What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Ed Anger]

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

[CountDeMoney]

Why do you hate speaking fees?  Is it a college thing?  They made you sit through Deborah Norville at graduation when you had voted for Casper Weinberger, didn't they?

[Berkut]

Still evading the question.

You know I am right, and it kills you.

[CountDeMoney]

What kills me is watching you get all torqued up over speaking fees for retired politicians.  That's pretty far down on the "Most Corrupting Things Evah" list.

[Berkut]

OK, Mr. Spicer.

[CountDeMoney]

 

[dps]

If we were just talking about the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics, and how politicians serve those who pay them in general, or how Citizens United was a terrible blow to democracy, none of you would be debating the point. Well, few of you would. YOU certainly would not.

But if we talk about your specific politician, who has taken literally hundreds of millions from those same corporations?

Might as well give up this line of argument, Berkut.  The board is full of Clinton fans.  I don't get why people are Clinton fans;  I've been trying to figure it out since the '92 primaries, and I still don't get it.

I can understand people liking the policies the Clintons have supported, even when I myself don't agree with those policies, but I don't get why anyone would back either of the Clintons to be the poster child for those polices.  It's like someone liking country music--I don't care for it myself, but I can see why someone might like it, but not why a country music fan would say that their favorite country artist is Billy Ray Cyrus.

[Razgovory]

Or do you think that there isn't any problem with money corrupting politicians in general?

In general, no.

[DGuller]

I agree.  Corruption exists, but it isn't that big of a problem compared to others.  Over the last couple of decades, much bigger threats to democracy and effective governance have been the rise of radical right and the decline of journalism.

[Berkut]

I agree.  Corruption exists, but it isn't that big of a problem compared to others.  Over the last couple of decades, much bigger threats to democracy and effective governance have been the rise of radical right and the decline of journalism.

I don't disagree that those are huge problems.

I think a lot of it is tied together though - a combination of the assault on critical reasoning and the growing disgust with the obvious corruption in politics came together (along with some other things as well of course - globalism, rising impact on human labor value from automation, etc.) to get us what we have now. Trump is in fact a symptom of these problems.

I think the Dems have done an absolutely terrible job responding to these things. In fact, I am not sure they could have done worse if they set out to make it worse. At almost every turn they seem to have made exactly the wrong choices in how to respond.

And a big part of this is that rather than recognizing that they had lost touch with a huge part of America, they are (as reflected in micro by many in this thread) taking this attitude that the problem is that there are just too many stupid/ignorant/deplorable Americans, and the Democratic Party itself is perfectly fine running the same old politicians they've been running for decades now.

If you think about it like that, maybe it is a little more palatable. Hillary Clinton is a politician largely formed what, 20 or 30 years ago?

The world has changed *radically* in the last two decades - yet the Dems are just doing the same things they have always done. And they've embraced the Republican funding and tactics, and their "First Family" has set the standard for personally enriching themselves through their political positions.

Trump, Bernie - they are symptoms of THESE problems. We can argue about which one is Problem 1 versus Problem 3, I guess. But that is missing the point.

[CountDeMoney]

and their "First Family" has set the standard for personally enriching themselves through their political positions.

How?  Where have they personally enriched themselves? 

You keep saying they're corrupt, that they make money off their political offices...but where?  Where is all this corruption you keep going on about?  It's certainly not in their released financial disclosures, their taxes, or their assets.

[Admiral Yi]

Berkut mentioned the speaking fees.

[Berkut]

They take millions from business in return for looking out for those businesses interests. It's been a great deal for both parties.

[Berkut]

I like how Seedy's cynicism is so tightly focused.

He is all about bagging on corporate American, cronyism, and how Americans are not represented by a system that only cares about "shareholder value", but that same system that paid the Clintons tens of millions of dollars is just awesome.

But hey, we can't PROVE they are corrupt! Just because they took $156 million dollars into their personal accounts from corporations, I am sure that has no effect on how they approach policy. It's all legal, after all - just like looking out for shareholder value is all legal, right? So nothing wrong there either, I am sure.

[Berkut]

I think the Bernie thing is really about exactly what I am talking about. The hard line Dems hate him of course, and I didn't like him either.

But here is the thing. If the mainstream parties won't respond to a demand for change by letting change agents rise THROUGH the party, then they will come from outside instead.

And while Bernie isn't a fucking piece of shit douchebag like Trump, he is in many ways much, much more radical. He would no more be a solution to the problem than Trump - but he represents a rejection of the status quo, and hence he got a huge amount of traction.

This is the evolution of the same demand for a different path that saw Clinton get blind sided by Obama, but advanced another eight years.

It was a critical miscalculation for the DNC to think that it would be ok to just shuffle Clinton off to the side for a couple terms and trot her back out after Obama. That is being kind of facile of course, since it's not like Clinton just did whatever she was told - rather she masterfully managed the party to do exactly that.

What scares me is that is seems like the DNC is just doubling down on that same thing. It is still early though, there is still time.

The DNC needs to re-invent itself and its message to Americans, and not just the elite.