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Unintended consequences

This is a good thing. Trump promised a big surprise and produced Sarah Palin. It shows that when he says he will bring in top notch people, that the promise is hollow. As far as Palin, she is a US citizen and can say what she wants. The Post can say what they want.
 
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TUMe said:
This is a good thing. Trump promised a big surprise and produced Sarah Palin. It shows that when he says he will bring in top notch people, that the promise is hollow. As far as Palin, she is a US citizen and can say what she wants. The Post can say what they want.
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Agreed, but....
 
People see Trump as the leader now but he is stuck below 50%. Actually about 35%.

If 35 percent of voters are Republican [40 per cent democrat and the rest swing voters] and Trump has 35 percent of 35 percent then his core is about 12 per cent of the total voters as solid to him in the general election. Some Republicans, like me, will vote for the neither Trump nor Hillary IF they are the nominees. What needs to be figured out is how many states are winner take all and how many are proportional in delegates. Also, the question is, as more drop out, where will their voters go.

For many, Hillary v Trump is a Catch 22.
 
In 2008, hrc was supposed to be the dem nominee, then bho happened.
In 2016, hrc was supposed to be the dem nominee, then bernie happened


I just think dems really don't like hrc
 
Well...some of his fans certainly are. Is this worse than being part of an openly racist church or being endorsed by openly racist people ? Is a person labeled by some of the people who support them?
 
lawpoke87 said:
Well...some of his fans certainly are. Is this worse than being part of an openly racist church or being endorsed by openly racist people ? Is a person labeled by some of the people who support them?
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So who are is this supposed to slime? Is one supposed to vote for Trump because of this obscure...whatever it is? Reference?

I get it. If you throw dirt on other candidates you can ignore what happened last night and in the debates? OK. OK. I get it.
 
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I was referring to our current President and his ties to people who are openly anti-Semitic. Look...I don't support Trump or his immigration rhetoric. However, I'm equally as tired of the racist acquisitions which are thrown out far too easily theses day. I didn't start the slime with the accusations btw.

You support a candidate and party who can't stand up to a hate group and say "All lives matter". At least I denounce Trump and don't support him. You should try the same for those in your party who support extremist.
 
lawpoke87 said:
You support a candidate and party who can't stand up to a hate group and say "All lives matter". At least I denounce Trump and don't support him. You should try the same for those in your party who support extremist.
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Such inane BS. You sound like Jeffrey Lord.
 
This thread is named "unintended consequences" which is appropriate because if anything Trump is the quintessential unintended consequence. Republicans and Fox have long focused on appealing to a 'news' audience with long legged blondes in short skirts and cleavage, distrust of government, coded racism, and lowest common denominator (aka bumper sticker) approaches to everything. Meanwhile the money driving this machine (Rupert, large corporations, Kochs, etc) really don't care about the interests of the group they were appealing to. Result? Wage stagnation, shipping jobs overseas, and tapping voter pocket books for corporate subsidies. IOW the group that argued that there is no such thing as good government has worked hard to get elected to office in order to prove it.

As they say, "you can't fool all the people all the time." Trump, whose presence (until recently) was welcomed and promoted by Fox and whose endorsement and economic prowess was gratefully touted by Mitt in his run for the presidency, has become the pariah of the Republican establishment. Why? Because he is appealing to those who have figured out what is going on: wage earners, blue collar types who welcome to opportunity to trade in a bankrupt ideology in order to stop worrying about next week's bills.

There is a similar argument for the other party who argue that the government is the solution to everything which hasn't worked either.

Capitalism and market economies work well when there is just enough government to be an honest referee and to ensure the cost of externalities is accounted for. Unfortunately our referees have become corrupted by the big money needed to become elected and stay in office. Few now think the ref is fair and the game isn't rigged for those who pay off the refs.
 
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the Republican party is not racist. They just believe that people should be responsible and self reliant, something the Democrats depict as "they dont care for you".
 
There was a twisted op-ed piece in the WSJ claiming that Trump was Obama's fault because he was.....too cerebral and decent? Here's the Slate's
twist on that twist. Which makes more sense?

"What caused Trump was the GOP's decision to negate Obama in every way, and thereby become the party of Trump.
[...]
In Trump, Republican voters have found their anti-Obama. Trump spurns not just political correctness, but correctness of any kind. He lies about Muslims and 9/11, insults women and people with disabilities, accuses a judge of bias for being Hispanic, and hurls profanities. Trump validates the maxim that in presidential primaries, the opposition party tends to choose a candidate who differs temperamentally from the incumbent. Obama is an adult. Therefore, Republicans are nominating a child.

The GOP's predicament isn't just that Trump is leading the fight for the nomination. It's that his only viable opponents are men who claim he's not conservative enough. In rallies and interviews, Cruz and Rubio call Trump soft on immigration and gun control. They denounce him for praising Planned Parenthood's work against cervical cancer and breast cancer. They're outraged that Trump has said he supports government-funded health care to prevent sick people from dying in the streets--as though there were some way other than government-funded health care to guarantee that sick people don't die in the streets.

How did the GOP end up in this madness? By twisting itself to thwart and vilify Obama.
[...]
So, yes, Obama led to Trump. But that's only because the Republican Party decided to be what Obama wasn't. And what Obama wasn't--insecure, bitter, vindictive, xenophobic, sectarian--is what the GOP, in the era of Trump, has become. [Slate, 2/29/16]

And in the Washington Post:

"Let's be clear: Trump is no fluke. Nor is he hijacking the Republican Party or the conservative movement, if there is such a thing. He is, rather, the party's creation, its Frankenstein's monster, brought to life by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker. Was it not the party's wild obstructionism -- the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements, the persistent calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions, the insistence that compromise was betrayal, the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition -- that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at? Was it not Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), among others, who set this tone and thereby cleared the way for someone even more irreverent, so that now, in a most unenjoyable irony, Cruz, along with the rest of the party, must fall to the purer version of himself, a less ideologically encumbered anarcho-revolutionary? This would not be the first revolution that devoured itself.

Then there was the party's accommodation to and exploitation of the bigotry in its ranks. No, the majority of Republicans are not bigots. But they have certainly been enablers. Who began the attack on immigrants -- legal and illegal -- long before Trump arrived on the scene and made it his premier issue? Who frightened Mitt Romney into selling his soul in 2012, talking of "self-deportation" to get himself right with the party's anti-immigrant forces? Who opposed any plausible means of dealing with the genuine problem of illegal immigration, forcing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to cower, abandon his principles -- and his own immigration legislation -- lest he be driven from the presidential race before it had even begun? It was not Trump. It was not even party yahoos. It was Republican Party pundits and intellectuals, trying to harness populist passions and perhaps deal a blow to any legislation for which President Obama might possibly claim even partial credit. What did Trump do but pick up where they left off, tapping the well-primed gusher of popular anger, xenophobia and, yes, bigotry that the party had already unleashed?

Then there was the Obama hatred, a racially tinged derangement syndrome that made any charge plausible and any opposition justified. [The Washington Post, 2/25/16]
 
The lack of understanding of the WaPo of why some Reps are drawn toward Trump is astounding.

"Was it not the party's wild obstructionism -- the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements, the persistent calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions, the insistence that compromise was betrayal, the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition -- that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at".

The argument that a group of people are supporting a Rep candidate because of calls to nullify SC decisions (which they don't agree with btw), internal coups, etc...taught these people that the Rep party was to be ignored, insulted, overthrown is ludicrous. These people are mad at Washington DC and the game which is rigged toward the wealthy. The are mad with the disappearance of living wage jobs. Many are populist who feel like our leaders have abandoned them for special interest. They are mad at the political correct crowd. I think supporting Trump is a huge mistake and the party will get what they deserve if they nominate him for the general by his populist appeal and message is what is driving his support imo. No one else in the Rep field is talking about corporate lobbyist and their control of our federal government as well as our trade deals which have been a complete disaster for living wage jobs here in the states. Which is a shame because this is what the Reps need to be talking about imo.

Trump voters overwhelmingly believe that the economy is the most important issue (per polling) followed by national security. The candidate who voters feel will handle the economy the best almost always wins. Looks like this is no exception for the Reps.
 
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Your analysis doesn't seem that much different: that the Republican establishment sold wage earners, evangelicals, and social conservatives a bill of goods and they figured it out.

The Republican establishment is a business group which cynically enlisted social conservatives and evangelicals in the South to win elections but had no interest in actually representing them or in limiting their self interest to improve things for those who elected them. The Rep establishment thought as long as they fed these social/religious conservatives a steady diet of anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-Obama, anti-poor, anti-whatever fodder, that they go on treating themselves to the government's largess: corporate subsidies, tax free foreign profits, bailouts, low tax rates, get out of jail free cards, etc.

Now these newly disaffected Republicans/Trump backers are happy to trade their sense of decorum and religious beliefs for the hope Trump will relieve the pressure of monthly bills and mountains of debt while providing a list of convenient scapegoats to vent their anger on.

lawpoke87 said:
The lack of understanding of the WaPo of why some Reps are drawn toward Trump is astounding.

"Was it not the party's wild obstructionism -- the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements, the persistent calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions, the insistence that compromise was betrayal, the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition -- that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at".

The argument that a group of people are supporting a Rep candidate because of calls to nullify SC decisions (which they don't agree with btw), internal coups, etc...taught these people that the Rep party was to be ignored, insulted, overthrown is ludicrous. These people are mad at Washington DC and the game which is rigged toward the wealthy. The are mad with the disappearance of living wage jobs. Many are populist who feel like our leaders have abandoned them for special interest.
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The Republican establishment is a business group
-??????????????????
Nancy pelosi, Dian feinstein, Barbara Boxer, The Kennedy clan, Hollywood, george soros, Ted turner, jane fonda, barbara stiesand, spike lee, michael moore, john kerry heinz, al gore, . . .
 
WATU2 said:
Your analysis doesn't seem that much different: that the Republican establishment sold wage earners, evangelicals, and social conservatives a bill of goods and they figured it out.

The Republican establishment is a business group which cynically enlisted social conservatives and evangelicals in the South to win elections but had no interest in actually representing them or in limiting their self interest to improve things for those who elected them. The Rep establishment thought as long as they fed these social/religious conservatives a steady diet of anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-Obama, anti-poor, anti-whatever fodder, that they go on treating themselves to the government's largess: corporate subsidies, tax free foreign profits, bailouts, low tax rates, get out of jail free cards, etc.

Now these newly disaffected Republicans/Trump backers are happy to trade their sense of decorum and religious beliefs for the hope Trump will relieve the pressure of monthly bills and mountains of debt while providing a list of convenient scapegoats to vent their anger on.
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Agree with that the Rep party is partially comprised of social/religious conservatives....possibly a majority. Corporate subsidies, tax free foreign profits, bailouts, tax rates, etc. cross party lines. Roughly the same number of rich Democrats who have supported the same trade agreements (the largest two passed by Dem Presidents), tax shelters, etc.. This isn't a partisan problem. It's an American problem.

Yes...working people are mad. They've seen their wages and earning power dramatically decrease over the last eight years. They've seen insurance premiums skyrocket. The middle class is under attack and shrinking. Damn right they are upset. A populist message sells regardless of party affiliation. Even if the candidate is critically flawed.

Reps are certainly fed up with DC. I keep wondering when minority voters are going to tire of their horrific living conditions filled with drugs and violence and demand new approaches by their representatives and realize that leaders have very little incentive to initiate programs which lift voters out of poverty. Dependency equates to power for those who are relied upon for the necessities of daily life. One thing is certain regardless of party, power is the ultimate goal....and no one posting on this thread is in the power circle.
 
I keep reading these opinion pieces on trade/globalization and it seems like people don't think it through to the end result...forcing pricier jobs to stay in the United States or adding tariffs on imports trickles down to one thing = higher prices for the American consumer.

And that Trump is a complete hypocrite on the issue.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dona...y-brand-manufactured-abroad/story?id=37502012
 
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Lower corporate profits and/or higher prices in exchange for the return of manufacturing jobs and a middle class. Can you think of another solution? We certainly had a thriving middle class and manufacturing environment prior to selling our souls to corporate lobbyist.. Is there a reason why we can't return to those days?
 
The "cure" for the lost manufacturing jobs would be more damaging than just losing manufacturing jobs.
 
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So how do we not become a country of the rich (top 10 or 15%) and everyone else being poor? The current policies are quickly driving us in that direction. I'm not generally a protectionist. I'm just out of other ideas.
 
Ok....how about some ideas regarding our shrinking middle class and loss of living wage jobs?
 
Quite simply, find new skills. Adapt. It is not the government or industry's job to ensure your livelihood if you are an able-bodied adult.

Gen X and Y are sandwiched in between two generations that think the American Dream is somehow owed to them or you're done working toward it at a young age. Boomers think they were done at about age 22 and you should be set for life, not change companies or careers, that it isn't their responsibility to continue adding value and evolving. Millennials think they just need to get through high school and you're owed free higher ed and debt-free post-grad and a cushy paycheck for a job that "makes you happy".

I've had 4 distinct careers since college. My husband's team was outsourced to India after 20 years with the same company and he chose to move to a wholly different industry. We had to choose leaving Tulsa over my being unemployed or starting something new again. Do we long for the good ol' days of 2013? Absolutely. But it's done. We adapted.

One of my coworker's husbands only has a few more years to work and drives a semi after being laid off for a lengthy time from the O&G. People under about age 35 are just leaving the industry entirely in this downturn instead of waiting for someone to give them their jobs back.

Maybe it's my industry. This has been our reality for decades and decades and the only thing you can control is your own responses to busts and job losses.
 
The way to bring jobs back to America is to address the causes of their leaving in the first place. These include high corporate taxes, an ever increasing regulatory burden and naive trade policies. The government is doing such a great job of protecting us and controlling us that we are not competitive. There is the idea that anyone who actually makes an essential product is evil.
 
I think it's difficult for a country to have a thriving and growing middle class and not actually make anything. Service jobs are fine but people can't indefinitely pay for services without some of them making stuff. Like WATU's says....whose going to buy all this stuff?

I understand stated U.S. corporate tax rates are among the highest in the world. I would be interested to see what the effective rates are for those companies. Much like individual tax rates, stated rates mean little unless your lower and middle class. Assume corporate rates are similar.
 
Liberals complaining about the loss of jobs are like the boy who killed his parents then complained about being an orphan. Listening to the Democrat debate last night you heard a number of industries trashed. Many of which used to pay good incomes to young folks right out of high school or a trade school.
 
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TUMe said:
Liberals complaining about the loss of jobs are like the boy who killed his parents then complained about being an orphan. Listening to the Democrat debate last night you heard a number of industries trashed. Many of which used to pay good incomes to young folks right out of high school or a trade school.
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And they say it's the short term memory that goes first?

LA Times: 2004.

"WASHINGTON — The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said Monday.

The embrace of foreign outsourcing, an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the health of the economy.

"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."

The report, which predicts that the nation will reverse a three-year employment slide by creating 2.6 million jobs in 2004, is part of a weeklong effort by the administration to highlight signs that the recovery is picking up speed. Bush's economic stewardship has become a central issue in the presidential campaign, and the White House is eager to demonstrate that his policies are producing results.

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In his message to Congress on Monday, Bush said the economy "is strong and getting stronger," thanks in part to his tax cuts and other economic programs. He said the nation had survived a stock market meltdown, recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was finally beginning to enjoy "a mounting prosperity that will reach every corner of America."

The president repeated that message during an afternoon discussion about the economy at SRC Automotive, an engine-rebuilding plant in Springfield, Mo., where he lashed out at lawmakers who oppose making his tax cuts permanent.

"When they say, 'We're going to repeal Bush's tax cuts,' that means they're going to raise your taxes, and that's wrong. And that's bad economics," he said.

Democrats who want Bush's job were quick to challenge his claims."
 
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That bill was just more corporate welfare imo. Giving corporations a 20% tax credit for jobs brought back from overseas? Why not reverse the tax incentives and trade deals which made if profitable to move them over in the first place? NAFTA never made sense to those who understand how corporate America thinks and acts. Unfortunately, politicians wrote it and passed it over the warnings from those in the know. There's a problem when an US corporation can manufacture something in China then ship it halfway across the world cheaper than they can make the same here.
 
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WATU, the short term memory does go first. During the Bush Administration and before that during the Clinton Administration, there was always talk of a service economy. I have always said something to the effect of "You mow my lawn and I will wash your car" doesn't provide a strong economy. Yes, that oversimplifies the service economy. But a strong GNP makes the country strong and makes good jobs.

Scoffing at heavy industry, which is still the case today compared to small companies is harmful to our economy and by the way, harmful to the old friends of the Democrats, trade unions. Heavy industry isn't always pretty. Yet our government has placed a number of requirements on steel, mining, and oil and when they have met each one, they have been rewarded with more requirements and now a death sentence from this President. Of course, the government will retrain a 55 year old coal miner, oil field worker, or steel plant worker with a high school education to be a computer programmer, medical technician, or sales associate. All of those are worth jobs but don't fit the years of experience of the displaced worker and often don't have the benefits programs he or she had.
 
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WATU,

You might have added that Clinton repeated those comments during his signing of NAFTA adding that it would create good paying jobs here in the U.S. Outsourcing (Nafta) was truly a bi-partisan effort. Supported by two Presidents and receiving roughly equal support from Dems and Reps in the House and Senate. I obviously believe they all were wrong.

Interesting fact, the Canadian election that year was almost soley based on Nafta. The people voted against the trade agreement but split their votes among two parties giving the conservatives enough seats to pass the agreement.
 
lawpoke87 said:
WATU,

You might have added that Clinton repeated those comments during his signing of NAFTA adding that it would create good paying jobs here in the U.S.
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To the extent support was bi-partisan it is a reflection of Congress being owned by deep pockets and corporate interests. Likely passage was all Republicans with minority Dems. For Republicans to be running on job creation and claiming Dems sent jobs overseas is another major misrepresentation. Republicans continue to support sending jobs overseas while claiming lowering taxes will bring them back. Hypocrisy or ignorance?
 
I could swear the biggest supporter of NAFTA and the person assigned to sell it to the public and chiefly responsible for its passage was none other than VP Al Gore. His debates with Ross Perot were must see TV back in the day. Al was successful in convincing most of a skeptical public that the little weasel was wrong about the giant sucking sound of US jobs being sent across the border. Funny how things work out.
 
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