"Republicans are going to wish Hillary Clinton won"

[pbrower2a]

     "We want to lose this election for strategic reasons!" is an amazing bit of #Analysis that I had thought would be restricted to Atlas, but alas. Nevermind getting to select a SCOTUS nominee or doing something other than obstinately rejecting every bill for another four years; we really just ought to demoralize our opponents.

This guy is the same bonkers fool who used to support President Trump

For the record, nobody in their right minds would trade the Presidency for a handful of seats in an increasingly vestigial legislature. If that trade was worth making, the Democrat party would have thrown Barry out years ago and not let him pulverize 1000 state legislative seats.

Obviously one tries to win every game. There are no 'strategic losses', and a team that loses its last few games to get a more favorable draft pick will undergo some scrutiny. Unintended consequences happen all the time. Maybe had America elected Mitt Romney in 2012 we would never have Donald Trump, but I did not see things that way in 2012 -- and practically nobody else saw things that way, either. A vulgar, vindictive neophyte for President?  No way. Until a cursed day in 2016 that makes me wish that I were a German instead of a German-American, even if I had had to spend my early life in the Communist East Germany.

The moneyed elites found Obama useful for preventing the economic meltdown of the time from destroying wealth and the privilege and power that goes with it as did the 1929-1932  meltdown. Indeed, the first year-and-a-half of the meltdowns beginning in 1929 and 2007 were similarly severe. Obama rescued those elites and saved millions of others from an economic calamity as severe as the Great Depression. Had he not done so he would have been culpable in  allowing a second Great Depression, and the Republicans would have really consolidated power in 2012 or so and established the pure plutocracy of their dreams, one in which opulent splendor of the economic elites is within sight of people starving and homeless.

But many of our economic elites -- owners and executives -- are as rapacious, vulgar, and narcissistic (if not sociopathic) as Donald Trump. Those are the economic equivalents of abusive spouses or parents: one cannot have a good life in their presence. They want Americans other than themselves to endure the poverty of India and the repression of China, only to believe that God has some special blessings in the Afterlife for compliant suffering for people as amoral in their economic values as slave-owning planters of the Old South (which, I regret, is part of the American political heritage).

But this said, I see signs of failure. Americans may believe in Heaven for the righteous, and not only for those who fit a monstrous social order as masters or serfs. They believe, as people in democracies generally do, that government rightly serves objective justice, economic equity, and the mitigation of the harshest tendencies of life.

...Unpopular Presidents generally make the defeat of legislators in their Parties much easier. I can imagine Democrats running against Republican incumbents or successors with slogans like "Just like Trump". At this time in 2009 Obama was even more successful than Trump, and he still faced big losses in the House and Senate in 2010. So what will keep President Trump from seeing Republicans lose 'bigly' in 2018? God help us -- or South Korea and perhaps Japan -- should some cities in either country be added to a short list that consists 'only' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe he might be lucky and cause Americans to rally around him for 'patriotic' reasons, as they did on behalf of Dubya after 9/11.

Donald Trump is a liberal's nightmare, for he is a big-government right-winger, someone who wants to use the government largely to enforce the desires of people who wish to have lucrative privatization (public sector sold off cheaply to monopolists) with plenty of business subsidies and tax cuts for the super-rich but plenty of military spending. As such he also offends libertarians who hold Big Government as a menace even if it acts in good faith.  He may also offend parts of the Religious Right -- especially if their kids do an inordinate share of the dying in wars for profit.

With his tax cuts and his military spending, he will surely bloat the deficits. Liberals surely can agree with libertarians on capital-wasting projects like roads to nowhere and a pointless wall on the Mexican border.  Liberals can tell such religious minorities that tend to the Right -- like Mormons -- that Donald Trump is a crassly-intolerant person with a personal life inconsistent with Mormon modesty who could easily turn against them as he turned against Muslims.

Large-scale politics in America is the creation and service of coalitions. Maybe in the end we will have to do more for ourselves instead of asking Uncle Sucker to assure us of economic opportunity. Donald Trump has betrayed many of his voters of 2016, and I doubt that he will get them back.   

   



 

[pbrower2a]

Obviously one tries to win every game. There are no 'strategic losses', and a team that loses its last few games to get a more favorable draft pick will undergo some scrutiny. Unintended consequences happen all the time. Maybe had America elected Mitt Romney in 2012 we would never have Donald Trump, but I did not see things that way in 2012 -- and practically nobody else saw things that way, either. A vulgar, vindictive neophyte for President?  No way. Until a cursed day in 2016 that makes me wish that I were a German instead of a German-American, even if I had had to spend my early life in the Communist East Germany.

The moneyed elites found Obama useful for preventing the economic meltdown of the time from destroying wealth and the privilege and power that goes with it as did the 1929-1932  meltdown. Indeed, the first year-and-a-half of the meltdowns beginning in 1929 and 2007 were similarly severe. Obama rescued those elites and saved millions of others from an economic calamity as severe as the Great Depression. Had he not done so he would have been culpable in  allowing a second Great Depression, and the Republicans would have really consolidated power in 2012 or so and established the pure plutocracy of their dreams, one in which opulent splendor of the economic elites is within sight of people starving and homeless.

But many of our economic elites -- owners and executives -- are as rapacious, vulgar, and narcissistic (if not sociopathic) as Donald Trump. Those are the economic equivalents of abusive spouses or parents: one cannot have a good life in their presence. They want Americans other than themselves to endure the poverty of India and the repression of China, only to believe that God has some special blessings in the Afterlife for compliant suffering for people as amoral in their economic values as slave-owning planters of the Old South (which, I regret, is part of the American political heritage).

But this said, I see signs of failure. Americans may believe in Heaven for the righteous, and not only for those who fit a monstrous social order as masters or serfs. They believe, as people in democracies generally do, that government rightly serves objective justice, economic equity, and the mitigation of the harshest tendencies of life.

At some point, Mr. PBrower, you are going to have to adjust your theories for the actual realities on the ground.

Do you mean that Donald Trump is the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to America, having conned people into believing that he was a Man of the People because of his affinity for mass vulgarity, and that only by dedication of all to the enrichment and pampering of economic elites and especially his cronies, then all will be wonderful?

The reality is simple: he pulled one of the oldest cons, the Bait and Switch. We wanted more economic security, and instead we got fear. We will get poverty through lower wages and more corruption. The con-man, whether a dealer in schlock furniture, the leader of an abusive and exploitative cult, the Lothario who marries a woman that he eventually abuses in every possible way, or a political demagogue, always leaves the persons conned in far worse shape and himself able to live well.     

America has plenty of gullible people, and the next time the demagogue could be a leftist who exploits the damage that President Trump will have done.

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Some of those elites were scared of Donald Trump. He now kisses up to those elites, and guess who gets to pay for that? You and I do. He must bleed us to convince those elites that he is their friend. We will get less, we will be responsible to do more work for those elites, and we will pay the taxes that those elites used to pay. But in my case I knew what was going to happen. I expected a Trump Presidency to be horrible. I did not expect it to be this horrible! The woman who marries an abusive spouse despite indications (like possessiveness, controlling behavior, and little deeds of random cruelty) and the schmuck who buys bad furniture because even it is overpriced and awful one gets to pay for it on 'easy credit' hurts largely oneself and close loved ones. With the worst con of all people who know better and reject the con still get hurt.

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The lower the level of formal education among white people, the more likely one was to vote for the Big Con. Donald Trump knew what he was doing in the campaign. I had some idea of what he would do after he was elected. I saw someone on the borderline between pathological narcissist and sociopath. Having known both and recognize good cause to keep them away from my assets and my overall happiness in other aspects of life, you can imagine what stake I have in keeping someone like him from being elected.

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Master -- the one who gets the goodies. Serf -- the one who makes the goodies. The master forces suffering upon the worker. Donald Trump has made his fortune by exploiting a permanent scarcity of real estate in a high-income area; in other activities he has been a loser. Contrast Warren Buffett. There are no "Buffett Steaks", there is no "Bufett Vodka", and there is no "Buffett University", let alone "Buffett Towers" that have left a trail of bankruptcies.

I'd rather invest with or work for Warren Buffett.

...Unpopular Presidents generally make the defeat of legislators in their Parties much easier. I can imagine Democrats running against Republican incumbents or successors with slogans like "Just like Trump". At this time in 2009 Obama was even more successful than Trump, and he still faced big losses in the House and Senate in 2010. So what will keep President Trump from seeing Republicans lose 'bigly' in 2018? God help us -- or South Korea and perhaps Japan -- should some cities in either country be added to a short list that consists 'only' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe he might be lucky and cause Americans to rally around him for 'patriotic' reasons, as they did on behalf of Dubya after 9/11.  

What will keep President Trump from seeing Republicans lose 'bigly'? The voters. Including the ones you don't like.
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Obama lost voters because a well-organized campaign hit him non-stop on everything. Republicans showed Party unity, resisting everything instead of doing the normal give-and-take of liberalism.

I forgive people for voting for Donald Trump. When they feel the pain, they will turn on him. Being right about Donald Trump in November 2016 and coming to much the same conclusion only  in November 2018 and November 2020 will not matter in how one votes.

His approval ratings have been low -- high 30s or low 40s. They might not get worse unless something really awful happens like a 1929-1932 economic meltdown or even worse (as in, some Korean cities being added to the short list of cities that have been nuked). Donald Trump is making mistakes that no other modern Presidents have made.   

[pbrower2a]

Do you mean that Donald Trump is the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to America, having conned people into believing that he was a Man of the People because of his affinity for mass vulgarity, and that only by dedication of all to the enrichment and pampering of economic elites and especially his cronies, then all will be wonderful?

The reality is simple: he pulled one of the oldest cons, the Bait and Switch. We wanted more economic security, and instead we got fear. We will get poverty through lower wages and more corruption. The con-man, whether a dealer in schlock furniture, the leader of an abusive and exploitative cult, the Lothario who marries a woman that he eventually abuses in every possible way, or a political demagogue, always leaves the persons conned in far worse shape and himself able to live well.    

America has plenty of gullible people, and the next time the demagogue could be a leftist who exploits the damage that President Trump will have done.

Yes, Mr. Trump is truly a wonderful President.

I expect you to imbibe more of the soma from the Personality Cult.  

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"We" means how the electorate effectively voted.

Donald Trump is going to make millions of Americans losers -- many of them who voted for him expecting him to solve everything with his 'business expertise'. All that I expect is cronyism and corruption.

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It is Republicans who gerrymander districts to pack some districts so that  a few go 80-20 Democratic and that the rest go 55-45 Republican. If you are in relatively-liberal Lansing, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, or Battle Creek you are represented by people who believe fully in a Corporate State -- someone beholden to corporate lobbyists responsible solely to their paymasters. .  

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We could test this theory in the aftermath of Trump's amazing victory in the 2016 elections.[/quote]

Yeah, sure... Donald Trump is doing great in the polls. 40% approval rating? He's far below Obama or Dubya at comparable times.  He's governing just as I expect from right-wingers capable of making 'tough choices' -- basically squeezing the Common Man on behalf of the economic elites. He can make those 'tough choices' because he sees the Common Man as livestock at best and vermin at worst, just as does the typical sociopath or extreme narcissist.  

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Lots of people want to see Congress flip in 2018. Lots of people want entrenched Republicans to act with some fear of electoral defeat. Better that fear than fear of 'revolutionary justice' as in some Reign of Terror.

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Well, yes, one has to imagine, as the damage to your happiness is entirely self-inflicted by your own state of mind.[/quote]

A masochist would be perfectly happy with Trump's style government. I must concur. Maybe I have learned the trick for getting a beloved tyranny -- train people to be masochists! Unlike the failures that such people as Bradbury, Orwell, and Huxley offer as warnings about dystopia -- this one might work!

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Barry, Slick Bill, and James Carter all had such 'low' approvals at various points in their terms. 2 of those 3 won twice. But, in any case, voters were not provided a viable alternative to Trump in the 2016 election. So he won with such 'low' approvals. There is no guarantee or reason to believe the Democrat party can produce a viable alternative for Trump voters.

It is a well known theory that incumbents are 15-5 in Presidential elections in recent history. And that includes Gerald Ford, who never even once secured a majority of electoral votes. Given that history, any political party would naturally win the Presidency at first chance in order to secure the advantage of incumbency. Everyone other than the author of this piece seems to realize that.

[/quote][/quote]

It is possible to reduce electoral politics to political reality. Basically if there are far more ways to lose than to win, things are bad. When others were telling me that the 2012 Presidential race was far too close to call, I looked at the state patterns and saw few ways for Mitt Romney to win. He needed a major swing of general support to win.

I saw much the same for Hillary Clinton, too... except I did not see the late swing.  Of course we are stuck with an authoritarian, semi-fascist political party that holds that no human suffering is in excess so long as the Master Class gets what it wants. American economic elites are unique in their narcissism and exclusivity in modern times, and Donald Trump is an extreme exponent of that value.

Donald Trump is the biggest fraud in human history.
 

[pbrower2a]

"We" means how the electorate effectively voted.

It is Republicans who gerrymander districts to pack some districts so that  a few go 80-20 Democratic and that the rest go 55-45 Republican. If you are in relatively-liberal Lansing, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, or Battle Creek you are represented by people who believe fully in a Corporate State -- someone beholden to corporate lobbyists responsible solely to their paymasters. .  

Understandable complains, although a bit silly in some cases. It is strange to me to blame, say, the shape of the State Senate district of Kalamazoo County on gerrymandering when the district is coterminous with the county.

I was discussing districts for the US House of Representatives (which I can almost describe cynically as the "House of Corporate Lobbyists". 

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Uh, no -- Michigan is now below-average in most statistical averages, including school completion, people with college degrees, life expectancy, and credit rating. State Republicans carved the Congressional districts to concede some safe districts for Democrats generally including and to the east of US 23 (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, and Saginaw) and diluted the liberals elsewhere. West of US 23 Michigan has Representatives who would be at home in the Oklahoma delegation.

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In a nation of 330 million one can always find 'lots' of dunces to believe in any dying political cause, such as but not limited to the Presidential aspirations of a miserable 2x wretched loser like Hillary Clinton. This is not a meaningful test of anything. But, if you want to strike fear in the hearts of others, why not attempt to come up with viable political candidates?[/quote]

After four years of the Trumpenstein monster many Americans will wonder how they could vote for him. To be sure, this is how Obama-haters saw President Obama... but at least President Obama has some virtues. All it will take is for some economic meltdown or international calamity, and just about anyone will defeat him or his chosen successor. I have yet to see a virtue in Donald Trump that right-wingers can't ascribe to believing the 'right things', as if that is much of a talent. Plenty of dimwits have that 'talent', and they are incompetent to manage anything.

Hillary Clinton still won a plurality of the popular vote.  But with effectively a single-Party dictatorship, those on the wrong side of the political side are now irrelevant except as conscience.   

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Indeed. You are getting somewhere!

I am quite certain the physical standard of living of Mr. PBrower has not substantially changed in the 3 months of President Trump's term. Meanwhile, however, the physical standard of living of folks living near Mr. PBrower did decline during the years prior to President Trump's term. Real harms differ from perceived harms.

Having ruled that out we can only conclude that Mr. PBrower's self-inflicted anguish is entirely mental and a product of his poor record of political prognostication and forecasting. Given this poor record as demonstrated below one might revisit one's predictions.

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Ah, the crux of the issue. The issue that the loser political party has is that there is an opposition, more successful, winning political party! I believe North Korea has no such opposition if you prefer such things.

But if you are correct, I will await the flood of campaign cash into the coffers of President Trump's re-election campaign. Thus far there's nothing there.
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If he should be re-elected, then count on thousands of suicides.

I am not saying that my food tastes worse, that the birds now sing in cacophony, that Mozart is becoming insufferable, that the standard classics of literature are becoming absurd, or that great painting is becoming ugly. The Trump dream is one in which the masses suffer for economic elites and show awesome reverence for the vulgar indulgence that people like he display. Basically, all the productivity of this country is to go to (after existence necessary for two-legged livestock who do the real work) to elites who stop at no excess of real or imagined splendor.

Donald Trump does not care about the people in Appalachia or the Ozarks, the High Plains, or blue-collar white America. He got their votes this time largely because he suggested that educated elites are the great exploiters. People are going to find out what exploitation really is when they lose their right to have a union looking out for their interests and they are completely at the mercy of people who look upon the common man as pack animals or machines of meat at best  and vermin at worst. His idea "Make America Great Again" is to return America to some idyllic past in which life was easier -- like the 1920s. Oh, what great times -- so long as one was a WASP who owned lots of land or a business. Otherwise one was a tool to be used until worn out, which took a much shorter time because people had 70-hour workweeks.