BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

And according to your analysis, George Bush was one of the worst presidents of all time as he was in office when the stock market collapsed.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that both goals were not being fulfilled before the Republicans started upon their campaign of de-enfranchisement? I have thus far seen no evidence of large-scale voter fraud in the USA. I have seen evidence of large scale de-enfranchisement. It seems as though we are closer to your stated goals by outlawing the techniques being used to cause the latter.

I have seen evidence that those who want to disenfranchise segment X of voters make wild claims about widespread voter fraud among segment X of voters. The ldrews bots of the world parrot that line, of course.

He can't seem to grasp that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Since the majority of the popular vote was Democratic, then you are asserting that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution at the moment is to protect the Republicans from the Democrats, right?

Your statement about California is absolutely false. Only citizens are automatically registered to vote when issued driver's licenses, illegal immigrants are not. An applicant can obtain an AB-60 driver's license without a birth certificate or passport proving citizenship, but is not then automatically registered to vote. Because it's easy to get the license, there's no need for the illegal immigrant to risk fraud, and California isn't going to vote for Trump regardless.

Where do you come up with this nonsense?

I could be misinformed. Can you provide me with a link to an authoritative description/discussion of the California Driver License application process as it applied to applicants without proof of citizenship?

SUMMARY: California Driver's License for Undocumented Residents

As of January 2015, California residents who cannot establish legal presence in the United States may apply for a driver's license if they can show eligible proof of identification and residency in the state. These driver's licenses may not be used for identification purposes. By law, no one may discriminate against a holder of an AB-60 license, or use this license to attempt to question the holder's citizenship or immigration status.

I continue to worry about Steve Bannon. I see him in the White House photos, but he never has that sprightly Prince of Darkness gleam in his eye anymore.

His governing philosophy is being completely gutted by the mice around him. He seems to have a big influence on Trump speeches but zero influence on recent Trump policies. I’m beginning to fear that he’s spending his days sitting along the wall in the Roosevelt Room morosely playing one of those Risk-style global empire video games on his smartphone.

Back in the good old days — like two months ago — it was fun to watch Bannon operate. He was the guy with a coherent governing philosophy. He seemed to have realized that the two major party establishments had abandoned the working class. He also seemed to have realized that the 21st-century political debate is not big versus small government, it’s open versus closed.

Bannon had the opportunity to realign American politics around the social, cultural and economic concerns of the working class. Erect barriers to keep out aliens from abroad, and shift money from the rich to the working class to create economic security at home.

It was easy to see the Trump agenda that would flow from this philosophy: Close off trade and immigration. Fund a jobs-creating infrastructure program. Reverse the Republican desire to reform and reduce entitlements. Increase funding on all sorts of programs that benefit working-class voters in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Many of us wouldn’t have liked that agenda — the trade and immigration parts — but at least it would have helped the people who are being pummeled by this economy.

But Bannonesque populism is being abandoned. The infrastructure and jobs plan is being put off until next year (which is to say never). Meanwhile, the Trump administration has agreed with Paul Ryan’s crazy plan to do health care first.

Moths show greater resistance to flame than American politicians do to health care reform. And sure enough it’s become a poisonous morass for the entire party, and a complete distraction from the populist project.

Worse, the Ryan health care plan punishes the very people Trump and Bannon had vowed to help. It would raise premiums by as much as 25 percent on people between 50 and 64, one core of the Trump voter base. It would completely hammer working-class voters whose incomes put them just above the Medicaid threshold.

The Trump budget is an even more devastating assault on Bannon-style populism. It eliminates or cuts organizations like the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that are important to people from Tennessee and West Virginia up through Ohio and Michigan. It cuts job-training and road-building programs. It does almost nothing to help expand opportunity for the working class and almost everything to serve defense contractors and the national security state.

Why is Bannonism being abandoned? One possibility is that there just aren’t enough Trumpians in the world to staff an administration, so Trump and Bannon have filled their apparatus with old guard Republicans who continue to go about their jobs in old guard pseudo-libertarian ways.

The second possibility, raised by Rich Lowry in Politico, is that the Republican sweep of 2016 was won on separate tracks. Trump won on populism, but congressional Republicans won on the standard cut-government script. The congressional Republicans are better prepared, and so their plans are crowding out anything Bannon might have contemplated.

The third possibility is that Donald Trump doesn’t really care about domestic policy; he mostly cares about testosterone.

He wants to cut any part of government that may seem soft and nurturing, like poverty programs. He wants to cut any program that might seem emotional and airy-fairy, like the National Endowment for the Arts. He wants to cut any program that might seem smart and nerdy, like the National Institutes of Health.

But he wants to increase funding for every program that seems manly, hard, muscular and ripped, like the military and armed antiterrorism programs.

Indeed, the Trump budget looks less like a political philosophy and more like a sexual fantasy. It lavishes attention on every aspect of hard power and slashes away at anything that isn’t.

The Trump health care and budget plans will be harsh on the poor, which we expected. But they’ll also be harsh on the working class, which we didn’t.

We’re ending up with the worst of the new guard Trumpian populists and the old guard Republican libertarians. We’re building walls to close off the world while also shifting wealth from the poor to the rich.

When these two plans fail, which seems very likely, there’s going to be a holy war between the White House and Capitol Hill. I don’t have high hopes for what’s going to emerge from that war, but it would be nice if the people who voted for Trump got economic support, not punishment.

For that, there’s one immediate recipe: Unleash Steve Bannon!

When you "no evidence of large-scale voter fraud" are you saying there is evidence of smaller scale voter fraud?

Can you link me to any reputable studies on the subject.

He can't seem to grasp that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

When will democrats protect the rights of conservatives to speak on university campuses?

They have the right to speak - but not the right to force their views. If a college invites a conservative speaker, that is fine.

When you "no evidence of large-scale voter fraud" are you saying there is evidence of smaller scale voter fraud?

No one can force their views.

Middlebury. The speaker was denied the right to speak.

Condi Rice was denied the right to speak a few years back.

When Angela Merkel meets with Donald Trump on Friday, she won’t just be representing Germany. She’ll be bringing all the hopes and anxieties of an anxious continent—one whose fears have been stoked by the fervor sweeping from Amsterdam to Rome, Paris to Berlin. It’s no exaggeration to say that this meeting between Trump and Merkel could set the tone for the very future of the Western Alliance.

For a specter is haunting Europe—the specter of populist nationalism. Ideologically indeterminate, it manifests across the Continent in the form of France’s right-wing National Front, the post-communist German Left party and the Italian Five Star Movement, which defies any traditional political label. While these parties, and the intellectual currents to which they give voice, may not align on everything, they are invariably anti-establishment, opposed to the European Union, and hostile to America. They are also all supported—either materially or through other, less tangible instruments—by Russia.

Try expanding your horizons and look for information outside your bubble.

Try expanding your horizons and look for information outside your bubble.

Change the black clothing and masks at Berkeley for brown shirts with swizstika armbands and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between now and 1930's Germany.