Patrickov wrote:I am not proving fielding a woman leads to victory, I am just questioning whether these three losses is sufficient to make a conclusion that "fielding a woman is a losing strategy".
Fielding a woman as a novelty is a losing strategy. Even Obama didn't run on his being black. He talked about healthcare, which was popular among Democrats. A woman running for office needs to have a political agenda other than being a woman. That's why AOC is interesting, because she's outspoken and provides a clear contrast from the status quo. There are accomplished women Senators, like Dianne Feinstein. However, she's never been a POTUS contender and is too old to do it now. There's also the sort of "serious" quality people want in a president that they don't typically like in a woman. Sarah Palin was unnecessarily vilified, because she had a cheery sort of Sally Field-type personality and a bit of a quirky use of passive voice in her speech. So they characterized her as stupid.
Patrickov wrote:As long as the person is competent or represents the right side I have no concern of the gender.
Neither do I, but not too many women enter politics in the first place, as it is a rough and tumble business. Not too many women could fill Margaret Thatcher's shoes. One only has to look at how horribly Teresa May or Angela Merkel did to realize that women are certainly no panacea. We've had women mayors, legislators, senators, and governors. Yet, we haven't had any that have had a profound impact on policy as yet. Someone like AOC is someone to watch not because of her policy ideas, but because like Trump she has a fiery personality, which draws ratings/attention. Like a lot of Marxists, she does a decent enough job at pointing out some of the structural flaws of capitalism, but like most of them has totally unworkable or hopelessly unrealistic solutions.
annatar1914 wrote:See, we've been talking about the obvious political insanity of the Democratic Party for a while, you coming at it from a Conservative angle and me from a Socialist one, but it appears to be true. What I do know then is that the insane do not lead but are led, and so there is another group with another agenda at play behind all this.
I would say more than one. I think the neoconservative/neoliberal cabal have been a faction for a long time and have been able to toggle between the Democratic and Republican parties and remain more or less in control for a long time. I think Trump's election was a direct challenge to that scheme, but I think there is also a powerful faction behind Trump that is in opposition to the anti-sovereignty tendencies of the globalists.
annatar1914 wrote:Removing all preconceptions and looking at all the known facts, it appears that since this unknown group wants Trump Impeached and/or otherwise removed from office, and the Democratic Party to lose badly to him in 2020 as in 2016, they MUST BE actively working to get VP Pence in as President, if not in the first term of Trump than absolutely the second term.... Where they might have more votes to remove Trump by then or something else, resignation, etc...
Well, I don't think the group is unknown--it's neoliberals/neoconservatives, which is a sort of Janus, two-faced singularity. They just pick up support from other factions like Progressives and leftists who want Trump out for other reasons. The neoliberals/neoconservatives would naturally consider Mike Pence more reliable.
annatar1914 wrote:Why? Trump was electable, while Pence isn't and wasn't very electable.
Well, that's more or less because Pence has the personality of a fence post. Whereas, Trump is highly entertaining even to the people who hate him--they monitor his Twitter feed constantly. He has them wrapped around his finger.
annatar1914 wrote:You might ask in response that why couldn't they just let President Trump serve out his second term until 2024, and have him endorse Pence and see Pence elected in 2024? Because again from just the known facts it appears that Pence is their man but too risky to try and have him running for President in 2024, and they want something to happen in the world between 2020 and 2022... So there's no risky political accountability from the voters in reaction to whatever this unknown group wants to see done.
Well there are other forces in play too. Globalism cannot operate with the United States alone. Europe is a big player as is China. In Europe, we are seeing the same political dynamic as people are rejecting globalism. Brexit, Le Pen, AfD, Syriza, heck even Sinn Fein just took power in Ireland. Nationalism, whether right or left, is more popular than globalism principally because supposedly democratic politicians working in the interest of the people have throttled the working classes in Europe and America in favor of the Chinese. China is not democratic, so politics there is a different dynamic, but it's getting perilous there too as we're seeing with Hong Kong, Coronavirus and the economic downturn from tariffs.
annatar1914 wrote:So if i'm right, sure they'll let Trump appoint more judges to the Supreme Court and the federal bench, etc... continue his job, but probably not after the mid-term elections in Congress in 2022.
I agree with you in so far as I think they did have an expectation of some sort of outcome at some date in time. People like Soros are now panicking that the EU is going to go the way of the Soviet Union. I agree. However, they only have themselves to blame for this eventuality.
annatar1914 wrote:That goal to carry out would have to be, in my opinion, starting a regional or even world war against one nation or a group of foreign nations, that the American public couldn't be trusted with deciding on or against war as an option.
While they tend to oversimplify things. I think some of the popular geostrategists have it right in that the US can effectively disengage from much of the world right now; and, it's in the US interest to do so.
I have nits to pick on on some of Zeihan's points; namely, as much as he lionizes George H.W. Bush, it was Bush that gave us what he calls "the parade of morons"--presidents Clinton through Trump. However, Zeihan does note that Trump is right about the post WWII alliance--concisely saying what I've said for 20 years now: that we bribed up an alliance to fight the Soviets; and we don't need that alliance anymore. In fact, we're creating a problem by free trade with China--a communist oligarchy. It was possibly the stupidest geostrategic move of the last 500 years.
So as much as Europeans lament the United States economy, much of US trade policy leaves other countries with the luxury of being far less efficient than they think they are. For example, consider car companies:
US: 300M people. Ford, GM, Chrysler.
Germany: 83M people. Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche
Japan: 175M people. Honda, Isuzu, Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Hino (unknown in the US). Even Yamaha used to make cars.
From a capitalist perspective, this is not a very efficient allocation of resources. Yet, they survive and thrive largely due to unfettered access to the US market. What if the US simply decided to put a 25% tariff on vehicle imports? Imagine the implications around the world. Yet, Germany had 10% tariffs on US cars until Trump confronted them on it. None of the parade of morons ever did anything to address that. None of them took on China on its mercantile trade policies. People like Bloomberg have made billions from labor arbitrage--and it's absolutely remarkable that the Democrats would ever seriously consider a former Republican interloper who championed stop-and-frisk (throwing black kids up against a wall) as their standard bearer while simultaneously throwing baseless charges at Republicans, calling them racist.
So I think Trump is politically significant in that he broke the establishment's game, because he fought back when utterly useless Republicans like Mike Pence would never do that. They would just defend and deny, but never have the balls to counter attack. Consider Warren's call for Barr to resign. Why? Because they are investigating the establishment's manufactured hits on Trump and the criminality involved. This is a group of people who clearly operate as though they are above the law. So I think when Pelosi claim's time is running out, I think she's right.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden