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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.

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EYEL1NER

Member


Thanks for the info/insight/opinions. I wouldn't be surprised if an R won the seat when all was said and done but Connelly is the favorite? I could understand that if this was back in November but it just makes me shake my head that people can't look at the last 100 days and not want more of that. Sure though, SC, elect someone else who'll suck Trump's dick and not accomplish a single positive (as in, beneficial to the average American) thing while in office.
I still take comfort in the fact that Sumter county was blue in November for everything at the Federal level. It's nice to know that I'm not outnumbered by horrible people in my area.
 

Wilsongt

Member
Thanks for the info/insight/opinions. I wouldn't be surprised if an R won the seat when all was said and done but Connelly is the favorite? I could understand that if this was back in November but it just makes me shake my head that people can't look at the last 100 days and not want more of that. Sure though, SC, elect someone else who'll suck Trump's dick and not accomplish a single positive (as in, beneficial to the average American) thing while in office.
I still take comfort in the fact that Sumter county was blue in November for everything at the Federal level. It's nice to know that I'm not outnumbered by horrible people in my area.

Oh, honey. You're still surrounded by stupid, trust me. Don't doubt that area SC-5 represents. It was drawn like that for a reason.
 
Y'all see this Vox article?

https://t.co/NEv9HrQ86X

I've been beating this drum for awhile.
The problem with this is something the article mentions early on. The voters don't want to be respected and told the truth. We tried that. They voted for the other guy.

What we need is to lie outrageously and then get everything done all at once so, like Obamacare, we can hold out until the changes we made are sufficiently popular to make undoing them untenable.
 

Blader

Member
Has anyone seen any good predictions for the South Carolina special election that is coming up, for the 5th Congressional District (primary on May 2)?

Any district the elects Mick Mulvaney is not a district we can really win. Unless there's an enormous contingent of Democrats in the area who have never voted before.

The problem with this is something the article mentions early on. The voters don't want to be respected and told the truth. We tried that. They voted for the other guy.

That might be a "the problem is the messenger, not the message" issue. I wonder how much more effective a charismatic speaker appealing to rural Americans' sense of responsibility and bootstraps gumption would be able to effectively get across certain unpleasant economic truths.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Y'all see this Vox article?

https://t.co/NEv9HrQ86X

I've been beating this drum for awhile.

We tried telling them the truth. We tried telling them coal wasn't coming back and they needed a new way of life, that factory jobs were unsustainable even without free trade, that they needed to adapt and change just like the rest of us. Instead they went with the guy who promised them everything they wanted to hear despite it being literally impossible.

They don't want the truth, they want the lie. They want to believe in the lie, to live the lie, to tell the lie to their children like their parents did them.
 
Y'all see this Vox article?

https://t.co/NEv9HrQ86X

I've been beating this drum for awhile.

The problem is nobody wants to hear the truth. Media doesn't want to tell the truth. Media loves to talk about problems that affect white people, plain and simple.

You hear so much about loss of coal jobs, which are 90% white. Meanwhile Retail jobs will disappear this year at a rate never seen before, that is I believe 40% are minority.

Coal jobs are not coming back. Sure, some company may hire a few extra workers due to Trump policies, but Coal is on its way out. More than that, Automation is always going to win out. But nobody wants to hear that coal jobs aren't coming back. Because as the media likes to say that affects "working class" people, forget that it only affects White working class.

Any sane person would invest heavily in promoting renewable energy production in USA. But that is bad word...mmm..kay.

Hillary had a whole retraining plan, but she made the mistake of telling people that coal jobs are not coming back.
 

kess

Member
President Donald Trump said on Sunday he expected Mexico to pay for the wall he has promised to build along the southern border, resuscitating a campaign promise that roiled U.S. relations with Mexico in the first week of his presidency.

"Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall," Trump said in a Twitter post.

Trump returned to his Mexico demand on a morning in which he simultaneously tried to pressure congressional Democrats to include funding for the border wall in must-pass spending legislation needed to keep the U.S. government open beyond Friday.

A spokesman for the Mexican president's office said President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeated that Mexico will not pay for the wall.

Still fucking that chicken!
 

Blader

Member
They don't want the truth, they want the lie. They want to believe in the lie, to live the lie, to tell the lie to their children like their parents did them.

I don't think that's true. I think many Rust Belt and midwest voters know full well the kind of industry booms their parents and grandparents enjoyed aren't happening again, and that their coal and manufacturing jobs are going to continue to decline no matter what Trump does. Maybe there's some set of polling data that disproves this, but I believe many -- not all, maybe not even most, but many -- of these people voted for Trump not because they believed the lie but they appreciated the shout out that, rightly or wrongly, they believed they weren't getting from Hillary Clinton: an imperfect messenger on an average day, but particularly in this campaign when her defining statement on coal country was that her administration would put these people out of business! You can't come back from that with these people.

Hillary had a jobs retraining plan, she had a plan for creating thousands of new jobs in the green energy sector, she had a plan for more accessible higher education -- and when the voters who would principally benefit from those plans swung for Trump instead, it's easy to conclude, that they don't want the truth, they want the lie. Which is probably true for a lot of these voters. But I think there are just as many voters who just don't want to be told the solution to their pain is to read Hillary Clinton's website after hearing her say "We're going to put a lot of coal miners out of business."
 
The problem with this is something the article mentions early on. The voters don't want to be respected and told the truth. We tried that. They voted for the other guy.

What we need is to lie outrageously and then get everything done all at once so, like Obamacare, we can hold out until the changes we made are sufficiently popular to make undoing them untenable.

We tried telling them the truth. We tried telling them coal wasn't coming back and they needed a new way of life, that factory jobs were unsustainable even without free trade, that they needed to adapt and change just like the rest of us. Instead they went with the guy who promised them everything they wanted to hear despite it being literally impossible.

They don't want the truth, they want the lie. They want to believe in the lie, to live the lie, to tell the lie to their children like their parents did them.

Well, yeah, that's the idea behind the article, but whether or not someone tells them the truth or lies is irrelevant to their lives. These industries are dead, and when we take power back, we need to force change in a lot of these places. If possible, it's probably easier to do some test cases based on how well we do with governor and state legislature elections; if we take some rural state, we should use it as a test case for our plans.

And I really don't want us to start lying. That just makes us look as shit as the GOP when we get power and then go back to what we know works anyway. We didn't lose some landslide here; I don't think we're in as drastic a situation as the Dems in the 80s.
 
After listening to Trump supporters I know talk about how smart it is that he's gutting the EPA (Because they make too much money...) I really don't think you can reason with these kind of people. This administration has been a dumpster fire and yet his supporters are justifying and supporting everything he's done.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
I don't think that's true. I think many Rust Belt and midwest voters know full well the kind of industry booms their parents and grandparents enjoyed aren't happening again, and that their coal and manufacturing jobs are going to continue to decline no matter what Trump does. Maybe there's some set of polling data that disproves this, but I believe many -- not all, maybe not even most, but many -- of these people voted for Trump not because they believed the lie but they appreciated the shout out that, rightly or wrongly, they believed they weren't getting from Hillary Clinton: an imperfect messenger on an average day, but particularly in this campaign when her defining statement on coal country was that her administration would put these people out of business! You can't come back from that with these people.

Hillary had a jobs retraining plan, she had a plan for creating thousands of new jobs in the green energy sector, she had a plan for more accessible higher education -- and when the voters who would principally benefit from those plans swung for Trump instead, it's easy to conclude, that they don't want the truth, they want the lie. Which is probably true for a lot of these voters. But I think there are just as many voters who just don't want to be told the solution to their pain is to read Hillary Clinton's website after hearing her say "We're going to put a lot of coal miners out of business."

It's not about what they believe, it's about what they want to believe and how to bridge that gap. Trump did it with racism. Why do you think he kept citing NAFTA instead of other trade deals? He was saying "your towns are dying, not because coal is no longer economically viable or that factories don't need as many people, but because brown people from Mexico are coming for your jobs and and bringing them back home." He gave them someone to blame and in doing so he bridged the gap between what they believe and what they want to believe.
 

SexyFish

Banned
@realDonaldTrump 3h3 hours ago

The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)! If

@realDonaldTrump 2m2 minutes ago

....the wall is not built, which it will be, the drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way it should be!

Only 3 hours apart.

Fucking what.
 
We may have a new record. It took him almost 3 hours to finish a thought on Twitter...

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 3h3 hours ago
More
The two fake news polls released yesterday, ABC & NBC, while containing some very positive info, were totally wrong in General E. Watch!

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 3h3 hours ago
More
The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)! If

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump


....the wall is not built, which it will be, the drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way it should be!
#BuildTheWall
11:31 AM - 24 Apr 2017

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/856531163799859201
 

Blader

Member
After listening to Trump supporters I know talk about how smart it is that he's gutting the EPA (Because they make too much money...) I really don't think you can reason with these kind of people. This administration has been a dumpster fire and yet his supporters are justifying and supporting everything he's done.

At the risk of sounding like I'm aping Pod Save America talking points, there's a difference between Trump supporters and Trump voters. People who think the EPA should be gutted because it makes too much money (huh?!) are beyond reasoning, but also probably don't comprise 90 percent of Trump voters, either.

It's not about what they believe, it's about what they want to believe and how to bridge that gap. Trump did it with racism. Why do you think he kept citing NAFTA instead of other trade deals? He was saying "your towns are dying, not because coal is no longer economically viable or that factories don't need as many people, but because brown people from Mexico are coming for your jobs and and bringing them back home." He gave them someone to blame and in doing so he bridged the gap between what they believe and what they want to believe.

Not to downplay the effectiveness of racism/nativism, but most Americans probably don't know the names of any trade deals other than NAFTA or TTP anyway.
 
Reading local news comments about what is going on with the monuments in LA is headache inducing.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155232139605763&id=80429805762

A lot of them really make you go 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Also, the drug problem is happening in our own country and exacerbated/escalated by our own fucking doctors you fucking apricot looking clown.

Part of the doctor induced opiate overprescribing is because some are greedy pill mill fucks or don't ever question what pharma tells them but a lot is because opiates make people feel good. Doctors are humans too, and want their patients to feel good. If opiates weren't addictive/tolerance producing, we would probably all be on them. The drug problem is more complicated than any one group pushing them (though pharma and pill mills need to be reprimanded) because drugs/addictive things are an intrinsic part of being human. Look at trump, the guy is a textbook example of someone slavishly addicted to luxury/public approval.
 

Ernest

Banned
Yeah, there's no reasoning with many Trump supporters. To them, it's tribal - you may as well tell them to accept that there's no god.

I mean, many hold views like this on, say, Hawaii (and I'm not making this up - I couldn't):
"bunch of islanders who harbored fugitive Muslim Obama, so thats why they are stopping the important EO to protect us, so we will approve if Trump drops the MOAB and annihilate Hawaii."
How do you reason with someone like that and expect them to believe something that goes against their instinct, no matter how wrong it may be?
 
Obama @ Chicago speech: "So uhhh what's been going on while I've been gone?"

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/856540028016701440

e3d683cdbb61993371101050949c3454.gif
 

Zolo

Member
I'm surprised he keeps talking about the wall when he's going to take a giant L on it. Even in the interview, he didn't make a firm line about signing a bill that didn't have it.
 

Blader

Member
The more I read about Shattered, the shittier it sounds. Though I do think Robby Mook should be given a lifetime ban from politics.
 
From this Obama event, what I am getting is Democrats need to identify the best challengers early, they need to basically make it their aim to go and talk to each and every household in their district either directly or through proper campaign volunteers.
 

Valhelm

contribute something
We tried telling them the truth. We tried telling them coal wasn't coming back and they needed a new way of life, that factory jobs were unsustainable even without free trade, that they needed to adapt and change just like the rest of us. Instead they went with the guy who promised them everything they wanted to hear despite it being literally impossible.

They don't want the truth, they want the lie. They want to believe in the lie, to live the lie, to tell the lie to their children like their parents did them.

This is the stuff I don't like about liberal politics. Governments should exist to serve the people. If an industry is dying, we should guarantee jobs or pensions for the disenfranchised people, rather than leave them out on the cold.

Hillary had a much better plan for this than Trumb, but we can't expect every 50-year-old coal miner to become a programmer. Why are federal employment and industry-specific unemployment relief off the table? Even if such programs are expensive, they provide a moral and social good while also building Democratic support in blighted industrial communities.
 
This is the stuff I don't like about liberal politics. Governments should exist to serve the people. If an industry is dying, we should guarantee jobs or pensions for the disenfranchised people, rather than leave them out on the cold.

Hillary had a much better plan for this than Trumb, but we can't expect every 50-year-old coal miner to become a programmer. Why are federal employment and industry-specific unemployment relief off the table? Even if such programs are expensive, they provide a moral and social good while also building Democratic support in blighted industrial communities.

If one guy is telling you that you'll have your old well paying job back and the other is saying your job is gone, but we can retrain you & provide financial assistance while you get a new job, who do you think people are going to gravitate towards?

not the one saying your job is gone
 
If one guy is telling you that you'll have your old well paying job back and the other is saying your job is gone, but we can retrain you & provide financial assistance while you get a new job, who do you think people are going to gravitate towards?

not the one saying your job is gone
I mean it would've helped if she's talked about it to them.

You just need changes on the margins!
 

Blader

Member
Is it worth reading?

I said I was reading about it, not the actual book. :p

If one guy is telling you that you'll have your old well paying job back and the other is saying your job is gone, but we can retrain you & provide financial assistance while you get a new job, who do you think people are going to gravitate towards?

not the one saying your job is gone

I'd argue that the bolded was probably not communicated nearly as well by the actual candidate to the actual voters. And even if it were, kicking off your Rust Belt outreach with effectively promising to put these voters out of work is a fatal first impression.
 

Valhelm

contribute something
If one guy is telling you that you'll have your old well paying job back and the other is saying your job is gone, but we can retrain you & provide financial assistance while you get a new job, who do you think people are going to gravitate towards?

not the one saying your job is gone

Yeah, that's the problem. Trump's employment program was ludicrous, but it seemed to provide more immediate relief than Hillary's attempts to spur new jobs in the private sector.

If I had to guess, Trump's failure to help industrial communities will turn many of those people back toward the Democrats in 2020/2024, but I think that proactive economic efforts to help these communities are necessary to keep them blue. And as discussed in the last thread, Democrats need to do this without betraying their values or other vulnerable demographics.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
This is the stuff I don't like about liberal politics. Governments should exist to serve the people. If an industry is dying, we should guarantee jobs or pensions for the disenfranchised people, rather than leave them out on the cold.

Hillary had a much better plan for this than Trumb, but we can't expect every 50-year-old coal miner to become a programmer. Why are federal employment and industry-specific unemployment relief off the table? Even if such programs are expensive, they provide a moral and social good while also building Democratic support in blighted industrial communities.

There are going to be a lot of old industries dying over the next several decades. The government can't afford to provide full pensions to everyone.

Unemployment benefits should of course be offered, and maybe some other relief is appropriate. But people also need to take personal responsibility and find other work. There's no reason for a young coal miner to get a free salary for decades because he doesn't want to learn another job.
 

pigeon

Banned
We tried telling them the truth. We tried telling them coal wasn't coming back and they needed a new way of life, that factory jobs were unsustainable even without free trade, that they needed to adapt and change just like the rest of us. Instead they went with the guy who promised them everything they wanted to hear despite it being literally impossible.

They don't want the truth, they want the lie. They want to believe in the lie, to live the lie, to tell the lie to their children like their parents did them.

Yeah, but you can't always get what you want.

Yglesias is not making a political argument really, but it's worth noting that the reason Trump is running into so much trouble is that he lied about everything. The one subject on which he's satisfying his voters is white supremacy, which is also the one subject where he didn't lie.

Lying is not an effective political strategy. But I agree that in this case people aren't big fans of the truth either.
 

Crocodile

Member
This is the stuff I don't like about liberal politics. Governments should exist to serve the people. If an industry is dying, we should guarantee jobs or pensions for the disenfranchised people, rather than leave them out on the cold.

Hillary had a much better plan for this than Trumb, but we can't expect every 50-year-old coal miner to become a programmer. Why are federal employment and industry-specific unemployment relief off the table? Even if such programs are expensive, they provide a moral and social good while also building Democratic support in blighted industrial communities.

I think a big part of it is the culture of America. If you aren't working, you're a lazy bum without a purpose in life. People want to work. Of course they (we all) want jobs that they can make a living wage from with good healthcare/benefits. They (we all) want a job that intellectually/physically stimulates. They (we all) want jobs that play into their personal interests. At the end of the day though, they (we all) want to work. Just saying "more unemployment benefits" or "basic income for all" just isn't appealing to a lot of people and can be in fact a turn off even if it might be helpful in the short term.
 

kirblar

Member
From this Obama event, what I am getting is Democrats need to identify the best challengers early, they need to basically make it their aim to go and talk to each and every household in their district either directly or through proper campaign volunteers.
Everyone knew the latter, and it got ignored by idiots who thought they knew better
 
Yeah, that's the problem. Trump's employment program was ludicrous, but it seemed to provide more immediate relief than Hillary's attempts to spur new jobs in the private sector.

If I had to guess, Trump's failure to help industrial communities will turn many of those people back toward the Democrats in 2020/2024, but I think that proactive economic efforts to help these communities are necessary to keep them blue. And as discussed in the last thread, Democrats need to do this without betraying their values or other vulnerable demographics.

I don't know that Trump offered any immediate relief - what he offered was a lie that people wanted to hear. If one side is willing to lie to tell people exactly what they want, I'm not sure there's much we can do in terms of framing to combat that short of lying ourselves.

If Trump was interested in offering immediate help to displaced coal miners, he would've put the benefits of retired coal workers at the top of his priority list. I've yet to see him even address that. It would be an easy win for him, too!
 
I think a big part of it is the culture of America. If you aren't working, you're a lazy bum without a purpose in life. People want to work. Of course they (we all) want jobs that they can make a living wage from with good healthcare/benefits. They (we all) want a job that intellectually/physically stimulates. They (we all) want jobs that play into their personal interests. At the end of the day though, they (we all) want to work. Just saying "more unemployment benefits" or "basic income for all" just isn't appealing to a lot of people and can be in fact a turn off even if it might be helpful in the short term.
I think guaranteeing a pension for a certain number of years if you're young/working age and forever if you're close to retirement anyways could help with that though. Once removed from the material need to work for food, people can either educate themselves or find other means of work that they'd find satisfying and productive.

I'm a bigger fan of just making a huge modern integrated WPA or CCC, possibly with the guarantee that people asking for a job can get one. This would help create jobs and also help shitty white people meet and interact with people of color, which I think are two good things.
 

kirblar

Member
I think a big part of it is the culture of America. If you aren't working, you're a lazy bum without a purpose in life. People want to work. Of course they (we all) want jobs that they can make a living wage from with good healthcare/benefits. They (we all) want a job that intellectually/physically stimulates. They (we all) want jobs that play into their personal interests. At the end of the day though, they (we all) want to work. Just saying "more unemployment benefits" or "basic income for all" just isn't appealing to a lot of people and can be in fact a turn off even if it might be helpful in the short term.
I disagree that this is something specific to America. Having people working means you have a stable society.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Yeah, but you can't always get what you want.

Yglesias is not making a political argument really, but it's worth noting that the reason Trump is running into so much trouble is that he lied about everything. The one subject on which he's satisfying his voters is white supremacy, which is also the one subject where he didn't lie.

Lying is not an effective political strategy. But I agree that in this case people aren't big fans of the truth either.

It's tough for the Truth to break through when that information is coming from "the enemy".
 
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