I guess I had the broad outlines of this election figured out by June 11th, 2014. That’s two years ago, today.
Some surprising details in the interim, but that’s all basically noise.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I am shocked that Elisabeth Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton—without an audible peep.
Did you expect her to endorse Trump?
Naw, just denounce the corrupt, rigged, fraudulent process, refuse to endorse Evil Clinton, and refuse to sully her True Progressiveness by soiling her hands with working to elect her.
That’s certainly the sentiment of all the Bernie-or-busters currently posting on her Facebook page:
And on, and on, and on…. Oh, but I’m sure someone will be rushing in to inform us that these thousands of irate rants are all just from GOP ratfuckers, not Sanders supporters, no, can’t be.
Which illustrates, among other things, that Sanders’ campaign brought non-traditional members to the Democratic Party, assuming they stay around to, you know, actually vote.
On the other hand even I am keeping my fingers crossed that Warren is not formally asked to be VP or declines in that event. Sadly it seems our neoliberal experiment, having exposed by deregulation the wealth and prosperty of so many to the uninhibited predations of opportunistic and destructive capitalism, has no answer for the distorted incentives and surrealistic situations which permeate our global economy and are now clearly its inevitable consequence. No answer at all.
Warren and Sanders are the leading assets the party retains to rebuild from the coming economic dilemma; I would be loathe to have them compromised at this point by association with the mainstream neoliberal enablers.
I don’t want Warren picked for VP, simply because I want my senator to stay right where she is doing excellent work and not being replaced, however long or briefly, by our Republican governor’s pick. Charlie Baker wouldn’t appoint a wingnut, he’s not that kind of guy himself, but that makes anyone he puts in the seat even more dangerous to any hope of flipping the Senate, not just for the fill-in term but potentially in the special election. Run an incumbent Scott Brown type Republican against a palooka Dem,* and FSM only knows what would happen. Baker’s smart, he’d likely pick someone who’d have broad appeal. Heck, Bill Weld might like another shot at the Senate once he’s done with the Libertarian VP nomination.
*No, it won’t be Coakley, the party here isn’t that braindead, but….
LOL This election is now gonna be all about Trump. Nothing about policy, but handwaving.
Did you see where TSA is the next object of privatization, now they have reduced it to ashes by defunding.
Well, if they extend retained civil asset forfeiture to the TSA as part of the deal I can see the IPO hitting a price to earnings ratio in the high seventies.
Wow. That’s a thought. And now they can access electronic cash, too.
http://www.snopes.com/oklahoma-police-erad-civil-forfeitures/
Just put your wallet in the tray, sir…
Not just the TSA, FAA too:
It’s like a swarm of locusts.
You betcha they can find Dem Senators willing to go along. Might find a President, too.
That whole upgrade on equipment saga…broken govt at its best.
If he had the Democratic Senators, he would name names and the Senators would be talking about this publicly. Shuster is bluffing here.
Unless there’s a a fall in GDP for two successive quarters:
We all sense this, I’m guessing, from anecdotal evidence but it also seems a stunning indictment of the neoliberal response to the crisis of 2008; enrich the perpetrators and continue to enable the same high-risk behaviour, expecting a different outcome. Just look around:
Signs are starting to become apparent that things aren’t sustainably rosy; we just don’t want to know. Yellen and the Fed have one round remaining but they seem afraid to pull the trigger. I don’t blame them.
The Fed is taking fire for indulging the bankers with that last interest rate increase. Are suggestions that that subsidy disappear before it gets noticed.
Raise interest rates and smash wage pressure. Oops, did not mean to kill job creation…. STILL refuse to see connection between stalled economy and lack of money in the hands of spenders.
Higher interest rates reward savers and punish consumers, granted. But it also punishes highly leveraged businesses, which include many since low interest rates created perverse incentives for management.
The markets don’t want a rate hike; far from it. The sudden constriction on ‘free’ money undermines some of their products and practices requiring constant reinvestment and, not inconsequentially, on-going fees and commissions. Never mind calling in markers on the interest on trillions of outstanding debt, which is the existential threat to the markets, real or perceived. This is the great irony of quantitative easing; instead of treating it as a temporary condition the market rebuilt their business models around it and then cranked up their lobbying to perpetuate it. How’s that for shallow and short-term thinking? Only the US dollar and Treasuries would prosper, it seems, and indeed might harm by capital flight struggling NIRP economies with whom we are in symbiosis such as Europe and deeply indebted Japan. There are a whole range of distorted incentives influencing decision making in the global economy; never mind outright corruption and misreporting such as in China.
On the other hand low interest rates have clearly had all the beneficial impact they are going to have; the cure is now harming the patient, we never awoke from the anaesthetic the surgery required. That’s not a bad analogy; if the medicine is withheld we might awaken and ask for a hamburger or alternatively have a seizure and perish. What we can’t do is more of the same.
Try and find someone willing to discuss this publicly who is not talking their own book or selling gold coins is a challenge however. I would love to know Hillary’s position, for example, on negative interest rate policy. I’m guessing she would bake us a pretzel.
Bank pressure for that excess reserves subsidy, no? Direct pipe into taxpayer veins.
For 95 years, from 1913 to 2008, the Fed paid zero interest on reserves. The Fed started paying IOR in 2008. The Fed needs to go back to zero IOR.
Of many such predations of the public purse by private, but politically connected, fingers. Unless we break the hold they have on our political leadership in the Democratic Party it will continue apace and our kids will have to do the legwork to expose the rorting for another generation. This is a long-term problem that Bernie clearly identified. But we don’t give a tinkers damn; content in our cheerleading.
That’s why the choice of Hillary underwhelms me; was she really the best the Democratic Party has to offer? A glossy brochure of clearly failed 1990s triangulation in lieu of policy? Quick wave some shiny objects around; say some uplifting things. I think we are being told sweet nothings while her real friends pick our collective pockets. Debbie Wasserman Schulz payday shenanigans should tell you all you need to know about the progressive aspirations of our nominee. It’s all sweet talk; her Rolodex is fat with people whom do not have our best interests at heart, far from it.
Look, we have to burn this country down in order to save it. Besides, there really isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between B̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶G̶o̶r̶e̶ Trump and Clinton anyway!
But remember: after talking mad shit about how evil the DemocratTM party is, as an ostensible Democratic party voter, I’m totally going to blame lowered voter turnout on Hitlery Clinton and UnPuresTM like yourself…somehow. And if it turns out that had PuresTM like myself voted in the First-Past-The-Post election that the US unfortunately has, and turned a House seat or 5 had we just sullied ourselves and ruined our purity…well, I’m just going to project it away by saying that you’re just blaming the TrueVictimsTM, which is of course non-voters and people like myself who instead voted for the Jill Stein/Mickey Mouse protest-only progressive dream ticket.
#Trump/Arpaio 2016: Because Hillary is just too dangerous.
If you are auditioning for Davis X Machina‘s gig I think he’s still around in spite of Hillary’s nomination. Yeah, I made the same mistaken assumption.
He’s also several magnitudes dryer and considerably more concise, to his eternal credit.
Thanks for the concern, chief.
The Democratic Party has very serious problems, and some of us have been attempting to discuss these problems as they relate to the present election. You and a few others explain it all away with your all-purpose straw-man, the “purist”. Hippie-punching is good fun, but it doesn’t address any of the real concerns about systemic corruption in the Democratic Party. So I can only conclude that you don’t think there are any real concerns to speak of.
I think we need to turn this around. Your concerns about “purists” don’t speak to me because I am definitely not a purist. But you describe yourself as a “non-purist.” Well, what degree of “non-pureism” do you find acceptable? Are there no limits? If there are, then what are they?
Without specifically engaging the issues, “non-purism” sounds like a convenient euphemism for “corruption is just fine”. Sorry, but hippie-punching just won’t cut it.
BooMan, The irony is so conspicuous it couldn’t be lost on anyone.
Has it ever occurred to you that Warren may have had good reason not to endorse either candidate during the process, but to enthusiastically endorse Clinton as soon as it was settled: That she is far closer to Sanders than to Clinton policywise; but that, having known and worked with both candidates, she believed that Sanders makes a great gadfly for progressive causes but would be a failure as president, while Clinton can be moved leftward and would be far more competent in the Oval Office.
I say “may”; I no more know than you do what motivated her; but I suggest you read this story from yesterday’s Boston Globe before you reject it out of hand:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/06/10/elizabeth-warren-and-hillary-clinton-might-closer
-than-you-think/mW7Jkp72QesomQD8GtUbOM/story.html
Key points:
I think you’re sort of right, but the real explanation is probably a lot simpler. Warren’s endorsement of Clinton is a mere formality. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama had more to do with it than Clinton.
The question of Warren being Clinton’s running mate is obviously different. I still can’t see why Warren would want that, and I don’t see why it should have much if anything to do with her endorsement, if that is what’s being implied.
Jeff Merkley, the only Senator to endorse Sanders, has also just switched to Hillary. Do you really think Merkley has changed his views of either Sanders or Clinton?
My point was that Warren understands political realities in just the same way.
I agree about Warren’s passion, but I don’t believe that passion is inspired by Hillary, but rather by the need to defeat Trump and the Republicans as thoroughly as possible.
And that in itself is a pretty realistic belief. What politician is, or even should be, ‘passionate’ about another politician? More than likely it’s all based on political calculations…’what is the best way to advance what I want to advance?’ It might be career (the vast majority of politicians, I would say), or policy, or more than likely a combination of both to different degrees.
So right now Warren is making a political calculation…what advances her agenda the most? Trump would be devastating to all she claims to believe. Clinton will move the ball in varying degrees on issues she claims to want. It’s a simple decision. She can’t sit it out and still be a progressive voice with influence.
As for VP….it’s also a simple political calculation, with a YOOOOGE personal twist. ‘How much influence will I have over policy?’ If she calculates ‘very little’ (likely much much less than Biden did, I would guess), then she should pass if it’s offered. If she calculates ‘a lot’ she should take the job. VP is power, and power influences.
Now add the personal…. if she calculates ‘very little’ it’s still reasonable to take the job. Personal ambition is a strong motivator, and the VP is no job to refuse lightly. You are a heartbeat from the presidency, and the presidency is the golden ring on the carousel.
Right now she appears to me to be auditioning for the job, but that might also be because she, like me, sees this race as unlike all others in the past.
I don’t think it will be offered, but if offered, she should take the job.
.
the fact that what we ended up with is Donald Trump is a pretty big surprise I think.
But yes, he did it the way you predicted.
He did it in basically the way I predicted, but it was also relatively easy for the reasons I laid out.
In addition to the acumen Martin brought to his predictions in this post, we can look at the attempts at analysis and the road forward from our usual suspect Frog Ponders. Among their interesting views and predictions:
Yeah. As pointed out by a subsequent poster:
Brat, just asked by @chucktodd whether there should be a minimum wage, says “I don’t have a well-formed response.” The man is an economist.
— @CitizenCohn
I mean, perhaps he was “attractive and articulate” to a GOP primary voter, but feel free to gaze upon one of Dave Brat’s stump speeches during his campaign:
He’s a damn wingnut through and through, animated by racism and a desire to lie to the public whenever and however necessary in order to move a radical agenda.
I’d call this defining down the terms attractive and articulate. A national Party cannot be sustained by these views.
“A national Party cannot be sustained by these views.”
Sure it could. It would just need to be the 1850s. And that’s the tell.
Touche’.
Nailed that one, didn’t you?
I read some people because I think they’re likely to be right and others because I wish they were right. This blog tends to succeed in both areas.
Reading that piece immediately after reading about the really awful Meg Whitman (I’m in CA) denouncing Ryan for not denouncing Trump and threatening to back Clinton, it occurred to me that gerrymandering may have actually backfired. By empowering small enclaves of double-digit IQ white racists, Whitman, nationalreview.com and even redstate.com, and even the frikkin Mormons … they’re all pulling their hair out in bunches.
Exhibit A:
Similar scenarios will continue to play out for literally years to come until the notorious class of 2010 is finally flushed out of the system. The Republican Party is breaking up like an ice floe; watching them jumping around the cracks trying to land on the biggest piece convinces me the moving feast of the long conservative con is over. We are seeing the end of something venal, evil and unsustainable; what comes next is hard to say.
I’ve had the misfortune to encounter Robert Morrow on my personal blog. First, I made fun of his attacks on Rick Perry (even a stopped clock is right twice a day), then he showed up, first to comment on my article, then to attack Hillary Clinton. He had to go back to his old tricks.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2011/08/lol-robert-morrow.html
This decade’s radical gerrymands in Republican-controlled States is most definitely proving to be bad for their Party.
They’re also extremely bad for our Nation.
Little unexpected resevoirs of sober truth are starting to bubble up out of the Republican fever swamp:
Too late; the bleeding-out will go on and on and there is nothing they can do to stanch the flow. The great grift has ended and the Chamber of Commerce faces electoral homelessness. Let’s not invite them over for hot cocoa and a comforting chat, eh?
“Let’s not invite them over for hot cocoa and a comforting chat…” Heh.
Pyrrhic Victories, all the way down.
Obama called it in 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/us/politics/27clinton.html?_r=0
(Kidding! I’m kidding!)
However, on the risks attendant to the nomination of the party’s most prominent, mainstream neoliberal enabler in the face of increasing policy doubt and controversy and slowing economic activity. This seems a suboptimal strategy, long term, and probably will create opportunities for our opponents.
This analysis is similar to many here in recent weeks in being incredibly overdetermined. It also studiously ignores the Clinton campaign and what she is running on.
There are many, many variables which will go into determining the actions during the next Presidential and Congressional terms. One of those variables is how those in the Sanders camp and/or Hillary opponents behave in the wake of her wins in the primary and (goddess willing) general elections.
If Sanders supporters despair in a corner before, during and after November, washing their hands of political activism and saying “She’s your President, you’ll have to answer to her actions,” then our movement will be denied the pressure that the people always has to place on all Presidents and Congresses to get them to do what we want.
I’m sooooooo sick of the despairing here. It’s a damn betrayal of the Sanders campaign. If you think Bernie’s going to go pout in a corner, you’ll soon be disabused of that notion. We’re about to win Sanders the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee if we keep our shit together. Let’s keep it together, for his and our sake.
A shame the GOP didn’t have a loon like Brat, Cotton, Ernst, Gardner, or Tillis — the guys that beat the 2014 DNC approved Dem candidates and that moved the GOP to the majority in the Senate which for some odd reason wasn’t predicted here at the Pond — ready to go in the 2016 Presidential sweeps. So, GOP voters had to go with the best facsimile on offer.
Governors, too. Brownback re-elected? Now those were some interesting polling results.
They were all re-elected and by healthy margins.
Brownback was re-elected because of course that was Kansas and you know What’s the Matter With Kansas, don’t you? It’s all that false consciousness.
More like false hopes. LOL
You write:
The entire electoral process as it stands now is “all basically noise,” Booman.
I didn’t exactly lick this PermaGov shit up off the street, y’know.
Read ’em and weep.
Or…read ’em and WTFU.
But READ ‘EM!!!
The Electoral Farce: an Interview with John Stauber
There’s more in this article.
Lots more.
Also: A Debasing Spectacle: Behind and Beyond the Latest Quadrennial Carnival
I am sorry…I really am…but despite all of your good work/all of your good intentions and the good work of many others with equally good intentions within the U.S. political system as it now stands, that system is so rigged against those good intentions that no matter how hard you work, when the job is finished nothing changes except the projected image that is distributed to continue to keep the rubes obedient. Back and forth, back and forth it goes.
Pissed off at all of the rotten Republicans in 2008? Republicans who were in their turn imaged into your consciousness to erase the heroic image of Bill Clinton that declined into Slick Willie Blue Dress before your very eyes?Here’s another image to placate you.
Pissed off at all of the rotten Democrats in 2016?
Here. We’ve got another couple of images to entertain you.
Choose one and shut the fuck up.
Like dat.
Or…
Wake the fuck up.
AG
This comment is now a stand-alone post.
The Entire Electoral Process As It Stands Now Is ALL Basically Noise.
Comment there, please.
Thank you…
AG