American Politics the 2016 edition

"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views". Dr Who-1946

This wall building thing mystifies me. To make that really work, is there going to be a seamless border patrol or something? Because if not, what's going to be done about ladders, trampolines, and slingshots?

npjnpj wrote: This wall building thing mystifies me. To make that really work, is there going to be a seamless border patrol or something? Because if not, what's going to be done about ladders, trampolines, and slingshots?

i really, really, REALLY hope you mean chops, and not cops.

Dean wrote: npjnpj wrote: This wall building thing mystifies me. To make that really work, is there going to be a seamless border patrol or something? Because if not, what's going to be done about ladders, trampolines, and slingshots? It's not the first wall ever to have been constructed to separate two groups of peoples. I suspect ex Stasi officers will be on hand to advise him how to maintain it.

That can be a problem, but it's also very hard to avoid. Populism is like monopolistic anti-competition. It's the end result of a system gone haywire, losing its beneficial aspects (free exchange of ideas, protection of common interests, and rule of law) but magnifying the internal mechanism that implements these benefits. I've seen a few people try to defend monopolist behaviors, but they're usually fringe elements. At least socialists are concerned with actual governance.

JJLehto wrote: While you are correct in what you say, opinions do change. Also people can be wrong. Just because the accepted standard for Democrats has been neoliberalism, would you grant its possible this is not the best viewpoint?

Oh, absolutely. I come from a science background. No facts are set in stone; nothing you think you know is absolutely certain. Continual improvement is also a driver of my own personal policy preferences: I favor mandatory sunset clauses on legislation to ensure that we don't write it once and sit on its many flaws for decades to come.

JJLehto wrote: Final note on all that. 538 is the top tier of statistics, not sure if you'd agree, and they ended up being the closest in terms of Trump's chance of victory it turns out. Anyway, their county by county analysis showed counties with weak growth since 2012, higher unemployment, lower wages and high # of outsourcable/replacable jobs favored Trump. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-was-stronger-where-the-economy-is-weaker/ More so, many swung to Trump including in blue states. It seems clear to me that economics was a factor in Trump voters in the North (which is what matters, the usual red states would've gone red anyway).

I would like to emphasize that the trouble is that many of the measures there are subject to quite a lot of bias, and the underlying causes aren't really clear. The article makes this argument as well by noting the correlation between free-trade-elite Romney's success and Trump's success. Confounding variables here are very prominent and very hard to remove, as the article mentions. Those areas are most subject to polarization, with older white people making up more of the population and educated people being more scarce. It's an interesting tidbit, but not really all that useful on its own: it may have influenced them (perhaps imperceptibly to them), I find it somewhat unlikely that it is a core driving force behind Trump voters, at least not in an impactful way-- not offsetting the city voters who do the opposite, that is.

JJLehto wrote: What needs to be done is invest in our country directly, including job creation, raise living standards, and have policies to counter the march of globalization. Also make health care and education more affordable, strengthen social security and yes, come up with trade deals that aren't terrible. Maybe negotiations should be more open and inclusive? I don't feel its populism though, just necessity and realistic.

Oh I wouldn't worry about that. The Guantanamo torture victims are quite safe. They have people with defibrillators standing by to resuscitate them once  their bodily functions have stopped, so they can start again five minutes later.

Storm in a teacup, storm in a teacup.

tszirmay wrote: npjnpj wrote: The Berlin wall was only that effective because on the eastern side it was festooned with guard towers manned by soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders. I'm sure Trump wants his wall to be effective. The mind boggles. The Berlin Wall was meant to prevent people leaving while here its about preventing people to enter. No wall is foolproof , even the one visible from outer space that China built way back when.

it depends on how you look at it. it will be built to stop people leaving Mexico

Build 20 billion dollar wall? Check. Repeal Obama care? Check. Cut taxes on middle class Ameicans and American business? Check. Put billions back into defence funding? Check.