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On November 25 2016 02:21 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 02:08 Slaughter wrote:On November 25 2016 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On November 25 2016 00:40 farvacola wrote:
Trump's coalition won't give anyone "power for decades"....... Trump stole the Democrat's blue collar base. If he cements that with his policies and then undoes some of the hardened opposition against him from the past election, the democrats are fucked. The question becomes who are the heirs to this new party after Trump is out of office. And I'm guessing the pond scum of the Republican Party who obtained new-found relevance under Trump are who you expect to be those heirs? Honestly I could see a more populist platform develop out of the current party. Probably would require some new faces but it could be done.
I have no idea who will emerge, I don't know much about younger Republican politicians. The pond scum is already sucking at the power teat though, Ala newt and Rudy. They aren't the future though.
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On November 24 2016 17:41 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2016 17:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Well the money got raised. rofl, now the target is $6.5m Also, they added the Ohio green party if you want to donate up to $22,700 (lookin at you farv) The group eleborated on their thinkingOne problem I see for Hillary supporters is that there's no way to believe this and also believe the idea that Hillary (or her supporters) couldn't have also potentially rigged machines in the primary(where there are much less protections). It's essentially the same argument made by Bernie supporters in the primary, except the anomalies are less suspicious in practically every measure, there are far more protections during the general (the same people supporting Hillary we're the ones running the primary), and they keep mentioning the popular vote (like her margin isn't a result of California and New York, not the contested states) How can the electronic vote be recounted anyway? If someone were to change the amounts, is there a way to tell? This seems like a waste of time to me. Or is the vote not secret and they can call people and ask them if they voted the way they appeared to?
Most but not all electronic voting has paper trails.
None of which explains why she wants Michigan recounted because thats all paper ballots.If you want to recount it just because it's close why not recount NH as well? thats my point.
They are counted by machine though which has software, and are never manually examined.
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Oh i get it now. Trump wants to sink cities so he can build them anew in his name. Its called business folks and apparently hes very good at it. Just think of the job creation we can muster due to the suffering of others, its the american way after all.
Man made climate change may not be as catastrophic as natural disasters by why speed up our demise if we can prevent it. I'm not too keen on some green energy such as solar farms and wind since they destroy wild life but seriously fuck coal. Anyone else hopeful the future of clean energy will be something like elon musks solar rooftops? Safe for the environment and its just a cool concept.
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On November 25 2016 02:56 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 02:21 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 02:08 Slaughter wrote:On November 25 2016 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On November 25 2016 00:40 farvacola wrote:
Trump's coalition won't give anyone "power for decades"....... Trump stole the Democrat's blue collar base. If he cements that with his policies and then undoes some of the hardened opposition against him from the past election, the democrats are fucked. The question becomes who are the heirs to this new party after Trump is out of office. And I'm guessing the pond scum of the Republican Party who obtained new-found relevance under Trump are who you expect to be those heirs? Honestly I could see a more populist platform develop out of the current party. Probably would require some new faces but it could be done. I have no idea who will emerge, I don't know much about younger Republican politicians. The pond scum is already sucking at the power teat though, Ala newt and Rudy. They aren't the future though.
Almost all of the candidates of any prominence this time around were older folk too. Both parties need some new faces and neither side has truly impressed on that front. Democrats had Obama and have had a hard time finding anyone charismatic enough for a follow-up.
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On November 25 2016 02:21 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 02:08 Slaughter wrote:On November 25 2016 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On November 25 2016 00:40 farvacola wrote:
Trump's coalition won't give anyone "power for decades"....... Trump stole the Democrat's blue collar base. If he cements that with his policies and then undoes some of the hardened opposition against him from the past election, the democrats are fucked. The question becomes who are the heirs to this new party after Trump is out of office. And I'm guessing the pond scum of the Republican Party who obtained new-found relevance under Trump are who you expect to be those heirs? Honestly I could see a more populist platform develop out of the current party. Probably would require some new faces but it could be done.
Seems like we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's grant, for the moment, that Trump "stole the blue collar base," which seems at least approximately true for present purposes. By virtually everyone's estimation (except a few far-left liberals who think it was about race), he did this by demonizing liberal elites and campaigning against free trade. He promised people would get their manufacturing jobs back with him in office, because he would tear up NAFTA, exit the WTO, set huge tariffs on Chinese goods, etc.
Now I'm no economist, but my understanding is that economic theory is pretty unambiguous on this point: trade is good. In any economic transition there are winners and losers, but in moving toward free trade, the winners win more than the losers lose (that is, the world economy is better off as a whole). Even if you selfishly count any value produced for our foreign trade partners as worthless, we are still probably better off – in a trade, both parties engaging in the trade are better off; it's generally some third party that is losing out on business or something, but that loss is smaller than the gain experienced by those engaging in free trade.
So protectionism hurting the world economy is more or less guaranteed. Protectionism hurting the US economy as a whole is also more or less certain from economic theory. It's possible that while the economy as a whole is hurt, certain sectors might be better off. Here, presumably we're hoping for the American manufacturing to be one of those sectors, although that is by no means certain. The smart money is still on those jobs being gone for good – the inexorable forces of globalization and automation are constantly eroding the need for American manufacturing, and a protectionist policy can only slow globalization, while doing nothing to prevent automation. And even if they did get their jobs back, they would be more impacted than most by the negative economic effects:
-Prices would go up. This looks a bit like inflation, although it's not the money supply that changed, everything just got more expensive. So even if all those white, non-college-educated blue collar workers got $15/hour manufacturing jobs with benefits, they might have more trouble making ends meet than at a $10/hour McDonalds job now.
-Demand would go down. The country as a whole would have less money to spare, because stuff became more expensive. Even if American manufacturing started to pop up again, it could probably only market to other Americans, because foreign trade partners would probably raise their own tariffs in response; and even if they didn't, American manufacturers couldn't compete with foreign industry before, so there's no reason to think that would change. So the new American industry would be selling to the American market, which would already have significantly diminished in purchasing power for reasons discussed above.
-Another recession would be likely. The overall behavior of the economy has a lot of leverage and feedback effects that make it so when it falls, it tends to keep falling. As I said, establishing a protectionist trade policy would almost certainly be a blow to both the world economy as a whole and the US economy specifically; those economic losses would have a good chance to compound to an outcome even worse than the sum of its parts. Since we're discussing this in the context of whether Trump would be blamed for this, it's worth bringing up that the prior probability of a recession in the next four years isn't that likely anyway.
TL;DR: Before we can talk about Trump creating a winning coalition for decades, we first have to contend with his promise to the blue collar workers in question that he can raise them to their former economic glory, using (if his promises are to believed) protectionist trade policy. That promise seems highly dubious at best.
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I disagree that Trump "stole" the blue collar vote. Hillary Clinton freely and easily gave it away. She focused on identity politics, basically said that Trump's base was a bunch of deplorable fags, and built up a "Trump SO BAD" narrative instead of making a case for herself. Trump did gain a lot of support for his anti-trade views on TPP, TTIP, and NAFTA, but people aren't unaware that he is a clown who is probably not the right person for the job. But he's the only one who was running who even offered them a helping hand.
From a general mainstream economist perspective, trade is good, yes. There are winners and losers but the overall economy probably will grow. The benefits are concentrated strongly into the hands of wealthier parties and urban dwellers, though, since they disenfranchise people who have a hard time competing on a global market. The effects of that are less immediate, but terribly bad for the economy. I wrote this earlier treatise on rural development and trade/globalization issues, not sure if you read it. Long story short, though, the reason the big companies and establishment folk support trade deals while the working class oppose them isn't one side just being stupid and short-sighted, it's based on their own self-interests.
If Trump kills the trade deals, which I believe that it's pretty clear that he intends to do, that would be a first step in giving the rural folk that got him elected a chance to rebuild their local economies. What comes after, though, is neither pleasant nor likely to happen under Trump.
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Yeah, Trump didn't steal anything. As I have said a million times, in order for a democrat to lose Wisconsin, they need to fail massively. Wisconsin going to Trump highlights what a shit campaign Clinton ran. That's part of why I'm not super angry about this whole thing. When you got so obviously outplayed, its difficult to feel wronged.
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The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around.
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On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around.
This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details.
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On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details.
We're all already doomed anyway. I mean it's gotten so bad I think we'll all be dead in the next 5 years. Damn you humans!!!!!
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On November 25 2016 04:30 LegalLord wrote:I disagree that Trump "stole" the blue collar vote. Hillary Clinton freely and easily gave it away. She focused on identity politics, basically said that Trump's base was a bunch of deplorable fags, and built up a "Trump SO BAD" narrative instead of making a case for herself. Trump did gain a lot of support for his anti-trade views on TPP, TTIP, and NAFTA, but people aren't unaware that he is a clown who is probably not the right person for the job. But he's the only one who was running who even offered them a helping hand. From a general mainstream economist perspective, trade is good, yes. There are winners and losers but the overall economy probably will grow. The benefits are concentrated strongly into the hands of wealthier parties and urban dwellers, though, since they disenfranchise people who have a hard time competing on a global market. The effects of that are less immediate, but terribly bad for the economy. I wrote this earlier treatise on rural development and trade/globalization issues, not sure if you read it. Long story short, though, the reason the big companies and establishment folk support trade deals while the working class oppose them isn't one side just being stupid and short-sighted, it's based on their own self-interests. If Trump kills the trade deals, which I believe that it's pretty clear that he intends to do, that would be a first step in giving the rural folk that got him elected a chance to rebuild their local economies. What comes after, though, is neither pleasant nor likely to happen under Trump.
I must have missed it because the thread moves so fast, thanks for the link. It seems to me that you were arguing a slightly separate point, though. There and in other places, it seems like you've largely been arguing "even if you think Trump is wrong about being able to bring back those manufacturing jobs, the Democrats didn't offer any alternative plan." Basically, you were trying to answer the question of how the Democrats lost this election. And you may well be right, or at least close enough to it. It's well understood that globalization has been detrimental to the white working class in rural and urban areas alike. It's now also clear that this was one of the determining factors in this election. Much of the what-if-ing and denialism on the left going on right now ( e.g. what if there hadn't been a Comey letter?) is useless, because even if it is true that in a slightly different universe Hillary still would have won despite her deficit with white working class voters, that's not the universe we live in.
But forget the debate about whether Donald Trump "stole" the blue collar base. I only picked that language because xDaunt did; if it helps, imagine it in the context of a baseball player stealing a base (that is, it might not have been entirely on his own merit, but also because the pitcher messed up). Point is, Donald Trump apparently convinced white working class workers that he could return them to their former glory, apparently by means of protectionist trade policy.
I'm not trying to answer the question of why the Democrats lost the election, but of what happens next. And it seems to me that even if free trade did take these people's jobs away, it's very unlikely that protectionist policy could bring them back, and even more unlikely that this transition could happen within the next four or eight years. The immediate impact would almost certainly be a big economic negative that would hurt everyone, including these blue collar workers. The more long-term impact might be a new heyday of American industry, but that would be very unlikely to really get going within Trump's presidency (as you argued in your other treatise, building new industries is really, really hard, and takes a lot of time, money, and dedication). And, again, this new heyday might not happen at all. If, for instance, the detriment to the economy is large enough that everyone is worse off, and even with their manufacturing jobs back the white working class still has lower standards of living than before, it's hard to imagine they would look at Trump as win for them.
If Trump had been more measured in his promises – said that it would be a difficult transition back to domestic manufacturing, and that things would get worse before they got better – then maybe the voters wouldn't take the economic consequences quite as hard. But he didn't. He said that liberal elites were cheating them, that the establishment politicians had been selling them out, and that he would put a stop to that. That made it sound like an easy fix. When he said he'd Make America Great Again, it made it sound like we'd go back to an era where America was manufacturing goods that were bought and enjoyed around the world. If it turned out that the economy shrunk, but at least demand in the now-anemic American market was met domestically, that would still be miles short of the prosperity Trump was promising.
After this election, Trump has created kind of a reputation for doing the impossible. But there's no reason to think he can create the future he promised. The most optimistic predictions of a protectionist foreign policy are much more mixed than the "Make America Great Again" message. Even if the Democrats didn't change their messaging at all, how could Trump make that case to the working class ever again, if he didn't deliver the economic salvation he promised?
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On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details.
Trump seems like he's ultimately going to fall in line with the Paris Accords, so there's that. Besides, it's not like no Trump = we can finally stop climate change! The other candidate likes fracking and it's a long game anyways; sooner or later we will always have more and less climate friendly presidents.
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On November 25 2016 05:22 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 04:30 LegalLord wrote:I disagree that Trump "stole" the blue collar vote. Hillary Clinton freely and easily gave it away. She focused on identity politics, basically said that Trump's base was a bunch of deplorable fags, and built up a "Trump SO BAD" narrative instead of making a case for herself. Trump did gain a lot of support for his anti-trade views on TPP, TTIP, and NAFTA, but people aren't unaware that he is a clown who is probably not the right person for the job. But he's the only one who was running who even offered them a helping hand. From a general mainstream economist perspective, trade is good, yes. There are winners and losers but the overall economy probably will grow. The benefits are concentrated strongly into the hands of wealthier parties and urban dwellers, though, since they disenfranchise people who have a hard time competing on a global market. The effects of that are less immediate, but terribly bad for the economy. I wrote this earlier treatise on rural development and trade/globalization issues, not sure if you read it. Long story short, though, the reason the big companies and establishment folk support trade deals while the working class oppose them isn't one side just being stupid and short-sighted, it's based on their own self-interests. If Trump kills the trade deals, which I believe that it's pretty clear that he intends to do, that would be a first step in giving the rural folk that got him elected a chance to rebuild their local economies. What comes after, though, is neither pleasant nor likely to happen under Trump. I must have missed it because the thread moves so fast, thanks for the link. It seems to me that you were arguing a slightly separate point, though. There and in other places, it seems like you've largely been arguing "even if you think Trump is wrong about being able to bring back those manufacturing jobs, the Democrats didn't offer any alternative plan." Basically, you were trying to answer the question of how the Democrats lost this election. And you may well be right, or at least close enough to it. It's well understood that globalization has been detrimental to the white working class in rural and urban areas alike. It's now also clear that this was one of the determining factors in this election. Much of the what-if-ing and denialism on the left going on right now ( e.g. what if there hadn't been a Comey letter?) is useless, because even if it is true that in a slightly different universe Hillary still would have won despite her deficit with white working class voters, that's not the universe we live in. But forget the debate about whether Donald Trump "stole" the blue collar base. I only picked that language because xDaunt did; if it helps, imagine it in the context of a baseball player stealing a base (that is, it might not have been entirely on his own merit, but also because the pitcher messed up). Point is, Donald Trump apparently convinced white working class workers that he could return them to their former glory, apparently by means of protectionist trade policy. I'm not trying to answer the question of why the Democrats lost the election, but of what happens next. And it seems to me that even if free trade did take these people's jobs away, it's very unlikely that protectionist policy could bring them back, and even more unlikely that this transition could happen within the next four or eight years. The immediate impact would almost certainly be a big economic negative that would hurt everyone, including these blue collar workers. The more long-term impact might be a new heyday of American industry, but that would be very unlikely to really get going within Trump's presidency (as you argued in your other treatise, building new industries is really, really hard, and takes a lot of time, money, and dedication). And, again, this new heyday might not happen at all. If, for instance, the detriment to the economy is large enough that everyone is worse off, and even with their manufacturing jobs back the white working class still has lower standards of living than before, it's hard to imagine they would look at Trump as win for them. If Trump had been more measured in his promises – said that it would be a difficult transition back to domestic manufacturing, and that things would get worse before they got better – then maybe the voters wouldn't take the economic consequences quite as hard. But he didn't. He said that liberal elites were cheating them, that the establishment politicians had been selling them out, and that he would put a stop to that. That made it sound like an easy fix. When he said he'd Make America Great Again, it made it sound like we'd go back to an era where America was manufacturing goods that were bought and enjoyed around the world. If it turned out that the economy shrunk, but at least demand in the now-anemic American market was met domestically, that would still be miles short of the prosperity Trump was promising. After this election, Trump has created kind of a reputation for doing the impossible. But there's no reason to think he can create the future he promised. The most optimistic predictions of a protectionist foreign policy are much more mixed than the "Make America Great Again" message. Even if the Democrats didn't change their messaging at all, how could Trump make that case to the working class ever again, if he didn't deliver the economic salvation he promised?
His promises are hyperbolic and will end up coming short, that much is clear. He might be able to open up a path for them that involves a definitively more protectionist approach, but at this point they were a forgotten group that no one was talking about within the scope of political discourse. By getting Trump elected they sent their message, now we see where we can go from here.
Of course if the Democrats do no better than just criticize Trump all the time, they could set themselves up for another stupid loss in four years. Trump being bad evidently wasn't reason enough to elect the delectably electable Hillary Clinton to office.
No one really knows what will come next. I gave some background as to what is involved in this matter and what could be done. It's time to just see what kind of administration Trump constructs and work from there, however it ends up happening.
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On November 25 2016 05:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details. Trump seems like he's ultimately going to fall in line with the Paris Accords, so there's that. Besides, it's not like no Trump = we can finally stop climate change! The other candidate likes fracking and it's a long game anyways; sooner or later we will always have more and less climate friendly presidents.
Still seems pretty low resolution to me. The gap between "supports fracking" and "appoints a head of the EPA that doesn't believe in climate change" is pretty huge. It's possible to simultaneously believe that 1) fracking is okay if practiced under the right guidelines, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. It's less possible to believe 1) climate change isn't real, and may or may not be a Chinese hoax, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing.
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On November 25 2016 05:39 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 05:30 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details. Trump seems like he's ultimately going to fall in line with the Paris Accords, so there's that. Besides, it's not like no Trump = we can finally stop climate change! The other candidate likes fracking and it's a long game anyways; sooner or later we will always have more and less climate friendly presidents. Still seems pretty low resolution to me. The gap between "supports fracking" and "appoints a head of the EPA that doesn't believe in climate change" is pretty huge. It's possible to simultaneously believe that 1) fracking is okay if practiced under the right guidelines, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. It's less possible to believe 1) climate change isn't real, and may or may not be a Chinese hoax, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing.
And if Clinton won here, do you think it likely that she could be unpopular enough to let a Trump clone win in 2020?
Look at the long game. This matter goes beyond just the this or the next election. We will have more and less pro-climate presidents, always. The macro effects of how the parties respond to getting smacked might just offer an opportunity for long-term growth that will make things work out for the better. The Clinton Democrats were taking the party in a very wrong direction and it would not be a bad thing to see them purged from relevance.
Whether or not this was the better outcome, there is plenty that can be done from here to make it better.
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On November 25 2016 05:45 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 05:39 ChristianS wrote:On November 25 2016 05:30 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details. Trump seems like he's ultimately going to fall in line with the Paris Accords, so there's that. Besides, it's not like no Trump = we can finally stop climate change! The other candidate likes fracking and it's a long game anyways; sooner or later we will always have more and less climate friendly presidents. Still seems pretty low resolution to me. The gap between "supports fracking" and "appoints a head of the EPA that doesn't believe in climate change" is pretty huge. It's possible to simultaneously believe that 1) fracking is okay if practiced under the right guidelines, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. It's less possible to believe 1) climate change isn't real, and may or may not be a Chinese hoax, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. And if Clinton won here, do you think it likely that she could be unpopular enough to let a Trump clone win in 2020? Look at the long game. This matter goes beyond just the this or the next election. We will have more and less pro-climate presidents, always. The macro effects of how the parties respond to getting smacked might just offer an opportunity for long-term growth that will make things work out for the better. The Clinton Democrats were taking the party in a very wrong direction and it would not be a bad thing to see them purged from relevance. Whether or not this was the better outcome, there is plenty that can be done from here to make it better.
While a Clinton presidency counterfactual is way, way too big to try to evaluate here, suffice to say I think this was the last election that something like Trump's win could happen. But that's mostly with regard to racial issues; on climate change, of course, it's possible that with a Hillary win, maybe a climate change denier would have won in 2020. But it's not even clear if that would be worse than a climate change denier winning in 2016.
If we're discussing climate change, it's a win when candidates that want to do something about it win, and it's a loss when candidates who don't want to do something about it win. It really is that simple. To say "but some candidates are better and some are worse on climate change" isn't really a rebuttal. Of course we will have more and less pro-climate presidents, but that doesn't mean there's no reason to be frustrated by the less pro-climate presidents, nor does it mean we shouldn't criticize them.
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On November 25 2016 05:45 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 05:39 ChristianS wrote:On November 25 2016 05:30 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details. Trump seems like he's ultimately going to fall in line with the Paris Accords, so there's that. Besides, it's not like no Trump = we can finally stop climate change! The other candidate likes fracking and it's a long game anyways; sooner or later we will always have more and less climate friendly presidents. Still seems pretty low resolution to me. The gap between "supports fracking" and "appoints a head of the EPA that doesn't believe in climate change" is pretty huge. It's possible to simultaneously believe that 1) fracking is okay if practiced under the right guidelines, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. It's less possible to believe 1) climate change isn't real, and may or may not be a Chinese hoax, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. And if Clinton won here, do you think it likely that she could be unpopular enough to let a Trump clone win in 2020? Look at the long game. This matter goes beyond just the this or the next election. We will have more and less pro-climate presidents, always. The macro effects of how the parties respond to getting smacked might just offer an opportunity for long-term growth that will make things work out for the better. The Clinton Democrats were taking the party in a very wrong direction and it would not be a bad thing to see them purged from relevance. Whether or not this was the better outcome, there is plenty that can be done from here to make it better.
I don't think we can just kick the can down the road four years from now and assume everything will still be fine. Trump's presidency is going to include Scalia-level conservative justices for the next 20 years and free reign for the three Republican branches of government, and undoing scientific and social progress takes time to rebuild.
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Trump seems to have backtracked on the worst of his anti-environment work, including more or less coming to terms with the Paris Accords, so at this point I mostly expect things to normalize. They will probably be worse than I would like but that was a foregone conclusion when I saw who the primary winners were.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 25 2016 05:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 05:45 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 05:39 ChristianS wrote:On November 25 2016 05:30 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 04:57 Mohdoo wrote:On November 25 2016 04:48 LegalLord wrote:
The way I see it, I lose with Trump, I would have lost with Clinton. Either way I lose. Best to make the best of things as they are than to bash our president to be, and figure out how to right what he does wrong next time around. This is an extremely low resolution perspective. When it comes to climate change, who do you lose with the most? You are ignoring details. Trump seems like he's ultimately going to fall in line with the Paris Accords, so there's that. Besides, it's not like no Trump = we can finally stop climate change! The other candidate likes fracking and it's a long game anyways; sooner or later we will always have more and less climate friendly presidents. Still seems pretty low resolution to me. The gap between "supports fracking" and "appoints a head of the EPA that doesn't believe in climate change" is pretty huge. It's possible to simultaneously believe that 1) fracking is okay if practiced under the right guidelines, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. It's less possible to believe 1) climate change isn't real, and may or may not be a Chinese hoax, and 2) climate change is a big problem that we should dedicate considerable resources to addressing. And if Clinton won here, do you think it likely that she could be unpopular enough to let a Trump clone win in 2020? Look at the long game. This matter goes beyond just the this or the next election. We will have more and less pro-climate presidents, always. The macro effects of how the parties respond to getting smacked might just offer an opportunity for long-term growth that will make things work out for the better. The Clinton Democrats were taking the party in a very wrong direction and it would not be a bad thing to see them purged from relevance. Whether or not this was the better outcome, there is plenty that can be done from here to make it better. I don't think we can just kick the can down the road four years from now and assume everything will still be fine. Trump's presidency is going to include Scalia-level conservative justices for the next 20 years and free reign for the three Republican branches of government, and undoing scientific and social progress takes time to rebuild.
No, some things will definitely get worse. And yet there's something to be said for the other side of the coin, the issues that I would expect a Clinton presidency to botch (including the passage of those trade deals against popular opinion).
Trump won't be Hitler, and Clinton wouldn't have been our savior. We had two terrible candidates and one of them won. That one wasn't the one I voted for but the way I see it I lose either way and we have to work with what we got. If Trump is serious about some of his populist goals then I will give him a chance to put his money where his mouth is and show it to be doable.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 25 2016 03:47 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2016 02:56 Slaughter wrote:On November 25 2016 02:21 LegalLord wrote:On November 25 2016 02:08 Slaughter wrote:On November 25 2016 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On November 25 2016 00:40 farvacola wrote:
Trump's coalition won't give anyone "power for decades"....... Trump stole the Democrat's blue collar base. If he cements that with his policies and then undoes some of the hardened opposition against him from the past election, the democrats are fucked. The question becomes who are the heirs to this new party after Trump is out of office. And I'm guessing the pond scum of the Republican Party who obtained new-found relevance under Trump are who you expect to be those heirs? Honestly I could see a more populist platform develop out of the current party. Probably would require some new faces but it could be done. I have no idea who will emerge, I don't know much about younger Republican politicians. The pond scum is already sucking at the power teat though, Ala newt and Rudy. They aren't the future though. Almost all of the candidates of any prominence this time around were older folk too. Both parties need some new faces and neither side has truly impressed on that front. Democrats had Obama and have had a hard time finding anyone charismatic enough for a follow-up.
I don't see what the problem with fracking is. Fracking is a perfectly legitimate way if not very economical way to extract oil/gas in the US. It's much better than the coal alternative from a pollution and carbon perspective.
Fracking problems are:
[*] well hole seal failure
[*] fracking fluid cleanup
The well hole sealing failure is a general problem with the oil/gas industry.
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EPT
