The Rise Of Populism

Well the title is misleading……a form of populism has most always been there….it just got a lot more attention in the last couple of years.

And since the rise of Donald Trump more people are paying attention.

Why?

Every European country had its “Trump-esque” figure in the last elections……

A good article in the American Conservative……..

The suicide in the Friuli region of northern Italy earlier this year of a 30-year-old man, identified in the newspapers only as Michele, has become a symbol of the country’s unemployment tragedy, particularly as it affects young people. Though much worse in the South, the country’s economic crisis also has had a blighting effect on the North. The national unemployment rate now stands at nearly 12 percent. A 40 percent youth unemployment rate nationwide, however, has people speaking of a generational apartheid in Italy. There is no work to be found for young people. In the workplace, comparatively speaking, they have been walled off from the rest of the population.

Friuli is a region of plain and mountain in the northeastern part of Italy, flush against borders to the north with Austria and the east with Slovenia. The annals of Friuli antedate by many centuries the arrival of the ancient Romans, who founded the colony of Aquileia there nearly two hundred years before Christ. The barbarian invasions swept over Friuli in the general wreckage of the Roman Empire. An Aquileian state arose in the Middle Ages, but was absorbed in the 15th century by the expanding Venetian empire. Then Friuli passed through French and Austrian phases of occupation and control before becoming part the newly founded Kingdom of Italy, in 1866.

Source: Why Every European Country Has a Trump or Sanders Candidate | The American Conservative

While this “populism” was popular will it be the wave of the future or just another passing fad?

The Nazi Voter

About here someone has read the title and is busy typing a reply to this post and condemning me for equating this person to the Nazis….well bite me! This is a post about a voting bloc within Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Several years ago I read a book about the state of Germany in the years after WW1 especially those that would be voting in the elections. It covered many aspects of German society and the voting habits of its population.

A fascinating book, The Nazi Voter, written by Thomas Childers.

I recently found a good article about the same sort of stuff that was in the Nazi Voter……how society was breaking down and what led to the popularity of the Nazis…..

Amid the swirling mess in Berlin of political intrigue, rumors, and disorder, the SA, the Nazi storm troopers, stood out as an ominous presence. In the spring of 1932, many in the German democratic government came to believe the Brownshirts were about to take over by force.

Source: The History Place – Rise of Hitler: The Republic Collapses

It has always fascinated me as to how, in hindsight, could the German people allow someone like Hitler to come to power through the vote.

Some of my questions have been answered……

Thoughts?

Closing Thought–26Jul17

In The Land Of “True Believers”!

I have a couple of friends that are supporters of Trump…they are die hard believers.

I ask why and usually get the same answer ….”he has done what he promised on the campaign trail”….

Then I ask what exactly has he done?

The first reaction is….”he beat Clinton”……(really? A good sled dog would have beaten Clinton)…..

So I got to wondering just what makes one a Trump “true believer”…..and Salon provided me with an answer so I did not have to give myself a migraine trying to understand…..

When Donald Trump gave the commencement address at Liberty University this spring, he told the graduates that “America has always been the land of dreams because America is a nation of true believers.” Trump argued that, in America, “we don’t worship government; we worship God.”

Source: Inside the minds of Trump’s “true believers” – Salon.com

After reading the article I still do not completely understand the blind obedience of his supporters.

Maybe if we can understand why the country is so divided……

In research that should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the current political climate in the US, a new study discovered that supporters of either candidate in the last Presidential election were more likely to accept new data if it agreed with their desired outcome.

They recruited more than 800 individuals and had each indicate who they wanted to see win the 2016 Presidential election, as well as who they believed would win. Afterwards, each participant was presented with new information that was either consistent or inconsistent with their desired outcome, and again asked which candidate they believed would ultimately win the election.What they found, the authors explained, is that the participants were more likely to update their predictions if the information was consistent with their desired outcome, and were less likely to change their beliefs if the data was inconsistent with their preferred result.

Source: New study discovers why American politics is so divided – Redorbit

It is all so confusing…..

Could it be as simple as American politics is just screwed up?

Off I go……a cold beer and some cheese dip awaits…..have a day and please come back tomorrow…..be well, be safe…..chuq

A ‘Better Deal’ For America

How many times have you read something similar?

Ever since their massive defeat in 2016 the Dems have been looking for their new niche before the next election…..they are hoping for a little redemption in the eyes of the American voter.

Let’s be honest…their message sucked all the way to the voting booth…..as an opposition party the Dems are just pathetic…..(so says an article in the Guardian)….

Six months into Donald Trump’s term, and Democratic politician’s ability to be an opposition party is, in a word, pathetic.

When the poll came out saying that “Democrats stand for nothing more than opposing” Trump, I thought to myself, ‘If only that were true!’” But they can’t even do that well. When House Democratic Caucus chairman Joe Crowley was asked by the Associated Press just what his party’s core message was, he “hesitated” and then said, “That message is being worked on.”

Source: The Democrats’ performance as an opposition party? Pathetic | Steven W Thrasher | Opinion | The Guardian

They have been going thru a party “autopsy” to find the right hook to get into the skin of the voter…..

After 10 months of agony this is what they have come up with to save the Party from oblivion…..and this is the “message” they worked on and settled on as the next step in the process…..

Still smarting from November’s brutal election and looking to push a more populist agenda in the lead-up to the 2018 midterms, Democratic Party leaders gathered in the small town of Berryville, Va., on Monday to announce their new “Better Deal” plan, the AP reports. “The focus starts on economic issues,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. “That’s where the American people are hurting. That’s what we most felt was missing in the past in the last several elections.” Here are some of the plan’s details:

Cost of living: Democrats promise to lower the cost of prescription drugs and college tuition, fight for “families struggling with high monthly bills,” and crack down on monopolies.

Higher wages: The “Better Deal” plan promises millions of good-paying jobs, a higher minimum wage, investment in infrastructure, and an aggressive crackdown on corporations that outsource American jobs.

21st-century economy: Democrats say they are committed to providing tax breaks to employers who offer workforce training, bringing high-speed Internet to the whole country, and offering millions of apprenticeships.

What’s missing: Noticeably absent from the “Better Deal” plan is any mention of the social issues that motivate many Democratic voters but that may turn off the rural, blue-collar voters who abandoned the party for Donald Trump last year. Those include immigration, LGBT rights, and abortion, Politico reports.

Strategy: Democrats want to talk about “how working- and middle-class incomes have stagnated as the costs of housing, health care, education, and everything else have continued to increase,” writes Ben Mathis-Lilley at Slate.

Critique:Roll Call reports that it took the Twitterverse no time at all to point out the similarity between the “Better Deal” slogan—”Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages”—and that of pizza delivery giant Papa John’s: “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” Columnist Jonathan Allen goes deeper on what he thinks is not only a bad slogan, but a “muddled message” overall.

WORDS!

They are as empty as the “plan” they purpose.

Personally the ‘Better Deal’ sounds a lot like the deal they offered with Clinton….this ‘hook’ will not work…it is all promises that they can not deliver….

Simplistic jingoism won the last election…..not a complex ‘plan’.

Maybe that would be a better place to start.

This will insure more losses for the Dems.

In short, Pathetic as usual!

Why Did Hillary Lose?

Really? How long are the Dems gonna screw this dead donkey?

No this is NOT a post trying to understand why Clinton lost….most real voters know why….she was a shitty candidate.

Instead this is a look at something that I thought was either dead or dying….the anti-war vote.

There is evidence to support that her loss in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan were from the votes of military families that are weary of all this war stuff….talk and action……

Last fall I winced whenever Hillary Clinton or her surrogates promised regime change in Syria. Don’t these people get it? Americans don’t want to be waging more wars in the Middle East.

Now an important new study has come out showing that Clinton paid for this arrogance: professors argue that Clinton lost the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in last year’s presidential election because they had some of the highest casualty rates during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and voters there saw Clinton as the pro-war candidate.

By contrast, her pro-war positions did not hurt her in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California, the study says; because those states were relatively unscathed by the Middle East wars.

Source: Clinton lost because PA, WI, and MI have high casualty rates and saw her as pro-war, study says – Mondoweiss

I can see why these people would vote against her as she was perceived as a pro-war candidate where Trump was not…..

This is something that the DNC needs to keep in mind as they scramble to find a message that will play with the voters.

But yet the people in the Clinton admin from the 90’s are trying to get the DNC to move more toward the center…..

“Reject the siren calls of the left” is the advice Mark Penn and Andrew Stein offer for the Democratic Party in a New York Times op-ed. The two make a case for why Democrats have to move back to the centrist position advocated by President Bill Clinton in the mid-’90s—a position they say reversed into a “rush to the left” during President Obama’s last few years in office. That U-turn resulted in an upswing for “identity politics, class warfare, and big government,” all of which have worked against the Democrats at the voting booths, with big losses during Obama’s tenure in terms of legislative seats and control of both houses of Congress.

It has also hurt Dems’ standing with working-class voters, who’ve witnessed “the party being mired too often in political correctness, transgender bathroom issues, and policies offering more help to undocumented immigrants than to the heartland,” the authors write. The “good issues” Democrats should be pushing on as they “reject socialist ideas,” Penn and Stein write: better protections for US workers, a focus on rural areas, the opioid epidemic, and a more balanced take on immigration. “Americans are looking for can-do Democrats in the mold of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton—leaders who rose above partisanship to unify the country, who defended human rights and equality passionately, and who also encouraged economic growth and rising wages,” they write. Full op-ed here.

Seriously? If they find a Clinton-esque candidate for 2020 then they will lose again.

The longer these wars continue the more the anti-war vote will come into play…..is my hope…..

Hillary lost because she was a horrible candidate and if they run a centrist next time then they will be asking all these same questions again.

Keep in mind the government of Bubba Clinton is what has brought us to this spot in time……do we want to relive all this again?

The DEms have lost sight of the “fronts” that help their power….the trip to the Center has made the Dem Party a toothless tiger…

“The solution of social problems consisted in the adjustment of conflicting interests; and the real business of politics, then, was simply the control of work and of the conditions under which work was performed. The liberals were altogether wrong in their insistence on individual liberty; in society, the parts must be subordinated to the whole.”

— Saint-Simon, 1802, digested by Edmund Wilson, To The Finland Station, 1940

Source: The Democratic Party’s Abandoned Fronts

The Dems need to get in touch with the people they abandoned in the 90’s……or they can watch the party crash and burn yet again.

Thoughts?

Democrats! Time To Move On!

I waited a couple of years to see or read where a Repub said this with all the silly antics of the GOP in Congress….and as usual my wait was in vain.

This whole Russia-gate thing has been raging for months….all the while Dems are trying to use it as some sort of message to the American voter…they are failing.

Let’s be honest…the average person cares little about this Russian thing. I spend time at a local college and there is very little discussion there as well. The only places that this has any footing is the MSM and some blogs….after that no one is talking or even caring.

Even national polls show that it is not that important to the population…..

…….the latest Harvard-Harris Poll survey, provided exclusively to The Hill, which paints a complicated picture of voters’ opinions about the numerous probes that have engulfed the White House.

Sixty-four percent of voters said the investigations into President Trump and Russia are hurting the country. Fifty-six percent of voters said it’s time for Congress and the media to move on to other issues, compared to 44 percent who said the focus should stay on Russia.

But other surveys have found strong support for the special counsel investigating the Russia probe. A Harvard-Harris survey released last month found 75 percent support for former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s investigation.

There is evidence in the Harvard-Harris survey that voters are taking the investigations seriously: Fifty-eight percent say they’re concerned by allegations of obstruction of justice against Trump, with the same number worried about possible dealings between Trump and the Russian government.

But far more — 73 percent — say they’re concerned that the Russia probes have caused Congress to lose focus on the issues important to them. That figure encompasses 81 percent of Republicans, 74 percent of independents and 68 percent of Democrats.

(thehill.com)

In short the public is growing ever weary of the political games and the lack of Congressional attention to the important things in the voters lives.

If the prez would stop using Twitter to try and bully any opposition then the MSM would have little to report and would move on.

I am not saying remove on from the investigations just keep any news close to the vest until there is something big to report.

As long as the fixation is on this Russian thing then important issue go under-reported or not at all.

We have a health care bill that is a piece of crap, we have a budget debate coming, etc.

Source: The Politics Behind ‘Russia-gate’ – Consortiumnews

And for God sake move on from the last election! Clinton lost…Trump won. Trying to find someone to blame is doing no good…it definitely is not a unifying topic for the Party.

Source: Russia-gate Flops as Democrats’ Golden Ticket – Consortiumnews

Dems need to find a message that will resonate with voters and stop chasing every Tweet that comes off Trump’s thumbs…..or 2018 will be NO different than any of the last couple of elections.

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Voters