Regardless of who wins the nomination, Trump and Bernie have pushed the debate on substantive issues more than any other primary that I can recollect.
There was a time when the common political wisdom was that free trade was an unmitigated good. Now, with the help of Trump and Sanders, we now realize that not all free trade deals are created equal and the effect on America’s workforce must be a primary consideration if and when we negotiate these deals.
We can thank Bernie for making free college tuition a mainstream idea (at least among Democrats). Hillary was against this out of the gate and now its part of her stump speech.
We can thanks Trump for helping Republicans realize that supporting a path to citizenship (after we build a wall that Mexico pays for?) is politically viable (you might have to make a few racist comments about illegal immigrants but as long as you show the base whose side you are on, they don’t seem to have a huge problem with the “good” Mexicans).
We can thank Bernie AND Trump for continuing to make accepting large donation a political liability.
We can thank Bernie for pushing the Democratic party towards more Democratic ideals.
We can thank Trump for showing us (and the Republican establishment) that there are consequences to wooing the mouth frothing elements of your base.
We can thank Bernie for showing us that a far left liberal is viable at the national level.
We can thank Trump for showing us that actually anybody can be viable at the national level if they have the right message.
Hillary might win the election but I argue that Bernie is the more important candidate this election cycle. We live in interesting times.
Trump also proves that you don’t have to be a “true conservative” to be viable as a Republican and you don’t have to be ultra super duper pro-life. in fact you can just say you are pro-life even if every other word, deed and action you have ever taken in your life says otherwise.
Both Trump and Sanders speak out against the corrupting influence of money in politics. I think that is a big appeal both candidates have. The two mainstream parties need to see the writing on the wall.
I get into debates here where people sometimes act like Sanders is just a pest. Not even close, he is a harbinger of things to come. People are tired of the role of the wealthy and powerful in corrupting this democracy. Wait until a true blue progressive comes who can win over the minority vote (Sanders sucked with minorities, he barely won 25% of blacks for example). That nominee will win the primary.
I don’t think either of them started this. NAFTA was a major source of debate in 1992. Ross Perot was widely quoted as describing NAFTA thusly:
[QUOTE=Ross Perot]
We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It’s pretty simple: If you’re paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor,…have no health care—that’s the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don’t care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
…when [Mexico’s] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it’s leveled again. But in the meantime, you’ve wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.
[/QUOTE]
So this is clearly not a new issue. Even John Edwards ran largely on this issue as it was central to his economic inequality message.
Not really. First, I think Obama was the first person to seriously float the idea for free (community) college. Second, Clinton does not support free college but rather debt free college. I suspect she was pushed to come up with a plan based in part on Sanders’ campaign, but I don’t think this is a huge deal in the grand scheme of things because Sanders’ idea is a complete nonstarter.
Trump has been extremely vague about this. Further, what little you can make of a coherent policy from what he has said would basically be what GWB put in place/proposed, so I an not sure this is new. .
Trump’s blueprint here is the same one every rich politician uses (eg. Romney, Bloomberg, Meg Whitman). Bernie’s critique was used against Hillary in 2008 by Obama. Obama emphasized that he raised more money from small donors, while Hillary was supported by fat cats.
Are the consequences winning the nomination? Because Trump has done that exact thing more than anyone in recent memory who has had a shot at winning. Yes, he doesn’t court the religious fanatics; just the racists and idiots who think climate change is a Chinese conspiracy. Honestly, I am not sure what you point is here?
Hardly. Sanders has demonstrated that you can sustain a losing campaign against a fairly unlikable competitor by appealing almost solely to White people. The fact is far left liberalism is extremely unpopular nationwide, and he is losing handily to a competitor with some of the highest negatives in recent history.
Trump doesn’t really have a message. He is a brand. All he proves is that people dislike politicians, and that people erroneously assume really rich people are smarter and necessarily competent managers.
It amuses me that this seems to be your entire point. That just saying he’s a socialist (and he’s not even a full on socialist!) should be enough to stop any serious discussion of him.
Look, I know that the Democrats had to engage in the same redbaiting rhetoric during the Cold War that everyone else did to get elected. But you weren’t supposed to actually believe it!
Trump has answered the questions we’ve been asking for decades; why do white, working class under-educated people vote against their self interests and go for Republicans? We have no learned that it’s not political theory or conservative ideals, but simple tribalism. They have enthusiastically abandoned the actual conservatives and jumped on a populist (or something, I’m not sure) train. They won’t go for a Democrat (Because, “they’re destroying America”) , but a “Republican” who at least pretends to talk to their issues gets wide support.
Yes I remember the “huge sucking sound” speech. That was a long time ago free market fundamentalists have not only taken over the Republican party, they had a pretty strong foothold in the Democratic party as well and the benefits of free trade were almost axiomatic among these people.
2 year college is different than 4 year.
Studies have shown that the government recoups the cost of paying for community college. The extra taxes collected from someone with a community college degree justified paying for that community college degree. This was not the case for 4 year college degrees however it was pretty damn close for PUBLIC 4 year colleges.
I agree that Clinton’s “debt free” college plan was a reaction to the Sanders free public college plan. But why is free public college a complete non-starter? We have discussed this on other threads and the money is not prohibitive (something on the order of $60 billion), much of the cost can be recouped from reducing subsidies to for profit and private colleges.
Trump hasn’t been vague because he wants to deport all the illegals, he has been vague because he doesn’t. So which other Republicans have been campaigning on such a vague immigration platform before Trump made them realize that you don’t have to be Joe Arpaio to win elections?
Hence the use of the word “continuing”
[quote]
Are the consequences winning the nomination? Because Trump has done that exact thing more than anyone in recent memory who has had a shot at winning. Yes, he doesn’t court the religious fanatics; just the racists and idiots who think climate change is a Chinese conspiracy. Honestly, I am not sure what you point is here?
[quote]
The consequence is to the Republican party. They are ending up with a nominee like Trump. He is the just desserts of a party that has been dry humping the crazy faction of their base to get them all hot and bothered. I don’t usually like to blame the victim but they were asking for it.
If Trump weren’t winning the Republican nomination, everybody would be talking about how shocked theya re that someone like Bernie Sanders didn’t get knocked out before Super Tuesday.
His message is that the political class has sold out the voting class to the capital class. His message is that the working class is getting screwed by poorly negotiated trade deals and a lax immigration policy. The rest of it seems like red meat for the racist elements of the base.
Trump and Sanders have made a difference in the primaries this year. An important difference yes, but maybe not most important. Bernie shifted the conversation, but he didn’t win, and Hillary looks very good for the general election, so the Democrats aren’t lost at sea the way the GOP has been in presidential politics and they don’t need to go find themselves the way the Republicans have. By the next cycle Bernie may be long forgotten. Trump did win the nomination, I don’t think he has a great chance to win the general, although I don’t think it’s a slam dunk for Hillary either. If Trump wins in the end, or loses and the GOP loses the congress too then Trump will have made that big difference. But if Trump loses to Hillary and the congress stays in GOP hands then he and Romney can go hang out at the failed rich Republican presidential candidates club where no one will be asking them for guest passes.
A lot of things happen in primaries, there are often surprises, but the primaries don’t mean anything much after the conventions, and even less after the general election.
Yeah…they demonstrate how both parties have jumped the shark. The Republicans, however, actually nominated their loony, while it looks like the Democrats have retained enough sanity to nominate a viable candidate. I seriously don’t know if the Republicans are going to survive this debacle and emerge as a viable party in the future. This might be the beginning of the modern Whigs/Federalists disappearing party trick.