DB Roy wrote:Yes, some are angry about that but most of his supporters are blaming Congress for this and not Trump. They have a point. After all, the republicans railed for 7 years that if only they could get a republican in the White House, Obamacare was as good as gone and then they fail spectacularly.
Somehow it never seemed to occur to the Republican leadership that they might have to pony up with an actual plan. Or that the states which did not refuse federal Medicare money might actually care about seeing everyone insured. Head in the sand politics only looks good when there are adults in charge that you can whine at.
DB Roy wrote:But Trump is far from blameless. What about all that caterwauling he did in 2016 about how he had a plan and it was "beautiful" and everybody would be covered and it would be cheap? Well, gee, where was this plan during the repeal effort because it really would have helped. But then the masses didn't demand to see this plan. Some of us because we know he is a lying sack of shit and the others because they are too stupid and timid to demand proof of the man they desperately want to see get elected even though they knew perfectly well he had no such plan. They won't let that stand in the way of sticking it to those goddamn libtards.
Many of them had their own heads in the sand. Their "solution" to pre-existing conditions was "hope you don't get one," or "that's a lot of years in the future, I need the money right now." But a lot of people really have been squeezed by rising housing costs (though not, mainly, in Red State areas) and flat wages, so they really can't afford the full cost of medical insurance. I know a couple, a veterinarian married to a swimming coach, who say they can't. Not poor enough for subsidy, but living in too high-cost an area for their salaries.
DB Roy wrote:I think it's because two unstable leaders are playing chicken and sooner or later it is going to go too far.
That's clearly true, but doesn't really answer the question. The North Korean regime has pathological paranoia built in. They don't seem capable of finding any strategy except nuclear arms, but the rest of the world can't trust them with those. If China gets too tough with them, I imagine they will play Putin off against the Chinese. The structure of the world system lets that kind of pathology flourish. If the problem was just one leader, we could end it with a drone strike. The problem is an entire regime.
DB Roy wrote:Harry Marks wrote:I suspect that in 45's mind what passes for a vision is: somebody does an insulting or inconvenient thing, he tells them off, they stop, so he has won.
That appears to be his presidency. "I'm president and when I insult you, you STAY insulted!" Trouble is, nobody's scared of that anymore because he has betrayed how incompetent he is.
Government by narcissism. I wonder if the whole Republican strategy of wedge issues (which works very much the same way) will collapse on the same basis. I mean, they have showed they have no game on policy.
DB Roy wrote:The trouble is they can't use Trump as a smokescreen to accomplish anything. The puppet keeps jumping up and dancing around without anyone pulling his strings and they can't shut him up. He keeps stealing the show and hogging the spotlight. You can't hide behind something won't hold still.
Okay, I am definitely stealing that image. It's precisely correct, and made me laugh.
DB Roy wrote:Do they? With many people, yes, including a few that were waiting to make up their mind. But I think they can just do the standard Tu Quoque pivot and play the victim some more.
I think the public is getting sick of the role-playing and now want to know--if you're not a racist, why are you still supporting Trump? The excuses as he promised to bring us jobs or he promised to replace Obamacare are no longer acceptable. It's fast coming to: Either you are a nazi or you're not and if you're not then you have no business supporting him.
I can see that dynamic operating in the cities and on the coast. I really don't think that's what's happening in Fox News country.
Inspired by 538, I did some thinking about the result of the cultural bifurcation between educated mainstream and tribal counterculture. On the soft power side, the evangelical, country-boy culture will continue to feel they are treated as inferior, but "country is cool" has a certain staying power. Most of them do want their kids to get a university education, and that will continue to make a difference, over a long run.
On the electoral side, there is a real problem. The Senate is indifferent to cities. Think the electoral college is tilted? Take a look at the Senate. California is outvoted by Arkansas and Alaska. Well, what about the lower house? Isn't the gerrymandering just a fluke, a trick of billionaire money pouring in to take the legislatures by stealth? No, it's not. When you realize that a reliable 10% difference in votes can turn into a 100% takeover of the house contingent from a state, you can see that the Red States are in a strong position to gerrymander their way to a Republican majority in the House for decades to come. Essentially, the Trump-Clinton election is a preview of what we can expect as long as we buy into the Culture Wars narrative and just try to win on moral force.
DB Roy wrote:Harry Marks wrote:It's a long and winding road from here to there.
Not for Trump it isn't. His presidency crams years into a week. It is running out of fuel and ready to crash. His four years are almost up.
Stuff that is coming out about his finances and campaign behavior looks sure to sink him. I suspect they are already maneuvering over what Pence gets as a reward for pardoning 45 in exchange for him stepping down. It may be that White Nationalism will go back underground at that point, but even if so, White fragility and White privilege will not. Government by an embattled minority, determined to resist climate policy and anything else that smacks of elitism, may very well be the order of the day for 20 years.
DB Roy wrote:Harry Marks wrote:Assuming the moral high ground wins the next election is a blunder the Democrats are getting very practiced at.
The democrats don't have to do anything but keep their mouths shut like they did 2006 and suddenly found themselves in charge of Congress.
I don't think its going to play out like that. If Dems can successfully articulate policy, they can catch a break from the political resentment that has a hold on the House and Senate. If they just crusade for victims, White people who see themselves as victims will resist them.
DB Roy wrote:That won't even matter. Trump didn't win the election because he was hugely popular. He won because the Bernie crybabies stayed home. Trump's turn-out was the same as Romney's and McCain's. It's just that Hillary's was abysmally low. She simply isn't liked.
That's all true, although the Bernie people staying home, or voting for Jill Stein or whatever, is only part of the story. Working class folks who hadn't thought through the Obamacare issue, Blacks who would vote for Obama even though they disagree on marriage equality and abortion, workers who resent the Clintons for their private arrogance, lots of categories either stayed home or switched sides. Hillary's hawkish interventionism turned off a lot of vets who at least appreciated that Obama was against sending them on crusades for someone else's freedom.
Some people think Hillary was too far to the right, but I suspect the problem is that she was too far to the left, in the sense that what she actually stood for, namely women's rights and multiculturalism, is seen as someone else's issue by the swing voters in the center. Anyway it's true she is short on charisma and too controlling.
DB Roy wrote:Harry Marks wrote: But I think the point stands - extremism is unpopular, and the ordinary institutions of society eventually get to the point where they know it is unacceptable. I just don't think we are there yet with 45. I agree we turned a corner, and are probably headed in that direction, but it will not be easy to get there. We have the Dark Side working against us.
The Dark Side isn't the extremism. That will never go anywhere because those people are obviously too stupid and too easily led. Dark Side is our own side. Our own side hung us out to dry in this last election and I have no doubt that they will do it again. I have no faith in our side to do the right thing. We have shown ourselves incapable of it. We will open the door to disaster and invite it right in knowing full well what it means and not giving a shit because they didn't get their way. They see this as a victory and as leverage proving we are morally bankrupt. THAT is the Dark Side. What I hope is that those that didn't vote but didn't care about what happened to Bernie will vote this time.
Maybe I should have said more about what I mean. The Dark Side is fear. All of us have it inside us, so yes, it is our side. The more the fear, the more people polarize and tribalize. Nearly everyone is "morally bankrupt" if the fear gets too intense. I think we who care about enlightened policy really need to take it on board that a main part of our job is to put together sound policy structures which hold up.
Roe v Wade was good policy. It reflects what people actually think about the issue. The Earned Income Tax Credit (a subsidy to take low-wage work) was good policy. It reflected real pressures in the economy as well as what people actually think about the issue. Single payer is good policy, though it does not yet reflect what people actually think about the issue. Chances are good that a Medicare option for all will be the winning issue for Dems in 2018.
But the economy is a disaster area. I was in the government in '93 and '94 when everyone moaned about not having a policy for Russia after the USSR, but no one was willing to do anything about it. The Administration guy I worked for actually said it to me that way, "No one wants their fingerprints on it." As a result, we got economic collapse and an authoritarian, kleptocratic Putin majority for a long time to come. If nobody sits down and develops policy for the new shape of the U.S. economy, we run the risk of a similar spiral downward in the political economy of the U.S.