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US Election: 2016

Kilo_302 said:
He's made banning Muslims from immigrating into the US a central part of his campaign, he's suggested that he would introduce legislation to have them wear name tags, he's called Mexicans "rapists," and said a host of other openly racist things. This video shows supporters of his yelling racist insults to a Muslim woman who is being removed from one of this rallies.

If someone supports a candidate who has made racism such a big part of his campaign, I believe they are supporting racist ideas. I believe that it follows that they are also racist. You promote what you permit and all that. I'm not understanding how this revelatory or controversial.

What other wording should I use? This is a serious question I am asking. Are we discussing whether or not this policies/ideas are racist in the first place?  Is it possible for someone to support racist policies or ideas and NOT be racist themselves? Should we start with defining racism?  Again, not being facetious here at all. Racism and xenophobia are crucial issues in this election.

While I think Trump is an ignoramus to the extreme, people can support him for reasons other than the ones you have stated. They can disagree with him on the more extreme positions, while agreeing with some of his others. Painting *all* of his supporters as racist is just lazy thinking.
 
thehare said:
While I think Trump is an ignoramus to the extreme, people can support him for reasons other than the ones you have stated. They can disagree with him on the more extreme positions, while agreeing with some of his others. Painting *all* of his supporters as racist is just lazy thinking.

Which is kilo_302's forte and go to phrasing when he starts running out of relevant arguments. People hold their noses and vote for all kinds of candidates. Trump is no different.
 
Kilo_302 said:
He's made banning Muslims from immigrating into the US a central part of his campaign, he's suggested that he would introduce legislation to have them wear name tags, he's called Mexicans "rapists," and said a host of other openly racist things. This video shows supporters of his yelling racist insults to a Muslim woman who is being removed from one of this rallies.

If someone supports a candidate who has made racism such a big part of his campaign, I believe they are supporting racist ideas. I believe that it follows that they are also racist. You promote what you permit and all that. I'm not understanding how this revelatory or controversial.

What other wording should I use? This is a serious question I am asking. Are we discussing whether or not this policies/ideas are racist in the first place?  Is it possible for someone to support racist policies or ideas and NOT be racist themselves? Should we start with defining racism?  Again, not being facetious here at all. Racism and xenophobia are crucial issues in this election.

So then, by that logic (being very clear that, since I am not an American, it is not really up to me who they pick as their next President), if you support the Clinton clan, you are okay with sexual assault? Just curious....
 
recceguy said:
Which is kilo_302's forte and go to phrasing when he starts running out of relevant arguments. People hold their noses and vote for all kinds of candidates. Trump is no different.

I think it's highly relevant that a front running Republican candidate for President wants Muslims to wear name tags. Godwin's Law doesn't even apply here, because Trump opened up that line of thinking himself. Requiring a specific religious or ethnic group to wear or carry identification confirming themselves as such directly mimics one the infamous Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany. If Trump's supporters have the temerity to be sensitive about being labeled a racist, they should think about the candidate they're supporting and his racist ideas.

Again, his major policies, the ones he's defined his campaign with, are racist. This is his strategy. Are there really that many people supporting him for his well-thought out and nuanced take on infrastructure? On the economy?

The onus is on his supporters to prove they're not racist, not on others to avoid using the word "racist" because it might offend somebody who just likes this "healthcare policy."  If this is painting with a "broad brush," I would suggest that banning Muslims from entering the US and having those already there wear name tags is the definition of using a broad brush.

 
SeaKingTacco said:
So then, by that logic (being very clear that, since I am not an American, it is not really up to me who they pick as their next President), if you support the Clinton clan, you are okay with sexual assault? Just curious....

I'm quite confident that "enabling sexual assault" isn't in Clinton's platform. And Hilary isn't Bill. There is a difference between what her husband did in his personal life decades ago, (as disgusting as it may be) and what she is doing politically. You know this, and I don't have the explain that.

She's an awful candidate for reasons that have to do with her and her policies alone. She doesn't need Bill's help.
 
Kilo_302 said:
I'm quite confident that "enabling sexual assault" isn't in Clinton's platform. And Hilary isn't Bill. There is a difference between what her husband did in his personal life decades ago, (as disgusting as it may be) and what she is doing politically. You know this, and I don't have the explain that.

She's an awful candidate for reasons that have to do with her and her policies alone. She doesn't need Bill's help.

Actually, she went on national TV and all but called Monica Lewinski "trailer trash". You may not be old enough to remember it, but I do. That says something about her character.

Once again- not my election...
 
SeaKingTacco said:
Actually, she went on national TV and all but called Monica Lewinski "trailer trash". You may not be old enough to remember it, but I do. That says something about her character.

Once again- not my election...

That's something that probably isn't well known, it should be though. Like I said, I'm no supporter of hers either.
 
Kilo_302 said:
That's something that probably isn't well known, it should be though. Like I said, I'm no supporter of hers either.

With even a cursory Google search, one could see Hillary's record of standing by and enabling her husband through decades of philandering and sexual misconduct. But you are not willing to call millions of her supporters "sexual assualtists" because she kind of (you think) has political views somewhat similar to your own. How very convenient for you...
 
SeaKingTacco said:
Sure. But you are not willing to call millions of her supports "sexual assualtists" because she kind of (you think) has political views somewhat similar to your own. How very convenient for you...

I wasn't aware Hillary Clinton and I shared much in common with regards to political views, but you're obviously trying to confuse two issues here so kudos for sticking to your ideological guns  ;)

Again (I explained above already), there's a clear difference between something "being central to her political platform" and "something she said," although I agree that one's actions in their personal life reflect on their character. Hillary's supporters aren't drawn to her because she's promoting rape/sexual assault, and I'm not certain she was ever in the business of promoting rape/sexual assault.  She's branded herself as a feminist candidate (laughable in my opinion), a progressive (also laughable) and the only hope of defeating the Republicans in 2018 (plausible). This is why people support her.

Trump on the other hand, has based his entire campaign on this xenophobic and racist statements/policies. These statements and policies are exactly what's getting him his polling numbers. It's his strategy. This takes to me back to my initial point that given this reality, it's appropriate to say that most if not all of Trump's supporters agree with him on some if not all of these policies on some level. If they do, they are also racist and/or xenophobic. He has their support precisely because of what he is saying, not in spite of it.



 
The whole US 2016 election is a monkey show- stipulated.

Your premise seems to be (and I apologize in advance if I have this wrong): Hilary is at least somewhat ok because she, at least,  has the good manners to hide the fact that she and her husband have ridden into the ground all of the women that he has abused over the decades. And some of her politics you might find acceptable.

Trump, on the other hand, is a loud buffoon.

Do I have that about right?

 
SeaKingTacco said:
The whole US 2016 election is a monkey show- stipulated.

Your premise seems to be (and I apologize in advance if I have this wrong): Hilary is at least somewhat ok because she, at least,  has the good manners to hide the fact that she and her husband have ridden into the ground all of the women that he has abused over the decades. And some of her politics you might find acceptable.

Trump, on the other hand, is a loud buffoon.

Do I have that about right?


You do not. I don't think Hillary is "ok" at all. I think she's driven by ambition versus the desire to serve, I think she's an opportunist and I think she has the ability to be morally and ethically flexible when it suits her purposes. In other words, I think she's a pure politician.

These values are what drove her to support her husband (as well as loyalty no doubt), and in the course of that say some pretty awful things about Monica. I wasn't aware of the specifics, as I know more about her husband's policies and her platform. However, both of those things indicate she's no feminist, so the statements she made about Monica only reinforce a position I already held.

The articles I came across that were critical of Hillary in this regard were mostly from the Republican side of things, and the far left (as defined in the US by being left of the Democrats). I think it's certainly possible that many of her supporters are aware of what she has said and choose to ignore it. I think it's more likely they listen to her more than they listen to her detractors, and she is very skilled at delivering a message.

But this is exactly my point. I think serious supporters of Trump OR Hillary are reflecting the messages of those candidates. Now the messages might be untrue (Hillary is definitely no feminist nor is she a progressive and Trump might not actually be serious about pursuing a Muslim database), but there's no doubt of what the messages are, and that their supporters actually believe them.
 
Kilo-

A fair and well reasoned assessment of the situation. Whether it is actually true- i dunno. Neither you nor I are Americans. I think it is difficult for Canadians to understand what drives US politics. We think we understand Americans, but I have a feeling that, unless you live there, nuances get lost on us.

Kind of like how Quebec Seperatists mystify Americans.

 
Kilo_302 said:
You do not. I don't think Hillary is "ok" at all. I think she's driven by ambition versus the desire to serve, I think she's an opportunist and I think she has the ability to be morally and ethically flexible when it suits her purposes. In other words, I think she's a pure politician.

These values are what drove her to support her husband (as well as loyalty no doubt), and in the course of that say some pretty awful things about Monica. I wasn't aware of the specifics, as I know more about her husband's policies and her platform. However, both of those things indicate she's no feminist, so the statements she made about Monica only reinforce a position I already held.

The articles I came across that were critical of Hillary in this regard were mostly from the Republican side of things, and the far left (as defined in the US by being left of the Democrats). I think it's certainly possible that many of her supporters are aware of what she has said and choose to ignore it. I think it's more likely they listen to her more than they listen to her detractors, and she is very skilled at delivering a message.

But this is exactly my point. I think serious supporters of Trump OR Hillary are reflecting the messages of those candidates. Now the messages might be untrue (Hillary is definitely no feminist nor is she a progressive and Trump might not actually be serious about pursuing a Muslim database), but there's no doubt of what the messages are, and that their supporters actually believe them.

And there you go with the broad generalizations again. He has more policies than the ones you listed, and while they are abhorrent, it is silly to claim that every single person that thinks he is the better choice (out of a fairly lack luster group) of the GOP candidates agrees with everything he says 100%.
 
I served in the United States for four years after having grown up ten miles from the border. Their system of government with its separation of powers and very different levels of responsibility between federal, state and local governments is quite dissimilar to ours. Add in a very active judiciary and media and a competitive national character where various individuals, interest groups, branches, organizations and activities tend to compete rather than cooperate and it is quite amazing that anything every gets accomplished. To complicate issues, people tend to mistrust authority, sometimes with good reason.

Given a population ten times the size of ours, it follows they will have at least ten times the numbers of odd balls and nut cases competing for space in a finite media cycle the same size as ours. Guess who gets the coverage, and it isn't the reasonable and balanced. Perhaps a major difference is a more stratified distribution of wealth, which is really not reflected by the per capita income in the different states. This distribution is affected by quite different costs of living in various regions so some one who would be poor in the urban northeast can live quite comfortably in large parts of Dixie and the desert southwest. Race is also a factor, but this is also regionally driven to a certain extent.

And I still don't understand it very well.
 
It seems Trump would give Kim Jong Un an "A" for feeding his enemies, literally, to the dogs and executing them with AA guns:

Toronto Star

Donald Trump says Kim Jong Un deserves ‘credit’ for wiping out rivals
”He goes in, he takes over, he’s the boss. It’s incredible,” Trump said in Iowa.


By: Daniel Dale Washington Bureau, Published on Sat Jan 09 2016

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump’s campaign can sound like a never-ending parade of insults.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico: “rapists.” Senator John McCain: “dummy.” Mixed martial arts champion Ronda Rousey: “Not a nice person.” Actor Samuel L. Jackson: “Not athletic.”

It is not all negativity, though. Trump will have you know that he really likes Tom Brady and Elton John. And there is another group of people he can’t stop complimenting: non-democratic world leaders.
(...SNIPPED)


Meanwhile, a Muslim woman conducts a protest at a Trump rally:

CNN

Silently protesting Muslim woman ejected from Trump rally

By Jeremy Diamond, CNN

Updated 4:51 PM ET, Sat January 9, 2016 | Video Source: CNN
Rock Hill, South Carolina (CNN)A Muslim woman wearing a hijab was escorted out of Donald Trump's campaign event on Friday by police after she stood up in silent protest during Trump's speech.

Rose Hamid, a 56-year-old flight attendant sitting in the stands directly behind Trump, stood up Friday during Trump's speech when the Republican front-runner suggested that Syrian refugees fleeing war in Syria were affiliated with ISIS.

Trump has previously called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
(...SNIPPED)
 
Interesting piece from Chris Hedges, where he underlines the idea that none of the current candidates are really equipped to address the real issues facing the US.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_great_forgetting_20160110

Presidential candidate Donald Trump may be boorish, narcissistic, stupid, racist and elitist, but he does not have Hillary Clinton’s carefully honed and chilling amoral artifice. It was she, and an ethically bankrupt liberal establishment, that created the fertile ground for Trump by fleecing the citizens on behalf of corporations and imposing the neoliberal project. If she is elected, Trump may disappear, but another Trump-like figure, probably even more frightening, will be vomited up from our cultural and political sewer.

Trump and Clinton, along with fellow candidate Bernie Sanders, refuse to admit what they know: Our most basic civil and political rights have been taken from us, the corporate oligarchy will remain entrenched in power no matter who wins the presidency, and elections are a carnival act. The downward spiral of lost jobs and declining incomes, of shredded civil liberties, of endless war, is unstoppable as long as we use the traditional mechanisms of reform, including elections, to try to cope with the existential threat we face. A vote for Clinton, in essence, is a vote for Trump or someone as bad as Trump. Right-wing populism, here and in Europe, is not the product of an individual but the disenfranchisement, rage and despair stemming from the damage caused by globalization. And until we wrest back control of our destiny by breaking corporate power, demagogues like Trump, and his repugnant doppelgangers in Europe, will proliferate.
 
Although Trumps policies sound great, they are really only pandering to what his supporters want to hear, and not what needs to be done (or avoided). In fact they run in opposition to his campaign theme of "Making America Great Again".

Economists savage Trump's economic agenda
Raising tariffs and deporting millions of people will drive up prices and cause recession, experts assert.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-economy-217496#.gdrtqoz:3mBM

Many economists say Donald Trump’s proposals — from big import tariffs to mass deportations — would hurt the very demographic that supports him in the greatest numbers: less educated voters struggling in a tepid U.S. economy.

If Trump policies actually went into effect, these economists say, prices for goods lower-income Americans depend on could soar and a depleted low-end labor force could trigger a major downturn.

Trump’s appeal rests in part on the sense that he will be a tougher negotiator with trading partners. But comparatively less attention has been given in debates and on the campaign trail to the actual substance of his economic proposals, opening a new line of attack for mainstream critics against his unconventional economic thinking.

“There is a good reason many people are upset and angry, because for many it’s been a very rough decade,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics and an adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “But if Trump’s policies were enacted it would be some form of disaster for the economy. If you force 11 million undocumented immigrants to leave in a year, you would be looking at a depression. It would not help the people he is talking to, they would be the first to go down.”

The reasons for this are simple, economists say. The economy is close to reaching “full employment," adding another 292,000 jobs in December. The jobless rate remained at 5 percent.

If 11 million immigrants were rounded up and removed from the country, many of the jobs they do — including restaurant, hotel and low-end construction work — could go largely unfilled, economists say. That would create a large and immediate hit to gross domestic product growth and the effects would ripple out to companies that supply goods and services to all those businesses. There would also be 11 million fewer people consuming goods and services, further driving down economic activity.

And on trade, Trump has argued for imposing big tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, China and elsewhere. The problem with this, many economists say, is the tariffs would ultimately be paid by U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices and would not lead to any significant increase in U.S. manufacturing.

“It’s a common mistake that people who don’t really understand economics make that this would somehow be a tariff on exporters,” said Mark J. Perry, a professor at the University of Michigan at Flint and a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It would be actually be a tax on American consumers. And more than half of U.S. imports come in as raw materials. And those cheap imports benefit American companies that hire American workers to finish the production process. Trump is really harkening back to the outdated mercantilist positions of hundreds of years ago.”

Trump is not without his defenders, even in the GOP establishment that he has spurned.

“I’ve spoken in defense of Donald’s tax policy and I will continue to defend it,” said conservative economist and Reagan administration official Larry Kudlow, who spoke just after talking to Trump at an event in New York on Friday. “The thing that’s so important in the tax policy is his corporate rate cut and easy repatriation of capital from abroad. These will add so much growth to the economy and the biggest beneficiaries will be middle income earners.”

Kudlow, however, like many other mainstream Republican economists, does not support Trump’s policies on immediate mass deportations or big trade tariffs. “I’m never going to support the deportations. And if you lower the corporate tax rate enough, capital is going to come back from China and you don’t need tariffs, which just hurt consumers.”

Other economists say while Trump has tapped into real problems — slack wages and general economic anxiety — his proposed solutions would not really help.

“It seems like economics is not really his highest priority. These are political stances,” said Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel Nicolaus. “At a time when U.S. exports are on the decline as a result of the strong dollar, adding the threat of tariffs is going to add another negative impact on U.S. exports.” Nations that face U.S. tariffs tend to respond with tariffs and other retaliatory moves of their own, setting off possible trade wars.

On immigration, Piegza said, Trump “is making some bold assumptions. He’s saying if you remove 11 million people from the labor force that's suddenly 11 million jobs for Americans. But you have to assume Americans would be willing to take those jobs.”
She added that even if some Americans do take those jobs — while presumably demanding higher pay — the cost of production and thus the cost of goods and services would rise, forcing consumers to pay more, eating up the wage gains.

Part of the problem with Trump, economists say, is the rhetoric that informs the real estate billionaire’s policies and thrills his supporters, is not based on economic reality.

“I saw a chart the other day, our real unemployment — because you have 90 million people that aren’t working,” Trump said last year. “Ninety-three million to be exact. If you start adding it up, our real unemployment rate is 42 percent.”

Trump appeared to be counting all Americans not in the work force. But that figure includes students, stay-at-home parents and retirees, among others. These people are not “unemployed,” they just don’t need or want to work and are not part of the labor force by choice. Even the broadest measure of unemployment, which takes into account the underemployed and those “marginally” attached to the labor force, is at 9.9 percent and falling, a figure not that far off of historic norms.

“He is just flat wrong about unemployment,” said Zandi. “Historically, even in the best of times and tightest of labor markers the underemployment rate is closer to 9 percent, and we will probably absorb that gap and be at full-employment by midyear.” The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on his economic policies and statements.

Trump also late last year suggested the U.S. economy might be in a “bubble” that could burst at any time.

“Remember the word bubble? You heard it here first,” Trump said in Iowa in December. “We could be on a bubble and that bubble could crash and it’s not going to be a pretty picture,” said Trump. “The market has gone down big league the last couple of weeks. We could be in a big fat bubble and if that bubble crashes, it's a problem.”

Many economists say this is a misreading of the U.S. economy. Growth has been sluggish — moving forward at only around 2 percent — but there are very few signs that there are any bubbles with the possible exception of high-end commercial and residential real estate in certain markets, an area that Trump knows well.

“There is little chance that the U.S. economy is a bubble. Retail sales and manufacturing output have looked dismal for months, despite lower oil prices,” said Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife. “Most analysts are revising their economic forecasts for the U.S. for 2015 and 2016 down — not up — to reflect poorer economic performance than expected. It is hard to see where the demand for a macroeconomic bubble in the U.S. might come from given generally low global aggregate demand.”

While economists mostly disagree with Trump’s assessment that the U.S. economy is in a bubble, some do suggest he could be right that U.S. stock prices, which got off to their worst start of the year ever, could fall even further as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates this year and China’s markets continue to face turmoil as the country tries to shift toward a model based on domestic consumption rathe than production and exports.

“If fundamentals fail to improve fast enough and validate asset prices, global markets risk going through a disruptive downward adjustment process that, in turn, could threaten the world’s economic well-being,” said Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz.

Democrats, meanwhile, see an opening to appeal to Trump voters by acknowledging the struggles they face while arguing that the billionaire’s policies would be ineffective in driving faster growth or addressing economic inequality.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spent much of her campaign talking about plans to invest more in infrastructure, boost some capital gains taxes and provide tax credits to companies that share profits more broadly with employees.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has made more direct appeals to Trump voters. “What I’m suggesting is that what Trump has done with some success has taken that anger, taken those fears — which are legitimate — and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims,” Sanders said on CBS last month. “For his working class and middle-class support, we can make the case that if we really want to address the issues that people are concerned about. We need policies that bring us together, that take on the greed of Wall Street the greed of corporate America and create a middle class that works for all of us rather than an economy that works just for a few.”

Democratic-leaning economists say Trump is most vulnerable to attacks that his tax plan would deliver massive benefits to the wealthiest Americans. According to the Tax Policy Center, Trump’s tax plan would reduce federal revenue by $9.5 trillion over the next decade. It would also provide an average $1.3 million tax cut for the top 0.1 percent of earners, the Tax Policy Center found. The Trump campaign has disputed these findings.

Polls consistently show that voters of all partisan stripes favor tax hikes rather than tax cuts on the rich. And that leaves Democrats salivating at the idea of taking on Trump this fall.

“He takes a very populist tone on taxes, but when you look at the plan it is very much weighted to cutting taxes at the very top,” said Heather Boushey, chief economist at the progressive Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “And this is by now a decades old story. If cutting taxes at the very top would really make America grow faster we should be growing a lot faster right now given how often we have done it.”

Boushey, however, did offer some sympathy for Trump’s efforts to address workers impacted by previous free trade deals.
“There is a lot of new research documenting how when you open U.S. trade, that can actually lead to negative outcomes for workers,” she said. “And that’s why this anger from Trump supporters is real even if you don't support his policy proposals.”
 
A piece from Jacobin criticizing an essay from the Guardian that equated the Trump and Sanders campaigns as being two sides of the same coin:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/bernie-sanders-trump-populism-marche-corbyn-politics/

Regurgitating a familiar bit of anti-socialist agitprop, Marche brands Sanders’ supporters “cornfed hipsters,” observing that “[while] rich white people can afford to think about socialism, the poor can only afford their anger.” (That socialism has, at various points, had a considerable pull on portions of the American working class is something Marche conveniently omits.)

Dismissing Sanders’s calls for a “political revolution” in a few sentences, Marche casually concludes that the Vermont senator’s crusade to topple the proverbial casino of American capitalism is doomed to fail because he has personally observed several actual casinos while driving through Iowa. The piece then closes with a few paragraphs of forgettable pabulum and intellectual window-dressing.

What’s striking about Marche’s essay is how little genuine political content it contains. Relying largely on irrelevant anecdotes about the appearance of the two rallies, he almost entirely ignores the political programs they were organized to promote.


And the essay in question:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/10/white-man-pathology-bernie-sanders-donald-trump?CMP=fb_us

The Bernie Sanders rally in Davenport was the precise opposite of the Donald Trump rally in Burlington and yet precisely the same in every detail. “Make America Great Again” was replaced by “Feel the Bern”. Hawkers sold pins, three for $10. They read “Bernie Sanders is my spirit animal” and “Cats for Bernie” and “I supported Bernie Sanders before it was cool.” Davenport, at least near the Adler Theater, is the same Brooklyn-outside-Brooklyn that has conquered every corner of the world that is not a strip mall. The tattoo artists of Davenport do not go hungry. The cornfed hipsters at the Sanders rally look like they have probably attended a party at which somebody played a bongo. They may even have attended a literary reading.


There were hype men as with Trump, too, although in this case they were twentyish women in glasses screaming “Feel the Bern!” and “We’re Going to Build a Revolution!” Somebody with a camera from NBC asked a group who has brought their precocious children because they want them to be engaged in the political process “Can I get you guys to look like you’re excited about Bernie?” They carefully placed their drinks on the floor, out of sight, to oblige.

The same specter of angry white people haunts Saunders’s rally, the same sense of longing for a country that was, the country that has been taken away. The Bernie crowd brought homemade signs instead of manufactured ones, because I guess they’re organic. They waved them just the same. They were going to a show. They wanted to be a good audience.

The fundamental difference between the Trump and Sanders crowd was that the Sanders crowd has more money, the natural consequence of the American contradiction machinery: rich white people can afford to think about socialism, the poor can only afford their anger.]

 
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