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The silent majority no more..
#1
Quote:Out of this trip came de Tocqueville’s masterpiece, Democracy in America, in which he expressed admiration for American civil liberties and compared the world’s first genuine liberal democracy favorably with Old World institutions. But de Tocqueville had serious reservations, too. The biggest danger to US democracy, he believed, was the tyranny of the majority, the suffocating intellectual conformity of American life, the stifling of minority opinion and dissent. He was convinced that any exercise of unlimited power, be it by an individual despot or a political majority, is bound to end in disaster.
An Unhinged Democracy in America by Ian Buruma - Project Syndicate


With the advent of splintered media where truth or objectivity no longer is a constraining issue, this is getting scary. 

Quote:Since its inception in 1996, the Drudge Report has been a home to conservatives who feel disenfranchised by traditional media. Drudge has marketed his website as a news destination not controlled by corporate interests or politicians. And he has continued to have great success. Last week, SimilarWeb, an analytics firm, ranked the Drudge Report as the third-most-trafficked media publisher in the US for June 2016. The website amassed 1.2 billion combined page views for the month — all with hardly any traffic coming from social-media channels.
Matt Drudge is the man who could have stopped Donald Trump - Business Insider

Countries with highly partisan media like Turkey and Russia can remain formal democracy, in the sense that they have elections, but whipped up by these media, majorities become rather intolerant.

Of course, the big difference in the US is that this isn't controlled from the levers of state power, as it is in Turkey or Russia, but a self-selection. But the end result might be similar, a large part of the population impervious to alternative views.
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#2
This is what you get when you mix the tribal nature of man (genetically the same as when we lived in small tribes on the planes of Africa 20,000 years ago, with all the same reflexes) and tribal media.
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#3
But there is a paradox, hatred for government and Obama is greatest in places that depend most on the Federal government and which suffered most from conservative policies

Quote:The president’s detractors attack him not only for what he is—a black man who overcame all obstacles to become our head of state—but also for what he symbolizes: the federal government, with all its resources—legal, financial, military, and regulatory. Obama’s enemies see the powers of the federal government as illegitimate, the taxes they pay to support it as unwarranted confiscations of their hard-earned dollars, and the regulations it imposes as job-killers that stand as obstacles to their own aspirations. Yet the opposition to the president and his party is most intense in states like Louisiana that rely heavily on federal dollars, in regions that have suffered most from the dismantling of federal regulations. Arlie Russell Hochschild, a distinguished Berkeley sociologist, calls this the Great Paradox. It is a conundrum she sets out to explore in her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land. Her strategy is simple: She will go to rural Louisiana—about as far outside the Berkeley bubble as one can imagine—and talk to people who identify with the Tea Party and its implacable hostility to “big government.”
The Great Paradox
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#4
(09-09-2016, 12:40 PM)Admin Wrote: But there is a paradox, hatred for government and Obama is greatest in places that depend most on the Federal government and which suffered most from conservative policies

Quote:The president’s detractors attack him not only for what he is—a black man who overcame all obstacles to become our head of state—but also for what he symbolizes: the federal government, with all its resources—legal, financial, military, and regulatory. Obama’s enemies see the powers of the federal government as illegitimate, the taxes they pay to support it as unwarranted confiscations of their hard-earned dollars, and the regulations it imposes as job-killers that stand as obstacles to their own aspirations. Yet the opposition to the president and his party is most intense in states like Louisiana that rely heavily on federal dollars, in regions that have suffered most from the dismantling of federal regulations. Arlie Russell Hochschild, a distinguished Berkeley sociologist, calls this the Great Paradox. It is a conundrum she sets out to explore in her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land. Her strategy is simple: She will go to rural Louisiana—about as far outside the Berkeley bubble as one can imagine—and talk to people who identify with the Tea Party and its implacable hostility to “big government.”
The Great Paradox

Frank Rich already layed out this 'paradox' of right-wing anti-government types voting against their interests in his best selling book - "What's the Matter With Kansas?"
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#5
Thanks for that, Bob. It's sort of curious. I get the anti-elite, or anti-establishment stuff. What I don't get is voting for a party which main electoral plank is to get tax cuts for the wealthy and further dismantlement of entitlements..

In one way, Trump is exploiting this, even though he's doubled down on tax cuts for the wealthy (without which he would risk mass desertion of the Republican establishment, I guess), at least he said he's not going to dismantle entitlements (apart from Obamacare, but that is of course standard fare and almost goes without saying).
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#6
Trump's 'platform' is essentially the Republican platform. It's all laid out on his website. His policies (where he specifies them) are grab bag goody list as proffered by the usual right-wing think tanks such as Heritage, 'Club for Growth', 'Citizens for Prosperity', and so on.
Changes to the tax laws that any amateur economist can clearly see benefit primarily the wealthy, and yes -- cuts to 'entitlements' couched in euphemistic or wonkish terms, such as 'chained CPI' or 'block grants'. More Charter Schools (privatization/profitization of education). Repeal of Bacon-Davis wage laws (i.e. -- multinationals should be able to port around and utilize their immigrant slave labor to do the work wherever and whenever they soak up a fat juicy government contract).

It's all the same agenda, and Trump has totally indicated that he, if elected, will stand aside and let his VP/ the Republican party do all the boring legislative work. Trump has no interest nor the attention span to do all the readings, all the briefings, or otherwise seriously contemplate complex issues. It would be the puppet GWB administration all over again, only with Trump as the script-reader-in-chief.

This is simply the greatest prize in the world for him. The biggest vanity trophy anyone could have.

Yes, he does say some things that are out of step with his party, such as scrapping NAFTA. This is all doublespeak, like 'building the wall' which would never happen. He will say whatever the base wants to hear, toss whatever red meat they want their way. This is how he beat out all of the more establishment Republicans in the primaries -- simply lie. A megaphone works much better than a dog whistle.
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#7
Of course the big problem with Trump is that:
  • He often contradicts himself
  • His plans are vague and subject to sudden change
  • He has no policy or voting track-record
Even so, we thought we teased out a few notable differences, in rudimentary scheme:
Free trade
  • Trump against, 
  • Republican platform in favor
Culture wars:
  • Trump indifferent
  • Republican platform in favor
Welfare state:
  • Trump in favor
  • Republican platform against
Tax cuts for the wealthy:
  • Trump in favor
  • Republican platform in favor
Across the board deregulation:
  • Trump in favor
  • Republican platform in favor
Basically, at least insofar as campaign rhetoric is concerned, it's possible to see Trump as exploiting a gap between the traditional Republican platform and much of the Republican electorate.

Much of the Republican electorate are less dogmatic on tax cuts for the rich and across the board deregulation, not in favor of free trade, but defend Medicare and Social Security (many of them are old), and much of the young electorate doesn't care all that much about the culture wars anymore. 

But of course, President Trump might be a rather different proposition..
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#8
Yes, that is true. Trump has said a number of things and is seemingly sticking by statements that are contrary to the Republican Party Platform. But then again, Trump has at one time or another been on both sides of nearly every issue, so who knows what would happen if he were President.

My own suspicion, which others on both sides of the U.S. political spectrum have surmised -- is that Trump would pretty much leave the job and hard work of Presidentin' to the apparatus controlled by the upper echelon of insiders within the Republican party. The checks and balances, safeguards, built into the U.S. Government would be there to stop Trump from going off-script if he strayed too far from the party goals or agenda. There isn't a lot he could do by executive order alone without Congress' ultimate cooperation, as Obama knows all too well.
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#9
(09-09-2016, 05:03 PM)BobL Wrote: Yes, that is true.  Trump has said a number of things and is seemingly sticking by statements that are contrary to the Republican Party Platform.  But then again, Trump has at one time or another been on both sides of nearly every issue, so who knows what would happen if he were President.

My own suspicion, which others on both sides of the U.S. political spectrum have surmised -- is that Trump would pretty much leave the job and hard work of Presidentin' to the apparatus controlled by the upper echelon of insiders within the Republican party.  The checks and balances, safeguards, built into the U.S. Government would be there to stop Trump from going off-script if he strayed too far from the party goals or agenda.  There isn't a lot he could do by executive order alone without Congress' ultimate cooperation, as Obama knows all too well.

Haha, that would be a double con. Riling against the elite, including the conservative one in the Republican party, only to (in the case of electoral victory) give the reigns to the elite and chart off playing golf or founding Trump Tv..
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