Trump: The First 100 Days

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
3817

C’mon, man. I like and respect you, but this torturing of chart is hard to stomach.

The Democrats indisputably left on the whole as did Republicans - look at how no one occupies the political middle, which was the case before. The parties used to be awash in occupants in the middle (who were there for different reasons, not automatically because they were split-the-difference moderates on everything, but rather like a populist Southern Democrat who was pro-labor union but was also pro-2nd Amendment, or a Northeastern Republican who favored financial de-regulation but was pro-choice).

That has changed in the aggregate - the Democrats moved left, the Republicans moved right, and part of that was partisan consolidation (meaning the parties don’t have nearly those inconoclastic members with local flavoring anymore as they used to).

It happened. We’re not talking about “coalescing around a center left ideology” - that supports an argument that the Republicans went further than the Democrats, as evidenced by them going past the center-right marker on their line, when the Democrats stayed closer to their middle of the line. But that isn’t in dispute - we’re talking about whether the parties moved out of the middle on the whole. And they did.

If you want to keep making the point that Republicans went further, be my guest, I’ve never disagreed with that, and I’m not a fan of that shift. But the Democrats have clearly shifted left, despite efforts to contend otherwise.

3818

Obviously

3819

So, Nixon instituted wage-and-price controls–as un-conservative an idea as there is. Meanwhile, Obama responded to the financial crisis of 2009 not by nationalizing the banks (which was a strategy urged upon him by economists of all stripes), but Nixon was more conservative than Obama? Interesting.

3820

I’m not torturing the data–I’m interpreting it.

Fair enough. And while we’re looking, let’s also look at which party has abandoned the center to a greater degree.

Look at the top graphs. There’s no doubt that, back in the day, there were significantly more GOP members on the left side of the continuum than there were Dems on its right side.

Now compare the top graphs to the bottom, and you tell me: Which party has pulled more members across the center divide? Man, it ain’t even a race. There is no doubt–the GOP has abandoned centrist politics to a far greater degree than have the Dems. Again, your thesis of some sort of equivalency between the parties vis a vis ideological shifting simply isn’t supported by your own data. (More shortly on the supposed abandonment of the center by the Dems, BTW.)

The Democrats did not move left–their ideological center is in virtually the exact same place from one graph to the next. In contrast, anyone can see that the ideological center of the GOP (especially the House) has shifted rightward.

You are trying to make an argument that there is an equivalence in ideological shift between the parties. Your own data simply do not comport with this.

Yes, the Dems lost members of their ‘right flank’–members who occupied the center of the spectrum. But to interpret that as indicative of an ideological shift in the Dem party is deeply misleading. Those ‘centrist losses’ represent the loss of Blue Dog Democrat seats to Republicans, not an ideological shift among the Democratic party writ large. You can’t accuse the Dems of ‘shifting left’ when all that happened was that their DINOs got picked off Republican challengers (or in some cases, rather than risk getting picked off, they simply changed their party affiliation). In contrast, the Republican distributions picked up and marched rightward.

In the spirit of collegiality, I wish I could go there with you, but I just can’t. One can drop a straight vertical line through the center of the Dem distributions from one graph to the next, which is prima facie evidence that the Dems have not shifted left (although given the current political climate, I would be surprised if the next dataset didn’t manifest a slight leftward shift). In contrast, a straight line through the center of the GOP datasets is far from vertical–it is angled in a way that reflects the obvious rightward shift of the GOP.

3821

He did that temporarily in the mistaken notion that it would solve inflation. Yes, even republican Presidents can do stupid things.

I hope you are not going to play the game where you cherry pick certain decisions by hand picked republican Presidents and then compare them to cherry picked decisions by certain democrat Presidents.

I guess you are.

Anyway, all games aside. Consider the Kennedy and Truman examples. You can even throw in Jimmy Carter who was not nearly as liberal as Obama. And can proudly now claim that he is no longer the worst modern day President.

3822

Yes, I know full well why he did it. That’s totally besides the point. The issue is the nature of the policy itself, which probably shades past socialism into frank communism in its implications. But despite this, you’re magnaminously willing to shrug it off as simply a ‘stupid thing’? Let’s imagine for a moment how you would have reacted if Obama had done anything remotely like that…

<imagining, imagining, imagining…>

Nope. Can’t do it. My imagination fails me. I simply lack the imaginative horsepower needed to fully capture the magnitude of your reaction to such an action on Obama’s part.

Hold on–did you really just suggest that cherry-picking isn’t an appropriate way to judge a president? Oh Arturo, Prince of irony:

1 Like
3823

[quote=“loppar, post:3816, topic:223365, full:true”]

No it’s the other way round, especially in terms of human resources where the US is basically poaching intellectual resources of other countries…[/quote]

Makes you think, is immigration to the 1st world from the 3rd world a good idea? It only hurts 3rd world countries.

Most intellectual capital comes from specific groups. If the US was truly about improving their intellectual resources why are they accepting so many - Guatemalans, Haitians, Hmongs who practically have little to no skills and don’t even speak English? If it were truly about improving the intellectual capital then the people they let in would only come from groups who are highly educated and speak English only.

[quote=“loppar, post:3816, topic:223365, full:true”]
If you ever came close (which I highly doubt) to one of the leading US universities you’d see a lot of non-white faces - from China, Iran and India (in that order).

After all, the human capital pushing the US technological development forward comes from guess who - immigrants. Elon Musk of Tesla was born in South Africa, Sergey Brin of Google in the USSR, Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) was born in Hyderabad and Twitter’s CEO Kordestani in Tehran, just to name a few.

There are countless more examples. one of the more famous being the Chobani yogurt brand (a Persian word denoting “shepherd”) created by one Hamdi Ulukaya, whose immigration status in the US used to be controversial.[/quote]

Here is the problem with immigrant CEOs such as Satya Nadella:

A person who spends the first 20 years of their life growing up in another country will be culturally foreign. They will not be imprinted with Western Values the way someone who grows up in America has been. As a result I doubt they’d be more attracted to hiring American workers over say H1B Visas. It is generally a bad situation if the US has a lot of immigrant CEOs because they will not prefer Americans to foreigners.

[quote=“loppar, post:3816, topic:223365, full:true”]
For example, my wife works for an US healthcare company, although she’s based thousands of miles away from their HQ. She’s taking up one of those jobs that have allegedly been “stolen” from the American people. [/quote]

Well at least I know why you hate Trump and it has nothing to do with this Russia stuff posted. as a jew you’ll never support an anti-refugee policy based on what happened in the 1930s and Trump’s pressure on American companies to hire domestically has potentially put your wife’s livelihood at stake.

[quote=“loppar, post:3816, topic:223365, full:true”]
But if you look at the specific situation of that company, you’d see that it wasn’t a conscious decision by the Clintons/lizard people/Jews/whomever to move these jobs overseas. The company struggled in staffing certain positions in the US and then realized they could find PhD’s with perfect English abroad willing to work for smaller wages and all that without the hassle of US-related operational expenses. That’s capitalism in a nutshell. [/quote]

The point of an economy is to serve it’s citizens not to bend to the god of capitalism. How does hiring a foreigner in a foreign land benefit Americans? In the past companies use to pay their employees to get a PhD or whatever skill/education they required if they needed it. Now they just go abroad and get someone for pennies on the dollar.

3824

Yes ED the democratic party has moved to the right.

That’s why Socialist Bernie Sanders dang near defeated Hillary Clinton during the democrat primaries. That is also why Hillary Clinton had to move to the left on various issues since the 90’s. Like gay marriage, transgender issues and foreign policy issues. She moved to the left because the democrat party is getting MORE CONSERVATIVE.

That’s why a democrat President elected 57 years ago lowered taxes and raised defense spending. And such talk today would be considered heresy in the democrat party.

And that’s why I’ve read so many articles too numerous to post asking the question "Has the democrat party moved too far to the left?

Barbara Boxer

Diane Fienstein

Nancy Pelosi

Harry Reid

And of course the king of the left Barack Obama…

…Sure ED the dems have moved to the right since 1960. Uh huh…okay.

3825

You seem to have missed the part where I said I was talking about the PRE-TRUMP Dem party. I have already acknowledged that the next set of data will likely indicate a slight leftward shift.

You are making my argument for me. The current leftward shift in the Dem party is in response to a perception that it has become too conservative.

3826

Ed you are all over the road. Go back and look at your first post on the topic.

3827

@thunderbolt23, regarding my contention re party-switching and its effect on the appearance of the centrist aspects of your data: I have gone through the list and culled out switches among members of Congress. I’ve only included those who switched while in office, while running for office, or in the year immediately prior to running for office.

Democrats Who Switched to the Republican Party

1970s
Trent Lott, later U.S. Representative from Mississippi (1973–1989) and U.S. Senator from Mississippi (1989–2007)
John Jarman, while U.S. Representative from Oklahoma (1951–1977)
1980s
Bob Stump, while U.S. Representative from Arizona (1977–1003)
Eugene Atkinson, while U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania (1979–1983)
Phil Gramm, while U.S. Representative from Texas (1979–1985) and later U.S. Senator from Texas (1985–2002)
Andy Ireland, while U.S. Representative from Florida (1977–1993)
Jim McCrery, later U.S. Representative from Louisiana (1988–2009)
David Duke, Louisiana State Representative
Bill Grant, while U.S. Representative from Florida (1987–1991)
Tommy F. Robinson, while U.S. Representative from Arkansas (1985–1991)
1990s
Walter B. Jones, while running as a Democrat for U.S. Representative from North Carolina. U.S. Representative from North Carolina (1995–present)
Ed Whitfield, the day before filing as a candidate for the U.S. House in Kentucky. U.S. Representative from Kentucky (1995–present)
Richard Shelby, while U.S. Senator from Alabama (1994–present)
Jimmy Hayes, while U.S. Representative from Louisiana (1987–1997)
Greg Laughlin, while U.S. Representative from Texas (1989–1997)
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, while U.S. Senator from Colorado (1993–2005)
Billy Tauzin, while U.S. Representative from Louisiana (1980–2005)
Nathan Deal, while U.S. Representative from Georgia (1993–2011).
Mike Parker, while U.S. Representative from Mississippi (1989–1999)
2000s
Matthew G. Martinez, while U.S. Representative from California (1983–2001)
Virgil Goode, while U.S. Representative from Virginia (1997–2009)
Ralph Hall, while U.S. Representative from Texas (1981–2015)
Rodney Alexander, while U.S. Representative from Louisiana (2004–2013)
Parker Griffith, while U.S. Representative from Alabama (2009–2011)

Republicans Who Switched to the Democratic Party

1970s
Ogden R. Reid, while U.S. Representative from New York (1963–1975)
Don Riegle, while U.S. representative from Michigan (1967–1976) and later U.S. Senator from Michigan (1976–1995)
1980s
None
1990s
Michael Forbes, while serving as U.S. Representative from New York (1995–2001)
2000s
None
2010s
None

The difference is obvious, and supports my contention.

3828

Ever heard of Duolingo? CAPTCHA? The concept of crowdsourcing? Well,they were all founded/invented by a Guatemalan whom you consider culturally, racially and socially inferior… Afraid of the “lesser races”, yet? Well, you should be.

Bwa-ha-ha. You should write a foaming-at-the-mouth e-mail to Microsoft complaining about their non-Aryan CEO. This pretty much shows that you’re an ignorant loser probably sitting in a moldy basement, otherwise you’d know that it’s virtually impossible to introduce an apartheid system or an Americans-only system in the technology sector. Those pesky racially impure H1B visa holders are responsible for much of the US industry growth, making up for the deficiencies of the US school system.

It’ Jew with a capital J, you sad anti-semite. That’s the advantage of being highly educated and highly skilled - you’re not dependent on the whims of a political demagogue and your skill set is much in demand all around the world. Even if The Donald fulfilled all of your racist fantasies my wife would find a similar position in a non-US company.

And no, those highly skilled jobs simply cannot be filled by current functionally unemployed in the US no matter how many quasi-socialist decrees one issues. Idi Amin believed he could expel all Indians from Uganda, thereby opening up employment opportunities for Ugandans. What happened next? The economy collapsed. Same thing in Zimbabwe…

So much for your anarcho-capitalism…

First of all, it’s not pennies of the dollar (again it shows you’re pretty much clueless about high-skilled jobs) - the fact is, there simply aren’t enough Americans with appropriate qualifications to meet the industry needs. You’re confusing a PhD with sending a factory worker on a weekend course.

From the discourse above I’d say you have problems on the labor market. You’ve managed to obtain the only thing that’s going in your favor - US citizenship - and now you’re advocating policies that would enable you to leverage your only potential advantage.

Well, the bad news is that’s not gonna help you.

3 Likes
3829

Yeah, I can tell by the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, corporate and social welfare state.

1 Like
3830

[quote=“loppar, post:3828, topic:223365, full:true”]
Ever heard of Duolingo? CAPTCHA? The concept of crowdsourcing? Well,they were all founded/invented by a Guatemalan whom you consider culturally, racially and socially inferior… Afraid of the “lesser races”, yet? Well, you should be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_von_Ahn[/quote]

I think you are suffering cognitive dissonance or you don’t know the difference between an absolute and a general statement.

Half of Guatemalans are on welfare in America. This Luis Von Ahn guy is as representative of the average Guatemalan as Steve Jobs is of the average Syrian refugee

[quote=“loppar, post:3828, topic:223365, full:true”]
Bwa-ha-ha. You should write a foaming-at-the-mouth e-mail to Microsoft complaining about their non-Aryan CEO. This pretty much shows that you’re an ignorant loser probably sitting in a moldy basement, otherwise you’d know that it’s virtually impossible to introduce an apartheid system or an Americans-only system in the technology sector. Those pesky racially impure H1B visa holders are responsible for much of the US industry growth, making up for the deficiencies of the US school system.[/quote]

I didn’t make a racial statement, I made a statement regarding CEOs preference for Americans compared to non-Americans is largely determined by their upbringing. This is just straw man and ad hominem.

[quote=“loppar, post:3828, topic:223365, full:true”]
And no, those highly skilled jobs simply cannot be filled by current functionally unemployed in the US no matter how many quasi-socialist decrees one issues. [/quote]

I’m not so sure, everywhere we look we are seeing H1B abuses where companies are replacing their full-time American employees with cheaper H1Bs. In one notable case, Disney actually had it’s full-time employees train their replacements:

[quote=“loppar, post:3828, topic:223365, full:true”]
Idi Amin believed he could expel all Indians from Uganda, thereby opening up employment opportunities for Ugandans. What happened next? The economy collapsed. Same thing in Zimbabwe…[/quote]

Sigh… not going to bother.

3831

But as I said before, I don’t disagree with this. You’re waging a ferocious battle on this point with no one in particular. The issue isn’t parties relative to one another - it’s parties becoming more partisan in absolute terms. And they have, per the “deeply misleading” folks at Pew Research.[quote=“EyeDentist, post:3820, topic:223365”]
Again, your thesis of some sort of equivalency between the parties vis a vis ideological shifting simply isn’t supported by your own data.
[/quote]

You’re attacking a straw man - I have, multiple times and expressly, noted that the GOP has shifted more than the Democrats and that I don’t assign an equivalence to their degree of partisan shifting. I’ve simply made the (true) point that Democrats have moved to the left relative to where they once were.[quote=“EyeDentist, post:3820, topic:223365”]
The Democrats did not move left–their ideological center is in virtually the exact same place from one graph to the next.
[/quote]

How about that.

You started by claiming that Democrats have moved to the right - but that can’t be if your new claim is correct that the Democrats haven’t moved their ideological center at all over the course of time shown in the graphs.

So, ED, which is correct? You’ve taken two positions that are not reconcilible. Have Democrats moved to the right? Or not moved at all (“exact same place from one graph to the next”)? Which one am I supposed to believe?[quote=“EyeDentist, post:3820, topic:223365”]
You can’t accuse the Dems of ‘shifting left’ when all that happened was that their DINOs got picked off
[/quote]

You’ve made my point for me - not so log ago, those DINOs would not have been DINOs, they’d have been Democrats. They became DINOs because the party moved left and their views were no longer welcome in the party in the way they once were. They became Democrats In Name Only not because of something Republicans did, but what Democrats did.

How can the Democratic Party have moved to the right and not moved at all? As I mentioned above, your new claim is self-refuting your previous one.

3832

I’m just quoting this to point out the irony of what you are arguing by using a student/professor from CMU as the basis of your point.

You should look up the history of that particular school before using as a launchpad for the point you are making.

3833

Jobs was Syrian as much as Obama was Kenyan. von Ahn hails from Guatemala, and Guatemalans “have little to no skills and don’t even speak English” according to you. He’s definitely an outlier, but he pretty much invalidates your statement.

Please enlighten me, on which “data” did you conclude that foreign-born CEOs prefer non-Americans? What empirical evidence helped you frame this amazing hypothesis that you so confidently assert?

Since you’ve probably never even been close to a Fortune 500 company let me enlighten you - it’s a fucking meritocracy. Sure, there are some personal preferences based not necessarily on knowledge but on character traits, but do you really believe that Microsoft is run a cabal of evil foreigners? That there is a secret Hyderabad clan running things there? That’s fucking ridiculous.

Oh yes we are going to bother. Uganda and Zimbabwe were two extreme examples where two demagogues (for the record both of them insane) instituted idiotic policies to please their political base. These decisions had a catastrophic case on their respective economies - in Uganda’s case Indians pretty much owned all commercial enterprises and small businesses, while white farm owners in Zimbabwe were the driving force of local agricultural economy.

Do you have any idea what would happen if the US expelled all those foreigners working in the Valley and how much R&D would suffer without all those foreign postgrads?

There are signs that Trump’s ban is dramatically affecting next year’s US university recruitment drive in Iran, with disastrous effects:

And the uncomfortable truth is that those positions and vacancies cannot be filled with current functionally unemployable US citizens.

von Ahn is the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, I’ve used Duolingo extensively and is fucking brilliant as are some of his other business endeavors that I’ve been in contact with.

I’m not familiar with CMU, but I don’t think he defines himself primarily as an “associate professor at CMU”.

3834

If we define the partisan-level of a party on the basis of where its mean falls on the continuum you provided–which is the most reasonable definition, IMO, and one you have not refuted–then this conclusion is simply incorrect. Rather, the GOP has become markedly more partisan, whereas the Dems’ level of partisanship has not budged.

OK, cool.

Not according to your data. (See above.)

My argument was, and continues to be, that the Dems moved to the right in the 80s/90s. As evidence of this, I pointed to the ascendancy and influence of the DLC, and the presidency of WJC. You posted the Pew data, and then chastised me for not addressing it. So I addressed it. (Never mind that you never responded directly to my argument re the DLC/WJC.) And based on my analysis of your data, I said:

So in short, I still believe (based on my argument concerning the DLC/WJC) that the Dems moved rightward in the 80s/90s. But even if, as we have of late, we play the entire series on your ‘home field’–ie, confine the discussion solely to your data–the conclusions seem more in line with my position than with yours.

3835

Ok. I’ll give away the ending- The irony s that the university he is at/from was founded to address the education deficit in the workforce.

Valid point that the guy is brilliant, and would be no matter where he went to school/became a professor, but funny as fuck that this particular institution came up in this particular argument.

I’ll be expecting glib response which states that this is beside the point shortly.

3836

But it isn’t my data - it’s data, and it’s either correct or it isn’t. And the data from the outset refutes any claim the Democratic Party on the whole moved right (point one), and shows the party moved away from the middle to the left (point two).

Take issue with the integrity of the data, or don’t, but you can’t take contradictory positions.

And I addressed your point re: the DLC: they had their impact (but not as broadly throughout the party as you suggest) but their influence waned once Clinton left office over 16 years ago. Even if you believe the DLC pulled the Democrats right, that was almost 20 years ago. Since then, undoubtedly the party has moved left. Both the data and everyone’s own lying eyes support that.