This is far afield from the topic, but Beren Erchamion, do you know a lot of pro-free trade communists? Are you an accelerationist? The free movement of labor won’t be on the menu anytime soon so as to usher in global solidarity and revolution, and even if free movement were allowed most of the global workers are too poor or exploited to take advantage. If free trade deals are as great as you say and not just a way to empower capitalists, and if they’re smart enough to enact a global welfare state to protect people from the worst effects of the market, it’s not clear to me how the revolution could ever happen. I’m not that familiar with modern communist thinking, though.
There was no implication in my post that it was a “bad” thing. My explicit statement was that it was a thing that happened. In other words, the change in principles existed, and it impacted the mix of voters who would consistently vote for the Democratic candidate. Whether that is “good” or “bad” depends upon the person viewing it and their metric for “good” and “bad.” If the goal is to win elections, for 2016 it was a “bad” thing. If the goal is to try and adopt positions that seem most rational to take, regardless of outcome, then you might consider it a “good” thing (as apparently you do), or a “bad” thing (as some would who don’t accept your analysis of the economy and trade). But I offered no viewpoint beyond the fact that it happened and cost Democrats votes in 2016.
You are working under the delusion, in my opinion, that there is some quantifiably best way to run things, which brooks no room for contrary methodology, and that voters should adopt this “best way” as their preferred political goalposts, and vote accordingly. Given that this has never been the way that politics in the US (or anywhere else) has worked, I find this to be a bit unrealistic.
Actually, I find it quite silly as a working hypothesis.
They’re a way to make capitalism suck less. Since worker ownership of the means of production isn’t going to happen overnight, and since the whole point of establishing communism is to make peoples’ lives better, then in the meantime while we’re stuck with a capitalist framework, we’ve got to do the best we can within that framework to make it suck less.
Because I don’t want revolution. Revolutions are destructive, which is counter-productive when the whole point is to make peoples’ lives better, and furthermore you don’t know what you’re going to get afterwards.
The way to achieve communism is through reform for the long term to piece-by-piece undermine the system of private property in the means of production in a way that picks up the slack in a more democratic fashion in the process (rather than waiting for everything to come crashing down and then rebuilding), coupled with making capitalism suck less in the short term. The problem is that it’s not clear how to do those simultaneously, and I for one really have no interest in leaving everyone to suffer as they are while we figure out. So we make capitalism suck less in the meantime.
In other words: I know where I want to go, but I don’t know how to get there, and I’m not interested in driving off a cliff to find out.
Just a factual question: who now has the formal responsibility for pulling the party together and defining a message/narrative and leading policy development towards the platform for the next round of elections? I’m used to the idea that, in or out of executive office, a party has a clear leadership - if it’s not the defeated presidential candidate, who is it?
I answered this in the other thread, but I’ll copy it here too —
There is no formal leader of a U.S. political party. If the president is from that party, then the president is the de facto leader. But if not, there’s no designated leader.
The head of the national committee can play that role if he or she is motivated and effective. But the national committee is not the party. Very often, the highest elected official from that party will be looked to to provide that leadership.
American parties are very different from, for example, British parties. They’re not true organizational entities. They’re loose coalitions of individuals and organizational entities that have chosen to wear the party label.
To the extent that there’s any leader, it’s because some substantial number of party members have chosen to treat someone as a leader.
Uh-huh. Because the multiple times it’s been mentioned, it’s been received with great enthusiasm by all the lefties here. Why, there must be so many examples of this I’m sure you could link to a few.
You know what the post-election analysis of Hillary’s campaign said the topic she discussed most was? Jobs. By a long way. It was the Republicans who kept claiming that her main focus was on courting Wall Street and trans rights while ignoring the “hard-working ordinary decent etc Americans”.
If the argument being made is that the Democrats appeal to fewer people than the Republicans, then it is entirely germane to point out that the Democratic candidate received three million more votes.
I agree. Chelsea would have to be one of the most narcissistic people in the world to think she could run for President. Senator, congressman or governor, maybe. President, no way.
I imagine that Trump’s most talked about topics included jobs as well. Perhaps sharing top billing with immigration and trade but even those two topics were frequently tied into jobs. (illegal aliens stealing our jobs, trade deals costing us jobs).
But Hillary spent more time courting wall street and wealthy donors and talking about LGBT and gun control than Trump.
It might be worth noting that if you pulls California and New York out of that count she got 3 million fewer votes in the other 48 states. The reason this is important is because it points out that her entire “popular vote” margin comes from running up the score in states she was guaranteed to win. That’s not really a winning electoral strategy.
I wonder how much that impacts national polls. 
If the polls about things like who is liked more, or who is more “in touch” are substantially skewed by the results of very populous states, then maybe that makes the results of such polls less valuable when it comes to determining how these numbers predict future presidential election results.
Has she given even the slightest indication she was planning a career in politics?
I’m aware there are people who talk about her running, but none seriously (and there are people who talk about the Bush and Obama girls likewise running for president someday, because people like to talk about dumb stuff for fun). I’m not sure how you leaped from that to putting the focus on Chelsea herself.
The comparison, even if accurate and not entirely speculative, is beside the point. People keep saying “Clinton needed to talk about jobs”. Clinton talked about jobs, and unlike Trump when she talked about jobs it wasn’t “Vote for me and you’ll all get your job back at the unicorn factory”; it was in the context of the harsh realities of globalization, automation, and changing economies. And she talked about it a lot, to a lot of audiences, and she had a raft of detailed policies about jobs. Yet I constantly hear “Hillary should have talked about jobs”. Funny, that.
I’m also having a hard time picking on Clinton “courting wall street and wealthy donors” when 1) every other politician except Trump did this and 2) Trump then loaded his administration with Wall Street types and wealthy people. I’m not thrilled about it but she was hardly an outlier here.
You know what people from California and New York are called? “American”. Who get one vote each, just like voters in Nebraska and Indiana and Georgia. Admittedly their votes are worth less proportionately within the Electoral College system, but the fact remains that more people voted for Clinton than for Trump, and there’s no reason to exclude them from the count.
It’s true that Clinton needed a more diverse appeal, but the refrain I again often hear from Republicans about how the East and West Coast somehow “don’t count” and how only people in the middle of the country are the ones that matter is another red herring.
TL;DR version:
“Clinton only appealed to a minority of voters.”
“But Clinton got three million more votes than Trump.”
“Yeah but hey look over there.”
“Clinton needed to talk about jobs!”
“Clinton did talk about jobs.”
“Yeah but hey look over there.”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi
“It might be worth noting that if you pulls California and New York out of that count she got 3 million fewer votes in the other 48 states. The reason this is important is because it points out that her entire “popular vote” margin comes from running up the score in states she was guaranteed to win. That’s not really a winning electoral strategy.”
I am leery (and weary) of the proposition that the opinions of some Americans are worth less than those of others based solely on the state in which they reside.
But it’s not that they are “worth less.” It’s that the impact of that fact is less.
Take the national vote. Switch 1,000,000 of the votes Clinton got in California and New York to Trump (or if you prefer, Stein). Go to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, and switch 100,000 votes total between the three states (notice this is just a 10:1 switch ratio!) from Trump (or if you prefer, Stein) to Clinton.
Now, Clinton is less “popular” on Nov. 8, but wins the election. The point is that being “popular” isn’t worth diddly when it comes to becoming President. It’s not like we’re ignoring the people of California and New York (any more than Trump ignored the vital voters of Texas and Florida!). It’s that pointing to those 3 million votes as if they are meaningful in understanding the political outcome ignores the actual effect they have on the system.
Indeed. Its not that a bowling ball is heavier than a marble, it simply has more mass.
One reason it doesn’t matter is that no one is stupid enough to try and run up the popular vote on purpose since it doesn’t matter wrt to the outcome. Oh, wait…
OTOH, if Democrats appeal to more people than Republicans do, then why did Republicans get almost 1.5M more votes in the House races than Democrats did?
(And just to be be clear: No, I don’t think that last statistic means much of anything either. What matters is who wins the election by the rules that the candidates are playing by. Not by some other rules that the candidates are NOT playing by.)
Cute quote.
Meaningless, of course, but cute. I love how you think such cute statements actually have some sort of rhetorical value. I’ll just assume that you had no actual point to make in response to what I said and chuckle at your “witticism.” :rolleyes:
Nature, Mr. John Mace, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
Since she’ll (probably) be running against a 74 year old Trump in 2020, the age issue is unlikely to be held against her. There’s no way her opponents could call attention to that issue without also hurting themselves. It would seldom be talked about, just like it was seldom discussed in 2016 when two elderly candidates ran against each other.
I agree. I think national polls become meaningless in presidential elections that are based on an electoral system. Who gives a shit what the people on California and Oklahoma think? Those electoral votes are not up for grabs.
I was responding to another poster who brought it up. The reason I didn’t dismiss the notion out of hand is because so many “Ready for Hillary” seem to want it. Chelsea herself has mused in the past about a political career. I don’t think I’ve seen her openly muse about it since her mother lost almost all the political capital that Chelsea could have inherited if Hillary had won. Without her parents’ political capital and organization she is just another bright wealthy young woman with really rich parents.
I don’t think I have seen a post mortem that concluded that Hillary lost because she failed to talk about jobs. Perhaps they are out there but for everyone you produce that says that Hillary lost because she didn’t talk about jobs I can produce one that says she lost because she ran a horrible campaign and actually isn’t a very good politician.
So when she refused to release the text of her speech and she got hacked and was exposed it hurt her and calcified the notion that she was in bed with the banks.
The outcome of the California and New York election are pre-ordained. Any Democrat would have won those two states even if they never set foot in them. Running up the score in those two states is pointless and a popular vote advantage that depends on high turnout in states like California, Oklahoma, New York, or any other super safe state is meaningless when you have more than 45% of the voters not even showing up to the polls.
That’s not true. Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida on the East Coast and Oregon on the west coast count. But if a candidate carried a state by more than 10 points, then turnout probably isn’t what made the difference. count and they are on the coast. Basically if you aren’t a swing state, then your vote is pretty much cast before the election cycle begins.
Thank-you [Dowager] Lady Grantham! 
My objections are based on a principle I share with my ilk, a firm demand for egalitarian democracy. “One person, one vote”, being the motto, the aspiration and the inspiration.
What you did was, once again, explain the rules. Most of us know the rules, thanks. What we deny is that the rules are somehow more important than the principle we expect the rules to embody.
So far as the principle is concerned, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between A and B. So, what’s your point? That both are unjust, but the latter is less unjust that the former? And in what way? Their worth is their impact, how could it be otherwise?
“Yeah, if it was unjust, that would be bad, but its really just unfair, and that’s pretty good.” Is that it? Would that be the “moderate” position?