The Economist: America's Nightmare, Bernie Sanders Nominee

[TTQ64]

No disrespect man, and I'm not telling you what to believe or support, but there was nothing about the trade war, tariffs and farm subsidies that was free trade. You can claim it was needed policy and that is your right. But it's not free trade. And there were many conservatives/libertarians who have voiced that opinion throughout. There's a reason there was this certain overlap of support between a segment of Bernie & Trump supporters and it was over trade. Both are against traditional free trade and trade agreements.

And that's why The Economist, a classical liberal magazine, has spoken out against Trump and Sanders on this.

There's nothing liberal about this rag.......

 

[anatta]

The Economist hates Trump but the article sounds very much like an underhanded endorsement for him. We all know it's not PC to be for Trump. Never has been. The Economist has to remain PC.

looks like a "lessor of 2 evils" endorsement

 

[anatta]

You could talk to them. They are accessible to a president. Trump tried to bully them like he tries to everyone else. They don't play that.

talk about what? beg them to stop malign trade practices? ROFL.. Leveraging is not "bullying"

China has backed off the "Made in China 2025" plan -that didn't happen by jawboning

 

[TTQ64]

That's right, free markets and free trade (except for maybe the beginning of time) have never existed but the terms are still used to express an ideal. The multiple managed trade deals we have as a country don't meet the technical definition of free trade but are generally referred to as such. To classical liberals, Trump and Sanders do not support what we call free trade.

you and anonomos definition of a classic liberal is racist republican.......you feel no one.

 

[TTQ64]

Rightys are running against a label not Bernie. Bernie is a mainstream politician in most of his votes. He is not going to install socialism. It does not exist except in school textbooks. Bernie wants workers to have more input and better treatment. The wealthy hate that. They spent decades getting a plutocracy in place. They will not give it up easily.
Go ahead rightys keep voting against your own interests because you cannot understand the truth. The billionaires do not have your interests in mind. They want more and more money and power and you vote for it. Rightys are susceptible to propaganda and conmen. They can not learn. They actually think Trump cares about them. How stupid. he will wreck Social security and make healthcare worse. You like that.

This aint just righties........most white america believes socialism is a dirty word.

 

[cawacko]

Rightys are running against a label not Bernie. Bernie is a mainstream politician in most of his votes. He is not going to install socialism. It does not exist except in school textbooks. Bernie wants workers to have more input and better treatment. The wealthy hate that. They spent decades getting a plutocracy in place. They will not give it up easily.
Go ahead rightys keep voting against your own interests because you cannot understand the truth. The billionaires do not have your interests in mind. They want more and more money and power and you vote for it. Rightys are susceptible to propaganda and conmen. They can not learn. They actually think Trump cares about them. How stupid. he will wreck Social security and make healthcare worse. You like that.

The Economist, a British magazine that endorsed Obama and Clinton for President is now a righty rag? Thanks for the Sunday laugh Nordberg. (Maybe you can tell us more about how there’s no difference between private and public universities, that was a good one).

But the article aside we appreciate you telling us that unless we vote just like you we don’t know what our “best interests” are.

 

[Nordberg]

The Economist, a British magazine that endorsed Obama and Clinton for President is now a righty rag? Thanks for the Sunday laugh Nordberg. (Maybe you can tell us more about how there’s no difference between private and public universities, that was a good one).

But the article aside we appreciate you telling us that unless we vote just like you we don’t know what our “best interests” are.

Your post made no sense at all except an appeal to authority. I also did not call Economist a right-wing rag. But they are wrong. The truth is Americans feel they are being screwed over and they know who is doing it. They voted for change with Obama, did it again with daffy and are going to do it again with Bernie. Obama moved things closer to fair and did get a foot in the door with the ACA. Trump dragged us back to Bush. Now Bernie is the candidate of change. tH epeople want change and trump is not that. He is plutocracy in action.

 

[anonymoose]

There's nothing liberal about this rag.......

If you had the reading skills of at least 6th grade level and subscribed to The Economist for the last 10 yrs. you'd know it's left of center.

 

[cawacko]

Your post made no sense at all except an appeal to authority. I also did not call Economist a right-wing rag. But they are wrong. The truth is Americans feel they are being screwed over and they know who is doing it. They voted for change with Obama, did it again with daffy and are going to do it again with Bernie. Obama moved things closer to fair and did get a foot in the door with the ACA. Trump dragged us back to Bush. Now Bernie is the candidate of change. tH epeople want change and trump is not that. He is plutocracy in action.

The Economist is a classical liberal supporting publication. It supports free trade and free people. From that perspective they argue Bernie vs Trump would be a lose/lose proposition. You are free to disagree but that doesn’t make classic liberals plutocrats. Capitalism and free trade and markets have done more to advance society than any other economic system. So yeah, I know what’s in my best interests.

 

[archives]

This week's cover shows a picture of Bernie and Trump along with the heading "America's Nightmare: Could It Come To This?" The magazine has always been against Trump but interesting how strongly they come out against Sanders. And for those who argue "the world's" opinion is important in how we vote "the world" does not seem to be backing Sanders.




America’s nightmare

Bernie Sanders, nominee

The senator from Vermont would present America with a terrible choice


Sometimes people wake from a bad dream only to discover that they are still asleep and that the nightmare goes on. This is the prospect facing America if, as seems increasingly likely, the Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders as the person to rouse America from President Donald Trump’s first term. Mr Sanders won the primary in New Hampshire, almost won in Iowa, trounced his rivals in Nevada and is polling well in South Carolina. Come Super Tuesday next week, in which 14 states including California and Texas allot delegates, he could amass a large enough lead to make himself almost impossible to catch.

Moderate Democrats worry that nominating Mr Sanders would cost them the election. This newspaper worries that forcing Americans to decide between him and Mr Trump would result in an appalling choice with no good outcome. It will surprise nobody that we disagree with a self-described democratic socialist over economics, but that is just the start. Because Mr Sanders is so convinced that he is morally right, he has a dangerous tendency to put ends before means. And, in a country where Mr Trump has whipped up politics into a frenzy of loathing, Mr Sanders’s election would feed the hatred.

On economics Mr Sanders is misunderstood. He is not a cuddly Scandinavian social democrat who would let companies do their thing and then tax them to build a better world. Instead, he believes American capitalism is rapacious and needs to be radically weakened. He puts Jeremy Corbyn to shame, proposing to take 20% of the equity of companies and hand it over to workers, to introduce a federal jobs-guarantee and to require companies to qualify for a federal charter obliging them to act for all stakeholders in ways that he could define. On trade, Mr Sanders is at least as hostile to open markets as Mr Trump is. He seeks to double government spending, without being able to show how he would pay for it. When unemployment is at a record low and nominal wages in the bottom quarter of the jobs market are growing by 4.6%, his call for a revolution in the economy is an epically poor prescription for what ails America.

In putting ends before means, Mr Sanders displays the intolerance of a Righteous Man. He embraces perfectly reasonable causes like reducing poverty, universal health care and decarbonising the economy, and then insists on the most unreasonable extremes in the policies he sets out to achieve them (see article). He would ban private health insurance (not even Britain, devoted to its National Health Service, goes that far). He wants to cut billionaires’ wealth in half over 15 years. A sensible ecologist would tax fracking for the greenhouse gases it produces. To Mr Sanders that smacks of a dirty compromise: he would ban it outright.

Sometimes even the ends are sacrificed to Mr Sanders’s need to be righteous. Making university cost-free for students is a self-defeating way to alleviate poverty, because most of the subsidy would go to people who are, or will be, relatively wealthy. Decriminalising border-crossing and breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement would abdicate one of the state’s first duties. Banning nuclear energy would stand in the way of his goal to create a zero-carbon economy.

So keenly does Mr Sanders fight his wicked rivals at home, that he often sympathises with their enemies abroad. He has shown a habit of indulging autocrats in Cuba and Nicaragua, so long as the regime in question claims to be pursuing socialism. He is sceptical about America wielding power overseas, partly from an honourable conviction that military adventures do more harm than good. But it also reflects his contempt for the power-wielders in the Washington establishment.

Last is the effect of a President Sanders on America’s political culture. The country’s political divisions helped make Mr Trump’s candidacy possible. They are now enabling Mr Sanders’s rise. The party’s leftist activists find his revolution thrilling. They have always believed that their man would triumph if only the neoliberal Democratic Party elite would stop keeping him down. His supporters seem to reserve almost as much hatred for his Democratic opponents as they do for Republicans.

This speaks to Mr Sanders’s political style. When faced with someone who disagrees with him, his instinct is to spot an establishment conspiracy, or to declare that his opponent is confused and will be put straight by one of his political sermons. When asked how he would persuade Congress to eliminate private health insurance (something which 60% of Americans oppose), Mr Sanders replies that he would hold rallies in the states of recalcitrant senators until they relented.

A presidency in which Mr Sanders travelled around the country holding rallies for a far-left programme that he could not get through Congress would widen America’s divisions. It would frustrate his supporters, because the president’s policies would be stymied by Congress or the courts. On the right, which has long been fed a diet of socialist bogeymen, the spectacle of an actual socialist in the White House would generate even greater fury. Mr Sanders would test the proposition that partisanship cannot get any more bitter.

The mainstream three-quarters of Democrats have begun to tell themselves that Mr Sanders would not be so bad. Some point out that he would not be able to do many of the things he promises. This excuse-making, with its implication that Mr Sanders should be taken seriously but not literally, sounds worryingly familiar. Mr Trump has shown that control of the regulatory state, plus presidential powers over trade and over foreign policy, give a president plenty of room for manoeuvre. His first term suggests that it is unwise to dismiss what a man seeking power says he wants to do with it.

Enter Sandersman

If Mr Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, America will have to choose in November between a corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution, and a sanctimonious, divisive, left-wing populist, who blames a cabal of billionaires and businesses for everything that is wrong with the world. All this when the country is as peaceful and prosperous as at any time in its history. It is hard to think of a worse choice. Wake up, America!


https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/02/27/bernie-sanders-nominee

They also included a similar scathing review of the Trump Presidency which you didn't include in your post

 

[cawacko]

They also included a similar scathing review of the Trump Presidency which you didn't include in your post

Actually this was the cover story and their cover story is always one page, which is what I posted.

There’s nothing complimentary about Trump in the article. In fact the Economist endorsed Hillary and has spent three and a half years ripping Trump. Yet it triggers you that they write an article about why they feel Bernie is the wrong person to run against Trump?

I don’t mean to be a dick saying this but I have no idea what you actually believe or support other than being anti-Trump. If you support Bernie’s economic agenda say why you think the critiques in the article are wrong. It’s ok to talk about what you support.

 

[anatta]

Without getting into the weeds, the general consensus from those I've read is that China needs to be dealt with but not the way we've been doing it. And the result has been a slowing of economic growth and uncertainty for businesses that killed momentum the economy did have.

so this is what you get from "free traders" they don't want tariffs,
but they agree "China needs to be dealt with" ( but not tariffs!)

when pressed they really have no other answer - methinks they really don't care about Chinese malign behavior.
Because I never get any response except they don't agree with Trump- but have no clues
how to force Chinese reform.
and cawaco -no disrespect , im pointing out the disconnect in free traders thinking.

For me? I'll take a hands on approach that Trump has used to renegotiate NAFTA, to get
Phase one done with China, to try to get India to stop the protectionism, and to open Japanese markets-
all of which Trump has done.

Bernie is clueless about trade.
all he cares about is "income inequality" even if it means we are all poorer more equally

Free traders remind me of #neverTrumps. they don't like Trump's doings, but they have no other
viable alternative other then laissez-faire economics which has disadvantages the US in the WTO
and sent the "giant sucking sound" of jobs outsourcing.

Trump is a meanie. but he's our meanie and he's done a damn fine job despite these guys
and Congressional/Deep State assassinations (impeachment/Russian hoax,etc).

Keep America Great = 4 more years of hands on economic policies.
Then the Socialists and the free traders can take over and run the US economy into the ground.

 

[archives]

Actually this was the cover story and their cover story is always one page, which is what I posted.

There’s nothing complimentary about Trump in the article. In fact the Economist endorsed Hillary and has spent three and a half years ripping Trump. Yet it triggers you that they write an article about why they feel Bernie is the wrong person to run against Trump?

I don’t mean to be a dick saying this but I have no idea what you actually believe or support other than being anti-Trump. If you support Bernie’s economic agenda say why you think the critiques in the article are wrong. It’s ok to talk about what you support.

I didn't react to what the article said about Bernie nor Trump for that matter, rather the contradiction

And I don't particularly support Bernie, I do understand why he is so popular, but the author showed his cards when he themed his piece early with Bernie having "a dangerous tendency to put ends before means." After his discussion of Bernie, he ends his piece describing Trump as "corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution," meaning in other words, "a dangerous tendency to put end before the means"

How could he determine a Sanderson nominee is a nightmare and a Trump nominee isn't?

 

[cawacko]

I didn't react to what the article said about Bernie nor Trump for that matter, rather the contradiction

And I don't particularly support Bernie, I do understand why he is so popular, but the author showed his cards when he themed his piece early with Bernie having "a dangerous tendency to put ends before means." After his discussion of Bernie, he ends his piece describing Trump as "corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution," meaning in other words, "a dangerous tendency to put end before the means"

How could he determine a Sanderson nominee is a nightmare and a Trump nominee isn't?

Wow, dude. There’s a contradiction posting the cover article from The Economist? Why?

Before I respond should I assume you don’t read The Economist and don’t know what they support?

 

[archives]

so this is what you get from "free traders" they don't want tariffs,
but they agree "China needs to be dealt with" ( but not tariffs!)

when pressed they really have no other answer - methinks they really don't care about Chinese malign behavior.
Because I never get any response except they don't agree with Trump- but have no clues
how to force Chinese reform.
and cawaco -no disrespect , im pointing out the disconnect in free traders thinking.

For me? I'll take a hands on approach that Trump has used to renegotiate NAFTA, to get
Phase one done with China, to try to get India to stop the protectionism, and to open Japanese markets-
all of which Trump has done.

Bernie is clueless about trade.
all he cares about is "income inequality" even if it means we are all poorer more equally

Free traders remind me of #neverTrumps. they don't like Trump's doings, but they have no other
viable alternative other then laissez-faire economics which has disadvantages the US in the WTO
and sent the "giant sucking sound" of jobs outsourcing.

Trump is a meanie. but he's our meanie and he's done a damn fine job despite these guys
and Congressional/Deep State assassinations (impeachment/Russian hoax,etc).

Keep America Great = 4 more years of hands on economic policies.
Then the Socialists and the free traders can take over and run the US economy into the ground.

Trump didn't renegotiate NAFTA, the majority of that work was already completed in preparation for TPP, there was no hands on approach, and ultimately, NAFTA II is just an update of NAFTA I

And what the hell is "phrase one" with China? They basically have a "deal" that don't even bring any of it back to the point where we were when Trump started his "easy to win" trade war. And in the meantime, China has been able to extend its influence across globe to even include the EU

 

[archives]

Wow, dude. There’s a contradiction posting the cover article from The Economist? Why?

Before I respond should I assume you don’t read The Economist and don’t know what they support?

Read some of it in other vehicles, don't want a subscription, and your contribution here, and the contradiction is in the article itself, and you can tell by the responses you got that you presented as an negative analysis on Bernie

 

[cawacko]

Read some of it in other vehicles, don't want a subscription, and your contribution here, and the contradiction is in the article itself, and you can tell by the responses you got that you presented as an negative analysis on Bernie

It’s a contradiction that a classically liberal magazine doesn’t like Bernie or Trump? I’m honestly intrigued how you think that.

 

[cawacko]

If you had the reading skills of at least 6th grade level and subscribed to The Economist for the last 10 yrs. you'd know it's left of center.

If the new definition of liberal is you support Bernie's agenda or you're a right winger then there are millions of right wing Democrats. Nor is Hillary a liberal, nor Obama, nor Bill Clinton etc.