The Smiley Smile Message Board

I wanted to start a thread in continuation to something that I wrote about in an on topic discussion.

Around 1990, Noam Chomsky famously said that "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." While he was writing in 1990, he has later made a similar case for subsequent presidents. And indeed, Trump is no different in this regard. As I noted in the previous thread, Trump has taken what was already a heinous drone campaign that was knowingly targeted overwhelmingly towards a civilian population and expanded it substantially. As the article that I'm linking to below notes, Obama's air strikes "led to approximately 2,300 to 3,400 civilian deaths" while Trump's "air strikes ... killed between 2,800 and 4,500 civilians" in his first seven months (the article is now over four months old).

Now, in my view, these are grave war crimes and are far more serious than, say, Trump's mannerisms or supposed Russian collusion (which I, thus far, have yet to see convincing evidence of). Now I'm not one to think anybody should be hanged no matter who they are (nor does Chomsky, I'd say) and I would never advocate for that under any circumstance but I do think there should be an equality of treatment for war crimes and war criminals, so in my view prosecution is in order, which would mean imprisonment if the current norms of the ICC were applied. But I am curious on the thoughts of the people here.

Here is the article for those interested: https://theconversation.com/under-the-trump-administration-us-airstrikes-are-killing-more-civilians-85154

I am frankly exhausted from the whole thing....

I was really ticked off when Obama announced that the U.S. Would employ drones.
And Trump has ramped it up.
I guess many Americans like drones because it's a "clean kill" that doesn't involve troops. But I consider Syrians, Afghanis, etc to be people too and don't feel comfortable with innocent children being killed.
I read an article not long ago. It was about the people, thousands of miles away, who are involved with sending the drones to their targets. Was horrified to read their response to a drone striking the wrong target - it was along the lines of "oops , my bad." : -(

My thoughts exactly.

I would agree that many consider this to be a "clean" way of fighting warfare but even from a practical standpoint (which, in my view - and seemingly yours too - should not be the main consideration) the drones are an abysmal failure. Even during the Obama years, declassified info showed that the bombs killed innocent people 90% of the time and anyone who studied the effects concluded that they only generated more hostility and increased the threat of violence.

Unfortunately it's entirely understandable why the drone idea was so appealing, and I think both of you showed you understand it. We want our way internationally, and we don't want to deal with the messiness of American citizens' kids getting killed and maimed at a high enough rate to cause trouble. So, presto, remote control...

I'm not entirely sure they're not an elegant solution if you're going to fight a war regardless. But we, of course, aren't so much fighting wars as fighting semi- and pseudo-wars in nontraditional combat zones against nontraditional opponents. I don't think the drones are so much the problem as military actions without fully fledged wars. Whether we kill civilians along with or instead of purportedly appropriate targets by drone, by the kinds of missiles advertised throughout the first Gulf War, or by whatever other method, the issue is that we're doing it.

I agree. The US has been, by and large, carrying out these actions with much the same results, without drones for decades.

The biggest difference or change is:
- traditional war: lots of Americans going away, many come back dead
- more modern war: fewer Americans going away, fewer come back dead
- special ops: even fewer and even fewer
- drones: fewer, fewer

It’s easy to ignore the number of enemy or foreign civilian deaths as that trend continues.

Yes, though I might ask if enemy or foreign civilian deaths were ever taken seriously. Even in a severe case like, say, the Vietnam war, a lot of the mainstream media focused on the impact that the war was having on the American soldiers and on the sentiments at home. And even then, this was the conversation that began only after corporate America had taken a position against the war because it was no longer understood to be a good investment. At the popular level, whose positions by and large went unreported, there was an understanding that the Vietnam war was simply as a matter of principle immoral and unethical. But I'd say that this is still the belief within the popular counter-cultural movement today in terms of the drone wars. And, in fact, it might be a position that's more reported now than it was then.

I don’t mean to say we’re increasingly insensitive to those deaths, just that it’s increasingly easier to do so.

I suppose that the new turnover and rumored impending turnover in the Cabinet warrants discussion. Ugh.

Jeremy Scahill said on Democracy Now! of the change from corporatist Tillerson to hawkish fundamentalist Pompeo "it's just a different kind of bad." That does seem to be the case. It's odd watching the turnover, because a person can almost hope to keep "one kind of bad" over the alternative. (Actually that describes my HRC vote in '16 pretty well...) But I'll say this, if John Bolton replaces Gen. McMaster, all of my relative calm about this administration dissolves. If Pompeo is in State and Bolton is Nat'l Sec. Advisor, jeeeeezus. How long until we initiate wars against both N Korea and Iran? I mean that seriously.

Or this for the cabinet.... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/03/16/daily-202-trump-may-hire-multiple-cable-news-personalities-as-part-of-shake-up/5aab2c5530fb047655a06cdb/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_daily202-908am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

I'll defend Pete Hegseth thusly: he was a really good high school basketball player near here (Forest Lake) and went on to Princeton.

This does not qualify him to lead the VA. I have no doubt that he's smart. He served the country in the military, which many find admirable. But at age 37 and with the bulk of his professional experience being in propaganda-media, I don't see how he's remotely qualified to lead an organization of well over 300,000 working in hundreds of hospitals, clinics, cemeteries, etc., in the care of veterans.

Oh, but he "looks the part," and we know the president is fond of people who look the part. Playing government must be so fun.

Fox and Friends is our government since our "leader" has no original ideas and only hates on other people's ideas...

Saw the Scahill interview. Scahill is great!

Before the election, I said on here a few times that despite his rhetoric, Trump seemed to me to be offering status quo policies. And apart from a few issues here and there, I think that's been pretty much correct. Unfortunately, the status quo typically ranges from centre-right to far right. However, with the appointment of Pompeo and the potential appointment of Bolten, Trump whether he knows it or not (and I suspect he doesn't really know it) is veering into extremist territory. I agree with you, these choices represent a definite danger to global security.

And Heavens know it has always been too easy to begin with...

Bolton is in. This is a firm commitment to extremism. God help us all.

I hope my draft board hasn't been notified.... :'(

I'll say again, and I think anyone who has watched my political statements on any board in the past few years would accept, I have been really quiet about the administration. I have been taking a lot of time to think about politics and society in general. Real self-reflection. I am far, far, far from being an alarmist about this administration, as much as I continue to abhor the president specifically. But this is something that really worries me. I think John Bolton is a terrible, terrible choice for any high office. I fear we're going to engage in unnecessary wars.

I agree. My responses can be a bit on the excited side here but from the beginning I was a bit hesitant to join the alarmist response to the Trump Administration for reasons that I had already explained - namely that I didn't find him to be too much of a deviation from the norm in terms of policies (though certainly he always was in terms of his "character"). Though as you know all know, I already found "the norm" to be troubling enough. But these recent moves are of an altogether different nature as far as I'm concerned. I really hope there are demonstrations in the streets over this but that might just be wishful thinking.

Well the mainstream media is obviously already clearly speaking loudly against Bolton, and while I don't know whether the Democrats or left will be protesting Bolton specifically, there has been no shortage of protest over the past 15 months or so. I think the issue is that when it's from one side, it's a minority, and with the current hyperpartisan and cultural divide, frankly that just makes the other side dig in more. And Bolton's (and Pompeo's) style of tough talk has a lot of fans.

Until we start sending large numbers of troops to fight, kill, and die in Iran and North Korea--which will disproportionately affect conservatives and their families--I doubt we'll see much concern from the right. (Except from the few Rand Pauls of the world, that is.)

Kind of a big day today (maybe).

Maybe Pruitt's unethical behavior--and I'm not talking about his policy positions, which of course were to be expected, but rather his actual misuse of his office--will catch up to him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/climate/epa-ethics-letter-pruitt.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

And of course Cohen's office was raided by the FBI. Maybe, among many other more substantive things, they'll find some "dear diary" scribblings about why he out of nowhere decided, unbeknownst to the president, to pay off a porn star the president didn't f***.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/politics/fbi-raids-office-of-trumps-longtime-lawyer-michael-cohen.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

I don't know about anyone else but I find the new provocative language around Russia to be terrifying. The one thing that was good about Trump was that he was not building up tension with Russia. Now he's done a complete 180 on that.

Agree entirely. As bad as Twitter tough talk is, however far beneath any adult (much less a president), it was one thing when it was about the (relatively) marginally dangerous N Korea. But directly with/about Russia?

And while maybe it’s a cliche, as his domestic and legal troubles mount, I do worry that he may see a war as a way to build support and to distract the population.

Well, yesterday's strikes were inevitable, I suppose. Not a lot of criticism from across the political spectrum in the US, either. I guess this is what they call looking presidential.

I'm curious what the general feeling is in the US about what's happening in Gaza right now?

My entirely honest--I know this will read otherwise, but I'm not being sarcastic--answer is something like this (in order of most common answer to "how are you feeling about what is happening in Gaza right now?"):

1. "What's Gaza?"
2. "What's happening in Gaza?"
3. "That's the Muslims, right? Israel has a right to self defense against terrorists."
4. Probably something about Obama's [Syrian] red line.
5. Maybe a Saddam Hussein reference?

I can appreciate that response. Given how well-informed and intelligent you are, I genuinely believe that's a testament to just how in the dark Americans are kept on the realities of the Israel-Palestine issue. And I don't think that's your fault but rather the fault of your media and political system.

I think Americans really don't focus on anything outside the borders of the country, with a few occasional very broad-stroke narratives. And in this case, "Israel = special [do-no-wrong] friend" is one of those narratives, and "Muslim bad guys" is another. So even if they did realize what and where Gaza is, and know what is going on there ... they generally won't know what's going on there, because it's so shaded, if not entirely obscured, by the narratives.

The most recent Intercepted podcast has a nice Norman Finkelstein interview on the topic.

OH--and my initial "top answers" post should have probably included something about the Iran nuclear deal. That would definitely be among the top responses, in some way or other.

Norman Finkelstein is a fantastic scholar and one of the best writers on the topic.

I do agree with you to an extent about Americans and their focus on issues outside of the borders. However, to add to your good point about narratives, they do become very interested in the internal goings-on of a country when they are a target for US military intervention. I don't think we could go more than a minute without hearing about the horrors committed by Saddam Hussein or the repression carried out against the people of Iran throughout the 2000s. And, for different reasons, we have heard quite a lot about the internal politics of Russia over the past few years.

Also, in my view, Israel is not so much a friend as much as they are a satellite or a colony, which should make the American people concerned about what goes on there.

Help me CSM deal with this craziness! ;)

Re the objects of our aggression, I’d assume that’s because the media tends to cover stories basically as fed them by the WH, the Pentagon and similar sources during those periods, to ensure some level of public support. The 03 Iraq war may be the best modern example.

As for Israel, I just meant to share the narrative, not the truth.

Yes, I think we are in agreement on this.

I'm barely hanging on myself.

Initiative to break California into 3 states to go on November ballot
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/us/california-three-states-initiative-ballot/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/us/california-three-states-initiative-ballot/index.html)

Not something I've researched, but I'm interested to see the results and response.

Shame I'm not near Turnberry, Scotland, this weekend. Would love to let your orangutan know what I feel about him and everyone who lent him their support.

Here's what I posted at PSF after reading of his performance in the UK.

I guess our friends in the UK should have rolled out a glowing orb for the president. Perhaps then he'd have been sufficiently distracted so as to avoid speaking about things he doesn't understand (i.e., everything beyond the fun of looking at glowing orbs). Up next in Helsinki, he'll finally get to have a good time talking to the fella on the other end of our true "special relationship." I can see the glimmer of lust in the president's eyes as he first glimpses a shirtless Putin.

"Did you see what I said, Vlad?" he'll seek approval like the child he is, mentally. "I said May was ruining Brexit, was mean to the Muslim mayor, and said Johnson would make a good prime minister. I zinged 'em. Did you see it?"

The faux quote, of course, has been edited for coherence. His actual statement would presumably be something more like:

"Vlad, guys like us, uh, we strongly with, ahhhh, talking on, and a lot of people are noticing, I say to the guy, I say, um, the uh, lady isn't doing the, what's the thing, a lot of people are on my side with this one, very smart people and more and more every day, she's not, and here you've got the guy who's one of those, the banned ones, the names they have, it's not American and so a lot of people, you know, they are not so ... Boris, is this guy Russian? I said to Miller, I said, is this guy Russian or what? He'd be, I think, and many smart people are agreeing with me and they're saying, Donald, you are really on to something, that he could make a good, uh, a better, than that lady. Get 'er outta there! I was very strong in this. I can, you know, a lot of people, it's hugely the way I'm, um..." [at which point shirtless Putin patted him on the head and gave him a piece of well done steak with ketchup, which the president happily gobbled up].

Indeed.

I made the mistake of commenting on a post a cousin of mine forwarded. It was an absolutely awful picture of supposedly Michelle Obama, with the caption, Aren't you glad she is no longer First Lady?

I had to comment. I said, why the hate for Ms Obama? Why the name calling? (There are those who love to refer to her as a man, or worse , as an animal.)
Got a response - don't you know that she's a Socialist and a Communist, and the two of them did all sorts of evil things ( they were named) etc.
I replied that they are not Communists . Didn't bother with the other things.
Answer came back that I was misguided. The lady's brother told her that the Obamas were both socialists and communists, they are the same thing. So it must be so.
Of course I don't consider them either socialists or communists.
It went more downhill from there . I got it all off my chest, waited 5 minutes, then deleted my original comment, which resulted in all comments being deleted.

Oh, my country. Don t know the difference between socialism and communism. And as the hit song from a while back proudly proclaimed, we don't know the difference between Iraq and Iran. Yikes.

If only they were socialists or communists!

Anyone here who knows me knows that I am no fan of the Democrats or the Democratic party. But it is has always struck me that the arguments against the Democrats that emanate from the right range from conspiratorial to outright lunacy. Today's attempted attack against particular Democratic figures is a good example of this lunacy and, in my view, is highly encouraged by what is now mainstream extreme-right wing elements in the United States who have managed to propagandize a large community into actually believing that Democrats represent the country's greatest threat.

So what's going to happen with the Mid Terms? I'm Canadian, but get a large daily dose of US politics, and I really can't figure out where this is heading.

And I suppose the other question is 'does it matter'? It seems so divided that at one point, will it even make a difference who's wrestled control from whom??

I don't know. I don't follow closely enough. But both sides seem sufficiently riled up that I expect a strong turnout. I'm not expecting a major victory for Democrats or Republicans. Maybe someone else will weigh-in with a more informed prediction.

I spoke too soon. On July 18th the California Supreme Court removed it from the ballot.

With the talk increasing about the Democratic nominee for 2020, I really do hope that Sanders makes a run for it and does not get squeezed out the way he was in 2016. I also really hope that Joe Biden does not run.

 Biden may be ancient, but he is electable. Sanders is not. Don't be surprised if he ends up behind not only Biden but also Warren and Buttigeig.

 Bill Weld may have a snowball's chance in hell, but he'd make a credible president in my view. Kudos to Weld for challenging Trump in the GOP primaries.

I really have no patience with this argument anymore. This was the same thing that I heard in 2016 about Clinton and Sanders. The fact of the matter is is that Biden, like Clinton, represents precisely the sort of status quo establishment politician that the country has now demonstrated that they are fed up with and for quite a good reason: since the 1970s, we have seen labour productivity go up and we have seen wages for the majority of the population stagnate. Meanwhile, the wealth for the extraordinarily slim minority have escalated dramatically, mostly off the backs of all that labour that have watched as they are kept from the fruits of their labour.

And the public isn't stupid. They know who is responsible - it is the establishment leaders, of which Clinton and Biden are both dutiful, if not slavish, representatives. Now I'm not saying here that Biden can't win but I do think that the best hope that Biden does have of winning is that the population has become so bothered by Trump that they will vote for anybody that the Democrats put forth. The problem is though that while the Democrats could have spent the last two and half years putting together a really solid opposition to Trump by calling out the huge list of awful policies he has enacted, they instead decided to pursue an argument that was about as rational as the 9/11-is-an-inside-job conspiracy theory, namely that he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.

Now even before the Mueller Report came out, many prominent figures on the left, like Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Aaron Mate, Chris Hedges and others were warning that this was a terrible tactic and certainly didn't deserve the kind of attention it was getting. But of course the Democrats were not about to argue against Trump on a matter of policy for two main reasons - their own policies have been by and large bad for most Americans and they don't differ that dramatically from Trump's. So of course they're going to go after a bogey-man. But it had two effects: for one, the public never cared about the Russian issue as much as establishment Democrats did, so they were simply showing themselves to be dramatically out-of-touch with the needs of the population. And second, it turned out, they were wrong, and so whoever was invested in the issue basically saw that their single-issue turned out to be an empty pursuit.

So the Democrats have by and large mostly been working for the past two years to serve up a big gift to Trump. Biden, of course, has good numbers - he was a Vice President. He's a well-known face and brand. But when people find out that he represents the policies that have largely worked to disenfranchise them for decades, he's going to have a big hill to climb. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's certainly not going to be easy.

But Clinton had the same hill to climb in 2016 and Sanders didn't. This is why, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out months before the November election, the statistics pointed to the fact that Sanders had more of a chance of beating Trump than Clinton did. But, of course, Sanders's biggest problem has never been electability. His biggest obstacle as always been establishment Democrats who have made it perfectly clear that they will go to the lowest depths possible and carry out the most nefarious, sneaky, and petty acts in order to undermine the person who polls show was the most popular political figure in the country for several years in a row. To be fair to Sanders, though, they have pulled the same trick with similarly left-wing candidates so it’s not just him – they are simply looking to protect their establishment, neoliberal interests at all costs. And, yes, there is some evidence now that it has worked and this is once again a replay of 2016. Again, while Greenwald did one of the most comprehensive studies of polls in, I believe it was March of 2016, it was almost universally ignored by the mainstream media who made a Clinton victory look like a slam dunk. You will excuse me, though, if I find this similar replay of that strategy now to be not only distasteful but also potentially a good strategy to get Trump re-elected.

That said, I do like Elizabeth Warren and she is different enough to maybe be more of a contender than Biden. But the fact is she has her own hurdles to overcome. The fact that she was a registered Republican up until the 90s, and still maintains that the problem was that they lost their way (her words were that the Republican party was no longer "principled in its conservative approach to economics and to markets"). Huh? So when were they principled? Was Reagan okay then? She still ardently supports capitalism, and favours small reforms. This will not play that well to a population who seems to be craving massive change at the political level. Natalie Shure recently pointed out the following: “theory of political change is perhaps the biggest difference between Sanders and Warren - he is trying to harness grassroots power; she is leading with sharp policy. Both of those things are critical ingredients for change, but the movement has to happen first.”

Indeed, there has been perhaps no leftist figure since the 1960s who has been as influential as Sanders has been in provoking massive, grassroots organization. One of the reasons why Sanders has succeeded where people like Ralph Nader failed, is that Nader was not willing to do the important groundwork – that which makes change truly possible. As Shure points out, Warren hasn’t done this kind of work either and this is precisely the kind of thing that would cost her an election too.

So, ultimately, I do not find your argument convincing. And if I'm being honest, I actually find it quite dangerous.

 Dangerous? Oh boy. Let me put it bluntly: No politician who self identifies as a socialist, albeit a "Democratic Socialist" is ever going to be nominated for, much less elected, President of the United States. Warren could be a 21st century Teddy Roosevelt, saving capitalism by tweaking it. Sanders? It will never happen. He would be a terrible President.

  Capitalism may well be in need of tweaking, but not by the likes of Sanders. The genius of the American System and the inherent creativity of democratic capitalism is something Bernie will never understand, thus he would like to destroy it.

 Let's take his free college plan. How much would it cost it is free? Trust me, quite a bit. Moreover, the value of a degree and overall quality of education would be thoroughly devalued within a generation if Bernie's plans ever came to fruition. We do need to ease student debt, that I agree with 100 percent.

 Biden is not great, has never been great, and never will be great. He may be good enough to beat Donald Trump while saving the Democrats from themselves. Keep an eye on Pete Buttigieg - he has a brain.

 Bill Weld 2020

Again, I'll repeat: polls showed after the election that Sanders was the most popular politician in America:

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/xww4ek/bernie-sanders-is-the-most-popular-politician-in-america-poll-says-vgtrn

Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of the polls before the election showed that Sanders had a better chance of beating Trump than Clinton did:

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/24/with-trump-looming-should-dems-take-a-huge-electability-gamble-by-nominating-hillary-clinton/

The idea that America can't elect someone who self-identifies as a socialist may have been true at one point but it's not the 1950s anymore. You have generations of people who were not raised on Red Scare tactics and these numbers are only growing. So the lastest polls show that Democrats have a more positive view of socialism than capitalism:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/14/democrats-prefer-socialism-capitalism-gallup-poll/988558002/

And, in fact, these numbers are a bit misleading because they don't quite demonstrate whether or not Americans are in favour of the principles that lay behind either ideological system. In reality, most polls show then when asked specific questions, Americans are very much in favour of a more socialist-style system. In fact, Americans so unconsciously attach the tenets of socialism to the American way that a poll taken in the 80s found that "Nearly half believed that the Constitution contains Karl Marx's phrase 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'" So, as far as I'm concerned, the US population is not only becoming much more receptive to socialism, they've always implicitly and unknowningly agreed with its principles. This perhaps explains Sanders's stunning popularity in 2016 - he was simply saying things that Americans had always believed in.

As for education, the fact is that most of the industrialized free world has free tuition. Like for many things, the United States is more the exception than the rule in this regard. So, you have to ask, has the overall quality of education been devalued in, say, Germany or Sweden? Of course not. They are well-known for having some of the best education systems (including post-secondary education systems) in the world. So if that's the case, why do people believe that the education system in the US would suffer in a way that others haven't? The answer is easy: it's a propagandistic scare tactic which serves to bolster the status quo.

I'm happy to have this conversation but I would like a bit of honesty here. Instead of saying Sanders can't get elected and free tuition wouldn't work, could you at least say what is true, that you don't want Sanders elected and you don't want free tuition for students.

  Ultimately free tuition would never be free and within 30 years the value of a public university education - both monetary and intrinsic - would be degraded.

  Nominating Bernie Sanders would be a gift to Donald Trump. Look elsewhere, please.


 

It is quite staggering how supporters of establishment Democrats are not just out of touch with reality, they believe the opposite of reality to be the truth. Let's not forget what the gift to Donald Trump was in 2016: ignoring the most comprehensive analysis of the polls that showed that Sanders had a better chance of beating Trump than Clinton, using nefarious tricks to undermine Sanders, and putting forth another neoliberal establishment politician. If there was an actual gift to Donald Trump, it was that.

Given that you entirely ignored the facts that I brought up in my previous post and just merely repeated what you said before, I will assume that you are uninterested in engaging with these topics.

  Each of us constructs his own reality yet I am fairly certain that Sanders will never be elected President or nominated for President.

  I'm not really a supporter of establishment Democrats, just a relatively objective observer.

  The interesting thing was that in 2016 both parties were nearly usurped by candidates from outside the party. It fascinated me that the Republicans fell and the Democrats held. Then again, the GOP didn't invest in a coronation or construct a wall of super delegates (i.e. party hacks) to protect the "inevitable" favorite. If they hadn't, we may have seen an open convention.

 The context is different in 2020 - it's a crowded field. Bernie, 78 this year, is one of many.


 BTW - Supporting allowing convicted felons to vote WHILE IN PRISON is a losing issue. One of several embraced by Bernie Sanders.


 Vote for BILL WELD in 2020

I should re-state that I don't know for sure myself if Sanders will ever be elected President or nominated for President because his obstacle - the Democratic neoliberal establishment, has done and is continuing to do everything possible to thwart his chances. However, the reason why Sanders wouldn't be nominated nor elected has nothing to do with the population, as Sanders is an enormously popular political candidate whose views generally align with the views of the majority of Americans.

The fact that you pick out one of the issues where he does not align with the population is not particularly convincing. Most polls show that the American population has been far to the left of all US presidents for decades and generally disagree with most of the policies that emanate from the White House. Take, for example, health care. While the numbers do vary, poll after poll for decades now have shown the majority of the US population to be in favour of a single-payer healthcare system, which is remarkable since no US president has ever advocated such a position. Now healthcare is a much more significant topic for people than whether or not prisoners get to vote - healthcare is something that deeply affects people, often on a day-to-day basis. I hardly think this one issue would tank Bernie, when one considers that Presidents get elected all the time on platforms that the majority of Americans disagree with.

There's a great article just published a couple of days ago in New York magazine. I will paste below but here are a few highlights:

Some Democratic presidential candidates say that America’s economic system is badly broken and in need of sweeping, structural change. Others say that the existing order is fundamentally sound, even if it could use a few modest renovations. The former are widely portrayed as ideologues or extremists, the latter as moderates.

And it’s certainly true that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are ideologically “extreme,” if our baseline is the median member of Congress or the median policy agenda pursued by recent American presidents. But it’s not clear why these would be the appropriate metrics.

In 2011, Michael Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University published a study on Americans’ views of how wealth was distributed in their society, and how they felt it should be distributed. They found that, in the average American’s ideal world, the richest 20 percent would own 32 percent of national wealth. In reality, the top quintile owned 84 percent as of 2011. And that share has grown in the intervening years. Today, the one percent alone commands roughly 40 percent of all America’s wealth.

Given all this, any politician who insists that American capitalism is “already great” is clearly a far-right extremist whose indifference to inequality puts him or her wildly out of step with ordinary people. But is it the case that Warren and Sanders would take things too far in the other direction?

Not remotely. I do not have the relevant data or skills to project precisely how the full implementation of either candidate’s agenda would influence America’s wealth distribution. But neither candidate is calling for a series of reforms that would place the United States far outside the Western European norm. In fact, both Warren and Sanders have cribbed their signature policies from European nations. As the 2018 World Inequality Report demonstrated, policy choices do matter — and income inequality is much lower in Western Europe than it is in the U.S.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/the-fed-just-released-a-damning-indictment-of-capitalism.html

Latest polls of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents place the top two candidates as Biden (29%) and Sanders (23%). It is almost as if history is literally repeating itself.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-scores-debate-performance-electability-biden-front/story?id=64092090&cid=social_twitter_abcn

I normally don't get involved in these discussions, and will likely keep it that way for the most part, but I wanted to respond to a political post made in another thread (seemed more apt to respond to it here):


As someone who lives in the United States, I can say that the United States portrayed by the news and the United States I live in are two very different places. I'm not disputing the many problems that occur here, but man, mostly everywhere you go in this country you will be greeted with genuine hospitality and warmth. This is a huge country with so many different types of people: this is a land of artists, mechanics, inventors, dreamers, farmers, blue-collar workers. We have gone from a country who's people mostly detested gays and people of color to a country who openly votes for an African American president, who more and more support gay rights.

Racism still happens here, anti-gay movements still exist here. But look at how far this country has come since the 1960s! People can say we are "rapidly" going downhill, but I'd argue we are on a long and arduous journey UPHILL. Yes, sometimes there are slumps, sometimes we step back before we take a major stride forward. You can claim because Trump was elected president that that is a sign that this country is full of racist nationalists but, it's funny: I recently had a conversation with a very liberal college professor, he held no punches as to the problems with Hillary Clinton (he voted for her, but jeesh did he know nearly every lie and awful thing that woman (and her husband) did and he detested her for it). Point being: many hardcore liberals themselves weren't happy that they had to vote for her...if many liberals weren't happy with her then how many moderates were going to vote for her, or even want her as president? I guarantee that many weren't happy for their vote for Trump...I guarantee it because I know many people who did exactly this. It was the lesser of two evils (edit: lesser of two evils from whatever point of view you take, not that Trump was solely the lesser of two evils). It's not that every person who cast a ballot for Trump was out to revert this nation to pre-civil war nationalism (or whatever people think).

This is the country that fought for the right for freedom for EVERYONE. We have had some major problems before, but the core of this country and what it stood for has always broken through. Despite some setbacks, despite some very negative things done by people in power (on both sides) over the decades and centuries, this country is still full of beautiful and friendly people.

I think that people need to be aware of the good that is still firmly threaded into the fabric of this nation. It's not all doom and gloom here, despite what is claimed. Go to anytown USA and see what I mean.

Great post, rab2591.

I agree with so much of this.

I would also add that Trump is a bit of a scapegoat - yes, he is truly awful but it's not like he came out of the blue. He represents beliefs and ideas that have been around for a very long time.

But from both personal experience and from my reading of the polls, my thoughts are that the beliefs and values of the majority of Americans are simply not aligned with Trump nor with the Clintons. And that's a good thing.