tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post4686589239685310643..comments2024-03-19T11:28:58.168-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: Trump, Clinton and the FutureDavid Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-56977163281664065602016-04-13T04:48:41.624-04:002016-04-13T04:48:41.624-04:00" But sadly, this means that the major proble... " But sadly, this means that the major problems of our country will only get worse, and a whole generation may be turned off of politics for the foreseeable future. " <br /> <br /> Eh, i think Clinton would be able to deal with major problem much better than Sanders. Politics is art of what possible. and Sanders (and his supporters) seems to believe that Presidency as bully pulpit is more valuable than actual politics of creating law, appoint people to various position and helping downballot win elections to continue reform and change. <br /> <br /> If 2016ers decide they only need to vote for President to change America, they are wrong. They should learn from 2008-ers lessons, that failure to elect Liberal to replace Ted Kennedy and failure to vote Democrats in 2010s prove devastating and turn Obama into lame duck for six years. <br /><br />" But it turned out that Obama, like the Clintons, had no fundamental quarrel with the system that had been so good to him. " <br /> <br /> There are limit of ability to 'change the system' when majority of Americans don't care enough about it. Americans elect Republicans in 2010, even now many Americans believe in Trump and Cruz, this show that desire for change to further left is very limited among Americans. Rural populations and suburbanites particularly devoted to return to 1950s rather than further change. PhilippeOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07972380352123150699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-4982703163253695132016-03-14T03:49:32.609-04:002016-03-14T03:49:32.609-04:00One problem with this column is that it poses a fa...One problem with this column is that it poses a false contrast between class politics and identity politics. First off, white men are a minority of the American working class, so any class politics has to deal with other groups. Second, suggesting that an issue like paid maternity leave is irrelevant to white men would only be true if white men didn't have any children. Third, it gets the Democratic support for such issues dangerously wrong. Democrats didn't support pro-gay politics because they wanted an issue after abandoning class politics. In point of fact, when gay marriage was unpopular they hedged on the issue, and once gay marriage supporters started winning referendums, they became more supportive. The same logic can be seen with gays in the military. Fourth, if there is a journal of opinion that represents the post-New Deal Democratic Party, it is "The New Republic" in its Peretz Years (1978- ultimately 2014). If there is a journal that represents the Sanders viewpoint it is "The Nation" And during the last fortyyears not only is the latter journal consistently more pro-union and more critical of capitalism and increasing inequality. It has also been consistently more feminist and more supportive of civil rights. Fifth, African-American House Democrats have consistently been the most Social Democratic element in American politics for decades. That they would support the more conservative Democratic candidate, however, is not surprising given that she is the key candidate from what is among African Americans a massively popular and respected administration. <br /><br />And again, I have to disagree with the whole generational focus of the previous column. One starting point is that Albright, Cheney and Rumsfeld were not boomers. Second, it is not clear that generation helps unlock the foreign policy debates over the past quarter-century in journals across the political spectrum from the National Review, to Commentary, to The New Republic, to The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, to The Nation and Dissent. Third, it's hard to see the hostility that led to intervention in Libya, war with Iraq and a desire to repeat it in Syria as the result of s specific generational boomer moralism. Clearly, it has two sources. The Pro-Israel lobby does not want to give up Israel's 1967 gains, and therefore is virulently hostile to Israel's Arab and/or Muslim enemies. This in itself would not be sufficient if the United States did not have a bipartisan tradition, going back to Wilson, of refusing to negotiate with countries who are regularly excommunicated from the basic diplomatic courtesies. We see this with the Soviet Union, Mao's China up to 1971, Castro's Cuba, a united Vietnam and North Korea to the present day. <br /><br />Fourth, I don't agree that the war in Kosovo or NATO expansion was the cause of our present day difficulties with Russia. Clearly, it goes back to Bush, who was slow to realize Gorbachev's good faith, took advantage of his weakness, did nothing to assist him and once he fell, decided that Russia would sink or swim under Yeltsin's shock therapy. Nor was this betrayal simply the fault of one politician, the Lord High Everything Else of the Republican Party. You may think the bien pensants of the American centre were unlucky to bet everything on one corrupt incompetent authoritarian. But the authoritarianism was not a bug but a bonus: austerity enforced under Yeltin's plebiscitarian authority over a depoliticized citizenry has been standard operating procedure all across the globe. And for all their talk about civic responsibility the aforementioned bien pensants had no interest in any debate over the Russian and Soviet past that didn't agree with The New York Review of Books. It was overwhelming bipartisan consensus, not generational whim, that wanted a weak Russia subordinated to, but never properly integrated into, a pro-American Europe.Skimpolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03018415787269457067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-74934326629040417352016-03-13T09:52:15.250-04:002016-03-13T09:52:15.250-04:00I am now, officially, depressed.
Thankfully, I ...I am now, officially, depressed. <br /><br />Thankfully, I live in Oregon where recreational cannabis is legally available. <br /><br />This all reminds me of a cartoon of years gone by. In the 1930's, two old men are sitting on a porch and one says to the other "This country is going to hell." And the other replies, "Yes, and it always has been." (I paraphrase this remembrance). <br /><br />Or, in the prescient words of author Kurt Vonnegut, "So it goes."Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11629116622092214120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-38240510072178088962016-03-12T08:59:25.379-05:002016-03-12T08:59:25.379-05:00Fine account, David. I think you're quite righ...Fine account, David. I think you're quite right about Trump making his peace with the GOP establishment. As his apparent recent shift on health care policy suggests, he'll move wherever it's convenient. And once he's the acknowledged nominee, it will be back to the usual GOP talking points, with the possible exception of trade policy. One after another establishment Republican will soon (like Carson!) be professing how reasonable the @realDonaldTrump turns out to be.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00962466589340657917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-33401463983445067012016-03-11T13:23:16.450-05:002016-03-11T13:23:16.450-05:00Little hope for America left. Bled dry by walmart,...Little hope for America left. Bled dry by walmart, goldman sachs, bbig pharma, armaments manufacturers for wars while the population is distracted by arguing about race, gender, religion. It seems a few trillionaires who pay no taxes and live in the bahamas will sit laughing at a 3rd world wreck from a scifi flickin a generation. Thank God I left when I did.Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-65778256662602852832016-03-11T12:16:59.082-05:002016-03-11T12:16:59.082-05:00Depressing, especially if you're correct. Yet...Depressing, especially if you're correct. Yet I think there's so much more that plays into this. Three principal forces come to mind. First, the Republican reaction to the Civil Rights movement, spurred by Nixon's "Southern strategy," offered a new home to racists and virtually obliterated the Republicans' historic position as the party of Lincoln. Second, the Republican party attacked every Democratic presidential candidate from 1968 to 1988 as soft on crime and hostile to business. The Democrats' reaction, led by people like Bill Clinton, was to become more centrist, pro-"law and order," and to cozy up to big business. Third, world economic forces, including the economic rise first of Japan and later China, dramatically changed the relationship between labor and management in the US, generally making them more collaborative and less confrontational, but also reducing the power and influence of organized labor in the Democratic party. All these forces--and others--have forced changes in the traditional coalitions of both parties, some for the better and some for the worse.Shelterdoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09973906960864702661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-4204874706514987202016-03-11T10:38:47.653-05:002016-03-11T10:38:47.653-05:00Professor
Bravo!
Great summary.
My only quibbl...Professor<br /><br />Bravo!<br /><br />Great summary. <br /><br />My only quibbles with this are in details re how far back these problems go....<br /><br />all the best Bozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.com