Trump to win?

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

But you are fine to vote for someone who authorized the Iraq War? Someone who seems to be the favorite of military contractors over the alleged warmonger?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...clinton-227336

I'm not trying to continue the personal attacks that are all over this thread. I really just don't understand it. How can you have the "Socialism for the rich! Capitalism for the rest" signature and cast your vote for a candidate who gets paid $225,000 to chat with LLoyd Blankfein and Co.? And she won't release the transcript of what was said? Even if she did release the transcript, we all know what is going on. She gets paid ludicrous fees to buy her loyalty.

Everyone I talk to that says they might vote for Hillary always says the same thing: "It's because of Trump! He's crazy, racist, dangerous, unpredictable, etc. If the Republicans had nominated someone else things would be different!" Personally, I think it's all rationalization. If it was Romney, McCain, Cruz, Kasich, or Ryan they would all find some justification for voting for Hillary all the same. It's the same on the other side too. "I don't like Trump, but if Hillary wins then..."

Most "independents" are only independent in between the 4 years where they reliably vote for the same party they always do.

i am not at all fine with it. i hate the fact that clinton and trump are the choices our system has generated. i hate the system that produced them. i think clinton will continue to reinforce everything i hate [except perhaps in appointing judges that i would prefer to those whom trump would appoint].

i understand and share woodsman's desire to shatter this system, but i'm not convinced trump would do that given the ways he's tacked since getting the nomination. i also think trump is dangerous in a deeper way. he might indeed change the system, it's possible, but i am far from convinced he'd change it for the better. and if he just caused political chaos i'm concerned about what would come out the other side.

"things fall apart/the center cannot hold" and so on, leads to "what rough beast... slouches towards bethlehem to be born."

[DSpencer]

Re: Trump to win?

i am not at all fine with it. i hate the fact that clinton and trump are the choices our system has generated. i hate the system that produced them. i think clinton will continue to reinforce everything i hate [except perhaps in appointing judges that i would prefer to those whom trump would appoint].

i understand and share woodsman's desire to shatter this system, but i'm not convinced trump would do that given the ways he's tacked since getting the nomination. i also think trump is dangerous in a deeper way. he might indeed change the system, it's possible, but i am far from convinced he'd change it for the better. and if he just caused political chaos i'm concerned about what would come out the other side.

"things fall apart/the center cannot hold" and so on, leads to "what rough beast... slouches towards bethlehem to be born."

I'm not at all convinced that Trump would shatter the system. Even if he wanted to, how could he? And I agree that it's more likely than not we would end up worse on the other side.

I suppose it's a sort of prisoner's dilemma. The wannabe 3rd party voters are afraid to vote their conscience unless they can be assured the people who lean towards the other half of the two party system will do the same. We're trapped in a prison we created for ourselves and guarded only by the bogeyman of the "greater evil" winning.

The "system" is really just your actions on a large scale. You say you want to shatter it, but then you go into the voting booth and take the one action necessary to ensure its survival.

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

I'm not at all convinced that Trump would shatter the system. Even if he wanted to, how could he? And I agree that it's more likely than not we would end up worse on the other side.

I suppose it's a sort of prisoner's dilemma. The wannabe 3rd party voters are afraid to vote their conscience unless they can be assured the people who lean towards the other half of the two party system will do the same. We're trapped in a prison we created for ourselves and guarded only by the bogeyman of the "greater evil" winning.

The "system" is really just your actions on a large scale. You say you want to shatter it, but then you go into the voting booth and take the one action necessary to ensure its survival.

You remain trapped in the prisoner's dilemma so long as you accept your opponent's premise that you have nothing to gain by changing your strategy. Once you change it, then the game dissolves and a new game is afoot. And the best solution to the prisoner's dilemma is cooperation so this should explain with sufficient clarity why people who support Clinton are abandoning all decency in a no-holds-barred attempt to dehumanize their political opponents and keep people divided.

It explains why it is critical for the neoliberal and neconservative elites running the two parties that Trump supporters be made anathema. If Trumpsters are made totally depraved then no person who considers themselves virtuous can recognize in them any common interest or humanity and the game continues. Once common interests are recognized, cooperation can begin, defections begin and the game unravels. For HRC to win, Trump supporters must be made subhuman.

Such games are created by mad men for insane ends. So why keep playing?

What's crazy to me is this idea that it is inevitable that if we choose something different the only possible outcome is something bad. Why is it fated that we would end up worse? Why is it guaranteed that there is no other outcome, even a neutral or mixed one?

All we really know about Trump is that the oligarchs are violently opposed to him. The ruling elites and their puppets are genuinely concerned about Trump’s challenge to their control and they have united against Trump. They have used their money to buy up “progressive” websites paid to bring the print and TV anti-Trump propaganda onto the Internet, thus joining the print, TV, and NPR whores who are working overtime to demonize Trump's supporters and to elect Hillary.

The entire power structure of our country is behind Hillary. Both Democratic and Republican political establishments and both ideologies, neoliberals and neoconservatives, are united behind Hillary. The Nash Equilibrium between the GOP and Democratic elites broke once Trump became the nominee. The NY/Washington/LA axis recognized that Trump ended their game and so created a new game that requires their cooperation to defeat you. You are the enemy of their status quo.

I think we can break the Nash Equilibrium by doing something different. That starts by rejecting people who would pit us against each other by race, by rejecting people who are trying to make us afraid of each other, and by doing what Americans always do in the face of uncertainty - come together, show courage, apply their ingenuity and get to work fixing the problem. We'll never fix it by doing the same thing we did before.

This is an easy one, people.

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

What's crazy to me is this idea that it is inevitable that if we choose something different the only possible outcome is something bad.

i don't think anything is inevitable. or if something is inevitable i am unable to discern it. i'm left with subjective probabilities.

Why is it fated that we would end up worse? Why is it guaranteed that there is no other outcome, even a neutral or mixed one?

it's not fated and it's not guaranteed, imo.

All we really know about Trump is that the oligarchs are violently opposed to him.

that's not ALL we really know. importantly we also have the information of trump's own behavior - his decisions, his speeches, his tweets, and his behavior as a businessman. that's a lot of information to add to the fact that the oligarchs oppose him.

The ruling elites and their puppets are genuinely concerned about Trump’s challenge to their control and they have united against Trump.

agreed

This is an easy one, people.

unfortunately it's not easy for me, nor for others who dislike the status quo but remain wary of trump. i wish i shared your certainty.

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

that's not ALL we really know. importantly we also have the information of trump's own behavior - his decisions, his speeches, his tweets, and his behavior as a businessman. that's a lot of information to add to the fact that the oligarchs oppose him.

Go to youtube and watch Trump interviews from years back, from before he threw his hat into the ring. You'll see a very different Trump. He was intelligent, calm, thoughtful. I still think (hope) that the way he presented himself and the things he said in those interviews is the "real" Trump.

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

Go to youtube and watch Trump interviews from years back, from before he threw his hat into the ring. You'll see a very different Trump. He was intelligent, calm, thoughtful. I still think (hope) that the way he presented himself and the things he said in those interviews is the "real" Trump.

he's said everything on both sides of most issues. witness his recent pirouette on immigration reform. everyone takes what they like and thinks [hopes] THAT is the "real" trump. he's good at that game.

the firestorm he got from the right when he tried to soften his immigration stance, and his quick backtrack on the issue, coupled with his list of supreme court candidates, his enrich-the-rich tax plan, and his need for congressional support, all make me think that if elected [and thus likely hold both chambers of congress for the gop] he'd implement the standard republican agenda. and that's the "safe", non radical scenario. more radically he'd undermine free speech, appoint judges who would squeeze voting rights, further strengthen the state surveillance apparatus and be over-reactive internationally.

[of course, hillary is likely to be over-reactive internationally. at least that is her history.]

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

must say folks, that this thread has been one of THE Best eye've seen (and/or been ignored on) in all my years here on the tulip.

and woody has done a FABULOUS job of outing the twisted-pretzel logic of the defenders of the status quo here that seem a bit too quick on the draw to interpret every statement from anybody who disagrees with ANY challenge to the status quo as being "..racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic.." along with all the rest of the (psychobabble) $10 words the 'social justice warriors' puke out in the LAMERSTREAM MEDIA on a daily basis.

the only thing funnier than watching as HITLERY spins her head 360deg around on her shoulders, while hurling green vomit (ala linda blair in the exorcist) - as her 'champions' (lyin, weasel bastards) in the media and social justice crowd all rally round THE MOST CORRUPT, INEPT, BOUGHT-OFF POLITICIAN OF THE LAST 100YEARS ?
(uhhh... i mean, next to the 2nd most corrupt, inept, bought-off, lyin, weasel bastard current occupant, who's wife even outed herself (themselves) during the demorat convention as surely racist as the KKK, with her statement that 'she wakes up every day in a house built by slaves' ??? and nobody in the social justice crowd has a GD thing to say about it??
Riiiight....)

would be watching her defenders here 'justify' their positions based upon their own spin-their-heads-360deg stance.

and i think woody = winning.

GO WOODY GO !!!!

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Assange says he will bring down Clinton before the first debate:

http://www.usasupreme.com/assange-i-...eptember-26th/

And the KKK likes Hillary too!

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016...llary-clinton/

[santafe2]

Re: Trump to win?

i am not at all fine with it. i hate the fact that clinton and trump are the choices our system has generated. i hate the system that produced them. i think clinton will continue to reinforce everything i hate [except perhaps in appointing judges that i would prefer to those whom trump would appoint].

i understand and share woodsman's desire to shatter this system, but i'm not convinced trump would do that given the ways he's tacked since getting the nomination. i also think trump is dangerous in a deeper way. he might indeed change the system, it's possible, but i am far from convinced he'd change it for the better. and if he just caused political chaos i'm concerned about what would come out the other side.

"things fall apart/the center cannot hold" and so on, leads to "what rough beast... slouches towards bethlehem to be born."

I've been uncomfortable with others lumping you in with my position. We have very different points of view. I get why this group of iTulipers don't like me, I despise their position, but I can't rationalize why your thoughtful comments would be dropped in the same bucket.

These Trump supporters are the progeny of the same racists that barred the door to integrated education 50 years ago. They've learned to use politically correct language, but it only makes them more despicable to me. The US party system isn't perfect but it's the system we have so we better support it.

It's a system, of the people, by the people and for the people. If we don't acknowledge our responsibility for the current state of the system, we're no different than every Trump supporter or Libertarians driving on public roads and not getting the irony. HRC is a product of, by and for the people. If we want more from her we need to work much harder for it. I do not hate our choices, I accept that we’ve not worked very hard recently to make our choices better.

Where we really disagree is on HRC, I don't dislike Clinton. I get her as a classic American politician, (two wolves and a lamb discussing what they'll have for lunch). Our politicians want to get elected and re-elected. They look to their constituents to drive their policies. Their constituents have not worked very hard to move them in the right direction.

There is a lot of nonsense surrounding this election but in one way politicians are like real estate, there are 3 rules: Policy, policy, policy, (for real estate it's location). I get her policy on race, the unconscionable level of imprisonment, US infrastructure, the environment and the Supreme Court. Her base set of policies is one I can support. It's that simple. For me, it's really non emotional. It comes from decades of business training. When you have a problem that seems insurmountable, the last thing you do is freak out. You define the problem as clearly as possible and you solicit solutions from your team. You make a decision and you move forward. It doesn't always work the way you intended but you have to make a decision and move forward.

This is what I'm doing. I'm working and donating to get her elected and I will continue to work after the election to move her in the right direction. I'd like it if she took many of Sanders policies seriously but it won't happen unless we push her in that direction.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Yet another reason people want to get rid of the establishment of both parties:

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DECLARATIONS
A Wounded Boy’s Silence, and the Candidates’




POLITICS & IDEAS
Why Trump Is Failing With College Grads




Tom Wolfe’s Bonkers New Book Takes Down Darwin and Chomsky




An Antidote to Depression-Era Gloom




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Another Obama Parting Gift




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The NAACP vs. Minority Children




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Starbucks Sippy Cups for Lawyers




A Quiet Hero From the Greatest Generation




BUSINESS WORLD
Dear EpiPen Customers . . .




Have You Checked Your Risk Level Lately?




CROSS COUNTRY
How Detroit Can Liberate Its ‘Extreme Rebels’




When the U.S. Postal Service Also Delivered Babies




POTOMAC WATCH
The U.S. Department of Clinton




DECLARATIONS
A Wounded Boy’s Silence, and the Candidates’




POLITICS & IDEAS
Why Trump Is Failing With College Grads




Tom Wolfe’s Bonkers New Book Takes Down Darwin and Chomsky




An Antidote to Depression-Era Gloom




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Another Obama Parting Gift




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The NAACP vs. Minority Children




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Starbucks Sippy Cups for Lawyers




A Quiet Hero From the Greatest Generation




BUSINESS WORLD
Dear EpiPen Customers . . .





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• OPINION
• COLUMNISTS
• BUSINESS WORLD

Dear EpiPen Customers . . .

Don’t worry, our egregious price hikes aren’t aimed at you—they’re aimed at your insurance company.

ENLARGE
Mylan CEO Heather Bresch during a Feb. 11 Bloomberg Television interview in New York. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS





By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Aug. 26, 2016 5:36 p.m. ET101 COMMENTS

To whom it may concern:
As the CEO of Mylan, maker of the world-famous EpiPen, it gives me great pleasure to address you, via email from an undisclosed location, concerning the pricing of our product.
As you may know, my father is a U.S. senator from West Virginia, where the state motto is “Montani semper liberi.” It means “mountaineers are always free.” Indeed, they are. But pharmaceuticals aren’t—especially EpiPen.
Sadly, thanks to a controversy fanned by the media, even my father, better known as Sen.Joe Manchin, issued a statement this week decrying the “skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs.” He didn’t mention EpiPen for good reason. He’s my dad.
Our health-care system is confusing. The public is understandably confused about why we have raised the price of a two-pack of EpiPens by 500% over the past decade—from $100 in 2007 to $600 today.

That sounds like a lot, especially since the active ingredient, epinephrine, has been around since 1901 and is cheap to make. Yes, we recently improved our injector, but guess what? The old injector worked fine. EpiPen, using the old injector, saved thousands of lives, especially children who are allergic to peanuts or bee stings.
The drug can be bought for 10 cents in many countries; the old injector design our would-be competitors are free to copy to their heart’s content. Our prices would surely be lower, then, if we actually had some competitors. Don’t blame me. The Food and Drug Administration has delayed the entry of one competitor and made noises that recently drove another from the market over product-quality snafus.
As I explained to the New York Times this week, “I am a for-profit business.” EpiPen sales have reached $1 billion a year on my watch, up from $200 million a decade ago. Guess how much of that growth is not increased volume but increased profit? A lot. That’s capitalism. I’m doing my job. Maybe the FDA should do theirs.*
(*Mylan employs lobbyists and lawyers to delay competitors from getting their products approved by the FDA.)
Newspaper and TV coverage of our pricing controversy has not been friendly to Mylan, but most reports at least mention the ways we strive to lower the out-of-pocket price for consumers with coupons and rebates to offset their copays and deductibles. We also provide free drugs to hardship cases. The Washington Post even alluded to these efforts in its headline: “Despite coupons, EpiPen’s virtual monopoly roils critics.”
Sadly, the media have proved unable to explain the finer points of pharmaceutical pricing. Not that we blame the media: health-care pricing is complicated and subject to Reporter Complexity Refusal Syndrome.
And yet the essential matter is not complicated. It can be explained in a sentence: Six hundred dollars is the price we want insurers to pay.
Insurers are not spending your money. They are spending everybody’s money. Look at it from the perspective of health-care providers, drugmakers or medical-device suppliers. All of us are competing for a common pot of loot. Naturally, each wants to maximize his share. That’s human nature. If 10 hungry people are sitting around a small bowl of jelly beans, each will eat more, and faster, than he otherwise would.
Notice something else: How much each provider takes out of the common pot has no natural, organic relationship to the value the provider brings to the patient. Why not? Well, in the rest of the economy, when a consumer is spending out of his pocket, he has incentive to judge whether the service he’s buying is worth the price he’s being asked to pay.
Now you know why we offer coupons and rebates to individual consumers. This is our way of trying to re-desensitize customers to the price of EpiPen in order to counter the efforts of insurers to re-sensitize them by hitting them with copays and deductibles.
Then why does getting our coupons and rebates involve rigmarole? Because certain consumers won’t make the effort, and then we get to keep the money that would otherwise go to defray their out-of-pocket costs.
It’s a great game and we have fun playing it. On average, however, it probably does not increase the health-care industry’s profit margins or the public’s health—but only the share of national income diverted to health care from everything else: beer nuts, wedding presents, automobiles. Our industry’s share of GDP is 17%, up from 13% two decades ago. Hooray, that’s $700 billion a year.
For decades, health-care reform as preached by knowledgeable experts has aimed at fixing this dynamic, and yet every law passed by Congress ends up doing the opposite, basically using taxpayer money to fill the pot with more jelly beans for providers to fight over.
So if you don’t like how much your EpiPen costs, elect different politicians (except for dad).
Sincerely,
Heather Bresch
Chief Executive Officer, Mylan

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POTOMAC WATCH
The U.S. Department of Clinton




DECLARATIONS
A Wounded Boy’s Silence, and the Candidates’




POLITICS & IDEAS
Why Trump Is Failing With College Grads




Tom Wolfe’s Bonkers New Book Takes Down Darwin and Chomsky




An Antidote to Depression-Era Gloom




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Another Obama Parting Gift




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The NAACP vs. Minority Children




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Starbucks Sippy Cups for Lawyers




A Quiet Hero From the Greatest Generation




BUSINESS WORLD
Dear EpiPen Customers . . .




Have You Checked Your Risk Level Lately?




CROSS COUNTRY
How Detroit Can Liberate Its ‘Extreme Rebels’




When the U.S. Postal Service Also Delivered Babies




POTOMAC WATCH
The U.S. Department of Clinton




DECLARATIONS
A Wounded Boy’s Silence, and the Candidates’




POLITICS & IDEAS
Why Trump Is Failing With College Grads




Tom Wolfe’s Bonkers New Book Takes Down Darwin and Chomsky




An Antidote to Depression-Era Gloom




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Another Obama Parting Gift




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The NAACP vs. Minority Children




REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Starbucks Sippy Cups for Lawyers




A Quiet Hero From the Greatest Generation




BUSINESS WORLD
Dear EpiPen Customers . . .





PreviousNext

• [*=center]
  [*=center]
  [*=center]
  [*=center]
  [*=center]
  [*=center]
  [*=center]

• OPINION
• COLUMNISTS
• BUSINESS WORLD

Dear EpiPen Customers . . .

Don’t worry, our egregious price hikes aren’t aimed at you—they’re aimed at your insurance company.

ENLARGE
Mylan CEO Heather Bresch during a Feb. 11 Bloomberg Television interview in New York. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS





By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Aug. 26, 2016 5:36 p.m. ET101 COMMENTS

To whom it may concern:
As the CEO of Mylan, maker of the world-famous EpiPen, it gives me great pleasure to address you, via email from an undisclosed location, concerning the pricing of our product.
As you may know, my father is a U.S. senator from West Virginia, where the state motto is “Montani semper liberi.” It means “mountaineers are always free.” Indeed, they are. But pharmaceuticals aren’t—especially EpiPen.
Sadly, thanks to a controversy fanned by the media, even my father, better known as Sen.Joe Manchin, issued a statement this week decrying the “skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs.” He didn’t mention EpiPen for good reason. He’s my dad.
Our health-care system is confusing. The public is understandably confused about why we have raised the price of a two-pack of EpiPens by 500% over the past decade—from $100 in 2007 to $600 today.

That sounds like a lot, especially since the active ingredient, epinephrine, has been around since 1901 and is cheap to make. Yes, we recently improved our injector, but guess what? The old injector worked fine. EpiPen, using the old injector, saved thousands of lives, especially children who are allergic to peanuts or bee stings.
The drug can be bought for 10 cents in many countries; the old injector design our would-be competitors are free to copy to their heart’s content. Our prices would surely be lower, then, if we actually had some competitors. Don’t blame me. The Food and Drug Administration has delayed the entry of one competitor and made noises that recently drove another from the market over product-quality snafus.
As I explained to the New York Times this week, “I am a for-profit business.” EpiPen sales have reached $1 billion a year on my watch, up from $200 million a decade ago. Guess how much of that growth is not increased volume but increased profit? A lot. That’s capitalism. I’m doing my job. Maybe the FDA should do theirs.*
(*Mylan employs lobbyists and lawyers to delay competitors from getting their products approved by the FDA.)
Newspaper and TV coverage of our pricing controversy has not been friendly to Mylan, but most reports at least mention the ways we strive to lower the out-of-pocket price for consumers with coupons and rebates to offset their copays and deductibles. We also provide free drugs to hardship cases. The Washington Post even alluded to these efforts in its headline: “Despite coupons, EpiPen’s virtual monopoly roils critics.”
Sadly, the media have proved unable to explain the finer points of pharmaceutical pricing. Not that we blame the media: health-care pricing is complicated and subject to Reporter Complexity Refusal Syndrome.
And yet the essential matter is not complicated. It can be explained in a sentence: Six hundred dollars is the price we want insurers to pay.
Insurers are not spending your money. They are spending everybody’s money. Look at it from the perspective of health-care providers, drugmakers or medical-device suppliers. All of us are competing for a common pot of loot. Naturally, each wants to maximize his share. That’s human nature. If 10 hungry people are sitting around a small bowl of jelly beans, each will eat more, and faster, than he otherwise would.
Notice something else: How much each provider takes out of the common pot has no natural, organic relationship to the value the provider brings to the patient. Why not? Well, in the rest of the economy, when a consumer is spending out of his pocket, he has incentive to judge whether the service he’s buying is worth the price he’s being asked to pay.
Now you know why we offer coupons and rebates to individual consumers. This is our way of trying to re-desensitize customers to the price of EpiPen in order to counter the efforts of insurers to re-sensitize them by hitting them with copays and deductibles.
Then why does getting our coupons and rebates involve rigmarole? Because certain consumers won’t make the effort, and then we get to keep the money that would otherwise go to defray their out-of-pocket costs.
It’s a great game and we have fun playing it. On average, however, it probably does not increase the health-care industry’s profit margins or the public’s health—but only the share of national income diverted to health care from everything else: beer nuts, wedding presents, automobiles. Our industry’s share of GDP is 17%, up from 13% two decades ago. Hooray, that’s $700 billion a year.
For decades, health-care reform as preached by knowledgeable experts has aimed at fixing this dynamic, and yet every law passed by Congress ends up doing the opposite, basically using taxpayer money to fill the pot with more jelly beans for providers to fight over.
So if you don’t like how much your EpiPen costs, elect different politicians (except for dad).
Sincerely,
Heather Bresch
Chief Executive Officer, Mylan

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_sWq-Pl3Xw

[Morebo]

Re: Trump to win?

Why not do the moving lips match the audio? Surely it calls into question the authenticity of the video or are production values that bad in the capital?

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

Post #1000 on page 50 in this thread is a copy/paste of a webpage that has some kind of code that is incompatible with iTulip's stylesheet. It created the dreaded "blank white page syndrome" that is afflicting other threads. The only way I can view page 50 now is by turning off the formatting in my browser. I can't post replies on that page, either.

The way to avoid the blank white page is to copy and paste only the text of an article, not the entire page. When I post content from another site I sometimes also do an intermediate step of first pasting the text into a "plain text editor" like Mousepad in Linux, or Notepad in Windows. That strips all the HTML and CSS code out of it. Then I copy and paste that plain text into the iTulip editing box. It takes only a few seconds longer to do it this way but it doesn't break the page.

To reply to santafe2 in post #999 I'll try to format this the best I can...

These Trump supporters are the progeny of the same racists that barred the door to integrated education 50 years ago. They've learned to use politically correct language, but it only makes them more despicable to me. The US party system isn't perfect but it's the system we have so we better support it.

Beware of making sweeping generalizations. Trump supporters are not all alike. Some are racists for sure. They're the ones that get the media attention. Others are not racist at all. The latter are just hoping that he will oppose the Republocrat system that shoved things like GATT, NAFTA, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, TBTF and soon the TPP down our throats over our objections. People who have seen their income stagnate and their livelihood become less secure for 30 years while the politicians they elected sold out to the highest bidders. I think a lot of these people are not declaring themselves for Trump in the polls because they don't want to be labeled as racists.

Now understand, like jk I don't know if Trump would rectify these problems or blow us all up.

It's a system, of the people, by the people and for the people. If we don't acknowledge our responsibility for the current state of the system, we're no different than every Trump supporter or Libertarians driving on public roads and not getting the irony.

Those are pretty words that used to mean something, but it hasn't been a country of the people, by the people and for the people in a long, long time. Blacks, whites, hispanics, middle-class and the poor have been voting for whomever they believe will look out for their interests, or they vote for the lessor of two evils, but all we've gotten is more evil in the form of an elite that, once they take their oath of office promptly forget all the promises they made to their electorates. We got Democrats like the Clintons repealing Glass-Steagall and passing the 1994 Crime Bill that put more blacks behind bars than ever before in history. We got Republicans who used to stand for fiscal conservatism supporting TARP over massive objections from their constituents. We got politicians from parties wasting lives and national treasure on endless wars, and promising more of the same. Both parties support uncontrolled immigration (which hurts blacks and the poor the most) in order to provide cheaper labor (Republicans) and future votes (Democrats).

HRC is a product of, by and for the people.

IMO, HRC is a product of, by and only for HRC.

If we want more from her we need to work much harder for it.

If she gets elected, voters will have zero power to control her. When faced with the choice of following your will or the will of Goldman Sachs, do you honestly believe that she will choose you over them? Special interests give her millions of dollars, but they can't vote her into office. To get elected she needs you. She needs to convince enough voters like you that she's on your side so that you'll put her into office, after which she can be enriched by serving Goldman Sachs, the Saudis, and every other plutocrat that pays for her services.

If you don't believe me, ask her yourself. Demand that she release the transcripts of her lucrative talks to Goldman Sachs. Oh wait. People HAVE been demanding that, but just as Trump refuses to release his tax returns, HRC refuses to reveal what she promised to Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. No amount of pressure from voters will influence her once she's in office. Personally, I'm a lot more worried about her promises to Wall Street than I am about Trump's taxes.

They say that the definition of insanity is expecting different results from the same behavior, so I ask you: If HRC refuses to be honest and accountable before the election, why you believe she'll have a sudden change of heart once elected? What will you do to steer her in the right direction? Write her letters? Picket the White House? Post on Twitter? That'll have her shaking in her boots!

I do not hate our choices, I accept that we’ve not worked very hard recently to make our choices better.

I disagree. I've never witnessed a primary season where people on both sides worked harder to nominate candidates that they believed would serve the 99% instead of the 1%. To that end, Republican and Independent voters overwhelmingly supported Trump in the primaries, but are being reviled by both parties and the MSM for doing so.

Democrats and Independents could not have worked harder for Sanders, but they were disenfranchised by the most UNdemocratic actions of the Democratic (note the irony) National Committee, which violated its own mandate by sabotaging Sanders and promoting Clinton. From stuffing ballot boxes in the caucuses, rigging electronic voting machines, removing newly registered voters from the rolls, closing polling places where turnout was predicted to be heavy for Sanders, and failing to headline these abuses in the news, the collusion between HRC, the DNC and the MSM created the most fraudulent Democratic primary season ever.

How can you paint it as a moral victory to vote for someone as corrupt as HRC while considering it immoral to vote for the uncouth Trump? How can you support a candidate that feels so entitled to be president, she would disenfranchise the voters of her own party in order to achieve her goal?

Where we really disagree is on HRC, I don't dislike Clinton. I get her as a classic American politician, (two wolves and a lamb discussing what they'll have for lunch). Our politicians want to get elected and re-elected. They look to their constituents to drive their policies. Their constituents have not worked very hard to move them in the right direction.

You totally confuse me. In one breath you say we haven't worked as hard as we should to get better candidates. In the next breath you admit she's the classic type of politician that will eat you alive, yet you're proud to support her! This sounds to me like a classic example of Stockholm Syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

If after all the evidence to the contrary you still believe that voters like us, with our tiny financial donations, have the power to influence a politician as deeply corrupted as HRC, I'm afraid you are befooling yourself.

There is a lot of nonsense surrounding this election but in one way politicians are like real estate, there are 3 rules: Policy, policy, policy, (for real estate it's location).

No, there are only two rules in politics: Impression Management and Money. Perform impression management to get the gullible voters to elect you, then serve wealthy and powerful for it is they, not the voters, who will lavish you with wealth once you're back in the private sector.

I get her policy on race, the unconscionable level of imprisonment, US infrastructure, the environment and the Supreme Court. Her base set of policies is one I can support. It's that simple. For me, it's really non emotional. It comes from decades of business training. When you have a problem that seems insurmountable, the last thing you do is freak out. You define the problem as clearly as possible and you solicit solutions from your team. You make a decision and you move forward. It doesn't always work the way you intended but you have to make a decision and move forward.

This is what I'm doing. I'm working and donating to get her elected and I will continue to work after the election to move her in the right direction. I'd like it if she took many of Sanders policies seriously but it won't happen unless we push her in that direction.

Are you sure you're non emotional about this? I agree with you about making decisions and moving forward. But when it doesn't work out the way you intended, you need to re-evaluate the situation and/or your assessment of it. We all make the best decisions we can using the data available. When the data changes we need to be willing to change our opinions accordingly, if necessary. As Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the Hobgoblin of little minds." That's why I'm re-evaluating my earlier support of Trump since he began transforming into a traditional, icky Republican.

I learned a hard lesson many years ago to not give my devotion and loyalty to anyone who is not devoted and loyal to me in return. HRC is not the slightest bit loyal or devoted to you. Her only loyalty is to herself; her only devotion is to her own ambition.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Trump to win?

Great post, Shiny!

A ton of great points. I want to expand on one:
"Policy, policy, policy" is just "Impression Management" until it's implemented.
In other words: promises.

I think it was Woodsman who predicted that all the new, Bernie-driven planks in
the DNC platform will go in the round file the day after she's elected. I agree.
She doesn't care about us. And asking her to care about us after we elect her
isn't a good plan. Look at her track record and, as you pointed out, her refusal
to release the transcripts to her lucrative Wall Street talks.

If congress gives her a chance, I'll even bet she signs the TPP. She may deign to
give us an excuse why.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Hillary assembles her war council:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/26/ir...cking-hillary/

And why does she associate with those against women's rights:

http://nypost.com/2016/08/28/huma-ab...ti-women-book/