In terms of the minimum wage, it doesn't even appear looking at the macro data for minimum wage increases and unemployment that there's even much of a functional relationship between the two, suggesting that in practice that reality is far more complicated than the confines of economics would indicate. The general economic cycle seems to have far more of an impact on unemployment than minimum wage increases going by years and overall unemployment rate. If you add into your model that there is a certain level of inelasticity in the labor market, which is the fact that employers have a desire for labor regardless of the price, we might not see as much unemployment, but we will see more inflation instead as employers pass increased labor costs onto the customer. Or they might just eat up their profit margins and distribute gains more fairly.
Another assumption is the moral one, that market efficiency is a desirable outcome. If you don't believe that maximizing economic growth and employment are necessarily the goals we should be talking about, you can safely take economics with much more of a grain of salt. And let's face it, I do have a lot of differing moral views toward the subject of economics. I think that freedom to say no to work, for example, is a good thing, and that rejecting employment, even at the cost of reducing overall employment and economic growth, may be desirable. I personally value freedom of persons to spend their life as they want without economic coercion is, within reason, more important than making more stuff. I might see value in increasing taxes to pay for healthcare because the system of healthcare in a capitalistic system doesn't always help people. I might see value in raising taxes for things like roads and education too. In a lot of ways, economics tends to assume that life should revolve around what it values, and I'm sorry, there's more to life than that. If you reject those values and accept different ones instead, what is desirable becomes very different.
As such, sometimes it's also important to take into consideration the things economics doesn't take into consideration. My econ professor in college would always discuss how economics doesn't discuss the FAIRNESS of certain outcomes. It doesn't always guarantee everyone a good living. In a system of buyers and sellers of products, it doesn't discuss what happens to all of those people who can't afford products, for example. And let's be honest, in practice, economics has a lot of holes in this sense. Maybe everyone should be guaranteed a basic living for example, even if the consequences of that don't necessarily conform with the goals of maximum growth/efficiency or with full employment. I certainly believe this. I don't think a market system necessarily leads to fair outcomes in practice, and as such reject some of the values of said system and replace them with different ones. It also tends to largely ignore environmental concerns in practice.
How should economics be interpreted?
I'm not using this article as an excuse to say economics is stupid, or worthless, or should be ignored. It provides a useful model for the world under certain moral and practical assumptions and should be at least looked at and taken seriously. It gives us a worldview into the general consequences of various actions that we might consider taking. We might be increasing unemployment or causing inflation if we raise unemployment. We might be dampening incentives to work if we go with a basic income. That is reality, and it is up to us to determine if that trade off is worth it. But more research is needed than that, and maximum efficiency isn't always better. We need to decide for ourselves, given the consequences of our actions weighed against what we value, what course of action is actually optimal for us. We might be willing to put up with more unemployment if it means that people can work for wages they can live on, and that the overall good there outweighs the harm. We might be willing to sacrifice some economic growth in order to raise taxes and distribute goods and services more fairly. It really depends on what we value. We shouldn't totally discount the priorities of economics, but we shouldn't taken it as an inalienable moral truth either. Accepting economic 101's moral values as "truth" leads to the kinds of fundamentalism we see with things like libertarianism, and that's dangerous in my opinion. Often times, the economic models are much more simplistic than how things function in the real world, and we might value things differently. As such, we should accept the wisdom and knowledge economics has to offer, while at the same time not being afraid to apply its conclusions more liberally, and more in line with our own value systems. Instead of saying, we shouldn't do X because X is bad, we should be saying, X causes Y, is Y a more favorable outcome than Z within our own value system? And then we decide what to do.
A little about economics and its value system
As many people know, economics essentially is considered a value system by many people. Whether this is intentional or unintentional remains to be seen, but it generally favors laissez faire capitalism and the like. The ultimate goal for the system on a macro level is economic growth. The ultimate goal for corporations is to maximize their own profits. Full employment is also highly emphasized. Everything is often interpreted within this framework. More employment, more growth, more profits = better/desired.
It is taught that markets are made up of people who are buyers and those who are sellers. People come together in a market place to determine how much they will buy and sell products and services for. The same also happens for the labor market. It is generally implied that the best outcomes (as in, the ones that produce the most stuff), come from letting buyers and sellers do their thing without restrictions. It is generally deemed as implicitly "bad" when the government interferes with the market in many cases, because this can harm productivity and incentives. For example, taxation causes "distortions" in the market, and interferes with decision making made by agents within it. If a certain level of profit to people is taken from them for engaging in an activity, it might stop them from engaging in it because the rewards are no longer worth it. Regulations also distort markets in some ways. Minimum wages are deemed to be harmful because they can cause unemployment in the very basic models of economics. As the price is forced artificially higher, fewer businesses are willing to hire people, leading to a shortage of work. Rent control can cause shortages in housing as the government forces markets to lower their prices below which some sellers are willing to rent out apartments for. It might also interfere with the construction of new housing. All in all, economics generally implies that governments tend to mess up when they interfere with the markets, and the "best" outcomes are normally achieved when people are left alone do to their own thing.
Some problems with this
The core problem I find with economics is that too many people turn the above economic approach to life into an objective morality that should not be violated. Economics clearly has a value system that favors a laissez faire appproach to itself, but some people turn this into a full fledged moral system that becomes very conservative or libertarian in nature. Taxation and regulations become moral evils in these systems, not merely undesirable consequences.
But in reality, morality is very subjective, and I believe adherence to these economics outcomes should be taken more with a grain of salt. u/god_over_djinn of reddit once made an excellent point that economics is merely a model. It tells you some things that are useful, but it's best not to accept it as a grounds for moral truth. It is only valid insofar that its assumptions are valid, and often they are not. This is true both on a functional and a moral level.
u/god_over_djinn discussed this in many ways. He talked about assumptions like that the labor market is perfectly competitive, and in many ways it's not. I've discussed all of the problems with the labor market, for example, before, and have shown how skewed it is toward the so called "job creators" and how unfair it is to the workers, reducing them to virtual slaves. In terms of the minimum wage, it doesn't even appear looking at the macro data for minimum wage increases and unemployment that there's even much of a functional relationship between the two, suggesting that in practice that reality is far more complicated than the confines of economics would indicate. The general economic cycle seems to have far more of an impact on unemployment than minimum wage increases going by years and overall unemployment rate. If you add into your model that there is a certain level of inelasticity in the labor market, which is the fact that employers have a desire for labor regardless of the price, we might not see as much unemployment, but we will see more inflation instead as employers pass increased labor costs onto the customer. Or they might just eat up their profit margins and distribute gains more fairly.
Another assumption is the moral one, that market efficiency is a desirable outcome. If you don't believe that maximizing economic growth and employment are necessarily the goals we should be talking about, you can safely take economics with much more of a grain of salt. And let's face it, I do have a lot of differing moral views toward the subject of economics. I think that freedom to say no to work, for example, is a good thing, and that rejecting employment, even at the cost of reducing overall employment and economic growth, may be desirable. I personally value freedom of persons to spend their life as they want without economic coercion is, within reason, more important than making more stuff. I might see value in increasing taxes to pay for healthcare because the system of healthcare in a capitalistic system doesn't always help people. I might see value in raising taxes for things like roads and education too. In a lot of ways, economics tends to assume that life should revolve around what it values, and I'm sorry, there's more to life than that. If you reject those values and accept different ones instead, what is desirable becomes very different.
As such, sometimes it's also important to take into consideration the things economics doesn't take into consideration. My econ professor in college would always discuss how economics doesn't discuss the FAIRNESS of certain outcomes. It doesn't always guarantee everyone a good living. In a system of buyers and sellers of products, it doesn't discuss what happens to all of those people who can't afford products, for example. And let's be honest, in practice, economics has a lot of holes in this sense. Maybe everyone should be guaranteed a basic living for example, even if the consequences of that don't necessarily conform with the goals of maximum growth/efficiency or with full employment. I certainly believe this. I don't think a market system necessarily leads to fair outcomes in practice, and as such reject some of the values of said system and replace them with different ones. It also tends to largely ignore environmental concerns in practice.
How should economics be interpreted?
I'm not using this article as an excuse to say economics is stupid, or worthless, or should be ignored. It provides a useful model for the world under certain moral and practical assumptions and should be at least looked at and taken seriously. It gives us a worldview into the general consequences of various actions that we might consider taking. We might be increasing unemployment or causing inflation if we raise unemployment. We might be dampening incentives to work if we go with a basic income. That is reality, and it is up to us to determine if that trade off is worth it. But more research is needed than that, and maximum efficiency isn't always better. We need to decide for ourselves, given the consequences of our actions weighed against what we value, what course of action is actually optimal for us. We might be willing to put up with more unemployment if it means that people can work for wages they can live on, and that the overall good there outweighs the harm. We might be willing to sacrifice some economic growth in order to raise taxes and distribute goods and services more fairly. It really depends on what we value. We shouldn't totally discount the priorities of economics, but we shouldn't taken it as an inalienable moral truth either. Accepting economic 101's moral values as "truth" leads to the kinds of fundamentalism we see with things like libertarianism, and that's dangerous in my opinion. Often times, the economic models are much more simplistic than how things function in the real world, and we might value things differently. As such, we should accept the wisdom and knowledge economics has to offer, while at the same time not being afraid to apply its conclusions more liberally, and more in line with our own value systems. Instead of saying, we shouldn't do X because X is bad, we should be saying, X causes Y, is Y a more favorable outcome than Z within our own value system? And then we decide what to do.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
So, what happened in New York's 19th congressional district?
So, an argument I'm hearing from Hillbots is that because Zephyr Teachout lost in the 19th congressional district of New York, the country has no desire for left wing politics, because Sanders supported her and she lost in a "battleground" congressional district.
For more reading on this district, I'm going to drop a few links here for you to read at your leisure, the rest of the article will be largely based on information from these links.
So, anyway, the thesis the democrats are trying to push is because this candidate lost, that there is no appetite for left wing politics and that Sanders would never win nationally.
This, seems absurd to me. Yes, the district supposedly has a cook partisan index of D+1, which puts it in swing state territory, but I have suspicions for why this is wrong. Look at the map for this district. It's in upstate New York, not too far from the city, but far enough where the district is mostly rural. It has no major metropolitan areas in it, and seems to curve around the urban areas of Albany and Poughkeepsie. It might have suburban areas, but regardless, few actual urban areas. Democrats are mostly concentrated in urban areas. Just looking at geography alone seems to indicate that a democrat is gonna have a hard time in this district. I could be wrong as I don't know the area, but it doesn't look very urban and progressive. It actually looks more rural than many gerrymandered districts here in PA that consistently vote red despite heavily democratic urban areas being located within them.
But wait, it gets worse. While the Hillbots will point out victories made in the district with Obama in 2008 and 2012 and how it used to go blue in the late 2000s when the democrats had a huge wave of support, this ignores a few key factors. First of all, 2006 and 2008 in congressional races and 2008 and 2012 in presidential races were very good years for democrats, and these are the years that the democrats won there. So this district seemed to vote the way the rest of the country did on the whole. And, as we know, 2016 was a VERY bad year for republicans. But this ignores yet ANOTHER key factor: redistricting. Apparently, looking at the links above, redistricting happened in 2013 in New York. Before 2013 when all of these democratic victories took place, the 19th district was directly south of where the current district is, and where 18th congressional district is, which actually went democrat this election. The current 19th district was actually carved up into several other districts with wildly differing demographics that exist now. As such, the previous elections don't matter and the first race with the current district boundaries was in 2014. A very bad year for democrats. And let me show you exactly what happened in 2014:
Chris Gibson (R): 62.6%
Sean Eldridge (D): 34.5%
OUCH. So the first year under its current district boundaries, the republicans won by almost 30 points. That's a landslide. This is supposed to be a battleground district? My own district is R+6 if I recall and we only get about 8-10% in favor of our republican incumbents. I mean, I know that 2014 was a very bad year for democrats, but a 28 point difference means that the democrats never had a freaking chance at all here. Not by a long shot. This would be 7 standard deviations by my election models with a 4 point margin of error, and a result that would give us a democrat is so unlikely it's virtually zero. I don't know how you can get a cook partisan district of D+1 out of this. Even if the GOP had a very good year, I can't see how this is a battleground district at all. It's rural/suburban, and it seems to lean very heavily republican by a margin you would expect out of a safe R district. Keep in mind for the presidential and senate races I didn't even look at states with above an 8 point spread in the polls.
So, 2016:
John Faso (R): 54.7%
Zephyr Teachout (D): 45.3%
This is better than what happened in 2014. The results narrowed from 28 points to 9, but if you have that great of a republican lean to begin with, I don't know how this could be considered competitive with this alone.
Polls do paint a different picture though. The ballotpedia link had two polls taken, with one having Teachout 5 points ahead, and the other having Faso 5 points ahead. So maybe the above analysis is wrong and it was competitive, since the mean was a tie. Still, as we know the polls have been spectacularly wrong this election and the country went a lot more red than expected, with the polls being off by 5-10 points not being uncommon. This means either that the district never had a shot of going blue and the polls were off, or that this district was supposed to go either way and it went to the republicans by 9 points. In other words, it seemed to follow national trends as a whole. This means that Teachout either ran in a district that is deceptively more red than some analysts indicate, or that she got swept up in the "red wave" in which contempt for Clinton and the democrats on a national level led to down ballot democrats getting destroyed as well, since I think there's evidence of national trends impacting elections like this.
As such, from what I can see, it seems to me that Teachout's loss has little to do with the nation's appetite for progressive candidates, and more to do with the demographics of the district, and trends going on in the country on a national level. She ran in the wrong district, and she ran in a year when democrats were extremely unpopular on a national level. It's highly likely that, like elsewhere, democrats stayed home or voted for republicans here, and she got swept up in this mess. I don't think that this is a referendum on Teachout on a national level though, and the idea that it is seems like more establishment mental acrobatics. Run a more positive message on a national level and I would expect more down ticket dems to do a better job. Or, heck, run in a district that doesn't seem to have a track record of leaning red.
The same goes with Feinstein, who I heard these same people talking about. We already discussed that. Out of 9 competitive senate races, the party that won the presidency won the senate. And Feinstein in Wisconsin probably got swept up in the lack of voter turnout that contributed to a republican win there. You see, when people are pissed at the democrats on the presidential level and stay home, they often don't show up for congressional races either. And that's what happened there.
For more reading on this district, I'm going to drop a few links here for you to read at your leisure, the rest of the article will be largely based on information from these links.
So, anyway, the thesis the democrats are trying to push is because this candidate lost, that there is no appetite for left wing politics and that Sanders would never win nationally.
This, seems absurd to me. Yes, the district supposedly has a cook partisan index of D+1, which puts it in swing state territory, but I have suspicions for why this is wrong. Look at the map for this district. It's in upstate New York, not too far from the city, but far enough where the district is mostly rural. It has no major metropolitan areas in it, and seems to curve around the urban areas of Albany and Poughkeepsie. It might have suburban areas, but regardless, few actual urban areas. Democrats are mostly concentrated in urban areas. Just looking at geography alone seems to indicate that a democrat is gonna have a hard time in this district. I could be wrong as I don't know the area, but it doesn't look very urban and progressive. It actually looks more rural than many gerrymandered districts here in PA that consistently vote red despite heavily democratic urban areas being located within them.
But wait, it gets worse. While the Hillbots will point out victories made in the district with Obama in 2008 and 2012 and how it used to go blue in the late 2000s when the democrats had a huge wave of support, this ignores a few key factors. First of all, 2006 and 2008 in congressional races and 2008 and 2012 in presidential races were very good years for democrats, and these are the years that the democrats won there. So this district seemed to vote the way the rest of the country did on the whole. And, as we know, 2016 was a VERY bad year for republicans. But this ignores yet ANOTHER key factor: redistricting. Apparently, looking at the links above, redistricting happened in 2013 in New York. Before 2013 when all of these democratic victories took place, the 19th district was directly south of where the current district is, and where 18th congressional district is, which actually went democrat this election. The current 19th district was actually carved up into several other districts with wildly differing demographics that exist now. As such, the previous elections don't matter and the first race with the current district boundaries was in 2014. A very bad year for democrats. And let me show you exactly what happened in 2014:
Chris Gibson (R): 62.6%
Sean Eldridge (D): 34.5%
OUCH. So the first year under its current district boundaries, the republicans won by almost 30 points. That's a landslide. This is supposed to be a battleground district? My own district is R+6 if I recall and we only get about 8-10% in favor of our republican incumbents. I mean, I know that 2014 was a very bad year for democrats, but a 28 point difference means that the democrats never had a freaking chance at all here. Not by a long shot. This would be 7 standard deviations by my election models with a 4 point margin of error, and a result that would give us a democrat is so unlikely it's virtually zero. I don't know how you can get a cook partisan district of D+1 out of this. Even if the GOP had a very good year, I can't see how this is a battleground district at all. It's rural/suburban, and it seems to lean very heavily republican by a margin you would expect out of a safe R district. Keep in mind for the presidential and senate races I didn't even look at states with above an 8 point spread in the polls.
So, 2016:
John Faso (R): 54.7%
Zephyr Teachout (D): 45.3%
This is better than what happened in 2014. The results narrowed from 28 points to 9, but if you have that great of a republican lean to begin with, I don't know how this could be considered competitive with this alone.
Polls do paint a different picture though. The ballotpedia link had two polls taken, with one having Teachout 5 points ahead, and the other having Faso 5 points ahead. So maybe the above analysis is wrong and it was competitive, since the mean was a tie. Still, as we know the polls have been spectacularly wrong this election and the country went a lot more red than expected, with the polls being off by 5-10 points not being uncommon. This means either that the district never had a shot of going blue and the polls were off, or that this district was supposed to go either way and it went to the republicans by 9 points. In other words, it seemed to follow national trends as a whole. This means that Teachout either ran in a district that is deceptively more red than some analysts indicate, or that she got swept up in the "red wave" in which contempt for Clinton and the democrats on a national level led to down ballot democrats getting destroyed as well, since I think there's evidence of national trends impacting elections like this.
As such, from what I can see, it seems to me that Teachout's loss has little to do with the nation's appetite for progressive candidates, and more to do with the demographics of the district, and trends going on in the country on a national level. She ran in the wrong district, and she ran in a year when democrats were extremely unpopular on a national level. It's highly likely that, like elsewhere, democrats stayed home or voted for republicans here, and she got swept up in this mess. I don't think that this is a referendum on Teachout on a national level though, and the idea that it is seems like more establishment mental acrobatics. Run a more positive message on a national level and I would expect more down ticket dems to do a better job. Or, heck, run in a district that doesn't seem to have a track record of leaning red.
The same goes with Feinstein, who I heard these same people talking about. We already discussed that. Out of 9 competitive senate races, the party that won the presidency won the senate. And Feinstein in Wisconsin probably got swept up in the lack of voter turnout that contributed to a republican win there. You see, when people are pissed at the democrats on the presidential level and stay home, they often don't show up for congressional races either. And that's what happened there.
Okay, can the left stop praising Castro now?
So, I've been noticing a lot of lefties are praising Fidel Castro in his death. Now, I think I gave a fairly even handed opinion of him, but ultimately, I'm on the side that believes that his bad outweighs his good. The guy was a dictator, and yes in this case, his origins aren't bad, his original motivations weren't bad, and American involvement likely drove him to paranoia and tyranny, but let's not forget that he was in fact a tyrant. He jailed and killed political opponents. He ruled with an iron fist. Sure, he has a good healthcare system, but that doesn't mean the guy should be praised. You wanna know who else had a good healthcare system? Hitler.
Look, even tyrants can sometimes do good things, and I agree human nature is this complex thing where not every action taken by an evil human being is evil, and not every action taken by a good human being is good. And I will say Castro deserves more respect than, say, Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Kim Jong Un. By commie dictator standards he's actually probably the one with the most nuanced legacy of them all in my opinion. The guy wasn't all bad, although I would say his evil has outweighed his good.
But seriously, stop praising him. It makes all leftists, including myself, look bad. Because we still have a history of anyone to the left of the democrats, and heck, even those who are mainstream democrats like Obama, being accused of being in league with communists like Castro. And when you praise him, it makes us all look bad.
We must reject tyrants, even if they are also leftists of different shades. A strong, moral left needs to make civil liberties, democracy, and freedom at the heart of their ideology, even if our version of those things may differ from those on the right who follow, say, natural rights theory. I will not support tyrants, and I fundamentally reject Castro's way of doing things. And I encourage everyone to do the same, despite his nuanced legacy.
Look, even tyrants can sometimes do good things, and I agree human nature is this complex thing where not every action taken by an evil human being is evil, and not every action taken by a good human being is good. And I will say Castro deserves more respect than, say, Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Kim Jong Un. By commie dictator standards he's actually probably the one with the most nuanced legacy of them all in my opinion. The guy wasn't all bad, although I would say his evil has outweighed his good.
But seriously, stop praising him. It makes all leftists, including myself, look bad. Because we still have a history of anyone to the left of the democrats, and heck, even those who are mainstream democrats like Obama, being accused of being in league with communists like Castro. And when you praise him, it makes us all look bad.
We must reject tyrants, even if they are also leftists of different shades. A strong, moral left needs to make civil liberties, democracy, and freedom at the heart of their ideology, even if our version of those things may differ from those on the right who follow, say, natural rights theory. I will not support tyrants, and I fundamentally reject Castro's way of doing things. And I encourage everyone to do the same, despite his nuanced legacy.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Millennials, nostalgia, and "member berries"
So, I just made some disturbing connections this morning. I was surfing a website and came across this page about kids reacting to the original black and white game boy from the 90s. And people who are roughly my age, say, people in their 20s and early 30s, were basically surprised how kids today don't like technology that's about 25 years old. Essentially the kids were talking about how they would get bored with it in like 2 days and go back to their smart phones, while people closer to my age are talking about how many hours of enjoyment they got out of the things.
Nostalgia is a weird thing. I think we all experience it, and I tend to remember and enjoy a lot of the same things fellow "90s kids" did, but let's be honest. What we have now is way better. Showing a kid today an original black and white game boy is like our parents trying to get us enthused about an old black and white TV from the 50s with a snowy picture that could only pick up 3 channels. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Kids these days are not going to appreciate the things we appreciate. They live in a different world now, for better or for worse, and in some ways, newer IS better. Going back to play many old games, sometimes they hold up fine, but revisiting old games from, like the N64 era and all, I've concluded a lot of old video games are horrible by today's standards. The graphics are horrible and low res, the game play is primitive, the controls are awkward. They're just not as good as I remember. We've seen many improvements since the 80s and 90s. Heck, we've seen many improvements compared to 10 years ago and games like Battlefield 2 and Counter Strike Source seem very outdated to me compared to Battlefield 4 and Rainbow Six Siege. Those who don't enjoy the classics have no heart, but those who want future generations to enjoy them like we do have no brain.
Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with politics, since this is a political and philosophical blog. Well, EVERYTHING. A huge problem with our country right now is that the older generations are stuck in their own nostalgic ideas of the past, with little self awareness of how things have changed. We see republicans idolizing Reagan and democrats idolizing Bill Clinton, without recognizing that the politics of those people don't apply well to 2016. This year, we saw a third Bush try to run for president. We saw a second Clinton. People are already trying to draft Michelle Obama and Tim Kaine for a 2020 run. Donald Trump doesn't represent the ideas of the future, he represents the ideas of the past. The distant past, mind you. The guy is basically Richard Nixon's southern strategy embodied for the 21st century. His ideas aren't new. They're actually extremely old. The law and order themes in his primary. That's Richard Nixon. The "law and order candidate". His dog whistle politics, those were created in the 1970s. Once again, not new, very old.
Our whole political system is currently rehashing ideas of past glory days. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton. Those are who the ideas of our 2016 discourse largely belong to. And they're not working. As I said in my letter to the DNC, I had to make a case for why it's not the 90s any more and why we live in a post 2008 recession world with unique challenges. I blasted boomers in the aftermath of the election as well for having an out of touch view of the world.
What I'm really fearing here, in watching people my age not understand why young kids will never know the joys of playing 8 bit mario in black and white is that we are already showing signs of wanting to impose our own past on the future. The past is comfortable to us. We like the old ways. New things are scary. Or just not as good. We have these overly optimistic views of the past that are glorified, and we keep trying to relive that past.
South Park has it right this season. They have this plot theme this year about these things called "member berries". They're berries people eat so they keep remembering all the good stuff. And all during this season, the citizens are wondering how it came to this, how we have such awful candidates this election. And it really comes down to us being so into wanting to relive our pasts that we're trying to apply ideas that no longer work. They use the new star wars movie to make their analogy, how episode 7 isn't really that great, it's just a remake of episode 4 in some ways. And they're right. It's old ideas packaged in a new shiny theme. So when Trump wants to "make America great again", he's appealing to a past that never was that great to begin with, and Clinton is also appealing to the past in her own ways. South Park's message is grim. Apparently these "member berries" are so dangerous that they literally kill empires, because people just sit around remembering all the good old days that they never adapt to new threats or problems. They added into the lore that the Romans fell because of the member berries, and also, that the UK imploded themselves because of them (there's a scene in which it shows London on fire and the prime minister calls up Garrison (Trump) to warn him not to eat them. The moral of the story: get your heads out of the past. We need to focus on the future, on the problems that exist today, with a realistic approach, and we need to stop trying to "member" all the good old times when we don't live in that world any more. That's what I got out of it at least.
We're not in the past any more, we're in the present. And we need ideas that work now for this country. I am scared that my generation is going to age the way previous generations have, in which we become out of touch old farts too. Yes, the past should have a special place in our heart, but bringing back a past that won't work won't fix our problems. It will just perpetuate them. Millennials, don't become part of the problem. Keep your minds sharp. Focus on the present and the future. Address issues with reason and evidence. Don't rely on some memories of a world that no longer exists and try to impose them on future generations. It's their world too, and they will see the world differently than us. And you know what? By the time they're grown up and our age, they'll have a lot to add to the political discourse too, and we should listen to them, not dismiss them and go on about preserving a way of life of an age long gone. The worst thing we can do to the future generation is try to impose our way of seeing the world on them, especially when that concept of the world is decades out of date. We can bring our past experiences to the table, but we must apply them to modern times adequately, if we want our ideas to remain relevant. We shouldn't become so nostalgic of the 90s and stuff that we fail to understand how the world is changing and will continue to change. New times require new ideas. Being progressive is about making "progress" toward making the world better. It's an ever moving target. Nostalgia tends to be regressive and favor the past over the present and the future. It holds us back. Keep this in mind, millennials, keep this in mind.
Nostalgia is a weird thing. I think we all experience it, and I tend to remember and enjoy a lot of the same things fellow "90s kids" did, but let's be honest. What we have now is way better. Showing a kid today an original black and white game boy is like our parents trying to get us enthused about an old black and white TV from the 50s with a snowy picture that could only pick up 3 channels. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Kids these days are not going to appreciate the things we appreciate. They live in a different world now, for better or for worse, and in some ways, newer IS better. Going back to play many old games, sometimes they hold up fine, but revisiting old games from, like the N64 era and all, I've concluded a lot of old video games are horrible by today's standards. The graphics are horrible and low res, the game play is primitive, the controls are awkward. They're just not as good as I remember. We've seen many improvements since the 80s and 90s. Heck, we've seen many improvements compared to 10 years ago and games like Battlefield 2 and Counter Strike Source seem very outdated to me compared to Battlefield 4 and Rainbow Six Siege. Those who don't enjoy the classics have no heart, but those who want future generations to enjoy them like we do have no brain.
Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with politics, since this is a political and philosophical blog. Well, EVERYTHING. A huge problem with our country right now is that the older generations are stuck in their own nostalgic ideas of the past, with little self awareness of how things have changed. We see republicans idolizing Reagan and democrats idolizing Bill Clinton, without recognizing that the politics of those people don't apply well to 2016. This year, we saw a third Bush try to run for president. We saw a second Clinton. People are already trying to draft Michelle Obama and Tim Kaine for a 2020 run. Donald Trump doesn't represent the ideas of the future, he represents the ideas of the past. The distant past, mind you. The guy is basically Richard Nixon's southern strategy embodied for the 21st century. His ideas aren't new. They're actually extremely old. The law and order themes in his primary. That's Richard Nixon. The "law and order candidate". His dog whistle politics, those were created in the 1970s. Once again, not new, very old.
Our whole political system is currently rehashing ideas of past glory days. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton. Those are who the ideas of our 2016 discourse largely belong to. And they're not working. As I said in my letter to the DNC, I had to make a case for why it's not the 90s any more and why we live in a post 2008 recession world with unique challenges. I blasted boomers in the aftermath of the election as well for having an out of touch view of the world.
What I'm really fearing here, in watching people my age not understand why young kids will never know the joys of playing 8 bit mario in black and white is that we are already showing signs of wanting to impose our own past on the future. The past is comfortable to us. We like the old ways. New things are scary. Or just not as good. We have these overly optimistic views of the past that are glorified, and we keep trying to relive that past.
South Park has it right this season. They have this plot theme this year about these things called "member berries". They're berries people eat so they keep remembering all the good stuff. And all during this season, the citizens are wondering how it came to this, how we have such awful candidates this election. And it really comes down to us being so into wanting to relive our pasts that we're trying to apply ideas that no longer work. They use the new star wars movie to make their analogy, how episode 7 isn't really that great, it's just a remake of episode 4 in some ways. And they're right. It's old ideas packaged in a new shiny theme. So when Trump wants to "make America great again", he's appealing to a past that never was that great to begin with, and Clinton is also appealing to the past in her own ways. South Park's message is grim. Apparently these "member berries" are so dangerous that they literally kill empires, because people just sit around remembering all the good old days that they never adapt to new threats or problems. They added into the lore that the Romans fell because of the member berries, and also, that the UK imploded themselves because of them (there's a scene in which it shows London on fire and the prime minister calls up Garrison (Trump) to warn him not to eat them. The moral of the story: get your heads out of the past. We need to focus on the future, on the problems that exist today, with a realistic approach, and we need to stop trying to "member" all the good old times when we don't live in that world any more. That's what I got out of it at least.
We're not in the past any more, we're in the present. And we need ideas that work now for this country. I am scared that my generation is going to age the way previous generations have, in which we become out of touch old farts too. Yes, the past should have a special place in our heart, but bringing back a past that won't work won't fix our problems. It will just perpetuate them. Millennials, don't become part of the problem. Keep your minds sharp. Focus on the present and the future. Address issues with reason and evidence. Don't rely on some memories of a world that no longer exists and try to impose them on future generations. It's their world too, and they will see the world differently than us. And you know what? By the time they're grown up and our age, they'll have a lot to add to the political discourse too, and we should listen to them, not dismiss them and go on about preserving a way of life of an age long gone. The worst thing we can do to the future generation is try to impose our way of seeing the world on them, especially when that concept of the world is decades out of date. We can bring our past experiences to the table, but we must apply them to modern times adequately, if we want our ideas to remain relevant. We shouldn't become so nostalgic of the 90s and stuff that we fail to understand how the world is changing and will continue to change. New times require new ideas. Being progressive is about making "progress" toward making the world better. It's an ever moving target. Nostalgia tends to be regressive and favor the past over the present and the future. It holds us back. Keep this in mind, millennials, keep this in mind.
Why Hillary lost: Comparing Clinton to Romney and McCain
So, I think a good reason that explains why Clinton lost the election comes down to messaging and enthusiasm. I think the success of Trump is kind of similar to success of Obama in some ways, and the failures of Clinton are kind of similar to Romney's and McCain's in some ways. I'll now make some comparisons.
2012 vs 2016
In 2012, this is how I saw the election. We were in the depths of the great recession. Unemployment was very high. People were out of work en masse. America had two major two party choices. Obama was still a fairly charismatic candidate, and while some people were disappointed with him relative to where he was in 2008, he still came off as the better option. After the Tea party took over the government, nothing got done. The GOP throwed a tantrum until they got their way. Obama tried to compromise and move to the center for these guys, and the GOP still acted like spoiled brats because apparently asking to raise taxes on the rich isn't enough when you're already suggesting some budget cuts. Nope, the GOP wanted it all, and it was a raw deal for the American people. if the GOP got their way, millions would be knocked off unemployment, and the rich would get a tax cut. The poor would get screwed and the people who fired the poor to begin with would see lower taxes. It didn't matter if profits were already sky high, the GOP wanted more, and literally tried to push trickle down economics in an era it was clearly failing.
And then you had Romney. Romney was a rich dude who said he "liked firing people", and was so out of touch, it was pathetic. The guy had a car elevator for crying out loud. He sneered about the 47% who paid no taxes, talked about "binders full of women", and became the very image of what America hated at that moment. Out of touch 1%ers who were screwing the workers.
Meanwhile, Obama came off smelling like roses defending our social programs against the insane GOP. And that's why he won, in a nutshell. People liked him and appreciated him for helping them out, whereas the GOP basically wanted to screw them. And honestly, this election is where I became a leftie, where I opened my eyes to how awful the GOP was and changed my ideology completely. Combine that with becoming an atheist that year, which led to an existential revolution in my thinking, and yeah, this blog doesn't reference 2012 for no reason.
As for Clinton in 2016....In this election, Clinton was the out of touch establishment person. Everything about her seemed fake. She was the ultimate stage managed politician, and despite people wanting a change in direction from the status quo, Clinton's campaign was a message of "shut up and take what we give you." In a lot of ways, Clinton was the "Mitt Romney" of this election. I hesitate to call Trump "Obama" due to the state of the GOP, but some people definitely saw a guy who "tells it like it is" and isn't part of the establishment that way.
All in all though, the common thread seems to be this. The losers were both out of touch elitist candidates who ignored the plight of the common person. In 2012, Romney and the GOP basically declared a class war on the working class and got his butt handed to him for it, and the democrats in 2016 had a campaign of "you'll have to settle for less". When your campaign explicitly does not put the interests of the American people at heart, and explicitly ignores the pulse of the country, don't be surprised when you get thrown to the curb. It happened to Romney, and it happened to Clinton and the democrats.
2008 vs 2016
As I've said in other articles I've written, there was also a lot of parallels between 2008 and 2016. I was a republican in 2008, so this makes the parallels even more real. In 2008, the country was in bad shape. Bush got us in 2 wars, the economy was failing, and we doubled our budget deficit from irresponsible fiscal policy. The people wanted change, and the republicans were in their own establishment bubble. I was watching the debates, and the only person who made sense to me in the primaries was Ron Paul. And that's who I supported that election in the primary. He was anti establishment, he wasn't singing Reagan's praises, and he seemed to have a more pure version of conservatism to me. But the establishment won out fair and square, and we got the guy who basically ran as Bush's third term. I was not enthused about McCain. I voted for him, but I held my nose in doing so. I only did so because I was so darned scared of Obama, because all the right wing propaganda outlets at the time kept telling me he's a communist. He had little experience, he talked of hope and change all the time, and I didn't even know much about his policies. I would have possibly voted for a more experienced and moderate democrat like, say, Clinton (ironically) back then, but not Obama. So basically, I was scared of Obama, so I voted for McCain. I was unhappy with the republicans at this point, but I still trusted them enough that I supported them, and continued to do so until I saw the tea party actually do its thing, which scared me more than Obama ever could.
Now, 2016, same kind of deal with Clinton. While I don't think Obama deserves the flak W did for his presidency, and that Obama was largely an improvement from Bush, I do think that the country wanted change. We've become disenchanted with wishy washy liberalism, and in a time where change is demanded, the democrats failed to deliver. They were stuck in their own establishment bubble, like the GOP was, had horrible messaging, and basically told people to vote for them or get a fascist.
Trump himself actually is like the caricature of Obama I had in 2008. He had way less experience than Obama did, has no idea what he's doing, and actually does seem to appeal to the more fascist elements of society at times. And honestly, just like the republicans in 2008, all the democrats had to keep people falling in line behind their fundamentally flawed candidate was fear.
Discussion
As such, looking at this election in context of other elections, it seems pretty obvious why Clinton lost. She was in her own establishment bubble like McCain was, pushing to be a predecessor's third term in effect when the country wanted change. Like Romney, was completely hostile to the American people and sold a message that went over by a lead balloon. Clinton was essentially Mitt Romney and John McCain all in one. The only differences are that the democrats in 2016 are still arguably more popular than the GOP in 2008, and Trump is a far worse candidate than Obama was. As such, while Obama beat the republicans by virtual landslides, Trump pulled a lucky victory out of his hat.
Going forward
Honestly, the fact that the democratic party in 2016 reminds me of the GOP in 2008 is a bit concerning to me. I saw the rise of the tea party, and their extremism is what turned me against the GOP. It is possible that the democrats will become extreme in the next few years in fighting a guerilla war against Trump's presidency. In some ways, this isn't necessarily bad because I do think the dems need to move left. But at the same time, I hope they don't resort to the same negative identity and senseless obstruction the GOP did. Sanders, the de facto head of the left wing of the democratic party seems to have a more reasonable approach, but I wouldn't be surprised if the establishment dems try to whip up irrational fear and hatred of Trump in order to continue pushing their corporatist agenda, while sabotaging themselves at the same time. I think that the democratic party has a lot of room to make positive change, but it could also morph into something worse like the republican party did. It really depends on how they self reflect and whether they actually care to improve themselves, vs. just trying to get back in power without addressing their core issues first.
2012 vs 2016
In 2012, this is how I saw the election. We were in the depths of the great recession. Unemployment was very high. People were out of work en masse. America had two major two party choices. Obama was still a fairly charismatic candidate, and while some people were disappointed with him relative to where he was in 2008, he still came off as the better option. After the Tea party took over the government, nothing got done. The GOP throwed a tantrum until they got their way. Obama tried to compromise and move to the center for these guys, and the GOP still acted like spoiled brats because apparently asking to raise taxes on the rich isn't enough when you're already suggesting some budget cuts. Nope, the GOP wanted it all, and it was a raw deal for the American people. if the GOP got their way, millions would be knocked off unemployment, and the rich would get a tax cut. The poor would get screwed and the people who fired the poor to begin with would see lower taxes. It didn't matter if profits were already sky high, the GOP wanted more, and literally tried to push trickle down economics in an era it was clearly failing.
And then you had Romney. Romney was a rich dude who said he "liked firing people", and was so out of touch, it was pathetic. The guy had a car elevator for crying out loud. He sneered about the 47% who paid no taxes, talked about "binders full of women", and became the very image of what America hated at that moment. Out of touch 1%ers who were screwing the workers.
Meanwhile, Obama came off smelling like roses defending our social programs against the insane GOP. And that's why he won, in a nutshell. People liked him and appreciated him for helping them out, whereas the GOP basically wanted to screw them. And honestly, this election is where I became a leftie, where I opened my eyes to how awful the GOP was and changed my ideology completely. Combine that with becoming an atheist that year, which led to an existential revolution in my thinking, and yeah, this blog doesn't reference 2012 for no reason.
As for Clinton in 2016....In this election, Clinton was the out of touch establishment person. Everything about her seemed fake. She was the ultimate stage managed politician, and despite people wanting a change in direction from the status quo, Clinton's campaign was a message of "shut up and take what we give you." In a lot of ways, Clinton was the "Mitt Romney" of this election. I hesitate to call Trump "Obama" due to the state of the GOP, but some people definitely saw a guy who "tells it like it is" and isn't part of the establishment that way.
All in all though, the common thread seems to be this. The losers were both out of touch elitist candidates who ignored the plight of the common person. In 2012, Romney and the GOP basically declared a class war on the working class and got his butt handed to him for it, and the democrats in 2016 had a campaign of "you'll have to settle for less". When your campaign explicitly does not put the interests of the American people at heart, and explicitly ignores the pulse of the country, don't be surprised when you get thrown to the curb. It happened to Romney, and it happened to Clinton and the democrats.
2008 vs 2016
As I've said in other articles I've written, there was also a lot of parallels between 2008 and 2016. I was a republican in 2008, so this makes the parallels even more real. In 2008, the country was in bad shape. Bush got us in 2 wars, the economy was failing, and we doubled our budget deficit from irresponsible fiscal policy. The people wanted change, and the republicans were in their own establishment bubble. I was watching the debates, and the only person who made sense to me in the primaries was Ron Paul. And that's who I supported that election in the primary. He was anti establishment, he wasn't singing Reagan's praises, and he seemed to have a more pure version of conservatism to me. But the establishment won out fair and square, and we got the guy who basically ran as Bush's third term. I was not enthused about McCain. I voted for him, but I held my nose in doing so. I only did so because I was so darned scared of Obama, because all the right wing propaganda outlets at the time kept telling me he's a communist. He had little experience, he talked of hope and change all the time, and I didn't even know much about his policies. I would have possibly voted for a more experienced and moderate democrat like, say, Clinton (ironically) back then, but not Obama. So basically, I was scared of Obama, so I voted for McCain. I was unhappy with the republicans at this point, but I still trusted them enough that I supported them, and continued to do so until I saw the tea party actually do its thing, which scared me more than Obama ever could.
Now, 2016, same kind of deal with Clinton. While I don't think Obama deserves the flak W did for his presidency, and that Obama was largely an improvement from Bush, I do think that the country wanted change. We've become disenchanted with wishy washy liberalism, and in a time where change is demanded, the democrats failed to deliver. They were stuck in their own establishment bubble, like the GOP was, had horrible messaging, and basically told people to vote for them or get a fascist.
Trump himself actually is like the caricature of Obama I had in 2008. He had way less experience than Obama did, has no idea what he's doing, and actually does seem to appeal to the more fascist elements of society at times. And honestly, just like the republicans in 2008, all the democrats had to keep people falling in line behind their fundamentally flawed candidate was fear.
Discussion
As such, looking at this election in context of other elections, it seems pretty obvious why Clinton lost. She was in her own establishment bubble like McCain was, pushing to be a predecessor's third term in effect when the country wanted change. Like Romney, was completely hostile to the American people and sold a message that went over by a lead balloon. Clinton was essentially Mitt Romney and John McCain all in one. The only differences are that the democrats in 2016 are still arguably more popular than the GOP in 2008, and Trump is a far worse candidate than Obama was. As such, while Obama beat the republicans by virtual landslides, Trump pulled a lucky victory out of his hat.
Going forward
Honestly, the fact that the democratic party in 2016 reminds me of the GOP in 2008 is a bit concerning to me. I saw the rise of the tea party, and their extremism is what turned me against the GOP. It is possible that the democrats will become extreme in the next few years in fighting a guerilla war against Trump's presidency. In some ways, this isn't necessarily bad because I do think the dems need to move left. But at the same time, I hope they don't resort to the same negative identity and senseless obstruction the GOP did. Sanders, the de facto head of the left wing of the democratic party seems to have a more reasonable approach, but I wouldn't be surprised if the establishment dems try to whip up irrational fear and hatred of Trump in order to continue pushing their corporatist agenda, while sabotaging themselves at the same time. I think that the democratic party has a lot of room to make positive change, but it could also morph into something worse like the republican party did. It really depends on how they self reflect and whether they actually care to improve themselves, vs. just trying to get back in power without addressing their core issues first.
On Castro
So, as I assume many of us know, Fidel Castro has finally kicked the bucket. Some people love him, some people hate him, I have very mixed views of him, but after analyzing his life, my views lean toward the negative.
As far as the positive stuff goes, I don't think he was wrong for overthrowing Batista. Batista was a puppet of our own American imperialism, and did a lot of great harm toward the Cuban people. I think that the outrage of what imperialism did to his country justified his opposition to capitalism, and I do think our own foreign policy is harmful and tends to make a lot of enemies we later have to deal with when they turn on us.
As for his governance, I think the Cubans got some good things out of it. Poverty is a lot lower than other nearby islands like where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are, and he established a pretty good healthcare system by third world standards.
However, my positive things to say end there. The guy was basically a tyrant. Let's be honest. He was a tyrant. He persecuted a lot of people he didn't like. He destroyed his country's economy in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways, reading into his administration, it reads like a list of what not to do for the most part. He squashed all business (even small businesses), denied people human rights, and honestly, I think he suppressed his economy's growth through his top down command economy approach.
I might be critical of capitalism, but most of what Castro did seems to be a mistake. I do believe in democracy and civil liberties. And despite my criticisms of capitalism I think that some elements of it are necessary to achieve the greatest good. I mean, the only forms of socialism I actually support are like worker coops acting within a market economy, after all. The command economy stuff isn't that great, it's actually quite harmful. I'm for mixed economies, not "communism" as tried in various countries around the world. There are way less heavy handed ways to achieve just as much as or more good than what Castro did.
That being said, my opinion of Castro is pretty mixed and nuanced. He did some good, he also did a lot of bad. I lean toward a negative view of him than a positive view of him. One thing I will say is I don't think he's among the worst dictators we've ever seen. I respect him more than Kim Jong Un and his family. I respect him slightly more than Pinochet. I respect him more than Hitler and Stalin. But that doesn't mean he isn't a tyrant or that much of what he did wasn't bad. I just think a nuanced view is necessary to really evaluate his life, and that American views on the guy are likely a bit hyperbolic, that's all.
As far as the positive stuff goes, I don't think he was wrong for overthrowing Batista. Batista was a puppet of our own American imperialism, and did a lot of great harm toward the Cuban people. I think that the outrage of what imperialism did to his country justified his opposition to capitalism, and I do think our own foreign policy is harmful and tends to make a lot of enemies we later have to deal with when they turn on us.
As for his governance, I think the Cubans got some good things out of it. Poverty is a lot lower than other nearby islands like where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are, and he established a pretty good healthcare system by third world standards.
However, my positive things to say end there. The guy was basically a tyrant. Let's be honest. He was a tyrant. He persecuted a lot of people he didn't like. He destroyed his country's economy in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways, reading into his administration, it reads like a list of what not to do for the most part. He squashed all business (even small businesses), denied people human rights, and honestly, I think he suppressed his economy's growth through his top down command economy approach.
I might be critical of capitalism, but most of what Castro did seems to be a mistake. I do believe in democracy and civil liberties. And despite my criticisms of capitalism I think that some elements of it are necessary to achieve the greatest good. I mean, the only forms of socialism I actually support are like worker coops acting within a market economy, after all. The command economy stuff isn't that great, it's actually quite harmful. I'm for mixed economies, not "communism" as tried in various countries around the world. There are way less heavy handed ways to achieve just as much as or more good than what Castro did.
That being said, my opinion of Castro is pretty mixed and nuanced. He did some good, he also did a lot of bad. I lean toward a negative view of him than a positive view of him. One thing I will say is I don't think he's among the worst dictators we've ever seen. I respect him more than Kim Jong Un and his family. I respect him slightly more than Pinochet. I respect him more than Hitler and Stalin. But that doesn't mean he isn't a tyrant or that much of what he did wasn't bad. I just think a nuanced view is necessary to really evaluate his life, and that American views on the guy are likely a bit hyperbolic, that's all.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Discussing Trump's agenda
I'm not going to discuss everything Trump wants to do here, because that would take too long, but I want to focus on this video and his priorities in it.
He starts out by talking about issuing executive orders to bring back our jobs and increase the wealth of workers. Despite my anti work philosophy, this is good coming from a republican, and it's nice to see Trump put the economy front and center. As for his actual proposals:
1. Withdraw from the TPP
All I have to say is YES! This is literally one of the only things I agree with Trump on whole heartedly. The TPP was an awful agreement that would expand neoliberalism and globalization and hurt American workers in my opinion. It was also full of corporate giveaways that would be enshrined in this agreement, like our backward copyright and patent protections. When America's core interest in this agreement seemed to be giving a huge giveaway to the likes or the RIAA and MPAA, you know you got a problem. Trump wants to renegotiate it and make it less harmful to American workers. I have no issues with this.
2. Kill environmental regulations that kill dirty jobs
This is where I start cringing. Trump wants to get rid of regulations that hurt jobs in dirty energy industries like coal and shale mining and production. This is where I can't help but bring up my more anti work philosophy. It sucks that areas like, say, West Virginia, or even parts of Pennsylvania here, are hurt by the phasing out of fossil fuels and the like, but these things are horrible for our health and our environment. And as far as workers go, people would get like black lung from mining this stuff. This is where I think we need to get beyond jobs and think about a basic income, because jobs exist to produce things we need, and Trump wants to bring these jobs back for the sake of people having jobs. If we do want to give these people jobs, why not set up clean energy jobs like the left wanted to do? Appalachia has wind, doesn't it? It's on mountains, right? And I know last time I was up at Wilkes Barre which is in the mountains I saw a lot of wind farms on the mountains there. Why not build more of those and produce cleaner energy that way? What about solar energy? Or heck, what about focusing on infrastructure like Bernie wanted to do? Why focus on continuing the past and these dirty fuels we should be weaning ourselves off of? They hurt the environment, they hurt human beings, they hurt workers. This is a case of having jobs exist for the sake of giving people a paycheck. It's stupid and nonsensical.
3. Eliminating two regulations for every new one to exist
This is stupid unless you're a conservative. I know conservatives like small government and reducing regulations, and this is a way to force fewer regulations to exist, but this rule is stupid. What if you can't find two bad regulations for every regulation you impose? I mean, many of these regulations were put in place to solve problems, and eliminating them will reintroduce these problems. And while some regulations likely do exist for bad reasons, this isn't to say a blanket 1 regulation = 2 eliminated regulations approach is a good one. I'd much prefer a system that looks at getting rid of unnecessary or outdated regulations and replacing them with new ones rather than a blanket "get rid of 2 for 1 new one" thing.
4. Protecting infrastructure from cyberattacks
This is a good idea, but I'm not sure how it related to job growth. The first two clearly did, the third one indirectly did since some argue regulations hurt jobs, but outside of employing some people to protect infrastructure, I'm not sure how this will help the economy. It's not a bad idea, it just seems out of place in this video.
5. Investigating VISA abuse
This is a good thing because businesses do import foreign workers to do jobs cheaper than Americans will do them and this hurts Americans. I am for this.
6. 5 year ban on executive officials lobbying and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government
This seems like a good idea on the surface. I don't trust Trump's "drain the swamp" mentality one bit, given the people he's appointing to positions, but this doesn't sound bad just looking at it. Some argue it would make lobbying worse by forcing it into the shadows though, so maybe it is one of those ideas that sounds good on the surface but isn't good when thinking it through, and more regulation is likely required to expand the definition of lobbying and make it more universally applied. I could get behind it if a little more thought and research were put into the idea. In its current form it looks like it's done with good intentions, but will likely have negative unintended consequences.
Conclusion
That being said, let me say this, this isn't awful considering what the republican party has been for historically over the last few decades. I don't agree with everything, but I can count at least three of these six proposals I can get behind. Two I think are horribly misguided, and one is kind of iffy and needs improvement. Not a horrible track record for a republican. Normally with republicans, I'd be lucky to find one good idea out of the six presented. This isn't to say that Trump's approach doesn't need improvement, but it's not awful outside of the regulation thing and the whole let's create dirty energy jobs for the sake of giving these people a paycheck thing.
He starts out by talking about issuing executive orders to bring back our jobs and increase the wealth of workers. Despite my anti work philosophy, this is good coming from a republican, and it's nice to see Trump put the economy front and center. As for his actual proposals:
1. Withdraw from the TPP
All I have to say is YES! This is literally one of the only things I agree with Trump on whole heartedly. The TPP was an awful agreement that would expand neoliberalism and globalization and hurt American workers in my opinion. It was also full of corporate giveaways that would be enshrined in this agreement, like our backward copyright and patent protections. When America's core interest in this agreement seemed to be giving a huge giveaway to the likes or the RIAA and MPAA, you know you got a problem. Trump wants to renegotiate it and make it less harmful to American workers. I have no issues with this.
2. Kill environmental regulations that kill dirty jobs
This is where I start cringing. Trump wants to get rid of regulations that hurt jobs in dirty energy industries like coal and shale mining and production. This is where I can't help but bring up my more anti work philosophy. It sucks that areas like, say, West Virginia, or even parts of Pennsylvania here, are hurt by the phasing out of fossil fuels and the like, but these things are horrible for our health and our environment. And as far as workers go, people would get like black lung from mining this stuff. This is where I think we need to get beyond jobs and think about a basic income, because jobs exist to produce things we need, and Trump wants to bring these jobs back for the sake of people having jobs. If we do want to give these people jobs, why not set up clean energy jobs like the left wanted to do? Appalachia has wind, doesn't it? It's on mountains, right? And I know last time I was up at Wilkes Barre which is in the mountains I saw a lot of wind farms on the mountains there. Why not build more of those and produce cleaner energy that way? What about solar energy? Or heck, what about focusing on infrastructure like Bernie wanted to do? Why focus on continuing the past and these dirty fuels we should be weaning ourselves off of? They hurt the environment, they hurt human beings, they hurt workers. This is a case of having jobs exist for the sake of giving people a paycheck. It's stupid and nonsensical.
3. Eliminating two regulations for every new one to exist
This is stupid unless you're a conservative. I know conservatives like small government and reducing regulations, and this is a way to force fewer regulations to exist, but this rule is stupid. What if you can't find two bad regulations for every regulation you impose? I mean, many of these regulations were put in place to solve problems, and eliminating them will reintroduce these problems. And while some regulations likely do exist for bad reasons, this isn't to say a blanket 1 regulation = 2 eliminated regulations approach is a good one. I'd much prefer a system that looks at getting rid of unnecessary or outdated regulations and replacing them with new ones rather than a blanket "get rid of 2 for 1 new one" thing.
4. Protecting infrastructure from cyberattacks
This is a good idea, but I'm not sure how it related to job growth. The first two clearly did, the third one indirectly did since some argue regulations hurt jobs, but outside of employing some people to protect infrastructure, I'm not sure how this will help the economy. It's not a bad idea, it just seems out of place in this video.
5. Investigating VISA abuse
This is a good thing because businesses do import foreign workers to do jobs cheaper than Americans will do them and this hurts Americans. I am for this.
6. 5 year ban on executive officials lobbying and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government
This seems like a good idea on the surface. I don't trust Trump's "drain the swamp" mentality one bit, given the people he's appointing to positions, but this doesn't sound bad just looking at it. Some argue it would make lobbying worse by forcing it into the shadows though, so maybe it is one of those ideas that sounds good on the surface but isn't good when thinking it through, and more regulation is likely required to expand the definition of lobbying and make it more universally applied. I could get behind it if a little more thought and research were put into the idea. In its current form it looks like it's done with good intentions, but will likely have negative unintended consequences.
Conclusion
That being said, let me say this, this isn't awful considering what the republican party has been for historically over the last few decades. I don't agree with everything, but I can count at least three of these six proposals I can get behind. Two I think are horribly misguided, and one is kind of iffy and needs improvement. Not a horrible track record for a republican. Normally with republicans, I'd be lucky to find one good idea out of the six presented. This isn't to say that Trump's approach doesn't need improvement, but it's not awful outside of the regulation thing and the whole let's create dirty energy jobs for the sake of giving these people a paycheck thing.
Update on the overtime regulation
So, it turns out after I wrote last night's article on Trump possibly repealing some overtime regulations, I found out a federal judge put an injunction on it being implemented. The plaintiff was the state of Nevada, which argued it bypassed procedure through which states normally give pay raises, and caused irreparable harm.
What I want to know is even if the state's concerns are legitimate, and they might be because states can't just update their budgets at any moment and normally have a yearly budget they can't just change on a whim, why this stopped the regulation from taking effect in general? Millions of retail and food service workers likely would have benefitted from this, since management positions in these professions normally involve long work weeks for little pay. Essentially the law would have forced businesses to pay their workers better or give them better work life balance, which I see as a positive. But none of that, because the state of Nevada got an injunction imposed nationwide by filing a suit in court. This is why we can't have nice things. Even if accommodations would need to be made to state governments, why oppose the entire regulation? This country is so anti labor it's pathetic. Whatever happened to the FDR days in which any business that didn't adequately pay their workers had no right to exist? We should bring that back. And while yes, businesses will whine about it, they whine about everything and if they had their way would probably bring back slavery or at least gilded age conditions. These regulations are intended to benefit the worker and have a positive benefit on their life, even if they make businesses have to pay people more and treat them like human beings. Ugh, I'm just, frustrated by this.
What I want to know is even if the state's concerns are legitimate, and they might be because states can't just update their budgets at any moment and normally have a yearly budget they can't just change on a whim, why this stopped the regulation from taking effect in general? Millions of retail and food service workers likely would have benefitted from this, since management positions in these professions normally involve long work weeks for little pay. Essentially the law would have forced businesses to pay their workers better or give them better work life balance, which I see as a positive. But none of that, because the state of Nevada got an injunction imposed nationwide by filing a suit in court. This is why we can't have nice things. Even if accommodations would need to be made to state governments, why oppose the entire regulation? This country is so anti labor it's pathetic. Whatever happened to the FDR days in which any business that didn't adequately pay their workers had no right to exist? We should bring that back. And while yes, businesses will whine about it, they whine about everything and if they had their way would probably bring back slavery or at least gilded age conditions. These regulations are intended to benefit the worker and have a positive benefit on their life, even if they make businesses have to pay people more and treat them like human beings. Ugh, I'm just, frustrated by this.
Why I embraced conservatism when I was younger, but no longer do
So....I don't debate a lot of conservatives any more on issues related outside of economics, because quite frankly, it's often a waste of time. Moreover, most conservatives I do regularly debate with are generally much smarter and more informed than many conservatives out there and I can generally expect good arguments from there. Regardless, once in a while I do run into a topic in which I ultimately run into one of the more rank and file conservatives and end up debating them.
Yesterday, I ran into one in discussing the electoral college. As you guys know, I'm a critic of it, and have been a critic of it, and despite my differences with the democrats at the moment, I do think a system in which a candidate that wins the popular vote and loses the election is a poor one. And I already expressed my thoughts on this so I'm not going to delve into details, as my stated opinion is consistent with the one I discussed elsewhere on this blog. Anyway, this conservative dude I was arguing with started talking about how the founding fathers built the electoral system the way it is because they didn't trust the people to make decisions for themselves, and that people are flawed and shouldn't be given too much power, and that we should trust the founding fathers who fought against tyranny more than I trust my own judgment.
Before, I get into rebutting this opinion, now is the time to discuss conservatism as an ideology. Conservatism essentially means to "conserve", as in, we should favor the status quo and be skeptical of change. Essentially, conservatives believe that things are the way they are for a reason, and that we aren't smart enough to go around digging into social systems because if we do, we could be messing something up. We should trust tradition and the accumulated wisdom of previous generations more than our own judgment, and when we change things, it could very well be for the worse.
Here's the problem with such an ideology. It's basically a substitute for having real knowledge or real input on the situation. It is fine for a default position when you lack knowledge on the subject, but when you adopt such a position, it tells me that you're not actually informed enough to actually be able to debate the merits of the issue and are just relying on the status quo and the fact that there are other people smarter than you on these things and that you're deferring your opinion to them.
Now, there's no shame in this, but when you make this argument, you already lost in my eyes if your opponent does have a solid, well researched path to change. You've pretty much told me you're an inadequate debate partner who can't form their own opinion on the subject and that I should probably address the experts directly while leaving you out as the middle man. Moreover, these opinions are often full of logical fallacies. Argument from authority, for one, from tradition, and a lot of status quo bias.
I'll admit, when I was younger, I used a lot of these arguments a lot. I was skeptical of change, so I said, let's stick with the status quo, or some variation thereof, and let's not mess with things I don't understand. But therein lies the problem, just because I didn't understand doesn't mean other people don't either. Regardless, I do think that my conservative bias was a general part of my moral development and I don't regret holding those opinions at the time. It's scary for a teenager or even a college student who knows little about how the world works to want to change things, without having an understanding of how this change will impact the world. Change that is not researched and not based on evidence can be dangerous, because people who mess with things they don't understand can cause serious issues.
Essentially, my views at the time were based on a certain level of moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg had a theory in which different people have different stages of moral development and how they conduct themselves and how they approach morality and social systems. There are 6 known stages in 3 broad categories. Preconventional stages (stages 1 and 2) are normally found in children and morally stunted adults like sociopaths, and are generally what conservatives fear. That deep down, without a moral system to tell people how to act, they will start behaving in bad and harmful ways. While this is certainly true of some people, I doubt it is true of many or most. People at this stage respond best to incentive structures that reward people for good behavior and punish people for bad behavior. They need authority to tell them what to do, and they need rewards structures to incentivize their behavior. Those who are at conventional stages (3 and 4) tend to internalize and uphold society's values. Most people are at these stages, and stage 4 in particular seems to demonstrate conservative logic well. That these social structures and values are in place for a reason, and that we need to accept them because they're good. And this is where I was in my late teens and early 20s when I was a conservative, and where many conservatives are in their adulthood. However, there are stages above this. Post conventional morality (stages 5 and 6) tend to be much more free thinking and unmoored by social conventions. People start recognizing that moral values aren't set in stone and that they are malleable, and that change can be a good thing. We can change our conventions to make our lives better and more consistent with what we think is right. And I would argue I'm somewhere around stage 5 with a hint of stage 6 (stage 6 is mostly theoretical and most people don't consistently act at that level). And I would argue most liberals and free thinkers tend to operate at this stage.
Now, to a conservative, stage 5 and 6 thinking is not only incomprehensible, but dangerous. Conservatives, operating around stage 4, tend to favor tradition and upholding social values that exist while being skeptical of change. To some, post conventional morality might actually seen to be a regression to pre conventional morality, where people are "lawless" and only respond to incentive structures in changing their behavior. But really, post conventional morality is a much higher plane of morality based on free thought, logic, and coming to one's own conclusions about what is good. It's an upgrade, not a downgrade. To a post conventional morality, conventional morality seems a lot like what I just said about conservatism above. It's something that is useful for some because they lack the understanding to understand how things work more deeply, but it's also kind of intellectually stunting in some ways because it sometimes stops people from learning higher levels of moral thinking.
As for change, one last thing. There's a good reason to be skeptical of change if you really can't predict the consequences of change. There's a reason I still lean toward capitalism despite my criticisms of it, and it's because I can't see us replacing an entire system without things going wrong in the process. Unless we know exactly what we're doing before hand, and have done extensive research into what we want to change, in which we understand what the problem is, how to fix it, and how to deal with any externalities that might arise, sometimes sticking with what we have is better, because at least it works. But at the same time, if we do understand our structures are flawed, and we do desire change, and we know how to accomplish it and what the general effects will be, we should do it. We should not be beholden to the ideas of the past when there's a better way of doing things out there and we know it. As such, while being "conservative" can sometimes have benefits if you don't know what you're doing (and it is better to admit I don't know if you really don't), if you do know what you're doing, and you can make a good argument for change, then we should be changing things. Which is why appeals to the founding fathers doesn't make sense to me on the electoral college issue, because there are clearly all of these problems that wouldn't exist if we moved to the popular vote, I don't see many problems being introduced except for maybe more legal challenges regarding recounts, and because I believe the net change will be positive and work out for the people.
That being said, while I don't regret being a conservative when I was a teenager who didn't know anything, as someone in his 20s who does know a lot more than he used to, change is good and should be pursued, assuming it is well researched. We should not be beholden to the ideas of the past if they are flawed and we know a better alternative exists. Conservatism just doesn't make sense to me at my current stage of morality, unless there is no realistic, researched path to change that is virtually guaranteed to produce more positive outcomes than what we have.
Yesterday, I ran into one in discussing the electoral college. As you guys know, I'm a critic of it, and have been a critic of it, and despite my differences with the democrats at the moment, I do think a system in which a candidate that wins the popular vote and loses the election is a poor one. And I already expressed my thoughts on this so I'm not going to delve into details, as my stated opinion is consistent with the one I discussed elsewhere on this blog. Anyway, this conservative dude I was arguing with started talking about how the founding fathers built the electoral system the way it is because they didn't trust the people to make decisions for themselves, and that people are flawed and shouldn't be given too much power, and that we should trust the founding fathers who fought against tyranny more than I trust my own judgment.
Before, I get into rebutting this opinion, now is the time to discuss conservatism as an ideology. Conservatism essentially means to "conserve", as in, we should favor the status quo and be skeptical of change. Essentially, conservatives believe that things are the way they are for a reason, and that we aren't smart enough to go around digging into social systems because if we do, we could be messing something up. We should trust tradition and the accumulated wisdom of previous generations more than our own judgment, and when we change things, it could very well be for the worse.
Here's the problem with such an ideology. It's basically a substitute for having real knowledge or real input on the situation. It is fine for a default position when you lack knowledge on the subject, but when you adopt such a position, it tells me that you're not actually informed enough to actually be able to debate the merits of the issue and are just relying on the status quo and the fact that there are other people smarter than you on these things and that you're deferring your opinion to them.
Now, there's no shame in this, but when you make this argument, you already lost in my eyes if your opponent does have a solid, well researched path to change. You've pretty much told me you're an inadequate debate partner who can't form their own opinion on the subject and that I should probably address the experts directly while leaving you out as the middle man. Moreover, these opinions are often full of logical fallacies. Argument from authority, for one, from tradition, and a lot of status quo bias.
I'll admit, when I was younger, I used a lot of these arguments a lot. I was skeptical of change, so I said, let's stick with the status quo, or some variation thereof, and let's not mess with things I don't understand. But therein lies the problem, just because I didn't understand doesn't mean other people don't either. Regardless, I do think that my conservative bias was a general part of my moral development and I don't regret holding those opinions at the time. It's scary for a teenager or even a college student who knows little about how the world works to want to change things, without having an understanding of how this change will impact the world. Change that is not researched and not based on evidence can be dangerous, because people who mess with things they don't understand can cause serious issues.
Essentially, my views at the time were based on a certain level of moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg had a theory in which different people have different stages of moral development and how they conduct themselves and how they approach morality and social systems. There are 6 known stages in 3 broad categories. Preconventional stages (stages 1 and 2) are normally found in children and morally stunted adults like sociopaths, and are generally what conservatives fear. That deep down, without a moral system to tell people how to act, they will start behaving in bad and harmful ways. While this is certainly true of some people, I doubt it is true of many or most. People at this stage respond best to incentive structures that reward people for good behavior and punish people for bad behavior. They need authority to tell them what to do, and they need rewards structures to incentivize their behavior. Those who are at conventional stages (3 and 4) tend to internalize and uphold society's values. Most people are at these stages, and stage 4 in particular seems to demonstrate conservative logic well. That these social structures and values are in place for a reason, and that we need to accept them because they're good. And this is where I was in my late teens and early 20s when I was a conservative, and where many conservatives are in their adulthood. However, there are stages above this. Post conventional morality (stages 5 and 6) tend to be much more free thinking and unmoored by social conventions. People start recognizing that moral values aren't set in stone and that they are malleable, and that change can be a good thing. We can change our conventions to make our lives better and more consistent with what we think is right. And I would argue I'm somewhere around stage 5 with a hint of stage 6 (stage 6 is mostly theoretical and most people don't consistently act at that level). And I would argue most liberals and free thinkers tend to operate at this stage.
Now, to a conservative, stage 5 and 6 thinking is not only incomprehensible, but dangerous. Conservatives, operating around stage 4, tend to favor tradition and upholding social values that exist while being skeptical of change. To some, post conventional morality might actually seen to be a regression to pre conventional morality, where people are "lawless" and only respond to incentive structures in changing their behavior. But really, post conventional morality is a much higher plane of morality based on free thought, logic, and coming to one's own conclusions about what is good. It's an upgrade, not a downgrade. To a post conventional morality, conventional morality seems a lot like what I just said about conservatism above. It's something that is useful for some because they lack the understanding to understand how things work more deeply, but it's also kind of intellectually stunting in some ways because it sometimes stops people from learning higher levels of moral thinking.
As for change, one last thing. There's a good reason to be skeptical of change if you really can't predict the consequences of change. There's a reason I still lean toward capitalism despite my criticisms of it, and it's because I can't see us replacing an entire system without things going wrong in the process. Unless we know exactly what we're doing before hand, and have done extensive research into what we want to change, in which we understand what the problem is, how to fix it, and how to deal with any externalities that might arise, sometimes sticking with what we have is better, because at least it works. But at the same time, if we do understand our structures are flawed, and we do desire change, and we know how to accomplish it and what the general effects will be, we should do it. We should not be beholden to the ideas of the past when there's a better way of doing things out there and we know it. As such, while being "conservative" can sometimes have benefits if you don't know what you're doing (and it is better to admit I don't know if you really don't), if you do know what you're doing, and you can make a good argument for change, then we should be changing things. Which is why appeals to the founding fathers doesn't make sense to me on the electoral college issue, because there are clearly all of these problems that wouldn't exist if we moved to the popular vote, I don't see many problems being introduced except for maybe more legal challenges regarding recounts, and because I believe the net change will be positive and work out for the people.
That being said, while I don't regret being a conservative when I was a teenager who didn't know anything, as someone in his 20s who does know a lot more than he used to, change is good and should be pursued, assuming it is well researched. We should not be beholden to the ideas of the past if they are flawed and we know a better alternative exists. Conservatism just doesn't make sense to me at my current stage of morality, unless there is no realistic, researched path to change that is virtually guaranteed to produce more positive outcomes than what we have.
...and this is why you should never vote republican if you care about your economic interests
Look, as you guys know, I'm no fan of Clinton. I'm no fan of the democrats. It's not that they're too far left for me, it's because they're hypocritical and not far left enough. But if you think for one moment, I support Donald Trump, you got another thing coming. I despise the GOP, and you should never underestimate their ability to screw you.
I never really discussed Trump much during the election because there's not much to discuss. The guy is a complete demagogue, and until he actually won, it was all fun and games and drama and all the crazy crap he said and did.
But now the guy won, and now we're going to be seeing actual policies from this guy, and honestly, to all of you who voted for him, you should know this: YOU JUST GOT SCAMMED. HARD. Trump isn't going to make America great again and improve your financial interests, he's going to make you poor again because he's a republican bearing false gifts. I just found out about this gem from Allen Clifton, someone who I normally can't stand because during the election he was basically shilling hard for Hillary, but here, he's absolutely right.
This year, Obama established a regulation via executive in which salaried workers making under $47,000 or so would be given overtime hours, or would be given a pay raise to that amount. This was supposed to stop businesses from exploiting managers by paying them $30,000 a year or something while working them 70 hours a week like they do in a lot of retail type environments. And it was one of the most notable labor regulations I've seen happen in years, and would have made a lot of lives better.
So what's Trump going to do? Well, apparently he and the republicans are gonna repeal it come January when he gets into office. Goodbye progress, hello the gradual erosion of your labor rights. This is why, if you have a problem with Hillary, you don't vote republican. The republicans are just gonna screw you again and again. They're WORSE than the dems most of the time. Anyone who just voted for Trump for economic reasons just got scammed big time. The GOP is never in your side on economics. They care about the rich, not about you. They never did. And while Trump is a populist, I believe deep down he's no better.
Buckle up, America, this is going to be a wild next 4 years. 61 million of you guys voted for this jerk and now you're getting what you voted for. Next time if you have a problem with Clinton, vote for the green party or something. The right will never look after your economic interests. They might say they will, but they're not.
I never really discussed Trump much during the election because there's not much to discuss. The guy is a complete demagogue, and until he actually won, it was all fun and games and drama and all the crazy crap he said and did.
But now the guy won, and now we're going to be seeing actual policies from this guy, and honestly, to all of you who voted for him, you should know this: YOU JUST GOT SCAMMED. HARD. Trump isn't going to make America great again and improve your financial interests, he's going to make you poor again because he's a republican bearing false gifts. I just found out about this gem from Allen Clifton, someone who I normally can't stand because during the election he was basically shilling hard for Hillary, but here, he's absolutely right.
This year, Obama established a regulation via executive in which salaried workers making under $47,000 or so would be given overtime hours, or would be given a pay raise to that amount. This was supposed to stop businesses from exploiting managers by paying them $30,000 a year or something while working them 70 hours a week like they do in a lot of retail type environments. And it was one of the most notable labor regulations I've seen happen in years, and would have made a lot of lives better.
So what's Trump going to do? Well, apparently he and the republicans are gonna repeal it come January when he gets into office. Goodbye progress, hello the gradual erosion of your labor rights. This is why, if you have a problem with Hillary, you don't vote republican. The republicans are just gonna screw you again and again. They're WORSE than the dems most of the time. Anyone who just voted for Trump for economic reasons just got scammed big time. The GOP is never in your side on economics. They care about the rich, not about you. They never did. And while Trump is a populist, I believe deep down he's no better.
Buckle up, America, this is going to be a wild next 4 years. 61 million of you guys voted for this jerk and now you're getting what you voted for. Next time if you have a problem with Clinton, vote for the green party or something. The right will never look after your economic interests. They might say they will, but they're not.
Trump, the media, and democratic hypocrisy
So, a lot of people on the left are freaking out about Donald Trump's treatment of the media and acting like he's such a fascist because he's so anti free press. Some of these concerns are legitimate, don't get me wrong, but other concerns are things that are routinely done by both sides, and I believe the democrats are attacking Trump for things they do when everyone else isn't looking anyway.
To get the big elephant out of the room, yes, the idea of Trump changing libel laws and suing anyone who disagrees with him IS scary, and is the most concerning thing I've heard. This is not okay, and reminds me of how John Adams tried to muzzle the press because, like Trump, he was very thin skinned.
However, other than that, most of the criticisms, while somewhat concerning, are pretty hypocritical given the fact that the democrats making the criticisms are doing just about the same thing. Let's look ar Robert Reich's 7 criticisms posted on his facebook wall today:
Didn't the DNC do the same exact thing during the primary process, and weren't they caught red handed by wikileaks doing this behind the scenes? (see point 6). I'm not saying that Trump's behavior isn't a problem here, but both sides seem to be doing it.
The fact is, outside of the libel laws thing and Trump's immature temper tantrums against media outlets, these are things that have been problems for a while. Let's not call Trump a despot on 5/7 of these criticisms. The fact is, the media has been forced to form powerful relationships with government officials and political parties for a while, and while Reich and others seem to think Trump presents a unique threat to the press, I think that the press has been propaganda all election cycle. It really, really has. The democrats have been doing the same things outside of the whole libel laws thing all election cycle. They've berated the press for covering them negatively, they've formed their own propaganda networks to disseminate information (I haven't even gotten into the awfulness that was CTR in this post), and they've denied access to people who don't play their game. This is well known at this point, and if you're concerned that Trump is turning us fascist, maybe we should really be asking if we're already living in a fascist society and don't even realize it (and sometimes I do have to wonder if we're far less free and more oligarchical than we often like to think we are). Because honestly, most of these things have been problems for a while. And this does not excuse Trump, once again, it seems the democrats only care when they're on the receiving end of the stick, and that much of what they're complaining about is something they themselves have done and supported in the past when it benefitted them.
Yes, we should be scared about Trump on libel laws. We should be harsh on Trump's immature spats with the media. But other than that this is business as usual, and if the democrats really care about these things, they need to fix their own house first before they start criticizing everyone else.
To get the big elephant out of the room, yes, the idea of Trump changing libel laws and suing anyone who disagrees with him IS scary, and is the most concerning thing I've heard. This is not okay, and reminds me of how John Adams tried to muzzle the press because, like Trump, he was very thin skinned.
However, other than that, most of the criticisms, while somewhat concerning, are pretty hypocritical given the fact that the democrats making the criticisms are doing just about the same thing. Let's look ar Robert Reich's 7 criticisms posted on his facebook wall today:
1. Berate the media. Yesterday Trump called two-dozen TV news anchors and executives to the Trump Tower – including Lester Holt, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopoulos, and Wolf Blitzer -- to chew them out about their reporting during the election.
Didn't the DNC do the same exact thing during the primary process, and weren't they caught red handed by wikileaks doing this behind the scenes? (see point 6). I'm not saying that Trump's behavior isn't a problem here, but both sides seem to be doing it.
I was under the impression this was standard business. After all Noam Chomsky's propaganda model notes that capitalist media relies on connections with sources, and as such won't say bad things about these sources because if they do they might lose access to information from these sources. The fact that Trump would cut access openly is a problem, but I'm not convinced this is a new thing that only Trump has done.
2. Blacklist media that criticize them. Trump has maintained a blacklist of news outlets to which he has refused to grant event credentials. This morning he cancelled a meeting with the New York Times.
3. Turn the public against the media. Trump refers to journalists as “dishonest,” “disgusting” and “scum.” He tweets that the New York Times has lost “thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the ‘Trump phenomena.’” (The Times says it added 41,000 net paid subscriptions in the week after the election.)I'll give this one to Reich to an extent. Trump is flat out lying whereas the likes of Obama tends to take criticism from the media more graciously and be less likely to retaliate. Trump does have a uniquely thin skin here and is acting like a baby. This isn't to say the media doesn't deserve criticism, but Trump's criticisms seem to amount to an emotional temper tantrum.
4. Threaten the media. Trump says he’ll “open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”I already covered this, yes, this is the biggest, scariest thing to come out of a Trump administration on this subject in my opinion.
5. Block media access. Trump hasn’t had a news conference since July. He has blocked the media from traveling with him, or knowing whom he’s meeting with. (His phone call last week with Putin was first reported by the Kremlin.)Again, this is a weakness of the propaganda model and how it forces media outlets to be nice to sources of information because if they don't, they lose that information. And again, I do believe this is common practice, and bringing up this article again (point 5 this time), it seems that the democrats do the same darned thing.
6. Establish their own alternative controlled media. Trump sends messages through Alt-Right Breitbart News and Fox News.Um, it's pretty common knowledge these days that the democrats do the same darned thing. The difference is everyone, outside of conservatives who have been railing against the "mainstream media" for years, seems to think that the sources the democrats use like CNN are "objective". The fact is almost all major corporate media outlets are pawns of the political parties. The GOP has fox, the democrats have CNN and MSNBC. Our media has been a problem for a while, and I've been focusing attention on how propaganda laden it is a lot this whole election. It's a huge reason I believe that Bernie was screwed out of the primary, because these media outlets clearly shaped coverage to favor Clinton. And it's well known that CNN is owned by a Clinton supporter, and that much of the media has been colluding with the DNC (see the above link I already linked twice).
7. Bypass the media and communicate with the public directly. Trump uses tweets and videos. The word “media” comes from “intermediate” between newsmakers and the public. Trump wants to eliminate the media.I don't see what the problem is here. Why should he have to communicate with the media when he can talk to people himself? Seems only fair.
The fact is, outside of the libel laws thing and Trump's immature temper tantrums against media outlets, these are things that have been problems for a while. Let's not call Trump a despot on 5/7 of these criticisms. The fact is, the media has been forced to form powerful relationships with government officials and political parties for a while, and while Reich and others seem to think Trump presents a unique threat to the press, I think that the press has been propaganda all election cycle. It really, really has. The democrats have been doing the same things outside of the whole libel laws thing all election cycle. They've berated the press for covering them negatively, they've formed their own propaganda networks to disseminate information (I haven't even gotten into the awfulness that was CTR in this post), and they've denied access to people who don't play their game. This is well known at this point, and if you're concerned that Trump is turning us fascist, maybe we should really be asking if we're already living in a fascist society and don't even realize it (and sometimes I do have to wonder if we're far less free and more oligarchical than we often like to think we are). Because honestly, most of these things have been problems for a while. And this does not excuse Trump, once again, it seems the democrats only care when they're on the receiving end of the stick, and that much of what they're complaining about is something they themselves have done and supported in the past when it benefitted them.
Yes, we should be scared about Trump on libel laws. We should be harsh on Trump's immature spats with the media. But other than that this is business as usual, and if the democrats really care about these things, they need to fix their own house first before they start criticizing everyone else.
Update: Some are asking Clinton to challenge the election results, some analysis of the states in question
So, some experts are suggesting that Clinton challenge the election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania due to some electoral funny business happening in these states. I already covered the concept of the election being suspicious, so here I'm only going to be focusing on the claims made here.
As we know, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were the states Trump wasn't supposed to win, statistically. This isn't to say that Trump couldn't win these states, but it was pretty unlikely. The results here were...anomalous compared to the trends I predicted. Wisconsin, if I recall, I gave Clinton a 95% chance of winning, and the polls were off by 7.5%. This is arguably a cause for concern. In Michigan, Clinton had an 80% chance of winning or so, and polls were off by 3.7%. In Pennsylvania, Clinton had a much lower 68% chance of winning, putting Trump at almost a 1 out of 3 chance of winning there. Here the polls were off by 3.1%.
This isn't to say Trump couldn't have won legitimately, but I will admit I found the results to be...unexpected, and considering corroborating evidence, even suspicious. Again, this reminds me of what Clinton herself did to Bernie all over again. The cheater got cheated. Either that or we're spending too much time trying to find reasons to be suspicious in making sense of random error. One of the two.
Looking at the actual voting data I reported on last week, let's recap what happened looking at the raw numbers.
In Michigan, democratic turnout decreased by 297,000 votes (rounded), whereas Trump gained 164,000. Gary Johnson went from 8,000 to 193,000 and Stein went from 22,000 to 51,000. While it's possible some of the votes were flipped from Clinton to Trump, the biggest cause for suspicion in this state is the Johnson vote. NO OTHER STATE that I looked at had that much of an increase in the Johnson vote. Either there's a serious libertarian trend going on there as people there reject the two major parties at a much faster rate than anyone else, or there's some flipping there.
In Pennsylvania, Clinton lost 146,000 whereas Trump gained 223,000. There was a clear trend toward Trump here that I did not see as much in other states. Trump gained more than Clinton had lost, which only happened in North Carolina too. Most states showed greater losses for Clinton than there were gains for Trump.
In Wisconsin, I'm not even sure the theory that votes were flipped is really supported at all. Trump gained a measly 1500 votes whereas Clinton lost 239,000. This looks more like either people staying home, or if we want to suspect foul play, voter suppression here.
This isn't to say that this flipping didn't exist though. The suspicion comes from the fact that Clinton won significantly fewer votes from electronic voting machines that were hackable, and if there's evidence of that there, it definitely could be a factor that could influence the results.
Regardless, it seems like Clinton had a tough time across the country even putting aside this exact suspicion. Take Minnesota, for example, a state that Clinton won, and is essentially Wisconsin's neighbor. The results were also far more narrow than expected and Clinton won by 1.5% instead of the 6% expected. The difference wasn't as extreme as Wisconsin, but it was jarring nevertheless and a similar pattern can be found here. Iowa, another neighbor to the rust belt states, was the same way, although that was expected to go to Trump. Trump was supposed to win by 3 points but won by over 9. Clinton also lost way more votes than Trump gained. Ohio, same thing. Clinton was supposed to lose by 3.5%, actually lost by 8.6%. And as we know, Clinton's lost votes in Ohio were EXTREME, over a half a million. In Indiana, where Trump had a virtual lock, he exceeded polling expectations by almost 9 points! As such, based on the general trends alone, perhaps a victory in those three states isn't as implausible as it seems. Clinton consistently underperformed in them in general, even in more clear cut cases where the result was as predicted. This seems to a general trend in the electorate more than anything else, or possibly LOTS of voter suppression on an extreme scale. As such, it's possible that Trump's victory is legitimate even if fraud is found.
Honestly, if I were Clinton and I thought I had a case, I'd definitely be challenging the election, just as I believe that Sanders should have challenged Clinton. Fraud should not be tolerated, be it against a candidate I like or a candidate I don't like. I'm not sure it will make much of a difference as the trends in these states fit the trends in the rest of the rust belt and surrounding area in a large scale, but they have nothing to lose by trying I guess, if they legitimately think that the election was stolen from them.
As we know, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were the states Trump wasn't supposed to win, statistically. This isn't to say that Trump couldn't win these states, but it was pretty unlikely. The results here were...anomalous compared to the trends I predicted. Wisconsin, if I recall, I gave Clinton a 95% chance of winning, and the polls were off by 7.5%. This is arguably a cause for concern. In Michigan, Clinton had an 80% chance of winning or so, and polls were off by 3.7%. In Pennsylvania, Clinton had a much lower 68% chance of winning, putting Trump at almost a 1 out of 3 chance of winning there. Here the polls were off by 3.1%.
This isn't to say Trump couldn't have won legitimately, but I will admit I found the results to be...unexpected, and considering corroborating evidence, even suspicious. Again, this reminds me of what Clinton herself did to Bernie all over again. The cheater got cheated. Either that or we're spending too much time trying to find reasons to be suspicious in making sense of random error. One of the two.
Looking at the actual voting data I reported on last week, let's recap what happened looking at the raw numbers.
In Michigan, democratic turnout decreased by 297,000 votes (rounded), whereas Trump gained 164,000. Gary Johnson went from 8,000 to 193,000 and Stein went from 22,000 to 51,000. While it's possible some of the votes were flipped from Clinton to Trump, the biggest cause for suspicion in this state is the Johnson vote. NO OTHER STATE that I looked at had that much of an increase in the Johnson vote. Either there's a serious libertarian trend going on there as people there reject the two major parties at a much faster rate than anyone else, or there's some flipping there.
In Pennsylvania, Clinton lost 146,000 whereas Trump gained 223,000. There was a clear trend toward Trump here that I did not see as much in other states. Trump gained more than Clinton had lost, which only happened in North Carolina too. Most states showed greater losses for Clinton than there were gains for Trump.
In Wisconsin, I'm not even sure the theory that votes were flipped is really supported at all. Trump gained a measly 1500 votes whereas Clinton lost 239,000. This looks more like either people staying home, or if we want to suspect foul play, voter suppression here.
This isn't to say that this flipping didn't exist though. The suspicion comes from the fact that Clinton won significantly fewer votes from electronic voting machines that were hackable, and if there's evidence of that there, it definitely could be a factor that could influence the results.
Regardless, it seems like Clinton had a tough time across the country even putting aside this exact suspicion. Take Minnesota, for example, a state that Clinton won, and is essentially Wisconsin's neighbor. The results were also far more narrow than expected and Clinton won by 1.5% instead of the 6% expected. The difference wasn't as extreme as Wisconsin, but it was jarring nevertheless and a similar pattern can be found here. Iowa, another neighbor to the rust belt states, was the same way, although that was expected to go to Trump. Trump was supposed to win by 3 points but won by over 9. Clinton also lost way more votes than Trump gained. Ohio, same thing. Clinton was supposed to lose by 3.5%, actually lost by 8.6%. And as we know, Clinton's lost votes in Ohio were EXTREME, over a half a million. In Indiana, where Trump had a virtual lock, he exceeded polling expectations by almost 9 points! As such, based on the general trends alone, perhaps a victory in those three states isn't as implausible as it seems. Clinton consistently underperformed in them in general, even in more clear cut cases where the result was as predicted. This seems to a general trend in the electorate more than anything else, or possibly LOTS of voter suppression on an extreme scale. As such, it's possible that Trump's victory is legitimate even if fraud is found.
Honestly, if I were Clinton and I thought I had a case, I'd definitely be challenging the election, just as I believe that Sanders should have challenged Clinton. Fraud should not be tolerated, be it against a candidate I like or a candidate I don't like. I'm not sure it will make much of a difference as the trends in these states fit the trends in the rest of the rust belt and surrounding area in a large scale, but they have nothing to lose by trying I guess, if they legitimately think that the election was stolen from them.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Do the democrats even want to change for the better? That is the real question...
So, over the past 2 weeks, I've been focusing largely on how the democrats need to change and become more left wing and stuff. But some of my last few posts have been kind of dark, when I really probe the conclusions of the arguments and observations I'm making. It's like, they don't want to change. That the democratic party is a corporatist party just like the republicans, and our two party system is one of controlled opposition. We can yell and scream for change all we want, and maybe they'll move extremely incrementally on the matter to get enough people to shut up, but in the end, it seems to me none of them have any real interest in changing. The second a threat like Sanders appears that would force them to change, they squash him like a bug. They try to push their agenda via their control of the media and army of attack trolls online, and they simply don't care what we think. That seems to be the thing. They just don't care what people think. Anyone who gets in their way is squashed, and anyone who tries to push too harm for change is ignored.
It's really the most reasonable explanation for all I've seen since the beginning of this election cycle 2 years ago. I see a party intent on protecting its interests and its brand, not caring what people actually think. I mean, they throw people a bone and pretend to care, but push, at most extremely insufficient and incremental change that goes nowhere near far enough to solve the problem. And then tells us to accept that or else. It's like they don't even care. They're doing what they want to do, and they got us right where they want us. Like Clinton, they say one thing publicly, and do another thing privately, hoping the public doesn't notice.
In the end, they're just as bad as the GOP, they're just not as open about it.
Maybe they don't want to change, and maybe they'll never change. That's a horrifyingly sobering thought to me, but it does seem to fit the fact that they are so involved in controlled opposition and appearing to be the good guy while actually doing little to fix the plight of the people. This is not Roosevelt's party any more, this is something else, something whose motives are much more questionable....
I mean, what do we do moving forward if this is the case? Keep voting democrat in the primaries and green in the general election? Seems like all we can really do here, and hope more people catch on and are willing to do something about the issues themselves...
It's really the most reasonable explanation for all I've seen since the beginning of this election cycle 2 years ago. I see a party intent on protecting its interests and its brand, not caring what people actually think. I mean, they throw people a bone and pretend to care, but push, at most extremely insufficient and incremental change that goes nowhere near far enough to solve the problem. And then tells us to accept that or else. It's like they don't even care. They're doing what they want to do, and they got us right where they want us. Like Clinton, they say one thing publicly, and do another thing privately, hoping the public doesn't notice.
In the end, they're just as bad as the GOP, they're just not as open about it.
Maybe they don't want to change, and maybe they'll never change. That's a horrifyingly sobering thought to me, but it does seem to fit the fact that they are so involved in controlled opposition and appearing to be the good guy while actually doing little to fix the plight of the people. This is not Roosevelt's party any more, this is something else, something whose motives are much more questionable....
I mean, what do we do moving forward if this is the case? Keep voting democrat in the primaries and green in the general election? Seems like all we can really do here, and hope more people catch on and are willing to do something about the issues themselves...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)