Trump to win?

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

i mostly agree with this analysis with a few caveats:

1. i agree the self-identification of hispanics will be key to the future of the current democratic coalition. if hispanics cease to self-identify primarily as hispanic, then the dems are going to have to find something else to try to keep them in the fold.

re: hispanics-as-whites - even if they drop or attenuate their ethnic identity, as earlier waves of other immigrant groups have done, their economic position will be dispositive. if they are urban professionals they will identify as democratic under the current set-up. if they are rural poor, they might go republican but i think that if they are rural poor they are much less likely to give up their hispanic ethnic identity. so i am skeptical of your argument about them.

2. the changes in trump's positions noted by dcarrigg, above, are REALLY significant. i, too, was attracted to a lot of what trump said INITIALLY. i, too, am disappointed that he has become the avatar of standard republican economic and social policy, with the addition of a nationalistic/mercantilist and anti-immigration stance. i wouldn't be surprised if the koch brothers change their stance about trump and start supporting him. the tax cuts he espouses, and the end of the estate tax must be music to their ears.

3. the adoption of those small-gov't-reagan republican tax positions puts his support for the middle class entitlements- social security and medicare - very much in doubt. the deficits he would create would imo quickly lead to the resurrection of republican plans to reduce those programs.

4. i agree with santafe that the supreme court is a very big deal, e.g. citizen's united and the undermining of the voting rights act. [either mississippi or alabama, i forget which, managed to keep its voter id law and then closed all the dmv offices in black majority areas. so much for justice roberts' assertion that the south had changed so much the voting rights act was no longer needed.]

Rule #1. Never write in the AM before the second cup of coffee. Forgive the omissions and grammatical stumbling.

I think these are fair points. That said, I'm of the opinion that what you and DC consider backsliding on the part of Trump is nothing more than a nod to the trads in the old GOP who must still be mollified if he is to have their support. Once elected, much of that I expect will be jettisoned. As for the courts, I fully expect we will not see any of either of the candidates first choices, never mind their third. We may in fact operate with a short-court for a period far longer than any of us might imagine possible. Every nominee will be subject to a grueling confirmation battle that will make the Bork nomination look like a quiet Sunday walk in the park. And if the so-called nuclear option be exercised, I fully expect a congressional revolt leading to articles of impeachment. For those reasons, I am less concerned about the make-up of the Court. Whoever prevails, we are headed for a political gridlock unseen in American history. The only way that gridlock is broken is by a massive war and this I think is the ace HRC holds up her sleeve should the worst happen and she becomes the 45th POTUS.

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

Thai & DC, it seems to me you both underestimate the political fragility of the current form of governance. The popular revolt that appears to be underway is taking diverse, overlapping forms: reassertion of local and national identities, demand for greater democratic control and accountability, rejection of centrist political parties, and distrust of elites and experts.

Depending on one's perspective, we can look at the populist insurgency spearheaded by Donald Trump as either a corrective or a threat to mainstream Republican orthodoxy. Trump has already demonstrated the ability to leap over one of those hurdles: the social conservatism of the Christian Right. A Pew survey a month ago found that 78 percent of white evangelicals said they would vote for Trump. While it remains to be seen if the GOP survives or reorganizes itself into something new, the type of conservatism long championed by the Republican Party failed the moment a candidate came along who could rally its voters without being beholden to its donors, experts and pundits.

Trump was the only leading GOP candidate who expressed the actual preference of most Republican voters, declaring his “absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and leave it as is.” Trump is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. And even if turns out Trump is defeated, what is left of the GOP establishment might try to effect a restoration of the old economic dogma of free trade, mass immigration and entitlement cuts. If the Republican Party is to survive, policies that most of the party’s core voters reject will be abandoned over the objections of traditional Republican party donors and thought leaders.

But the most important consequences of the Trump campaign are the changes he has wrought in the Democratic Party. Trump generates among working-class whites and the opposition he generates among better educated, more affluent voters has pushed into overdrive the metamorphosis of the Democratic Party. Once a class-based coalition, the party has become an alliance between upscale well-educated whites and low income ethnic and racial minorities.

Not only are we witnessing an inversion among the supporters of the Democratic Party, but the party will become increasingly isolated, mirroring an upper class that has isolated itself from the rest of American society. Instead of serving as the political arm of working and middle class voters seeking to move up the ladder, the Democratic Party has becoming the party of the "winners," in collaboration with many of those in the top 1% percent who are determined to protect and secure their status.

The Democrats will continue along this path of joining with false-progressive and poor minorities located in large urban centers whose concept of America is limited to a multicultural coalition of racial and ethnic identity groups operating under the false concept that they alone represent the moral people and equating nationalism and patriotism with racism and fascism.

The GOP will either "wither away" or reorient itself to working-class whites, based in the South and West and suburbs and exurbs everywhere. They will favor universal, contributory social insurance systems that benefit them and their families and reward work effort — programs like Social Security and Medicare, but oppose those programs whose benefits they and their families cannot enjoy.

They will oppose increases in both legal and illegal immigration, in some cases because of ethnic prejudice; in other cases, for fear of economic competition. The economic nationalism championed by Trump voters will be invoked to justify strategic trade as well as protectionism. And they will seek out their first target those elements of unproductive finance that dominate the commanding heights of the Democratic Party elite. If they are to remain viable, the remaking of the GOP will it embrace universal entitlements like Social Security and Medicare

So which side will prevail one this process is complete? Impossible to say at this point, but demographics is the key and the most important of that are Hispanic persons. And here I believe this emerging new GOP will have the advantage based on the primacy of nationalism among the working and middle-class populists that dominate the Trump block. Given Trump's rhetoric on Mexico, this seems counterintuitive, but relies on longstanding demographic and social trends of assimilation we note in every historical wave of immigration. It is based on the process of "becoming white."

As did the Irish and Italians before them, Hispanic Americans increasingly identify themselves as white. Between the 2000 Census and the 2010 Census, about 7 percent of Hispanics changed their self-description from “some other race” to “white.” At the same time, according to the Census Bureau, three-fourths of “white population growth” in 21st-century America has been driven by individuals who declared themselves white and of Hispanic origin. As increasing numbers of Hispanics identify as white and their descendants are defined as “white” in government statistics, there may be a white majority in the U.S. throughout the 21st century.

Trump’s unpopularity among Latino voters is surely a short-run benefit to Democrats. But there is no reason to expect that Democrats will have at their command a solid Latino voting bloc in the future. Here we can look to Texas, in particular, as a model of GOP success in winning Hispanic voters. As Latinos assimilate and intermarry, they will continue to abandon a Democratic Party unresponsive to their lived experience and move to the Republican Party, following the well-worn trail cut by so-called “white ethnic” voters like Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans.

The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born.

i mostly agree with this analysis with a few caveats:

1. i agree the self-identification of hispanics will be key to the future of the current democratic coalition. if hispanics cease to self-identify primarily as hispanic, then the dems are going to have to find something else to try to keep them in the fold.

re: hispanics-as-whites - even if they drop or attenuate their ethnic identity, as earlier waves of other immigrant groups have done, their economic position will be dispositive. if they are urban professionals they will identify as democratic under the current set-up. if they are rural poor, they might go republican but i think that if they are rural poor they are much less likely to give up their hispanic ethnic identity. so i am skeptical of your argument about them.

2. the changes in trump's positions noted by dcarrigg, above, are REALLY significant. i, too, was attracted to a lot of what trump said INITIALLY. i, too, am disappointed that he has become the avatar of standard republican economic and social policy, with the addition of a nationalistic/mercantilist and anti-immigration stance. i wouldn't be surprised if the koch brothers change their stance about trump and start supporting him. the tax cuts he espouses, and the end of the estate tax must be music to their ears.

3. the adoption of those small-gov't-reagan republican tax positions puts his support for the middle class entitlements- social security and medicare - very much in doubt. the deficits he would create would imo quickly lead to the resurrection of republican plans to reduce those programs.

4. i agree with santafe that the supreme court is a very big deal, e.g. citizen's united and the undermining of the voting rights act. [either mississippi or alabama, i forget which, managed to keep its voter id law and then closed all the dmv offices in black majority areas. so much for justice roberts' assertion that the south had changed so much the voting rights act was no longer needed.]

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

The thing that confuses me is why people think the election of Trump would lead to the disintegration of either party, or to the birth of a third party.
America is only going to change with massive protests brought on by a new milaltary adventure or financial chaos. I'm 60. I consider this the most irrelevant election of my life.

Thai & DC, it seems to me you both underestimate the political fragility of the current form of governance. The popular revolt that appears to be underway is taking diverse, overlapping forms: reassertion of local and national identities, demand for greater democratic control and accountability, rejection of centrist political parties, and distrust of elites and experts.

Depending on one's perspective, we can look at the populist insurgency spearheaded by Donald Trump as either a corrective or a threat to mainstream Republican orthodoxy. Trump has already demonstrated the ability to leap over one of those hurdles: the social conservatism of the Christian Right. A Pew survey a month ago found that 78 percent of white evangelicals said they would vote for Trump. While it remains to be seen if the GOP survives or reorganizes itself into something new, the type of conservatism long championed by the Republican Party failed the moment a candidate came along who could rally its voters without being beholden to its donors, experts and pundits.

Trump was the only leading GOP candidate who expressed the actual preference of most Republican voters, declaring his “absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and leave it as is.” Trump is now the Republican presidential nominee. And even if turns out Trump is defeated, what is left of the GOP establishment still might try to effect a restoration of the old economic dogma of free trade, mass immigration and entitlement cuts. But if the Republican Party is to survive, policies that most of the party’s core voters reject will be abandoned over the objections of traditional Republican party donors and thought leaders.

The most important consequences of the Trump campaign are the changes he has wrought in the Democratic Party. Trump support among working-class whites and the opposition he generates among better educated, more affluent voters has pushed into overdrive the metamorphosis of the Democratic Party. Once a class-based coalition, the party has become an alliance between upscale well-educated whites and low income ethnic and racial minorities.

Not only are we witnessing an inversion among the supporters of the Democratic Party, but the party will become increasingly isolated, mirroring an upper class that has isolated itself from the rest of American society. Instead of serving as the political arm of working and middle class voters seeking to move up the ladder, the Democratic Party has become the party of the "winners," in collaboration with many of those in the top 1% percent who are determined to protect and secure their status.

The Democrats will continue along this path of joining with false-progressives and poor minorities located in large urban centers whose concept of America is limited to a multicultural coalition of racial and ethnic identity groups operating under the false concept that they alone represent the moral people and who equate nationalism and patriotism with racism and fascism.

The GOP will either "wither away" or reorient itself to working-class whites based in the South and West and suburbs and exurbs everywhere. They will favor universal, contributory social insurance systems that benefit them and their families and reward work effort — programs like Social Security and Medicare, but will oppose those programs whose benefits they and their families cannot enjoy.

They will oppose increases in both legal and illegal immigration, in some cases because of ethnic prejudice; in other cases, for fear of economic competition. The economic nationalism championed by Trump voters will be invoked to justify strategic trade as well as protectionism. And they will seek out as their first target those elements of unproductive finance that dominate the commanding heights of the Democratic Party elite. If they are to remain viable, the remaking of the GOP will embrace universal entitlements like Social Security and Medicare

So which side will prevail once this process is complete? Impossible to say at this point, but demographics is the key and the most important of that are Hispanic persons. And here I believe this emerging new GOP will have the advantage based on the primacy of nationalism among the working and middle-class populists that dominate the Trump block. Given Trump's rhetoric on Mexico, this seems counterintuitive, but relies on longstanding demographic and social trends of assimilation we note in every historical wave of immigration. It is based on the process of "becoming white."

As did the Irish and Italians before them, Hispanic Americans increasingly identify themselves as white. Between the 2000 Census and the 2010 Census, about 7 percent of Hispanics changed their self-description from “some other race” to “white.” At the same time, according to the Census Bureau, three-fourths of “white population growth” in 21st-century America has been driven by individuals who declared themselves white and of Hispanic origin. As increasing numbers of Hispanics identify as white and their descendants are defined as “white” in government statistics, there may be a white majority in the U.S. throughout the 21st century.

Trump’s unpopularity among Latino voters is surely a short-run benefit to Democrats. But there is no reason to expect that Democrats will have at their command a solid Latino voting bloc in the future. Here we can look to Texas, in particular, as a model of GOP success in winning Hispanic voters. As Latinos assimilate and intermarry, they will continue to abandon a Democratic Party unresponsive to their lived experience and move to the Republican Party, following the well-worn trail cut by so-called “white ethnic” voters like Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans.

The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born.

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

OK, offer made. I won't respond to any more of your posts on this thread. Please do the same until you're willing to talk substantive policy. For me, there is only one short term issue that matters in this election, the Supreme Court. There are many other issues that follow-on but this one is key.

You're all out of luck on that score, Santa.

You come after me, say something stupid, something venal, something I know is false, I'll call you out the way I always do. No quarter offered, none expected.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Trump to win?

The thing that confuses me is why people think the election of Trump would lead to the disintegration of either party, or to the birth of a third party.
America is only going to change with massive protests brought on by a new milaltary adventure or financial chaos. I'm 60. I consider this the most irrelevant election of my life.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Trump to win?

Both candidates wanted to disrupt the status quo.

I actually believed that for a moment. At the beginning of Trump's campaign. When he said he wanted to raise minimum wage. When he said the trade deals sucked. When he said he wanted to raise taxes and regulate the hedge fund crew. When he said he wanted to expand Social Security and Medicare. When he said he wanted to undo Citizens United.

There was a brief moment when I thought, "Holy shit! Donald Trump can read a poll! He realizes that even amongst rank-and-file Republicans, Citizens United is a stinker, most like their SS and Medicare, 70+% want higher minimum wage, most don't like free trade deals: Here's a candidate who gets it." I thought he was really going to run as a populist.

Instead, since the convention, he has decided to put up a Heritage Foundation typical tax plan that would eliminate the estate tax for Trust Fund babies inheriting more than 11 million, create the largest tax break for millionaires and billionaires in generations, promised to stop any and all regulation of banks and insurance companies, pulled a complete 180 to promote abolishing the minimum wage entirely, and now is open to cutting Social Security and Medicare. And his Supreme Court list, far from being populist, basically consists solely of the most Republican establishment candidates you could imagine. The only thing left he has to do is offer to sign the TPP and announce he'll never build that wall, and he's 100% exactly just like the rest of them.

So in six months he went from a candidate suggesting a menu of policies that was actually a new combination to another Paul Ryan / Ayn Rand acolyte plus an immigration wall.

It will not be enough for him to win. His mistake was not going with the original platform he laid out. And it's too late to turn back now.

[santafe2]

Re: Trump to win?

Santa, the grey fuzz on my balls is all I need to understand what makes a hypocrite. And it's not that I don't want to talk about substantive issues. I just don't care to talk about them with you. You have a good day, sir.

OK, offer made. I won't respond to any more of your posts on this thread. Please do the same until you're willing to talk substantive policy. For me, there is only one short term issue that matters in this election, the Supreme Court. There are many other issues that follow-on but this one is key.

[santafe2]

Re: Trump to win?

Point #1: Trump supporters are against both "sides". We're not voting for GOP, we're not voting against Dems, we are voting to "crush" the current system. I wish more voters would recognize that. The more the mainstream media makes Trump out to be a loose cannon, the more I realize just how scared they are.

One can say they're not voting for the GOP but in fact you will vote for the GOP and with Pence anchoring the ticket, you have nearly the most right wing person to serve in Congress in the 2000s. I believe he averaged #430 out of 435. We all have stories we tell ourselves but I don't think it requires the media to observe that Trump is a loose cannon.

Point #2: Why must you call Trump names? Why are you focused on "destroying" a candidate? For a self-proclaimed tolerant group of people, my experience is that liberals are some of the most intolerant when it comes to alternative ideas/ideals. This is not about Trump and what the status-quo powers-that-be are trying to make him out to be in the mainstream media, this is about a group of concerned and fed-up American citizens (although we've been called every degrading & condescending name in the book) that would like to send both parties a message.

I think there are over 700 posts in this thread. Please point out your post where you've asked Trump supporters to not call HRC names. Then read all of the names she's been called in this thread. I don't think I've complained about it, it's just trash talk between two opposing sides. Trump is the logical outcome of the post Civil Rights Act, racist Republican, Southern strategy, the 1988 Willie Horton ads, then the more subtle racism of the '90s and later; the welfare state, welfare queen and affirmative action.

I am intolerant. I'll own that one. Among many other things, I'm intolerant of misogyny, racism, jingoism and nativism. Your candidate represents all of those values and yes, I want to see those values crushed. I want them destroyed.

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

Clinton's made $238 million since leaving White House.

Made? What's that she's made? She's destroyed much. Debased much. And disinherited millions. But I can't think of anything she's made, can you?

There's only one maker in this election. One builder. The other one knows nothing but destruction.

Imagine how the billionaires who throw her the change in their pockets must laugh at the little upper-middler from Park Ridge, forever the acquisitive grasper, forever avenging her loss as senior class president. "I'll show them."

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Clinton's made $238 million since leaving White House:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...ouse-mostly-sp

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Bill Clinton’s pay at for-profit education company topped $17.5 million

"Laureate says that its international operations represent the largest global network of degree-granting universities in the world, enrolling more than 1 million students across 28 countries. In the United States, the company owns Walden University, a Minneapolis-based online school that the Education Department has placed on a list of colleges that officials are more closely monitoring because of concerns over its “financial responsibility."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz4HATiYL1F
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

Thank you.

I can't say I can go so far as to share your "confidence", but their fear does give me hope.

I'm also hopeful that Bernie supporters will come to believe that Trump is no more a GOP-er than Bernie was a Dem-er (he's already publicly shed the Democrat label & is officially Independent again). Both candidates wanted to disrupt the status quo. Both candidates recognized that it's fruitless to do so as an Independent. Both men are change agents attempting to work within the system to change the system in my opinion. Irrespective that their ideas/philosophies may differ, their methods (and goals I think) were interestingly similar.

You summed it up beautifully, rjwjr.

The Democrat and Republican parties are truly Republocrats, bought and paid for by the Oligarchy. Nothing proves this so well as their reactions to Trump and Sanders.

[rjwjr]

Re: Trump to win?

That's as clear a rationale as I've heard to date. Nice job.


Their fear gives me confidence.

Thank you.

I can't say I can go so far as to share your "confidence", but their fear does give me hope.

I'm also hopeful that Bernie supporters will come to believe that Trump is no more a GOP-er than Bernie was a Dem-er (he's already publicly shed the Democrat label & is officially Independent again). Both candidates wanted to disrupt the status quo. Both candidates recognized that it's fruitless to do so as an Independent. Both men are change agents attempting to work within the system to change the system in my opinion. Irrespective that their ideas/philosophies may differ, their methods (and goals I think) were interestingly similar.

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

I believe you are mixing-up two different figures. Fivethirtyeight has Hillary as about a 9 point favorite, which gives her about an 85% chance of winning at this stage of the race.

no, their website said what i quoted. their model currently gives clinton an 87% chance of winning the electoral college.

national polls don't work. they are using a lot of state by state data and then running 10k [i think] monte carlo runs on the state by state numbers.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/...d=rrpromo#odds

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

Point #1: Trump supporters are against both "sides". We're not voting for GOP, we're not voting against Dems, we are voting to "crush" the current system. I wish more voters would recognize that. The more the mainstream media makes Trump out to be a loose cannon, the more I realize just how scared they are.

+1

Point #2: Why must you call Trump names? Why are you focused on "destroying" a candidate?

always an interesting question.

For a self-proclaimed tolerant group of people, my experience is that liberals are some of the most intolerant when it comes to alternative ideas/ideals.

BINGO!
and +2
exactly my obs!
the so-called, self-described 'liberal' POV is ANYTHING but 'tolerant'

hows that one go?

when a 'conservative' doesnt like something, they dont buy it, avoid it.

but when a 'liberal' doesnt like something?

THEY WANT TO BAN OR 'DESTROY' IT

just like the so-called hot button issue of: gun 'control' (but funny, the cities that have 'tough' gun 'control' have wildly out of control gun murder rates - see chicago, detroit et al (or almost any other bluestate urban area for that matter)

its always been HILARIOUS to me to watch as the 'liberals' twist themselves into pretzel-shapes to justify their idiotlogical POV

mark my words: if The US 'society' or the so-called economic 'recovery' crumps (much more than it already has) and it comes down to mass rioting in the streets (more, that is, than whats occurred just the past year or so) ?

IT'LL BE THE GD 'liberals' - that would be hitlery&co pals - THAT FOIST MARTIAL LAW ON The Rest of US.


another thing i find HILARIOUS?
that IF (i'd rather not say 'when' ) our 'fearless leaders' lose control and the SHTF?
that they - the 'liberals' seem to think they will 'win' in the end...

uh huh... shur...

my money is on 'the redneck nation' (since the inner city ghetto mobs will be EATING the libs and the rest of the social justice warriors for dinner... you know, like..after the EBT cards dont recharge and god help them if they leave the 'safe zones' of their 'hoods - whereupon they WILL be running into the 'redneck' 2nd amendment defenders, who are MUCH better armed and actually KNOW HOW to aim/use em)

This is not about Trump and what the status-quo powers-that-be are trying to make him out to be in the mainstream media, this is about a group of concerned and fed-up American citizens (although we've been called every degrading & condescending name in the book) that would like to send both parties a message.

and +3