US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7055

On March 06 2017 11:15 pmh wrote:
How long will this go on about Hillary lol,still the first stage of grief.

On March 06 2017 12:25 WolfintheSheep wrote:

So he looked like a strong candidate against Republicans but not against Clinton?

If Republican voters hadn’t been so disillusioned by their usual leaders, Trump would have remained a fringe candidate. Instead, aided by some prominent right-wing media figures, such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity, the New York businessman was able to present himself as the heir to the Tea Party revolution, which many activists felt had been quashed or betrayed. He was also able to tap into many Republicans’ anger, some of it tinged with racism, about President Obama and his policies; into broader fears of terrorism and economic decline; and into a general disgust with professional politicians, some of which was brought about by the G.O.P.’s own obstructionism.

Contented countries don’t produce politicians like Trump. For many years now, a majority of Americans have told pollsters that they believe the nation is on the wrong track. A decade and a half marked by foreign wars, terrorist threats, recession, slow growth, political gridlock, culture wars, and (for many voters) declining incomes have further undermined faith in the political system, creating space for insurgent candidates like Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Of course, if you are going to run as a populist outsider, you need a message that fires up voters. It was here that Trump’s instinctive grasp of the darker reaches of the Republican psyche came to the fore. Having spent years listening to talk radio, he knew that the issue of illegal immigration divided the grassroots of the Party from its leadership in Washington. In promising to deport millions of undocumented workers and build a wall across the southern border, he established his conservative bone fides and differentiated himself from the other candidates.

In responding to fears of terrorism, Trump made a similar calculation. When he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States and a registry system for Muslims who already live here, he must have known that the media and most of his Republican rivals would react with outrage. But Trump perhaps sensed that his illiberal proposals would prove popular with ordinary G.O.P. voters, and he turned out to be right, especially after the gun massacre in San Bernardino, California, in December.

Finally, Trump ignored some Republican economic orthodoxy, which, for decades, had been promulgated by free-market economists, rich donors, and corporate-funded think tanks. On Social Security, long a target of conservative reformers, he came out against cuts in benefits or a rise in the retirement age. On taxes, he took a standard Republican line, releasing a reform plan that would bestow huge gains on wealthy households, but he hasn’t talked about it very much. Instead, he has promised to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure—such as roads, airports, schools, and hospitals—saying that much of what we have got is “Third World.” His pledge to rebuild isn’t very credible—he doesn’t say where the money would come from—but it aligns him more closely with Democrats than with many Republicans.

Trump’s biggest heresy was to abandon free trade. Claiming that NAFTA and other trade agreements have cost countless jobs, he threatened to impose hefty tariffs on countries such as China, which export a lot of cheap goods to the United States. In his speech last night, Trump made clear that he will try to use this line of attack against Hillary Clinton. “She doesn’t understand trade,” he said, adding that NAFTA, which her husband signed, was “perhaps the single worst trade deal in history.” But it isn’t just previous Democratic and Republican Administrations that Trump has challenged. He has also criticized American corporations for shifting jobs to foreign countries, and has threatened to punish them. “We’re going to bring back our jobs, and we are going to save our jobs,” he said at Trump Tower. If U.S. companies insist on moving them overseas, he went on, “there will be consequences, and there will be very serious consequences.”

As with his tax and spending promises, Trump’s tough talk on trade and offshoring doesn’t withstand close inspection. (How would he bring the jobs back?) It does, however, give him something to say to Republican voters who have seen factories close down, jobs lost, and wages stagnate. And it further distinguishes him from other Republican politicians.

And that, in the end, is Trump’s greatest strength. Despite having demonstrated political cunning in the course of dispatching his sixteen rivals, he has managed to convince many Republican voters that he isn’t a politician at all.

On March 06 2017 14:03 Nevuk wrote:

No, the GOP numbers would basically be entirely "Don't know/not sure" because they view the media as an extension of Clinton, so it wouldn't be a valid question to them.

On March 06 2017 11:54 LegalLord wrote:

Somehow, yes.

On March 06 2017 13:49 Slaughter wrote:
If it were Clinton in the same situation those numbers would be flipped. Not that Clinton would be though, because you know she would be an actual president and not a reality tv star.

On March 06 2017 11:15 pmh wrote:
How long will this go on about Hillary lol,still the first stage of grief.

On March 06 2017 12:25 WolfintheSheep wrote:

So he looked like a strong candidate against Republicans but not against Clinton?

If Republican voters hadn’t been so disillusioned by their usual leaders, Trump would have remained a fringe candidate. Instead, aided by some prominent right-wing media figures, such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity, the New York businessman was able to present himself as the heir to the Tea Party revolution, which many activists felt had been quashed or betrayed. He was also able to tap into many Republicans’ anger, some of it tinged with racism, about President Obama and his policies; into broader fears of terrorism and economic decline; and into a general disgust with professional politicians, some of which was brought about by the G.O.P.’s own obstructionism.

Contented countries don’t produce politicians like Trump. For many years now, a majority of Americans have told pollsters that they believe the nation is on the wrong track. A decade and a half marked by foreign wars, terrorist threats, recession, slow growth, political gridlock, culture wars, and (for many voters) declining incomes have further undermined faith in the political system, creating space for insurgent candidates like Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Of course, if you are going to run as a populist outsider, you need a message that fires up voters. It was here that Trump’s instinctive grasp of the darker reaches of the Republican psyche came to the fore. Having spent years listening to talk radio, he knew that the issue of illegal immigration divided the grassroots of the Party from its leadership in Washington. In promising to deport millions of undocumented workers and build a wall across the southern border, he established his conservative bone fides and differentiated himself from the other candidates.

In responding to fears of terrorism, Trump made a similar calculation. When he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States and a registry system for Muslims who already live here, he must have known that the media and most of his Republican rivals would react with outrage. But Trump perhaps sensed that his illiberal proposals would prove popular with ordinary G.O.P. voters, and he turned out to be right, especially after the gun massacre in San Bernardino, California, in December.

Finally, Trump ignored some Republican economic orthodoxy, which, for decades, had been promulgated by free-market economists, rich donors, and corporate-funded think tanks. On Social Security, long a target of conservative reformers, he came out against cuts in benefits or a rise in the retirement age. On taxes, he took a standard Republican line, releasing a reform plan that would bestow huge gains on wealthy households, but he hasn’t talked about it very much. Instead, he has promised to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure—such as roads, airports, schools, and hospitals—saying that much of what we have got is “Third World.” His pledge to rebuild isn’t very credible—he doesn’t say where the money would come from—but it aligns him more closely with Democrats than with many Republicans.

Trump’s biggest heresy was to abandon free trade. Claiming that NAFTA and other trade agreements have cost countless jobs, he threatened to impose hefty tariffs on countries such as China, which export a lot of cheap goods to the United States. In his speech last night, Trump made clear that he will try to use this line of attack against Hillary Clinton. “She doesn’t understand trade,” he said, adding that NAFTA, which her husband signed, was “perhaps the single worst trade deal in history.” But it isn’t just previous Democratic and Republican Administrations that Trump has challenged. He has also criticized American corporations for shifting jobs to foreign countries, and has threatened to punish them. “We’re going to bring back our jobs, and we are going to save our jobs,” he said at Trump Tower. If U.S. companies insist on moving them overseas, he went on, “there will be consequences, and there will be very serious consequences.”

As with his tax and spending promises, Trump’s tough talk on trade and offshoring doesn’t withstand close inspection. (How would he bring the jobs back?) It does, however, give him something to say to Republican voters who have seen factories close down, jobs lost, and wages stagnate. And it further distinguishes him from other Republican politicians.

And that, in the end, is Trump’s greatest strength. Despite having demonstrated political cunning in the course of dispatching his sixteen rivals, he has managed to convince many Republican voters that he isn’t a politician at all.

On March 06 2017 14:03 Nevuk wrote:

No, the GOP numbers would basically be entirely "Don't know/not sure" because they view the media as an extension of Clinton, so it wouldn't be a valid question to them.