(Back to the top, given how well Trump is doing. Contrary to what many say, hope beats fear pretty often. Election open thread is below.)
I know. It’s not what you’ve been told. Hold still, and read.
Clinton’s storyline is as follows: “I will be an historic woman president and I am supremely qualified, competent, and tough. I know what can be done and most left-wing things are impossible, but I’ll do what I can within the constraints of the system.”
Or, as some wag put it during the primary, “No we can’t.” Add in: “I have ovaries” and “I’m tough,” and you have Hillary’s storyline.
Here is Trump’s: “I know the system is corrupt because I won in the corrupt system, but I’m rich and owe no one, so when I’m President I’ll work for you.”
Jobs: “There aren’t enough good jobs because of bad trade deals and immigration. I’ll re-negotiate trade deals, slap on huge tariffs, and bring America’s jobs back while reducing illegal immigration with a wall.”
Terrorism: “Terrorism is caused by Muslim immigrants and I’m going to stop those immigrants from coming to the US until we can figure out who the bad ones are.”
Read what I’m about to say next very carefully: I am not talking about the platforms or policy proposals (which mean little anyway), I am talking about the message the candidates and their main surrogates are pushing.
These are their positive messages.
You may disagree with either message, but the simple truth is that Trump has a stronger positive message. Trump is saying: “America has problems, I can fix them, and here are my solutions.”
Clinton is saying: “I’m competent and I deserve this.”
Clinton’s slogan says: “I’m with Her” (meaning Americans are with her).
Trump’s slogan says: “Trump for America” (meaning Trump is there for America).
On positive messaging, Trump is absolutely stronger. There is no contest.
Now, let’s look at negative messaging.
Negative on Trump: He’s a fascist, racist, incompetent blowhard. He is (barely sub voce) Hitler reborn. (And, just recently, “a pawn of RUSSIA” who will destroy the American Empire.)
Negative on Clinton: She’s a crook and a traitor and incompetent. She voted for or was for everything that has fucked up America, like Iraq and trade deals. She supports BLM and wants cops to die.
The negative message against Trump is a lot stronger than the negative messaging against Clinton. Most of my readers are probably firmly embedded in a liberal bubble, and may say, “That’s not right!” but look at the actual charges. (“Fascist, Hitler, Manchurian Candidate.”)
Yes, traitors should be hung, but Hitler’s/Fasicsts are far worse.
This is the most negative campaign I remember in my life, bar none. Both sides are going all out, but the anti-Trump negatives are stronger, though Trump is now trying hard with the “Blue Lives Matter” message.
I want to point out something: When people are traitors or Hitler, violence is justified–especially in the case of violence against the Hitler/Fascist.
If an actual fascist was to take power in the US, the damage he could do is immense. When people hear “fascist,” they think genocide, gulags, world war.
There’s very little that isn’t justified if someone is going to be Hitler. He must be stopped, no matter what.
If someone isn’t actually Hitler/Fascist, then calling them that is very dangerous.
I don’t, myself, think Trump is fascist, let alone Hitler reborn. But if he is, then virtually nothing is off the board in stopping him.
In terms of actual speeches, I judge Trump as LESS likely to start a major war, because Trump has gone out of his way to be conciliatory with Russia and Putin (a.k.a., the only other country with enough nukes to destroy the world).
As for domestic policies, Trump’s more comfortable with racist rhetoric and violence than I like.
Is he Hitler reborn, though?
Summary
Trump has the stronger positive message. It isn’t even close.
Clinton has the stronger negative message. It isn’t even close.
Because of how much Trump is happy to use ridicule and because the media despises Trump even as they can’t look away, that’s not how it has been played, but it’s still the case.
Trump has been hit with stronger negative messages. Fascist/Hitler/Russian stooge beats incompetent, crooked, traitor.
Oddly, if Clinton wins, assuming messages stay relatively consistent, it will be because FEAR has won. If Trump wins, it will be because HOPE has won.
I do not claim that Trump has the “better” plan. If one wants, one can draw Trump as another Reagan, with his “Morning in America” and his bullshit plan, and draw Clinton as the sensible one. (Jimmy Carter, for all his flaws, does not deserve to be compared to Clinton.)
Or one can compare to Britain leaving the EU, where the Leave campaign had the message of hope, and the Remain campaign had the “This is as good as it gets!” message.
What I do say is that Trump’s message has been one that says “America has problems, I can fix them, here is my plan,” and that Clinton has said, “America’s fine already, I’ll make some tweaks, life is about as good as it’s going to get.”
If Trump wins, it will be because he had a stronger positive message.
It’s a weird world.
(For the record, folks, I would not vote for Trump and do not recommend doing so. I would also not vote for Clinton. I’ll run through the reasoning and how to decide who to vote for in a later post. This is one of the rare elections where I recommend just voting in your self-interest.)
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Nick
I agree Trump presents a more positive message to the working disenfranchised, its also very empty. Nothing at all in Trumps business dealings or personal demeanor suggests he would even be close to following through on the rhetoric. Its just another business deal to Trump and if he got in he’ll just outsource it to the VP who is far right.
But I think that is unlikely because alot of obvious deep flaws of Trumps haven’t been given much pressure. Either way the elite still own the winner.
Bill Hicks
Great point–and not one that too many liberals want to hear. Funny how the wife of The Man from Hope has become The Queen of Nope.
Malk
I have also never seen the press so obviously collude with a campaign (Clinton) in my life. That is extremely scary. It reeks of fascism. I don’t know if I’ll vote for Trump, but it makes me really on the edge that this could happen.
Democrats are also engaged in red baiting now. WAPO just posted a bullshit article about the Russians dumping the emails to help Trump. I talked to a friend of mine, who is a lead programmer for Etsy, and he said there is absolutely no way to know who hacked those those leaks.
Also, the other day, I was talking to my pops about obtaining a bag of grass for my anxiety. My pops tells me to not talk on the phone about it. Okay, it sunk in in that moment that there are subjects on the phone that we cannot broach anymore. That also scares the shit out of me. This is under a Democratic president too. Quite frankly, the Democrats are embracing their inner fascists, and they tell us that Trump is fascist? Please.
Hugh
I see it more as we have these two sockpuppets of the rich talking at us.
Now one of them, let’s call her Hillary, says in that really condescending, insincere voice of that teacher you hated in school, “I’m a Democrat, the party of change, the party of the little guy, and I am for more of the same and Wall Street. I’m rich. You’re not. You can’t have nice things. You suck ass progressives need me and beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Then the other sockpuppet, call him Donald or the Don, pipes up sounding like a stand up comedian who thinks he’s a lot funnier than he is, and says, “Me, me, me, me, me, me, I’m rich, and you losers aren’t, me, me, me, me, me. I’m a Republican, the party of the big guy and the status quo so I am all for changing the status quo back to the status quo and fighting for all the losers that I have spent all my life firing and screwing over because, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, it’s all about me, me, me, me, me.”
The question I have is why would anyone waste their time or care what sockpuppets say. They’re sockpuppets. What you should be doing is looking at whose hand is up their butt.
Alex
Clinton has also been conveying a subtle message: I am entitled to be president.
She slipped up during the primaries when she openly said she’ll “… be the nominee, it’s already decided …” during an interview.
I don’t remember ever seeing that before.
What a rotten season for candidates.
Sanders’ supporters give him $230 million so he tell them “I’m with her”. I guess “feel the bern” is a boomerang with s-u-c-k-e-r written on it.
Stein’s message seems to be “vote for me because I’m not them”, which is why Greens end up being a protest vote. In this election she should be making hay, but then again…
Why is it that everyone of these people seem so unqualified (for anything at all)?
At least Pat Paulsen made people laugh.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Vote my self-interest, eh?
Okay–I live in the USA. I can’t afford to go live anywhere else. So, I have two choices.
I can vote for a responsible adult to become the Chief Executive of the country which I can’t leave.
Or, I can vote for a tribble-haired adolescent-minded grifter with the manners of a Mob boss, who is beginning to look like he might be the puppet of a foreign president who also resembles a Mob boss, to be the Chief Executive of the country which I can’t leave.
Technically, I have more than two choices, but none of the other candidates have a chance in Areinnye of winning.
It looks like an easy choice to me.
Tom
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/24/debbie-wasserman-schultz-resigns-dnc-chair-emails-sanders?CMP=edit_2221
This leak showed deliberate sabotage of Bernie’s Campaign.
Its the smoking gun showing deliberate and illegal voter suppression.
Shit, Bernie might be a Saturday Morning Jew, but who isn’t a “Insert morning and Faith here.” But worrying that Bible Belters won’t elect him as they might think him Atheist when those states swing Republican anyway is fucked up.
mc
IBW–Please don’t leave us in suspense. Who is this “responsible adult” you’re voting for? We’ve been looking for months and it clearly isn’t either of the major candidates. We need your special and superior judgment to guide us. Enlighten us, you big tease.
Chuck Mire
From the long view of history:
https://medium.com/@theonlytoby/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-next-with-brexit-trump-a3fefd154714#.vhs2akwse
S Brennan
I agree with much of what you say Ian; particularly that the media has been not to subtle in calling for Trump’s assassination by giving a daily dish of articles that describe Trump as the most dangerous man in human history…implicitly implying that the would be assassin of Trump would be lionized by the world.
Last time the press did this number Rev Martin Luther King was gunned down.
wendy davis
A third choice is always to not fear Trump so much, and join the Hillary Stampede, but vote third party, green, socialistst, whatever.
@ Hugh: I often come here for teh Hugh, but in this case, I disagree w/ you. The scribes to the Empire say that ‘Putin hacked the NC emails (rubbish) and that ‘revanchist Putin = Trump in destroying the EU, yada, yada. B at Moa had a bit of fun with ‘omnipotent Putin’ today, and Michael Hudson did as well (or I reckon he got the humor of a lot of it.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/07/clinton-asserts-putin-influence-on-us-elections-after-taking-russian-bribes.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16817
That finance capital is up both duopoly parties’ asses is incontrovertible, but not drinking the Empire’s Trump is more evil than the Red Ovian Queen, is as well. Imo, of course.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
If the operators of the Deep State have decided they do not want Tribble Hair–and if there be anything real to the “Putin is pulling Trump’s strings” narrative, they should not want him–they need not resort to anything so crude as assassination.
They can simply use their back-door passwords into the unaccountable, computerized vote-counting machines–if they even need to do that; 242 EVs worth of states (and D. C.) have gone for the Democrat every time since 2000, while only 179 EVs worth of states have gone for the Republican every time since 2000. (Go here and click the drop-down map under the Gulf Coast states for “Same Since 2000”.)
Afterward, again if the Putin narrative is true, the Deep State can arrange a fitting reward for the insolence of Putin.
Memory
Stevie Wonder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2HQVGNLHrc
Patti Smith’s sublime interpretation of Stevie’s masterful art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhC1NP2zWgk
That is all.
TW Andrews
I agree with and am pleased by your analysis, in terms of their messaging. On the other hand, I do think that Trump is a potential fascist–maybe the system would check him, but it’s no sure thing, and am happy to see Clinton willing to go hard to beat him.
I don’t think Clinton will necessarily be great, particularly with regard to foreign policy, but I think Trump would be a catastrophe.
ktron
“Yes, traitors should be hung”
I think you mean “hanged” – unless you’re proposing they belong in some sort of rogues gallery?
“Trump has gone out of his way to be conciliatory with Russia and Putin: aka. the only other country with enough nukes to destroy the world.”
Any country with nukes can destroy the world: that includes certain countries that no-one ever admits own nukes. The pretence that only the “Americans” or Russians can destroy the world is silly.
Ghostwheel
@ Chuck Mire:
Read the article. Absolute crap by a baffled elitist. I would go through it point by point, but to most of the regulars here it’s flaws and blind spots will be glaringly obvious.
V. Arnold
Ghostwheel
July 25, 2016
I would go through it point by point, but to most of the regulars here it’s flaws and blind spots will be glaringly obvious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yep, I’d agree with that.
More Russophobic crap re: Putin, blah, blah, blah. I do not recall any mention of the U.S. using NATO aggressively, right on Russia’s borders. He also fails to recognize the EU is already fractured beyond redemption.
Tobias Stone; another writer for the circular filing cabinet…
IIJK
You’re a joke, Peckerwood Bill. Go jack off to your pictures of dead Libyan children.
V. Arnold
IIJK
July 25, 2016
You’re a joke, Peckerwood Bill.
Of course he is; he’s been trolling this site for years. He has changed his nom de plume many times; but he can’t change his personality (?) and busts himself; we mostly ignore him as what he is, a troll.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
“Go jack off…”
At my age? 😆
Memory
@wendy davis: Red Ovian Queen is good. I favor the title Princess BloodFlower myself.
And Princess BloodFlower can go suck on her own veins now. I’ll bet Wasserman Schultz’s veins are extra super juicy, too. Princess BloodFlower is not getting any more vital force out of mine. The Democratic Party has become an absurd joke. I feel ashamed to have ever voted as a Democrat. Sad!
I will not vote for either of these evil motherfuckers. I consider it my duty to not further submit myself before the thrones of corrupted power any longer. And know what? I live with the possibility of having my life snuffed out because of my politics every single day.
I will gladly die if it means future generations worldwide will have a chance at a better way of life, a more joyful way, in the way of solidarity. You?
Adam Eran
Strategic voting recommendation: In non-swing states, vote Jill Stein, Greens. This denies any winning candidate a (larger) mandate, sends a message and may get the Greens some attention and money. It does nothing to impact SCOTUS. Yes, it’s mighty weak tea, but I’m just taking what’s available here.
Billikin
In his most recent speech Trump has made a left turn and included Hope and Change (TM) in his message. (A move predicted by Scott Adams, BTW.) But his basic appeal is based upon fear, and he has not abandoned it. (See the Make America Safe Again BS.) He appeals to fear of the Other, fear of foreigners, including immigrants, fear of alien religions, fear of terrorism, fear of crime, fear of other Americans, those who are not like us, who are not Real Americans (TM). But fear not. The Strong Father in the person of Trump (TM) will save us. Hope based upon fear.
But if elected Trump will turn on us when the going gets tough, just as he has turned on business associates and investors. Scott Adams made the point that Trump understands risk and has protected himself against it. What Adams omits is that Trump saves himself and lets others take the dive.
XFR
Stein’s message seems to be “vote for me because I’m not them”, which is why Greens end up being a protest vote. In this election she should be making hay, but then again…
Again, Stein was installed as Green leader in 2012 by the very same gang of a***wipes who are installing Clinton as Democratic leader now. That her messaging sucks is a feature, not a bug.
realitychecker
@ Billikin
“What Adams omits is that Trump saves himself and lets others take the dive.”
As contrasted with that lying scum Killary, who reacts to the exposure of Wasserman Shultz as just another dishonest operator, who has just become the first party chairman in history to be banned from that party’s convention, by immediately coming out and announcing she will cheerfully put that blatantly crooked operator in charge of her 50 state election strategy and will also use her as a primary surrogate throughout the campaign.
How much more of an in-your-face “FUCK YOU” can possibly be given to true democrats and true progressives?
Vote for Hilllary and you are voting for more and continuous lack of accountability for insiders, just as we have seen that attitude prevail throughout the Obama administration (i.e. Putting Holder and Breuer, both partners in the law firm that made the housing crisis possible by issuing an opinion letter saying it was OK to bypass the title registration law with their MERS scheme, thereby enabling the housing crisis, and leaving us all to wonder how the sheriff’s couldn’t find a single bankerr to prosecute).
Not for me. Lack of accountability means tyranny,i.e., rule of men and not rule of law, which I will never cooperate with.
OTOH, Trump consistently argues for accountability and enforcement of the law.
We can’t possibly know if Trump would actually govern that way, but we do know that Hillary will not.
Not a trivial consideration, IMHO.
Peter*
It’s a clear sign of how degraded our resistance is here in Amerika if we have to depend on the kindness of strangers such as Putin to ferret out this info on our crooked political system. If it is true someone should give the Russians a whistleblower award.
What happened to those Anonomouses whose work seemed so promising, not long ago. The last I heard of them they had joined the WOT and I think were burrowing under Trump’s golf courses.
I think too many people are reading their own desires into what Trump has said about Putin. He said he respects Putin as a leader which is a big improvement but he only said that he thought he could ‘deal’ with him on global issues which is not saying he will join him or agree with his agendas. The Clintonites are of course running around screaming the Russians are coming while projecting that their nemesis Trump will hold open the door which is even more pathetic nonsense.
wendy davis
@ Memory: ‘Ovian’ came from a great commenter at my home website after I had announced that to many libruls it’s key that ‘she has a vagina’ (there’s anthony freda artwork with that, ya can Duck-duck-go/bing, lol). i confess that ‘princess bloodflower’ is too kind, esp. since I love flowers, even bloodroot, etc.. (smile) but ye, she is another blood-sucker, but she and bill couch it all in focus-group-tested language.
Now please let me admit that for thirty years or more, I ran campaigns for Dems, and watched the DNC tank all but the least populist ones. Those who DID gt into office became: other people, having caught the scent of power. I voted O the first time, but then: McCrankypanks and Palin who could see Roosia from her window is my excuse, and imo, a pretty good one….then
As for voting, I dunno that I’ll vote for any Prez candidate, given that I was disenchanted that Stein had offered the top o’ the ticket to the bern, but IF the Greens managed to widen the party as a workers’ and other Rabble movement by then, I’d consider it. Dying for our future generations? As I once asked frequent guest here MFI, who blamed us all for…where we are: “If I were to self-immolate in a publlic square, would anyone give a good goddam”? Nah. But sure, I’m kinda at the point where I’m looking forward to the Grim Reaper/White Owl, myownself.
Hugh
To repeat, the con that we get sucked into by this whole political pageant is that we have real choices and that there are real differences between the candidates. There aren’t. Clinton and Trump, the Democratic and Republican parties, are shit sandwiches. The key concept here to latch on to is not “sandwich” but “shit”. And if you think that there are real and meaningful differences to be made between shit and shit, then you have problems that go beyond what I can address.
Or look at this way. We live in a house of mirrors. The trick is to get us to start making comparisons between the images we see of the politicians and the parties and then let our own natural inclinations guide us into thinking that those differences count for something. They don’t. The images we see are neither real nor true.
Or this way. Clinton and Trump, the Democratic and Republican parties represent two roads to perdition. It doesn’t matter which road you take. It is the destination which counts.
realitychecker
@ wendy davis
“If I were to self-immolate in a public square, would anyone give a good goddam”? Nah.”
Au contraire, ma soeur. I would vastly prefer that you take no such action. You shed much more light with your writings, IMO.
IDG
As an European I’m scared of HRC, her platform actually looks like much more jingoist and hawkish than Trump.
I’m genuinely scared the imbecile top brass are so removed of reality that they may start WWIII with Russia.
Hoping Trump wins here.
EmilianoZ
Not all shit sandwiches are equal. In this instance, one of the sandwiches looks like it may be more toxic but also more nutritious (insofar as shit can still contain traces of undigested nutrients). The other sandwich seems to stink less but probably contains no nutrition at all. It’s all a matter of trade-off. Anyways, beggars aren’t choosers.
Larry
It truly is a choice of the lesser of two evils, more so than I have ever seen in my 7 decades life
Hugh
Evil is evil is evil. Lesser evilism is what got us to where we are now. How has that worked out? Lesser evilism is a sap’s game. The only smart move is not to play it.
Mel
Re: voting ones self-interest.
Just finished John K. Galbraith’s The Culture of Contentment. Explains all of U.S. politics through the last ’90s in terms of a large bloc of the affluent voting for their continued comfort. Galbraith suggests that the people who, we say, voted against their interest were mainly from an underclass who were left out of the game — whose interests were never up for a vote — and generally didn’t bother.
It’s interesting to take a back-bearing along that line and see where the wheels fell off. A lot of new underclass members are used to voting, and are going to persist.
Carla
I think Trump is less likely to start a major war because the foreign policy establishment isn’t going to let him. He can’t be controlled and they don’t understand him.
Hillary, they understand perfectly, it seems to me. Her war-mongering appears exquisitely suited to the foreign policy establishment’s priorities. She is someone they can really work with, and I’m afraid they will. So I consider her the more dangerous choice.
All that said, I’m voting for Jill Stein in order to secure ballot access and possibly federal campaign dollars for the Green Party in 2020. Presuming we make it til then.
Those who are terrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency might want to read a little 118-page book called “National Security and Double Government” by Michael J. Glennon. It will make you feel better; the president can do a few things domestically but very little in the way of directing foreign policy.
Wayne
S. Brennan: I’m impressed by how sideways you have to be to obliquely compare The Donald to MLK Jr.
Malk: Are we talking about the same media that banged the Benghazi drum for almost a straight year? Or the one the leads with even the slightest whiff of Hillary Clinton doing anything wrong every chance they get? You’re right that it reeks of Fascism, but not for the reason you think. It’s really more Mussolini than Hitler.
wendy davis
@ Hugh: I guess that both candidates are shit sandwiches is what I’m actually finding fun. As: perhaps neither of them are lesser evil. What i have liked just lately is that a few good folks have been trying to say that Trump Fear and Darkness™ shouldn’t act to stampede voters to Miz ‘It takes a village’ neocon warmonger.
That this nation has so laughed at Democracy© that we’re left by now with these corporate capitalist duopolists is not only instructive, but downright funny to me. It’s also allowed some essays showing the faux histories of Amerikka (built on the backs of slavery and genocide, and created to serve the Elites), and how this was almost predictable, even if a bit of a Black Swan.
If eight years of Barack Obama weren’t enough to radicalize one about elections as ‘best advertising campaigns’, or to disdain capitalism itself (and sorry, Miz Klein; it will never be ‘fettered’ again), I dunno what would. But who knows? Maybe one of these candidates will, but my guess is that it may not be The Revolution some of having been hoping for.
But again, maybe the spiritual revolution that the Indigenous and MLK have said are on the way…might create the right sort. Anyway, this particular quadrennial circus has turned fun in away, imo, it’s reached such an absurd level; ‘Putin controlling Trump’, for instance, and well-represented in this thread. And I say that as having penned two diaries with the tag ‘electoral politics’, one showing the Bern in his own words as a militarist himself (via video).
@ realitychecker: That’s kind of you to say, but the more my brain melts, the more Pfffft my writing is. But no, a few people on the planet still kinda need me, so I’ll hang around for now. (smile)
realitychecker
@ wendy davis
You’re still much, much better than most, and you always will be. (Until they pry that keyboard from your cold, dead fingers lol.)
IMO, this election just moves us closer to the total breakdown of the duopoly fraud, and that is reason to be cheerful. After this, it will be more difficult to sell the democracy BS to any but the most deranged. The people must be truly infuriated before they have the determination to demand real positive change, and the elites must be terrified.
It was never going to be pretty to watch.
wendy davis
Also @ realitychecker: But I do seem to have a knack for pissing commenters off, and they often leave. Verbotten for many: outing Big Greens (especially the veal-penned Saint McKibben, mentioning the term ‘Zionism’, not towing the line on Saints Snowden and Greenwald, failing to read every link commenters bring in; well, you get my drift. Some return, but ven you quit commenting there, seemingly. (smile; iirc, Ian still has the default WordPress ‘discussion’ setting for changing punctuation into emotion, as well as putting comments into moderation for more than one link).
wendy davis
@ realitychecker: Our comments must have crossed; I may type een more slowly than I think. Still, my earlier comment seems to work.
But yes, we’ll see what The People demand. Saw a headline at the Guardian to the effect that ‘the soul of America will happen in Philly. Ha ha, and ha.
In this case, yes, democracy seems more a farce than a tragedy, not that in either electoral win case, many will suffer. That’s one of the things that makes Ian’s ‘vote you own self interest’ kinda creepy for me. One: how can one know? and two: as a world citizen, or just some spoiled white USian?
The Peoples Convention in Philly seemed…poorly attended. Oh, well, I like social, movemental movements that throw rocks from the outside rather than…from the inside. “oh: says the Bern: a win for us! A commiion will decide how to tweak the Superdelegate issue for better Democracy™!
Sleep well; I’m at the end of my expiration date, ooof. And grandchirren comin’ rumor has it. Glad I finished repainting the swing set, ha.
Manny Katz
I don’t agree with your view on the impressions left by the candidates that you surmise, especially of Trump. I think the speech of Trump at the convention was about as fear mongering as one could get given the limited literacy of the candidate. Extremely negative. HRC’s speech coming up will be worlds apart. She will also slaughter Trump in the debates IMHO.
Her credibility, though, was further damaged by the Wikileaks release of emails showing the DNC’s collusion to diminish and disrupt Sanders campaign. The chairman did Clinton’s bidding (overt or covert) and was accepted back as an operative who did her “job.” How sleazy and revealing is that?
Conventions are circuses of bloviating, ranting bouts of optimism and idealism designed to rev up the troops and gloss over failings. As Greg Palast puts it: ” a hot bag of noxious political fossil fuel exhaust.” All things considered, if I could, I would still vote for Sanders, even though several experts over the past few months have called into serious doubt the accuracy and viability of his proposals.
I think, too, a candidate’s promises, whatever they are, have to be taken with a large grain of salt. Only a minority are actually carried out verbatim and many are compromised (ala Obama). If you are in a swing state, then voting your interests may not be wise. If you are in a state like CA, then you are probably safe assuming decent voter turnouts.
As for the Dem’s platform, I think it is mostly wishful thinking unless both houses of congress go Democratic with large majorities which is unlikely. Hillary is sneaking by mainly because the Trump campaign is so incompetent as is their leader–folks who cannot make use of all the openings given them to damage her campaign significantly. She will win mainly because of the deficiencies of her opponents. Both candidates are disliked and distrusted. Maybe one day, way beyond my time, we will no longer have the evil of two lessers.
tony
“Trump is illiterate, stupid, incompetent, deficient…”
A man who took down the entire Republican field with institutional support and millions of dollars, now leads in polls is stupid?
You know, when Obama first came into power, the Democrats had power. Their strategy was to delay so that the Reps gained enough power that the Dems could blame their ‘failures’ on the Reps.
different clue
@Billikin,
I also get the feeling that Scott Adams is talking his book as a self-styled skilled persuasionologist with a background as a trained hypnotist. He is positioning himself to reap big reputational rewards for having predicted it with his special secret knowledge if Trump wins the election.
Trump would have to gather a YOOGE! majority of the votes in order to be able to win the election. If the election is at all fraudulizable, I would expect the OverClass to use all its electoral engineers to make the election turn out in favor of Hillary Clinton, their Trillion Dollar preference for an Obama 2.0 type of highly profitable Administration.
DZ
Wendy-” the veal-penned Saint McKibben” yes thanks for that
wendy davis
@ DZ: Did I say that here. O, for a memory, but I wish I could lay my hands on a post illustrative of that over time. But the closest I an come at my home site is this, and if ya scroll down toward the end, some of my links are there. Shit, I’ve been following Climate Change non-happenings for far too long.
Barring some semi-miraculous necromancy, it’s baked in by now that we are far past the tipping point, imo, thanks to jerks like McKibben. lol, read (or scan) ‘Tweeting wlile the world burns; it says exactly who he is. Worse than Pffft. And oh, did I get smacked around for it at My.firedoglake. “Every little bit helps!!!” Well, no it doesn’t. It takes the place of actual change, but…so it goes in the fake let, eh?
https://cafe-babylon.net/2014/09/20/how-the-peoples-climate-march-became-a-corporate-pr-campaign-arun-gupta/
okanogen
Let me guess. All you people saying Trump and Clinton are the same are white? I can guarantee you aren’t brown. The wonderful thing for you is that, sure, you won’t personally be affected either way, so you get to think you are “pure” by saying there is no difference between them, or even hoping for Trump to win, so you can prove to yourself there is no difference when everything goes in the fucking shitter.
Look we get that Hillary Clinton is far from perfect, but she isn’t going to wink and nod at the fucking Ku Klux Klan.
Here is an idea for you, why don’t you pretend that you are actually a liberal, and actually believe in equality for black people and brown people and women, and look at who THEY are voting for, and vote for THAT person out of SOLIDARITY? If there really is “no difference” then you lose exactly nothing. Oh, except you will miss out on that smug, superior feeling you get from thinking that you are pure and “sticking it to the man”. The man, btw, welcomes your smugness and cynicism.
But just think about it, put you sanctimony first, and listen to what minorities are doing this year, and for once, take a seat in the back of the bus.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/21/do-white-liberals-have-a-bernie-sanders-problem/
Ghostwheel
Remind me again, how many African-Americans did Trump put in prison? How about Bill Clinton? And the half-black Nobel winning peace president, how has he delivered for the African-American community? Because he’s certainly delivered for Wall Street, hasn’t he?
The African-American community in the USA is not merely being killed, it’s committing suicide. It prefers the comforting rhetoric of elite neoliberals as opposed to the promise of more tangible solutions, like manufacturing jobs.
I’m told that at one time, Detroit as a city had the highest per capita income in America.
What happened? It couldn’t have had anything to do with the Clinton’s, could it? Old Bill loves black folk, he would never NAFTA away their jobs would he? And then kill welfare and put them in prison?
And African-Americans are voting for Billy’s wife?!
Good grief, what do you expect to happen?
I don’t know for a fact that Trump will actually be able to renegotiate trade deals and return decent middle class jobs to America.
He might be lying. He might try and fail. I can’t read his mind, I don’t know.
But if he does try and he does succeed, the benefits to black Americans are obvious.
Or you could have Hillary and Kaine and double-down on Wall Street.
Or you could try and motivate the force of black America behind a third party in anticipation of some tangible influence on one party or the other as opposed to being ignored and taken for granted.
Three options. I don’t know which one is best, but I know which one is worst.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
@Okanogen: Thanks for trying to be a voice of sanity here, but I fear you are wasting your time.
However, if there be anything to the “Putin controls Trump” narrative, then I doubt the national security community will allow Tribble Hair to be elected President. Again, I do not speak of anything so crude as assassination; there are the CIA contacts in the corporate media, and the unaccountable voting machines.
Ghostwheel
Voice of sanity?
There’s nothing sane about African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans voting for neoliberalism.
(Exceptions for those of the above who are millionaires.)
Tom W Harris
Ur doin’ it wrong, Okanogen. A ghostly white guy said so on the Internet. /s
realitychecker
I hope to live long enough to see members of a tribal identity group support issues that go beyond their own selfish identity group issues and actually act like they give a damn about larger issues that affect the whole community, like, e.g., accountability and the rule of law and civil liberties and rule by the corporate oligarchy and rejection of political liars in preference to truthtellers, which are supposed to be the base foundations of our free and supposedly democratic society.
Sigh. Probably not gonna happen . . .
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Oh, don’t stop him, Mr. H. I’m sure the duskier citizens of our country just luuuuuv having the Pallid Unicorn Left whitesplain to them how to vote their “real” interests. 🙄
Peter*
The Clintonists are calling up the reserves for this drive-by campaign assisting the embedded true believers, it reminds me of ’12 at FDL. This OK person is trying a new ploy which looks like catholic guilt tripping. Shame on you sinners for interfering with the great plans the Red Queen has for the minorities and look at what she and Willie have already done in places such as Haiti, that’s a model for a progressive future for Black people. At home they created the largest jobs program for Black youth since slavery called Prison Industries and their Bankster friends recently took on the task of helping the Hispanic population with progressive programs such as the one seen in Puerto Rico.
It’s hard to tell what is actually happening with the MSM in the Clintonist camp but it seems that many dems will vote for Trump or not vote and even Black voter turnout may be low.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
“It’s hard to tell what is actually happening with the MSM in the Clintonist camp…”
From which parallel Earth is Asterisk posting? One of the most important reasons Tribble Hair has a chance to win is that the Corporate Media loves him as a ratings bonanza.
ks
Ivory Bill Woodpecker,
Notice how the “tribal identity group” label rears it’s head when it comes time to lecture black people who, in this case, didn’t get on the sheepdog Bernie train which remarkably wound up at the same station as Hillary’s. Funny that. But strangely, it never seems to be used to describe the sainted working class whites who’ve been enthusiastically slitting their own throats and voting against their interest for 60 years.
To translate- Blacks who vote for Clinton are fearful people who are responding to her fearful message and engaging in tribal identity politics. OTOH, Working Class White people who vote for Trump are simply responding to his hopeful message and a return of the gold ole can do FDR and JFK spirit that Made America Great, Again. Got it?
I know I shouldn’t be surprised at this point but it still amazes me just how successful GOP framing and propaganda has been over the years to the point that oh so savvy progressives eat it up like candy and don’t even realize it.
Peter*
I wasn’t referring to the MSM coverage of the ‘candidates’ but their coverage or lack of coverage and spin of what is happening in the country. The latest ‘the Russians are coming’ fixation/diversion has effectively buried the DNC’s slime trail exposure so the convention can be hyped as a success and inspiring.
ks
okanogen,
It’s because their intellectual vanity where being “right”, even in the most useless sense imaginable, matters more than anything else though it remains odd how they seem to think if their “burn it all down” philosophy finally! comes true they will be magically unaffected by the collapse.
It is fascinating to see obviously intelligent people rationalize their way over to the known fool and two bit hustler Trump. A guy who inherited $250 million in 1975/6 ($1.1 billion in today’s money) and spent his entire “career” screwing over everybody is now suddenly a champion of the average Joe. Ridiculous.
Peter*
I suppose some people feel pleasure and deserved pain when they are talked down to by these wise Clintonite lecturers/preachers but that’s a grey area I avoid. Professor KS, or is that BS, and his ilk have been hiding under their Clinton Foundation rock just waiting for the call to use their emotional, pretentious and paternalistic button pushing training to disrupt the heresy of uncontrolled thought. Free thinking does produce some errors and biases and they use that to damn the whole idea of resisting assimilation into the Clintonite cult.
Over at EW a more passive-aggressive approach is in play with soft-soap washing of the scene at the convention along with the dragging out of Al Gore’s stinking corpse in an attempt to salve their butt-hurt Clintonite asses with renewed, actually never ending, whining about the last successful free thinker/heretic who countered their warped identity/party/agenda.
The Russians are coming is getting play there also but it is couched in cyber analysis terms while the DNC scandal is an old dead story.
okanogen
Yeah.
“ur doin’ it r0ng”.
“You brown people don’t understand your best interests”.
“Ignorant, low information voters.”
“Neo-liberals are worse for you than outright racists. Don’t you know that?”
“Never mind the racism, we need to shake up “the system”.”
This shit just doesn’t get old. Sadly.
And now this clown is directly asking the Russian government “I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”. Unbelievable. Just come on over. Hack us. Please!
ks
Clintonite? Clinton Foundation rock…? Clinton cult? Me? You have no idea how absurd that is. But anyway, you’re running away from the point and tossing around silly stale jabs while claiming to be “free thinking” which is really just empty posturing. If you want to vote for Trump, go ahead. Just stop with all the twisted rationalizations, long winded verbiage and “righteous fight against Hillary” posturing. It’s silly. If you have to imagine that Hillary will start WWIII in order to justify a vote for Trump you might really want to check your “free thinking biases”.
ks
The above was for Peter*
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
@KS–I know what you’re saying. I come from that white working-class/lower middle-class background you mentioned, and I have learned the bitter lesson that I must never underestimate the general stupidity of my Volk.
Oh, before anyone starts thinking that my Volk can only be found in significant numbers “down heah”, let us remember that George Wallace won the 1972 Democratic primary in that kudzu-strangled cradle of the Confederacy, the state of Wisconsin–which also serves to explain how Scott Walker could be elected there.
okanogen
As to who is peddling fear and who is peddling hope. I would say that if you are talking about Law and Order, as in restoring it, when there is zero evidence at all that we are experiencing uncontrolled crime, and in fact, crime rates are lower than they ever have been,and when you are portraying undocumented illegal aliens as rapists, criminals and drug dealers, when their crime rates are lower than the general population, and when you presume that anyone who is Muslim is a terrorist, then you are peddling fear, not hope.
Peter*
I thought you would hold up better to my modest retort but gasbags do deflate easily. Ur twitter like attempt at slang is as pathetic as most of your rambling reactions.
It is an embarrassment that we have to depend on the kindness of strangers to get the information we need to make informed decisions but with our police state locking up any of our whistleblowers they can catch these other sources should get our praise and even an award.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Trump Challenges Russia To Find Clinton’s Missing E-Mails
Holy Ascended Madoka, the SOB isn’t even pretending he isn’t Putin’s Poodle.
The uproar would never die in the Corporate Media if a Democratic presidential candidate had such close ties to a foreign government of dubious friendliness, but I guess the IOKIYAR rule still applies, even to a pachyderm-come-lately like Tribble Hair.
Peter*
Poor OK, I think he just admitted that Trump was correct in claiming that along with the criminal human trafficking bringing people across our border rapists, murderers and drug dealers are include in that traffic but because they represent a lower percentage of these bad boys compared to the general population it’s okay, I think that’s an example of liberal relativism.
The so called Muslim ban was just another rhetorical device used to promise to do something about the attacks that are frightening people and to gain support for that task which apparently includes going after some of the root causes of those attacks, our war machine and world policeman agenda.
The Donald and more importantly his many supporters have done an amazing job of besting the neocon elite and their quislings, they are in disarray and many are seeking shelter with the Red Queen which is telling. The so called left, liberals and progressives some of whom who brought the Clintons to power are responsible for Clintonism and they now have an opportunity to destroy, hopefully forever, this diseased ideology but that will take courage not submission.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
I had been wondering how in Areinnye Tribble Hair Trump–Bankruptcy Boy, who would have done better if he’d left his dad’s fortune in the hands of professional investors–could possibly be smart enough to capture the GOP nomination, and achieve a real chance of winning the general election.
Now I know–the brains aren’t in Trump’s campaign, they’re in Russia.
Hugh
The end of this thread reads like a primer in how to conduct class warfare: get the rubes to get so caught up in attacking each other that they don’t notice all those rich and elites looting them and laughing all the way to the bank over it.
Look, if you support Donald Trump, you’ve been had. If you support Hillary Clinton, you’ve been had. If you support Bernie Sanders, you’ve been had. They want you to defend your shit sandwich and bad mouth everyone else’s. They want you divided and at each other’s throats. You’re playing their game. Do any of you seriously think for even a second that Trump or Clinton, or even Sanders gives a shit about you? We’re rubes, saps, slime to them. They don’t even consider us the same species. And you know what? As long as we refuse to stand together, to work together, to build a society worth living in together, they’re right.
wendy davis
@ Hugh. Isn’t that why electoral politics is called a blood sport? Well said, you should ask to buy an Asterisk* here. (smile) Still and all, caring who wins as a world citizen would guess that as the Queen of NATO, the Anointed One will kill many more black and brown people around the world (she’s already been given her marching orders by neo-con think tanks, not that she needed them) than anti-NATO orangutan-hair would/will. And wh knows if he’ll ever receive the golden keys to the Control Panel?
As the world has been shifting toward a more multi-polar one, the Imperium is in a panic, as seen w/ NATO gathering more and more nations ‘under its umbrella’, more than the 28 actual-factual members. Well, of course there’s the stupid fight w/ China over the South China Sea, not that the US is a signatory to the law kinda/sorta spelling out the Rules, so stir that confrontational mess in, as well.
Jeffrey St. Clair’s notes from the D convention in Philly are worth reading, if for no other reason than hearing that Madeline ‘it was worth it’ Albright was there supporting her. But it was a bit heartening to see that at TRNN the organizer of the ‘thousands of black lives matter protestors’ spoke about another alternative than Stein: Workers World. http://www.workers.org/
Blessedly, one of #Mothers of the (BLM) Movement who er…didn’t attend, was Tamir Rice’s mum who said ‘phooey on Clinton, phooey on Obama’; good on her.
Memory
@okanogen: I feel you. I stand in solidarity with you. And I accept your rage. I honor your pain. I can never understand it. I can never stand in your shoes and understand the hell you experience every day of your life. I am a privileged bitch. I own that.
And I will stand with you no matter what happens in this country. White? Yep. Guilty. Guilty of the sins of my ancestors. Trying to undo the damage they did. Still guilty, though. Still guilty.
I am listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine these days. Don’t know what generation you’re from, and can’t say if this music is something you’ve listened to or not. I’m listening to The Battle of Los Angeles right now, released Nov. 2, 1999. My politics come from a deeply radical place. And I will not be voting in this election. And if you hate me for my politics, I will not be a condescending white bitch to you about your politics.
But I will die loving you. And that is the truth. Rage.
Peter*
@Hugh
I hope you’re not including these backstabbing Clintonite wankers in this ‘we’ needed to stand and work together to build anything especially not a livable society. If you are, I think I’ll stick with my faction small as it may be.
I don’t have to support Trump to applaud what he and his supporters have already done and if by some magic he became president he would be opposed by all of the parasites in DC and the vampires in NYC so even his excellent ideas that could help all working people would probably be blocked. Believe him or not at least he is throwing incendiary ideas at the PTB that actually threaten their position and power.
Ghostwheel
I’m in full sympathy with P*’s last paragraph. I don’t have to support Trump–or even trust him–to applaud what he’s done, which, as I understand it, is to go to the public with something different that the usual brand of neolib/neocon crap, and run with it successfully.
I am not yet a Trump supporter, but with every Clinton endorsement by psychopaths like Kagan and Kristol, with every fresh revelation of corruption, with every media anti-Trump pile-on, with virtually every move Hillary takes or makes, I feel compelled to fill in that little empty dot next to the name “Trump.”
Trump as an agent of Putin! LOL! Did he at least get the “Triple-X” code name after Anya Amasova retired? Because if I were to be an agent of the KGB, I would definitely hold out for the Triple-X code name.
bruce wilder
I saw a small part of Trump answering reporter’s questions about the DNC email / Putin controversy and he was brilliant.
When he is fully on, he is scary good at this stuff.
Admittedly I saw only a snippet, but that is all most people ever see.
In very few words, he managed to remind that Clinton deleted emails, exposed emails to foreign spies, is irrationally hostile to Putin, that the Media is ridiculous in cooking up crazy controversy, that Clinton lies and cheats, that the U.S. is not respected, that Clinton does not command respect as a representative of the U.S.
And, when I saw Democratic partisans attacking Trump on this issue later, they make no sense.
I think Trump is a dangerous clown and now I think he may be more dangerous, because for the first time, I think he could beat Hillary.
Peter*
@Bruce
When someone states the cold hard facts on national media and then bates these asswipes with a bit of topical humor, you see a dangerous clown? The dangerous clowns are the people with a stick up their ass running around screaming the Russians are coming and their Red Queen who seeks confrontation and conflict with the worlds second nuke power.
markfromireland
@ Hugh
Well as I keep on pointing out Americans treating one another the way they’ve treated others is not only inevitable but a good thing not a bad thing. The more your fellow Americans rend and claw at one another the less they’re able to do it to others. The more your fellow Americans rend and claw at one another the less they’ll be able to do it to others in the future. The more your fellow Americans rend and claw at one another the greater and deeper the collapse of American society. With any luck the centripetal effect of your fellow Americans rending and clawing at one another will ensure your breakup into a collection of squabbling regional powers. (There’s also the entertainment value but it’s relatively minor).
atcooper
This election, my god, what a shitshow. I had a great idea for a cartoon with Assange, Putin, and Clinton. We shall see if I can get it done in a timely fashion.
coach bill
Republicans have always been better at messaging than the dems. They understand how to make an emotional appeal in bumper sticker length slogans. Dems are always trying to undo the republican message with rationality which has never worked, instead of putting together an emotional appeal of their own.
Human decision making comes from the gut far more often than from the brain. Republicans get that. And Trump, a life long salesman and marketer, understands that better than most.
If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results, who is the crazy one?
nihil obstet
@markfromireland,
The issue is which Americans are rending and clawing one another. You’d be right if it were the financiers, arms manufacturers, imperialist leaders doing the rending and clawing. We of the great unwashed — not so much.
atcooper
This is the first election where I’ve felt like an independent, whatever that actually means. I no longer feel guilty about my Nader vote back in the day when I still wasn’t very politicized. This election seems a choice between a roll of the dice, and the other far too cozy with the banks. Race, unfortunately, does not matter so much to me anymore. BLM, more than anything, revealed to me the difference between the overt racist, and the well meaning liberal. The overt racist may be easier to work with.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
“And Trump, a life long con artist and deadbeat, understands that better than most.”
FIFY. 😈
markfromireland
@ nihil obstet July 28, 2016
You’re right the issue is indeed which Americans are rending and clawing one another which as you correct point out at present is an activity confined to the lower orders.
The process of American disintegration will speed up greatly once your political and financial elite get in on the act. In America’s case the collapse is starting from the bottom up so when you of the great unwashed do it you’re getting the process started — “trickle up” yay!
different clue
Zeroing in on two of the most guilty propagators and exploiters of the FEAR meme, Colonel Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis asks the question: ” Is Russia Our Enemy?” And he asks various point by point sub-variants of that question.
Here is the link. http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/07/is-russia-our-enemy.html
different clue
@markfromireland,
Are you sure you want a claw-rending American society? Are you sure the downrange outcomes would develop necessarily to your advantage? Germany was claw-rending itself just prior to the Nazi Ascendancy. A re-organized post claw-rended Germany then became a problem for its neighbors. America has a lot of A and H bombs. If a claw-rended America goes claw-rendedly chiliastic on you, what might the survivors of America’s claw-rending do with all those A and H bombs?
Here is a song for you to consider. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPlsnV4L2qs
Dance dance Apocalypso! You really sure you want that? You are? Well hey, then . . . as long as you’re sure.
different clue
@coach bill,
What is so rational about the current Decromatic messaging on Donald Trump? ” Putin’s Puppet! E-mail Traitor!” That’s rational?
Peter*
Mark, the Europeans seem to be putting on a pretty good show of rending and clawing lately and their disintegration seem much more likely than here in the Homeland. The EU’s GDP is comparable to the US and seems to depend on much the same imperialist hegemony as the US and they are required to behave as vassal states to be protected from mostly themselves but also external threats. I wouldn’t get my hopes up about the US neglecting this task even if the EU collapses and Trump is elected, at least Germany will remain occupied and militarily leashed which should keep the rest of the hotheads restrained.
I read a commentary written by a Ugandan about ‘What’s not to like about the collapse of western (European) civilization” I think it was titled. He seemed to hope that this collapse might relieve some of the suffering they have experienced in the past and today under the hegemony of European economic and military dominance.
different clue
@Peter*,
How do we know it WASN’T Anonymous which got the emails and gave them to Assange? How do we know the Decromats even believe Putin had anything to do with it? How do we know the Decromats aren’t just running a Cold War 2.0 Fear and Lies head trip on their audience? As someone has said, it would make perfect sense for Hillary to do, what with her roots as a Goldwater Girl and such.
Here is the promise of exposure and vengeance from the Anonymooses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CunzmZym2gE
markfromireland
@ different clue July 28, 2016
Yes I’m sure. The sooner you collapse into mutually hostile regional powers the better for everyone else and if some of those powers attack each other using nuclear munitions that just makes it even less likely that some form of American federation/confederation will (re)coalescse.
markfromireland
@ Peter* July 28, 2016
The EU is not Europe. Nice try at changing the topic. I read Serumaga’s article I found it neither impressive nor convincing.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Ever heard of fallout?
Ever heard of winds?
Ever heard that in the temperate zones, the prevailing winds blow from west to east?
Ever seen a map or globe, showing which countries lie east of the USA across the Atlantic?
For that matter, ever heard of “nuclear winter”? What would that do to the crop harvest, in, oh, just for example, the Emerald Isle?
Tch, Mark, you’re usually smarter than that.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Forget CDS. The USADS is growing disturbingly strong with this site.
markfromireland
@ Ivory Bill Woodpecker July 28, 2016
I suspect I’m rather more aware of them than you are. It’s a simple case of preferring the least bad. A USA that has degenerated into its natural state is far less dangerous to Europe than the current set-up.
different clue
@markfromireland,
You have no guarantee that a claw-rending America would necessarily stay claw-rended. It could re-coalesce under a Hitler figure or a Stalin figure or under a figure uniquely American in its own way. Such a post claw-rended America could drop A and H bombs on you. On you’all.
On All y’all. Which would then circle the earth and fall back out on us and kill us too. But Judgement DoomDay Chiliasts don’t think about that kind of thing. Or maybe they welcome it.
” We’ll all go together when we go.”
Dance dance Apocalypso!
So . . . claw-rend America? Are you sure you want that? Quite sure? Really? Reeeeaaaallly?
Choose wisely, young padawan.
markfromireland
@ different clue July 28, 2016
No there is no guarantee but the balance of probability is that once you degenerate into your natural state that you’ll stay that way. You’re far more likely to kill everyone in your current configuration.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
DClue, I think we might as well ignore him.
markfromireland
@ Ivory Bill Woodpecker July 28, 2016
Hatred and contempt are two entirely seperate emotions. I don’t hate your decaying redneck republic or its denizens. I do however despise them.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Yeah, calling for civil war in another country with nukes doesn’t mean you hate that country or its people, oh heavens no, you’re too good a Christian for that.
By the way, you’re welcome for the fact that you haven’t been compelled, in the absence of those vulgar Yankees, and your former overlords the Brits, to pledge allegiance to the Swastika, or the Hammer and Sickle–I think the latter more likely, as I think the Soviet Union was mighty enough to defeat Nazi Germany alone if circumstances had compelled it, despite the misleadership of Stalin.
different clue
@markfromireland,
My parents were too poor to send me to charm school or beauty school. So I remained an ugly american. Whenever an anti-americanitic culturacist anti-americanite makes me cry, I remember that we and you share the same ancestors. Our natural state is an outward display of your inward essence. We are Europe with the gloves off. We are Europe without moderators or control rods, and with breached failed containment.
If you don’t like the way we turned out, all I can say is . . . thank you for sending over your best and brightest to get the party started.
different clue
@Ivory Bill Woodpecker,
Thank you for the kind words. But will you remember them when I take another strafing run at the Clintons? And I will . . . in the fullness of time.
Lisa
I agree with markfromireland the US as a single state is unnatural and cannot continue without massive change.
You could make a strong argument that if not for FDR and WW2 it would have broken up already.
There are too many fault lines: religion, race, class, etc. All made worse since every Govt (Sate/fed) has played (and plays) identity politics, increasing the fault lines.
And nope it is not minority groups that invented identity politics, it was the long dominant white, male, ‘christian’ (and straight) ones that did it first and for ages. Keeping the ‘niggah’s, spicks, pooftahs, woman’ and all the rest in their place. The idiot white males at the bottom getting their pockets picked by the rich, accepting it to get their ‘psychological wage’ of feeling superior to others.
But eventually all those minorities started to fight back. But rather than accepting it and allowing a more inclusive (and gentler and more equal) society the right wing (especially the religious, but also others like the Dems pretending to be left wing …eg Clinton) have kept pushing the divisions.
If the economy was strong with lots of well paying jobs, that would mitigate it. But it has been deliberate policy to impoverish the majority of US citizens for decades now, pushing the fault lines even further. The greatest ‘opium’ of the masses is money.
And the idiots are slowly waking up to the fact that their ‘psychologcal wage’ doesn’t pay the bills and they are just ‘niggahs, spicks and pooftahs’ getting kicked as well (they always were, they were just too stupid to realise it*).
Enlightenment is a slow and painful process.
So barring a miracle it will crack. Maybe a new FDR (or a US Putin) could turn it around, but as we saw with Sanders the establishment and elite won’t let anyone like that into power these days. And there really is not much time left.
* Just about the only US minority group that has gained traction and got somewhere in recent times has been the LGBTI one. But the stories of our activists trying to create logical alliances with other groups with many common interests is just tragic.
Houston was the classic. When our activists tried to get common cause over HERO, which protected many, many groups, they just got knocked back, because the right had riled them up about LGBTI people.
Idiots. The classic story of the crippled veteran being discriminated against, complaining and finding out he wasn’t protected any longer because HERO had been knocked back …and he had voted against it. ‘Keeping the pooftahs and trannies in their place’ had a cost. It is difficult to have any sympathy with that level of stupidity.
different clue
Speculation time:
If America divided into parts and pieces, what parts and pieces would America divide into? What lines on the map would different readers here imagine dividing separated regions from eachother? Which regions would co-separate peacefully? Which would fight about it?
Which regions would experience social delamination within their borders and go on to have Bosnia-style war within their regions? Or South Sudan-style war within their regions?
Anyone have any guesses?
markfromireland
@ different clue July 28, 2016
Yes yes yes yadda yadda yadda you’ve spouted this line of shite at me before. It was ludicrous claptrap spouted by somebody whose forebears weren’t good enough to make it over here the last time you spouted it and it’s still ludicrous claptrap spouted by somebody whose forebears weren’t good enough to make it over here now. Enjoy your party.
markfromireland
@Ivory Bill Woodpecker
As is apparent to everyone who can read it was your fellow-American who brought up the subject of nuclear war.
markfromireland
@ Lisa July 28, 2016
They’re getting their massive change – courtesy of the inhrerent centripetalism of the way they’re set up.
There’s a limit to what one man can do on his own FDR had quite a power structure behind him and used the war the broaden and deepen it.
Putin comes from a very strong and powerful institution and has moreover the benefit of being able to draw upon the deep well-springs of Russian patriotism. Moreover he’s taken Russia from a collapsed society at the mercy both of thieving plutocrats and hostile outsiders – in particular the USA – to a resurgent power well able to look after itself and its interests.
What has America got? A right of centre populist who is currently the Republican party’s candidate on the one hand and a war-mongering neo-con who hasn’t changed an iota since her Goldwater days.
markfromireland
@ Lisa July 28, 2016
As a PS: “Too big to succeed” It’s been true of every empire and hegemony up to now and all the evidence is pointing to the fact that it’s still the case.
It occurs to me that you might find Dimitry Orlov’s latest amusing here’s a teaser for you:
ClubOrlov: The Power of “Nyet”
Lisa
markfromireland: read it I have long followed his site and by and large his theory that the US would do a USSR style collapse is correct, but it is just happening at a slower pace.
Lisa
Another sign of US collapse, like the USSR the death rate for middle age white working/middle class men is rising rapidly.
What is surprising is the rise in similar women dying. That is unprecedented because it is women, when it all turns to custard, that keep things gong when the men all collapse in a heap and pour themselves into a bottle or drugs.
In the USSR when the death rate for men was so high it was like the impact of a major war, women kept it all together, kept the food on the table …as usual.
That is a very weird sociological phenomena that is hard to explain.
Another one is the amazing number of younger US women who are just not partnering up with men. Nothing to do with sexuality, they are all heterosexual they just don’t get involved with men now, they have given up on them.
I suspect that it is because their is a deep vein of misogyny in sections of US society, not just the usual sexist stuff, plus a culture of ‘faux masculinity’. The combination of the two is toxic. You can be a sexist man but actually like and love women, but the hatred some men have for women is extraordinary.
I know women like that here in Australia (another place of ‘faux masculinity’) and they have just given up trying to find anything like a half decent bloke and they are not being super picky with unrealistic expectations by any means, anything but.
So there are these huge sociological pressures building up that fly mostly under the radar.
V. Arnold
Lisa
July 29, 2016
So there are these huge sociological pressures building up that fly mostly under the radar.
Yes, as a self exiled Usian I must, after decades of observation, agree with your POV.
Even my younger sister (67 yo) will vote Hillary and refuses any information/facts, to the contrary.
So, essentially, I’ve finally given up, totally, on the U.S. government and “its” citizens.
Utterly hopeless; they must then, necessarily, suffer the consequences of their actions. Just to be clear; failure to act is an action. That is little understood in the west.
tony
As far as I can tell, the dominant value of the Anglosphere is hedonism. If you adopt that value, then it does not make sense to become a man women would like to marry. You can give up, watch porn and not care. Or you can become a man women have sex with, which requires less investment and gives more pleasure than a serious commitment.
So for a man who has adopted the individualist materialism, I see no incentive to be a man women would like to marry. Note that the Amish, Mormons, Latinos etc don’t really have this issue. Similarly, less individualistic societies, in which people have loyalties beyond themselves, have less of this.
American masculinity to me looks like a performance meant to hide any vulnerabilities, like a person would in a hostile environment. You don’t want to cry in a prison or a reveal vulnerabilities in a fight.
Peter*
These comments about the immanent demise of the Hegemon/capitalism appear to be wishful thinking and even hallucinations of an altered reality. The comparison with the USSR is especially humorous even hilarious in it’s attempts to paint that cartoon. The USSR collapsed because the Russians with power decided they wanted to become Capitalist Pigs just like us and that is what they have become, with some success. Their population problem was and is a reproduction problem and while their population growth has remained flat our population has grown by 50% since 1970.
Orlov’s pep talk for the resistance seems like more wishful thinking with a little diversionary propaganda added for the tinfoil hats. The people who voted for Brexit and who oppose the TPP are an irritant to the PTB but they have no real power to make decisions or do anything about that lack of power.
His projection of the US being behind the Turkish coup attempt makes me wonder if he is the Russian version of Alex Jones. While the US has problems with Erdogan and some people would like to think insanity rules in the CIA, a Gulenist cult ruling Turkey would not further US objectives in the region. Putin/Russia on the other hand had a huge axe to grind with the Sultan Erdogan so cui bono?
different clue
@markfromireland,
I will do my best to enjoy the party as best as I can. Thank you for your kind wishes in that regard. And thanks again for sending over your best and brightest to help get the party started.
markfromireland
@ different clue
Well as you yourself admitted earlier on in this conversation you are like us just a lot cruder and without the self-restraint necessary to live in a civilised society. Which is why when I compare society in which I live with in which you live I cannot help but notice that :
We live longer than you.
We have better health than you.
We’re better educated than you.
We’re paid more than you.
We produce more than you.
We have a higher standard of civil liberty than you.
We have a higher standard of living than you.
Enjoy your party and have a nice day.
Tom W Harris
Well, ain’t you speshhhhhul?
Z
I’m stunned that Trump is doing this well. I never thought he had much of a chance. I can hardly blame people for voting for him over that corrupt Clinton political machine.
If she loses, most of the demo-zombies will see this as another sign of how fucked up the country is and how morally superior they are to the “thems”. But meanwhile, it was partly their steadfast defense of Obama … despite his continual betrayal of their so-called principles and his slavishness to corporate interests … that brought the nation to this point. They let him get away with it by maintaining their support of him … through all of it. And now here we are …
It’s not the whole entire reason, but it’s a underappreciated contributing factor.
And Obama’s signature “achievement” of a corporate-servile health care law also played a big part in it.
Z
Z
And another sign that the big corporate lapdawg Bill Clinton isn’t as popular as the mainstream polls tells us he is. Another crock of poll-shit.
Hopefully, this will bring to the forefront what a failure that the Obama presidency has been for the vast majority of this country.
Z
Z
Uh-oh, and it looks like the stock price of the Clinton Foundation just took a big hit overnight …
Z
Z
The Coronation that never came …
Z
Z
markfromireland,
But that’s the price we pay for being the best. It don’t come easy, you know …
Z
Z
They really ought to do a corruption investigation on mainstream polling. Obama probably isn’t nearly as popular as the polls keep telling us he is. And he’s not even all that popular in those polls.
Z
realitychecker
@ MFI
But, but, but, WE HAVE BETTER TEETH !!!
AND, just gotta say, wherever that idiot TBogg is hiding his slimy neoliberal ass these days, GFY.
The People won something, for a change, Now we’ll see if Trump will deliver on his promises more faithfully than Obama did. (It would be hard not to, IMO.)-