QuoteNew York Times
The Opinion Pages | Contributing Op-Ed Writer
The Not-So-Silent White Majority
Thomas B. Edsall NOV. 17, 2016
Between Richard Nixon's election by the silent majority in 1968 and Donald Trump's stunning victory in 2016, there have been six conservative waves that swept Republicans into office. Disaffected white voters without college degrees have been the driving force in all of them.
This is surprising not only because these voters were once the backbone of the Democratic coalition, but because they have steadily declined as a share of the electorate. The percentage of white voters without college degrees fell from 83 percent in 1960 to 36 percent in 2012. It was 34 percent this year.
So why did they matter as much as they did in 2016? For one thing, Trump's 39-point lead among less well educated whites surged past Mitt Romney's 25-point margin. This was enough to make up for the fact that Trump's margin of victory among whites with college degrees, at 4 points (49-45), was well behind Romney's. (Romney carried college-educated whites by 14 points, 56-42.)
Despite their declining share of the electorate, these voters continue to exercise an outsize influence: as the Silent Majority of 1968 and 1972; the Reagan Democrats of 1980; the Angry White Men of 1994; the Tea Party insurgents of 2010; and now the triumphant Trump Republicans of 2016.
Let's take a look at the history of this trend.
In 1968, these white voters — often low or moderate income, disproportionately male and clustered in exurban and rural areas, then as now — were crucial to the birth of the modern conservative coalition.
That year, famously, southern whites angered by enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act abandoned the Democratic Party in droves, and they were soon joined by many northern whites opposed to court-ordered busing.
The Democratic Party's commitment to civil rights prompted millions of white voters to cast ballots either for Richard Nixon, running as the Republican nominee, or for George Wallace, the segregationist Dixiecrat and former governor of Alabama, running as the nominee of the American Independent Party.
Together, Nixon and Wallace won 56.9 percent of all votes in 1968 and more than six out of every ten white votes, laying the groundwork for the conversion of the segregationist wing of the Democratic Party into a key component of the modern Republican Party. Democrats have made inroads into this coalition a few times, either by running more centrist Southerners like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or through the campaign magic of Barack Obama, who promised to transcend the red-blue divide. But this white Republican coalition has proved remarkably enduring.
In the two elections before 1968, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, both Democrats, averaged 55 percent of the white working class vote. According to Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the pro-Democratic Center for American Progress, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern, both Democrats, averaged 35 percent of that vote, in 1968 and 1972. Since that time, many Republican candidates have tapped into anti-black bias without running as overt segregationists.
"The Republicans suddenly became the party of the white working class," Teixeira wrote on his blog.
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 further strengthened the commitment of the white working class to Republican presidential candidates, especially in the North.
It was not, however, until 1994, with the so-called Gingrich revolution, that the Republican Party was able to finally rupture the continuing commitment of lower and moderate income whites to Democratic congressional candidates. The accompanying charts, derived from the 2000 book, "America's Forgotten Majority," by Teixeira and Joel Rogers, show how the bottom fell out in 1994 for white working class Democratic congressional support.
Gingrich claimed responsibility for his party's 1994 victories. Bill Clinton's initial abandonment of the themes that he campaigned on in 1992 was, in fact, more important.
In his first presidential run, Clinton promised welfare reform, a middle-class tax cut and to commit his presidency to the "ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll be rewarded." Clinton's first two years in office, however, were dominated by the issues of gays in the military, health care reform and his attempt make good on his vow to pick a cabinet that "looks like America."
The changed agenda proved disastrous for Democratic members of the House and Senate.
Stanley Greenberg, Clinton's 1992 campaign pollster, wrote in the 1999 book "The New Majority: Toward a Popular Progressive Politics'' that
The 1994 congressional debacle should be a reminder of what happens when Democrats lose touch with the lives of working people. Bill Clinton's election was accompanied by great hopes in the country, but over the next two years those hopes turned to disappointment. On the eve of the off-year elections Clinton seemed like a culturally liberal president who could not deliver.
Greenberg continued:
The 1994 election was a disaster produced by a downscale, working-class revolt against the Democrats. Support for congressional Democrats among high school graduates dropped 12 points to only 46 percent. Among white male high school graduates, support for the Democrats fell off a cliff, careening 20 points downward from 57 percent to 37 percent.
The march of working and middle class whites toward the Republican Party took another giant step forward in the Tea Party election of 2010, when they voted against Democratic congressional candidates by 30 points (65-35), providing crucial ballast for the Republicans as they gained 63 seats in the House.
For many analysts and Democratic operatives, Obama's two victories in 2008 and 2012 marked the final collapse of the conservative coalition. Even the Republican Party, notably in the so-called Autopsy Report produced in 2013 by Reince Priebus — soon to be Trump's chief of staff — acknowledged that a white-dominated conservative alliance was doomed to defeat unless the party opened its doors in general and to Hispanics in particular.
Which brings us to 2016.
On one level, demographic change was moving in Clinton's direction. The overall white share of the electorate, which was 91 percent in 1960, continued to decline, falling to 72 percent in 2012 and 70 percent in 2016.
How, then, is it possible that this supposedly fading constituency played such a decisive role in 2016?
Two reasons.
First, while Trump barely improved on Romney's margin among whites generally, the whites who did vote for Trump were significantly different from those who voted for Romney. Trump won non-college whites by 14 points more than Romney, a modern day record. Just as important, the working class voters Trump carried by such huge margins were heavily concentrated in the rust belt states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Pennsylvania — all states carried by Obama in 2012 and lost by Clinton in 2016. Together, these state cast 70 Electoral College votes.
Trump's voters were situated in a way that allowed them to exercise far more influence on the outcome in the Electoral College than their overall numbers would suggest, allowing Trump to sweep across the rust belt to victory.
This apostasy among white voters has certainly not gone unnoticed, and party strategists have long debated what, if anything, could be done to bring these voters back into the Democratic fold, particularly since the landslide defeat of 1984.
In 1985, Democrats conducted two major studies of white working class discontent, one by Greenberg, which looked at white U.A.W. workers and retirees in Macomb County Michigan, the other of 33 focus groups nationwide conducted by CRG, a marketing and polling firm.
Greenberg found that for these voters, "Blacks constitute the explanation of their vulnerability and for almost everything that has gone wrong in their lives."
This
special status of blacks is perceived by almost all of these individuals as a serious obstacle to their personal advancement. Indeed, discrimination against whites has become a well-assimilated and ready explanation for their status, vulnerability and failures.
The CRG study was equally brutal. These voters
have a whole set of middle-class economic problems today, and their party is not helping them. Instead it is helping blacks, Hispanics and the poor. They feel betrayed.
CRG found that in the view of the white working class, the "Democrats are the giveaway party and 'giveaway' means too much middle class money going to blacks and the poor."
The struggle to revive Democratic support among low and moderate income white voters has more recently become a regular subject on The Democratic Strategist, a website run by the Democratic activist Ed Kilgore, who was once the vice president for policy at the Democratic Leadership Council. Kilgore also publishes a newsletter, the White Working Class Roundtable. In the first issue of the newsletter, Kilgore wrote:
It has become increasingly clear that progressives and Democrats have no alternative except to challenge the hold that conservative and the GOP have established over white working Americans.
In a direct counter to Kilgore, Lee Drutman, a senior scholar at the New America Foundation, argued in a Nov. 11 essay in Foreign Policy that the Democrats need to give up on appeals to working class whites. The headline of his article reads: "The GOP has become the party of populism. Now the Democrats have to build a new party of multicultural cosmopolitanism."
Drutman argues that
If Democrats define themselves as the party that is opposed to Republicans (as they must), they will soon find themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility (as opposed to the Republicans, who will again run huge deficits), as the party of international responsibility (as opposed to the more isolationist and nationalist Republicans), and as the party of global business (as opposed to the protectionist Republicans). They will continue to be the party of environmentalism (the stakes of this will get even greater soon) and the party of diversity and tolerance.
At the policy level, there are substantial objections to the full-scale emergence of a Democratic Party along these lines. It would mean that neither party would represent the economic interests of the bottom half of the income distribution — regardless of race or ethnicity — on crucial issues of tax and spending policies.
There is, however, growing evidence that the wheels of electoral politics have made the developments Drutman describes increasingly likely.
A comparison of 2004 exit polls and 2016 exit polls shows the changing relevance of income to voting.
In 2004, those with incomes under $30,000 voted Democratic by 20 points; in 2016, these voters voted Democratic by 12 points, a 40 percent decline.
At the upper end, voters with household incomes from $100,000 to $200,000 voted Republican in 2004 by 15 points. In 2016, they voted Republican by one point. Voters making more than $200,000 in 2004 voted Republican by 28 points; in 2016, they also voted Republican by 1 point.
As Drutman points out, "with a President Trump, there is now a change agent to accelerate these forces."
In another postelection analysis, published on Nov. 15, Teixeira argues that the conservative victory on Election Day will prove short-lived: "In the end, the race will be won by change — as it always is."
By 2032, Teixeira writes, "we are far more likely to view the 2016 election as the last stand of America's white working class, dreaming of a past that no longer exists."
Maybe.
In 2002, Teixeira and John Judis published the classic book, "The Emerging Democratic Majority," only to see the re-election of George Bush two years later and the election of Donald Trump 14 years later.
Judis, whose most recent book is "The Populist Explosion," is less confident than Teixeira. He argues that in this year's election, either John Kasich or Marco Rubio "could have beaten Clinton, but the coalition would have looked different," adding in an email that
what I would say, if someone put a gun to my head, is that there is still a stalemate between the two parties in spite of Trump's and the Republicans success. Trump could fail, the Dems could come back, and then the G.O.P. Or Trump could thread the needle and win two terms. Not clear what will happen. But politically — leave aside the Census Bureau — the Dems are in disarray.
White tribalism or ethnocentrism — whatever you want to call it — is undeniably a powerful force. But so are the identities, loyalties and resentments of those who have their own competing racial and ethnic commitments. The American experiment, which gives all these interests participatory roles in a dynamic democracy, has long been under strain. Over the next four years, it will now be openly tested. The outcome may well be wrenching.
grumbler-compliant link (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/opinion/the-not-so-silent-white-majority.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region)
I think that all misses the impact that hate speech media has had on the right. That is not same old, same old.
I think the Democrats have, in turn, benefited from one candidate that people really wanted to vote for - Obama - and then suffered from one that not many people really were excited about - Hillary.
Underneath that, the number of state and local seats that have gone GOP since Bush left is maybe more instructive. What do we have, like five states left?
15 governorships, but only undivided control of 6 states, yeah. Versus 26 R-controlled states.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 18, 2016, 12:16:37 AM
I think the Democrats have, in turn, benefited from one candidate that people really wanted to vote for - Obama - and then suffered from one that not many people really were excited about - Hillary.
Underneath that, the number of state and local seats that have gone GOP since Bush left is maybe more instructive. What do we have, like five states left?
Find another Obama.
Quote from: Phillip V on November 18, 2016, 12:31:50 AM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 18, 2016, 12:16:37 AM
I think the Democrats have, in turn, benefited from one candidate that people really wanted to vote for - Obama - and then suffered from one that not many people really were excited about - Hillary.
Underneath that, the number of state and local seats that have gone GOP since Bush left is maybe more instructive. What do we have, like five states left?
Find another Obama.
Michelle?
Not sure any other Obama meets the requirements to be president.
Quote from: alfred russel on November 18, 2016, 12:38:07 AM
Quote from: Phillip V on November 18, 2016, 12:31:50 AM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 18, 2016, 12:16:37 AM
I think the Democrats have, in turn, benefited from one candidate that people really wanted to vote for - Obama - and then suffered from one that not many people really were excited about - Hillary.
Underneath that, the number of state and local seats that have gone GOP since Bush left is maybe more instructive. What do we have, like five states left?
Find another Obama.
Michelle?
Not sure any other Obama meets the requirements to be president.
There is something deliciously occult about this apparent Democrat insistence that the dignity of the presidential office is transmitted with male seed. :P
Quote from: Martinus on November 18, 2016, 12:53:46 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on November 18, 2016, 12:38:07 AM
Quote from: Phillip V on November 18, 2016, 12:31:50 AM
Find another Obama.
Michelle?
Not sure any other Obama meets the requirements to be president.
There is something deliciously occult about this apparent Democrat insistence that the dignity of the presidential office is transmitted with male seed. :P
It's from all the spirit cooking. :ph34r:
Quote from: alfred russel on November 18, 2016, 12:38:07 AM
Quote from: Phillip V on November 18, 2016, 12:31:50 AM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 18, 2016, 12:16:37 AM
I think the Democrats have, in turn, benefited from one candidate that people really wanted to vote for - Obama - and then suffered from one that not many people really were excited about - Hillary.
Underneath that, the number of state and local seats that have gone GOP since Bush left is maybe more instructive. What do we have, like five states left?
Find another Obama.
Michelle?
Not sure any other Obama meets the requirements to be president.
I don't think he meant a literal Obama Dorsey :P
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
Quote from: Berkut on November 17, 2016, 09:16:55 PM
I think that all misses the impact that hate speech media has had on the right. That is not same old, same old.
I agree. And particularly social media. I forget what the percentage is but a fairly large group now learns about the world through their facebook feeds and other social media. Facebook feeds are self selecting and so people's biases tend to become reinforced.
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:30:16 AM
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
In your country, religion is a driving force. The less educated the people, the more religion becomes a refuge. In some States, seperation of Church&State is a real joke. Religion makes laws, religion controls education. Once you lost control of your education, there is not much you can do to reverse the tide in the short term.
Quote from: viper37 on November 18, 2016, 11:33:04 AM
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:30:16 AM
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
In you country, religion is a driving force. The less educated the people, the more religion becomes a refuge. In some States, seperation of Church&State is a real joke. Religion makes laws, religion controls education. Once you lost control of your education, there is not much you can do to reverse the tide in the short term.
We have never had control of our education. Religion is receding in the US, not increasing, and its power has always been substantial.
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 12:02:36 PM
We have never had control of our education.
Not since Horace Mann, anyway.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 18, 2016, 02:26:19 PM
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 12:02:36 PM
We have never had control of our education.
Not since Horace Mann, anyway.
I am familiar with Horace Mann but not sure what you are getting at :hmm:
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:29:30 AM
I don't think he meant a literal Obama Dorsey :P
That was my joke! :)
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 17, 2016, 07:41:56 PM
QuoteNew York Times
The Opinion Pages | Contributing Op-Ed Writer
The Not-So-Silent White Majority
Thomas B. Edsall NOV. 17, 2016
Between Richard Nixon's election by the silent majority in 1968 and Donald Trump's stunning victory in 2016, there have been six conservative waves that swept Republicans into office. Disaffected white voters without college degrees have been the driving force in all of them.
This is surprising not only because these voters were once the backbone of the Democratic coalition, but because they have steadily declined as a share of the electorate. The percentage of white voters without college degrees fell from 83 percent in 1960 to 36 percent in 2012. It was 34 percent this year.
So why did they matter as much as they did in 2016? For one thing, Trump's 39-point lead among less well educated whites surged past Mitt Romney's 25-point margin. This was enough to make up for the fact that Trump's margin of victory among whites with college degrees, at 4 points (49-45), was well behind Romney's. (Romney carried college-educated whites by 14 points, 56-42.)
Despite their declining share of the electorate, these voters continue to exercise an outsize influence: as the Silent Majority of 1968 and 1972; the Reagan Democrats of 1980; the Angry White Men of 1994; the Tea Party insurgents of 2010; and now the triumphant Trump Republicans of 2016.
Let's take a look at the history of this trend.
In 1968, these white voters — often low or moderate income, disproportionately male and clustered in exurban and rural areas, then as now — were crucial to the birth of the modern conservative coalition.
That year, famously, southern whites angered by enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act abandoned the Democratic Party in droves, and they were soon joined by many northern whites opposed to court-ordered busing.
The Democratic Party's commitment to civil rights prompted millions of white voters to cast ballots either for Richard Nixon, running as the Republican nominee, or for George Wallace, the segregationist Dixiecrat and former governor of Alabama, running as the nominee of the American Independent Party.
Together, Nixon and Wallace won 56.9 percent of all votes in 1968 and more than six out of every ten white votes, laying the groundwork for the conversion of the segregationist wing of the Democratic Party into a key component of the modern Republican Party. Democrats have made inroads into this coalition a few times, either by running more centrist Southerners like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or through the campaign magic of Barack Obama, who promised to transcend the red-blue divide. But this white Republican coalition has proved remarkably enduring.
In the two elections before 1968, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, both Democrats, averaged 55 percent of the white working class vote. According to Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the pro-Democratic Center for American Progress, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern, both Democrats, averaged 35 percent of that vote, in 1968 and 1972. Since that time, many Republican candidates have tapped into anti-black bias without running as overt segregationists.
"The Republicans suddenly became the party of the white working class," Teixeira wrote on his blog.
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 further strengthened the commitment of the white working class to Republican presidential candidates, especially in the North.
It was not, however, until 1994, with the so-called Gingrich revolution, that the Republican Party was able to finally rupture the continuing commitment of lower and moderate income whites to Democratic congressional candidates. The accompanying charts, derived from the 2000 book, "America's Forgotten Majority," by Teixeira and Joel Rogers, show how the bottom fell out in 1994 for white working class Democratic congressional support.
Gingrich claimed responsibility for his party's 1994 victories. Bill Clinton's initial abandonment of the themes that he campaigned on in 1992 was, in fact, more important.
In his first presidential run, Clinton promised welfare reform, a middle-class tax cut and to commit his presidency to the "ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll be rewarded." Clinton's first two years in office, however, were dominated by the issues of gays in the military, health care reform and his attempt make good on his vow to pick a cabinet that "looks like America."
The changed agenda proved disastrous for Democratic members of the House and Senate.
Stanley Greenberg, Clinton's 1992 campaign pollster, wrote in the 1999 book "The New Majority: Toward a Popular Progressive Politics'' that
The 1994 congressional debacle should be a reminder of what happens when Democrats lose touch with the lives of working people. Bill Clinton's election was accompanied by great hopes in the country, but over the next two years those hopes turned to disappointment. On the eve of the off-year elections Clinton seemed like a culturally liberal president who could not deliver.
Greenberg continued:
The 1994 election was a disaster produced by a downscale, working-class revolt against the Democrats. Support for congressional Democrats among high school graduates dropped 12 points to only 46 percent. Among white male high school graduates, support for the Democrats fell off a cliff, careening 20 points downward from 57 percent to 37 percent.
The march of working and middle class whites toward the Republican Party took another giant step forward in the Tea Party election of 2010, when they voted against Democratic congressional candidates by 30 points (65-35), providing crucial ballast for the Republicans as they gained 63 seats in the House.
For many analysts and Democratic operatives, Obama's two victories in 2008 and 2012 marked the final collapse of the conservative coalition. Even the Republican Party, notably in the so-called Autopsy Report produced in 2013 by Reince Priebus — soon to be Trump's chief of staff — acknowledged that a white-dominated conservative alliance was doomed to defeat unless the party opened its doors in general and to Hispanics in particular.
Which brings us to 2016.
On one level, demographic change was moving in Clinton's direction. The overall white share of the electorate, which was 91 percent in 1960, continued to decline, falling to 72 percent in 2012 and 70 percent in 2016.
How, then, is it possible that this supposedly fading constituency played such a decisive role in 2016?
Two reasons.
First, while Trump barely improved on Romney's margin among whites generally, the whites who did vote for Trump were significantly different from those who voted for Romney. Trump won non-college whites by 14 points more than Romney, a modern day record. Just as important, the working class voters Trump carried by such huge margins were heavily concentrated in the rust belt states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Pennsylvania — all states carried by Obama in 2012 and lost by Clinton in 2016. Together, these state cast 70 Electoral College votes.
Trump's voters were situated in a way that allowed them to exercise far more influence on the outcome in the Electoral College than their overall numbers would suggest, allowing Trump to sweep across the rust belt to victory.
This apostasy among white voters has certainly not gone unnoticed, and party strategists have long debated what, if anything, could be done to bring these voters back into the Democratic fold, particularly since the landslide defeat of 1984.
In 1985, Democrats conducted two major studies of white working class discontent, one by Greenberg, which looked at white U.A.W. workers and retirees in Macomb County Michigan, the other of 33 focus groups nationwide conducted by CRG, a marketing and polling firm.
Greenberg found that for these voters, "Blacks constitute the explanation of their vulnerability and for almost everything that has gone wrong in their lives."
This
special status of blacks is perceived by almost all of these individuals as a serious obstacle to their personal advancement. Indeed, discrimination against whites has become a well-assimilated and ready explanation for their status, vulnerability and failures.
The CRG study was equally brutal. These voters
have a whole set of middle-class economic problems today, and their party is not helping them. Instead it is helping blacks, Hispanics and the poor. They feel betrayed.
CRG found that in the view of the white working class, the "Democrats are the giveaway party and 'giveaway' means too much middle class money going to blacks and the poor."
The struggle to revive Democratic support among low and moderate income white voters has more recently become a regular subject on The Democratic Strategist, a website run by the Democratic activist Ed Kilgore, who was once the vice president for policy at the Democratic Leadership Council. Kilgore also publishes a newsletter, the White Working Class Roundtable. In the first issue of the newsletter, Kilgore wrote:
It has become increasingly clear that progressives and Democrats have no alternative except to challenge the hold that conservative and the GOP have established over white working Americans.
In a direct counter to Kilgore, Lee Drutman, a senior scholar at the New America Foundation, argued in a Nov. 11 essay in Foreign Policy that the Democrats need to give up on appeals to working class whites. The headline of his article reads: "The GOP has become the party of populism. Now the Democrats have to build a new party of multicultural cosmopolitanism."
Drutman argues that
If Democrats define themselves as the party that is opposed to Republicans (as they must), they will soon find themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility (as opposed to the Republicans, who will again run huge deficits), as the party of international responsibility (as opposed to the more isolationist and nationalist Republicans), and as the party of global business (as opposed to the protectionist Republicans). They will continue to be the party of environmentalism (the stakes of this will get even greater soon) and the party of diversity and tolerance.
At the policy level, there are substantial objections to the full-scale emergence of a Democratic Party along these lines. It would mean that neither party would represent the economic interests of the bottom half of the income distribution — regardless of race or ethnicity — on crucial issues of tax and spending policies.
There is, however, growing evidence that the wheels of electoral politics have made the developments Drutman describes increasingly likely.
A comparison of 2004 exit polls and 2016 exit polls shows the changing relevance of income to voting.
In 2004, those with incomes under $30,000 voted Democratic by 20 points; in 2016, these voters voted Democratic by 12 points, a 40 percent decline.
At the upper end, voters with household incomes from $100,000 to $200,000 voted Republican in 2004 by 15 points. In 2016, they voted Republican by one point. Voters making more than $200,000 in 2004 voted Republican by 28 points; in 2016, they also voted Republican by 1 point.
As Drutman points out, "with a President Trump, there is now a change agent to accelerate these forces."
In another postelection analysis, published on Nov. 15, Teixeira argues that the conservative victory on Election Day will prove short-lived: "In the end, the race will be won by change — as it always is."
By 2032, Teixeira writes, "we are far more likely to view the 2016 election as the last stand of America's white working class, dreaming of a past that no longer exists."
Maybe.
In 2002, Teixeira and John Judis published the classic book, "The Emerging Democratic Majority," only to see the re-election of George Bush two years later and the election of Donald Trump 14 years later.
Judis, whose most recent book is "The Populist Explosion," is less confident than Teixeira. He argues that in this year's election, either John Kasich or Marco Rubio "could have beaten Clinton, but the coalition would have looked different," adding in an email that
what I would say, if someone put a gun to my head, is that there is still a stalemate between the two parties in spite of Trump's and the Republicans success. Trump could fail, the Dems could come back, and then the G.O.P. Or Trump could thread the needle and win two terms. Not clear what will happen. But politically — leave aside the Census Bureau — the Dems are in disarray.
White tribalism or ethnocentrism — whatever you want to call it — is undeniably a powerful force. But so are the identities, loyalties and resentments of those who have their own competing racial and ethnic commitments. The American experiment, which gives all these interests participatory roles in a dynamic democracy, has long been under strain. Over the next four years, it will now be openly tested. The outcome may well be wrenching.
grumbler-compliant link (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/opinion/the-not-so-silent-white-majority.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region)
You just hate white folks
Quote from: Berkut on November 17, 2016, 09:16:55 PM
I think that all misses the impact that hate speech media has had on the right. That is not same old, same old.
:yes: I wonder if our last decade or two is an argument against "the freer, the better" approach to free speech. Clearly a lot of our problems stem from the old-school concerted propaganda campaign coupled with new-school online echo chambers completely unmooring many people's perception of reality from the factual reality. Maybe the Germans, who seem to be on course to be the last holdout against the far-right wave sweeping the Western world, have a right idea somewhere.
Of course, a simpler explanation could be that propaganda reaches the receptive ears. And it turns out that people everywhere are a lot more inherently nativist than well-meaning proponents of tolerance would like, and the great progress in tolerance has sparked a violent and senseless reaction.
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:30:16 AM
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
Apparently they only turn out if their candidate ~inspires~ them.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on November 19, 2016, 09:35:01 AM
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:30:16 AM
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
Apparently they only turn out if their candidate ~inspires~ them.
Or, you know, they're allowed to vote.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 19, 2016, 09:43:31 AM
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on November 19, 2016, 09:35:01 AM
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:30:16 AM
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
Apparently they only turn out if their candidate ~inspires~ them.
Or, you know, they're allowed to vote.
Right.
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2016, 11:05:32 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 19, 2016, 09:43:31 AM
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on November 19, 2016, 09:35:01 AM
Quote from: Valmy on November 18, 2016, 08:30:16 AM
I keep hearing that any day now these people will be beaten by a great rising tide of minority and woman voters. Any day they want to start doing that would be great.
Apparently they only turn out if their candidate ~inspires~ them.
Or, you know, they're allowed to vote.
Right.
Go fuck yourself, derniggerhater. You got the early voting days elimination you wanted. Counting jellybeans won't kick in until 2020.
Apparently Clinton won the popular vote by more than 1.7 million and the number is still rising.
It does seem that the lower Democrat turnouts in GOP controlled states that reduced early voting and otherwise made it harder to vote made a difference.
I guess we will be seeing more of it moving forward given how successful it was.
Quote from: Jacob on November 19, 2016, 11:23:28 AM
Apparently Clinton won the popular vote by more than 1.7 million and the number is still rising.
It does seem that the lower Democrat turnouts in GOP controlled states that reduced early voting and otherwise made it harder to vote made a difference.
I guess we will be seeing more of it moving forward given how successful it was.
And with Strom Sessions running the DOJ, you can forget about civil rights investigations.
Elections have consequences.
Quote from: Jacob on November 19, 2016, 11:23:28 AM
It does seem that the lower Democrat turnouts in GOP controlled states that reduced early voting and otherwise made it harder to vote made a difference.
Quote from: CNNEarly results in some of the key states that propelled President-elect Donald Trump to his win reveal that more voters cast ballots this year than in 2012, even though overall turnout was down.
The 2016 presidential race, in photos
Photos: The 2016 presidential race, in photos
In Florida, nearly 9.4 million ballots were cast, compared to 8.5 million in 2012. Michigan saw 4.8 million compared to 4.7 million four years ago. And in North Carolina, the 4.7 million ballots this year was about 138,000 more than last cycle.
This was from an article talking about how overall turnout was down. :hmm:
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2016, 05:05:22 PM
Elections have consequences.
:yes: Starting with the 2010 ones.
I don't know what scares me more: the next four years under alt-right, or the idea that Americans will learn nothing from this and will continue treating GOP as a legitimate option to vote for.
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2016, 05:05:22 PM
Elections have consequences.
I don't know. We have plenty of unopposed elections, they seem pretty inconsequential.
Quote from: DGuller on November 18, 2016, 05:31:39 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 17, 2016, 09:16:55 PM
I think that all misses the impact that hate speech media has had on the right. That is not same old, same old.
:yes: I wonder if our last decade or two is an argument against "the freer, the better" approach to free speech. Clearly a lot of our problems stem from the old-school concerted propaganda campaign coupled with new-school online echo chambers completely unmooring many people's perception of reality from the factual reality. Maybe the Germans, who seem to be on course to be the last holdout against the far-right wave sweeping the Western world, have a right idea somewhere.
Of course, a simpler explanation could be that propaganda reaches the receptive ears. And it turns out that people everywhere are a lot more inherently nativist than well-meaning proponents of tolerance would like, and the great progress in tolerance has sparked a violent and senseless reaction.
Or, another simpler explanation is that liberals like you really aren't in favor of free speech to start with and are always looking for ways to suppress speech you don't agree with.
There is no such thing as a completely free speech country anywhere on the planet. Get off your high horse.
That reply might be pertinent if he was trolling Euros for hate speech laws.
Quote from: dps on November 19, 2016, 08:34:33 PM
Or, another simpler explanation is that liberals like you really aren't in favor of free speech to start with and are always looking for ways to suppress speech you don't agree with.
That may be a simple explanation, but an idiotic one. I've always pragmatically thought that in the end, the truth prevails, even if it takes unseemly paths to victory. But now I am extremely concerned that the unseemly path we're on is not to victory, but to a very dark place. Social freedom shouldn't be a suicide pact for freedom, it shouldn't enable fascists to thrive.
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2016, 05:05:22 PM
Elections have consequences.
You informed us that you would prefer for the GOP to obstruct everything that that Democrats did over the last 8 years. Why shouldn't the Democrats do the same?
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 03:52:12 AM
That may be a simple explanation, but an idiotic one. I've always pragmatically thought that in the end, the truth prevails, even if it takes unseemly paths to victory. But now I am extremely concerned that the unseemly path we're on is not to victory, but to a very dark place. Social freedom shouldn't be a suicide pact for freedom, it shouldn't enable fascists to thrive.
If free speech doesn't work, then neither does democracy.
Where you're leading is either management of information flow or denial of sovereignty.
America is a publicly conducted experiment in the repercussions of unrestricted freedom. We can perform no greater service to the rest of humanity than to demonstrate the end results of that freedom.
I'm thinking out loud, and I don't even have a solution in mind. I'm just seeing how successful the hard right propaganda was, to the point that the brainwashed ones think that everyone else is brainwashed, and I perceive it as an existential threat to democracy.
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2016, 05:05:22 PM
Elections have consequences.
They do indeed, and we're in for some real consequences in 2017.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 20, 2016, 05:04:34 AM
If free speech doesn't work, then neither does democracy.
See Zoupa's comments above. Free speech has always been restricted by all sorts of constraints, and the "right kind" of free speech has always been enforced by State-like apparatus, much like the most radical forms of democracy have always been carefully shut down, and circumscribed into representative democracies; i.e., launching a newspaper required quite a bit of capital and technical know-how, and free blacks could certain say what they wanted in the Deep South, but the subsequent lynching certainly had a way to curb their enthusiasm for the principle. I find it difficult to accept that the methods which should safeguard free speech and democracy should not evolve and change according to the possibilities of the time. We can certainly consider both free speech, and democracy as ahistorical realities. They are inspiring utopia, but as utopia, they also rely upon a commitment to the equal dignity of mankind.
I think it's always been a big blind spot of the story of the American Revolution to have removed violence and constraints as conditions for its success, instead making it the story of a gigantic coming together; that its shiny ideals were sufficient for everyone to spontaneously join in communion. Certainly, republics exist in the hearts of men and women, but, as countless stories of civil wars, failed revolutions, and American invasions show, it never is enough to establish them on a sure footing without any other tools of power.
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 10:03:14 AM
I'm thinking out loud, and I don't even have a solution in mind. I'm just seeing how successful the hard right propaganda was, to the point that the brainwashed ones think that everyone else is brainwashed, and I perceive it as an existential threat to democracy.
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
To Jake: yes, none of our freedoms are absolute. But IMO, restrictions placed on our freedoms by the government should be as limited as possible, and give that freedom of speech is one of our most basic rights (again, IMO, but I'm hardly alone on this one), it's one on which the bar to any restrictions should be placed very high. And what DGuller seemed to be suggesting (that there should be restrictions on some overtly political speech) is particularly dangerous to democratic principles.
FWIW, I also think President-Elect Trump's proposal to change our libel laws is something that should also be fought. We don't need it to be easier for celebrities to silence their critics via lawsuits (granted that a lot of vile lies get told about celebrities, but it comes with the territory).
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Typical leftist doublespeak BS. The solution to intolerance isn't more intolerance. That sort of thinking is a big part of why Europe has more trouble integrating immigrants than the US.
I am sorry - have you listened to anything from the latest electoral campaign?
Quote from: Oexmelin on November 20, 2016, 06:01:56 PM
I am sorry - have you listened to anything from the latest electoral campaign?
The immigrants are assimilating fine. That the GOP base and Trump is in denial over it doesn't change the facts.
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:51:53 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Typical leftist doublespeak BS. The solution to intolerance isn't more intolerance. That sort of thinking is a big part of why Europe has more trouble integrating immigrants than the US.
Actually shaming people into not voicing racist opinions generally works pretty well.
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:51:53 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Typical leftist doublespeak BS. The solution to intolerance isn't more intolerance. That sort of thinking is a big part of why Europe has more trouble integrating immigrants than the US.
Well, the Germans are pretty tough on Nazis, but we are the one with the alt-right in the White House. Maybe we were wrong...
Quote from: garbon on November 20, 2016, 06:58:40 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:51:53 PM
Typical leftist doublespeak BS. The solution to intolerance isn't more intolerance. That sort of thinking is a big part of why Europe has more trouble integrating immigrants than the US.
Actually shaming people into not voicing racist opinions generally works pretty well.
No, no, no...you see, they would prefer they don't; they prefer "the left" to continue taking the "high road" when it comes to intolerance. Because that way, they continue to push their agenda unabated.
Well, fuck that. The days of peaceniks singing kumbayah while intolerant haters continue to go ahead and curbstomp people are over.
And when people finally have enough of being roadkill in the one way discussion, they'll cry about "the solution to intolerance isn't more intolerance." Remember, these are the same punk ass bitches that opposed integration with violence, and yet bitched about heavy-handedness by the government. Fuck these assholes. It's about time intolerance gets some mailboxes blown the fuck up in some motherfucking faces. Blow up some of
their fucking churches. Beat them with some baseball bats in front of
their families for a change. Fucking assholes.
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Insulting? You called his argument idiotic. Anyway, if we have too much free speech here, feel free to leave. Plenty of places to choose from that have less.
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:07:27 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Insulting? You called his argument idiotic. Anyway, if we have too much free speech here, feel free to leave. Plenty of places to choose from that have less.
Must have slipped his mind. :lol:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 20, 2016, 07:21:59 PM
Fuck these assholes. It's about time intolerance gets some mailboxes blown the fuck up in some motherfucking faces. Blow up some of their fucking churches. Beat them with some baseball bats in front of their families for a change. Fucking assholes.
Bookmarked.
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:20:54 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 20, 2016, 07:21:59 PM
Fuck these assholes. It's about time intolerance gets some mailboxes blown the fuck up in some motherfucking faces. Blow up some of their fucking churches. Beat them with some baseball bats in front of their families for a change. Fucking assholes.
Bookmarked.
Double bookmarked back, bitch.
I'm sure it's just schtick and you're not really inciting terrorism :hug:
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:36:33 PM
I'm sure it's just schtick and you're not really inciting terrorism :hug:
Pretty funny coming from a guy who would give his left nut for the chance to "stand his ground" and smoke a minority. Fuck you and your local Klan chapter, fetusfucker.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 20, 2016, 08:41:23 PM
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:36:33 PM
I'm sure it's just schtick and you're not really inciting terrorism :hug:
Pretty funny coming from a guy who would give his left nut for the chance to "stand his ground" and smoke a minority. Fuck you and your local Klan chapter, fetusfucker.
So you are or are not inciting terrorism? :unsure:
Quote from: garbon on November 20, 2016, 06:58:40 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:51:53 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Typical leftist doublespeak BS. The solution to intolerance isn't more intolerance. That sort of thinking is a big part of why Europe has more trouble integrating immigrants than the US.
Actually shaming people into not voicing racist opinions generally works pretty well.
Peer pressure is one thing. Passing legislation limiting free speech is a whole different ballgame.
Quote from: 11B4V on November 20, 2016, 08:09:44 PM
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:07:27 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Insulting? You called his argument idiotic. Anyway, if we have too much free speech here, feel free to leave. Plenty of places to choose from that have less.
Must have slipped his mind. :lol:
I called his argument idiotic, I didn't call him an idiot. He ignored the substance of what I said just to get a dig in.
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 09:10:06 PM
Quote from: 11B4V on November 20, 2016, 08:09:44 PM
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:07:27 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 05:45:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 05:32:30 PM
That's because you're a fool. Threats to democracy don't come from too much free speech, they come from too little.
No need to try to be insulting. And it doesn't have to be either/or. I think everyone agrees that incitement to violence kind of speech is a threat to democracy, and it's already restricted. Maybe incitement to intolerance should be thought of to belong in the same category. If you want to have a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Insulting? You called his argument idiotic. Anyway, if we have too much free speech here, feel free to leave. Plenty of places to choose from that have less.
Must have slipped his mind. :lol:
I called his argument idiotic, I didn't call him an idiot. He ignored the substance of what I said just to get a dig in.
Far from ignoring the substance of what you posted, I consider you a fool
because of it.
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:56:52 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 20, 2016, 08:41:23 PM
Quote from: derspiess on November 20, 2016, 08:36:33 PM
I'm sure it's just schtick and you're not really inciting terrorism :hug:
Pretty funny coming from a guy who would give his left nut for the chance to "stand his ground" and smoke a minority. Fuck you and your local Klan chapter, fetusfucker.
So you are or are not inciting terrorism? :unsure:
I only incite freedom and liberty, so go sit in a convenience store parking lot and hope you get to shoot the first teen that buys a pack of Skittles.
Anyway, to restate, here is my concern: the good guys have not yet figured out a way to combat the "firehose of falsehoods" tactic. It just seems to work; it works for Putin abroad and it works for Trump at home (and has been working for alt right and whoever came before them). At best is sows confusion and hampers resolve about the good guys, at worst it actually makes people believe in things that are false, and it makes them believe it so much that any evidence of patent falsity of what they believe is obviously a propaganda campaign. If this tactic, and the people employing it, keep winning, the days of both democracy and free speech as we know it are numbered.
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Quote from: dps on November 20, 2016, 09:23:17 PM
Far from ignoring the substance of what you posted, I consider you a fool because of it.
Okay. Coming from you, that means absolutely nothing one way or the other.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:30:44 PM
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Sure. I am for all these things too. But Trump isn't. Protectionism isn't free market capitalism. Building a transcontinental wall isn't small government.
So, DGullible, you think the alt right is worst than the ctrl left?
I think both are despicable.
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:32:49 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:30:44 PM
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Sure. I am for all these things too. But Trump isn't. Protectionism isn't free market capitalism. Building a transcontinental wall isn't small government.
Omitted constitutional freedoms reference noted.
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:32:49 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:30:44 PM
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Sure. I am for all these things too. But Trump isn't. Protectionism isn't free market capitalism. Building a transcontinental wall isn't small government.
Come on mono, you know perfectly well free trade aint free market. Free trade is opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
Free market is an internal system. Foreign trade should always be reciprocal and subject to tariffs if necessary.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:39:26 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:32:49 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:30:44 PM
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Sure. I am for all these things too. But Trump isn't. Protectionism isn't free market capitalism. Building a transcontinental wall isn't small government.
Come on mono, you know perfectly well free trade aint free market. Free trade is opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
Free market is an internal system. Foreign trade should always be reciprocal and subject to tariffs if necessary.
What does free market mean? Free market means free from government intervention in the supply and demand of goods. Are you seriously telling me that tariffs isn't a form of government intervention?
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:32:49 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:30:44 PM
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Sure. I am for all these things too. But Trump isn't. Protectionism isn't free market capitalism. Building a transcontinental wall isn't small government.
The wall is a defense system. Every nation have the right to control its borders and have a say on who gets to come in.
This idea of an open border is a globalist manipulation to provide new democrat voters and cheap labor for the Republican chamber of commerce and its evil corporations.
Free market capitalism is a weak system that needs protection from communists, socialists and the crony capitalists and monopolistic corporations.
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:43:50 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:39:26 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:32:49 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:30:44 PM
Free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms.
Sure. I am for all these things too. But Trump isn't. Protectionism isn't free market capitalism. Building a transcontinental wall isn't small government.
Come on mono, you know perfectly well free trade aint free market. Free trade is opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
Free market is an internal system. Foreign trade should always be reciprocal and subject to tariffs if necessary.
What does free market mean? Free market means free from government intervention in the supply and demand of goods. Are you seriously telling me that tariffs isn't a form of government intervention?
Don't let the ctrl left control your perception of what free market means. They want a globalized economy in which the US loses.
Free market, as I have come to define it recently, is a national economic system, and the government has to be its protector to guarantee it is free. But when it comes to international trade, the government function is to protect its national market, with tariffs if necessary, but not by default.
I am open to bilateral trade agreements which are fair. Not to unconditionally opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:53:58 PM
Don't let the ctrl left control your perception of what free market means. They want a globalized economy in which the US loses.
Free market, as I have come to define it recently, is a national economic system, and the government has to be its protector to guarantee it is free. But when it comes to international trade, the government function is to protect its national market, with tariffs if necessary, but not by default.
I am open to bilateral trade agreements which are fair. Not to unconditionally opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
That's just a convoluted way of saying "I'm only for free market when it suits me".
I think it means Trump will tell me in the future which trade deals I'm supposed to like and which I'm not.
Mono, as you know very well, free market capitalism is not unregulated or unprotected. We need regulations to protect our health, fair competitiveness, and avoid monopolies and price fixing.
When it comes to foreign trade, we need to protect our market from foreign currency manipulation, artificial low wages, etc.
Free market capitalism is a weak system constantly under attack from the left and the right.
There is a reason why no billionaire is in favor of free market. When you have made it, you become an enemy of the system and don't want any start up to disrupt your share of the market.
Now we Trump, we have an opportunity, but we have to keep the preasure on him so he have to fulfill his campaign promises. We have to keep his feet to the fire, so to speak.
Right now he is doing well picking up his cabinet, with sessions apparently in the bag, and Mad Dog Mattis probably as well, but Mitt Romney have been circling him, and if Romney gets a job in his administration we are going to the streets. That guy is fuckin traitor and a chamber of commerce hack. Fuck him side ways.
Romney sold out in his second debate with the community organizer in chief back in 2012 when he refused to drop the hammer.
Quote from: Monoriu on November 20, 2016, 09:56:24 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:53:58 PM
Don't let the ctrl left control your perception of what free market means. They want a globalized economy in which the US loses.
Free market, as I have come to define it recently, is a national economic system, and the government has to be its protector to guarantee it is free. But when it comes to international trade, the government function is to protect its national market, with tariffs if necessary, but not by default.
I am open to bilateral trade agreements which are fair. Not to unconditionally opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
That's just a convoluted way of saying "I'm only for free market when it suits me".
I am only for free market when it benefits America.
What's wrong with my position?
It's not free market.
You folks are in for a rude awakening. You elected a shyster. And he doesn't give two fucks about you all.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:53:58 PMI am open to bilateral trade agreements which are fair. Not to unconditionally opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
The funny thing is that in countries outside the US, the opposition to free trade agreements are based on not wanting to let the US reap inordinate benefits for free. You think you're getting screwed by the world - the rest of the world thinks you're screwing them.
When it comes to bilateral trade agreements, of course, the real beneficiaries are going to be the oligarchs next to Trump - you know, his kids and the billionaires he's appointing to top government positions.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 10:06:57 PMThere is a reason why no billionaire is in favor of free market. When you have made it, you become an enemy of the system and don't want any start up to disrupt your share of the market.
Now we Trump, we have an opportunity, but we have to keep the preasure on him so he have to fulfill his campaign promises. We have to keep his feet to the fire, so to speak.
Right now he is doing well picking up his cabinet, with sessions apparently in the bag, and Mad Dog Mattis probably as well, but Mitt Romney have been circling him, and if Romney gets a job in his administration we are going to the streets. That guy is fuckin traitor and a chamber of commerce hack. Fuck him side ways.
Romney sold out in his second debate with the community organizer in chief back in 2012 when he refused to drop the hammer.
:lol:
Good luck to you and yours Siegy.
You elected a grifter to be president. Trump, his children, and his billionaire friends are going to make themselves extremely wealthy at the expense of your institutions, the tax payers, and non-connected businesses.
Quote from: Jacob on November 20, 2016, 10:18:29 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 10:06:57 PMThere is a reason why no billionaire is in favor of free market. When you have made it, you become an enemy of the system and don't want any start up to disrupt your share of the market.
Now we Trump, we have an opportunity, but we have to keep the preasure on him so he have to fulfill his campaign promises. We have to keep his feet to the fire, so to speak.
Right now he is doing well picking up his cabinet, with sessions apparently in the bag, and Mad Dog Mattis probably as well, but Mitt Romney have been circling him, and if Romney gets a job in his administration we are going to the streets. That guy is fuckin traitor and a chamber of commerce hack. Fuck him side ways.
Romney sold out in his second debate with the community organizer in chief back in 2012 when he refused to drop the hammer.
:lol:
Good luck to you and yours Siegy.
You elected a grifter to be president. Trump, his children, and his billionaire friends are going to make themselves extremely wealthy at the expense of your institutions, the tax payers, and non-connected businesses.
You mean like the Clintons and their fundation, and pay for play while ad sec of state and all that graft?
Besides, if Trump goes off the rails and turns alt right or ctrl left I will be the first one denouncing him.
I don't give a fuck about how nice the prez is. I only care about free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms. And the technological singularity, which is really the end game.
Protectionism is just poorly conceived socialism. You make everybody pay to prop up a few select businesses.
The thing that drives me nuts is that US manufacturing is actually doing pretty well, it just has moved on to new sectors and become increasingly automated. Protectionism might boost some areas, but is likely to hurt others even more and will almost certainly increase the pace of automation (assuming it doesn't damage the economy too badly).
It's pretty amazing the double speak going here, where Siege is bitterly clinging to the words free market while having a personal definition which is completely the opposite of its actual meaning.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 10:20:53 PM
You mean like the Clintons and their fundation, and pay for play while ad sec of state and all that graft?
That stuff - even if we take it at 100% at the face value which you present it as* - will pale in comparison to the shit Trump is going to pull.
*I don't.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 10:23:34 PM
Besides, if Trump goes off the rails and turns alt right or ctrl left I will be the first one denouncing him.
The damage will be done by the time you face the facts, alas.
QuoteI don't give a fuck about how nice the prez is. I only care about free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms. And the technological singularity, which is really the end game.
I don't think any of those will be served by the crony capitalist you supported, but I suppose we'll see.
Quote from: Jacob on November 20, 2016, 10:10:11 PM
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 09:53:58 PMI am open to bilateral trade agreements which are fair. Not to unconditionally opening the American market to foreign interests for free.
The funny thing is that in countries outside the US, the opposition to free trade agreements are based on not wanting to let the US reap inordinate benefits for free. You think you're getting screwed by the world - the rest of the world thinks you're screwing them.
When it comes to bilateral trade agreements, of course, the real beneficiaries are going to be the oligarchs next to Trump - you know, his kids and the billionaires he's appointing to top government positions.
A lot of this is more about the billionaire class in the U.S. and the large multinational corporations, we actually benefit very little from Microsoft and Apple making big boats of money in Europe or etc, that money largely never makes its way back to the broad U.S. economy, at least not in an efficient way. It does make a small portion of corporate top level managers much richer than they were before, and private equity types, big money investors and etc.
Lets hope that Trump isn't part of the ctrl-alt-delete faction.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 21, 2016, 04:33:16 AM
Lets hope that Trump isn't part of the ctrl-alt-delete faction.
I guess its okay if we've saved all our work before hand.
Quote from: Siege on November 20, 2016, 10:20:53 PM
You mean like the Clintons and their fundation, and pay for play while ad sec of state and all that graft?
Please link us to this "graft".
Quote from: garbon on November 21, 2016, 04:36:26 AM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 21, 2016, 04:33:16 AM
Lets hope that Trump isn't part of the ctrl-alt-delete faction.
I guess its okay if we've saved all our work before hand.
We should go Timmy and load up the Jan 2016 save.
Can we edit the save file first?
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 09:29:59 PM
Anyway, to restate, here is my concern: the good guys have not yet figured out a way to combat the "firehose of falsehoods" tactic. It just seems to work; it works for Putin abroad and it works for Trump at home (and has been working for alt right and whoever came before them). At best is sows confusion and hampers resolve about the good guys, at worst it actually makes people believe in things that are false, and it makes them believe it so much that any evidence of patent falsity of what they believe is obviously a propaganda campaign. If this tactic, and the people employing it, keep winning, the days of both democracy and free speech as we know it are numbered.
Ok, that's more reasonable, but I still say it's foolish to consider a buffoon like Trump an existential threat to democracy. Soviet communism was an existential threat to democracy; the southern slaveholding interest was a threat to democracy (and not simply because of chattel slavery
per se, but because of the unwillingness to abide by election results--you retards out in California who want to succeed take note); Trumpism's not.
Jacob's right--we just elected a grifter. But in a way, that's OK. By no means am I saying that graft is good, but American democracy has survived graft for 230+ years; we can survive it for another 4 or 8.
Quote from: dps on November 21, 2016, 06:45:10 AM
Jacob's right--we just elected a grifter. But in a way, that's OK. By no means am I saying that graft is good, but American democracy has survived graft for 230+ years; we can survive it for another 4 or 8.
In my hopeful moments, I think this way as well. However, i am unable to shake off the fear that the grifter-in-chief and his cronies will be able to embed the grifter clique in DC for the long term. A huge chunk of the electorate, including about 50% of the college-educated, seem to prefer feel-good grifterism to truth.
The first post-truth president may not be the last.
Quote from: DGuller on November 20, 2016, 09:29:59 PM
Anyway, to restate, here is my concern: the good guys have not yet figured out a way to combat the "firehose of falsehoods" tactic. It just seems to work...
What's the saying - the more often you repeat a lie the more believable it becomes? I've been to those sites and channels that rooted for Trump. Most of them were endlessly going on about the Clinton rumors, the globalists' conspiracies, etc - yet what really struck me was how utterly convinced they were, or appeared to be. We're in faith territory here - hence why they believe the lies or half truths presented to them.
As for the long term effects... Tocqueville once wrote: "In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve."
You guys apparently deserve a reality TV show swindler as leader... Just like Canadians deserve the empty shell/empty headed poster child they have as Prime Minister or we Quebecers the greedy, self-loathing French-Canadian federalist scumbag we have.
G.
Quote from: dps on November 21, 2016, 06:45:10 AM
Ok, that's more reasonable, but I still say it's foolish to consider a buffoon like Trump an existential threat to democracy. Soviet communism was an existential threat to democracy; the southern slaveholding interest was a threat to democracy (and not simply because of chattel slavery per se, but because of the unwillingness to abide by election results--you retards out in California who want to succeed take note); Trumpism's not.
Jacob's right--we just elected a grifter. But in a way, that's OK. By no means am I saying that graft is good, but American democracy has survived graft for 230+ years; we can survive it for another 4 or 8.
Trump himself is not an existential threat to democracy. The forces and tactics that allowed him to get elected, I fear, are. He got elected because truth doesn't matter any more, and a large reason truth doesn't matter anymore is because it got firehosed into oblivion by all the propaganda, and there is no effective counter to it. Can you really have true democracy with supremely and deliberately misinformed electorate?
Let's also not forget that we didn't just get Trump and his alt-right trash two weeks ago; we also lost most remaining checks on power of the one party that knows that the more limited the franchise and the weaker the institutions, the better it does, and acts ruthlessly on that knowledge. I don't draw as much difference between Trump and GOP as most people when it comes to authoritarian tendencies; in that respect, Trump just accelerated what GOP was building to slowly.
And honestly, one thing I really don't care about a whole lot is the graft that is surely to come. It wasn't important during elections, given other issues, and it isn't going to be important afterwards, except for the loss of prestige that would result from how obvious it would be. Even if Trump's family Yanukovich's out ten billion or so, that's really nothing. The president and his team make decisions that can cost the country many, many trillions, and they don't need to have a single crooked bone in the body to do that.
One thing to note, however, is that our depiction of events, i.e post truth and an electorate deliberately misinformed by a cabal, is EXACTLY how the current Trump fans had seen the liberal-dominated world they felt they were forces to live in.
Quote from: Tamas on November 21, 2016, 09:29:58 AM
One thing to note, however, is that our depiction of events, i.e post truth and an electorate deliberately misinformed by a cabal, is EXACTLY how the current Trump fans had seen the liberal-dominated world they felt they were forces to live in.
Well there is a reason I don't pay much attention to the news channels these days. They are not necessarily 'post truth' but they certainly set out to manipulate you. They also have stupid and simplistic takes that piss me off.
Quote from: DGuller on November 21, 2016, 09:00:41 AM
Quote from: dps on November 21, 2016, 06:45:10 AM
Ok, that's more reasonable, but I still say it's foolish to consider a buffoon like Trump an existential threat to democracy. Soviet communism was an existential threat to democracy; the southern slaveholding interest was a threat to democracy (and not simply because of chattel slavery per se, but because of the unwillingness to abide by election results--you retards out in California who want to succeed take note); Trumpism's not.
Jacob's right--we just elected a grifter. But in a way, that's OK. By no means am I saying that graft is good, but American democracy has survived graft for 230+ years; we can survive it for another 4 or 8.
Trump himself is not an existential threat to democracy. The forces and tactics that allowed him to get elected, I fear, are. He got elected because truth doesn't matter any more, and a large reason truth doesn't matter anymore is because it got firehosed into oblivion by all the propaganda, and there is no effective counter to it. Can you really have true democracy with supremely and deliberately misinformed electorate?
Let's also not forget that we didn't just get Trump and his alt-right trash two weeks ago; we also lost most remaining checks on power of the one party that knows that the more limited the franchise and the weaker the institutions, the better it does, and acts ruthlessly on that knowledge. I don't draw as much difference between Trump and GOP as most people when it comes to authoritarian tendencies; in that respect, Trump just accelerated what GOP was building to slowly.
I suggest that you read up on some past election campaigns. None of this is new, except that the media used to spread lies has changed over time. And I'm not talking about "nothing new" as in "how things have been for the past 20 (or 30, or 50) years, but about how things have pretty much always been, at least post 1824. You need some historical context here.
Here we go Siegy, conflict of interest already playing out bigger than anything Clinton ever did:
QuoteOver the weekend, there were a flurry of stories about how Donald Trump and his family are already using the presidency to leverage his overseas businesses as well as his new DC hotel. Well, now there's more. This time in Argentina.
Here's the background.
For a number of years, Trump and his Argentine partners have been trying to build a major office building in Buenos Aires. The project has been held up by a series of complications tied to financing, importation of building materials and various permitting requirements.
According to a report out of Argentina, when Argentine President Mauricio Macri called President-Elect Trump to congratulate him on his election, Trump asked Macri to deal with the permitting issues that are currently holding up the project.
"Hey, I'm president of the US - how about you let me build those office buildings in your country I'd like to build."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cashing-in-bigly-in-argentina
Yeah. That's party of making America great again! Yay!
Quote from: dps on November 21, 2016, 01:09:13 PM
I suggest that you read up on some past election campaigns. None of this is new, except that the media used to spread lies has changed over time. And I'm not talking about "nothing new" as in "how things have been for the past 20 (or 30, or 50) years, but about how things have pretty much always been, at least post 1824. You need some historical context here.
There has always been straight up bullshit surrounding elections, but Trump's campaign is still notable for the number of outright lies he himself told.
Quote from: Jacob on November 21, 2016, 01:13:54 PM
"Hey, I'm president of the US - how about you let me build those office buildings in your country I'd like to build."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cashing-in-bigly-in-argentina
Building office buildings is so 20th century. :P
Bad investment.
Quote from: Jacob on November 21, 2016, 01:13:54 PM
Here we go Siegy, conflict of interest already playing out bigger than anything Clinton ever did:
QuoteOver the weekend, there were a flurry of stories about how Donald Trump and his family are already using the presidency to leverage his overseas businesses as well as his new DC hotel. Well, now there's more. This time in Argentina.
Here's the background.
For a number of years, Trump and his Argentine partners have been trying to build a major office building in Buenos Aires. The project has been held up by a series of complications tied to financing, importation of building materials and various permitting requirements.
According to a report out of Argentina, when Argentine President Mauricio Macri called President-Elect Trump to congratulate him on his election, Trump asked Macri to deal with the permitting issues that are currently holding up the project.
"Hey, I'm president of the US - how about you let me build those office buildings in your country I'd like to build."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cashing-in-bigly-in-argentina
(https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/fr/cp0/e15/q65/15123465_10210807024402891_459939791565493816_o.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoibCJ9)
Naw, say it ain't so.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2016-11-21/fec-cites-trump-campaign-for-1-3m-in-disclosure-errors-cnn
Quote
FEC Cites Trump Campaign for $1.3 Million in Disclosure Errors: CNN
That raises three questions--
1) So?
2) What are you going to do about it?
3) Well?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/richard-spencer-speech-npi/508379/
Alt Right Conference in DC.
"Hail Trump. Hail our people." Nazi salutes.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 21, 2016, 07:38:04 PM
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/richard-spencer-speech-npi/508379/
Alt Right Conference in DC.
"Hail Trump. Hail our people." Nazi salutes.
Just more lies from the lamestream media
I listened to the NPR interview of that Spencer fellow the other day. Creepy dude, though he has a perfect nerdy/effeminate NPR voice and speaking style.
Quote from: derspiess on November 21, 2016, 07:49:09 PM
I listened to the NPR interview of that Spencer fellow the other day. Creepy dude, though he has a perfect nerdy/effeminate NPR voice and speaking style.
They all do. Pretty sure that's the only octave and range NPR listeners can actually hear.
Robert Siegel has a gravelly masculine voice.
I am physically incapable of listening to NPR. I slide out of my chair or run off the road in a deep slumber.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 21, 2016, 07:53:14 PM
Robert Siegel has a gravelly masculine voice.
I guess they have room for a nerdy-sounding old guy.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 21, 2016, 07:55:04 PM
I am physically incapable of listening to NPR. I slide out of my chair or run off the road in a deep slumber.
Their new format isn't so good.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 21, 2016, 07:38:04 PM
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/richard-spencer-speech-npi/508379/
Alt Right Conference in DC.
"Hail Trump. Hail our people." Nazi salutes.
"peaceful ethnic cleansing."". I like that. What does it involve? You ask every no white, gently, to please get the fuck out of my country? And when they talk back, you teach them it's no way to talk to a master?
Quote from: Jacob on November 20, 2016, 10:10:11 PM
The funny thing is that in countries outside the US, the opposition to free trade agreements are based on not wanting to let the US reap inordinate benefits for free. You think you're getting screwed by the world - the rest of the world thinks you're screwing them.
The real funny thing is that the entire narrative about Country X "winning" or "losing" trade agreements as though it were a game of checkers makes no sense to begin with.
Take the TPP for example. One of the big negotiating items was the patent protection period for biologics. The "American" position was that it should be longer, the "Other" position was that it should be shorter and the end result was that it came out in between.
Now did America win because it got a longer patent period than others wanted, or did America lose because it get less?
The whole question makes no sense. It's the pharma companies that make biologics - wherever they or their shareholders are located - that stand to benefit from longer patent protection and drug purchasers - wherever located - that stand to lose from that. Regardless of what positions the USTR takes there are Americans on both sides, and non-Americans on both sides.
That's typical. People don't bitch about NAFTA because it was bad for "America" - in an aggregate GDP sense that it almost certainly wrong. They bitch because it hurt
some Americans - e.g. truck drivers in the Southwest.
Well Minksy, people don't vote as "aggregate entities" or as countries, they aren't dispassionately running things like in a game of EU where they are mostly focused on national instead of individual interests. The people were promised greater prosperity with free trade, particularly NAFTA, and the country got it. But large segments of the population lost their jobs, and for a variety of reasons have been unable to find equivalently good replacement jobs.
Part of the issue a lot of people who live in highly prosperous economic areas (like NYC, Pacific NW, the Bay Area, NoVa etc) is that a large segment of the American population wants to have the ability to work good paying jobs where they are now. There's a class of Americans who are highly mobile and jet around the country, abandoning family and friends. It's to their economic benefit, and they're part of the "new economy." But there are a lot of Americans who really value being able to raise their kids in the same town they were raised in, where they can keep all their friends from High School, where their parents are nearby and can be involved in their kid's lives etc. No one is putting "new economy" jobs into Youngstown, OH or La Crosse, WI, or Altoona, PA, but a lot of old economy jobs were located there, and the people who worked them or whose father's and mother's worked them still live in those areas.
Very little in American politics can withstand the nuance of a two sentence explanation, let alone the multiple sentence one required to explain that TPP, NAFTA, were going to be /were net goods for America, albeit with trade offs. You don't get to that point of the discussion and still have the floor, because someone screaming a few words over and over again will always be heard first and louder.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 22, 2016, 10:28:33 AM
They bitch because it hurt some Americans - e.g. truck drivers in the Southwest.
Did NAFTA really had adverse effects on these Americans or was it something else?
If I look at manufacturing jobs in Quebec, they have disapeared too, in some places as fast as in the US. Entire villages depending on a single industry was always a bad thing. I kept telling the same to everyone for 20 years, and only when Bombardier was left with less than 100 guys did the city awakened and scramble to diversify its economy. Previous attempt at diversification was simply to subsidize a new industrial park compose mostly of sub-contractors to Bombardier...
Anyway, looking at the jobs that disapeared here I see:
- softwood lumber industry. With the trade tariffs asked by the US, we can't export as much as before. Americans were non competitive and wined at their Republicans congress people to get tariffs. Certainly not the fault of NAFTA here. We had a lot of lumber mills closing and lots of lumberjackers losing their job. Also, the green facists demonized and still demonize any wood or paper production made in Quebec&Canada, so the big clients now buy their products elsewhere. Not NAFTA's fault. Not CETA's fault. Not the future stillborn TPP's fault.
- steel. For years, American companies would come to Quebec, dig the minerals, ship them into the US and sell us the finished product. A small part of our mineral production is transformed in Canada. NAFTA certainly did not increase the costs of steel. But US protectionism did. So now, instead of buying steel rebars coming from US&Canadian mills, we import our steel from Germany, and some other suppliers have them from China. No trade deals with China, and CETA wasn't even on the agenda then. But they produce in metric, and that is fucking nice for a change :)
- tobacco. People smoke less. Deal with it.
- oil industry (Canada). Well, there is a slump in oil prices. Not related to NAFTA at all.
- clothing. Yep, that is real. A real loss there. Working 12hrs a day for 5$/hour creating jeans. We lost these jobs to China and other asian countries. No trade deals there.
- bio pharmaceutical. This hurt a lot. The job loss is one thing, but for years the government listen to their lobbyists and granted them everything they wanted: subsidized R&D costs (refundable tax credits and direct subsidies) and longer patent duration. Despite this, they still moved a lot of their production elsewhere. Not in Mexico. Not in the US. A little in Asia, a lot in Europe. I'd like Trump supporters to explain me that one, how it was caused by NAFTA
- general manufacturing: anything from car making to train making. Lots of this is now done elsewhere in the world. Mexico is a joke. They ain't productive at all. Bombardier's plants has to give work to a subcontractor who can't do all the job and has to subcontract it too. Yet, it's still more competitive than the plant were workers were proud to say they were paid for 8hrs while working 6hrs at most. Gee, I wonder why they chose Mexico and China (who is not part of NAFTA, last I checked).
As we make more&more trade deals and reduce tariffs, a lot more people can afford our products and obviously, we often can have them made for cheaper than here, for various reasons, including different health&safety and environmental regulations. Poverty is lessenning all accross the globe. Given the provisions in CETA and TPP, if anything, it would have evened out the playing field, not made it worst. Sure, we remove tariffs, but currency manipulation is made more transparent so actions can be taken or complaints registered to the arbitration tribunal with hope of a relatively quick resolution. Child work was now forbidden and various legislation had to be put in places, and observers were designated to insure monitoring of fair trade practices. Not ideal, but compared to the actual situation and what will happen when China take the lead, certainly much better than now.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on November 22, 2016, 11:39:58 AM
The people were promised greater prosperity with free trade, particularly NAFTA, and the country got it. But large segments of the population lost their jobs, and for a variety of reasons have been unable to find equivalently good replacement jobs.
If my job was now done by a Chinese or an Indian, two countries not part of NAFTA, how is this the fault of NAFTA? Are there some provisions in NAFTA that I'm not aware of that make delocalization toward Asia and India easier than it was before?
Quote
Part of the issue a lot of people who live in highly prosperous economic areas (like NYC, Pacific NW, the Bay Area, NoVa etc) is that a large segment of the American population wants to have the ability to work good paying jobs where they are now. There's a class of Americans who are highly mobile and jet around the country, abandoning family and friends. It's to their economic benefit, and they're part of the "new economy." But there are a lot of Americans who really value being able to raise their kids in the same town they were raised in, where they can keep all their friends from High School, where their parents are nearby and can be involved in their kid's lives etc. No one is putting "new economy" jobs into Youngstown, OH or La Crosse, WI, or Altoona, PA, but a lot of old economy jobs were located there, and the people who worked them or whose father's and mother's worked them still live in those areas.
That is true. I sympathize with these people to an extend. But imho, doing the same thing as your great grandparents and your grandparents did is not a God given right.
Women, blacks and gay can now work for the same pay. Is it too liberal, too much to the left to give everyone the same access to the work market? Obviously, it means there are less jobs available to white men. It means they have to get better than their great grandparents were. They need to prove they can justify their wage. And many don't.
I see it in my business, with the type of people prefers to hire
vs the type of people I'm trying to keep. Uneducated workers, barely able to write their name correctly
vs skilled manual workers able to use a computer and a smartphone/tablet, able to learn new techniques as they come out. And a lot of the people losing their job and unable to find a new one belong to that first category.
And then there are those who face the consequences of the political decisions to prefer a mono-industrial town to a diverse economy. Give tax credit or other subsidies to a specific plant and it will create jobs. For a while. Other businesses won't develop because they can't compete. And when these big corporations decide to close a shop in Montreal to move it to Tennessee or Alabama because the State and the city gives them a shitton of cash to open a new plant there, well, you lose everything.
But we have indirect control over it. We have the power to change the morons who want to create jobs by subsidizing everything. Yet, we chose not to. Time and time again, whenever someone different comes along, someone who says it's counter productive to place all your eggs in the same basket, he/she is ridiculed. Unions will lobby against these politicians, media will lobby against these policitians and the population will vote again for the same kind of morons promising the same thing that never work.
And one day, you wake up with 25% of your university graduate considered semi-illeterate (able to read, unable to comprehend). 50% of your general population considered the same. And your future looks bleak, Because while you were subsidizing mono industries, other countries invested in R&D. They didn't fight progress, they didn't fight science, they didn't fight elitism: they trained their best to be even better and their averages to become the best.
Quote
Very little in American politics can withstand the nuance of a two sentence explanation, let alone the multiple sentence one required to explain that TPP, NAFTA, were going to be /were net goods for America, albeit with trade offs. You don't get to that point of the discussion and still have the floor, because someone screaming a few words over and over again will always be heard first and louder.
I fear it's the same in Quebec, and in France. So many lies by the left and the extreme right. The lies that are much more comfortable than the hard truth. It seems people prefer to be lied to rather than face the ugly truth: they need to adapt to a changing world. You can not stop progress, it will always get you.
The erosion of these manufacturing jobs goes back to the 1980s, NAFTA absolutely had some impact. Maquiladoras, especially in the auto-parts industry, the actual auto-manufacturing industry and etc absolutely represent lost American jobs. But we've also seen significant increases in automation even since the 1980s, hell, even since the 2000s. A rule of thumb in manufacturing is a machine that replaces a worker must pay for itself in 2-3 years. Lots of machines are getting more affordable relative to the cost of labor that it's making more and more sense to replace workers.
So there's a double squeeze going on, and automation is never going away, and is only likely to increase. In fact if we genuinely make it harder to off-shore manufacturing as Trump suggests, I think you'll see a change to the fundamental calculus of when it makes sense to replace a worker with automation, and you'll see even more investment in factory automation.
Also trade-normalization with China probably cost way more American jobs than NAFTA, depending on who you ask NAFTA was either job neutral or job positive, but trade normalization with China has probably been a net job destroyer, although it's probably been a net wealth creator.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on November 22, 2016, 02:08:49 PM
The erosion of these manufacturing jobs goes back to the 1980s, NAFTA absolutely had some impact.
NAFTA came into effect in 1994. FTA (Canada-USA) came into effect around 1988.
You can't blame something that did not exist for the loss of jobs.
On the contrary, it slowed down the erosion of manufacturing jobs since there was an increase in demand for manufactured products on both sides of the border.
The first automation of jobs in occident in the 80s started the decline in manufacturing jobs. Compared how many workers were needed to produce a car in 1950 vs how many in 1987 and you'll get your answer.
Free trade agreements are actually good for improving market shares of various companies. But eventually, the people who refuse to adapt to change fall behind.
As you say in your other post, the normalization of trade with China did a lot more damage than NAFTA could ever have done. Currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, total disregard for the environment and workers conditions meant they could produce at a fraction of our costs.
The TPP could have helped slowed down erosion, at least, make the Asian countries a little less attractive for delocalization and marginalize China a little bit. But now, it's dead.