Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Trinidad]

Hil and Jeb are cut from the same cloth. Bernie couldn't beat Mullah Omar and Trump is in it to tie up the Tea Party so that Jeb can save the day as the only "rival" to Hil...

I think Trump is in it for personal branding. He is not as stupid as many think (and not as smart as he thinks himself...).

 

Rik

[Winstonm]

A recent meme making the rounds on Facebook sums up the problem of supporting any Republican candidate:

 

The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands. - Will Rogers

 

And by passing through that poor fellow's hands, a profit is created that is increased demand, which leads eventually to expansion, jobs, and a higher standard of living for all.

 

Or, as the GOP seems to prefer, you can sit on your stack of money and use other peoples' kids to bomb brown people around the globe.

[billw55]

Or, as the GOP seems to prefer, you can sit on your stack of money and use other peoples' kids to bomb brown people around the globe.

Last I checked the US military is a voluntary service.

 

And while in the past the US government has conducted military operations of dubious justification, as far as I know the only people we are currently bombing is ISIS, who thoroughly deserve it.

 

(In fairness, an R president might not be limiting himself in this way.)

 

 

[gwnn]

Kenberg: make that Iowa and New Hampshire. 2/2 and then who knows.

[Al_U_Card]

I think Trump is in it for personal branding. He is not as stupid as many think (and not as smart as he thinks himself...).

 

Rik

Agree 100%. Buy low and sell high.

[Winstonm]

Last I checked the US military is a voluntary service.

 

And while in the past the US government has conducted military operations of dubious justification, as far as I know the only people we are currently bombing is ISIS, who thoroughly deserve it.

 

 

Voluntary to sign up - after that it is go where it is ordered and do what is ordered.

 

Isis deserves what it gets - but what about non-Isis living within the same city? Do we follow this Republican candidates advice?

"We will carpet bomb [iSIS] into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out," [Ted Cruz] said

[billw55]

Voluntary to sign up - after that it is go where it is ordered and do what is ordered.

Of course. How else could a military operate? Enlistees obviously know this going in.

 

Isis deserves what it gets - but what about non-Isis living within the same city? Do we follow this Republican candidates advice?

Difficult. Collateral damage is bad, but this enemy and others like them intentionally shield themselves with civilians. Do we just ignore them in that case? I don't know the right answers.

 

 

 

[kenberg]

Kenberg: make that Iowa and New Hampshire. 2/2 and then who knows.

 

Well, I don't :unsure:

 

Here is an argument on our side: I was in Starbucks the other day. There were a couple of old guys talking loudly (they were old enough so they probably had to talk loudly). The talk turned to politics and one said he was thinking he would vote for Sanders. The other agreed.

 

Ok, it is only two votes. But Sanders needs the votes of people like these two.

 

I have lived in this country a long time. I can't see us nominating Trump and I cannot see us nominating Sanders. Different people, different cases, different reasons, all very different. But each, in his own way, is inspiring the angry. For the most part, that approach does not work. It gets applause, but at crunch time people pull back and say "Maybe not". Look at Obama or Bush II or Clinton I, or others, the campaigns were not really based on anger. "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" wins Oscars, not elections.

 

I come from a different time and quite possibly I no longer understand. We shall see. I think Bernie is going well partly because he is an authentically decent guy and partly because Hillary's campaign has been based on her inevitability, a rather uninspiring message. But, in the end, I think he will fail.

 

I haven't even taken a family poll. Maybe I will. Becky told me a while back she was voting for Sanders but lately she has been saying good things about Hillary.

 

I think we vote sometime in April (Fourth Tuesday?) here in Maryland, and it's usually over by then. We vote anyway, but maybe the winner should just show his cards and claim.

[y66]

Alan Ehrenhalt's review of Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right:

 

Nineteen eighty was a year of hope for conservatives in America, but it was a hope diminished by decades of consistent failure at the grass roots. Republicans hadn’t controlled either chamber of Congress, or a majority in state legislatures, for a quarter-century. Most governors were Democrats, as had been true since 1970. Not only was the Republican Party overmatched at winning elections, but those with the strongest ideological convictions — “movement conservatives,” as they liked to call themselves — were a faint voice even within Republican ranks.

 

But at the end of that year two things happened. One, as we all know, was the election of Ronald Reagan as president. The other was an utterly private event whose significance would not be noticed for years. Charles and David Koch, the enormously rich proprietors of an oil company based in Kansas, decided that they would spend huge amounts of money to elect conservatives at all levels of American government. David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980, but when the campaign was over, he resolved never to seek public office again. That wouldn’t be necessary, he and his brother concluded; they could invest in the campaigns of others, and essentially buy their way to political power.

 

Thirty years later, the midterm elections of 2010 ushered in the political system that the Kochs had spent so many years plotting to bring about. After the voting that year, Republicans dominated state legislatures; they controlled a clear majority of the governorships; they had taken one chamber of Congress and were on their way to winning the other. Perhaps most important, a good many of the Republicans who had won these offices were not middle-of-the-road pragmatists. They were antigovernment libertarians of the Kochs’ own political stripe. The brothers had spent or raised hundreds of millions of dollars to create majorities in their image. They had succeeded. And not merely at the polls: They had helped to finance and organize an interlocking network of think tanks, academic programs and news media outlets that far exceeded anything the liberal opposition could put together.

 

It is this conservative ascendancy that Jane Mayer chronicles in “Dark Money.” The book is written in straightforward and largely unemotional prose, but it reads as if conceived in quiet anger. Mayer believes that the Koch brothers and a small number of allied plutocrats have essentially hijacked American democracy, using their money not just to compete with their political adversaries, but to drown them out.

 

A staff writer for The New Yorker, ­Mayer spent five years working on “Dark Money,” which originated with an article on the Koch family she published in the magazine in 2010. Neither Charles nor David Koch agreed to talk to her, and several of the most important figures in their political network were unavailable. But she reached hundreds of sources who did want to talk: longtime conservative campaign operatives, business associates, political opponents and political finance scholars. Some of these sources spoke on the record and some did not, but all in all “Dark Money” emerges as an impressively reported and well-documented work.

 

A great deal has already been written about the Koch brothers and the money their network has invested in American politics. The importance of “Dark Money” does not flow from any explosive new revelation, but from its scope and perspective. Mayer writes of the early lives of the key players, the origin of their fortunes, their personal obsessions and quirks, and the role the operation was able to carve out. It is not easy to uncover the inner workings of an essentially secretive political establishment. Mayer has come as close to doing it as anyone is likely to come anytime soon.

 

What the Kochs and their allies have created, in her view, is a private political bank capable of bestowing unlimited amounts of money on favored candidates, and doing it with virtually no disclosure of its source. They have established a Republican Party in which donors, not elected officials, are in charge. In 2011, when House Speaker John Boehner was desperate for Republican votes to prevent the government from defaulting on its debt, he went to see David Koch in Manhattan to plead for help. “It had taken years,” Mayer writes, but the brothers “were becoming a rival center of power to the Republican establishment.”

 

“Dark Money” relates the personal story of the Koch family in considerable detail — an engineer father who made a fortune building oil refineries, then spent the last years of his life as an angry member of the John Birch Society; an early conversion by Charles and David Koch to the radical libertarian economics of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises; a web of sibling rivalry among all four of the family’s brothers, ending in painful legal confrontations that dragged on for years.

 

Mayer also sheds some useful light on the co-conspirators who helped the Kochs build a movement that spread far beyond electoral politics. Richard Mellon Scaife, heir to the Mellon banking fortune and to much of the wealth of Gulf Oil, was the financial presence behind the Heritage Foundation. John M. Olin, whose family chemical corporation was a major beneficiary of federal weapons procurement, focused on the creation of faculty positions for conservatives at prestigious university campuses. The Bradley brothers, Harry and Lynde, used proceeds from the merger of their family electronics firm with Rockwell International to underwrite a whole array of publishing and research ventures.

 

But the main goal was to win elections, and in that crusade the Kochs and their allies had the benefit of federal laws that they played no part in promulgating. One was the section of the Internal Revenue Code that allows for 501©(4) organizations, ostensibly devoted to “social welfare” but permitted to engage in electoral politics in an essentially unregulated way. A 501©(4) is not required to disclose the sources of its funding, and that provision alone has brought in huge amounts of money from donors eager to contribute but reluctant to identify themselves. The 501©(4) loophole has been around since the early 20th century, but it was given new vigor in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which removed virtually all limits on corporate campaign funding and fostered its anonymity.

 

What were all these organizations and donors promoting, other than the election of Republican candidates to office? Free-market orthodoxy, to start with. “Market principles have changed my life,” Charles Koch declared in the 1990s, “and guide everything I do.” That seems as true in 2016 as it was when he said it. Closely related to free-market faith is the hatred of regulation, federal, state or local. “We should not cave in the moment a regulator sets foot on our doorstep,” Charles once wrote. “Do not cooperate voluntarily; instead, resist wherever and to whatever extent you legally can.”

 

This ideology helps to explain one of the most important Koch crusades of recent years: the fight to prevent action against climate change. The Koch-sponsored advocacy group Americans for Prosperity has been at the forefront of climate-change opposition over the past decade. When the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 2011, Americans for Prosperity lobbied lawmakers to support a “no climate tax” pledge, and by the time Congress convened that year, 156 House and Senate members had signed on.

 

As ferocious as they have been in defense of free-market ideas, the Koch brothers are also acting out of tangible self-interest, Mayer argues. The Kochs made their money in the carbon business; they have diversified far beyond it over the years, but a stiff tax on carbon could have a significant impact on their bottom line. Mayer reports that an E.P.A. database identified Koch Industries in 2012 as the single biggest producer of toxic waste in the United States. The company has been in and out of federal court over the years as defendants in cases alleging careless and sometimes lethal flouting of clean-air and clear-water requirements. Several have paid tens of millions in fines to settle these cases. It is plausible that the Kochs and some members of their network are participating in politics largely to keep their fortunes intact. “They said they were driven by principle,” Mayer writes of the Koch-led network, “but their positions dovetailed seamlessly with their personal financial interests.”

 

She makes a formidable argument, though it is a circumstantial one. As is always true with political money, there is no easy way to delineate where ideology ends and where self-interest and corruption begin. The founding fathers were accused by some historians of writing the Constitution to protect their landed wealth. Subsequent research largely disproved that allegation. Mark Hanna’s close-knit network of manufacturers and railroad tycoons invested huge sums at the start of the 20th century to procure high tariffs and business-friendly Republican governments; they largely got what they paid for. When he was House speaker in the 1950s, Sam Rayburn — according to Tip O’Neill — kept large bundles of oil company cash in his office desk and doled it out to secure the loyalty of favored Democrats. Loose and unregulated campaign cash from wealthy donors was the dark money that made ­Watergate possible.

 

One is tempted to say that since plutocrats have been pulling political levers since the start of the American Republic, the current concentration of ideology, money and power is not a uniquely dangerous development. But that may be to dismiss Mayer’s warnings too quickly. Hanna bought the votes of politicians, but he didn’t have a collection of think tanks, a nationwide network of pressure groups or a collection of subsidized university programs to propagandize on his behalf. The business lobbies of the postwar years knew what they wanted and generally got it, but theirs was a limited agenda that stuck to a relatively narrow set of demands. And for parts of the past century, wealthy players were restrained, however imperfectly, by campaign finance laws aimed at keeping the process open and aboveboard. Sinister as much of the system was, one could entertain the idea that a new regulatory regime might someday bring it under greater public scrutiny and control. In the aftermath of the Citizens United decision, that no longer seems a realistic prospect. This alone may make the indignities that Mayer writes about a departure from the ones that have gone before.

[mike777]

"It is this conservative ascendancy that Jane Mayer chronicles in “Dark Money.” The book is written in straightforward and largely unemotional prose, but it reads as if conceived in quiet anger. Mayer believes that the Koch brothers and a small number of allied plutocrats have essentially hijacked American democracy, using their money not just to compete with their political adversaries, but to drown them out."

 

 

do people actually read their own posts. geez..

 

straight forward....unemotional prose....geez

 

 

another partisan attack.....by a biased author

advocacy is fine...just label it as such.

[barmar]

And by passing through that poor fellow's hands, a profit is created that is increased demand, which leads eventually to expansion, jobs, and a higher standard of living for all.

Wasn't that "trickle up" principle Henry Ford's justification for establishing the $5 minimum wage in his car factories? His goal was that all his employees would be able to buy his cars. And it also reduced absenteeism -- when the employees felt that their work was appreciated, they didn't shirk. His profits soared after he increased his wages.

[mike777]

1) Massive attack on trump by conservative magazine founded by William F. buckley

 

2)Yet another massive attack on Trump by many in power in the GOP

 

 

It will be interesting if in the near future a tiny few GOP officeholders with name recognition come out in favor of Trump bandwagon.

 

-------------------

 

 

As for Hillary I thing the big really big question is will the FBI director ask the Justice department for a bill of indictment. ..If not Hillary wins the nomination easily. If yes....I bet the Dems will revolt against her

[Winstonm]

Wasn't that "trickle up" principle Henry Ford's justification for establishing the $5 minimum wage in his car factories? His goal was that all his employees would be able to buy his cars. And it also reduced absenteeism -- when the employees felt that their work was appreciated, they didn't shirk. His profits soared after he increased his wages.

I've never understood the seeming fear of redistribution of a small part from the wealthiest earners to the lowest ends of the economic spectrum as those that consume 100% of earnings will spend the increased earnings.

[mike777]

I agree with Winston.... we should not fear those that make 100% of the earnings spend it.

 

do not be afraid that the rich spend.

[blackshoe]

I've never understood the seeming fear of redistribution of a small part from the wealthiest earners to the lowest ends of the economic spectrum as those that consume 100% of earnings will spend the increased earnings.

"Take from the rich and give to the poor" is something the left has always appreciated. But the operative word here is "take". A government has no more right to do that than does the street corner mugger. Now if those wealthiest earners want to voluntarily give up that "small part", more power to 'em.

 

I saw a video the other day that tried to claim paying taxes is voluntary, that there is no law that says we have to pay taxes. Yeah, right. Tell it to Al Capone. Or try it yourself. Good luck.

[hrothgar]

But the operative word here is "take". A government has no more right to do that than does the street corner mugger.

 

I know that you prefer to live in some bizarre little fantasy headspace constructed by gold bugs and 1950s science fiction authors, but out here in the real world, there's several hundred years of jurisprudence that says you're utterly and completely wrong.

 

But go ahead, think of yourself as a rugged individualist, beholden to no one, while you wait at home for your government pension check and your government health care...

[kenberg]

"Take from the rich and give to the poor" is something the left has always appreciated. But the operative word here is "take". A government has no more right to do that than does the street corner mugger. Now if those wealthiest earners want to voluntarily give up that "small part", more power to 'em.

 

I saw a video the other day that tried to claim paying taxes is voluntary, that there is no law that says we have to pay taxes. Yeah, right. Tell it to Al Capone. Or try it yourself. Good luck.

 

A recurring issue and probably pretty much I am giving a recurring response.

 

Man is a social animal, at least somewhat, and with a little effort the whole can be more than the sum of the parts.

 

I look at this from two competing sides:

 

Growing up, and later for that matter, our social/political structure was to my benefit.

 

Growing up, I understood that I was to support myself as an adult.

 

Many years later, my outlook still comes down to some sort of combination of the above. It is best for everyone if people grow to be self-supporting responsible adults. Society has a role to play in bringing this about, the individual has a role to play in bringing this about. The trick is to get the balance right.

 

My views are rooted much more in experience than in philosophy, so they are not apt to change. They haven't yet, anyway.

[awm]

"Take from the rich and give to the poor" is something the left has always appreciated. But the operative word here is "take". A government has no more right to do that than does the street corner mugger. Now if those wealthiest earners want to voluntarily give up that "small part", more power to 'em.

 

I saw a video the other day that tried to claim paying taxes is voluntary, that there is no law that says we have to pay taxes. Yeah, right. Tell it to Al Capone. Or try it yourself. Good luck.

 

I view this as somewhat like an investment -- the government invests in its citizens by providing them with education, safety, contract law enforcement, and a set of insurance policies in the form of a safety net. In return for this investment, we owe the government a fraction of our profits. The exact terms of the investment are negotiated between the people and the government through the process of voting. It's difficult to "opt out" of the investment for two reasons: one because most of the things government provides are "social goods" where it's hard to discriminate (i.e. government keeps acid out of the rain by restricting certain chemical pollutants, even if I don't pay my taxes it's hard to put the acid back in my rain without putting it in everyone else's) and because a great deal of the investment is already made by the time the age of majority is reached (childhood education, non-death from disease, etc). Nonetheless you can change social contracts by voting or moving to another country.

[Winstonm]

I agree with Winston.... we should not fear those that make 100% of the earnings spend it.

 

do not be afraid that the rich spend.

 

Mike,

 

How many wealthy people (those earning 1 million or more per year) do you know who spend (consume in goods) 100% of their earnings?

[gwnn]

Awm, I think you left out taking over various government properties and arming yourself to the teeth (before asking for food and supplies from sympathisers and then being offended when you get numerous dildos too).

[kenberg]

In a clear indication of my political predictive powers, I said a few days back that there would be no major third party candidate. The NYT has an article today about Bloomberg perhaps making a run for it.

 

This had not even occurred to me. Apparently he believes that many people are dismayed at the prospects in the two major parties. It's hard to quarrel with that observation.

 

Not living in NY, I don't much follow the politics there. I gather the bloom is off Bloomberg, but I also gather that De Blasio has not been a great success. It's a tough city.

 

 

I see Bloomberg is 73. I'm sorry, but that is an issue with me. At 77 I'm not dead yet, but I take pills, I tire more easily, my memory is less sharp, I spend more time talking to doctors. This seems pretty universal in my age group. Becky is out shoveling snow because I just had cataract surgery and I am forbidden to do such things for a couple of weeks. "Not dead yet" and "Up to be president" are very different things.

 

 

Of course some people are dead, literally of figuratively, when they are 60 so we have to look at the individual. And the president does not have to shovel his own snow.

 

 

[awm]

I see Bloomberg is 73. I'm sorry, but that is an issue with me. At 77 I'm not dead yet, but I take pills, I tire more easily, my memory is less sharp, I spend more time talking to doctors. This seems pretty universal in my age group. Becky is out shoveling snow because I just had cataract surgery and I am forbidden to do such things for a couple of weeks. "Not dead yet" and "Up to be president" are very different things.

 

 

Of course some people are dead, literally of figuratively, when they are 60 so we have to look at the individual. And the president does not have to shovel his own snow.

 

Bernie Sanders is even older at 74. Hillary Clinton is just a bit younger at 68. Donald Trump is 69. Of course, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are considerably younger (mid-forties in fact). It is interesting whether this will be a factor in the election. It's also interesting that young people vote overwhelmingly for Democrats (admittedly turnout is low, but the young people who vote skew left), but the Democrats don't seem to have a lot of young candidates (even if we look at Democrats in Congress they seem to skew older).

[kenberg]

Bernie Sanders is even older at 74. Hillary Clinton is just a bit younger at 68. Donald Trump is 69. Of course, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are considerably younger (mid-forties in fact). It is interesting whether this will be a factor in the election. It's also interesting that young people vote overwhelmingly for Democrats (admittedly turnout is low, but the young people who vote skew left), but the Democrats don't seem to have a lot of young candidates (even if we look at Democrats in Congress they seem to skew older).

 

Yes, now that you mention it, it seems odd. But maybe just a fluke of the moment. Bill Clinton was young when elected and Obama even younger (I think). But it is a little weird to have the party of the young (the Dems) choosing between Hillary and Bernie while the party of the old (the Reps) at least have some young people in the race. Back to the Dems, Martin O'Malley is 53, fairly young for someone running for pres. He will not be the nominee.

 

Age is a tricky business. When I was 50 I could realize I was not 30, but since I was not earning my living as a basketball player the difference seemed unimportant. I no longer would say that. I enjoy good health and, had it not been for the recent surgery, I would be out happily shoveling snow. Sure I could buy a snow blower (a childhood friend saw news about the storm and offered to send me one, he still lives in Minnesota and has three) but I don't want one. Shoveling is good exercise, you can chat with a neighbor, etc. But there are reasons for me not working a forty hour week, let alone taking a non-stop job, as the presidency is.

 

Hillary doesn't look all that old to me. Not young, but young enough. Bernie looks old. I want to say "Take it easy, let the kids do it".

 

If Bernie gets the nomination, I will not write him off on age. Nor will I write off Bloomberg on age. I have always seen individuals as individuals. But I know a lot of people my age who have been very active and are now taking it easy. This seems normal to me.

[gwnn]

It seems only old people write off Bernie as old :P he has an 11% lead ahead of Hillary among millenials (defined as less than 35 - looked up the numbers). No real point to this post but it's interesting to see how much young people identify with Bernie. Edited January 24, 2016 by gwnn

[hrothgar]

It seems only old people write off Bernie as old :P he has an 11% lead ahead of Hillary among millenials (defined as less than 35 - looked up the numbers). No real point to this post but it's interesting to see how much young people identify with Bernie.

 

Don't get me wrong... Bernies' views are much closer to mine than Hillary's.

 

With this said and done, Reagan's Alzheimer's really started kicking in midway through his second term.

Not something that I want to see happen again.

Going with a younger candidate is one way to mitigate the risk.