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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 17 2016 05:11 On_Slaught wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 05:07 LegalLord wrote:On November 17 2016 05:04 On_Slaught wrote:
Trump isn't even president and his administration is already a mess. People expect it to get better when he's officially president? Incompetence AND outlandish policies that wont work? Dems have nothing to worry about in 2020. In all likelihood the Dems will win in 2020. I don't expect Trump to be a popular president, but the Dems have some fixing to do in their own party if they want to be viable on the national stage in the legislature. I agree that the Democratic party has to do some soul-searching but I don't think it's as bad as people on this forum, like Dauntx, make it out to be. Most of that is wishful thinking. She did win the popular vote and I think it was you that mention that she was only like 150 thousand votes away from victory and the swing States. Just having a different person then Clinton will go a long way towards covering that gap. As I see it the candle is burning from both ends. Trump will inevitably disappoint the people who don't normally vote or who don't normally vote Republican who voted for him while the Democrats will put up a more palatable candidates plus any other Pro working-class reforms they implement between now and then. I could easily see 2020 is the year of Elizabeth Warren. A woman who has some of that Sanders street cred Edit : like in the tweet above it is obviously stupid and unproductive however the election just happened. The Democrats have years to get this straight and it will not be figured out in the first month or week after losing the election.
The Democrats lost the presidency but that is only part of their issue. The deeper issue is how badly they are doing in Congress and in gubernatorial elections. There, they have been failing hard, and their minor gains in presidential years are not enough to offset their losses in midterm years because Obama's administration didn't inspire them to vote. Trump is a really, really bad candidate and it is not much of a benchmark to be able to beat him. That Clinton failed to do so is her own weakness and the weakness of the party apparatus that cleared the way for her.
The Republicans aren't doing great either. Trump won but he isn't really their candidate. And it's not like Sanders who is a Democrat Progressive in all but name (the Vermont Democrats name him as their nominee), he really isn't a Republican. They have the seats but no one will forget how much they hate the Congressional Republicans. That will break them sooner or later, but the Democrats need to get their house of cards together and probably purge the Hillary Clinton elements of the party.
I don't see Warren being president. She doesn't have the charm of Bernie, and she probably belongs best in Congress playing a supporting role. And Bernie might not be the best choice to actually be president either, but he would be a decent party leader as a Senator. Someone new would be great.
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The Democrats can recover, but they have some work to do on their messaging.
As for 2020, it is just as ridiculous (if not more so) to presume that Trump's presidency will be a failure as it was to presume that he couldn't win back in 2015. For all we know, he could end up being as beloved at Reagan -- and all of those parallels should not be missed. If Trump runs again in 2020, the fearmongering that democrats used to try to take him down will no longer be hypothetical. It will either be confirmed or outright repudiated (and the latter is far more likely).
Also, I think that it is a mistake to not incorporate some form of dynamic analysis to projecting future elections given what we have just witnessed. Both parties and their platforms are going to change over the next few years. The old electoral lines of the past generation likely don't apply anymore.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
My prediction of a Trump loss in 2020 is based on the perception that he isn't going to be particularly good as president. Very likely not as bad as his critics claim but in him I don't see the makings of a particularly great administrator. If it were Hillary Clinton I'd be even more sure of the inability to be reelected (she would have the successor-to-incumbent disadvantage historical trend working against her) but to a large extent it depends on who the Democrats can dig up to run against him. If their choices are bad they will lose. If not, I expect Democrats to be favored by 2020.
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On November 16 2016 23:47 zlefin wrote:
I just dislike when people try to say it all comes down to X, or all the blame needs to go on Y. rather than accepting a more nuanced answer, wherein blame and causation are attributed to many different factors. In particular a lot of people who are predisposed to being anti-clinton tend to try to put everything on her, rather than letting blame&causation be spread around some.
Your call for nuanced analysis is appreciated. I don't think anyone here is denying that Clinton and her campaign made important strategic mistakes, yet various other factors which definitely played a role in her defeat are waved away by some people with clear anti-Clinton bias as mere excuses, when any impartial observer would recognize their significance. The role played by various media outlets in how they covered both the campaign as a whole (see for example my previous posts on the false equivalences which characterized a substantial part of the coverage, on the focus on the state of the race itself rather than on policy issues, on the focus sometimes on perception rather than on facts (the WaPo's Chris Cillizza being the poster boy for this), etc.) and HRC's e-mail "scandal" in particular, by Sanders' constant attacks for months on HRC's personal integrity and on the DNC, by the long history of GOP false smears against HRC, by the sexist lenses many still have on, by Wikileaks' releasing documents impacting only HRC and the Democrats, by echo chambers on social media, by James Comey' two breaches of protocol, by how many in the conservative media have so vilified the so-called "mainstream media" over the last couple of decades that reporting is much more rapidly dismissed as soon as it contradicts pre-existing views (about Trump's honesty, for example), etc. -- the list goes on.
The argument that those only played a tangential role because the main issue was how deeply flawed HRC is personally completely misses the point: many people's views of HRC as deeply and fundamentally flawed is precisely shaped by several of the factors mentioned above, and this is particularly true of the fact that many see her as dishonest. Both the quantitative and qualitative data that we have show us that she isn't more or less dishonest than any regular Democratic politician (the witch hunts of the early 1990s did lead her to become more secretive and distrustful of the media, though) -- which is not to say that she never lies, but that's not the same thing as being uniquely and profoundly more dishonest than everyone else --, and her record clearly shows her drive in fighting for a variety of issues that directly resonate with a large part of the electorate. Yet over the last two years, several of the factors I mentioned above contributed to the nose-dive of her honest/dishonest ratings. Obviously, this is not to say either that she did not have weaknesses or that no criticism of her is legitimate. Nevertheless, an honest assessment of her defeat should unquestionably leave a huge space to many of the factors I highlighted.
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On November 17 2016 05:42 LegalLord wrote:
My prediction of a Trump loss in 2020 is based on the perception that he isn't going to be particularly good as president. Very likely not as bad as his critics claim but in him I don't see the makings of a particularly great administrator. If it were Hillary Clinton I'd be even more sure of the inability to be reelected (she would have the successor-to-incumbent disadvantage historical trend working against her) but to a large extent it depends on who the Democrats can dig up to run against him. If their choices are bad they will lose. If not, I expect Democrats to be favored by 2020.
If Trump does too badly (or is perceived to do too badly), there's always the chance that the Democrats start thinking anyone can beat him in 2020 again, and try and run an establishment figure. This is the worse possibility for progressives, but the way it's shaping up so far I don't really think that's going to happen. Seeing talk of the sexism of Berniebros so late isn't reassuring at all on that front.
If Trump does well, it's going to generally be through somewhat progressive policies (for example he's not going to do well by being very successful at killing climate change agreements, or by increasing income inequality so hard it will make my head spin). I'd rather have Trump do well, honestly, I just don't believe it has the slightest chance of happening (I don't even believe that he wants in good faith the things that would make him do well)
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
So I just spent some time looking through wiki's international reactions to Trump's victory. Most of them are congratulatory, some more than others. The exceptions? Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission, Jans Stoltenberg of NATO, Francois Hollande of France, Angela Merkel of Germany (but the president did congratulate him), and Hassan Rouhani on Iran, all of who instead expressed their reservations about him. Not a surprising list, but I thought some people might care.
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On November 17 2016 05:09 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Sigh...
By Bernie Bros she means Bernie himself or his (male) followers ?
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The Pentagon and Department of justice have not heard a single word from Trump and team trump. Christie and Rogers were FIRED ! And others jumped off the burning wagon of incompetence that is becoming the Trump ADMINISTRATION.
Trump and Twitter won't make a good team to run the US.
Frankly I have to say, that the "american age" is over with Trump in charge. I do not know if germany or france are able or willing to pick up the ball, and turn the Eu from a bureaucratic monster to an efficient and united economy, with at least 10% of american patriotism
Also military spending has to increase with Troops of Trump will suffer from a leader that changes his mind in mere hours.
User was warned for this post
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On November 17 2016 05:33 xDaunt wrote:
If Trump runs again in 2020, the fearmongering that democrats used to try to take him down will no longer be hypothetical. It will either be confirmed or outright repudiated (and the latter is far more likely).
That's quite the conundrum, because the only way for the fearmongering to not be confirmed is if he does almost none of his electoral promises. Which I agree that is far more likely than the reverse, but it's gonna be a hard sell to the working class in the rust belt that got him elected.
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Would not the democrats recover with 0 policy changes if they managed to push through a law changing vote day to a weekend or requiring voting with a fine at taxes for not voting (or similar)? Basically, if turnout went up 10-20%. That should probably be what they are targetting more than anything else.
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On November 17 2016 06:13 KT_Elwood wrote:
The Pentagon and Department of justice have not heard a single word from Trump and team trump. Christie and Rogers were FIRED ! And others jumped off the burning wagon of incompetence that is becoming the Trump ADMINISTRATION.
Trump and Twitter won't make a good team to run the US.
Frankly I have to say, that the "american age" is over with Trump in charge. I do not know if germany or france are able or willing to pick up the ball, and turn the Eu from a bureaucratic monster to an efficient and united economy, with at least 10% of american patriotism
Also military spending has to increase with Troops of Trump will suffer from a leader that changes his mind in mere hours.
The fact that we have a president elect who personally uses twitter every day should tell us a lot. It's so fucking unprofessional. No leader of any country should be spouting off on social media. It just feels..... gross.
I was cautiously optimistic to begin with, but there seems to be a new sign of incompetence or another decision that raises red flags every day. I can't figure out if Trump is legitimately unintelligent and just filthy rich, or if he is fairly bright but doesn't give a fuck about other people's opinions. Either one has the potential to cause catastrophe. My brother and I disagreed on who to vote for, but like I told him, I would rather have a corrupt career politician running the show than a moron. Even if hillary was "evil", at least she knows what the fuck she's doing.
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You guys are missing the larger genius of Trump's Twitter usage. Twitter lets Trump speak directly to the American people without being filtered by a biased press.
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On November 17 2016 06:08 WhiteDog wrote:By Bernie Bros she means Bernie himself or his (male) followers ?
Bernie Bros is the notion that Bernie Sanders supporters are primarily male and are opposing Hillary because she's a woman and they're uncomfortable with that.
Basically she's blaming a strawman that they invented during the primaries for their loss in the general.
xDaunt: I agree with you, I'm completely missing the genius of having a Twitter account and using it.
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I'm fine with a president using twitter as long as it's used well. Trump just isn't using it well. it's certainly possible to have a very professional twitter feed.
also, xdaunt's claim of filtering is nonsense, a president can speak anytime they want and his words will be broadcast/reported in full (and also with summaries for those who don't want to see the full thing). and of course the press isn't so biased on the whole.
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On November 17 2016 06:24 Yurie wrote:
Would not the democrats recover with 0 policy changes if they managed to push through a law changing vote day to a weekend or requiring voting with a fine at taxes for not voting (or similar)? Basically, if turnout went up 10-20%. That should probably be what they are targetting more than anything else.
Mandatory voting get more people to vote who do not care about the process, the candidates or the outcome.
It's how you get more Trump, not less.
You want to make it easier for those who actually want to vote to be able to do so.
Also HAHA at the idea that the Democrats, while not in control of any arm of government could force through a change that would make it more likely for them to win elections.
Do you think the Republicans, who have been vindicated of 6 years of pure obstructionism, will work with anyone else, right now?
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On November 17 2016 06:29 xDaunt wrote:
You guys are missing the larger genius of Trump's Twitter usage. Twitter lets Trump speak directly to the American people without being filtered by a biased press.
That is not a good thing. An uncensored president with a short fuse and a twitter account is going to cause multiple major international and domestic issues over the next four years. Mark my words. That's if he doesn't really step in it and end up getting impeached.
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On November 17 2016 06:37 zlefin wrote:
I'm fine with a president using twitter as long as it's used well. Trump just isn't using it well. it's certainly possible to have a very professional twitter feed.
also, xdaunt's claim of filtering is nonsense, a president can speak anytime they want and his words will be broadcast/reported in full (and also with summaries for those who don't want to see the full thing). and of course the press isn't so biased on the whole.
That's where I was going with my post. There is a degree of care that has to be taken with your stupid fucking twitter feed when you are the most powerful man in the world.
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On November 17 2016 06:13 KT_Elwood wrote:
The Pentagon and Department of justice have not heard a single word from Trump and team trump.
Trump stumbled, rolled and limped to the finish line of the election, but the incompetence and mixed messages could actually get really bad now.
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On November 17 2016 06:43 Ayaz2810 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 06:29 xDaunt wrote:
You guys are missing the larger genius of Trump's Twitter usage. Twitter lets Trump speak directly to the American people without being filtered by a biased press. That is not a good thing. An uncensored president with a short fuse and a twitter account is going to cause multiple major international and domestic issues over the next four years. Mark my words. That's if he doesn't really step in it and end up getting impeached.
You have to separate the content from the means of delivery. Yes, if Trump abuses his use of Twitter, that will clearly be a problem. But that doesn't change the fact that Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool that he can use to instantly reach tens of millions of people directly and instantly in a way that he wouldn't be able to otherwise.
And the only reasons why someone would think that it's bad for the press to not be able to filter Trump would 1) that person wants the press to cover for Trump's lapses (HAH, like that will ever happen), or 2) that person wants the press to be able to negative distort what Trump says (which we have a long history of).
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On November 17 2016 06:50 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 06:43 Ayaz2810 wrote:On November 17 2016 06:29 xDaunt wrote:
You guys are missing the larger genius of Trump's Twitter usage. Twitter lets Trump speak directly to the American people without being filtered by a biased press. That is not a good thing. An uncensored president with a short fuse and a twitter account is going to cause multiple major international and domestic issues over the next four years. Mark my words. That's if he doesn't really step in it and end up getting impeached. You have to separate the content from the means of delivery. Yes, if Trump abuses his use of Twitter, that will clearly be a problem. But that doesn't change the fact that Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool that he can use to instantly reach tens of millions of people directly and instantly in a way that he wouldn't be able to otherwise.And the only reasons why someone would think that it's bad for the press to not be able to filter Trump would 1) that person wants the press to cover for Trump's lapses (HAH, like that will ever happen), or 2) that person wants the press to be able to negative distort what Trump says (which we have a long history of).
He is the president and not a walking straw poll. I think when people came up with the office that's the kind of thing they wanted to avoid
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