2016 U.S. Presidential election

How is this relevant?

In strict terms of ideological purity, the US presidential election is not particularly relevant to anarchists but given that it completely and totally dominating everything in the news, in conversation, just about every bloody where, on this side of the Atlantic, it's not inconceivable that people may be taking an interest and want to discuss it.

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http://libcom.org/blog/so-its-come-04032016
Soapy's blog on Clinton

That little meme you posted, Juan, I love how the first half (which, to be fair, is spot on) is so clearly contradicted by the second half.

Anyway, I'm always a bit wary of claims of fascism. While right-wing populism is no doubt an necessary element of fascism, right-wing populism does not a fascist make.

What I think it is interesting in regards to Trump is how it relates to race issues being much more prominent in America recently. How much of Trump's rise is backlash and would he be in the position he is now if not for, say, the success of the BLM in bringing issues of race to the fore?

Incidentally, being in a big liberal East Coast city, I've yet to actually meet a Trump supporter in the flesh. Can anyone give any credence to Sanders' claim that Trump supporters should the natural turf of the left? I mean, who's actually out there voting for this fucker?

idk what this means. but one of my coworkers does a bit of teaching at a private K-12 in the liberal side of town in a blue state in the northeast, and he said "all the kids are voting for Trump" so i am assuming there is at least some section of the upper middle class and above here that do support him.

also what do folks think about a possible Clinton / Sanders ticket down the line? i forget if it's even possible, but would seem like a win win good cop bad cop situation for them, especially if they have a bad guy in Trump. If not Sanders maybe Warren?

The Democratic Party - a neoliberal, militaristic, mostly laissez faire capitalist party that betrayed its working class supporters during the Clinton era (with some help from Jimmy Carter before then). Generally well-intentioned regarding social issues as long as the wind is blowing the right way. The standard bearer is Hillary Clinton. But there is also a faction that seeks to take the gains of the New Deal and Great Society and push them further to level the economic playing field. The standard bearers within the electoral system at the moment are Sanders and Warren, but the inspiration comes from many to the left of them.

Republican Party - an ultra-right wing party based on authoritarianism, the worst excesses of libertarian selfishness and cruelty, assaults on the rights of working people, women, LGBT and people of color, a deluded clinging to American exceptionalism, xenophobia, and support of unbridled capitalist pillage. Standard bearers are Rubio, Cruz and Trump. There remains a rump of traditional Republicans, right-leaning plutocrats with little interest in social engineering beyond what it takes to protect their wealth. Can be moderate on social issues. Standard bearers? Few and far between after the 1960s.

I was watching the Democrats last night. Secty Clinton hits Sen Sanders on the "auto bailout". Sanders seemingly came back with a standard line about "wall street bailout". I had to go on line and "fact check" [http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/factchecking-the-seventh-democratic-debate/]..... Apparently there were two bills. One, a gazillion billion trillion for an overall financial bail out (which Sanders voted against). Then a special auto industry bail out which Sanders was for (and got defeated as a stand alone bill).

"Senator Bernie Sanders voted against the $700 billion bail out of the financial services industry but he says this package is different:

(Sanders) "The problem is if you don't act in the midst of a growing recession what does it mean to create a situation where millions of more people become unemployed and that could spread and I have serious concerns about that I think it would be a terrible idea to add millions more to the unemployment rolls." [http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/83206/leahy-sanders-reluctantly-support-auto-industry-re/ ]

She sleazed him with a half-truth. His reply was so garbled in his standard rhetoric that she scored a point with some thinking Sanders was for having the whole auto industry go under.

Just an observation, not meant as any sort of political endorsement or agreement of views.

I'll share some anecdotal evidence on Trump supporters. My dad and uncles who are white, retired New York City cops all seem to love Trump. They're racist and bitter as hell and he speaks to them. They've traditionally been independents who tended to vote Democrat.

I currently live in a smallish town in the South and a lot people around here are quite cool on Trump or outright dislike him. I think the main reason is because it is a very religious area and they don't think he shares their views.

The Great Republican Establishment Move To Block Donald Trump has crashed and burned. This was probably inevitable, but it became a certainty when the Three Dwarves cowering beside him on this past week's debate stage all pledged their allegiance to him - should he be the nominee.

This capitulation has some weird historical resonance. If you study the history of Italy, Spain, Germany, Chile and other lands where bourgeois democracy has given rise to authoritarian regimes and fascist dictatorships, it is inevitably the conservative parties who usher in the transition. Believing they can control and steer the insurgent fascist forces, they pact with them, appease them and eventually wind up as a meal for the strongman who has taken power (burp).

Let's be clear. No question that Trump is an authoritarian (hey, media, the answer to what he's about is a simple as that). And there is no question, once again, using history as our guide, that he speaks directly to anti-democratic and pro-fascist instincts among his very confused base of supporters.

That does not mean we are sitting in the ante-chamber to fascism. Historically, fascist regimes arise only as a counter force to real or imagined threats of socialist revolution. They arise not only to dominate a nation, or the world, but also to ruthlessly extinguish the forces of Evil Opposition (Jews, communists, socialists etc) who either hold or are about to take state power.

The authoritarian strain in the American body politic has always been present. Trump has energized it and stoked it. But social conditions in America are such that worrying about Trump installing some sort of dictatorship misses the mark. If unemployment was triple the current levels, if inflation was 300%, if the AFL-CIO was planning a general strike in support of a truly socialist Obama, if the US had just been beaten in a war or occupied by a foreign power, then maybe, just maybe, we'd see the rise of a truly threatening fascist movement.

That's not the case. Not now. Not yet. Americans are way too comfortable, way too hedonistic, way to bedazzled by consumer society to become reliable and disciplined brown shirts. And Trump himself has little of of the personal grit and endurance or even the imagination of a Hitler or a Mussolini to become an American fuhrer.

So, let's take a deep breath and calmly survey the options before us.

Will Trump be the nominee? I put this today at a 95% certainty. The Republicans will not and cannot deny him the nomination at a contested convention as that would lead immediately to an immediate and catastrophic schism in the GOP, the certain election of the Democrat and the virtual collapse of the party.

Will Trump be elected as president? Very difficult, though not impossible. After all, Clinton is the second most disliked pol in America, following Trump, and there is no telling how many non-voting Angry White Men might come out of the closet to push Trump over the line. I don't see it happening. And the electoral college makes it difficult for any Republican to win in November. But never say never.

How bad would Trump be if he got into the White House? Who the hell knows? He might do some pretty stupid things, but I can name a number of recent presidents who did some pretty stupid shit. Dangerous stuff, too. Kennedy invading Cuba. Johnson carpet bombing Vietnam. Nixon, well, Nixon was a horror (no, he would not be a liberal today). Carter declaring a nuclear alert over a few Russian advisers in Cuba and funding the Muhajadeen in Afghanistan. Reagan...you name it. Poppy Bush invading Panama (and Iraq). Bill Clinton abolishing federal welfare, signing off on a draconian crime bill that put a million or so black people behind bars, deregulating the banks and exporting jobs via NAFTA. George W. Bush brought us the nightmare of Iraq, legalized torture and the limp response to Katrina. And Barack Obama, who by my lights, is the opposite of stupid, but someone who still could not escape the temptation to play ball with the bloated military machine in the name of fighting global terrorism.

So apart from naming a poor choice to the Supreme Court (something that any Republican and maybe even Hillary might do), just exactly how worse can Trump be? OK, a lot worse. But maybe not. He is absolutely not as scary as Ted Cruz, who is a classic right-wing religious dogmatist (and one evil sonofabitch).

This, by the way, highlights the historic crisis the Republicans now find themselves in. The nomination contest is now really down to Cruz and Trump and Cruz is the only guy Republican mucky mucks detest as much as they do Barack Obama. In short, I see no way out for the GOP.

They have been running toward the cliff for the last 15 years, or arguably, the last 35 years. and they have finally run out of room.

I am not arguing that Trump is some benign figure that should be laughed off. Hardly. But neither should his power nor that of his followers (who are much scarier than he is) be exaggerated. Nevertheless, the Rise of Trump embodies the ongoing erosion of The System and the willingness of so many Americans to place their fate in his under-sized hands should be taken dead seriously. This is not just a boil that can be lanced. We are looking at semi-latent anti-democratic forces receiving giant doses of political oxygen and this eruption will not simply go away when the election is over.

Juan Conatz

US Chamber of Commerce

an insidious bunch. public citizen maintains this site:
http://www.chamberofcommercewatch.org/

Tonight's Sanders and Clinton debate should be interesting.

Apparently in Michican turnout by black voters was low and Sanders won a higher percentage than in the south...roughly 30 percent for Sanders 65 percent for Clinton. I think there is maybe less church as center of life orientation among black working class in northern and western cities. Among black people under 30 tho they are running close. Sanders won 70 percent of the independents (it was an open primary) and also won Dearborn 2 to 1...largest Arab-American population in USA. But I think it's still unlikely he'll win. He's running against the Dem party machine. And in debates lately Clinton has been really doing her chameleon thing, talking left wing to adapt to the current mood.

Next Tuesday is going to be the real test for Sanders. It will indicate whether he can pull even with Clinton in a bunch of states where polls indicate huge leads for her.

I'm quite familiar with his concept of "democratic socialism" since I was a member of Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee back in the '60s. It doesn't get much beyond defense of the welfare state. Conception of "socialism" is statist: Use of the state to check capital's predatory tendencies & maintain welfare benefits. Not actually anti-capitalist. So his attack on the system is not about control of work but income inequality....

That said, what I find interesting is the huge amount of youth support Sanders is getting...beating Clinton about 80 to 20 percent. This says something about the current mood among working class youth. For us the issue would be whether any of this can translate into greater actual combativity in a direct sense.

I agree pretty much with above comments re Trump. He's basically an authoritarian. Unlike the other Repubs his appeal is not ideological. In fact he's all over the map on a variety of issues. Sort of an appeal to the "angry middle". He seems to be getting the less well off and less educated Repubs...not only working class probably but small biz class. People who've not been doing so well lately. From a purely ideological perspective Cruz is more dangerous in some ways since he is an extreme right wing nutjob. But now that Rubio's candidacy is dying, the Repub establishment seem to be gravitating to Cruz.

one other point about Trump: I think he appeals to white supremacists. consider for example his win yesterday in Mississippi. This is among Baptist fundamentalist people. Why wouldn't they vote for Cruz who is more in keeping with their ideology? Again, I think the answer is: white supremacy.

on the issue of why Clinton has been doing so much better than Sanders among African-Americans I was reading today in In These Times (I think) a piece on black supporters for Sanders in Chicago. One of them had an insight into why Clinton has attracted more black support. He says the problem is Sanders' speaking style, which is not designed to appeal to black people. Given that I find his speaking style quite off putting, I can appreciate that point. It was his position that Sanders' actual positions are more in keeping with black people's interests.

Tonight's Sanders and Clinton debate should be interesting.

An interesting piece from last week about a correlation between white mortality rates and Trump support.

Washington Post

We're focusing on middle-aged whites because the data show that something has gone terribly wrong with their lives. In a study last year, economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton pointed out that mortality rates for this group have actually been increasing since the '90s.

[...]

What is going on, then, with death rates for middle-aged whites? Case and Deaton aren't sure, but they argued that alcohol abuse, suicides and the opioid epidemic have something to do with it. The rate of fatal "poisonings" for instance — a category that includes drug overdoses — more than tripled among middle-aged whites since 2000.

Economic struggles have likely contributed as well. Case and Deaton also found that the increase in the death rate has been driven by people with less education. For those without a college degree, the economy in recent decades has been increasingly miserable. This may explain why some have turned to self-destructive behaviors, such as drug and alcohol abuse.

The people I've been describing — this distressed, dying demographic slice of America — are similar to the people who tend to vote for Trump, according to phone and exit polls. Trump supporters are mostly white; skew older; and are less likely to have college degrees than other Republicans.

Perhaps this is no coincidence. As I wrote in December:

It is nonetheless striking that Trump’s promise to "Make America Great Again" has been most enthusiastically embraced by those who have seen their own life's prospects diminish the most — not [only] in terms of material wealth, but in terms of literal chances of survival.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/04/death-predicts-whether-people-vote-for-donald-trump/

It's perhaps worth noting that according to the elderly lady photographed doing the Nazi salute, she was doing it in mockery of protesters comparing Trump to Hitler rather than an indication of genuine Nazism. However, there's no question that the Trump campaign is the most exciting thing to happen to white supremacists in the US in decades--even just glancing at the front page of the Stormfront politics forum, it's striking how much of a phenomenon Trump is in that scene. The violence against protesters, both more vocal and those just wearing anti-Trump shirts, seems to be escalating, especially against people of color. There was an out and out fascist group, the Traditionalist Workers Party, knocking a black woman around at a recent Trump rally and another black protester got punched by an elderly Trump supporter at a rally the other day who said he might have to kill the protester if he saw him again. Trump's typical response is to focus on how of course he wouldn't want to endorse any violence, but his supporters are very passionate people who love America so much and lots of these protesters are "bad dudes" and "thugs" who are very dangerous to his supporters at these rallies and sometimes "come out swinging" in the first place. At the rallies, its become kind of an event for protesters to get hauled out while people scream at them and Trump calls for them to be removed and reminisces about the good old days when you didn't have to be so gentle with people like these disgusting protesters and so on. Very disturbing, especially as I think there's very little chance that he won't be the Republican nominee.

Apparently 32 protesters were also arrested inside the Trump rally in St. Louis the night before his cancelled speech in Chicago.

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-trump-rally-in-st-louis-was-so-different/

 Trump never got more than a few minutes to speak without interruption. The disruptions were constant. As the protesters were ejected from the building they were greeted by a mixture of boos and cheers in the street. At last count thirty-two were arrested. All protesters.

I'm curious what people think as to how effective interrupting Trump's speeches has been. As Tyrion said, it's seemed like a lot of the protesters have been playing into a sort-of political theater in which, by ejecting protesters so easily and glibly, Trump allows the crowd to feel the kind of collective political efficacy that they aren't able to feel in their daily lives.

The events at Trump rallies of the past couple days, on the other hand, seem like they might have tipped those moments of efficacy into a general feeling collective disempowerment for the crowd as Trump was repeatedly disrupted (in St. Louis) or shut down entirely (in Chicago). This is probably largely to do with there simply being a lot more protesters in both those places than there's been previously.

I'm curious to see if success in Chicago will embolden people and create more successful shut downs or if this is sort of a fluke.

Here's the deal. Clinton will be the nominee. But Sanders beats her TWO TO ONE with voters under 50. Hear that? Not just under 30 but all the way up to age 50.

That's the best way to understand this race: it is primarily generational. Clinton's politics are a relic of the past. Sanders speaks to the expectations and anxieties of the rising generations

When Clinton clinches the nomination her supporters will be celebrating. OK. But do they have any plans for the immediate future of this society?

Or will they be sated by merely defeating their own children? Exactly what future do Democrats have in mind when the ENTIRE younger half of voters absolutely reject its candidate, its program and its deep dysfunction?

An interesting situation has arisen in which Trump is almost certain to head to the convention with more delegates than anyone else but with a good chance of only having a plurality rather than a majority. It's not at all clear how this would work out. Politicos have been very into the idea of a "brokered convention" of the sort that hasn't happened in many decades in which the nominee is chosen at the convention because no one candidate gains a majority on the first ballot. It's not at all clear how this would work out, as a) it hasn't happened in many decades and b) there's not really party bosses who are in a position to broker a convention in the first place. There's been a fair bit of chatter about how a contested GOP convention could lead to Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan as the nominee, but I think this is absolute fantasy and would be interested to hear what other American libcommers think. A very substantial majority of delegates are going to come to the convention bound to Trump or Ted Cruz and I don't think it's very conceivable that they would flock to a Republican centrist (within the context of the GOP) candidate. I think the most likely outcome is that Trump ends up with the nomination anyway, since the primary calendar has already passed over the states more favorable to Cruz without him managing to gain a leading position and so Trump will likely have a heavy lead in delegates come the convention. Not giving the nomination to Trump despite him winning more delegates and states than anyone else also carries the risk of Trump guaranteeing a GOP defeat by running third party. I have a hard time seeing Trump running a third party campaign, since it's next to impossible to imagine a third party candidate actually winning the presidency and my impression of Trump is that he's not the type to waste the time and money that would be necessary for a gesture that would clearly be futile from the start in terms of scoring victory.

Also interesting about this is that since the Republican primary process is remaining competitive much longer than usual, a number of states that have their primaries past the point as which a nominee has typically effectively been decided on will have the opportunity to exercise much more meaningful influence on the race. Who knows what that will look like.

It's been quite popular among the mainstream American punditry to call Trump a fascist as of late. This is dubious on a lot of grounds, and Trump's campaign appears to me more akin to the UKIP or perhaps the EDL from what I know of them rather than a fascist in the traditional sense. However, I don't think the danger posed by his candidacy should be understated. Given that the guy is able to play wink-and-nod with the KKK on TV while remaining the fontrunner for the nomination of one a major political party, it seems likely that more Trump-esque candidates will appear in the future to capitalize on this big chunk of the electorate that he's turned into a winning base.

I think it's quite difficult to run as a third party candidate in the US, but obviously the fact that he could do it would be a pretty big bargaining chip. Maybe they'll try to talk him into a face-saving vice presidency but that seems unlikely.
There's something similar to this brokered candidacy in House of cards, athough that's Democratic, looks pretty dull.

Next week there will be a series of primaries and caucuses in western states that in theory should be more favorable for Sanders (Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington). He has been leading by large margins in polls in Alaska and some other western states, but the polls for Arizona Democrat primary currently have him 20 points behind Hillary. So it's looking increasingly unlikely for him.

Real quick on the Lions Guard - if you dig deep in the site you end up finding some absolutely batshit blog posts about how Trump is the 'anti-Chemtrails' candidate amongst other gems.

I thought this was an interesting article about the Trump phenomenon, basically arguing that his support is not just down to racism, but also because, other than Sanders, he's the only one who has criticised "free trade" agreements: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support

What do American posters think about this? It seems reasonable enough. Especially as Cruz is a nutty racist himself, so you would think that would split the racist vote somewhat…

Removed in protest of Libcom policies allowing posting of texts by racists

Yeah, if it was only the economic and trade stuff, you'd see black voters jumping on the Trump train. Black Americans have been the hardest hit by deindustrialization and "off-shoring". But polls are showing between 4-12% of black Americans would vote for Trump over Hillary, which is pretty much the average GOP share of the black vote in the last 35 years.

I'm not sure this argument works tho because by this logic you should see a higher black vote share for Sanders who is also attacking the free trade pacts. It's true that Sanders has gotten higher proportions of black voters in midwest...around 30 percent and about half of younger black voters. So the populist anti-neo-liberal message has some resonance there.

There was a piece today about how AFL-CIO leaders are very worried about Trump's appeal to their base. They've been doing listening sessions with focus groups via Working America. Trying to figure out how to blunt Trump's appeal. Mainly the argument is that he's just full of bluster & has no real program, which is true.

I think it would be a mistake to simply attribute Trump's appeal to racism as if he's another George Wallace. why would there be a particular racist backlash right now? The Wallace campaign was in 1968 at height of the black freedom struggle, shetto rebellions etc.

I was reading a piece in Spanish on Kaosenlared (Catalonian left web zine & online radio) where it is pointed out that Europeans tend to see Trump as not a fascist but another Berlusconi, who also had the clown car aspect.

Bernie Sanders is getting anywhere from 2-8 times the black vote against Hillary as polls say Trump would get against Hillary

But Hillary is crushing Sanders in the black vote despite her having fingerprints all over the trade pacts.

Black Agenda Report's analysis of this is that the black voting population tends to take a "defeat the racist Republicans at all cost" approach. Democrats can usually count on getting around 90 percent of the black vote.

On the other hand, in the northern cities thus far Sanders is getting half the black youth vote & about 30 percent of the black vote overall, which suggests his message is making inroads. He also generally has the backing of a lot of the intellectual black left.

I think Trump is drawing on a combination of the racist segment & the less well off conservatives who have a basically class or economic beef.

Sanders crushed Clinton in the vote in Idaho and Utah, winning basically 80 percent to 20 percent. A maintenance man in Utah in his 50s explaining his vote for Sanders said "I'm totally a democratic socialist." In San Juan County (southeast segment of Utah) Sanders won 2 to 1. This is a county where Native Americans are the majority. Meanwhile, the vote in Arizona is under a cloud because of five hour lines to vote & disputes about whether someone was on the voter list...huge numbers of "provisional ballots" were cast, and it's unclear how that mess will be resolved. In the official count Clinton won by about 18 percentage points. Arizona has many retirees and older voters tend to support Clinton.

syndicalistcat

Sanders crushed Clinton in the vote in Idaho and Utah, winning basically 80 percent to 20 percent.

I mentioned just this on another forum today. NYT and WaPo were trying as hard as possible to hedge and belitte it.

Yeah I'm trying to wrap my head around that, especially in Utah...

Cruz crushed Trump in Utah. Cruz is really a highly ideological right wing extremist...even more dangerous than Trump. This suggests the population in Utah are rather politically polarized.

X

S. Artesian

Calling Cruz more dangerous than Trump is like calling typhoid fever more dangerous than cholera, you know what I mean?

[youtube]kmwgDCYI_VQ[/youtube]

Calling Cruz more dangerous than Trump is like calling typhoid fever more dangerous than cholera, you know what I mean?

well that made me laugh. I'm sometimes tempted to say that Clinton is more dangerous than Trump or Cruz. maybe S Artesian will say that I'd be comparing the plague to typhoid and cholera. That may be appropriate, given the vast murderous dangers...endless war, accumulating eco devastation, vast systems of exploitation...that American mainstream electoral politics is cover for.

Vote for Sanders: Pneumonia 2016

I for one will be voting for Jill Stein.

Gangrene is the least of all evils available.

Calling Cruz more dangerous than Trump is like calling typhoid fever more dangerous than cholera, you know what I mean?

I have to (also?) disagree with this statement. I think that having someone as ideologically driven as Ted Cruz is far more dangerous than having a loose-cannon reality show star in the White House. I could go into it but since it's so far outside of my political interests and also seemingly impossible for either to get elected, I'll leave it at that. I guess I just want to give some context to posters from outside the U.S.

On second thought, I'll flesh it out a very small bit. Though I think that Trumps megalomania is troublesome, the thought that he could get anything accomplished in office is ridiculous. I think that he would appoint a more palatable replacement for Scalia to the Supreme Court and would cause a backlash during congressional elections. Cruz, on the other hand, is a vocal and shameless proponent of the last 30 years of Republican political strategy that is only repugnant to conservatives because he is crassly self-serving and lacking in subtlety. One could make the argument that he would also be a lame duck president though, and would (also) most likely also damage the party enough to hamstring them in the midterms.

Not trying to start a flame war with anyone, I just think that Cruz is demonstrably worse in the same way that an organized, ideological racist is worse than a teenager saying provocative things in order to get attention. I know I may be wrong.

I tend to agree with Tarwater's analysis here. But who knows what they would actually do?

I will probably vote for Sanders as lesser evil in California primary but I am anticipating voting for Jill Stein in November. For what it's worth. I don't put much stock in electoral politics. Liberation comes through a different means.

I think Cruz and Trump - and Clinton, most likely the next president, I still think - are extremely dangerous, but in different ways. It does not make sense to call one more and the other less dangerous, as if it is a quantitative thing. They are different in kind, not in degree.

Cruz is an ideological rightwinger, operating within a Republican framework. He is the heir of Ronald Reagan and George Bush the second, probably even more openly religiously framed. In terms of policy, this is bad.

Trump is less ideologicaly driven, less beholden to the favourite themes of the Republican right. The danger he represents does not come primarily from his (proposed) policies, though these are quite horrendous. The danger he represents comes from the way he is gaining power, his mass base and the way that is operating. His followers do not merely cheer him on. His followers shout, insult, beat up people.

There is more than a whiff of street violence in his campaign. White supremacists operate openly within the Trump crowds, racism is expressed in an aggressive way. And Trump cheers them on, promising to pay the legal fees is followers beat up opponents. The whole thing reminds me of Dutch racist right winger Geert Wilders and his street armies - on steroids.

The thing is not that Trump, as a person, is a fascist. The thing is that his campaign expresses a fascist-like dynamic. If he gains the nomination through (the threat of) street violence - and even more so if he gains the presidency that way - this will influence the way he governs. He may not get much done through ordinary channels, Congress, Supreme Court, etcetera. But he may not respect these channels when he has a street army to lean upon, a street army that helped him gain power by beating up people who stood in the way. There lies another kind of danger than in an 'ordinary' Republican right administration, which is what Cruz threatens.

This, by the way, is why I think many mainstream Republicans would - for the moment - much prefer Clinton above Trump. Clinton is politics-as-usual, with policies they may like a bit less than they would like Cruz policies. Trump is NOT politics-as-usual. Trump is politics with one leg within the ordinary Republican right, and another leg in right wing streeet politics with fascist dynamics, a form of politics the mainstream of the capitalist class does not prefer or need at the moment. Whether they can rein in the beast remains to be seen. Whether this preference remains or changes in the near future - with Republicans jumping on the Trump bandwagon as a Trump victory seems sloser - remains to be seen as well.

No, this is not an argument for any 'lesser evil' preference for Clinton or Cruz against the great evil of Trump. It is merely to say that right wing evils take different forms, each form to be ferociously opposed by radicals/ libertarian communists/ pro-revolutionaries/ anarchists.The pro-fascism of the Trump campaign is not necessarily 'worse' or 'less bad' than the mainstream arrogance of Clinton or the right wing policies of Cruz. They simply are different kinds of dangers, to be opposed in different ways, but to be opposed, all of them, with equal determination and venom.

Good post, Roo.

He may not get much done through ordinary channels, Congress, Supreme Court, etcetera. But he may not respect these channels when he has a street army to lean upon, a street army that helped him gain power by beating up people who stood in the way.

This is an exaggeration. I'm sorry, but it is. The protestors at trump rallies, God bless em', are actually very aggressive and inciting. I've heard reports of them spitting at people, calling people racists(nothing makes white ppl more angry than that!) and so on. I'm really surprised there haven't been more fights.

At the Tuscon rally, which was a private event, when one protestors was booted for disrupting, he tried to fight security, and he got stomped. It's not surprising. I have little doubt the other fights were not one sided affairs leftists make it out to be.

I'm not here to defend trump(Jesus no) ,but we need to be real, he's not leading some "Street army" like the brownshirts. I feel a lot of leftists want that to be true, so badly, so so desperately, so they can reinact(or have power fantasies of reinacting) the 1930's, it's a little odd, perhaps disturbing and makes us look like moonbats- which is marginalizing. Sorry, not sorry.

Do we have to engage wwith bourgeois politics here on libcom? the poisoned chalice

kingzog

This is an exaggeration. I'm sorry, but it is. The protestors at trump rallies, God bless em', are actually very aggressive and inciting. I've heard reports of them spitting at people, calling people racists(nothing makes white ppl more angry than that!) and so on. I'm really surprised there haven't been more fights.

At the Tuscon rally, which was a private event, when one protestors was booted for disrupting, he tried to fight security, and he got stomped. It's not surprising. I have little doubt the other fights were not one sided affairs leftists make it out to be.

I'm not here to defend trump(Jesus no) ,but we need to be real, he's not leading some "Street army" like the brownshirts. I feel a lot of leftists want that to be true, so badly, so so desperately, so they can reinact(or have power fantasies of reinacting) the 1930's, it's a little odd, perhaps disturbing and makes us look like moonbats- which is marginalizing. Sorry, not sorry.

Yes, it's an exaggeration. But there is no doubt that Trump appeals to such acts of vigilante violence, and endorses it.

I don't know what your sources are for your claim that "protestors at trump rallies...are actually very aggressive and inciting." I know of norallies prior to Chicago where protestors acted in an aggressive manner. Most of the violence was perpetrated against protestors who were attacked as they stood silently, simply holding signs or wearing t-shirts.

You've "heard reports of protestors spitting at people"? No shit. And we've heard reports that Planned Parenthood was conducting lotteries on baby parts. And before that that millions of immigrants were claiming welfare payments, and sneaking across the border to have "anchor babies," and before that that "voter fraud" was rampant, hence the need for draconian ID laws which just so happen to conveniently target black voters, students, etc., and before that we all heard the reports about how GIs returning from Vietnam were spat upon. Turns out none of that bullshit is true. So why give it credence?

The protestors in Chicago did not disrupt the Trump rally. They showed up with signs and posters and banners, and when they were attacked, they refused to back down. They fought back.

And how is a political rally a "private event"-- and why is that supposed to have any significance to the struggle against this or that goon eager to represent goon capitalism at its best/worst?

I think it's a little easier to believe that activists at trump events were yelling and spitting at trump ppl, than planned parenthood selling baby parts, Artesian. Is it really so hard to believe? Search for Trump rally in Tuscon. Also, The events are private so that trump can kick ppl out legally, that's only a point of clarity not an endorsement.

But my main point was that us leftists so desperately want to renact 1930's Street fights we begin believing things which are absurd exaggerations- like trump has some Street army(of 78 year old grandpa's I'm sure) he will us to impose a dictatorship when Congress gets in his way. I mean, this is simply dillusional, as dillusional as planned parenthood selling babies.

Most of the violence was perpetrated against protestors who were attacked as they stood silently, simply holding signs or wearing t-shirts.

Actually, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call bullshit on protestors standing silently being attacked for "no reason whatsoever." See the Chicago event where a protestors steals a sign and tears it in two. Etcetera, etcetera. That's how fights get started.

Not to justify them being attacked, which they have a right to not be attacked, but because I believe they are trying to start these fights(and I've seen footage attesting to it) for the reasons I noted. And frankly, this is really going to backfire and it gives credence to the notion of "liberal facism" and so on. Which I really detest.

kingzog

Most of the violence was perpetrated against protestors who were attacked as they stood silently, simply holding signs or wearing t-shirts.

Actually, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call bullshit on protestors standing silently being attacked for "no reason whatsoever."

Not to justify them being attacked, which they have a right to not be attacked, but because I believe they are trying to start these fights for the reasons I noted. And frankly, this is really going to backfire and it gives credence to the notion of "liberal facism" and so on. Which I really ditest.

So go out on a limb and provide evidence for that. Provide the links to the video showing protestors spitting on Trump people; to the Trump protestors engaging in assaults, in provocations.

I'm sure you believe what you believe; just like many people believe GIs returning from Vietnam were spat upon. There was, however, no evidence of any such incidents, much less a pattern, or planned response of such attacks.

What you believe doesn't matter if you can't provide any evidence to back it up.

Liberal fascism? WTF are you talking about? When the Klan shows up to rally in Orange Co. and gets attacked is that "liberal fascism"?? You think the African-American man, who was being escorted out of a Trump rally in the grip of the police when he was assaulted by a white Trump supporter is a "liberal fascist who "tried to start a fight"??

"Liberal fascism" is a fucking looney-toon myth.

Dude, just look it up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/21/police-officer-trump-protesters-were-the-most-hateful-evil-people-ive-ever-seen/

What's amazing here is this witness is black.

https://youtu.be/Kd6pVAb_tHs

https://youtu.be/gI9MCvK2MGs

https://youtu.be/OjbAs5F_bYY

There is a quite a bit of video and testimony to the aggressiveness of the protestors, it's not one sided Artesian.

Re: liberals facism is the notion that leftists are aggressive towards those they disagree with and so on. It's an absurd notion and the term itself makes no sense, but protestors acting like fools feeds it nonetheless. Sorry, not sorry, but it's the truth.

S. Artesian

I'm sure you believe what you believe; just like many people believe GIs returning from Vietnam were spat upon. There was, however, no evidence of any such incidents, much less a pattern, or planned response of such attacks.

It was pointed out in a cracked article that soldiers coming back from vietnam arrived on military planes at military airbases. This belief seems to be based on First Blood.

I can still remember Rambo crying about it. Old myths die hard

Yeah, so I want to clarify what I was getting at.

I don't think the violence is one sided. Both sides want blood. Some want some anti facism reenactment. Some want communist strike breaking reenactment (why does that 78 y/o grandpa remind me of grandpa Simpson and his strike breakers?) This will backfire because Americans hate it, hate it, when groups of people try to "infringe" on freedom of speech. But the left looks a little worse because they actually are disrupting speeches. That's how average ppl see it, ngl, It's deeply anti-liberal(in the classical sense). This is where liberal fascism comes in, unfortunately(not endorsing the term BTW).

Plus, the fact is, Trump is very, very unpopular with the general electorate -which is reassuring, in a way- he won't get elected unless Hillary royaly fucks up; like really bad- look at the polls, and half the GOP and virtually all the media hates Trumps guts- so that's an uphill battle.

Is xenophobia disturbing? Is it increasing? Idk, we live in a world with ISIS attacking random bystandards in Belgium and wannaba ISIS members in California doing the same. That will cause more xenophobia than a thousand trump speeches- in fact it causes Trumps speeches because he's appealing to the constituency that is fearful. Education is the only solution to that, picking fights at trump rallies do very little but harden the right.

news flash: ppl get defensive and will actually dig in when they are "called out". Any psychologists will agree with that. That's why I'm saying these protests and disruptions will royaly backfire....

But ultimately, Trump is not going anywhere, his constituency is just too small in this day and age. so all this anxiety over "fascist USA" is pretty dillusional, whether it's from the left or the genuienly fascist right(they too are marginalized and out of touch). And frankly, it's perverse that the left is fantasizing about this. I really think they want to believe this is the "it can't happen here" moment so they can Street fight(or at least fantasize about it) or be pious martyrs/victims for the cause.

dp

Apparently a bird grabbed the mic at a Bernie Sanders rally - up the struggle.

(This is probably more appropriate for the "Kill the humans" threads.)

Trumps Jack-booted storm-strooper "Street army":

https://youtu.be/MiOHQ4Rhgx4

kingzog

https://youtu.be/Kd6pVAb_tHs

https://youtu.be/gI9MCvK2MGs

https://youtu.be/OjbAs5F_bYY

There is a quite a bit of video and testimony to the aggressiveness of the protestors, it's not one sided Artesian.

Excuse me. If saying "black lives matter" at a Trump rally is aggressive, then there's something really wrong with your definition of aggressiveness. I've looked at the videos, as they were being posted over the last 2 months, and you have physical assaults against people who are chanting "black lives matter," or demanding Trump answer a question he himself solicited.

Every two-bit fascist, KKK twit, when they get confronted by those who aren't going to be bullied by their murderous bullshit complains about the "aggressiveness" of the protestors-- just look at the whining of the KKK group in Orange, Co.

Wait... right.... you don't think Trump supporters can be compared to the KKK? Yeah, tell that to the African-American woman who was called a c**t and a n*****r and struck and shoved by the trump crowd. Tell that to the African-American man who was assaulted when being led out by the police, and whose assailant said "Next time, we may have to kill him.'

You can keep making up all the bullshit you want about "liberal fascism." Doesn't mean it exists. Just confirms that you don't know what you are talking about.

Not sure where this fits in with any of this, and I don't really know what to say about it, having become gob-smacked by it, but apparently there is a fairly serious effort, by petition, to allow the carrying of firearms on the floor of the Republican Party convention. Heard it on television.

Artesian, yelling at ppl that the will burn in hell and grabbing things out of their hands and tearing it up. Giving the finger, calling people racist, fighting security guards...yes, these things are aggressive. I didn't say trump supporters arent engaging in violence themselves. I'm saying both sides are. I've also provided video evidence. You can't make up video evidence- you've provided squat btw. Just saying someone is "making it up" doesn't mean it's "made up".

arminius

Not sure where this fits in with any of this, and I don't really know what to say about it, having become gob-smacked by it, but apparently there is a fairly serious effort, by petition, to allow the carrying of firearms on the floor of the Republican Party convention. Heard it on television.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/03/27/donald-trump-ted-cruz-john-kasich-guns-open-carry-cleveland-convention-republicans/82321374/

yelling at ppl that the will burn in hell and grabbing things out of their hands and tearing it up. Giving the finger, calling people racist, fighting security guards...yes, these things are aggressive.

I'm shocked. I'm shocked and appalled. How can anyone possibly justify all this unseemly behaviour? Rude hand gestures? Tearing up paper? ffs, disgusted. Such aggression. Why couldn't they just get a petition together, or better still, a silent march or a candle-lit vigil?

I was under the impression that anarchists weren't particularly adverse to people fighting back. Maybe I'm in the wrong club. Oh well, the snacks are usually pretty awful anyway.

kingzog

This will backfire because Americans hate it, hate it, when groups of people try to "infringe" on freedom of speech. But the left looks a little worse because they actually are disrupting speeches. That's how average ppl see it, ngl, It's deeply anti-liberal(in the classical sense). This is where liberal fascism comes in, unfortunately(not endorsing the term BTW).

is this some kind of silent majority argument? because I'm pretty sure there were way more protestors in chicago than trump supporters, so I don't how you can conclusively say that 'Americans' hate it. also, i haven't seen any huge swings of favorability in trump's favor following all of the protests, so......maybe you are wrong?

@juan... communism or death would have sufficed, if it wasn't for that security detail

Fleur

I was under the impression that anarchists weren't particularly adverse to people fighting back. Maybe I'm in the wrong club. Oh well, the snacks are usually pretty awful anyway.

Kingzog isn't an anarchist, he self identifies as an "Orthodox Marxist" whatever that means.

Also regarding Trumps popularity being based on racism or not, there's a poll that's been released that shows that Trump's winning the Minorities get all the breaks group by quite a high margin.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-supporters-think-whites-left-behind

this some kind of silent majority argument? because I'm pretty sure there were way more protestors in chicago than trump supporters, so I don't how you can conclusively say that 'Americans' hate it. also, i haven't seen any huge swings of favorability in trump's favor following all of the protests, so......maybe you are wrong?

I can respond then this. I think majority of people look at the craziness and see it as both sides' doing. And I do think there is truth to that. At any rate, trump is very unpopular with the general public.

....for instance:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/273986-poll-voters-blame-trump-protesters-for-rally-violence

A new Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday found that 64 percent of voters think the GOP front-runner causes the incidents that have occurred at his campaign events, compared to 34 percent who don’t believe he’s responsible.
The poll also finds that 78 percent of voters blame the protesters at Trump’s rallies, compared to 70 percent who think the violence is caused by the real estate mogul’s supporters

Learn some math.

Artesian, here is the poll. See if you can wrap your mind around it.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2333

Campaign Violence

Trump is "very responsible" for violent incidents at his campaign rallies, 37 percent of American voters say, while 27 percent say he is "somewhat responsible." Another 12 percent say he is "not so responsible" and 22 percent say he is "not at all responsible."

At the same time, 39 percent of voters say protesters at Trump rallies are "very responsible" for violence, and another 39 percent say protesters are "somewhat responsible."

And 30 percent of voters say Trump supporters are "very responsible" for violence, while 40 percent say supporters are "somewhat responsible."

"Donald Trump may say hired instigators have brought violence to his rallies, but 64 percent of American voters are laying the blame squarely on the candidate, while 78 percent are blaming the protestors," Malloy said

Juan, that is an interesting point. In the end Trumpism is, I predict, going to bolster the Democrats, probably Clinton Democrats, who are fairly conservative.

78% blame the protestors, 70% blame Trump supporters; that makes 148%.

Now we get 78% vs 64%. That's 142%

They must be taking these surveys in Chicago, where generally 150% of the voting age population turns out to vote for the Democrat.

And you think any of that, that swill about who thinks whom is responsible has anything to do with reality?

You are probably too young to remember, but there were all those polls about Vietnam, and how the public supported LBJ and the story about the "aggression" from the North; and all the polls showing that the protestors were pissing people off... and on and on.

Until Tet 1968. Then suddenly, the support shifted. Then the protestors weren't quite so crazy; weren't quite so unpopular.

Trump is somebody with whom I don't just "disagree" with. I am appalled by his open call for legalization and expansion of torture and for his proposals of policies based on ethnicity and religion. As far as I am concerned this makes him fair game for any type of peaceful disruption. He is an avowed anti-democratic bigot with whom I have no desire to "exchange views."

N.B. Whatever you think of the protesters in Chicago: 1) they were peaceful and non-violent if bothersome and noisy 2) They did nothing except hold up signs, snake dance and shout some slogans a full half hour before Trump was even scheduled to appear 3) Trump cancelled the rally because he knew he would be constantly booed and shouted at. Excellent.

Don't be one of those lumps who, when asked by your grandkids or nieces and nephews, "what did you do when Trump was on the rise" has to answer, "Well, Jimmy I sat on my ass and pontificated against those protesters who were being rude to him." Won't cut it.

Trump should be protested wherever he appears. And now that we learn more about Chicago, double shame on Democrats who have denounced these kids.

They disrupted exactly nobody (though I would support disruption). They gathered on the rally site -- that was open to the public-- two and a half hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. There was a lot of tension in the room given that there were clearly several hundred students there in opposition to Trump. Tough you know what.

Only after Trump chickened out and cancelled the rally did problems begin. Trump supporters then got aggressive and abusive with the students whom they blamed for the cancellation and then the yelling, pushing and shoving started.

As I said, I give these young people props and kudos for their courage and commitment. If the rest of the country showed that kind of resolve, we'd have a much better place to live in. Too many Americans are phobic about taking political action, even in the face of extremist demagogues.

As long as we are talking about Trump, let's look at the Democrats' responsibility for the Rise of Trump. I think by now we all know that Trump's strongest demographic are white working-class men (WWCM). You know, the kind of people that Bill Maher likes to make fun of.

Well, just exactly how did this happen? First, you will have to admit --albeit in private-- that most liberals think of the term "white working class men" as something negative, NASCAR Dads. Racists. Gun owners. Wife beaters. Rednecks. You know the routine.

In every lie there are some grains of truth and it is a fact that a lot of WWCM, especially but not exclusively residing in the old Confederate states, have a really big problem with race. We all know that it was the signing of the Civil Rights Bill that incited these folks to bolt the New Deal Democratic coalition and become fodder for Dick Nixon's racist "Southern Strategy." Lyndon Johnson knew this was going to happen, he predicted it, and he was right.

The big historical question confronting the Democratic Party is exactly what did it do to win back WWCM? Short answer: fuck all.

Democrats have drifted -- and then raced -- consistently to the political right and simultaneously toward a toxic identity politics instead of a class-based program that might have cleaved off a more significant portion of those angry and now bitter and resentful WWCM. The Democratic Party today has a default minority base (thanks to the overt racism of most Republican policies), but its center of gravity is among middle-class professionals (who fear WWCM as barbarians). Its leadership is enmeshed with Wall Street and the economic elites who have, indeed, become more liberal on social issues while ratcheting up their economic exploitation of the work force: young, old, and of all colors.

Democrats love to debate the social issues as much as Republicans and both for the same reason: it distracts from the central issue of any society i.e. who exactly exercises power, both economic and political. We wind up artificially cleaved between pro-lifers and pro-choicers, the NRA and the Bloombergers, those who love to sniff the Confederate flag and those who do not. We find ourselves, as a nation, divided 57 different ways except the one and only way that counts the most: the Haves and the Have Nots. And the Have Nots are having less and less every day.

For this we can thank the Democrats who long ago gave up on WWCM and the working class in general. And then you wonder why an asshole like Trump can cash in on this malaise so easily? What's so hard to figure out here? More than two-thirds of Americans do not have $1000 in reserve. Housing is unreachable for those who make less than mid six figures. Obamacare has been a step forward but health care is still a nightmare for millions -- even with insurance. College has become a luxury. Manufacturing jobs have disappeared and the prevailing wage for WWCM who lose one of those last remaining traditional union jobs is about $12 an hour. The political system, meanwhile, has been bought by billionaires who control the politicians like little puppies.

The biggest issue we confront today is not if Trump is a fascist or not. He's not. The question is, if current trends continue, just how much longer will American democracy --or what's left of it-- last? Are you willing to bet beyond another ten years?

Don't forget, comrades ...
http://www.themilitant.com/SWPCampaign2016/swpcampaign2016.html

S. Artesian wrote:

78% blame the protestors, 70% blame Trump supporters; that makes 148%.

Now we get 78% vs 64%. That's 142%

They must be taking these surveys in Chicago, where generally 150% of the voting age population turns out to vote for the Democrat.

And you think any of that, that swill about who thinks whom is responsible has anything to do with reality?

You are probably too young to remember, but there were all those polls about Vietnam, and how the public supported LBJ and the story about the "aggression" from the North; and all the polls showing that the protestors were pissing people off... and on and on.

Until Tet 1968. Then suddenly, the support shifted. Then the protestors weren't quite so crazy; weren't quite so unpopular.

Yes....and then people voting overwhelmingly for Nixon. Anyway, yeah, tet offensive shifted public opinion on the war(I would add that soldiers' insubordination actually ended the war, not protests but whatever). However, just as tet shifted opinion on the war, the riots and political violence of 68 and onward shifted opinion towards voting nixon in 72- and he won in an absolutely historic landslide... On a law and order platform.

I believe the pollsters asked the same people multiple questions, hence what would appear to be a mathematical error is not. Look at the poll closley to see what I mean.

Oh, I should add that Nixon won, initially, in 68 despite basically every conservative in the deep south voting Wallace. As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "Richard Nixon is living in the White House today because of what happened that night in Chicago.”

Like I said, historically, this sort of stuff tends to backfire. Which is why I'm saying it despite its deep deep unpopularity here... Maybe it wont backfire this time, who knows, it hasn't gotten near as bad as the 68 dem convention. But it's gonna be a long summer.... Buti think the Vietnam example is really good. All the protests in the world failed to change opinion. It took the tet offensive and insubordinate soldiers to end the war- two things totally out of the hands of middle class college kids.....

Charlie Post has written a worthwhile analysis of the Trump phenomenon here:
As
http://www.publicseminar.org/2016/03/the-republicans-trump-problem/#.Vv9RUDH6iLJ

He shows that "white working class men" are actually NOT Trump's main base. Mainstream pundits have been using "doesn't have a college degree" as equivalent to working class. This is not true. About 70 percent of adult population in USA (over 25) don't have a 4 year or higher degree. Altho most of these people are working class, many are small business people such as building contractors. About 80 percent of managers in USA have 4 year or higher degrees, so there is a minority, that 20 percent, who don't. (That's about 3 percent of the workforce who are managers without college degrees.)

Moreover, professional-managerial class people with degrees make up 40 percent of Trump's base of support. So this means more than than half of Trump's support is drawn from the "old" and "new" middle classes. This is similar to far right populism in Europe which also draws its main support from these classes.

syndicalistcat

Moreover, professional-managerial class people with degrees make up 40 percent of Trump's base of support. So this means more than than half of Trump's support is drawn from the "old" and "new" middle classes. This is similar to far right populism in Europe which also draws its main support from these classes.

Thanks for this, I was a bit confused when looking it up. Your right that this overlaps a lot with Europe both in its make up and in how its portrayed in the media. Many British Far Right groups get depicted as grass roots working class movements only for it to come out a bit later that they have a lot more smallish business owners and the like added to the mix, and usually those manager types occupy the key roles.

kingzog

Oh, I should add that Nixon won, initially, in 68 despite basically every conservative in the deep south voting Wallace. As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "Richard Nixon is living in the White House today because of what happened that night in Chicago.”

Like I said, historically, this sort of stuff tends to backfire. Which is why I'm saying it despite its deep deep unpopularity here... Maybe it wont backfire this time, who knows, it hasn't gotten near as bad as the 68 dem convention. But it's gonna be a long summer.... Buti think the Vietnam example is really good. All the protests in the world failed to change opinion. It took the tet offensive and insubordinate soldiers to end the war- two things totally out of the hands of middle class college kids.....

Surely if what you're saying is correct then Chicago 68 would have led to an increase in support for the Democrats because they were the direct targets of the Yippies protests. If anything Nixon wining the White House contradicts you because his `Peace with Honour` stance committed him to de-escalation of US involvement in Vietnam and made him more in tune with the protestors than with the Democratic party establishment. He did after all pledge to end the draft. Whereas Humphrey didn't oppose the war until LBJ started working on peace negotiations in October.

Also at the time the Deep South were staunch Democrat voters, so a Republican winning without the South wasn't really unusual, so not sure what that has to do with anything.

Also

and he won in an absolutely historic landslide... On a law and order platform.

This is simply not true, the 1968 election was one of the closest in US history, Nixon had less than a million votes more than Humphrey (and both failed to get over 50% of the vote).

As well as what Reddebrek has already said about 1968 it's also worth remembering that the southern states that Wallace took were solidly Democratic. The South as conservative republican stems from 72, before then it was massively democratic (generally considered as a response to slavery, civil war and reconstruction) and then turned to Wallace then the republicans over civil rights. At this time largely disenfranchised blacks supported (whenever possible) the republicans as the party of the great emancipator.

It was 1972 that was Nixon's landslide, when he took 49 states

Thanks for those numbers syndicalistcat. The only Trumper I know is a real estate agent w/ no degree (a cousin).

Yes....and then people voting overwhelmingly for Nixon.

Still having problems with math, aren't you. The "people" did not vote overwhelmingly for Nixon in 1968. Nixon received 43.4% of the popular vote. Humphrey received 42.7%. Wallace received 13.5%.

Humphrey was well behind Nixon in the polls until the Paris peace talks began to show real progress, and it looked like the US and North Vietnam might actually agree on an end to the conflict. Then Humphrey began to catch up and looked like he would overtake Nixon.

Nixon's camp then appealed directly to the South Vietnamese "president," Thieu, to sabotage any agreement, promising a "better deal" if Nixon were elected. This tactic worked to blunt Humphrey's tactic of emphasizing that the Democratic administration was capable of ending the war.

Only idiots like Hunter Thompson-- and yourself-- would argue that the protests in Chicago in 1968 led to the election of Nixon and therefore the protests "backfired."

You might as well argue that the freedom rides and civil rights sit ins were responsible for the slayings of Medgar Evers, Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman-- and provoked the police in Selma, Alabama.

Your "politics" are nothing but a capitulation to reaction.

Juan Conatz

Been a lot of talk about how the GOP may be "destroyed" by this Presidential election. I've heard this many times in the last 10 years, didn't buy it then and don't buy it down. NYTimes points out that dispute predictions, the GOP has become more aggressive and more successful nationally.

That's really interesting. I didn't realise that stuff about how the Republicans have mostly kept a majority in Congress and the Senate.

the major reason GOP can get majority in Congress is their control of the state legislatures. they've done massive gerrymndering of congressional districts to minimize ability of Democrats to elect people to congress. in the last congressional election Democrats got 54 percent of the vote but GOP won a majority.

"Idiots", " capitulation to reaction"? Come on artesian, where is your class?

Either way you slice, Nixon won overwhelmingly in 72(historically so) and I doubt any Wallace voters would have looked favorably on the left or the Dems after the convention debacle on 68. That year was a turning point, the left lost its moral high ground.

Edit: I love all the scare quotes you used, artesian. What do the British call the? Inverted commas?

kingzog

"Idiots", " capitulation to reaction"? Come on artesian, where is your class?

Either way you slice, Nixon won overwhelmingly in 72(historically so) and I doubt any Wallace voters would have looked favorably on the left or the Dems after the convention debacle on 68. That year was a turning point, the left lost its moral high ground.

Edit: I love all the scare quotes you used, artesian. What do the British call the? Inverted commas?

So an event that failed to give Nixon a landslide at the time, gave him an historic victory four years later, care to explain the odd delay?

Also I'm fairly certain the Southern vote finally switched sides because they believed the Democratic party nationally was aligning itself with black activists and threatened their segregated societies. Do you actually have any evidence that Chicago 68 had any effect on the growing rift between the Dixiecrats and the rest of the party? I mean Wallace himself based his campaign on opposition to the Democrats rejecting his pro segregation policies.

It's not really disputed that the Southern states switching to the Republicans was because Nixon actively courted disaffected white southerners by exploiting racial tensions. Even the Republican party has publicly admitted this.

Nixon began the "southern strategy" in the early '70s. But Lyndon Johnson had predicted that the Dems would lose the south once it passed the Civil Rights Act & Voting Rights Act. The switch occurred mainly in the '80s. According to a political scientist at Princeton, the switch was more pronounced among the wealthier and middle class southern Democrats. The white working class in the south were more divided with a sizeable block going to the Republicans but many remaining with the Dems.

What has happened since then is that the populist & racist style of politics of the Dixiecrats has spread to the Republicans outside the south. The result has been the gradual loss of moderate/liberal Republicans, so the Republicans have a harder time getting elected in New England which was formerly predominantly Republican. The neoliberal slide of the Democrats has also encouraged this rightward drift of the Republicans over time....as the Democrats take over the turf of former moderate Republicans the Republican party has become more of a proto-fascist hard right party.

kingzog

"Idiots", " capitulation to reaction"? Come on artesian, where is your class?

Either way you slice, Nixon won overwhelmingly in 72(historically so) and I doubt any Wallace voters would have looked favorably on the left or the Dems after the convention debacle on 68. That year was a turning point, the left lost its moral high ground.

Edit: I love all the scare quotes you used, artesian. What do the British call the? Inverted commas?

I don't retract a word. You are an idiot. Evidence?

That year was a turning point, the left lost its moral high ground.

You don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. First and foremost, the Chicago demonstrations were hardly provocative. Even the "official" investigations afterwards identified it as a "police riot." Police attacked in Grant Park; they attacked at the Conrad Hilton.

As for the election results: contrary to your idiotic claim, Nixon did not win by a landslide in 68; it was the closest election in terms of popular vote in the entire century, and maybe more.

Nixon's election had much more to do with the fact that the economy was about to enter into a recession, and when the economy is going into a recession, there's nobody the bourgeoisie would rather have in office than a Republican.

More evidence? Lose the moral high ground? By protesting? Ah.. I get it. so to keep the moral high ground, protestors would have to refrain from protesting, and this would insure that their protest would then be heard, acknowledged, and accepted? Might I ask "how"? Magic?

So you see, the real reason revolutions, rebellions, movements are defeated is because they are made manifest-- they become actual material forces-- then they lose the moral high ground. If only the left would not have protested the Vietnam war; if only they had not manifestly opposed the slaughter of 2 million out of a total of 30 million Vietnamese, they would have had the high moral ground.

Come to think of it, if those immoral low-grounders in Paris and France 1968 had NOT demonstrated, then they would have had the high ground and would have been successful. Same same for Prague, and Mexico City, and Columbia University.

That's where African-Americans went wrong, too. Actually protesting and defending themselves against racist attack. Cost them the moral high ground with all those racists who really are their natural allies. If they hadn't tried to march from Selma, the police wouldn't have needed to beat them to half-to-death on the Pettis bridge. Moral high ground secured.

Very sophisticated, and nuanced approach: how do you build a combat movement? By not moving. So profound. Inscrutable almost. Except for the very enlightened very few.

If that doesn't qualify as idiocy, nothing does. It's not flaming when it's accurate. Moron.

By the early '70s polls showed that a majority of people in USA...especially a majority of working class...had become opposed to the Indochina War. The emergence of the mass anti-war movement in late '60s to 1970 was key I think to shifting public opinion along with fact the U.S. was losing & the US Army was becoming demoralized in the field. McGovern's campaign in 1972 was an expression at electoral level of this shift even tho he was trounced. Elections in USA do not always follow public opinion, just as what Congress does does not follow what majority opinion says.

syndicalistcat

Nixon began the "southern strategy" in the early '70s. But Lyndon Johnson had predicted that the Dems would lose the south once it passed the Civil Rights Act & Voting Rights Act. The switch occurred mainly in the '80s. According to a political scientist at Princeton, the switch was more pronounced among the wealthier and middle class southern Democrats. The white working class in the south were more divided with a sizeable block going to the Republicans but many remaining with the Dems.

What has happened since then is that the populist & racist style of politics of the Dixiecrats has spread to the Republicans outside the south. The result has been the gradual loss of moderate/liberal Republicans, so the Republicans have a harder time getting elected in New England which was formerly predominantly Republican. The neoliberal slide of the Democrats has also encouraged this rightward drift of the Republicans over time....as the Democrats take over the turf of former moderate Republicans the Republican party has become more of a proto-fascist hard right party.

I'm not sure about proto-fascist but the Republicans have definitely lost a lot of the Northeast (Rockefeller Republicans, named after NY governor and candidate) as part of a gamble to take the south. Much as Johnson gambled that it was worth losing the south in order to gain votes by supporting Civil Rights.

I was thinking this morning about the cliched image of the hippies putting flowers into gun barrels and I thought to myself that no-one would dare do that today. Then I thought that during that period the Police and national guard (and unaffiliated shooters) quite regularly shot people at demonstrations so while the hippies have been characterised as lazy, cowardly and ineffective something like that would have taken a lot of courage as would burning draft cards.

jef costello

the Republicans have definitely lost a lot of the Northeast (Rockefeller Republicans

just to confirm, i grew up in one of these new york republican households. manhattan used to elect republicans regularly in various elections - javits, laguardia, marcantonio, other names nobody would have heard of. that came to an end about 15 years ago and is unimaginable now.

syndicalistcat

By the early '70s polls showed that a majority of people in USA...especially a majority of working class...had become opposed to the Indochina War. The emergence of the mass anti-war movement in late '60s to 1970 was key I think to shifting public opinion along with fact the U.S. was losing & the US Army was becoming demoralized in the field. McGovern's campaign in 1972 was an expression at electoral level of this shift even tho he was trounced. Elections in USA do not always follow public opinion, just as what Congress does does not follow what majority opinion says.

It's also worth keeping in mind that the Nixon administration was also officially in favour of peace, and had been pulling out US troops and building bridges with the USSR and PRC. So the 72 election was fought between a peace immediately candidate (McGovern) and peace sometime soon (Nixon). Oh and Wallace's official Vietnam war position was to withdraw after 90 days if the US hadn't won in that time. So all three main political factions ran on peace tickets in some form, meaning the "fight to the last man, never surrender" constituency had no one to vote for really.

It should also be kept in mind that a) the demonstrations in Chicago in 1968 can be identified as the turning point that compelled the US Congress to push for disengagement, leading in 1970 to the prohibition on US ground combat operations in Vietnam.

And b) it should be kept in mind that while the Nixon admin pretended at peace, more Vietnamese were killed after that prohibition than before the prohibition; and that the US spread the war into Cambodia through financing the coup, murderous bombing, and the invasion of 1970.

The point being, protests that do not transform themselves into the struggle for power inevitably retreat, leaving the reaction in control.

Kingzog to the contrary notwithstanding, that is not a reason to not make the protests in the first place. It is a reason to intend the transformation of those protests.

Nixon may have talked about "peace" but that didn't mean much. His openings to China were also about geopolitical triangulation, given conflicts between China and Vietnam and Soviet Union. There was the invasion & bombing of Cambodia and other expansions of war by Nixon. Ultimately the U.S. was defeated by the North Vietnamese.

Republicans also used to regularly win elections in California and even elected mayors of San Francisco & Los Angeles. My older brother was one of the young lawyers Nixon sent into south to desegregate school systems via Justice Dept. Later he worked as a civil rights attorney. In '80s he was on a high Republican national committee. Now he doesn't identify with the Republican party & is an independent. He couldn't stand the increasing racism.

Right well to bring this back on track, I see Bernie's won Wisconsin and is expected to win Wyoming. I'm probably showing my ignorance here but I always had the impression that states like Montana and Wyoming where very "rustic" states with quite antiquated ideas. I have no idea why I have that impression but it's always there when I hear those names.

Both Wyoming & Montana have a tradition of mining, and mining is still important in Wyoming, altho coal mining is now in decline. Anaconda Copper's facilities around Butte, Montana were the largest in the world in the first half of the 20th century. Butte was the main base for the IWW's Metal Mine Workers union around 1917 to 1920, with 6,000 members. Later on replaced by Mine, Mill & Smelter workers. Socialist Party gained control of the Butte city government in an anti-war themed election in 1917...probably mainly on basis of IWW votes. Anaconda Copper was closed in '70s & is now the largest EPA Superfund site in USA.

Most of the population of Wyoming live on the Front Range just north of the Denver-Boulder area. That area of Wyoming has huge electric power consumer coops that date from the '30s...a New Deal program that also left similar institutions in Colorado, New Mexico & Nebraska.

Wyoming is one of those states where the right wing Republican machine has been completely dominant, so the Democrats there are a minority & probably based on hard core working class support. This is why Sanders tends to do well in such states I suspect.

EDIT: so it seems Sanders won the Wyoming caucuses by about 11 percent...less than his margin of victory in nearby Colorado.

syndicalistcat

Wyoming is one of those states where the right wing Republican machine has been completely dominant, so the Democrats there are a minority & probably based on hard core working class support. This is why Sanders tends to do well in such states I suspect.

They are also overwhelmingly white (89% +), this must also be a factor, no? (Given the large disproportionate support for Clinton amongst African-Americans)

Yes although a super-delegate there who endorsed Sanders is black. Sanders didn't win as high a percentage as in nearby Colorado or Idaho. Clinton won in Laramie.

Poll from California indicates 39 percent support for Sanders among black voters, 37 percent among Latinos, but overwhelming support among Latinos under 40. This means his black support in California is higher than any other state except Wisconsin thus far.

Juan Conatz

Been seeing this pretty awful petition being circulated.

So, I actually thought about posting this in its own thread.

It's written by someone that a lot of regular posters know and respect. I actually saw the person this weekend and offered my criticisms. But yeah, it's not great, is it?

Putting aside the electoralism, what do folks think about the thrust of it: an attempt to build a social movement out of the Bernie campaign? I think we all talk about needing to engage with Bernie supporters, is there any value in attempting to move them toward movement building in this way once the current election cycle is finished?

Yeh I don't see any difference between that and, say, people in Spain saying rally behind Podemos. In Spain that's an electoral expression of the revolt against austerity and the Sanders phenomenon in U.S. is also. But we know where this sort of thing goes. I'm following the Sanders phenomenon because it is in fact an expression of working class youth in particular rejecting austerity. That tells us something about mass consciuosness at the moment. But I don't see that as a reason to forget where electoral politics leads.

This "love letter" advocates basically a membership based mass party centered around one individual.

Good post Juan.

I should say that when I spoke to the author and some other folks who supported the idea, as anarchists they were, shall we say, pretty soft on voting.

That said, I do think the question of how to engage Bernie supporters is an interesting one. What if it was a love letter to Bernie supporters but advocated the same thing? Would that be more principled or possibly more effective?

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing one way or the other, more I'm just curious how folks think it's best to engage the Sanders folks in a practical and direct way.

edit: nm, answered.

this made me laugh, though:

"Otto Strasser National Councilist Football Federation"

Juan Conatz

Been seeing this pretty awful petition being circulated. To me, this is worse than 2008's cringeworthy 'Hope Bloc' statement.

I know, and as Chilli Sauce says, the thing that makes it worse is that the author beforehand seemed to be pretty decent. Depressing stuff.

It seems like they're trying to grasp at the problems that would be handled by a socialist party.

I agree that the 'We love Bernie' formulation is a dead end; they could attempt nevertheless to implore him to form and run under the banner of a socialist party. Of course hes already stated that he plans to support Hillary if she gets the nomination.

I think most people are ecard of missing out on the action when he employs rhetoric and talking points close to our own. There's plenty we can learn from the Sanders campaign, but not much to be gained in supporting it.

A few problems:

1. Presidential Fetish - Executive power in the form excercised under the U.S. Constitution is a check on genuine democracy, and thus on the powers of the working class to collective manage a transition out of capitalism. Basing the birth of an ostensibly socialist party around the independently run campaign of a moderate social Democrat for an office that does little to serve working class organization seems just stupid. (However there is a case to be made for running "symbolically" as in Debs' efforts, though that has to be evaluated toward the same ends).

2. Election Rules - if a socialist party in the U.S. we're to genuinely seek winning those positions that could be put to use, the legislative ones (city councils, state and national legislatures) in order to beat the INEVEITABLE SPLIT of the liberal/socialist bloc that reigns, their would have to be an intense and well organized organizing drive among the working classes in the given districts in order to out weigh the possibilities of delivering elections to the right. (However one could argue that most Dems and Republicans are so close on issues that who cares! In fact the polarization in terms of working class politics vs liberal would help demonstrate the closeness all the more starkly).

3. Electoral Strategy - in short, why run for office? I think it can serve to popularize socialist/communist politics, help organize and educate the working class, and prepare the working class for taking social power. These results are not automatic but only the result of specific and purposeful electoral strategy and party organization. These would also be based on political choices which ought to 'set socialists apart' from typical politics. (Uniting with strikers and Street actions, oppressed sections of the class).

The letter doesn't really touch on these, which makes it seem sort of... Delusional?

I think ideological electoral campaigns by socialist or communist groups is completely useless. No one pays any attention for the simple reason that it seems oddly not to recognize the role of the election: To elect someone to run a segment of the actual state. So the whole process is oriented around what X or Y propose to do with the state, and framed in ways that accept the status quo. If you have no chance of getting elected, no one will pay any attention to you, so it's a waste of time. Besides, it's the wrong education. It implies that capturing the state is something we want to do.

I genuinely question the notion that the Legislatures, State or National, "Run the state". Certainly they play a big role. I guess that's part of what has to be factored into determining electoral policy; what role do they play? Of course this implies study and debate on the details of the government instead of it's rejection on principle.

There is a practical way it factors into education: Not just because the politicians get a platform, but because in order to win, we're forced to organize (in accordance with socialist principles). This means I'm not really looking to Syriza etc. as guides. Or at least not 'simplistically'.

As for state power - yeah, we want to smash the bourgeois state. We want to get rid of the state. But we want organized decision making and a division of labor backed up by the use of organized force. We want a polity united along some fundamental (communist) principles of society. Engaging in politics and taking these questions on, prepare them to get used to debating, discussing, managing and implementing policy etc.

I'll reiterate a question I put to someone elsewhere. What's the difference between a city council and a soviet? I think it's a good question to investigate and am not trying to be a dick.

Aside from "the capitalist state" what are the procedural, structural etc. imperatives that make it different and why?

it's a little funny to read above the idea of forming a socialist party, since we already have one, and it has ballot access in many states (tho curiously not in the state where it's headquartered).

I think the party is the wrong form for coalescing working class social forces since it tends to focus then on the leaders who run for office, and these are invariably drawn from the professional/managerial class. The party concept of socialist strategy means basically putting a perticular party leadership into control of the state, to then implement their program top down through the hierarchies of the state. Even if you say you're only for this or that law passed by legislature, it is still based on being implemented through the state managerial class regime. So it tends to lead to the wrong kind of focus and orientation for the class.

The alternative is to think of the class forces as being coalesced through a working class based social movement alliance or social front, which unites horizontally the various grassroots expresion of organization of the oppressed & exploited majority, not only labor organizations but other organizations as well. Eventually the form of decision making apppropriate to a class front like this would be some sort of delegate conference with delegates from the participating organizations.

We really need to completely jettison the party fetish.

But if we form a horizontal, alliance of different class forces what is that and what is it's aim? To maneuver into a position to take social power, right?

I don't think the party form will inevitably turn to running for state offices and implementing programs top down or whatever. The same way that syndicalists don't feel that unions have to be collaborative husks; mere sellers of labor power.

It seems to me that an alliance like you describe would fit perfectly with what I would understand a party to be/do; unite the working class against capitalism and attendant oppressions, to better coordinate the fight.

There is here a hang up about 'taking state power' and 'using the state' to implement policy. Does that mean that church charity is better than TANF because it's a privately managed form of wealth redistribution. No doubt, both involve some graft (likely the church more than TANF) and no doubt both are half-measures from the perspective of resolving capitalism's problems. But is there any question that one is preferable to the other?

To reiterate, I'm not supportive of a coup, I'm not supportive of a ban on dissent within a party or in a period of revolution. (to an extant). I'm not trying to take the page wholly out of the Bolshevik playbook or anything.

I guess part of my question is: if there is a concern with 'form' (the state, the party) in it's relation to content, why is it wholly determinant in the state, and in the party, but not the union? This lends itself to the superficial liberal notion that if only the state (in our case, the state and any form of 'coercive authority') was wisped away, the full and free flourishing of humanity would commence. But is it really that easy?

I guess part of my question is: if there is a concern with 'form' (the state, the party) in it's relation to content, why is it wholly determinant in the state, and in the party, but not the union? This lends itself to the superficial liberal notion that if only the state (in our case, the state and any form of 'coercive authority') was wisped away, the full and free flourishing of humanity would commence. But is it really that easy?

Completely ridiculous comment. The mass organization prefigures the outcome in the sense that what we need to have is, 1. workers managing the industries. 2. accountability to the masses, the society, in how the industries are run & what is produced.

State just prefigures a bureaucratic hierarchy. A state is itself a class relation of subordination inherent to it, as in relation of public managerial class to public workers. You want to take over the state translates then as you want the class subordination relation to continue.

And the "party" is as I say a group to put its leaders into control of the state.

The alternative is for the mass organizations to take power. So the workers manage the industries. There is a larger communal organization to which they are accountable.

I think the class content of the state exists in 3 senses

1) What you highlight, that the existent bureaucratic machinery uses the waged labor of public employees

2) It's control by the bourgeoisie

3) Technical Division of Labor

It's important to think critically about these problems and their interactions.

By itself, a technical division of labor is fine. I would imagine any non-primitivists can agree with that. It seems primarily that the problems lay with 1 and 2. I think we'd both agree on them as posing problems.

1 I think, and this is a problem throughout left thinking on organization generally, is something that cannot, *by definition* be eliminated under capitalism. It is the political-economy equivalent of a "safe space" a liberated or Temporary Autonomous Zone etc. The idea that we can (or worse, MUST) abolish the wage relation fully *within* our organization before we can address is generally, socially, is ridiculous. It's not often explicitly stated as such, but it seems implied by arguments like the above (Taking the bureaucratic machinery of the state which involves paying and managing waged workers is bad, because waged workers!). The same is often said as against staff in unions. Again, the critical issue for me is measures of democracy; is the staff and officialdom, genuinely submitted to the rule membership? In most unions this is clearly not the case, neither is it clear how to reform them (often it appears impossible).

This also touches on another problem; at some point 'centralization, federation, hierarchy' will exist. The democratic decision by an assembly of workers to expropriate the bourgeoisie can of course be construed as 'dictatorial' in liberal terms; the destruction of their 'rights' to private property etc. We have no problem with this, just like with the abolition of slavery. But the question remains: By what is 'authority' determined to be 'legitimate'?

This also leads us into the managing of the economy; if it's done directly by workers in independent enterprises that they own, all the problems of proudhonism come rushing back in. I don't think you're advocating that, but it's some unclear thinking that pops up.

But when one says 'workers management of industry' again based on what and how? Through general social control? Shouldn't humanity control their 'societies' and through so doing submit the needs of industry and enterprises (whether governed by an industrial junta or industrial assemblies) to the needs of society generally? That implies (as you state) some type of polity or political organization, experience with decision making, debate, deliberation etc. as well as fundamental social imperatives (imho, things like universal income, health, education, freedom of speech and movement, etc.) which protect and extend involvement to everyone, by eliminating the means by which bourgeoisie currently excludes the working class from politics.

syndicalistcat

The alternative is to think of the class forces as being coalesced through a working class based social movement alliance or social front, which unites horizontally the various grassroots expresion of organization of the oppressed & exploited majority, not only labor organizations but other organizations as well. Eventually the form of decision making apppropriate to a class front like this would be some sort of delegate conference with delegates from the participating organizations.

Is this even possible on an organizational level? Seems really complex. I'm not arguing from a statist orientation.

"technical division of labor" is meaningless phrase in itself. For more than a century there has been an explictly capitalist tendency to reorganize work to concentrate expertise & decision making in hands of a few, managers and their expert "professional" advisors. This Taylorist/Fordist tendency flows out of the logic of capitalism, due to the problem of control over labor that faces the buyer of labor power. Moreover, the tendency is to intensify work & reduce dependency on human labor, both through building up the bureaucratic control class & through elimination of labor through forms of automation. This is not a class neutral tendency. For the working class to liberate itself from the regime of subordination & epxloitation, it must re-organize social production in ways that include extensive training & education so that workers in industries gain something like an engineering level of knowledge about production or close to it. This was discussed by Kropotkin in Fields, Factories & Workshops a century ago & he called "integration of labor".

This doesn't mean that in a de-taylorized world of production everyone would do everything or that there would not be pools of specialist knowledge. Just that this would not be organized in a way to be an engine of domination & exploitation.

re the idea of social movement alliance. a century ago revolutionary syndicalism, in its concept of class unionism, envisaged the federative unity of the working class in a One Big Union, as the way to coalesce the class forces and as the vehicle to gain power. The whole idea of labor councils or workers councils as the means of worker power came out of this, along with proposals for regional or national workers congresses as the means for worker control of governance.

But today the fault lines of struggle against the capitalist system are more complex. the system isn't just a system of labor subordination & exploitation, but is riven by various oppressions of sub groups along racial or gender lines, and there are class struggles that arise in the community, outside the workplace in various ways, and grassroots organizations that arise to deal with growing ecological crisis, and often these seeking alliances with worker organizations.

So it seems to me the handwriting is on the wall: that to bring together and unify class social forces is going to require the concept of unionism (in the grassroots sense) developing its social movement links, and developing these into a real alliance. If you look for example at the participation of CNT & CGT in general strikes in Spain (as in 2012) they worked to build their alliances with women's groups, housing groups, enviro groups.

Leninists sometimes justify the concept of "the party" by saying that militants in these different movements needed to be linked & they see this as the role of the "party". But the problem is, if they are thinking of this party as taking power, then it is only a minority of erstwhile "leaders" in movements who take power over all the rest. This comes back to the old Communist International doctrine of the subordination of the unions (mass orgs) to the party. This simply prefigures a new bureaucratic class in power.

I think your reference to the love letter sort of led to this derail. but sure, let's stick to the topic. Next Tuesday will really be a major milestone because a big win for Clinton in New York makes it all but impossible for Sanders in terms of the delegate count. Today it came out that two African-American state senators, in Harlem and Queens, came out with endorsements for Sanders. Sanders has also been endorsed by the MTA workers union, TWU 100, and the American Postal Workers Union...both unions with large numbers of workers of color. I believe African-Americans make up about a fourth of the workforce in the postal system. Black & Latino working class support would be critical for Sanders in New York...as indeed it will be in California.

From a UK perspective, I just can't wait for this to be over. Seriously this primary shit was tedious to begin with, but it just seems to be dragging on forever. And then we'll have to go through the bullshit of an election as well (queue all of the radicals who have supported Sanders and denounced Hilary as a candidate of big business, lining up to urge people to vote Hilary).

I sympathise with you guys in the US having to put up with it all!

I agree with Steven.

The whole primary business is just a way of distracting from actual issues (like the thousands of largely unopposed elected officals who actually run everything) and it's also a way of creating financial and logistical barriers. I think there might also be a connection with the 24 hour news cycle.
Looking at 1968 election for unrelated reasons I was surprised to see that only 5 or 6 states had primaries for the republicans.

That is interesting about 1968. Doing the whole thing state-by-state makes it particularly ridiculous. They could just do a national vote in one day, like we do in the UK. But I guess the point is to make the US look like a "democracy" more of the time…

Dems and Repubs didn't used to do primaries. it was the old smoke filled back room dealmaking route back in the day. I forget exactly when primaries became so universal, maybe in the '70s.

But yeh, the whole thing becomes interminable. The Dems have the primary schedule the way it is for a reason. They front load the more conservative southern states in order to give the more neo-liberal, right-leaning candidates an advantage. This is how Bill Clinton was nominated in 1992.

But the idea is to avoid people just forgetting about this competitition to select the elected Emperor, so they string it out. (John Adams said the US Constitution is "monarchical", meaning that power is heavily concentrated in the president, who holds power independent of the legislature.)

The nomination of Hillary Clinton has always been a foregone conclusion but it remains none the less astounding that Sanders has come from nowhere to about 40% of the party.

Democrats who believe their task is now to simply defeat Sanders and go ahead like nothing happened are wasting their time and misdirecting their energy. If they wish to have a viable, growing party after Hillary is nominated and even elected, they ought to be thinking about how to attract that entire new generation of voters who are soundly rejecting the business-as-is politics of Clinton and a money-soaked corrupt party leadership. Much more useful than insulting, condescending, trashing and whining over the anger that young Sanders supporters demonstrate. Never have I seen so many crybabies upset that "Bernie Bros" are mean to them on social media. Boo hoo.

I, for one, do not believe for a moment that the Democrats will get the message as individual elected officials are much more interested in their personal short term future than in the long time political course of the United States. More likely, the party will NOT make the shift that history now demands and the result will be millions more Americans estranged from and indifferent to the system, a further concentration of wealth and political purchasing power, and a continued decline in our living standards. Hope to be wrong but....

I think the key problem for the party establishment is that the Sanders voters & what they want are a threat to the Democratic Party as it has evolved at this point. The present party evolved into a patronage & campaign money sucking machine for self-aggrandizement of a group of entrepreneurial politicians. This is all based on the "service" they perform for the various segments of private capital, which they closely tied to in so many ways, via appointments, corporate funded think tanks, and their own commitments. It's likely that the Sanders phenomenon will encourage a new crop of would be politicians to challenge people in office from a more populist program. But I think widening alienation from the system is likely to increase.

I think the key problem for the party establishment is that the Sanders voters & what they want are a threat to the Democratic Party as it has evolved at this point. The present party evolved into a patronage & campaign money sucking machine for self-aggrandizement of a group of entrepreneurial politicians.

That's pretty much the whole history of the Democratic Party in the urban areas, isn't it? Tammany Hall anyone? The Daley "machine"?

I don't know what Sanders will encourage. If Hillary gets the nomination, Sanders will encourage his followers to support her, and they will. I don't think the Sanders supporters are the least bit of a threat to the "establishment" Democrats.

What happens after that really depends on the next recession, and how deep it goes.

Look at Howard Dean-- from "radical Dem" to health care lobbyist and Clinton supporter.

I don't think the Sanders supporters are the least bit of a threat to the "establishment" Democrats.

But I said *what they want* is a threat. What they want is a return to New Deal style policies that would ramp up state spending in various areas, and take measures that in practice would cut into capital's profit rate.

After all, what was the reason for the post-'70s neoliberal direction? It was to restore profit rates which had greatly sunk in late '60s and '70s. By not raising the minimum wage for years after the late '60s, the effect was to raise by 25 percent the profit rate of the restaurant industry. And then there is the myriad of tax cuts & loopholes for the wealthy.

To the degree there is going to be increasing forms of actual struggle due to this increasing discontent, to that degree the threat becomes real.

Polls had predicted Clinton winning by anywhere from 10 to 17 points. The higher prediction was more accurate as she has won by 17 points. Pretty much makes toast of Sanders. It was a closed primary which means a vote among those with a long term attachment to the Dem party machine. People who are more disaffected are often independent or in third parties. I suspected this would give Clinton the victory in New York.

The election contest in both parties itself has been an interminable focus of discussion this year due to the huge media focus on the implosion of the Republicans and Sanders phenomenon. Any real force for change is going to have to be developed through some other channel, and the media focus simply sucks the focus into the electoral scheme, which is structurally biased (as always) towards defense of interests of the dominating classes.

maps of county returns show clinton winning cities (NY/LI, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo) while sanders won the rest of the state.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-york

i also notice that trump lost one county: my own, right here in the heart of his "empire" :D

she won rochester tho very narrowly, 1 percent or something like that, whereas she won the Bronx by more than 2 to 1. Sanders won 50 of New York's 62 counties. Since delegates are apportioned in New York by congressional district his actual percent of delegates will be higher than his vote.

but the generational polarization is just incredible. seems as tho the increasing impoverishment of the working class -- destruction of future prospects -- under neoliberalism, especially since the financial crash, is effecting popular consciousness in dramatic ways.

I would agree with your sentiment, I think Americans are forced to choose how to stabilize their dying empire. Trump is a wild shot in the dark, but his xenophobic isolationism offers a tempting security blanket while Clinton is like a lieutenant who takes over a leaking ship. I feel that the capitalists are only betting on who can keep America a superpower for longer. And personally, I don't think Sanders is a quack. But he is a doctor working on a corpse. We need community, not a more democratic capitalism.

I think Americans are forced to choose how to stabilize their dying empire.

I have no idea what the fuck this means. Do you actually think most Americans think about 'the empire"?

At any rate, Cruz has now dropped out of the race & it seems that Trump is going to be the Repub candidate. Barring some extremely implausible Sanders super victory in California, Clinton will be the Dem nominee. This is a case where "lesser evil" has no meaning whatsoever. Clinton is the ultimate corporate capitalist warhawk. Nobody knows what Trump really believes, but it's likely the corporate & media elite will pile on Clinton to destroy Trump in November. Meanwhile it's also likely we'll see historically low voter turnout since both Trump & Clinton are roundly hated.

I think that they do, but not in the same way a politician. Which explains why "Make America great again" doesn't mean simply improve the domestic situation. Of course my comment was just a comment, and I said they are forced to choose, since elections are just that. Trump however is definitely a symptom of imperial decline.

The Pigeon

I think that they do, but not in the same way a politician. Which explains why "Make America great again" doesn't mean simply improve the domestic situation. Of course my comment was just a comment, and I said they are forced to choose, since elections are just that. Trump however is definitely a symptom of imperial decline.

Other than Trump's candidacy, what other evidence do you see that leads you to conclude this is a period of "imperial decline"?

I mean your assertion is nothing but a different wording of Trump's "Make America Great Again." Leads us to the question "Exactly when was 'America' ever great?" on the one hand; and on the other exactly what constitutes this "decline"? Trade deficits? China?

What exactly is specific to the US, to its "empire," and to the decline of that "empire" in contrast to a specific period of "empire?"

syndicalistcat

This is a case where "lesser evil" has no meaning whatsoever.

spot-on

syndicalistcat

This is a case where "lesser evil" has no meaning whatsoever.

While I'm not one to encourage anti-Trump popular fronts, I'm not sure this is totally accurate. Trump's candidacy, let alone a victory in November, looks significantly more likely to engender racial pogroms here than a Clinton victory. We're already seeing this at his rallies, which have become an exciting opportunity for his supporters to assault and scream slurs at protesters in general and people of color in particular.

Trump's foreign policy politics, to the extent he can be taken to stand for anything, is to the left of Hillary. Hillary is a total gung ho warhawk, major backer of "regime change". But it's hard to really know what either of them would do since both of them have flip flopped back and forth. Doug H.'s book on Hillary basically says that opportunism and military/imperalist hawkishness are the constants with her. Diana Johnstene's book "Queen of Chaos" also documents at length the hawkishness and imperalist enthusiasms of Hillary.

Sanders, for his part, also has a pro-imperialist record, backing things like Obama's "kill list" & drone wars.

What's with RT's endorsement of Sanders?

RT?

Russia Today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm5i6Vhu8b0

well they didn't exactly endorse him in that segment, tho they seem to be sympathetic to him.

duplicate

The Pigeon

What's with RT's endorsement of Sanders?

It's the external propaganda arm of the government so it's probably either because they'd prefer to have him in charge or just to stir things up for fun.

RT seems to "support" anyone at odds with mainstream western politics. So you'll see sympathetic treatment of both the far right and minority parties on the far (capitalist) left depending on the presenter or programme.

If we look at the way this is going to play out in November, in a Clinton versus Trump election, I think the more progressive voters will be pressured to vote for Clinton out of fear of Trump. Even with low voter turnout, I think Trump is going down. I mean, here's someone despised by 70 percent of the population. The globalist corporate elite do not like the attacks on the trade regime & Bush's Iraq war and other remarks that make Trump an unreliable executive for their global "management" regime, in which the executive branch of federal state has had an increasingly powerful role. So there will be a general push among elites & media for Clinton. She will also garner 90 percent of black vote & similar percentages of Latino & Muslim voters, and large majority of women, plus environmentalists, LGBT community, etc.

I think it quite possible Jill Stein will triple or quadruple her vote over 2012 but I think Clinton will still win.

Clinton's current crap about selling Women's Cards, her pandering on BLM, her phony opposition to NAFTA like agreements, her drum beating for Netanyahu, ain't gonna cut it in much of the Great Flyover. She has strong support among African-Americans and Latinos but otherwise she is the candidate of older yellow dog Dems living in retirement homes and smug professional class BMW club officers who also don't give two shits about the working poor.

At this juncture, it is easy to state with moral certainty that a full 40% of the potential Democratic electorate including Dem-leaning independents have rejected her. I cannot remember in my lifetime a nominee of any party that had such high internal negatives. It's not even clear that Trump's negatives among Republicans are as high as Clinton's among Dems. Spooked by Donald Trump, many of those Sanders voters will reluctantly pull the lever for her in November. Many will not, no matter what Sanders does or says during the summer and fall.

Anyway you cut it, the Democratic Party establishment is a discredited, hollowed out relic of the neo-liberal wave set off by Carter and consolidated under Bill Clinton. It's a losing formula when the Walton family alone --worth 140 billion dollars-- has more wealth than the aggregate of the 150 million poorest Americans. Hillary might win, will probably win, she might even win big. But I would not put a nickel on her chances. Anybody who thinks that it is impossible for Trump to EXPAND the Republican base much deeper among a forgotten, mostly despised and very disgruntled white working class is whistling past the graveyard.

I agree with X359594 about how intensely disliked & discredited Clinton is. Also, I think it is very unclear what the outcome of this presidential election will be. Doesn't matter what the polls say. Even tho the odds favor Clinton, it's no sure thing. Polls currently give the Libertarians 11 percent...defections from the Republicans in this case, but, again, this poll may express current feelings but not clear what will actually happen. Just how big will be the vote for Jill Stein, the probable Green party candidate (who is significantly more anti-capitalist & anti-imperialist than Sanders)? She is very likely to double or triple her vote of 2012 but that isn't saying much. She only got about 0.4 percent of the vote in 2012.

Juan Conatz

In other example of the bizarro world this election season has been, Sanders just endorsed an IWW campaign in Portland.

Sanders must be loving that shit.

How're the workers/the branch feeling about it?

Juan Conatz

Other than I see that the campaign has been promoting the endorsement on Facebook, I'm not sure.

I've noticed a lot of people sharing the BWU post on Facebook quoting a disclaimer stating that the endorsement is appreciated, but the IWW doesn't support or endorse any political candidate or campaign.

I've yet to figure out what the actual source of the quote is though.

Clearly, if the Dems wanted to put up the strongest candidate against Trump or any Republican, it would be Sanders. But they don't want to do that; they don't even want to give his supporters any representation on the platform/policy committees at the convention-- he offered 45 nominees for the 75 positions, if IIRC, and the DNC chose 3 of the 45.

Trump to EXPAND the Republican base much deeper among a forgotten, mostly despised and very disgruntled white working class is whistling past the graveyard.

Well, maybe, but I question how much support Trump actually has among white workers. And I don't think he's going to be able to both expand what support he has and garner the support of the "establishment" Republicans.

He will clearly have to play the race/immigration card that much harder and more frequently to appeal to the white petty bourgeoisie, declassed elements-- elements that might have had connections to the working class before Reagan and Volcker rode in and took care of the dispersal of industries in the US among small towns, rural areas, agricultural centers-- but there isn't much of a connection left 35 years on.

Anyway-- yeah, if the Dems wanted to clinch a victory they'd nominate Sanders-- but they don't-- property is thicker than blood.

drakeberkman

Juan Conatz

Other than I see that the campaign has been promoting the endorsement on Facebook, I'm not sure.

I've noticed a lot of people sharing the BWU post on Facebook quoting a disclaimer stating that the endorsement is appreciated, but the IWW doesn't support or endorse any political candidate or campaign.

I've yet to figure out what the actual source of the quote is though.

https://berniesanders.com/sanders-applauds-burgerville-unionizing-efforts/

No endorsement of Sanders from me of course but i'll mention, as another strangeness of this campaign, Sanders has been doing all sorts of events with Native Americans, on reservations and off, talking about need for keeping past promises, making a new relationship with the native population, addressing the real problems of poverty and so on on reservations. I can't recall any major American presidential candidate before talking about making amends to the native population like this. Of course Native Americans are actually a significant minority in a number of western states (6.6 percent in Montana, 13 percent in New Mexico), so can be a factor in upcoming primaries.

they also say that autonomous rev org needs to work within the state (as well as outside it)

The Burgerville campaign was covered by the Young Turks, whom I believe are backing Sanders.

The workers in the interview do a pretty good job of handling the interview and even start to talk about the economic system as a whole and the need for workers to come together. Then they get cut off for Liberal Paternalism and a bizarre longing for some mythical purer past.

[youtube]5jiCUU1k1LA[/youtube]

I think this video shows the fundamental differences between Liberal reformism and revolution. When the hosts start talking about "the system" its clearly about political procedure, whereas the Burgerville employees were talking about the economic relationships. Though to be fair the bloke on the left does touch on profit disparity, but then the dominant of the trio quickly stirs it back.

Seems like more & more of the Repub establishment are getting in line with Trump. Now Rubio apologized for his remark about Trump's genitals. Repub pols can see which way the wind is blowing among the base. On the other hand the neo-con warhawks have naturally gravitated to Clinton...birds of a feather and all that.

Now there is word the main corporate media are going to declare game over & Clinton as nominee during daytime on June 7th while people in California are still voting....the elite really can't stand Sanders. Paul Street had a piece about the stance of the elite on Counterpunch, "Feel the Hate".

I'm sure most will have seen it by now, but tonight, first the AP and-- then quickly thereafter-- other news agencies declared HRC the presumptive Democratic nominee. Apparently, some combination of the delegates she won from this past weekend's primaries in addition to a few previously undeclared super delegates declaring for HRC (some of whom will still not pledge their support on the record for fear of retribution from Sanders' supporters) put her over the threshold tonight--a little under 24 hours before the final contests tomorrow.

The Byzantine nominating process and delegate allocation system used by Democrats is opaque enough for this seemingly oddly timed decision to lend even more credibility to claims of a rigged system, claims that will likely further alienate Sanders' supporters (many of whom, as first time participants, don't have a solid grasp of the party's nominating rules), making a party rapprochement that much more difficult at exactly the point in time that party leaders had hoped to unify around Clinton.

If HRC's campaign had even a modicum of competency, her operatives would have the candidate come out strongly against the call, asking that all votes be counted before the election is called, in the spirit of "transparency." The result will still be the same, but Clinton would look generous, having risked nothing. However, if we've learned anything from both the '08 and the '16 primaries it's that the Clinton team, time and again, is quite adept at clawing defeat from the jaws of victory.

The larger point we've learned this cycle is how little actual control of the process the political and media elites currently have. Like many other aspects this go around, this lack of control is nearly equal parts exciting ( in that this could open more space within which to organise a radical movement) and terrifying (because of both the ascendancy of right-wing authoritarianism and the lack of a class- based movement strong enough to fight it.) So yeah, on further thought, it's actually quite a bit more terrifying than exciting.

PS hello all...long time, no see.

Now that this excruciating Democratic primary series is over, it becomes clear, as Jack Rasmus points out, Sanders has no plausible Plan B, now that it's clear he was defeated.

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/does-bernie-sanders-have-a-plan-b/

Getting "progressive" clauses in the Democratic Party platform is laughable. The platform is not worth the paper it is printed on. It has no force whatsoever. And now that he says he's going to focus on defeating Trump, this suggests he's basically moving to capitulation to the Democratic Party establishment....the party of Wall Street, the tech billionaires, big capital in general, and the military-industrial complex.

The November election looks to be a choice between an "I-want-to-bomb-Iran" neocon war witch and a bombastic racist loose cannon.

I'd be interested to get thoughts on this study released a few months back. It connects the rise of Trump to the recent growth of an authoritarian strain in the wider populace.

The researchers claim that while many are predisposed toward an authoritarian worldview, external events can 'activate' authoritarianism in others. The methodology is Interesting in that the researchers ask seemingly benign questions about child rearing methods in order to detemine those who are susceptible to such a worldview.

One obvious problem with the study is the researchers appear to connect all authoritarians with right-wing politics. As libcoms, we're painfully aware that lefties obviously have more than their fair share of authoritarians.

Anyway, I'd be really interested to hear what people think.

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

Trump is addicted to essentializing groups, in other words, thinking in terms of racist or fake generalizations about whole groups the older Red Scare era restrictions were aimed at particular individuals, such as excluding anarchists or communists. So of course Trump endorses group profiling, even tho it is completely fallacious as a methodology.

As a number of Republican politicians have been moaning about, they say Trump is a total amateur so he constantly makes gaffes, and ends up getting worse and worse negatives. Currently 70 percent they say. So the American Iron Lady, the neocon war monger & capitalist shill Clinton is the likely gainer. Latest poll has Jill Stein at 4 percent and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) somewhere around 6 percent, I think. So if that is the way it goes, Stein would get about 10 times as many votes as in 2012. Meanwhiile Greens now say they are an eco-socialist party. But not really any class politics there.

I suspect that the Libertarians and Greens will both end up doing better than the current polling has them. Significant numbers of Sanders supporters will defect to Jill Stein. Wouldn't be surprised if they both passed the 5% threshold for federal funding.

The long running power struggle within the Trump campaign has come to an end. Corey Lewendowski, he of the physical assault on a friendly reporter, is out, and Paul Manafort now has the reigns of the campaign apparatus--as much as one actually exists.

If you're unfamiliar with Manafort's history, he comes from the same political family tree as Trump: acolytes of the infamous Ray Cohn. He has a proven track record of helping unpalatable right-wing authoritarians smooth out their rough edges. It's not an exaggeration to say his client list literally includes some of the worst authoritarians of the past 30-40 years.

This article is a pretty good primer on Manafort:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html

What do folks think of the dual conspiracy that both Bernie AND Trump are actually purposeful sheepdogs for hawk candidate Hillary? I've been seeing it an awful lot lately and remain a skeptic.

I really don't see a need to construct these sheepdogs in that they both could very well be organic features of the current political climate. Particularly Trump's right-wing populism.

This country has too much of a tendency to generate conspiracy theories. has to do with people not knowing how the system is structured to operate. Berndawg operates as a lone wolf so I can see him sensing the political winds post Occupy & doing this campaign to push the issue of economic inequality.

If the polls look really bad for Trump by November, we may see higher vote for Stein more than just 1 or 2 percent. But also likely to be low turnout.

Juan Conatz

I think the 5% thing is not going to happen. Even Nader, with all the publicity, money, excitement he had during an election year , where many were fed up with 8 years of a centrist Democrat, only got 2%. The Greens will not break 1% this year and doubt the Libertarians will either (although they may come closer).

I just saw a breakdown on CNN today....

Clinton continues to lead Trump when Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party are included in the list of options. Nationwide in that match-up, Clinton holds 42%, Trump 38%, Johnson 9% and Stein 7%.

Found it interesting that CNN will be hosting a prime time on air town hall with the LP (sic) candidates. Betcha some of the pro-Romney anti-who but Der Drumpf friends got to CNN to host it. After all, former Massachusetts govern Bill Weld is one of the L (sic) candidadtes.

syndicalistcat

This country has too much of a tendency to generate conspiracy theories. has to do with people not knowing how the system is structured to operate. Berndawg operates as a lone wolf so I can see him sensing the political winds post Occupy & doing this campaign to push the issue of economic inequality.

If the polls look really bad for Trump by November, we may see higher vote for Stein more than just 1 or 2 percent. But also likely to be low turnout.

There is also a theory, buttressed by last week's leeks, that the DNC actively tried to get its media allies to give more coverage to far-right republicans in order to sideline the more moderate ones.

This is given some sinister dimension by the story which was reported last year the Bill Clinton had encouraged Trump in 2014 to get into politics.

Trump is indeed an ideal candidate for Clinton to run against to ratchet up the lesser evilism. She is going to ramp up the picture of Trump as a fascist looney. Will simply embed the status quo in cement.

syndicalistcat

Trump is indeed an ideal candidate for Clinton to run against to ratchet up the lesser evilism. She is going to ramp up the picture of Trump as a fascist looney. Will simply embed the status quo in cement.

I can't remember if it was Halperin or Heilman who made the point yesterday that this also holds true for Trump. That both candidates' matriculation lead them to, essentially, the one General Election candidate that they could possibly beat is anomalous. I think the fact that Trump's campaign has been run so terribly and yet he's still just barely outside the margin of error, and running much closer than that in OH and PA pretty much shows just how vulnerable HRC's candidacy really is.

As far as tin-foil hat conspiracies go, to me the most interesting (and somewhat less unbelievable) one puts Trump as essentially a Kermlin-beholden Manchurian Candidate. Of course, it's unlikely, but there are well-known Establishment Republicans who are questioning the various connections there (ie Putin's stated preference, the Russian-linked hack of Oppo on Trump, the aforementioned Paul Manafort link to Kremlin backed campaigns, etc).

If Stein does reach 6 percent, running on the Green's new eco-socialist program, that would be the highest a left candidate has gotten since Eugene Debs in 1912 I think. Debs got 6 percent that time, but the Republican party had split on that occasion, so there were three mainstream parties.

Drumpf's problem is that he is demographically boxed in. His negatives among Latinos right now are 89 percent and 79 percent with women. To elect a president, Republicans have to take at least one of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida.

syndicalistcat

Drumpf's problem is that he is demographically boxed in. His negatives among Latinos right now are 89 percent and 79 percent with women. To elect a president, Republicans have to take at least one of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida.

ABSOLUTELY. All the fundamentals point to a landslide Electoral College victory for HRC. As one anti-Trump Republican operative, Tim Miller, said Hillary could even beat Trump from jail. This was back in April so obviously before Orlando, but Miller also assuaged fears that a terrorist attack could lead to a Trump win by asking if the attack would kill all the women and brown people in the US because demographics alone make a Trump win very difficult, if not entirely impossible. I imagine he wasn't entirely serious, but it definitely gives an idea how Republicans view the fundamentals.

Of course, fundamentals/demographics or not, all this does require a modicum of competency from the HRC campaign. While there have been flashes of this recently, I remain unconvinced.

All of that said, in the last few weeks there have been a few recent rumblings that the demographic modelling of the 2012 electorate as ascertained from exit polls may have skewed toward under-representing white male voters. This possibility has lead some to speculate that there just might be enough white male voters to give Trump a fighting chance.

People tend to vote outside the mainstream more before the big elections, although that's what they said about Trump, and a lot of people will remember voting for Nader and getting Bush, so I think the two-party system will win out. To me it seems more likely the libertarian candidate will get 5% because a lot of right-wingers won't vote for Trump.

In terms of conspiracy theories I think it comes down to a basic inability to accept losing. I think the polarised situation (not particularly new I admit) means people have trouble accepting that the lost when they were 'right' so they find another reason. The basic inability of politicians to tell the truth, behave honestly, stick to promises (now they simply don't make any) helps.When everything is partisan it's easy to believe it's all part of a conspiracy and to an extent it is, how long have people been rambling on about Trump. Obama achieved some stuff but ultimately the president doesn't hold much of the real power (as has been said before)

If Stein does reach 6 percent, running on the Green's new eco-socialist program, that would be the highest a left candidate has gotten since Eugene Debs in 1912 I think. Debs got 6 percent that time, but the Republican party had split on that occasion, so there were three mainstream parties.

Fair Vote have been tallying the votes and have almost 13 million votes cast for Sanders. I think that beats Debs.

I'm not trying to be insulting here, but I find the notion that Stein will get 5% of the vote just unrealistic. What base does she have? In 2000, when Nader was running, Green Party people campaigned for him even in the tiny town in Iowa that I lived in at the time. I see no such infrastructure, even in the liberal Twin Cities, for her campaign.

What base did Sanders have a year ago? It seems like some base flocked to him when Warren refused to run against HRC, and a lot of it has come "out of nowhere", so to speak. Sure, some of his supporters will vote for Clinton while holding their noses, but I would not be surprised if a lot of them defected to Stein. I'm not necessarily predicting that, but I can picture it happening. In many ways, Stein's biggest problem so far has probably been that people who might normally support her were focusing on Sanders when it seemed like he had a shot.

Honestly, a year ago, when I heard Sanders was running, I laughed it off and thought he'd get Nader-like results and drop out with no real impact. I think most of us on the far left totally dismissed the possibility that he might get any traction, much less the amount that he did get. So I'm holding back my skepticism for awhile.

Fair Vote have been tallying the votes and have almost 13 million votes cast for Sanders. I think that beats Debs.

That's in the primaries, an apples vs oranges comparison. I have no idea how many votes Stein will ultimately get. In 2012 she got less than 0.5 percent. I'm sure she will get at least several times that level of vote in November. But I don't think the comparison to Nader's performance in 2000 works. The Dem candidate, an enviro, didn't have anything like the massive negatives of Clinton.

Sanders had no organization to speak of when he started out. It was all a top-down affair. And yet he put fear into the Democratic party establishment. This has been an unusual election, and reflects deep seated economic problems & insecurities & various kinds of cultural & political polarization.

And then there is the virtually disfunctional federal government. Due to things like gerrymandering at state level, the GOP has gained a structural majority but the appeal to the most extreme elements has them paralyzing the government.

I just meant that it's the new high water mark for the number of votes that a "socialist" has received in the US.

The total voter turnout in 2012 was 126 million. So if it's similar this year, and Jill Stein gets 6% (which would be huge for her!), she'd get something like 8 million. Still only 3/5 what Sanders got in the primaries.

It's good to see Trump's relationship with Roy Cohn is starting to gain some mainstream traction.There are several good links in this article

Nate Silver's 538 released their 1st General Election model today. They give an 80% probability to a Clinton victory. All the usual caveats apply to modelling based off polls this far out in a General Election, but Silver summed up Trump's chances:

538

...the same chance the visiting team has when it trails by a run in the top of the 8th inning in a major league baseball game.*

so, unlikely but far, far from impossible. there are a lot of interesting insights in the model.

.
.
.

*obligatory baseball reference for our british comrades :)

i've now seen stein polling 4% and 7% (green party claim).

there have been nine national polls since the California primary June 7. Clinton's lead over Trump varies from 1 to 10 percent in those polls. The average for Stein in those polls is between 4 and 5 percent. I think only one poll gave her 7 percent. Her lowest rating was 3 percent in one poll. 4 percent seems to be the most common poll result. That would be about 10 times her result in 2012.

jesuithitsquad

Nate Silver's 538 released their 1st General Election model today. They give an 80% probability to a Clinton victory.

That was similar to the probability given for a Remain victory in the UK referendum. Up until the last week before the referendum I was pretty confident of a Remain win.

Don't get me wrong, I think Hilary will win, but after that result I wouldn't be too sure of anything

People lie to pollsters, people change their minds, pollsters lie and manipulate and finding representative samples is very difficult so I wouldn't put huge trust in polls on national issues.
I still think CLinton will win, largely on the basis that he is the only politician people hate more than her and more people seem to be afraid of him.

Steven.

jesuithitsquad

Nate Silver's 538 released their 1st General Election model today. They give an 80% probability to a Clinton victory.

That was similar to the probability given for a Remain victory in the UK referendum. Up until the last week before the referendum I was pretty confident of a Remain win.

Don't get me wrong, I think Hilary will win, but after that result I wouldn't be too sure of anything

There's also a possibility of the skeletons in her closet becoming more visible. I have a sneaking feeling that there's a lot that will come out right after she's officially nominated.

jef costello

People lie to pollsters, people change their minds, pollsters lie and manipulate and finding representative samples is very difficult so I wouldn't put huge trust in polls on national issues.
I still think CLinton will win, largely on the basis that he is the only politician people hate more than her and more people seem to be afraid of him.

For sure and that's one reason all polls are not created the same. Things like asking a respondent questions about their neighbor's feelings about race or whatever sensitive question they are polling on helps weed out dishonesty.

Steven.

jesuithitsquad

Nate Silver's 538 released their 1st General Election model today. They give an 80% probability to a Clinton victory.

That was similar to the probability given for a Remain victory in the UK referendum. Up until the last week before the referendum I was pretty confident of a Remain win.

Don't get me wrong, I think Hilary will win, but after that result I wouldn't be too sure of anything

But as i understand it--and it's only a peripheral knowledge at best-- UK polling has had a really terrible past couple of years. Election modeling of the 538 sort fundamentally rely on accurate polling data. Now, given they use an average of most recent polls it usually will lessen the impact of out liers, and of skewed polls. When all the polls are unreliable then the whole thing falls on it's face.

All that said, I share your hesitation....and even more so after brexit.

curious to me: trump has been saying that saddam was good at killing terrorists, which explicitly contradicts the long and dearly held Republican narrative that saddam and al-qaeda were working together.

?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/08/jill-stein-bernie-sanders-green-party

petey

?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/08/jill-stein-bernie-sanders-green-party

That's been going around for a bit, not sure what makes it more "newsy" today. It's a brilliant move on Stein's part, because even if he doesn't take it it does a lot to endear Sanders supporters to her.

I honestly think it'd be a lot better for Sanders to do that vs endorsing Hillary if he wants to avoid incorporation into the Democratic machine, but I think he's getting ready to endorse her.

This is the year of surprises though.

Sanders would never consider a run as a Green I think. He's too tied into the establishment as a US Senator. He's worked with the Dems for years. He's not ready to completely blow up his relationship with the Democratic Party that way.

For Stein of course the task is to try to win away as large a bloc of the Sanders voters as possible. Polls have suggested that as many as 14 percent of Sanders voters might vote for her versus 9 percent who are thinking of voting for Trump. Polls have indicated 1/4 of his voters (at least) will not vote for Clinton, they say. There is a certain percentage of Sanders voters who say they will vote for the Libertarian.

Currently Stein, who does not have high name recognition, is running around 4 to 5 percent in national polls. It's hard to say if that will hold up, go up or down, between now and November.

The Greens are also apparently in the process of declaring themselves an eco-socialist party, tho we'll have to wait for their convention to see if that happens.

So as a bit of a roundup, as suspected Sanders has endorsed Hillary (albeit looking very sad), getting booed by his supporters. Hillary is the confirmed Democratic candidate, and Trump is the confirmed Republican.

Interesting article by Michael Moore saying that Trump will win: http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

It's pretty compelling, although I think he underestimates the fact that some Republicans will not vote for him (see former mayor Bloomberg endorsing Clinton, for example).

Steven.

It's pretty compelling, although I think he underestimates the fact that some Republicans will not vote for him (see former mayor Bloomberg endorsing Clinton, for example).

your point is right, the neocon establishment, mostly republicans, will vote clinton as she's an interventionist. big names have been quitting the party publicly. hard conservatives and tea party types will vote for the constitution party or some such, of which there are a few, and libertarians will vote libertarian: http://www.politics1.com/p2016.htm.

you've got two "new york liberals" running, which is interesting, or something, in light of the last 30 (or 50) years of concerted and well funded rightwing efforts.

bloomberg himself isn't the best example though. he was a lifelong democrat before he decided to run for mayor, and he ran republican because there would be little/no opposition to his candidacy on that line. then he left the GOP in the middle of his second term and for the last 6 years as mayor was independent.

Latest polls have Clinton 9 to 14 points ahead of Trump. This is similar to the margin of victory of Obama in 2008. Trump has slid very far & is still falling. This is heading into landslide territory.

Another poll says that among people under 30 Stein has more support than Trump (16 percent versus 9 percent).

syndicalistcat

Latest polls have Clinton 9 to 14 points ahead of Trump. This is similar to the margin of victory of Obama in 2008. Trump has slid very far & is still falling. This is heading into landslide territory.

Another poll says that among people under 30 Stein has more support than Trump (16 percent versus 9 percent).

That's interesting data re: <30 year olds. It does look like it's moving towards a landslide. Pundits are speculating that North Carolina, Arizona and maybe even Georia could flip this cycle if the Clinton camp decides to spend money there.

3 of the last 4 directors of the CIA have come out openly opposing Trump with one DCI stating that when he fell for Putin's flattery, Trump effectively became a Russian asset ( not in the conspiracy theory way-- which is gaining more and more mainstream coverage,btw).

That said, if history is any indication the race will eventually tighten before November. Trump has had arguably the worst post-convention 2 weeks in living memory, and it's hard to imagine things getting much worse for him, given that he has around a 25-30% absolute floor and he's currently polling around 35-39%. However, while it is a small data set, in the time these things have been tracked the candidate leading following each campaign's post-convention bounce has won in November.

One final note, Trump has now 'pivoted' his Rigged System argument to the General Election. If the election ends up being close this argument has the potential for calamity. I've mentioned Roger Stone in previous posts. This week he speculated that Trump needs to ramp up the rhetoric about it:

“I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly,” Stone said. “He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’”

http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/07/29/roger-stone-milo-show-trump-can-fight-voter-fraud/

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/us/politics/green-party-jill-stein-houston.html

You’re at 6 percent in a new poll,” her press director, Meleiza Figueroa, repeated. “Sixteen percent with voters under 30.”

i don't know anything about those 2 guys but i found this

https://m.reddit.com/r/Ask_Politics/comments/4wknq9/has_ajamu_baraka_green_vp_ever_recanted_from/

Apparently the rumors that Stein is anti vax are false (er, sorta).
http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-anti-vaccine/

I see that Bernie friendly Michael Albert (leading light in IOPS and promoter of Parecon - criticised elsewhere on this site) is publicly arguing for a vote for Hilary Clinton as 'the lesser evil' against Trump in most cases and otherwise for the Green candidate in states where Clinton looks like an obvious winner anyway but then he's no anarchist or libertarian communist so perhaps not surprising.

Yeah they are calling that the safe state strategy.

A lot of people did a similar thing with Nader in 2000.

Michael Albert is also a friend of Chomsky who is arguing the same lesser evil voting for Clinton in "safe states." Albert generally dissociates his ideas about libertarian socialism as goal from strategy, where he seems to hold that almost anything can be a viable strategy. Remember his fervent support for Chavez. Achieving workers & community councils via the state...same line as we find in Harnecker's "21st Century Socialism" essay.

Poll average since end of Republican convention has risen 9 percentage points for Clinton, who is now 7.8 points ahead in the Real Clear Politics polling average. Moreover, direction of the polls now indicate Clinton has a safe lead in states with 256 electoral votes & is ahead by 6.6 points in Michigan, which has another 16 electoral votes. That would give her 272 electoral votes. 270 is needed to win. So as of now she's clearly got enough advantage to trounce Trump. Most recent national polls put Clinton anywhere from 9 to 15 points ahead of Trump.

Current polling average for Stein is 3.8 percent.

Baraka also says that Assad regime "is not illegitimate", which means he supports the Baath regime against the Syrian opposition. I don't know enough about him to know if he's anti-semitic himself tho in some black nationalist circles there is a history of anti-semitism (Farrakhan for example). Green Party seems to attract a lot of kooks, conspiracy theorists and what-not.

Ajamu repudiates holocaust denial in his reply, claiming he didn't know Barrett's views:

http://gawker.com/stein-campaign-says-running-mate-didn-t-realize-he-was-1785157203?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Hear, hear.

I have no idea. It's hard to know if you don't know him, though his comments on the Assad regime already suggest a willingness to accept authoritarian regimes.

It's probably worth noting here that Trump's dog-whistle is more like an air horn at this point with his new line of attack that 'Barack Hussein Obama founded ISIS.' Oh yeah, that and also the statement that 2nd Amendment People could stop Hilary.

Juan Conatz

Yeah, I saw that. Seems suspect. Everytime I've appeared on radio or had something of mine published somewhere, I like to know who is behind that stuff. I think more likely is that he didn't see a problem with Barrett's views. A certain segment of the left is somewhat tolerant of antisemitism, whether disguised or overt. Personally, I find this as dangerous as any other form of reactionary politics that can seep in, even though it isn't necessarily taken as seriously as others.

I almost totally agree that this is probably the case, though I'd be lying if I didn't say I could suspect he isn't that media literate to actually track where his stuff is appearing. But if he got it cleared he knew.

jesuithitsquad

It's probably worth noting here that Trump's dog-whistle is more like an air horn at this point with his new line of attack that 'Barack Hussein Obama founded ISIS.'

Its not a new attack line. He's been saying that since he began campaigning last year. Medias just trying to finish him off so he cant inch over the finish line in the fall.

On this particular point hes completely correct (though I'm sure his reasoning, whatever it is, to get to this conclusion is wrong). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a defeated underground armed struggle group in Western Iraq in 2011. Today it controls territory the size of the UK and has international reach for guerrilla attacks.

teh

jesuithitsquad

It's probably worth noting here that Trump's dog-whistle is more like an air horn at this point with his new line of attack that 'Barack Hussein Obama founded ISIS.'

Its not a new attack line. He's been saying that since he began campaigning last year. Medias just trying to finish him off so he cant inch over the finish line in the fall.

On this particular point hes completely correct (though I'm sure his reasoning, whatever it is, to get to this conclusion is wrong). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a defeated underground armed struggle group in Western Iraq in 2011. Today it controls territory the size of the UK and has international reach for guerrilla attacks.

Al Qaeda and ISIS are not the same and have been in open conflict (for example in Syria)

jef costello

teh

jesuithitsquad

It's probably worth noting here that Trump's dog-whistle is more like an air horn at this point with his new line of attack that 'Barack Hussein Obama founded ISIS.'

Its not a new attack line. He's been saying that since he began campaigning last year. Medias just trying to finish him off so he cant inch over the finish line in the fall.

On this particular point hes completely correct (though I'm sure his reasoning, whatever it is, to get to this conclusion is wrong). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a defeated underground armed struggle group in Western Iraq in 2011. Today it controls territory the size of the UK and has international reach for guerrilla attacks.

Al Qaeda and ISIS are not the same and have been in open conflict (for example in Syria)

I said Al Qaeda in Iraq which is the same group (or was) as so-called "ISIS." Al-Qaeda in Iraq created the Syrian branch after NATO opened its borders & gave Gulf/NATO arms to let it conquer North Syria, but they split in 2013-14 partially out of the Iraqs branch not wanting to follow Al-Qaeda Central's leadership and partially of their disgust at working for their enemies.

so i was just commenting in a Facebook thread about the nuttiness of the U.S. left when Ajamu Baraka chimes in to say he's being smeared by liberals as a black supremacist and holocaust denier. People can be naive I've found so I don't know if he understood about Barrett's politics just because Barrett interviewed him.

teh

jesuithitsquad

It's probably worth noting here that Trump's dog-whistle is more like an air horn at this point with his new line of attack that 'Barack Hussein Obama founded ISIS.'

Its not a new attack line. He's been saying that since he began campaigning last year. Medias just trying to finish him off so he cant inch over the finish line in the fall.

On this particular point hes completely correct (though I'm sure his reasoning, whatever it is, to get to this conclusion is wrong). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a defeated underground armed struggle group in Western Iraq in 2011. Today it controls territory the size of the UK and has international reach for guerrilla attacks.

Right, but that's not really his point. He's firing up his racist base, the Birthers who think Obama is a Kenyan Muslim who actually, literally founded ISIS. Hugh Hewitt gave him a chance to walk it back by offering your explanation above. Trump rejected the explanation and reiterated 'Obama founded ISIS.' This morning he claimed he was being sarcastic, instead of offering the above explanation.

Also, unless my memory is failing me I don't recall him couching this argument with such overtly racist overtones before now. I think he's said Obama is responsible for allowing ISIS' growth and so on, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think he's ever said "Barack Hussain Obama founded ISIS."

jesuithitsquad

Hugh Hewitt gave him a chance to walk it back by offering your explanation above. Trump rejected the explanation and reiterated 'Obama founded ISIS.' This morning he claimed he was being sarcastic, instead of offering the above explanation.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/donald-trump-hugh-hewitt-obama-founder-isis/

Trump was asked by host Hugh Hewitt about the comments Trump made Wednesday night in Florida, and Hewitt said he understood Trump to mean "that he (Obama) created the vacuum, he lost the peace."

Trump objected.

"No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS," Trump said. "I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."

Hewitt pushed back again, saying that Obama is "not sympathetic" to ISIS and "hates" and is "trying to kill them."

"I don't care," Trump said, according to a show transcript. "He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?"

so he seems to be speaking metaphorically and at the same time denying it, which would be very like him.

Yeah exactly. It's the Palinesque "paling around with terrorists" move. It works because there is a small element of truth to it, but the intention--stoking racist hatred--has pretty much nothing to do with those elements.

Looks like election day and the aftermath could be pretty ugly. Trump's been going pretty hard to delegitimize the likely Clinton victory by talking about how the election'll be rigged and more recently how if he loses Pennsylvania (which is probable) it'll definitely be because it was stolen. Now his campaign's looking to recruit "election observers" who would be sure to try to intimidate any "suspicious" i.e. non-white voters I would think.

Tyrion

Now his campaign's looking to recruit "election observers" who would be sure to try to intimidate any "suspicious" i.e. non-white voters I would think.

I briefly heard this reported last night, and yeah election day could get really ugly.

.

There have been some interviews with old-style ideological conservatives who say that Trump's politics are a blatant appeal to white nationalism or white identity politics and this is the chickens coming home to roost, as far as the Republican party's post-1964 appeal to the former Dixiecrats and other racist elements. The conservatives who don't agree with the ugly racist dimension of the Trump phenomenon are looking askance at the "base" their politics has accumulated.

There was a report on a series of interviews with Republican women who really dislike Clinton but are voting for her, due to their utter distaste with Trump and his followers.

And there was this piece at Black Agenda Report on just how Clinton has been accumulating massive conservative, war hawk and ruling class support:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/hillary_big_nasty_tent

I don't agree with the author's advocacy of a social democratic party of course, but I think he did a good job of making it clear how Clinton is the ruling class consensus candidate.

I don't know about Barrett but Kathleen Wells claims to be a "progressive" but "Jews exploiting blacks" is a theme with a long history in black nationalist circles. The more comes out about Baraka finding nothing objectionable about anti-semitic riffs in his presence, the less plausible his denials become.

Some pundits are starting to say that the seemingly destructive rants of Trump show he isn't really interested so much in becoming president but in giving vent to...and encouraging development of...white nationalism or white identity politics. They are suggesting it's not just because he's an amateur who doesn't know how to run a winning campaign, but that this is what he wants to do.

When I say I don't know about Barrett, I mean I've not studied him at all and don't know if he claims to be a "progressive" or on the left as Wells does. that is all. Given what you've reported, I agree that his anti-semitism is obvious and Baraka should have been aware of this.

jesuithitsquad

teh

Its not a new attack line. He's been saying that since he began campaigning last year. Medias just trying to finish him off so he cant inch over the finish line in the fall.

On this particular point hes completely correct (though I'm sure his reasoning, whatever it is, to get to this conclusion is wrong). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a defeated underground armed struggle group in Western Iraq in 2011. Today it controls territory the size of the UK and has international reach for guerrilla attacks.

Right, but that's not really his point. He's firing up his racist base, the Birthers who think Obama is a Kenyan Muslim who actually, literally founded ISIS. Hugh Hewitt gave him a chance to walk it back by offering your explanation above. Trump rejected the explanation and reiterated 'Obama founded ISIS.' This morning he claimed he was being sarcastic, instead of offering the above explanation.

Two Points (I'll respond to the ISIS stuff in the next post). First you're (and the subsequent thread posts are) repeating the line of the Democratic Party where "the Republican Party is the party of racism and the Democratic Party is the party of anti-racism,or at least mitigating racism." Which is one of the main ideological foundations of the Democrats mass support as a party, complete with a distortion of post-60's electoral alliances and a foundation myth around "realignment". US was founded as a white settler colony and until there is regime change the nature of its state will remain the same. Its unwavering in belief in global anglo supremacy (the 'five eyes') and that 'the west' (ie white nations) are the model that others have to submit to. There is no anti-racism to be found within this political system. Also there is nothing Trump has said he will do that Obama hasnt done in his eight years to the cheers of the sections that are in outraged by Trump. (Before Trump ran for president he was a darling of the liberal media that now berates him and would go to sports events/clubs with Al Sharpton and play golf with Bill Clinton).

For example, the thing that took of Trumps presidential run was his statements on illegal immigration. Democrats that are now going around saying that Trump is going to carry out "ethnic cleansing" at the very moment that Obama is out campaigning for Clinton claiming that he "lowered illegal immigration to 70's levels." Obama carried out millions of deportations (some partisans argue the numbers are skewed by new methodology but even if its not more than all the presidents of the 20th century combined its still millions nonetheless). Bill Clinton, who's now installing his wife in the presidency, militarized the border in 1994 expecting the NAFTA economic consequences there. Thousands died in harsher desert routes from the consequences. When Hillary Clinton was asked by a right wing anti-Trump journalist during one of the debates whats the difference between Trumps "The Wall" and her proposal for "The Fence" she could not come up with the answer. Same could be said about the last Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who literally made a nationally televised speech where he called Trump Hitler ("1930's") because of his immigration policies. Yet when he ran for President, in the Republican primaries he took what NYT called a "hard line" on illegal immigration calling for "self-deportation"- i.e. denying jobs and housing to coerce an illegal to leave.
And needless to say Obama and Clinton have majority approval ratings amongst USA's Hispanic population in the polls. Because voting choices dont happen over illegal immigration policies but top-down alliances between party heads and ethnic 'leaders' (businesses, local machine bosses, churches, etc).

When there is no difference between candidates policies (and there isn't- only tactics), but there is a huge amount of money at stake for various competing business blocks then elections become about personalities and language etiquette takes central importance. Trumps explicit tactic (though its exaggerated) of discarding language etiquette and making the implicit explicit has certainly disquieted many Democrats and Republicans as it serves the purpose of hiding social contradictions and preserving stability. But I don't buy the Trump or Republican exceptionalism.

On the same thought:
syndicalistcat

Some pundits are starting to say that the seemingly destructive rants of Trump show he isn't really interested so much in becoming president but in giving vent to...and encouraging development of...white nationalism or white identity politics. They are suggesting it's not just because he's an amateur who doesn't know how to run a winning campaign, but that this is what he wants to do.

I dont believe the recent cases are a response to Trumps destructive rants but rather selective focus on him by a concentration of media monopolies that has decided to finish him off. However, though attacks on Trump by the media are on Saddam levels its pretty normal, if not by degree.

For instance Hillary Clinton was denounced as anti-semite for going off on "effin jews" by rival campaigns when she ran for governor:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jul/18/uselections2000.usa

Obamas campaign, successfully, colored Hillary Clinton as racist and anti-muslim when he ran against her in 2008 (Clinton started the "birther" thing):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/26/barackobama.uselections2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7263783.stm

"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed," [Clinton's campaign manager ] said.

And so on. You can color anyone a racist & so on, cause in a world system thats operates on inequality people will form ideas to rationalize it. And sooner or later someone, especially in the media eye, will say something unappropriate. I cant easily give examples of Obama being a hardcore racist (like lamenting to the Atlantic that he cant replace Mideast potentates with Scandanavian technocrats, of viewing "Muslims" as a homogeneous racial group and potential 5th column). New Labour smearing Corbyn as an anti-semite has been quite sophisticated (though bullshit).

About White Nationalism: I think the only difference between Democrats identity politics and the particular racialism of the New Right is which racial groups they fetishize for their political campaign. Its the same zoology thinking. Since Democrats identity politics is the only thing that seems to be working on the elite ideological level post-2008 in the US I think its inevitable that white identity politics will grow out of the same logic. US seems to me to be going through a tentative Japanification of it politics & political culture following a similar perpetual stagnation of the economy.
--
Whats surprised me about Trump is for a guy who sold himself as a self-funding candidate hes not interested in spending his billion. He must know that in the US who spends the most money will win, but he appears to be wanting to finish the campaign with a small profit. I honestly expected him to spend a couple of hundred mill on tv ads with all the ex-employees Bill Clinton sexually harassed calling Hillary "a rapist" for being in charge of covering it up and then ride into the White House on reduced turnout amongst female Democrats. Or if hes going to be so outspoken at insulting the elite, go full steam with populist bullshit. Instead he seems content with being a punchingbag and complaining about it.

One last thought on Trump: Only difference I see between him and the rest is the tactical difference that while US strategy in recent decades has been to offset its relative economic decline (as % of global gdp) by using its military might to wipe its competitors of the map, Trump believes (falsely imo) that this has been a failure and the war must be fought through economic war from the home front. Since a lot of oligarchs would be threatened by "anti-globalization" they freak out and consider him Hitler.

jesuithitsquad

teh

jesuithitsquad

It's probably worth noting here that Trump's dog-whistle is more like an air horn at this point with his new line of attack that 'Barack Hussein Obama founded ISIS.'

Its not a new attack line. He's been saying that since he began campaigning last year. Medias just trying to finish him off so he cant inch over the finish line in the fall.

On this particular point hes completely correct (though I'm sure his reasoning, whatever it is, to get to this conclusion is wrong). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a defeated underground armed struggle group in Western Iraq in 2011. Today it controls territory the size of the UK and has international reach for guerrilla attacks.

Right, but that's not really his point. He's firing up his racist base, the Birthers who think Obama is a Kenyan Muslim who actually, literally founded ISIS. Hugh Hewitt gave him a chance to walk it back by offering your explanation above. Trump rejected the explanation and reiterated 'Obama founded ISIS.' This morning he claimed he was being sarcastic, instead of offering the above explanation.

My second point: I have no idea what Trump means because hes using Obamas 2008 be-everything-to-everyone campaign approach but ex-DIA head Flynn is part of his campaign so I assume it approximates something of the DIA memo (whose contents and pdf can be found here:
https://levantreport.com/2015/08/06/former-dia-chief-michael-flynn-says-rise-of-islamic-state-was-a-willful-decision-and-defends-accuracy-of-2012-memo/ )
On the other hand Flynn, not wanting to burn bridges, denied US support for Al-Qaeda to Der Spiegel so maybe Trump does mean something else.

Point is I think Obama "literally founding ISIS" is correct.
From the 2012 memo:
"If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers of the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)."

"ISI [i.e. Islamic State of Iraq- i.e. ISIS] could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory."

Here's Charles Lister, of the Brookings Institution, hes basically a lobbyist for the Qatar wing of the US led insurgency and appears regularly on CNN and Mother Jones and etc as the expert on Syrian affairs. This is from the summer of 2013, when ISIS was already going rouge but hadn't fully broken ranks yet:

ISIS using NATO territory as the springboard to wipe out government forces held up in Northern Allepo

Free Syrian Army/ISIS attack on the very same Manbij that was just retaken by PKK this week!

Activist media reports joint FSA-ISIS force clashed today with PKK (YPG) near Manbij, #Aleppo http://t.co/RBI2lgowHR #Syria via @ajaltamimi— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) August 10, 2013

And so on:

An increasingly clear trend in recent 6 months: When JN or ISIS reinforces a major offensive, progress follows. SMC/"FSA" assume credit.— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) August 9, 2013

Here's my take on reported ISIS-FSA tensions & hostilities in #Syria & what to expect in the future, on @SyriaDeeply: http://t.co/KTtDBqNjo6— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) July 17, 2013

Obama might not have expected ISIS to go rouge and he dismissed it contemptuously as a grade school sports team but without his policy it would have remained an underground Iraqi guerrilla group. Furthermore as he bragged to Thomas Friedman, in the NYT, he refused to help Iraq when ISIS attacked from the Syrian border (that NATO helped it take over) until they toppled Maliki. So Mosul being taken was entirely his decision. Now, with Iran bested, US is building a patchwork of military bases in West Iraq for the next phase of the war with Iran/etc.

teh

Also there is nothing Trump has said he will do that Obama hasnt done in his eight years to the cheers of the sections that are in outraged by Trump.

Obama's carried out terrible atrocities, but this is really just nonsense. Obama (despite a high level of deportation) hasn't made any attempt to expel over eleven million people nor has he reevaluated natural born citizenship nor has he built a giant wall on the Mexican border nor has he banned Muslims from entering the country nor has he instated the tariffs that Trump talks about. This is incredibly reductionist and the fact that all politicians basically serve the interests of the capitalist order doesn't mean that their methods of doing so are all exactly the same. The Trump candidacy has obviously been perceived by the white supremacist scene as a massive boon for it and for good reasons--the Stormfront admins themselves have spoken of how much their traffic has increased because of Trump-related activity, and the social climate Trump has encouraged should be clear to anyone living in the US.

As for Obama "literally founding ISIS" this is, of course, incorrect. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would probably be very disappointed to be losing out on the credit. What you posted does not indicate that Obama literally founded ISIS. That is not what "literally" means. What you posted indicates that Obama's actions contributed to the situation in which ISIS was able to ascend. This is exactly what Hugh Hewitt suggested Trump meant and that Trump then flatly denied in favor of further reasserting that Obama was, apparently literally, the founder of ISIS (prior to deciding he was "sarcastic" but "not that sarcastic). Again, to anyone living in the US who is familiar with the endless stream of right-wing conspiratorialism over the last eight years about Obama being a secret Kenyan Muslim, it should be clear what Trump is playing to.

This is a perfect example of sloganeering about elections being meaningless and all politicians serving the interests of capital replacing any analysis of a specific situation and, more disturbingly, downplaying Trump's flagrant racist shit stirring and doing his best to spur on racial pogroms--"You can color anyone a racist & so on"--in order to make some point about how shitty the Democrats are.

jesuithitsquad

Also, unless my memory is failing me I don't recall him couching this argument with such overtly racist overtones before now. I think he's said Obama is responsible for allowing ISIS' growth and so on, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think he's ever said "Barack Hussain Obama founded ISIS."

Oh yea I forgot to respond to this part.

Heres Trump in January saying "Clinton created ISIS with Obama"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcEMH5YuI6E
This particular comment was covered widely in the press. Like CNN here:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-hillary-clinton-created-isis/

It was definitely part of his stump speech cause I remember hearing it when cable news channels covered his speeches live. Do you mean "founding" as opposed to "create" being more inflammatory? That honestly didn't occur to me. I took the statement when I first heard it to mean both "responsible for allowing ISIS" and "created it" as political speeches are wont to do.

Tyrion

teh

Also there is nothing Trump has said he will do that Obama hasnt done in his eight years to the cheers of the sections that are in outraged by Trump.

Obama's carried out terrible atrocities, but this is really just nonsense. Obama (despite a high level of deportation) hasn't made any attempt to expel over eleven million people nor has he reevaluated natural born citizenship nor has he built a giant wall on the Mexican border nor has he banned Muslims from entering the country nor has he instated the tariffs that Trump talks about. This is incredibly reductionist and the fact that all politicians basically serve the interests of the capitalist order doesn't mean that their methods of doing so are all exactly the same.

Obama has done all of this. US is not a multi-party democracy, its a republic (democrats are the oldest political party in the world) based on elite consensus. Its institutions are structured around this. This good-cop bad-cop routine that Democrats and Republicans repeat ad nauseam about Nazis/Klan and Socialists taking over it if they dont win this one elections is how they've been going for 270+ years.

I dont understand this logic when Trump gives the same stump speech about illegal immigration that Republican presidential nominees have been giving longer than I've been alive and the response from Democrats and those that lean towards their half of the aisle is "they're going to attempt to expel eleven million people" but when Obama boasts that he lowered illegal immigration into the US to the lowest levels in half a century (Do you think this was an act of nature? If Central American governments are payed/ordered to prevent arrivals thats a different logic than expulsions?) its "X carried out terrible atrocities, but Stormfront." How many elections is this going to repeat?

Look expulsions grew and peaked among Bill Clinton and fell sharply among from Bush 2000. Using Democrat agitprop logic this would make Bill Clinton the most reviled figure among US Hispanics yet any poll will show that's not the case.

And Obamas record deportations.

And from whose policy did Trump get the idea for his "rapists and murders" comment

The Wall: Maybe you could answer what Hillary couldn't: What is the difference between The Wall and The Fence? And why has twenty+ years of the militarization of the border starting in 1994, and resulting in thousands of deaths, not created the hysteria about Hitler/David Duke from the media and Democrats that Trumps Wall has?
---
Citizenship
Obama revoked Awlakis passport before assassinating him:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/11/us-revoked-anwar-al-awlakis-passport-six-months-before-death-150521
Do you really think Trump is going to be able to pass a constitutional amendment to get rid of "natural born citizenship"? Why even bring this up? Because he mentioned off-hand that he doesnt like it? This is pure election nonsense.
---
Muslim Ban
After the San Bernardino terrorist attacks Obama implemented a new law banning people that have visited Muslim countries (including Iran, which has no major armed struggle salafist movement) from entering the US under a visa-free agreement (with the resultant damage to tourism and other industries from people being deterred from visiting these places). But unlike Trump who made his so-called "Muslim Ban" speech a few days later Obama didnt use the word "Muslim" so that makes it ok.
---
Tariffs

The tariffs comment is the most bizarre when we are in the middle of a global trade and currency war.

The general trend is widening. In its report last year, the GTA ( Global Trade Alert) noted that 28 product groups had each accounted for 0.5 percent or more of the fall in the value of world trade. This has now increased to 38.
The stagnation in global trade is being accompanied by a rise in protectionist measures. Tracking the total number of trade liberalising and protectionist measures since 2009, the report said the results were “striking,” with the number of discriminatory measures imposed in 2015 some 50 percent higher than in 2014. By this measure, the resort to protectionism last year was “far higher” than in 2009 “when world leaders openly fretted about threats to the global trading system.”
The steel industry is the most prominent expression of this trend. According to the report, the number of discriminatory measures implemented in 2015 was 118, exceeding the two worst years since the financial crisis, 2009 and 2013. Since November 2008 a total of 740 measures had been documented in the steel industry discriminating against foreign interests with the number of such measures outnumbering liberalising measures by a ratio of 4.5 to 1.
The shift towards protectionism goes across the board. The use of protectionist measures overall in 2015 was up by 50 percent over that of 2014 and the number of initiatives harming foreign commercial interests outnumbered trade liberalisation measures in 2015 by three to one. Since 2010, in the first four months of each year, between 50 and 100 protectionist measures were implemented. In the first two months of 2016 the figure was 150.
Significantly, in the light of its repeated declarations eschewing protectionism and warnings about the descent into the kind of beggar-thy-neighbour policies that characterized the 1930s, the report pointed out that members of the G20 were responsible for 81 percent of protectionist measures in 2015, with the United States and Russia topping the list of countries most responsible.
.....
The ever-more aggressive trade policies of the major powers, especially the US, were underscored within a day of the GTA’s report release with the decision by president Obama that he was initiating a formal complaint against China over nine key industrial commodities which the US says are being unfairly priced for American manufacturers.
The rising tide of economic nationalism in the US was evident in a speech delivered by vice-president Joseph Biden in San Diego on Thursday on the latest initiative. He said the Obama administration had issued more than 300 antidumping actions, launched 62 trade investigations last year and would continue to be aggressive in trade enforcement.
In a definite pitch towards the strident economic nationalism at the centre of the Trump campaign, he said “not all the effects of globalisation” were good but Americans had always “bent reality to the benefit of Americans.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/15/trad-j15.html
(I'd give more links but my internet connection is very slow)

The Trump candidacy has obviously been perceived by the white supremacist scene as a massive boon for it and for good reasons--the Stormfront admins themselves have spoken of how much their traffic has increased because of Trump-related activity, and the social climate Trump has encouraged should be clear to anyone living in the US.

This is such nonsense. Whats giving 'the white supremacist scene a massive boon' is almost a decade of stagnant or declining living standards combined with the Western "workers parties" (like the US Democrats) disposing of any pretense of caring about the working class. Just follow some Democrat activist/journo bigwig on social media and see their unvarnished hatred of labor.

The stuff about the Klan taking over if we dont win this is what the party repeats every election. Do you remember 2004 and if Bush won reelection we would have 'fascism,' 'last chance to save the republic'? I do. As for Stormfront, those same people were gun-ho about freaking Ron Paul last time. US doesnt have free elections theres only Republicans or Democrats to choose from. This is no different than 2004's "anarchists for Kerry" news articles or CPUSA telling a meeting of Marxist-Leninist parties in Turkey a few years ago that Hilary Clinton is building the road to socialism. That some Nazi's chose the Republican candidate is supposed to be shocking and say something about that candidate? Why? (Oddly when some fringe clansman endorses a Democrat its not taken as a big deal). I guarantee you if the election was between Jeb! Bush and Bernie Sanders those very Nazi's would be campaigning for Sanders.

As for Obama "literally founding ISIS" this is, of course, incorrect.

No this really happened.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would probably be very disappointed to be losing out on the credit.

As I wrote twice in this thread already in 2011 AQI was a defeated underground guerrilla force in Western Iraq, not a rebel force controlling an area the size of the UK and with international reach for its operations.

What you posted does not indicate that Obama literally founded ISIS. That is not what "literally" means. What you posted indicates that Obama's actions contributed to the situation in which ISIS was able to ascend. This is exactly what Hugh Hewitt suggested Trump meant and that Trump then flatly denied in favor of further reasserting that Obama was, apparently literally, the founder of ISIS (prior to deciding he was "sarcastic" but "not that sarcastic). Again, to anyone living in the US who is familiar with the endless stream of right-wing conspiratorialism over the last eight years about Obama being a secret Kenyan Muslim, it should be clear what Trump is playing to.

Well if me stabbing my friend to death were not "actions that contributed to the situation in which" my friend died from organ failure caused by stab wounds then I guess I'm wrong about Obama being the founder of ISIS.

I'm familiar with Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign starting a rumor that Obama was a "secret Kenyan Muslim" and that for this elections the nations prestigious civil rights leaders and Democrat activist base bestowed upon her honorary woman of color status just as her husband who electrocuted a mentally retarded black man so that he could win the New Hampshire primary and ride into the White House was labeled Americas "first black president" by these same groups of people. I'm also aware that Democrats have milked the "birther" issue for a decade to show their voters just how bad Republicans and those demographics and geographic areas that tend to vote for them are. And yet when Hispanic-American Ted Cruz was attacked by Donald Trump as not being a real American and illegible to run for President Democrats laughed at Ted Cruz for being made a fool of and said he masturbates too much (The New Republic) and has a punchable face (NY Magazine/etc).

This is a perfect example of sloganeering about elections being meaningless and all politicians serving the interests of capital replacing any analysis of a specific situation and, more disturbingly, downplaying Trump's flagrant racist shit stirring and doing his best to spur on racial pogroms--"You can color anyone a racist & so on"--in order to make some point about how shitty the Democrats are.

Obama wiping Africa's wealthiest country off the map was flagrantly racist and so were the pogroms against dark skinned Africans that his allied forces carried out there. Trump has yet to compare Ukrainian Neo-Nazi militias to 1960's Selma human rights marchers like Obama did and he's yet to say "I don't want my grandchildren to live in a world dominated by the Chinese" like Hillary Clinton did but I dont see why he wouldn't. The same people who are saying that Trump is Hitler are the same people who said Noriega is worse than Hitler, and that Chavez is Hitler, and Saddam and Milosevic and Ahmadinejad are Hitler. They intend to go on like this forever. If you except narratives your enemy gives you give them an ideological foundation to stand on and rationalize their rule and you just become a political satellite of theirs regardless of what qualms you have about them.

So, I don't have the time to respond in depth today but just quickly on a couple things.
teh

First you're (and the subsequent thread posts are) repeating the line of the Democratic Party where "the Republican Party is the party of racism and the Democratic Party is the party of anti-racism,or at least mitigating racism."

I've done no such thing and in the future if you want an honest conversation, please refrain from assigning to me your idea of what you think I think (but haven't said). Pointing out the exceptional flaws of one candidate is not an inherent endorsement of the other.

It just so happens that I think the racism of the democrats is more insidious because it's so well hidden. There are ample examples of times in which the Clinton's have used racism to further their aims.

That said, Trump's overt racism has shifted the Overton Window so that out and out White Nationalists are more emboldened, and other racists who may not share the supremacists entire program now feel it's acceptable to air their vitriol.

Just because both parties are awful for the working class in their own way, doesn't mean they are the same. That analysis has worked for years in the past. But it's not the case this time around, and trying to shoehorn that analysis on this situation makes us look like nutters.

On the rest, I think Tyrion's post covers it pretty well, but i will come back if i find the time.

teh

Obama wiping Africa's wealthiest country off the map was flagrantly racist and so were the pogroms against dark skinned Africans that his allied forces carried out there. Trump has yet to compare Ukrainian Neo-Nazi militias to 1960's Selma human rights marchers like Obama did and he's yet to say "I don't want my grandchildren to live in a world dominated by the Chinese" like Hillary Clinton did but I dont see why he wouldn't. The same people who are saying that Trump is Hitler are the same people who said Noriega is worse than Hitler, and that Chavez is Hitler, and Saddam and Milosevic and Ahmadinejad are Hitler. They intend to go on like this forever. If you except narratives your enemy gives you give them an ideological foundation to stand on and rationalize their rule and you just become a political satellite of theirs regardless of what qualms you have about them.

Aren't you saying Obama/Clinton are like Hitler?

What are we talking about again? That what Trump said is right and the Democrats are just as Hitler as anyone else? Maybe a little less Hitler, but still Hitler?

It actually seems kind of stupid to say Obama is the founder of ISIS when that takes away from the fact that American imperial power and its contingents have fomented ISIS and global terrorism throughout the past several decades. But it is not wrong to emphasize that Democrats are as equally involved, and if the point is to rally against them as well so we can condemn the entire US political system, then yes! Fuck all the candidates.

The presidential election is also having an impact on the election of the US Senate. The Democrats need to take four or five seats to take back control of the Senate. In recent polls the continuing fall in Trump's poll numbers are going hand in hand with worsening situ for the Republican Senate candidates. Dems seem certain to retake Wisconsin and have small leads in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Harry Reid is retiring in Nevada and the Republican candidate had been leading but now it is more of a tie in the polling. This is all discussed here:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-chances-of-holding-the-senate-are-following-trump-downhill/

A poll just came out showing Bayh with a 7 point lead for the Senate in Indiana. If this holds, Democrats could pick up five or six seats in the Senate, giving them a majority.

I think it's becoming increasingly clear that Trump is going down to a major defeat. His poll numbers have been getting worse. Clinton already has a sizeable lead in states with 273 electoral votes. 270 are needed to win.

In the history of modern polling since the '50s no candidate has come back to win after being this far down in the polls several weeks after the party conventions.

I don't know too much about the US elections. I think that the line-up in the present US circus shows the growing difficulty that even the advanced capitalist countries have in managing the democratic myth and the electoral process.

It's patently obvious that the bourgeoisie, even national bourgeoisies, are made up of different factions, factions which, in particular circumstances, can reach the point of civil war.The bourgeoisie only truly unifies when faced with a threat from the working class: 1871, 1917-20, early 1930's, instances in 43 and 44 during the war, 1945 coherence around the Western Bloc and, across blocs, the mass strike in Poland, 1980.

A national bourgeoisie usually unifies around its imperialist interests though there can be different factions within the ruling class that represent different imperialist interests. But the dominant faction will also, usually, have the backing and involvement of the military and other important layers of the state apparatus.Obama and Clinton didn't create Isis but the actions of US and other imperialisms did, just as they created the Taleban before. Trump's not likely to say that. He may be a bit of a "Manchurian Candidate" but he won't go that far.

I have become very interested in the "pro-Russian" connection within the Trump campaign. As the news has recently covered:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439164/donald-trump-paul-manafort-ties-russia

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

http://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trumps-russia-connections-foreign-policy-presidential-campaign/

http://www.redstate.com/kylefoley/2016/08/20/watch-navy-senior-chief-trump-campaigns-ties-russia-story-yet-even-open/

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11142048/dugin-russia-trump-endorse

http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/russia/vox-one-of-russias-looniest-far-right-ideologues-endorses-donald-trump-409197.html

Also, the current European-Russian media misinformation campaign currently ongoing, it seems that the Russians are testing the US/NATO resolve in Eastern Europe. The most interesting aspect of it all is following "Russian capital" and the ideological ramblings of Alexander Dugin being played out by Putin and Trump (probably completely unconsciously). With Putin's recent association with European right-wing parties, who all seem way to happy to quickly align themselves with Russian due to their blind nationalism, I wonder if Trump has stupidity shifted the GOP position to a pro-Eurasian Duginist position. With the Trump family and Trump organization seemingly addicted to Russian money, I wonder if the Trump(ist) position is to follow the money even if that weaken's America's position globally, because after all, whats good for Trump has to be good for America???

Whats amazing is that Trump seems to have single-handedly dismantled the GOP and shifted the GOP's position from bullshit to insanity. At the end of the day, the future of the GOP depends on Trump winning, and as it looks today, Trump is loosing and loosing badly. I hope that the most recent re-organization of the Trump campaign will only guarantee more scandal, I don't think you get any more "presidential" shifting for Russian lobbyists to Brietbart News pundits steering the campaign, but we will see just a different form of entertainment idiocy. Can't wait!

Marx-Trek,

You may find this discussion interesting re: US and Russian imperialism.
http://libcom.org/blog/recent-interview-clinton-aide-indicates-disturbing-hints-wars-come-02082016

That was a good and very interesting summary of the past few decades and more recent develops in Europe and the Middle East as it relates to US-Russian geopolitics.

Half of Sanders stafferrs quit his "revolution" movement after deciding it was going too corporate:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/fleeing-the-bern-half-of-staff-quit-sanders-legacy-project-before-it-begins

There's a lesson in there for Sanders supporters.

Juan Conatz

For example, in Postville, Iowa, during the spring of 2008, the raid at Agriprocessors ended up with the arrests of almost 400 people, or around 18% of the entire town's population. All of these people were held in cattle pens in nearby Ceder Falls. This was followed by an even larger raid in Mississippi a few months later. Along with the brutal LAPD crackdown against immigrant protesters in 2007, these huge raids put a culture a fear in the Latino immigrant community that contributed to the dissipation of the incredible movement that sprung up during May Day 2006, arguably the first national general strike in the United States. The Obama administration did away with these sorts of raids.

The chart above shows that "returns" (deportations from the country) exploded under B.Clinton and collapsed under Bush. The Washington Post article it comes from says there was a cumulative 11.4 million "returns" under Democratic Clinton and 8.3 million "returns" under Republican Bush. There were much less "returns" under Obama but I'd argue this was the result of the success of Bush's policy as well as the collapse of the pre-2008 crisis global economic model/system (Obama certainly has nothing against fighting immegal immigration- as I wrote he's campaigning right now on lowering it to "70's levels").

Net migration from Mexico to the US has reversed under Obama. 1) Global capitalism is in crisis and world trade is in stasis 2) the expulsion from Mexico of workers made extraneous by NAFTA has been completed 3) The Fence and the militarization of the border that began under Clinton has made border control more effective (at least in terms of people smuggling), hence the record "deportations" under Obama (which includes people caught at border not inside the country), 4) US exporting immigration control to Central American countries which prevent people fro arriving to the US border (especially refugees from states under US pacification programs like Honduras or past pacification programs like in El Salvador) Mexicos “Southern Border Program” is one example.

So I would argue Obama doesn't need to carry out the same strategies because they largely fulfilled its tasks, at least at the given moment. So differences between parties have been tactical based on circumstance rather then policy differences. The rest is partisanship, sort of how Democrats 'opposed' Iraq 2003 war and Republicans 'opposed' Libya 2011 war.

As far as raids heres two articles from past 6 months:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-plans-raids-to-deport-families-who-surged-across-border/2015/12/23/034fc954-a9bd-11e5-8058-480b572b4aae_story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/us/us-continues-to-deport-central-american-migrants.html?_r=0

Not sure if I understand the lingo in the NYT article but I think they said in the end of it that 100,000 were "returned."

It also has made some efforts towards protecting certain kinds of immigrants from deportation, including attempting to sign executive orders giving some 5 million undocumented workers papers and a "path to citizenship".

There has been no amnesty ("pathway to citizenship"). The two programs are deferrals of deportation orders hence: Deferred Action for Parents (DAPA) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Deportation deferrals are renewed at two year intervals. I believe only 40% of eligible have signed up for DACA and DAPA is blocked in the courts. With temporary work permits and no federal social benefits this formalizes another low wage layer and allows the government to focus deportation proceedings on higher priority targets. If Democrats wanted to pass amnesty like Reagan in 1986, they would have done it between 2008 and 2010 when they controlled both houses of congress including a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, as well as the White House. It would have never passed Congress.

In any case, as most people (yes, including Latinos) vote on the basis of who is the lesser of two evils (even if it is just a shred of difference), I'm somewhat confused on what you're arguing here. Blaming Latino Democratic Party leaning solely on "top-down alliances between party heads and ethnic leaders" seems like another version of screaming at people and calling them sheeple.

What people consider a lesser evil is largely dictated which party is dominant where they live and the rest is party tribalism and piety. "Top-down alliances" is a reference to Communalist politics which has always existed to some extent in the US but have been getting a bigger role in US politics as social-democratic rhetoric around the "New Deal" and the old Reaganomics coalition become untenable in current economic dynamics. That social life is competition between races or nations (sometimes euphemistically called values) and not classes (to the extreme that class is largely irrelevant) has become much greater since 2008 (even with Sanders with his "we gotta be like europe we gotta take down the chinese" plank). I certainly dont consider it "sheeple" behavior, its "socialism or barbarism" (ie tribalism) and in the absence of even pseudo worker internationalism its in the self interest of people to stick to their tribe (in the same sense that its better for ones material conditions when ones country does not lose a war.)

jesuithitsquad

So, I don't have the time to respond in depth today but just quickly on a couple things.
teh

First you're (and the subsequent thread posts are) repeating the line of the Democratic Party where "the Republican Party is the party of racism and the Democratic Party is the party of anti-racism,or at least mitigating racism."

I've done no such thing and in the future if you want an honest conversation, please refrain from assigning to me your idea of what you think I think (but haven't said). Pointing out the exceptional flaws of one candidate is not an inherent endorsement of the other.

It just so happens that I think the racism of the democrats is more insidious because it's so well hidden. There are ample examples of times in which the Clinton's have used racism to further their aims.

That said, Trump's overt racism has shifted the Overton Window so that out and out White Nationalists are more emboldened, and other racists who may not share the supremacists entire program now feel it's acceptable to air their vitriol.

Just because both parties are awful for the working class in their own way, doesn't mean they are the same. That analysis has worked for years in the past. But it's not the case this time around, and trying to shoehorn that analysis on this situation makes us look like nutters.

I just don't see Trumps exceptionalism. I'm assuming on the racism you're referring to his immigration policies but as I said its the same old. Here's John Mccain about Mexico sending "rapists and murderers" in 2008: [youtube]r0lwusMxiHc[/youtube] In fact if one imagines Democrats as a political "center" hes pretty "moderate" for a Republican (albeit Democrats are always moving to the right). Democrats are only calling Trump "racist" louder than in previous election cycles because they feel more threatened by him (polls be damned just listen to Dem operatives on social media- they are scared, frustrated and sad as they talk of GOPs supposed "demise").

"It's not the case this time around, and trying to shoehorn that analysis on this situation makes us look like nutters" is what was said about W.Bush (and very passionately) yet things stayed the same after he went and today Richard Armitage, Scowcroft, Wolfowitz and Max Boot are for Clinton and Clinton is praising the wisdom and moderation of Bush on the campaign trail. In fact she seems pretty Bushish, maybe Jeb!ish to me.

Overton Window is idealism. Trump is nothing special, just look at Nick Sarkozy this week. As I wrote in the previous post "White Nationalists" are emboldened by the collapse of the global economic order post-2008, the crisis of rule in EU, and the discarding of social-democratic fig leaves by center-left and new left parties in the "west." I also think the white nationalists that have always been in power in the 'west' are not a lesser threat domestically or abroad even if they use language etiquette and dislike populism.

The Pigeon

teh

Obama wiping Africa's wealthiest country off the map was flagrantly racist and so were the pogroms against dark skinned Africans that his allied forces carried out there. Trump has yet to compare Ukrainian Neo-Nazi militias to 1960's Selma human rights marchers like Obama did and he's yet to say "I don't want my grandchildren to live in a world dominated by the Chinese" like Hillary Clinton did but I dont see why he wouldn't. The same people who are saying that Trump is Hitler are the same people who said Noriega is worse than Hitler, and that Chavez is Hitler, and Saddam and Milosevic and Ahmadinejad are Hitler. They intend to go on like this forever. If you except narratives your enemy gives you give them an ideological foundation to stand on and rationalize their rule and you just become a political satellite of theirs regardless of what qualms you have about them.

Aren't you saying Obama/Clinton are like Hitler?

What are we talking about again? That what Trump said is right and the Democrats are just as Hitler as anyone else? Maybe a little less Hitler, but still Hitler?

It actually seems kind of stupid to say Obama is the founder of ISIS when that takes away from the fact that American imperial power and its contingents have fomented ISIS and global terrorism throughout the past several decades. But it is not wrong to emphasize that Democrats are as equally involved, and if the point is to rally against them as well so we can condemn the entire US political system, then yes! Fuck all the candidates.

US media likes to call US enemies abroad Hitler (above examples are what top US government officials like presidents have said in the past) as part of war mobilization. The media has employed the same tactic domestically against Trump. Former government media employee Jamie Kirchick have even called for a military coup against him. Its hard not to see the Saddam media treatment in use (which tells me things are going pretty bad internally).

I was talking about that Trump is really no different than his competitors for power or in power right now and his tactical differences matter more for the upper layers and not so much for the lower layers of society.

Calling Obama the founder of ISIS is stupid because other presidents deserve credit too? Ok, fair enough but like I said ISIS/AQI was a underground guerrilla group in 2011 and it became what it is now because of the explicit policies and "willful" decisions of the regional hegemon, the US (whose armies commander in chief is Obama).

US political system seems pretty fucked, I wonder whether they'll temporary split the 2 party system like in the beginning of the 20th century in order to stabilize the whole enterprise.

Marx-Trek

I have become very interested in the "pro-Russian" connection within the Trump campaign. As the news has recently covered:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439164/donald-trump-paul-manafort-ties-russia

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

http://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trumps-russia-connections-foreign-policy-presidential-campaign/

http://www.redstate.com/kylefoley/2016/08/20/watch-navy-senior-chief-trump-campaigns-ties-russia-story-yet-even-open/

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11142048/dugin-russia-trump-endorse

http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/russia/vox-one-of-russias-looniest-far-right-ideologues-endorses-donald-trump-409197.html

Also, the current European-Russian media misinformation campaign currently ongoing, it seems that the Russians are testing the US/NATO resolve in Eastern Europe. The most interesting aspect of it all is following "Russian capital" and the ideological ramblings of Alexander Dugin being played out by Putin and Trump (probably completely unconsciously). With Putin's recent association with European right-wing parties, who all seem way to happy to quickly align themselves with Russian due to their blind nationalism, I wonder if Trump has stupidity shifted the GOP position to a pro-Eurasian Duginist position. With the Trump family and Trump organization seemingly addicted to Russian money, I wonder if the Trump(ist) position is to follow the money even if that weaken's America's position globally, because after all, whats good for Trump has to be good for America???

Whats amazing is that Trump seems to have single-handedly dismantled the GOP and shifted the GOP's position from bullshit to insanity. At the end of the day, the future of the GOP depends on Trump winning, and as it looks today, Trump is loosing and loosing badly. I hope that the most recent re-organization of the Trump campaign will only guarantee more scandal, I don't think you get any more "presidential" shifting for Russian lobbyists to Brietbart News pundits steering the campaign, but we will see just a different form of entertainment idiocy. Can't wait!

Dugin is about as relevant in the Putin administration as Chomsky is relevant in the Obama Administration (their realist geo-politics polemical posturing are pretty similar actually). The above articles are of the same style as Birchers revelation that Eisenhower was a fifth-columnist for the socialist bloc and all of it will be forgotten once its no longer useful. Whats particular about the Grand Godfather Putin trope is that its all inclusive politically: for right-liberals in EU it can be applied to the new left like Syriza and Corbyn as well as the far-right like Golden Dawn, for new left in EU it can be applied to the new right like National Front, for Sunni Islamists in EU & Mideast it can be applied to Shia Crescent, for Latin American center it can be applied to the regions left nationalists, in US I've seen it for all four top presidential candidates (edit: forgot about the eu center like germany's spd and italy's dems and forza, etc.)

I really question the wisdom of engaging further, but I'm a sucker for lost causes.
teh

today Richard Armitage, Scowcroft, Wolfowitz and Max Boot are for Clinton and Clinton is praising the wisdom and moderation of Bush on the campaign trail. In fact she seems pretty Bushish, maybe Jeb!ish to me.

This seems to me as fundamentally disproving the point you're trying to make instead of evidence for it. The fact that HRC is going out of her way to appeal to moderate republicans and the fact the neo-cons were the first to abandon the republican ship shows a.) just how close the 2 parties are on most major issues, under normal conditions and b.) how far outside the mainstream of Republican politics Trump really is.

I'm not going to go into the literally dozens of things that Trump has said and done that, any single one, would have sunk any prior modern candidacy. They are well-documented and I'm sure you are aware of many of them, but one would need to look no further than this list to prove Trump's exceptionalism.

For the sake of argument, let's ignore the metric shit-ton of gaffes. Despite your protestations, his overt racism absolutely is exceptional. You can cherry-pick quotes all day to show other nominees have said racist things or that they are bigots, and I have no doubt that is the case for a significant number of them on both sided. But I challenge you to find a major party nominee who has made racism the focal-point of their candidacy in the last half-century. Trump's use of dog-whistle bigotry as a feature and not just the occasional bug is reminiscent of the Wallace capaign (which, incidentally was actually a 3rd party campaign). Nixon's 'law and order' racist code was mild stuff when compared to Trump, and the obvious symbolism of Reagan using Philadelphia, Mississippi as the location to kick off his General Election campaign almost seems quaint by comparison.)

Now, along with the gaffes, let's go ahead and ignore the fact that racism is a fundamental aspect of his candidacy. Leaving all of that aside, Trump's candidacy is exceptional in that 1.) he completely rejects (and is rejected by) the neo-con foreign policy establishment that has dominated the Republican US foreign policy scene for decades now. One can argue the degree of influence in democratic administrations/nominees (quite a bit of influence, actually), but one simply cannot deny the primacy of the neo-con project in republican circles so far in the 21st century. Trump obviously stands outside this dominant GOP tradition.

2.) While we might not yet know exactly how far outside the mainstream Trump is on economic issues, we do know he rejects the fundamental neo-liberal tenant of Free Trade. How long has it been since an American nominee has rejected (even some aspects of) neo-liberalism? Sure, Democrats have paid lip-service to a desire to mitigate some of the worst sociological aspects of neo-liberalism, but every nominee in my life-time has been a free-trader. How about a republican nominee? How long has that been? Honestly, the better question might be how long has it been since any major western-style capitalist leader has rejected major components of the neo-liberal mission?

So on the two most basic points of agreement within (and to a large degree, with out) his party, Trump clearly stands outside decades worth of tradition. Even if you reject his rhetoric and his racism as being unique, honest to god, how is it possible not to see his candidacy as exceptional?

One last thing teh

Dugin is about as relevant in the Putin administration as Chomsky is relevant in the Obama Administration (their realist geo-politics polemical posturing are pretty similar actually)

while your point is accurate today, this is pretty misleading. no doubt dugin has little if any influence in the kremlin today. and there's some question as to whether or not western sources over-stated his influence on putin. but there is no doubt that dugin was a major player in putin's public justification for war in ukraine. that his influence has waned since 2014, there can be no doubt. comparing dugin's influence to chomsky's, however, is a very inaccurate analogy.

teh, I'm struggling to figure out what points you are trying to make. Would you care to explain?

jesuithitsquad

but there is no doubt that dugin was a major player in putin's public justification for war in ukraine. that his influence has waned since 2014,

[/quote]
Jesus Fucking Christ.

double post

Khawaga

teh, I'm struggling to figure out what points you are trying to make. Would you care to explain?

I'm responding point by point to peoples arguments about the election and for the most part just getting repeats from previous posts of polemics whose content is obviously determined by people stuck in the echo chamber of Democrat aligned oligarch press. This is the ultra-left.

What point are you trying to make? I have no clue what you're referring to.

teh

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Now that is an even worse analogy. The comparison of Dugin with the Nazarene overstates his influence somewhat, don't you think?

If Democrats were to win the White House in November they they would face even greater challenges in the 2018 and 2020 purely in structural terms and you can be damn sure they'll make the threat they face is "exceptional."How long can you be led by the media? They intend to do this forever. And again US is not a democracy like say Italy, it is a Republic, it's system is decentralized and federal and no one capturing the presidency or congress is going to change the fundamental character of its politics. Its like freaking out over "reformers" or "conservatives" winning an election in Iran.

jesuithitsquad

This seems to me as fundamentally disproving the point you're trying to make instead of evidence for it. The fact that HRC is going out of her way to appeal to moderate republicans and the fact the neo-cons were the first to abandon the republican ship shows a.) just how close the 2 parties are on most major issues, under normal conditions and b.) how far outside the mainstream of Republican politics Trump really is.

So now "neo-cons" are "moderate republicans" when ten years ago they were "fascists". I already answered twice why the moderate rebels want to ally with Clinton. The world economic system has collapsed and people behind Trump feel there needs to be different tactics employed. Particularly while US strategy during the past decades has been to offset its relative economic decline (as percent of global gdp) by using its military might to destroy its competitors through war, the faction behind Trump thinks that lately (particularly in the Mideast) these wars have been a failure (I completely disagree with this) and US needs a domestic reorganization on the home front. Particularly with so much US manufacturing base exported to China many feel that US would be screwed in event of war with China (and US has no choice but to go to war with China and Russia, otherwise the regime will collapse). Since this entails an economic reorganization many oligarchs reliant on status quo feel threatened economically (probably wrongly) by Trump, hence Hitler/Wallace/KKK. But world trade growth is in stasis, so while things may change for the better (for them) right now their faction is fighting against economic reality, hence the hysterical freakout despite the polls.

Trump maybe an extremist to the elite (or sections of it) but thats their problem not yours or mine. On issues for the rest of the population hes the same old. In fact on social,political,and economic issues hes the most "left" nominee since (former America First member) Gerald Ford, not that this matters for workers one iota.

I'm not going to go into the literally dozens of things that Trump has said and done that, any single one, would have sunk any prior modern candidacy. They are well-documented and I'm sure you are aware of many of them, but one would need to look no further than this list to prove Trump's exceptionalism.

For the sake of argument, let's ignore the metric shit-ton of gaffes. Despite your protestations, his overt racism absolutely is exceptional. You can cherry-pick quotes all day to show other nominees have said racist things or that they are bigots, and I have no doubt that is the case for a significant number of them on both sided. But I challenge you to find a major party nominee who has made racism the focal-point of their candidacy in the last half-century. Trump's use of dog-whistle bigotry as a feature and not just the occasional bug is reminiscent of the Wallace capaign (which, incidentally was actually a 3rd party campaign).

Trump hasn't made racism the focal-point of his campaign, Hillary Clinton has made Trump is racist the focal point of HER campaign. And since Trump is fighting against both the Clinton and Bush families so has most of the press (which is really less than 12 companies print/tv/web combined). Obama might have made Clinton is racist a focal point of his primary 2008 campaign but there was lots of other things that were a part of his campaign, Clinton 2016 is campaigning exclusively that she is not Trump and that Trump is Hitler and a traitor. There's not much soc-dem bullshit left to use. In that sense it is unprecedented in recent times. But so is the situation facing the US.

You keep harking on things Trump "said" and how his behavior even could have "sunk any prior modern candidacy." Who cares? Most of it is selective focus by the press which was my point in citing previous examples by other politicians in previous campaigns that you so dismiss. What matters in a politician is their policies not their words and while Trumps rip-off-of-Obama Hope-&-Change strategy can be confusing, his policies are still right there in the open and they are nothing special in the areas that you are focusing on.

Nixon's 'law and order' racist code was mild stuff when compared to Trump, and the obvious symbolism of Reagan using Philadelphia, Mississippi as the location to kick off his General Election campaign almost seems quaint by comparison.)

Its funny you mention Nixon and racism- the only president before and after who undertook a systematic, and not token, campaign to racially desegregate the schools (albeit only in the South, he would dare touch the liberals). Meanwhile Joe Biden in the Senate led the anti-desegregation campaign saying he doesnt think "curly haired" black kids need to be in school with his "straight haired" white son to get a good education. Hence today the South has the most desegregated schools in the country while the Northeast bastion of liberalism has the highest.
This reality wouldn't make sense if you listen to democrat proxies though.

And housing for that matter (but thats slightly off topic)

But Nixon is racist code and "Southern Strategy" (forget what that actually meant) while Joe Biden is the avuncular average joe in the press cartels that you parrot. Maybe nyt/cable news narrative frameworks aren't the best outlet to understand how politics operates in the US.

Its also funnt you mention Reagan- the model of the current President (who incidentally Trump supported in 2008):
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044712-2,00.html

1.) he completely rejects (and is rejected by) the neo-con foreign policy establishment that has dominated the Republican US foreign policy scene for decades now......
2.) While we might not yet know exactly how far outside the mainstream Trump is on economic issues, we do know he rejects the fundamental neo-liberal tenant of Free Trade.

I think this is the Hope and Change aspect of Trumps campaign that you are being confused by.Trump is neither an "isolationist" or a "protectionist." His tax plan is very liberal (economically) and his war plans are just different priorities (for example he's been outspoken at Obama breaking Nixons divide and rule policy on China and Russia- Obama probably expected Russia to collapse with-in two months judging by the public words of his advisers. Trump is also very hawkish on Iran. He also proposed nutter John Bolton as Secretary of State). Same thing on the trade deals- also Obama said he wanted to re-negotiate NAFTA in 2008, Clinton says she'll dismiss TPP.

Whether US becomes more protectionist or "isolationist" will be dictated by its economy not who is in power (tough they can fight against the tide).

Even if you reject his rhetoric and his racism as being unique, honest to god, how is it possible not to see his candidacy as exceptional?

I think Trumps detractors in the establishment have a more extreme understanding of Trump than he's racist, and doesn't like war and free trade. Like this week Hillary Clinton said that Trump is part of a plan by Grand Godfather Putin to use Frog Twitter and covert resources to create a Trans-Atlantic White Supremacist fascist new order (I though we already had that).

I wasn't trying to make a point at all. I was genuinely confused about why you were posting what you did. I mean it's not like people don't know how shitty both Democrats and Republicans are so I just didn't understand where your apparent anger was coming from.

jesuithitsquad

teh

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Now that is an even worse analogy. The comparison of Dugin with the Nazarene overstates his influence somewhat, don't you think?

I don't know, if someone of Dugin's stature has managed to get Putin to know who he is (I take it through meme magic) and has advised policy to him demi-god status is fairly appropriate. That's some Disney's Rasputin shit.

Khawaga

I wasn't trying to make a point at all. I was genuinely confused about why you were posting what you did. I mean it's not like people don't know how shitty both Democrats and Republicans are so I just didn't understand where your apparent anger was coming from.

People wrote stuff. I responded. They wrote back. Then I did. And here I am.

teh

Khawaga

I wasn't trying to make a point at all. I was genuinely confused about why you were posting what you did. I mean it's not like people don't know how shitty both Democrats and Republicans are so I just didn't understand where your apparent anger was coming from.

People wrote stuff. I responded. They wrote back. Then I did. And here I am.

And thank fuck for that because none of us would ever be able to stop 'parroting' democratic talking points if you weren't here to enlighten us.

So, let me get this straight-you're saying a very small group of rich people own most of the major media outlets,and they spin facts to match their narrative? I'll be god damned. Mind. Blown. Man, It's like that moment in 6th Sense for me right now.

I have assumed 'teh' was pounding away at the 'lesser evil' argument as that is much of the pull factor to the 'middle ground' by Democrats in the USA (and liberal/labour politicians in the UK/Europe as well) because that still has sway with many anarchists and libertarians that post on this site despite an avowed understanding of the underlying economic and class factors driving the political parties of both left and right in a similar direction. To that extent some of the detail 'teh' recounts is of use to those of us (including the many non poster viewers of this site) less familiar with USA mainstream politics.

On a libertarian communist website i shouldn't have to waste my time explaining in each post every single thing that is equally bad about both capitalist parties. I also shouldn't have to waste my time responding to a series of strawman fallacies because a poster won't allow the facts of things people say get in the way of that posters' opinion of what they think people really meant to say.

Hillary Clinton is boring. There's nothing new there. I'm not particularly interested in spending my time talking about all the myriad of ways she will screw the working class because we know that playbook pretty well at this point. But Trump is new. He stands well outside the established norms for modern presidential nominees. Determining that he is factually unique in a multitude of ways is not buying into lesser-evilism or falling for a media/democratic narrarive.

I'll come back to this later today.

teh

That's some Disney's Rasputin shit.

For your information, Fox's (and NOT Disney's) account of the 1917 Russian Revolution as entirely the result of Rasputin's curse on the Romanov family is of doubtful authenticity.

Spikymike

I have assumed 'teh' was pounding away at the 'lesser evil' argument as that is much of the pull factor to the 'middle ground' by Democrats in the USA (and liberal/labour politicians in the UK/Europe as well) because that still has sway with many anarchists and libertarians that post on this site despite an avowed understanding of the underlying economic and class factors driving the political parties of both left and right in a similar direction. To that extent some of the detail 'teh' recounts is of use to those of us (including the many non poster viewers of this site) less familiar with USA mainstream politics.

Class analysis, sophisticated or not, does not nullify the lesser evil argument. Nothing does. This is an empirical observation. There are differences between the two governing parties, those differences have significant ramifications for the working class. If you care about the working class, that matters. There simply isn't any other way to see it.

jesuithitsquad

Now, along with the gaffes, let's go ahead and ignore the fact that racism is a fundamental aspect of his candidacy. Leaving all of that aside, Trump's candidacy is exceptional in that 1.) he completely rejects (and is rejected by) the neo-con foreign policy establishment that has dominated the Republican US foreign policy scene for decades now. One can argue the degree of influence in democratic administrations/nominees (quite a bit of influence, actually), but one simply cannot deny the primacy of the neo-con project in republican circles so far in the 21st century. Trump obviously stands outside this dominant GOP tradition.

2.) While we might not yet know exactly how far outside the mainstream Trump is on economic issues, we do know he rejects the fundamental neo-liberal tenant of Free Trade. How long has it been since an American nominee has rejected (even some aspects of) neo-liberalism? Sure, Democrats have paid lip-service to a desire to mitigate some of the worst sociological aspects of neo-liberalism, but every nominee in my life-time has been a free-trader. How about a republican nominee? How long has that been? Honestly, the better question might be how long has it been since any major western-style capitalist leader has rejected major components of the neo-liberal mission?

So on the two most basic points of agreement within (and to a large degree, with out) his party, Trump clearly stands outside decades worth of tradition. Even if you reject his rhetoric and his racism as being unique, honest to god, how is it possible not to see his candidacy as exceptional?

I don't disagree that Trump is exceptional, the unfortunate thing is that by virtually every metric, he's even worse. A big problem with your analysis is that you're incorrectly (no offense) assuming that Trump has principles, that he has a philosophy, that he is committed to. I think that is manifestly incorrect. I think he is guided by only one principle; his own self-interest, as he perceives it.

Regarding free trade, I really don't think he cares that much. Again, I don't think he feels particularly strongly about anything that doesn't directly affect him. It's perfectly conceivable that he could pass the TPP, with some cosmetic modification, and claim it as a triumph. If he wins, the GOP will control two, of the three branches, outright, and will probably take control of the supreme court shortly thereafter. That would have horrifying implications. His list of court nominees, who are all total reactionaries, was handed to him by the party, he will rubber stamp anything they send him.

Furthermore, Trump is clearly not an isolationist, even if he occasionally sounds like one. He was for the Iraq war before he was against it. While he has criticized foreign interventions, he also frequently calls for an expansion of military action overseas. Trump actually exceeds most neocons in his brazen willingness to use America's military might, potentially, up to, and including, nuclear weapons.

Well, I mean, that's the thing, right? Since there's absolutely no public service record, no one really knows what he'd actually do if elected ( maybe not even Trump!)

But I'm not sure that psychologising him is really all that helpful. I don't necessarily disagree; he's highly likely to have anti- social personality disorder and is almost certainly a narcissist, and if so, sure, his self- interest is his #1 priority. But I don't think that really adds anything to our analysis regarding what the working class can expect from a Trump administration, as it boils down, essentially, to 100% speculation.

All things considered, we have little choice but to use his repeated public statements as being at least somewhat related to his intentions. (His one-offs, on the other hand, are likely just plain old pandering--well, more pandering than his already high bar...)

he will rubber stamp anything they send him

this is true, to a point. see for instance, the Republican Convention Platform in which the Trump campaign reputedly was completely disinterested in any of the 'sausage-making' of any of the party planks; that is, except for the platform regarding US Foreign Policy towards Ukraine of which they were the driving force in drafting. In that case, the campaign pulled out various parliamentarian procedures, engaged in a lot of arm- twisting, and reportedly even pulled some cloak and dagger moves in order to reverse years of GOP policy by taking a pro ethnic Russian stance (incidentally, this subsequently added more fuel to the Trump as a Russian-Manchurian Candidate fire).

I think one of the consequences of neo-con supremacy over the past 2 decades is that people unintentionally attribute all bellicose jingoism and aggressive militarism solely with the neo-con project. Whereas, in truth, pretty much all of the establishment foreign policy philosophies advocate for US Imperialism via military aggression. That Trump has a low- threshold for military aggression-- including,as you say, nuclear weapons-- doesn't mean he falls into the neo-con camp. In fact, as yet another example of Trump's exceptionalism, his FP is so outside of the norm, foreign policy wonks resurrected the old phrase "America First" as a descriptor of Trump's foreign policy philosophy (of course Trump subsequently obliged them by taking the name on for himself.)

As for the lesser- evil POV, it's probably best to agree to disagree, but I will give it at least one go:. The Clinton Administration was more successful at gutting the social contract in America than any Republican ever could have even imagined accomplishing. It's hard to imagine an HRC administration being any better than WJC. On top of that, she promises to continue Obama's illegal drone wars, and likely expand them. If it's neo-cons that concern you, HRC has never been far from that fold.

All that said, does a Trump Presidency scare me more than Clinton's? Yeah, sure. But like I've said before, it's mainly because Trump represents a new attack from the bourgeoisie, and I'm not entirely sure what that looks like as of yet. Whereas, the Clinton play book is the same line of attack we've been fighting since the 80s.

Better or worse, though? It kind of depends on who you ask, I guess. I imagine there are plenty of people in Libya and Pakistan or wherever who are absolutely terrified at the prospect of a Hillary Presidency.

It's been a couple days since the first of 3 Presidential Debates. Both the real- time and post-debate results confirm most people felt Clinton soundly beat Trump.

In fact, it was in many ways a master class in setting up an opponent, as HRC realized early on in the night that Trump was undisciplined, as expected. After a few rounds of Clinton expertly trolling Trump by questioning his wealth and business acumen as well as taking about how much money Trump received from dear old dad, he began chasing after every line of attack, and his answers were increasingly disorganized and frantic. Despite his thinly-veiled misogynistic attack claiming Clinton doesn't have the stamina to be President, it was instead Trump that looked progressively more and more tired and worn out as the debate came to the end.

For all of the criticisms she gets for not being a particularly gifted campaigner, it is notable that she succeeded where 19 some odd Republican contenders failed, in what was thought to have been one of the deepest GOP fields ever. None of the Republicans ever truly challenged Trump in a debate in a way that made him seem out of his league.

That said, for the first 20 some odd minutes of this debate Trump comported himself well by answering questions succinctly and carrying himself in a manner more befitting for the occasion (by his standard, at least). An example-- instead of calling her Crooked Hillary, he referred to her as Sec. Clinton, and on many occasions, he surprisingly stated his agreement with her.

I mention this because while the polls have tightened recently, most have assumed Clinton will easily win running away. Of course, the outcome is still far from certain. 538 puts HRC's chances only at 58% as of today.

Nonetheless, If Trump loses what happens to 'Trumpism'? Perhaps it's simply a Black Swan. But It occurs to me that if Trump has been this successful with his incredibly poor political skills and abject lack of knowledge, what would happen if a Trumpist candidate ran who was polished, had the basic political skills expected for presidential candidates, and at least a modicum of mastery over the basic knowledge-base required?

One final unrelated anecdotal note: subsequent to Clinton's bout with pneumonia I have noticed an increasing level of frustration and outright anger at both candidates and a system that would allow a situation in which voters are expected to choose between pretty much the 2 most hated people in the United States.

I'm sure there's a level of selection and confirmation bias involved in what I've observed, but just to note, I'm not really talking about my friends or people into radical politics. These are fly-on-the-wall conversations at the grocery, at work, standing in line, etc. In every one of these conversations I heard, there was a real, palpable sense of anger and resignation to a degree I've never encountered.

Amongst those who say they will vote for one or the other, most say they are actually voting against the other, rather than voting for 'their candidate.'

Even within the more activisty lefty-liberal circles, people still seem not to have yet reconciled themselves to voting for Clinton. Their conversations consist of attempting to convince themselves of reasons why they should vote for her and always end where they begin-- wondering if they will be able to hold their noses to vote for her

What are others' experiences at this point?

What counts exactly as "winning" the debate? Professional pundits generally noted how Clinton showed herself to be presidential and in command of the material & Trump allowed her to get under his skin and illlustrated his superficial & undisciplined self. But really the relevant standard for "winning" is persuading enough voters so as to be elected. And Clinton didn't really give working class people many reasons to vote for her. Trump got in his digs over her support for NAFTA. And Clinton coming across as a school marm may remind too many working class people of the condescension of professional-managerial class people. She was in a bind because, as a woman, she couldn't get down and dirty and passionate. That would violate patriarchal norms & Trumpistas would be all over her.

Thus far polls suggest she may have gained slightly from the debate. At the time the debate took place they were about tied in the polls. In Colorado and Florida in particular. Clinton must take at least one of those states to have enough Electoral College votes to win, when added to the states that are more in her column based on the polls. And they are nearly tied in Pennsylvania also, another must-win state for Clinton.

A vast part of the population is really very frustrated at this point with the highly top down American political system, its disfunctional character has been really showing. Candidates that aren't firmly elements of the ruling class (as both Trump and Clinton are in their own ways, tho the ruling class prefers Clinton) or challenge it, can't get very far for many reasons. They are filtered out by various layers of the system.

And Clinton coming across as a school marm may remind too many working class people of the condescension of professional-managerial class people. She was in a bind because, as a woman, she couldn't get down and dirty and passionate. That would violate patriarchal norms & Trumpistas would be all over her.

Idk, she really gets under my skin, and her default demeanour is basically Tracy Flick from 'Election.' But on Monday I think she managed to balance those things in a way she's normally incapable or unwilling to do, and came across as almost likable ...well, almost anyway. I'd be willing to bet she's been working with a voice coach or something along those lines.

As Trump alluded to near the end of the debate, he's resumed talking about all the Clinton sex scandals. The press is reporting discord in the campaign again, this time over the sex scandal tactic. Interestingly, one advisor counseling against it is none other than Newt Gingrich. I guess he'd know.

ETA: In the event the election is a close one, this Cuban Embargo scandal could matter. Not because many people will care; most people won't even recall it in a few weeks. But in a close election, Florida will matter, and the Cuban ex-pat community there is large enough to swing a close election, and they will care about the story, a lot.

Typically the way that disaffection with the political system shows up in the USA is through the high level of not voting. Most of the working class does not vote. The not voting rate varies over time, and is likely to be quite high in the current election.

Clinton is very likely to win. Since the debate her polling is now up to around 5 points ahead of Trump. Clinton has the backing of the vast majority of the corporate media, even newspapers that usually endorse Republicans. She has the clear backing of most of the ruling class. Clinton and the Democrats are not going to make any serious moves to address issues from the left like golbal warming or high levels of inequality & poverty, or actual social health care. The corporate elite who control the Dems have not seen any reason for decades now to cater to working class issues.

This has driven electoral politics to the right as the Repubs have had to appeal to right wing cultural issues...racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, nativist tendencies...to win elections. This state of affairs was part of what set the stage for a con-man like Trump. As long as the working class & parts of middle class have been doing poorly under the globalist neoliberal regime in recent years, this has left an opening for populist type politics, as with the Sanders candidacy which tries to revive the New Deal brand of Democratic party politics from decades ago. With Sanders put away by the elites, and pushed into his corner, that leaves Trump the political space to make the populist noises, in the kind of far right way that also has gained traction in Europe.

Most of Trump's support is from lower levels of the white old and new middle classes, but he has some white working class support, especially in economically declining areas like Appalachia and areas of midwest.

Polls indicate that Clinton's win is also going to drag down a number of Republican Senators, in at least five or six states.

On the third party vote: In New Mexico, where Johnson was governor, he is currently polling at 24 percent, with Shillary at 35 percent and Drumpf at 31 percent. Electoral College votes go to the candidate with highest vote. Doesn't require a majority.

Juan Conatz

The polls have been showing that the two major alternatives to Clinton and Trump...Jill Stein and Gary Johnson have had declining numbers. Earlier in this thread I think I said anyone who thinks Stein will get 5-10% is delusional. She's fallen to 2-3% now. Johnson, surprisingly, was endorsed by the Chicago Tribune this week. Some of the media has been going pretty hard at both lately, particularily Johnson, whose been caught in a couple 'gotcha' moments in regards to foreign policy. His poll numbers had been as high as 15%, they are now down to 7-8%. I bet Stein ends up getting 1.5% and Johnson gets 5%. I think most disaffected liberals are either not going to vote or they will vote for Clinton while holding their noses. I think more right-wingers will go for the alternative candidate (Johnson), but I think also many may not vote or hold their nose for Trump.

I haven't been following the third party numbers much recently but seems like fivethirtyeight and others expected them to decline getting closer to the election. Still, if Johnson even gets above 5%, I believe that will qualify the Libertarians for the same federal election funding as the two major parties during the next few years - that would be a major coup for them.

ETA: I hadn't heard about Gary Johnson's poll numbers in New Mexico (where he used to be governor) until Syndicalistcat mentioned them. The latest poll has him at 24% - which is a significant increase from his earlier numbers around 17% there. 24% still only gives him a 2-3% chance of winning the electoral college votes there, but it's interesting that his vote numbers went up.

OliverTwister

if Johnson even gets above 5%, I believe that will qualify the Libertarians for the same federal election funding as the two major parties during the next few years - that would be a major coup for them.

yes and no, apparently

http://ivn.us/2012/11/01/why-5-matters-to-gary-johnson/

It's amazing how many GOP bigs have begun un-endorsing Trump over the latest scandal. Trump's sexual assault comments were picked up on an open-mic in 2005, and were publicly released on Friday. To be sure, Trump's comments are completely abhorrent, but he has done and said equally horrifying things that have been known and in the public domain for quite awhile now, including accusations of marital rape. So, it's hard to see why these public officials have chosen to draw a line over this.

The list is growing but the top names so far include John McCain withdrawing his support and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan disinviting Trump from a joint public appearance.

There are rumors the RNC is going withdraw it's active support. Of course they can do nothing to take Trump off the ticket, but this campaign is more heavily reliant on the party infrastructure than any in the modern era, so losing active RNC support would leave the campaign floundering, short on field staff, offices, funding and more, and it would likely be the death knell for Trump's candidacy.

There is a lot of speculation over how Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, will handle the situation for the duration of the race. Pence is the governor where I live, and as chance would have it, I know several people who have had 1:1 interactions with him over the years. They all describe him as deeply ambitious and highly calculating. When he was selected as Trump's running mate, I predicted Pence would be likely to 'go rogue' if things turned south for the capaign (think '08 Palin, except he's actually smart, reserved, and very politically astute), putting his long-term political ambitions ahead of campaign priorities. Time will tell, but his public comments on the scandal thus far have done nothing to dissuade my opinion. It will be interesting to watch over the next few weeks.

The extent to which Republican officials have been fleeing from the Trump candidacy is unprecedented. It's not happened like that any time in the post-civil war era. Of course the party "establishment" didn't like him to begin with. His poll numbers are dropping with Clinton's Real Clear Politics poll average up to 4 points ahead and climbing. With such a nasty piece of work as her opponent, the fact she isn't way ahead also says something about the way many people really, really dislike her.

They can't take Drumpf off the ballot. It's too late for that. Early voting has already begun in some states. There are various state constitutional rules that cover ballot changes.

Drumpf has made so many disparaging remarks about women all along that it shouldn't be a surprise that he'd engage in "male" talk approving of groping (a form of sexual assault). Rumors say the same tapes have him using the "N" word at one point. But he's already made it clear he's a racist.

Meanwhile there has been a campaign lately to publicize the way that sexual harassment is endemic in the restaurant and fast food industry. I think this needs to be an area of workplace organizing focus. In other words, bad "guy" behavior of the sort approved of by Trump is an actual problem that working class women have to deal with.

Meanwhile poll averages for the Libertarian and Green party candidates have sunk further. Johnson now is at about 6 percent and Stein at 2 percent. If she actually does get 2 percent, that would be about six times the vote total she got in 2012. But she's being ignored by the media and lately the media have been dumping on Johnson.

Re: Potential Trump/Pence split:

Trump pretty bluntly disagreed with Pence at tonight's debate. The news outlet with best access to Pence sources reported tonight that Pence's decision on how to proceed weighed heavily on the outcome of tonight's debate. . .

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/10/09/pence-sticking-trump----but-closely-watching-debate/91831456/

i'd think there'd be too much party-loyalty pressure for pence to abandon the ticket. but it was the indystar (i think) that reported that pence's wife was "furious" at trump. i was hoping for an "ok, mike, it's him or me" moment