“Bankster”, eh? Sure you’re not a Paulite?
You may not realize (most people don’t) that the government (which is to say, taxpayers) made a profit from TARP. The repayments plus interest were greater than the money dispersed overall. And that’s including the auto bailout, which ended deep in the red. The horrible banksters on Wall Street paid so much interest on their share, it made up for the losses to Detroit. (And no, I’m not a banker or trader, nor are any of my friends or family.)
I would love for the GOP to be so weakened, so ridiculous, so irrelevant, that they nominate a piece of walking nonsense like Trump and he prove to be so ridiculous that he would lose to the incumbent party in a recession, and even to a hateful, corrupt, compromised neoliberal like Hillary. I would love for them to then fall apart.
But they’re the dominant party in American politics. I don’t think they’re going away. The press will accept crazy Trump nationalists as the new normal, and they’ll be half the country soon. It’s the Democrats that are dying, somehow.
But Bernie is different. Maybe he’s not electable. Maybe no Democrat is. But a Democrat who actually has positive appeal to the progressive base? I’m sorry about Wonder Woman, Gloria, but come on!
I probably would not vote for Hillary myself. I might, in the end, lesser evil. But I can’t promise I would. And I couldn’t campaign for her; my heart isn’t in it, wouldn’t be in it.
You think we’re in a recession? 
That’s the part that gets me: the damage to the country and the very causes you believe in might be worth it IF it causes the Democratic party to move significantly and permanently to the left. But why are you so confident that’ll happen? Why are you so confident that, for example, the hypothetical future progressive Democrats in Congress will be able to undo a President Trump’s Supreme Court rulings banning gay marriage or undo all the anti-environmental laws he put in place or what have you?
“Oh, once the country suffers for a while, they’ll see all the people dying on the streets and the global warming, and they’ll realize we were right all along.” I just don’t think that’ll happen — or if it does, I don’t believe that it’ll happen as easily as people with outlooks like yours seem to be. Do you figure that if it doesn’t happen, the world is fucked anyway, so what’s the point of saving it from getting a little less fucked in the short term?
Which is completely missing my point, congratulations.
Ever hear of “Take back the land”?
Huge numbers of people lost their homes. Who helped them? Not the Washington “centrists.” Oh, so non-ideological! Oh, so pragmatic! Who cares. Let Hillary burn.
Bernie isn’t perfect, but there are three sides here: the establishment/neoliberal/“centrists” are despised by the populist right and the egalitarian left. Trump just grabbed the right’s banner and pasted the establishment Republicans–that may be a trick, and he may govern in a more establishment way, but he’s running on a nationalist line. The Democrats can try to win with a left/center coalition, with either Clinton or Sanders. Or they can run to the egalitarians where their actual popular base is, with Sanders.
I’m afraid Hillary will lose by clinging to the hated establishment, because she is the hated establishment. You’re afraid Bernie will lose by running without the moneyed neoliberal base, and the financier class will stay home or vote for third-party Bloomberg or something. And you know what? You may be right.
But you are in a recession year. You really want to run as “more of the same”? OK, I think that’s more dangerous.
Did you not notice my post on the previous page? Obama’s plan to close Gitmo was not worth supporting because Gitmo isn’t why Gitmo is bad, everything done at Gitmo is why Gitmo is bad, and Obama wanted to simply move the bad things being done at Gitmo to another site.
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If Hillary’s views were the President’s views, then Hillary cannot be trusted to do anything but the most weaselish interpretation of what she promises.
We are in a depressed economy, with low workforce participation, and the Fed raised interest rates prematurely. We will be. I’m a lot more sure of that prediction than any of your predictions about Bernie dropping in the polls, or the public turning on Bernie for his pinko ties.
Honestly, my bias from an economics/poli-sci standpoint is that the Democrat, any Democrat, is likely to lose this year. Maybe if Trump is a terribly bad candidate, and the two Democratic constituencies can hash out a unity campaign, somehow, there’s a shot. i don’t really think so.
I’m considering whether Bernie’s best play is to run hard on populism and anti-corruption now, not super-negative, not dismissive of feminism, but make it clear that Hillary is more compromised than he is; and then, once he’s nominated, run against Obama and the Democratic establishment in the fall, when the economy is going down. I don’t know if I’m right, but that’s what I’ve been thinking.
Hillary? She might be able to gimmick in on her sex, but I’m not betting on her in this climate.
It may be necessary but not sufficient for either of them to run against the incumbent* Congress,* or they lose. That means alliances with specific non-GOP challengers to Congress. Hillary has more alliances, which puts her ahead. But Bernie is more of a change candidate in his own right, which helps his appeal in this situation.
You and the Republicans are wrong. President Obama is right:
I would argue that proposed strategy is immensely unwise foolsguinea. For one, African Americans are an important part of the demographic coalition that elected Obama to two terms, and they have been an important part of any Democrat who has won the White House’s campaign for some thirty years now. They may represent only around 13% of the total population, but they vote at a roughly 9-1 margin for Democrats, and in these Presidential elections which are often close things, represent an important element.
They enthusiastically support Obama, daresay they love Obama. Over 90% approval rating in this community. If Bernie is the nominee and part of his strategy is to tear Obama down nonstop, you will likely see unprecedented numbers of black voters stay home in November, and if the demographic advantages the Democratic party has crack at all they lose–demographics are their biggest advantage.
I can guarantee you based on past behavior it’d be a fool’s game to think you can replace these black voters with young people that Bernie will get out to vote. As has already been shown in the primaries, Bernie’s presence in the race isn’t doing anything record setting in terms of bringing people to the polls. That presages that the Democrats are going to have to work very hard to get their voters out in November, and saying things that alienate a group that make up something like 20% of Democratic voters in the general is just supremely unwise.
As I said in another thread, the idea that there is an army of disenchanted far-left voters (of any age, never mind the young) waiting for the right candidate to light a fire under them is wishful thinking. All the evidence suggests that nonvoters hold the same beliefs as voters in roughly the same proportions. They just don’t vote.
Unfortunately, and frustratingly, you are wrong about the evidence, certainly about “all the evidence”:
However, that doesn’t mean I believe Bernie or anyone else is going to tap into this resource. A friend of mine calls the claim “I’m going to win by bringing in new voters” the “mating cry of the loser”, and I agree. Of course I wish these people would vote, but I just think for various reasons they don’t and won’t, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.
And certainly the subpar turnout for Democratic contests so far has given the lie to Bernie’s “mating cry” in this cycle, as even he admitted on Meet the Press after Nevada.
Yeah. And this is very much the bottom line on the ‘Bernie or Hillary’ question–at least for those conscientious enough to see voting a Democrat into the Oval Office as being a crucial goal. (As opposed to ‘sending a message’ and other similarly self-important and irresponsible delusions.)
Thanks for that cite. For those interested in this question, this article addresses the subject from a wider angle.
So it remains a theoretical possibility that increased turnout could have an effect on the kinds of candidates who get elected. It would take no small effort to identify and specifically target these voters and to find a messaging strategy that would motivate them to engage in the process. Maybe the next insurgent candidate will actually try it.
You mean, say something that the candidate doesn’t necessarily believe, but has been shown to energize focus groups?
That’s never been tried before?
The country was suffering pretty badly on January 19, 2009. So what happened the next day? The new guy took charge and the evil cabal plotted its revenge on the country which might finally be completed in November 2016.
Because of the money disparity, the Republican Party will always be a threat. No matter how ridiculous their current list of candidates might be.
There are different groups of nonvoters so it depends some on who comes out more and why.
Turnout percent from 2012’s election as per 538 shows two sizable groups:
Hispanic only 48%
Non-college educated Whites only 57%.
Also can be divvied up by age, with those 18 to 29 turning out the least: 40% in 2012.
The Pew Research Report that Slacker links to shows the net of all nonvoters, but yeah the point is that nonvoters are a heterogenous slice and that which increases turnout of one slice may do little for the others.
Trump is without question increasing turnout of that non-college-educated White slice. He is motivating them to engage. Bernie was aiming to motivate the turnout of the 18 to 29 slice and was much less successful at it than Obama had been.
And that (in red) was the one and only leg of the “Sanders is electable” stool.
Whereas Trump actually is increasing turnout amoung his don’t-usually-vote folks.
Oh I don’t think he is unelectable. But that is a subject covered many times here before.
The issue with Trump and turnout though gets complicated.
Some of that increased GOP turnout of those who do not usually participate in the selection process is specifically coming out to vote against him. That dynamic might be writ even bigger in a general. Some who might not be enthusiastic for Clinton may be enthusiastic *against *Trump. He may motivate turnout in the 18 to 29 year old slice better than Sanders does and the Hispanic slice better than Hillary by herself would.
Increased turnout of those who are traditionally nonvoters does not come without having other impacts as well. Some reliable voter cohorts may go more D than in past elections with Trump. College educated Whites, the slice with the highest turnout rates, are likely to be increasingly pushed into the D column. Not sure what impact he’d have on the other high turnout demographic - Black voters. Any worse than Romney v Obama? Hard to imagine such is possible.
I want Bernie to win, of course it’s not likely. I would vote for Hilary if he didn’t, but I know exactly 3 people who are… voting for Trump if Bernie doesn’t win it.
I know a lot of stupid people. Two of them explained to me that that, essentially, ‘things have to et worse before they get better’. The other explains it as if, with Hilary… the whole things a joke, and I guess she’s looking for the most ‘humorous’ outcome.
I dislike Hilary very much. But Trump is dangerous.