Trump to win?

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

hadnt got round to commenting oin this (since the fiasco in philly is providing just so much entertainment)

but RIGHT ON to dc's obs:

...you know what I think might be good/interesting for you? Come up to New England some time and try a town meeting. Just, if you're ever on vacation this way, see if you can fit in an hour or so at some small town to where they're doing it to check out how it works. Yeah, you can see on Youtube, but I don't think it's quite the same.

I mean, it's direct democracy and deliberative too. All in action. You want a new fire truck? Make the case. The people are the legislature. There are no representatives, save someone you slecte to run the gavel or whatever. Nobody has more power or more votes than anybody else. Everything gets debated. Everything gets voted on.

Anyways, this is how I grew up in America. And I think it's a huge reason why we--kind of as a region--see the world so much differently than the rest of the country.....
...
At least that's the civic mindset I grew up with. I think it's quite different in other parts of the US, though.

PRECISELY!
its also why NH - despite or make that INSPITE of the best efforts of clinton's supporters - after going on 400 years - STILL with NO SALES TAX, NO INCOME TAX
and STILL NO MANDATORY SEATBELT LAW

with its ALL-volunteer legislature and where they have a single 30day leg session, who are paid $100/year + mileage expense for their drives to the capitol and ONLY when its in-sesh

and when its all done?
THEY GO BACK TO WORK at their 'other jobs' just LIKE THE REST OF US!!!

which all adds up to there being NO MONEY IN BEING A POLITICAL APARATCHIK in The LIVE FREE OR DIE state

and why NH is STILL The Gold Standard on how The US.gov SHOULD function.

Sounds great. What percentage of the voting-age population participates in the "direct democracy" and what percentage is completely disconnected?

i'll let dc answer that one, but my guess would be those that sit home - as mike moore mentioned the other day - playing with their xboxes and playstations, sending snap-n-chats on their 'smartphones'

[LazyBoy]

Re: Trump to win?

Hey, DSpencer, you know what I think might be good/interesting for you? Come up to New England some time and try a town meeting. Just, if you're ever on vacation this way, see if you can fit in an hour or so at some small town to where they're doing it to check out how it works. Yeah, you can see on Youtube, but I don't think it's quite the same.

I mean, it's direct democracy and deliberative too. All in action. You want a new fire truck? Make the case. The people are the legislature. There are no representatives, save someone you slecte to run the gavel or whatever. Nobody has more power or more votes than anybody else. Everything gets debated. Everything gets voted on.

...

I mean, if you live in Vermont, and you want to see your Senator, the most you'd have to do is check a calendar and maybe drive an hour or two to the farmers' market he'll be at. In Rhode Island, ...

Sounds great. What percentage of the voting-age population participates in the "direct democracy" and what percentage is completely disconnected?

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

my guess would be their 'focus group discussion' participants are beginning to crack...

Peak Hubris

“I don’t understand people... who talk about us as being in decline, and who act as though we are not yet the greatest country that has ever been on the face of the Earth for all of history!” - Hillary Rodham Clinton, 25 July 2016

• Jul 26, 2016 4:25 PM

well hitlery, we were certainly doing a lot better, prior to you+bills reign of terror back in the 90's: where you set the stage for the econ meltdown of 2000-01, with NAFTA and glass-steagall repeal, thus giving your primary benefactors the key to the US Treasury, never mind letting obama... uhhh... i mean.. osama go back then - even AFTER his buddies blew up - or tried to blow up the WTC the first phreakin time

and YOU CLOWNS LET HIM GO!

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Clinton, Kaine flipflopping on issues. And I heard only Republicans are the Keystone copsYeah, I know Trump flip flops too, but I expect better of the.................... what?!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/27/clinton-kaine-face-flip-flop-questions-after-nomination.html

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

Archie Bunker in a coal mine. This idiot...so dumb ...Darwin award.

You make the author's point so elegantly, SF2. Normally, I'd grab my gut and laugh but now I don't think it's so funny anymore.

+2
but santa is just like all the rest of the demorat apologists:
the most insulting, idiotlogically-blinded, ignorantly-condescending bunch of hippycritters that eye have EVER witnessed!

and there's blood in the water now:

IRS Launches Investigation Of Clinton Foundation

Lawmakers charged the Clinton Foundation is a “lawless ‘pay-to-play’ enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years and should be investigated.”

• Jul 27, 2016 11:51 AM

esp since they've gone and pissed off putin:

Kremlin Slams Accusations Of Democratic Party Hack As "Made-Up Horror Stories"

On Wednesday the Kremlin reiterated Russia's position when it dismissed allegations Russia had hacked Democratic Party emails as "made up horror stories" dreamt up by U.S. politicians, saying it never interfered in other countries' election campaigns.

• Jul 27, 2016 9:58 AM

never mind this:

Assange: "A Lot More Material" Will Be Released

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday his whistleblowing website might release "a lot more material" relevant to the US electoral campaign. Assange was speaking in a CNN interview following the release of nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee by suspected Russian hackers.

• Jul 27, 2016 4:38 AM

heheheheheh!!!

OH YEAAHHHGH BAYBEE
now we see why the admin was so worked-up about 'the non-news outfits'
and they cant even dump on foxnews anymore...

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

and The HITS just keep on comin:

FelonsVotesMatter (To Hillary) - Clinton's Election Fate In Virginia Lies With 200,000 Unregistered Offenders

Terry McAuliffe, Governor of Virginia and long-time Clinton confidant, vowed to do whatever necessary to elect Hillary Clinton President...even if it means registering each of the 200,000 felons in the state of Virginia to vote individually. She did help him win the Governor seat...we guess it's kind of the least he could do.

• Jul 26, 2016 11:10 PM

BINGO/paydirt:

Trump: "I Hope Russia Has All 33,000 Emails That Hillary Deleted"

In yet another statement that is certain to spark outrage among Democrats, moments ago Donald Trump said he hopes that Russian hackers accused of breaching the DNC have obtained the tens of thousands of emails that Hillary Clinton deleted from her private email server. "If they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do," Trump told reporters on Wednesday at a press conference at his Miami-area hotel.

• Jul 27, 2016 11:35 AM

here's a beaut:

One Reader's Reaction To Bill Clinton's Speech: "A Harlequin Romance Novel"

Donald Trump, perhaps unsurprisingly, was among the first to criticize former President Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, saying he left out "the most interesting chapter." As one eloquent Zero Hedge reader pinpointed: "That anyone still sees Bill’s performance art as sincere is proof of the gullibility of the Democratic electorate. He ‘admires and respects’ Hillary, yet he schtupped anything without a Y chromosome in the Oval Office."

• Jul 27, 2016 3:55 PM

must say that ole wild bill really does still have 'it' tho...
esp after last nights performance.

dont recall ever seeing/hearing such a silver-tongued devil quite this 'good'

too bad its all pure spin, lapped up and embellished by his adoring DOUCHEBAGS OF THE LAMERSTREAM MEDIA WHORE BRIGADE

[DSpencer]

Re: Trump to win?

Hey, DSpencer, you know what I think might be good/interesting for you? Come up to New England some time and try a town meeting. Just, if you're ever on vacation this way, see if you can fit in an hour or so at some small town to where they're doing it to check out how it works. Yeah, you can see on Youtube, but I don't think it's quite the same.

I mean, it's direct democracy and deliberative too. All in action. You want a new fire truck? Make the case. The people are the legislature. There are no representatives, save someone you slecte to run the gavel or whatever. Nobody has more power or more votes than anybody else. Everything gets debated. Everything gets voted on.

Anyways, this is how I grew up in America. And I think it's a huge reason why we--kind of as a region--see the world so much differently than the rest of the country.

I just noticed that when you write about "the government" it's always as "them." Like some great other. Like a mysterious entity forced upon you from a foreign place.

And I think a lot of the US thinks that way.

When you get a chance to try the town meeting way of running local government, something else becomes immediately apparent though...

There is no "them."
There is only "us."
We are the government.

I think the size difference, both in land area and in population, between New England states and towns (counties don't matter or exist), and other parts of the US feeds into this split too. I mean, if you live in Vermont, and you want to see your Senator, the most you'd have to do is check a calendar and maybe drive an hour or two to the farmers' market he'll be at. In Rhode Island, it'd be an hour max until you're drinking beer with your Senator. Maybe an hour and a half in Connecticut if you drew your cards poorly, before you were eating a pancake breakfast at a folding table in the back of a Salvation Army...

I mean, it's just much more obvious that "the government" isn't some far off "them."

Around these parts, if the "government" wants to help, that means "we" want to help, because the government doesn't do nothing we don't tell it to. That's the value of checking out a town meeting.

It's not an activity done to people. It's an activity people participate in.

What we can do for ourselves and what politicians can do for us are one in the same.

At least that's the civic mindset I grew up with. I think it's quite different in other parts of the US, though.

Interesting perspective. Honestly, I've never really considered that other people were less likely to share the "us" vs "them" mentality. Of course, if I have to drive to New England to see what direct democracy looks like for other people, I'm not sure that will make me feel more empowered here. I can drive to Columbus in about an hour, but there's almost 2 million people in the metro area. I doubt I could find my Senator.

The main problem is what's the point? My state and local taxes combined are a small fraction of federal taxes and waste less of the money anyway. My county doesn't have an NSA to spy on me (or so I think). Ohio doesn't carpet bomb and drone strike. We have no say in immigration.

I've often heard that local government impacts your life more than the federal government. I think an Ohioan named Roscoe Filburn proved that wrong a long time ago when the federal government decided they could control whether you grew food on your own property for your own consumption. Even when the states ostensibly control something like the legal drinking age, the federal government pulls the strings through highway funding cuts. If the feds don't like that your state legalized marijuana, they can still come bust people.

I've never understood why the Democratic party doesn't support returning power to the states/local governments so that citizens could experience a more direct democracy. This election seems to prove they don't care about real democracy in the first place. The party picked Hillary before anyone cast a vote.

Anyway, I didn't intend on this being a rant. And I notice now upon reading this that I continue to use "them" without even thinking about it. When 95% of the power is held by elected officials and the ones you vote for are never elected, it's pretty easy to feel disenfranchised. It would be an interesting to know: Have I ever cast the deciding vote on anything in my entire life? My guess is no.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Trump to win?

Sure there's reasons for why people are angry and desperate for someone to save them and if the government wants to help they should try to understand those reasons, but at the end of the day there's more we can do for ourselves than politicians can do for us.

Hey, DSpencer, you know what I think might be good/interesting for you? Come up to New England some time and try a town meeting. Just, if you're ever on vacation this way, see if you can fit in an hour or so at some small town to where they're doing it to check out how it works. Yeah, you can see on Youtube, but I don't think it's quite the same.

I mean, it's direct democracy and deliberative too. All in action. You want a new fire truck? Make the case. The people are the legislature. There are no representatives, save someone you slecte to run the gavel or whatever. Nobody has more power or more votes than anybody else. Everything gets debated. Everything gets voted on.

Anyways, this is how I grew up in America. And I think it's a huge reason why we--kind of as a region--see the world so much differently than the rest of the country.

I just noticed that when you write about "the government" it's always as "them." Like some great other. Like a mysterious entity forced upon you from a foreign place.

And I think a lot of the US thinks that way.

When you get a chance to try the town meeting way of running local government, something else becomes immediately apparent though...

There is no "them."
There is only "us."
We are the government.

I think the size difference, both in land area and in population, between New England states and towns (counties don't matter or exist), and other parts of the US feeds into this split too. I mean, if you live in Vermont, and you want to see your Senator, the most you'd have to do is check a calendar and maybe drive an hour or two to the farmers' market he'll be at. In Rhode Island, it'd be an hour max until you're drinking beer with your Senator. Maybe an hour and a half in Connecticut if you drew your cards poorly, before you were eating a pancake breakfast at a folding table in the back of a Salvation Army...

I mean, it's just much more obvious that "the government" isn't some far off "them."

Around these parts, if the "government" wants to help, that means "we" want to help, because the government doesn't do nothing we don't tell it to. That's the value of checking out a town meeting.

It's not an activity done to people. It's an activity people participate in.

What we can do for ourselves and what politicians can do for us are one in the same.

At least that's the civic mindset I grew up with. I think it's quite different in other parts of the US, though.

[DSpencer]

Re: Trump to win?

Well you just sold one more book for your buddy J.D. Give him my best, one Scots-Irish whose kin hail from Trimble County to another. Now I wouldn't call Judge Robert's people hillbillies; at least not to any Trimble's face. But we're neighbors just the same and the same land we trod together is the same land we bury our own under and that can count for a lot.

I hate that so many Americans seem to have forgotten this, but we did it to ourselves and we can undo it. There's time, even if not enough for us.

Glad to hear it, although that was not my intention. I think your last line is echoed in the book. Sure there's reasons for why people are angry and desperate for someone to save them and if the government wants to help they should try to understand those reasons, but at the end of the day there's more we can do for ourselves than politicians can do for us.

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

J.D. Vance is a close personal friend of mine. He officiated my wedding. Everything I know about him leads me to believe he is a genuinely good person...

Well you just sold one more book for your buddy J.D. Give him my best, one Scots-Irish whose kin hail from Trimble County to another. Now I wouldn't call Judge Robert's people hillbillies; at least not to any Trimble's face. But we're neighbors just the same and the same land we trod together is the same land we bury our own under and that can count for a lot.

I hate that so many Americans seem to have forgotten this, but we did it to ourselves and we can undo it. There's time, even if not enough for us.

[DSpencer]

Re: Trump to win?

Archie Bunker in a coal mine. This idiot thinks we should have achieved 'some sort of lasting victory' [in the Middle East]. OK, you win. Vote for Trump. This point of view is so dumb I can only wish him and his hero DT an honorable Darwin award.

J.D. Vance is a close personal friend of mine. He officiated my wedding. Everything I know about him leads me to believe he is a genuinely good person. After reading a couple paragraphs from an interview, you pick out one sentence and publicly declare that based on it you wish that both my friend and Donald Trump would die humiliating deaths brought about by their own stupidity.

I urge you to take some time and reflect on who you want to be as a person. Trump is often reviled for his boorish, superficial and extremist views. If you spewed your views from a podium instead of on a obscure internet forum, perhaps people would see you in the same light.

Also consider that you are just wrong about Donald Trump being his "hero":

Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-of-the-masses/489911/

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

Archie Bunker in a coal mine. This idiot thinks we should have achieved 'some sort of lasting victory' [in the Middle East]. OK, you win. Vote for Trump. This point of view is so dumb I can only wish him and his hero DT an honorable Darwin award.

Ok, so some people can't connect with the pain of a soldier facing loss. Or put someone's lived experience in context with the actualities of the day; even if it might help bring about understanding. Still, I'm a little startled to see things so plainly.

The point is not that a Marine combat veteran reflexively longs ( "I can’t help but tell myself: I wish...") for a victory he admits was impossible. The point, in the context of making sense of Trump and why poor white people support him - indeed, the point of the entire article and why I posted it in a thread entitled "Trump to Win" - is for us to try to see it from the other fellow's point of view.

You see where the "dumb" hillbilly says right before he makes his wish?

Unsurprisingly, southern, rural whites enlist in the military at a disproportionate rate. Can you imagine the humiliation these people feel at the successive failures of Bush/Obama foreign policy?

That's all he asks you to do. Imagine. You don't need to accept or adopt anyone's premises about the wars, and besides why focus on a tiny aside with no direct relevance to the author's thesis?

But then I see it happening in real time - you evidencing precisely the same pattern of behavior and expression the author asserts is what fuels Trump:

Archie Bunker in a coal mine. This idiot...so dumb ...Darwin award.

You make the author's point so elegantly, SF2. Normally, I'd grab my gut and laugh but now I don't think it's so funny anymore.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Trump to win?

Archie Bunker in a coal mine. This idiot thinks we should have achieved 'some sort of lasting victory' [in the Middle East]. OK, you win. Vote for Trump. This point of view is so dumb I can only wish him and his hero DT an honorable Darwin award.

The author never stated what a lasting victory in the Middle East is. He could have very well meant "not ever poking a stick at the hornets' nest in the first place."

It was entirely obvious that the wars in the Middle East could never be won consider the objectives. Go in guns a-blazin'; make a big, fat mess of things; take out the ruler whom we no longer like; install a new ruler; and the country transforms itself into a semi-democratic state that hews to American policies.

Instead, the U.S. sends young men off to risk their lives in foreign lands trying to accomplish the impossible: nation-building (after nation destruction) in places that don't want it.

[santafe2]

Re: Trump to win?

The last point I’ll make about Trump is this: these people, his voters, are proud. A big chunk of the white working class has deep roots in Appalachia, and the Scots-Irish honor culture is alive and well. We were taught to raise our fists to anyone who insulted our mother. I probably got in a half dozen fights when I was six years old. Unsurprisingly, southern, rural whites enlist in the military at a disproportionate rate. Can you imagine the humiliation these people feel at the successive failures of Bush/Obama foreign policy? My military service is the thing I’m most proud of, but when I think of everything happening in the Middle East, I can’t help but tell myself: I wish we would have achieved some sort of lasting victory. No one touched that subject before Trump, especially not in the Republican Party... "

Archie Bunker in a coal mine. This idiot thinks we should have achieved 'some sort of lasting victory' [in the Middle East]. OK, you win. Vote for Trump. This point of view is so dumb I can only wish him and his hero DT an honorable Darwin award.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...92&oe=582FEAC4

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

From Rural Lupenbilly to Ivy League Chin Puller in One Generation; J.D. Vance and the Politics of Poor Whites

"I wrote last week about the new nonfiction book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, the Yale Law School graduate who grew up in the poverty and chaos of an Appalachian clan. The book is an American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. With the possible exception of Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic, for Americans who care about politics and the future of our country, Hillbilly Elegy is the most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance. His book does for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book did for poor black people: give them voice and presence in the public square.

This interview I just did with Vance in two parts (the final question I asked after Trump’s convention speech) shows why.

RD: A friend who moved to West Virginia a couple of years ago tells me that she’s never seen poverty and hopelessness like what’s common there. And she says you can drive through the poorest parts of the state, and see nothing but TRUMP signs. Reading “Hillbilly Elegy” tells me why. Explain it to people who haven’t yet read your book.

J.D. VANCE: The simple answer is that these people–my people–are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time. Donald Trump at least tries.

What many don’t understand is how truly desperate these places are, and we’re not talking about small enclaves or a few towns–we’re talking about multiple states where a significant chunk of the white working class struggles to get by. Heroin addiction is rampant. In my medium-sized Ohio county last year, deaths from drug addiction outnumbered deaths from natural causes. The average kid will live in multiple homes over the course of her life, experience a constant cycle of growing close to a “stepdad” only to see him walk out on the family, know multiple drug users personally, maybe live in a foster home for a bit (or at least in the home of an unofficial foster like an aunt or grandparent), watch friends and family get arrested, and on and on. And on top of that is the economic struggle, from the factories shuttering their doors to the Main Streets with nothing but cash-for-gold stores and pawn shops.

The two political parties have offered essentially nothing to these people for a few decades. From the Left, they get some smug condescension, an exasperation that the white working class votes against their economic interests because of social issues, a la Thomas Frank (more on that below). Maybe they get a few handouts, but many don’t want handouts to begin with.

From the Right, they’ve gotten the basic Republican policy platform of tax cuts, free trade, deregulation, and paeans to the noble businessman and economic growth. Whatever the merits of better tax policy and growth (and I believe there are many), the simple fact is that these policies have done little to address a very real social crisis. More importantly, these policies are culturally tone deaf: nobody from southern Ohio wants to hear about the nobility of the factory owner who just fired their brother.

Trump’s candidacy is music to their ears. He criticizes the factories shipping jobs overseas. His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground. He seems to love to annoy the elites, which is something a lot of people wish they could do but can’t because they lack a platform.

The last point I’ll make about Trump is this: these people, his voters, are proud. A big chunk of the white working class has deep roots in Appalachia, and the Scots-Irish honor culture is alive and well. We were taught to raise our fists to anyone who insulted our mother. I probably got in a half dozen fights when I was six years old. Unsurprisingly, southern, rural whites enlist in the military at a disproportionate rate. Can you imagine the humiliation these people feel at the successive failures of Bush/Obama foreign policy? My military service is the thing I’m most proud of, but when I think of everything happening in the Middle East, I can’t help but tell myself: I wish we would have achieved some sort of lasting victory. No one touched that subject before Trump, especially not in the Republican Party... "

http://www.theamericanconservative.c...s-poor-whites/