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On May 06 2017 03:11 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 03:01 Plansix wrote:On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. People will write books about it, but the long and short of it is that the Democrats failed. In their effort to make the biggest tent possible and be the most inclusive party, they diluted their message. I feel like this is a cop-out excuse for the failure of the Democratic party over the actual economic and foreign relation policies of the Democrats not favoring the working class at all and often catering to company interests at their expense.
Careful, the defeated party will do everything humanly possible to not admit it's what the party stood far that cost them Congressional majorities and the election. They're banking hard on Obama's personal likability overshadowing how badly his policies fared, particularly through the eyes of Americans not living on the coasts and big cities. We're like five months in and it's still pure Russia, Comey, dumb voters, #Resist 24/7.
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On May 06 2017 03:46 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. The greater mystery is how the left managed to so badly represent their interests. Or how about nominating a white woman and being your standard intellectual, coastal, women-rights quintessential group yet losing the vote of white women, even of college-educated white women. Pound your keyboards that they're supposed to hate what's clearly misogyny and they're supposed to vote for the party that considers abortion rights as part of women's health. Too much identity politics spoils the broth. Too much cosmopolitan-elite-feel ruins your rural appeal. Take a vote too much for granted and you lose it. + Show Spoiler +On May 06 2017 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:
That's how Republicans get elected time and time again by poor workers. Because they are idiots who believe in unicorns.
I mean, Trump won the Rust belt by promising to turn the world back 100 years to bring their jobs back, the proof is right infront of you.
If people could just pause from evil Trump messaging for half a second, reflect on what it means to call voters who don't vote for your gal idiots because a vote for the Democrats is naturally a vote in their own self-interest. It takes a belief in unicorns to expect their support when you're so ready to turn it all around if they don't vote for who they're told. You might not even get a damn visit from the candidate to your state. I just don't think people are sufficiently nonpartisan to see just how fucked up that situation is.
Look at what Trump promised on Healthcare
Look at what he is delivering
How did they not vote for a Unicorn?
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Voting for Trump being an indicator of being willfully ignorant seems like a fact. I mean I get the whole hating hillary and what she would have brought, but voting for Trump would be a tantrum vote at best.
Like smashing your keyboard because it didn't "do what you told it to". Then being like "Ha, at least it won't fail me again!"
Voting for Trump was an ill informed/willfully ignorant/short-sighted choice, doesn't mean the people who did it are evil stupid heads, just emotional tantrum throwers.
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On May 06 2017 03:52 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 03:11 Logo wrote:On May 06 2017 03:01 Plansix wrote:On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. People will write books about it, but the long and short of it is that the Democrats failed. In their effort to make the biggest tent possible and be the most inclusive party, they diluted their message. I feel like this is a cop-out excuse for the failure of the Democratic party over the actual economic and foreign relation policies of the Democrats not favoring the working class at all and often catering to company interests at their expense. Careful, the defeated party will do everything humanly possible to not admit it's what the party stood far that cost them Congressional majorities and the election. They're banking hard on Obama's personal likability overshadowing how badly his policies fared, particularly through the eyes of Americans not living on the coasts and big cities. We're like five months in and it's still pure Russia, Comey, dumb voters, #Resist 24/7.
In a way, Obama is the Democrats' biggest failure. He wasn't bad as a president but he also won't be particularly missed in the long run. His policies were mostly ineffective and will see a lot of revision over the next decade to the point that they will be mostly unrecognizable. I was ok with voting for him but I'm also not that upset to see him gone. History won't remember him too badly but not particularly well either; he presided over a difficult period in the country and I could describe his job record most accurately as "passable."
But watch a few Democratic National Conventions and tell me that they aren't trying, badly, to manufacture another Obama, someone whose policies are neither great nor terrible but who ekes by on personal popularity. It's a losing strategy but no one told the DNC that yet.
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I had some thoughts about insurance (that is, the conventional financial mechanism for reducing risk, which Kwark and others have noted does not describe health insurance very well). As the random musings of someone with no relevant expertise they might be totally wrong or obvious, but here they are anyway.
Insurance is a free market solution to catastrophe, but unlike most free market solutions to problems, the incentives are all screwed up. On the one side there's an incentive to engineer catastrophes to get a payout from your policy (insurance fraud). On the other side there's the incentive to have complicated and abstruse policies so insurance companies can worm out of covering you for something. The incentive is pretty clearly to give the worst customer service you can get away with, unlike almost every other industry.
Here's another weird behavior: the system breaks down as insurance companies get more information. Like, imagine fire insurance, where you pay premiums against the risk of your house burning down. Now imagine the insurance company has a crystal ball that can tell them exactly which houses will burn down. All of a sudden the system doesn't work. The insurance company refuses to cover those individuals, so there's nothing bailing them out when catastrophe strikes; meanwhile anyone else who decides to get fire insurance is just pure profit for the insurance company.
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On May 06 2017 04:01 GreenHorizons wrote:
Voting for Trump being an indicator of being willfully ignorant seems like a fact. I mean I get the whole hating hillary and what she would have brought, but voting for Trump would be a tantrum vote at best.
Like smashing your keyboard because it didn't "do what you told it to". Then being like "Ha, at least it won't fail me again!"
Voting for Trump was an ill informed/willfully ignorant/short-sighted choice, doesn't mean the people who did it are evil stupid heads, just emotional tantrum throwers.
Never underestimate the appeal of someone offering to save them and make everything better. The message of an “Washington outsider going go office to fight for them, the little people” has timeless appeal. It was the appeal of Jackson, even though that many openly destroyed the US economy(not that it was much of an economy in the 1830s)
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On May 06 2017 03:57 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 03:46 Danglars wrote:On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. The greater mystery is how the left managed to so badly represent their interests. Or how about nominating a white woman and being your standard intellectual, coastal, women-rights quintessential group yet losing the vote of white women, even of college-educated white women. Pound your keyboards that they're supposed to hate what's clearly misogyny and they're supposed to vote for the party that considers abortion rights as part of women's health. Too much identity politics spoils the broth. Too much cosmopolitan-elite-feel ruins your rural appeal. Take a vote too much for granted and you lose it. + Show Spoiler +On May 06 2017 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:
That's how Republicans get elected time and time again by poor workers. Because they are idiots who believe in unicorns.
I mean, Trump won the Rust belt by promising to turn the world back 100 years to bring their jobs back, the proof is right infront of you.
If people could just pause from evil Trump messaging for half a second, reflect on what it means to call voters who don't vote for your gal idiots because a vote for the Democrats is naturally a vote in their own self-interest. It takes a belief in unicorns to expect their support when you're so ready to turn it all around if they don't vote for who they're told. You might not even get a damn visit from the candidate to your state. I just don't think people are sufficiently nonpartisan to see just how fucked up that situation is. Look at what Trump promised on Healthcare Look at what he is delivering How did they not vote for a Unicorn?
opisska: Damn why'd the left lose poor workers
danglars: They didn't represent their interests, and here's how you know.
gorsameth: Damn would you look at Trump not delivering, my my.
Maybe we could move on to ways both parties share being bad if it wasn't anathema to analyze why the left lost.
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I get that the Democratic Party is unpopular and highly flawed, but just on a personal level I can't understand why people would rather vote for the GOP. They're evil, what the hell is wrong with the USA that half of the country would knowingly vote for a nihilistic bunch of psychopaths conspiring to destroy the planet and to reduce most of the population to serfs. It's like when people love awful commercial pop music which physically pains me to listen to. I can't understand it and I don't want to understand it, and this hampers my ability to objectively look at the situation.
I mean, it's a decent analogy because listening to Trump or most right-wing pundits does physically pain me. Trump is not even intelligible, everything he says is utter nonsense devoid of meaning, coherence or direction. I don't get how he is highly popular and how anyone is incapable of seeing through him and recognize him for the imbecile he is.
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On May 06 2017 03:46 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. The greater mystery is how the left managed to so badly represent their interests. Or how about nominating a white woman and being your standard intellectual, coastal, women-rights quintessential group yet losing the vote of white women, even of college-educated white women. Pound your keyboards that they're supposed to hate what's clearly misogyny and they're supposed to vote for the party that considers abortion rights as part of women's health. Too much identity politics spoils the broth. Too much cosmopolitan-elite-feel ruins your rural appeal. Take a vote too much for granted and you lose it. + Show Spoiler +On May 06 2017 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:
That's how Republicans get elected time and time again by poor workers. Because they are idiots who believe in unicorns.
I mean, Trump won the Rust belt by promising to turn the world back 100 years to bring their jobs back, the proof is right infront of you.
If people could just pause from evil Trump messaging for half a second, reflect on what it means to call voters who don't vote for your gal idiots because a vote for the Democrats is naturally a vote in their own self-interest. It takes a belief in unicorns to expect their support when you're so ready to turn it all around if they don't vote for who they're told. You might not even get a damn visit from the candidate to your state. I just don't think people are sufficiently nonpartisan to see just how fucked up that situation is.
I'd like to see the statistics of Trump winning the white college grad women. I know Romney won that demographic in 2012 but after a quick look I cannot find evidence Trump did as well.
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The failure of the democratic party was so apparent to me at the dnc. Completely ignored the white working class and instead catered to only minorities and even illegal immigrants lol. That is a straight slap in the face to all people who have been hurt by globalization and immigrants. I'm an immigrant and I could understand how horrible the strategy of identity politics played out. No clear message other than "we aren't donald trump." Sorry that's not going to cut it especially after having a democrat for 8 years in the white house.
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On May 06 2017 04:10 Grumbels wrote:
I get that the Democratic Party is unpopular and highly flawed, but just on a personal level I can't understand why people would rather vote for the GOP. They're evil, what the hell is wrong with the USA that half of the country would knowingly vote for a nihilistic bunch of psychopaths conspiring to destroy the planet and to reduce most of the population to serfs. It's like when people love awful commercial pop music which physically pains me to listen to. I can't understand it and I don't want to understand it, and this hampers my ability to objectively look at the situation.
Because America doesn’t have poor people, only embarrassed millionaires. The GOP has taken the argument of deregulation and free markets to say “poor suffering coal miner, we will get the government out of your way so you can become successful.” They have turned government into the enemy of the people and that is their message. They don’t want to legislate or direct the country forward, sell the idea that it will just move forward to greatness all on its own.
The prosperity gospel is a hell of a drug.
On May 06 2017 04:13 biology]major wrote:
The failure of the democratic party was so apparent to me at the dnc. Completely ignored the white working class and instead catered to only minorities and even illegal immigrants lol. That is a straight slap in the face to all people who have been hurt by globalization and immigrants. I'm an immigrant and I could understand how horrible the strategy of identity politics played out.
The problem is that the DNC has made the central to their platform and talking points. Immigration reform is important and a critical issue for our prosperity. But it isn’t something you run on these days.
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On May 06 2017 04:08 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 03:57 Gorsameth wrote:On May 06 2017 03:46 Danglars wrote:On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. The greater mystery is how the left managed to so badly represent their interests. Or how about nominating a white woman and being your standard intellectual, coastal, women-rights quintessential group yet losing the vote of white women, even of college-educated white women. Pound your keyboards that they're supposed to hate what's clearly misogyny and they're supposed to vote for the party that considers abortion rights as part of women's health. Too much identity politics spoils the broth. Too much cosmopolitan-elite-feel ruins your rural appeal. Take a vote too much for granted and you lose it. + Show Spoiler +On May 06 2017 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:
That's how Republicans get elected time and time again by poor workers. Because they are idiots who believe in unicorns.
I mean, Trump won the Rust belt by promising to turn the world back 100 years to bring their jobs back, the proof is right infront of you.
If people could just pause from evil Trump messaging for half a second, reflect on what it means to call voters who don't vote for your gal idiots because a vote for the Democrats is naturally a vote in their own self-interest. It takes a belief in unicorns to expect their support when you're so ready to turn it all around if they don't vote for who they're told. You might not even get a damn visit from the candidate to your state. I just don't think people are sufficiently nonpartisan to see just how fucked up that situation is. Look at what Trump promised on Healthcare Look at what he is delivering How did they not vote for a Unicorn? opisska: Damn why'd the left lose poor workers danglars: They didn't represent their interests, and here's how you know. gorsameth: Damn would you look at Trump not delivering, my my. Maybe we could move on to ways both parties share being bad if it wasn't anathema to analyze why the left lost.
How did the left lose poor workers?
They offered actual solutions which are not great because the world is not perfect (or great depending on your outlook)
What did the Republicans offer? Unicorns about bringing back steel mills and coal in rural America.
Who did they vote for? The unicorn.
People like to be told that everything will be fine and that someone will fix all their problems. They don't like being told that their jobs are not coming back but that the government will offer to re-school them (as an example).
Rural area's being left behind compared to cities is an economic problem across the world.
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On May 06 2017 04:10 Grumbels wrote:
I get that the Democratic Party is unpopular and highly flawed, but just on a personal level I can't understand why people would rather vote for the GOP. They're evil, what the hell is wrong with the USA that half of the country would knowingly vote for a nihilistic bunch of psychopaths conspiring to destroy the planet and to reduce most of the population to serfs. It's like when people love awful commercial pop music which physically pains me to listen to. I can't understand it and I don't want to understand it, and this hampers my ability to objectively look at the situation.
The Democratic Party is just as confused as you are and just as unable to look at things objectively. They see what there is not to like about the GOP and think that that's enough to get them elected so why improve?
Unfortunately people who are left with no good choices just might have a much different logic to their choice than you.
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On May 06 2017 04:04 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 03:52 Danglars wrote:On May 06 2017 03:11 Logo wrote:On May 06 2017 03:01 Plansix wrote:On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. People will write books about it, but the long and short of it is that the Democrats failed. In their effort to make the biggest tent possible and be the most inclusive party, they diluted their message. I feel like this is a cop-out excuse for the failure of the Democratic party over the actual economic and foreign relation policies of the Democrats not favoring the working class at all and often catering to company interests at their expense. Careful, the defeated party will do everything humanly possible to not admit it's what the party stood far that cost them Congressional majorities and the election. They're banking hard on Obama's personal likability overshadowing how badly his policies fared, particularly through the eyes of Americans not living on the coasts and big cities. We're like five months in and it's still pure Russia, Comey, dumb voters, #Resist 24/7. In a way, Obama is the Democrats' biggest failure. He wasn't bad as a president but he also won't be particularly missed in the long run. His policies were mostly ineffective and will see a lot of revision over the next decade to the point that they will be mostly unrecognizable. I was ok with voting for him but I'm also not that upset to see him gone. History won't remember him too badly but not particularly well either; he presided over a difficult period in the country and I could describe his job record most accurately as "passable." But watch a few Democratic National Conventions and tell me that they aren't trying, badly, to manufacture another Obama, someone whose policies are neither great nor terrible but who ekes by on personal popularity. It's a losing strategy but no one told the DNC that yet.
I'll differ with you on how his legacy will be read a decade from now. I don't think his foreign policy wonders will weather that well with historians. They really wish Obama's speech delivery and politicking was inherited by someone to build popularity so it doesn't matter what you actually do, you're just seen as relatable and all on the same team together. Hillary had none, Bernie had some, nobody else ended up mattering in the last election. They're banking way too big on Republicans with Trump at the forefront being generally hated given how they poll behind him.
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On May 06 2017 04:17 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 04:10 Grumbels wrote:
I get that the Democratic Party is unpopular and highly flawed, but just on a personal level I can't understand why people would rather vote for the GOP. They're evil, what the hell is wrong with the USA that half of the country would knowingly vote for a nihilistic bunch of psychopaths conspiring to destroy the planet and to reduce most of the population to serfs. It's like when people love awful commercial pop music which physically pains me to listen to. I can't understand it and I don't want to understand it, and this hampers my ability to objectively look at the situation. The Democratic Party is just as confused as you are and just as unable to look at things objectively. They see what there is not to like about the GOP and think that that's enough to get them elected so why improve? Unfortunately people who are left with no good choices just might have a much different logic to their choice than you.
Legal lord, peddler in objective view points. Certified objective by the objectivity board.
In reality, we all benefit from hindsight on this subject. 2016 is when “stranger than fiction” became reality.
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It's not really the poor but the extremist middle, the poor turned out for the Dems, and I guess most people from that group simply can't identify their own interests any more. I read an article yesterday how some GOP budget is going to take tens of millions out of a development fund for the Appalachian region, which it is apparently completely dependent on. Still that region voted Republican and has since forever.
How can anybody argue with a straight face that this is the Democrats fault and that these people vote rationally?
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On May 06 2017 04:21 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 04:04 LegalLord wrote:On May 06 2017 03:52 Danglars wrote:On May 06 2017 03:11 Logo wrote:On May 06 2017 03:01 Plansix wrote:On May 06 2017 02:44 opisska wrote:
How in the US the right wing party is the one for poor workers is the greatest mystery of your continent. The left was basically invented for poor workers. People will write books about it, but the long and short of it is that the Democrats failed. In their effort to make the biggest tent possible and be the most inclusive party, they diluted their message. I feel like this is a cop-out excuse for the failure of the Democratic party over the actual economic and foreign relation policies of the Democrats not favoring the working class at all and often catering to company interests at their expense. Careful, the defeated party will do everything humanly possible to not admit it's what the party stood far that cost them Congressional majorities and the election. They're banking hard on Obama's personal likability overshadowing how badly his policies fared, particularly through the eyes of Americans not living on the coasts and big cities. We're like five months in and it's still pure Russia, Comey, dumb voters, #Resist 24/7. In a way, Obama is the Democrats' biggest failure. He wasn't bad as a president but he also won't be particularly missed in the long run. His policies were mostly ineffective and will see a lot of revision over the next decade to the point that they will be mostly unrecognizable. I was ok with voting for him but I'm also not that upset to see him gone. History won't remember him too badly but not particularly well either; he presided over a difficult period in the country and I could describe his job record most accurately as "passable." But watch a few Democratic National Conventions and tell me that they aren't trying, badly, to manufacture another Obama, someone whose policies are neither great nor terrible but who ekes by on personal popularity. It's a losing strategy but no one told the DNC that yet. I'll differ with you on how his legacy will be read a decade from now. I don't think his foreign policy wonders will weather that well with historians. They really wish Obama's speech delivery and politicking was inherited by someone to build popularity so it doesn't matter what you actually do, you're just seen as relatable and all on the same team together. Hillary had none, Bernie had some, nobody else ended up mattering in the last election. They're banking way too big on Republicans with Trump at the forefront being generally hated given how they poll behind him.
On FP his projects have mostly fallen apart. Europe isn't as great for the US as it was eight years ago, the Asia pivot is dead, and the US alliance in the Middle East is showing cracks. He did well in Cuba, I will give him that, but beyond that not much success in South America. The doves think poorly of his results (though they don't always blame him for them) whereas the hawks are upset that our weak ass leader didn't go far enough.
He had moderately reasonable success domestically though.
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On May 06 2017 04:25 Nyxisto wrote:
It's not really the poor but the extremist middle, the poor turned out for the Dems, and I guess most people from that group simply can't identify their own interests any more. I read an article yesterday how some GOP budget is going to take tens of millions out of a development fund for the Appalachian region, which it is apparently completely dependent on. Still that region voted Republican and has since forever.
How can anybody argue with a straight face that this is the Democrats fault and that these people vote rationally?
Most poor people don't vote, and most of them don't because they don't think there's anyone to vote for. Democrats being less bad than Republicans isn't enough to motivate the people who have been screwed by both parties for decades.
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On May 06 2017 04:25 Nyxisto wrote:
It's not really the poor but the extremist middle, the poor turned out for the Dems, and I guess most people from that group simply can't identify their own interests any more. I read an article yesterday how some GOP budget is going to take tens of millions out of a development fund for the Appalachian region, which it is apparently completely dependent on. Still that region voted Republican and has since forever.
How can anybody argue with a straight face that this is the Democrats fault and that these people vote rationally?
The party that relies on people voting rationally is going to lose a lot of elections. We have a representative government for a reason. That is the biggest problem with the Democrats, believe that people would suddenly see past the GOP’s lies.
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On May 06 2017 04:17 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2017 04:10 Grumbels wrote:
I get that the Democratic Party is unpopular and highly flawed, but just on a personal level I can't understand why people would rather vote for the GOP. They're evil, what the hell is wrong with the USA that half of the country would knowingly vote for a nihilistic bunch of psychopaths conspiring to destroy the planet and to reduce most of the population to serfs. It's like when people love awful commercial pop music which physically pains me to listen to. I can't understand it and I don't want to understand it, and this hampers my ability to objectively look at the situation. The Democratic Party is just as confused as you are and just as unable to look at things objectively. They see what there is not to like about the GOP and think that that's enough to get them elected so why improve? Unfortunately people who are left with no good choices just might have a much different logic to their choice than you.
But they do have a good choice, because the policies that the democrats advocate and implement are vastly superior to the GOP's. It's not just because of some globalist death spiral that red states all suffer economically, it's also because they keep voting into office republicans who implement bad policies.
I think it's true that Hillary was a bad candidate with no charisma and no message, and I hope (but doubt) that the democratic party will take a more principled, combative, populist stance and distance themselves from the sort of wealthy liberal elites that dominate the party. But how any person with a functioning brain could possibly vote for Trump over Clinton I just can't understand. I can't and won't understand, because the only logical conclusion is not that people had bad choices, but rather that people are their own worst enemy. It's enough to turn me into a misanthrope.
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