2016 USA Presidential election thread II: And. Here. We. Go!

[Zealot]

Haha, like libertarians would ever agree to government spending bills.

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[ringthree]

Unfortunately, we live on Earth. Not Libertarian Wet Dreamscape 429.

I am just using that as hyperbole to demonstrate that passing legislation is not necessarily indicative of a working government.

[Dimmauk]

I blame Republicans whoring themselves out to the religious right.

[Ksandra]

I wouldn't say our gov't structure isn't working so much as the average person isn't doing what needs to be done to make it work. And that's to start at the bottom and focus on local elections and care less about the presidential race.

How we get more people to see that, I have no fucking idea.

[Gredival]

Disagree with this. At least, this is not how they've acted in practice. If they truly believed in governance, we would not have had these dog and pony shows over votes to repeal Obamacare, multiple government shutdowns, and nearly defaulting on national debt.

Do I believe Boehner/McConnell didn't seriously intend to breach the debt ceiling? Yes. But they either didn't have the spine to stand up to their fringe elements, or they realized that they no longer had control over them. IMO it's more the latter than the former -- Boehner is gone, Cantor is gone. McConnell and Ryan are both persona non grata to the base. They are scared to disavow Trump because they know they need that fringe base to win. McCain won't even come out against Trump and Trump's donor is funding his primary challenger.

Which goes back to what I said about how this is all fallout from the GOP departing from the functioning formula. There has always been a power struggle between the sides where the majority party had sway, but previously they still had to work across the aisle because there was a job to do.

If the direction of the country was like a compass (North is forward, South is backward, West is Left and East is right) the control of the Presidency and/or the legislature was about how many degrees to the West or East you were pointing as you moved North.

The anti-establishment has reconfigured politics to imagine it as zero sum where the goal is to go directly West or directly East. If you have partisan beliefs about what's better for the country (which includes me too) yes, West is better than North West. But it ignores the fact that the system is completely built around going North. If all you will settle for is West and not North West, then what you get is immobility. The way you get politics functioning again is to make it about going North.

The problem is one that the GOP is largely responsible for, by trying to harness the fringe right, but that doesn't change the fact that the solution isn't a new way of governance -- it's a reversion. Not to the exact society we had thirty or forty years ago like how Trump wants, but at least to the nuances of the political process that existed back then. And a very large part of that is accepting that the parties are part of the machinery that drives the political machine.

[Quicklet]

That's funny, I remember thinking that in 1995 about pre-1994. It always feels like the end of the world. And that probably says a lot about the human condition.

I think the big difference between now and the 90s is that the 90s were a time of unprecedented American prosperity. We won the Cold War, the internet was ascending, jobs were relatively numerous, there was no war on terror. Yes, there were problems, but they were relatively disconnected from the average middle-class American's experience. There was a general feeling of optimism and American exceptionalism.

Divided governance is not necessarily dysfunction. As I mentioned, it is actually intended design. That said, I don't think you are necessarily wrong in your assessment, I just wanted to be clear that failure to produce legislative "achievements" is not a sign of failure. I will agree that the failure to pass debt extensions would be a signal that the government has failed, but we haven't gotten to that point.

Failure to pass legislation is perfectly fine governance. In fact, in a perfect world, no legislation would ever need to be passed besides funding bills.

There is a difference between divided government and total gridlock though. I don't agree that funding bills are the only thing an ideal legislature would need to produce. The world is not static: technology and social mores are changing all the time. Government is also not infallible: some legislation is flawed and can produce unintended consequences that need to be corrected (see Obamacare). Failure to pass legislation is only acceptable governance when it actually stays outside the realm of obstructionism.

Failure to pass zika legislation is a failure by Congress that has negative consequences. Failure to pass an AUMF to clearly outline our role in Syria is an abdication of Congress's responsibility. Failure to pass any kind of reasonable budget process has surely created economic opportunity cost through lower investment in research and infrastructure that has harmed both rural and urban communities. There is a reason why Congress's approval ratings have been so abysmally low in recent years.

Which goes back to what I said about how this is all fallout from the GOP departing from the functioning formula. There has always been a power struggle between the sides where the majority party had sway, but previously they still had to work across the aisle because there was a job to do.

If the direction of the country was like a compass (North is forward, South is backward, West is Left and East is right) the control of the Presidency and/or the legislature was about how many degrees to the West or East you were pointing as you moved North.

The anti-establishment has reconfigured politics to imagine it as zero sum where the goal is to go directly West or directly East. If you have partisan beliefs about what's better for the country (which includes me too) yes, West is better than North West. But it ignores the fact that the system is completely built around going North. If all you will settle for is West and not North West, then what you get is immobility. The way you get politics functioning again is to make it about going North.

The problem is one that the GOP is largely responsible for, by trying to harness the fringe right, but that doesn't change the fact that the solution isn't a new way of governance -- it's a reversion. Not to the exact society we had thirty or forty years ago like how Trump wants, but at least to the nuances of the political process that existed back then. And a very large part of that is accepting that the parties are part of the machinery that drives the political machine.

I think this is fine, except that I'd add that going North is not always desirable when going North leads you off a cliff. Sometimes the problems you're trying to solve require you to go more to the East or West. I think the difference between healthy divided government and complete dysfunction is knowing when compromise is serving the American people and when it isn't.

On top of that, there is no doubt that in terms of the legislature, the Republicans have succeeded in forcing the needle to move over to their side. Part of this is reinforced by gerrymandering. You say the solution is a reversion back to a more compromising attitude -- the problem which I've been raising all along is that Republicans have no easy path back to that position. They either have to excise social conservatism (and now white nationalism) and re-court moderate/swing voters, or they will slowly die off as the boomers die out and millennials get older.

To my point, Republicans (including the establishment) have not learned this reality yet.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...op-plan-227427

They are already planning on creating the same level of dysfunction in Congress for another 2-4 years hoping they can win through obstructionism. This is bad governance and it's going to destroy their party long-term.

[Gryffes]

The new ipsos poll ( a- rated ) shows trump +14 in NH.

There's polls from last month that had clinton +10-15.

wut.

[Zealot]

I usually just look at FiveThirtyEight and in the past month Trump has gone from an 8% chance of victory to almost 20% now.

[Quicklet]

The new ipsos poll ( a- rated ) shows trump +14 in NH.

There's polls from last month that had clinton +10-15.

wut.

They only sampled 133 people in that poll. They (Reuters/Ipsos) are also predicting, based on their modeling, that Hillary has 95% chance to win with a projected margin of 126 electoral votes at the moment.

The last polls out of NH with a significant sample size that are favorable to Trump are from mid-July, and 538 isn't weighting these new polls very much in their model.

Not that Trump can't win NH -- but one or two polls with small sample size do not a trend make.

[archibaldcrane]

The new ipsos poll ( a- rated ) shows trump +14 in NH.

There's polls from last month that had clinton +10-15.

wut.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/st...65612955824128

[Mertron]

trump tweets about Dwyane Wade's cousin being shot, spells his name "Dwayne". let's see if he can spell kaepernick next

[Obev]

trump tweets about Dwyane Wade's cousin being shot, spells his name "Dwayne". let's see if he can spell kaepernick next

To be fair, Dwyane is a really dumb way to spell a name and my phone just autocorrected it to Dwayne twice.

And Trump's not going to care about correcting his spellchecker now, is he?

[kisada]

um, right

[Quicklet]

One of his staffers cared enough to repost the tweet with the correct spelling several hours later.

[Day]

i woulda spelled that dude name wrong too, but then again i wouldn't have tweeted about it, nor am i running for pres

[Quicklet]

It's not so much the fact that he spelled the name wrong initially (though it's still embarrassing). It's that someone thought "oh, this tweet is fine but we need to fix the spelling".

[thetruepandagod]

[Galkaeater]

What has begun to really grab my attention as I get more into election coverage is the amount Trump supporters are willing to ignore about him and believe about Hillary.

Donald Trump's personal failings and failures are all a matter of extremely public record. He brags about a lot of them. His every bad business outing, racial slur, misogynistic comment, public temper tantrum, all of it is right out there for anyone to see. All of Hillary's faults all eventually tie back to either a conspiracy theory or an actual event magnified dozens of times over to seem like a huge issue.

Donald Trump can say "Mexico, South America, and maybe, probably, the Middle East is sending us only criminals, drugs, and rapists. We need to build a wall to stop immigration and ban Muslims from entering the country, and institute a religious test. Look at my African American over there." His followers respond with "That Donald, telling it like it is, so bold."

Hillary says "We have to unite as Americans to overcome the systemic issues of racism in this country and go forward together to make our country better for everyone" and is met with "Dammit Hillary! Why are you so devisive?!"

It is enough to furrow my brow.

wall and ban is relatively more practical and feasible than dumb empty platitudes

[archibaldcrane]

Let's not pretend Hillary doesn't have dozens of policy white papers all drawn up.

No, all she has to offer is "empty platitudes".

[Quicklet]

Trump won't be able to hide for a full 90 minutes during the debates. Only question is whether it even matters at this point given that he can say whatever and most of his supporters don't care.