Play Nice 45th President of the United States: Donald Trump - Part 4 (cont in pt 5)

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JW Frogen

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I am not even a Trump fan, but I reckon of the Democrats do not wake up to a working class they once represented, he may just win the next election too.

This is not about Russia or Facebook or the right to cut off your penis and call yourself a woman, this is about making a decent living in a land where that is getting harder and harder and harder.
 

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herculez09

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I am not even a Trump fan, but I reckon of the Democrats do not wake up to a working class they once represented, he may just win the next election too.

This is not about Russia or Facebook or the right to cut off your penis and call yourself a woman, this is about making a decent living in a land where that is getting harder and harder and harder.
The Democrats don't really support the working class. It's a common misconception as we generally equate them with other labour movements around the world eg. ALP or the Labour Party in the UK.

The Democrats don't really have that background as labour movements in the US were violently supressed and shut down by most extant political organisations. So while people like Bill Shorten have genuine ties to unions and the 'working class', it is a hit different than the Democrats.

The Democrats have always, and will always, care more about big corporations than they do about the working class.
 
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floodbuster

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The Democrats don't really support the working class. It's a common misconception as we generally equate them with other labour movements around the world eg. ALP or the Labour Party in the UK.

The Democrats don't really have that background as labour movements in the US were violently supressed and shut down by most extant political organisations. So while people like Bill Shorten have genuine ties to unions and the 'working class', it is a hit different than the Democrats.

The Democrats have always, and will always, care more about big corporations than they do about the working class.
That's the problem the American people face is they have nobody that looks out for them who have a real chance of running for president.
Money rules all facets of their society, it's like how Martin Shkreli got 7 years for ripping off wealthy people but traders who caused the global financial crisis never got into trouble because all the victims were the little people.
 

Lebbo73

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Crikey how low would it be if they didn't poll only Republican Trump fans?

Even Fox has him at 45%.

Only two that have credibility on the list I posted are Reuters (41) and Gallop (39).
Rasmussen picked the election result Maggie! There’s your credibility in a nutshell.
 

Showbags

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Rasmussen picked the election result Maggie! There’s your credibility in a nutshell.
And Rasmussen got the 2012 election completely wrong and said Romney would be POTUS.

Polling companies get things right and wrong all the time.

Best to look at the data from all polling companies as a whole rather than cherry pick the ones you happen to like.
 
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Showbags

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Due to the non-compulsory voting system its also important to look at the strength of approval/disapproval rather than just flat approval numbers. His strong disapproval numbers are particularly high, meaning they are more likely to actually turnout.

If the Dems pick a decent candidate in 2020. Trump will be destroyed. If they pick another Clinton style candidate Trump is definitely a chance of re-election.
 

GreyCrow

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I am not even a Trump fan, but I reckon of the Democrats do not wake up to a working class they once represented, he may just win the next election too.

This is not about Russia or Facebook or the right to cut off your penis and call yourself a woman, this is about making a decent living in a land where that is getting harder and harder and harder.
Others have said its not the working class the Democrats need to drag back but the non-working class and the middle class. Just so they can show a path towards that decent living many aspire to or want to maintain.

Because everything else is noise
 

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The Democrats don't really support the working class. It's a common misconception as we generally equate them with other labour movements around the world eg. ALP or the Labour Party in the UK.

The Democrats don't really have that background as labour movements in the US were violently supressed and shut down by most extant political organisations. So while people like Bill Shorten have genuine ties to unions and the 'working class', it is a hit different than the Democrats.

The Democrats have always, and will always, care more about big corporations than they do about the working class.
That's a pretty big and misleading stretch. The Democrats and the Republicans 'swapped' in the 20th Century, so of course they don't have history to show for it, but that swap was related to the 'New Deal' after the Depression, which brought about a more 'left-wing' social contract that we would associate more closely with European/Commonwealth Democracies. From Wiki (my bold):
These programs included support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly as well as new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and changes to the monetary system. Most programs were enacted between 1933–1938, though some were later. They included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders, most during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs focused on what historians refer to as the "3 Rs": relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. The New Deal produced a political realignment, making the Democratic Party the majority (as well as the party that held the White House for seven out of the nine presidential terms from 1933–1969) with its base in liberal ideas, the South, traditional Democrats, big city machines and the newly empowered labor unions and ethnic minorities. The Republicans were split, with conservatives opposing the entire New Deal as an alleged enemy of business and growth and liberals accepting some of it and promising to make it more efficient. The realignment crystallized into the New Deal coalition that dominated most presidential elections into the 1960s while the opposing conservative coalition largely controlled Congress from 1939–1964.
Roosevelt created a large array of agencies protecting various groups of citizens—workers, farmers and others—who suffered from the crisis and thus enabled them to challenge the powers of the corporations. In this way, the Roosevelt administration generated a set of political ideas—known as New Deal liberalism—that remained a source of inspiration and controversy for decades. New Deal liberalism lay the foundation of a new consensus. Between 1940 and 1980, there was the liberal consensus about the prospects for the widespread distribution of prosperity within an expanding capitalist economy.[123] Especially Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal and in the 1960s Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society used the New Deal as inspiration for a dramatic expansion of liberal programs.
I don't mind being wrong, as I'm not a strong scholar on this, but here's more evidence for strong unions in this time from The Atlantic:
The New Deal era of the 1930s through the 1970s was largely defined by high and rising wages, which were pushed up by strong unions, limited global competition, low energy and commodity prices, and more stringent regulations on businesses...

...But...many employers—led by industrial giants like General Motors and General Electric—acted as “welfare capitalists” that were also primarily responsible for providing benefits like a pension to workers and their families. Part of the motivation was cultural: Before the notion of shareholder capitalism took root in the 1980s, companies viewed it as part of their mission to act in the interests of all of their stakeholders, including workers and their communities, rather than in the interests of investors alone. However, companies also favored the arrangement because providing benefits to workers directly gave them some leverage against labor unions. Ultimately, the welfare-capitalist social contract became the norm.
So the seeds were there for the way America would become. Still, Roosevelt's vision was successful enough that it created a consensus, and it can still be said (as Wiki comments), that the power break-down in that time was very much Democratic:
1933-1945 Franklin Roosevelt Democratic - congress with him for basically all of his 12.1 yrs. He then died.
1945-1953 Harry Truman Democratic - congress with him for 6 of 7.8 yrs. There were complaints about strikes (labour power) early in his time in charge, though, and he became anti some Unions. Congress went Republican in 1946 (Nixon and McCarthy were freshmen), and passed the Union-limiting 'Labor Management Relations Act', which Truman vetoed, but Congress overrode that. Democrats won it back in 1948 with Truman saying he would repeal the act, but southern Democrats didn't allow it. That's a familiar problem still stopping progress on issues in today's America - 'the South', politically, are fairly right-wing. Truman's 2nd win was a surprise. Democrats even tried to recruit a replacement for him beforehand. That man was:
1953-1961 Dwight Eisenhower Republican - congress with him for only 2 of 8 yrs.
1961-1963 John Kennedy Democratic - congress with him for all of his 2.8 years. He was then assassinated.
1963-1969 Lyndon Johnson Democratic - congress with him for all of his 5.2 years.​

Nixon is then elected, showing how the narrative of America politics had gone in a different direction. Tricky Dicky was a paranoid guy, and keen to tell Americans they too were being left behind by others (Goldwater saw the power of that narrative). But the Democrats still had both houses, and would do so up until Reagan's election, when we saw that 'neo-liberal' thing really take hold in America. The Democrats would then not win the Presidency for 14 years, until Clinton did his 'centrist' pitch, which as we know, was still corporation-friendly. As with all the 'Bernie would've won' claims, people willfully ignore the political reality of America (more often that happens in order to pretend the Democrats are similar to the Republicans). The Democrats didn't win power until they moved closer to the Republicans. They did more for the poor (like Obama did), but they didn't legislate a drastic change to America like Roosevelt did in the New Deal and like Reagan reversed in the 80s.

The narrative may have changed again now, thanks to Bush's incompetence and the GFC highlighting just how much America's economic policies were failing (at a macro level to match their failures at a micro level for so many), but the vote for Trump was still significantly right-wing in nature, so we can't be sure yet. It looks like Don Don has done enough to ensure the narrative has shifted, but of course his fans and the right-wing media will continue claiming otherwise (e.g. their gun control propaganda), so it's hard to predict. Information warfare is a real issue here.

This is already too long, but anyway, here's a quote from Eisenhower which references 'labor laws', to show where he was coming from as the Republican in that 36 year run listed above. It also shows that back then it was Republicans having to accept the political reality of American voter's opinions:
Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this — in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything — even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
Also, for what it's worth:
Eisenhower's cabinet, consisting of several corporate executives and one labor leader, was dubbed by one journalist, "Eight millionaires and a plumber
tl;dr Democrats do have history of being pro-working class people.
 

Ripper

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tl;dr Democrats do have history of being pro-working class people.
UCLA respectfully disagrees. As well as stealing off the middle class by forcing them to hand in their gold and then devaluing it, Roosevelt prolonged the Depression.
It is truly amazing what "narratives" a press that is onside can sell as fact.


Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."
 
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