Speaking of differences of opinion at New York Magazine Jonathan Chait, echoing Rahm Emanuel’s take I cited here the other day, thinks the debates have been a debacle:
The odd thing about this race to the left is that there’s little evidence it appeals to the primary electorate, let alone the general election version. Democrats strongly support universal coverage, but have lukewarm feelings on the mechanism to attain this. They prefer reforms that involve a combination of public and private options over the Bernie movement’s manic obsession with crushing private health insurance.
This applies as well to the party’s general ideological orientation. More Democratic voters express concern the party will nominate a candidate who’s too liberal (49 percent) than one who’s not liberal enough (41 percent). By a similar 54–41 margin, more Democrats want their party to move toward the center than toward the left.
He’s writing about health care reform in particular but, as you can see, he veers into more general issues as well.
I don’t want Donald Trump to be re-elected. I didn’t vote for him in 2016 and I don’t think his performance as president is worthy of re-election. I wish that a temperate, centrist candidate would adopt some of the more sensible positions he’s staked out in highly intemperate terms.
We need better control over our southern border than we have now. That should be beyond debate. We need to recalibrate our trade with China. It’s up to the other NATO members to define NATO’s relevancy today rather than simply assuming that the U. S. will carry nearly all of the freight.
That seems to be beyond the realm of possibility.
I wish that a temperate, centrist candidate would adopt some of the more sensible positions he’s staked out in highly intemperate terms.
Said another way, “style over substance.”
For years, politicians used temperate terms for those sensible positions, and they got nowhere. Like it or not, the only way to get those positions substantively into the debate was candidate and, then, President Trump’s bombastic and uncompromising style.
Like voting for a 3rd, 4th, or 67th party candidate, it is “sound and fury,
signifying nothing.”
Squarely with Tasty. Temperate is nice to have, not necessary, and has harmed many. We got the criminal element in the Clintons, a war in Iraq in GWB, a zero and in all likelihood criminal in Obama. It’s fascinating, the crass, direct, intemperate guy is the only one repeatedly called a criminal, traitor etc. The world upside down.
And yet only he is dealing with China, immigration and regulation, or even a corrupt media. No bizarre treaties or planes full of cash for legacy building. And so on.
The Dem candidates? Somewhere between batshit crazy and completely and totally devoid of principles in pursuit of votes.
I’ll take the genuine horses ass.
As of this writing President Trump’s accomplishments are pretty much limited to cutting taxes, reducing regulation, and getting his Supreme Court appointments confirmed. Those should all be acknowledged as worthy accomplishments whether you agree with them or not. The other things you mention are aspirational at this point. One or more them might bear fruit before November 2020; none may.
As of this writing President Trump has not reduced illegal immigration, he has not managed to control our southern border, he has not wrung trade concessions from China, he has not convinced North Korea to curtail or abandon their nuclear ambitions, and he hasn’t gotten Iran to stop doing anything. Or start for that matter. On the plus side he hasn’t started any new wars which is more than the
fivesix* previous presidents could say.Contrary to Steve I think that Trump has faced stronger headwinds than any president of my lifetime. But in the final analysis those are just an excuse just as whatever headwinds Presidents Obama, Bush, or Clinton faced were just excuses. Being an effective president is a matter of prevailing against the headwinds. That’s why Reagan, Nixon, and LBJ were effective presidents whatever you think of their policies. The accomplishments of the succeeding presidents pale in comparison. Style helps a lot in doing that which is I why think that style and espousing the right policies are both important. It enables you to appeal to the media or, when you can’t appeal to the media, to appeal to the people or, when you can’t appeal to the people, attract and wrangle an effective staff.
Institutional support is important, too, which is why any outsider will face problems in accomplishing his or her goals. If Bernie Sanders were to be elected president (saints preserve us), he would come into office without significant institutional support just as Trump has.
* I had forgotten about Jimmy Carter’s intervention in Zaire.
Let’s see if Trump can stay out of wars for the remaining years of office.
That the last 5 presidents started a war tells you NOT starting a war is really hard to do.
And that’s not even counting ongoing wars inherited from predecessors.
Should I give credit to President Trump for eradicating DAESH? There are two issues
Temperance, norms, and style allowed N. Korea to get nuclear weapons. Temperance, norms, and style allowed manufacturing to move to China. Temperance, norms, and style allowed the housing bubble and financial collapse. Temperance, norms, and style allowed the continued military adventurism. Temperance, norms, and style allowed the healthcare industry disfunction. Temperance, norms, and style allowed education cost explosion. Others can add their own examples.
Temperance, norms, and style got us to this point, and, temperance, norms, and style will ensure those trends to continue.
President Obama was the best option to changing the trend using temperance, norms, and style. The best he could do was put a speed bump in the path of Iran’s eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons and allow his signature accomplishment, Obamacare, to be co-opted by the healthcare industry.
Has President Trump accomplished his stated goals? No, but temperance, norms, and style took 20-40 years to get us to this point. I am willing to give the man a chance, but if temperance, norms, and style prevail, we simply return to the trend.
If he fails, you will get what you dislike, and the possibility of change will be eliminated. “Choose wisely.”
I agree with the “style over substance†comments, and lament that so much media emphasis engages in putting a daily microscope on Trump’s non-conforming behavior.
The fact that immigration has seen few changes should be owned more by legislative ineptitude of Congress rather than executive branch disinterest or lack of engagement. Time and time again different avenues, proposals, tactics have been pushed forward and rejected or obstructed by political pushback or questionable judicial overreach. To this very day more open border enthusiasm is being preached by Democrats than participating in any border security partnership or planning.
And, while I would be more comfortable with a more centrist leader too, the political climate of today would crush any olive branch bipartisan compromise that might be offered, especially by the Republican Party. Unlike Steve, I believe the Democrat Party is by far the most aggressive of the two major parties.
An ironic aspect of Trump is that he has been a NY Democrat, in good standing, for most of his life. He took these democrat leanings and tactics with him when he changed party affiliations, becoming a nominee for the GOP, including what dems have done best – trashing their opponent’s reputations, and being unrelenting in making transformational policy changes. Now, It seems difficult for Dem’s to handle experiencing similar (“I wonâ€) behavior they have indulged in slinging at their foes for so many years
Four more years.
It started with the 1960 campaign, the first in which television became a major factor. The Democrats, mostly by their surrogate button men, got down and dirty nasty. What they did to Barry Goldwater was an affront to decency unseen since the 1920s.
We can skim over all that has happened since – I’ve got a WWII surplus gas mask that helps. But we have to pause and ponder what happened to Sarah Palin. I am still upset with the anger that I lived with because of what those motherfucking cocksuckers in the media did to her.
And you don’t like Trump because he’s intemperate? Really? A sitting Democratic Congressduck, maybe female, calls him a motherfucker and he’s intemperate? The entire Democratic Party calls a man who has been famous for fifty years and never once been called racist a racist? And he’s intemperate? Earth to Dave – reconnect brother, we worry about you.
Like TastyBits, I’m willing to give Trump another year and a half before doing a post mortem of his first term of office. He may actually accomplish some of the long list of things he has in progress. Remember the parable of the Calif, the Grand Vizier, and the Donkey that I wrote about so long ago. What I’m trying to point out is that they haven’t been accomplished yet.
Unlike most of you I think that his affect is an impediment. There’s a sort of paradox involved. You’ve got to be an SOB to tackle some of these things that desperately need to be tackled but being an SOB means you’ll get little support in doing it even from what is notionally your own political party.
I would also caution people that two wrongs still do not make a right.
Substance vs style? There is very little substance. He passed a tax cut, like every other GOP POTUS, got judges confirmed (this really belongs to McConnell who sat on Obama nominations) and there have been some regulations reduced, but we affect seeing any growth from that. What growth we have sen is about in line with what we would expect from the increased deficit spending Trump has caused. (I admit this is hard to figure out as the Trump admin has not been especially competent and was slow on doing the work to get regulations overturned. Turns out you need to do more than actually just sign a piece of paper to overturn a regulation.)
If his style was successful then I wouldn’t care so much, however we arent seeing much in the way of results and I think we know that in general Trump’s management style does not breed success. We certainly see it in his inability to reach any kind of agreement with the Democrats in Congress.
“crass, direct, intemperate guy is the only one repeatedly called a criminal, “(To this we should add undisciplined, lazy, chaotic and uniformed if we want to adequately describe his style.)
How quickly we forget history. The Clintons were called criminals on a near daily basis. The GOP tried to impeach Bill. They investigated him multiple times. Trump was clearly criminal with his Trump University and if you have followed his real estate career was criminal in his New Jersey dealings. (I dont know why New Jersey gets overlooked in complaints about state corruption. In my experience the place is awful.) Now there is good reason to think that Trump is guilty under the emoluments clause. Republicans will block investigations or prosecution, so not much we can do about it.
“The entire Democratic Party calls a man who has been famous for fifty years and never once been called racist a racist?”
Nope. If you have lived in there Northeast and followed his career you would know he has faced that accusation many times in the past, including being sued over it and claiming that laziness is a black trait.
But back on topic, it looks to me like some of the candidates are realizing that they have gone too far to the left to appeal to the extremes of the party. This worked for Trump (appealing to the far right) but I never thought it was a winning tactic on the left. Yes, you need to lean pretty far left (or right) to win the primary, but you cant pander to every whim of the radicals.
Steve
Because there haven’t been as many convictions in New Jersey as in Illinois or Louisiana. I have firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of government at all levels and in each case there has been significant corruption.
It doesn’t require bias to see corruption in government just a willingness to believe the evidence of your senses. It may be that somewhere in the United States there is a completely non-corrupt government but I haven’t seen it.
I’ll give you an example from one of the federal contracts my company worked on. It wasn’t a huge contract—under $100,000 (that was when $100,000 was a lot of money). When we completed the project successfully—on budget and on schedule—the head of the agency we were working with was bitterly unhappy that our work was too good. It didn’t set him up with the cushy consulting job after retirement he was looking for. That is corruption.
“Because there haven’t been as many convictions in New Jersey as in Illinois or Louisiana.”
Which I think is because it is maybe even more ingrained into the system, to the point where people seldom challenge it. We just went through a payment issue where it was openly known that you needed to find some way to counter the chair of a committee who was employed by the chains that dominate the state. Even though our outcomes and quality scores were significantly better, sometimes by a lot, than the state averages and other local hospitals we still had to find a way to achieve a political solution.
Steve
Because of President Trump, free-trade, illegal immigration, and military adventurism can be questioned. There are still the dismissals by the elites, but they are no longer squash an argument. So, he has not been able to undo 20-40 years of policy in a few months, but he has legitimized the issues.
That is the real reason CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, OTB, Republican establishment, etc. are in a panic. Their proclamations are no longer gospel. The rabble are threatening their power, and they are scared.
@steve
You are again throwing shit against the wall, but the one point you did not mention is the list of murders the Clintons committed. According to my mother-in-law and many others, the list is long and growing.
Additionally, President Clinton was impeached over a blowjob that had nothing to do with the Whitewater investigation, and Whitewater had nothing to do with his campaign or presidency.
You may find this amusing. My mother-in-law hates John McCain, and being a good Christian, she prayed for God to kill him. Finally, her prayers were answered, and God killed him. (This is not a joke.)
“You are again throwing shit against the wall, but the one point you did not mention is the list of murders the Clintons committed.”
Nor did I mention the pizza shop where they were holding teen age girls for sex trafficking. There is a reason for that.
” Finally, her prayers were answered, and God killed him. ”
And I am sure that she now prays for the welfare of that Godly Christian man, Donald Trump.
“Because of President Trump, free-trade, illegal immigration, and military adventurism can be questioned.”
You live under a rock? The military adventurism has long been questioned by significant numbers on the left. It is only with the advent of Trump that people on the right could question it in significant numbers. Free trade? Again, many on the left have questioned it for years. Immigration? We have several hundred miles of existing border fencing, all supported by votes from Democrats. The Senate has come up with at least 2, if I am remembering correctly, immigration bills that they voted on and passed that were shot down by either the Tea Party or Trump. We have been discussing immigration for quite a while. The difference with Trump is that we are only allowed to solve the problem one way, with a wall, paid for by Mexico. (Since separating families didnt work.) AS I have noted before I have climbed walls in the past. It isn’t that hard. So we have been talking about these issues for years, and we have taken some actions in the past. With Trump we are doing nothing but talk. We have no results in almost 3 years.
Steve
The sticking point for most previous immigration attempts , both D & R, has been addressing border security before amnesty legislation. Currently, I see the Democrats resisting aspects about immigration, such as being against chain migration, criticizing illegal crossings etc,, that they supported before Trump came into office.
Basically, for the last 2 1/2 years the dem energy and attention has been to keep Trump from passing any legislation, whether or not it benefited the people. Public good is literally taking a back seat to the dems quest to kick Trump out of office and regain their Oval Office power.