In that case, I guess there’s no issue with lobbyists taking Congressmen on “informational” trips to Hawaii. Helps bills pass.
Anyway, the point isn’t to argue about the merits of various forms of change, just to point out what real change is. Such as when Republicans put term limits on committee chairs to break up the old system where Southern Democrats treated various committees as their personal fiefdoms for 20 or 30 years. Maybe it was a good idea to change that, maybe it wasn’t, but it was change. Or forcing Congress to justify every law passed by citing the powers in the Constitution that authorize the law. That’s change.
Just passing conventional political party legislative priorities isn’t change, especially since Democrats used various forms of parliamentary trickery to do it, such as disallowing votes on amendments.
For better or worse, the Democrats are no longer just the party of government, but also the party of politics. They like earmarks. They like lobbyists. They like elite control of the party. They like the status quo, they just want to tweak a few things. There isn’t a single proposal I’ve heard from Hillary Clinton or the Democratic Party that involves any change.
Now Donald Trump, we can all agree he’s change, but most Americans don’t think he’s the right kind of change.
Then you aren’t listening. Universal health care is change; higher minimum wage is change; better infrastructure spending is change; equal pay laws are change; etc.
I personally think Trump’s policies are just the ticket for this country. Why, they’ve already been tried and tested in cities like North Haverbrook, Brockway and Ogdenville, and look how well they worked there!
That’s about as silly as demonizing some fictitious bogeyman who wants to remove the words “Under God” from [heavenly choir/] The Pledge of Allegiance [\heavenly choir]. If only we had some way to determine if a law was in compliance with the Constitution, like if there was some court charged with that task, we wouldn’t need to put that justification in every law. Create a court, a Supreme Court, if you will. If only…
Change in policy, but not a change in politics and certainly not a change to the system. But Clinton is of course free to try to make that argument, that policies the Democrats have wanted since Clinton was a young 'un constitute change.
All three branches have a duty to interpret the Constitution. The Supreme Court has the final word when there is a dispute, but ideally Congress never passes anything unconstitutional or anything even questionable in the first place. The only drawback to requiring cites of the Constitution to pass laws is that unconstitutional laws won’t pass. And as far as I know, no act of Congress has been struck down that originated since 2011, when Republicans passed that tidbit. Anyone can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
When you say “there isn’t a single proposal… that involves any change”, you’re just continuing the normal politics yourself. Politics is policy – that’s the most important part of politics. She’s proposing lots of progressive policies.
Some people might not want those policies, but you’re just repeating GOP party line, rather than any revealing truth, when you say “there isn’t a single proposal… that involves any change”.
Eh, that’s all in the eye of the beholder. The media is calling the speech gloomy, but Trump also talked about America “winning again” and being great again,with assurances that we can do it.
Democrats have long adopted the more “mature” approach of assuring us that we have to be realistic, keep our expectations down, that we can’t beat ISIS, that we can’t get our jobs back, that America’s relative decline must be managed rather than fighting to preserve Pax Americana. But don’t worry, there’s optimism that the declining economy will be distributed more fairly.
In the end of course, the voters will judge. Oh, and Democrats, party of change? She’s kinda running for Obama’s third term pretty openly.
I don’t think Americans see the problem in America as not enough conventional Democratic or Republican policies. I think they see the problem as too much of the conventional elite wisdom of the left and the right.
Nothing that changes the way Washington does business. In fact, Democrats would like to roll back some of the reforms the Republicans put in place. Earmarks will be back. Allowing the opposition to vote on amendments will be taken away again. It’s going to be the same old politics that we’ve been seeing for decades.
Aw, c’mon! Change that has been advocated but not realized isn’t really “change”. When I was in middle-school debate, our theme for the year was universal health care, single payer. How long ago was that? We argued by kerosene light and our Moms dropped us off in the family dinosaur.
It’s change if you define change as literally anything different from before regardless of degree.
But if you wanted to change by becoming a better person, getting a pony doesn’t exactly help you with that. It’s change, but not the change you resolved to make.
When politicians promise change, they don’t mean more stuff. They attack the WAY Washington does business and promise to change that. They attack the way politics is conducted and promise to change that too.
Did Obama beat Clinton in 2008 because of a difference in policies? No, he beat her because he claimed to want to change things and she represented more of the same old politics people were tired of. And he was right. There is nothing about the system she doesn’t embrace.
He beat her because he is charismatic and an outstanding orator. She is a lousy speaker but a better policy wonk. I don’t think change vs status quo had a lot to do with hit, he tied her to the Iraq War and she couldn’t recover. Issues don’t matter for shit in presidential campaigns, it’s all in appearing presidential.
There’s nothing that Americans all feel – some want these policies, some want other policies. This kind of generic statement about discontent is meaningless pablum.
Trump makes the impossible happen. He’s had some buildings erected in NYC and some casinos in Atlantic City. Unprecedented.
Trump’s casinos were in bankruptcy FIVE times, and each and every time, other people lost money. Investors, shareholders, contractors, everyone but Trump got shafted. The casinos were never profitable because Trump knowingly took out loans he could never repay. It didn’t stop him from siphoning off millions, though. You would think it would be seemingly impossible to rip off so many people and get away with it, but you would be wrong. Trump should be in handcuffs.
Facts don’t matter to Trump’s followers. The entire movement is emotion-based. Trump has found himself a new crop of suckers to be fleeced. Unfortunately, there might just be enough of them to put this con man into the oval office.
Ah, now that’s an interesting argument that may well be correct. Clinton’s VP pick further cements her status as the one who actually knows how to govern.
And as dishonest as her father, in one instance helping him dupe people into investing in a Baja condo development that never got built. Her story about how women on the campaign staff are paid as much as the men is also false, as they get 35% less than male employees (as reported by The Boston Globe). Her fable about how wonderful her father is is simply not supported by his actions.