Somehow fitting.
“All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to.”
– Adolf Hitler
I feel both Trump and Sanders are a symptom of the fact voters in both parties are tired of the same old politicians from the political establishment who really, are not going to make any major changes.
I dont know about you all but I’m tired of only having 2 choices in each election. I’m tired of both parties basically being 2 sides of the same coin. I want someone fresh. This is why I voted for Perot back in 1992.
I agree with this. People in both parties are tired of the same political rhetoric from the politician class with canned sound bites and empty promises.
Even evangelicals are tired of it. It used to be that if you waived the flag, discussed your faith in Christ, and spoke out against abortion and gay marriage, then you got the evangelical vote. Not any more. I never thought I would see the day when evangelicals as a group vote for a 3 X married guy who speaks highly of Planned Parenthood.
I think the reason for that is much as you described. Where is this progress on abortion and gay marriage? The GOP has had the Presidency for a great deal of time and controlled Congress for much of the time. At one point 7 of 9 justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republicans. Not only did they fail to overturn Roe v. Wade, but they just guaranteed a right of same sex marriage nationwide. So much for our “conservative” jurists.*
So this year, they say no more. They are tired of the bullshit empty promises. They see a guy like Trump who has absolutely no problem mouthing off to anyone, even the Pope. You may not like the idea of mouthing off to the Pope, but you are happy to see someone who is not afraid to say what is on their mind.
When asked about waterboarding, me, you, or anyone else can give the canned line from any politician who supports it, or the canned line from anyone who opposes it. Here comes Trump, though, and says that waterboarding is for pussies and he would do more. Whether you agree with that statement or not, it is refreshing to hear something other than crap that has been filtered through focus groups and speech writers.
Same way with immigration.
Those on the left have found many of those same qualities in Sanders, but from the opposite side. Decrease student loan rates? How about fucking free college? More time off for maternity leave? Much more time, and paid time off!
Others have said it many times throughout history, but I believe that this election is the start of a new period in American politics. I am not a Trump supporter and I think it would be bad for the country for him to get elected (instead of another Republican) but I understand his appeal. The specifics on his policies leave much to be desired. I don’t support him, but when I’m watching the debates, I pay special attention when he answers because I don’t already know the answer he will give.
Many voters on each side are tired of the same old, same old and want fresh ideas. Even if they are bad fresh ideas, at least it is a start.
*Please note that I am not attempting to debate these ideas, but pointing out why evangelicals are acting the way they are.
It’s dumb and anti-science in the same way as AGW denial: it refuses to believe the scientists and the statistics. Powering down nuclear plants will result in more CO2 emissions but Sanders refuses to believe it.
Nope. Rejecting the facts (e.g. insisting that human activity is not causing climate change) is anti-science. Drawing different policy conclusions from the facts (e.g. deciding that nuclear power is not an avenue worth pursuing) may be unwise for other reasons, but it is not anti-science.
These are the most socialist countries in the world according to one site I found:
China
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Norway
Ireland
New Zealand
Belgium
None of them seem particularly horrible.
“Socialism” is not “Communism”. With perhaps the exception of China, these countries do not have centralized command economies where government owns the means of production.
I disagree, especially since Sanders is claiming to fight climate change. It’s idiotic to fight CC while shutting down nuclear plants. Scientists have said that solar+wind have no chance of replacing NP but Bernie denies it. If a Republican tried to pull this stunt Dopers would be (rightly) denouncing this.
If humans were uniformly rational we probably wouldn’t need debates. Humans could be educated in the schools and they’d rationally pick the best candidate. The fact we have minimum wage instead of a basic income highlights how irrational the electorate is.
I’m not going to judge how rational different presidents and congresses are or were. I’ll just say they didn’t achieve power strictly on reason. They also benefitted from charisma and appeals to emotion.
This is what The Donald is doing. He’s employing the pick up artist philosophy. Who wants to date the rational nerd when a flamboyant alpha demonstrates interest?
Canada? New Zealand? Really? Where did you get this list from? If Canada makes it onto a list of the most socialist countries left in the world, that kind of makes my point, because it’s not remotely socialist. Both Canada and New Zealand score higher on the index of economic freedom than does the U.S.
And why does your list not include Venezuela, or any of the other latin American socialist states? Cuba? Portugal? Greece? Even India is closer to socialism than most countries on your list.
I suspect what you found was some blogger’s compilation of countries that would make the best case for socialism if they were in fact socialist.
How’s that model going to hold up in the face of nationalistic reaction to non European immigration?
By the way, if you’re looking for Canadian style ‘socialism’, be prepared to cut the corporate tax to 12%, lower your top imarginal tax rate to 31%, shrink the federal government and give mre power to the states, cut the capital gains and dividend taxes, end the estate tax, cut business regulations, and raise taxes on the poor and middle class through a national VAT tax. Also, no free state education, a school system that allows for parental choice in which school your kid attends, and scrap the federal Department of Education and half your other federal agencies, because in Canada such decisions are left to the provinces - one of which is considered to be the most economically free region in North America.
If that’s your idea of socialism, sign me up
Of course we would. Even with sincere commitment, rationality ain’t easy. Scientist A can be wrong where scientist B is right, and that is not because A is any less rational than B.
Pretty well, I should expect. For one thing, nationalism of that form is not inherently hostile to social democracy, only to nonwhites getting its benefits.
All this analysis sounds good…but also a bit smug and self-congratulatory. And I fear it will look terribly hollow in 9 months.
What if we’re wrong??
Not necessarily about the raison d’etre for Trumpism…but about it’s limited appeal? What if we’re underestimating the sheer number of delusional morons in this country?
Do you mean Alberta? Even under an NDP government?
You mean, what if Trump gets elected?
Then the topic of this thread will be even more important and relevant, won’t it?
The two share the prime characteristic of populist campaigns: They tell the voters that all their problems are the result of some ‘other’, and that if they vote for the candidate the other will be put in their place, order restored, and there will be a chicken in every pot.
Left wing populism and right wing populism both trade on fear and anger, and feature candidates with big plans that will make the world right again.
There’s an element of populism in just about every politician’s campaign, but Trump and Sanders are easily the most populist candidates running this year, or for many years.
Alberta so far. The NDP haven’t had time to wreck things yet, although they are off to a faster pace of destruction than even I thought they’d manage.
Maybe next year Canada can make the list of socialist countries, now that we’ve elected Trudeau and the NDP in Alberta. But you might not want it on your list by then, because the Trudeau government has already reneged on its economic promise to Canadians of deficits under 10 billion and a balanced budget in four years. Now they’re talking about deficits of 20-30 billion, and no promise of a balanced budget at all.
Here in Alberta, the NDP promised a deficit no larger than 6 billion, and it’s already at 10.1 billion and counting. They took a resource downturn and made it far worse - to the point where TransAlta utilities has said it will no longer invest in Alberta so long as the NDP remains so hostile to energy.
But I’m sure no matter how far Alberta collapses under these imbeciles it will be solely the fault of the drop in the price of oil. In fact, the socialists will say, it would have been much worse if the NDP hadn’t borrowed all that money and spent it on government buildings and higher public sector employment and salaries. Because Keynes.
In other words, Trump is collecting on the pot that the GOP has inflated by calling their bluff.
“You were looking for that third three, but you forgot that John Kasich folded on Fourth Street and representing that you have it. Marco Rubio made his two pair but he knows they’re no good. Dr. Carson was drying to squeeze out a diamond flush but he came up short, and Ted Cruz is futilely hoping that his queens are going to stand up. So, like I said, Trump’s bet is the Republican nomination.”
Now I really want to see a film with John Malkovich playing Vladimir Putin with that hokey Russian accent he learned by watching Boris and Natasha cartoons. “In my country I vill splash ze pot vheenever ze fuck I please.”
Stranger
More to the point, excepting China they are all democracies - the ‘country’ isn’t socialist, the government is by dint of election.