The 2016 US Election (Part IV)

[Chardok]

on a weird note....my gay ex-wife voted for Trump...as did a dear friend of mine (also gay, but male) I just don't know how in the hell he *did it*!

[Crown]

on a weird note....my gay ex-wife voted for Trump...as did a dear friend of mine (also gay, but male) I just don't know how in the hell he *did it*!

This could be a clue;



Find me another Republican Presidential candidate in a similar photo op. Actually, fuck that; find me another Presidential candidate of either party in a similar photo op.

[Chardok]

[Crown]

[img]<snip>[/img]

She's not holding the rainbow flag, allowing her plausible deniability later, "I don't recall, I just though they were very enthusiastic"!

[Chardok]

[img]<snip>[/img]

She's not holding the rainbow flag, allowing her plausible deniability later, "I don't recall, I just though they were very enthusiastic"!

Your cynicism truly knows no bounds! Have you considered a career in politiks?

[Crown]

[img]<snip>[/img]

She's not holding the rainbow flag, allowing her plausible deniability later, "I don't recall, I just though they were very enthusiastic"!

Your cynicism truly knows no bounds! Have you considered a career in politiks?

Fuck no, I'm an engineer ... I'd jump out a window after my first 'special interest' meeting.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not saying anything about who you voted for. But this sort of attitude, that stoping the corporate establishment has to take precedent over every other issue, is a big part of why Trump got elected.

Insofar as this is true, it is profoundly ironic, because putting Trump in office to stop the corporate establishment is like putting a bottom-feeding squid into office to stop the ocean.

To clarify what you are saying, I can imagine two interpretations.

1) People believing that Trump would stop the corporate establishment put Trump into power.

2) People believing that Clinton represented the corporate establishment put Trump into power indirectly, by withholding votes from Clinton.

Are you saying one of these things, or a combination of both, or neither?

I'd say the problem here is that most people have a very idealized vision of what globalization is and does. They believe it's a way of bringing nations together through economics & trade, helping to raise poor nations out of poverty, and establishing closer ties between everyone to bring fellowship to man and an end to war.

The reality is very different. Globalization as practiced in our world right now really fucking sucks. Yes we have closer ties through trade & culture exchanges. In rich first world nations. Everyone else gets systematically exploited for resources & labour, and any trickle down benefits to them are completely incidental. We aim to keep those nations poor so that the labour & resource costs stay low which allows the transnational corporations & first world can maximize their profits. This is why K. A. Pital, myself, and a few others oppose it so strongly. Globalization in its current form is slavery and suffering for many millions, if not billions of people.

Slavery and suffering were common well before the modern rise of international corporations. Bringing an end to the evil side of globalization requires healthy, sovereign governments backed by democratic institutions that care about their own people.

Such government cannot be formed in the context of corruption, thuggery, and disrespect for individual rights. Almost without exception, when a corrupt brute comes into power, they will make as many deals as they can with powerful private interests. Electing corrupt brutes guarantees that globalization will be strengthened and enabled over the long run.

Sanders would have been neither corrupt nor a brute. Clinton is corrupt but not a brute- she would sell out in terms of her personal actions, but she would not have actively sought to destroy the democratic institutions opposing her selling-out.

Trump is very much corrupt, and very much a brute. He will sell out without shame or remorse, expect people to like it, and try to crush them if they protest. Expecting him to be in any way good for stopping globalization is absurd. He MIGHT veto one specific trade deal, just as a gesture of strutting and beating his chest to his nativist supporters. But he will then happily sign a hundred other such deals, whenever he expects to profit by doing so.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not saying anything about who you voted for. But this sort of attitude, that stoping the corporate establishment has to take precedent over every other issue, is a big part of why Trump got elected.

Insofar as this is true, it is profoundly ironic, because putting Trump in office to stop the corporate establishment is like putting a bottom-feeding squid into office to stop the ocean.

Indeed.

To clarify what you are saying, I can imagine two interpretations.

1) People believing that Trump would stop the corporate establishment put Trump into power.

2) People believing that Clinton represented the corporate establishment put Trump into power indirectly, by withholding votes from Clinton.

Are you saying one of these things, or a combination of both, or neither?

Both are valid to an extent.

[Q99]

On Hillary being a sell out, I'm reminded of the investigative reporter turned
editor who followed her whole career and knew of zero instances of her changing a stance for a backer.

People just wouldn't believe she is not corrupt despite that.

Sanders on the line:

<snip>

Pocahontas bends the knee;

Which, frankly, makes sense. He is easily influenced so mitigating damage is important, plus it means ramping up power to block him is more obviously a ramping up- the tea party has shown blocking 100% of everything doesn't work that well. Start out sounding nice and they're more clearly the unreasonable ones in the eyes of more undecided parties.

This is a valid tactic for gaining ammo for future blocking of vital things.

[Simon_Jester]

on a weird note....my gay ex-wife voted for Trump...as did a dear friend of mine (also gay, but male) I just don't know how in the hell he *did it*!

This could be a clue;

https://i.redd.it/treyq2y8aqwx.jpg

Find me another Republican Presidential candidate in a similar photo op. Actually, fuck that; find me another Presidential candidate of either party in a similar photo op.

This sort of thing is why I used the phrase "useful idiots" earlier.

By his vice presidential selection, Trump has formally declared that if he happens to have a heart attack and die, the person he wants to replace him in the White House is Mike Pence.

Looking at any given LBGT person who voted for Trump, I would argue that there are two possibilities.

1) That LBGT person might have been consciously accepting a return to 1980-or-earlier levels of bigotry, sacrificing their own interests (and possibly their own physical safety) by voting for someone who hates them, for what was, in their own mind, "the greater good." In which case they are making a very, very big mistake, and I feel sorry for them. Or...

2) That LBGT person might simply have been an idiot, and not realized that they are voting for a candidate who wouldn't lift a finger to save them from being beaten to death by a mob, and who will cheerfully sign off on bills basically outlawing their right to exist.
______________

EDIT: And I am using the word 'idiot' in something close to its original sense here: One whose judgment is so poor that they really, really should not participate in public affairs.

[Crown]

<snip>

Or Trump's stance on Gay Rights which has a pretty well documented history, while not perfect, gives them confidence that Trump got Pence to relax his position for the chance to be VP.

At a guess.

Isn't it interesting you went straight on the attack on Pence when I posted a picture of Trump? Curious.

[Chardok]

No need to edit - I always take "idiot" used on this board as more of a....clinical term rather than an insult, necessarily (interchangeable with ignorant, in other words).

[K. A. Pital]

Bringing an end to the evil side of globalization requires healthy, sovereign governments backed by democratic institutions that care about their own people.

Which starts with getting rid of unelected transnational bureaucrats - including those involved in TTP, TTIP, CETA, TISA and other such shit. Here I'm one with Starglider, whatever disagreements we may otherwise have.

He MIGHT veto one specific trade deal, just as a gesture of strutting and beating his chest to his nativist supporters. But he will then happily sign a hundred other such deals, whenever he expects to profit by doing so.

If he crushes the two most important deals of our age (TTP and TTIP), this would be an immense blow to the free trader camp. I don't expect him to do it, actually - I distrust the right.

But if he does deliver, then it would be the largest contemporary defeat of Camp Globalization since the collapse of WTO talks on IT goods.

You may limit or constrain globalization for a time, certainly, but you will not eliminate it, and past a certain point, you won't even be able to constrain it further without embracing despotism.

Why? Let me ask you - will Japan ever become Europe? Or the US, for that matter? The answer is: that will not happen in our lifetime and our children and maybe grandchildren's lifetime. Is Japan despotic?

But the more you try to restrict globalization in the cultural and political sense, as a rule, the further you will walk down the path of despotism.

Why? Why, if I have my own culture and my own view of politics (say, Swiss cherish direct democracy, but British have their idiotic monarchy still) - why should I not restrict globalization? What would be the "path of despotism" if my system is much better than what other motherfuckers from abroad - I'm looking at the US right now - are trying to force on me without a shred of democracy, not allowing me to vote?

That is not the same as saying "I want Hollywood to define the culture for the entire planet", though its a cute, if rather tired, straw man. If anything, what I want is the fucking opposite.

That's not a cute strawman, that's what has actually happened. The story of globalization hasn't been 50% roses and 50% shit. It has been 99% shit and 1% roses.

Restricting freedom of movement is one of the foremost tools of oppression.

And that's why practically all democratic nations severely restrict it, disallowing people from other nations to remain in their territory longer than 3 months on a guest visa unless they have met such strict criteria for immigration that it is comparable to winning a lottery?!

So in the end, democratic nations are the most oppressive nations.

But ultimately, your success will be limited

Even limited success against the likes of you is something I am well willing to accept. You want to come to my house, destroy my job, make me follow your rules, no, not even your rules, the rules of your capitalist masters, and you say that I have to submit to transnational, "global" authority. The fuck I do.

I won't dignify your straw man with an answer.

Of course you won't. Your argument has been an extreme one and it has failed as the strawman that it was.

[Simon_Jester]

<snip>

Or Trump's stance on Gay Rights which has a pretty well documented history, while not perfect, gives them confidence that Trump got Pence to relax his position for the chance to be VP.

At a guess.

They might have believed that. I would consider that to be an example of case (2): they are an idiot. I see little or no evidence that Pence has been either persuaded or compelled to moderate his stance.

Isn't it interesting you went straight on the attack on Pence when I posted a picture of Trump? Curious.

Trump's selection of Pence is a relevant piece of information about Trump. The man could have chosen any of a lot of people. He chose Pence. Why would he do that when he could have picked someone else who didn't have a record of supporting every fundamentalist action item with regards to LBGT rights?

There is no reason. It is every bit as plausible that Trump doesn't care one way or the other about LBGT rights, not as a matter of public policy. He'll let them into his hotels and casinos, but he will not lift a finger to defend them on the legal level, and will sit back and enjoy the Oval Office while congressional Republicans and his own vice president savage the LBGT community.

[Simon_Jester]

Bringing an end to the evil side of globalization requires healthy, sovereign governments backed by democratic institutions that care about their own people.

Which starts with getting rid of unelected transnational bureaucrats - including those involved in TTP, TTIP, CETA, TISA and other such shit.

Only healthy, democratic governments can or will get rid of those unelected transnational figures. Corrupt brutes will never, never do so.

The enemy remains the global-corporate order, but the enemy's greatest weapons are corrupt brutes in positions of high national power. They need those weapons, because their other tools of global control (such as trade agreement bureaucrats) are physically weak. The global-corporate system is very vulnerable to simply being ignored by nations that cease to care about their directives. Its only counter to this vulnerability is to use corruption and brutality, hand in hand, in national governments to prevent them from organizing a response to global-corporate intrusion.

I'm sure you've noticed how, during the Cold War, the US backed so very many corrupt anticommunist brutes? Pinochet against Allende, the Shah against Mossadegh, and so on? There was a dual reason for that. One part was the stated reason of containing communism. But the other was because such men could be "trusted" to know where their funding and backing was coming from, and to never act against the interests of the people who were willing to give them money and power.

The US of that time was laying the foundations for the modern global-corporate order, and ensuring that many Third World countries would be ruled by corrupt brutes was a key part of that.

Russia was brought disastrously into that order, not just by the fall of communism as such, but by the specific fact that the specific individuals who came to power in Russia were corrupt brutes. Honest men with similar power would not have caused such devastation in Russia, even if every one of them had rejected communism as an ideology.

China has been able to prosper and profit, while interfacing with that same global-capitalist order, because their leaders are relatively less corrupt, and are (on the whole, most of the time) not brutes.

Europe has been able to partially resist global-corporatism, because their leaders are not brutes and are limited in their corruption.

Given that Trump is massively corrupt on every possible level, and shows every sign of being a brute, there is literally no reason to even imagine that he will be a NET negative for the global-corporate order. Even if he blocks TTP or some other specific three or four letter acronym, the cumulative effects of his presidency will totally cancel out that "victory" against globalization.

He MIGHT veto one specific trade deal, just as a gesture of strutting and beating his chest to his nativist supporters. But he will then happily sign a hundred other such deals, whenever he expects to profit by doing so.

If he crushes the two most important deals of our age (TTP and TTIP), this would be an immense blow to the free trader camp. I don't expect him to do it, actually - I distrust the right.

It's not just that he may or may not keep his promises. It is that by his very nature he will always, always sell out to people he expects to profit him, and will never, never seriously consider listening to or compromising with his opponents or critics.

It's like the parable of the fox and the scorpion. He might not sting you by approving the TTP or TTIP, but he will inevitably sting you somewhere, at some time. It's in his nature.

[Crown]

Or Trump's stance on Gay Rights which has a pretty well documented history, while not perfect, gives them confidence that Trump got Pence to relax his position for the chance to be VP.

At a guess.

They might have believed that. I would consider that to be an example of case (2): they are an idiot. I see little or no evidence that Pence has been either persuaded or compelled to moderate his stance.

Pence won't set policy, Trump will, but essentially you are not wrong in what you stated.

Isn't it interesting you went straight on the attack on Pence when I posted a picture of Trump? Curious.

Trump's selection of Pence is a relevant piece of information about Trump. The man could have chosen any of a lot of people. He chose Pence. Why would he do that when he could have picked someone else who didn't have a record of supporting every fundamentalist action item with regards to LBGT rights?

There is no reason. It is every bit as plausible that Trump doesn't care one way or the other about LBGT rights, not as a matter of public policy. He'll let them into his hotels and casinos, but he will not lift a finger to defend them on the legal level, and will sit back and enjoy the Oval Office while congressional Republicans and his own vice president savage the LBGT community.

No reason for choosing the Governor of Indiana when Trump's victory strategy was to breach the Democratic Blue Wall of which Indiana is smack bang in the middle of and had flipped in 2012? No reason at all, other than to completely reverse his own stated public position on gay issues?

[K. A. Pital]

He might not sting you by approving the TTP or TTIP, but he will inevitably sting you somewhere, at some time. It's in his nature.

If there isn't something as gigantic coming in the next 4 years, he might very well not have the chance to sting me.

Only healthy, democratic governments can or will get rid of those unelected transnational figures. Corrupt brutes will never, never do so.

That's profoundly wrong. Even deeply imperfect governments have led rebellions against colonizers, stopped transnational plunder. Sometimes even corrupt politicians or deeply imperfect figures (like the Ghandi era India) made great achievements for their people.

The problem with unelected bodies is not that you need a healthy democratic government to get rid of them. You need one that would defy them. If your society has internal problems, it can fix them - through elections, through revolutions, through many ways.

But if your society is ruled by an unelected, unaccountable global elite, then there is no way to fix this until someone stands up to it.

[Wild Zontargs]

By his vice presidential selection, Trump has formally declared that if he happens to have a heart attack and die, the person he wants to replace him in the White House is Mike Pence.

Intentional or not, it's one hell of a dead man's switch. If progressive politicians were ever in a position to remove him from office, or anyone with progressive political views should attempt to remove him via extra-legal means, they'd be left with a self-described Evangelical Catholic running the show. If they ever get the opportunity to remove Trump, that could make them blink.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes- and that, too, is the act of a man who really isn't bothered by what Mike Pence would do if he took the Oval Office.

I have always believed that we should interpret vice-presidential choices as the presidential candidate saying "if I die, I want this person to be president." There is no other meaning that negates this.

If the candidate picks an unqualified or undesirable VP for reasons of expediency, they are saying "if I die, I want this person to be president, and I am doing this for short term gain."

Which is, for instance, why I lost a lot of respect for John McCain when he appointed a lightweight like Sarah Palin. The first half of the statement ("If I die, make Sarah Palin president") was obvious folly, and the second half ("I am making this declaration for short term gain") cast grave doubts on McCain's personal integrity- which was one of the few assets the man had left to him as a candidate.

Now, Mike Pence isn't a lightweight. But he IS a far-right fundamentalist. So either Trump was saying "I want a far-right fundamentalist to be president if I die," or he was saying "I want a far-right fundamentalist to be president if I die, and I am making this declaration for personal gain."

The second statement isn't really more reassuring than the first.

No reason for choosing the Governor of Indiana when Trump's victory strategy was to breach the Democratic Blue Wall of which Indiana is smack bang in the middle of and had flipped in 2012? No reason at all, other than to completely reverse his own stated public position on gay issues?

If my prediction is correct, and Trump does not care one way or the other about LBGT rights except insofar as helping them profits him or costs him... then reversing his stated position is not a cost. On the contrary, he can view his past actions as a form of 'savings' that he has banked to protect him against accusations of doing things that will hurt LBGT people, while he does things that will hurt LBGT people, in order to increase his own chances of winning election- namely, picking Mike Pence as vice president.

Which at the very least is playing Russian roulette with LBGT people's future, because there is a nontrivial chance that Trump will simply fall over dead in the next four to eight years, and he has to know that. He's a seventy year old man, and things like cancer can strike with very little warning.

So why would Trump ask Pence to compromise on an issue Pence obviously feels deeply about? To do so would be to risk something that really matters to him: being CEO of the United States.

---

He might not sting you by approving the TTP or TTIP, but he will inevitably sting you somewhere, at some time. It's in his nature.

If there isn't something as gigantic coming in the next 4 years, he might very well not have the chance to sting me.

I predict that you will be unpleasantly surprised. Alternatively, you may simply never notice the stings until the poison takes effect in five or ten years' time. And all this

Only healthy, democratic governments can or will get rid of those unelected transnational figures. Corrupt brutes will never, never do so.

That's profoundly wrong. Even deeply imperfect governments have led rebellions against colonizers, stopped transnational plunder.

The trend has been, historically, for such imperfect governments to throw out the colonial exploiters, then sell out to a new round of exploiters.

Think not just about the decolonialist wave of the 50s and 60s. Think about the broader trend.

How is it that the enormous number of Third World countries, all of which threw off the shackles of their 19th century imperial masters, are still oppressed? How can they still be oppressed, if they now have self-rule? The answer is simple: because a nation which overthrows its oppressor, but appoints a corrupt brute to lead itself, has simply exchanged one oppressor for another. And when that nation is in a position of weakness (as all undeveloped nations are), then the corrupt brute now in power will seek to secure power by making deals with the same kinds of powers who used to be the old oppressors!

This is one of the main reasons I am not a communist. Because I am firmly convinced that it is NEVER the correct choice to say "this leader may be a brute, but he is our brute, and his commitment to the cause makes him the right person to run our country." To me, that line of reasoning can only ever lead to fascism (on the right) or to a hollow and self-destructing form of socialism (on the left).

Sometimes even corrupt politicians or deeply imperfect figures (like the Ghandi era India) made great achievements for their people.

The problem with unelected bodies is not that you need a healthy democratic government to get rid of them. You need one that would defy them. If your society has internal problems, it can fix them - through elections, through revolutions, through many ways.

But if your society is ruled by an unelected, unaccountable global elite, then there is no way to fix this until someone stands up to it.

My point, though, is that corrupt brutes will not and cannot actually do this, not for any length of time. Even if they overthrow one set of unaccountable bastards, they will simply sell out to another one. And now you will have no recourse, because they will methodically destroy domestic opposition to the new set of oppressors- because anyone who opposes the new oppressors also opposes them.

Your chances of becoming free will wind up actively diminished.

[Tvpnbb]

By his vice presidential selection, Trump has formally declared that if he happens to have a heart attack and die, the person he wants to replace him in the White House is Mike Pence.

Intentional or not, it's one hell of a dead man's switch. If progressive politicians were ever in a position to remove him from office, or anyone with progressive political views should attempt to remove him via extra-legal means, they'd be left with a self-described Evangelical Catholic running the show. If they ever get the opportunity to remove Trump, that could make them blink.

A fair point, but if Trump really performs so horribly that impeachment and conviction become realistic possibilities Pence's shittiness will probably not seem as bad in comparison.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, if you held a gun to my head and asked me to pick "Pence or Trump," I might very well pick Pence right now. Because I can at least believe the man has enough moral integrity that he won't hurt anyone he doesn't genuinely believe deserves to hurt.

Pence wants to hurt a lot of undeserving victims, and I despise him for that. But he won't hurt them purely because it's convenient for him to do so. I think that he (usually) won't hurt people through deliberate actions on his part simply because he's too ignorant or blind to understand that he's hurting them.

Meanwhile, Trump is totally going to hurt lots of people even he doesn't particularly want to see hurt, because he lacks the knowledge, attention span, and humility to make good policy decisions. And he will surely delegate a great deal of his power to people who will hurt those he does not want hurt (like Pence and LBGT people).

Pence wouldn't be who he is if he didn't have some kind of ethical core. His ethical core is full of holes and distorted, but it at least exists. He is psychologically capable of protecting people, even people who aren't in a position to help him.

The very idea that Trump has an ethical core in there anywhere in there is laughable. And for this reason, Trump cannot ever protect anyone from anything, unless that person did him a favor that he's returning.

[Flagg]

Who is that?

The Romulan Republic. He seems to have mistaken a problem with voter opinion for a fundamental problem with the democratic mechanism. Trump is not the first douchebag president the US will have. There is no reason to flip out like that.

Yeah, I'm not exactly looking forward to his inauguration. Frankly, I'm afraid for my disability, but existentially I'm afraid for all the people who "crossed" a man who believes in payback and retribution as a matter of course.
But as far as I can tell nothing fishy went on on Election Day. I'm not going to freak out unless he starts dismantling our Shiite democratic republic for something worse. And I don't see any real evidence that Rapist Donnie Douchebag has any intention of doing so.

[Starglider]

Neoliberalism and globalization is dead, all that's left is to see how long it takes to stop denying this simple fact.

Hardly. No plausible set of actions from Trump could do that. Even terminating the EU would not do that. No one is seriously threatening the WTO or IMF. Neoliberals have taken a couple of unpleasant shocks recently, but they were close calls, and as the liberal media constantly tells us, younger generations are voting more liberal and more globalist (of course they just assume those views will persist at the same ratio and ignore the fact that boomers were just as liberal leaning when they were young). If people over 60 had been banned from voting, Brexit would have lost and Hillary would have won. It remains to be seen if these recent setbacks are the start of any significant momentum; the EU is already trying to use Brexit as an excuse for comsoldiation and harsh punishment of defectors, if Trump is booted out after one disasterous term, the public may be turned off risky candidates and his successor may a 'safe' Democrat saying 'let's at least get back to how things were under Obama'. Certainly that's what the mainstream media will push for.

[Crown]

No reason for choosing the Governor of Indiana when Trump's victory strategy was to breach the Democratic Blue Wall of which Indiana is smack bang in the middle of and had flipped in 2012? No reason at all, other than to completely reverse his own stated public position on gay issues?

If my prediction is correct,

Predictions and Trump are dangerous things. We'll leave it here, feel free to save this post to remind me when your predictions come true.

But as funny note I can't get over how both sides of the ideological divide are losing their minds over Trump, watching the Daily Wire have a their little meltdown when they started accepting that Trump may win they started to panic that Trump would implement single payer universal health care in ACA's place. No, not a joke.

It's like watching blind people trying to describe an elephant.

[The Romulan Republic]

Saw a good quip on another forum I post on, though I don't know the original source:

"Sanders for President! Because hindsight is 2020!"