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A party that hangs a skull-and-crossbones flag at its HQ, and promises to clean up corruption, grant asylum to Edward Snowden and accept the bitcoin virtual currency, could be on course to form the next Icelandic government.
The Pirate Party has found a formula that has eluded many anti-establishment groups across Europe. It has tempered polarising policies like looser copyright enforcement rules and drug decriminalisation with pledges of economic stability that have won confidence among voters.
This has allowed it to ride a wave of public anger at perceived corruption among the political elite - the biggest election issue in a country where a 2008 banking collapse hit thousands of savers and government figures have been mired in an offshore tax furore following the Panama Papers leaks.
The left-leaning party is part of a global anti-establishment typified by Britain's vote to leave the European Union. But their platform is far removed from the anti-immigration policies of the UK Independence Party, France's National Front and Germany's AfD, or the anti-austerity of Greece's Syriza.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-iceland-election-idUKKCN11Z1RV
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:42PM
Maybe inappropriate, but accurate. The left is the establishment, and has been for some time now. Most anti-establishment types will be on the right. A pro-establishment view would be for a globalist government, not for independence. I’m not very familiar with UK to make an accurate comparison, but here in the US, Trump is the anti-establishment, and current head of US counter culture. He’s most definitely right of center.
(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:48PM
Since when has The Left ever been the Establishment? This is the double-think we have come to expect from the New Right on the Intertubes.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:22PM
Late 80s early 90s. When Gen X started taking over. First generation raised in front of the tv by the media. Think of the last time it was acceptable to tell someone their kid is a waste on school resources and wouldn’t be allowed to attend, or when it was ok for a women to have or agree with her husband.
(Score: 3, Troll) by turgid on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:24PM
That's nothing but a pig steaming pile of dogs' jobbies. I've never heard such a crazy argument.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:30PM
You are right, he's an idiot. During the 80s and 90s the left were in retreat. The only way Clinton even got elected was by embracing all kinds of policies from the right like mass incarceration, NAFTA, war on drugs, and gutting welfare.
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:17PM
Well, at least I’m not too big of an idiot to assume the establishment is purely presidential. Still, Clinton was a pot smoking hippie with a tree hugger VP, and he beat out a sitting republican president. It also was the start of the PC culture. By the 90s all schools were completely ran by liberals. Majority of companies as well.
Clinton is still the establishment. She was chosen by the DNC and everything was rigged in her favor. The GOP establishment hates trump, they were forced to take him. All mainstream media outlets hate trump. Even fox news tried their best to sink him, but now are forced to back him. He’s ross perot without the dirty pictures, and enough balls to force the GOPs hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:49PM
It's too bad about that GOP platform, though. Also too bad about the alt-right. I really hope the comments I've read here about tobacco causing cancer and cannabis having medical uses being a PC thing are just trolling, but I haven't seen anybody who might be "with" the alt-right correct those. What a ball of wax. I really didn't want to vote for Clinton. Trump doesn't seem too terrible. He should have tried his hand at running full independent or Libertarian.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:09PM
If the election had been Bernie vs. Trump, they'd both be rather anti-establishment. But of course they threw Bernie under the bus.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:30PM
Trump is pure essence of Establishment. He is stupid selfish wealthy silver spoon exploitative ignorance personified.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:23PM
This isn't informative, it's ignorant. Being rich doesn't make you "establishment". Trump isn't in favor of globalism (anti-globalism is the foundation of his campaign), and isn't in bed with typical establishment industries like defense and finance. He's in real estate, in case you haven't noticed. Trump definitely has real issues if you're not a hyper-nationalist, but to call him "establishment" is ignorance in the extreme, and basically just lumping all rich people together. Stupid, yes; selfish, yes; wealthy, yes; silver spoon, yes; exploitative, yes; establishment, definitely not. That's Hillary.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:46PM
Trump himself would argue with you on that:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/12/trump-i-was-the-establishment-video/#ixzz4Ccn3eNs1 [dailycaller.com]
(Although that was almost a year back, which is like forever ago in Trump-statement-years, so who knows what he thinks today.. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:05PM
I doubt he really thinks of himself as an antidisestablishmentarianist.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:51PM
You seem to be operating in ignorance of a couple of vitally important facts:
1. Donald Trump has helped to bankroll past Clinton campaigns [politico.com]. If the Clintons are establishment, and they are, so is Trump.
2. Real estate developers like Trump get all sorts of political favors in order to do what they do. Trump has, throughout his career, relied on political connections for smoothing over little details like zoning laws, bankruptcy proceedings, and criminal investigations. He even bragged about it. [theatlantic.com]
Trump isn't anti-establishment. He's part of the establishment, has always been part of the establishment, and is pretending he isn't in the hopes of winning an election. Electing Trump is basically just removing the middlemen between a tiny number of very rich people and the politicians that work for them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @06:48PM
Yes. That's the essence of "The Establishment".
The other identifying feature is their ownership of the vast majority of all the stuff.
As mcgrew said, "you can't get more establishment than real estate".
.
...and several folks in this thread are using the term "Left" incorrectly as well.
Left == Anti-Capitalist
If you think that Capitalism (concentrated wealth and power) can be tweaked just a bit and all the damage done over centuries via Cronyism will be magically undone, then you are NOT a Leftist.
(Liberals are NOT "Left"; they are not even Pseudo-Left.) [google.com].)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 05 2016, @07:25PM
Electing Trump is basically just removing the middlemen between a tiny number of very rich people and the politicians that work for them.
That sounds exactly like Hillary too.
You seem to be operating in ignorance of a couple of vitally important facts:
1. Donald Trump has helped to bankroll past Clinton campaigns. If the Clintons are establishment, and they are, so is Trump.
2. Real estate developers like Trump get all sorts of political favors in order to do what they do. Trump has, throughout his career, relied on political connections for smoothing over little details like zoning laws, bankruptcy proceedings, and criminal investigations. He even bragged about it.
I see your point but I think there's different ideas of exactly what "the establishment" is. The people who are involved in the military-industrial complex, for instance, are not at all involved in commercial real estate development, and vice versa. Hillary's establishment, which is the establishment that's in power these days, seems to involve Wall Street, much of the mainstream media (like WaPo), the M-I-C, and the copyright cartels and telecoms, and all the politicians who are in bed with those industries. I don't see Trump as being a central figure in that establishment at all, not like Hillary is, as she's right in the nexus of it. Sure, he's tried to buy some favors, but lots of ultra-rich people do that; that doesn't make them significant parts of the establishment. Maybe you could say Trump's a wannabe, but I just don't see that he's actually done anything of substance on behalf of "the establishment".
Now his running mate Pence, OTOH, is a different story, and Trump seemed to really give the finger to all the anti-establishment voters who were rooting for him for that reason, similar to how Hillary really gave the finger to all the Bernie voters by selecting Kaine as her running mate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:19PM
No, Hillary Clinton is merely a higher-class employee, one of those middlemen (Ok, middlewomen). After all, she's only worth about 9 figures, the real players are worth 10-11 figures in US dollars.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:05PM
Born rich, "loaned" millions of dollars at age 21 by daddy Trump. Tries to start airlines, schools, run casinos and is a miserable failure at all of them. That sounds pretty damned establishment to me, and you can't get more establishment than real estate (my sister is in real estate).
He claims to be antiestablishment, but he also claims to be a "blue collar billionaire" and I fail to see any callouses on those tiny hands. In fact, I hear little truth from him at all.
If he's not establishment, then I'm sitting on Mars.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:36PM
Pity no one has thrown Hillary under the bus.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:51PM
It's all her minders can do to stop her falling under it.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:48PM
That is the most hilariously stupid thing I have heard for a long time. He is definitely big-everything, and big-everything are all right wing. And big-everything is the establishment (for at least 103 years in the USA, arguably longer).
You sound like you're probably one of those idiots who thinks that Obamacare was about healthcare rather than it just being a way of syphoning more money into big-finance (namely the insurance industry)?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Username on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:01PM
If the right is big everything then how do you explain the tea party movement?
Trump is most certainly not a globalist, and the only big thing he seems to want is a wall. Pretty sure he is against obamacare, and any other type of big government that will burden US citizens.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:03PM
Given Trump's incoherence and continual flip flopping, I don't think it makes much sense to try to classify Trump by political ideology.
Trump is all about Trump. That's the only constant I see. He is leading a cult of personality.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 06 2016, @10:57AM
If you meant "Trump is definitely in the two quadrants to the right of the centre line at per political compass charts" then you are indeed correct, but your statement carries as much information as "water is wet", as almost all US polititions are deeply embedded in that zone (and in the upper quadrant at that).
I interpreted "right of center" to mean "the band just to the right of the centre", say 0.0-0.4. "right" would be 0.3-0.7, say, and "hard right" would be 0.6-1.0. I'd guess Trump was 0.6-0.7 right, and clearly not in the band right of centre.
I'll now go off and see if the political compass has done a 2016 candidates plot...
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 06 2016, @12:03PM
Scores a healthy +0.9 on the -Libertarian-+Authoritarian axis too, for reference. It looks like they don't place anyone with finer than .05 granularity, so they probably had exactly the same guestimate as me.
Of cours there is a larger than normal margin of error because there's probably a huge gap between what he says (which is all over the place), what he means (likewise), and what he'll eventually actually do - which is the most predictable, even though it's the bit that hasn't happened yet.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves