Our Next President?

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

Defining a moderate or a centrist is always difficult, even in theory. Libertarians might consider themselves moderate because they are "socially liberal and fiscally conservative." But if another person is the opposite, are they both moderates? Or is a moderate supposed to have some balanced view on every issue? I think that's often the ideal portrayal: that a moderate is someone who believes in reasonable compromises between two extreme positions on every issue. In many cases that probably is the right answer, but it's often hard to even pin down what it would mean in any given situation.

It seems to me the convention is that moderate or centrist means socially liberal, fiscally conservative, although generally more neoliberal than libertarian in orientation, more corporate realpolitik than pure libertarian ideology would allow. I've never heard of fiscally liberal socially conservative people labeled as moderate or centrist. Seems to me they're always branded 'populist,' which has a much more negative connotation likely due to the preferences of media moguls. Of course, the term populist has been used for everyone from Trump to Sanders and in between. So it's just kind of a catch-all for doesn't tow the mainstream corporate culture line.

The problem with the pathway to citizenship (or even just legalization) is that if you can't or won't stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, then it will always be a repeating cycle. I think most people would come around to the idea of doing a one time legalization, if they believed it was really the last time. But most skeptics, rightly in my opinion, question whether the will to enforce the law going forward exists. That's the appeal of Trump to the anti-immigration crowd. His over the top rhetoric gets him a ton of flak, but it signals to the people that care that he really means what he says. Does anyone really believe that Bernie is going to secure the border, even if he says we should? Since nobody will admit that their real position is lax enforcement and cyclical amnesty, you have to look for other clues.

I'm curious what would happen if a Democrat actually used immigration enforcement as a core position. Take Bernie's position that American workers have to come first. Soften the blow by offering the pathway for people already here. But beat the drum like Trump did that we are shutting down the southern border and turning people away, not because they are rapists and murders, but because the jobs they want are our jobs and we aren't giving them away to the lowest bidder. Maybe they would end up in no man's land, but it would be interesting to see.

It almost doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. More people were deported under the Obama Administration than ever in American history. He got almost no credit for it one way or the other. Right just paints him as weak on immigration. Liberals think he was dovish on immigration. Facts tell another story. In fact, deportations fell under Trump. But the medium is the message. The perception is all people absorb. That's the rub about the border fence. The objection's mostly to the symbol, not the reality. And the fence itself in fact is somewhat a symbol. It might deter a few entries, probably not most. But I've accepted that nobody cares about facts. So I'm fine with the fence. It's just a few billion. Screw it.

But I guess to circle back to your point, even if a Democrat does deport millions of people, nobody listens. It's like the narrative is fixed. People don't understand how other people are thinking. And somehow the perception of everyone has become an extreme caricaturized stereotype of reality. My view is that these perceptions are used to make people fight about things that don't cost much money so that you can rob them blind in the process. Notice that the largest single piece of domestic legislation since Obamacare was a debt-financed tax cut primarily aimed at large publicly-traded c-corporations and the highest income earners. America has a lot of problems. Not enough federal debt or not enough money for corporate execs etc. wasn't really one of them. Yet somehow made it to the top of the priority list, ahead of immigration, ahead of infrastructure, ahead of everything else.

[DSpencer]

Re: med costs

There's nothing here I really disagree with. I think we're on the same page for the most part.

But here's the thing: there is no agreement on the meaning of this stuff!

The terms are imprecise and the confusion only worsens over time because even if Left and Liberal were used distinctly at one time, they are now used interchangeably by most people. Also, just like trying to sort people into Right and Left is oversimplifying, the same is true for Left or Liberal.

Some libertarians hold positions on largely ideological rather than pragmatic grounds and this sometimes leads to positions others find extreme. I think most people that consider themselves at least somewhat libertarian (such as myself) try to balance. In an ideal world, it would be great if humans could choose to live wherever they preferred, rather than being bound in many cases to wherever they happened to be born. In the real world, that creates an enormous problem.

Defining a moderate or a centrist is always difficult, even in theory. Libertarians might consider themselves moderate because they are "socially liberal and fiscally conservative." But if another person is the opposite, are they both moderates? Or is a moderate supposed to have some balanced view on every issue? I think that's often the ideal portrayal: that a moderate is someone who believes in reasonable compromises between two extreme positions on every issue. In many cases that probably is the right answer, but it's often hard to even pin down what it would mean in any given situation.

The reality is that a left-right spectrum just doesn't capture the complexity. Adding two dimensions might get you closer, but it still doesn't really work.

The problem with the pathway to citizenship (or even just legalization) is that if you can't or won't stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, then it will always be a repeating cycle. I think most people would come around to the idea of doing a one time legalization, if they believed it was really the last time. But most skeptics, rightly in my opinion, question whether the will to enforce the law going forward exists. That's the appeal of Trump to the anti-immigration crowd. His over the top rhetoric gets him a ton of flak, but it signals to the people that care that he really means what he says. Does anyone really believe that Bernie is going to secure the border, even if he says we should? Since nobody will admit that their real position is lax enforcement and cyclical amnesty, you have to look for other clues.

I'm curious what would happen if a Democrat actually used immigration enforcement as a core position. Take Bernie's position that American workers have to come first. Soften the blow by offering the pathway for people already here. But beat the drum like Trump did that we are shutting down the southern border and turning people away, not because they are rapists and murders, but because the jobs they want are our jobs and we aren't giving them away to the lowest bidder. Maybe they would end up in no man's land, but it would be interesting to see.

[DSpencer]

Re: med costs

my understanding is that illegal immigration has been declining, and that also much or most of it is people overstaying visas, not people crossing the border from mexico. a wall, as i understand it, is not an efficient use of funds if we indeed want to put more funds into border security.

i agree that bernie's position is an endorsement of the immigration status quo.

as for right wing support for immigration, i think it exists at the BUSINESS level, not the populist one. i.e. illegal low skill agricultural workers in california and texas, increased LEGAL h1-b's desired by tech companies.

I think there exists a lot of confusion about the means vs. the goal and probably much of it on purpose. Trump gets a lot of criticism that the wall isn't a cost effective way of securing the border. That's likely true. However, the people doing the criticizing don't seem to be pushing a real alternative that would achieve the same goal through different means. The Trump opposition groups aren't chanting "install more cameras" or "hire more border patrol" or "deport overstayed visa holders."

Sure, people like Bernie claim they want to secure the border. I assume they see it as a weakness if they admit to wanting open borders. Maybe Bernie really does want it, as I said, he presents a pretty good working-class justification. But to the extent that immigration is a motivating issue for Bernie's supporters or any other democratic nominee, it seems to all be in the direction of being friendlier to immigrants rather than securing borders, enforcing laws, deporting immigrants, etc.

It doesn't seem like business owner support for immigration is split along party lines in a way that would make it seem like a right-wing issue. Sure, maybe there are some right wing business owners that break from the rest of their right wing brethren on immigration because it benefits them personally. But I doubt they are more likely to support higher immigration levels than left wing business owners.

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

This is a rough sense of the picture. Immigration numbers were drastically reduced under W & Obama. In part because of policy and increased policing and the secure communities act and whatnot.

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

The average person doesn't understand any of the nuance about INS vs ICE. So to the extent it's symbolic, the symbolism is that people advocating to abolish ICE are advocating against a symbol of enforcing immigration policy. Nobody is chanting "bring back INS".

I hate the binary division of everything into right and left, but seriously, what evidence supports the idea that open borders are a right wing idea? Donald Trump is claimed by many to be aligned with not only the right, but the "FAR RIGHT." The people at his rallies are screaming "BUILD THE WALL!" Meanwhile candidates on the left are calling to abolish ICE. I'm really supposed to conclude that open borders is a right wing idea? Dcarrigg, you have posted often about the importance of agreeing on the meaning of words. What is right wing? Are most Trump supporters not considered right wing? What right wing candidate supports open borders?

Bernie's interview was very interesting and surprising to me. Other than the weird part about open borders being a right wing concept, I found his message to be a very logical position.

I really can't make sense of the liberal position on open borders. If someone's position is:

1. Existing illegal immigrants should not be deported. They should have a path to citizenship instead.
2. We should not build walls to keep illegal immigrants out.
3. We should not separate illegal immigrant children from their families or throw whole families in jail.
4. Immigrants are hard working people and we need them here to help grow our economy.

How is that not essentially an open borders policy? It's basically saying we should have laws about immigration, but should never enforce them because it's inhumane; and the people who break them are good people who are helping America and should be made into citizens.

From feelthebern.org:

"From Bernie believes that border security is an important aspect of immigration law and reform, but does not support stronger measures to increase it and does not think border security should be connected to a border fence."

That's the definition of lip service in my mind. Imagine if his position was "College tuition needs to be affordable, but I don't support any measures to make that happen."

There's nothing here I really disagree with. I think we're on the same page for the most part.

But here's the thing: there is no agreement on the meaning of this stuff!

Leftists tend to think open borders is a right wing idea. They really do. Not liberals. Leftists. I don't feel like folks on the right quite grasp the distinction between those groups on the left. And it's not easy, because there are some folks who blur it.

The equivalent might be libertarians and conservatives. Libertarians, at least the Koch variety, tend to support open borders. Conservatives don't. And I think, if I go way out on a limb, leftists more often view libertarianism as extreme right wing, and liberals tend to view conservatives as extreme right wing. But that's way out on a limb. And it's easy to talk past each other.

Leftists and Conservatives in this vein sometimes just get labeled "populist," and the idea then becomes "Populism vs. Centrism" or some dichotomy like that. In reality, everything's more complicated.

But I might suggest that if you want an example of right wing open borders supporters, maybe look at Amash et all's letter to Paul.

And I'd go further and suggest the following:

The real question is simply: "Do we want to let more or fewer immigrants in over the next few years?"

I think you would find some very right wing Senators like Rand Paul who would answer, "More." Maybe more, with caveats. But more.
I think you would also find some very left wing Senators like Bernie Sanders who would answer, "Fewer." Maybe fewer, with caveats. But fewer.

So it doesn't map necessarily in ways people would think at first blush.

As far as the security stuff goes, the leftist version will always be warmer and fuzzier. Partly because white collar criminals do less time in a country club for ruining countless lives than these kids do on a cold cement floor with a space blanket for having committed no crime themselves. Mostly because the idea that a child should have to suffer state punishment for the sins of his father is really antithetical to a group of people who aren't keen on the concept of inheritance.

So it's a mixed bag.

My personal position is that the wall/fence/whatever is fine. I don't object to it. I also have no objection to slowing down immigrant flows. I think it's necessary at this point politically. I further think there's no political will to pull an Eisenhower Operation Wetback type of mass deportation option. So I figure it's probably better to get those who are here on the books somehow. Can't do it for free, there has to be a penalty since the law was broken. But the pathway should be there. Limbo status is no good for nobody. You also don't want the precedent that this happens every 30 years. So it's worth getting on top of with more visa restrictions and agents to enforce them. I don't think this is terribly hard. I'm just a couple generations off the boat myself. And my experience has been generally that immigrants are hardworking people. But the US is also a nation-state and its citizens have every right to restrict immigration flows and reasonable reasons to want to do so from time to time. I also think it's reasonable to restrict capital flows too (not just labor flows), especially foreign mass purchases of real property. But there too, I'll butt heads with libertarian-minded folk.

Anyways, if that doesn't sound like a very left wing position to you, I wouldn't be surprised. But I suspect you'd find it pretty common amongst the rank and file left, if not the liberal high-rise folk. Labor, self-determination, and non-domination are the principles at work. The Democrats largely sold labor out. The left still hasn't forgiven them. The general opinion amongst the left is that Clinton was a terrible president who gutted Roosevelt's New Deal, deregulated telecom giving rise to things like Murdoch and Bezos owning increasingly monopolized and partisan media, and deregulated banks giving rise to the Great Recession. It's not uncommon to hear people say HW was a better president. View is that Americans have a raw deal now. Worst healthcare at the highest prices. Most expensive education. Fewest labor protections. Fewest benefits. Most people arrested or in prison. Life for most citizens is unnecessarily brutal.

Thing is, the liberals run the DNC. And they care much more about what the elite think than what Joe the union pile driver thinks. And that pisses the left off. Especially the labor left.

Did you catch this Time article from a couple years ago? Sanders and the other labor-minded pols have a looooong record of voting against measures to expand immigration. They routinely vote to reduce visa numbers and reduce the number of guest workers and all that. They see it as a method by which corporate America imports low wage workers and drives down the price of labor. What's weird about this is that it's mostly northeast and midwest Dems who aren't the party elite but who've been there forever on the "fewer immigrants" side. The "centrist" Dems and blue dogs from the south like Tim Kaine always vote for more visas and more guest workers.

It's part of what I mean by saying centrism is an ideology, not the middle ground between left and right. It's really whatever corporate America wants. So the idea's like this: Centrism means no healthcare for Uncle Sam's kids. But also open borders for cheap labor. Tax cuts for the wealthy. But also no sick days for the janitor. It's always what the boss wants in the extreme. There's nothing moderate about it.

[jk]

Re: med costs

my understanding is that illegal immigration has been declining, and that also much or most of it is people overstaying visas, not people crossing the border from mexico. a wall, as i understand it, is not an efficient use of funds if we indeed want to put more funds into border security.

i agree that bernie's position is an endorsement of the immigration status quo.

as for right wing support for immigration, i think it exists at the BUSINESS level, not the populist one. i.e. illegal low skill agricultural workers in california and texas, increased LEGAL h1-b's desired by tech companies.

[DSpencer]

Re: med costs

The ICE thing is just symbolic...


I don't think it's fling open the borders time for anyone.

That said, it's not obvious what her strategy is with immigration. It's pretty clear that the overarching sentiment is so slow it down. And to be honest, lots of folks on the left realize immigration's a tool to drive down the price of domestic labor, and will agree with that. In fact, folks on the left have been talking about open borders as a right wing idea for some time now.

I think maybe it's only ivory tower establishment centrists who want open borders. I don't know if you caught this clip from 2015. But Ezra Klein thinks he can get Sanders to agree to open borders, and it doesn't go the way he thought it would.

The average person doesn't understand any of the nuance about INS vs ICE. So to the extent it's symbolic, the symbolism is that people advocating to abolish ICE are advocating against a symbol of enforcing immigration policy. Nobody is chanting "bring back INS".

I hate the binary division of everything into right and left, but seriously, what evidence supports the idea that open borders are a right wing idea? Donald Trump is claimed by many to be aligned with not only the right, but the "FAR RIGHT." The people at his rallies are screaming "BUILD THE WALL!" Meanwhile candidates on the left are calling to abolish ICE. I'm really supposed to conclude that open borders is a right wing idea? Dcarrigg, you have posted often about the importance of agreeing on the meaning of words. What is right wing? Are most Trump supporters not considered right wing? What right wing candidate supports open borders?

Bernie's interview was very interesting and surprising to me. Other than the weird part about open borders being a right wing concept, I found his message to be a very logical position.

I really can't make sense of the liberal position on open borders. If someone's position is:

1. Existing illegal immigrants should not be deported. They should have a path to citizenship instead.
2. We should not build walls to keep illegal immigrants out.
3. We should not separate illegal immigrant children from their families or throw whole families in jail.
4. Immigrants are hard working people and we need them here to help grow our economy.

How is that not essentially an open borders policy? It's basically saying we should have laws about immigration, but should never enforce them because it's inhumane; and the people who break them are good people who are helping America and should be made into citizens.

From feelthebern.org:

"From Bernie believes that border security is an important aspect of immigration law and reform, but does not support stronger measures to increase it and does not think border security should be connected to a border fence."

That's the definition of lip service in my mind. Imagine if his position was "College tuition needs to be affordable, but I don't support any measures to make that happen."

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

I'd say a much bigger problem is her stance on immigration. I don't see how she can get so much economics right
and ignore the effect of immigrants on wages, house prices, traffic, schools, etc.



show me the towns doubling the zoning for multifamily housing, adding a lane to every expressway, two lanes to every interstate, etc.

The ICE thing is just symbolic. The agency was created in the aftermath of 9/11, about 15 years ago.

Before that, we had INS do most of what people imagine ICE doing now, with Customs Officers being a separate service, and the FPS police who monitor federal facilities and lands being another separate service, etc.

Believe it or not, Customs Officers, Border Patrol, & Air and Marine Operations were transferred out of ICE into Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in 2003. Air Marshalls were transferred out of ICE in 2005. FPS was transferred out of ICE in 2009.

ICE was created to combine all these things. It failed. The agency is basically just a husk of what it was designed to do. Changing it back to the old INS and moving it from Homeland Security to Justice would not be the end of the world. In fact, it would probably be smart.

The whole thrust of Homeland Security was supposed to be a response to Terrorism anyways. Always felt to me like they tried to jam too many things in there. So they took Coast Guard away from Defense and INS away from Justice and the Secret Service away from Treasury and combined them with FEMA.

And when you think about it, it's not entirely clear how these missions intersect. FEMA drops trailers in places that flooded. Secret Service finds counterfeiters and protects the President. Coast Guard rescues boaters at sea. INS catches illegal immigrants, not at the border, but at work or whatever.

But there will always be customs and border officers of one kind or another, whether they're called Customs Officers or CPB. Always has been since George Washington. The INS mission is a bit different. Its purpose is to catch folks who overstay visas and stuff.

It's a Gilded Age Era invention. Lots of parallels now with the Gilded Age. People became very concerned with immigration then. They had wanted it in the 1870s for railroad workers, but not so much by the 1890s. And by the time the Chinese Exclusion Act passed and INS was born and all this was happening, we were only about 10 years off from Teddy Roosevelt and Trust Busting.

Anyways, we have these complicated visa restrictions now, and somebody's gonna have to enforce them. So they can abolish ICE and win a few points with some of the base, bring back INS or give it a new 3 letter name, probably close down or soften the detention facilities because there've been some controversial developments there, and call it a day. Or just let CPB take over ICE's function.

I don't think it's fling open the borders time for anyone.

That said, it's not obvious what her strategy is with immigration. It's pretty clear that the overarching sentiment is so slow it down. And to be honest, lots of folks on the left realize immigration's a tool to drive down the price of domestic labor, and will agree with that. In fact, folks on the left have been talking about open borders as a right wing idea for some time now.

I think maybe it's only ivory tower establishment centrists who want open borders. I don't know if you caught this clip from 2015. But Ezra Klein thinks he can get Sanders to agree to open borders, and it doesn't go the way he thought it would.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: med costs

I'd say a much bigger problem is her stance on immigration. I don't see how she can get so much economics right
and ignore the effect of immigrants on wages, house prices, traffic, schools, etc.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have called for abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

show me the towns doubling the zoning for multifamily housing, adding a lane to every expressway, two lanes to every interstate, etc.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Our Next President?

i doubt eliz warren is a viable candidate, but if so she won't buy substituting identity politics for an attack on the finance industry.

Looks like she is going right for identity politics, as she is making a huge campaign push for reparations.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: med costs

Warren wants to dissolve the electoral college. Any Warren supporters having second thoughts yet?

Not only that but she wants a "commission" on reparations.

Like that won't sow more hatred when African Americans are suddenly granted X amount of money and go out to buy cars and houses that the other 60% of poor to middle class can't afford.

I can see that going over really well......

She has lost touch and all the Democrats are just trying to out do the others on policy.

[Chris Coles]

Re: med costs

You don't have to worry so much about tyranny of the majority if you set the process up right. Madison et all fretted a lot about that in the federalist papers 10 and 51 etc. And I agree with I believe thrifty who said that the voter initiative stuff becomes a nightmare if it's poorly designed. California has more or less proven that.

But believe it or not, vt, we have been using direct democracy up here for hundreds of years, and our states are run pretty well, and our towns aren't controlled by tyrants. Direct democracy is as American as apple pie, clam chowder, maple syrup, and lobster tails.

But it's not a system where somebody can lawyer up a few legal lines and we just get a majority vote up or down. It's also not a system where we don't (sorry for the double neg) select people from among ourselves to take on certain specialized roles and responsibilities for limited times. It's not asking the masses a yes or no question once per year. It's looking each other in the face and talking and arguing out what to do and deciding whom you trust to do what.

Thank you. Here in the UK I live in a small village which has a Parish council that meets regularly. But not many local people ever attend from the local community. In large part because the bureaucracy has created additional hurdles in the form of District and County councils, where the bureaucrats hold all the power. I will pass this on to my Parish Councillor.

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

You don't have to worry so much about tyranny of the majority if you set the process up right. Madison et all fretted a lot about that in the federalist papers 10 and 51 etc. And I agree with I believe thrifty who said that the voter initiative stuff becomes a nightmare if it's poorly designed. California has more or less proven that.

But believe it or not, vt, we have been using direct democracy up here for hundreds of years, and our states are run pretty well, and our towns aren't controlled by tyrants. Direct democracy is as American as apple pie, clam chowder, maple syrup, and lobster tails.

But it's not a system where somebody can lawyer up a few legal lines and we just get a majority vote up or down. It's also not a system where we don't (sorry for the double neg) select people from among ourselves to take on certain specialized roles and responsibilities for limited times. It's not asking the masses a yes or no question once per year. It's looking each other in the face and talking and arguing out what to do and deciding whom you trust to do what.

[vt]

Re: med costs

But DC, Alexis de Tocquville warned about the Tyranny of the Majority, which recognized why the founders created a republic vs. a pure democracy.

And as far as making life better for the 80% on the bottom we don't need violence. Simply do what I proposed a few years ago.

"Take ALL the money out of politics"

No money from any source: corporations, unions, special interest groups, wealthy individuals. Nothing. Nada.

Right now we have the best government money can buy. And we got robbed!

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

When the financial economy controls the political economy debt is holier than any version of god.

Also, given the lack of willpower to scrub the fraud out of the healthcare system, the economy is structurally dependent on asset bubbles for the government to fund itself.

In the current age of social media - where rage leads all - it would probably take an extreme degree of physical violence to alter the financial system for the better of the bottom 80% of the economy.

Capital is much more entrenched in its control over government. And it is much more mobile.

Nothing I disagree with there. I don't see new states happening any time soon without a drastic shift. I think I misinterpreted your last post to be about the impossible when it seems to me now you meant it more about the improbable. Actually doing it is not so hard. Getting up the gumption to go for it is much tougher. But then again, sometimes big shifts happen. I would not have predicted this Brexit mess 10 years ago, even after UKIP's showing in the EU elections, for example.