We are all Slave now.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This kind of critique I can accept. Hank's "It's all on the third party voters!" shtick was getting old because it counters the facts you just cited. And yet he kept pummeling that dead horse...

Which one of Thurgreed's list could any one of us have changed?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

His father raised taxes and lost as a result. Jeb was a moderate, including on social issues.

Every GOP Congress tries to cut taxes and reduce govt. I'm not sure the first is wise, as it's always aimed to favor the top 1%. But reducing govt is a good thing.



Expanding safety nets and the fantasy of retraining obsolete workers are no fixes at all. Nearly as useless and counter-productive as protectionism.

Replacing safety nets and their administrative components with universal basic income, making the economic arguments for a single payer system (which are strong), and taxing rentier capitalists would good starts. Hillary was only planning to do the second. The first is anathema to any Democrat because it eliminates govt jobs. The third would piss off the people who fill her campaign coffers -- her owners.



That's a brash prediction. I think you'll be surprised how fast a subsequent administration can reverse the damage.


This kind of critique I can accept. Hank's "It's all on the third party voters!" shtick was getting old because it counters the facts you just cited. And yet he kept pummeling that dead horse...



All very reasonable. Similarly reasonable is to tell the other party to stop promising to take care of everybody in exchange for votes. Govt has limits.



The Trump Movement doesn't see it that way. They really believe they are saving the country's essential character. I thought it was all a posture by Congress to placate the base. Now I'm beginning to think it's contagious, and Congress has actually bought into the nativist message.

Sure. Whatever.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Which one of Thurgreed's list could any one of us have changed?

It just warms my heart that Sebby is admitting he is a dead horse. Please keep pummeling, and hopefully the monster will stay dead.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It just warms my heart that Sebby is admitting he is a dead horse. Please keep pummeling, and hopefully the monster will stay dead.

This is not your best work. Hungover much?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Which one of Thurgreed's list could any one of us have changed?

The list:

Comey acting the fool, Russia undermining our entire system, the natural, racist swing in the opposite direction from a smart, black President, idiots like you voting third party in a very close and important election, social media, Fox News garbage, bullshit Republican hit-job Hillary investigations, etc.

1, 2, 6, 7: Unchangeable

3, 4, and 5: Changeable

But the list is incomplete. Add to it:

Lost blue collar jobs
Condescension by mainstream media creating resentment in middle America
Ignoring the lost jobs and societal collapse among the blue collar Trump demographic
Media narratives stating everything is great while 65% of the country can't muster $1000 in savings for an emergency
Refusing to be honest with the losers in the global economy (offering them bullshit salves like retraining for 55 year olds who've lost factory jobs)
Bailing out Wall Street and leaving homeowners to fend for themselves
Refusing to even talk about automation's impact on low skill workers

The list could go on forever. But it comes down to a simple proposition: We ignored the Trump voters. In some regards, that's warranted. The bigots should be ignored. And the affluent Trump voters are just greedheads. But a lot of Trump voters were people harmed by our economic policies on trade. We lied to them, we pretended they did not exist, and we figured somehow, eventually, they'd either fade away or assimilate into the new economy.

We were wrong. They came back to bite the country in the ass. And now it's too late to be honest with them. We can't tell them there is no fix for them -- that they are victims of a new economy and 'thur jubs ain't comin' back. No, now a con man has given them the false hope that those jobs can come back, that they can go back to 1956, and that they have a right to be angry and use their anger on perceived enemies (immigrants, minorities, etc.).

You want to bitch about third party voters enabling Trump? Well, here's who enabled Trump: You, me, and everyone else who ignored the economic carnage taking place in his base. A base far larger than the third party voters of the last election. And a base without which Trump could never have won the office.

I hear white conservatives bitch about BLM like it's a new thing ("Obama caused it!"). The only response to that is, "No. It's a thing that's been brewing forever. And it finally boiled over." Same applies to the Trumpkins.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The first is anathema to any Democrat because it eliminates govt jobs.

Leaving aside that you're ignoring that there's support for more direct forms of aid because it also benefits those who produce and sell those forms of aid, and leaving aside that people may still need nutritional and housing support in addition to UBI, it's a curious position to take that all the jobs are going away so we should eliminate jobs. Why do you think middle aged manufacturing workers cannot possibly be employed elsewhere but middle aged functionaries can?

The third would piss off the people who fill her campaign coffers -- her owners.

What was that you just said about the GOP always trying to cut taxes for the 1%?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But the list is incomplete. Add to it:

Lost blue collar jobs
Condescension by mainstream media creating resentment in middle America
Ignoring the lost jobs and societal collapse among the blue collar Trump demographic
Media narratives stating everything is great while 65% of the country can't muster $1000 in savings for an emergency
Refusing to be honest with the losers in the global economy (offering them bullshit salves like retraining for 55 year olds who've lost factory jobs)
Bailing out Wall Street and leaving homeowners to fend for themselves
Refusing to even talk about automation's impact on low skill workers

The list could go on forever. But it comes down to a simple proposition: We ignored the Trump voters. In some regards, that's warranted. The bigots should be ignored. And the affluent Trump voters are just greedheads. But a lot of Trump voters were people harmed by our economic policies on trade. We lied to them, we pretended they did not exist, and we figured somehow, eventually, they'd either fade away or assimilate into the new economy.

We were wrong. They came back to bite the country in the ass. And now it's too late to be honest with them. We can't tell them there is no fix for them -- that they are victims of a new economy and 'thur jubs ain't comin' back. No, now a con man has given them the false hope that those jobs can come back, that they can go back to 1956, and that they have a right to be angry and use their anger on perceived enemies (immigrants, minorities, etc.).

You want to bitch about third party voters enabling Trump? Well, here's who enabled Trump: You, me, and everyone else who ignored the economic carnage taking place in his base. A base far larger than the third party voters of the last election. And a base without which Trump could never have won the office.

I hear white conservatives bitch about BLM like it's a new thing ("Obama caused it!"). The only response to that is, "No. It's a thing that's been brewing forever. And it finally boiled over." Same applies to the Trumpkins.

There's a lot of truth here but also a serious failure to reckon with how we got here and who is responsible. Where you describe government policies, you are taking about issues where Democrats have always been better than Republicans. Republicans have no plan to create blue-collar jobs. Democrats have at least tried to do things to help the global economy's losers -- Republicans oppose those things. If Democrats weren't as good for homeowners as you could hope, Republicans consistently sold them out for Wall St.

There's are political failures here and policy failures, and they are tied. The policy failures are that neoliberals were more scared of Republicans than they were of the left, and their policies may have been better in the aggregate than what Republicans were proposing but were still pretty weak sauce. When Bill Clinton ran for the first time, he was a refreshing change from Walter Mondale. When Hillary Clinton ran for the last time, her policies seemed pretty stale, and did not excited anyone.

But the other problem with the policies is that they were ineffective because Republicans blocked them. International trade crates benefits for the whole country but if the GOP prevents the government from spreading those benefits around, and if Democrats aren't very clear that that's what they're doing, then being better than the Republicans doesn't matter politically.

I don't think many voters switched from Democrat to Republican because they were impressed by Trump's proposals. A few suckers think he's bring their jobs back, and a few more are right because he's going to do things like protect the domestic steel industry at everyone else's expense, but mostly he has played on their resentments and given them a way to express disapproval.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There's a lot of truth here but also a serious failure to reckon with how we got here and who is responsible. Where you describe government policies, you are taking about issues where Democrats have always been better than Republicans. Republicans have no plan to create blue-collar jobs. Democrats have at least tried to do things to help the global economy's losers -- Republicans oppose those things. If Democrats weren't as good for homeowners as you could hope, Republicans consistently sold them out for Wall St.

There's are political failures here and policy failures, and they are tied. The policy failures are that neoliberals were more scared of Republicans than they were of the left, and their policies may have been better in the aggregate than what Republicans were proposing but were still pretty weak sauce. When Bill Clinton ran for the first time, he was a refreshing change from Walter Mondale. When Hillary Clinton ran for the last time, her policies seemed pretty stale, and did not excited anyone.

But the other problem with the policies is that they were ineffective because Republicans blocked them. International trade crates benefits for the whole country but if the GOP prevents the government from spreading those benefits around, and if Democrats aren't very clear that that's what they're doing, then being better than the Republicans doesn't matter politically.

I don't think many voters switched from Democrat to Republican because they were impressed by Trump's proposals. A few suckers think he's bring their jobs back, and a few more are right because he's going to do things like protect the domestic steel industry at everyone else's expense, but mostly he has played on their resentments and given them a way to express disapproval.

There is a name for the politics of offering attractive, simplistic, unrealistic solutions to economic victims -- it's called populism. It's not new. Instead of suggesting that "we all" have done things, you might give some hard thought to who has done what, and who wins and loses from what is going on.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There is a name for the politics of offering attractive, simplistic, unrealistic solutions to economic victims -- it's called populism. It's not new. Instead of suggesting that "we all" have done things, you might give some hard thought to who has done what, and who wins and loses from what is going on.

Is this post directed to yourself? I think this sort of introspection and self-examination is best done privately.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This is not your best work. Hungover much?

"Hungover much?" This is the scathing put down you use when you think somebody else is phoning it in?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Is Trump going to fire Pruitt or give him a medal? Seems like he still has a job because corruption triggers the libs.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Is this post directed to yourself? I think this sort of introspection and self-examination is best done privately.

Careful. Reading between the lines of the other board* from yesterday, Ty is one of several socks who lost 60 pounds. Less asked about excess skin and every loser but Ty said they had none. Ty's silence might mean he has so much he really can no longer contemplate his navel.



*I know you never ever go to the Fashion board, so I thought I'd summarize what happened there.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There is a name for the politics of offering attractive, simplistic, unrealistic solutions to economic victims -- it's called populism. It's not new. Instead of suggesting that "we all" have done things, you might give some hard thought to who has done what, and who wins and loses from what is going on.

Populism arises from corrupt and incompetent elites mismanaging the state. That’s historical fact.

I’d say the difference between the GOP and Dems is the GOP are French aristocracy and the Dems are Romans. One lies and tells the rabble to eat cake. The other lies and placates the rabble with bread and circuses.

Looking at what happened to those two states, it can be argued the French mismanagement results are preferable.

(But yes, generally, the GOP is more loathesome on the issue at hand. However, that’s immaterial where neither one has a useful solution and is only trying to kick the can down the road by bullshitting the little people.)

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

*I know you never ever go to the Fashion board, so I thought I'd summarize what happened there.

The reason I never ever go to that infected pus geyser of a toxic cesspool of a chatting board is because I want to insulate myself from the fecal explosion that masquerades as discourse there. So, thanks for the summary, but no thanks.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

The reason I never ever go to that infected pus geyser of a toxic cesspool of a chatting board is because I want to insulate myself from the fecal explosion that masquerades as discourse there. So, thanks for the summary, but no thanks.

In Handmaid's Tale terms, I'm like the guards in the colonies reporting back to you, the commanders.