Robert Reich: The Democratic Party Needs To Clean House

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  • November 12, 2016 at 6:42 pm #57986
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEEDS TO CLEAN HOUSE

    BY ROBERT REICH

    http://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-democratic-party-needs-clean-house-519704

    As a first step, I believe it necessary for the members and leadership of the Democratic National Committee to step down and be replaced by people who are determined to create a party that represents America, including all those who feel powerless and disenfranchised, and who have been left out of our politics and left behind in our economy.

    The Democratic Party as it is now constituted has become a giant fundraising machine, too often reflecting the goals and values of the moneyed interests. This must change. The election of 2016 has repudiated it.

    We need a people’s party—a party capable of organizing and mobilizing Americans in opposition to Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which is about to take over all three branches of the U.S. government. We need a New Democratic Party that will fight against intolerance and widening inequality.

    What happened in America Tuesday should not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.

    At the core of that structure are the political leaders of both parties, their political operatives and fundraisers; the major media, centered in New York and Washington DC; the country’s biggest corporations, their top executives and Washington lobbyists and trade associations; the biggest Wall Street banks, their top officers, traders, hedge-fund and private-equity managers and their lackeys in Washington; and the wealthy individuals who invest directly in politics.

    At the start of the 2016 election cycle, this power structure proclaimed Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush shoo-ins for the nominations of the Democratic and Republican parties. After all, both of these individuals had deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisers and all the political name recognition any candidate could possibly want.

    But a funny thing happened on the way to the White House. The presidency was won by Donald Trump, who made his fortune marketing office towers and casinos, and, more recently, starring in a popular reality television program, and who has never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party.

    Hillary Clinton narrowly won the popular vote, but not enough of the states and their electors secure a victory.

    Hillary Clinton’s defeat is all the more remarkable in that her campaign vastly outspent the Trump campaign on television and radio advertisements, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Moreover, her campaign had the support in the general election not of only the kingpins of the Democratic Party but also many leading Republicans, including most of the politically active denizens of Wall Street and the top executives of America’s largest corporations, and even former Republican president George H.W. Bush.

    Her campaign team was run by seasoned professionals who knew the ropes. She had the visible and forceful backing of Barack Obama, whose popularity has soared in recent months, and his popular wife. And, of course, she had her husband.

    Trump, by contrast, was shunned by the power structure. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, actively worked against Trump’s nomination. Many senior Republicans refused to endorse him, or even give him their support. The Republican National Committee did not raise money for Trump to the extent it had for other Republican candidates for president.

    What happened?

    There had been hints of the political earthquake to come. Trump had won the Republican primaries, after all. More tellingly, Hillary Clinton had been challenged in the Democratic primaries by the unlikeliest of candidates—a 74-year-old Jewish senator from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and who was not even a Democrat.

    Bernie Sanders went on to win 22 states and 47 percent of the vote in those primaries. Sanders’s major theme was that the country’s political and economic system was rigged in favor of big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy.

    The power structure of America wrote off Sanders as an aberration and, until recently, didn’t take Trump seriously. A respected political insider recently told me most Americans were largely content with the status quo. “The economy is in good shape,” he said. “Most Americans are better off than they’ve been in years.”

    Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay and the undermining of democracy by big money.

    Median family income is lower now than it was 16 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Workers without college degrees—the old working class—have fallen furthest. Most economic gains, meanwhile, have gone to top. These gains have translated into political power to elicit bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, favorable trade deals and increasing market power without interference by anti-monopoly enforcement—all of which have further reduced wages and pulled up profits.

    Wealth, power and crony capitalism fit together. Americans know a takeover has occurred, and they blame the establishment for it.

    The Democratic Party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades, the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper-middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class—failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes. Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22 percent of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to less than 12 percent today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

    Bill Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify—with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated. The unsurprising result of this combination—more trade, declining unionization and more industry concentration—has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. This created an opening for Trump’s authoritarian demagoguery, and his presidency.

    Now Americans have rebelled by supporting someone who wants to fortify America against foreigners as well as foreign-made goods. The power structure understandably fears that Trump’s isolationism will stymie economic growth. But most Americans couldn’t care less about growth because for years they have received few of its benefits, while suffering most of its burdens in the forms of lost jobs and lower wages.

    The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.

    November 12, 2016 at 7:20 pm #57992
    — X —
    Participant
    zn wrote:

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in. And Killory appeared to offer no substantive change in the status quo. Just cliche’s and regurgitated ‘feels’. And she had the audacity to Champion the state of the Nation and the glorious job Obama had done up to that point. Really? Maybe to the Hollywood elite things were all sunshine and lollipops, but I don’t think she made a concerted effort to really *iisten* to the people. Trump did, and he probably structured his whole campaign around saying the things they all wanted to hear. As bad as that is (if true), how stupid do you have to be to argue against the things he was saying about the economy, and insult the very people who were buying into it? Any one of you on this board could have done a better job advising her throughout her campaign in the general. I’m 100% sure of it.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    November 12, 2016 at 7:25 pm #57995
    Avatar photoInvaderRam
    Moderator

    is the democratic party capable of that kind of change?

    this all reminds me of that who song.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Avatar photoInvaderRam.
    November 12, 2016 at 7:27 pm #57996
    Avatar photowv
    Participant
    — X — wrote:
    zn wrote:

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in. And Killory appeared to offer no substantive change in the status quo. Just cliche’s and regurgitated ‘feels’. And she had the audacity to Champion the state of the Nation and the glorious job Obama had done up to that point. Really? Maybe to the Hollywood elite things were all sunshine and lollipops, but I don’t think she made a concerted effort to really *iisten* to the people. Trump did, and he probably structured his whole campaign around saying the things they all wanted to hear. As bad as that is (if true), how stupid do you have to be to argue against the things he was saying about the economy, and insult the very people who were buying into it? Any one of you on this board could have done a better job advising her throughout her campaign in the general. I’m 100% sure of it.

    ————–
    Well i think Reich is Right about what got Trump in,
    but my own view is that the powers-that-be are just fine with Trump. Or Killery.

    Neither threaten the power structures and both will/would increase inequality
    and enrich the banks and corporations.

    I know you disagree. We shall see in the next four years.

    w
    v

    November 12, 2016 at 7:34 pm #57999
    — X —
    Participant
    wv wrote:

    Neither threaten the power structures and both will/would increase inequality
    and enrich the banks and corporations.

    I know you disagree. We shall see in the next four years.

    I don’t know that I do disagree with that. I never called him a unifier.
    I’m leaving that open, because I can’t presume to know how this will turn out.
    He’s already getting a little wishy-washy early on. But yeah. We’ll see.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    November 12, 2016 at 8:01 pm #58001
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    — X — wrote:
    wv wrote:

    Neither threaten the power structures and both will/would increase inequality
    and enrich the banks and corporations.

    I know you disagree. We shall see in the next four years.

    I don’t know that I do disagree with that. I never called him a unifier.
    I’m leaving that open, because I can’t presume to know how this will turn out.
    He’s already getting a little wishy-washy early on. But yeah. We’ll see.

    But we already know how the GOP does things. We already know their desires to slash taxes for the rich and deregulate the financial sector even more. Trump agrees. We already know that his tax plan would add tens of millions to his own bottom line each year, and potentially hundreds of millions for his kids, when he gets rid of the estate tax.

    We know all of that already.

    If Trump really were the answer for the working class, why on earth would he promise to end an estate tax — a favorite plan of the GOP too — that doesn’t apply to anyone in the bottom 99.8% of the country? Why would he call for slashing taxes on millionaires and billionaires like himself? That’s not going to help one single solitary working class bloke, and the lost revenue will force the rest of us to pick up the slack.

    When the plutocrats skate on their taxes, that means the rest of us pay more — and/or have our benefits slashed.

    Reich’s analysis of the Dems is spot on. He’s probably even guilty of being too soft on them in a lot of ways. But the crazy thing about this election is that Trump and the GOP are the last folks on earth we should count on to help the working and middle class — much less the poor. They’ve never shown the slightest interest in anyone but plutocrats and oligarchs. Let’s not kid ourselves that it’s just the Dems who are in their thrall.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Avatar photoBilly_T.
    November 12, 2016 at 8:11 pm #58003
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    And while it looks like the board basically ignored this article, I think it really, really needs to be read. It’s stunning how little attention this has gotten from the media, IMO:

    Trump’s conflicts of interest take White House into uncharted territory With his children, and not a blind trust, running his company, little prevents the president-elect’s political and business careers from bleeding into each other

    The above isn’t some left-wing fabrication. No one in the Trump camp is denying any of this. In fact, Trump proudly told his own rallies that his kids would run his businesses while he’s prez, and he would break with more than a century of precedent by refusing to put all of that in a blind trust.

    Seriously. Think about the massive number of likely conflicts of interest regarding his holdings — and they’re all over the world. Actions he and the GOP take or don’t take will have direct impact on his wealth, and he’s going to know all about that on a day to day basis.

    The fight over the Dakota Pipeline? Trump has large holdings in that company. People don’t think that’s going to impact his decision to go forward or side with the Native American population there?

    I’ve got some great beachfront property in Afghanistan for ya if you don’t think that will matter.

    November 12, 2016 at 8:20 pm #58004
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    In short: It’s like if people revolted over the destruction of their local water system, disgusted by their elected officials who let this happen. All kinds of great analyses come out, breaking down exactly what went wrong and who’s to blame.

    And in response to all of this great analysis, and that anger, the people decide to go with this huge international corporation, with a history of ripping off municipalities, stealing their water, bottling it up and selling it off across the world. They choose an even greater threat to their water system, instead of someone or some group with a history of actually fighting for clean, sustainable, safe water systems wherever and whenever they’ve been tasked with this.

    November 12, 2016 at 8:21 pm #58005
    — X —
    Participant
    Billy_T wrote:

    But we already know how the GOP does things. We already know their desires to slash taxes for the rich and deregulate the financial sector even more. Trump agrees. We already know that his tax plan would add tens of millions to his own bottom line each year, and potentially hundreds of millions for his kids, when he gets rid of the estate tax.

    We know all of that already.

    If Trump really were the answer for the working class, why on earth would he promise to end an estate tax — a favorite plan of the GOP too — that doesn’t apply to anyone in the bottom 99.8% of the country? Why would he call for slashing taxes on millionaires and billionaires like himself? That’s not going to help one single solitary working class bloke, and the lost revenue will force the rest of us to pick up the slack.

    When the plutocrats skate on their taxes, that means the rest of us pay more — and/or have our benefits slashed.

    I know how it was done.
    I’m waiting to see how it’s done now.

    Maybe it’ll be different, maybe it won’t, but I’m willing to see it play out first. Maybe you aren’t, and that’s fine, but I’m not going to judge the works before the work has even started. Hopefully through smarter regulation, incentives for small business owners, an end to bailouts, a little tort reform, and simplifying the tax code, we can spark a little something. And please, I know you’re going to be cynical of everything I just said there, but understand that I’m not up for debating it right now. Maybe let me just ride on the wave of promises if only just for a little while. Some of us are hopeful. But also, understand, nobody will be more critical of this new Administration than me if they fail to deliver on their promises. Wait until I’m an ally, in other words.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    November 12, 2016 at 8:29 pm #58006
    Avatar photoInvaderRam
    Moderator

    “We’re not going to be involved in government,” Trump Jr told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in September on Good Morning America. “He wants nothing to do with [the company]. He wants to fix this country.”

    oh, dear.

    we won’t get fooled again?

    November 12, 2016 at 11:06 pm #58009
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator
    — X — wrote:
    zn wrote:

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in.

    I completely agree.

    The white supremacists did endorse Trump, but for all the attention they got, they just aren’t that big of a bloc. And they would never vote for a democrat anyway since Democrats are allegedly the party of color.

    I believe it is completely the fact that the Democrats have abandoned the working class, and Trump appealed to them.

    November 12, 2016 at 11:25 pm #58011
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    — X — wrote:

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in.

    But it’s not that alone. After all many of the people who voted for Clinton had the same economic views and interests. And of course, there’s Bernie Sanders, who made those issues core to what he stood for, and could have trounced Trump they say. Sanders meanwhile does not attract the militantly white racial people (people who would never go so far as to be KKK etc.)

    The USA has a long, long history of right-wing populism that turns out also to be, for the lack of a better term, against diversity. That’s very old.

    And the white supremacists are just a fraction. Most people who identify with ordinary every day divisive racial politics would not identify with overt white supremacists. (Though he did hire people from the white nationalism intelligentsia to be advisors.)

    There was an anti-gay, anti-muslim, and anti-immigrant, everyday not creepily over the top edge to his appeal. That is there. You are far more likely to find that among Trump voters than among Clinton voters. And Pence is a dead give-away. I happen to know some things about him because I have some family in Indiana.

    On top of it his economic policies kind of slid in there without people noticing that it is the exact same stuff that caused the decline they’re reacting against. Ordinary supply side stuff that is precisely what caused the huge (and crippling) inequality gap.

    In terms of the trade agreements, that was rhetoric. Real objection to the trade agreements noted among other things not only that they moved jobs overseas, they put in place conditions that prevent poor workers across the globe to improve their condition. The blame is misplaced and nothing Trump could or would do is going to reverse that.

    Well that’s enough but in short, I just see the entire thing differently. My neighbors are all pro-Trump and they’re trying to get reactions from me, but I am being my usual diffident self and steer the conversation to how to dispose of our shit-tons of autumn leaves. I did bet one neighbor 5 dollars that within 4 years the economy is NOT going to get any better.

    November 12, 2016 at 11:37 pm #58013
    — X —
    Participant
    zn wrote:

    Well that’s enough but in short, I just see the entire thing differently. My neighbors are all pro-Trump and they’re trying to get reactions from me, but I am being my usual diffident self and steer the conversation to how to dispose of our shit-tons of autumn leaves. I did bet one neighbor 5 dollars that within 4 years the economy is NOT going to get any better.

    I know you do, and I respect that. And I know there are a lot of other reasons why people voted for Trump – including having a deep-seeded need to bring the Country back to old school Christian values. Which, by extension, includes some people who would prefer the majority of the Country be a little more pale. But there are a lot of people who specifically cited the economy, and the shit job the previous administration had done with trade, that encouraged them to vote for someone they felt had superior business acumen. Without going into his bankruptcies, or his alleged tax evasion, people really do see him as someone who can use his negotiation skills and already formed relationships with foreign countries to tip the scales back in favor of the U.S. Personally, I think it takes a little more than that, so I’m maintaining hope that he can draft from the pool of some pretty brilliant economists to help, and to challenge him. No “yes men”. He needs people who can tell him no.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    November 13, 2016 at 12:09 am #58014
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    X,

    Would you take a moment and address this?

    Trump is breaking with more than a century of precedent by refusing to place his large business holdings in a blind trust. His children, who are a part of his transition team, will be taking over all of that, directly. Trump obviously knows what he owns, the stocks, the companies, the land, the deals in place and pending. If it was questionable or worse for the Clintons to run a charity while HRC was at State, why is it not an even greater issue when Trump is in the White House and his kids continue to run his business empire?

    Is it only “crony capitalism” when anyone but a Republican does it? Is it only a conflict of interest and “pay to play” when anyone else but a Republican does it?

    Seriously. How can this not piss off the very people who screamed bloody murder about “The Clinton Crime Syndicate” with all of their allegedly shady deals, real or imagined?

    November 13, 2016 at 12:22 am #58016
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    Zooey wrote:
    — X — wrote:
    zn wrote:

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in.

    I completely agree.

    The white supremacists did endorse Trump, but for all the attention they got, they just aren’t that big of a bloc. And they would never vote for a democrat anyway since Democrats are allegedly the party of color.

    I believe it is completely the fact that the Democrats have abandoned the working class, and Trump appealed to them.

    Yes, the Dems have abandoned the working class. No question. Probably started in the early 1970s, accelerated under Reagan, Clinton and hopefully hit its zenith under Obama. They did this in favor of the donor-class, upper-management, the “meritocracy” and the technocracy, to boil it down. Basically, your richest 10%.

    But the answer to all of that never was and never will be their kissing cousins, the Republicans, who have never done anything but crush that very same class. The GOP couldn’t abandon a class they never tried to help in the first place. They can’t claim to have ever been their champions, and none of their current policies would do anything but hurt them. At least the Dems have some institutional memory of once being at least obliquely in their corner. They at least can point to FDR and the New Deal, for example.

    That said, it’s pretty obvious America needs a true labor party. Not like the Brits with their centrist and safe version. But an actual, true, leftist labor party with a radical egalitarian platform. We need to start there, and work toward shit-canning capitalism altogether, cuz that’s really the only way to solve all of this. Even strong “progressive” medicine is too weak for our massive divisions and neck-breaking hierarchies.

    The only real answer is to tear down all pyramids, end competitive economics and replace that with non-hierarchical, cooperative, radically democratic, small is beautiful economies. We won’t fix this until we kill economic apartheid, once and for all.

    November 13, 2016 at 1:15 am #58025
    — X —
    Participant
    Billy_T wrote:

    X,

    Would you take a moment and address this?

    Trump is breaking with more than a century of precedent by refusing to place his large business holdings in a blind trust. His children, who are a part of his transition team, will be taking over all of that, directly. Trump obviously knows what he owns, the stocks, the companies, the land, the deals in place and pending. If it was questionable or worse for the Clintons to run a charity while HRC was at State, why is it not an even greater issue when Trump is in the White House and his kids continue to run his business empire?

    Okay.

    A. He’s not the President yet, so he’s not doing anything wrong — yet.
    B. Did you expect him to totally divest and put his holdings in the hands of 5 other people within 4 days?
    C. Trump’s fortunes are largely built on his brand. How do you put a “brand” in a blind trust? Anything Trump does as president will affect the value of that brand anyway. His kids are also a huge part of his businesses too, so how does he then eliminate the conflict of interest between the business and his job as POTUS? Divest his kids? If one of them creates a new business in the next couple of years, is there a conflict of interest for Trump if he signs a bill into law that ends up benefiting *that* business? Do they also need to put *their* holdings in a blind trust?

    Billy_T wrote:

    Is it only “crony capitalism” when anyone but a Republican does it? Is it only a conflict of interest and “pay to play” when anyone else but a Republican does it?

    Are you suggesting I’m being hypocritical somehow?
    Or is that one of those questions you just threw out there into the ambient air?

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by -- X --.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    November 13, 2016 at 7:33 am #58031
    bnw
    Blocked
    Billy_T wrote:

    And while it looks like the board basically ignored this article, I think it really, really needs to be read. It’s stunning how little attention this has gotten from the media, IMO:

    Trump’s conflicts of interest take White House into uncharted territory With his children, and not a blind trust, running his company, little prevents the president-elect’s political and business careers from bleeding into each other

    The above isn’t some left-wing fabrication. No one in the Trump camp is denying any of this. In fact, Trump proudly told his own rallies that his kids would run his businesses while he’s prez, and he would break with more than a century of precedent by refusing to put all of that in a blind trust.

    Seriously. Think about the massive number of likely conflicts of interest regarding his holdings — and they’re all over the world. Actions he and the GOP take or don’t take will have direct impact on his wealth, and he’s going to know all about that on a day to day basis.

    The fight over the Dakota Pipeline? Trump has large holdings in that company. People don’t think that’s going to impact his decision to go forward or side with the Native American population there?

    I’ve got some great beachfront property in Afghanistan for ya if you don’t think that will matter.

    It will end the world as we know it.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    November 13, 2016 at 7:35 am #58032
    bnw
    Blocked
    Billy_T wrote:

    In short: It’s like if people revolted over the destruction of their local water system, disgusted by their elected officials who let this happen. All kinds of great analyses come out, breaking down exactly what went wrong and who’s to blame.

    And in response to all of this great analysis, and that anger, the people decide to go with this huge international corporation, with a history of ripping off municipalities, stealing their water, bottling it up and selling it off across the world. They choose an even greater threat to their water system, instead of someone or some group with a history of actually fighting for clean, sustainable, safe water systems wherever and whenever they’ve been tasked with this.

    Great description of those that voted for Hildabeast.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    November 13, 2016 at 7:38 am #58034
    bnw
    Blocked
    Zooey wrote:
    — X — wrote:
    zn wrote:

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in.

    I completely agree.

    The white supremacists did endorse Trump, but for all the attention they got, they just aren’t that big of a bloc. And they would never vote for a democrat anyway since Democrats are allegedly the party of color.

    I believe it is completely the fact that the Democrats have abandoned the working class, and Trump appealed to them.

    Wow you finally admitted Trump wasn’t elected because of racism. Good job.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    November 13, 2016 at 8:16 am #58039
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    — X — wrote:
    Billy_T wrote:

    X,

    Would you take a moment and address this?

    Trump is breaking with more than a century of precedent by refusing to place his large business holdings in a blind trust. His children, who are a part of his transition team, will be taking over all of that, directly. Trump obviously knows what he owns, the stocks, the companies, the land, the deals in place and pending. If it was questionable or worse for the Clintons to run a charity while HRC was at State, why is it not an even greater issue when Trump is in the White House and his kids continue to run his business empire?

    Okay.

    A. He’s not the President yet, so he’s not doing anything wrong — yet.
    B. Did you expect him to totally divest and put his holdings in the hands of 5 other people within 4 days?
    C. Trump’s fortunes are largely built on his brand. How do you put a “brand” in a blind trust? Anything Trump does as president will affect the value of that brand anyway. His kids are also a huge part of his businesses too, so how does he then eliminate the conflict of interest between the business and his job as POTUS? Divest his kids? If one of them creates a new business in the next couple of years, is there a conflict of interest for Trump if he signs a bill into law that ends up benefiting *that* business? Do they also need to put *their* holdings in a blind trust?

    Billy_T wrote:

    Is it only “crony capitalism” when anyone but a Republican does it? Is it only a conflict of interest and “pay to play” when anyone else but a Republican does it?

    Are you suggesting I’m being hypocritical somehow?
    Or is that one of those questions you just threw out there into the ambient air?

    A. He told us he would not put his business in a blind trust and that his kids would run it. He told people that before the election. He also broke with decades of precedent by hiding his tax returns, though we managed to see a couple. This, too, shielded the American people from the truth about his entanglements and potential conflicts of interest. But from his financial statement, we still got a pretty good idea that they’re legion.

    B. It’s not about timing. He said he won’t do it. It’s not that it takes time and we need to be patient. He won’t be doing what all other presidents have done for well over a century, and for obvious reasons.

    C. What you describe is not our problem. It’s not just up to the American people to try to figure out a way to make sure Trump doesn’t act to increase his wealth. That’s on him, and he’s taken absolutely no steps to come close to doing so. And, you’ve also described why it was insane to elect him in the first place, and why it’s always going to be insane to elect a billionaire businessman or woman. Even with a serious blind trust, they are ripe for mega-conflict-of-interest.

    November 13, 2016 at 8:27 am #58040
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    — X — wrote:

    Are you suggesting I’m being hypocritical somehow?
    Or is that one of those questions you just threw out there into the ambient air?

    No, X. I see you as one of the “sane” conservatives.

    ;>)

    But we’ve all heard the screaming frying monkey crowd tell us how “corrupt” Clinton is for having a charity, and how that apparently helped her become a trillionaire, even though there’s no evidence she benefited financially from her time at State. She probably did. That’s the pattern under capitalism. “Pay to play” is what it is because our economic system is what it is. But we don’t have any evidence to show that for her. But a lot of people on the right said she was the “most corrupt politician evah” based on the idea that she leveraged her connections for personal gain.

    Now we have a president who doesn’t even have to do this through indirect means. He can easily benefit massively from his actions in the White House — directly, instantly, that hour. No middlemen needed.

    Undo Obama’s hold on the pipeline in Dakota? Trump has big investments in that. Cut deals with Arab princes for weapons? Trump has huge investments in the Middle East. Cut deals with Russia? Let them take over their former satellites? That will greatly benefit Trump’s bottom line along with his buddy’s, Putin.

    It’s been said too often, but we really are in uncharted waters.

    And that said, you still didn’t really answer my question, my Dudeist friend. What do you actually think about his unprecedented potential for conflict of interests — and the fact that he can benefit immediately, hour to hour? Unlike the usual “grease the skids” politicians, he won’t have to wait until after he leaves office to see a return, or get shafted by donors who change their minds. He really will “win” often and bigly.

    November 13, 2016 at 8:37 am #58041
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    bnw wrote:
    Zooey wrote:
    — X — wrote:
    zn wrote:

    Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

    I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in.

    I completely agree.

    The white supremacists did endorse Trump, but for all the attention they got, they just aren’t that big of a bloc. And they would never vote for a democrat anyway since Democrats are allegedly the party of color.

    I believe it is completely the fact that the Democrats have abandoned the working class, and Trump appealed to them.

    Wow you finally admitted Trump wasn’t elected because of racism. Good job.

    Well, I disagree with Zooey on that one. Obviously, all the people who voted for Trump weren’t racists. But all the racists voted for Trump. And under our election system, with a seriously divided nation and lots of close calls state by state, that percentage was the key to helping him win the Electoral College.

    And he hired a racist to be his campaign manager, Steve Bannon.

    It’s looking more and more like Clinton will win big in the popular vote, btw. Most of the outstanding votes are in California, Washington and New York. She’s already up to something like a lead of 1.8 million. She may well end up with a 3-million-vote edge.

    And Trump is going to end up in the Romney and McCain range. A loozer. That sure is some “majority” mass movement you got there.

    November 13, 2016 at 9:30 am #58049
    bnw
    Blocked
    Billy_T wrote:

    It’s looking more and more like Clinton will win big in the popular vote, btw. Most of the outstanding votes are in California, Washington and New York. She’s already up to something like a lead of 1.8 million. She may well end up with a 3-million-vote edge.

    And Trump is going to end up in the Romney and McCain range. A loozer. That sure is some “majority” mass movement you got there. 306 to 232 is a thumping.

    Whats more impressive and gratifying is all those majority “loozer” voters bunched up in a few blue states. Should Trump turn the economy around and turn MI, OH, WI and PA into reliable red states then that “majority” mass movement is something you will have to get used to.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by bnw.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    November 13, 2016 at 9:34 am #58050
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    bnw wrote:
    Billy_T wrote:

    It’s looking more and more like Clinton will win big in the popular vote, btw. Most of the outstanding votes are in California, Washington and New York. She’s already up to something like a lead of 1.8 million. She may well end up with a 3-million-vote edge.

    And Trump is going to end up in the Romney and McCain range. A loozer. That sure is some “majority” mass movement you got there.

    Whats more impressive and gratifying is all those majority “loozer” voters bunched up in a few blue states. Should Trump turn the economy around and turn MI, OH, WI and PA into reliable red states then that “majority” mass movement is something you will have to get used to.

    “Turn the economy around.” Okay, I’ve asked you this before, and you’ve never really answered. What exactly is Trump going to do to make this happen? Please supply specifics, because he never did.

    “We’re going to stop the jobs from leaving, and bring them back” is not a plan. It’s an empty promise, which all politicians make. What is he going to do, specifically, to make this happen — especially when his call for massive deregulation of businesses conflicts with any claim about forcing the jobs to stay home. The two things are completely at odds.

    November 13, 2016 at 9:38 am #58052
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    btw,

    Also: If Trump does go against decades of GOP policy and plans to lift up the 1% and crush the 99% — if he does, in fact, focus solely on making life better for all Americans, instead of just the 1%, then I’d support that too.

    But, right off the bat, he’d have to at least dump his tax proposals, because all of that is just standard issue, feed the plutocrats bullshit. All of that just wildly increases the gap between rich and poor, rich and the middle, the middle and the poor.

    And, hands piles and piles of cash to Trump himself and his children in the bargain.

    You’ve never dealt with that aspect of his proposals either, bnw.

    November 13, 2016 at 9:44 am #58053
    bnw
    Blocked
    Billy_T wrote:
    bnw wrote:
    Billy_T wrote:

    It’s looking more and more like Clinton will win big in the popular vote, btw. Most of the outstanding votes are in California, Washington and New York. She’s already up to something like a lead of 1.8 million. She may well end up with a 3-million-vote edge.

    And Trump is going to end up in the Romney and McCain range. A loozer. That sure is some “majority” mass movement you got there.

    Whats more impressive and gratifying is all those majority “loozer” voters bunched up in a few blue states. Should Trump turn the economy around and turn MI, OH, WI and PA into reliable red states then that “majority” mass movement is something you will have to get used to.

    “Turn the economy around.” Okay, I’ve asked you this before, and you’ve never really answered. What exactly is Trump going to do to make this happen? Please supply specifics, because he never did.

    “We’re going to stop the jobs from leaving, and bring them back” is not a plan. It’s an empty promise, which all politicians make. What is he going to do, specifically, to make this happen — especially when his call for massive deregulation of businesses conflicts with any claim about forcing the jobs to stay home. The two things are completely at odds.

    Hopefully zn can edit out the “306 to 232 is a thumping.” since I mistakenly put that in your quote. I wanted it at the end of my post. The edit function disappeared or I would have fixed it.

    We have gone over this before. Better trade deals, less regulation, tax breaks, repatriation of corporate cash from abroad, tariff on goods brought into the US by manufacturers that stiffed the US worker and taxpayer, $1 Trillion infrastructure modernization and a stop to illegal immigration. A very synergistic approach.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by bnw.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    November 13, 2016 at 10:05 am #58059
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    bnw wrote:

    We have gone over this before. Better trade deals, less regulation, tax breaks, repatriation of corporate cash from abroad, tariff on goods brought into the US by manufacturers that stiffed the US worker and taxpayer, $1 Trillion infrastructure modernization and a stop to illegal immigration. A very synergistic approach.

    The only thing on that list that will help any worker is the trillion for infrastructure. If he gets that through a GOP congress which fought against all of Obama’s infrastructure proposals, it will be a miracle. But I’d definitely support that. Big time.

    All the rest just help the 1% or the 0.1%. It’s just standard issue trickle down. The GOP has peddled that for decades, and it’s never worked for anyone but the rich.

    Every time we’ve tried that tax holiday stuff — the last time was 2004 — it’s been an utter failure. Google it and you’ll find even conservative publications blasting that idea. No serious economists support it. It’s just rewarding anti-American corporate behavior, and has never resulted in net benefits for us.

    Repatriation Tax Holiday Would Lose Revenue And Is a Proven Policy Failure

    And tariffs? Under the system of global capitalism, which conservatives helped bigly to create, and Trump exploits, that would backfire big time. You don’t think other nations would respond in kind? At best, that cancels out Trump’s move. At best.

    November 14, 2016 at 12:54 pm #58297
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator
    bnw wrote:

    Whats more impressive and gratifying is all those majority “loozer” voters bunched up in a few blue states. Should Trump turn the economy around and turn MI, OH, WI and PA into reliable red states then that “majority” mass movement is something you will have to get used to.

    The demographics of the US are changing, and those demographics favor more liberal politics. And although you don’t want to believe it, Trump won only because he ran against the worst possible candidate the Democrats could have nominated. Either Biden or Sanders would have beat him going away.

    November 14, 2016 at 1:01 pm #58302
    Avatar photowv
    Participant
    Zooey wrote:
    bnw wrote:

    Whats more impressive and gratifying is all those majority “loozer” voters bunched up in a few blue states. Should Trump turn the economy around and turn MI, OH, WI and PA into reliable red states then that “majority” mass movement is something you will have to get used to.

    The demographics of the US are changing, and those demographics favor more liberal politics. And although you don’t want to believe it, Trump won only because he ran against the worst possible candidate the Democrats could have nominated. Either Biden or Sanders would have beat him going away.

    ————-
    I’m not so sure of that. I dunno if Biden or Bernie would have beaten him.

    Maybe.

    I sure would have loved to have seen a Trump vs Bernie election. That woulda been somethin ta see. An actual, real, choice.

    w
    v

    November 14, 2016 at 1:19 pm #58307
    bnw
    Blocked
    wv wrote:
    Zooey wrote:
    bnw wrote:

    Whats more impressive and gratifying is all those majority “loozer” voters bunched up in a few blue states. Should Trump turn the economy around and turn MI, OH, WI and PA into reliable red states then that “majority” mass movement is something you will have to get used to.

    The demographics of the US are changing, and those demographics favor more liberal politics. And although you don’t want to believe it, Trump won only because he ran against the worst possible candidate the Democrats could have nominated. Either Biden or Sanders would have beat him going away.

    ————-
    I’m not so sure of that. I dunno if Biden or Bernie would have beaten him.

    Maybe.

    I sure would have loved to have seen a Trump vs Bernie election. That woulda been somethin ta see. An actual, real, choice.

    w
    v

    I agree with the latest information coming out I believe Trump would have beaten both Bernie and Biden. People want change.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

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