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Tag Archives: Hilliary Clinton

“How Trump Happened”

14 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Donald Trump, Hilliary Clinton, Joseph E. Stiglist, Project Syndicate

How Trump Happened by Joseph E. Stiglist

NEW YORK – As I have traveled around the world in recent weeks, I am repeatedly asked two questions: Is it conceivable that Donald Trump could win the US presidency? And how did his candidacy get this far in the first place?

As for the first question, though political forecasting is even more difficult than economic forecasting, the odds are strongly in favor of Hillary Clinton. Still, the closeness of the race (at least until very recently) has been a mystery: Clinton is one of the most qualified and well prepared presidential candidates that the United States has had, while Trump is one of the least qualified and worst prepared. Moreover, Trump’s campaign has survived behavior by him that would have ended a candidate’s chances in the past.

So why would Americans be playing Russian roulette (for that is what even a one-in-six chance of a Trump victory means)? Those outside the US want to know the answer, because the outcome affects them, too, though they have no influence over it.

And that brings us to the second question: why did the US Republican Party nominate a candidate that even its leaders rejected?

Obviously, many factors helped Trump beat 16 Republican primary challengers to get this far. Personalities matter, and some people do seem to warm to Trump’s reality-TV persona.

But several underlying factors also appear to have contributed to the closeness of the race. For starters, many Americans are economically worse off than they were a quarter-century ago. The median income of full-time male employees is lower than it was 42 years ago, and it is increasingly difficult for those with limited education to get a full-time job that pays decent wages.

Indeed, real (inflation-adjusted) wages at the bottom of the income distribution are roughly where they were 60 years ago. So it is no surprise that Trump finds a large, receptive audience when he says the state of the economy is rotten. But Trump is wrong both about the diagnosis and the prescription. The US economy as a whole has done well for the last six decades: GDP has increased nearly six-fold. But the fruits of that growth have gone to a relatively few at the top – people like Trump, owing partly to massive tax cuts that he would extend and deepen.

At the same time, reforms that political leaders promised would ensure prosperity for all – such as trade and financial liberalization – have not delivered. Far from it. And those whose standard of living has stagnated or declined have reached a simple conclusion: America’s political leaders either didn’t know what they were talking about or were lying (or both).

Trump wants to blame all of America’s problems on trade and immigration. He’s wrong. The US would have faced deindustrialization even without freer trade: global employment in manufacturing has been declining, with productivity gains exceeding demand growth.

Where the trade agreements failed, it was not because the US was outsmarted by its trading partners; it was because the US trade agenda was shaped by corporate interests. America’s companies have done well, and it is the Republicans who have blocked efforts to ensure that Americans made worse off by trade agreements would share the benefits.

Thus, many Americans feel buffeted by forces outside their control, leading to outcomes that are distinctly unfair. Long-standing assumptions – that America is a land of opportunity and that each generation will be better off than the last – have been called into question. The global financial crisis may have represented a turning point for many voters: their government saved the rich bankers who had brought the US to the brink of ruin, while seemingly doing almost nothing for the millions of ordinary Americans who lost their jobs and homes. The system not only produced unfair results, but seemed rigged to do so.

Support for Trump is based, at least partly, on the widespread anger stemming from that loss of trust in government. But Trump’s proposed policies would make a bad situation much worse. Surely, another dose of trickle-down economics of the kind he promises, with tax cuts aimed almost entirely at rich Americans and corporations, would produce results no better than the last time they were tried.

In fact, launching a trade war with China, Mexico, and other US trading partners, as Trump promises, would make all Americans poorer and create new impediments to the global cooperation needed to address critical global problems like the Islamic State, global terrorism, and climate change. Using money that could be invested in technology, education, or infrastructure to build a wall between the US and Mexico is a twofer in terms of wasting resources.

There are two messages US political elites should be hearing. The simplistic neo-liberal market-fundamentalist theories that have shaped so much economic policy during the last four decades are badly misleading, with GDP growth coming at the price of soaring inequality. Trickle-down economics hasn’t and won’t work. Markets don’t exist in a vacuum. The Thatcher-Reagan “revolution,” which rewrote the rules and restructured markets for the benefit of those at the top, succeeded all too well in increasing inequality, but utterly failed in its mission to increase growth.

This leads to the second message: we need to rewrite the rules of the economy once again, this time to ensure that ordinary citizens benefit. Politicians in the US and elsewhere who ignore this lesson will be held accountable. Change entails risk. But the Trump phenomenon – and more than a few similar political developments in Europe – has revealed the far greater risks entailed by failing to heed this message: societies divided, democracies undermined, and economies weakened.

(Joseph E. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 and is University Professor at Columbia University. The article above was published today in Project Syndicate.)

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I Voted ‘Twice’ Today

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Richard in The Outer Loop

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2016 Presidential Election, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hilliary Clinton, Protest Vote, Republicans, Third-Party Candidates, Voting

hcvote

I voted today (absentee ballot) for Hillary Clinton for President.

As I wrote in an earlier post about the DC Primary, this choice was an easy one to make. She is by far the most prepared, most serious, most competent, and most experienced of the two candidates. This vote is not simply a “lesser of two evils” choice. While I see and know her weaknesses and ethical challenges, putting this country’s future in her hands is the only rational choice to make.

In voting for Clinton, I am also actively voting against Donald Trump. If you look at his supporters, he has clearly tapped into an unrest that pervades this country. He has correctly identified that the political establishment — Democrats and Republicans — have largely chosen to serve the interests of those who have access to power and influence in government and not to those who are struggling.

However, Trump has also demonstrated, in so many ways, that he is both unprepared to be President and that he would be a dangerous choice.  Without going into detail (no doubt the reader has his/her own list), it is clear that he has both traded upon and unleashed hatred, intolerance, and encouraged violence. We cannot afford to have a man with Trump’s temperament entrusted with the powers delegated to the leader of our country.

Not voting or voting for one of the two third-party candidates is not an option as I believe that simply throws away a vote. See my earlier post on this point, There’s No Such Thing as a Protest Vote.

For me, and for our country, Clinton is easily the best choice. And to back up my vote, I will go to Ohio from Nov. 4-8 to help with a Get Out the Vote campaign.

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I Voted for Hillary Clinton Today

04 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Absentee Voting, Bernie Sanders, District of Columbia Primary, Divided Democrats, Hilliary Clinton, Robert Reich, Rocky De La Fuente

Ballot

I live in Washington, DC, and the only ballot I can cast that counts on a national level is the one for the Presidency.

DC has a primary election on June 14, 2016 with three names on the ballot: Hillary Clinton, “Rocky” Roque De La Fuente, and Bernie Sanders.

Since I will be out of town on June 14th, I filled out and mailed my absentee ballot today.

I voted for Hillary Clinton.

It was an easy vote to cast.

Given these candidates, there is no doubt in my mind that the former Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is the most qualified and capable candidate of the three.

While I am attracted to much of Sen. Sanders’ analyses of what is not right in our country, I could not vote for him. I do not believe his qualifications or capabilities match Hillary’s.

I understand the enthusiasm of Sanders’ followers and that of much of the younger generations’. I hope they will fight to the end of the convention for Sanders, and if he is not the nominee, then I hope they will get behind Clinton. (If, though it seems unlikely, Sanders is the nominee, I will vote for him in the general election.)**

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind between Clinton and Trump which candidate I would trust in the White House. Trump, though he speaks to and/or for a significant portion of individuals in our country, has not shown the temperament nor the qualifications necessary to lead our country. Clinton, though she has not shown good judgment in regard to her emails and in many ways is likely to perpetuate some of the policies that don’t speak to important problems in our country, she is qualified and capable to deal with the enormous burdens of the presidency. On the issue of Supreme Court nominations alone, I think her potential appointees will reflect more of what I believe are the directions the Court and our country needs to move.

I will vote for Hillary (or Sanders if he’s the Democratic candidate) in the General Election.

**Robert Reich’s Advice for Divided Democrats.

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Sanders vs Clinton vs Democracy

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures, The Outer Loop

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Bernie Sanders, Civic Hall, Hilliary Clinton, Jack Danger, Jamelle Bouie, Micah Sifry, Slate

So much time, energy, and money is being spent (wasted?) on the primaries (and then the presidential election itself) that it’s tempting to tune out and perhaps not even participate in our elections at all.

Everyone I know and talk with is unhappy in one way or another with the candidates, with Congress, and with our political system. But if we don’t participate in some way, then we are part of the problem.

So for Democrats, what to do? There are legitimate arguments to be made for supporting either of the two candidates now vying for the nomination. Here are three recent articles that to me are worthy of the time it takes to read them.

Voting Without Illusions by Micah Sifry. For me, the strengths of this article are Micah’s points about the attention that must be paid beyond the presidential race.

Hilliary Clinton and the Complex System by Jack Danger. Choosing Clinton over Sanders.

There Is No Bernie Sanders Movement by Jamelle Bouie. For those who support Sanders, the need to be engaged beyond this campaign.

Your thoughts and comments are welcomed.

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“The Middle-Class Squeeze”

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

"The Middle-Class Squeeze", Bernie Sanders, Charles Moore, Distrust of Government, Donald Trump, Hilliary Clinton, House Republicans, President Obama, The Middle Class, The Wall Street Journal, WSJ

middleclasssqueeze                                                                      Illustration: Robert Neubecke

Thanks to an email from CT, I read an article this morning that seems to put some clarity and understanding into what may be an important (and less often discussed) factor behind many issues affecting our country.

Why is Trump hitting a note with some people in the country (beyond his theatrics)?

Why isn’t Obama getting adequate recognition for what in many ways has been a successful presidency (beyond the racism)?

Why is Bernie Sanders also hitting a note with some people in this country (beyond his progressive rhetoric and beliefs)?

Why is Hilary Clinton not walking away with the Democratic nomination (beyond her email issues, her gender, and her sometimes grating personality)?

Why are two to four dozen Republican House members (and some Republican Senators) able to have such a (negative and powerful) impact on the business of the House and the country (despite their safe, gerrymandered seats)?

Why is distrust of government at its highest level in many years (beyond the media’s inadequacy in presenting a clear picture of what is underway in this country)?

While there are differing and numerous explanations for each of these questions, I think one factor that perhaps underlies all of them and has not received sufficient discussion and understanding is contained in a recent Wall Street Journal‘s article, The Middle-Class Squeeze, by Charles Moore.

Check it out and feel free to add your opinion in the Comment section of this post.

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