OaktownBear said:I don't like Romney. I like him better than Gabbard. We obviously disagree on Gabbard. If the Democrats nominated her, I would not vote for her against Trump. That is how much I despise her. I came up with a Romney - Gabbard match up as a never going to happen situation where I would vote Republican. I would vote for Bush, Bush, McCain, Dole, - lots of Republicans over Gabbard. Not because I like them but because I think turning over the White House to Gabbard would be a dangerously negligent thing to do. In other words, I would never vote for Gabbard and I would vote for a Republican I vehemently disagree with over her as long as they were competent. It is not a real concern since she is not a real Democrat and would not ever get a nomination.Cal88 said:OaktownBear said:
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2. The Republicans being the party of states rights is a bullshyte conservative talking point left over from segregation and the civil rights era. Let me explain a little something about the Constitution. You know those first words called the preamble? The first three words are "We the people". If you cut out all the modifiers, it says "We the people establish this Constitution for the United States of America." That was very intentional. The federal government derives its rights from the people not the states. That was in response to the failure of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution grants certain rights to the individual. It is the federal government's job to protect those rights.
What I find is that whenever someone like you claims Republicans are for states rights, it is always for states rights to infringe on the rights of the individual. State's rights to have slavery. States rights to have segregation. States rights to discriminate by race, gender, religion, etc.
But suddenly, when a state wants to do something that they don't like, the state's rights issue seems to disappear. So I'm sure you as a big states rights guy are deeply concerned that the Trump administration wants to interfere with how states like California wish to deal with immigrants. I'm sure you are very concerned about the Trump administration trying to block California from regulating vehicle smog emissions or enforcing fuel efficiency standards. I'm sure you were wholeheartedly against the Defense of Marriage Act which was a clearly unconstitutional federal government grab of one of the most sacred rights of the states. I'm sure as states decriminalized marijuana and the federal government went out of their way to amp up enforcement of federal marijuana statutes in those states, you were outraged by the federal government overreach.
Actually, I'm sure not.
As for cities, whatever, my friend. Go ahead and hide in your little paradise with your bizarre visions of what it is like in the big city. We have all the money and all the people with money are trying to move here. Must be doing something right. Take away the raging economies, industries, tech, entertainment and universities that are almost entirely in Democratic urban and urban adjacent areas and the United States would be a two bit economy that couldn't afford a substantial military and that the rest of the world would see as being behind Canada in importance.
A lot of it is the consequence of neoliberal policies that have gutted out the American industrial base. Open borders has also eroded the purchasing power and size of the working class. In Canada for example construction workers wages haven't been as depressed as in California (that's why Bernie for example was strongly opposed to open borders before 2016, until he's recently flip flopped on that issue and fallen in line with the 2020 Democrat identity politics zeitgeist.)
You're ideologically, economically and geographically isolated from those basic shifts, which are being reduced to an us-vs-them culture war that is fed by corporate media outlets, where you are looking down on people from Sydney. Nebraska as unimportant flyover hicks without understanding what is really going on, and how scumbags like Romney that you seem to prefer over real patrots like Gabbard have been sucking the heartland's economy dry.
If you want to start understanding how Romney made his fortune at Bain Capital at the expense of viable local economies, this case study, a great piece of journalism, is a good start:
Tucker Carlson? Seriously?
I do not look down on people from "fly over" country. Nor do I ever use that phrase. I will, however, smack down anyone like hell who wants to claim Democratic cities are the root of all evil compared to the wonderfully non-productive other areas.
Neoliberal politics did not gut out the American industrial base. Reality did that. What you are arguing is the modern day equivalent of espousing Jeffersonian economics over Hamiltonian. We can pretend like the world hasn't changed in the last 100 years or we can rise to meet the modern economy. The primary reason that Democratic urban centers developed economically vs. other areas is that they were in the forefront of higher education developing a highly educated workforce that fueled industries that made a lot of money and drove innovation and that were hard to replicate in other parts of the world that do not have the knowledge base. The manufacturing industries that you are blaming neoliberal policies for "gutting" have been hurt primarily by technology and automation that make their jobs obsolete (and wait until artificial intelligence gets going in earnest) and secondarily by the fact that industries that do not require highly trained/specialized workers are easy to replicate anywhere and given that most of the world is poorer than we are, at a much lower cost. So you can either damage the economy by holding back innovation or by putting in protectionist policies.
I find nothing particularly noble or not noble about going to college or not, or getting specialized training or not. I don't think my way of life, dependent on years of higher education, is better than a way of life dependent on getting a job out of high school. I don't think tech is more noble than manufacturing. But what is an absolute fact is that in today's world economy, industries based on high levels of education drive the economy and are essentially subsidizing the rest of the economy. And those high levels of education come at a high cost in dollars, time and effort. I do not think that makes us better, but hell if I'm going to put up with being called worse.
You're very wrong on the bolded part. This is a common trope that has become ingrained in the American mindset. Most of the countries that have been doing well have had economies based on manufacturing and exporting products. South Korea, China, Germany, northern Italy have done well because of this. The countries that are struggling are those that have been losing their industrial base, like France, and large swaths of America.
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Neoliberal politics did not gut out the American industrial base. Reality did that.
Watch the video I've posted above, it provides you in 10 minutes with a deep insight on what that "reality" has been across the US in the last 40-50 years, and why Trump is in the White House now, and why he will stay there if the Dems screw Bernie again this time around.
