Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Karl Henning]

In Mass., if I register as Independent, I can vote in one or the other.

[Johnll]

The best president this country has had in my voting lifetime was senior G Bush (the kid was a disaster). Next to him the most important republican in my time is Trump. About 20 years ago the GOP re Grinch and other got all huffy and puffy and told other Americans they also can be toughie. Weak people bought into this and even truck drivers pretended to an understand economics.

The GOP used the same human weakness (Pleasure of Pride) that Hitler and the Japanese Fascists used to recruit their follower.  It worked but it is now out of control.  (Do you do agree Todd and Blanston?)

Trump is a lance to let the poison and puss out of the GOP so that it can try to go back to being the Grand Ole Party.

[drogulus]

Trump is a lance to let the poison and puss out of the GOP so that it can try to go back to being the Grand Ole Party.

    This is a very difficult bank shot IME. Trump will empty the toxic contents of the bag and fill it with his nontoxic self, then the party will be more like what it was decades ago.

    I think it's a better fit to say that Trump is the result of party disintegration, and his rise is best viewed as a stage in that process, a kind of coinfection like pneumonia following influenza.

[Madiel]

I'm amused that Sanders having a clear and coherent worldview now becomes "ideological intransigence".

Earlier today I read how Sanders has become known as the 'amendment king'. He has a better record than almost anyone else in Congress at getting things he wants inserted into legislation in return for his support. How the hell is that intransigence? That's a guy who knows how to work in the system to get things done.

EDIT: For example - http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-gets-it-done-sanders-record-pushing-through-major-reforms-will-surprise-you

Half the problem with many politicians these days is that they don't stand for anything. They see which way the opinion polls and the focus groups and money are blowing and act accordingly. This is exactly why both Sanders AND Trump are gaining traction. Sanders because he has a clear and consistent approach that he's stuck with for many years, and Trump because people think he just doesn't give a shit about whether people like what he has to say.

[Florestan]

What ideological intransigence?

I'm amused that Sanders having a clear and coherent worldview now becomes "ideological intransigence".

Guys, this is what I asked:

Question(s) for our American fellow GMGers: who is the most ideologically rigid of Trump, Sanders and Hillary? I mean, who is the most likely to push his/her agenda with little, if at all, consideration for the economical, political and geopolitical reality which does not fit his/her worldview? Who is the least likely to seek a reasonable compromise with adverse parties and factions, at home and abroad?

In my book, that is the very definition of ideological intransigence.

Three times the answer was Sanders:

I would go with Sanders.

I agree with this.

That is the same answer I would have given...

So there.

[Madiel]

Well, the evidence I've read today about what he's actually got done in Congress says they're wrong. It lists numerous examples of him having reached agreement with Republicans. So there.

[Florestan]

Well, the evidence I've read today about what he's actually got done in Congress says they're wrong. It lists numerous examples of him having reached agreement with Republicans. So there.

Hey, I just took at face value the answers I´ve got. If they were wrong, then I was wrong too.

[Madiel]

Well, I wasn't intending to target you specifically, more the general tenor of the conversation.

[Florestan]

Well, I wasn't intending to target you specifically, more the general tenor of the conversation.

The article you linked to is interesting because it shows that not only is Sanders more pragmatic than portrayed in the media, but also that so are the Republicans. 

[Madiel]

The article you linked to is interesting because it shows that not only is Sanders more pragmatic than portrayed in the media, but also that so are the Republicans. 

Well, I'm sure some of them are. But are they the ones running for President? Ted Cruz in particular seems fond of burning bridges, not building them.

I can't remember where I read it in the last few days, but it wasn't the first time I'd seen something saying a real concern with the leading Republican candidates is they simply have no idea about what it takes to govern. Kasich is the only one still in the race who has solid credentials in that area, and he's losing.

[Florestan]

Well, I'm sure some of them are. But are they the ones running for President? Ted Cruz in particular seems fond of burning bridges, not building them.

I was talking about Republican congressmen, which the article portrays as quite pragmatic and open to compromise, with an avowed socialist no less.

I can't remember where I read it in the last few days, but it wasn't the first time I'd seen something saying a real concern with the leading Republican candidates is they simply have no idea about what it takes to govern. Kasich is the only one still in the race who has solid credentials in that area, and he's losing.

Well, that´s why I inquired about ideological rigidity. Someone who has no idea about what it takes to govern but also has no ideological axe to grind and changes his mind according to the reality he has to face is less dangerous, and might eventually prove to be a better choice, than someone who is clueless about governing yet has inflexible ideas and notions about what government must do.

As an aside, interestingly enough, the accusation of being clueless about what it takes to govern, which liberals throw at conservatives nowadays, was also used by conservatives against liberals in the past. For instance, when in 1876 the Romanian Liberal Party took power after 5 years of turbulent and quite demagogic opposition, one of the leaders of the Conservative party told journalists: "Mark my words, gentlemen! This government will not stay in power more than two months because they have not one single experienced statesman!" Yet the Liberal government stayed in power until 1888 and presided over proclaiming Romanian independence and defending it at war with the Ottoman Empire (1877-78), upgrading Romania from principality to kingdom (1881) and passing legislation which changed the country for better.

[Pat B]

Well, I'm sure some of them are. But are they the ones running for President? Ted Cruz in particular seems fond of burning bridges, not building them.

That's what I was thinking too. When he was running for Senate, he was one of several underdogs to then-Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in the R primary. Cruz won by attacking Dewhurst for being a "moderate" who was willing to compromise with Democrats. The "moderate" part wasn't even true -- Dewhurst is quite conservative -- though it was fair to say that he was willing to work across the aisle. It says a lot about the Texas electorate that such willingness is now seen as undesirable.

Accordingly, Cruz has spent his time as a Senator pandering to his base with symbolic gestures that accomplish nothing. It might win him the R nomination but I don't think it will get him to the White House.

I can't remember where I read it in the last few days, but it wasn't the first time I'd seen something saying a real concern with the leading Republican candidates is they simply have no idea about what it takes to govern. Kasich is the only one still in the race who has solid credentials in that area, and he's losing.

Yes. I mentioned that several pages back. Republicans, consciously or not, seem to want somebody who is incapable of governing.

[drogulus]

    If liberals are mostly oriented towards making the present more like the future, and conservatives to make it more like the past, you would expect them to be intransigent "differently". Then there's the intransigence attributed to the ideology itself versus the person "trying" to hold it. Since I seem to be a cartoon character laying down track just in front of the train I'm riding, I must be a liberal in the modern U.S. sense.

     It follows from common sense and observation that both liberals and conservatives have a great deal to defend as well as attack, goats to kill and goats to protect from killers.

[Pat B]

I was talking about Republican congressmen, which the article portrays as quite pragmatic and open to compromise, with an avowed socialist no less.

Your original question -- Clinton, Sanders, or Trump, and omitting Cruz -- almost seemed designed to make Sanders the answer, despite his actual record. Why omit Cruz? At this point he is more likely to win nomination than Sanders.

[Gurn Blanston]

Your original question -- Clinton, Sanders, or Trump, and omitting Cruz -- almost seemed designed to make Sanders the answer, despite his actual record. Why omit Cruz? At this point he is more likely to win nomination than Sanders.

My question too. Cruz is a weapon grade shit-weasel, he would win any "who is the most f****-up" question you cared to pose, and yet he was left off the list. Curious omission. 

[Florestan]

Your original question -- Clinton, Sanders, or Trump, and omitting Cruz -- almost seemed designed to make Sanders the answer, despite his actual record. Why omit Cruz? At this point he is more likely to win nomination than Sanders.

You´re wrong. I was actually expecting Clinton to be the answer. 

Apparently, Sanders´ record is his best kept secret: three people who seem to be well informed about American politics nominated him as a rigid ideologue. Once again, that is not my fault.

[Gurn Blanston]

You´re wrong. I was actually expecting Clinton to be the answer. 

Apparently, Sanders´ record is his best kept secret: three people who seem to be well informed about American politics nominated him as a rigid ideologue. Once again, that is not my fault.

I didn't say he was an idiot, just an ideologue. No one can or will last long or accomplish anything in congress without reaching compromise on something. However, you have to pick and choose very carefully in what you reach compromise on. Sanders was a freaking Independent in the Senate. The only one, at that. Of course he compromised.     But that wasn't necessarily by choice,it was expedient for him to do so. There would always be a quid pro quo. If he became the leader, he could be more independent because that's what leaders do. Not that congress wouldn't Obaminate him, but he could try... 

[drogulus]

     Sanders will need to compromise more as President, not less. There are no protest Presidents. The question would be is he likely to be a good compromiser for widely shared goals? Obama was temperamentally a compromiser but operationally a bad one. He didn't get "I welcome their hatred" as an opening salvo. He thought it would look radical, something he tried to avoid. That explains his effort to build a bridge to the bridge burners, and adopt the Repub health plan as his own, his most radical move in the eyes of the burners. How dare he?

[Gurn Blanston]

     Sanders will need to compromise more as President, not less. There are no protest Presidents. The question would be is he likely to be a good compromiser for widely shared goals? Obama was temperamentally a compromiser but operationally a bad one. He didn't get "I welcome their hatred" as an opening salvo. He thought it would look radical, something he tried to avoid. That explains his effort to build a bridge to the bridge burners, and adopt the Repub health plan as his own, his most radical move in the eyes of the burners. How dare he?

Yes, but you are talking about what he would have to do to somehow get along. I'm talking about what I expect he will do. I think he will be less interested in going along to get along if he became President than he did when he was a Lone Ranger legislator. Which was the original question, I think. 

[Madiel]

I was talking about Republican congressmen, which the article portrays as quite pragmatic and open to compromise, with an avowed socialist no less.

Which makes it all the more peculiar that you're ignoring Senator Ted Cruz while talking about Senator Bernie Sanders.

You can't point to something that talks about Republican congressmen compromising and decide it means ALL Republican congressmen. That's the point: that Cruz has campaigned on criticising other Republicans for ever compromising.