USA Mid-term elections

[markfiend]

Prompted from here:

Currently geeking... politics. It's midterm election day here in the US, and I follow politics the way some people follow sports. I'll be exercising the franchise myself in a few hours.

Looks like it's going to be a bloodbath.


Yes, I know this is generally a tech thread, but I am a total geek about this stuff

Tea parties and Rand Paul and Obama, Oh My!

So. The air has cleared a little.

Reactions anyone?

[itnAklipse]

Think the Amerikans are ready for someone like Rand Paul, which is a big step towards the right direxion - or at least a big turn of the nose towards the right direxion.

Good thing too that even the mainstream media isn't able to simply ignore Rand Paul, like they ignored Ron Paul in the last elexions. Nwo they use the usual tactics of a smear campaign instead, but i think the Amerikans can even see through that now to an extent.

However, not voting would be still infinetely better as it shows non-compliance with the system.

[markfiend]

Some signs from the rally to restore sanity and/or fear

[markfiend]

While Ron Paul did not call his son Rand after Ayn Rand, neither of them are insulted by the connection. I think that tells you everything you need to know about Rand Paul.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

[itnAklipse]

It's not that i particularly agree with the politics of the Pauls, but i disagree just as much with the politics of the leftists (birds have two wings for a reason...)

But what makes the Pauls different is that they do support some tenants of axual individualistic freedom, and also their no-s**t honesty. And whatever the politics of such people, they are always to be preferred over populist subversives - of whom both the left and right wing are full of - utter hypocrites and liars who have no principles, or scruples, whatsoever.

i think Pauls have principles and scruples, and with such people one can always have a discussion and come to an understanding, unlike with most politicians.

And last but not least, they have rejected the orthodox politics of their party and most people in their own party consider them a plague. They get support from full political spectrum, destroying the flase left/right paradigm that is the mainstream politics.

That's what i mean b the turn towards the right direxion.

i would loathe to live in a country of rampant free market capitalism where only money is king, but where we live now is even worse.

Only real reservation i have of Ron Paul is that i'm not quite sure of how far his integrity goes, since he has supported the official 911-line publically in the past. But that was a few years ago when it would've been total political suicide to make a contrary statement.

At any rate his track record shows support for policies that endorse openness in government (last one to do that before him was John F. Kennedy) and not supporting the mega-rich over the merely wealthy middle-class.

[weebleswobble]

Bill I like the clit Clinton got trounced in the midterm elections and was re-elected.

People vote with a bit more gusto when its not Uber Office elections, hopefully they'll get it out of their system and Obama can win back their hearts.

[euphoria]

It was a bit depressing listening to Ron Paul in the last presidential campaign, because regardless how good his ideas are he would never ever be elected president. Too much of an alternative guy, there seem to be (very narrow) limits to what democracy allows - in reality. Not only in the US but in the whole Western World.

And Obama proved at least to me that "No he can not" when I was expecting him to talk stright to Netanyahu. I can add that I'm certainly no enemy to Israel, but maybe the US administration could do better than spend zillions they don't have on military aid to a country that by all comparisons have too much military.

[markfiend]

It's not that i particularly agree with the politics of the Pauls, but i disagree just as much with the politics of the leftists (birds have two wings for a reason...)

There are no leftists in (mainstream) USA politics as far as I can see. Obama is pilloried as a "socialist" when in my view he's actually centre-right. YMMV.

...Only real reservation i have of Ron Paul is that i'm not quite sure of how far his integrity goes, since he has supported the official 911-line publically in the past. But that was a few years ago when it would've been total political suicide to make a contrary statement.

Oh come on. Your tinfoil hat is showing. The "official 9-11 line" is true. While conspiracy-theory history makes for a compelling narrative, it has the unfortunate distinction (in most cases) of not actually being true.

At any rate his track record shows support for policies that endorse openness in government (last one to do that before him was John F. Kennedy) and not supporting the mega-rich over the merely wealthy middle-class.

I disagree completely. The practical effect of Libertarianism (either the Ayn Rand variety or the R. Paul variety) is to enrich further the already mega-wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

[stufarq]

Think the Amerikans are ready for someone like Rand Paul, which is a big step towards the right direxion - or at least a big turn of the nose towards the right direxion.

Is that because he considers racial discrimination to be a constitutional freedom, because he wants to keep Guantanamo Bay open and try terrorist suspects by military tribunal, because he lied about his professional certification (and formed his own "professional body" so that he could be certified) or because he opposes same-sex marriages?

Or is it just because he worships Aqua Buddha?

[markfiend]

He's also strongly anti-abortion. I don't know how he squares that with his "libertarianism".

[sultan2075]

He's also strongly anti-abortion. I don't know how he squares that with his "libertarianism".

You really can't? If he thinks life begins at the moment of conception, then it's a no-brainer.


I think that Tuesday's elections results stem from a fundamental error on the part of the Democratic party. They interpreted the 2006 midterms and the 2008 presidential election as signs of a re-alignment in the American electorate. In other words, they mistakenly assumed that they got elected on their own merits rather than because the American people were fed up with Republicans. Consequently, they over-reached. The 2006 and 2008 elections were both referendums on Bush and government spending. The fiscally conservative and libertarian wings of the Republican party either sat out those elections or cast protest votes. Many Republicans responded to the nomination of John McCain by saying that they would vote for Obama and other Democrats as a way of punishing the Republican party. The goal of this punishment would be to force the GOP out of power, so that they would recognize that they should return to the principles of limited government.

This really had a few major sources: First, conservatives have always had an uneasy relationship with John McCain, seeing him as too much of a neoconservative (i.e., much more willing to countenance an expansion of government power). Some conservatives held their noses and voted for McCain, some voted for Obama as a way of punishing the Republicans. Secondly, the first major bailout that came at the end of the Bush administration was very offensive to many conservatives and libertarians who thought a) it artificially distorted the market, and would lead to more trouble in the long term; b) it was beyond the legitimate scope of government power; and c) it operated as a sort of moral hazard--in other words, the last thing you want to do is teach people that the government will bail them out when they make stupid choices or take stupid risks. That will simply encourage stupid decisions and risky behavior rather than prudence and self-reliance.

The Democrats misinterpreted the 2006 and 2008 elections because they thought that these elections were somehow about them. They weren't: they were about Republicans failing to live up to their principles in the legislature, they were about GWB's complete unwillingness to engage in public argument or justification for policies in his second term, and they were about a general repudiation of neoconservatism (which is a specific political ideology best described as "big government conservatism." The original neoconservatives were progressive liberals who came to question the effectiveness of government programs, and not the legitimacy of them).

Because the Democrats misunderstood those two elections as political realignment elections, they thought they had a mandate to "fundamentally transform" the US. They were wrong, however, and they over-reached. They were also blinded by the brilliance and effectiveness of Obama's campaign itself. What they discovered when they took power, however, was that governing is hard. This isn't meant to be flippant, either: the Obama administration in particular did not want to appear to be Clinton redux; on the other hand, the only Democrats with executive branch experience would have been veterans of the Clinton administration. The Obama administration took some of them, but not a lot. This meant that a president with little legislative experience and no executive experience now had a White House full of people who had little government experience period.

The 2010 midterms were animated by a sense that the government had been overtaken by an executive branch that was out of its depth, and a legislature that spends more money than a drunken sailor. The Democrats had won because they were not Republicans. They lost on Tuesday because instead of learning the lessons of 2006 and 2008, they decided to go for broke (quite literally!) on spending. Any working adult knows that if you spend more money than you make in a month, you're in trouble. What you saw on Tuesday was a nation of people who can balance a checkbook looking at the Republicans and saying: "we'll give you one more chance to prove that you can be fiscally responsible." The reason they did this is that the Democrats took all of the economic vices that Republicans had developed during their time in power, and amplified them. Both parties have been put on notice, but only one party seems to know it. The other party just thinks it's a communication problem. It's not. It's a lack of fiscal discipline problem.

[stufarq]

He's also strongly anti-abortion. I don't know how he squares that with his "libertarianism".

You really can't? If he thinks life begins at the moment of conception, then it's a no-brainer.

Yep, that's why I didn't include it. Being anti-abortion is a valid position because it does consider someone else*. Being racist or homophobic isn't.

*And no, I'm not getting into any abortion debates here. My point is that being pro- and anti- are both valid positions.

[markfiend]

Yeah I think the abortion thing is probably best left.

Anyhoo. Shorter sultan2075:

"It's the economy, stupid!"

[sultan2075]

Well, I think it's more like "It's the fiscally imprudent squandering of our tax dollars, the saddling of our children with ever more debt, the expansion of government power into increasingly more aspects our formerly private lives, the increasing power of the federal government over the state governments, the inevitability of a tax hike for all of us, the complete fiscal insolvency of the Social Security system, the complete and utter disdain that the political class has for the electorate and the economy, stupid!"

Of course, the Obama administration thinks the problem is that it hasn't explained just how wonderful all of this spending is in small enough words for the electorate to understand.

[markfiend]

When you're trying to be a president in the face of a partisan press/media whose demagogues accuse you of being a socialist for any government spending (apart from the spending on the military-industrial complex which indirectly enriches those demagogues and their political allies) you're pretty much screwed.

This is not to say that I think Obama is blameless, far from it; had he actually made the changes that he had promised, that would have appealed to the Democrats' core support (repealing DADT, stopping warrantless wiretaps, stopping the State Secrets Privilege etc.) rather than appeasing the Republicans (who would never reciprocate) in the name of bipartisanship, he might actually have done a lot better in these mid-terms.

In all elections, an attempt to appeal to the other side's voters is doomed to failure. You need to get your own core support out there to vote, and then worry about the wavering "don't know"s. That's where Obama has failed.

[Aazhyd]

It's quite ironic that Obama gets blamed for the economic mess Bush left behind.

[markfiend]

It's quite ironic that Obama gets blamed for the economic mess Bush left behind.

Totally agreed. The US economy has actually improved since Obama took over.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

It's quite ironic that Obama gets blamed for the economic mess Bush left behind.

IZ.

[DeWinter]

It's quite ironic that Obama gets blamed for the economic mess Bush left behind.

It wasn't Bush or Obama who repealed Glass-Steagall allowing investment banks to hold depository banks, or forced Fannie Mae to lend to poor minority families with hideous credit under the Community Reinvestment Act. It was Bill Clinton. Bush was incompetent granted, but he was no different than Brown, his own policies exacerbated the situation, and he was the one left holding the baby for anothers mistakes.

[Norman Hunter]

Fannie Mae

Still is, isn't it..?

[sultan2075]

When you're trying to be a president in the face of a partisan press/media whose demagogues accuse you of being a socialist for any government spending (apart from the spending on the military-industrial complex which indirectly enriches those demagogues and their political allies) you're pretty much screwed.

That's an enormously small portion of the American press, though, and they are largely preaching to the choir. The mainstream American press has been an enormous ally to Obama, and has been largely uncritical--even going back to his candidacy (for example: on JournoList, journalists discussed trying to suppress stories about Reverend Wright, since they would make Obama look bad).

This is not to say that I think Obama is blameless, far from it; had he actually made the changes that he had promised, that would have appealed to the Democrats' core support (repealing DADT, stopping warrantless wiretaps, stopping the State Secrets Privilege etc.) rather than appeasing the Republicans (who would never reciprocate) in the name of bipartisanship, he might actually have done a lot better in these mid-terms.

I'm unsure what he's done to appeal to Republicans. His signature piece of legislation--health care--was made with a series of backroom deals and virtually no bipartisan support. Part of the problem is that Obama's electoral victory in 2008 was driven in part by people who are not liberals of any sort, but who voted for him because they believed that he would change the tone in Washington. He didn't--if anything, he made it even more rancorous than it already was; he promised transparency, yet he didn't deliver (during the campaign, he promised that Democrats would air all health care debates on C-SPAN, IIRC. This didn't happen), and finally, he spent the last two years blaming Bush for everything. That might be acceptable for a little while, but if you're doing it halfway through your term, you're simply avoiding responsibility. So, a lot of the support he had in 2008 did not come from Democrats, but from independents and conservatives (either hopeful that he'll change the tone or voting for him to punish the Republicans). The Democrats lost both groups. They also, as I said, misread the nature of the 2006 and 2008 elections: the election of a Republican in Massachusetts, one of the bluest of blue states, should have been a wake-up call to them.

In all elections, an attempt to appeal to the other side's voters is doomed to failure. You need to get your own core support out there to vote, and then worry about the wavering "don't know"s. That's where Obama has failed.

In American elections, it is usually the undecided middle or the independents that determine success or failure. William Galston (at the New Republic, an American liberal journal), provides a good breakdown of the vote that is definitely worth looking at: It's the Ideology, Stupid.

[markfiend]

Hm yeah I get what you're saying. You're obviously closer to the action than I am. Maybe distance is distorting the view.

*ponders*

Anyhoo, what I'm talking about with the inherently hostile press is people like Rush Limbaugh -- yes he's preaching to the choir, but his choir seems to me to be somewhere in the region of 40% of the voting population.

*Edit to add: through his demagoguery, Limbaugh (and those like him) are persuading people to vote for tax cuts that favour the richest 1% at the expense of everyone else. For instance, people in the 35% tax bracket, who are able to afford to pay for tax-avoidance expertise, thereby end up paying far less (proportionally) of their wealth in taxes than do people in lower tax brackets.

[stufarq]

enormously small

My head exploded trying to picture that.

[sultan2075]

Heh.

I think it's a Texan colloquialism.

Mark: why should people who make more money pay a greater percentage of what they make to the government?

[markfiend]

Mark: why should people who make more money pay a greater percentage of what they make to the government?

Because they're better able to afford it.

Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.