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is it really possible that Donald trump could be president????? [Part 2]

999 replies

claig · 02/03/2016 09:27

From now on the race becomes winner take all. If Trump wins Florida on March 15, it is probably all over.

'The Republican Party now has 14 days to stop Trump'

www.vox.com/2016/3/2/11144812/super-tuesday-results-donald-trump-wins

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Lweji · 08/03/2016 13:15

I think low wages are a consequence of high unemployment in general.
When there's too many people for the same jobs, wages drop down. As employment goes back up, it's likely that there will be more jobs going without applicants and wages going up to attract people in.
It takes some time to recover, and in this case the crisis in the US hit pretty hard.
This is why a decent minimum wage is important.

Mistigri · 08/03/2016 15:00

They are also a consequence of weak labour market regulation. It's difficult for low paid workers to fight for their rights if they are not allowed to unionise and if their employers can get rid of them at the drop of a hat and for no reason.

Obviously weak labour market regulation can increase the number of jobs (this is the case in the UK too) but it also tends to hamper productivity, because there is little incentive for employers to invest.

Lweji · 08/03/2016 15:23

I live atm in a country with tighter labour regulation, but IMO it makes the labour market actually less secure. Employers are more reluctant to offer long term positions and often get rid of people as soon as their shorter contracts expire, particularly if training is not that important.
Or employ people officially as independent workers, with little security.
Employers also tend to let their businesses fail or stop paying people because they simply can't let them go without losing a lot of money in compensation.

There is a middle ground somewhere, but ultimately I do think it has to do with the state of the economy.

Mistigri · 08/03/2016 15:58

Yes definitely, I don't think we disagree on any of this except that I think the US economy has performed rather well during the Obama years versus most other major developed economies. The problem is that the benefits of the economic recovery have been very unevenly spread. (Obviously Obama has to take some of the flak for that.)

SenecaFalls · 08/03/2016 16:02

He may have to take some of the flak, but he certainly can't be blamed for the fact that the recovery has been uneven. It's a huge country, and each region, each state even, has an economy that can be radically different from other areas of the country.

BigChocFrenzy · 08/03/2016 23:34

Interesting (but self-selecting) survey the Guardian did, trying to analyse secret Trump voters:
"a big chunk of people who contacted us were Bernie Sanders fans who said that if he failed to win the Democratic nomination they intended to switch their vote not to Hillary Clinton, but to Donald Trump"

GruntledOne · 09/03/2016 21:55

How on earth would someone who agreed with Sanders' politics possibly think it was appropriate to vote for Trump? They could hardly be further apart politically.

Lweji · 09/03/2016 22:23

The people who just vote for anyone who is not establishment, or elite, and is not a real politician?

claig · 09/03/2016 22:38

They attract similar voters becuse both say that the system is rigged and the establishment is corrupt. It is really all about jobs and a future and both oppose the globalist trade deals that have destroyed the jobs of ordinary Americans. They are both populists who want to limit the power of the establishment and return it to the people so that the system starts working for the people again instead of for the special interests and lobbyists.

"Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump look like saviours to voters who feel left out of the American Dream
...
Despite their ideological differences, Sanders and Trump are tapping into similar sources of discontent. Both speak to Americans’ sense of disempowerment in the face of big money and unaccountable power. And both are critical of mainstream politicians, Democrats and Republicans, who have, over the last three decades, become captive beneficiaries of the system.
...
On several other issues, Trump also has more in common with Sanders than with his fellow Republicans. He has heaped scorn on wealthy hedge fund managers who, thanks to a tax loophole, pay a lower rate of tax on their earnings than their secretaries pay. In language more likely to win applause at an Occupy Wall Street rally than at a Republican convention, Trump declared: “The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky… These guys are getting away with murder. I want to lower the rates for the middle class.” Trump has also criticised free trade agreements that lead to the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries. Like Sanders, he opposes the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), a pending trade deal among the US, Japan and 10 other nations, negotiated by the Obama administration and supported by Republicans in Congress. (Under pressure from Sanders’s challenge, Clinton broke with the Obama administration and now opposes the trade deal, despite having supported it while in office.)

The unexpected resonance of the Sanders and Trump campaigns does not represent a decisive turning of American voters towards the left or towards the right. It represents a populist protest against a neoliberal economic order embraced by the establishment wings of both parties, which bestows lavish rewards upon those at the top and makes life precarious for everyone else.

The rise of Sanders and Trump is less about ideology than about anxiety that the American Dream is slipping away. This is what Sanders means when he says that the system is rigged against ordinary Americans. And this is what Trump means when he says that America doesn’t win any more. Both give expression to a widespread sense that Americans are losing control of the forces that govern their lives.

The American Dream has never been about reducing inequalities of income and wealth. It has been about enabling people to rise and giving one’s children the chance to rise even further. This is why Americans have traditionally worried less about inequality than Europeans do."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/28/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-populist-moment-in-american-politics

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claig · 09/03/2016 23:00

Trump and Bernie both represent the populist backlash against neoliberalism and globalisation which is why both are such a threat to the world's elite and why the Economist has articles saying "time to fire Trump".

"There were, in retrospect, clear signs of what was to come—signs that if Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders did not appear on the scene, someone else like them would have. We’ve had decades of forewarnings as the top income earners —the “one percent”—began taking bigger shares of our economy starting in the 1980s: The anti-globalization protests of the late 1990s. The rise of Ross “NAFTA-will-suck-our-jobs-away” Perot and Pat “Pitchforks” Buchanan against the GOP establishment. The brief but intense Occupy Wall Street movement.
...
And all the while we in the media listened—in hushed awe of their genius—to the economists who told us that of course there were inequities and a lot of people would be left behind, but globalization and ever-freer markets were still good for most of us, overall anyway, sort of, we think. … And besides, what’s the alternative?

The only wonder, perhaps, is that it took Trump and Sanders this long to get here.
...
For some economists out of the mainstream, like Harvard’s Dani Rodrik, who issued one of the earliest warnings against the idea of the free-market-as-panacea in his book Has Globalization Gone Too Far? nearly two decades ago, this merciless crushing of the middle class at the hands of a mere economic theory has been a “slowly growing cancer” that has gone untreated by politicians. Today, he says, the Trump-Sanders phenomenon is plainly the long-awaited political reckoning for 30 years of errant policy and too-facile belief in the wonders of markets: the wild-talking building magnate on the right and the wild-haired socialist on the left have met up at the same intersection, one bounded by the four corners of anti-globalization, anti-free-trade, anti-immigration and anti-Wall Street sentiment.

“I don’t want to sound like the economist who called 10 out of the last five recessions, but yes, this is the populist backlash that unremitting globalization has historically unleashed and I had warned about,” he says. “When mainstream politicians are unable to generate meaningful responses to inequality, social exclusion and insecurity, populists of various ilk gain ground.”
...
Both Democratic and Republican leaders, meanwhile, are still kidding themselves that their respective bases are … basically OK with their economic agendas, when plainly the numbers show they aren’t.
...
Among those claiming vindication is Pat Buchanan, who told the Washington Post recently that the “revolution” he predicted (the pitchforks in other words) was finally at hand: “What’s different today is that the returns are in, the results are known. Everyone sees clearly now the de-industrialization of America, the cost in blood and treasure from decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the pervasive presence of illegal immigrants.”

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/why-donald-trump-and-bernie-sanders-were-inevitable-213685

The revolution is now here. Bernie is unlikely to be able to win, but Trump is in with a shout. Some Bernie voters will switch to Trump if the choice is just Establishment Wall Street Clinton.

This is teh biggest challenge to globalisation, neoliberalism and the world's elite ever and if Trump pulls it off, all of our lives will change in Europe as our entire puppet class of politicians has the rug pulled out from under them by Trump.

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Mistigri · 10/03/2016 06:12

How on earth would someone who agreed with Sanders' politics possibly think it was appropriate to vote for Trump? They could hardly be further apart politically.

I struggle with this too, but actually if you read the below-the-line comments on articles about the Democratic nomination, it's easier to understand. Some of Bernie's supporters are basically just not very clever and not very nice, they remind me a bit of the SWP when I was at uni and (I am afraid to say because I quite like him too) some of the more obsessive Corbyn supporters in the UK too.

I think any "radical" politician with a "change the system" message will attract a fair number of ideologues who are more interested in destruction than construction.

SenecaFalls · 10/03/2016 11:22

Also there is quite a bit of misogyny directed against Hillary. And the left is not immune from that.

Lweji · 10/03/2016 11:37

I agree. I feel that it will always be easier to elect a male president of any shape or colour than a woman.

Want2bSupermum · 10/03/2016 11:45

Seneca I think HC is not that great a candidate. There are some unpalatable facts with her past.

I was not impressed with Caitlyn Jenners comments about HC. Quite frankly they are not qualified to pass comment when they were involved with the Kardashians. HC has done lots to help advance women in the US, especially with her work on maternity care. We wouldn't know who CJ was if they hadn't been a man first.

claig · 10/03/2016 14:09

Camille Paglia on Trump. She is a Bernie fan but gets Trump's appeal in his straight talking pushback against political correctness.

Camill eis also a big fan of the "Stump for Trump sisters" (Diamond and Silk) and in fact it was one of their videos that made Camille realise Trump's appeal.

"I was wrong about Donald Trump: Camille Paglia on the GOP front-runner’s refreshing candor (and his impetuousness, too)

Yes, he remains thin-skinned and easily riled. But his fearlessness and brash energy also seem necessary and rare

"But only a few weeks after that interview of mine in Salon, I suddenly realized that Trump’s candidacy had a broad support that few had expected or discerned. The agent of my revelation was a hilariously scathing, viral Web blog video posted by Diamond and Silk–Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, two African-American sisters and former Democrats in Fayetteville, North Carolina. They were reacting with indignant outrage to the first GOP debate, broadcast by Fox News from Cleveland on August 6 and hosted by Megyn Kelly, whose loaded questions had impugned Trump as a sexist.

If Trump wins the White House, that no-holds-barred video will go down in history as “the shot heard round the world,” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s phrase for the first salvo of the American Revolution by rural insurgents at Concord. The video signaled a popular uprising and furious pushback against the major media and political elites, who had controlled the national agenda and messaging for far too long. Diamond and Silk threw zinger after zinger in defending Trump: “Here’s the damn deal, Megyn Kelly—or Kelly Megyn, whatever your name is!…. Go back and report news on Sesame Street!…You hit below the belt, Kelly!…He was the only one up there on that stage with any common sense!… He’s going to be the next president, whether you like it or not. Get used to it, girl! Get used to it!”

This fiery endorsement blew me away because it demonstrated how Trump was directly engaging with a diverse coalition in ways that the mainstream media had completely missed.
...
Nevertheless, Trump’s fearless candor and brash energy feel like a great gust of fresh air, sweeping the tedious clichés and constant guilt-tripping of political correctness out to sea. Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose every word and policy statement on the campaign trail are spoon-fed to her by a giant paid staff and army of shadowy advisors, Trump is his own man, with a steely “damn the torpedoes” attitude."

www.salon.com/2016/03/10/i_was_wrong_about_donald_trump_camille_paglia_on_the_gop_front_runners_refreshing_candor_and_his_impetuousness_too/

In case anyone has been living under a rock and hasn't seen the blistering Stump for Trump video that Camille is referring to, here it is

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Lweji · 10/03/2016 14:20

I do feel like crawling under a rock for some reason. If only that allowed me to escape the ominous in claig's head sisters.

claig · 10/03/2016 14:25

If Camille Paglia is a fan of the Stump for Trump sisters, who are we to disagree?

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claig · 10/03/2016 14:30

Final debate before Florida tonight in Miami. Last chance for the anti Trump forces to stop him. Rubio already regretting how he went negative against Trump as his polls have dropped as a result. Jeb Bush meeting with all of Trump's opponents. Desperation in the attempt to stop Trump.

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Lweji · 10/03/2016 14:35

I think we all agree on what Trump's appeal is, for his electorate. Which is different from thinking he'd actually be a good president.

PitilessYank · 10/03/2016 17:46

Hi! Back again with another cute Sanders poster I saw today...

It pretty much sums up my thoughts on this election.

is it really possible that Donald trump could be president????? [Part 2]
BigChocFrenzy · 10/03/2016 18:19

Cruz would be an even worse one.
I'd really like to see the Bern vs Trump, so that angry voters can vote against the current system while keeping to their left / right preference. Wall St 0.01 per centers need a shot across their bows, or they'll just continue to screw the world.

The Dem contest is not yet over:

Hillary has a 772 to 549 advantage in pledged delegates, i.e. those she actually won in primaries and caucus, as distinct from her fan club of Democrat governors, senators etc.

This 200+ advantage seems mostly from the old Confederate states - which will vote Republican in November anyway - and it is thought Bernie will be more successful in future, as the contests move away from the Old South and also he is better known.
However, he has a lot to make up, so the betting is still heavily on Hillary to be the nominee Sad

Looking at what happened in 2008, the "superdelegates" did switch from Hillary once Obama overtook her. In fact, she conceded when he had fewer total popular votes, but more pledged delegates.
So, not impossible they would do so again, but many of them owe Hillary a lot of favours.

PitilessYank · 10/03/2016 18:54

BigChoc-the Superdelegates have never gone against the popular vote-if Bernie wins that, and the Superdelegates still put Hilary on the November ticket, there will be massive protests, and I do believe the Bernie supporters will either write-in Bernie on their ballots or vote for Trump.

If the Superdelegates do the wrong thing, they will be handing the election to the GOP on a silver platter.

I agree that the Sanders-Trump battle would be the most satisfying outcome.

PitilessYank · 10/03/2016 19:00

Does anybody watch Full Frontal with Samantha Bee? She was a Daily Show correspondent.

Here is her hilarious take on the recent shameful Republican shenanigans:

m.youtube.com/channel/UC18vz5hUUqxbGvym9ghtX_w

m.youtube.com/channel/UC18vz5hUUqxbGvym9ghtX_w

It is in two parts. Btw, she does also rip on Sanders and Clinton, but as of late the Republican candidates have provided her with more comedy fodder.

LineyReborn · 10/03/2016 19:00

Camille Paglia is is nuts. And I've read her books so I should know.

PitilessYank · 10/03/2016 19:03

Sorry, link fail...