Fuck It's Silent in Here 2016

[SKO]

Sometimes I wonder if it's the politician, or the machine. It's entirely possible that most politicians are sociopaths who'll say whatever it takes to get into office (I think there are even some quotes of Abe Lincoln advocating for slavery on the campaign trail, if I recall correctly), but I sort of wonder if they just don't understand the mechanism until they're caught up in it. They have goals and ideals, and then they get into office and are faced with the realities of what it means to dictate law and policy. Their advisors are often people who have been "in the machine" for decades, who are probably very good at persuading them to stick with what works.

Or, maybe their first Top Secret meetings are real eye-openers, and their idealism dies at that moment.

Or, maybe it's like what Bill Hicks said.

I have this feeling man, 'cause you know, it's just a handful of people who run everything, you know ... that's true, it's provable. It's not ... I'm not a fucking conspiracy nut, it's provable. A handful, a very small elite, run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail – blah, blah, blah – when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down ... and a big guy with a cigar goes, "Roll the film." And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before ... that looks suspiciously like it's from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, "Any questions?" "Er, just what my agenda is." "First we bomb Baghdad." "You got it ..."

He didn't advocate for slavery, per se, but he repeated loudly and as often as possible that he was not going to abolish slavery. At worst (from a slaveowner's perspective) his intention was merely to keep slavery where it was and prevent it from expanding to the territories. The south still deemed that too radical, seceded, started the war, and ended up getting more support for abolition than would ever have been possible without the war.

[Quality Start Machine]

America is moving left

No it isn't.  It's moving slightly right because the left has mostly won. 

No, it's in the middle where it usually is. Roughly 40% of the population will always vote GOP and 40% will always vote Democratic, and the other 20% are what decides who wins and loses.

What's changed is philosophy. The Progressives used to be visionaries and the Conservatives used to be functionaries. So after some Progressive "big idea" became law, the Conservatives would figure out how to make it work.

Now the Progressives want every idea to be a big one, and the Conservatives merely want to stop it all.

So it's either a home run or a strikeout on everything. Our government has become Adam Dunn.

[InternetApex]

America is moving left

No it isn't.  It's moving slightly right because the left has mostly won. 

No, it's in the middle where it usually is. Roughly 40% of the population will always vote GOP and 40% will always vote Democratic, and the other 20% are what decides who wins and loses.

What's changed is philosophy. The Progressives used to be visionaries and the Conservatives used to be functionaries. So after some Progressive "big idea" became law, the Conservatives would figure out how to make it work.

Now the Progressives want every idea to be a big one, and the Conservatives merely want to stop it all.

So it's either a home run or a strikeout on everything. Our government has become Adam Dunn Paul Bako.

Been a while since that last dinger'd.

[Brownie]

Economically, the fight is at the margins. "Is the right tax rate 33% or 37%?"  "Capital gains at 20% or 25%?"  We're just haggling over price here.

Not exactly. If you're paying attention to what is happening in Springfield, you would see that what Rauner and Madigan are fighting over are not "on the margins."

The Simpson-Bowles Panel came up with some serious ideas at deficit reduction. It would have produced major changes to tax law.

Obamacare was not a fight at the margins. Neither was Hillarycare, or Bush's Social Security plan.

There are a couple phenomena happening outside of politics that is affecting the way politics is done:

1) The abundant choices of media today. I can access about a dozen online publications that cover a wide political spectrum every day with next to no effort. If I want to read everything right, I can. If I want to read everything left, I can.  We know, unfortunately, that baseball fans can spend all their free time reading information about the Cubs, and they'll have a warped perspective if all they read is Al Yellon and Gordon Wittenmeyer.  In the old days, you'd get your news by listening to 10 minutes of WBBM waiting for a traffic report, read the Tribune or the Sun-Times (rarely both), maybe the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, and maybe a periodical like Time, Newsweek or US News & World Report. Sure, you'd know those people who would subscribe to the Atlantic, or the Economist or the Nation or Mother Jones or National Review or the Weekly Standard, but again, those were much smaller audiences. And I didn't even talk about social media. Twitter and Facebook might have made more influential opinion-makers among us. Where in the past, there might have been one guy on the block that might be able to get half the neighborhood to vote a certain way, now a guy on Twitter with a solid list of followers can build a little bit of a movement.

The challenge of breaking through the noise keeps advertisers, marketers, media types, and anyone who needs the attention up at night. Come up with a good way to attract attention, and you have some legs for awhile. Problem is, the competition for attention has shortened the news cycle dramatically.  So the battle to cut through noise has created... more noise.

2) The triumph of data in targeted marketing. Again, this is generally a good thing, but it has allowed a candidate to focus his message on just the things you care about (and that you agree with him on), thus allowing you to tolerate differences in opinion in various candidates less. The way districts are mapped (and we know two can play this game if you look at the legislative districts in this state) have added to the problem.

The solution to the problem is that there is no solution. The runoff idea sounds good until you consider that you could have 25 candidates running, and the two top vote getters are Trump and Sanders at 9% each because they have the most loyal following. Instead, let us find our way as we adjust to our own advancements.

[Quality Start Machine]

1) The abundant choices of media today.

This right here...while it's easy to dismiss those who read Breitbart or HuffPo as "low information voters", but the correct phrase is probably "specific information voters". People want affirmation that they are well-informed, and every media source of this sort is only too happy to blame every other media source as being untrustworthy.

[Tonker]

America is moving left

No it isn't.  It's moving slightly right because the left has mostly won.  When rightees scream, "DON'T TOUCH MY MEDICARE!" you know who has won. A large chunk of the GOOP base is over 60. They are the post-New Dealers who will not give up any of the social services net FDR invented. Hard to blame them having paid into them for 40+ years and now they want their (deserved) return.

Where the left has a few wins remaining is on the social issues, mostly because younger people see these social advances as, ultimately, a conservative thing. For example, gay marriage is a very pro-conservative issue (keep the gubbermint outta my bedroom!).  There's room here for some advancement on the left.

Economically, the fight is at the margins. "Is the right tax rate 33% or 37%?"  "Capital gains at 20% or 25%?"  We're just haggling over price here.

I can agree with most of this but I think you see it stagnated on the center-left while I hear the rhetoric of Obama, Clinton and Sanders moving harder to the left than anything you heard from Bill or his contemporaries who were so spooked by the Reagan Revolution that they figured rightly that they would never win another national election without demonizing the far left as radical hippie burnouts. That tough talk Clinton had on crime and going head up with female rappers on the news is unthinkable in this Democratic primary.

What has not changed, and I think you've recognized is the machinary of the government itself. Nothing's really changing and yes, the fight is in the margins.

I'd say we still sit comfortably center-right with some basic leftist social safety nets. I mean when you compare what we have to any standard European country it's pretty laughable to look at America and say the left has won.

This.  Even America's left is right.

[Chuck to Chuck]

The solution to the problem is that there is no solution. The runoff idea sounds good until you consider that you could have 25 candidates running, and the two top vote getters are Trump and Sanders at 9% each because they have the most loyal following. Instead, let us find our way as we adjust to our own advancements.

I don't agree that there is no solution.  We already had 22 candidates this cycle. Part of the problem is you can pick a side and narrow your odds to guarantee a berth in the finals.  One of the reasons Quinn won 5 years ago is that his opponent "won" his primary with 78% of the voters in that primary voting against him.

And one more thing: Why does Taxpayer Chuck have to pay for the Dems and GOOPs to hold their primary?  I might be more inclined to pay if I could vote in both.  But why can't I tell the Dems that I think Schneider is less of a loony than Rotering AND tell the GOOPs that I think Kasich is better than Cruz?  Because I have an opinion on Schneider they aren't interested in my opinion on Kasich?  An opinion I am paying to be able to cast?

Open primary with all on one ballot, open primary where I can vote all around, or let the parties pay for it themselves.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Not exactly. If you're paying attention to what is happening in Springfield, you would see that what Rauner and Madigan are fighting over are not "on the margins."

But it is at the margins. Unless Rauner is talking about cancelling pensions (if he is, I've missed this), it's about how to pay them going forward and how much to pay new entrants. The issue of retirement pay for public employees is settled: It's staying.

The union thing, that one you might say it's outside the margins, but again, it's ultimately a how to pay issue.  Not a should we pay issue.

You want a real outside the margins fight, let's privatize education.  Let's make state college tuition included in your taxes for state residents.  Those kind of fever dreams aren't happening.

[Yeti]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

[Canadouche]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

My general outlook when this development occurred:

[Eli]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

The irony* of Scalia being so originalist and Republicans trying to block Obama from performing his Constitutional duty will be less fun.

* I'm pretty confident in this one, CT.

[ChuckD]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

The irony* of Scalia being so originalist and Republicans trying to block Obama from performing his Constitutional duty will be less fun.

* I'm pretty confident in this one, CT.

Totally agree, Mitch.

[Saul Goodman]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

The irony* of Scalia being so originalist and Republicans trying to block Obama from performing his Constitutional duty will be less fun.

* I'm pretty confident in this one, CT.

Totally agree, Mitch.

That was our old voice, voices expire after like three years, how do you not know that.

[CT III]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

The irony* of Scalia being so originalist and Republicans trying to block Obama from performing his Constitutional duty will be less fun.

* I'm pretty confident in this one, CT.

Your confidence was not misplaced.

[CBStew]

Obummer selecting a new justice will be fun.

The irony* of Scalia being so originalist and Republicans trying to block Obama from performing his Constitutional duty will be less fun.

* I'm pretty confident in this one, CT.

Totally agree, Mitch.

We do have a voice.  We use it be selecting a president, one of whose functions is to nominate a person to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.  You would think that a Senator would know that.