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Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

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Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Slap Shot said:
The labor force participation rate has averaged 63% from 1950 until 2016. Do you want to guess the current rate? 62.8%. Did you intentionally leave that part of it out?
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That's a bit misleading. Here's the labor participation chart since 1950:

<a href="http://imgur.com/T8yfZni"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/T8yfZni.png" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
That so much can change in a week means that Hillary could implode at any moment as well.

Listen, Hillary may be competent enough for office in ways Trump never will be, so it would probably require her to get arrested before she tanks as badly as Trump has this week. But let's not take for granted that she's always going to have much else going for her. The DNC stuff and the e-mail scandal aren't nearly the big deals they're made out to be by the knuckledragging echo chamber, but it only takes one or two new discoveries for that not to be true anymore. In other words: she's maybe one or two closeted skeletons away from being on Nixon levels of impropriety.

IF something were to come to light, Trump might be able to recover enough to make a run of this. It's a big if, but I won't dismiss it until we get closer to November.
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And it is a shame that could be true--that voters are so easily manipulated by alleged scandals. Of course, that's partly why the GOP is going through such turmoil now: it has devoted itself to a fear and scandal-mongering strategy for so many years instead of policy discussion, and the mob it incited has taken over.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Something really interesting from this McClatchy poll. It has Clinton +15 nationally, but more interestingly it has 34% "right track," which is about where the country was last August. It sounds awful, but in the winter and spring it was running more like 25%.

The Republicans are throwing everything into spreading the perception of doom and incipient disaster. If the electorate rejects that viewpoint, more Rs than Trump may be in trouble.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Wisko McBadgerton said:
That's a bit misleading. Here's the labor participation chart since 1950:

<a href="http://imgur.com/T8yfZni"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/T8yfZni.png" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
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So you're saying it was much higher 20 years ago?

More to the point the number he cited provided no context. It's just a number that doesn't take anything into account.
 
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Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Just your average week for Donald Trump.

Trump's supporters are eating all of it up too. I think every outrageous statement or act by Trump deepens their support. He obviously believes his plan is working because he has doubled down on the ridiculous behavior but the polls are finally showing some blowback for him for the first time in quite a while.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

WeAreNDHockey said:
Just your average week for Donald Trump.

Trump's supporters are eating all of it up too. I think every outrageous statement or act by Trump deepens their support. He obviously believes his plan is working because he has doubled down on the ridiculous behavior but the polls are finally showing some blowback for him for the first time in quite a while.
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Have an honest question here...for the most part, the Dems haven't really attacked Trump until recently. They've stayed above the fray, instead they have patted themselves on the back. Trump has not changed his tactics, really. Is he counting on the marginal voters, or the Bernie Bros to see the changed tactics in the Dem camp as a...for lack of a better word, truly....desperate move? A sign of weakness?

FTR, I'd rather have politicians patting themselves on the back than attacking/smearing opponents. Show me what YOU'VE done, not what your opponent hasn't done/will possibly do.

Edit: To win a conflict, make the opponent play YOUR game. Obviously paraphrased from Sun Tzu, etc.
 
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Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Brent - what % of Trump's speeches is spent attacking Hillary/Obama? You can't seriously think any of the same coming from the Dems shows a kink in the armor for her but not for him. Never mind they're extremely dialed back compared to Trumpster.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Slap Shot said:
Brent - what % of Trump's speeches is spent attacking Hillary/Obama? You can't seriously think any of the same coming from the Dems shows a kink in the armor for her but not for him. Never mind they're extremely dialed back compared to Trumpster.
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He attacks everyone. That's his game. That's his strategy.
The Dems didn't do that at first, and now they are kind of playing his game. They are attacking.

I don't think it's a kink in their armor, so to speak, but they seem to be altering their strategy a little. And I won't even PRETEND to argue they are even CLOSE to what Trump's doing, however, that old cliche "don't change horses in the middle of a stream." Whatever they were doing before was working, why change it? Rely on what Obama did, incorporate some of Bern's policies, ignore Trump's shortfalls. Highlight your party's accomplishments and plans.

That's where the question came from.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Brenthoven said:
He attacks everyone. That's his game. That's his strategy.
The Dems didn't do that at first, and now they are kind of playing his game. They are attacking.

I don't think it's a kink in their armor, so to speak, but they seem to be altering their strategy a little. And I won't even PRETEND to argue they are even CLOSE to what Trump's doing, however, that old cliche "don't change horses in the middle of a stream." Whatever they were doing before was working, why change it? Rely on what Obama did, incorporate some of Bern's policies, ignore Trump's shortfalls. Highlight your party's accomplishments and plans.

That's where the question came from.
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I got all that - but I don't think they've changed their tack all that much if at all. Considering how much material they have to work with I think they've been extremely subdued to this point.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Too many people have been beating around the bush when it comes to Trump. Too many politicians keep saying that while they do not agree with all of what he says and do not support his racist statements, they refuse to pull their support of the party's nominee. Too many people are trying to explain away Trump's support among working class, non-college educated white men by saying it is mostly a sign of their frustration over their decreased economic prospects. Too many people want to be polite about it, want to limit the collateral damage they fear from speaking the truth about Trump and his campaign. Too many people are not saying what Charles Blow said recently in a New York Times column:

I am not accustomed to dancing around an issue; I prefer to call it what it is. I prefer to shine a bright light on it until it withers. Supporting Trump is indefensible and it makes you as much of a pariah as he is. That stops here, today. For as long as racism and tribalism and xenophobia exist in this country, Trump’s foibles will not signal his ultimate failure. But let’s not let off the people who prop him up, claiming that they’re simply being party loyalists, or Hillary haters or having Supreme Court concerns. Trump is a mirror. He is a reflection of — indeed a revealing of — the ugliness that you harbor, only it is possible that you may have gone your life expressing it in ways that were more coded and politic. Trump is an unfiltered primal scream of the fragility and fear consuming white male America.
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The fact is, Trump could not succeed without an electorate that is full of ill-informed racists and bigots. I think the kid-gloves need to come off in this campaign. We have pretended for far too long that the racism and bigotry that has poisoned this presidential race was largely a thing relegated to just a few people, those so far off the beaten path they could never mount a serious challenge to the leadership of one of the two major political parties which elect virtually 100% of everyone who holds a public office in this country. That has proven to be wishful thinking. And a mistaken belief. You're not going to defeat this enemy by fighting it around the margins or in the shadows. You're going to defeat it only by -- as Blow wrote -- shining a light on it until it withers.

By August 6th, 2016 if you are still in the Trump camp you are one of two things: One of the aforementioned bigots, racists and pariahs. Or two, you are very, very naive.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

If anything it's intelligent strategy. Let the republicans tear each other apart and make the news with sh-tty snipes at each other.

This is politics 101. Don't insert yourself into the fight until you are in the fight.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Slap Shot said:
I got all that - but I don't think they've changed their tack all that much if at all. Considering how much material they have to work with I think they've been extremely subdued to this point.
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I'll easily concede the "subdued" point.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

WeAreNDHockey said:
By August 6th, 2016 if you are still in the Trump camp you are one of two things: One of the aforementioned bigots, racists and pariahs. Or two, you are very, very naive.
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There's still that third group: the party cynics. There are plenty of people who are publicly supporting and enabling Trump for purely political reasons, without believing any of the gibberish. This includes "professional Republicans" such as politicians (in office or out), pundits, and party apparatchiks. These people wouldn't let the average sincere Trump supporter into their gated community, let alone their home.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Kepler said:
There's still that third group: the party cynics. There are plenty of people who are publicly supporting and enabling Trump for purely political reasons, without believing any of the gibberish. This includes "professional Republicans" such as politicians (in office or out), pundits, and party apparatchiks. These people wouldn't let the average sincere Trump supporter into their gated community, let alone their home.
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There's no question that between the two of us I am clearly the more pessimistic person Kep, but here, I think you're flat wrong. Yes there are exceptions who prove the rule. There are some Trump voters who don't hate blacks, or immigrants or maybe even rebel flag wearing, demolition derby going, summer teeth sporting residents of the average rural southern Ohio county. But they are few and far between. I think the majority of Trump supporters are people who believe the worst things about other people who look different and that support is bigotry borne.
 
Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

WeAreNDHockey said:
There's no question that between the two of us I am clearly the more pessimistic person Kep, but here, I think you're flat wrong. Yes there are exceptions who prove the rule. There are some Trump voters who don't hate blacks, or immigrants or maybe even rebel flag wearing, demolition derby going, summer teeth sporting residents of the average rural southern Ohio county. But they are few and far between. I think the majority of Trump supporters are people who believe the worst things about other people who look different and that support is bigotry borne.
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There's a big chunk of them no doubt. But I just don't think one can overestimate party affiliation inertia. Most people who vote for X 3 times in succession will keep on voting X until the day they die -- the nominee doesn't matter. Nor is inertia entirely unreasonable, since platforms persist across decades and the parties do represent the basic inventive/curious (liberal) vs. consistent/cautious (conservative) personality attribute dichotomy. Our politics is to some extent wired right into our heads.
 
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