Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

And if substance was all that mattered though the country never would have had the "gift" of the George W Bush Presidency.

Bernie is correctly identifying the system being rigged, but right wingers DON'T CARE, as long as they're the beneficiaries of the graft. Sanders is advocating a system where you spread the graft around evenly for those below a certain rung on the income scale. Trump voters want those $$$ all to themselves by kicking out both legal and illegal immigrants, and maybe a few first generation non-whites as well! Sanders can't compete with that. He can do angry, but he's not doing angry against the people the right wing base wants to be angry about.

Some Sanders supporters feel he's so brilliant, he's so on target, he's so the man of the moment, that even the most hard core conservative working class voters will see his appeal. What I'm saying is all those things could be 100% correct about Sanders and he STILL won't get their votes. He won't get them because he, rightfully so, refused to demonize the people they want to scapegoat for the nations problems (blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants, etc).

Think about it: There are plenty of strong man dictators out there. Yet Putin is the only one the GOP holds up in high regard. Ever ask yourself why that happens and why it plays well on the right? Could it be because unlike Kim Jon-Un, Bashir Assad, or Robert Mugabe, Putin is white as a ghost, hence his appeal? Sanders can't compete with that mindset.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

And if substance was all that mattered though the country never would have had the "gift" of the George W Bush Presidency.

Bernie is correctly identifying the system being rigged, but right wingers DON'T CARE, as long as they're the beneficiaries of the graft. Sanders is advocating a system where you spread the graft around evenly for those below a certain rung on the income scale. Trump voters want those $$$ all to themselves by kicking out both legal and illegal immigrants, and maybe a few first generation non-whites as well! Sanders can't compete with that. He can do angry, but he's not doing angry against the people the right wing base wants to be angry about.

Some Sanders supporters feel he's so brilliant, he's so on target, he's so the man of the moment, that even the most hard core conservative working class voters will see his appeal. What I'm saying is all those things could be 100% correct about Sanders and he STILL won't get their votes. He won't get them because he, rightfully so, refused to demonize the people they want to scapegoat for the nations problems (blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants, etc).

Think about it: There are plenty of strong man dictators out there. Yet Putin is the only one the GOP holds up in high regard. Ever ask yourself why that happens and why it plays well on the right? Could it be because unlike Kim Jon-Un, Bashir Assad, or Robert Mugabe, Putin is white as a ghost, hence his appeal? Sanders can't compete with that mindset.

I think you are too widely generalizing. I believe that for every hardcore racist Trumpy there are at least two blue collar guys who wince a little when he plays the race card and wish he wouldn't, but still believe that on immigration control "the guy talks sense." Populism is by definition territorial and nothing is more territorial than a national boundary. Because there is no ethnic American, er, huh, sorry guys, our territorial populism can be multi-ethnic and non-racist and has been before. It aint pretty, but it aligns well with that other American value. (Forgetting of course that if they're stealing our jobs that means they're working which means they aren't mooching which... well, I didn't say it made sense.)

tl; dr: It can be done, though I doubt it would be pretty.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Another good piece on the RNC's reaping what they sow.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

I think you are too widely generalizing. I believe that for every hardcore racist Trumpy there are at least two blue collar guys who wince a little when he plays the race card and wish he wouldn't, but still believe that on immigration control "the guy talks sense." Populism is by definition territorial and nothing is more territorial than a national boundary. Because there is no ethnic American...

I'd say its the other way around. Two out of every 3 likes his "telling it like it is" on race and then 1 out of 3 likes his anti-illegals stance but maybe doesn't want to kick out people who were born here.

This is an ethnic American in the minds of many a conservative, and that ethnicity is "European". Pitchfork Pat Buchanan is a longtime advocate of this view. He was just one of the few to put it down on paper. Trump is capitalizing on that.

Beyond that though, the beauty of the con that is conservatism is that you get to blame people for doing the same things that you are, because you're a real American and they aren't. I don't know of too many righties who refused unemployment benefits. However, if you talk to someone (and I have) who's either receiving them or has a friend/relative who is, they never call themselves moochers. Its always the people somewhere else, who they don't know, who are gaming the system. This has been part of conservatism at least since Reagan's "welfare queens" campaign. Trump has just perfected it.

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

I don't know of too many righties who refused unemployment benefits. However, if you talk to someone (and I have) who's either receiving them or has a friend/relative who is, they never call themselves moochers. Its always the people somewhere else, who they don't know, who are gaming the system. This has been part of conservatism at least since Reagan's "welfare queens" campaign. Trump has just perfected it.

Unemployment benefits actually do require you to have "earned it", so to speak. That is, you have to have been employed, and employed for a certain period of time to establish wage credits or whatever the state wants to call them. Then, and only then, if you are laid off or fired you may be eligible for unemployment. You have to be ready, willing and able to work. You probably even have to participate in their job search program, all requirements that the left has vehemently fought for years with respect to the "need based" programs typically referred to as welfare.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

I'd say its the other way around. Two out of every 3 likes his "telling it like it is" on race and then 1 out of 3 likes his anti-illegals stance but maybe doesn't want to kick out people who were born here.

This is an ethnic American in the minds of many a conservative, and that ethnicity is "European". Pitchfork Pat Buchanan is a longtime advocate of this view. He was just one of the few to put it down on paper. Trump is capitalizing on that.

Beyond that though, the beauty of the con that is conservatism is that you get to blame people for doing the same things that you are, because you're a real American and they aren't. I don't know of too many righties who refused unemployment benefits. However, if you talk to someone (and I have) who's either receiving them or has a friend/relative who is, they never call themselves moochers. Its always the people somewhere else, who they don't know, who are gaming the system. This has been part of conservatism at least since Reagan's "welfare queens" campaign. Trump has just perfected it.

I think it's even simpler than that. People who think their jobs can be taken by immigrants want to halt immigration and people who think their jobs are safe don't. For a variety of reasons white lower middle class blue collar workers feel the most at risk. Fighting to keep your job isn't racist.

And that gives the RNC a huge headache, because corporate cons love immigration, in large part exactly because it does put those people out of work and replaces them with a very low wage, highly vulnerable, highly exploitable labor pool. This is the classic game of diving the working class in half and playing one side against the other for the crumb in the middle. The guys who win the battle will fight to preserve the system because they are, just barely, holding on through it. Nobody at the subsistence level can dare to revolt against the whole thing in order to force higher wages for everyone. Therein is the creation story of socialism.

So, the guys who matter to the RNC -- the guys who cut the checks -- want immigration, while a huge chunk of the base doesn't. Up muntil now the RNC has been able to blame the Dems, and the Dems have taken that and run with it because Yay Diversity Pants Party!!11!1.

But along comes Sanders, and let's call it Sandersism -- the idea that populist unease with immigration can be territorial and economic but not racist. If Sandersism, with or without Doc Brown, ever starts to take root among the Dems, the Republicans' whole con is exposed and their captive white working class voters will know just exactly what they have been played for. Heck, at the rate Trump is going he may just tell them himself.

And how ya gonna keep the folks down on the "cut taxes on the wealthy, free the entrepreneurial spirit" plantation then?

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

all requirements that the left has vehemently fought for years with respect to the "need based" programs typically referred to as welfare.

Um. Except it was Clinton who, ya know, campaigned on it.

Governor Clinton campaigned in 1992 on the promise to “end welfare as we know it” and the companion phrase “Two years and you’re off.”

But, to be fair, in general the left has fought to expand welfare to entitlements because welfare is unpopular. People vote for programs which they benefit from. That's why rich people get to cash social security checks they don't need. Because middle class people wouldn't fully fund a social security system that was purely an insurance program for elderly indigence. We could have a fully funded unemployment, retirement, health care, child care, and educational system for poor people in this country if we taxed everybody and means tested at about twice the poverty line.

But we don't, in large part because of the incessant, booming, Old Testament judgment of "deserving" / "undeserving" that thunders down from the pulpit of conservativism (amplified significantly by an employer class that needs poverty to spur people to fight each other for low wage labor, regardless of whether it traps them in multi-generational poverty).

[busterman62]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

I think you are too widely generalizing.

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

Fair point. I have been known to do it myself. ;-)

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Um. Except it was Clinton who, ya know, campaigned on it.

And Obama campaigned the he would get us out of Iraq, Afghanistan, blah, blah, blah. They all seemed to work out equally well.

But, to be accurate, in general the left has fought to expand welfare to entitlements because when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's vote.

[busterman62]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Fair point. I have been known to do it myself. ;-)

Croupier: Your winnings, sir.

[unofan]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

However, if you talk to someone (and I have) who's either receiving them or has a friend/relative who is, they never call themselves moochers. Its always the people somewhere else, who they don't know, who are gaming the system. This has been part of conservatism at least since Reagan's "welfare queens" campaign. Trump has just perfected it.

https://youtu.be/yTwpBLzxe4U

"I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anyone help me out? No." - Craig T. Nelson

[mookie1995]

https://youtu.be/yTwpBLzxe4U

"I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anyone help me out? No." - Craig T. Nelson

that IS a great quote

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Kep, I really do admire your devotion to Sanders even though I have fun with it on occasion, but where we disagree is in the idea that a logical based appeal to these people who feel society has left them behind will work. Being a conservative nowadays isn't like being one 40 years ago, which are the people from the past that Sanders might appeal to. Being conservative is a state of mind, not an ideology anymore. That's how you get people to vote on things based on emotion, and for things that go against their interests, or at the very least have nothing to do with their interests. IMHO you recall the conservatives of your youth and project that onto the current crop, when I believe the cons of your youth or either dead or left the GOP awhile ago.

[unofan]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

In before the poutrage machine claims a double standard: The WaPo was wrong to publish that political cartoon. I get that the point was aimed at Cruz himself, but you leave the kids out of it.