Would it be better for USA, Dems if McCain wins?

[XT]

Who are these ‘conservative posters’ who were saying Bush would be a good president…and when was this exactly?

And which of them are saying the same thing about McCain?

-XT

[RTFirefly]

@Sam Stone

First, the assumption that things are horrible and going to get worse is not not necessarily valid.

No, things are kinda so-so now. The problem is what’s coming.

But, if you want, take “things are going to get worse and, if McCain wins, likely to stay worse through November 2010” as an underlying assumption of this thread. Obviously, if there’s little reason to believe that, then the rest of the argument doesn’t stand either.

Economists who at least partly saw this mess coming expect it to last awhile. I’ve read their logic and find it compelling. But I don’t feel like arguing it.

Structurally, the U.S. economy is in better shape than most. The U.S. has lower taxes and higher productivity than most other countries. The population isn’t as old as it is in Europe and Japan. It’s somewhat isolated from radical Islamic extremism, which I think is going to be a huge problem for Europe in the next decade.

Then everything you’ve ever said about Iraq is bullshit. Because in the next decade, do you seriously think that the effect on Europe of Islamic extremism will be comparable to its effect on Iraq in the past six months?

But the thing is, in Europe, people are reasonably well insulated from the effects of downturns. Here, downturns hit people a lot worse than they hit the GDP.

The pathetic thing called the ‘Bush recovery’ or even by some crazies the ‘Bush boom’ will have ended without raising the U.S. median household income to where it was before the last recession. And then the new recession, which most prognosticators I’ve heard lately are expecting to be worse than the last two put together, hits them.

There will be a lot of angry voters in 2010, unless the government does some serious shit to help them. And I don’t mean tax cuts, since if you’ve lost your job or are worried that you’re about to, tax cuts don’t mean shit.

But the Republicans have pretty much lost the mindset that the sorts of things one did 30 or 40 years ago to cushion a recession - extending unemployment benefits, instituting new public works projects to create new jobs, things like that - are things that government should do. And when they do them at all - the current stimulus package is a case in point - 2/3 of it goes to people who aren’t going to spend the money, so it’s wasted as stimulus.

There are a lot of challenges facing the entire world in the next couple of decades, but there are also lots of opportunities. We’re in a golden age for science and engineering. Enough with the gloom and doom.

Golden opportunities aren’t worth shit if no one is willing to extend credit. And the system for extending that credit is frozen until the Shitpile is unraveled. We haven’t even really started yet; all that’s happened since last summer is a reduction in the level of denial. But there are lots of pieces of Shitpile all over the world; it’s not just an American problem, even if it started here.

As for Iraq, I think its currently a good possibility that there will be some form of a soft landing there. The security and economic situation continues to improve. I think it’s entirely possible that conditions will be right for someone like Obama to remove at least half the troops from Iraq in a year or two - about when he says he wants to.

The security situation has improved, due to unsustainable U.S. force levels. The economic situation is better than it was in August. If you’re not willing to defend your bullshit in one thread, please don’t export it to another.

That would allow Democrats to dump the failures of Iraq on Bush (as they should), and take credit for the successful termination of the conflict.

And if Iraq spirals into chaos, they can still blame Bush (unless Obama yanks all the soldiers out immediately and chaos follows).

And either way, does that get them to 60? That’s the real question. No sixty, no passee: that’s the iron law of the GOP with respect to Dem legislation.

McCain would be a good president. Yes, he’s hawkish on the war, but that die has already been cast. He’s not about to invade Iran or anything foolish like that. His hands are pretty much tied, other than that he could choose to keep Americans in Iraq longer.

Is there anything in his record that suggests he won’t keep as many troops there as long as possible?

And is there anything he’s said in the past 6 months that suggests he sees that Iraq is fueling the anti-Americanism in the Islamic world, without actually combating the one Islamic terrorist organization that’s killed thousands of Americans - and that the opportunity costs of Iraq are enormous? (I think it was Stoller who described it as our generation’s Apollo project.)

But on other issues, he’s far more centrist than Bush is.

Well, he and Bush are much more centrist than their party on immigration. But Bush wasn’t able to win that fight. Otherwise, there’s little he’s done since June 2004 to put daylight between himself and Bush. The ‘centrist’ McCain was a previous McCain.

He’s not beholden to the religious right,

Falwell, Hagee, Parsley, mushroom, mushroom!

he supports stem cell research,

OK, there is that.

opposes torture,

Not with his votes, apparently.

Here’s the big worry that Democrats should have about Obama: If he wins the Presidency and the Democrats win the house and Senate, they will have no excuses for failures. Clinton could blame his failures on the Republicans in Congress, and take credit for all the successes. If the Democrats control all three, then it’s all on them. Of course, I believe that most of their policies are disastrous, so I think they’ll do a lot of harm. A McCain presidency with Democrats controlling the house and senate would mean gridlock - which is about the bes thing you can hope for from the federal government, as far as I’m concerned.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on all that. I obviously see that very differently. The only thing I’m worried about the Dems’ getting stuck with is an unusually large order of cleaning up after the goddamn elephants.

[begbert2]

@Sam Stone

A McCain presidency with Democrats controlling the house and senate would mean gridlock - which is about the bes thing you can hope for from the federal government, as far as I’m concerned.

A gridlock is an excellent way to maintain the status quo, which is why I’m normally in favor of a gridlock - but I’m not sure I like the status quo at the moment. I’m thinking it might bo good to have a round or two of Democratting to try and rebound us from the relatively horrific downspiral Bush set us on while he had a free hand.