Tag: 2016 Election

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Trump Will Not Win This Election

[My Wrong Pick]
Trump and the Angry Uneducated White Men
Donald Trump is not going to be president of the United States. He cannot win the demographics. He will probably do pretty well among angry, disenfranchised white voters, and old white women. But he has not, so far, demonstrated the slightest attraction to blacks, hispanics, women, educated white men, educated white women, educated people of no specific gender, or establishment Republicans.

How Does He Do It?

One is forced to consider how he might just do it, as if the possibility itself must be considered for some reason. Trump is volatile, and he doesn’t embrace a lot of the traditional Republican values. He has even– God Help Him! — let slip that he would consider raising taxes on the rich, if necessary, to deal with the mythic crisis called “The Budget Deficit”, which is only ever a problem when it can be used to justify slashing social spending. You want a war? Hey, here’s my gigantic American Government Credit Card.

So, he is volatile. He might take positions that a lot of Americans would find appealing, even if they don’t like his boorishness.

We cannot afford to forget that Americans are very, very angry at their government. Most of them could not name a single policy that they actually want to change, or how they would change it, aside from the obvious: no boots on the ground in Syria. They do want to tear up trade agreements but I suspect most people would be easily frightened into keeping them, if the consequences of a trade war with China were described to them in vivid terms.

But Trump looks like a bully and sometimes you like the bully if he’s on your side.

Or if you think he’s on your side.

I lost it at the Movies

Do Americans cling to an obsolete, nostalgic image of impervious American power and prestige? When the marines could just land somewhere and “take” a country or city, and the rubber or oil or coffee or bananas would just flow through American corporations to American consumers in American malls?

2021-05-05 Update

Yeah, obviously I was wrong.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this election cycle is the fact that the two people most people want to be president– Bernie Sanders and John Kasich– will not be the nominees.

Is there a problem with a system that produces two of the most unwanted presidential candidates in history?

Is there a problem with the obscenity of the fact that the wife of a former president is about to become the next president of the United States? Is the U.S. actually a tin-pot dictatorship?

Why the hell doesn’t someone start a third party? If people hate their government so much– no matter which party is in power– why don’t they do something about it? Is this an abusive relationship? Are the American voters enablers?

 

Wednesday, May 05, 2021

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John Kasich

[2019-03: I retain this post as a monument to my own over-confidence in my views of the 2016 election.  I will note that I had assumed Bill Clinton would campaign prominently for Hilary; he did not (he wasn’t wanted).  And no one, of course, knew what James Comey would do.]

Remember that Bill Clinton was really America’s first black president. And he will be campaigning for Hillary. And I doubt that even the Republicans would dare to make him a target after their last attempt clearly backfired. Bill Clinton currently sits at a 75% approval rating. That is really quite extraordinary.

Oh…. they probably will.

Oddly, one of the better possible Republican candidates is none of the above– not any of the most prominent, caustic initiates. It’s Ohio Governor John Kasich, former managing director of– get this– Lehman Brothers (until the collapse in in2008).

Kasich voted for the 1994 Assault Rifle Ban.

Kasich was chairman of the House Budget Committee in 1993 and helped the Clinton Administration create the first and only budget surplus in 50 years.

He’s a bit of Scott Walker: he tried to pass a restrictive collective bargaining law but Ohio voters resoundingly defeated the proposal.

In 2011, he produced a balanced budget, without chicanery.

He signed on to the expansion of Medicare benefits under Obamacare. He ordered rape crisis centers to lie to women about the option of abortion. Let’s not be politically correct about describing this: he ordered them to lie.

He is also a raging hypocrite on “pro-life” issues: he had eight people executed.

But here’s the thing: the Tea Party, which had initially supported him, repudiated him in 2014 and tried to run someone against him in the primaries. Why, for heaven’s sake? After all, God told Kasich to run. Well, he raised some taxes, including a sales tax, in order to balance the budget. I don’t know what the Tea Party is upset about: increasing the sales tax while cutting income taxes has the net result of shifting more of the tax burden onto the poor. Why, that’s the cornerstone of Republican economic policy.

No greater compliment hath any Republican than repudiation by the Tea Party.

I have no idea of how many people he wants to die in the Middle East so the U.S. can look like it has some authority in the region. Perhaps he doesn’t really have a sophisticated understanding of international issues– but he has more gravitas than Scott Walker or Marco Rubio.

Anyway, Kasich has virtually no chance: he raised taxes. Republicans get absolutely, idiotically, insanely hysterical about anyone ever raising taxes by even the slightest amount.

Addendum

When will voters get tired of the standard Republican Strategy?

  • Vow to cut taxes during the campaign.
  • Win the election.
  • Cut taxes on the rich without cutting spending on any programs (because that will make some tax-payers realize that worthwhile government programs actually cost money).
  • Run up the deficit (like Reagan and Bush Jr.).
  • Blame the deficit on Democratic spending policies and campaign against deficits.

And here’s where the magic comes in. The solution is not to cut programs (because some voters like Social Security, Education, and Medicare, for example) but– wait for it– to cut taxes even more. Because, in the fantasy world of Republican economic models, the tax cuts will generate a fabulous outbreak of economic growth, which will increase tax revenues and balance the budget.  Without any pain or sacrifice!

I’m pretty sure most Republicans don’t really believe this, but they are more than happy to have Bill Clinton or someone like him come along and balance the budget again eventually so they can run against taxes again, cut taxes for the rich again, and leave the deficits to the Democrats to clean up.