Neoliberal leftists

Quote:

The reason Trump is heading to the Oval Office is because the Democratic party rigged the primaries to ensure that a candidate who could have beaten Trump, Bernie Sanders, did not get on the ticket.

If you need proof of this, look no further than the unassailable logic of "rock paper scissors".

Trump beats Clinton.

Clinton beats Sanders.

Sanders beats Trump.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I think Harper's hateful and fearful rhetoric was considerably closer, but still nowhere near as bad, or as chaotic as the Trump campaign.

Campaigning on stripping Canadians of their citizenshipship with just parliamentary "oversight," no due process, is "nowhere near as bad" as campaigning on enforcing immigration law and preventing immigration from regions with high rates of terrorist radicalization?

Trump would have been destroyed if he had targetted American minorities the way Harper targetted Canadian minorities.

Okay, well I think I explained already that wasn't what I was responding to, but rather a claim that Trump ran a brilliant strategic campaign that we could learn from.

Perhaps you think the Liberals and all other parties do exactly the same thing as Donald Trump did. I don't. Whatever manipulation and misinformation they resorted to in order to get elected  it pales in comparison, IMO. Certainly not the same as open racism, pledges to kick people out of the country, and getting people beaten up at rallies.

I think Harper's hateful and fearful rhetoric was considerably closer, but still nowhere near as bad, or as chaotic as the Trump campaign. For one thing, Harper actually could hold his own in a debate, and remain reasonably consistent. Trump was all over the map.

[url=http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/11/betraying-water-protectors-o...'s a good thing Obama is still around to protect the environment and stop runaway climate change:[/url]

Quote:

Even as water protectors continued to face off against police on Friday in North Dakota, news outlets reported that the Obama administration is set to approve the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) as early as Monday.

Citing "two sources familiar with the timing," Politico said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could approve a disputed easement within days, which would allow pipeline construction—on hold since September—to continue across the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux's reservation. The Standing Rock tribe is vehemently opposed to the project, saying it threatens water supplies and sacred sites. 

Amid such opposition, Politico reported, "the prospect of a Monday announcement is raising concerns that nationwide protests planned for Tuesday could turn uncivil."

And we should also be thankful that Obama moved in and put a stop to the police assaulting the demonstrators.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

[url=http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/11/betraying-water-protectors-o...'s a good thing Obama is still around to protect the environment and stop runaway climate change:[/url]

[...]

And we should also be thankful that Obama moved in and put a stop to the police assaulting the demonstrators.

And I hear Obama will close Guantanamo tomorrow. And pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq. And decree gun control. 

So it's all good.

[size=8]Yeah I know you were being ironic A24. Me too.[/size]

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Okay, well I think I explained already that wasn't what I was responding to, but rather a claim that Trump ran a brilliant strategic campaign that we could learn from.

Perhaps you think the Liberals and all other parties do exactly the same thing as Donald Trump did. I don't. Whatever manipulation and misinformation they resorted to in order to get elected  it pales in comparison, IMO. Certainly not the same as open racism, pledges to kick people out of the country, and getting people beaten up at rallies.

I think Harper's hateful and fearful rhetoric was considerably closer, but still nowhere near as bad, or as chaotic as the Trump campaign. For one thing, Harper actually could hold his own in a debate, and remain reasonably consistent. Trump was all over the map.

You are using exageration to miss the point.

If even 40% of Canadians were as well-informed as you are and evaluated political platforms the way you do we would not have Trudeau and Trump running North America.

Was Mulcair going to keep the budget balanced for 4 years and institute national daycare? 3 years from now people will be yelling that Trudeau didn't keep his promises but it won't influence anyone because they assume he won't keep all his promises. Politicians never do so why should anyone be shocked?

Trump succeeded because he appears to be on the side of the people and not just white men.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/11/latino-millennial-...

I’m a Latino millennial, and Donald Trump has inspired me beyond words Angelo Gomez

That rally energised me, and ensured I did everything possible to get Trump elected. My father and his family are from Nicaragua, and my mum is half Puerto Rican, so I joined “Latinos for Trump”. My whole senior year of high school, I volunteered countless hours for the Trump campaign: making phone calls, speaking to voters, knocking on doors. I researched issues America faces such as our debt, and policies I feel are failing us, including ObamaCare. Trump has promised to tackle these issues head on.

He wants to repeal ObamaCare, to achieve a cheaper service. A more free market in healthcare will increase competition for consumers among insurance companies, and ensure that our prices will get lower. He has also said he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and make sure TTIP is not put in place. He has be talking about our terrible trade deals since the 1980s, whereas Hillary Clinton has voted in favour of every one of these disastrous deals that have cost Americans jobs.....

I talked about his policies on trade and bringing jobs back, and she agreed with him that we need to get big money out of politics. She had supported Bernie Sanders, but said she would look more into Trump. Those are the policies that have appealed to people like me.

His desire to deport illegal immigrants doesn’t alarm me. It needs to be done. He wants to deport criminals, stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants by implementing an E-Verify system [an internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in America], and only then push those left towards a path of legalisation.

The young man's family is democrat but what are democrats offering?

In Canada's case we don't have any parties against trade deals. Yes I know the NDP occasionally murmurs about ISDS but I am convinced that if the US signed TPP so would the NDP. With balanced budgets how would the NDP have helped indigenous peoples more than Trudeau? The NDP in Alberta is going to support Keystone and I very much doubt the federal NDP will oppose it and if they do it will be to push Energy East. Some posters here condemn me so much for supporting Trudeau as if the NDP would have so much more progressive in power. In my opinion anyone who thinks that is a sucker. I voted for Trudeau with my eyes open in large part because I want marijuana legalization. It's decades overdue and I believe he will do it. I would have given that up if I believed the NDP offered anything significantly better. The NDP is a neoliberal party pretending they aren't one.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And you don't see calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers and pledging to build a wall as worse?

And he pledged to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, and said he would consider getting rid of them all,  whether he is backtracking on it now or not.

This is exactly why Clinton lost. It is obvious that Donald Trump is a reprehensible human being. Trump even advertised that. Clinton couldn't beat Trump because she couldn't say anything about him that people didn't already know.

The wall thing is overblown, because there is an actual wall along parts of the US-Mexico border right now. Trump can do several things, but snapping his finger and having the wall do up along the border is not one of them. There are several obstacles to that.

Calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers? Reprehensible again, but he is merely reflecting a common sentiment. And there have already been several deportations under Obama's watch.

Fuck the Democrats and their cowardly refusal to take responsibility for the conditions that led to Trump. The only sad thing about the Democrats losing is that they still have all the seats in Congress that they do. They are a much bigger barrier to the left in the US than the Republicans.

Pondering wrote:

You are using exageration to miss the point.

No, actually, you are ignoring what I was talking about, and running it off on another unrelated tangent. If you think Donald Trump ran a great campaign, and that there are any of his tactics that other parties should be using, I am curious what you base that on, and what you think those great tactics might be.

If you don't, well then we aren't talking about the same thing.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Pondering wrote:

You are using exageration to miss the point.

No, actually, you are ignoring what I was talking about, and running it off on another unrelated tangent. If you think Donald Trump ran a great campaign, and that there are any of his tactics that other parties should be using, I am curious what you base that on, and what you think those great tactics might be.

If you don't, well then we aren't talking about the same thing.

I'm not the poster who said he ran a great campaign. I said we can learn from it.

He offered simple solutions - rip up trade deals - deport people in the US illegally - build a wall- lower taxes (because the government wastes your money)

Those things won't actually happen but it doesn't matter it still got him elected. It doesn't matter if he really represents the 99%, he gave enough of them the impression that he does to win the election.

The left doesn't need to offer the same solutions Trump did, but it does need to keep the messages short and simple and to appeal to the interests of the majority. Given how awful neoliberalism is that should be easy.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/trump-victory-clinton-sanders-democra...

And a response to American bigotry that begins and ends with moral denunciation is not a politics at all — it is the opposite of politics. It is surrender.

To believe that Trump’s appeal was entirely based on ethnic nationalism is to believe that a near majority of Americans are driven only by hate and a shared desire for a white supremacist political program.

We don’t believe that. And the facts don’t bear it out.....

This was Clinton’s election to lose. And she lost......

The problem with Clinton wasn’t her peculiarity but her typicality. It was characteristic of this Democratic Party that the power players in Washington decided on the nominee — with overwhelming endorsements — many months before a single ballot was cast.

They made a fateful choice for all of us by stacking the deck, decisively, against the kind of politics that could win: a working-class politics.

Seventy-two percent of Americans who voted last night believed that “the economy is rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful.” Sixty-eight percent agreed that “traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me.”

Almost alone among Democratic politicians, Bernie Sanders spoke to this simmering sense of alienation and class anger. Sanders had a basic message for the American people: you deserve more and you are right to believe you do. Health care, college education, a living wage. It’s a message that has made him by far the most popular politician in the country.

Hillary Clinton’s formal platform approached some of Sanders’s concrete ideas, but repudiated its core message. For those in charge of the Democratic Party, it made no sense to rail against America. For them, America never stopped being great. And things have only been getting better.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump appealed to the same people; people that believe the economy is rigged and politicians don't care about them. Condemning them all as deplorables is self-defeating because it hands them over to the far right. It may be emotionally satisfying but it doesn't help the victims of racism, sexism and poverty.