2016 US Election MEGATHREAD: JZL likes it sticky

We're arguing definitions but most definitions of socialism center on the governmental or collective ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods. I suppose theoretically this could be achieved somehow by extreme confiscatory taxation, and this would probably be the most likely way America could or would become socialist. However, progressive tax rates are actually lower now than they were in the 60-s and 70's. That was the core of Reagan's economic policy, which was largely followed by both the English under Thatcher and the Germans under Kohl. The tax rates on the richest went from ~ 70% to 49-50%, if I remember what I've read about it. Anti-dynastic estate taxes have also been plowed under in the last 30-40 years.

IMHO, if anything, we have the government being controlled disproportionately by the economic elite, rather than the other way around. Citizen's United is probably the pinnacle of this. Can we say "Super-PAC"?

It's great that DailyKOS can report what American's favor. I favor being rich, owning a life-like robotfuckdoll, and cancer being cured, but that doesn't make it so.

FWIW, I think it's fantastic that a viable candidate for the US Presidency can claim to be a socialist and not be run out of town on a rail. I defer to wiskas on this, but I bet this would have been unthinkable 30 years ago. The last viable socialist candidate was like, Eugene Debs in 1900 or something?

There are many things in society today that weren't unthinkable 30 years ago. They simply weren't acted upon or out in the public eye like they are today. Trump is probably the norm or closer to the way old codgers were 30 years ago. Political correctness is the main change I've seen. It's taken on a life of it's own. Compared to 30-40 years ago, the PC of today would have been considered thought control or at the very least,censorship.

My favorite is this PCBS about gender neutral pronouns, e.g., "ze" or the use of "they" as a singular.

https://www.rt.com/usa/315907-harvard-gender-pronoun-registration/

https://apps.carleton.edu/student/orgs/saga/pronouns/

English already has a gender neutral singular pronoun, "it," but I guess that's dehumanizing.

Python was there first:

It's symbolic of our struggle against OPPRESSION!!

Now that TheDonald has the nomination virtually in the bag, he's beginning to soften the bombast and he's morphing into Politician 1-A. At least with Hillary, you kind of know what kind of liar you're getting.

One's a salesman, one's a lawyer.....of coarse they are liars .

At this point I'll vote for whoever promises to make a law that every hot dog be bun length.

That sums up this election cycle fairly well.

Trump: I am huger than Reagan. http://time.com/4180918/donald-trump-ronald-reagan-political-movement/

There's an interesting op-ed in the 3/21 issue of Time by a GOP operative who makes negative comparisons between the Party o' Reagan and Party o' Trump, lamenting that the Party o' Reagan is dead. I largely agree with the guy on this. He also said this was a phenomenon in the making for decades, going back to the "knife-fight" mentality of 90's Newt Gingrich and the "light-as-air" (-head?) political figures like 00's Palin.

At some point along the way, it became fashionable in the Republican Party–in some quarters, anyway–to replace reason with rage, to deny science when it was at odds with ideology and to cheer mindless stunts like shutting down the federal government rather than responsibly managing and relimiting it.​

However, where I would point a finger directly at Fox News, this guy never does.

http://time.com/4253747/the-party-of-reagan-is-no-more/ (It's not a long read)

It's not the GOP that prefers the Donald. It's the people fed up with the establishment the GOP has become.
Politics in America has become FUBAR.

IMHO, part of the wonder of Reagan was that he was able to regain the middle for the GOP, and that he did it so soon after Nixon/Vietnam/Watergate, and then he at least to some degree made it work. Trump seems to be attracting a hunk of the middle, too, but, IMHO, by pandering to the lowest common denominators like thuggery and jingoism and trash-talking disregard for fact (and in this regard he seems closer to me to Hitler than Reagan).

I think we sort of agree that this is no longer the Party o' Reagan, as much as Republicans would still like to try to stand under that umbrella. Trump is no Reagan. Cruz is no Reagan. Apparently the GOP does prefer Trump (the voters if not the establishment) because he's winning damn near every GOP primary. He's going to be the the nominee of the Republican Party, not the Donald Trump Party.

It's mental masturbation, but I wonder where the chips would have fallen if someone like Elizabeth Warren had been the Dem torch-bearer this year without Hillary and Bernie in the mix. At least as far as her resume', she's arguably less "establishment" than any of the current headliners.

Sigh . . .

No. Every bun has to be hot-dog length. Regulation #1

Every hot dog has to comply with a new SAE standard for hot dog overall length (longer of course. probably to current hot dog length). Regulation #2

To be sold or advertised as hot-dogs/weiners/franks, all SAE and FDA regulations must be met.

That's the way it would probably go.

Right now it all appears to be down the the PC vs. non-PC establishments.
The voters that prefer being told what politicians know the want to hear, as opposed to the crowd that's fed up with biz as usual and
get a kick out of hearing what they don't want to hear. If ever there was an election I'd not vote in, this may be it.

More like the media hates him. I don't particularly like the guy, but I don't buy all the media trump bashing that's running rampant.

This is the American Public for you. They vote like they invest. They buy high and sell low, and react against "The System" being FUBAR by electing those who make it FUBARer. Everyone was against "Pork-Barrel spending" which was the grease that allowed things to be done, and now they are somehow aghast with surprise that the gears of Government have seized up solid as a result of the pork-grease being replaced by the corrosive salt of "playing to the base" rhetoric.

From his first day in office, the President has acted like a Professor teaching recalcitrant students, and adapted a stupid strategy of starting negotiations at his preferred end-point, and boxing in Republicans between his position and their own rhetoric, instead of starting at a crazy left-field position, and giving the Republicans room to "win" a victory by negotiating a more "moderate" position, and defeating "the Liberals".

As a result of all this, the Country is itself splitting apart along demagoguery lines, and launching them into voting for the FUBARest candidates that they can find, on the theory that wrecking a wrecked system even more will somehow fix the system instead of leaving it even more wrecked. Trump should win because he is the perfect embodiment of the current electorate's self destructive emotion-over-reason mindset, where they agree with his position on... things he doesn't really have a position on, beyond simple statements of generalities without any means of putting those realities into action. They just like "Making America Great Again", which is a nice resounding... and totally meaningless... Rorschach-blot of a statement.

It's enough to make me want to move to a nice responsibly-managed socialist system like Germany or one of the Nordic Countries, though even these folks have committed the stupidity that is EU...

... and all the while, the media is obsessed with their horse-race and poll-numbers. Even NPR stories on how stupid polls are usually laced with poll-numbers. Trump gets free press by simply opening his mouth and saying stupid things, because he knows that stupid sells. The media laps it up because they too know that stupid sells. The media doesn't understand how they have axed their own credibility to the point that voters will be reactionary just to spite them, even though they are a symptom rather than a cause of our current state.

Vote Hans, for Lord Marshal

I'd rather vote for Goofus!

NOOOO! DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO DEAL WITH THESE... PEOPLE!!!!!

My plan:
Reinstate pork barrel spending.
Buy off media with scrapings from the pork barrel.
Cut the knees out from under elected officials, by hiring their constituents, so that all their base are belong to me!
Try everyone who disagrees with me for Treason and Rampant UnAmericanIsm. This should eliminate 90+% of our total population, including me!
Deficit? Wazzat?
Sell all our National Debt to our enemies, then tell them "Do as we say, or we'll default on our loans!"
Global Warming? Who cares? I'm moving to Canada anyway.
Go on National Media to laugh at everyone who voted for me, and insult them with every other sentence, as I lay out my plan to watch them freak out at me!

Regardless of words spewing from the candidates lips, I believe you just nailed the reality of mess that is.