The 2016 US Election (Part III)

[Alyrium Denryle]

Simon what about her support of intervention every other aside from Iraq? Mother Jones covered this a few months ago but basically Secretary Clinton when she was Senator Clinton backed every escilation not just the initial Iraq vote but later votes and the Surge. In addition she pressed for interventions in Syria and Libya far above and beyond what President Obama ended up doing and there is over a decade of reporting on quotes from insiders about Secretary Clinton never meeting a conflict she did not want to intervene in.

We've had other conflicts other than Iraq and to my knowledge there is yet one purposed that Clinton has not supported except perhaps Iranian intervention.

From where I sit, Good. At least with Syria. I say this because I tend to oppose genocide being carried out by way of selling young women into sexual slavery after killing their male relatives. I also tend to support getting rid of a regime that uses nerve gas on its own population.

Lets be perfectly honest here, there are damn good reasons why people of good conscience can desire to intervene in those conflicts to one extent or another. I would actually have thought less of her if she had ruled out military intervention. So long as she never skirted over into "10 year occupation" territory, I am fine with someone wanting heavier intervention than Obama eventually engaged in.

That said, the secretary of state is not in the Situation Room having everything explained to them by professionals in uniform, so I suspect some of her more hawkish tendencies will be mellowed out a bit, because I trust her to listen to advice.

Trump does not listen to advice. Trump is an obvious clinical narcissist who has no idea what the hell he is doing and wont listen to others because they are beneath him.

That is inherently very dangerous.

[The Romulan Republic]

As far as Syria is concerned, I'm divided between feeling that the world had a moral obligation to do something about it, and fear of escalating it further.

Certainly, I feel that our policy their thus far has been sadly waffling and ineffective, serving neither a pro-intervention or anti-intervention goal terribly well.

If Cuba will likely be remembered as Obama's biggest foreign policy success, Syria will almost certainly be considered his greatest failure by history.

[Alyrium Denryle]

As far as Syria is concerned, I'm divided between feeling that the world had a moral obligation to do something about it, and fear of escalating it further.

Certainly, I feel that our policy their thus far has been sadly waffling and ineffective, serving neither a pro-intervention or anti-intervention goal terribly well.

If Cuba will likely be remembered as Obama's biggest foreign policy success, Syria will almost certainly be considered his greatest failure by history.

Protip: No one has nukes, Asaad escalated to nerve gas pretty early, and ISIS is conducting genocide by rape.

Kinda hard to escalate further, and had we intervened more directly and earlier, we would not have the current clusterfuck we have right now because we already would have worked things out with Putin in such a way that Syria (minus an actual Kurdistan on the border with Iraq) remains a russian client, which is all they really want.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, if we had a deal with Russia that we could trust both parties to abide by, and if we could be reasonably sure it wouldn't turn into a decades-long occupation/counterinsurgency mission, and their was someone to replace Assad we could be reasonably sure isn't as bad or worse, sure.

Let me know when we have that, and I will be all for toppling Assad's worthless, murdering ass.

[Flagg]

Simon what about her support of intervention every other aside from Iraq? Mother Jones covered this a few months ago but basically Secretary Clinton when she was Senator Clinton backed every escilation not just the initial Iraq vote but later votes and the Surge. In addition she pressed for interventions in Syria and Libya far above and beyond what President Obama ended up doing and there is over a decade of reporting on quotes from insiders about Secretary Clinton never meeting a conflict she did not want to intervene in.

We've had other conflicts other than Iraq and to my knowledge there is yet one purposed that Clinton has not supported except perhaps Iranian intervention.

From where I sit, Good. At least with Syria. I say this because I tend to oppose genocide being carried out by way of selling young women into sexual slavery after killing their male relatives. I also tend to support getting rid of a regime that uses nerve gas on its own population.

Lets be perfectly honest here, there are damn good reasons why people of good conscience can desire to intervene in those conflicts to one extent or another. I would actually have thought less of her if she had ruled out military intervention. So long as she never skirted over into "10 year occupation" territory, I am fine with someone wanting heavier intervention than Obama eventually engaged in.

That said, the secretary of state is not in the Situation Room having everything explained to them by professionals in uniform, so I suspect some of her more hawkish tendencies will be mellowed out a bit, because I trust her to listen to advice.

Trump does not listen to advice. Trump is an obvious clinical narcissist who has no idea what the hell he is doing and wont listen to others because they are beneath him.

That is inherently very dangerous.

If I thought waving the "military magic wand" would do anything but make it worse... But I'm sure you know that.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Simon what about her support of intervention every other aside from Iraq? Mother Jones covered this a few months ago but basically Secretary Clinton when she was Senator Clinton backed every escilation not just the initial Iraq vote but later votes and the Surge. In addition she pressed for interventions in Syria and Libya far above and beyond what President Obama ended up doing and there is over a decade of reporting on quotes from insiders about Secretary Clinton never meeting a conflict she did not want to intervene in.

We've had other conflicts other than Iraq and to my knowledge there is yet one purposed that Clinton has not supported except perhaps Iranian intervention.

From where I sit, Good. At least with Syria. I say this because I tend to oppose genocide being carried out by way of selling young women into sexual slavery after killing their male relatives. I also tend to support getting rid of a regime that uses nerve gas on its own population.

Lets be perfectly honest here, there are damn good reasons why people of good conscience can desire to intervene in those conflicts to one extent or another. I would actually have thought less of her if she had ruled out military intervention. So long as she never skirted over into "10 year occupation" territory, I am fine with someone wanting heavier intervention than Obama eventually engaged in.

That said, the secretary of state is not in the Situation Room having everything explained to them by professionals in uniform, so I suspect some of her more hawkish tendencies will be mellowed out a bit, because I trust her to listen to advice.

Trump does not listen to advice. Trump is an obvious clinical narcissist who has no idea what the hell he is doing and wont listen to others because they are beneath him.

That is inherently very dangerous.

If I thought waving the "military magic wand" would do anything but make it worse... But I'm sure you know that.

At this point, it would. Back when Assad first used nerve gas, we could have done some good I think, provided it was executed properly. I am not sure how we would do that because I am not an expert, but that is what we have professionals for. In point of fact, one of the people Hillary Clinton vetted for the VP slot was one such expert.

[Flagg]

I hate to agree with TRR, but the Russians would have played games long enough for the pressure to ease off and Syria wasn't a "Rogue State" (someone with no big boy friends) like Iraq with no backing. And Obama has shown no interest in acting unilaterally, "Big Scale".

[Simon_Jester]

To me, the implication of all this is that intervening in Syria back in 2011 or so might have been a good idea, or a bad idea. We're debating it even on this forum, which is generally not all that jingoist, and which is generally respectful of the idea that foreign countries have actual rights and should not be casually invaded for no reason.

The existence of this controversy suggests that people (who aren't lunatics) can reasonably disagree about whether US intervention in 2011 would have been a good idea. On the one hand, such interventions generally go badly. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine how things could be much worse than they ended up being anyway.

That means we can't claim Clinton was some kind of visionary because she wanted to intervene in Syria. But it also means we can't claim she's automatically a war-mongering madwoman for wanting that. Based on the evidence, saying "we should intervene in Syria" in 2011 might have been the right call to make.

Similar arguments can be made regarding some of Clinton's other stances. For example, the 'surge' in Iraq was intended to restore some measure of peace and civil order in Iraq, by putting greater numbers of troops into Iraq, when the Bush administration had previously sent totally inadequate manpower. It may not have worked as well as planned, but reinforcing the army in Iraq to allow them to restore order was not necessarily a bad idea.

Given that "end the war overnight" was not an option actually on the table, the surge was not necessarily a mistake, even if the war itself was.

We could go on like this. My basic point is that while Clinton has a history of supporting 'military' causes, this does not in and of itself make her a villain, or someone likely to start major wars that aren't needed in light of the international situation.

[The Romulan Republic]

Bernie Sanders is launching his new organization Our Revolution tonight, to promote progressive candidates in this election, among other goals.

Live Stream here, if anyone wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp4tFcwkjhQ

[Gaidin]

Is that the same organization that had 8 out of 13 people resign because they sort of didn't wall his senatorial office off from it properly?

[FireNexus]

No, no. The people resigned because he had his incompetent asshole of a former campaign manager put in charge.

[The Romulan Republic]

Is it every going to get to the point where it will be possible to post anything about Sanders here without people who should, for pragmatism's sake if nothing else, be his political allies reflexively going into attack mode? The primary is over. Their's no need and no point to trying to tear down Sanders every time his name is mentioned.

Unless, of course, you are simply motivated by spite, are trying to tear open divides in the Democratic Party, or are willing to attack someone who is at least a temporary political ally in order to keep progressivism permanently marginalized.

I mean, I'm not even saying your criticism are necessarily unfounded (though I will ask for sources, and speaking as someone who never particularly cared for Weaver, the notion that two thirds of the group would resign simply because Weaver was the boss seems dubious at best). Its just that this has become a pattern that has become very predictable and tiresome.

Edit: I mean, for fuck's sake, I don't start attacking Clinton all the time here. Only the Busters (and conservatives, of course) do that, and they at least have a good reason to be so bitter, since they were on the losing side.

[Gandalf]

You think people are trying to tear up the Democratic party on a webforum?

[Flagg]

You think people are trying to tear up the Democratic party on a webforum?

Maybe we should have the feds test the ideology of everyone on every web forum!

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes, I think people use the internet as a platform to pursue whatever agenda they believe in, even if their actual impact is minimal. And considering that its not unknown for a government (i.e. Russia) to reportedly hire paid internet trolls, some people clearly do take the potential political impacts of interest bullshit at least semi-seriously.

Not that I think that destroying the Democratic Party is the goal of anyone here. I am merely pointing out, yet again, that damaging the Democratic Party is a logical end result of constant hostility from Democrats towards Sanders and other progressives.

A substantive criticism is another matter of course. All politicians should be subjected to those, Bernie no less than anyone else.

But unsourced, unsupported one or two line jabs in response to someone posting some news involving Sanders and progressives isn't substantive criticism. Its just knee-jerk sniping. And yes, I find it rather irritating, especially coming from people on the Left, people who, theoretically at least, should be on the same side right now.

And that's the last I'll say on it, because I can tell that this is rapidly turning into another round of "Let's all bait/troll The Romulan Republic", Flagg, and I see no need to humour that.

[Flagg]

Please, I don't even think about you enough or care enough to troll you, ever. But over the past week you have been getting worse and worse with this chicken little bullshit and I know I'm far from the only one who is sick of it. You're still on about Sanders, and he isn't even running anymore. In fact I'd go as far to say that he Sanders is off topic since this a thread about the election for POTUS. But no one will say that because you're throw a fit as usual.

[Gaidin]

No, no. The people resigned because he had his incompetent asshole of a former campaign manager put in charge.

His wife was in charge directly tying a 501c4 to a senator's office. Brilliant move, that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Please, I don't even think about you enough or care enough to troll you, ever. But over the past week you have been getting worse and worse with this chicken little bullshit and I know I'm far from the only one who is sick of it. You're still on about Sanders, and he isn't even running anymore. In fact I'd go as far to say that he Sanders is off topic since this a thread about the election for POTUS. But no one will say that because you're throw a fit as usual.

You do not decide what is on-topic for this thread.

It is my understanding that this is a general purpose election thread, not specifically for only the Presidential race, and in any case, since Sanders' actions relate to the campaign, it is, in my opinion, on-topic. If you disagree, take it up with a moderator and let them decide.

Like it or not, Sanders is still a prominent, influential, and thus newsworthy political figure in the United States. I suggest you learn to Iive with that reality.

[Flagg]

Please, I don't even think about you enough or care enough to troll you, ever. But over the past week you have been getting worse and worse with this chicken little bullshit and I know I'm far from the only one who is sick of it. You're still on about Sanders, and he isn't even running anymore. In fact I'd go as far to say that he Sanders is off topic since this a thread about the election for POTUS. But no one will say that because you're throw a fit as usual.

You do not decide what is on-topic for this thread.

It is my understanding that this is a general purpose election thread, not specifically for only the Presidential race, and in any case, since Sanders' actions relate to the campaign, it is, in my opinion, on-topic. If you disagree, take it up with a moderator and let them decide.

Like it or not, Sanders is still a prominent, influential, and thus newsworthy political figure in the United States. I suggest you learn to Iive with that reality.

Dude, I can make a suggestion if I want to. I don't care about sanders. He doesn't matter. But I also think we should stay on the subject of current elections. And I never claimed to be the arbiter of what is discussed. But the fact that it's either doomsday or Sanders that you talk about makes you the current running joke. But that's fine, keep shitting this thread up.

[Mr Bean]

TRR, Flagg this is The 2016 US Election thread, anything having to due with the election is on topic as this is and has been since Obama 2008 a place to dump ANYTHING election related to prevent N&P from having 10 new political threads a day. So anything related to the elections from House, Senate, local or Presidential elections is fair game.

If Sanders is speaking out against Trump fair game since it's about Trump who is in fact running for President. Same deal with anything related to Sanders supporting a particular ballot initiative. If Sanders writes a book, no this is not the place for that but anything related to anything being voted on November 4th is meant to end up in this giant running collective commentary thread.

[Flagg]

TRR, Flagg this is The 2016 US Election thread, anything having to due with the election is on topic as this is and has been since Obama 2008 a place to dump ANYTHING election related to prevent N&P from having 10 new political threads a day. So anything related to the elections from House, Senate, local or Presidential elections is fair game.

If Sanders is speaking out against Trump fair game since it's about Trump who is in fact running for President. Same deal with anything related to Sanders supporting a particular ballot initiative. If Sanders writes a book, no this is not the place for that but anything related to anything being voted on November 4th is meant to end up in this giant running collective commentary thread.

I'm just Sandered out, and now doomsayed out.

[bilateralrope]

A few days ago stuff.co.nz had an opinion piece about how the presidency might not be Trump's goal this election.

Trump's real endgame: A white nationalist media empire?

OPINION: Has Donald Trump given up on winning the White House and "pivoted" (this might be his real pivot) to a full-blown effort to build a national following that will outlast the election, perhaps allowing him to establish a media empire with him at the helm - one that caters, at least to some degree, to a white nationalist or "alt-right" audience?

Was that his plan all along?

The last few days have brought fresh reporting and evidence that suggest this is where Trump is really headed, a scenario that a number of observers have been speculating about for months.

I thought it would be useful to round up this evidence:

- Vanity Fair media writer Sarah Ellison reports in a radio interview that Trump has had private discussions with his inner circle about "how to monetise" the new audience he's built up. As Ellison puts it, this potential goal should no longer be seen as "speculation."

- The New York Times reports that in July, Trump's campaign "spent more on renting arenas for his speeches" than he did on setting up a national field operation, leaving him with no operation to speak of.

That is consistent with the idea that Trump (as I've speculated) is very consciously sinking most of his resources into a format (rallies) that allows him to continue staging his unique form of raucous WWE-style political entertainment, and building an audience that thrills to it, rather than winning a general election.

- Sarah Posner of Mother Jones has some excellent reporting this morning on new Trump campaign chief Stephen Bannon, which shows Bannon has skill and experience in building a media outlet (Breitbart) explicitly aimed at the ethno-nationalist audience.

As Bannon himself put it last spring: "We're the platform for the alt-right."

Bannon, naturally, denies that his nationalism is racially driven. But Posner shows that Bannon has regularly "stoked racial themes," and one former Breitbart insider has explicitly said that Bannon's Breitbart has become "a gathering place for white nationalists."

Either Trump actually sees Bannon as just the guy to expand his appeal - ie, he actually thinks that doubling down on the same approach and themes that won the GOP primaries will somehow expand his appeal - or he has something else in mind.

- Trump's first TV ad of the general election, with its fearmongering about refugee-terrorists and dark hordes flooding over the southern border, did not appear to be aimed at the constituencies Trump needs to improve among - college-educated whites, suburban women, nonwhites. And Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports that the Trump campaign's plan was initially to air an ad about the economy - which would make more sense as a way to reach those voter groups - but abruptly shifted at the last minute to the hard-core immigration spot, surprising even some Trump campaign insiders.

At critical moments, Trump continues to revert to form - which is to say, he keeps speaking to that hard Trumpist core, as if maintaining their interest is the paramount goal.

- If this is Trump's endgame, he is already succeeding at building an audience. The Washington Post's Dave Weigel reports that white nationalist and alt-right figures are finding a lot to like in Trump's new immigration ad, and in his overall messaging.

In a very telling moment, one white nationalist writer asks us to "imagine a media that was more Breitbart than the New York Times," adding that "what the media have been telling them" - the "them" being "whites" - "about race relations is simply wrong."

Trump has trafficked heavily in similar ideas, regularly accusing the media of covering up inconvenient "truths" such as the notion that "thousands and thousands" of American Muslims celebrated 9/11.

Trump understands very well that there is a big audience out there for people who want to believe that the American press - hamstrung by "political correctness" (wink, wink) - won't tell the truth about race and Islam.

Now, admittedly, all of this is still speculative. And I hesitate to ascribe grand and clever schemes to Trump, because the more prosaic reality could be simply that he is making all of this up as he goes along.

But this possibility is worth taking seriously, if only because it could have untold longer term consequences.

Trump has already been saying the election will be "rigged," as part of a broader effort to delegitimise the presidency of Hillary Clinton (should she win) in advance.

If the goal here is to persuade a lot of Trump supporters that the outcome of the election is illegitimate, that could create a large audience that wants to hear this message during a Clinton presidency, a message that Trump's new media venture could peddle to them for fun and profit.

For good measure, Trump can also tell his new media audience that the rest of the media is in on the conspiracy to cover up the election's illegitimacy.

It's hard to predict what sort of longer-term civic impact that might have, but it's hard to imagine it would be a good one.

Kurt Bardella, a former Breitbart News spokesman and political strategist, tells CNN what Trump's hiring of Bannon means:

"There is this desire by Trump, and I think Bannon as well, to launch a media venture … even the rhetoric of the Trump campaign, fixating on the media, bringing up the narrative of how this election is rigged - that the media has it in for him, that this is why he's going to lose - it's laying the groundwork for something else."

What are your thoughts on this ?

Personally, I doubt that this was his plan all along. But him deciding that making the election profitable is more important than winning is something I'm unsure about.

[Flagg]

Certainly possible. Fits his MO.

[Borgholio]

I just think he likes riling people up. If Clinton wins, the far-right will be so angry and upset that there could very well be violence. Trump could simply sit back, watch, eat popcorn, and collect speaking fees for going around telling everyone he was right all along.

[Mr Bean]

But that brings us back around to the Clinton/Trump conspiracy theory.