Robert Tulip wrote:

LevV wrote:I can't believe that he could sway enough voters to move enough beyond his 30% to 33% base to win reelection in 2020.

Trump reminds me a lot of Ronald Reagan. Reagan's 1980 win was relatively close, winning the popular vote by eight million over Carter. Then his 1984 win was a landslide by seventeen million. His 1980 theme was 'let's make America great again.' He scared a lot of people by installing short range first strike nukes in Germany, closing down the pilot's union, expanding the military and a bunch of other right wing stuff that people have forgotten. "There you go again" and "morning in America" and "there's got to be a pony" covered a multitude of sins. And then Bush got re-elected after wasting a trillion dollars on the Iraq adventure. I don't get why people think Trump is so different, looks like rose coloured glasses.

I don't recall Reagan's theme as being LMAGA, Robert. Reagan used that slogan at some point, but not to the extent that Trump has. I recall "It's morning in America" more clearly. At any rate, comparisons between the two prezes would have to revolve around populism and attendant anti-big government (or "gummint") sentiments, and internationalism. Trump surely did follow along in the populist mode during the campaign. He promised, for example, big tax-relief for the middle class. How does that promise look now, with the Republican tax "reform" plan ready to launch? The plan gives very little to the middle class in the short term and then takes money away from it after 2025. What happened? Was he overpowered by the dominant Republican plutocrats? That's one way of looking at it, but I rather think the cause is that Trump himself is firmly lodged in the plutocrats' world; those are his people. Going further into the populist mindset, I don't recall Reagan stoking, intentionally or not, nationalist, racial, ethnic, and religious resentments the way Trump assuredly did and continues to do. RR didn't play to the ugly side of populism.

Reagan, beginning as a Roosevelt Democrat, repudiated that kind of liberalism and then never wavered from conservative libertarianism. Trump's history is much different, more in the way of a weather vane, giving little evidence of a philosophical grounding (though you always want to assign him one!). It is true that Reagan would have approved of Trump stripping away regulations, so in that regard Trump currently matches Reagan. Reagan had an interior secretary, whose name escapes me, who, just like Ryan Zinke, was a fox in the henhouse. Although a lover of the outdoors, I think Reagan would have approved of Trump slashing the size of Western national monuments.

The greatest difference between the two--and where Trump is the anti-Reagan--is the internationalism of the pair. Unimaginable that Trump would ever proclaim, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" It is not the role of the U. S. to tell other nations how they should structure their societies, Trump has said, although endorsements of brutal dictators such as Putin and Duterte are okay. In trade, there is a vast difference between the two. Reagan was for free trade, as conservatives should be, while Trump is for protectionism.

The claim that Trump is Reagan redux is mostly bloviation. Republicans use it to justify continuing to overlook the fact that the man is in every way unsuited for the office. Sure, Trump may be crude, they say, but his spirit is pure Reaganism. Hogwash.

DWill wrote:I don't recall Reagan's theme as being LMAGA

How quickly we forget! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Re ... aign,_1980 lists "Lets Make America Great Again" as Reagan's main 1980 campaign slogan.

The centre of politics has shifted to the left. Things Trump does are portrayed as extreme, when a generation ago they would have been centrist. Trump has done nothing of the scale of Reagan's illegal use of senior administration officials to secretly facilitate the sale of arms to Iran to fund the neo-fascist Contra army to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.

We are now in a culture war, where consorting with the enemy is perceived as treason. Or so the polarising bubble universe of twitter leftist activism seems to think. Now that "the great communicator" Reagan has acquired a more rosy afterglow, the realities of political continuity with Trump are being airbrushed from history as part of the strange exigencies of tribal tactics.

Going further into the populist mindset, I don't recall Reagan stoking, intentionally or not, nationalist, racial, ethnic, and religious resentments the way Trump assuredly did and continues to do. RR didn't play to the ugly side of populism.

That is just nonsense. The reality is that these resentments are part and parcel of a fundamentalist Christian mindset which was far more broadly accepted in American society in the 1980s than it is today, as seen by the prominent role of the Moral Majority. See https://theconversation.com/revisiting- ... rica-79551

DWill wrote: Reagan, beginning as a Roosevelt Democrat, repudiated that kind of liberalism and then never wavered from conservative libertarianism.

Worth looking at Ayn Rand’s take – libertarianism is a very complex beast, and while Reagan was closely associated with that movement, I think “never wavered” is not quite right. http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/in-h ... -1981.html

DWill wrote: Trump's history is much different, more in the way of a weather vane, giving little evidence of a philosophical grounding (though you always want to assign him one!).

The relationship between philosophy and politics is best summed up by Keynes, who said “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”. So I don’t think it is about seeing Trump as a deep thinker, but rather asking what “academic scribblers” have influenced his ‘distilled frenzy’. It is often the case in conservative politics that leaders succeed by sticking to some big principles that their base see as under attack. We will see if Trump manages to retain any impression of integrity on that score.

DWill wrote: It is true that Reagan would have approved of Trump stripping away regulations, so in that regard Trump currently matches Reagan. Reagan had an interior secretary, whose name escapes me, who, just like Ryan Zinke, was a fox in the henhouse. Although a lover of the outdoors, I think Reagan would have approved of Trump slashing the size of Western national monuments.

I actually recall James Watt with some level of horror. Reagan’s first term was a formative time for me, as I was an undergrad at that time, and I thought he was the beast of the apocalypse. My views have moderated a bit since then, but it is a fascinating problem to untangle the wheat and weeds in assessing the merits of conflicting political tendencies.

Reagan was not above dog-whistle racism:

https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/editi ... are-queen/

Robert Tulip wrote: The centre of politics has shifted to the left. Things Trump does are portrayed as extreme, when a generation ago they would have been centrist. Trump has done nothing of the scale of Reagan's illegal use of senior administration officials to secretly facilitate the sale of arms to Iran to fund the neo-fascist Contra army to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.

My view is almost the opposite on today's political center. It is more conservative than a generation ago. Attempts to portray Obama as a committed leftist are very weak; many leftists were dissatisfied with him. Look at his actions on deportations, drone strikes, trade, and healthcare. His signature legislation, the ACA, was a market-based idea lifted from Mitt Romney's plan for Massachusetts. His eventual endorsement of gay marriage was hardly radical or leftist, given that whole nations have legalized it, including, of course, yours. When you refer to Reagan's scandal as worse than anything Trump has done, be careful. The Mueller investigation is still in process. Trump has also not been in office for even one year.

We are now in a culture war, where consorting with the enemy is perceived as treason. Or so the polarising bubble universe of twitter leftist activism seems to think. Now that "the great communicator" Reagan has acquired a more rosy afterglow, the realities of political continuity with Trump are being airbrushed from history as part of the strange exigencies of tribal tactics.

I'm not sure what you mean by "consorting with the enemy." Russia? I have no interest in burnishing the Gipper's reputation. My point in the last post was that the two politicians are more dissimilar than similar, and I stand by that. In choosing to amplify Reagan's Iran-Contra, you ignore the acts of the incumbent that are the subject of most comments in the U.S. Trump uses personal attack of the basest and most immature kind; he lies at a far greater rate than any president or presidential candidate who preceded him; he labels the free press an enemy of the people; he declares any news about him he doesn't like to be made up by reporters; he divides the country by stirring up anger against immigrants and Muslims; he intemperately and impulsively aggravates a dangerous situation in North Korea; he attacks the very institutions (FBI, CIA) that he is charged with supporting merely because they release information he doesn't like or are doing the jobs they are supposed to do; he has bragged about being a sexual predator but thnks only other offenders should be punished, not him; he brushes off his conflicts of interest and refuses to let the American people see his tax returns, not caring that he is breaking a promise made to them. The list is surely not complete. There is only a slight resemblance to RR in any of it. RR, for example, shocked and worried many people in labeling the SU an evil empire. Reagan also sometimes had problems distinguishing real events from fictional ones or from movies, but he did not lie like Trump.

That is just nonsense. The reality is that these resentments are part and parcel of a fundamentalist Christian mindset which was far more broadly accepted in American society in the 1980s than it is today, as seen by the prominent role of the Moral Majority. See https://theconversation.com/revisiting- ... rica-79551

You evaded the point. Whatever might have been the attitudes of RR's constituencies, the comparison to be made is RR's exploitation of these resentments vs. Trump's. Trump "wins" hands down.

Worth looking at Ayn Rand’s take – libertarianism is a very complex beast, and while Reagan was closely associated with that movement, I think “never wavered” is not quite right. http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/in-h ... -1981.html

Well, true, Reagan could be pragmatic as opposed to doctrinaire. It isn't necessary to be all-Rand, though, to be libertarian. Her Objectivism is a little different, anyway.

The relationship between philosophy and politics is best summed up by Keynes, who said “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”. So I don’t think it is about seeing Trump as a deep thinker, but rather asking what “academic scribblers” have influenced his ‘distilled frenzy’. It is often the case in conservative politics that leaders succeed by sticking to some big principles that their base see as under attack. We will see if Trump manages to retain any impression of integrity on that score.

Yes, that's a well-chose quotation. But what if personal animus and a need to be always in the spotlight is what moves Trump to act, above any "distilled" or unconscious principles? Any publicity is better than none to those with a narcissistic bent.

I actually recall James Watt with some level of horror. Reagan’s first term was a formative time for me, as I was an undergrad at that time, and I thought he was the beast of the apocalypse. My views have moderated a bit since then, but it is a fascinating problem to untangle the wheat and weeds in assessing the merits of conflicting political tendencies.

Yes, James Watt. Today the internet makes life a little more boring because you feel you can't just say you don't know, with the answer at your fingertips. But sometimes I want to just not know; it's my free choice.

Recalling that era and comparing it to the present, I agree that the two presidents riled the country to a degree not seen between their presidencies. The difference is that the right or conservatives stuck with Reagan, whereas the same isn't true of Trump. He has been so transgressive that even conservatives realize that he must be censured. I'm not talking about the venal, craven political tribe of the Republicans in Congress (with a few exceptions), but of the independent observers such as George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Gerson, Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, and David Brooks. All can be as anti-Trump as the avowed liberal pundits. That must tell us something about Trump being well off the scale of normality.

Mr. Tulip wrote:The centre of politics has shifted to the left. Things Trump does are portrayed as extreme, when a generation ago they would have been centrist.

No, I agree with DWill the opposite has happened.
Consider: President Nixon started the EPA. For Trump to do something more progressive, he'd probably have to add a cabinet secretary in charge of combating climate change. Instead he withdrew from the Paris Accords and his EPA appointee appears to be attempting to dismantle that organization. Are any Republicans in favor of strengthening the EPA and environmental controls or even just leaving them as is? No.
Consider: President Nixon enacted a 90 day wage and price freeze, then controls where the Government dictated wage and pricing levels. That was in the face of 20% inflation IIRC, but if anything like that was attempted by either party now, armed militias would be marching in the streets.

We are now in a culture war, where consorting with the enemy is perceived as treason.

I'm with DWill again, you need to explain that one...

I agree Trump has done nothing on the level of the Iran-Contra affair or leading us into and mismanaging a war like Iraq. However it's still early and Trump's character is such that it is quite likely he will do far worse. As DWill said, Mueller's findings may show Trump has already done so...

Comparing current US politics to the 1960s this chart is instructive



The cultural willingness of the USA to sacrifice thousands of lives in the war against communism in Vietnam, in every month of the Johnson and Nixon years, reflects a conservative ethos from the 1960s that is far more contested today. The rationale for the Vietnam War was to continue the successful defence of Asian capitalism prosecuted in Korea, to sustain the western sphere of influence in politics, culture and trade. Such a political agenda based on values of liberty could never get support today, because those values are perceived far more cynically as cover for economic interests. The Vietnam War was lost due to US strategic confusion, not because of a stab in the back by the media. Reagan was however elected on a tide of reaction against the 'stab in the back' perceptions, rather like Hitler's use of Versailles.

The war on terrorism is quite different, based more on visceral reaction against 9/11 and desire to protect oil trade routes. Afghanistan is a tumorous source of contagion, and the war there is more a form of chemotherapy than an ideological crusade like Vietnam. My sense is the war on terror will continue until the US works out how to engage in some sort of respectful dialogue with Islam.

When I say the centre of politics has shifted to the left, I am thinking of the popular Presidential vote, and the dominant media culture, which probably would have been even more skewed in favour of Clinton if people in New York and California thought their vote made a difference, since their whole college was sewn up for the Democrats in both these biggest states. I would like to see more analysis on how the electoral system fails democracy - here is a list of state populations.

Reflecting this popular sense that Trump is not legitimate, the media campaign against Trump and his supporters has been unrelenting. Government policies to roll back environmental legislation face a more informed and sceptical electorate, even while popular indifference allows the agenda of rapacity to continue.

Robert Tulip wrote:
Reflecting this popular sense that Trump is not legitimate, the media campaign against Trump and his supporters has been unrelenting. Government policies to roll back environmental legislation face a more informed and sceptical electorate, even while popular indifference allows the agenda of rapacity to continue.

SALT LAKE CITY — President Trump sharply reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah on Monday by some two million acres, the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.

The administration shrank Bears Ears National Monument, a sprawling region of red rock canyons, by 85 percent, and cut another monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante, to about half its current size. The move, a reversal of protections put in place by Democratic predecessors, comes as the administration pushes for fewer restrictions and more development on public lands.

The decision to reduce Bears Ears is expected to set off a legal battle that could alter the course of American land conservation, putting dozens of other monuments at risk and possibly opening millions of preserved public acres to oil and gas extraction, mining, logging and other commercial activities. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/us/t ... -ears.html

Robert Tulip wrote:Comparing current US politics to the 1960s this chart is instructive



The cultural willingness of the USA to sacrifice thousands of lives in the war against communism in Vietnam, in every month of the Johnson and Nixon years, reflects a conservative ethos from the 1960s that is far more contested today.

It makes little sense to me, Robert, to label as conservative the anti-communism campaign begun by JFK and sustained by LBJ, two liberal democrats. Neither "conservative" nor "liberal" has enduring meaning across eras. If our war in Asia was a symptom of such deep conservatism, why were the 60s and 70s characterized by federal civil rights and environmental legislation? Why was the Republican party much more "liberal" than it is today? Quite a number of past Republicans would never make it in today's Republican party, including Richard Nixon and even Barry Goldwater!

The war on terrorism is quite different, based more on visceral reaction against 9/11 and desire to protect oil trade routes. Afghanistan is a tumorous source of contagion, and the war there is more a form of chemotherapy than an ideological crusade like Vietnam. My sense is the war on terror will continue until the US works out how to engage in some sort of respectful dialogue with Islam.

Still, there is so much talk about the ideology of radical Islam, with continuing battles over whether the term is permissible. Trump says we must use it; some of his own generals advise against. Any war is difficult to sustain without public support, and that support relies on one side seeing the other as representing dangerous and noxious thought.

When I say the centre of politics has shifted to the left, I am thinking of the popular Presidential vote, and the dominant media culture, which probably would have been even more skewed in favour of Clinton if people in New York and California thought their vote made a difference, since their whole college was sewn up for the Democrats in both these biggest states. I would like to see more analysis on how the electoral system fails democracy - here is a list of state populations.

How well the presidential vote over the last 17 years shows a leftward trend is uncertain. 8 of Bush II, 8 of Obama, one of Trump. The more meaningful story may lie in the party in control of the moat state legislatures, and there the balance is tipped decidedly toward Republicans. http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/14/the-2 ... state-legi

Reflecting this popular sense that Trump is not legitimate, the media campaign against Trump and his supporters has been unrelenting. Government policies to roll back environmental legislation face a more informed and sceptical electorate, even while popular indifference allows the agenda of rapacity to continue.

I'm confused about the meaning of your second statement. On the first, Trump's legitimacy, in the sense that he was duly elected, even though with a pop vote minority, has not in my view been seriously challenged. His legitimacy, in a less precise sense, is questioned by a majority if we go by opinion polls. A person as unprepared--in experience, temperament, and intellect as he has shown himself to be--will be perceived in that way. I think it's complete propagandistic nonsense that the MSM has conducted a campaign against him. That can only be true if one questions the value of a free, adversarial press.

Robert Tulip wrote:The centre of politics has shifted to the left. Things Trump does are portrayed as extreme, when a generation ago they would have been centrist. Trump has done nothing of the scale of Reagan's illegal use of senior administration officials to secretly facilitate the sale of arms to Iran to fund the neo-fascist Contra army to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. We are now in a culture war, where consorting with the enemy is perceived as treason. Or so the polarising bubble universe of twitter leftist activism seems to think. Now that "the great communicator" Reagan has acquired a more rosy afterglow, the realities of political continuity with Trump are being airbrushed from history as part of the strange exigencies of tribal tactics.

DWill wrote:My view is almost the opposite on today's political center. It is more conservative than a generation ago. Attempts to portray Obama as a committed leftist are very weak; many leftists were dissatisfied with him. Look at his actions on deportations, drone strikes, trade, and healthcare. His signature legislation, the ACA, was a market-based idea lifted from Mitt Romney's plan for Massachusetts. His eventual endorsement of gay marriage was hardly radical or leftist, given that whole nations have legalized it, including, of course, yours. When you refer to Reagan's scandal as worse than anything Trump has done, be careful. The Mueller investigation is still in process. Trump has also not been in office for even one year.

This left wing, right wing divide is interesting. If I recall correctly from the AR5 of the IPCC, There has been on the southern hemisphere a growth rate of about 2 percent in permanent ice. While on the northern hemisphere there has been about a 14 percent decrease in permanent ice. (these are annual percentages). I often hear from AGW deniers just one side of these statistics. That is the positive growth side. They use this as part of their evidence that AGW is some sort of hoax, when in fact we see that there is a total loss of permanent ice of 12 percent, Overall we are saying farewell to ice. So are we really moving to the left in the U.S. or is skepticism toward the current extreme right wing of politics implanting us well within the center right of the divide?.

Taylor wrote:This left wing, right wing divide is interesting.

Hello Taylor, thanks. My view on political theory is that we should analyse the process of politics by defining a spectrum on a line from extreme left to extreme right, assessing the ethics and values and impact of each point along that line.

Democracy demands centrist government, in terms of the popular will, since when a government veers too far left or right it generates a popular backlash which then installs a government of the other tendency. The adaptive evolutionary pressures on political parties mean their contest is over the swinging voters in the centre. The left has its political base among the poor, while the right has its base among the rich, and each base seeks to entice the uncommitted centre. But when a government abandons its base, it loses energy and support.

Another simplified way to describe the political spectrum is the dialectic of equality and liberty. The left supports equality, meaning redistribution of wealth by the state, while the right supports liberty, understood as personal economic control. The key factor is the role of the state, which the left sees as the enforcer of equality while the right sees as the enabler of freedom.

Of course real politics is more complex than this simple linear spectrum, since everyone has a personal set of values around such themes as liberty and equality. However, I find the scheme of the political spectrum helpful as a way to describe tendencies, especially regarding the trade-offs between liberty and equality.

A big part of the complexity is the appetite for risk, with the left seeking to use the state to protect against economic risk through high tax and regulation, while the right sees moral incentive and value in allowing people to take more risks by getting the state out of their way.

Taylor wrote: If I recall correctly from the AR5 of the IPCC, there has been on the southern hemisphere a growth rate of about 2 percent in permanent ice. While on the northern hemisphere there has been about a 14 percent decrease in permanent ice. (these are annual percentages). I often hear from AGW deniers just one side of these statistics. That is the positive growth side. They use this as part of their evidence that AGW is some sort of hoax, when in fact we see that there is a total loss of permanent ice of 12 percent, Overall we are saying farewell to ice.

At the end of the day, denial of global warming is as morally evil and repugnant as denial of the Jewish Holocaust. Left unchecked, global warming is likely to kill far more people than the Second World War, while also smashing the planetary ecosystem in a repeat of the Permian Great Dying.

But the reason the fantasy of climate denial has such political traction on the right is that the emission reduction solution offered by the left is a false promise, a deceptive cover for its advocacy of an intrusive state. We can no more fix warming by reducing emissions than we could fix sanitation by issuing constipation pills. The waste must be managed at the end of the pipe.

Taylor wrote: So are we really moving to the left in the U.S. or is skepticism toward the current extreme right wing of politics implanting us well within the center right of the divide?.

“By their fruits ye shall know them” (Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:16). The main fruit of the Obama Presidency was a sudden crazed near-doubling of US national debt to $20 trillion, debasing the coinage. https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-p ... nt-3306296 That wholesale denial of reality is the primary example of leftist fantasy. The key principle of conservatism is sound money. https://mises.org/library/principle-sound-money By its flight from concern about sound money, the USA has jumped off the leftist end of the political spectrum.