EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 4902
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On September 05 2016 23:47 zlefin wrote: Could be either way; though it's certainly the case that intelligent thoroguh policy discussion tends to be incredibly boring and most people tune out during it, so it doesn't get much media coverage. My experience has been that while that has some truth to it, it's far more true that people just don't like the policies that Hillary has actually been known to put forward and that your statement is used frequently as a smokescreen to hide that fact. | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On September 05 2016 23:54 LegalLord wrote: My experience has been that while that has some truth to it, it's far more true that people just don't like the policies that Hillary has actually been known to put forward and that your statement is used frequently as a smokescreen to hide that fact. quite plausible that is. How have other policy wonkish candidates fared in the past? or in non-presidential elections? also, which hillary policies are you talking about? | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28798 Posts
Looking through https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/ , it has been linked before, I think it's thoroughly reasonable through and through. I mean, there is significant overlap between what policies people prefer and what candidates people prefer - I think mostly all the Trump supporters in this thread support him more for his policies than his personality (and as much as I disagree with his policies, I mean this as a compliment), but from what I've seen before, more Americans would support Hillary's policies if they did not know they were Hillary's policies. | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On September 05 2016 23:54 LegalLord wrote: My experience has been that while that has some truth to it, it's far more true that people just don't like the policies that Hillary has actually been known to put forward and that your statement is used frequently as a smokescreen to hide that fact. The white impoverished male voterbase that makes up the largest chunk of Trump supporters has no rational reason to reject any of Hillary's policies, especially compared to Trump's tax slashing adventure. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18292 Posts
On September 05 2016 23:34 LegalLord wrote: It could also be that people don't actually like the policy that she has been known to actually push during her many years in office. Really shitty potshot at the electorate for implying that they don't support her simply because her policy is "too technical" and they just don't get it as a result. I was addressing the EXACT quote from someone called Nathan Baskerville in North Carolina, complaining about Hillary not discussing policy. She already did that. However, her "plan to make life better" has apparently not reached Nathan Baskerville... It's not that he knows what her plan is and disagrees with it, it's that he complains that he doesn't know what it is. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On September 05 2016 18:58 Acrofales wrote: Can't win. Talk about policy, get ignored by media and told you're a boring old wonk. Attack your opponent, get told that everybody already knows that and that you should focus on policy. The problem with Clinton isn't that she can't/doesn't lay out her policy. It's that (a) for some reason it doesn't connect with her base (too technical?) and (b) she is seen as untrustworthy, so who really cares about policy if you can't trust her to follow through with it anyway. She is running a very negative campaign against Trump, both in ads and in speeches, and very much has earned that opinion. She isn't trustworthy, and that hurts things further. It was either Politico or WaPo, but you can ask reporters following the campaign and go back through the speeches to discover both are running very policy-less campaigns. It's a question of focus (and maybe you're partially right that she was forced down that path for attention), not whether she mentions broad pablum on the economy or has a campaign website that lays out positions. Given her record and the rest, I'd probably run the same kind of campaign in her shoes. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Hillary Clinton’s summer ends abruptly on Monday. For several weeks, the presidential frontrunner has toured the homes of America’s rich and famous, hosted by Justin Timberlake, welcomed by Magic Johnson and serenaded by Jimmy Buffett, Jon Bon Jovi and Paul McCartney. It all helped swell Democratic coffers by a record $143m in August, crucial ammunition for the 64 days of TV advertising left between now and the general election. It also allowed an exhausted campaign to recharge its batteries following months on the road and July’s convention in Philadelphia. But on Labor Day, Clinton swaps the beaches of Cape Cod and Long Island for the rust-belt towns of Ohio and Iowa, scenes of her bruising primary race against Bernie Sanders and home to a stubbornly loyal pockets of blue-collar support for Donald Trump. She won’t be alone. Monday’s events in Cleveland and the Quad Cities, industrial towns bordering Iowa and Illinois, will debut a new campaign plane, large enough to carry the traveling reporters who were hitherto consigned to tagging along behind. Journalists have complained for months about a lack of access to Clinton, who has not held a conference for 276 days. Her campaign has accused the media of fixating on that daily tally and ignoring the interviews she gives to select cable anchors or local news stations. “This 257 days nonsense is ludicrous. When has it been the norm that a presidential candidate regularly does press conferences?” spokesman Nick Merrill askedreporters on Thursday. He then promised one “soon”. The new aircraft is nothing if not symbolic: it launches the start of an intense period of travel and scrutiny during the debates and rallies before election day on 8 November. The plane also provides room for key Clinton aides to escape their headquarters in Brooklyn and gain important time with the boss. Her loyal gatekeeper Huma Abedin will likely stand guard, returning to the plane after a period of absence that aides insist has nothing to do with the very public break-up of her marriage to former congressman Anthony Weiner. Source | ||
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biology]major
United States2253 Posts
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Slaughter
United States20255 Posts
On September 05 2016 23:54 LegalLord wrote: My experience has been that while that has some truth to it, it's far more true that people just don't like the policies that Hillary has actually been known to put forward and that your statement is used frequently as a smokescreen to hide that fact. I think you far underestimate just how disconnected the average person is from politics. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
On September 06 2016 01:05 biology]major wrote: Press conferences are not required if you don't have massive amounts of baggage following you around. They aren't required in any context. This obsession with a specific form of interacting with the press is silly. | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On September 05 2016 23:54 LegalLord wrote: My experience has been that while that has some truth to it, it's far more true that people just don't like the policies that Hillary has actually been known to put forward and that your statement is used frequently as a smokescreen to hide that fact. Your experience doesn't square with the evolution of Clinton's favorability rating, which started tanking after the Benghazi and e-mail """controversies""" started getting full exposure thanks to the concerted efforts of a GOP establishment eager to damage her as much as possible ahead of the 2016 election and many reporters' thirst for any potential scandal involving the Clintons. The "policies that Hillary has actually been known to put forward" are clearly not the relevant independent variable to be looking at to explain this fall -- they were known well before the change. It is voters' perceptions of Clinton's supposed untrustworthiness that are driving her negative ratings (this is not to say that all of her policies and past decisions are necessarily popular, obviously). | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On September 06 2016 00:28 Liquid`Drone wrote: Aside from the occasional too much of a hawk which comes from quite a lot of people (myself included) and the even more occasional supports fracking from GH, virtually none of the attacks on Hillary Clinton in this thread are based around her policies. Mostly all of them either attack her for her alleged incompetence or crookedness. Looking through https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/ , it has been linked before, I think it's thoroughly reasonable through and through. I mean, there is significant overlap between what policies people prefer and what candidates people prefer - I think mostly all the Trump supporters in this thread support him more for his policies than his personality (and as much as I disagree with his policies, I mean this as a compliment), but from what I've seen before, more Americans would support Hillary's policies if they did not know they were Hillary's policies. It certainly does look reasonable at first glance. But it's also important to realize that it's a marketing campaign, and while it does seem reasonable it also is full of empty platitudes ("bring manufacturing back home" is something everyone says but no one actually wants to enact a policy for). Hillary has always been a candidate that, at any given period in time, will adopt the most popular stance of the populace, and will therefore rank pretty highly on most "which candidate do you agree most with?" quizzes and the like. But they don't really represent the real general consensus of what kind of candidate she is. She is nominally socially progressive, in that she will support social issues that people care about but isn't the kind of politician who will truly put her reputation on the line to do so. She's a warhawk, which she tries to spin into "supported by our military officials" but which in reality has a lot of poorly considered interventions that have done more harm than good towards US interests abroad and are borne of a Wolfowitz-style arrogance. She's in general a globalist, and while she says she opposes the TPP no one really believes that (and in that link you might notice that she doesn't mention trade prominently, if at all). Also widely acknowledged to be a liar and a corrupt figure, which has a lot of truth to it even if it is overplayed by her opposition. Not the worst track record that there could be, but far from good. People support what policies they think will be implemented, rather than explicitly what the candidates say they will support. While people can be misled, it's probably for the best that you take what politicians say with a grain of salt. On September 06 2016 01:15 Slaughter wrote: I think you far underestimate just how disconnected the average person is from politics. I disagree. There's plenty of stupidity that makes people vote against their interests but there is also a lot of stupidity from "technocrat" style leaders who fail to acknowledge that people have a pretty good idea of whether or not a certain policy will actually be bad for them. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
It is partly the media's fault. They report on every tidbit of information about Clinton's emails and even the mildest change in tone from Trump as if it they front page worthy. There is no curation, all things are front page worthy, even if it is only a couple hours. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
On September 06 2016 01:59 LegalLord wrote: I think you far underestimate just how disconnected the average person is from politics. I disagree. There's plenty of stupidity that makes people vote against their interests but there is also a lot of stupidity from "technocrat" style leaders who fail to acknowledge that people have a pretty good idea of whether or not a certain policy will actually be bad for them. [/QUOTE] Are you actually trying to say the average american has a firm understanding of international trade dynamics and shifts in manufacturing technologies over time? That's completely ridiculous. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
On September 06 2016 01:59 LegalLord wrote: I think you far underestimate just how disconnected the average person is from politics. I disagree. There's plenty of stupidity that makes people vote against their interests but there is also a lot of stupidity from "technocrat" style leaders who fail to acknowledge that people have a pretty good idea of whether or not a certain policy will actually be bad for them. Are you actually trying to say the average american has a firm understanding of international trade dynamics and shifts in manufacturing technologies over time? That's completely ridiculous. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On September 06 2016 02:04 Mohdoo wrote: Are you actually trying to say the average american has a firm understanding of international trade dynamics and shifts in manufacturing technologies over time? That's completely ridiculous. No, but that's pretty far from what I said as well. In a much simpler sense, they can tell whether or not their jobs will be at risk if a given policy is supported. Obviously there is a need for experts to be able to deal with the more difficult issues of international trade, but their credibility is strongly undermined by the fact that they have not always been known to act in the interest of the working class population - instead, favoring those who fund them. Calling said working class people idiots because "they just don't understand" ... yeah that's fucking stupid. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
On September 06 2016 02:10 LegalLord wrote: No, but that's pretty far from what I said as well. In a much simpler sense, they can tell whether or not their jobs will be at risk if a given policy is supported. No, they can not. They do not understand trade agreements. They don't understand the role of India's middle class in global trade. Same with China's. They don't understand how other countries changing can also lead to necessary changes in our country. They don't even know how other countries are changing. It is not reasonable or even feasible for someone to have a normal life and still have a firm grasp on ideas people dedicate their entire lives to studying. Could anyone do Yellen's job? If everyone could understand the effects of things Yellen does, that means they would be able to do her job. They would be able to predict the impacts of various things and thus be able to decide what to do. On September 06 2016 02:10 LegalLord wrote: Obviously there is a need for experts to be able to deal with the more difficult issues of international trade, but their credibility is strongly undermined by the fact that they have not always been known to act in the interest of the working class population - instead, favoring those who fund them. Or perhaps your interpretation, and the interpretation of many others, is straight up ignorant. Maybe people don't understand how many other variables are constantly in play. An example of this kind of arrogance is also seen in the Iran deal. A lot of people felt like we gave Iran too much and that we didn't bargain well enough. But perhaps Iran and the US are in very different positions than they were 50 years ago. Perhaps the US does not have 100% complete dominion over the world and we really were in a position where we needed to give a little. Not much changed here, but across the pond, all sorts of things changed. Power dynamics, both militarily and economically, have changed dramatically over the years. People can't imagine a world where we actually did need to negotiate with Iran, but that's their own fault. When it comes to trade deals hurting the working class, what if the working class is just in a straight up worse situation? What if we don't have some divine, timeless system of economic governance? What if shifts across the world can have huge impacts at home? What if other countries catching up to the US is something the US can't stop? Maybe other countries catching up will invariably result in the US losing power. These aren't things that joe shmoe thinks about. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20255 Posts
On September 06 2016 02:10 LegalLord wrote: No, but that's pretty far from what I said as well. In a much simpler sense, they can tell whether or not their jobs will be at risk if a given policy is supported. Obviously there is a need for experts to be able to deal with the more difficult issues of international trade, but their credibility is strongly undermined by the fact that they have not always been known to act in the interest of the working class population - instead, favoring those who fund them. Calling said working class people idiots because "they just don't understand" ... yeah that's fucking stupid. No they really are pretty misinformed. The vast majority of people don't have the time or will (or both) to sift though the mass of information. They usually default to just what they have heard via MSM or by word of mouth. Hell a good chunk of people take those idiotic facebook memes seriously because they are lazy and will auto reject or accept them based on if they already supported the position or not. People are lazy and take in easy to digest material thrown at them. How else do you think people voted for the delusion that was trickle down economics? Or why despite their bad rep MSM still can be effective? People don't actually critically examine policy, they mostly vote for whatever side they already were leaning towards. | ||
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