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The Next President

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I don't necessarily disagree with the criticism that Bernie's policies are only half-formed, or aren't fully considered... but I'd much rather have someone who actually cares about these issues than someone who obviously doesn't.

 

His foreign policy (or lack thereof?) does bug me a lot, but then so does Hillary's history with foreign policy. Maybe she's learned from her mistakes, I dunno, but I'd rather not take the chance. But it's also a risk with Bernie, so... I consider foreign policy basically a coin flip.

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My problem isn't necessarily that Sanders got anything wrong in that interview, but that all of his policies still seem like they're pulled from a Freshman comp 101 class. He says he wants to renegotiate NAFTA, PNCR, TPP, etc., but doesn't say how he's going to convince people to agree to something that's necessarily going to be worse for them, or how he's going to compensate for the strain on foreign relations, or even exactly what his demands would be. This naive approach to foreign relations is repeated when he moves to Israel -- sure, he's willing to say that the Israeli settlements are illegal and that he thinks that Israel should pull out from settlements on Palestinian land, but then he says that the Palestinians shouldn't be able to bring Israel to the ICC, and he refuses to say that he would act with any force about settlements in any kind of conversation with Israel. So what's the meaning of saying you think Israeli settlements are illegal if you don't want the words to have any power? Why say something if you're not confident enough on it to act?

 

I think this kind of half-formed idea theme is echoed in his too big to fail rhetoric as well. How does he plan to counteract the downward push that restructuring a fundamental part of the American financial system will necessarily have? Why should I have faith that Bernie Sanders, who doesn't have a great track record when it comes to staffing, will be able to name a Secretary of Treasury who is highly capable and will handle the immense power that Sanders wants to vest them with well? How big is too big to fail -- is it half a Lehman Brothers? Is it 95% of a Lehman Brothers? Have the protections put in place by Dodd-Frank lowered risk enough that it's 150% of a Lehman Brothers? What's the number -- or even, what's your definition of too big to fail? Is it "able to incur an amount of debt so large that its inability to pay would adversely affect the economy-at-large?" Or is it willing to incur that debt? Is it going to be rigorously defined with facts and figures or loosely defined with a kind of you know it if you see it attitude? If you can't define it now, how do you intend to come up with that definition in the future?

 

Basically, Sanders has really great ideas. I want to see him as president based solely on his ideas. But pretending like his ideas are fully developed, well articulated, and deep policies isn't doing anyone any favors -- least of all Sanders himself.

I agree, mostly, but at the same time I don't think it's an appropriate attack during the primary, because nobody else is giving fully thought out policy proposals either. Now is the time to convince regular voters that you have good ideas they like, rather than convincing wonks at the Wall Street Journal that your specific recommended laws won't ruin capitalism.

Look at HRC's "plan to defeat ISIS":

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There's a key difference between that vague plan from Clinton and Sanders's vague plans: You can talk about Clinton's in a way that you can't talk about Sanders's.

 

"Take out ISIS's stronghold in Iraq and Syria." This probably means a robust offensive targeting Raqaa and Tal Afar. Let's talk about that. It's material. It's got enough grip to it that you can hold onto it and talk about what it means, and whether or not you agree with it.

 

"Dismantle the global terror network." This probably means collaborating globally with all countries that are affected by terrorism. This is a little bit more slippery because our current counterterrorism policy is defined by a lack of policy, but it still has enough grip that you can talk about how this should look and whether or not you agree with it. This means pursuing things like the Iran deal to gain more allies -- or at least compatriots -- in fighting a global war against an ideology. This is something you can agree or disagree with. This is something you can talk about.

 

"Harden our defenses at home and prevent attacks." This is a largely invisible part of our intelligence apparatus, so it's hard to talk about, but we can talk about it better in the wake of Hayden's biography and Snowden's leaks. Obama 1 was basically Bush 3, as far as domestic matters relating to this go. Considering how closely Clinton is tied to that transition, we can essentially look at Bush 5 now. We know what that looks like. We can talk about it. We can have that conversation.

 

That policy declaration is meaty. It gives us food for thought. We can draw basic conclusions about what it will probably look like, and make an informed judgment about whether or not we agree with that. This is good, healthy discourse.

 

Sanders's "too big to fail" policy is not meaty. It's a slippery subject, and it hasn't been given a shape, much less enough definition that we can hold onto it, look at it from different angles, and come to a conclusion about it. We can't really talk about what his policy would look like because all we know is that he wants to dismantle our central private banking structure. We don't know what his goal is (Dodd-Frank addressed the economic stability issue, so it can't be just that), so we can't talk about whether or not we like that. We don't know how he intends to go about it, so we can't talk about whether or not we think it would work. We don't know nearly enough about it to have these important conversations.

 

Sure, you can say that Clinton shares this problem -- she's made statements about dissolving banks that are too big to fail as well -- but Clinton isn't making this her core argument. This is just a piece of her platform, not a core pillar propping the whole thing up. She doesn't have to define this clearly because it's not what she's built her claim to power on. But Sanders has built his claim to power on this, and he hasn't given us anything to talk about. He hasn't given us the tools we need to have a healthy, active discussion about his policy, and I think that's because he doesn't have them himself.

 

I voted for Sanders in the primary, and I hope he wins the nomination and the presidency. I want him to succeed. I'm being critical of him because he needs to answer these questions.

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Lansbury, with all due respect, in regards to Clinton's ISIS policy vs Sanders banking policy, it honestly just looks like you've used your imagination to make hers meaty, and then used your imagination to make Sanders slippery and amorphous.  I mean, when you have to use words like probably, slippery, invisible, and amorphous, I don't think you've you've described a clear, meaty policy that you can really dig into.  I could imagine a meaty bank policy for Sanders, but I'd have to structure it exactly as you just structured Clinton's ISIS policy.

 

 

I have my semi-secret doubts that Sanders is actually kind of a trainwreck in certain ways that have been glossed over by his fans, but this narrative that Clinton has these really clear policies vs Sanders non-policies I think is kind of made up.  It's just giving her the benefit of the doubt, and not giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

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Sure, you can say that Clinton shares this problem -- she's made statements about dissolving banks that are too big to fail as well -- but Clinton isn't making this her core argument. This is just a piece of her platform, not a core pillar propping the whole thing up. She doesn't have to define this clearly because it's not what she's built her claim to power on.

 

Honestly, I think one of the biggest but least-discussed weaknesses of Clinton is that her campaign doesn't have a core argument beyond her own political career and electability. Clinton doesn't need to go in-depth about any issue in particular (and largely hasn't in her more-than-a-hundred-day desert of press conferences) because she doesn't really built a platform besides "more of the same." There doesn't really seem to be a hill that Clinton's willing to die on, which is good for a politician, but not on every issue.

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I don't recall Obama having much of a real concrete plan for universal healthcare during his campaign. Or maybe I just missed it I guess? I'm not willing to shout down either side for having only vague ideas at this point. Even if they did have a good, solid strategy, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy (which is the republican congress in this case.)

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Clinton and Obama both had thoroughly sketched out healthcare plans. Ironically, the key difference between the two plans was that Obama said he didn't favor the individual mandate.

 

I don't think the criticisms of Sander's vague plans are fair though, he doesn't have access to the same sort of policy think tanks that Clinton has access to, but if he becomes President he will surely have access to some deep policy minds. There are some instances where this vagueness is a genuine problem -- for example his free college education program as he has described it is frankly completely unworkable -- but most of the time his plans have enough details that they can be developed down the line. And anyway none of these plans are ever going to be implemented unless Democrats end up controlling both chambers of Congress, a scenario I still find incredibly implausible even with the weakness of the current Republican frontrunners. So these proposals are more of a way to signal to voters that a candidate shares their core values.

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Honestly, I think one of the biggest but least-discussed weaknesses of Clinton is that her campaign doesn't have a core argument beyond her own political career and electability. Clinton doesn't need to go in-depth about any issue in particular (and largely hasn't in her more-than-a-hundred-day desert of press conferences) because she doesn't really built a platform besides "more of the same." There doesn't really seem to be a hill that Clinton's willing to die on, which is good for a politician, but not on every issue.

 

Clinton's platform is the status quo, yes. That's not no platform. It's the platform of tying your wagon to the guy with an 80% approval rating among Democrats. There's nothing wrong with that, either. It's not something I agree with, but it's perfectly valid to say, "This is working pretty great, right? I won't rock the boat too much -- the man who came before me did great a job of making things better, and the woman who comes now will keep on making things better in the same way." And saying that you're going to be more of the same means people already know what your policies are. Obama has done the work of establishing it for 8 years. That's why I can make assumptions about her policy like I did above, and feel pretty good about those assumptions being right. Continuity of government isn't an unimportant thing, especially during times of war. Running on that platform is unexciting, but it's solid.

 

I have my semi-secret doubts that Sanders is actually kind of a trainwreck in certain ways that have been glossed over by his fans, but this narrative that Clinton has these really clear policies vs Sanders non-policies I think is kind of made up.  It's just giving her the benefit of the doubt, and not giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

 

I give Clinton the benefit of the doubt because I expect her to fail, and I expect to see her failures coming. I don't give Sanders the benefit of the doubt because I want him to succeed, and he isn't telling me how he plans to do that.

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There's a fellow in Lawrence who I follow on social media who I generally enjoy his take on a lot of political and social issues.  I'm just going to copy his thoughts on this subject whole cloth.
 

I have nothing against presidential candidate white papers. They show that that the candidate's team can perform detailed policy analysis, and they give us a chance to check out both the quality and the nuances of that analysis. However, no white paper ever won my vote, nor probably ever will.


Contrary to the myth that candidates lie, there are a number of studies showing that candidates do actually try to carry out most of their promises, and may even more-or-less succeed with a majority of them. That's pretty amazing, given that most promises depend on bringing recalcitrant courts, bureaucracy, and/or Congress along with the President.


However white papers as such never get implemented. What gets implemented are one or two line summaries or memes. Actual implementation usually depends on a lot of back-and-forth and often involves a lot of competing white papers.


Therefore I've had it up to here with arguments about whose white papers are better.

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The Sanders plan for the bank is simplistic, but it isn't vague: Set a specific $ cap on the size of a bank, and let the banks figure out how to divide themselves in the most efficient way. This is a similar level of detail to Clinton's ISIS plan: Here's my overarching goals, but I'm not going to make battle strategy decisions on the campaign trail when there are actual generals and stuff that are far more prepared to make those calls. Elizabeth Warren has endorsed that very same plan for breaking up the banks as well, and that lady's a Harvard law professor specializing in banking.

 

Unrelated to that discussion: Clinton has joined in with the argument that Sanders is a fake Democrat, which is hilarious, because he's been voting along with the Democratic party since before her Third Way branch of the party existed.

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Unrelated to that discussion: Clinton has joined in with the argument that Sanders is a fake Democrat, which is hilarious, because he's been voting along with the Democratic party since before her Third Way branch of the party existed.

 

Honestly the fact that that sort of super thin, superficial criticism is all that exists is kind of refreshing. It suggests that the whole party is on the same track even if people have different temperaments, and have different relationships to existing political institutions. That was certainly not the case back in the 90s when the Third Way was relevant, and the Democratic party had much worse objectives it was trying to achieve.

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Yeah, the party's been undergoing long fought course correction lately, with a lot of it dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Lots of people were really bugged by Clinton showing up at the NYC signing for the $15/hr minimum wage law when she's never supported it. Mostly, I just hope it gives her the excuse to actually support the idea of instead of constantly insisting it's too ambitious. 

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There's a fellow in Lawrence who I follow on social media who I generally enjoy his take on a lot of political and social issues.  I'm just going to copy his thoughts on this subject whole cloth.

 

I have nothing against presidential candidate white papers. They show that that the candidate's team can perform detailed policy analysis, and they give us a chance to check out both the quality and the nuances of that analysis. However, no white paper ever won my vote, nor probably ever will.

Contrary to the myth that candidates lie, there are a number of studies showing that candidates do actually try to carry out most of their promises, and may even more-or-less succeed with a majority of them. That's pretty amazing, given that most promises depend on bringing recalcitrant courts, bureaucracy, and/or Congress along with the President.

However white papers as such never get implemented. What gets implemented are one or two line summaries or memes. Actual implementation usually depends on a lot of back-and-forth and often involves a lot of competing white papers.

Therefore I've had it up to here with arguments about whose white papers are better.

 

I would love to see that Sanders's campaign can perform detailed policy analysis.

 

Also, I did a little looking around, and Sanders introduced this policy as a bill, and also introduced this policy as a bill, and also introduced this policy as a bill. None gained a co-sponsor, and all have languished in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Policy. These attempts ignore that the current regulations are generally doing their job (if this is behind the WSJ paywall, sorry, let me know and I'll... do something???), though at a slower pace and with less fanfare than progressives would like -- it's just not as fun to say GE is spinning off their GE Capital arm due to regulatory strain as it is to say JP Morgan has to split up because we damn well said so. Even Mother Jones, which is generally pretty solidly in Sanders's court, wasn't very charitable about the bill.

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I would love to see that Sanders's campaign can perform detailed policy analysis.

 

Also, I did a little looking around, and Sanders introduced this policy as a bill, and also introduced this policy as a bill, and also introduced this policy as a bill. None gained a co-sponsor, and all have languished in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Policy. These attempts ignore that the current regulations are generally doing their job (if this is behind the WSJ paywall, sorry, let me know and I'll... do something???), though at a slower pace and with less fanfare than progressives would like -- it's just not as fun to say GE is spinning off their GE Capital arm due to regulatory strain as it is to say JP Morgan has to split up because we damn well said so. Even Mother Jones, which is generally pretty solidly in Sanders's court, wasn't very charitable about the bill.

I would assume the President would have a bit more leverage with congress than a single congressman. I think it makes sense to be skeptical about his ability to pass it, it like 'Obama-care' would probably be passed with some amendments to win bi-partisan support. Hopefully it would be more effective than Obama-care in actually doing the thing it wants to accomplish after the changes!

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In just the last three days:

 

1. The Panama Papers leaked, exposing a major tax haven that was helped along by free trade negotiations Clinton took part in, and Sanders aggressively opposed in the Senate. Clinton supporters in the media start defending free trade as a good thing, and accusing Bernie Sanders of "hating poor people in other countries" for opposing free trade policies. 

2. Hillary Clinton tells CNN she's "Going Nuclear" on Sanders, and immediately puts out a statement demanding he apologize to the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, saying he's unqualified to be president because he doesn't support suing gun makers for what legal purchasers do with those guns. He responds saying she's unqualified for voting for the Iraq war and should apologize for that instead, and the media pounces, turning this into a sexist slur. Nobody cares about the galling crassness of using dead kindergartners as chips in a political primary.

3. Today, Bill Clinton was challenged at a campaign event in Philadelphia (shout out to my hometown) by Black Lives Matters activists. He called BLM "far left," said they should focus on black on black crime instead, defended welfare reform and the 90s crime bill and HRC's "Superpredators" line, giving an example of "13 year olds hopped up on crack being sent to kill other African Americans." Basically: We ruined our own communities, his policies were trying to save us. Philly wasn't having any of it. Looking forward to see how people twist this to be Sanders' fault.

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Yikes. As a Philadelphian, the tear Bill Clinton went on that disparaged BLM protestors got me pretty upset. I really think Hillary needs to either keep him in line or just stop letting him be a surrogate for her.

I think this piece by Jamelle Bouie in Slate is a thoughtful reflection on Bill Clinton's tirade, and what it says about his complicated legacy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/the_politics_of_bill_clinton_s_crime_bill_were_messier_than_they_seem.html

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Yikes. As a Philadelphian, the tear Bill Clinton went on that disparaged BLM protestors got me pretty upset. I really think Hillary needs to either keep him in line or just stop letting him be a surrogate for her.

I think this piece by Jamelle Bouie in Slate is a thoughtful reflection on Bill Clinton's tirade, and what it says about his complicated legacy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/the_politics_of_bill_clinton_s_crime_bill_were_messier_than_they_seem.html

Slightly unrelated: I really want campaigns to stop letting Celebrities be surrogates, they seem to be best at putting their feet in the mouths. 

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Yikes. As a Philadelphian, the tear Bill Clinton went on that disparaged BLM protestors got me pretty upset. I really think Hillary needs to either keep him in line or just stop letting him be a surrogate for her.

I think this piece by Jamelle Bouie in Slate is a thoughtful reflection on Bill Clinton's tirade, and what it says about his complicated legacy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/the_politics_of_bill_clinton_s_crime_bill_were_messier_than_they_seem.html

This isn't his first seeming disaster on the campaign, but they put him out there anyway, and Hillary has defended him and refused to go against anything he said. We can only assume it's intentional, and the actual message of the campaign at this point.

The Clinton campaign as a whole just seems really fucked lately. Hillary probably wouldn't be supporting this stuff, if only out of practicality because it looks horrible, except she's surrounded by people like the "Hillary Men" who think this shit is great, actually. Everyone kept talking about the positive potential of Sanders' campaign to push her's to the left, but they seem to be working overtime not primarily on winning votes, but instead on avoiding any slipping away from free trade, bomb Iran, money is A-OK policies. In the debate last night Clinton claimed to support $15 minimum wage, to have always supported the $15 minimum wage, and in the same sentence say she supports a $12 minimum wage and states can choose to go higher if they're willing. On social security, she repeatedly responded to a question about removing the cap on max taxed income (SS income tax caps out at $115k, so rich people pay far less into it, despite getting the same retirement benefits as everyone else) by saying that yes, she supports... increasing the SS Trust's funding. She kept refusing to actually agree to remove the cap, and insisting that she WAS agreeing by saying she'd "make the Security Trust solvent" some different indeterminate way. Does she support raising the retirement age from 65, as many rich jerks call for? That could be fit under the umbrella of what she was claiming. So could massive benefit cuts. 

 

And that's just... acceptable, apparently. To talk out of both sides of your mouth not just to different people, but to everybody all at once, while not actually saying anything concrete. I really don't get it.

 

She also, after much hemming and hawing, said she regretted the 90s Crime Bill. Or, at least "I regret the consequences of the bill that were unintentional," which means what? Because the bill had some really terrible intentional stuff included it, like massive minimum sentencing hikes, expansion of the death penalty, racially biased criminal laws like specifying crack for extra penalties, massive financial support for prison expansion, and almost no money for actual crime prevention.

 

Edit: The crime bill also cut all education funding for prisoners, maybe you could call the obvious increase in recidivism and poverty among ex-cons "unintentional". Hey, we only decided an entire class of people were subhuman, who thought that would have consequences? It also established "Three Strikes" provisions that lead to life sentences for repeated low level offenders like pot dealers and homeless people sleeping in public. I'm sure they thought that the people they choked out of all legit work would simply vanish from existence rather than doing whatever they could to make ends meet.

 

I don't think there's any room for anybody to call mass incarceration an "unintended consequence," though, since one of the largest parts of it was an enormous increase in funding for prisons, including private prisons.

 

Edit 2: The bill also created a bunch of new crimes, including some based on "gang membership," which has been used to jail people based on familial or proximal association, and enabled the FBI to spy on animal rights, antiwar groups, and mosques as "possible terrorism cells". Is that unintentional?

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So I guess with Kasich suspending his campaign, it's official. Trump is the republican candidate.

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It's amazing what's happened these last couple days: Cruz dropping, Trump saying Cruz's father was part of the JFK assassination and now Kasich suspending his campaign making Trump the presumptive nominee. 

 

I feel like Bizzaro world has invaded the GOP and US.

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Republican people are unhappy, and they want change just like Democrats eight years ago. Sometimes "not a politician" is enough to get you to stand above the crowd.

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Ughhhhhh, this is depressing. At least Hillary is polling better than him in almost all polls. Not that she's amazing but I would easily vote for her over Trump any day.

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