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The new, temporary FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe says that employees loved Comey:
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe Thursday rejected assertions by the White House that FBI employees had lost faith in James Comey and that the bureau's probe into Russian election meddling was one of its most minor concerns. "I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard. I have the highest respect for his considerable abilities and his integrity," McCabe told members of the Senate intelligence committee. He said Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, enjoyed "broad support within the FBI and still does to this day." He added, "The majority, the vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey."
Furthermore, he will inform the Senate of any interference with the Russia investigation:
Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe vowed Thursday that he would tell the Senate Intelligence Committee if the White House tried to interfere with the bureau's probe of possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election — though he asserted that there had "been no effort to impede our investigation to date."
Meanwhile, President Trump has undermined the White House's messaging on Comey's firing, saying that he planned to fire "showboat" and "grandstander" James Comey regardless of any recommendation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein. The President also insists that he is not under FBI investigation.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday May 12 2017, @05:46PM (37 children)
Well, for starters, Bernie Sanders still has the support of the majority of the population, according to most of the recent polls on the subject. I find it very interesting that the political system successfully fought tooth and nail to prevent him from gaining political power, and it seems like he understands better than many the severity of the problem.
That said, I find the results of this poll on that very question [gallup.com] extremely disturbing. Because if that's accurate, the answer for what's going to end up happening is a military takeover of the government.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @05:54PM (1 child)
I think you are coming a conclusion that is not supported by the facts.
If any of the other top institutions (small business, churches, the police, the medical system) on that list were the most trusted would it be plausible for them to take over the government?
I don't think so.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @08:07PM
While you are indeed correct about it being implausible for those institutions from taking over the government (in the US at least; the church taking over the government is a real thing in some other countries), the historical truth is that it's not that unusual for the military to take over the government. It's happened many, many times in countries around the world. So while it's not much of a danger of the medical system having a coup, it really is possible for the military. Also, the military is somewhat unique that it both has the power to orchestrate a coup (it has lots of weapons after all), and the organizational structure for it (it's a single and very large organization with a clear chain of command, unlike the police for instance which is thousands of barely-related departments across the country). This military also has real and recent experience in taking over other countries and setting up governments there.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @06:21PM (12 children)
The majority of the population couldn't be bothered to vote for him back in the Primaries, so it really doesn't matter what they think.
Bernie is also 75 years old. By the time Trump is done, he'll either be almost 80, or around 83, depending on whether this "majority" bothers to vote for Bernie in 4 years or needs 8 years of Trump to get motivated. Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll have life-extension therapies to rejuvenate him, but otherwise he's likely to not be in shape for a Presidential run plus a full term.
It's really sad that he's about the only national-level politician that people actually believe is honest.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday May 12 2017, @07:27PM (11 children)
Where by "The majority", you mean the superdelegates.
The whole episode was shameful. On the evening before the biggest state primary (California), the DNC announced that HRC had "won", despite the lack of an actual vote on the topic by superdelegates. Result: low turnout for the Democratic primary. Yes, the superdelegates may have been leaning towards voting for HRC, but there is a reason we don't use opinion polls to elect people. They could have changed their minds between the time of the CA primary and the convention.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @08:00PM (8 children)
Where by "The majority", you mean the superdelegates.
No, I don't mean that at all. Why do people like you keep complaining about the superdelegates? They were not a factor AT ALL. Bernie lost the popular vote in the primaries, full stop. Hillary had several million more votes than he did. The regular voters failed to vote for him. There was a fear that he would lose because of the superdelegates, but it never even got that far for them to be a factor.
the DNC announced that HRC had "won", despite the lack of an actual vote on the topic by superdelegates. Result: low turnout for the Democratic primary.
Yes, but again, it's ultimately the peoples' fault for failing to show up and have their voices heard. The people failed to vote for Bernie, yet enough of them did manage to turn out and vote for Hillary.
There's other factors here too: the primaries should have been open, but in some states they're closed. The DNC should have worked to change that but didn't, but that's a state-by-state thing. If you want things more democratic, caucuses should be eliminated and replaced with primaries, because caucuses favor only politically-active people willing to go spend a lot of time at those things (and travel to them). Yet Bernie did better in states with caucuses than primaries. The DNC obviously shouldn't have been working directly for Hillary and stabbing Bernie in the back, but really it was obvious that was happening. So again, ultimately, it's the fault of the people. Hillary wasn't coronated by the DNC with zero votes; she got millions, and did especially well in the South BTW. If we could cut the South out of the country (or at least disallow them from voting), then Bernie would have won. Honestly, this country would be in much better shape if the South had never been fully admitted back into the union, and were instead treated as occupied territory, and later, after fixing the whole slavery problem, spun off into a separate country (just like companies do with business units that are dragging them down). The people there have no ability to properly govern themselves, and never have.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 12 2017, @09:50PM (3 children)
Why do people like you keep complaining about the superdelegates? They were not a factor AT ALL.
I strongly disagree. Those superdelegates gave Clinton a strong boost throughout the nomination process that she didn't warrant. The key factor here are the donations paid to the sure winner. If all you're interested in is bribing a political candidate, there is a huge increase in ROI once you get to the point where there is an obvious winner since you only have to pay campaign contributions to one candidate instead of two or more.
Clinton started with a bloc of about 10% of all Democrat party nomination votes before the first primary happened. That gave her campaign an unwarranted perception of winning that it didn't deserve and meant her campaign would be get an edge via the sure bet money, from start to finish than Sanders's campaign.
Hillary wasn't coronated by the DNC with zero votes; she got millions, and did especially well in the South BTW. If we could cut the South out of the country (or at least disallow them from voting), then Bernie would have won. Honestly, this country would be in much better shape if the South had never been fully admitted back into the union, and were instead treated as occupied territory, and later, after fixing the whole slavery problem, spun off into a separate country (just like companies do with business units that are dragging them down). The people there have no ability to properly govern themselves, and never have.
Compared to who? Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, for example, are really strong states economically (which I consider the strongest indication of "proper governance"). Texas in particular has been growing stronger in a variety of metrics compared to rivals California and New York.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 13 2017, @05:24PM (2 children)
I strongly disagree. Those superdelegates gave Clinton a strong boost throughout the nomination process that she didn't warrant. The key factor here are the donations paid to the sure winner.
Donations are not votes. The voters can vote for whoever they want, and they voted for Hillary. The superdelegates were only a factor after the voting was all done and all the delegates in all the states showed up at the convention to vote: at that point, if it was close, the superdelegates could change the result. That never happened: just going by the delegates alone, Hillary won, because the voters chose her. The voters are to blame. If they allowed the mere presumption that the superdelegates would vote for Hillary to cause them to actually take time out of their day, go to the voting booth, and vote for a candidate they didn't prefer, that's their own stupid fault. No one forced them to vote for Hillary. (And no one forced them to stay home either.)
Compared to who? Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, for example, are really strong states economically (which I consider the strongest indication of "proper governance")
No, it's not. It's sheer luck. I live in Virginia, and this state is terribly governed and horribly inefficient (for one thing, there's way too many counties, and there's extremely high taxation in this state because of all the administrative overhead and the number of counties). The reason the economy is strong is one reason: Washington DC. That's it. If you take a handful of northern Virginia counties out of the state, it'll be economically middling, with only the Hampton-Roads and Richmond areas doing any good, and the rest a disaster. The northern Virginia counties aren't doing well because the state is governed well, they're doing well (and have some of the highest costs of living in the country) because of their proximity to DC, the presence of the Pentagon, the presence of countless defense contractors gorging themselves on taxpayer money, etc. If those few counties were to secede from Virginia and instead join Wyoming (despite a bit of a geographical separation), then suddenly you'd be saying that Wyoming is "well governed" because of its fantastic economy. Sorry, no.
Texas is technically "South", but it's only barely. It's really not part of the "Deep South", no more than Tennessee or Arkansas. The worst Southern states are SC, AL, and MS anyway. GA is an oddity, mainly because of Atlanta. NC is a mess too; RTP is economically strong but the rest of the state is a disaster.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:40AM
Donations are not votes.
I agree. My point though is that higher donations from the very beginning through to the end of the nomination process is a huge advantage in getting those votes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:34AM
Texas is technically "South", but it's only barely. It's really not part of the "Deep South", no more than Tennessee or Arkansas. The worst Southern states are SC, AL, and MS anyway. GA is an oddity, mainly because of Atlanta. NC is a mess too; RTP is economically strong but the rest of the state is a disaster.
Let us note most of the South is not part of the Deep South [wikipedia.org] either. Virginia surely isn't.
Now do that exercise for any other part of the US rather than just the "Deep South" specifically. Every state has parts that are messes, disasters, etc.
But the worst states by a variety of measures tend to be spread throughout the US rather than concentrated in the South. For example, this evaluation [247wallst.com] of the "management" of a state had the south fare relatively poorly (with the exception of Texas and Virginia), but still had Illinois and New Mexico underneath Mississippi, the worst of the "Deep South" states (and only half of the bottom 10 worst states were part of the South in any sense). And this rating of the "fiscal condition" [mercatus.org] of the states had most of the Northeast US rated worse than any part of the southern US (aside from two peripheral states Kentucky and Maryland which are occasionally considered part of the South).
I never understood the hard-on that some bigots have for the South.It's just another part of the country and there are plenty of other places in the US trying hard to be just as bad as the alleged excesses of this region.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday May 12 2017, @10:11PM
1. [I can't believe I am writing this, but ..] See khallow's comments.
2. I believe that the unwarranted pre-announcement of Clinton's victory disproportionately reduced voting amongst Sanders supporters. Hence the superdelegates mattered.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:55AM (2 children)
Sure -- ignore closed primaries where you had register before he even kicked off his campaign. Ignore the voter roll purges. Ignore rule changes that favored HRC. For example in my state, they changed the viability level for precinct caucuses last election. Previously, you needed 15% to be considered a viable candidate. They eliminated that this year so in my precinct, HRC got 14% of the popular vote, and 25% of the delegates to the county convention. And sure, while Bernie did win WA, the margin between them was artificially reduced by the rule change thus making it impossible for him to catch up.
The debates were a complete softball, the media colluded w/ the DNC to exclude Bernie from coverage -- the whole fucking thing was an anti-democratic shitshow. And then you get the Superdelegates who had the power of 10,000 voters.
Finally, if we are stuck with a two party system, primaries should be totally open with the ability to choose your side on the day you vote. We have that in WA -- no registration half a year in advance. You decide this election you like the Republican, you declare yourself Republican and vote. You like the Dem -- you declare yourself Dem and vote. If the parties are going to exert the kind of control they do over our voting process, we have no democracy at all because time and again, it results in GiantDouche v. ShitSandwich elections.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:21AM
Yes, they purged new voters off the rolls in New York, about 100,000 if I remember correctly. In New York, that means they purged Democratic, not Republican, voters. Because they were new, that means they were Millenials who were inspired to register by Bernie, because he ran away with that demographic. Lawsuits were filed, but it was a fait accompli. It was essential, you see, to avoid the crushing embarassment of losing New York to Bernie because Hillary lives here and was Senator for New York, and because Chuck Schumer (Senator, New York) was the head of the Senate Campaign Committee for the DNC and would have been horribly embarassed to see Hillary lose to a "fake" Democrat like Bernie. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's other Senator, was a protege of Hillary's so of course she couldn't be embarassed by Hillary losing New York, either.
In truth Hillary would probably have won New York anyway, even without the shenanigans, because the political machine rules here, but even a narrow win would have been just about as bad as losing for her momentum in the primaries.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 13 2017, @05:51PM
Finally, if we are stuck with a two party system, primaries should be totally open with the ability to choose your side on the day you vote. We have that in WA -- no registration half a year in advance. You decide this election you like the Republican, you declare yourself Republican and vote. You like the Dem -- you declare yourself Dem and vote.
Yep, we had exactly that here in Virginia. The usual voting registration deadline (a couple months I think), but the primaries were open and when you walked into the polling station, you could declare whether you wanted to vote for the Reps or Dems. Hillary won the primaries here.
Yeah, the deck was stacked against Bernie, but ultimately it was the voters who were to blame. Superdelegates worth 10k votes still can't outvote everyone when they vote against them. Closed primaries don't prevent people who identified as Dems before from voting for Bernie. They all voted for Hillary. The voters are to blame.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
On the evening before the biggest state primary (California), the DNC announced that HRC had "won",
No they did not.
The AP ran a story [apnews.com] by reporters who interviewed all the superdelegates and compiled their public, on the record endorsements.
The AP, not the DNC.
Conspiracy theory logic: The AP is controlled by the DNC so its the same thing.
Critical thinking logic: The AP reported on public information that made for a sensational story because that's what sells clicks.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:38AM
> The AP ran a story [...]
Yes. I'm trying to post the calendar for June 2016, when the story ran. It's not displaying properly in the preview, but 1 June was a Wednesday:
June 2016
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
At your link, the story is dated 7 June, which was a Tuesday on which several primary elections were held. However, it actually ran a day earlier, as you can read in the secondary reporting about it at Slate:
On Monday night, the Associated Press announced that, due to some new superdelegate commitments, Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination.
-- http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/06/clinton_clinches_democratic_nomination_associated_press_reports.html [slate.com]
Note that the date on the AP page linked by Slate also says 7 June. A possible explanation is that the AP uses a different time zone.
Note that NBC News ran a similar story, dated 6 June, supposedly based on NBC's own research:
By NBC's count, Clinton now has 1812 pledged delegates and 572 superdelegates, while Sanders has 1520 pledged and 46 superdelegates.
-- http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/clinton-hits-magic-number-delegates-clinch-nomination-n586181 [nbcnews.com]
That doesn't prove there was any intrigue, but it's intriguing.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 12 2017, @06:24PM (12 children)
"military takeover of the government."
That possibility is extremely slim, in this country. Before that is likely to happen, large swathes of the population would have to be engaged in active insurrection. That's the way things are set up. Every military officer who has graduated from the academies has had it drummed into his skull that they work for civilian authority for a reason.
More likely that some civilians engage in armed conflict, then the military takes sides with one of the other civilian, still preserving the concept that they work for civilian authority.
As for Bernie and a majority - sorry, I think that's wishful thinking. Maybe, but I don't think so. Bernie had a majority of the left, I think, but that doesn't directly translate into a majority of the US population.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday May 12 2017, @07:09PM (7 children)
What does translate into a majority of the US population are opinion polls consistently saying he has the support of the majority of the population [huffingtonpost.com]. OK, maybe the polls are flawed in some way, maybe they're only polling leftists or something, but that's what they're saying. You might not like him, of course, and that's your right to hold that view, but that's what the evidence says.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:11AM (6 children)
The polls also said that Hillary was going to win the election, remember?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:48AM (5 children)
You had written about "a majority of the US population" which is distinct from winning a presidential election. The November 2016 election that you're discussing is a good illustration of the difference:
[...] the Nation offered the latest theory in a never-ending string of them, this one focused on what was by some metrics the single biggest surprise of the election: Trump’s victory in Wisconsin, where he trailed in polls by an average of 6.5 points ahead of Nov. 8.
According to new research conducted by data science firm Civis Analytics for liberal super PAC Priorities USA, strict voter ID laws significantly depressed the turnout of black and Democratic-leaning voters in a number of states, chief among them [Wisconsin].
-- http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/10/the_problem_with_the_civis_study_blaming_clinton_s_wisconsin_loss_on_a_voter.html [slate.com]
Let's hope the new Presidential Commission on Election Integrity remedies the situation.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/11/trump-to-sign-order-launching-voter-fraud-commission.html [foxnews.com]
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/11/president-announces-formation-bipartisan-presidential-commission [whitehouse.gov]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:02AM (4 children)
Voter ID laws suppress voter turnout - yeah. Tell ya what. When the media can trot out hundreds and thousands of people who have no ID who claim that they wished to vote, but couldn't, I'll be concerned. But, my real concern won't be those potential voters. My real concern will be fake news.
The incidence of voter suppression is probably about equal with the incidents of voter fraud. Both are negligible.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:40AM
I mostly agree with you on that, but voter suppression is a much bigger factor on the primary level than in the general election because the number of voters is so much smaller. In the general election it can also be a significant factor if you're targeting the right precinct in the right states. In the 2012 race there was a memorable scene on Fox News on election night [newsweek.com] when Karl Rove kept calling the election for Romney because he was certain key precincts in southern Ohio would flip the state red. It didn't turn out that way. (I read reports at the time that Anonymous had prevented the Diebold voting machines there from being rigged for Romney [salon.com], but who knows if that's true) But if you could pull off voter suppression in a key place like that you could swing an entire election, especially if the turnout is low because the voters don't care about the race or detest the candidates.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 13 2017, @03:43AM (2 children)
Here's more fake news for you to be concerned about:
Michigan officials declared in late November that Trump won the state's count by 10,704 votes. But hold on – a record 75,355 ballots were not counted.
[...]
According to the machines that read their ballots, these voters waited in line, sometimes for hours, yet did not choose a president.
-- http://www.gregpalast.com/the-republican-sabotage-of-the-vote-recounts-in-michigan-and-wisconsin/ [gregpalast.com]
Another piece of fake news I'm sure you heard is that Ms. Clinton lost the election whilst receiving the most votes.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:07PM (1 child)
You're gonna hate me. But, I'm laughing, man.
Liberal run cities go bankrupt, and can't afford a new voting machine, so liberal votes aren't counted by the old broken voting machine.
Now, tell me: Doesn't that sound like poetic justice? I don't mean to imply that you're stupid or anything, but just in case, read this: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poetic%20justice [merriam-webster.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:42PM
Thank you for reading that. The bankruptcies were indeed a factor. Did you get as far as these bits?
[...] Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, paid millions of dollars for a human eyeball count of the uncounted votes. [...]
But Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette stymied Stein's human eye count. The Republican pol issued an order saying that no one could look at the ballots cast in precincts where the number of votes and voters did not match [...]
An eye-popping 449,092 Michiganders are on the [Interstate] Crosscheck suspect list.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday May 12 2017, @08:24PM (3 children)
Trump won by a slim margin. Before the DNC sandbagging, Sanders was ahead of Clinton. That suggests that sanders did have a majority for the country, though possibly by a slim margin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @11:04PM (2 children)
Furthermore, Sanders never faced serious political opposition.
For all the hysteria over the DNC being in the bag for killary, it was at most inconvenient debate scheduling and shit-talking between DNC employees.
She deliberately pulled her punches with sanders for fear of alienating his voters in the primary.
She never mentioned his wife's fraud problems.
News coverage for sanders was much more positive than for any other candidate. [politicalwire.com]
Who knows what a serious oppo research effort would have dug up to smear him with?
Its easy to be #1 when nobody is trying to take you down.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:57AM (1 child)
That's such bullshit. The DNC's entire opposition research file was released at some point -- either Guccifer or Wikileaks. They had nothing -- other than the racist ploy of pointing he's Jewish to good Christians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 13 2017, @04:07AM
> That's such bullshit. The DNC's entire opposition research file was released at some point
No. AN oppo research file was released. You have no idea as to what else was not released, or even hacked out.
You fail boolean logic.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @06:30PM (8 children)
But how would that graph look different if you polled various other industrialized nations, including Japan and western European nations?
I don't think it should be too surprising that the military leads that list, because it's pretty much the only selection there which doesn't have too much of a profit motive, so people believe in its honesty more, even if they don't agree with what it's used for (by the President and Congress, which have much lower ratings, esp. Congress). Everything else there can be rightfully seen as corrupt or self-serving. Businesses big and small are obviously only in it for money. Religion is a way of making money (just look at the lavish lives most televangelists lead, with private jets, and the elaborate buildings most established religions have). Congress is full of corrupt politicians. Many people view the medical industry with suspicion because of "Big Pharma" and the high cost of medicines. Banks are obviously in it for money. Organized labor is demonstrably corrupt. The media is largely corrupt and serves the interest of the rich (like the Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, which blatantly tried to steer the election for Hillary and trash Bernie). The criminal justice system is corrupt, with the US having by far the highest incarceration rate in the world, mostly because of the War on Drugs, again all for money. The police are part of that war. That only leaves public schools, which are simply broken due to corrupt and ineffective government.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday May 12 2017, @07:13PM (1 child)
Err, what? The military is an organization that has $6.5 trillion unaccounted for [cnn.com]. Also, the military top brass have a tendency to get nice cushy jobs as "consultants" at firms like Lockheed and Raytheon shortly after their retirement from active service. Are you really so sure that nobody is lining their pockets?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @07:17PM
Yeah, you're right about that. But I think the citizens tend to look over that stuff and concentrate on the regular servicemembers, not just the top brass. Enlisted servicemembers aren't getting rich (though they do have a pretty good deal with educational benefits). Whereas with the police, for instance, there's a perception among much of the population that the police aren't working for them, but rather against them, which is proven by the way police departments use traffic citations as a revenue source and focus entirely on speeding and not on other more-dangerous driving habits. Giving a speeding ticket to someone driving alone on an empty stretch of rural road at 3AM going 10mph over an unreasonably-low limit not set by civil engineers is not improving safety.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 12 2017, @11:03PM (5 children)
Couldn't get what you asked (in a reasonable time) but stumbled over something interesting here: Declining trust in government is denting democracy [economist.com]
Shows US in the "Flawed democracy" category, the same with India and South Africa and only slightly above (but still in the same category) with former communist countries in the East European block.
The take for US - degrading democracy is not caused by Trump, on the contrary Trump is caused by a degrading democracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:52AM
It is not limited to the US. Turkey, for one, is quickly sliding off the democratic slope into autocracy. Is the global currency and financial system that the US sits at the center of to blame? Perhaps it's a factor, but cronyism is far from an exlusively American phenomenon.
I also can't really judge how the current scale of cronyism compares to historical averages, because I was not alive in the 40's and 50's and my own firsthand knowledge of government and the financial centers is from the last 15-20 years.
Social media has, however, been a factor in how quickly and easily regular people can learn of government and corporate misdeeds. Even if the historical level of corruption was constant, an increase in the technological ability to learn about it would create the perception it has spiked, and that would destroy public trust in governmental institutions. There's not much the government or corporations can do about that, either, because they have lost control of the narrative.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 13 2017, @05:35PM (3 children)
Um, isn't there something wrong when we're comparing the US to countries like South Africa, India, various ex-Warsaw Pact countries, and Turkey (as in the other responder's comment)?
Anyway, according to your link, as I predicted, the Scandinavian countries plus Switzerland appear to be just great, however I'm really curious about why Australia is ranked so highly because everything I hear about that place recently is bad. I'm also surprised that Japan isn't doing better.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 13 2017, @09:48PM (2 children)
FTFY. And yes, it's something wrong when, applying the comparison, the scores come close enough.
I don't know about you, but looking to USian political landscape, I see:
* the same level of dogmatism that play a role in politics as in Turkey - faith-based politics; granted, the "free market fairy" (+other fantastic ideological creatures) and "the prophet" are two very distinct objects of faith/worship, but faith is involved in both cases;
* almost the same level of corruption in the upper spheres of politics as in India and ex-Warsaw pact countries Say whatever you like about specific differences, but if "money [wikipedia.org] is speech [wikipedia.org]", the moneyless classes doesn't get an equal representation of their interest as the barons
* the same level of tribalism and division (us versus them) in the voters as in African countries.
It works because two different factors:
* voting is mandatory at all levels of election. I paid a fine around AUD300 3-4 years ago for missing from local elections; you know, the ones where you elect local council members;
* the distribution of votes is not "first past the post" but preferential voting [wikipedia.org]
Both the above makes the presence of independents quite frequent, resulting in a balance of power that need to be maintained by negotiations.
Also, the political spectrum is more balanced - there are elements of social-democracy (like in Europe) represented in Parliament.
As a result, after struggling for 4 years to impose their ideological/faith based policies, the current liberal/conservative government was forced to reconsider and proposed a budget with strong social policies - increased spending in health, education, infrastructure; tax deductions for first home-owners/buyers. See how Price-Waterhouse-Coopers presents it at at glance [pwc.com.au].
It's the result of the Libs/Nats failing to secure the Senate under their control (with many independents holding the balance of power), so that after a budget that has some $20B or so rejected/blocked last year, they understood the Aussies really want them to do their job and negotiate with the representatives they voted for (or else GTFO at next election).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:30AM (1 child)
I don't know about you, but looking to USian political landscape, I see:
Yes, you're completely correct about how the US is in reality, but remember the US leads the world economically still, and has some kind of reputation for leading the world in everything, and of course Americans tend to believe this. But just like the emperor with no clothes, in reality, as you point out, the US really falls far short of *real* developed nations in many key things, like not having religion be a large part of politics, not being obviously corrupt, not having massive tribalism, etc.
It works because two different factors:
* voting is mandatory at all levels of election. I paid a fine around AUD300 3-4 years ago for missing from local elections
I have to disagree on this. First off, is voting mandatory in *real* world-leading nations? (hint: Australia isn't one of them; Japan and the Scandinavian nations are. Australia has some strengths, but it has major problems too. Just look at how you're managing the Great Barrier Reef for one.
Mandatory voting only means people are going to come and make random marks on a ballot. It doesn't guarantee they're going to vote well, or even bother to understand the issues or research the candidates. Here in the US, we already have too many morons voting, like for Trump. Forcing people who don't care to vote to show up isn't going to fix this. Informed voting depends on a populace that cares, and that's educated so they can make intelligent choices. The populace here in the US isn't educated.
* the distribution of votes is not "first past the post" but preferential voting
Now this, OTOH, is a major factor IMO. FPTP is a horrible voting system, and gives us the 2-party system we in the US are stuck with.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday May 14 2017, @01:28AM
My apologies, I'll have to be precise. Let me go in full:
"it works in Australia because voting is mandatory". Otherwise I suspect the vote participation would drop, allowing the more vociferous influence groups to gain more of the mindshare (as %) than they are having now.
In other words, I'm not saying that compulsory voting is required for democracy in general, I'm saying that it works quite well in the Australian context.
Voting being compulsory, even if you are disillusioned by the politics, you have to be really undecided to cast an informal (blank or none of the above) vote.
If you must be present at the booth, at least you can pick one of the local independents, with the hope s/he knows better the electorate and will try to do better for all. Together with preferential voting, it does result sometimes in a better representation.
See Andrew Wilkie [wikipedia.org] and Jacqui Lambie [wikipedia.org].
The last is a senator that has been on welfare for a period of her life and has a son addicted to ice: how do you think it will vote when it comes to reducing social support or cutting money from preventative health and drug rehabilitation programs? Interestingly, she's quite reactionary when it comes to multiculturalism and she's still using an... ummm.. army type of language (to put it mildly - redneck would be more appropriate, but the Tasmanian weather isn't conducive to sun burns, better have your neck covered than drenched by cold rains).
Yet, she is quite representative for the area she's elected and does the job she was elected for - I guess she's not divorced from common sense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford