I disagree with this sentiment. The "right" didn't tap into anything, they got wildly lucky. The "left" over-reached and the response to that was the alt-right. Things got weird and they started bringing up things that made others respond, who would have preferred not doing anything since they were fine with the status quo.

The leftist political class made our decisions for us throughout the Western world. They pictured a world without borders and free movement of wildly different cultures moving where they wish. They forgot the people actually have to agree with them, and the people have spoken, rejecting that sentiment.

I'm afraid we are moving towards war. If that happens, you can blame it all on video games.

Classic wil ...

The alt-right was always there. The left didn't create soulless racists. Ignorance did.

I think you should look up the history of them and report back. Please support your argument.

No. This is the same wrong attitude Republicans have been pushing for years about Democrats. I do not see the Republican Party as the enemy. I disagree with them on many issues, but ultimately we are on the same team, or at least we were. They are going to have the presidency at least some of the time. When they do, I want a smart, knowledgeable, thoughtful man or woman to be the Republican President. For instance, Mitt Romney would be fine. I disagree with him, but I don't think he is irresponsible. Mike Pence is probably also acceptable (although much worse than Romney). Trump is not. He demonstrated throughout the campaign that he is ignorant of government and foreign affairs, that he was extremely thin-skinned and arrogant, and that he has little interest in protecting the Constitution or America's traditional values.

As for Roe v Wade, environmentalism, etc. I don't really know what Trump's domestic priorities will end up being. No doubt I'll disagree with many of them, just as I would with Pence's. However, in general a President's greatest personal impact is on foreign policy. Trump's conception of America's national interest ignores the value of its alliance system, the utility of international agreements, and the importance of American soft power and overestimates the danger of terrorism and Islamism. Furthermore, Trump is an ignorant fool who regularly eschews his intelligence and State Dept. briefings when speaking with foreign leaders and has appointed incompetent and unqualified advisors to key foreign policy positions. There is a reason that nearly every single foreign policy writer, even the Republican ones, were so strongly opposed to Trump during the election. Being President is not just about left/right ideology.

Ignoring all the other strawmen adios has constructed, I think bobman eloquently pointed out in Alpha the problem with this kind of narrow policy focus when examining Trump and Pence:

Disagree with this entirely. What you are not recognizing here is that we have a true chance of something different with Trump. Whether a Democrat or a Republican won the White House, we were getting more of the same. Never ending war, irresponsible economics, and the continued gutting of the middle class.

Trump won because people are tired of it. No matter what we choose, we are getting the same package, just with a different ribbon. Clinton would have continued our fighting in the middle east and could have possibly escalated things with Russia. Her talking about a no-fly zone over Syria would have been disastrous.

The average American just doesn't know the intricacies of middle eastern politics, how much power the Iranians and the Saudis have, why they are different both religiously and racially, and why they despise each other. The power vacuum from the Iraq disaster made Iran stronger. Our continued meddling in their regional politics makes us unsafe. With the immigration of so many Middle Easterners into the Western countries, we have new issues to deal with.

We truly get something different with Trump. Could it turn out disastrous? Yes. But you can't knock people for actually taking a chance for trying something different. Bush? War. Obama? War. Clinton? War.

If you want to blame someone, blame the establishment politicians for all being the same scumbags running under different flags.

That sound like an awesome idea. Should be used in many more cases.

Like... I'm stuck at red lights on my way to work for half an hour every day. Sucks.
Take my motorcycle? Red Lights. Take another route? Red lights. Go by bus? Red lights.

But I could also just ignore the red lights all together and just keep my foot on the gas.

Could it turn out disastrous? Yes. But you can't knock people for actually taking a chance for trying something different.



It's just obvious what's gonna happen.
And if you are someone with half a brain and take a look at Trump you know what's gonna happen...

While the Trumpkins ITT have been pretty silent about the whole "Trump taking a dump on a free and legitimate press in the USA" thing, Chris Wallace of Fox News isn't taking that **** sitting down like you all are:

Wallace slams Trump's comments in interview with Reince Priebus on Fox News Sunday

Fox News anchors comparing Obama favorably to Trump, LOL the fine-tuned machine administration

I don't trust any trump and/or republican/conservative opinion about emotions at this point in time for good sense and reason. Except on a case-by-case basis with extreme vetting. Following weak narratives of those varieties has gotten folks in deep IMO.

Point taken. But when all you get is stuff you don't want and your livliehood and the ability to take care of your family is diminished, I can understand the frustration.

So many people feel lost, like everything is against them. Those of us with college educations and good jobs DGAF, I mean, I've profited greatly. Anyone who has had a 401k in the last 8 years has done great. 50% of the American public isn't invested in the stock market at all. What did they get except higher education costs that they couldn't pay a decade ago, much less today?

This is what happens when people become detached to the regular working guy. Don't blame them for it, I'd have done the same thing if I was in their shoes. The well off do great, everyone else gets the middle finger. It's not right, and this is the result.

There's the problem.

I do recognize this. More of the same would have meant more of the same policies that have contributed since WWII to one of the most peaceful and prosperous eras in world history. America has obviously made some huge mistakes over that period, but the overall results are positive. Giving responsibility for that largely successful system to a group of radicals opposed to it seems like a pretty horrible own-goal.

I'm not talking about Trump voters, but Trump himself. Donald Trump is not himself fit for office, regardless of his opinions of the world. As you say, foreign policy is complicated and I don't really expect most voters to understand it. But I do expect Trump to understand it. For instance, how can he not be familiar with the New START treaty with Russia? Isn't a closer relationship with Russia one of his biggest foreign policy objectives?

this makes no sense at all.

if other ppl are picking up the tab, then why would the company need to eliminate those jobs? or vice versa ya kno.

no. trump > pence. both will fulfill the evil conservative agenda. but trump is less competent, more outrageous, and will compel more ppl to embrace progressive ideas.

the only worry is that he ends ends democracy and makes it illegal to be a dem. I guess I will take that risk.

Incredible.

See, you can tell when they have to independently formulate something original. He has 2 paragraphs of what I'd bet is pretty much Breitbart copy and pasting, but then decides to wrap it up with a dynamite conclusion using a knock-it-out-the-park analogy, and, wow. The 1st 2 paragraphs state the videos-games-did-it premise concerning what the 'left' caused.

Incredible.

The unpolished! So lovely that someone who has the respect of no one on any side of any political discussion would be looking down on the more than the almost 60% of americans who disapprove of him.

In the GE exit polls showed an even split of support with earners > 250k, and a 1.5:1 democratic lean for people with post graduate education. I would guess that the quality that most consistently correlated with high income/education/ would be lack of enthusiasm for either.

Will be interesting if/when polls start coming up that paint a picture of the demographics of people who approve/disapprove.

LOL... That's like saying Xe didn't ever shoot up a busy Baghdad intersection full of civilians because Blackwater did it.

I'm obviously talking about the trollish, racist segment of the right wing in the digital age, no matter what label you slap on their subdivisions.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business...utm_source=twb

The two main goals of minimum wage is for the state to lend protection to citizens against exploitation and to try and guarantee worker income to a level that enables a basic existence. It also to a certain extent suppresses business from performing wage syndication.

High-egality countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark doesn't even have legislated minimum wage, what they have instead is a requirement for employer organizations and employee organizations to work out functional tariffs - with the state as final arbiter if negotiations break down.

That is an excellent solution to avoid static wage solutions that could be harmful is the economy takes a dive. But it only works in countries which doesn't actively try to oppress worker organization. The US has a long history of this, the trends hardening especially under the laissez-faire trio (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover) in the 20s, and being picked again under and after the trickle-down craze. That essentially leaves only direct legislation as a functional means of worker protection.

Or to put it in simpler terms; the argument you are quoting only applies to a system where we can expect only good faith or where we ignore a lot of relevant variables and put every goal of a business under the "supply / demand" umbrella. The former is naive and the latter is simplified to the point of error.

Pretty bad article, Hue.

The author builds a huge case against his argument that MW increases unemployment - citing the basic law of supply and demand and 10+ economists that support this idea and then he never really does anything to convince the reader that these economists are wrong. He just hand waves one of the most basic laws of economics by giving all the basic laws of economics a cute little nickname and leaves the reader to assume S&P applies to every product and service but labor.

Also, like most pro-minimum wagers he completely ignores the fact that nearly everyone not getting a raise due to the price fixing is worse off.

Chez, can you excise this minimum wage crap into it's own thread?

The 2 main goals of MW are 1) to create a group of people dependent on the federal government (via welfare, etc) and 2) to get people who don't understand economics to vote Dem so they can feel like they are helping people.

The article wasn't advocating FOR a raise of minimal wage, it was talking about how Econ 101ists cite an "fundamental law" that's completely abstracted out of the real word as an immutable law of what's going to happen. That there's evidence that it doesn't happen in certain situations in the actual real world should have made you pause to think, just as if someone told you planes can't fly because gravity pulls everything down and it's a fundamental law of the universe and you look outside and see a plane flying would make you pause to think, but it didn't and I didn't expect it to.

How do I know you either didn't read or didn't comprehend the article?

We're all dependent on the federal government. You more than anyone else.

Trump can't even get his own Secretary of Defense on board the "Take Their Oil" plan. Sad!

Bonus detail to watch for in the new executive order, Mattis says the US will take refugees who helped our military:

In this historically incompetent administration, it's totally plausible that Trump's like "butnahhhhh" and denies them anyway.