Stephanie McCrumman, at the Washington Post, reports on how grown-ups look for their next President:
They began arriving a full four hours early, hundreds of people stretching single file outside a Phoenix high school. It was a hot and cloudless day, but the people had come prepared to endure, preparation and endurance being hallmarks of a Hillary Clinton rally.
They slathered on sunscreen. They popped open umbrellas. They reached into purses and fanny packs for little baggies of trail mix, ignoring the yelling Donald Trump supporters across the street, and the carload of Bernie Sanders fans that kept whizzing by — “Bernieeeee!” they shouted through the window, their hair flying free. Their own hairlines glistened with sweat.
“She’s a serious candidate, and she doesn’t have to entertain me,” said Chris Haggerty, 58, a pastor in her third hour of waiting, of moving in small increments toward the high school doors.
Elsewhere in America, Sanders was thundering about a “political revolution.” The Republican front-runner Trump was promising to “bomb the sh–” out of the Islamic State. These were the emotionally cathartic rallies that had come to define this unorthodox political season so far — angry, raucous, anti-establishment and, in Trump’s case, occasionally violent…
… What happens at a rally for the presidential candidate who has gotten more votes than anyone else so far — nearly 9 million, which is roughly 2.5 million more than Sanders and 1 million more than Trump?…
Rose Smith, 55, took one and glanced over at the Trump yellers, which included a man with a Smith & Wesson 9mm strapped to his thigh shouting that Clinton should be “taken down a notch.” She did not yell back.
“Trump’s angry; Bernie’s angry all the time,” said Smith, a retired elementary schoolteacher who said she was not angry other than whatever frustration she felt toward the other candidates and their followers, which she sublimated. “Just realistically, I think it’s not a matter of pumping the team up, it’s a matter of playing the game. You can’t have that kind of demeanor. I can’t imagine these men being in the room when some crisis really happens. Is emotion going to rule them, or are they going to have a level head and make calm decisions?”…
To her and others baking in the sun, this was in fact the paradox of being a Clinton supporter at a Clinton rally, the thing that no one seemed to understand. They were excited by her lack of excitability; thrilled by her boring wonkiness; enthusiastic not about the prospect of some dramatic change but about Clinton’s promise of dogged, small-bore pragmatism, a result of decades of government experience they considered a qualification rather than a liability.
Theirs was the campaign that voters so often said they wanted — one of substance and detail, of practicality rather than dreamy idealism, of freedom through discipline…
“Oh, I’m very excited!” said Randall Clark, who owns a small delivery business and pressed the H onto his shirt.
By “excited,” he explained, he meant that he looked forward to “continued, incremental, small changes” on issues such as global warming, gun control and health care, for this was the worldview inside the Clinton camp. Progress was a thing achieved not in grand, sweeping gestures but rather by relentless, often unrecognized toil, not unlike their own here, now…
p.a.
We must close the enthusiasm gap!
Baud
I see where I went wrong.
p.a.
@Baud: If you’re declaring yourself ‘dreamy’ I believe that belongs in the baseball post.
Dan
“how grownups look for their next president”… oh man, I better go make some popcorn before the Usual Suspects show up. Because that phrase certainly won’t get anybody wound up.
Mike J
I thought there was plenty of passion at the rally I went to., The crowd was excited, Hillary did a great speech that got everybody fired up. Sorry she didn’t have pony rides though,
smith
Funny that the guys in this race are the hysterical ones and the woman is the level-headed one. That’s not what we were told to expect when women were first allowed to play politics.
smintheus
@Dan: I’m so old I remember when the Bushies were being described as the ‘grownups’ and the Clintons were the crazy hippies.
Rob
“how grownups look for their next president…” Lord, you Hillary supporters can be so insufferable. Please stop with the accusatory tone that labels us Bernie supporters as petulant children following unicorn dreams and lollipop fantasies. We don’t trust her or the massive DLC corporate machine she (quite literally) rode in on. If nothing else, that blood thirsty speech she gave at AIPAC recently should be enough to give any true progressive cause for concern, or at least reason enough to respect the opinions of fellow Dems you disagree with.
Dan
Bile in less than 10 responses! Congratulations, Anne Laurie!
Cacti
@Rob:
So where are Bernie’s tax returns?
Did Jane eat them?
George Hayduke
Bernie is Maaaaad, and Hillary is being mistreated! Wah!
dr. bloor
@Dan: It’s going to be tough to beat “AL showing her baboon ass,” but I’m sure they’re up for the challenge.
smintheus
@Rob: It’s more like how the elderly look for a president: somebody they can get slightly excited about, but not so much that it could be dangerous for their health.
M31
“how grown-ups look for their next President”
we need a majority though
Mike J
@Cacti: He wouldn’t have rejected three different dates for a debate if he weren’t trying to hide something. Or maybe his wife has his day planner.
dr. bloor
@smintheus: I have my doctor on speed dial in case my excitement lasts for more than four hours after a campaign rally.
scav
all the usual memes being dragged out of the toy chest for the next round of self-congratualtory emoting about how the electorate feels about itself, rather than actually thinking about the fucking election ofr the needs / abilities of the nation. Enjoy, because it’s all about you.
No One You Know
It’s more like how the parents look for a president: we have enough drama in our own lives, and it’s enough. Screamers, shooters, shouters, and shovers belong on the bleachers, not the playing field.
Gin & Tonic
@dr. bloor: If we could get baboon asses and alpaca junk together in one thread my evening (such as it is) would be complete.
ThresherK
I can’t ignore how qualities like “passion” and “charisma” are something the press anoints to whomever gets the R nomination.
Cacti
@Mike J:
Now it turns that Bernie had suggested 4/14 for a debate back in January.
Why the change of heart, Bern? #HeartBern?
muddy
Here’s something that we can all agree is disgusting, also at WaPo. I watched Bob Woodward and Robert Costas suck Trump’s dick with slurping enthusiasm for over 7 minutes. I kept watching because I was waiting for the part where they said how fucked up the interview was. Here is the transcript of that.
I kept waiting for the punchline, and there wasn’t one! They seemed to think Trump was pretty exceptional, and reminded ol’ Bob of W! They inserted flattering pic of W this point.
I couldn’t even eat my supper it was so disgusting. They are already anointing him and making like he’s just any old Republican, only shiny and new. Watch it, I dare you.
cbear
LMAO. It’s always entertaining to see a writer attempt seriousness and unknowingly achieve satire. Congratulations Stephanie McCrumman…and AL.
Dan
Snark aside – it’s worth remembering that according to Gallup, Clinton’s voters are actually more enthusiastic than Sanders are. There’s lots of different ways to be enthusiastic and to show enthusiasm, but the most important way is through voting – and the results so far speak to that.
smintheus
@cbear: Bits of it do read like the Onion.
gene108
I hate those motherfuckers at the Clinton rally baking in the hot sun, while I still can’t put away my god damned sweaters and heavy coat because Spring in the Northeast cannot make up its damned mind about what the weather’s going to be like from one day to the next.
Summer can’t get here soon enough.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Dan: No, I’ve been assured that’s incorrect. It’s more important to show up at large rallies than vote.
Mike J
@Dan:
At the rally I went to, the mic died in the middle. The crowd of 2,500 people were quiet so Hillary could continue her speech and we could hear her. Is it a sign of more or less passion that people actually wanted to hear what she had to say?
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic:
I trust you’re familiar with Internet Rule 34?
Mary
@Rob:
It’s seems very unlikely that she literally rode in on a massive DLC corporate machine, since the machine itself is a figurative one.
Mike J
@Mary:
And hasn’t existed for several years.
Dan
@Mike J: you don’t understand, “DLC” is now code for “any Democrats I don’t like” or “any Democrat to the right of Chomsky… that I don’t like.”
funny how Obama’s record in the Senate was slightly to the right of Clinton’s, but I never see people calling Obama a DLC dude.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
Well, this thread is certainly going to go places.
Anne Laurie
@cbear: I’m a sixty-year-old (involuntarily) retired admin assistant/library clerk. These are my people, dude!
Mike J
@Dan: And I understand that the next head of the DNC will actually be named “Shibboleth”.
Heliopause
Never ceases to amaze me how hard political party partisans work to alienate roughly 45% of the party. And then wonder why over 100 million people are completely alienated from the process.
WaterGirl
Way to poke the bear in the first sentence! I’m a firm believer in the Elizabeth Warren policy of “I’m saving the rocks in my pockets for the Republicans”. If only we could manage to do that during this primary, we would surely get more democratic voters in the general election.
On a happy note, I made the best soup today. Small beef bone, water, can of rotel, onions, celery, parsnips, turnips, carrots, barley, salt and pepper. How can soup be so yummy with such simple ingredients?
frosty
@smintheus: Seconded on the Onion … this line in particular.
Linnaeus
Just in time for my afternoon tea. This’ll be fun.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Anne Laurie: Oh, now you did it. You’ve summoned the Max Frost Revolutionary Brigade.
chris
I’d like to see a competent president and I think the choice is obvious. I’d also like to see a woman as the leader of the free world. Obvious again.
I think Hillary will be a good if not great president. Given the choices before you, sorry Bernie folk, she’s all you got and you’re lucky to have her.
But then I’m a Canadian. Sorry, I’ll show myself out.
scav
@frosty: Well, it is axiomatic that nobody like vanilla ice-cream. Jalapeño Gelatto is just so much more exciting.
Baud
@gene108: I’m pleased that someone in this thread is focusing on the real issues.
Dan
@frosty:
WHAT DO WE WANT?!
SUSTAINED INCREMENTAL CHANGE!!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?!
IN A TIMEFRAME THAT’S PRACTICALLY WORKABLE!!
*close rally with a stirring rendition of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”*
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It was 85 here in Glendale.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dan: nice
gene108
@Baud:
Damn straight I focus on real issues!!!
Nothin’ more real than the weather.
I want a President, who can control the weather!!!
Or give us our own microclimates to live in that follow us around wherever we go!!!!
Mike J
@scav: Vanilla? The seed pod of an orchid that only occurs naturally in remote valleys in central America? What could be more boring that that?
Mary
@chris: Just wait until your own handsome, charismatic, heartthrob of a Prime Minister leaves office. Then maybe you’ll know how we feel!
dr. bloor
@Heliopause: It’s Primarytown, Jake, forget about it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108:
I think they’re called automobiles.*
*LA person.
Dan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
that genuinely is what I want, though. some of the nips, tucks, and tweaks from Obama’s administration are now having profound effects on the country, like the big acceleration that the Recovery Act gave to the clean energy industry in the USA.
It’s just not as satisfying to chant about.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Am I the only one who doesn’t care about the war between Bernie Bros and Hillarybots? Pretty soon the nominee will be decided, and this will all be forgotten by just about everyone except a few Internet cranks.
Since we’re talking about Hillary, though, it is nice to see her attracting grownups now, rather than the PUMAs. Then again, she’s in the lead this time, which probably makes a difference in what she and her supporters do and how they’re viewed.
(Said as a Hillary supporter, but one who completely understands Bernie’s appeal.)
Baud
@gene108:
You should vote for the GOP this year. They’ll guarantee that the temperature will go up, up, up.
dr. bloor
@chris: And a hearty fuck you for sending us Cruz instead of Trudeau. You’re going to be subject to another twenty years of “America’s Hat” jokes for that stunt.
Baud
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
No, I think you’re safely with the vast majority of Democrats on that one.
shortribs
@muddy: That’s the shit that drives me crazy. When Trump wins the nomination, there will be an endless stream of “pivoting to the general,” “Trump restarts his campaign,” “Trump tries a softer pitch” narratives from the press as if the past few months never took place.
Gin & Tonic
@BillinGlendaleCA: It snowed twice here today.
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic: It’s sunny here and I just fixed the drink you’re named for. Can’t be too careful about malaria here in the Pacific Northwest.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dan: I agree, I also thought you phrasing was funny
@dr. bloor: also that Biebler kid.
A Ghost To Most
@dr. bloor:
Better than being known as North America’s asshat. We have that nailed down.
TaMara (BHF)
Dammit. I’m out of popcorn.
dr. bloor
@shortribs: As someone who has had the…um, opportunity…to observe Trump over the past thirty years or so, I can assure you the man has no “pivot” in his repertoire. He’s going to smash the usual MSM tropes into a jillion little pieces.
Amaranthine RBG
yee-fucking-haaa!!!!
Marc
Where are we going?
Planet 10!
When will we get there?
Real soon!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
I don’t understand why Sanders supporters get upset over this post when Sanders’s internet supporters are constantly doing far, far worst all day long on blogs and social media. U see the vile personal hate that gets posted every hour or every day, calling her a murderer, calling for her arrest.
Before U start complaining about this post, U should police UR own side.
Doesn’t consistency matter?
bmoak
@Dan:
That’s because you’ve not been reading the right comment sections, which would assure you that Nobama is a corrupt corporatist war-criminal stooge to the right of both Nixon and Reagan.
Baud
@Dan:
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Baud: Thanks. Glad to know I’m no crazier than most people.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: It’s supposed to be in the 90’s here on Wednesday and then down in the low 70’s on Thursday.*
*Why I’ve not turned off the pilot light on the furnace.
Dan
@dr. bloor:
I also have no doubt in my mind that Dem oppo teams have been assembling a vast trove of Trump quotes to use in ads. There’s been so much said that’s so beyond the pale that even if Trump had the self-discipline to “pivot”, it wouldn’t work.
Anne Laurie
@gene108:
According the to fringier folks — and I wish they were all on the far right! — HAARP allows President Obama to do just that. But he only uses it for nefarious reasons, like creating the illusion of climate change and/or causing drought in California and superhurricanes on the East Coast.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike J: I have never had malaria either. Although I’ve had babesiosis, which they tell me is pretty much the same in terms of symptoms.
Amaranthine RBG
@BillinGlendaleCA:
85 today in Alamo, too.
I am missing the rains already.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Well said, and you express my own position perfectly. What I’m not seeing (here, to some extent, and on Facebook a whole lot) is an equivalent level of understanding from most many of the Bernie supporters. It does get tiresome.
Baud
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
More accurate.
Roger Moore
@Dan:
I’ll disagree marginally. I would love to get some of the things Bernie is promising, but I don’t think he has a realistic plan for how he’s going to get them. In the absence of a reasonable chance of radical change, I’ll go for the person who understands and seems willing to deliver on a long, incremental slog toward improvement. In the absence of a real miracle diet, I’m going to stick with the “eat healthier and exercise more” plan.
Marc
At this point I’m more worried about the Republicans knocking Trump out and getting media tongue baths for being so principled and moderate. With %&-%$ Ted Cruz.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@dr. bloor:
My God. What’d I miss?
I gafiated from here to leap headlong into last minute Hugo reading and apparently things got interesting while I was gone.
Elie
I betcha Hillary has a better sense of humor than ol grumpy pants… “Get off my lawn!”
Baud
@Marc: I’m starting to feel the same way. I think they deny Trump the nom somehow.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Baud:
StellaB
Back when I too was a starry eyed twenty-something, I worked very hard to get the sensible, competent candidate elected. Sadly, Gov. Dukakis did not win. I worry about sensible when it’s running against crazy (GHWB clearly was not too crazy, but his predecessor was a loon.)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Sounds boring.
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
There’s a good kind of exciting and a bad kind of exciting. I’ll take boring (Hillary) over the bad kind of exciting (any of the likely R candidates) any day of the week.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Brrrrrrrrr
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Baud: Yeah, I was going to say I was damning myself with faint praise.
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Funny — the worst of my FB friends is a Hillary supporter. He absolutely foams at the mouth at the mere mention of Bernie. Then again, he’s kind of weird and abrasive in general.
My husband likes Bernie, but admires Hillary and is fine with voting for her. My pro-Bernie FB friends tend not to attack Hillary at all.
If Bernie were leading in the delegate count right now, I’m sure we’d see some serious vitriol from more Hillary supporters — I think being in the lead calms people way the hell down.
Anne Laurie
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Hand to goddess, I was actually thinking about the Media Village Idiots tonguebathing Trump!
Should’ve remembered the Sandernistas’ feelings, but… meh. Bernie gets the Dem nomination, I’ll vote for him. In the interim, he’s too much the elderly male socialist crank, #27 on my list of reasons for fleeing NYC as soon as I was old enough.
Baud
@Anne Laurie: That’s actually how I read it, AL.
George Hayduke
@Cacti:
I see what you did there. Attacking Jane for being a larger person. Keep it classy.
chris
@Mary: No term limits in Canada. Justin’s father was prme minister for most of 16 years. (And I still miss him.)
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic: I had Lyme, but I got it when I lived on the east coast. It convinced me I had a good doctor because she had never seen it before and was fascinated. Took pics, called in other people in the practice to look at the bullseye rash, was really interested in learning more. If my white count hadn’t been 20k I’d have married that woman.
Mary
@chris: Sure, rub it in.
Elie
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
No. Actually, Hillary, the adult, wants at the end of this for Bernie’s supporters to support HER. Trashing him would make that less likely, though he seems to be of the mind that if he wins he would either not need her supporters or that he would be anointed into office without anything but the support of his true believers.
mclaren
Logic sounds good. Unfortunately Hillary’s policies make no sense.
How grownups search for their next president sounds impressive…until you realize that a grownup who parses Hillary’s statements quickly discovers that she’s mostly spouting bafflegab and doubletalk with very little actual substance.
Let’s take some specific examples:
[1] Hillary says the way to deal with the erosion of the middle class is to raise the minimum wage. But this merely accelerates the automation of jobs that are already destroying the middle class. Her policy makes no sense. It’s tinkering around the edges of a broken system.
[2] Hillary says that she can help expand employment by pushing through a 10 billion dollar program to relocate factories to America. But factory jobs are going away because of automation. Those factories that have already relocated to America don’t employ a fraction of the people they used to 30 years ago. So once again, Hillary’s policy makes no sense.
[3] Hillary says she favors increasing the minmum wage but opposes a federal law that would require it. That’s bafflegab. In plain language, she is really saying she intends to do nothing about raising the minimum wage.
[4] Hillary has publicly said in major speeches that America needs a “more assertive foreign policy.” America already has black ops assassins at work in 134 different countries and we’re currently involved in four different endless unwinnable wars. Her policy makes no sense.
[5] Hillary Clinton’s “policy” page on her campaign site says ”
But the vast majority of the problem with America’s mass incarceration comes not from federal prisons, but from local prisons and local prosecutors. How will Hillary change that? She can’t. The president doesn’t control the decisions of local police, local prosecutors, state laws, and state prisons, and that’s what accounts for most of America’s shameful prison-industrial system.
Hillary says she’ll encourage the use of bodycams and smart strategies like compstat — but recent news articles show that local police are now misusing the compstat system to profile minority groups and oppress groups they don’t like, while shutting down their bodycams or erasing footage whenever police abuse coccurs.
Hillary says she’ll “Help formerly incarcerated individuals successfully re-enter society” — but most of these people are black, and the black communities they re-enter are chronically afflicted with crime and poverty due to generations of racism and redlining and discriminatory policing. How will Hillary end redlining? How will Hillary end racism? How will Hillary end discriminatory policing?
Once again, none of Hillary’s policies make sense. She is claiming to be able to fix deep systemic issues in America like racism…but this is the Green Lantern theory of the presidency, and it’s ridiculous.
On her policy site, Hillary says she will:
How does Hillary plan to increase the median income of the bottom 80% of the American population? The trends that are driving the decline in that median income are: automation, offshoring, the internet eating the economy, robotics + AI, Big Data. Does Hillary plan to stop automation? Is Hillary going to shut down the internet? How will Hillary end offshoring? Does Hillary plan to end all robotics research in America? Will Hillary issue an executive order ending AI research in the U.S.? Will Hillary make using Big Data illegal?
None of her claims make any sense. Hillary can’t do these things — the president doesn’t have the power to do them. These are big technological and scientific trends and the president has no power to stop them, any more than the president has any power to make pi equal to 3.0.
Once again, Hillary’s policies make no sense.
On her campaign website, Hillary promises to:
But the ACA has not stopped the growth of out-of-pocket costs. See articles like “Dilemma over deductibles: Costs crippling middle class: Rather than pay so much out-of-pocket, many skip checkups, scrimp on care,” USA Today, 1 January 2015, or “After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know,” The New York Times, 20 September 2014.
How does Hillary plan to “crack down on prescription drug prices”? Current law prevents the government from negotiating for lower drug prices (it was a giveaway as part of the Medicare Part D expansion). The U.S. government is currently hard at work intercepting mail from Canada by medicare who import lower-cost drugs. The U.S. government is presently heavily involved in increasing drug prices for sick people, not reducing drug prices, and it’s being done under color of law. Does Hillary propose to order the FDA and U.S. Customs officials and the Health & Human Services department to ignore the law?
How does Hillary propose to increase womens’ access to abortion? State laws currently restrict abortions — does Hillary propose to ignore or violate state law? The president can’t do that.
None of what Hillary is promising to do makes any sense, once again.
I’m all for the “grownup candidate,” but grownups offer credible policies, not magic fairy dust like this. I’m firmly in favor of the rational candidate — but a rational candidate would offer policies that make sense, not self-contradictory bafflegab and empty rhetoric like this.
Linnaeus
@Roger Moore:
The way I tend to look at it is that there are sometimes opportunities for larger changes depending on the circumstances. Sometimes you can advance things in a larger increment than perhaps you could before, and it’s good to be ready for that.
Suzanne
Dudes being emotional is OK. They’re not weak, they’re “tapping into the zeitgeist” or “speaking for the country’s mood” or some shit. A woman being calm and collected makes her “calculating” and “out of touch”.
Go HRC.
cbear
@Anne Laurie: I well know your background, Al, and we’ve agreed on many, many issues in the past. And I’ve always enjoyed your writing (going back to when you were just a lowly commenter here like the rest of us poor plebes) but, Jeebus, the article you cite reads like unintentional parody.
We’re all SO excited for Hillary, but not TOO excited because, because….reasons.
I’m old enough to remember when the rethugs used to call the Washington Post Pravda on the Potomoc–I never thought I’d agree with them.
chris
@dr. bloor: Why thank you kind sir, and you’re welcome.
mclaren
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Once again, a complaint about Facebook.
This is not Facebook.
If you have a problem with Facebook, resign from Facebook. Shut down your account. Walk away. That will solve all your problems with Facebook.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
And I have one friend (“friend” — I’ve already unfollowed her, although haven’t yet got around to unfriending) who apparently hates Hillary with the proverbial heat of the proverbial thousand suns. She is so mouth-foamy, I haven’t even bothered to ask whom she supports. Could be Bernie, could be Trump, could be anyone. She’s Canadian, but AFAIK not yet a US citizen, so at least all she can do right now is rant, not vote.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mary: The thing about that is, no term limits here. If he does a good job he could be there for decades… though that kind of longevity is extremely unusual.
Baud
@Linnaeus: I agree. The best way to be ready, however, is to control Congress, as Democrats did for so long during America’s best years.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Anne Laurie:
Oh. Never mind.
/Litella
I’m just traumatized by all the fighting here. I don’t remember if I read this here or on FB, but it’s like Mom and Dad are considering a divorce and my new stepdad might be Hitler.
Villago Delenda Est
@Rob: It’s shit like this that causes me to question my support for Bernie.
Elie
@mclaren:
Uh – Oh — Here we go — the manic data dump….
phein39
@Heliopause: That is enough to alienate you from politics? How on earth do you leave your house in the morning?
glory b
@BillinGlendaleCA: Shut (27 in Pittsburgh this a.m., wind chill 17) up.
Linnaeus
@Baud:
Oh, I agree.
Villago Delenda Est
@cbear: I’ve been calling the WaPo Pravda on the Potomac since the Bill Clinton years, and I’m a die hard Dem.
The vile shit that is Fred Hiatt epitomizes why the Village needs to be destroyed.
mclaren
@Elie:
Because, as we all know, grownups don’t discuss the details of actual issues.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@mclaren: Thanks for your input.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@chris:
Did you see the picture of Justin doing that incredibly difficult yoga “Peacock” pose?
Yes, of course you did.
Did you also see the picture of Pierre doing the exact same, equally incredibly difficult yoga “Peacock pose” some 40-odd years ago?
If I knew how to link photos, I would. As it is, I’m going to send it to Anne Laurie and see if she might be willing to put it up at some point.
mclaren
@Dan:
Actually, “DLC” is code for “massive corporate contributions from the same middle-class-destroying corporate monopolies and Wall Street crime lords who funded George W. Bush.”
Bernie Sanders’ campaign, by contrast, is funded overwhelmingly by small donations from a vast range of ordinary citizens.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
Here.
dogwood
I don’t know if I’m a complete outlier here, but I wouldn’t attend a Bernie or Hillary rally no matter how enthusiastic I was about either one of them. I was a passionate Obama supporter and passed twice on a chance to hear him speak. And it’s not a matter of age either. I’ve always been this way.
mclaren
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
Makes sense. I guess the rationale there is: “If I can’t have democratic socialism, at least I can have national socialism.”
Elie
@mclaren:
Your “details” are always the same direction. Sorry. Boring. Have you ever thought of chunking it out? Nobody wants to digest your dictionary long rants. And they are so predictable! Do you just have a bunch ready to go, like a lousy buffet at Applebees? You would make an excellent Republican. No matter what anyone asks, or situation demands, you answer the same old shit and lots of it.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Both sides do it! (Couldn’t resist.)
Baud
@dogwood: I’m pretty similar. You’re not alone, my friend.
patroclus
Well, mclaren, half of your data dump was about the minimum wage. I think it should be raised and I think it makes sense to raise it. Does Bernie oppose raising the minimum wage?
mclaren
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
LOL! But seriously, this is not nearly as bad as the infighting back in 2008. The Hillary supporters got unbelievably vehement and savage about Obama.
That’s another reason why this election is going to be a Democratic landslide. People are disagreeing about the Democratic candidates, sometimes vociferously, but in general there’s party unity. Every Democrat I think recognizes that Trump or Cruz are such toxic horrorshows that we are going to put away our disagreements come November and vote from whomever wins the Democratic nomination. Because both Hillary and Bernie are infinitely superior to any of the subhumanoids on offer from the Republican party.
Chris
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
No. No no, no no no, no no no no no no no no no no, you are not. Definitely, definitely not.
I hate to get into this, because I can’t do it without becoming something that I normally can’t stand, the “both sides do it” advocate. So yeah, all I can say is that by and large, I don’t give a shit, and can’t wait until the pissing contest is over. Which was my attitude in 2008 too.
patroclus
@mclaren: I agree with this. On the D side, 2016 is far tamer than 2008. And the signs are good that we’re headed for a landslide in favor of small incremental change in a practical reasonable timeframe. I’m excited about it!
But I’d be far more excited if we had someone as cute as Justin Trudeau running.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike J: Well, my PCP is smart as a whip and smokin’ hot, but a) I’m already married and b) I think she’s young enough to be my daughter.
chris
@Mary: No term limits in Canada. Justin’s father was prme minister for most of 16 years. (And I still miss him.)@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Yes, I saw both pics and was suitably impressed. I’m old and can just barely tie my shoes.
I was even more impressed with Justin’s interview wit Vox. Watch it and tell me which of your candidates could pull it off.
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/25/11304336/justin-trudeau-canada-feminism-fatherhood
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Baud:
That’s it, many thanks! Pretty impressive, innit?
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
What’s kind of funny, although not in a ha-ha way, is that she and I have really never talked about politics much. I think she knows I’m pretty liberal, but it’s not been a topic of conversation. So I was really quite surprised a few weeks ago when she just completely lit into me and attacked Hillary like a rabid hyena going after a three-legged bunny. Her tone was such that I didn’t even want to get into a “So, who would you prefer?” discussion.
chris
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Yes, I saw both pics and was suitably impressed. I’m old and can just barely tie my shoes.
I was even more impressed with Justin’s interview wit Vox. Watch it and tell me which of your candidates could pull it off.
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/25/1…..fatherhood
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic:
Decided to take a break from my writing, check in, and this, *this*, is what I see. I haven’t come up with a line this good all day. And this is only the meta-narrative portion of the comments! *wipes away a lonely teardrop*
chris
@chris: Ooops
patroclus
@mclaren: She’ll more effectively enforce the Community Re-Investment Act to attack redlining and she’ll appoint better Justices who will rule that the state laws restricting women’s freedom unconstitutionally infringe on a well-established right.
cckids
Well, speaking from the front lines of yesterday’s county convention here in S. Nevada, the “grown-ups” line is entirely appropriate. I spent the day with a huuuuge gang of Bernistas and Hillary-ites, and I’ve gotta tell you, after the first 2 hours, I changed from a casual “yeah, I support Hillary” to a “I will call, go door-to-door, whatever is necessary to beat Sanders” die-hard fan. His supporters, by and large, were that awful at the convention. They booed Hillary’s name always, they drowned out any speaker who asked that we all support whoever gets nominated with unending “Bernie,Bernie” chanting, they regularly paraded around the convention center, also chanting, several individuals walked through the seats spouting really hateful, dishonest crap about Hillary, they had long, loud conversations about how the committee counting the delegates was “obviously” trying to cheat for Hillary. Also, the debacle at the Arizona primary? ALL Hillary’s fault. She, personally, decided to cut the number of polling places. It was as close as I ever want to get to being at a Trump rally. Things were that uncomfortable & out-of-whack.
And then, the chair threw out for a voice vote “Should we seat all elected alternates and unelected alternates as delegates?” It was seconded & passed. Turns out part of the Bernie campaign’s tactics was to get as many people as possible to just show up as “unelected alternates”, get them counted & essentially steal the county. Hillary won here by (I believe) 8-9 points in the popular vote. Bernie won the convention, technically by the rules, but unethically as hell.
In a WTF conversation about it with a fellow Hillary delegate, I was told by a Bernista that it was only fair, because his supporters are so much more enthusiastic, their votes should count for more. She was entirely serious.
I found out today that the convention chair, who was a Sanders supporter, was removed early yesterday morning, after sharing information with just the Sanders campaign & not the Clinton campaign. There is also talk about how delegates were checked in, an email that was sent to Hillary supporters who were told that if they pre-registered they didn’t have to show up at the convention, and more. The whole experience, from caucus to convention, is so tremendously fucked-up and undemocratic that it makes me nuts.
Meth labs of democracy, indeed. (H/T to Pierce, I believe)
cckids
@Elie:
THIS. So much this.
Elie
@mclaren:
I am sorry. I broke my own rule and was gratuitously nasty to you. I have no idea what you are talking about in most of your comment about my unfair comment but obviously you think that I accused you of lying about something.
Miss Bianca
@chris:
Are you Canadian then? (sighs wistfully). you mean…you’re *choosing* to follow our freak parade, when you have Justin Trudeau and a whole cabinet full of sensible people making rational decisions to follow? Are you a glutton for punishment, or are you merely keeping a wary eye upon conditions in the US?
@cckids:
I r confoozled. I thought Nevada had already had its caucuses? OMG – horrified thought strikes – are you saying this shitshow went down at the *state delegates’ convention*??
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: I wonder if I read that thread. There was someone insisting that she’d post her opinion wherever she wanted after you very diplomatically attempted to shut the exchange down.
See, I figure if someone posts something political they should be ready for someone to come along and argue; but if the OP then says, “let’s agree to disagree, you have your own wall for your opinions,” that should end it.
Also too: I admire your level-headed cool. I’d have exploded, because someone was wrong on the Internet!
mclaren
@patroclus:
Both Bernie and Hillary agree on raising the minimum wage and that’s a band-aid. It just kicking the can down the road because it won’t help in the long run.
Here are three excellent articles that explain how raising the minimum wage won’t help because it will merely accelerate automation:
Source: “Well-meant minimum wage increases will accelerate automation,” Fabius Maximus website, 2 April 2016.
And that doesn’t even begin to take account of the tsunami of unemployment hurtling toward us courtesy of driverless cars or google’s Deep Mind technology.
See the article “Mass unemployment fears over Google artificial intelligence plans: The development of artificial intelligence – thrown into spotlight this week after Google spent hundreds of millions on new technology – could mean computers take over human jobs at a faster rate than new roles can be created, experts have warned,” The Telegraph, 29 January 2014.
Much as I appreciate the good intentions behind Bernie and Hillary’s proposals to raise the minimum wage, the cold hard reality is that it will only accelerate the automation trends already exponentiating.
No one wants to hear this. Everyone wants to hear that a magic pony will sprinkle fairy dust on the economy and make America’s middle class prosperous and happy again, the way it was in the 1950s. But the facts on the ground tells us we are not going back to the 1950s anytime soon.
This is why I keep pointing out that we need genuinely new economic and social solutions to the problems of the 21st century. The same old Hillary-Clinton-tinkering-around-the-edges stuff won’t cut it. We have tried those minor tweaks for 25 years, and they haven’t worked.
We are going to have to bite the bullet and wholly reorganize our socio-economic system if we want to have a hope of making it through this technological-social transition without mobs hanging guys like Sergei Brin and Jeff Bezos from the lampposts and burning down whole cities in the process.
Elie
@cckids:
There was a lot of less than ideal behavior in the WA caucus as well and Hillary’s supporters generally got the raw end of the deal. I am going to the County convention and believe me, I went from a calm Hillary supporter to ready to go to war in the last couple of weeks…
Baud
@cckids: That sucks. I hope the Dems find an alternative to caucuses for 2020. Why can’t the party institute vote by mail?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: But that’s only because they require clothing to attend.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: One learns that the hard way.
Anne Laurie
@cbear
Why I rely on the Washington Post, for certain issues: It’s the company paper for the national political industry. It’s like reading the NYTImes for global finance, or the Seattle Times for Boeing/Amazon, or the LA Times for movie/tv news. They care about “political gossip,” not over ratings for their brand, but because what happens to their industry impacts whether their readers will have jobs, and if everyone else in their market will be able to pay for real estate/new cars/eating out.
Whatever owner Jeff Bezos thinks, the unspoken WaPo concensus seems to be that Hillary Clinton will be a good President for the Washinton corridor. Just as they (eventually, still) defend President Obama, from both the Wingnut Wurlitzer and the purity-pony progressives. They don’t trust Trump — he’s a New Yorker & NY is for hustlers — they know Cruz is a disaster for DC bureaucrats & the people who sell to them, and they think of both Kasich and Sanders as no-name back-benchers temporarily elevated past their natural capabilities. If one of those four somehow makes it to the Oval Office, it’ll be bad for the Beltway market. Hillary, on the other hand, they know they can work with; she’s all about keeping the boat on an even keel, and the crew approves of a “tedious” cruise with no more surprises than the usual squabbles over the best deck chairs and the quality of the late night buffet.
Keith G
@mclaren: Hell no they don’t. They talk about what the surrogates are up to.
edit
But about this
This might be a weak link in your chain. Hillary will appoint justices and judges who will be helpful in this and that ain’t nothing.
mclaren
@Elie:
You’re very gracious and I appreciate your apology. Permit me in turn to apologize for hitting back against what I misperceived as a smear.
As long as we encounter behavior this civil in the Democratic party, it seems to me that we are going to stay miles ahead of the civil war in a leper colony that the Republican primaries have turned into.
Elie
@Baud:
We HAVE vote by mail in WA state! If we did primary, it would be by mail (my vote for sure). Maybe at our convention on May 1st I will get a better understanding of why this caucus stuff persists. Honestly, they are not representative except of the most intense partisans. Caucuses measure intensity pretty well, but they miss other important issues about which candidate is best (IMHO). There were some really bad experiences in the WA caucus related to supporters of Hillary…My own had to do with interpretations of the results but no one was nasty on my sites.
cckids
@Miss Bianca: The county convention (Clark County, the most populous & bluest county). Calling it a shitshow is throwing roses at it.
ETA: and the scheduling makes zero sense. The county convention was scheduled for all day Saturday on Final Four weekend, guaranteeing that Culinary Union & most service-industry people will be working. The state delegate convention is scheduled for May 14 & 15, which is also the date for UNLV and UNR’s graduation. Planning, WTF?
smith
@Anne Laurie:
Funny, I remember when she and Bill first came to DC and trashed it, and it wasn’t their place, according to an insider who worked for one of the rags there.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
That’s the one! Good memory, you have.
Elie
@mclaren:
Agreed … (smiley face)
If you were here, I would offer you a glass of wine (or your preferred libation)
Baud
@smith:
Was it when they arrived or when they left? I remember the last fake scandal was that W.’s people came in and found the White House trashed (it wasn’t).
smith
@Baud: Pretty sure that was Sally Quinn when the bumpkins first showed up from Arkansas. But the myth of the missing w’s on the keyboard when they left was a thing too.
mclaren
@smith:
I too recall David Broder (I think) angrily raging, “This isn’t their town, it’s our town!” against the Clintons.
How times have changed. Now Bill and Hillary are wired-in Washington insiders.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: THEY REMOVED ALL THE ‘W’ KEYS!!!!
cckids
@Baud: Harry Reid was instrumental in getting NV changed to a caucus; he wanted to be “first in the West”, and for whatever reason, couldn’t get the state to move the primary (we have one of those too, in June, WT-everloving-F? I’m involved in the most peripheral way you can be (beyond the basic vote), and I’m so disgusted at the convoluted mess that is the process we use.
smith
@mclaren: Yeah, I was just Googling, and it looks like it was Broder speaking to Quinn.
dogwood
@cckids:
A lot of the Sanders people have the temperament and sensibilities of Ron Paul supporters. Different political views, but similar personality traits. Not much you can do about it, it’s how they behave in life in general. In’08 I never met any people more passionate than those Paulbots. Don’t know where ther alliegence is now, but I suspect many of the younger ones have moved on to other endeavors since Rand didn’t really cut the mustard for them. Rand actually tried to be a Republican senator, and that did him in. His father, much like Bernie, was a reliable vote for the party, but never really a full-on participant. Politicians like that get full -on hero status from people who are looking for that. And if your guy is a “hero”, then his opponents are obviously evil.
Baud
@cckids: Maybe with Reid retiring, they can return to a sense of normalcy about the process in Nevada.
Jack
Just the kind of Villager crap I expect from the WaPo. How far they have fallen from the Watergate days…
Didn’t John a while back point out that WaPo managed to post 13 anti Bernie stories in 16 hours, including going back and reediting some of the stories to increase the Bernie bopping?
I voted for Bernie in the NC primary and would like to vote for him in the November election. We need change at a much faster rate than the Washington establishment could contemplate,
I will vote for Hillary in the fall if she triumphs, considering the various flavors of Cthulhu on the R side, but I won’t be happy….
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m glad Obama’s team is too mature to replace all the “!” when I win.
columbusqueen
@cckids: Yep–Bernie seems to think he’s been hand picked by God to be President, & that the election is just a formality.
mclaren
@Keith G:
Maybe. But more likely the Republicans in the House and Senate will continue their epochal campaign of obstruction. Barack Obama has had a terribly hard time getting any federal judges he has nominated approved by a Republican-dominated congress. The latest chapter of Republican obstructionism against Obama’s Supreme Court nominee is merely an extension of the Republican obstructionism against all his federal judicial nominees.
See the article “Senate Republicans Are Blocking Obama’s Judges at a Nearly Unprecedented Rate: The Senate is on pace to approve the fewest judges in more than half a century,” 4 November 2015.
We would also run into some 10th amendment issues if a Democratic president tries to override state laws restricting abortions at the local level.
My sense is that to increase abortion access, this battle will have to be fought and won at the state level as well as at the federal level. The pattern thus far has been that Roe v. Wade has been systematically subverted by increased restrictions imposed by the legislatures of deep red states, while in blue states there hasn’t been the same effort to roll back Roe v. Wade.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@chris:
@chris:
@chris:
Well, now I guess I’ll have to watch the Vox interview!!
(I was going to anyhow.)
Mary
@mclaren: You are correct about needing state level change to protect abortion access, but as long as we flip the Senate we’re good on judges. House has no say in confirmations.
mclaren
@dogwood:
I regard Bernie Sanders as a hero but don’t discern anything particularly evil about Hillary. She’s a business-as-usual Washington politician. Obviously I will vote for her if she’s the nominee. Hillary and Bill have good hearts. Their instincts are decent.
It just seems to me that we need something more than “business as usual” and “tinkering around the edges” in a period of transformation as radical as the one we find ourselves in. This has always been my basic problem with the Clintons. They’re very smart and excellent administrators, but they just have no instinct for thinking outside the box when genuinely new classes of problems come up.
That said, who knows? Hillary is smart and adaptable and could surprise us. At the very least, she’ll make a competent president in President Obama’s terms: “Don’t do stupid sh!t.”
Miss Bianca
@cckids:
Oh, I see…you had your precinct caucus, then your county convention. Wait, WTF?? That shit is going on at the *county convention*? My God, ours was a miracle of civility and productivity, then! We just reaffirmed what our precinct numbers told us – two delegates for Sen. Sanders, two for Sec. Clinton, they got chosen (chose themselves, really), we discussed and voted on planks for the state platform and while it all took a while, there was absolutely zilch in the way of shenanigans. I suppose it helps when your chairman happens to be the state’s Democratic Party Volunteer of the Year – but seriously, your situation sounds ratfucked. My sympathies!
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@cckids:
You should share that story with Pierce.
Elie
@mclaren:
Strong comment and I agree that a Democrat’s election as President will not be nearly enough and that the state “scene” for abortion rights, is where its at. As a very strong supporter of abortion rights, I am girding myself for the battles to come. I just can’t even bring myself to think of a R victory in November.
cckids
@columbusqueen: And that side of him is coming out more & more. I liked him when he first started running, but man, the crowds have really gone to his head.
Elie
@Miss Bianca:
I am ready for real “discussion” at our county convention. The way that the caucus results were “tabulated” resulted in real handicapped numbers for Hillary. I expect some strong discussion and would like the caucus process to be in question at the end. No, Hillary would not have won the caucuses in WA. But she would have had a much closer result if it had been a primary and her supporters would not have been “dissed” the way they were during the caucuses by having their preference under valued.
Iowa Old Lady
@cckids: Oh wow. What a scene. I’d have been frustrated and furious.
dogwood
@mclaren:
I wasn’t referring to you. I was referring to the Sanders people at the Nevada convention, who got nasty. I should have said that some of these supporters have a cartoonish view of “hero”. It gives them license to turn their opponents into cartoon villains. That’s a better way to express my impressions.
glory b
@mclaren: Yep, and I heard that a lot of down ballot candidates are short of funds and this is being attributed to Bernie sucking up lot of small donor cash that would have gone to them.
Ironically, a lot of them are the more progressive ones that a Sanders presidency might have to depend on.
Buy hey, Tad needs his $28,570 per day salary, right?
Roger Moore
@cckids:
It makes no sense if the goal is to let everyone in the party have a say. If the goal is to shut some groups out so that others can maintain power, it makes perfect sense.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
You’ve got your work cut out for you. Some interesting ideas about the direction of the economy. You think that Clinton won’t be able to deal with it, but I don’t see that Sanders or anyone else on the current political scene has a grasp on this either.
Elie
@glory b:
Those downticket races are extremely important. As a Hillary supporter I also got requests to support those downticket national races. I tell you, however, that we need to pour attention into state and local (read county) level contests. Its a desperate situation there with the right wingers calling it their way from state level on down….
No One You Know
@Dan: So much win!
mclaren
@Brachiator:
I’m afraid your’re right. America is probably going to let these unsustainable economic trends continue until the social and economic pain gets so extreme that we can’t put off doing something any longer, and then we’ll flail around like an epileptic having a grand mal seizure and finally fix things as a last resort.
It won’t be pleasant.
Anne Laurie
@smith:
Yup. But David Broder/Sally Quinn were more “Media” than “Beltway”; it doesn’t matter to them whether Trump tries to destroy DC’s foreign-service bureaucracy, or whether Cruz manages to shut down “the government” again. The Punditocracy can just phone in to the (mostly NYC, I think?) tv networks & bitch about Tip’n’Ronnie some more, but if middle managers & security guards are on unpaid hiatus, that’s bad for the WaPo advertising/subscription deparment.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
The WaPo makes the prospect of a Hillary Clinton victory the equivalent of someone having to go live with their grandparents or an elderly maiden aunt.
It’s as though the serious tone of the Obama Administration jangled the nerves of the political weak sisters. I hope that Clinton is smart enough to ignore this stuff, and the inevitable WaPo upcoming endorsement, and recognize that she has to promise more than aid and comfort to the Washington corridor.
dogwood
@Brachiator:
We aren’t the only players in this global economy. That’s a hard pill for most Americans to swallow.
mclaren
@Anne Laurie:
Personally, it seems to me that the Beltway media insiders would love Trump as president. They’d adore covering his outrageous crazy statements. What new insane gibberish will he spout today? The Beltway media insiders would drool over that.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Sadly, I have to agree with you.
Anne Laurie
@Baud:
You know, I have a strong suspicion that after the election, when all the normal people return to their usual pastimes, the Permanent Parties are both going to “do something” about turning caucuses into primaries wherever possible. Both sides are demonstrating just how easy it is for a tiny bunch of fanatics whipping up a not-always-local social media network to commit monkey-mischief.
As I understand it, caucuses were made part of the process back when non-urban communities were smaller, distances were larger, and even knowledgeable voters might not be able to take time from their jobs, or to get to a central voting location if they could. And local party movers&shakers loved them, because it was easier to ensure that only the right people chose the correct delegates. (Of course, when ‘big city bosses’ did the same things, usually for immigrants or people of color, UGHCORRUPTION whatelsecanyouexpectthosepeople).
Iowa, especially, has been getting a free ride for at least since Nixon, because “quaint (media-friendly) tradition,” but even its loudest non-state (Repub) supporters are so disgruntled they’re about ready to tell Terry Bransted/Steve King to drink HFCS and die…
Elie
@mclaren:
Except in addition to his statements they would be covering riots among blacks and whites in cities and riots with whites and muslims and/or Hispanics. Trump is incompetent in every way. Many key roles/positions in the federal govt would be unfilled, or filled by his idiot lackeys. And the US economy would tank because “full faith and credit of the US” would be very much in question internationally and many of our allies would be hands off, looking for other ports in the storm — opportunities for other countries to reassert their power. No — in the end I don’t think that Trump winning would be just an easy time for the US media.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mclaren:
I’m not doubting your summary, and I haven’t read the excerpts, but I don’t buy it.
“We can’t raise wages to a level where people can survive without public assistance, because if wages are that high then machines will take over.” People making such arguments have too little understanding of how things actually work in the real world. If I’m wrong and that’s truly the case, then the economy is fundamentally broken and automation won’t fix it.
If a person needs to be hired full-time to do the job, then the person should earn enough to be off public assistance (and the public assistance level should reflect the reality of the cost of living). It doesn’t matter if the job can be automated – when the employer looks for a person, that person should be able to earn a fair wage. $15 an hour is $600/wk gross for a 40 hour week. About $465/wk after taxes for a single person in suburban Ohio.
Many jobs can’t and won’t be automated for a long time. Yard work. Home health aid. Stock person at grocery and big-box stores. Laundry and dry-cleaning. Hotel maids and office cleaning people. Cooks and waiters at non-fast-food restaurants. Auto repair. Auto rental clerks and car prep people. People doing office work in doctor’s and other offices. And maybe 10,000 other job categories.
If more robots are needed, then there are going to be people needed to design, build, repair, stock, sell, transport, and trash the robots. And more lawyers to fight the legal battles over patents and trade secrets. And more bankers to arrange the financing for the new factories. And workers to design and construct the factories and the equipment and materials needed in the factory. Lots of those people will be offered minimum wage, too.
The problem with the American economy isn’t that the poor and struggling people have too much money. Raising the minimum wage to $15/h won’t destroy the economy. My first job in 1979 was for minimum wage – then $2.90/h was roughly 47% of the average hourly wage according to crs.gov. Fred says the average hourly earning for March 2016 was $25.43. 47% of that is just short of $12/h. Since IIRC most of the proposals for $15/h are that that number will be reached in several years, not immediately, it seems clear that returning the minimum wage to ~ 1979 levels won’t have a huge impact on the economy (i.e. won’t lead to dramatic automation) but will help people a great deal. If raising wages causes some companies to re-think their hiring practices, then so much the better, if governments have sensible policies that go along with it, like sensible taxes to fund education, vocational training, infrastructure, etc., and to keep taxes low on those who can least afford them. But everyone won’t automate no matter how high the minimum is – it just isn’t possible to automate everything.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
cbear
@Anne Laurie:
And yet knowing this, you uncritically post and endorse a poorly written piece of agitprop from the same rag we on the left have rightly derided as the “Villagers” for many years? I suppose Democratic establishment agitprop is better than the usual rightwing dreck, but Dear Dog, that piece is shite on a stick.
I understand your enthusiasm for Hillary, I think it’s blinkered and in many ways undeserved, but I understand it. I’ll most assuredly vote for her over any of the lizards on the right, but her endorsement from the Villagers is a very large part of my uneasiness with her. YMMV.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elie: For the people at the top of the media chain, it would be just fine. They’ll make millions and have exciting things to report.
Weaselone
Are we sure that Bernie’s actually a Democratic Socialist and not a libertarian? He is trying to use the Democratic Party to launch himself to the Presidency while at the same time attacking the Democratic Party, and refusing to work on its behalf to assist down ticket races. It’s almost an exact parallel of everyone’s wingnut relative who is dependent on government services, but tells anyone who will listen about how worthless and evil government is while bemoaning all the tax dollars he doesn’t actually pay.
Anne Laurie
@Jack:
IIRC, John Cole posted a screencap of 13 WaPo Bernie stories, as appended by a Bernista complaining that the evil WaPo “never ran any stories” about Senator Sanders. Wasn’t about the slant, just a self-rebutting claim that Tha Meeja was deliberately refusing to cover Sanders while writing non-stop (not always in flattering ways) about You Know Who.
Elie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Except their “top” will disappear. They will ultimately be impacted by the chaos, fear and violence all around them. And nothing will work well… Nope. I disagree. There may be a brief period of their enjoying the excitement but like any complete collapse of a society, there aint much fun… They will escape to — where?
Nope — I do not accept that this would be some version of “business as usual” for them…
dogwood
@Brachiator:
Anyone who thought Barack Obama would be anything other than a serious and sober president paid no real attention to him. The idea that he is some moderate is also laughable. His political preferences are obviously liberal, but he ran to govern, not grandstand.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elie: If there is a real revolution, I agree that the MSM haircuts will among the first up against the wall. If they still live here.
Anne Laurie
@cbear:
Thank you! That’s how I felt about voting for President Obama, who has been known to pleasantly surprise me.
I also think you’re conflating “the Villagers” — the top 1% who’ll do just fine no matter who’s sitting in the Oval Office — with “people who live/work in the DC area”. But I may be sensitized by growing up in NYC, where the difference between the 1% of NY denizens who got all the media attention (the hedge fund managers, magazine editors, global real estate magnates, fashion industry leaders) and the actual New Yorkers who worked in their offices / swept the streets / clerked the stores / ran the bureaucracy) was never unremarked. Group A read the NYTimes, Group B read the Daily News / NYPost — or/and, back in my day, one or more of the many NYC-based ‘ethnic’ papers in Yiddish/Italian/Mandarin/Spanish (our two Irish weeklies were in English though).
Omnes Omnibus
@cbear: Which Villagers have endorsed here?
dogwood
One of the serious questions about the Sanders’ campaign that has been posed but never addressed by any of his supporters is how he will manage to finance a general election campaign.
cbear
@Omnes Omnibus: None of them. We were discussing the WAPO and the proposition that they seem to have endorsed Sec Clinton. Try to keep up.
Misterpuff
@mclaren: Raising the minimum raise isn’t going to bring about the Robot Takeover.
burnspbesq
@Rob:
Why should we stop? It’s dead-on accurate.
Weaselone
@dogwood:
My guess is that Sander’s method of financing the general would match Hillary’s in everything but the rhetoric.
Omnes Omnibus
@cbear: Sorry, spelling error… Should have been: Which Villagers have endorsed her?
mclaren
@Misterpuff:
No, merely accelerate it. The Robot Takeover is already well underway if you’re following the tech news.
mclaren
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I agree with your sentiments, but it seems to me that you’re confusing “ought” with “is.”
Yard work: take a look at this Boston Dynamics Atlas robot demo and tell me yard work will still be a viable human occupation in 10 or 15 years.
Home health aides: See the article “An army of robots may soon be deployed: to care for the aged,” Reuters news service, 22 May 2014.
Stock clerks: take a gander at this video of warehouse robots.
cbear
@Omnes Omnibus: All of them, Katie. (Sorry, just kidding.)
I think both Anne Laurie and I were in agreement that the WAPO, which many of us consider the “Village” writ large, are endorsing Hillary. Do you think Fred Hiatt, Sally Quinn, and/or David Broder’s dead dick would do otherwise?
mclaren
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Laundry and dry cleaning: see the article “The Laundroid robot can fold clothes for you.” Tech Insider site, “This robot can do one of the most dreaded chores for you,” 19 October 2015.
Hotel maids and office cleaning people: see the article “Hotel in Japan to be Staffed Entirely by Robots,” People magazine, 5 February 2015. The previously linked Atlas robot can do the cleaning, along with the above-mentioned Laundroid robot.
Cooks and waiters at non-fast-food restaurants. See the amazing article: “Robotic chef can cook Michelin star food in your kitchen by mimicking world’s best cooks,” International Business Times, 14 April 2015.
Auto repair: repair of today’s cars is already mostly automated through the OBD-II diagnostic port.
Auto rental clerks and car prep people: work is well underway to replace these jobs with robots. See the article “Could your job be taken away by a robot?” at bankrate.com
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
So people who advocate returning to Eisenhower-era tax rates and Nixon-era antitrust enforcement and financial regulation is a “petulant children following unicorn dreams and lollipop fantasies.”
Spoken like someone with a magnificent future in the custodial arts, burnspbesq.
dogwood
@mclaren:
But how will any of that stop the invasion of the robot laundry folders?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mclaren: There’s also robot storage silo for cars at a VW factory. (1:30).
Those, and your examples, are very specialized machines. They aren’t general purpose robots that can do the job that a human can and is expected to do. They can pick out a car, or put stuff on a shelf, but they can’t do the kind of unpredictable, not-always-constant, jobs that humans do every day.
And even the best, while still limited, robots today aren’t cheap. JapanTimes from last year:
(Emphasis added.)
The US is not facing a labor shortage. ¥90,000 = $800. Per month, subsidized price.
¥1 million = $155,000. For one robot, that can assist a person.
Mom and pop shops aren’t going to spend $155k to replace a $25k/yr employee. And the robot cost is just the beginning – the whole business process has to be changed, the robot needs specialized power and utilities, maintenance, etc., etc.
Yes, of course, more automation is coming. But that’s not a reason to not raise the minimum wage.
Economic consultants’ jobs can be easily automated – take some fancy deep-learning stuff from Alphabet and IBM, turn it loose on data at FRED, and you’re done. Right? You don’t even need robots. Are folks at Brookings and AEI and the rest arguing that their salaries should be cut to prevent their jobs from being automated? I don’t think so…
Cheers,
Scott.
mclaren
@dogwood:
We are going to have to rethink the concept that you need to have a job in order to survive in a modern industrial society. Human jobs are by and large going away.
Robots can now teach themselves tasks. A new Japanese robotics company is making robots with deep reinforcement learning that will teach themselves a task overnight. By the morning, they’re 90% as good at the task as if they had been programmed.
Neural nets currently diagnose cancer and other diseases from scans with lower error rates than humans.
See the article Exponential Medicine: Deep Learning AI Better Than Your Doctor at Finding Cancer,” 11 November 2015.
Down the road, robots will replace surgeons because robotic surgery systems like the DaVinci automated
surgical system work in conjunction with MRIs to insure scalpel placement precise to within 1/10,000 inch. Humans can’t compete with that.
Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr won’t destroy the U.S. economy, it will merely accelerate the already rapid process of replacing vast swaths of human jobs by robots or neural nets + robots + algorithms +
Big Data.
The economy is fundamentally broken. And automation won’t fix it.
But in an even larger sense, capitalism is broken.
Capitalism depends on machines providing new jobs for humans that replace the jobs taken by the machines. But many of the robots now being deployed do not require programming — they learn tasks on their own. Robots with “deep neural net” learning capability that can be taught and learn by repetition to do a manual task are already available on the market, and they are rapidly improving. So there are no humans needed to program these machines, and thus no human jobs created to replace them.
See the MIT Technology Review article “This Factory Robot Learns a New Job Overnight,” 18 March 2016.
Something like a guaranteed minimum income or social credit may offer the answer. When robots do most jobs, why will most humans need a job? Just distribute the profits from robot-staffed companies to the public as a whole as a dividend.
The Mondragon Collective in the Basque region of Spain already does this, except without robots. So this kind of alternative to capitalism is already working. The Netherlands is now experimenting with a guaranteed minimum income.
So these kinds of new socioeconomic arrangements are not fantasies. They’ve been tried, and they work.
mclaren
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Today, these machines are expensive. Tomorrow they won’t be.
Check out the info on the self-teaching robots. They are not so specialized.
In any case, as prices drop, we’ll soon see specialized machines (alongside the non-specialized ones) in many different businesses large and small.
Your point that mom and pop businesses won’t be able to afford these robots merely explains why giant firms have been able to drive mom & pop operations out of business. The same technology that is driving humans out of work is also driving giant firms to wipe out all the mom & pop businesses.
We should raise the minimum wage but we must recognize that it is only a temporary stopgap measure. It will not solve the long-run problem of reviving the American middle class.
We can automate economic consultants trivially. This code loop should do it:
#!/usr/bin/python
count = 0
while (count < 1):
print 'Cut taxes on the rich'
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mclaren: One more thing before I retire this evening…
OBD-II just tells the technician what the computer thinks is wrong with the car. It doesn’t “repair” anything. A human being still needs to drive the car into appropriate position in the shop, connect the diagnostic tool to the OBD-II port (the location of which varies from car to car), read the information, figure out if the information makes sense with the other symptoms, figure out what parts, if any, are needed, whether they’re available or need to be ordered, talk to the manager at the counter, talk to the customer in plain English about what needs to be done to fix the car and the cost, schedule the work (understanding that the customer is going to fear being ripped off and needs to be talked to carefully and respectfully), etc., etc.
And then s/he needs to actually do the repairs, often in very tight, dirty, nasty, rusty, and banged-up, quarters.
Robots can’t do all that yet and won’t be able to for a long time (if ever, because the expense may be too high to replace humans in that occupation).
Cheers,
Scott.
mclaren
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
With driverless cars, people will no longer own cars. They’ll summon them when they need them. Cars will become a publicly maintained public resources, like water or sewage systems.
Most cars will also be electric and radically simpler to repair than conventional vehicles. Robots will be able to handle the physical repairs easily, and deep learning neural nets will diagnose problems using info from the ODB-II port better than humans could.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@cbear: considering how much sally quinn and david broder hated the Clintons and drove the calls for impeachment, I would assume otherwise.
WaPo just printed a ridiculously inflammatory article, in service of the republicans, falsely stating Clinton is being investigated by 150 fbi agents. Printing obviously fake stories patently designed to tar a candidate isn’t support.
Even the liberal Sanders supporter Chris Hayes thinks WaPo is acting outrageously.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mclaren: You’re far too optimistic about progress, I fear.
In countries with labor shortages, with lack of demand in the economy, and the necessary high-tech infrastructure (like Japan), the extreme investment in robots that those you’re citing advocate can make sense. But even there, there are still things like tiny farms run by a few people with a tractor. There are tiny shops where people sell tourist trinkets and part of the service is careful wrapping of the trinkets in boxes with nice paper. There are still millions of people working in Japan in “low pay/low skill” jobs that cannot be easily and cost-effectively automated and won’t be in 20 years either.
Just because a car is electric doesn’t mean that humans won’t be needed to fix it. “Deep learning” is only as good as the information fed into it. And that information will come from humans who designed it, put the prototypes together, and took them apart. Again, a computer diagnosing a problem isn’t the same as fixing it.
Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to robots the way it does to semiconductors. Yes, robots will get cheaper, but not cheap enough to replace $15/h people in most occupations.
Working with real stuff in the real world (not in some assembly line) is not like playing Go or writing an economics paper.
Don’t buy the hype. You’ll go broke in most cases if you do. ;-)
‘night.
Cheers,
Scott.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@cbear: Now if you’re saying WaPo will support Clinton over Trump. Sure. Given that choice who isn’t, aside from the self indulgent privileged few like Susan Sarandon and a chunk of Sanders’s “death-before-hillary” dead enders .
But if the republicans had nominated christie or rubio or ¿jeb? Today’s WaPo would have supported them over Clinton in a heart beat.
cbear
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Since the Outlaw Jersey Whale, Little Marco and Barb Bush’s favorite undead baby are out of the race, I think you answered your own question.
Barring Kasich /Ryan emerging from the primordial swamp–they will be all in for Clinton.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@cbear: you act as if they like her. they don’t. they hate her. They’re not voting for her, they’re voting against Trump. They would rather vote for someone they hate than some clown who wants to encourage the Saudis to acquire new-clear bombs.
now, why do they hate her – I don’t really know. theories have been bandied about. Some people think aristocratic WaPo views the Clintons as Arkansas white trash. Others say they hate Hillary for not knowing her place like her predecessors Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush. Because she’s an uppity feminist. I’ve heard people say they hate the Clintons because they rejected the Georgetown cocktail set. I tend to think it’s because clinton raised their taxes and DC had a pent up anger for boomers who they perceived to be hippies (ie their kids). Clinton smoked pot and had free sex and dodged the draft and led war protests in London and wore a beard and long hair/Hillary had a big mouth about women’s rights — DC projected on to them the resentment they had for their own boomer children.
the hate is real and it’s been documented by bob somerby and David Corn for the past 25 years. Even Sanders’s liberal supporters say one of the reasons to support him is because he’s not hated by the beltway media the way they hate the clintons.
cbear
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Dude, you keep attributing stuff to me that I’ve neither said nor thought.
You somehow seem to think you’re illuminating something I’m not aware of regarding the genesis, or the somewhat ongoing hate, of the Clintons in D.C..
You’re not. I’ve been a democrat since the late 60’s–and actually lived in D.C during the a part of the Clinton years. I actually know some of these people, albeit peripherally.
What you can’t seem to get your head around is that in their estimation she’s the best REMAINING candidate reflecting their values and priorities. And that’s not very comforting to some of us. YMMV
Anne Laurie
@cbear:
No, actually, I think Fred Hiatt will contain to whine both sides!, even while agreeing between clenched teeth that she isn’t quite so terrible as The Donald. I’m not sure he wouldn’t find some bs reason to pump for Cruz, except that Bezos would almost certain yank his highly-paid leash if he tried. And if the GOP nominee ends up (presumably as the result of a meteor strike at the Cleveland convention) being Kasich or goddess forfend Paul Ryan, the Washington Post Editorial Board will no doubt discover that Centrist Comity requires a Repub in the White House — after two terms of Obama and with the down-ticket races swinging wildly in the Dems’ favor!
(Which is not to say that WaPo reporters will agree with him, or that stories outside the Krauthammer/Gerston/JRubin editorial bubble will suddenly discover hidden GOP virtues, either.)
ETA: Ah, I see you’ve preempted me!:
dogwood
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
You are arguing with someone who refers to Jeb as “Barb’s favorite undead baby.” Give it up. That’s lower than anything Donald Trump could come up with.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@cbear:
she’s not exactly an NRA errand boy who hates immigration reform like Sanders (what great values and priorities).
but keep diluting yourself. that’s all the Susan Sarandon set ever had. delusions and Revolution!
dogwood
@Anne Laurie:
What does it matter what the WaPo editorial board thinks? People only believe what they want to believe anyway. So what real influence do these papers have?
PatrickG
@mclaren:
Vote Bernie in 2116!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Here’s the thinking of a typical Sanders supporter:
Tie Clinton up and drop her in water. If she floats she’s a witch. If she sinks she’s pure.
If the “establishment” supports Clinton to avoid the disaster of Trump then she’s a witch. If they support Trump like Susan Sarandon then Clinton is pure.
Crystal clear logic.
cbear
@Anne Laurie: As I said, I think we essentially agree on how this will play out.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I disagree with your assessment and enthusiasm for your preferred candidate, while explicitly saying I will vote for her also, and suddenly I’m Susan Sarandon?
You’re just not worth debating, asswipe.
@dogwood: You don’t get out much, do you? Isn’t there a fainting couch you could retire to until all this unpleasantness of the election is over?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Of course Revolutionary! Che Sanders is going to support Clinton. What does that say about him – supporting the WaPo candidate.
What a sellout.
Mike D.
Is there a reason John has allowed his blog to become functionally an organ of the Hillary Clinton-for-President campaign by hosting this author? Doesn’t this author produce enough content to sustain a blog of her own? Shouldn’t she do that?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Anyone WaPo supports must be a witch. Anyone WaPo opposes must be pure.
WaPo will support Clinton, therefore she’s a witch. WaPo will oppose Trump, therefore he’s pure.
You can’t break this iron clad logic.
Therefore I am joining Susan Sarandon and supporting the only pure candidate – Donald Trump.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Mike D.:
Is the Sanders campaign so feeble it can’t withstand one little blogger?
Maybe like fellow revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, Sanders should arrest and burn down all counter-revolutionary sites.
Ivan X
@Mary: +1000
You’re not the Mary who wrote Between You and Me, are you? Because it would seem like a fitting comment if you were.
Rob
Call it whatever you like. The names may change but the apparatus is still in place and the bowing and scraping to corporate powers continues. We keep drifting further and further to the right with every election cycle. The only code being slung around here is that which yells at the Bernie peasants for daring to question the royal family.