Not feeling the Burn....?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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I think that my biggest problem with Bernie is that he is in a way too similar to Trump. Populism can be described as a “political program or movement that champions the common person, usually by favourable contrast with an elite.” This elite is what in these primaries have become better known as “The Establishment”. We associate this trend with Trump, but populism itself is a phenomenon that is possible on both the left and the right. (britannica.com/topic/populism). Some might argue that they are not true populist because Trump is certainly not one of the people but a billionaire used to buying politicians for his own gains, and while Bernie is popular, socialism is not a popular concept for Americans. Frequently Bernie has to remind people of examples of what he stands for, citing European countries and others to an audience that probably has never travelled all that much. His biggest support comes from young people and I don’t see that as a coincidence. How Bernie and Trump describe their campaigns supports the description of them as forms of populism.
Bernie has called Trump “divisive” (mysanantonio.com/news/local/ … 858235.php), because of how Trump has spoken about Mexicans and Muslims, but is it not also divisive and, to some, un-American to problematize wealth itself. Either path of populism presents a target for the anger manifested by a few who look outside of themselves to the cause of their problems and the solution of their problems.
In both cases it seems that populism is taking a racial flavor. You look at the electoral map and it seems that both Trump and Bernie are doing well among white men, even if for different reasons, but (surprisingly?) there is a possibility that many of Bernie’s supporters will go over to Trump if Hillary ends up the Democratic nominee. The path to beat Hillary is being shown by Bernie. He has cast Hillary as part of The Establishment, the 1%, the rich, etc, and this in spite of the fact that Hillary is basically running as a continuation of Obama who spent the last 8 years trying to sustain what became known as Obamacare, and who stands accused of working against “job-creators”.

Obama has as of late been carrying his own trumpet to sign about the accomplishments of his administrations. “Things are better” is the simple message and yet the vigor of the Bernie and Trump campaigns show that there was something that became worse during his presidency.

Could it be his race? Could it be his policies? I think that Barrack ran on a similar anti-establishment agenda, “daring to hope”, just like Bernie. The problem is that many promises went unfulfilled. There is a reality that “hope” in any form, eventually meets and here is where The Establishment arises necessarily. My fear is that there is a trend that clamors against “The Establishment”, this mythical Other that stands in the way of all that is good. This simplistic narrative should not be possible in an educated country, but it is here, seemingly to stay. This duality is a fantasy fit for kids, not adults. Sure, Congress has become a group concerned with blocking any Obama initiatives. Their goal early on was to make Obama a one-term President, so they shouldn’t cry when Obama uses “Executive fiat” and save his breath rather than waste his time on people conditioned by Party loyalty. Maybe that is part of the problem? Certainly it is a problem and it is that dysfunction that many would like to see “cured”, but I would prefer to see that problem resolved by my vote for who goes to Congress rather than by my vote on who goes to the WH.

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Yeah, definitely not feeling the Marxist leaning burn. Like any burn that lasts for more than two days you probably caught a venereal disease…

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This is just awful. AWFUl. There needs to be a new word for how awful this is, because ‘awful’ isn’t awful enough. What you’re saying here is that Obama getting what he wants is a given, and if Congress won’t help him get it then it’s only natural that he get it without relying on Congress.

That is not how a Republic works. That is how a dictatorship works.

Please just try to imagine how you would react to this same sentiment if the parties were reversed. Bush II (or III) is in office, both houses of Congress have DNC majorities. Bush tries to get several measures passed that democrats/liberals/you don’t like, naturally they get voted down. Bush’s response is “Naturally I should stop wasting my time on Congress and simply take direct executive action and appoint Czars to get what I want instead.”

I mean, given that you think the Presidency works this way (when it’s a Democrat in office only, of course, RE: your early comments on the Patriot Act), I can infer what it is you have against populism. But you don’t really state it. Is the reader really supposed to take away from this that the people trying to thwart the will of their Government offends your sensibilities, and thus Bernie and Trump are both bad candidates? Because that’s all I’m getting from this.

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Hello Uccisore

No. I am saying that early on the GOP, emboldened by victories in the mid-term elections, vowed (time.com/83073/barack-obama-tran … publicans/).

I realize that obstructionism was not invented by Republicans. After Bush’s re-election Democrats blocked the President’s agenda and pretty much rendered him impotent, except for the war. What I am saying is that this now seems to be a tit-for-tat where the GOP is paying back for what the Democrats did to their then-President. Maybe I am wrong. But what matters here is that Congress should not be the place where vendettas play out, where revenge trumps discourse, debate and reason.

My opinion is that Congress should be more than just a block to Executive Power. There should be a regard to what is best for the country. It cannot be that ANY PRESIDENT, including Republican Presidents only propose things that are so unreasonable that they must be blocked. I am sure that President Obama came to the WH with the hope of helping create bridges (how often he has noted that there is ONE America instead of a duality), leading bipartisan action, but it seems to me that sometimes, even on center leaning policies, like those I mentioned above, partisanship has trump bipartisanship.
Why am I not feeling the Bern…? that was my OP. Do you think that bipartisanship will grow with either Trump or Bernie? I know, I know: “Ha, so you reveal that you support Hillary!!!” Maybe I just consider her the least of three evils.
Bernie: Bernie has a moral agenda rather than a political agenda. I worry about Bernie because when you equate what you believe as morally good as what must be pursued politically then there is no room for debate, for a change of position, for giving something in order to get something else. This political puritanism only helps propagate the current obstructionism.
Trump: Trump may or may not have conviction in what he proposes, but he does propose blanket solutions that lack the sort of contrast upon which a debate could be held. He comes across as bigot, a bully and also lacks a political agenda. BUT, I give him this: I believe that unlike Bernie Trump lacks the tone of a prophet and would probably negotiate with members of the Democratic Party, much to the chagrin of GOP loyals. “Wow. So you’re voting for Trump instead of Hillary?” I don’t know. All I said is that I am not feeling the Bern…
Does that mean that Bernie is a Bad candidate? Trump? Yes, in my opinion. But is Hillary a good candidate? Not really…

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Breaking News: Omar’s ex-co-star got issues with Bernie people as well

Something in the water…

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Think of how long it took to make gay marriage possible, and by how slim of a margin it passed. A large portion of the population was strongly opposed, and when it passed, they were pissed. The wounds did not even begin to heal before the left moved onto a new issue, and then onto another one. Think about how fast this trans stuff is washing over the US. Think about all the typical SJW issues and how they dominate the public sphere. Everyone understands that the way they’re being pushed makes it impossible to legitimately criticize them without being portrayed as a bigot. You don’t like the new Ghostbusters movie? Sexist. You think the plot line with the Sand Snakes in GOT is lame as fuck? Sexist. You have a problem with affirmative action? Racist.

I’m around the University, so my perspective may be a bit skewed, but it seems to me that voicing conservative opinions nowadays is like walking around a playground with your dick hanging out. You will get shamed, ridiculed and likely fired. This same attitude is reflected on the news, film, TV shows, music, etc. The left has created a red ceiling in these public spheres that prevents moderate conservative voices from expressing themselves–not without incurring shame and ridicule. As a result, it’s only the shameless and extremist conservative voices that end up saying anything; it’s not a surprise that the moderate silently cheer, even if they don’t agree, when this happens.

It’s a mistake to think that the current populist fervor has a race angle to it. If it does at all, it’s because fascist SJWs have tethered their demands and activism to the civil rights movement of the 60s. An attack on SJWs for trying to eliminate traditional social roles, healthy prejudices, etc., is made to seem like an attack on race…or at least on the same sort of movement that made the civil rights possible. It’s like refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of an attack on Pixar’s “Inside Out” because that’s seen as an attack on Pixar’s “Toy Story.”

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But you didn’t stop there. You went ON to say that it was only natural for Obama to end run around Congress and accomplish his agenda with executive orders if the actual legislative process was stone walling him.

Those GOP congressmen, your mortal enemies? People voted for them. People voted for them in droves specfically when they campaigned on a platform of opposing Obama.

Progress = Whatever the DNC wants to do.

Yes, it is so awful when sometimes elected officials keep the DNC from doing whatever it wants. Heaven forfend. It’s like the democratic process is only useful as a post-facto justification for your agenda when you get that justification, but when the process denies you, it can be conveniently tossed in the garbage.

Right. Obama wins majority of votes = he should get what he wants. GOP Congress wins majority of votes with platform of opposing Obama = naturally Obama is justified in using executive orders to avoid dealing with them.

Again, you use “It’s the will of the people!” when the will of the people happens to agree with what you want. Then you use “Naturally it’s time for unilateral decisions” when the will of the people doesn’t agree with what you want.

That’s not the will of the people. That’s you getting what you want, and using democracy as a post-facto justification when you can.

I’m not convinced you define those things in two different ways when the president is a Democrat.

Why indeed? It took me 10 seconds on Google to get a fair answer to that question:

washingtonpost.com/news/pow … a-funding/

So why pose the question as though there is no fair answer? Well, we both know why.

Of course not. It took me 10 seconds to find the GOP’s side on the issue instead of just allowing you to convince me they were Skeletor opposing He-Man purely for the thrill of it.

I don’t care about that part. That’s not the part thaat’s awful. The part that’s awful is that you justified a President forcing his agenda through with executive action when he can’t get it done in Congress. Did Bush do that? Would you have said “Oh, well, naturally that’s the right way to procede” if he did?

No. What matters here is that when Congress tells the President “No”, that means “No”, not “How can I do it anyway”. Congressional support is not a mere luxury that is nice to have if you can get it, but ultimately unneeded.

By returning the UK’s statue of Churchill and declaring to the GOP that it’s time for them to obey him because they lost the election. Yeah, he said he was looking to create bridges right up until the moment he got in the Big Chair and didn’t have to anymore.

What the fuck do I want bipartisanship for? The DNC and GOP fundamentally disagree about many, many things. “Bipartisanship” is just liberal code for “Getting what you want with no opposition”.

I’m no fan of Bernie either, but this doesn’t make much sense to me. Compromise isn’t a good in itself. If Bernie (or anyone) is right, then changing his position is a step in the wrong direction.

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And of course we have to emphasize that ‘passed’ in this case means ‘passed a panel of 9 appointed judges’. Not any sort of vote. Over and over again people (even in California) voted ‘no’ on gay marriage, and over and over courts said “Yeah, well, you have to have it anyway”. A person could not have a problem with gay marriage itself and still resent that.

Well, because the tactic was proven effective with gay rights. The word ‘homophobic’ was invented, proved useful, so now there’s a ton of ‘phobics’ a person can be. It’s more or less impossible to disagree with an SJW about anything without being some sort of ‘phobic’.

And this isn’t just an issue on the ‘bullshit internet arguments’ level. I attended a symposium a few years ago of various subjects at my college, and there was a psychology presenation on the prevelance of homophobia, and how they tested for it. It had percentages of what sorts of people were likely to be homophobic.

Think about that. Homophobia is a word that was invented in the 90’s and means literally whatever an ideologue needs it to mean in the moment to win an argument. And already they are convincing themselves it’s a phenomenon in the world that can be measured and studied.

Gender is the same way- Gender as a thing that applies to people and not nouns in romance languages was invented by feminists in the 60’s. Now because of the trans movement, we all have to pretend it’s a real thing that a person can ‘be’ that can be in conflict with their sex, and that this is a real condition that science can measure and diagnose. It’s like watching millennials declare that Luke Skywalker was the first U.S. president- I was there when this shit was made up, and somehow it transitioned out of fiction.

Shameless and extremist conservatives aren’t afraid to speak up because they’re non-moderate, but also because they’ve been dealing with this for 20 years, not five. Moderate conservatives are just now getting pissed at SJW’s because of Ghostbusters and trannies and the stuff you brought up. Further-right conservatives have been under this exact same assault since the 90’s or longer. So if a conservative managed to be alive and have a microphone for that long, they found a way to endure and are still speaking up.

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The one good thing that has happened is that conservatives are starting to become clever and even more importantly funny. That’s what happens when a movement is forced to go underground. The best art is usually produced under tyrannical regimes, because artists are forced to become deep, to create layers of meaning. To do that, they have to first uncover layers of meaning. They have to go down, as Nietzsche puts it. And they have.

The opposite has happened with the left. They’ve become simpletons, and aggressive at that. Even if Jon Stewart comes back, I don’t think he’ll be funny. The last time he popped his head up to ridicule trump (a couple of weeks ago), all I got was cringe. Colbert’s ratings are plummeting, and Oliver is painful to watch–Make Donald Trumpf again, m’lady! The most surprising thing for me has been the transformation of the chans. I’ve been on there since the beginning (little over a decade ago), and back then we were all moderately liberal. Within less than half of a decade, however, the entire place has veered miles to the right. I mean, they’re now either hardcore Christians or lamenting their inability to be one. It makes sense. The anonymity attracts dissenting voices, and at the moment, the voices that can’t find an expression in the public sphere are conservative.

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Yeah, as a lifelong conservative, I have to admit that the present emergence of legitimately funny conservatives is a pleasent turn of events, and very welcome.

There’s a hard Christian influence on the chans now? That hasn’t been my experience, but I admit I’ve never been to halfchan.

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Hello Uccisore

I am not surprised that, if convinced that there is no way for reason to persuade a group of people, that the President would use executive power if the issue means that much to him, if it is that urgent. That said, as a good student of Law, Obama has actually declined to use such power. He knows that such action can be challenged and defeated, so he has used it less than Clinton and Bush before him. He has made it a policy to bypass a Congress settled on an obstructionist policy towards anything that the President sends their way, thus he has not delivered on many promises of his campaign. If Congress is determined to block Presidential proposals at any cost, the administration can either sit on its hands or use Executive Privilege where it can. As much as history will judge the President negatively as being unable to lead we have to remember that the GOP has been sliding farther and farther from the “Center” to the point that Obamacare, modeled after Romney’s own, is now seen as liberal excess. Projects that could have been unashamedly bipartisan have to carry the dead weight of Republican “Nays” even if the bills themselves are dead “center”.

I would not attribute their wins on a clear advantage among voters alone. (billmoyers.com/2014/11/05/gerrym … advantage/).

Yeah. You’re right and I am sooo wrong. Fixing roads? Well if the RNC doesn’t want it then it must be because it is not progress right? Yeah, ONLY the RNC KNOWS what progress for America actually looks like. The hell with taking votes (I don’t know how many time Boehner blocked even taking a vote on shit), let’s just ask the Republicans. Why is it sad? Because by punting RNC member where not exposed to actually having to carry a record into their future. But fuck that shit even because as intransigent as the RNC members were even Bohener became a “liberal” in their eyes, the Tea Party, that pretty much hijacked the RNC and took it even further down the right…in my opinion.

With all due respect Ucci, don’t project your shit onto me. I haven’t said anything like that. Stop trying to get to some “meaning” behind my written word. I understand the Constitution and I defended that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic for half my life so don’t give me that shit that does not fly. Saying that Congress became a wall to resist the President and saying that THIS IS NOT THE JOB FOR WHICH THEY WERE ELECTED and that Congress men should seek agreement when possible is not the same as saying that Congress is there to meet my agenda or else. Today, what is the approval rating of Congress? I guess all those that dare to criticize Congress only do so because they wanted Congress to do what the DNC wanted because what the DNC wants is the only thing that we could consider “progress”. Yeah. Nice plastic doll inflated by your own reality. Let me know when you finish ejaculating and then maybe you will deal with facts, with the actual cases I presented, including the Zika funding bill rather than generalizing into the realm of pure ideas. Otherwise it is a private party in which no one is invited, certainly not facts.

Again, how they won is a bit questionable, but again you missed the point as if I am demanding that there should be a winner take all. far from it. I am saying that there should be an attempt to do good collectively when possible and that has not happened.

I don’t think that is a good link. Try again and I’ll respond. I am eager to see what you consider a good reason to deny funding requested by experts on the subject of epidemics as necessary to prepare this country.

Not it is not. Congress support is needed and in fact that is why Obama went always back for more. As I said, Executive orders can be challenged and defeated. It is actually a better strategy to insist because it is a “No” without a good reason why and so they need to be accountable on record for what they vote on. I much prefer Congress to vote on stuff so that when the next mid-terms roll around their records are what people vote on rather than intention. Obama’s use of EO actually gets them off the hook. I want to see how the house receives the amended Zika funding bill.

Ahh, the fresh air of a working democracy. So the stalled Congress? THat is the norm? My bad. I hope that Congressmen run on this: “Bipartisanship” is just liberal code for “Getting what you want with no opposition”. Sign a bill to fund infrastructure improvements? That’s just letting the DNC get what it wants, which is obviously not good for the country. Now let’s drink some water in Flynt…

And after the stuff you wrote above I am not surprised. You and I fundamentally differ here. I see this lack of compromise as a danger to our democracy and you think that it is the fundamental trait of our democracy.

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Yes. Subjectivists usually become hardcore objectivists at that time.

Yes, again.

with love,
sanjay

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I don’t care, they can call me a bigot if they want, they’re idiots.

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As long as the Bernie campaign plays along and doesn’t make a ruckus the media will go easy on them.
Belittle them a bit but that’s it.

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If ever up to me, people will learn to live, or die ignorant.

“Give a man a bowl he smokes for a day; Teach a man to grow, he smokes for a lifetime.”
Learning > Giving. Sorry mainstream Christians… The donations just aren’t cutting it.

This applies to nearly anything survival related.

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I despise all these power hungry groups, feminism, gay pride, transgender bathroom shit. Who gives a shit about this when the fucking planet is being taken over.

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Bread and circuses while the entire world economy collapses into nothingness followed by an iron grip of global or international tyranny.

These utopian social justice warriors are just part of the bread and circuses, more importantly while the world collapses it gives general populations the illusion of social political change or citizen activism on their part participating in largely microscopic trivial matters while the entire macrocosm disintegrates around them.

By the time they actually notice what’s going on it will all be too late by then of course…

What’s not to like about religious and state social public welfare in the United States?

Is it only their sole concern about hunger feeding the poor and economically disenfranchised into ballooning dependent public welfare pets?

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Because it’s a short term answer to a long-term problem, it’s a bull shit moral manipulative ruse.

Yeah, just an illusion of freedom.

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Hello xzc

I actually agree with you on this. Knee-jerk reactions are clearly the new normal and I also agree that the LGBT agenda has become sacred. Everything, every battle is tied to loaded ideas, such as racism, the holocaust, Hitler, etc. But let’s be honest, while you don’t have to be a racist to not like Affirmative Action (since there are many good reasons to disagree with it) don’t think that racism is a myth or something that we are over with. We are a faith-based nation and it seems incredible at what pace the LGBT agenda has been implemented. That said, I think that it goes with the spirit of our government which allows people the pursuit of their happiness as long as they don’t hurt anyone. Gay-marriage lies in a gray-area because while a couple does not hurt anyone, adding children into their “family” means that there is a minor who might be, if we define their life-style as toxic. We have to be careful though because you could justify interference in the lives of many other families.

Well universities have traditionally been a bastion of humanist ideals, so I am not surprised. I think that the rise of the internet, blogs and tabloids have conditioned the American mind, inside the University and out, to treat facts as a commodity. There is Fox News if you want facts that support a conservative perspective and CNN if you want facts for your liberal taste. When there is no common accepted set of facts there is no rational discourse but a match of who can shout loudest.

Populism is not necessarily racial, but it does lend itself for such abuse because it appeals to the separation of people into us/them and racialism (not to be confused with racism) is just one of those ways in which to make those distinctions. While Trump, for example, has not ran on a racialist ticket, White Nationalist approve of his message and have ran robo-calls that are racial.