USA Politics: Fate of the World

[Skalpadda]

Jesus Tiger, just above the bit you quoted I wrote:

I think people voted for him for lots of reasons: They bought into the anti-establishment circus, they thought he’d genuinely do something for workers, decades of anti-Clinton sentiment made a lot of people genuinely scared of her, a significant chunk of evangelicals are completely insane and will excuse anything if it lets them roll back abortion rights (and there’s other, even crazier stuff, like Israel). Some were probably just racists who loved the dog whistles and wink-nudge bigotry. A lot were probably just people who vote R because that’s what they always do.

Now could you give me some high profile examples of people who have dismissed all republican voters as nutjobs please?

Maybe what he means is that it only works on a certain kind of person, and that kind of person isn’t likely to vote liberal.

Well, regardless I think that’s true.

[LexW]

Let me put this on the table:

I think there’s a much more straightforward explanation for white Americans (for it was they) voting for Trump than “grievances” or the like. I think it’s because they know they’re “on top”, and they’re scared that they won’t be. It’s not even really about Trump, in a sense, much as he is a focal point for a lot of insanity. But Trump in particularly represents an “I will turn back the clock” attitude. You can see that in bizarre stuff like his “de-naturalization agency”. They don’t necessarily even have to be racists in the conventional “actually hate people of other colours” sense. They just need to think that Trump is what will keep them on top. Thus they don’t have a grievance to be answered, but rather a fear which rationality is not likely to dispel.

I have no doubt this is a huge part of what makes a guy earning $120k/pa vote Trump. That and potentially lower taxes.

Oddly this might mean someone like Biden - old and white and clearly from “the good old days” might have beaten Trump. That’s a pretty shit judgment on America though. And bolsters the notion that it wasn’t particularly Hillary’s fault she lost.

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

Oddly this might mean someone like Biden - old and white and clearly from “the good old days” might have beaten Trump. That’s a pretty shit judgment on America though. And bolsters the notion that it wasn’t particularly Hillary’s fault she lost.

Biden wouldn’t have won. The problem isn’t, and this time I’m going to simplify because you and Skal keep missing this very important bit - the choice of candidate, it’s that the candidate lacked a valid narrative. Presidents win or lose based on the story they can sell to the electorate (unlike parties who tend to win or lose based on the issues they can sell to the electorate).

Presidents win by selling a narrative, the simpler the better. They win by taking the most basic version of their message and making it something that sticks in the mind of the voter. Don’t believe me? We’ll start with Reagan, his big sell - “Reaganomics” , Obama “Change we need” , Obama again “Forward”, “We can do better” JFK

See where I’m going? Take your campaign message, make it into something you can drill into the minds of the voters, an idea that will stick and grow.

Hillary’s message - “I’m with her” - That’s not a campaign message, that’s a statement. Much like Hillary’s campaign, it was a collection of facts and lacked any narrative to coalesce around.

Trump literally Forrest Gumped his way to the Presidency because he took a narrative “Make America Great Again” and sold it off the back of the people who didn’t like Obama (the right). He might be stupid, but he sold a story where the rest of the GOP field had nothing cohesive.

I hate to discard all the policies and all the nuances but American elections really do boil down to soundbites at times. They boil down into something you can rally your voters around, you need to be able to inspire and impress upon your voter base. Being President is as much about the image you project as much as anything you might stand for. What you do matters more once you’re in office.

Political parties are much more about the substantive policy (like in the UK) because we have whips and despite the odd rebel here and there, it’s people buying into a party’s specific vision for the future.

[Skalpadda]

As far as I can tell you’ve put forth two positions now: That US elections are won on one simple message and that they’re lost because one side dismissed the other entirely (which I’d still like to see some proof of actually happening). Those things certainly matter a lot, but it just looks like an enormous oversimplification. It’s ignoring a whole host of things that happened during the campaign and lumps a population of hundreds of millions into binary groups.

And while I know you hold a “both sides are equally bad” position, there’s one side here that keeps pandering to bigotry, keeps throwing up white supremacist candidates, smashing democratic institutions, capturing agencies and legislatures, attacking separation of powers and running with conspiracy theories. There are limits to how far you can pander and be tolerant to that crap.

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

That US elections are won on one simple message and that they’re lost because one side dismissed the other entirely (which I’d still like to see some proof of actually happening).

They’re won on a narrative. The narrative is constructed around the most simple, most emotive message that your policies might convey. Obama’s “Change” message was predicated on the fact that Bush was no longer popular, the GOP was about as likeable as pond sludge and there was a genuine desire for something new in the air. The GOP didn’t have any decent candidates, McCain’s message was muddled and couldn’t be simplified into anything cohesive. Obama motivated and inspired in a way that not many Presidents ever have managed. Perhaps that was a double-edged sword in a way too, he did so well that people expected too much of him.

Presidents are made or broken on their ability to convey a narrative that the electorate can buy into. Trump sold a very simple message. Not a nice one I will freely admit, but one that worked. He said “I will put you first and I will put them second, and I will make you (America) great again” - Them being anyone that the voter base had misplaced hatred or dislike for. He sold them hatred and they loved him for it.

There are two things in politics you can’t sell. Pragmatism and presupposition. Pragmatism has no personality and no narrative, people rarely vote pragmatically, they vote emotionally, they vote tribally, they vote because their family voted for xyz, or they vote because xyz believes in emotive issue abc. Nobody votes for someone because they did complex math and worked out they’d be a few hundred quid a year better off under candidate A rather than candidate B.

Presupposition doesn’t sell because it tells voters what to think and what to believe, and the moment you try doing that, you’ve already lost. That turns voters off fast, because Voters dislike the concept of not having a say, their vote is important to them and if you make them feel like it’s not, you’ve lost them.

These two factors are what killed Clinton’s campaign, since it was founded on both of these pillars, it was built around the concept of pragmatism, she made a very good and cogent case, factually for her being President, but for all the facts that you lay out, you’re not trying to win a court case, you’re trying to inspire your electorate to rally around you and carry you to victory, that’s difficult to do if all you do is recite facts and don’t build a cohesive narrative of where you are going or what you want to achieve with them.

Presupposition was even more damaging because both Clinton and media friendly to Clinton all assumed Clinton was going to win. So why worry about the wacky orange clown with his silly red “MAGA” caps? Not considering that possibly those caps that were being handed out were advertising Trump’s message everywhere they were seen and they were being worn by the very people that Trump was trying to reach and then on display to anyone who was not totally convinced? Why engage with someone who could barely string a sentence together and just used the word “biggliest”.

Those same two factors are why the Brexit vote went the way it did, presuming that people will just be pragmatic is the most dangerous assumption imaginable. Presuming people in Europe will just pragmatically accept mass migrant inflow is why we now have Germany creating Hungary style “Transit zones” in their territory meaning soon we’ll have stateless zones in mainland Europe (much like airside airport lounges, but much bigger). This could have been avoided had Merkel, y’know, not decided initially to throw open the doors and cause the biggest single political migration crisis in the EU, thus opening the door for the right wing nutjob parties.

Yes, I entirely agree one side keeps throwing up all kinds of nutjob stuff, but when the other side creates the space for this to happen, that’s why both sides are as bad. The left keeps opening the door for these monsters and now wonders why the Right is shitting on the bed and ripping up the curtains.

[LexW]

Presidents win by selling a narrative, the simpler the better. They win by taking the most basic version of their message and making it something that sticks in the mind of the voter. Don’t believe me? We’ll start with Reagan, his big sell - “Reaganomics” , Obama “Change we need” , Obama again “Forward”, “We can do better” JFK

How does that work with Bush, though? He no consistent narrative and won twice. Gore did have a pretty good narrative, but lost. Well, maybe he didn’t lose, maybe it was the hanging chads, but either way Gore had the narrative there.

So I don’t think it’s as simple as the narrative. And maybe you can credit Bush’s second win to 9/11 and a swing to conservatism, but again it kinda looks to me like Kerry had the narrative, and was underdone by straightforwardly false allegations (the whole “Swift Boat” pack of lies, which a responsible media would have rapidly debunked, but instead the US media decided it got people watching, so kept pushing it. The allegations were quickly proven completely false after the election, I note.). So I would say Kerry had the narrative - including a familiar-seeming slogan “Let America be America Again” (!!!), but a straightforward smear campaign destroyed that narrative.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_military_service_controversy in case you’re wondering.)

So when you say “Hillary didn’t have a narrative”, well, it’s not entirely untrue, but she lost by such a small margin that I cannot see how you can seriously claim that as the key factor (if you are). Comey 2.0 seems to be the main thing that, had it not happened, she wouldn’t have lost. Just change that, and the narrative doesn’t matter.

However I agree re: this:

He might be stupid, but he sold a story where the rest of the GOP field had nothing cohesive.

Indeed. None of them had a narrative the resonated with the mostly-white, mostly-male, mostly-older, mostly-better-off Republican voter. I’d say Rubio (just as thick as Trump, note) might have had a stronger personal narrative, a strong “Why am I here?”, but he’s Latino and… I don’t think that was ever going to fly.

One of the most amazing things is how far Cruz got, given he gives ever appearance of being an Alien Robot. It’s like if John Redwood was seriously up for leader of the Tory party or something.

Yes, I entirely agree one side keeps throwing up all kinds of nutjob stuff, but when the other side creates the space for this to happen, that’s why both sides are as bad.

This is interesting, because it means that by “bad” you’re not talking about a moral or even really ethical kind of bad, which is perhaps the root of all the confusion here.

Re: can’t sell pragmatism, I don’t think it’s as simple as that, but I think pragmatism only sells if the electorate have been through some serious shit lately, and just want sensible things to happen. Also it can be very easy to package pragmatism well, but you have to focus on how it’s going to benefit people, not on how cool it makes the leader.

I mean, look at ol’ Tone and his lot. They were basically selling pragmatism, when the Tories were rudderless and ideological (as they are once more - I’m not sure they ever stopped being, not fully, not since Thatcher), but they packaged it in very much the same manner Obama did. Not “I’m so cool!”, but rather “You will see a better world through these sensible measures”.

As for presupposition, well, I think you underestimate the media’s role there and overstate the politicians’. The media continually telling people the result will be one way or another is hugely problematic. I kind of feel like maybe opinion polls should be banned for like, 3 months before an election or referendum. Of course that’s terribly anti-free-speech of me…

(That said Cameron et al clearly did view Brexit as a prefunctory sort of thing.)

[Skalpadda]

Again, I think you’re trying to craft a much too tidy narrative of a complex situation. A clearer and more appealing political message might very well have helped a great deal, but it’s not a silver bullet for explaining outcomes when there are so many other events and factors.

Yes, I entirely agree one side keeps throwing up all kinds of nutjob stuff, but when the other side creates the space for this to happen, that’s why both sides are as bad. The left keeps opening the door for these monsters and now wonders why the Right is shitting on the bed and ripping up the curtains.

This sounds awfully close to asking why the Democrats were wearing such short skirts.

[Fumarole]

How does that work with Bush, though? He no consistent narrative and won twice.

It’s worth reminding folks that the last two Republican presidents were first elected into office while losing the popular vote. They became president because of the oddity that is the US Electoral College. Bush’s case was even worse, as it came down to a Supreme Court decision.

The US electorate is slowly but surely moving towards the left. This is due in part to the growing non-white portion of the population. Hell, it won’t be long before Texas turns blue (by 2020 Hispanics will be the largest ethnic group in Texas, but as of now they do not vote in large enough numbers, perhaps Trump will change that), and when that happens Republicans are really fucked as far as the presidency is concerned. This is one reason why they fight so hard against immigration.

In order to stay alive the right needs to change and anti-immigration sentiment, while successful in the short term, is a losing strategy long term. The US is changing and what we’re seeing from the right are the last gasps of a dying ideology.

[Insignus]

RE: Political Narratives.

They are important.

Crafting a strong narrative/message is vital to a campaign, because it forms the connective tissue for a voter to tie their particular interests/preferences that they support in a candidate, to a theoretical future state that they want the country to exist in.

So, I may like Candidate A’s stances on taxes, or healthcare. But their narrative, as expressed by the message - often in slogan form - is the touchstone that instantly lights up and unifies my preferences whenever I see/hear them, and paves over the places I disagree with them, it also lets me connect to their stated vision/mission/agenda, and thus take ownership of it.

The vision/message/agenda is itself often a key part of the narrative.

But the narrative, that’s what lets me not only become politically activated for that candidate - its what lets me spread out and activate others - because the narrative lets me compress the agenda/vision/mission/message of the campaign down into easily transmitted human terms that don’t require 30 minute stump speeches. It lets me tell the story of the future the country/state/city has with a candidate to other voters. So you can can all the right interests, but if I can’t tie them to how you’ll get them done and make the country better, then it doesn’t matter. Similarly, if you have no issues or agenda, you can’t sell the message (Trump did have issues and an agenda - it was all paper-thin and mostly fakery, which passed muster for his base, many of whom, anecdotally, do not have extremely strong grasps of public affairs).

I identified Hillary as a problematic candidate fairly early on. As moderate independent in a deep red state, I had a conversation with my boss in the off-hours (She was a democrat) and we both agreed it was a bad idea.

Because neither of us could truly identify why she was running, other than that she was Hillary Clinton, and it was her turn, and a that a woman needed to be the next president. The first two were throwaways, the last woman was a vague promise that did not inherently mandate that said woman needed to be Hillary Clinton.

With Sanders, you knew that the system was rigged, special interests were running Washington to protect their interests, and that crazy uncle bernie was the last uncorruptible in Washington who would stop at nothing to fix it. Which is why people turned out for him in droves, even when the objective, distance view that I had was that his candidacy was doomed. But with Hillary, it was an almost entirely inertia.

Meticulously planned entropically mandated motion in a vaguely general direction which may or may not be the best course of action to deliver a woman to the white house.

That dog did not hunt for me.

Specifically, my 2016 voting preference was as follows, as decided prior to primary completion:

1. Bernie
2. Kasich
3. Graham
4. Clinton
5. Bush

Trump was not included because he didn’t pass base comparability (My term for “Could I do a better job than this person?”)

[Skalpadda]

Trump asked whether he trusts Putin over the US intel community

I’m sure just listening to the fucker talk makes me stupider.

[Sarfrin]

He’s literally saying he believes Putin over his own intelligence services and calling former US allies in Europe foes. What does the guy have to do before they get rid of him?

[Skalpadda]

And literally went on another buttery males rant instead of answering the question.

I think my favourite bit of comedy was that he thanked Finland for their support with NATO.

According to reporters, Trump thanked the Finnish president for his support and said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has never been stronger.

“I enjoyed being with you a couple of days ago. NATO has, I think, never been stronger. It was a little bit tough at the beginning, but it turned out to be love. I appreciated your support,” Trump said in his opening remarks.

Finland, however, is not in NATO.

[Matt_W]

He’s literally saying he believes Putin over his own intelligence services and calling former US allies in Europe foes. What does the guy have to do before they get rid of him?

What’s even more better is that Putin tells several egregious and obvious lies (Browder funneled $400 million to the Clinton campaign?), apparently just to drive home the point that Trump trusts him more than U.S. intelligence agencies. “See how well trained my dog is!”

---

If you really want a huge, but nauseating dose of schadenfreude today, read the responses to this tweet:

Christopher Orr (OrrChris)

Including this one:

Mollie (MZHemingway)

And then observe this one:

Christopher Orr (OrrChris)

[LexW]

Browder funneled $400 million to the Clinton campaign?

Jesus, I fucking wish he did. No way they’d have lost then.

[Fumarole]

A Republicans president likes Putin and distrusts the FBI. We are living in Bizarro World. When the dirt Putin has on him comes to light it will be quite the moment.

[Skalpadda]

Trump Corrects Himself: I Meant 'I Don't See Any Reason Why It WOULDN'T Be...

Really.

When the dirt Putin has on him comes to light it will be quite the moment.

The impression I get is that Trump was just fine with getting help from Russia in exchange for lifting sanctions and easing off on them in everything else they do. Pure quid pro quo, and the only question is if he just knew while letting others handle it or whether he actually did anything concrete and provable.

He also really seems to have had a genuine obsession with that goddamn Trump Tower Moscow and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s been dangled as a carrot for when he leaves office as long as he plays nice.

Then there’s the money laundering trail that seems to have a lot of support when you look at his businesses (the golf courses, the real estate deals that make no sense, the sudden shift from massive debt to being flush with Russian cash, etc.) and the people he’s surrounded himself with (Cohen, Sater, Manafort, Agalarovs, and on it goes). The prospect of having a massive property in Moscow would be yet another channel to siphon off dirty money.

The more out-there stuff, like the pee tape and suggesting that Putin acts as an actual handler instructing him directly or outright blackmailing him, I’m more sceptical of. What’s already floating out there and pretty well supported is already enough to explain his behaviour, when you factor in what a feckless tit he is.

[Insignus]

On the money laundering thing:

High end exclusive golf courses are notoriously bad investments. They habitually lose money unless you’ve got lots of wealthy people paying in more than dues. Few years back, one of the Trump kids mentioned off handedly to a golf magazine journalist that they got a lot of their money from Russians.

It would make a pretty effective laundering outlet - it’s expected to do poorly, its not really a mainstream business, and a lot of wealthy individuals with influence and clout have their own funds/reputations tied up in them, and as such, one can wave “Club confidentiality” rather convincingly.

[Skalpadda]

It would make a pretty effective laundering outlet

As do his real estate developments. Not just all the shady people from former Soviet countries that kept paying cash for Trump properties, but stuff like the Trump Tower in Azerbaijan shows he has no concept of due diligence or following laws, and isn’t worried in the slightest about getting involved with the filthiest money imaginable.

In other news; THERE WAS NO COLUSION! So I guess that’s settled then.

[Fumarole]

That is a rather large font.

[EPICTHEFAIL]

That is a rather large font.

I’m frankly shocked he knows how to write. Next to that, font size is a minor nitpick.