Morning Ed: Politics {2016.10.10.M}

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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66 Responses

  1. Saul Degraw says:

    Conservative Party: I heard arguments that the Conservative Party in the U.K. is basically the Democratic Party in the U.S. especially the more moderate ones. I am not sure this is true but I do find it interesting that many European center-right parties are more easy with social change than the GOP.

    Jay from Brooklyn: Just once I would like to read a #NeverTrump essay that comes to the conclusion that HRC is not as bad as previously thought. She is not corrupt yet all anti-Trump essays from the libertarians and right need to say she is. I think the reason are ideology and partisanship. HRC won’t appoint social conservatives and the Republicans know it.

    McArdle: As Lee would point out, this happens to political parties. It happened to Labour from 1979-1997 and now. It seems to be happening to the GOP now. Ideology matters and ideology is the enemy. The problem with the GOP is that they are being left behind on many social issues from LBGT rights to Abortion and others. But the Evangelicals are still a strong force with deep convictions and they are old but there are enough that will be alive for decades. The question is do you stay true to your beliefs or do you just change enough to win. I think true believers (consciously or not) choose the political wilderness. In some way this is admirable.

    In the Paranoid Style, Hofstadter wrote that the Paranoid Style comes more from being disconnected from the mainstream. Millions of Americans at the time could not adjust to the post New Deal consensus and simply could not believe they held the minority view and position. It just couldn’t be right.Report

    • Last week, there was an article in TNR that actually criticized reluctant endorsers for speaking positively of Clinton. You don’t get to say nice things about this person you didn’t like up until now, basically.

      And there are criticisms of yours if they still don’t like Clinton.

      And declining to support (supporting Johnson, etc) either candidate gets criticism.

      So yeah, if you’re conservative there’s not a big incentive to care all that much about pleasing Democrats, many of whom don’t see you as substantively different than Trump. Might as well go with what you believe. In this case, for Jay, that Clinton is actually pretty bad and just happens to be up against someone worse.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Saul Degraw: Just once I would like to read a #NeverTrump essay that comes to the conclusion that HRC is not as bad as previously thought.

      Why? She’s objectively worse than she was in 2008. She’s better in 2016 than Trump – that’s it.Report

      • Kim in reply to Kolohe says:

        I don’t think Hillary in 2016 is better than Trump. Stable mysogynistic ass trumps crazy lady screaming at walls. (Also, I happen to loathe the alliance of Powers That Be which want to put her into power. So, I think she’s an issue politically speaking, not just mentally).Report

      • Don Zeko in reply to Kolohe says:

        Why do you say she’s worse? The emails, or do you think she’s campaigning worse? Something else?Report

        • Kim in reply to Don Zeko says:

          The deals she’s cut, for one thing. For another, she’s quite a bit more off her rocker than she was in 2008…Report

        • Kolohe in reply to Don Zeko says:

          She showed evidence in 2008 that she had learned from her time in the Senate, and the mistakes she made there. She has regressed since then, made many of the same mistakes as SoS, and has indicated that she hasn’t learned a darn thing from her time in the cabinet.

          And that’s putting aside that one can’t identify what she’s actually for except for her being President, and the party and the press are completely in the tank for her, so she need not be for anything, nor need to have learned anything.Report

          • Don Zeko in reply to Kolohe says:

            Hmmm. I’m honestly not sure if I think she’s a better candidate this time around or not. The case for her being better mostly consists of pointing out that she’s not relying on the likes of Mark Penn or Lanny Davis any more. Not overwhelming, but it ain’t nothing, and I’m unimpressed by most of the criticisms of her from the right.Report

            • Morat20 in reply to Don Zeko says:

              The one Trump supporter/constant political poster I haven’t blocked on Facebook (a cousin of mine, who I thankfully don’t have to see until after the election) has taken to resurrecting the Clinton Death List.

              It’s STILL “Benghazi”, “Whitewater” and “46 suspicious deaths”.

              But dig down far enough, and it’s the Supreme Court and her very conservative religious beliefs. Until Scalia died, they were so close. They were finally getting the religious freedom they felt was taken from them — to legislate Christian theology and morality as law, at the bottom of it — and then he died.

              Their only — ONLY — victory in the last 20 years was that 5-4 majority (where only two or three were super reliable) that had finally started breaking their way. After legalizing gay marriage and that Muslim President of ours, it’s the last thing they have.

              So in the end — Trump could perform a black mass on live TV, and she’d still vote for him because the GOP will “make” him replace Scalia with another Scalia, and probably get another pick to boot.

              They’re even rationalizing it as “God working through imperfect tools” and “God using even the most venal”. (God clearly cannot work through Democrats. Some things are impossible, even for God).

              But at the bottom, that’s it. It’s gay marriage, trans panic, fear of Muslims, and the belief that the Christian identify of America is being stripped away — they can’t NOT vote for Trump. Because voting against him means voting away the Christianity of America.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Morat20 says:

                Foxworthy-style protip (for some out there): If you gloat about an aspect of a candidate you oppose that is a deal-breaker to you, and your own candidate is manifestly, provably, guilty of the same thing… Yewwwww might not be “above the fray”…Report

        • j r in reply to Don Zeko says:

          For me, HRC is a worse candidate in 2016 in two main ways:

          1. In 2008, Clinton and Obama were largely engaged in a battle over who could most credibly deliver some fuzzy centrist notion of reform. In 2016, HRC was forced to tack left and flirt with populism to keep Bernie at bay. I hope that it’s mostly BS and that the HRC who shows up in the White House is back to the same type of economic centrism and support for globalization that characterized the first Clinton administration, but without a credible opponent to push her on these issues it is difficult to say.

          2. Also in 2008, we could hope that the Obama administration was going to enact a foreign policy that was drastically different than the previous eight years. Granted, Obama didn’t invade anymore countries (which is laudable), he kept and expanded just about every other part of Bush’s national security apparatus. Hillary was both part of the Obama administration and has explicitly said that she wants to keep doing things like running a targeted assassination program and carrying out half-ass budget interventions. Neither of those things have a very good track record, but they are politically safe, so we are likely stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

          It shouldn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway: Clinton is far superior to Trump in both of these areas.Report

  2. J_A says:

    If Megan McArdle can take a detour to talk about corporate governance, so can I:

    This is so much in line with the many other stupid things MMcA has said. I’m impressed anyone ever reads her:

    “… the CEO was simply refusing to prepare for an orderly bankruptcy, on the grounds that doing so would freak out markets & customers.”

    There’s a reason to it. Most, if not all, loan and bond covenants establish not only that bankruptcy is an Event of Default that accelerates the debt and makes due and payable the full amount of the loan balance, but also “when in the opinion of the Borrower [bankruptcy or any other Event of Default] is likely” is also an Event of Default.

    You cannot leisurely prepare for an orderly bankruptcy, because the moment you start “preparing” you automatically have defaulted all or most of your loans, that suddenly become payable that very first day of the “orderly preparation”.

    And, btw, hiding the existence of an Event of Default (and preparing for orderly bankruptcy is normally one) is corporate fraud. You go to jail for doing that.

    But of course MMcA probably doesn’t know any of this because she has never worked in the corporate world. She just makes it up as she goes.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to J_A says:

      If we change the wording (always imprecise on Twitter) to say “prepare for the possibility of an orderly default” would we then be on firmer ground?

      If so, let’s do that.

      If not (actually, either way since that wasn’t her main point), let’s please not turn a link to McArdle into a Referendum on McArdle. (Again.)Report

  3. Damon says:

    The Brexit: Meh. Hard/smard. Get on with it.

    UK Expats: I fail to see why a citizen living somewhere else, and not a citizen of that country has to loose his right to vote. He’s still a citizen of the UK. Seems a stupid law is getting fixed.

    Jay Cobb: Funny, since every reason he uses to explain why Trump is unacceptable can be used against HRC. I used to actually consider the lesser evil when I voted. Then I realized that it’s still voting for evil. Something I no long am willing to do. America, you made this, particularly the elites, so…. “…it’s only in the face of horror that you truly find your nobler selves. So … I will bring you pain. I will bring you horror.” Me, I’ll be watching….and laughing.

    Republican Disaster Mngt?: There’s some allegations that they started this whole kerfuffle.

    Adopt a refugee: Oh yes, let’s do this. Look how good it turned out for Merkel.

    ACA: So it was a jobs program? Nice! Didn’t do what it set out to do AND fixing it will kill jobs. Beauty play guys!Report

  4. J_A says:

    Had the expats voted in the referendum, the Remain would have solidly won. Brexiter backbenchers were not willing to allow such a core constituency the vote.

    Again, internal Tory politics were given preferenceReport

    • Will Truman in reply to J_A says:

      Were none allowed to vote at all, or was it subject to the 15 year requirement?

      I go back and forth, but tend towards a tighter requirement on residency. Which runs against my preferred outcome on Brexit and Scotland, though with it on the Puerto Rico question.Report

      • It was subject to the 15-year limit. OTOH, Commonwealth citizens (54 countries including Australia and Canada) who were currently UK residents were also allowed to vote.Report

      • J_A in reply to Will Truman says:

        I meant what the article said. Britons living abroad were not allowed to vote (I am allowed to vote in Spanish elections -I just have to pick an electoral circumscription, any one I care to chose)

        Britons living abroad (mostly in Spain, Portugal and France) definitely wanted to remain in the EU, and were strongly lobbying to be allowed to vote in the referendum, arguing that this particular issue was very critical for them. Because it was clear they would all vote Remain, the Leave Tory backbenchers were adamant to keep them out of the electoral roll.Report

  5. notme says:

    Street signs in Spanish. So much for them assimilating. Why bother if we will change our street signs?

    http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2016/10/08/residents-debate-hispanic-neighborhood-changing-street-signs-into-spanish/Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to notme says:

      It’s amusing to imagine that they were ignoring the signs because they weren’t in Spanish.

      Most people I know ignore the signs even when they’re in English.Report

  6. Aaron David says:

    My general thought is ex-pats shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I am sorry, but if you don’t like it here so much you left, you don’t get a say in the vote.

    Normally I read McMeagan, but I refuse the twit storm.

    The only acceptable candidates at this point are Johnson and Stein. Or Cthulhu.

    Re Obamacare – Weren’t we talking about unintended consequences just yesterday?Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to Aaron David says:

      “No…there is another…”

      George Washington for President!Report

    • My general thought is ex-pats shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I am sorry, but if you don’t like it here so much you left, you don’t get a say in the vote.

      Employees of a transnational company doing three years in management at one of the foreign operations? For the US, with global deployments, military personnel? Or are you using a narrower definition of ex-pat?Report

      • Aaron David in reply to Michael Cain says:

        I would say that none of those are ex-pats. If, on the other hand, you leave a country with the express purpose of removing yourself from a political climate, tax regime, or other issues along those lines, then you are an ex-pat. I also don’t think they should pay taxes, so fair is fair.

        Basically, the term ex-pat should have meaning, and be differentiated from working abroad. Gov’t and military are obviously still part of the US, as they are working for it. Business actions should have some method of affirmative consent to assure the US that you are still part and parcel of the US. Voluntarily bailing to get some other countries benefits? Sorry, no.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Aaron David says:

      Aaron David: My general thought is ex-pats shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I am sorry, but if you don’t like it here so much you left, you don’t get a say in the vote.

      “Come at me, bro”Report

    • People sometimes leave home with the intention of coming back. the thing to do is find some sort of cutoff where you can ssume that they’ve moved on. Fifteen years is generous. Yesterday is too stingy. I think ten years is about right, but could go for five or fifteen.Report

    • j r in reply to Aaron David says:

      My general thought is ex-pats shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I am sorry, but if you don’t like it here so much you left, you don’t get a say in the vote.

      As an expat I would gladly relinquish my right for to vote for the period of time that I reside outside of the country, so long as the government relinquishes it’s ability to continue collecting taxes on income I make overseas. Short of that, I would love to hear an argument as to why I should be compelled to continue paying taxes but not allowed to vote.Report

  7. After 4 hours of sleep, I woke up to hear that the dog has no obstruction in his intestine, probably just an upset tummy from eating garbage.

    Or watching the debate. But I repeat myself.Report

  8. Kim says:

    LOL. Brexit may be hard.
    LOL.
    LOL.
    Setting the EURO on fire “may be hard”…
    Britain walks away unscathed.Report

  9. Michael Cain says:

    Re the Jay Cobb piece… I have trouble reading anyone past the first woefully ignorant statement. In this case, third paragraph, the flat statement “She will raise taxes.” Last time I looked, Congress hadn’t delegated tax rates to the executive branch. She might lobby for higher taxes. But unless she has some Jedi mind control tricks hidden away, Speaker Ryan is unlikely to go along. Or there’s a Great Blue Wave a la 2006, which seems almost equally unlikely to me.

    My admittedly vague concern about Clinton is that her personality is ill-suited to the role history is going to assign her: caretaker for the Obama policies. She’ll be tempted to do stupid stuff in hopes of leaving her mark.Report

    • Ryan might go along to avoid a shutdown. It depends n the state of the GOP in a year. Boehner went along with one.

      And I wouldn’t count out the possibility of a Democratic House. While I think the presidential election is baked, there’s still wide variance for House outcomes.

      Saying she “will” raise taxes is undue certainty, though. Should have put the word “try” in there.Report

      • trizzlor in reply to Will Truman says:

        This is part of the general pattern Saul pointed out earlier: conservatives treat Clinton like a super-human force when she’s actually a standard issue liberal with sub-par campaigning skills.Report

      • IIRC, Boehner’s choices were have all of the Bush tax cuts expire, or to make a deal so that only some of them expired. That put Obama in a much stronger position — if he did nothing, taxes would go up — than Clinton will be in.Report

        • PD Shaw in reply to Michael Cain says:

          Yeah that was my recollection, the Bush tax cuts were passed through the reconciliation process with expirations on them to get around the Byrd rule. The Republicans had “no hand,” and seemed late to realize it.Report

  10. Jesse Ewiak says:

    New WSJ/NYT poll – post-tape/pre-debate

    Clinton 46 Trump 35 in 4 way
    Clinton 52 Trump 38 in H2H

    DNC 49-42 for CongressReport

    • trizzlor in reply to Jesse Ewiak says:

      this is fineReport

    • Probably an outlier, but oof.Report

      • Morat20 in reply to Will Truman says:

        Rasmussen popped in with +7 Clinton, and 538 assigns them a 2 point GOP bias.

        So…+9, effective versus the NYT +11.

        Maybe not an outlier. Probably a bit high, but that’s like 10% high — not 30%.Report

        • Will Truman in reply to Morat20 says:

          +7-9 seems about right to me, if the movement is real. YouGov has responded that they’re not seeing a shift, which makes me wonder if what we’re seeing is a response skew.Report

          • Morat20 in reply to Will Truman says:

            Could be LV screens and the on-schedule third-party collapse as well.

            Third parties tend to only do well when there’s a massive fragment in one party OR they can sell the main parties as close to identical, but not dangerous. The breakers to GJ haven’t been conservatives so much, and Trump is trying his darndest to be terrifying.Report

            • Will Truman in reply to Morat20 says:

              I mention YouGov in part because it’s not a call poll and so far the call polls have had much more fluctuation. That fluctuation being due to answer rates rather than attitude shifts. Some have suggested with credibility that the bulk of the convention bounces were due to response rates. At least that’s ongoing one theory, and it makes sense and would explain why some are seeing shifts and some are not.

              So I’m in wait-and-see mode. It very well could be a genuine shift.Report

            • El Muneco in reply to Morat20 says:

              Just comparing by eyeball on the polls I saw earlier today, 2/3 of Johnson’s 9% comes from Clinton comparing the “field of 4” numbers vs. the “field of 2” numbers…Report

    • El Muneco in reply to Jesse Ewiak says:

      Rule 34 sighting – I bet that a “porn parody” featuring a 4-way involving “Clinton”, “Trump”, “Stein”, and (of course) “Johnson” would make beaucoup bucks for its backers if you could get it to market within a week.
      Hell, if my involvement in the industry was stronger than subscribing to an enthusiastic pornblogger’s RSS feed, I might back it myself…Report

  11. Jaybird says:

    Good news, everyone! There may be an Alexander coming that can untie these cultural Gordian knots that befuddle us.Report

  12. DensityDuck says:

    ACA (“Obamacare”) and healthcare jobs:

    2008: “We will reduce healthcare costs by eliminating the waste and inefficiency from the system!”

    2016: “We must accept some degree of waste and efficiency to maintain the country’s biggest source of middle-class white-collar employment!”

    2026: http://i.imgur.com/tIFidJt.gifvReport

    • nevermoor in reply to DensityDuck says:

      2008: No. The argument was, and is, that we would implement rules and subsidies to expand health insurance while slowing the rate of cost increases.

      2016: We’ve done both well, but would like to further improve the system. Too bad one party refuses to engage with any policy other than repeal-and-think-up-a-secret-replacement-later.

      2026: We’ll probably be that much closer to 100% coverage, and with lower costs than we would have without Obamacare. Hopefully, we’ll also have introduced a public option to make sure health insurers can out-compete the government.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to nevermoor says:

        Perhaps you could find some of this rhetoric stating that the PPACA would “reduce the rate of cost increase” rather than reducing actual cost. It shouldn’t be hard, because according to you that’s the only thing anyone ever said.

        Like, I’m pretty sure that if this guy had not meant to say “reduce costs” he would not have said it.

        “We’ve done both well, but would like to further improve the system.”

        I guess you didn’t read the actual article, which presents us with lawmakers saying that “improving the system” means that a whole bunch of middle-class people will lose their jobs.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck says:

          I’ve got a bunch of speeches from Jonathan Gruber that we can look at.

          Wait, wait. My advisors are telling me that we can not, in fact, look at Jonathan Gruber’s speeches.Report

        • nevermoor in reply to DensityDuck says:

          Sure thing. It’s right in your link. “Bending the cost curve” means slowing down, and ultimately reversing, the crazy increases in healthcare costs that used to plague the individual market.

          It’s going pretty well, especially since the number of enrollees exceeded expectations.

          Overall, a pretty darn good policy (given the political limitations preventing better ones) and WAY WAY better than what existed before it was passed.

          As for the link, are you telling me you’re against cutting insurance company bureaucrats if their jobs are redundant? If so, I’d be pretty surprised.Report

          • DensityDuck in reply to nevermoor says:

            ah-heh.

            DID YOU READ THE TITLE OF THE ARTICLE?

            Or how about “”We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care,” Obama said.”

            Or maybe “starting to reduce costs for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill.” ” (which was, as it happens, immediately after the part you quoted where he mentioned “bending the cost curve”)

            If you want to say (as indeed the article does) that he “actually meant” something else than the actual words he used, sure, whatever, we’ve certainly established that the words in the ACA debate mean whatever they need to mean. But don’t be pretending like it was only some jabroni who ever said “the ACA will reduce costs”.Report

            • nevermoor in reply to DensityDuck says:

              But the ACA did and has reduced costs for families (through subsidies/medicaid expansion/etc) and government (by bending the cost curve and otherwise being structured to reduce government spending on healthcare) and at least some businesses (though not those that offered cadillac plans initially).

              How about this: instead of trying to manufacture gotchas by misinterpreting Obama, if you think it’s a bad policy that has been (for example) a disaster, why don’t you explain why in an honest/true way on the merits. I’d be happy to discuss.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to nevermoor says:

                It hasn’t reduced costs for most families.

                The article is about one of the reasons why, and how the ACA has had the exact opposite effect from one that it was supposed to have.

                I actually don’t think it’s a bad policy that has been a disaster. Why are you accusing me of thinking that?Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to DensityDuck says:

      Oh, while digging around I also found this:

      http://www.dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill04.pdf

      “To ensure a vibrant, diverse and competent workforce, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will encourage innovations in health workforce training, recruitment, and retention, and will establish a new workforce commission. Provisions will help to increase the supply of health care workers. These workers will be supported by a new workforce training and education infrastructure.”

      Haw. So one of the reasons that the healthcare workforce has increased so much in the years since the PPACA passed was that increasing the healthcare workforce was part of the plan!Report

  13. Oscar Gordon says:

    Completely unrelated to politics, but there is a star out there that is shooting planet sized plasma balls out into space.

    Can I get a KameHameHa? Or maybe a Hadoken?Report

  14. Jaybird says:

    If you were wondering when Ken Bone would start getting the “Joe The Plumber” treatment, the answer was “today“.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

      meh, this is the only Hot Take I’m seeing thus far, and it’s not even all that hot. More a vague complaint that he didn’t say something like “given that Global Warming is going to literally destroy the planet, how can we still refuse to accept that the only answer is mass racial suicide?”

      I mean, I’m utterly certain that we’re going to learn that he was late on his car payment once or twice and that he takes a tax deduction on the assessed value of his house rather than the appraised value. But so far that hasn’t happened yet.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Jaybird says:

      The 1st comment is perfect.Report