Election 2016

[Kaelik]

But by the last couple pages of this thread, that sort of strategy apparently makes me a center-right weasel with no principals.

No it doesn't, we've all specifically said that leftists are and always will and always have compromised with the Center Right that stole our party.

What makes you a center right weasel with no principles* is either being Hillary Clinton or being the media or Frank Trollman, and making sure that every day since before Sanders even announced his candidacy that you emphasize and repeat the "party line" that he never could beat clinton in the primaries, and he's unelectable because he's a socialist, and that's why no one should ever spend even a single second voting for him, and we should downplay all his successes and play up all his failures and focus on how Clinton is the Way and the Light and the Truth and never consider even for a moment asking her to actually take real leftist positions.

*This is hyperbole/joke.

[DrPraetor]

He voted the same way as Clinton 93.1% of the time, and he was only in the right slightly more often than he was in the wrong in the less than 7% of the votes where they went separate ways. If you agree with Sanders 96% of the time, you probably agree with Clinton 94% of the time.

Yes, Bernie Sanders is a real progressive by the standards of the United States. But that means that Hillary Clinton is a real progressive by those standards as well.

-Username17

No it doesn't, because the best political-science research shows, that if you want to predict politician behavior, you follow the money. Clinton is taking the money, and Sanders isn't, therefore Sanders would be less-dominated by wall street. This is also a major weakness for Hillary, because money rapidly saturates in general elections, but enthusiasm does not - and there is a big enthusiasm gap. Yes, the vast majority of sanders will vote for HRC over (especially) Donald Trump. But, will they knock on doors and bring their friends to the polls?

On immigration: Sanders did oppose the 2007 bill - which included the vile guest-worker provisions. From his floor testimony, it's clear that his big concerns were domestic - domestic workers, and so forth. It's hardly immigrant-bashing since he advocates a path to citizenship in the same speech. Also, he supported both the 2003 bill and the 2013 bill. He has some spectacularly-poor rating, like 7% or something, from FAIR (the Orwellian-named Federation for American Immigration Reform).

This is not to say that Sanders is perfect or angelic. He supported expanding the existing exemptions for low wage immigrant labor in exactly one context... dairy farming. Because he's from Vermont. But this just goes to show how much you can predict about a politician from their affiliations - and HRC's are with Wall Street. If your chief concerns are Israeli aggression or greenhouse gases from cattle, Bernie is not your guy.

Both of their legislative agendas are largely irrelevant, except from a negotiating standpoint. If you start a negotiation having ceded everything to the other side (in order to be realistic), then once negotiations start, you end up making further concessions. So if Sanders comes in, having won an election on single payer, he has negotiating room to get the public option, in the event there is legislative movement at-all.

As far as Wall Street reform, Clinton's proposal is better in terms of preventing the next Minsky moment; but Sanders' proposal is better in the political economy of breaking the domination by the financial sector long-term, and that's more important. But, again, their legislative programs aren't going to be enacted.

The President has tremendous executive power of the financial sector, and as we mentioned, Clinton took the money. Between that and the Iraq war - the President has tremendous executive power over the use of force - everything else is speculation but Sanders is Pareto-dominant on the two issues that count for the office they seek to hold.

Finally, he's also substantially more popular, better liked and trusted, and does better in head-to-head polls: which have high variance against the final result but give him a projected edge of 2% or so, big enough to swing the election if it would otherwise be close (and Sanders and Clinton are similar enough that, if it wasn't otherwise close, it doesn't matter.)

Sanders is expected to lose but it is by-no-means a sure thing (for comparison, he's doing better than Obama did at this point!) If Sanders does manage to pull off a win, it will likely be a reflection of HRC's weaknesses as a candidate - which have been exposed by Sanders' unexpected success, even if she (as is likely) pulls out the nomination anyway.

[PhoneLobster]

But by the last couple pages of this thread, that sort of strategy apparently makes me a center-right weasel with no principals.

Odd, because I thought those of us condemning center-right weaseling were attacking a shitty argument about the need for pre-emptive compromise to a center right position/candidate being used to tell people to stop voting for Sanders because "waaaah, he CAN'T win, this or the election or anything ever, he just CAN'T (sotto: because we won't let him)".

[deaddmwalking]

I recall having been accused of 'throwing my vote away' when I voted for a Green Party candidate. This was a close election and it was probably George W. Bush versus Al Gore. My friend was scandalized. My point was that the Democratic party didn't have much inclination to support environmentally friendly platforms if they could count on people like me to vote for them as the 'least bad alternative'.

There's absolutely a benefit for accepting a period of 'worse' so the 'better side' takes your position more seriously. But each person has their own calculations of when they will give up on the 'least bad' option in order to support a 'better' option down the road. The parties in general are going to try to cast a wide support net. We have a winner-take-all system and as the Republicans move to the FAR RIGHT, the Democratic coalition has absorbed more moderates, shifting the party to the right as well. Call the Democratic party a 'centrist right' isn't really wrong - but you have to be pretty far left to consider a 3rd party vote worthwhile. Because the Republican party, as it exists today, is getting crazy.

Personally, I hope that the Republican establishment rallies around a person other than Trump. Trump opts to run as an independent and the Republican party abandons the voting block of far-right and religious zealots and becomes the 'centrist party' with the Democrats moving left. Then we'd have a 'fringe group' that the Republican party can ignore for being too right (just like the Democrats currently ignore the far left) and our politics are more moderate.

I remember a Senator talking about how divisive our politics had gotten and he pointed out that it didn't seem that extreme - not compared to the Civil Rights era.

There are a lot of issues that remain unsolved - and many of them are going to be difficult and take a long time and a lot of cooperation - which there hasn't been a lot of lately, but overall, looking at the last 50 years not only has progress been made, but the rate of progress seems to have increased.

I have a personal interest in having issues of unfair distribution of wealth solved sooner rather than later, but even with the accumulation of vast fortunes in the hands of a very small number of elites and despite some of their best efforts conditions globally are largely getting better. We've had a billion people raised out of extreme poverty in 20 years...

The rate of advancement has been slow, but keeping in mind that the people who are fighting it are getting older and less numerous and there are lots of reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the future.

Full disclosure - I'm registered as a Republican. I refuse to vote for the Republican candidates until the party abandons religious fanatics and practices fiscal conservatism. I actually favor public spending on things like 'welfare' because the economic benefit can be measured and generates revenue in a positive feedback cycle (reduced spending on prisons, for example) compared to buying aircraft carriers. I'd like the Republicans to spend more on military personnel and less on military hardware.

[MGuy]

So... Why are you Republican if that is what you support?

[Mechalich]

Odd, because I thought those of us condemning center-right weaseling were attacking a shitty argument about the need for pre-emptive compromise to a center right position/candidate being used to tell people to stop voting for Sanders because "waaaah, he CAN'T win, this or the election or anything ever, he just CAN'T (sotto: because we won't let him)".

No, you were, and are, attacking people for saying that Bernie will not win, which is significantly different from that he can't win or shouldn't win. I find it rather pathetic and franking indicative of the kind of epistemic closure I'm much more likely to associate with the right that just for pointing this out I've been attacked as a, and I do quote "center-right weasel" and, ahem "fuckface" even though there's an upwards of 85% chance I will vote for Bernie in my state's primary assuming he's still in the race at that time.

Yes Sanders can win, and if he had managed to get about 6% more of the vote in Nevada he'd have a real shot in this particular year, but he didn't and he's going to lose in SC and probably the greater majority of the Super Tuesday states, and yes a large part of that is because the mainstream media is more inclined to support Clinton for a variety of reasons: she speaks their language, plays their game, and most are classic center-left liberals and not leftists themselves.

I'm also arguing that even if Sanders did win, and went on to went he Presidency, the ultimate impact compared to a Clinton win would be small. Even in the best-case scenario for Democratic victory the House of Representatives and a majority of state houses remain in Republican hands. Additionally many members of the democratic coalition are fairly conservative and will not vote for large portions of Sanders' agenda - people like Sen Heidi Heitkamp D. North Dakota.

Sanders can, and would, take strong executive actions, but the ultimate power of these actions without budgetary support is limited. Major federal agencies are run by careerists and governed by inertia. Telling them to do things is largely useless unless monetary resources are shifted to make those changes occur. A good example is Obama's attempt to make ICE stop deporting non-criminal aliens as a priority. The agency has more or less told him to fuck off. Change is hard, which is why Bernie talks about a political revolution, but he'd probably need to win 60-40 in the general at least for that to happen and that simply isn't in the cards.

[Eikre]

So... Why are you Republican if that is what you support?

Start with the conceptual dedication to a right-liberalism on a scale which includes Stalinism, attempt to transliterate that to an absolute position, find that it's really hard to form a coherent ideological framework but extremely easy to subscribe to a polemic, settle for the relative quality of "conservative," and then scale down to an American context where the word's antonym is "liberal," literally meaning, "the revolutionary conceit that freedom is cool and monarchy is not."

[PhoneLobster]

No, you were, and are, attacking people for saying that Bernie will not win,

Yeah, I'm with Kaelik, you really can't read, like, at all. I mean just for a start I specifically and clearly have said myself that I don't think Sanders will win.

[Chamomile]

Bernie talks about a political revolution, but he'd probably need to win 60-40 in the general at least for that to happen and that simply isn't in the cards.

Early polling is unreliable, but there are polls that put Bernie vs. Trump at an absolutely jaw-dropping 65-35 split. Against other candidates the numbers are much more sane, though.

[DSMatticus]

I'm not getting the rancor of this argument.

I mean obviously in the primaries I want to vote for the candidate with whom I am in 94% agreement with over the candidate with whom I am only in 87% agreement with.

And equally obviously, if and when my favorite candidate loses in the primaries, I'm going to accept 85% agreement with a good shot of winning over the 30% agreement (best case) opposing nominee. While I am Constitutionally allowed to use my vote in the general to vote for the 3rd party candidate who rates 91% on Josh's favored policy scale instead of settling for a mere 85% - the mechanics of first past the pose and history both say that doing so is for all practical purposes helping the 30% candidate win.

But by the last couple pages of this thread, that sort of strategy apparently makes me a center-right weasel with no principals.

No, this argument is not really about that. I'm sure everyone here is going to bite the bullet and end up voting Hillary if/when it comes to that, because we aren't fucking insane and dear-fucking-god the next president could easily replace half the damn Supreme Court.

There really are nominally left-wing politicians who run on platforms just far enough left to pick up votes from actual leftists without actually giving any shit about the ideals they're running on. We know these politicians exist because they are in Europe right now aligning themselves with conservative movements to make sure austerity happens. It turns out they weren't really leftists at all, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself they slipped back into the same old "fuck the poors" bullshit they have secretly believed all along. This is an argument about whether or not you think Hillary Clinton genuinely believes any of the shit she says or does or if she's simply an opportunistic centrist like the ones who have put Europe through an economic crisis of unprecedented scope. The answer is obviously opportunistic centrist, and for some reason certain people really don't want to have to admit that. I thought it was rather obvious.

Full disclosure - I'm registered as a Republican. I refuse to vote for the Republican candidates until the party abandons religious fanatics and practices fiscal conservatism. I actually favor public spending on things like 'welfare' because the economic benefit can be measured and generates revenue in a positive feedback cycle (reduced spending on prisons, for example) compared to buying aircraft carriers. I'd like the Republicans to spend more on military personnel and less on military hardware.

Hm. Fiscal conservatism is, by definition, the advocacy of low spending, low taxes, and low deficits. It's a kind of extreme procyclical fiscal policy. Procyclical fiscal policy is a fancy way of saying that the government grows and shrinks alongside the economy. When the economy shrinks, you cut spending and raise taxes. When the economy grows, you raise spending and cut taxes. Procyclical fiscal policy is incredibly shitty. Europe's austerity crazy is procyclical, and the damage that that's caused is a genuine fucking tragedy. And this is not an isolated failure; procyclical fiscal policy has no great success stories. It fails at the first sign of crisis, and it fails catastrophically.

The alternative to procyclical fiscal policy is countercyclical fiscal policy. Countercyclical fiscal policy is a fancy way of saying save some pennies for a rainy day. When the economy shrinks, you raise spending and cut taxes. When the economy grows, you cut spending and raise taxes. In practice, that means you respond to economic crises by leveraging an increase in the debt* to finance welfare and stimulus programs that end the crisis, and then when the crisis is over you pay down the debt to a more sustainable level.

I do not actually think you are a fiscal conservative. I think you are just confused. Saying that you're a fiscal conservative means you believe in cutting welfare when lots of people are unemployed, because when lots of people are unemployed the government earns less in tax revenue, and when the government earns less in tax revenue it can't afford welfare. But you claim to support welfare, and I believe you, so I assume you do not actually want the government to respond to a recession by spending less when people need it most.

I suspect the point of confusion is that you have accidentally let yourself absorb a tiny bit of the conservative echo chamber's bullshit. In the conservative echo chamber, Republicans are "responsible fiscal conservatives" and everyone else is an irresponsible spend-spend-spend! maniac. You've realized that the Republican narrative about themselves is complete bullshit, but you haven't quite realized how completely bullshit the Republican narrative about their opposition is. There are no spend-spend-spend maniacs. Virtually every social welfare program that has ever been implemented has stabilizers built into it that scale the program up and down automatically. In part because legislators deliberately went out of their way to make sure the programs could "turn off" when they were no longer needed, and in part because such stabilizers are natural features of the problem social welfare programs are meant to solve - when unemployment is low, less people qualify for unemployment assistance.

The actual economic debate between progressives and conservatives of the pre-Goldwater era was not about whether or not to spend or save. It was about when to spend and when to save. Fiscal conservatives were objectively on the wrong side of that debate.

*The reason we use debt instead of literally stashing money in a vault and then opening that vault when we need the money is because the debt is cheaper. No, I'm not joking. People take out loans to expand their business because they expect to make more money in the long-run by expanding now and paying the interest. Government debt operates on the same principal - if you can grow the economy, tax revenue will increase; if you can increase tax revenue by more than the interest on the debt available to you, then not running that debt is pissing away money.

[Mechalich]

There really are nominally left-wing politicians who run on platforms just far enough left to pick up votes from actual leftists without actually giving any shit about the ideals they're running on. We know these politicians exist because they are in Europe right now aligning themselves with conservative movements to make sure austerity happens. It turns out they weren't really leftists at all, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself they slipped back into the same old "fuck the poors" bullshit they have secretly believed all along. This is an argument about whether or not you think Hillary Clinton genuinely believes any of the shit she says or does or if she's simply an opportunistic centrist like the ones who have put Europe through an economic crisis of unprecedented scope. The answer is obviously opportunistic centrist, and for some reason certain people really don't want to have to admit that. I thought it was rather obvious.

Hillary is obviously not a Leftist and has never claimed to be one. She's a classic small-l liberal who is on the centrist end of the liberal scale. The United States, unlike most European states and other developed democracies, does not (or did not until very recently) have a leftist political party or even a leftist wing of a major political party. Almost all democratic party politicians are center-left liberals of varying degrees (even the most liberal members like Elizabeth Warren). Bernie was officially an independent until he chose to run for president because of this. Hillary isn't engaged in a bait-and-switch - she would be if she came out in support for single-payer health care or universal free college or something but she hasn't done that.

But if that's what this supposed argument is about, it's people talking past each other.

[Kaelik]

But if that's what this supposed argument is about, it's people talking past each other.

"This argument" officially started when fbmf asked me to make explicit my problem with Frank's stance on Clinton this thread, so I am the official number one source on what this argument is, and what it is about is that:

1) It is super obviously true that Clinton is not an actual leftist.
2) There are a whole bunch of leftists.
3) The official party line of the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton supporters, the media in general, and just way too many goddam people who should know better (and probably do, and probably are doing it on purpose to force the continued Center Right line) is that Bernie Sanders is always doing worse than he is doing, and is a joke candidate, and is unelectable, and Hillary Clinton is always doing better than she is, and is literal Jesus descended from heaven, and is our only hope, and that's why everyone should immediately and without demanding any fucking actual left positions at all, just cede all hope for a leftist fucking anything for the next 9 years.

[OgreBattle]

What are the stances of the different candidates on video games

[Kaelik]

What are the stances of the different candidates on video games

Bernie Sanders so far as I know has never taken any position.

Clinton briefly took a "violent video games are turning out children into killers" position for like... two speeches a decade ago, because she wanted to cut even further to the right to make sure no one could ever accuse her of being on the left on any issue at all, and then immediately backed off when it turned out people don't like dumb political positions based on nonsense when they get in the way of their Call of Duty (it's fine the rest of the time).

[fbmf]

But if that's what this supposed argument is about, it's people talking past each other.

"This argument" officially started when fbmf asked me to make explicit my problem with Frank's stance on Clinton this thread, so I am the official number one source on what this argument is, and what it is about is that:

1) It is super obviously true that Clinton is not an actual leftist.
2) There are a whole bunch of leftists.
3) The official party line of the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton supporters, the media in general, and just way too many goddam people who should know better (and probably do, and probably are doing it on purpose to force the continued Center Right line) is that Bernie Sanders is always doing worse than he is doing, and is a joke candidate, and is unelectable, and Hillary Clinton is always doing better than she is, and is literal Jesus descended from heaven, and is our only hope, and that's why everyone should immediately and without demanding any fucking actual left positions at all, just cede all hope for a leftist fucking anything for the next 9 years.

So let's suppose Sanders gets the nomination and the presidency. Maybe I listen to CNN too much, but he seems so far left that nobody will work with him to accomplish any part of his agenda. Kaelik, DSM, and PL insist that this isn't so, and I'm willing to hear them out.

Who are the "whole bunch of leftists" that would work with Bernie? What does 2024 look like if America feels the Bern for the next two terms?

Game On,
fbmf

[erik]

What does 2024 look like if America feels the Bern for the next two terms?

Game On,
fbmf

[Mechalich]

Sanders is to the left of all republicans and a majority of democrats, but if he had a democratic majority in the house and senate he could probably get the democrats to give him about 50-75% of what he wants.

If you gave Hillary a democratic majority in the house and senate she'd still be to the left of all republicans but only a modest minority of democrats. She'd have a much better chance of getting 75-100% of what she wants. What she wants is probably only about 25% of what Bernie wants though, so ultimately he'd net more, again, if there was a democratic majority. Notably I can reference things this way because on the majority of the issues, Hillary's stance is very similar to Bernie's in that she supports similar sorts of options, just less of them and much less aggressively implemented.

Regrettably, barring a highly unexpected Democratic landslide in 2016 (not impossible, if Trump is the nominee anything is possible), the democrats have a strong change of regaining a majority in the Senate - but not a filibuster proof majority - while still remaining far from a majority in the House. House Republicans, defending safe seats as they are and facing only potential challenges from the right, will continue their policy of abject obstructionism. No significant domestic legislation will be passed. The lack of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate will prevent any flaming liberals from becoming Supreme Court justices as well (Sanders will nominate some and have them rejected and be forced to nominate moderates, Clinton will just nominate moderates).

Due to turnout factors and the nature of the midterms in general the Republicans will almost inevitably gain back a bunch of lost seats in 2018. The real question is what happens in 2020, and the big effect is what happens on the states. If the democrats can flip a bunch of statehouses in their favor and get non-partisan districting plans passed during the redistricting based on the 2020 census then there's a chance of producing a democratic majority in 2022.

Even 50% of Bernie's proposals would dramatically alter major areas of economic policy, education policy, energy policy, immigration policy and a variety of other areas, though he'd be somewhat limited in what he could actually get passed in the 2022-2024 timeframe - especially since remaining Senate Republicans would undoubtedly drag their heels in terms of considering legislation. In this scenario I suspect that Sanders, like Obama (who also had a very brief democratic majority measured in months due to complications regarding Al Franken's seating), would primarily be able to pass one major piece of legislation and a bunch of smaller compromise pieces. I have no idea which issue he would choose to prioritize, whatever it was it would be, to borrow from Joe Biden, 'a big fucking deal.'

Hillary, by contrast, given the same circumstances would probably pass a number of smaller, incremental proposals in a variety of areas - take any 5-10 items on Obama's wishlist that have been blocked since 2008 and project them as passed.

Of course this assumes party dynamics remain more or less as they are, which is a major unknown. The Republican party is currently fracturing in a serious way - if Trump is actually the nominee we are suddenly playing a whole new edition of post-WWII conservative politics - and continues to fail to adjust to ongoing demographic realities. If the Republican nominee gets crushed (and crushed would be something like 47%) its impossible to know what happens. It is also impossible to predict any sort of major outside events. While a serious foreign conflict on the level of Afghanistan or Iraq is unlikely under Bernie or Hillary it's never impossible. Likewise if China goes into recession and then depression due to subsequent unrest and tanks the world economy as a result, all bets are off.

Bottom Line: 8 years of Sanders rather than 8 years of Clinton means a small, but decidedly non-zero, chance that the US moves in a majorly progressive direction on a small number of major issues in addition to moving in a slightly progressive direction on most major issues which would happen under either of them.

[angelfromanotherpin]

House Republicans, defending safe seats as they are and facing only potential challenges from the right, will continue their policy of abject obstructionism.

Those seats aren't as safe as you might think. The gerrymander is set up to give the repubs a large number of narrow wins and the democrats a small number of certain wins. If the democrats generate a substantial wave, the gerrymander could backfire and a lot of those narrow victories could flip.

[Kaelik]

So let's suppose Sanders gets the nomination and the presidency. Maybe I listen to CNN too much, but he seems so far left that nobody will work with him to accomplish any part of his agenda. Kaelik, DSM, and PL insist that this isn't so, and I'm willing to hear them out.

Who are the "whole bunch of leftists" that would work with Bernie? What does 2024 look like if America feels the Bern for the next two terms?

I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. There are a whole bunch of leftists, more than 50% of the democratic party, so maybe it would be nice if we could have an leftist party instead of a party 100% dominated by Center Right politicians who briefly lie to us during primaries before going right back to being Center-Right... like, maybe during the one election where we can be guaranteed to win because the Right can't field anyone to the left of Hitler.

But more importantly, this idea of Clinton being able to get people to work with her that won't work with Bernie is basically a lie. The Republicans will keep the house, they will then never pass even a single reasonable law. No Republican will ever work with Clinton ever. Sanders isn't so far to the left that no one will work with him, the Republican party is so gerrymandered and right wing that they won't work with anyone.

If the Democrats actually did have a majority, Bernie would have to compromise, but as PL was repeatedly pointed out, the Compromise positions that Bernie would have to settle for are left of Clinton's starting point, because that's what happens when you start at the Center Right.

Hillary is a better candidate for the next 4 years at least because there will be no legislation passed regardless of who is elected, and she has better connections, and administrative chops, and has the potential to do better making small inroads in purely executive areas, not because she'll be able to pass a single competent legislative upgrade.

But goddam, it sure would be nice to have anyone at all with even a hint of a leftist position elected as president ever. (By which I mean post Carter? I don't actually know how leftist Carter was.)

(Also weird story, I joined a TS on saturday night to play league with some mostly strangers, and they were all conservative idiots, but they hated trump and clinton but where somehow more okay with Bernie. This isn't really related exactly, but I'm filing that under "Fox News has so poisoned the well with Clinton that republicans really hate her beyond any level of sense at all.")

[name_here]

Eh, I think Hillary's prognosis with a narrow Democratic lead is a bit better; the Democrats don't vote in lockstep and if there isn't a solid majority then any proposals will need to recruit the center-right guys, who will be more willing to work with Hillary. If Sanders got a bit of a buffer so he didn't need to get 100% of Democrats on board then he's looking better.

[hyzmarca]

I have to admit, I like Hillary for nostalgia reasons. The last Clinton Presidency was really fucking awesome.

[Occluded Sun]

I recall having been accused of 'throwing my vote away' when I voted for a Green Party candidate. This was a close election and it was probably George W. Bush versus Al Gore. My friend was scandalized. My point was that the Democratic party didn't have much inclination to support environmentally friendly platforms if they could count on people like me to vote for them as the 'least bad alternative'.

Repeat this argument for just about everything, and you've accurately identified everything wrong with modern U.S. politics.

Take an Internet, sir or madam!

[Kaelik]

Eh, I think Hillary's prognosis with a narrow Democratic lead is a bit better; the Democrats don't vote in lockstep and if there isn't a solid majority then any proposals will need to recruit the center-right guys, who will be more willing to work with Hillary. If Sanders got a bit of a buffer so he didn't need to get 100% of Democrats on board then he's looking better.

So you mean she and the Center Right won't have to compromise at all when they implement policies that are Center Right. Yeah, of course she'll get what she wants done, because what she wants done. But that's the point. If you start by unconditionally surrendering, you can certainly be sure your surrender will be accepted, if you demand some kind of condition, you probably won't get the conditions you want, but you might get something.

[hyzmarca]

In part because legislators deliberately went out of their way to make sure the programs could "turn off" when they were no longer needed, and in part because such stabilizers are natural features of the problem social welfare programs are meant to solve - when unemployment is low, less people qualify for unemployment assistance.

While this is true of individual programs, the effect is the opposite when you qualify for multiple programs that stack with each other. For some segments of the population, getting a good job causes you to lose a substantial amount of income due to welfare thresholds. Particularly when you stack taxes on top of the losses from crossing welfare thresholds.

Which is why I support replacing means-tested welfare with a universal basic income.

[...You Lost Me]

Related to the point of republicans who would rather vote Bernie than Hillary, I've also seen an opposite trend among some Bernie supporters I know, who would consider voting for several republican candidates (Trump among them) over Hillary.

Hopefully that's just the people I know. But it reminds me that people care about personality much more than policy in elections.