Harris/Walz Catch-All | Kamala blitz in closing stretch

[superrific]

That Pennsylvania interview wasn't great. She just reverts to word salad mode in awkward attempts to pivot away from the question. I know candidates are continuously advised to reroute questions into sending out their key messages...but that doesn't always hit. I'd like candidates to defend their policy positions with some rational instead of just running from the questions.

1. I've long wondered why presidential candidates even bother putting out specific policy positions. I can't remember when an idea from the stump ever made it into law without major, major changes. Look at what happened to Obamacare. What Congress ended up passing was a health care plan that was what Obama talked about at a high level of generality. Under the hood, though, it was very different.

So why expect candidates to do useless bullshit? They should be talking about values and ideas with broad strokes.

2. Candidates do defend their policy positions. Unfortunately, increasingly the defenses are incoherent messes with little resemblance to fact. If, in fact, Haitians were terrorizing American cities as the GOP is claiming, it would in fact justify severe immigration restrictions. So that's a rationale, like you're asking for. That it is entirely 100% false is just the way we do things in a country where the intentional dissemination of falsehoods is de facto protected as a constitutional right, and the population has insufficient sophistication to separate truth from lies.

So good luck trying to get a candidate ever to admit that a plan has downsides or tradeoffs. It's win-win-win all the time. This phenomenon has been building for a while, but Trump really brought it to the forefront. When one side is saying, "everything is going to be wonderful, I will cure all the problems," what incentive does the other side have to say, "here's my plan to solve problems A, B and C. Admittedly, it has the potential to create negative effect D, but that's why my plan also includes this other factor E . . . "?

3. You might have noticed that, in American politics, being known and familiar to voters is a big negative. Familiarity sunk HRC, whereas Trump benefited from the view of him as an outsider. Obama was mostly unknown when he started running. Kamala served less than one term in the Senate. Going back further, Al Gore was a known quantity; GW Bush was a cipher who was able to twist himself into a messenger of positive vibes. At least Bush had been governor of a major state; Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas and few Americans knew much about him when he started to run for office (and it's not as though his first national impression was positive, in 1988).

So in this context, specifics don't help candidates. They merely create opportunities to alienate potential voters on issues that have little to do with their overall messaging, and which probably aren't going to matter for any actual legislation.

This is why the "government commission to root out waste" is a perennial feature of our politics, especially but not exclusively from the GOP. The whole point is to avoid specifics, because specifics alienate people. If you say you want to kill a weapons program or bring more land under the protection of the Clean Water Act -- well, there are people who would be hurt by that. You'll lose support. But if you say "I'm going to eliminate waste," -- well, nobody likes waste. Everybody thinks the waste is elsewhere.

4. Almost everyone who can follow a policy debate already knows who they are voting for. So what's the point? Our elections are decided by voters who either have no ability or no interest (or both) in evaluating proposals. Look at how our debates work. As long as I have been paying attention, media coverage of the debate is a sports contest: who won? As if that matters much, but that's where we are.

*****
So tl;dr: these major disincentives to talking about policy specifics have become structural features of our political system. Your complaint boils down to (unintentionally, I'm sure) an expectation that Kamala should hurt her chances to win because . . . ???? I'm not slamming you. What you're saying perhaps ought to be the reality in a better world (though see my point 1 above; I'm not sure I agree), but it's not our world.

 

[Ddseddse]

1. I've long wondered why presidential candidates even bother putting out specific policy positions. I can't remember when an idea from the stump ever made it into law without major, major changes. Look at what happened to Obamacare. What Congress ended up passing was a health care plan that was what Obama talked about at a high level of generality. Under the hood, though, it was very different.

...

4. Almost everyone who can follow a policy debate already knows who they are voting for. So what's the point? Our elections are decided by voters who either have no ability or no interest (or both) in evaluating proposals. Look at how our debates work. As long as I have been paying attention, media coverage of the debate is a sports contest: who won? As if that matters much, but that's where we are.

*****
So tl;dr: these major disincentives to talking about policy specifics have become structural features of our political system. Your complaint boils down to (unintentionally, I'm sure) an expectation that Kamala should hurt her chances to win because . . . ???? I'm not slamming you. What you're saying perhaps ought to be the reality in a better world (though see my point 1 above; I'm not sure I agree), but it's not our world.

Specific to #1 and #4 above, the point is to signal where a politician is willing to spend their political capital. Everyone knows the sausage is going to get made. No one in their right mind looks at a candidates positions as if they are going to be enacted into law, but at the same time they have their purpose. The are one half of the call and response mating dance between a candidate and the voting block they are in to process of wooing. By paying attention you can see what voting blocks the politician will be beholden to once in office. This type of information is extremely valuable if you're paying attention.

 

[superrific]

Specific to #1 and #4 above, the point is to signal where a politician is willing to spend their political capital. Everyone knows the sausage is going to get made. No one in their right mind looks at a candidates positions as if they are going to be enacted into law, but at the same time they have their purpose. The are one half of the call and response mating dance between a candidate and the voting block they are in to process of wooing. By paying attention you can see what voting blocks the politician will be beholden to once in office. This type of information is extremely valuable if you're paying attention.

Maybe. I'm not convinced of the value, but I'm not super confident in that view so we can let it ride for now.

But more to the point: doesn't "pretend that you never have to spend political capital because everything will be wonderful" strictly dominate "admitting that your plan has downsides"? The only time American politicians talk about things like "spending political capital" is when they are actually showing how they will defeat their political opponents. On the right, the winning message has been punching down. On the left, going back to FDR welcoming the plutocrats' hatred, it's been a punching up.

When a politician says, "I was willing to take on the insurance industry," that isn't about spending capital. That's finding someone to run against, because negative emotion tends to carry the day in a close call. Otherwise, when do politicians explain how they will spend political capital during a campaign? Do you have any examples? I'm pretty sure that's been out of fashion since Mondale tried it.

 

[nycfan]

That Pennsylvania interview wasn't great. She just reverts to word salad mode in awkward attempts to pivot away from the question. I know candidates are continuously advised to reroute questions into sending out their key messages...but that doesn't always hit. I'd like candidates to defend their policy positions with some rational instead of just running from the questions.

I thought it was bland and she definitely responded with questions soliciting more detailed answers with campaign generalities, but I wouldn’t generally call it a word salad.

 

[Calheel]

Maybe. I'm not convinced of the value, but I'm not super confident in that view so we can let it ride for now.

But more to the point: doesn't "pretend that you never have to spend political capital because everything will be wonderful" strictly dominate "admitting that your plan has downsides"? The only time American politicians talk about things like "spending political capital" is when they are actually showing how they will defeat their political opponents. On the right, the winning message has been punching down. On the left, going back to FDR welcoming the plutocrats' hatred, it's been a punching up.

When a politician says, "I was willing to take on the insurance industry," that isn't about spending capital. That's finding someone to run against, because negative emotion tends to carry the day in a close call. Otherwise, when do politicians explain how they will spend political capital during a campaign? Do you have any examples? I'm pretty sure that's been out of fashion since Mondale tried it.

They put policy positions out there because that works. Voters generally don't think: "There is no way Congress will pass that." They think, "I like that idea, I'm going to vote for that candidate."

I agree with you that campaigns should basically be about values and ideas, not specific ideals. I mean, 2000 was about the social security "lock box" and no one discussed their plan for how they would respond to the worst act of foreign terrorism on American soil.

But specific ideas sell. There is ample voting history and research to support what Kamala is doing.

 

[superrific]

They put policy positions out there because that works. Voters generally don't think: "There is no way Congress will pass that." They think, "I like that idea, I'm going to vote for that candidate."

I agree with you that campaigns should basically be about values and ideas, not specific ideals. I mean, 2000 was about the social security "lock box" and no one discussed their plan for how they would respond to the worst act of foreign terrorism on American soil.

But specific ideas sell. There is ample voting history and research to support what Kamala is doing.

They used to work. Is that the case any more? Seems to me that Trump has never had a plan and he won once and almost won again. Biden didn't have much in the way of plans, though that was a weird election. HRC did have a lot of plans; it did not help her win. Same with Elizabeth Warren, although that's a bit different.

Voters generally don't think "there is no way Congress will pass that," but they also aren't thinking, "I think a graduated increase in the capital gains tax over time and income would be preferable to a one time change." Maybe we're working off different understandings of what is meant by "details" in this context.

 

[dukeman92]

That Pennsylvania interview wasn't great. She just reverts to word salad mode in awkward attempts to pivot away from the question. I know candidates are continuously advised to reroute questions into sending out their key messages...but that doesn't always hit. I'd like candidates to defend their policy positions with some rational instead of just running from the questions.

This is more of the double standard. We're dinging her for not being super detailed and Trump is inciting hate crimes and getting himself shot at.

I get the gist of what you're saying and I'd like more openness too, because ultimately, she's cemented my vote and it's the "undecided" she needs to capture... I just wish these two were covered equally.

 

[uncjhodges]

This is more of the double standard. We're dinging her for not being super detailed and Trump is inciting hate crimes and getting himself shot at.

I get the gist of what you're saying and I'd like more openness too, because ultimately, she's cemented my vote and it's the "undecided" she needs to capture... I just wish these two were covered equally.

It’s also a fine line for a woman; Harris knows and ran against Elizabeth Warren who had a plan for everything, with details. And she got derided for being too nerdy, wonky and unlikeable

 

[Ddseddse]

Maybe. I'm not convinced of the value, but I'm not super confident in that view so we can let it ride for now.

But more to the point: doesn't "pretend that you never have to spend political capital because everything will be wonderful" strictly dominate "admitting that your plan has downsides"? The only time American politicians talk about things like "spending political capital" is when they are actually showing how they will defeat their political opponents. On the right, the winning message has been punching down. On the left, going back to FDR welcoming the plutocrats' hatred, it's been a punching up.

When a politician says, "I was willing to take on the insurance industry," that isn't about spending capital. That's finding someone to run against, because negative emotion tends to carry the day in a close call. Otherwise, when do politicians explain how they will spend political capital during a campaign? Do you have any examples? I'm pretty sure that's been out of fashion since Mondale tried it.

All politicians have political capital and constantly spend almost all of it. I think the question you are asking is "Do the conditions ever exist when they have to spend it on you, rather than on someone who better helps them cling to power?" My answer is,"no, not unless you've made yourself indispensable to their keeping power, they don't have to bother spending their political capitol on you."

In this as, in all things, I'm greatly influenced by CGP Grey:


EDIT: Also, Hexagons Are The Bestagons - 2nd Edit: "No, don't touch that."

 

[superrific]

All politicians have political capital and constantly spend almost all of it. I think the question you are asking is "Do the conditions ever exist when they have to spend it on you, rather than on someone who better helps them cling to power?" My answer is,"no, not unless you've made yourself indispensable to their keeping power, they don't have to bother spending their political capitol on you."

In this as, in all things, I'm greatly influenced by CGP Grey:


EDIT: Also, Hexagons Are The Bestagons

With all due respect, you're taking knowledge from a guy who speaks over crude cartoons on youtube. I see no reason to think he has any idea what he's talking about.

For one thing, a lot of his claims are just factually false. For instance, the worst dictatorships do NOT have gold, oil, diamonds or something similar. What does North Korea produce? Cambodia? For that matter, Nazi Germany? I mean, every country has some natural resources, but this guy seems to think that the African warlord or the Saudi royals are the quintessential examples of rulers/dictators. That's weird. It's also sort of ridiculous, because if African warlords are so good at keeping power, why exactly do they keep getting overthrown?

This guy is, I think, drawing on the curse of the natural resource but getting the causality all wrong. It's not that most dictatorships come from resource-rich areas. It's that resource-rich areas can produce dictatorships more readily than small islands that need to rely on trade. But, I mean, the worst dictatorships just don't necessarily come from oil states. Zimbabwe doesn't have any oil; it has some gold but it is bad at exploiting it; and historically it's been an agricultural country.

There are other weird factual inaccuracies. Rulers have not turned to foreign companies to drill oil because it cuts out the local citizenry. It's precisely the opposite. In the 1960s, virtually all oil produced by developing world economies was done so through nationalized oil companies. Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil -- they all concentrated drilling in the state (so did the USSR). I don't know about Nigeria, but I suspect it's true there. They turned to western companies because their state oil companies weren't successful.

All in all, I disagree that politicians usually spend all their political capital. That's just not consonant with observable facts -- for instance, the war chests that most politicians build up while they are in office. That's literally money that could be spent politically and is not.

 

[Ddseddse]

It's not like he invented the idea out of his head. It's a distillation of the ideas in this book: Amazon.com all he did was animate it (and be a great communicator).

 

[TarHeelGrad]

This is more of the double standard. We're dinging her for not being super detailed and Trump is inciting hate crimes and getting himself shot at.

I get the gist of what you're saying and I'd like more openness too, because ultimately, she's cemented my vote and it's the "undecided" she needs to capture... I just wish these two were covered equally.

This.

Trump can simply say "I will have the best plan to address that when I'm elected" and the media doesn't even try to follow up. Harris could go into detail, and the media would complain it wasn't enough and/or would work on picking it apart.

There are two entirely set of rules, apparently, and I have absolutely no issue with Harris ignoring the "details" aspect of anything that she talks about, because she will likely be punished for whatever she says.

 

[superrific]

It's not like he invented the idea out of his head. It's a distillation of the ideas in this book: Amazon.com all he did was animate it (and be a great communicator).

Have you read that book? Do you know if it's empirically accurate? The lead author is a well-known self-promoter. I mean, you can trace the basic ideas back to Machiavelli. That doesn't make them correct, except in a general sense.

I would also note that the lead author is affiliated with the Hoover Institute. There's a long tradition in conservative philosophy of shitting on democracy by calling it nothing more than a battle between interest groups. I have no idea if that's where Mesquita situates his ideas, but let's just say I have found the democracy skeptics offer a distilled cynicism with little reason to believe that their stories are true. They are internally consistent, but aren't convincing.

 

[Ddseddse]

And you are free to quibble with details, but I think you have to admit that the ideas in the video offer a metric shit ton of explanatory power.

I mean can't you see how Citizen's United made wealthy individuals and Corporations into Keys to Power overnight?

Why are the Democrats are touting that it's a win that medicare can negotiate only 10 drug prices per year? Why not all drug prices all at once? You're offering me zero explanatory power. I watch the CGP Grey video and it's obvious to why that should be the case.

Why are there no earnest and good politicians? Why was there an Obama disillusionment hangover, why don't even the most idealistic and energetic of politicians continually fall short when it comes time to deliver us the goods?

You have a better explanation? I'm all ears.

 

[altmin]

This is more of the double standard. We're dinging her for not being super detailed and Trump is inciting hate crimes and getting himself shot at.

I get the gist of what you're saying and I'd like more openness too, because ultimately, she's cemented my vote and it's the "undecided" she needs to capture... I just wish these two were covered equally.

yup. Elizabeth Warren had a plan for everything. She was basically told "if you are explaining, you are losing." People who bitch about lack of specifics are generally looking for a reason to opt out that makes them feel smarter/ better.

 

[Ddseddse]

Have you read that book? Do you know if it's empirically accurate? The lead author is a well-known self-promoter. I mean, you can trace the basic ideas back to Machiavelli. That doesn't make them correct, except in a general sense.

I would also note that the lead author is affiliated with the Hoover Institute. There's a long tradition in conservative philosophy of shitting on democracy by calling it nothing more than a battle between interest groups. I have no idea if that's where Mesquita situates his ideas, but let's just say I have found the democracy skeptics to be more or less distilled cynicism who offer little reason to believe that their stories are true. They are internally consistent, but aren't convincing. A good read if you already hate democracy.

Odd. I have read it and I love democracy. I'm not sure there's a more strident pro-democracy voice on this forum than I. Maybe we can swap door knocking stories, you and I?

 

[superrific]

And you are free to quibble with details, but I think you have to admit that the ideas in the video offer a metric shit ton of explanatory power.

I mean can't you see how Citizen's United made wealthy individuals and Corporations into Keys to Power overnight?

Why are the Democrats are touting that it's a win that medicare can negotiate only 10 drug prices per year? Why not all drug prices all at once? You're offering me zero explanatory power. I watch the CGP Grey video and it's obvious to why that should be the case.

You have a better explanation? I'm all ears.

1. I do not admit that at all.
2. No, Citizens' United actually did not do that for wealthy individuals and corporations. For one thing, the part about "corporations" in that opinion has largely been misinterpreted in public discourse. While the ruling applied to all corporations, most big public companies are not funneling money into political campaigns -- at least no more than they did before. Public companies still exert their power the way they traditionally have -- lobbying, lawyers, localities. And the wealthy have been keys to power forever.

What Citizens United did was allow the creation of special purpose corporations, the so-called Super PACs, which would not be subject to any regulations, because the regulations placed on them in the McCain-Feingold bill were deemed unconstitutional and thus without force. Congress could pass a new law to regulate these more in accordance with the regulation of individuals, but it hasn't because the GOP. And while you could say, "see, this is a key to power! The politicians have to make the donors happy!" it's also true that the political process produced those campaign finance restrictions in the first place. In fact, the death blow was dealt by the Supreme Court, which has no discernible keys to power.

This is why relying on cartoon videos on youtube isn't always great. You end up with theories that are false in most of their details, which equates to a bad theory. I mean, I'm not going that far because I haven't the time to review everything, but this example about Citizens United is characteristic.

3. Why not all drug prices at once? Because it's not clear that the negotiating all drug prices is good policy. Again: the same type of democratic systems that produced the no-price-negotiation rule in the US produced price-negotiation rules in most other major democracies, so that's not much explanatory power at all.

As a description of the United States, the Keys To Power fails miserably from what I've seen. And I'm pretty confident that would remain true if I dove in more deeply. The book was written more to explain dictatorships (e.g. the title of the book) and there it's at least directionally correct, though again it fails in many of the specifics. That's probably because it's actually really hard to come up with overarching theories of human relationships that are generally true across cultures, peoples and histories.

 

[superrific]

Odd. I have read it and I love democracy. I'm not sure there's a more strident pro-democracy voice on this forum than I. Maybe we can swap door knocking stories, you and I?

I didn't mean to imply that it's only a good read for people who hate democracy. I'm saying that it's written in a tradition that emerged from conservative suspicion of democracy. Still, I will delete that offending sentence because I didn't even mean to keep it in the first place. It's just kind of dangling there at the end of a paragraph.

 

[Ddseddse]

I didn't mean to imply that it's only a good read for people who hate democracy. I'm saying that it's written in a tradition that emerged from conservative suspicion of democracy. Still, I will delete that offending sentence because I didn't even mean to keep it in the first place. It's just kind of dangling there at the end of a paragraph.

I think maybe we have different approaches. I think maybe you are looking for a type of ideological purity in what ideas you consume. A type of pursuit of perfection.

For me, I know who I am and I know what my values are. Given that, I don't care whole lot about source purity. I'm not afraid that reading something is going to make me wake up one day with a desire to make life a hell on earth for outgroups, or to cancel democracy.

I pick up ideas where i find them as they explain things better than my old ideas., I cast them off when new ones better explain the world around me. I'm not afraid of "not being right", nor am i afraid of becoming contaminated with mean-spiritedness. I'm only afraid of not growing and learning.

 

[superrific]

I think maybe we have different approaches. I think maybe you are looking for a type of ideological purity in what ideas you consume. A type of pursuit of perfection.

For me, I know who I am and I know what my values are. Given that, I don't care whole lot about source purity. I'm not afraid that reading something is going to make me wake up one day with a desire to make life a hell on earth for outgroups, or to cancel democracy.

I pick up ideas where i find them as they explain things better than my old ideas., I cast them off when new ones better explain the world around me. I'm not afraid of "not being right", nor am i afraid of becoming contaminated with mean-spiritedness. I'm only afraid of not growing and learning.

Not in the slightest. It's not about source purity. It's about who I trust to believe with respect to empirical claims that I can't evaluate for whatever reason. I don't trust anyone fully, and I always try to look at the primary source material myself if possible. But I'm a hell of a lot more likely to believe, say, Elizabeth Warren than some asshole at the Hoover Institute.

The disagreement is mostly about whether we believe that the video communicates any empirical truth. I don't think it has zero validity, but I think it's hilariously over-simplified and lacks, well, much explanatory power at all -- because it doesn't accurately depict, well, anything really.