The 2016 US Election (Part III)

[Dragon Angel]

"Just because Trump is horrible doesn't make Clinton not corrupt," is a statement that assumes the latter, but it doesn't change that unless she is a Ninja Wizard, the evidence says she's not corrupt, just tight-fisted with information and inclined to make some calls for expedience, breaking rules at times but nothing actually significant, according to the investigations *of her enemies*.

It doesn't matter where Wild Zontargs is politically, I've seen the same thing come from Green Party people, people who really really wish Bernie was in the race still, and similar. It's a lazy belief by those who don't like the major parties or who want to feel smug by saying whatever they believe is better than those who actually do make a call, but simply doesn't fit the facts. It's assuming guilt based on ignoring investigations, plus lots of eyebrow waggling.

But you see, everyone is as bad as each other, this Golden Mean I've set up says so!

It really, really does not take a lot of thought to know whatever bad stuff Clinton may do is so vastly overshadowed by Trump's own words, and his proven track record over the last several decades. I said I'm no Clinton fan, but heck, I'm not going to maintain a delusion that she is going to be as utterly evil as Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, Trump is a special kind of loathsome.

The more you see of him, the more he manages to be systematically repulsive and vile in almost every conceivable way. Its kind of impressive, in a twisted way.

John Oliver nailed it when he described Trump as "one of the ugliest souls on the planet."

Edit: Its not even that he's the most evil person out their. Its the shear variety of ways he finds to be disgusting and contemptible.

[Q99]

But you see, everyone is as bad as each other, this Golden Mean I've set up says so!

It really, really does not take a lot of thought to know whatever bad stuff Clinton may do is so vastly overshadowed by Trump's own words, and his proven track record over the last several decades. I said I'm no Clinton fan, but heck, I'm not going to maintain a delusion that she is going to be as utterly evil as Trump.

And really, she is not. that. bad.

Hillary Clinton has had a multi-decade hatch campaign aimed at her- for much or all of many of our lives. And this is the best they can come up with?

Meanwhile, her good gets overshadowed.

State Department rebuilt our international respect under her. Clinton Foundation? If you're poor, in a third world nation, have HIV, and are getting medicine for it? *75%* comes from the Foundation. Anti-LGBT discrimination into the 90s. I have trans friends who only have accurate IDs due to Hillary Clinton's work in State. Tried getting UHC in the 90s. Works closely with black community leaders and other minority groups for decades. Has a super-comprehensive wallstreet reform plan. Has been very active in woman's rights since forever, nationally and internationally. One can continue.

I honestly, sincerely rate Hillary Clinton as good, and as this campaign has gone on and I've seen more people dig up overlooked gems that get buried under the negativity, the more impressed I am.


Hillary is solid even when not compared to Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Unproven conspiracy theories aside, my impression is that Hillary Clinton is, essentially, a typical centrist politician, with all the good and bad that that entails, except that she's higher profile, more experienced, and more connected than most.

In other words, the high end of average.

She isn't likely to go down as one of our great Presidents, but I can see her doing a solid and respectable job in most respects.

[Patroklos]

Which foreign Secretary of State am I quoting:

At the State Department we were attacked every hour, more than once an hour by incoming efforts to penetrate everything we had. And that was true across the U.S. government. And we knew it was going on when I would go to China, or I would go to Russia, we would leave all of our electronic equipment on the plane, with the batteries out, because this is a new frontier.

[Q99]

Unproven conspiracy theories aside, my impression is that Hillary Clinton is, essentially, a typical centrist politician, with all the good and bad that that entails, except that she's higher profile, more experienced, and more connected than most.

In other words, the high end of average.

She isn't likely to go down as one of our great Presidents, but I can see her doing a solid and respectable job in most respects.

Your impression isn't too far off, save for one thing- Her policies are a bit to the left of Obama, who is himself on the middle-to-slightly-left of the Democratic party (around where Biden is too). In her Senate time, she voted more liberal than 80% of the Democrat senators, and the same as Bernie 90% of the time.

I dunno, it seems like there's an aura around her that makes people think she's more centrist than she is. Hillary's more of a left-leaner who tries to reach for the middle than the centrist who reaches for the left she gets portrayed as. Possibly because she is so willing to reach to the middle or right as long as that helps what she's working on right now.

Mind you, when I see Republicans saying she's a centrist as an excuse to vote for her I don't mind too much, whatever they gotta sell themselves as, but the current Democrat platform and Hillary's policies? Probably more left than you'd expect!

[The Romulan Republic]

Perhaps.

I think on some issues she's fairly far Right (including hawkish foreign policy and at least some support for more free trade), while on others she'd probably be more left if she believed that it was politically feasible (including health care).

Edited to fix spelling error.

[Thanas]

I am really glad Donald "what is consent" Trump is not high in the polls right now.

[Q99]

Perhaps.

I think on some issues she's fairly far Right (including hawkish foreign policy and at least some support for more free trade), while on others she'd probably be more left if she believed that it was politically feasible (including health care).

Edited to fix spelling error.

For foreign policy, her stance is pretty much 'listen to foreign policy experts'. Intervene in some cases, but no war for war's sake, not imperialism- the Rwandan genocide, a genocide we could've *easily* stopped with reasonable force, informed a lot of her view. And I'll note that 'humanitarian intervention' has been quite popular with the left at times and 'isolationism/no entanglements' with the right, it's not simply a left/right thing, there's hawks and doves on both sides. Hillary Clinton may be more hawkish than your preference, but I wouldn't quite call her a hawk, and Hillary has pretty impressive diplomacy chops too- negotiating an Israeli/HAMAS ceasefire once, for example. Given a chance, it'll be diplomacy first, and then, yes, if that doesn't work and she views it as necessary to stop something worse, then intervention.


As for free trade, globalization is, again, not necessarily a left/right thing, and a lot of these free trade deals are massively good for bringing the world out of poverty. NAFTA? Bears a lot of credit for massive expansion of the Mexican middle class, lifting over a million people out of poverty.

Protectionism is pretty right-wing in my view. Trade, depends on how it's handled. Trade agreements are one of the primary tools in fighting world poverty, and Bernie's stances on it are one of his big flaws IMO, since it would be abandoning much of the world in favor of a 'us-first' policy.

And yea, I think she'd sign single payer healthcare in a second, but she fights for what she thinks she can get.

Hillary Clinton is a pragmatic person, on most of these issues, and that informs her stances.

[K. A. Pital]

As for free trade, globalization is, again, not necessarily a left/right thing, and a lot of these free trade deals are massively good for bringing the world out of poverty. NAFTA? Bears a lot of credit for massive expansion of the Mexican middle class, lifting over a million people out of poverty.

A clear falsehood. Which million people would that be exactly?


NAFTA's effect has been largely irrelevant - after producing a shock spike in poverty in the mid-1990s and a trough in the property bubble period of 2000-2007, no significant reduction has been achieved until now. Read more here:
http://cepr.net/documents/nafta-20-years-2014-02.pdf

I understand that supporting Hillary goes above all else, but at least sticking to the facts would be nice. Plutocratic propaganda is the opposite of "nice".

[Q99]

A clear falsehood. Which million people would that be exactly?


I understand that supporting Hillary goes above all else, but at least sticking to the facts would be nice. Plutocratic propaganda is the opposite of "nice".

Mm, dismissing it as propaganda before I've responded isn't exactly good practices, on that note. I'm not exactly pulling this from pundits.

A 2007 study found inequality and poverty fell in the most globalization-affected regions

2015 study also puts it in a net gain, as does this 2001 study, though that's of course more out of date.

Your study draws a negative conclusion, but it seems we have conflicting sources.

It definitely did have some negative initial effect from areas negatively effected, but also that effect could've been mitigated with preparation.

[Wild Zontargs]

it's pretty transparent to me that you're not a leftist. At least, you're not a leftist within the context of American politics.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Can you describe what the key parts of being an American leftist are? Because I'm apparently missing right the fuck out here. When I took one of the policy-based "which candidate's policies do I agree with most" surveys, it came back with Sanders, then Stein. On Canadian political comparisons, I consistently get placed in the Green/NDP regions, which are farther left than our larger Liberal/Conservative parties. Unless American leftism is all about a very narrow spectrum of acceptable answers on a few specific social issues, I don't see how I can't be one. Seriously, I'm curious here, list off some key points, and I'll agree/disagree.

I'll simply say that you're not a member of my tribe, nor do I want people like you in my tribe.

Now, this I can believe. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Scott Alexander's writings, but he subdivides American culture into Red, Blue, and Grey tribes:

The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting “USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!”, and listening to country music.

The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.

(There is a partly-formed attempt to spin off a Grey Tribe typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk – but for our current purposes this is a distraction and they can safely be considered part of the Blue Tribe most of the time)

I'm sort of a Blue-Grey mix (American libertarianism is insane). Of course, come election season, you Americans suddenly default to "not-us == THEM" and start attacking anyone who even slightly disagrees with your team, so suddenly Grey gets tossed in the same category as Red.

[Iroscato]

I am really glad Donald "what is consent" Trump is not high in the polls right now.

"I was younger, less mature". Of course - late 50's is basically like a second puberty after all. He's matured so much since then.

[Simon_Jester]

I've tried that one before. Since the American left is mostly circle-jerking around Clinton (because TRUMP!!!111one), anything bad about her can be written off with "that's a right-wing source / only right-wingers believe that." Like maraxus2 said, everyone who cares has already made their decision on where they stand.

Bluntly, the problem is that there is this huge cloud of manufactured scandal around Clinton, and I'd have said the same back in 2008 when the idea of Trump running a credible campaign would have been a joke. If you can't specify exactly what you actually know Clinton did, in a way that makes it clear it isn't just another fabricated pile of nonsense spread by the cottage industry of professional Clinton detractors, why bother?

Hold up. back in June, we both agreed that Clinton had been incredibly stupid about the emails.

Stupid, yes. Corrupt or evil, no.

The problem is that while we can argue that Clinton's lack of respect for handling of classified materials makes her less qualified, we cannot really argue that it makes her corrupt or malevolent.

And we also cannot really argue that this election is really about whether the candidate is corrupt, malevolent, or unqualified, because if we do, then we are left with a very obvious choice about which candidate is less offensive in all three categories.

The vitriol people point at Hillary Clinton only really makes sense if they think she is one of the most corrupt or otherwise 'evil' politicians in American history. And the evidence of that corruption is extremely scanty.

There's a difference between saying she did something stupid, and saying she's corrupt. And it stakes out a profoundly important position (what others are criticizing as the Golden Mean) to even TALK about how she's allegedly "corrupt" in an election where another candidate with far less ambiguous evidence of his intense, thorough, personal corruption is running.

It's a classic enough moral lesson that even the Bible couldn't get it wrong: "Remove the beam from thine own eye!"

I agree with you, and I hate stuff like this, and if the Republicans had chosen to nominate someone who follows procedures and respects them rather than being a big ball of puffery and ego who can't go more than a few years without defrauding someone, I might seriously consider letting the sheer stupidity of what Clinton did impact my vote.

Has your opinion actually changed, or is it just inconvenient now? I'm not saying "vote Trump", I'm saying "absent comparisons to Trump, Clinton is a terrible choice".

I'm saying even talking about how Clinton is a problematic choice (not terrible, but problematic), in the wake of the endless shower of shit the Republicans seem to think is an acceptable alternative to her, is laughable and increasingly so.

I've stopped bothering to even bring it up, precisely because of how stupid and pointless it is, and how it serves only to enable obsessive efforts to arrive at a Golden Mean, South Park-esque "well everyone's shitty so let's just retreat into trendy contempt for the world!"

In that respect my opinions have changed, as it has become more clear to me that only the Democrats even care about the competence and personal decency of their candidate in this election cycle.

Caring about whether your candidate is competent and honest is not a suicide pact. It is not a reason to spend time chattering about the relatively petty scandals of a merely ordinary politician while bigger fish go un-fried.

Everyone else is already doing a bang-up job of listing Trump's failings. I could join in the circle-jerk... or I could actually post something else about the campaign, rather than Me Too-ing. If failing to attack the "right" people often enough makes me a bad guy, then the state of political discourse is well and truly fucked.

It's more that you're not presenting anything new. If you have evidence of Clinton having done anything wrong in the past year, or whatever, fine. But when people keep beating the email drum over and over it starts to smell of an agenda, because the only reasons to keep bringing it up are:

1) As a dog-whistle to remind people who already hate Clinton how much they hate Clinton, or
2) As an attempt to keep calling back attention to 'this thing Clinton did' in an attempt to establish a Golden Mean fallacy.

OK, imagine this isn't an election year. If it came out that Clinton was doing all sorts of questionable things, and the US government, right up to the White House, was running interference to attempt to hide that fact, would you not be losing your shit? Ignoring it (because TRUMP!!!111one) seems really short-sighted to me.

Please list the "all sorts of questionable things." I mean, are you accusing Clinton of assassinating inconvenient political witnesses, or of reckless handling of government email, or of something in between?

Hey, leave the tinfoil out of this. Her personal business dealings have also been "iffy", and even The New York Times was willing to say that in 2015. She's perfectly willing to change her publicly-stated opinions to whatever she thinks will get her votes, while continuing with whatever policies she actually wanted in the first place in private. We both already agree that she fucked up with the emails, and that:

If you want to talk about all of that, fine. Let's go into more detail on an issue that is actually new.

We're only ever going to fix things like this after we find a way to convince the top-level management class in America as a whole that they are not above the law. We've spent several decades creating that attitude.

Turning the election into a coronation for Clinton does the opposite of that.

Turning the election into even a meaningful competition between Clinton and a shit like Trump does the opposite of that even harder.

Even so, if you want to bring up things that are actually new and not just rehash the same scandal Fox likes to remind its watchers of every ten minutes, go for it, because then at least we're actually talking about facts that might be relevant to something.

[Q99]

Also, while the e-mail server was a foolish move... it was also a foolish move that caused zero actual damage. It had the potential to cause some problems- though even there, not overly significant, there wasn't critical info on it- but even that, luckily, didn't happen.

And Presidents don't even have to handle calls of that nature.

[Simon_Jester]

That's the biggest reason I find it so bizarre and foolish that the emails keep coming up. This isn't like Katrina or Iran-Contra or "Fast and Furious" or other cases where a political leader made a decision that caused direct, physical harm.

I wouldn't mind discussing a new issue if there were substantial evidence, but I refuse to take the email accusations seriously any longer unless someone can provide evidence of harm. I'll freely grant that it undermines Clinton's credentials as someone likely to be a skillful president... but if this election were about picking skillful people who will handle government information and property responsibly, the Republicans wouldn't have nominated Trump.

[SolarpunkFan]

I can't edit my previous post anymore, but I should also add to my list of quotations from you, Zontargs: Your freakin' signature.

Thank you for reminding me of that. I utterly hate Vox Day and his army of Evil (brain)Dead. I also think people who unironically link to said Day are generally quite nasty and deserve a few thousand hits to the head with a heavy duty clue-by-four.

[SolarpunkFan]

And just so things don't get off topic.

Sean Hannity’s Defense Of Trump Is Now Beyond Parody: ‘King David Had 500 Concubines For Crying Out Loud’

In the wake of the just plain gross audio that leaked today of Donald Trump essentially bragging to Billy Bush how being a celebrity gives him license to sexually assault women, many wondered, naturally, how prominent Trump supporters would react. Paul Ryan disinvited Trump from appearing at a campaign rally the two were scheduled to appear at on Saturday. Some prominent Republicans withdrew their endorsements of Trump and are calling for him to step down as the GOP nominee.

But what would noted Trump bootlicker Sean Hannity do? Certainly someone who enjoys riding moral high horses regularly on America’s airwaves wouldn’t stand for such revolting things coming from the mouth of a candidate for president, would he? Can you imagine the unrelenting hellfires that’d be unleashed on Fox News if Obama were caught on tape saying such things?

Well, if you guessed that Hannity — whose prime time show on America’s highest rated cable news network has basically morphed into a nightly one hour pro-Trump infomercial — would further show his ass by coming up with a defense of Trump so ridiculous that it doesn’t even seem real, well, you were right! Go ahead and pat yourself on the back.

As you’ll see in the video embedded above, Hannity brushed off Trump’s insatiable desire to “f*ck” married women like Nancy O’Dell (while he was married to Melania, no less, who’d just recently given birth) and “grab them by the p*ssy” by noting that powerful men throughout history have long exhibited voracious sexual appetites. Or something. Like, what’s the big deal, people?

Now, Hannity’s defense might not be as ridiculous as this one below, but it’s pretty damn close.

(Image)

Actually, one second thought, Hannity’s assorted defenses of Trump are the most ridiculous. Congrats to you, Sean!

(Image)

[Flagg]

That's the biggest reason I find it so bizarre and foolish that the emails keep coming up. This isn't like Katrina or Iran-Contra or "Fast and Furious" or other cases where a political leader made a decision that caused direct, physical harm.

I wouldn't mind discussing a new issue if there were substantial evidence, but I refuse to take the email accusations seriously any longer unless someone can provide evidence of harm. I'll freely grant that it undermines Clinton's credentials as someone likely to be a skillful president... but if this election were about picking skillful people who will handle government information and property responsibly, the Republicans wouldn't have nominated Trump.

That's the thing, Republicans so hate the Clintons that they dig and dig and dig until finally finding some pathetic smalltime bullshit that no one but Clinton haters really care about and make it seem like it's the pinnacle of corruption. But it's totally cool to let New Orleans drown because excuses.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. I don't mind when this is done with real scandals. Republicans fixating on "Fast and Furious" I could understand because those guns killed people. Republicans fixating on Benghazi I can sort of understand because people died- the catch bieng that there's no evidence whatsoever of Clinton actually being in any way responsible for that.

But why fixate on the emails? There's no evidence of harm, there's no evidence of anything in the emails being more than mildly embarrassing.

But if you're going to keep up this narrative of "both sides are just as bad," you HAVE to keep obsessing over a minor scandal on the Clintons' side. Because you need that one scandal to last as long as five or ten (or in Trump's case like 500) scandals on your own side.

[maraxus2]

snip

1. Doesn't quote, approvingly, essays written by white nationalists, such as Vox Day.

You don't seem to understand; I'm not at all interested in your policy priorities. You can support single-payer healthcare and have an abominable conception of race, gender, and class. That doesn't make you a leftist, or even a progressive. That makes you a dipshit who supports narrow policy goals that I also support.

But from all the posts I've read in this thread and others, you have a pretty shitty viewpoint when it comes to racial justice. Chiefly, your inclination to do some hippie punching when university students say or do something that triggers that reptilian part of your brain.

The long struggle of the political Left in the US centers around fighting for racial justice and fighting against economic injustice. You cannot be a member of the Left without these two things. Stick your "Red-Blue-Gray" idiocy up your ass. It explains nothing.

I'm not attacking you because you slightly disagree with me. I'm attacking you because: A. you keep posting dumb shit about an old story that nobody cares about, and B. you're quoting a white nationalist in your sig block. This should not be a difficult viewpoint to understand.

[Flagg]

Yeah. I don't mind when this is done with real scandals. Republicans fixating on "Fast and Furious" I could understand because those guns killed people. Republicans fixating on Benghazi I can sort of understand because people died- the catch bieng that there's no evidence whatsoever of Clinton actually being in any way responsible for that.

But why fixate on the emails? There's no evidence of harm, there's no evidence of anything in the emails being more than mildly embarrassing.

But if you're going to keep up this narrative of "both sides are just as bad," you HAVE to keep obsessing over a minor scandal on the Clintons' side. Because you need that one scandal to last as long as five or ten (or in Trump's case like 500) scandals on your own side.

There's a reason the "both sides are just as bad" people became known as the mindless middle. They oftend just know of "scandals" on both sides, do no research into them, then vote Nader.

[K. A. Pital]

Mm, dismissing it as propaganda before I've responded isn't exactly good practices, on that note. I'm not exactly pulling this from pundits.

A 2007 study found inequality and poverty fell in the most globalization-affected regions

Let me be perfectly clear and demonstrate the effect with a table from the study you link to:

It takes a lot of gall to say, and I will quote:

NAFTA? Bears a lot of credit for massive expansion of the Mexican middle class, lifting over a million people out of poverty.

Because with this table, one can see that urban poverty tripled before settling back where it was after the labour market shock induced by the FTA, and rural poverty also almost doubled. Note that this is not some abstract measure of poverty but a measure of income enough to ensure adequate caloric intake.

Your "free trade area" was making Mexicans malnourished. Try to put the term "malnourishment" in your head, because it could be hard for a fatty First Worlder to understand jack shit about suffering. This is when you don't have enough to eat, so that your caloric intake falls below adequate. The food is bland; it is the same day to day. You hang by a thread - people cling to any income they can find, like crazy, and crime thrives.

that's what happened. You can shove your rosy stories back in your First World oligarch propaganda magazines for the rich like Forbes, WSJ and the Economist. Your own study shows that the immediate result were millions of malnourished people - so pardon me for calling your claims propaganda. They weren't. It was just idiocy.

2015 study also puts it in a net gain

Where are the actual fucking numbers? I demonstrated you the poverty rate. In fact one of your own studies did the same. Can't you read? Or are you number-blind? That's some talk about potential GDP benefits in some models. What the fuck does this have to do with poverty rates? Which barely changed, and this means - hold on, as the population of Mexico actually rose - this means that there are millions more poor and malnourished people in Mexico.

as does this 2001 study, though that's of course more out of date.

I quoted the poverty rate. You claimed millions were lifted out of poverty. Your own study has shown a rapid and drastic rise in malnourishment. Concede... or just fuck off.

Your study draws a negative conclusion, but it seems we have conflicting sources.

No. It is not "my study", and this is the official poverty rate calculated by CONEVAL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... _(CONEVAL)

God fucking damn. I told you that I have the facts. What's so hard here? Your claim was obvious. Million. Out of poverty. Prove or concede.

It definitely did have some negative initial effect from areas negatively effected, but also that effect could've been mitigated with preparation.

I hope you fucking end up malnourished one day you crazy globalist fucker.

[Wild Zontargs]

1. Doesn't quote, approvingly, essays written by white nationalists, such as Vox Day.

You don't seem to understand; I'm not at all interested in your policy priorities.

[...]

B. you're quoting a white nationalist in your sig block. This should not be a difficult viewpoint to understand.

So, all that matters is who said what I linked in my sig, and not what I linked to or what I believe? That's asinine. Even an odious asshole can be right once in a while. When you can be harassed and even hounded out of your job for private political donations, fashion choices, or even misreported jokes, the asshole has a point.

The long struggle of the political Left in the US centers around fighting for racial justice and fighting against economic injustice. You cannot be a member of the Left without these two things.

That's what you're not getting. I support both of those things, but I reject the methods the self-styled "Social Justice" crowd is using to attempt to achieve them, because in many cases it would result in replacing one set of injustices with another. You can lift people up without pushing other people down.

This "you're either 100% with us or you're against us" nonsense is the worst sort of political tribalism.

[Dragon Angel]

"That Hitler guy had some good points, it's too bad he did that inconvenient thing of killing a few million people, but even an asshole can be right once in a while."

I'm intentionally going into the absurd here because ... jesus, Zontargs. Although concerning Vox Day, this example isn't too far off from the absurd perhaps.