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Quote: Wizard

I had no idea Trump was that old. All due credit for staying in what looks like great shape for his age.

Looks are one thing. Senility is another.

Quote: Wizard

I had no idea Trump was that old. All due credit for staying in what looks like great shape for his age.

Trump is actually 3 weeks older than George W Bush,

I posted the age at inauguration day , so subtract a year for present day

69.24 Hillary C.
69.95 Reagan
70.60 Trump
72.39 McCain (had he won)
74.17 Biden (should he run)
75.37 Sanders

#26 Theodore Roosevelt: 42 years, 322 days
#35 John F. Kennedy: 43 years, 236 days
#42 Bill Clinton: 46 years, 154 days
#18 Ulysses S. Grant: 46 years, 311 days
#44 Barack Obama: 47 years, 169 days

Quote: AZDuffman

It is not centrist at all, it is as far left as they could take it. Obama desires a single-payer system. He just could not take things so far. The real hope is Obamacare fails so bad the American public will cry out for single-payer.

In the American sense, maybe, but it IS a centrist overall. It uses private corporations. It requires private insurers to hit a certain level of cover, but the insurance and the health care is still, in general, provided by private corporations. That is NOT socialism. The government 'coercion'/regulation is a typical move of a centrist, corporatist policy. There are federal tax credits and subsidies, sure, but you get those in many schemes (such as pension plans, mortgage repayments etc).

Single payer, government provided health care is socialist, sure. Obamacare is not that beast. It may be as far left as they could go... but it wasn't very far left except in the weird wacky world that is American politics. Your insistence that it is a leftist plan shows naivety of what left-wing politics actually looks like. I don't say you should like it, but the current Democratic party is a centrist party.

You need to educate yourself on socialism. Private-Public partnerships are not socialism. Government madated payment to private insurance companies is not socialism. It's corporatism. It's ugly, and you should rail against it in your small government world, but not because it's leftist socialism, and it ignores many aspects and problems with this sort of governmental system.

The private payer mandate came out originally as a conservative think tank idea, remember. It's not a socialist idea (that would be single payer, state run, universal health care for all... which provides a basic level care to all) (for some value of basic).

Quote:

They see a socialist paradise in a few small countries but miss that said paradise may be paid for with unusual oil wealth. Or that it is a country with a small, homogeneous population somewhat isolated from the world. Some of the videos you can see are crazy, like when FNC was asking if they wanted to ban "corporate profits" and so many simply agreed.

The US has enough wealth to work as a socialist state. I don't think it would survive as one for long, given the history, social pressures and culture. I don't think there's anything like the will for it to happen, and the vested interests of the powerful and wealth owners would stop it happening, as you would well expect them to. A marxist analysis of history is a good lens to look at why it wouldn't happen. Marx viewed everything through the view of class struggle, and while it's not always applicable, it's not a bad tool for looking at social change.

Quote:

I tell people that 2020-2030 will be a rough and perhaps violent period of social adjustment in the USA near like the Civil War and 1930-1945. We are simple due. Perhaps it is starting early and the soul of the USA will go to the victor of the factions going for Trump/Sanders and we know yet not which side will win? Hold on!

Ah, I seen you've already done your own Marxist analysis ;)

I think you have two dangerous forces: a body of people (much less than 47%, but maybe 10%) who believe in government welfare above all else. You also have massive vested interests in business who believe government and society exists to create profit and wealth for them alone (and both the Dems and Reps suck up to this group, see comments on corporatism above). Neither view is a way to create a sustainable country.

Hillary has never got far enough in a race
for the presidency for Bill's woman problem
to be a real issue for her. Because most
voters under 30 don't even remember the
the string of 'bimbo eruptions' that haunted
him in the WH, Trump or Cruz will have to
bring them up to speed. From what I've
seen, many of these young people think
it's appalling behavior on Bill's part, and
on Hillary's part for putting up with it for
40 years.

Quote: Evenbob

. From what I've
seen, many of these young people think
it's appalling behavior on Bill's part, and
on Hillary's part for putting up with it for
40 years.

Really
Where have you seen this?
Young millennials are not disturbed by sex, straight or gay, as old white Christian conservatives are

I thought Hillary married Bill's power and charisma, while Bill married Hillary's connections <shrug> Sexual fealty is not a part of that kind of contract.

Quote: TheCesspit

You need to educate yourself on socialism. Private-Public partnerships are not socialism. Government madated payment to private insurance companies is not socialism. It's corporatism.

I prefer to call it "fascism" but probably the same thing.

Quote: AZDuffman

I prefer to call it "fascism" but probably the same thing.

Well, the fascists did come out of the corporatism policies of Mussolini. Indeed, the word fascist comes from the bundle of sticks, the fascio, that the Roman's used as a symbol of office. Each stick separately is weak, but bundled together they are strong. The government, business, unions and church combined to bring Mussolinis brand of fascism to power. That's the analogy, and corporatism or third way politics often comes up again and again through the 20th century... and it's not a good result.

There's other aspects to fascism that I don't believe the Democrats share (extreme nationalism, and reactionary conservatism socially, radical revolutionaritism, upto and including armed struggle), which is why I choose the term I did. In any case, I'd be more worried about it then socialism. Which is a different beast, and not something I see taking hold in the US nationally and fundamentally.

(Yes, the German party was called the National Socialists, but Hitler wasn't a socialist really... some of his early party members were, but they were removed in the night of the long knives, or had their power reduced to a point of non-entity. That side of the Nazi power were much more interested in the working class, and break down of the old guard in the country. Hitler pretty much embraced the old guard, and used the military power for his ends).

You analysis is very Marxist, by the way, you sure your not a closet communist?

(I joke, of course, his technique is very applicable to your analysis, even if your politics are vastly different, and conclusions different too).

Quote: TheCesspit

You analysis is very Marxist, by the way, you sure your not a closet communist?

(I joke, of course, his technique is very applicable to your analysis, even if your politics are vastly different, and conclusions different too).

I am guessing by that you mean it reaches some of the same conclusions, and by that regard I suppose you are correct. Just because Marx believed in an unworkable system does not mean his reasoning is flawed.

I just look and see what I see. The HOAs are the kind that are happy when the city enacts photo enforcement of traffic laws. Happy at DUI checkpoints. Happy at regs for mowing the lawn. Will go along with almost anything sooner or later. Trumps want none of it. But it takes more energy to be a Trump so they are in the minority. Meanwhile the dependent class will sooner or later collapse.

Marxist?

Trump pretty much has New Hampshire and South Carolina locked up, and Sarah's endorsement may give him Iowa.


Maybe Trump and Sarah Palin will run together.